Gloria Molina, groundbreaking Chicana California leader, dies aged 74
Gloria Molina, a groundbreaking Chicana leader in California state and local politics for more than 30 years, has died after a three-year struggle with cancer, her family announced. She was 74.
Molina died on Sunday evening at her Mount Washington home, surrounded by her family, her daughter, Valentina Martinez, said in a statement.
Molina, a Democrat, was the first Latina to serve in the state assembly, on the Los Angeles city council and on the Los Angeles county board of supervisors.
“It takes courage to be the first woman in the room and Gloria was the first woman and first Latina in nearly every room she was in,” Janice Hahn, a Los Angeles county supervisor, said in a tweet. “She didn’t just make space for herself – she opened the door to the rest of us. Women in politics in LA county owe a debt of gratitude to Gloria Molina.”
Molina paved the way for future generations of leaders, said Karen Bass, who was elected last year as the first female mayor of Los Angeles.
In a statement, Bass called Molina “a force for unapologetic good and transformational change in Los Angeles” who “advocated for those who did not have a voice in government through her pioneering environmental justice work, her role as a fiscal watchdog, and her advocacy for public health”.
The lawmaker revealed her terminal cancer battle in a March Facebook post.
“You should know that I’m not sad,” she wrote. “I enter this transition in life feeling so fortunate. I have an amazing and caring family, wonderful friends, and worked with committed colleagues and a loyal team.”
Molina was born to working-class parents on 31 May 1948, in Montebello,
California, and was the oldest of 10 children.
She was elected to the state assembly in 1982 and then to the Los Angeles city council, where she served from 1987 to 1991, when she was elected to the Los Angeles county board of supervisors. She served on the board until she was termed out in 2014.
The board of supervisors subsequently voted to change the name of downtown’s Grand Park to Gloria Molina Grand Park. And Los Angeles county’s metropolitan transportation authority, which Molina was a member of, announced plans to dedicate the East Los Angeles Civic Center subway station to the trailblazing official.
Molina was also the founder of “East LA stitchers” a group of quilters, who have been working to finish quilts that Molina was too ill to complete.
Her family celebrated Molina’s artistic passion in a Facebook post, saying: “We will miss watching Gloria the artist, seeing her imagine and create beautiful quilts that tell the story of our Mexican roots, and Gloria the teacher who shares her passion with others so that they too can express themselves through this art.”
“Most of all, we will miss Gloria the strong and selfless matriarch of our family,” the statement added.