Roybal, Edward R. (1916–2005)

Edward Ross Roybal rose from humble beginnings to become a prominent activist for Hispanic civil rights and a powerful member of Congress, serving in the U.S. House of Representatives for 30 years as a Democratic Representative from California. A trail-blazer in developing Latino politics, Roybal, a Mexican American, brought federal funding and needed attention to key areas for Latinos, including voting rights and the judicial system, and was one of the original architects of bilingual education in the United States. His life and career are described in this entry.

Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Edward Roybal moved with his family to the Boyle Heights barrio of Los Angeles when he was 6. He attended public schools during his formative years, graduating from Roosevelt High School in 1934 and joining the Civilian Conservation Corps. Roybal continued his education at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he studied business administration, and later attended law school at Southwestern University in Los Angeles.

From 1942 to 1944, Roybal was a public health educator for the California Tuberculosis Association (CTA). After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, Roybal returned to Los Angeles and continued his work with the CTA, becoming director of health education for the Los Angeles County Tuberculosis and Health Association, where he remained until 1949.

After a failed attempt to win a seat on the Los Angeles City Council in 1947, Roybal helped to found the Community Service Organization (CSO) with the help of local organizer Fred Ross and a cadre of Mexican Americans who supported his campaign. As president of the organization—one of the first broad-based organizations in East Los Angeles's Mexican American community—Roybal helped spur political involvement among Latinos by holding [Page 724]voter-registration and get-out-the-vote drives. Roybal soon got back into politics, however, winning a seat on the city council in 1949—the first Latino to do so in the 20th century in California—where he served until 1962, rising to the position of president pro tempore.

In November 1962, Roybal was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first Hispanic from California to be elected to Congress since 1879. This would mark the beginning of an illustrious career in Washington defined by a passion for protecting the rights of minorities, the elderly, and the physically challenged, and promoting public health care.

When first elected, Roybal was assigned to a variety of committees, including the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, the Post Office Committee, Foreign Affairs Committee, and the Veterans' Affairs Committee. He also continued his work on behalf of Spanish-speaking people early in his career in Washington, supporting measures that included the 1968 Bilingual Education Act, the first official federal recognition of the needs of students with limited-English-speaking ability. Initially, though, he sought to expand the act to provide services for children who spoke languages other than Spanish, and introduced his own companion legislation to the bill to address this need. In later years, particularly during President Ronald Reagan's administration, Roybal strongly fought efforts to diminish the act through inadequate funding. Roybal also helped to establish the Cabinet Committee on Opportunities for the Spanish-Speaking in 1968 with the goal of improving housing, education, and employment opportunities for Spanish-speaking U.S. citizens, and sponsored legislation to establish National Hispanic Heritage Week (now National Hispanic Heritage Month).

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