by Daniel Cox

True To His Roots
Expect Rep. Raul Grijalva to put people first

When Raul Grijalva was in fifth grade, he won an award for being a star pupil at Liberty Elementary School. The school planned an awards ceremony, and Grijalva’s teacher reminded her ace student to invite his parents. All the other children’s parents would be attending, she told him. But Raul never said a word.

“I purposely did not tell my parents about the award, and I think I did that because they could not speak English,” Grijalva says now. “My parents knew this had happened. They didn’t say much about it, except for one thing my mother said: ‘You should never forget where you come from, and you should never be embarrassed by it.’”

It was a difficult lesson, but one Arizona’s newest Congressman took to heart. Grijalva, recently elected to represent the 7th district encompassing his hometown of Tucson, understands the importance of being true to himself and his heritage. “Spanish was the primary language at home,” Grijalva says. “I had to go through all the trials and tribulations that bilingual kids face.” 

In retrospect, he says the Liberty Elementary experience helped take “me from wanting to be an electrical engineer to public service.” 

America is full of stories in which the son’s success makes the father proud—but few occur on such a dramatic scale. Grijalva’s Dad was a ranchero who came over from Mexico in 1945 to help offset the loss of skilled American ranch hands serving abroad in World War II. Even though he was actively recruited to cross the border, Grijalva’s father and many other Mexican Americans faced discrimination and atrocious working conditions. “They were basically indentured servants for a period of time,” says Rep. Grijalva.
Today, Grijalva brings to Washington his life experiences (and his family’s), as well as more than 13 years aiding his community as a member of the Pima County Board of Supervisors. In that job, Grijalva had occasion to work with local legal aid attorneys in “a variety of ways,” including spearheading a county-funded initiative, The People’s Law Center, that focused on preserving tenants’ rights.

“We do not want to lessen our system,” Grijalva says. “Once we allow the law to be used to protect privilege, I think we start tearing at the fabric of our system… I take [equal justice under law] literally—the application of the law must be equal. It is a tenet that we swore to uphold, and it is 
a basic part of life and our democracy.”

Richard Eliaz, his successor on the Pima County Board, is not surprised to hear his friend talk about bedrock American values. Eliaz has known Grijalva for more than two decades, and the two men have shared many struggles and ideas about how to improve life in southern Arizona. 

“His understanding about the border is deep because of his personal background,” Eliaz says. “He wants to protect the integrity of the border but also to act with compassion towards those people coming here undocumented.”

Grijalva gained some of his perspective as a former assistant dean for Hispanic student affairs at his alma mater, the University of Arizona, and as a member of the Tucson Unified School District Governing Board from 1974 to 1986. 

Recently, he also gained some fashion perspective. On Dec. 2, the Tucson Citizen ran an amusing story highlighting one of Grijalva’s dilemmas as he prepared to leave for Washington: not enough neckties. All Congressmen must wear them. The reporter for the Citizen, accurately describing Grijalva as a “man of the people,” discovered that he had only worn a tie two times during his tenure with the Board of Supervisors. “I was running for office and somebody said it would be good for a picture….everybody made fun of me,” Grijalva said.

That same fun-loving spirit proved helpful to candidate Grijalva last year, when he was a long shot to land a seat in Congress. Outspent 3 to 1 by other challengers in the field and written off by political power brokers, Grijalva reassured his staff: “The real voters love us; we’ll just out-work them.” From that discussion emerged a winning campaign slogan: “It’s all about the love.” Of a father, a mother, a teacher, a community, and a son.