Selected Interview Segments: Amador C. Garcia

  
  
  

Amador C. Garcia,
Chair National Archives and Historic Foundation
of the American GI Forum
Copyright 2007 South Texas Public Broadcasting System, INC.

Q: Regarding Dr. Garcia, we've frequently heard from others that there were many Anglos and Mexican-American, that did not like him - but they respected him. Can you explain that for me?

A: We can use 20/20 hindsight, you know. Okay, here's that rebel rouser. Here's that Doctor, raising dickens with whatever it is important to him at the time. People wanted the status quo, and he was there to agitate, and to change it. Obviously, in his mind and now as history has proven him correct, for the better. So some people didn't appreciate what he was doing, didn't necessarily want to do the things that he was advocating. So, it was going to cause a change in the way they managed their affairs. So for that reason, or there may be other reasons, they didn't like him. They didn't want to respond to that urgency that he had about helping his people out.

Q: I think we talked before about the death of his son, Hector Jr., and the fact that he never talked to you about that, or never mentioned it whatsoever.

A: The impact that I see, or that I perceive, was the fact that, obviously, he loved his son very much like any other parent would. It was a tremendous loss to him. And I frankly, don't understand why it was in his persona not to discuss the child. He could have said, you know, "hey, I've got good memories of my son." But he never did. He put that back as-as part of-- maybe in a little box, very private. Do not touch. Do not open. And we respected that. I don't know that it helped him drive him to do more, or better. I can't really answer that.

Q: Can you sort of contrast for us the differences between the G.I. Forum generation and the Chicano generation of the 1960's?

A: You have to go back to Dr. Hector and his generation, and when he came back from the war. The G. I. Forum has been, organized since 1948. This is 1960. Obviously, there's an age gap, for one. There is an experience gap. These were college-educated youngsters. They were students. Look at what Dr. Hector had to work for and with at the end of World War II. A lot of them were draftees, conscripts, very little, or nominal education. In the 1960's here come these students and they are educated and had the command of the spoken word, the written word and the media. They knew how to use the media. And so that difference, the age and the experience and the, educational background, set them apart.

The other thing that I would suggest to you that these younger men, led themselves to believe, and others, that they were in a hurry. They were moving faster. Dr. Hector's forte was consensus. Let's work with the system. These folks were setting up their own political party, as a separate entity. Your philosophy and whatever you did is outdated. It's time for us, to do our thing, so to speak. And they developed a derogatory term, a form a disrespect, to those of who were with Dr. Hector, they were called "tio tacos". Which is akin to "Uncle Tom". You have sold out.

But Dr. Hector always said "this is like a match that you light. It's very hot and it gives out a lot of light, but eventually they'll go by the wayside, and G. I. Forum, being, what it is, it's got structure, it's got organization, it's got leadership, will eventually outlast these things, these new organizations." And it came true.

Q:I'd like you to comment on how Dr. Garcia prepared the G.I. Forum for the time after he would be gone. What would you say in regards to the way he prepared the next generation to continue the work and where the G.I. Forum stands today?

A:One of the things that Dr. Hector firmly believed in was that the Forum was a family organization. So it was an integrated system. It's not a vertical monopoly, but it's a horizontal organization. So basically, if Dr. Hector's notion was that if the family is involved, that family is going to take it to the next generation.

So I firmly believe that by organizing the family, youth, men and women, the family would continue. And one of the things he always said, you know, "it's the greatest family in the world. It is a veterans family organization." So that was, his kind of his way of perpetuating G. I. Forum. So, he never-- initially we were patterned like, the American legion. We called them auxiliaries. And Dr. Hector did a real fine job with the ladies. And the ladies said, "we're not auxiliaries. We're as good as, or better, than you guys, the men." And so consequently the auxiliaries went off and were buried and forgotten, never to be mentioned again. So, coming full circle what I'm saying is, that by organizing the family he assured that the family unit would continue into the next generation.

Maybe, just maybe, and I'm not being critical, but I'm just making an observation. He was all things to all of us and perhaps might... Not have done a good a job, as if, you know, when he wasn't going to be here. That's an observation, not a criticism. Consequently, there is a state of flux. There is a shakeout going on, so to speak. We've lost the founder and the leader. The persona that was G. I. Forum. And now it's a question of things just kind of settling down and like water, finding it's natural level and then we'll continue. I don't think, that the G. I. Forum is dead or disorganized to the point where that could even occur. We're just going through a short period of transition where we go from a great leader to something that just kind of needs to come up again.