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Eleanor Montour, whose mother founded Clinica Campesina, talks about her family and her life growing up in Lafayette, Colorado. She describes what it was like for her grandfather and father working in the fields and mines. She also discusses the racism and discrimination that she experienced in junior high school and high school. She explains why her mother started Clinica Campesina, details her mother's involvement wtih the community, and her philosophy of the importance of health care, education, and speaking out for what is right. She also talks about her own 30-year career at Clinica, her involvement with the school that was named after her mother (Sanchez Elementary), and her own present-day multicultural family.

This folder contains newspaper clippings about minorities, racism, discrimination, and human rights efforts in Boulder County. The clippings were compiled by the Reference Staff at the Boulder Public Library.

Reading to End Racism is a local group that helps children learn about and overcome racism by sending people to schools where they read books that deal with racism to the children and lead discussions about the books as well as the children's thoughts and experiences. In this interview, the three founders of Reading to End Racism talk about the origins of the group; the program's goals, methods and accomplishments; people and organizations that have helped the group grow; issues of social justice in Boulder County; and recommended books for facilitating learning about racism.

This folder contains newspaper clippings about minorities, racism, discrimination, and human rights efforts in Boulder County. The clippings were compiled by the Reference Staff at the Boulder Public Library.

Kelly was born to Guatemalan parents who immigrated first to California and then to Colorado. She was born in the United States. She attended elementary and middle schools in Longmont and Niwot High School for her freshman year. She was unhappy there because of the racist attitudes on the part of some of the white students who made her feel ashamed of being a Latina. For the next two years whe went to Skyline High School in Longmont, where she felt accepted. She discusses the Pre-Collegiate Program at the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU-Boulder), to help prepare students of color for college; LYFE (Longmont Youth for Equality), organized by CIRC (Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition), which works for political change and to help people in the community. She discusses her goals for making positive changes in the community and in the political system.

Arthur Perez, an executive chef who grew up in Louisville, Colorado, talks about the challenges he confronted while growing up as one of very few Latino families in the community. His maternal grandparents were both chefs. His father was a migrant worker from Texas; his mother, whose family moved from Erie to the Goss-Grove neighborhood in Boulder in the 1950s, worked at Valley Lab. His parents moved to Louisville in 1975. He discusses the importance of food in his family's activities, his strong sense of pride in being Latino, the importance of family and religion in his culture, and contributions of Hispanics to Boulder County. He gives examples of racism that he has encountered, talks about how not having learned Spanish at home has affected him, and reflects on the pull of gangs for some Latino youth.

Emmanuel Melgoza was born in Mexico and moved to Colorado when he was in 3rd grade. After attending elementary and middle school in the Denver area, he was part of an International Baccalaureate program in high school. At the time of this interview he had finished his second year at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he was majoring in political science and ethnic studies, with a minor in technology, arts and media. He discusses the struggles he had in school as he learned to speak English, but he also speaks about his determination and successes, which he attributes in part to the way his family stressed the value of obtaining an education. He describes the experience of adjusting to life at the university and in Boulder, noting that participation in student organizations and student government had opened doors for him. He also reflects on being a Latino in Boulder County, some of the prejudice that non-Latinos bring to interactions with Latinos, and stresses the need for hard work and achievement to overcome those stereotypes.

Photographs of the Rocky Mountain Climbers Club on a hike up Green Mountain in 1921. Includes a view of Bear Peak.

Richard Lopez, an attorney with Lopez Law Office in the City of Boulder, specializes in civil litigation, and land use development. Lopez describes his experience of growing up in California and working in the fields picking grapes and peaches. He talks about being a member of the International Guard and the Air Force during the Vietnam War. He describes his education including attending Cal-Poly at San Luis Obispo as an undergraduate and Cornell University for Architecture and Planning. He later moved to Boulder and became a city planner. He describes his involvement with growth management policymaking in Boulder and his many contributions to community service in the education and non-profit sectors. He also touches on discrimination against Latinos, both in California and in Colorado, and the importance of diversity.

Richard Garcia, who is currently a part of the Community Foundation Serving Boulder County and the Latino Task Force in Boulder County, is the founder and the executive director for the Colorado Statewide Parents Coalition. He talks about growing up in Monte Vista, Colorado, in the San Luis Valley, and his family's origins in northern New Mexico. He also describes getting accepted to the University of Colorado, Boulder, through the Migrant Action Program and living in the Quonset and Butler huts on campus. He later describes the bilingual education system in the Boulder Valley School District and discusses the importance of bilingual education and affordable higher education; Alvarado Village in Boulder; running for the Boulder Valley school board; racism; Latino participation in politics; punishment for speaking Spanish in schools during his childhood; and the loss of Spanish language in the Latino community in general.

Emma Gomez Martinez has been a spokesperson and advocate for the Hispanic community in Boulder since the 1950s. She was born in Aguilar, Colorado in 1928. Her father had come from Mexico in the 1920s; her mother's family was from Northern New Mexico (one grandmother was a Comanche Indian). Her parents moved to Erie, Colorado, in 1929; her father worked in the coal mines in the winter and did field work in the summer. She talks about discrimination against Latinos in the schools and witnessing the deportations of Mexicans in the 1930s. She comments on the effect that discrimination had on Latinos. She describes lack of employment and housing for Latinos in Boulder in mid-twentieth century Boulder. She talks about the history of her work with OEO (Office of Economic Opportunity) in Boulder in the 1960s and 1970s. She comments on positive relationships among Latinos and blacks in that neighborhood. She talks about the re-naming of Canyon Park in her honor in 2013.

This interview begins by covering Virginia Alvarez's early life in northeast Boulder County where her parents were farm workers. Her parents moved to Boulder County from Mexico in 1929, before Virginia was born in 1942. When she was a child, they did farm work in the Longmont area, moving around from one farm to another annually. Virginia talks about feeling isolated when she was very young because there were not many Hispanics in her elementary school and initially she did not speak much English. She went to school in Longmont from first grade through high school, and she remarks on the dynamics between Hispanics and Anglos in the schools, which were, for the most part, lacking conflict. IBM brought in many new Latinos in the 1960s. She describes her family as being poor, too poor for her to join clubs at Longmont High School, for example. She worked for an OEO program with senior citizens in the 1960s throughout Boulder County. She learned her life philosophy from her family, which is to respect people and to do whatever job you're doing the best that you can. Virginia says she sees less division now between Anglos and Hispanics in Longmont, in part because Hispanics have opened businesses that non-Hispanics also support, and in part becasue Hispanic children are getting educations that are opening doors for them.

Euvaldo Valdez discusses his family's roots in Abo, New Mexico, on a "merced" land grant, his life growing up in Abo and Albuquerque, and how he came to live in Boulder in 1969. He talks about his employment as director of community information and services for the Boulder Valley Public School District and his position as one of only a few Hispanics working in the school administration at the time. He discusses steps he took to make the Boulder Valley School District more welcoming to minority families and descibes his levels of acceptance by the Latino and Anglo communities in Boulder in 1969. Throughout the interview Euvaldo emphasizes the fact that one must "give before they ask", always help people, and recognize the help one gets from others, beliefs inspired by his mother. One person he is currently leading efforts to recognize is Emma Gomez Martinez, a leader in Boulder's Hispanic community. He asserts that one issue Boulder must focus on is balance, particularly on achieving the balance of social goals with political and environmental goals. He ends by emphasizing the need to educate HIspanic youth to help them reach their goals.