From Draft NOtices, July-September 2020
Gilberto Robledo: Educator-Activist, Leader, and Veteran for Peace
— Isidro Ortiz, Ph.D.
To youth who may be socially and economically marginalized, the claim that the military provides opportunities for growth, success and belonging may be seductive. The accomplishments of Gilberto Robledo -- educator, military veteran and peace activist — show how someone can attain those things without making a career out of the military.
When I recently interviewed Gilberto, I learned that he was born at home in Santa Paula, California, in 1940. Both of his parents were immigrants from Mexico. Neither of them was active in politics or in labor unions, but they experienced the cruel conditions of California farm labor, as children and as adults, working for corporate agribusiness. Despite such experiences, they aspired to become naturalized citizens. At the age of seven, Gilberto assisted them in this endeavor. As he notes: “In helping them study for their exam, I learned three big words of the branches of U.S. government: Legislature, Judicial, Executive.” Once they became naturalized, his parents “instilled the importance and privilege of voting in every election.”
By his teenage years Gilberto “knew that something was not right in society and especially with conditions and attitudes toward Mexican Americans.” However, like many minorities in the 1950s and 1960s, he “tended to blame” himself for any problems. As Gilberto says:
“I was a creature of American socialization through the educational, religious and cultural institutions that promoted unquestioning patriotism, in the midst of smoldering inequities.”
As a senior in high school in 1959, Gilberto thought that “two years was a lifetime to be in the military.” So, he enlisted in the Reserves. He reasoned: “I thought six months active duty was not bad and I would then only have six years of weekend meetings and two weeks of [military] summer camp each year. And I could still go to college and work part time after my six months of active duty.” After graduating from high school in 1959, he was immediately sent to Ft. Ord for six months of training. When he returned to Santa Barbara, he became a first-generation college student at Santa Barbara City College. He then transferred to UCSB in Spring 1962, as a second semester sophomore. Although the time was a “miserable lonely time for a Mexican American transfer student,” he graduated from UCSB with a BA in Sociology in 1964.
In September, 1964, Gilberto enrolled at San Diego State University to work on an MA in Sociology. Two years later, he married Joy Moody and returned to Santa Barbara. He joined the Santa Barbara County Probation Department and accepted an assignment to Santa Maria, California. There a co-worker invited Gilberto to join the chapter of the American GI Forum, a veteran-founded civil rights organization from which he had obtained a small scholarship during his second semester at SDSU.
Subsequently, Gilberto relocated to San Diego, successfully applying for a position with the San Diego County Probation Department. After attending meetings of the San Diego GI Forum and meeting people from throughout San Diego, he joined a coalition of more progressive students and faculty and volunteered for the grape boycott being carried on by Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers.
When Chicano students at San Diego City College learned that Gilberto was on the verge of completing his MA, they encouraged him to apply for the position of chair in the new Chicano Studies department. In September 1969 he became the first ever Chicano Studies instructor on that campus, assuming the “awesome responsibility to build a viable academic program and department and teach Chicano Studies curriculum in my first semester.” Fortunately, he received guidance, support and information from experienced Chicano Studies instructors in the San Diego area. Nevertheless, he encountered political opposition when the SDCC MECHA-MAYA students decided to raise the Flag of AZTLAN. “It made the news, and the reactionary white faculty -- which included John Birch Society members -- claimed that it was the flag of Mexico and that this was treasonous and unpatriotic, which added opposition to our program.”
For Gilberto, “Chicano” meant being proud of his cultural heritage and being knowledgeable about the group’s history. Chicano Studies “was about helping our people.” One day one of the students came in late and announced “the chotas [police] are going to put a highway patrol station under the bridge in the historic Barrio Logan,” a predominantly Latino community in San Diego. With Gilberto’s approval, the students went down to Barrio Logan and stopped the bulldozers. They remained there for the rest of the semester. The campus administration was not happy, but the students received college credit for their actions.
Gilberto’s classes attracted Vietnam veterans with unrecognized symptoms of PTSD. Despite this, they were “good activists and good students.” While teaching a unit on Chicanos and the military, he accessed data, collected by Dr. Ralph Guzman, on the disproportionate numbers of Mexican-American draftees and casualties in Vietnam. After concluding that the situation was unjust, he shared the data with the students and joined the growing Chicano anti-war movement, attending the Chicano Moratorium on August 29, 1970. It was the largest Chicano protest against the war.
In 1971, students at SDCC encouraged Gilberto to run for mayor under the banner of the La Raza Unida Party. Although unsuccessful, his grass-roots campaign received extensive support from students, a colleague and long-time community organizers. Cesar Chavez endorsed his candidacy. Chavez usually did not endorse candidates, but he made an exception because of Gilberto’s strong support and work for the farmworker union’s grape boycott.
In 1973, Gilberto was hired as the director of Extended Opportunity Programs and Services at Santa Barbara City College. He began to work toward a Ph.D. in educational administration at UCSB in 1974, completing his degree in 1979. In 2006, Gilberto retired from SBCC. By this time, Joy had been attending organizing meetings for a weekly anti-war display of grave markers called Arlington West, and she had become part of the Veterans For Peace Auxiliary. Gilberto joined VFP as well, though previously he had thought that former members of the Reserves were not “true U.S. military veterans.”
Despite learning that VFP was under government surveillance, he participated in Arlington West and assisted with creating the Teen Cemetery. First organized in 2003 in Santa Barbara, the Teen Cemetery project was a display of grave markers intended to honor and acknowledge those teens who had lost their lives in the Iraq War. According to Gilberto, “The response to Teen Cemetery was emotional and eye-opening for many of the youth in college and high schools. We feel that we deterred many youths from seriously considering the military in the future.”
With other members of VFP, he also tabled at Santa Barbara City College. The table was originally next to the table of military recruiters. “That irritated them but made sure students saw us.” The group also bought cell phones for students “so they could call their representatives and advocate against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” As a result, Gilberto and his colleagues “were harassed by right-wing students, faculty and community members who felt that we were unpatriotic and subversive.”
As a member of VFP, Gilberto attended several of its national conventions and made a presentation on the Teen Cemetery. He also connected with San Diego-based Project YANO when VFP began working on counter-recruitment. At three Santa Barbara high schools they waged campaigns for students to exercise their right to opt-out when schools released their contact information to military recruiters.
After the election of President Obama, as with the main anti-war movement, interest dwindled. Santa Barbara Arlington West closed and the SB VFP chapter became inactive. Gilberto was only one of about three Chicano members of their VFP chapter. “I tried to add an awareness of the disproportional negative effect of all wars, past, present and future, on the Chicano population, especially our youth.”
According to Gilberto, his activism has enabled him to grow personally, professionally and politically. His advice to young counter-recruitment and anti-militarism activists:
Realize that you do have a voice and that actions count. Resist the immense military propaganda machine and corporations that profit from all wars. You have a choice and opportunity to look at non-lethal careers. These are jobs that do not train or require you to kill or be killed. Don’t believe the U.S. military propaganda that they will provide a college education if you enlist. The military is a deadly and crippling career that, once in, you cannot easily escape. Save money now to be used later to supplement scholarships, grants and part-time work while attending college. All U.S. colleges and universities provide information and courses and majors that lead to life sustaining and community service careers.
This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (http://www.comdsd.org/index.php/draft-notices).
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