Arabella Martínez is the first Executive Director of the Spanish Speaking Unity Council in Oakland, California. Martínez is a graduate of the University of California in Los Angeles and has spent her career uplifting Latino communities through social services and comprehensive economic plans. This is the third recording in a series of oral histories with Arabella Martinez throughout fall of 2020.
Interview 1 (September 14, 2020) summary
In this interview, Arabella shares her experiences growing up as a Latina. She shares first-hand accounts of educational inequality in California and how that persuaded her educational and professional goals. Arabella details how she got involved in the Chicano movement as a young graduate, and how her participation evolved into establishing formal strategies and organizations for community development. Arabella Martínez also gives us important insight into the early years of the Southwest Council of La Raza, recruiting and aiding various Latino Community Development Corporations (CDCs) in the southwest.
Interview 2 (October 16, 2020) summary
In this interview, Arabella Martínez talks more on the development of the Southwest Council of La Raza, now UnidosUS, and how the Southwest Council organized various Latino CDCs in the american southwest and provided financial and professional assistance to these organizations. Martinez dives into the challenges posed to Latino community development leaders after the Chicano Movement. Arabella touches on the initial opposition to the Southwest Council by conservative politicians, which changed the way these CDCs were able to serve their community. Martinez then goes on to tell us specifically how these changes impacted her organization and the kinds of programs and initiatives they took one thereafter.
Interview 3 (October 19, 2020) summary
In this interview, Arabella Martínez shares the evolution of the internal operations of the Unity Council throughout her tenures as the Executive Director. Martinez has an honest conversation about some of the struggles the Unity Council faced, which are common amongst Latino CDCs across the country, and how she guided the Unity Council to overcome these challenges. Martínez walks us through the strategies of the Unity Council to develop the comprehensive Fruitvale Transit Village Project in the Bay Area of California. This created a lasting legacy of this CDC not just in Oakland but throughout California.
Key Terms
Oakland, California, Southwest Council of La Raza, Chicano Movement, Bay Area, Fruitvale, the Unity Council
Dates: September 14, 2020, October 16, 2020 & October 19, 2020
Interviewers: Dr. Gerald Poyo and Victoria Villaseñor
