Arizona Q & A: Raúl Grijalva

Grijalva addressing the crowd at the César Chávez Memorial Rally at the University.

Grijalva has been married to Ramona F. Grijalva for 30 years. They have three daughters, from left, Adelita, Raquel, and Marisa.

Congressman Raúl M. Grijalva represents Arizona’s 7th district. The district includes parts of Pima, Maricopa, La Paz, Pinal, Santa Cruz counties, and all of Yuma County. In addition, he represents members of seven Native American tribes who live in District 7.

Grijalva was born at Tucson’s St. Mary’s Hospital in 1948 and grew up on Tucson’s southside. Grijalva credits part of his success in public service to his parents, who stressed the importance of education to their three children.

Grijalva graduated from Sunnyside High School in 1967 and entered the University of Arizona that fall. But, before he graduated, Grijalva left the UA to take a job with the City of Tucson. He returned as an older student to complete a bachelor’s degree in sociology in 1988.

He has been married to Ramona F. Grijalva for 30 years. They have three daughters, Adelita, Raquel, and Marisa.

Grijalva served on the Tucson Unified School District governing board and the Pima County Board of Supervisors before his election to Congress in November 2002.

Today, Grijalva serves on the Committee on Education and Workforce, the Committee on Resources, and is the chair of the House Democratic Environmental Task Force. He also was 2nd vice-chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus for the 109th Congress.

Alumnus editor Jay Rochlin spent an hour with Grijalva in his Tucson office and asked him about his background, priorities, and what it’s like to be in Congress.

Alumnus. Tell us a little about your background, your parents.

Grijalva. My dad came to the United States as a bracero during World War II. He worked as a cowboy at the Canoa Ranch between Nogales and Tucson. My mother was born in Ajo. My grandfather was working the mines. They met in Nogales.

After the cattle and ranching business started to go down, my dad moved to Tucson to work. We moved into the home where my mom still lives. I was in second grade. I went to Liberty Elementary, Sunnyside Jr. High, and graduated from Sunnyside High School in 1967. I then went to the U of A.

Alumnus. Not a lot of Sunnyside kids went to UA back then. Why you?

Grijalva. Given the way we were raised, and my mom and dad’s emphasis on school, attending college was natural. I was a good student in high school. I was in the National Honor Society. A lot of my friends went to work at the mines or they volunteered for the service and Viet Nam. But, there were about 8 or 9 of us from Sunnyside who went to the U of A, so we were a good support system for each other.

Alumnus. Tell us about your University of Arizona experience.

Grijalva. I started out in business administration, then transferred to sociology and history. It was a time of discovery for many of us. On campus, I was involved in the farm workers and civil rights movements and opposed the Viet Nam War.

The civil rights issue was one of the most important things I ever got involved in. A lot of things I value now as a member of Congress are rooted in the things I learned and experienced during that time at the UA.

Alumnus. Did you immediately connect at the UA, or did it take a while?

Grijalva. There weren’t enough of us to really feel comfortable. We felt isolated and out of place sometimes. But the other things going on, both in the community and on campus, had a real positive effect on how we dealt with school.

We were very proud to be there. I can’t think of anyone who wasn’t the first one in their family to go to college. So, we had a dual responsibility. We had to do well because we were the first and, at the same time, we felt a need to move the UA in a different direction so that the number of us would increase and the opportunities and the access would increase.

Alumnus. You got into politics early. How did it happen?

Grijalva. It was by accident. I was still in school. Tucson Unified School District and Tucson public schools in general needed to do a better job preparing Latinos so they could have more success at the university. We organized protests and boycotts at the high school level. And, there had not been a Mexican-American actually elected to the school board in a hundred years. We said, “This is a statement that needs to be made.”

We went all over town to attempt to recruit a high profile Latino to run for the school board. Most didn’t want to do it because the odds of them winning were minimal.

So, by process of elimination, they said, “Raúl, you do it.” I was about 20. I ran and lost miserably to Soleng Tom. But we came back and regrouped. The next election was in two years. We said, “Let’s do this again, but this time, let’s run a real campaign.” We did, and we won by 200 votes.

I spent 12 years on the TUSD board. Then I ran for the Board of Supervisors and won.

Alumnus. Serving on school boards or boards of supervisors is about as close to where the rubber meets the road as a politician can get. What did you learn that applies to life in Congress, which in so many ways is quite removed from the folks back home?

Grivalja. There are valuable lessons to learn on a school board or board of supervisors. You can’t get away from real people because they’re right next to you. It’s deciding between full time counselors or teachers’ aides. More money into roads or into preservation. Those decisions don’t sound all that consuming, but they have an almost immediate and direct effect on individuals. There was an anti-immigrant, xenophobic, aspect to it … They saw a crisis on the border and this became the simplistic response.

Part of my balancing act as a member of the United States Congress is making sure I don’t get detached. How do you make sure you don’t allow that to happen?

It frustrates me that I can’t solve day to day problems. The very necessary debate about Social Security. Medicare reform. Still, if I make decisions with the consciousness that my vote affects Mr. Perez and Mrs. Jones in a very direct way, it makes me think a little more clearly.

Alumnus. Was the idea of Congress always in your mind or at least a daydream?

Grijalva. It started to become a daydream around my second term on the Board of Supervisors. It was exactly that, a daydream. What if?

Alumnus. Give us some sense of what it was like landing in D.C. as a United States congressman?

Grijalva. Meeting Congressman Rangol. Talking to Nancy Pelosi. Calling each other by first names. Mona and I were invited for the member-spouse private orientation. They took us through historic sections such as where John Adams worked when he was in the House. John Kennedy’s office. Al Gore’s office.

At first, it was intimidating. I didn’t feel I could live up to the expectations I set for myself. But after about three months I started feeling, “Yes, we can do this.” I would listen to other people speak and I would hear debates and I would say things at committee meetings, and think, “Well, we can hold our own.”

Alumnus. Obviously there is only so much you can even hope to accomplish. What one or two issues are you thinking about most?

Grivalja. I think about Arizona’s Proposition 200. There was an anti-immigrant, xenophobic, aspect to it, but I think the majority who supported it, voted for it out of desperation — they saw a problem and they saw the federal government doing absolutely nothing about it. They saw a crisis on the border and this became the simplistic response. I hope we can look at comprehensive immigration reform so that these kinds of initiatives don’t become the norm across the West.

I also think about education. The president wants to extend No Child Left Behind to the high schools. I think that move is premature at best. I want to go back and look at No Child Left Behind — what are we doing right? What is the resource gap? We need to have expectations and standards, but we need to provide the resources and infrastructure for those to be met. You don’t scrap No Child Left Behind. You make it work.

Alumnus. Let me ask for some quick summaries on other national issues just to give our fellow UA alumni a flavor for where you stand. The debate on Social Security rages on.

Grijalva. There is not a crisis. There is a challenge we need to confront. The trust fund and the solvency of Social Security for generations to come is the issue at hand. I don’t believe there is a need for privatization.

Alumnus. Here in Arizona, and more and more elsewhere, bilingual education is an issue. I assume you’re for it.

Grijalva. I’m a firm believer that bilingual education is healthy. It can be a good curriculum tool, not only to teach children English, but to promote the very important process of dual language acquisition.

Alumnus. You opposed the war in Iraq early on. Where do you stand now?

Grijalva. I continue to be opposed. I need an exit strategy. This country needs an exit strategy. This cannot go on forever. It is emotionally, physically, and financially draining to this country.

Alumnus. Thoughts on American troops on the ground?

Grijalva. One of the things I learned during my time at the U of A and from the antiwar activities I was involved in — and we learned the lesson well — is that you can question the policy of the war but you should never blame the warrior. I think that transition has been made so beautifully in this particular conflict and I’m so glad for that.

Alumnus. Why are liberal Democrats like you worried about the deficit?

Grijalva. I never thought I’d be called a deficit hawk. If Democrats got the political label “tax and spend,” the political label, “borrow and spend” belongs to this majority and the White House. This deficit is a big deal.

Alumnus. What about abortion rights?

Grijalva. I’m pro choice. I’m a Catholic and on a personal level I don’t necessarily feel great about abortion. But, I believe that for a given individual, the choice should be between the woman, her physician, her family, and her spiritual advisors. I think the decision is private and personal.

I don’t think government has any role walking into those private, difficult decisions that a woman must make. What I find most frustrating is the majority party not allowing the minority party to introduce its own alternative legislation.

Alumnus. Gay rights and gay marriage?

Grijalva. I think that equal protection under the law extends to people’s relationships.

Alumnus. Medical care for people who don’t have insurance?

Grijalva. I absolutely believe in single-payer universal health care. We have more than 44 million Americans, a third of them children, without health insurance. Unconscionable.

Alumnus. What have you found most troubling in D.C.?

Grijalva. What I find most frustrating is the majority party not allowing the minority party to introduce its own alternative legislation, to extend the debate more than five minutes, or to introduce amendments. For example, the minority party should have an opportunity to give to the American people an alternative to the prescription drug plan. There is an alternative to immigration reform and we can’t get it on the floor.

We are in the minority, but we still represent 49 percent of the American public, and not to let that 49 percent even get a hearing and a fair and equitable debate is very disturbing.

Alumnus. O.K., I’ll ask you that question again when Democrats are in the majority. To finish up, what have you found to be the most hopeful?

Grijalva. The capacity of the American people. When they think the ship is going the wrong way, they can steer it a different way. I continue to be hopeful that the American people will steer the ship in a different direction, and when that happens, those of us who are in the minority will have our opportunity to prove ourselves to the American public, just like the Republicans did.