Raul Grijalda
Candidate for: United States Representative, AZ, 3rd district
Party: Democratic Party
Office: Representative (D–AZ 3rd District) since 2013
Previous office: Representative, AZ 7th District (2003–2013)
Raúl Manuel Grijalva , born February 19, 1948) is the U.S. Representative for Arizona’s 3rd congressional district, serving since 2003. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district, numbered as the 7th District from 2003 to 2013, includes the western third of Tucson, all of Yuma and Nogales, and some peripheral parts of metro Phoenix.
Raúl Grijalva’s father was a migrant worker from Mexico who entered the United States in 1945 through the Bracero Program and labored on southern Arizona ranches.[1] Grijalva was born in Tucson, Arizona, and graduated from Sunnyside High School in 1967. He is a 2004 inductee to the Sunnyside High School Alumni Hall of Fame. He attended the University of Arizona and earned a bachelor’s degree in Sociology. While at the University, he was a member of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA)which, at that time, was a radical group identified with the separatist “Aztlán “ ideology. Grijalva also served as a leader of the Chicano Liberation Committee and other Chicano groups.
In addition, he was an Arizona leader of the Raza Unida Party. According to the standard history of the party by Dr. Armando Navarro, “Grijalva was so militant that he alienated some members of Tucson’s Mexican-American community. After losing in his first bid for elective office, a 1972 run for a seat on the school board, he began to cultivate a less radical image.”[2][3]
In 1974, he was elected to the Tucson Unified School District board and served as a school board member until 1986. Grijalva Elementary School in Tucson was named for him in 1987.[4] From 1975 to 1986, Grijalva was the director of the El Pueblo Neighborhood Center, and in 1987 he was Assistant Dean for Hispanic Student Affairs at the University of Arizona. Grijalva was a member of the Pima County Board of Supervisors from 1989 to 2002, and served as chairman from 2000 to 2002.
