53 Facts About Bert Corona

Humberto Noe Corona was an American labor and civil rights leader.

Bert Corona organized workers for the Congress of Industrial Organizations and fought on the behalf of immigrants.

Corona's father Noe Corona was a commander in Francisco Villa's Division del Norte during the Mexican Revolution, which he joined after members of his family were killed in a massacre at Tomochic, Chihuahua.

Noe Bert Corona was an anarcho-syndicalist and member of Partido Liberal Mexicano.

Bert Corona's mother, Margarita Escapite Salayandia, was a Chihuahua schoolteacher educated at Protestant missionary schools.

Bert Corona's parents married in the Juarez customs house under Villa's sponsorship.

Bert Corona longed to return to Mexico and in 1922, when the Obregon government granted the family's petition for amnesty, they returned to Chihuahua.

Bert Corona began his education at Mexican Protestant kindergartens, but enrolled in public school in the first grade.

Bert Corona remained in the Texas public system until the fourth grade, when his mother, disgusted with the mistreatment of Mexican-American and Mexican immigrant students, sent him to Harwood Boys School in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Bert Corona returned to El Paso for high school, attending the "Mexican" Bowie High School, and later, El Paso High School, a "White" school that had recently begun to integrate some middle- and upper-class Mexican students.

Humberto, whose name had by this point been Americanized to Bert Corona, played on the varsity basketball team for three years.

Bert Corona moved in with an aunt and uncle in Boyle Heights, then a predominantly Jewish area of East Los Angeles.

Bert Corona quickly became acquainted with the barrios through volunteer work with El Salvador Church.

Bert Corona listened to Magonista anarchosyndicalist speakers at La Placita Olvera.

Bert Corona hurt his ankle early in his freshman year, and subsequently sat out the rest of the season.

Bert Corona remained in school and became active in the Mexican American Movement of Los Angeles-area college students.

Bert Corona served on various committees in the union and learned organizing skills from Lloyd Seeliger.

In 1940 Bert Corona was named head of the Local 26's strike committee and in 1941, in the wake of Phelps's resignation, was unanimously elected local president.

Shortly after his election, a rival contender for the presidency organized an unauthorized slowdown for which Bert Corona was blamed and fired.

Bert Corona reached out to the children of the Mexican workers, the Pachucos, who aided the union.

Bert Corona served on the defense committee alongside journalist Carey McWilliams and actor Anthony Quinn.

Bert Corona encouraged the other tenants to petition to have the Coronas evicted, but the Coronas held a party for all of their neighbors, inviting the Black friends and their congressperson, Will Rogers Jr.

Bert Corona helped convince the neighbors to drop the petition, and the Coronas lived there until Corona enlisted in the army and Blanche moved back in with her parents.

Several months after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, Bert Corona volunteered in the Army Air Corps and resigned from his position with the union.

Bert Corona underwent basic training at Buckley Field in Colorado.

Bert Corona underwent officer training in Cedar City, Utah, where he and the other cadets were not welcomed by the mostly-Mormon local population.

Bert Corona was promoted to wing adjutant and had numerous clerical responsibilities.

Shortly after the evaluation, Bert Corona was questioned by a group of officers about his political ideology and union activities.

Bert Corona was asked his opinion about the books Mission to Moscow by Joseph E Davies and One World by Wendell Willkie.

Bert Corona was transferred to the surgical unit where he served as a surgical assistant.

Bert Corona transferred to the Rainbow Division and received combat training in Oklahoma.

The Rainbow Division did not enjoy a good reputation at the time, and Bert Corona transferred to Fort Benning for paratrooper training.

Just prior to his unit's being deployed overseas, Bert Corona requested a pass to go to Atlanta for the weekend.

Bert Corona was not permitted to contact his commanding officer, and was held incommunicado for over a month.

Bert Corona became friendly with a guard who had been a union member in Chicago who plotted to provide him access to a telephone.

Bert Corona's unit having shipped out, he was unable to reach his commanding officer.

Bert Corona was able to have the AWOL removed from his record, but never received payment for the forty-five days he was incarcerated.

Just when it seemed unlikely that Bert Corona would be able to serve overseas, his colonel received a request for people for the Signal Corps.

Bert Corona was sent to Camp Crowder in Neosho, Missouri for training, and was set to see duty in the Pacific.

Bert Corona sought to return to work with the union, but found that his post had been filled during his military service.

Bert Corona turned instead to the docks, seeking work as a longshoreman, which he was unable to secure due to the Coast Guard's requirement that dockworkers have a security clearance.

In 1947, Bert Corona accepted a job as a diamond salesman for his father-in-law's business.

Bert Corona and his family, which included his daughter Margo, who had been born during the war, relocated to Mill Valley.

Bert Corona became involved in the effort to build the Independent Progressive Party in the Bay Area, on whose ticket former Wallace ran.

Bert Corona first met Cesar Chavez in the late 1940s or early 1950s, after having heard positive things about him from members of the Catholic and Quaker churches.

Bert Corona was introduced to ANMA by Lucio Bernabe, a labor organizer in San Jose, and soon after joining became the organization's chief organizer in Northern California.

In 1951, Bert Corona was chosen to represent ANMA at international conference of mineworkers in Mexico City, where he was charged with promoting the cause of the striking mineworkers of Southern New Mexico.

Bert Corona suggested that they investigate fascists such as the sinarquistas, who he believed represented a greater threat to national security.

Bert Corona led MAPA's Northern Californian operations, serving as the organization's president from 1966 to 1971.

Bert Corona was closely associated with Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, which emphasized organizing unions and defending and providing social services to undocumented workers.

Bert Corona met fellow activist Soledad Alatorre during the latter's work with labor organizations.

Bert Corona's efforts and the work of CASA encouraged a unity between immigrant workers and US born Mexican Americans.

Bert Corona continued to organize along with labor unions to change immigration policy and practices of unions and of the nation.