20 Facts About Jovita Idar

Jovita Idar Vivero was an American journalist, teacher, political activist, and civil rights worker who championed the cause of Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants.

Jovita Idar began her career in journalism at La Cronica, her father's newspaper in Laredo, Texas, her hometown.

Jovita Idar was active in the Primer Congreso Mexicanista, an organization that brought Mexican-Americans together to discuss issues such as their lack of access to adequate education and economic resources.

Jovita Idar was one of eight children of Jovita Vivero Gomez and Nicasio Idar who strove to advance the civil rights of Mexican-Americans.

The Jovita Idar family were part of the gente decente, who had better access to good education and opportunities than many mexico-tejano families had.

All eight Jovita Idar children grew up in an atmosphere where rights and responsibilities and the underprivileged circumstances of the Chicano community were consistently discussed.

Jovita Idar earned her teaching certificate in 1903 from the Holding Institute in Laredo.

Jovita Idar taught in a school in Los Ojuelos, located approximately 40 miles east of Laredo.

Jovita Idar realized that her teaching efforts were making little impact on student lives due to the ill-equipped segregated schools.

Jovita Idar returned to Laredo, Texas, where she began to work alongside two of her brothers, Eduardo and Clemente Idar, for her father's newspaper, La Cronica.

Jovita Idar edited and published La Cronica, which became a major voice for Mexican and Tejano rights.

Jovita Idar wrote articles under a pseudonym, exposing the poor living-conditions of Mexican-American workers and supported the Revolution.

The Rangers attempted to close El Progreso, but Jovita Idar blocked the entrance to the newspaper's office.

In November 1916, Jovita Idar founded the weekly paper Evolucion which remained in operation until 1920.

Jovita Idar moved to San Antonio in 1921 where she founded a free kindergarten and volunteered in a hospital as an interpreter.

In May 1917, Jovita Idar married Bartolo Juarez, who worked as a plumber and tinsmith.

In 2018, Gabriela Gonzalez published her book Redeeming La Raza: Transborder Modernity, Race, Respectability, and Rights, which was based on her PhD dissertation in which she provided the historical, political, and socio-economic dimensions of la raza during Jovita Idar's lifetime, including an in-depth description of the role Idar's family played over several generations.

Profiles of Jovita Idar have been included in the National Women's History Museum, the Women in Texas History series, the 2005 edition of The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States, and in the series Texas Originals.

Jovita Idar's story was included in Laura Gutierrez-Witt's chapter "Cultural Continuity in the Face of Change: Hispanic Printers in Texas" in the 1996 publication Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage.

Jovita Idar was honored on an American Women quarter in 2023.