Oral history interview, Philip Hernandez, 2013 (video and transcript)

Credits: 
Boulder County Latino History Project, Maria Rogers Oral History Program, and Carnegie Branch Library for Local History, Boulder Public Library. Click on the above link to access complete bibliographic information.
Detailed Summary: 
Philip Hernandez, born in Boulder in 1943, has worked for most of his life in human relations positions. Both sets of grandparents came from Mexico to the US in 1909. His paternal grandfather worked in coal mines around Walsenburg and Trinidad and then moved north to the mines in this area; in the summers, the whole family did migrant field work. By the late 1910s they came sometimes to eastern Boulder County; around 1934 they moved to Boulder. Philip graduated from Boulder High School and went to the University of Colorado at Boulder, where Latinos were a tiny minority in both places. In the late 1960s, early 1970s, he and other students in UMAS (United Mexican American Students) pushed the university administration to recruit and support more Latino students. Describes divisions within the Chicano student movement. Talks about the organizations he has worked with, including United Way, The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County, AARP. He was the state Affirmative Action Director for Colorado, 1982-90. Describes the Boulder Family History Project at the Boulder Public Library in 2012, the importance of documenting the presence of deeply rooted Latino families in the town. Talks about assumptions that all Latinos are recent immigrants and do not know English; the lack of diversity in Boulder, an elitist community. But thinks the situation has improved for Latinos as a whole over time.
ID: 
BCLHP-MKM-171
Location: 
Mexico; Walsenburg; Trinidad; Boulder County; Boulder
Date: 
7/17/2013
Time Period: 
1900-1919
1920s-30s
1940s
1950s-1965
1966-1970s
1980s-90s
2000-2013
Keywords: 
Oral history, Philip Hernandez
People Shown or Mentioned: 
Philip Hernandez; Euvaldo Valdez; Richard Garcia
Location of Original: 
Maria Rogers Oral History Program at Carnegie Branch Library for Local History, Boulder Public Library