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Guide to the Jose Esteban Ortega Papers, 1973-2007Colorado State University-Pueblo Library, University Archives and Special Collections,URL: http://library.colostate-pueblo.edu/2009
BiographyJose Esteban Ortega was born in 1942 in the small town of Roy, New Mexico to Tobias J. Ortega and Juanita N. Vigil. Both Jose Esteban’s father and mother were descendants of families who had called northern Nuevo Mexico home for generations. When he was five years old, Jose Esteban’s family made the move north to Pueblo, Colorado, where his father found employment at Colorado Fuel & Iron as a smelter worker. Jose Esteban, or “Steve” as he was now called by his English speaking teachers at the now long gone Riverside Elementary, remembers life growing up under the smoky shadows of CF&I smokestacks in the no longer existent neighborhood of La Smelda (the Smelter) in Pueblo as a happy one, where song and music in the home intermingled with work (for him, hauling water and splitting wood) to contribute to the survival of the Ortega family. After graduating from Pueblo’s East High School in 1960, Ortega, following the examples of many of his uncles and cousins, enlisted for service in the United States Marine Corps. For Ortega, the military was a job opportunity and offered a chance for him to travel and experience the world. A logistics specialist, Ortega was deployed to the Caribbean Sea and the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis; in later years this would contribute greatly to the development of his social conscience. Ortega’s military tour of duty included trips to the Panama Canal zone and the island of Jamaica, experiences which opened his eyes to the extreme levels of human poverty and suffering which exist in the world. After an honorable discharge from the U.S. Marines in 1964 with the rank of Sergeant E-5, Ortega returned to Pueblo and fought race discrimination to gain employment as a letter-carrier for the United States Post Office. From his father, Ortega learned union values, and he joined the National Association of Letter Carriers Union, rising quickly up through the union's ranks, participating in the 1970 national strike, representing his local at national conventions, and serving as Local Branch 229 president. But the corporate culture of first the military and then civil service as a U.S. Postal employee left Ortega longing to for the opportunity to contribute more with his life. After eight years of working for the Post Office, he quit his job and went searching for new horizons. The Chicano Movement had captured the imagination of Jose Esteban Ortega. In the early 1970s, the United Mexican American Students – Equal Opportunity Program (UMAS-EOP) at the University of Colorado in Boulder was making a high-pitched effort to recruit Spanish-surnamed students. The UMAS organization’s position is reflected in their slogan “Lost to our Land, Education is our Stand”; by increasing the enrollment of Chicano students at the universities in the United States, self-empowerment could be achieved for the historically disenfranchised Chicano people. Although he had never even considered college as a possibility, in 1972 Ortega was recruited by UMAS to enroll in classes at CU-Boulder. By this time Ortega was married, the father of five young daughters, and at thirty years of age, a most unlikely college freshman. The transition, from a government employee with twelve years of service towards a pension, to a university student with a tenuous plan for the future – coupled with the move from Pueblo to Boulder - was tumultuous, but for Ortega it was the fulfillment of the vision-quest which he had been longing for. Ortega arrived on the University of Colorado campus prepared to be a political activist as well as a student. He immediately became involved with UMAS, working in the organization’s campus office, volunteering at the Chicano student newspaper El Diario de la Gente, and helping to organize the first Dia de la Gente celebration at CU. Ortega’s age and life experiences were qualities which were recognized by other Chicano student activists, and Jose Esteban was chosen by his peers to serve as the UMAS president. Chicano students at the University of Colorado were experiencing a financial aid crisis during the 1973 and 1974 school years, as funds for minority recruitment programs were reduced. As a means of protest and to bring the financial situation to the attention of the University, UMAS students organized rallies and marches, and a group of Chicano students, including Ortega, staged a takeover of Regents Hall on the CU campus. When these tactics met with resistance from the university administration, the Chicano students took their protests to the State Capitol in Denver. But they were again met by an unsympathetic Governor of Colorado, John D. Vanderhoof, and the UMAS members were physically removed from the Governor’s office. Arrangement:The records have been maintained in the original order established by Mr. Ortega. Scope and ContentThe collection compiled by Jose Esteban Ortega contains material documenting the Chicano peoples’ struggle for human rights in the state of Colorado over the past half-century. Included in the collection are independent community press publications, photographs, rare books of Chicano history, and a sampling of Movemiento artwork in the form of silk-screened banners and t-shirts. RestrictionsRestrictions on access:There are no access restrictions on this collection Restrictions on use:Not all of the material in the collection is in the public domain. Researchers are responsible for addressing copyright issues. Preferred CitationJose Esteban Ortega Papers, Colorado State University-Pueblo Library, University Archives and Special Collections, Processing:Assistant Archivist Reyes Martinez Lopez completed minimal processing of this collection in June 2009 ProvenanceIndex TermsThis collection is indexed under the following headings in the Colorado State University-Pueblo Library's catalog. Researchers seeking materials about related subjects, persons, organizations or places should search the catalog using these headings. Banners Chicano movement -- Colorado Hispanic Americans - Civil Rights. Mexican Americans - Civil Rights. Mexican Americans - History Photographs Publications Pueblo (Colo.) -- History -- 20th century United Mexican American Students (UMAS) Inventory
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