Join the Mexican American Political Association and the Hermandad Mexicana in commemorating the 95th birthday of Humberto "Bert" Corona on May 29, 2013. Bert Corona was a legendary leader in the Mexican American, Chicano, Mexicano, and Latino communities throughout the United States, but also widely known and respected in Mexico among union and social movements, political parties, and even government officials. He was an activist and leader for 60 years in multiple social movements - labor, immigrant rights, peace, political/electoral representation and civil rights, and the academic institutionalization of Chicano Studies Departments in colleges and universities where he taught and/or lectured as a professor. He is considered the father and political architect of the immigrant rights movement during the 1960s and 1970s with the founding of the Center for Autonomous Social Action (CASA) - General Brotherhood of Workers along with his companion of many years, Soledad "Chole" Alatorre. In 1975 he co-founded with Chole and Socorro Alatorre, the Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, which had been originally founded in 1951 by Felipe Usquiano in the city of San Diego, California with other labor leaders of the Laborer's International Union and the International Brotherhood of Carpenters. Corona and Alatorre built CASA, and subsequently, the Hermandad Mexicana into a broad membership grassroots community-based organization as a fighting force against immigration raids and deportations and in favor of fair and humane immigration reform. Their efforts ultimately culminated in the passage of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which legalized 2.7 million undocumented persons. More importantly, their practical teaching methods demonstrated that immigrants could successfully be organized into labor unions, community action organizations, electoral campaigns, lobbying visits to members of Congress and the state legislature, and build mass movements in the streets as an important form of political action. This they did against all counsel and advice from supposed political experts, foundation funders, legislators and traditional party leaders, union officials, and even left organizations who declared that the undocumented could not be organized.
