Héctor García
Héctor García was a prominent Mexican American physician and civil rights activist born on February 17, 1914, in Llera, Tamaulipas, Mexico. After his family fled to the United States during the Mexican Revolution, they faced systemic discrimination and limited opportunities in Texas. Despite these challenges, García and five of his siblings pursued medical careers, ultimately becoming physicians. His medical training included a surgical internship and service as a major in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during World War II, where he earned a Bronze Star for his bravery.
García was a founding member of the American G.I. Forum (AGIF), addressing issues such as discrimination against Mexican American veterans and advocating for civil rights, including voting rights and desegregation. His efforts contributed significantly to dismantling discriminatory practices in Texas and beyond, including the bracero program, which exploited migrant laborers. Throughout his life, García received numerous accolades for his advocacy work, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Ronald Reagan in 1984.
Despite his demanding career, García dedicated himself to providing medical care to underserved communities. He continued to influence civil rights movements until his passing on July 26, 1996. His legacy endures as a symbol of perseverance and commitment to social justice for Hispanic Americans.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Héctor García
Mexican-born physician, activist, and humanitarian
- Born: January 17, 1914
- Birthplace: Llera, Tamaulipas, Mexico
- Died: July 26, 1996
- Place of death: Corpus Christi, Texas
García was a World War II veteran and doctor who became a powerful advocate and activist for Mexican American rights and humanitarian causes. He worked to desegregate schools, restaurants, and other establishments, to secure services for Mexican American veterans, and to improve the conditions of migrant workers.
Early Life
Héctor Pérez García (PEH-rehz gahr-SEE-ah) was born in Llera, Tamaulipas, Mexico, to José and Faustina Pérez García. Fleeing the Mexican Revolution in 1917, the Garcías and their children moved to Mercedes, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley. There they found limited professional opportunities, segregated schools, and violence directed against Mexicans and Mexican Americans.
The Garcías had been teachers, but since their credentials were not recognized in the United States, they opened a dry goods store. José expected all of his children to become doctors. Despite the University of Texas medical school system’s quota of one Mexican American student per class year, García and five of his siblings became physicians.
García attended a segregated high school, and graduated in 1932, at the same time earning a commission from the Citizens Military Training Corps equivalent to a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army infantry. Although he began at Edinburg Junior College, a daily thirty-mile hitchhike, García received a bachelor’s degree in zoology from the University of Texas at Austin (1936). He received a medical doctorate in 1940. In 1942, he completed a surgical internship at St. Joseph’s Hospital at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, after being rejected by Texas hospitals because of his Mexican heritage.
After finishing his medical training, García joined the U.S. Army, where he commanded an infantry company and then a company of combat engineers before being transferred to the Medical Corps, where he earned the rank of major and was awarded a Bronze Star with six battle stars for service in Italy and North Africa.
García met his future wife, Wanda Fusillio, a student at the University of Naples, Italy, in 1944. After Fusillio finished her doctoral studies in liberal arts, the couple married on June 23, 1945. They had three daughters—Daisy Wanda, Cecilia, and Susana—and a son, Hector, who died in an accident at age thirteen.
After the war, the Garcías moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, and García and his brother José Antonio opened a private medical practice. García also joined the local chapter of League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), an organization formed to defend the rights of Hispanic Americans.
Life’s Work
García quickly found that social gains made during the war by Mexican Americans, who had enlisted enthusiastically, had not lasted. In their medical practice, the García brothers treated many people who could not pay, including poor migrant workers, and García quickly found that many Mexican American veterans were having trouble getting the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to respond to their claims. Many of his patients were Mexican American veterans who had been turned away by the VA.
García helped other veterans file their claims with the VA. At the same time, he also investigated the conditions of migrant workers in Mathis, Texas, and became determined to end school segregation for Mexican Americans. In 1947, García was elected president of the local LULAC chapter.
In 1948, García called a meeting to discuss discrimination facing Mexican American veterans. The meeting was attended by hundreds of veterans and spawned the American G.I. Forum (AGIF), a Hispanic veterans’ and civil rights group. García choose the name to emphasis that Mexican American veterans were patriotic Americans.
Over the following months, AGIF chapters were established throughout Texas. García and the AGIF advocated on many issues, including voting rights (Hispanics had to pay to vote at the time), school segregation, and fair trials. They tackled issues such as restaurants and other establishments with “No Dogs or Mexicans” signs and Mexican American children being whipped for speaking Spanish in school. They also coordinated protests and supported presidential candidates. Some notable early AGIF efforts including obtaining burial for Mexican American private Felix Longoria in Arlington National Cemetery and work on a case that led to a court ruling that the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution applied to Mexican Americans.
In the 1950’s and 1960’s, García testified as an expert on migrant laborers. AGIF helped to dismantle the Mexican Farm Labor Program (also know as the bracero program), which had been established in 1942. Under the bracero program, the United States could import temporary contract laborers from Mexico. Field workers in particular often lived in substandard conditions, and their mandatory savings accounts were often not paid out to them upon their return to Mexico.
By the 1950’s, the efforts of García, the AGIF, and other Hispanic organizations had achieved desegregation for movie theaters, restaurants, and hotels in Texas; barbershops and beauty parlors were opened to Mexican Americans in the 1960’s, but swimming pools and cemeteries were not desegregated until the 1970’s.
García was instrumental in helping gain the Hispanic vote for numerous local and national politicians, including presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and John F. Kennedy. He also fought against poverty and encouraged education. In 1967, President Johnson appointed García an alternate ambassador to the United Nations. In 1968, García became the first Mexican American on the United States Commission on Civil Rights.
García’s dedication to civil rights advocacy continued throughout his life. Even as his own health declined, he also kept practicing medicine. At age sixty-four, he was arrested during a school segregation protest related to Cisneros v. Corpus Christi Independent School District (1970), which extended the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954) ruling to Mexican Americans.
President Ronald Reagan awarded García the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1984, one of many awards and honors García received during his lifetime. In 1988, García began his last major project, an effort to improve conditions in poor “colonias” of the Rio Grande Valley.
García’s ceaseless work as a civil rights activist, humanitarian, and doctor inspired many, from activists to novelist Edna Ferber, who based the main character of her novel Giant on García. However, he also could be hot-tempered and sometimes autocratic, and his daughter Cecilia observed that his work left him relatively little time to spend with his family.
Late in life, García’s health declined rapidly. He survived open-heart surgery, but developed stomach cancer. He died of pneumonia complications and congestive heart failure on July 26, 1996.
Significance
García was a tireless civil rights advocate for both Hispanic Americans and the poor. He believed all Americans deserved the same rights, opportunities, and laws. In addition to his role in numerous legal decisions and political elections benefiting the Mexican American community, García also founded a Hispanic advocacy and assistance group, AGIF, which retained a strong and active membership as of 2011. The work of García and the AGIF paved the way for the Chicano movement of the 1960’s. García also provided free medical care to the poor and worked to improve conditions for migrant workers.
Bibliography
Kells, Michelle Hall. Héctor P. García: Everyday Rhetoric and Mexican American Civil Rights. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2006. An examination of the transition from social marginalization to civic inclusion for Mexican Americans after World War II, and how the work of García and others influenced this change.
Ramos, Henry. The American G.I. Forum: In Pursuit of the Dream, 1948-1983. Houston, Tex.: Arte Público Press, 1998. A thoroughly illustrated history of the founding and development of the American G.I. Forum.
San Miguel, Guadalupe. “Let All of Them Take Heed”: Mexican Americans and the Campaign for Education Equality in Texas, 1910-1981. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1987. Describes the Mexican American fight for school desegregation in Texas, with personal stories of school experiences and analysis of the strategies used by organized Mexican American groups such as AGIF.