Roybal, Edward Ross, 1916-2005

<p>Edward Ross Roybal (February 10, 1916 – October 24, 2005) was a member of the Los Angeles City Council for thirteen years and of the U.S. House of Representatives for thirty years.</p>

<p>Roybal was born on February 10, 1916, into a Hispano family that traced its roots in Albuquerque, New Mexico back hundreds of years, to the Roybals who settled the area before the founding of Santa Fe. In 1922, a railroad strike prevented his father from being able to work, and Roybal, age 6, was brought with his family to the East Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights, where he graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1934. After graduation, Roybal joined the Civilian Conservation Corps. After serving in the CCC, Roybal studied business at UCLA and law at Southwestern Law School.</p>

<p>He served a stint in the Army, where he worked as an accountant for an infantry unit.</p>

ROYBAL, Edward R., (Father of Lucille Roybal-Allard), a Representative from California; born in Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, N.Mex., February 10, 1916; moved to Los Angeles, Calif., in 1922; attended the public schools; graduated from Roosevelt High School, Fresno, Calif., 1934; joined the Civilian Conservation Corps until April 1, 1935; attended the University of California, Los Angeles, Calif., and at Southwestern University, Los Angeles, Calif.; public health educator with the California Tuberculosis Association, 1942-1944; United States Army, 1944-1945; director of health education for the Los Angeles County Tuberculosis and Health Association, 1945-1949; member of the city council of Los Angeles, Calif., 1949-1962, and president pro tempore, July 1961; president of Eastland Savings & Loan Association, 1958-1968, chairman of the board; elected as a Democrat to the Eighty-eighth and to the fourteen succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1963-January 3, 1993); reprimanded by the U.S. House of Representatives on October 13, 1978, for failure to report campaign contributions and converting campaign funds for personal use; chair, Select Committee on Aging (Ninety-eighth through One Hundred Second Congresses); was not a candidate for renomination to the One Hundred Third Congress in 1992; died on October 24, 2005, in Pasadena, Calif.

<p>In his 30 industrious years on Capitol Hill, Edward R. Roybal rose to power by shaping legislation on behalf of the underprivileged. Serving the sick and the elderly, nonprofits, and non-native English speakers, Roybal never seemed to waver from the progressive course he first set as a member of the Los Angeles city council. A cofounder of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) and its first chairman, Roybal was among the country’s most influential Hispanic politicians. Later, as chairman of a House Appropriations subcommittee, he underwrote many of the most important federal programs, making him one of the most influential Members of the House. “If we don’t invest in the Hispanic population today,” he cautioned in 1987, “we will pay the consequences tomorrow.”</p>

<p>Edward Ross Roybal was one of 10 children born to Baudilio Roybal, a carpenter, and Eloisa (Tafoya) Roybal on February 10, 1916, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Like many families in the Southwest, Roybal’s family had lived in the region for eight generations, since it was controlled by the Spanish. When he was six, Edward and his family moved to Los Angeles, California, settling on the east side in the barrios near Boyle Heights. He attended the local public schools and graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1934. For much of the next year, he worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps before studying accounting and business administration at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Southwestern University, also in the city. From 1942 until 1944 he worked as a public-health educator with the California Tuberculosis Association, and he later served four years as director of health education for the Los Angeles County Tuberculosis and Health Association. Late in the Second World War, Roybal served as an accountant for an infantry unit in the U.S. Army. He married the former Lucille Beserra on September 27, 1940, and the couple raised three children: Lucille; Lillian; and Edward, Jr.</p>

<p>Like many veterans, particularly Latino veterans, Roybal was motivated by his wartime experience to challenge discrimination in Southern California, especially its effects on economic, education, and housing conditions around Los Angeles. After an unsuccessful bid in 1947 for a seat on the Los Angeles city council, Roybal helped start the Community Service Organization (CSO), which sought to ally the city’s diverse neighborhoods, using strategies outlined by noted reformer Saul Alinsky. Roybal was the group’s first president and its primary spokesman, and in addition to pushing an array of progressive issues, the CSO quickly became the core of Roybal’s political base.5 Two years later, at Alinsky’s urging, and with the support of local labor unions and, eventually</p>