Olga Gutierrez: Chicana Educator and Activist

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By: Jessica Olivas

Olga Rose Gutiérrez (nee Luna) [February 12, 1937-April 1, 2016] was an activist, teacher, administrator, and parent in her lifetime. Young Olga Luna was invested in her education, and although her teachers did not have confidence in her abilities she strived and obtained a bachelor's and master’s degree. As a young adult, Olga used her knowledge as a professional in education and her actions as an activist. A committed advocate of the United Farm Workers Movement and the Chicano movement, she traveled throughout California with her husband to campaign for the rights of La Raza.1   As an educator, she worked as a teacher and administrator, devoting her time to East Los Angeles and El Monte students. In her lifetime Olga Gutiérrez was impactful in the school system in El Monte by advocating for minority students. In her personal life, Olga remained an educator at heart, committed to her familia, her culture, and her faith.2 She remained devoted to her family and those close to her throughout her life, touching anyone she interacted with. Olga was described as “a ray of sun” who never let an opportunity to help others pass her by.3 

  1. The Race, a term used by Latinos, Hispanics, and Chicanos to express their affection for their own ethnicity.

  2. Teresa Gutiérrez, interview by Jessica Olivas, South Gate, CA, March 13, 2022.

  3. Teresa Gutiérrez, interview by Jessica Olivas, South Gate, CA, March 13, 2022.

Olga Rosa Luna was born February 12, 1937, in Los Angeles to Rosa and Benny Luna; and was raised in East Los Angeles’s Maravilla neighborhood close to East Los Angeles College. Olga saw inspired early in her journey through the guidance of her father. Mr. Benny Luna empowered her to be proud of her culture and push against those who would discriminate against her, this became her north star.

Olga attended East Los Angeles College and then transferred to California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA) where she gained her bachelor’s degree in Spanish and her teaching credential. She then returned to her alma mater CSULA to gain her master’s degree. Before her time teaching in El Monte and beginning her journey there, she taught at Hollenbeck Middle School in East Los Angeles where she witnessed the discrimination minority students faced. She was reminded of her own experience as a student: “growing up in East L.A., teachers taped her mouth shut if she spoke Spanish.”4 As a teacher, she taught Spanish classes to students in a school that frowned upon the use of Spanish by Mexican and Latinx students and yet encourage white students to learn and speak the language. She struggled to understand how this discrepancy in the school system continued even into her adulthood, eventually inspiring her to write a master’s thesis on the subject. She pioneered research on the occurrence of racial segregation in schools, focusing her studies primarily on the Lexington School located in El Monte.5 

  1. Juravich, Nick. 2015. “More Fist-Pumps: Educators, Parents, and Students.” In Search of Buried Histories in El Monte and South El Monte. Edited by Romeo Guzmán. KCET. January 9, 2015. https://www.kcet.org/history-society/in-search-of-buried-histories-in-el-monte-and-south-el-monte

  2. Gutiérrez, Olga. “Analyzing Segregation in El Monte: The Lexington School.” (Masters Thesis, California State University, 1981).

She focused on the Lexington School because of her relationship with El Monte. She arrived in this city just east of East Los Angeles through her marriage to former Hicks Camp resident Ernie Gutiérrez, another student at CSULA. El Monte, a city located in the San Gabriel Valley, had a conflicted past because of racism toward Mexican residents. The white-Anglo-dominated city was also home to Mexican barrios such as Hicks Camp and Medina Court. In moving to El Monte and becoming exposed to its racial issues, Olga began to grow her connections to the city, which occurred when she became a teacher and grew her family in the city. Olga raised her son Benny and later her granddaughter Teresa Gutiérrez in El Monte.

As a young adult, she and Ernie became heavily involved in the United Farm Workers Movement, which allowed her to journey throughout California in regions such as the Central Valley. She met with other activists and explored how other ethnicities outside of her own saw oppression that Latinos had been subjected to in fields other than education. She saw this as an opportunity to assist La Raza. In the Chicano movement, she recognized she was of the minority of activists who obtained an education. Her efforts are not well described but it is evident that she did not give herself enough credit for her accomplishments.6 

  1. Teresa Gutiérrez, interview by Jessica Olivas, South Gate, CA, March 13, 2022.

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Through her observations, it became apparent that the Mexican community was facing educational discrimination and was racially segregated from other students in El Monte. This led Olga to arrive at her thesis topic after she is advised to conduct her research and be the first to publish on the discrepancy.7 She did this with the end goal to understand the issues in the education system surrounding the student population. The Lexington school was the subject of her thesis (published on July 20, 1981); used as a sample of how the district failed to meet the needs of the students who attend racially segregated schools. In her research, she had the opportunity to interview former students at the Lexington school only to discover that many of the students did not realize the large faults in their education and believed the conditions they had endured were normal. Gutiérrez was unable to gain insights from teachers and administrators from Lexington school since most were either deceased or continued to defend the segregation of Mexican students.8 

  1. Olga Gutiérrez, interview by Nick Juravich, La Historia Society, El Monte, California. January 8, 2015. Romeo Guzmán, Carribean Fragoza, Alex Sayf Cummings, and Ryan Reft, eds. East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte. Latinidad. (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2020).

  2.  Gutiérrez, Olga. “Analyzing Segregation in El Monte: The Lexington School.” (Masters Thesis, California State University, 1981). Romeo Guzmán, Carribean Fragoza, Alex Sayf Cummings, and Ryan Reft, eds. East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte. Latinidad. (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2020).

Olga Gutiérrez’s writing style and interviews show that Olga was a woman who was reflective in the way she spoke, such as in her thesis’s conclusion: “Lexington set in motion a force that few were able to overcome” and in her interview with Nick Juravich where she leaves Nick with “I rather light one candle than lie in the darkness.”9 Her language in these instances was not out of character and translated into her personal life as well, as she and her granddaughter Teresa often wrote letters to one another.10 

  1. Gutiérrez, Olga. “Analyzing Segregation in El Monte: The Lexington School.” (Masters Thesis, California State University, 1981). Olga Gutiérrez, interview by Nick Juravich, La Historia Society, El Monte, California. January 8, 2015.

  2. Teresa Gutiérrez, interview by Jessica Olivas, South Gate, CA, March 13, 2022.

Olga may have been introduced to El Monte through her marriage to Ernie Gutiérrez, but what she found was instrumental in bringing educational change to the community.  El Monte since her marriage had been her city as well and by becoming an active member of the city, she can call it her own. Her granddaughter Teresa would even say “she was more El Monte than my grandfather,” referring to Ernie Gutiérrez.11 When asked why she never aspired to hold a position in the local office she responded that it was not her passion and instead worked in schools day to day and combating racism in environments like the Lexington school.

  1. Teresa Gutiérrez, interview by Jessica Olivas, South Gate, CA, March 13, 2022.

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Olga with husband Ernie, Rosa, and Moctesuma Esparza at La Historia, El Monte.

Following her retirement from teaching, Olga continued to speak out about educational inequality, working with organizations such as South El Monte Arts Posse to allow them to further tell her story and provide her insights into the changes that have occurred in South El Monte and El Monte. She continues to live through her granddaughter, Teresa Gutiérrez, who she raised. Teresa shares that her grandmother was a woman of great faith who gave so much to those in her life. So much so that she paused her own life to raise Teresa and instill the same principles of education and culture that she held dear to her heart. In her spare time, Olga also enjoyed playing piano, especially at the posada every Christmas Eve. In her time, Olga also enjoyed unwinding surrounded by books with a drink or playing the lottery.12 

  1. Teresa Gutiérrez, interview by Jessica Olivas, South Gate, CA, March 13, 2022.

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Olga Gutiérrez passed away from stage four throat cancer on April 1, 2016, in her home, El Monte. She called El Monte her home and expressed this by defending her people and bringing educational and social justice to them in hopes of creating change. She lived a prosperous life; from gaining a master’s degree to teaching, becoming an educational administrator, and being an activist during an era when accomplishing any of these things and being Latino or Chicano was unheard of and to some considered a crime. She climbed over the walls and left a legacy that continues to be what many aspire after. Her work can be viewed by public databases such as Omeka and Tropics of Meta.13 

  1. “School Segregation” East of East. https://semapeastofeast.com/collections/show/21

    Newman, Rachel. “A Truth that Had to be Told: Uncovering the History of School Segregation in El Monte.” Tropics of Meta: Historiography for the Masses, April 8, 2016, https://tropicsofmeta.com/2016/04/08/a-truth-that-had-to-be-told-uncovering-the-history-of-school-segregation-in-el-monte/.

Olga though a small woman in stature, was a strong, resilient individual who took risks in her own life to be able to make a difference in the lives of others.

Sources Cited

East of East. “School Segregation”. Accessed April 15, 2022. https://semapeastofeast.com/collections/show/21

Gutiérrez, Olga. “Analyzing Segregation in El Monte: The Lexington School.” Masters diss., California State University, 1981.

Gutiérrez, Olga. Interview by Nick Juravich. La Historia Society, January 8, 2015, at La Historia Society in El Monte, California. South El Monte Arts Posse, El Monte, California.

Gutiérrez, Teresa. Interview by Jessica Olivas, South Gate, CA, March 13, 2022.

Guzmán, Romeo, Carribean Fragoza, Alex Sayf Cummings, and Ryan Reft, eds. East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte. Latinidad. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2020.

Juravich, Nick. “More Fist-Pumps: Educators, Parents, and Students.” In Search of Buried Histories in El Monte and South El Monte. Edited by Romeo Guzmán. KCET. January 9, 2015. https://www.kcet.org/history-society/in-search-of-buried-histories-in-el-monte-and-south-el-monte

Newman, Rachel. 2016. “A Truth that Had to be Told: Uncovering the History of School Segregation in El Monte.” Tropics of Meta: Historiography for the Masses. April 8, 2016. https://tropicsofmeta.com/2016/04/08/a-truth-that-had-to-be-told-uncovering-the-history-of-school-segregation-in-el-monte

Olga Gutierrez: Chicana Educator and Activist