Tag: Donaciano Martinez

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Disconnect and Fear in the Aftermath of the Orlando Massacre, by Donaciano Martinez

There is a major disconnect between the
experiences of LGBTQ young people of color and the broader LGBTQ community.
That was the main message behind the need for a separate vigil that took place
in mid-June 2016 in Denver to remember the victims of the Orlando massacre.
Organized by the nonprofit Survivors Organizing for Liberation (SOL) and Buried
Seedz of Resistance (BSEEDZ), a youth project of SOL, the vigil was led by
LGBTQ young people of color.
The separate vigil was in direct response to the
first vigil that was hastily organized at a Denver gay nightclub that featured
speeches by public officials and spokespeople from a few nonprofit
organizations. When two carloads of SOL and BSEEDZ activists arrived at the
nightclub, they were shocked at the extensive presence of police officers who
were searching people as they entered the building. Appalled, SOL and BSEEDZ
activists unanimously decided not to attend the event.
“The history of queer and trans communal spaces
are rooted in acts of resistance against police brutality,” proclaimed the
public statement of BSEEDZ and SOL in direct reference to the 1969 Stonewall
Rebellion, which is widely recognized as the start of the movement that has
evolved to the modern-day fight for human rights for LGBTQ people. “We refuse
to accept suggestions that increased police presence in our queer and trans
spaces will improve risks of violence or increase any sense of safety.”
The BSEEDZ and SOL vigil was attended by a
diverse group of about 100 people from the Latina/Latino, Muslim, LGBTQ,
American Indian, Two-Spirit communities and allies. In addition to remembering
and reading the names of the victims of the Orlando massacre, attendees paid
tribute to and read the names of 14 trans women of color who have been murdered
so far in 2016.
“We wanted to let everybody know and remind
folks that this isn’t an isolated incident, that this has been happening, that
we forget the 25 plus transwomen who were murdered last year, the 14 transwomen
who have already been murdered this year,” stated BSEEDZ activist Diana Amaya
at the start of the vigil. “All of this is just part of genocide to our
people.”
The murders of 25 transwomen last year marked
the deadliest on record for transgender people in the U.S., according to
statistics tracked by SOL and other nonprofit entities that are part of the
National Coalition of Anti Violence Programs (NCAVP). According to NCAVP, last
year’s record does not include trans women whose deaths were not reported or
investigated nor do the statistics include victims whose gender was
misidentified or not even recognized by police and the media.
Speaking about why LGBTQ young people of color
oftentimes feel disconnected from Denver’s Pride event that has been organized
annually over the past 40 years by the nonprofit GLBT Community Center, a
BSEEDZ activist noted that it “hurts so much” that Pride’s history is being
erased and that the LGBTQ largest organizations “sell out.” Attendees were
urged to remember Pride’s history, which started as an act of resistance at the
Stonewall Rebellion.
Other vigil speakers included an American Indian
Two-Spirit individual who is transgender from female to male. Recognizing the
privilege that comes with being a man, he said his life has been so much easier
as a man and he has been negligent upon forgetting that other people in the
LGBTQ community are not as fortunate as he is as a man. One mother spoke about
being “scared” and having a “hard time” upon learning that her child is a transboy. Another woman attendee recounted her gay brother’s recent experience of
being escorted off stage at his college graduation when he raised his fist and
yelled the “Orlando” word.
Ayla Sullivan and Emery Vela, both members of
the slam poetry team called Minor Disturbance, read a poem they wrote for the
occasion. Before reading the poem to the attendees, they acknowledged:
“Queerness has not always been something that was shamed before the colonizers
came, it was something that was sacred. It was something that was beautiful and
it’s still something that is beautiful.”
Addressing the irrational fears of LGBTQ people
and Muslims, BSEEDZ activist Amanas pointed out that the Orlando killer’s
Muslim identity makes all Muslims vulnerable to acts of violence by white
racists. “We know Islamophobia and homophobia as the same monster known by
different names,” said Amanas, who urged vigil attendees to break the fast
during the Muslim religious season of Ramadan by sharing a bowl of dates with
other people.
Fear was the topic of a recent communication
sent to the constituents of Denver City Council (DCC) elected member Robin
Kniech, an open lesbian who represents all of Denver as the at-large
representative at DCC. She stated that, despite the vigils and the camaraderie
at Denver’s Pride parade (which she noted had fewer spectators this year), she
is “not feeling better” nowadays. “Most of my LGBTQ friends and colleagues
don’t report feeling better, not when you ask them privately,” she added.
“The reason I don’t feel better is because I
feel fear,” proclaimed Representative Kniech. “And for me, it isn’t a new fear.
It’s about fears I’ve long held. Fears I struggled with, tried to talk myself
out of, suppressed. The inability to shake the feeling that all of these fears
were real and true after all. That at some point, someone who has real issues
with gay people, will want to hurt me because of who I am. Hurt
my partner. My son because he is with me. My friends. I am afraid, and angry
about my fear. In a state where I’m protected from being fired, could get
married, and was elected as an out lesbian, I am once again thinking twice
about whether and where to hold hands with my partner.”
Acknowledging that she has a certain privilege
status despite being a woman and an out lesbian, DCC Representative Kniech
stated: “Many folks who see me on the street don’t assume I’m gay, and I’m
white in a world where violence still happens less to those of my ethnic
background. So I feel even more fear for those in our community who don’t share
those privileges. And more anger about that fear.”
Regarding many people’s rush to prove that the
“terrorists haven’t won” in an effort to resume a life of normalcy,
Representative Kniech declared: “I write this piece to honor pausing. Pausing
to feel and name the personal fear and pain that was lying in wait and has been
triggered by these events, whether among Latino/a or LGBTQ folks, those
impacted by other forms of gun violence, or others. I don’t think naming this
personal pain disrespects those who were lost, or the causes that have to be
fought.”
Upon addressing the issue that pausing to face
the fear and pain somehow means that the terrorists have achieved their goal of
making people emotionally paralyzed from fear, Representative Kniech ended her
insightful communication by stating: “It doesn’t reward terrorists. In fact, I
think talking about fear, and how dangerous it can be, within ourselves, or
motivating evil acts by others, might be important to really changing the world
where these acts of hate motivated by fear are proliferating.”
© 12 Jul 2016 
About the Author 

Since 1964 Donaciano Martinez has
been an activist in peace and social justice movements in Colorado. His
activism began in 1964 by knocking on doors to urge people to vote for peace
and justice, but in 1965 he and other activists began marching in the streets
to protest against war and injustice. His family was part of a big migration of
Mexican-Americans from northern New Mexico to Colorado Springs in the 1940s. He
lived in Colorado Springs until 1975 and then moved to Denver, where he still
resides. He was among 20 people arrested and jailed in Colorado Springs during
a 1972 protest in support of the United Farm Workers union that was co-founded
by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. For his many years of activism, Martinez
received the 1998 Equality Award, 1999 Founders Award, 2000 Paul Hunter Award,
2001 Community Activist Award, 2005 Movement Veterans Award, 2006 Champion of
Health Award, 2008 Cesar Chavez Award, 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award, and the
2013 Pendleton Award. La Gente Unida,
a nonprofit co-founded by Martinez, received the 2002 Civil Rights Award. The
year 2014 marked the 50-year anniversary of his volunteer work in numerous
nonprofit situations.
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An Elder’s Day at Pridefest 2014 by Donaciano Martinez

In the post-Pride public announcement from the GLBT Community Center (which produces Pride each year), Communications Manager Melody Glover noted there were 365,000 people who attended the June 2014 two-day event and there were 145 contingents in the Pride parade. As someone who has been in Denver’s Pride march/parade since its first one in 1976, I always have noticed that there are more spectators than there are marchers.

When the parade was over and I attempted to enter the park at which the festival was being held, I was stopped by an official gatekeeper (yes, child, nowadays personal items of festival goers must be inspected at all public events – such as Pride – held in a park). The young lesbian gatekeeper said she wasn’t sure she could let me in because she thought the placard (“I’ve Been Marching for Justice Since 1965”) in my hand “seemed anti-gay” to her. I have been accused of being anti-many things in my 50-year activism since 1964, but being anti-gay was not among them. Quite amused by her comment, I told her: (a) I carried the placard in the parade; (b) I have been marching in the Pride parade long before she was born; and (c) she could check with the GLBT Center’s Elders Program Manager Reynaldo Mireles if she needed verification that I am NOT anti-gay. Still unsure, she reluctantly let me in and soon thereafter I reconnected with Reynaldo at what I thought was the Elders Program (SAGE) booth. It turned out it was the GLBT Center’s information booth for which I volunteered (at Reynaldo’s request) for three hours handing brochures to attendees as they walked by.
The highlight of the day was a straight married couple who brought their two young children to meet me as the parents were so impressed upon seeing me proudly marching in the parade while holding the aforementioned sign that was baffling to the young lesbian gatekeeper. Very nice and respectful, the married couple told me their children have a gay uncle and the children are being raised to accept and support their uncle and other GLBT people.
A confusing part of the day occurred when I had a good chat with a vendor whose appearance and aura were so gay, yet he turned out to be straight — my longtime gay radar obviously isn’t reliable anymore.
Reflecting on his experiences at this year’s Pride festival, community elder and longtime human rights activist William Watts wrote: “Sorry, but I found it fairly bland, insipid, un-special, a major sin and overly ordinary. It could have been the People’s Fair [a straight event] or Taste of Colorado Fair [a straight event] with rainbow county fair junk-goods. Listening to some of the vendors’ conversations, they knew nothing of the LGBTQQI struggle and history and didn’t care. It was such a letdown. With success comes failure quickly!”
Inevitably, an overt Q-hating incident occurred while I was waiting for the bus to head home. The target was an effeminate gay man, who strutted by the bus stop while carrying a rainbow-color umbrella. A het supremacist repeatedly yelled the “F” word (rhymes with the word maggot) at the gay man and told him that he should be a “real man” and pursue women instead of men. At any moment, there could have been violence on the part of the enraged het supremacist. Although there was no violence, the incident underscored the reality that Q hating is alive and well – even on Pride Day.

©
5 July 2014

About the Author


Since 1964 Donaciano Martinez has been an activist in peace and social justice movements in Colorado. His family was part of a big migration of Mexican Americans from northern New Mexico to Colorado Springs in the 1940s. He lived in Colorado Springs until 1975 and then moved to Denver, where he still resides. He was among 20 people arrested and jailed in Colorado Springs during a 1972 protest in support of the United Farm Workers union that was co-founded by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. For his many years of activism, Martinez received the 1998 Equality Award, 1999 Founders Award, 2000 Paul Hunter Award, 2001 Community Activist Award, 2005 Movement Veterans Award, 2006 Champion of Health Award, 2008 Cesar Chavez Award, 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2013 Pendleton Award. La Gente Unida, a nonprofit co-founded by Martinez, received the 2002 Civil Rights Award. The year 2014 marks the 50-year anniversary of his volunteer work in numerous nonprofit situations.

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In Memory of Mickey — The Wildest of the Wild Ones by Donaciano Martinez

Mickey passed away on April 18, 2014, at age 68, due to complications related to a heart condition that worsened over the past several years. Born in Denver, Mickey had been a lifelong resident of Denver. There was cremation and the memorial service was held in May at the home of a family member, who noted that a church was ruled out because the family “never accepted” Mickey’s lifestyle.

I have met several wild people throughout my long life, but Mickey always was the wildest of the wild ones. Although Mickey could not read and write and was legally considered disabled due to partial paralysis in an arm and leg, she had more street sense of anyone I have ever known.

Mickey and I instantly clicked when we first met in Denver in early 1976. Although the term “transgender” was not used in those years, Mickey clearly fit the transgender identity because she always presented herself (through attire and behaviors) as a woman. In some of our many long talks, she told me that she self-identified as female ever since she was an early teenager in the late 1950s and she never had any interest in going through surgery to become a woman.

The Swingers Club

Mickey was a very extrovert person with a delightful sense of humor. We had many good laughs and fun times together. She always jokingly called me “Girleena Garcia” and I always jokingly called her “Cochina” (naughty lady). Early on, she told me that she and her “sister” ran a swingers club in order to supplement the low income Mickey had for many years through the Social Security disability program. Telling me that her so-called “sister” consisted only of a poster-size framed photo prominently displayed on the living room wall, Mickey boasted that the image of her “sister” had brought in big bucks to the swingers club. Through her straight male acquaintance who produced straight porno magazines, Mickey always got free ads to promote the swingers club that was supposed to be located in the upscale Green Mountain residential area west of Denver. Once men responded to the ads by calling Mickey’s telephone number, Mickey claimed to be the “sister” whose photo was in the ads. Eager to meet the “sister” and other women who were part of the so-called swingers club, numerous men paid their “membership fee” by putting cash inside an envelope and depositing it through the mail slot of the home that Mickey rented. When men subsequently called Mickey to inquire about the swingers club meetings that never materialized, Mickey politely told them that “all the girls left town” to become dancers in Las Vegas. Just like that, poof, men’s expectations were dashed along with the cash they had paid.

Upon learning about the imaginary swingers club, I told Mickey to be extremely careful as her club could be targeted by undercover police. Her reply was that police never could do anything to her because she was “not a street hustler.” I reiterated my plea upon telling her that undercover police did not limit their operations to street hustlers. My warnings were most prophetic when Mickey got arrested in 1977 by an undercover police officer, who had targeted Mickey’s swingers club around the same time that a different undercover officer shot and killed a street-hustling drag queen in an alley. The charges were dropped against Mickey when court testimony revealed the Denver Police Department (DPD) had erased portions of the audio tape that captured an undercover police officer’s phone conversation in which Mickey agreed to accept a stolen TV as payment for membership in the swingers club.

The Biggest Haul of All = $1100 Cash

Despite Mickey’s 1977 court case, the 1977 police killing of a street-hustling drag queen, and the second police killing of a street-hustling drag queen one year later in 1978, Mickey moved full steam ahead with the swingers-club scam that brought hundreds of dollars hand-delivered to her doorstep without having to set one foot on the streets of Denver.

In 1979, Mickey was arrested on several felony charges after a DPD undercover officer dropped off $1100 (eleven $100 bills) in an envelope through the mail slot at Mickey’s home. When DPD officers subsequently raided Mickey’s home, they tore the place apart and terrorized her pet monkey upon looking for the marked $100 bills. Facing a lengthy prison sentence if convicted, Mickey was very worried about her future. In open court, DPD audio tapes were played with Mickey’s voice describing in great detail how she would do the nasty with the undercover police officer. Because the police never found the evidence after leaving her rented home in shambles, Mickey was set free after a trial that was publicized in the Denver media. [Mickey told people in later years that she had hidden the $100 bills by tightly rolling them up inside empty lipstick tubes on top of her fancy makeup table, but the police never looked inside the lipstick tubes despite ransacking the drawers of her makeup table.]

After the close call with the 1979 court case, Mickey decided to keep a low profile for a while by abandoning the phony swingers club that always carried with it a big risk because of the large sums of money that were delivered for something that did not exist.

Advent of Telephone-Fantasy Service

In 1980, Mickey started a telephone fantasy service out of her home. She said a lawyer had advised her that the new service was legitimate as long as she only talked nasty and did not accept any cash for her telephone service. Just as she had done for several years with the swingers club, she advertised only in straight porno magazines and all of her clientele were straight men. After a client paid the club membership via money order to Mickey’s P.O. box, a total of ten 30-minute phone calls were allowed. Mickey talked nasty on the phone while the men became aroused and played with their whoppers. The phone fantasy line was among the growing list of “kinky” things that increasing numbers of straight men liked to do. From the perspective of married men, the phone fantasy was a “safe” activity that allowed the men to express whatever they wanted to Mickey. Many similar phone-fantasy services began to crop up all over the country in those years.

Very candid about her phone-fantasy service, Mickey frequently had this to say: “Honey, these straight guys always think they’re talking to a young, blonde and slender woman, but they’re only talking to an older and overweight lady who wants only one thing out of them – their pocketbook.”


Expanding to In-Person Encounters

Mickey had several in-person clients with whom she made contact through her phone-fantasy service. She always prided herself on the fact that she was “not a street hustler” and operated only out of her home. Learning from the 1979 court case, she stayed away from the exchange of cash for doing the nasty. Instead, she always had her clients “pick up a few things” on their way over to Mickey’s place. The requested items generally entailed groceries that she needed. A big fan of top-of-the-line expensive oil-based perfumes for women, she also had clients stop off at expensive department stores to buy her a few perfume bottles on their way to Mickey’s place. Her wish list later expanded to appliances to adorn her kitchen. Almost always, the men obliged and brought whatever she requested. If they showed up empty-handed without the items she requested, she politely asked them to leave.

In 1986 Mickey began having a relationship with a straight man, who was going through a divorce and who had custody of his one-year-old son. Having been raised on a farm in Montana, the well-mannered and handsome guy was naive about life in the city. He had quite an eye-opening introduction to city life when he met Mickey. She took very good care of the baby boy, who always referred to Mickey as “Mom.” The baby’s father worked long hours at menial jobs to support his baby and Mickey, who stopped the phone-fantasy service throughout the four-year stormy relationship that ended when the baby’s biological mother re-entered the picture and was awarded permanent custody of her son.

Hundreds – and I do mean hundreds – of straight men knew where Mickey lived, but that never was a source of concern to Mickey. The public would have been shocked to learn that one of her longtime in-person clients was a very handsome and married conservative politician who had been elected to the Colorado State Legislature.

A Cart Full of Groceries

Although almost all of Mickey’s clients met at her place, there was one occasion in which she and a married man arranged to meet in the parking lot of King Soopers (a/k/a Queen Soopers) at 9th and Downing in the heart of Homo Heights in Denver. Just as she had done with other clients on hundreds of occasions, she asked her married client to “pick up a few things” at King Soopers. Mickey asked me to accompany her in order to lift the grocery bags as they were too heavy for her to lift due to the paralysis in her arm. I was aghast to see the man (who was extremely handsome and very polite) with a grocery cart full of numerous bags of groceries that the man bought for Mickey, who went through each and every bag to make sure all of her requested items (easily a total of $100 or more) were in the bags. Their pre-arranged plan was to leave the King Soopers parking lot and go to a nearby Ramada motel room (Colfax and Marion) paid for in advance by the man. With Mickey and me in her car and the man following behind us in his car, we got to an intersection at which the traffic light turned red just as I drove through the intersection. Although Mickey and I could have easily just kept going since the man was waiting for the red light to change, she insisted that I pull over and wait for the man because he came through with all of the groceries she ordered. After they did the nasty at the motel room, the guy left and Mickey returned to her car that I was driving. Once we got back to her house, I made numerous trips carrying the bags of groceries from the car to the kitchen.


In the Path of a Crazed Bull Elephant In Heat
When I once sought input from my longtime activist friend Betty about Mickey’s very wild lifestyle, Betty wrote:

“Mickey’s line of work is akin to sauntering along in the path of a crazed bull elephant in heat. I admire Mickey’s courage, ingenuity, audacity and her sheer strength of will not to allow anyone to intimidate or threaten her, but I worry about her constantly. Listening to the boys’ fantasies must get horribly old and terribly fast. In comparison to Mickey, the extremely slight exposure I get – at work, in stores, restaurants, streets, wherever – turns my nerves to live electric wires. The boys’ fantasies and their proclivity to violence are as close as a kid glove on a hand. Whether directives from the Pentagon or calls to Mickey’s phone line, the boys’ understanding and masculinity, as defined by them, come across the same. My motto is: gamble safely and only dangerously when it is an absolute necessity. I fully recognize the necessity for Mickey’s gamble every time she answers the telephone or the doorbell, but my blood turns to ice every time I hear a newscast or catch a headline in a newspaper. I also know Mickey is cognizant of the explosive possibilities of every encounter – not just her clientele, but the moralists, the cops, and the staked-out territory she might tread on.”

Fortunately, throughout her many years of life on the wild side, Mickey never was put in harm’s way by what Betty appropriately called the “crazed bull elephant in heat.”

A Book about Mickey’s Wild Life

Mickey periodically asked me to seriously consider writing a book about her wild life. Due to being busy in other aspects of my life, I never had time to follow up on her suggestion. Although the many episodes of her life would have been more than enough material for a book, we always thought that people would find the tales so outrageous and hard to believe she really went through it all. When I once sought input from my longtime activist friend Betty about the prospect of a book, Betty wrote:

“There is a market for the book. A number of people (who started out reading it because it was banned from California to Italy) would learn the truth about the use and abuse of power and by whom. The sensitive and the intelligent, intrigued by natural curiosity, would be educated. Mickey could retire from hustling.”

Although the book never will be pursued by me, this memorial piece should serve as a synopsis of the life of Mickey as the wildest of the wild ones.

© 30 April 2014

About the Author

Since 1964 Donaciano Martinez has been an activist in peace and social justice movements in Colorado. His family was part of a big migration of Mexican Americans from northern New Mexico to Colorado Springs in the 1940s. He lived in Colorado Springs until 1975 and then moved to Denver, where he still resides. He was among 20 people arrested and jailed in Colorado Springs during a 1972 protest in support of the United Farm Workers union that was co-founded by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. For his many years of activism, Martinez received the 1998 Equality Award, 1999 Founders Award, 2000 Paul Hunter Award, 2001 Community Activist Award, 2005 Movement Veterans Award, 2006 Champion of Health Award, 2008 Cesar Chavez Award, 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2013 Pendleton Award. La Gente Unida, a nonprofit co-founded by Martinez, received the 2002 Civil Rights Award. The year 2014 marks the 50-year anniversary of his volunteer work in numerous nonprofit situations.


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Fondly Remembering Bernice by Donaciano Martinez

In a recent email message addressed as “Hello Manuelita” (my alias in Colorado’s underground gay subculture in the late 1950s and 1960s), I was notified that my friend Bernice passed away on January 13 from complications of high blood pressure following one or more strokes that caused extreme brain pressure for which doctors tried to relieve through surgery.

When I first met Bernice (alias in the gay underground subculture) in Colorado Springs in the 1960s, he was a teenager who had dropped out of high school and was studying to get his cosmetologist license from a beauty school that was located in the same block as the Chicano bar where my mother always worked ever since I was a little boy. Because the bar and beauty school were in the same block in downtown Colorado Springs, my mother and Bernice became acquainted long before I met Bernice. Upon talking to me in Spanish about him, my mother always referred to him as “Juanito” (little John) for his real name John.

After Bernice and I finally met, we immediately knew through our gay radar that both of us were gay. An effeminate gay man, Bernice had a great sense of humor and was fun to be around. Oh, my goodness, he could carry on during our many all-night social gatherings. The famous and outrageous drag queen Divine couldn’t hold a candle to the wit that Bernice had upon carrying on and on – everything from “Ooh La La” to “muchas meat” to refer to well-endowed men with whom he did the nasty. Shortly after I introduced him to several gay men in the underground subculture, he and my longtime friend Lolita (alias for Ricardo) became lovers. Because Bernice was estranged from his family and needed a place to stay, he stayed at my mother’s place for a while before moving in to a bigger house owned by Opal and her gay son Jerry.

My Chicano gay friends and I referred to him as “La Bernice” whenever we socialized. After getting his cosmetologist license, he got jobs in that profession at various beauty shops around town. My longtime Chicano gay friend Lorena (alias for Lorenzo), Bernice and I had a “night job” working for about one year as performers at a straight bar (of all places) that was patronized predominantly by straight military men from Fort Carson in Colorado Springs. Because drag was against the law in those days in the 1960s, we had to be extremely careful to conceal our male identities on stage and off stage. I was the choreographer of the many dance routines that Bernice, Lorena and I performed on stage at that straight bar located in the city’s extra-conservative district known as Ivywild adjacent to the super-wealthy district of Broadmoor. Yeah, I know, it was quite daring for us to do something outrageous right in the belly of the beast.

Because our performances at the aforementioned straight bar were risky enough, I was downright aghast when Bernice informed me that he was hired to perform as part of a chorus line of real-women dancers at the Purple Cow Bar (PCB) that was located at the entrance to the military base at Fort Carson. In addition to his day job as a “hair fairy” (gay parlance for cosmetologist), he worked his night job at PCB for over a year. Because he was so convincing as his female persona, his male identity never once was uncovered throughout the entire time he worked at that super-straight PCB.

Bernice is the one who introduced me to the military police officer with whom I had a very clandestine three-year-long relationship while I was a radical activist in several movements for social change. Because that was the era in which the U.S. military had a strict anti-gay policy, my partner’s position as a police officer required him to take special precautions while living with a radical activist who opposed the military draft and the U.S. war in Vietnam. We were keenly aware that any slip-up about our gay relationship would have resulted in my partner getting a dishonorable discharge and facing time in the stockade (military parlance for jail).

When Bernice moved away from Colorado Springs to the San Francisco Bay Area and later relocated to a peaceful rural area on the island of Maui in Hawaii, he always made an effort to keep in touch with me. He was a loyal friend to me and others who knew him down through the years. In addition to letters and cards several times a year, he also sent me wall calendars that were handmade by him. One year, he sent me a handmade colorful trinket that still hangs on the wall in my bedroom.

“If it wasn’t for John Henson, I don’t know what I would do,” wrote Bernice in letters to me about several health challenges he had the last few years of his life. Bernice always told me how he deeply appreciated the many efforts that John Henson (formerly of Colorado Springs in the 1960s, he has been a California resident for many years) made to fly to Maui in order to assist Bernice during periods of poor health. Their longtime friendship spanned six decades.

“After all he has been through, it is surprising that blood pressure was his downfall,” wrote John Henson in his “Hello Manuelita” email letter to let me know about the death of our beloved Bernice. “He will be missed,” added Henson upon expressing a sentiment that captures my own.

© 29 January 2014   


About the Author



Since 1964 Donaciano Martinez has been an activist in peace
and social justice movements in Colorado. His family was part of a big
migration of Mexican Americans from northern New Mexico to Colorado Springs in
the 1940s. He lived in Colorado Springs until 1975 and then moved to Denver,
where he still resides. He was among 20 people arrested and jailed in Colorado
Springs during a 1972 protest in support of the United Farm Workers union that
was co-founded by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. For his many years of
activism, Martinez received the 1998 Equality Award, 1999 Founders Award, 2000
Paul Hunter Award, 2001 Community Activist Award, 2005 Movement Veterans Award,
2006 Champion of Health Award, 2008 Cesar Chavez Award, 2013 Lifetime
Achievement Award, and the 2013 Pendleton Award. La Gente Unida, a nonprofit co-founded by Martinez, received the
2002 Civil Rights Award. The year 2014 marks the 50-year anniversary of his
volunteer work in numerous nonprofit situations.