EL PASO, Texas — Tijerina, a major force in the radical Chicano movement, died Monday of natural causes.
Tijerina, who had been battling a number of illnesses, including a heart condition, had to use a wheelchair in recent years but still occasionally gave speeches.
While admired by some students, his activism was steeped in violence and his legacy remained controversial. He also drew criticism for his treatment of women and comments largely viewed as anti-Semitic.
Reies Lopez Tijerina led a struggle in the 1960s and 1970s to restore New Mexican land grants to the descendants of their Spanish colonial and Mexican owners.
As a vocal spokesman for the rights of Hispanics and Mexican Americans, he became a major figure of the early Chicano Movement(although he prefered “Indohispano” as a name for his people).
As an activist, he worked in community education and organization, media relations, and land reclamations. He became famous and infamous internationally for his 1967 armed raid on the Tierra Amarilla courthouse. He was born in Falls City, Texas.
After several years as a pastor starting in 1950 and later as an itinerant preacher, in 1956 Tijerina and 17 families of his followers sought to purchase land in Texas on which to create their version of the Kingdom of God.
Finding Texas land too expensive, they opted for 160 acres (647,497 square meters) in the Southern Arizona desert, which they bought with $1,400 in pooled funds. Situatued just north of the Papago Tohono O’odham Indian reservation, the land was secluded and undeveloped, the perfect conditions for a community seeking to remove itself from the “vanity and corruption” of the cities.
They especially sought to protect their children from the influence of public schooling.
