Regina Romero

Regina Romero: Sure. Uh, well, I was the only one in my family that was born in Yuma, Arizona. I have, I'm the youngest of six, and, um, my sisters and brother, because we're five sisters and a brother. My four sisters and brother were all born in San Luis, Rio Colorado, Sonora. Um, and my dad actually, um, immigrated and, and to... Well, he's been in, you know, moving, moving back and forth from Sonora to Arizona to California since he was 16. He got the tail end of the Bracero program. And so he was 16 when he started coming to the United States to work. And so that happened for many, many years. He would always maintain his ties to Sonora. Um, and met my mom in San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, even though they're from towns up in the Sierra of Sonora that are like five minutes from each other.[laughs] Um, so but they actually met, fell in love in San Luis Rio Colorado, married in San Luis, had a home in San Luis, and my dad would back and forth, move around, migrate according to where the job was. And, um, at a certain point, my parents decided that they wanted to move the entire family to the US side of the border. And that's when they moved, um, to Somerton, Arizona, Yuma area. And my mom had me in Yuma, but we stayed there back, moving back and forth from San Luis Rio Colorado to Yuma in terms of like doing our business right, doing our and visiting family on the other side of the border.

Regina Romero: Well, um. I didn't feel in Tucson when I first got to Tucson, I didn't feel like it was my community. Um, because I came to the U of A, like, I knew I needed to get out of Yuma to study. So I first got here, especially landing at the U of A that was so unfriendly at that time. Uh, but, I mean, they were trying to, they're really trying to make students like me feel a little better. Um, but, I mean, they weren't as good as they are now. Um, and there's still room for improvement, by the way. But, um, but so I landed at the U of A, and it was very I felt like I wasn't prepared to be there. And, um, so it was mostly like my family. That's where I started it, right? Um, and then we had some, you know, some cousins, some friends that were already here in Tucson. And that's how it started. Um, just family. When we moved out of the two bedroom, one bath apartment, we landed, we found a little casita on 12th Avenue and Pennsylvania. And yeah, it was a home. And so we all moved there, and it was a three bedroom, one bath, but it was like a it was a neighborhood. And, you know, it was a community there. And neighbors that my mom could talk to and, um, made them feel welcome. And it was still family, very family centered. And, uh, even the going out, you know, and it was all family. Uh, and then, uh, my siblings started getting involved with other, with their jobs and, uh, and brought in other people to the picture. And, uh, one of my sisters, Georgina, who was, by the way, the one, the first one that came to Tucson, she was the first one that came to Tucson alone. And, um, she was dating. And when I was here, when I first got here, she was already, like, very seriously dating with, uh, you know, her now husband from Nogales. And so we would go to Nogales and go to the... Try and live that still connect with the, uh, Sonora, Arizona side. So we would go to Sonora and, uh, and it worked for me because I was underage and I couldn't go into places in here. So we still had that both Sonora/ Arizona type of living. Um, and but it wasn't until, um, I, uh, I took a Chicano history class at Pima that it really it really woke me up and, uh, made me pay attention to this community, Tucson, as my community. And, uh, well, my dad and my mom always have been very, uh, uh, aware and involved, not involved in terms of voting because they couldn't vote on this side of the border. But even in the the Mexican politics that US politics that my dad and, you know, them being influenced by the United Farm Workers and then my dad, especially being involved with the union and having to vote for the union and, you know, so they were very aware, especially my dad, very, very aware, loving politics like international politics, Mexican politics, and, you know, especially in Latin America and how those things worked and, um, politics here through the eyes of the Union. Uh, so he always talked.I remember when I was growing up, uh, and my tias and my dad and my tios would get together, they would start talking about Mexican politics, and the biggest arguments would erupt. And I was like, oh, but I grew up listening to, like, how passionate they were about the political process. So it was always there. My when I turned 18 and I turned 18 here in Tucson, uh, that summer that I came in September, I turned 18 and I registered to vote. And my dad was like adamant. They I grew up hearing like, you're the US citizen. You're the one that's going to represent us. You're the one that has special rights that others don't. You're the one... That you know. So they really inculcated in me that it was my responsibility to because I was a US citizen, that I needed to be very aware of that and that that it was a good thing for me to be a US citizen. So as I was growing up, my dad always said, like, you're going to register to vote as soon as you turn 18 and like you're going to represent all of us. And when I registered to vote, he was like, you need to register Democrat. You just can't not take a side.[laughs] And so I did. And but but it was like later that I took, um, uh, Chicano history class. That really woke me up to like, okay, I need to start paying attention to this, and I need to do something here in my new community. Um, because with the Chicano history class, what that did was really review, like, you know, the history of our, our history here in these lands. And, um, to really open my eyes to, like, feel proud of my history in this land. Like, I'm not a alien, you know, I'm not new to these lands. I belong here. And, uh. That's when I decided, like, I want to get involved.

M. Tellez: Amazing.

Regina Romero: I want to get involved. And and I thought, like, I should get involved with registering people to vote because, like, people don't vote. Like people that look like me don't vote. Women don't vote. Like, in order to change policy, we need to we need to vote. So I started volunteering for voter registration drives and, um, and then I met a person that was involved in politics here locally and that invited me to go to a campaign. That was in 1995.

Regina Romero: I got myself involved and but what I really loved was what I was doing at Pima County, like the work that I was doing with young people, putting them to work, especially low income kids. Uh, it was so satisfying to me, the work that I was doing as a volunteer for campaigns, different campaigns and people that I thought, you know, would make a difference in terms of policy making. That was my real passion. And, um, and then, you know, Raul decided to run for Congress in 2002.

Regina Romero: Um, and I really got myself like, I would be at the headquarters seven days a week and canvass and call people and do fundraisers and did all kinds of stuff, and that... We started getting a group of women involved, like, we knew that women move households. And so we said, we need to get to women and we need to make sure that they're registered to vote. And we need to make sure that they're giving money because they have to feel a buy in to the candidate. And so we would do fundraisers and, uh, even $10, you know, you could give whatever, you can just give $10 or give $5 or whatever you can afford, because we knew that would be a buy in to the candidate. And then we would ask those same women to ask ten people in their family or other friends, other neighbors to commit to voting for Raul and giving some money. And we would have activities. And, you know, it was a really, really intense, um, effort to get Congressman Grijalva elected. And we were on a high when he did get elected. It was a long campaign. But after that campaign, we were like, this is working like we should keep this going. Like this women thing is important. And so we decided to create, um, an organization and we called it Las Adelitas. And, uh, it was Isabel Garcia was like, we should call ourselves like Las Adelitas because, you know, they're revolutionaries and they fought alongside men, not be not behind them, not for them.

Regina Romero: They fought with them.

Regina Romero: And we said, okay, we're going to do it.

M. Tellez: Wow.

Regina Romero: And it was a rough and hard campaign, but, uh, we had a really good strategy. I had a great team. I had great support, good endorsements. We worked really, really hard. The primary was the race because this is a Democratic town. And so I had a state legislator and another woman running and, um, we did what we know how to do best, which was like door to door. We attacked the city and we're like, this is what we're going to focus. We put a strategy together. And I mean, in a three way race, I got 51% of the vote. So we won the primary in 2019. We made history. I didn't really understand how historic it was. I really in my mind when I started the campaign, we would say like, we would become the first woman and, you know, only second Mexican American mayor in the history of the city of Tucson. But when we won and I started seeing, like, Univision National, Univision announcing that, you know, Tucson had a Latina mayor and John Leguizamo, like, tweeted about me and, you know, did an Instagram thing. And I had the, I had a lot of support.