Below are the life stories of Edward & Lucille Roybal

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LA Times Article | LainoLA.com

Congressman Edward R. Roybal was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1916. In 1922, his father, Baudilio Roybal, a railroad worker on strike, sought new employment. Together with his father and mother, Eloisa Tafoya Roybal, Ed Roybal and his five siblings traveled to and settled in Boyle Heights in East Los Angeles.

Ed Roybal attended Boyle Heights schools, Euclid Avenue Elementary and Hollenbeck Junior High. He graduated from Roosevelt High School where he met his life-long partner, Lucille Beserra Roybal. They married in 1940 during which time Ed attended UCLA before going into the army during World War II. After the war ended, he returned to Los Angeles and became the Director of Health Education for the Los Angeles County Tuberculosis and Health Association.

His public career is marked with a long and impressive list of “first time” accomplishments.

He was an active leader in developing community, state, and national social and civic organizations such as the Community Services Organization and the Mexican American Political Association.

In 1949, Mr. Roybal was the first Latino elected to the Los Angeles City Council since 1887. He served there as President Pro-Tempore and was Chairman of the Health Committee. He was a champion for civil rights and equal justice and was a vociferous critic of the excesses of the House Un-American Activities Committee. He served as a Los Angeles City Council Member until 1962 when he became the first Latino from California elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

In the U.S. House of Representatives, Congressman Roybal established a very strong reputation as a civil rights leader and advocate for the rights of those not able to speak for themselves. Mr. Roybal served on the prestigious Appropriations Committee and as the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service and General Government, was one of the "thirteen cardinals" of the House of Representatives. He was a ranking member on the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee. His post on the Appropriations Committee enabled Congressman to work for federal funding for health, education, community health programs and bilingual education. His vision and ability to analyze problem situations prompted him to fight and obtain, in 1982, the first ever funding specifically dedicated to research on AIDS. He was also a pioneer and the first to provide funding for Alzheimer's Disease.

In 1999, in recognition of Congressman Roybal’s leadership and outstanding contribution to health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) named their headquarters campus in Atlanta, Georgia in his honor. In addition, in 2000, the CDC named their new state-of the-art laboratory The Edward R. Roybal Laboratory Building in order to demonstrate its appreciation of Mr. Roybal’s successful efforts in modernizing its buildings and laboratory capacity. The Roybal laboratory suites are designed to operate at bio-safety levels 2,3,and enhanced 3 and proved to be critical in CDC’s ability to respond to bio-terrorism threats after September 11, 2002.

His support for funding for education programs and specifically bilingual education was unrelenting. In 1967, Ed Roybal authored the first bilingual education bill to provide local school districts assistance with special-bilingual teaching programs. In the 93rd Congress, Roybal introduced legislation to provide bilingual proceedings in courts. In addition to his support of health and education, Mr. Roybal was also an active defender of consumer rights. His work on immigration legislation is legendary. His life-long career voting record is a reflection of his being a staunch civil libertarian.

Mr. Roybal was a major catalyst in the establishment of the House Select Committee on Aging and served as its chairman from 1983 to 1993. Congressman Roybal was widely recognized as a national leader in securing adequate health care and housing for older persons and was one of the first legislators to introduce legislation to establish a national health plan for the United States.

Congressman Roybal was the founder of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and served as both the President and Treasurer. He was also the founder of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO).

At a White House Ceremony on January 2001, President Bill Clinton presented the Presidential Citizens Medal, the Nation’s highest civilian award, to Mr. Roybal for his illustrious and exemplary public service for his country.

After retirement in 1993, Mr. Roybal served as Chairman Emeritus of the Board of the Edward R. Roybal Foundation, dedicated to providing scholarships to deserving students to attend college in the field of public heath, and the Edward R. Roybal Institute of Applied Gerontology now housed at the University of Southern California.

Congressman Roybal credits his many accomplishments to the enduring love and support of his life-long partner of 65 years, Lucille Beserra Roybal. He lived the balance of his life in Southern California with his wife Lucille. He passed away, October 24, 2005.





Lucille Beserra Roybal was born on January 5, 1917 in Los Angeles, California, to Manuel Albert Beserra, and Prudenciana Moreno Beserra. She was the third child of four siblings and was raised in Boyle Heights, in East Los Angeles.

Her father was a house painter and her mother a homemaker. Both had a strong value for education and encouraged their children to excel in school. They also taught their children the value for justice and fairness as was manifested by a story Mrs. Lucille Roybal would tell to her children.

When Lucille Beserra was in Junior High, she and her older sister, Hortencia, went to Orange County to visit some relatives. While walking through a park, they decided to stop and sit on the grass. A policeman approached them and told them they had to move because the “grassy” area was not for Mexicans. He pointed to a mound of dirt and said that was the Mexican area. Much to the dismay of the police officer, Lucille and her sister, with no adults for support, refused to move, and he eventually left leaving them sitting on the grass. There was no way they could have known, at that time, that there would not have been serious consequences. There was also no way Lucille could have known, that the courage that she and her sister showed that day, was a preparation for her adult life, where she would be asked, time and time again, to reach for that courage, to meet the challenges of fairness and justice on a much larger scale.

The Beserra and Roybal families were from the same community of Boyle Heights. Lucille Beserra was a friend of Mercedes Roybal, younger sister of Edward Roybal. But it wasn’t until Lucille was a high school student at Roosevelt High that she really got to know Edward Roybal who was the President of the Spanish club of which she was a member.

After her graduation from high school, Lucille Beserra attended a year of Business College. It was during this time that she began to date Edward Roybal, and they were married, September of 1940.

Edward and Lucille Roybal had three children, Lucille born in 1941, Lillian born in 1943, and Edward Jr. born in 1951.

When Ed Roybal was in the U. S. Military during WWII, Lucille worked as a bi-lingual secretary for a construction company. Upon his return, as with most veterans and their families, the Roybals tried to get back to a “normal” life.

But the neglect by officials to their community, the discrimination, the police brutality, were constant reminders of the prevailing socio-economic injustices of that time, and, she and her husband, Edward Roybal, became involved in community activism.

In 1948 Lucille Beserra Roybal and Edward Roybal were two of the founding members of the Community Service Organization. It was through this organization that Mrs. Roybal became one of the first Latina registrar of voters in her area. She and other community people launched a door-to- door registration drive that registered record numbers in their community.

In 1949 Edward Roybal ran for a second time and won a seat on the Los Angeles City council. It was Mrs. Roybal who headed the registration drive, managed the campaign headquarters, and often organized fundraisers for the Roybal campaign.

Her involvement in the community continued as she volunteered in outreach organizations such as the Well Baby Clinic, public schools, local churches, and countless gatherings in her home for several community causes. This type of involvement continued for decades until Edward Roybal’s retirement from Congress in 1993.

In 1993 and 1996, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute and MANA, A National Latina Organization, respectively awarded Mrs. Roybal their highest award in recognition of her tireless work in the Hispanic Community of Los Angeles and throughout the Nation.

Throughout Edward Roybal’s fifty-five years of public service, he never failed to credit his wife Lucille for her steadfast devotion to him, her family, her community, and the nation. Congressman Edward Roybal passed away October 24, 2005. They were married sixty-five years.