Juana Beatriz Gutierrez, who helped make East LA mothers a political force, dies at 93

Juana Beatriz Gutierrez, a Boyle Heights political organizer, Spanish-speaking immigrant and mother of nine children, has died.

In the mid 1980s, plans were underway for the construction in East L.A. of a prison, an oil pipeline, as well as a toxic waste incinerator in nearby Vernon.

A group of homemakers concerned about the effects of the projects on their families organized The Mothers of East L.A.

“These moms were a group of grass roots mujeres who were just sick and tired of seeing what was happening in the community,” said Theresa Montaño, a professor of Chicana/o Studies at California State University, Northridge of the women who founded the Mothers of East L.A. in the 1980s.

The mothers began to lodge their loud opposition to those projects to election officials and agency leaders. And Gutierrez was front and center.

“I think what always drove her was … she was protective of her family. She always put that out there that no matter what, I'm going to protect my children and by extension community,” said her son, Abel Gutierrez, the youngest of her children.

He said his mother died on Monday in Los Angeles of age-related complications. She was 93.

"Juana was a fearless advocate for environmental justice and a powerful voice for East Los Angeles,” said California state Sen. María Elena Durazo in an email. “Her tireless efforts to protect her community from pollution and ensure a healthy environment for all will leave a lasting legacy. We have lost a champion, but her spirit and work will continue to inspire us."

Gutierrez’s death is a reminder of a key moment in the late 20th century when residents of L.A. neighborhoods around Boyle Heights successfully opposed large projects that were set to bring upheaval to their communities. The success of Mothers of East L.A. against such projects emboldened later generations of environmental justice activists.

“[I cannot] say enough about the strength and wisdom of Juana,” said Mary Pardo, a professor emerita at Cal State Northridge, via email.

Pardo, who has written extensively about Gutierrez and the group, said Gutierrez was the last living co-founder of Mothers of East L.A.

Turning back harmful projects

The Interstate Highway Act of 1956 led to the displacement of many families in and around Boyle Heights where several major freeways intersected. Opponents were not able to stop construction in the 1960s.

A generation later, the Mothers of East L.A. organized protests and lobbied elected officials to kill the above-ground oil pipeline. That project was scrapped in 1987.

In 1990, the group’s efforts led the company that sought to build a toxic waste incinerator in Vernon to withdraw its plans. And opposition from the Mothers of East L.A. defeated the prison proposal in 1992.

An archived postcard from the Mothers of East L.A. puts the group's founding date as 1985, although other records put the group's formal organization in 1986.

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Courtesy Cal State Northridge

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“Those were my formative years,” said Abel Gutierrez.

He remembered that as a teen he’d arrive home from school and his mother would tell him to put on comfortable shoes because they were all going to a protest.

“For me personally, being active, doing these things, being involved, being able to speak truth to power and not being afraid or cowering away from ‘authority,’ was just the way we were,” he said.

The group argued to the public and policymakers that the prison, the pipeline and the incinerator, he said, were projects the community did not need and that would ultimately harm the health and safety of residents.

Abel Gutierrez is now a high school math teacher, motivated in large part by his mother’s belief that helping family members and others reach educational goals is a high calling.

Inspiring a new generation

Gutierrez is survived by her nine children, 26 grandchildren, and 13 great grandchildren.

“One of my first vivid memories was actually being in a stroller, being pushed across one of the bridges that goes from Boyle Heights into downtown L.A.,” said mark! Lopez, Gutierrez’s grandson. “It was a protest march and my grandma was one of the leaders that organized the march.”

He spent a lot of time at his grandmother’s house while his parents worked and remembers visits by elected officials, such as L.A. Councilmember Richard Alatorre.

Juana Beatriz Gutierrez co-founded Mothers of East L.A.

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Courtesy Gutierrez family

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“They would meet with her at her dining room table or in her living room and it always struck me because they would come to ask for her support,” he said, adding that sometimes she would scold them if she didn’t agree with their positions on a particular issue.

His grandmother’s reputation as an activist was also well known among Boyle Heights residents.

“ I remember playing at the park across the street from her house; it was a bunch of kids and I don't know how it got started, but one of them started bragging about how their uncle was a lawyer,” he said.

And then he told them his grandmother was Juana Gutierrez.

“And they were like, ‘What? Are you serious? No way!’ We were little kids, they knew who she was obviously from the neighborhood and probably saw her on the news,” Lopez said.

That legacy continued in her children.

In the 1990s, Gutierrez’s daughter, Elsa Lopez, did administrative work for the Mothers of East L.A. while in her 20s.

Juana Beatriz Gutierrez (left) and her husband, Ricardo Jesus Gutierrez, moved to L.A. after he joined the U.S. Marine Corps in the 1950s.

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Courtesy Gutierrez family

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“One of the things my mom did was was help bring the Audubon Center to Deb's Park,” mark! Lopez said. “Originally, the Audubon Society was looking at the west side to establish a center, and my mom was like, they already got a lot of stuff over there.”

His mother served as the center’s first director.

And he himself is an environmental justice leader with the  East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice. He’s proud of his and his organization’s work to shut down the battery recycling operation of Exide Technologies.

“My mom and my grandma toured the Exide facility” years before it was shut down, mark! Lopez said, and the group said the plant’s presence in the community was a danger to residents.

Juana Beatriz Gutierrez was born in Sombrerete, Zacatecas in north-central Mexico. When she was a teenager, she moved to the El Paso area, where she met her future husband, Ricardo Jesus Gutierrez. He would later join the U.S. Marine Corps and the couple moved to L.A. after his service during the Korean War.

She was a homemaker and very active in her parish, Santa Isabel Catholic Church.

A funeral mass for Juana Beatriz Gutierrez is planned for May 17 at Santa Isabel Catholic Church in Boyle Heights.