Celia Martinez - Biography
Celia Martinez was born Celia Rivera, in San Elizario, Texas near El Paso in the 1920s. Her family came from New Mexico and Texas, they were not Mexican immigrants. Her father owned a grocery store and ranched in Alamo Alto, Texas.
She came to Cucamonga with her father, two brothers and four sisters in 1932, during the Depression. There was no work in Texas. Two of her sisters were already married with children. All the families lived together in wooden framed houses in Cucamonga. They worked in the orchards and vineyards and lived in Northtown.
Celia never worked in agriculture, she started at Cucamonga Elementary School, and lived with her sisters on Main Street until she married at age 16. Initially she lived with her dad and brother, but they returned to Texas so she moved in with her sisters.
Some of the women of Northtown worked packing oranges, lemons, and peaches, and they also canned chilies and tomatoes across the street on Main Street. The canneries and the packinghouses faced the street on one side and the train tracks on the other.
She graduated from 8th grade in 1933, and started 9th grade at Chaffey High School in 1934, unlike most of the other kids in the neighborhood. She married at 16 years of age, without finishing high school. She and her husband settled into Northtown, then he got a one-year job in Richmond, California, during the war. She had one boy, born in 1936. Her husband never went to war. After the war, he became an agricultural truck hauler, and then he opened a restaurant/bar, Tiger Café on 25th Street. He built a house next to it, so they could move from Northtown.
She and her husband belonged to La Sociedad Progressista Mexicano, Logia 19, but she had to leave for beneficiary reasons. She then formed La Sociedad Protectora Feminil in 1954. In the 1960s she helped form the Northtown Lighting District to install lights in the neighborhood. She then worked by herself to install a sewer line in Northtown through a petition drive. She also participated on the Northtown Neighborhood Steering Committee and the San Bernadino County Citizen Participation Advisory Committee.
She decided to go back to school in the 1970s, after her child had grown. She finished her high school degree at Chaffey High School, went on to graduate from Chaffey Junior College, and transferred to University of La Verne. She received a B.A. majoring in Spanish and Social Sciences, and then an M.A. in Bilingual Education. She organized Las Guadalupanas, to commemorate the Virgin of Guadalupe. She also taught Catechism for five years.
She then worked for the Council on Aging for five years, as a volunteer area coordinator. It was through this organization that she further developed her community organizing skills. Her husband did not want her to work for pay, but she could go to school and volunteer. She then formed the Community Participation Committee with Nacho Gracia, this effort turned into the Northtown Housing Development Corporation. She and the Corporation board worked for city incorporation of Rancho Cucamonga believing it to be a good thing for Northtown.
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