Listen to Dr. Hector state his beliefs and talk about the movement.
I think this is the most important thing that has happened to the Mexican-American people -that we now feel that we belong to this country. That this is truly our "country" and we may keep our pride and our dignity. That we are Mexican in origin and in blood, but we also now have the feeling that we are accepted as Americans also! DR. HECTOR P. GARCIA
Listen to a 1981 audio interview from the radio program the Mexican American Experience in which Dr. Hector gives a response to the "states' rights" speech by then President Ronald Reagan. This interview is available from the archives of Center for Mexican American Studies, Department of History, The Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Texas Austin.
Transcript
INTERVIEWEE: HECTOR GARCIA
INTERVIEWER: DAVID G. MC COMB
July 9, 1969
MCCOMB: Let me identify the tape first of all. This is an interview with Dr. Hector Garcia. I'm in his office in Corpus Christi, Texas, at 1315 Bright Street. The date is July 9, 1969, and my name is David McComb.
Now you gave me this copy of the GI Forum program of the 21st Annual Founders' Day Banquet which has a capsule biography of you here, which I will place into the record so that anybody using this tape will have the opportunity to use this. There are several points about this that I'd like to ask you about. In the first place it says you were born in Mexico, and I'd like to know when you came to the United States.
GARCIA: Well, Mr. McComb, I came to the United States when I was only about three and a half to four years old. I was not quite four and I was a little bit over three, so I would say approximately four years old.