This is the 40th installment of “Old Pueblo Abuelo,” a thought on positive things happening in the Old Pueblo from a sometimes cranky and often times humorous grandfather actually born in Tucson and writing from my desk in Tucson, the Old Pueblo.
If you are lucky enough to live a long life, there comes a point where you become the caregiver for your parents until, one day, you feel their heart beat one last time and you hear their last breath, just like they felt your heart pound for the first time and heard your first cry. Life doesn’t always work out that way for many reasons because life simply doesn’t always work.
There also comes a point where you say goodbye to friends your parents held dear, ones you’ve known since you were a child. Children always think their parents are old until the child reaches a certain age and then you realize the parents were actually young all along. My father passed away in 2010 and it was a rich life, full of sacrifice for others and he set a template for those who followed. His friend, the late Raúl Grijalva, said upon my father’s death that he showed the Hispanic community leadership how to be “unapologetic” in who they are. Amen.
My father lived in the world of politics but the same can be said of any parent. Your parents’ friends become part of you and you realize that more as time goes by.
My father died from cancer at the young age of 76 and Grijalva passed away at the age of 77 some 15 years later. One generation to the next. My father told me many things in his final months and one was to try not to make lists of people because there is always a danger of missing someone, which makes the list useless. So, I know I will miss some of his colleagues, friends and contemporaries, but the list includes giants such as Mo Udall, Maclovio Barraza, Cesar Chavez, Ernesto Galarza, Gracelia Gil Olivares, Pepe Baron, Eugene Benton, Rudy Garcia and now, Ernesto Portillo.
“Mr. Portillo,” as we called him, was a towering figure, not just in stature, but in our community. My father met Mr. Portillo in 1954 and they became steady friends. They were both members of the Tucson Historical Committee in the early 1970s, where they worked with Benton and Father Kieran McCarty to keep the name “Carrillo” attached to the Fremont House when the Arizona Historical Society considered removing it, and their spouses, Elsa (my mother) and Julieta, served together with the League of Mexican American Women. I later worked with Julieta at the Arizona Daily Star in the mid-1980s when I was getting my master’s degree.
Mr. Portillo didn’t just offer his shoulders for the coming generations to stand on, he is part of the bedrock, the caliche, that held our legs steady as we ventured out to make our voices heard. He gave many of those struggling voices a chance as part of his “Radio Fiesta” era. His decades of hosting various radio talk and music shows rivals anything we have heard in the Old Pueblo.
So, thank you Mr. Portillo. I hope the next generation behind me (that happens to include a whole lot of leaders), who benefited from your life, understands what came before and what is expected of them now. Rest now.
The family planned a rosary prayer at 9:30 a.m., followed by a funeral mass at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 15, at St. Augustine Cathedral on South Stone Avenue.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations in Portillo’s name be made to the Casa Maria Soup Kitchen in South Tucson or the East Santa Cruz Community Food Bank in Patagonia.
MORE ON MR. PORTILLO HERE AND HERE.
LINK: MORE OLD PUEBLO ABUELO HERE
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