Jovita Idar Vivero (September 7, 1885 – June 15, 1946) was an American journalist, teacher, political activist, and civil rights worker who championed the cause of Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants. Against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution, which lasted a decade from 1910 through 1920, she worked for a series of newspapers, using her writing to work towards making a meaningful and effective change. She began her career in journalism at La Crónica, her father's newspaper in Laredo, Texas, her hometown.
While working as a journalist, she became the president of the newly established League of Mexican Women—La Liga Femenil Mexicanista—in October 1911, an organization with a focus on offering free education to Mexican children in Laredo. She was also active in the Primer Congreso Mexicanista, an organization that brought Mexican-Americans together to discuss issues such as their lack of access to adequate education and economic resources.
Idar was honored on an American Women quarter in 2023.
Early life
Jovita Idar was born in Laredo, Texas, in 1885. She was one of eight children of Jovita and Nicasio Idar who strove to advance the civil rights of Mexican-Americans. The Idar family were part of the gente decente, who had better access to good education and opportunities than many méxico-tejano families had. All eight Idar children grew up in an atmosphere where rights and responsibilities and the underprivileged circumstances of the Chicano community were consistently discussed. In the book Marching to a Different Drummer, Robin Kadison Berson explains that "Growing up, Jovita was an imaginative, spirited girl; eager student, she won prizes for her poetry and enjoyed reciting before an audience."
Education and teaching
Idar earned her teaching certificate in 1903 from the Holding Institute in Laredo. She taught in a school in Los Ojuelos, located approximately 40 miles east of Laredo. The reality of her first years teaching was frustrating, "There were never enough textbooks for her pupils or enough paper, pens or pencils; if all her students came to class, there were not enough chairs or desks for them." The schooling for Chicano students was inadequate. Chicanos paid taxes to support decent schooling for their children yet they were denied entry to schools. Idar realized that her teaching efforts were making little impact on student lives due to the ill-equipped segregated schools.
Advocacy for social issues
Against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution, which lasted a decade from 1910 through 1920, Idar turned from teaching to journalism as a means of working towards making a meaningful and effective change. She returned to Laredo, Texas, where she began to work alongside two of her brothers, Eduardo and Clemente Idar, for her father's newspaper, La Crónica ("The Chronicle"). Their father, Nicasio Idar, was a strong and proud man, who advocated for civil rights and social justice for Mexican-Americans. He edited and published La Crónica, which became a major voice for Mexican and Tejano rights. Jovita wrote articles under a pseudonym, exposing the poor living-conditions of Mexican-American workers and supported the Revolution.
In 1910 La Crónica included articles on news, current events, biographical and historical essays that concerned Mexican Americans, literary essays and poetry, and commentary. It focused attention on the serious social and economic inequities experienced by Mexican Americans in Texas, in particular, and in the U.S., in general. It featured "stories on educational and social discrimination against Mexican Americans, poor economic conditions, decreasing use of the Spanish language, the loss of Mexican culture and the lynching of Hispanics."
In 1911, La Crónica established a "fraternal order", the Orden Caballeros de Honor to "discuss the troubling social issues at the time". and held the First Mexican Congress—the Primer Congreso Mexicano—dedicated to fighting inequality and racism, and to unite Mexicans on issues that affected them, including lack of access to adequate education and economic resources. While working at La Crónica, Idar also served as the first president of La Liga Femenil Mexicanista, the League of Mexican Women, an "offshoot" of the Congress that was founded in October 1911 in Laredo to offer free education to Mexican children. In her 2018 book based on her PhD dissertation, Redeeming La Raza: Transborder Modernity, Race, Respectability, and Rights, Gabriela González wrote that these organizations were established in response to the poverty and racism experienced by transborder Mexican communities.