Marquez – a trustee of the Contra Costa Community College District Governing Board and a longtime community advocate is considered one of the founding fathers of what Contra Costa College has become today.
Nearly half of Contra Costa College’s enrollment is made of Latino students. Some attribute that to the work of Marquez and other Latino leaders who have been part of the college’s history.
He remembers walking the pathways as one of the handful of Latinos in the college in 1968. The lack of Latino representation would compel him to recruit more Latino students into college, he said.
“I looked around, and I didn’t see any people who looked like me. And I questioned it, you know,” he said. “There were no faculty members, very few students who looked like me.”
“I asked for permission to recruit (High School Latino Students)… We (Marquez’s recruiting team) convinced the administration to allow us to recruit to recommend a Latino faculty member, Alfred Zuniga. He put in 43 years on the campus. He was the first Latino, and it was through his leadership that we ended up with a department.” Said Marquez.
His efforts would trickle further into him being a co-founder of the La Raza Studies department at Contra Costa College and serving as a faculty member. He also founded the college’s Latino Club .
Born in Taos, New Mexico, Marquez was raised in his Grandfather’s farm until the age of 13, where his family made the bold move to allow him to attend seminary school in Barcelona, Spain, nearly 10- years after the end of World War II.
“I got there and was discriminated against by the Spaniards, they said I was dark, and ‘Indio.’ For two years, I had to put up with that.” he said. “They laughed at me because of my Spanish. I spoke Chicano Spanish, while of course everybody else spoke Castilian Spanish, so they laughed.”
He would later return to the U.S., where he’d spend one more year in Taos before moving to Bishop, California, a small town by the Paiute-Shoshone Native Americas, with cowboys being part of the Bishop population. He remembers being torn between two worlds, where cowboys would call him Indian, while Indigenous Americans called him too light.
“And that probably didn’t help me in my demeanor, because I was changing a lot of locations in cultures in my life,” he said. “So by the time I came to Bishop, I was rebellious.”
Marquez enlisted in the military after high school, becoming a paratrooper and military police officer, spending this time stationed in Germany and Lebanon, where he credits much of his leadership skills stemmed from.
Since his election in 2010, Marquez has served as the current Ward 1 Trustee for the Governing Board of the Contra Costa Community College District, representing Contra Costa College – the school he calls home – and surrounding area,
Marquez previously began his professional work in Richmond as a human relations specialist, He was later recruited to work as a Deputy Labor Commissioner for the state of California. He worked for the state for two years until he retired early, while opening another door of city involvement.
That new door would lead Marquez to becoming the first Latino to serve on the Richmond City Council, originally being an appointee to the council in 1985, but later winning an election to that seat in 1987. He was elected again in 1993 and twice more in 1997 and 2004. In 1990 and 1998, he served as vice mayor. In 2001, Marquez lost his seat during a run for mayor, but was re-elected in 2004 and 2006 as vice mayor, until he was defeated for re-election in 2008.
During that span, he advocated for the city’s diverse population, especially undocumented residents, and fostering community initiatives. He also played a key role in the founding of Richmond’s Cinco de Mayo celebration.
He would be recognized as the 2006 Contra Costa County Hispanic of the Year, where he was honored by a California assembly resolution for his years of distinguished service and outstanding community service by the late state assemblyman Robert Campbell, who Marquez says mentored him a lot.
“He helped me a lot. He mentored me a lot… not only when I worked with the City of Richmond, but when I worked to work for the state,” Marquez said of Campbell.
This help wouldn’t just come from the office, as Marquez credits a lot of his family for the leadership he has developed and practiced in the East Bay.
“I think I got most of that from my grandfather because my grandfather was a no-nonsense type of person, and with my dad, who with him, there wasn’t a job that he wouldn’t take on,” Marquez said. ”And of course, my mom helped to raise her brothers and sisters, you know, so that’s where all that came into me, and I kind of grew up around it, so maybe that’s where it comes from, it all starts in the home.”
Growing up with his parents, to his colleagues who have left a continuous impact, it has visibly trickled down into the community he serves. Growing up as a Mexican-American, he has not only reaped the progression of Latino leadership and representation, but also the hardships of being isolated and discarded in their walk on this country.
As he reflects on the walk as a whole, one thing he says and urges for the younger generation of Latinos: Don’t give up.
“Don’t give up hope, because it’s going to take a lot of people, a lot of work.”
“You have to believe, believe and in the Almighty. Yes, I think about the landing, I think about what could have happened and all that wouldn’t have happened. But here I am.”
