Involvement in Labor and Ethnic Issues
From early exposure to the plight of farm workers, and later in student ministry to migrant workers, Martinez learned to appreciate the urgent need for poor people to organize themselves in order to participate more equitably in society. He worked with Cesar Chavez during the 1970s. He worked to establish the first federally funded health clinic for the poor of El Paso. Martinez also was a founding member of the National Hispanic Caucus in the U.M. Church in 1970. He also supported the organizing of poor fishermen on the island of Puerto Rico in the late 1970s.
Martinez worked on the initial proposals to the 1976 U.M. General Conference for a Missional Priority on the Ethnic Minority Local Church. He served on the Ethnic Minority Local Church Inter-Agency Committee on the Missional Priority (1976-80). He later chaired the National Missional Priority Coordinating Committee during the 1984-88 quadrennium. During the 1988-92 quadrennium, he served as Secretary of the National Committee to Develop a Plan for Hispanic Ministry, and was President of the National Hispanic Caucus (1987-90).
Read more about this topic: Joel Nestali Martinez
Famous quotes containing the words involvement in, involvement, labor, ethnic and/or issues:
“I recommend limiting one’s involvement in other people’s lives to a pleasantly scant minimum. This may seem too stoical a position in these madly passionate times, but madly passionate people rarely make good on their madly passionate promises.”
—Quentin Crisp (b. 1908)
“Many people now believe that if fathers are more involved in raising children than they were, children and sons in particular will learn that men can be warm and supportive of others as well as be high achievers. Thus, fathers’ involvement may be beneficial not because it will help support traditional male roles, but because it will help break them down.”
—Joseph H. Pleck (20th century)
“So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.”
—Bible: New Testament, 1 Corinthians 3:7-9.
“Caprice, independence and rebellion, which are opposed to the social order, are essential to the good health of an ethnic group. We shall measure the good health of this group by the number of its delinquents. Nothing is more immobilizing than the spirit of deference.”
—Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985)
“How to attain sufficient clarity of thought to meet the terrifying issues now facing us, before it is too late, is ... important. Of one thing I feel reasonably sure: we can’t stop to discuss whether the table has or hasn’t legs when the house is burning down over our heads. Nor do the classics per se seem to furnish the kind of education which fits people to cope with a fast-changing civilization.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)