Raul Yzaguirre - President and CEO of The National Council of La Raza

President and CEO of The National Council of La Raza

In 1968, the Southwest Council of La Raza was organized with funding from the Ford Foundation. By 1972 the organization changed its name to the National Council for La Raza (National Council of the people or community in English ) and moved its offices to Washington, D.C. In 1997, the Ford Foundation, then the NCLR's sole funding source, demanded a change in the organization's focus and direction by threatening to withhold funding and forced then-president Henry Santiestevan out of office. In 1974, Yzaguirre was elected the second president of the NCLR. The Ford Foundation was pleased with Yzaguirre and continued to be a top donor of the NCLR throughout his term.

Under Yzaguirre, the organization grew from a regional advocacy group with 17 affiliates to over 300 that serve 41 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. Yzaguirre expanded membership criteria so it was not limited only to ethnic Mexicans, but also included Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Argentines, Cubans and all other Hispanic subgroups. This paved the way for the National Council for La Raza to open offices in Chicago, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Sacramento, San Antonio, and San Juan. Since then NCLR has added offices in New York and Atlanta.

Through his tenure Yzaguirre built the NCLR into a 35,000 members organization, with revenues exceeding $3 million dollars, from a combination of contributions from American corporations, philanthropic foundations, federal funding, and private member donations.

He was fired as chair of the Hispanic Advisory Commission to the Immigration and Naturalization Service for publicly criticizing President Carter’s immigration reform proposals. Yzaguirre also criticized President George H.W. Bush for his affirmative action stance even after he had agreed to be the first sitting president to appear at an NCLR Annual Conference. President Clinton did not escape criticism either. Yzaguirre criticized Clinton for appointing very few Hispanics to key positions and for the 1996 welfare reform law which NCLR considered detrimental to the Hispanic community and resigned as chair of the President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans in protest of political machinations.