By: Ernest Gurulé
A lot of people who, when they meet her, might think, ‘what a lovely person.’ And while Polly Baca is certainly that, there is so much more to this genial woman. This long-ago Greeley native grew into a woman who at various times in her life would find herself shoulder to shoulder with a smattering of giants of American history. Her life’s arc is like droplets of ink leaked from the pen of a Hollywood playwright, as much O. Henry as ‘Oh, my!’
Baca’s childhood was in a place replete with both spoken and unspoken indignities, not unlike an American landscape of the time, where the tolerance for pervasive inequality ran high. A fifties-era Greeley was cluttered with businesses that routinely posted signs both welcoming and unwelcoming. The town’s movie theater, she remembered, was integrated, but only its lobby. The balcony was ‘reserved’ for Latinos.
It was not much different in schools. But, like today, excellence was still rewarded, and Baca met that mark, doing well enough to earn a full scholarship to Colorado State College, now Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Choosing Fort Collins was easy, she said, because “my mother had gone there when she lost her parents.” Finding a comfort level, not so much.
Fort Collins was a different world than the one she left. For starters, the campus was overwhelmingly male and White. Men outnumbered women, she said, “seven to one.” Something else struck her. “I don’t recall seeing another Latina until sophomore or junior year.”
Baca’s plan was to study physics, the branch of science whose objective is understanding how the universe behaves. Understanding her own universe would be equally challenging.
While intellectually equipped for the sciences, a conversation with a professor took her in a whole different direction. The professor “took an interest in me because of my involvement in Young Democrats and encouraged me to switch my major to political science,” Baca said. His advice, her decision, changed the course of her life.
The move from the hard sciences to political science led her to an internship in the 1960 Presidential campaign and the Kennedy-Nixon race. She was smitten. From then on, she said, “everything I did was related to politics.”
A job as a Denver teacher—the first stop after her stint with the ‘Viva Kennedy’ adventure—for whatever reason went nowhere. Her next stop, a temporary secretarial stop in the Governor’s office was unsatisfying so it was on to graduate school. There in her off-time she began writing for a monthly labor publication. It became the launching pad for a career in politics and public service.
After moving to Washington, D.C., and writing for the Brotherhood of Railway and Airline clerks she landed in Lyndon Johnson’s White House where she worked in communications and periodically interacted with LBJ. From there it was on to the next campaign, this one Robert F. Kennedy’s. It would be short-lived and bittersweet. Baca was there at the Ambassador Hotel on June 5, 1968, when Kennedy was shot. He died early the next morning.
Afterward, she worked in Central America, later for the United Farm Workers and Cesar Chavez then on to MALDEF and later the Southwest Council of La Raza. “I just ended up in all these amazing places,” she said. She finally “came home in ’72,” and began another string of ‘firsts.’ Not bad for a first act.
In 1974, Baca noticed that “we didn’t have a good Mexican-American caucus in Colorado.” What did not occur to her was that forming the nucleus of a caucus might be easier from the inside. That and a phone call from a reporter asking if she might be exploring a state house run and what she called her impulsive affirmative reply set the stage for a successful campaign.
She would also later win a seat in the State Senate— another Latina first—and ascend into leadership, including chairing the Senate Democratic Caucus, a position she’d also held in the House. At the time, she was the only Latina to hold both titles.
Baca’s legislative record is impressive. Her name is attached to more than 250 House and Senate bills as a sponsor or co-sponsor. “Public service has many rewards,” she said of her time in the legislature. Lending a hand to those with no voice has been one of her missions. “I was able to get public policies passed that helped my family, community and my country,” Baca said. Two meaningful laws she helped pass include one that guaranteed pay equity for women and another that forced agriculture to provide restrooms in fields where there were ten or more workers. A simple enough measure that, at the time, was overlooked.
Baca’s life in politics has been a series of dreams come true for the young girl in long ago Greeley whose family was relegated to a movie theater balcony.
Her connection with luminaries includes working for three presidents, LBJ, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. She also co-chaired two national political conventions and along the way sealed friendships with people like Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor, playwright Luis Valdez and UFW icon Dolores Huerta.
“God broke the mold when Polly was born,” said attorney and former state legislator Joe Salazar. “She is the standard by which all other Chicana/Chicano policy makers measure them- selves.” She set the bar that “if you’re not serving community, you’re not serving the right way.”
Former Denver City Council President Rosemary Rodriguez also praised Baca’s sterling record of public service. “She has remained accessible and supportive of her community from those in our prisons to those in high office. She is unfailingly generous of spirit.”
In her seven-decade adventure many things stand out, but one more than others. In 1984, she arranged for her father, Jose, to join her on the stage of the Democratic National Convention. “When my father stepped out onto the podium, he looked out over the crowd with his arms folded, smiled and shook his head…it was his way of acknowledging and supporting my role. It brought tears to my eyes.”
Baca will be honored with the Molly Brown Award at Historic Denver’s 52nd Annual Dinner and Awards Program on October 13th at the Brown Palace Hotel.
