Anselmo “Chemo” Candelaria was a charismatic and
controversial leader of the Chicano Movement in San Jose during the turbulent
1960s.
“He was a commanding figure,” said Arturo Villareal, a
professor of ethnic studies and anthropology at Evergreen Valley College in San
Jose. “Once he started talking, he had your attention. He’d start slow and easy
and end up with a bang.”
His speeches went that way but his life and political
activism followed the opposite trajectory. Candelaria burst upon the scene in
1959 when he started the militant Black Berets for Justice and ended quietly
April 7 2012 after he had embraced his Native American identity and
spirituality and become a respected elder and speaker.
“He was a community activist to the end,” said his widow,
Teresa Candelaria, of Peoria, Ariz., where the couple had lived after leaving
San Jose in the late 1990s. “He just wanted liberty for our people and for indigenous
people everywhere to be treated as human beings with full rights.”
He was my cóusin, no one in the family understood him a nd wasnt sure of what he did. Tjose were different times and we were just very simple people didnt want to attract any attention due to our heritageI i was and still am very proud of him. I was a child , i believ i was 7yrs old in those times. He was a kind soul I remember his voice wss soothin but had a commanding presece.. he is very missed. Our family hid our native ameriican culture fromus. They still felt as they were ashamed due to the predudice my grandpare m ts suffered but chemo uncovered the v y truth and im so glad he did. We come from the Apacche tribe.
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