Theresa Aragon (she/her)

by Zoe Thomson (she/her)

Theresa Aragon was born in northern New Mexico. She spoke 16th century Spanish that was distict and unique to the area. Her father was in the Second World War, so, she grew up with her grandparents. In elementary school, she and other Spanish speaking children were separated from English speaking children. After high school, she was accepted into the School of Foreign Services. Her parents rejected this school as an option because they had no housing for women. She heard of the University of Washington Seattle and with her friend, ended up there. After getting her education, she went back to New Mexico and got married.
Aragon came back to the Pacific North West and was offered a fellowship from University of Washington Seattle to earn her Masters in Political Science. In 1971, she served as Interim Director for Chicano Studies. Aragon used her administrative work to open doors for Chicano students through her administative work. Through her activism, more students came up through the univeristy and the number of Chicano students increased. In 1972, she used the power of her position to help the houseless in Seattle by proposing the use of Beacon Hills school. It was owned by the Seattle School District. The organization El Centro de la Raza requested to rent the unused building for housing. After the district denied the request, the organization took over the building and demanded the district let them use the building. Eventually, after negotiationg with the city the building was aquired.

After Aragon assumed her position as Interim Director, she then became Vice Provost for Special Programs from 1971-75 and was involved in the community and the university. In 1975, she became a lecturer for the School of Social Work and was promoted to Assistant Professor in 1978. As Vice Provost for Special Programs, Aragon sat on the administrative council and founght for institutional change within the university to help Chicano students. She noticed that there were very few Chicano faculty and students. The problems she highlighted were representation, access, and racism. She spoke openly against it as a board member and was met with much resistance. Aragon was a leading voice in the 1975 Chicano Studies walkout, a strike in which 41 Chicano staff resigned from their positions at the University of Washington, to protest the university’s lack of support of the Chicano Studies program.

Throughout Aragon’s career, she organized and participated in many protests, boycotts for Chicano rights, and laborers working conditions. She often visited different places to investigate the working conditons. She was critisized for this in the media as a university employee. But Aragon was passionate about her advocacy and continued working for her community, which was what she felt was most important. Her activism changed the lives of many and the culture of University of Washington Seattle.