Albert Armendariz Sr., 88, a judge and a leader of the Latino civil rights movement who helped found the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, died Thursday in Brownsville, Texas, his family said.
Armendariz started his activism in 1951 with the League of United Latin American Citizens and served as the group’s national president in 1954. In the late ’60s, Armendariz and other attorneys helped found MALDEF to address education and civil rights issues. He was chairman of the board of trustees from 1968 to 1971.
Born in El Paso, Armendariz was drafted in World War II and spent four years at Fort Bliss’ motor pool. Like many other Latinos in the military at the time, he focused on fighting discrimination at home after finishing his service.
He attended what is now the University of Texas at El Paso before graduating from the University of Southern California law school. He worked as an immigration judge from 1976 to 1985 and later was appointed to the Texas Court of Appeals.
Violet Kazue de Cristoforo, 90, who received national honors for haikus reflecting the desolation of Japanese- American internment camps during World War II, died Wednesday at her home in Salinas, Calif., her daughter Kimi de Cristoforo said.
For more than 50 years, de Cristoforo wrote, compiled and translated haikus created in the detention camps. She also was a staunch advocate in the campaign that led to reparations and an apology from the U.S. government to the 120,000 Japanese-Americans interned in the 1940s.
Her best-known works include “Poetic Reflections of the Tule Lake Internment Camp, 1944,” published nearly 50 years after its writing, and “May Sky: There Is Always Tomorrow; An Anthology of Japanese American Concentration Camp Kaiko Haiku,” which she edited.
She was recognized in September by the National Endowment for the Arts and received a National Heritage Fellowship Award for cultural achievement.
Kenneth R. Harding, 93, the 32nd sergeant at arms for the U.S. House of Representatives, died Wednesday in Ormond Beach, Fla., said his son, Victor Harding.
The sergeant at arms is the House’s main law enforcement official and also enforces protocol and decorum during floor proceedings. Harding held the position from Oct. 1, 1972, to Feb. 29, 1980. Before that, he served in the Navy and Air Force reserves, and he was executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for 18 years.
