Latina Still Standing July 2014: Mary Rose Wilcox

By: Diana Bejarano

For Mary Rose Wilcox, a Latina who believes she was born to serve, family and community are two of the most important things in life. 

 

As a child growing up in the mining town of Superior, Arizona with a father who worked in the mines, Mary Rose learned from a young age how to fight for people’s rights. She learned how to stand up for what she believes in and how to never back down.

 

This Latina is not only a dedicated public servant known by many, she is a mother and grandmother of five. She’s also been married to her best friend and husband Earl Wilcox for more than four decades. She says her inner strength comes from her parents, her upbringing and her family.

 

Mary Rose has been shot, accused, intimidated and terrorized for speaking out against injustices, yet she continues to stand up for her community. This resilient Latina is nothing short of amazing. She has lived a life of service of more than 30 years serving her community through her tenure at the Phoenix City Council, as the first Latina Phoenix City Councilwoman and later as the first Latina Maricopa County Supervisor. 

 

When talking with Mary Rose, I learned so much about the steep personal price she’s had to pay- a price that she’s been proud to pay – to serve and fight for her community.

 

In 1998, Mary Rose was shot in the back with a 357-magnum by a man she had never met. The shooter said he felt compelled to shoot the then-County Supervisor because she voted to have a 25 cent sales tax to build the baseball stadium, now known as the Chase Baseball field, where many families enjoy watching the Diamondbacks play baseball. Mary Rose said she voted for the stadium because it brought more than a 1,700 jobs to people within her community, including contracts with 18% minority and women owned businesses.

 

After this devastating near death incident, she paused to reflect on whether or not it was worth risking her life to continue to serve in public office and stand up for the causes she so strongly believed in and stood for. After much deliberation with her parents, husband and family, she decided that she would not back down and she would continue to serve.

 

In fact, getting shot only doubled her resolve.

 

Mary Rose had always been against illegal guns on the streets, and in the 1980s worked with other leaders  to start Maricopa County’s first gun buyback programs. Hundreds of guns were turned in and exchanged for groceries including an AK-47. 

 

When inhumane racial profiling round-ups took place in 2008 and 2009 in the Town of Guadalupe, Mary Rose was the first elected official to stand up and speak out against it, despite the backlash and retaliation she knew she would have to endure.

 

Mary Rose Wilcox has impacted Arizona and the lives of many Arizonans in countless ways. She’s spent time with the likes of Cesar Chavez and recalls him coming to visit her office while she was a City Councilwoman. Chavez asked her if she could help him get access to a radio airwave tower to start Radio Campesina. She was honored to be able to have the civil rights activist, whom she supported since college. She fondly remembers the many Cesar Chavez farm worker meetings at Chicanos Por La Causa, where she and her husband met.

 

From helping to organize, finance and build the largest homeless shelter in the Valley, to starting an AIDS foundation in her brother’s honor in the 1980s, to advocating for the Hispanic community to helping Cesar Chavez,and creating the nite hoops program to keep kids of the streets, this Latina has made the lives of many better and she has paved the way for others to follow in her footsteps.

 

Her strong resolve, her intelligence, her wisdom and her tenacity are qualities that make Mary Rose Wilcox, a Latina Still Standing.

 

Si se puede!