Basic Information
Maria Guadalupe Evangelina de Lopez was born in 1881, in her family home at Los Angeles, in San Gabriel. in city. De Lopez and her younger sister Ernestina operated a Spanish-language school at their house, Casa Vieja, in San Gabriel. Maria de Lopez also taught at the UCLA and University of California and worked as a translator for multiple authors. She was very active in the suffrage movement translating speeches and written texts and was frequently asked to speak at other universities, giving full speeches in Spanish. Maria G. E. de Lopez died on November 20, 1977 and is buried in San Gabriel Christian Church in Los Angeles.
Background Information
Maria Guadalupe was born to her parents, Nepomiceno and Guadalupe, and spent most of her youth with many siblings in their family home, Casa Vieja, in San Gabriel where she was born. Her father was born in Mexico, a descendant of the prominent Lopez family, but bt the time Maria was born he worked as a blacksmith to sustain the family with help from Maria’s older sister, who was a seamstress, and the work of his older sons. After some of the older children got married and moved away, the family had a better financial situation which allowed for de Lopez and her younger sister Ernestina to complete high school and later graduate from the Los Angeles Normal School, where they received teacher training. De Lopez later studied at the University of California where she would later come back as faculty. After her father’s death in 1904, Maria and her sister Ernestina went back to Casa Vieja to take care of their mother (E. Wallis, 2010, 25). Maria worked as a translator for many authors at the University of California, and as a Spanish teacher, both at the University and running a Spanish-language school at their home with her sister Ernestina as a side business (Brandman, 2020). Maria was also a member of many women’s clubs in Los Angeles, which weren’t just a scene for the elite, but also occupied by many other middle-class Spanish Mexican working omen such as de Lopez, who were also active in civic activism (E. V. Wallis, 2009, 147).After her marriage she changed her name, often being referred to as Maria de Lopez Lowther, or Maria de Lopez de Lowther (E. Wallis, 2010, 26).
Contributions to the First Wave
Maria Guadalupe was very successful in her academic career becoming the youngest instructor at the University of California in 1902, later she also taught at UCLA possibly the first Latina to do so (E. Wallis, 2010, 26). At the time the club scene in Los Angeles was very active, with multiple women’s clubs being quite popular, ranging from a variety of interests usually organized around educational, religious, or cultural activities. Some of the most important clubs were The Friday Morning Club, which sponsored lectures and educational seminars for their members, the Ebell Club that had educational development of members as their front goal, also the Young Women’s Christian Association, the biggest Protestant organization of women in the city (E. V. Wallis, 2009, 136). Maria Guadalupe was known to be a part of at least six clubs, even as a full-time teacher, she was active in her local Votes for Women Club and was president of the College Equal Suffrage League in 1911. De Lopez also helped found the Woman’s City Club of Los Angeles, and belonged to the Woman’s College Club, the Woman’s Business Club and the Executive Board of the High School Teachers’ Association of Los Angeles (Brandman, 2020; E. V. Wallis, 2009, 137). She later served as the 17th president of the UCLA Faculty Women’s Club from 1937 to 1938 (Brandman, 2020).
De Lopez’ contributed to the Suffrage movement mostly through her work as a translator for the suffrage campaign materials, which helped extend the reach of the movement to the Hispanic women(Brandman, 2020). Regarded as a major contributor to the success of the 1910 campaign in Los Angeles and California, de Lopez not only worked as a translator in many speeches in the meetings, but also spoke in favor of the suffrage to Mexicans in the Los Angeles Plaza, in multiple occasions and famously on October 3, 1911, in a large rally organized by the Votes for Women Club giving her speech entirely in Spanish, supposedly being the first to do so in the state of California (Brandman, 2020; E. Wallis, 2010, 94). She also wrote a opinion article for the Los Angeles Herald on August, 1911, arguing in favor of the suffrage for women, women’s rights and equality, on basis of democracy. California became the sixth state to approve suffrage for women in October 10, 1911(Brandman, 2020).
After the successful campaign in California, Maria Guadalupe continued her translation work in political advocacy by translating materials for the LAWTFUL (Los Angeles Women’s Trade Union League) which sponsored several mass meetings both in English and Spanish with the goal of educating voters about labor-related issues on the 1914 ballot (E. Wallis, 2010, 110_. De Lopez also volunteered a lot of her time to the Spanish sections of the women’s clubs she took part in, she wasn’t just a member of the Ebell’s Spanish section, but also the club’s Spanish instructor. She dedicated much time to educating the public about California culture and in the promotion of Spanish-language instruction. Maria was a popular guest speaker throughout the 1930’s and 1940’s, she spoke in organizations such as the Ruskin Art Club, local sororities and other, often holding meetings and events in her own family home in San Gabriel, now known as the Lopez-Lowther adobe (E. V. Wallis, 2009, 147).
“A democracy we have been taught for many a year is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. What is a man? A man is a person. What is a person? A person is a human being—a person has a soul. Is woman a human being? Yes, woman is a human being. Has woman a soul? Yes, woman has a soul. Then since woman is a human being and has a soul she is a person—man is a person. Therefore man and woman both being persons are equal, man and woman constitute the people.” Quote by Maria Guadalupe Evangelina de Lopez in her article for the Los Angeles Herald – Equal Suffrage of Most Vital Moment (Los Angeles Herald 20 August 1911 — California Digital Newspaper Collection, n.d.).
Analysis and Conclusion
Maria Guadalupe Evangelina de Lopez was one of the most influential figures of the First Wave movement in California, her work as a translator was what opened the doors for the inclusion and participation of so many Hispanic descents in the campaign for women’s suffrage. Thus, she was a key person in the success of the California campaign for women’s suffrage.
Even after the successful state campaign, she devoted her time to the defense of women’s rights and the full establishment of the democratic values insured by the United States Constitution, working as an active member of many women’s clubs and a teacher of the Spanish language. She also helped keep the Spanish Mexican traditions in the state alive and upfront and opened spaces for these discussions in the Universities she worked in, being the first Latina faculty member at the UCLA, later becoming president of the UCLA Faculty Women’s Club and serving as a very popular guest speaker in multiple organizations.
It is important to note that even though the work that Maria de Lopez did was of major importance for the suffrage movement at the time and was accompanied by the work of many other women, it wasn’t free of fault. Their work was limited to the “Spanish fantasy past”, and these women didn’t acknowledge the underlying fallacies of this point of view. There also isn’t any evidence of de Lopez ever speaking publicly against racial and economic discrimination, which were paramount to the impoverishment of so many Spanish-Mexicans (E. V. Wallis, 2009) 149. Nevertheless, it is undeniable the importance of the contributions of Maria Guadalupe Evangelina de Lopez to the Suffrage movement and the First Feminist Wave.
References
Brandman, M. (2020, 2022). Biography: Maria Guadalupe Evangelina de Lopez. Biography: Maria Guadalupe Evangelina de Lopez. https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/maria-guadalupe-evangelina-de-lopez
League, L. A. P. E. (1911). English: Pamphlet that was translated to Spanish during suffrage movement. Women’s Suffrage and Equal Rights Collection, Ella Strong Denison Library, Scripps College, Claremont, Ca. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pamphlet_of_the_Los_Angeles_Political_Equality_League_by_Maria_de_Lopez.jpg
Los Angeles Herald 20 August 1911—California Digital Newspaper Collection. (n.d.). Retrieved February 14, 2022, from https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=LAH19110820.2.44&srpos=13&e=——191-en–20-LAH-1–txt-txIN-maria+lopez+women——-1
Wallis, E. (2010). Earning Power: Women and Work in Los Angeles, 1880-1930. University of Nevada Press. http://muse.jhu.edu/book/12577
Wallis, E. V. (2009). “Keeping Alive the Old Tradition”: Spanish-Mexican Club Women in Southern California, 1880-1940. Southern California Quarterly, 91(2), 133–154. https://doi.org/10.2307/41172468
Who Was Left Out of the Story? (2020, March 2). National Museum of American History. https://americanhistory.si.edu/creating-icons/who-was-left-out-story