About the name: La Politiquera
In 1988, Lucino Perez Rosenbaum was running for the Democratic nomination for Cameron County Commissioner for the second time. He had lost his first bid for the position in 1984 by just 123 votes. Lucino's younger brother Rene, decided he would do all he could to help his brother win this time around.
Rene put out a call to all his friends he had gone to school with at the University of Notre Dame. A number of us answered his call for help and took time off from our jobs to make the trip to Brownsville, Texas. We stayed in different people's homes and worked on different parts of the campaign. It was here in Brownsville, "en el barrio de Southmost," that I first heard the term "politiquera."
People would tell us, "Si quieres sacar el voto en las calles tal y tal vas a tener que hablar con las politiqueras julana y fulana." (These were the women who had the most influence in particular neighborhoods.) I had never heard the term "politiquera" despite 20 years de andar trabajando en la politica. Anyway, the term stuck with me. Lucino ended up in a run-off election against Ray Ramon, (the Henry Cisneros of the Valley in the 1970s') It was a heated run-off election and in the end Lucino ended up being declared the winner by just 6 votes. As the Democratic nominee, Lucino was now headed into the general election in November where he would ultimately win.
We all returned to our respective homes and continued to stay in touch with Rene and his family. Two years later when we decided to start a political publication targeting La Raza, the "politiquera" name came up and was ultimately adopted. 