Cruz Reynoso Papers

Finding aid created by Special Collections staff using RecordEXPRESS
UC Davis. Special Collections
University of California, Davis, Special Collections, UC Davis Library
100 NW Quad
Davis, California 95616-5292
(530) 752-1621
speccoll@ucdavis.edu
https://www.library.ucdavis.edu/special-collections/
2023


Descriptive Summary

Title: Cruz Reynoso Papers
Dates: 1949-circa 2010
Collection Number: D-401
Creator/Collector: Reynoso, Cruz, 1931-
Extent: 81 linear feet
Repository: UC Davis. Special Collections
Davis, California 95616-5292
Abstract: Activities files, organization, people and issues files, files on committees and commissions, and correspondence.
Language of Material: English

Access

Collection is open for research.

Publication Rights

All applicable copyrights for the collection are protected under chapter 17 of the U.S. Copyright Code. Requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Regents of the University of California as the owner of the physical items. It is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the researcher.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item]. Cruz Reynoso Papers. Collection Number: D-401. UC Davis. Special Collections

Biography/Administrative History

Cruz Reynoso was a trailblazing Latino American civil rights lawyer, jurist, and law professor. Reynoso was born in Brea, California in 1931. His parents emigrated from Mexico, working as farmworkers in Southern California and the Central Valley. After attending a segregated grade school in Orange County, Reynoso went to an integrated junior high and high school. He worked in the orange groves during high school and in his first years of secondary education at Fullerton Community College. Reynoso earned his associate’s degree at Fullerton Community College and his bachelor’s at Pomona College on scholarship. After two years in the U. S. army, he attended the University of California Berkeley’s law school, graduating in 1958. Reynoso began in private practice in El Centro but soon started his career in the public sphere in Sacramento and El Centro, where he worked with Cesar Chavez as a community organizer. He assisted Jim Lorenz in creating the California Rural Legal Assistance in 1966, which provided innovative representation for migrant farmworkers and impoverished rural people. Reynoso became the organization’s first chairman of the Board and its director in 1968. He was also a leading force in ensuring farm laborers’ access to sanitation facilities and banning the carcinogenic pesticide DDT. After Reynoso entered academia at the University of New Mexico in 1972, California Governor Jerry Brown brought Reynoso back to California to be the first Chicano Associate Justice on California’s Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 1976. In 1981, Brown appointed Reynoso as the first Chicano Associate Justice to the California Supreme Court. While serving on the Supreme Court, he penned the court’s opinion on the case that ruled non-English speaking defendants must be provided with interpreters at every phase of the criminal process. While he did survive his recall election in 1982, Reynoso was constantly accused of being soft on crime and minority cases and failing to enforce the death penalty, even after he voted in support of the death penalty. He lost his Associate Justice seat after being rejected by sixty percent of voters in the general election of 1986. He served on the US Civil Rights Commission from 1982 to 2004 and President Obama’s transition team group for justice and civil rights. He also served on the Board of directors for several organizations, including the Latino Issues Forum, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the Natural Resources Defense Council. After leaving the political scene, Reynoso served as a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1991 and at UC Davis from 2001 until he retired in 2006, though he served as an emeritus professor into his 80s. He remained an emeritus professor at Davis and continued to take pro bono cases privately. His legacy as a champion of farm laborers and the underrepresented is signified by his receiving the Medal of Freedom in 2000 from President Clinton, and the highest legal award in California, the Witkin medal, in 2009. Reynoso is also the first recipient of the Boochever and Bird Chair for the Study and Teaching of Freedom and Equality at the University of California, Davis School of Law. Reynoso passed away May 7, 2021, at an elder care facility in Oroville, California, at age 90. His first wife, Jeannene passed away in 2007 and his second wife, Elaine Rowen in 2017. He is survived by eight siblings, four children and their spouses, 17 grandchildren, three step-grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

Scope and Content of Collection

Activities files, organization, people and issues files, files on committees and commissions, and correspondence.

Indexing Terms

Civil rights -- United States.
Human rights -- United States.
Law -- Study and teaching.
University of California, Davis -- Faculty -- Archives.

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