Hector P. Garcia

Dr. Hector Perez Garcia (January 17, 1914 – July 26, 1996) was a Mexican-American physician, surgeon, World War II veteran, civil rights advocate, and founder of the American G.I. Forum. As a result of the national prominence he earned through his work on behalf of Hispanic Americans, he was instrumental in the appointment of Vicente T. Ximenes, a Mexican American and American G.I. Forum charter member, to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1966. Garcia was named as alternate representative to the United Nations in 1967, was appointed to the United States Commission on Civil Rights in 1968, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in 1984; and was named to the Order of St. Gregory the Great by Pope John Paul II in 1990. In 1998, he was posthumously awarded the Aguila Azteca, Mexico's highest award for foreigners, in a ceremony in Corpus Christi.

A descendant of Spanish land grantees, Dr. García was born in the city of Llera, Tamaulipas, México, to José García García and Faustina Peréz García, both schoolteachers. His family fled the violence of the Mexican Revolution in 1917, legally immigrating to Mercedes, Texas. His father's professional credentials were unrecognized in this new country, so he went into the dry goods business. His parents instilled a love and respect for education in all of their children and expected them all to become medical doctors. Hector and five of his siblings: José Antonio García, Clotilde Pérez García, Cuitláhuac Pérez García, Xicotencátl Pérez García, and Dalia García-Malison did become physicians.

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