FILE — Los Angeles County Supervisor (First District) Gloria Molina addresses the crowds during the re-opening, ribbon cutting ceremony for the Beverly Boulevard bridge (over the Rio Hondo Channel) on Wednesday Dec. 5, 2007. The bridge, which connects Pico Rivera and Montebello, burnt down in November 2005. (SGVN/Staff Photo by Raul Roa/SWCity)
Groundbreaking Southern California lawmaker Gloria Molina passed away Sunday, May 14, at age 74. Here are some key dates and achievements from her history-making career:
May 31, 1948: Jesús Gloria Molina is born in Montebello. Parents Leonardo Castillo Molina and Concepción Molina immigrated to Los Angeles area from Mexico. She is named for her paternal grandmother.
Childhood: Gloria was raised as one of 10 Molina children, mostly in Pico Rivera. She attends elementary school in the city and goes on to graduate from El Rancho High.
Education: Molina attended Rio Hondo College, East Los Angeles College and Cal State L.A.
Early career: Molina worked full time as a legal secretary while attending college. Then later, she earned her certificate as an adult education instructor and taught clerical skills at the East Los Angeles Skills Center.
Early activism: Molina was engaged in Southern California’s Chicano movement and fought to expand women’s health access. Amid a local shortage of nurses, she initiated a nurse mentoring program that teamed up with Los Angeles area community colleges to recruit and assist Latina students on track for nursing degrees. Served as a member of the Comisión Femenil Mexicana Nacional de Los Angeles. She helped establish the Chicana Action Service Center, which advocated for the rights of all Chicanas.
1976: Molina becomes administrative assistant for Assemblyman Art Torres.
LA County, City and Business Leaders walk barefoot in the Fountain to Celebrate the Opening of Grand Park After a Two-Year Restoration Project. The fountain is part of a $56 million redevelopment of LA’s Civic Center Mall, introducing a new green space to the LA County community. L to R: Bea Hsu, VP, Related California; LA City Councilwoman Jan Perry; LA County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas; LA County Supervisor Gloria Molina; LA County Supervisor Mike Antonovich; LA County Supervisor Don Knabe; Eli Broad, philanthropist; and LA County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. (John McCoy/Staff Photographer)
FILE — Los Angeles County Supervisor (First District) Gloria Molina addresses the crowds during the re-opening, ribbon cutting ceremony for the Beverly Boulevard bridge (over the Rio Hondo Channel) on Wednesday Dec. 5, 2007. The bridge, which connects Pico Rivera and Montebello, burnt down in November 2005. (SGVN/Staff Photo by Raul Roa/SWCity)
LA County Supervisor Gloria Molina seen in a photo from 1994, speaking at a press conference at the Mac Laren Children’s Center in El Monte. (Photo courtesy of The Huntington Library archive)
Gloria Molina seen in a photo with soccer players in 1997. (Photo courtesy of The Huntington Library archive)
Gloria Molina seen in 2014 with Cal State L.A. president William Covino and associate professor of microbiology Howard Xu in 2014, about a new incubator program that provided students and start-up businesses an opportunity to work together on innovative bioscience projects. (File photo by Walt Mancini/Pasadena Star-News)
Gloria Molina passes away at 74. Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina during a dedication of Los Angeles Counties first eco-friendly library made of 40 percent recycled steel at a cost of 8.9 million dollars at Sorensen Library on Wednesday, November 10, 2010, in Whittier. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/ SCNG)
Gloria Molina passes away at 74. Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina speaks during a dedication of Los Angeles Counties first eco-friendly library made of 40 percent recycled steel at a cost of 8.9 million dollars at Sorensen Library on Wednesday, November 10, 2010, in Whittier. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/ SCNG)
LA County Supervisor Gloria Molina seen with Margaret Clark, vice chair of Rivers and Mountains Conservancy, and LA County Supervisor Hilda Solis, in Azusa in 2006. (File photo by Sarah Reingewirtz/SCNG)
LA County Supervisor Gloria Molina seen with other Los Angeles officials, including Supervisor Hilda Solis, at a grand opening of the East Valley Community Health Center in West Covina in 2008. (File photo by Leo Jarzomb)
LA County Supervisor Gloria Molina at a dedication at Mayberry County Park in Whittier in 2009. (File photo by Raul Roa/SCNG)
Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina. Grand Park welcomed more than 4,500 people who danced together in celebration of National Dance Day at the park’s inaugural weekend. Rock of Ages Director and “So You Think You Can Dance” (SYTYCD) Judge Adam Shankman was joined by SYTYCD’s Executive Producer and Co-creator Nigel Lythgoe and Lil’ C and a host of dance instructors, personalities and performers. (John McCoy/Staff Photographer)
Folks stroll past the waterfall at Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles on Oct. 29, 2020. The park is being renamed “Gloria Molina Grand Park,” as per a vote of the LA County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, March 21, 2023. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
FILE – Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina talks during an interview during the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) during its 13th annual conference in Los Angeles, Friday, June 28, 1996. Molina, a groundbreaking Chicana leader in state and local California politics for more than 30 years, has died on Sunday, May 14, 2023, at age 74. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)
From left, Brian Perkins, Vice President of Budweiser, Michael Rapino, President and CEO of Live Nation Entertainment, Gloria Molina, County Supervisor, Mayor Eric Garcetti, Shawn ‘Jay-Z’ Carter, Elise Buik, President and CEO of United Way, and Herb Wesson, Council President announce the Made in America Festival from the steps of City Hall on April 16, 2014 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Paul A. Hebert/Invision/AP)
Vice President Al Gore delivers a speech at the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project’s annual banquet and conference, July 14, 1995 in Pasadena, Calif., as Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina applauds in the background. The banquet kicks off the project’s two-day Latino Vote ’95 conference events, which are expected to draw hundreds of Latino elected officials and community leaders from the southwestern United States. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
FILE – California State Senator Art Torres, left, and Assemblywoman Gloria Molina, right, join Presidential candidate Walter Mondale, center, as he meets with reporters on Monday, May 14, 1984, in East Los Angeles. Molina, a groundbreaking Chicana leader in state and local California politics for more than 30 years, has died on Sunday, May 14, 2023, at age 74. (AP Photo/Wally Fong, File)
Los Angeles County supervisor Gloria Molina asks questions about the jail proposal at the Los Angeles County board of supervisors meeting Tuesday. The proposal is to spend $1 billion on a new jail facility. Photo by David Crane/Los Angeles Daily News.
LA County Supervisor Gloria Molina seen at a 2010 dedication of the county’s first eco-friendly library, made of 40 percent recycled steel, at Sorensen Library in Whittier. (File photo by Keith Birmingham/SCNG)
1977: Molina serves in President Jimmy Carter’s administration as a deputy for presidential personnel.
1979: Molina moves up to director of Intergovernmental and Congressional Affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services, Region IX office, in San Francisco.
Early 1980s: Molina named to El Rancho High Hall of Fame.
1981: Molina becomes the Southern California chief deputy to Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, Jr.
1982: Molina becomes the first Latina woman to be elected to the California state Legislature. Art Torres had vacated his seat in the 56th state Assembly district due to redistricting. Molina ran – and won – defeating former state Senate Majority leader Richard Polanco.
1982-86: During her Assembly term, Molina serves on the committees of Revenue and Taxation, Labor and Employment, Utilities and Commerce. She chairs the Subcommittee on Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities. She serves as vice chair of the Committee on Public Employment and Retirement.
1986: Molina becomes the first Latina woman to be elected to the Los Angeles City Council. The council’s 1st District opens after the death of incumbent Howard Finn. The council subsequently moved the district from the San Fernando Valley to Eastside Los Angeles, making it majority Latino. In a lopsided victory, Molina defeats Larry Gonzalez, a member of the Los Angeles Board of Education, and two other candidates.
1987: Molina is succeeded in the State Assembly by Lucille Roybal-Allard.
1990: Molina becomes the first Latina woman to be elected to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors. That year, Peter F. Schabarum decided not to run for re-election, but served an extra three months while the board redistricted under court orders. The result left the 1st District a majority-Latino zone. Molina defeats Rep. Matthew G. Martínez and longtime state lawmaker Art Torres, facing Torres again in a runoff. Torres’ fundraising dwarfed Molina’s.
Early 2000s: Molina buoys Mothers of East Los Angeles, a group opposing a plan to build a prison in East L.A.
2006: Molina chosen “Hispanic Business Woman of the Year” by Hispanic Business magazine
2008: Molina created an effort to improve the high school graduation rates of students in the foster care system. It became known as the Gloria Molina Foster Youth Education Program.
Tom Rosenquist builds an altar for groundbreaking Latina leader and former lawmaker Gloria Molina at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes museum and cultural center in Los Angeles on Monday, May 15, 2023. The altar and exhibit for Molina, who died at 74, will be open to the public beginning Wednesday. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
A quilt made by groundbreaking Latina leader and former lawmaker Gloria Molina is on display at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes museum and cultural center in Los Angeles on Monday, May 15, 2023. An altar for Molina, who died at 74, will be open to the public beginning Wednesday. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
2008: Molina champions efforts to increase penalties on food vendors in unincorporated areas the county. The new rules would punish parking of a food truck for more than one hour with a $1,000 fine and/or six months in jail.
2010: Molina supports a move to boycott Arizona because of SB 1070, then the nation’s strictest anti-illegal immigration law.
2014: Molina retires from her supervisor position in 2014 because of term limits.
2014: Molina receives honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Whittier College.
2014: Molina challenges 14th district incumbent José Huizar for his seat on the City Council, but loses her bid.
2014: Molina founds the “East L.A. Stitchers” quilting and knitting group. An avid seamstress, Gloria would knit and quilt with the group until her death.
March 14, 2023: Molina announces that she has terminal cancer. Her social media post triggers myriad tributes around the region.
March 21, 2023: L.A.’s Grand Park is renamed Gloria Molina Grand Park by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors and the L.A. City Council.
March 21, 2023: Pedestrian crosswalks near L.A. City Hall are renamed “Gloria Molina Legacy Pathway.”
March 23, 2023: Metro Board of Directors dedicates the East L.A. Civic Center station to Molina.
March 31, 2023: The L.A. County Fair announces that it will present the Gloria Molina Quilting Award each year. Molina made many trips to the fair, officials said, to admire the quilting entries — and even submitted her own work.
May 14, 2023: Molina dies at age 74, setting off mourning in Southern California.
