Josefa Sanchez; Activist Was a MAPA Founder

Josefa Sanchez, an Eastside community activist and a founder of the Mexican American Political Assn., has died. She was 66.

Sanchez died Sunday at her Boyle Heights home of cancer, her daughter Margarita Sanchez said Friday.

The politically oriented Sanchez worked to elect former U.S. Rep. Edward R. Roybal to the Los Angeles City Council in the 1950s and ran unsuccessfully to succeed him on the council when he was elected to Congress in 1963. Through MAPA, she was involved in the 1960 election campaign of President John F. Kennedy.

Sanchez also was active in the Community Service Organization, the Educational Issues Coordinating Committee, the Mexican American Labor Council and El Partido de la Raza Unida.

She served as director of the Centro Joaquin Murrieta de Aztlan, a nonprofit college placement service to aid Latinos.

Born Josefa Peralta in Belen, N.M., Sanchez came to Los Angeles in the late 1940s and earned a bachelor’s degree in alternative education from Antioch University.

She is survived by five daughters, two sons and 18 grandchildren.

A memorial service and dinner are scheduled for 5 p.m. Tuesday at El Arco Iris restaurant, 5684 York Blvd., Highland Park.

The family has asked that any memorial donations be sent to the Josefa Peralta Pre-SAT Scholarship Fund for Boyle Heights students.