Hector P. Garcia

Who was Hector P. Garcia?

Dr. Hector Garcia Perez 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 Mexican American and American G.I. Forum charter member Vicente T. Ximenes to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1966, was named alternate ambassador 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 Texas.