- [Federico] Polly Baca is a first in so many areas.

- [Tony] First Latina to serve in both a state House and Senate.

- [Bettie] First Hispanic woman to receive the nomination of a major political party for Congress.

- [Federico] She was the first Latina to be a member of the Democratic National Committee Executive Group.

- [Bettie] Polly was a risk taker, and I was astounded by that because it's pretty scary when you come from where we come to be so bold [optimistic music] - [Reynelda] As strong and enduring as the Rocky Mountains, they stood beside.

As visionary as the views of the Grand Plains they looked across, the women inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame are trailblazers whose work has improved and enriched our lives.

They are teachers, scientists, ranchers, leaders in business, education, religion, and the arts.

Women who have been recognized for their many contributions to our state, our country, and the world.

I'm Reynelda Muse and these are the stories of great Colorado women.

[humble music] - To understand the story of Polly, you have to take a step back in time.

Consider her work in national politics during the 1960s.

This is an incredibly turbulent time for our society, and I think it was easy for a lot of Americans to wanna turn away from all of that.

Polly didn't step back from that moment in history.

She leaned into it with a trust in the heart of her fellow human beings that allowed her to make connections and make a difference despite that really turbulent time.

- Polly has been a figure in some of the major historic activities of our day.

When Martin Luther King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech.

- I have a dream.

- [Bettie] Polly was there.

When Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, Polly was in the hotel.

She had an office in the Watergate when the burglars came through.

When Israel and Egypt signed a peace accord at the White House, Polly was there.

- She's always been one to prove people wrong when they tell her she can't do something, and she wants to do that so her community can see that it can be done.

And she did it every time.

- She wasn't from New York or Chicago or L.A. She was from this small, little town in Northern Colorado, and yet, she was able to achieve so much.

- For people like myself that have grown up and seen discrimination firsthand, I believe her mission is just trying to get us to a place where we can just love each other and not have to worry about where we come from but about what we are.

- She's an extraordinary person and someone who has accomplished so much at a time when being a Latina in Colorado was kinda tough, in a state that was founded by Spaniards and has so much Hispanic tradition.

- [Bettie] My great-great-uncle Felipe Baca introduced sheep to Colorado, and Baca County was, in fact, named for him.

- When ya listen to people talk about Latinos, you mostly think of people crossing the Rio Grande in Texas, trying to come into the United States, and they forget that people like Polly and her family had been here for centuries.

- When it was Spain for a couple of hundred years, we were here.

When it was Mexico, for the years that it was, we were here, so we're of the people who never crossed the border.

The border crossed us.

She's always understood that she is from the land because her roots are in Colorado.

- [Polly] I was born on a little farm in Weld County.

It was a two-room shack.

- We didn't have a lot.

We had beans and potatoes for dinner every night, and my mother would kill a chicken and fry it on a Sunday.

- I had amazing parents.

My father had an eighth-grade education, but he was smarter than any man I've ever met.

- And he talked to us about the news of the day, about politics, about how we should always be concerned about those less fortunate.

- My mother was an amazing homemaker, but she also had to work.

She made our clothes, and she would take the flour sacks and make little skirts for us.

- It was in the '40s, and during that time, there was a great deal of discrimination.

- While today it's very different, back then, it was a challenge.

There were signs in the state that said, "No Mexicans and dogs allowed."

You couldn't go into restaurants.

You couldn't go into swimming pools.

In fact, in some churches, in Catholic churches, Latinos were asked to sit upstairs.

- What I remember the most was, at three years old, going to church, and I saw these little girls in white dresses that were going to march around the church, and I wanted to sit in the center aisle so I could see them.

I guess I made such a fuss that, finally, we all sat in the center aisle.

Sure enough, an usher came and said, "I'm sorry, you can't sit here," and that's when I realized that something was wrong.

- Being a young minority woman and having minority parents, you know how incredible those people are and the greatness that they are capable of, so to oppress a whole, entire group of individuals that has the capacity to make the world a better place, she wasn't gonna stand for that.

The greatest gift God ever gave me was being born a female child to a poor Mexican American family in a bigoted community, and I say that because the pain of the bigotry that I experienced as a little girl impacted my entire life.

It burned this flame in my heart to change what existed, to change how people treated one another.

- We all did very well in school because we had very progressive parents.

They insisted that we get an education, not only a high school education but a college education.

- When I went to College High School, I was the only Mexican American woman in my class, and we had one Mexican American boy.

We had a principal who...

I hate to say this, but it's true.

She was prejudice against Mexican Americans.

- I was a civil rights lawyer, and I traveled around the state.

And so, I got a sense of the kinda discrimination that young children were experiencing.

- In those days, any student in Colorado in the top 10% of their class received a joint honors scholarship to go to any state-supported college or university, and lo and behold, the night of graduation, I found out that I got a joint honor scholarship.

- It was probably the most important scholarship.

The principal did not want a Mexican American girl to have it, and she tried to block it.

But indeed, that wasn't allowed, and Polly did get the scholarship and continued to excel.

- I decide to go to Colorado State University, which was 30 miles away from home, [laughs] and live in the dorms.

I used to cry myself to sleep because I got homesick.

But I did it.

I went away from home to college.

- Consider a young Latina coming to Colorado State University in the early 1960s.

At a predominantly white and male institution, she was breaking barriers just by being there.

- I was very good in the sciences, so I chose physics as my major.

The first week on campus, one of the women in the dorm where I lived came to me, and she said, "Polly, you have to go to this meeting with me because we're trying to start a Young Democrats Club and you're the only other Democrat on the floor."

- She looked around.

She didn't see many of her peers, many role models, and yet, she dives into everything.

- I got super involved in Young Democrats, International Relations Club.

I was secretary of my freshman class.

I was doing all of these interesting things.

- She met Dr. Cefkin of the Political Science Department, and he said, "You're so interested in politics and what's going on.

Why aren't you studying physics?

Why don't you change your major to political science?"

- And I said, "Well, can you make money in political science?"

[laughs] And he laughed, and he said, "Well, I do."

He was a political science professor.

And that's when I changed my major, at the end of my freshman year, to political science.

And my sophomore year, I was led to president of the Young Democrats.

- I was working on the campaign, passing out leaflets for Nixon, and she was on the campaign, passing out leaflets for Kennedy.

- [Polly] And so, here I am, doing the grunt work, and I meet all of the Kennedys.

I met anybody that was important.

It was just an opportunity to be involved.

- She was also active in getting established what we call cultural centers.

Now there's a group on campus called El Centro.

It's a place where Hispanic students, Latinx students, can go and feel comfortable, get help with various advising services.

It's a celebration of that heritage and culture.

Polly was one of the people who helped found that series of organizations on our campus, and that's a big impact today.

- In 1962, our class at CSU numbered 1,000, and there were only seven Hispanics in that graduating class of 1,000, so there were very few of us.

When I graduated, I received the Pacemaker Award and was so humbled to graduate with that honor.

- Polly graduated from college.

She was interested in politics.

She had been drawn to it for some time.

- I had this belief that, when opportunity presents itself, it's like the divine saying, "This is what you need to do."

And the next day, I was on my very first flight to a job that changed my life.

- Polly, the risk taker that she was, flew to Washington, D.C., a place that was so different from where we had been raised, a place where there were not only Anglos and Mexicans but people of all persuasions.

- I was one of maybe five women in the labor movement who had a professional job, so I met anybody that was important in the '60s on Capitol Hill.

In June of 1966, Lyndon Johnson has a White House conference on civil rights, and no Latinos were invited.

It was only Black and white.

And so, I read in the newspapers that these young Mexican Americans picketed the conference, and I joined this group talking to the White House, and from those meetings came Lyndon Johnson's decision to start the White House Inter-Agency Committee on Mexican Americans.

And I got called a few months later, and they said, "We need a public information officer."

- She worked in the administration of President Lyndon Johnson, representing Mexican American affairs.

- Here I am, working at the White House.

I go to this reception, and one of the gentlemen that I had met during the Bobby Kennedy campaign was Peter Edelman, his legislative assistant, and Peter said, "Well, hi, Polly, how're ya doing?

Are ya still with the labor unions?"

And I said, "Well, no, I'm now working for the White House Inter-Agency Committee on Mexican Americans," and he said, "Polly, how could you do that?

How could you go work for that man?"

And I said, "As long as he's the president and unless the senator announces, I'm going to stay where I'm at."

A week later, Senator Kennedy announces for the presidency of the United States, so I called Peter, and I said, "I'm ready."

And eventually, they created the Viva Kennedy operation, and the campaign was concerned that a Mexican American woman would not be regarded with the status she needed, so they said that we had to hire a Mexican American male to be my supervisor, so I hired my boss for the Kennedy campaign.

And then, they sent us both out to Los Angeles.

I was working directly with Cesar Chavez.

His charisma was something else.

Cesar would get up before this crowd of Mexican Americans, and he'd give us this big rah-rah about how important today was and we had to out and get people out to vote.

The day of the election, I'm walking precincts.

I'm so proud because, in our precinct, we got every Democrat out except for five.

- Every American, no matter what his background, what his creed, what color of his skin, or where he lives, shall walk with dignity and honor in the United State.

- Yeah.

- That night, we found out there were five precincts in East Los Angeles where every single Democrat registered to vote voted.

That's why Bobby Kennedy won California, and he knew it.

He was late in coming downstairs for the victory speech because he wanted Cesar with him.

I was given the job of trying to find Cesar and finally had to let Senator know that Cesar had already left 'cause he really didn't like big parties.

I saw this man prop the door wide open, and I thought, "Oh, that's because it's hot," you know, "It's for ventilation."

I didn't think anything more of it, and I listened to the senator's speech.

- My thanks to all of you, and now it's on to Chicago, and let's win there.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- And then, he went to the back way through the kitchen.

I took off through that doorway and down the steps.

By the time I got down to the second ballroom.

- [Security] Senator Kennedy has been shot.

- [Polly] It had happened.

- [Witness] Oh God, stay back.

- [Reporter] He's been shot in the head.

He is still alive.

- It was chaos.

It was awful.

It was tragic.

I just closed down.

I was so angry and so hurt and so devastated.

Cesar asked me to help organize a memorial march for the senator, so I stayed in Los Angeles for that weekend while we organized the memorial march.

And then I went to New York for the funeral.

And then, they flew me to Washington, D.C.

I was one of the security at the cemetery.

You had to get past me to get to the senator's burial site, and that night, I remember, after everybody was gone, I was able to go to the side of the casket and say my own personal goodbyes to the senator and kiss the casket.

I think it was the first time in my life that I was so devastated I gave up on politics.

- After Bobby Kennedy was killed, Polly began working in the Chicano movement at the Southwest Council of La Rasa.

[Polly] we would be supportive of organizations or efforts that are directed toward the development of the Barrio and of the Mexican-American community.

- [Bettie] She told me that she was working with a man who was a priest and his name was Miguel Barragán.

And she really loved that he was outgoing and handsome.

They fell in love.

- Got married secretly.

Didn't tell anybody 'cause he hadn't told his mom.

I get pregnant, have a baby, but I left him when my daughter was six weeks old because it just wasn't working.

We're having lots of problems.

- In 1972, she had an opportunity to go to Washington, D.C. Polly was special assistant to Democratic National Committee chairman Larry O'Brien.

She had an office in the Watergate when the burglars came through.

- Her time spent in Washington, D.C., and particularly around the time of Watergate really raised her visibility because the burglars broke into the door next door to her office.

- She was a single parent at the time, and she just felt it would be better if she were among family, so she brought her baby back so that they could live in Colorado.

- She had this undeniable passionate presence when she advocated for her party, so from time to time, reporters would call her and ask her what she's working on next.

A reporter happened to call her and asked her if she was going to run for the House of Representatives, and prior to that phone call, she had no intention at all of doing so, and her answer, as always, was "yes."

- I hung up the phone and said, "What the world did I just do?"

I had no intention of running.

It wasn't something in my mind.

It just happen, but I knew how to organize.

- She did what ya have to do.

You have to get out, and ya gotta knock on every door, going to the precinct committee meetings, going to the county assembly.

I sent a letter to every single precinct committee person.

Then I called them each for a meeting, and one of them that they called the Kaiser because he was very influential out there, George DiTullio, I'll never forget.

I called Mr. DiTullio, and I said, "I'd like to come meet with you and talk about my candidacy for state representative," and he said, "Polly, you don't need to come meet with me, because I'm not going to vote for you anyhow."

And I said, "Well, may I ask why?"

and he said, "Yeah, I don't believe women should serve in the state legislature."

And I appreciated that because he was direct and honest, and I didn't spend any more time on him; however, four years later when I ran for the state Senate, he was one of my biggest supporters.

- [Bettie] Polly was elected to the Colorado legislature in 1974.

- People were surprised that this Latina young person from Adams Country could be elected as a Democrat to the House of Representatives, and she was re-elected.

And then, of course, later, she ran for the Senate, and the same thing there.

She was the first Latina senator in the general assembly.

Polly's focus as a legislator had to do with everyday issues, working-class, particularly, labor.

- One of my first bills, when I got elected, was pay equity.

I believe passionately that women should get paid the same as men for the same job they were doing, 'cause I knew what it felt like not to be paid the same wage as your male counterpart.

When I was working in Washington, D.C., putting out a newspaper for this labor union, The person who assisted me was getting paid $2,000 more than I was.

That took 40 years to pass, finally passed last year, and I was invited to the signing ceremony with the governor at that time.

Some of the other legislation that I really cared about was my sanitation bill for the farm workers.

My goodness, you go to work.

You ought to have a place to go to the bathroom, so I introduced a bill that said that, if you had more than 10 employees on your farm, then you had to have toilet facilities.

I have never had such verbal abuse against some of the people that came to testify.

Nobody testified against it.

They were all for it, but I had some colleagues that were really cruel and said some really sick things.

One of them said, "Well, you know, why should we pass this bill?

They wouldn't know how to use it anyhow."

It broke my heart.

I introduced it twice, once in the House when I was in the House and again when I was in the Senate.

I couldn't get it passed.

I didn't give up.

You just have to take those jabs and keep going.

I was on the Democratic National Committee at the time and I was appointed by the Chairman to this really powerful committee called the National Endowment for Democracy That was comprised by the Chair of the Republican Party and Chair of the Democratic Party I had a call from someone who worked for the Department of Labor, and he said, "You know, Polly, I'm sorry that your bill lost, but you know the secretary of labor because you sit on that committee "He could actually issue an executive order and have the farmers supply sanitation services for their workers."

I said, "Really?"

So of course, the next meeting we had, I sit next to Secretary Brock, and I shared with him that I'd introduced this legislation.

and couldn't get it passed.

Can't you do an executive order on that?"

and he said, "Well, I'll look into it."

A year later, he issued an executive order that all farmers in the whole country that had more than 10 employees had to have sanitation services for those employees, so even though I lost it in Colorado.

I got it implemented but across the country, so you know, ya get knocked down; ya just get back up and keep workin'.

- She was starting to get in the spotlight more and more.

- I ran for the U.S. Congress twice.

In 1980, I was the very first Latina in the entire United States that won a political party nomination for the United States Congress, but it was also in a congressional district that was hard to win.

But I ran.

I had lots of good support.

- Unfortunately, she didn't win, but she went on to do so many great things.

Polly's served two terms as vice chair of the National Democratic Committee.

In her first term, she asked me if I would go work for her to be her deputy.

I am so proud, and I know she is, of the work that we were able to do together.

We reached out to the Hispanic community all over the country in ways that the Democratic Party had never reached out.

- [Federico] She was able to bring both the African American caucus and the Latino caucus in Washington, D.C., to be members of the Democratic National Committee Executive Committee to make sure there was diversity involved at the highest levels of government.

- When I ran for vice chair of the Democrat National Committee in 1981, there was a young man.

He had lost his race for governor and was just a member of the DNC, but he was one of my supporters.

He helped me get elected vice chair of the party, and his name happened to be Bill Clinton.

I was vice chair of the national party till '89.

And then, I left.

In 1991, Hillary calls, and she said, "Polly, Bill has decide to run for president of the United States," and we would like you to co-chair the campaign in Colorado.

Will you do that?"

and out of my mouth comes "yes."

And then, lo and behold, my friend got elected president of the United States.

Somebody called me and said, "Special assistant to the president for Consumer Affairs, is that a job that you might be willing to take?

I think you'd be perfect for it," so I finally said yes, and I went to work as special assistant to the president of the United States and director of the United States Office of Consumer Affairs."

I know I was the first Hispanic woman appointed to the White House staff, but I'm homesick.

I wanna come home, and after a year, I'd let the White House know, and somebody had called me and said, "Well, there's this position in Denver as regional administrator for General Services Administration that you might want."

She said, "We've got to diversify our staff."

The president is committed to having our contracts go to people of color, and I said, "Oh, I can do that.

I know how to do [chuckles] that."

And also, it paid more than my job as special assistant to the president.

[laughs] And so, I came home as regional administrator for the General Services Administration, and it was an incredible time because our building in Oklahoma City had been bombed.

and we lost some of our employees From that point on, we had this incredible pressure for safety.

- One would think that, after so many decades of public service, someone like Polly would, quote, "retire."

[laughs] Polly hasn't retired.

- She's still out there advising, demonstrating what it means to represent all of Colorado.

- If you just live within your own group, you can't ever be a leader of people.

You could be a leader of your own group, but you have to engage others to become a leader of people.

When I give my speeches to young women or young people in general, I really think it's important for them to understand that it's okay to fail.

Even though you have those rough spots and you have some tough times, you can come out of it and learn from it and go further than you would've ever imagined.

- She's been recognized by the Jewish community, by the African American community, and from almost every governmental entity in the state because she's been so involved.

- There's a lot of discrimination in the world still and a lot of bigotry.

People like my grandma are the reason we're progressing into a world that can fight bigotry with love, not riots and not anger, but she fought it with a voice.

And sometimes, to be heard is all you need for people that want to make a change.