Like many American Women Quarters Program honorees, Jovita Idar (1885 – 1946) made notable and significant contributions for the causes that she championed. In her case, those causes centered around the struggles encountered by Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans.
However, Jovita Idar is also a central figure in the defense of the First Amendment to the US Constitution and its freedom of the press. She put herself at great risk to protect her right and the right of her employees to publish.
So, let’s talk about her life in more detail. You will soon see that her commemoration on an American quarter is quite valid.
Jovita Idar Valero was born in Laredo, Texas, on September 7, 1885. She was the second-oldest of eight born to Nicasio and Jovita Idar. Needless to say, she was named after her mother.
She drew the inspiration for her career from her father, however. Nicasio owned and operated a Spanish-language newspaper called La Cronica (The Chronicle). He was also known to be an early supporter of women’s rights and the importance of women’s involvement in politics and public life.
Both of her parents encouraged young Jovita to pursue her education and sharpen her mind. She attended a Methodist school, the Holding Institute, and graduated in 1903 with a teaching certificate.
She began her teaching career shortly afterward. However, Idar was appalled by the lack of resources allocated to her students, who were almost entirely Mexican-Americans. So, she soon left teaching and began working as a journalist for her father’s newspaper.
Her primary focus was the plight of Chicanos in the United States. They suffered discrimination, poor working conditions, and lynching, and Idar drew attention to these causes with all of her might.
Idar also wrote several articles in support of women’s suffrage. Although she never emerged as a leader with that particular cause, there was no doubt about where she stood on the matter or whether she later celebrated the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution in 1920.
However, Idar’s focus remained on the problems faced by Mexican-Americans and immigrants from the other side of the border. After a 14-year-old boy was lynched in 1911, she and her family came together to hold El Primer Congreso Mexicanista, or the First Mexican Congress.
The congress took place during September 1911 in Laredo. It united Mexican immigrants, Mexican-Americans, and other Chicanos to discuss their civil rights and poor treatment in the State of Texas, and likely began the movement towards equality for the Chicano citizens.
During the congress, Idar met with several Hispanic women who were of a similar mind. Together, they formed La Liga Femenil Mexicanista, or the League of Mexican Women, and Idar became its first president. La Liga offered free educational classes for Mexican children. It also encouraged women to break out of their traditional roles as domestic workers and enter the workforce.
Now, during this period, Idar was tangentially affected by the Mexican Revolution, which raged south of the border between 1910 and 1920. After Laredo’s mirror city, Nuevo Laredo, was attacked in 1913, Idar began to volunteer with La Cruz Blanca – the White Cross – which helped to care for those wounded in the conflict.
At the same time, she began working for a local newspaper called El Progreso (The Progress). Soon afterward, the newspaper published an article – it’s not immediately clear if she wrote it herself – that criticized President Woodrow Wilson’s decision to send troops to the border in response to the ongoing civil war in Mexico.
In response, the Governor of Texas, Oscar Branch Colquitt, deployed the Texas Rangers to shut down the newspaper. Idar distinguished herself by physically standing in the door of the newspaper and refusing to let the Rangers inside. Unfortunately, Idar is a human being and could not be there every day, so the Rangers ultimately destroyed and shut down the paper.
Afterwards, she returned to her father’s newspaper, La Cronica. After her father’s death in 1914, she took over the management of the newspaper. She later joined forces with one of her brothers to form a separate newspaper, Evolucion (Evolution).
Idar married at age 32 in 1917. Her husband, Bartolo Juarez, was a tinsmith and plumber. Shortly after they married, the couple moved to San Antonio, where they would live and work the rest of Jovita’s life.
Once in San Antonio, Idar grew much more active with the Democratic Party of Texas. She also established a free kindergarten, worked as a hospital interpreter, and taught hygiene to women in the San Antonio area.
Jovita Idar did not give up on her journalism and advocacy, though. Notably, she served as an editor for El Heraldo Cristiano, a Spanish-language newspaper serving the Methodist community.
At some point during her time in San Antonio, however, Idar had contracted tuberculosis. She passed away on June 15, 1946 due to a pulmonary hemorrhage, which was likely caused or aggravated by her underlying health condition. She was 60. Her husband, Bartolo, joined her in death twelve years later.
Though Idar’s contributions were both meaningful and significant, she largely slipped through the cracks of history until recent times. There are some memorials dedicated to her in her native Laredo, along with an elementary school in Chicago, but there was little recognition until the 2000s.
However, her impassioned defense of free speech against government tyranny, which manifested purely during her blockade against the Texas Rangers, makes her quiet heroism worthy of remembrance. She has a profile with the National Women’s History Museum and has been cited by several modern authors as a key influencer for Mexican-American and women’s rights.
The only reasons why Idar might be less well-known than some of her contemporaries are her advocacy for the Chicano people, which was a bit niche in the face of overall civil rights, and her somewhat moderate approach to women’s issues. Though she supported strong and smart women, her advocacy did not completely shun the ideas of Victorian propriety.
In other words, she wasn’t a radical. Ironically for her, radicals usually drew the majority of the newspaper ink, and continue to do so to this very day.
Idar does deserve the honor of her own coin. Few Americans are likely to be as willing to risk their freedom or well-being to preserve free speech and freedom of the press.
It is through her advocacy that she is commemorated on the fourth quarter released as part of the American Women Quarters program in 2023. Overall, the Idar quarter is the ninth of the series.
It is also one of the most striking of the group. In fact, it is unlike any of the others that we’ve seen.
Of course, its front or obverse plays host to President George Washington. Washington has adorned the front of the American quarter since 1932, and this series does not attempt to waver from that imagery.
On the back, or reverse, is where the tribute to Idar is located. Unlike the other designs, the reverse of the quarter features a single image of Idar, rather than any significant mottos or other imagery.
She is portrayed facing left, with her hands clasped, and a resolute look of determination on her face. However, it is her garment that draws the attention.
She is enrobed in a garment that is made entirely of her own words. Her name is part of the script, but a collection of her writings appears as significant words and phrases that she often used.
There is no other image on the coin – only her, and her words. It seems likely that such a tribute is exactly what Idar would have wanted.