Tejano Talks #31 - Adela Sloss Vento - (2017)

Although Adela Sloss Vento was one of the most important civil rights Tejana activists of the 20th century, but few recognize her name. She was a writer, feminist, and organizer that influenced South Texas politics from the Rio Grande Valley to Corpus Christi.
She was born in Karnes City, Texas, on September 27, 1901, to Anselma Garza and David Henry Sloss. She graduated from Pharr-San Juan High School in 1927, one of the first integrated schools in the Rio Grande Valley. At the time, few Mexican American women graduated from high school.
Soon she moved into city government, working as a secretary for the mayor of San Juan and later worked for Hidalgo County in Edinburg. She and her husband, Pedro lived briefly in Corpus Christi in the 1940s where he worked as a security officer at the Naval Air Station.
Soon she moved into city government, working as a secretary for the mayor of San Juan and later worked for Hidalgo County in Edinburg. She and her husband, Pedro lived briefly in Corpus Christi in the 1940s where he worked as a security officer at the Naval Air Station.
While living in Corpus Christi, she penned “The Problem of Many Texas Towns” for El Heraldo and the Corpus Christi Caller documenting incidents of racial discrimination in South Texas against persons of Mexican descent. She also reported on the refusal by a Corpus Christi restaurant to admit a Mexican American
Sloss Vento probably wrote more than a hundred articles for Spanish and English language newspapers. She wrote for La Prensa of San Antonio, La Verdad of Corpus Christi and the McAllen Monitor, among other newspapers.
Soon her interest would turn to civil rights and as they moved back to the Rio Grande Valley, Adela got involved with helping organize LULAC. Women could not join LULAC chapters but, in an essay in the, she praised the work of women in Ladies LULAC in the 1930s, noting these women were civic leaders and fighters.
She became an advocate for Mexican American rights and organized several movement to stop the discrimination. She worked closely with Alonso Perales, one of the founders of LULAC, to help the organization have an immediate impact in South Texas.
She worked with advocates of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy. She wrote letters to Lyndon Baines Johnson, whom she knew personally, and communicated with Presidents Truman, Eisenhower and Carter.
Sloss Vento was a feminist. She had the audacity to be political and intellectual. She wrote an essay in the early 1930s “Why There is No True Happiness in Latino Homes” which condemned machismo and the supposed superiority of men in the home.
During the Chicano Movement she supported the Chicano student walkout in Edcouch-Elsa, praised the teaching of Chicano history and advocated for bilingualism.
She was a fervent civic and political leader. She formed an independent Mexican American political club in San Juan, Texas in the 1940s and supported the Raza Unida Party in the 1970s.
Her son, Dr. Dr. Arnoldo Carlos Vento has written a book that has now brought her to light as one of the true civil rights leaders of South Texas and an inspirational figure for women and all of South Texas.