Part 2 of 2

By Jonathan Gramling

As we meet at the Starbuck’s on the Capitol Square — one of Ben Obregon’s daily rituals — I am struck by how little it seems that Obregon has aged. I first met him in the early 1980s when we hired him at the Madison Urban League — now the Urban League of Greater Madison — to work in a limited-term project. And I can’t help but think that Obregon had gray hair then, some 40 years ago.

As I listen to Obregon talk about his life, it seems that he has been a migrant with a cause for the vast majority of his adult life. He was born and raised in Arizona and lived in California after being released from military service before heading with his wife to Belvedere, Illinois and after moving to Port Washington, Wisconsin, Obregon and his wife divorced with his daughter staying with him and his son moving with mom back to Belvedere.

Obregon made his way to Madison in the early 1980s, using his work as an apartment property manager as a financial base while he still pursued social justice. He worked at the Madison Urban League for a while and was also a part of the group that founded Centro Hispano in 1983.

“When we hired Ilda Thomas as the executive director in 1983, the setting up of Centro Hispano was primarily to assist the Cuban refugees called the Marielitos,” Obregon said. “But it has certainly expanded. What a great program not only for them, but also for the community as a whole.

Karen has done a real good job as director of Centro although the program has had 3-4 different directors over the last couple of decades. Dora Zuñiga was director at one point. But the program has grown quite extensively and it is headed in the right direction.”

And he put in many hours volunteering, primarily for causes that impact migrants.

“Having been born and raised in a migrant situation, I’ve stayed with that,” Obregon said. “My father was kind of a key element with that. He was always willing to be helpful with people. He got involved and he was always telling us that we have to try to help others as well as help ourselves. I’ve followed that. He was a very patient person. A lot of people tell me that I’m too patient. I don’t get riled up. I don’t throw tantrums or whatever. I don’t see a need for it. I kept telling people that all that does is hurt you more than it hurts the other people you are going against.”

While many people seem to fly around from one organization to another to build up their resumes, Obregon has found causes that he believed in and stuck with them.

“I got involved with Legal Action as a client,” Obregon said. “I was asked to be a part of the board of directors, which I gladly did. I also got involved with UMOS back in 1984-1985 as a volunteer. They asked me if I would like to get on their board of directors and I gladly did. I’ve been involved with both of these groups for over 30 years now and have been chair for both of the groups at one point or another. I’m still chair of UMOS out of Milwaukee. I’ve also been involved with a group out of Washington, D.C. called the National Legal Aid & Defender Association. It provides assistance in training for all legal entities that are funded by the Legal Services Corporation. I was on their board and I was on the various committees of that group. And I was elected chair of a group out of them called the Latino Advocacy Section of LADA. I was chair for them for around 10 years until last November. I came down with a case of pneumonia and I was laid up for a while. I resigned my chairmanship of that group. But I am still a part of it. I also resigned as chair of Legal Action of Wisconsin at the time. I didn’t feel that I was doing a good job the way that I felt at that point. But I’m still on the board of Legal Action. I’m on the executive committee. I’ve been involved with UMOS and still am. I’ve been elected chair of the board for three consecutive years. We’ll be having an election this year in July at our annual corporate meeting. They’ve asked me to stay on. I said that I would like to do it for one more year.”

Obregon’s volunteerism has taken him far and wide.

“Because of UMOS, I’ve been to Texas, doing a lot of recruiting for them for their migrant and Head Start programs,” Obregon said. “I just got back Sunday. I was in Baltimore, Maryland attending the National Head Start Association’s annual conference. I was thee from Sunday to Friday. I flew into Milwaukee and UMOS had asked me to spend Saturday in Milwaukee to attend a Cinco de Mayo celebration that El Conquistador, the newspaper, was sponsoring. I stayed at a hotel in Milwaukee. At the same time, I was asked to attend a celebration or a banquet at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for the graduation of Latino students. And I came back to Madison on Sunday and here I am. A lot of people assume that I’m not a Madison person because I spend more time outside of Madison doing these other things, which is fine.”

And Obregon didn’t look the worse for wear even though he recently turned 87-years-old.

“Age is only a number,” Obregon said with a smile. “It only depends on how you feel and how you take care of yourself. You have to take care of you first. Otherwise you can’t do anything for yourself or anyone else. So to me, age is only a number. I’m fortunate that I’ve been blessed. I’ll be 87-years-old this Friday. And I’m looking forward to sticking around for another 20 years.”

Obregon has gotten a lot accomplished over the past eight decades, in large part because he was willing to volunteer.

“Everyone has some niche or some area that they are concerned about, that they want to try to do something with that,” Obregon said. “And thinking in those terms, they need to look for an organization that does work in that area, contact them and say they are interested in it and can they be of any help and go from there. Everyone has something that they want to get done.”

Obregon has gotten it done for migrants and the state of Wisconsin.