Thelma Garcia Obituary, Resident Of Los Ebanos TX, Died At 63
Thelma Garcia Obituary, Death- Los Ebanos – Thelma Estrella Garcia, 63, died Tuesday, April 25, 2023, at her brother’s residence. The Lord and I Funeral Home of Peñitas is in charge of arrangements.
was a community activist, legislator, historian, public speaker, cultural worker, and author who was Filipino American. From 1974 until 1982, she served in the Alaska House of Representatives for four consecutive terms. She wrote the third edition of the book Filipinos in Alaska: 1788–1958, which is available at the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center. Thelma In the Philippines’ small fishing community of Claveria, Cagayan, Jean Garcia was born and nurtured. She was the first of Eugenio Manalo Garcia and Dionisia de Leon’s six children. Her father, whose ancestors originated in Calanasan, Apayao, was of mixed tribal descent, including Aeta and Ibanag. Her mother was of Ilocano descent, with ancestors hailing from the towns of Laoag and Bangui in the province of Ilocos Norte as well as from Vigan, Ilocos Sur.
At the Academy of St. Joseph in Claveria, Cagayan, she began her official education. She did not start going to school on a regular basis until she was eleven years old when World War II disrupted her schooling. Thelma started attending Mount St. Mary’s College in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, when she was 15 years old. She was able to accomplish this because of Fermin de Leon, her maternal uncle, who lived in Las Vegas, Nevada, who sponsored her. In 1956, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Zoology. The Mount St. Mary’s College Outstanding Alumna Award for Community Service was given to her on October 6, 1996.
She was also enrolled in graduate studies at the University of Nevada, which later changed its name to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and had a branch in Las Vegas. Thelma enrolled in the District of Columbia School of Law in Washington, D.C. in 1988, right after her youngest child received his or her college diploma. She enrolled with her spouse, and the two of them graduated from law school in 1991. Subsequently, they were both accepted to the Alaska Bar Association. Thelma Buchholdt got interested in politics as a member of the Ad Hoc Committee of Young Democrats in Anchorage, Alaska, in the late 1960s. She was chosen to attend the Brookings Institution’s “On the Future of Alaska” conference in Washington, D.C. in 1969. In 1974, she was elected to the Alaska House of Representatives.
For a first-time candidate, the race for the Anchorage School Board she ran was surprisingly close. She was appointed by George McGovern to serve as his 1972 presidential campaign’s Alaska coordinator. Thelma was elected as an Ad Hoc Democrat to the Alaska House of Representatives in 1974 as a result of her efforts on the McGovern campaign. In 1976, 1978, and 1980, she won re-election to the Alaskan legislature. She was the nation’s first female Filipino American legislator. Additionally, she became the first Filipino American elected to a US legislative body from a constituency that had fewer than 1% Filipino Americans and less than 3% Asian Americans.