MAGDALENA GALLEGOS PAPERS

Magdalena “Madge” Gallegos was born in Denver, Colorado on July 12, 1935 to parents Felix and Florence Gallegos. She was raised in the Auraria neighborhood when it was known as West Denver and received a traditional upbringing and a Catholic education at St. Cajetan’s School. She had two brothers Larry and Don and one sister Debra. She graduated from St. Joseph’s High School in 1953. She married Frederick Trujillo in 1955 and had four children Mary, Bernadine, Arthur and Richard. In 1975, she divorced and became a single parent. She later married publisher John Oliver Mitchell Sr. until he died in 1999.

As a contemporary Denver neighborhood, Auraria is synonymous with the Auraria Higher Education Center (AHEC), which opened in 1976, and home to the University of Colorado Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver (previously known as Metropolitan State College of Denver), and the Community College of Denver. But before Auraria was known as the higher education center, Auraria was a neighborhood that served a multicultural community that was predominantly Hispanic. Householder directories of the decades from the 1920s through the 1960s reveal a preponderance of Hispanic surnames, with a smattering of households reminiscent of earlier residents. St. Cajetan’s Catholic Church, the spiritual and cultural heart of Auraria’s Hispanic community, was constructed in 1926 at the corner of Lawrence and Ninth.

The Denver Urban Renewal Authority announced plans to build a higher education center and chose Auraria as its designated site in the 1960s. Metropolitan State College of Denver received federal assistance to fund the land acquisition and pay for the relocation of the Aurarian residents. However, the local Aurarians were in opposition to this urban renewal project and protested the development. However, by 1972, demolishment of the neighborhood had begun and many people were displaced. Gallegos dedicated much of her career and activism to telling the stories of the displaced Hispanic community of Auraria.

She became politically active and found her calling to support the work of the United Farm Workers Union (UFW), boycotting, and raising money to help those in need. During her community work for the UFW she met César Chávez. Gallegos campaigned for Hispanic political leader Sal Carpio when he ran for Denver City Council and then worked as Carpio’s council aide after he was elected in 1975.

Pursuing her lifelong dream of a college degree, Gallegos enrolled at the University of Colorado Denver in 1980, majoring in ethnic studies with the help of federal grants, scholarships, student loans and work study. In 1984, Gallegos received her Bachelor of Arts with Distinction from UCD. She became a college counselor at the Educational Opportunity Center at the Community College of Denver, encouraging others to get degrees and become lifelong learners.

During her college career, Gallegos enrolled in an oral history class, choosing to document the voices of the former residents of her Westside neighborhood in her project “Auraria Remembered.” Gallegos advocated for the Displaced Aurarian Scholarship, which still covers tuition and fees for the displaced residents and their descendants to attend college on the Auraria campus.

Gallegos became the editor and publisher of Southwest Magazine with her husband John Mitchell — a quarterly publication telling the stories of Colorado’s people of color. Gallegos wrote a play, “Sueños,” first performed at Denver’s Su Teatro. She wrote human interest stories and theater reviews, becoming the first Chicana theater critic for Denver Urban Spectrum community newspaper. In 2011, she published her first novel, “Florence and the Butterflies,” which documented the fables her mother, Florence, shared about growing up on a farm.

Magdalena Gallegos’ years of hard work earned her accolades in the community. In 2020, she was awarded the Eleanor Gehres Award for her service to the Western History and Genealogy Department and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Champion Award from the Community College of Denver. Gallegos passed away on May 12, 2021.