“1974 was a very important year for me,” says Gracia Molina de Pick, one of this year’s “Friend of Pride” honorees, recalling where she was 30 years ago. “I was teaching in the University of California system and around that time I was invited to participate in the first human resources team from the State Department to go to Africa, that included women. It was a milestone.”

Frankly, though, for Molina de Pick, milestones seem the norm rather than the exception.

“I moved to the United States 47 years ago,” recalls Molina de Pick. “I was born in Mexico. When I was 17 years old, I was the leader of the youth section of a political party that promised to vote for women. It was a new promise for leaders in Mexico, led by a union leader. I have always been a radical person.”

For Molina de Pick, that radical viewpoint is a family trait.

“My grandparents fought for the Mexican Revolution,” explains Molina de Pick. “One of my grandfathers did the first real ethnic mapping of Mexico, mapping out the ethnicity and languages of the Indians of Mexico. It is the basis, really, for the Mexican identity. It expressed how the soul of Mexico is Indian.”

Molina de Pick had a very strong sense of history, politics and self from her earliest memories.

“My ancestors came to Mexico as European Jews,” explains Molina de Pick. “They were fighters who had left Spain during the Inquisitions and came to the Americas. The men took Indian women as their common law wives. A true Mexican is the product of Mexican mothers and European fathers. People were escaping to find some protection. These ancestors never involved themselves really with the banking elements or the Crown. Instead, they became teachers, lawyers and physicians. They were liberals fighting for the separation of church and state.”

Molina de Pick’s sense of history is still very relevant to her today, as she fights for rights of all people.

“I think our ancestors’ battles can help us understand this new controversy that [President George W.] Bush has blown up,” says Molina de Pick. “This whole shameful situation about amending the Constitution [to ban full marital rights and responsibilities for same-sex couples] is very clear to me because I have a sense of my ancestors’ fight.”

“It was civil marriage that was important in the eyes of the government,” explains Molina de Pick about her ancestors’ move to Mexico. “You were first and foremost entered into a civil marriage by a civil judge, and then, if you chose to do so, you could be married in a church. But for all intents and purposes, your rights were defined by the civil marriage, not the religious element.”

“I learned to read as a Socialist,” says Molina de Pick. “Morning, noon, and night, my family discussed politics.”

So one can imagine her surprise when she came to the United States and met social resistance.

“Ever since I came to the U.S. 47 years ago, I have understood what it is like to be a Mexican,” says Molina de Pick. “Just by the questions they were asking me, like, ‘Why don’t you live with your people?’ I was living in a middle-class neighborhood. I had a degree in Political Science and was working on my Diplomatic Law Degree. This was unusual, I think, for a Mexican-American.”

Molina de Pick is the regional vice-chair of the Veteran Feminists of America and has even been credited as a founder of the “second wave of feminism.” She serves on the board of the Women’s History Museum and Education Center downtown, as well as serving on the Central Committee of the San Diego County Democratic Club and the advisory board of the Latino/Latina Unity Coalition. Molina de Pick founded the first Chicano and Chicana Studies program at Mesa College, as well as being a lecturer at the University of California, San Diego. In 2001, Assemblymember Christine Kehoe named Molina de Pick “Woman of the Year.” In 2002, she was inducted into the San Diego Women’s Hall of Fame. This year, Molina de Pick received the prestigious Jesse de la Cruz award from the California Rural and Legal Assistance organization.

But the San Diego GLBT community likely best knows Molina de Pick as the mother of an Eagle Scout who testified before the city council on the Balboa Park-Boy Scouts Lease debate.

“Even though my youngest son had clearly profited by being in the Scouting movement, I simply did not agree with the discriminating policies of the Scouts,” says Molina de Pick. “I had to be opposed to the renewal of the lease.”

“Two of my most intimate people that were close to me suffered from an injustice that society brought upon them,” says Molina de Pick. “They were both gay. My younger brother self-destructed because he was gay. He was self-taught fluent in four languages, he was so amazing, but he could not bring himself to tell my father he was gay. My brother simply got lost in a society that would not allow him to be comfortable with his own body.”

“My aunt was a very intimate friend of [Mexican Artist] Frida Kahlo,” says Molina de Pick. “My aunt is your classical lesbian. Everyone knows [my aunt] is a lesbian, but she is completely in the closet. She is 95 now. But when I was 12 or 13, I would spend time with my aunt and Kahlo. I learned from them that great people defend not only themselves, but those who cannot defend themselves.”

Molina de Pick believes that she has seen discrimination in every form possible. And this is, in large part, what drives her activism.

“I’m a radical person,” says Molina de Pick. “I have to be. I think anyone who identifies with human rights is going to be a radical in politics. We are on the cutting edge. My last breath will be fighting for those human rights.”