Lodi Community Hall of Fame

Joe Serna Jr.'s social, political achievements made him a role model

By Richard Hanner
News-Sentinel Editor

Even as a boy, the late Joe Serna was hyper-competitive.

Serna's sister, Maria Elena Serna of Lodi, remembers how her brother constantly challenged his friends and siblings to bicycle races in their rural neighborhood, and seldom lost.

"He just had to get there first," Maria Elena Serna recalled.

Joe Serna Jr.

Serna's desire to get there first extended well beyond youthful bike races. He was a scrappy football player at Lodi High whose intensity earned him a place on the varsity as a sophomore. He was an altruistic leader in the United Farm Workers, working next to Cesar Chavez.

And he was the first Latino mayor of a California city, Sacramento.

For his varied social and political achievements, Jose "Joe" Angel Serna Jr. is being inducted posthumously into the Lodi Community Hall of Fame, sponsored by the Lodi Boys and Girls Club.

Other inductees this year are John Borelli, downtown merchant and community leader; Mark Chandler, executive director of the Lodi-Woodbridge Winegrape Commission; Ted Heinrich, retired Lodi Unified drafting and woodshop instructor; and Charlene Lange, former director of Hutchins Street Square.

Serna died in 1999 at age 60. He had become a political figure of national importance and a role model for a generation of Californians, especially Latinos.

His rise was all the more striking in light of his beginnings. Serna was one of four children born to Jose and Hedy Serna. His parents toiled as farm workers in the fields around Lodi. Yet they stressed to each of their children the importance of education, recalled Maria Elena Serna, and that ultimately made the difference in Joe Serna's life.

At Lodi High, Serna refused to be limited by financial status or ethnic background.

For instance, he was determined to join the ski club. His family could ill-afford the skis, but Serna found a way.

"He made his own skis in woodshop class," Maria Elena said.

After graduation from Lodi High, he attended San Joaquin Delta College and graduated from Sacramento State University, Sacramento, in 1966. He later worked for the UFW and served in Guatemala with the Peace Corps.

Though an energetic and practical man, Serna was also a man of great compassion, his sister recalled.

"He had a great sense of justice from an early age -- and a strong desire to fight injustice," she said.

He joined the faculty at Sacramento State in 1968 and, following graduate studies in political science at UC Davis, he became a professor. He was recognized with the Distinguished Faculty Award in 1991.

He also practiced what he taught. He was elected to the Sacramento City Council in 1981 and became mayor in 1992.

The competitive boy who had to be first -- who had to make a difference -- became a mayor bent on change and activism. Serna founded a Summer Reading Camp for needy students; he helped create the Thursday Farmer's Market; he formed the Mayor's Commission on Education and the City's Future; he was a founder of the Neighborhood Services Department, which consolidated city services to nurture healthy neighborhoods.

He fought valiantly against the cancer that ultimately took his life. (Serna is survived by his son, Phillip Serna, daughter, Lisa Serna-Mayorga, sister Maria Elena, and brothers Reuben and Jesse Serna. Joe Serna's late wife, Isabel Hernandez-Serna, was an assistant vice president at Sacramento State University. )

In a newspaper interview shortly before his death, Serna reflected on a life lived to the fullest:

"I was supposed to live and die a farm worker, not as a mayor and a college professor.

I have everything to be thankful for."

Those interested in attending the Hall of Fame dinner on Sept. 25 may contact the Boys and Girls Club at 334-2697.