Roberto Maestas

Maestas was born in rural New Mexico and raised by his grandparents and after working throughout the Western United States as a migrant worker eventually settled in Seattle in the 1950s. Maestas was a high school teacher at Franklin High School. Maestas enrolled in a graduate degree program at the University of Washington in 1968, where he pushed to diversify the campus. In the early 1970s he helped begin an ESL program at South Seattle College. In 1972, funding to the program was abruptly cut off which led to Maestas and a number of other activists to occupy an abandoned school building in Seattle's Beacon Hill neighborhood which eventually became El Centro de la Raza. By 2005, the organization coordinated the leaders of 120 nonprofits for minority communities, helping them organize funding. ==Legacy==

Maestas was chosen as Seafair's King Neptune for 2004, a choice that surprised him and caused fellow activist Bob Santos to laugh uncontrollably. Maestas was the first Latino Seafair King, had never been to a Seafair Torchlight Parade, and disliked Seafair's use of the Blue Angels. Seafair's vice president said they selected him for his long history of community service, and Maestas said he would participate in honor of "the people". He took the role alongside Jeannie Nordstrom, of the Nordstrom family, as Queen Alcyone. Maestas, along with the rest of the Gang of Four and the executive director of the Minority Executive Directors Coalition, received the 2005 Bridge Builders Award from Partners for Livable Communities. ==References==