Sylvia Bufanda-Courtney: Labor and Civil Rights Activist

Sylvia Bufanda Courtney, a Latina of Mexican and Native American ancestry, was born in Tucson, Arizona, but considers San Francisco her home. It is where she chose to live after leaving Tucson in 1964 in hopes of being able to work for higher wages than were available to her in Tucson and thereby allow her to afford to go to college since there were many choices in San Francisco as compared to only the University of Arizona in Tucson at that time. She was raised by a single mother and the costs to attend the U of A were out of reach, even for a working student. She met and married Vince Courtney soon after arriving in San Francisco and they had two children first, they both finished college at San Francisco State and went on to law school while raising the children and working multiple jobs.

Simultaneously, both Sylvia and Vince became activists beginning in the 60's, organizing against the Vietnam War and for civil rights including farmworkers' union lettuce and grape boycotts and other labor union issues. Upon becoming a full time student, she was instrumental in establishing the SFSU Childcare Center and served as the first Chair of the Parents' Council. She was selected as a delegate from SFSU's Student Mobilization Committee Against the War to attend the Washington D C conference of the National Peace Action Coalition which planned and implemented the largest antiwar demonstrations in the U S in the early 1970's. Before graduating in 1974, summa cum laude, Sylvia taught courses in La Raza and Women's Studies and was awarded a fellowship by Carnegie Endowment for Peace to study and conduct community outreach in San Francisco on issues of racism and its impact on local communities and on international relations.

After graduating from law school, Sylvia worked for the federal antipoverty program, U S Community Services Administration, as Region IX Human Rights Chief. She was hired as a deputy public defender in San Francisco in 1982, and in 1984, entered private practice, specializing in labor and employment law, specifically cases involving wrongful termination, unlawful job discrimination and retaliation. In 1988, she became a partner in the law firm of Davis, Reno & Courtney in San Francisco, representing individuals and union clients including IFPTE Local 21, SEIU, SF Building & Construction Trades Council, Carpenters Local 22, SF Police Officers' Association, SF Firefighters Local 798, Hawaii Government Employees Association (HGEA) and others.

She and her husband established Courtney Law Offices in 1998. Sylvia taught night classes at SF Community College on the subject of employment discrimination for 10 years, and served on the SF Juvenile Justice Commission, and on the boards of various community organizations such as Mission Community Legal Defense (MCLD).

Sylvia and Vince Courtney are now residents of Las Vegas, still spending as much time as possible in the San Francisco Bay Area which will always be home and are proud of Nevada's position as a "blue" state which has made a great deal of progress toward increasing the access of people of color to good paying jobs with career progression in many important sectors, such as the unionized construction and h hospitality industries of Las Vegas. While she has spent many years in the effort to advance the causes of working people and particularly people of color, and laments the divisiveness threatening the nation's progress, Sylvia has hope for the future arising from two phenomena in particular:

1) We have had conflicts and divisions throughout our history and still continue to make progress, however difficult, and

2) Today's youth of the country are more tolerant of racial, ethnic and gender differences, more aware of the threats to their lives of climate change and the proliferation of guns, and more likely to be committed to change because their lives will depend on it.

As a grandmother of two boys and a girl in their late twenties, who are proud of their Irish and Mexican heritage, Sylvia believes that it is just as important, and perhaps more important, to pass on knowledge, perspective and commitment to members of one's own family as to anyone else, inasmuch as the youth of today are the leaders of tomorrow.

On behalf of HealthCare UnTold we thank and honor Sylvia for sharing her incredible career with us..Gracias Sylvia for your activism and commitment to justice for our communities.