Meet Roberto
Roberto's background
Roberto A. Reveles, born in Miami, Arizona, of Mexican immigrant parents, attended Bullion Plaza School, when it served as a segregated Mexican school, and graduated from Miami High School.
After four years in the Air Force during the Korean War, he earned his BSFS degree from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, Washington, DC.
Starting in 1956, he began a career that spanned twenty-four years of service on the staff of five Members of Congress in Washington, D.C., that included Arizona’s Representatives Stewart L. Udall and Morris K. Udall and George F. Senner, Jr. In 1980, he retired as staff director for Morris Udall, Chairman of the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs.
From 1980 to 1992, he was an executive with Homestake Mining Company headquartered in San Francisco, California, from which he retired as Vice President for Government Affairs. During this time, he was affiliated with various community education and cultural groups, including serving on the Board of Trustees at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Since retiring in 1992, Reveles has continued his active civic engagement while residing in Gold Canyon, Arizona. He remains involved in community affairs in the Phoenix metropolitan area and his hometown of Miami, Arizona. His volunteer work has included service with numerous advocacy, civic, and cultural groups. Among them: Association for Development of a Better Environment (ADOBE), Gold Canyon Arts Council, co-founder of Bullion Plaza Cultural Center and Museum (housed in the segregated school Reveles attended), Arizona Hispanic Community Forum, Humane Borders, Arizona Latino Arts and Cultural Center, Raul Castro Institute, Morrison Institute’s Latino Public Policy Center, Pinal County People Power Project, Apache Junction Save Our Schools Committee, and retired in 2022 as founding president of Gold Canyon Community, Inc.
Reveles actively promotes civic engagement by Latinos and public dialogue on immigration policies to resolve differences over the broken immigration system. He was elected founding president of Somos America/We Are America, the immigrant supportive coalition that organized the April 2006 march of over 200,000 persons, one of the largest civic gatherings in Arizona’s history. Reveles cites his service with the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona as the ultimate reward of community work protecting the exercise of everyone’s human rights. He served as a member and president of the ACLU’s board of directors during the ACLU’s successful class action lawsuit that found Sheriff Joe Arpaio guilty of unconstitutional racial profiling. He actively advocates for enforcing Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office compliance with the as-of-yet-incomplete court-ordered reforms.
In 2016, he was on the Arizona ballot as a presidential elector in the electoral college for Hillary Clinton.
In February 2017, he co-founded ACLU’s People Power Project in Pinal County, which continues to advocate for county policies supporting immigrant rights and restoring former felons' voting rights.
He continues to serve with Uncage and Reunite Families Coalition, volunteers who promote reunification of separated immigrant children with their families.
He is the father of 5 and has 11 grandchildren. Reveles enjoys middle-distance walking and spending time in his art studio, where he sculpts figurative and portraiture.
