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The Mexican YMCA in Miami, Arizona
By Christine Marin, Ph.D.
BARRIOZONA
In 1910, the Miami Copper Company formed an alliance with the YMCA to provide recreational and social activities for its
employees in its one-story frame building on Miami Hill, near the company’s concentrator facility. Inside, company
personnel played games such as checkers, chess and billiards and read newspapers and magazines. A large handball
court outside provided additional recreational activity for the men. In 1915, the state territorial YMCA secretary, D.W.
Pollard, made an agreement with company officials to expand the Y’s facilities, and strengthen its presence within the
community. The Miami Copper Company agreed to build a new and modern YMCA building closer to the business
section of town. Dedicated on May 10, 1917, the imposing three-story YMCA building became a community and mining
company showpiece on the corner of Sullivan Street and Miami Avenue. The building is still there on that same corner.
The YMCA building had a steam-heated indoor tiled swimming pool, a gymnasium with a stage, a two-lane bowling alley
and twenty-three dormitory rooms with showers for single Anglo men: engineers, chemists, accountants, and other
specialists and employees of the Miami Copper Company. A banquet room, conference room, billiard and pool tables
framed the spacious lobby, along with a library, reading room, and a well-furnished kitchen. In 1911, at least eight-
hundred Anglo YMCA members and their families had access to all “Y” facilities. YMCA boys’ clubs formed and
basketball teams and leagues competed against each other in afternoon games after school. The YMCA doubled as a
community center and a recreational facility for the Anglos in Miami.
In the midst of all this wholesome activity, the dark side of the Miami YMCA emerged. Segregation and an unwritten “No
Mexicans Allowed” policy marred the beauty of the new YMCA building. The practice of segregation kept Mexicanos from
bowling and playing card games or billiards inside the “Y.” Segregation kept them at a distance and prevented them from
relaxing in the reading room and lobby after working a day shift at the mine. It also kept Mexicano youths from using the
gymnasium after school. As for using the swimming pool, Mexican boys swam once a week under strict supervision: on
the day before, an official cleaned and drained the pool. Despite the segregation policy, YMCA leaders believed it to be in
their best Christian interest to at least show a concern for the spiritual welfare of the Mexicanos and wanted to fulfill their
godly duty by proselytizing righteousness and clean living. In order to forge Christian Americanization efforts among them,
YMCA leaders opened the “Mexican Y” and promoted physical activities and music.
The “Mexican Y”, a small and unused one-room wood-frame storage building owned by the Miami Copper Company
opened in May, 1919. Several make-shift wooden tables and chairs stored inside the building served as the furniture,
with a second-hand piano and a used blackboard inside the little building. There was a wood stove to heat the building in
the winter, a stark contrast to the new, modern state-of-the-art YMCA building just a few feet away. In 1925, YMCA officials
selected Alejandro Trujillo, my father’s uncle, to serve as the Director of the “Mexican Y.” Trujillo was a lay pastor and
Sunday school teacher at the El Divino Salvador (The Divine Savior), the Mexican Presbyterian church in Miami. He also
labored for the Miami Copper Company. Trujillo and his cousin, Mauricio Trujillo, formed an adult musicians’ group, who
called themselves the “Mexicanos Y Orchestra.” The “Mexican Y” remained segregated until 1947, twenty-eight years after
it opened in 1919.
Copyright © 2006 by Christine Marin
Copyright © 2006 Hispanic Institute of Social Issues
Grassroots Journalism
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