[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 4]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 5698]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   CONGRATULATING AND HONORING LONG LIFE SOCIAL ACTIVIST MARIAN LUPU

                                  _____
                                 

                         HON. RAUL M. GRIJALVA

                               of arizona

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, April 28, 2015

  Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate and honor my 
dear friend Marian Lupu; a visionary and warrior in the fight for 
fairness and social justice. Marian has never ignored the plight and 
needs of others. We celebrate her 90th birthday and relish in her work. 
I want to submit a profile of Ms. Marian Lupu that appeared in the 
Arizona Jewish Post, written by Shelia Wilenskey; this, better than I, 
describes a life worth honor.

       Marian Lupu, now 89, founded the Pima Council on Aging in 
     1965. She didn't retire as executive director until 2006, 
     when she was 82. ``If you love what you're doing, why not?'' 
     Lupu asked the AJP. A pioneer in her field, Lupu took one of 
     the first courses ever taught on aging when she was a 
     graduate student at the University of Chicago. ``I soon 
     decided,'' she says, ``that all the research in the world 
     wasn't going to help the aging population unless it provided 
     services and advocacy.''
       In her elder years, Lupu practices what she preached. ``The 
     biggest thing I've learned is to use the supports I have,'' 
     she says. ``I take all the support I can get, use a walker or 
     a cane, without having the resistance of many older people 
     who drive and get into accidents or who fall down because 
     they want to be independent.''
       Lupu started her career as a student working at the 
     National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago 
     and later supervised the first study on aging Spanish-
     American War veterans. Her 1948 marriage to Charles Lupu, 
     Ph.D., eventually brought the couple to Tucson in 1965, when 
     he landed a job at the Tucson Medical Center. She started the 
     Tucson Council on Aging as a volunteer. The agency later 
     became the Pima Council on Aging.
       ``I recognized there were no services for the aging 
     population here, whether they were Jewish or not. I learned a 
     great deal,'' says Lupu, from Betty Brook, who was 
     instrumental, with her husband, in helping to build Tucson's 
     Jewish community, including Jewish Family & Children's 
     Services and Dr. Ted Koff, the first director of Handmaker 
     Jewish Services for the Aging.
       ``Family counseling is very much a concern to the Jewish 
     community,'' says Lupu, who grew up in ``a very Orthodox 
     family, and in a very kosher environment in Elmwood Park, 
     Ill, a suburb of Chicago. Our Shabbos goy was our next-door 
     neighbor. It was a very Italian neighborhood. In order to 
     have services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we brought in a 
     rabbinical student and rented a storefront.''
       Back in 1929, she recalls, ``there was no telephone in the 
     shul so a messenger would come get the Jewish doctor for an 
     emergency. We had to wait till he returned for a minyan.''
       Years later, says Lupu, as an adult living in Tucson with 
     her husband and three children, ``our family always went to 
     Seders at Handmaker when Ted Koff was the director. We 
     watched as more and more synagogues came to Tucson. I 
     remember when the Jewish Community Center [came about] 
     through the great skills of Ben Brook. When we first came 
     here there was discrimination against Jews. There was only 
     one country club and Jews weren't allowed.''
       That's changed, notes Lupu. ``Mayor Jonathan Rothschild is 
     so involved with the Jewish community and is now our mayor. 
     There's much more acceptance now of a Jewish mayor than when 
     George Miller was mayor'' during the 1990s.
       Still, ``we discriminate against current immigrants,'' she 
     says. ``My own mother came from England through Canada and 
     when she married an American citizen, at that time she didn't 
     automatically become an American citizen,'' which happened 
     later. ``How do we know how legal our ancestors were?''
       ``It concerns me that [discrimination toward immigrants] 
     could lead to discrimination against Jews. I also fear that 
     discrimination could resurface in Tucson as it has in Europe 
     over the conflict in Israel and the [negative] media 
     coverage.''
       Lupu, whose husband died in 2002, still lives in the same 
     home where they raised their family. ``I love Tucson,'' says 
     Lupu. In the city's future, ``I would like to see more 
     concern for others through increased assistance at all human 
     levels and less segregation of different populations.''
       Since her 2006 retirement, Lupu has become president of the 
     board of Dancing in the Streets, Arizona, which is a diverse 
     performing arts organization, primarily for at-risk youth. 
     The dance school, based in South Tucson, is run by Lupu's 
     daughter, Soleste Lupu, and her husband, Joseph Rodgers, both 
     of whom are professional dancers.
       Seventy-five percent of the dance school's participants are 
     on partial or full scholarships due to poverty in the region. 
     Lupu attributes the poverty to both ``our prejudice and the 
     lack of jobs.''
       ``I thought I saw poverty in the '60s and '70s when I was 
     involved in bringing the needs of the elderly to the 
     community,'' she says. ``But you very rarely heard of the 
     homeless elderly. For kids today it's different. I've never 
     seen poverty among children the way you see it now.''
       As a lifelong social activist, it seems natural for Lupu to 
     be taking on the plight of children. ``Staying involved with 
     what excites me challenges me to give meaning to my life 
     beyond my own existence,'' she says. ``That's why I'm so 
     happy to be working with children.''
  In closing, I just want to thank Marian for her kindness, friendship, 
and guidance she has graciously given me. I remain humbled and 
privileged to know and call Marian Lupu my friend and ally.

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