Alvaro Alcazar, assistant professor of education, was inspired at a young age to act for social justice, to help the poor and to love all. His beliefs would nearly cost him his life.
Alcazar was born in 1948 in a small village on one of the 7,100 islands that make up the Philippines. Inspired by his uncle, who was a priest, Alcazar went into the seminary for high school and continued on through college.
In 1968 he received his pastoral assignment to a slum section outside Manila called the Smokey Mountains. The community of 10,000 to 15,000 people used the city’s mountainous garbage dump as their source for food, clothes and often shelter. Alcazar taught them to boil their drinking water, to keep their children safe from sexual predators, and to defend their rights from government interference.
In 1972 Alcazar began working with the Christian Social Action Movement, which was involved in maintaining the villagers’ rights from the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos.
“We were put on the top of the government’s hit list, and they were out for our lives,” Alcazar said.
On Sept. 21, 1972, Marcos put the country under martial law, enabling the military to arrest Alcazar and his fellow workers without warrants. Alcazar was interrogated while a 45-caliber pistol was held to his head.
“The soldiers would say, ‘Do not answer the question until I draw the question mark.’ And they would take the barrel of the pistol and draw a question mark on my forehead,” Alcazar said.
By November, Alcazar had to leave his country or lose his life. So he enrolled as an international scholarship student in theology at the New Orleans Notre Dame Seminary on Carrollton Avenue. Alcazar had to remain a student in order to stay in the United States.
Finally, in 1984, he was one of three people chosen out of 165 applicants for political asylum.
Alcazar said he felt that God was no longer calling him to be a priest, but rather to continue his work as a married man. He met his wife, Nanette, here in New Orleans. They now have two sons, Chris and Jay.
“My family is my treasure in life,” Alcazar said.
Alcazar served as the director of the Loyola University Community Action Program for 16 years and changed the entire organization into what it is today.
“Al is one of the most incredible Christians, in every sense of the word ‘Christian.’ He’s a man, more than anybody I’ve ever met, who puts social justice in his life. Al is the quintessential ally because he will stand by anyone who is marginalized or suffering,” said the Rev. Eddie Gros, University Ministry chaplain, director of Global Immersion and director of Hispanic/Latino Student Ministry at Loyola.
Alcazar said that there are certain things that he tried to instill into the LUCAP members. The first was that they should understand that this world is an interdependent reality.
Regarding this, he quoted Martin Luther King Jr., saying, “By the time you’ve finished breakfast in the morning, you have already depended upon two-thirds of the world.”
The second thing LUCAP students should understand is that there are “different kinds of social justice,” Alcazar said.
“We must be men and women for others,” Alcazar said. “It is important that they go out there and see and serve so they can form their hearts.”
Alcazar said he feels that becoming an education professor was exactly what he was being called to.
Charmaine Preskitt, biology junior and a student in Alcazar’s Adolescent Psychology class, said she appreciates his attitude toward teaching.
“I really enjoyed Al’s enthusiasm for the students; you could feel he really cared about our success. I wish there were more professors like Al on campus.”
Alcazar said he feels the goal of education should not only be to teach reading, writing and arithmetic, but to teach the students to become human.
“Education is a way towards social change – a non-violent way. It uses the power of love and wisdom to help others.”
