EL PASO, Tx., December 2, 2025: Long time El Paso political icon, Alicia Chacón will be buried today. Chacón, who was born in Canutillo on November 11, 1938, passed away last Tuesday. She was 87.
Chacón started her political career during her senior year at Ysleta High School volunteering for the Ralph Yarbrough senate campaign. In April 1970, Chacón became the first Mexican-American elected to the Ysleta Independent School District Board of Trustees. (YISD). Chacón had to file a lawsuit and win two elections to be allowed to take her seat on the board.
In 1974, Chacón won her second election, becoming the first woman El Paso County Clerk. On January 1, 1975, she took office. After her stint at the County Clerk, then-President Jimmy Carter appointed her to be a regional director for the Small Business Administration (SBA). After leaving her position at the SBA in early 1979, Chacón returned to El Paso where she purchased La Tapatia.
But it wasn’t long before she returned to politics, winning the District 6 seat on the El Paso City Council on April 2, 1983. Although some reports have erroneously characterized Chacón as the first woman on city council, that is not accurate. The first woman elected to the city council was Arlene Stark Quenon.
After serving two terms on the city council, she chose not to run for a third term. Although rumors circulated in 1988 that she would run for mayor, she did not.
Instead, Chacón ran for County Judge unseating Luther Jones on with 51% of the vote on March 13, 1990. On April 12, 1994, Chacón lost her first election, when Chuck Mattox defeated her by 512 votes in the runoff election.
Over the years, Chacón has been honored with several awards including “Women of the Year in Politics,” named to the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame and a YISD school named after her, the Alicia R. Chacón International School.
Chacón will be buried tomorrow at Fort Bliss National Cemetery. Visitation is today at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Catholic Church, starting at 4:00 and ending at 8:00pm.
El Paso Herald Post reached out to several current and past elected officials, and other prominent individuals for comment about the legacy Chacón has left in El Paso.
Former State Representative Joe Pickett said that one of his proudest legislations was resolving water issues at Westway. Pickett wrote that “my name is on the legislation, but Alicia Chacon was instrumental in making safe, reliable, and affordable water service available to an area that had been underserved for too long.”
El Paso attorney, Albert Armendariz, Jr. called Chacón the “Grand Dame of El Paso politics.” Businessman Richard Castro said that Chacón “wanted to be helpful…she wanted to represent her community…she wanted people to be the best they could be and wanted to find ways to help them achieve a better life!”
Former Senior Vice President Administrative Services, Fermin Acosta, Jr., said that he once shared the story of how “disgusted” his boss was after telling her that he repainted the building because “Judge Alicia Chacon called to ask us to assist her sprucing up the neighborhood,” because “everyone in the neighborhood had just freshly painted” their properties. Acosta writes that he and Chacón “had a good laugh” over the incident years later.
El Paso County Commissioner, Iliana Hoguin, told us that “El Paso has lost an incredible community leader and political trailblazer.” Her husband, former City Representative Eddie Holguin, Jr., said that “Alicia Chacón was a force of nature,” who “believed that by working together, our community could accomplish anything.”
City Representative Lily Limón wrote that “Alicia was a friend, mentor and in her own words on one of the last days we were able to talk, her hermana.” Limón added that Chacón “had experienced so many roadblocks in her life, yet she was always positive and firmly rooted in the belief of hope.” She concluded with, “my heart is broken without her.”
Readers interested in learning more about Alicia Chacón’s life and legacy can read “The Grand Dame of El Paso Politics,” The Life and Legacy of Alicia Chacón, available online for free by clicking on this link.
Cover image: Illustration Alicia Chacón by Martín Paredes.
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