Edward R. Roybal
American politician (1916-2005)
Edward Ross Roybal (February 10, 1916 – October 24, 2005) was an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first Latino American to be elected to the Los Angeles City Council, serving from 1949 to 1962. He later served 15 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1963 to 1993, representing portions of Downtown and East Los Angeles.
Biography
Roybal was born on February 10, 1916, into a Mexican family that traced its roots in Albuquerque, New Mexico back eight generations, to when Spain ruled the area. In 1922, a railroad strike prevented his father from being able to work, and Roybal, age 6, was brought with his family to the East Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights, where he graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1934. After graduation, Roybal joined the Civilian Conservation Corps. After serving in the CCC, Roybal studied business at UCLA and law at Southwestern Law School.
He served a stint in the Army, where he worked as an accountant for an infantry unit.
On January 8, 2001, he was presented with the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Bill Clinton.
Roybal died of respiratory failure complicated by pneumonia at the age of 89 on October 24, 2005, at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena.
The public source identifies “Edward R. Roybal” as american politician (1916-2005). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Edward, Roybal and American.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1115522. VIAF identifies the subject as 62832439. The Library of Congress control number is n79139618. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1916, 2005, 1949 and 1962.
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This entry incorporates text from “Edward R. Roybal” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.