Josephine Serrano was the first Latina appointed as a
policewoman in the Los Angeles Police Department. The fee she paid for the
application was just one dollar, but it cost her far more. Not only was her
family against her joining the LAPD, but her fiancé broke off their engagement
because of it. She was also bucking a feeling of mistrust in the Latino
community toward the police.
However, Collier, who had lost her Rosie-the-Riveter job at
Lockheed at the end of World War II, needed work and felt she could be a
liaison between the community and the LAPD. Of the two hundred women who tested
to join the force, twenty-one were accepted and only nine – including Collier –
made it through training to become full-fledged officers. "The women had no graduation ceremony, received no
diploma, nor were they given a gun," wrote Gail Ryan, historian for the
Women Police Officers Assn. of California.
After graduating from the police academy, Collier was
assigned to a jail in Lincoln Heights where she and other policewomen wore
nurses' uniforms. Two years later, they went through additional training and
were issued guns.
Collier was eventually given a beat to walk in the Pershing
Square area downtown, which she and other policewomen did undercover. Wearing a
skirt and a hat and gloves, they walked the beat in high heels.
In 1948, she married a fellow officer, Jack Collier, and she
stayed with the force until 1960 when she retired because of a back problem.
She later worked as a counselor with the Job Corps.
During her career, Collier smashed the lines dividing
women from many assignments in the early history of the LAPD. Those sacrifices
and her commitment opened the door for many women and Latinas in the
department, setting the stage for future generations.
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