Dionicio Morales devoted his life to a major effort to secure equality of employment and economic opportunity for persons of Mexican decent.

To this end he built an organization, which has endured and prospered through four decades. His strategy was to forge a winning partnership with the private sector, the government, organized labor and the community.

As founder in 1963 and then President of the Mexican American Opportunity Foundation, an East Los Angeles based United Way organization, Morales developed skill training programs; child care centers: a handy worker program to repair low-income homes; a senior aides program to furnish part-time employment to elders; a nutrition program for elders; a professional recruitment program in computer science and management; and employment services program; and an information and referral service to facilitate the appropriate placement of children in public and private child care agencies; a legalization assistance program for immigrants; an innovative program of reducing illiteracy and teaching pre-schoolers to read by using special computers and a Food Service Bank for the Hispanic hungry in East Los Angeles. MAOF has outreach offices in Bakersfield, San Diego, Oxnard, Salinas, Downey, Pico Rivera, and Santa Ana.

Five areas of major interest:

1. Job training for youth. In 1965 Morales received the first OJT contract, which the Department of Labor awarded to a community-based organization. This award was made at the personal direction of Vice President Johnson, on the basis of a personal assessment of Morales’ bold new approach.
2. Retraining women for higher-skilled employment.
3. Developing of programs for the elderly.
4. Developing a chain of 10 childcare centers. (Serving 1500 children daily) emphasizing new strategies for overcoming cultural and linguistic barriers in pre-schoolers which are studied as a model nationwide.
5. On the international level Morales developed a U.S. – Mexico Liaison Committee, which has annually conferred with top Mexican authorities. The aim is better mutual understanding at a very critical time. This was initiated in 1970.

Morales was appointed by then Governor Ronald Reagan as State Apprenticeship Commissioner. Heading the State committee to insure minority involvement in building and construction apprenticeships, where he served for 4 years. He served as advisor to the California Employment Development Department, on the Los Angeles County Manpower Council (LACMAC) and was on the National Advisory Committee for the U.S. Department of Labor, serving under both President Nixon and President Carter. During the Clinton Administration he was appointed to the North American Development Board Advisory Committee. Morales also served as a Board Member on the Century Freeway Commission. Board Member of the National Council of Senior Citizens in Washington, D.C., Member of the Los Angeles Child Care Advisory Board, and a member of the U. S. National task Force On Hispanic Affairs.

In 1987, the county Supervisors of Los Angles, renamed a historic lake and park in East Los Angeles, calling it Dionicio Morales Plaza, in recognition of 30 years of devoted community service.

Born in Arizona and raised in Ventura County, in California by migrant farm worker parents, Morales struggled to get an education. He graduated from Moorpark High School in 1937 and attended Santa Barbara State College. Majoring in Sociology, he continued his university study at the University of Southern California for a year and a half in 1943-1944. Prior to organizing MAOF, Morales was involved with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union examining the working conditions of the garment workers.

In his earlier career his emphasis was on creating employment opportunities at the entry level. It is both a testimony to the accomplishments of the Mexican-American community and evidence of the work still left to do, that he was able to focus his efforts on getting Hispanics into policy-making positions both in government and in the private sector and in enhancing Hispanic visibility nationally.