Carmen Roybal Arteaga
Carmen Roybal Arteaga is a Pueblo, Colorado educator, author, and activist who fights for Chicano education and historical research. She has pushed for bilingual and bicultural education in Pueblo schools to serve the city’s large Chicano community. She was also known as Carmen Serna when she was married to activist Martín Serna.
Carmen was born in Pueblo to Victor and Bea Roybal. Her family has been active in the Chicano Movement, including La Raza Unida. Her mother, Bea Roybal, helped lead Las Madres de la Casa Verde, and her brother Edmond Roybal was in the Pueblo Brown Berets. Carmen attended Southern Colorado State College for two years, earned a BA in Elementary Education from Adams State College, and obtained an MA in Exceptional Student Services from the University of Northern Colorado. She volunteered with the Latin American Developmental Society to teach Chicano studies to prison inmates and tutored at La Casa Verde on weekends.
In 1971 she returned to Pueblo and worked at Risley Middle School. While at Adams State College, she participated in Cesar Chavez’s farmworker boycotts and joined the 100 Mile March from Pueblo to Denver. She started the Crecer evening tutoring program in 1971 at La Casa Verde, focusing on reading, writing, and cultural education. Carmen proposed using the old church building to house Escuela Huitzhualopan, a program offering classes with a cultural understanding of the Chicano community. The program was organized by Martín Serna with Carmen as director, and it grew to include Youth Tutoring Youth, Ballet Folklorico de Escuela Huitzhualopan, and a preschool. The school worked with families and the Southern Colorado Mental Health Institute for counseling. The church space contract expired and was denied for 1972-73.
During the 1972-73 school year, Carmen faced backlash for refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, saying that “liberty and justice for all” did not feel true for people of color. District administrators pressured her, but the Chicano community supported her. She joined the Chicano Barrio Education Committee, which urged changes in curriculum and personnel, and asked for clear plans from the superintendent. In 1974 the school board approved Chicano Studies I and II, which Carmen taught.
Beyond teaching, Carmen worked with the East Side Commission and the Lower East Side Neighborhood Association. In 1995 they planned a mural called “El Vaquero” and started a mural project at Plaza Verde Park. The East Side Commission has helped plan Cinco de Mayo celebrations, with Carmen on the planning committee. She has chaired Las Comadres and the Fray Angelico Chavez Chapter of the Genealogical Society of Hispanic America. In 2016 Las Comadres funded a rose garden memorial to honor the La Casa Verde Mothers, with a historical marker bench and nine rose bushes.
Carmen spent most of her teaching career at Risley Middle School. In 2022 she received a CSU Pueblo Aztlán Center research grant to study ten of Pueblo’s Chicano murals. Her personal life includes two marriages—first to Martín Serna, then to Silvestre Arteaga—and two daughters, Beatriz and Celestina. She was named Outstanding Educator for 2007-2008 by the Pueblo Hispanic Education Foundation and was included in the Pueblo History Museum’s 2019 Year of La Chicana tapestry.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 19:05 (CET).