Virginia Eugenia Cardenas, 60, passed away on July 1, 2012. She was born in Apizaco, Tlaxcala, Mexico, and immigrated to the United States (North Las Vegas, Nevada) at the age of seven. Virginia married in 1972, and after her husband completed law school, the couple arrived in Phoenix in 1978. Virginia never forgot her Mexican roots and spent most of her career working with recent immigrants or their children, first at Chandler High School and thereafter at ASU where she worked as the eighth grade advisor in the Hispanic Mother Daughter Program. Virginia's other great passion was arts and culture, a passion reflected not only in her personal art collection, but also in her service for many years as Chair of the Arizona Commission on the Arts and as a longtime board member of Xicanindio Artes, now Xico Inc. She was preceded in death by her father and a sister. She is survived by her husband of 40 years, Jose A. Cardenas, three sons, her mother, five brothers, two sisters, four grandchildren, nieces and nephews and by other extended family.