First federal Thanksgiving proclamation was issued by President George Washington in
1789. 
Chalas’
twenty-year aviation career in the U.S. Army Reserve and National Guard
includes flying soldiers and equipment to and from the battlefield during
Operation Iraqi Freedom, to flying four-star generals, ambassadors, and
Congressmen. “Thanks to my persistence, I have touched the sky,” stated
Chalas.
It
seems like every time you turn around in Texas these days, there’s
another young, educated Latino professional with political aspirations
who’s either running for office — or just won office. And while it
would be easy to say anecdotally that more Latinos are being elected
to office in Texas, the facts speak for themselves.
A look at the 2011 directory of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) shows that Texas has more Latino elected officials than any other state, more than 2,500, with California’s 1,306 making a not-so-close second. Interestingly, while young Latino politicians seem to be populating the state’s political scene ever quickly, women, or Latinas, don’t seem to be keeping pace — but that’s a story we’ll be telling you in the near future.
But why is this happening?
Demographics have obviously played a role in this new trend — Texas received four new congressional seats as the result of population growth, at least 70% of this growth from Latinos in the state — but demographics alone don’t begin to explain this particular change. We spoke to two young men that may be counted among this trend recently, former San Antonio City Councilman Philip Cortez (left), who has announced his candidacy for State Representative of District 117 and Austin State Rep. Eddie Rodriguez (right) and a few additional reasons that help account for these changes to Texas’ political landscape emerged.
For one, both Cortez, 33, and Rodriguez, 40, were adamant about the debt owed to everyone who came before them. Texas’ sketchy history with civil rights and discrimination is by no means a secret — people not yet eligible for Social Security can tell you stories about “No Mexicans” signs in restaurants — but both politicos have personal and professional experiences to back up their claims.
Citing their parents and politicians who came before them such as former congressman Henry B. Gonzalez, as well as countless other civil rights activists, both men said others had cleared political road for them. Personally for these two, the political mentorship and opportunities afforded to them both in the realms of education and politics would have been practically unheard of for Latinos in Texas even 30 years ago. But, at a cultural level, both noted that the expectation of being able to ascend levels of political power for Latinos across the state came about as a result of the work and struggle of many before them.
“There are people that did all of the legwork in the 60s, 70s and even early 80s that really paved the way for people my age that made it,” Rodriguez told NewsTaco. “There’s almost an expectation that, if you’re Latino and going to college, you can compete with any Anglo person — there’s no reason why you can’t. We have our parents to thank for that.”
Cortez, currently a doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin, acknowledged the same for himself, but on a larger scale also pointed to the Castro brothers of San Antonio, who attended Harvard Law School, and now Julián is the mayor of his hometown while his brother Joaquín is a congressional candidate in Central Texas. “Educational opportunities have opened up for us,” Cortez said, referencing Texas’ historical struggles with such access, “It’s not a guarantee you’re going to get into these schools without the proper effort — but at least the doors are open.”
Of course neither these two, nor the Castro brothers, and not even the current crop of Latino political candidates — be they city council members, county supervisors, district attorneys, state reps or senators — are the first to come to political power. It’d be disingenuous at best, just as these two Latino politicos noted, to exclude those who paved the way for them. It was members of La Raza Unida, the first Latino mayors and congressman and state reps, voter registration campaigns, and even the solid tradition of Latino elected officials along the border who created the idea that, despite Texas’ spotty record on inclusion, Latinos had just as much a right as anybody else to be in public office.
Fast forward to today and, as Rodriguez points out, there were Latinos in their 20s who were elected to the state house. Opportunities to be elected to statewide office are enhanced by the large numbers of Latinos being elected to school boards, where they may then launch a political career. While this class of young Latino politicos grows, as a group, Rodriguez told us that finding a cohesive political voice becomes a build-the-airplane-while-you’re-flying-it kind of challenge. “Everything is happening in real time,” he told us.
But like everything else, there’s always more that can be done. Both Rodriguez and Cortez said that, as current political leaders following the paths laid down by others, what weighs heavily on their minds now is how to continue to create those opportunities. Teen pregnancy, high school dropout rates, college completion rates, building a diverse and sustainable economy with real jobs, political apathy, building up a Latino middle class in Texas — these are the issues that define their political agends.
“I want to provide a good example, to hope that one day some young girl or some young boy can see the things we’ve done and think, ‘I can do that, too,’” Cortez told us, with a small caveat, “But we still got a long way to go.”
[Photos By Texas House; Courtesy]
The gallery was exceptional. As the son of a World War II B-17 bomber pilot, I could have easily spent hours there, examining each carefully assembled exhibit in detail. One exhibit, however, caught my attention and stayed with me long after I’d left the museum. It was a battle-worn American flag, which, along with its incredible story, was donated to the museum by Marble Falls resident Pat Spain. In 1942, while serving in the U.S. Army on the island of Mindanao, Spain’s husband Paul and fellow soldiers Joe Victoria and Eddie Lindros were ordered to burn the U.S. flag at the Del Monte Airfield to prevent its capture by the approaching Japanese. Before they carried out their orders, however, the three soldiers removed the flag’s 48 stars and hid them in their clothing. Over the next 42 months, the men were transferred to several POW camps and eventually to Japan. All the while, they kept the stars hidden. As the war came to a close, the men began receiving parachute drops with food and aid, which signaled that their liberation was imminent. Spain, Victoria and Lindros wanted to make the U.S. troops feel welcome when they arrived, so they set out to sew the stars back together, using material from the parachutes and other scraps of fabric, an old pedal-driven sewing machine they managed to find, and a rusty nail, which they converted into a sewing needle. When the American troops arrived at the camp on September 7, 1945, their “new” flag was flying proudly over the camp.
ATLANTA — For years, Bryon Widner thrived on hate as a violent skinhead — a razor-carrying “enforcer” who helped
organize other racist gangs around the United States. His hate was literally etched on his face in the form of tattoos with racist and violent themes.
But with the help of the Southern Poverty Law Centre — the nation’s leading monitor of hate and extremist activity — Widner left the white-power movement and endured nearly two years of excruciating laser treatments to remove the tell-tale tattoos so that he could start a new life with his wife and children.
The SPLC provided financial aid that allowed Widner to get the tattoos removed from his face and hands at Vanderbilt University Medical Centre in Nashville. Each treatment left Widner’s face badly blistered and swollen — a sort of penance for his violent past.
Part 2 (OC Register, Nov 8, 2011) included the fact that the cost
for the removal was paid for by an anonymous donor, and cost
$35.000.00.
Here
is a Hispanic American death notice in Spanish printed by the 
D.S.
Sogluizzo, a Marine veteran, and his dog, Roger That, attending the
inaugural Orange County Stand Down, Sept. 17, 2011. More than 150
veterans, 22 family members and one dog, received services during the
two-day event held
This
image, taken from a portrait, is the patriarch, Vicente de la Ossa, who
built the adobe that later became Los Encinos State Historic Park. 
