Hello, here is another edition of 2020 New Candidate Spotlight
(This was suppose to come out yesterday but since I moved to Montreal 3 weeks ago I am having a hard time keeping deadlines….excusas, excusas)
we have covered these candidates/potential candidates
Today it is me to start talking about the only Latino candidate currently running for President, Julián Castro.
Julián was born in San Antonio, Texas on September 16, 1974; putting him almost in the middle of GenX cohort. The son of Maria "Rosie" Castro and Jessie Guzman he was mainly raised by his mamá, she was an activist and a single parent. His family's roots in Texas started in the 1920s when his grandmother Victoria Castro moved from northern México to San Antonio. He also has a one minute younger identical twin Congressman Joaquín Castro. In an interview done in 2005 at the UT at San Antonio Julián described a happy childhood.
Julian Castro: Well, I'd say fairly quiet. Interested in school and, yeah, I would say fairly quiet.
Keri Griffin: Were you and your brother both pretty much quiet kids, or is that the thing whereone twin is quiet and the other not?
Julian Castro: He's a little bit more extroverted than I am but we're still both within a range ofbeing kind of quiet. Rather introverted.
He finished high school in 3 years, where he was involved in various clubs, played various sports preferring tennis. He did is undergraduate studies at Stanford University, school he chose mainly because both him and his brother got in together, which was a very important requisite for college selection, and because of the diversity. He double majored in communications and political science. In a 2010 interview with New York Magazine he said
"Joaquín and I got into Stanford because of affirmative action,” Julián says. “I scored 1,210 on my SATs, which was lower than the median matriculating student. But I did fine in college and in law school. So did Joaquín. I’m a strong supporter of affirmative action because I’ve seen it work in my own life."
He went to Harvard Law School even though his first choice was Yale, again because his brother didn't get in, he went to his second choice school to be together with his twin brother.
After graduating he moved back to Texas, took the bar and started practicing as a civil litigant.
His interest in politics started around 1995, running and winning a seat in the student senate.
He was elected as San Antonio's youngest city councilman at 26, the youngest and 5th Latino mayor at 34(2009), and he became the youngest mayor of a top-50 US city when he turned 39. He was reelected twice (2011 and 2013).
In the middle of his last term esto pasó:
transcript
He had been noticed by President Obama and other party leaders in 2012 he jumped to the national stage when he became the first Latino to open a Democratic Convention. This even made headlines in the media hispanoamericano, referring to him as the “La estrella hispana de Obama” o “Obama Hispano”.
Some parts of the speech really hit close to home in this Trump era of xenophobia and otherism:
My family's story isn't special. What's special is the America that makes our story possible. Ours is a nation like no other, a place where great journeys can be made in a single generation. No matter who you are or where you come from, the path is always forward.
and
And that's the middle class—the engine of our economic growth. With hard work, everybody ought to be able to get there. And with hard work, everybody ought to be able to stay there—and go beyond. The dream of raising a family in a place where hard work is rewarded is not unique to Americans. It's a human dream, one that calls across oceans and borders. The dream is universal, but America makes it possible. And our investment in opportunity makes it a reality.
y entonces,
Republicans tell us that if the most prosperous among us do even better, that somehow the rest of us will too. Folks, we've heard that before. First they called it "trickle-down." Then "supply-side." Now it's "Romney-Ryan." Or is it "Ryan-Romney"? Either way, their theory has been tested. It failed. Our economy failed. The middle class paid the price. Your family paid the price.
y por último;
In the end, the American dream is not a sprint, or even a marathon, but a relay. Our families don't always cross the finish line in the span of one generation. But each generation passes on to the next the fruits of their labor. My grandmother never owned a house. She cleaned other people's houses so she could afford to rent her own. But she saw her daughter become the first in her family to graduate from college. And my mother fought hard for civil rights so that instead of a mop, I could hold this microphone
Of course, like most rising stars, there was some critiques after his speech… He admitted back in 2012 that he did not speak fluent Castellano… So, when he uttered the phrase “Que Dios los bendiga” at the end of his keynote he drew criticism of pandering using Spanish to “enhance” is Mexican heritage. The eternal debate within and around the Hispanic community: Is a Latino really Latino if they don't speak Spanish? This is a question for a separate diary.
He has never shied away from talking about the subject , he pretty much thinks like me. There was a generation of immigrants who felt the need to hyper-assimilate; Americanized their names, didn't teach their kids Spanish, made every effort to lose accent/customs of their ancestry countries, even voting for someone who clearly doesn't have them in their minds, etc
His national profile became apparent and after the convention he was approached by senior white house staff for a possible position as Secretary of Transportation, he passed. Then he “bumped into President Obama at a Texas event:
President Obama and Mayor Castro were featured speakers at the LBJ Presidential Library's 50th anniversary celebration in Austin. Backstage, Julián recalls, the president sidled up to him. "He said, 'I've been meaning to give you a call. Let's talk soon.' Probably a week later, he called, and we had [a] conversation about possibly joining the administration." This time, the offer was to run HUD—a department closer to Julián's heart, given his urban-development efforts in San Antonio.
when Obama appointed him Secretary of Housing and Urban Development he had this to say:
"Trabajó [Victoria Castro] como empleada doméstica, trabajó como cocinera, trabajó como niñera, lo que tuviera que hacer para mantener un techo sobre la cabeza de su familia. Y eso fue porque, para ella y para las generaciones de estadounidenses como ella, una casa es algo más que una casa"
“She [Victoria Castro] worked as a maid, worked as a cook, worked as a babysitter, whatever she had to do to keep a roof over their family's heads. This was because , for her and the generations of Americans like her, a house is more than the house”.
This appointment would take him out of the Texas political path, it was rumored that he was eyeing the Governorship 2017, but Democratic hopes of a purple Texas evaporated after Wendy Davis’ poor performance. He consulted his mamá :
This is the second time he asks you. He's not gonna ask you again. But is this something you want to do?" He wasn't sure.
He accepted, becoming the youngest member of Obama's cabinet at 39, still a tad short of Bobby Kennedy who was 36 when he became Attorney General.
When he left the cabinet at the end of Obama's presidency he published a final memo to the American people called “Housing as a Platform for Opportunity” in which he emphasized his accomplishments and vision.
“While our progress is important, our work is far from finished. Last year, during a visit to Ferguson, Missouri, I learned that a child growing up in the upscale Clayton area of St. Louis can expect to live 18 years longer than a child living just eight miles away in the JeffVanderLou neighborhood. We must not accept that. Where a child grows up should never determine where she ends up. I have been committed to that single mantra in my work at HUD, and I urge the next Administration to build upon what we have achieved and continue fulfilling the vision of making a decent, affordable home available to every citizen. That is the vision our nation has been fighting to realize since President Theodore Roosevelt proposed federal investment to create housing specifically for low-income Americans more than a century ago. Let’s accomplish it for every family in this 21st century and beyond.”
Part 2 we will talk about his announcement and political positions.