When you think of a politician, what usually comes to mind? If you are like most, a bit of cynicism probably laces your idea of a politician. No one would really blame you for thinking that way. It has become increasingly acceptable to label a politician in the most unflattering terms.
For some reason, the darker sides of many professions have become the highlights and lend themselves to this type of criticism, like bad referees and unscrupulous attorneys. Is it naive to believe there are a few politicians left who honestly represent the best interests of the citizens?
In San Antonio, we have a mayor who happens to be a politician and an attorney. Should he get double the scrutiny? It gets better. He is a twin. His twin brother, a state representative in the Texas Legislature representing District 125, is also a politician and an attorney. Quadruple the scrutiny?
They are both considered very young, by traditional standards, to have achieved what they have achieved. Rare is the occasion that offers us such a confluence of influence from within one family and at such an early stage in their respective careers. The future looks bright for these two leaders, despite any criticism. It feels somewhat like our own little South Texas Camelot.
Julian and Joaquin Castro are politicians – very serious, very polished, very accomplished politicians – and yet, something is different.
Each brother is on his own spectacular trajectory. Much of their lives has been chronicled, applauded, envied and scrutinized. Though their grassroots to Ivy League pedigree and subsequent successes continue to fuel the debate about whether or not these guys are too good to be true, their unique ability to continually inspire a delightful curiosity from the casual observer is not much different from the character of the city they call home.
San Antonio is a major metropolitan city – very busy, very competitive and very accomplished in its overall health as a city – and yet, something is different. Though each encounter will not completely convince all people they are experiencing something special, casual observers almost always acknowledge an irrefutable charm that they cannot quite adequately describe whether speaking of the city itself or about two of its favorite sons.
The Castro brothers are not your typical politicians. As boys, they were raised watching their parents, Rosie Castro and Jesse Guzman, get involved as local activists. Rosie stayed very active in policy issues over the years even after separating from Jesse, a retired teacher, when the boys were 8 years old. The young Castro brothers witnessed their parents desire to act on behalf of others and to get involved in the civic process in a very meat-and-potatoes fashion.
It might be this up-close-and-personal approach to civic responsibility that helps them maintain the proper perspective on the responsibilities of their elected offices. Even so, their father says he “never imagined they would go into politics.” In fact, one of his fondest memories is of the old days, when they were just children, before the proverbial spotlight arrived. They would walk together from Billy Mitchell Village near Kelly Air Force Base down the street to go bowling at Spare Time Lanes.
“Joaquin hated to lose,” Jesse remembers and laughs. He is proud of the fact that his boys chose to come home and put their considerable talents to work right in the heart of the community in which they grew up, acting as role models and helping build “the infrastructure,” which will allow others to follow their own dreams.
In actuality, after graduating from Thomas Jefferson High School and enrolling in Stanford University in the early ‘90s, the brothers admit not being very interested in politics.
In retrospect, Julian recalls “sort of a rebelling against” being dragged to rallies and various political events, much like any young child. Fortunately for the citizens of San Antonio, the roots of justice and service had taken hold somewhere deep inside.
“We didn’t grow up with the same level of skepticism or cynicism that a lot of folks grow up with about politics or people in public office,” Julian says. “We grew up with the belief that if you are responsible with government and public service, you can make a positive difference in people’s lives ... We got that mostly from our mother.”
In college, their early interests were in communications and the creative arts, with the idea of going into broadcasting. It is easy to see they both have an anchor desk look. They also acted in a couple of plays in high school and college. Joaquin jokes that sometimes it seems like they are local television personalities, “because Julian is on camera so much as mayor, folks will come up to me confusing me for him and ask me if I’m that guy on TV.”
When asked what they would be doing if not in office, Joaquin leans up in his chair and quickly responds that he would definitely pursue something in the creative arts, most likely writing or theater.
“That’s the career that I haven’t had time for,” Joaquin chuckles. Julian echoes his brother’s aspirations of somehow becoming an author someday.
A couple of times during our interview, I tried to subtly steer the topic toward some of the buzz that surrounds the Castro brothers, especially Julian of late. In a fairly recent surge of publicity, Julian has appeared on CNN with John King, has had a very favorable piece written about him in the New York Times and has even held his own pretty well during sparring sessions with Stephen Colbert on the Colbert Report.
The New York Times article mentioned that many of the nation’s politically connected see him as the next great Hispanic hope with visions of the White House not at all out of reach if he keeps his nose clean, which he has in the past and appears absolutely capable of doing in the future.
I asked him what he reads in his free time. Julian tends to read nonfiction – a lot of biographies of lawyers and presidents, to be exact. I pressed him on this in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the dream that would be the Texas version of Camelot. He could have boasted about his ability and impressive credentials, but instead, Julian simply chuckled and responded with a tone that embodied more of the spirit his brother describes when trying to characterize their hometown.
“We’ve had a chance to live on both coasts, but I’ve never met people with the same kind of spirit as the folks that I’ve met here back home,” Joaquin explains. “I’ve thought for years about what it is ... what is that mix of spirit ... the best that I can come up with, I think, is that it’s a combination of humility, because it is still a city of modest means, but there is also this quiet confidence, a belief in the future and a willingness to sacrifice to make a better a future.”
Their refusal to directly speak about the loftier positions did not suggest evasiveness at all. Rather, their answers seemed to reflect the essence of humility and quiet confidence so prevalent here and may serve as a reminder for us all, and perhaps themselves, to focus on the potential we have to actualize lofty ideals right here at home, particularly in the inner city.
I handed them an imaginary magic wand and asked them to identify the issue that weighs most heavily on their hearts and on which they would immediately use to realize a cure. Both men enthusiastically agreed that student achievement would be the top priority. As vice chairman of the Higher Education Committee, Joaquin wants to expand access and affordability in higher education while improving the overall quality of the learning process for every student. He compares education to the infrastructure of a highway.
“In order to get to where you are headed, you have to have the proper infrastructure,” Joaquin says. “Imagine if you were driving along the highway and suddenly, a chunk of the highway was missing … That happens in our system of education sometimes.”
In one of the more poignant moments of our interview, Julian tells the story of John F. Kennedy’s visit to San Antonio the day before his assassination. Kennedy was here on Nov. 21, 1963, to dedicate the Brooks School of Aerospace Medicine. He promised to return to dedicate John F. Kennedy High School, the first high school named in his honor. The next day changed the course of history, perhaps to a greater extent for that high school just south of downtown San Antonio.
Today, Julian expresses grief over the fact that with a 90-percent minority demographic, Kennedy High School has a dropout rate of more than 50 percent, a statistic he views as totally unacceptable. With an obvious intention on reversing that sad trend and with an even greater level of conviction in his voice, Julian encourages every student to view “brainpower as the currency of success.”
We all agreed that San Antonio is a special place where, generally speaking, people from all walks of life have learned to coexist in relative peace without major clashes between people of different socioeconomic status, race or creed.
We agreed that if you have lived in San Antonio long enough, especially if you grew up here, you have heard visitors comment on the friendliness and mysterious charm of the city. You imagine it must differ greatly from wherever they happen to be visiting because they usually approach you with an almost giddy amazement after having experienced the city. They look to a native San Antonian for answers, hoping to bottle up some of that charm and carry it home like a vitamin supplement to sustain them until their next visit.
I asked Julian to sum up his assessment of that mysterious charm, and even though he is the mayor, like any San Antonian, he struggled to put his finger on exactly what it is that makes us so special, yet he spoke with no less passion about his city.
Sitting in a local restaurant in the heart of his old City Council district on the near west side and very near the neighborhood in which he spent his adolescence, he settles comfortably in his seat, and with a swell of solemnity and a fondness in his voice, he offers the best answer possible:
“I’m not sure anybody can say quite how that’s happened, but there is no question that San Antonio, compared to many other big cities, has not seen the kind of racial strife that others have, and there is a cultural respect for one another that is deeper here than exists in a lot of other places.”
One of the other benefits of living in San Antonio is the leadership, and those who might otherwise be inaccessible in other big cities are absolutely approachable. The Castro brothers are as down-to-earth as can be in spite of their upper echelon distinction.
The big city with the small-town charm could have lost two of its finest offspring to the allure of a city like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago or Phoenix. Instead, the Castro brothers believe we should be proud of who we are as a city, and along with attracting the right mix of industries to sustain our economy, we should educate and cultivate our most precious resource: the citizenry.
Is it naive to believe there are a few politicians left who honestly represent the best interests of the citizens? Not if the Castro brothers are on that list, for if ever you need to define the resplendent mystery of the goodness that resides in our city, you might lean on the example set by them. They are uniquely San Antonio. They are uniquely our own.
