Luis Vargas Saenz Jr. is a Cameron County district attorney in Brownsville, Texas. However, the path to a seat at the front of the courtroom wasn’t easy.
Saenz was born Aug. 8, 1951, in Carrizo Springs, Texas, to Luis Saenz and Filomena Vargas Saenz.
His parents divorced when he was 5, leaving Filomena to raise six children. The family would travel north each year to do farm work for 60 cents an hour.
For 45 years, Rachel Medina Ayala was an educator in Brownsville, Texas, working her way up from elementary school teacher to assistant superintendent.
Ayala was born May 13, 1947, in Brownsville to Francisco Medina and Maria Torres Medina.
She credits her educational success mainly to her parents.
“When we graduated from high school, it wasn’t a matter [of] ‘Are you going to go to college?’ It was a matter [of] ‘Where are you going to go to college?’” Ayala said.
Antonio "Tony" Martinez was born Dec. 31, 1945, in Harlingen, Texas, a town about 30 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. One of six children, Martinez grew up when the railroad tracks were the dividing line between Anglo-American and Mexican-American families.
Later, his family moved to San Antonio, Texas. He attended the Peacock Military Academy, a private high school, and graduated in 1963.
From a humble beginning on the west side of San Antonio, Pedro Ortiz’s life roles included those of migrant worker, soldier, husband, father, civil service worker and, ultimately, accomplished woodworker, gardener and folk artist. Pedro Ortiz was always on the move and working with his hands. A home full of creative hand-built objects and a colorful garden perennially free of leaves and weeds are proof that after a life of hard work, this San Antonio native kept his hands and his mind busy.
Juliet Garcia forged her own way into the all-male “club” of Texas community college presidents to become president of Brownsville’s Texas Southmost College in 1986.
Eventually, she would become the president of the University of Texas at Brownsville, a merged institution that grew out of a lawsuit by communities along the Texas-Mexico border and South Texas.
Garcia was born in 1949 in Brownsville, Texas. Her mother, Paulita Lozano Villareal, worked as a housekeeper and died when Garcia was only 9 years old.
Austin attorney Hector De Leon considers himself lucky to have been born in Austin and raised in East Austin.
“Without being born in Austin, Texas, I wouldn’t have been able to go to college,” he said.
He grew up not far from the University of Texas, where he would earn both a bachelor’s and a law degree. He also lived close to the state Capitol, where he first met one of his lifelong mentors, Henry B. Gonzalez, a state senator at the time. He keeps a photo of Henry B., as he is affectionately known, in his office.
When Eliseo Cremar removed his boots after weeks of frigid combat on the Manchurian border during the Korean conflict, his toenails came off along with his socks.
The men of Cremar’s unit, 2nd Infantry Division, 37th Field Artillery Battalion, were advised to put ice on their frostbitten feet or faces instead of warm water. They were given dry clothes to replace their frozen wet uniforms. Some men lost their ears and noses to frostbite.
By the time her husband began pushing the idea of greater participation by Mexican Americans in her small South Texas town, Maria Ramirez Garcia had developed a strong and broad network of contacts who could support the effort.
Garcia was born July 2, 1940, in Taft, Texas, 136 miles southeast of San Antonio. She and her sisters worked in a segregated movie theater while her mother, father and five older brothers were migrant workers in the cotton fields.
By: Voces Staff
Sandra Gonzalez is a registered nurse based in San Antonio. Her focus is on pregnant women, new mothers and their newborns. However, COVID-19 has brought changes to her work environment that affect how she practices health care. She uses the same preventive measures outside of the workplace to continue as a mother and mariachi musician in the age of distance learning and social distancing.
By: Trent Thompson