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On a summer morning in 1999, Joaquin and Julián Castro pulled up in front of a double-wide trailer a few miles outside San Antonio. The twins, back home on break before their final year at Harvard Law School, had come to seek wisdom and advice from Lionel Sosa, a Republican political sage who ran the largest Hispanic advertising agency in America. (He was living in the trailer while his family's new home was being built nearby.) Politicos across the country knew Sosa as the ad man and consultant who'd helped Texas Republicans win substantial chunks of the Hispanic vote, and who'd led outreach efforts for Ronald Reagan's and George H.W. Bush's presidential campaigns. Soon, Sosa would be advising George W. Bush during his White House run.

Sosa didn't know the Castro brothers, but he did know not to expect right-wingers. Their mother, Rosie Castro, had been a fiery community organizer in San Antonio during the Chicano movement of the 1960s and '70s; after an unsuccessful run for city council in 1971, three years before Joaquin and Julián were born, she'd remained a political force in San Antonio, chairing the county chapter of La Raza Unida, a Chicano third party, and running other progressives' political campaigns. The twins had grown up tagging along to rallies, parades, and political functions. As Julián recalled in a college essay later published in an anthology called Writing for Change, political slogans "rang in my ears like war cries": "Viva La Raza!" "Black and Brown United!"

It was Rosie Castro who had reached out to Sosa; the two had met at a forum on the future of Latinos in America. Her boys, she told him, were planning to return to San Antonio and pursue some kind of public service after they graduated. Would Sosa mind speaking with them?

Joaquin and Julián sat down in the trailer, Sosa says, and began to pepper him with questions: Where do you think San Antonio is headed? Who should we know? After a while, Sosa turned the tables and asked them one: What did they see in their futures? The way Sosa remembers it, the brothers broke out into big grins and told him, in unison, "We're going to be mayor of San Antonio."

" We're going to be mayor?" Sosa said. "Which one?"

"One of us will," said one of the brothers.

Sosa, who's now semiretired, can recount little else about the conversation that day, or what counsel he gave the Castros. But their joint reply, he says, stuck with him: "That's the one thing that got seared into my mind. They knew what they wanted in life." And they knew that they wanted to attain it together.

Rosie Castro's Chicano activism inspired her sons, though they took a more centrist path. (Rick Kern/Getty Images for HBO)

I RECENTLY SPENT two months in the Castros' orbit, from just after Election Day to mid-January, interviewing and observing them in Washington and San Antonio, together and separately. They can be salty-tongued, charming, funny, and withering, especially when it comes to other politicians. Former campaign staffers attest to their fiery tendencies-particularly on the other's behalf. "Any mistake on Joaquin's campaign, and you are messing with Julián," says Christian Archer, who's managed races for both brothers. The same goes for Julián's campaigns, when Archer says Joaquin has been "as aggressive as I've ever seen him," demanding fundraising totals or email analytics.

But I also found the brothers exceedingly careful, even for political wunderkinds on the rise, to cloak their candid sides. In almost every conversation we had, they danced back and forth between being on the record and off the record-sometimes from one sentence to the next. By the end of our time together, I half-expected them to begin their lunch orders by asking the waiter, "Can this be on background?"

Maybe their reticence shouldn't be surprising; after all, they've now got a lot to lose. Fifteen years after visiting Sosa, the Castro brothers' political horizons have broadened well beyond San Antonio. Joaquin, after a decade in the Texas House, won a seat in Congress in 2012 and soon became a fixture on Sunday talk shows, a go-to surrogate for President Obama's immigration and economic policies. But the spotlight shines most intensely on Julián, the San Antonio mayor who vaulted into the national consciousness with his keynote address-the first by a Latino-at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. Last year, when Julián left the mayor's job to join Obama's Cabinet as Housing and Urban Development secretary, the move stirred widespread speculation that he was being positioned as a potential 2016 vice presidential pick for likely nominee Hillary Clinton. Barring that, Texas Democrats have long envisioned Julián-or maybe Joaquin?-as the state's first Latino governor. Or as a U.S. senator. Or maybe both.

"The whole idea that they could be governor, senator, vice president, president-it excites people," Rosie Castro told me. "Everybody is waiting for the first Latino governor of Texas. Everybody is waiting for that first Latino president or vice president." And no two Democrats are better placed to realize such expectations than Rosie's sons. The Republican Party, despite its struggles to attract Latino voters, has more Latino politicians with national profiles and prospects-Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, for starters, along with Govs. Susana Martinez and Brian Sandoval. For Democrats, at least for the time being, such hopes hang mostly on the Castro brothers.

They are, it seems, the chosen ones: whip-smart, telegenic politicians who've arrived in the right political place at the right political time. Their life story has a fairy-tale quality that reporters and mythmakers can't resist: Born on Mexican Independence Day. Raised by a grandmother who immigrated to the United States as an orphan with a fourth-grade education and a mother who agitated, organized, and was twice jailed for civil disobedience in the cause of giving the next generation-her sons, in particular-opportunities she never had. Worked their way up from the barrios to Stanford, then Harvard, then one of the country's most prestigious law firms. Elected to political offices before age 30. Washington darlings at 40. Even if Julián never becomes vice president or president-even if neither brother ever wins a statewide office in Texas-theirs is already so quintessential an American success story that Eva Longoria, best known for her role in Desperate Housewives, has sold ABC on a political and family drama series she's producing based on the Castros. Working title: Pair of Aces.

The brothers understand the power and usefulness of the larger-than-life stories that have grown up around them. But there is at least one that they're eager to shoot down: the "we're going to be mayor" anecdote that Lionel Sosa tells. "That's not true," Julián Castro says flatly. "I was never so arrogant to say that I would someday be mayor. Maybe I said, 'Oh, I'm thinking about running for city council.' " Sure, he says, "I certainly think that's [Sosa's] recollection. But I seriously, seriously doubt that." It's the type of fable, he says, that "people develop in their mind, and it sounds good. But it's the stuff of embellishment."

Then again, Julián may be forgetting something himself. In 1997, two years before the brothers met with Sosa, they had been profiled in a San Antonio newspaper as they headed off to Harvard Law (headline: "Double the Talent, Twice the Ambition"), and Julián had spoken about even higher goals than the one Sosa recalls: "We do not consider the office of governor or [U.S.] senator an impossibility," he told the reporter.

Today, the Castro brothers take pains to be humble. But they've always had ambition in abundance. Their precipitous rise has been the result of lofty aspirations, careful calculation, ferocious loyalty, and deep political pragmatism-qualities the brothers have long shared and mutually cultivated. "Growing up, I think what's helped my brother and I is, we were so competitive with each other," says Joaquin. "Because we're in the same field, it's allowed us to talk almost daily. Lets you identify strengths and weaknesses in your arguments." Colin Strother, a Texas political consultant who has worked on Joaquin's campaigns, puts it more bluntly. "You see this synergy with Bill and Hillary," he told me. "Steel sharpens steel."

EVEN FOR TWINS, Julián and Joaquin were unusually tight-knit from their earliest days. They played the same sports, studied the same subjects, and, in middle school, even dated girls with almost identical names: Veronica Gonzalez and Veronica Gonzales. They communicated with each other in often-unspoken ways that frequently were beyond the ken of everyone around them.

They never truly grew apart. "It is one of the most intense relationships that two people could share," Archer says. Even after marrying, starting families, and following their different political paths in San Antonio, Austin, and now Washington, they remain incredibly close. (Julián wed Erica Lira, an elementary school teacher, in 2007; they have a 5-year-old daughter and a son who was born in December. Joaquin married Anna Flores, who works for a San Antonio tech company, in 2013; they have a 1-year-old daughter.) "They're not easy people to get to know," says their longtime friend Diego Bernal, who served on the city council when Julián was mayor. As children, they "were the whole world to each other," says their mother, Rosie. It was "hard to penetrate that."

Neither of the brothers is naturally outgoing; they've had to learn to master the glad-handing, baby-kissing, money-asking skills required of politicians. Julián likes to say that in high school he would often talk to two or three people the entire day-and one of them was his brother. "I was not the life of the party," as he puts it. "Still am not." Joaquin was always the slightly more sociable one: He'd make friends, who would, in turn, become Julián's friends as well. "Julián has always been more introspective," Rosie says. "If I had let him, he'd stay home, hang around the house. Joaquin, too, but he also likes an escape, being out in the world."

Spend enough time around them, talk to enough of their friends, and you pick up small differences: Julián speaks more softly, in a slightly deeper voice; Joaquin's face is slightly thicker (though the clue I used, when both brothers were present, was the FitBit that Joaquin wears). But the twins seem to share almost everything else-including the fact that they have perplexing tastes in music. As a teenager, Julián once took a CD of theme songs to TV shows like The Golden Girls and Cheers to a New Year's Eve celebration, and he's been known to jam to Kenny Rogers and Barry Manilow. Joaquin's tastes range from Joan Baez to Taylor Swift, with a particular affinity for bands (Matchbox 20, Counting Crows) from the late '90s, which he once called "a renaissance in music."

In part, the brothers grew inseparable because they helped to raise each other. Rosie was the opposite of a helicopter mom; she was stretched thin, between work and politics and single-mothering, but she was also determined to push "the guys," as she calls them, out into the world. Her immigrant mother, Victoria, made $8 a day as a maid, cook, and babysitter on the north side of San Antonio; and while her mother worked, Rosie's guardian held tight to her as a child, forbidding her to even walk next door to play with the neighbors. (Rosie did sometimes accompany her mother on her three-bus commute to work, however, and recalls spending time picking ticks off the dogs that belonged to one of her mother's employers.) Rosie encouraged Joaquin and Julián to enjoy the kind of freedom she never had as a child; they both still remember, the summer when they were 9, riding the bus downtown by themselves to see The Karate Kid at a sketchy theater no fewer than five times.

Their family wasn't all that far removed from the poverty of Rosie's youth, especially after Rosie and the twins' father, a Chicano activist and math teacher named Jesse Guzman, separated in 1983 (they never married). Joaquin and Julián were 8 when their dad left. They moved with Rosie and their grandmother to a modest house near one of Rosie's cousins. The Castros went without a car for years, and for a while, when the boys were in high school, had to rely on money from friends after Rosie was laid off.

The boys still saw their father pretty regularly on weekends and took summer fishing trips to Garner State Park. When I spoke to Guzman in December at a west-side Mexican joint called Laguna Jalisco, he talked about his pride in the twins-"I'm very humbled by everything they do"-and recalled one big difference he noticed between them. "Julián had a graceful way of casting his line out there. Have you read A River Runs Through It? Reminds me of that book. Julián brought all his tackle and was very organized. But Joaquin didn't like fishing."

Julián and Joaquin pushed each other to excel. They studied Japanese (Julián) and German (Joaquin) at a language-intensive junior high school in the inner city (a childhood friend describes it as a "maximum-security middle school"). They enrolled in night classes and summer school so they could finish high school a year early. "Part of the reason that we were so looking toward the future, toward success, is because we had grown up of modest means, and we were always worried about falling back," Joaquin says. "You want to be sure-I'm going to be OK, I'm going to be OK."

"It is one of the most intense relationships two people could share," says a top Castro adviser.

The elation that Joaquin and Julián felt upon opening their acceptance letters to Stanford in the spring of 1992 was replaced by sadness and raw nerves on the morning of Sept. 23-even now, Julián recalls the exact date-when they waved good-bye to their parents and a crowd of friends and well-wishers who'd come to see them off at the San Antonio airport. Their father, as Julián tells it, must have purchased "the cheapest ticket on Southwest Airlines he could find"; the flight connected twice, in El Paso and San Diego, before it reached San Francisco. "It was the first time we'd been away from our family," Julián recalled last year in a talk at Notre Dame. "We cried halfway to El Paso on the plane, sitting next to each other."

WHEN LUIS FRAGA gazed out on the roomful of students in his urban politics course, he noticed something that gave him a start: two look-alike brothers seated dead center in his classroom. Before long, Fraga, the only Latino political scientist on Stanford's campus at the time, came to know Joaquin and Julián Castro as two of the savviest students he'd ever taught. "It was immediately apparent to me," Fraga says, "that they had an understanding of politics that was deeper than any other college sophomores I'd come across."

The brothers matriculated in Palo Alto as the first high-tech boom was beginning. Other Stanford students at the time included Peter Thiel, later the iconoclastic founder of PayPal, and David Sacks, who would go on to sell his company, Yammer, for $1.2 billion and own the most expensive house in San Francisco. Silicon Valley's high-rolling economy and entrepreneurial ethos was a far cry from life on the west side of San Antonio, and the brothers felt some culture shock-plus a bit of defensiveness about where they came from. "I had a chip on my shoulder about San Antonio," Julián says. The brothers doubled down on their hometown pride, urging their entrepreneurial classmates to "consider San Antonio" after graduation. But they also learned new ways to think about solving societal problems, Fraga says. "It was an atmosphere of creativity and thinking about technology as a potential source of solutions for all kinds of things. That made a big impression on Julián."

In their junior year, both brothers ran for the student senate on the left-leaning People's Platform-and another mythmaking moment was born. There were 10 seats open, in a multicandidate race. Joaquin and Julián created separate campaign fliers, but posted them in the same strategic spots around campus-bathroom stalls. (Fraga, who became their senior adviser and then a friend, still calls them the "Stall Twins.") On election day, the brothers earned exactly the same number of votes-811-on their way to being the top vote-getters. A front-page story in The Stanford Daily posed the brothers sitting back-to-back in the university's historic Memorial Court. Reading the article, you can practically see them rolling their eyes at the reporter's "What's it like to be a twin?" questions. "We don't particularly subscribe to twins having ESP," Julián is quoted as saying. "We get asked that question millions of times."

Some daylight began to appear between the brothers at Stanford. While they mostly took the same classes, they chose not to room together. The summer before their junior year, they were separated for months when Julián went to Washington as an intern in the Clinton White House. In the fall of their senior year, when Joaquin was hired as a resident assistant in his dormitory, he felt, for the first time, the weight of following in his brother's footsteps. (Julián had been an R.A. the year before.) "I don't think I did as well in the job," Joaquin says, "because I felt like I could [only] get the job because he had done it."

In politics, too, it was becoming clear that Julián-the elder brother by one minute-would go first. By their third year at Harvard Law, Julián had already decided to run for the San Antonio City Council. (Hence the visit to Lionel Sosa, who knew San Antonio politics as well as anyone.) During their final year, the brothers launched the campaign from Cambridge. They called neighborhood-association leaders, wrote letters to local businesspeople, and flew home on weekends whenever they could to meet and greet prospective voters at community gatherings and garage sales. (Joaquin, who doesn't play golf, still owns an ancient Ben Hogan 3-wood he bought at one of the sales for $5.) Just before graduation, their law-school classmates threw Julián his first fundraiser. The following May, three decades after Rosie lost her own campaign at age 23, Julián became the youngest council member in San Antonio history at 26.

It wasn't long before Joaquin followed suit-but on a different track. Both brothers had been hired out of Harvard by the white-shoe law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld (Julián's City Council gig was not a full-time job), but neither had learned to love corporate law, to say the least. Years earlier, local activists had tried unsuccessfully to draft Rosie into challenging a Democratic incumbent in the state House-a longtime pol who, according to Rosie, had developed a do-nothing reputation. Now Joaquin decided to take him on. Though he says he "agonized" over abandoning his six-figure salary, he relished the idea of going to Austin to work on "big-ticket issues" such as higher education and health care. He also wanted to escape his brother's shadow and strike out, at least somewhat, on his own. "He was now on council," Joaquin says, "and I wanted to do something different."

With Rosie and Julián helping to run his campaign, Joaquin dispatched the Democratic incumbent easily, winning the primary with 64 percent of the vote. In the general election, he held off a Republican who'd been generously funded by some of the biggest Anglo donors in the state. The Castro family celebrated another victory, but Joaquin's timing could hardly have been worse; 2002 was also the year when Republicans won their first majority in the Texas House since Reconstruction. "I came in," Joaquin says, "when it all went to shit." So much for pushing "big-ticket" ideas. That would become his brother's forte instead. But not until Julián had experienced, at the tender age of 30, his first major political setback.

In 2012, Joaquin (right) introduced his keynote-speaking brother to the Democratic Convention-and to the country. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) JU-LI-ÃN! Ju-li-án! Ju-li-án!" The chant rose up in the San Antonio City Council's chambers on April 4, 2002. The council was voting that evening on $52 million worth of special tax breaks for the developers of a new golf resort and upscale-housing project called PGA Village. Competing factions had filled the chamber seats, wearing stickers that said "PGA No!" or "PGA Yes!" A few months earlier, Julián had quit his job at Akin Gump. (The firm's lawyers had drafted the developers' contract.) It was the highest-profile issue of his early days in office, and he was hell-bent on making the most of it. Julián seized the spotlight at the hearing, sharply interrogating the developers' representatives over their claims about the project's environmental impact (low, they said) and economic potential for the city (sky high, of course). The "PGA No!" crowd ate it up, but Julián's performance went for naught: Only one of the 10 other council members voted with him to block the deal.

The loss did nothing to dim Julián's enthusiasm for city government. Despite the meager pay-$20 a meeting-he relished the nonpartisan world of council politics. He didn't mind that constituents would call at all hours to complain about barking dogs or their neighbors' unkempt lawns. He was happy to attend your neighborhood-association meeting next Wednesday at 7 p.m. He even lent a patient ear to the cast of gadflies who regularly came to council meetings to air their grievances for the allotted three minutes each. Jaime Castillo, a San Antonio Express-News columnist who would later become Julián's deputy chief of staff, took notice of the polite attention the young council member gave the complainers. His attitude, according to Castillo, was: "These people are here to speak to the body. By God, they're going to get their three minutes, and I'm going to listen."

But Julián couldn't serve on the council forever. At the time, San Antonio had among the strictest term limits in the country; council members couldn't serve more than two two-year stints. (The rules have since been loosened.) In 2004, with the expiration of his second term looming, Julián decided to run for mayor.

Julián Castro was known to San Antonio voters, if he was known at all, for three things: his youth, his family, and his loud opposition to PGA Village. All three would be used against him in what became a bruising campaign-one that would ultimately lead him to dramatically reinvent his political identity.

His chief opponent, a retired appellate judge named Phil Hardberger, was backed by the city's business establishment, which was highly suspicious of the young Castro. After two council members were arrested on bribery charges, Hardberger used it to turn Julián's inexperience against him; the council, he argued, needed a wiser old head to clean up the mess. Hardberger's campaign also managed to drum up the closest thing to a political scandal in the Castro brothers' career-an affair dubbed "Twingate" in the local press. In April 2005, it seems, with the mayoral campaign in full swing, Julián and Joaquin were both scheduled to ride and wave atop the city council barge in the annual River Parade. At the last minute, though, Julián says he decided to attend a neighborhood-association meeting instead. Whatever the reason, Joaquin ended up riding on the barge alone. Hardberger's campaign managed to turn the incident into a story of deception and political cunning, accusing the Castros of pulling a fast one on the denizens of San Antonio by swapping one brother for another in the parade.

Whether or not Twingate doomed him, Julián lost. The defeat hit him hard-the first time in his life that he'd truly tasted failure. "Elections are so determinative in that way," he says. "There is no, 'You wanted an A+ but you got an A,' or 'You wanted 100 percent but you got a 93.' The people either accepted or rejected you." But this rejection would become a major turning point in the story of the Castro brothers.

A few months later, around the time of the brothers' 31st birthdays, Joaquin dropped by Julián's house with a present. This wasn't typical: As close as they are, the Castro brothers are far from expressive. They only occasionally exchange birthday gifts, they've never been big on "I love you's," and Julián told me that he could remember hugging his brother only five or six times in their 40 years. Joaquin's gift was a small volume titled How to Be President. Part spoof, part dummy's-guide-to, the book purported to answer the fundamental questions about life as commander in chief: Where's the bathroom? When do you get to fly on Air Force One? How do you order pizza delivery to the Oval Office?

Joaquin meant it partly as a joke, he says-not a prediction that his brother would actually end up in the White House. At the same time, there was a message in the gift, which Julián says he understood as: "I still think you can do whatever you want."

The brothers, characteristically enough, were already working on that. Not long after the election, Christian Archer, who'd run Hardberger's campaign, spotted the Castros eating lunch at their favorite Mexican restaurant, Rosario's. He hadn't seen them since Julián lost, and he tried to make himself inconspicuous in hopes of avoiding them. They spotted him anyway. "I give them a pleasant wave," Archer recalls, "and Julián jumps up and runs over and grabs me and says, 'Would you mind having lunch with Joaquin and I?' "

The three men sat and talked for two hours. The Castros weren't bitter; they were curious. What did we do wrong? they wanted to know. How did you choose this message, that line of attack? "I came away from that with the utmost respect," Archer says. "That took some real nerve and moxie to say, 'Help us understand this.' "

Julián was convinced he couldn't mount a successful comeback if the business establishment continued to distrust him. For the next four years, when he wasn't working personal-injury cases for the new Law Offices of Julián Castro-Joaquin joined the firm, of course-he worked on changing that image completely. Julián broke bread regularly with business leaders, and, when the time came for his next shot at the mayor's office, he hired Archer and the rest of Hardberger's '05 team to run his campaign. (Because of term limits, Hardberger couldn't run again.) Julián ran as an ally of the real-estate developers and bankers and tech entrepreneurs, and a champion of public-private partnerships as the way to improve the schools and attract new jobs. And he cruised to victory, winning 56 percent of the vote in a five-candidate race. One year later, when The New York Times Magazine profiled Julián as the future Barack Obama-the Latino who'd break America's next racial barrier to the presidency-it dubbed him the "Post-Hispanic Hispanic Politician." Julián bristled a little at the moniker, but even so: mission accomplished.

Mayor Castro governed as he'd campaigned. He opened a public-private college-prep center called Café College, and a similar site for aspiring entrepreneurs. He embraced the use of tax abatements to lure large employers to the city. He led a public-private crusade to revitalize San Antonio's urban core. And when he embarked on his most ambitious effort, a citywide expansion of prekindergarten education called "Pre-K for SA," he persuaded the two biggest CEOs in San Antonio-Charles Butt, founder of the HEB grocery chain, and Joe Robles, head of the U.S. Automobile Association-to spearhead the campaign to pass a $30 million sales-tax increase to get it rolling.

By the time the voters embraced Pre-K for SA in November 2012, the Castro brothers had two feet in Washington. Joaquin had found his ticket out of the sad minority in the Texas House, winning his first congressional election-only to join another new Democratic minority in the U.S. House. Julián had delivered his Democratic Convention keynote that summer, leading to all kinds of buzz and interview requests. Shortly after the election, Obama and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett met with Julián to gauge his interest in joining the Cabinet; they didn't specify which department, but it was clearly Transportation, which didn't appeal to him. He said no, but the idea of taking a post in D.C. had been planted.

THIS PAST SPRING, 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. The brothers also understood perfectly well that there was no chance that the mayor of San Antonio would be tapped as vice president. But a young Latino Cabinet member with Clinton-style moderate politics and a ton of great press? Maybe.

It wasn't an automatic call, though. Leaving Texas would take Julián off the path to the governor's office that so many expected him to follow when his fourth two-year term as mayor (that was now the term limit) ended in 2017. The timing had once sounded plausible. Political pundits and optimistic Democrats had long expected favorable demographic trends-a whole lot of young people of color becoming voters, that is-to make statewide elections winnable by then, especially for the right candidate. (And if there were ever a "right" Democratic candidate, most agreed, it was Julián Castro.) But with the much-hyped gubernatorial bid of state Sen. Wendy Davis headed toward a historic rout-she lost by more than 20 percentage points-the revival of Texas Democrats had begun to look like a far more distant prospect.

When Julián asked Rosie what she thought about Obama's HUD offer, she said, "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. Some advisers thought HUD was a dead-end job. Others pointed out that Julián would be joining the administration during its lame-duck phase-not the optimal time for launching ambitious projects that could boost his national profile. It would be, said Evan Smith, CEO of The Texas Tribune, "like John Stamos joining ER in the 13th season-show's over, man."

When he took the job anyway, it was a sure sign that the Castro brothers had decided that Texas wouldn't be competitive for Democrats anytime soon. It also appeared to be a bet that Julián's presence in Washington, and his new role, would make him more appealing to Hillary Clinton if she became the Democratic nominee.

Still, the brothers know that vice president is a long shot-especially because, they insist, the rumors about their cozy links to Bill and Hillary are patently absurd. Their relationship with the Clintons is friendly, they say, but far from intimate. Julián's only interaction with President Clinton during his White House internship was a photo session. The brothers endorsed Hillary over Obama in 2008-at the behest, they say, of old Clinton pal José Villarreal, a family friend and the partner who'd hired the twins at Akin Gump. Bill Clinton always remembers the Castros' endorsement and thanks them when he sees them, Julián says, but that's only been on "a handful of occasions." The brothers have introduced the former president at fundraisers in California and Texas, Julián notes, and "I've spoken with Hillary Clinton twice"-once at an event at the University of Southern California in 2013, and once at a 2014 benefit for the Bronx Children's Museum, which Justice Sonia Sotomayor invited them to. Last August, Julián dined with Bill Clinton at the couple's home in Washington. "A lot of people try and brag about long, close relationships with the Clintons," Julián says. "We don't have a long, close relationship." But, he adds, "I think we're on the same page about a lot of stuff."

While Julián thinks nationally, his brother's mind keeps drifting back to Texas. In December, Joaquin Castro and I sat at the top of the 750-foot-high Tower of the Americas, gazing out on San Antonio, chatting about the brothers' past and possible futures, Texas politics, and the 2016 presidential race. (Joaquin ranks Mike Huckabee as the most natural politician of the potential GOP field, saying he could "walk away" with the nomination "if he wasn't so odd.") The congressman, fresh off an easy reelection, pointed out some notable spots: the brothers' old neighborhood, the spire at Our Lady of the Lake University on the west side, the place nearby where Woody Harrelson's father killed a federal judge by the name of "Maximum John" Wood Jr. Over soup, salad, and iced tea-both brothers' drink of choice-Joaquin talked enthusiastically about his new project to resuscitate Texas Democrats.

"I'm always thinking about politics," he says. "What is going on here? What's missing here?" In Texas, what's missing is pretty obvious on one level: Democratic voters. Despite the advent of Battleground Texas, a well-funded effort led by former Obama campaign brass designed to register and turn out new voters, Joaquin says there's only one way to view the 2014 election: "We got our ass kicked." The party's situation just keeps growing more dire, he says; between 2008 and 2012, Republicans went from occupying 2,400 local elected offices in Texas to owning 3,400. "We never learned how to come back," he says. "We still haven't figured out the formula in Texas."

Joaquin doesn't want to supplant Battleground Texas, he explains, but to complement it with some well-funded, year-round hardball politics. The Legislature meets every two years for 140 days, and every session Republicans cut more deeply into funding for social services, he says-yet they're never held accountable for it, come election time. "For example, a few years ago they wanted to cut funding for nursing homes," he says. "I mean, that's perfect! You could run that on the radio all day. You need to sear it in people's brains, so the next time they go, 'Hey, I remember-these are the guys who wanted to cut your nursing-home funding!' "

Another key, he argues, is expanding the usual targets for a political party. "What campaigns do is, they target likely voters, consistent voters, right?" he says. "You need an organization that completely flips the script. I don't want to talk to likely voters; I want to talk to people that are completely, or almost completely, disengaged."

His road map for Texas Democrats is still in the early stages, but if he had to put a price tag on it, he'd estimate upwards of $50 million. Joaquin had meetings scheduled in January with potential donors in hopes of getting things rolling. (He would not say who those funders might be.) When I ask how he's planning to run a Democratic-renewal project in Texas while working 12-hour days in Congress, raising his young daughter, and comanaging his brother's political future, he admits that he sometimes thinks fondly about leaving his minority caucus in Congress. "Some of the things I want to do and be involved with in bringing Texas along, it would be easier not to be an elected official," he says. "Specifically, not to be a congressman."

He knows, of course, that nothing would benefit his Texas project like a brother on the national Democratic ticket; that would make raising $50 million a snap. "If he ascends, that helps me too," Joaquin says. It works both ways, of course: If Joaquin makes any notable headway with his Texas project over the next year and a half, the prospect of putting a Texan on the Democratic ballot would make more strategic sense for the party's presidential nominee.

While the brothers still harbor blue-sky ambitions, they're also realists. They know that in the likely event Julián doesn't get the VP nod, their political path forward suddenly vanishes, at least unless Texas someday becomes competitive again. "Sure, I've thought about it," Julián says of having nowhere to go when his HUD appointment expires. "It's very possible. I've thought about going back to Texas and writing, and perhaps practicing law." He's also open, he says, to "sticking around somewhere in the Cabinet" if Clinton, or another Democrat, becomes the next president. "Most days, I'm excited about public service, but there's some days, like in any profession-there's the down days when I think about just going back home and having more freedom, you know? So we'll see what happens. The good thing is, I'm gonna be 42 when that day comes. Still a lot of time left."

But there is also a sense of urgency to the brothers' political plans. When we met for lunch in December at one of his favorite Mexican restaurants in San Antonio, Julián said he felt increasingly optimistic that he made the right move in going to Washington. "Joaquin and I were talking a couple of months ago," he said, "and I told him, 'I feel like the world is coming toward us in a positive way. More now in our lives than it ever will again.' "

Andy Kroll is a Washington-based reporter for Mother Jones.
This article is from the archive of our partner National Journal.

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The Power of Two: Inside the Rise of the Castro Brothers

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This article is from the archive of our partner On a summer morning in 1999, Joaquin and Julián Castro pulled up in front of a double-wide trailer a few miles outside San Antonio.

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SAN ANTONIO - March 31 is a date that many have never forgotten and will never forget.

21-years have passed since the untimely passing of the "Queen of Tejano," Selena Quintanilla.

Selena leaves behind a lasting legacy that continues to be shared and continues to inspire young and old alike.

A festival in her name made its debut last year in Corpus Christi, Festival de la Flor, in Selena's honor.

Relive some of the best Selena moments in San Antonio.

1. Selena's legendary performances in 1991, donning the famous cow print outfits.

2. Selena performing in the Alamodome in 1994, a rare performance.

3. Selena being interviewed for Puro Tejano for the grand opening of the Hard Rock Café.

4. Selena being herself in a San Antonio Interview. What would you be doing if you weren't a singer? Her response? Probably working at Whataburger.

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4 Selena memories in San Antonio that will never be forgotten

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Twitter | InstagramSAN ANTONIO - March 31 is a date that many have never forgotten and will never forget.21-years have passed since the untimely passing of the Queen of Tejano, Selena Quintanilla.Selena leaves behind a lasting legacy that continues to be s

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You've seen their work, you've heard their names, but have you followed them on Instagram? For a flood of creativity on your feed and a peek into the world of some of San Antonio's well-known artists, we recommend you follow these 20 creatives who are shaping the city's artistic landscape.

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20 San Antonio Artists You Should Be Following on Instagram

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You've seen their work, you've heard their names, but have you followed them on Instagram? For a flood of creativity on your feed and a peek into the world of some of San Antonio's well-known artists, we recommend you follow these 20 creatives who are shaping the city's artistic landscape.

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SA Book Festival - Jenny Browne (poet and professor at Trinity)

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SA Book Festival - Jenny Browne (poet and professor at Trinity)

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Book Festival - San Antonio Public Library Foundation

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Jenny Browne is the author of three collections of poems, At Once, The Second Reason, and Dear Stranger. A former James Michener Fellow at the University of Texas, she worked for many years as a poet in the schools through the Texas Commission on the Arts and is currently a professor of English at Trinity University where she teaches courses in creative writing, women and gender studies, and environmental literature. She has received the Cecil Hemley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and two fellowships from the Texas Writers League. Her poems and essays have appeared in numerous publications including American Poetry Review, Garden & Gun, Oxford American, The New York Times and Tin House. She lives in downtown San Antonio with her husband, photographer Scott Martin, and their daughters Lyda and Harriet.

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Jenny Browne is the author of three collections of poems, At Once, The Second Reason, and Dear Stranger. A former James Michener Fellow at the University of Texas, she worked for many years as a poet in the schools through the Texas Commission on the Arts and is currently a professor of English at Trinity University where she teaches courses in creative writing, women and gender studies, and environmental literature.

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When the South Texas Plains first entered into written history in the 16th century, hundreds of small, highly mobile groups of hunting and gathering peoples ranged across southern Texas and northeastern Mexico. The seasonal rounds of some extended to the margins of the Gulf Coast; others periodically probed the higher country on the southern part of the Edwards Plateau. Many spent their summers among the enormous fields of prickly pear cactus on the South Texas Plains, harvesting the ripe fruits and joining with others in work, trade, and celebration.

These groups varied in size, often seasonally, as small family bands of a few dozen people came together with other bands who all spoke the same dialect and, collectively saw themselves as one people, or what the Spanish often called naciones, and we might call tribes. Examples of relatively large named groups that we know the most about are the Payaya of the Medina River valley, the Pacuache along the Nueces River, and the Mariames along the lower Guadalupe River and farther inland to the west. There were dozens and dozens of others, most of which we know almost nothing about except maybe a name.

Collectively, all these groups have come to be known as Coahuiltecans, but they spoke diverse dialects and languages, some of which were distantly related to one another at best. Some of the major languages were Comecrudo, Cotoname, Aranama, Solano, Sanan, as well as Coahuilteco. Some groups got along with one another and shared partially overlapping territories, particularly in the prickly pear season. Other groups were sworn enemies of one another or simply had such widely separated territories and language differences that they rarely came in contact. Although all were hunters and gatherers, some derived their main livelihood from quite different resource bases at various times of the year. In other words, the term Coahuiltecan masks considerable ethnic and behavioral diversity.

In this exhibit set we use the term Coahuiltecan in its proper sense, a geographic catch-all that could also be described as "the native peoples of south Texas and northeastern Mexico." As explained in the Native Peoples Main section, the term is greatly misused and misunderstood. For better or worse, Coahuiltecan is ingrained in both scholarly and popular literature and all we can do is try to explain what it means and use it correctly. It is simply a geographic term that encompasses virtually all of the diverse human groups who called the South Texas Plains, including its western segment in adjacent northeastern Mexico east of the Sierra Madre Oriental mountain range.

Like the colorful and distinct patchwork pieces of a quilt, many of the diverse "Coahuiltecan" groups derived from different sources but all were tied to a common backing-the land and its resources. The stories of the native peoples are all the more remarkable when we consider that many of the native peoples of the South Texas Plains may well have been direct linear descendants of the Paleoindian peoples who came to the region more than 13,000 years before, and whose descendants stayed on. That fascinating inference is based on the linquistic diversity of the Coahuiltecan groups, and the fact that several of the region's languages are unique and not closely related to any languages elsewhere in the world. Said otherwise, places where language "isolates" are spoken are likely places where people lived continuously for thousands of years. A better known example of this phenomenon is Basque, a language isolate spoken in the Pyrenees in north-central Spain.
Hunting and Gathering on the South Texas Plains
Food resources in the grassy plains and brushlands of South Texas were richly varied, and these helped to define the subsistence strategies of the various Coahuiltecan groups. One of the most important staples for the native peoples of the region was the nopal, or prickly pear cactus. Vast concentrations of prickly pear were noted in the historical record in several areas of the South Texas Plains. In the 19th century one traveler described a concentration along the Nueces River as "immensely large and branching through which nothing can pass...no man, nor beast will attempt to penetrate them." Other concentrations were seen in modern Live Oak, Duval, Jim Wells, Nueces and Kleburg counties.

Cabeza de Vaca and his companions, who lived several years with native groups along the Texas Gulf Coast, described traveling inland in late spring and early summer each year to gather and eat the tunas as well as their pads. In his Relacion de los Naufragios [Account of the Shipwreck] published by the Spanish court in 1555 and republished in 1906, Cabeza de Vaca described the harvesting of these odd fruits, noting that such seasonal occasions were also an important time for social interactions and trading with other native groups:

This is a fruit that is of the size of an egg, and they are red and black and of very good flavor. They eat them three months of the year, in which they eat nothing else, because at the time they gathered them there came to them other Indians from farther on who brought bows, to trade and barter with them.

When Cabeza de Vaca and his companions stayed with the Arbadaos and the Cuchendados, it was the beginning of the tuna season and many were ill with hunger and anxiously awaiting the ripening of the tunas. Nonetheless, despite their scarce food resources, the Arbadaos took the Spaniards by the hand into their dwellings and fed them, a kindness that would be welcomed today. The food they fed them were unripened tunas, which were bitter and hard to digest, and roasted pads of the prickly pear. They also gave the men two dogs in exchange for nets and other items such as the skin Cabeza de Vaca had used as a blanket at night.

Another food resource mentioned when the travelers were in the settlement of the Cuchendados was the mesquite bean, which was processed to provide a type of flour that could be mixed with other foods. The bean was also used in a ceremony that is described by Cabeza de Vaca. Adult males pounded the seed pods in a pit in the earth, mashing them until they were very fine. The finely ground seeds were then mixed with earth in a basket, and water was added. All members, including the Spaniards, then ate the gruel which, although sweet, greatly distended their stomachs.

The Spanish explorer provided a few other rich details about the two groups. As noted above, the Arabadaos extended their hands in friendship to the strangers even though they were in a season of scarce food resources. The Cuchendados also treated the men with care, providing food for them, and also hosting a ceremony for them. Cabeza de Vaca tells us:

The Indians [Cuchendados] made great celebration for us and among themselves very great dances and songs as long as we were there. And at night when we would be sleeping at the entrance to the camp where we were...six men would keep watch over each one of us with great care.

The reasons why the Cuchendados took such care with the four Spanish is never made clear and we wish more details had been given. Perhaps the Cuchendados knew enemies were nearby and they were protecting both the Spanish as well as their own people. Perhaps the presence of the four was a novelty that gave the Cuchendados greater esteem. Or, less kindly, perhaps they thought to keep the four with them indefinitely.

When the Spaniards left the Arbadaos and the Cuchendados, Cabeza de Vaca recalled, both groups wept. While such weeping might be expected if family members were leaving on a long journey, it seems to be an unusual occurrence when you have only known the travelers for a short time. And, it was sufficiently unusual that the Spaniards remembered this detail several years later after they had survived an incredibly difficult journey.

Other personal glimpses are provided in the Spaniard's account, significant because they clarify the roles and abilities of women in one group. He reports that women from another nacion south of the Rio Grande were in the Cuchendado settlement at the same time as the Spaniards. In fact, these women guided the Spaniards to their settlements south of the river. Since neither the Spaniards nor the Cuchendados thought this odd, apparently women traveled on their own with some frequency. Moreover, the Cuchendados told the Spaniards that there was "no trail" to the women's settlement. In other words, the women must have navigated across the region from one settlement to another by following the terrain and natural landmarks. That was simply their way of life, but when we think of traveling on foot, without the modern conveniences of hotels, cars, GPS units, and highways, it gives us pause-the lives of these ancient men and women was a lot more challenging than "hunting and gathering" implies.
The Mariames: Hunter-Gatherers over Diverse Terrains
Cabeza de Vaca lived among another group, the Mariames, for some 18 months (although not by choice). The Mariames followed a hunting and gathering strategy based on the exploitation of contrasting sets of resources found in two geographically separated terrains.

For the greater part of the year, they lived in the lower Guadalupe River valley, hunting along the coastal plain, gathering pecans along the river, and other resources. Both deer and bison were among their prey, according to the Spaniard's account. One "hunting" method he witnessed involved setting fire to the prairie grasslands and chasing fleeing deer into the bays and forcing them to swim until they became exhausted and drowned. Not very "sporting" as we would see it, but hunting wasn't a sport, it was life or death.

In the summer, the Mariames moved dozens of miles inland to the west to the prickly pear fields, where they stayed for months to harvest ripe tunas. While there they gathered land snails to supplement their diet, a meager caloric addition at best. But rats, rabbits, and snakes would have been on the menu as well. In the hot, dry summer months, they squeezed tuna juice into holes in the ground and used it as an earth-flavored beverage. During their summer time at the tuna fields, the Mariames met with other groups, such as the Avavares, with whom they traded for items such as wooden bows for hunting.

Mariame encampments- rancherias -were described as a succession of small circular huts made of four bent poles covered with woven mats made of plant fiber. After the land's resources had been exhausted in one spot, these simple structures could be easily disassembled. The parts that were difficult to make (eg., the mats) were packed up and moved to the next camp. Cooking was done in small pits or on open hearths, but many foods were eaten raw, all organic, all natural.
The Payaya
Most of what is known about one of the Coahuiltecan groups that resided on the upper South Texas Plains, the Payaya, comes from an extensive study by ethnohistorian and anthropologist T. N. Campbell. Mentioned in many 17th and 18th century documents, the Payaya were associated with a broad area that included San Antonio and probably the southern edge of the Edwards Plateau. Like the other naciones with whom they shared a language, they were mobile hunters and gatherers, but while they shared cultural traits with other Coahuiltecan speakers, they also likely had their own unique habits that made them the "Payaya" and not "Pachuache" or " Sana." As Campbell emphasized, the known traits and traditions may not be characteristic of other groups in the region at the time of European contact.

Between the years 1688 and 1717, various Spanish expeditions found the Payaya in camps along the western and northern margins of the South Texas Plains. Given the fact that several times the Payaya were found camped in modern Bexar and Medina counties, it is likely that this was a core part of their homeland. Keep in mind that the Spanish view of the native world was rather narrow: Spanish expeditions tended to follow the same northeast/southeast line of travel from the Rio Grande to San Antonio and then on to east Texas that was first taken in 1690. Thus, their documentation of the overall Payaya territory was incomplete. The natives' actual range may have been much broader than we know.

Spanish accounts make it clear that pecans were an important food source. The Spanish found the Payaya at locales where they were gathering pecans, sometimes in "great quantities." While the type of nuts being gathered in great quantity were not specified, the presence of the Payaya in Bexar and Medina counties makes this clear. Even today pecan groves continue to be prominent along the Medina River. Fray Espinosa describes pecans in detail in his encounters with the Payaya in the region in 1709. Given that pecan trees in each area tend to produce crops only every second or third year, the Payaya could not have counted on abundant harvests each year. One way they stored excess pecans for later use was by placing shelled pecans in small skin bags or threading them on long strings. Both methods would allow for easy transport from one camp to another.

The Payaya seem to have maintained close friendships or alliances with certain other naciones, including the Pampopa, Cauya, Semomam, Saracuam, Pulacuam, and Anxau. Although the Spanish documents never specifically state that Payaya were friends or allies of other groups, we can infer this based on the groups they were seen camping or traveling with.

Thus, we know the Payaya-and other small groups of the South Texas Plains-through the shadowy and spotty view of Spanish documents. The known documents offer only a few details about their range and their hunting and gathering lifeways. Campbell believes that they resided, at least seasonally, in the San Antonio area. Although definite archeological evidence of the Payaya has been difficult to pin down, no evidence has been found that contradicts the notion that they consisted of small familial or multi-family bands that moved seasonally through the San Antonio and South Texas area.
Absorption and Extinction
By the early 1700s, the Spanish had begun establishing missions for the Indians of south Texas and northeastern Mexico. Although there are voluminous records of native families, their marriages, baptisms, and conversions, as well as journals of the priests describing the trials and triumphs of the various mission populations, there is not a great deal that can shed direct light on specific groups. For the most part, native groups that entered the missions were remnant groups whose societies had been ravaged by disease, reduced by warfare, and pushed in every direction from intruding peoples from the outside, European and Native American. Many survivors from disappearing groups joined with other groups, further diluting and distorting their cultural identities. Others intermarried with the Spanish, as anthropologist Mardith Schuetz has demonstrated.

Some small native groups, such as the Cacaxtle, had turned to raiding Spanish settlements along the Rio Grande, emulating the larger and more formidable Plains groups. Drawing the attention of the Spanish military, the Cacaxtle were effectively annihilated in two battles. During the second, fought in 1665 in modern-day Kinney County, the natives fought from within a defensive fortification built of tree trunks, branches, and prickly pear plants. During the battle, a lone native woman reportedly played a flute, perhaps to buoy the spirits of the Cacaxtle warriors, but in effect, sounding the death knell of her people.

Following Cabeza de Vaca's journey in the early 1500s, only a few hundred years passed before the indigenous peoples of the South Texas Plains had lost almost all ethnic identity and were, effectively, culturally extinct. Although their languages were no longer spoken, those native peoples who survived the Mission era were absorbed within the Mexican communities that formed around the abandoned missions. Some of their genes and memories were passed on and today there are several "resurgent" groups who trace their heritage to the Coahuiltecans of yesteryear, including the "American Indians in Texas at Spanish Colonial Missions" and the "Tap-Pilam-Coahuiltecan Nations."

Archeologist and anthropologist Alston Thoms suggests that the concept of "cultural extinction," as it applies to geographic Coahuiltecans, should be viewed in relative terms. He points out that elements of their lifeways survive to the present, including foodways (e.g., nopal and tuna), religion (Native American Church), and other behavior, and that some Coahuiltecan words are embedded in rural Spanish. In short, he argues that aspects of geographic Coahuiltecan culture survived long after their hunter-gatherer lifeways and languages ceased to exist and that such cultural survival is manifested by resurgent groups such as Tap Pilam.

The Cuchendado women had to know landmarks that allowed them to navigate from one settlement to the other. When we think of traveling on foot, without the modern conveniences of hotels, cars, GPS units, and highways, it gives us pause to consider what that must have been like—for men or women.

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When the South Texas Plains first entered into written history in the 16th century, hundreds of small, highly mobile groups of hunting and gathering peoples ranged across southern Texas and northeastern Mexico. The seasonal rounds of some extended to the margins of the Gulf Coast; others periodically probed the higher country on the southern part of the Edwards Plateau.

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Barbara Jordan was the first African American representative to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas. After receiving a B.A. in political science and history from Texas Southern University in 1956, she attended law school and was admitted to the Massachusetts and Texas bars in 1959. After unsuccessful bids in 1962 and 1964, Jordan ran and won a seat in the Texas House of Representatives in 1966, and she became the first African American person since 1883 to serve in the Texas Senate.

In 1972 Jordan was elected to represent Texas' Eighteenth District in the House of Representatives. While in Congress, she served as a member of the House Judiciary Committee and the Committee on Government Operations. As a member of the Judiciary Committee, Jordan was in the national spotlight during the Watergate hearings that would eventually lead to the resignation of President Nixon. Through her work, Jordan was a champion of civil rights as she worked tirelessly to create an inclusive society that valued and respected all of its citizens. Her style of oratory and clarity of vision on the issues made her potential as a presidential candidate a topic of conversation among liberals.

In December 1977, Jordan announced that she would not be a candidate for reelection the following year. In 1979 she became a professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. In August 1994, President Bill Clinton awarded Ms. Jordan the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. Sadly, on January 17, 1996, in Austin, Texas, Ms. Jordan gently passed away. Throughout her lifetime, Barbara Jordan was a pioneer in many areas. Following are areas in which she stood out as being the 'first':

Member of the first debate team from an African-American university to compete in the forensic tournament held annually at Baylor University.

Served as administrative assistant to the County Judge of Harris County, becoming the first African-American woman to hold that position.

First African-American state senator in Texas since the Reconstruction period following the Civil War.

Author of the first successful minimum wage bill in the state of Texas.

Served as "Governor for a Day" while president pro-tempore of the Texas Senate in 1972, becoming the first African-American woman to serve as chief executive of any state in the union.

Along with Andrew Young of Georgia, first African-American Southerner to be elected to the U.S. Congress since Reconstruction.

First African-American woman from the South to be elected to the U.S. Congress.

First African-American Texan elected to Congress.

First woman and the first African-American to deliver the keynote address to the Democratic National Convention.

First African-American buried in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin.

First female to be honored with a statue on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin.

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Barbara Jordan was the first African American representative to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas. After receiving a B.A. in political science and history from Texas Southern University in 1956, she attended law school and was admitted to the Massachusetts and Texas bars in 1959.

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San Antonio's Contemporary Arts Festival Saturday, November 10, 2018

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Visit the McNay Art Museum - McNay Art Museum

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Artpace is generously supported by: Kronkosky Charitable Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Texas Commission on the Arts, Linda Pace Foundation, San Antonio Department of Arts & Culture, The Brown Foundation, Inc., and more...

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Skip to Main Content?

Carlos Cadena (1917-2001) was the only Mexican-American in his class when he received his LL.B. summa cum laude from the University of Texas School of Law in 1940, after serving as an editor of the Texas Law Review. After graduation, Cadena worked as an assistant city attorney in San Antonio. On January 11, 1954, Cadena and co-counsel, Gustavo "Gus" C. Garcia, became the first Mexican-American attorneys to argue a case before the United States Supreme Court ( Hernández v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475 (1954)). Cadena and Garcia won their case when the Court unanimously agreed that excluding Mexican-Americans from jury service was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Following the Hernández case, Cadena would be appointed to the Fourth Court of Appeals, first as Associate Justice in 1961, and later as the first Mexican-American Chief Justice in 1977. Cadena would also help establish the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), serving as the president of the board of directors from the organization's inception in 1968.

For his full biography, visit his page on the Tarlton Law Library website.

Photo courtesy of the Tarlton Law Library.

Faculty Advisor

Community Fellow

Judge Robert L. Pitman, '88

Judge, United States District Court for the Western District of Texas

Robert Lee Pitman is federal judge for the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. Prior to joining the court, he was the United States Attorney for the same district. On June 26, 2014, President Barack Obama nominated Pitman to the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. The United States Senate confirmed Pitman on December 16, 2014, by a voice vote.

Pitman earned his undergraduate degree from Abilene Christian University in 1985 and his J.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1988. He also holds a Master of Studies in Legal Research from the University of Oxford, which he earned in 2011.

Society Student Leaders

Stephanie Agu ('19)

Stephanie is a rising 2L from Austin, Texas. She is a proud graduate of Rice University, and spent two years exploring the real world before returning home to Austin for law school. She is committed to seeing you finish your first year of law school with no academic or personal regrets. Stephanie loves old Hollywood films, eats way too much ice cream, and hosts trivia nights in her spare time. She plans on practicing labor and employment law when she grows up.

Weston Kowert ('18)

Weston is a 3L from Austin, Texas. He attended undergrad at the greatest school in the country: Texas A&M. He studied Biology. Weston decided to attend Texas Law because he loves Austin and let's be real, Texas Law is the bomb-dot-com. Weston loves all law, but is especially interested in tax, corporate law, litigation and patent law. As previously mentioned, Weston thinks UT Law is the bees-knees and his love of the school drove him to join the Society Program. Weston loves football, barbecue, shooting shotguns, family, friends, and his dog. In his spare time, Weston likes to fly planes.

Patrick Aana ('19)

Patrick is a rising 2L from Houston and he had actually never lived anywhere else before making the long journey to Austin. Before being admitted to Texas Law, he studied history at the University of Houston, earned a master's in international studies from the University of St. Thomas (also in Houston), and worked at the World Affairs Council of Greater-you guessed it-Houston. His legal interests include bird law, labor and employment, and international law. Patrick is excited to serve as the Society Coordinator for Cadena and hopes to help students make time to relax and enjoy the law school experience.

Namesake

Carlos Cadena, '40

Societies
About the Society Program

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Skip to Main Content? Carlos Cadena (1917-2001) was the only Mexican-American in his class when he received his LL.B. summa cum laude from the University of Texas School of Law in 1940, after serving as an editor of the Texas Law Review. After graduation, Cadena worked as an assistant city attorney in San Antonio.

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Native Americans in San Antonio (the Coahuiltecans)

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Native Americans in San Antonio (the Coahuiltecans)

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See the World

Explore 5,000 Years of Art, People, and Culture

A visit to the San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA) takes you around the world and through five thousand years of art in a complex of buildings that once housed the Lone Star Brewery. SAMA is renowned for the most comprehensive ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian art collection in the southern United States. The Nelson A. Rockefeller Latin American art wing spans the ages from the ancient Americas to the present and includes an outstanding collection of popular art. In the contemporary galleries, works of internationally recognized artists share prominence with notable Texas and regional art. The comprehensive Asian art wing displays works from Korea, India, and Japan, and includes an important Chinese ceramics collection.

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Located on the River Walk in San Antonio, the San Antonio Museum of Art has large collections of ancient Mediterranean art, Asian art and Latin American art with a notable contemporary collection.

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All About San Antonio's Future SA2020's mission is to drive progress toward a shared vision for a thriving San Antonio. We report on progress, inform and activate the public, and align efforts towards the community's goals.

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SA300 Tricentennial | Celebrating San Antonio for 300 Years

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Celebrate San Antonio's rich history with a year-long calendar of events and initiatives that will carry San Antonio into the future.

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San Antonio is one of the fastest-growing large cities in the U.S. and it's only expected to get bigger - a lot bigger. We are expected to gain another 1.1 million people by the year 2040.

So why does that matter to you? The slideshow above features a handful of questions the Alamo City will have to answer amid population growth.

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7 major issues facing San Antonio amid population growth

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San Antonio is one of the fastest-growing large cities in the U.S. and it's only expected to get bigger - a lot bigger. We are expected to gain another 1.1 million people by the year 2040. So why does that matter to you?

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8 Astounding women who shaped San Antonio

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8 Astounding women who shaped San Antonio

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This one's for you, ladies. We're celebrating with this list of "8 Utterly Astounding Women Who've Shaped San Antonio," both past and present. These women are truly amazing!
1. The Social Activist: Emma Tenayuca Image Courtesy of Libcom.org
Born in 1916 to a Tejano family in South Texas, Emma Tenayuca was a bright, compassionate young girl forced to grow up fast during the disparity and economic downturn of the Great Depression. At an early age, her propensity towards social justice propelled her to advocate for the suffering of low-class workers in the pecan shelling industry. When she was just 22 years old, she led a strike of 12,000 workers fighting for worker's rights! This seriously BA woman is still remembered today as an influential Mexican-American labor leader, union organizer, and educator.
2. The Businesswoman: Rosa Santana Image Courtesy of Santana Group
Named 2016 Woman of the Year (by The San Antonio Business Journal), Rosa Santana is the Founder and CEO of Santana Group, a trailblazing workforce solutions company. Santana has been recognized internationally as a human capital solutions expert, as well as an unparalleled force in the business world (including an induction into the Minority Business Hall of Fame and Museum in New York City). Get it, girl!
3. The Public Servant: Lila Cockrell Image Courtesy of San Antonio Express-News
Truly a dynamic leader, Lila Cockrell was a combination of "public servant" and "girl boss." After serving in the US Navy during World War II, as President of several chapters of the League of Women Voters in the 1950's, and within San Antonio public policy for several years, Cockrell was elected as San Antonio Mayor in 1975. This historic election made her San Antonio's first female mayor, as well as one of the first female mayors of a major metropolitan area in the United States.
4. The Poet: Carmen Tafolla Image Courtesy of Poetry Foundation
The resident artist on our list, local poet and educator Carmen Tafolla is an internationally acclaimed Chicano writer, storyteller, performance artist, motivational speaker, and university educator (Professor of Transformative Children's Literature at the UTSA). Besides being the author of over 20 books, Tafolla was named San Antonio's first poet laureate in 2012 and Poet Laureate of Texas in 2015! Her work has received International acclaim, and she has been recognized by the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies for work which "gives voice to the peoples and cultures of this land." Thank you for your inspiring work, Carmen!
5. The Aviation Pioneer: Marjorie Stinson Image Courtesy of Core Scholar
During a time when aviation was almost exclusively a "boy's club," Marjorie Stinson became the first female airmail pilot in the United States...when she was just 19 years old! Marjorie trained at the Wright Flying School, becoming the ninth person to earn her Fédération Aéronautique International license. The whole "female pilot" thing ran in the family...she later taught at the Stinson School of Flying, which was established by her mother.
6. The Law Enforcer: Susan Pamerleau Image Courtesy of the Rivard Report
Our favorite quote of the day might come from Sheriff Susan Pamerleau (elected Bexar County's first female sheriff in 2012). "Don't look at barriers as obstacles," she said firmly. "Barriers help us learn and make better decisions. Barriers have been broken because women stuck with it." Inspired by her upbringing as a preacher's daughter and career as a military professional, Sheriff Pamerleau worked hard to become a Major General and served as the senior vice president of USAA before running for public office.
7. The Educator: Dr. Adena Williams Loston Image Courtesy of FoxSanAntonio .com
Boasting one of the most impressive CVs we've ever seen, St. Philip's College President Adena Williams Loston has lived her life as a trailblazer in every sense of the word. From the beginning of her academic career until now, Loston has earned an impressive array of degrees, accolades, and positions of influence. From serving as associate professor, Dean, Provost, and President of various academic institutions to being named NASA's Senior Education Advisor, Loston is truly a woman of influence.
8. The Entrepreneur: Lisa Wong Image Courtesy of SavorSA.com
Born and raised in San Antonio, Lisa Wong is the brains and the brawn behind the locally (and nationally) renowned Rosario's restaurant brand. Wong opened her first restaurant (Lisa's Mexican Restaurant) at age 18 with $7,000 of her college money. Her vision as a restaurateur led her to open Rosario's Mexican Café y Cantina in Southtown in 1992. Since, her work has been recognized by the New York Times, Washington Post, Southern Living, Bon Appétit, Gourmet, Hispanic Magazine, Texas Monthly, San Antonio Magazine and the San Antonio Express-News, to name just a few! We tend to agree with San Antonio Magazine when they awarded Wong the title of "Tex-Mex Goddess."
These are just a few of the wonderful women who make up the Alamo City's dynamic pool of incredible, hardworking women. Cheers to you! We recommend celebrating with a Rosario's margarita (Thanks, Lisa Wong!). Moving to the area? You're in luck! We have plenty of resources for San Antonio home buyers. We recommend downloading our free Buyer's Guide and checking out our comprehensive list of San Antonio neighborhoods. Our aim is to keep you in the loop! Contact us to find a REALTOR®, connect with lenders, and far more.

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8 Utterly Astounding Women Who've Shaped San Antonio

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This one's for you, ladies. We're celebrating with this list of "8 Utterly Astounding Women Who've Shaped San Antonio," both past and present. These women are truly amazing! 1. The Social Activist: Emma Tenayuca Image Courtesy of Libcom.org Born in 1916 to a Tejano family in South Texas, Emma Tenayuca was a bright, compassionate young girl forced to grow up fast during the disparity and economic downturn of the Great Depression.

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The Texas Supreme Court just doesn't want to get involved in how the state pays for its public schools. That was the signal the nine justices sent Friday when they unanimously ruled the state school funding system, which historically has been one of the country's most controversial, constitutional.

But that wasn't before they called the system undeniably imperfect and said the 5 million Texas schoolchildren deserve better. But, "Accordingly, we decline to usurp legislative authority by issuing reform diktats from on high, supplanting lawmakers' policy wisdom with our own," Justice Don Willett wrote in the 100-page opinion.

So the 600 school districts - that's two-thirds of the districts in Texas - that sued the state may be on their own to figure out how to move forward. They're struggling after more than $5 billion in cuts and a system that relies heavily on property taxes. Some of those cuts have been restored, while other parts of the funding system haven't been updated in three decades.

"When I read this opinion, the first thought that comes into my head is that the Texas Supreme Court has abandoned its role to protect Texas children," says Marisa Bono, attorney with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

"This opinion represents a full-on retreat from holding the state accountable to its constitutional obligation," she adds.

The ruling has left many wondering, will Texas lawmakers now be the ones to change how the state pays for its public schools? Justices said the system needs to be revamped for the 21st century, but didn't specifically mandate lawmakers to make the changes.

In the past, major reform has always started with the justices, points out Philip Fraissinet, an attorney who represented 84 districts in the case. "So now it's left to citizens, parents, families, elected officials, businesses to hold the state accountable if the court won't do it," he says.

Since the mid-2000s, justices have started pulling back on school finance, and now there's no sign of reversing course. To Texas Gov. Greg Abbot, that's a victory: "The Supreme Court's decision ends years of wasteful litigation by correctly recognizing that courts do not have the authority to micromanage the State's school finance system," he said in a statement.

With this hands-off approach, the Texas Supreme Court - whose members are all elected and right now all Republican - took a page from the U.S. Supreme Court, and a historic ruling in a different class-action case from Texas.

In 1973, in the landmark San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, the U.S. Supreme Court found that there was no federal guarantee to equity in school funding. They told plaintiffs, led by parents from a poor, Hispanic district near San Antonio, that the system was imperfect but that it was up to the state to fix it.

In this new ruling, the Texas justices echoed that, saying, "Our judicial responsibility is not to second-guess or micromanage Texas education policy."

Patty Rodriguez, the daughter of the original plaintiff in the historic federal case, said that she's almost relieved her late father, Demetrio Rodriguez, is not alive to see the outcome. She said she didn't understand how the court could decide the minimum standard is good enough, while, as a veteran teacher, she constantly pushes students to reach beyond the minimum.

"It's just kind of saddening to see that nobody, nobody in the state, nobody in the Legislature, nobody in the judicial system sees it for what it is and is willing to step in."

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Who Will Fix The Texas School Funding System?

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The Texas Supreme Court just doesn't want to get involved in how the state pays for its public schools. That was the signal the nine justices sent Friday when they unanimously ruled the state school funding system, which historically has been one of the country's most controversial, constitutional.

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LULAC -- Fighting for Hispanic rights since 1929

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LULAC -- Fighting for Hispanic rights since 1929

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To advance the economic condition, educational attainment, political influence, housing, health and civil rights of the Hispanic population of the United States.

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There's always something fun happening in San Antonio! This is a listing of annual happenings. For a daily events calendar, click here.

January 6: U.S. Army All-American Bowl
The game showcases the nation's top high school football players. A week of festivities leads up to the big game day.

January 10-14: San Antonio Cocktail Conference
San Antonio's own Cocktail Conference is the first of its kind in Texas, bringing together top bartenders for four days of educational seminars, guided tastings and cocktail parties.

January 15: City of San Antonio Martin Luther King Jr. March
Honoring the civil rights leader, this is one of the largest people's marches in the country. Other events throughout the city include a rally, art exhibits, workshops and candlelight vigils.

February 8-25:
Held at the AT&T Center, this event features great entertainment with star-studded artists during all PRCA rodeo performances, plus shopping, a carnival and livestock centers.

February 24: Six Flags Fiesta Texas Opens for 2018 Season
Check out themed rides, thrilling roller coasters and attractions and shows for every age. New for the 2018 season is the Wonder Woman Golden Lasso Coaster, the first-of-its'-kind single-rail coaster in March!

February 23 - March 6: Battle of the Alamo Commemoration
Visitors can witness reenactments, live firing of black powder rifles, muskets and a cannon. See what life was like in 1836 during the 13-day siege of the Alamo.

March 2: Morgan's Wonderland Opens for 2018 Season
Morgan's Wonderland is the world's first theme park designed with special-needs individuals in mind and built for everyone's enjoyment! Check out over 25 wheelchair-accessible attractions including the new Whirling Wonder Ferris Wheel!

March 10: Aquatica at SeaWorld San Antonio Opens for 2018 Season
The South Seas meet South Texas at Aquatica, a whimsical, one-of-a-kind waterpark only SeaWorld could create.

March 17: Murphy's St. Patrick's Day River Parade & Festival
A family friendly festival of music, food and fun! Floats release 110 pounds of environmentally friendly green dye into the San Antonio River, transforming it into "The River Shannon."

March TBD: Six Flags Fiesta Texas Mardi Gras Festival
Experience twice daily parades featuring floats from renowned designer Kern Studios, New Orleans style food and fun!

March 31 - April 2: NCAA Final Four®
Get your game face on with this year's NCAA Final Four® festivities at the Alamodome in San Antonio!

April TBD: SeaWorld Seven Seas Food Festival
Set sail on a seafaring voyage around the world. Sample savory and sweet festival food while sipping unique wine and craft beers on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

April 19-29: Fiesta! San Antonio
More than 100 unique events satisfy every taste and interest and draw spectators from around the city, nation and world. Come celebrate Fiesta San Antonio! More than half of the events are FREE.

April TBD: Splashtown San Antonio Opens for 2018 Season
Splashtown San Antonio is 20 landscaped acres of cool, clean water excitement just three minutes north of downtown.

April 28: Schlitterbahn Waterpark Resort Opens for 2018 Season
The original Schlitterbahn, just 20 minutes north of San Antonio in New Braunfels, has over 65 acres of tube rides, water slides and uphill water coasters.

May 5: Cinco de Mayo
Celebrations commemorate the Mexican Army's defeat of the invading French at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. Events include a festival with music and food at historic Market Square, concerts and other commemorations.

May 17 - 20: Culinaria - A Wine and Culinary Arts Festival
This festival celebrates San Antonio as a premier wine and food destination and an important culinary and cultural gateway to Mexico and Latin America.

May TBD: Armed Forces River Parade
On Armed Forces Day, professionally decorated floats will travel down the River Walk, themed according to their participants - all branches of service, veterans of recent conflicts, military support groups and more.

May 16-20: Tejano Conjunto Festival en San Antonio
Features live performances in Rosedale Park by more than 20 of the best musical groups from traditional Conjunto to progressive Tejano.

May 11 - August 11: Fiesta Noche Del Rio
A San Antonio tradition, this performance features songs and dances of Mexico, Spain, Argentina and Texas and occurs Friday and Saturday evenings at the River Walk's historic Arneson River Theatre.

June 8-10: Texas Folklife Festival
Hosted at the Institute of Texan Cultures, this three-day cultural extravaganza brings more than 40 ethnic groups together in one place to showcase their authentic food, traditional music and dance and authentic crafts.

July 4: Fourth of July Celebrations
Enjoy festivals, concerts and fireworks at locations across San Antonio, including Freedom Fest at Market Square, an arts and crafts show along the River Walk and extravaganzas at local theme parks.

July TBD: Balcones Heights Jazz Festival
This free concert series takes place each July and August on Friday evenings at the spectacular outdoor Amphitheater at Wonderland of the Americas.

August TBD: Ford River Race
Over 90 canoe teams, including local celebrities, city officials, corporate teams, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts compete on the San Antonio River.

All month: FOTOSEPTIEMBRE USA
Explore exhibits showing traditional photographs, digital images and photography based works at art centers and exhibition spaces throughout San Antonio.

September TBD: World Heritage Festival
Celebrate the San Antonio Missions, a UNESCO World Heritage Site with 10 events across the city!

September TBD: Jazz'SAlive
Some of the nation's top jazz entertainers, along with regional and local talent, take over Travis Park and dazzle the crowd with their smooth sounds.

September TBD - October TBD: Six Flags Fiesta Texas Fright Fest
Don't miss out on spooktacular live entertainment, chill-inducing rides and spine-tingling excitement for the whole family that will surely keep you on the edge of your seat.

September TBD - October TBD: SeaWorld San Antonio Howl-O-Scream & Spooktacular
Each weekend in October, enjoy kid-friendly shows during the day, but beware... the later you stay, the more you'll scream!

October TBD: Oktoberfest San Antonio
Head over to the Beethoven Maennerchor to celebrate the ultimate German festival with music, food and dancing, plus German specialties, like bratwurst, reubens and beer.

October TBD: San Antonio Beer Festival
Savor San Antonio brews as well as beers from around the world plus live music, food trucks and more.

October TBD: Alamo City Comic Con: Halloween Edition
Fans of comics, gaming and cosplay take over the Alamodome to meet their favorite celebs, artist and writers.

October TBD: Mala Luna Music Festival
Jam out to the freshest sounds of the year at the historic Lone Star Brewery during this two-day music festival and cultural experience with top-tier headliners and talented homegrown artists!

October TBD: El Dia de los Muertos
Join us for El Dia de los Muertos presented by La Villita. Translated literally as "the Day of the Dead," this Mexican cultural tradition is a celebration honoring departed loved ones. Creative and respectful altars are set up around town to commemorate loved ones who have passed on.

October 31: Halloween Fun in San Antonio
From ghost tours to spooky theme parks and family fun, enjoy Halloween in San Antonio.

November TBD: Wurstfest
During this 10-day salute to sausage, you'll find a variety of entertainment options including a polka contest, games, rides, food and drinks on the Wurstfest Grounds in Landa Park.

November TBD: Diwali San Antonio- Festival of Lights
Diwali is a festive tradition of India that symbolizes the victory of good over evil. Experience this colorful event filled with Indian music, dance, food and more.

November TBD: Luminaria - Arts Come To Light
Luminaria is San Antonio's annual celebration of art and artists. Overseen by San Antonio's creative leaders, it is free of charge and showcases all art forms in an outdoor setting and inside various venues downtown.

November 18 - January 7: Six Flags Fiesta Texas - Holiday in the Park
It's the most wonderful time of the year as Six Flags Fiesta Texas is transformed into a winter wonderland with thrilling rides, tasty treats and exciting family entertainment for the holiday season. Open select days, check website.

November TBD: Light the Way at the University of the Incarnate Word
A million twinkling lights illuminate the night sky at the University of the Incarnate Word to celebrate the holiday season in style. This free walking or driving experience is truly a San Antonio-style holiday event.

November TBD: SeaWorld San Antonio Christmas Celebration
Enjoy stunning live shows in this wintery, watery wonderland. Immerse your family in the spirit of the season, sip hot cocoa as you stroll through a sea of sparkling lights and share laughs with a jolly Santa. Open select days, check website.

November TBD: Ford Holiday River Parade and Lighting Ceremony
The day after Thanksgiving, our river parade kicks off the holidays as 28 decorated floats wind through the river in one of the country's only nighttime river parades. Enjoy the beauty of thousands of lights illuminating the River Walk trees and bridges throughout the holiday season.

November TBD: Mariachi Vargas Extravaganza
Experience the best of mariachi music during the holiday season with the world renowned Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán.

December TBD: Ford Fiesta de las Luminarias
Experience the holiday serenity of the River Walk as you stroll along the lush banks of the San Antonio River guided by more than 6,000 Luminarias. This centuries-old tradition begins at dusk Friday, Saturday and Sunday only.

December TBD: San Antonio Rock 'n' Roll Marathon & ½ Marathon
This one-of-a-kind marathon features live music along each mile of the course that passes several historic missions and wraps up at the Alamodome. Take a running tour through San Antonio with live entertainment along the course.

December TBD: Valero Alamo Bowl
Major college football comes to the Alamodome during this post-season collegiate bowl game featuring the top Pac-12 and Big 12 teams.

December 31: Celebrate San Antonio New Year's Eve Celebration
Kick-off the new year, San Antonio-style! Enjoy spectacular fireworks, live music on multiple stages, food booths, family activities and more.

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San Antonio is a popular city to visit in Texas. Top sights include the Alamo and other historic missions, the River Walk, SeaWorld San Antonio, Six Flags Fiesta Texas, the San Antonio Zoo, over 50 golf courses, historic neighborhoods, stunning architecture, diverse culture, cuisine, vibrant arts community and friendly people.

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San Antonio's Poet Laureate | Carmen Tafolla

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Carmen Mary Tafolla was born on July 29, 1951, at Santa Rosa Hospital in downtown San Antonio, Texas. She grew up in a small house at 3535 San Fernando Street, in the westside neighborhood known as Barrio de la Tripa. Her Tafolla grandparents lived not far away at 2014 Buena Vista Street, in the area called Prospect Hill.

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30 foods to eat!

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San Antonio, known for the San Antonio Spurs, the Alamo, the River Walk, and of course AWESOME food. Whether you like Mexican food, Italian, barbecue, or dessert (yes it is its own food group), we've got you covered. Are you hungry yet? Here are 30 things you must eat in San Antonio before you die.

The Barbecue Station is known to be the best barbecue in South Texas and their smoked chicken proves that true. The chicken is cooked to perfection with mouth-watering BBQ flavor and sides that can include creamed corn, potato salad, green beans, cole slaw, pinto beans, or fries. Not to mention the smoked chicken meal is only $8.99, so it fits perfectly in the road trip budget.

2. The Tostada Bean Burger at Chris Madrid's

Chris Madrid's describes the Tostada Burger as "Mama Madrid's homemade refried beans, chips, onions & melted cheddar cheese. Top it off with our freshly made salsa." It's the perfect marriage between Mexican food and American food. Locals and tourists say it is a must try, so get on it because the clock is ticking.

Puffy Tacos are San Antonio's most famous dish. As Guy Fieri once said, "It's fluffy, puffy, and you can't get enough-y." Well said Guy. Well said. Incase you aren't a texan, a puffy taco is different from a regular taco, in that the tortillas are fried to deliciousness. At Henry's Puffy Tacos you can get shredded chicken, b ean & cheese, c arne guisada, s picy beef fajita, or s picy chicken fajita tacos. It's a true Tex-Mex experience.

Menudo A.K.A tastiness in a bowl, is a traditional Mexican soup made with beef stomach in a broth with red chili pepper base. Yes, I just said beef stomach, and no, there is no need to stress. It tastes really great and it is also said to be an awesome hangover cure after too many cervezas. Mi Tierra Cafe Y Panaderia, is known for having the best menudo, so be sure to give it a try.

We all know guac is BAE, and Boudro's Texas Bistro's guac is no exception. I should stop talking so you can buy your plane ticket and get yourself some. Don't fret if you can't go to San Antonio, their famous recipe is online. What would a bucket list be without guac on it?
This is a Nutella game changer. It consists of a Nutella cake covered in Nutella ganache and served with Nutella chocolate mousse. Can you say dessert heaven? It is one of the best desserts in San Antonio, hands down.
Enchiladas Mexicanas are three cheese enchiladas that are served with avocado, cabbage lime slaw, and a grilled jalapeño pepper. At Rosario's,they are topped with fried potatoes, carrots, cilantro & drizzled with sour cream. #foodgoals am I right? Rosario's has won multiple Best of San Antonio awards so it only makes sense that their enchiladas are on the list of things to eat in San Antonio before you die.

9. The Tostada Mixta at El 7 Mares

This dish comes loaded with fish ceviche, shrimp, octopus and crab meat mixed with fresh pico and hot serrano peppers. What's not to love? El 7 Mares is known for having some of the best seafood in San Antonio, and the Tostada Mixta is a must try for seafood lovers.

10. New Orleans Barbecued Shrimp at The Cookhouse

The Cookhouse is popular for it's authentic cajun dishes. What dish is the crowd's favorite? The New Orleans BBQ Shrimp. For those of you who have never had barbecue shrimp, it is sautéed shrimp in Worcestershire-spiked butter sauce. Yum.

Chilaquiles Verdes are a traditional Mexican peasant dish of fried tortillas bathed in green salsa. They are a San Antonio favorite and people rave about Vida Mia's chilaquiles. This dish is basically a fiesta in your mouth.

This pizza is #goals. It is easily the most popular pizza in town and a must try when in the San Antonio area. The name says it all. The pizza consists of House made sausage, speck, Sopressata salami, pancetta, house made mozzarella, and tomato sauce. This delish dish was featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, that's how awesome it is.

13. Seared Sea Scallops at Bliss

Can we just stare at this dish for a moment? Bliss, one of the top ranked restaurants in town, describes it as "seared sea scallops, pepper jack-white cheddar Anson Mills grits, sautéed spinach, avocado mousse, and cilantro lime jalapeno beurre blanc." You fancy huh? Fancy or not, it's one of the best seafood dishes in San Antonio, so add it to your food bucket list.

Macarons a.k.a the most photogenic dessert ever are a hit in San Antonio at Bakery Lorraine. They have a wide variety of flavors such as dark chocolate lavender, lemon, pistachio, Earl Grey, raspberry and salted caramel. After you've gotten one of the above dishes for dinner, these macarons top off a perfect San Antonio foodie experience as dessert.

Tellez Tamales & Barbacoa make some of the best tamales in town. Tamales are a popular meal in San Antonio and no trip to San Antonio would be complete without it. There is often a long line to get them, that's how good they are.

This waffle from The Guenther House is to die for. The Belgian-style treats are fluffy and the perfect amount of sweet. Just incase you love it way too much, they sell the waffle mix to take home. Winning. The grounds surrounding the house are beautiful and make waiting for a table completely worth it.

Everything is bigger in Texas right? Well even the Chicken Fried Steak at Lulu's Bakery and Cafe is the size of Texas. If you're looking for the ultimate comfort food, this is it. Don't like gravy? You can get queso on your Chicken Fried Steak. Sounds dangerous but so delicious at the same time.

18. Pea Toast at FOLC

Odds are you've never heard of or tried Pea Toast, but this dish from FOLC will create a craving you never knew you had. FOLC's Pea Toast combines house-made ricotta with pea shoots on toasted house-made bread. It's a nice light meal when you aren't desiring a heavy one and a necessary try when in the San Antonio area. Plus, it's just the prettiest dish you've ever seen.

19. Tonkotsu Ramen at Kimura

Wanting an Asian dish when in San Antonio? Kimura has you covered. Their Tonkotsu Ramen is highly raved about. What's Tonkotsu you ask? It is ramen served in a pork bone broth with a soft-boiled egg, nori, marinated shiitake mushrooms, spring onions, and bean sprouts. It is definitely not your average college ramen experience by any means.

Do I even need to convince you to try this? Look at how freaking good that looks. Biga on the Bank's menu describes The Sticky Toffee Pudding as their comfortingly rich signature dessert, inspired by the British classic with crème anglaise. So fancy, so tasty. Boys, I highly recommend taking your girl here. After all, there is no better way to a woman's heart than through dessert.

A barbecue editor of Texas Monthly said that The Granary serves the best pastrami in the country, so how could you not try it when in San Antonio? It is definitely one of the most popular barbecue dishes in Texas. What makes it so special? The smokey taste. The brisket is rubbed in simply coriander and black pepper, giving it a unique and flavorful taste.

22. The Torre de Mariscos (Seafood Tower) at El Bucanero

A seafood tower. A tower of seafood. Yes it is real, and yes it is one of the best ways to do seafood in San Antonio. Not only does El Bucanero create excellent Mexican seafood, but they also provide a create dining experience that includes Mariachi bands.

23. Charcuterie Plate from Cured

Charcuterie is the branch of cooking devoted to prepared meat products, such as bacon, ham, sausage, terrines, galantines, ballotines, pâtés, and confit. At Cured, there are plenty of options, all made in-house, and a portion of each charcuterie plate is donated to a charity of Cured's choice.

This super popular dish from Mediterranean restaurant Bella on the River, consists of fried eggplant, Texas Gulf Shrimp, sauce diablo, mozzarella cheese, and hollandaise sauce. The restaurant is known for being one of the most romantic dinner spots in San Antonio as well.

25. Twice Fried Chicken Wings at Hot Joy

Hot Joy, an Asian inspired spot is said to have an interior that feels like a vintage kung fu movie, and their food is a funky twist on Asian flavors. The Twice Fried Chicken Wings is Hot Joy's most popular dish. The twice fried wings are covered in crab fat caramel, peanuts, and cilantro oil. I know the description is scary, but they are a delicious and unique try.

Looking for the best sandwich to try in San Antonio? This Turkey Chupacabra is it. It is a sweet & spicy chupacabra serrano sauce with smoked turkey on a homemade sandwich roll with melted cheddar, lettuce and tomato. The best part? It is only $4.95.

San Antonians do not mess around with their breakfast tacos and The Original Donut Shop was voted as having the best. Their tortillas are fresh, and you can put anything your little heart desires into the tacos.

Brindles Awesome Ice Creams has taco sundaes on Sunday (punny right?) and they are to die for. You get a waffle cone taco, 3 scoops of your favorite ice cream flavors, and then get to load it up with toppings. I'm screaming for this ice cream and so is the rest of San Antonio.

29. Ahi Tuna Tartar at Feast

The Ahi Tuna Tartar is a customer favorite at Feast. It is very fresh and well made. The great thing about Feast is that you don't have to limit yourself to one dish, because their plates are meant for sharing. Get this dish and many others as well.

30. Brisket Grilled Cheese at Smoke Shack

This Brisket Grilled Cheese will rock your world. It's the all american classic that everyone loves combined with a San Antonio barbecue twist. Not to mention it's not your typical sourdough, but rather Texas toast. This gooey goodness will for sure leave you wanting more.

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30 Things to Eat in San Antonio Before You Die

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San Antonio, known for the San Antonio Spurs, the Alamo, the River Walk, and of course AWESOME food. Whether you like Mexican food, Italian, barbecue, or dessert (yes it is its own food group), we've got you covered. Are you hungry yet? Here are 30 things you must eat in San Antonio before you die.

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Timeline of San Antonio Texas history from before 1500 to current including Mayors and Bishops.

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The four southernmost Spanish colonial missions-Concepción, San José, San Juan and Espada -are included in the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, which officially opened in 1983. These four missions, along with the Alamo, have been named a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO). Land for the Historical Park was donated by the city, county, state, Catholic Church and San Antonio Conservation Society. The missions are walled compounds encompassing a church and buildings where the priests and local Native Americans lived and worked.

The park's Visitor's Center is in Mission San José, where you can view Gente de Razon, which tells the story of life in the missions during the 1700s. The film is shown every 30 minutes. Mission San José also has a museum and bookstore. All four mission churches still have active Catholic parishes that hold regular services. The churches are open to visitors during regular park hours, except in the case of a wedding or a funeral.

Now you can explore the Missions along the River Walk's new Mission Reach. The Mission Reach is an eight mile stretch with recreational trails, picnic and seating areas, pedestrian bridges, pavilions and portals to four Spanish colonial missions-Concepción, San José, San Juan and Espada.

San José y San Miguel de Aguayo, the "Queen of the Missions," is the largest mission in San Antonio, established in 1720 and completed in 1782. Spanish designers, directing workers from the local Coahuiltecan tribe, built the mission using Texas limestone and brightly colored stucco. At its height, it provided sanctuary and a social and cultural community for more than 300 Indians, and was surrounded by acres of fields and livestock herds. The mission had its own gristmill and granary, which have been preserved.

In 1874, San José's church dome and roof collapsed. In 1928, the church tower collapsed. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) almost fully restored Mission San José to its original design in the 1930s.

When visiting the church, look for flying buttresses, carvings, quatrefoil patterns, polychromatic plaster and the famed "Rose Window," a superb example of Spanish Colonial ornamentation that was sculpted around 1775. Explore the stairway that leads to the belfry and choir loft; all 25 risers were hand-hewn from a single log and assembled without the use of nails or pegs.

Mission San José underwent a $2.2 million historically accurate renovation that was completed in the summer of 2011. Interior domes and walls were repainted to match the original colors and hues. Work also included restoration of the "retablo," or altar backdrop, which frames sacred statues of St. Michael the Archangel, St. Francis, the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph. The latter two statues are hand-carved and date to the Spanish colonial era. The St. Joseph statue was originally in the possession of Father Antonio Margil de Jesús, the mission's founder, and had not been used in the church for decades.

The beautiful church at Mission Nuestra Señora de la Purisima Concepción de Acuña looks much like it did in 1755 when it was first dedicated. Interior renovations in 2010 returned the church's interior walls to the rich colors of 255 years earlier. The church's exterior was originally decorated with geometric designs painted on the façade and iron crosses and weather vanes were placed atop the two towers. The exterior paintings have faded, but inside you can still see original frescos in some of the rooms. The church stands as the oldest unrestored stone church in the U.S.

Mission San Juan was established in San Antonio in 1731. The church, priest's quarters and granary were completed in 1756. The mission's fertile farmlands allowed for a self-sustainable community, and its surplus helped supply the region with produce. The chapel and bell tower are still in use. Note the typical Romanesque archway at the entrance gate and the remains of a half-completed, more elaborate church that was begun in 1772 and abandoned in 1786 when the mission's population declined. Guests can also tour a self-guided nature trail that leads to the river.

Mission San Francisco de la Espada, the southernmost of the four in the park, contains the best-preserved segment of the acequia (irrigation system) that was used to bring water to the fields. Today, part of the acequia operates the Espada aqueduct and dam. Also noteworthy are an unusual door and stone archway.

The mission was established in San Antonio in 1731. The priest's residence was completed in 1745 and the church in 1756. Inside the mission compound were a blacksmith shop, kiln for baking brick, and workrooms with looms and spinning wheels. Corn, beans, melons, pumpkins and cotton were grown in the irrigated fields adjacent to the mission.

A fire in 1826 destroyed most of the mission buildings at Espada, with only the chapel, granary and two of the compound walls remaining.

Espada's ranch, Rancho de las Cabras (Ranch of the Goats) was located 30 miles south of the mission, near what is now the town of Floresville. Part of this property containing the ruins of the ranch compound was acquired by the National Park Service in 1995. Guided tours of the property are available on the first Saturday of the month.

Travel Tips & Facts

Use a map of The Mission Trail to direct you.

You can easily spend two to four hours visiting the missions.

Guided tours are free, as is admission to the park.

Don't miss the grist mill at Mission San José, and the 270-year old Mission Espada acequia (irrigation system) containing a dam and aqueduct.

More than 180 species of birds have been seen in the park, where native habitat is abundant. Walk the nature trail at San Juan to discover what the river and vegetation looked like when the missions were first established.

Utilize the new VIVA Missions service from VIA! The service will take riders from the Alamo, to Mission Concepción, Mission San José and Mission San Juan. Day passes are $2.75 for unlimited rides.

The Mission Reach section of the River Walk is now open. This section includes an eight-mile hike and bike trail from Lone Star Boulevard to Mission Espada.

Six B-cycle bike rental kiosks are located from Roosevelt Park to Mission San Jose.

Canoes and kayaks are allowed on a 1.6 mile stretch of the San Antonio River from the Mission Road street connection to Padre Park.

To learn more about the history and culture of the San Antonio Missions, visit the official website.

Learn more about settlement along the San Antonio River.

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San Antonio is a popular city to visit in Texas. Top sights include the Alamo and other historic missions, the River Walk, SeaWorld San Antonio, Six Flags Fiesta Texas, the San Antonio Zoo, over 50 golf courses, historic neighborhoods, stunning architecture, diverse culture, cuisine, vibrant arts community and friendly people.

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San Antonio Spurs | The Official Site of the San Antonio Spurs

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The official site of the San Antonio Spurs. Includes news, scores, schedules, statistics, photos and video.

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Follow the Express-News' 150th Anniverary coverage in the San Antonio Express-News and on ExpressNews.com

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Mariachi music has taken the world by storm. Considered Mexico's most symbolic musical genre for nearly a century, it extends far beyond national borders and has a world-wide following. While mariachis have long been a popular source of entertainment at all types of events and social gatherings, in recent decades mariachi concerts and festivals have increased greatly in popularity, particularly in the United States. Additionally, mariachi music's recent sanctioning by UNESCO contributes significantly to its prestige and world-wide appeal.

In 2011, UNESCO added mariachi music to its Representative List of cultural heritages worthy of national and international safe-guarding, an effort it defines as "...the identification, documentation, research, preservation, protection, promotion, enhancement, [and] transmission..." of this tradition. This declaration has resulted in greater prestige and support for mariachi music in general.

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Mariachi music has taken the world by storm. Considered Mexico's most symbolic musical genre for nearly a century, it extends far beyond national borders and has a world-wide following. While mariachis have long been a popular source of entertainment at all types of events and social gatherings, in recent decades mariachi concerts and festivals have increased greatly in popularity, particularly in the United States.

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14 Great Tacos in San Antonio - Texas Monthly

Or at least within the Loop 1604 area.

If there is a taco capital of Texas, it's arguably San Antonio. As we gear up for our December cover story on the best tacos in the state, come along with us for an eclectic preview of what the Alamo City has to offer. We gleaned numerous recommendations and hit the road, eating more than our fair share of tacos across San Antonio-mostly inside Loop 1604-from scrappy new joints to hallowed institutions. The research is far from complete, but you can tide yourselves over with these must-haves.

So why all this taco tasting madness? Not that there really needs to be a reason to want to eat all the tacos, but Texas Monthly is beginning its research on finding the best tacos across the state, a list we'll publish at the end of the year. Our quest to unearth the top contenders already took us on a taco tour of Austin, where we scouted out more than 100 tacos at taquerias, food trucks, highfalutin joints-well, basically any place were tortillas are slung and filled-and settled on 16 great options from the capital city. We then explored the vast expanse that is DFW and turned our appetites southward to the RGV. This latest list is far from comprehensive, and as we continue our mission to find the best fillings stuffed in a folded tortilla, we ask that you share your recommendations (like we could stop you). We promise to get to them. In the meantime, here are some favorites from San Antonio.

Related Content

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14 Great Tacos in San Antonio - Texas Monthly Facebook > Email > More Pinterest Print Twitter Play Or at least within the Loop 1604 area. If there is a taco capital of Texas, it's arguably San Antonio.

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20 Vintage Photos of San Antonio You Need to See

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With the help of the UTSA Special Collections, Vintage San Antonio - A Photo History has built an expansive collection of vintage photos you won't find anywhere else.

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Sandra Cisneros is a Mexican-American novelist, poet, and short story writer. Her books include The House on Mango Street, Caramelo, and Woman Hollering Creek. She is the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as a Macarthur â€œGeniusâ€ Grant. Â Cisneros was b...

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The following list of biographies is intended to be representative, not all-inclusive. For more information about the women whose biographies appear below or to learn about other women, please visit the Major Resource Websites on our Learn More page. We are not adding biographies to this page at this time.

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Women who changed the course of Texas History

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Women who changed the course of Texas History

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Since long before its advancement to statehood in 1845, Texas has yielded some incredible women. There are artists and musicians, writers, ranchers, politicians, mathematicians and scientists who have helped shape Texas into what it is today. The list of influential Texas women could number into the thousands, and there are no justifiable ways to rank the effects these women have had upon the Lone Star State. Here are 11 influential women of Texas history whose names we should not forget.

Barbara Jordan

Raised in Houston's fifth ward, Barbara Jordan shattered a lot of glass ceilings for her successors. In 1966, Jordan was the first black woman to be elected to the Texas State Senate (and the first African American to be elected after the Civil War Reconstruction Era). In 1972, she was the first black woman to represent Texas in the United States House of Representatives, and upon her death in 1996, was the first black woman to be buried in the Texas State Cemetery.

Emma Tenayuca

You may have heard of Cesar Chavez, but if you haven't heard of this Texas woman who blazed trails for him, then pay attention. A pioneer in the labor rights movement, San Antonio born Emma Tenayuca first gained notoriety when arrested in 1933 at the age of 16 for picketing the Finck Cigar Factory for its unfair labor practices. Tenayuca was still a young woman when she organized two international ladies' garment workers unions, lobbied the Texas congress for improved labor rights in the San Antonio pecan shelling industry, and organized peaceful protests against the police beatings of Mexican migrant workers.

Susana Dickinson

The wife of Captain Almaron Dickinson, Susana and her daughter were two of the only dozen or so survivors of the Battle of the Alamo. It's from Dickinson that most of the first-hand historical account of the battle (from the Texans' viewpoint) originate. When Mexican general Santa Anna sent Dickinson to Gonzales with a letter of warning of what happened at the Alamo, instead of having the desired effect of intimidation, it became a rallying cry for the Texas army, who subsequently defeated the Mexicans at the battle of San Jacinto, even capturing Santa Anna himself.

Caro Crawford Brown

Fearless journalist Caro Crawford Brown won the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for Journalism after her work helped dismantle the power of infamous political boss George Parr. Brown worked for the Alice Daily Echo, and was assigned to cover Parr after her fellow reporter was killed while investigating the Parr family. Brown was warned by the Texas Rangers that her life was in danger for her work covering George Parr, and so she always carried a pistol in her glove compartment for protection. Despite her work to take him down, Brown had scrupulous ethics, and at one point even saved Parr's life by physically inserting herself between Parr and a Texas Ranger when he was about to shoot Parr.

Clara Driscoll and Adina De Zavala

These two staunch protectors of Texas history worked together to protect and preserve crucial Texas historical sites and artifacts. De Zavala created the Texas Historical Landmarks Association, and Driscoll prevented the destruction of the Alamo with the help of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas when the historic battle site was standing in the way of corporate development, earning her the nickname "The Savior of the Alamo". Without these two women, many of Texas's historical sites would now have been swallowed up in the name of progress.

Miriam A. Ferguson

"Ma" Ferguson as she was called, was the first female Governor of Texas. Ferguson won two nonconsecutive elections, in 1924 and 1932. Miriam Ferguson and Anne Richards are to date the only two women to ever serve the state of Texas as Governor.

Sarah Horton Cockrell

As pioneer settlers of Dallas, Sarah Horton Cockrell and her husband bought a headright of land at the Trinity River near downtown Dallas, and opened a ferry service. The couple also owned other business ventures including construction and real estate. Upon her husband's death in 1858, Cockrell took over the family businesses, as well as opening three hotels in the Dallas area. Cockrell also owned a flour mill, and even commissioned the first iron bridge crossing the Trinity River. At the time of her death in 1892, Cockrell was one of Texas' first millionaires, and reputed to own nearly a quarter of what is now the Central Business District of downtown Dallas.

Angelina Eberly

Though not a native Texan, Angelina Eberly was a courageous woman and an important figure Texas history. In December of 1842 Eberly made her mark on history when she fired a cannon into the General Land Office building, alerting the city of a theft taking place. The theft in question was being committed by none other than Texas Governor Sam Houston himself, who was quietly planning to remove the Texas archival documents from Austin to Houston, in an attempt to move the capital of Texas to Houston. Her efforts, which are now known as the Archive War, earned her the moniker "The Savior of Austin", and a statue depicting the famous cannon blast now sits in downtown Austin on Congress Avenue, between 6th and 7th Streets.

Bessie Coleman

Born in 1892 in Atlanta, Texas, no one would ever have expected Bess Coleman to achieve the things she did in her short life. The daughter of a Cherokee father and an African American mother, Coleman defied all odds when she became the first black woman aviator (as well as the first Native American woman aviator). During World War I, no one in the United States would teach a woman or an African American to fly. Undeterred, Coleman took a language course in French, and then sailed to France where she earned her pilot's license at the age of 29. Upon her return to the United States Coleman became a "barn stormer" or exhibition pilot, giving air shows in Chicago. She died at the age of 34 when a plane she was a passenger in malfunctioned mid-flight and crashed, killing both her and the pilot.

Lizzie Johnson

Lizzie Johnson's family moved to Texas when she was four years old. Her first career was as a school teacher in Hays County, but she subsequently opened her own school in Austin. A contemporary and acquaintance of cattle barons George Littlefield, William Day and Charles Whitis, Johnson recognized the investment opportunities afforded by the cattle industry, and in 1871, she registered her own cattle brand and purchased 10 acres of land to start her own cattle business. She became known as one of the early Texas Cattle Queens, and was the first woman to ride the famed Chisholm Trail with her livestock.

Now Watch: Meet Texas' Own 10-Year-Old Champion Barrel Racer

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11 Texas Women Who Changed the Course of History

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Since long before its advancement to statehood in 1845, Texas has yielded some incredible women. There are artists and musicians, writers, ranchers, politicians, mathematicians and scientists who have helped shape Texas into what it is today.

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Influential Women in San Antonio History

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Influential Women in San Antonio History

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Influential women in San Antonio history

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SAN ANTONIO - March 31 is a date that many have never forgotten and will never forget.

21-years have passed since the untimely passing of the "Queen of Tejano," Selena Quintanilla.

Selena leaves behind a lasting legacy that continues to be shared and continues to inspire young and old alike.

A festival in her name made its debut last year in Corpus Christi, Festival de la Flor, in Selena's honor.

Relive some of the best Selena moments in San Antonio.

1. Selena's legendary performances in 1991, donning the famous cow print outfits.

2. Selena performing in the Alamodome in 1994, a rare performance.

3. Selena being interviewed for Puro Tejano for the grand opening of the Hard Rock Café.

4. Selena being herself in a San Antonio Interview. What would you be doing if you weren't a singer? Her response? Probably working at Whataburger.

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4 Selena memories in San Antonio that will never be forgotten

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Twitter | InstagramSAN ANTONIO - March 31 is a date that many have never forgotten and will never forget.21-years have passed since the untimely passing of the Queen of Tejano, Selena Quintanilla.Selena leaves behind a lasting legacy that continues to be s

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Willie Velasquez, a leader of the movement to increase political power among Hispanic Americans, died early today of cancer. He was 44 years old.

In 1974 Mr. Velasquez founded the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project, the nation's largest voter registration project aimed at the Hispanic community.

Under his guidance, a spokesman said, the project conducted voter registration drives in 200 cities and Indian reservations and conducted extensive polling.

''What we're most proud of is that from 1974 when we started to 1987, the number of Hispanic elected officials in the U.S. grew from 1,566 to 3,038, an increase of 82 percent,'' the spokesman said.

Mr. Velasquez, a native of San Antonio, was a leader of a Hispanic-American political party, La Raza Unida, that was active in the Southwest in the late 1960's and early 1970's. In 1968 he led a farmworkers' strike, along with Cesar Chavez, in south Texas. In 1981, he taught a course on Southwestern politics at Harvard University.

Mr. Velasquez is survived by his wife, Jane, and three children.

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Willie Velasquez, 44, Hispanic Leader, Dies

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Willie Velasquez, a leader of the movement to increase political power among Hispanic Americans, died early today of cancer. He was 44 years old. In 1974 Mr. Velasquez founded the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project, the nation's largest voter registration project aimed at the Hispanic community.

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Her saucy, plain-spoken keynote address, borrowing from the great tradition of vernacular Southern oratory, was one of the year's political highlights. "We're gonna tell how the cow ate the cabbage," she said at one point.

The speech transformed her, then the Texas treasurer, into a national figure. And it made her, a mother of four, an admired champion of feminism. "Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did," she told the national audience. "She just did it backwards and in high heels."

Her defeat in 1994, coming in a year of sweeping Republican success at the polls nationwide, did not dim her celebrity on the national stage. She continued to speak out on behalf of liberal causes, was a regular commentator on CNN and appeared in national advertising campaigns, including one for snack chips.

She also went to work as a senior adviser for the international law firm of Verner, Lipfert, Bernhard, McPherson & Hand (now DLA Piper) and later for the public relations company Public Strategies. She also served on numerous boards of directors, including those of J. C. Penney, Brandeis University and the Aspen Institute.

Dorothy Ann Willis was born Sept. 1, 1933, an only child, in Lakeview, Tex. She graduated in 1950 from Waco High School, where she showed a special facility for debate and met her future husband, David Richards. In her junior year, she attended the Girls State mock government program in Austin and was one of two delegates chosen to attend Girls Nation in Washington.

Ms. Richards went on to enroll at Baylor University in Waco on a debate scholarship and married. After graduating, she and Mr. Richards moved to Austin, where she earned a teaching certificate at the University of Texas in 1955 and taught social studies for several years at Fulmore Middle School. She reared her four children - Cecile, Daniel, Clark and Ellen - in Austin, and they were with her at home when she died, Ms. Bonner said.

Ms. Richards is also survived by eight grandchildren. Cecile Richards, who became president of Planned Parenthood this year, lives in New York; the other siblings live in Austin.

As a young woman, Ann Richards volunteered in several campaigns for governor: in 1958 for Henry B. Gonzalez and in 1952, 1954 and 1956 for Ralph Yarborough. She then helped Mr. Yarborough's senatorial campaign in 1957.

In the early 1960's, she and a handful of other young Democrats founded North Dallas Democratic Women in an effort to give more power to women in the party. "The regular Democratic Party and its organization was run by men who looked on women as little more than machine parts," she said later.

In 1972, she ran her first campaign, helping elect to the Texas Legislature Sarah Weddington, who had successfully argued Roe v. Wade before the United States Supreme Court.

In 1976, Ms. Richards defeated a three-term incumbent to become a commissioner in Travis County, which includes Austin. She held the job for four years. She also began drinking heavily, becoming alcoholic and putting great strain on her marriage, she said later. The marriage ended in divorce.

After entering rehabilitation, she stopped drinking in 1980 and later said that the decision to seek help had saved her life and salvaged her political career.

"I have seen the very bottom of life," she said. "I was so afraid I wouldn't be funny anymore. I just knew that I would lose my zaniness and my sense of humor. But I didn't. Recovery turned out to be a wonderful thing."

In 1982, she ran for state treasurer and received the most votes of any statewide candidate, becoming the first woman elected to statewide office in Texas in 50 years. She was re-elected in 1986.

In 1990, when Gov. William P. Clements Jr., the first Republican governor of Texas since Reconstruction, decided not to run for re-election, Ms. Richards challenged a former governor, Mark White, in the Democratic primary and won. She went on to defeat the Republican candidate, Clayton Williams, a wealthy rancher, in the general election after a brutal campaign.

As governor, among other achievements, she fulfilled her campaign promise to bring more blacks, Hispanics and women into public office. She appointed the first black regent to the University of Texas and installed the first blacks and women on the state's legendary police force, the Texas Rangers. She also pushed for tougher penalties for polluters and gained control of the state's insurance board in a drive to reduce the industry's influence over state government.

Ms. Richards oversaw an expansion of the state's prison system, increasing the space for prisoners by a third, and cracked down on the number of prisoners being paroled. She also instituted a major substance abuse program for prisoners and championed creation of the Texas lottery as a source of public school financing. She bought the first lotto ticket herself on May 29, 1992.

The same year, she was named chairwoman of the Democratic National Convention, which nominated Bill Clinton for president for the first time.

Two years later, she underestimated her young Republican challenger from West Texas, George W. Bush, going so far as to refer to him as "some jerk." The comment drew considerable criticism. She later acknowledged that Mr. Bush had been more effective than she at "staying on message" and that he had made none of the mistakes that her campaign strategists had expected. She was beaten 53 percent to 46 percent.

Ms. Richards was a co-author of several books, including "Straight from the Heart: My Life in Politics and Other Places" (Simon & Schuster, 1989), with Peter Knobler, and "I'm Not Slowing Down: Winning My Battle with Osteoporosis" (Dutton, 2003), with Richard U. Levine, a doctor.

On her 60th birthday, she got a motorcycle license, an event that was commemorated in a cover photo in Texas Monthly showing Ms. Richards's head superimposed on the body of a woman in a fringed jacket atop a Harley-Davidson beneath the headline "White Hot Mama."

In recent years, Ms. Richards had worked to establish the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders, a public college preparatory school in Austin. It will open next year, giving priority to economically disadvantaged students. She was also a sought-after commentator and speaker whose observations had lost little of their tart humor since her national emergence two decades ago.

As she once explained, "I learned early on that people liked you if you made them laugh."

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Ann Richards, Plain-Spoken Texas Governor Who Aided Minorities, Dies at 73

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Her saucy, plain-spoken keynote address, borrowing from the great tradition of vernacular Southern oratory, was one of the year's political highlights. "We're gonna tell how the cow ate the cabbage," she said at one point. The speech transformed her, then the Texas treasurer, into a national figure.

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Tenacious labor leader and educator Emma Tenayuca was born in San Antonio in 1916. With her family and neighbors strongly affected by the privations of the Great Depression, she joined labor protests on behalf of the working poor. She was arrested for the first time at age 16 after joining a picket line of workers striking against the Finck Cigar Company.

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Cinco de Mayo is the day when a relatively small section of Mexico celebrates a victory over the French in 1862 at the Battle of Puebla. Of course, this being America, we look for anything and everything to exploit in honor of the almighty dollar and the almighty excuse to slip out of work early to indulge in some happy hour shenanigans.

But if you're going to co-opt a culture's traditions, you might as well listen to some of its music - and Texas is rich with Mexican-American artists. So seeing how you'll be sipping poorly made margaritas by 3 o'clock, here's a list of the 10 best Mexican-American Musicians from Texas to listen to while you get side-eyed for saying "Cinco de Drinko!" before doing overpriced Patron shots.
10. Selena Gomez
She dated Justin Beiber, had a Disney Channel show, was creepily sexualized in that James Franco movie you didn't see, and she sings, because Disney knows how to make money off its stars. Her 2013 single "Come and Get It" peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and went triple platinum. She has briefly lost her title as Disney pop star to Ariana Grande, so expect her to come back with a fury with her forthcoming album that she's working on with EDM superstar Zedd.
9. Alejandro Rose-Garcia
Aka Shakey Graves aka the guy your girlfriend won't stop talking about aka the dude you're going to be sort of impressed by when you are 6 beers in at Homegrown Festival on Saturday. The former child actor (and still sometimes actor when Robert Rodriguez needs someone to look moody in front of a green screen) has had the alt-country world abuzz since his debut Roll the Bones dropped in 2011. His 2014 album And the War Came has called endless people to declare the rebirth of country music has arrived. He's also extremely handsome.
8. Chingo Bling
The Houston based rapper gleefully exploits the political climate surrounding the immigration issues in America by parodying many right wing beliefs about Latinos, while coyly winking at the culture that surrounds him. He's a master at marketing and self-promotion, so much so that the New York Times once called him the Masa Messiah because of his love of rapping and talking about tamales. He's hip-hop's politically charged Mexican Weird Al, and he's the best.
7. Bobby Pulido
The son of Tejano legend Roberto Pulido, the Edinburg-bred Bobby has been on top of the Spanish music world since he blended Tejano with the country music sound he grew up with in Texas in 1997 with his debut album Desvelado. From there it's been hit album after hit album and giant crowd after giant crowd. He's 44 now, and it doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon. Think of him as the Tejano Tim McGraw.
6. Trini Lopez
The Dallas native broke into the big time in 1963 with his cover of Pete Seeger's folk classic "If I Had A Hammer." Over his almost 60-year career, Lopez has genre hopped from folk to early Buddy Holly-style rock to Latin music and an ill-fated Disco attempt, never straying far from the public's eye. He has two custom Gibson model guitars named after him that are highly sought after by collectors including musicians like Dave Grohl. Oh, and he was one of the Dirty Dozen, which is so badass.
5. Alejandro Escovedo
The Austin music scene mainstay has done everything a singer-songwriter could ever dream to do: punk rock, alt-rock, cowpunk, alt-country, folk, Chicano rock, and, um, every other genre you can imagine. And he did this all while suffering from Hepatitis-C throughout most of his life. As for most Austin mainstay's he's got a extremely loyal fan base that allows him to still perform in venues the size of the Granada long after his artistic peak.
4. Flaco Jimenez
The world's greatest accordionist hails from San Antonio, and he's one of the foremost practitioners of Norteno and Conjunto music to ever live. A long time collaborator with Doug Sahm, Jimenez also worked with Ry Cooder, the Rolling Stones, Dr. John and Bob Dylan. Along with Sahm, Augie Meyers and Freddie Fender, Jimenez founded the Texas Tornadoes, eventually earning a Grammy award in 1990. This past February the Grammys awarded Jimenez a Lifetime Achievement award for contributions to the world of music dating back to the 1940s, when he started his career playing with his father Santiago Jiménez Sr.
3. At the Drive-In
Truly the most diverse band on here, the group contains two Mexican-American members along with Puerto Rician and Lebanese-American members. The group formed in El Paso in the '90s and became gods of the post-hardcore scene. Known for their ear-splitting performances and wild onstage antics, the group left an enduring legacy when it split up in 2001 - so enduring that the 2011 announcement of its reunion was one of the first instances of social media collapsing on itself in excitement. (The group's announced shows sold out in minutes, and left fans clamoring for more.) "Invalid Litter Dept." delves into the plight of young women who live and work in the El Paso adjace city of Juarez Mexico which has been plagued by a seemingly endless series of rapes, kidnappings and murders.
2. Freddie Fender
Fender (formally Baldemar Huerta) found wide acclaim in 1959 when he scored a hit with the balled "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights," only to see it all be pulled away from him when he and a bandmate we're busted for pot in Louisiana in 1960. As a result, Fender spent three long years in the notorious Angola Farm Prison. It would be a decade before Fender found another hit, but that hit, "Before the Next Teardrop Falls," is a bona fide country classic, and Fender would follow it with three straight No. 1 hits. The always prodigious Fender would spend the ensuing decades genre hopping, dabbling in Louisiana swamp rock, Tejano as part of the Texas Tornadoes and Los Super 7, and finally traditional Mexican Boleros. Fender passed away in 2006 noting before he passed that he would like to be the first Mexican-American inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. It's an honor he has not received yet, but one that seems like only a matter of time.
1. Selena
You really thought anyone else was gonna be No. 1?
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The 10 Best Mexican-American Musicians from Texas

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Cinco de Mayo is the day when a relatively small section of Mexico celebrates a victory over the French in 1862 at the Battle of Puebla. Of course, this being America, we look for anything and everything to exploit in honor of the almighty dollar and the almighty excuse to...

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Willie Velasquez, a leader of the movement to increase political power among Hispanic Americans, died early today of cancer. He was 44 years old.

In 1974 Mr. Velasquez founded the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project, the nation's largest voter registration project aimed at the Hispanic community.

Under his guidance, a spokesman said, the project conducted voter registration drives in 200 cities and Indian reservations and conducted extensive polling.

''What we're most proud of is that from 1974 when we started to 1987, the number of Hispanic elected officials in the U.S. grew from 1,566 to 3,038, an increase of 82 percent,'' the spokesman said.

Mr. Velasquez, a native of San Antonio, was a leader of a Hispanic-American political party, La Raza Unida, that was active in the Southwest in the late 1960's and early 1970's. In 1968 he led a farmworkers' strike, along with Cesar Chavez, in south Texas. In 1981, he taught a course on Southwestern politics at Harvard University.

Mr. Velasquez is survived by his wife, Jane, and three children.

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Willie Velasquez, 44, Hispanic Leader, Dies

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Willie Velasquez, a leader of the movement to increase political power among Hispanic Americans, died early today of cancer. He was 44 years old. In 1974 Mr. Velasquez founded the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project, the nation's largest voter registration project aimed at the Hispanic community.

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Meet the leaders on both sides of Texas' struggle for independence from Mexico. You will see the names of these eight men often in the details of those historic events. You will note that Austin and Houston lend their names to the state capital and one of the largest cities in the United States, as you would expect from the man who is credited as the "Father of Texas" and the first President of the Republic of Texas.

The combatants at the Battle of the Alamo also live on in popular culture as heroes, villains, and tragic figures. Learn about these men of history.

Stephen F. Austin was a talented but unassuming lawyer when he inherited a land grant in Mexican Texas from his father. Austin led hundreds of settlers west, arranging their land claims with the Mexican government and assisting with all manner of support from helping sell goods to fighting off Comanche attacks.

Austin traveled to Mexico City in 1833 carrying requests to be a separate state and have reduced taxes, which resulted in being thrown in jail without charges for a year and a half After he was released, he became one of the leading proponents of Texas Independence.

Austin was named commander of all Texan military forces. They marched on San Antonio and won the Battle of Concepción. At the convention in San Felipe, he was replaced by Sam Houston and became an envoy to the United States, raising funds and gaining support for Texas independence.

Texas effectively gained independence on April 21, 1836, at the Battle of San Jacinto. Austin lost the election for president of the new Republic of Texas to Sam Houston and was named Secretary of State. He died of pneumonia not long after on December 27, 1836. When he died, President of Texas Sam Houston declared "The father of Texas is no more! The first pioneer of the wilderness has departed!"

One of the great larger-than-life characters in history, Santa Anna declared himself President of Mexico and rode north at the head of a massive army to crush the Texan insurgents in 1836. Santa Anna was hugely charismatic and had a gift for charming people, but was inept in just about every other way - a bad combination. At first all went well, as he crushed small groups of rebellious Texans at the Battle of the Alamo and the Goliad Massacre. Then, with the Texans on the run and settlers fleeing for their lives, he made the fatal mistake of dividing his army. Defeated at the Battle of San Jacinto, he was captured and forced to sign treaties recognizing Texas independence.

Sam Houston was a war hero and politician whose promising career had been derailed by tragedy and alcoholism. Making his way to Texas, he soon found himself caught up in the chaos of insurrection and war. By 1836 he had been named General of all Texan forces. He could not rescue the defenders of the Alamo, but in April of 1836 he routed Santa Anna at the decisive Battle of San Jacinto. After the war, the old soldier turned into a wise statesman, serving as President of the Republic of Texas and then Congressman and Governor of Texas after Texas joined the USA.

Jim Bowie was a tough frontiersman and legendary hothead who once killed a man at a duel. Oddly enough, neither Bowie nor his victim were the combatants in the duel. Bowie went to Texas to stay one step ahead of the law and soon joined the growing movement for independence. He was in charge of a group of volunteers at the Battle of Concepcion, an early win for the rebels. He died at the legendary Battle of the Alamo on March 6, 1836.

Martin Perfecto de Cos

Martin Perfecto de Cos was a Mexican General who was involved in all of the major conflicts of the Texas Revolution. He was Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna's brother-in-law and therefore well connected, but he was also a skilled, fairly humane officer. He commanded the Mexican forces at the Siege of San Antonio until he was forced to surrender in December of 1835. He was allowed to leave with his men provided they not take up arms again against Texas. They broke their oaths and joined Santa Anna's army in time to see action at the Battle of the Alamo. Later, Cos would reinforce Santa Anna just before the decisive Battle of San Jacinto.

Davy Crockett was a legendary frontiersman, scout, politician, and teller of tall tales who went to Texas in 1836 after losing his seat in Congress. He wasn't there long before he found himself caught up in the independence movement. He led a handful of Tennessee volunteers to the Alamo where they joined the defenders. The Mexican army soon arrived, and Crockett and all of his companions were killed on March 6, 1836, at the legendary Battle of the Alamo.

William Travis was a lawyer and rabble-rouser who was responsible for several acts of agitation against the Mexican government in Texas starting in 1832. He was sent to San Antonio in February of 1836. He was in command, as he was the highest-ranking officer there. In reality, he shared authority with Jim Bowie, the unofficial leader of the volunteers. Travis helped prepare the defenses of the Alamo as the Mexican army approached. According to legend, on the night before the ​ Battle of the Alamo, Travis drew a line in the sand and challenged everyone who would remain and fight to cross it. The next day, Travis and all of his companions were killed in battle.

James Fannin

James Fannin was a Texas settler from Georgia who joined the Texas Revolution in its early stages. A West Point dropout, he was one of few men in Texas with any formal military training, so he was given a command when war broke out. He was present at the Siege of San Antonio and one of the commanders at the Battle of Concepcion. By March of 1836, he was in command of some 350 men in Goliad. During the siege of the Alamo, William Travis repeatedly wrote Fannin to come to his aid, but Fannin declined, citing logistical problems. Ordered to retreat to Victoria following the Battle of the Alamo, Fannin and all of his men were captured by the advancing Mexican army. Fannin and all of the prisoners were executed on March 27, 1836, in what is known as the Goliad Massacre.

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8 Most Important Men of the Texas Revolution

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Meet the leaders on both sides of Texas' struggle for independence from Mexico. You will see the names of these eight men often in the details of those historic events.

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Born in 1795 to a prominent family in San Antonio, Navarro grew up along with his city. In the 1820s, he championed Stephen F. Austin's colonization efforts. At the time, both Anglo American immigrants and Tejano residents wanted increased settlement in Texas for economic development and frontier defense.

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Presidents and Vice Presidents of the Texas Republic

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Presidents and Vice Presidents of the Texas Republic

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Presidents and Vice Presidents of the Republic of Texas, 1836-1846 | TSLAC

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Presidents and Vice Presidents of the Republic of Texas, 1836-1846 Related Links Pre-Republic Governors of Texas | Governors of Texas | Who was known as the... Triumph and Tragedy: Presidents of the Republic of Texas

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In a city of over 1.4 million people, picking out 20 for pretty much anything is a tall task. But that's what we've done for the San Antonio Current's first-ever People Issue - selected 20 folks doing captivating work in the Alamo City. Getting down to 20 made for some tough choices. But we think our final list - which includes artists and activists, a chef and a Spur - represents the diverse makeup of the city itself. Some of them inspire us, some entertain, some make the city go. All of them help make San Antonio what it is.

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Spot Barnett
Saxophonist and bandleader

We don't have Etta or Aretha. Nor do we have Jimi or Jackie. No Brother Ray, Otis or James. We can't claim Elvis, Chuck or Richard. We can't brag about B.B., Muddy or Wolf. We do, however, have Spot.

"There's no spots on Spot," said early Spot Barnett disciple and collaborator Augie Meyers, who, along with a young R&B-loving gringo named Doug Sahm, used to sneak into various "black and tans" to see Spot pull the pain and passion, articulations of the human spirit, from his saxophone.

If San Antonio had been home to more popular, wealthier record labels we may be listed alongside Memphis, New Orleans, Detroit and Chicago as one of the hotbeds of American musical activity in the 20th century. However, our little-big city modesty has kept us from being cited with these historic metropolises, and it's to the detriment of many of our incredible musicians that this is so.

Barnett, as a son of San Antonio and one of its most revered musicians, is not only competent in many of the styles that drift from saloons and cantinas, night clubs and taquerias out into the corpus of the city, but he's a master, and he has the credentials to prove it.

Barnett was SA's premier bandleader throughout the '50s and '60s. He was also the bandleader for a couple of artists by the names of Ike and Tina Turner, a member of Ray Charles' band, backed up James Brown and worked extensively with the depressingly under-mentioned Bobby "Blue" Bland.

We may not be home to the Mount Rushmore of rock figures who, through exhaustive praise, press and promotion rule the reams of American musical history, but claiming a musician the caliber of a Vernon "Spot" Barnett is just fine by me.

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Melanie Cawthon
Outreach & Development VP,
Reaching Maximum Independence

While recovering from a back injury and finding work through a temp agency, Melanie Cawthon discovered the world of nonprofit work. "I'd been in catering prior to that ... and they placed me at nonprofit and ministry of the church I grew in," Cawthon said.

That was the late '90s. Fast-forward to 2015, and she is vice president of outreach and development at Reaching Maximum Independence (RMI) - an organization that helps people with intellectual and developmental disabilities work and live as independently as possible.

"I do fundraising and development and event planning," Cawthon said. She is also co-founder of AccessAbility Fest - a free, open festival created for people with all disabilities - and disABILITYsa.org, an online one-stop website for sharing info, resources ideas and support.

Cawthon's been with RMI for four years, but has learned the finer points of helping people from an array of populations, including child services, homelessness and child sex abuse, but her greatest passion is working with people who have disabilities.

"One of the things I love about working with individuals with disabilities is the infectious joy that they have and everything that happens is wonderful and amazing," she said. "And it just kind of teaches you a significant level of gratitude for everything you have for yourself."

Cawthon also tries to break down barriers by bringing different organizations together to serve people of all types of disabilities, rather than focusing in on one area, like a physical disability.

"Because, you know, most organizations' operate in silos. So to take on a project that benefits the entire community is sometime outside the scope of some organizations traditions," she said of AccessAbility Fest and RMI's Fiesta Especial.

"It's a great pleasure and honor to be able to serve my community by making sure they have resources they need to achieve those goals and successes," Cawthon said.

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Chuck Cureau
Master of Ceremonies,
San Antonio Spurs

If you've been to a Spurs game anytime over the last eight seasons, you're probably familiar with Chuck Cureau. At a svelte 6-foot-2-inches with a self-described "light bulb-shaped bald head," the in-arena host for the Spurs leaves a lasting impression. A bundle of energy that embraces challenges, Cureau even filled in as the PA announcer for the team in his rookie season, despite knowing little about basketball.

"I remember sitting down there, courtside, dead center, sweat just pouring off of me," said Cureau with a chuckle. "I was just scared to death."

Cureau eventually transitioned to the position he was originally hired for and has entertained fans ever since. His basketball acumen has grown over the years, and along with the Coyote and DJ Quake, he puts forth his best effort to energize the home crowd.

"Probably an hour before the game, I will walk around the AT&T Center," said Cureau. "Walk the plaza level, sometimes walk the balcony level and just kind of look at the crowd ... Those are the people that I'm there to hype up and ensure that they have a good time."

A modern day Renaissance man, Cureau has acted alongside Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey, and holds down a full-time job as a curator for SeaWorld in addition to his duties with the Spurs. Despite a packed schedule, it's obvious the Silver and Black hold a special place in his heart.

"What I hear from people who come to their first NBA game or who have come from other cities and experience our NBA game, people seem to be blown away with the game presentation and the show around the game," said Cureau. "Of course, first and foremost it's about the game of basketball and it's about those players out their playing for our team, but I think it's the whole experience. It's a party in there."

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Alvaro Del Norte
Accordionist and bandleader,
Piñata Protest

If singer, songwriter, accordionist and norteño-punk wizard Alvaro Del Norte were going to be made into a fictional lotería card, he'd be El Chingón (colloquial Spanish for "all around badass with an angsty streak"). As ringleader of the nationally acclaimed norteño, mojado punk band Piñata Protest, Del Norte has proven a gifted songwriter, a cyclonic and riveting performer, and one hell of an intuitive accordionist.

Piñata Protest, a local favorite since its inception in 2006, boasts its own Freetail-brewed beer and has increasingly garnered national attention with its 2012 and 2013 releases, Plethora "Reloaded" and El Valiente. Del Norte's newish side project, Los Callejeros de San Anto, finds the punk rocker with the Tex-Mex swagger trying out more traditional, accordion-fronted borderland ballads and jams.

Born in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, Del Norte and his family came to San Antonio as undocumented immigrants when he was four years old. One of his earliest memories is all too typical of the undocumented experience.

"One night, la migra showed up at our door calling out my mother's name, asking us to come outside - someone ratted us out. My mom, brother and I hid in a closet, terrified, for what seemed like eternity. The loud knocking and shouting eventually stopped. This is my earliest memory of life," Del Norte said.

Del Norte believes that growing up in San Antonio led him to dream up Piñata Protest's signature fusion style. "I feel that both [punk and norteño] are musical styles that are expressions of the working class, of the downtrodden, of protest, of love, of celebration and of everyday life," he remarked.

Luckily for Del Norte and the boys, San Anto agrees.

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Elsa Fernandez
Owner,
Eye Candy Boutique

Elsa Fernandez takes nothing for granted. After running her own pop-up shop for three months as part of the Center City Development & Operations Department's effort known as OPEN Downtown Pop-Up Shops, she signed a lease to make her store, Eye Candy Boutique at 531 Navarro St., a permanent part of San Antonio.

Eye Candy stocks clothes for plus-size women - a surprising anomaly since more than a third of the women in the country are considered plus-size. Now that Eye Candy is getting some good buzz and love from locals, she's staying Downtown for the time being.

"It doesn't feel real," said Fernandez about her dream coming true. She has a bachelor's and master's in merchandising and has worked as a store manager and visual merchandising manager. When she was in school, perma-chic Fernandez, 32, created a business plan for a plus-size store. Last year, she went all in - she quit her job, created a business plan and sought financing. After a few events, she heard about the city's pop-up program and applied. Eye Candy Boutique was born.

"I've learned a lot along the way," she explained. "I've been listening to advice from other business owners and taking note of what I want to do and what I definitely don't want to do. I did a lot of research before I ever opened the shop, and that's really paid off."

As a boutique owner, Fernandez wants to make her customers happy. "I have customers who come in asking for a dress for a quinceañera or a wedding, and I want to make them look their best."

After Fernandez signed a year lease for the shop, she renovated and held a re-launch. The store now holds more of everything - from statement pieces for all sizes, to apparel for plus-size sets from street style to party wear.

"I never really stop working," Fernandez said. "I want to keep the shop going and get more customers. My work isn't done yet."

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The 20 Most Captivating People in San Antonio This Year

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In a city of over 1.4 million people, picking out 20 for pretty much anything is a tall task. But that's what we've done for the San Antonio Current's first-ever People Issue - selected 20 folks doing captivating work in the Alamo City. Getting down to 20 made for some tough choices.