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The Castro Twins

POLITICS // TEXAS POLITICS

Twins Julián and Joaquin Castro step onto national political stage — together, as always

Bill Lambrecht March 22, 2019 Updated: March 22, 2019 3:53

WASHINGTON — Rosie Castro, mother of fast-track Texas Democrats Julián and Joaquin Castro, saw the bond between her identical twins as she listened to their baby chatter.

“Before they could even talk, they carried on their own babbling conversations with each other,” she said.

Some believe that identical twins have a form of mental telepathy, though it’s probably the likeness of their minds that inspires the closeness, scholars say. Identical twins develop from one fertilized egg splitting into two with the same DNA.

Rosie Castro, however, thinks there might be something to this telepathy business. “They have this incredible relationship where they really understand one another,” she said.

In the run-up to the 2020 elections, those ties between Julián and Joaquin Castro are becoming more of a national spectacle than ever. As Julián seeks the Democratic nomination for president, brother Joaquin plays a lead role in the story he tells of growing up modestly in west San Antonio. Joaquin is Julián’s campaign chairman and they appear together around the country — a two-for-one deal as Julián seeks a higher tier in the jammed Democratic field.

Julián is also part of Joaquin’s identity in Washington where, in recent days, Joaquin has been in the thick of consequential matters, including writing the resolution that led to a rebuke of President Donald Trump’s border emergency decree.

If Joaquin makes the leap to challenge Sen. John Cornyn in 2020 — a pending decision — identical twins each seeking high office would offer an intriguing subplot to the national story of the 2020 elections.

Already, the political achievements of the 44-year-old twins raise them to a select fellowship worldwide.

In Britain, Maria and Angela Eagle, 58, both are Labour Party Members of Parliament. In Poland, Jaroslaw Kaczynski is leader of the Law and Justice Party; his twin, Lech Kaczynski, was president of Poland until his death in 2010 in a Polish Air Force jet crash.

Former astronauts Mark and Scott Kelly, 55, are high-achieving twins in another realm. Mark Kelly is married to former Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords, who survived an assassination attempt in 2011. Last month, he declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination in Arizona’s 2020 Senate race.

Indivisible by Two: Lives of Extraordinary Twins is a book published by psychologist and author Nancy Segal earlier in the Castros’ careers. Twins are favorite subjects of researchers seeking clues related to genetics and health.

“I would put the Castro brothers in the class of extraordinary,” Segal said. “How many people have been able to reach as high as these brothers, with Julián being considered for vice president and now running for president, and having a fast-rising brother?”

For subscribers: Reparations for descendants of slaves emerges as key issue in 2020 Democratic field

Twins are of interest for more than peculiarity. “Studying identical twins like the Castros can teach us about ingredients necessary to succeed in one’s chosen field, such as a support system and motivation,” she said.

Olympian identical twins told Segal that they could rely on 24-hour practice partners. Each Castro has always had that partner, and when Julián ran for San Antonio City Council in 2001, campaign treasurer Joaquin handed out brochures. Julián won.

“The Castro brothers can talk politics 24 hours a day, and probably do. They know that the other one is there to support them, and to be honest with them, in whatever they decide they want to do,” Segal said.

Drawing close in lean times

Unity evolved from necessity as well as from genetics. A presidential candidate can be expected to present a compelling life story, usually about overcoming odds. In Julián Castro’s story, he and his brother are third-generation achievers indebted to an immigrant grandmother when she arrived in the United States from Mexico at age seven.

In An Unlikely Journey, Julián’s memoir published last year, he describes the family’s pressed circumstances after the split of their mother and father, who never married. The boys were 8. Neighbors dropped off boxes of food. Without a car, the family had trouble getting around.

Joaquin recalls helping the family survive.

“We were out picking up aluminum cans to sell, picking up pecans to sell back then, in the late seventies or early eighties,” he said in an interview. “We drew close because there were very lean times.”

“Steady companions,” Julián writes. “We would run around the neighborhood, a strange urban wilderness populated with trailer parks, abandoned cars and refrigerators, packs of roaming dogs and eccentric folks.”

Adds Joaquin: “Throughout our lives, we’ve been best friends and the people who are closest to each other. We also fought like hell growing up. We shared a small room and we couldn’t escape each other.”

The twins were ferociously competitive in school and in sports. The rivalry was a catalyst for both to succeed, skipping 10th grade and graduating high school in three years.

“They were forever wrestling and competing. It was maddening,” Rosie Castro recalls.

Full-on ruckuses broke out. Once, Julián flung his tennis racket at his brother. Joaquin recalls counting his bruises in the lights of the neighborhood Dairy Queen several hours after another brawl.

“There were times when things kind of hit a boiling point,” Joaquin says. “Fortunately, it was just a few times.”

Rarely did they separate. Enrollment in separate kindergarten classes, per school rules, was traumatic. After that, they studied together all the way through Stanford University and Harvard Law School — except for an undergrad summer when Julián took an internship in Washington in the executive Office of Cabinet Affairs. Joaquin spent those weeks back in Texas.

At Stanford they lived in separate dorms. “I’d tell people I’d spent 17 years sharing a room with him,” Joaquin says.

Otherwise, they were undivided. Luis Fraga, a Stanford professor at the time, recalls that both brothers took his Urban Politics and Policy Class. They sat next to one another. Under his direction, both wrote senior honors theses on strategies for economic development in San Antonio.

In his office separately, Fraga noted, each would say “we think” or “we have decided” rather than “I thought” or “I have decided.”

“I always understood that as an indication of how much they counseled each other and learned from each other,” said Fraga, now a professor at Notre Dame and director of its Institute of Latino Studies.

Fraga, who traveled to San Antonio in January when Julián declared his candidacy, said the twins had different styles and ambitions despite their closeness.

They also have different temperaments, their mother says. She described Joaquin as outgoing, someone who made friends easily, and Julián as “more of a homebody.”

“Joaquin can get angry very quickly, but he doesn’t stay angry long. Julián doesn’t get angry very often, but when he does, it’s something else,” she said.

At Stanford, their competition persisted, leading to a most unusual result when they vied for Student Senate, the first political campaign either had attempted.

It was the spring of ’95, and the brothers each spent the maximum permitted on their campaigns, $90. A Stanford Daily account of the election, under the headline “Twin senators not too close for comfort” noted that both double-majored in political science and communication, had the same class schedules and dated roommates.

“Freaky,” the story said of similarities.

“We don’t particularly subscribe to twins having ESP,” Julián was quoted as saying.

The article includes a photo of the smiling fellows lounging on the ground back to back, Julián’s white socks standing out, and the election results: The Castro brothers won election with more support than any of the other candidates - each receiving 811 votes.

Their bond was such that after Julián was accepted to Harvard Law School, when Joaquin had not yet learned he would get in, Julián announced that he would stay with his brother in California.

“Who wouldn’t want to have their best friend with them in a totally different environment,” Julián recalled in an interview. “A situation like going off to college or law school can be daunting in the first place. It makes it a lot easier and more fun.”

Walking through the world together

The relationship between the two evolved as they set out on parallel political routes, Julián from city council to election as mayor. He was the Housing and Urban Development secretary from 2014 to 2017. Joaquin won his first of five terms in the Texas House in 2002, at age 28. He entered Congress in 2013, advancing from president of the freshman Democratic class to deputy whip in his second term.

“It’s just like your relationship changes with your parents. Your relationship with your brother matures as you mature,” Julián says. “My relationship with Joaquin has matured and become collaborative instead of competitive."

Says Joaquin: “They say that twins either will stick together or get as far apart from each other as possible. We’ve always stayed close. I think you develop your own shorthand with languages and gestures. It’s not quite telepathy, but it’s certainly a shorthand.”

Julián has said he has no specific Democratic Party mentors, perhaps because Texas recently has lacked enduring Democratic leaders. His main political adviser is his brother. And vice versa.

In 2016, as Joaquin toyed with challenging GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, he gathered about a dozen advisers in his San Antonio home. Beto O’Rourke — who would later run — also was eyeing the race. Joaquin’s wife, Anna; the twins’ mother and their father, Jesse Guzman; Joaquin’s closest political supporters — all were on hand, as was brother Julián.

After 90 minutes or so, as people dispersed, Julián offered his advice: Don’t do it, brother.

“He just said that in the end, even with the strongest campaign, I think you would top out at 48 percent,” Joaquin said, recalling the moment.

Joaquin noted that O’Rourke - who ran a well-funded and at times blistering hot campaign - tallied 48.3 percent.

If Joaquin chooses to take on Cornyn, a center-right former judge who was the No. 2 Republican in the Senate until this year, he would presumably have his brother’s blessing.

“We talk realistically about races and the challenges of races,” Joaquin said.

They talk on the phone sometimes three times a day, Julián said.

If Joaquin makes that race — and if each falls short in the 2020 campaigns — both would be out of a job.

“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time,” said Julián.

Joaquin, the more combative of the two, responded in character.

“I’m not scared to be out of politics. There’s also other things I’d like to do with my life,” he said.

Of her sons, Rosie Castro says: “One of the things that’s really important about them is that they’re very strategic, and they have been that way for a very long time. They figure out the world, they figure out the way to solve a problem and get things done.”

She adds in a motherly evaluation: “I’m proud. They have a good life and they are able to love.”

Once in a San Antonio library branch, Joaquin said, he happened to read a magazine article about the Lone Twin Network with stories of survivors of the death of their twin.

“It’s just hard to imagine living my life without my brother,” Joaquin said.

Said Julián: “The relationship between Joaquin and me is unlike any other relationship in my life. We’ve known each other and been close our entire lives. We’ve walked through the world together at every step, from sleeping in bunk beds, going to college and law school together, becoming lawyers and being in Washington.

“And now we’re looking at the future.”

Bill Lambrecht

Bill Lambrecht joined the Hearst Newspapers Washington bureau in 2013 as an investigative reporter and now writes for the San Antonio Express-News, Houston Chronicle and Hearst Texas. He was previously Washington bureau chief for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where he began his career covering the state Capitol in Illinois, his home state. He is cofounder of his family's 26-year-old Bay Weekly newspaper in Annapolis, Md. He has degrees in political science and political studies from Illinois Wesleyan and the University of Illinois-Springfield.

Lambrecht has covered politics throughout his career, including 15 national conventions. He is the author of two nonfiction books, both publis