In the not-very-far-future, Texas' population will tip and the Caucasian fraction so used to being a "majority" will find itself in a "minority" position. The Federal courts have already decreed that the latest jiggery-pokery with redistricting maps shall not stand. Enter the age of the majority-minority state, Texas. Home of such sages as JIm Hightower and Molly Ivins and Lyndon Baines Johnson -- a reliable Democratic stronghold for generations, all the way back to Reconstruction, until Ronald Reagan came along. Well, the days of the Reagan Democrats are waning, along with Tom "the Hammer" DeLay, and the rest of the Rove-run GOP.
Okay. But what will the future be like? Well, considering it'll star Julian Castro, keynote speaker at the Democratic Convention opening night ...
and maybe his brother as a Texas Congressman, I can't help thinking it's going to be bright ... let's see how bright over the jump:
Julian Castro's the mayor of San Antonio, Texas. For those of you not familiar with my home state, San Antonio is the home of The Alamo. Not to mention several more missions and one of the biggest surviving military-base concentrations in the Continental United States (it's known informally as Military City USA, and is the heart of the US Air Force: everybody goes to Lackland).
Without San Antonio, we wouldn't be Texas.
WIthout San Antonio we wouldn't have the seventh-largest US city in Texas. Without San Antonio, Texas wouldn't host the youngest mayor of a major metropolitan city, whose life echoes The American Dream very much like a certain President.
Julian and Joaquin Castro were born in 1974 on September 16 -- Mexican Independence Day. The night before their birth, their grandmother won about $300 in a contest cooking menudo, a Mexican tripe stew, and spent her winnings to pay her daughter's hospital bill.
From that beginning, the boys -- who went to school by San Antonio buses 'cause their parents had no car -- grew up in a politically-active household on the West Side. Scholarships, grants and student loans paid their way to college, after they finished high school in three years.
They haven't stopped pushing for a better future since then:
At Stanford, where they majored in political science, the brothers also launched their first campaigns and won student senate seats, tying for the highest number of votes. At Harvard Law School, Julian raised money to run for San Antonio's City Council. In 2001, at 26, he became its youngest member ever. After an unsuccessful run for mayor in 2005, he re-emerged to win the job four years later and easily won re-election in 2011. Joaquin Castro became a member of the Texas Legislature in 2003 and is favored to win a congressional seat in November in a heavily Democratic district.
I'm looking forward to the future of Texas, and the nation. With emerging leaders like the Castro brothers -- and a President like Barack Obama -- we can go forward. Should go forward. Will go forward.
After all, the alternative is to "put it in R to go backward."
NB: Yes, I know there's another diary about Mayor Castro out there. Commenters have had trouble reaching the diarist, though, so I thought I'd add to the backstory of this dynamic speaker -- he is, after all, from Texas.