Austin

Joe Riojas was stationed in the Pacific during World War II with the Army Air Corps, but his letters home never told the dangers he faced.

Riojas was assigned to the 58th Fighter Group, 69th Fighter Squadron. Later, he was transferred to the 338th Fighter Group. His unit was part of the Allied Forces' "island-hopping" strategy in the Pacific -- taking territory back from the Japanese.

He was born in Lockhart, Texas, 27 miles south of Austin, on Sept. 19, 1924. He was one of 13 children born to Gregorio Riojas and Macedonia Martines.

A lawyer for a landmark Texas desegregation case in the 1970s, Gabriel Gutierrez Jr. made contributions that brought important changes for Latinos’ access to public education.

Gutierrez was born Jan. 10, 1938, in Austin, Texas. His mother, “Sally” Perales Gutierrez, worked as a custodian for the Austin Independent School District while his father, Gabriel, worked multiple jobs.

1952 was a big year for young Francisco Rene Cortez. He turned 17, joined the U.S. Marine Corps and got married.

The decisions he made that year changed the course of his life. Cortez went from a teenager who dreamed of being a warrior to a married man and, eventually, the father of 12 children.

He began a 20-year journey that took him from the south Texas towns of his youth – Hebbronville and Corpus Christi – to Japan; Hawaii; the Arctic Circle; Europe; the Mediterranean; the South Pacific; Vietnam; and finally California, where he was discharged.

Growing up on the Texas-Mexico border, Francisco Cigarroa developed an understanding that would prepare him to become the first Latino chancellor of the University of Texas System, which allowed him to put into play the creation of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

“Being aware of that the border region was an underserved area, I understood that to get educated was an important value to then be able to give back,” Cigarroa said.

June 5, 1975, was a red-letter day for Patricia Villareal, a San Antonio native and a staff member of the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the House Judiciary Committee. That was the day the bill extending the Voting Rights Act – and expanding it to Latinos – was passed.

Villareal was born in Sonora, California, to Lonnie Villareal and Stella Finnegan. Her father was a Mexican American who served in the Army Air Corps during World War II. He met her mother, a woman of Irish descent, in Manchester, England.

Juliet Garcia forged her own way into the all-male “club” of Texas community college presidents to become president of Brownsville’s Texas Southmost College in 1986.

Eventually, she would become the president of the University of Texas at Brownsville, a merged institution that grew out of a lawsuit by communities along the Texas-Mexico border and South Texas.

Garcia was born in 1949 in Brownsville, Texas. Her mother, Paulita Lozano Villareal, worked as a housekeeper and died when Garcia was only 9 years old.

Austin attorney Hector De Leon considers himself lucky to have been born in Austin and raised in East Austin.

“Without being born in Austin, Texas, I wouldn’t have been able to go to college,” he said.

He grew up not far from the University of Texas, where he would earn both a bachelor’s and a law degree. He also lived close to the state Capitol, where he first met one of his lifelong mentors, Henry B. Gonzalez, a state senator at the time. He keeps a photo of Henry B., as he is affectionately known, in his office.

By: Voces Staff

Tony Pena is 29 years old from Phoenix, Arizona, who currently lives in Portland, Oregon. He works at Squarespace, an internet domain tech company, where he has worked as a senior customer advisor for three years. He also works as an employee resources group co-chair for the Queer Resource Group. He first heard about coronavirus back in October 2019, after reading about this virus in Wuhan, China in the BBC or NPR. He didn’t think it was going to impact his life all that much at first, given how far away it was all happening and spreading. 

By: Voces Staff

Elizabeth Villa is a 51-year-old kindergarten teacher and mother of six. She has five sons and one daughter and is also a grandmother to two girls. She has been teaching for 20 years and has lived all over the country, but mostly in Phoenix. Villa discusses the challenges she has faced during the pandemic and the impact COVID-19 has had on her family. As an educator, she also discusses how COVID-19 will affect the education system and what the future holds for teachers and students. 
 

By: Trent Thompson