Castro in no token Latino. He has comes from a Left-wing Chicano family and has trumpeted his activist roots. His mother was an active member of Texas chapters of La Raza, which Castro lauds in an essay included in the collection Writing for Change: A Community Reader.
Julian Castro burst on to the national spotlight in 2012 when he was mayor of San Antonio, in a prime time speech at the Democratic National Convention. Julian, along with and his brother Joaquin (a Texas congressman) campaigned for Obama, rallying the Latino vote in the tightest battleground states. With 2016 just around the corner, Democrats may look to the Castro brothers to help rally that vote again. Of the two, Julian has a slightly higher national profile (though Joaquin stood in for his identical-twin brother at a parade in 2012 and no one noticed), and some speculate that he has a chance to be tapped for vice President, especially if Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination.
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“[My mother] sees political activism as an opportunity to change people’s lives for the better. Perhaps that is because of her outspoken nature or because Chicanos in the early 1970s (and, of course, for many years before) had no other option. To make themselves heard Chicanos needed the opportunity that the political system provided. In any event, my mother’s fervor for activism affected the first years of my life, as it touches it today,” he wrote.
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