A photo of me taken in 1994 at a NALEO Educational Fund Open House evidences a satisfied look due to the attendance. We had an overflow crowd. I had entered my third decade of life and found myself director of the group’s #Texas office after my mentor’s, Leonel Castillo, unexpected departure. The event marked the moving of the office from Houston’s Midtown to a storefront in #Lindale_Park in Near Northside. It also marked the beginning of an era that would determine the survival of the NALEO Texas experiment. The previous year, one of my first assignments as a Fund staffer was to fly to Bexar County to visit a storage warehouse and select office items to relocate to Houston as NALEO shuttered the office in San Antonio.
La Señora Maria Ramirez owned the mini commercial strip on Irvington at Gale in Lindale Park. She gave us a good deal on a lease. A few months earlier, Mr. Castillo had arranged a visit to a beauty salon to help La Señora Ramirez and some of her neighbors with the citizenship application. That connection facilitated the move. NALEO setup shop between her Beauty Salon and Rodriguez Cleaners run by Juan and Luisa and later by El Señor Othon’s who also repaired shoes. La Señora Blanca Santos who was an extraordinary woman had a flower shop next to the beauty salon that occupied the remaining space. I believe she had about ten kids and succeeded in guiding nearly all her children through college, including Professor Adolfo Santos who taught at the University of Houston and is now an Assistant Provost at Texas A&M University Higher Education Center at McAllen.
The objective of the move to the Near Northside was made to make NALEO a community based organization, make it more accessible to la gente and replicate the brand established in Los Ángeles where it was founded. At the time, the NALEO national office was located in the Boyle Heights neighborhood in a building that use to be a church. A silhouette of a woman was painted on the front of the structure. I was told that it was an ode to boxer Oscar De La Hoya’s late mother. Apparently, he purchased the former religious facility that served as a community resource center at some point. For those that don’t recognize the name, De La Hoya was a boxer who won an Olympic gold medal and had a storied professional boxing career that spanned from 1992 to 2008. Nicknamed “The Golden Boy,” he is a first generation American born to Mexican parents in East LA. Then, in LA and Houston, it seemed like most of the Latino #nonprofit #service_providers may have been based east of downtown.
Midtown where NALEO originally officed in Houston was not what it is today. It was a desolate place and demographically not conducive to fulfilling NALEO’s mission of helping Latinos with the US citizenship process. In part, it was the reason NALEO relocated. In comparison, in the Near Northside of Houston, NALEO was in the midst of a Latino community and able to help families residing on every cross street in the seven mile stretch from where Fulton Street starts, near the UH-Downtown Daly Lot, all the way to where it ends at Parker Road with the citizenship process. It also helped many people who worked in the businesses along the way with the naturalization process, all the way from where Fulton merges with Irvington at Moody Park to where ends at the Hardy Toll Rd by Sam Houston Math, Science, and Technology Center, including the owners of Northside favorites Teotihuacan Café on Irvington and Airline, and the original Arandas.
From the Near Northside location, NALEO teamed with The Metropolitan Organization, The Fort Bend Interfaith Council, Houston Community College Systems, The Harris County Department of Education, Churches, schools, community groups and elected leaders to organize hundreds of workshops to help thousands of Legal Permanent Residents obtain US citizenship and incorporate them into the electoral process. From the Near Northside, in 1994, NALEO initiated efforts to mobilize Latino voters in conjunction with major Spanish language radio and television network affiliates.
A year prior to leaving the organization and almost a decade after the picture was taken, the office relocated again to achieve a more professional aesthetic. By then, the NALEO Texas office was well established. Thanks to the good people of Northside, staff, volunteers and supporters, consisting of names like Arredondo, Cadena, Cantu, Garcia, Garza, Heredia, Hernández, Jimenez, Juárez, Mendoza, Miranda, Macias, Monterrosa, Martinez, Monsiváis, Marini, Navarro-Flores, Olivares, Ortega-Hogue, Palafox, Parras, Peña, Rebollozo, Ronquillo, Reyes, Saenz, Torres, Walle, etc., NALEO took root… from #Holy_Name on Cochran Street to #St_Leo_the_Great on Lauder Road, from #Near_Northside to #Aldine,…and beyond.
NALEO, happy 30-year anniversary in Houston.
#history #uscitizenship #naleo
NOTE: I’m writing this story in real time. That means, as I reflect, I continually update it for clarity and accuracy.
