"They called us militant, but our way of doing things was through political ends," Rosie Castro said of her fight for Mexican-American rights in the 1970s. "Not through guns, not through overthrowing the government, but through the political process."
in elected office is a debt owed to their mother. Now 65, Rosie Castro is the protagonist of the family story the mayor says he'll tell a national audience: A civil rights activist and single parent from the time the twins were 8, she dragged the boys to rallies and often argued politics with them.
Sitting in a downtown Mexican restaurant before leaving for the convention, Rosie Castro ticked off the costs of her activism: harassing phone calls in the middle of the night and packages sent to her house calling her a communist. She says authorities kept close tabs on her organizing efforts, and
Now Julian Castro is at the forefront of his party's effort to attract Hispanic voters, just as his mother had laboured to register them to vote nearly 40 years ago. To Rosie Castro, the strides made in the span of just one generation don't seem to have come quickly.
