Tatcho Mindiola Jr. remembered for his vision to lift communities

Lorenzo Cano remembers his longtime colleague Tatcho Mindiola Jr. as family, as a compañero, a camarada. For decades, the two worked together at the University of Houston’s Center for Mexican American Studies seeking grants, creating programs and pipines to get more Latinos to attend and graduate from UH.

“We learned that we just can’t wish it. We can’t just wish for students to come to college. We had to go out into the community and provide a link to the university,” Cano, 72, said.

Mindiola died on Aug. 17 of undisclosed causes at the age of 85 with his family at his bedside, including his wife Cindy Mindiola, and his children Maricela, Maribel, Trae and Gilbert.

Mindiola’s life and legacy will be celebrated at several events this weekend, starting at 4 p.m. Friday with a visitation, rosary and then a 6:30 p.m. eulogy the University of Houston’s Cullen Performance Hall. Saturday, the Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church will hold a celebratory mass at 10 a.m. and a graveside service at Hollywood Cemetery on Sunday at 12 p.m.

Community members whose lives were impacted by the advocate and educator are welcomed.

A self-proclaimed “professional Mexican,” Mindiola was a lifelong activist and educator who devoted his career to advancing the education of students of color, especially those coming out of the barrio, like he did.

“He was always advocating for the students,” said Fely Aguilar, recalling her time as a UH student in 1997 when she worked at the Center for Mexican American Studies mentoring high school students through a program called Students Aspiring to Better Education.

“You would just be walking and he would pull you (aside), ‘Step into my office, let’s have a chat. How are you doing?’” Aguilar recalled.

Mindiola served as director of the center – now called Center for Mexican American and Latino/a Studies – for more than 30 years.

Today, Aguilar is program director at Academic Achievers and still works with CMAS, the place she recalls as “un refugio, a home away from home.”

Mindiola’s reach spanned generations, said Mikaela Selley, an archivist and exhibit curator. She recalls her parents taking courses with him in the late 70s. She had heard about him throughout her life and finally met him when she was in her early 20s as a graduate student.

“In a true sociologist fashion, he first asked me, ‘Who are you?’” Selley said.

She didn’t know then that an internship position she was seeking at Houston’s Public Library helping create the first Mexican-American Collection in the city was a project he advocated for for many years.

“I credit him for really shaping that position and allowing me to step into something that was really a wonderful experience,” Selley said.

Shaping a vision

Mindiola was born May 6, 1939, in Memorial Hermann Hospital. He grew up in the Sunset Heights area along with his five siblings. He attended Alamo Elementary, Hamilton Junior High and Reagan Senior High School.

His father was a baker with a third-grade education, and his mother was a homemaker with six children. He recalled his father emphasizing finishing high school, as Mindiola said during an oral history interview in the Houston Public Library’s Digital Archives .

“By the time I was in high school and getting ready to graduate, I had already realized that my dad’s dream for us was not enough, that I would need a college education,” Mindiola said in the oral history.

He left Houston in the late 50s to serve in the U.S. Army and returned to Houston in 1961 to attend the University of Houston. Mindiola received his undergraduate degree in sociology, followed by a master’s degree at UH before leaving Texas again to pursue a doctorate at Brown University in Providence, R.I.

As a UH student, Mindiola found his sense of activism, and as a professional he joined movements such as La Raza Unida Party, a Mexican-American and Chicano-led political party that sought to improve the advancement of these communities.

In 1974, he became the first Mexican-American faculty member at the University of Houston’s sociology department. As a trailblazer in Mexican-American studies, he struggled to be recognized with a tenure-track position, a fight he eventually won in the 80s.

At the time of his arrival, the Center for Mexican American Studies had been created two years earlier, after the student-led organization, MAYO – Mexican American Youth Organization – began pressuring UH administrators for representation.

The center struggled financially and failed to find permanent leadership in its first six years. In 1980, Mindiola was approached to fill the first permanent role as director, an offer he didn’t immediately accept.

“As a native Houstonian, my ambitions had always included coming home to teach at the University of Houston and becoming involved in developing Mexican American Studies. When asked to serve as the director, however, I hesitated because I did not feel prepared,” Mindiola wrote in a 2011 article for Houston History Magazine .

As director, Mindiola became the center’s fiercest advocate for funding. He lobbied in the Texas Legislature, catching the attention of then Rep. Roman Martinez, who after several attempts, managed to gain a line item appropriation for the center, a move that proved controversial.

“When I asked for the $160,000 awarded by the legislature everybody was angry with me – the dean, the provost – everybody told me I was politicizing the budget . . . I was respectful and polite in my responses but quite frankly, I did not give a damn,” he said in an interview cited by Houston History Magazine .

Learning to plant the seed

As news of Mindiola’s death spread, Houstonians began sharing memories of him. Most, if not all, with a sense of joy and even pride to have been part of his legacy.

Russell Contreras, senior justice reporter for the online news site Axios, clearly remembers the day Selena Quintanilla died in 1995, when he was a student at the University of Houston. His memory, however, includes Mindiola, who helped steer his professional aspirations toward journalism.

“As we drove around Houston, he was noticing that a lot of cars, especially in the hood, the barrio, cars had signs saying ‘Viva Selena,’” Contreras said. “And he said, ‘How can we mourn if the moment we hear her music we tap our feet? It brings us joy.’”

Cano was in the car with the two of them, Contreras recalls, the two friends were hardly seen apart.

Cano met Mindiola as a graduate student shortly before he joined UH and CMAS when he was in his early 30s. He immediately matched Mindiola’s energy and passion.

He recalls many battles and celebrations working together, including Mindiola’s retirement in 2015. Cano eventually also joined him in retirement. But overall, Cano remembers his friend as a visionary who focused on utilizing education and research for the good of his community.

“He said that when he was younger he wanted to change the world. Then as the years went by, he wanted to change Texas. And then as he got older he wanted to change Houston. Then he said he wanted to change the University of Houston,” Cano said. “That’s something that stuck with me… we realized that perhaps creating the seed at the University of Houston is a way overtime to change the world.”