Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month in Central Texas

Central Texas ( FOX 44 ) – As another Hispanic Heritage Month winds down, many Hispanic Americans are reminding people that Hispanic history should never be forgotten regardless of the month.

For years, Waco Hispanic Museum Chairman Luis Garcia says it was almost impossible to find even a hint of Latino history here. It’s history he wants to discover, preserve and share for generations to come.

“We look in the books and history books, and there is not much to be able to say we even existed here,” Garcia says.

Garcia was born and raised in Central Texas. His life-long mission is telling the stories about Waco’s Hispanic community.

“But that’s going to take time and that’s what needs to be done,” he says.

In 2016, the Waco Hispanic Museum opened its doors. Locals donated items from Latinos who settled in Texas many decades ago.

“The Hispanics owned this territory back in the days when Mexico owned the territory in the 1700’s, 1800’s. People like La Vega school, Sanchez, Martinez. They owned all the property in Waco along the Brazos,” Garcia says.

Today, artifacts line the shelves and photos document families working on cotton farms. The vibrant mariachi jackets and pants fill what were once empty walls – all unraveling stories of Waco’s past.

“As they say, a photograph speaks a thousand words. We still have a lot of photographs we need to identify and put names and numbers with, and so I think that would tell the story more than anything and a few articles we have collected,” says Garcia.

He says he’s proud to know he’s one of the first to document this history.

“With all of the hard work that I’ve done and all of the people that I talked to, it’s very important,” Garcia says.

But his work isn’t done. Garcia is on a mission to uncover more Latino history.

“I think everybody has a story to tell, and I think it’s important to tell those stories – hope for somebody else,” Garcia says.

In addition, there are a few notable trailblazers within the Hispanic community who paved the way for many others to follow.

Cesar Chavez was born in the late 1920’s, and was an American labor leader and civil rights activist. He co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later merged with the agricultural workers organizing committee to become the United Farm Workers Labor Union. Chavez was born in Yuma, Arizona, to a Mexican-American family, and he was a manual laborer before spending two years in the U.S. Navy. While alive, controversy surrounded Chavez. Critics of the UFW claimed he was too controlling, citing the purges of those he deemed disloyal. He became an icon for organized labor and leftist groups in the U.S. Posthumously, he became a “folk saint” among Mexican-Americans. He posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994.

U.S. Justice Sonia Sotomayor is another great example in the Hispanic community. Nominated by President Barack Obama in 2009, Sotomayor is the third woman, the first woman of color, the first Hispanic and the first Latina to serve on the Supreme Court. Sotomayor was born in the Bronx to Puerto Rican-born parents. In 1997, she was nominated by President Bill Clinton to the U.S. Court of appeals for the second circuit. In May 2009, President Obama nominated Sotomayor to the Supreme Court following the retirement of Justice David Souter. While on the court, Sotomayor has supported the informal liberal bloc of justices.

In the sports world, Roberto Clemente was a Puerto Rican professional baseball player who played 18 seasons in Major League Baseball for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Born in Carolina, Clemente was a track and field star and an Olympic hopeful in his youth before deciding to turn his full attention to baseball. He was the National League’s Most Valuable Player in 1966, and was the National League batting leader for several years – with 3,000 hits during his major league career. Sadly, the two-time World Series champion died in December 1972 while working to help people in need. A plane he chartered crashed while taking emergency relief goods to the survivors of a massive earthquake in Nicaragua. Clemente was posthumously inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1973, becoming the first inductee from the Caribbean and Latin America.

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