UNAM Abroad: 80 Years in San Antonio. Interview with Henry Cisneros

UNAM Internacional: Mr. Cisneros, given that the setting of UNAM’s Extension School in San Antonio has been a project in which you have been a very important protagonist, we would like to have your impressions about its history, in the context of your role as San Antonio’s Mayor, one of the first Latino mayors of a big city in the United States.
Henry Cisneros: I was the first Mexican mayor of San Antonio since 1836. So, almost 150 years had transpired when I became mayor, but I was not the first Latino mayor of this city because when the Ayuntamiento of San Antonio was first formed, the head was Juan Leal Goraz. Before him, there was over a hundred years of Latino mayors in San Antonio when it was part of Spain. Later, in the early years leading to the Texas Revolution, Leal Goraz took office.

It was a great honor for me, obviously. I grew up in a Mexicano family here in San Antonio. My grandfather participated in the Mexican Revolution out of Puebla. He was from Guadalajara, but he ended up as a soldier and a journalist in Puebla in the early 1900s. The sides were changing in the Revolution at that time. One point was Carranza; another point was Obregon, another part Zapata and Villa. The sides were constantly changing. And my grandfather found himself amidst the struggle. He had been a deputy signatory or suplente to the Constitutional assembly at Querétaro, and he was very involved. But at some point he was threatened with execution. He boarded a train and came to San Antonio to survive, leaving the family behind.

So, I grew up in a family in which my grandfather never became an American citizen because his loyalty to Mexico was so strong. He believed that there was a phrase in the oath of citizenship to the United States that required the rejection of all other authority, and he would never in any way, shape, or form reject his ties to Mexico. I remember going with him to the Fiestas Patrias, which were celebrated in the municipal auditorium here in San Antonio. And we would stand for the singing of the Himno Nacional. I was a young boy, probably 10 years old, I held his hand and felt it shaking. I was afraid to look up because I didn’t know what was happening. But I looked up at his face and there were tears streaming down his face. That was the dimension, the intensity of his loyalty to Mexico. And that’s the kind of family that we grew up in. 

About a year after he settled in the United States, my grandfather sent for the family. My mother was one of those children who came over at that point, in 1926. Through the 1920s, my grandfather worked in a printing establishment here in San Antonio until he decided he wanted to start his own business. He had been in the printing field in Puebla, in fact he had been sent by his employer to New York to study printing and came back with many ideas related to the Revolution. So he came back from New York with printing skills, but also with principles of liberty, democracy, socialism… He was a true believer 

But he started his own business, and it became one of the more successful businesses in the city. He became a leading citizen of the Colonia Mexicana in San Antonio, which was then populated by a lot of exiles from the Revolution: doctors, businesspeople, writers, journalists. And so, my grandfather became a voice of some respect within the Mexicano community, but also in the broader life of San Antonio. 

In 1944, he was one of a group of people who decided they wanted to further the extension of Mexican culture, Mexican literature, authors, political observers. They created a series of cursos which were affiliated with UNAM. There was not a physical place in San Antonio; they used to move from place to place. Trinity University was the most significant of those places. 

I remember growing up—I wasn’t born until 1947—in the 1950s, with my grandfather dressing up in his best suit and with my grandmother taking us to the airport to greet the profesores who were arriving by plane in San Antonio. Then I remember hosting them for a couple of weeks with dinners and galas; they were celebrities, you would think they were movie stars or athletes, because of the way the profesores from UNAM were treated. And eventually, in 1968, when the World’s Fair took place here and a substantial pavilion was built for Mexico, after the fair closed, it was logical to create a more permanent home for the cursos, which then became the first branch of UNAM outside of Mexico. It was aligned with Relaciones Exteriores and situated in the exhibit facility of the fair. 

My grandfather had long been a believer in projecting Mexican culture: he wrote on the subject, he used his printing shop as the home for publications such as neighborhood newspapers, beautiful work that they did to bring the news from Mexico, to talk about ideas related to Mexico, but always with a view of respect for Mexican culture and as a vehicle for Mexicanos in the United States—immigrants, workers—to stay close to their Mexican heritage, Mexican roots, and Mexican traditions. 

My grandmother started a radio program called “La Hora de la Estrella” (The Hour of the Star), which we believe was the first Spanish language programming on a radio station in San Antonio. It was all about readings of Mexican literature, readings of poetry. I think my grandfather saw how powerful it was, and he joined her in La Hora de la Estrella program, that was broadcasted in an English-speaking station, KONO radio. But they had an hour of Spanish literature, and it was very well regarded. 

They were instrumental in helping the Cortes family start KCOR radio, the first Spanish radio station, we believe in the whole United States, and it was founded here in San Antonio, and later in the KWEX television, of the same Cortes family, which many years later teamed up with other Spanish language television stations in the United States to create the Univision network, partially owned by Televisa. 

It’s a long history and a long answer! But it gives you some context for why there was a need for something like the cursos and then for UNAM’s branch here. 

UNAM HAS BEEN THE PREMIER REPRESENTATIVE OF GENUINE, AUTHENTIC MEXICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE IN SAN ANTONIO
 
UI: Was your father’s business related with the publishing industry?
HC: It was a print shop, but much more than that because he used it much in the way I think that he had when he was in journalism and printing in Mexico, in Puebla, during the Revolution: he used to spread culture, to spread ideas, to spread editorials. He had numerous newspapers published for the Mexicano community of San Antonio, not affiliated with any national publisher. And he wrote several books on Pan-American relations and on the identity of Mexicans in the United States. He had to be a businessman to make a living, but his true love was writing for Mexican Americans about Mexico. 

I used to tell people that he reminded me of French leader Charles de Gaulle. I had no way to describe the dignity, the nobility, the majesty of this man, until I read a biography of de Gaulle. There was a phrase there that said: “Charles de Gaulle did not regard himself as French, he was France.” That was the role that my grandfather played in San Antonio: he wasn’t from Mexico, he was Mexico. 

I am speaking to you today from my grandfather’s print shop which I later transformed, when it ceased being a print shop, into my offices. I am sitting today in the area that once was the print shop and I live in the house that was his, he bought it around 1947. So, I haven’t gone very far in life! I’m in the footsteps of my grandfather even now. 

UI: It seems like it’s a family tradition, this relation, this bond with the Mexican heritage.
HC: It was hard to avoid the respect for Mexico. He would go to Mexico several times a year. He was named representative of President Alemán and ran the campaign for Mexicans in the exterior, and he also was named Honorary Consul of México, a position he played along with the Mexican consul for pretty much all his life. 
We were a very close family. He gathered all of his children, the generation before mine, my mother and my uncles, every Sunday at their home. After church on Sunday, our first stop would be at my grandparents’ home for dinner, and that would go into conversations and pláticas until the afternoon. When the profesores were in town, they were invited to the house, and we had these distinguished professors from UNAM around the table there at the house when they were here as guests. My grandfather made himself very sure that we paid them the proper respect and courtesies in the Mexican way.
 
UI: Later on, when you were mayor, you were really close to UNAM San Antonio office. We know that you supported the installation of a building for the office…
HC: Yes, we advocated for making some of the hemisphere buildings available to UNAM, I’m very proud of that. In fact, somebody showed me a picture today of the event in which we were opening the facilities, I think it came from the staff at UNAM, but it shows way back there when I was mayor and the inaugural event for the UNAM facilities opening was held. 

UI: What would you say has been the main contribution of UNAM to the city of San Antonio?
HC: I think UNAM has been the premier representative of genuine, authentic Mexican history and culture in San Antonio. Which is of course what the original intention was. So it has been a rousing success all these years. Obviously, people sees the Consulado with great respect because it can handle immigration matters and passports and so forth. But when people think of the keeper of the flame of Mexican history and culture, they think of UNAM without a doubt. It has served that original, intended purpose, for the Mexican origin community of San Antonio, including many who were born in this country—I was born in this country—The subsequent generations have had a place in which to see Mexico, not the Mexico that of the newspapers’ headlines, but the Mexico that represents respect for scholarly rigor, respect for history, respect for genuine cultural events—not knockoffs, but genuine—and people who have been in UNAM and bring the best of Mexican scholarly, academic, literary traditions, and so it has served that purpose. 

It has also served that purpose for the Anglo community, the non-Hispanic community of San Antonio, many of whom just naturally respect and enjoy Mexican traditions and history, and they view UNAM as the centerpiece for that. As a result, several organizations have sprung up, such as the US-Mexico Friendship Society and several others that group around the complex of UNAM, the Instituto Cultural de México, and the Consulado. And then finally, I would say, it has offered a place for serious scholarship that rivals what might exist in the other universities of this city, but with a clear-eyed understanding of Mexico. and its role. UNAM has helped make possible San Antonio’s continuing relationship with Mexico in a dignified way, and it has raised for non-Hispanics, for the Anglo, for the traditional Texans, a sense of the respect that is due to Mexican scholarship, literature, art, and languages. Many Anglo-Americans have come to UNAM to learn Spanish and Spanish literature. I can’t imagine any institution that has been more successful in carrying out its stated objective, its original objectives than the UNAM Extension School in San Antonio, it is an unmitigated success.

UI: We are very proud of what you’re saying! So the interest among the Latino or Mexican heritage communities in San Antonio on Mexican history and culture is very lively today, and the non-Latino community is also approaching UNAM?
HC: No question. Let me say—and this is a delicate point so I’ll be careful how I phrase it—that UNAM and the Instituto have become a place where people who want to express their respect for Mexico in a dignified way can be there, be civil to each other, respect the dialogue, demonstrate civility and gentility, and respect, if I may say, for the higher order civic values. This is not a place for folk history and folk art; this is a place where the great tradition of Mexican history and literature is celebrated by people who genuinely respect it and leave respecting it more.

UI: It is so nice for us to hear you saying this about UNAM, about our presence in San Antonio. 
HC: I must say that on my watch, I have tried to maintain the level of respect and do the things that build up San Antonio’s presence. We want this to be the best UNAM branch outside of Mexico and we want you to know how valuable we believe it is to our city. Our city would not be the international light that it is without the UNAM all of these years. I can’t imagine San Antonio without it. But I will also say that my doing is just a tribute to the original work, to the original thought that my grandfather and his generation represented. What I do is just carry on what they started, but the real work was at the very beginning when they were facing difficult odds, hardships, with no assistance, and they did something that grew into what we enjoy today. I can guarantee that UNAM’s San Antonio team works in a very sincere way, increasing the respect we have for UNAM and Mexico. Thank you very much for your support. 

---