Houston Legends:
Leonel Castillo was the first Latino elected to Houston citywide office.
Leonel Castillo never set out to become a public figure.
But the late activist, who was the first Latino elected to public office in Houston, rose to become an influential voice in the city’s civil rights movement, a leader who would go on to implement civic and educational programs that are active to this day.
His trajectory was set at a school integration rally in 1970. The event — protesting the Houston Independent School District’s resistance to integrating Latinos and black students — drew a large crowd and a lot of press.
But the group’s speaker was a no-show.
Castillo, a social worker at the time, had rushed to the rally from an eye exam and was wearing dark glasses to protect his dilated pupils. He was dragged on stage by desperate organizers.
His wife Evelyn, at home with their children, turned toward the family’s small television to see her husband on the screen, giving a speech.
“I was so shocked when I saw him,” she recalled as she chuckled. “And that’s how he got into it, by accident.”
Born on June 9, 1939, in Victoria, Castillo was raised in Galveston, the youngest of four children. His father, a shipyard worker, became president of the local dock workers’ union, while his mother worked as a nurse’s aide.
As a child, his cousin nicknamed him “Lone,” after the Lone Ranger, because of his shy nature and tendency to surround himself with books, his wife said. He graduated high school as an honor student, and at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, he joined several campus groups focused on civil rights while pursuing a degree in English literature.
After graduating in 1961, he was among one of the first groups of people to join the Peace Corps, traveling to the Philippines.
It was there that he met his wife, who friends and family say stayed by his side until his death in November 2013.
Evelyn remembers when Castillo wandered into her home with a friend, the pair carrying Peace Corps duffle bags and looking for a place to stay. Soon, he and she began spending time together, with Evelyn acting as a translator.
The couple married in 1963, and their first child, Avalyn, was born before they moved back to the U.S. in 1965, so Castillo could attend the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Pittsburgh. There, the couple had their second child, son Efrem.
The family moved to Houston after graduate school, and Evelyn said he became a caseworker at Ripley House, an East End neighborhood center, then director of SER-Jobs for Progress Inc.
Around the time he moved back to Texas, a federal court handed HISD a mandate to integrate its schools. However, the district integrated only black and Hispanic students, classifying the Latino ones as white to skirt the law.
Soon after the rally where he took center stage, Castillo became the spokesman for the event organizers, the Mexican American Education Council. He helped lead boycotts against HISD and setting huelga — strike in Spanish — schools for the Latino students to attend while the issue was battled in court.
“It’s before the doors were really being cracked open,” said state Senator Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston, who befriended Castillo in 1972. “And he was in the business of cracking them open for everybody. He was very inclusive.”
In 1971, Castillo ran to become controller of the city of Houston. His campaign was run on a small budget, most of it raised by volunteers selling tamales and tacos, Evelyn said. At one point, he asked his wife to buy him a tuxedo that he could wear to events with important figures, to give the guise that he had come from an even more important function.
The night Castillo won the election, Evelyn looked at him and remembers asking: “Now how do you feel? ” He stared at the ceiling. “Oh, my,” he replied. “Oh, my.” According to the Texas State Handbook and news reports, during his first term, Castillo discovered that certain highvalue residential and industrial properties were not paying appropriate taxes and called for officials to remedy the situation. Castillo also installed computers in the office and helped increase the number of minorities and women in city jobs.
He would stay in the role for two more terms.
After leaving the controller’s office, he wound up as commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, appointed by President Jimmy Carter. Again, he was a trailblazer, becoming the first Latino appointed to a national position.
In his two years in office, Castillo hired more minorities and fought for humane treatment of those detained in the United States, according to the Texas State Handbook and news reports.
His daughter remembers stories her father told her about going “undercover” at various INS offices to see how immigrants were being treated.
“You treat people with dignity and respect no matter what their title is or their position or race,” said Avalyn Langemeier, now a Houston attorney who specializes in immigration. “And that’s what he wanted to see.”
Shortly before he died, he attended the groundbreaking for the Leonel Community Center, a project spearheaded by Garcia. The east side center provides many services that children in the community can use to succeed.
Among all his achievements, Castillo’s favorite was being a father, friends and family said.
Every Saturday, Langemeier said, he took his children to the downtown library, and they would check out books, like the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. Every Sunday morning, they would listen to classical music.
She recalled that shortly before one of her childhood birthdays, her father asked her what she wanted. She told him a football.
Castillo didn’t question why she wanted a football instead of a doll or try to talk her out of it, she said. Langemeier has fond memories of tossing that ball around with her father.
“He asked, he listened, and he did,” she said. “He always knew it was important that you ask, you listen, and then you follow through.”