San Antonio Express-News Elaine Ayala column [San Antonio Express-News]

Sept. 30--Carlos de Leon doesn't have to dig deep for what's driving his political activism. The Guatemala native, whose extended family sought asylum in the United States and Canada from 1979 to the 1990s, remembers keenly the struggles they overcame to build new lives.

De Leon, 23, doesn't have to visit a housing project to understand poverty, or talk to people without health insurance to know why the Affordable Care Act is necessary.

But the chairman of a relatively new group, the Bexar County Young Tejano Democrats, does it anyway, and its members have come up with an endorsement process that will rest on a candidate's willingness to do community service projects with them. Last Saturday, they delivered clothes to San Antonio's refugee community.

So far, the Young Tejano Dems have 20 members, mostly college graduates, many working on advanced degrees. A few are undergraduates.

They represent St. Mary's University and its law school, Our Lady of the Lake University, the University of Texas at San Antonio and the University of the Incarnate Word, where de Leon is working on his MBA.

Among them are de Leon's two sisters, who like him are members of the Brown Berets, the group that first nurtured their activism.

But the family's political roots go back further, to de Leon's great-uncle Julio Hamilton Noriega, once president of the Christian Democratic Party in Guatemala, who was assassinated in 1980. Another relative resisted participation in the military's genocidal terror as the family was torn apart by the violent regime of President Efrain Rios Montt.

"That's my history," says de Leon, who was not yet born when Noriega was killed. "It's a cultural identity of not turning a blind eye to social injustice."

Once a family of means, family members came to San Antonio seeking political asylum but were unable to convince authorities of the danger they faced at home. They immigrated legally because de Leon's father had a business, once importing bus fleets for Guatemalan municipalities.

The family faced trials in San Antonio, too. It bought a modest house on the West Side as soon as it arrived, paying about $40,000 in cash. The youngest daughter, then 7, served as the family's interpreter.

He said that within days, they were defrauded out of the property and had their passports illegally taken.

They managed to get copies of their passports and a little money from home, but they spent a few months living in an un-air-conditioned trailer on the South Side. They took showers with hoses. The parents slept sitting up in chairs.

It was a dramatic shift in fortunes, but de Leon credits his mother for the family's resilience. "She'd say, 'Don't cry. We're going to do this.'"

Their singular focus: education. The family now has three college graduates, one with a postgraduate degree and two seeking them. A fourth is in high school.

"My mom says you can have all the money in the world, but it can come to an end," he says. "But you'll always have your education, your morals and your principles. It has become embedded in our minds."

In 2005, they family bought a house and moved in Christmas Day.

Such experiences drive de Leon's social consciousness.

Today, the Bexar County Young Tejano Democrats are gearing up for November elections and March primaries. They'll work on mobilizing and educating young Latino voters and young Latino veterans returning from service. They'll visit colleges and universities.

In the last year, they've done voter registration and education. They've met with state legislators and have been out to support Wendy Davis, their hope for governor.

The group just launched a project to engage young Democrats in civic life. Last Saturday, its "Day of Service to Help Our Refugee Neighbors" brought clothes to that community.

Two candidates -- Mary Angie Garcia, running for Bexar County district clerk, and Allen Castro, running for Bexar County clerk -- attended the event. U.S. Rep. Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, was in Washington and sent his regrets.

For the record, the young Tejano Dems say they operate autonomously from their parent Tejano Democrats.

"We don't want to get into infighting. That's not what we want to do. That's old and ineffective, and it doesn't work. We don't want anyone to make a business out of the movement," adds de Leon, noting that "the shadiness of some old-school organizers" turns off youth.

Each of their service projects will be tied to their innovative endorsement process in which approval "isn't given, but earned," de Leon says. A candidate will have to participate in a service project to get an endorsement. Sending a representative won't count.

"Our purpose is not to forget the homeless person, the immigrant, the refugee, the woman without health insurance or the student having trouble paying back a loan," de Leon says.

The Bexar County Young Tejano Democrats will announce their endorsements in January.

eayala@express-news.net

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