Oral History Transcript - Augustin Lucio - October 31, 1985
Interview with Augustin Lucio
Interviewer: Scott Hubbart
Transcriber: Scott Hubbart
Date of Interview: October 31, 1985
Location: Mr. Lucio’s Home, 516 Candlelight Lane, San Marcos, TX
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Begin Tape 1, Side 1
Scott Hubbart: Interview with Mr. Augustine Lucio held on October 31, 1985, in the Lucio home. Interviewer: Scott Hubbart.
Mr. Lucio, you’re a lifetime resident of San Marcos.
Augustin Lucio: Yes.
Hubbart: But your parents came here from Mexico, isn’t that right?
Lucio: That’s correct, yes, they did. As I have said, Scott, I was born and raised right in the general vicinity, no more than five miles from the center of town. Yes, my parents did come from Mexico. Of course, most of the people that migrated to the United States at the time was because of the revolution and the aftermath of the revolution. I recall that this is what my parents used to tell us, and in fact, at times they thought about going back if things would change. But I would imagine, like everything else, once they settled down here, they felt that it was the best place because once they began raising a family, and in my case, we were five brothers and one sister, and we had an adopted brother, which was older than the rest of the family, that my mother and my father raised—all six of the men went to the service, with the exception of my sister, during World War II.
I would say that we lived more or less in the area where the civic center sits today. A few years later, we moved across close to the area. From there I walked to school, which was located where Bowie Elementary School is today. This was our country school, it was called Westover School. At one time, the school had been located in the west part of the city; this was why it was named Westover. Even though it was now in the east part of the city, it was still called Westover. I went my elementary school years there, and from there I was transferred to the campus, we used to call it, and this was the Education Building at the university, that’s where it was, right next to Old Main. There I took the rest of my education. I never did go to the San Marcos High School, a building located behind where the post office is today. I never did make it there because they only had three grades to take there, and I took the ninth grade at the Education Building.
Let me say that those days were pretty hard on the country. We had to also, besides working out in the country and going to school only part of the year, we also had to migrate. I recall that my parents used to take us to West Texas around the month of September, and we’d come back around the middle of December. We would never start school until the first of the year, and sometimes we had to leave early to start clearing out the fields for the crop the following year. That made it very difficult for me to keep up with the remainder of the youngsters who, in those days, were going full-time. I had to attend every session of summer school in order to keep up with some of them, and it would begin to be a burden. So, in 1939 and 1940, it was getting more and more difficult for me. In 1940, when I came back from West Texas, from the Lubbock area, we were supposed to be back in school January 1. I made a decision to not go back to school, simply because of the fact that I felt I was far behind and I was about three years over age for the youngsters that were in the same grade that I was; at that point, I felt it was going to be more than just a burden on me, and at the time things seemed so difficult. We did have to work, there was no question, because the family was large and we all had to pitch in. At the time, the service was becoming very popular, and many of the local youngsters had already enlisted in the service as volunteers, and they had some very nice-looking uniforms. I recall some of them coming back on leave. We started thinking about probably joining the service. This made my decision easier, that I probably could go to the service, better myself in some ways there, get some experience, be more mature, come back and try to go to school again and try to get an education. So I went with that intention in mind.
So, as I mentioned, I was a lifelong resident except for four and a half years. From January 7, 1941 until December 12, 1945, I spent in the service. [On] January seventh, when I went up there and enlisted, I passed the examination, and I was assigned to the Second Division that was stationed at Fort Sam Houston at the time. I recall that the following year, eleven months later when the war broke out on December 7, 1941, I recall that they began the draft system in the United States. During that period, of course, many youngsters were drafted. I believe that the idea was to send youngsters from the east and the west and the youngsters from the mid-west down to the south and the ones from the south the other way. I believe that was one system the service had for reasons, they had reasons; I think they were trying to get the young men adjusted to be on their own, to mature and not be so close to home. Along that line, we had a lot of youngsters that came from, young men that came from New York, Pennsylvania, Chicago, and the Midwest area that had received an education. Most of them had high school educations, and a lot of them had a college degree. Yet they were drafted into the army, into the service, and later on, of course, those youngsters with an education went to OCS and became officers in the army. This was noticeable to me, that those without an education would have a hard time getting anywhere. More and more I thought about when I came out, when I came back, that I would go to school again. In my association with young men that had an education, [that] had a great influence in my thoughts for the future. I saw young men that were interested in politics, and they could be in politics simply because of the fact that they had an education. They had a lot to offer, the background of their parents was such that had an influence on them, and it had an influence on me because I liked what they did, I liked the way they talked and what were their goals for the future. I remember a couple of young men, one telling me that his wish was to be the Attorney General of Pennsylvania because his father was the mayor of Philadelphia at the time. Another youngster said to me that he would eventually be a big contractor simply because his father had been a contractor. Another one in Chicago said that he would be a politician and join the political machine of Chicago; in those days, I didn’t know what a political machine was. Things like that and he would probably be the governor of Illinois one of these days. Truly, I kept up with some of them after I got back from the service, and much later on I did find out that at least one, told me he wanted to be Attorney General of Pennsylvania, did become the attorney general for that state.
So, it was an impression to me that remained with me even though I went into combat. Well, actually we were transferred to Wisconsin, Camp McCoy, Wisconsin; from there, we took a lot of ranger commando training and paratrooper training. We took the all-around training, even ski training, simply because the war was a worldwide war and we did not know in what portion of the world we would end up fighting. So they trained most of the troops in many, many areas. I felt that it was good to me because I did not get to go overseas right away. I spent about two and a half years in training before I was shipped overseas, and when I was sent overseas I was sent to North Ireland. Maybe I can say that it was easier on some of those that went to North Ireland because of the fact that the British and the Irish did not get along. We were staying in North Ireland, which was British-occupied; right across the border was the free Ireland. They exchanged shots, you know, actually shots, and we were exposed to that so maybe we were exposed, even thought it was minor action, to something like that before we actually got into combat, you know. We were moved to England, and of course, we had no idea exactly where we would end up. It just so happened that as June sixth became close, we were told that we were training to be part of a force that would probably go to Europe later on, into Western Europe, into, probably, Germany. We had an idea, but we did not know that we would be called upon to be some of the troops that landed on D-Day, June 6, 1944, in France. In fact, I belonged to a special battalion by virtue of the training that I received in North Ireland, a special ranger battalion that landed about six minutes before the first wave of infantry was supposed to arrive in the coast of France. I think that that in itself was an advantage to me because we were not exposed to as much enemy fire as the remainder of the troops, once they found out that we were coming ashore. About the same time, the paratroopers were landing about twenty-five miles inland. I cannot say that—some people travel to Europe today for a vacation—I cannot say that our visit to Europe was such because of the fact that we walked the continent. We walked from France all the way to the Rhine River, from there I returned back to the United States. We did not ride, we’d ride in very small areas, but most of the time it was walking because in the war, in the fighting almost on a daily basis, with the exception of very few days, we were exposed to enemy fire all of the time that I was in that theater of operations.
Hubbart: Did you ever think of making the military a career?
Lucio: Yes, I did. I used to think—the military kind of intrigued me because of the fact that I had worked very, very hard all my life; as I mentioned, I came from the country, and the service and the training in the service did not seem that hard to me. I think that some of the younger people, some of the young people that come into the service where they were not exposed to hardship like I was, thought that the service was very, very, very, training was very hard. To me, it was not that hard.
I also liked to think, you know, we called them problems when we trained, but actually it was missions that you would actually have in combat. To make decisions, to make plans, how to approach an area, how to fight this particular battle, and things like that. I used to like that. I used to love that. It was like playing hide-and-seek, knowing where the other person is before they do and things like that. So, it kind of—I liked it; I really thought that I would like to stay in the service. But after I was exposed to so long a time, continuously in combat, I began to change my mind. I saw too many things happen that—sometimes I don’t even want to recall, simply because I’d just rather forget them. It’s not that it really bothers me that much, but I was exposed to many shootings, many young people getting killed. I received several decorations. I was probably, like some would say, at the right place at the right time. This is something that you’re there, not because you want to be but rather because you need to defend yourself and you just happen to be there. I think some of the action for which I received decoration was simply because of the fact that I needed to do something in order to be able to survive. This was the case, probably in most cases where people got decorations. I know that at times my training and the fact that I have survived so long and my insights as to what already was going on did encourage me to be more forward than some of the other young men. That might in itself sound like you’re brave, but really I think that it’s kind of this confidence training that made me more aggressive than others, and then maybe I was exposed more, and for that reason I might have received some decorations. Not that I wanted them bad enough to take a chance because nobody really wants that. I do have, like I said, I have the Silver Star, I have the Bronze Star, and I have the Purple Heart. I have a French Croix de Guerre, which is a medal for heroism, and I believe that that one I really—I really think a lot of that particular medal simply because I got the Bronze Star for the same action, the American medal signifies that it’s for heroism also. But I think it was more significant to the French because of the fact that we were liberating an area that was very sensitive to them at the time that I received those decorations. Of course, the Silver Star is the highest decoration that I received, and it’s for gallantry in action. I was recommended for much higher awards that I did not receive, which really didn’t matter to me.
Hubbart: Well, with your military training and because you were so good at it, did that help you after you got out of the service?
Lucio: Well, in a way. The only thing that it did to me that it gave me a lot of initiative, a lot of—I would say it gave me that incentive to try and better myself, yes, certainly. I became what I consider myself a leader because I was a leader in combat, and when I came back I found myself in the position that I wanted to lead something, that I wanted to do something for myself. Probably, this is one reason why I became so involved in the community when I came back. Very simply because of the fact that I have—when you go through something like this for a period, exposed to something like this for a period of time, it stays in your blood, you might say, that you wanted to achieve, you wanted to do something. Then, looking back at the fact that I have survived so many things that others did not, that probably it had been for a reason and I should take advantage of, you know. If nothing else, I should better myself so I would be able to also help other people. Since I came from a very poor environment, I felt that I could do for somebody else. Something that would make me feel good, really. I’d like to say that probably I owe a lot of things to my parents; I’d just like to refer directly to them again.
My father came from an environment of the working class in Mexico. My mother came from, even though they didn’t consider at that time middle-middle-class, it was only the rich class and the working people. My mother came from a middle-class segment of the population in Mexico. She was accustomed to having maids, having music classes; she was a great believer in education. She pushed us to go to school despite all the odds, against all the little time we went to school. She continued to push us to go to school. She continued to try and tell us to try to read, regardless whether it be in English or Spanish. The remarkable thing, my father never interfered with that, despite the fact that I knew because of his lack of education he did not share the same interests that my mother did. Consequently, I think that those were the things that at least gave me the opportunity to pass the tests that were required to pass to even get into the service. Then, of course, like I said, all those other things came because of those little things that helped me get to that point. The service was good to me because of the exposure that I received to a lot of young men that had an education. If I had not been, probably, exposed to combat as much as I did, I probably would have liked to stay in the service.
I was very fortunate that the day we came to the Rhine River, before it was crossed, I received orders to come back for what they called a “temporary duty furlough.” I would stay in the United States for thirty days, they would not charge it to my leave or anything like that, then I would have to come back. Well, because of the fact that—it was in February—because of the fact that we had no priority coming back to the United States, the priority was sending troops the other way, you know, there was not as many opportunities to move fast coming back across. So it took us a lot longer to get back to this country, and in the process, to our homes. While I was home, actually I was back even the month of March and April, and in April I got married. I knew that I was going back, but this was something I wanted to do. I had a schooldays sweetheart, and, of course, she wanted to marry with me also, so we made the decision that we would, knowing well that I would have to go back into combat. We married in April 15, 1945, that day they buried the President of the United States, President Roosevelt, I remember. Also, it wasn’t long before that that the war was beginning to end in Europe. In fact, I received a telegram asking me to take an extended, a fifteen-day extension to my thirty-day leave. While the extension was in effect, I received another telegram to report back. That was before the war ended on May 8, 1945. I reported back, so I was told at the separation center in Fort Sam Houston that I had a choice; because of the many decorations and the months in the service and the months in combat, they had established a point system to discharge the troops that they would not be needing anymore. They had two centers, one in Camp Kilmer in New Jersey and one in Fort Sam Houston, here in Texas. I was asked that if I would remain in the service, I had a battlefield commission coming to me. But I probably would have to join the troops in the Pacific, which was still fighting Japan, and as a junior officer. But as an enlisted man, I had more than enough points to receive a discharge if I wanted to. I didn’t give it a second thought. I thought about the army career that I liked, but I also thought about the many things that I went through in combat, and that made me feel that I had a second opportunity to get an education again, as a civilian. So it really wasn’t very hard for me to make the decision that I would get out of the service. They asked me to be the first person in line on May the twelfth at 8:00 in the morning. I was discharged as the first American under the point system. An hour later, of course, in New Jersey, in Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, they discharged the second American, but I was the first one. That’s something that probably was, it was mentioned in many papers at the time. I read some of the—like the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, and they were in this, my name was in this particular paper at the time that I had been the first American discharged under the point system. I don’t even have any clippings of those things; it didn’t really matter to me in those days to have any, to save anything. I came back, and the only thing about adjusting to civilian life, my problem was that I was supposed to come back for a little too long, and I think for a couple of years was a very jumpy person. Anything that had some heavy sound or sharp sound, even a firecracker or anything like that, it would disturb me very bad for a while. But I outlived that and I began to involve in the community.
I had to make a decision real quick. Since I was married, my first child was about to be born a year later, I thought at the time that I should either make a decision of go back to school or go back to work. I chose the latter; I chose to go to work with the intention of working for about three years and going to school after that. However, fortunately, I got a job and began to get promotions. At the time, there was a lot of shortage in the work force, and people could get promoted real easy. I began to get promoted because I had a lot of drive. When I came out of the service, I didn’t see anything as difficult. It looked like everything I wanted to do, I could do. My only limits were those jobs where you were required an education, and that was beginning to be noticeable to me. So I was sure that somewhere along the line I had to educate myself. But the promotions were good, and I said, “Well, I’m going to stay a little longer in the workforce and then I’ll go to the university.” I had taken the GED test, and I had passed it. I had been accepted, and then I said, “Well I’m just going to wait awhile before I go.” Well, in the meantime, I took night school, and I took a course in business administration, and I did real well, to the point that I got promoted again and again. I believe that I would have done real well at the university, simply because of the fact that this course in business administration was much easier to me because of my—more mature. I took things real serious, I had the time. I was not hurting for time like I did when I was a young man going to public school. I was taking a full course; I had plenty of time to study and so on.
So, with that, I was always involved in the community, I used to attend PTA meetings when my first child was born. In fact, she wasn’t even old enough for the next five or six years to go to school. But I did attend PTA meetings, especially in the south part of town, what we used to call the Southside School, what is now Bonham School. I recall that while I was there one night, some of the people had noticed that I attended all these meetings, and they was having elections. I was not even aware of it, and I was elected president of the Southside PTA. From there on, I became interested in all the different things that were going on in the community. I coached Little League. I was a Boy Scout master, a regional representative in the Boy Scouts, besides coaching the minor league, the Pony League teams. It was very interesting, sports was something—working with youngsters was something that I really enjoyed, though. I learned things from them as well as teaching them what I knew.
Hubbart: Was San Marcos a big sports town?
Lucio: Yes, San Marcos was beginning to be a real sports town, especially in basketball. We had a basketball team at the university, and our public school really went for basketball. Football was not as well-attended as it was later on. In those days, basketball was the real thing. The, of course, baseball really was, in my opinion, was very much emphasized. San Marcos has also been a baseball town from the beginning. During the war, I think that went out for a while, but after that it started coming back, and this is the reason why I felt sometimes Little League was very well-promoted by the Lion’s Club because of that. It was no problem, people would accept it and help sponsor it, they had a lot of support. I think that through the years I see, I remember when I used to come into the Square of San Marcos, and even today and through the years, the only change that I see, maybe like the streets being paved, meters being put up for automobiles to park instead of chains and posts to hitch a team of mules or a horse. You know, looking back at it, at some of the stores, I could just visualize in my mind, you know; they’re still there. The buildings have not really been removed, though, and so I can still see some of these things, just like it was.
Hubbart: Well, the Square was the town, wasn’t it?
Lucio: The Square was the town; that is correct. About the only other area that the streets lead in, Guadalupe Street and what they used to call Austin Street, which is LBJ today, actually extended towards the hill because of the university. There were a few buildings, a few stores out in that direction, not many. I recall the ice cream parlor in the area where probably Ben Franklin or Coggin’s Jewelers is today. They gave about three dips of ice cream for a nickel, it was a “triple-dip” they called it, and I remember we used to do that quite often, especially on Saturdays.
Hubbart: You know how a lot of little towns on Saturdays, that’s like market day. Was San Marcos like that?
Lucio: Yes, exactly like that; that’s right, I recall that we used to come into town, and we—well, at first it was in a wagon and mules, and a little later on we had a Model T just before I went to the service, a Model T Ford, and we used to park it in the Square. There was parking in the middle and parking at the edge right to the courthouse and parking towards the side of the stores, there was three ways you could park, I remember. We used to enjoy just walking around the Square, just looking at things. All the stores, everything seemed—I don’t know, I guess maybe because a person is young, everything looked so bright, so colorful; the toys, everything. Today, maybe we take too many things for granted. In those days, it was not that way, so things looked so good, so different, something that you would appreciate and enjoy. Like I said, we even had in those, these people that travelled like from San Antonio. They called themselves “the medicine man.” They would park around the Square. They would sing a few songs. They would try to sell you some kind of liquid that was cure-all, cure anything that was wrong with you. We used to enjoy all those little different things. It was big day on Saturdays when we came to the Square to buy groceries and things like that. It was something we looked forward to from the Monday before until the Saturday came about. That happened for years and years and years. It did begin to change when I came back from the service. People began to—the town was beginning to grow just a little bit. Before that, the city limits was, of course, just a little to the right of 123, which would be where that Texaco station is. The other side of the city limits on the Austin Road, which was a two-lane highway, happened to be the San Marcos River, which is not very lengthy; it’s a short space there. Used to have a circle there instead of the overpass we have today, and it was a two-lane highway that I recall there.
I was involved in many organizations. One of them was, when I came back from the service I joined the American Legion, I joined the VFW and were with them for a short period of time; two years with the VFW, one year with the American Legion. Because about 1948 came an organization, which was— actually, most of them were Hispanic people involved, and it brought it closer to what, some of the things I wanted to work with because it was a kind of a family organization.
Hubbart: Did you want to do that because there was any kind of a big social barrier, say, between the Southside and the Northside?
Lucio: Yes, I think so. I think there was social barrier. I happen to be one of only two people that were Hispanic that were in the VFW at the time. In the American Legion, I recall being the only one for the one year that I was there. That led me to believe that I was doing good by being here because—however, service organizations such as VFW and American Legion, which was veteran-oriented, were not really social organizations as such that would expose you to the other social problems of the community. The GI Forum was beginning to address this particular thing, and this is why I believed that I should join the GI Forum. It was organized in San Marcos in October of 1948. Earlier that year, in April, the first chapter was organized in Corpus Christi, Texas, and sometime in May it was organized in McAllen, and San Marcos was the third chapter organized in the United States. It came because of some problems that some of the military or soldiers coming back, that were Hispanic descent, was beginning to have problems in some areas where people still wanted to, there was still discrimination in some areas. I recall that the GI Forum probably came about because of the problem in Three Rivers. A young man, who had received the Medal of Honor, because he was Hispanic, was not allowed to be buried in the city cemetery. They had a lot of meetings and discussions, and they could never come to an agreement, and finally, somewhere along the line, somehow they ended up burying this young man in the Washington National Cemetery. So the GI Forum became an organization because of necessity. The GI Forum started adjusting its goals as to what were the needs in the community, and that’s the reason why I thought that they were the organization to join.
I know that we exposed ourselves right quick to being involved in politics as a citizen and not as a member of the GI Forum because the organization in non-political. But, the fact remained that you have an organization that you organized, you can do many things as an individual, and you get the support. I recall that, yes, we began to have big formal dances, big social gatherings, we began to invite people from the north side of town that were liberal that had visited with us and talked to us. They began to be part of what we consider the social movement in our community.
Hubbart: Was there also a political movement?
Lucio: There was a political movement to an extent, but it began as a social movement, really and truly. It became political simply because of the fact that there were times when we felt that we could not use public facilities simply because we were Hispanics. These were social functions that would probably have no bearing on politics, but we found out that the only way you could achieve changes in that was also to integrate some of these things into political issues. Consequently, we started cannon balling, encouraging people to pay poll tax, which was $1.75; in those days, to be able to vote you needed a poll tax. I recall that once we got the people to register, we felt that it was necessary to give them something to vote for. I ran for school board back in ’49, I believe it was. That’s when San Marcos changed the consolidation of this district from a common district into a consolidated independent school district. All the seven members of the board that were there at the time had to come up for reelections [as] well as anybody that might to file. In fact, I recall there was fifteen candidates for seven positions. I did not win, I was number fourteenth, I was not the last person, but in the process we got many people interested in getting out there and getting involved in politics in order to achieve some of the goals that they wanted to achieve. Consequently, San Marcos was blessed with the fact that we had many, many people who shared that interest. Consequently, this is one of the reasons why they wanted reform; one political organization was called the BCBG, Better Citizens for Better Government. Almost one third of the membership was Anglo professors, liberal professors from the university. We put a real good organization together to the point that we started getting out some of these barriers that the people had. Animosities that people thought, well, they probably said Mexican Americans are only interested in the Mexican Americans. I don’t blame them because we felt the same way about it. But it didn’t take long for people to begin to understand each other. I felt that the simple fact that we had this type of unity from the beginning, even though it was not as easy as it might sound, but the fact is that we were able to elect our first member to the City Council around 1960 or ‘61, if I remember right. In 1963, we elected our first councilman to city council who was—I’m sorry, school board member to the school board, who was Celestino Mendez. The councilman we elected in 1960 or ’61 was Mr. Ruben Ruiz. One of the fifteen or twenty people that I consider were leaders in this community at the time. By virtue of the fact that the people put us in that position, not that we wanted to be in that position, but because we were the ones that would come out and speak or promote the meetings and encourage the people to participate, especially in the education process. You know, this is why I said it was kind of a social movement, because we encouraged the education process before we encourage the political process. In other places, it’s in reverse. I genuinely feel that it takes longer when you take the way they have done it somewhere else and the way we’ve done it here. I believe that when we established the social process, through education, I believe that we promoted that [and] we had a lot of people that were on our side and began to understand it and make everything much easier. When we became involved in politics, I believe that it made it much easier for us to be able to get elected. Once in office, we pride ourselves that we represented everyone, and I believe that this started bringing out all these barriers of animosity. To this day now, I think we’re in a position to say that it doesn’t make any difference who gets elected, whether it be somebody from the south or somebody from the north of town, that you have representation, period. I think that there is no such a thing as any one side representing only one side or anything like that. We have a problem, say, that certain factions still, like the neighborhood people have neighborhood interests, developers have developer’s interests; well, okay, that’s fine. But there are no ethnic selfish interests in anyone that I can see today. Consequently, I believe that we have been, many times, it’s been said in many of the conventions that I have attended throughout the state that San Marcos has been one of the most progressive cities in the state of Texas, and probably in the United States for that matter, because of the fact of the way things work out for us, and that we were at least twenty years ahead of a lot of other people.
Hubbart: Speaking of education, you were a witness to the signing of the Higher Education Act, weren’t you?
Lucio: Yes, I was. Ironically, our president today, Robert Hardesty, was an aide to the president at that time, Lyndon Baines Johnson. I remember he was there that morning because I was there by virtue that I was a member of the school board. We were there that morning where it was signed, it was in Strahan Gymnasium. I recall that he stood there and I stood there, and we looked at each other, and we shook hands, but you know, I didn’t give it much thought, and I’m sure he didn’t either. Later, when he became president of the university we, somewhere along the line we met again and looked at each other almost in the same way we did then, and he said he felt like he knew me. I said, “Well I do, too,” then we started talking about things of the past and all of a sudden we came up that I was on the school board at the time that the Education Act was signed. He said, “Well, I was here that time,” I said, “Well, that’s where we met.” Ironically, you know, that did happen. Yes, I was there and plan to be there on July seventh when they going to do it again, have the ceremony at the university.
Hubbart: Did you meet President Johnson?
Lucio: Yes, I did. I met President Johnson that day. Mr. Mendez, who was the other Hispanic on the board, was the secretary of the board and was given the pen he signed the bill with, one of the pens that he signed the bill with. I was not that lucky, though. I was just a member of the board. I recall that he made a very convincing speech about the young people in America. In fact, I remember some of the words he said, that at times, he used to teach school in a little town outside of San Antonio, and he said that he taught a lot of youngsters that were very poor people. He said that he himself had pledged to himself that if he ever had the power or be in a position where he could do something to help people like those youngsters he was teaching, that he would go all out to do it. He said simply because without an education, you would always be poor. He said, “And I am in that position now.” I remember he used those words. He was in the position to help these people, and I know that he did a lot to promote education. That was one of the main things that he felt had to be done in this country.
Hubbart: Do you think maybe he came to San Marcos to sign the bill because he felt it was a progressive city?
Lucio: I really think he came to San Marcos to sign the bill because it was his Alma Mater (laughs). But I think that, things as they turned out to be, yeah, that that helped. In fact, I believe that that left many, many, many good things to remember, and I think San Marcos since then has also been different people, for the first time, not just in the state, but you could probably claim [President Johnson] as a local person, and [the city] felt that we had somebody achieve the highest office in the nation and felt like he was a local person to a certain extent. I think that that does have an impact on the city, no question about it. I really think that nobody here can afford to say we let down on education. I think if nothing else, it gave us the drive to put more emphasis on education, really.
Hubbart: Well, I’d ask you, what do you think the biggest change has been in San Marcos from when you were a child here, and I’m not really talking physical changes; maybe I’m talking more of a social/political change.
Lucio: Well, as I mentioned, ours came about pretty close together. To some people, it may be hard to distinguish. I would say that the social change has been the biggest change that ever happened, and I’m glad that it came before a political change took place because it really paved the way for us being able to have an understanding with at least a few people. It did not have as much animosity by the time we got involved in politics. Oh yes, we were challenged. Most of the times that we ran a Hispanic or a Mexican American for an office we had an opponent. There was no such a thing as getting a free ride or anything like that. But we had a lot of people that sympathized with the fact that yes, we had the same right to do it, and that in itself began to make the change. But I believe that the social change came about was the biggest, the most important, because like I said, we started socializing before we were—I think in socializing you begin to understand people a lot easier then you do in a political change. Even friends sometimes are skeptical (laughs) when it comes to politics. I guess it’s just the way that this is politics in the country, that that’s the way they are. I’m glad that it came that way. Yes, would have to say that the social change has got to be the biggest change that we have ever experienced. With that came all the other changes that came long; the growth—
Hubbart: So you say the barriers have pretty much been knocked down by now.
Lucio: I would say that right now, anyone has the same opportunity as anyone else. Now, the fact remains, I still feel very strongly that in the Hispanic community, education still has a lot to be desired because of the fact that as we go along, when things are made available to you, you begin to take them for granted. I recall we being more interested in education, actually in the forties, fifties, and the early sixties than they are today because this was not taken for granted at the time. Today, I believe that there is too much leniency. I believe that not only among the parents but among the youngsters, and this is why it is very difficult to really make them understand that this is something that is good for them. I believe that sometimes they think that people are trying to have an education because it promotes or it helps somebody else rather than to them. Those things still need to be made very clear to some. Oh, we have a lot of problems, but there’s always room for improvement, and we do have some ways to go in the Hispanic community for that matter. I believe that in general, in the nation, this was something that has taken place, this is not just San Marcos or the Hispanic community, but the Hispanic community has suffered more from that because of the fact that when you have something like this particular thing, a change like that, it’s the easy way out. Youngsters today are more in control of themselves; their parents are actually not as strict with them as they used to be. Consequently, decisions are, a lot of times, more up to them, and we as young people sometimes like to take the easy way out. So this is the reason why I say that public schools should be emphasized more to the communities, to our community as well, because really and truly we’re spending money that belongs to them, the taxpayers, to everybody. If we don’t get our money’s worth, they’re not getting an education, and we’re not getting our money’s worth. All those things are there, though.
Hubbart: Would you say, even though you said this wasn’t going on just in San Marcos, would you say that San Marcos, it wasn’t an easy time, but it was smoother?
Lucio: Yes, it was smoother. As I mentioned because I think there’s several factors. I mentioned the university many, many times. A university town can be really good for a community or it can hurt a community because I have heard communities that sometimes it has taken longer because they have a state entity there, a school, a university. Because of the fact that sometimes the university becomes politically involved with that particular city and they are part of what has to be gained through the political process. In this case, our university was very much its own thing, its own entity by itself. It really hardly ever got involved, if at all, in the political on-goings of the community or the city. Now individuals, like the professors, yes, they did. But for most part, the liberal people that got involved in those days, and of course, the liberal people were the ones that sided with Hispanic politics simply because of the fact that they fit better together in that particular area. They thought more along the same line. Today, the Hispanic community suffers also from conservative politics. We have some conservative people that have come about because of the fact that things are different than they were, and as I mentioned, the barriers have been torn down, so I feel that now everybody has an opportunity. I think that this is the reason why we experienced some people being more conservative in the Hispanic community. I think that all this came about simply because of the fact that now—it just indicates that the opportunity is there, that the freedom is there for a person to achieve if he really wants to achieve.
End of interview