Julián Castro throws his sombrero in the ring

January 15, 2019 By Peter Barry Chowka

Early in the new year, the first of what are expected to be several dozen Democratic presidential wannabes are making preliminary announcements to supporters and the media of their intentions to challenge President Donald Trump in 2020. The first Latino politician out of the gate is Julián Castro, who announced his candidacy on Saturday, January 12. Castro is the 44-year old former mayor of San Antonio who served as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development during the last three years of the Obama Administration. He is the grandson of a Mexican woman who “crossed” to the U.S. in 1922. Almost every article I read about Castro recently describes him as “a rising star in the Democratic Party.”

Judging by his campaign launch and his “rise” in the party hierarchy before that, Castro is positioning himself as a master of the art of extreme identity politics. After his Jan. 12 speech in his former barrio neighborhood in San Antonio, Castro retweeted Natalie Montelongo, Immigrants Rights @ACLU, who is also the founder of The Future is Latina dot com. In her tweet, Montelongo gushed about Castro’s announcement: ...........To Read More.....