San Antonio’s political wunderkinds, Julián and Joaquin Castro, turned 50 years old without having turned Texas blue or being elected president.
That didn’t stop several hundred of their fans from cramming into Southtown’s Casa Hernán on Monday evening to sip custom Castro cocktails, listen to mariachis with the twins and their families and speculate on what the future might still hold.
“I would love to someday have a President Castro,” said Rachael Duke, an art gallery manager for Dock Space Gallery who started following their careers years ago when she was still living in Seattle. She turned out to the party wearing 5-0 earrings.
“They’re pretty young, they have a long way to go and they have a lot of opportunities still,” said Juan Carlos Hernandez, a foreign correspondent who covered their political aspirations years ago, and still believes one of them could be the United States’ first Hispanic president.
Julián Castro, a former San Antonio mayor and U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary, ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020.
Though he made headlines this summer calling for President Joe Biden to drop his reelection bid, he’s overall adopted a less partisan role these days, as the CEO of the Latino Community Foundation and a commentator with MSNBC, which limits some of his political activity.
U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, meanwhile, who has represented Texas’ 20th Congressional District since 2013, is headed the other direction.
This fall he’s hitting the campaign trail for Vice President Kamala Harris and assisting the Democratic presidential ticket with its Latino outreach. He was campaigning recently in Tucson, Arizona, and will head to Las Vegas for another event in the coming weeks.
“I’m enjoying representing my hometown in Congress,” he said in an interview at the party. “I’m looking ahead to the future, but concentrating right now on helping Kamala Harris win the election and [Democrat] Colin Allred win in the [U.S.] Senate.”
“We’ve been working for years to turn this state towards Democrats, and I think we’re getting closer and closer,” he added.
Both brothers’ personal lives have changed a lot in recent years, as was on display at Monday’s party.
Julián, who got divorced in 2022, introduced his new girlfriend, journalist Silvia Foster-Frau, as “the love of my life.”
Through his work with the Latino Community Foundation, he said these days he spends roughly 40% of his time traveling, primarily to California, where the group is focused on increasing Latino political activity.
The remainder of his time is in San Antonio, where he has shared custody of his children, now 15 and 9.
“In a great way, they anchor me here in our hometown,” he said.
Joaquin Castro, meanwhile, underwent surgery to remove cancerous gastrointestinal tumors in 2023.
In a vignette that could have dubbed as a stump speech for statewide office, he explained to the crowd how the experience had renewed his interest in fighting for more Texans to receive quality health insurance.
He continues to receive monthly treatments, but he’s in good health and running unopposed for a seventh congressional term in November.
“I hope he keeps going and going to even higher things in the future,” Julián Castro said of his twin brother.
Last year the two men also had the unique experience of seeing their mom, a longtime civil rights leader and political activist, finally hold her own public office.
The San Antonio City Council appointed Rosie Castro to a temporary vacancy representing District 7 for three months in 2023, and Monday night was as much a celebration of her own political legacy as theirs.
Maria Berriozabal, who became the first Latina to serve on City Council in 1981, kicked off the speeches recalling how Rosie would bring Julián and Joaquin to work on her mayoral campaign when they were 7 years old.
“Perhaps there was a time when they would get bored and say, ‘Otro vez,’ but they were learning,” Berriozabal said. “And I know that they had in mind that they were going to run for political office.”
Rosie Castro, age 77, still has high expectations for both sons.
“I’m hopeful that they will continue to be blessed with opportunities, that they will continue to provide opportunities for others, and they will continue to serve the community, and the state and the national level as well,” she said in an interview Monday night.
But she’s also ready to start training up the next generation, as was evident when she put the microphone in her grandchildren’s hands.
Joaquin’s daughter Andrea, 10, rose to the challenge, announcing that she intended to go to law school and someday have the same job as her dad.
