Raúl Héctor Castro

Raúl Castro was born in Cananea, Sonora, Mexico on June 12, 1916.[2] Castro was one of fourteen children born to his father Francisco Dominguez Castro, a deep sea diver in San Jose del Cabo, Baja California and later a miner in Cananea, and mother Rosario Acosta, who had a third grade education but taught her husband to read and write.[2] Castro's father was involved in a mine workers strike in Cananea and was sent to prison, but was later released as a political refugee to the United States in 1926, with the entire family relocating to Pirtleville, Arizona, near Douglas, on the Arizona-Mexican border and becoming U.S. citizens.[2] Castro's father would regularly read to him from Mexican newspapers in order for his son to be informed on current events, which Castro credited as his first exposure to politics.[2] During his early teenage years, Castro's father died, and his mother became a midwife in order to support her children.[2] At the time that Castro attended elementary school, schools were segregated in Douglas, and he attended the Fifteenth Street School, which was only for Mexican students.[2] Despite this, Spanish was not allowed and Castro was forced to learn English in order to avoid punishment from school teachers.[3] In high school, Castro played football as the team's quarterback, and also competed in track and field. At the time of his high school graduation, embarrassed that he did not have a middle name, Castro adopted the middle name Héctor, as it was the name of a basketball player at the school that he admired.[3] Upon his graduation, Castro was discouraged from attending college by his high school principal, saying that it would be a waste of time and money because no one would hire a Mexican graduate on the border.[3]

Despite being dissuaded from attending college, Castro earned a football scholarship and attended Arizona State Teachers College in Flagstaff, which is now known as Northern Arizona University.[4] At the time he attended, the school had approximately 475 students.[4] One of the conditions of the scholarship included the requirement of washing dishes three times a week, and Castro worked his way up to become an assistant cook.[4] He also took up boxing, and additionally taught a local sixth grade class in Flagstaff.[4] Castro became a naturalized United States citizen at the age of 23, and returned to Douglas in order to pursue a career in teaching.[4] He was turned down for employment due to being a Mexican immigrant, and was discouraged enough to hop onto a freight train and pursue boxing professionally, earning fifty dollars per fight.[4] Later, he decided to once again return to Douglas and work for the U.S. Department of State as a foreign service clerk in Agua Prieta, a border city in his native Sonora.[4] He was convinced by a friend to quit his job with the State Department and instead pursue a career as a lawyer, and decided to attend the University of Arizona College of Law.[4] In order to pay his way through law school, Castro became a Spanish professor at the University of Arizona due to a sudden opening, but this caused complications with his admittance to law school as the dean felt he would not be able to dedicate himself to his studies while also maintaining a job as an educator.[5] Castro had developed a relationship with the university's president, who contacted the dean of the law school and subsequently convinced the dean to admit Castro.[5] Castro earned his Juris Doctor degree and was admitted to the Arizona Bar in 1949.[5] In 1959, he married his long-time girlfriend, Patricia Steiner, and they had two daughters.[6]

Castro as a law student.

After earning his law degree from the University of Arizona, Castro practiced law for two years in Tucson and subsequently served as a deputy county attorney for Pima County, Arizona.[7] At the time, Mo Udall was the county attorney, and upon his retirement gathered all of the deputy county attorneys to inform them that he had handpicked his successor, Ed Larkin.[7] Castro walked out of the meeting, angered by the dictatorial way that Udall had selected his successor despite county attorney being an elected position, and in 1954, Castro decided to run for the position himself.[7] Castro won the election by 65 votes, becoming the first Mexican American to hold such a position in the state. He served in that capacity until 1958 when he became a Pima County Superior Court Judge.[7]

Castro earned a growing reputation during his time as a Superior Court Judge, and received a call from Roy Elson, an aide to U.S. Senator Carl Hayden who offered Castro a position as a United States Attorney.[7] Castro was not satisfied with his offer, as he felt he would be going backwards from being a Superior Court Judge, and rejected Elson while also stating that he wanted to be a U.S. Ambassador instead. Elson informed Senator Hayden of Castro's desire to be a U.S. Ambassador, and Hayden approached President Lyndon B. Johnson about the possibility of appointing Castro. At first, Johnson was opposed to appointing Castro due to the association of the surname Castro with that of Cuban President Fidel Castro, as well as Fidel's brother, Raúl Castro.[7] Not wanting to potentially upset voters in the wake of the 1964 presidential election, Johnson requested that Castro change his last name, but he refused.[7] Johnson relented, and selected Castro to be United States Ambassador to El Salvador in 1964. During his time as Ambassador to El Salvador, he was presented with the country's highest honor, the Order of José Matías Delgado.[7] After four years as U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, he was then appointed as United States Ambassador to Bolivia, and became known as the "Ambassador on Horseback," as Castro would ride into the countryside on horseback and greet the Bolivian citizens.[7] While U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia, Castro's home was bombed twice by terrorists.[7] He served in the position until the following year when Richard Nixon was elected president, and Castro was subsequently removed from office.[7]

In 2007, Castro's alma mater, Northern Arizona University, named the home of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences in his honor. As a student, he competed in track and boxing for the school; he was inducted into the Northern Arizona University Athletics Hall of Fame in 1988 and into the College of Social and Behavioral Science Hall of Fame in 2011.

On June 12, 2012, on his birthday, Castro was detained by agents of the United States Border Patrol for a half hour while being driven as a passenger in a car to a birthday celebration from his home in Nogales, Arizona to the Mountain Oyster Club in Tucson, Arizona.[11][12][13] The then 96-year-old Castro was not allowed to wait in his vehicle and was instead forced to wait outside the car in the near 100-degree heat and without water.[11][12][14] The traffic stop was apparently triggered when the agents detected a small amount of radiation coming from the car, radiation which was apparently caused by a medical procedure performed on Castro the previous day at Tucson Heart Hospital.[12]

On April 10, 2015, Castro died in his sleep while under hospice care in San Diego, aged 98.[15]

• List of governors of Arizona
• List of Hispanic and Latino American jurists
• List of minority governors and lieutenant governors in the United States
• List of U.S. state governors born outside the United States

• Berman, David R. (1998). Arizona Politics & Government: The Quest for Autonomy, Democracy, and Development. Arizona: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-6146-4.
• Johnson, James W. (2002). Arizona Politicians: The Noble and the Notorious. Arizona: The University of Arizona Press. ISBN 0-8165-2202-2.
• Goff, John S. (1983). Arizona Biographical Dictionary. Cave Creek, Ariz.: Black Mountain Press. OCLC 10740532.
• Interview with R.H. Castro for the newspaper Clarín of Buenos Aires, Argentina, 20 December 1998 concerning the Beagle conflict: Clarín.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Raul Hector Castro.

• The Raul Castro Collection at the University of Arizona UAiR Collection
• Appearances on C-SPAN