-: And the mayor goes, "What? No problem.
We can do this. We can find a way."
So I had my father-in-law and my cousin
on the county commissioners.
And they did the same thing.
Pretty soon, what happens?
We have a Costway.
A gorgeous Costway was built,
because we were willing to take the chance
and not be afraid of that.
And then they'd come to us and they'd say,
"Hey, the dam is moving."
The what?
"The dam."
The dam is moving, our big dam.
Yeah, it's moving. We gotta fix it.
Well, let's fix it.
And every time I sit there, everybody goes,
"(Arnold mumbling), what we gonna do?"
It's not gonna (indistinct chatter).
So we spend tons and millions of dollars securing the dam.
James: Yeah.
-: So that it wouldn't move on us.
James: Well, why was there any debate whatsoever?
If you don't fix the dam-
-: Well, that's right. -: massacre of the (indistinct)
-: That's right.
But it's because, because these people,
a lot of people are just waiting to see
where they can make some money.
How it's gonna benefit them,
instead of how it's gonna benefit the community.
And so then, I think at that time,
the city manager was having trouble,
was either assistant or temporary.
He was having trouble with some of the members
and they were giving him trouble.
And he was a little upset.
So he said something that just rang my,
I said, "What?"
He said, "Well, you know the sea wall is falling apart."
I said, in public he said it. Do you know?
I said, "What did you say?"
"The sea wall."
"What's wrong with the sea wall?"
"It's falling apart."
"How bad?"
"Bad."
So we started looking at the sea wall.
Sure enough, cost us $20 million to fix it.
It's the anchor.
The wall falls, the whole downtown
goes with the thing, you know.
(Arnold chuckling)
He got fired, but we fixed the sea wall.
He got fired because they were angry with him.
We fixed the sea wall, what happens if,
nobody knows about the sea wall but the sea wall's got pumps
that pumps the water out from downtown.
And it's got a pump from the port that goes on,
it's an anchor to the port, it anchors the port like this,
to hold the sea wall like this.
I mean, it's just amazing.
And, we look under the sea wall, it was rotten.
It was corroded, and it was just falling apart.
A big, another storm would've knocked a big hole
just like the dams that happened.
Just like, okay, just like New Orleans.
Remember the dam gateway?
James: Yeah.
-: And the whole thing fell apart?
Same thing could have happened here, and we fixed it.
We fixed it.
That's, in just four years that I was there,
we did all those things.
We did all those things because we,
I didn't care if I'm getting elected again,
I was there already.
I already had my fill of doing those things,
but I wanted to do what I could,
and we had some good people with us,
that wanted to do things, you know,
young people that wanted to do things.
So we did some good things there.
Those big projects, and then I ran for it,
realizing I got beat.
I got beat by the people of the island.
(everybody laughing)
Yeah. Yeah. So,
James: It's kind of looking (crosstalk).
-: Well, it's, yeah.
It was the South Side,
Anglo community versus the Mexican-American community.
Who do you think I was?
The Republicans were very strong.
At that time, they were strong, were getting stronger.
They remember what I did as a state rep.
So I got hit hard.
I mean, I got beat at large
by another Mexican-American who was a Republican.
So they picked her, but,
we did some good, we did some,
we did some very exciting things for the community
when I was in the council.
You talking about civil rights.
When I was in the council, because we had the votes,
we finally started hiring Mexican-Americans
to come before the council, speaking for things.
Other companies started hiring Mexican-Americans,
representatives, banks, things like that.
They had to approach the council.
So you started seeing a movement there
of hiring Mexicans- Americans that they were faced with,
instead of just fixing the tanks or cleaning the tanks,
now they were inside the corporate boards
and working with that kind of thing, you know?
So that, that helped.
And so, we did some good things.
There was a good relationship
with the Women's Political Caucus.
There was a good group there.
The women's caucus, Women's Political Caucus,
very strong here.
I mean, strong.
James: Who was sort of the ringleader?
-: Well, there's a lot of 'em. There was a lot of them,
James: Anybody stand out?
-: Golly, don't ask me that.
But there were, I tell you,
there were some professors at Delmar College
that served with me on the grand jury
and they were tougher than I was, but they were women
and they were not allowed to (indistinct).
So they would look at me to take the lead,
and they were smart, man.
I mean, they were a lot smarter than I was in what to do.
And they would say, "We gotta go that," "We gotta do this,"
"We gotta do that", and so I said, let's do it.
And we did some good things in the grand jury
because in the grand jury scene,
you got to be very careful
because the boys just bring the cases
that the boys wanted to bring before the grand jury
and limited.
So you had to say,
most of my friends, my lawyer friends,
" When you're there, be sure and ask the district attorney,"
or whoever's in charge, the district attorney,
"are these all the cases that are coming up?"
because he only brings the ones he wants, see?
And everybody else gets a break.
So that's the first thing I did.
"Pardon me? Are these all the cases?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, are these, all the cases?"
"Well, no."
"I want all the cases before us," see?
so you learn from your friends.
If they know that you're gonna do the right,
if you're not gonna sell out,
if they're not gonna buy you out,
they'll give you information that you need to do your job.
And that's one of the problems that we face today,
and we face throughout the political process.
We always had somebody,
they're always looking for the weak link in the team
and they find them.
Unless they come right now,
the Republican party is very much in charge
on racist county and all the way down to the valley.
In Kingsville, the state rep who was a Democrat,
changed to a Republican.
And I don't know what we have in the valley
because I haven't kept up.
But, we have a Republican Congressman,
who is not the smartest guy in the world.
(all laughing)
And we had a democratic congregant who wasn't smart at all,
it's Al Mortiz, who didn't do a thing for this area.
But they divided us.
We had a very good senator, Carlos Turan,
was a very good senator here.
It was Carlos Truan, myself, and Hugo Berlanga,
have you talked to Hugo Berlanga yet?
-: We have not. -: If you have contact,
we'll go, take it,
we'd really like to interview him, because-
-: You gonna go talk to him?
James: Oh, for sure, yeah.
-: Yeah. Yeah.
He's my wife's cousin. -: Really?
-: Yeah.
His father and my father-in-law are brothers.
We were elected at the same time.
James: So you're a very political family?
-: Well, the thing was, is that Hugo was much,
about 10 years younger than I am.
And when I was growing, when I was an artist
and all those things and he was a rookie,
so he would come and I'd do favors for him.
I'd drive him here, I'd drive him there.
But when he got there, when he got to Austin,
and he hung around mostly when he was younger,
mostly Anglo-Americans,
and where I hung out mostly with Mexican-Americans.
And so when he got to Austin and when we got elected,
the boys kept looking to see where is Carlos Truan
where's Arnold Gonzales, where's Sheila Sheila,
and they, who do we,
how do we split up the triad?
It's a powerful triad, man.
You got the Senator and two state reps.
And then they had Harrison represented the white,
the South Side, but he was a nice guy.
He was a nice guy.
He was a, he was a nice guy.
Harrison, Bill Harrison was a nice guy.
He died.
He was a lawyer, nice guy.
But they wanted to see, how can we, who do we,
who do we try and get into our corner?
And they pick Hugo Berlanga,
and he has always been kind of the,
the one the Republicans go to,
he supports a lot of Republicans,
and the Speaker of the House made him Speaker Pro Tem.
So he was able to do a lot of,
hold back the movement of the Mexican-American.
And like I say, he chose his role,
but they used him for the divide.
He's very close to Tony Canales and the family,
'cause they went to school together.
And a matter of fact, he's a lobbyist for Tony Canales,
I think it is.
But, and Canales is very close friend of mine
but that's how they broke us up.
That's how they broke the power up.
Once he was a Pro Tem for Gib Lewis,
who was very conservative, that was the end of that.
That was, I decided to quit the House.
But now you have the guy in case
who became a Republican, you've got,
and we only had one Hispanic in the House now from here,
which is Abel Alonso, and we have Todd Hunter.
James: So the area became, from solid Democrat
now to almost solid Republican?
-: Well, you might as well say solid Republican,
James: Right. Solid red. -: Yeah, because,
James: Is it that the Republican Party
became more liberal, or just became smarter about-
-: Liberal they did not become.
James: Or was the Democratic Party never that liberal?
-: The Democratic Party, well, let me tell you,
let tell you, you just look at your lineup.
Let's say you look at your lineup, basketball.
At center, Dr. Hector Garcia,
and right guard, Dr. Cleo Garcia,
and left guard, Carlos Turan.
You got Arnold Gonzales, liberals.
Paul Montemayor, Labor leader.
On the other side, nobody shows up to play,
(everybody chuckling)
you see, they don't have a team.
So they had to split this up.
How do we split these guys up?
How do we take 'em apart?
Well, Dr. Hector died, Dr. Cleo died,
Ismael Hill died, Carlos Turan died.
But before that,
before that they started a divide and conquer.
Just like they do in everything.
Just like they did with the Indians.
Just like the Americans did with the British,
the British did with the French, the whole Indian-
James: What sort of (indistinct) issues did they use?
-: Hey, listen.
You're our friend.
We like you.
We like you. We can work together.
Are you a banker? Yeah.
We'd sure like to have you at the bank.
And what does your wife do?
We'd like to have her over here.
Listen, you're like one of us.
Then you get to the House,
and you start not only here in Corpus, throughout the state,
then you get to the House and you go to a reception,
and there's you, you know,
You go to Club Acapulco, you see the boys,
they're hanging around the golf courses.
They're playing ball with the boys.
Then you bring them in, you say,
"Hey, listen, you're voting wrong, man.
You gotta vote with us.
You gotta work with the poor, with the workers
with the physically impaired, we need your vote."
So he tightens his pants or she tightens her pants
and say, "Okay, I'll vote for you."
And she's about to vote and they,
"Hey, yeah, we need your vote."
This is Joe, Joe, Joe at the bank.
"We need your vote."
"Yeah, but-"
"Hey, your wife like her car?"
You know that condo we have in Acapulco,
well, you wanna go there this year?"
"Your kids going to college?"
Yeah. They went, "Is he gonna stay in college?"
You start thinking, wait a minute.
You can't afford to go back.
You can't afford to give up what you've already,
and that's where they get you.
It's just a matter of what you're in there for.
You see this guy right there?
You know who that is, right?
That's Emiliano Zapata.
That's my hero.
This guy here never fought for money or for glory.
He fought for the people, for the land.
And he died fighting for the land at a very young age.
He's my hero.
He's always been my hero.
My son named his son Emiliano,
because he knew that this guy is my hero.
As a matter of fact, I told my wife,
I wanna paint this painting.
if it's the last painting I paint.
I wanna make sure,
because I've got all the paintings of Emiliano Zapata,
but this is the first time that I capture him
when he's being shot at the hacienda in the back,
he's going, "Oh," he's getting shot.
You can see the fear of the horse on his face, right? Right?
This is when he was shot.
I said, I wanna do that.
So I'm telling this to this friend of mine who's an artist,
well, it's a friend of mine, buys my artwork.
She says, "Be sure and don't let anybody else know
that that was the last painting you wanted to do."
(Arnold laughing)
"Because we don't want it to be your last painting.
We want you to continue painting."
I said, "That's a good idea.
I won't say that to anybody", but I already did, right?
(everybody laughing)
But this one here just came out of,
was selected as a finalist
at the Hunting Art prize show in Houston.
The biggest prize, the biggest show in Texas,
it's held in Houston.
And this is the second painting that got accepted there
in the last four years, and Emiliano,
and it just because of the the way I feel.
I really believe that,
that if you have the opportunity
to do something good, it's worth the hit.
It's worth going to the wall for it.
You can't go to the wall on everything
because you won't be able to get out,
but if there's something,
like the Children of Texas, the physically impaired,
the state schools, I fought to get everybody fired.
And I got everybody fired from the top to the bottom
for the corruption, the way they treated the children,
here at the state school,
and throughout the state of Texas, we fought hard.
You've got to do it.
I have a PhD from one of the greatest universities,
Michigan University, go blue.
I could have gone anywhere in the United States
and gotten a great job.
I could have,
I think my brother's the one that reminds me all the time.
My brother, former Marine Corps, worked for the City,
says, "Brother, how come you don't have a ranch?
Everybody has a ranch.
Why couldn't you just have a little ranch
where we could put them chickens on,
at least to have a ranch?"
Because a lot of people that retire from the legislature,
either become lobbyists and make tons of money
and do a good job.