Antonio Gonzalez Audio Transcript

He had, in Latino politics, a lot of stature, a lot of standing. But Willie the person was this tremendously open, and funny, and inquisitive, and thoughtful individual who loved the dialogue, about ideas and ideologies. He was a thinking person.

Willie really projected Southwest Voter, and it resonated across the country, in some ways because Latino politics were much smaller. I mean, people can think about Latino politics, if you were in the outside world, you thought—Willie Velásquez, Henry Cisneros, and a few more, and that was Latino politics. Today, you know, we have thousands and thousands of elected officials, and [we’re] approaching 10 million voters, and our, Latino organizations are, we’re probably three to four times as big as we were back then.

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