SAN ANTONIO – Tucked between Highway 90 and Castroville Road, Westwood Square is a local whose history has been one of battle and determination.
“We’ve had to fight for everything. But it’s how you fight. You know, you fight with knowledge. You fight with facts,” mentioned Manuel Garza, a group organizer who nonetheless lives there in the home the place he grew up.
A former faculty board member within the Edgewood Independent School District, Garza took phase within the 1968 pupil walk-out at Edgewood High School. He is now a senior adviser with the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project.
Much like the scholars then, Garza mentioned the group believed they too deserved higher — they’d tolerated a substandard training and faculty development lengthy sufficient.
Until town of San Antonio started slowly annexing the realm within the Forties and 50s, longtime citizens like Garza mentioned many portions of the West Side had no water or sewer strains, a lot much less side road lights, paved streets, drainage and first rate inexpensive housing.
Finally, he mentioned, the group determined to arrange within the mid-Eighties.
“Let’s get this thing done. And so we did,” Garza mentioned.
By then, a brand new coalition of neighborhoods, church buildings and others shaped Communities Organized for Public Service, or COPS, in 1974.
COPS was once one of their most powerful allies.
“That was the perfect storm that planted the seed that allowed COPS to flourish,” mentioned Father Mike DeGerolami, additionally a pacesetter for COPS/Metro Alliance.
With the strengthen of State Sen. Jose Menendez, a then-city councilman who represented District 6, Garza mentioned wanted projects and improvements best proceeded after the group demanded {that a} piece of town price range be spent at the West Side.
Jesusita Rios, the historian for the Westwood Square Neighborhood Association, mentioned the more youthful group will have to know about the ones hardships.
“Young people need to know that history, and the things that we’ve had to go through to get to where we are today,” Rios mentioned.
Younger citizens almost certainly don’t know what she realized rising up from the elders in the community, she mentioned.
Rios mentioned she heard tales in regards to the indignities suffered by way of the ones fleeing the Mexican Revolution.
“They were the greatest people…who had history, who struggled but survived and fought,” she mentioned. “That’s why we’re vocal.”
They’re now not afraid to talk up at group conferences or sooner than City Council.
“That’s why we’ve lasted so long,” Rios mentioned.
At least now, she mentioned Westwood Square has what different portions of the city take as a right like a hearth station, trash assortment and bus carrier.
The Westside Education and Training Center, established by way of Alamo Colleges, is its first school campus.
Yet there’s nonetheless now not sufficient inexpensive housing, Rios mentioned.
Along with nicer houses, Rios mentioned some households nonetheless are living in what have been makeshift housing constructed with no matter scrap subject matter they may to find.
Like Garza, Rios has lived in the similar area her folks did.
After chucking up the sponge of highschool and later getting her GED and a grasp’s stage, Rios taught in Edgewood faculties. She ultimately changed into the district’s director of bilingual training sooner than retiring.
Both Garza and Rios are amongst their neighbors with deep roots in the community.
They mentioned dwelling and dealing right here their whole lives has taught them necessary classes.
Rios mentioned, “Even though you live in the poorest of neighborhoods, you can still do something.”
For Garza, the lesson has been, “You can succeed. Don’t let anybody tell you, you can’t.”
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