The Yankee Castro; cancer in Gilbert
It's hard to believe in the Arizona of Peyton Thomas, Joe Arpaio and "sweeps" — interesting how those trailed off after the sheriff was re-elected — but once upon a time the state elected a Hispanic governor. Raul Castro won office in 1974, a milestone not only for Arizona but for the child of immigrants who grew up in hardscrabble Nogales. His new autobiography, Adversity is My Angel, was written with Dr. Jack August Jr., who has established himself as the dean of modern Arizona historiography.
It was a different state, a small town in many ways. Castro was the first Democrat my mother voted for — as an old Arizonan, she trusted "Judge Castro"… "even though he's from Pinal County." (That he was Hispanic didn't matter). He also benefited from the early-1970s exhaustion with longtime Gov. Jack Williams and sectarian tensions in the state GOP that led to the bloodbath between John Conlan and Sam Steiger. Castro never had an executive temperment, and left the governor's office to become an ambassador. But Arizona has rarely had transformative governors — the Progressive-era constitution vested most power in the Legislature and the uncovered-by-the-media Corporation Commission. Castro's is a life worth study, reflection and celebration.
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