To get to the White House: Tell us a story, Mr. Castro

We got a preview of that part of the story -- for the Netflix generation, consider it a "trailer" -- during Castro's official announcement on the West Side of San Antonio, where he and his brother grew up.

This is the place that sculpted and shaped Julian Castro. Before Stanford University and Harvard Law School, and getting elected mayor of the nation's seventh largest city and being vetted as a possible running mate for Hillary Clinton, and being chosen by Barack Obama to give the keynote speech at the 2012 Democratic convention and later join the Cabinet, and writing his memoir for a major publishing house -- before all the accomplishments and accolades, it was the West Side that formed how Castro sees the world and his place in it.

If you don't understand it -- or neighborhoods like it, all across America -- you'll never understand him.

It was here -- in this hardscrabble neighborhood, built by immigrants, where the only way out is your dreams and the hard work that makes them real -- that the twins were raised by a single mother with grit. Just as their mother had been raised by her mother, a Mexican immigrant who worked as a housekeeper, cook and babysitter.

Rosie Castro is the Rose Kennedy of San Antonio, except that she raised her prodigies on a budget.

I once asked Joaquin Castro why neither he nor his brother had swagger. He said it came from their humble upbringing on the West Side where, as teenagers, with no money for a family car, they rode the bus -- in fact, on the same bus route that the two rode the morning of Julian's special announcement.

At 23, Rosie Castro ran unsuccessfully for city council in 1971 as part of a slate of candidates calling itself the Committee for Barrio Betterment put forth by the Raza Unida Party. She would go on to a career in higher education at a local community college.

Oh, and it turned out, she was pretty good at raising children.

As Julian recalled in his speech, after she lost her election, Rosie told a reporter: "They'd be back."

"Well, Mom," the candidate said in front of a cheering crowd. "I think we're back."

You had better believe it -- and to the delight of those of us who love a great story.

========

Ruben Navarrette's email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com. His daily podcast, "Navarrette Nation," is available through every podcast app.