Maria Antonietta Berriozabal

3.5***

Maria details how her grandparents and parents came from Mexico to the United States, and worked as sharecroppers on neighboring ranches in central Texas. Ultimately her parents settled in San Antonio, where her father worked as a laborer and her mother “made do” with the little they had, raising six children in a small house on the impoverished West Side of that city. Maria was the second child, but her older brother was frail due to asthma, so Maria decided on her own at a young age that it was up to her to help her family. Despite encouragement to go to college, she went to work right out of high school, contributing most of her salary to the family so that her younger siblings could finish their educations. Eventually she married, finished her own college degree, and then successfully ran for a seat on the City Council – the first Hispanic woman to be elected to that post in San Antonio’s history.

I really enjoyed and was captivated by Maria’s personal journey as she outlines it in the book. But a little more than half-way through the book, it seemed to become more of a history of the politics of the city than Maria’s autobiography. I still found this interesting, because I’m from San Antonio, but I think it detracted from the central story of her own life.

In the interest of full disclosure I must say that Maria is a close friend of my family’s, and that four pages of this book are devoted to my mother and her role as Maria mentor. So this was an emotional read for me, and I put it off for a few years because it was released so close to my mother’s death, that I just couldn’t bring myself to read it earlier.

I’m glad I got to know more about Maria. She’s a remarkable woman, and many young women today will benefit – whether they know it or not – by the path she blazed.… (mehr)