Gina Hinojosa’s Mexican roots: A family of lawyers and a past in the Huasteca Potosina

Texas has turned blue and has, for the first time in its history, elected a Hispanic woman of Mexican descent as governor of a state long considered a Republican stronghold. During the midterms held Tuesday, November 3, Democrat Gina Hinojosa unseated Greg Abbott (52.8% of the vote to 45.7%, with 99% counted), who had served in the office for more than 10 years.Hinojosa is the daughter of Gilberto Hinojosa and Crisanta Guerra Lozano; he is a prominent Democratic politician in the state; she is an attorney specializing in medical malpractice, insurance defense, and litigation related to pharmaceuticals and medical devices, among other areas, according to her profile at Martindale-Hubbell, a legal information services company.Crisanta Guerra Lozano was born in San Luis Potosí, located in north-central Mexico. It is bordered by Nuevo León and Tamaulipas to the north; Zacatecas to the west; Guanajuato, Querétaro, and Hidalgo to the south; and Veracruz to the east. The state of San Luis Potosí was an important center for precious metal production during the colonial era. Lozano, 72, studied law at George Washington University. As she is not a public figure, little is known about the lawyer.By contrast, Gilberto Hinojosa, 74, was born in Alamo, Texas; he is a second-generation Mexican American. He has served as chair of the state Democratic Party since 2012; he graduated from Pan American University (now the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley) and holds a juris doctor from Georgetown University Law Center. “He is the first in his family to graduate from college,” reads his profile on the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas website. He worked for the Legal Action Program for Migrants in Washington, D.C.; directed the Migrant Division of Rural Legal Services in Colorado; served as an attorney for Texas Rural Legal Aid in Brownsville; and was a judge in Cameron County, Texas, from 1995 to 2006.Despite his high profile, Hinojosa has faced harassment because of his Mexican roots. In 2000, the lawyer told The New York Times that an officer followed for 10 miles while he was driving with his wife and one of his daughters; he also said he was not allowed to board a plane to Houston until he stated his nationality.Twenty-six years have passed since those statements, and the state governed by the Republican Party has been hit by a blue wave. Gina Hinojosa, one of his daughters, has been elected to lead the southern territory. She was born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley. She graduated as an attorney and says she entered politics by accident, after fighting the closure of her son’s school when the state threatened to cut its funding. She won that fight and in 2015 became president of the Austin school district parent-teacher board. A year later she was elected state representative, a position she has held until now. That “accident” has gone down in history.Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition