Henry Gonzalez spent almost 40 years serving his state and his country. He was the first Hispanic to serve in the Texas State Senate and the first Mexican-American elected from Texas to serve in Congress. He was born on May 3, 1916 in San Antonio, Texas, where his father Leonides Gonzalez Cigarroa, a politician and newspaper editor had fled the havoc of the Mexican Revolution of 1911. Henry B. Gonzalez attended Thomas Jefferson High School in San Antonio, and graduated in 1935. Thereafter he attended San Antonio Junior College, from which he received an associate's degree in 1937. For the next two years he attended the University of Texas at Austin where he studied engineering and law. Later, Gonzalez returned to San Antonio, where he enrolled in the St. Mary's University School of Law. In the 1930s, Gonzalez developed his combative style while boxing in illegal matches to pay his college tuition, eventually becoming a Golden Gloves champ--a skill he almost used in a Capitol Hill cloakroom on a G.O.P. colleague who called him a "pinko." Gonzalez married Bertha Cuellar in 1940; together they had eight children. In 1943 Gonzalez received his LL. B. degree.
             During World War II Gonzalez served as a civilian cable censor for military intelligence. He also worked as an assistant juvenile probation officer for Bexar County from 1943 to 1946. He became chief probation officer, but soon resigned because of the incompetence and racism of his superiors. Thereafter Gonzalez worked for a language translation service and served briefly as deputy director of the Bexar County Housing Authority.
             Gonzalez was elected to the San Antonio City Council, serving part of his term as mayor pro tempore. In 1956 he won a seat in the Texas senate. As a senator Gonzalez earned a reputation as a liberal opposed to racial discrimination and the regressive state sales tax.
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