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Growing up in Texas, Jose Borjon's mom raised him to love his community and help the people around him. He never would have guessed that his passion for serving others would take him all the way from the Rio Grande Valley to Washington, D.C.

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Host: May Ortega Lead producer: Luis Antonio Perez Editors: Erin Jones, Andrew Villegas Mixing: Luis Antonio Perez Additional producers: Rebekah Romberg, Jo Erickson, Ana Campbell Theme music by Pedro Lumbrano; additional music courtesy Universal Production Music Cover art: Mia Rincón Executive producers: Brad Turner, Kevin Dale Thanks also to Hart van Denburg, Jodi Gersh, Clara Shelton, Matt Herz, Kim Nguyen, Brittany Werges, Arielle Wilson and CPR's Latino Audience Working Group.

<a href="http://quienarewe.org/">QuienAreWe.org</a>

Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/MayVOrtega">@MayVOrtega</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/copublicradio">@COPublicRadio</a>

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May Ortega: Starting a new job usually means you have some learning to do about the way things are done, what not to do. Well, Jose had a lot to learn when he started work as a congressional aid at 23 years old.

Jose Borjon: I went in to see the congressman and I said, “Sir, the press release is almost ready. I need a quote from you.” And he said, “What do you mean you need a quote from me?” I said, “Well, yeah, you need to tell me why you are happy or excited or whatever to announce this grant.”

Jose: And he said, “That's why I pay you.” And I was taken aback. I said, “What?” I said, “All these years here I am getting quotes from politicians, and in reality, it's someone else writing the quote?” [Laughter] And he says, “Oh no.” He said, “No, you write it. I approve it. It's still coming from me.” I said, “Wow.”

May: That was the first of many surprises Jose saw when working in Washington. But to get to that day and the years of success afterward, Jose had to start like many of us do, like I did: a place called home. Specifically for Jose in town meetings in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, watching his mom ferociously serve her community.

From Colorado Public Radio, this is “¿Quién Are We?” exploring what it means to be Latina, Cuban American, Tejano or however you identify and diving into the beautiful things that make us who we are. I'm May Ortega.

Brownsville, Texas is across the Rio Grande River from Matamoros, Mexico. Brownsville is part of the Rio Grande Valley, where I spent the first 22 years of my life – born and raised. Brownsville and Matamoros are so close to each other people literally walk across the international bridge for work, school, or just to spend an afternoon – like my family and I used to do all the time. Jose Borjon is proud to be part of the mix of flavors and traditions in the valley.

Jose: I'm a first generation proud Mexican American, born in Texas. I was about six or five when I moved to the valley. And then I made a whole life in the valley. I went to elementary school there, middle school, high school, college. I worked there and, you know, I go back there all the time now. I split my time between Washington, DC, Houston, Texas, and the Rio Grande Valley.

May: Jose was the second child in his family. He would've had an older sibling, but his parents' first child died from illness soon after birth. His parents kept their heads up and had Jose. Then one year later, his little brother, Juan came into this world. Jose started life in Houston, then moved 300 miles south to Brownsville to be closer to family. Jose has vivid memories about arriving in the valley. One image in particular still reminds him of home.

Jose: The palm trees. When I drove from Houston to Brownsville. And every time still today, you know you're in the valley, you're getting to the valley, when you see those palm trees in Raymondville. And it just brings a sense of happiness, a sense of, ah, you know, we – we're here. We're south.

May: Another thing that connects Jose so strongly to the Rio Grande Valley is his mother Paula Borjon.

Jose: My mom was – she was a force, a force of nature when it came to politics and to helping people and to try to better the community. She was always arguing some point either at the school board or the city commission or in the Texas legislature. She was always doing something.

May: And at every meeting, her two little boys would be in the room. And sometimes Jose would listen in.

Jose: We were six, seven, eight years old, nine. After school we'd go to these meetings and we'd like, you know, take our bag and we'd take a little snack and we'd sit in the corner and do homework or color. But I was always intrigued by the meetings because I'd, I'd see that there was always these, these men – usually men – that carried around a briefcase and wore a tie, were always hurried. And I had asked my mom, “Well, who's that person?” And she'd be like, “That's the city manager.” And I'd be like, “Oh, well I'd like to be like him one day ‘cause he seems very busy.” And like people seemed to, you know, come to him needing things. And, and just as interested, I was interested in the reporters that would cover the stories because the next day in the paper, there would usually be a story about the city council meeting and the things that were discussed.

And I, I'd ask my mom, “Can you buy me the paper because I wanna read the story and I want to make sure what happened in the meeting is what's reported in the story.” And believe it or not, there was once or twice that I caught some errors in the stories that were reported. And so I tell my mom, “This is wrong in the story.” My mom would be like, “Stop Jose” …

Jose: …”You're being too much [laughter].” But that activism and me spending those times and hours in, in the evening with my mom and my brother in the city council meetings is really what led me to want to help people.

May: And that also makes me wonder how your mother's community activism inspired you, because that's kind of what you do now, right? You serve communities just differently.

May: So how did your mom's work, you know, influence you?

Jose: Oh, my mom's work influenced me all the time, every day. Still today. My mom was very dedicated. She knew what she wanted. She knew how to get there. And if not, she figured it out. My mom was always thinking way ahead of the curve. She's like, “You know, this is gonna be a problem five years from now.” And I'd be like, “Why?” And she'd be like, “Because of this and this and this and that.”

Jose: And so, you know, it gave me vision and it gave me the understanding that where there's a will, there's a way.

Jose: And my mom's will was always very, very strong. And my mom was always one to help a lot of people. You know, I always, I used to tell my mom that our house was La Casa del Inmigrante because people would just show up, be like, “Hey, I need help with this form. Hey, I wanna become a U.S. citizen. Hey, I wanna register to vote. Hey, I'm having problems with this.”

Jose: And my mom would just welcome people and be like, “I'll help you with that. I'll help you with that. I'll find something.”

May: The other person watching their mom was Jose's brother Juan. They were super close growing up. Not only did they spend nights at city council meetings together with mom, but they were born only a year apart. So as kids, they got to embrace and explore Brownsville and really all aspects of life side by side.

Jose: You know, we grew up on the most southern part of Brownsville, very close to the river. It was a beautiful experience. I remember you could feel the breeze of the water. You could see the river. And one of the things I did all the time was – my brother was a fanatic fishing guy ever since he was a little kid. So we would go fishing in the Rio Grande, and we would make our own fishing lines, and we would use a bottle, like a Coke bottle, you know, those glass bottles. And we would wrap the fishing line around that and we'd put hooks and whatever we found, and we'd go fishing. And we, we – you know, those are fond memories because at that part where the river is in that area, there are a lot of orange groves. So we would see, you know, miles and miles of orange groves.

May: And so, you know, a lot of people come over to the US illegally by crossing through the river. So was there a moment that you remember seeing people crossing to the US that way?

Jose: Oh, yes. And I wanted to help 'em. You know, I remember a couple of times we threw some branches to make sure we could pull 'em out. And then depending on the river, how low or high that the water is, people can sometimes cross the river and the water will reach up to their ankles or maybe their legs above their knee. But sometimes the river's very deep and very, very treacherous. And so what we would do is when we saw those people, we would, you know, either give 'em a branch or try to get the bag with their clothes so that they could get it. And then from there they would enter the country. I wanted to help those people. I didn't really have a concept that defined about how bad of an issue they were getting into, but I knew they were coming here because they wanted to help their family.

May: Helping family and experiencing hardship is something that Jose understood very well. When the Borjon family first got to Brownsville, all four of them moved in with his mom's sister, Tía Maca.

Jose: It was very difficult. We – it was a very small house. It's tiny. It's two bedroom, one bath, a living room, and a kitchen. And we didn't have a room and we had to sleep on the floor. The feelings I had sleeping on the floor, that was a big part of my life [crying]. Big part. And, and I think one thing is that I made, I always saw life and I said, I got to do more than – I have to do what I can to get ahead [crying]. And I never gave up. Right.

May: The Borjon family would eventually move out of Tía Maca’s tiny two bedroom apartment.

Jose: So we lived with her from when I was five, six till I was about 13. Okay. And then went through a lot of hard work. My parents built their own home in the northern side of town, closer to another school, you know?

Jose: A little bit better of a neighborhood, if you would. And we moved. And I was really mad at the first couple of weeks when we moved to that house, because I was so used to eating my tía Maca’s food, her rice, her beans or her picadillo, her enchiladas or whatever it was, or mole, and moving. And then my mom had to cook because really before that, my mom didn't really cook because my mom was always going to school or working…

José: …and my tia Maca did everything for us. She helped us in every way. Yeah. But then my mom had to cook, and I was really mad. I was like, this food does not taste like my, tia’s food. And I was like, I was bothered by it. So it took me a while…

Jose found a way to get used to his mom's cooking. And a few years later, graduated from high school. At this point in his life Jose knew he wanted to go to college, but he didn't know what he wanted to pursue as a career. So he stayed home and attended Texas Southmost College, a local school in Brownsville, the same school his mother attended when he was a kid. As he was figuring things out, Jose reminisced about his time reading the “Brownsville Herald,” checking them for accuracy after attending city council meetings with his mom.

Jose: I noticed then that I had a special ability for this type of minutia and this, you know, very detailed stuff. And so I told myself I would like to pursue a degree in journalism.

May: So Jose joined the school paper, became an editor, and soon he got a job at the Brownsville Herald covering politics. After spending four years there interviewing lawmakers, reading their press releases, Jose got an unexpected call that would change the trajectory of his life and his career. More on that after the break.

After four years at the Brownsville Herald, Jose Barjon got an unexpected call from the office of Solomon Ortiz, a Texas congressman who served in Washington for over 25 years. And he had been one of the state's first Latino elected officials in the 1960s. Congressman Ortiz asked Jose to join his team as their new communications director. For Jose, this was a chance to take the mission of public service that his mother had instilled in him to the next level. Jose jumped at the opportunity, even though he basically had no idea what was to come.

Jose: I had never been a spokesman before. I had never been to Washington before. And so it all really just happened very, very quick. The Congressperson Solomon Ortiz offered me a position. And within 10 days of that offer, I was in Washington, DC. I literally packed two suitcases full of clothes. So on my way to the airport to fly to Washington, my dad stopped at Burlington Coat Factory, and he bought me a coat because having grown up in deep South Texas…

Jose: …I didn't have one. My first meal that night, I went into a 7-11 and I got a slice of pizza and a Coke. And that's what I drank and ate the first, the first night.

May: So what was your first day like, you know, working in Congress?

Jose: So I remember vividly that, that night at 6:30 eastern, the members of Congress had a set of votes. So I was told that I was going to meet with the congressman – who I never met in person. I talked to him on the phone, I knew about him. He was a long political figure in deep South Texas.

And so that evening at 6:30, I met him. And, you know, I was both kind of in awe, like, Oh, wow. I worked for the Solomon Ortiz. Yeah. And he – I remember what he told me, he told me, he said, “You know, this is the major leagues. Are you aware of that?” And he says, he asked me, “Do you know what you got yourself into?”

Jose: And I said, “Sir, I, I mean, I, I don't really know. I know what it means. I know what y'all do, but I don't know the intricacies of it.” And sure enough, during the next 12 years of my life, I would learn what those intricacies were and what that meant. Being in the big leagues.

May: Over the next 12 years, he climbed the ranks all the way up to becoming a chief of staff, the highest position in any congressional office. Josemworked with many elected congress people over the years. He had a hand in advising them on issues about foreign affairs, national financial services, and he worked closely with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Jose had risen beyond his own expectations. He embraced his mother's passion for public service so strongly that it became his passion too. And he carried it all the way to the top of Capitol Hill. All of those nights spent with his mother and his brother at City Hall turned out to be more than just a way to pass time together. It brought meaning into Jose's life. But then in the middle of 2020, Jose got some bad news. It was about his mom.

Jose: I remember her first telling me that she was feeling sick with these bone pains around April or May. And then Mother's Day came around, my dad said that she had been feeling a little sick, but things were okay. This was right when the pandemic had hit. There was a lot of hold on doctors being able to see patients. There was delays. There were – the doctors were trying to figure out how to best continue to practice medicine given that this pandemic was full fledged. Right. And we didn't have anything. We didn't have vaccines, we didn't have testing, we didn't have anything. May: Mm-hm.

When tests became available in the summer of 2020, Jose’s mom tested positive for Covid-19. She had a unique case in that she continued to test positive for months. Jose felt like something else was wrong. So after weeks of making calls and asking around, he finally got a specialist to see her.

Jose: I was able to get her a test at one of the oncologist hematologists in the valley. He said, your mom has what's called Multiple myeloma, which is a type of blood cancer that affects the production of blood in the bones.&nbsp;

By the time they received the diagnosis, the disease had already progressed significantly. And by that point, there wasn't much anyone could do. As her condition got worse, Jose's mom began to slip in and out of consciousness.

Jose: She was not all there anymore, but I told her I loved her and I gave her a kiss and that we would be, you know, in contact.

May: While she was in the hospital. Jose's mom began testing positive again. So Jose and his family weren't allowed to be by her side anymore.

Jose: And I, I pushed a little bit. I tried to see if I could go in there. They weren't really budging. And so I saw her take her last breath through a glass window. She passed away October 27th at about 1:00 PM Central Time.

May: Yeah. I'm so sorry. What was that like for you?

Jose: [Crying] My mom – I am, I never got to tell her how much I appreciated everything she did for me. But if it wasn't for her, I don't know that we would be here. She, she gave birth to us at a very, at a very older age in her life. And she always strived to make things better for us. She always gave up an opportunity for her so that we could have that opportunity. And, you know, and this goes to the food we ate, to the clothes we wore. She gave up buying herself stuff. She gave up doing better for herself so that I could have a chance to make it in life. And I'm, right now, I'm making it and I'm making it because of her.

May: While he was still reeling from the loss of his mother, more bad news. Less than a year later, Jose's brother Juan was hit by a car and died. Losing yet another close relative and in such quick succession was devastating. Juan had long struggled with alcoholism, and Jose believes that played a part in the accident.

Jose: Juan had a lot of problems in life that I wish I could have helped him. And the way I coped as growing up as a kid with those problems is I always said, I'm gonna try my hardest to make it in life. And I don't know that I was able to help my brother in that same way. And unfortunately, you know, life caught up to him and he was killed [tearfully].

May: You've dealt with a lot of heavy losses really recently and in a really short amount of time. And when we lose people, we love, we try to honor them. So how do you, sorry, I'm crying a little bit [tearfully]. So how do you try to honor your mother and your brother in your life and through the work that you do?

Jose: Every day, I think I honor them by keeping them very present, by telling people who they were.

Jose: By sharing that with others and by trying to help in whatever I can. I miss them dearly. As time goes by, it gets better. And this is kind of crazy ‘cause I never really believed it until I've had to live it. But it is true.

Jose: You learn to mourn them differently and you learn to grieve people differently. And they bring, rather than sadness, it brings you happiness. It takes time to get there, but people get there.

May: After the deaths of his mom and his brother, Jose felt even more committed to service, especially in helping and supporting the next generation of Latino leaders.

Jose: I always make time to meet with that future generation because I believe. And I, someone gave me an opportunity a whole long time ago and said, “You can do it and I'm gonna help you do it.” And I tell people, “I'm gonna help you do it too.” And so that's how I like to pay it forward. And there's not a day that doesn't go by that I don't think of my mom and my brother and how much I miss ‘em. But because of them, I have to keep going and I have to keep doing this because we can make a difference.

May: In December, 2021, Jose gave a commencement speech at his and his mother's alma mater, Texas Southmost College, a school that serves the Brownsville community and has a 95% Latino enrollment. His speech was all about Brownsville and about family.

Jose (speaking at commencement): I've always said it. I owe much of what I am to my parents, my mother Paula, and my father, Jose Guadalupe. He is here today and we will celebrate his birthday tomorrow with barbacoa and menudo and memories of Mom and Juan [applause]. Our loved ones are always with us. As you prepare to walk the stage today, take a minute to remember all the people that came before you, and all the people it took for you to get here. Not just this place, but to this place in your life. We don't do it alone.

May: When he's working in Washington, Jose returns every email and every call, especially if it's from young people in the valley. Brownsville is still the same kind of town that he remembers growing up. Nine out of ten residents are Latino. Most of Mexican heritage, a town of people just like him. For Jose, his identity is an important part of who he is, especially as he continues to push to be the change he wants to see, and he wants to inspire others to do the same.

Jose: I have always lived a life of service. And this goes back to my upbringing from my mother and the way she was with people. And it was very similar as to how I am with people. And I never forget where I come from. May: Mm-hm. Jose: Who raised me, how they raised me, and where we are today. And so all of that connects me to my mom. I think the titles and this and that and having been all kinds of different things are great, and there are personal satisfactions as well. But the most important satisfaction, I believe, is caring for others and trying to be of service to others in various ways and the most random of ways. And that I think is what I am most proud of and what I will continue to do probably until the day I die.

May: Jose now works as a senior policy advisor for a law firm in Houston, still advocating for the people of South Texas in the nation's capital. He splits his time between three places, Washington, DC, Houston, and as always, the 956.

I'm May Ortega. This episode was produced and mixed by Luis Antonio Perez. It was edited by Erin Jones and Andrew Villegas. Pedro Lumbrano wrote our theme music. You can find a list of everybody who helped make this episode in the show notes. “¿Quién Are We?” is a production of Colorado Public Radio.

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¿Quién Are We? is a podcast from Colorado Public Radio exploring what it means to be Latino, Hispanic or Chicana ... or however you identify. Host and journalist May Ortega shares stories about our wide-ranging identities and the beautiful things that make us who we are.

¿Quién Are We?

Growing up in Texas, Jose Borjon&#8217;s mom raised him to love his community and help the people around him.

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