Arizona’s 1st Hispanic Governor, Also a US Ambassador, Dies

*A self-made man, a Latino political pioneer. QEPD Raul Hector Castro. VL

By Paul Davenport, Associated Press/ABC News

Raul Hector Castro, Arizona’s only Hispanic governor and an American ambassador to three countries, died Friday. He was 98.

Family spokesman James Garcia said Castro died in his sleep in San Diego, where he was in hospice care.

Castro was a self-made man, the embodiment of the American dream. He overcame poverty and discrimination to graduate from college and launch a successful career in politics and diplomacy.

Growing up on the U.S.-Mexico border near Douglas, Arizona, Castro saw discrimination around him. He said he wondered why the Hispanics were laborers and none delivered the mail or worked in offices.

It didn’t seem right that the Hispanic children had to walk miles to school every day while the white kids would wave from a passing school bus, he said.

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