Henry Gabriel Cisneros (born June 11, 1947) is an American politician and businessman. He served as the mayor of San Antonio, Texas, from 1981 to 1989. He was the second Latino mayor of a major American city and the city's first since 1842. A Democrat, Cisneros served as the 10th Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in the Clinton Administration from 1993 to 1997. As HUD Secretary, Cisneros was credited with initiating the revitalization of many public housing developments and with formulating policies that contributed to achieving the nation's highest-ever rate of homeownership. In his role as the President's chief representative to the cities, Cisneros worked in more than two hundred cities across the United States.Latinoteca Concurrently with deciding to leave the HUD position, reports surfaced of alleged payments to his former mistress.
Early life and education The eldest child of George and Elvira (née Munguia) Cisneros, Henry Gabriel Cisneros was born in San Antonio, Texas, in a neighborhood that bordered the city's predominantly Mexican west side barrio (now the city's inner west side).
Cisneros received a Catholic school education, first at the Church of the Little Flower, then at Central Catholic Marianist High School in San Antonio. He entered Texas A&M University in 1964 and served as a student leader with the MSC Student Conference on National Affairs. In his sophomore year, he switched his major from aeronautical engineering to city management. In 1967, through MSC SCONA, Cisneros was selected to attend the annual Student Conference on United States Affairs at West Point. While studying at A&M, he served in the Corps of Cadets as a member of the Ross Volunteers and as combined band commander of the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band.
Graduating from A&M with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1968, he subsequently earned a Master of Arts in Urban and Regional Planning in 1970 from A&M as well. He earned an additional Master's in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1973, studied urban economics and did doctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974, and received a Doctor of Public Administration from George Washington University in 1976.
Cisneros served as an infantry officer in the Massachusetts Army National Guard while at MIT.
Early career Cisneros' community-building career began in urban public service. The summer after earning his undergraduate degree, he worked in the office of San Antonio's City Manager. While earning his master's degree from Texas A&M, Cisneros worked in the office of the City Manager of Bryan, Texas, and later as the assistant director of President Lyndon B. Johnson's Model Cities program for urban revitalization in San Antonio.
After completing his education at A&M in January 1970, Cisneros and his wife moved to Washington, D.C., where he became the assistant to the Executive Vice President of the National League of Cities. In 1971, Cisneros was honored as a White House Fellow and served as an assistant to the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, Elliot Richardson.HUD Archives
Upon earning a Ford Foundation Grant in 1972, Cisneros and his young family moved to Boston, where he earned his second master's degree at Harvard. During this time, he worked as a teaching assistant in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
In 1974, after turning down a professorship at MIT, Cisneros chose to return to San Antonio. There, he assumed a teaching faculty position in the Public Administration program at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
Political career When Cisneros moved back to San Antonio, he ran for city council as a GGL candidate. He was elected the youngest city councilman in the city's history in 1975. (Cisneros was the youngest councilman at the time until Chip Haas' election in 2003 at age 26.) Cisneros assumed a hands-on approach to governing that he promised in his campaign. He attempted to maintain an understanding of city life working for the sanitation department, walking a beat with a police officer, and administering first aid with ambulance attendants. Cisneros also visited families in public housing units.
As a city council member, Cisneros took assorted populist positions on issues such as labor, water, education, and housing. He appealed to the Latino community, especially in the city's predominantly Mexican American poor neighborhoods on the west side, where he resided.
Because of the GGL's continued authority, the city council was still roundly criticized for not being representative. During the civil-rights furor of the 1960s, the Voting Rights Act signed into law in 1965 required that racial groups be given direct representation by political districts to assure the election of a member. Significantly, in a split vote on the city council on whether to accept a Justice Department order to establish an election plan that would provide more access to the Latino community with direct representation, or challenge the order in court, Cisneros voted to accept the order. San Antonio thus moved to single-member directly represented districts in 1977. This marked the beginning of the end for the GGL and all efforts to rationalize the all-city rule.
Cisneros was reelected twice to the city council in 1977 and 1979 as a representative of San Antonio Council District 1.
During his time on the city council, Cisneros formed a relationship with Communities Organized for Public Service (COPS), a grassroots Latino advocacy group founded in 1973 that focused on pushing for development funding for the city's Latino communities.Gale/Cengage Learning – Henry G. Cisneros His attention to the needs for infrastructure to the lower income Mexican American neighborhoods further elevated Cisneros' standing in the Latino community. As a city councilman from 1975 to 1979, Cisneros bridged the political division between the pro-growth business interests and an underrepresented Mexican American community.
He served for six years (three terms) on the City Council before being elected Mayor of San Antonio in 1981.
Mayoral terms
Cisneros announced his candidacy for mayor in 1981. His campaign to promote hopeful visions for the city's future united the wealthy conservatives of San Antonio and the increasingly vocal Mexican American community. On April 4, 1981, Cisneros became, at age 33, the second Hispanic mayor of a major U.S. city and the first Mexican-American mayor of San Antonio since 1842, when Juan Seguín resigned as mayor. He was elected with 62 percent of the vote. At the time of his election, San Antonio was the tenth-largest city in the United States.
He was reelected to three more terms as mayor by overwhelming margins, winning 94.2 percent of the vote in 1983, 73 percent in 1985, and 67 percent in 1987. His popularity reached several ethnic groups in the area. In 1982, he was selected as one of the "Ten Outstanding Young Men of America" by the U.S. Jaycees, in addition to receiving a Jefferson Award for "Greatest Public Service by an Individual 35 Years or Under."
Cisneros' campaign for mayor and subsequent election gained the attention of national media, who made Cisneros the symbol of the growing Latino population in the United States. According to Richard Garcia, "Cisneros, above all, exemplified the rise of the Mexican American generation and the search for … its identity." Such national publications featured him as The Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, Esquire and The New Yorker. U.S. News & World Report listed him (along with then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton) as one of "Ten Rising Stars of American Politics", and a 60 Minutes profile introduced him to a televised national audience.
In his eight years as mayor of San Antonio, Cisneros attracted national attention for developing new economic growth in the city's business sector, and with his diplomacy to 'promote cooperation' among the city's various ethnic groups. He exercised a developmental expansion strategy that led the city to unprecedented levels of economic and cultural growth. Cisneros brought federal funds to San Antonio, which further developed the downtown business district. He courted Fortune 500 companies and technology firms to set up shop locally to create jobs, enlarge the city's reserves with local business taxes, and cement San Antonio's reputation as a leading city for technology, skilled work, and economic output. His efforts brought additional investments to San Antonio, including the attraction of SeaWorld and Fiesta Texas, two major theme parks. In his signature accomplishment, Cisneros convinced the city's residents to vote for the city-financed construction of the Alamodome.
Cisneros arranged for Pope John Paul II to visit San Antonio during the pontiff's 10-day tour to the United States in September 1987. More than one million people saw the Pope during his 22-hour visit to San Antonio, more than any other city on that 10-day tour. Cisneros' mayoral success in elevating San Antonio's reputation and economic base as a leading city in the nation led to Texas Monthly naming him its Texas Mayor of the Century in 1999. During Cisneros' tenure as mayor, San Antonio was named an All-American City for 1982–83, an honor awarded by the National Civic League.
Throughout his mayorship, Cisneros continued to live in his grandfather's former home in the city's west side. He took populist positions on issues that favored people experiencing poverty and the working class. Cisneros also funneled more than $200 million to the city's long-neglected Hispanic west side for streets, gutters, libraries, and parks. His improvements also alleviated that area's long-standing flooding and drainage problems. Cisneros also established an educational partnership among the city, local colleges and universities, local businesses, and various community organizations. The partnership provided financial aid for college opportunities to young people in San Antonio's poorest school districts.
In 1983, President Ronald Reagan appointed Cisneros to the Bipartisan Commission on Central America, chaired by Henry Kissinger. In 1984, Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale selected Cisneros as a finalist for the vice presidential nomination. Cisneros gave a "Platform Presentation" at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco on July 17, 1984. The next year, he was elected president of the National League of Cities.
In 1986, City & State magazine selected him as the "Outstanding Mayor" in the nation. A scholarly study of America's mayors, The American Mayor, ranked Cisneros among the 15 best mayors in the nation during the 20th century.
In 1987, Cisneros announced he would not seek a fifth two-year term as mayor and would leave public life after completing his current term. The same year, his son, John Paul Anthony, was born with congenital asplenia syndrome. Cisneros decided to devote more time to his son, whose doctors had given roughly six years to live.
Cisneros was one of the lowest-paid major-city mayors in the country, with a $4,500-per-year stipend, and had supplemented his income with speaking fees and teaching urban affairs and government at Trinity University in the Department of Urban Studies.