Gilbert A. Flores grew up in Slaton, Texas where he attended a segregated “Mexican School” and then a integrated school where he faced abuse and discrimination alongside other Mexican American children. Upon graduating from high school, he moved to Lubbock and began to work in various jobs until he opened up his own successful auto-parts store during the early 1970s. In 1993 he became the second Mexican American to be elected into the Lubbock County Commissioner’s Court.

Ms. Toran was raised in Nigton, a small community in East Texas, by her highly-educated father and step-mother, who were also educators. Ms. Toran attended segregated schools in Lufkin and then went on to become a school-teacher and counselor in Lufkin schools. She was the first black school counselor in Lufkin schools. In the interview, she discussed growing up in Nigton, the accomplishments of her father, schools in Lufkin, changes over time in the black community. Ms. Toran described the responses to integration, including demonstrations by the KKK in the 1970s.

Luis Cano was born in Corpus Christi, TX. After attending University of North Texas, he came to Houston and would become involved in the Mexican American Youth Organization and La Raza Unida Party. As a teacher at Austin High School, he would develop one of the first Mexican American courses. This experience along with his awareness of his family's political history would lead him to dedicate his life to education efforts. Cano talks the Huelga School Movement, a false pairing plan that placed Mexican American and African American youth together and called it integration. He also speaks about co-founding the Association for the Advancement of Mexican Americans and developing some of its cultural and youth-oriented initiatives, including teatro, a library, a school for at-risk students, and gang prevention. Cano describes his experiences as one of the first lecturers for the UH Center for Mexcian American Studies.