Edward Castillo was born in Houston in 1948. He grew up in the Fifth Ward and the Northside neighborhoods. Castillo talks about his activism in the University of Houston Mexican American Youth Organization and the organization's efforts to recruit and retain Chicana/o students, to establish the Center for Mexican American Studies, and to create the UH Marcha por La Humanidad mural. He also talks about co-founding Centro Aztlán, a cooperative that is dedicated to providing educational and social services to the Latina/o community in Houston.