Jessie Rangel was born in Big Lake, Texas. After working in Lubbock, Texas and Albuquerque, New Mexico, he joined the Marine Core during the 1960s. He saw action in Vietnam, and upon returning to Lubbock, enrolled in Texas Tech University. At Texas Tech University, he was part of MEChA and the larger Chicano Movement. Rangel graduated with a degree in political science. After graduation, he obtain an administration job at Texas Tech University and continued participating in social justice movements. Rangel was a founding member of TACHE.

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.