Page "Henry Cisneros" Paragraph 56

Although he grew up in a middle class family, he lived moments from an area that lacked wastewater and potable water infrastructure.

Cisneros wrote that San Antonio in the late 1960s was “ so poor that Peace Corps volunteers were trained in its barrios to simulate the conditions they would face in Latin America.

Thousands of Hispanics and black families lived in colonias, with common-wall, shotgun houses built around public sanitation facilities with outdoor toilets.

The barrios had no sidewalks or paved streets, no drainage system or flood control.

Every spring brought flooding ; families were driven from their homes ; children walked to school through mud sloughs.

In the shadow of Downtown San Antonio lurked a stateside third-world ' country '.