Daniel Hernandez has a story in the LA Times today called “Villaraigosa Aims to Make Most of ‘Latino Mayor’ Role.” In it, Hernandez repeats the frequent mistake of calling Henry Cisneros the first Latino mayor of a U.S. big city. That honor actually belongs to Raymond Telles, who was elected Mayor of El Paso in 1957. This was only one of many firsts for Telles - he also became the first Mexican-American U.S. ambassador when President John F. Kennedy appointed him to my father’s home country, Costa Rica.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that Ambassador Telles is the father of the woman who was the matron of honor at my wedding, Cynthia Telles. Ambassador Telles also happens to be an incredibly warm and humble man who wears his trailblazing personal history very lightly. Even if that weren’t so, I don’t think I would buy into the argument that San Antonio is a big city and El Paso isn’t. After all, El Paso has more people than Milwaukee, Seattle, Boston, Denver and Washington, DC. Are those big cities?

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