Born and raised in San Antonio by a working-class family, Elizabeth grew up in a corner of our community where things we take for granted were a struggle.

Her parents, Santiago and Mary Lou, were high school sweethearts. They married young and had three children. Both worked full time. Mary Lou managed the kitchens of inner-city schools for SAISD Food Services, and Santiago was a shop steward at Friedrich Air Conditioning. Then, twelve years after her siblings, Elizabeth was born. Both her parents took pride in serving their communities, but now with four kids, their hard work was not enough to lift them out of poverty.  Eventually, the fear and uncertainty of living paycheck to paycheck took its toll on their marriage, and they divorced when Elizabeth was five years old.

Working Class Values

Elizabeth grew up with her single mom. Elizabeth, her mom, sister, niece, and nephew lived in a house with two bedrooms and one bathroom. To make ends meet, Mary Lou took on a second job and also began working from their home as a seamstress.  Every morning, Elizabeth would wake up at 4:30 to ride with her mom to work and then walk to school. In the evenings, Elizabeth would fall asleep on their couch and her mom would sleep on her sewing table. Despite the constant struggles, Elizabeth’s mother always found a way to provide for the family. Elizabeth learned two very important lessons from her mother: always look at obstacles as opportunities, and have a heart for service.

Her older brothers exemplified this and found opportunity serving with the United States Marine Corps and later the Postal Service and San Antonio Police Department. Her older sister, despite having children at a young age, showed Elizabeth that the clearest path to opportunity was education by becoming a network engineer with H-E-B.

Finding Opportunities in Obstacles

Elizabeth attended school in the same inner-city district where her mom worked, attending Tafolla Middle School and graduating from Brackenridge High School. When she was sixteen, Elizabeth began helping the family by working at H-E-B as a bagger. She continued to work at H-E-B and eventually worked her way to the accounting department. She used the money from this job, along with loans and grants to put herself through the University of Texas at San Antonio. After college, Elizabeth applied to law schools that would accept fee waivers and that offered scholarships. The University of Akron School of Law waived fees and offered her a scholarship, affording her an opportunity at an education she never had imagined.