welcome back to fortitude everybody brinton payne jw wilson welcome to the
cap tech studio uh we are fortitude fortitude fw.com
uh check us out we got a cool guy in the house ramon romero
he said romero he called him ramirez a few minutes ago that is not cool what you just did the big jerk he
romero that’s pretty good so this is what that’s how he treats me jw is way better than me ramon thank you for being
here sir thank you we’ve known about you for a while brenton knows you more than me but you have a cool life a cool story
we’d like to talk about it for a little bit yes um first welcome to the show we’re glad to have you here i am even
more glad our friends at cap tech captex bank good good people good bankers they welcome you as well they’re the reason
for us being here you know mike thomas i do yeah i do it’s cap tex we might need to do some business i think you might
he’s worth your time he might be getting into the rock and stone and all that business hey we can definitely make him
happy there oh yeah good well yeah ramon ramon excuse me i like the rolling of
the rs yeah you do you are you’re one of you’re six you’re the sixth of eight children we know this
you come from a uh long lineage of um fort worthians that’s right yes but
originally you’re from the zakatecas state in mexico that’s right yes central mexico can we can we start there yeah
it’s sakatecas uh dad was a you know like grandpa farmers beautiful piece of property that
i was fortunate enough to go to the last recollection i think i was somewhere five or six years old but dad
participated in the brazil program so he went to california in 1961 uh seven years in the brazil program
what’s that what’s the best airport but aceto program was the former web back program because that’s what it was actually
called the wet back program you did get a wet back card he still has it uh 61-68
and then he finally settled in chicago and then one of our family members moved here to footwork and we’ve been here
since 1969. what brought him to california what industry farming yeah so he picked everything so
all the way he was you know people talk about cesar chavez and you know everything that he meant for the farm workers movement my dad was one of those
folks that came across as immigrant labor uh because there wasn’t enough workers at the time because we just were
part of the korean war and so on so yeah he he was one of the volunteers that came to pick uh pick lots of grapes and lettuce yeah 45
days at a time he moved around so 45 days and if your employer said you’re a good employer then you got to move to a different place so he moved from
california minnesota louisiana texas he was all over the world for farming all for farming and then eventually ended up
in fort worth texas that’s right okay but i got to ask a question like technical on the web back deal yeah i thought that was
you know the slang for like the the back wet from crossing the river is that what the meaning is or is there
something else like the migrant farming deal yeah the feds the feds called it the wet back program so a lot of folks
don’t know that so if you look up the baracetto program you look up you know kind of what those folks went through
from coming across this you know getting sprayed down with ddt to make sure there wasn’t any germs on them to being put in
caps and then they they worked so it had nothing to do with like swimming across the river
i mean that’s just that’s just slang and folks that don’t know yeah okay google it well there we go if i don’t need to i
got to agree if you’re like if you’re latino you’d say google yeah nice
so you’re a north north side uh um resident you were at that time that’s why the family uh well believe it or not
we’re from pali we all moved into poly um all of us the vast majority of my brothers and sisters uh
either the magnet program moved around a little bit i moved around to the north side through the magnet program i thought i wanted to be a doctor for a
short period of time and but we’re from pali southeast fort worth been there our whole lives my mom still lives same
place over on avenue d i still live over in pali uh so yeah it’s kind of hard for us to move out of the hood
especially when mom’s cooking is so good you know yeah close with your siblings i am i’m fairly close you know some of us
are not as close as i’d like for us to be but uh the vast majority of us uh my older sister a lot of folks know her
alicia duran she was at the lena pope home for a long time now she’s doing some freelance work uh sister’s a nurse
please name them for us okay uh juan i’m sorry alejandra juan raul
alicia rosa ernesto ramon alfredo jose alfredo and catalina my sources say that
it was correct i’m going to go ahead and yeah and my dad my dad is ramon i’m junior and my mom is maria del refugio
lovely isn’t it wait the way he speaks it just makes it sound more beautiful i know and i butcher everything he doesn’t
look like a state rep does he i know i mean it’s beautiful thing um how come you got the junior though i mean you’re
like six down the list i thought that was for the firstborn i was supposed to be the last child and then my dad said
eight years later here comes myself another one kathy and they won’t they won’t be mad at me for saying that yeah yeah yeah okay good your first job was
at ice cream parlo ashburn’s ice cream parlor yeah correct yeah my first real job first my first job was selling golf
balls at sycamore creek golf bars okay all i wanted to do was get enough to buy coke and a nutty bar you go and find
them in the in the lake and in the woods and stuff we used to there was some bamboos that grew up behind our house so
we would uh take a box spring and pull one of the springs out tie it with a wire to the bamboo and we’d hang over
the creek and pull them out of the creek and oh no kidding it’s 75 cents i always got my coke in my nutty i mean for a
free util like no cost right to you the utensils the utility yeah yeah it was
cool that’s super cool like almost ball grabbers like today yeah we didn’t have any of those you should we made that you
should have patented that i actually didn’t i went i went and uh testified before or was a
speaker at city council when i actually took one of those old school ones to talk to the story about it i’ve been forever but yeah i’m very passionate
about golfing no you’re a good golfer i’m a scratch golfer uh been a scratch golfer for a long time but it’s uh
because of the what it did for me in business i wouldn’t have grown my pool business had it not been for my skills on the golf course and some of the
relationships i’ve i made through golf or the relationships that i maintained that way so yeah rockwood friday
mornings like that the home track saturday mornings every well 12 o’clock 12 o’clock every saturday come find me
bring your dollar dollar or two tarrant county college graduate yes i
did not graduate i dropped out of college in my first year it’s worked out though so there’s a lesson there right
yeah yeah absolutely i had mouths to feed i had i had kids in high school so i had a child support payment and i had
a wife and kids at home and tcc was a little slow for me i got my irrigation license doing sprinkler
systems and then that evolved into a pool subcontracting business which i still maintain today a-fast tile and
coping that’s correct yeah how many years old we started in 1994. so 28 years now and
i’ve i i hope a lot of your viewers recognize me because i’ve renovated lots of pools and worked on a lot of really
cool projects oh yeah how involved are you with the pool in the coping business with the state rep job every day every
day every minute every day yeah every day yeah just just left a couple of jobs now nice yeah very good yeah west fort
worth is a great place to build pools says you have over 60 employees uh many of them local as well or most of them
local that’s incredible we’re down to about 40 right now but uh we’re we don’t need 60. i i was over a hundred
at one time and i said i won’t do that again i was putting about 40 to 50 000 miles a year on my car and that’s too much time to
spend behind behind a wheel going all over the metroplex you’re doing it kind of everywhere not just focused on fort
worth from stephenville to north dallas you know from denton to hillsboro that’s
just too much time behind the wheel yeah successful businessman local local guy who obviously knows a lot of
folks when did you decide in your mind that you’re going to start serving giving back to the community
my mom she made me an altar boy you know when i was a kid you know if father hoover back in the day didn’t
have somebody serving she’d pinch my ear and say go help so i do that and she invited me after i moved out of our
house she invited me to a meeting city fort worth had a model block program going on five million dollars they were
going to spend in our community and i thought took interest you said come translate the meeting i walked out the neighborhood president
and excellent that’s how it happened you know never looked back i really enjoyed the fact that i could pick up the phone and
tell people where to spend money and it’s kind of been a passion of mine ever since and ralph mccloud and mayor mike
moncrief took a liking to me and they both made sure that i was appointed to the key boards and commissions i served
for 12 years on zoning and planning chaired the planning commission wanted to run for city council lost by 78 votes to
kelly allen gray and then beat lawn burning by 111. so i like close races too okay yeah yeah and you were i mean
you know that the race against lon burnham was kind of a pivotal one you had a lot of support from not just your area and neck of the
woods but from the community wide i remember seeing some pretty pretty big faces at your fundraiser
downtown the first time we met yeah when you were running for state rep did those guys ask you and you were like
yeah i think this is the logical next step or was there’s a passion of yours that you thought man i want to be that austin guy too or
i absolutely did not want any part of it if you’d asked me that today would i do it over again i probably would not do it
over again uh it’s costing my business a tremendous amount but look i mean someone has to step up if i i’m i’m of
the belief that if the work isn’t being done as well as it can be done then then somebody else needs to do the
job and and that’s the way i felt about lon burnham so i i did it now because i wanted to be a politician not because i
wanted to write legislation but just i didn’t think he was representing district 90 well it’s a latino opportunity seat it always was supposed
to be a latino opportunity latino community never won so a lot of the folks in the latino community are the ones that came to me and said you have
to do it it’s not a matter if you want to we need you to i did it um half the
people that voted for me in my city council race had never even voted before so i felt like if i had an impact on
that one person’s life and maybe i made them a lifetime voter why not do a little bit more of it so that’s why i did it yeah that’s great we’re still
there you know i like it uh i’ve i’ve got people on both sides of the aisle lyle larson is my best friend
republican who just just retired uh he and i are gonna be friends for life we’re gonna travel together we do travel
together we play golf together um and and i’m one of those folks that it doesn’t matter for democrat or republican i’m gonna we’re gonna go down
and do the dang work yeah and we need more people that want to go do the work and uh i try to lead by example and uh
you know that’s my i’m a hard worker when i get down there i put my head down i’ll go get it done and you know there’s there’s some folks
down there that are trying to make a name for themselves and it’s my job to expose them that’s good stuff so will you tell us about some of your successes
as state rep and then possibly finish that up with a couple of things that maybe didn’t go so so successful for you
well so my wife is a mental health professional uh dr marilu romero um she’s an amazing hope you’ll see this
show sometime baby um she’s uh she’s actually on her way to cancun right now did you have to say that because she’s a
marital um doctor well that’s one of the things i work on really a lot yeah she is a marital doctor yeah she works
really hard at our she has to put things back together in our marriage no um look i mean we work on a lot of
mental health mental health access kind of cutting some of the barriers for other mental health professionals that are coming into the state making sure
that they can immediately set up shop we need help we need more we need more therapists and counselors in our schools
so we’re working on some of that uh i i’m very passionate about the immigrant population uh one of the first
bills i ever passed was a bill on ficera’s which are like these mexican bars where girls are hostesses and they’re paid based upon how much they
can drink no matter how hard they work wow so these girls drink you know this is water everyone uh but they drink you
know beer after beer after beer after beer um and it’s it was really a terrible situation worked really real hard with
tabc great advocates they’ve worked really hard for us need more funding um
all over the state or more down all over everywhere always there’s there’s thousands of these bars that pay these
ladies based upon what they basically get they charge you 25 for their beer and they get 10 of it so
why not drink 50 or 75 beers how do you do that you go and you induce vomiting and when i found out about it it’s like
we’re gonna we’re gonna we’re gonna put a stop to that and we filed legislation passed it in my first year we’re able to get that through but my number one issue
and i said that i will i will quit whenever we are ever able to allow the undocumented community to access a
driver’s permit again so it’s my number one bill like my desire i don’t think that’ll ever happen in my career because
of the way we’re going but look as a business owner the worst thing you ever want to do is get a letter from the irs that says this
person isn’t who they say they are and you’ve already invested into gear equipment a truck and now they can’t
drive anymore there’s businesses all over that are struggling right now to keep people and look some of our best employees just happen to have not ever
had a driver’s license or not another happen to have identification opportunities it’s been about 10 years
now i think we should go back businesses need it and look how big a problem is it it’s huge i mean can you imagine if your
dad went to go renew his driver’s license and they cut it right in front of you and now your sister has to go drive him to work because he’s one of
the most important people that’s actually going on our communities a lot of these things are going on but look i mean it’s we’re scapegoats right now and
i say that because you know my mom when she came across unlike my dad who came across legally my mom came across the border with two babies in hand she
crossed that river you need to call her wet back you can call it whatever she wants she’s just kook out of me uh but
look i mean i think we’ve been scapegoats for a long time i’m i’m there to to make life hell on those people
that want to you know make life hell on those people so look it’s we have a lot of work to do on the immigrant community i think texas
has always been one where we embraced being mexico’s neighbor george w bush was somebody i actually voted for uh
believed that he wanted comprehensive immigration reform we are far from that time if it wouldn’t have been for 911 i
think we would have already gotten there and we’re just we can’t move the needle and it’s been over 20 years we need to make it happen well and it seems too
that there’s this like entire subculture that exists like you talk to me a little bit about those undocumented numbers and
it’s like it’s a complete sub city that or a sub county i mean maybe say if you can spout
off some of the the kind of stats that you did about just how much of a a population we have here and how much is
done undocumented that’s just moving and grooving throughout tarrant county yeah so real quickly we just went through
redistricting and everyone knows that you know there was an issue between citizen voting age population population and actual voting age population if you
look at the raw numbers of voting age population those percentages for this district would be like oh my god it’s a
60 district the problem is in areas like where i live you might have 20 to 30 percent undocumented and or
legal permanent residents which means non-citizen non-voting folks that’s why a lot of cities that have large
immigrant populations actually allow folks regardless of their status to vote but you just can’t vote in federal
elections now that would be a dream if we could do that because why wouldn’t someone who has a child at fort worth
isd not be able to vote for who their official is or trustee is they deserve that right but i mean you’re talking
about a area of dallas fort worth that probably has close to eight million people and there are estimates that of
those eight million people almost two million are either legal permanent residents or undocumented that means
that you have a large population with a huge economy behind them paying taxes they live in homes they’re
they’re building this economy they’re a big part of it we’re all a family but they’re just not really represented well
but hey you can get me on on immigrant issues all day long i’m not sure that’s what’s going on oh it is but if i could
ask a kind of an off question that you maybe think of but is there a general way that the immigrants are making the
way to fort worth is there is there a like a pipeline that leads them here or is it just them finding the best
available opportunities i think everybody in the country wants to be in dallas fort worth right now i mean you can tell by our roads dallas fort worth
is is the best place on earth potentially just because a location location location we don’t know you can get anywhere in the country three hours
from right here and there’s so many jobs coming here housing was somewhat affordable so i think that it’s it’s
always been a place especially for sakatecanos you know sakatecanos live in chicago fort worth and l.a why
because once your family started coming here and they say hey i’m in the construction industry i’m in the pool industry i’m in the meat processing
industry and they’re hiring then others came yeah you know and they came there because they had security they had safety and on weekends we all kind of
shared you know like my dad he’s a butcher right so every weekend in our community you know it was a hog it was a
goat it was something and we split it up why is the meat better at like a butcher shop like that because i’ve heard this
this guy tells me like the mexican it’s like the it’s the premier like i don’t know why is that it’s pre-seasoned i
mean there’s it’s always marinada you know so it’s marinara and hopefully the person you know loves the animal a
little bit you know we we always raise the hog you know we raise goats in our backyard you know so so just the fact
that you know how you fed them and yeah did you hear that vegan i heard you okay i just went over my head yeah i’m lost
we just talked about it i’m kind of going that way myself i know i’m not quite pesky it’s not a it’s not bad like
because maybe that’s why because you can kind of see from kind of farm to table there’s a lot
that makes sense about that you know without all this stuff going in process we need more local farms in dfw we need
to get back to where we’re growing our own fruits we should have so many farmers markets in this town
i mean there’s no reason we shouldn’t do more of it when i go to austin and i’m around that town because it’s it’s just
i don’t know what it is maybe it’s all the folks in california moving down there but whatever the food is just tastes a little bit better the tomatoes
are a little more juicy you know the vegetables are a little bit better i don’t know how far our vegetables are coming from i know there’s more and more
every day i’d like to see it close by so that you know people learn to do it in their own backyards yeah because you
know that’s something we’re doing marilu and i actually have a little greenhouse so you know we grow lettuce and we grow
kale and anything else in there we can know about or not know about come and visit
you might enjoy it something in your something in his eye [Music] it’s a tear man ramon so you you alluded
to that that the opportunities in fort worth for immigrants ligaments are plentiful so it’s driving a lot of
people here you me and you mentioned the the work that you’re trying to do to help these people are you seeing success
are you making headway is it still a tremendous problem that’s getting worse what do you how do you feel about where
we’re heading with that issue yeah well look i will tell you this i think that the latino community in in fort worth is
very successful the if you’re in the construction business right now or the service industry right now the supply business
right now you’re doing really really well yeah and in the 30 years that i’ve been in business here i’ve seen folks go
from worker to supervisor to part owner to owner and right now
everyone knows you can charge whatever you want so the fact that these folks are here and are successful it doesn’t
mean they’re undocumented but these are immigrants that are successful it is a really great place to be
so i think that uh it’s kind of sad that we are not involving them enough we’re not engaging them enough we’re not doing
enough things in spanish we’re not welcoming them to the table because they have their own table
they have their own economy you go down east rosedale you go down northside drive i mean there’s businesses everywhere yeah and everyone’s kicking
butt you know so the the community is great i i hope that at some point uh city of footwork and the surrounding
cities uh arlington mansfield you name it uh really just do a better job of
kind of welcoming the diversity and you know just having a lot more fun with the community that we have i mean i think
this is a great thing that we’re almost 35 to 40 percent you know hispanic latino in this city and and i think you
saw that if you went to arts goggle this weekend there was some really cool it was finally some cool like latino artists yes they had a little bit
different vibe yeah you know you know i almost wore the footwork texas cap because it was a latino owner that sold
it you know it makes you it creates a lot of pride you know so i think that you’re seeing in the latino community a lot more pride folks that want to run
for office you know they want to start businesses and that’s good for our community yeah and as we said before we
started the show maybe the mexican food will get a little bit better yes sir yes sir do you think so i’m gonna this is
kind of two-phase question you got all this local stuff going on there but then that you go down to austin and you have
to represent a much larger body so what kind of challenges was that for you because you know this thing was is ramon
going to stay kind of the local guy and take care is he going to go down and because he’s upwardly mobile going to be
this very strong state rep and representing kind of the hispanic community at much larger scale so maybe
talk about just what that’s like yeah you know there’s there’s times when i feel like the the burden for a latino
like myself who’s you know a couple of our members or family members are undocumented i have to represent that community i
know it’s not popular right now but i have to i’m getting chills thinking about it you know makes me want to cry sometimes about it because like farm
workers still in this in this state are still being abused you know there’s farmers that will invite uh migrant workers to come and
they say we provide housing but all you see is a shipping container and they bring their families with them
their kids their wives and the shower is a green water hose it shouldn’t be the case in texas yeah you know uh they’re
still we’re we’re not expanding medicaid you know we have uh kids in our in our
schools that people are complaining that the cost to texas is too great and i say invest in them like you invested in me
we’re going to pay off trust me yeah we’re going to be fine my family you know my my business has probably done
150 million dollars in the 28 years that i’ve been around i think we paid our debt and i think that that community is
welcoming and ready to pay the debt so look there’s still so much need health care is incredible education is
incredible there’s going to be another push to kill in-state tuition for the uh you know children of undocumented we
talk about the dreamers you know those attacks are all the time why because it’s popular in the republican primary i
don’t care anymore what’s popular but i always warn people i said what’s coming what were they talking about in the republican primary it’s coming it’s
what’s going to happen so you know get engaged you know hopefully at some point and i don’t i don’t even care about
latinos voting democrat i want folks voting republican that are going to shift that narrative of what’s important
to our entire state just get back to business pay your taxes believe in personal responsibility vote vote but
you know just get out there and go make a difference in your community i tell kids all the time i don’t want to spend
two hours of my day on things that i don’t get paid for but you know i wear out the my footworth
app yeah you know i go around town and if i see you know uh you know anything from litter to you know dogs to uh you
know overgrown trees or sometimes even my neighbors trash cans outside i tell my neighbors don’t wonder who called it was me yeah you know so uh yeah you know
just well you did that at like a place right by your business it was a real unsightly park and and creek going
through there that was filled with trash and i mean fortunately for you you knew the right numbers to call but i think
you’ve done a pretty nice job of cleaning that up that people are really enjoying and it i would say it didn’t take that much
i mean i’m not trying to take away from it but it seems that that has become a much more beautiful place off 287 as a result
well thank you it is called martin luther king freeway and it’s kind of sad that you go around the state or the
country for that matter and martin luther king freddie always just seems to be a little bit dirtier and my district engineer for the first two i told every
one of them what my desires were the recent one came in and i said you’re probably going to be just like everyone else which means you’re not going to do
anything about what i say so the bar has been set so low that don’t worry you know you’re just gonna be just like everyone else and
i think he took it you know his name is carl johnson i have to give him credit the guy is just bending over backwards
now until telling me like i did hear you ramon and i am going to clean this place up because you’re right even if there
are homeless camps it should be clean in the homeless camp yeah and you know if i could get richard zavala and the parks department on board
uh you know that’d be great but you know linda christie over at trwd did an incredible job
so we partnered with you know you know the city of fort worth code enforcement the hope team uh trwd uh the texas
department of transportation txdot everybody kind of got together we’re cleaning up the highway it looks better
look when people come to footwork there’s a lot of beauty of footwork but it shouldn’t be dirty yeah absolutely
should not be there yeah and that’s something that you know fortunately mayor parker and i um you know if we
made a commitment that i was going to have an incredible relationship with my mayor and i wanted her to be my i wanted
i wanted to be her go-to in the state legislature i know they go to charlie a lot and they go to goldman a lot but for
a lot of these issues i wanted to come to me because we need to clean this city up for sure and we can do it it’s just one step at a time you know and the
resources are there yeah well and check this out if you don’t throw it out the window on the freeway
it doesn’t blow down into the river i mean that’s i know that’s kind of a crazy concept for you to get over jada
but the bottom line is thank you for yeah is that whataburger trash or whatever
just leave it in the car till you get to the trash can i mean i don’t people i’ve seen it i’m like
what what year are we in 1970 throwing the trash out the window like you got to be kidding me why is he referring to you
i’ve seen his back seat i know it’s not me that’s the problem because i don’t throw the trash out the window put it in
the back seat and don’t try to throw it in the truck bed because i’ve tried that it doesn’t work it flies out well before we get too far off the topic that i want
to ask you about i think it’s i would like to ask you about this because i think you can speak to it really well because you mentioned a few things but
what is it like for those who don’t know what is it like to be an illegal immigrant or undocumented immigrant in in fort worth is this is it a scary life
life to lead are you always afraid of being arrested stopped could you give us a little insight on what it what if what
it is to live as a as an illegal immigrant here have you ever smoked weed i i might have okay let’s say for
example if you just smoked a joint and your car smells like weed and you see the police officer behind you you’re
probably you probably get pretty nervous paranoia i think is what you call it so now imagine that’s your life every time you get behind the wheel ouch you know
it’s really painful you know it’s not no one should live like that and you know who really shouldn’t live that way that
15 or 16 year old boy that’s just trying to help his family survive by going out and taking a job so now you’re this kid
that goes to school trying to trying to make sure that he has a future but at the same time he has a responsibility of
helping mom and dad pay the bills because rent is ridiculous now so now he’s going out after school he’s driving
the car he doesn’t have a driver’s license it’s probably a carcacha which means a raggedy car and and that’s his
reality right you know that’s a pretty sad place now your mom and you
you’re you go to the hospital you’re sick and they don’t give you you know prenatal
care right what’s the deal with that how safe do you feel that you’re going to have a good pregnancy but tarrant
county we’re one of only places in texas where an undocumented person just gets stabilized and sent home so imagine you
break your arm you go out there and they tell you well thank god the bones not sticking out your skin here put this
splint on we’ll see you later yeah you know it’s just a dif it’s a really strange place to live in tarrant county
where this population is working so hard to build the best economy in the country
but yet they’re not being rewarded with you know tax dollars and so on and they’ll you know folks are always going to argue that they’re more of a burden
than an asset i would argue that we’re a much greater asset than a burden so well there’s this huge dilemma with the data
right because you got to almost have the documentation to show that these folks are doing what
you’re saying and being good contributors to society but they’re undocumented so it’s this like perpetual
cycle of we can’t document it out of a lot of fear and these things and then it
just keeps going and it’s just kind of grows yeah i mean it’s it it’s uh my dad says
hey it used to be worse you know what they say y’all need to stop complaining it was worse there was a time when it didn’t matter if you got
pulled over you knew you’re on your way to mexico you know and that’s that changed for a reason uh because they
realized that people are not reporting crime i tell folks you know before sb4 you know people report crimes all the
time now in my neighborhood you know you hear gunshots all the time no one complains there’s nobody no one calls in
says there’s that’s going on you know so someone gets broken into they don’t call the police so now you have crime that’s not being reported you don’t want that
in fort worth texas yeah it just spoils the data further right like everyone does yeah i mean it’s it’s it’s
unfortunate but you know i think that this is why america is the best country on earth to live where we can change it
in one election cycle if you really care about it they always say one it only takes one generation to change the nation i tell young people that all the
time just it can be your generation is it or won’t it you think you were getting closer to that with this generation or you think that we got a
whole lot of talking about it on social media and stuff and then tuesday comes around in november and now it’s kind of
rainy i’ve been cozying up to netflix i just i can’t make it to the polls today because i mean our our polling our
visits are terrible right yeah i think right now people don’t even know there’s an election going on right now yeah and we have an important
bond package you know we’ve got all these quality of life issues parks and so on that we need to we need to make happen yeah and we’re potentially not
going to pass it because you have folks on the other side that are saying you should just focus on police and fire and
roads and forget parks forget community centers which means where are those kids going to go
what do they do after school yeah you know which is important which leads to high crime yeah so look i mean we’re either all for the whole of america or
we’re for a part of it and i think that this is a very uh this is the land of milk and honey and i think that we
should we should demand that that those tax dollars get spent on those extra spoils for all communities uh but look i
mean it’s uh just just get out there and do it you know i mean it’s real simple i mean i can’t i i don’t remember the last time i
missed an election i think it’s been i mean i don’t know 30 years i don’t miss them and then just and i and i take a
lot of pride in saying that i’m not going to miss an election yeah it’s really simple so just go ahead and get it done it’s going to impact your life
yeah is the voter turnout in the latino community higher than the the caucasian turnout is there any relationship to
that so so here’s the problem the problem is there has been never been any community that’s been under resourced in
terms of voter registration than the latino community as in fort worth as an example we’ve never had a state rep until until i came in office we only
have one city council person we have no county commissioner we have one jp so if you’re really trying so the latino
community spread everywhere so if you don’t think the latinos are going to vote for you why would you register latinos so you stay away from that
community so on average uh we are probably let’s i’ll give an example so my district is about 65 latino district
90 district 90 uh state rep and we’re only about 52 citizen voting age population but only about 37 spanish
surname voter registration so half of the district is registered so that means if we turn out
at the same rate as an angle which is about you know 50 percent on the the presidentials then we’re only turning
out 17 right of 65 that’s just not enough is that on us yes it is it’s on
us it’s also on the elected officials that have been there in the past that haven’t targeted and specifically said latino communities have a voice let’s
give them more of a voice to make sure that they vote and you know and now we have a conflict that we we’re just kind of pulled in
different directions you know we’re we have different ideas we’re we’re conservative we’re progressive uh you
know we are uh we’re we’re pro-immigrant we’re pro-business uh but we’re also pro
you know you know working on the effects of poverty so look we’re all over the place we’re
never gonna be a monolith and and i think i’m okay with that i just want more people to to get out
there like like just go vote man well and it’s crazy because the numbers are all growing in that direction
but then the voting data is almost doing the opposite it’s just it’s the most
kind of antithesis like it’s it’s crazy young people are doing it though it’s great that a guy can speak for the
latino community with such passion like i applaud you what you’ve done ramon this is amazing is there a is there a
best best part of this job for you oh man some there was a guy named arthur vadari um who i used to play golf
with and i went to give a speech at casada which is over on hemphill
and and i revealed to these kids that you know i had before i went to high school my daughters lindsey and lauren
i’m sorry before my senior year in high school my daughter’s lindsay and lauren were born and during my senior year my son gio was born and and i didn’t let
that stop me you know i just went after it i knew i was talented i knew i was super smart smarter than just about
everybody i ever met at least that’s what i would tell myself yeah and and i had a lot of success you know here
i was 25 years old making half a million dollars a year and how did that happen it’s just hard
work and so i see arthur years later and he says i just want to i just want you to know you changed my son’s life
and i said what and he says yeah you gave a speech at quesada and i said okay what did i say
he just talked about he came home and he said this guy came and spoke today
i dropped out of school dad i’m gonna go to college and he went to tcc
and two years later he was accepted to texas a m and when the guy graduated the dad
invited me and just to see that young man that i i didn’t do anything
but just say there’s never an end yeah there’s always tomorrow and tomorrow can be way better than anything you ever
thought or whatever anyone told you you were going to be so just go kick ass you know and that’s what i’ve been telling
folks forever you know and the kid the kid did it and to this day the mom and dad every time they seemed like oh my
god ramon we love you so much i’m like wife or just telling the truth yeah you know i mean that’s it so that’s that’s
that’s really the best best part of it you know defeat our bill that when i passed that bill
a lady that was working for the state she says do you know how many of these women become wards of the state
and ramon you just saved a lot of lives and the fact that they can tell me those things that those things come back
you know that is what makes it worthwhile absolutely and you know look this country needs leadership like never
before there’s people out there i hope they’re watching your show that know that internally they’re pissed off and
that they know they can make a difference and i’m here to tell you it is easy to make a difference you can make the city spend millions of dollars
the state spend millions of dollars if you just pick up the phone and make them do it let them know that you’re watching yeah
get it done do you think the uh is is it the all these illegal immigrants or undocumented immigrants here in town are
they do are they able to approach you some if they know about you are they afraid to step forward in
engage with somebody like you or is it easy for them if you might be asking oh they they engage me all the time so we have an incredibly large group of it’s
called the club uh it is one of the largest clubs of sakatakano immigrants both undocumented
and documented in the entire united states of america uh i’d say here in texas we probably
have about 400 000 wow so and they all share their emails and
and they they talk to me all the time like you make us real proud of these technos and thank you for fighting for
folks without a voice you know i mean that’s what it’s about right i mean isn’t that where this country was founded taxation without representation
right i mean hey i’m sorry i’m just repeating what’s been done in the past you know absolutely so um
fi take us like five ten years down the road you get this state rep thing going
there’s talk back in the mayoral race you do it not only uh where is ramon in that time frame but
where is where’s the state of things here locally what do you see well i think that fort worth finally getting to
the point to where we can get past the politics of the trinity river vision is going to be something that’s going to be
a game changer for fort worth i i’ve always been a supporter of getting more
active and and getting uh just exercising more and living a healthy lifestyle so the fact that we are we’ve
invited people to the trinity river uh you know as much criticism as jd granger got uh i i always witnessed him come
with passion about fort worth and so i’m excited about that uh ramon uh didn’t
run for mayor because i’m too young to run for mayor and then someone younger got it but okay you know it is but uh
look i love this city i will be in fort worth for the rest of my life uh i will i want to usher this city into the next
uh the next the next generation of of growth which
is healthy living which is farm to table restaurants uh which is one where we we educate our kids differently where we we
believe in all communities where we can stop talking about i-35 and what happens on one side on the other side where
76104 isn’t the unh the most unhealthy zip code in the united states of america yeah i mean those kinds of things have
to change and i think that it’s going to change i’m a believer and i’m going to continue to believe in maddie parker
that she has her heart in the right place especially when it comes to education so there’s your shout out maddie um but but look i mean i’m not i
don’t know where i’m gonna go in the future i would like to make some sort of statewide run just to prove that we can
talk about some of these things as immigrants and not be embarrassed about them i think some of our immigrant
population or sons of immigrants need to be reminded how hard our parents lives really were and and what they sacrificed
actually uh all pro dad was just here yesterday tony dungy was there and they asked me to say a few words and
i said listen my grandfather was an agrarian disciplinarian it was all discipline
my dad couldn’t wait to run away from it so he participated in the brazil program which
you can almost argue with slave labor you know and and then he came here to
offer us the opportunity for the american dream and you can argue that i might be the american dream realized but
through three different generations there was never a father-son relationship i didn’t have a relationship with my dad
my dad kicked me out of the house when i was in when i was in the junior in high school i started paying my own rent when
i was a junior and senior in high school it changed my life i was seventh in my class
and then i had you know then i had kids yeah and i developed some other bad habits yeah and and and that’s what i mean like this is happening again right
now there’s a first generation of immigrants right now and they don’t have a parent-child relationship
and that has to change so i don’t want i i don’t want to not i don’t want to be in the place where i
finally have a platform and i’m not telling that story yeah and then the folks that are in power say
that’s what we need to change well i applaud you for what you’re doing what you will do you seem like the perfect voice for those who are most in need i
mean that in itself i i wish you all the luck in the world yeah whatever you’re going to do with that
that fourth needs to be behind you in that regard that’s incredible uh we ask our guests every show aside from
marriage and children what is the best day of your whole life can you give us an answer possibly no family you
start we spend a lot of time talking about family no i thought it was clear when i said that well we’ve been clear
and everybody keeps going back to family they keep just running i bet he could i bet he could get it the best day in my
whole life that is very difficult but i can think of one thing that impacted me greatly that was i was actually in
church praying that i that i would take this burden from me which i thought i was going to run and i know that some
people don’t like talking about god but i literally felt like god said this was your responsibility and i opened my eyes
and i was crying and i didn’t realize i was crying and and it was just so impactful that it just
i knew right then that i could not make a mistake that no matter what happened i was going to beat lon burnham and i ended up
winning by 111 votes for those people that believe in numerology look it up you know it’s an angelic number and i
know that i was touched and i know that that’s a responsibility that i had so is it is it great to know you have
responsibility i don’t want to sit there and make people think like i’m some awesome guy i make lots of mistakes i’m a sinner like everybody else
and the fact that i felt like i was touched that way allows me to just live this life in a
way that i live with no regrets so my life changed that day so really that for me was probably the best thing that ever
happened to me that’s about a standing answer when you beat lon burnham when he called
what did he say you never called me you filed an election challenge come on no no it was kind of a call that was a call
down to the city or where you know to the case yeah that would be fun i want to be in
