Dr. Tatcho Mindiola Jr., a beloved husband, father, grandfather, and respected member of the Houston community, passed away on August 17, 2024, at the age of 85. Born on May 6, 1939, in Houston, Texas, Tatcho is survived by his devoted wife of many years, Cindy Mindiola; his cherished twin daughters, Maricela and Maribel; and his sons, Trae and Gilbert.
Tatcho was the fifth of eight children. His father worked as a baker, while his mother stayed home to raise their children and worked part time selling Avon products. He grew up in Houston’s Sunset Heights in the 1940s, where they were one of the first Mexican American families to move into the community. He attended Alamo Elementary, Hamilton Middle School, and graduated from John H. Reagan High School in 1957. Tatcho then enrolled in South Texas Junior College but after taking two courses he left school and enlisted in the U.S. Army to take advantage of their college program upon discharge. During his U.S. Army deployment overseas, his interest in higher education and political affairs continued to grow as a result of influential conversations with fellow soldiers who were college graduates.
Using the GI Bill and while working, Mindiola graduated from the University of Houston with an undergraduate degree in Business and then a masters in Sociology. He then enrolled in the doctoral program at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. After spending some time in Rhode Island, and while still enrolled and working on his dissertation for Brown University, he returned to Houston in 1974 when the University of Houston hired Mindiola as the first Mexican American faculty in the Sociology Department. As he continued to work towards his doctorate, Mindiola taught classes at UH, where he helped to pioneer sociological studies on the Mexican American community in Houston and also developed unique courses dealing with the working class, Mexican Americans, and other minority communities. Mindiola earned his Ph.D. from Brown University in 1978 and was one of the first Mexican Americans to receive a doctorate from Brown at a time when very few Hispanic students attended Ivy League schools in general.
At the end of the 1970s, Mindiola became embroiled in a long and tenuous battle with UH over tenure. The battle stemmed largely from his 1974 joint appointment in sociology and Mexican American studies. At the time, Mexican American studies was not viewed in the same light as more traditional fields, and Mindiola’s work and accomplishments in Mexican American studies were not afforded their proper weight. Undeterred, Mindiola continued his fight and his work, and ultimately in 1985 he was finally granted tenure, securing not only his role as a scholar, but also further cementing the legitimacy of the field of Mexican American studies. During this time, he was appointed Director of the Mexican American Studies Program, the precursor of the now Center for Mexican American and Latino/a Studies. As director, Mindiola pushed for more office space, the recruitment of Mexican American students and faculty, and pursued successful, yet controversial, lobbying efforts to receive funding from the Texas Legislature in 1983, 1987, and 1990. Longtime friend and State Representative Roman Martinez from Houston was instrumental in these efforts.
As a professor, Mindiola developed innovative courses in Mexican American Studies at the University of Houston, and pursued new directions in sociological research, including cross-cultural and comparative race studies. Mindiola devoted great attention to the success of his students and combined pedagogical goals and community service. He established a chapter of the Raza Unida Political Party in Houston and recruited students to assist him in registering and turning out Mexican Americans to vote. Through community outreach, he introduced the plight of the Mexican American community into his academic scholarship to create working solutions to poverty, illiteracy, and crime. He presented papers at conferences around the country and published many of his findings in a wide range of journals. He and other scholars established the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Scholars (NACCS), the first organization of its type, and he served as its Chairman for two terms, 1987-1988 and 1988-1989. Mindiola spent years doing exit polls for local, state, and national elections and became a commentator on KPRC Channel 2 where he presented his results of his exit polls. He investigated Black-Brown relations in Houston, which was the source to one of his books, and he conducted a long-range homicide study, and a multi-year study of Mexican Americans in Texas.
In his tenure as the Director of the Center for Mexican American Studies (CMAS, now CMALS), Mindiola established programs, scholarships, and fellowships that resulted in a significant increase in the number of Mexican American students enrolled at the University of Houston. In the 1980s, CMAS established an annual College Career Day that brought over 30,000 low-income high school students to campus. He created the Visiting Scholars Program which was designed to employ more Mexican American faculty at UH and to increase publications about Mexican Americans. To date over 40 professors have gone through the program with more than 40% employed by UH. Mindiola’s work as a community activist and advocate for academic diversity intertwined in his effort to raise public awareness of the Mexican American experience in the Houston community.
Dr. Mindiola’s love for family, impact on his field, and his dedication to those around him will be remembered fondly. His career and his work served as a bridge between the worlds of activism, higher education, race, and politics. Although he will be missed greatly by those he helped and his numerous friends and family, may they find solace in the fact that he lived a full life, and that his memory will live on through all the lives he touched and the impact he left.
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This remembrance was edited from a posting by Dr. TaTcho Mindiola’s family at the Heights Funeral Home and is posted on Latinopia under the fair use proviso of the copyright law.