Move over, Matthew and Beto: is Texas ready for a Latina governor?

One of my favorite tales from the vault of family lore involves a woman named Ignacia Jasso, who was better known as “La Nacha”. As the tale goes, in the late 1930s or early 40s, a distant relative eloped with one of La Nacha’s daughters. But La Nacha did not approve of this marriage and, as the head of one of the first Mexican drug syndicates based in Juarez, she ordered that the relative be shot.

He survived, and fled Texas, where he died of natural causes decades later in another state. Of course, the allure of the story for me involved our family’s proximity to organized crime, but the notion that a woman headed this criminal enterprise – and, I later learned, pioneered many modern-day cartel practices – never struck me as odd. Despite the macho stereotype of Hispanic men along the border, there has historically been a cultural acceptance of women in power. It is this acceptance that makes discussion of a Latina governor of Texas long overdue.

The notion of women in power comes from the concept of primogeniture: the European practice of bequeathing title and lands to the next generation. In England, primogeniture generally entailed leaving one’s estate to the first-born son; in Spain, the estate was passed along to the first-born child. One simple difference in custom between England and Spain has had a lasting impact on the new world during colonization.