I am ensconced of my own free will alone in a town in South Texas where it hardly rains and where the temperature already has hit 110 degrees ahead of July and August.  There is little to do here.  I know almost no one.  The very nice guesthouse I inhabit has no cable television.  Rather sparse, my existence, but planned that way: To turn self-imposed, air-conditioned incarceration into solitude to force a book.

My unusual seclusion and circumstance caused me to have to watch the first Democratic presidential candidate debate from Miami last night on my cell phone.  Not good for my eyesight nor my phone bill, what with WiFi that came and went, perhaps due to the storms that suddenly raked the area.  The arroyos flooded and the astonishing water, long gone by morning, will have shifted the sands of the creeks and gullies.

Despite the intermittent electronic hiccups, what I witnessed I loved: Loud lightning and thunder and flashing rain out the window and Julián Castro doing some raking of his own on my little screen.  He more than held his own. I have been around politics long enough to recognize candidates who are in it for the self-attention and those who use the experience to grow because they know it is a way to learn.  In standing his ground last night, I saw a young man continuing to learn and mature.  More so, I saw someone becoming a leader. He is growing as candidate and person.

I was very proud of him and for those who have supported him.  Finally we have on the national stage someone in whom most Hispanic/Latinos can see a reflection – of themselves.  Our ability, our talent, our good nature, our purpose, our sense of the future, our humanity and of what we can be – all on display.  I was delighted – and more delighted that the pundits were delighted. 

Experts who know campaigns know that their elements can come together grudgingly, sometimes slowly and at times without an obvious plan.  But when the candidate starts to come together, other things fall into place and they feed on themselves.  Small streams becoming rivers.  A shift occurs, the course and flow of events change.

A friend in Boston called me after the debate to say that she ‘felt good about my investment’.  She told me she had decided to give to Castro’s campaign $100 after hearing me speak in Boston in March.  Like too many Hispanic/Latinos whom I know, she had dismissed Julián’s candidacy outright, as implausible.  We are so used to candidates lunging for attention that too many Hispanic/Latinos who should know better wrote Castro off immediately.  He did not fit the role we have of candidates today, some of them unadulterated exhibitionists, and so too many people I know did not even deign to deem worthy the idea of writing Castro a check.  But now my friend in Boston is going to give another $50.  Another friend in Austin who can give more gave only $100.  He told me he did not like throwing his money away.  It will be interesting if he will do more now. 

Another friend in Denver who is of Julián’s age was more than dismissive when we talked last week during a business trip to México.  He was outright hostile, arguing Castro was on an ego trip.  An odd thing to say about so nice a fellow.  You want to talk ego trip, talk Beto O’Rourke, who to me is out of his depth and seems always to be getting ready for his band’s second set at a club.  He might imagine himself Bobby Kennedy reincarnate but I dare say the comparison falls awfully short. 

I watched Julián closely last night in the context of what others for whom he is new might see.  I myself do not know him; barely have met him.  So perhaps I am a good test.  To me he comes across, again, as nice but not wimpy.  It is increasingly evident that this is a guy whom one can trust because he does not give himself up to emotion.  Though he is more representative of the immigration issue than the other candidates, he is not an angry man; and yet he is angry at the monstrosities committed everyday by Trump and his gangsters, for that is what they are – nothing less than the ruffians who supported Hitler’s and Mussolini’s rise to power.

Castro can raise his voice without being shrill and/or nasty – unlike others on stage last night.  He came across as cool, calm and collected and therefore he did a lot to not pigeon-hole himself as the immigration candidate.  And with that comes the expansion of electoral electability and possibility. 

If you are Hispanic/Latino anywhere in the country and do not give Julián Castro a chance and help him, you probably can see things that I cannot in the other candidates.  All things being equal, how can any Hispanic/Latino not support him?  I believe now that if more Hispanic/Latinos stand up for Castro, he will be around, for he has staying power, and he will be in the race longer than people suspected when 2019 began.  Write a check, write your friends, write your own chapter.  

Secluded though I am in a place where clearing my throat becomes a cacophony, I am not impervious to sense the change of the currents. 

Nether the arroyos nor the political landscape are what they were yesterday.

Jesús (Jesse) Treviño is a former journalist and speechwriter who lives in Austin, Texas.