The Herrera Family

Consuelo Herrera Mendez graduated from Austin High in 1923 but was refused a teaching job in Austin; she taught two years in Bay City and a year in Taft. In 1927 the City Council of Parent-Teacher Associations persuaded Superintendent Arthur N. McCallum to hire her. She later translated the state PTA newsletter into Spanish and wrote for it. She and her husband Patricio worked with LULAC from the 1940s through the 1960s on campaigns and scholarships for Mexican Americans, and she testified in an Austin school desegregation case. She retired in 1972 after forty-five years of teaching.

What the plaque says

The Herrera Family Since their arrival in east Austin, generations of the Herrera family dedicated their lives to education. In 1911, Valentin (1859-1942) and Josefa (1898-1963) Herrera, originally from Mexico, and their seven children moved into a house near the corner of 3rd and Chicon Streets. The house became the center of both a bakery run by Josefa and a Spanish-language school taught by Valentin. Their daughters, Consuelo Herrera Méndez and Mary Grace Herrera, were some of the first Tejana women to teach in a major Texas school system. Consuelo began teaching in Austin Independent School District (AISD) at Comal Street School, a segregated escuelita from 1927-1935, located here at the current site of Comal Park, and Zavala Elementary from 1936-1956. After earning her bachelor's degree from the University of Texas, Consuelo taught at Brooke Elementary School from 1956-1972. Mary Grace taught first at Fulmore Junior High, then at Palm School for over 35 years. Mary Grace also was the second generation to occupy the family home. Consuelo and her husband, Patricio J. Méndez, founded the Zavala Parent-Teacher Association and were active in local politics. In 1961, Consuelo became president of Ladies League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) Council No. 202 and served as chair of the state LULAC convention the same year. Mary Grace advocated on behalf of her students and was a key witness in a 1973 federal desegregation trial. Two years after Consuelo's passing, AISD named the new Mendez Middle School in her honor. From the family home, third generation Diana Herrera Castañeda continued the Herrera's legacy of education and advocacy until her death. She was elected to the AISD school board in 1992 and was active in LULAC. For three generations, the Herrera family tirelessly advocated on behalf of the students and residents of east Austin. (2022)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Cemetery — 0.5 mi
  A hill east of the Capitol that began with one general's grave in 1851 and now holds Stephen F. Austin, governors, Barbara Jordan and more than 2,000 Confederate veterans and widows.
• French Legation State Historic Site — 0.7 mi
  A raised pine house built in 1840 and 1841 for France's envoy to the Republic of Texas, who left Austin in a rage over a neighbor's pigs before it was finished.
• George Washington Carver Museum — 0.8 mi
  East Austin's museum of Black history and culture, grown from a segregated branch library moved across town in 1933, with a permanent exhibit on Juneteenth at its core.
• Texas State Capitol — 1.4 mi
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.

More markers nearby

• The Sing Family in Austin — 0.2 mi
• Zavala Elementary School — 0.3 mi
• John A. Wharton — 0.4 mi
• Tillotson College — 0.4 mi