Henry Cisneros - Personal Background

Personal Background

The eldest child of George and Elvira (née Munguia) Cisneros, Henry Gabriel Cisneros was born in San Antonio, Texas, in a neighborhood that bordered the city’s predominantly Mexican west side barrio (now the city's inner west side). Cisneros was named after his mother’s youngest brother who developed Hodgkin’s disease at the age of 14 and asked from his deathbed that his sister give his name to her son. He is descended on his father’s side from early Spanish settlers in New Mexico. His expatriate mother was the daughter of Romulo Munguia, a renowned Mexican dissident journalist, printer and intellectual who fled his native country in 1926 due to the Mexican Revolution and oppressive regime of Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz. Cisneros’ father, who came from a family of small farmers and migrant workers who had settled in Colorado after losing their Spanish land grant during the Great Depression was a federal civil servant and later an Army colonel who met Elvira Munguia while he was stationed in San Antonio. As his parents survived great adversity and advanced through life with an unfailing belief in hard work, education merit leading to a better life, Cisneros along with his two brothers and two sisters were raised in a highly structured environment that put emphasis on scholarly studies and the arts.

Cisneros received a Catholic school education, first at the Church of the Little Flower, followed by attendance at Central Catholic Marianist High School in San Antonio. He entered Texas A&M University in 1964. In his sophomore year, he switched his major from aeronautical engineering to city management. In 1967, Cisneros was selected to attend the annual Student Conference on United States Affairs at West Point where he first learned that U.S. cities were in serious trouble. Relating what he heard to the problems of his largely poor hometown, the meeting, plus a visit to New York City, was a personal and professional turning point for him. Graduating from A&M with a Bachelor of Arts in 1968, he went on to earn a Master of Arts in Urban and Regional Planning in 1970 from A&M as well. He earned an additional Master’s in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1973, studied urban economics and did doctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974, and received a Doctor of Public Administration from George Washington University in 1976.

Cisneros served as an infantry officer in the United States Army. He married his high school sweetheart, Mary Alice Perez, in 1969. Together, they have two daughters, Teresa and Mercedes, and a son, John Paul, and four grandchildren.