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Ancestral Austin: Estrada, Limón, Guerra
Ordering lunch and chatting at El Azteca restaurant on East Seventh Street, Fidel Estrada speaks only Spanish to Flora Guerra.
The Estradas and the Guerras have shared the same East Austin community for decades. Estrada’s grandfather emigrated from Mexico to Central Texas more than a century ago; the Guerras arrived after World War II. The families have maintained their linguistic heritage in La Loma, the neighborhood named for the hill that rises gently above East Seventh Street, and alternately known as La Buena Vista.
“I don’t know where they learned it from,” says Estrada, smiling, of his family’s fluent Spanish.
A serene-looking woman who skirts around the table in a nimble manner, Guerra is married to Daniel Guerra, son of Jorge and Ninfa Guerra, who own El Azteca. It opened in 1963.
Slipped between the restaurant and the cleaners is Diana’s Flower Shop. Estrada’s daughter, Diana Limón, opened it 25 years ago come December.
“Very few businesses could flourish back then,” says Lonnie Limón of his grandfather’s and mother’s retail success stories.
“But we knew the community,” Estrada says.
Limón and Estrada pass around snapshots over El Azteca lunch specials. There’s Estrada as smooth-featured young man, already established in business, next to a beaming Ben Barnes, the Democratic politician once tapped for presidential timber. That day, Estrada was joined by his informal club, which would have included Roy Velasquez of Roy’s Taxi; Rudy Cisneros of Cisco’s restaurant; Paul Tovar of Central Pharmacy, Charles Villaseñor of Mission Funeral Home.
During the 1960s and ‘70s, West Austin politicians sought the help of these business and community leaders, who met regularly at the Alamo Hotel or Driskill Hotel. (Velasquez, Cisneros and Charles Villaseñor are now deceased.)
What were they doing at the hotels? Playing cards? Discussing politics?
“Drinking, mostly,” Estrada says with a sly flicker in his eye, arms crossed over a golf shirt decorated with tiny lizards.
“The West Side machine was always telling us what to do,” Estrada recalls. That state of affairs lasted until his group and other community leaders allied with liberal elements at the University of Texas during the 1960s to elect leaders like Richard Moya, Gonzalo Barrientos and John Treviño.
Other photos show the modest homes and dirt roads of Estrada’s childhood along Lyons Road below La Loma. Also the historic Santa Rita Courts public housing, where his family lived for a while beginning in 1939. They were migrant workers during his youth, traveling to Michigan, Ohio and Indiana to harvest crops.
“Wherever there was work, we had to be there,” Estrada says. As soon as he could drag a sack, he picked cotton. Yet the family always returned to Central Texas, where Estrada attended Zavala Elementary School and Allan Junior High School.
It’s hard to leave La Loma and nearby neighborhoods permanently. Limón, cool in a short-sleeved gingham shirt, still lives in a house next door to his childhood home. The group account director for the LatinWorks ad agency was the first to attend college: Notre Dame University.
“I was always the one in the family who did something different,” said the graduate of the liberal arts program at Johnston High School. His grandfather offered to pay his way at UT, to keep him closer to home — but no.
“He did come back!” Estrada says triumphantly.
Limón comes from a line of independent thinkers. Despite the obstacles facing a Latino start-up, Estrada opened his cleaners with a $200 loan from his mother. “I had a girlfriend,” Estrada says. “She worked at an Austin laundry and I’d pick her up from the job. That’s how I got the idea.”
At first, business creeped along. “I was going to close it,” he says. “Then all of a sudden, it bloomed, all because I bought a 1937 van to make deliveries.”
The delivery service opened Estrada’s cleaners to customers all over town. Even after he curtailed almost all deliveries, decades later, loyalists returned from as far away as Bastrop.
Estrada had already established links to East Austin’s historic Japanese and Lebanese families. Another reliable market was the African American community, who mostly lived north of East 11th Street and Webberville Road. He estimates 40 percent of his business still comes from that area.
Mid-lunch, Estrada answers his cell phone. His employees need a decision right away. “The thing you need to know about grandpa: He is always working,” Limón says. “Always, always, always. The same is true of my mother.”
Estrada and Limón let loose a stream of stories about family members who went to war, or were incarcerated, or who established their own businesses. The Guerras of El Azteca were usually a part of the mix, having shared meals on Francisco Street below La Loma before they opened the restaurant.
“They’ve been friends of both sides of my family,” Limón says. “It’s all interconnected.”
Note: Consider this column a down payment on a much larger article about the Estrada, Limón and related families for our planned Ancestral Austin series. Send information to mbarnes@statesman.com.
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