SAN ANTONIO – After a brief visit in 1977, the future King Charles III returned to San Antonio in 1986 for a several-hour tour of the Alamo City with then-Mayor Henry Cisneros as his guide.
“The Queen had given him a responsibility,” Cisneros said.
With the once strongly industrial cities in England hurting, Cisneros said the royal advance team wanted Prince Charles to see how the government could help low-income families in poor neighborhoods.
Cisneros said they chose San Antonio because of its “reputation for being on the leading edge of doing for people who are left behind and left out.”
Among the several stops they made, Cisneros said he showed the Prince of Wales new housing for first-time homebuyers on the West Side.
“He loved those houses,” Cisneros said.
Then it was on to Avance, the nationally recognized parent-child education and support program now celebrating its 50th year.
Gloria Rodriguez, its founder, said Prince Charles chose Avance because of its reputation of improving lives and communities by “helping the mother help their child get ready for school.”
“We have empirical evidence that it works,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez said she reflected on that day in a Facebook post following the death of Queen Elizabeth.
She recalls how intense the security was with bomb-sniffing dogs and armed officers on the roofs surrounding the Avance Family Center in Mirasol Homes, one of the city’s poorest housing projects at the time.
Rodriguez said they were given strict instructions: “You do not touch him. You have to curtsy. They taught us how to curtsy.”
Yet when the time came, Rodriguez said, “All that protocol was for naught.”
She said after the families told Prince Charles how much they loved Avance, “This one woman grabbed him and kissed him on the cheek, and she said, ‘And we love you!'”
Rodriguez said, “He loved it!”
She said he even shook the hand of her 5-year-old son, who ran up to his mother standing next to Prince Charles.
“He was very approachable, very attentive,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez said she plans to devote an entire chapter to the royal visit in the book she’s writing about her 32-year history with Avance.
Cisneros said he believes Prince Charles “accomplished what he came to see.”
Based on his conversations that day with the future King of England and what he’s read about him, Cisneros said, “I think he can be a very constructive king and move the monarchy into a more modern era.”
“New kinds of jobs, the new kinds of education, the new kinds of architecture, the new kinds of environmentalism, new kinds of design, that’s all his natural interests,” Cisneros said.
He said King Charles III would succeed “if they let him.”
But Cisneros said it’s going to be “a tough road.”
Cisneros said the British press can be merciless, and after his tragic divorce from Princess Diana, “He’s not beloved throughout England.”
Cisneros said, even now, “All of these things figure into the way people think about him.”
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