Raul Hector Castro's papers are held at the University of Arizona Special Collections Library. Early life and education Raúl Castro was born in Cananea, Sonora, Mexico on June 12, 1916. Castro was one of fourteen children born to his father Francisco Dominguez Castro, a deep sea diver in San Jose del Cabo, Baja California and later a miner in Cananea, and mother Rosario Acosta, who had a third grade education but taught her husband to read and write. Castro's father was involved in a mine workers strike in Cananea and was sent to prison, but was later released as a political refugee to the United States in 1926, with the entire family relocating to Pirtleville, Arizona, near Douglas, on the Arizona-Mexican border and becoming U.S. citizens. Castro's father would regularly read to him from Mexican newspapers in order for his son to be informed on current events, which Castro credits as his first exposure to politics. During his early teenage years, Castro's father died, and his mother became a midwife in order to support her children. At the time that Castro attended elementary school, schools were segregated in Douglas, and he attended the Fifteenth Street School, which was only for Mexican students. Despite this, Spanish was not allowed and Castro was forced to learn English in order to avoid punishment from school teachers. In high school, Castro played football as the team's quarterback, and also competed in track and field. At the time of his high school graduation, embarrassed that he did not have a middle name, Castro adopted the middle name Héctor, as it was the name of a basketball player at the school that he admired. Upon his graduation, Castro was discouraged from attending college by his high school principal, saying that it would be a waste of time and money because no one would hire a Mexican graduate on the border. Despite being demoralized from attending college, Castro earned a football scholarship and attended Arizona State Teachers College in Flagstaff, which is now known as Northern Arizona University. At the time he attended, the school had approximately 475 students. One of the conditions of the scholarship included the requirement of washing dishes three times a week, and Castro worked his way up to become an assistant cook. He also took up boxing, and additionally taught a local sixth grade class in Flagstaff. Castro became a naturalized United