According to the San Antonio Express News Hernandez's family was so poor that he often was forced to walk around without shoes [REF].
Mario Longoria, a childhood friend who spoke at the 2015 commissioning of USCGC Heriberto Hernandez, described how, for most of their childhood and youth, San Antonio was still a racially segregated city, where Hispanic-Americans only went to school with other Hispanic-Americans [REF].