'It’s a true blessing': Tijerina shares experience with adoption

Laradeo Magaizne
11.28.23

Before the end of the month, Webb County leaders proclaimed November as National Adoption Awareness Month. And one prominent county official spoke of his own experience adopting kids into his family.
 
During Monday's Commissioners Court meeting, a request from Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina was accepted to proclaim National Adoption Awareness Month.
 
Before the proclamation, Tijerina joked that his wife reminded him that he had not done anything for the national holiday and how he should do something about it before the month ends.
 
The judge and his wife are parents to two children from Guatemala. They duo are currently 17 and 18 years old, but they were adopted before they had turned 1. Tijerina said they have taught him a lot about himself and how blessed he is to have had them in his life.
 
“We want to encourage everybody that has that little tug in the heart to adopt,” Tijerina said. “It’s a true blessing, and people say, ‘Wow, they must be blessed to have you,’ but in all reality it’s the opposite. We are blessed to have them.” 
 
Tijerina said his youngest child recently graduated high school and said it’s been a wonderful moment to experience.
 
“It’s the most joyful part of my life that I will never, ever regret,” Tijerina said.
 
There was a time where the judge could not wrap around his head the thought of adopting children. He already had two biological kids.
 
After watching the film Annie, however, a thought crept into the mind of Tijerina's wife, according to Communication Officer Marah Mendez: "What about the kids they didn't want to adopt?"

Tijerina is no Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks, but Mendez said his heart opened up to the idea around 20 years ago to loving two children in need of a home.
 
“The judge wanted to pray about it, and he wanted to be better prepared. He wanted for God to put it in his heart so that he may be ready to adopt,” Mendez said. “He told his wife that evening after prayer that he was ready to adopt, and that’s when the whole process started.”
 
After having worked alongside Tijerina for so long, she firmly believes he’s an amazing father to his kids.
 
“He’s an unbelievable father,” Mendez said. “He’s extremely hands on, so caring, and it’s incredible to see how he loves unconditionally. He has this phrase ‘puro amor,’ and I think that this phrase embodies him because he is puro amor.”
 
November was first proclaimed by former President Bill Clinton in 1995 to become National Adoption Awareness Month for the youth of the nation to build bonds with family in order to support and affirm one’s own identity, according to childwelfare.gov. Though, it was first brought to the nation’s attention in 1984 by former President Gerald Ford, but for only a mere week.