Is it true that there was no such thing as a Hispanic-owned bank in the continental USA until 1969?

Question

I was doing some online research on the subject of minority-owned banks in the USA, and I stumbled across this passage on the History page of the website of the National Bankers Association.

Diversity of minority banking began in 1962, when Los Angeles based Cathay Bank became the first bank recognized as Asian-American. Centinel Bank of Taos, New Mexico followed in 1969 becoming the first US-mainland-based Hispanic bank. (Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, headquartered in San Juan, is more than 100 years old.)

If I'm reading this right, that passage asserts that, until the year 1969, there literally was no such thing as a legally chartered bank, anywhere in the continental United States, which was wholly or mostly owned by one or more shareholders of Hispanic ancestry.

That idea greatly startled me when I ran across it earlier today. I would have thought there must have been several Hispanic-owned banks, long before that, particularly in the Southwest. (I.e., the areas which used to be part of Mexico.)

So now I'm asking the question posed in the title of this post. Or, to put it a little differently: Does anyone reading this know of a specific case, pre-1969, of a legitimate bank in the continental USA that was either a) founded by Hispanic owners, or b) was founded by someone else, but later had a majority of its shares bought up by one or more Hispanic businessmen (or businesswomen)?

Answer 1

I think your first result is correct. The structural impediments to Mexican-Americans founding a bank were significant. There were no banks in the region during the Mexican period. After the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and through the turn of the century, many Mexicans lost their land to Anglo settlers. In the 19th century Mexican-Americans did not have access to well-paying work. With the community largely in subsistence or wage labor, it would have been hard for them to capitalize a bank.

There were lots of Southwestern banks with Spanish language names before 1969, but they were not owned by Latinos. According to Centinel's own story, which jives with the Association text you posted, Mr. Romero had to appeal all the way to Washington, DC to get his new bank chartered:

Eliu E. Romero grew up here in Taos County as his family had for 4 generations, herding sheep, subsistence farming, and speaking Spanish. He went away to school, served his country in the Navy and Merchant Marines, put himself through law school and returned to Taos. He wanted to practice law in his hometown and went to a bank seeking a loan of $50 for furniture for his new office. Despite his education, service to his country and roots in the community, he was turned down. It was a time in our country when discrimination was a common part of life, but experiencing the inequity, Romero vowed then and there to someday have a bank to service the needs of all the people in his community.

After years of a flourishing law practice, Romero applied to the state for a charter to open a bank in Taos. That charter was denied, as was several other applications until Romero’s perseverance led him to Washington D.C. and a federal review of his application was approved by the FDIC and the state charter granted. Together, Eliu and his wife Elizabeth convinced 300 Taos County residents to help them capitalize the bank, and on March 1, 1969, Centinel Bank of Taos opened for business dedicated to serving all the people, cultures, and languages of the Taos County community.