Citlali “Lali” Nayeli Villarreal, 27, was born in McAllen Medical Hospital on Main Street in Texas’ southernmost city – significant, she says, because her father, Juan Jose, had been born there as well. He, in the original hospital, and she, in the same place.
Maybe, she thinks, it is just one of those things that happens in a relatively small city with a single hospital. But, to her, it is something more. It is a reflection of the deep roots of her family’s journey and their shared history.
Her parents met during her father’s military service where he, a Navy sailor, literally a half a world away in Japan, met the woman who would be his wife, Verenice, then a scholarship student at Yokohama National University.
The newlyweds made their life in McAllen, her father returning to a large extended family to make their home and began his career as a chemist for a refinery. Firstborn, Citlali, and her younger sister, Xiomara, grew up as cherished additions within a familial network of great grandparents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins aplenty.
They were almost always together, she says, gathering to celebrate birthdays, holidays, and local festivities. She remembers many things: Fourth of July fireworks and the cold sweet oranges fresh from the plentiful Rio Grande Valley and delivered to the local tiendas.
She was blessed, she says. Her parents inspired the very curiosity that also grew within her from the fertile valley. Every opportunity they had, she says, they took road trips. Riverboat rides on Caddo Lake, camping excursions to Garner State Park, and trips to the Texas coastlines and beaches. It was in those places, Villarreal says, she became enthralled with nature and science.
Taken to the water – be it the shoreline or a lake – Citlali was immediately fascinated. But not exactly for the same reasons as other kids her age. Sure, she admits, she loved to swim and learned how early. But what ignited her imagination wasn’t the carefree paddling about on the shore or building sandcastles at the ocean’s edge.
What she loved – what drew her back year after year until this very day – was exploring the abundant marine life underneath the water.
“I was eight years old, and we were on a camping trip at Garner State Park,” she said. “We always played in the water as kids, but the minute I saw the life that was beneath the surface, I was 100% mesmerized,” she laughed.
At the tender age of eight, she says, she satisfied her curiosity right then and there, browsing through the family’s campsite, and putting together her very first, albeit makeshift, lab kit: a plastic bait bucket with a trap door, fishing net, and a pair of goggles.
Slowly and deliberately, she lowered her face into the water, admiring them while she caught a few for further study, first observing their behavior as the minnows darted about defiantly, in an effort to escape her. They were about the size of her pinky finger, she remembers.
She was captivated, she added, by their soft brown translucence, their feverishly working gills, the shadows of their internal organs working through the membranes of their skin, and how they act in their own environment. From that day to this day, she laughed, borrowing a fishing pun, adding that she is still very definitely hooked.
Throughout elementary, middle school, and high school, Citlali pursued science courses, including high school advanced placement biology where the teacher routinely loaded up the class in a school van and took them to the coast. Even when there were only a few girls in her biology classes, or when her friends didn’t quite understand her interest in it, she kept on going. And she was richly rewarded.
As an undergraduate student at Rice University, she traveled to the Colorado Sangre de Christo mountains to work with the Mission Wolf sanctuary. The thought of that may have been enough to send shivers down the spine of a lesser person. But not Citlali.
She did as the rescue staffers instructed when introduced to the “ambassador wolf”: she sat completely still as the fully grown male strode toward her deliberately, as if, for once, it was she who was being examined – this time, not in her natural habitat, but theirs – the scientific tables turned entirely around.
When he gets closer to you, they had reminded her, bare your teeth. So she did, until the unspoken signals of nature received and accepted, and she reached out to run her hands through his fur.
“He was so gorgeous,” she gushed. “He wasn’t completely domesticated, and I was in his world,” she added, describing his coloring as a kaleidoscope of black and grey and brown and white.
The best, as unexpected as it almost always is, was saved for last. She had been told to sit ramrod straight and very still, she remembered, adding that wolf instincts would have created the urge to chase her as possible prey if she moved to quickly or without warning.
Maybe it was that. Or maybe it was the baring of her teeth that convinced the ambassador wolf that she was friendly. Or maybe it was all three – and the careful coaching of the sanctuary staff.
“The people at the rescue had told me that if he licked me, that meant he liked me,” she said, describing the wolf kiss that immediately followed: a somewhat sloppy but entirely genuine face licking.
Finishing her undergraduate degree, Citlali discovered herself at a crossroad. She had been listening to her sister, Xiomara, then a staffer in U.S. Representative John Carter’s Congressional Office, and she was inspired by her work there. When an internship opened, she applied, and was awarded the spot, becoming a fulltime staffer almost a year later.
Just as she had in previous roles, Citlali took to her new role – well, rather like a duck to water, she laughed. She loved problem solving for the constituents who contacted the office, felt a sense of accomplishment to know that those in need were being served and their very real-world problems being solved.
“My background in science has a lot of transferrable skills,” she explained. “What I do for our constituents requires real-world problem solving, good listening and communication, and a compassionate and practical point of view. What really matters is that, at the end of every day, I know that I have made a difference, and when they tell me that, I know I am at where I belong.”
It might have been the experience she had in the congressman’s office that inspired her next steps, she thought. Maybe a graduate program that could combine her growing love for advocacy and leadership with her original love for science.
As it turned out, Citlali was closer to her perfect graduate school program than she thought: a master’s in leadership for sustainability was offered by A&M-Central Texas, and it was completely online. And, as characteristic as her curiosity is, Citlali once again dove headfirst into the program, completing her studies and graduating in December 2024.
By all accounts, she has succeeded, earning an impressive nod of praise from the staffers she works with and the Congressman himself.
“I’m incredibly proud of Citlali for earning her master’s degree from Texas A&M University-Central Texas,” Carter said.
“I applaud her dedication to furthering her education, while continuing to serve Texas 31 constituents with empathy and excellence. It’s not easy to work full-time and go to school, but Lali persevered, and I can’t wait to see how she continues to make a difference in our community.”