Hinojosa was born in Edcouch, Texas. The eighth of eleven children, Hinojosa was reared in Hidalgo County, which borders on Mexico, and earned two business degrees, a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Texas at Austin and his MBA from the University of Texas–Pan American. For two decades, he was the president and chief financial officer of his family's food processing company, H&H Foods. U.S. President Ronald Reagan named H&H the "Number One Minority-Owned Business in America" in 1983. In 1987, the U.S. Small Business Administration named the Hinojosas "Minority Entrepreneur of the Year."