ustxtxb_obs_1984_03_09_50_00012-00000_000.pdf

at’s Ac W___Lc Parisian Charm. Omelette & Champagne Breakfast. Beautiful Crepes. Afternoon Cocktails. Gallant Waiters. Delicious Quiche. Evening Romance. Continental Steaks. Mysterious Women. Famous Pastries. Cognac & Midnight Rendezvous. In short, it’s about everything a great European style restaurant is all about. h icg an Ol s d t Cafe 310 East 6th St. Austin, Texas 4 WATSON & COMPANY BOOKS Good boOks in every field JENKINS PUBLISHING CO. The Pemberton Press John H. Jenkins, Publisher Box 2085 Austin 78768 Ronnie Dugger: “Heard’s accounts of the Bees in hiding are the pure gold of real history.” Bryan Woolley \(Dallas Times “It ought to be right beside the Alamo books.” “The Miracle of the KILLER BEES: 12 Senators Who Changed Texas Politics” by Robert Heard Honey Hill Publishing Co. 1022 Bonham Terrace, Austin, Texas 78704 $7.95 plus $1.03 tax and shipping With the coming of the railroad to Mexico and South Texas in the first part of this century, the situation changed somewhat. Labor from Mexico was recruited to build the railroads both in South Texas and farther north and west. The Rio Grande became a center of trade, and, with a market available by rail, irrigation was developed in the Rio Grande Valley for large-scale agricultural production. Cities on both sides of the river began to grow, fed by an influx of Mexicans from the interior, who arrived by rail and who were escaping the labor exploitation and rural serfdom engendered by the 34-year regime of Porfirio Diaz, whose encouragement of foreign ownership of land, minerals, and industry had undermined the traditional Mexican rural economy. American investment in Mexico by 1910 was more than $1 billion, and over one-fifth of the land surface of Mexico was foreignowned, including large holdings by the Rockefellers, Hearsts, and Guggenheims. During the next decade, larger numbers of Mexican citizens began moving north, mostly to escape the carnage of the Mexican Revolution, but many in response to recruiting campaigns by growers and industry to fill the gap left in the U.S. labor force with the advent of World War I. Throughout this period, while there was some political enmity on both sides of the border particularly following raids into the U.S. by Aniceto Pizaria and Pancho Villa and retaliatory raids by troups under General John Joseph Pershing there was no mechanism or effort to stop the free flow of people back and forth across the border. It was not until 1924 that Congress established a permanent federal presence on the Rio Grande with the funding of the Border Patrol. Texas novelist and Valley native Rolando . Hinojosa describes the border “syndrome” in his work, The Valley: “Those old men, and I’ll mention but three, don Braulio Tapia, Evaristo Garrido, and don Manuel Guzman, were all born here, in the United States, but they too fought in the 1920 Revolution as did the Mexican mexicanos. The parents of these men were also born in this country, as were their grandparents; this goes back to 1765 and earlier, 1749. It may be curious for some, but it’s all perfectly understandable and natural for lower Rio Grande Valley borderers, as is the lay of the land on both sides of the border; and, if one discounts the Anglo Texans, well, the Texas Mexicans or mexicanos and the Mexico Mexicans the nacionales not only think alike more often than not, but they are also blood-related as they have been and had been for one hundred years before the Americans had that war between themselves in the 1860s; the river’s a jurisdictional barrier, but that’s about it.” Another illustration is the case of Don Pedrito Jaramillo, a healer at the turn of the century, who journeyed from his native Tamaulipas to a spot near Falfurrias, from which word of his curative powers spread for hundreds of miles. People came from all over Texas and northern Mexico to be healed or to pray for ailing loved ones. They lived within one country of the spirit, undivided. Today, about one mile east of Highway 281, the heirs of Don Pedrito tend his shrine, set in the midst of the cemetery for the Barrera family. They did not inherit any wealth because Don Pedrito redistributed to the poor the many gifts that were brought to him. But they inherited his grave and his legacy. The Barrera patriarch was the adopted son of Don Pedrito. His son built the small chapel and shrine around Don Pedrito’s grave. His son, in turn, now runs the curio shop beside the chapel. He wears a cap proclaiming that he is an “Aggie’s Dad.” Don Pedrito, the healer from Tamaulipas, is, then, an Aggie’s great, great-granddad. “Of course, I cannot show you the river where Don Pedrito used to heal people,” the curio shop owner, said, pointing to a grove of trees several hundred yards away. “That is owned by someone else.” * * / 6 6 N THE END,” Rebecca Flores Harrington told the Sixth Annual Convention of the Texas division of the United Farm Workers of America, “the best lesson we have learned from the freeze is that we can endure when we are not working, and maybe it will give us all the courage to start putting pressure on the growers to pay us better wages and better working conditions. It also shows us that this union, the United Farm Workers of America, took the lead immediately to try to resolve the tremendous problems we were facing it shows us who we can rely on. Where were the growers, those growers whom we have slaved for for years? They know we’re out of work. They haven’t lifted one finger to help us in our efforts. Let us remember that forever.” The freeze of December 1983 will be indelibly etched in the memory of all the farmworkers deprived of their livelihood for months and, to some degree, for years to come. During the morning session of the February 26 12 MARCH 9, 1984