Brownsville and Border Thoughts

In the book “King of Texas” about the King Ranch, author Don Graham writes this about the Rio Grande Valley at the time of the war with Mexico:

“The point is emphatically this; the river was a river, not a boundary.  What was being created here in this arid region was a civilization Spanish and Mexican in its articulations and institutions, and the people felt themselves separate from both interior Mexico and the rest of what eventually became Coahuila y Texas.”

“The Rio Grande thus became a political and divisive boundary separating families in Matamoros, for example, from their kin on the other side of the river; two riverbanks, two countries.  Such division seemed unnatural and wholly against the grain of a century of relative stability based on the ancient patterns of stock raising and farming, trade and religion, and a common language.” 

“The boundary seemed completely arbitrary to one nation and completely justified in another.”

Standing at the Brownsville side of the border to Matamoros, Mexico you watch a steady flow of cars and people on foot crossing in a familiar urban Saturday shopping way, pulling carts behind them with purchases from the bustling downtown. It’s almost exclusively Latino, shoppers and the shops, mostly Spanish spoken.

Two river banks, two countries. But one people here at the border. In a town divided by a railroad with one crossing, for instance, everyone meets there at some time or other. The crossing here serves a purpose in the same way. There is a collective familiarity, a shared practiced experience. It is not hectic or overcrowded, but a place with energy, much like a train station.

Is border security securing the border or is it our immigration policy?

Borders need to be managed. One of the coping jokes from 2016 was wondering how Canada would manage the northward panicked migration triggered by a Trump win. Would they close their border? Being here, on our southern border, the implications are real.

Despite the political rhetoric, there has been a general consistency in this management from administration to administration. When President Obama was criticized for his border policies, statistics were cited of the high number of deportations.

Border security in a fraught environment is not politically denominational. Like most of foreign relations, despite the rhetoric, policy holds from one to another administration. It’s two countries border but it’s also a domestic issue of course, immigration, commerce, the economy along the border.

The new sections of wall don’t impede the people who live here in their daily lives we’re told while here. If they go to Mexico it’s at the crossing, not through the river. Border patrols, as I have written, are more active on the highways an hour or so north. We encountered one between Brownsville and Corpus Christi.

The truck has a “Don’t California my Texas” bumper sticker.

Every day lots of people cross the border and back, back and forth, through checkpoints that dot our trip from Hidalgo to Brownsville. It’s an International Border that attracts a lot of Commerce, focused south. Metro Raynosa in Mexico has 1.5 million inhabitants, metro McAllen across the border 800,000. Metro Matamoros 1.4 million and Metro Brownsville just over 400,000 just over the border.

If we follow Don Graham’s historic thinking that in Mexico they look at the wall as arbitrary and the US looks at it as justified, then on this side the focus is on the physical. Do we build a wall, do we not? How many Border officers, planes, cars and drones are needed to secure it? The border as a military line, to be secured and strengthened.

And on the Mexico side they would look at it as a river valley, with families on both sides, and they might think that it’s not managing the river crossing, but the management of the migration of human beings. Separating the crisis of migration and the causes of it that happen in countries south of Mexico, from the daily business of immigrating to this country, a story each one of us has, seems to be the atmosphere here.

Language, heritage, custom, family, and also faith. This is a very Catholic part of the country. Relieve the pressure on the border, the crisis, and you have “a civilization Spanish and Mexican in its articulations and institutions” and that is what it feels like here.

The river has been made a symbol. Manifest Destiny, the country reaching coast to coast and as far north and south as we can get. 54-40 or fight. We love these fights, the US. If we hadn’t pressed in Mexico we might have pressed in the northwest, President Polk in 1844 reaching for a northern boundary north of Vancouver, to the 54-40 parallel. But he could not engage in battles north and south.

The Rio Grande itself twists and turns and double backs and swings wildly from Hidalgo to Brownsville, and so the border barriers do too. Driving along an industrial corridor in very much a straight shot the wall sneaks up on you, fades back, disappears, then comes up screaming right beside you. Topography dictates the walls placement. Section, gap, section, gap.

We see a neighborhood up ahead that looks like it backs into the border. A newish subdivision, right up against the border wall, the Rio Grande River just beyond. This homeowner has run his fence off the border wall.

In comparing notes with John, who went to the border in Arizona with Tim on a previous Owl trip, it seems the border hits differently in each place. Here the wall is between distinct established cities on both sides of the river. Nogales is one town straddling two countries separated by the wall down the middle. There it’s hard not to compare to the Berlin Wall, slicing a city in half.

So, what’s my takeaways. First, I have a better understanding of what the border is like. My previous experience with borders was crossing into Canada from Vermont. I do think of the border and the people who cross it or cannot cross it as distinct issues. It is obvious, but seeing things in person are important when thinking about how we communicate positions we take as a party to voters who actually live there.

Peter pointed out the lack of public transportation. We did not see one bus in McAllen, but did in Brownsville. They might have them, but we were there for three days driving around. Everyone drives around. Briefly we were without a car while Pop a lock repaired our tire. It takes a long time to walk anywhere.

Transmission shops, tire shops, body shops, car dealerships, used parts, scrap parts, detailing, gas stations line the roads. Gas is cheap! Which is good because you use a lot of it. Windmills. Windmills. Windmills. Texas leads the nation in wind power. Cars and windmills.

The unemployment number in greater McAllen peaked in April 2020 at 17.4% and is now 7.1% and falling. I looked this up because there were none of the no staffing shortage signs or we’re hiring signs we see back home.

Also, Mexico doesn’t want our guns.