[News] How Trump’s Border Wall Perpetuates the Legacy of Colonialism on the Rio Grande

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://theintercept.com/2019/03/31/border-wall-rio-grande-valley/


    How Trump’s Border Wall Perpetuates the Legacy of Colonialism on the
    Rio Grande
    <https://theintercept.com/2019/03/31/border-wall-rio-grande-valley/>

Aaron Miguel Cantú - March 31, 2019
------------------------------------------------------------------------

    *Starting in the late 19th century, Mexicans who had inherited
    property through Spanish land grants saw their acreage claims
    dwindle as they were divided among descendants. Ranchers were
    dispossessed of their lands by white brokers unwilling to lend them
    capital, as well as through theft and fraud. Lynch mobs, police, and
    Texas Rangers later maintained wealth and property lines **through
    brutal violence
    <https://thenewinquiry.com/the-chaparral-insurgents-of-south-texas/>**.
    A racialized underclass of fieldworkers, **enlarged by refugees
    <https://www.texasobserver.org/the-making-of-the-magic-valley/>**fleeing
    the Mexican Revolution, became the underpinning of an
    Anglo-dominated agricultural economy.*

Congress has already sent nearly $3 billion to Trump for a border 
barrier, including up to 37 miles in Hidalgo and Starr counties. Almost 
half of that, $1.34 billion, was allocated for the Rio Grande Valley, 
the compromise outcome of the longest government shutdown in history. 
Trump then declared a national emergency in February, giving him the 
power to direct $6.1 billion more 
<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-budget-wall-exclusive/exclusive-in-budget-trump-to-ask-congress-for-86-billion-for-border-wall-idUSKBN1QR0CW> 
from other federal agencies for the wall (thoughover a dozen state 
<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/us/politics/national-emergency-lawsuits-trump.html> 
attorneys general are challenging the executive order in court). In 
March, the government submitted notices of condemnation for hundreds of 
mostly Hispanic landowners in the valley whose property it wants for the 
wall.

Earlier in the evening, Basaldú and I sat with two other Valleyites 
downhill from the earthen levee where the border wall is slated for 
construction. A Border Patrol agent slowly cruised by, glaring down at 
us. Under CBP’s plan 
<https://www.cbp.gov/frontline/border-wall-prototype-designs>, the 
campsite and the cemetery would be stranded in a no man’s land behind 
the wall, and would be damaged by an enforcement zone resembling a 
permanent military outpost with a utility road, sensors and cameras, 
bright lights, and frequent patrols. The agency wants to build 772 total 
miles of barrier along the border, which it estimates would cost $18 
billion 
<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-budget-wall-exclusive/exclusive-in-budget-trump-to-ask-congress-for-86-billion-for-border-wall-idUSKBN1QR0CW>.

“I got to grow up in the valley without the wall, and I see my little 
cousin who is 1 and has to live with increased militarization,” said 
Rebekah Hinojosa, a local organizer whose ancestors are buried near an 
already-built border barrier in Cameron County. “That hurts. Deeply.”

Last year, Hinojosa started working with other local activists to hone 
anti-wall messaging and convened groups of people to make banners for 
protests along the wall’s proposed path. She sees this work as part of a 
growing movement to repel powerful interests encroaching on the valley. 
Since 2015, she’s also organized to prevent liquified natural gas 
companies from building a complex of export terminals where the Rio 
Grande meets the Gulf of Mexico.

“The LNG fight and border wall fight are very connected,” Hinojosa 
explained. “Families and friends are going to hearings to stop LNG, 
they’re organizing to stop the border wall, it’s all part of the same 
system impacting our region.”

For now, the coalition organizing against the wall is small, especially 
relative to the full power of the federal government. Much more 
widespread is a sense that the wall perpetuates a legacy of class and 
racial subjugation in the valley. Patricia Rubio, an outdoorswoman who 
sleeps at the camp at least once a week, acknowledged that being from 
the valley often means carrying several generations’ worth of loss and 
even shame.

Her aunts and uncles were migrant fieldworkers and “grew up with low 
self-esteem and fear to express themselves” in Spanish, said Rubio, also 
an adopted Carrizo/Comecrudo tribal member. “I grew up hearing stories 
about beatings or lynchings. Those stories need to stay alive and we 
can’t be ashamed of them.” She feels a sense of responsibility to 
confront the types of powerful interests that immiserated her ancestors.

The wall’s construction fits into a longer legacy of the valley as a 
sacrifice zone, which started when Spanish colonists arrived in the 18th 
century and continued after the U.S. government relegated Mexicans here 
to second-class American citizenship. Yet for all the suffering the wall 
is causing locals who feel unheard, for some it’s also producing a sense 
of groundedness once lost to the dislocations of history.


      In the Government’s Sights

The notice in the local newspaper taken out by the U.S. Southern 
District of Texas is 24 pages long and addressed to nearly 300 parties 
“whose whereabouts cannot be determined or who could not be personally 
served.” The message for all of them is the same: The government will 
seize their land “to construct, install, operate, and maintain roads, 
fencing, vehicle barriers, security lighting, and related structures,” 
mostly as part of 8 to 12 miles of barrier in Starr County.

It’s the second time the notice has been published in the newspaper; 
after the third time, defendants will only have 20 days to respond 
before the government begins taking their property.

Efrén Olivares, a lawyer with the Texas Civil Rights Project, has been 
advising low-income landowners as the state pursues their land. He’s 
been in talks with a dozen people interested in litigation and said a 
nationwide network of pro bono lawyers is preparing to take on more cases.

“These are going to be long, drawn-out battles,” Olivares said. “Eminent 
domain law is very, very favorable to the government, but even within 
that, we’re hoping to make sure the government goes through hoops to get 
the land.”

Earlier, Olivares led a bilingual information session in Roma, a stone’s 
throw away from Mexico. Olivares explained to a packed room that while 
federal agents can legally be on private property to patrol for 
migrants, landowners can charge a fee for surveyors and contractors to 
be on their land. Some appeared frustrated at these nuances. One man, 
who did not want to give his name, realized that he’d given surveyors 
permission to be on his land for 18 months without receiving compensation.

Maria Luisa Cavazos’s land is in the government’s crosshairs. A retired 
nurse who now lives in McAllen, Cavazos is one of dozens of owners of a 
15-acre strip of land in Los Ebanos, a tiny community in Hidalgo County 
that has been coiled around the river since the 19th century. The land 
was left to the estate of her late grandmother, Maria Dolores Peña de 
Flores, and now the feds want 1.2 acres of it to build a road easement 
through the property.

Cavazos, now an elderly woman, said her family stopped farming the land 
over 40 years ago, after her father and uncle were hired to pick crops 
for major agribusinesses. It was fertile, supporting crops like 
cantaloupes, squash, cotton, and corn. It’s since been mostly vacant, 
and the federal government began sending letters out to Flores’s 
descendants in December 2016 asking that they accept a total of $2,900 
for the land and waive future appeals. The offer would come out to about 
$50 of compensation for each descendant.

It’s almost certainly a low-ball offer. An investigation by ProPublica 
and the Texas Tribune found 
<https://www.texastribune.org/2017/12/14/border-land-grab-government-abused-power-seize-property-fence/> 
that the federal government routinely skirted regulations when it paid 
South Texas landowners during the last round of fence-building under the 
Bush and Obama administrations. Appraisers for the Army Corps of 
Engineers were not beholden to certain federal regulations requiring 
they offer an amount that reflected the land’s true value, including its 
irrigable and farming capacity. Back then, Cavazos sold a different 
tract of land to the Department of Homeland Security for just $300. To 
get more money this time around, she would have to hire a lawyer to do 
her own independent appraisal, but she’s overwhelmed at the prospect.

“I don’t believe they should take away that land,” Cavazos said on her 
driveway, her eyes welling with tears as she recounted memories. “When I 
lived there when I was young, the illegals would knock on your door and 
ask for food, and if we had leftover food for our supper, my mom would 
give it to them.”

While federal data shows 
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/trump-border-wall-arrests/?utm_term=.bc1581209b07> 
apprehensions of migrants entering the country without authorization are 
below historic levels set in the 2000s, they’ve grown since 2000 in 
CBP’s Rio Grande Valley sector, where apprehensions are highest 
nationally. In Los Ebanos, the river’s banks on the American side can 
rise several feet high, posing a challenge to people scrambling ashore. 
Border Patrol agents as well as local and state police are always 
swarming the village.

Cavazos’s cousin Mirta Trigo also lived in Los Ebanos as a child. Trigo 
said some of her family members still use the land for Easter 
celebrations, and she’s more resistant than her relatives about the 
government’s bid for it. When she received the letter asking her to 
voluntarily forfeit the property, she didn’t sign it. But she doesn’t 
have the money to hire a lawyer and isn’t expecting to get much more 
from the federal government.

“I don’t want the wall there, the land is part of us,” Trigo said. “The 
government doesn’t care what we think, it’s true they don’t listen to us 
/porque/ we’re the Mexican people, we’re Mexicans.”


      Decades of Dispossession

Both Trigo and Cavazos were born in the U.S., but their self-recognition 
as Mexican speaks to a collective cultural identity that held strong for 
a century after the Rio Grande Valley became a territory of the U.S. 
After the 1840s, through a sustained effort spanning decades, Anglo 
settlers in the valley gained power as bankers, merchants, teachers, and 
other roles with local influence. “Mexicans,” or Tejanos, were relegated 
to roles like artisans, laborers, and struggling ranchers.

Starting in the late 19th century, Mexicans who had inherited property 
through Spanish land grants saw their acreage claims dwindle as they 
were divided among descendants. Ranchers were dispossessed of their 
lands by white brokers unwilling to lend them capital, as well as 
through theft and fraud. Lynch mobs, police, and Texas Rangers later 
maintained wealth and property lines through brutal violence 
<https://thenewinquiry.com/the-chaparral-insurgents-of-south-texas/>. A 
racialized underclass of fieldworkers, enlarged by refugees 
<https://www.texasobserver.org/the-making-of-the-magic-valley/> fleeing 
the Mexican Revolution, became the underpinning of an Anglo-dominated 
agricultural economy.

These developments created second-class citizens out of those who had 
long lived on the land. Schools reinforced this hierarchy, Ramiro 
Ramírez remembered, punishing him and other small children if they spoke 
Spanish in class. Today, Ramírez’s family church and two cemeteries in 
Hidalgo County 
<https://theintercept.com/2019/01/21/border-wall-gravesites-cemetery-texas/>, 
once a stop on the Underground Railroad after his ancestors arrived from 
the Deep South, will be ripped up by the border wall’s planned 
construction. Unlike the Jackson Ranch and Cemetery, which is located on 
the same property as the Jackson Ranch Church and only inters Jackson 
family members and descendants, the Eli Jackson Cemetery down the street 
became a community burial ground in the last century. Ramírez saw the 
land grab as part of a long tradition of anti-Mexican racism emanating 
from the valley’s power structure.

“All the vestiges of your culture, you start to perceive them as being 
bad, the food, the language, the clothing, the values,” Ramírez said of 
his upbringing, as he stood inside the endangered historic chapel built 
by his ancestor Martin Jackson. “We thought we could progress and be in 
the melting pot, but we couldn’t change the way we looked.”

Having visibly dark skin, or other physical features associated with 
Indigenous American or African ancestry, can make U.S. citizens in the 
Rio Grande Valley targets for harassment by border officials. Max Muñoz, 
the director of operations at the National Butterfly Center in Mission, 
is an American-born citizen who has been profiled and chased by Border 
Patrol agents half a dozen times over the last two years. The center, a 
nature preserve with more than 250 species of butterfly and other 
wildlife that may be cleaved by the border wall 
<https://theintercept.com/2018/11/09/new-border-wall-will-destroy-butterfly-center-texas-state-park/> 
despite congressional protections, has become a nucleus of resistance 
against its construction.

Once, an agent stopped Muñoz’s truck and demanded to see identification 
for his two daughters, who were small children. A helicopter was called 
after Muñoz refused to comply. Another time, an agent warned Muñoz that 
he was going to “find” and “catch” him in the future. He has stopped 
taking his family to the center for recreation, opting for nature trips 
to Austin instead — six hours away.

“I know I shouldn’t, but I don’t want to expose my kids to that,” Muñoz 
said. “I try not to put racism in their minds, but they see I’m getting 
stopped. I say [to them], maybe it’s because there’s an order to 
intimidate people away from the river.”


      The Valley’s Forgotten Tribes

The history of powerful forces uprooting people in the valley stretches 
back centuries. Conquistadors raided Native communities and enslaved 
whole families, and later the Spanish empire brought them to Catholic 
missions to eradicate their tribal identities. Colonization disrupted 
foodways and brought fatal diseases, increasing some Indigenous peoples’ 
dependence on the church’s abusive authority. The life-giving lands 
along the Rio Grande delta once supported at least 31 separate tribes in 
South Texas and Northeastern Mexico. There’s almost no public memory in 
the valley of most of them now.

Juan Mancias, the chairman of the Carrizo/Comecrudo tribe of Texas, who 
has taken a lead in organizing against the wall, told The Intercept that 
his grandfather helped him keep his connection to South Texas alive. The 
Carrizos and Comecrudos, names given by the Spanish, were each comprised 
of two bands in the valley. There’s nothing in settler historical 
archives after 1825 about the Carrizos as a distinct group, and the last 
known fluent speakers of the Comecrudean language were recorded near 
Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, in 1886.

Mancias, 64, grew up in the Texas panhandle after his ancestors moved 
there for work. He believes many in the valley have Carrizo and 
Comecrudo heritage, but after centuries of cultural genocide by the 
Catholic church and two settler nations, there’s little way to confirm 
it except oral history that isn’t extensively recorded. “It would have 
been lost for me if I hadn’t asked my grandfather what was really 
happening, or my older cousins and aunts and uncles, or my mom, who is 
94,” Mancias said.

Without a land base, the tribe has had to ally with property owners in 
the wall’s path. In January, Mancias started connecting with the 
Butterfly Center, Ramiro Ramírez of the Eli Jackson Cemetery, and Fred 
Cavazos (no relation to Maria), owner of 77 riverside acres in Madero, 
who has been featured in The Intercept 
<https://theintercept.com/2018/11/24/trump-border-military-deployment/>, 
the Washington Post 
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/trumps-border-wall-threatens-to-end-texas-families-250-years-of-ranching-on-rio-grande/2018/09/08/92e721d2-b12d-11e8-a20b-5f4f84429666_story.html?utm_term=.6b351b6aab65>, 
and The Atlantic 
<https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/02/trumps-border-wall-threatens-loma-lomita-chapel/583447/>. 
With the Ramírez family’s permission, the Carrizo/Comecrudo have 
occupied the Eli Jackson Cemetery and more recently started an 
encampment at the Butterfly Center; Cavazos said that Mancias has a key 
to his property to set up a possible third resistance camp in the future.

The Carrizo/Comecrudo tribe is not recognized by the federal government, 
but is a voluntary association registered as a nonprofit to collect and 
administer funds. The tribe held a fundraiser in early March, and a 
GoFundMe page overseen by Mancias brought in more than $20,000 over the 
last two years — the result of tenacious social media boosting. The 
donations fund the tribe’s activism, which has produced impressive 
results: In 2017, Mancias traveled to France with other local activists 
to confront 
<https://www.ran.org/press-releases/bnp_paribas_makes_sweeping_announcement_to_cut_business_with_tar_sands_pipelines_and_lng/> 
BNP Paribas over the bank’s liquified natural gas investments in the 
valley. The bank divested shortly thereafter.

“Everything we get, we put it back into the tribe,” Mancias said. “Our 
profit is to make people know we’re here and we’re not going anywhere. 
We’re on our lands, and that’s the only radical thing we’re trying to do.”

Recently, Mancias accompanied Ramiro Ramírez and his sister, Sylvia, to 
a local restaurant where they met with Raul Ortiz, the chief of CBP’s 
Rio Grande Valley sector. According to Sylvia Ramírez, Ortiz assured the 
group that the government would not seize their land for at least six 
months, and possibly not for a year. (A media spokesperson for CBP’s Rio 
Grande Valley sector did not respond to emails and phone calls from The 
Intercept to confirm this account.)

“I’m assuming they’re telling us what they know, and they’re not pulling 
a fast one,” Sylvia conceded. “I’m going to give them that until I know 
differently.” She said her family had been “very appreciative” of the 
Carrizo/Comecrudo encampment, which had no plans to disband at 
publication time despite Ortiz’s longer timeline.

On March 14, attorneys with the environmental nonprofit Earthjustice 
filed a joint lawsuit 
<https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5770315/3-14-19-Rio-Grande-International-Study-Center-v.pdf> 
against Trump and administration officials on behalf of the Ramírez 
family and the tribe, as well as several other plaintiffs. It asks a 
federal judge to strike down the national emergency declaration and 
enjoin the president from using emergency funds to build the wall.


      A History That Needs to Be Told

Sitting around a smoldering mesquite log at Yalui Village one Sunday 
afternoon, several young men played prayer music from a phone and smoked 
cigarettes. Their discussion turned to peyote, whose cacti buttons 
produce a medicinal hallucinogenic effect and were once found 
<https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/button-pushers/> in abundance in 
South Texas prior to the war on drugs. A peyote button is on the seal of 
the Carrizo/Comecrudo. At its center is the Aplomado Falcon, an 
endangered bird found in the region.

A flag bearing the seal of the American Indian Movement — the Indigenous 
liberation group started in 1968 — flaps in the wind, alongside flags of 
the Carrizo/Comecrudo and the Texas-based Society of Native Nations. 
Nearby, a camper served chili to others out of a large grease pan. The 
camp’s kitchen, mostly composed of several coolers and cooking equipment 
underneath yellow tarp, had recently been visited by a pack of wild 
boars. Clouds of insects are omnipresent, and field mice are innumerable 
enough that someone brought a cat to hunt them down.

The valley is one of the most biologically diverse 
<https://www.americanforests.org/magazine/article/lower-rio-grande-valley-national-wildlife-refuge-texas/> 
regions in the country, but pressures from human settlement have 
destroyed 95 percent of its natural habitat. Last October, Homeland 
Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen waived 25 laws under the 2005 Real 
ID Act, including protections for endangered species and migratory 
birds, to expedite the wall’s construction. A study 
<https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/68/10/740/5057517> by 
Stanford University researchers found that 34 percent of ground and 
freshwater animals living along the U.S.-Mexican border would have their 
habitats bisected by the barrier, leading to possible extinction for some.

Nielsen also waived laws meant to protect Native American grave sites 
and other spiritual lands, which only apply to tribes the government 
recognizes. All others, including the Carrizo/Comecrudo, are at the 
mercy of the settler state as voluntary associations without special 
protections, but Mancias says that lacking official recognition can be 
liberating. Without any blood quantum requirements to limit tribal 
membership, for example, the tent for the Carrizo/Comecrudo can be as 
wide as the tribe wants it to be.

The people buried at the Eli Jackson Cemetery, who lie for eternity near 
where the campers sleep for now, may not be directly related to Mancias, 
but his conception of relations is broad enough to consider everything 
with roots in the land to be a relative. “There’s a history that needs 
to be told,” Macias said. “It’s not about them recognizing if we’re 
Indian, it’s that we recognize if we’re Indian.”

-- 
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