MY MOST RECENT TRIP TO A U.S. borderland was in the summer of 2019, when I spent a month living an hour away from the junction of Presidio, Texas, and Ojinaga, Mexico. As usual, nobody wanted to cross over with me. They weren’t afraid of being shot by a narco’s stray bullet, like when I first started researching this book in 2007, however. They worried about the traffic. U.S. Customs and Border Protection had recently shifted 750 agents away from monitoring northbound vehicles so they could contend with asylum-seekers instead. Even though the two towns had barely 33,000 residents between them, the lines at the port of entry could be interminable. Luckily, I befriended a chilango (denizen of Mexico City) named Sandro who regularly crossed the border in his work with adoberos, or traditional adobe bricklayers. He picked me up one Tuesday morning in a truck plastered with stickers that said DEPORT THE MIGRA and CHINGA TU MURO (Fuck Your Wall), and we set off toward the Chinati Mountains.
Exiting the United States was a breeze. Sandro barely braked. Small but vibrant Ojinaga offset the triple-digit temperatures with plenty of paleterías, or popsicle shops. We spent the day running errands, eating chilaquiles, and clinking beers over the semifinals of the Women’s World Cup. When we returned to the port of entry, the line of cars stretched all the way down Avenida Fronteriza to a taqueria called El Chile Loco. We pulled in behind the last car at 4:20 P.M., rolled down the windows, and waited.
And waited.
Vendors kept us company. Young men and elder women approached our windows with an assortment of cold beverages along with hammocks, peanuts, wallets, cellphone sleeves, tamales, and sunglasses. A family displayed three-foot-tall replicas of La Virgen de Guadalupe along the curb. One man proffered a stick of jerky in one hand and a Mexican flag in the other. We turtled past Mexico’s customs to the foot of an international bridge topped by a chain-link fence crowned with barbed wire. A driver in the southbound lane rolled down her window and asked how long we’d been in line.
“An hour,” Sandro said.
She pursed her lips. “My son, he was in line for four!”
As we neared the bridge’s midpoint, we saw one of the reasons for the hold up. Agents had erected a tent where the United States and Mexico converge and were checking passports. Sandro said this was the latest tactic to thwart asylum-seekers. Denied passage over the bridge, they couldn’t apply for refuge.
By the time a Border Patrol agent waved us into Texas—6:12 P.M.—I was despondent. Presidio is essentially a suburb of Ojinaga, barely one-fifth its size. Folks there could literally die without Mexico: the nearest U.S. hospital is eighty-seven miles away. When Presidio loses power during a storm, Ojinaga comes to the rescue—as does Presidio’s volunteer fire department whenever Ojinaga has a crisis. These communities have been inexorably linked for centuries, with brides’ families living on one side of the border and grooms’ families on the other. The thought of a son waiting four hours to cross the bridge to his mother—or, far worse, being turned back altogether—satirized the Budweiser billboard claiming TUS AMIGOS, SON FAMILIA nearby.
Sensing I could use some cheering, Sandro took Farm Road 170 toward Big Bend Ranch State Park. After rounding a few curves, we were in a magnificent desert undulating beneath a titanic sky. We drove past high canyon walls and low metamorphic rock, past nopales budding with yellow flowers and yucca blooming with white flowers. Sandro pulled over when the Rio Grande came into view. Sidestepping ocotillo, we descended the craggy rock to the floodplain. Mourning doves cooed. Dragonflies darted about. Never had I seen this river such a lovely shade of blue. I was on the verge of kicking off my sandals when I remembered how, nine days before, a young father from El Salvador and his two-year-old daughter had attempted to forge this river after agents blocked their passage over the bridge uniting Brownsville with Matamoros. They were later found face-down on the river’s bank, the child’s tiny head tucked inside her father’s shirt.
“It’s really sad that this river has been given a job it doesn’t want,” Sandro said.
He climbed back up to his truck and returned with a conch shell. Lifting it to his lips, he emitted a tremendous sound—one that echoed off the rock face and stirred through the weeds, silencing even the doves as it dispersed into the wind. For the briefest of moments, the border seemed serene. Then, overhead, a Border Patrol vehicle drove by. They were still there. But so were we.
Stephanie Elizondo Griest
AUGUST 2019
INTRODUCTION
The Descendants
WE ALL KNOW THE RULES. CROSS AN INTERNATIONAL BORDERLINE without the proper papers and—unless luck or privilege protects you—get arrested, imprisoned, and expelled. But what happens when an international borderline crosses over you, slicing your ancestral land in two? Division-by-force has been the confusing fate of peoples the world over. This book explores its living legacy among two: the Akwesasne Mohawks, whose territory was split between Canada and the United States by a series of treaties signed between 1783 and 1850, and the Tejanos of South Texas, who were severed from their native Mexico by the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848.
Were I not myself a Tejana who had recently spent a year near Akwesasne, I would find this pairing odd. More than 2,000 miles stand between our communities, and—with the exception of Catholicism—our cultures hold little of that ground in common. Mohawks traditionally subsisted on hunting, farming, and fishing in one of the coldest regions of the United States, whereas my forefathers tended cattle in one of the hottest. They are matriarchal; we tend toward machismo. We are fanatical about football; Mohawks don’t just revere lacrosse, they invented it.
We also experience our respective borders quite differently. Many Mohawks refuse to acknowledge the lines at all. They are a sovereign people who employ their own police force and operate their own library, museum, media, school, and court. They look not to Washington or Ottawa for governance but to the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, of which they have been members for centuries. Many vote in tribal elections but not federal, state, or provincial ones because they view those systems as foreign (and even hostile) to their own. I know one Mohawk who regularly switches residency from one side of the border to the other whenever one government happens to offer better benefits, but most live near the homesteads their families have held for generations.
Yet because Akwesasne’s (recognized) territory spans just 26,350 acres along land also governed by New York, Ontario, and Quebec, its citizens are profoundly affected by the borderlines in their midst. Many must contend with Customs and Border Patrol agents multiple times a day: to get to work, to take their children to school, to grab a Dunkaccino, to attend a Longhouse ceremony or Mass. I have yet to meet the Mohawk whom this does not enrage. Protests are frequent at Akwesasne, as are bridge closures and other acts of civil disobedience.
Most Tejanos I know resent the obstructions in our roadways, too. However, the only time I’ve seen us demonstrate was when Congress decided to build a border wall that carved up our neighborhoods. Many of us view the wall not as a safeguard to homeland security but as yet another threat to our once-thriving binational community. Not so long ago, we crossed the borderline all the time. Our in-laws lived in Matamoros; our clients were in Reynosa; our dentist was in Progreso. Our tías could get their hair and nails done for the price of a blow-out in McAllen. And who could resist a salt-rimmed margarita at the Cadillac Bar?
Then in 2006, Mexican president Felipe Calderón declared war on the drug cartels, sparking retaliations that claimed upward of 10,000 lives a year. As reports of beheadings began to top the local news hour, many Tejanos who could shift their activities northward did so. Besides a few journalists and activists, no one I know ventures south to the border towns anymore—my family included. Fear has constructed a wall far taller than what Congress envisioned.
This raises another key difference between Akwesasne Mohawks and the Tejanos of South Texas. Akwesasne is largely self-contained. There is no better place for Mohawks to learn their robust langu
age, traditions, and ceremonies than right inside their nation. Indeed, Akwesasne is one of the only places where such is even possible. Tejanos also boast a vibrant culture that includes a world-famous cuisine (Tex-Mex) and a pop goddess (Selena). Yet the nostalgic among us feel that the only place to truly grasp our heritage is in Mexico, even if we no longer have family there. Having historically been treated as outsiders by whites and as traitors (or worse: strangers) by Mexican nationals, we have a visceral desire to know what inside us is Mexican, what is gringo, and by what alchemy our ancestors fused the two.
For Mohawks, then, the borderline is mostly a physical obstruction that insults their sovereignty. For Tejanos, it is more of a psychic block that stifles our connectivity.
But the purpose of this book is not to spotlight the differences in our communities. Those are readily apparent. No, what startled me about Akwesasne was how often I experienced déjà vu there. Practically every major story I’d heard in half a lifetime in South Texas was echoed at some point that year at Akwesasne. Whether the issue was environmental degradation, language loss, drug trafficking, the diabetes epidemic, or confrontations with the Border Patrol, our communities not only had endured the same struggles but had shared similar methods of transcendence as well. Activists heeded the cries unheard by federal or social services, while artists elevated the spirits. Mexican patron saint La Virgen de Guadalupe and Mohawk saint Kateri Tekakwitha appeared right when her respective believers needed her most.
Much too often we hear about the U.S. borderlands only from the politicians who dictate their policies from afar. Rarely do we learn from the descendants of the regions’ early inhabitants. Starting first with the Tejanos of South Texas and then moving on to the Mohawks of Akwesasne, I align their stories side by side as a testimonio, or a document of witness, of what life there is truly like.
LET’S START WITH A FEW DEFINITIONS. Identity is everything when you live in the periphery, but are you born a Chicana, or do you become one? Is being Mohawk solely a matter of blood quantum, or do cultural values play a role, too? Where does “American” fit into either equation? In these pages, I honor the identities my sources have selected for themselves. Here are some you’ll encounter:
A Tejana/o is a person of Mexican descent who grew up in Texas and is a U.S. citizen. Many Tejano families have been around for centuries and are thus fond of the saying “We didn’t cross the border; the border crossed us.” A Chicana/o, meanwhile, can be any U.S. citizen of Mexican descent. Back in the fifties, it was a derogatory designation, but nowadays it usually refers to a Mexican American who is self-actualized and politicized.1 Latina/o is a catchall term for any U.S. citizen of Latin American descent, be they Mexican American, Peruvian American, or Cuban American. So is Hispanic, but I am not particularly fond of that word (hisss-panic) so have mostly avoided it. While some scholars and activists have started decolonizing these terms by omitting their (cis-)gendered endings in favor of the more inclusive “Chican@” and “Latinx,” I declined to do so here because they weren’t being used by the communities I write about during the time of my research. When referring to someone who is a citizen of Mexico, I use the term “Mexican national.” Unless quoting someone else, I try to avoid “American” because it could apply to anyone from las Américas—North, Central, and South.
After much hand-wringing, I’ve decided to use the terms “Native American,” “indigenous,” and “Indian” interchangeably. Although the first two terms are thought to be more respectful by outsiders, I’ve found that most community members themselves prefer “Indian.” Canadians use the term “Aboriginal peoples” when referencing First Nations, Inuits, and Métis as a collective, so I do here as well.
Haudenosaunee (or “People of the Longhouse”) is the indigenous name of the Iroquois Confederacy,2 which unites six nations: the Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, Seneca, Tuscarora, and Mohawk. While all Mohawks are Haudenosaunee, not all Haudenosaunee are Mohawks, in other words. Because the Mohawk Nation of Akwesasne straddles the U.S./Canadian borderline, it is tempting to refer to its regions as being on “the U.S. side” or “the Canadian side.” Having preceded those governments by millennia, Mohawks tend to say “south of the river” and “north of the river” instead. For outsiders attempting to abide by international law, this designation can be confusing, since one section of their nation is south of the river but also technically in Quebec, Canada. More on this later, but be forewarned: it’s a mind-warp. The river in question is the mighty St. Lawrence.
Though I self-identify as Tejana, Chicana, and Latina, people usually take me for a gringa when they meet me. Protesting assumptions is futile in the borderlands. Appearance alone determines whether your citizenry is questioned and allegiances tested on a back road far from earshot. For much of my life, I wallowed in guilt over the privilege my light skin and blue eyes have granted me, but I’ve come to recognize the vanity of this emotion. Guilt does not free anyone from a detention center or equip a home with a septic tank. The only proper response to privilege is to grip it like a baseball bat and shatter injustice with all of your might.
Many of the people you are about to meet strive to do just that, in realms ranging from the quelling of narco-violence and environmental racism to the preservation of Native sovereignty. I have modified several of their identities to protect their privacy as well as to ward off possible reprisals. Some were interviewed multiple times during the writing of this book (2007 to 2015). In certain instances, it made sense to collapse the time frame for narrative’s sake, so a number of stories that developed over the course of months or years have been relayed as having occurred in a day or week.
While I fact-checked the “verifiable truths” that appear in these pages—stats, dates, and so on—I took the personal stories at face value, however whimsical they may have seemed. Spirituality is a powerful force in borderlands north and south, and rather than interrogate anyone’s belief systems, I respected them. At no point did I feel anyone was being emotionally untrue to me, and even if they were—lies shape our reality, too.
Now that the disclaimers have ended, may the stories begin!
NOTES
1. My favorite definition of Chicana/o comes courtesy of Michele Serros: “A pissed-off Mexican.” She should know: in 2014, this best-selling author of How to Be a Chicana Role Model launched a social media campaign against the Mexican fast-food chain Chipotle for its “Cultivating Thought” series that printed short stories on its cups and take-out bags (¡órale!) yet failed to include any Mexican, Chicana/o, or even Latina/o writers on its inaugural roster (¡híjole!).
2. Some scholars trace “Iroquois” to a French word derived from a Basque/Algonquian pidgin term meaning “killer people.” I’ll be using “Haudenosaunee” throughout the book unless quoting someone else.
ALL THE AGENTS AND SAINTS
PROLOGUE
Nepantla
FEW DETAILS REMAIN ABOUT HOW MY GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-grandfather Juan de Dios Silva crossed into southern Texas (or what he likely still considered northern Mexico). Family legend has him on horseback. A distant relative claims the year 1879. All we know for certain is that after abandoning his hometown Cruillas—a tiny village in Tamaulipas—he somehow wound up at the biggest cattle empire the world has ever known, the King Ranch.1 There, he worked as a vaquero until the end of his days. His sons and daughters proudly carried on the tradition, trading hard labor for the ranch’s cradle-to-grave protection. So did the next generation, and the next. My mom spent every summer there, helping her cousins finish up their chores and then primping for the dance that Saturday. I, in turn, celebrated holidays there, whacking piñatas and fetching another beer for my tíos. Our vaquero days ended in the late 1980s, however, when the ranch modernized and corporatized. Family members lost not only their jobs and homes but also their traditional way of living as they retreated from the ranch and headed into the city. Today, whenever we wish to visit our abuelos’ graves, we must first obtain a permit.
Now that I’ve reached my early thirties, however, my nomadic lifestyle seems to be existentially untethering me. Anything that could have diverted attention from my writing—a house, a partner, a community, a legitimately paying job, children, pets, plants—has been avoided for so long, it has slipped into the realm of the unobtainable. The bulk of my books and clothes, meanwhile, are scattered in attics around the world. With so few attachments, I am starting to feel like I could blow away and no one would notice.
Normally when I meet a crossroads, I buy a plane ticket. Nothing ties me down, so I keep moving. Yet it is becoming apparent that if I never stand still, nothing ever will.
In 2007, I follow the magnetic pull of home. Part of the draw is journalistic. If the latest headlines are to be believed, the southern borderlands have transformed into a death valley in my absence, poisoned by petrochemical industries, ravaged by the drug war, and soon to be barricaded by a seventy-mile-long steel wall. It’s become the nation’s chief crossing ground for undocumented workers as well, unknown hundreds of whom perish in the scrub brush while evading the Border Patrol. My beloved hometown, meanwhile, is on the verge of being named “America’s fattest city,” with an obesity epidemic under way. Other national distinctions too insulting to discuss (Dumbest? ¿Qué? Least literate? No me digas. Worst credit scores? Did they go to Robstown or what?) bring out the defense mechanism in us all.2
All the Agents and Saints, Paperback Edition Page 2