history paper
pilitostorm
TheInjusticeNeverLeavesYou-Epilogue_2.pdf
Epilogue
ONE WEEK IN OCTOBER 20 10, I spent day after day sitting at the long table
inside the special collections reading room in the James C . Jernigan Li-
brary of the Texas A&M University-Kingsville campus. The library lobby
was full of alumni who had returned for reunion weekend. Draped in the
school colors, blue and yellow, the alumni enthusiasm and celebrations
were an odd juxtaposition to the grim records I was reviewing. The staff
of the South Texas Archives graciously brought to me box after box from
unknown rooms. Files included letters, maps of south Texas, nearly 100
photographs and postcards, and seventeen oral histories with local resi-
dents, conducted by students from the university for class credit. On my
last day in the collections, an archivist asked whether any of the oral his-
tories I had listened to were particularly helpful. One oral history, labeled
"Anonymous no. 237," had caught my attention. The archivist responded
that she did not know about the interview but quickly discouraged me
from giving much credence to the content . If interviewees decided not to make their name public at the time of interview, in her opinion, there was
a high probability that the recorded stories might have been fabricated.
T h e anonymity of this interview she felt rendered it unreliable.
' '
294 TH E I NJ UST ICE NEV ER LEAVEs y
Ou The interview is a forty-one-minute-long testimonial in S .
. . . h pan1sh I b · ns with the voice of the 111terv1ewer, w o also remain · t e-
gt . . s unnallled• ,, Partial fulfillment for Texas Histor y 413, the followmg intervie · In
k Th . . . . Wof asi
six-year-old man was ta en. ts mterv1ew concerns his vie >:ty_ . ws and opi .
Of the Texas Rangers here in the early 1900s." After this stat 1110ns
ement • · d' · h · · , Wtth worn but still comman mg voice, t e interviewee begins: a
Los [sic] voy a platicar 1111a historia de los rinches de 11ovecie1tto qtti, tee q11e yo
alca1tce a ver de la edad de 1111eve a,ios. Perseg11fa11 a Tomas Garza d M· . _ . . . . e 1ss1on,
Tejas ftijo de Dona Vtrgmra Garza. Los r111ches los alca11zaro1t en 11 1 , • 11 ttgar qlle le deda11 Peladitas. Lo agarraron los r111cl1es, lo amarraro11 a 1111 lllesq, .1 11 econ cade,ra, )' le eclzaro11 ci11c11e11ta galo11es de gasoli11a, y vivo lo q11e111aro,z. Eso l,ada11 los ri11cltes e11 11ovecientos quince.
I'm going to tell you a history of the ri11cl1es in 1915 that I saw when 1
was nine years old. They were following Tomas Garza of Mission
Texas son of Dona Virginia Garza. The ri11cl1es found him in an a' , , rea known as Peladitas. The ri11cl1es grabbed him, tied him to a mesquite
tree with a chain, and then they poured fifty gallons of gasoline on h' 1m, and they burned him alive. That is what the rinches did in 1915.'
Over the next forty-one minutes, the man continues almost without
pause. He describes brutal law enforcement methods, discrimination, seg-
regation in south Texas, and example after example of acts of racial vio-
lence. In the words of the interviewee, state agents and local residents did
not hesitate to "kill Mexicans like rabbits." The intervi ewee made his goal
clear from the beginning. He wanted to give an account of a series of mur-
ders he witnessed or learned about: "Eso hadan los rinches e11 novecientos
quince. I That is what the rinches did in 1915." Sitting in front of a tape re-
corder, he testified to the history of racial violence as he lived it and
remembered it. He gave the names of victim s along with the names or
titles of Texas Rangers, local law enforcement officers, and area ranchers
who participated in these extralegal executions. This was an act of anam-
nesis, a praxis against forgetting . The anonymous oral history, conducted in the early 1970s, is one of
many examples of the will that has made this book possible: an individual,
long forgotten by history, who insists on recording his own truth; a will
that insists on documenting what has been disavowed; a will that hopes
future generations will reckon with the past. In this act of vernacular
295
king the witness was carefu l to nan1 h y,1na ' e t e dead histor . bers left in the aftermath, and to ' to name the
•ty 1nell1 name the . (~
1111 • d brutal murder . The anonymo us inter . assailants who 11n1tte viewee thus l fl
c011 . bs-names, dates and locations-to aid e ta trail of adcru1n . people like
bre hers hoping to recover erased histories. me, future cseJrc f l . l h . b r atment o t 11s ora istory y a local arch· •
the tre ivist serves as . Jationship between historical narra tives a reminder
fthe re , memory arch· 0 The truth of what happ ened can be suppressed b ' IVes, and Power. . ( . . y overt racism b . ntional actions or inactions) of a police capta· , Y the inte . in , or a county jud
ce senator. But hmory can also be disavowed b ge, or a sta . y small, ordinar
d . advertent detail s; by an offhand com ment from . . Y,
an in . . . f an archivist that d rmines the credibility o a memory ; by an archivist h . un e . . . . . w o Withholds Id rs from v1S1tors searching for evidence of their family h' . fo e . . 1stones or guides
rchers away from testimonials that seem officially tro bl resea u esome; by a
h. torian who chooses to focus on one story as opposed to oth h 1s ers, w o as- n1es that titled and long- celebr ated employees of the state a d su . . . re goo and
h t Unnamed others are not. It is m this vast gamut of choi·ces f . t a , o actions and inactions, of the conscious effort and the unconscious assumption, that histories ofloss are disavowed .
Decades after the killings , when justice continued to feel out of reach
remembering the names of the dead proved an important means of grievin~
injustice. In describing these events, residents like the anonymous inter-
viewee rejected the dehumanizing historie s that ignored or celebrated vio-
lence. In the climate of ongoing racial ten sions in Texas in the 1970s, a
climate that encouraged him to remain anonymous, the interviewee must
have known that the time for a public reckoning had not yet arrived. None-
theless, he also knew that accounts should be preserved, in anticipation of
days ahead with more possibilities. To dismiss the content of the interview
is to foreclose those possibilities. 2 Passing histories along to future genera-
tions creates an opportunity and an anticipation of future efforts to reckon
with histories of violence .
As this book has shown, people whose lives were interrupted by the trag-
edies they learned from relatives answered the call for a public reckoning
with this history. Benita and Evaristo Albarado , R omana Bienek, Linda
Davis, Norma Longoria Rodriguez , Kirb y Warnock, and others preserved these histories and throu gh vernacular history-making made them public.
Their efforts inspir ed others, m yself included, to hold to account state
a
296
THE INJU STICE NEVER L EAVt s You
• • I.T chc stories they tell about histories of . itutions Ill rev1s111::, . . Vtolen
inst . . d I wdful of state historical markers are only th b ce. One exh161t an a 1, . e eg1n . , 'th chis history of v10lence. As we have seen h -
· .,. ofreckonlllg '' 1 , t ere a mng . . vhose names still need to be recovered. 3 re !so many v1ct11ns ,
a . the strong impulse to remember the dead, we sh 1 I 11 recognizing ou d also
. f •ncended consequences of efforts to memorialize 0 be caut10us o um . . . · n the d I
consequences of not reckonmg with histories of . 1 one han ' ne . . . . . Vto ent
I. • are profound. As V1ck1 RulZ wisely reminds us "H· border po tong, . . . • tstor- .
1 y shapes affinities ofbelongmg and claims of citizenship .. ~ Th ica memor , . . • e
f: .1 to confront violent policing practices in the 19 lOs allowed a sy a1 ures stem
f . 1 to go unchecked in the twentieth century. The failure t 0 no ence o re-
member this history enables its perpetuation. On the other hand, public
projects on histories of violence may lead some to ~o-nceptualize racial and
ethnic violence as matters only of the past. Recogmzmg the significance of
a violent historical period, writing about chat history, and memorializing
victims is not enough. Current efforts to reckon with histories of state
violence are occurring in the midst of ongoing practices of police brutality
both along the border and across the country. Remembering the past, then,
is also about knowing the present.
In 1924 politicians and state agents who created the conditions for a widespread period of anti-Mexican violence went on to become the ar-
chitects of the US Border Patrol and incarceration systems in the United
States. Current federal and state policing regimes have deep roots in the
violence of the borderlands-the regime of terror practiced a century ago
on the Texas-Mexico border is crucial to ongoing conversations about po-
lice brutality and the carceral state. The history reminds us of the dangers
of criminalization and unchecked racial profiling and police abuse.
More than 2.3 million people are incarcerated in American federal and
state prisons, juvenile correctional facilities, local jails, Indian Country jails,
ci, ·il commitment centers, military prisons, and prisons in US territories.
Seveney-one percent of federal prison inmates are Black or Latinx. Since
2009, congressional appropriation laws have included language that sets a
quota to maintain 34.000 immigration detention beds on a daily basis. US
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the only law enforcement
agency ubject to a statutory quota. In 2015 the United States spent nearly 2 billion a year on immigration detention centers and relied on private
prison companies to manage these facilities. In 2017 approximately-H,OOO
,... 297
·ontined \I\ \\1\\\Hgr.1ti 11 detcntion .5 We lrC \" ,k " ·t>rt' c . • , iv1ng in the midst
pCL 1f , . )f cont.11nment. l3r .111 tevcmon reflect 1 . ~tn1(turt.:~ L • s t 1,1t mass im-
til h \s "htteretl the 11.1t1on.1\ \.1nd cape with cue \ . ,1111\ent • . . . , era monuments
pfl'L I• " "'d excl'SS\\' C punishment .111d r.wagcd comi . . •ck t:~~ • • 1lllntt1e wnh
L,t rt: ,i, ·s wi\hngncss to c ndemn ,rnd d, card the 111 1 . hoi: t: t:~ ' 0st vu nerab\e olll •~ ,
\ ,T ll~-
111\0I ::- t" \ U M . . i rtion to con memcnt, t 1c - cx1co border conti b \n ,ll 01 . nues to e a
. o\icing. lndeed, the U Border Patrol 1s the nation' sec d 1 h,,•e tor P , . on argest . t· f(C .iti:er the New York Pohce Department. ince 2000 B d
ohce o · . . or er P
I a1icers h.we made nc.nl ' t\ elve million apprehen ions L t. .
p,,tro 011 . • a mx pop- . ,ccounted for nearly all, a taggermg 92 percent of the
111.,uon • . • se appre- . . nd reports of abu e, 1111 conduct, and corruption are on th • 7 hen. 10m. . e nse . . ills for an exp,mded Border Patrol m the twenty-first century have
had d,,ngerou result . When the Border Patrol expanded dramatically be-
tween ~006 and 2009 (adding ,000 new agent), the number of em-
plo ·ee arre ted fo~ miscon~uct (civil right violation or off-duty crimes
uch a dome tic violence) mcrea ed by 44 percent during the three-year
pan. The American lmmigration Council reported that more than 100
emplo ·ee were arre ted or charged with corruption, including taking
bribe to muggle drugs or people, and many more have been charged with
mi u e of force, criminal m.i conduct, abuse of migrants, and violating con-
titutional right . According to U Cu toms and Border Protection re-
porting. border agent killed fifty-one people between 2005 and 2015. Five
of thee killing involved police firing hot across the border.
As we reflect on the centennial of the 1919 state investigation into Te. .... as
Ranger , worri ome trends of police abu e continue, and the requirements
and over ight for border enforcement officer are tarting to thin. ln 2014
the United ation High Cammi ioner for Refugees called for manda-
tory training for US border enforcement authorities in "fundamental
principle of nondi criminatory treatment" and "on the basic norm
and principle of international human right and refugee law.''9 lnstead, in
2017 the Department of Homeland ecurity moved to ea e training and
enrollment requirements for Border Patrol agent , even as it sought to in-
crea e their numbers b hiring 15,000 new Border Patrol and ICE agent .10
The cill to rapidly e::--.-pand the number of agent failed to con ider the proYen
ri ks, hi torically and more recent\ ,, of ha ing officers on a police force
with0ut the proper requirement . De pite the le on learned, Homeland
..--- THE INJUSTICE NEVER
29 LEAVts rou
.il • • 111 mgge ted w,1ivrng J required polygraph test ( ecunrv ouic ' ~ . • . requ1r B der orruptw11 Act of 2010), removrng langua ed by rhe Anti- or . 'ge profic,
. Border Patrol entry exam , and removing one of ency re r- from . . two ph , . . .. for officers. Given the rate of policmg on the borde }s1ca/ t1rne re~r~ r, refor,n·
l . ti·ces i an important struggle to engage. Transform. . 1ng
po ice prJc . . . . . . . 1ng iin,n . l'cie and endrng the cnm111alizat10n of 1mm1grants i h 1•
granon po 1 5 t e longer rruggle ,1head. .
P 1. · g rraregies and incarcerat10n, unfortunately, are mere/ o 1c111 Y one p
f h b utal US security efforts. Strategies like Operation Gateke arr
o t e r . . . . eper, for . le inaugurated 111 1994, strategica lly rncreased policing al
examp , . . . ong the US-Mexico border in Califorrna, New Mex1co, and Texas in order to
funnel would-be migrants and refugee~ to the most dangerous area of the
border, the Sonoran Desert, thus deternng them from crossing. Using the
desert as deterrent did not work. These efforts did not curb migration but instead had dire humanitarian consequences. According to US Border Patrol statistics, over the past eighteen years, nearly 7,000 people have died
of hypothermia, drowning, heat exhaustion, or dehydration attempting to
cross into the United States.11 Anthropologist Jason De Leon describes the federal plan simply as "a killing machine that simultaneously uses and hides
behind rhe viciousness of the Sonoran Desert. The Border Patrol disguises
rhe impact of its current enforcement policy by mobilizing a combination
of sterilized discourse, redirected blame, and 'natural' environmental pro-
cesses rhat erase evidence of what happens in the most remote parts of
southern Arizona."12
The fact that hundreds die crossing into the United States every year,
and that this is not considered a national crisis, speaks to the dismissal of immigrant life by US Americans on a daily basis. The US-Mexico border
is again littered with bodies, transformed into what De Leon describes as "a land of open graves." Families and friends are returning to the border- lands to search the landscape for the remains of loved ones. Anthropolo-
gists and immigrant rights groups are helping to document and identify the dead. And the graves are not limited to Arizona.
In south Texas, too, groves of mesquite trees are again concealing dead bodies. Brooks County, for example, is described as a "death vaJley" for immigrants 13 s· 2009 h · d · rnce , t e remains of more than 550 undocumente migrants have been discovered in the county alone. In 2014 a group of ar- cheologists from o · Id • U · peration ent1fication, a project at Texas State iuver-
I I , , . 299 . c i·••nsit' /\tlt lrl)pt) ng\ ' cmc:r, found l 111 . . • ~ 1 l) ~ ' .l~s 111111 k ~,n. I bt)rtkr dwcl-.point in P.1lfoni,1s in Bro k (' 1,1r t•d gr,1,°l' llt•~ I
t1tl,1tll • • • () s O\lnt \Y r , rt,t• • j ,, .is h,1rrow1ng. Snmt· ot tht' bodic~ , , . y, w h,tt tht'\I 1 ·11,·t'ftl • . Vnc Jllst t . I , l 1\-
l I thc:r~ "t'l't' pl.\cc:d Ill tr,bh h,1g~ sho111, l osscl lllto thl' . ,du t' () • • . • ' . lllg ),1g, or h I pit,
. 1 id thl' b()tll'S ot scwr,11 d1!krt'11t bodi" 1 ' 0
l Y b,tgs, s0111• b.t~~ 1• t:s , t tur11e i ( 1 igt·tltS h.td colkctcd the rcm.iins of uni 1 . . c out th.it l3ordcr p,1tro •, . . c cntthl'd p,
1 ,
,ting to cross 11Ho thl' United St.1tcs Af 1
(Opt: \\ho dit•d ,ittctni , . · · tcr t icy fou d
1 I Z trdlv burn~d the dc.id.
14 The olibri c, . n ttl'ni, tht•y h.tp t.l • • . . ,l:lltl'r for Hu1n,1n . •iv 1dvoc,K\' oq~.1n1:z,1t1on workmg to end . Rights I\ ,1 f,1n11 . . , nugr.,m dcuh o I ~i · •ico border. Fountkr .rnd forensic anthropolog· t O. · . n t tt' US 1, o, . . . is t. Robin R., k . II ibor,iting wtth fa m t!tes and forensic scienti t cine c 11 to . , . . . s to collect inissin . is reports, help 1dent1fy the de.id, and return th· , . . " g per- soi. . is e rcm,11ns to f.in1'1' I Okiiw for their loved ones. · When immigrants ~ , . . '
1 ics o r, • ' .. re cnnunaliz ·d
ide the scapegoats of elected offic1als, the borderla d . c and ,n, . . C l'b , . II . 'n s rcn1atn a place of violent pohcrng. o I n 1s co ectmg a twenty-first-cc t
n ury red record When I learned about these anthropologists discovc · ·
nng mass graves and attempting to recover the names of the dead I thought aboi t 1 1 , , • , ' • 1 t le car y work of Ida B. Well -Barnett, Jovita Idar, and Frank Pierce cre't'
• " mg records of death and calling for social justice. When I contemplated ti f: .
1 .
' ' ' IC am, !CS waiting to hear from loved ones after they crossed into the u,11·t d S e t.Hcs, I remembered Miguel Garcia in 1918 searching groves of mesquite trees in south Texas for the remains of his son Florencio. When r learned that in 2010 Jesus Mesa Jr., a U Border Patrol officer, shot his gun across the US-
Mexico border killing fifteen-year - old Sergio Hernandez, I thought about
Concepcion Garcia in 19 I 9, shot and killed by a US soldier while crossing
the Rio Grande, returning to Mexico from school in Texas. When I heard
that in 2017 the US Supreme Court denied Hernandez's parents legal standing to sue Mesa for using lethal force, I thought about the descen-
dants of the 1918 Porvenir mas acre, waiting for decades to have their claims
decided by the US-Mexico General Claims Commission of 1923, only to
learn in 1941 that the commission would not hear the case. When l consider how long it will take for families, advocates, and com-
munities to recover from the injustices they are witne sing today, I dunk about Norma Longoria Rodriguez, Benita and Evaristo Alb.1r.1do, andju,rn
Flores Jr., who still carry sentiments of loss 100 ye.1rs after their rd.ltl\' CS were murdered by the state police. Recounting these myriad ,icts d,m,pts
popular assumptions that violence is followed by reconcili.ition, th'H the
300 THE INJU STI CE NEVE
R LEAVES You
dead were likely criminals anyway, that the mere passage of ti • £". • • • rne can h
ounds Answering calls 1or JUSt1ce requires remembering h ea! w . . . t e nam the departed, acknowledging the hves lost, and confrontin . es of
. 11· £". d d g disavow histories of v101ence. In ca mg 1or re ress, escendants are in the ed of other social luminaries like Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mob! company
1 1 d M ey, Jenn·
Gutierrez, las Madres de a P aza e ayo, the Safe Women St 1cet . . . rong Nat·
project, Mothers Against Pohce Brutality, Justicia Para N 10ns uestras 1-f·
and the Missing Migrant Project. Uas,
These calls serve as a reminder: reckoning with the past · . . . . is intertw.
with current efforts for social JUSt1ce and transformation £". fi lned 'tor reedo full humanity. We live in a world that needs to be reconst d
111 and mete . The
people understand the long consequences of violence th . more . . . • e more like!
will be to intervene against-to denounce outright-th · 1 Y We e v10 ence and d that continues today. eath
