Mexican Americans in a Dallas Barrio Item Type book; text Authors Achor, Shirley Publisher University of Arizona Press (Tucson, AZ) Rights Copyright © 1978 by The Arizona Board of Regents. The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY- NC-ND 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Download date 04/10/2021 12:52:17 Item License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/632270 Mexican Americans In a Dallas Barrio Mexican Americans • 1n a Dallas Barrio Shirley Achor With a New Preface by the Author UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA PRESS TUCSON About the Author . Shirley Achor is a native of Dallas, Texas, and has spent most of her life in the city of which she writes. After marriage and a family, she resumed her education in anthropology at Southern Methodist University, receiving her Ph.D. in 1974. Her interest in Mexican Americans was heightened by summer field research in northern New Mexico during 1968 and 1970, and by travel in Mexico. Shirley Achor was awarded a National Science Foundation Traineeship for three years of her graduate training and also received a Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship in Ethnic Studies in 1972. An associate professor of sociology and an- thropology at East Texas State University, she has served on the board of directors for the Dallas chapter of IMAGE (Involvement of Mexican Americans in Gainful Endeavors). This Open Arizona edition is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities/Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program. The University of Arizona Press www.uapress.arizona.edu Copyright © 1978 by The Arizona Board of Regents Open-access edition published 2018 ISBN-13: 978-0-8165-3878-2 (open-access e-book) The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. This book was set in 12/13 V-I-P Garamond. Typographical errors may have been introduced in the digitization process. The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows: Achor, Shirley Mexican Americans in a Dallas barrio. A revision of the author’s thesis, Southern Methodist University, 1974. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Mexican Americans—Texas—Dallas. 2. Dallas—Social conditions. 3. Assimilation (Sociology) I. Title F394.D219M52 1977 301.45ʹ16ʹ872017642812 77-22434 ISBN 0-8165-0634-5 ISBN 0-8165-0533-0 pbk. To my husband Hubert E. Achor In memory of my father Don G. Coolidge A/Jo para los niiios ... Lucio, Sandra, Angelita, Norma, Marcos, Nuno, and Maria de los Angeles . .. children ofthe barrio. Contents Preface to the Fifth Printing x1 Preface xix Introduction. Entering the Barrio 1 1. La Bajura: The Barrio Setting 19 2. Dallas, Texas: The City as Context 47 3. Growing Up and Growing Old: Some Notes on the Life Cycle 69 4. Crossing the Bridge: Institutions Linking La Bajura to Dallas 85 5. Varying Values: Adaptation and Change in the Barrio 113 6. Challenge and Response: Interactions With the Urban Ecosystem 137 Epilogue. Going Home 155 Appendix A. A Review of the Literature and Some Theoretical Concerns 159 Appendix B. The Formal Questionnaire 177 References 187 Index 197 viii Contents Tables l. I. Population and Housing Characteristics, La Bajura, 1970 .?2 I. 2. Selected Social, Economic and Housing Characteristics: Dallas, Texas and Tract "X" by Ethnic Category, 1970 34 2.1. Employment by Occupational Category and Ethnic Group, Dallas, Texas, 1970 58 4. 1. Employment Status and Occupational Category of Mexican Americans in Tract "X" by Sex, 1970 88 5.1. Summary ofTraits Tending To Be Associated With Specific Adaptive Strategies 134 B. I. Some Characteristics of the Sample Population 179 B. 2. Value Orientation Index Scale Results 180 Contents 1x Figures l. l. Map of La Bajura 24 1.2. Aerial View of La Bajura 25 2. l. Population Distribution and Growth Rare by Ethnic Categories, City of Dallas, Texas, 1960-1970 51 5. I. Variation in Perception, Evaluation and Exploitation of Environmental Resources 115 A. l. Some Major Systemic Linkages Connecting the Barrio to Higher Levels oflntegration 170 A.2. Information Flow Diagram of Systems Operations 172 A. 3. Challenges and Expected Responses in Micro- and Macroenvironmental Spheres 174 Photographs The Researcher's Residence in La Bajura 7 Kitchen in Researcher's La Bajura House 8 A West Dallas Home-Based Business 21 West Dallas Bakery 22 Street Scene After a Rain 26 Lower Income Family Home 29 More Affluent Family Home 30 x Contents Dallas Skyline From West Dallas Bridge 49 Related Children at Play 7 3 Boys at the Neighborhood Youth Center 76 Rehearsing for a Folk Dance 82 West Dallas School Yard 98 First Day of School 100 Youth Center Playground 111 Barrio Community Organization Meeting 144 March of Justice, July 28, 1973 151 Burning Police Motorcycles, July 1973 152 Last Night in La Bajura, December 1972 156 Preface to the Fifth Printing No community ever stands still, of course, locked in a frozen tableau of unchanging verisimilitude captured by some researcher's treatise. La Bajura in the 1990s is clearly not the La Bajura of the 1970s. Yet, despite the changes that have occurred, in a sense it is the same community in many fundamental and important ways. In this preface, I touch briefly on some of the more significant developments that have impacted the world of the barrio since the earlier research was completed and will include some observations on forces for continuity and change that remain in interplay in La Bajura during the current era. It has been almost two decades since the original research for this book was completed, but my husband and I have continued to visit the barrio and to maintain contact with many of our friends there. Additional research was carried out during the summers of 1983, 1984, 1985, and 1989, adding to the accumulation of field notes, journals, interview schedules, tape transcripts, periodical clippings, and various publications from government and private agencies. In addition, a few preliminary 1990 Census figures have become avail­ able, revealing salient information about changing demographics in the city and its ethnic neighborhoods. As one public official observed in 1983, "Dallas is getting blacker and browner--and this trend is likely to continue." Indeed, the 1990 Census figures show that for the first time in the city's history, Anglos (non-Hispanic whites) have become a numerical minority m [ xi } x11 Preface to the Fifth Printing Dallas, accounting for only 48 percent of the city's 1,006,877 resi­ dents. Blacks remain the city's largest minority, at 29 percent, but Hispanics are rapidly closing the gap. Over the last three decades, the growth in their share of the population has been dramatic, increasing from 8 percent in 1970 to 21 percent by 1990. Hispanic households are now much more widely dispersed throughout Dallas, but population concentrations are still found in barrio communities such as La Bajura The 1980 Block statistics showed that 92.3 percent of La Bajura's population was of Spanish origin. By 1990 the neighborhood had become even more heavily Hispanic, with the city directory showing only 17 non-Hispanic names in the community. Partially as an outcome of the growing proportion of minorities in the city, the monolithic power structure that long prevailed in Dallas became more pluralistic during the 1980s. The Citizens Charter Asso­ ciation is defunct. Its parent organization, the business-ruled Dallas Citizens Council, remains influential in civic affairs but no longer wields the formidable power that its founding fathers did. At the formal level, the advent of single-member districts allowed the election of grassroots minority candidates to the city council and brought to a decisive close the accommodating, rubber-stamp style of earlier city councils. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, aggressive confrontation became the accustomed tactic of minority political leaders, and disrup­ tions, demonstrations, and drama were common occurrences in city hall. The 8-3 system of council elections did not, however, yield minority representation on the council in proportion to their growing population. No more than three minorities served on any of the coun­ cils seated during the period from 1976 through 1990. Despite objec­ tions from the predominantly Anglo city council, a federal judge approved a 14-1 council plan in February 1991 that was designed to enhance minority participation in the formal governing structure of the city. Under the court-approved district map, five would have black majorities; two, Hispanic; and the remaining seven, white majorities. The city government is vigorously fighting this order in the courts, however, preferring a voter-approved change that would call for a 10- 4-1 plan in which there would be ten single-member districts and four quadrant districts, with the mayor to be elected at large. The matter has not been settled at the time of this writing, but it seems clear that Preface to the Fifth Printing x111 whatever plan is eventually put in place, minorities will be able to exercise greater political power in Dallas city politics in the years ahead. Despite the bdghtening picture for minority political participa­ tion, economic empowerment remains elusive for large segments of the population. The Dallas economy took a severe downturn in the 1980s as a result of sharply deteriorating conditions in the petroleum indus­ try, and in real estate and banking. Thousands of businesses declared bankruptcy, savings and loan and other financial institutions closed in unprecedented numbers, and numerous large-scale employers an­ nounced hiring freezes and layoffs.