OCTOBER 30, 2009 I $3.00 I OPENING THE EYES OF TEXAS SINCE 1954

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BOOTS ON THE GRO A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A BORDER SHERIFF By Melissa del Bosque LOON STAR STATE I BEN SARGENT

mat SA~G~t1r. The Texas Observer OCTOBER 30, 2009

BOOTS ON THE GROUND by Melissa Del Bosque A day in the life of a border sheriff. 10

DIALOGUE 3 VIEWS OF THE FRONTIER 22 BORDER TEENS 32 David Cleaves on Literary El Paso. Mary Helen Specht on Jessica EDITORIAL 4 Lee Anderson's Border Crossing DOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS 23 and Diana Lopez's Confetti Girl. POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE 5 Emily DePrang on Helen Thorpe's Just Like Us. THE OYSTER IS HIS WORLD 34 JIM HIGHTOWER 16 Richard Holland on Robb Walsh's CULTURAL REVELATION 25 Sex, Death and Oysters. JUSTICE FOR THE DISPOSSESSED 8 Ryland Barton on Benjamin Judge William Wayne Justice remembered. Moser's Why This World. POETRY 35 by Lou Dubose by Jan Seale AMERICAN IDEAS 26 FALL BOOKS ISSUE Toni Palaima on William DON'T FENCE ME IN 36 Goetzman's Beyond the Revolution. Kirk Forrester on Steven Introduction by Michael May 18 Davis' J. Frank Dobie and HOLLYWOOD, TEXAS 28 Deanne Stillman's Mustang. SOUTH TOWARD HOME 18 Josh Rosenblatt on Robert An Excerpt from Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life Hinkle's Call Me Lucky and INTERVIEW 38 by Bill Minutaglio and W Michael Smith Gary Kent's Shadows & Light. Anis Shivani talks to Oscar Casares author of Amigoland.

Cover photo by Eugenio Del Bosque

2 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 30, 2009

DIALOGUE THE TEXAS OBSERVER VOLUME 101, NO. 20 FIGHTING FOR THEIR RIGHTS Options:' Oct. 2). Everyone praised their A Journal of Free Voices Since 1954 This story about a prison riot ("The own health care system and its low cost

FOUNDING EDITOR Ronnie Dugger Pecos Insurrection," Oct. 2) highlights (private sector!). They were outraged CEO/PUBLISHER Canton Carl the most important issue in the immi- that Americans might choose a public EDITOR Bob Moser gration debate. Regardless of which side option, citing specific examples from MANAGING EDITOR Chris Tomlinson you take on immigration issues, what Britain and Canada. The key is for all ASSOCIATE EDITOR Dave Mann BOOKS & CULTURE EDITOR Michael May often gets lost in the argument is that people to have health insurance and INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER Melissa del Bosque these immigration detainees are human for the government to highly regulate STAFF WRITER Forrest Wilder beings. As a country we need to respect prices. ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Julia Austin Camille Renshaw CIRCULATION/OFFICE MANAGER that. If compassion and respect for Candace Carpenter human rights are values we preach, why Posted at texasobserver.org ART DIRECTOR Daniel Lievens do we turn our backs when these are WEBMASTER Shane Pearson absent in our own country? Breaking the Most of the people I know with- POETRY EDITOR Naomi Shihab Nye COPY EDITOR Rusty Todd law by entering illegally is a problem. No out health insurance will be penal- INTERNS Ryland Barton, Sara Haji one denies that, but in detaining these ized by the Senate plan. They do not CONTRIBUTING WRITERS individuals, we also take responsibility have health insurance because they Nate Blakeslee, Robert Bryce, Emily DePrang, Michael Erard, James K. Galbraith, Patricia Kilday for them. As this story illustrates, we are can't afford it. Now they will be fined Hart, Steven G. Kellman, Robert Leleux, James E. McWilliams, Char Miller, Ruth Pennebaker, miserably failing in that regard. because they can't afford it. How did Kevin Sieff, Brad Tyer, Andrew Wheat A. Devan this become the Democratic position? CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Posted at texasobserver.org In my case (currently underemployed Jana Birchum, Alan Pogue, Steve Satterwhite CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS by someone who doesn't offer health Maggy Brophy, Michael Krone, Dusan Kwiatkowski, The criminals are running the institu- insurance), perhaps the proposed Alex Eben Meyer, Ben Sargent tion to the detriment of the "inmates." subsidies will make health insurance TEXAS DEMOCRACY FOUNDATION BOARD Lisa Blue, Melissa Jones, Susan Longley, The roles need to be reversed, and the affordable. Now about that supposedly Jim Marston, Mary Nell Mathis, Gilberto Ocanas, Jesse Oliver, Bernard Rapoport, Geoffrey Rips, neckties should be behind the bars. "private" (actually heavily regulated) Geronimo Rodriguez, Sharron Rush, Kelly White, Bob Higgins Dutch health care: No Republican Ronnie Dugger (Emeritus) IN MEMORIAM Posted at texasobserver.org or private insurance company in the Molly Ivins, 1944-2007, United States would accept it or call it Bob Eckhardt, 1913-2001, Cliff Olofson, 1931-1995, Frankie Carter Randolph, 1894-1972 The government has a choice in the anything but socialism. The Texas Observer (ISSN oo40-4519/USPS 541300), matters of these folks who are ill; it's Gary Denton entire contents copyrighted © 2009, is published biweekly except during April, June, October and called prosecutorial discretion. They Posted at texasobserver.org December, when there is a 4-week break between issues (22 issues per year) by the Texas Democracy don't have to spend taxpayer money to Foundation, a 5o1(c)3 nonprofit foundation, 307 W. 7th provide medical care. They can release A QUESTION OF INNOCENCE St., Austin TX, 78701. Telephone (512)477-0746, fax (512)474-1175, toll free (800)939-6620. these nonviolent folks to seek care on A person has one life to live. To be Email [email protected] , texasobserver.org . Periodicals Postage paid in Austin, TX, and at the outside. It's criminal to hold them locked up in prison falsely accused of additional mailing offices. in a place that cannot meet their medi- committing a crime is probably one of POSTMASTER Send address changes to: The Texas Observer, 307 cal needs. the most horrific things I can think of W. 7th St., Austin TX 78701. Subscriptions: yr $32, Nancy Kuznetsov ("I Was Just a Junkie," Oct. 2). Now, in 2 yr $59, 3 yr $84. Students $20. Foreign, add $13 to domestic price. Back issues $5. Airmail, foreign, Posted at texasobserver.org my mind, the three appeals court judges group, and bulk rates on request. Microfilm available from University Microfilms Intl., 300 N Zeeb Rd, are just as guilty as arson investigators Ann Arbor MI 48106. This is the biggest pile of B.S. I have Torres and Selvera of keeping an inno- INDEXES The Texas Observer is indexed in Access: The read in a while. I live [in Reeves County] cent man in prison. Supplementary Index to Periodicals; Texas Index; but don't work at the prison. I think your Rob Greitens and, for the years 1954 through 1981, The Texas Observer Index. article was very liberal and slanted. I'll Posted at texasobserver.org Investigative reporting is supported in part by a just keep the name of your rag so that I grant from the Open Society Institute. never waste my time reading any more I work with a law enforcement agency. Books & the Culture is funded in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division and by a articles from you again. I see people who are coerced into saying grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts. Kelly Davis and doing things by officers. I try to dis-

rijA , OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE Posted at texasobserver.org courage my law enforcement co-workers Soros routhlat:hh: Netveefk Tee. Commission from using such tactics. Some will never on the Arts

(9. - Lie 4, qty DUTCH CARE? cease; too bad, we all will suffer when i=!1:111P kejf, .211, Recently I was in Amsterdam, and this happens! 141. their citizens were eager to discuss our Joe Roy health care reform headlines ("Public Posted at texasobserver.org

OCTOBER 30, 2009 TEXASOBSERVER.ORG 3 Burning Justice

For decades, fire investigators walked into charred buildings in search of the What has been lost in the heat of the same clues, the same subtle traces, that they thought indicated arson: the furni- Willingham scandal is the original ture and windows buckled by extreme heat, the burn patterns on the floor and central issue: the veracity of the scorched by gasoline. Their methods weren't scientific. Investigators relied forensic arson evidence. on a set of assumptions—inherited knowledge passed from one generation Williamson County prosecutor Perry Texas was a criminal-justice innovator. to another—about how buildings burn. placed in charge of the commission, has Arson cases seemed the perfect place They used those pieces of evidence to not committed to restarting or complet- to start. Like the cases of Willingham and send thousands of defendants to prison. ing the Willingham probe. Ernest Ray Willis, who like Willingham And much of it was wrong. Suddenly there was the whiff of a was wrongly convicted of setting a fatal In the past 15 years, the science of cover-up, and the makings of a national fire— a 1986 blaze in West Texas—based detecting arson has undergone a revo- scandal. Critics accuse Perry of trying to on the same kind of flawed interpretation lution. Research has shown definitively subvert an investigation that might prove of burn patterns. (Willis, however, was that many of the assumptions fire inves- he oversaw the execution of an innocent luckier; he was exonerated in 2004 after tigators once employed to distinguish an man (he was told of the faulty foren- 17 years on death row.) intentionally set fire from an accidental sics before the execution). Meanwhile, Craig Beyler, a nationally respected fire one were false. anti-death penalty activists—sensing expert hired by the commission to study Yet those disproved forensics sent that Texas (of all places) might become Willingham and Willis, concluded in a Cameron Todd Willingham to the Texas the first state to admit putting an inno- recent report that he saw no evidence of death chamber on Feb. 17, 2004. His final cent man to death—latched on to the arson in either case. claims of innocence—that he hadn't Willingham case and began rapidly firing Nearly 800 people are serving prison started the 1991 house fire that killed his off email blasts and organizing protests. sentences in Texas for arson-related three daughters—were dutifully record- Perry was all too happy to play along crimes. Quite a few are probably inno- ed before potassium chloride pumped and frame the story as a debate over the cent. This year, the Observer has inves- through his veins and stopped his heart. death penalty. He told reporters recently tigated some of the state's older arson More than five years later, Willingham's that Willingham was a "monster" and that convictions in its series, "Burn Patterns," execution lies at the center of the big- the analysis of the nation's leading fire and so far found three men who were gest political scandal in Texas since Tom experts was nothing more than "propa- likely wrongly convicted and remain in DeLay was roaming the halls of power. ganda by the anti-death penalty people." prison. (You can read all three stories at Nine of the nation's top fire scientists have What has been lost in the heat of politi- texasobserver.org .) looked at the evidence against Willingham cal scandal is the original and central It's probably still happening. In some and concluded it was based on flawed and issue: the veracity of the forensic arson areas of the state, poorly trained fire outdated assumptions, a collection of evidence. investigators are no doubt still using some "old wives tales," as one put it. These For a time, it appeared the Forensic of the old, disproved forensics to accuse experts say the fire was likely accidental. Science Commission's investigation into and convict innocent people of arson. If there was no arson, then there was no the Willingham case might improve the Sadly, there's no helping Willingham crime, and Willingham was innocent. way fire investigators in Texas do their now His case has been closed irrevocably. The story became even more explosive work. The Legislature created the com- But the Forensic Science Commission's in late September when Gov. Rick Perry— mission in 2005 after scandals at crime work might have (and hopefully might in the middle of a tough re-election labs around the state. The commission yet) help many people. The commission's campaign—replaced three members of was charged with investigating inno- report could serve as a kind of official list the Texas Forensic Science Commission, cence claims based on flawed forensics, of flawed and outdated arson evidence that which was investigating the Willingham and bringing to light any faulty practices could be applied to past and future cases. case, just days before an important hear- that may have sent innocent people to And now it's all in doubt. That may be ing. Perry's new appointees promptly prison. It's one of the first such govern- the greatest injustice yet. canceled the meeting. John Bradley, the mental bodies in the nation. For once, —Dave Mann

4 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 30, 2009 POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE

illustration by Andy Perez

these wannabes and building them up as political warriors `What Are You So Mad At?' with a full complement of weaponry. TEA PARTIERS GO GRASSROOTS "OK. So what are you so pissed about? The people that make decisions are the ones that actually get elected to office," Ryun rew Ryun surveys the Dallas hotel confer- says. "If you don't know who the people are that are making ence room. He can feel the dissatisfaction— the decisions that most directly affect you, what are you so anger, even—radiating from the 40 or so mad at?" newly minted conservative activists seated Ryun helped his twin brother Ned launch American in front of him. Majority in January 2008. They are the sons of former Kansas "You are all here because you are upset Republican Congressman Jim Ryun, whom the National aboutID something," says Ryun, executive director of American Review ranked as the most conservative member of Congress Majority, whose mission is training a national network of in 2006. Ned, president of American Majority, worked as a activists committed to limited government. "You want to know writer in President George W. Bush's administration. Drew what you can do to turn the tide in this country." previously ran the grassroots operation of the Republican There are a few murmurs and a boisterous, "Yes!" National Committee. "We all share common values as conservatives. We all want Nevertheless, the group claims to be nonpartisan—a to hold our elected officials accountable," he says, pacing the requirement to keep its nonprofit status. The Ryuns say their front of the room. "But here's a test: Who here can name every efforts are ideological, not partisan; they consider most elected member of your school board?" Republicans either insufficiently conservative or, worse, falsely Silence. conservative. Ryun is practicing the ancient art of political organizing, a American Majority has a field office in Dallas. Since it opened tradition once thought lost in the age of television campaign- in late May, the group has held 12 training sessions (half for ing. With the Christian Right and the Obama Left having activists, half for candidates), with six more on this year's calen- reinvented personal politicking for the 21st century, the old dar. Ryan says American Majority's goal for 2010 is a thousand wizardry is making a comeback. After the tea parties are over new activists and loo candidates running in Texas. and the Fox News van has skipped town, American Majority The training session makes it clear that the members of this is training activists to win elections at the grassroots. audience are not the "crazy uncles" you see on TV. They're At this Thursday-night meeting in late September, Ryun uses the kind of folks who will work the call centers, walk blocks, the audience's ignorance as a teachable moment. He has dem- and, potentially, translate the Tea Party movement into a onstrated that angry chants and loud shouts do not an effective political force. activist make. Like an Army drill sergeant, he's tearing down —Josh Berthume

OCTOBER 30, 2009 TEXASOBSERVER.ORG 5 Justice Deferred The open question is whether the inquiry named after Tim Cole can lead the way to reform. Or will it be another blue WILL TEXAS TACKLE WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS? ribbon panel that produces another well-intended report that ends up in a drawer? Anyone who believes the criminal justice system in Texas is —Dave Mann functioning properly should be locked in a room and forced to listen to Cory Session talk about his half-brother. His name was Tim Cole. He was a Texas Tech University In Her Father's House student falsely convicted in 1986 of rape. Tainted police lineup CHRISTI CRADDICK REJOINS THE LOBBY procedures led the victim to misidentify Cole as her attacker. He spent 13 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. He Nine months after the Texas House stripped Midland didn't live to see his name cleared. In 1999, Cole died in prison Republican Tom Craddick of his speakership, Craddick's of complications from asthma. daughter dusted off her Austin lobbying shingle. On Oct. 13, some of the leading criminal justice experts in the In September, Christi Craddick reported to the Texas Ethics state—including lawyers, judges, and policymakers—gathered Commission that Scythian Ltd., a Midland-based company, for the first meeting of the Tim Cole Advisory Panel on Wrongful will pay her up to $25,000 to lobby in the last quarter of 2009. Convictions. It was ostensibly an organizational meeting. But the Midland businessman Jafar Salehi organized Scythian in 1998. first order of business was Session. Sitting next to other members It's not clear what business the company is in. Scythian appears of Cole's family at a long conference table, Session described to have started out in the energy industry before selling those Cole as a college student trying to live the American dream. assets to competitor Endeavor Energy Resources LP in 2006. "This was my brother," Session said through tears. "This was my Christi Craddick and Salehi, who has no previous record of mother's son. He never met my children. He never married!' hiring Austin lobbyists, did not return calls seeking comment. Session suggested that flags on all state government buildings Scythian spokesman Tom Clifton said only that the company is be lowered to half-staff on Dec. 2—the date Cole died in pris- involved in ranching, with olive oil and vineyard interests. on—to acknowledge everyone who's been wrongly convicted. If Christi Craddick is promoting these bucolic pursuits, she "Tim died in prison while being oppressed," Session said. didn't tell the Ethics Commission. She reported on her recently "Let's not let it happen again. ... If it can happen to Tim, it can filed lobby-registration form that she would lobby on such mat- happen to anyone." ters as "Energy," "Oil & Gas," and "Utilities." Craddick passed Last year, after DNA testing proved his innocence, Cole over a subject-matter box labeled 'Agriculture." became the first person exonerated posthumously in Texas. His Salehi—whose company bears the name of an ancient peo- story made national news and prodded the Legislature to enact ple from present-day Iran—contributed $2,500 last year to two bills in Cole's name (one increased compensation for the then-embattled Speaker Craddick (Salehi later gave $1,000 wrongly convicted; the other created the panel). The panel is to to Republican gubernatorial candidate, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey deliver recommendations to the Legislature in January 2011. Hutchison). Rep. Craddick's legislative office said he wouldn't Much of the first meeting revolved around reforms that didn't comment on his daughter's return to the lobby. pass the Legislature this year, including a bill to fix police lineup Christi Craddick abandoned her lobbying career after procedures. Had the bill been law in 1985, it might have saved Republicans won a majority in the Texas House in 2002. At the Tim Cole. time, she figured into a couple of ethics scandals that imperiled Many panelists agreed broadly on the causes of wrongful her father's bid for House speaker. One involved statements by convictions. There isn't much left to study on the topic, and the then-executive director of the state Employees Retirement some panelists argued the committee should focus its energy System that Rep. Craddick quietly helped pass a 1997 law that on a political strategy to pass the reforms. allows unmarried adult children of state employees (read: "We don't need to study it anymore," said Barry Macha, the Christi Craddick) to indefinitely receive state health insurance. Wichita County district attorney and the panel's representative Rep. Craddick repeatedly has said he had nothing to do with from the Texas District & County Attorneys Association. "We the matter. know what the problems are. We know what the solutions are. Another controversy involved Christi Craddick's former cli- We just need to pass it." ent, Cap Rock Electric Cooperative Inc. A 1999 law made the Macha said DAs support many of the reform bills, including Midland-based cooperative the only electric utility in Texas that those addressing lineups, videotaped confessions, and better could convert into a for-profit power company while preserving access to the courthouse for wrongly convicted prisoners. its local monopoly. Cap Rock documents credited Christi and Others at the table disagreed. Rep. Pete Gallego, the Alpine Tom Craddick with helping pass the sweetheart legislation. In Democrat who chairs the criminal justice committee in the November 2002, Rep. Craddick took the unusual step of writ- state House, said the compromise versions of the reform bills ing every incoming House member to reassure them about Cap this past session were weak. "It's easy to support weak stuff:' he Rock. His letter praised Christi for quitting the lobby "to dispel said. Gallego argued that the panel should debate the details any appearance of a lack of integrity in my speakership." and make specific recommendations. From 1995 until she departed in 2002, Christi Craddick billed

6 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 30, 2009 28 clients a total of up to $665,000 (Texas lobbyists report Site Unseen incomes in ranges). During some of these years, Rep. Craddick chaired the House Ways and Means Committee, prompting EL PASO'S INDEPENDENT VOICE GOES ON VACATION recurring media questions about whether his daughter's cli- ents received special treatment. Christi Craddick may have fed I got a sinking feeling on Oct. 18 when I read that El Paso's such speculation when she named her consulting firm Direct online Newspaper Tree is taking a hiatus. "NPT staff, me and Contacts Inc. [reporter] David Crowder, took vacation time starting a few Quitting the lobby did not hurt Christi Craddick's bottom weeks ago," wrote editor Sito Negron. "Unfortunately, that vaca- line. With her father installed as House speaker, she took over tion has turned into an indefinite furlough." operations of Rep. Craddick's campaign account, as well as Stars Newspaper Tree won a loyal following with original analysis, Over Texas—a political action committee formed to defend reportage on local public corruption, and a willingness to allow Speaker Craddick's leadership position. These two political different perspectives. If you wanted to know what was really committees have paid Christi Craddick $924,087 since 2002. going on in El Paso—with local debates over revisiting drug (Although Stars paid Christi Craddick $17,500 in the first half policy, for instance, or harassment of gay couples in public—you of 2009, this once-powerful PAC recently reported that it had went to NPT. Then you read the comments on the articles and not raised a dollar so far this year—leaving less than $60,000 op-eds. Readers were unusually thoughtful and engaged—and in the bank.) often contributed to understanding the stories better. In the wake of Tom Craddick's legislative demotion, it The NPT raised its level last year when it hired veteran inves- remains to be seen if the market will remain bullish for Christi tigative reporter David Crowder, who had worked for three Craddick's brand of direct contacts. decades at the El Paso Times. But the economy took its toll on —Andrew Wheat the news journal's owner, El Paso Media Group. The group has stopped funding Newspaper Tree. But Negron says he's confident the site will be back. "What we've been doing has been very well Open Question received in the community," he says, "and since we made the WILL THE PUBLIC OWN TEXAS BEACHES? announcement we were going on hiatus, we've been contacted with some interesting options to keep NPT going." On Nov. 3, voters-or at least the small number that make it to Negron says NPT has never made money. Going nonprofit the polls-will choose whether to enshrine Texas' populist open might be the most viable option now, Negron says. Perhaps NPT beaches law in the state Constitution. can be supported by the community. It's the tactic being taken Proposition 9, one of ii proposed constitutional amendments by many newspapers and magazines these days. (The Observer on the ballot, would guarantee the public's right to access and has been nonprofit since 1994.) use Texas beaches from Sabine Pass to South Padre Island. Many Negron, 42, has been in journalism for at least two decades developers, beachside homeowners, and private property rights "and just about done it all," he says. Now he has two kids to feed activists have never liked the 50-year-old Texas Open Beaches and no salary. But he waxes optimistic. He's seen the need for Act, periodically challenging it at the Legislature and in court. tough local reporting and an open airing of community debates A libertarian legal organization is the latest to bring suit against reflected in the response to Newspaper Tree. the General Land Office in an effort to gut the law. "Journalism is super-healthy," he says. "We used to bitch Proponents of Prop 9 say the measure would elevate the about the corporate media, and then there was an explosion public's right to the beaches and make such assaults harder. of alternative weeklies, and there's magazines like The Texas "This is the next logical step to protect what we have says A.R. Observer and Mother Jones," he says, along with sites like NPT. "Babe" Schwartz, a former state senator from Galveston who "There are multiple threads of journalism now." co-authored the Open Beaches Act. "It is an absolute protec- Multiple threads, but unfortunately none of them is spun tion; it's a brick wall." out of gold. —Forrest Wilder —Melissa del Bosque YOU DON'T SAY: ■ "It's simply political fiction that stimulus dollars were necessary to balance our budget." -Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, Austin American-Statesman op-ed, Oct. 21.

"In order to balance the budget this biennium ... we used $14 billion in federal stimulus money." -State Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, quoted in Fort Worth Business Press, Oct. 19.

OCTOBER 30, 2009 TEXASOBSERVER.ORG 7 COMMENTARY I BY LOU DUBOSE

JUSTICE for the DISPOSSESSED

've been called a controversial judge, so I suppose I The ruling would affect millions of children, the judge said. II am," William Wayne Justice told me during a court- He said he would like to be remembered for that decision. It house interview in Austin io years ago. A year earlier, is hard to imagine a more fitting tribute to his career on the he had moved from Tyler, where President Lyndon federal bench. Johnson had appointed him to the federal bench in Civil rights lawyer Larry Daves filed the suit on behalf of 1968. In the Eastern District of Texas, Justice handed Jose and Lidia Lopez (and several other plaintiffs), who had downI rulings that made the state a more humane place and been told it would cost their children si,000 a year to attend made him a pariah in conservative East Texas. public schools in Tyler. Jose Lopez worked in a foundry, and As the interview drifted toward casual conversation, the judge the tuition was beyond what the undocumented worker from said most stories about the hostility he and wife Sue confronted Mexico could afford. in East Texas were probably true, if sometimes exaggerated. As a young law school graduate, Daves had moved to East What I recall about that conversation was his absence of rancor. Texas specifically to practice law in Justice's courtroom. (Daves Crosses burned in his yard, bitter editorials, hate mail, crank now practices law in Colorado.) Daves told me his Plyler plain- phone calls, death threats, Tyler merchants who made it clear tiffs lived in constant fear of deportation. As the trial date in the Justices could take their business down the road: Nothing, Tyler approached, they grew more reluctant to appear in court. it appeared, had engendered any bitterness in this soft-spoken, Daves asked the judge to issue a restraining order to bar immi- sincere man. He did say that he and Sue were happy living their gration officers from detaining and deporting the plaintiffs. later years in Austin, close to their daughter, Ellen. Justice told him he couldn't order a government agency not to After Justice died at 89 in Austin on Oct. 13, I remembered enforce the law. He could, however, discourage media attention, what he said about his 1978 Plyler v. Doe decision, which found which the plaintiffs feared would result in their deportation. it illegal to deny public education to the children of undocu- On the day the trial began, Daves huddled in the dark with mented immigrants. If the Tyler Independent School District his clients in the courthouse parking lot at 5:3o in the morning, hadn't appealed the decision, Justice's ruling would have been preparing for a 6 a.m. hearing that went largely unnoticed. limited to the Eastern District of Texas. When the Supreme Justice's constitutional affinity for the dispossessed inspired Court upheld the ruling 5-4 in 1982, it became the law of the many of the 95 clerks who worked with him. They became an land. Today, closing the schoolhouse door to a child is a viola- extended family, and many now work in public-interest law. tion of that child's 14th Amendment right to "equal protection Human rights lawyer Jennifer Harbury clerked for Justice after of the laws." graduating from law school and working for Texas Rural Legal

8 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 30, 2009 Judge William Wayne Justice: "a judge in Tyler who was willing to follow the law?' photo by Alan Pogue Aid in Hereford. Years later, she was working in legal aid in it down in 1954. His decisions desegregated public housing, city Florida when Justice called to say he was attending a judicial councils, and commissioners courts across East Texas. conference in Palm Beach. He wanted to spend the day with Civil rights lawyer Dave Richards, who made a career of her. When she showed up in the hotel lobby on Saturday morn- recruiting plaintiffs to appear in Justice's Tyler courtroom, once ing, she said, "Judge Justice asked me to drive him out to see described for me a scene that unfolded as a black plaintiff from where the Haitian sugarcane workers were living:' They drove Nacogdoches challenged a system that ensured only white can- to a migrant labor camp in Belle Glade, skipping an elaborate didates could be elected to the county commissioners court. luncheon and festivities that afternoon. "He spent most of the "My plaintiffs were poor black men," said Richards, an day talking with Haitian workers:' Harbury said. Observer contributing writer. "The defendants were white men In court, Justice discouraged marshals from putting defen- with bulging necks hanging over their collars and big hats sit- dants in prison jumpsuits. Defendants were innocent until prov- ting on the chairs behind them. And every time I made a point, en guilty, he told me, and jailhouse garb sent the wrong signal to the black men said 'Amen, amen, and nodded. I looked over jurors. Even at bench trials, which have no jury, Justice preferred there and saw those commissioners, and I knew they must dress clothes for defendants to preserve their personal dignity. have thought the world as they knew it was coming to an end. As his career wound to a conclusion in Austin, Justice was They were in a courtroom surrounded by black people. ... And assigned more sentencing hearings than he preferred. Yet even as they were looking up onto the bench at Judge William Wayne he presided via video link when he was unable to drive to court Justice." in Del Rio, he saw that coats, ties, and other dress clothes were When I asked the judge about the case, he recalled that the provided to those who stood before him to receive their sen- courtroom was divided down the middle by race. He wryly dis- tences. At "the lowest point in a person's life Justice told me, he missed my suggestion that he became a magnet for civil rights wanted to provide some small protection against humiliation. lawyers looking for a friendly court. A high regard for the rights of every individual and devotion "I think the word got out:' he said, "that there was a judge in to the law and the U.S. Constitution defined William Wayne Tyler who was willing to follow the law:' ■ Justice. With his 198o ruling in Ruiz v. Estelle that the Texas prison system was unconstitutional, he reformed one of the Former Observer editor Lou Dubose is editor of The Washington nation's most brutal corrections systems. Justice compelled Spectator and author of several books, including Bill of Wrongs: Texas schools to comply with the Brown v. Board of Education The Executive Branch's Assault on America's Fundamental desegregation ruling 16 years after the Supreme Court handed Rights, co-authored with Molly Ivins.

OCTOBER 30, 2009 TEXASOBSERVER.ORG 9 Sheriff Arvin West BOOTS ON THE GROUND A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A BORDER SHERIFF By Melissa del Bosque Photos by Eugenio del Bosque SIERRA BLANCA—"Y'all got here just in time. We're going to look for a body. Are you up for it? It's gonna get rough out there, but I can have you back by lunch."

It's 7 a.m. I've already driven two hours from El Paso with "Sure, I'm up for it," I say. My husband nods gamely. my husband, whom I've convinced to shoot photographs for West leads us out to his white SUV. He doesn't fit my celluloid my story. If it hadn't been for the Border Patrol checkpoint just idea of a Texas sheriff. He wears a white Stetson and Wrangler outside of this dusty, half-abandoned town on Interstate io, jeans, but is short, with a paunch. Instead of cowboy boots, we might have missed it altogether. Smack in the middle of the he wears brown suede Wallaby boots. His wife buys them at a Chihuahuan Desert, two hours east of El Paso, we've arrived at mall in El Paso. the office of Arvin West, sheriff of Hudspeth County. "I used to wear these in high school:' he says, "and hell, they're

10 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 30, 2009 Hudspeth County law enforcement rendezvous with Border Patrol agents.

comfortable. I'm getting too old for cowboy boots." West is 43. No shots were fired. The alleged drug dealers and soldiers Half-Mexican, he jokes about growing up a "GMC," or "Gringo- fled back to Mexico. After West held a press conference the next Mexican combo:' when Texas shops still displayed signs that morning at the county courthouse, the story went viral. The said, "No dogs, no Mexicans." right-wing blogosphere, and radio and cable shows picked up We set off south for the Rio Grande. The river has made West the "Mexican military invasion" and galloped with it. more than just a small-town sheriff. With 3,300 residents, his West breaks off from the Mexican army story as he rolls, county straddles 98 miles of the Rio Grande. At 4,572 square slowly, toward some cattle blocking the dirt road. They get the miles, Hudspeth is twice the size of Delaware. hint and begin to mosey across as West radios his deputies: "At least 98 percent of what I deal with is drug trafficking:' "Watch those heifers when you get up to the draw. They're real he says. "If you took away the border, my county would be like gentle and don't want to move off the road." Mayberry. We'd be spending our time taking cats off the roof" Back to the Mexican military: During his deputies' showdown Since Sept. ii, 2001, border counties like Hudspeth have played with the narcos, West had been on a plane back from Houston. an outsized role in the contentious debates over border security A few days later, the Mexican consul from El Paso arrived in and immigration reform. West and the Texas Border Sheriff's Hudspeth County. The consul wouldn't discuss the matter with a Coalition, which formed in 2005 and which he chairs, have local sheriff, according to West. "The federal government doesn't helped shape those debates. The border sheriffs' congressional need to answer to local government:' West says, mimicking the testimony has provided great fodder to many an anti-immigra- consul with a hoity-toity Spanish accent. tion politician. Their firsthand accounts of battling narcos and "Well, I told him the next time one of your immigrants is sick nabbing suspected terrorists have made them darlings of cable or dying, you can call the federal government then." news. Members of Congress call on them frequently to guide West never made good on that threat. Today, his people are tours for political delegations and media, elaborating on border looking for a Mexican man in his late 5os. He is a chronic alco- dangers and the dire need for more equipment, money and, as holic in poor health, the men traveling with him had told the the sheriffs often put it, "boots on the ground." Border Patrol after their apprehension. They said the man fin- In January 2006, Hudspeth County hit the headlines when ished the remnants of a tequila bottle for breakfast and drank West's deputies faced off with what he describes as "members several beers before crossing the Rio Grande. By the time the of the Mexican army" protecting three Cadillac Escalades filled group reached Hudspeth County, the man was doubled over and with bales of marijuana. vomiting. "Go ahead and I'll catch up:' he told them.

OCTOBER 30, 2009 TEXASOBSERVER.ORG 11 The Operation Border Star chopper. A cabin used by Mexican immigrants on their way north.

That was two weeks earlier. This is West's third trip into the six more deputies since 2005, at $28,000 a year, and pay them desert to look for the body. "Nobody could make it out there overtime. Hudspeth County now has 17 deputies. The depart- this long," he says, "especially someone in as bad of shape as ment also has four new ATVs for searches like this one, and six he was:' new Ford F-15o trucks. It's the second time he's requested help from a state helicopter What, I ask West, would immigration hard-liners back in D.C. in the search. The helicopter is part of Operation Border Star, the and Austin think of his spending more than $12,000 of taxpay- latest of four high-profile border security programs launched ers' money searching for a chronic alcoholic immigrant? by Gov. Rick Perry since 2005, the year the sheriff's coalition The sheriff seems startled, almost repulsed, by the question. got going. The programs have so far cost the state $170 million. "Of course we need to find him," he says. His daughter calls The intent, as the governor has often said, is to combat violent every day from New Mexico, he says, begging them to find her crime, drug smuggling and terrorism. One result is that the father. "That's somebody's father, somebody's brother. He's a sheriffs now have helicopters parked full-time, ready to go, in human being. What if it was you calling on the phone every day Alpine and El Paso. begging us to find him? Wouldn't you want us to do everything The search for the body has already cost his department that we could to find your loved one?" $12,000, West says. The money would come out of his coali- tion money. Since 2006, the Texas Border Sheriff's Coalition ongress knows about as much about the has received $16.1 million in state and federal funds, while the II border as that mesquite bush," Sheriff West 16 border sheriffs and their counties have received another $12.6 says, pointing to a straggly green bush about million in Operation Border Star money. Perry first announced a to be munched by a heifer. $6 million grant to the coalition in November 2005, running up West, likeC several other border sheriffs, has seen a lot of to his reelection campaign. The sheriffs traveled to Washington Washington since the coalition started, just in time for the to stand by him in 2006 as he discussed border security before immigration-reform dust up of 2006. West has testified before a phalanx of media. Many of the sheriffs, including West, Congress three times and been to Washington 13 times in the endorsed Perry. (West is backing him again in 2010.) last four years for meetings with other coalition sheriffs. He's Hudspeth's share of the coalition pot has allowed West to hire found a loyal ally in Congressman John Culberson, a Republican

12 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 30, 2009 who represents west Harris Texas tale he writes in the e- County, one of the rich- "If you took away the mail. "It was a story spun by est districts in the nation. the sheriff at the time." Culberson has visited the border, my county would Later on the phone I ask border several times and met Qualia whether any known with West. Culberson is a full- be like Mayberry. We'd be terrorists have crossed the out hawk on border security. southern border and been Last March ii, he called for a spending our time taking detained. Qualia says you have "fast-reaction military force to be careful when you say ter- that can move up and down cats off the roof." rorist. "The title and definition the border on the U.S. side" to is difficult to qualify," he tells fight the "undeclared war." me. "I will say that people have At least once, the congressman has used intelligence from been arrested with links to terrorist groups or who have been West to send the anti-immigration movement into a frenzy. In on a terrorist watch list, without a doubt." November 2005, Culberson recounted to Fox News' Hannity and Colmes the tale of an Iraqi "Al-Qaeda terrorist" he said ive of West's deputies are parked up ahead, next to a had been taken into custody by Sheriff West and locked up in a windmill. They have a trailer loaded with six ATVs. Brewster County jail. The terrorist was later whisked away by the As we pull up, I am asking West about his most con- FBI, Culberson said, telling Sean Hannity that he had obtained F troversial purchase: a Mustang GT, bought in 2006 his information from West and Brewster County Sheriff Ronnie with homeland security money. It was, he tells me, "for high- Dodson. speed chases on Interstate io." West's story, filtered through Culberson, captured Hannity's Is that what border security money was designed for? "Fine, fancy: then:' he says. "Don't give us any funding, just have the federal Hannity: I want to make sure I get this in. This is important. government reimburse us for what we've spent. I'd bet it'd be a You're saying within the last six weeks that we know for a fact lot more than we've received." that al-Qaida terrorists have crossed our border and are in the I ask how much he's spent on immigration and drug-traffick- United States? Can you say this for a fact, with a certainty? ing cases. "That's a double-edged question:' he says. Culberson: Yes. Yes. Yes, sir. And I encourage you to contact Consider the potential costs involved with the man we are the Hudspeth County sheriff, Arvin West, Sean. I want to put looking for, he says. "We are keeping our fingers crossed that him in touch. ... You need to put this man on the air, and let he died from natural causes, because if we find a bullet in him, him tell you straight up. He will testify from his own experience then that means there is foul play. Then we have to step back what he goes through. in and find out who murdered this guy. Once that happens, we Hannity and Colmes never did follow up with West. So I ask have to chill the body and contact the Mexican consulate to find him about the story. It grows more baroque as he explains. It the family. If they can't find the family, it'll take county money seems that West's friend, the sheriff of the little Mexican town to bury the body." of Porvenir just across the river, had apprehended a fellow who West shakes his head and climbs out of the SUV. "Just was tracking the migratory patterns of birds and animals, and reimburse us for what we have to expend," he says, "or do it writing down the information in Arabic in a diary yourself" "I'm not saying the guy was a terrorist," West tells me as we Waiting next to the windmill are his deputies: three young bump through the desert, "but it seemed kind of strange that a Latinos in their 3os, a Latino man in his 4os sporting a beige guy of Arabic origin was keeping track of migratory animals in polo shirt reading "Hudspeth County Regulators," and a mid- Southwest Texas." He pauses. "Consequently or coincidentally, dle-aged Anglo with a belly and a mustache. this was right before the bird flu broke out." Two older, stone-faced Anglo men in Stetson hats stand silent What became of the diarist? The Mexican authorities called and apart. West is quietly summoned to their patch of desert. Border Patrol, West says, and Border Patrol called the FBI, but After a few minutes, he returns. "No pictures, and they don't the man had "vanished from the face of the Earth." want to be interviewed," he says apologetically One, he says, I ask if I can look at the diary. West says he misplaced it. He is from the Texas Rangers; the other is an Immigration and made copies and gave them to the feds, he says, but never heard Customs Enforcement agent. another word from the FBI. That makes eight law-enforcement officials hunting for The sheriff offers a sampling from memory of the contents: "I one dead body—not counting the chopper. Then again, the hate the gringos," for one, and "kill the gringos:' for another. Chihuahuan landscape makes the odds of finding a body about Later, after our ride, I send an e-mail to the Department of as good as winning a lottery. It resembles an ocean drained Homeland Security to inquire about West's story. Border Patrol of water, dotted with flames of orange flowers from fingerlike Officer Mark Qualia, spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border ocotillo cacti. Protection, calls the account a "West Texas tale." West's deputies have come prepared. They produce an ice "You're in Texas so you'll understand when I say it was a West chest full of sodas, Gatorade and water. They offer brown paper

OCTOBER 30, 2009 TEXASOBSERVER.ORG 13 After about 45 minutes, the deputies have filled the river- bed with enough sand to get West's ATV up the other side. Meantime, one of the deputies has found an easy crossing further down the riverbed. He rolls up on his ATV on the other side. No one says anything. West floors the gas pedal and charges up the bank. The rest of the deputies and the federal agents follow, heaving their ATVs up the incline. The deputies race around and ahead of one another on their ATVs, cracking jokes. The two federal agents follow behind, crammed shoulder-to-shoulder in the front seat of their ATV. "Aw, looks like they're on a date West says loudly. About an hour later, we arrive at the hunting cabin, a tin- roofed shack near an old windmill. Two green-and-white Border Patrol trucks are already there. Two Latino officers in their early 20S wait outside. They are new to this border, their "yes sirs" and "no sirs" in stark contrast to the sheriff's deputies, who break out the cooler again and down the remaining burritos. The Border Patrol is a sore point with West and other bor- der sheriffs. After neglecting the agency for years, Congress has poured more than $26 billion into its operations since the mid-199os. The agency's 2009 budget for hiring, training, and equipping new agents was $442 million. The number of agents is supposed to double from 2000 levels, to 20,000 by the end of this year. Most of the new agents on West's terrain are young and from cities like Dallas or Phoenix. Sierra Blanca is the sticks, Sheriff West surveys the desert considered a hardship post. Most agents can't wait to see it in their rearview mirrors. "Congress knows about To West's way of thinking, the patrol spends too much time looking for footprints in the sand near the interstate, and too as much about the border little on the river. "What I need for them to do is get their butts down on the river and hold that line," he'd told me earlier that as that mesquite bush." day. "When that line is breached, we'll be happy to back you up and pick up what's breached that line. bags filled with tinfoil-wrapped burritos. West says they've been "They'll tell you they make a calculated pass by the river," made by some of the female inmates in his county jail. "It's no West said, "but then once they're gone it's like a Cheech and good:' he says, making a mock-sour face as he opens a chicken Chong movie' mole burrito. "I'm going to fire the cook." Finishing their Gatorades, the deputies fan out into the desert After eating, West climbs behind the wheel of an ATV called to look for the missing man. The sheriff goes inside the cabin. a "mule," which looks like the Humvee version of a golf cart. He points to a wooden sign with red painted letters in Spanish, The two federal agents take the other Humvee cart, while West's saying: "Welcome, come in and enjoy yourselves. This is the deputies mount four-wheel ATVs. We head toward the last place house of a poor man. You can use it but don't destroy it! Vaya the Mexicans saw their companion, a hunting cabin next to a con dios, El Gringo." creek. The white walls are covered with hundreds of names and The sheriff drives the mule with abandon. He rolls over 6-foot dates, written in charcoal and pencil, going back to 1907. One ocotillos like they were toothpicks. Then he charges down a woman had carefully written her family's names across the wall: steep incline toward a riverbed. I notice his deputies and the two "Rosy Peres, su hijo Evedi y su esposo Favio." An old tin chest federal agents lagging behind, waiting to see if West makes it. sits on the floor, containing cooking oil, soup cans, sardines and "Maybe I should get out here and walk," I say. other dry goods. In another room are some old camp beds. "Are you chickening out on me, too?" the sheriff asks, gestur- "You've got to have a heart for these people," West says. "Why ing dismissively toward the deputies. can't we take the approach of the Bracero Program [which ran I decide to walk. West gives a cattle-herding whoop and floors from the 194os to the 196os], where they can work here for the gas. The ATV does its best to scramble up the other side of the so many years, and if they decide to assimilate and become riverbed, then slides backward with a groan and bottoms out in American citizens, then allow them that opportunity." He sits the sand. "Dang," the sheriff mutters, his face red from exertion. back in an old wooden chair. "You are allowed to come and "Grab some shovels. We're going to have to fill in the riverbed." participate in the luxuries we have as American citizens, but

14 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 30, 2009 if you violate our laws, then you are out of here. It's as simple as that:' "EVERYBODY LOVED f many Americans think "Texas-Mexico border" and envi- sion a war zone, it's thanks in no small part to the stories spread by border sheriffs like West and Zapata County's MOLLY IVINS, Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez. Gonzalez, who organized except those who hated her. Neither group theI first meeting of the sheriff's coalition in 2005, has been really understood her, which is why this a higher-profile media figure than West. In November 2005, book... is essential." H.. W. Brands shortly before the "Al-Qaeda terrorist" story started to spread, Gonzalez took NBC reporter Rita Cosby (wearing a bulletproof vest) down to the Rio Grande at night. He was armed with a "A winner of a book. A real page-turning hoot." pistol and an AR-15. Along for the fun was Congressman Ted Douglas Brinkley Poe, a Republican from Temple. Gonzalez memorably told Cosby and her viewers that just on the other side of the river, drug lords were grinding up men and feeding the meat to dogs. Bill Minutaglio and "I think most people are really unaware of the war zone here W. Michael Smith in the Texas-Mexican border, especially in this location," Poe said. "More than likely the next terrorist attacker will come across the southern border:' With that, Cosby segued into a live interview with Duncan Hunter, a former Republican congressman from California, who talked about his proposal to build a 2,000-mile, triple-layered border fence from San Diego to Brownsville. It was "the answer:' he said, to the nightmare in Zapata County that Gonzalez had just spelled out. "That's what we had between Tijuana and San Diego:' Hunter said. "Ten years ago, that was a no-man's land. We had the rob- bing, raping, murdering. We had gangs that roamed that area between America and Mexico. And we had that scraggly barbed- wire fence, like the one you showed near Nuevo Laredo." In August 2006, Gonzalez told Fox News' Sean Hannity that al-Qaeda members were learning Spanish in Mexico to blend in with undocumented immigrants and swim across the Rio Grande. Hannity drew that unsubstantiated fact out to its logi- cal extension: Hannity: Now, I just am speculating. You're the law-enforce- ment expert here. But if they're coming from al-Qaida-linked countries, or countries where we know al-Qaida is operating, if they're going through this enormous effort to learn Spanish, MOLLY IVINS to blend into the community, and then being smuggled across, A REBEL LIFE we've got to assume and believe that we're fairly certain that they're here to create terror cells in the United States and com- Bill Minutaglio and W. Michael Smith mit acts of terrorism. Wouldn't that be right? Gonzalez: Well, that's correct. A lot of the things that we're see- BOOK SIGNING PARTY! ing along the border are these people are being smuggled into The Texas Observer, the ACLU of Texas, and the country with armed guards, bodyguards. Several persons The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, UT-Austin have reported these people coming into the country with three host the authors or four individuals that are armed, bringing them into the November 12, 5:30-8 PM • Scholz Garten country. A person looking for employment in the United States 1607 San Jacinto Austin, TX would not need to hire a coyote of that higher caliber to bring them into the country. IN BOOKSTORES THIS NOVEMBER FROM Gonzalez now heads the Southwest Border Sheriff's Coalition, PUBLICAFFAIRS which includes sheriffs from Texas, New Mexico, Arizona www.publicaffairsbooks.com and California. I catch up with him in late September at the

OCTOBER 30, 2009 TEXASOBSERVER.ORG 15 coalition's conference in Yuma, Arizona, where he is serving "You boys have to go home sometime, or your wives are going as emcee. Asked about the claims he's made over the years to divorce you," West says, guffawing. But he is in no hurry, regarding terrorists, Gonzalez says it came from "intelligence" either. His wife phoned earlier to remind him about a school he received as a law-enforcement officer. When I ask whether function he'd promised to attend that evening. it is possible to see any, he says it can't be shared with non-law "Do you have any other questions?" he asks me in a hopeful enforcement. tone. I can't think of any. Lupe Trevino, sheriff of Hidalgo County, is among the coali- Two weeks later, I get an e-mail from the sheriff. The subject tion members who say that the inflammatory rhetoric has is "Body in Mountain." West wrote: brought the coalition and the border region nothing but a lot "I just wanted to let you know we found the body. He was of headlines and bad publicity. "One of the things you have to about two miles north east of the little house. We had to walk be careful about is, if you are going to give your perspective and about a mile and a half to get him, but we made it for a bunch you want somebody to take you serious, you need to have your of old guys. The family can feel better knowing this information evidence, your statistics, to show that you aren't making this up I guess. Take care and God Bless. Tu amigo, Sheriff West." ■ and it is really happening," he says. Trevino has also testified before Congress, offering a different HIGHT ER take than Gonzalez or West on the border's vulnerabilities. He says most members of Congress assume he lives in a "battle zone." Few realize that his county, the second-most populous on the Obama Must Get Going on Jobs Texas border, was ranked as the state's fourth-safest last year. Just before taking office, Barack Obama called on the Frustrated with misrepresentation of border realities, Trevino millions of people involved in his campaign to stay active: created an hour-long PowerPoint presentation called "Border "I don't want them to just sit around and wait for me to Violence: Rhetoric vs. Reality" He makes his case at luncheons do something," he said. "I want them to be pushing their and to any audience that will listen. agendas." "As an American, of course I am concerned about terrorism, Well, since he asked for it, let's shove this agenda for- but do you think my deputies have time to post themselves on ward: Jobs. Middle-class jobs. Jobs with a future and a the river to look for Osama bin Laden?" he says. His department satisfying purpose. Lots and lots of those jobs. receives a call for assistance every four minutes on average, Obama has talked often about jobs, but he's put little Trevino adds. Besides, "I'm not going to drop my homicides presidential heft into creating them. Indeed, even as unem- and my robbery investigations so that I can help Border Patrol ployment soars to 10 percent and the number of under- keep terrorists out of the country." employed Americans almost doubles that percentage, the administration lacks the sense of urgency that ordinary t is getting late in the desert. "Let's go," West says, exiting families feel. the cabin. He hops into his ATV and motions for us to Debbie Kransky, 51, who lives in Milwaukee, has been join him. "I want to show you Mexico," he says, hitting out of work since February despite constantly being on the gas. We crest a small butte, and the sun is hanging low. the hunt. Her unemployment benefits have run out, and SuddenlyI the ATV makes a whump and then a thumping noise. her life savings have been depleted. As she told The New Flat tire. "Dang," the sheriff says, pulling out a can of fix-a-flat York Times, "I've got October rent. After that, I don't know. he's already used twice today. He shoots the white foam into I've never lived month to month my entire life. I'm just so the deflated tire. No luck. West kicks the dust with his Wallaby scared, I can't even put it in words." boot and radios for help. There are millions of Debbies, yet Obama doesn't seem Nobody answers. The sound of the Border Star chopper to be in touch with the aching anxiety and growing anger echoes off the mountainsides. "Maybe I can get them to give of these people. They saw the unprecedented, multi-tril- you a ride back to my office," West says. After he negotiates lion-dollar federal bailout to save Wall Street banksters. with the pilot for a while, the chopper heads east. "The Border Now they hear the recession is "over." Yet there are six Patrol agents are lost, and they are trying to find them," he says, unemployed people for every job opening. Obama, how- annoyed. "There's also a storm, and they've got to get back." ever, recently brushed off this reality, saying: "As you know, Eventually one of the young deputies rides up on his ATV. jobs tend to be a lagging indicator; they come last." They haven't found the body. The sky is growing dark with Hello—jobs are not an "indicator," they're the sustainer of ominous clouds, and the wind is whipping up. Without saying families, the lifeblood of our middle-class society. Franklin much, the officers get back on their vehicles and head into a Roosevelt made jobs first, not last. And so should Obama. rainstorm. Soon. In fact, now would not be too soon. Back at the windmill, the rain has stopped. The deputies load the ATVs back on the trailer. It's nearly dark, but the men linger, For more information on Jim Hightower's work—and to elbows propped on truck beds, talking about sports and the subscribe to his award-winning monthly newsletter, The weather. The stony-faced Ranger and the ICE agent dip into Hightower Lowdown—visit wwwlimhightowercom. cans of chewing tobacco and spit into the dust.

16 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 30, 2009 . PLANET K PRESENTS.,

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PRAY FOR THE DEAD & FIGHT LIKE HELL FOR THE LIVING EAST AUSTIN AUSTIN * OC,AMADRAii • '1371 D RIVERSIDE RESEARCH STASSNEY CESAR CHAVEZ NORTH SOUTH E. 3111 E CESAR CHAVEZ 9407 N. 1H35 1516 S. LAMAR 2007 E. RIVERSIDE 11657 RESEARCH 727 W. STASSNEY 832-8544 443-2292 441-5555 502-9323 707-9069 247-2222 tiO0VENAEAR Y2 AWETSTWO1-1000DFLF w0W0DIALwAA N SAN ANTONIO • AVE EAST CENTRAL EVERS MILITARY WEST 2138 AUSTIN HIGHWAY 1015 E. MULBERRY 5619 EVERS RD 2803 GOLIAD 11202 WEST AVE 654-8536 822-7767 521-5213 333-3043 525-0708 PLANETKTEXAS.COM OPEN TIL MIDNIGHT 7 DAYS A WEEK - SINCE 1990 eading is a solitary, all- outside, and the cold whipping rain theme emerges. The iconic Texan may consuming exercise. I recent- snapped me back into the present. still be a cowboy, and a few still roam the ly learned this the hard It's a pleasure, then, to come back to plains, but the future belongs to young R way while reading Cormac a warmer, dryer Austin poised to cel- Hispanics living in cities. Their world is McCarthy's The Road during a trip to a ebrate the annual Texas Book Festival. laid bare in the nonfiction chronicle Just cold and rainy New York City. In real- The festival gives us the chance to realize Like Us, as well as young adult fiction like ity, I was rattling down an underground that, yes, there is a community of read- Border Crossing. In a similar vein, we talk tunnel in a packed subway train, but my ers, even if most of the year we're not on with Oscar Casares, whose latest book mind was lost in a world so barren and the same page. features an older Mexican-American romantic it must have been inspired by In a similar spirit, we're debuting our who travels across the border in search Texas. As I trudged across an ash-strewn first annual book festival issue, dedicated of the myths that define him. The books apocalyptic landscape with the novel's to Texas authors and books featured this reviewed here are not meant to take us two noble subjects, someone in the real year. We've aimed for a broad spectrum away from the real world; in fact, they world stole my umbrella, which I had of subjects—from food to the birth of are here to help us define who we are. placed on the floor beside me. I stepped the American idea—but at least one —Michael May

EXCERPT South Toward Home EXCERPT FROM MOLLY IVINS: A REBEL LIFE BY BILL MINUTAGLIO AND W. MICHAEL SMITH

In their new biography of Molly Ivins, to her friends and talking about the dif- the books in the library, but you Bill Minutaglio and W Michael Smith ficulties and worries of living with men, were never one of them, no no. chronicle the personal and journalistic arc and also about not being politically radi- of Texas' late, lamented tormentor of the cal enough. Her soul-searching extended She decided to write one more internal right. The excerpt below recounts Ivins' deci- to the core notions of what journalism Fuck You memo, this one asking editors sion in 1970 to leave her first post-graduate was all about; she increasingly mulled what constituted a "conflict of interest" reporting job at the Minneapolis Tribune the worth of objectivity. Living with an at the paper-asking if it was a conflict to for a co-editorship at the Observer. Ivins' activist, being confronted by his accusa- have "a Boycott Grapes sticker on a car, a romance with political activist Jack Cann tions, had clearly affected her thinking McCarthy for President sticker on a car, had soured, and she was losing patience not just about personal relationships a Peace & Freedom Party sticker? Is it a with the Tribune's "objective" journal- but also about her image as a journalist conflict of interest to work for a political ism. When we pick up the story, Ivins has trained to be neutral and objective in the candidate in any way? What about writing already created a ruckus at the paper by extreme. She knew she wanted to leave freelance articles for politically oriented writing inflammatory memos to her edi- Minnesota, and she knew that some peo- publications? Say 'New Republic?" The tors and criticizing their decisions. ple still viewed her through the prism of issue was personal, of course. She was her upbringing. She had been offered a telling friends she had been in love with he weather was changing, win- pointed analysis of her life: Jack Cann, perhaps the city's most con- ter was finally fading. Molly sistent activist-and she was covering the had recently attended the [Y]ou have some of the biggest, fattest protests and issues he knew better than T memorial service for veter- establishment labels going—some most people in the city. She had been at an socialist leader V. R. Dunne, where little WASP prep school, some law- his trial, helping his legal defense. She had Farrell Dobbs, the national secretary of yer father, some Smith College, some canvassed the neighborhoods with him. the Socialist Workers Party, had spoken. junior year abroad, some Columbia That spring in Texas, Terry O'Rourke She was writing more pissed-off memos Journalism School master's degree, ran into Ronnie Dugger, longtime found- to colleagues at the paper ("thanks for some Minneapolis paper. You have er-editor-publisher of The Texas Observer. another piece of shit on your editorial tried ... to convince people that you Dugger told O'Rourke that he was field- page"). Nothing, really, as far as she was were not a part of those worlds, ing applications for editors. O'Rourke concerned, was going to change at the that you were different, the ghetto mentioned Ivins. She had continued to Minneapolis Tribune. She was also con- kid who was hanging around those read the Observer and she told friends vinced that her relationship with Jack honkies just for a big yuk-yuk and that the publication consistently painted Cann was irreparable. She was writing also to hone your fine mind on all a portrait of a heinous state. She was a

18 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 30, 2009 1970 issue of the Twin Citian, and it both shredded her editors and neatly outlined her philosophy that objectivity was virtu- ally useless. The defining piece, one of the best tools for understanding her entire career, was written against the backdrop of several personal matters: being best friends with men trying desperately to avoid the draft, living with a man who was one of the city's most intense activ- ists, thinking about leaving the country as part of the Peace Corps, thinking of trav- eling to Russia, writing for The Militant, chiding friends who were working for conservative politicians, telling people she was insecure about her physical appearance and her sexuality. It was the culmination, perhaps, of other things, too: Hank Holland's death, her father's

Molly Ivins and co-editor Kaye Northcott in the Observer offices. photo by Alan Pogue vice grip and buried racism, her mother's socialite naggings. long-distance admirer of Dugger, who Dugger eventually narrowed his choice "I worked for the Minneapolis Tribune fought for years to keep the publication down to five or six candidates, with Ivins for three years. No, the paper is not afloat, and she had once told Jack Cann and Billy Porterfield (her old colleague hell-just a stone wall drag. ... The Trib that Dugger was one of her heroes. She at the Houston Chronicle) as the finalists. doesn't permit its reporters time, money, quickly applied and sent a resume and Dugger liked Porterfield's literary incli- freedom or space and so we continue to some clips to Texas (including a story she nations but wondered if Porterfield was crank out schlock. The horror stories are had done about once attending the same averse to politics in some way. Dugger endless-every reporter has dozens!" summer camp as LBJ's daughter). Her began to look more closely at Ivins and As for objectivity: "I don't believe in the application included some of the stories eventually offered Northcott and Ivins stuff myself-I've seen the truth murdered she had done at the Tribune on the stu- positions as co-editors. They decided too many times in the name of objectiv- dent upheavals in Minneapolis. Dugger to pay themselves the same amount of ity-but I'm open to the argument that thought they were very well reported money that state legislators got-about what we really need is a better definition and had a "boldness and fairness" but $8,000 a year. of objectivity." Ivins made a collect call from Texas And: "to look around the news- " no showing at all of a sense of humor in them." and told Wallace Allen, her editor in room is to see living tragedy in terms He and the Observer staff, always in Minnesota, that she was resigning. When of wasted talent" and "the Channels of dire financial shape, decided to bring her she got back to Minnesota, a friend Communication are silted up with the to Austin for an interview. She arrived at handed her a hand-drawn award: The corpses of stories that never got covered Dugger's house with a six-pack of beer. "Chutzpah Of The Month Award- pre- and ideas that were never pursued. Dugger, associate editor Kaye Northcott, sented, with deepest feelings of admira- Some reporters quit and others quit and business manager Cliff Olofson tion to Mary T. Ivins for calling Wally trying." Some reporters "point to letters were impressed. She was funny and collect to resign." attacking us as communists and letters she seemed really alive, chortling about After she resigned, she began writ- attacking us as Birchers and claim they Texas, about growing up in Houston. ing what can only be described as The must be doing something right. On Northcott thought that she was damned Mother of All Fuck Off Stories—a piece any given controversy, they print what tall. Northcott had roots in the Midwest that would appear in the local alterna- A said and then what B said and think but was raised in Houston, so she knew tive paper in Minneapolis. It was a raised they've produced an adequate piece of about the River Oaks neighborhood and middle finger of colossal proportions, journalism!' about private schools like St. John's. She directed at the man who had hired her Tribune staffers would talk about the was impressed that Ivins didn't seem to and to whom she had sent the polite let- article for months. Editors issued an carry any airs, but she also sensed that ter of resignation. Some of her friends internal response. In Tribune Staff Memo Ivins wasn't overly broadcasting her pedi- revered the piece but said that she had No. 77, Wally Allen laid out his feelings: gree. "I knew her family lived in River recklessly quoted Tribune staffers and "If objectivity means dull writing, fail- Oaks," says Northcott. "She'd rather that put them in danger of getting fired. The ure to show what an event really means, people didn't know that." story ran across eight pages in the August destruction of color and humanity,

OCTOBER 30, 2009 TEXASOBSERVER.ORG 19 then I'm against it. If it means a retreat Twin Citian. In a direct nod to North having to endure a fraternity brother into the past, a new emphasis on trivia, Toward Home, Willie Morris's epistle groping her breast. She condemned the timidity in reporting on social issues, I'm on his process of self-discovery and rid- culture of violence in the state and the against it:' ing the lines connecting the South and crazed juxtaposition with the surface the North, she decided to call her piece politeness, and suggested that things he division of duties at The "South Toward Home": were just more interesting in Texas Texas Observer quickly took because the evil deeds and people were shape and Northcott and Ivins- "Going back to Texas? Ivins, you're easily on parade. "Down here the baddies T both in their twenties, both out of yourgoddamn mind." And they wear black hats and we can loathe them on the same political wavelength-eas- told me again all the things that make with a cheerful conscience. ... Hatred ily accepted their titles. Some people in Minnesota a better place to live. The is hardly a thing to take pride in, but I Austin said quietly that Dugger had set- schools are better, the health care is believe there is a difference between the tled on the co-editor format because he better, the mental institutions more anger of bitterness and despair and the was worried whether one woman could humane, the prisons more enlight- anger of righteousness. The latter, when do the job. Northcott was a good report- ened, and the courts more just. not wholly lacking in humor, is a just er and writer; Ivins was a funnier writer And also, Minnesota has bars.And and cleansing thing." and could clearly drink with many differ- Minnesota's newspapers are superior And she said that the liberal wing of ent people, which might not have been and its politicians are progressive and things was prone to infighting, afflicted Northcott's strong suit- especially in the its climate no lousier and its laws by group depression, bad drinking, and hallways of the pink-granite capitol, with more sane. And its racism is thin- the sanctimonious game of I'm-more- its miles of wood and swinging-dick leg- blooded and polite. I can't help it. I radical-than-thou. With her forum-and islators yodeling about all the women love the state of Texas. It's a harmless her willingness to write about Texas they had picked up the night before in perversion. politicians in a funnier, more caustic Austin. and unfiltered way than anyone else had Her first piece in the Observer She gleefully talked about visiting her ever done-she would actually become appeared at almost the same time as her brother at UT-Austin two years ear- a grounding focal point for the liberal cluster-fuck attack on the Tribune in the lier, getting drunk at his fraternity, and movement in the city and the state. ■

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20 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 30, 2009 PREVIEW

Morning mist rises from the Pecos River in Val Verde County, Texas. This photo appears in Big River, Rio Grande, a book that displays the grandeur of the river while also profiling the individuals struggling to save it. Photos by Laurence Parent, text by David Baxter, University of Texas Press.

First Available Cell Frontline Dispatches Desegregation of the from the Streets of El Texas Prison System A 14103 BY CHAD F'.. TR U LSON AN ID Paso and Juarez cmali JAMES W. MARC4JA19.7 UNIVERSITY THE WILL/AAI AND BET'ID'E NOWLIN SERIES IN ART, HIs 37 B&W photos, 12 tables, OF TORY, AND CULTURE OF THE 8 figures, $55.00 hardcover WESTERN HEMISPHERE TEXAS $24.95 paperback, PRESS $60.00 hardcover

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OCTOBER 30, 2009 TEXASOBSERVER.ORG 21 REVIEW Views of the Frontier BY DAVID CLEAVES

PANCHO VILLA MAKES REGULAR CAMEOS THROUGHOUT THE ANTHOLOGY, A CONTRIBUTOR TO THE HOMICIDES AND HEADACHES.

as surprises. The anthology defines "liter- Woolley writes, "Homicides were as ary" in the broadest sense and includes common as headaches." journalism and academic writing, on their Pancho Villa makes regular cameos own and sometimes as introductions to throughout the anthology, a contributor poems, stories and novel excerpts. A few to the homicides and headaches and an previously unpublished pieces appear, inspiration for the first big militariza- including a selection from John Rechy's tion of the border by Gen. Pershing at forthcoming memoir, About My Life and Fort Bliss. In Amado Muro's "Sunday the Kept Woman. in Little Chihuahua," an old woman Eschewing chronology, the book's edi- who sells strawberries reminisces Literary El Paso tor, Marcia Hatfield Daudistel, groups her about her young days fighting for Villa: Edited by Marcia Hatfield Daudistel selections around three themes: History, "How gladly I'd give up my strawberry TCU Press the Border and Nature. This organiza- stand to hitch up my skirts and fight 442 Pages, $29.50 tion lets Torn Lea open Part I with the for Pancho Villa again." The general's beginning of his novel, The Wonderful best moment comes in the touching l Paso is as far from Texas as Country, and appear again in Part III, and hilarious portrayal of the grand- you can get while still being where, in "Old Mount Franklin," we see mother in Sergio Troncoso's story, "The in it, a fact that holds a cer- the El Paso icon as a "gaunt hardrock Abuelita." Watching Ronald Reagan on E tain appeal to anyone with mountain, standing against the sky like the television news, the old lady lashes a love-hate relationship with the Lone a piece of the world's uncovered car- out simultaneously at the president and Star State. In Literary El Paso, the new- cass." Daudistel's thematic organization her beleaguered husband Jose. "Esc mal- est anthology in the Literary Cities series encourages browsing across subject mat- dito viejo," she says of Reagan: from TCU Press, there's plenty to love ter and time, almost as if Literary El Paso and linger over, and some to skim on the were three books. Parece que esta loco. Why doesn't long drive west. The historical writing in Part I is most- that crazy man go fight himself? Literary El Paso includes 63 writers ly straight reportage, with a few short What does he have against these poor with strong local ties, and the selections stories, poems and excerpts from novels. people? This man talks too much and focus on life in the "Sun City." The chro- Some selections here—including a dry does nothing He reminds me of you, nology and subject matter range widely, essay on the Tiguas and a matter-of-fact Jose. I remember el General Villa from settling the area at the end of the history of the local Holocaust museum— riding into Chihuahua City with his Pleistocene Era through a 19th-cen- seem like a stretch for a literary anthol- revolutionary troops when I was a tury packed with bandits, outlaws, and ogy even as they round out the picture of little girl. Villa would hang men like Mexican revolutionaries to the Chicano El Paso's diverse community. this Ree-gaan on the spot. El General movement that gave El Paso an interna- El Paso has a cinematic history, and hated politicians and bankers. tionally respected literary voice. the expected friars, bandits, outlaws, Many authors will be familiar to prostitutes, Mexican revolutionaries, Troncoso's story is one of many that Observer readers, having appeared in cowboys, lawmen and civilizing church draw on the rich cultural history of El these pages over the years: David Dorado ladies all play their parts, with star turns Paso and Juarez while sketching the lives Romo, Dagoberto Gilb, Christine by Billy the Kid, John Wesley Hardin, of their modern inhabitants. Granados, Robert Burlingame, Pat and Dallas Stoudenmire. This was the If one goal of a good anthology is to LittleDog and Elroy Bode, among oth- first—but not last—period in the his- inspire further reading, Literary El Paso ers. Some writers in the book may come tory of El Paso-Juarez when, as Bryan succeeds in adding half a dozen writers

22 THE TEXAS , OBSERVER OCTOBER 30, 2009 to my list, most of them from Part II, the REVIEW Border section. It showcases the stories, poetry and fiction of the many excellent Chicano writers to come out of El Paso. Documented Immigrants The list is long: poets Tomas Rivera and Ricardo Sanchez, novelists Rechy, Rick BY EMILY DEPRANG DeMarinis, Sergio Troncoso and Ana Castillo, and many more. and built a happy life together. Their

DeMarinis's "Hell's Cartoonist" is 'He3rn'Ipsrre A.. contentment was overshadowed by her 1.441. polacy Hui tuntHI a harsh and hilarious examination of iftemliwy0..." undocumented status, and they even- what its narrator calls the "unfiltered .•tlacclom.<3..on tually decided to undertake the ardu- kinetics of doomed life," which include ous, expensive citizenship process. His jolly Midwestern tourists photograph- wife had to return to Mexico to wait for ing amputees in Juarez contrasted with permission to re-enter legally. "She can't the minor betrayals of the narrator's stand being away from the girls," Juan UFO-obsessed German wife. All of said. "It drives her crazy" Juan admitted which inspires the narrator's summa- they were the lucky ones, though. Juan tion: "UFO's aren't the mystery. We are." works as a foreman for a premium scaf- Troncoso and Castillo tell unforgettable folding crew and could support his chil- stories: bitter, funny and full of love. JUST LIKE US dren and his wife's trip and application. THE TRUE STORY OF FOUR HEXIC.AN GIRLS He spared me stories of other families Sharing one rare setting—the same CONING Or AOC AHCRICA desert mountains, high schools, separated with no hope of reunion, but HELEN THORPE bridges, streets, shops, two countries, they hung in the air between us. one river—the stories and poems in Late in the night, the bus crawled to Literary El Paso at times share a similar a halt, kicking up dust and gravel, and voice—open, honest, often irreverent. the lights came on, waking everyone. The grateful reader can feel like Elroy Wordlessly, the bus rustled to life and Bode, when he first moved to El Paso Just Like Us: The True Story of passengers began rummaging for purses in the 195os and began discovering the Four Mexican Girls Coming of Age and wallets. The doors hissed open, and city and its people: in America a Border Patrol officer mounted the steps By Helen Thorpe and creaked along the aisle, asking passen- So I kept walking—roaming through Scribner Hardcover gers if they were American citizens. When the streets of Sunset Heights, past the 384 pages, $26.99 he approached us, I looked up at him with red-brick homes that for decades had my pale face and green eyes and said, "Yes:' been facing west toward the desert, arly this August, I took a a defiant little frown on my privileged face. south toward Juarez and Mexico. It Greyhound bus from Tucson I didn't offer any documentation. His eyes was as if they were still faintly hushed to Houston and back. It was flicked to Juan, who proffered his Green from the dramas of the past, and E a 24-hour trip that impressed Card. The officer studied it with a flash- now, though solemn and decorous my middle-class family and friends as light, front and back, scrutinized Juan, in the early-night darkness, their rugged and somewhat risky. I was proud looked again at the card and returned it. burnt-red bricks carried within them of myself for doing it, proud, too, that The bus was silent until the officer left, and the fever of memory, the warm crim- I made friends with my seatmates and it was silent for a long time after. son trace of history. Prospect, Upson, enjoyed chatty forays into their worlds Mundy: they were strange streets to for the hours our travels intersected. ust Like Us: The True Story of me, but as I walked them those first My favorite seatmate was Juan, a lanky Four Mexican Girls Coming of October nights I knew I wanted to Mexican-American in his 2os with a shy Age in America is a master- know them, wanted to stare past smile that belied a wicked sense of humor. j work of narrative nonfiction their lighted porches and learn of He was returning from a three-day wed- that speaks to many of the stories untold their hidden lives. ■ ding in Mexico (a short one, he assured in the silence of that Greyhound bus. me) in the village where his wife lived In this first book, author Helen Thorpe David Cleaves lives in Austin and studied with her family, waiting on the tectonic details four young Mexican women—one at the Michener Center for Writers at pace of Citizenship and Immigration American citizen, one who has her Green the University of Texas. His writing has Services to advance her application for Card, and two who are undocumented— appeared in the Greensboro Review, citizenship. She and Juan, who has his from their senior prom through gradu- the Library Chronicle and Shakespeare Green Card, had met, wooed and mar- ation from college. Merely to record the Yearbook. ried in America, borne two daughters emotional, financial, legal and logistical

OCTOBER 30, 2009 TEXASOBSERVER.ORG 23 THEIR BOY PROBLEMS, SECRET PASSWORDS, AND SHIFTING ALLIANCES SHARE SPACE ON THE PAGE, AS THEY DO IN THE GIRLS' WINDS. travails of her subjects' quest for an edu- lines of legal status." It's a brief aside At the end of Chapter 4, Thorpe writes, cation would have been an impressive but is the kind of thoughtful pause CC... politics was always on the horizon contribution to the immigration debate, in the narrative that Thorpe allows whenever I spent time with Marisela and but Thorpe incorporates grass-roots his- throughout. She invites readers to Yadira. The ongoing debate over illegal trionics and congressional fumbling that reflect, as she did, on what makes a immigration occupied a hulking pres- threaten to arrest the girls' progress (or person "seem" illegal and how valid or ence in the emotional geography of the parents). fair that assessment might be. two illegal girls, much in the way that the Thorpe brings her subjects to life with Thorpe orients readers into the simul- Rocky Mountains dominated the physi- insightful, often tender characteriza- taneous booms of retirees and new cal landscape?' Oh, that she had stopped tions (she introduces her pivotal figure, immigrants during the '9os that turned there. One sentence later, she elaborates, Marisela, as having "the gravitational Denver into a Petri dish for the nascent "As locals used the snow-capped moun- pull of a large star"). She lets the girls' national immigration "crisis." "Inside tains to orient themselves in space, the own personal dramas drive the narrative, the Old Country Buffet, the clientele two illegal girls used the fiery political from unruly prom hair to how to pay for fell into two categories: aging white debate to orient themselves with respect college. Their boy problems, secret pass- people and young Mexican-Americans. to the idea of America?' words and shifting alliances share space In the center of the country, America's Don't let this and a few other clunky on the page, as they do in the girls' minds, two fastest-growing demographic constructions dissuade you from with deported parents, abandoned sib- groups were eating side by side at a Just Like Us. It is a feat of journalistic lings, legislative turbidity and the ever- restaurant where they could purchase empathy, an epic journey through the present question: What will happen when a cheap lunch?' This device is a Thorpe realities of undocumented life and its we graduate? The reader cannot help but specialty; she stays aware of macro scope reaches from the most-power- care about these straight-A students, born and micro in the story and is attuned ful to the most-powerless in the drama into circumstances they didn't choose, to the moments that let one represent of Mexican-American immigration. saddled with nearly incomprehensible the other. The technique allows readers Every American—documented or not— challenges and committed to whatever to follow the girls' joys and failures in deserves to meet Marisela, Yadira, Elissa progress they can make with what is not an evolving political environment that and Clara. They defy classification, label denied them. fills them alternately with hope and fear. and stereotype. The four, and through Thorpe met the four girls in early Tying the two together, as Thorpe does them the millions they represent, are March of 2004. A "friend of a friend" repeatedly, is not mere stylistic clever- complex, complete individuals, worthy introduced her to Elissa (the names ness but an important part of why the of love, health, education, consideration, have been changed), the group's star book works. human rights and—the reader can hardly athlete who gives pep talks to her com- When an author uses any device regu- help but conclude—citizenship. ■ panions about homework and punctu- larly, there are bound to be less success- ality. When Thorpe arrived at the Old ful attempts. Thorpe's employment of the Emily DePrang is a contributing writer for Country Buffet in suburban Denver to environment usually feels like a stretch. the Observer. meet Elissa, all four friends were wait- ing. She met Marisela, "the dramatic Statement of Ownership, Management and Circulation one," with a penchant for chamele- The Texas Observer (541-300), 307 W. 7th St., Austin, TX 78701, is published biweekly, except during onic hair color and body glitter, and April, June, October and December, when there is a 4-week break between issues (22 issues annually) Yadira, the reserved one who "took up for a subscription price of $32.00. Publisher, Carlton Carl; Editor, Bob Moser; Managing Editor, Chris such a small emotional footprint that, Tomlinson. Owner: The Texas Democracy Foundation, 307 W 7th St., Austin, TX 78701. 15. Extent were it not for her striking coltish fig- and Nature of Circulation: Average Data and for Issue Date 9/18/09. (a) Total Number of Copies: avg. ure, it might be possible to forget she 8431, actual 6770. (b) Paid and/or Requested Circulation: (bi) Paid or Requested Mail Subscriptions was present at all." Completing the Outside-County: avg. 6081, actual 5004; (b2) Paid or Requested Mail Subscriptions In-County: avg. group was Clara, the sensitive one, 1770, actual 1458; (b3) Other Non-USPS Paid Distribution: avg. o, actual o; (b4) Other Classes Mailed who dressed boyishly and cried eas- Through USPS: avg. io, actual 1. (c) Total Paid and/or Requested Circulation: avg. 7861, actual 6463. (d) ily. If Marisela was the first to experi- Free Distribution by Mail: (di) Outside-County: avg. o, actual o; (d2) In-County: avg. o, actual o; (d3) ment with everything, then Clara was Other Classes Mailed Through the USPS: avg. 53, actual 36. (d4) Outside the Mail: avg. 115, actual 5. (e) the last. "Looking them over," Thorpe Total Free Distribution: avg. 168, actual 41. (f) Total Distribution: avg. 8029, actual 6504. (g) Copies Not observes, "I could not discern who had Distributed: avg. 405, actual 266. (h) Total: avg. 8434, actual 6770. (j) Percent Paid and/or Requested documents and who did not, although Circulation: avg. 98%, actual 99%. Signed Candace Carpenter, Circulation Manager, 9/30/09. I knew the group was bifurcated along

24 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 30, 2009 REVIEW Becoming Brazilian BY RYLAND BARTON

driven from their home in 1919 by of our literary history, and, even, of the the pogroms that terrorized Eastern history of our language." Europe. Lispector, born during her Lispector, on the other hand, resented family's escape, would have no memo- being labeled a foreigner, even if it was ry of Europe, arriving in Brazil before said in praise. Moser writes that "there she was 2 years old. But Moser argues was no characteristic Clarice Lispector that, nonetheless, her background gave might have wanted to lose more than the her writing a distinctly European fla- place of her birth." Lispector even took vor that made her stand out among her speech lessons to correct a slight accent contemporaries. Lispector's first book, inherited from her parents. When read- Near to the Wild Heart, became a sen- ers attempted to draw autobiographical sation because of what Moser calls the information from Lispector's novels, she ."strange•voice and foreign climate" of would respond with linguistic puzzles: her language. Clarice tells the story of "The I who appears in this book is not I. Joana, who, through a series of episodic It is not autobiographical, you all know flashes, relates her intense emotional nothing of me. I never have told you and state and conflicted outlook on mar- I never shall tell you 'who I am. I am all riage, life and society. of yourselves." If Lispector resented the speculation "There will be no space inside me for me about her early escape from Europe, it's to know that time, men, dimensions, also clear that she also loved to draw Why This World: A Biography exist, there will be no space inside me from her past in elaborate paradoxes, of Clarice Lispector to so much as notice that I will be cre- such as this one from her novel Agua By Benjamin Moser ating instant by instant, no instant by viva: "this is not a story because I don't Oxford University Press USA instant: always molten, because then know any stories like this, but all I know 496 pages, $29.95 I shall live, only then shall I live more how to do is go along saying and doing: fully than childhood ..." it is the story of instants that flee like he Brazilian author Clarice fugitive tracks seen from the window Lispector is not well known in Lispector's writing was different from of a train." the United States, but in her that of any Brazilian author, compari- Moser claims that what makes T native land she is considered sons were made to to Joyce, Woolf and Lispector's literature so enigmatic is a part of a Latin American vanguard that Dostoevsky. However, Lispector's lush "fundamentally different conception of includes Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Pablo stream-of-consciousness style would later art." But Clarice distanced herself from Neruda and Jorge Borges. Lispector's become, as Moser says, prose—with its open form, lyricism, "naturalized as that of a and mystical metaphors—transcended great Brazilian writer." narrative and meaning and suggest- Moser notes that her ed the presence of magical narratives unusual prose incited a fas- in everyday life. In Why This World, cination with Lispector's Benjamin Moser sets out to explain personality and origins. how Lispector became the emblem He cites Brazilian poet of Brazil's mid-loth-century cultural Ledo Ivo, who said, "There The Voice of the revolution through her peculiar prose, will probably never be a COMMUNITY mysterious personality and legendary tangible and acceptable physical beauty. explanation for the lan- Moser attributes Lispector's fame guage and style of Clarice www.koop.org largely to the very thing she tried Lispector. The foreignness to squelch: her desperate origins. of her prose is one of the cic'oopy Her parents, Ukrainian Jews, were most overwhelming facts

OCTOBER 30, 2009 TEXASOBSERVER.ORG 25 the academic critique of her work. When REVIEW her books were applauded for their poststructuralist elements, she said, "I don't even have any idea what that is." American Ideas Moser spends a considerable amount of time describing the aura around BY TOM PALAIMA Lispector's beauty. Merely meeting Lispector evidently tongue-tied men, n April, William H. Goetzmann, who were unable to put their finger on a Pulitzer-prize winning histori- W11,34 1A)1 tr.001TZMA what made her unique. The translator an at The University of Texas at Gregory Rabassa recalled being "flab- Austin, told the Austin American- eyond the StatesmanI bergasted to meet that rare person who that as a boy his family looked like Marlene Dietrich and wrote had rented an apartment in St. Paul, Revolution. like Virginia Woolf." Men would throw Minnesota where John Dillinger had HISTORY. Gf themselves at her feet, as Lispector once lived. The enamel surface of the A VI F. III recalled, "There was an American poet bathtub had spots eaten away by the Tif(Pr(1 who threatened to commit suicide acid that Dillinger's gang had used to • po h1 +" because I wasn't interested." erase their own fingerprints. Touching P Sadly, this mystique made it difficult the tub gave Goetzmann a feeling for for Lispector to age gracefully. In 1966, at history, a knack for seeing human age 45, Lispector badly burned her right beings for what they were when they arm when she fell asleep smoking. After were. Goetzmann likes to take his read- the accident, she became embarrassed ers into that kind of American past and to be seen in public. Moser describes CC get them used to living there." Lispector's later life as a series of strug- This is a real trick to try in Beyond gles with lost beauty, drug addiction and the Revolution, an intellectual history of loneliness. the creation and evolution of the idea As Lispector became increasingly of "America" from the Revolutionary reclusive, her work became more mys- War to the end of the 19th century. The Beyond the Revolution: A tical and more popular. She appeared subject cries out for commentary from History of American Thought at the First World Congress of Sorcery today's perspective on what has hap- from Paine to Pragmatism in Colombia in 1974, and though her pened to original ideas, and where posi- By William H. Goetzman presence was treated as a spectacle, it tions taken up during old controversies Basic Books solidified her own mythology. Her cult have led. A less accomplished historian 48o pages, $35 following would continue to grow after and storyteller would not have pulled her death in 1977. it off. But Goetzmann does, using the in the immediately antebellum South; to Today, Lispector's likeness is issued on skillful misdirection of a professional "scribbling women" in the 1800s whose postage stamps in Brazil. She is a hero to magician. "domestic novels" made women the so many Brazilians precisely because her In Beyond the Revolution, Goetzmann center of attention and put men in the work, and her identity, is open to interpre- gets us deeply absorbed in the lives of place where women wanted them; and tation. As Moser says, "Clarice Lispector intellectual figures, famous and obscure, to thinkers, writers and statesmen from has been described as just about every- who contributed to what each of us Tom Paine to William James and John thing: a woman and a man, a native and believes, thinks or feels America is—and Dewey. foreigner, a Jew and a Christian, a child we all have different ideas depending For all these Americans in the first 125 and an adult, an animal and a person, a on region, social class, education, reli- years of our country, America was defined lesbian and a housewife, a witch and a gion and our lives' roads taken and not by what it wasn't. It wasn't Europe. It saint. Because she described so much, of taken. Meanwhile, almost magically, wasn't a decadent aristocracy. It wasn't her intimate experience she could cred- Goetzmann makes us see why the con- social or political conformity. Most of all, ibly be everything for everyone, venerat- cept of America had to be constructed as F. Scott Fitzgerald put it, while "France ed by those who found in her expressive in the first place. He examines what was a land, England a people, America genius a mirror of their own souls. As she it has meant to Founding Fathers; to always had about it the 'quality of an said, 'I am all of yourselves." ■ practitioners of public education in the idea." It was an idea Americans could crucial 5o years after the Declaration of believe in because we never were forced Ryland Barton is an Observer intern and Independence; and to scientific explorers to settle on a single definition. a graduate student at the University of from the 182os through 185os. He con- Goetzmann may strike some read- Texas School of Journalism. siders its meaning for black intellectuals ers as high-mindedly off-putting in his

26 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 30, 2009 AS F. SCOTT FITZGERALD PUT IT, WHILE "FRANCE pioneer schools, which would eventually equal millions of acres, were established WAS A LAND, ENGLAND A PEOPLE, AMERICA by the Northwest Ordinance. By the late 185os, our country had about 25o col- ALWAYS HAD ABOUT IT THE QUALITY OF AN IDEA." leges, aimed at "converging] men into republican machines" (Benjamin Rush), introduction, where he rejects the notion troops entailed, or the corruption that 'C rendered by liberal education worthy that American intellectuals from 1776 to pervaded the British Parliament and "the to receive, and able to guard the sacred 1899 were "mere custodians of knowl- Crown's men on the spot" in the colonies. deposit of the rights and liberties of their edge," and describes them, borrowing America during the revolution was say- fellow citizens" (Jefferson). from Henry James, as "hard core creators ing no to these forms of oppression. Meanwhile Noah Webster "sought to of culture who "feel 'cultural anxiety or Goetzmann's lifetime immersion in safeguard the purity of American English a compulsion constantly to redefine the American history enables him to con- by writing a dictionary and speller." context of reality in which they find them- vey the feelings of the moment with just British English, in Webster's opinion, had selves!' He even borders on the jingoistic the right quotations from contemporary been corrupted beyond repair by foreign with claims that America was the world's sources. words and "foppish court usage." In our first truly cosmopolitan civilization and If you cannot imagine at a distance of 23 very language, America was defined by allusions to Whitman's description of our decades what it was like to be an exploited what it was not. country as a "'nation of nations' ... with colonist, try this from London Magazine Goetzmann gets carried away in a the 'course of universal being' flowing in 1776: "[The American is apparelled few places when he violates his own through it" from head to foot in our manufactures. dictum to stay in the past he is re-cre- But right from page one we meet fig- He scarcely drinks, sits, moves, labours ating. In his discussion of the prob- ures like Paine in their own times and on or recreates himself without contributing lem, seen clearly by writers from James their own terms. When Paine declared, to the emolument of the mother coun- Fenimore Cooper to Henry James, of "The Birthday of a new world is at hand" try." American intellectuals educated in "establishing an American literary tradi- and, "We have it in our power to begin the Greek and Roman classics compared the tion and of raising it to a level of high world over again," we feel how personally ((venality and immorality" in Britain's rul- achievement," Goetzmann argues that important this was to him, as a former ing class with the Roman empire head- American writers had done so "within "half-starved corset maker" whose first ing towards its fall. Thus, Goetzmann approximately sixty-five years," by 1855. wife had died "amid London's squalor!' reminds us that Patrick Henry opposed By then Cooper's Leatherstocking was a We see him as a "stout, ugly, habitually the Stamp Act by declaring, "Caesar New World cultural hero—we essential- unshaven, dirty man with 'twisted eyes"' had his Brutus—Charles the First, his ly had our Odysseus—and three writers who came to America "in 1774 bearing Cromwell—and George the Third may (Cooper, Poe and Irving) "commanded a crumpled letter of introduction from profit by their example." world attention." Goetzmann goes on to Benjamin Franklin." He brought with In discussing how black slaves experi- claim: "Greece, Rome, France, Germany, him his life's wounds, his wits, and not enced America in the South, Goetzmann Italy, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, even much else. No wonder he viewed the quotes poignantly from a letter written Britain itself took far longer to reach such American "melting pot" as an "asylum by a former black slave to his Tennessee maturity." Actually, the first democracy, for mankind." It surely was for him and hillbilly mistress before the Civil War. classical Athens, by the end of its seventh other "lovers of civilization and religious It gets across the inhumanity of slavery decade had invented the genres of trag- liberty" who escaped the "monster" civi- better than the word "inhumanity" itself: edy and comedy. lization of Europe and England. "You say you have offers to buy me, and We do not need pissing contests The sense Goetzmann gives his read- that you shall sell me if I do not send you between historical cultures of the sort ers of that monster reaching across the $1,000, and in the same breath you say, Goetzmann invites to take the measure Atlantic to the New World is like acid on `You know we raised you as we did our of what American intellectuals accom- enamel or skin. Goetzmann learned as a own children. Woman did you raise your plished in defining, at different times and child about history by imagining what it own children for the market?" places in our first 125 years, what America must have been like, the pain and horror Once the always subtly changing set means. We now have Goetzmann's life of of gangsters pouring acid over the tips of ideas of America had been created, it learning distilled into what may be the of their fingers. Likewise, Goetzmann's needed to be transmitted, reinforced and capstone of his career to help us under- vivid descriptions make us feel what liv- revalidated again and again and again. stand who we were ■ ing must have been like in periods that Education, Goetzmann stresses, played we usually just read about. Never have I a big role. Nineteen colleges came into Tom Palaima is Dickson Centennial really felt the tyranny of the Stamp Act, being between 1782 and 1802. Public edu- Professor of Classics at the University of the atrocity of the Boston Massacre, what cation bills were passed in six of the origi- Texas at Austin, where he teaches ancient forcible quartering of Hessian mercenary nal colonies before 1800. Land grants for history and war and violence studies.

OCTOBER 30, 2009 TEXASOBSERVER.ORG 27 REVIEW Hollywood, Texas BY JOSH ROSENBLATT

Call Me Lucky: A Texan in Call Me that hasn't gone away, as Call Me Lucky Hollywood LUCKY is nothing if not a tale of bluster and By Robert Hinkle and Mike Ferris A. '1.xart in Hollywood outsized romanticism. It's also a tale University of Oklahoma that will sound familiar to anyone who 273 pages, $24.95 knows there's nothing Texans love more

ot ktkti,133 than talking about the thousand and one 11x11: sit ) 1) , Ilt 1V )1i Shadows 6, Light: Journeys • things they assume set Texas apart from With Outlaws in Revolutionary the rest of the world. Hollywood Nowhere did Hinkle's skills as an By Gary Kent anthropological guide come in more Robert Hinkle Dalton Publishing li: tir handy than with Dean, a Method actor 400 pages, $21.95 Foosr.fml Swveux. Jr who wasn't just interested in dressing or talking like a Texan but wanted to become A" or "Cowboy Number 3" on TV shows a Texan 24 hours a day for as long as Giant obert Hinkle's career start- and in Republic Studio B pictures. was shooting (Stanislaysky meets Sam ed in earnest in the spring Then came the phone call. Stevens was Houston). Hinkle came to see Dean as of 1955, when the self- directing an adaptation of Edna Ferber's the Eliza Doolittle to his Henry Higgins, R described "two-bit" actor cattle-and-oil epic Giant and wanted a study in cultural transformation. Hinkle from Brownfield, Texas, got a phone call to see Hinkle. Hinkle was sure Stevens taught the young star how to speak, how from the Famous Artists Agency asking wanted him to star as Jett Rink. He put to dress, how to hunt rabbit, how to ride him to sit down with George Stevens, on his cowboy "uniform" and drove to a horse, how to mosey, even how to play the director of Shane, A Place in the Warner Brothers. country songs on the guitar. Sun, and Gunga Din. Up to that point, Hinkle didn't end up playing Rink. Does this "dialect coach" occasionally Hinkle was one of thousands of extras James Dean did. Stevens wasn't interested let his own B.S. get the better of him? Did and B-movie stuntmen wandering the in Hinkle's acting ability at all; he wanted Hinkle really supply the famous line Jett back lots of Hollywood looking for jobs Hinkle's voice. Aiming to make his film used on Leslie to drive Bick into a rage on cheaply made Westerns and war pic- as Texan as he could, the director had ("You always did look pretty. You pretty tures. His first break came in 1952 when decided his star, Rock Hudson, needed nigh good enough to eat.")? Did he he doubled for the star of a low-budget to speak with a real Texas accent. The suggest the hand gesture Dean would use rodeo movie called Bronco Buster, a role only real Texan anyone could think of to refuse Bick's offer to buy him out in one that gave a kid raised "dang near spitting was Hinkle. of the most powerful scenes in the movie? distance from Lubbock" a taste of life in In his memoir, Call Me Lucky: A Texan Who can say? But there's no doubting the movies. With his wife by his side and in Hollywood, Hinkle brings us back to the impact Hinkle had on Dean and the armed with little more than "guts and Hollywood in the 195os, when a true movie. Giant practically oozes Texas. BS," Hinkle headed off to Hollywood and Texan was apparently an exotic creature. brought some of Texas with him. Hinkle was smart enough to harness all Me Lucky lies in sharp The early years were spent as "Cowboy that exoticism and combine it with his contrast to another new book natural-born abilities as about a man who moved to a storyteller. He helped Hollywood with hopes of Sulu NCI sell Hollywood on cinematicC glory, but who ended up a International Headquarters the idea of the larger- stuntman and a B-movie actor before 1 it Come Visit us for LUNCH! In addition to our organic than-life Texan, and finding his place in the movie business. coffee, pizzas, empanadas, pastries and pies, we convinced the right Gary Kent's Shadows and Light, for all now prepare made to order sandwiches, salads, people that only he its Hinkle-like fascination with oddball and even black bean gazpacho. could help Hudson, characters, movie stars and Hollywood Dean and Elizabeth thrills, couldn't be further in tone from 3601 S. Congress off E. Alpine Penn Field • under the water tower Taylor find their inner the light-hearted, slap-on-the-back, (512)107-9637 www.rutainaya.net neck our site for monthly calendar swagger. It's a gift for good-ol'-boy folk-isms of Call Me self-aggrandizement Lucky.

28 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 30, 2009 HINKLE HELPED SELL HOLLYWOOD ON THE IDEA OF THE LARGER -THAN-LIFE TEXAN, AND CONVINCED THE RIGHT PEOPLE THAT ONLY HE COULD HELP HUDSON, DEAN AND ELIZABETH TAYLOR FIND THEIR INNER SWAGGER.

Shadows and Light. Good and evil. Art for the weaving of dreams These aren't the took it on himself to rattle cages. and commerce. Life and death. These words of a man who stumbled into film for That spirit of confrontation and moral aren't opposing terms in Kent's worldview; the hell of it. For Kent, movies—especially daring serves as the backdrop for Kent's they're the dichotomies born of existence. movies made in the 6os and 7os—were coming-of-age stories as a stuntman and If Hinkle was a Hollywood child of the agents of artistic and social change and bit player in mid-century Hollywood. 5os, then Kent was his counterpart in the players in a proper revolution. He, along He never lets us forget the context in 6os. Just as full of bluster and B.S., Kent with buddies and contemporaries Jack which he and other early independent was more interested in the political, social, Nicholson, Monte Hellman, Warren filmmakers were working: the civil rights and metaphysical aspects of moviemaking Oates, Brian De Palma, John Cassavetes, movement, the anti-war movement, than the man who taught James Dean how Richard Rush, and others, weren't just out women's liberation, the summer of love, to rope a calf. For Kent, the complicated to make entertainment; they were part of and the Manson family murders. When parts are where the meaning is, so he what they considered to be a new wave Cassavetes got his acting friends together dives into them, passionately and with an of "outlaw" American cinema, fiercely to shoot Shadows, a movie of their own, attention to detail that would make Henry independent, light on its feet, and intent free from the approbation and control of James dizzy. on breaking barriers and taboos. Kent had the industry, they weren't just breaking Take Kent's poetic tribute to film been "weaned on artistic milk and honey down barriers in Hollywood. They were crews, which resides somewhere between from the legitimate theater [in Houston]. pointing to an entirely different way of the lyrics of an Irish drinking song and I had sashayed in to Hollywood hoping living and creating art, where old notions the Thanksgiving prayer of a modern to find work that would challenge old of authority and tradition were vanishing. spiritualist: "The crew, the crew, those assumptions, scratch some skin, and excite They were, according to Kent, catching hearty sons-a-bitches! ... They create change' Like so many filmmakers of his movies up with the times. ■ shadow and light, call up ghosts, and time, Kent took a look around Hollywood pierce the veil of eternity. They carry in the early '6os, found it embarrassingly Josh Rosenblatt is a freelance arts writer within their trunks ... the stuff necessary out of touch with the spirit of the day, and and critic living in Austin.

PREVIEW

The Mixmaster, Fort Worth. This is where 1-30 and 1-35W meet, but if you look closely you can see the historic junction below the highway, where several major railway lines have met since 1881. From Historic Texas from the Air, by David Buisseret, Richard Francaviglia and Gerald Saxon. Aerial photographs by Jack W. Graves, Jr., published by University of Texas Press.

OCTOBER 30, 2009 TEXASOBSERVER.ORG 29 WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT ROUGH & TUMBLE TEXAS POLITICAL COMBAT

"I'm having the time of my life reading this book. I especial- ly enjoyed his remembrance of Bob Bullock and all of the machinations that swirled around him. I have finally found someone willing to put the truth as they see it in print!' Carl E. Whitmarsh Democrat Houston

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"Darwin Payne's important biography of Dallas attorney Louis A. Bedford Jr. is essential reading for all who seek a more comprehensive understanding of the long struggle for social justice and equal rights in Texas and across the South. Quest forjustice is a major contribution to civil rights movement scholarship and to the history of African Americans in the legal profession." —Darlene Clark Hine, author of Black Victory: The Rise and Fall of the Texas White Primary

294 pages. 26 b&w photos. Bibliography. Index. $22.50 SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY PRESS

To order, call 800-826-8911 or visit www.tanitipreSs.com . REV E Border Teens BY MARY HELEN SPECHT

old Manz wakes to a flashing becomes convinced still secretly exists. red taillight that at first looks The way Anderson withholds like fire and thinks, "It wasn't information often builds a nice suspense— the thought of flames that like how we don't find out until page 36 scared me. It was the thought the origin of Manz's name—while at other that I might stay in bed and do times it is confusing. Throughout the nothing about it." novel, Manz silently blames his mother's Manz is a biracial teenager drinking for his half-brother's being born growing up in rural Texas, without a brain.Eventually, we learn the where immigrants regularly baby suffered from anencephaly, a defect seek day labor on neighboring not caused by alcohol consumption and farms. Life has not been easy "nobody's fault." Is this "reveal" supposed for Manz. His father was killed to let the mother off the hook for drinking years earlier in a car accident; large amounts of liquor throughout her Border Crossing his half-brother was stillborn; his mother pregnancy? By Jessica Lee Anderson is a raging alcoholic; his best friend Jed The technique leads to a larger issue. Part Milkweed Editions gets the shit kicked out of him by his of the literature's beauty is that it makes us iso pages, $17 father regularly; and Manz has begun feel less alone with our problems, but the hearing voices. sheer number Manz faces in this novel Confetti Girl Like most of the best fiction, YA or is overwhelming: alcoholism, multiple By Diana Lopez otherwise, Border Crossing is really deaths, abuse, racism. Oh, and I haven't Little, Brown about Manz's search for a sense of self, even come to his biggest problem—the 208 pages, $15.99 his chafing against cruelty encountered voices in his head and escalating paranoia at almost every turn. When he hears are early symptoms of schizophrenia. On he larger publishing indus- his mother's boss at the convenience top of everything else, Manz is quickly try is crumbling, but "young store run a young Hispanic boy off the going crazy. adult" fiction appears to be property, he thinks: "Everyone knew how The author does an impressive job T holding steady, even growing. Jay felt about the Mexicans in town. Who portraying this frightening mental As someone who as a child read novels knew how he felt about me? I was both illness. Even as Manz's paranoia becomes with "adult" content years before I was Mexican and white. I lived in the middle, obvious, we never stop empathizing with supposed to, and who as an adult can on Allen Street, near the border of the his point of view. His schizophrenia frequently be found browsing the young Great Divide." serves as a deus ex machina that trumps adult section of my public library, I turn There is a wonderful scene in which the other family and social tensions in to the genre, time and time again, for the Manz and Jed, unbeknownst to their the book up to that point. It's almost as immediacy one finds in YA fiction. Books parents, loiter on the street corner with if this novel were trying to be two books, marketed to teenagers are rarely told the day laborers trying to get work and the ending of the second erasing the through the altering prism of experience are almost run off by the regulars for possibility for any resolution of the first. and nostalgia, which makes sense con- being too privileged, too white. Manz Nevertheless, Anderson's minimalist sidering how young people go through struggles between identifying with his prose is always engaging, hitting the life—with a limited sense of proportion best friend, who angrily threatens to call right emotional pauses and accents. She and perspective. At that age, everything Border Patrol, and with the immigrants, has a good ear for adolescent dialogue seems intense and life-altering. who remind him of his father. and doesn't make her characters inane or Precisely this sort of raw exigency, Mani and Jed are hired to build a fence silly. The short chapters and fast-paced artfully done, drew me into Jessica Lee on a nearby guest ranch. There, Manz scenes keep the pages turning, but it is Anderson's second novel, Border Crossing. meets a pretty girl, "Egyptian Eyes," who her descriptions that make this fictional (Her first, Trudy, won the Milkweed serves him sweet tea and whose family world almost crystalline in its bleak Prize for Children's Literature). From eventually tells him about "Operation beauty: "Around the building, we saw a the opening paragraph, it becomes clear Wetback," which relocated illegal aliens massacre of mesquite trees piled high this tale will be a dark one when 15-year- after World War II and which Manz and wide."

32 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 30, 2009 LIFE HAS NOT BEEN EASY FOR MANZ. HIS FATHER WAS KILLED YEARS EARLIER IN A CAR ACCIDENT; HIS HALF- BROTHER WAS STILLBORN; HIS MOTHER IS A RAGING ALCOHOLIC; HIS BEST FRIEND JED GETS THE SHIT KICKED OUT OF HIM BY HIS FATHER REGULARLY; AND MANZ HAS BEGUN HEARING VOICES.

ike Border Crossing, native and failing grades. All the while, the dichos—a great idea, though it becomes Texan Diana Lopez's first underlying issue is the death of Lina's annoying when each is immediately young adult novel, Confetti mother. Lopez weaves this theme of translated, preventing readers from L Girl, is set in a largely Hispanic grief through the book in a subtle, often extrapolating from context or consulting part of the state. The first-person narra- lovely way: "My tears plot into the ocean. the glossary at the end of the book. tor, Lina Flores, also recently has lost a I've tasted tears before. They're salty, just In contrast to Border Crossing's classic parent. This is where the similarities end. like the water below, and I wonder if the Texas aesthetic and tense struggle with Confetti Girl is as light and airy and, well, ocean is made of tears from the people race issues, Confetti Girl thrives on confetti-like as Border Crossing is dark and all the animals that have lost their references to national pop culture, such and edgy. The tone is clear from the first mothers?' as the television show Ugly Betty, and sentence: "Some people collect coins or A pleasant read overall, the novel still seems secure in the Latino presence stamps, but I collect socks." has cringeworthy moments, from hokey permeating Corpus Christi. Both books Lina lives with her English teacher puns ("Holey socks aren't for angels!') to succeed at their different purposes, but father in a house with no television. Her characterizations that verge on affectation, Border Crossing is the novel whose prose best friend, Vanessa, lives across the street such as the father who quotes literature at is more likely to stick with the reader and with a mother who, since her divorce, has what seems like every possible moment. whose story you'll almost certainly want become obsessed with making cascarones, For Lina's science project, she learns to pass on to those YA readers in your confetti-filled eggshells one cracks over that whooping cranes mate for life. life, young or old. ■ another's head as a joke. It doesn't take Her caricature-of-a-father immediately long to suspect a Parent Trap-like setup channels Shakespeare's Sonnet ii6 "... so Mary Helen Specht will be moderating is in the works. they understand. Love alters not with his the session "Elizabeth Berg and Amanda The narrative is energized by typical brief hours and weeks, but bears it out Eyre Ward in Conversation" at the issues of young adulthood: sports wins even to the edge of doom!' Texas Book Festival. Find her online at and defeats, crushes on boys, jealousies The book is sprinkled with Spanish maryhelenspecht.com

Bill Minutaglio and Wanted: W Michael Smith TheTexasObserver The American Civil Instructional Coordinator Liberties Union of Texas & The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History - UT Austin Turkish Language Cluster Invite you to celebrate the life of Molly Ivins

Mail resume to: Meet the authors, buy the book Cosmos Foundation and mingle with Molly's friends and admirers at the 1st book-signing 9431 W. Sam Houston party for the new biography of our Pkwy. S., #202 dear departed Molly. Houston, TX 77099 Attn: Mr. Almus. "Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life" by Bill Minutaglio & W. Michael Smith

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OCTOBER 30, 2009 TEXASOBSERVER.ORG 33 REVIEW The Oyster Is His World BY RICHARD HOLLAND

THE QUALITY OF TEXAS OYSTERS IS LOST ON MUCH OF THE COUNTRY. WALSH IS ROBUSTLY ATTACKED FOR BEING AN OYSTER WRITER FROM HOUSTON WHEN HE VISITS NEW ENGLAND AND THE WEST COAST.

his new book, devoted to his of wastewater and runoff from lawns obsession with the many vari- and cow pastures. Do not, Walsh says, eties of growing, harvesting be alarmed by the muddy brown color and consuming of oysters, is of the water—fisherman say it is full of more personal than his other plankton and other goodies that make work and takes him way out- oysters and crabs thrive. side Harris County. He begins What makes the eater of raw oysters his study of the bi-valve rid- sick is the bacterium vibio cholorae, which ing on a diesel-powered oys- grows in warm polluted water. If you have COMPLETE WITH FAMOUS RECIPES ANO A UST OF NOTABLE OYSTER BARS ter boat in Galveston Bay, on ever eaten a "bad oyster," you know the a winter day when the water symptoms that feel like food poisoning, temperature is 6o degrees. He only worse—it can even lead to cholera. &Eitel OF T 11E TEX-MEX COOKBOOK calls it perfect oyster weather. Raw oysters are a seasonal food, especial- The boat belongs to Walsh's ly in hot climates and anyone tempted to friend, Misho Ivic, and is eat Galveston or Gulf oysters in August Sex, Death & Oysters: A Half-Shell named the Trpanj after his home village will not do so after reading Walsh. Lover's World Tour, With Recipes and in Croatia. As the diesel engine roars, the The quality of Texas oysters is lost on Notable Oyster Bars Trpanj's dredge scrapes the bay's bottom. much of the country. Walsh is robustly By Robb Walsh Detritus and smaller oysters are thrown attacked for being an oyster writer from Counterpoint Press back into the water. Houston when he visits New England 269 pages, $25 Walsh eats an oyster just brought up and the West Coast, particularly San (briny, a little metallic and surprisingly Francisco. There he meets an egoma- or almost 20 years, Houstonians sweet) and addresses the bad reputation niac oyster entrepreneur named Billy have learned to depend on of Gulf oysters in general and Galveston Martinelli, who greets Walsh by saying, Robb Walsh's articulate enthu- Bay oysters in particular. "Gulf oysters are criminal." Walsh man- F siasm for food, particularly "East Coast and West Coast oystermen ages to change the subject and in a few Texas food. We're not talking fancy— say that the waters of the Gulf of Mexico days accompanies Martinelli to an oyster Walsh writes about roadside barbecue, are filthy. And maybe they are. But oysters picnic on Hog Island in Tomales Bay, on venerable Tex-Mex, sandwiches wrapped live in brackish water in freshwater estuar- the coast west of Sonoma County. in greasy paper, the beautiful varieties ies, not in the Gulf of Mexico. And the sci- Like this idyllic Northern California of hot sauce and chile peppers. As the entists I interviewed said that Galveston scene, much of Sex, Death, and Oysters food writer for the Houston Press, Walsh Bay was in pretty good shape." is a travelogue punctuated with shellfish. surveys the wild array of Cajun, Asian, Conscientious fishermen like Ivic Walsh goes to New Orleans, before and African, and Caribbean cafes that seem have no interest in selling tainted oys- after Katrina, to visit famous eateries to pop up every other week. ters, and adhere to a fishing-zone system like the Acme Oyster House and Felix's Walsh is a natural storyteller when it enforced by coastal game wardens. Reefs Oyster Bar in the French Quarter and comes to unearthing Texas delicacies, but close to the shore are off limits because Casamento's on Magazine Street. On a

34 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 30, 2009 trip with his wife and daughters, Walsh whether that happens in Galveston Bay during the winter months, when it is makes it onto the Acme's wall of fame by after Hurricane Ike. too cold for Canadian oysters, Rodney's eating 180 oysters in two hours. The only Not everyone loves oysters, a fact that's Oyster House in Toronto, run by his aftereffect he reports is an audible slosh- reflected in Walsh's trip to England, where friend Rodney Clark, runs a special on ing noise as he walks up Iberville Street. he visits Colchester, in Essex County, Galveston Bay oysters. Rodney's is among Before the hurricane, Louisiana had northeast of London. Planning the English the 25 eating places Walsh recommends, by far the most productive oyster beds leg of his international oyster survey, and the book is full of recipes for dishes in the country. Katrina destroyed more Walsh had trouble finding out anything like oyster and artichoke soup. than 5o percent of the oyster beds in the about the Colchester Oyster Festival, an Sex, Death, and Oysters was a labor of estuaries and most of the piers and oyster annual event since 1618. When he arrives, love, written while Walsh was working on boats in places like Plaquemines Parish he discovers why—no one in the town other projects, including his fine study and Grand Isle. Walsh meets Cajun and actually eats oysters from the beds that of our native hybrid food, The Tex Mex Croatian oystermen on Grand Isle, who fed the ancient Romans. He learns that Cookbook. He understands the reluctance all pointed out that after major storms the famous oyster banquet, presided over of some eaters to ingest the mysterious there is a frenzy of reproduction among by Colchester's mayor, is an anachronisti- fruits de mer that can kill you, and in oyster seedlings (this is part of the sex cally formal event. The 200 or so guests explaining the attraction Walsh fully in the title). After three years or so, pro- are seated according to social rank inside reveals himself to be a sensualist as well duction is back up. It remains to be seen a room that looks "like a cross between a as a gourmand: ballroom at the Waldorf Astoria and the POETRY I Jan Seale inside of a cathedral." Walsh manages to Eating raw oysters is at once perverse get a cheap media seat. When he notices and spiritual. A freshly shucked oys- Book Learning that more than half the guests don't touch ter enters your mouth while it is still the delicious Colchester oysters, he grabs alive and dies while giving you plea- How can we ever know a couple of plates and some bread and sure. As I savored the wonderfully what the words do butter. He joins two elderly nurses drink- slick texture, delicate briny flavor, when we close a book? ing tea at a first aid table. "When they and marine aroma, it was easy to Perhaps p. 38 swamps 37, noticed the oysters, they were horrified. see how oysters came to be associ- the end of chapter 10 One said she had never seen an oyster ated with the tenderest portion of the sniffs the epigraph of 11, before, never mind eaten one. She looked female anatomy. ■ thick paragraphs on 142 at mine and declared them disgusting." insist on street-dancing. After some successful oystering in Dick Holland teaches in the Liberal Arts London, Walsh describes Christmas in Honors Program at the University of Texas The dialog on 213 may go Paris with his wife, Kelly, on their hon- at Austin. His Spring 2010 class is titled for treatment of hiccups. eymoon in 2005. They had planned this "The Texas State of Mind." Could it be trip after their wedding six months ear- that charts switch facts, lier, Walsh knowing the holidays are the photos pick fights height of the oyster season in Paris—but Wanted: with their captions? what bride could refuse a wedding trip Instructional Coordinator to the city of lights? The only hitch is Things could get serious; that Kelly is now pregnant, has raging "Index" offends "Contents," morning sickness, and an opened-up Math Cluster Margins surge type, oyster makes her gorge rise. The trip also titles intermarry. coincides with a serious snowstorm that Mail resume to: becomes a blizzard. The intrepid shell- If only bookmarks would fish journalist fulfills his mission in one Cosmos Foundation share voyeur rights, famous oyster restaurant (Le Dome) and 9431 W. Sam Houston if words would quit acting one hidden little place (Brasserie Flo), Pkwy. S., #202 like fridge lights after and finds Kelly the best puff pastry des- Houston, TX 77099 mayo is retrieved. sert in the city, demonstrating that he Attn: Mr. Almus. does have some common sense. Until then, we may never know Back home, Robb and Kelly start serv- what the words really say ing big quantities of oysters at their Super Ref. to Ad#HE. Bowl parties. He gives instructions on Jan Seal lives in McAllen. Her latest how to shuck them without destroying Job in Austin. book, which came out in 2005, is The your hands. We learn that some of his Wonder Is: New and Selected Poems. travels have paid of Walsh reports that

OCTOBER 30, 2009 TEXASOBSERVER.ORG 35 REV W Don't Fence Me In BY KIRK FORRESTER

he invention of barbed wire DAVIS' BIOGRAPHY CELEBRATES A in 1874 marked the end of the open range in America's West, LIBERATED LIFE; STILLMAN'S BOOK IS A T and the zoth century ushered in settlers who sought security rather PLEA TO SAVE THOUSANDS OF OTHERS. than adventure. The Wild West became tamer, more homogenized. Still, pockets of insurrection, physical and philosophi- accomplishment—making regional- to hash out ideas—Austin's version of a cal, remain in the West, defying conven- ism a valid area of study by introducing literary salon. Dobie was invited in 1943 tionality and containment. Two recent Southwestern folklore into the canon. to be a visiting professor at Cambridge books—one about an iconoclast, another Dobie was introduced to folklore sit- University. There, writes Davis, he was about an icon—celebrate the value and ting around the campfire on his family "ripe for evolution" and "threw off the tenacity of the free-range way of life. ranch, listening to vaqueros tell stories. shackles of Texas provincialism ... no lon- A working subtitle for Steven Davis' These were folktales of life on the range, ger whooping and hollering on behalf of biography of J. Frank Dobie could have passed down orally by generations of sto- Texas. Instead, he came to serve as the been "My Way." Dobie, the first Texas- rytellers gathered around campfires and state's chief critic:' By the time Dobie based writer to gain national attention, kitchen tables throughout the Southwest. reached his 5os, he had concluded that lived life on his own terms and often Dobie saw these narratives as a way to the greatest threat to individual freedom demanded lots of elbow room. marry his passion for literature with his was not government, but right-wing Born in 1888 in the Brush Country of love of the land. The cowboy had become business interests. South Texas, Dobie spent his childhood his muse, their stories his medium. An early prototype for figures like working on the family ranch, learning Davis writes admiringly of Dobie's pio- Norman Mailer and Kinky Friedman, how to ride horses and herd cattle. He neering work in folklore, but his biogra- Dobie was compelled to join public dis- loved the gritty authenticity of cowboy phy is no valentine. Calling Dobie's lit- course. Using his syndicated newspa- life, but he also wanted to pursue his edu- erary legacy "uneven;' Davis suggests per column as a megaphone, he argued cation. He left the ranch and headed to that Dobie's books, written in anecdotal against McCarthyism, political cronyism, college in New York, where he fell in love style, are "best read in bits and pieces, in the UT Board of Regents, and censorship with literature, particularly the Romantic between chores." (Given the amount of at the university. He fought for integra- poets, with whom he shared a reverence time the biographer spent on this proj- tion, the labor movement and women's for the land. In 1914 he returned to Texas ect, you can imagine how clean his house rights. The university fired him, news- as an English professor at the University must be.) papers dropped his column, and the of Texas at Austin. There he cultivated a Davis is more intrigued with the man FBI investigated his Communist sym- reputation as a cowboy professor, don- than with the material; the real story here pathies. Dobie reveled in the firestorm, ning khakis and boots instead of natty is Dobie's philosophical evolution from a which strengthened his resolve. Years tweeds, outfitting his office with cow- fierce, provincial nativist to a fiery pro- later, Lyndon Johnson awarded him the hides and defiantly refusing to pursue gressive. Presidential Medal of Freedom. a Ph.D., which he feared would "sap his As a young man, Dobie embraced Davis, a curator at the Southwestern vitality:' rugged individualism and brandished Writers Collection at Texas State Though Dobie was passionate about a fierce regional pride. Surprisingly, his University in San Marcos, where Dobie's scholarship, he felt ill-suited to the ivory brief stint at Columbia University in 1913 archives reside, writes with authority and tower and railed against what he saw as heightened his defenses. As immigrants ease. At times, however, the prose feels a rigid bureaucracy. Unable to shake the and minorities gained an increasing flat and the reader wishes for more wit pull of the Texas backcountry, he felt like foothold in the country and industrial- and verve, particularly given such prime a misfit and a failure. "While I am in one ization grew, Dobie felt his way of life was material. world, it is forever my fate to hear the besieged. Dobie died on Sept. 18, 1964, leaving a music of the other," he wrote to his wife. His thinking started to change in his staggering volume of work—nine books, "In the university, I am a wild man; in late 4os, when he became friends with over Boo articles, 1,300 columns—as well the wild, I am a scholar and a poet." This a group of Austin liberals who met at as a vibrant community of Southwestern tension would result in Dobie's greatest Barton Springs, swim trunks and all, writers. As Davis writes, Dobie's greatest

36 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 30, 2009 Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West By Deanne Stillman Houghton Mein Harcourt 368 pages, $25

J. Frank Dobie: A Liberated Mind By Steven L. Davis University of Texas Press 264 pages, $24.95

AN E STI Lim AN in contrast to its diminished, even damaged, reputation today. Because the wild horse has no natural predator, man iA must grapple with its population control. The ranching lobby—ever conscious of its grazing rights—presents the horse as MOS feral, violent and destructive. Mustangs are left at the mercy of elected officials and the Bureau of Land Management. The horses are in constant danger of sudden roundups, after which the lucky ones are sent to sanctuaries and the achievement was his "refusal to accept to North America, but various epochs unlucky ones sold to become pet food. himself as a finished person." left it nearly extinct from the continent. Other horses have been murdered out In the 16th century, Spaniards brought of bloodlust, sport or senseless rage. In f Davis' biography celebrates a lib- horses home, employing their strength the wake of a 1998 massacre outside of erated life, then Deanne Stillman's to wipe out empires. After conquering Reno that killed 34 wild horses, Stillman book is a plea to save thousands of the Aztec, Cortes attributed the victory wrote: "Almost five hundred years after I others. In Mustang, Stillman traces "to God and to the horse." Cortes traveled to the New World, we the origins of America's most beloved By the 17oos, mustangs proliferated are still throwing them overboard, into icons and makes the case for their urgent in the American West, and it was not the horse latitudes, trying to lighten liberation. uncommon to see bands of 3,000 or our load." It is difficult to get through the first more roaming the Great Plains. Some Stillman's arguments are persuasive. chapter of Mustang, in which Stillman maps of Texas distinguished regions by At times, she lets her imagination recounts the horse's terrifying trip to their horse populations; one was labeled fill in gaps when history is silent, an North America on the ships of the "simply Wild Horses," and another as unsettling practice that projects what Spanish conquistadors. If the ships "Vast herds of Wild Horses." the horse saw, smelled and sensed onto became too heavy, sailors would throw More than any other group, Native the page. In small doses, this enriches horses overboard to lighten the vessel Americans were transformed by the the reading experience, but ultimately and catch air in the sails. For the sake arrival of the horse, which they considered feels uncomfortable, wedged between of a drifting ship, countless horses were a brother, a partner and a kindred spirit. historical facts. Overall, Stillman proves frightened from their quarters, forced to With the horse's help, tribes could cover a thoughtful guide whose passion for the walk the gangplank, and left to drown in more ground, kill more buffalo and mustang is inspiring and infectious. the ocean. (A particularly windless part of increase their leverage with traders. In In one of her more heartbreaking the sea gained the notorious title "horse one of the most famous horse trades in accounts, a captured mustang dies in latitudes.") Stillman's opening scene sets history, Lewis and Clark traded trinkets captivity for no other reason than a a sobering mood for the book—a rivet- and an American flag for horses from broken spirit, its moans haunting the ing, thoroughly researched odyssey of the the Shoshone Indians, saving a stalled Great Plains. You don't have to be an horse and its place in American history. expedition. The era of the cowboy and his equestrian or history buff to realize these It also introduces what Stillman calls the cattle drives made mustangs synonymous magnificent animals deserve all the open great paradox of the horse: "It possesses a with the Wild West. Hollywood would space we can give them. ■ wild spirit but serves as the greatest help- later solidify—and sensationalize—the mate this country has known." The horse horse's reputation in westerns. A former editor at Random House, Kirk serves man, sometimes even in death. Stillman's account of the horse and its Forrester is a freelance writer based in Scientists have traced the horse's origins prized place in American history stands Austin.

OCTOBER 30, 2009 TEXASOBSERVER.ORG 37 AUTHOR INTERVIEW Inside Amigoland BY ANIS SHIVANI

Oscar Casares's short story collection not talking about ethnicity, the stories get are now I made a tough decision to lose a Brownsville (Back Bay, 2003) was an beyond that issue and suddenly you're lot of what I had written to gain clarity. instant hit with critics and readers, estab- looking at these people as people and not lishing Casares as a writer to watch. His as an ethnic group. Brownsville is often about young people, follow-up, Amigoland (Little Brown, while Amigoland is about people at the 2009),W was released in August and When you were younger, did you want to end of their lives. met with similar critical acclaim. In the write against the politically-charged protest novel, Don Fidencio, a ninety-one-year- literature of the Chicano Movement writ- I grew up in a house with much older old in the eponymous nursing home, ers of the 196os and 19705, like Raymond parents. My Dad was fifty when I was has suffered a stroke, and shuns other Barrio, Ricardo Sanchez and Richard born, my mother was forty-two. In 2004, residents. With incredible determina- Vasquez? when my father was ninety-two, he broke tion, Don Fidencio—with the help of his his hip and ended up in a nursing home younger brother Don Celestino and his I was already in my thirties before I start- and I found myself helping out whenever girlfriend Socorro—pursues the kernel ed writing. It wasn't until I moved from I could. My real life had intersected with of memory that haunts him: the legend the border that I started hearing terms my fictional narrative. I didn't want to of the abduction of his grandfather as a like Mexican-American and Chicano and compromise the story by making it overly child, by Indians who abandoned him on Hispanic and all these labels that each sentimental and it took longer because the American side of the border. Together came with its own baggage. Brownsville of that. the three embark on an unauthorized gave me a safe place to get away from trip to Linares, Mexico, where the family talking about the differences and more Don Fidencio has forgotten much, but originated. In Casares's compassionate about the similarities. remembers the most important thing. fictional world, time, place, and memo- ry can be forgiving—with a bit of luck. What was the genesis of Amigoland? Did A lot of times memory loss happens with Casares spoke with Anis Shivani by phone it take a while to understand your char- incidents closer to the present and the from his office at the University of Texas acters? memories that stay with us are the ones at Austin. To hear a recording of the full that happen to us in formative years. Don interview, visit texasobserver.org. It took me a long time to understand my Fidencio has a close bond with the grand- characters. I must have written three or father, who is more like a father figure. OBSERVER: Brownsville seems so power- four hundred pages before I had a sense ful now, because although ethnicity is part of who they were. The genesis of the novel In both your books the border is blurred. of it, it's stripped of a political agenda. has to do with the family legend I heard growing up. The story my uncle used I teach a class on the border and we write CASARES: When you live on the border, to tell was that my great-great-grandfa- personal essays. The border is not static. where Mexican-Americans are 95 to 96 ther was living in Northern Mexico, and There's tension because of the wall and percent of the population, questions Indians had attacked this festival he was the drug war, but in the stories and the of ethnicity and race aren't what they attending as a child. They took several novel the notion that you suddenly cross are in other parts of the country. The other children, and the Mexican army the border into another world and leave questions become more about class, for was behind them, and when they got to everything behind doesn't exist. People instance. the border, which had just become the have a wedding in Brownsville and the United States, they kept going north and reception in Matamoros because it's less So you didn't feel the need to explain things, they dropped one child, and that child expensive. Socorro, the girlfriend of Don which often turns into exoticism? was our great-great-grandfather. My Celestino, comes back and forth practi- father claimed it never happened, my cally every day. That was what I knew No, you're coming into my world. I'm uncle was making it up. As I got deeper growing up. I was down there recently going to do my job to acclimate you to I realized I wanted to write more about and it was the first time I needed a pass- this new environment, but you have to do this competing mythology of where we port to get back. It's changed dramatical- your part. If you're observant and curi- came from. I knew this was going to be ly—the number of border patrol agents, ous, you don't ask too many questions but told by these two older men, and slowly and the various checkpoints that didn't just observe and note the differences. By they took shape and became who they exist. It feels like a military state.

38 THE TEXAS OBSERVER OCTOBER 30, 2009 I WANTED TO WRITE MORE ABOUT THIS COMPETING MYTHOLOGY OF WHERE WE CAME FROM.

In Brownsville I tried not to let it No control... influence the writing but just to get the story down. Then the climate None whatsoever. Though Don Celestino's changed greatly. The southern bor- world is shutting down, he's still not at the der intensified. The immigration edge of what Don Fidencio is experienc- marches took place. As with my ing. At the beginning it looks pretty bleak father, it became one of the chal- for him. lenges. To write about it honestly but not let it influence too much And he's stubborn. The machismo is also of the writing. present in Brownsville. In Don Fidencio's case its endearing. Don Fidencio gives obnoxious names to people at the nursing home. Why This is based on the older men I grew up can't he empathize, as he does with around, the pride they took in their work, his ancient relative in Mexico? how they took care of their families. In spite of all their flaws this was part of Oscar Casares photo by Marsha Miller His mild stroke has impaired his their character, the freedom they had— memory so the names, though sometimes too much freedom that got So for younger people it might be a sharper cruel, are a way of coping. As for the them in trouble. line. empathy at the end of the novel, there's also a self-serving agenda to make more Symbols often carry the stories in I wrote a story for Texas Monthly about out of this trip, which seems on very Brownsville. The monkey's head, the ham- the high school soccer team. Before the shaky ground. mer, the bowling bowl. In Amigoland the school bus leaves Brownsville they bring slow passage of time creates the same vis- on the sniffing dogs. Then the bus stops Once you have finished the book, it seems ceral connection to reality. at the checkpoint and the inspector walks impossible to conceive of a different ending through. I played sports when I was a kid for Don Fidencio once he reaches Linares. Those objects don't mean anything at the and I don't remember drug dogs com- Did you ever think of one? beginning. The monkey's head is weird, ing on. but it only means something when you Today I was cleaning up my office. I had understand the character. The novel The stereotypical journey of the Mexican put up all these Post-It notes to have some covers a much larger span of time, uses is from the south to the north. Amigoland visual sense of how the novel was evolving. multiple points of view, but I challenged reverses it and the main characters head The notes seemed utterly foreign to me. myself not to have anything extraneous. south. Again, struggling with my father's condi- tion, as much as I wanted that not to influ- Did you experience Linares as you were They do it illegally. They don't have any ence me... Don Celestino is struggling writing the book? papers, only Socorro, a Mexican citizen... with intimacy all along and the trip forces things to the surface, so that was what I I did it on the front end, I spoke to the An illegal border crossing in the other wanted to produce for Don Celestino and state archivist of Leon, found quite a bit direction... Soccoro. With Don Fidencio I didn't quite of documentation to back up the story, know where this was going to end but I but I wasn't writing a historical novel or It does put that whole notion on its head. knew whatever would happen, it would travelogue and everything had to have a Don Fidencio in his mind owns the be on his own terms. reason for being. ■ mythology, so the question of the cross- ing matters less to him. Don Fidencio has a greater need to be Anis Shivani is a fiction writer, poet, liberated... and critic in Houston. His short fiction You question the illegality of human collection, Anatolia and Other Stories, is beings, how they became abstractions, As the novel opens he has nothing— being published in October 2009 by Black not people. Lawrence Press/Dzanc Books.

OCTOBER 30, 2009 TEXASOBSERVER.ORG 39

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PUBLIC CITIZEN TEXAS Celebrates its 25th Anniversary with a AddicP eits.zew tvedokyt Please join us for an evening of light snacks, beer and music.

Friday, Nov. 6, 2009 9 p.m. - Midnight (parking available on the grounds)

Barr Mansion 10463 Sprinkle Rd. Austin, TX 78754

$19.84 advance tickets - $25 at the door For more information, call (512) 477-1155 or e-mail [email protected]

Join us in celebrating this major milestone! Host Public Citizen President 24514 chimstot Robert Weissman Emcee Friday, Nov. 6, Barr Mansion I]lublfc Jim Hightower 6-7 p.m. — Reception 7-9 p.m. — Dinner & Award Ceremony Citizen Please RSVP by Oct. 26. $75 per person or $125 per couple. To RSVP, visit www.citizen.org/TXRSVP Admission to hoedown is included. www.citizen.org