Prologue:
The Rio Grande Valley of Texas has always been different even among the always been different border communities.
Today it’s a unique mix of Traditional Mexican, Old Word Spanish, and Immigrants from Mexico and Central America. Anglo Visitors have come from the North as well… Plus Retirees in large numbers fleeing in their twilight years the frozen tundra of the northern United States and Canada; also there are managers, executives and professionals working in the Maquiladoras right across the border. And too, Filipinos and South Asians, doctors and medical personnel from India and Pakistan; entrepreneurial types from East Asia and Korea, not to mention Israeli’s and the Mideasterners that have joined the influx as well.
The influence of Traditional Mexican and Old World Spanish has been fading. Sometime in the future this influence may be extinct altogether, having fallen to rap and the pop culture. Although immigrants from the south keep pouring in they are not the same as before. They are somewhat pre-American- acculturated; still very few speak English. There is one new wrinkle here in the incoming tide of refugees from Mexico. While formerly refugees from Mexico were mostly economic, many now are fleeing the violence and the drug war that has largely replaced government in Northern Mexico. These are the business owners and professional upper class for the most part. Another pedazo de Mexicano for the Rio Grande pozole or caldo, or soup. You could even call them political refugees, fleeing the Narco-Cartel rule of their communities. A lot of them do know some English.
End of Prologue
But enough of the present! Beto Conde’s book dwell mostly in the recent past; the 50’s, 60’s and early 70’s, one of the most tumultuous and societally transforming periods in American History. Growing up less than 10 miles from the Mexican border during that time was “trippy” as they used to say. San Benito wasn’t a one horse town, but it was close to it. The majority of the people were of Mexican descent, and they hadn’t yet descended too far from Mexico. The Rio Grande Valley had very little in the way of population until the Mexican Revolution of 1910 that coincided with the farming and land boom,, and many residents had grandparents or parents that had come from Mexico. Most had Mexican relatives close by across the border, and since they were in the majority along the border and were segregated (by choice, general unspoken agreement, language or discrimination) they could go through their daily lives without English very comfortably.
So the San Benito Barrio of “El Jardin” was very much a world unto itself.
All this was very fine, until it came time for an education, or to get a professional degree, or to state a case in a court of law, or innumerable other things, such as running for political office. Add to this an education system that really could not care less about the “Mexican” problem children, and you have all the ingredients of second class citizenship. (Note to reader: Schools at the time got nothing in the way of state and federal funding for student attendance. Hence, dropping out was encouraged. The school districts saved money on drop-outs. )
This was all about to change.
America Down By The River deals with all of this, and much more. The tone here is always uncomplicated and direct and to the point. Literary flourishes are kept to a minimum; but they aren’t really needed. When the master poet speaks, the instrumentation need not overwhelm. The subject and the words speak for themselves. One Guitar, maybe two, and the poet singing true, real, and from the heart. That’s all.
Saying all this, the fact is that it was hard to put the book down. Some of the tales could be classed as thrillers, but most were of simple people going about their lives, trying to live out their lives as best they could. Avoiding trouble when possible, but trouble tends to find you, especially when you’re young.
The Children of Mexico and America
The Americans had custody
But the kids missed Mexico Bonita
With all their hearts
But there’s no going back
For she has nothing left there for you
And Capitan America, like most dads
Swings between indifferent and cruel
I don’t know if Mr. Conde intended to pen a historical-sociological treatise on life on the Texas Mexico Border in those years of tumult, the time when baby-boomers were coming of age. But he did. It was a time when Rock-n-Roll was born, Women’s Lib was unthinkable, but inevitable; when races and ethnic groups that had lived many times just across the tracks from each other, began to bridge the vast distances between them. When the Vietnam War was raging, and another war, the drug war, that was supposed to liberate minds, ended like most wars do; in a tyranny of both body and mind.
It was a unique time in a unique part of America, now brought more into the light of conscience at last, these many years later. As for me, it still feels just like yesterday.
American Down by the River
Thank you Beto Conde
Cinco estrellas (five stars)