The Informal and Underground Economy of the South Texas Border: The Informal and Underground Economy of the South Texas Border

Notes

Preface 1. Dr. Richardson first came to UTPA in 1977 and retired in 2010. He is Professor of Sociology-Emeritus at UTPA. 2. The Borderlife Project was inspired by the Firefox experiment initiated in Appalachia. Chad Richardson engaged the collaboration of Dorey Schmidt (English Department) to help students publish their research in the local McAllen , Texas, newspaper, The Monitor. Nearly fifty articles were published (and later republished in Border Life in the Rio Grande Valley by the Hidalgo County Historical Society). Later, Dr. Richardson developed the Borderlife Project into a research initiative and an archive for a myriad of research endeavors. 3. Dr. Van A. Reidhead, Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences , University of Texas-Pan American, personal communication to the author , January 30, 2007. Introduction 1. Wanda Falding is a pseudonym. Likewise throughout the book, we employ pseudonyms for all of our informants. 2. Mexicans have long referred to this river as the Río Bravo (“mean or dangerous river”). We use the name by which it is more commonly and officially known in the United States, mainly to avoid confusing those not familiar with the region. In this volume, we use several geographical markers—South Texas, the Valley, the Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV). By South Texas, we refer to our entire study area, from Laredo to Brownsville and including the areas just to the north, typically up to the second border inspection checkpoint. The Valley , or LRGV, more specifically refers to the counties of Starr, Hidalgo, Willacy , and Cameron. When we include border environments in Mexico, we specifically mention Mexico. 3. Jerry D. Thompson, Juan Cortina and the Texas-Mexico Frontier, 2. 4. John S. Ford, Rip Ford’s Texas, ed. Stephen B. Oates, 261–262. Notes Richardson-final.indb 277 Richardson-final.indb 277 8/7/12 10:30:43 PM 8/7/12 10:30:43 PM 5. James R. Douglas, “Juan Cortina: el Caudillo de la Frontera” (M.A. thesis , University of Texas, 1987). 6. Jerry Thompson, Juan Cortina and the Texas-Mexico Frontier, 11, 12. 7. Ibid., 11, 12. 8. Ibid., 19. 9. The key battle that turned the tide of the war was the Battle of Santa Gertrudis (near Cortina’s birthplace in Camargo). In this battle, which took place on June 16, 1866, 1,800 Imperialist soldiers (many of them Hungarians) were defeated as they were escorting 200 carts of supplies from Matamoros to Monterrey. Following this defeat (and the subsequent fall of Matamoros), Napoleon III withdrew French troops from Mexico, leading to Emperor Maximilian ’s defeat and execution. 10. As this incident shows, Colonel Ford could himself be a fierce opponent while still manifesting a “clemency worthy of emulation.” His influence in South Texas history is impressive. At times a doctor, newspaper publisher, Confederate colonel, explorer, captain in the Texas Rangers, Mayor of Brownsville , and politician, he commanded Confederate troops in the last battle of the Civil War, the Battle of Palmito Ranch (near Brownsville) in May of 1865. This battle (which Ford won) occurred two weeks after Lee had surrendered and was instigated, many believe, by a Union commander trying to advance his postwar career. 11. Though Max Weber’s main emphasis was on the need for legitimacy of the state, we extend his analysis to the need for legitimacy of the formal economy. For a discussion of Weber’s concept of legitimacy, see Randall Collins , Weberian Sociological Theory. 12. James A. Irby, Backdoor at Bagdad: The Civil War on the Rio Grande. Today we see a similar situation with the (illegal) export of guns to Mexico to fuel the drug wars there. 13. We will use the term Anglo throughout this text (as it is used in South Texas) to indicate non-Hispanic whites. 14. Cultural geographer Daniel D. Arreola (Tejano South Texas: A Mexican American Cultural Province) states, “What is clear from the documents is that the region generally south of the Nueces River was, from the mid-eighteenth century, a separate administrative unit of colonial New Spain and later the Republic of Mexico, despite claims to the contrary by the Republic of Texas” (31). 15. Ibid., 2. 16. Throughout the book, we use the terms Hispanic and Latino interchangeably . 17. Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University, “Market Report 2010— Laredo,” 1, http://recenter.tamu.edu/mreports/Laredo.pdf (accessed July 12, 2010). 18. U.S. Census Bureau, 2006/2007/2008 American Community Survey, http://www.census.gov/acs/www/ (accessed June 20, 2010...