Conversations Across Our America: Talking About Immigration and the Latinoization of the United States

Elizabeth García

Elizabeth García is an activist who bases her work in Colonia Cameron Park, just outside of Brownsville, Texas. Elizabeth is an active participant in the No Border Wall Movement coalition being organized in the valley. Originally from Matamoros, Elizabeth has lived in Brownsville for approximately twenty years. She runs Casa Digna and spearheads the Coalition of Amigos in Solidarity and Action (CASA) in conjunction with San Felipe de Jesús Church in Brownsville. She works part-time as coalition organizer for organizations that support colonia empowerment. elizabeth: I’m from Matamoros originally. I’ve been living here for twenty years. My family brought me here when I was fifteen. I came here illegally and stayed until I graduated from high school, and there was nothing for me so I decided to go back to Mexico ’cause I couldn’t continue my studies here or get a decent job. I went back and did studies over there, and then I was able to qualify under the Simpson-Rodino amnesty of ’86. That’s how I got my residency and eventually my naturalized citizenship. In the mid-’80s Brownsville was a very, very hot zone in terms of immigration, because all the Central American people were crossing. Now it’s Arizona. I still remember going to what is called el corralón [the corral] in Bayview. They started that behind the bridge, the international bridge; there were just tents, hundreds of tents. Some days we would go and visit with the priest that I was working with at the time. We would see 800, 900, 1,000 people in this detention center made up of small little tents. I still remember that it looked like a corral. There were a lot of people coming from Central America, and at that time the bishop of Brownsville was very supportive of the social Catholic teachings, so he initiated what became very popular at that time, Casa elizabeth garcía 172 conversations across our america Romero, which was a refugee center for the immigrants. I was there for a couple of years as a volunteer. I remember there were a lot of people coming from up north, volunteering their time at Casa Romero. At that time I didn’t know a single word of English. I remember seeing a lot of gringos and a lot of people from other parts coming to volunteer. And now that I travel a lot and I see people and I tell them I used to work for Casa Romero. “Casa Romero, I used to be there in the mid-’80s.” It’s a small world. People that do activism, they’re interrelated one way or another. My mentor was a priest that came from Panamá in the mid-’80s. He was very good friends with Romero. His bishop got him out of Panamá because he was afraid they were going to do the same with him that they did with Romero.5 He would give presentations about El Salvador and Panamá, and it was very eye-opening to me. When I was working at Casa Romero I met the parish priest here in San Felipe. I’ve been working with him for twenty-some years now. I live near Brownsville in an area called Cameron Park. According to Census 2000, it’s the poorest colonia in the United States. The per capita income is about $3,000. People just pray that they literally get by day to day. It was very interesting when Father Mike and the brothers [nonordained laypersons who assist primarily in secular affairs] came. This church was a Elizabeth García, the author, and Leide Martinez at Casa Digna in Colonia Cameron Park outside of Brownsville, Texas. Photo by Kamala Platt. 173 asserting rights small little church. We went to talk to the city commissioner and the mayor and the county judge, and they said, “You bring us numbers, and then we’ll talk. People over there don’t vote, so we don’t care.” They were plain. They said it very clear. So the team said, “Well, let’s promote the vote.” They went door-to-door, and from 50 votes that came from Cameron Park we went to 500 the first year that we were here. And then we went to 800, and then we promised two thousand [votes] by 2000. All of a sudden the politicians said, “Something’s...