Felix Longoria's Wake: Bereavement, Racism, and the Rise of Mexican American Activism

Chapter Five: State, National, and International Politics

THE LONGORIA DISPUTE came at a propitious time for Mexican American civil rights activists. The Anglo political culture which had so effectively disempowered Tejanos within the Nueces Strip over the previous century had fallen into disarray due to the development of sharp philosophical and practical divisions at both the state and national levels . In addition, U.S. negotiators were trying to complete a sensitive treaty with Mexico which would extend the bracero program. Texas already had a reputation for mistreatment of visiting workers, and the Mexican government was pressing for the state’s exclusion from the program. An incident like the Longoria controversy, with so much unfavorable publicity surrounding it, threatened Texas’ access to this cheap source of labor. The state had just established a Good Neighbor Commission to improve relations with its southern neighbor in the hopes of avoiding such a loss. This underfunded and politically vulnerable state agency did everything it could to control any damage that the CHAPTER FIVE S T A T E , N A T I O N A L , A N D I N T E R N A T I O N A L P O L I T I C S F E L I X L O N G O R I A ’ S W A K E 148 Longoria incident might do to Texas’ image in Mexico. Even the U.S. State Department entered into the picture. Working behind the scenes and in cooperation with the offices of Senator Johnson and the Texas Good Neighbor Commission, the Department’s Mexican Desk tried to put a favorable spin on resolution of the dispute in order to impress Mexico’s bracero treaty negotiators. These state and national political fissures, as well as the international pressures coming from Mexico, created unusual openings of opportunity for the more politically conscious intelligentsia within South Texas’ Mexican American community , men like Dr. Héctor P. García. The nature of these divisions and pressures, along with how Dr. García exploited them, provides additional insights into what made the Longoria incident stand out in 1949. Dr. García’s inclusion of Lyndon Johnson among the seventeen to whom he sent telegrams requesting support in the Longoria controversy made sense for a number of reasons. LBJ sat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, one of the federal agencies most involved in veterans ’ affairs. True, the senator had a mixed overall civil rights record in 1949. He had voted against much of the federal legislation on behalf of blacks, believing that the primary aim of these laws was to embarrass Southern states.1 On the other hand, he had displayed a genuine concern for Tejanos. As a young teacher and principal at the Welhausen Mexican Ward School in Cotulla, LBJ had worked hard on behalf of his Mexican American students.2 The García-Johnson exchanges throughout the dispute illustrate a growing level of trust and cooperation between the two men. In his first telegram to the senator García began by trying to appeal to Johnson ’s sense of patriotism. The note called for an “immediate investigation and correction of the un-American action of the Manon Rice Funeral Home” in Three Rivers in “denying the use of its facilities for the reinterment of Felix Longoria.”3 The doctor then moved on to where he thought the heart of the matter lay. He told Johnson that the action by the funeral home was “based solely on Private Longoria’s Mexican ancestry.”4 Dr. García apprised Johnson of the telephone conversation between himself and the funeral director. The wire stated that in direct conversation, the funeral home manager, T. W. Kennedy, stated that he would not arrange for funeral services and use of his facilities because, he [Kennedy] said, “other white people object to use of the funeral home by people of Mexican origin.”5 S T A T E , N A T I O N A L , A N D I N T E R N A T I O N A L P O L I T I C S 149 Dr. García finished by critically marrying both concerns, patriotism and racism, in his reader’s mind. García charged that Kennedy’s statement represented a direct contradiction of those same principles for which he [Pvt. Longoria] made the supreme sacrifice in giving his life for his country and for...