Cold Anger: A Story of Faith and Power Politics

Chapter Notes

Chapter Notes Chapter One 1. Ernesto Cortes, Jr. addressed 200 farmers and farm activists from 40 states as part of a Farm Crisis Workers Conference in Dallas, 20 July 1986. The conference was sponsored by the Texas Department of Agriculture and Farm Aid. The Texas Observer made a tape recording of Cortes' remarks and published excerpts in its 11 July 1986 issue in an article by Cortes titled "Organizing the Community." This account is derived from the unedited transcript of the tape, most of which did not appear in the Observer. I have seen Cortes present the material in several other workshop settings. 2. "The Esquire Register, 1988," Esquire, December 1988,93. 3. Tim Richardson, "20 Who Hold the Power in Texas," Texas Business Magazine, February 1986, 59. 4. Cortes paraphrased a passage from Numbers 11:4-6: "Now the rabble that was among them had a strong craving; and the people of Israel also wept again, and said, '0 that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions and the garlic; but now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.'" 5. Numbers 11:16-17. Chapter Two 1. State Treasurer Ann Richards toured the Rio Grande Valley colonias at the invitation of Valley Interfaith, 1 February 1988. Richards won the Democratic party nomination for governor in 1990. 2. Turner Collie Braden Inc. for the Texas Water Development Board, "A Reconnaissance Level Study of Water Supply and Wastewater Disposal Needs of the Colonias of the Lower Rio Grande Valley," January 1987. 202 / Chapter Notes Chapter Three 1. Because the Texas constitution prohibits debt financing, the legislature has to seek voter approval of a constitutional amendment any time it wants to issue bonds for capital improvements-prisons, water projects, public buildings , etc. Bonds for water improvements in the colonias were approved by Texas voters in a constitutional amendment election November 1989. 2. In 1988, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower was able to arrange a grant from private sources that provided a water hookup from the road to the homes of residents in the colonia of La Meza. 3. Dave Denison, "An Agenda for Progress," Texas Observer, lO February 1989,6. 4. Ernesto Cortes,Jr., training session for Texas Interfaith Network leaders , San Antonio, 15 February 1986. 5. Harry Boyte, Community Is Possible (New York: Harper & Row, 1984), 128. 6. Henry Cisneros served as mayor of San Antonio from 1981 to 1989. Still enormously popular, he chose not to run for reelection while in the midst of family difficulties. COPS and Cisneros had a close and complex relationship during his tenure as mayor, alternately assisting and attacking each other. 7. This exchange was recounted by the wife of a Mondale adviser who overheard the remark on the airport tarmac in Harlingen, Texas. 8. Metropolitan Congregational Alliance meeting, 2 December 1985, San Antonio. 9. Jan Jarboe, "COPS Eighth Anniversary, A Pep Rally for the People," San Antonio Express, 15 November 1981, n. pag. Chapter Four 1. The Metropolitan Congregational Alliance and the East Side Alliance, both IAF organizations in San Antonio, merged in 1989 to form The Metro Alliance. 2. Author's interview with Mary Moreno, 22 February 1986, San Antomo . 3. Mary Moreno dropped out of IAF activities in late 1988 because she wanted to begin taking courses to get a college degree in education. Moreno said, "I may leave MCA, but MCA will never leave me. I learned skills for life there, and I apply what I learned everyday." In 1990, Moreno spent her free time trying to get the Catholic archdiocese of San Antonio to establish more Spanish-language services. Chapter Five 1. Author's interview with Sister Maribeth Larkin, 12 February 1986, San Antonio. 2. Bishop Charles Grahmin was named bishop of the Catholic diocese of Dallas in 1990. 3. Unless otherwise noted, all Cortes quotations are taken from a series of interviews and conversations with the author from 1985 to 1989. Chapter Notes / 203 4. Geoffrey Rips, "In Which the Present Editor Bids an Affectionate Adios," Texas Observer, 9 January 1987, n. pag. 5. From "Historical Essays, and Studies, Appendix," letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, in Dictionary of Quotations, ed. Robert Hyman (Lincolnwood , Illinois: National Textbook Company, 1985), 9. 6. Hans Kung, On Being A Christian (Garden City: Image Books, Doubleday & Company...