Colonias Along The Rio Bravo: Surviving the Myth of the American Dream in Community and Through Resilience
At the rose-pink light of dawn, my mother coached me on how to behave on a day I would never forget. I only noted the most important key points my 7-year-old self could prioritize: We would go to a Rio Bravo river; I would remain silent; and I would follow all her instructions. Little did I know that crossing the Rio Bravo del Norte would come to symbolize the beginning of my otherness — that of being a mojada (In English: wetback) or an undocumented immigrant in the United States.
Once we crossed over to the U.S. side, someone whispered, “Hay viene La Migra” (In English: There comes Border Patrol) when we were walking through a cemetery. Not knowing who La Migra was, I wanted to glance at it, but my mother quickly pushed me to the ground as she covered my mouth with her hand. She didn’t cover my eyes, so my heart sank when I saw the green patrol vehicle pass by. Once Border Patrol was well out of sight, everyone sighed in relief. From that moment on, I learned to live in the shadows and made every effort to go unnoticed.
Indeed, on the Mexican side, the Rio Grande River is known as the Rio Bravo del Norte, which translates as the ferocious river of the north. Part of the U.S.-Mexico border follows the course of the Rio Grande River through much of the South Texas border. For many immigrants who come to the United States, the American Dream starts when they cross the Rio Grande River and set foot on U.S. soil. But for me, there is no Rio Grande River and, subsequently, no American Dream. There is only a Rio Bravo characterized by its violent aggression, bitterness, and cruelty.
Those who consider themselves economic refugees because they flee poverty in their homelands are not considered admissible under U.S. immigration asylum law. Despite the United States’ involvement in maintaining the deadly wealth gap between the U.S. and the Global South, the U.S. has refused to acknowledge the myriad waves of immigration from Latin American countries as a humanitarian matter. Various processes of globalization, international policies, U.S. government regulations, and cultural representations — such as the effects of U.S.-backed economic policies like NAFTA — have instead criminalized immigrants and denied immigrants full social membership and political participation in the U.S.
Instead of turning themselves over to U.S. immigration authorities to seek an asylum claim, economic refugees seek to cross the Rio Bravo del Norte unnoticed and either arrive at a holding-house with their coyote (i.e., a person who smuggles Latin Americans across the US border, typically for a high fee) or if they are crossing on their own, await pickup by someone they know.
After my mother pushed me towards my awakening of being a mojada that day, I rose to a different reality. I had spent the past minutes when we swam across the Rio Bravo on a tube, enjoying the experience as a kid who thought we were engaging in fun outdoor play. After hiding from La Migra, however, I was confused and shocked as we followed our coyote’s lead. Eventually, a car picked us up and took us to a holding house. As my mother and I waited for my father to pick us up, I clung to my mother because we were surrounded by strangers in the crowded holding house.
While my journey would end when my father took us to our home in a colonia or neighborhood in the Rio Grande Valley, the crossing was not yet over for some people who had to travel to El Norte. There are many U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) checkpoints a few miles into the United States that immigrants still have to cross. Most immigrants circumvent these CBP checkpoints by hiking through ranchlands for days in scorching weather, risking heat stroke and death. More immigrants die crossing inland checkpoints than crossing the Rio Grande River.
Many immigrants, nevertheless, will not risk their lives further and will stay in the “buffer zone” that is north of México and south of the CBP checkpoints. Here, they will concentrate in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, which extends from Rio Grande City to Brownsville and is far enough south from the inland checkpoints. Most undocumented immigrants choose to live in colonias or affordable subdivisions that are mainly populated by Latinos. Undocumented immigrants, at most, can travel about 70 miles inland before crossing a checkpoint. Some undocumented immigrants will live their entire lives in the buffer zone without ever leaving the region. Consequently, this social-political phenomenon has created a culturally distinct region in Texas that many call El Mágico Valle de Tejas.
The buffer zone has proved disastrous for undocumented communities who are stranded in it, especially because their ability to travel and their access to services such as abortion and healthcare are greatly restricted. The U.S. Constitution permits a 100-mile border zone where the Fourth Amendment protections from random and arbitrary stops and searches do not fully apply. Within the 100-mile buffer zone, CBP officials are authorized to operate but cannot pull anyone over without “reasonable suspicion” of an immigration violation or crime and cannot search vehicles without a warrant or “probable cause.” According to the ACLU, Border Patrol agents:
routinely ignore or misunderstand the limits of their legal authority in the course of individual stops, resulting in violations of the constitutional rights of innocent people. These problems are compounded by inadequate training for Border Patrol agents, a lack of oversight by CBP and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the consistent failure of CBP to hold agents accountable for abuse. Thus, although the 100-mile border zone is not literally ‘Constitution free,’ the U.S. government frequently acts like it is.
With the recent passage of Texas Senate Bill 4, commonly known as the “Anti-Santuary City Bill,” it is likely that Border Patrol agents will only increase these practices with the help of Texas law enforcement officers. SB4 was crafted to crack down on immigrants by ending sanctuary cities. The law seeks to do so by allowing police to inquire about people’s citizenship status during stops and imposing fines and possible jail time for law enforcement officers who refuse to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In 2013, the Texas Department of Public Safety (TxDPS) launched Operation Strong Safety and “randomly” placed traffic regulatory checkpoints within neighborhoods in the buffer zone, especially in rural areas where colonias are located. Texas State Troopers ask residents to present valid auto insurance and driver’s licenses at these random checkpoints. For many who live in the Rio Grande Valley, these temporary checkpoints functioned as a pretext to crack down on undocumented immigrants. In Texas, undocumented immigrants are not issued driver’s licenses. Without a driver’s license, people cannot purchase auto insurance. Texas State Troopers sometimes called CBP officials in these temporary checkpoints to work alongside them. For a long time, DPS regularly called Border Patrol after routine traffic stops if a driver was undocumented. These checkpoints became extensions of the permanent CBP checkpoints or quasi-internal CBP checkpoints.
When the community pushed back — many even created Facebook pages to warn the public of the time and location of the checkpoints — TxDPS changed its strategy to perpetuate the control and policing of colonia residents along the Rio Grande Valley. When the state of Texas abandoned the high-traffic regulatory checkpoints as a strategy to crack down on undocumented workers, it chose to increase the number of Texas State Troopers operating in the Rio Grande Valley. According to the Express-News, the following are the number of state officers operating in the Rio Grande Valley in 2016:
Trooper Numbers in The Rio Grande Valley 2016
563: Troopers permanently assigned
124: New permanent trooper positions hired and deployed
230: Troopers temporarily deployed to the operation from other areas
313: Additional overtime full-time equivalents
Total: 1,230 state troopers
Special Agents (Focused on Smuggling)
167: Agents permanently assigned
25: Agents temporarily deployed
61: Additional overtime full-time equivalents
Total: 253 special agents
Texas Rangers
45: Rangers permanently assigned
7: Rangers temporarily deployed
17: Additional overtime full-time equivalents
Total: 69 Texas Rangers
TxDPS faces serious questions regarding racial profiling practices by state troopers. Many of these officers are non-locals to the Rio Grande Valley and are unfamiliar with the border culture. As a response, TxDPS is hiring more Hispanic troopers. Studies reveal that stops resulting in searches disproportionately affect Blacks. Investigations have also revealed how DPS incorrectly records the race of Hispanics as white. This type of racial amnesia by administrative bodies generally only serves to skew statistics and impede showing the reality that is happening on the ground, that brown people are racially profiled.
For colonia residents, none of this should come as a surprise. Texas State Troopers concentrate in rural areas where colonias are located, and in Starr County, they are placed every two miles within the main highway that connects Rio Grande City to the rest of the Rio Grande Valley. In my experience, once a Texas State Trooper successfully pulls you over, one of their first questions is your occupation. Those who can answer that they are college students or working jobs that require higher education degrees will likely be left alone. For those who do not, the interrogation continues and can result in DPS calling Border Patrol. With the passage of SB 4, it is clear the Texas government will use Operation Strong Safety’s infrastructure to increase the detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants.
Undocumented Immigrant Housing in the Buffer Zone
While most discourses on immigration center around issues such as employment, deportation, and mass detention, rarely do they focus on housing. Immigrants who are stranded in the buffer zone, usually live in underdeveloped neighborhoods called colonias. According to the Office of the Texas Secretary of State, a colonia is a residential area along the Texas-Mexico border that may lack basic living necessities, such as potable water and sewer systems, electricity, paved roads, and safe and sanitary housing. While some colonias now have access to water lines and sewer systems, many cannot access the services because their homes do not meet county building codes. The homes that cannot pass inspection to qualify for hook-up to water lines often cannot afford the repairs or improvements necessary to bring them up to code.
Not surprisingly, the colonia population is predominantly Latino, with approximately 65% of its residents born in the United States. There are more than 2,294 colonias in Texas.
The emergence of colonias came about after developers used rural, agriculturally-worthless land to create unincorporated subdivisions. The land was sometimes prone to flooding, and the lots were sold with hardly any infrastructure and affordable prices.
I grew up in a colonia where we shared potable water lines with our neighbors while other families shared electricity lines with other families. Although we had access to our own potable water line, it was common for the service to cut off, especially at night. Due to this, we collected water in barrels daily. This also meant we had to buy purified water by bucket or drum to meet our daily cooking and drinking needs, especially if we wanted to avoid drinking possibly contaminated water.
Not having the ability to take a shower implied possible health consequences. In the Rio Grande Valley, year-round temperatures average in the high 90s. Those who lived in colonias sometimes lacked electricity, and if they were lucky enough to afford an AC window unit, they might not be able to afford the cost of operating the AC unit all day or each night. Thus, it was common for colonia residents to be drenched in sweat and for dirt to accumulate over their exposed skin. For me, not being able to shower one day meant that I would suffer sheer embarrassment when I attended school and would have to make every effort to distance myself from my teacher and classmates. The consequences, however, were worse for my father, a farmworker who worked a lot with pesticides. If he could not shower, he prolonged his exposure to those dangerous pesticides and risked his health further.
Perhaps the most difficult issues I faced growing up in a colonia were those associated with inadequate drainage systems, lack of sewer systems, and unpaved roads. Our colonia roads were covered with caliche, and the natural clay soil of the properties prevented proper water absorption during heavy rains. Combined with inadequate sewer systems, mainly septic tank systems, the result was unsanitary flooding. These conditions also propagate the spread of mosquitos.
But as a kid that was not my main concern; rather, what kept me up at night and anxiously waiting by my front door into late mornings was whether the school bus could enter our colonia without getting stuck. All I wanted was to attend school and show up on time, but there were days when that was impossible.
Why are Colonias so Popular?
The popularity of colonias rose primarily because they offer affordable housing and the opportunity to purchase lots through a contract for deed. That is, buyers can offer a low down payment and pay low monthly payments in exchange for not securing the title to the property until the final payment is made. In addition, unincorporated subdivisions do not have strict building codes or regulations and allow colonia residents to build their homes in phases. Instead of paying rent for an apartment they will never own, colonia residents construct their homes as they can afford the materials. Many colonia residents see this as an opportunity owning private property instead of wasting money on paying rent.
Colonias are also special, culturally vibrant neighborhoods that live up to their meaning in Spanish, which is community. My fondest memory of growing up in La Colonia del Flaco was forming a community with my neighbors. There was no I did not know or an adult who did not know me at a more personable level. While I no longer practice a religion, I never missed a comunidad de base weekly meeting (In English: community-based meeting) where we opened with prayer, sang worship songs in between agenda items, and concluded with having dinner. As a kid, I obviously cared more about seeing the other neighborhood kids and eating than the meetings, but I had an opportunity to see adults model collaboration and empathy for their neighbors. And in my opinion, that is something traditional American neighborhoods lack.
Furthermore, colonia-living resembles some aspects of living in a village in México. The lots are not too small to create crowded neighborhood conditions. Since there aren’t many codes that regulate conditions in colonias, residents have more real freedom to do what they want with their property. There are also no homeowner associations scrutinizing every detail of how someone’s property should comport to maintain the value of the property. The type of control such associations exert serves to deteriorate building deep relationships with neighbors and instead creates a superficial relationship that is contrived and unpleasant for many.
Because colonias do not have homeowner associations, colonia residents can accommodate their living to fit the needs of how they define family. For example, many Latinos do not define family as the nuclear family and instead include extended family. Some homeowner associations have rules requiring homes to be single-family homes. In colonias, though, lots sometimes have constructions that accommodate extended family living situations.
The mindset colonia residents have is not like the one seen in American property law. My neighbors and my parents never measured the value of our property in relation to the physical aspects of our neighbor’s house. The value of our property was measured by our relationships with our neighbors and the entire neighborhood, as well as the utility we got out of the property. If we wanted to have a chicken coop, we did. In fact, my mother has one, as well as many of our neighbors. In colonias where the lots are larger, people have small ranches where they have horses. In other words, you do not have to be wealthy to own a horse. Colonia ranch residents avoid renting a horse stable that can cost up to $2,500 per month. Often, people have parties and gatherings where they usually invite neighbors because they want to and not because they feel obliged to. People do not make a fuss out of too many cars parked on the street or other issues.
Growing up in La Colonia del Flaco gave my sisters and me a sense of identity from living in a community with our neighbors. My mother always received visitors who felt comfortable to randomly pay us a visit to either tardear (In English: pass the afternoon), join our carne asada, have dinner, or gift us food. When people took their afternoon walks, they would quickly greet us before resuming their afternoon exercise. My mother in the colonia attained the title of Doña, and our family enjoyed a true sense of belonging that sheltered us from racism and other forms of violence towards brown communities.
Improving Living Conditions in Colonias
It is undeniable that living conditions in colonias must improve. Those seeking to affect change positively should be mindful of not seeking strategies that would curtail the spirit of community found in colonias. The solutions should embody frameworks that ensure colonia lots remain affordable and make it equally possible for low-income residents to eventually own property without renting. The reforms in building codes should not prevent piecemeal homebuilding or hooking up to water and sewer services. Proyecto Azteca’s model as non-profit self-help construction company is a good start, but reformers should ensure subdivision rules do not replicate the effects that some homeowner association rules cause. For example, Proyecto Azteca helps people build a safe and affordable house as long as they commit to a certain number of hours to build the house. It is time to think creatively about alternatives that do not fit traditional American neighborhood property systems that would only deteriorate the meaningful relationships colonia residents have formed with their neighbors and that serve as the basis for community empowerment.
