The Proud Highway...

"I was dreaming I was on the Sullivan Show..." - Freddy Fender

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

HARLINGEN, Texas - It is said in whispered chats during morning coffee in the Mexican restaurants that Mayor Chris Boswell hasn't been the same since Othal Brand died over in McAllen to the west. Who knows about that, but Boswell isn't seen in public very often.

Brand served McAllen as landlord, dictator and mayor for several decades and had a reputation as being the sort of public servant who kept the Mexican-Americans in stir. Once, it is said with glee in the living rooms of whitefolk who still remember, he chased down a motorist on N. 10th Street and berated the Hispanic man for long minutes before asking him for his citizen papers. Brand died last year, ending an epoch known as the Last Waltz For White Mayors.

Boswell is pretty much alone in the ethnicity roll of Rio Garnde Valley mayors. Cortez now rules McAllen and Martinez holds court in Brownsville, with a legion of lesser Mexican-American notables in the small towns in between. The reconquista, as it is known in local Hispanic driveways, came a few years back, even as Brand aged and eventually died. Gone was the Gringo Patron culture, is what locals now say without hiding. A hulk of a man, Brand never did coddle the Mexican community he served. In fact, he openly ignored it.

So, what's this about?

Progress in the Valley, or, really, the lack of it.

Because as Hispanics have risen to the point of leading the many communities that dot the RGV from Rio Grande City to Brownsville, well, the expected progress has hardly unfolded in a way that some would say the Hispanics are making their own mark. They're not.

They have arrived and taken the keys to City Hall, yes. But instead of leading they have largely become maintainers, house sitters and do-nothings. Richard Cortez has tried like crazy to make McAllen his town, but that Brand brand remains as vivid in the minds of residents as those life-sized Superman cardboard cut-outs Brand used when he last ran for the mayorship in an effort to go back to the past. McAllen voters told him to go to Hell, but that's what a revolution is - tough lingo; no bullshit at rough bars.

Poor Harlingen, located in the center hump of the star-crossed Valley, is the laggard in the Big 3, McAllen and Brownsville being the other two of the valley largest cities. Harlingen is today's Tombstone, Kansas, a town quickly gathering dust and, more and more, being seen by its neighbors as that ugly gray hair in the aging armpit. Indeed, it is said that bad luck moves up and down its streets like melting jell-o, like butter gone rancid, like long-spoiled beer.

Is it Boswell's fault? No.

The Hispanic community in town holds the majority and, as such, should have long-ago taken the reins of the city's government. Not that they haven't had their chances. There was mayor Connie de la Garza (a dude) and there was a mayor named Rodriguez and so forth, but you'd need an industrial-sized shovel to find any lasting contribution from those now-forgotten gents. Ah, opportunity. It comes and it goes. You'd think one freakin' Hispanic would rise above the salsa and chips circuit and burst forth with something commemorating the Hispanic culture.

Build a statue to the Hispanic immigrant.

Honor some brown-skinned public servant in the same way that McAllen people have honored Othal Brand, remembering him when times are bad as if to let others know that the status quo ain't getting it done.

It's time.

There surely is one Hispanic male or female public servant who has done something to merit such homage. One?

Not even one?...

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