A Writer's Homeland...

"I started out on burgundy
But soon hit the harder stuff..."
- Dylan, Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - The other day, a friend I've known for many years asked me why I write so much about the Mexican border, about the Rio Grande Valley, when I don't even live there. I didn't think too long before I gave my answer. I've been around the national block, having worked out west and back east for newspapers and magazines. The Mexican border, I said, is a writer's motherlode, stories, true and half-true, jumping on you at every corner.

Writers have literary paradises, settings, they keep close to the vest. You find a place that inspires you and, well, there you go. The Mexican border does inspire me, but it also upsets me to know that my homeland is so awful, its current inhabitants the result of other bad inhabitants. Why shouldn't I write about it? Good characters, for writers, are elusive. Sure, you can throw out a name, or throw out a name and give it a nickname, but when those names are closely aligned to the geography you write about, it is not hard to pump out tapeworm stories full of regional color, vocabulary of the land and things that take you right to the heart of a culture.

The Rio Grande Valley is a literal entertainment theme park for anyone wishing to write about good and bad romance, winning and losing politics, worthy honor and dishonor. It is a land better suited for snakes, scorpions, lizards and spiders, but its people can often play all four of those roles on any given day. I see it from afar and, yet, it seems that I can put myself in that mess simply by writing three or four paragraphs.

Rio Grande Valley women are traditionalists, yet closet risk-takers. They chase the lifespan of their passive counterparts in neighboring Mexico, but they take a stab at following other American or European trends. Today's border women have a hard time raising their voices, in familial or political fights. Their blood is the blood of the kitchenworker, the washerwoman or the faithful, yet pining wife. She is damned willing to stay at home and have her babies. When they venture into business or politics, they arrive knowing their inroads will be measured by men. And so they play at it. They mimic women they see on TV, in law & order programs, in news talk shows, in sitcoms. But they fail to complete the equation, fail to gain that last foothold on legitimate power, falling through the glass ceiling with a smile. In the end, they, too, realize they are better suited for the attendant role, for the service economy.

Border men, meanwhile, are cursed with a history that says all gains will be local, and that is where the mark is to be made. Local clout is something that never translates to regional or statewide clout. In fact, when local clout moves north, it is beaten back as not being good enough; hence, you have civic leaders and politicians who essentially willingly wall themselves to succeed, or to act the part of success, some of them turning to coat and tie, as if that is the picture to offer. Their power ranges to the city or county limits, there to shine on the local population brightly, but dim noticeably as it moves to the beyond.

So when one goes to craft a story set along the Mexican border, one knows it will be steeped with fatalism, with this rolling philosphy that says something that looks thoroughly successful will merely die-off in the end. Valley football knows this journey quite well, as does Valley politics. No good has ever come out of Valley politics and only one football program has ever reached the summit of the sport, that being the 1961 Donna Redskins. Mountains of complaints surface whenever anyone dares to write the truth about the Mexican border. You'll hear it all. Mexican bandits were not bandits; they were heroes of the poor and the oppressed. That street is not dusty; it's just not paved. That string of bars is not a row of cheap cantinas; it is the essence of our culture. That mayor is not stupid; he just acts that way. That woman is not fat; she's not skinny. That salsa is not hot; it's cool. That policeman is not Gay; he's Catholic. That woman is not looking for love; she's married. That dog-faced guy is not angry; he's unemployed.

Plots is what moves stories, and what gets in the way of writers seeking to tell a tale set in the border is that life there is not any one thing. It is a layered existence, a life of daily ups & downs, but, unlike Big City downs, these downs are really down. Dreams here are easily accomplished undertakings elsewhere. You think about writing a police detective novel and you get yourself a neat lead character and you set sail. Invariably, the work becomes a hydra-headed chore. What to leave in, what to leave out. And, really, only because the Border is a unique land. It has its own language, its own music, its own food, its own law. But, then, it too is an ungovernable land, so...

On those times when I've been criticized for writing about the seamy side of the Rio Grande Valley, I have shrugged it off as being overly-emotional humor in search of a better audience. Writers don't give a damn about criticism. The work will be written and allowed to stand for what it is, whether a punch to the region's gut or a hug of the sort one reserves for lovers - it's the story, baby, and that'll be that. There'll be another one tomorrow. Deal with it.

I get another free pass, since I am from the Valley. It hasn't been my home since high school, but I get back there every now and then. I have eyes, so I see things. I have ears, so I hear things. In doing the life impulse, I form opinions and ideas. If something looks short, dumb or stupid, well, it's going to be short, dumb or stupid in anything I write about it. If it looks cute, it'll be cute. The same goes for every other place I write about. You live somewhere and you invest yourself and your time. It's called local knowledge in golf; that is, you know enough about a local golf course that you know every sand trap and water hazard, even the roll of the fairways and greens at certain points.

And so I write about the Rio Grande Valley, that dramatic, fiery, valiant, insolent, bloated, wish-I-could-kick-it-in-the-face Rio Grande Valley I know...

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