The ghosts of Jim Crow and certain infamous Texas Rangers are certainly dancing in their graves with Gov. Rick Perry’s recent move.

Recently, at a news conference, Gov. Rick Perry announced a special team of Texas Rangers will be deployed to the border. He said the effort was launched in August because of “the federal government’s ongoing failure to adequately secure our international border.”

However, not everybody is too thrilled of the Rangers arrival. Last week, Brownsville Mayor Pat Ahumada criticized Perry’s plan. The Texas Border Coalition, a group of border mayors and county executives, wrote Gov. Perry to voice concerns about his latest plan to deploy the Texas Rangers to the Texas-Mexico border. Chad Foster, chair of the TBC and mayor of Eagle Pass said:

“While each of our communities has their own unique issues, being overwhelmed by criminal elements from Mexico is not one of them. If you are devoting additional law enforcement personnel to our region, we would appreciate you and your staff taking the time to make sure that our efforts to secure the border are complimentary and coordinated.”

Perhaps one of the reasons the border communities are opposing the idea of having the Texas Rangers at the border has to do with the long history vigilante violence directed at Latinas/os. It does not conger up men of law and order, but a group of men closely linked to Jim Crow Texas and the lynching of Tejanos, where thousands of died at the hands of the legendary Texas Rangers.

The Texas Rangers have been praised and romanticized through history books, folklore, movies and the T.V. series -The Lone Ranger, Larry McMurtry’s epic tale Lonesome Dove, Chuck Norris’ Walker, Texas Ranger – as intrepid heroes who brought justice to the Old West. The narrative is the same – a recreation of some supposed attack by “Mexican Bandits.” So it is no surprise a shrine has been built dedicated to the Texas Rangers – Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum.

The Rangers, first recruited in the 1820’s by the early settler Stephen F. Austin to control the Indians, are throughout South Texas for their wave of shootings and lynchings. Better known as Los Rinches de Tejas in the Valley or Los Diablos Tejanos by Mexicans during the Mexican-American War – the Texas Rangers were lawmen who operated without restraint and with seemingly unchecked power. Under the guise of maintaining law and order; they took the law into their own hands and lynched Mexican-Americans and Mexican children, women and men without suffering any repercussions from Texas courts.

In The Conquest of Texas, Gary Anderson details the “culture of violence” that existed in Texas. Land provided the impetus for conflict, a conflict masked in the rhetoric of race and the assumption that Indian territory was an available wilderness to be conquered and tamed by “civilized” whites. As Texas became a nation and then a state in the United States, policy and strategy was formed around racial violence that “gradually led to the deliberate ethnic cleansing of a host of peoples, especially people of color.”

In Texas, “corridos,” a narrative song or ballad that is often used to tell the tales of heroes and events, defending his rights, were written about Los Rinches. One of the best known corrido in Texas is the “El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez. The corrido is based on an incident that occurred in 1901 when Gregorio Cortez shot and killed Sheriff W. T. Morris in self defense after the two had an argument. Morris’s death resulted in a massive search for Cortez by the Texas Rangers. As they followed him to the Mexican border, the Rangers thought little of shooting innocent Mexicans whom they considered to be part of a nonexistent Cortez gang. In a show of solidarity, the Mexican community organized to raise money and social awareness about the Cortez affair.

Some believe this is just political posturing by Perry since it is election time and is facing a primary challenger. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who is challenging Perry and called his announcement more “empty rhetoric and broken promises.” Whether this is just political posturing or not, given the current anti-immigration climate, Gov Perry seems to be taking a page from one of his processors.

In 1874, newly elected governor, Richard Coke, created two branches of the Texas Rangers, a Frontier Battalion under the command of major John B. Jones, and a designated Special Force, commanded by Confederate officer and Texas Ranger captain, Leander McNelly to restore order at any cost. Their mission was to protect the people who lived in the Rio Grande Valley from Indian raids and Mexican raiders. In his pursuit, McNelly allowed the torture of prisoners, lynching, and other atrocities – all in the name of the law.

There are millions of Latinas/os living in this state. Yet, Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison, along with this state’s Democratic leadership approach the immigration issue as if there were no Latinas/os in the state. If the state’s Democratic Party is wanting to win back this state, it is time to for them speak out and begin to have faith that we, the voters, will not abandon ship come election time.

The saying that those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. Sadly, the state Democratic party refuses to learn. The attitude during the dark days of Texas can be summed up from a vigilante who said “To shoot these Greasers ain’t the best way. Give ‘em a fair trial, and rope ‘em up with all the majesty of the law. That’s the cure.”

These attitudes of indifference toward Latina/o life have survived into the present day, with “wetbacks” and “illegals,” or those perceived to be undocumented, as the primary targets of violence and threats of violence. Although Latina/o immigrants have been the primary targets of vigilante violence, this violence has already reached all corners of Latina/o life in the United States.

If one feels this may be over blown, consider the statement made by Tony Leal, the first Hispanic to lead Rangers, “It is my goal to continue to uphold the Ranger tradition, while moving ahead with the goals of the department as a whole.

In this frantic hunt for would-be terrorists, Gov Rick Perry’s move to deploy the Los Rinches is not just a step backwards, but it will only aggravate the public’s inclination to assume its role as vigilantes, enforcing media-fueled conceptions of legal obligations and the public good.

We are now at a critical juncture, in order move forward toward Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream and humanistic unity, we, as Texans and Americans, must find some way to resist the pressures by nativist pundits and find it within us to respect of different cultures and their contribution to America, recognition of human rights, and resist the acknowledgment of the invigorating effects of immigration.

The time is now to pass a humane comprehensive immigration reform, not a system that invest them with an unfair stigma, then used against them.

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Tags: Immigration, immigration reform, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Rick Perry, South Texas, Texas Rangers |  Print This Post |
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