I’ve been enjoying my travels in Texas for a couple weeks now.
The main reason was to help my dad get settled into yet another place. As I’ve discussed earlier, helping your parents when you live outside of their country is a tricky thing. It usually falls on my siblings, which is pretty guilt-inducing, so when I come, it’s got to count! Suffice it to say my dad’s new apartment looks awesome, though I can’t get him to learn how to access the Netflix account I signed him up for.Â
That’s not what we spent our whole time on, though. We also got to see my stepdad, and we got to see snow, weirdly. Also, at long last, I finally have a working US phone number! The Texas driver’s license proved to be trickier than I’d predicted, so that will have to wait until next time.
Driving through the Lone Star state
A nice thing about visiting Texas is that my sister loves to take road trips. Since we had an extra weekend free, we decided to head south.
I’ve been living in Mexico for over 20 years now, but have not been to the border on either side.Â
I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve never wanted to travel too far south in Texas. I’ve also never questioned my own prejudices about it. That border cities like McAllen and Brownsville are not worth a trip is kind of a given in Texas. But why?
The short answer, I’m pretty sure, is racism. Because on the border live almost exclusively Latinos. White and Black people are a minority down there, and a very Spanglish-style Spanish is spoken by most people.
But let’s back it up just a tad to our first stop on the way down: Corpus Christi.
Selena’s hometown
Corpus Christi is a beautiful little city on the Gulf. It has several tasty breweries, some impressive murals and a good-sized stretch of well-maintained ocean-side sidewalks and parks.
Corpus was also the home to one of Texas’ most famous late singers: Selena. Because one of my best friends in Mexico is a huge Selena fan — her birthday was a Selena karaoke-fest — I decided it was only right to pay homage.
in photo: my sister (Lisa), me, my friend Kathy, and the Selena monument behind us.
Corpus Christi’s monument to Selena is marked by a giant white flower on one side and a life-size statue of the singer leaning cooly against a column on another. On the bricks surrounding the monument are dedications and messages from family, friends, and fans.
We were greeted by a man who might be Selena’s second biggest fan after my friend. He wore a Selena t-shirt and had a Selena sticker splayed across his back car window. He introduced himself as the caretaker of the monument, and was totally down for discussing all things Selena. He’d even had a small part in the movie they made about Selena! Of course, he also directed us toward a mural of Selena that was actually of Farah Fawcett, so who knows. Incidentally, the local friend we met for lunch in Corpus Christi is the daughter of the judge who tried Selena’s killer. Like a lot of places in Texas, it’s “todo un pueblito”: like a small town.
Selena, like many Texan Latinos of her generation and before, did not grow up speaking Spanish. She learned it later for her music. Likewise, it is never a safe bet that Latinos you meet in Texas will speak Spanish, though the likelihood that they do increases the further south you go.
Soon, we were back on the road and headed for Pharr, where a friend of mine had recently moved from Mexico. I also have a friend in McAllen, so it was finally time to make a trip!
On the border
As we headed south, we noticed more and more police vehicles lying in wait, and I began to grow nervous. The border isn’t scary to me because it’s close to Mexico; it’s scary because it’s crawling with Border Patrol and immigration agents. Would we be stopped? Would our car be searched?
Luckily, two pleasantly plump white ladies in a Prius is pretty low on the list of suspicious-looking people.
The next morning, we were going to see the actual border, and I was as giddy and excited as I’d be if I were about to meet a celebrity. The border! The real border! I was going to be on it!
We saw it on a nice hike in a beautiful park, the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge. The air was fragrant with the smell of its plants, and we even saw a couple of javelinas cross in front of us. Finally, we reached the point I was most excited about: the Rio Grande.
It actually wasn’t all that grande. Still, I was thrilled. Just across the water was the top part of Mexico! I took an embarrassing amount of pictures before heading back.
Real excited on a real windy day to be standing in front of the river that divides this part of Texas from Mexico.
The border cities, by the way, were just normal Texas cities, only with more Spanish on their signs. The only features that seemed to make them distinct were the conspicuous presence of chain-link fences around schools and more properties than you’d expect, and speed bumps. Notable as well were the kinds of mixed-income neighborhoods I associate with Mexico. Agricultural fields stretched around the area, and I couldn’t help but wonder who would be tending to them if Trump decided to carry out his planned mass deportations.
Our trip was short but worth it. Hopefully, it was just the first of many as I seek out the lesser-known parts of my Texas roots.
Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sarahedevries.substack.com.
