Historical Image of the Day

Float in East Los Angeles Christmas parade, 1985

My Historical Marker on the 1921 San Gabriel River Flood

Pictured above is the historical marker I just completed, along with my graphic designer, Carlos Barron. It's an interesting story I found. In 1921, a hurricane hit the coast of Mexico and spun north into Texas. It headed up into central Texas as a tropical storm, dumping a tremendous amount of rain. And I mean tremendous. One town received around 38 inches of rain in 24 hours, which at the time was the U.S. record. The rivers flooded. About 100 people died in Williamson County, Texas. About 100 more died around the rest of the state.

Williamson County has traditionally been a pretty white place. Like most of the Texas, the power structure has remained white and conservative since Americans arrived in the area. The flood is one of the most important events in the town's history. Local historians have told the story. Sort of.

What they did was tell the story from a white perspective. They interviewed local whites about their experiences and wrote them up in books. But most of the people who died weren't white. They were Mexican migrants. Probably fleeing the Mexican Revolution, which led to the first wave of migration north from Mexico, these people worked the cotton farms east of Georgetown on the San Gabriel River. The employers rarely provided workers housing. So they set up tents or shacks along the river, where they could bathe and have a fresh water supply.

Unfortunately, camping along the river also made them susceptible to flooding. The river rose in the middle of the night and washed them away.

In researching this issue, I wanted to tell the Mexicans' story. I found a Spanish language newspaper out of San Antonio that interviewed a woman who survived the flood. She was driving with her son from San Antonio to Taylor, about 20 miles east of Georgetown. The flood washes both her and her son out of the car. She managed to cling to a tree. Her son drowned.

In creating a historical marker around this issue, it was very important to me to make it bilingual. Williamson County, like much of Texas, has seen a huge increase in Latino migrants over the past few decades. They use the park where the sign was placed. Yet their history is not told at all on the historical markers. I thought I would receive some push back from my insistence on a bilingual sign. I know that the old people behind the local historical society have shown zero interest in putting up bilingual signs in the museum for instance. And I wondered if Texas had some kind of English-only law. But no, everyone was cool with it.

So there it is.

But it almost didn't make it. Literally a week after it was put in, which was two weeks ago, the tropical storm that headed into Texas did almost the exact same thing as the 1921 storm. It literally dumped on the I-35 corridor. About 14 inches of rain fell in Georgetown. The San Gabriel River flooded. I was sure my sign would be washed away. I thought this would be the ultimate of ironies. But while the park lost about 60% of its light poles, someone the sign survived.

The Changing Country

Despite what racist white people are organizing to stop, the growing dominance of Latinos is pretty unstoppable. Evidence? How's this for you?

Univision was the most popular network among television viewers aged 18 to 49 years old last week, the first time a Spanish-language station has beaten the English ones in this key demographic in the United States.

That's not going to happen every week of course, but the fact that it's even possible is pretty amazing.  This may seem relatively minor but it's precisely this kind of evidence that historians use to track societal changes. So it's possible that historians of the future will see last week as a key turning point in American history. We don't always realize change when it happens around us.

Arizona

Gabriel Arana provides worthy analysis of Arizona's recent spate of racist legislation:

The story of Hispanics' political powerlessness in Arizona is partly a story about big demographic trends. Since the 1990s, the state has seen an influx of two groups: white Midwesterners and undocumented workers from Mexico. The swell of Midwestern retirees and families to the Phoenix area follows a pattern of migration from post-industrial cities in the middle of the country to the Sun Belt, where the cost of living is lower and economic opportunities more fruitful. In addition, according to the Department of Homeland Security, the rate of illegal immigration to the state jumped 70 percent between 2000 and 2008.

Experts say the influx of the two groups has led to a cultural clash and strengthened the conservative base in Maricopa County, which dominates state politics. Republicans control both houses of the legislature and the governorship, which left Democratic representatives -- who hail largely from Southern Arizona -- relatively powerless to stop SB 1070.

"[Midwestern immigrants] are less familiar with Latinos as a group, which partially explains the support for tough immigration laws," says John Garcia, a political science professor at the University of Arizona.

In theory, these two demographics would both influence state-level policy. But the infrastructure for political participation by Hispanics doesn't exist in the same way it does for native-born Americans, the exceptions being states like California and Texas, which have more multi-generational Hispanic families and a larger percentage of eligible voters who are Hispanic. There is the obvious problem that about a quarter of Hispanics in Arizona are undocumented, but political participation is also low for citizens and permanent residents. Hispanics in Arizona – as well as nationwide -- are less likely than whites or African Americans to register to vote or participate in civic organizations. Only 17 percent of voters in the state are Hispanic. 

Agreed entirely. But I think it's worth stating more bluntly than Arana the commitment of many white Arizona voters to white supremacy. While they may not state it as such, the older Midwesterners who move to Arizona came of age in the generation of white backlash. Many of them themselves likely moved out of neighborhoods when blacks moved in, participating in anti-busing or anti-civil rights protests, or just think this is a white man's nation.

Of course, this is a very old demographic in Arizona. But while they will pass from the scene soon, will new generations of old conservative racist whites move to Arizona and continue the state's long white supremacist history? Or will the Latino population mobilize and take over the state politically. Both perhaps. As we forward in time, older people are less likely to have a strong commitment to white supremacy I suppose. But as I've stated in a much longer piece on Arizona and race here, the state is likely to become the next California after Prop 187: an empowered, growing, and angry Latino community ready to attack the state's white conservative power structure.

In California, that led to the state becoming one of the most liberal in the nation. We forget easily that through most of the 20th century, California was arguably the single most conservative state in the U.S. Today, it's among the most liberal. Of course, there are many reasons for this. While Arizona has its own version of right-wing Orange County, it definitely does not have its own San Francisco. So the ability of Arizona Latinos to unite with large numbers of white liberals may make the transition of Arizona to a liberal state slower. But I do believe it will happen and we may possibly see the effects in the next few years.

Where's Immigration Reform?

Kos brings up a good point--where is the talk about immigration reform? It's starting to get warm. Soon, Mexicans and Central Americans will be dying in the Sonoran desert trying to cross into the United States. Forced into the harshest environments, by U.S. immigration policy, they dehydrate and drop dead.

Moreover, it makes good political sense to take up immigration reform. Latinos came out big for Latinos. My sense is that they feel they have not been properly paid back. Minimal cabinet representation (not helped by Bill Richardson's collapse) and a lack of attention to Latino issues have been notable. Of course, Obama has a lot on his plate right now. But as Kos says, "Congress passes legislation, and the president signs it. It doesn't have to be part of Obama's agenda. It can be part of Congress' agenda."

Precisely. Of course, conservative Senate Democrats would have to be bullied into voting for it, just as they are on so many issues. But it can be done. It is right morally and it is right politically. There's no good reason to not take on this issue.