Felix Longoria's Wake: Bereavement, Racism, and the Rise of Mexican American Activism 9780292798595

Citation preview

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FELIX LONGORIA’S W

A

K

E

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H I S T O RY,

C E N T E R

C U LT U R E ,

F O R

U N I V E R S I T Y

A N D

S O C I E T Y

M E X I C A N

A M E R I C A N

O F

AT

T E X A S

A U S T I N

S E R I E S

S T U D I E S

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X I L FE GORIA’S LON E K A W B E R E AV E M E N T ,

RACISM,

THE

RISE

AND

OF

MEXICAN

AMERICAN

ACTIVISM

Patrick J. Carroll Foreword by José E. Limón

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS PRESS, AUSTIN

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Cover photos: Beatrice, Adela, and Felix Longoria, courtesy of Adela Longoria de Cerra; Dr. Héctor P. García and American G.I. Forum members at a World War II serviceman’s funeral in Corpus Christi, 1949, courtesy of the Center for American History, UT-Austin, Russell Lee Photographic Collection.

COPYRIGHT © 2003 BY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS PRESS

All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First edition, 2003 Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to Permissions, University of Texas Press, Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819. ⬁ The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of 䊊 ansi/niso z39.48-1992 (r1997) (Permanence of Paper).

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Carroll, Patrick James. Felix Longoria’s wake : bereavement, racism, and the rise of Mexican American activism / Patrick J. Carroll; foreword by José E. Limón p. cm. — (History, culture, and society series) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-292-71246-4 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0-292-71249-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Mexican Americans—Texas—Politics and government—20th century. 2. Longoria, Felix—Death and burial. 3. Texas—Ethnic relations—History—20th century. 4. Texas—Politics and government— 1951–. I. Title. II. Series. F395.M5 C37 2003 305.868⬘7207644⬘09045— dc21 2002010968

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FOR

DR.

HÉCTOR,

FRED,

AND

JOE

B.

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CONTENTS

FOREWORD BY JOSÉ E. LIMÓN ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INTRODUCTION

xi

xv

1

Only in South Texas: Working and Educational Conditions in the Nueces Strip 14

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

The Incident 54

CHAPTER THREE

The Principal Actors in the Drama

86

Mobilization of Nueces Basin Mexican and Anglo 113

CHAPTER FOUR

Towns

CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX

State, National, and International Politics

The Burial

178

147

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CONCLUSION NOTES

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WORKS CITED INDEX

VIII

195

263

253

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ILLUSTRATIONS

TABLES

1. Labor Camp Living Conditions 42 2. Health of Labor Camp Residents 43

MAP

South Texas, the Nueces Strip, and the Longoria Corridor

FIGURES

“Man with T.B.,” Mathis Labor Camp 1 36 “General View of Camp 5,” Mathis Labor Camp 5 36 “Man Cooking,” Mathis Labor Camp 2 37 “Women’s Toilet,” Mathis Labor Camp 3 38 “Women and Children,” Mathis Labor Camp 5 39

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“The Dog Houses,” Mathis Labor Camp 5 40 “Chicken Coop,” Orange Grove, Texas 41 Mathis High School 46 Mathis Mexican Ward School 47 “Hole in the Roof,” Mathis Mexican Ward School 47 “Outside Water,” Mathis Mexican Ward School 48 “The Classroom,” Mathis Mexican Ward School 48 Orange Grove High School 49 Orange Grove Elementary School 49 Orange Grove Mexican Ward School 50 “Open Privy,” Orange Grove Mexican Ward School 50 Sandia Elementary School 51 Sandia Mexican Ward School 51 Manon Rice Funeral Home building, 2002 57 Detroit Free Press cartoon 81 Beatrice, Adela, and Felix Longoria 90 Tom and Jane Kennedy 92 LBJ’s Senate inauguration celebration 95 Dr. Héctor P. García and American G.I. Forum members at a World War II serviceman’s funeral 111 Family members with Felix Longoria’s casket 188

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FOREWORD

AT THIS WRITING THE United States is making preparations for a military intervention in the Middle East intended to defend our post-9/11 country against “weapons of mass destruction.” History—and these days “history” happens quickly—will ultimately judge the moral and material merits of the impending assault on Iraq. But when it does happen, for better or worse, we can be very sure that the Mexican American community will be very well represented within the American forces in this new war as they have been represented in U.S. armed forces from the Civil War (on both sides) through Afghanistan in 2001–2002. Undoubtedly, the most salient presence of Mexican Americans occurred in World War II (with Vietnam close behind), a saliency foregrounded not only by numbers but by the moral justification of our military expeditions in Europe and the Pacific, further underscored by the consistent valor and skill of Mexican American troops with

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their ample Medal of Honor, Silver Star, and Navy Cross recipients. This valor, skill, and commitment also spoke to their overwhelming sense of U.S. citizenship and their loyalty to the fundamental beliefs of this country, including the idea that all men—and all women— were created equal and were indeed endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. And indeed many Mexican American women served as nurses and support personnel in the theatres of war. We now know a great deal about these men and women thanks to research such as that of Professor Maggie Rivas-Rodríguez and her Latino World War II Oral History Project at the University of Texas at Austin. Many patriotic and courageous Mexican American soldiers, sailors, and airmen presented arms (as we mexicanos would say) at Guadalcanal, the Kasserine Pass, Anzio, Midway, in the bombing raids on the oil fields of Ploesti, in the battle of the Atlantic, at Iwo Jima, in France, and in Germany itself. They included my three uncles—my grandmother’s three sons—at the Coral Sea, Attu, and Normandy respectively. The Mora family of Falfurrias, Texas, had six young men in the war, five of them in combat. (I know of no film called Saving Private Mora.) The predominant social background of these young men— limited education, working-class, Spanish-dominant—would almost guarantee combat duty rather than rear echelon assignments. After the war, some returned to Texas, California, Arizona, but also Chicago; those returning to New Mexico included individuals who had survived the Bataan death march. In these and other places they too often encountered still fortified strong points of racist resistance denying them full access to their civil rights as Americans but also to their full cultural dignity as citizens of Mexican culture. These new wounds—now inflicted by U.S. society—were made deeper by the knowledge that comrades with names such as González, Iturbide, García, Hinojosa, Carrizales, and Ruperto Araiza, my uncle, had been left behind, buried on land or at sea—some not buried at all—in Europe, the Atlantic, and the Pacific. Private Felix Longoria from Three Rivers, Texas, was initially left behind, killed in heroic action in the Philippines. The honor and task of telling his heroic tale has fallen to Professor Patrick Carroll of Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi, and it has fallen into capable and supple hands. Carroll’s masterful retelling of Longoria’s role in the Philippines is part of the substance of this marvelous book. But Longoria’s actions in the Pacific theatre are really only a small part, al-

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though a highly generative part, of Carroll’s scholarly and analytical narrative. Most of his story deals with other heroes after the war. He movingly tells us of heroic men but now also centrally women— and also of the more than occasional villains, as well as shades in between—and the heroic but conflicted efforts made to secure an appropriate wake and burial for this fallen infantryman when his remains were finally returned to the United States in 1947. In telling this highly readable and often engrossing story of individuals and groups of varying moral stature, Carroll also provides a large magnifying but also clarifying lens through which we may look deeply into the social complexities and contradictions of Texas as a society and U.S. society as well in this postwar moment of social change. Dr. Carroll has much to teach us in this volume.The Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin has the privilege of sponsoring Professor Carroll’s searching study as the latest in our series of volumes with the University of Texas Press. Like our other volumes, this one explores a key area of the Mexican American experience, adducing new materials and offering innovative, fresh perspectives. We are honored by this latest addition to the series and place it in your hands with full confidence that it enhances not only this series but the whole of scholarship on the peoples of Mexican origin in the United States. I believe that the esteemed founder of the Center for Mexican American Studies, the late Professor Américo Paredes—himself a World War II veteran—would offer a snappy salute to this book. José E. Limón Director, Center for Mexican American Studies University of Texas at Austin September 2002

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THIS TELLING OF THE CONTROVERSY surrounding Felix Longoria’s wake was a group effort. Others have contributed significantly along the way. I am merely the person to complete the project. Dr. Frederick A. Cervantes, one of the best friends I have ever had, agreed to write this account in 1984, in return for Dr. Héctor P. García’s donation of his personal papers to Corpus Christi State University, now Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi (TAMUCC). The doctor wanted to be sure that whichever institution obtained these materials would do something with them, and Fred’s commitment to write the Felix Longoria book represented the first down payment on our pledge to use Dr. García’s documents. Tragically, Fred Cervantes died two years later on March 22, 1986, in an auto/motorcycle accident. At that point Dr. García requested that I write the story. I tried to point out to him that as a colonial Mexican historian I did not have the background in the twentieth-century Tejano experience to successfully complete such an undertaking. Nevertheless, he insisted and I agreed.

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From that point onward I received a good deal of help in overcoming my ignorance about Mexican American and Texas history. Robert Miranda, a former graduate student at TAMUCC, did the early field research on the project between 1986 and 1987. He also drafted over one hundred pages of text on the incident, which provided me direction in my journey toward a final manuscript. Joe Bertram Frantz, a distinguished Texas historian and a personal friend of LBJ, John Connally, and many of the Texas politicians mentioned in this book, aided me immeasurably. After floundering on the project for three years I invited Joe to co-author the story with me, and he graciously agreed. For the next four years Joe intermittently engaged in research on the Longoria incident. His involvement provided entrée to many of the principal characters within the post–World War II Texas political community. He also schooled me in Texas history. It was like apprenticing with a master craftsman. He knew more about the state’s past than I could have learned in a lifetime. Within two years he was referring to me as a “near-native Texan”; Joe had a way of making people feel better about themselves. Frantz provided the background knowledge necessary to place the Longoria incident within 1949 life in Texas. I only hope that I have successfully imparted his wisdom about such matters in the pages that follow. Had he lived and co-authored this work it would have been a better book. As it is, the story is only as good as I could make it because I am no Joe B. Frantz. Dr. Héctor P. García also contributed a great deal to this manuscript. Much of it is based on the papers he collected over the course of a lifetime’s dedication to civil rights. Dr. Héctor, as all of us who knew him called him, also gave me many hours of his time in taped conversations about the Longoria incident, the American G.I. Forum, and various other topics related to civil rights in South Texas. Between 1986 and 1996 he arranged to introduce me to many of the surviving actors in the Longoria drama. Just as importantly, he gave me the intellectual space and license to seek my own lines of inquiry and draw my own conclusions from what I found. It was a privilege to have known and worked with this remarkable person. Unquestionably, Frederick A. Cervantes, Joe Bertram Frantz, and Dr. Héctor Pérez García contributed as much to the writing of this book as I did. That is why I dedicate the work to their memory. Robert Miranda follows only this trio in deserving my thanks. Three other individuals made significant contributions to the com-

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pletion of the manuscript. This group read various versions of the study in their entirety over the past two years. Robert Wooster, R. Anthony Quiroz, and José Limón, all good scholars and students of the Texas experience, made critical suggestions that improved this account. Several other individuals helped in different ways to nudge me along. George Flores, another former student, aided in conducting oral interviews in his hometown of Three Rivers, Texas. Former TAMUCC President D. Alan Sugg encouraged my involvement in this research. My dean, Paul Hain, provided friendship and encouragement on numerous occasions, as did Theresa May and Carolyn Wylie of the University of Texas Press. My former colleague Alan Lessoff read and commented on several chapters of earlier drafts. Another friend, Col. George Beaver, offered his good cheer and counsel over many years. Ritchie, Paulette, and Daniel Gravious provided me a place to stay and warm friendship during many of my research trips to Austin. Judy McFerren, Sonya Witherspoon, and Noemi Ybarra word processed parts of many drafts of the Longoria manuscript over the years. My colleagues who have sat on the TAMUCC College of Arts and Humanities Committee for the Enhancement of Scholarly Activities and Research during the course of this study voted to fund many of the research costs. I thank them for their support and the confidence they repeatedly placed in me. The staffs of the Texas State Archive; the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, notably Ted Gittinger, Claudia Anderson, and Philip Scott; and the University of Texas Newspaper Collections Deposit Library all made my research fruitful and enjoyable through their professionalism, their efficiency, their patience, and their friendliness, as did Carmen Sacomani of the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection; Ralph Elder of the Center for American Studies, University of Texas at Austin; and Tom Shelton of the Institute of Texan Cultures, San Antonio. Tom Kreneck and Grace Charles of the Special Collections and Archives Division of the Jeff and Mary Bell Library at TAMUCC were extremely helpful. Paul Spragens also did a fine job of copyediting the manuscript. The aid and collegiality of all these fine people made my research easier and the final book better. Finally, I wish to thank my wife Donna and our four children— Amy, Jenny, Patrick, and Katie—who suffered through my preoccupation with Felix Longoria’s Wake for many years. Their love and patience contributed in no small measure to my completion of this work.

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Those mentioned above contributed directly or indirectly to whatever I may have gotten right in completing the task Dr. García entrusted me with so many years ago. Having said this, I accept full responsibility for any shortcomings that may remain in this book. P.C.

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INTRODUCTION “Fearfully and Wonderfully Made” psalms 139:14

death brings oblivion, an end to the joy and pain of living, a cessation of facing tedium and danger intermixed with contemplation and pleasure. Not so with the story that follows. Felix Longoria was killed by a Japanese sniper on the Philippine island of Luzon, and if his body had never been brought home to Three Rivers, Texas, in the southern part of the state, he would have been an object of grief for a generation or two, and then generally forgotten.1 And Dr. Héctor García of nearby Corpus Christi, who never knew Longoria but probably felt as close to the deceased soldier as one man can to another, would not have thought of this young man every day of his life from January 10, 1949, to the doctor’s own death forty-seven and a half years later on July 26, 1996. The account that follows evokes such disparate personalities as Andy Warhol (every person should be famous for fifteen minutes during his life) and Shakespeare, who, in Julius Caesar, wrote a phrase of

AS A GENERAL RULE

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continuing relevance that has almost become a cliché: “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.” Felix Longoria had his fifteen minutes of fame, once in Three Rivers when word reached home that another son of the community had fallen to war. But tens of thousands from other towns and cities and farms were likewise killed between Pearl Harbor and Nagasaki, and the only difference for Three Rivers residents in young Longoria’s case was that this was a local body. As soon as proper mourning ended, all except his wife and his family could go back to their routine, thinking of him only on Memorial Days or at special times when his fatherless child passed some benchmark in her life. The widow and parents would grieve, but most of the community would dry their eyes and get on with their lives. The scenario didn’t work out that way, and the events that followed ushered in Felix Longoria’s greatest moment of fame. Three Rivers’ only funeral home refused to handle Longoria’s wake, for, you see, Longoria was an American but of Mexican origin. Dr. García reacted promptly and spent a weekend telephoning, telegraphing, and writing quick notes that built a bonfire of protest which attracted the attention of national and international presses, divided Longoria’s home state, and mobilized the veterans’ rights group that the doctor had just founded. While Dr. García would continue to minister to the health of the less fortunate, he would spend even more time addressing the civil rights needs of Mexican Americans throughout the nation. After his involvement in the 1949 Longoria controversy his workday expanded to between twelve and sixteen hours, an overwhelming pace for the staff, volunteers, friends, and family that rotated in and out of it. That was the only way everyone else could keep up with him. One memorable day I spent with Dr. García illustrates this dual commitment and the dedication it required. May 5, 1990, began for Dr. García at 7:45 A.M. when he stepped into his Bright Street office on Corpus Christi’s west side, where the majority of the city’s Hispanic population still lives. He immediately started seeing the patients already in chairs lining the walls of the waiting room. Almost all were poor or folk who seldom paid by check or credit card because few of them had these mediums of exchange. In fact, in my fifteen years of visiting that office I never once saw cash exchanged either. If patients did not have insurance or government assistance,

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they probably did not pay at all. No matter, he saw and treated each of them anyway. I arrived at noon, we talked about the Longoria incident and about an investigation the doctor was beginning that concerned living conditions in colonias, underdeveloped settlements on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande. We ate a quick lunch at Rosa’s on Morgan Street, a half mile from his office. He drove in his aging car; he never bought new ones. García had better ways to spend the money he had. In the parking lot we came upon a young man of fourteen or so; the doctor did a double take as he walked by us. “Raúl, where’s your cast?” The young man shrugged, said, “It itched, so I removed it.” Dr. García told him to go to the Bright Street office and he would put a new one on. We ate in fifteen minutes. The waitresses all knew what the doctor wanted: unos taquitos, a glass of Big Red, and a small dish of Bluebell ice cream. I was a bit of a holdup because they had to wait for my order. There was no charge. He or one of his siblings had delivered most of the people working and dining in the establishment. We returned to his office about a half hour later. He saw patients until nearly two, and replaced the cast for Raúl, who had been sitting in the air-conditioned office watching TV for over two hours by then. The doctor made several quick calls to various health care facilities on behalf of his patients, then we hopped into his car for the three-and-ahalf-hour drive from Corpus Christi to Houston to attend a statewide meeting and banquet for the Texas branch of the American G.I. Forum (more on this later). Dr. Héctor was to give a speech; I was going to meet and interview Beatrice Moreno de Longoria, Felix’s widow, the first interview she had granted since 1949. We arrived at 5:30, just in time for the opening ceremonies and seating at the table for special guests: Dr. García, founder of the American G.I. Forum, Felix’s widow Beatrice, and the Longorias’ daughter Adela Longoria de Cerra. The organization was honoring its founder and the family that had launched the organization into the forefront of the post–World War II Mexican American civil rights movement. Dr. García gave his speech outlining the work yet to be done—improvement of colonia living conditions, opposition to the “English Only” movement, and the potentially adverse effects on the Mexican American population of the government’s crackdown on undocumented Mexican immigration. Beatrice and Adela were introduced, and they acknowledged the crowd’s applause, but did not speak. Beatrice, a shy person, expressed discomfort at all the attention. Over

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dinner, we then discussed the by-then forty-year-old Longoria controversy that had brought everyone at the table together, and I recorded the conversation.2 At about 9 P.M. the meeting ended. By then we felt comfortable with each other, and Beatrice and Adela promised additional interviews during future family visits to Corpus Christi; I was very pleased. The two women then left, and Dr. García began conversing with several Forum leaders from across the state. We finally left Houston for the return trip to Corpus Christi at about 10:30 P.M. We arrived at one the morning of the sixth, and went directly to Memorial Hospital so that Dr. García could make his rounds. He threw me a lab coat and told me to come along; after all, I was “a doctor” wasn’t I? I pointed out that I was not “that kind of doctor.” He shot back, “put it [the lab coat] on,” handed me a name tag that read “DR. PAT CARROLL, SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE FOUNDER, DR. HECTOR P. GARCIA,” which I still have, told me to pin it onto the lab coat and come along—I “might learn something.” It took just over an hour to complete the rounds, mostly checking charts at nursing stations, although he did awaken several patients he was concerned about to examine them. Afterwards he drove me to my car, which was still parked at his office, and we departed. I arrived home at nearly 3 A.M. I called just before lunch that morning to thank him for arranging the interview with Beatrice and Adela. He had arrived fifteen minutes or so late that morning, around 8 A.M., and was “catching up.” I asked him if all his days were like that. He laughed and said no. He only worked from about nine in the morning until about six in the evening on Saturdays and Sundays. A medical doctor in the fifty-eighth-largest city in the United States, Corpus Christi, Dr. García, or Dr. Héctor as many affectionately called him, would become a political force as a result of his involvement in the Longoria controversy, and through his later organization of the “VIVA KENNEDY!” campaign, a movement he would extend to presidential candidate Lyndon B. Johnson. García would become an ambassador to the United Nations, a special presidential envoy to inaugurals of leaders in other nations, a signatory to international treaties, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor that can be bestowed, made more notable by the fact that President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, bestowed it on him, and Dr. García was a staunch Democrat. While he was an out-

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wardly humble man, he was aware of the fact that national politicians regarded him as a political force from 1949 to his death in 1996. Either instinctively or thoughtfully, Héctor García realized in 1949 that his tide had reached its flood with the Longoria travail and burial, as he followed Shakespeare’s admonition to ride that tide on to fortune, in his case a wealth of civil rights accomplishments. The Felix Longoria controversy represented that tide. Felix Longoria was a war hero; he had posthumously received a Bronze Star for his bravery in combat.3 His body and memory deserved better treatment than the undertaker in his hometown gave them. That is why his widow and Dr. García decided to fight this act of Anglo discrimination in the arena of public opinion. Their stand quickly gained support from others in South Texas and across the nation. Dr. García’s actions, although courageous, are more understandable than Beatrice’s. He was a man, a well-educated professional who already had a record of civil rights activity in January 1949. Beatrice was not and had no such record. The public voice she exercised during the course of the three-month controversy over her husband’s wake seemed out of character for her and extraordinary for the setting and the time. She was a naturally shy person who avoided others’ attention. According to her, this introversion had actually predisposed her attraction to Felix. He was just the opposite, outgoing and jovial, comfortable in his interaction with people. When they were alone he lavished attention on her; he made her feel important and good about herself. When they were with others he diverted attention away from her and toward himself or toward them as a couple in a way that made her more comfortable in public.4 Felix could no longer speak for them both in 1949; she had to do that, so she openly defended his and her honor by expressing her frustration with Anglo discrimination directed against her and her dead husband. She gave press interviews, she spoke at town meetings, and she testified before a state legislative investigative committee. These experiences proved terrifying and painful for her, but she suffered them anyway. Gendered politics in South Texas represented a second factor inhibiting Beatrice’s involvement in civil rights protest over her husband’s wake. The region was not a place where Mexican American women commonly exercised a public voice in 1949; nor, for that matter, was anywhere else in the broader Hispanic border zone on both sides of the Rio Grande. Mexican and Mexican American men might

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contest in public arenas, but women were supposed to remain silent outside their own homes.5 Such traditions made Beatrice’s actions in this controversy all the more remarkable. Nearly overnight, public media across the hemisphere turned this private family dispute over discrimination and family honor into a national and international incident with implications for local and regional civil rights, statewide politics, national questions of patriotism, and international concerns over U.S. versus Mexican access to cheap labor and American economic and cultural imperialism. Within days Beatrice found herself caught up in this expanding and increasingly more complex affair. Because of the nature of the incident, once she committed to open protest there was no turning back, no time for reflection and reconsideration. Virtually all major U.S. and Mexican newspapers carried a series of articles on the dispute. Walter Winchell and Drew Pearson did a series of radio commentaries on it. It was debated in university classes, and in civic club meetings all over the country. It even appeared in correspondence between uninvolved private individuals. This shy woman was thrust into the middle of a traditionally male-dominated public arena, one she would only discuss, forty years later, reluctantly and privately.6 Her extraordinary courage, dignity, and perseverance during the dispute remain a testament to her personal character and to the illogic of gender biases like the ones prevalent in South Texas in 1949 that discouraged women’s public voices. South Texas was a remarkable place by the mid-twentieth century. Although most in the state agree on its general boundaries, there is little consensus over its precise borders. This study defines the zone as stretching from Del Rio to Brownsville in the south and from Del Rio through San Antonio, Seguin, and Victoria to Lavaca Bay in the north.7 Historically, this area, called the Nueces Strip, was the disputed land that precipitated the Mexican-American War in 1846. South Texas was a complex region in 1949, and still is today, a human frontier where different sets of people came together to cohabit the same physical space. One group, Mexican Americans (Tejanos, or just plain Mexicans, to some), defined Mexico as their ancestral home. The other group, Anglos (whites, Americans, and Texans, as they and others labeled them), traced their ancestry to other parts of the United States or to northern Europe. Within each of these two populations were subgroups. After 1890 and onward, ever-increasing numbers of

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Mexican nationals crossed the Rio Grande and added to the ranks of Mexican-descended individuals living within South Texas. From about 1910 onward growing numbers of Midwest farmers relocated all over South Texas, but in especially high concentrations within the northern half of the region, where Three Rivers lay.8 I sometimes refer to the easternmost quarter of this subzone in the text that follows as the “Longoria corridor,” because Three Rivers and Corpus Christi, the two settlements which spawned the dispute, anchored its western and eastern ends. Persons of Mexican origin were most concentrated in the southern reaches of the Nueces Strip. Anglos, and especially Midwest Anglo transplants, were most common along the greater Nueces River basin. Mexican Americans and newly arriving Mexican nationals sought employment opportunity and ethnic community in the lower two-thirds of South Texas. Anglos in the Longoria portion of the Nueces River basin, in towns like Corpus Christi and Three Rivers, sought inexpensive agricultural land, but also access to cheap and malleable “Mexican” labor, for the expanding agro-economy and the emerging petrochemical industry. Thus, throughout the first half of the twentieth century, leading up to the Longoria controversy of 1949, an already pluralistic population in South Texas became even more complex as locale after locale redefined itself on the basis of ever-changing mixes of old Hispanics and new Hispanic arrivals, old Texans and new Anglo arrivals. This made harmony among the ever-increasing variety of competing groups in local settings like Three Rivers increasingly difficult. The remote likelihood of cooperation and amicable interaction was made even more unlikely by a history of conflict between Tejanos and Anglos dating all the way back to at least 1836, when Texas broke away from the Mexican Republic. Thus, a combination of continuity and change led to an increasingly conflictive and less integrative South Texas environment from about the turn of the twentieth century onward as communities throughout the zone modified their respective economic, social, and political orders in response to the evolving human and structural conditions within the region. Relationships between each set of parochial subgroups changed by varying degrees within the region’s evolving workplaces, social orders, and political cultures with each passing decade. Yet, broad general trends did emerge between about 1900 and 1949

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South Texas, the Nueces Strip, and the Longoria Corridor. Maps produced by David Foster, TAMUCC.

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across South Texas. Generally, Anglos became owners and administrators of the area’s economic units, Mexican Americans and Mexican nationals became workers on these production sites. Anglos eventually distinguished themselves as whites, as Texans, as Americans. They came to see Mexican Americans and Mexican nationals as one and the same: “Mexicans,” brown, alien, and economically, socially, and politically retrogressive, to be segregated from “Americans,” because they were “un-American” and “unfit” to become American. This made them unqualified, incapable, and unworthy, in most South Texas Anglos’ eyes, to exercise the rights and responsibilities of U.S. citizenship.9 Developing attitudes within the Mexican heritage community proved more complex. Twentieth-century middle-class Mexican American leaders became preoccupied with their racial identity. They came to see themselves and other Mexican Americans as progressive “whites” of dual ethnic heritage, as Mexican and as American. In contrast, the rank and file of the South Texas Mexican American–Mexican national community seemed to think of themselves less in racial terms and more in terms of their ethnicity, their Mexicanidad. They were far more concerned with fending off Anglo discrimination than defining their distinctiveness from Anglos. Development of twentieth-century political culture within and between South Texas’ Anglo and Mexican communities proved equally complex. Some locales witnessed the emergence of South Texas “bossism,” or patrón politics, wherein local Anglo political bosses accommodated Hispanic client-dependents with patronage in return for political support.10 Other areas developed less accommodative political climates wherein Anglo political leaders worked to disenfranchise Tejanos of their political rights and power. And still other areas vacillated between the two arrangements over time.11 Nevertheless, the end result of these inclusionary or exclusionary political dynamics proved the same: Anglos sat at the top and Mexican Americans sat largely at the bottom or stood outside of local South Texas political orders by the middle of the twentieth century. Again, the degrees of the above economic, social, and political changes differed from community to community, but these overall trends did come to permeate life with one level of intensity or another throughout the region. Generally, the northern zones of South Texas experienced these changes in workplace roles, social attitudes, and political culture first. Similar shifts came to communities along the zone’s southern half last.12

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Thus, Beatrice Longoria confronted local social convention in 1949, and those that came to support her pushed the issue into the political arena as well. Her family, and especially her sister Sara, extended unreserved backing from the outset. Further, Sara enlisted the help of Corpus Christi’s Dr. Héctor Pérez García. He quickly galvanized and politicized virtually the entire South Texas Mexican American community behind her. García managed to enlist support outside the region as well. The newly elected U.S. senator from Texas, Lyndon Baines Johnson, entered the fray on the widow’s side, as did U.S. and Latin American public opinion. Moreover, driven by concerns over potential political and economic reverberations emanating from international attention directed toward the Longoria affair, the U.S. State Department provided behind-the-scenes backing and encouragement to Beatrice’s cause. Beatrice, Dr. García, Lyndon Johnson, and the rest of those that took great personal risks to thrust the controversy surrounding Felix Longoria’s wake out into the open reaped rewards for their efforts. To Beatrice and other Mexican Americans’ long-term overall advantage, it thrust the inequities of Anglo (Texan) and Tejano (Mexican American) relations in South Texas before the eyes of the entire nation and Latin America. For Anglos the affair opened a new front in the ongoing battle between Texas Regular Dixiecrats and Texas National Democrats. Felix Longoria’s wake also introduced new players into the contest— Mexican American civil rights activists like Dr. García and the organizations they represented. These developments within the Anglo political environment first threatened to undermine, but in the end advanced, the political career of Lyndon Baines Johnson. The controversy surrounding Felix Longoria’s wake in post–World War II South Texas provides a compelling story about individuals and groups in confrontation within a rapidly changing and complex socioeconomic climate during uneasy political times. The actions of these people deserve note in their own right, but also for the lessons they can teach us about our own behavior under similar circumstances. This study addresses five basic questions. What happened? When did it happen? Why did it happen? What processes were involved, or put another way, how did it happen? And what were the significances of the event? The what, when, and why questions are standard fare for most historical scholarship, so I will not dwell on them in this introduction. The question of how, or of the processes involved, is more interdisciplinary

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in nature and requires a bit of explanation. With respect to the Longoria affair, the “how” inquiry translates to what made this racist social slight, this affair of honor, so special that it moved people from Buenos Aires to Massachusetts to respond so intensely? In 1949, as throughout the century leading up to that date, South Texas was a place where violent and/or institutionalized discrimination against Mexican Americans took place on a daily basis. Civil rights activists like Dr. García had brought these injustices to public attention on numerous occasions with very little result. What made the Longoria incident so different? How did it “touch” Latin Americans and North Americans living in places far distant from the controversy’s Nueces Strip, whereas other incidents of discrimination had not? The answer to this question of process, this “how” question, in part lies in the structural conditions that provided the physical, demographic, economic, social, and political backdrop for the controversy. The 1949 South Texas setting generated structural forces that logically elicited rational responses from the actors involved in the drama. But this structural explanation based on rational decisions alone cannot adequately explain all that went on during the Longoria controversy and in its aftermath for decades to come. The intensity and the breadth of the reaction to this particular incident of Anglo discrimination were the result of more human and emotive forces as well. Indeed, the processes—the how involved in the making of this affair implicating honor, patriotism, racism, ethnocentrism, civil rights, politics, and economics—were moved by a combination of reasoned actions and felt emotions. The story of Felix Longoria’s wake provides a snapshot of competing, conflicting, and accommodating groups of people operating in changing social, economic, and political environments at the local, regional, state, national, and international levels. This drama offers a telescoping view from local to international perspectives of how intersections of race, nationalism, gender, and class combined with historical and structural conditions to shape people’s lives. In this sense the controversy over Felix Longoria’s wake laid bare the whats, whys, and hows of political economy and tradition affecting an evolving racially and nationally pluralistic transborder South Texas society. Just as importantly, it records some exceptional individual and collective human achievements in shaping these sweeping developments. The overall significances of the Longoria controversy are tied to this

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question of processes. To be sure, the event held immediate significances for Beatrice and the rest of the Longoria family. It impacted upon their individual and collective senses of honor and self-esteem. The same could be said for the South Texas Mexican American community that supported them. It catapulted Dr. Héctor García and the mutual aid society he had founded just months earlier, the American G.I. Forum, into the national civil rights arena. It also provided Lyndon Baines Johnson greater national exposure than he had ever received to that date. It further divided an already fractured Texas Democratic Party that ruled the state. It forced Anglos in the Longoria controversy corridor, the Nueces Strip, the state, and the entire Southwest to reassess their attitudes and actions toward Mexican Americans. And it strained relations between the U.S. and Mexican governments. Aside from these immediate consequences, the processes involved in the Longoria dispute held more far-ranging significances, ones that crossed temporal planes from the past to the present to the future. The “hows” of the Longoria affair, the processes that made this example of discrimination stand out in 1949, are the same ones at play today. They explained how relations between Tejanos and Texans operated within the Longoria corridor in 1949. Therein lies the greatest significance of this event: the insights it provides about our past, present, and future experience in this and like settings. In order to examine the above issues and events, we have addressed two related sets of historical subjects. The first three chapters deal with the places, times, events, and actors in the Longoria drama. This level of analysis takes into account the “whats,” “whens,” and “whys” of the incident. The second set of themes deals more with “how” all this took place, the dynamic that gave this incident meaning and significance. Chapter 4 approaches these processes from a micro Longoria-controversy-corridor perspective: the actions, attitudes, and motivations of the Three Rivers and Corpus Christi Mexican American and Anglo communities. Chapter 5 examines the processes driving the dispute from a macro perspective, the state, national, and international interest groups involved. The last chapter focuses on Felix’s burial ceremony and the emotive forces at work. The conclusion attempts to more clearly identify and explain the processes that drove the dispute and determined its overall significance. Prejudice never quite seems to go away; quite the contrary. At certain times, when it appears to have been laid to rest, it reappears with

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infuriating and discouraging prominence. We in the United States look on the 1920s as an age of national immaturity insofar as social relations were concerned, a time of discrimination against women, ethnic groups, immigrants, blacks, and Orientals. Two generations later we viewed the 1960s as a time when great strides were made in attaining the so-called brotherhood of man. By the 1970s we were congratulating ourselves for having laid the inequalities of the past to rest. Afro-Americans had become sheriffs and mayors in Southern communities. Northern cities like Detroit, Chicago, and Cleveland had elected highranking black officials. Throughout the nation schools had become integrated. And women’s groups appeared on the verge of pushing a women’s equal rights amendment to the Constitution through state legislatures. We now realize that these accomplishments and near accomplishments fell far short of their goal to eliminate prejudices. The Felix Longoria controversy, which unfolded in between these two periods, describes one case of prejudice in a particular setting. The incident demonstrates both the resilience of discrimination and opposition to it. This dispute provides clear examples of the operation and effects of prejudice because the circumstances under which the conflict over Felix Longoria’s wake took place were “fearfully and wonderfully made.”

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CHAPTER ONE

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WORKING AND

E D U C AT I O N A L

CONDITIONS IN THE

NUECES STRIP

did not occur in a vacuum. It was the product of a particular setting in time and place. The controversy centered at two levels, the broader of which was the “Nueces Strip and South Texas.” The Strip was the historically disputed land between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande that precipitated the Mexican-American War of 1846 –1848. Its northern outline roughly corresponded to an imaginary line that ran from about Del Rio in the west to Corpus Christi in the east, and everywhere below to the Rio Grande border with Mexico.1 The second level was the narrower upper reaches of South Texas that corresponded to the eastern quarter of the Nueces River valley, a zone running along an axis stretching from the town of Three Rivers to the city of Corpus Christi. I refer to this subzone between the two towns as the “Longoria corridor” because this is where the dispute began. These macro- and microregions went through a THE LONGORIA INCIDENT

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great deal of change during the first half of the twentieth century, and the resulting economic and political developments that varied in intensity and depth from site to site within the region and the zone had real import for relations between the Mexican and non-Mexicandescended populations that inhabited them. The 1949 controversy surrounding the wake of Felix Longoria, a Mexican American World War II hero, was, at least in part, a consequence of these structural changes. As later stated by Frank Oltorf, an early political ally of Lyndon Johnson who, like Johnson, eventually became embroiled in the affair, this incident “could only happen in South Texas at that time.” 2 The Nueces Strip had a unique ambience that distinguished it from the remainder of the state by midcentury. A combination of demographic, economic, and social characteristics had evolved that together contributed to the formation of a highly stratified and segregated social system. South Texas emerged as a growing agricultural and petrochemical producing area during the two generations preceding World War II. The war accelerated these economic trends. Culturally, the region represented, and still represents, a borderland linking Mexico to the North American Southwest. It physically and culturally straddles both countries and both peoples. During the colonial period, the territory of Texas served as an outpost for the Spanish empire. Sparse rainfall and hostile Indians discouraged potential agriculturalists, and the absence of precious minerals turned more adventurous settlers away from the region. Livestock raising proved the only economically viable endeavor for those few from central Mexico who ventured into the province. For all of these reasons, permanent Hispanic settlement did not take hold until the eighteenth century, and even then the sites were relatively small and scattered.3 This trend worried imperial officials because they relied on Texas residents both to guard the frontier land approaches to Mexico’s northern mining region and to supply those mining communities with livestock and hides.4 In an effort to achieve those two goals the Spanish government took a calculated risk. During the 1820s it enticed foreign immigrants, mostly from the southern United States, into the region with liberal land grants. Spain hoped that in a short time these newcomers would embrace Spanish culture and rule, and that their allegiance would then secure Mexico’s exposed northern political boundary and bring prosperity through trade with the mining towns southwest of the province. The strategy backfired. U.S. nationals poured into

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Texas in ever increasing numbers from 1821 onward. By the end of the decade they probably outnumbered Hispanic immigrants coming from Mexico. Initially, relationships between the two groups were relatively egalitarian. Part of the reason lay in their respective concentration in separate sectors within the province. Most of the non-Mexican immigrants established themselves in the northern half of Texas well above the Nueces River basin.5 Tejanos called these outsiders “gringos,” or “Anglos,” the latter because most of them came from the United States or from parts of Great Britain (England, Ireland, and Scotland).6 They kept to themselves and did not assimilate well into Hispanic culture. Just as alarmingly, they displayed a desire for political autonomy. The land below the Nueces River was home to most of the province’s Hispanic population. The few Anglos who settled there mingled with the Mexican residents and adapted to the region’s existing ranching culture. In this setting everyone, regardless of ethnicity (culture), competed for the same water, wild cattle, and labor. Initially, the Spanish imperial design met with some success in this lower half of the province.7 The relatively peaceful coexistence among Anglos in the north, Hispanics in the south, and the Mexican government in Mexico City and in Coahuila disintegrated under the force of events that transpired between 1836 and 1848. Texas rose up against rule from Mexico, and the relative power statuses of the two settler populations began to reverse. Anglo immigrants started to supplant Tejanos as the dominant political, economic, and social group within the new Republic. Eventually, the once proud and independent Texas Mexicanos were transformed into what Rodolfo Acuña has called “conquered” and “colonized” people.8 This trend began in the northern half of Texas and gradually spread southward as the nineteenth century wore on. Texas’ 1836 war for independence both reflected and effected the change in relations between Mexicans and Anglos in Texas. During and after the struggle Mexican residents of the Nueces Strip began to identify themselves more as border people. They considered themselves Mexicans and Tejanos.9 Anglos in the northern half of the province, too, considered themselves transborder peoples—Americans and Texans. Further, both groups increasingly viewed themselves as distinct from one another. As the Mexican-American War ran its course this sense of otherness sharpened and made relations between the two populations more antagonistic.10 Anglos generally supported the break

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with Mexico; Mexican-descended residents either opposed it or assumed a more neutral stance. Paul Lack presents convincing evidence of this split. As he has observed, “Military participation provides the surest way to measure the strength of genuine advocacy for the Revolution and thus identify the areas of likely Tory sentiment, where volunteering was the weakest.” 11 Broad-based support for the uprising came from all regions of the province, save one, South Texas. Combined, the heavily Hispanic towns lying within the Guadalupe, San Antonio, and Nueces river valleys contributed just fifty-odd men to the forces poised to strike for Texas independence in the fall of 1835.12 Put simply, southern Tejanos did not and northern Anglos did strongly support the Texas revolt.13 During and after the independence movement Anglo discourse about persons of Mexican descent became ever more racist, piling still more animosity onto a growing spirit of alienation between the two groups. In the spring of 1836, Stephen F. Austin, in an attempt to rally U.S. public support for the Texas revolt, described the contest as a conflict of “barbarism and of despotic principles, waged by the mongrel Spanish-Indian and Negro race, against civilization and the AngloAmerican race.” 14 Such attitudes only deepened divisions between the two populations. In 1844, when the United States decided to annex Texas, and the Mexican-American War ensued (1846 –1848), Tejanos’ position vis-àvis Anglos rapidly deteriorated. In the aftermath of the conflict disputes over land, water, and labor between the two groups intensified even in South Texas. U.S. annexation of the new Republic gave Anglos de facto legal advantage in their competition for these material and human resources.15 It also gave them easier access to U.S. sources of capital and credit. As the new territory began to integrate into the U.S. marketplace, its ranchers became increasingly exposed to the vagaries of the “booms” and “busts” of the larger economy. Mexican landowners in South Texas, in comparison to their northern Anglo counterparts, were generally shorter on the liquid capital necessary to invest in property improvements or to endure the vicissitudes of rapidly changing environmental and economic conditions. These cash flow problems often created economic crises for them, and some had to sell off their land under financial duress. If Tejanos were too reluctant to make such painful decisions, Anglo authorities and creditors often forced these choices through physical intimidation and the enforce-

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ment of court-ordered “sheriff” sales for tax arrearages, debt collections, and mortgage foreclosures. Drought and other natural disasters also added their weight to the economic burdens Mexican property owners bore during the second half of the nineteenth century.16 True, in many ways this emerging setting drastically conflicted with the intent of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which secured the deeds of ownership and guaranteed titles of the original Spanish land grants by writ of the U.S. and Mexican agreement.17 Repeated violations of the treaty resulted in displacement of Tejano landowners, eventually disenfranchising the Mexican American population both economically and politically. In this fast-paced period of change in South Texas, treaty rights took a backseat to might, and Anglos pushed their advantage over the region’s Tejano population. Annexation and the subsequent loss of economic and political leverage had real social consequences as well. These changes produced a virulent climate of prejudice against Mexican Americans.18 U.S. victory in the Mexican-American War had relegated Tejanos to the rank of second-class citizenship, while Anglos emerged as a conquering people. In practice, once Texas severed political ties with Mexico, Tejanos lost their sovereignty. They forfeited their basic rights, in Anglos’ minds, by virtue of their Mexican heritage. In spite of Tejanos’ long-held connection to this now North American territory, Anglos came to regard them as aliens from 1848 onward. A new social order emerged, and Tejanos were pushed toward its bottom-status rungs. As the century progressed, land in South Texas steadily passed from Mexican American to Anglo hands. The consequent economic losses for the Mexican American population proved devastating. Contests for land and power became ever more lopsided in favor of Texans, forcing Tejanos, out of frustration, to try hostile rather than peaceful means to protect their interests.19 Perhaps the most famous of the nineteenthcentury conflicts within the Nueces Strip was the Cortina War. Juan Cortina, head of a prominent Mexican American family in the lower Rio Grande Valley, led armed resistance against Anglo mistreatment of Tejanos. In the early morning hours of September 28, 1859, Cortina and seventy-five armed followers rode into Brownsville. He and his men shot up the town, killing several residents. All but one of the victims were Anglos. The following morning prominent Hispanics from both sides of the border persuaded Cortina to withdraw from the city. He and his expanded number of followers then made their way nine miles

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up the Rio Grande to his mother’s ranch. From there they held Texas Rangers at bay for months, fighting skirmishes and issuing proclamations against Anglo usurpation of Mexican American lands and other offenses against Hispanics. Fighting dragged on until the end of the year. On December 5, U.S. troops finally marched into Brownsville, giving Anglo forces an upper hand in the struggle.20 Shortly thereafter, Cortina fled across the border into Mexico. From bases in Tamaulipas and in Nuevo León, he continued to conduct raids on Rio Grande Valley ranches and settlements on the U.S. side of the river for the next two decades.21 Indian depredations and bandit attacks that occurred soon afterwards actually may have improved Anglo–Mexican American relations for a short time. They represented a common danger for both groups, encouraging them to band together for mutual defense. These threats escalated during the Civil War. The national conflict drained South Texas of some of its law enforcement resources, leaving the area more vulnerable to renegade and outlaw incursions. Over half a century later, when Paul Taylor interviewed residents of Nueces County (in the early 1930s), old-timers remembered the cooperation that the threat of attack had brought. Anglo and Tejano respondents alike described the 1861–1880 era as a time when relations between the two groups got better. All agreed that the necessity for common defense played an important role in bringing about a reduction in Anglo-Tejano conflict.22 As Anthony Smith points out, this was not at all surprising, since military crisis often forces solidarity between competing groups.23 By at least the 1880s Indian raids began to taper off. General Philip Sheridan laid the groundwork for the respite by assigning fifty thousand troops to the border region in 1865. Their deployment was meant as a show of force against continued French military support for Emperor Maximilian de Hapsburg’s rule in Mexico. The presence of U.S. troops along the American side of the Rio Grande had a quieting effect on South Texas. They quelled the last vestiges of Confederate power and discouraged cross-border Indian and bandit attacks. Sheridan even went so far as to at least tacitly approve several punitive incursions into Mexican territory to strike marauder bases. A decade later the new dictator of Mexico, General Porfirio Díaz, began to apply his own military pressure on the border raiders. Trapped, off and on, between two hostile forces, outlaw groups either got wiped out, disbanded, or moved to less hostile environments. Indian resistance also withered. Eventu-

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ally, the tolls of combat, forced marches, starvation, and disease so weakened renegade indigenous bands that some died off, others retreated westward into even more arid and sparsely settled parts of Texas and northern Mexico, and the rest reluctantly accepted reservation life on the U.S. side of the border.24 Unfortunately, as outside attacks abated, internal disputes rose between Tejanos and Texans. After 1880, the old antagonisms resurfaced as strong as ever. Indeed, by the turn of the century resistance to Anglo discrimination had become an ingrained part of Tejano culture in the Nueces Strip, what a native son, José Limón, has described as “socially produced . . . and relatively unconscious ideological responses . . . to a history of race and class domination.” 25 Walter Mignolo goes a step further and argues that sustained confrontation in a conquest/colonization context like the one that developed in South Texas led to something he calls “Border Thinking,” or dialectically held worldviews by subaltern Mexican Americans and supraordinate Anglos. In other words, each group’s historical position within this type of setting dictated diametrically opposed perspectives on their shared environment. The end result of Border Thinking, according to Mignolo, was “an energy and a machinery to transform differences [between Chicanos and Anglos] into values.” 26 These values, in turn, created a climate of prejudice and hostility.27 In the face of a combination of stepped-up competition with Anglos and mounting Anglo prejudice against them, Mexican Americans became more assertive in defense of their rights. Armed conflict against these trends was not the only thing they tried. Tejanos also pursued peaceful strategies in seeking justice and opportunity within their now-U.S.-controlled homeland. This contributed to the birth of the twentieth-century South Texas– centered Mexican American civil rights movement. Arnoldo De León identified several conditions that facilitated Mexican American civil rights activities in the Nueces Strip at the turn of the century. First, De León points out that by 1900, the majority of the growing Mexican American population had been born in South Texas. This meant that they had already made a number of accommodations to the evolving culture of the region, making them better equipped to resist discrimination within the system.28 One would have thought that an increase in their numbers would have provided them with added leverage in this struggle. That was not the case. The reason for

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this apparent anomaly lay in the nature of Mexican American population growth after 1910. From 1880 to 1910, the number of Mexican-descended inhabitants in Texas grew from about 71,000 to nearly 280,000. Most importantly, nearly half (46 percent) of all Tejanos were concentrated in the otherwise lightly populated South Texas region.29 Natural increase undoubtedly accounted for some of the rise in the state’s Hispanic community during this period, but poor living conditions and high infant mortality rates considerably blunted this type of growth. The main reason for the spectacular increase in the size of the Tejano community lay in immigration from Mexico. Under Porfirio Díaz large commercial agricultural estates in central Mexico grew at the expense of near-subsistence-level small communal ejido plots. In the north, large open ranges and the wild cattle that roamed them were fenced in with barbed wire. Estate owners branded their now pent-up herds to validate their claim to them.30 This spelled an end to the independent vaquero. These former hunters of loose cattle now became either rustlers or hired ranch hands. Mexico’s dictator during all but four years of the 1876 –1910 period supported such developments in the hope of increasing agricultural production levels. This displaced rural peasants and livestock men. A certain percentage of these groups made their way north in ever increasing numbers from at least 1890 onward.31 Early-twentieth-century expansion of South Texas’ oil and agribusiness industries also created economic opportunities that drew Mexican nationals across the border and into Texas, an attraction that Anglos who controlled these industries vigorously promoted.32 These classic push/pull economic immigration dynamics, coupled with the relatively low cost of the journey across the border in terms of money, time, and risk, created favorable conditions for the increased flow of people from northern Mexico to South Texas. In 1910, an even more powerful incentive exploded on the scene. Revolution on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande broke out and raged sporadically for the next twenty years. An estimated one million Mexicans died in the fighting, and the property damage was widespread.33 Combat and severe socioeconomic dislocation drove tens of thousands of refugees northward into the United States. The family of Dr. Héctor García, an individual who played a pivotal role in the Longoria affair, joined those who fled the carnage. The Garcías crossed over into Texas in 1917.34 They added to totals for Mexican-born individuals within

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the state, which rose from about 52,000 in 1890, to just over 70,000 in 1900, to an estimated 125,000 in 1910.35 During each of the next two decades the number of Mexican nationals residing in Texas more than doubled, reaching 688,681 by 1930.36 What makes these figures all the more remarkable is the fact that they probably understate the actual size of the state’s Mexican national population. More often than not these new arrivals lived transient lives, following their work wherever it led them. This made it difficult to count them, and many went unrecorded in the census tracts.37 Their real totals were undoubtedly much higher. Varying degrees of economic hardship during the 1930s added uneven inducement for Mexican citizens to migrate northward.38 The incoming volume ebbed and flowed in response to varying levels of economic opportunity on both sides of the border. With the approach of World War II, the U.S. economy revived, providing more consistent encouragement for Mexican migration into South Texas from 1940 onward.39 This wave of immigration into the region swelled even more after the United States negotiated a guest worker program with Mexico. Due to a regional labor shortage and an increased demand for cattle, cotton, and oil during World War II, Mexican nationals were invited to work in the United States. This bracero program, codified in a 1942 treaty, supplied needed agricultural laborers for the Nueces Strip.40 Under the bracero agreement, Mexican nationals obtained work permits or simply walked across the border. No one interfered with them because of the pressing U.S. need for farm and ranch hands. The heavy flow of Mexican nationals into the Southwest from 1910 onward had a significant impact on the size of South Texas’ Hispanic population.41 Nearly a million Mexicans migrated to the U.S. Southwest between 1942 and 1948, with Southern California and Texas absorbing most of the inflow.42 The presence of so many new Hispanics had a dramatic effect on the status of Tejanos in South Texas. Lines between Mexicans and Mexican Americans blurred in Anglos’ eyes.43 Hispanic newcomers commonly settled in Mexican American neighborhoods, where they were often welcomed as grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, and nephews because many of the new arrivals came from the same towns and villages to which Tejanos traced their family origins. The presence of these immigrants reinforced traditional Mexican customs persisting within the Nueces Strip. Anglos began to view all persons of Mexican descent as recent immigrants and themselves as natives.

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For their part, Tejanos viewed Mexicanos streaming across the border with ambivalence. They shared the same language and national origins, and in many cases they were even kin. Cultural and familial ties encouraged Tejano support for and identification with the immigrants. At the same time, these newcomers represented competition for the expanding economic opportunities within the state. They drove wages down, especially at the lower end of the pay scale, where Mexican Americans dominated. They also depressed working conditions. Willing to perform almost any task anytime and anywhere, they reduced employers’ incentives to raise wages, improve working conditions, and provide job security.44 Indeed, local ranchers and growers publicly expressed a preference for hiring Mexican nationals over Mexican Americans because the “wetbacks,” as they called the immigrants, “don’t live on hardly anything . . . , they ask for less, . . . and they work cheaper.” 45 Often impoverished, the braceros eagerly accepted the low wages and substandard living conditions offered in the United States because they were still better than those they found in their homeland. As these Mexican nationals made their way across the border, South Texas’ unskilled labor pool overflowed. Growers set wages low and provided poor living conditions. Mexicanos and Tejanos had little choice but to accept them. The seemingly endless supply of cheap and pliable immigrant workers undercut the bargaining position of all laborers, and an ethnically based split labor market emerged. South Texas’ wages were much lower than those in the rest of the state; they fell even lower for Hispanics living within the region.46 Nueces Strip Tejanos worked in what economists call a “secondary” labor market, defined by substandard wages and working conditions, along with little or no job security. Anglos, in contrast, occupied a “primary” labor market, earning higher wages, enjoying better working conditions, and receiving more job security.47 The combination of depressed wages, poor working conditions, and little job security in the Strip forced an added hardship on its Tejano population. They became part of an annual migratory work cycle that led farmhands from South Texas, where they earned twenty-five cents an hour in the fields, to other parts of the country like California and the upper West Coast, where they could earn three times as much. These near-nomadic workers then followed the seasonal harvests across the United States until winter forced them to return to their South Texas homes. Migratory agricultural workers trucked their families to wherever they could find work. The constant travel subjected

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these people to extreme hardship, and their transient lifestyle often denied their children educational opportunities. Mothers, fathers, children, the young, the old, and the invalid suffered the hardships of constant moves on shoestring budgets. They endured housing that was temporary at best, and the strain of relocating four to five times a year.48 All workers suffered under these conditions, Mexican American workers and braceros alike. For their part, Anglo producers throughout the United States became highly dependent upon this cheap, transient source of pickers to ensure their edge in the increasingly more competitive agricultural marketplace. Changing demographic and economic conditions made Tejanos’ lot in the Nueces Strip more difficult during the first half of the twentieth century. David Montejano placed the blame for these inequities squarely on the economy itself. New Anglos from the Midwest began to move into South Texas during the first quarter of the twentieth century. They brought with them a new vision for economic development. It was based on commercial capitalism. This new economic order would alter the more codependent relationship between employer and employee in the region’s traditional ranching culture. Commercial capitalism would depersonalize this tie and make it more driven by purely economic forces. Workers on the new farm units would become less sedentary, less tied to one estate and one employer, undercutting the socially grounded aspects of the relationships they had with their Anglo bosses. As a consequence, class conflict replaced socioeconomic negotiation in shaping interaction between workers and employers during the remaining three decades leading up to the Longoria controversy. This development was ultimately the result of South Texas’ transformation from a cattle to a commercial capitalist economic culture during those decades. And the penetration of this new culture had followed the migratory path of its Midwest proponents from north to south, making the upper reaches of South Texas along the Nueces River basin between Three Rivers and Corpus Christi one of the first zones to feel its influence. By 1949 these were also the sites where this harsher, economically defined workplace environment was most entrenched.49 One did not have to look hard to encounter prejudicial Anglo attitudes toward Tejanos in the workplace. Prejudice lay close to the surface, and Anglos did not seem reticent about expressing it. During the early 1960s Walter Fogel conducted interviews with a number of South Texas Anglos. When he asked respondents what they thought about

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Tejano laborers, they unabashedly declared that Mexican Americans lacked the capability for higher-level functioning in the workplace. They were suitable for nothing but manual labor.50 The waves of unskilled Mexican immigrants that poured into the region throughout the first half of the twentieth century reinforced such stereotypes. Because the newcomers entered and helped to sustain secondary workplace conditions, Anglos perceived them as inherently inferior and legally unequal to Anglo workers. Anglos easily transferred these discriminatory attitudes from Mexican nationals to Mexican Americans. This process handicapped both groups in their quest for upward economic mobility.51 In 1949, racial discrimination abounded in South Texas. It existed in most facets of everyday life. Mexican Americans and Mexican nationals remained virtually ghettoized within the region. Set apart from Anglo society in rural labor camps and urban barrios (neighborhoods), they lost basic human rights. Anglos employed a variety of strategies to accomplish this segregation and subordination. Some involved legal restrictions on Hispanic residential mobility. Sale titles for residential subdivisions like Air Port Park in Corpus Christi provide good examples of this type of control. They commonly employed language such as that quoted below: No lot or part of a lot in said addition shall at any time be occupied by or used by any person except those of the Caucasian race, except that the covenant shall not prevent the occupancy by domestic servants of a different race or nationality employed by an owner or tenant. This provision shall be construed as excluding from occupancy in said sub-division Mexicans, Latin-Americans, Negroes, and people of the yellow race.52 Cecil Burney, born to a poor white South Texas family, and a friend of Lyndon B. Johnson, recalled: In South Texas a Mexican-American was a “hand” . . . he couldn’t go to the same schools I went to. . . . As late as 1938 when I built those housing projects in Corpus Christi, the United States government approved grants for three projects, one was for what they called “whites,” one they called “Mexicans,” and one they called “Negro.” 53

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Physical segregation, on the other hand, was only a small part of Tejanos’ subaltern status. As Paul Wright concluded from his study of Alpine and Fort Davis, Texas, “the subordination of Mexicans did not flow from residential discrimination, but rather the reverse.” 54 Three Rivers, Felix Longoria’s hometown, and the place where the controversy over his wake began, provides an illustrative microcosmic glimpse of the relationship between prejudice and ghettoization in operation. Located seventy-odd miles northwest of Corpus Christi, it lay at one end of the Longoria corridor, in the upper southeastern sector of the Nueces Strip. Even its physical layout emanated racism, a feature that supports Wright’s observation. At its inception, town founders fashioned it into a place where ethnicity reinforced racial constructions of identity. And identity, in turn, determined opportunity. Three Rivers’ town plan, drawn up in the early part of the twentieth century, did not cause Anglo preeminence, it reflected and supported it. The master plan made provisions for an Anglo neighborhood and a segregated Mexican American neighborhood which everyone simply called “Mexican Town.” 55 The town’s founder, Charles R. Tipps, was a twenty-year-old land developer from Seguin. He had migrated to the Nueces River basin in March 1913 looking for investment opportunities. Functioning as an “impresario,” he proceeded to promote the sale of land resources.56 Like Moses Austin, the first United States land speculator granted settlement rights in Texas from the Mexican government, Tipps entered an area already inhabited by Hispanic settlers and laid the foundation for a new and even more racially and ethnically charged socioeconomic order that enjoyed legal and social sanction. Reflecting the long-standing climate of Texan-Tejano conflict within the zone, Tipps physically shaped the new town into two polarized subcommunities. “Some of my ancestors had been colonists in Stephen F. Austin’s original colonies in Texas and had fought in the Battle of San Jacinto,” 57 he once said. In his mind this gave him the right to draw a color and cultural line in the soil itself while laying out the new community. He ran this division along the San Antonio, Uvalde, and Gulf Railroad tracks. On one side of the line white Anglos would live; on the other side brown Mexicans would live. He gave streets in the Anglo zone Anglo titles. Some roads he named after himself, his family members, and his business associates. On the other side of the tracks he gave the streets Spanish names. Guadalupe and Seguin Streets represented the county and town of Tipps’ birth. Longoria and

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Trejo were Hispanic residents of the area with whom Tipps had associated.58 He called his new settlement Three Rivers for the Atascosa, Frio, and Nueces waters that ran through the site.59 The very English translations of these river names, “obstruction,” “cold,” and “nuts,” respectively, suggested a likely environment for disharmony like that displayed in the Longoria controversy thirty-odd years after the town’s founding. Tipps added economic distinctions to the racial and ethnic divisions of the town. Lots on the Hispanic side of the tracks sold for less than those on the Anglo side of the tracks. In addition, he placed the town’s business core in the Anglo sector.60 From the beginning, Three Rivers was a place where considerations of race, ethnicity, economic class, and spatial distribution went hand in hand. These intersections helped to promote and to maintain a local culture of Anglo control over Mexican Americans. In South Texas towns like Three Rivers, as was the case in West Texas towns like Alpine and Fort Davis, the juncture of racially and ethnically based residential segregation correlated with uneven economic class status.61 Segregation and uneven economic opportunity combined with sociopolitical prejudices to empower Anglos over Hispanics. Guadalupe Longoria, the father of Private Felix Longoria, played a vital role in the founding of Three Rivers. He had deep roots in the region. According to his daughter, Carolina, her father descended from one of the original Tejano families that settled South Texas during the early eighteenth century.62 A pamphlet to commemorate Three Rivers’ fiftieth anniversary described the Longorias as among the “families who helped clear the townsite and have stayed on to become permanent residents.” 63 Guadalupe moved his household to Three Rivers soon after Charles Tipps began dividing the land for development. He was a carpenter and ran a small fence-building business. This craftsman helped to construct many of the homes and buildings that sprang up in the new community. Due to his tradesman-contractor status Guadalupe enjoyed the respect of both the town’s Anglo and Mexican American residents. A reliable businessman who spoke Spanish and English, he had the necessary skills to function as an intermediary between the two groups. In addition to hiring him for construction projects, Anglo businessmen depended on Guadalupe to recruit laborers from the Mexican American population, and Mexican American workers counted on him to

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find them work with Anglo employers.64 In these intermediary capacities Guadalupe Longoria and his family enjoyed more socioeconomic status than most of their Hispanic neighbors. To Anglo employers and politicians the Longorias represented the first among unequal Tejano families in Three Rivers. Guadalupe’s four young sons, Guadalupe, Jr., Alberto, Arturo, and Felix, learned fence building by working alongside their father, but employment opportunities for the Longorias fluctuated in Three Rivers. They had plenty of work during the first decade after the town’s founding, but by the mid-1920s job prospects were scarce as the Great Depression approached. In the lean years between about 1924 and 1940,65 Guadalupe had trouble finding enough work for himself and his sons, let alone for his neighbors. Nonetheless, he retained the trust and esteem of both factions of the community. “Lupe Longoria and the entire family [were] very much respected by everyone in town.” He was the acknowledged leader of Three Rivers’ Mexican Town, both “in advice and politics.” 66 In 1929, Three Rivers’ Anglo civic leaders approached Guadalupe with a job offer, work he needed. As they explained: The cemetery was getting too crowded and they would suggest or encourage the Mexican people to put up their own cemetery. About that time due to these encouragements or suggestions the Mexican people bought the adjacent lots to the old main cemetery and ever since then all of the Mexican people have been buried in this cemetery and all of the Anglos in the Old Cemetery.67 Even though a private association operated Three Rivers’ graveyard, Anglo public officials arranged and paid for its division because their Anglo constituents wanted it. To accomplish this end they hired Guadalupe Longoria to construct a fence and split the cemetery into Anglo and “Mexican” sections. This, they said, would allow for the burial grounds’ “orderly” expansion.68 From that point onward the fence that the Longoria men built for Three Rivers’ Anglo town leaders would legally separate the settlement’s residents in death as surely as Charles Tipps’ town layout did in life. The resulting burial “arrangement” helped to disempower Mexican Americans and to create a climate that would make an event like the Longoria incident inevitable. Felix Longoria was a five-year-old

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child in 1929, too young to understand the significance of these dividing lines. Twenty years later the dispute following his own death and his wake would attract far more attention than his birth and his childhood, because it brought the deep-seated racism and ethnocentrism fostered by and reflected in these physical divisions to the attention of the nation. The conflict over his wake would throw into question all the prejudicial attitudes that had evolved in the region during the previous hundred years and justified Anglos’ control over Tejanos.69 It would force those on both sides of the “tracks,” and, who knows, perhaps those lying on both sides of the cemetery fence as well, to reflect on the meaning of this segregated and unequal environment. David Montejano emphasizes the underlying economic causes of this South Texas ambience. “The design of segregationist policies in the farm counties, from educational programs to residential codes, drew its force from the need to regulate and maintain a reservoir of cheap Mexican labor.” 70 Montejano is right. Other scholars acknowledge the importance of economic factors in shaping Anglo-Tejano relations within the Nueces Strip but ascribe them to a broader set of causative factors. Walter Fogel suggests that a growing sense of Mexicanidad within the Tejano community itself also played an important role.71 Infusion of Mexican immigrants brought with it a revival of Mexican culture within South Texas. Anglos viewed this re-Mexicanization of the Tejano population suspiciously, as un-American. Mexican Americans appeared to be moving culturally from hyphenated Americans back to Mexicans instead of on to Americans (Anglo). Anglos felt threatened by this pattern, and this threat further antagonized Mexican American–Anglo relations. Anglos began to reconstruct their image of Tejanos. They, like the Mexican nationals among them, were not really Americans at all; they were all immigrants. This new identification of all Hispanics allowed Texans to apply a nativist validation for their subordination of “Mexicans.” In this light, desiring their labor, on the one hand, would not be inconsistent with fearing their cultural penetration, on the other hand. These workers provided clear economic benefits, but their ethnic otherness presented a danger to Anglo cultural dominance of the region. “Mexicans” were not following the traditional pattern of cultural homogenization that Anglos perceived their own forebears had followed in the United States. Tejanos/Mexicans were not assimilating.72 They had not relinquished their use of Spanish for English. They dressed differently. They

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ate differently. They listened to different music, played different games. And they worshiped differently. Mexican new arrivals were strengthening all of these distinctions. As the first half of the twentieth century drew to a close, Anglos had begun thinking of Mexican Americans as more, instead of less, alien to the “American” way of life in the Strip. Anglos stopped bothering to distinguish foreign from native Hispanics. Instead, they called all individuals of Hispanic origin “Mexicans.” 73 Anglos could now justify discrimination against all Hispanics on the basis of their newly acquired “immigrant” identity. Linguistically, Tejanos necessarily adjusted to their changing surroundings and learned some English when the new tongue displaced Spanish as the language of commerce in South Texas by the late nineteenth century.74 Some have interpreted this as part of an assimilationist cultural process, an attempt on the part of Mexican Americans from as early as 1848 onward to integrate into a newly emerging Anglo economic and political elite.75 The fact that the group retained Spanish as well suggests a more accommodative process. The inflow of Mexican nationals into the state during the first half of the twentieth century only reinforced Tejanos’ bipolar linguistic identity. Now they were surrounded by two linguistic influences. Their resulting bilingualism heightened Tejanos’ distinctiveness from Mexicans and Anglos alike.76 English became their linguistic tool of survival, Spanish remained the lengua materna that bound them together. Out of their bilingualism Mexican Americans even managed to develop a third dialect, “Tex-Mex.” 77 It was part Spanish and part English. This hybrid language incorporated vocabulary, morphology, and syntax from both languages when code-switching between the two.78 These linguistic patterns in Tejano speech reflect their culturally intermediate position.79 Their language adjustments underscored both their difficulties and effectiveness in coping with the complex organic nature of the culturally pluralistic environment in the Strip resulting from the area’s rapidly changing twentieth-century socioeconomic setting.80 On the one hand, the evolution of Tex-Mex represents a proactive Mexican American language accommodation that facilitated communication between Anglos and Tejanos within the region. Conversely, Tex-Mex represents what José Limón sees as a more reactive language acquisitional process resulting from public schools in South Texas not teaching Tejano pupils “middle-class English skills,” yet providing them with enough English instruction “to contribute to the gradual dis-

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placement of the Spanish they knew as children.” 81 Regardless of the nature of the process involved in the evolution of Tex-Mex, the linguistic product has yielded a number of important results. Within the Tejano community Tex-Mex contributed to what Limón describes as a historical “depthlessness as Mexicanos” and an “ethnic decentering,” as Tejanos who spoke Tex-Mex encountered some difficulty in communicating with Spanish- and English-only speakers.82 Moreover, in their relationships with the Anglo community, Tejanos who spoke Tex-Mex found that this new intermediary idiom reinforced negative attitudes among many Anglos toward Tejanos. It is not uncommon to hear Anglos degrade area “Mexicans” who use Tex-Mex for their inability to correctly speak English or Spanish. In all these results TexMex contributed to the uniqueness of the region’s Mexican American community. Value ascribed to family and the land represented an additional defining characteristic of post–World War II Mexican American culture in South Texas. In spite of Anglo usurpation of their farms and ranches, Tejanos retained a strong connection to this site of their origins, the land of their antepasados. Some South Texas Hispanics perceived themselves as descendants of the earliest inhabitants of this extensive region, claiming connections to the zone’s colonial Spanish settlers and pre-Columbian Indians.83 Tejanos did not consider land a commodity as later-arriving Anglo settlers did. According to David Montejano, the land represented a form of ancestral birthright” for Mexicanos.84 Their attachment to the land was one of the things that set them apart from the Anglos around them. Their commitment to family was another of their defining cultural characteristics. A set of fictive kin relationships worked to expand blood ties into community bonds and manifested themselves in such religious rituals as infant baptism. Nonfamily members pledged to act as coparents with biological mothers and fathers of these children, a commitment that brought with it membership in the child’s family circle.85 Through such Catholic rituals and family values Tejanos maintained cohesion within their socially and economically evolving Nueces Strip environment. Most Mexican Americans in South Texas clung to their religious roots in 1949. La misa and the liturgies of the Church were celebrated in Latin just as they were in Mexico. Likewise, music forms like the regional style known as “Conjunto” emerged. The celebrative music-

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filled fiestas, often tied to religious rituals, served to cement relationships as well as to pass on traditions in the post–World War II era. These identifying ethnic traits had a more negative impact on Tejanos’ lives outside their own communities. Such markers of “Mexicanidad” also invited Anglo prejudice on the basis of Tejanos’ “otherness.” 86 For all the above reasons—war, violence, racism, ethnocentrism, nativism, and the ongoing competition for land, water, labor, and political power—South Texas, during the five or six generations leading up to the Longoria dispute, evolved into a hostile and polarized Anglo/Tejano setting.87 Everywhere within the Nueces Strip, settlements physically divided into two communities, American Town and Mexican Town, with separate school systems, American Schools and Mexican Ward Schools. Two labor markets offered separate economic opportunities: a primary Anglo labor market and a secondary Mexican American labor market. Anglos spoke English and adhered to Protestant religious beliefs. Tejanos spoke Spanish and practiced Catholicism. Anglos owned the land and employed Mexican American and Mexican national workers. Compounding Tejanos’ difficulties in such a setting, they found themselves straddling two cultures in the border region. Essentially displaced by the incursion of Anglo settlers who arrived in waves from 1820 onward, and waves of Mexican nationals that began crossing the Rio Grande in large numbers from about 1890 onward, Mexican Americans were sandwiched between both sets of newcomers. In this intermediate economic and cultural space Tejanos were buffeted by influences coming from the two other populations that occupied the Strip. This must have been an unsettling environment for them, one fraught with frustration over the loss of power and filled with anxiety from dealing with accelerated change. Not surprisingly, the stressed Tejano population sought security through solidarity in many of their evolving cultural beliefs that helped to set them apart from other groups in South Texas’ increasingly more complex setting. This defensive strategy had a negative effect on Anglos’ attitudes toward “Mexicans.” Tejanos and Mexican nationals appeared unintegratable to Texans. They were both alien to Texan culture and, by extension in Texans’ view, to U.S. culture. They were “un-American.” This indictment provided yet one more justification for Anglo discrimination against all persons of Mexican descent. Institutionalized segregation within the educational setting represented a glaring example of Anglo discrimination related to Mexican Americans’ commitment to their Mexicanidad.

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Walter Fogel pointed out that Three Rivers, like other towns in South Texas, had two distinct grammar schools— one for Anglos and one for Mexicans. The “American” school sat in the middle of the Anglo half of town. It possessed all the necessities one would expect in a school—indoor plumbing, electricity, central heat, a library, cafeteria, gym, and well-equipped playground. The Mexican Ward school had none of these necessities.88 It was a ramshackle wooden structure with no indoor running water or plumbing, and the surrounding area had no playground equipment. Jack Montgomery, mayor in 1949, admitted that Mexican American children suffered segregation in Three Rivers’ public schools. Yet, he saw nothing unusual in this. Jack thought the division normal for the times.89 The Mexican consul in Corpus Christi interpreted things differently. He bitterly complained about Three Rivers’ segregated school district, categorizing it as a class “A” form of legalized and institutionalized discrimination, the worst kind. “The Latin American School of Three Rivers kept by Mrs. Helena Wilson,” he reported, “. . . is a pitiful structure more than a block from the nearest house.” The consul added that in nearby George West, the county seat fifteen miles to the southeast, an even more virulent form of school segregation existed. There, construction was inadequate, and segregation was “openly known by the Principal, Mr. Hinton.” 90 Several factors contributed to Mexican Americans’ depressed educational opportunities in South Texas. The sheer force of their growing numbers and the prejudicial Anglo nativist reaction to the Mexican immigrant dimension of that growth limited Hispanics’ access to education. Instead of shouldering the added cost of the rising number of cheap workers’ children from both sides of the border, Anglos began to discourage Hispanic access to area schools. H. T. Manuel, an early advocate of Mexican American rights in the region, noted this trend in 1930. Even where facilities are technically available to all the white children of the community . . . a policy of antagonism on the part of the other white population (Anglos) too often means that actually the Mexican child has no school open to him.91 Language differences presented Anglo South Texas educators with a public justification for this inequitable dual school system. Spanish was most Hispanic students’ first language. English was the language

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of the curriculum and the language used by the teachers that implemented it. Local South Texas school districts did not have the personnel, means, or inclination to provide a bilingual classroom environment, and Tejano students did not have the language tools to function in an English classroom. To resolve the dilemma school officials opted for a dual educational system at the elementary level. Their argument was that segregating Hispanics would allow them time to acquire English-language skills in the early grades to successfully compete with Anglo students in the later grades. “Mexican Ward” schools and “American” schools in the Nueces Strip rested on this logic.92 Anglo educators and politicians publicly contented themselves with a justification claiming that the system best served the educational needs of Hispanic students.93 The fact that educational funding was not evenly divided between the two systems did not seem to bother Anglo school officials. A more candid and complete explanation for the emergence of this two-tiered educational environment would have to take into account stresses on local educational facilities from growing numbers of Mexican American and Mexican immigrant children, language differences, and sharpening race-, ethnicity-, and class-based antagonisms between the region’s Hispanic and Anglo populations. The new Mexican Ward grammar school environment certainly did provide a “special” learning environment for Tejanos, but it was not one that prepared them for high school. It trained them for dropping out of school and a career in the fields. Mexican Ward schools had fewer and inferior facilities. They also had less-trained and often lesscommitted teachers. The only thing they had more of than the “American” schools was elementary students. Dual school systems that operated in South Texas after the war served to decrease, rather than increase, Mexican American students’ educational opportunities.94 In Three Rivers, Ann Fair (Anne Blackmon in 1986), also known as Miss Blackie, taught in the Three Rivers Mexican Town School from 1929 until after World War II. She recalled that Hispanic children attended school on a six-month plan, while their Anglo counterparts remained in the classroom nine months out of the year.95 Vaughn Price, once the town’s postmistress, explained that economics played a large role in the maintenance of these uneven attendance patterns. “They [Mexican American students] had to go and pick cotton.” 96 They did not have the time to attend a full year of classes. Family economic need undoubtedly did play an important role in Tejano children’s abbrevi-

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ated school year. Other factors, however, had just as much to do with the problem. Anglo prejudices along the Longoria controversy corridor dictated a segregated educational structure. Yet, districts like Three Rivers simply did not have enough money to maintain two school systems in the 1940s. Combined, these factors translated to adequately funded Anglo American elementary schools and underfunded Mexican American Ward schools. Conscientious teachers like Miss Blackmon deplored the educational inequities suffered by Mexican Americans and pressed for improvement. She was an exceptional Anglo in this respect, but then again as a teacher in a Ward School she was personally affected by these imbalances. Miss Blackie remembered that “We had about the first through the seventh [grades] over there. And one year I had seventynine children in my room.” 97 The principal had come over and said, “Well, do you need anything?” and I said, “Yes, see that?” [She referred to the river next to the schoolhouse.] “Go back, and tell that superintendent that if he doesn’t do something pretty soon, there’s a teacher and seventy-nine kids that’ll be in that river.” We’d go jump in the river. How can you teach seventy-nine children? And, I told him, my sister was teaching in another room and she had sixty-two at that time.98 In April 1948, only nine months before the incident at Manon Rice’s funeral home in Three Rivers, Dr. Héctor Pérez García led a fact-finding committee to investigate allegations of inhumane living and working conditions, as well as uneven educational opportunities, in a number of towns to the west of Corpus Christi. The group accompanying Dr. García included several other prominent Hispanic civil rights leaders of the period. Future judge Héctor de la Peña and Alonso Perales, a San Antonio lawyer, author, and U.S. diplomat, were in the group. Louis Wilmot and Joe Garza, also prominent South Tejanos, rounded out the team. They traveled by car and took a camera along to record what they saw, and what they found shocked them.99 Dr. García remarked, “I have never seen such general disregard for the welfare and health of any people anywhere in Europe or Africa, even in wartime.” 100 Mexicano families suffered in abject poverty, residing in makeshift huts with dirt floors and no utilities. In contrast, chickens on some of these farms lived in relative luxury. The first labor camp they visited rested on the northwestern edge of

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“Man with T.B.,” Mathis Labor Camp 1. Courtesy of the Dr. Héctor P. García Papers, Special Collections and Archives, Mary and Jeff Bell Library, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi.

“General View of Camp 5,” Mathis Labor Camp 5. Courtesy of the Dr. Héctor P. García Papers, Special Collections and Archives, Mary and Jeff Bell Library, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi.

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“Man Cooking,” Mathis Labor Camp 2. Courtesy of the Dr. Héctor P. García Papers, Special Collections and Archives, Mary and Jeff Bell Library, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi.

Mathis, halfway between Three Rivers and Corpus Christi. Each of its dwellings provided woefully inadequate shelter for its resident Tejano workers. All the shacks lacked sufficient ventilation. None had screened doors, and all had corrugated tin roofs that transferred summer heat and winter cold into their interiors. The dwellings lacked running water, sewage, gas, and electricity. Residents drew water for drinking, bathing, cooking, and laundering from two nearby fire hydrants. Not surprisingly, camp residents suffered from a high incidence of environment-related maladies.101 In an especially appalling camp, which they found on the northwest fringe of Mathis, eleven of the thirty-plus children displayed symptoms of chronic health problems related to the camp’s squalid surroundings.102 Residents had to obtain water from neighboring farms at a price. Pools of foul-smelling drainage ran from the two outdoor privies

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“Women’s Toilet,” Mathis Labor Camp 3. Courtesy of the Dr. Héctor P. García Papers, Special Collections and Archives, Mary and Jeff Bell Library, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi.

serving the entire population. These areas made excellent breeding grounds for flies, rats, and other carriers of disease. In an attempt to drain the women’s privy, residents dug a runoff pit, but that did not help much. By the time the investigators arrived, it, too, had topped its banks. A third labor camp bordered the Missouri-Pacific Railroad tracks at the edge of town. It was the largest of the five sites that the committee toured and had 120 permanent residents divided up into twenty-one households. The last camp was also located alongside the MissouriPacific railroad tracks. A single hydrant supplied all the residents’ water needs. This site had the most distinctive housing, groups of one-

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“Women and Children,” Mathis Labor Camp 5. Courtesy of the Dr. Héctor P. García Papers, Special Collections and Archives, Mary and Jeff Bell Library, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi.

room shacks with subterranean rooms placing roofs so close to the ground that they reminded committee members of doghouses.103 Although each camp varied slightly in appearance, they all shared disturbing common features. In each, workers and their families crowded into one-room shacks. Insufficient ventilation and poor insulation magnified the heat of summer and the cold of winter. They lacked basic living necessities like electricity, heat, screening, plumbing, and sanitary living conditions. The wretchedness of these settlements translated to far more than discomfort for their inhabitants. Camp conditions directly affected their physical well-being. Dr. García examined many of the inhabitants of the sites he and his committee

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“The Dog Houses,” Mathis Labor Camp 5. Courtesy of the Dr. Héctor P. García Papers, Special Collections and Archives, Mary and Jeff Bell Library, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi.

visited. He found that nearly a third of the residents suffered serious health problems related to their physical surroundings. Their maladies ranged from localized infections like red eye, boils, and skin rashes to more systemic problems like impetigo, tuberculosis, dysentery, and “unknown fever.” Tables 1 and 2 summarize the physical characteristics of the camps and the related health problems they posed for resident worker families. On one site near Orange Grove, the group came across well-kept chicken coops with newly painted clapboard siding. Each structure rested on a pier foundation that was kept clear of underbrush. The buildings had clean and full subfloors impeding entry to rats and snakes. They had solid roofs and large screened windows with shutters that could be lowered when the weather turned cold or wet. Each coop had running water to fill a drinking trough. They even had electricity, offering the birds both feeding light and comforting heat when winter “norther” winds blew in.104 As a result of their excellent living conditions, the chicken flocks appeared healthier than the Hispanic laborers that cared for them.

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“Chicken Coop,” Orange Grove, Texas. Courtesy of the Dr. Héctor P. García Papers, Special Collections and Archives, Mary and Jeff Bell Library, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi.

Dr. García and his colleagues indicted Mathis health officials for permitting the construction and use of such substandard housing within the town’s jurisdiction. They charged that these living conditions contributed to Mathis and neighboring San Patricio County’s unusually high infant mortality rates, at the time some of the highest in the country. Anglos had relegated Mexican agricultural workers in South Texas to mean, short lives in disease-ridden labor camps. Dr. García and those with him did not just look at labor camps in the towns they visited in 1948. They examined a related condition, uneven educational opportunities, as well. They knew that unequal schools led to unequal educational opportunities. Unequal educational opportunities, in turn, helped to mire generation after generation of Tejanos in substandard living and working conditions. The investigators wanted to bring public attention to these interlocking injustices. In Mathis, Armando Flores and Fernando López guided the visitors through the town’s public educational facilities just as they had guided them through the local labor camps. At the outset, the two pointed out that the Mathis Independent School District (M.I.S.D.) had 1,700

Camp 1 Location Type of farm Households Residents Housing: Building materials Electricity Flooring Indoor plumbing Windows Toilet Visible vermin Water service a

Camp 2

Camp 3

Camp 4

Camp 5

Mathis Vegetable 8 60

Mathis Vegetable 4 34

Mathis —a 6 60

Mathis — 21 120

Mathis — 7 40

Wood None Dirt None 0 –1 2 outhouses Rats, insects 2 fire hydrants

Wood None Dirt None 0 –1 2 outhouses Rats, insects 2 fire hydrants

Wood None Dirt None 0 –1 2 outhouses Rats, insects 2 fire hydrants

Corrugated tin None Dirt None None 3 outhouses Rats, insects 2 fire hydrants

Wood None Dirt None None 2 outhouses Rats, insects 1 fire hydrant

The report did not state what type of farms Camps 3, 4, and 5 were located on. Source: Labor Camp Investigation and Report (April 11, 1948), Box 154, Folder 2, HPGP, TAMUCC.

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Table 1. Labor Camp Living Conditions

Camp 1

Camp 2

Camp 3

Camp 4

Totals

60 46 (77%) 14 (23%) 12

34 24 (71%) 10 (29%) 6

30b 19 (63%) 11 (37%) 8

120 78 (65%) 42 (35%) 9

Residents with eye infections

1

1

1

30

Residents with fever

0

1

1

2

Residents with respiratory infection

1

0

1

1

Residents with throat infection

0

2

0

0

244 167 (68%) 77 (32%) 35 (14%) 33 (14%) 4 (2%) 3 (1%) 2 (1%)

Total residents Healthy residents Ill residents Residents with dysentery

a

Dr. García left no record of health exams for residents of Camp 5. Dr. García only examined 30 children and no adults among the 60 residents of Camp 3. Source: Labor Camp Investigation and Report: Camp 3, HPGP, Box 124, Folder 2, TAMUCC.

b

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Table 2. Health of Labor Camp Residents a

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students enrolled in grades one through twelve. Blacks comprised just two dozen of those pupils; white Anglos made up another 275. Mexican Americans accounted for the remaining 1,400 students. Most of the M.I.S.D.’s funding came from the state and federal governments. Their agencies allotted resources on the basis of student head counts. The M.I.S.D. created two parallel grammar school systems, one for Anglos, one for “Mexicans,” and divided the money between them. But the two systems did not receive equal shares of the school board’s fiscal resources. Anglo schools received the bulk of the funding. Physical differences between Anglo and Mexican campuses starkly illustrated this point. As in Three Rivers, Anglos attended elementary school in a twostory red brick building. The American school also had a war surplus building in the rear that served as a music room. Anglos went to high school in a modern one-story brick building. Each of the three structures had screens on the windows, and all but the music room had rest rooms with flush toilets. Elementary students at the American school also enjoyed a neatly kept and well-equipped playground. The Anglo high school did not have a playground, but it did come with tennis courts and a football field. The most-qualified teachers taught in the American schools, with classes that averaged fewer than twenty-five students.105 The Mexican Ward School accommodated approximately eight hundred of the fourteen hundred Hispanic school-age children in the district. Sixteen regular teachers taught all of these pupils. Class size averaged around fifty students, twice that in the Anglo elementary school. Teachers in the ward school did not have as much training as those in the American school. Mexican American parents also viewed their children’s instructors as less professional. The parents complained that not a single teacher had ever attended a ward school PTA meeting. Mexican American pupils went to school in three run-down wooden frame buildings. The main structure sat across the street from the Anglo elementary school, while the two other buildings rested on a lot three blocks away. Unlike those on the Anglo school campus, Mexican Ward School buildings all had roofs that leaked. Instead of indoor rest rooms they had outhouses, none of which had lids on the seats or toilet paper. They smelled and they attracted swarms of flies. Draining the outhouses into the area’s main sewer line that lay just twenty feet

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away would have at least relieved the overflowing, but school officials had not bothered to have this done. In theory, the separate elementary student populations merged at the high school level. In fact, they did not. No African Americans and only ten Mexican American students attended Mathis High School at the time of the investigative team’s visit. Anglos dominated the town’s student body from the ninth grade onward. The committee members and guides concluded that the dual Anglo/Mexican structure of the local school districts and the resulting uneven educational environments at the elementary level went a long way toward explaining why all but a handful of Mexican Americans dropped out of school before reaching the ninth grade. As a result, Anglo students, who represented a small minority in the overall school-age population, became an overwhelming majority in the high school population. In this way the segregation of the lower grades continued into the secondary level.106 Canuto Ortiz served as a guide for the committee during its investigation of the schools in neighboring Orange Grove. Dr. García and his group found conditions similar to those they had encountered in Mathis. Hispanic pupils attended classes in the Mexican Elementary Ward School. The facility was an “old, dirty, dilapidated and segregated building . . . across the tracks” from the American school. Committee members could not obtain an official enrollment census, but they did confirm that Mexican American students comprised the bulk of the district’s school-age population. As in Mathis, the local Anglo school board split the district’s resources to support separate Anglo and Mexican American elementary schools. And again, the majority of state and federal funding went to the minority Anglo students’ education. Board members chose to provide the more numerous “Mexican” students with far lower levels of financial support, and another racially polarized and unequal school system resulted. This type of arrangement retarded the academic growth of Hispanic students just as it did in Mathis. As Fogel noted in his study of the Three Rivers school system, the educational facilities and services for Hispanic students throughout the region functioned as an effective mechanism against their continued education.107 Educational facilities in the small town of Sandia were the last stop on the committee’s investigative tour. As in the two previous districts, Mexican American children made up most of the school-age population. Sandia only practiced segregation through the third grade. By that

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Mathis High School. 46

Courtesy of the Dr. Héctor P. García Papers, Special Collections and Archives, Mary and Jeff Bell Library, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi.

time, however, the majority of the Hispanic children stopped attending altogether. As a result, by the fourth grade Anglos represented a majority. This pattern became increasingly pronounced at each subsequently higher grade level. Most of the school budget went to support the small Anglo student body. The larger Mexican American school population received very little funding. Once again, this led to marked differences in the physical plants and personnel of the two systems. Mexican American students attended their first three years of classes in the Sandia “Latin American School.” The campus included a rundown wooden shack situated across the street from the American school. The Latin American School had one small, “very poorly equipped” classroom that accommodated grades one through three, with a total enrollment of twenty-five, all taught by the same teacher in the same room at the same time. The “playground” had no equipment whatsoever. As in the other ward schools, Hispanic students in Sandia coped with very unsanitary toilet facilities. The usual open-pit privies were in worse condition than the schoolhouse itself. Insects and rodents scurried in and around the outhouses as the investigators approached. In the visitors’ opinions, the Sandia Latin American School’s health hazards far outweighed its limited educational benefits. Investigators noted that even the district’s school administrators implied their embarrassment over the differences between its “Mexican” and “American” elementary schools. The Bark, the official journal for both the Sandia and Orange Grove school districts, published photographs of

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Mathis Mexican Ward School. Courtesy of the Dr. Héctor P. García Papers, Special Collections and Archives, Mary and Jeff Bell Library, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi.

“Hole in the Roof,” Mathis Mexican Ward School. Courtesy of the Dr. Héctor P. García Papers, Special Collections and Archives, Mary and Jeff Bell Library, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi.

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“Outside Water,” Mathis Mexican Ward School. Courtesy of the Dr. Héctor P. García Papers, Special Collections and Archives, Mary and Jeff Bell Library, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi.

“The Classroom,” Mathis Mexican Ward School. Courtesy of the Dr. Héctor P. García Papers, Special Collections and Archives, Mary and Jeff Bell Library, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi.

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Orange Grove High School. Courtesy of the Dr. Héctor P. García Papers, Special Collections and Archives, Mary and Jeff Bell Library, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi.

Orange Grove Elementary School. Courtesy of the Dr. Héctor P. García Papers, Special Collections and Archives, Mary and Jeff Bell Library, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi.

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Orange Grove Mexican Ward School. Courtesy of the Dr. Héctor P. García Papers, Special Collections and Archives, Mary and Jeff Bell Library, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi.

“Open Privy,” Orange Grove Mexican Ward School. Courtesy of the Dr. Héctor P. García Papers, Special Collections and Archives, Mary and Jeff Bell Library, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi.

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Sandia Elementary School. Courtesy of the Dr. Héctor P. García Papers, Special Collections and Archives, Mary and Jeff Bell Library, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi.

Sandia Mexican Ward School. Courtesy of the Dr. Héctor P. García Papers, Special Collections and Archives, Mary and Jeff Bell Library, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi.

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Mexican students in front of the American Elementary School building instead of their own Latin American School.108 In his final report Dr. García accused local Anglo officials all along the Longoria controversy corridor of criminal negligence. He sent copies of his findings to the mayors of Mathis, Orange Grove, and Sandia, to Governor Beauford Jester, and to Dr. George W. Cox, director of the Texas Department of Health. He also forwarded the document to the Texas Good Neighbor Commission and the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. Dr. García and his committee urged local and state officials to act “immediately” to improve farmworkers’ housing and correct related health problems. They pointed out the gross inequities in local school districts. The investigators threatened to seek federal intervention in these matters if their findings and petition met with “the usual ‘red tape’ and ‘Run-around’ from state officials.” 109 Despite their pictorial evidence, a licensed physician’s field notes, and the testimony of the rest of the investigative committee, nothing happened. Anglo officials ignored the document and the committee’s threats. They seemed to think that what these reformers had found was nothing more than the free enterprise system at work. It was all legal. If Mexicans did not like the living conditions in the labor camps, they should move elsewhere. If they wanted to graduate from high school, they should not drop out of school after the third grade. Officials’ silence on the investigative committee’s report seemed to imply either no fault or Mexican Americans’ fault. Legally, the labor and educational conditions along the eastern stretches of the Nueces River basin were just fine. They were part of local life. García’s committee recognized a link between South Texas Hispanics’ work environment, living conditions, and educational opportunities. Low pay and poor job security led to subhuman and unhealthy living conditions. In order to survive in these circumstances, as many family members as possible had to take their turns in the fields. That was the only way to make ends meet. Faced with the choice of food or books, parents and children alike usually chose the former and either attended school sporadically or not at all. When one thought about it, the loss did not seem that great. Separate and unequal educational opportunities enormously disadvantaged Tejano students anyway. What kind of an education could you get in a run-down classroom packed with too many students, often at differing grade levels, and taught by frequently undertrained and understandably frustrated teachers? Few

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children or parents had the time or inclination to sacrifice earning power for so little educational reward. This mix of conditions provided a ready-made formula for an ever more oppressive Mexican American experience within the Longoria corridor and beyond. Undereducated and unskilled, Tejanos competed with each other and with newly arriving Mexican nationals for jobs and living conditions that no one else wanted. This was the type of legalized and institutionalized Category “A” discrimination that the Mexican consul in Corpus Christi thought more injurious and objectionable than the Category “B” racist slight that rocked the zone and attracted so much national attention a few months later—the Felix Longoria controversy. These glaring but mundane disparities in Mexican American and Anglo educational, working, and living conditions existing in South Texas after World War II might never have become a pressing concern had Dr. García not had the presence of mind to make a narrower affront an issue of national honor. Nine months after Dr. Héctor and his committee publicly presented their findings on labor camp and school conditions, the body of Private Felix Longoria was denied a wake in the only funeral chapel in his hometown of Three Rivers because he was “Mexican” and the “whites wouldn’t like it.” This single act of discrimination, which might have escaped notice at any other point in history, riveted the region and the nation. The controversy over use of the funeral chapel, coupled with other significant social factors of the time, served to disrupt the pattern of regional complacency toward racially and ethnically based discrimination and social injustice. It jarred the local Mexican American community into action and the local Anglo community into reaction. It mobilized state political forces, and brought both popular and governmental pressures from outside to bear on the entire state.

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the fourth year of the war in the Pacific, most Americans believed in inevitable victory over the Japanese. As American confidence peaked, military leaders cautiously predicted a more prolonged conflict. Still, American victories on Okinawa and Iwo Jima during the preceding year had placed U.S. planes within easy bombing range of Tokyo. The path toward the invasion of the Japanese home islands met with stubborn enemy resistance. Even in defeat, the Japanese were exacting huge losses from the Allies. Enemy infantry tenaciously contested U.S. troops for every inch of the Philippine island of Luzon, an important stepping-stone on the route to Japan itself. Kamikaze attacks took a frightful toll on Allied ships. More ominously, intelligence reports predicted an invasion of Japan would cost hundreds of thousands of American lives. The war ended, mercifully perhaps, more quickly than most had anticipated, but at the terrible price of two atomic bombings, one on Hiroshima and the other on Na-

BY THE SUMMER OF 1945,

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gasaki. Nevertheless, fighting had already taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides. One of these was Private First Class Felix Longoria. World War II would transport Felix Longoria far from the security of his family and his hometown of Three Rivers, Texas, to a much more threatening environment in the Pacific. Despite the candid warning of his friend and neighbor, Margarito de Luna, twenty-six-year-old Felix enlisted in the U.S. Army along with thousands of other Mexican Americans. “They will take you and get you killed,” 1 Margarito cautioned. Felix only shrugged, “Everyone else is going; I might as well go too.” 2 The young man received his letter of acceptance into the military on November 11, 1944. Soon thereafter, he left his family and reported for active duty. After six weeks of basic training, Felix boarded a ship that brought him to Luzon for his first combat assignment as an infantryman. Soon afterwards, he volunteered to join a patrol with orders to dislodge enemy snipers. According to one account: The day was the 16th of June [1945], and the rainy season had returned to the Philippines. In the past few days, booming monsoon showers had been forming against the western slopes of the mountains they were crossing. Suddenly, there were loud, short pops: small arms fire. The patrol took what cover it could find and fought the ambush, but enemy bullets struck and Felix Longoria was among those killed.3 Six months after his death, the army sent Private Longoria’s medals to his mother in Three Rivers, Texas. He had earned a Bronze Service Star, a Purple Heart, a Good Conduct Medal, and a Combat Infantryman’s Badge.4 Felix’s body lay in a grave on the other side of the Pacific until January 1949. Two months prior to that time, in November 1948, the army cabled his widow that her husband’s remains would arrive in San Francisco. The military wanted to know where she intended to reinter him. Beatrice was shocked. The news that her dead husband’s corpse was returning to the United States forced her to relive painful memories of his death. She and their daughter, Adelita, had long since returned to Corpus Christi to live with the widow’s parents.5 Beatrice knew what she had to do. She felt “a moral [obligation] to take his body

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to where his parents were and where her home was once.” 6 Beatrice Moreno de Longoria indicated that she wished to bury her husband in his hometown of Three Rivers. The army letter instructed Beatrice to inform the Quartermaster Depot in Fort Worth of Felix’s final destination and burial arrangements. She wrote the Manon Rice Funeral Home of her intention to have him reburied in Three Rivers. Mr. Rice, the owner, wrote back suggesting that Beatrice come to Three Rivers to meet with him and his new undertaker, a Mr. Tom Kennedy, to discuss the funeral arrangements. Beatrice agreed.7 On January 7, during one of the coldest winters ever recorded in the area, Beatrice made the first of two bus trips to Three Rivers to arrange for Felix’s reburial. During this initial meeting she spoke to two individuals, Manon Rice and Tom Kennedy. She remembered that both men treated her politely. When Beatrice requested use of the funeral home chapel for the wake, however, they reacted with surprise. Rice and Kennedy excused themselves and walked off to confer for a moment in private. They soon returned and suggested that Beatrice wake Felix in his parents’ large house. They pointed out its size would accommodate more mourners than the chapel, and Felix’s parents and siblings could then help with the ceremony. Beatrice did not want to do that. Felix’s family was upset with her for dating another man.8 She could not explain all this to the undertakers. They were strangers and this was family business—private. She replied that she preferred to use the chapel. At that point Kennedy spoke for the two morticians. He calmly, but firmly, stated that they could not offer her use of the chapel because “the whites would not like it.” 9 Their answer hurt and it upset her, but what could she do? The body was on the way; she had to make arrangements right away, and these men ran the only funeral home in Felix’s hometown. Reluctantly, Beatrice agreed to find another site. After a few minutes she thought of an answer, not an ideal setting, but an answer nevertheless. She told the two funeral directors that she would wake Felix in the little house across the street from her in-laws, the same bungalow where she and Felix had lived during their first year of marriage.10 If she could not have the chapel for his wake, maybe the home where they had shared part of their lives together would provide a suitable substitute. Felix and Beatrice had vacated it to move to Corpus Christi so she could be near her parents, and so he could seek better employment in the more

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The Manon Rice Funeral Home building. Photograph by Pat Carroll, July 27, 2002.

vibrant urban job market. World War II had stimulated activity within the port, and the city’s overall economy prospered. Felix then rented their Three Rivers house to his younger brother Alberto and his wife Delfina, who occupied it until about 1947, and then moved.11 By 1949, the property had sat vacant for two years. It needed a thorough cleaning, and it lacked furniture. The small house seemed a less than ideal site for Felix’s wake. Yet, it represented a compromise between the chapel and her in-laws’ house, the lesser of two evils in her mind. Over the next few weeks Beatrice thought about Kennedy’s refusal, and the more she turned the situation over in her mind the angrier and more frustrated she became. It just wasn’t right. How could these men dishonor Felix this way? Her husband had given his life for his country. Could Anglos really object to such a man’s use of “their” chapel? Could she allow them to do so and still remain true to his memory? What should she do? The small house was not her choice. The morticians had forced her to pick this site by taking the chapel option away from her. It had been their decision, and for all the wrong reasons. Anglos in Three Rivers had no right to keep her from using the chapel because she and her husband were Mexican Americans.12 As a war hero he deserved better treatment. Besides, she was distraught enough about reliving the bereavement connected to Felix’s death. She did not need

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this added cause for anxiety. Beatrice decided to do the only thing she could do. She would return to Three Rivers and press the funeral home directors to let her use the chapel for the wake. Two telegrams arrived that gave her added incentive to do just that. The War Department notified Beatrice that Felix’s corpse would arrive in San Francisco on January 13. A few days later Beatrice received another telegram, asking her to confirm transportation arrangements for the final destination of Felix’s body. She had to pass this information on to the funeral home right away, and she would do it in person. This would give her the opportunity to make another face-to-face request for the funeral chapel. Beatrice journeyed to her husband’s hometown for the second time on January 8. Just a week earlier Manon Rice had sold the business to Tom Kennedy, a transplanted Pennsylvanian with less than a year’s residency in Texas. From this point onward the widow would deal with Kennedy alone.13 Beatrice boarded a bus in Corpus Christi for the twohour ride to Three Rivers. It rained off and on throughout the trip, and a cold wind blew from the north. The young undertaker met her at the bus station. He escorted the widow to his car for the short ride to the small house, where they would discuss details for the wake. Beatrice had mixed feelings about Kennedy’s meeting her. Because of the weather, she was grateful for the lift he would give her from the bus station. And the ride and bungalow tour would give her opportunities to ask again for the funeral chapel. Yet, she dreaded the task. What if he said no; what would she do then? While en route to the little house Kennedy again treated her courteously. He seemed like a nice man. Beatrice felt more hopeful. Perhaps upon seeing the condition of the house he would offer the chapel. When they arrived Beatrice unlocked the door, and they stepped inside. It was still light, so the lack of electricity did not present an obstacle. As they walked through the house its shortcomings became apparent. It had no single room large enough to accommodate the casket and but a few chairs for mourners. Nor did it have running water. That, and the absence of electricity, would present real problems. Without residents for the past two years, it needed a thorough cleaning. Finally, it had no furniture. Where would people sit? The small house would not do, that appeared obvious, and Beatrice waited for the undertaker to say as much. He did not. Instead he bustled about taking notes and making suggestions about where the casket would go. He talked about flowers

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and announcements in the local newspapers. He said he would take care of everything once Beatrice decided what she wanted.14 She could not believe it. Did he not see the shortcomings in this site? If she wanted the chapel, she would have to ask him for it, because he was not going to offer it as she had hoped he would. Beatrice began. She pointed out the difficulties with the bungalow. She wanted to use the chapel. Kennedy sighed, but remained calm. They had already spoken of this and settled the matter. Beatrice protested, and spoke of Felix’s war record. Couldn’t Kennedy make an exception for a war hero? This seemed to make the undertaker uneasy. He pointed out that he, too, had served and thus sympathized with her.15 He assured her that he, personally, had no problem with waking Felix’s body in the chapel, but as a new business owner and a husband with a wife and child to support, he just “couldn’t do it because the whites would object to it,” and he might lose business.16 He again wanted to know why she didn’t just wake him in his parents’ house? It seemed to him the larger structure offered the most logical site, and it was right across the street from where they stood, so its location was convenient. Beatrice did not answer his question. Deciding not to pursue the point any further, she simply agreed to hold the wake at her and Felix’s former home. They then moved on to the details of the ceremony. Beatrice chose flowers, approved newspaper announcements, and picked a priest to perform the requiem mass. Kennedy promised to provide a guest registry, some candles, chairs, and a table or two. He then tallied up the cost for her. Beatrice reviewed the undertaker’s notes and nodded her head in approval. After completing all these arrangements, Kennedy took the widow to her uncle’s house, asking along the way for one last time whether she was satisfied with everything. Beatrice reluctantly uttered a “yes.” 17 Beatrice visited for a few hours with her uncle and his family before setting out on her last errand. She made her way to the county seat, George West, less than ten miles to the southeast along the route home to Corpus Christi. There, she asked County Service Officer William E. Smith to write a letter requesting that the American Graves Registration Unit at the Fort Worth Quartermaster Depot send Felix’s body to Thomas Kennedy at the Rice Funeral Home in Three Rivers. After completing the last of the paperwork, she boarded a bus and returned to Corpus Christi.18 All the way back home Beatrice anguished over Kennedy’s contin-

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ued refusal to allow her use of the funeral chapel. Her Mexican American husband was good enough to die for South Texas and the rest of the country, but was not good enough to use his hometown’s only funeral chapel. She just could not get the injustice of it all out of her mind.19 Beatrice knew that such discrimination commonly occurred in South Texas. She and Felix had grown up with it, but Felix had sacrificed his life, she had sacrificed her husband, and Adelita, their by-now four-year-old daughter, had sacrificed her father for their country. These losses made Kennedy’s refusal wrong, even insulting. Mourning the loss of her husband for a second time, having to explain his death and the belated ceremony to their young daughter, Adelita, facing her in-laws again, and now this problem with the site for the wake nearly overwhelmed her. The emotional force of it all pressed on her mind as she watched the Nueces River countryside race by through the bus window.20 Beatrice arrived in Corpus Christi and made her way back to her parents’ home. Everyone greeted her there. Her mother, father, and younger sister Sara were full of questions. How was the trip? Was she OK? Did she want a cup of coffee or something to eat? She was fine— did not want anything; she just needed to rest for a moment and gather her thoughts. Then came the question she dreaded: “Did the funeral director agree to let you use the chapel?” Beatrice paused. Tears began to well up in her eyes. They knew the answer before she spoke it. No. He was polite and apologetic about it, but he said no. “He is afraid Anglos in town would not like it and that might hurt his business.” 21 She had no choice. The wake would have to take place in the abandoned little house, hardly a fitting way to honor a fallen war hero, her husband, and the father of her daughter. Sara reiterated what Beatrice already knew. The house stood vacant. It was bound to be dirty. It was too small. And, it had no heat, no electricity, and no running water. How could they wake Felix there? It was out of the question. Beatrice, a shy woman, not as forceful and outgoing as her sister, began to sob. She felt inadequate. Everyone had expected her to confront Kennedy and secure use of the chapel. She had failed Felix, and she had failed them. If her family was upset about the choice of the site, she could only imagine how angry Felix’s family would be. Sara kept talking, and the more she talked the more Beatrice realized that no one blamed her for the problem. They blamed Tom Kennedy; and they blamed Anglo bigotry. In their eyes she was not a failure; she was a victim. They did not want to

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criticize her; they wanted to defend her. Sara ended with an expectant phrase. She simply said, “We’ll see about this.” 22 Beatrice knew that Sara meant business. She had fought discrimination before, and she would fight it now. Sara Moreno knew exactly whom to call. A humiliating incident like this had happened to her just a few months earlier. Sara served as president of the Orquidea Club, a social organization in Corpus Christi for young Mexican American women. Several members of the group went to a roller skating rink at the state park in Mathis, about forty miles west of Corpus Christi on the road to Three Rivers. There the young women had one of their many life experiences with South Texas racism. The roller rink concessionaires sold Sara an admission ticket because she looked Anglo, but refused to sell her friends tickets because they looked “Mexican.” 23 The affront upset them. Upon returning to Corpus Christi, Sara reported the incident to their club sponsor, Dr. Héctor Pérez García. He contacted a young lawyer named Héctor de la Peña. De la Peña called state park officials in Austin, who, in turn, spoke with the people operating the Mathis skating rink. A few days later, Sara received word that “Mexicans” could now skate at the Mathis rink.24 Sara would notify Dr. García about her sister’s similar problem with the funeral home in Three Rivers. The following day she related the affair to him.25 Sara told García that for a second time “Mr. Kennedy . . . had informed her sister that she could not use the chapel because he was afraid that ‘the whites would not like it.’” 26 The doctor asked if he could talk to Beatrice in person. He wanted to verify Sara’s account before he acted. Sara returned to the house and told her sister that Dr. García wanted to talk to her personally and confirm everything before he attempted to intervene. Beatrice hesitated, but she knew in the end that she would have to speak out. As Steve Stern has noted, women in Mexican culture usually refrained from exercising their public voices except when persons in power “threatened immediate harm to kin and community.” 27 This was one of those times, and Beatrice lived up to this tradition. Tom Kennedy had struck an emotional chord in her. His racist and ethnocentric refusal was tied to an important public ritual connected to her bereavement over her dead husband. Felix’s reinterment was hard enough to bear. It had revisited old griefs upon her. The mortician’s actions felt like salt in re-exposed emotional wounds, and

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she would not stand for it. Powerful emotive forces welled up in her and moved her to act in defense of her husband’s honor. She would go see the doctor. She would tell him exactly what had happened, and she would do anything else she thought necessary to redress the hurt that Kennedy had inflicted on her and her family.28 Beatrice went with Sara to Dr. García’s office the following morning (January 10) and confirmed everything that her younger sister had told him. The widow admitted that “she had been satisfied with the ‘suggestion’ made by Mr. Kennedy to have the body at her home,” but after talking the matter over with her family she had reconsidered. Beatrice explained to Dr. García that she wanted use of the chapel because Felix deserved it. If Dr. García could not convince Kennedy to wake Felix in the chapel, she asked if the doctor would help her arrange for Felix’s reburial in Corpus Christi. This Anglo would not force her to wake her husband at an inadequate site. She wanted his funeral done right. García agreed and promised to do what he could to change Kennedy’s mind. Failing that, he pledged a Corpus Christi funeral with full military honors sponsored by the American G.I. Forum.29 That same night, Dr. García called the Rice Funeral Home. He asked to speak to the owner. “Thinking it would be wise,” 30 and “in view of the seriousness of the matter,” 31 he told his secretary, Gladys Blucher, to listen to the conversation on his office extension phone. Kennedy eventually came on the line. He identified himself, and offered to “take care of any business” 32 Dr. García had in mind. The doctor told Kennedy that Beatrice Longoria had asked him to call on her behalf. She still wanted to use the funeral home chapel for her husband’s wake.33 Kennedy calmly replied, “It can’t be done, and besides we reached an agreement with Mrs. Longoria whereby she would use her home instead, and she seemed satisfied.” Dr. Héctor persisted, “Mr. Kennedy, Mrs. Longoria was not satisfied and she has authorized me to ask you to please let her use your funeral home.” 34 Kennedy began to grow impatient. “Oh, no that can’t be done—that just can’t be done!” 35 The doctor asked why it could not be done. According to both Dr. García and Ms. Blucher, the mortician replied: Well, you see it’s this way. This is a small town and you know how it is, I’m sure you’ll understand. I am the only funeral home here, and I have to do what the white people want. The white people just don’t like it.36

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Dr. Héctor measured his response. “Yes, Mr. Kennedy. But in this case this boy is a veteran, doesn’t that make a difference?” Dr. García could scarcely believe Kennedy’s response: That doesn’t make any difference. You know how the Latin people get drunk and lay around all the time. The last time we let them use the chapel, they got all drunk and we just can’t control them— so the white people object to it, and we just can’t let them use it. I’m sure you’ll understand, and it’s just like I told Beatrice. I don’t dislike the Mexican people but I have to run my business so I can’t do that. You understand the whites here won’t like it.37 García realized he could not dissuade the undertaker, so he simply said, “Yes, I understand Mr. Kennedy, thank you,” and hung up. Dr. García immediately called Beatrice and informed her of his inability to change the mortician’s mind. The doctor then offered their agreedupon alternative. With her permission he would arrange for Felix’s burial with full honors in Corpus Christi at the expense of the American G.I. Forum.38 Beatrice accepted his offer, and asked him to go ahead with the Corpus Christi arrangements. But García went even further. He was not ready to accept Kennedy’s denial of the chapel as final. Perhaps the doctor could bring enough pressure to bear on the mortician to make him relent, just as he and de la Peña had done with the Mathis roller skating rink operators. That night Dr. García began contacting a number of individuals to accomplish two ends: to verify the discrimination, and to seek redress.39 First, he called George Groh, a reporter with the Corpus Christi Caller. He urged Groh to contact Thomas Kennedy and confirm the funeral director’s discriminatory actions.40 The newspaperman telephoned the funeral director “to verify the story.” After introducing himself, Groh cautioned Kennedy that he spoke for the record, that his comments might appear in the newspaper. The undertaker consented to the interview anyway. Groh asked Kennedy whether he had denied use of his funeral chapel for Felix Longoria’s wake. Kennedy said yes. Groh then asked if he had based his refusal on Longoria’s “race.” Notwithstanding his claim to Dr. García of bad experiences with past Mexican American use of the chapel, Kennedy replied, “We never made a practice of letting Mexicans use the chapel . . . and we don’t want to start now.” Groh cautioned Kennedy that he “had hold of a hot

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potato.” Kennedy, according to Groh, seemed to think the controversy amounted to very little, and he shrugged off the warning. On the following day, Groh placed a second call to the undertaker. By this time, the gravity of the situation had begun to sink in. Kennedy told Groh that from that time forward he would “discourage” the use of the chapel for Longoria’s wake, but would not refuse it if the family insisted. He acknowledged that this represented a softening of his prior position, and did not deny his statements of the previous night to Dr. García.41 Armed with Groh’s corroboration that the brewing controversy stemmed from discrimination, Dr. García moved to publicize the affair and seek outside support. He wired seventeen state and federal officials, as well as prominent members of the national radio and news media. His list included President Harry S. Truman, Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal, Secretary of the Army Kenneth C. Royal, the Veterans Administration, the Army Quartermaster General, Senator Lyndon Johnson, Texas Governor Beauford Jester, Texas Attorney General Price Daniel, the Texas Good Neighbor Commission, the Texas State Board of Embalming, South Texas State Representatives John Lyle and Lloyd Bentsen, Jr., the Associated Press, and columnists Walter Winchell, Drew Pearson, and Westbrook Pegler. Initially, all but two of these individuals and agencies sent notes of sympathy and regret, but made no offers of intervention. Later on that same day (January 11) Dr. García and American G.I. Forum members organized a protest meeting at Lamar Elementary School in Corpus Christi. The atmosphere was charged as people filed into the school cafeteria. They waited, filled with excitement and anticipation. No one knew what to expect. After all, few of them had ever attended a protest meeting of any kind, and even fewer had attended one over a matter like this. At issue was something everyone in the room had experienced. Those in the cafeteria had firsthand knowledge of one form or another of Anglo discrimination. Every day Texans denied Tejanos their basic rights, services, and respect because of their brown skins and their Mexicanidad. The veterans interspersed among the audience had a good grasp of what they were doing there. Upon returning to South Texas from the war, many had tried to use their VA checks to make down payments on houses, but found themselves restricted to the “Mexican” side of town. Subdivisions such as Cuiper, Beeble, and Crockett Heights in Corpus Christi maintained exclusionary cove-

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nants that denied residency to Mexican Americans and other nonAnglos/nonwhites. Deeds included such clauses as: “Caucasians or white race— excludes Mexicans, Latin-Americans, negroes & people of yellow race.” 42 Discrimination was something South Texas Mexicanos had learned to endure silently. Prior to the war they had simply sought sympathy from family and close friends. They did not like it, but, given the region’s traditions, there appeared little they could do about it. Their recent military experiences changed that thinking. The war taught them that standing up for their rights was a good thing, the “American” thing to do. This doctor and former army officer had rallied them to fight, to stand up for the Longoria family and for themselves. Now what were their marching orders? Sara Moreno de Posas described what happened next. “Dr. García called a meeting of all American G.I. Forum members, and all the public was invited to come and listen to what had been going on.” 43 Because of “so many offers of places to bury him [Felix],” Dr. García thought that Beatrice needed “some kind of guidance from the people.” 44 Gilbert Caseres, a U.S. Army recruiter and member of the American G.I. Forum, remembered the comments of two announcers for Spanish-language radio stations who also addressed the audience. The first concluded his denunciation of Tom Kennedy’s actions with a call for prayerful silence, a supplication for some type of divine intervention and resolution to the type of social inequality South Texas Mexican Americans suffered and the Longoria incident illustrated. The second announcer was even better known. He seized the microphone. “This is El Eco de México.” First he turned to his colleague and apologized for taking issue with his advice. He meant no disrespect, prayer was a good thing, but this offense called for stronger action. El Eco then turned his gaze on the crowd and shouted, “The time for silence has passed; the time for action has arrived.” 45 He then handed the microphone back to Dr. García. The doctor held up a group of telegrams he had just received, answers from government officials and media personalities he had wired about the controversy. He read the audience two of them, the only two offering something other than sympathy and regrets. In 1949 people attached great significance to telegrams. During the war the government had used this form of communication to convey messages of great import. Draft and casualty notices had arrived by

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telegram. In 1949, these short, pithy notes were still associated with matters of life and death. The audience fell silent as García started to read the first message. The newly elected U.S. senator from Texas, Lyndon Baines Johnson, had sent it. This high-ranking public official, who represented all Texans before the higher chamber of the national legislature, was addressing their complaint. He communicated with them through this important document. García spoke Johnson’s words to the hushed audience.

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I deeply regret that the prejudice of some individuals extends even beyond this life. I have no authority over civilian funeral homes. Nor does the federal government. I have today made arrangements to have Felix Longoria buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery here in Washington, where the honored dead of our nation’s wars rest.46 García then read the wire from General Harry H. Vaughn, aide to President Truman. Vaughn cryptically stated, “Discrimination and intolerance unfortunately not illegal. Public opinion only weapon for use against such as Funeral Director in Three Rivers.” 47 The listeners remembered thinking that they could almost hear Truman’s voice in Vaughn’s words.48 They all sat dumbstruck as they began to grasp the import of both messages. An Anglo U.S. senator from their home state had taken enough issue with an incident of discrimination against a Mexican American to decry the undertaker’s actions, and to arrange a hero’s burial for Felix Longoria in the country’s most hallowed military ground, Arlington National Cemetery. The U.S. president was so incensed by Kennedy’s actions that he was issuing a call to them through his aide to engage in a public protest against the actions of an Anglo funeral director and the more widespread South Texas discrimination, reflected in the Longoria incident, that dishonored Mexican Americans. The revelation that outsiders such as Vaughn and the president, and honorable Texans like LBJ, recognized the wrong in these actions startled and moved those gathered. Dr. García presented them a course of action. He first posed an immediate question. Where should they bury Felix? By now they had three choices. LBJ had offered a grand ceremony in the nation’s capital, an honor usually reserved for important national dignitaries and military heroes. Meanwhile, Tom Kennedy had contacted Beatrice and re-

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luctantly agreed to let her use the funeral chapel.49 Now she could honorably bury Felix in Three Rivers. Finally, the Texas Good Neighbor Commission had called the widow and Dr. García asking them to bury Felix in either Three Rivers or in the nearby national cemetery in San Antonio. It did not matter to the Commission which of the two Texas locations the widow chose, as long as Felix remained within the state. The incident might prove embarrassing for Texas. It could heap national and international criticism on the state. A large, well-publicized celebration of Felix’s burial in Three Rivers or San Antonio would, the Commission hoped, create a more favorable image of Texas in the rest of the country, Mexico, and other parts of Latin America. The doctor asked Beatrice Longoria if he could put the matter to a vote, because her cause had become a community cause. What else could Beatrice say, sitting there in front of all those people? She, like everyone else, had gotten caught up in the excitement of the moment. Almost painfully shy, there she sat in front of all those eyes straining to see her every expression while they awaited her answer. Of course she said “yes.” Sara Moreno de Posas recalled that the “vote was taken. . . . the majority of the people there at that meeting voted . . . to accept the offer that the Senator had made, because they felt that he [Felix Longoria] really deserved a hero’s burial.” 50 Those attending that very public meeting in the Lamar school cafeteria felt they had taken the president’s advice as relayed by Vaughn. If the law remained silent on matters of discrimination, which everyone seemed to agree Kennedy’s actions represented, then they, the Mexican American people themselves, would have to seek redress through direct appeal to the rest of the American public. The president had exhorted them to take such action, and Dr. García, one of their own, had shown them how to do it. They would not help hide Anglo discrimination in South Texas by accepting the offer of the Anglos in Three Rivers or the Texas Good Neighbor Commission in Austin. They would not compromise. By voting to reject Kennedy and Three Rivers’ offer of reconciliation or the state government’s attempt to gloss over the issue, they openly confronted the system that had relegated them to secondary status. Those at the meeting understood that Kennedy’s backing down would not diminish discrimination against “Mexicans” in the region. To hold Felix’s wake at the Three Rivers funeral parlor would represent a failure to follow up on this rare civil rights victory for Mexican Americans. They would thrust their inequality before the

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whole nation, and Felix Longoria’s burial in the National Cemetery, in the nation’s capital, would give them the forum to do this. They had spoken as one, and they impressed themselves with the power of their collective voice. As they milled around in the cafeteria after the vote, many recalled thinking how they had lived most of their lives within divided South Texas communities just like Three Rivers,51 societies that had relegated one-half of their populations, Tejanos, to second-rate status, communities that had socially subordinated, economically exploited, and politically disenfranchised Mexican Americans. They did not just understand Beatrice Moreno de Longoria’s hurt, they felt it because they all had suffered similar discrimination in one form or another, and nothing was ever done about it. The Longoria incident reflected the social conditions of their own lives in South Texas. The combination of common knowledge of and feelings about the social milieu within the northeastern quadrant of the Nueces Strip created a strong bond among those that attended the Lamar Elementary School meeting, something Victor Turner calls “normative communitas,” or the “sense (felt rather than reasoned) . . . of basic generic bond” in the face of a common offense or threat.52 That solidarity soon spread by word of mouth and public media to Mexican American communities throughout South Texas and beyond. Dr. García’s skillful construction of communitas within the region’s Tejano community was the result, in part, of his ability to solicit support from the Anglo community at the state and national levels, but also of his imaginative marriage of meaningful emotional and social notions like patriotism, honor, racism, and ethnocentrism. These accomplishments helped to distinguish this affront from so many other post– World War II acts of Anglo prejudice in the Nueces Strip. Beyond connecting the Longoria conflict to the Mexican American and broader American consciousness, Dr. García used the dispute as a platform from which to broker future Hispanic civil rights controversies at the state and national levels. His leadership and initiative, backed first by the American G.I. Forum, then by Mexican American communities all along the corridor between Three Rivers and Corpus Christi, and finally by Anglo leaders within the state and the nation, helped him to utilize the momentum built through the Longoria controversy to launch his nationally recognized civil rights career. For the next half-century he would utilize the strategies he developed for the Longoria controversy to further Mexican American causes.

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From the Longoria incident in 1949 to his death in 1996, García’s advocacy and lifelong connection with the South Texas community provided both spark and direction to much of its activism. In this way, García helped to forge the salient grassroots coalition that transformed the Longoria protest from a single issue into a broader indictment of South Texas Mexican American–Anglo relations. The Lamar school vote redefined the nature and the scope of the controversy. For South Texas Mexican Americans it became a question of antiracism and antiethnocentrism as well as patriotism. The decision to bury Felix in a place other than Three Rivers became a collective demand for justice, dignity, and equality. By casting their vote on a burial site, many Tejanos engaged in suffrage and in political dissent for the first time in their lives. The group applied two important political strategies—the power of solidarity springing out of reasoned and felt bonds, and the power of the vote. Those present left the rally to spread these lessons. In the Lamar Elementary School meeting’s aftermath, Spanish- and English-language press and radio commentators noted the new spirit in the barrios of Corpus Christi and in the smaller rural towns of South Texas. Now the question was whether this change would spread beyond the Nueces Strip. At the same time Dr. García and local Mexican American communities were reacting to the Three Rivers funeral home’s refusal to wake Felix Longoria, others outside the region were also considering events surrounding the controversy. Dr. García’s telegrams to government officials and representatives of the news media about the Longoria incident had a remarkable effect. National and international wire services picked up the story, and newspapers from Buenos Aires to New York gave it varying degrees of ongoing coverage for the next three months. Most journalists expressed genuine indignation over the matter. Yet, somewhat subtle but distinct interpretive slants on the controversy began to emerge. U.S. reporters and editors outside the Southwest stressed the unpatriotic implications in the undertaker’s actions, while their counterparts in the Southwest and in Latin America emphasized the racist and ethnocentric overtones in Kennedy’s behavior. Personal letters and wires piled up in Senator Johnson’s office. LBJ instructed his staff to answer every one of them promptly. John Connally, who ran the office later, chuckled at the volume of mail. The postmen were soon delivering large canvas bags of it daily. He could laugh about it in 1991, but then, given his boss’ directive, the task was

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overwhelming.53 George Long, of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Alabama, wrote his encouragement. A judge in Flint and a veteran’s mother in Detroit applauded Johnson’s efforts in the case. A note of praise even arrived from wealthy Republican Nelson Rockefeller in New York.54 Anglo mail from Texas proved more mixed in nature, some favorable, some unfavorable, yet all seemed to construct the incident within racial terms. Paul G. Wassenich, board member of the Disciples of Christ Student Fellowship at the University of Texas in Austin, decried Kennedy’s prejudicial actions and extended words of support. Eugene Sergi of Fort Worth wrote that he applauded Johnson’s stand against discrimination and promised to place “L.B.J.’s photograph in his picture album between Our Eternal Democrat Jefferson and F. D. Roosevelt.” James T. E. Churchill, a student in Austin, condemned the racism reflected in the “unfortunate situation that arose in my home-town of Three Rivers,” and lent his endorsement to “the steps you took.” The young man added an admonishment. “Any such instances of discrimination should be publicly censured and whatever steps that may be necessary taken.” 55 Other Anglo Texans condemned Johnson for his stand. In their minds the segregation of Texans and Tejanos made perfect sense because the two peoples had so little in common that their separation was not only acceptable, it was necessary.56 Johnson’s office was inundated with copies of an article from the influential Austin American, a paper that by 1949 had strongly supported him for a number of years.57 The article criticized LBJ for his efforts to organize Felix’s burial at Arlington National Cemetery, contending that the proposal slandered his constituency. Johnson had betrayed the state and its people. Felix belonged in Texas. He had been born there; he should rest there. Burying him on the Potomac could only be interpreted as an indictment and rejection of life in his home state. Texans deserved better from their new senator. They expected him to defend, not defame, them. Texans were a proud people, the editors warned; they would not forget anyone who they thought had violated their public trust and sullied their reputation.58 Such criticism from a previously friendly press indicates how deeply national and international criticism had wounded Texas pride, and indicates also the role some thought LBJ had played in inviting these attacks. A series of cables Johnson received from the Anglo-dominated Bexar

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County Council of the American Legion further illustrates the deep divisions among Texans over the Longoria affair. R. H. Farley, secretarytreasurer of the group, sent a critical letter claiming that his council had “unanimously adopted” a resolution condemning Johnson’s activities in the incident. The resolution said that the senator’s public statements had caused harmful humiliation and embarrassment . . . to the Kennedy family, Rice Funeral Home, the good people of the City of Three Rivers and the State of Texas. . . . we have not found the least trace of any act of un-American activities or racial discrimination practiced in this matter. . . . [Three Rivers] now and at all times enjoyed peaceful, orderly and most pleasant relations among all races. . . . the representative body of twenty posts in Bexar County . . . went on record deploring this hasty and unjust action that has caused the unwarranted criticism of fair and just citizens.59 Johnson reacted with surprise to this criticism from a veterans’ organization. He dropped his usually measured demeanor and shot off an immediate reply. With only lightly veiled sarcasm he noted, with interest, that you make no reference to the humiliation and embarrassment caused to the family of Felix Longoria by actions of Mr. Kennedy of the Rice Funeral Home. I do not know what your “competent, loyal, and unbiased” investigators found at Three Rivers, although I would very much appreciate seeing a copy of their report. I do know that on January 10, before I ever knew of the case, Mr. Kennedy was quoted in Associated Press dispatches printed in Texas newspapers as saying that he had denied the family use of his chapel because “whites might object.” I know, also, that he later said that he denied use of the chapel because of “Longoria family troubles,” and that he finally admitted he had said things in conversation with Dr. Hector Garcia of Corpus Christi which he “regretted.” Out of which, it still remains that he denied use of the chapel for the reburial services of an American soldier.60 LBJ’s response evidently had a positive effect. Two weeks later, Dan Quill, a resident of San Antonio and a personal friend of the senator, wrote,

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The Bexar County Central American Legion Council will have a special meeting tonight and we hope to take action that will be helpful to you. Farley gave the Express [a San Antonio newspaper] the story attached and said Dan Quill had instigated the recall, however the city editor was considerate enough not to use my name. [Dan Quill was San Antonio’s postmaster.] I now learn the Council authorized Farley to write the resolution which he did and then mailed it out without the matter ever having been placed before the Council and voted upon. Will let you know.61 Johnson received a second note from Quill on March 7. It advised,

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You will get a letter from Homer Long, Chairman of the Bexar County Central Council of the Legion which I believe you will like very much. Homer read to the Council the copy of letter you sent me that was addressed to Farley. He also publicly reprimanded Farley in open meeting for having written and signed the resolution without the Council having taken action. Please sent [sic] Mr. Long a nice acknowledgment which he will read to the Council . . .62 As Quill had predicted, Johnson got his dispatch from Homer Long. The statement disavowed Farley’s resolution and pledged the Council’s support for the senator’s actions in the Longoria affair. The purpose of this letter is to advise you that at least 90% of our membership consider you our friend and we were for you in the past and are for you now. It is very regrettable that this resolution came into your hands as it was never put before the Council and voted upon. As Chairman of the Bexar County Council . . . you are advised by me the resolution was never authorized by the Council. . . . It is believed any further action would just agitate the matter, but I want to give you my assurance that your actions in the Felix Longoria case are most commendable and we thank you for having gone to the trouble and expense of endeavoring to help a soldier who gave his life for his country. . . . Please be assured that this has not injured you in any way, but to the contrary has perhaps helped you.63 Homer Long’s assurances notwithstanding, Anglo Texans clearly split over the Longoria case and LBJ’s participation in it. Nevertheless, no

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matter on which side of the controversy they fell, virtually all thought the principal issues were racism and ethnocentrism. Although most South American and Caribbean newspapers ignored the incident, there were a number of exceptions to this pattern. La Nación of Buenos Aires and the Correo da Manha of Rio de Janeiro both attributed it to U.S. racism.64 Not surprisingly, Mexican presses devoted a great deal of attention to the affair. El Nacional, El Popular, Novedades, La Prensa, El Universal, and the English-language Mexico City Herald all picked up the story and ran a number of articles about it.65 Mexico City’s El Nacional claimed that the Longoria incident illustrated how persons of “Mexican descent suffered” in Texas because of their racial identifications.66 El Universal quoted Dr. García as saying, “People are denying him [Felix] his last funeral rites because of his origin [Mexican descent].” 67 A few days later the paper ran an article about Mexico’s ongoing negotiations with the United States over extension of the bracero program. El Universal urged Mexican representatives to insist on Texas’ exclusion from the agreement, given the “recent acts of discrimination Mexicans suffered in Texas.” 68 Because of the controversy Novedades, too, railed against Texas “racismo.” 69 At least in part, Latin Americans’ construction of the affair probably stemmed from historical experiences they had with the United States. Throughout much of the nineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries, the period leading up to the Longoria incident, Latin Americans had suffered U.S. racism along with their northern neighbor’s economic and military intervention in the hemisphere. U.S. entrepreneurs, politicians, military men, and writers often used prejudice-laced rhetoric to justify their aggressive actions south of the border.70 Such behavior understandably left Latin Americans with a commonly held set of interrelated perceptions of U.S. beliefs about Hispanics. First, Yankees seemed to view them as “inferior” racial beings. Even more upsetting, Anglos often used their racist views to turn moral arguments against their behavior toward Latin Americans on their heads. They claimed that U.S. conduct betrayed a belief in the Social Darwinist doctrine of “survival of the fittest.” Anglos’ economic and political gains at the expense of their Hispanic neighbors were the result of fair competition between different peoples during which the most “fit” group prevailed. At times, Anglos went so far as to state that they even had a moral obligation to control their southern neighbors in order to uplift these “backward peoples” and to ensure their progressive development. Such thinking incensed Latin Americans.71

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Southwest Anglos and Hispanics alike also saw the Longoria incident primarily as a question of racism. Newspapers within the region certainly interpreted it that way. An editorial in the New Mexican stated: The furor raised by the shoddy treatment of the bodies of our dark skinned soldiers indicates that maybe we are coming of age at last with a promise of becoming a nation of freedom and equality that we talk about so much but have never achieved.72

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The Los Angeles Times stressed the racist implications of the affair as well. Unlike the New Mexican, however, the Times tried not to take a stand in the controversy. Its article merely reported that Felix’s “Relatives asserted that the refusal [of the chapel] was due to the heroic soldier’s Mexican ancestry.” 73 Most Texans agreed with Latin Americans’ and other Southwesterners’ assessment that the Longoria controversy boiled down to a question of racism. Texans did not, however, reach consensus on whether allegations of racism in this particular case were well founded or not, and this variance generally followed geographic and racial lines. Many South Texas Anglos did not think that racism was the main motive behind Tom Kennedy’s actions; most Tejanos, regardless of where they lived in the state, thought otherwise. Indeed, Hispanics from all over Texas interpreted the dispute within a racial context. Mrs. Elia Lojano of Corpus Christi wrote LBJ that she “did not have the eloquence of words to express the feelings in my heart.” She thanked him for exposing to the nation “those so prejudiced against us [Mexican Americans].” 74 Mrs. A. S. Vento of San Juan, Texas, complained to the senator that the proprietor of the funeral home is giving the usual excuses . . . regarding the problem of discrimination in Texas against the people of Mexican descent, . . . that no discrimination exists in Texas. . . . his excuses were poor and ridiculous. The Spanish newspapers carries [sic] almost daily the abuses done to the people of Latin descent in Texas.75 The headline of the lead article in the January–February issue of LULAC’s (League of United Latin American Citizens’) News read “Bigotry

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in Texas.” Its author exclaimed, “With this classic example before them, we cannot conceive of any Southern bloc of legislators opposing bills to further the cause of racial and national equality.” 76 In the “Monthly Message from the President” carried by the LULAC News, R. A. Cortez called the “racial prejudice” illustrated in the Longoria incident “an insidious poison intended to pollute the blood-stream of America.” In Cortez’ opinion discrimination like that shown by Tom Kennedy represented a “wedge” that would inevitably “divide and conquer” the United States if allowed to go unchecked.77 Central and North Texas Anglos’ comments mirrored those of the New Mexican and Mexican Americans in emphasizing the racist overtones of the controversy. The Austin American described what happened as a case of “minority discrimination.” 78 The Sherman [Texas] Democrat said that Tom Kennedy’s refusal to wake Longoria’s body “carries racial prejudice to an extreme unconscionable on the part of free Texans.” 79 The Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express, Valley Morning Star (Harlingen), and Dallas Morning News echoed these comments.80 For all these reasons most Texans agreed that South Texas was the zone within the state where racism and ethnocentrism against Tejanos/as were strongest. Even there, Anglos acknowledged the potential racist overtones in Kennedy’s denial of the chapel, but they often discounted them in this case. E. B. McLeroy from Carrizo Springs did not think Kennedy acted out of racism. He said as much in a letter to a friend in Bryan, Texas. “As you know from reading the newspapers, there is quite a stink over what has been called ‘racial discrimination’ [referring to coverage of the Longoria affair].” McLeroy was convinced that Kennedy denied use of the chapel because Mexican Americans had a reputation for drunkenness and rowdiness at their wakes (racist statements in themselves), and the mortician simply wanted to avoid dealing with an unruly situation. To McLeroy it was “a helluva deal when an undertaker can’t decide for himself whether or not he wishes to handle a funeral through his own establishment.” 81 A University of Texas student from Three Rivers wrote LBJ to say, “The truth of the matter is . . . that the boy’s parents and his wife had an argument over the funeral arrangements and had come to the conclusion that the best thing to do was to have the ceremony in a private home.” 82 According to this young man, the decision not to wake Felix in the funeral parlor had nothing to do with the racism attributed to Tom Kennedy. It was

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the result of a family dispute.83 V. D. Wellington, a Buffalo, New York, transplant who had relocated to Three Rivers in 1945, expressed shock over the bad reputation that the incident had inflicted on his adopted home. He found it unfortunate “that the publicity given the case may lead outsiders to believe that racial discrimination is promoted and encouraged in the area.” Wellington had seen far higher levels of racism in his northeastern hometown than in Three Rivers and the surrounding South Texas region. He found it sad “that the citizens and officials of Three Rivers . . . should in any way be blamed” for the actions of one man, Tom Kennedy, especially in light of the fact that Kennedy himself was a newly arrived northerner. How could people project his attitudes onto those of other town Anglos or, as many had done, onto all Texans? Kennedy had lived in Three Rivers for only about a year when the incident occurred. How could this newcomer speak for the town’s Anglos? Besides, as many pointed out, Kennedy claimed toward the end of the controversy that he had never actually denied use of the chapel. He had merely “discouraged” it. Armed with this fine semantic distinction, some local Anglo residents attributed the controversy to nothing more than a “misunderstanding.” 84 Jack Montgomery, mayor of Three Rivers, agreed in part with this interpretation of the incident. He was an affable and outgoing individual even at the age of 101 in 1992. His voice goes a long way toward explaining how local Anglos constructed the affair. Montgomery fondly remembered the Three Rivers of 1949 as a pleasant agricultural and railroad settlement where all members of the community peacefully coexisted. Anglo residents of the town were not racist. They left “Mexicans” alone on their side of the tracks, and “Mexicans” left “Anglos” alone on their side of town. Charges of racism heaped upon Three Rivers as a result of the Longoria uproar baffled him. From his side of the tracks he saw nothing but harmony between the town’s two segregated populations. Only two possible explanations could account for so many other people’s negative interpretation of life there. They had simply misconstrued events surrounding the controversy out of ignorance of the facts and the setting. He also saw, however, a more sinister possibility. According to Jack, there was a conspiracy afoot to slander the good people of his town. Dr. Héctor García and Senator Lyndon Johnson had masterminded the plot to advance their own careers, the one as a civil rights crusader and the other as a liberal politician.85 The mayor harbored no ill will toward misguided

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folks. They just did not know any better. He even chuckled about the depth and intensity of the animosity the Longoria affair drew from them toward the town, and toward town officials like himself. He never blamed these critics; he simply dismissed their comments as misguided. One letter still stuck in the centenarian’s mind, hate mail from a woman in Maryland. She wrote, “If you and a skunk was [sic] on an island at the same time the skunk would leave first.” 86 She had it all wrong, according to Montgomery. “Heck,” as he publicly stated at the time, “they can hold the service in my home, and bury the boy in my backyard if that’s what the family wants.” 87 As he remembered it, Three Rivers’ Anglo and Mexican American populations “got along just fine right after the War.” 88 Those troublemakers, García and Johnson, well, they were just “rabble-rousers.” 89 By 1949, Three Rivers and the rest of South Texas possessed a unique combination of social and geographical characteristics that together contributed to the formation of a highly stratified and segregated society. The Mexican immigrant explanation for these sharply drawn lines of “otherness,” and the resulting harsh treatment of Mexican Americans by Anglos, is compelling. David Montejano, however, warns against such facile interpretations of Mexican American–Anglo relations, and especially in South Texas. In his mind other factors played a much more important role in these developments. He claims that interaction between the two groups became more race-based than ethnicity-based in nature primarily because of changing economic conditions within the region that were only indirectly related to the heavy influx of Mexican nationals.90 He thus provides a much more economic-class-based interpretation of South Tejano–Texan relations than others who present more of a socially based immigrant/ethnic interpretation of the growing antagonisms between the two populations during this period. Montejano argues that changes in the region’s production sector led to altered economic relationships between Anglo employers and Mexican American workers. Anglos then moved to preserve this new economic order by institutionalizing its most important features through practice, and even more importantly through laws. At least one 1949 commentator on South Texas Mexican American–Anglo relations agreed with the “institutionalization” part of Montejano’s analysis. Just months after the Longoria incident occurred, Mexico’s consul in Corpus Christi wrote a report to his superiors in Mexico City that tried to place the controversy within some type

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of overall context. First, he stated that discrimination against Tejanos pervaded the area and occurred on a daily basis. He then divided this prejudicial behavior into two broad categories. The consul, too, thought that legalized discrimination did the greatest harm, and it existed in many forms within the region: in segregated schools, in public places and housing, as well as in restrictive voting laws and the uneven administration of justice. He reported that in his opinion these represented the worst types of discrimination because they had the force of the law behind them. The diplomat labeled this type of prejudice Category “A.” He went on to assign nonlegalized discrimination to a lower Category “B.” In his judgment the Longoria affair fell into this lesser level of prejudice, a Category “B” offense. For this reason he thought the incident exposed only the tip of the iceberg insofar as South Texas Anglo discrimination against Mexicans was concerned.91 Montejano argues that between 1870 and 1930 several changes took place in the South Texas economic order that led to the institutionalization of discrimination within the region. First, land was transferred from Mexican American to Anglo hands, creating very large livestock and dairy ranches such as those owned by the King, Kenedy, Kleberg, and Lasater families.92 Despite the fact that market forces, primarily, drove these enterprises, Montejano observes that their founders and those that came after them incorporated many of the social relationships that had existed between patrón and peón when Mexican Americans controlled the ranch lands. The ranching culture that emerged represented somewhat of a transitional work environment that married earlier, more socially grounded employer-worker ties to more economically based ones. According to Montejano, this “mixed” old/new hybrid socioeconomic climate had but limited effect on the region’s traditionally somewhat accommodative set of relationships between Anglo employers and Tejano workers. Around the turn of the century, however, a number of more socially dislocating economic changes took place, which may have had an even greater and a more adverse influence on Anglo–Mexican American interaction. In 1898, Robert Kleberg, a son-in-law who had assumed control of the King ranch after the deaths of its founder and his widow, sank deep wells into the land and discovered a huge underground aquifer the size of the state of Connecticut. This vast hidden reservoir of water made irrigation and commercial agriculture possible for the first time in the semiarid region. In addition, oil was discovered in East Texas, and shortly thereafter successful exploration and drilling spread hundreds

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of miles southward into the Nueces River basin.93 Soon cotton, sorghum, and vegetable farms began to spring up alongside oil pumping stations throughout the eastern portion of the zone. As a result of these new enterprises, Anglo farmers and oilmen began to challenge Anglo ranchers for political and economic hegemony within the region. More importantly, these competing Anglo owners of a more diversified production sector established different relationships with the Hispanics who worked for them. Social relationships in the older ranching culture were personal as well as economic in nature. They depended more on tradition and practice to define and maintain social rank than upon written contracts and laws. Anglo ranchers often assumed somewhat paternalistic positions at the top of their local societies, and viewed Hispanic ranch hands as their dependents as well as their laborers.94 Driven by impersonal marketplace considerations, newly arrived Anglo commercial farmers and oilmen transformed the relationship between Anglo employers and Mexican workers. The latter lost their dependent status and became mere wage laborers, often transient workers. No more could they count on the support of their patrón. This depersonalization of the workplace had a disastrous effect on Tejanos in the region. It dehumanized them and converted them to mere production units in the eyes of their new Anglo farmer and oil company employers. The result everywhere was the same: where commercial agriculture made significant headway, the previous understanding between Mexican and Anglo was undermined. Mexicans now found themselves treated as an inferior race, segregated into their own town quarters and refused admittance at restaurants, picture shows, bathing beaches, and so on.95 In 1949, Three Rivers, a small town in Live Oak County, was a product of this new market-driven commercial economy. Its Anglo-owned funeral chapel fell into Montejano’s “and so on” segregationist category.96 Founded just over three decades earlier, Three Rivers’ economy rested on commercial agriculture and railroad traffic. As a consequence, relations between its Anglo and Mexicano residents reflected newer and harsher racial and class-shaped social realities. The Longoria incident and other controversies like it bred naturally in this new type of South Texas setting. People in other parts of the United States ascribed a somewhat dif-

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ferent meaning to the Longoria incident than Latin Americans, Southwesterners, and Texans. They decried the unpatriotic implications of Tom Kennedy’s refusal to wake Felix Longoria’s body in his Three Rivers funeral chapel. This construction was primarily the result of World War II memories. The New York Times was one of the most widely circulated and influential newspapers of the time. It ran a front page article about the dispute the day after receiving one of Dr. García’s telegrams seeking outside support for Beatrice Longoria’s use of the funeral chapel. The Times account described the undertaker’s refusal as a

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direct contradiction of those principles for which the American soldier made the supreme sacrifice in giving his life for his country and for the same people who now deny him the last funeral rites deserving of any American hero regardless of his origin.97 The Philadelphia Inquirer condemned Kennedy’s decision to deny use of the funeral chapel because it violated “a U.S. soldier’s rights to a decent and honorable burial.” 98 Felix Longoria paid with his life for the freedoms upon which this country rested. Logically, as a fallen soldier, he deserved equal treatment. The Detroit Free Press condemned the act and the bigotry associated with it. Its reporter drove this message home with a cartoon that seemed to indict the whole state of Texas along with the Three Rivers funeral home. The drawing clearly identified prejudice as a central theme in the incident. A whitehooded, shotgun-toting figure represented the Anglo bigotry involved; but the visual focal point of the cartoon was the flag-draped coffin of Felix Longoria, suggesting that the greatest affront was to the nation’s sense of patriotism. The inscription on the casket illustrated the priorities of national concern perfectly: “PVT. FELIX LONGORIA LUZON WAR HERO OF MEXICAN DESCENT.” 99 Equally strong statements condemning the unpatriotic behavior of the funeral director appeared in the Chicago Daily Tribune, the Washington Times Herald, and a host of other prominent newspapers.100 On February 17, 1949, the New York Times carried a piece entitled “Texas Honors War Hero at Burial in Arlington.” The thrust of the story was that Felix Longoria deserved a hero’s burial in order to make up for the Three Rivers affront. A soldier whose life had helped bring victory in the Pacific did not deserve to suffer small-town Texas discrimination; he deserved the gratitude of the nation.101

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Reprinted by permission of the Detroit Free Press.

Private citizens joined the outcry. In letters to Dr. García, Senator Johnson, and officials in Three Rivers, they objected most to the wrong done to a “U.S. soldier.” They less frequently mentioned discrimination against a Mexican American. William Hayes of Champaign, Illinois, expressed shock at the mortician’s “un-American” actions in dishonoring a dead soldier’s body. He recommended using the “harshest legal measures available” against Tom Kennedy.102 Clifford Bishop, a Seventh Circuit judge in Flint, Michigan, wrote Johnson to tell him that the incident appalled him. He thanked LBJ for his efforts on behalf of the dead soldier’s family.103 Martin Zayanckusky of Chicago protested that Tom Kennedy’s refusal was “treasonous.” He wanted

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the undertaker arrested.104 Mrs. R. A. Hardy of Legionnaire, Pennsylvania, told Johnson that she had lost a son in the war. She could only imagine how badly Felix’s family must have felt over the incident.105 Karl O. Spiess, commander of the Virginia department of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), wanted Johnson to know how strongly he and other VFW members felt about this incident. Veterans deserved respect, not discrimination.106 Dr. Stuart Gary Brown, a professor in the Maxwell Graduate School of Citizenship, Syracuse University, agreed. He devoted a whole lecture to the implications that the Longoria incident held for the question of civilian/military responsibilities to one another in a working democracy.107 Contemporary perspective probably overrode historical perspective in shaping national-level construction of the Longoria controversy. There was certainly plenty of evidence to indicate that people across the country had held racist views toward Mexicans from Texas independence onward. David Weber observed that ill will and even conflict between the United States and Mexico were probably inevitable, since “Contention for power and resources is, of course, part of an ongoing struggle between classes, races, and genders within established societies.” 108 That struggle came in 1846 when war broke out between the two nations. During this fighting the U.S. government and media resorted to racist excuses to justify aggression toward Latin Americans. Future president James Buchanan described our southern neighbors as an “imbecile and indolent . . . race.” 109 The New York Evening Post wrote, The Mexicans are Indians—Aboriginal Indians. Such as Cortez conquered . . . , only rendered a little more mischievous by a bastard civilization. The infusion of European blood [Spanish] whatever it is, and that, too, infused in a highly illegitimate way, is not enough, as we see it, to affect the character of the people. They do not possess the elements of an independent national existence.110 Ironically, those that opposed the war also did so on racist grounds. One congressman, for example, pointed out that U.S. victory would lead to the acquisition of Mexican territory, and darker-skinned populations with it. In an impassioned speech to his colleagues on the floor of the U.S. House, he vowed that “we shall never incorporate any but members of the Caucasian race into our union.” 111 Historical wounds

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to Mexican national pride arising out of U.S. economic and military intervention, and even more importantly out of the attitudes of U.S. citizens who had worked in and visited Mexico, as well as out of the experiences of Mexican nationals while in the United States, have instilled a commonly held view of U.S. racism toward Mexicans. Perhaps Mexico’s most distinguished twentieth-century historian, Daniel Cosío Villegas, said as much when he wrote, “There is not the least doubt, . . . that he [the North American] considers the Mexican his inferior physically, intellectually, and morally.” 112 Despite these deep-grained racist and ethnocentric feelings toward Mexicans across the United States, most non-Southwesterners saw something more important to them in the Longoria affair. The recent world conflict still gripped the national consciousness. World War II, more than any other war to this point, had altered our position within the world community. It had transformed the United States’ role into that of a leader, and by 1949 the nation had not yet fully adjusted to its newly won superpower international status. This leadership role brought with it feelings of national pride, gratitude toward the citizensoldiers who had won high international rank for the country on the battlefield, and a sense of world responsibility. On the other hand, a certain degree of anxiety came with this last concern, especially in light of an emerging international threat to the postwar Pax Americana—a sometimes overt and sometimes covert Cold War. Indeed, Eric Goldman described 1949 as a “Year of Shocks” for the U.S. population, a time when Russia got the bomb, China fell to Communism, and newspapers sensationalized trials of purported Soviet agents who passed vital national secrets on to the enemy.113 Yet, all these mixed feelings yielded one common result. They all engendered exaggerated degrees of patriotism out of pride in victory, out of proclaimed world leadership, and out of a perceived common threat—international Communism. The average U.S. citizen remained far more preoccupied with patriotic concerns over international and national issues than with discrimination in the Southwest, and he or she filtered incidents such as the Longoria dispute through a maze of such nationalistic preoccupations. Far removed from the actual scene of the event, they regarded Felix Longoria more as a wronged defender of the flag than as a victim of racial or ethnic discrimination. Varying U.S. regional, ethnic, and racial breakdowns also contributed to the national-level interpretation of the Longoria incident.

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In 1949, the forty-three contiguous states outside the Southwest held less than 15 percent of the Hispanic population. Hispanic presence in these areas attracted far less attention because Latinos were either constantly on the move in pursuit of migrant farmworker positions, or residing in small urban enclaves in places like Chicago and New York.114 To non-Southwesterners, Mexican Americans were a nearly invisible people, and Anglo discrimination against them was a distant Southwest problem, not a national one. Consistent with these views, national outrage over the Longoria incident stemmed far more from something to which all could relate, some redneck Texan had dishonored a dead U.S. soldier and his family. In the still charged postwar atmosphere of early 1949, the fact that Felix Longoria was a dead U.S. war hero outweighed the fact that he was a dead Mexican American in assessing Kennedy’s decision to deny use of the Three Rivers funeral chapel. How could anyone treat the remains of a U.S. soldier killed in combat that way? That was what everyone across the country wanted to know in 1949. Newspaper articles and radio commentaries touched a nationalistic chord when they reported this story, and the outpouring of public sentiment across the country was voluminous and intense. All the above information helps to place the Longoria dispute within better time and place context. Those Americans who viewed the incident from outside the Southwest and Latin America constructed it within the context of offended patriotism. They used language like “unpatriotic,” “un-American,” “civilian/military responsibilities,” “treasonous,” “soldiers’ rights,” and “affront to the U.S. flag.” Those that saw the controversy from the vantage point of the Southwest, Mexico, or some other Latin American country interpreted it differently. In their comments about the affair they employed words and phrases like “origin of descent,” “Mexicanidad,” “race,” “racism,” “racial discrimination,” “dark-skinned soldiers,” “little brown men,” “minority discrimination,” and “racial inequality.” Jack Montgomery even referred to Felix as the dead Mexican “boy.” David Montejano correctly admonishes us not to forget the economic motivations behind Mexican American segregation and disopportunity. Yet, neither can we ignore the insights of other scholars like Neil Foley and the historical record itself that reflect traditional emotions and attitudes emerging out of the Texas struggle for independence, the Mexican-American War, post-1910 immigration and an accommodationist rather than an

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assimilative–melting pot integrative process, as well as legalized discrimination and the like in shaping the 1949 mentalité within South Texas’ Anglo and Tejano communities.115 Ultimately, the most plausible explanation for the harsh Texan-Tejano relations that operated to varying degrees throughout the Nueces Strip right after the war is the most comprehensive explanation. The structural economic change and more consistent racism that Montejano documents probably acted covariantly with more antistructuralist human forces like emotion, racism, ethnocentrism, honor, and patriotism to elicit varying reactions to the Longoria controversy. These combined considerations caused most individuals from South Texas, whether Hispanic or Anglo, to interpret the Longoria incident within the context of their surroundings. They saw it as a question of Anglo racism and ethnocentrism against Mexican Americans. Those outside the region construed it differently. International, national, regional, and local reactions to the Longoria incident underscore the importance of historical context and a balanced structuralist/antistructuralist approach to interpreting individual and collective behavior in conflicts like the one over Felix Longoria’s wake.116 This incident meant different things to different people because they measured it against differing individual and collective past experiences, because their responses were shaped in part by structural economic, demographic, and political conditions and in part by emotive feelings and sensibilities arising out of abstract constructs like honor, patriotism, ethnocentrism, and racism.117 In this sense the actors and the audience, whether moved by racism, by ethnocentrism, or by patriotism, were like the proverbial blind men touching the same elephant in different spots and conjuring up quite distinct, yet equally controversial, images of wrongs or rights in their own minds’ eyes. This insight goes a long way to explaining the course of events and the actions of those involved throughout the late winter and early spring of 1949. Yet, it falls short of answering a related and equally important question: Why did the Longoria incident, a Category B example of discrimination in the words of the Mexican consul, elicit such intense and widespread reaction when other more physically injurious and more legalized forms of discrimination that befell the Tejano population on an everyday basis did not?

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IN ORDER TO BETTER UNDERSTAND what set the Longoria affair apart from so many other examples of discrimination in postwar South Texas, we must start with the individuals involved. This drama began with three actors—Felix Longoria, Beatrice Moreno Longoria, and Thomas W. Kennedy, Jr. By all accounts, their circles of friends, neighbors, and acquaintances liked each of these three individuals. All had even tempers and were considerate and caring. On the surface none appeared a likely candidate for public misbehavior. Just where Felix Longoria might have stood in the debate over his wake is a moot question. He never became an active participant because he died four and a half years before the controversy began. Yet, how Felix had lived and how he died had everything to do with the conflict swirling around his 1949 funeral. Relatives remember him as a good son, husband, and father who stood nearly six feet tall and had a well-proportioned body. Most described him as good-looking, with

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light brown hair and eyes, a winning smile, and a pleasant personality. Felix was born and grew up in Three Rivers. He began working for his father at eight or nine because the 1930s were depression years and the family needed the extra income. Beatrice, however, thought that he entered the workforce so young because he and his brothers were so big for their ages. She remembered that their father expected them, even as grade school students, to do a man’s work. They attended no more than one to two days of classes per week at the Three Rivers “Mexican” school. The rest of the time they labored for their dad. As a result, none of the boys, including Felix, received much of an education. He finished the third grade and then went to work full-time.1 Guadalupe Longoria, Sr., enjoyed a good deal of respect in both the Mexican and Anglo segments of the Three Rivers community. His neighbors in the former group viewed him as a potential employer and a relatively prosperous contractor because he had a small fence-building business. Anglos saw him as an effective labor recruiter and reliable businessman. When not working for his father, Felix toiled at several other jobs, most related to the area’s oil fields. His eldest brother, Guadalupe, Jr., learned to weld, and obtained employment in his father’s hometown of Benavides. By fourteen, Felix stood tall enough to handle the tasks of a roughneck on the rigs Guadalupe, Jr., worked. The money proved good and the overhead low. The boys saved a good deal of their pay by living in a wood-floored tent provided by the oil company.2 Felix had two years’ experience in the dangerous and demanding world of the oil patch by the time he started dating Beatrice Moreno. They were both sixteen at the time and out of school. By then Felix held a fairly good job; he drove one of the trucks hauling materials and men to and from the drilling sites.3 Jack Montgomery, the mayor of Three Rivers during the controversy over Felix’s wake, was his supervisor and remembered him as a hard worker, a likable young man who got along with everyone.4 Beatrice was a quiet and attractive young lady with large brown eyes and light freckled skin. People often commented on her cheerful disposition. She came from a large family with thirteen children. Her father worked for the railroad, servicing track between Corpus Christi and San Antonio. Following the work, the family had to move every few years to one site or another along the line. The Morenos spent most of their time, however, in two settlements. They lived several years off and on in Three Rivers, but considered Corpus Christi their permanent home.5

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During their time together in Three Rivers Beatrice and Felix spent long hours on her parents’ porch swing just sitting and talking. She felt more at ease with him than with most other people. He entertained her with his good-natured wit. The loss of his childhood to the rigors of the workplace had not hardened Felix. He was not reckless or self-centered like many young men his age. He was a sensitive and caring person, and his thoughtfulness and lightheartedness seemed contagious. He had a way of making her feel appreciated and happy. Felix also took her places. He loved music and dancing, especially polka dancing. They had great times together at local gatherings. In all these ways Felix just made her content and at ease. Her affection for him grew stronger and more enduring with each passing month. Tears still came to her eyes when she spoke of him over forty years later. He was a good man. His loss had brought her great sorrow, and the affront to his memory years afterwards had made her angry. She had endured a great deal defending his honor because he merited her loyalty.6 At eighteen, after two years of courtship, Felix proposed, Beatrice accepted, and they got married.7 Sara, Beatrice’s sister, recalled snatches of events surrounding the ceremony. The Morenos had left Three Rivers and again located in Corpus Christi. Felix and his mother made the trip from Three Rivers to formally ask Beatrice’s parents for her hand. They readily consented. Several of the young women in both families helped Beatrice pick out her dress and make arrangements. Her parents provided a formal wedding. Both sides of the family had a wonderful time planning and attending the celebration. All thought it was a good match and anticipated a long and happy life for the couple.8 After the wedding Beatrice and Felix set up housekeeping in the small house across the street from Felix’s parents, but work proved scarce in Three Rivers. Within a year the couple relocated in Corpus Christi. Out of necessity, they lived with Beatrice’s family. Felix could fix almost anything, and he got along well with his in-laws. Beatrice’s father often said his son-in-law did more work around the Moreno house than her brothers did. In fact, the family often described Felix as muy graniador (very helpful). He was just a jovial and giving person, an individual that people enjoyed having around.9 When Felix failed to find the satisfying and lucrative employment that he sought in Corpus Christi, it bothered him. He had a wife to support, and he did not want to take advantage of her parents’ generosity by remaining in their home. After six months of job hunting in the port city, he and Beatrice

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returned to their house in Three Rivers. Resettled, the couple began planning their family. A year and a half later they had their first and only child, a girl they named Adela. At home they affectionately called her “Adelita,” the same name as the musical heroine of the twentiethcentury Mexican revolution. That was 1941, three years before Felix’s entry into the service. For the remainder of their life together the family lived a modest but secure existence. Felix had work with his father, which he supplemented with temporary jobs at drilling sites. His wife stayed at home and cared for their daughter. Both Beatrice and Adelita remember these as happy years spent with a loving and attentive husband and father. For his part, Felix appeared to enjoy the time he spent with them. Although very young, Adelita claims she remembers her father’s infectious happiness. He doted over her constantly, doing all the things dads did to make their children happy.10 The family’s time together lasted but a few short years. On November 11, 1944, Felix Longoria joined the U.S. Army as a private. Beatrice remembered that he had a “bad feeling” about his late entry into the war. He feared he was tempting fate, but he went anyway. After just a few weeks of basic training at Fort Hood he received his orders for the Pacific. Adela faintly remembers her and her mother’s traveling to Belton, Texas, and renting a room for one last night with him. Just before departing he picked her up and they danced a final polka. Then he left.11 Within two months he had won a Purple Heart and a Combat Infantryman’s Badge. Shortly thereafter, on June 16, 1945, his bravery got him killed.12 Beatrice, Adela, and the remainder of his family missed Felix during his tour of duty. When Beatrice, in 1945, received the telegram that every soldier’s wife dreaded, she missed him even more. At four, Adelita did not fully comprehend her loss. Even at the reinterment graveside service four years later she still did not really grasp the significance of the event. By then her father was just a dim but pleasant memory.13 By then she had already lived more than half her life without him. Had Felix returned from the war alive, he probably would not have created the incident he did upon returning dead. Confrontation simply did not fit his demeanor. By nature he avoided conflicts. He had grown up enduring Anglo discrimination against Tejanos. It had not embittered him then, and likely would not have embittered him upon his return. Felix had a way of coping with adversity rather than fighting it.

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Beatrice, Adela, and Felix Longoria. Courtesy of Adela Longoria de Cerra.

He appeared an unlikely candidate to envelop Three Rivers and the rest of Texas in a controversy over Anglo discrimination. Ironically, in death he did just that. Thomas W. Kennedy, Jr., was the third major player in this incident along with Felix and Beatrice (Moreno de) Longoria. He was born in Duncanville and raised in Bellwood, Pennsylvania. Tom, as the locals in Three Rivers called him, first came to Texas for military training. He arrived at Camp Maxey, Texas, on December 23, 1942. After a brief transfer for more specialized medical training and exercises in Louisiana, he returned to Texas’ Camp Swift, near Bastrop. While stationed at Swift, he met and married Jewel Knezek in 1944. Tom nicknamed

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her “Jane,” and she willingly accepted the change.14 A month later his unit transferred to Fort Dix, New Jersey. In December he embarked for Europe and his final destination, the German western front. Serving as a medic, Kennedy picked up the nickname “Doc,” a title that stuck with him for many years.15 Like Felix’s service, half a world away in the Philippines, Tom Kennedy’s combat tour did not last long. On April 1, 1945, April Fool’s Day, Kennedy suffered shrapnel wounds when his boat was shelled while crossing the Rhine River. He underwent hospitalization in Belgium for several months until he embarked for the United States in September 1945.16 A short time after his arrival he received a medical discharge from the army. He then set out for his wife’s parents’ house in Schulenburg, Texas. Kennedy continued to convalesce for another three months, all the while contemplating how to reenter civilian life in his newly adopted state. He would have to earn a livelihood that would allow him to support his new wife and their planned family. Tom finally settled on an undertaker’s calling. He had treated human bodies in life during the war; he would now treat them in death after the conflict. The training was relatively short, the pay was adequate, and the job security was good. Death was certain, and the need for someone to organize funeral rituals surrounding the event remained constant. In February 1946, he entered Landig College of Mortuary Science in Houston. By mid-November he had completed the program, received his degree, and passed the state licensing exam. From Houston he and his wife moved to Beeville, a small ranching community sixty miles north of Corpus Christi. After a year’s apprenticeship in a Beeville mortuary, Kennedy relocated in Three Rivers, where he briefly managed, then bought, Manon Rice’s funeral home, the only one in town. In Three Rivers Jane gave birth to their only child, Susan.17 To this point Tom Kennedy had much in common with Felix Longoria. He had fought in World War II; he had married a Texas woman; and he had a young daughter. Tom possessed a likable personality, although not as outgoing as Felix’s. Yet like Felix, Tom showed an unusual degree of considerateness toward others, and his Anglo neighbors appreciated that virtue. Also like Felix, Tom Kennedy was a good family man, who doted on his wife and daughter. The Anglo citizens of Three Rivers welcomed him and his family. They viewed the Kennedys as positive additions to the community. And finally, both Tom and Felix made their home in the same South Texas town. The two men did

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A June 1944 photograph of Jewel “Jane” Kennedy and Thomas W. Kennedy. Courtesy of Mrs. Jane Kennedy.

have two striking differences within the context of South Texas’ social environment. Felix Longoria was a Mexican and Tom Kennedy was an Anglo. Moreover, Kennedy was a newcomer and Longoria a native son. By January 1949, however, Kennedy had lived in the upper reaches of the Nueces Strip long enough to understand that his cultural identity gave him power over “Mexicans” like Felix Longoria. Kennedy had not, however, lived in the area long enough to know how to apply that power “gracefully,” especially in the charged atmosphere of rising expectations among the region’s Tejanos resulting from their involvement in World War II. His newness to the region, along with his subscription to its prejudiced Anglo attitudes toward Mexican Americans,

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probably did put him at higher risk than Beatrice or Felix of becoming embroiled in some type of local dispute over racism and ethnocentrism. The other Anglo who played a central role in the Longoria incident did not come from South Texas either, and like Tom Kennedy, he had but a year’s experience living there, although by 1949 he had long since relocated. He was from Stonewall, Texas, on the dividing line between Anglo-American and German-American populations. To the west and the south of his hometown lay the “hill country,” or the Edwards Plateau, a southern extension of the Rocky Mountains. People spoke German as often as English in this region. In the area just to the east where Stonewall sat on the north bank of the Pedernales River, inhabitants with Anglo-Saxon surnames dominated: names like Johnson and Baines, the two families from which this individual descended. He was Lyndon Baines Johnson, the newly elected junior U.S. senator from the state of Texas in January 1949.18 In his youth Johnson likely knew few, if any, Mexican Americans or blacks, although somewhere along the way he did learn to speak a sort of “Tex-Mex.” He also learned a little German, mainly obscene phrases he heard from his neighbors. But nearly everyone he came in contact with was white-faced. The same situation would have prevailed at his university, Southwest Texas State Teachers College, in San Marcos.19 After his third year in college, Johnson took a position in the Cotulla, Texas, public schools. The town rested about forty miles south of Three Rivers, well within the South Texas region. Three-quarters of Cotulla’s three thousand inhabitants in 1928 were Mexican American.20 Numerous stories circulated among them about this Anglo’s unusual commitment to their children. One told of the time he bought baseball and volleyball equipment out of his first paycheck so the kids could play ball during recess, and compete interscholastically in sports.21 Another recounted how he had put his job as principal on the line with the school board by insisting that his teaching staff “volunteer” their personal time to supervise playground activities. As Julie Pycior put it, “Many of the leading families [Anglo] saw him as a brash outsider, stirring things up, . . . and fraternizing with the Mexican families.” 22 Cotulla Mexican American families “were all crazy about him.” 23 Robert Caro attributed LBJ’s hard work and sacrifice at Cotulla to his personal craving for respect and gratitude. Cotulla Mexican Amer-

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icans “were accustomed to taking orders from and acting subservient to Anglos,” and Lyndon desperately wanted to give orders.24 Cotulla Mexican Americans were not, however, used to teachers spending extra time with their students; LBJ came early and stayed late.25 He volunteered to lead extracurricular activities in sports and in debate. If it was respect and gratitude that motivated him, he received it in large measure from his students and their parents. As Daniel García, one of the former Cotulla students, confided to Caro, “We almost thought he was too good for us.” 26 Caro seems to describe a near-codependent relationship that developed between Johnson and the Mexican American families he served in Cotulla. They needed and appreciated the educational services he delivered to them, and he needed the praise and respect they gave him for his efforts. Robert Dallek takes a less psychoanalytical approach to interpreting LBJ’s behavior in Cotulla. He was simply touched by the lot of his students and their families. In his mind, they were treated worse than “dogs.” Impoverished, overworked, and paid near “slave wages,” they deserved better, he thought, and he tried to lay the groundwork for their improvement through education.27 He had not come from wealth. His hometown of Johnson City in the hill country may have been more prosperous than Cotulla during those nine months from September 1928 through May 1929 that he spent in the latter South Texas town, but he knew poverty, and he had personally felt the sting of discrimination associated with it.28 During the summer of 1929, the father of Carol Davis, a young woman Lyndon was courting, purportedly referred to him and the rest of the people in Johnson City as “a bunch . . . of shiftless dirt farmers and grubby politicians.” 29 Beyond these considerations all agree LBJ was a man of boundless energy and intensity who was homesick in Cotulla, so he threw himself into his job as teacher and principal at the Welhausen Mexican Ward School, just as he had and would throw himself into any job he undertook.30 This was a complex and hardworking individual. He gave the people in Cotulla the same thing he gave anyone who hired him, everything he had to give. And Mexican Americans and Anglos alike in this small, parched cattle town remembered and appreciated him for it. In 1935 president Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Johnson state director of the National Youth Administration.31 From this position the former Cotulla teacher further endeared himself to South Texas’ Tejano population. As the new regional NYA director, he employed Mex-

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LBJ’s Senate inauguration celebration, Washington, D.C., January 1949. Courtesy of Sylvia Nedow Greenburg and the LBJ Library, Austin, Texas.

ican American youths as readily as he employed young Anglos, a policy well ahead of the times. He hired an estimated twenty thousand of the region’s youth.32 Many a resident of the Nueces Strip, Tejano and Anglo alike, owed him a debt of gratitude because he had given them a job during the leanest years of the Depression. He did not collect on many of these debts during his first run for public office. In that race he won a seat in Congress from a district with a comparative handful of Tejanos. Then came 1948, almost two decades after his Cotulla experience. In that year he finally had the opportunity to draw on all the goodwill he had earned with South Texas’ Mexican American community. Tejanos voted for him in large numbers, allowing his narrow victory in the hotly contested campaign. Such was the situation in the early days of January 1949, a time when Senator Lyndon B. Johnson was on trial. Right then, the wisest procedure he could follow would be to lie low for a while and take no controversial stands. The youthful LBJ, as many called him by then, did not present a likely candidate for involvement in the Longoria affair.

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Clearly, Dr. Héctor Pérez García played the most important role in distinguishing the Longoria incident from numerous other examples of post–World War II Anglo discrimination against Mexican Americans. García’s life spanned and reflected most of the structural, demographic, economic, social, and political conditions that predisposed South Texas to a controversy like the Longoria dispute. His experiences in that environment reflect these structural forces’ impact on the broader Nueces River basin. Because of his professional training he addressed the Longoria affront in a deliberate and rational fashion.33 Yet, because he had personally felt discrimination, his reactions also reflect the emotive forces behind Mexican American responses to the Longoria controversy. This mix of rational and emotional forces at play in the drama bore down on him as it did on the rest of the Tejano community, but its effects are much more transparent in his behavior than in others’ because he exercised a much more public voice in the controversy than they did.34 Dr. García left a written and oral record of his thoughts, feelings, and actions both at the time of the incident and later in his reflections on it. In short, his is the most extensive and balanced rational and emotional commentary we have on this remarkable affair of honor and conflict that became a watershed in the evolution of modern Tejano-Texan relations in the Nueces Strip. His involvement with World War II and his dealings with Lyndon Baines Johnson also offer an unusual grassroots and multicultural window into Texas politics at the time. And again, because of his extraordinarily full and tireless public voice, his commentary on these developments and their relationship to the Longoria event remains the clearest and most complete. The first half of the twentieth century was a period of rapid and dramatic change in South Texas. From 1910 onward the region’s population grew at a faster pace than ever before. Mexican nationals by the thousands came from the south, refugees of a bloody and destructive revolutionary conflict that lasted for twenty years (1910 –1929) and reshaped Mexicans’ thoughts about who they were; it redefined Mexican national identity. The country articulated this remarkable redefinition in a new radical constitution, a new socially revolutionary educational system, in the renaissance of an old public art form that glorified common persons of color and vilified white elites, and in the establishment of a revolutionary political party that aimed at universal male suffrage.35 The revolution created a national image, as much myth as fact, that replaced the exclusiveness of racist and ethnocentric colonial

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legacies with a new social philosophy propounded by the country’s post-1920 Minister of Education, poet José Vasconcelos. Vasconcelos acknowledged that the twentieth-century Mexican population was the product of centuries of racial miscegenation and cultural syncretism. Mexicans had become a “raza cósmica” (cosmic race), the hybrid racial and cultural products of Spanish and Indian peoples. Vasconcelos evidently forgot, or deliberately omitted reference to, Mexico’s colonial African blacks, who were as numerous as its Hispanic white inhabitants during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.36 No matter, Mexican schoolchildren learned that the country’s hybrid population embodied the best of all racial and cultural groups that had historically contributed to its formation.37 Such a concept neutralized the influence of older social constructs and controls like racial and ethnic identifiers. Many of the immigrants that streamed into South Texas after 1910 had consciously or unconsciously begun to internalize Vasconcelos’ philosophy. Some identified themselves as members of this cosmic race, and they incorporated into their collective psyche the social values that emanated from this identification, especially its antiracist and anti-ethnocentric implications. Others, especially those of low economic status and/or strong Indian cultural origins, as Manuel Gamio points out, simply referred to themselves as members of the “Raza,” without any clear definition in their minds as to what that meant. Even these individuals, however, did not, according to Gamio, associate “La Raza” identification with racial or ethnic inferiority, and were shocked and dismayed by the discrimination they encountered at the hands of Anglos, who defined them as both racially and ethnically different from the general U.S. population. And Gamio noted that Texas was one of the places where such prejudice was strongest.38 In 1914, Héctor Pérez García was born in Llera, Tamaulipas, Mexico. His father taught school and instilled in his family much of the new Mexican nationalism that developed during the country’s revolutionary period. When maestro José García used the term race with his children, he defined it within the context of Vasconcelos’ all-inclusive cosmic race. Such a definition ran counter to the one applied in South Texas during the twentieth century. This created a dilemma for young Héctor. He recognized that his family’s Mexicanidad made them different from Anglos in his new home, but he did not construct that difference the same way “white” Texans did. He saw it in cultural terms;

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they saw it in both cultural and biological terms. Whereas Anglos’ perceptions of Mexicanness stressed unaccommodatable “otherness,” Héctor’s perception of it presumed the possibility of egalitarian and accommodative biculturalism.39 This difference in perceptions placed young Héctor, from the outset, on a collision course with the race- and ethnicity-based mentality of the Nueces Strip’s Anglos. For example, he saw no incongruence between his pride in his Hispanic culture and his potential achievement through native intelligence and hard work in an Anglo-run educational system. Anglos seemed to qualify such an assumption on the basis of his Mexicanidad. At the very least, they would require him to abandon his Mexican nationalism and assimilate their “American” culture. Despite these differences between his and Anglos’ requirements for and expectations of the educational process, the young man remained undaunted. At a time when Anglo teachers punished grade school students for speaking Spanish, Héctor excelled in the English-only academy while privately speaking and reading both English and Spanish.40 Immigrant Mexican families like José and Faustina García’s introduced South Texas to revolutionary new social ideas about race and nationalism. These ideas made the zone’s Tejano community more inclusive and activist in its interaction with the broader regional society. Tejanos seemed to have the opposite effect on Anglos living there. More-established Anglos, those that had founded the Nueces Strip ranching culture during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, often reacted resentfully and fearfully to the onslaught of new arrivals pouring into the Nueces Strip from 1910 onward. Many of these older Texan families saw these immigrants as a horde of foreign revolutionaries that would one day seize control of the land their forbears had wrested from Mexicans through battle, and later from Mexican Americans through economic competition.41 Politically and economically related power relationships like these worked to racially polarize Anglo thinking. Mexican nationals did not account for all of the acceleration in the Nueces Strip’s population growth rate after 1910. At about the same time farm families began to move into the area from Midwestern and Southern states. Population growth and the rise of corporate farming in these areas forced many small farmers to move in search of new agricultural lands. These factors, coupled with the extension of the railroads and the advent of large-scale irrigation, encouraged farmers from

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more established and overcrowded areas in the country to try their luck in the Southwest.42 These new Anglos helped to transform South Texas from a ranching to a commercial agricultural zone. This economic change harshened relations between Tejanos and Texans. Whereas older Anglo families had simply grafted themselves onto the top of existing Hispanic patrón-dependent relationships, the newcomers dehumanized their Mexican American workers by defining their association with them in purely economic terms.43 To make matters even worse for Tejanos, the new Anglos failed to distinguish between settled Mexican Americans and recent immigrants from Mexico. To commercial agriculturalists they were all “Mexican,” and Mexicans were nothing more than units of labor. To them, more “Mexicans,” as long as they were safely controlled, meant a larger and cheaper labor supply.44 Subhuman living and working conditions were the end result of these economic and attitudinal shifts. Héctor García anguished over the difference between his evolving national consciousness and that of Anglos. He came to see himself as a bicultural Mexican American; they came to see him as a fair-skinned Mexican. Once he discussed the problem with his older brother José Antonio, J. A. for short. Héctor looked up to J. A., an M.D., as a sort of mentor. On this particular occasion J. A. asked his younger brother what he wanted to do with his life. Héctor, about fifteen at the time, said he wanted to help his “people” overcome Anglo discrimination. J. A. acted surprised. Evidently, he had not expected such an altruistic answer from one so young. The older brother thought for a moment before responding. Then he said something Héctor never forgot, something he took to heart. “Well, you will need to get yourself in a position to do that. I suggest you become a doctor. That will give you the financial independence and the community respect to do what you want to do.” 45 Obtaining the education necessary to become a physician during the 1930s, when this conversation took place, would present difficulties, especially for a Hispanic. The Great Depression had a telling effect on all facets of life in the Nueces Strip, including educational opportunities. Hard times had came early to the region, well ahead of the stock market crash of 1929. Europe’s agricultural sector recovered quickly from the destruction of World War I, resulting in a shrinking foreign demand for Texas farm products. This, coupled with the vagaries of local rainfall, sent the South Texas agricultural economy into

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a downward spiral from about 1924 through the decade of the 1930s.46 In the resulting climate of scarcity, educational opportunities diminished for everyone, and especially for Mexican Americans. Anglos held greater power over dwindling resources, and they were less inclined to share “privileges” like education with Tejanos. By the end of the 1930s most Hispanic children dropped out of school by the third grade to work in the fields and help support their families. Anglos overwhelmingly dominated high school and college populations within the state by the 1940s.47 The Depression clearly had a great impact on Héctor García’s life. It sensitized him to racial inequality, which was accentuated during this era of general poverty. These two related conditions instilled in him a strong work ethic. He would labor very hard to overcome these two obstacles. And what would he work at? Education. He and his brothers and sisters would go to school no matter what the odds. They were the offspring of Professor José García and Señora Faustina Pérez de García. Both parents constantly impressed the importance of education upon their children. Each of the García siblings saw school as the portal into accommodation with his or her new environment, and with that to upward socioeconomic mobility in a bicultural society. All but one of the seven children finished medical school. C. P., Jico, and Dahlia graduated from the Universidad Autónomo de México Medical School; José Antonio, Héctor, and Cleotilde finished medical school at the University of Texas. Emilia proved the only sibling who did not pursue higher education. She married young, moved to Matamoros, Mexico, and raised a family.48 The Garcías’ educational achievements appear all the more remarkable when measured against the climate of the times. Pre–World War II South Texans did not expect “Mexicans” to even finish grade school, let alone earn medical degrees. For those few Tejanos and Tejanas who did manage to continue their educations, the halls of learning did not offer sanctuaries from Anglo racism. Héctor and the other García siblings who attended public schools in Texas experienced new forms of discrimination that broadened and sharpened their racial and ethnic consciousness. Cleotilde delights in relating one particular episode from her life at U.T. medical school. In her first year of professional school an Anglo male student entered a crowded elevator Cleotilde was riding. Everyone knew and admired this tall, good-looking young man. He had played football at Rice University, he had a well-proportioned body, blond hair, blue eyes,

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and a grade point average that earned him admission to the most prestigious medical school in the state. Noticing Cleotilde, he asked what she was doing there. She replied that she, too, was a medical student. The man initially reacted with surprise, but this response soon gave way to indignation. He scolded her, claiming that in such hard times she had taken the admission slot of some deserving Anglo male. He told her that medical school was no place for Mexicans or women. She should be at home taking care of kids and a husband. Cleotilde shot back, “Are you proposing to me?” As he left the elevator she waved and blew him a kiss, two gestures she repeated over and over again every time she saw the young Anglo on campus. He never bothered her again.49 Héctor’s experience proved much the same. U.T. may have admitted him to its M.D. program, but that did not insulate him from discrimination any more than it did Cleotilde. Even after graduation he encountered prejudice because of his Mexicanidad. Despite the fact that Héctor finished his rigorous studies cum laude, he was hit with the reality of Anglo racism and ethnocentrism.50 No hospital in the state would accept him as a resident because he was “Mexican.” Many of his Anglo classmates, who had finished school with less distinction, experienced no difficulty in affiliating with Texas hospitals. Medical training or not, Anglo males did not want their wives and daughters examined by some Mexican. It was 1940, he had completed his studies with honors, but without finishing his residency he could not receive a license to practice within his home state, all because he was a Mexican. Becoming a doctor had not earned him the money or respect from Anglos that he and J. A. had anticipated, at least not in Texas. Fortunately for Héctor, an elderly nurse at the university hospital in Galveston, Grace Collins, came to his aid. She suggested that he apply to the hospital where she had trained, a facility staffed by individuals who did not share the prejudices against Mexican Americans that existed in Texas. Dr. García took her advice and wrote St. Joseph’s, a teaching hospital affiliated with Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. As she predicted, the hospital accepted him.51 Opportunity for “Mexicans” in Texas proved limited in the hard times of the 1930s, even for those exceptionally gifted ones like J. A.’s little brother. Nevertheless, Héctor managed to navigate his way through an increasingly alien academic environment in the northern half of the state where Anglos not only dominated in power, but in ac-

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tual numbers as well. As he said, prior to high school “we were always involved with Mexican American people.” 52 But Anglos surrounded him as he advanced to college, medical school, internship, and residency outside the Nueces Strip. He had to learn how to compete with them in “their” world. He also had to learn how to “get along” there as well, and the effort became more trying the further up the educational ladder and northward he went. “It was not until I went to the University of Texas in 1936 that I noticed strong and open racial tension.” 53 In these settings, he had no family or Tejano friends to support him. He was a Mexican island in a sea of Anglos. He managed to survive and achieve in this environment through hard work, negotiation, compromise, and perseverance. These same strategies would later serve him well as a civil rights activist. Dr. García did not return to his home state immediately after his residency at St. Joseph’s. World War II broke out and he joined the army.54 He enlisted in the Combat Engineering Corps, but later transferred to the Medical Corps. García served four years of combat duty in the North African and European theaters. His military experiences contributed as much to the young man’s politicization as depressionheightened discrimination had.55 During World War II the army made little distinction between Anglos and Mexican Americans. Dr. García, as a commissioned officer, found himself in command of Anglos. This authority more closely approximated the status he had anticipated from a medical degree. J. A. had been half right when he advised that becoming a doctor would earn him a position of authority and respect within the broader community. This judgment rang true in the United States as a whole; it just did not hold true in South Texas.56 Dr. Héctor acknowledged this realization while reflecting on his army career forty-odd years later. When I went to the Army, my command . . . was ninety-nine percent of Anglos, and practically no blacks and maybe one or two percent Hispanics. . . . It did not matter, everyone under me obeyed my orders. Later, it sort of surprised me, it shocked me that the hate and prejudice towards our people [evidenced in the Longoria affair] would go to that extreme. . . . Before the War I knew it existed. We knew we had segregated schools, and no political rights, certainly no civil rights. But yet we did not exactly know where we stood.57

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Anthony Smith offers insights into the effects of war on prejudice. He argues that broader World War II patriotism overrode more regionally based nationalisms like Tejano/Texan differences, forcing solidarity in the face of the Axis threat to the nation as a whole.58 Dr. García’s wartime experiences, with their reduced levels of racism directed toward his skin color and his Mexicanidad, served as a marked contrast to his experiences in Texas. Wartime solidarity reinforced his youthful vision of an accommodative bicultural space for Mexican Americans in mainstream U.S. society. This broader contextual perception, in turn, made Héctor all the more determined to oppose discrimination in his home state because his experiences outside the Southwest had raised his expectations for equality. If racism toward Mexican Americans was weak or nonexistent at the national level, why couldn’t it be that way in South Texas? In this sense, his exposure to other peoples and other lands in an intense wartime environment helped him to place South Texas’ Mexican American–Anglo relations in better context.59 Dr. García would soon demonstrate his increasing willingness to test the existing racial order within the Nueces Strip. After the war, he returned to Texas and set up practice in Corpus Christi. Times in 1946 proved tough for a struggling young Hispanic physician trying to establish his practice. When the director of the Veterans Administration office for Nueces County, Joe Geiger, approached Héctor and asked if he would accept veterans’ cases, the doctor welcomed the opportunity. Theirs seemed like a marriage of necessity. Geiger had trouble finding an M.D. willing to accept the potentially large veterans’ case load and small remuneration; Geiger offered $2.50 per office visit. Dr. García needed paying patients at any price.60 Soon after striking an accord both men experienced the frustration of dealing with an entrenched governmental bureaucracy. An acute shortage of hospital beds for veterans existed in Corpus Christi. While making hospital rounds at Nueces County War Memorial Hospital in Corpus Christi, Dr. Héctor encountered one of his Tejano veteran patients lying on a bed in the hall of the facility’s Mexican ward. Memorial segregated patients just as other institutions within the city did in 1948. Although the Mexican ward was full, there were several available spaces in the “white” ward of the institution. Dr. García asked the charge nurse to move his Tejano patient from the hall to a vacant bed in the Anglo ward. She said she could not do this without authoriza-

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tion. It was 2 A.M. Despite the hour he made her call the hospital administrator at home to seek permission. The nervous and irritated nurse reluctantly did what she was told. When the sleepy Anglo administrator answered, she explained the situation to him and handed the phone to Dr. Héctor. After some haggling the Anglo consented, and ordered the nurse to honor Dr. García’s request. That was the end of segregated wards at Memorial Hospital. This early morning negotiation had taught Dr. Héctor another lesson. Anglos in authority, when pressed, could compromise. According to him, the incident moved him a short time later to found the American G.I. Forum, a veterans’ mutual aid society. It represented his first personal foray into civil rights activism. Initially, membership cut across racial and ethnic lines. Anglos and Mexican Americans alike joined the organization to further their common veterans’ interests, most notably better health care.61 Less than a year later the doctor’s public life took a decidedly more racially and ethnocentrically oriented turn when he became embroiled in the Longoria controversy. He had tried on other occasions to sensitize the public to the inequities of Anglo-Tejano relations, but with little or no success. The Longoria case was different. In his earlier attempts to fight discrimination against Mexican Americans, Dr. García had taken the initiative and ferreted out instances of prejudice in the workplace, schools, and health care institutions. In this instance the case came to him. . . . it [the Longoria incident] was brought to my attention by Sara Moreno. But it was just a coincidence that Sara Moreno and I knew each other. I was the sponsor of one of . . . the girls’ clubs in Corpus Christi, called Orquidea. Then by knowing Sara Moreno I got to know Mrs. Beatrice Longoria and the case.62 The Longoria incident would change Dr. García’s life. Almost overnight it catapulted him and his G.I. Forum onto the national civil rights stage. World War II provided the patriotic backdrop for the Longoria case, giving it added significance for Héctor García, for Hispanics, and for the nation. As Dr. García later said: Yes, it made a lot of difference that he was a soldier, otherwise nothing would have been done. I think the main question about

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the Felix Longoria incident was why would it motivate our people, or all people, more than anything else? The answer was because it happened right after World War II when we were supposed to have eliminated the superiority of one group of people over another. And then of course, Felix Longoria to have died in a voluntary action as a simple private, and get killed for his country, and coming back and being denied the use of chapel home was a sad tragedy in the history of this country, not just because it became a problem of a Mexican American being denied his civil rights, but because a soldier had been denied the rights of being buried with full military honors.63 In Héctor García’s eyes, and in those of many others, Felix Longoria became a martyr, an American hero who died at the hands of a foreign enemy, and then suffered discrimination at the hands of his own countrymen. Beyond that, Felix served as a powerful lens which magnified and sharpened Americans’ vision of themselves. Hitler’s policies against Jews shocked the world, as did Japanese attitudes toward Chinese and Koreans. Wartime propaganda branded these prejudices evil, and Americans banded together as never before, literally and figuratively, to combat them. Again, Smith’s point about the significance of wartime threat in promoting negotiated unity among competing regional ethnic groups applies in this context.64 Tejanos may not have gone into the conflict considering themselves “Americans” with full U.S. citizenship, but they came back seeing themselves that way. Their experiences in the armed services led them to believe that they had achieved status within U.S. society, they had changed from Mexicans to Mexican Americans. Unlike blacks, Hispanics had not encountered officially sanctioned segregation in the service. They took their places in divisions, companies, and platoons without consideration of their culture and in the apparent absence of racist labels Southwest Anglos applied to them. The wartime U.S. government, like the U.S. census, classified them as “white.” Tejanos fought alongside other “white” Americans, and together they won as Americans. Hispanic soldiers like Héctor García returned from overseas with this altered image of themselves, which in turn changed their expectations of the United States. During the conflict their “otherness” had seemed to diminish in their fellow soldiers’ eyes and in their own minds. They paid the price for their now self-realized Americanness with their own blood

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and that of their sons and daughters, mothers, and fathers, individuals like Felix Longoria. No one was going to take that identification and citizenship away from them without another fight. The war had politicized Héctor García. He thought he had earned a place in American society through hard work, sacrifice, and courage. Hadn’t he lived and defended the American Dream? Hadn’t the war taught him to fight for what was right?

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I didn’t become that much deeply involved in politics really until the Felix Longoria case in 1949. Previously yes, we were working on veterans’ rights. Then the veterans’ problems, the question of lack of opportunity, poverty, more so lack of education, it was not until the Felix Longoria case that I became involved and interested in the question of how our politics related to the solution to the problems that we were seeking.65 García refined his brand of activism through the Longoria incident. He did not try to tear down the Anglo establishment. He merely exploited its political divisions and attacked its exclusionary racist and ethnocentric trappings. He sought the inclusion of Mexican Americans on an equal footing within this existing power structure—a negotiated accommodation for both groups through political enfranchisement. The Longoria incident provided direction for Dr. García’s attacks on racism and ethnocentrism in the existing power structure within his home state without destroying that order itself. Mexican Americans would attack from within the political system through their citizenship. Outside South Texas, García’s Mexicanidad translated to more of an ethnic than a racial “otherness.” His understanding of Mexican revolutionary culture, his experiences as a resident in Nebraska, and those as an officer in the army all pointed to this conclusion. Beyond that, Omaha hospital staff and patients along with U.S. Army brass and troops under his command ascribed him status less on the basis of his Mexican Americanness and more on the basis of his professional class. In Texas the reverse took place. All of these circumstances highlighted the conflicting national and state constructions of race, ethnicity, and class that coexisted in postwar America. His realization of this conflict, coupled with his internalization of all the antiracist and antiethnocentric rhetoric employed in revolutionary Mexico and by the Allies in World War II, along with his strengthened U.S. national iden-

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tity, conditioned García not to recomply with the prejudiced significance South Texas Anglos ascribed to his national origin. From adolescence he had understood that his own egalitarian view of “American” society and its social norms, at least insofar as race, ethnicity, and class were concerned, did not match the views of his Texan neighbors. His life outside his home state had led him to another conclusion. He became conscious of the fact that it was Texas Anglos’ position on these matters and not his own that was “peculiar” in a broader national and global context. The only question that now remained was, What was he going to do about that? The Longoria incident definitively answered that question. Through politically leveraged negotiation, compromise, and accommodation, he would attack racism wherever he encountered it. García had engaged in both Hispanic and veterans’ civil rights protest prior to January 10, 1949, but with only limited success. He had taken J. A.’s advice and become a doctor so he could help his people, but until the Longoria dispute the means had overridden the end. Being a doctor had occupied virtually all of his time and energy. Even his 1948 visit to the South Texas labor camps and Mexican ward schools had focused primarily on health problems related to these discriminatory working, living, and educational settings. The Longoria controversy, this affair of honor, would change his activist focus in three ways. First, his public protest from that time onward would narrow to Mexican American issues almost exclusively. Second, his activism would broaden from health-related to any form of discrimination against South Texas Hispanics. And third, he came to realize that writing reports to local and state bureaucrats yielded few results. By contrast, collective Tejano political activism, private and public negotiation, compromise and accommodation, accomplished a great deal. In these respects the Longoria affair represented a watershed in the development of Héctor García’s social and political consciousness, and through his agency and leadership, he helped the rest of South Texas’ Mexican American community to internalize these views. García filtered the events surrounding the Longoria incident through many experiential lenses: what he had seen during the Depression, in school, in the war, and in his postwar medical practice.66 All of these experiences helped him to see multiple meanings in the dispute. They also helped him to understand how parochial, how illogical, how inappropriate, and how unjust Anglo Texans’ construction of

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the incident was. From the revolutionary Mexican attitudes toward race and nationalism that his immigrant parents taught him, and from his educational, wartime, and post-wartime professional experiences, Dr. García drew mixed conclusions about Texan-Tejano relations in South Texas. Discrimination in the region made little sense. South Texans and Tejanos should strive toward becoming a raza cósmica as Mexicans had. Instead, this land of immigrants and migrants seemed to be moving in the opposite direction, toward racial polarization, creating two worlds in the same time and space—American Towns and Mexican Towns. His home sector of the Nueces River basin did not match up with intergroup dynamics in other parts of the United States, outside the Southwest, where he completed his residency. Nor did Nueces River basin intergroup dynamics exist for Mexican Americans in other parts of the world, like Italy, where García met and married a blue-eyed professional northern Italian woman with a Ph.D. in Letters and Philosophy, Dr. Wanda Fusillo. Allied armies had just defeated a Third Reich committed to racism and ethnocentrism in Europe. If prejudicial attitudes were in retreat everywhere else, why were they still so strong in South Texas? Such inconsistencies bothered young Dr. García, not only because Anglos harbored prejudices toward Mexican Americans, but because Mexican Americans and Mexican nationals, at least within the context of nationalism, harbored them toward each other. He was proud of his Mexican heritage, yet he identified himself with his adopted country. This transnationalistic self-identity created a dilemma for him and a number of his professional contemporaries. Like most rising middleclass Hispanics of his time, Dr. García associated himself and sympathized with Mexican refugees spilling into South Texas. At the same time, however, he saw them as a liability to Mexican Americans’ accommodation with their U.S. environment and their upward mobility within it.67 The doctor would wrestle with these somewhat juxtapositional feelings throughout his entire professional life. His ambivalence over these issues would translate to apparent inconsistencies between his words and his actions. For example, like other Hispanic leaders of his generation, he steadfastly supported state and federal governments’ efforts to halt undocumented immigration.68 At the same time, he fought for better treatment of these largely Mexican and Central American individuals who managed to enter this country “illegally.” One could find him almost any Saturday or Sunday afternoon after 1964

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(the year the bracero program ended) alone in his office dispensing free medical treatment and sample drugs to these people and to indigent Mexican Americans.69 This apparent contradiction diminishes, however, when one takes into account the fact that he was less of an uncompromising civil rights ideologue and more of an accommodative pragmatist. García fell into what Anthony Smith describes as the “old liberal,” as opposed to what Smith labels the “technical,” type of intelligentsia; the former was far more humanistic than the latter category. Liberal intelligentsia like Dr. García did not dwell on the finer points of altruistic theories. Rather, they placed more emphasis on their application in real-life situations.70 “Why did the Longoria incident elicit such intense and widespread reaction?” 71 In the answer to this query lies much of the meaning and significance of the event. Conditions both economic (commercial agriculture’s predominance over ranching culture) and demographic (Mexican national and Midwest Anglo immigration into the region) transformed Anglos’ perceptions of Mexican Americans. Texans began to differentiate themselves from Tejanos more in racial terms and less in national terms. The growing numerical force of “Mexicans,” regardless of the side of the Rio Grande from which they originated, came to represent a threat to Anglo hegemony within the region. Once the question of “power” entered the equation, Anglos’ treatment of Hispanics, even by old ranching-culture Texans, became harsher and more oppressive. Anglos began to define “Mexicans” more as transient laborers and less as fixed worker-dependents. These shifts in Anglo attitudes toward Mexican Americans inevitably elicited a Tejano response, partially in reaction to heightened oppression, partially in reaction to rising expectations derived from wartime experiences, and partially out of offended pride and honor. Dr. Héctor P. García converted a regional protest against Anglo discrimination into a defense of national patriotism and honor, thus transforming a local dispute into a national crusade. Anglos in faraway places like Maryland, Virginia, Connecticut, Michigan, Indiana, Massachusetts, Illinois, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania may not have constructed the incident exactly the same way Anglos and Hispanics in the Southwest did. These outsiders objected to Tom Kennedy’s actions more on broader nationalistic grounds, more in reaction to their offended patriotism, than from opposition to racial discrimination. Nevertheless, the result, criticism of Anglos dishonoring the body and

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the family of this fallen soldier and Mexican American, remained the same. Dr. Héctor’s successful fusion of Mexican American concerns about racism to broader national concerns about patriotism in this incident held enduring significance. Through the American G.I. Forum and its patriotic rituals and its uniforms (especially its trademark red, white, and blue military caps), its public ceremonies, and its very name—the American G.I. Forum—he converted this connection into a tradition within his brand of civil rights activism. In doing so, Dr. García established what Eric Hobsbawm has called “invented tradition.” 72 In essence, Dr. Héctor perpetuated the link he forged between the Mexican American civil rights movement and U.S. patriotism through the Longoria controversy in the rituals and public actions of the American G.I. Forum. The organization’s emblem, its uniforms, its ceremonial veterans’ band, its close ties with the active military—all of these things preserved the group’s patriotic image. This link between civil rights activism and patriotism became a tradition within the organization, and that institutional culture became a part of its public image. Through the American G.I. Forum this tie also became a tradition of Hispanic activist culture along with the integrative political strategies García used from 1949 onward to exploit this bond between Mexican American and national consciousness. By effecting this image of patriotism and activism, Dr. García appeared to Mexican Americans and to other Americans more like a moderate integrationist like Martin Luther King, and less like a radical separatist like Bobby Seale, two of his black American counterparts in the national civil rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s. A pragmatist, not an ideologue, he preferred negotiation and compromise over confrontation and conflict. This placed him in marked contrast to “chicanismo,” the more militant separatist philosophy of the 1960s and 1970s embraced by groups like the Brown Berets, the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO), and the Raza Unida Party. These activists sometimes criticized Dr. García’s accommodationist and integrationist approach to civil rights, but few denied his successes.73 He made Mexican American rights American rights. Hispanic Americans and the general public related well to his pragmatic and negotiated approaches to racial and ethnic inequality.74 These strategies sat well with perceived historical patterns of minority integration into U.S. society. These developments came at a propitious time for the Mexican American civil rights movement. To this point Tejano middle-class ac-

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Dr. Héctor P. García and American G.I. Forum members at a World War II serviceman’s funeral in Corpus Christi, Texas, 1949. Courtesy of the Center for American History, UT-Austin, CN Number 11158, Russell Lee Photographic Collection.

tivists had been unable to connect their cause of Mexican American civil rights with the general public’s concerns about national life. Worse, middle-class “Mexican American Generation” leaders, often preoccupied with abstract goals and pronouncements, sometimes distanced themselves from their constituents.75 The pragmatism that Dr. García displayed in the Longoria and later controversies helped to reunite and refocus the Mexican American civil rights movement. He contributed to the revitalization of Tejano politicization, stressing political consciousness and citizenship. A whole generation of Mexican American politicians from the greater Corpus Christi area would emulate his activist style of integration through negotiation and accommodation. In the decades that followed the Longoria dispute, the next generation of South Texas Hispanic leaders—state Senator Carlos Truan, former speaker pro tem of the Texas House, Hugo Berlanga, U.S. Representative Solomon Ortiz, and Henry Cisneros, San Antonio mayor (and later Secretary of Housing and Urban Development)— would acknowledge his mentorship and follow his example over and over again.76 Having successfully linked civil rights with larger public sympa-

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thies, Dr. Héctor García and his American G.I. Forum became a powerful national force.77 Broader U.S. public and government support gave Tejano activists rare leverage in their struggle with Anglo discrimination in Texas, and they used it to good effect. Dr. García and the Longoria incident forged ties to LBJ and to the National Democratic Party that grew over the years into the VIVA KENNEDY and VIVA JOHNSON movements of the 1960s.78 One might argue whether the Longoria affair and Dr. García’s role in it represent partial causes of or catalysts in the development of these events and resulting Mexican Americans’ fuller citizenship. Either way, he and the controversy held remarkable significance. They came at the right time, spotlighted new and dynamic leadership figures, and provided an event to which different populations in different settings could relate in an enduring way. Felix Longoria’s wake had started out as a simple difference between his widow and an undertaker. Within days, Héctor Pérez García attached multiple layers of meaning to it that diverse groups of people could filter through their varied twentieth-century experiences. It really did not matter that the meanings Mexican Americans, Texas Anglos, the broader U.S. population, or Latin Americans ascribed to this incident differed. They all, except for some Texas Anglos, shared a common felt bond, Victor Turner’s “normative communitas,” the need to organize and collectively act in defense of the South Texas Mexican American community.79 And that was how each of these groups’ members confronted and appropriated the controversy into their lives. Beatrice Moreno de Longoria and Thomas Kennedy initiated the controversy over rituals related to the burial of Felix Longoria’s body. Dr. García then broadened the nature of the dispute into an affair of honor involving notions of race, nationalism, political economy, and patriotism and projected it onto a national and even international stage. He then used an instrument of his own creation, the American G.I. Forum, with all its patriotic ceremonialism and rituals, to perpetuate the connection between Hispanic interests and national interests for generations to come.80 In order to accomplish this feat, Dr. García had to capture and hold the attention of both Hispanics and Anglos throughout the country. Just how he managed to do that is the topic of the next two chapters. We begin with events at the regional, South Texas level.

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incident the middle-class professionals who provided leadership for the South Texas Mexican American community from the 1920s onward had a fairly well defined set of strategies to obtain an overarching goal, equality within the broader U.S. society. They thought the first and most important step involved recognition by everyone of Mexican Americans’ whiteness. Comparing and contrasting the historical experiences of white immigrants and black Americans, Hispanic civil rights leaders came to the conclusion that the former led to inclusion and equality, while the latter led to exclusion and inequality. The path that white ethnics took to their end went from voluntary immigration to integration to equality. The path that Afro-Americans took went from forced migration to enslavement to a “freedom” restricted by segregation, discrimination, and inequality. Mexican Americans’ route, at least as far as it had gone by the 1920s, went from conquest to colonization to new waves of immigration to

PRIOR TO THE LONGORIA

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segregation to discrimination to inequality. This worried the leadership. Hispanics’ journey up to that point appeared more like the black than the white American one. In order to reverse this direction they would have to rebuild Mexican American identity from the ground up, from the local barrios and ranchos of South Texas to the corridors of national power in Washington, D.C. For Tejano strategists Mexican Americans’ racial classification as whites was the cornerstone of this effort. Any other designation would, in the long run, marginalize and demean them. Toward that end they worked hard to define the Mexican American as just another white ethnic within a culturally pluralistic, white ethnic immigrant nation.1 This construction of Tejano(a) identity sometimes left the leadership somewhat disconnected from the Tejano community at large, whose more immediate concerns involved coping with actual and ongoing Anglo discrimination. To the average Mexican American the semantic battle over what to call themselves seemed much less important than what Anglos were doing to them. Consciously or unconsciously, through their construction of Mexican Americanness and its “fit” within a U.S. context, these well-to-do and successful Tejano leaders seemed to be aping and perhaps even strengthening the climate of racism that prevailed in the Nueces Strip up until the immediate post–World War II years. In this sense, racism may very well have been the real commonality they shared with the white ethnic immigrant experience. As recent scholarship has pointed out, white immigrant antipathy, even hostility, toward blacks in the United States was real, the product of what David Roediger calls “the wages of whiteness.” In a race-charged living environment, and South Texas met that requirement, white identification brought with it tangible economic, social, and political “wages” or rewards. Roediger argues that these wages, in effect, seduced white workers into internalizing racism in order to profit from the privileges that came with it.2 Perhaps middle-class Mexican Americans, whether wittingly or unwittingly, succumbed to the same temptation in pursuing whiteness at the expense of distancing themselves from blacks in the struggle for equality. In many other respects the argument that Mexican Americans were no different than previous white European immigrants, at least in the way that Tejano leaders couched it during the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s, was also questionable. Most agree on several points of distinction. First, these newcomers entered an area in the Southwest where Hispanic

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historical roots ran deeper than native U.S. Anglos’ did. Tejanos had lived in South Texas long before Texans had. Texas independence and the Mexican-American War, however, converted Tejanos from a mainstream to a marginalized population. In this sense, as R. Anthony Quiroz states, pre-1900 Mexicans/Mexican Americans “had migrated without ever having moved, and so became indigenous immigrants.” 3 This change in attitudes about the status of Mexican Americans made it more difficult for them to incorporate into the U.S. mainstream. Heavy twentieth-century Mexican immigration into the Nueces Strip only strengthened Anglos’ identification of Mexican Americans as newcomers to the region. By the 1920s South Texas’ Anglo-Tejano relations were weighted down by nearly a century of open hostility, a generation of unchecked Mexican immigration, and Anglo doubts and fears about Mexican Americans’ Americanness. These legacies bred a climate of distrust and animosity within the Anglo community that elicited reciprocal feelings within the Tejano community. To Anglos, Tejanos were Mexicans, conquered, colonized, retrogressive, and foreign people. To Mexican Americans, Anglos were unemotional, heartless, and cruel, usurpers of Hispanics’ lands, rights, and humanity. Early Tejano civil rights leaders recognized the obstacles this climate created for their goals of mainstreaming and achieving equality for their people. As R. A. Cortez, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), reflected in 1949 on the twentieth anniversary of the birth of his organization: In the minds of ninety-nine percent of the Anglo-Americans, an American citizen of Mexican descent was “just another Mexican.” In the minds of our own people anyone of them that claimed to be “an American,” was “just another dark-faced Agrinado” and a twofaced “traitor.” That was a ticklish proposition. How to teach the average Anglo-American to recognize the American Mexican as “an American”; and at the same time, how to teach the American Mexican to realize and recognize the fact that he was an American, without arousing the natural resentment, hatred, and animosity created in him by his daily treatment by other Americans?4 Just how much effect such conditions and concerns may have had on Mexican American activism remains difficult to gauge. They undoubt-

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edly created divisions within South Texas’ Anglo and Mexican towns alike. Even among themselves, Hispanics did not always make the distinction between native-born and Mexican-born individuals. On the other hand, Tejanos resented being treated by Anglos as conquered, colonized, immigrant, or border people. These feelings undoubtedly increased tensions among all groups living within the Nueces Strip. Such divisions had varied results for Mexican American activism. In one sense, reaction to heightened Anglo discrimination probably encouraged Tejano civil rights activity. In another sense, Mexican American– Mexican national divides may have diminished the effectiveness of such actions. A more clearly positive development that facilitated Mexican Americans’ struggle for equality with Anglos involved the rise of towns. Three Rivers, founded in 1913, was one of these new settlements.5 The ghettoized neighborhoods (barrios) and wards (colonias) within which Tejanos were restricted served as bases of Mexican American civil rights activity from the late 1920s onward.6 By spatially segregating South Texas’ urban Hispanics, Anglos may have unintentionally strengthened Tejanos’ sense of community, which, in turn, probably helped to mobilize popular opposition against Anglo discrimination.7 Arnoldo De León describes a second civil rights benefit that urban centers provided. He found that Anglos encouraged the rise of leaders within “Mexican Towns” who would serve as intermediaries between Texans and Tejanos so that “whites” would not have to deal with the Mexican American community as a whole. The unanticipated result of this convenience was the emergence of power brokers within Tejano barrios who not only performed the function that Anglos had hoped they would serve, but, in many cases, became civil rights leaders as well. Ironically, this racist tactic on the part of Anglos led to more coordinated opposition to Anglo discrimination.8 Guadalupe Longoria, Felix’s father, evidently performed this role in Three Rivers, just as Dr. Héctor García did in neighboring Corpus Christi. Mario García points out a third benefit that urbanization provided to Mexican American activism. With towns came schools and a greater educational opportunity for Tejanos. As more and more Hispanics received rudimentary schooling, a small percentage of them went on to earn higher degrees. This created an emerging professional class, an intelligentsia, within the Tejano population by 1930 that could provide more effective leadership for the area’s strengthening civil rights

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movement.9 Nearly a third of the way through the twentieth century, South Texas already had a strong tradition of Hispanic political consciousness, and its roots, according to Richard García, rested within the Nueces Strip. Richard, like Mario, García credits the heightening of this political consciousness to an emerging middle class. Within Texas these professionals and businessmen were centered in urban sites like San Antonio, Corpus Christi, and Harlingen, men like Alonso Perales, Ben Garza, Jr., Louis Wilmot, Andrés Luna, Manuel González, J. T. Canales, and James Tafolla, Sr.10 During the next two decades Mexican American civil rights activity accelerated. Again, to quote Mario García, The convulsions of the Great Depression combined with new economic and political opportunities during World War II and with historic discrimination in the Southwest against Mexicans and the rising expectations among Mexican Americans to give birth to a new leadership, cognizant of its rights as U.S. citizens and determined to achieve them.11 Mario García convincingly asserts that convergence of these three sets of conditions encouraged development of a new generation of leadership within the regional Hispanic community. Well-educated young professionals, many of whom had grown up in urban barrios and gone on to attend Anglo universities and professional schools, had roots in each of these ethnic realities. Richard García adds that the group acquired a dual cultural consciousness, a consciousness that was both Mexicano and American. This represented the essence of Mexican Americanness in their minds.12 Over the next two decades their influence spread throughout the Southwest from South Texas all the way to the barrios of East Los Angeles.13 Through their culturally intermediate position bridging both worlds, rising middle-class Mexican American leaders in South Texas organized resistance within their communities and effectively made that opposition conscious and overt, bringing heightened pressure to bear on the Anglo establishment. As racial and ethnic power brokers, these middle-class leaders, with their cultural duality and resulting ability to operate within and between both populations, earned respect from the Anglo and Mexican American subpopulations alike in the towns springing up throughout the Nueces Strip.

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World War I undoubtedly played an additional role in raising the level of Hispanic civil rights activity. Increased demands on the production side of the U.S. economy, first from new European domestic and military markets, and later from U.S. military needs as well, created real economic opportunities for Mexican Americans and for Mexican nationals. Newfound prosperity, in turn, sparked a number of positive stimuli to political activism in the Latino community— education, towns, and the like.14 In all these ways World War I–related economic growth inspired efforts on the part of the Tejano community to more effectively compete with Anglos in South Texas’ changing socioeconomic environment. Carole Christian suggests another effect of World War I on Mexican American activism. She observes that the war “marked the first concerted effort by the American government and Anglo society to promote the involvement of Hispanics in national life.” 15 On the other hand, this positive intent led to somewhat negative attitudinal results. Efforts to recruit Tejano volunteers for the U.S. expeditionary force largely met with apathy. This caused some Anglos to question the political loyalties of the state’s Mexican Americans. Strained relations between the United States and the Mexican government of Venustiano Carranza only enhanced these concerns. “Pervasive reports about German spies in the United States and Mexico . . . contributed to Anglo distrust of those of Mexican descent.” 16 The 1915 Plan de San Diego, so called because it was signed in San Diego, Texas, another Nueces Strip town about twenty-five miles southwest of Three Rivers, seemed proof to many that these misgivings about Mexican American loyalty had some foundation in truth. The Plan raised the banner of armed rebellion by persons of color against “Yankee tyranny.” Its goal was to take back much of the land lost by Hispanics as a result of Texas independence and the Mexican-American War. With that reacquired territory the Plan would create an independent state for marginalized Hispanic, black, and Japanese Americans. Many Nueces Strip Tejanos rallied to the Plan, and sporadic fighting occurred for the next two years, peaking between July and November 1915. The violence unsettled residents on both sides of the border. Anglos on the Taft ranch, about twenty-five miles north of Corpus Christi, armed themselves for all-out war. They even set up a machine gun nest. The ranch superintendent tried to allay fears aroused by such a drastic action by saying,

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There is practically no danger of any disturbance now, but if we should get a cotton crop and a thousand or two Mexican pickers here, then there might be some danger of someone trying to get them to make an uprising of some sort. . . . it would be a good policy for this reason to have a gun of this kind and have some of the men trained [Anglo men] so they understand using it.17 Texas Rangers finally succeeded in quelling the unrest, but only after hundreds had died and a good deal of property had been destroyed. J. T. Canales, a state representative from Cameron County, organized a company of scouts for the U.S. Army operating in the region. He also became a vocal critic of the Texas Rangers’ use of vigilante justice against South Texas Mexican Americans. In 1918, he even went so far as to file nineteen charges against the Rangers and demand a legislative investigation of their actions during the uprising.18 Tejanos blamed Anglos, and especially Texas Rangers, for deprivations that created a climate of revolt. In their minds Mexican Americans had risen up out of desperation because of their oppression by Rangers in particular and Anglos in general. Most Texas Anglos interpreted the Plan de San Diego differently. They blamed the conflict on outside agitators, Mexican bandits who had spilled across the border during these years of chaotic fighting tied to the revolution then raging in Mexico, or on foreign agents.19 Many Anglos within the region even suspected that German operatives and their Mexican and Tejano sympathizers hatched the Plan de San Diego revolt to distract the United States and delay its entry into World War I on the side of the Allies.20 Events in the next two years, leading up to an end of U.S. neutrality, seemed to make the idea more and more plausible. By 1916 the German high command concluded that the United States would inevitably join the war on the Allied side. Arthur Zimmermann, German Secretary of State, began to lay plans to forestall or even prevent that eventuality. He opened secret negotiations with the revolutionary government of Venustiano Carranza to try to enlist its help for the German cause. Zimmermann suggested to Carranza that he attack the United States in order to win back lands lost sixty-odd years earlier through the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ending the Mexican-American War. Zimmermann promised German military support if the Mexicans initiated the proposed conflict. Berlin archives, finally opened to Western scholars after the end of

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the Cold War, suggest that these overtures were much better planned and more serious than Western historians previously thought. Evidently, high-ranking members of both governments genuinely considered them. In 1917, British agents intercepted one of Zimmermann’s notes to Mexico discussing the proposal, turned it over to U.S. officials, who, in turn, revealed the conspiracy to the American public. It caused a popular uproar and heightened suspicions about the loyalty of persons of Mexican descent living in places like South Texas.21 The war seemed to have the opposite effect on the Mexican American community. Evidently, it actually reduced internal doubts about national loyalties and identity. Paul Taylor, during his research for a 1934 book on labor conditions in Nueces County, detected a common perception among the most politically active Mexican American lower- and middle-class residents of the greater Corpus Christi area. Many stated in their interviews with him that World War I, “with its selective service act, brought . . . a consciousness of their American citizenship and a realization of the fact that by virtue of domicile, their future lay in the United States of America rather than in Mexico.” 22 This rise in Mexican American, as opposed to Mexican, selfidentification promoted political activism among Tejano community members. For one reason or another, most credited World War I with accelerating Mexican American political activism in the state. The new economic opportunities the war afforded added to the ranks of the state’s Hispanic middle class, from which later leadership for the Tejano civil rights movement came. In addition, tensions created by the war and manifested in such incidents as the Plan de San Diego uprising stimulated Mexican American protest and participation within local, regional, and, to a lesser extent, state politics even if those actions did raise Anglo suspicions about the motives behind Tejanos’ newfound activism. The Great Depression, too, contributed in many ways to increasing the frequency, scope, and duration of Hispanic political involvement. Insidious mechanisms of control emanating from quasi-scientific notions like Social Darwinism came under heavy attack during this period. A philosophy adapted by Herbert Spencer from Charles Darwin’s theories on evolution, Social Darwinism held that certain groups of people identified on the basis of social constructs such as race, ethnicity, gender, and class, to name but the most common, were more fit or

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competitive than other groups. From the nineteenth century onward, elites applied this concept within the social, economic, and political orders of societies throughout the Western world. The logic or proof of this pseudoscientific justification for inequality was tautological, or circular, in nature. The most fit will inevitably claim the top rungs of community social, economic, and political hierarchies.23 Elites at the top (Anglos in the Southwest) must represent the most fit by virtue of their having risen to the top. It followed that any challenge to Anglos’ positions of power represented a threat to the natural order of things, and was both futile and harmful to society. Such attitudes remained strongest during the periods of greatest prosperity and growth. Economic expansion, occurring generally in South Texas from about 1880 to 1924, validated this logic. Between 1924 and 1940, however, Social Darwinistic thinking was called into question. During these years South Texas’ commercial agricultural economy fell on hard times as national and international markets for cotton, sorghum, and beef weakened with the recovery of European producers of these items after World War I.24 Slackened international demand, coupled with poor harvests as a result of erratic rainfall patterns during the late 1920s and the early 1930s, devastated the region’s agricultural economy, and resulting depression brought into doubt the leadership qualities of those in charge of the area’s economy and government, commercial Anglo ranchers and farmers.25 Subaltern non-Anglos, some of whom had internalized racist, ethnocentric, and class-based Social Darwinistic attitudes themselves, publicly began to challenge Anglos’ fitness to rule. These questions probably contributed to the rise of Mexican American activism all over the Southwest, and the rise of Mario García’s Mexican American Generation of the 1930s.26 Alonso S. Perales provides a good example of the new well-educated, post-1924 civic-minded middle-class Hispanic leader that emerged in South Texas. Born just before the turn of the century (1898) in Alice, Texas (about forty miles west of Corpus Christi and southeast of Three Rivers), Perales first earned a B.A. and then went on to law school for an LL.B. degree. After graduating, he received his license to practice law from the Texas Bar Association in 1925, and moved to San Antonio to set up an office.27 In addition to establishing a successful private practice, he found time to serve his country in thirteen U.S. diplomatic missions during the late 1920s and the early 1930s. Professor J. Luz Saenz offers a second South Texas example of the Mexican American

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Generation. He was a leading McAllen educator, and in 1926, along with Perales, founded the League of Latin American Citizens.28 Groups like the League multiplied in South Texas during the 1920s and 1930s. The story of their evolution and consolidation through the birth of LULAC deserves mention. The first of these organizations emerged in San Antonio sometime between 1918 and 1921. It was founded by young Hispanic professionals, and they called it “The Order of the Sons of America.” 29 The Sons soon became one of the foremost advocates of Mexican American voting, citizenship, and legal rights in the state.30 In 1927, a third middle-class Tejano organization formed. It was a group splintered from the Order of the Sons of America. Its members called themselves “The Order of the Knights of America.” Whereas the League of Latin American Citizens and the Order of the Sons of America counted a few sympathetic Anglos among their ranks, the new Order of the Knights did not, restricting the body “exclusively to descendants of the Mexican race.” 31 The Knights also proved a bit more militant than the Order of the Sons of America, but like its parent group, the Knights’ primary objective was to make members more effective citizens of the United States.32 From about 1926 onward Ben Garza, Jr., a prominent activist and member of the Order of the Sons of America’s Corpus Christi Council 4, lobbied friends in all three organizations for their merger. Garza was a self-educated restaurant owner. He had built a solid reputation as an Hispanic leader in Corpus Christi and enjoyed the respect of other prominent Mexican Americans throughout the region. Manuel González of the Knights, Alonso Perales of the League, and others, including Louis Wilmot, Andrés de Luna, Joe Garza, James Tafolla, Sr., Judge J. T. Canales, and Eduardo Idar, supported Ben Garza’s push to unify Tejano activists in one body.33 Those in favor of the merger argued that pooling the three organizations’ human and material resources would strengthen the Mexican American civil rights movement in South Texas.34 Most who opposed the union argued it in some way undermined the integrity of the existing groups. James Tafolla, Jr., then president of the Order of the Sons of America, articulated his objections in a letter to Dr. Carlos Castañeda. Castañeda was a Professor of History at the University of Texas in Austin and a leading advocate of Tejano rights from the 1920s onward. Taking a position opposed to that of his father, who supported the merger, the younger Tafolla pointed out that the Sons

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were the most established of the three bodies. He charged that the Knights, on the other hand, “was organized right in this city [San Antonio] by men who formerly belonged to our Order of the Sons of America, but who either would not abide by the will of the majority or just simply dropped out for lack of zeal.” 35 Tafolla, Jr., interpreted the merger movement as an attempt on the part of the less-established groups to gain equality with the Order of the Sons of America. In his mind the Sons had earned the right of leadership within the South Texas Hispanic movement. The other two upstart organizations should fold themselves into his group rather than create a whole new organization.36 In the end, Garza and González, with the distant support of Perales, who was by then serving the State Department on a special mission to Nicaragua, prevailed. Twenty-eight delegates representing all three groups met in Corpus Christi on February 17, 1929, in Obreros (Workers) Hall and hammered out the union. The League of United Latin American Citizens, LULAC, emerged from this gathering. About 150 nonvoting activists, mostly from South Texas cities and towns like Brownsville, La Grulla, Encino, McAllen, Robstown, Corpus Christi, Harlingen, and San Antonio, watched over the proceedings.37 They left the convention with newfound optimism, accepting Garza’s conviction that a united Mexican American movement could achieve more than a divided one. They were right. Within five years LULAC had forty-three councils spread all over the state.38 By the outbreak of World War II the organization had grown to over eighty councils in the Southwest and in Kansas.39 Middle-class professionals and businessmen dominated the ranks of LULAC and shaped its character, goals, and strategies. Benjamin Márquez labels LULAC’s objectives assimilationist in nature throughout the decades of the 1930s and 1940s. He asserts that this first generation of middle-class leaders called for Mexican Americans’ integration into mainstream U.S. culture and society. They stressed patriotism, the use of English, and formal education.40 Márquez concludes that their approach to integration clearly identified them with a traditional white European ethnic strategy to achieve U.S. opportunity. Members believed Mexican Americans, through hard work, economic advancement, education, and patriotism, would quickly and fully blend into the U.S. mainstream just as other ethnics had before them. LULACers defined their role in this process as that of a catalyst, pro-

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moters of strategies that would hasten this end. They had to convince Latinos to embrace an Anglo society that discriminated against them; they had to convince Anglos that Mexican Americans were no different than any other U.S. ethnics, and therefore merited full and impartial acceptance into the broader U.S. national community. One of the organization’s first important tests came in 1936 when the U.S. Census Bureau instructed employers to classify Mexican American workers as “colored.” 41 Middle-class Tejano activists thought that this designation held enormous implications for Mexican Americans. As one student of LULAC put it, “In a society that judged individuals on the basis of skin color, LULAC sought to avoid the stigma of minority group status.” 42 If the “colored” label stuck, and the general public identified Mexican Americans as racially instead of ethnically different, the group’s hope of rapid integration into the national community would suffer an irreparable blow. Mexican Americans would end up like black Americans, stuck out on the margins of society with little hope of future integration and empowerment. LULACers opposed racism in principle, but they were not about to close ranks with blacks to fight it. They feared too close an association with African Americans on this issue would only strengthen the Anglo identification of Latinos as a separate racial group. Men such as M. C. González and Alonso Perales argued that Mexican Americans were white, and fought with U.S. government agencies that labeled them “colored.” Early LULAC members reasoned that mainstream racist attitudes toward Mexican Americans stemmed from racial misidentification of them, and this problem would quickly end as the American public came to realize the true racial character of Mexican Americans. For these “practical” reasons LULAC preoccupied itself more with winning the “white” classification from the Census Bureau than with opposition to white racism per se.43 The organization scored a victory of sorts when the Bureau included Hispanics in the white category of the 1940 census.44 Márquez points out that Mexican national immigrants represented a second dilemma for LULAC leaders’ assimilationist civil rights approach. At the organization’s founding convention M. C. González argued for inclusion of Mexican nationals in the new coalition, and for ethnic solidarity with them. Those opposed to this position rallied around Alonso Perales. He persuaded the majority of those gathered that only U.S. citizens could effectively compete within the U.S. sys-

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tem for equality. The inclusion of Mexican immigrants would undermine Mexican Americans’ competitiveness in U.S. society. Once having achieved parity with Anglos, Mexican Americans would be in a better position to protect their own interests and those of Mexican immigrants as well.45 Márquez concludes that LULAC’s goal of assimilation shaped its attitudes toward blacks and Mexican nationals in the United States. LULAC leaders opposed racism but feared a defense of blacks would alienate whites. Men like Alonso and González acknowledged the common national origins of Mexicans and Mexican Americans, but because of the latter’s commitment to blending into U.S. society, they saw a real distinction between the two.46 These perceptions, coupled with the pragmatic economic and social concerns already mentioned, caused LULAC members to distance themselves from blacks and new Mexican arrivals, and to shy away from openly defending their civil rights. They did this because they thought that both victimized groups unintentionally retarded the desired integration of Mexican Americans into the U.S. mainstream. Neither Afro-Americans nor Mexican immigrants could count on strong support from LULAC against Anglo discrimination and exploitation.47 LULAC pragmatists believed that their practical approach could bring a relatively quick end to discrimination against Mexican Americans, and they did a number of things to accomplish this end. First, they addressed the matter of their “otherness” from the rest of U.S. society. Did their distinctiveness rest on ethnicity or on race? They needed to convince the government and the general public that it lay in their culture, not in their color.48 Culture was negotiable, it could change, or it could coexist alongside newly acquired ethnic traits. Race, on the other hand, at least insofar as Americans identified it with color, was more fixed. That type of “otherness” stayed with a person for life. Within this context the mark of color was much larger and more enduring than the mark of culture. This realization helps to explain the apparent inconsistency of LULACers’ pride in their Mexican origins and hostility toward their identification with Mexican immigrants and classification as “colored.” Before World War II, LULAC experienced limited success in shaping Anglo and Tejano constructions of Mexican American identity. LULAC tried to paint the Mexican American experience as a traditional U.S. ethnic experience. It worked to educate fellow Tejanos

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about U.S. culture so they could marry it to Mexican American culture. That meant the acquisition of English, the promotion of U.S. patriotism, formal schooling, and instilling equal ethnic pride in the group’s Mexican and U.S. origins just as other white ethnics had done before them.49 All of these activities required interaction within U.S. law and society rather than existence apart from them. They required citizenship. In the final analysis, one must conclude that LULAC’s approach to integrating Mexican Americans into U.S. society was probably more culturally pluralistic than assimilationist.50 The group consistently called for the assimilationist full integration, the mainstreaming of Mexican Americans into U.S. national society through the acquisition of English and near-ultrapatriotism. At the same time, LULACers preached cultural pluralism through bilingualism and the preservation of Hispanic culture along with the acquisition of U.S. culture. Through this pluralistic philosophical approach they hoped to integrate Mexican Americans with Anglos while at the same time preserving their own Mexicanidad, reducing Anglo prejudice against them and instilling pride in Tejanos’ dual ethnic origins. This somewhat ambiguous integrationist position was risky. On the one hand, the group’s stance yielded a powerful advantage. It thrust LULAC into an intermediary position between the region’s ethnically divided populations (Anglo/Tejano), affording it the opportunity to bridge the two. At the same time, it made the organization vulnerable to attacks from both ethnic camps. Some Anglos criticized LULAC’s refusal to abandon its commitment to Mexicanidad; some Tejanos criticized LULAC for encouraging the acquisition of English, its emphasis on U.S. patriotism, and its abandonment of blacks’ and Mexican immigrants’ struggles for civil rights.51 During the early 1940s interest in LULAC waned, and the organization began to lose membership.52 From the outset its views and policies on racism, Mexican immigrants, and civil rights in general upset some members of the Tejano community. The organization found itself locked in a dilemma. Its chief strategists, individuals like Perales, argued that in order to win acceptance and equality from the broader U.S. society, Hispanics would have to lower perceptions of their “otherness” within and without the Mexican American community. To do this, Tejanos had to avoid causes that would link them to marginalized groups like blacks and Mexican nationals. This angered some members

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of the Hispanic community who harbored sympathy for these groups, and especially for Mexican immigrants. It also reduced the possibility of broad-based minority coalitions beyond the Mexican American community to combat Anglo discrimination. World War II revitalized LULAC. The organization’s emphasis on patriotism fit right into nationalistic fervor after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Many LULAC members, like former president Frank Galván, an El Paso lawyer, and ordinary Tejanos like Felix Longoria of Three Rivers joined one of the branches of the armed services.53 The war seemed to hasten the coming of LULACers’ long-sought goals—Mexican Americans’ mainstreaming and diminished discrimination against them. During World War II, more so than at any time before, U.S. citizens of whatever ethnic identification banded together to fight the antidemocratic Axis powers. The military did not segregate Mexican American soldiers, as it did blacks, into separate units. Instead, the branches of the service integrated them into spaces alongside other white ethnics. War and the dangers it brought with it instilled interdependency of soldiers upon one another. Under such conditions badges of “otherness,” whether based on race or ethnicity, seemed much less significant. In this respect, the war represented a great leveling experience for Mexican Americans. Their performance on the field of battle went a long way to achieving the Americanization which LULAC had sought. They invested dearly in their U.S. national identity; often, like Felix Longoria, they paid with their lives. Their combat valor earned them the respect of Anglos from all over the country. As a newly elected Vice President Lyndon Johnson would later remember, The American soldiers of Mexican origin served with distinction. They fought courageously. They gave their lives, when need be, valiantly. Evidence of their valor and their patriotic devotion to duty is contained in the official records of many combat units and in the distinguished roll of winners of the Congressional Medal of Honor. . . . It is a privilege to pay tribute to these, my fellow Americans.54 Such newfound recognition, purchased through courage, self-sacrifice, and solidarity with Anglo soldiers on the field of battle, strengthened the Mexican American soldier’s ties with the overall U.S. population. At the same time it infused him or her with equal pride in his or her

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Mexicanidad and Americanness. These soldiers saw themselves as many non-Southwest Americans now saw them, as members of just one more subgroup within a broader and diverse U.S. community. The Longoria controversy, which grew out of the Mexican American World War II experience, took many prominent Mexican Americans in a new direction. Instead of devoting most of their energies to struggling for whiteness, they put them into attacking racism itself. Witness the reaction of LULACers to the Longoria incident. They all stridently attacked the racism inherent in Tom Kennedy’s actions and in his attempts to defend them. No LULACer bothered to argue that this northern transplant had mistakenly mislabeled a Mexican American a nonwhite, which would have implied misplaced racism. Twenty years earlier this probably would not have been the case.55 Rather, they made a direct attack on the reality of South Texas Tejano-Texan relations, that they were driven by Anglo racism toward Mexican Americans. This implies an important intergenerational change in strategy among Mexican American civil rights leaders. To quote R. Anthony Quiroz: . . . one important point of contrast between the politics of the Mexican American generation [of the 1930s] and the subsequent G.I. generation was the notable lack of emphasis on the need to argue for the whiteness of Mexican Americans.56 This shift had a lasting effect on both the future direction and effectiveness of the Hispanic civil rights movement in South Texas. It cleared middle-class civil rights leaders’ vision for the moment and focused it squarely on Anglo racism, the principal cause for antagonism between Texans and Tejanas(os). It also served to reconnect middleclass Tejano leaders to their constituents, and then married this newfound Mexican American community consensus to common concerns in the state and beyond. The Longoria affair had an equally profound impact on the Nueces Strip’s Anglo community. It exposed discriminatory attitudes and behavior its members had displayed toward Mexican Americans to the reproving gaze of the entire nation. American towns throughout South Texas found this a bewildering and painful ordeal. Three Rivers, the center of the Longoria controversy, was the first site to experience these effects. All the national and international furor surrounding the dispute seemed incomprehensible to most of the town’s Anglo resi-

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dents. From Tejanos’ perspective, events like the Longoria case occurred regularly. The extensive publicity afforded this incident did not. When Mexican American town folk considered their own lifelong experiences with discrimination, the Longoria controversy appeared just an ordinary example of Anglo bigotry. They had encountered similar cases of racism on an everyday basis in their work, living, and educational places without anyone ever taking notice. It puzzled many Tejanos why this one affront attracted so much attention. The notoriety surrounding the Longoria uproar eventually galvanized the Mexican American community in Three Rivers in a way that other manifestations of Anglo racial discrimination against them had not. Encouraged by outside support and alienated by Anglos’ reaction to external criticism, the town’s Tejanos became more conscious of their civil rights and more active in defense of them. Still, many then and now wondered why the protest against Tom Kennedy’s denial of the chapel had not started in the Three Rivers Tejano community instead of in Corpus Christi, seventy miles to the east. Years later Dr. García reflected on the question. Was it possible that the people in a town like Three Rivers, Texas, would not know first [before the Longoria affair], that they were being discriminated against, and [that] our own people or the people who discriminated did not know they were discriminating? But looking back, retrospectively, I see the possibility that actually our people did not know they had discrimination against them because they did not know their rights. They did not know, even those there, whether they were actually American citizens in any degree of the word. . . . By traditions, customs, and habits our rights had been violated. So then, everybody was adapted, or rather became used to this type of relations between the people in places like Three Rivers. I say it is possible that consciously neither the people who were oppressed, being us, were aware that they should not be oppressed. Our oppressor was not aware really to a certain degree of intent and malignant purpose they were oppressing us. The question again of traditions, customs and habits that started way back . . . when the, what we call the non-Tejanos, the Eastern emigres, came into Texas. So at the end, again the question is that communities like Three Rivers were led along this path of division, segre-

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gation, discrimination, after so many years that they did not quite realize the problem. And some of the people in Three Rivers were then and now are great American people. . . . The great majority of Anglos did not know that they were violating our rights, and the majority of our people did not know they were being violated because they did not know what their rights were.57

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Gauging people’s consciousness of the meaning of their actions is a difficult thing to do even in the present. In his reflective hindsight García suggested that tradition blinded Three Rivers Mexican Americans to the level of their oppression and town Anglos from seeing the nature and consequences of their racist attitudes and actions. Nearly two generations had transpired between the founding of the town and the outbreak of the dispute. That time had numbed many of those involved to the meaning and consequences of the blatant racism that existed. During that interval separate living spaces had evolved for Tejanos and Texans, separate schools, separate workplaces, separate businesses, separate recreational facilities, and separate burial spaces. In effect, there were two Three Rivers—American Town and Mexican Town. García thought that people on both sides of the tracks saw these conditions as “normal” because that is the way it had been for over thirty years by 1949. Understandably, Anglos in Three Rivers reacted with dismay to the breadth, strength, and persistence of national attention devoted to the Longoria incident throughout the spring of 1949. A few seemed to become aware of their racism. Delfina Martínez, the former wife of Felix’s younger brother Arturo, recalled that she almost felt sorry for one Anglo woman. Prior to the Longoria incident the lady had always looked the other way when she passed Mexican Americans on the street so she would not have to greet them. She acted as if they were invisible. After the furor caused by the dispute this woman seemed overcome with guilt. She “went out of her way to be extra nice.” Delfina interpreted the change in the Anglo’s behavior as an attempt “to make up for her past discriminatory actions.” 58 Most Anglos, however, did not react contritely to charges of racism and antipatriotism leveled against them and their town. The more common response was to deny that prejudice existed while at the same time practicing it. Whether they did this unconsciously as Dr. García graciously suggested, or knowingly as their actions seemed to indicate,

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might prove difficult to determine in the abstract. Despite numerous statements to the contrary, the intrigue and deliberate deception that prominent Three Rivers Anglos engaged in to silence their critics indicate that they were not nearly as blinded by tradition as Dr. García presumed. Anglo town leaders saw nothing wrong in the segregation of Mexican Americans in public and in private spaces. And how did they justify this separation? Some fell back on the same argument Dr. García did, tradition. That was the way it had been in Three Rivers since its 1913 founding, and that is the way it had been in the Nueces Strip for over a century by 1949. From the Anglos’ point of view apartheid had functioned well up until the Longoria controversy, and it could function just as well after the incident. The fact that Anglos enjoyed superior living and working conditions, attended better schools, and held more political offices than Hispanics did not seem unfair to them. Anglos maintained that this order represented the norm for South Texas. Anglos believed they ruled in places like Three Rivers because they had competed with Mexican Americans and won that contest, confirming their superior fitness over their rivals. This logic justified both Anglo racism and discrimination against Tejanos.59 Thus, the accusations leveled against Texans in the Longoria incident came from either ignorant or resentful people, Anglos from beyond the region who were unfamiliar with this ongoing competition, or the losers in this struggle in South Texas itself. To Anglos, Mexican Americans’ poverty and their social and political subordination were either justified, to those who recognized it, or invisible, to those who did not. Mexicans belonged on the other side of the tracks because they could not compete with Anglos in “American town.” And once on the other side of the dividing line, they lived out of Anglo sight and mind.60 Anglos’ deeply ingrained racism predisposed them to defend Kennedy’s actions. They rejected Beatrice and Dr. García’s racially constructed version of the story, despite all the evidence in support of it, because the accusers were Mexican Americans. They rejected charges of antipatriotism coming from other parts of the country, because “outsiders” leveled them, people who did not know what they were talking about. Even forty years after the incident, Anglos stuck by their own. Tom Kennedy had either been misunderstood or cruelly punished for an indiscretion. He had apologized for any unintended slight. He had allowed that he might have misspoken in his conversations with

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Beatrice and García. No one suffered from the incident more than he did. Outsiders attacked him and his family mercilessly. The Kennedys received numerous death threats over the telephone and in the mail. One caller warned that he planned to kidnap their daughter. The abuse Kennedy endured far exceeded any crime he might have committed. As Ann Fair put it, “Poor little Tommy Kennedy; the Longoria thing ruined him.” 61 Everyone still knew that his last explanation for his behavior was the truth. He had denied use of the chapel because he feared family trouble at the wake. That’s what Jack Montgomery, the mayor in 1949, remembered in 1992. Dr. E. R. Drozd, the town’s retired octogenarian dentist, agreed; so did Jay Campbell, the pharmacist. Postmistress Vaughn Price recalled it that way too, as did Tom’s wife, Jane. Tom Kennedy had acted out of concern for the widow and the family, only wanting to spare everybody the embarrassment and pain of fighting at the funeral. Bringing them all together in the chapel would have made conflict inevitable. Texans and Tejanos alike knew about the bad blood between Beatrice and her in-laws.62 Anyone who said racism caused the incident was either misguided, misinformed, or misanthropic. Three Rivers Anglos did not passively endure state, national, and international criticism of them and their town. With the help of representatives in the state legislature, they quickly formulated defensive strategies. At the local level Anglos employed a variety of tactics. Three Rivers had but one newspaper that it shared with the rest of Live Oak County. Its editors devoted a whole edition to the incident. Every one of the articles either defended Tom Kennedy and life in Three Rivers or attacked Héctor García and Lyndon Johnson for meddling in and misrepresenting Anglo-Tejano relations there. They wrote of the time in 1947 that the Anglo Rotary Club donated $1,000 to help cover the medical expenses of a Hispanic student, Juan Díaz, who had sustained a paralyzing injury during a local high school football game.63 Did that sound like a community that mistreated Mexicans? Essays by Della Goebel and Cecil Cunningham criticized Lyndon Johnson’s involvement in the matter. In three pieces entitled “Three Rivers Replies,” “Know the Truth,” and “An Open Letter to Senator Johnson,” Goebel and Cunningham charged that Johnson had acted irresponsibly. They claimed that LBJ had not taken the time to “learn the facts.” The editors accused him of playing politics with the controversy. He had deliberately blown the incident out of proportion in or-

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der to court Mexican American and liberal Anglo votes. Goebel addressed an open editorial letter to Senator Johnson. . . . wires and letters began coming in—not to Mr. Kennedy who had made the mistake—but to the Chamber of Commerce, citizens of Three Rivers, the Mayor and others blaming not Mr. Kennedy, but all citizens of Three Rivers, Live Oak County and the State of Texas. . . . we certainly do not uphold Mr. Kennedy in his answer to García and the newspaper The Caller-Times when he was called by telephone . . . and in stating that the “whites wouldn’t like it.” 64 She concluded that Kennedy’s behavior toward Beatrice Longoria did not represent calculated discrimination, but rather his “reaction was probably the same as yours [Johnson’s]—without first finding out all the facts he more or less lost his head and said things of which he is now very sorry.” 65 In a “Live Oak County Report” column, Cunningham speculated about the hidden motives García and Johnson might have had in the Longoria affair. She characterized their conduct as aimed “to serve selfish interests of persons who either wished to pay political debts or . . . to stabilize their position in public opinion.” 66 This series of editorials revealed prevailing Anglo sentiments in Three Rivers. From these statements, the Longorias and everyone who supported them came to realize that Three Rivers Texans still remained unremorseful for and insensitive to their bigotry. Anglos refused to admit their unequal treatment of Mexican Americans and to acknowledge the immorality of their racism that contributed to it. These realizations played a role in Beatrice’s, the Longorias’, and Dr. García’s decision to reject suggestions that they bury Felix in Texas to save the state further embarrassment, and to accept Senator Johnson’s offer to lay Felix to rest in the nation’s capital with full military honors. J. F. Gray, Live Oak County’s representative to the Texas House, even brought the fight to the state capital. His actions became so acrimonious that they invited violence. He released an account to the press of a threat on his life; on February 3, an article appeared in the San Antonio Express, alleging that someone had loosened the tire lugs (bolts) on both front wheels of Gray’s car while it was parked on the capitol grounds. The reporter interpreted this as an attempt to assassinate the legislator. Gray blamed Anglo political foes and Mexican

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Americans, all supporters of the Longorias, for the act of sabotage. This was their crude and violent attempt to silence his open criticism of them.67 The incident added even more drama to the controversy. Gray and some of the Anglo town fathers then tried to smear Dr. García, who had led the protest over the Longoria affair. In the press and on the floor of the Texas House chamber, they tried to portray the doctor as an outside agitator.68 They even persuaded Shag Floore, an Army Department specialist sent by the American Graves Registration Division of the Fort Worth Quartermaster Depot to look into the matter, that the whole incident was a misunderstanding deliberately and skillfully manipulated by Dr. García. Out of his element in South Texas, the soldier gravitated toward those most like him, Anglos. He based his final report largely on conversations with the town’s most “prominent citizens,” none of whom had Hispanic surnames. He spoke to Tom Kennedy; a Mr. Redford, head of the bank; Fred Ramsey, director of the Chamber of Commerce; Jack Montgomery, the mayor; and Bryan Boyd, the town secretary. Amazingly, he did not even bother to talk to Beatrice or to the Longorias. Having heard but one side of the story, he came away convinced that no racism existed in Three Rivers. Kennedy had told the truth. He refused use of the chapel to avoid family fights.69 Floore even went so far as to accept Anglos’ explanation for the uproar over the matter. The soldier concluded that in addition to being a “misunderstanding,” the incident had “a political angle” to it. He charged that Dr. García was trying to settle a score with Jeff Gray and the town through the Longoria dispute. Floore explained that the doctor had campaigned against Gray’s successful bid for a representative’s seat in the 1948 state legislative elections. Three Rivers Anglos got Gray elected anyway, and now García meant to even the score. Floore’s report implied that the doctor had used the Longoria incident to punish Three Rivers for electing Gray.70 Anglos also attacked Senator Johnson. On January 15, the Three Rivers Chamber of Commerce sent him a telegram. “We deplore your itchy trigger finger decision and action . . . without first investigating the Longoria case. We feel that you have done South Texas a great injustice.” 71 Johnson took offense. That same day he fired back a response: “I regret that you deplore my prompt action in arranging the burial of an American soldier from Three Rivers, Texas, in the Arlington National Cemetery.” 72 He would not back off his stand on the matter. Johnson’s answer touched off a flurry of exchanges with town officials. The following morning Chamber members retorted:

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. . . our complaint referred only to your hasty action without first investigating true facts from reliable sources. We believe burial place of this American soldier Felix Longoria should be reconsidered and buried in Three Rivers, his home. We do not believe stigma of this publicity should be enforced on the city of Three Rivers, on the county of Live Oak or on the state of Texas due to the mistake of Mr. Kennedy.73 Johnson stated that he . . . was not hasty. I did investigate the facts before replying. No action of mine has enforced any stigma on anyone. I merely did my duty as I know it by replying to a wire asking my assistance.74 135

In addition to their newspaper defense, their influence on Shag Floore’s report, and their hostile dialogue with LBJ, Anglo community members mounted a more clandestine defense in the controversy. Through it they tried to present the affair in Tom Kennedy’s “family trouble” context. This unsavory plot illustrated the consciousness and depth of Anglo racism in the town. The same individuals who had influenced Army Specialist Floore—Montgomery, Ramsey, Redford, and Boyd—now decided to try their hand with the Longorias. The group composed a statement for Felix’s father, Guadalupe, Sr., to sign and pass off as his own. In it they stated that serious friction did exist between Felix’s family and his widow. It read: Felix’s wife would not speak to me because I objected to the association she was having with another man with whom I had trouble before. They were told to leave town and she did not want us to know when the body would arrive. He is my boy and I want his body brought back to his home in Three Rivers. . . . My family and I hope that our Three Rivers friends will help us in getting his body brought here for burial. I am 66 years old, have lived in Three Rivers 25 years and feel that everyone here is my friend. I expect to live here the rest of my life and would like for my boy to be as near us as possible. I do not know this García from Corpus Christi and do not want any trouble from him.75 On January 13, Montgomery and Ramsey, with one or two other Anglos, drove to Guadalupe, Sr.’s, house, and convinced him to accompany

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them to Redford’s bank. Upon arriving there, they showed Guadalupe their handiwork, and asked him to sign it. Guadalupe refused. These were not his words or his thoughts. He tried to buy time and remove himself from the pressure of their presence by saying he needed to discuss the matter with the rest of his family.76 The group did not want to push the old man too hard. If they could get his signature on the document, they would have the proof they needed to discredit García and Johnson and to support Tom Kennedy and their town, so they agreed to drive him back to his house in Mexican Town. They dropped him off there with the paper in hand and promised to return within an hour or two. Guadalupe showed the statement to his family. His daughter Carolina read it several times, and even translated it into Spanish so that her father and mother could better understand it. Those gathered interpreted it as an attempt to exonerate Kennedy’s actions and embarrass Dr. García and Senator Johnson. They did not want to do this. It just wasn’t right. All agreed Guadalupe should not sign it.77 Family members were shocked, hurt, and angered by the treachery of these respected Anglos. When the Anglo delegation returned, Carolina asked them what they intended to do with the statement. They said that they wanted to publish it in the newspaper in order to silence national criticism of Three Rivers. Carolina asked whether they would publish the document if her father did not sign it. The men assured her that they would not. Carolina then told them that her family needed more time to think about the matter.78 Again, town officials consented to a delay and promised to return later in the day. By nightfall the town’s Anglo leaders had come and gone three times from the Longoria house. Each time they left empty-handed. After the third visit, Felix’s father tore up the document.79 These respected Anglos kept coming back, hoping to browbeat Guadalupe to sign. Once or twice they even brought Tom Kennedy with them. They drafted new statements, and they badgered Felix’s father with added requests aimed at discrediting Beatrice’s account of the incident. The elder Longoria, suffering from a heart condition, became weary. His family called Dr. García in Corpus Christi, explained the situation, and asked him what they should do. At the doctor’s suggestion, the youngest son, Arturo, took his father to Laredo in order to escape the harassment.80 Instead of enlisting Guadalupe, Sr.’s, complicity in their scheme, the Anglos had driven him out of

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town and alienated the family. A copy of the statement that Guadalupe, Sr., had refused to sign appeared in the January 20 edition of the Three Rivers News anyway. Town fathers had promised not to print it, but they published it anyway. This infuriated the family. The Longorias had lived in Three Rivers for over twenty years. Initially, they feared the social consequences of notoriety during the storm of controversy and had refrained from making any public statements. Publication of this falsified document forced Guadalupe, Sr., and his family to abandon their caution and take a firm and active stand on the issue. All the while, Kennedy kept revising his story. John Connally, Senator Johnson’s chief aide, indicated in a memo dated January 14 that the undertaker had told Thomas Sutherland, executive secretary for the Texas Good Neighbor Commission, something a bit different than he had told Beatrice and Dr. García. He had explained to the widow and the doctor that he had denied use of the chapel because the whites would not like it. He informed Sutherland that he “had not refused to hold chapel services for Felix Longoria, but he had discouraged holding the services in the chapel.” 81 According to Sutherland, Kennedy had stated that “the chapel was small and if he had a Mexican funeral service and then a white funeral service, it would be a bad situation.” 82 The memo quoted Sutherland as stating that “Mr. Kennedy continued by saying that he would bury the boy if the family insisted” (Connally’s emphasis).83 Later, in a telephone conversation with Dr. García, Sutherland revealed to the doctor that “Kennedy had indicated to him that if the family insisted, [Kennedy] would let them use the chapel.” 84 García asked Sutherland if he thought the action discriminatory. Sutherland responded that he felt that “it was so and that they [the family] should not accept such conditions.” 85 In a special front page editorial of the January 20 Three Rivers News entitled “Know the Truth,” Kennedy came up with yet another explanation for his behavior: I made the statement that as far as I knew the chapel had never been used for such a burial. That it had not been the practice. As far as I know the use of the funeral chapel had never before been requested by any person of Mexican descent, so naturally, this permission has never been refused.86 Kennedy concluded that he “did not wish to change the practice for this particular funeral and so stated.” 87 Under oath, Caller reporter

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George Groh said that in his first phone conversation with Kennedy, he had asked the funeral director “if that refusal was based on Longoria’s race.” Groh then quoted Kennedy: “We never made a practice of letting Mexicans use the chapel, and we don’t want to start now.” 88 Tom Sutherland best summed up the evolving and intricate pattern of Kennedy’s semantics. He wrote John Connally that “it was not at all germane to the case whether or not Mr. Kennedy had ‘refused’ or ‘just discouraged’ holding the chapel service.” 89 Sutherland aptly “pointed out that the Latin American people under the circumstances did not have to have a direct refusal or a direct ‘No’ in order to interpret the discouragement as a ‘No’ or as a direct refusal.” 90 Sutherland told Connally that, whether implied or stated, prejudice equaled prejudice if everyone interpreted it as such.91 A month later, in his sworn testimony before the Texas legislature’s investigative committee on the conflict, Guadalupe Longoria, Sr., publicly thanked Dr. García, the G.I. Forum, Thomas Sutherland, R. E. Smith, and the rest of the Good Neighbor Commission for their assistance in the dispute. He then addressed his fellow Texans and Three Rivers neighbors:

If any embarrassment has been caused by this case to anyone, I am sorry, but after all I did not create a feeling of prejudice which seems to exist in many places in Texas against people of my national origin. Other people are responsible for that. I think that we would only be fooling ourselves to try to leave the impression that people of Mexican descent are treated the same as anyone else throughout the state of Texas.92

The elder Longoria and his family resolved to see the incident through to an honorable end. The issue had evolved into something larger than grief over a son’s death, humiliation at Kennedy’s refusal, and the machinations of the town leaders. Felix Longoria’s wake had come to symbolize the myriad forms of discrimination against Mexican Americans within the Nueces Strip. Anglos did not change even in the face of national criticism. Their behavior seemed to leave Tejanos but two options. They could take advantage of the national spotlight to stand and fight for their civil rights, or they could capitulate to the region’s tradition of racism. Accepting Anglos’ halfhearted offer of the

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chapel and burying Felix in Three Rivers or someplace else within the state reflected the second choice. Laying Felix to rest outside Texas, in Washington, D.C., represented the first option. Anglos, by their actions, had eliminated any potential for compromise and reconciliation. Tejanos chose option one; they would fight, and Felix would rest outside the state. The Anglo Three Rivers counteroffensive had an impact on Dr. García. He believed that Three Rivers’ Anglos were slandering him. The rising controversy also threatened Senator Johnson’s young political career. García realized that Johnson had taken a great risk when he championed this cause after only a month in office. Three Rivers Anglos now wanted LBJ to pay a political price. These people simply refused to accept the judgment of the nation. They had acted both prejudicially and unpatriotically. Instead of accepting public reproach and learning from their mistakes, Three Rivers Anglos were now compounding them. Unrepentant, they attacked their accusers. García would continue to pressure them through public censure. He would not let the controversy die by accepting a belated offer by the mortician to allow use of the chapel if the family “insisted,” and then bury Felix in his town’s racially divided cemetery. These actions would tacitly lend support to Anglos’ accusations against him and LBJ. People would view such decisions as admissions that the whole incident had been nothing more than a misunderstanding, and life would go on as usual in South Texas. Dr. García did not want that to happen. In all probability, neither most Anglos nor most Mexican Americans in the Strip fully comprehended the significance of developments surrounding the Longoria incident. Because of this dispute Three Rivers became the focal point of a larger regional culture of racism. Tom Kennedy inadvertently brought political havoc to this town when he exposed its racial inequities. Before the clash over Felix Longoria’s burial arrangements, South Texas’ discriminatory social system functioned because both groups complied with its tenets. A degree of social agreement enabled overt and covert forms of segregation to exist. As an “outsider” from Pennsylvania with just over a year’s residence in Three Rivers by the time of the incident, Kennedy had not learned the implicit rules governing the region’s uneven social covenant between Texans and Tejanos. During his fifteen months’ residence in the town, he had come to understand only parts of this unspoken arrangement, its code of segregation. The town’s physical arrangement made this obvi-

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ous even to a newcomer. Railroad tracks divided the living, and a fence divided the dead. Kennedy probably also discerned how race and class intersected within this order. Anglos held the better jobs, had the nicer houses and schools, and even rested on the better-kept side of the cemetery. What Kennedy probably did not fully comprehend was all the subtle nuances of the arrangement between Anglos and Tejanos. He did not understand that Anglos did not treat all Mexican Americans the same. Important Hispanic families like the Longorias enjoyed more respect and more privileges. Felix’s father contracted Hispanic labor for Anglos. He had one of the biggest and best-built houses in Three Rivers’ Mexican Town. His neighbors looked to him for advice on how to deal with whites. Whites sought his intercession in dealing with Mexican Americans. For all these reasons, Anglos on their side of the tracks and Mexican Americans on their side of the tracks respected him and his family. Kennedy did not realize that “whites” probably would not have minded bending the rules for the son of Guadalupe Longoria. True, Manon Rice, a longtime resident of the town and owner of the funeral home when Beatrice first requested use of the funeral parlor, shared Anglos’ opposition to such a proposal, but that was before Beatrice insisted and Dr. García tried to intervene on her behalf. Manon Rice probably would have relented to additional pressure from the family and the Mexican American community. He would have conceded that “Lupe’s boy” warranted more consideration, an exception to the rule. The Longorias were firsts among unequals. Delfina Martínez marveled at this. Anglos had made her wait for everything until she married a Longoria. After that they treated her differently, with more respect. The men in the family enjoyed even greater courtesy than the women. They never lost their places to Anglos in mail or grocery lines. Anglos never failed to greet the Longoria boys. Lupe Longoria lived in “Mexican Town.” Yet, Anglos considered him a client, someone they could count on to deal with the rest of the Mexican American community so they would not have to deal with “those” people. In effect, he brokered economic relations between Mexican and Anglo Towns. Because he was their man in their subject town, Anglos accorded a certain measure of respect and privilege to Guadalupe Longoria, Sr., and to his family. Delfina had little doubt that if anyone in town but Tom Kennedy, this newcomer, had been running the funeral parlor in 1949, he would have let Felix Longoria lie in state in the chapel.93 Most importantly, the Pennsylvanian failed to realize that you did not speak to

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the media about the obvious and less obvious racist conventions in the region. These were local rules that folks beyond the Nueces Strip would not likely understand. Kennedy simply had not lived in the area long enough to comprehend and follow these unspoken rules. Guadalupe Longoria, Sr., experienced two levels of public humiliation as the controversy unfolded. First, he endured the personal rejection carried in Tom Kennedy’s refusal. Secondly, that denial drove home to him, his family, and everyone else on both sides of the tracks that there were limits to the preferential treatment a Longoria could expect to receive from Anglos. In Anglos’ eyes he was their client, not their equal. The truth remained that, even if Kennedy had understood the fine distinctions of Tejano-Anglo relations in Three Rivers and had allowed the Longorias to use the chapel, racial ethnocentric issues would have still entered into the arrangement. In the end, Felix would have lain on the Mexican side of the cemetery fence which, ironically, Anglos had paid his father to build twenty-odd years earlier. Kennedy merely wished to comply with Anglo community standards as he perceived them in order to protect his newly acquired business. With his limited awareness of South Texas’ social milieu, he saw nothing wrong in his behavior toward the Longorias and Dr. García. Kennedy may not have personally felt any animosity toward “Mexicans,” as he claimed in testimony before the state legislative committee sent to investigate the Longoria affair.94 Regardless, the fact remains that he believed that the town held another view, and he opted to place his neighbors’ racist attitudes over the rights and wishes of the Longoria family. Kennedy’s major error in his Anglo neighbors’ minds was his failure to realize that one could not act the way he did toward the Longorias and Dr. García, and then admit it to outsiders. His candor had opened the citizenry of Three Rivers to national scrutiny and an endless barrage of criticism. Kennedy’s misapplication of this unspoken code that allowed Anglos to practice racism along the eastern stretches of the Nueces River basin and to deny it before the world had caused all the fuss. The mortician’s indiscretion had exposed the blatant racism that existed throughout South Texas and forced Anglos and Hispanics alike to openly confront it under the glare of the broader U.S. public’s critical stare. When Kennedy’s transparent attempts to distort and recast his behavior in a more benign light failed, Three Rivers and the state of Texas came under fire in the spring of 1949. Even some Hispanics in town eventually came to believe that

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Kennedy’s denial of the chapel stemmed more from concern over a potential family fight than from prejudice. Three interviewed in 1992 privately admitted as much. On the other hand, these same three individuals all said that racism was widespread in Three Rivers after the war, and that they had personally experienced it on many occasions. They just felt that the Longoria case provided a questionable example of the town’s racist atmosphere. Yet, none of them was about to publicly state these views, not even in 1992. In their minds Anglos might or might not have been guilty in this instance, but they were guilty in thousands of others.95 Whether discrimination had or had not occurred in this particular incident seemed far less important than the fact that it pervaded their own lives. To this day, they refuse to express their doubts openly about the validity of the charges against Kennedy. They fear in doing so that they will betray the broader cause of Mexican American civil rights that the Longoria controversy stimulated within the community.96 The vast majority of individuals residing in Three Rivers’ Mexican Town did not see the dispute that way. They believed that Tom Kennedy refused Beatrice use of the funeral chapel because of his racist assumption that the Anglos in the community would object to it. Carolina Longoria de Quintanilla, Felix’s youngest sibling, and her husband Floyd had few doubts about the meaning of the incident. Tom Kennedy had acted in a prejudicial manner, just as other Anglos commonly did in Three Rivers. When confronted with public censure, he made up one story after another in order to present his actions in some other light. The Anglo town fathers had behaved the same way. Once they found out about the differences between the Longorias and Beatrice, they seized upon them after the fact in order to help Kennedy mask his discriminatory actions. They had even tried to put words into Guadalupe, Sr.’s, mouth, hounding him to sign a statement they had written until they drove him out of town. In the end they alienated the Longorias and the rest of the Mexican American residents in town with their lies and misrepresentations.97 Delfina Martínez was sure of this. According to her, Tom Kennedy had not even known about the family problems when he denied Felix’s widow use of the chapel. He turned her down because of her race and her Mexicanidad. Like most everything else in town, the chapel was for white use only. It, like the other side of the cemetery, was off-bounds to Tejanos. Delfina recounted numerous anecdotes about her own experiences with Anglo racism in the

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town. There was the time in the supermarket when an Anglo lady elbowed in front of her while she waited to pay for her groceries. Once she approached a clerk in the post office for stamps. He told her to wait. An Anglo couple had just pulled up and were making their way toward the door. He wanted to wait on them first. She had to just stand there on both occasions. There was nothing else to do. That was how it was in Three Rivers after the war.98 The Longoria affair increased the community’s racial polarization. In early April a Texas legislative committee engineered by the town’s Anglo House representative, Jeff Gray, arrived in Three Rivers to hold its hearings. By that time Hispanics feared violence. Anglo merchants had become more adamant than usual about not serving “Mexicans.” Armed men milled outside public buildings jeering at Tejanos and proLongoria witnesses scheduled to testify. Nearly forty years later Tom Sutherland of the Good Neighbor Commission could still remember the scene well. When I walked up there, there were guys squatting around. Mean guys, fellows who looked like they were from early Texas—rough looking. One of them was holding a Bowie knife. . . . There was a sort of mocking protest on the part of these people. In other words demonstrating what I would call an anti-Mexican view. They were squatting around and holding a big old Bowie knife, and then they were saying in a loud voice, you know, . . . slanderous things about the Longoria family. . . . It was very frightening. . . . Well, it was just full of the tone of threat. I went down there and the atmosphere was charged with tension and threat.99 Sutherland thought that Dr. García displayed a great deal of courage when he showed up for the hearing. Anglos in Three Rivers saw him as the principal cause of the town’s bad press. They did everything they could, short of physically attacking him, to intimidate the doctor. He proved unflappable, remaining calm before, during, and after his testimony. Sutherland was impressed. He did not feel he had done as well on the witness stand as García had.100 Three Rivers’ Hispanic community stayed away from the hearings for fear of Anglo reprisals. In every other respect, however, they rallied around Dr. Héctor García’s call for activism along with the rest of the Nueces Strip’s Tejano population. Many attended the doctor’s Lamar

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Elementary School meeting, the one that made the decision to bury Felix in Arlington National Cemetery. Still more sent contributions so that the Longoria family could make the trip to Washington for the services. Many joined the G.I. Forum in order to continue the fight for Hispanic civil rights in South Texas that the Longoria incident had energized. Most importantly, they heeded Dr. García’s and the Forum’s call to the ballot boxes. That is what Sutherland thought was the real significance in the Longoria dispute for the Mexican American community. It taught them that public activism translated into power, and the best way to direct that activism on a regular basis was through the vote. Dr. García was the instructor in this process. He taught his people the valuable lesson that activism worked, and that, beyond protests over events like the Longoria affair, “no candidate can turn his back, no matter how he feels inside, on a vote.” 101 Three Rivers was a racially and ethnically divided town at the time of the Longoria dispute, and the Longoria controversy sharpened those divisions. More importantly in the long run, it exposed racism and ethnocentrism as the underlying rationales behind the maintenance of an American and a Mexican Town. It forced Anglos into a hypocritical position, publicly denying their discrimination, while privately practicing it. The most prominent Anglos in town stooped to unethical tactics in order to defend their inequitable racial environment. They lied, they slandered, and they bullied. These individuals acted consciously. They knew exactly what they were doing, for racism and ethnocentrism helped to maintain their control over this divided society. These labels of “otherness” superordinated Anglos’ and subordinated Mexican Americans’ economic, social, and political power within the town and the broader region. Some Hispanics may have internalized the racist concepts that clouded their perception of their oppression, just as Dr. García suggested. Others clearly had not. For them, the Longoria experience was liberating, an opportunity to strike out against attitudes that had relegated them to less opportunity, power, and respect than their Anglo counterparts across town enjoyed. Prejudice sustained the parallel and separate working, social, and political spaces that the two populations occupied. The Longoria incident illustrated just how unnatural and unequal these separate worlds were. Those who lived in Three Rivers’ Mexican Town had little previous experience with activism. After all, their section of town was only

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thirty-odd years old when the Longoria incident erupted. Moreover, this was a farming community, a place where the older and more benign socioeconomic conditions of the patrón system had been replaced by purely market-driven considerations, a place where Tejanos were no longer workers and dependents of their employers, but just dehumanized working machines.102 In this new and harsher environment, Three Rivers Hispanics had less inclination and opportunity to engage in protest over something like the Longoria incident than their Tejano neighbors to the east in the larger and more established urban environment of Corpus Christi. The Longoria controversy helped to change Three Rivers Tejanos’ feelings of powerlessness. Manuel Peña makes this point. In his analysis of “Discriminación a un Mártir,” the corrido, or folk ballad, that commemorates the Longoria dispute within the Mexican American community, Peña posits that this song represented a new post-1940 prototype within Chicano oral culture. He observes that earlier ballads, like the one celebrating the story of Gregorio Cortez, a South Texas farmer tried for the killing of two Anglo sheriffs in 1901, were basically “heroic” in nature. This ballad’s focus on a “bigger than life” hero’s exploits against an overpowering Anglo establishment symbolically provided, in Peña’s words, “for the reversal of things which were frustrated in the sociomaterial world” in which Tejanos lived at the turn of the twentieth century.103 Peña argued that the Longoria ballad represented something quite different. “Discriminación” told the tale of a victim, a tale that elicited corporate sympathy within the Chicano community, and mobilized its members toward a collective response aimed at redeeming lost honor for the Longoria family and for themselves as a whole. Peña argues that this represented a major breakthrough in the broader Mexican American community’s struggle against Anglo domination. “Discriminación” portrays Felix as “a helpless man who has been victimized by a vicious system that stigmatizes him and his kind into the grave. It is only through the collective voicing of ‘nuestras quejas [our protests]’ that some sort of reparation is possible.” Peña argues that this new type of “victim” ballad relied heavily on emotional impact to move a somewhat disorganized and disempowered Chicano community toward collective action that would eventually lead to new levels of economic, social, and political empowerment.104 The Longorias may have initially watched in surprise as Mexican Americans and Anglo liberals from outside Three Rivers raised all this commotion over an affair of honor

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couched in racist and unpatriotic terms. This incident and the national and international reactions it elicited, coupled with American Town’s aggressive and unethical responses to those reactions, motivated Felix’s family and their neighbors to fight back. In this sense the Longoria controversy had enduring consequences in that it helped to raise political consciousness and arouse activism in Three Rivers’ Mexican Town and beyond.

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THE LONGORIA DISPUTE came at a propitious time for Mexican American civil rights activists. The Anglo political culture which had so effectively disempowered Tejanos within the Nueces Strip over the previous century had fallen into disarray due to the development of sharp philosophical and practical divisions at both the state and national levels. In addition, U.S. negotiators were trying to complete a sensitive treaty with Mexico which would extend the bracero program. Texas already had a reputation for mistreatment of visiting workers, and the Mexican government was pressing for the state’s exclusion from the program. An incident like the Longoria controversy, with so much unfavorable publicity surrounding it, threatened Texas’ access to this cheap source of labor. The state had just established a Good Neighbor Commission to improve relations with its southern neighbor in the hopes of avoiding such a loss. This underfunded and politically vulnerable state agency did everything it could to control any damage that the

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Longoria incident might do to Texas’ image in Mexico. Even the U.S. State Department entered into the picture. Working behind the scenes and in cooperation with the offices of Senator Johnson and the Texas Good Neighbor Commission, the Department’s Mexican Desk tried to put a favorable spin on resolution of the dispute in order to impress Mexico’s bracero treaty negotiators. These state and national political fissures, as well as the international pressures coming from Mexico, created unusual openings of opportunity for the more politically conscious intelligentsia within South Texas’ Mexican American community, men like Dr. Héctor P. García. The nature of these divisions and pressures, along with how Dr. García exploited them, provides additional insights into what made the Longoria incident stand out in 1949. Dr. García’s inclusion of Lyndon Johnson among the seventeen to whom he sent telegrams requesting support in the Longoria controversy made sense for a number of reasons. LBJ sat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, one of the federal agencies most involved in veterans’ affairs. True, the senator had a mixed overall civil rights record in 1949. He had voted against much of the federal legislation on behalf of blacks, believing that the primary aim of these laws was to embarrass Southern states.1 On the other hand, he had displayed a genuine concern for Tejanos. As a young teacher and principal at the Welhausen Mexican Ward School in Cotulla, LBJ had worked hard on behalf of his Mexican American students.2 The García-Johnson exchanges throughout the dispute illustrate a growing level of trust and cooperation between the two men. In his first telegram to the senator García began by trying to appeal to Johnson’s sense of patriotism. The note called for an “immediate investigation and correction of the un-American action of the Manon Rice Funeral Home” in Three Rivers in “denying the use of its facilities for the reinterment of Felix Longoria.” 3 The doctor then moved on to where he thought the heart of the matter lay. He told Johnson that the action by the funeral home was “based solely on Private Longoria’s Mexican ancestry.” 4 Dr. García apprised Johnson of the telephone conversation between himself and the funeral director. The wire stated that in direct conversation, the funeral home manager, T. W. Kennedy, stated that he would not arrange for funeral services and use of his facilities because, he [Kennedy] said, “other white people object to use of the funeral home by people of Mexican origin.” 5

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Dr. García finished by critically marrying both concerns, patriotism and racism, in his reader’s mind. García charged that Kennedy’s statement represented a direct contradiction of those same principles for which he [Pvt. Longoria] made the supreme sacrifice in giving his life for his country and for the same people who would deny him the last funeral rites deserving of any American hero regardless of his origin.6 He assured Johnson that the complaint was not just some trumped-up local charge aimed at attracting attention to himself or to the Mexican American civil rights movement. He pointed out that Manon Rice was “the only funeral home in Three Rivers.” Had there been another, the Longorias would have gone there, and the matter would have never come before the public’s eye. Dr. García complained that the incident served as “a typical example of discriminatory practices which occur intermittently in this state.” 7 He reminded the senator of his firsthand experience with Anglo bigotry in South Texas from his days in Cotulla. Everyone knew Johnson’s abhorrence of these practices. At one time LBJ had purportedly remarked in disgust that Texans dealt with Tejanos there “worse than you treated a dog.” 8 Johnson’s reaction proved as logical as García’s decision to contact him. LBJ was an adroit politician, who seldom committed himself without thoroughly examining a situation. In the Longoria dispute, the first thing he did was to check García’s story. The day after receiving the doctor’s telegram Johnson telephoned Robert Jackson, publisher of the Corpus Christi Caller.9 The senator read García’s wire to the newspaperman, and asked whether Jackson knew anything about the incident. The publisher replied that he did. Jackson said that his newspaper “already had a story about it.” Jackson requested that the senator hold the line while he sent for Bob McCracken, managing editor, and George Groh, the reporter covering the incident. A few minutes later all three huddled around the phone and answered Johnson’s queries. LBJ wanted to know if the newspaper’s findings supported Dr. García’s allegations. Jackson, speaking for all three, said they did. He added that the “facts are directly in line with the information that we’ve received as a result of our own investigation.” 10 Cautiously, Johnson addressed each of them individually. He read García’s

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telegram to all three. He then asked each of them in turn if “the facts which you have substantiate what Dr. García says in his wire.” One by one they answered, “Yes, they do.” 11 The senator wanted to avoid any misunderstandings. Since he was about to take an enormous political risk, and he realized this, he wanted to make sure that he had all the evidence in hand. Satisfied that the Caller staff had seen the same discrimination and lack of patriotism in the Longoria affair that he did, Johnson prepared to act. He asked if he could read the three men a draft of the response he planned to send García. He wanted to gauge their reaction. LBJ needed the paper’s support in so potentially controversial an issue. It would go a long way toward shaping a favorable public reaction to his involvement in the matter. If he was going to stick his neck out, he wanted to make sure the hometown press was not going to lop it off. Johnson informed the newspapermen that he planned to openly condemn the actions of Thomas Kennedy and the Manon Rice Funeral Home. LBJ added that he would make arrangements to have Felix Longoria reburied with full military honors in Arlington . . . or if his family prefers to have his body interred nearer his home, he can be reburied at Fort Sam Houston National Military Cemetery at San Antonio.12 The senator was proposing a limited federal response to an individual case of two widespread problems in South Texas, Anglo racism and ethnocentrism. The three newsmen conferred for a moment, then Jackson again responded for them. They thought the reply was “all right,” but advised the senator not to mention Kennedy or the Manon Rice Funeral Home by name. Name-calling would only antagonize people. Both Jackson and McCracken agreed that this offered “the best possible solution of the whole thing.” 13 Johnson had the confirmation and backing he wanted. He thanked his listeners and said good-bye. “This injustice and prejudice is deplorable,” Johnson wrote in the wires he sent on January 11 to both Beatrice Longoria and Dr. Héctor García.14 They arrived the same day García asked for his help. LBJ expressed his sympathy and deep “regret to learn that the prejudice of some individuals extends even beyond this life.” He apologized because he had “no authority over civilian funeral homes nor does the federal government.” He then offered what he could do, make arrange-

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ments to rebury Felix Longoria at either Fort Sam Houston or Arlington National Cemetery. If his widow desires to have him reburied in either cemetery, she should send me a collect telegram before his body is unloaded from an Army transport at San Francisco, January 13th.15 Later, after the Lamar Elementary School vote and the news of it had spread throughout South Texas, criticisms of LBJ began pouring in. Johnson and García reflected on the possible sources of such hostility. Of course, racism accounted for much of it, but the two men suspected there was much more to it than that. Both men were convinced that old establishment Anglo politicians viewed Johnson as a dangerous liberal “National” Democrat with stronger ties to Washington than to Austin.16 Johnson and García also believed that the outcry was tied to Johnson’s controversial senatorial victory over former Governor Coke Stevenson three months earlier, one of the bitterest and most contested political campaigns in Texas history.17 In their minds LBJ’s political foes were trying to use the Longoria dispute to embarrass the junior U.S. senator before the Texas electorate.18 The roots of the bitter 1948 senatorial race ran all the way back to the 1920s, and Lyndon Johnson’s early political career situated him on one side of the debate. Texas Regulars, or “establishment” politicians, as George Green has referred to them, viewed Johnson as a dangerous maverick who refused to run with the herd. They perceived Lyndon as a “National Democrat,” not a “Texas Regular Democrat.” 19 He was an ambitious young politician who maintained interests in and contacts with Washington’s political scene that were not always compatible with the philosophical positions and the interests of traditional Texas politicians. Two glaring differences revolved around social attitudes toward race and ethnicity. Another hinged on questions of states’ rights. Like other former Confederate states, Texas remained solidly Democratic until 1928, when its dislike for the Catholic candidate, Alfred E. Smith, caused temporary defection to Herbert Hoover and the Republicans. Even then, voters elected a solid slate of Democrats to state and local offices. In Texas Regulars’ minds, national politics took an even more alarming turn in 1933 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt and “National Democrats” began crafting their New Deal. This sweeping set of federal programs enormously expanded the role of the central

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government in state affairs, something which the Texas Regulars saw as an attack on their state’s rights.20 FDR’s choice of John Nance Garner as his running mate in 1932 had represented an attempt on Roosevelt’s part to offset these concerns.21 Garner was unquestionably committed to strong state government, and he was a Texan.22 Texas Regular and National Democrats alike preened with pride over Roosevelt’s choice. One of the state’s own wound up holding the secondhighest executive office in the land, the first time any Texan had occupied such a high national post. The outbreak of World War II had a somewhat mixed effect on the states’ rights issue in Texas political culture. On the one hand, the federal government’s attempted regulation of oil production and prices became a point of contention between Washington and Austin. The federal government’s intervention on behalf of black servicemen’s rights in the state also brought charges of outside meddling.23 On the other hand, residents of Texas reaped new levels of prosperity from the central government’s wartime expenditures in the state’s economy. New and expanded demands from English and French allies for Texas staple and petroleum goods enhanced the economy. Over the next seven years the U.S. government poured millions of dollars into the state as the nation prepared for and then engaged in the conflict. Washington not only purchased record amounts of Texas goods, it also established army, Army Air Corps, and navy training stations throughout the state. These expenditures, coming as they did on the heels of the Depression, drove Texas agricultural and petroleum productivity to new heights, and most Texans enjoyed increased levels of wealth.24 Despite Texas Regulars’ continued attacks on big government throughout the war years,25 the majority of Texans displayed only limited concern because this same government was now the proverbial hand that was feeding them. At least one other factor softened popular opposition to the New Deal. The future seemed to augur well for the states’ rights position up until 1940. John Nance Garner had served as FDR’s vice president from 1933 through 1939. Most in the nation expected the president to step down after his second term and support Garner’s bid for the White House in 1940. After all, no president to that point had ever sat for more than two terms. No one expected Roosevelt to break with this tradition. Garner was a Texas Regular. Through his presidency Texas Regulars would try to control Washington in the 1940s just as FDR and

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the National Democrats had tried to control Austin in the 1930s. When Roosevelt opted for a third term, Garner came home in disgust, and Texans fumed over FDR’s decision. Garner led a faction within the state Democratic establishment into an open break with the president and the national party.26 At the Democratic National Convention that year Texas sent two contesting delegations. One group endorsed FDR’s bid for a third term, the other clamored for Garner.27 Rancor between the competing factions did not permanently subside until the late 1960s. As a rising young politician with high ambitions, LBJ inevitably got caught up in the Regular/National Democratic Party politics within his state. Early he cast his lot with the Nationals. When LBJ ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1937, he based his campaign on his close affiliation with Roosevelt and the New Deal. His detractors even began referring to him as “FDR’s boy.” As enmity grew among Texas Regulars toward Roosevelt, animosity naturally mounted against Johnson as well.28 Nonetheless, Texas Democrats perceived that Johnson wielded power in Washington, and Johnson did not discourage the perception.29 While the Texas establishment disdained LBJ’s attachment to Roosevelt, it relied on his influence to produce political and financial favors for the state. Johnson remained consistent. In 1944, he supported FDR’s bid for a fourth term in office against Texas Regulars’ vehement opposition. Regulars’ bitterness toward FDR endured beyond his death during the third month of his fourth term. The Texas establishment simply shifted its disdain toward Johnson. The result was that LBJ’s congressional campaign of 1946 was the meanest he had ever experienced. Charges of political and financial chicanery that Texas Regulars lodged against Johnson followed him for years to come. At one point, adversaries hurled accusations of financial misconduct at him with such frequency and ferocity that he ordered his accountant to bring the campaign finance books to Wooldridge Park in the center of Austin to permit “whosoever will” to examine them.30 During this period, Coke Stevenson enjoyed a reputation as the state’s “strong silent cowboy” governor.31 Stevenson had come up through the ranks as state legislator, speaker of the state House of Representatives, state senator, lieutenant governor, and, finally, governor when W. Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel became a United States senator.32 Stevenson remained governor of Texas throughout World War II. The

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state, free of unemployment problems, reaped the benefits of peak productivity. With much of Texas’ workforce in North Africa, the Pacific Islands, Europe, and in military installations throughout the nation, the needs for state expenditures were scant. Stevenson received a reputation for thriftiness, and Texans attributed their prosperity to him.33 The widest gap in the Texas political establishment occurred in 1948, when the state needed to choose a successor to O’Daniel for the U.S. Senate. Stevenson announced early with the support of the Texas Regulars. After considerable equivocation, Lyndon Johnson threw his hat in the ring. LBJ was an enigma to most conservative Texans. Although he communicated well with Texas oil interests, he frequently voted the New Deal line on congressional tallies. Regulars remained unsure about Johnson’s political philosophy. Was he a national liberal or a states’ rights conservative? They had no such questions about Stevenson. He was one of them. To the Regulars, “Calculatin’ Coke” was clearly the more desirable candidate.34 It proved a tight race. In the primary, Stevenson led by a 100,000vote margin, making him the definite front-runner, though not with enough for a majority nomination. In the runoff election, Johnson, with the help of columnists Jack Anderson and Drew Pearson, exposed Stevenson as ignorant of the whole labor issue, thereby costing the former governor Texas labor votes.35 The runoff set the stage for the notorious eighty-seven-vote victory which dogged Johnson for the remainder of his political life.36 When the Texas Democratic state committee met in September 1948 to certify its candidate for the United States Senate, the Texas committee voted 28-28, a Stevenson-Johnson tie. Charlie Gibson of Amarillo, the fifty-seventh member of the executive committee, had slipped out of the meeting room and into a nearby bathroom, causing him to miss the first ballot. According to Robert Caro, he was hiding. Having promised his support to Johnson, Gibson feared that he had committed to the losing side and wanted to avoid that association. John Connally, Johnson’s trusted aide, found him just before the second roll call of committee members and browbeat him into returning to the meeting just as the chair called his name. Gibson answered “aye,” a second tally was taken, and LBJ won by a margin of one (29 to 28), Charlie Gibson’s vote.37 Stevenson’s forces immediately appealed to the courts, state and federal, to overturn the verdict. For the rest of the autumn, Texans saw the contest make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Justice Hugo Black wrote the majority decision upholding Johnson’s primary election.38

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LBJ defeated his Republican opponent handily and returned to Washington, the most junior of new senators and a man highly aware that any political misstep might be his last. Acknowledged as a superior congressman, he had entered the Senate under a cloud. Although he had excellent contacts and a small number of loyal friends, he could afford no mistakes. When the outcry emerged over the Longoria incident, Johnson either had to exhibit uncommon courage or imprudence to become involved in something so potentially controversial so soon after his contested November 1948 election. By extending his sympathies to the Longoria family, by joining South Texas Mexican Americans in public protest against established relations between them and Anglos, and by facilitating Tejanos’ rejection of Anglos’ face-saving attempts to have Felix buried in Texas, he had opened himself to political attack. From the perspective of the Texas establishment, Johnson’s Washington encouraged liberalism, and do-gooding had gone too far.39 To them, he had become an impulsive instrument for the federal government’s meddling in Texas affairs. Just as damning, others accused him of using the Longoria case as a means of capturing the growing Hispanic vote in Texas. The evidence suggests otherwise. In assuming that Johnson had acted without thinking or out of political expediency, critics misread or misrepresented him and the state’s political environment. Conventional wisdom at the time held against currying Hispanic political support at the expense of alienating Anglo voters, because the latter group cast ballots more frequently than the former did. But South Texas, for good reason, had long been LBJ’s political base. The charge that Johnson acted rashly seems equally implausible. He seldom moved on anything without first considering the consequences; witness his previously mentioned January 11 conversation with the Corpus Christi Caller staff. Despite the quickness of his involvement, he had proceeded more deliberately than most realized. And although he did objectively measure the political risks, he probably, to his credit, responded more out of ethical than political considerations. This took real courage on his part, something that most observers agree Johnson displayed a good measure of throughout his public career. As D. B. Hardeman, a seasoned Texas politician at the time, saw it, “what he [LBJ] did could only hurt him politically in Texas. But what the people in Three Rivers did outraged him.” 40 A U.S. soldier and his family had been dishonored. Nueces Strip Tejanos had suffered discrimination. Those were the issues in this controversy, and Johnson took them to heart.

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This stand on fairness put LBJ in direct opposition to the Texas Regular establishment that Coke Stevenson had represented in their Senate race. And just three months later Johnson was openly opposing this entrenched political faction. At the time, most veteran Anglo politicians read his decision to become immersed in the Longoria controversy as political suicide, and some of them told him that. John Connally, head of LBJ’s own staff, was furious about his boss’ decision to support Hispanics on this issue, and the two argued over it. It was too soon since Johnson had won his hard-fought Senate race. His political wounds from that battle had not yet healed. He was too vulnerable. Yet nothing Connally or anyone else on the staff said could dissuade LBJ from taking sides in the dispute. Because of the argument that ensued, Johnson and Connally barely spoke for two weeks after Johnson sent García his offer to help. Forty-odd years later Connally marveled at LBJ’s stubborn conviction in this matter, and how his seemingly politically irrational commitment to fairness eventually worked to the senator’s long-term political advantage. Neither man was confident of this end result at the time.41 LBJ emerged as the only major politician among the many whom Dr. García had telegraphed on January 11 that dared to pursue the case. After verifying the facts, he reacted promptly and decisively, offering the Longoria family honor-saving redress. Dr. García, the Longorias, the American G.I. Forum, LULAC, and the rest of the South Texas Tejano community appreciated his intervention, and they would not soon forget it. Beatrice spoke for all of them in a wire she sent him a few days later. In it she thanked Johnson for his “very kind offer and for your generosity in bestowing such great Honors [her capitalization] on our brother and husband . . . We feel indebted to you for all of this.” 42 As promised, Johnson arranged the burial ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. In a telegram that soon followed, he informed Beatrice that the funeral could take place on February 8. After conferring with other family members and with Dr. García, she responded that the 8th was fine, but added, “If not possible on the 8th then on the 9th or 10th. We are ready and thanks to contributions from our friends we plan to make the trip by airplane.” 43 A small snag developed in the funeral plans when the Army Graves Registration Division at Fort Meyer, Virginia, informed Johnson that the body would arrive late. LBJ wired the news to Dr. García:

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Due to transportation delay, Longoria’s remains will not reach Washington until February 15th. Department of the Army suggests services for 2:00 P.M. Wednesday, February 16th, or a subsequent date of family’s choice. Have so notified Longoria family requesting to know their wishes.44 Dr. García immediately met with the Longorias to discuss the logistics of the Washington trip. A week later García wrote Johnson of the family’s acceptance of the 16th as the date. He also requested that the senator’s office make Washington hotel reservations for the Longorias, which his staff did.45 Seating arrangements for the ceremony presented an even greater problem for LBJ. President Truman precipitated the predicament when his secretary called to ask where General Harry H. Vaughn, Truman’s military aide and the White House representative to the funeral, would sit. The Arlington burial had received extremely favorable media coverage, and a conspicuous show by the president’s man could be politically helpful. Truman suggested a seat close to the family. It would provide a great photo opportunity. John Connally and the rest of Johnson’s Washington staff did not see anything wrong in the request, and promised to comply. When they mentioned the matter to LBJ, he astonished them by saying they should ignore the president’s request. No dignitaries, including himself, would sit next to the family. Connally and Horace Busby, who were making arrangements from the senator’s office, protested. They pointed out the political folly of snubbing the president. Besides, Johnson had earned whatever political capital he could get out of the funeral because of the enormous political risks he had taken in becoming involved in the controversy. Despite their pleas, the senator remained firm. Busby recalled that LBJ had given them two reasons for denying himself and Vaughn prominent seats at the grave site. First, most of his critics in the affair charged that he was using the Longoria dispute to enhance his political popularity. A high profile at the funeral for him and for the representative of his party’s president would support these charges. Second, and more personally, Johnson argued that the Longorias had endured enough suffering with the loss of Felix and the controversy surrounding his burial. They deserved their space and private time with the body at the ceremony without having to put up with the distractions of politicians trying to turn their ceremony into a media spectacle.46

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John Connally and others in the office still did not understand. They thought LBJ was forfeiting an earned political opportunity, and they told him so. Johnson responded with a brief lecture about the nature of Mexican Americans. According to LBJ, Hispanics were fiercely loyal people. Exploiting their trust and allegiance by playing politics with the funeral was even more risky than the chance he had taken with Anglo voters in the state by backing the Longorias. Busby remembers Johnson saying that if your enemies tried to shoot you in front of an open grave, a Mexican American friend would “throw himself in front of you and take the bullets.” LBJ respected that loyalty and believed he would be better served in the long run by not risking alienation of the Mexican American community through politicking at the grave site. There would be no pandering to Anglo politicians who would desert you in a moment if they found it “politically expedient.” 47 As Johnson put it, “You’ve got a loyal Mexican friend, it’s equal to five Anglo friends because he’s so much more loyal.” The dignitaries and diplomats might quietly file past Felix’s coffin and pay respect to his family, but they would not seize the limelight. The junior senator from Texas saw to that. He understood Hispanics’ feelings about family and honor. At the same time he recognized the mistrust they had for Anglos. LBJ saw in the funeral a chance to benefit from the first and to overcome the second characteristic of Tejano culture. Death, mourning, and the ceremonies surrounding such events elicited strong emotions in people, powerful forces with which one should not trifle. There was no telling what the Longorias might do if they thought he was using the burial for personal gain.48 Rather than operate as an untrustworthy Anglo politician, Johnson would behave like a compassionate friend of South Texas Hispanics. Above all, Johnson wanted his actions to reflect his esteem and sympathy for Private Felix Longoria and the bereaved family, to be those of someone muy simpático (good-hearted). While involvement in the Longoria case threatened Johnson’s rising political career, he earned enough support from Tejanos and federal government agencies to offset the negative political forces arrayed against him within the state. The Longoria incident strengthened existing ties between LBJ and his Mexican American constituency more than any of his previous actions had up to that point.49 Johnson also earned the gratitude of the U.S. State Department. On January 13, Paul J. Reveley, Chief of the Division of Mexican Affairs, asked John Connally to “extend congratulations on his [Johnson’s] action in arranging

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for the burial of Felix Longoria in Arlington National Cemetery.” 50 Connally relayed the message directly to LBJ. Mr. Reveley stated that it was a most unfortunate incident which might have far reaching results, and he was particularly proud of the action that had been taken because he thought it would have a salutary effect in our relations with Mexico.51 Reveley concluded that Johnson’s prompt action in the Felix Longoria affair had helped to quell the bad press in Latin American newspapers over the incident.52 In the diplomat’s words, the “publicity . . . accorded the plans for the Arlington burial appeared to have a positive counteracting effect.” 53 The State Department’s praise hints at another underlying significance of the Longoria incident, its alleged impact on delicate labor negotiations going on in 1949 between the United States and Mexico. An examination of the Good Neighbor Commission’s attempts to mediate among Tejanos’, Texans’, Mexicans’, and the U.S. State Department’s interests illustrates yet another facet of the Longoria controversy’s importance. Staff at the Good Neighbor Commission joined the Longorias’ circle of supporters in early January 1949. It emerged as the only state agency that openly sided with the family. Thomas Sutherland, the commission’s executive secretary, launched an investigation into the Longoria case soon after receiving Dr. García’s complaint. García had worked with the Commission on past civil rights cases, so it made sense for the doctor to include Sutherland on his list of people to notify about the Longoria complaint. Ironically, a Texas Regular, Governor Coke Stevenson, had created the Good Neighbor Commission in 1943.54 The previous year the United States had pressured Mexico into creating the bracero program. It gave labor-starved U.S. wartime agricultural producers access to migrant Mexican workers. Because of numerous reports of discrimination against Hispanics within Texas, Mexico had excluded the Lone Star State from participation in the agreement. In order to remove this ban, Stevenson did two things in 1943. He pressured the state legislature to approve a resolution that legally defined Mexican Americans as Caucasian. And second, he founded the Good Neighbor Commission with the stated mission of safeguarding Hispanic civil rights within the state. Stevenson had hoped that these measures would move Mexico to drop its opposition to Texas’ involve-

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ment in the bracero plan. Stevenson and the Texas Regulars did not especially like either strategy, but they saw them as necessary evils in order to secure access to cheap and malleable labor.55 The influx of Mexican nationals willing to work for next to nothing depressed wages and working conditions for all rural laborers in South Texas. Living conditions for resident Mexican American workers provided graphic evidence of this fact. Texas Regulars supported Anglo farmers in their efforts to secure more of these foreign laborers through the bracero program. If creating the Good Neighbor Commission could accomplish this end, then they would put up with the agency’s meddling a bit in Anglo-Tejano-Mexican relations. Besides, there were plenty of ways to restrict the level of the Commission’s interference within tolerable bounds. The primary function of the Good Neighbor Commission was to improve the state’s relations with Latin America, and especially with Mexico. In theory, the agency could accomplish its task in many ways, but in practice it had but one realistic strategy: bring cases of discrimination by Anglos against Hispanics to the public’s attention in the hope that popular disapproval would discourage such practices. In effect, the Commission could only investigate complaints. There were few antidiscrimination laws in 1949, and the agency did not have the jurisdiction, staff, or financial resources to enforce them. Establishment Anglo politicians had so emasculated its authority that, in David Montejano’s words, the Commission was reduced to nothing more than an “international public relations arm of the Texas government.” 56 On an annual budget of just $8,000 in 1949, it had limited means to even investigate cases of discrimination. About all the Commission could do was pay the modest salaries of Tom Sutherland and his secretary, pay the telephone bill, and buy a few supplies, with a little left over for travel expenses. Fortunately, office space in the state capitol building came free.57 Dallas businessman Robert E. Smith, the director, worked for nothing, as did the agency’s board of directors. Oscar Dancy, a county judge in Cameron, Texas, had once told Tom Sutherland membership on the Good Neighbor Commission “was the most dangerous thing politically that could be handed to a man in politics.” 58 The judge advised his friend against taking the post as its executive secretary and chief operating officer. It was a liberal National Democratic agency ruled and sustained by conservative states’ rights Texas Regulars. Powerful establishment Anglos throughout Texas held

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a dim view of the agency. Sutherland took the job anyway. He still thought he could do some good in the post, and he had a wife and daughters to support. In 1949, Tom Sutherland and the Commission reported to Governor Beauford Jester, a staunch Texas Regular politician. Jester would only suffer what he had to from Sutherland, Smith, and their Good Neighbor Commission. He even sympathized with some who talked of abolishing it. Six years had passed, and Mexico still had not removed Texas from its bracero blacklist. Mexican nationals who worked within the state did so clandestinely over the objections of their own government and to the delight of South Texas authorities and employers. In that respect the Commission had not achieved what establishment politicians had in mind when they created it. It had not negotiated Mexico’s consent to Texas’ legal participation in the bracero program. On the other hand, the agency did offer a relatively harmless pressure valve for Tejano venting, so Beauford Jester and the rest of the Regulars let it limp along on its minimal budget. Short of everything and amid this unfriendly political climate in 1949, Sutherland, Smith, and their vulnerable Commission learned to walk a fine political line when investigating complaints. The agency’s very survival depended on such a strategy. Understaffed, underfunded, and responsible to a hostile governor’s office, the Commission’s options were limited in the Longoria dispute, but Sutherland and Smith decided to do what they could anyway. Sutherland and García already knew each other and had developed a working relationship over previous discrimination cases. Sutherland understood that the doctor was expecting a response from him, so he called García’s Corpus Christi office. As usual, the doctor provided numerous details about the case. He was an energetic, thorough, thoughtful, and forceful person, not someone to ignore. Sutherland was a bit surprised when García ran down the list of the people and agencies he had contacted about the affair. He had been even more thorough than usual in this respect. One person’s name on the list pleased Sutherland. The Commission secretary recognized Lyndon Johnson as someone sympathetic to the Commission and the Mexican American causes it defended.59 After speaking to Dr. García, Tom Sutherland decided to call the Three Rivers funeral director himself. During this conversation, Tom Kennedy again admitted that he had denied use of the chapel to the

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Longorias. And again he explained his motive for the denial, his fear that he might lose clients if he allowed a wake for a “Mexican” in the chapel. “The white people would object to that and I couldn’t start that sort of thing.” 60 Knowing of LBJ’s National Democratic affiliation and his sympathy for Mexican American causes, and that Dr. García had already contacted him about the incident, Sutherland decided to call the senator’s office next. He spoke with John Connally. Connally confirmed everything that Sutherland already knew. All the evidence pointed to a clear case of discrimination on Kennedy’s part, and the funeral director was not even denying it. Connally did tell Sutherland something he had not heard. The U.S. State Department had taken an interest in the case. It seemed that the newspaper and radio publicity surrounding the Longoria affair had adversely affected negotiations to renew the entire bracero labor program with Mexico. Connally advised that the case was taking on added significance by the moment.61 Discrimination in Texas now threatened to get the nation as well as the state blacklisted from any labor agreement with Mexico. Sutherland immediately contacted his boss, Bob Smith, the Good Neighbor Commission’s director. Smith agreed they would have to act on this one, and he approved Sutherland’s recommendation that the office investigate and publish an official report on the incident.62 When Thomas Sutherland and Robert E. Smith decided to pursue the Longoria case, they knew full well of the risks involved. They did it anyway because they thought it the right thing to do, and because they knew Washington needed them to pursue the matter. Besides, their commission had been founded to secure Texas’ participation in the bracero agreement. Perhaps the opportunity had finally arrived for them to achieve this end. The agency’s successful intervention in resolving this dispute could end up pleasing everyone—Tejanos, Mexicans, Washington, and Texas Regulars. From the outset, however, most Anglo state officials viewed the Good Neighbor Commission’s involvement in the Longoria case the same way they viewed LBJ’s participation in the affair: as meddling, rabble-rousing, and witch-hunting. Some even believed that the Commission, Johnson, and Washington had trumped up this case of discrimination in order to embarrass the establishment, the Anglo states’ righters who ruled Texas. The higher the level of national and international criticism aimed at the state over the Longoria dispute,

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the more convinced the Texas establishment became that the underlying motive in the controversy was to discredit it. State Representative Jeff Gray of Three Rivers eventually challenged the Good Neighbor Commission’s findings of discrimination in the Longoria complaint as deliberately misleading, and launched a campaign in the state legislature to abolish the agency altogether. Gray found ready allies to work with toward this end.63 Representative Gray and other Texas Regulars blamed much of the national and international furor over the Longoria incident on the misguided leadership at the Good Neighbor Commission. They complained that Smith and Sutherland too frequently supported Hispanic charges against “Texans.” Gray and his faction saw the agency as nothing more than a political tool of “Mexican” agitators in South Texas.64 In order to defend his Anglo constituency, Gray began to solicit support for a legislative attack on the Good Neighbor Commission. And if abolition of the agency failed, he wanted to at least have Smith and Sutherland fired.65 The Longoria controversy had spilled onto yet another political front. Gray caught the ear of Governor Beauford Jester. The legislator and the governor held two private meetings in Austin concerning the Longoria controversy. Both deplored the bad press Three Rivers and the state had received and held the Good Neighbor Commission partially responsible. They agreed to work together to do away with the Commission. Jester vowed not to renew Smith’s appointment as chairman of the agency when his term ran out in June 1949. A new director would necessitate appointing a new board of directors as well. The governor promised to purge the board of overly zealous advocates of Hispanic civil rights, most notably Lloyd Bentsen, Sr., long known as a champion of South Texas interests. He would also demand that each of his new appointees work to dismiss Smith and Sutherland from their commission posts.66 Gray even tried to enlist the support of the elder Bentsen’s son. Lloyd Bentsen, Jr., then sat as a new U.S. congressman from South Texas. Gray wrote the representative and complained “bitterly” about Smith and Sutherland’s efforts to undermine relations between Anglos and Mexican Americans in the Strip. Apparently, Gray had sought the younger Bentsen’s support because he represented the region, and as an Anglo employer was dependent upon Mexican workers.67 A large South Texas farmer and rancher like Bentsen, Jr., could not afford the loss of that labor. Out of this concern he might, despite

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his National Democratic leanings, and his father’s position in the matter, support opposition to those like Sutherland and Smith who helped to generate the bad publicity which gave the Mexican government a pretext for retaining Texas on its blacklist and for delaying negotiations for renewal of the overall bracero program. Bentsen, Jr., later admitted to Sutherland that he had listened attentively to Gray’s arguments. In the end, however, Bentsen assured his friend that he told the Three Rivers representative that he could not support an attack on the Good Neighbor Commission or on its director and secretary because the agency was doing a “fine job.” Bentsen added that he recognized additional motives at play that explained Gray’s influence with the governor. Jester was a Texas Regular who had supported Stevenson over Johnson in the recent U.S. Senate race. Jester and the Regulars were out to purge the state of National Democratic influence, and the Good Neighbor Commission and Senator Johnson were two of their primary targets. Bentsen, a “Johnson man,” told Sutherland that he supported him and Johnson on the Longoria case, but he advised caution because the Regulars were mounting a counterattack.68 The Good Neighbor Commission, aligned as it was with Mexican Americans, National Democrats, LBJ, and the State Department in the dispute, stood on shaky home ground. It had plenty of outside support and some backing from politically active individuals and groups within the community like Dr. García and the American G.I. Forum, as well as from a number of rising National Texas Democrats like LBJ and the Bentsens, but this might not count for much in a state politically controlled by the Democratic establishment. Indeed, the Good Neighbor Commission and Johnson entered the fray overmatched by more regionally powerful political forces in Governor Beauford Jester, former governor Coke Stevenson, a majority of the state’s legislators, and the rest of the Regulars. The Commission did have one real advantage. The Longoria incident had the potential to adversely affect the state’s strengthening economy, because one of its comparative advantages in competing with other states and countries within the marketplace was its cheap and pliable labor force, and Mexican workers represented the linchpin of that competitive labor force. The Longoria dispute threatened that advantage. Sutherland and Smith, in mediating the controversy, attempted to remove that threat, and in the process win popular praise and broad-based political support for their agency.

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Indeed, while Texas Regulars railed and conspired against the Good Neighbor Commission’s involvement in the Longoria case, counterpressures from the U.S. State Department encouraged the agency’s participation in the dispute. It was important for the success of the bracero negotiations to impress upon the Mexican government that Texas authorities were committed to stopping discrimination against Hispanics.69 State Department officials had good reason to fear Mexico would withdraw from the bracero program altogether. In 1949 Mexico perceived itself as an underpopulated country. Sixteenth-century conquest and introduction of Old World diseases so decimated native inhabitants that Mexico did not reach the same population totals it had in 1519 until 1946!70 This created, by 1949, a perception of a centuriesold labor shortage, especially in low-density residential areas like the Mexican north bordering on the U.S. Southwest. Moreover, the eastern sector of this northern Mexican zone found itself in the midst of industrial and commercial agricultural expansion throughout the 1940s. In Mexicans’ minds during this era the bracero program required them to surrender their comparative labor advantage to the U.S. Southwest, and thereby sacrifice Mexican regional development to U.S. regional development. During World War II that loss seemed justified. After the war it did not. When the U.S. government pressed its Mexican counterpart for extension of the program beyond 1946, Mexican officials used every means at their disposal to resist this pressure. The Longoria controversy provided one of those means, and Mexican authorities used it not only to continue its prohibition of Texas’ participation in the agreement, but to halt negotiations for the yearly renewal of the treaty in its entirety. Such a move badly hurt U.S. employers in states like Texas. The lower wage costs and more flexible labor force that resulted from the infusion of Mexican workers made the Texas economy more competitive. A steady stream of Mexican nationals and returning Mexican American G.I.’s in the late 1940s expanded the Texas labor market. Participation in the bracero program would greatly enhance this trend. Mexican authorities had plenty of documented cases of Anglo discrimination against Mexican nationals and Tejanos on file, enough to warrant prohibiting their citizens’ efforts to seek work in Texas. Over one hundred newspaper clippings with stories of abuse and discrimination against Mexicans for 1948 alone still exist on file in the Good

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Neighbor Commission archive. Clearly, the Longoria incident reflected an ongoing pattern of prejudice. It was that very pattern that moved the Mexican government to insist on Texas’ exclusion from the bracero program when it had come up for renewal ten months earlier.71 This created a seasonal problem for large farmers in areas like South Texas. During the winter months, this year-round garden area had plenty of labor. Every spring, however, better-paying agricultural jobs opened up in California and other Southwestern states, as well as in a number of sites in the Northeast and Midwest. The resulting exodus drained between 85,000 and 300,000 Texas farmworkers from the region. Then, at the first signs of winter, pickers packed up their belongings and followed the fall frost line back to South Texas. This annual migratory cycle left Texas summer and autumn fruits, cotton, and other crops unpicked unless Mexican workers crossed the Rio Grande. Even though Texas wages (as little as twenty-five cents per hour) could not compete with those offered in other parts of the United States, they still exceeded those available south of the border. Mexican nationals illegally came and filled the seasonal labor shortage, readily accepting the low pay.72 Only three months before the Longoria incident, an El Paso Times article dated October 19, 1948, broke the news that the Mexican government planned to terminate the bracero agreement because Texas farmers and ranchers were recruiting Mexican nationals during the spring and summer months with the help of the U.S. Employment Service and Border Patrol.73 Mexico’s labor ministry conducted an investigation into the allegations during the first half of 1948. As result of its findings, on October 18, 1948, Mexico called for the termination of the by-then eight-month-old bracero renewal agreement with the United States because of “tacit U.S. approval of mass illegal entries of braceros into Texas.” 74 Immigration Service Director Grover C. Wilmoth vehemently denied the allegations and scoffed at the claim that his agency was “winking at enforcement of immigration laws.” 75 Don Larin, director of the Employment Service, dismissed the Mexican charges, too, but tried to ease tensions by proposing higher wage scales for agricultural workers in Texas in an attempt to make pay competitive with that offered in other Southwestern states. Maybe this would resolve the Texas question to everyone’s satisfaction. The Mexican government seemed receptive to the idea, and quickly responded with a proposal that Texas cotton growers pay three dollars per hundredweight of

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the crop picked. Texas producers rejected the suggestion, and Mexican negotiators continued to boycott the bracero negotiations. That is where the bracero program sat on January 11, 1949, when Dr. García fired off his seventeen telegrams breaking the Longoria story.76 In the hostile press coverage of the Longoria incident, Mexican policymakers found popular support for their opposition to the bracero agreement. Mexican newspapers devoted a good deal of ongoing coverage to the Longoria controversy, which piqued national pride. Journalists argued that the case clearly represented the prevalent pattern of Anglo discrimination in Texas. Influential journals such as the government-operated El Nacional and the privately owned El Universal, Excelsior, El Popular, La Prensa, La Prensa Gráfica, and Novedades all joined in the chorus of public opposition to continuation of the bracero agreement.77 The Longoria dispute had converted more or less passive Mexican governmental resistance to extension of the agreement into active popular resistance to it. Mexican negotiators broke off talks with the United States soon after stories of the events surrounding the Longoria dispute began to appear. Texas’ Good Neighbor Commission was the principal agency within the state charged with improving Texas-Mexican relations. It was also run by Texas National Democrats. Thus, it was natural for the State Department to solicit the Commission’s help in resolving the Longoria incident. Department officials saw this as the only way to get their Mexican counterparts back to the negotiating table over the bracero agreement. Paul Reveley contacted Tom Sutherland and invited him to Washington. Reveley even went so far as to offer the Commission secretary a desk in the Mexican Area office so the two could coordinate strategies with each other and with Senator Johnson’s office to effect a speedy end to the controversy.78 All of these developments placed Sutherland and Smith in the middle of a political quandary. Clearly, the Longoria family had suffered discrimination at the hands of Tom Kennedy. The Tejano community, the State Department, and Mexico called on the Good Neighbor Commission to redress this affront. On the other hand, many Anglos within the state, including powerful Regular politicians, saw far less wrong in Kennedy’s actions than in those of Dr. García and Senator Johnson. Kennedy had simply maintained the traditional AngloTejano separation that applied to virtually all public spaces in South Texas. García and Johnson had embarrassed the state before the nation

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and Latin America. How could the Commission address and satisfy the complaints of both factions? The solution the Commission decided upon was both simple and ineffective. It pleased neither side in the dispute. In its final report on the Longoria affair, the agency found Tom Kennedy guilty of racism for refusing use of his funeral chapel. The document went on to praise Dr. García and the American G.I. Forum for defending Beatrice Longoria’s right to use the chapel. The findings condemned, however, García’s and the Forum’s hasty action in going public with their complaint before the Commission had time to investigate the matter and mediate a solution. By extension, this criticism implicitly applied to Senator Johnson as well. Their statements and actions caused adverse publicity that jeopardized the United States’ chances of extending the bracero labor agreement, and it virtually assured Mexico’s continued opposition to Texas’ participation in the program. By condemning Kennedy’s behavior, Smith and Sutherland aimed to please Tejanos and to silence the state’s critics. In leveling criticism against García and Johnson, and by noting the potential consequences of their behavior, Smith and Sutherland hoped to appease the Commission’s Anglo and Texas Regular critics.79 And what did the Commission propose to resolve the dispute? It would convince Tom Kennedy to apologize for his behavior and to permit the Longorias use of the chapel. It would convince Beatrice and the rest of the Longorias, Dr. García, the American G.I. Forum, and the Tejano community at large to accept Kennedy’s apology, wake Felix in the funeral chapel, and give him a hero’s burial in his hometown of Three Rivers.80 As a state agency, the Commission served the interests of Texas first. The state legislature funded it, the state governor appointed its personnel, and state politicians determined its future. The Longoria case intensified political debate over how effectively the Good Neighbor Commission served state interests.81 It was a creature of the Anglo community and political establishment created to relieve the political consequences of Anglo racism and ethnocentrism within the state. It did not matter that Tom Sutherland, and probably Robert Smith, too, were personally sympathetic to Tejanos and to Mexican nationals; all the better. They could appear genuine to Hispanic community leaders like Dr. García and to Mexican officials, but as long as both men had to answer to Texas Regular politicians for their jobs and their agency’s funding, there was little danger that they could bring about real change

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in the discriminatory nature of Anglo-Tejano relations within the state. The Good Neighbor Commission’s final report on the Longoria controversy underscored this reality. Despite its efforts to find a middle ground, in the end the Commission suffered the displeasure of both sides in the dispute. Sutherland and Smith gambled that their “compromise” solution would find acceptance on both sides. They lost this bet. Anglos were especially upset with the agency. The Regulars knew that Dr. García had mobilized South Texas’ large Hispanic community, and that the Good Neighbor Commission had validated his activism by agreeing to intervene on behalf of the Longorias. For this reason alone many politicians wanted to see the agency scrapped. Its final report’s mild criticism of Dr. García and veiled censure of LBJ offered too little too late to the besieged Anglo political establishment. The agency also encountered unexpected opposition from García and the Longoria family. Above all, the Commission worked to have Felix buried within the state, ideally in Three Rivers. Laying him to rest in Texas would alleviate some of the embarrassment suffered by the state. Senator Johnson had already suggested several alternatives to the Three Rivers site. Only Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C., fell outside of Texas. Smith and Sutherland hoped that one of the sites within the state would satisfy South Texas’ Mexican American and Anglo communities, as well as silence national and international critics. They perceived that this settlement would also appeal to the Mexican government and its representatives in the bracero negotiations. Arlington National Cemetery was the only location under consideration that the agency opposed. Accordingly, Sutherland and Smith moved to influence the key decisionmakers in the selection of a burial location. Smith wrote Dr. García on January 17, and Sutherland called him twice. They urged the physician to use his influence with the Longoria family to bury Felix in Texas, preferably in Three Rivers. Each time Dr. García rebuffed them. He would not interfere with the family’s choice of a burial site. The doctor went on to state that he believed the Three Rivers burial was inappropriate, inasmuch as the town’s Anglo citizens still refused to acknowledge that the prejudice that had precipitated the Longoria controversy even existed in their town.82 The Commission could not hope to control Dr. García. He appeared in no mood to help effect compromise. Smith and Sutherland would

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have to hammer out an agreement between Three Rivers Anglos and the family without the doctor’s help. Aware of this, Sutherland and Smith began to correspond directly with the Longorias. When the agency suggested burying Felix in Three Rivers, Beatrice did not respond, and his parents rejected the idea out of hand. Too many things had happened in town since the public furor over the incident. Felix’s father did, however, surprise Sutherland with a new proposal that offered the Commission most, but not all, of what it sought. Lupe, Sr., suggested an Arlington ceremony followed by an actual interment in the national cemetery in San Antonio. Guadalupe explained that this would restore to Felix and his family the honor that Kennedy’s discriminatory behavior had taken from them. At the same time it would show the world that the Longorias “bore no grudge” against Texas.83 Sutherland and Smith welcomed the idea. They were hopeful, but the actions of Three Rivers Anglos described in Chapter 4, and those of establishment politicians in Austin outlined below, alienated the Longorias and the rest of the Tejano community, killing any chance for an amicable middle-ground resolution to the dispute. While Sutherland and Smith worked to diffuse the controversy over Felix’s final resting place, powerful Anglo politicians maneuvered to destroy the Good Neighbor Commission. In the Texas House of Representatives, Jeff Gray lined up enough votes to create a committee to investigate the Longoria incident. Gray hoped to expose the controversy as a trumped-up charge of racism concocted by Dr. García, liberal National Democrats like LBJ, and the staff of the Good Neighbor Commission. True, this investigation might backfire and yield the opposite result, but Gray and the Regular political establishment laid plans that would diminish that likelihood. First, they stacked the five-member panel with Regular Democrats committed to finding results the Anglo establishment wanted. House Speaker Durwood Manford appointed four establishment representatives, all anti–Good Neighbor Commission, anti-Johnson, and pro–Coke Stevenson Regulars.84 Gus García (no relation to Dr. Héctor García), Beatrice Longoria’s lawyer during the committee hearings, described some of the investigators in a letter to LBJ. He claimed that Chairman Cecil Storey from Longview and Tom Cheatham of Cuero were there as representatives of the Three Rivers Chamber of Commerce, and not as impartial investigators. . . . It is my opinion that

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the committee will probably render a four to one report clearing Three Rivers of discrimination, but certainly the language will have to be very soft because the record is overwhelmingly conclusive that there was discrimination at the onset.85 Frank Oltorf, a Johnson supporter, provided the one potential dissenting vote on the committee. Oltorf recognized his minority position from the outset. He viewed himself as the token Johnson National Democrat. Oltorf confided that Gray and the others were merely using the committee to absolve the actions of Anglos in Three Rivers. He went on to warn LBJ that the Regulars also aimed to use committee findings to condemn the actions of the Good Neighbor Commission and Senator Johnson in order to justify the abolition of the agency and to politically wound LBJ. Oltorf was convinced that Gray could not have mustered the support he had within the Texas legislature and the governor’s office had it not been for this last set of objectives. And Gray had plenty of issues with which to fan Texas Regulars’ resentment against LBJ. The senator had an uneven record of support for states’ rights. During his eleven years as a U.S. congressman (1937–1947) he had supported FDR’s New Deal, and for this, many Regulars came to see him as a tool of big government. In 1948, however, he came down on the side of states’ rights on at least two important issues. He opposed the Truman administration’s claim that tidewater oil rights belonged to the federal government instead of to the states, and the president’s black civil rights program seeking legislation against lynching, poll taxes, and hiring discrimination. He also came out in support of the Taft-Hartley Bill (1947) limiting some of the more extreme prolabor provisions of the earlier New Deal Wagner Act (1935). Regulars were suspicious of LBJ’s apparent retreat from his New Deal principles. They did not trust him. Johnson seemed to bend with the political winds, to be someone who placed expediency above conviction. By 1948, many in Texas had lost some of their enthusiasm for the New Deal philosophy of big government at the states’ expense. Many interpreted LBJ’s states’ rights position on these two issues simply as attempts to ingratiate himself with the very states’ righters he had opposed during the heyday of the New Deal, and they felt he did this in order to position himself for a run on one of Texas’ two U.S. Senate seats.86 Regulars saw him as nothing more than a political opportunist, and a dangerous one at that. His timely switch to a states’ rights

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stance on these issues did seem to help him defeat a Texas Regular stalwart in the 1948 Senate race, Coke Stevenson.87 Now in the Longoria controversy he was again sacrificing the interests of his state, at least insofar as Regulars defined those interests. Worse, he had used the question of race relations to do this, the same tactic the federal government was employing in its accelerating attacks on states’ rights all over the South. A public forum might expose LBJ’s self-interested politics, and a legislative investigative committee holding open meetings on the Longoria affair could provide that forum. Stacking the investigative committee would virtually assure a quick and favorable result for the Regulars. In order to enhance the likelihood of this outcome Regulars employed a second tactic. They limited time and legislative funding for the body to conduct its hearings on the matter. The legislature placed a one thousand dollar cap on expenses, and asked for a report in three weeks’ time.88 Oltorf assessed the situation before setting off with his colleagues to interview subpoenaed witnesses in Three Rivers. “It [the incident] made some of those bigots so mad, . . . that they decided that they would have representative Gray call for a legislative investigation of the thing.” 89 Oltorf thought that little good could come of this for LBJ.90 The committee was charged with the sole responsibility of judging the credibility of each witness and arriving at a judgment on the controversy based on its collective weighting of the evidence. It compiled 372 typed pages of testimony from nineteen witnesses during the hearings. Those who testified had the right to legal representation of their choice. Over half of the total budget allotted to the committee went to pay Mrs. Agnes Miller, a stenographer who recorded and then provided several typed copies of the testimony before the committee, leaving little left over for the other tasks related to the body’s function.91 It was a hurried and cursory review of the evidence done on a financial shoestring. The record indicates that the investigators heard testimony from all of the principal characters involved. They solicited input from several prominent Three Rivers Anglos as well. Mayor Jack Montgomery, Fred Ramsey, president of the town’s Chamber of Commerce, Albert Smith, Live Oak County sheriff, and Manon Rice, the previous owner of the funeral home, defended Kennedy and the rest of the town’s Anglo population.92 Each of these prominent citizens denied the charges of racism in the Longoria incident. All claimed that relations between Anglos and Tejanos in Three Rivers were some of the best in the state.

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The four Regular Democrats on the committee showed their sympathy for Tom Kennedy throughout the proceedings. They accepted the funeral director’s claim that he had denied use of the chapel because of anticipated friction between the widow and the Longoria family, even though this represented Kennedy’s third version of the reasoning behind his refusal. The Regulars evidently assigned less credibility to witnesses like Beatrice Longoria, Dr. García, George Groh, and Tom Sutherland. All of them swore that Kennedy told them he had denied use of the chapel because the whites in town would not like it. Gus García, the San Antonio lawyer representing the Longorias, observed that most of the committee members displayed open hostility toward those witnesses who alleged discrimination in the case. Afterwards he complained that they had “browbeat old man Longoria [Felix’s father] until he did not know who he was.” 93 Hostile members of the committee also assailed Tom Sutherland and the Good Neighbor Commission. They charged that Sutherland had based his investigative findings of discrimination on two long distance telephone calls: one to Dr. García and one to Tom Kennedy. Representatives Windam and Cheatham asked if all the Good Neighbor Commission’s investigations were “handled by telephone.” Committee chair Cecil Storey pointed out that one-seventh of the commission’s 1948 caseload involved the investigation of complaints from Dr. García. He then baited Sutherland with the query “Doesn’t that make Dr. García quite a requester?” His implication was clear. The Good Neighbor Commission was a slipshod agency controlled by “Mexican” rabble-rousers and publicity seekers.94 The four Regular members also challenged Sutherland’s claim that the Good Neighbor Commission needed to act because of the adverse effects of national and international press coverage on bracero program extension talks. They stated that Sutherland had fabricated this claim to justify his rash actions and rushed conclusions in dealing with the Longoria case. Regulars on the committee claimed they had received information from U.S. Representative John Lyle, of Corpus Christi, indicating that the Longoria incident had no bearing whatsoever on the bracero talks. The Regulars accused Sutherland of using this story to throw up a “smoke screen” to cover his poor investigative procedures and misleading public statements.95 The sole testimony that supported Kennedy’s contention that there was Longoria family trouble that might have led to hostilities in a funeral chapel wake came from Deputy Sheriff George Flores. The law-

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man stated that he had broken up a fight between Guadalupe Longoria, Jr., and one of the Zepeda brothers in late 1947. According to Flores, it occurred at a dance. The two men began scuffling after an argument over Mike Zepeda’s dating Felix’s widow so soon after her husband’s death. Gus García lodged a vehement objection to Flores’ testimony on the grounds that the hearing focused on the question of racial discrimination in 1949, not Beatrice Longoria’s private life in 1947.96 But the damage had already been done. A Hispanic peace officer from Live Oak County, in which Three Rivers lay, had substantiated the claim that bad blood existed between the widow and her in-laws. It had led to violence once; Kennedy could have reasonably thought it would lead to violence again at the wake. The Regulars had their justification for ruling that the undertaker’s actions had not been driven by racism. They did not bother themselves with the inconsistencies in the undertaker’s story, the fact that his statements to other witnesses indicated that he repeatedly changed his explanation for his actions as the controversy unfolded, the appearance that knowledge of this family friction came to him after he had already refused use of the chapel. In the end the committee’s findings centered on two important questions relating to the case. Had Tom Kennedy actually refused to allow Felix’s wake in his chapel, and if he had, what was his reason? By the end of the hearings Kennedy himself provided the answer to the first question. Faced with contrary testimony from Beatrice Longoria, Dr. García, Tom Sutherland, and Caller reporter George Groh, Kennedy finally admitted that he had denied Beatrice the option of waking Felix in the chapel. With regard to his reason, the funeral director stuck to his sworn testimony, that he had done so to prevent what he anticipated would be a family fight between the widow and her in-laws at the chapel. Only Deputy George Flores provided circumstantial evidence that lent credibility to this explanation. Beatrice Moreno de Longoria, Dr. Héctor García, Tom Sutherland, and George Groh all swore under oath that Kennedy told them he withheld use of the chapel because the dead soldier was “Mexican,” and his Anglo patrons would object to Mexicans using the chapel. The committee also heard from Felix’s father, Guadalupe, Sr., denying any lingering bad feelings between the Longorias and the dead soldier’s widow. Despite the lopsided evidence pointing to the contrary, on April 7, 1949, the investigative committee reported to the Texas House of Representatives that it found no racial discrimination in the mortician’s

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behavior. The sole reason for his actions was to avoid family trouble at the funeral chapel. The majority report signed by the four Texas Regulars on the panel found that the whole incident represented nothing more than a misunderstanding between Tom Kennedy and Beatrice Longoria that the press had blown out of proportion. This took no one by surprise. Frank Oltorf and Gus García had predicted this outcome from the outset. Representative Gray immediately introduced a bill calling for the abolition of the Good Neighbor Commission. Throughout the controversy, he publicly drew more attention to the alleged missteps of the Good Neighbor Commission than to the charges of Anglo discrimination against the Longorias. Gray virtually admitted as much when he told the press that his complaint in the whole matter did not lie with the state’s Mexican American population, but with the Good Neighbor Commission. Gray claimed that the Commission provided “a place for agitators to find sympathy.” 97 He “likened the Commission to a mother-in-law who keeps things agitated.” 98 All seemed to have gone according to the Texas Regulars’ plan. The legislative investigative committee’s report had vindicated the Anglo position in Three Rivers and rejected the position of the South Texas Mexican American community. By implication, the committee had censured the actions of the Good Neighbor Commission and Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson. However, the establishment’s apparent victory proved short-lived. What Regulars had not anticipated was the impact of a minority report written by the Johnson man on the committee, Frank Oltorf. Chairman Storey reluctantly agreed to append Oltorf’s dissenting statement to the majority document. Oltorf’s document forcefully argued for the Longorias’ position. The evidence it presented clearly documented the prejudice behind Kennedy’s actions. Oltorf proved that the Longorias had suffered discrimination at the mortician’s hands. When newspapers all over the state published the two findings together, one Regular member on the committee, Byron Tinsley of Greenville, was so embarrassed that he requested that his signature be removed from the majority statement.99 The news coverage of the investigative committee’s findings also impacted on Gray’s anti–Good Neighbor Commission legislation in the Texas House. The representative’s bill to abolish the Good Neighbor Commission failed by a vote of ninety-seven to fourteen.100 Bowing a bit to public reaction, Governor Jester reluctantly increased the next

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biennium’s funding for the Good Neighbor Commission from $16,000 to $20,000, still leaving it well below the level of money needed for the agency to function effectively.101 The Commission, with its paltry budget, low staffing, and minimal influence, remained ill-equipped to react to the pressures of more powerful forces at play in the Longoria affair. Although they had tried to effect a compromise in the case that they hoped would satisfy all the parties involved, Sutherland, Smith, and their staff simply did not have enough clout to broker such an agreement. Nor did they have the political backing necessary to come out of the controversy unscathed. Their handling of the incident may have been realistic, given the agency’s limitations and liabilities, but it only served to alienate virtually everyone involved in the dispute. In 1950, the new incoming Regular governor, Allan Shivers, was as committed as Jester to silencing the Good Neighbor Commission. The Truman administration was threatening a federal investigation into Texas’ treatment of migrant Mexican workers, and Governor Shivers feared that the Good Neighbor Commission would serve as a tool of Washington in this probe, as the Regulars believed it had served in the Longoria dispute. In 1951, to further emasculate the agency, Shivers split it in two. The existing Commission would only handle international affairs, matters between Texas and Latin American countries. The new division of the Commission would manage Tejano-Texan relations within the state, but in a very decentralized fashion, encouraging local governments to set up their own Anglo-dominated councils to oversee Mexican American–Anglo affairs. It was a lot like assigning the fox to guard the chicken house.102 The Good Neighbor Commission entered the Longoria controversy as a well-intentioned mediator, and emerged the weakest among the competing factions involved in the controversy. It never recovered from its failure to arbitrate this controversy. The Mexican American community saw it as an ineffective defender of Tejano rights. The Texas Regulars saw it as a National Democratic tool for undermining the state’s rights. Either way, the agency was the biggest loser in the Longoria dispute. The Longoria dispute clearly came at a good time for Mexican American activists like Dr. García. The controversy’s effect on bracero treaty negotiations brought the federal government into the fray, forcing Anglo politicians to consider the political consequences of their legally institutionalized discrimination against Mexican Americans in

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the Nueces Strip. Through its behind-the-scenes cooperation with the offices of Senator Johnson and the Texas Good Neighbor Commission, both of which were aligned with the National Democratic faction in Texas politics, the U.S. State Department widened already existing divisions in Texas’ political culture. Relations between Nationals and Regulars were already near the breaking point over the bitter senatorial campaign that had culminated just three months earlier. Regulars thought that LBJ and the Nationals had stolen the election from their man, Coke Stevenson, and they were eager to discredit this upstart liberal opportunist. When LBJ recklessly (in Regulars’ eyes) entered the Longoria dispute on the side of Tejanos so soon after his controversial victory, Regulars thought they had the issue they sought to politically destroy the junior senator. Dr. García seized the opportunity that the weakened Anglo political structure and the State Department support in the controversy offered him. He welcomed Tejanos’ inclusion in this statewide political struggle on the side of LBJ and the National Democrats because it meant that Mexican Americans would become real players in state politics. This bond between him, his people, and LBJ would endure and mature in the 1960s. The timing of the Longoria incident had afforded Dr. García, through the enlistment of Lyndon Johnson’s involvement in the controversy, an opening to promote the political participation and citizenship of South Texas Mexican Americans within Texas’ political culture.

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there was no wake for Felix Longoria. The decision to lay the young soldier to rest in Arlington National Cemetery made the ceremony impractical. Beatrice and Dr. García would have had to arrange it in Washington, D.C., and that was just not possible. Few of Felix’s relatives and friends would have had the money, time, or inclination to travel all the way to the nation’s capital to attend the event.1 Beyond that, everyone got so excited about the burial itself, in the country’s most revered cemetery for fallen war heroes, and attended by important officials from the U.S. and Mexican governments, that not a single concern was recorded for the wake, the ceremony around which the Longoria controversy had revolved. Felix’s final burial took place on February 16, 1949, at two in the afternoon just as Senator Johnson had said it would. For the family, it meant closure on Felix’s death, but not on the controversy his neverheld wake had generated. To this day Beatrice shies away from talking IN THE END

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about the incident or the interment. Both proved as painful and traumatic as the news of Felix’s death. The funeral did, however, finally lay Felix to rest in a way that redeemed his and their honor, something very important to Beatrice, the Longorias, and the Hispanic community in South Texas. She remains thankful for that.2 To Dr. García and the American G.I. Forum, the burial in Arlington represented the most significant victory they had won in their struggle for veterans’ and Hispanics’ civil rights to that date. For Lyndon Johnson, Felix’s funeral offered favorable national exposure and another political victory over his Texas Regular adversaries back home.3 For the U.S. State Department the reinterment of Felix Longoria cleared a stumbling block to the extension of the bracero program. Five months later Mexico signed the renewal treaty, but again excluded Texas from participation in the agreement.4 The Longoria controversy had strengthened in Mexico the state’s reputation for mistreatment of Mexicanos. For the nation as a whole, Felix’s reburial represented a reaffirmation of the ideals for which so many American servicemen and -women had given their lives and limbs during the war. It also symbolized a public expression of respect and gratitude toward the nation’s war dead. For Nueces Strip Tejanos the burial brought recognition and validation of their American identity. The funeral did not please everyone. It infuriated Anglo residents of Three Rivers and their Texas Regular allies across the state. For them the ceremony signified a repudiation and indictment of their way of life. For the Good Neighbor Commission the funeral reflected its failure to walk a political fence between more bigoted Texas Regular Democrats and more liberal National Democrats within the state. It doomed the agency to continued political marginalization by the Texas Regulars that had created it and the Tejano and Mexicano populations it sought to serve. The January 20 front page editorial in the Three Rivers newspaper merely strengthened Beatrice’s decision not to accept her father-inlaw’s Good Neighbor Commission– endorsed suggestion to honor Felix at Arlington, then bury him in Texas. Plans for sending the Longoria family to Washington had already begun soon after the January 11 Lamar school meeting. The outpouring of public support, especially by Tejanos, illustrated the dispute’s impact on their political consciousness. Mexican Americans saw and felt many things in the Longoria dispute, but above all they saw discrimination, something all of them had

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felt nearly every day of their lives. Reason and emotion had bound them together during the controversy, and these forces brought them even closer during the burial arrangements. Everyone wanted to participate in one way or another. A small number of family members would actually attend the graveside ceremony. Many others would sacrifice to allow those few to be there. Radio stations, newspapers, and word of mouth informed the Tejano community of the Longorias’ need.5 Supporters often sent homemade cards, many with small amounts of money neatly folded or placed inside, fifteen cents, twentyfive cents, a dollar, five dollars, or ten dollars. The volume of contributions proved so great that the post office separated them from the normal delivery service, and brought these letters directly to Dr. García’s office. Some had only partial addresses like “Dr. García, Corpus Christi, Texas.” 6 No matter, they all got there. The money in the envelopes came from poor folk, “gente humilde,” whose parting with a dollar or two meant real hardship. The notes that accompanied that money recorded personal familiarity with discrimination and solidarity against it. The prose was full of misspellings and grammatical errors, the educational result of spending only a few years in a Mexican Ward school and a lifetime in the fields. These “errors” did not, however, distort the letters’ collective tenor or their meaning. They speak for themselves. Mr. Dr. Ector García, I write you this letter in order to send you a donation of $2.00 that my work friend and I send to all of you. from the Perla bakery of Cotulla Tex. and I hope very much that the Feliz Longoria thing comes to a successful end. S.S.S. Antonio Rivas and my work friend Refugio Rodriguez7 Juan Moya and his wife wrote: Mr. Hector P. García, Listen. I learned of the Longoria family of Three Rivers, Tex. over a broadcast on K.W.B.U. (radio station). without alluding too much to my numerous family my wife and I decided to contribute 50 cents for each member of my family. and if all mexicans unite

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together and do this nothing will be to difficult. your S.M.B. Please pass on our condolences Juan Moya y Espoza Manuela Flores de Moya he hijos Manuel. Alejandro. Elizando. Juan Jr. Daniel. Gloria. Ernesto. Alberto. Miguel. Benito. Y Antonio todos Moya Adjunto Encontrara la suma de $6.50 Paralos fondos dela familia Longoria. S.S.S. Moya8 Hispanics in Brady, Texas, three hundred miles away, sent in their collection of $9.35, with the following message: With pleasure I send you this gift to cover the costs you have connected with the difficulties for Mr. Felix Longoria for the costs of going to and having the funeral of his son your servant G. C. Flores and Mr. Pablo Estrada This a list of all those that contributed all of Brady Texas.9 Roy Navarro, with his wife and family, wrote: Enclosed you find a money order for $5.00 —five dollars, which I am sending to the family Longoria. so they be able to make their trip to Washington. I was very sorry to hear about this boy funeral’s not been admitted at this Funeral Home, to tell you I cry and Kept looking at my brother picture who died for the sake of his country, to, and who so far has been brought to the State’s and had a nice Funeral with all the honor’s, and it made us feel happy. So I hope the Family Longoria will feel the same. who I Know will never forget all this that has happen. I close out with best regards to you and the Family Longoria. I’ll Remain Sincerely Yours Mr. and Mrs Roy Navarro, y Family.10 Hispanic organizations as well as individuals took up the cause. A high school–based veterans’ group in Austin responded,

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Dear Dr. Garcia: Having seen whereby the American G I Forum under your direction has started a contribution list for the Felix Longoria Family, in order to send them to his funeral in Arlington National Cemetery; and wanting to do our part, we, the GI’s of Lanier High School have made a collection amongst our selves and were indeed very happy to have raised $ 67.00, Sixty seven Dollars, amount which I am enclosing in a Postal Money Order. In my name, and that of all my friends who contributed also our best wishes for your success in raising enough funds to carry out your very meritorious work. Yours very truly, Frank L. Sanchez and the “LANIER G I’s.” 11 Council 24 of the League of United Latin American Citizens sent the following cover letter: Voluntary collections is been made sponsor by LULAC COUNCIL #24 for the purpose of helping the Longoria family of Three Rivers Texas, for their funeral expense trip to Washington D.C. Felix Longoria world war II veteran killed in the Philippines will be buried in ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY where the honored war dead rest. Rice Funeral Home in Longoria’s home town of Three Rivers Texas had refused use of its CHAPEL for a reburial service on racial grounds.12 A third group stated: This collection was made voluntarily, in order to aid the family of our hero and compatriot, Felix Longoria, who was killed on the battlefield of the Philippines, was then brought again to his hometown, where he was refused funeral services, solely because of his mexican origin. His remains will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Wash. D.C. where his family will gather.13 Finally, various social organizations helped distribute petitions, and businesses donated money, including: The Society of Benito Juárez, Karnes City—$25.00, the Corpus Christi Shoe Hospital—$1.00, Guz-

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man’s Red and White—$10.00, Mexico City Bakery—$2.00, Garza Cafe—50 cents, Barrera Barber Shop—50 cents, and Hondo Texas Veteranos—$30.00.14 At first glance these amounts seem insignificant, but one must recall the economy of the times. A neurosurgeon in 1949 earned approximately $25,000 a year. The scale shifted downward dramatically from there. A cardiologist’s income represented approximately half of that. A university professor earned around $4,000. Department stores paid their employees about $1.10 an hour, and hotel service employees netted approximately $33.00 a week. Unionized railway workers drew $1.35 per hour. Yet the averages for the United States as a whole did not reveal the even lower pay scales of populations in the Southern states.15 In Texas, farm wages in 1949 ranged between twenty-five and fifty cents an hour.16 For those who gave, such as Lenore Sustaita and Brother, Mrs. Delmira Caprestan and Family, Mr. and Mrs. Donato Zoso and family, F. S. Ewing, J. O. Pruitt, Jr., Willie Orta, the Thomas family, Mike and Juan Solís, Baltazar and Filiberto Gutiérrez, Sr., and Sra. Tony Cisneros, Henry Mitchell, L. B. Mitchell, Mrs. Kate Rodríguez and son, and two people who simply wrote their names as “A Friend,” a dollar meant something.17 From Sinton, a small ranching and farming community to the northwest of Corpus Christi, people like Mathis R. Treviño sent in $1.00; Luis Overa 25 cents; Mike Solís 50 cents; and D. F. S. Ewing $5.00. The Corpus Christi American G.I. Forum chapter contributed $50.00.18 Port Arthur residents sent $64.85. Campbellton’s Tejanos donated $23.50. Mercedes forwarded $43.25.19 These groups and individuals did things they seldom had done in the racist and ethnocentric environment of South Texas; they exercised their public voices, and they surrendered their scarce and hardearned cash. They did not worry about Anglo retaliation or the loss of their meager wages. They just wanted to participate in this very public victory for Tejano civil rights. J. O. García eloquently summed it up for them all, dear and appreciated friends. today I have the very cordial honor of sending this contribution in order to make me a participant in the cause of Longoria’s widow to give her my vote of condolence in the death of her beloved spouse that gave his life for the good of the country. Well I wish to that they would give her the most satisfactory funeral services for the entire family instead of letting her go

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on suffering such terrible disgrace; for this reason I remit the following sum of $3.00 to aid in the costs involving funerals, and may he rest in peace. signed by this poor Servant J. O. Garcia20

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Throughout South Texas, American G.I. Forum members worked to involve the Mexican American population in the fund drive. They convinced people that a contribution to the Longoria cause represented a contribution to Hispanic civil rights. Burying Felix Longoria in Arlington served notice to bigots everywhere that Tejanos were aware of prejudice against them and refused to tolerate it any longer. By 1949 most Mexican Americans’ roots in the state went back at least a generation. They warranted citizenship because South Texas’ twentieth-century economic development rested as much on their backs as on any other group’s. These facts, along with their contributions in World War II, justified and merited their full citizenship. Felix’s burial in Arlington National Cemetery illustrated to them and to everyone else that they had claimed that right. Tejanos no longer considered themselves Mexicans; they were Mexican Americans. In their minds the burial indicated that everyone else considered them Mexican Americans as well. Anglo Texans no longer had license to treat them like second-class individuals. American citizenship was Felix Longoria’s birthright; it was their birthright, too. Texans of Mexican heritage deserved full U.S. citizenship and the privileges that went with it. Like Felix, they, too, had inherited, earned, and defended their American identity. The Longoria incident helped to drive those points home to Hispanics in the region and to the general public across the nation. Organizers jotted down names, addresses, and amounts of contributions throughout the state and beyond. They then sent those lists along with the offerings to Dr. García’s office, to the American G.I. Forum, to the Longoria family in Three Rivers, and to LULAC chapters. Volunteers recorded everything. The letters that came with the money exercised a fundamental right to publicly petition against grievances, the First Amendment guarantee of free speech, something that Anglos took for granted for themselves, but accused Mexican Americans of being unpatriotic or “uppity” for exercising.21 The Longoria incident helped to motivate Tejano veterans and their families to speak out be-

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cause it made them recognize they warranted this right as much as Felix warranted use of the chapel. The outpouring of encouragement from veterans and Gold Star family members (family of fallen soldiers) did not go solely to Dr. García. George W. Hinman, Jr., colonel in the Memorial Division of the Quartermaster Corps, wrote the American G.I. Forum on January 31, commenting that “the petition by twenty-three Gold Star mothers and fathers in regard to the funeral . . . has been noted,” and that “Longoria will be buried in an honored grave.” 22 The offerings of funds and condolences from the general public to the Longorias, to Dr. García, to the American G.I. Forum, and to Senator Johnson demonstrated the groundswell of solidarity and activism within the Tejano community that the dispute had stimulated. All of this outpouring from Mexican Americans demonstrated a rising level of civil rights awareness that welled up in them as a result of the Longoria controversy. The Longoria incident had provided a rallying point for collectively striking back against a culture of discrimination that prevailed in South Texas and much of the rest of the Southwest. Events and actions surrounding Felix Longoria’s burial add to the explanation for why this particular event received so much attention within an ongoing South Texas climate of Anglo discrimination against Mexican Americans. The levels of commitment to the cause of Mexican American civil rights unquestionably heightened during the weeks leading up to the actual burial. This, coupled with the exaggerated degree of patriotic spirit in the country after the war, created an unusual amount of public interest in this particular incident. National backing encouraged and legitimized Tejanos’ involvement in the controversy and the burial. Burying Felix in Arlington National Cemetery gave Mexican Americans an added sense of group pride and strengthened their already-war-stimulated U.S. national identification. The contributions and the letters that accompanied them reflect yet another motivation. Dr. García’s mobilization of the protest movement—the initial telegrams he sent, his enlistment of the G.I. Forum’s and LULAC’s help, his Lamar Elementary School meeting, his radio appearances, his public statements, and his organization of the drive to solicit donations for the Longorias’ trip to Washington—all encouraged collective instead of individual Tejano protest against Anglo discrimination in the Nueces Strip, something that established Hispanic civil rights groups like LULAC had been trying to accomplish since the

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1920s.23 Once this community-based response took hold it fed on itself, instilling a collective consciousness of Anglo prejudice, and a consensus on how to respond, as well as a certain security in solidarity against Anglo reprisals. Dr. García met with the Longoria family to discuss the logistics of their Washington trip.24 How many planned to go? Who needed transportation and accommodations in Washington? Did they require anything else? Did everyone have warm clothes? February in South Texas could be cold, but not as cold as in Washington, D.C. Beatrice remembered that someone lent her a nice fur coat to wear. The doctor provided money for new winter outfits for Beatrice and Felix’s daughter, Adela. From the donated funds he also purchased five adult round-trip tickets, costing $205.08 each on Eastern Airlines, and a half-fare ticket for Adelita. No different then than now, the family left Corpus Christi’s airport and had to change planes in Houston. While waiting for their connecting flight, the Longorias had lunch at the Dobbs House Restaurant in Houston. Their total bill came to $8.00.25 The family arrived at the Hotel Continental in Washington, D.C., on the 15th of February. They paid $51.03 for rooms to accommodate six individuals for one night’s stay. Guadalupe Longoria, Jr., did make six local phone calls totaling 30 cents, and one two-minute long distance call to Three Rivers for $2.07. He also used valet service, which came to $3.56, while the hotel’s restaurant charged Arturo and Alberto a combined $1.80 for one meal they ate there. Two family members dined at the States Restaurant on North Capitol across from Union Station. They each consumed a hot chicken sandwich ($1.60 for both), two coffees (20 cents total), and a Manhattan (45 cents).26 The Longorias did not run up costs. This was not a vacation for them. They came to bury Felix, and they spent the donated money as frugally as if it were their own. Appreciating that people across Texas had reached deep into their pockets to send them to Washington, the Longorias did not take advantage of their supporters. When the Tejanos arrived in the capital, Johnson’s staff met them at the airport and drove them to their hotel. Staffers later provided family members with a brief tour of the city, showing them such sites as the Capitol building and the Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln Monuments.27 LBJ greeted them in his Senate office. In part, the politician simply wanted to extend a courtesy to the family. He also wanted to meet them, to attach real people to written messages. Most impor-

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tantly, he wanted to reassure them. Johnson feared that they might back out of the arrangement at the last minute because of all the controversy surrounding the incident. That would leave him holding the proverbial political bag. LBJ had never met any of the Longorias, or Dr. García for that matter. He had only corresponded with them. If they deserted him now, buckled to the pressure from Three Rivers Anglos and Texas state officials, if they decided to bury Felix in Three Rivers after all, the junior senator’s numerous critics among the Texas Regulars would have a field day at his expense. When they finally met, LBJ and his staff were relieved by the demeanor of the Longorias and Dr. García. They were all “very nice” people. They seemed sincerely grateful to Johnson for everything he had done. As Horace Busby described it, they were a bit awed by the sights and the attention, but they were very polite and respectful. He liked them all. They were good people. His boss had been right about Mexican Americans’ deep sense of loyalty; they would not abandon the senator. Ushering them around town had turned out to be much less a chore than he had anticipated.28 Around noon on February 16 the family met with a serviceman assigned by the Department of the Army to act as their official escort to and from the cemetery. He was a good young Anglo man. He did not say much, but he was as polite and courteous as they were. The family appreciated this gesture on the army’s part. Everyone was being so nice to them. They were impressed. The escort stayed with them throughout the services and drove them back to the hotel afterwards in an army car usually reserved for chauffeuring high-ranking officers around the capital.29 Arlington National Cemetery lies in northern Virginia on ground overlooking the southern bank of the Potomac River. George Washington and his wife donated the tract to the nation during his presidency. In 1864, the government designated the land a national military cemetery, the final resting place for the mounting number of corpses from the most deadly conflict in United States history, the Civil War.30 Over the years the boundaries of the cemetery expanded until it totaled 408 acres. These picturesque and historic grounds held row upon row of white markers for the nation’s war dead by the time Felix Longoria came to rest there. The rolling hills of green grass, shaded by lofty chestnut, elm, maple, and walnut trees and enhanced by the color and aroma of numerous cherry trees that dotted the landscape, should have presented a pleasing sight to Felix’s family. Arlington’s greenery, hills,

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Family members with Felix Longoria’s casket, Arlington National Cemetery. Courtesy of AP/Wide World Photos and the LBJ Library, Austin, Texas.

and trees stood in marked contrast to the scrub vegetation and flat, dry landscape of the Longoria controversy– centered section of the Nueces River basin. The cold, gray weather on that day, however, probably dampened the potentially favorable impact of Arlington’s beauty. A light drizzle fell throughout the ceremony. The deciduous trees had not budded yet, and, devoid of their leaves, they presented skeletal images that added to the starkness of the scene.31 Beatrice bundled herself in her borrowed coat. Adela sat alongside in her neat new outfit complete with hat, coat, dress, and shoes. She was both excited and uneasy. Every now and then she squirmed a bit; all these new people and this strange place intimidated the eight-year-old. In a sense, the conditions befit the situation and their lives in South Texas. Back home, Anglos treated them like strangers in a new land, like immigrants, and they were sojourners in this historic national cemetery. In that respect, northern Virginia’s weather treated them no differently than Anglos normally treated them in South Texas, damply and coolly. Although Felix Longoria’s funeral made up only a part of a group cer-

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emony which involved nineteen other war dead, diplomats from Mexico and the United States came to Arlington that day to pay homage to him alone. Senator Johnson and Representative John Lyle of Corpus Christi attended. They watched as ambassador and noted historian Justo Sierra, accompanied by an escort of Mexican army and navy personnel, placed a wreath on the grave.32 Paul J. Reveley, chief of the Division of Mexican Affairs for the U.S. State Department, and a player himself in the contest over Felix’s wake, looked on. General Harry H. Vaughn, Truman’s military aide who had answered Dr. García’s wired call for the president’s help, stood in the rain. He made it known to all the reporters that approached him that he was there to honor “that Longoria boy from Texas which [sic] got all that unfavorable publicity because of the stupidity of that undertaker.” 33 LBJ stuck by his decision not to allow President Truman’s office to turn the ceremony into a political photo op. No high-ranking officials found seating next to the Longoria family. They either stood in the wings or sat in chairs reserved for them at the rear. The senator did not except himself from this rule. When he and Mrs. Johnson arrived at the grave site, he found Horace Busby, his aide in charge of the cemetery arrangements, and told him to find a spot where photographers could not see him. Never mind that Beatrice had reserved two seats beside her for the Johnsons. This was an affair of honor, and the senator did not want to risk spoiling the ceremony with political grandstanding. Dr. García realized what the senator was doing and respected him for it.34 Busby protested but did what he was told. He found a place by the roadside behind a tree about twenty yards from the ceremony where the Johnsons could view the proceedings without being photographed. LBJ and Lady Bird stood there throughout the whole event. General Vaughn and the Mexican ambassador milled about in the drizzle just outside the tent that shielded the family and friends from the rain. For the first time in the whole incident, attention focused on Felix alone. All the actors in the controversy’s unfolding twists and turns surrounding his wake either were absent or simply blended into the background at his burial—Beatrice, their daughter Adela, Dr. García, LBJ, the diplomats and the generals, Felix’s mother Dolores, and her living sons and daughters, as well as the band of reporters covering this chapter in the drama. Felix’s father had not even attempted the journey. The controversy had taken a toll on him, and he remained home ill. Of course, none of the Longorias’ adversaries in the dispute came either.

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Tom Kennedy, Jack Montgomery, and Jeff Gray remained in Three Rivers smarting over the family’s snubbing their offer to wake and bury Felix in his hometown, in Montgomery’s backyard if they wanted.35 None of the Texas Regulars came either. Governor Jester and the rest of the states’ righters were not about to dignify the product of what they considered federal intervention in Texas affairs. Washington had meddled, and Regulars did not like it. At that very time Regulars were plotting their own plan for closure to the controversy, investigative hearings in Three Rivers scheduled for the following month. Thomas Sutherland and Robert Smith were also absent. The funeral represented the failure of their attempts to broker a middle ground in the dispute. They could not afford to spend any more of their agency’s scarce resources on another trip to Washington. The Longoria case had already drained most of the Commission’s travel funds for the year, and it had cut even more deeply into its political capital. Mexican Americans may have been upset with the agency’s criticism of Dr. García for going public with the complaint, but Texas Regulars were furious at Sutherland because he labeled Kennedy’s actions racist in his final report. In fact, Jeff Gray, the governor, and the rest of the Regulars were in the process of introducing their ultimately unsuccessful bill in the Texas House to abolish the Commission. Smith and Sutherland had their hands full with events in Texas. They stayed home to fend off the mounting Regular attack on their agency. With adversaries in the controversy at home and but a handful of supporters in attendance in Washington, Felix Longoria finally took center stage in the drama. After the funeral at Arlington, the Longoria family returned to Three Rivers. They still had to endure the legislative hearings and more notoriety from Anglos balanced by more supportive attention from Tejanos and sympathetic National Democrats, but the funeral marked the midpoint in the controversy. In five weeks it would all be over. Beatrice and the Longorias would soon resume their lives as they had lived them before the brouhaha surrounding Felix’s wake. Anglos did not retaliate against family members because they had never been as upset with the Longorias as they had been with outsiders like Senator Johnson and Dr. García. According to Ann Fair, the Three Rivers Mexican Ward school teacher mentioned earlier: He [Dr. García] needed a cause to get his organization off the ground and boy he found it and took off with it, there was nothing we could do. It was just a big misunderstanding.36

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Mrs. Fair was correct on two counts. The Longoria case did “take off.” It sparked both national public criticism and regional Mexican American activism. Once it hit the front pages of U.S. and Mexican presses, neither any person nor any town could do anything about the onrush of negative reaction. But Mrs. Fair’s charge that the Longoria incident was nothing more than a trumped-up “misunderstanding” was wrong. She and other Anglos in town never did accept responsibility for their ethnocentrism and racism. Tom Kennedy did not merely act irresponsibly and rashly in doing what he did. Unfortunately, that was not all there was to it. His perceptions of his “white” neighbors’ attitudes were accurate. The physical divisions in the town’s neighborhoods, schools, and cemetery, as well as Anglo residents’ comments and actions during and long after the controversy, reflected their prejudices toward Tejanos. The Longoria case merely focused attention on this fact, forcing everyone in South Texas and others across the nation to start coming to grips with discrimination and the double standards that went with it. The incongruence between beliefs and ideals that the nation had fought for in World War II and the realities in places like South Texas underscored this need.37 With the burial of Felix Longoria at Arlington, a series of steps had already transpired. Chronologically, Pvt. Longoria’s reburial represented a beginning and an end to events on various levels. The process of his reinterment began when his widow, Beatrice Longoria, received a telegram in November 1948 advising her of the return of her husband’s body to the United States. In early January 1949, Beatrice met with Tom Kennedy twice about the funeral arrangements, and each time, for racist reasons, he denied use of the funeral home’s chapel. Beatrice’s sister Sara then got Dr. García involved in this private dispute. He played a pivotal role in its transformation from a disagreement between a widow and an undertaker to a controversy involving two regional communities to a national crusade for Hispanic civil rights. What is also worth noting is how quickly he did this. By midJanuary, less than a week after Beatrice consulted him about her problem, the incident was a cause célèbre in the U.S. and Mexican media, and by the end of March the matter was settled. The Longorias could go back to the routine of their daily lives. Dr. García and the American G.I. Forum could not. They had work to do. Publicity generated by the Longoria incident brought new members into the Forum’s ranks. By September the organization incorporated at the state level, and the momentum continued into the next generation.

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By 1957 the American G.I. Forum boasted chapters in thirteen states. Ten years beyond this date, the Forum had a national membership of 100,000. By 1977 that total climbed to over 150,000, with new chapters in Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, West Virginia, and Washington state.38 The Forum was on its way to becoming a national force in the fight for veterans’ and Mexican Americans’ rights. It assumed leadership in the struggle for these two groups’ legal, political, social, and economic equality, becoming involved in most of the landmark legislation and court cases related to Hispanic civil rights in the aftermath of the Longoria controversy.39 The Forum and LULAC worked hard in perhaps the most significant of all these struggles, the Supreme Court’s Hernández v. The State of Texas decision of 1954. In this judgment critical for the future of Mexican American liberties, the Court declared discrimination on the basis of national origin unconstitutional. This expanded civil rights guarantees beyond race to ethnicity, providing the grounds upon which virtually all future Hispanic civil rights litigation would rest.40 With such successes, the American G.I. Forum established itself as an early national leader in Hispanic civil rights movements that would blossom during the 1960s. Thus, the Longoria incident played an important role in the G.I. Forum’s rise to prominence from the 1950s through the 1970s. Paul Reveley and his Department of State negotiators did manage to assuage Mexican diplomats’ wounded sensibilities over the Longoria and similar incidents by helping to engineer face-saving solutions for the United States like Felix Longoria’s Arlington burial. In July 1949 Mexican and U.S. negotiators extended the bracero program for another fifteen years. It would have lasted to the present date if the Washington government had not bowed to organized national labor pressure to halt the flow of nonunion Mexican national workers into the country. In 1964, Washington unilaterally abrogated the treaty, closing the gates to large-scale legal Mexican migration. By 1986, however, U.S. labor had lost much of its influence. Supply-siders reigned in national politics during the 1980s. Ronald Reagan, one of the principal advocates of this political and economic philosophy, sat in the White House. A former governor of California, a state whose agricultural producers stood to benefit a great deal from the reintroduction of cheap and reliable legal Mexican workers, Reagan and Southwest politicians supported passage of the Immigration Reform Act of 1986. This new legislation partially reopened U.S. borders to Mexican migrant laborers again with its Special Agricultural Workers (S.A.W.) provision.41

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The Longoria controversy represented a remarkable watershed in the development of South Texas that had state, national, and international repercussions. This proved somewhat ironic given the comparatively mild “B” level of discrimination that the incident rated on the Mexican government’s scale of prejudice against persons of Mexican heritage within the United States, and the easygoing nature of the man whose wake precipitated it. Preparations for, and the actual observance of, the ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery represented one of the most critical acts in the Longoria drama. The reinterment, like the Lamar Elementary School Tejano town meeting, stirred emotions within the actors and the South Texas Mexican American community more fully than any other events in the controversy. These two touchstone events created the intensity and force that sustained commitment within the Longoria family, Dr. García, and their supporters. This ceremony and the emotive force generated by its graveside ritual reinforced the communitas described by Victor Turner to carry the Longoria dispute to its final end and beyond.42 Cooperation and trust forged by this burial and throughout the dispute led to future collaboration among Dr. Héctor Pérez García, Lyndon Baines Johnson, the South Texas Tejano community, and state and national liberal Democrats for decades to come. All of these individuals and groups came together and connected either at or through their preparation for this ceremony in ways and to degrees determined by their respective positions in the overall Longoria affair of honor, positions in turn defined by their respective ethnicity, race, physical location, class, and personal experiences.43 Few events in the Nueces Strip impacted so broadly and so strongly in the twentieth century.

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CONCLUSION

WHY DID THE LONGORIA INCIDENT attract so much national and international attention? There seemed no end to the number of egregious inequalities in the climate of relations between Anglos and Tejanos in South Texas after World War II. Dr. García’s inspection of labor camps and school conditions in the spring of 1948 certainly demonstrated this point. What was it about the dispute over Felix Longoria’s denied wake that made it stand out among so many other wrongs? To answer this question we must consider the social, economic, and political temper of the time. Then we must arrive at an appreciation of the forces that shaped this incident. In order to accomplish these ends we should probably first review our answers to a number of preliminary queries. Only then can we address the overarching question of what made the Longoria incident so noteworthy in the 1949 public’s eye. Up to this point we have described what happened, when it happened, where it happened, and why it happened. An Anglo undertaker

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in 1949 denied use of his funeral chapel to wake a dead U.S. soldier because the serviceman was a Mexican American and Anglos in the town of Three Rivers, Texas, would not like it. The resulting dispute raged for three months. Political divisions in Texas’ political culture allowed Dr. García to enlist the support of one faction in this split, National Democrats who were represented by the brand-new U.S. senator from Texas, Lyndon Baines Johnson. Together, these two individuals managed to thrust the controversy onto the national and international stage. They were able to accomplish this because communities in each zone from the local to the international level were able to connect to the issue in different ways. Some South Texas Anglos and Texas Dixiecrats (Democratic Regulars) reacted to the funeral director’s decision out of support for local tradition, the apartheid social milieu that had developed in South Texas over the previous century. Others, in the area’s Mexican American community, and most observers in Latin American countries reacted against the inherent racism and ethnocentrism in the funeral director’s refusal. Still others, Texas National Democrats and Americans throughout the country, primarily saw this as an antipatriotic act on the part of the mortician. Dr. García and LBJ, with their keen political instincts, understood all of these varied connections to the Longoria controversy, and the men built a lasting coalition of Mexican American and liberal Anglo civil rights activists upon these Longoria connections. This basically summarizes the whats, whens, wheres, and whys of the Longoria controversy. Yet, one preliminary, unanswered question remains before we can fully understand what made the Longoria conflict stand out. We must ask “how” this event took place. What were the dynamics, the rational and the emotive processes at play in this drama of honor, pride, and prejudice? There are at least two plausible approaches to addressing this last query. One involves a rational structuralist perspective. It assumes that the incident operated within the defined parameters of regional environmental, demographic, social, economic, and political conditions. The second line of inquiry is more humanistic in nature. This interpretation stresses the antistructuralist and more emotive stimuli that moved antagonists in the controversy. Three subschools of rational structuralist thought lend themselves to an interpretation of the dispute. David Montejano provides us with one of these slants, a Marxist analysis. Ultimately, Montejano reduces such antagonistic episodes in Anglo-Tejano relations to class conflict,

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the result of South Texas’ economic transition from a patrón to a commercial capitalist agricultural system.1 He does acknowledge that race played a varying role in defining relations between the two groups, depending on the level of economic development in each South Texas locale. Race was most important in ranching areas, less important in commercial farm areas, and least important in commercial urban settings. In the final analysis, however, the controlling variable in all these settings was the group’s relationship to the mode of production, a conclusion that ultimately places class conflict above race and ethnicity in defining power relationships between Anglos and Tejanos. By the 1940s Anglos owned and managed most of the land and other production units within the Nueces Strip.2 And many of these Anglos were new arrivals from the Midwest or first-generation South Texans. As relative newcomers, they did not share the more accommodative spirit of older Anglo settlers in the region who had adopted an almost “feudal” set of relationships between themselves and their Tejano ranch and farm hands. Older ties between the two groups had been as much personal as economic in nature. This new post–World War I socioeconomic climate was overwhelmingly economically defined. To the Nueces Strip Anglo agricultural capitalists of this new era, Mexican Americans and the Mexican immigrants that streamed across the border during the first half of the new century, either as refugees from the Mexican Revolution (1910 –1929) or as invited workers under the bracero program (from 1942 to 1964), were just so many labor units to which3 Anglo employers had few or no personal bonds.4 This change in relationships between Anglos and Tejanos represented an important structural reason why their interaction became so antagonistic that by 1949 it could spawn an event like the Longoria controversy.5 To Montejano, any attempt to explain such a dispute within the context of racism, ethnocentrism, or anything else other than class conflict represented a false consciousness.6 A Marxist reading of the Longoria affair relegates considerations of honor, patriotism, ethnicity, and racism to secondary consideration in the overall dynamic of the event. Through this lens such notions appear as social constructs that mask rather than reveal the true class-conflict root of the dispute. Overemphasis of the racial and ethnic overtones of the conflict actually hinders long-term solutions to Anglo-Tejano inequities because it leads well-intentioned people into so many blind alleys seeking redress through redeemed honor, racial equality, and po-

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litical enfranchisement. Instead, Mexican American activists like Dr. García should have sought to unite all workers of whatever racial, ethnic, or gender identification in a class-based struggle against commercial agricultural and petrochemical owners and managers within the region. According to this structuralist interpretation, the failure of Dr. Héctor and the civil rights leaders of his generation to do this ultimately caused their civil rights efforts to fall far short of their goals in the Longoria dispute and beyond. Applying a second structuralist conceptual framework, “Modernization Theory,” to interpreting how the Longoria affair transpired yields a far different assessment of the results by turning Montejano’s pessimistic Marxist assessment on its head. Modernization Theory holds that positive economic or material growth brings about positive social development in the form of higher levels of social justice along with political development in the form of higher levels of individual democracy.7 Construction of the Longoria incident within the operational context of Modernization Theory allows that the very economic transition which Montejano blamed for causing the racism and ethnocentrism in Anglos during the 1940s also inspired desires for social equality and political enfranchisement in the region’s Mexican American community. Further, these stirrings transcended the Longoria dispute and picked up momentum during the Mexican American civil rights movement of the following three decades. Indeed, this is how Mexican American leaders like Dr. Héctor assessed the controversy and its aftermath. They viewed the Longoria incident as a springboard for their civil rights careers. They rejected the notion that their preoccupation with honor, dignity, social equality, and political power was tangential to the overarching goal of victory in a class-based struggle. In Dr. García’s mind, and in the minds of other Mexican American leaders of his time, the social, economic, and political discrimination their people suffered were all equally important and interrelated. They remembered the Longoria incident as an opportunity to focus on social discrimination. And given its outcome, they considered the incident as a great victory in their struggle for the empowerment of their people. Activists like Dr. Héctor García and Judge Héctor de la Peña interpreted the Longoria dispute as one of the high points in Mexican Americans’ struggle for greater opportunity.8 Half a century later Dr. García saw the Longoria dispute as the culmination of the initial stage of his civil rights career. Further, he

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thought that this step took him to the vanguard of the accelerated 1920 –1950 Mexican American civil rights movement, and placed him within Mario García’s “Mexican American Generation.” 9 To Dr. Héctor, this was a period during which enormous strides toward Mexican American civil rights took place, when he and his people’s upward economic mobility and World War II experiences primed them to push harder than ever before to achieve social equality and political enfranchisement.10 These views reflected the basic operational dynamics of Modernization Theory, that South Texas’ economic growth stimulated the region’s social and political development as represented in Mexican Americans’ sociopolitical gains from the Longoria conflict. Immanuel Wallerstein’s Capitalist Systems Theory provides yet a third structuralist framework for explaining how the Longoria incident occurred. Wallerstein’s paradigm does an even better job of integrating notions of race, ethnicity, and patriotism, which were so central to the Longoria dispute, into the structuralist framework of Marxist and Modernizationist theories. Wallerstein developed his Systems Theory to explain the rise and operation of commercial capitalism in the Atlantic basin, but its underlying concepts could apply to the economic “fit” of the Longoria controversy corridor, and of all South Texas for that matter, into the U.S. national economy. Wallerstein identified two types of areas within his Atlantic system— core and peripheral sites. A core area is a locale that has strong state mechanisms to support production of goods and whose labor in the production and marketing of those items is comparatively well rewarded. A peripheral area is a zone controlled by a government that can provide relatively weak support for the production of goods and whose workforce is comparatively less rewarded. Further, core states/governments provide strong support for trade; peripheral states/governments provide weak support for commerce. Inevitably, when such areas become part of a broader trade network, those involved in production and marketing of core area goods enjoy a distinct comparative trade advantage over those involved in the production and exchange of peripheral area goods.11 This disparity between core and peripheral zones within the commercial system requires mechanisms to protect the system from the potential conflict that such uneven opportunities invite.12 Three control mechanisms that developed to serve this end were social constructs that played central roles in the development of the Longoria controversy: race, ethnicity, and nationalism/patriotism.

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According to Wallerstein, race is a “genetic category” that has physical form, a concept which justifies different labor rewards in core and peripheral areas through what he terms the “axial division of labor.” By this Wallerstein means that labor is divided on the basis of its different cost structures of production. Workers in peripheral areas, South Texas in the Longoria setting, produced primary products; whereas core area laborers, those above a line defined by the Nueces Strip, produced more finished products. The former earned comparatively lower rewards, while the latter earned proportionately higher rewards, for their labor. In order to justify and maintain the regionally based inequities in the reward system, those who dominated it fell back on racism. Most South Texas laborers were/are Mexican Americans identified by their brown skins. Most laborers above the line were/are Anglos, identified by their white skins. Racism helped to validate this axial division of labor by holding that whites were racially superior to persons of color and therefore deserved greater rewards from the system.13 Wallerstein made a similar argument for the operation of ethnicity within capitalist economic systems. He defined an ethnic group as a cultural category wherein “certain behaviors are passed from generation to generation that are not normally and theoretically linked to state boundaries” 14 (in this case Mexican Americans in the entire Southwest in the broadest sense, and the Nueces Strip in the narrowest sense). This distinction, too, can be used as a mechanism to justify and maintain one group’s power over another group. If ethnic Anglos held sway over ethnic Mexicans in the Nueces Strip it was the result of Anglo ethnic superiority. Wallerstein defined nationalism as “a socio-political category linked to potential or actual boundaries of a state.” 15 He argues that nationalism, too, aids in maintaining cohesion in capitalist states. It facilitates, through appeals to patriotism, the tolerance of hierarchical rankings of subgroups defined by social notions like race, ethnicity, gender, and/or class. In this way it legitimizes and sustains prejudicebased discrimination in local settings like post–World War II South Texas.16 In essence, Wallerstein argues that racism, ethnocentrism, and nationalism enabled reward imbalances, like the ones that existed at the time of the Longoria incident in the Nueces Strip and were reflected in the incident itself, by allowing a supra-altern group (Anglos) to lay claims to power over a subaltern group (Tejanos) based on sociopolitical traditions cloaked in patriotism, and obscured by the coexistence of

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a “real” and a “socially” defined historical nationalism. The real national past was the immutable past, and the social national past was the shaped past, molded by social constructs like racism, ethnocentrism, and patriotism.17 Wallerstein’s point is that notions like ethnicity, race, nationalism, gender, and class can often distort or replace the real past with a social past, and that is exactly how race, ethnicity, and nationalism apparently operated in the South Texas peripheral economic zone in 1949. The zone’s racially, ethnically, and nationalistically validated limits on labor rewards created an inequitable socioeconomic climate that bred conflicts like the one that swirled around Felix Longoria’s wake. Walter Mignolo provides yet another interpretive bridge between our structuralist and humanist analysis of events like the Longoria controversy. His notion of “Border Thinking,” emerging out of a recognition of the intersection of structured political boundaries and unstructured concepts like race and ethnicity, helps explain the emergence of these social constructs in transborder peoples, and how they can be used as weapons by different groups, distinguishable by these constructs, against each other in their competition for power within the same space.18 Texans and Tejanos alike had used their “otherness” as weapons against one another for a century by 1949. As Manuel Peña’s work on corridos demonstrates, Tejanos’ oral culture within South Texas served “as a reminder that the Anglos have always been the Mexican’s enemies.” 19 By the end of World War II this axiom was deeply rooted in Tejanos’ “border thinking.” Wallerstein’s Systems Theory and Mignolo’s Border Thinking provide operational explanations for humanist variables (racism, ethnocentrism, patriotism, and honor) within a structuralist interpretive framework for the Longoria incident. In this respect, they are the least vulnerable to the most common criticism of structuralist approaches for interpreting the human experience. Humanist scholars indict structuralist perspectives because they underplay the human forces at work in determining human behavior. Wallerstein’s and Mignolo’s considerations of collective human attitudes as expressed in racism, ethnocentrism, and nationalism partially, but not entirely, negate this critique. They do introduce humanistic constructs into the structuralist interpretive framework. However, they leave out other humanist variables that can arise from individual as well as collective consciousness, most notably feelings and emotions. Renato Rosaldo, in his work on death and bereavement, asked how

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structuralist analysis could gauge the cultural force of emotions on human behavior. Rosaldo pointed out that unstructured emotions have strong and real cultural force, and that they do not have to be deep and complex to exert great impact on behavior. Sometimes the most powerful emotions are visceral and spontaneous, and death and the loss it brings illustrate this point.20 In January 1949 the nation was still recovering from the loss of over 300,000 U.S. military personnel in World War II. Felix Longoria was one of those fallen, and Tom Kennedy’s refusal to wake Felix’s body struck a still raw emotional nerve in relatives and friends of other dead soldiers all over the country. The fact that the controversy revolved around one of the common rituals involved in the grieving process, a wake, only made the emotional force of the event stronger, because, as Rosaldo points out, rituals provide places “where a number of social processes intersect.” 21 The conflict over Felix Longoria’s wake allowed for a confluence of different emotional responses by individuals who had suffered loss as a result of the war. The nature and intensity of the varied responses depended in large measure, as Rosaldo predicted would be the case, on the different positions of the individual or group within the controversy.22 Considerations of the proximity of actors in the controversy to Felix help to explain differences in the intensity and nature of their reactions. Members of the Longoria family and of the Mexican American community to which they belonged reacted most emotionally and with greatest intensity. They were followed in these respects by World War II veterans and their families across the nation. Government officials in Texas, in Washington, and in Mexico City responded less emotionally and less intensely. Rosaldo’s emotively based interpretive approach helps us to understand these different levels of reaction to the dispute, justifying his admonishment that “The human sciences must explore the cultural force of emotions with a view of delineating the passions that animate certain forms of human conduct (including social and political protest).” 23 Victor Turner’s antistructuralist notion of the “social drama” provides an additional conceptual framework within which to interpret individual and collective human forces at play in the dynamics behind the Longoria incident. He defines a social drama as a disharmonic social process arising out of conflict situations (like the Longoria dispute).24 Turner posits that “Living action, for the human species, can never be the logical consequence of any grand design. . . . because of the

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processual structure of social action.” 25 For him, the principal quality of a society lies in the capacity of its members, individually and collectively, to sometimes step outside of rigid prescribed norms of social behavior and formulate new social arrangements. It is betwixt social paradigms— class conflict, core/periphery economic relationships, racism, ethnocentrism, border thinking—that inspiration for social change takes place.26 The Longoria controversy created this type of metacultural space, a place where certain luminaries like Dr. Héctor García and Senator Lyndon Johnson could transcend their delineated fields of sociopolitical behavior. The incident, through its emphasis on victimization, as Peña put it, created a whole new interactive environment within which Anglos and Tejanos could relate to one another, one that created Turner’s communitas within each subpopulation with common denominators of wounded social equality and patriotism.27 It is within the interpretive space of social drama that the force of human factors like emotion, honor, and patriotism most fully reveals itself in explaining how the Longoria incident took place. From Turner’s interpretive perspective, Tom Kennedy’s decision to deny use of his funeral chapel for Felix Longoria’s wake was logical because it followed the traditional Nueces Strip social norms that dictated a separation of Tejanos from Anglos. The mortician was right. His Anglo patrons in Three Rivers would not have liked it if he had allowed Beatrice Longoria to use a chapel normally reserved for whites. As Jack Montgomery put it, “That’s just the way things were.” Texas Regulars and many other Anglos in South Texas understood perfectly well why the mortician acted as he did, and they supported him until outside pressure, rather than a change in their own social beliefs, forced them to relent and allow Beatrice’s use of the chapel. Dr. Héctor actually did violate the norms of the area’s existing social structure. He rejected his and his people’s subaltern position vis-à-vis Anglos and sought redress. That set the stage for two simultaneous social processes—a conflictive social drama in the short run, and the beginnings of a restructured and renegotiated South Texas social order in the long run. Turner identifies four phases in the development of a social drama which roughly correspond to various stages of the Longoria controversy. Social dramas begin with a “breach,” a conflictive split in normgoverned social relationships between individuals or groups of individuals. The Longoria incident began as a disagreement among three

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people when Beatrice Longoria, for personal reasons, asked Tom Kennedy and Manon Rice to make an exception and allow the body of her dead Mexican American husband to lie in state at the funeral chapel in Three Rivers. Turner refers to the second stage as the period of “mounting crisis,” a time when the initial breach widens.28 There were at least two opportunities in the development of the Longoria dispute to close the breach before advancing to stage two of the drama process. Kennedy and Rice’s initial success in convincing Beatrice to settle for the alternative wake site might have closed the breach had she not changed her mind. By her own account the two Anglos had treated her with kindness and respect during their first meeting. On her second visit, between her and Kennedy alone, the mortician seemed to go out of his way to be solicitous of Beatrice. He picked her up at the bus stop, drove her to the bungalow and afterwards to her uncle’s place, treating her politely and cordially all the while. Beatrice commented more than once in recalling this meeting that Tom Kennedy seemed like a nice man. The problem was not his demeanor toward her. It was his insistence on this alternate site for the wake. She had hoped that when this otherwise decent man saw the bungalow and how impractical it was to hold the wake there that he would offer the chapel. Kennedy disappointed her. He measured rooms, considered the layout of the structure, and planned accordingly for the placement of the casket, the chairs, the flowers, and the like. He seemed oblivious to, or more likely unconcerned about, the inadequacy of the site. Frustrated, she finally had to just ask him again for the chapel, and again he refused it. In the end, no matter how well he treated her in every other respect, he was a racist, or at best someone who pandered to his racist clients. In her mind, Kennedy’s prejudiced refusal of the chapel threatened to undermine an important public phase of her ritualized bereavement. The injustice of the undertaker’s intransigence gnawed at her during the nearly twohour bus ride back to Corpus Christi. All the way home, hurt and anger welled up in her over this affront to the body of her dead husband. The conflict would escalate from this point onward, polite differences would turn into heated charges and countercharges. She was about to do something she had never thought she could do. She would engage in public protest. Actually, Beatrice’s acting out of character in this instance was not surprising. In the spring of 1949 she was closer to Felix’s memory than

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almost anyone else alive. She was Felix’s wife, the mother of their daughter. Moreover, she was the one making the arrangements for his public mourning. The fact that her relations with her in-laws, the other actors in the controversy closest to the deceased, were strained probably only heightened the force of her emotional state. True, Felix’s parents’ house could have physically accommodated the ceremony as well as the chapel could have, but it was not neutral ground for Beatrice. It was her in-laws’ house, and she was not on the best of terms with them. Holding Felix’s wake at their home might have avoided the logistical problems of celebrating the ritual at her smaller former house across the street, but it would have placed her under even more emotional strain, something this gentle and retiring woman did not want. She would rather seek access to the chapel through public protest than suggest the larger Longoria home and have to deal with his family. For all of these reasons, Beatrice’s response to the affront was predictably the most emotional and the most intense.29 All these considerations overrode Kennedy’s otherwise amiable treatment of her. Beatrice became so enraged over Kennedy’s refusal that she enlisted the support of a local civil rights activist, Dr. Héctor García. She would fight racism not just because she thought it was wrong, but because Tom Kennedy made her feel it was wrong. This follows Rosaldo’s point about the cultural force of bereavement-related emotions.30 The confluence of these emotional strains on her widened the conflictive breach, and she turned in her frustration and anger at the mortician’s racist recalcitrance to Dr. Héctor García, founder of a new veterans’ rights group in the region, for help. Still, there was opportunity for reconciliation and closing the breach. If Mr. Kennedy had complied with Dr. García’s request to make an exception to the social norms governing past use of the chapel because Felix was a fallen soldier, the dispute would have probably ended. But the undertaker again refused, and the breach widened. When this happened the Longoria incident merged with a conflict that had raged to varying degrees of intensity in South Texas for a hundred years by 1949, the Anglo-Tejano power struggle. At this juncture in the drama, the final element of Turner’s stage two, the time when the conflict became “coextensive with some dominant cleavage in the widest set of relevant social relations to which the conflicting or antagonistic parties belong,” 31 came into play. This transformation moved the Longoria drama to Turner’s third stage.

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The third, “Redressive Action” phase of a social drama occurs “when leading members of the disturbed social group take remedial action to resolve the crisis.” 32 Dr. García, a leading member of Corpus Christi’s Hispanic intelligentsia at the time, formulated the Tejano response. First, he raised levels of consciousness outside the Nueces Strip arena about the breach. He sent seventeen telegrams to important public figures all over the state and the nation informing them of the split and soliciting their help in closing it. He then called a critical gathering at the Lamar Elementary School cafeteria to do the same with the area’s Mexican American community. At this meeting he presented those gathered with three options to seal the breach: wake Felix in Three Rivers (by then the national notoriety generated by the event had caused Kennedy to relent and offer use of the chapel); replace the wake ritual with an elaborate burial at a national cemetery in Texas; or replace the wake ritual with an even more prestigious hero’s burial at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Two points are worth noting about this strategy on Dr. Héctor’s part. First, he put these choices to a public vote. Second, in so doing he not only raised Mexican American consciousness about the breach, he also made those assembled a part of it. Through his telegrams and their construction of Tom Kennedy’s refusal as an offense to U.S. patriotism, and his Lamar Park presentation of the breach as both an offense to Mexican American patriotism and as a racist affront, Dr. Héctor was able to do something that Mexican American civil rights leaders had been trying to do for at least two decades prior to the Longoria controversy. By casting the breach within the context of patriotism to both groups, he transformed the identification of Mexicanidad with “otherness” (within a mainstream U.S. consciousness) to identification with Americanness. Set as this incident was in the shadow of World War II, the Longoria dispute provided a remarkable opening for Mexican Americans to integrate into U.S. society on the basis of cultural pluralism. The global threat against which that war was fought overrode regional identities and forged a national solidarity against a common threat. Anthony Smith makes this important point in his work on ethnic revival. Further, he argues that although member groups have forged their wartime coalition in crisis, they soon come to realize that their cohesion brings real benefits in more normal times, so they are more predisposed toward retaining it. More specifically, Smith argues that, through their World War II efforts,

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people in the Western world came to realize that national solidarity enhanced social and economic development.33 In zones of the United States that experienced rapid economic growth as a result of the war, areas like South Texas, Smith’s observation seems apt. During World War II, Anglos and Mexican Americans in the region had cooperated even more fully than they had in facing Indian and bandit threats eighty years earlier, and the results were even more beneficial to both groups. This realization, coupled with the more emotive feelings linked to the fact that Felix Longoria had died in defense of the United States, made the two previously antagonistic groups more predisposed to accommodation and cooperation with one another. Felix Longoria represented a community that was bicultural, that had not assimilated into U.S. society, and a subpopulation that showed few signs of ever fully assimilating into it for many of the structural reasons already explained. Yet, this ethnically distinct and brown-skinned individual had defended, not threatened, America, and the rest of the Tejano community had either served with equal distinction in combat or in producing the agricultural and petrochemical resources that supported the nation’s war effort. These powerful messages resonated throughout the land. Anglos and Mexican Americans in the Nueces Strip, in Texas, and across the country came to this realization that Mexican Americans were a support for, not a threat to, the American way. The fact that the very term “American” took on more ideological than purely ethnic and racial overtones with the onset of World War II and the Cold War that almost immediately followed it must have also helped to create a space for Mexican Americans within the U.S. mainstream. The struggle against fascism and then against communism made solidarity paramount in the private and public mind. Smith’s scenario of national leaders first trying to override regionally based nationalisms like Mexicanidad with broader and more “rationally” based U.S. nationalism, an attempt creating a regional backlash in the form of Tejano “ethnic revival” before eventually resulting in cooperation through solidarity in facing national threats, seems to have unfolded in the Longoria controversy.34 Heightened U.S. nationalism generated by these two worldwide struggles may have put some pressure on the South Texas Mexican American community and encouraged a revival of Mexicanidad. In the short run, during the first week of the controversy, this revival may have in turn created the conflict that Smith predicted. By the second week, however, Dr. García’s vision and leader-

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ship created public sensibilities across the country for converting that conflict into cooperation through his reconciliation of the concept of cultural pluralism with solidarity. Through the vehicle of patriotism he validated a combining of Mexican with American. In so doing, he created a potentially much less conflictive ideological process for how Mexican American–Anglo American relations should develop in the future. It set the stage for Turner’s fourth phase of the social drama played out in the conflict over Felix Longoria’s wake, the “Consequential Phase,” when the parties involved in the crisis determined if and how they were going to close the breach and reintegrate as a broader community.35 Prior to the Longoria controversy, Tejano leaders’ attempts to mainstream their constituents into U.S. society had struggled on the horns of a dilemma. How could Mexican Americans maintain their Mexican cultural heritage in the face of Anglo insistence that they assimilate as a prerequisite to considerations of social, economic, and political equality? If the leadership endorsed this Anglo requirement, they alienated many of their Tejano constituents. If they rejected the assimilative process, Anglos would emphasize Mexican Americans’ ethnic and/or racial otherness and deny them integration and the opportunity for eventual equality. The patriotic dimension of the Longoria social drama provided a way around this dilemma. As Carole Christian pointed out, patriotism failed to aid Mexican American integration during World War I because Tejanos had not responded to the national call for defense of American values nearly as wholeheartedly as they did during World War II.36 Their record in this second crisis was exemplary,37 and Felix Longoria came to symbolize their contributions to victory in the deadly contest. By the end of this controversy, Felix’s image had been converted from that of a near-forgotten war casualty to that of a celebrated national war hero, someone who represented an American ethnic group rather than an alien Mexican group, a patriotic subcommunity as supportive of Americanness as any other ethnic population in the country. Patriotically charged overtones in the Longoria dispute gave the Mexican American community a common denominator with the broader U.S. society, Turner’s communitas, an antistructuralist perspective and thought process that allowed both Anglos and Mexican Americans to “feel” and “sense” social and cultural bonds with one another.38 In this respect communitas effected what Mexican American leaders like Dr. García had been trying to achieve since the 1920s, in-

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tegration on the basis of accommodation between Tejanos and Anglos. Patriotically grounded communitas lifted the Mexican American leadership off the horns of their integrative dilemma because the end result of this accommodation was not ethnic homogeneity through the surrender of their Mexicanidad; it was ethnic pluralism through the recognition of their Americanness—their dual American ethnic identity. Dr. García and the G.I. Forum worked hard in the decades following the Longoria incident to maintain the connection between patriotism and communitas that bound Mexican Americanness to Americanness. Through the American G.I. Forum and all of its symbolic association with patriotism, he virtually made this Mexican American civil rights organization a metaphor for patriotism. The “American” and the “G.I.” in the very name of the association tied it to U.S. military service, a prerequisite for full membership. The fact that the Forum was founded as and remained a veterans’ rights group, with ceremonies and practices like providing uniformed honor guards to receive the bodies of fallen servicemen in every city and town that had a chapter, reinforced the Forum’s association with patriotism in people’s minds. The organization’s emblem, a shield emblazoned with the stars, strips, and colors of the U.S. flag, signified its members’ allegiance and commitment to defend the nation. All of this symbolism bridged the organization, its founder, its Mexican American members, and, by extension, all Mexican Americans to the U.S. mainstream through patriotism. Connecting such ritual and symbolism to ideology, in this case integrative ideology, provides yet another insight into the explanation for how the Longoria incident took place and its ultimate significance for the Mexican American community in the Nueces Strip and beyond. Clifford Geertz stresses the ideological implications of events like the Longoria incident. According to him, ideology “provides a ‘symbolic outlet’ for emotional disturbances generated by social disequilibrium.” 39 This helps to explain the solution the drama provided to the Mexican American civil rights dilemma described in the two previous paragraphs. The new ideology for Mexican American mainstreaming that Dr. Héctor and the American G.I. Forum hammered out of the structural and emotional facets of the Longoria dispute is still adhered to by factions within the Mexican American civil rights movement today, organizations like the G.I. Forum and LULAC. This ideology, which ties mainstreaming to patriotism, has served these groups well since the Longoria incident. Two theories illustrate the social determinants of ideology. Interest

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Theory describes how groups like Mexican Americans, who differentiated from the broader society on the basis of ethnicity and/or race, can use ideology as a tool to overcome their political and economic subordination.40 Dr. García’s linking Mexican Americanism to patriotism through the Longoria incident served as just such an instrument in the group’s struggle with Anglos for power. It facilitated Tejanos’ bicultural integration into U.S. society. Strain Theory, on the other hand, explains how Dr. Héctor and the Nueces Strip Mexican American community utilized this patriotismlinked accommodative integrative ideology as a weapon to overcome the socio-psychological imbalance within the region caused by traditional Anglo racist and ethnocentric attitudes. Strain Theory starts with the premise that all societies suffer from chronic “malintegration.” Because of this, they are “riddled with insolvable antinomies: between liberty and political order, stability and change, efficiency and humanity, precision and inflexibility.” 41 The post–World War II Nueces Strip milieu certainly fits this description. The opportunity presented by the 1949 national setting for Dr. García to ideologically link Mexican Americans’ quest for integration and equality to U.S. patriotism through the Longoria incident42 illustrated the operation of Strain Theory in four different ways. First, this new integrative ideology acted as a catharsis to relieve the emotional tensions created by Tom Kennedy’s racially and ethnocentrically based refusal to allow Felix Longoria’s wake in the funeral chapel. It painted the action as unpatriotic, allowing groups from the Rio Grande to the Canadian border to arrive at some degree of consensus in defining the wrong. Second, in the aftermath of the incident it provided a common justification for Mexican Americans’ integration into the U.S. mainstream while retaining their Mexicanidad. That justification was their patriotism. Third, this bicultural integrative ideology promoted solidarity by healing old ethnic identity splits within the Mexican American community itself, as well as closing the breach between Anglos and Tejanos over the process by which the latter should integrate into U.S. society. Mexican Americans’ patriotism negated irredentist concerns over their biculturalism in the historical shadow of the MexicanAmerican War and subsequent ethnocentrist and racism-laced conflicts like the Cortina War and the Plan de San Diego uprising in South Texas. Finally, this new ideological construction of Mexican American integration, tied as it was to and validated as it was by patriotism, reduced concerns about U.S. biculturalism. Felix Longoria was an Amer-

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ican, the subculture of which he was a part, the Mexican American community, was American; he was a patriot, his community was made up of patriots during World War II and during subsequent U.S. conflicts. Racism and ethnocentrism directed against him as a defender of America, just as they were directed against his fellow Mexican Americans, were by extension directed at other Americans and other American groups who had defended the flag. Civil rights activists like Dr. Héctor have worked diligently since 1949 to maintain this logical sequence in the American public’s mind, because such logic and the ideology behind it identify the problems faced by Mexican Americans in America, and they provide a formula for solving them.43 These linkages were preserved in oral tradition as well. The lyrics of the ballad, or corrido, about this incident, “Discriminación a Un Mártir,” reinforce these conceptual linkages, and have helped to make them a part of the region’s Tejano oral culture/border thinking. A figurative English translation follows:

In Three Rivers it happened, during the time of the war; Félix Longoria died fighting for this country. When the family received the body of the soldier, The mortuary in his hometown refused to conduct his funeral. He died in the Second World War in defense of his nation. Today he is covered with the country’s most hallowed soil.44

The identification of Mexican Americans with U.S. patriotism in war and with South Texas economic development created the basis for an accommodative alternative to assimilative integration. An ideology of accommodation through validation of U.S. cultural pluralism on the basis of a subgroup’s (however defined) patriotism and participation in cooperative economic development emerged out of the Longoria dispute. The answer to the how, or processual, question about the Longoria

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incident thus comes down to a hybrid structuralist/antistructuralist paradigm. Part of the equation clearly lies in the structural setting. This portion of the explanation rests in the transformation of a near feudal agricultural economy, with its patrón/peón socioeconomic environment, into a commercial capitalist agro-petro economy, with its impersonal worker/employer means of production. Economic expansion probably also stimulated Mexican Americans to seek enhanced social status and political opportunity. South Texas’ evolving peripheral fit within the post–World War II U.S. economy provides a conceptual link between structuralist and antistructuralist readings of the Longoria dispute because it explains how human factors like constructions of race, ethnicity, and nationalism operated within a structured local political economy like South Texas’ in 1949. Casting the incident within the context of a social drama involving individual and collective bereavement underscores some of the other human dimensions of the social process involved in the Longoria controversy. Stressing the collective emotive forces at work in communitas emphasizes the pivotal role patriotism played in the incident. And consideration of the impact of national crisis (World War II) and its encouragement of solidarity helps to more fully explain just why this incident, rather than so many other conflictive events in the history of Anglo-Tejano conflicts within the Nueces Strip, made such an impression on the national psyche in 1949. It also helps us to understand how the controversy contributed to the construction of an accommodative alternative to assimilative integration of Mexican Americans into the broader regional and national society. As demonstrated in this Longoria case study and in other historical events, structure and antistructure, as Turner correctly points out, are the essential parts of the overall human process rather than mutually exclusive characteristics.45 The accommodative, culturally pluralistic model of integrative ideology that emerged out of the hybrid structuralist and antistructuralist process explaining how the Longoria incident took place provided activists like Dr. Héctor Pérez García with a blueprint for building a climate of constructive cooperation and coexistence between Anglos and Tejanos in spite of periodic strains in the two subcommunities’ relationship with one another. Beyond this gain, the processes involved in this incident teach us something about issues of prejudice and discrimination in general. Based as it is upon concepts like race, ethnicity, gender, and class, prejudice may ultimately rest on slow-developing

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evolutionary structural forces such as physical environment, longterm demographic trends, gradual macroeconomic changes, and tradition-based social and political institutions, because all of these structural conditions provide the root causes for prejudicial concepts of otherness. Yet, the intensity and degree of hostility between groups of people defined by these indices of otherness are governed by more rapidly developing pressures, crises associated with particular events like war, pandemic disease, economic depression, or some quick-striking natural disaster. Such events spike the intensity of reaction to social constructs of otherness and the intensity of their effect on societies defined pluralistically on the basis of these constructs. And what fuels the intensity of prejudice emanating from these constructions of otherness in such times of crisis? Emotion. If we ever hope to effectively deal with crises of prejudice like the one that revolved around the intended wake of Felix Longoria, we must take into account not only the broad rational and slow-moving structural forces that generate prejudice, but also the felt emotive forces that drive them to a crisis level and make controversies like the Longoria dispute of 1949 stand out against so many other incidents of prejudice. In solving the equation of prejudice, we need to plug two variables into the equation, structural and emotive forces. That is perhaps the most important overall lesson to be learned from what made the Longoria affair so special in post– World War II South Texas. I hope this insight will in some small way help us to reconcile the gap between the real and the social past for all South Texans by reconciling the differences between how things were/are and how we want them to be insofar as Tejano-Anglo relations are concerned.46 This, in my mind, represents the greatest reward in answering the whats, wheres, whys, and hows of the controversy swirling around Felix Longoria’s near-wake and hero’s burial.

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1. George Green, “The Felix Longoria Affair,” Journal of Ethnic Studies 19 (3): 24 –25. 2. Taped interview with Beatrice Moreno de Longoria, Adela Longoria de Cerra, and Dr. Héctor García by Pat Carroll, Houston (May 5, 1990), in the Héctor Pérez García Papers (hereinafter abbreviated HPGP) located in the Special Collections Archive of the Jeff and Mary Bell Library at Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi (hereinafter abbreviated TAMUCC). 3. A letter from Lt. Col. Walter Pasqualini to U.S. Rep. Solomon Ortiz (December 6, 1985), HPGP. 4. Interview between Beatrice Moreno de Longoria and her daughter Adela Longoria de Cerra by Pat Carroll, Houston (May 5, 1990), two tapes, both in the HPGP, TAMUCC. 5. José Limón, Mexican Ballads, Chicano Poems, pp. 35–37, 85, 119. Steve Stern provides a paradigm of gender relations in broader Mexican culture in which he argues that relations between men and women are constantly changing as a result of the interplay of absolute patriarchal

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and female-contested contingency models of interaction. Within Stern’s interpretive framework Beatrice’s outspokenness would not be so surprising. He argues that Mexican women’s voices were commonly and universally raised in defense of family and community during times of public crisis in Mexico. See Steve Stern, The Secret History of Gender, pp. 198–199, 319; William Taylor, Drinking, Homicide, and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages, p. 116; John Tutino, “Power, Class, and Family: Men and Women in the Mexican Elite, 1750 –1810,” The Americas 39 (3): 380. 6. Stern, The Secret History of Gender, pp. 198–199. 7. David Montejano outlines a swath two hundred miles from south to north, stretching from Del Rio to Brownsville in the south and from Del Rio to San Antonio to Seguin and Victoria in the north, which he defines as the South Texas border territory. Thus, he includes much of the West and Central Texas regions in this broader South Texas region. I have tried to break eastern South Texas out of Montejano’s larger border zone, and then to define a “Longoria Corridor” as part of that subzone within which the Longoria dispute started. See David Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836–1986, pp. 1–2. 8. Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans, pp. 19, 30, 53. 9. Ibid., pp. 4, 8–10, 130 –131. 10. Evan Anders, Boss Rule in South Texas, pp. xiv, xvi. 11. Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans, pp. 149–152; Rodolfo Rosales, The Illusion of Inclusion, pp. 4 –5, 27. 12. Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans, pp. 149–151. 1. ONLY IN SOUTH TEXAS

1. David Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, map 2, p. 2; George Durham and Clyde Wantland, Taming the Nueces Strip, pp. vii–viii. 2. Transcript, Frank “Posh” Oltorf Oral History interview, Marlin, Texas (August 3, 1971), p. 19, Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, Austin, Texas (hereinafter cited as LBJPL). 3. Peter Gerhard, The North Frontier of New Spain, pp. 335–341. 4. Juan Gómez Quiñones, “The Origins and Development of the Mexican Working Class in the United States: Laborers and Artisans North of the Río Bravo, 1600 –1900,” in El trabajo y los trabajadores en la historia de México, pp. 465– 468, 477, 483; David Weber, The Spanish Frontier in North America, pp. 191, 194 –195; Alejandro de Humboldt, Ensayo político sobre el Reino de la Nueva España, pp. 104 –105. 5. Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans, pp. 26 –27. 6. Gerhard, The North Frontier, p. 341; Américo Paredes, “With His Pistol in His Hand”: A Border Ballad and Its Hero, pp. 9–10, 13. 7. Paredes, “With His Pistol in His Hand,” pp. 9–10, 13. 8. Rodolfo Acuña, Occupied America, p. iii. Other authors who have

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made a similar point include: Rodolfo de la Garza, “As American as Tamale Pie: Mexican-American Political Mobilization and the Loyalty Question”; Harry Pachon, “Political Mobilization in the Mexican-American Community”; and Reynaldo Macías, “National Language Profile of the Mexican-Origin Population in the United States,” Chapters 8, 9, and 11, respectively, in Mexican-Americans: In Comparative Perspective, ed. Walker Connor. 9. Paredes, “With His Pistol in His Hand,” pp. 9–10, 15. 10. Ibid., pp. 15–16; J. Frank Dobie, The Flavor of Texas, p. 125. 11. Paul Lack, The Texas Revolutionary Experience, p. 156. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid.; Michael Meyer et al., The Course of Mexican History, 6th ed., p. 325; Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr., “Let All of Them Take Heed”: Mexican Americans and the Quest for Educational Equality in Texas, pp. 3–7. 14. Cited in Weber, The Spanish Frontier, p. 339. Arnoldo De León, in his study of Anglo prejudices, provides numerous other examples of growing Anglo racism toward Tejanos from the Texas independence movement to the end of the century. See his They Called Them Greasers: Anglo Attitudes toward Mexicans in Texas, 1821–1900, pp. 66 –106. 15. Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans, pp. 27–30. 16. Ibid., p. 60. 17. Acuña, Occupied America, pp. 19–20. 18. Ibid., pp. iii, 1–3, 9. 19. Ibid., pp. 82– 84. 20. Jerry Thompson, Fifty Miles and a Fight, pp. 23–24, 31–34. 21. Arnoldo De León, Mexican Americans in Texas, p. 38; Durham and Wantland, Taming the Nueces Strip, photo caption on unnumbered page between pages 44 and 45. 22. Paul Taylor, An American-Mexican Frontier: Nueces County, Texas, pp. 24 –28. 23. Anthony Smith, The Ethnic Revival, pp. 132–133. 24. Robert Wooster, The Military and United States Indian Policy, 1865–1903, pp. 91–95. 25. Limón bases this notion on his interpretive adaptation of Fredric Jameson’s Marxist cultural theory to the South Texas historical setting, more specifically, Jameson’s concept of “political unconscious.” For a fuller discussion of this point, see José Limón, Dancing with the Devil: Society and Cultural Poetics in Mexican-American South Texas, pp. 14 –15. 26. Walter Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs, pp. 6 –7. The quote is from p. 7. 27. Ibid., p. 13. 28. De León, Mexican Americans in Texas, p. 53. 29. Ibid.; Terry Jordan, “A Century and a Half of Ethnic Change in Texas, 1836 –1980,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 89 (4): 394.

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30. Friedrich Katz, The Secret War in Mexico, pp. 12–14; Stanley Ross, Francisco I. Madero, pp. 29–31. 31. Arnoldo De León and Kenneth Stewart, Tejanos and the Numbers Game, pp. 22–23. 32. San Miguel, Jr., “Let Them All Take Heed,” pp. 13–14. 33. The heaviest fighting raged between 1910 and 1911. More sporadic outbreaks occurred during the decade of the 1920s. For the best overall treatment of the period in English, see Alan Knight, Mexican Revolution. For estimates of death and destruction, see James Cockcroft, Neighbors in Turmoil: Latin America, p. 85; Jay Dolan and Gilberto Hinojosa, Mexican Americans and the Catholic Church, p. 32. 34. Taped interview with Dr. Héctor García by Pat Carroll, Corpus Christi (March 15, 1995), in the HPGP, TAMUCC; taped interview with Amador García by Pat Carroll, Corpus Christi (March 26, 1995), in the HPGP, TAMUCC. 35. Jordan, “A Century and a Half of Ethnic Change in Texas,” p. 394. 36. De León and Stewart, Tejanos and the Numbers Game, p. 15; Manuel Servín, The Mexican-Americans, p. 32. 37. De León and Stewart, Tejanos and the Numbers Game, pp. 3–5. 38. Leo Grebler et al., Mexican-American People: The Nation’s Second Largest Minority, Chapter 3. 39. Joan Moore, Mexican Americans, 2d ed., pp. 21–23. 40. Daniel Levine et al., eds., Immigration Statistics, p. 19. 41. Grebler et al., Mexican-American People, Chapter 4. For a good overview of contemporary U.S. immigration policy and migrant flow estimates (both legal and illegal newcomers), see Levine et al., eds., Immigration Statistics, passim. 42. According to Corwin and Cardosa, 255,983 Mexican nationals legally entered the United States between 1942 and 1948 through the Bracero Program. They list another 616,952 illegal Mexican workers deported over the same years. See Arthur F. Corwin and Lawrence A. Cardosa, “Vamos al norte: Causes of Mass Mexican Migration to the United States,” in Immigrants—and Immigrants, ed. Arthur F. Corwin, p. 55. 43. Pachon, “Political Mobilization,” pp. 248–249; Myron Weiner, “Transborder Peoples,” in Mexican-Americans: In Comparative Perspective, ed. Walker Connor, pp. 164, 156. 44. Benjamin Márquez, LULAC: The Evolution of a Mexican American Political Organization, p. 17; John Chávez, The Lost Land: The Chicano Image of the Southwest, p. 103. Neil Foley adds that the flooded labor market due to employers’ easy access to Mexican immigrant labor retarded the growth of farm labor unions in the region. See Neil Foley, The White Scourge, p. 186. 45. Taylor, An American-Mexican Frontier, pp. 128–129. 46. Walter Fogel, Mexican-Americans in Southwest Labor Markets, p. 148. 47. For a more detailed discussion of split-labor-market theory as it

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applied to different ethnic and racial groups within the U.S. context, see Edna Bonacich, “Class Approaches to Ethnicity and Race,” in Majority and Minority, 4th ed., ed. Norman R. Yetman, p. 68; David Herreshoff, Origins of American Marxism: From the Transcendentalists to de León, p. 42. 48. Dr. Héctor P. García to Maurice Tobin, U.S. Secretary of Labor (October 6, 1949), Texas State Archives, Good Neighbor Commission, City Discrimination Files, box 1989/59-19, file 3 [Discrimination]. Hereinafter the Texas State Archives are abbreviated TSA; the Good Neighbor Commission files are abbreviated GNC. 49. Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans, pp. 114 –117, 128. 50. Leonard Pitt, “‘Greasers’ in the Diggings,” in Introduction to Chicano Studies, ed. Livie Isauro Duran and H. Russell Bernard, p. 196; Walter Fogel, Education and Income of Mexican-Americans in the Southwest, p. 20. 51. Fogel, Education and Income of Mexican-Americans, p. 20. 52. GNC, box 1989/59-19, file 3 [Discrimination], TSA. 53. Testimony, Oral History Interview with Cecil E. Burney, by David McComb in Burney’s office, Corpus Christi (November 26, 1968), pp. 10 – 11, LBJPL. 54. Paul Wright, “Residential Segregation in Two Early West Texas Towns,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 102 (3): 319. 55. “Three Rivers,” Live Oak County Leader, May 18, 1914, 1: 1, 2: 1–3, HPGP, TAMUCC. 56. Charles Tipps, “The Founding and Early Days of Three Rivers,” p. 10. 57. Ibid. 58. Ibid., p. 12. 59. Ibid. 60. Ibid., pp. 10 –12. 61. Wright, “Residential Segregation in Two Early West Texas Towns,” p. 320. 62. Taped interview with Carolina Longoria de Quintanilla and her husband, Floyd Quintanilla, by Pat Carroll, at their home in Three Rivers, Texas (August 15, 1992), HPGP, TAMUCC. 63. Three Rivers, Texas: Golden Age of Progress Celebration, History and Program, p. 20. 64. Taped interview between Delfina Martínez de Longoria (former wife of Alberto Longoria) and Robert Miranda in Corpus Christi (September 9, 1986), HPGP, TAMUCC. 65. W. Elliot Brownlee, Dynamics of Ascent, 2d ed., p. 409; Rupert Richardson et al., Texas: The Lone Star State, 5th ed., p. 377. 66. Taped interview with Delfina Martínez de Longoria by Robert Miranda in Corpus Christi (September 9, 1986), HPGP, TAMUCC. 67. Taped interview with Vaughn Price and Ann Blackmon-Fair by Robert Miranda, Three Rivers (July 23, 1986), HPGP, TAMUCC.

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68. Ibid. 69. Gus García notarized statement, in Pre-Presidential Confidential Files (hereinafter PPCF), box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Investigation by State Legislature], LBJPL. 70. Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans, p. 178. 71. Fogel, Mexican-Americans in Southwest Labor Markets, p. 166. 72. Thomas Sowell, Ethnic Americans, p. 286; Alejandro Portes and Robert Bach, Latin Journey, p. 22; Oscar Handlin, Boston’s Immigrants, 3d ed., pp. ix, 54, 123. 73. Stanford Dyer, “Lyndon B. Johnson and the Politics of Civil Rights, 1935–1960: The Art of Moderate Leadership” (Ph.D. dissertation, Texas A&M University, College Station, August 1978), p. 62. 74. Ibid., p. 76. 75. Juan Gómez Quiñones describes this as one of three class-conflictdriven cultural positions among Mexican American populations in the Southwest that have existed from at least the mid-nineteenth century onward. See his “On Culture,” Revista Chicano-Riqueña 5 (2): 39. 76. Ibid., p. 20. 77. Douglas Foley et al., From Peones to Politicos: Ethnic Relations in a South Texas Town, p. 131. Foley estimates that by the third or fourth generation in South Texas the Mexican-origin population developed this new dialect. 78. Fernando Peñalosa, Chicano Sociolinguistics, pp. 56 – 63, 73. Ilan Stavans discusses this linguistic phenomenon within the broader context of the entire Southwest, and coins a necessarily more comprehensive term for this type of linguistic syncretism, something he labels “Spanglish” instead of applying the regionally more narrow “Tex-Mex” label. See Ilan Stavans, “The Gravitas of Spanglish,” Chronicle of Higher Education, October 13, 2000, B9. 79. Peñalosa, Chicano Sociolinguistics, pp. 74 –75; Rosaura Sánchez, Chicano Discourse: Socio-historic Perspectives, pp. 16, 18–21. 80. Chad Richardson, Batos, Bolillos, Pochos, and Pelados: Class and Culture on the South Texas Border, pp. 167–168, 173. 81. Limón, Dancing with the Devil, p. 112. 82. Ibid., pp. 112–113. 83. Livie Isauro Duran and H. Russell Bernard, Introduction to Chicano Studies, p. 6. 84. Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans, p. 66. 85. Foley et al., From Peones to Politicos, pp. 116 –122, especially p. 117; Duran and Bernard, Introduction to Chicano Studies, p. 508. 86. Limón, Dancing with the Devil, pp. 154 –156. 87. Foley et al., From Peones to Politicos, pp. 83, 87– 88, 91. 88. Carl Allsup, The American G.I. Forum: Origins and Evolution, pp. 81–97. 89. Taped interview with Mr. Jack Montgomery by Pat Carroll, Three Rivers, Texas (August 15, 1992), HPGP, TAMUCC.

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90. City Discrimination Files, GNC, box 1989/19, file 9, Blacklisted Counties (by the Mexican Government), TSA. 91. Quoted in San Miguel, Jr., “Let All of Them Take Heed,” p. 23. 92. Ibid., pp. 53–58. 93. Three Rivers News, January 20, 1949, HPGP, TAMUCC. 94. Allsup, The American G.I. Forum, pp. 81–97. 95. Vaughn Price and Ann Blackmon-Fair, interview with Robert Miranda, Three Rivers (July 23, 1986), HPGP, TAMUCC. 96. Ibid.; San Miguel, Jr., “Let All of Them Take Heed,” p. 24; Allsup, The American G.I. Forum, pp. 81–97. 97. Taped interview with Vaughn Price and Ann Blackmon-Fair by Robert Miranda, Three Rivers (July 23, 1986), HPGP, TAMUCC. 98. Ibid. 99. Labor Camp Investigation and Report: Labor Camp No. 1, HPGP, box 154, folder 1, TAMUCC. This investigation was sanctioned and sponsored by the League of United Latin American Citizens, Council 1, of Corpus Christi. 100. Labor Camp Investigation and Report: Labor Camp No. 2, HPGP, box 154, folder 2, TAMUCC. 101. Ibid. 102. Labor Camp Investigation and Report: Camp No. 3 (April 11, 1948), HPGP, box 154, folder 2, TAMUCC. 103. Labor Camp Investigation and Report: Camp No. 5 (April 11, 1948), HPGP, box 154, folder 2, TAMUCC. 104. Chicken Farm, Orange Grove and Mathis (April 22, 1948), Labor Camp Investigation and Report, box 154, folder 25, HPGP, TAMUCC. 105. Preliminary Report on Mathis, Texas (April 11, 1948), Labor Camp Investigation and Report, box 154, folder 2, HPGP, TAMUCC. 106. Ibid. 107. Report on Schools in Orange Grove, Texas (April 11, 1948), Labor Camp Investigation and Report, box 154, folder 2, HPGP, TAMUCC. 108. Report on Schools in Sandia, Texas (April 11, 1948), Labor Camp Investigation and Report, box 154, folder 2, HPGP, TAMUCC. 109. Labor Camp Investigation and Report: Summary of Labor Camps (April 11, 1948), box 154, folder 2, HPGP, TAMUCC. 2. THE INCIDENT

1. Taped interview with Margarito de Luna in his Three Rivers home by Pat Carroll and George Flores (November 27, 1992), HPGP, TAMUCC. 2. Ibid. 3. Si Dunn, “The Legacy of Private Longoria,” Dallas Morning News, April 6, 1975, p. 1, in LBJPL, PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Newspaper Articles 1 of 2]. 4. Lieutenant Colonel Walter Pasqualini, Office of the Secretary of the Army, to U.S. Rep. Solomon Ortiz (December 5, 1985), HPGP, TAMUCC;

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Walter Jenkins to Lyndon Johnson (January 17, 1949), PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Newspaper Articles 2 of 2]; telegram, R. A. Cortez, President General of the League of United Latin American Citizens (hereinafter LULAC), to Lyndon Johnson (January 12, 1949), PPCF, Folder Longoria, Felix, Correspondence, 2 of 2, LBJPL. Some of the information on Felix’s army career appeared as a notation penciled in at the bottom of the Cortez telegram. 5. Taped interview with Beatrice Longoria and Adela Longoria de Cerra by Pat Carroll, Corpus Christi (May 30, 1990), HPGP, TAMUCC; taped interview with Sara Posas by Robert Miranda, Portland, Texas (January 29, 1989), in the HPGP, TAMUCC; Texas State Archive (hereinafter abbreviated TSA), House Journal, 51st Legislature (February 17, 1949), p. 1420. 6. Taped interview with Sara Posas by Robert Miranda, Portland, Texas (January 29, 1989), in the HPGP, TAMUCC. 7. Notarized statement of Beatrice Longoria, HPGP, TAMUCC; George Green, “The Felix Longoria Affair,” Journal of Ethnic Studies 19 (3): 25. 8. It is unclear whether Beatrice Longoria dated Mike Zepeda before or after her husband’s death. Beatrice would not comment on her relationship with Mr. Zepeda. Carolina Longoria de Quintanilla, Felix’s younger sister, acknowledged that Beatrice was romantically involved with Mr. Zepeda, but would not say whether that was when her brother was still alive or not. Jane Kennedy and Thomas House, on the other hand, adamantly claimed that Beatrice went out with Mike Zepeda while Felix was still alive and fighting in the Philippines. Mrs. Kennedy and her grandson claimed that this was common knowledge in Three Rivers during and after the war. Jane Kennedy pointed out that this supported her husband’s ultimate explanation for his refusal to allow Beatrice to wake her husband in the Rice funeral chapel—that he acted out of consideration for Felix’s parents, who wanted their son’s body waked in their home. Also Kennedy wanted to avoid any public display of family hostility in his establishment during the wake. Taped interview with Carolina Longoria de Quintanilla and her husband, Floyd Quintanilla, by Pat Carroll, Three Rivers, Texas (August 15, 1992), HPGP, TAMUCC; taped interview with Mrs. Jane Kennedy and Thomas House (Tom Kennedy’s grandson), by Pat Carroll (July 27, 2002), HPGP, TAMUCC. 9. Taped interview with Beatrice Longoria and Adela Longoria de Cerra by Pat Carroll, Corpus Christi (June 1, 1990), HPGP, TAMUCC Archive. 10. Three Rivers News, January 20, 1949, HPGP, TAMUCC. 11. Taped interview with Delfina Martínez by Robert Miranda, Corpus Christi (December 12, 1986), HPGP, TAMUCC. 12. I use this term in the broadest sense to mean Mexican identity, both in a cultural and a potentially physical sense. A whole range of ambiguity existed among the populations residing in different parts of South

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Texas over the question of Mexican American identity vis-à-vis the broader societies in local settings. While virtually all members of Mexican American, Mexican national, and Anglo communities throughout South Texas recognized the cultural connotations of this term, there was division over the potential physical or phenotypical implications of Mexican American distinctiveness, and by extension Mexicanidad, that denoted that otherness. For example, most members of the Mexican American middle-class leadership (i.e., members of LULAC) denied any physical or racial otherness from the broader white society in the region, or in the country for that matter. They argued that Mexican Americans’ distinctiveness was culturally, not physically or racially, based. Yet others within the Anglo and even the Mexican American community seemed to define Mexican Americans as phenotypically or racially different from “whites/Anglos” as well. For a good discussion of these varying views on Mexican American otherness, see R. Anthony Quiroz, “Claiming Citizenship: Class and Consensus in a Twentieth Century Mexican American Community” (dissertation, University of Iowa [Ann Arbor: UMI Dissertation Services], 1999), pp. 170 –172, 305. 13. Taped interview with Jack K. Montgomery (mayor of Three Rivers in 1949) by Pat Carroll, Three Rivers, Texas (December 1, 1992), in the HPGP, TAMUCC; taped interview with Vaughn Price and Ann Blackmon-Fair (teachers in Three Rivers’ Mexican Ward School in 1949) by Robert Miranda (June 30, 1987), also in the HPGP, TAMUCC. 14. “Minority Report on the Longoria Investigation” (April 7, 1949), TSA, House Journal, 51st Legislature, pp. 1420 –1424; taped interview with Beatrice Longoria, Adela Longoria de Cerra, and Dr. Héctor García by Pat Carroll, Houston (May 5, 1990); taped interview with Beatrice Longoria and Adela Longoria de Cerra by Pat Carroll, Corpus Christi (June 1, 1990), both tapes in the HPGP, TAMUCC. 15. Thomas Kennedy was an army infantryman. He served in Europe and was wounded while crossing the Rhine River. See Wick Fowler, “Three Rivers Digs Out of Blizzard of Abuse,” Dallas Morning News, section V, p. 8 (January 30, 1949), in the Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin [hereinafter CAH]. 16. Taped interview with Beatrice de Longoria, Adela Longoria de Cerra, and Dr. Héctor García by Pat Carroll, Houston (May 5, 1990), HPGP, TAMUCC; “Minority Report on the Longoria Investigation” (April 7, 1949), TSA, House Journal, 51st Legislature, p. 1424. 17. Taped interview with Beatrice de Longoria, Adela Longoria de Cerra, and Dr. Héctor García by Pat Carroll, Houston (May 5, 1990), HPGP, TAMUCC. 18. William E. Smith to Department of the Army, Fort Worth Quartermaster Depot (December 1, 1948), HPGP, TAMUCC. 19. Taped interview with Beatrice de Longoria, Adela Longoria de Cerra, and Dr. Héctor García by Pat Carroll, Houston (May 5, 1990), HPGP, TAMUCC; taped interviews with Vaughn Price and Ann Black-

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mon-Fair by Robert Miranda, Three Rivers (June 30 and July 28, 1987), HPGP, TAMUCC. 20. Renato Rosaldo’s work with the Filipino Ilongots reveals two points that offer possible insights into Beatrice’s responses to Kennedy and Rice’s refusal to wake her dead husband. Rosaldo’s first point is that bereavement naturally brings with it a certain amount of rage as well as sorrow. The second point is that these two emotions are eased somewhat through rituals and ceremonies related to death. Rosaldo posits that when death-related rituals and ceremonies are suppressed, feelings of rage and sorrow within the bereaved are heightened. Rosaldo’s insights probably help to explain Beatrice’s, her family’s, the Longoria family’s, and the Mexican American community’s public protest over the Manon Rice Funeral Home’s refusal to hold Felix’s wake in its chapel. See Renato Rosaldo, Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis, pp. 4 – 6. 21. Taped interview with Beatrice Longoria, Adela Longoria de Cerra, and Dr. Héctor P. García by Pat Carroll, Houston (May 5, 1990), HPGP, TAMUCC. 22. Taped interview with Sara Posas by Robert Miranda, Portland, Texas (January 29, 1989); taped interview with Beatrice Longoria, Adela Longoria de Cerra, and Dr. Héctor P. García by Pat Carroll, Houston (May 5, 1990), both in the HPGP, TAMUCC. Notarized statement from Sara Moreno (February 18, 1949), PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [statements], LBJPL. 23. For the purpose of this study I make a loose distinction between race and ethnicity. In many Americans’ minds during the 1940s and 1950s, race meant biological alterity. Yet, as Noel Ignatiev has observed, “No biologist has ever been able to provide a satisfactory definition of ‘race’—that is a definition that includes all members of a given race and excludes all others.” He does not, however, discount its operation, whatever “it” is in everyday life. According to him, race is a variable concept in time and space. He argues that “people are members of different races because they have been assigned to them (by other people).” See Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White (New York: Routledge, 1995), p. 1. As already noted in note 12 above, people in post–World War II South Texas seemed divided on how to differentiate Mexican Americans and Anglos from one another, and these disagreements existed in both subpopulations and varied from place to place throughout the region. Some seemed to define other people primarily on the basis of their physical appearance. Anglos were white; Mexican Americans were brown. Of course, this represented but an approximation of biological race, or identification of individuals on the basis of inherited physical characteristics (i.e., skin color, facial features, hair texture, etc.). Ethnicity, on the other hand, seemed more straightforward. It was what social scientists refer to as “social race,” that is, identification of individuals primarily on the basis of acquired characteristics (i.e., language, religion, dress, etc.). The problem with these distinctions in this setting was that they had

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been conditioned, and therefore modified, by historical developments leading up to 1949, and the lines between them had blurred in the minds of Anglos and Mexican Americans. On the one hand, there were Mexican American professionals like Dr. Héctor García, Alonso Perales, and Ben Garza who constructed Mexican American identity within a white ethnic context. Time and time again Dr. García pointed out to his Hispanic neighbors and their Anglo counterparts alike that the U.S. Army and the Census Bureau classified Mexican Americans not as a separate racial group, but rather as a white ethnic group. On the other hand, there were Anglos like Jack Montgomery, Tom Kennedy, and Three Rivers’ State Rep. Jeff Gray who all used more physical markers like skin color and stature to describe the difference between white “Americans” and small, brown “Mexicans.” The war and its social impact on the populations in South Texas and beyond underscored how indistinct and therefore dysfunctional these social constructs had become. These different and often conflicting visions of “otherness” in this time and this place help to explain the controversy that developed over the Longoria incident. Others that argue the utility or relevance of these social constructs in understanding relations between Tejanos and Texans within the region oversimplify reality because of this ambiguity and present, in my estimation, incomplete explanations of the dynamics of South Texas Tejano-Texan relations. Thus, David Montejano’s substitution of class analysis for racial and ethnic analysis of the conflictive relationship between the two communities throughout the region, although enlightening, is incomplete because it underplays the importance of race and ethnicity in the construction of the subaltern and supra-altern power positions that Mexican American/Anglo segments of the communities that dotted the region respectively occupied. Montejano is probably correct that early-twentieth-century changes in the region’s means of production, especially in the Nueces River valley region, did dehumanize Mexican American workers in Anglo employers’ minds, and this harshened the overall Tejano experience in the region. (See his Anglos and Mexican Americans in the Making of Texas, 1836–1986, pp. 113–116.) Yet, this explanation for the state of post-1920 Mexican American life in South Texas is incomplete unless one factors in the already existing racism and ethnocentrism that permeated the region’s culture. Thus, ignoring or underplaying the influences of racism and ethnocentrism because of their overlapping nature and uneven applications within and without the competing subpopulations in this complex regional society presents an incomplete picture of the dynamics which shaped Mexican American–Anglo relations in South Texas. 24. Taped interview with Sara Posas by Robert Miranda, Portland, Texas (January 29, 1989), HPGP, TAMUCC; Green, “The Felix Longoria Affair,” p. 25. 25. Taped interview with Sara Posas by Robert Miranda, Portland, Texas (January 29, 1989), HPGP, TAMUCC.

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26. Notarized statement of Dr. Héctor P. García (February 9, 1949), HPGP, TAMUCC. 27. Steve Stern, The Secret History of Gender, p. 204. 28. Renato Rosaldo, in his work on death and bereavement, has emphasized what powerful emotive forces these experiences can exert on people, especially when they involve rituals. He also points out that the closer the actor is to the event the more these emotional forces affect his or her behavior. No one was closer to Felix than Beatrice. No one was closer to the disagreement over use of the funeral chapel than Beatrice. See Rosaldo, Culture and Truth, pp. 2, 17–19. 29. Taped interview with Beatrice Moreno de Longoria and Dr. Héctor P. García by Pat Carroll, Houston, Texas (May 5, 1990), HPGP, TAMUCC. 30. Notarized statement of Gladys Blucher (February 9, 1949), HPGP, TAMUCC. 31. Notarized statement of Dr. Héctor P. García, Corpus Christi (February 9, 1949), in PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [statements], LBJPL. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid. 35. Notarized statement of Gladys Blucher (February 9, 1949), HPGP, TAMUCC. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid.; Notarized statement of Dr. Héctor P. García (February 9, 1949), HPGP, TAMUCC. Jane Kennedy, in recalling this conversation half a century later, could not remember exactly what her husband said. She did, however, claim that it took place in the morning rather than in the evening. She remembered that Dr. García’s call awoke her and her husband and that the doctor’s tone was belligerent and accusatory. She said that her husband was startled and for that reason may have misspoken in a number of statements he made during this conversation. Taped interview with Jane Kennedy and Thomas House by Pat Carroll, Three Rivers (July 27, 2002), HPGP, TAMUCC. 38. Notarized statement of Dr. Héctor P. García (February 9, 1949), HPGP, TAMUCC. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid. 41. Notarized testimony of George Groh (February 18, 1949), PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [statements], LBJPL. 42. Corpus Christi List of Subdivisions with Deed Restrictions from 1946 to 1949, HPGP, TAMUCC. 43. Taped interview with Sara Posas by Robert Miranda, Portland, Texas (January 29, 1991), HPGP, TAMUCC. 44. Ibid. 45. Taped interview with Gilbert Caseres by Robert Miranda, Corpus Christi (May 25, 1988), HPGP, TAMUCC Archive. 46. Johnson to García (January 11, 1949), HPGP, TAMUCC.

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47. Harry H. Vaughn to García (January 12, 1949), HPGP, TAMUCC. 48. Taped interview with Sara Moreno de Posas by Robert Miranda, Portland, Texas (January 29, 1991), HPGP, TAMUCC; taped interview with Gilbert Caseres by Robert Miranda, Corpus Christi (May 25, 1988), HPGP, TAMUCC; taped interview with Dr. Héctor García by Joe B. Frantz, Corpus Christi (August 21, 1985), HPGP, TAMUCC. 49. Ibid. 50. Ibid. 51. Donald R. McCoy and Richard T. Ruetten, Quest and Response, pp. 295–296. 52. Turner distinguishes three types of communitas. He labels the first “existential or spontaneous” in nature. He describes this type of behavior as “direct, immediate, and total confrontation of human identities which tends to make those experiencing it think of mankind as a homogeneous, unstructured, and free community.” This certainly does not describe the 1949 South Texas setting. Turner defines ideological communitas as “utopian” in nature, that is, collective ideals of societies that “supply the optimal conditions for existential communities.” This, too, fails to match the conditions at the time of the Longoria incident. Community perceptions in post–World War II South Texas seem to most closely match Turner’s “normative” type of communitas, wherein there exists a reasoned and emotive need to “mobilize and organize resources to keep the members of a group [the Tejano community] alive and thriving, and the necessity for social control among those members in pursuance of these and other collective goals.” See Victor Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors, pp. 56, 169. 53. Taped interview with John Connally by Joe Frantz and Pat Carroll, Houston (April 4, 1991), HPGP, TAMUCC. 54. See PPCF, box 2, File Longoria, Felix [Correspondence], LBJPL. 55. Paul Wassenich’s, Eugene Sergi’s, and James Churchill’s letters can be found in PPCF, box 2, Folder Longoria, Felix [2 of 2 folders], LBJPL. 56. Three Rivers, with its Mexican Town and Anglo Town, directly and indirectly provides an excellent example of Richard Schermerhorn’s four types of “parallelism” in ethnically pluralistic societies. He uses “parallel” in the sense that different groups in the same broader society often create separate institutions and cultural devices that coexist and perform duplicate functions. What existed in Three Rivers fits Schermerhorn’s “cultural” pluralism in that the simultaneous presence of two ethnic subcommunities tended to preserve the cultural differences between “Mexicans” and “Anglos”; it matches his “normative” pluralism in that the town’s division preserved the belief and value systems of both groups at the same time; and it reflects his “structural” pluralism in that parallel institutions like schools, churches, defined neighborhoods, and other institutionalized social entities coexisted at the same time. Schermerhorn’s fourth type of pluralism, demonstrated in the existence of Mexican and Anglo Three Rivers, was “political” pluralism. Political plural-

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ism involves minority interest group pressure on the mainstream political decisionmaking process. The events surrounding the Longoria incident displayed high degrees of ethnic political polarization within Three Rivers and the rest of South Texas, of which more will be said in Chapter 4. Dr. García, with the aid of Senator Johnson, the Good Neighbor Commission, and, indirectly, the U.S. State Department, successfully mobilized the area’s Mexican American community, and they successfully brought political pressure on the Anglo political establishment throughout the state. The Longoria controversy provides an illustration of this fourth form of Schermerhorn’s ethnic parallelism. For a discussion of the Schermerhorn integrative model for minority groups, see James Blackwell, The Black Community, 3d ed., pp. 13–14. 57. Robert Dallek, Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908–1960, p. 321; L. Patrick Hughes, “Waging War with the Regulars: Lyndon Johnson’s 1946 Renomination Battle,” Locus 5 (1): 75. 58. Austin American, February 3, 1949, p. 1, PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Newspaper Articles, folder 1 of 2], LBJPL. 59. R. H. Farley to Johnson, Re: resolution of Bexar County Central Council of American Legion (January 27, 1949), PPCF, box 2, Folder Longoria, Felix, LBJPL. 60. Johnson to R. H. Farley (February 8, 1949), PPCF, box 2, Folder Longoria, Felix, LBJPL. 61. Dan Quill to Johnson (February 24, 1949), PPCF, box 2, Folder Longoria, Felix, LBJPL. 62. Dan Quill to Johnson (March 7, 1949), PPCF, box 2, Folder Longoria, Felix, LBJPL. 63. Homer Long to Johnson (March 14, 1949), PPCF, box 2, Folder Longoria, Felix, LBJPL. 64. La Nación, E-12: 1 (January 11, 1949), in the University of Texas Newspaper Collections Deposit Library, Austin, Texas (hereinafter cited UTNCDL); Correo da Manha, C-2: 4 (March 6, 1949), in the UTNCDL. 65. El Nacional, Organo Oficial del Gobierno de México, A-2: 6 –7 (February 17, 1949), UTNCDL; El Popular, A-1: 2–3, 5: 7 (February 17, 1949), in UTNCDL; Novedades, A-8: 4 (January 14, 1949), and again A-4: 6 –7 (January 15, 1949), both articles in UTNCDL; La Prensa, A-2: 4 (January 14, 1949), 1: 5– 6 (January 15, 1949), and 2: 1–2 (January 18, 1949), all three articles in UTNCDL; El Universal, A-2: 5– 6 (January 13, 1949), A-1: 7, 24: 3 (January 20, 1949), both articles in UTNCDL; the Mexico City Herald, A-2–5 (January 15, 1949), in the UTNCDL. 66. El Nacional, February 17, 1949, section A, 2: 4 –7, UTNCDL. 67. “Acto de Justicia a un Heroe Mexicano,” El Universal, Vol. 9 (January 13, 1949), section A, 2: 5– 6, UTNCDL. 68. El Universal, January 20, 1949, section A, 24: 3, UTNCDL. 69. Novedades, January 14, 1949, section A, 8: 2; ibid., January 15, 1949, section A, 1: 3– 4, in the Good Neighbor Commission Files, Longoria Scrap Book, 4-20/696, TSA.

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70. For numerous examples of discrimination by U.S. employers in Latin America, see Jonathan Brown, ed., Workers’ Control in Latin America, p. 51. 71. Peter Smith, Talons of the Eagle, pp. 40 – 44. 72. New Mexican, January 19, 1949, editorial page, in PPCF, box 3, folder 2, Felix Longoria, LBJPL. 73. Los Angeles Times, February 17, 1949, 6: 7, PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Newspaper Articles, folder 1 of 2], LBJPL. 74. Mrs. Elia Lojano to Lyndon Baines Johnson (January 14, 1949), PPCF, box 2, Felix Longoria Correspondence, folder 1, LBJPL. 75. Mrs. A. S. Vento to Lyndon Baines Johnson (January 16, 1949), PPCF, box 2, Felix Longoria Correspondence, folder 1, LBJPL. 76. LULAC News, vol. 15, no. 4 (January 1949), 1: 1–2, in LULAC Records, folder 1, Jan.–Feb., 1949, Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas, Austin, Texas (hereinafter cited NLBLAC). 77. Ibid., p. 2. 78. Austin American, March 12, 1949, and April 8, 1949, both in the TSA, 4-20/696, Longoria Scrap Book. 79. Sherman [Texas] Democrat, January 16, 1949, attached to the transcript of an oral interview by Michael Gillette with William S. White, Madison, Connecticut (July 21, 1978), in the Oral History archive at the LBJPL. 80. San Antonio Express, A-2: 4 –5 (January 11, 1949), A-4: 3– 6 (January 15, 1949), A-2: 4 (February 14, 1949), A-1: 3– 4 (February 20, 1949), A-1: 3– 4 (March 11, 1949), all five articles in the TSA, 4-20/696, Longoria Scrap Book, 2: 3– 6 (March 1, 1949), in PPCF, box 3, Longoria, Felix [Newspapers 1 of 2], LBJPL; Valley Morning Star (Harlingen), 1: 1–2 (April [n.d.], 1949), in TSA, 4-20/696, Longoria Scrap Book; Austin American, A-4: 1, cont’d. A-22: 6 (January 18, 1949), A-1: 6 (February 17, 1949), A-1: 2 (February 19, 1949), A-4: 4 (March 12, 1949), A-1: 2– 6 (April 8, 1949), all five articles in the TSA, 4-20/696, Longoria Scrap Book; Houston Chronicle, A-1: 2–3 (January 11, 1949), A-2: 5– 6 (January 16, 1949), both articles in the TSA, 4-20/696, Longoria Scrap Book; Dallas Morning News, A-21: 3–5 (May 12, 1949), in the TSA, 4-20/696, Longoria Scrap Book. 81. E. B. McLeroy to Travis Bryan (March 17, 1949), PPCF, box 2, Felix Longoria Correspondence, folder 1, LBJPL. 82. James Churchill to Lyndon Baines Johnson (February 3, 1949), PPCF, box 2, Felix Longoria Correspondence, folder 1, LBJPL. 83. Ibid. 84. Live Oak County Herald, January 26, 1949, 1: 2, in HPGP, TAMUCC. 85. Green, “The Felix Longoria Affair,” pp. 32–33. 86. George Flores–Jack Montgomery Taped Interview (November 11, 1992), Three Rivers, in HPGP, TAMUCC. 87. Ibid.

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88. Ibid. 89. Ibid. 90. Montejano concludes that “otherness” in the Nueces Strip, defined on the basis of ethnic, or acquired cultural, characteristics, much as mid-nineteenth-century nativists and Irish new arrivals saw their differences in Boston, as late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Jewish immigrants and native New Yorkers differentiated one another, as post-1880 Italian newcomers and resident Chicagoans defined each other, was nearly meaningless in South Texas. In the Southwest Anglos’ and Tejanos’ identifications as discrete groups seemed much stronger and more enduring than differences based on shifting cultural distinctions. Although recognizing that the primary definitions of alterity between the two groups probably did actually rest on such social constructs as ethnicity, he claims that popular perceptions of them did not. This disparity between perception and reality rendered real ethnic differences less important than perceived otherness in governing relations between the two groups. In order to explain what did separate Mexican Americans from Anglos in South Texas, as well as what shaped their interactions with each other, Montejano relates a number of historical social, political, and economic factors that he claims distorted the traditional U.S. ethnic dynamic in South Texas into a more race- and class-driven process. Montejano offers a third explanation for the sharpening of racial, ethnic, and class distinctiveness, as well as the harshening of relations, between Anglos and Mexican Americans in South Texas. He adds a more politically based “otherness” to the social dynamics of the region. Montejano argues that the racial and ethnic uniqueness that each group ascribed to themselves and to others rested primarily on “public policy.” As he put it: “The bonds of culture, language, and common historical experience make the Mexican people of the Southwest a distinct ethnic population. But Mexicans, following the above definition, were also a ‘race’ whenever they were subjected to policies of discrimination or control” (Anglos and Mexicans, pp. 4 –5). In other words, the strength of discrimination in the region lay in the fact that Anglos legalized, and thereby institutionalized, the subordinate status of Mexican Americans to Anglos. 91. Good Neighbor Commission, City Discrimination Files, box 1989/59-19, file 3 [Discrimination], in the TSA. 92. Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans, pp. 62– 63. 93. Ibid., p. 106. 94. Ibid., p. 110. 95. Ibid., p. 114. 96. Ibid. 97. William S. White, “G.I. of Mexican Origin Denied Rites in Texas, To Be Buried in Arlington,” New York Times, January 13, 1949, p. 1, cols. 6 –7, PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Newspaper Articles 1 of 2], LBJPL.

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98. Philadelphia Inquirer, January 15, 1949, a clipping included in Michael Bradley to LBJ, PPCF, box 3, folder 2 of Felix Longoria Correspondence, in LBJPL. 99. In PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Newspaper Articles 2 of 2], LBJPL. 100. Clippings of these articles exist in PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Correspondence, folder 2 of 2], LBJPL. 101. New York Times, February 17, 1949, 2: 3, in PPCF, box 3, folder 2, Felix Longoria Newspaper Clipping, LBJPL. 102. William Hayes to Lyndon Baines Johnson (January 14, 1949), in PPCF, box 2, folder 1, Felix Longoria Correspondence, LBJPL. 103. Honorable Clifford Bishop to Senator Lyndon Johnson (January 26, 1949), in ibid. 104. Martin J. Zayanckusky to Senator Lyndon Johnson (January 26, 1949), in ibid. 105. Mrs. R. A. Hardy to Senator Johnson (January 26, 1949), in ibid. 106. Karl O. Spiess to Senator Johnson (January 13, 1949), in ibid. 107. Prof. Stuart Gerry Brown to Senator Johnson (January 14, 1949), in ibid. 108. David Weber, The Spanish Frontier in North America, p. 12. 109. Smith, Talons of the Eagle, p. 49. 110. Ibid. 111. Cited in Josefina Vázquez, Mexicanos y norteamericanos ante la guerra del ’47, p. 18. 112. Daniel Cosío Villegas, American Extremes, trans. Américo Paredes, p. 30. 113. Eric Goldman, The Crucial Decade, and After: America, 1945– 1960, pp. 111–112. 114. Alejandro Portes and Robert Bach, Latin Journey, p. 165; Daniel Levine et al., eds., Immigration Statistics, pp. 13–16. 115. Neil Foley, The White Scourge, Chapter 2, passim, but especially pp. 40 – 41. 116. Turner advocates such a balanced approach. See his Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors, pp. 49–50. 117. Rosaldo, Culture and Truth, pp. 2, 21. 3. THE PRINCIPAL ACTORS IN THE DRAMA

1. Taped interview with Beatrice Longoria and Adela Longoria de Cerra by Pat Carroll, Corpus Christi (June 1, 1990), HPGP, TAMUCC. 2. Ibid. 3. Taped interview with Beatrice Longoria and Adela Longoria de Cerra by Pat Carroll, at TAMUCC (May 30, 1990), HPGP, TAMUCC; taped interview with Delfina Martínez (former wife of Arturo Longoria) and Sandra Green (daughter of Delfina and Arturo Longoria, and niece of Felix and Beatrice Longoria) by Robert Miranda, Corpus Christi, Texas (December 12, 1986), HPGP, TAMUCC.

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4. Taped interview with Jack Montgomery by Pat Carroll and George Flores, Three Rivers (November 13, 1992), HPGP, TAMUCC. 5. Taped interview with Sara Posas (Beatrice’s younger sister) by Robert Miranda, Portland, Texas (January 29, 1989); taped interview with Delfina Martínez and Sandra Green by Robert Miranda, Corpus Christi, Texas (December 12, 1986), both in HPGP, TAMUCC. 6. Taped interview with Beatrice Longoria and Adela Longoria de Cerra by Pat Carroll, Corpus Christi (June 1, 1990), HPGP, TAMUCC. 7. Taped interview with Beatrice Longoria and Adela Longoria de Cerra by Pat Carroll, at TAMUCC (May 30, 1990), HPGP, TAMUCC. 8. Taped interview with Sara Posas by Robert Miranda, Portland, Texas (January 29, 1989), HPGP, TAMUCC. 9. Ibid. 10. Taped interview with Dr. Héctor García, Beatrice Longoria, and Adela Longoria de Cerra by Pat Carroll, Houston, Texas (May 5, 1990), HPGP, TAMUCC. 11. Taped interview with Beatrice Longoria and Adela Longoria de Cerra by Pat Carroll, Corpus Christi (June 1, 1990), HPGP, TAMUCC; William S. White, “G.I. of Mexican Origin, Denied Rites in Texas, To Be Buried in Arlington,” New York Times, January 13, 1949, p. 1, cols. 6 –7, cont’d. p. 11, col. 2, PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Newspaper Articles 2 of 2], LBJPL. 12. Walter Jenkins to Senator Lyndon B. Johnson (January 17, 1949), PPCF, box 1, Folder Longoria, Felix, LBJPL; R. A. Cortez to Senator Lyndon B. Johnson (January 12, 1949), PPCF, box 2, Folder Longoria, Felix, 2 of 2, LBJPL. 13. Taped interview with Beatrice Longoria and Adela Longoria de Cerra by Pat Carroll, TAMUCC (May 30, 1990), HPGP, TAMUCC. 14. Taped interview with Tom Kennedy’s wife, Jane Kennedy, and his grandson, Thomas House, by Pat Carroll, Three Rivers (July 27, 2002), HPGP, TAMUCC; Wick Fowler, Dallas Morning News, January 31, 1949, Section II, p. 6, cols. 1–2, in PPCF, Confidential File, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Correspondence, 2 of 2], LBJPL. 15. “A Brief History of Mr. T. W. Kennedy,” Live Oak County Herald, January 20, 1949, 1: 3, in PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Newspaper Articles 1 of 2], LBJPL. 16. Wick Fowler, “Three Rivers Digs Out of Blizzard of Abuse,” Dallas Morning News, section V, p. 8 (January 30, 1949), CAH. 17. Taped interview with Jane Kennedy and Thomas House by Pat Carroll, Three Rivers (July 27, 2002), HPGP, TAMUCC; “A Brief History of Mr. T. W. Kennedy,” Live Oak County Herald, January 20, 1949, 1: 3, in PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Newspaper Articles 1 of 2], LBJPL. 18. Robert Dallek, Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908–1960, pp. 25–31. 19. Ibid., pp. 62– 64. 20. Ibid., p. 77; Robert A. Caro, The Path to Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, p. 166.

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21. Ibid.; Stanford Dyer and Merrel Knighten, “Discrimination after Death: Lyndon Johnson and Felix Longoria,” Southern Studies 17 (4): 417– 418. Julie Pycior also recounts numerous stories about Johnson’s efforts on behalf of his students in Cotulla. See her LBJ and Mexican Americans: The Paradox of Power, pp. 9–22. 22. Pycior, LBJ and Mexican Americans, p. 21. 23. Ibid., p. 20; quoted from Dallek, Lone Star Rising, p. 80. Robert Caro attributes this quote to the Anglo teachers who worked with Johnson at the Welhausen school instead of to his Mexican American students and their parents. See Caro, The Path to Power, p. 169. 24. Caro, The Path to Power, p. 170. 25. Ibid., p. 167. 26. Ibid. 27. Dallek, Lone Star Rising, pp. 77–78. 28. Caro, The Path to Power, p. 111. 29. Quoted from Dallek, Lone Star Rising, pp. 80 – 81. 30. Ibid., pp. 80 – 81; Caro, The Path to Power, pp. 172–173. 31. Stanford Dyer, “Lyndon B. Johnson and the Politics of Civil Rights, 1935–1960: The Art of Moderate Leadership” (Ph.D. dissertation, Texas A&M University, College Station, August 1978), pp. iii–iv. 32. Pycior, LBJ and Mexican Americans, p. 31; Caro, The Path to Power, p. 368. 33. Anthony Smith defines the “intelligentsia stratum” of an ethnic population as individuals who “possess some form of further higher education and use their diplomas to gain a livelihood through vocational activity, thereby disseminating and applying the ideas and paradigms created by intellectuals (who are the persons who deal more with the creation of ideas).” See Smith, The Ethnic Revival, p. 108. 34. Victor Turner forcefully argues that human behavior is the product of both reasoned reaction to structural forces and emotive response to unstructured stimuli. The Longoria incident certainly grew out of both types of pressures and reflected both rational and emotional responses from the characters involved. Dr. Héctor García’s behavior throughout the controversy supports Turner’s conclusion that the social process is best understood by taking structuralist-inspired reason and antistructuralist-inspired emotion into account. See Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors, pp. 49–50. 35. Michael Meyer et al., The Course of Mexican History, pp. 541– 544. Alan Knight recognizes the Mexican revolutionary state’s efforts to create revolutionary “new” men and women through these means, but maintains that these social, political, and economic directions had historical antecedents in the Bourbon through the Porfirian periods, and in that sense were far from “new” ideas. What he does think was new was the state’s attempt to mobilize the population toward these ends. In the end, however, Knight concludes that the state’s efforts met with limited results. He argues that the changes that took hold, especially in the post1940 period, were more the result of “the recalcitrance of the people and

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the resourcefulness of the market” than revolutionary rhetoric. See Alan Knight, “Popular Culture and the Revolutionary State in Mexico, 1910 – 1940,” Hispanic American Historical Review 74 (3): 393–395, 444. 36. Patrick J. Carroll, “Los mexicanos negros, el mestizaje y los fundamentos olvidados de la ‘Raza Cósmica,’” Historia Mexicana 44 (3): 403– 404. 37. Ibid. 38. Manuel Gamio, Mexican Immigration to the United States, pp. 51–52, 54 –56. 39. Taped interview with Dr. Héctor García by Pat Carroll, Corpus Christi (March 15, 1995), HPGP, TAMUCC. I must qualify this notion of Mexican immigrants as agents of revolutionary social cultural transfer in two respects. First, most of these immigrants had little formal education, and therefore probably did not articulate such beliefs about race and ethnicity using the same language that Vasconcelos did. Nevertheless, they probably did become familiar with these concepts through public art and oral discourse. Second, the notion of the “cosmic race” did not become part of the national public school curriculum until post-1920, three years after Héctor García’s family crossed over into Texas. Nevertheless, Prof. José García, as an academic, was probably still familiar with Vasconcelos’ philosophy, and, according to Dr. Héctor, instilled in his family an appreciation for it during their upbringing in Texas. 40. Ibid. 41. Neil Foley, The White Scourge, p. 40. The quoted phrase is a close paraphrase of Foley’s Chapter 2 title, “The Little Brown Man in Gringo Land”; Evan Anders, Boss Rule in South Texas, pp. 213–226, 283. 42. Anders, Boss Rule in South Texas, pp. 139–141, 168, 170, 235; W. Elliot Brownlee, Dynamics of Ascent, p. 395; David Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, pp. 106 –107. 43. Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans, pp. 110, 162, 175–176. 44. Paul Taylor, An American-Mexican Frontier: Nueces County, Texas, pp. 128–129. 45. Taped interview with Dr. Héctor García by Pat Carroll, Corpus Christi (March 15, 1995), HPGP, TAMUCC. 46. Rupert Richardson et al., Texas: The Lone Star State, 5th ed., pp. 370 –371, 377. 47. Preliminary Report on Mathis, Texas (April 11, 1948), Labor Camp Investigation and Report, box 154, folder 2, HPGP, TAMUCC. 48. Taped interview with Dr. Héctor P. García by Pat Carroll, Corpus Christi (February 4, 1991), HPGP, TAMUCC. 49. Telephone interview with Dr. Cleotilde García by Pat Carroll, Corpus Christi, Texas (February 4, 1991). 50. Taped interview with Dr. Héctor García by Pat Carroll, Corpus Christi (February 4, 1991), HPGP, TAMUCC. 51. Taped interview with Dr. Héctor García by Joe Frantz, Corpus Christi (March 23, 1989), HPGP, TAMUCC.

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52. Taped interview of Dr. Héctor García by Pat Carroll, Corpus Christi (January 26, 1989), HPGP, TAMUCC. 53. Ibid. 54. Ibid. 55. Ibid. 56. Ibid. 57. Ibid. 58. Smith, Ethnic Revival, pp. 132–133. 59. Taped interview with Dr. Héctor García by Pat Carroll, Corpus Christi (March 15, 1995), HPGP, TAMUCC. 60. Taped interview with Dr. Héctor García by Pat Carroll, Corpus Christi (February 4, 1991), HPGP, TAMUCC. 61. Taped interview with Dr. Héctor García by Pat Carroll, Corpus Christi (March 15, 1995), HPGP, TAMUCC. 62. Taped interview with Dr. Héctor García by Joe Frantz, Corpus Christi (March 23, 1989), HPGP, TAMUCC. 63. Ibid. 64. Smith, Ethnic Revival, pp. 132–133. 65. Taped interview with Dr. Héctor García by Pat Carroll, Corpus Christi (January 29, 1989), HPGP, TAMUCC. 66. The impact of Mexican revolutionary ideas on the Mexican American community in the U.S. Southwest is a topic that deserves fuller treatment. The Revolution’s influence on South Texas is apparent in many ways, including Francisco Madero’s and the Anti-Reelectionists’ time in San Antonio (1909–1910), revolutionary general Pascual Orozco’s death at the hands of the Texas Rangers (1914), and, of course, the Plan de San Diego uprising (1915–1917), to name but a few connections. Emilio Zamora has done some work on Mexican anarchosyndicalist influence on labor movements in Texas, but more needs to be done on the transfer of Mexican revolutionary culture to the U.S. border area. See Emilio Zamora, The World of the Mexican Worker in Texas, pp. 174 –179. 67. Dr. Héctor García to the Texas Good Neighbor Commission (October 19, 1949), GNC, box 1989/59-19, file 3, TSA; Dr. García to Maurice Tobin, U.S. Secretary of Labor (October 6, 1949), ibid., file 3 [Discrimination]. 68. David Gutiérrez, Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity, pp. 153–155; Richard Griswold del Castillo and Arnoldo De León, North to Aztlán, p. 134. 69. Personal observations of Pat Carroll, 1984 –1993. 70. Anthony Smith separates his intelligentsia into two categories. One includes technically trained individuals like engineers and laboratory technicians. The second, more humanistic category includes what he labels the “old liberal professions.” He places medical doctors into this second group. See Smith, Ethnic Revival, p. 111. 71. This question is posed in the last paragraph of Chapter 2. 72. Hobsbawm defines invented tradition as “a set of practices, nor-

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mally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms [in this case integration through accommodation] of behavior by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past.” See Eric Hobsbawm, “Introduction: Inventing Traditions,” in The Invention of Tradition, 9th ed., ed. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, p. 1. 73. Gutiérrez, Walls and Mirrors, pp. 184 –185; Juan Gómez Quiñones, Chicano Politics, pp. 101–104, 119–121; Ignacio García, United We Win, pp. 10 –11; Griswold del Castillo and De León, North to Aztlán, p. 19; Henry Ramos, The American G.I. Forum: In Pursuit of the Dream, 1948–1983, pp. 141–142. 74. Gómez Quiñones, Chicano Politics, pp. 60 – 62, 95–96; Arnoldo Vento, Mestizo: The History, Culture, and Politics of the Mexican and the Chicano, pp. 196 –197. 75. Benjamin Márquez, LULAC: The Evolution of a Mexican American Political Organization, p. 50. 76. Ramos, The American G.I. Forum, pp. 141–142; Griswold del Castillo and De León, North to Aztlán, p. 156. 77. Ramos, The American G.I. Forum, p. 144. 78. Pycior, LBJ and Mexican Americans, pp. 116 –122, 148; Gómez Quiñones, Chicano Politics, pp. 66, 89–92; Griswold del Castillo and De León, North to Aztlán, pp. 115–116. 79. Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors, pp. 56, 169. 80. Hobsbawm, “Inventing Traditions,” pp. 1–2. 4. MOBILIZATION OF NUECES BASIN MEXICAN AND ANGLO TOWNS

1. R. Anthony Quiroz, “Claiming Citizenship: Class and Consensus in a Twentieth Century Mexican American Community” (dissertation, University of Iowa [Ann Arbor: UMI Dissertation Services], 1999), pp. 138–139, and especially p. 450. 2. David R. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness, pp. 6 –13. 3. Quiroz, “Claiming Citizenship,” p. 34. 4. R. A. Cortez, “And LULAC Was Born,” LULAC News 15 (5): 2, in LULAC Records, folder 1, NLBLAC. 5. Land developer Charles R. Tipps founded Three Rivers in 1913 at the confluence of the Nueces, Frio, and Atascosa Rivers, and the San Antonio, Uvalde, and Gulf Railroad lines. Tipps and his land company advertised to attract new in-state and out-of-state settlers to the site. All the surnames of the first settlers he cites in recalling the foundation of the town were Anglo. See a copy of Tipps Land Company advertising pamphlet (n.d., eight unnumbered pages); Three Rivers, Texas: Golden Age of Progress Celebration, pp. 10, 13, both in the HPGP, TAMUCC. 6. Paul Wright, “Residential Segregation in Two Early West Texas Towns,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 102 (3): 319. 7. Arnoldo De León, Mexican Americans in Texas, p. 53.

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8. Ibid., pp. 53–54; see also Carole Christian, “Joining the American Mainstream: Texas Mexican Americans during World War I,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 92 (4): 565–566. 9. Mario T. García, Mexican Americans, p. 2; Anthony Smith, Ethnic Revival, p. 108. 10. Richard García, The Rise of the Mexican American Middle Class, San Antonio, 1929–1941, pp. 254 –258. 11. Mario García, Mexican Americans, p. 2. 12. Richard García, Rise of the Mexican American Middle Class, pp. 296 –297, 305. 13. Ricardo Romo, East Los Angeles: History of a Barrio, pp. 167–168. 14. Benjamin Márquez, LULAC: The Evolution of a Mexican American Political Organization, p. 15. 15. Christian, “Joining the American Mainstream,” p. 559. 16. Ibid., pp. 566 –567. 17. Quoted in Neil Foley, The White Scourge, pp. 133–134. 18. Evan Anders, “José Tomás Canales,” in The New Handbook of Texas, ed. Ron Tyler et al., 1: 953. 19. Ibid. 20. Evan Anders, Boss Rule in South Texas, pp. 228–229; David Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, pp. 117–118. I should note that Montejano does not accept this interpretation of the revolt. He argues it was an outgrowth of the ongoing competition between Anglos and Mexican Americans for control of South Texas’ economic resources—land and labor. 21. Friedrich Katz, The Secret War in Mexico, pp. 348–366. 22. Paul Taylor, An American-Mexican Frontier: Nueces County, Texas, p. 245. 23. Patrick Carroll, Blacks in Colonial Veracruz: Race, Ethnicity, and Regional Development, pp. 81– 82, 204n.5; Thomas Skidmore and Peter Smith, Modern Latin America, 4th ed., p. 334; Michael Meyer et al., The Course of Mexican History, p. 442. 24. Robert A. Caro, The Path To Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, p. 241; W. Elliot Brownlee, Dynamics of Ascent, pp. 395–396. 25. Henry Dethloff and Gary Nall, “Agriculture,” in The New Handbook of Texas, ed. Ron Tyler et al., 1: 63; Rupert Richardson et al., Texas: The Lone Star State, 5th ed., pp. 322–324; Joan Moore, Mexican Americans, 2d ed., pp. 26 –27. 26. Taylor, An American-Mexican Frontier, p. 241; Mario García, Mexican Americans, pp. 1–2. 27. Honorable Dennis Chávez, U.S. Senator, “Fair Employment Practices Act Hearings,” in Are We Good Neighbors?, ed. Alonso S. Perales, p. 87. 28. Perales, ed., Are We Good Neighbors?, pp. 5– 6; Mario García, Mexican Americans, p. 30. 29. Richard García, Rise of the Mexican American Middle Class,

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p. 256. Mario García claims that the Order of the Sons of America was founded in 1921. See M. García’s Mexican Americans, p. 29. 30. Richard García, Rise of the Mexican American Middle Class, p. 256. 31. OKA News 1 (2): 2, in the Oliver Douglas Woods Collection (hereinafter ODWC), box 1, folder 2, NLBLAC. 32. Ibid.; Mario García mentions the emergence of a fourth group during this period, the Sons of Texas, and he omits the word “Order” in the titles of the Sons and Knights. For example, instead of “Order of the Sons of America,” he identifies the group as “Sons of America”; see his Mexican Americans, p. 29. 33. Márquez, LULAC, p. 17; Mario García, Mexican Americans, p. 29. 34. Richard García, Rise of the Mexican American Middle Class, p. 258. 35. James Tafolla to Dr. Carlos Castañeda (February 7, 1929), in ODWC, box 1, folder 2, NLBLAC. 36. Ibid. 37. Mario García, Mexican Americans, pp. 29–30. 38. Richard García, Rise of the Mexican American Middle Class, p. 258. 39. Mario García, Mexican Americans, p. 33. 40. Márquez, LULAC, pp. 28–30, 33, 40. 41. Ibid., p. 32. 42. Ibid., p. 34. 43. Ibid., pp. 30 –33. 44. Richard García, Rise of the Mexican American Middle Class, p. 215. 45. Mario García, Mexican Americans, p. 31. 46. LULAC’s approach to integration into U.S. society has proved difficult to define. Scholars often refer to it as “Americanization,” but the LULAC meaning of that term remains elusive. For example, Márquez, in explaining LULAC Americanization, seems to use terms like assimilation and accommodation almost interchangeably (Márquez, LULAC, p. 38). Within the context of ethnically pluralistic societies, assimilation and accommodation represent two different processes for integration. Assimilation achieves ethnic integration through a minority culture (in the sense of power) surrendering its culture of origin and replacing it with the majority culture (again in the sense of power). Accommodation, on the other hand, achieves integration through the minority culture supplementing its culture through the acquisition of just enough of the majority culture to allow minority members to function within the multicultured setting. In this scenario minority culture persists and coexists with majority culture. Thus, accommodation does not require the loss of cultural traits, rather the acquisition of additional ones. The end product of assimilation is monoculturalism; the end product of accommodation is multiculturalism. See Alejandro Portes and Robert Bach, Latin Journey,

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pp. 29–30. Within the overall context of his discussion, Márquez, despite his ambiguous use of these terms, seems to argue that LULAC leaders during the 1930s and 1940s adopted a more assimilationist approach in trying to integrate Mexican Americans into mainstream U.S. society and culture. Conversely, Mario and Richard García appear to apply a more accommodationist meaning to LULAC’s early goal of Americanization. In Mario’s words, LULAC Americanization “emphasized a dual cultural approach. Lulacers . . . understood the need to adapt to American conditions.” At the same time, “The LULAC constitution reaffirmed the need to maintain bilingualism and ethnic pride.” For LULAC, Americanization also meant “cultural pluralism.” See Mario García, Mexican Americans, pp. 31, 34, and Richard García, Rise of the Mexican American Middle Class, pp. 254, 258, 296 –297, 305. Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr., is emphatic in his association of LULAC with the accommodationist process of integration into U.S. society. See Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr., “Let All of Them Take Heed”: Mexican Americans and the Quest for Educational Equality in Texas, pp. 70 –72. 47. Márquez, LULAC, pp. 29–31. 48. Mario García, Mexican Americans, pp. 48–50. 49. Ibid. 50. Ibid. 51. Ibid., pp. 31–32. 52. Márquez, LULAC, pp. 34, 39– 40, 49. 53. Ibid., p. 39. 54. Raul Morin, Among the Valiant, p. [7]. 55. Mario García, Mexican Americans, pp. 1–2; Taylor, An AmericanMexican Frontier, p. 241. 56. Quiroz, “Claiming Citizenship,” p. 305. It is important to note that Quiroz does not say that the G.I. generation “abandoned the previous generation’s desires to be considered white” (p. 305). Its members claimed that Mexican Americans had earned this designation through their contributions to the war effort. Therefore, their whiteness was a given. As a result, the post–World War II generation looked beyond this claim, and more clearly tried to define Mexican Americans’ place as an ethnic group within white U.S. society. 57. These comments were drawn from two interviews with Dr. García in his Corpus Christi office. The first took place on January 26, the second on January 29, 1989. Tapes of both meetings are in HPGP, TAMUCC. 58. Taped interview with Delfina Martínez by Robert Miranda, Corpus Christi (December 12, 1986), HPGP, TAMUCC. 59. De León, They Called Them Greasers: Anglo Attitudes toward Mexicans in Texas, 1821–1900, p. xi; Foley, The White Scourge, p. 5; Samuel Ramos, Profile of Man and Culture in Mexico, trans. Peter Earle, pp. 41– 42; David Brion Davis, Slavery and Human Progress, p. 307.

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David Montejano rejects socially based race explanations of TejanoTexan relations as too simplistic. He argues that evolving class-based distinctions between Anglos and Mexican Americans, politically and legally institutionalized to varying degrees from one place to another in South Texas over the years from 1836 onward, better explain the discriminatory and segregationist attitudes of Anglos toward Tejanos in the region. See Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, pp. 3–7. 60. Ralph Ellison, in his now classic novel on black-white relations in the United States, makes this point. Physical isolation of minorities by whites through ghettoization helps to make the consequences of racism suffered by minorities “invisible” to whites. See Ellison’s Invisible Man, 4th ed. 61. Taped interview with Vaughn Price and Ann Blackmon-Fair by Robert Miranda, Three Rivers (July 23, 1986), HPGP, TAMUCC; taped interview with Jane Kennedy and Thomas House by Pat Carroll, Three Rivers (July 27, 2002), HPGP, TAMUCC. 62. Ibid.; taped interview with Jack Montgomery, in his Three Rivers home, by Pat Carroll (August 15, 1992); taped interview with Dr. E. R. Drozd, in his Three Rivers home, by Pat Carroll and George Flores (August 15, 1992); these last two interviews in HPGP, TAMUCC as well; taped interview with Jane Kennedy and Thomas House by Pat Carroll, Three Rivers (July 27, 2002), HPGP, TAMUCC. 63. Live Oak News, January 20, 1949, HPGP, TAMUCC. 64. Three Rivers News, January 20, 1949, HPGP, TAMUCC. 65. Ibid. 66. Ibid. 67. Roy Grimes, “Threat to Safety,” San Antonio Express, February 3, 1949, no page or column number, Attorney General, Felix Longoria Burial Scrap Book, TSA. 68. Live Oak News, January 20, 1949, HPGP, TAMUCC. 69. Report of U.S. Army Specialist Shag Floore of the Army Graves Registration Division to Lt. Colonel Stanley Partridge, Chief of the Army Graves Division, Fort Worth Quartermaster Depot, Fort Worth, Texas (January 21, 1949), PPCF, box 2, Folder Longoria, Felix, LBJPL. 70. Shag Floore to Lt. Colonel Stanley Partridge (January 21, 1949), PPCF, box 2, Folder Longoria, Felix, 2 of 2, LBJPL. 71. Three Rivers Chamber of Commerce to Johnson (January 15, 1949), PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix, LBJPL. 72. Johnson to Three Rivers Chamber of Commerce (January 15, 1949), PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix, LBJPL. 73. Three Rivers Chamber of Commerce to Johnson (January 16, 1949 [telegram actually sent January 15 at 9 P.M.]), PPCF, box 2, Folder Longoria, Felix, 2 of 2, LBJPL. 74. Johnson to Three Rivers Chamber of Commerce (January 17, 1949), PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix, LBJPL. 75. Notarized statement from Guadalupe Longoria, Sr. (February 20, 1949), p. 3, in PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Statements], LBJPL.

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76. Ibid. 77. Ibid. 78. Taped interview with Carolina Longoria de Quintanilla and her husband, Floyd Quintanilla, by Pat Carroll, Three Rivers (August 15, 1992), HPGP, TAMUCC. 79. Notarized statement of Carolina Longoria (March 7, 1949), in PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Statements], in LBJPL. 80. Ibid. 81. Connally Memorandum, Re: Felix Longoria File (January 14, 1949), PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix, LBJPL. 82. Ibid. 83. Ibid. 84. Translation from Spanish newspaper article in La Verdad, March 1949, Corpus Christi, Texas, HPGP, TAMUCC. 85. Ibid. 86. Three Rivers News, January 20, 1949, HPGP, TAMUCC. 87. Ibid. 88. Notarized statement of George Groh (February 18, 1949), HPGP, TAMUCC. 89. Connally Memorandum, Re: Felix Longoria File (January 14, 1949), PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix, LBJPL. 90. Ibid. 91. Ibid. 92. Notarized statement from Guadalupe Longoria, Sr. (February 20, 1949), PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Statements], LBJPL. 93. Taped interview with Delfina Martínez by Robert Miranda, Corpus Christi (December 12, 1986), HPGP, TAMUCC. 94. Wick Fowler, “Three Rivers Digs Out of Blizzard of Abuse,” Dallas Morning News, section V, p. 8 (January 30, 1949), CAH; taped interview with Jane Kennedy and Thomas House by Pat Carroll, Three Rivers (July 27, 2002), HPGP, TAMUCC. 95. Taped interview with Jack Montgomery, in his Three Rivers home, by George Flores (November 13, 1992); interview with Dr. E. R. Drozd, in his Three Rivers home, by Pat Carroll and George Flores (August 15, 1992); interview with Mr. Jay Campbell, in his Three Rivers Pharmacy, by Pat Carroll and George Flores (August 15, 1992), all three of these taped interviews are housed in the HPGP, TAMUCC. Pat Carroll and George Flores interviewed five Mexican Americans, residents of Three Rivers during the Longoria incident, on November 27, 1992. Three of these individuals, although disclaiming any firsthand knowledge of the affair, stated that they believed that Tom Kennedy refused use of the chapel because he feared a family confrontation between Beatrice Longoria and her in-laws. None of these individuals would elaborate on the nature of this “family affair,” as one of the interviewees phrased it, nor would they allow us to record their comments. All three of these individuals did, however, concede that ethnic discrimination was marked in Three Rivers during the period, and that the alternative explanation for

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the funeral director’s actions (refusal because Felix was Mexican) was plausible, and the most popular interpretation of the incident within the “Mexican” community of Three Rivers then and now. 96. Taped interview with Margarito de Luna by Pat Carroll and George Flores, Three Rivers (December 11, 1992), in HPGP, TAMUCC. In addition to the testimony on this tape, we spoke with two other Mexican American residents who had lived through the Longoria incident. These two individuals refused to allow us to identify and record them, but their perceptions paralleled those of Margarito de Luna. There had been family trouble, and that was probably the main reason Kennedy denied access to the chapel. On the other hand, this incident paled in significance to the experiences of Anglo discrimination each interviewee had personally experienced at the time. They had no qualms about keeping their perceptions to themselves. The last thing they wanted to do was lend support to an Anglo position that held that the Longoria case was contrived and that no discrimination existed in Three Rivers in the years immediately after World War II. 97. Taped interview with Carolina Longoria de Quintanilla and her husband, Floyd Quintanilla, by Pat Carroll, Three Rivers, Texas (August 15, 1992), in HPGP, TAMUCC. 98. Taped interview with Delfina Martínez by Robert Miranda, Corpus Christi (December 12, 1986), HPGP, TAMUCC. 99. Taped interview with Thomas Sutherland by Robert Miranda, Austin (April 21, 1987), HPGP, TAMUCC. 100. Ibid. 101. Ibid. 102. Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans, p. 178. 103. Manuel H. Peña, “Folksong and Social Change: Two Corridos as Interpretive Sources,” Aztlán, vol. 13 (Spring and Fall 1982), pp. 13, 17. 104. Ibid., pp. 36 –37. 5. STATE, NATIONAL , AND INTERNATIONAL POLITICS

1. Stanford Dyer and Merrel Knighten, “Discrimination after Death: Lyndon Johnson and Felix Longoria,” Southern Studies 17 (4): 417– 418. 2. Robert Dallek, Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908–1960, pp. 78–79. 3. García to Johnson (January 10, 1949), PPCF, LBJPL. 4. Ibid. 5. Notarized statement of Dr. Héctor P. García, HPGP, TAMUCC. 6. García to Johnson (January 10, 1949), PPCF, LBJPL. 7. Ibid. 8. Quoted in Julie Pycior, LBJ and Mexican Americans: The Paradox of Power, p. 18; Merle Miller, Lyndon: An Oral Biography, quoting D. B. Hardeman, pp. 144 –145. 9. John B. Connally, Memo from Connally “for the Files, Re: Felix

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Longoria” (January 11, 1949), PPCF, box 2, File Longoria, Felix, folder 2, LBJPL. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. Johnson to García (January 11, 1949), HPGP, TAMUCC. 13. Connally, Memo from Connally “for the Files, Re: Felix Longoria” (January 11, 1949), PPCF, box 2, File Longoria, Felix, folder 2, LBJPL. 14. Johnson to García (January 11, 1949), HPGP, TAMUCC. 15. Ibid. 16. Taped interview with John Connally by Joe Frantz and Pat Carroll, Houston (April 1, 1991), in HPGP, TAMUCC. 17. George Norris Green, The Establishment in Texas Politics, p. 112. 18. Interviews with James Rowe and Thomas Corcoran, both top assistants to Franklin D. Roosevelt, by Joe Frantz in the late 1960s at their offices in Washington, D.C. While accounts abound in numerous books and articles, two sources, according to Frantz, present this material in especially dramatic and faithful fashion. See Ronnie Dugger, The Politician: The Life and Times of Lyndon Johnson; the Drive for Power, Chapters 24, 27, and 30 –36; also, see Miller, Lyndon: An Oral Biography, pp. 80 –124. 19. Green, The Establishment in Texas Politics, pp. 108–115; L. Patrick Hughes, “Waging War with the Regulars: Lyndon Johnson’s 1946 Renomination Battle,” Locus 5 (1): 59– 61. 20. Green, The Establishment in Texas Politics, Chapter 4, “Rebellion against the New Deal,” passim. 21. Rupert Richardson et al., Texas: The Lone Star State, 5th ed., p. 387. 22. Green, The Establishment in Texas Politics, p. 18. 23. Ibid., pp. 56 –57. 24. Richardson, Texas, p. 392. 25. Green, The Establishment in Texas Politics, pp. 56 –57. 26. Ibid., p. 30; Hughes, “Waging War with the Regulars,” p. 58; Richardson, Texas, p. 387; Pycior, LBJ and Mexican Americans, pp. 43– 44. 27. Green, The Establishment in Texas Politics, pp. 48– 49. 28. Hughes, “Waging War with the Regulars,” pp. 59– 61. 29. Dallek, Lone Star Rising, pp. 217–218. In a private meeting with Joe Frantz at the White House in the summer of 1968, Johnson remarked that he was never as close to President Roosevelt as the press, his friends, and his enemies had supposed. But they thought he was “FDR’s boy,” and he never saw any need to deny the belief. Actually, Johnson opined, the president barely knew him. He was aware of Johnson because of Johnson’s having been elected congressman in 1937 on an “all the way with FDR” campaign at a time when Roosevelt was taking heat for his Supreme Court packing plan. In addition, Governor James V. Allred of Texas (an ardent New Dealer as well as Johnson’s backer) had arranged for LBJ to ride partway across Texas on the presi-

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dent’s special train. Moreover, Johnson, still a newcomer to Washington, had somehow gained an audience with FDR and so overwhelmed the president with facts, figures, and emotion that FDR endorsed Johnson’s ambitious plan for a gigantic Rural Electrification Administration program for LBJ’s Hill Country, thereby bringing the region into the twentieth century insofar as energy was concerned. This triumph evoked the envy of all the other congressmen who had lobbied the White House on behalf of lesser projects and had failed. Reputedly Johnson’s program was the largest endeavor yet undertaken by the Rural Electrification Administration, and Washington pundits and practitioners had decided that the fledgling congressman had FDR in his hip pocket. After that, observed Johnson, he rarely saw the president except in the company of some congressional delegation or at some White House function that included people of the Hill. “We were not close,” Johnson said to Frantz, “. . . but I got a lot of mileage out of other people thinking we were, and I saw no need to straighten them out.” (Joe Frantz, the intended co-author of this work, actually drafted much of the text of this endnote in 1992; I lightly edited his prose and added the reference to Dallek.) 30. Hughes, “Waging War with the Regulars,” pp. 74, 80 – 81. 31. Dallek, Lone Star Rising, p. 315. 32. Green, The Establishment in Texas Politics, pp. 37–38. 33. Dallek, Lone Star Rising, pp. 316 –317. 34. Green, The Establishment in Texas Politics, pp. 112–113. 35. Dallek, Lone Star Rising, pp. 319–320. Stevenson had also looked like a country clod by visiting Washington leaders asking what were the issues. A senatorial candidate who has to be told what issues face him doesn’t emerge as bright, or, in the vernacular, “on the ball.” (Text of this note comes from Joe B. Frantz, 1992). 36. Green, The Establishment in Texas Politics, pp. 108–112, 101, 113–117; Robert A. Caro, Means of Ascent: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, pp. 318–323; interview, Hobart Taylor, Sr., Houston, with Joe B. Frantz (January 29, 1972), LBJPL. 37. Caro, Means of Ascent, p. 348. 38. Green, The Establishment in Texas Politics, p. 116; Pycior, LBJ and Mexican Americans, p. 66; Dallek, Lone Star Rising, pp. 331, 339–342. 39. The bulk of this material is taken from the observation and experience of Joe B. Frantz, who wrote the majority of this note in 1992. Frantz, in 1937 a senior at the University of Texas, was shocked when one of his instructors, Ray E. Lee, resigned his $1,800-a-year position to campaign for LBJ’s first attempt at being elected to Congress. In his undergraduate wisdom, Frantz exhibited shock at Lee’s gamble, later watching him with envy as Lee represented U.S. agencies in the Middle East and Jamaica. He eventually became postmaster of Austin before making a sizable living in insurance. Frantz also became an intense LBJ watcher for the next thirty-six years.

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According to Frantz, the best sources for these past several pages are Green, The Establishment in Texas Politics; Dallek, Lone Star Rising. Taped interview with John Connally by Joe B. Frantz and Pat Carroll, Houston (April 1, 1991), HPGP, TAMUCC; interview with Allan Shivers by Joe B. Frantz, Austin (May 29, 1970); interview with Hobart Taylor by Joe Frantz, Houston (January 29, 1972); interview with Coke Stevenson by Joe Frantz, Junction, Texas (1969); interview with Jim Wright by Joe Frantz, Washington, D.C. (June 30, 1969); interviews with J. J. Pickle by Joe Frantz, Austin, no. 1 (May 31, 1970), no. 4 (August 25, 1971); interview with Gerald Mann by Joe Frantz, Dallas (October 12, 1968), the last seven interviews in the LBJPL; Homer Price Rainey, The Tower and the Dome; Evan Anders, Boss Rule in South Texas; David Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas. 40. Quoted in George Green, “The Felix Longoria Affair,” Journal of Ethnic Studies 19 (3): 33. 41. Taped interview with John Connally by Joe Frantz and Pat Carroll, Houston (April 1, 1991), in HPGP, TAMUCC. 42. Longoria Family to Johnson (January 15, 1949), PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix, LBJPL. 43. Longoria Family to Johnson (January 31, 1949), HPGP, TAMUCC. 44. Johnson to García (February 1, 1949), PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix, LBJPL. 45. García to Johnson (February 8, 1949), HPGP, TAMUCC. 46. Taped interview with Horace Busby by Michael Gillette, Washington, D.C. (August 16, 1988), LBJPL. 47. Ibid. 48. Renato Rosaldo, Culture and Truth, pp. 2, 19. 49. Taped interview of Dr. Héctor P. García by Pat Carroll, Corpus Christi (June 1, 1990), HPGP, TAMUCC; Green, “The Felix Longoria Affair,” p. 32. 50. John Connally, Memo for the Files, “Summary of Conversation with Mr. Paul J. Reveley of the State Department” (February 25, 1949), PPCF, box 2, Folder Longoria, Felix, LBJPL. 51. Ibid. 52. Paul J. Reveley to Johnson (March 8, 1949), PPCF, box 2, Folder Longoria, Felix, LBJPL. 53. Ibid. 54. Pauline R. Kibbe, Latin Americans in Texas, p. 120; Arnoldo De León, Ethnicity in the Sunbelt: A History of Mexican Americans in Houston, p. 92. 55. Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans, p. 268. 56. Ibid., p. 270. 57. Green, “The Felix Longoria Affair,” p. 29. 58. Oscar Dancy to Tom Sutherland (January 13, 1949), in PPCF, box 2, Felix Longoria Correspondence, folder 1, in LBJPL. 59. Thomas Sutherland’s sworn testimony before the Texas House In-

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vestigative Committee, quoted in the San Antonio Express, March 11, 1949, p. 1, col. 1, p. 5, col. 4, in PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Newspaper Articles, 1 of 2], LBJPL. 60. Sutherland quoted Bill Riddell, “Mrs. Longoria Tells Investigators Use of the Funeral Home Denied Her,” in the San Antonio Express (no date), p. 1, cols. 1–2, cont’d. p. 2, cols. 1–5, in PPCF, box 2, Felix Longoria Correspondence, folder 1, in LBJPL. 61. Thomas Sutherland’s sworn testimony before the Texas House Investigative Committee, quoted in the San Antonio Express, March 11, 1949, p. 1, col. 1, p. 5, col. 4, in PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Newspaper Articles, 1 of 2], LBJPL. 62. Ibid. 63. Interview with Frank Oltorf by David McComb, Marlin, Texas (August 3, 1971), in the Oral History Collection, LBJPL. 64. Live Oak County Herald, January 20, 1949, HPGP, TAMUCC; PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Newspaper Articles, 1], LBJPL. 65. Lloyd Bentsen, Jr., to Rep. J. F. Gray (May 10, 1949), GNC, County Discrimination Files, box 1989/59-17, file 36, Live Oak County, Longoria Case, TSA. 66. Green, “The Felix Longoria Affair,” pp. 28–29. 67. Lloyd Bentsen, Jr., to Rep. J. F. Gray (May 10, 1949), GNC, County Discrimination Files, box 1989/59-17, file 36, Live Oak County, Longoria Case, TSA. 68. Ibid. 69. “Inquiry Opens in Longoria Burial Case,” unidentified newspaper clipping datelined Austin (April 10, 1949), in PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Newspaper Articles, 1 of 2], LBJPL. 70. Patrick Carroll, Blacks in Colonial Veracruz: Race, Ethnicity, and Regional Development, Table 6, p. 95; Nicolás Sánchez Albornoz, The Population of Latin America: A History, trans. W. A. R. Richardson, Table 6.1, p. 184. 71. See GNC, City Discrimination Files, box 1989/59-19, file 24, Labor, passim, TSA. 72. “Mexico Ends Migrant Labor Pact because of Mass Illegal Entries,” El Paso Times, October 17, 1948, no page or column number, clipping, GNC, City Discrimination Files, box 1989/59-19, file 24, Labor, TSA. 73. Ibid. 74. Ibid. 75. El Paso Herald Post clipping (October 14, 1948), no page or column numbers, GNC, City Discrimination Files, box 1989/59-19, file 24, Labor, TSA. 76. Ibid. 77. El Nacional, February 17, 1949, p. 2, cols. 6 –7; El Universal, January 13, 1949, p. 2, cols. 5– 6; ibid., January 20, 1949, p. 1, col. 7, cont’d. p. 24, col. 3; El Popular, February 17, 1949, p. 1, cols. 2–3, cont’d. p. 5, col.

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7; La Prensa, January 15, 1949, p. 8, cols. 1–2; ibid., February 20, 1949, p. 4, cols. 1–5; all in UTNCDL. Excelsior, January 13, 1949, p. 1, col. 2; La Prensa Gráfica, January 14, 1949, p. 3, cols. 4 – 6; Mexico City Herald, January 15, 1949, p. 4, cols. 1–2; Novedades, January 14, 1949, p. 8, cols. 1–2, all in the Attorney General’s Office Collection, Felix Longoria Scrap Book, TSA. 78. Tom Sutherland to R. E. Smith (February 28, 1949), GNC, County Discrimination Files, Live Oak County, box 1989/59-17, file 36, TSA. 79. Henry Ramos, The American G.I. Forum: In Pursuit of the Dream, 1948–1983, p. 12. 80. Glen Green, Jr., “Lyle Denies Longoria Case Put End to U.S.-Mexico Labor Parley,” International News Service (no paper, no date), in PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Newspaper Articles, 1 of 3], LBJPL; Texas House Journal, 51st Legislature, p. 1424. 81. Green, The Establishment in Texas Politics, p. 140. 82. San Antonio Express, March 12, 1949, p. 2: 1 (cont’d. from p. 1), in PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Newspaper Articles, 1 of 2], LBJPL. 83. “Felix Longoria to be Buried at San Antonio,” Corpus Christi Caller, January 19, 1949, no page or column numbers in PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Newspaper Articles, 1 of 2], LBJPL. 84. Interview with Frank Oltorf by David McComb, Marlin (August 3, 1971), in the Oral History Collection, LBJPL. 85. Gus García to Lyndon Johnson (April 16, 1949), in PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Investigation of the State Legislature], LBJPL; 51st Legislature, House Journal, March 17, 1949, pp. 331, 334. 86. Dallek, Lone Star Rising, pp. 287–290. 87. Green, “The Felix Longoria Affair,” p. 32; Caro, Means of Ascent, pp. 178, 223–224, 227; V. O. Key, Jr., Southern Politics, pp. 258–259. 88. Texas 51st Legislature, House Journal, April 7, 1949, p. 1420. 89. Interview with Frank Oltorf by David McComb, Marlin (August 3, 1971), in the Oral History Collection, LBJPL. 90. Ibid. 91. “Felix Longoria Investigation,” GNC, box 1989/59-17, pp. 1–2, TSA. I should point out that repeated efforts to find a copy of this full 372page typed report in the Texas State Archive, the Texas Legislative Archive, the LBJ Presidential Library, and the Héctor P. García Papers failed. Notarized copies of several of the nineteen witnesses’ testimony can, however, be found in the García Papers at TAMUCC, and in the LBJPL. 92. Texas 51st Legislature, House Journal, March 17, 1949, p. 1420; ibid., pp. 331, 334. 93. García to Johnson (March 16, 1949), PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Investigation of the State Legislature], LBJPL. 94. Ibid. 95. Cited in the San Antonio Express, March 11, 1949, p. 1, cols. 1–2, cont’d. on p. 5, in PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Newspaper Articles, 1 of 2], LBJPL.

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96. Johnnie Brown, “Longoria Incident Largely a Newspaper Matter,” Corpus Christi Caller, March 11, 1949, p. 1, cont’d. on p. 22, in PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Newspaper Articles 1 of 2], LBJPL. 97. Unsigned typed summary of Gray’s press comments about the Good Neighbor Commission, GNC, County Discrimination Files, Live Oak County, Longoria Case, box 1989/59-17, file 36, TSA. 98. Dallas Morning News, January 31, 1949, p. 6, cols. 1–2, in PPCF, box 3, Longoria, Felix, Correspondence, folder 2 of 2, LBJPL. 99. Ibid.; “Tinsley Requests Withdrawal of Longoria Report,” Austin American (March 19, 1949), Biographical Files, CAH. 100. Dallas Morning News, May 12, 1949, in the Attorney General Files, Felix Longoria Scrap Book, TSA. 101. Green, “The Felix Longoria Affair,” p. 29. 102. Green, The Establishment in Texas Politics, p. 140. 248

6. THE BURIAL

1. Telephone conversation between Sara Moreno de Posas and Pat Carroll, Corpus Christi to Woodsboro, Texas (May 21, 2001). 2. Taped interview with Beatrice Longoria and Adela Longoria de Cerra by Pat Carroll, Corpus Christi (June 1, 1990), HPGP, TAMUCC. 3. Taped interview with Dr. Héctor García by Joe Frantz, Corpus Christi (August 17, 1985), HPGP, TAMUCC. 4. Julie Pycior, LBJ and Mexican Americans: The Paradox of Power, p. 72. 5. One radio station in particular bears some mentioning above others. KWBU was a radio station owned at the time by Baylor University. This radio station was not a Spanish-only station. It did, however, have a Spanish-language segment in its programming. The station manager, a politically conservative Anglo, allowed Dr. García full control of his messages to his listeners without once interfering with the content. 6. Emory L. Holden to García (March 8, 1949), HPGP, TAMUCC. 7. The original Spanish text is as follows: “Sr. Dr. Ector P. Garcia. “le escrivo esta carta para mandar un obulo un jiro de $2.00 dos dollar que los manda yo y mi companero de trabajo. de la Panaderia La Perla de Cotulla Tex. y siento mucho lo sucedido del soldado finado Felix Longoria “S.S.S. Antonio Rivas “y mi companero “Refugio Rodgriguez” (In Antonio Rivas, and Refugio Rodríguez to “Sr. Dr. Ector P. García,” January 14, 1949, HPGP, TAMUCC.) 8. What follows is the original Spanish text of the letter: “Senor. Hector. P. García. “Escuche. Por medio de la disfusora. K.W.B.U. en la nesesidad. que se encuentra. la familia Longoria. de Tres Rios, Tex. y. Por no doerle alludar mas Por mi numerso familia. desedimos yo. y mi Espoza contribuir con

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50 [cent sign used] cada uno de mi familia. y si. asi. todos los mexicanos nos unemos nada sera pesado suyo quien S.M.B. Pase nuestras condolencias por favor” (In Juan Moya to “Sr. Hector P. García,” January 15, 1949, HPGP, TAMUCC.) 9. What follows is the original Spanish text of this letter: “Etenido El Gusto caperar con Ud En lo con tribusion Para El Sr Felix Longoria Para los Gastos para ir aber el funeralez De su Hijo a su Serbidor “G. C. Flores Y El Sr Pablo Estrada “Esto Es la Lista de los que Cuperar Todos De Brady Texas.” (In G. C. Flores and Pablo Estrada, “Contribusion Mutua Para El Beterano de 3 Riyos, Texas,” to Dr. Héctor García, January 13, 1949, HPGP, TAMUCC.) 10. Mr. and Mrs. Roy Navarro to “Dear Sir” (January 14, 1949), HPGP, TAMUCC. 11. Petition, Felix Longoria Fund Contributors List, HPGP, TAMUCC. 12. Ibid. 13. What follows is the original Spanish text of this letter: “Voluntaria mente se esta haciendo collection, para ayuda de los familiares de nuestro heroe y compatriota Felix Longoria, quien fue muerto en los campos de batalla en las Islas Filipinas, el cual fue traido una ves mas a su pueblo natal, y cual fue reusado servicio funebre, unicamente porque era de origin mejicano. Sus restos sera llevados a Arlington National Cemetery en Wash. D.C. donde sus familiares se reuneran.” (This is found in Petition, Felix Longoria Fund Contributors List, HPGP, TAMUCC.) 14. Petition, Felix Longoria Fund Contributors List, HPGP, TAMUCC. 15. U.S. Department of Commerce, William Weinfeld, “Income of Physicians, 1929–1949,” in Survey of Current Business, pp. 16, 19, S-14; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, 1: 148, 162, 163, 169 (See Series D-802– 810), 1: 176 (See Series D-913–926); U.S. Department of Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the U.S., p. 181 (see Table 219), p. 203 (see Table 241), p. 204 (see Table 242), p. 509 (see Table 611). 16. “Report of the President’s Commission on Migratory Labor,” Migratory Labor in American Agriculture, pp. 119–135. 17. Petition, Felix Longoria Fund Contributors List, HPGP, TAMUCC. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20. What follows is the original Spanish text of this letter: “queridos y apresiables amigos. ahoy muy cordialmente tengo el honor de derijir la presente para acerme partisipante en el caso de la Sra. Viuda de Longoria para darle mi voto de condolencia de la muerte de su amado espose que dio su vida por el vien de la patria. pues mis deseos so

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de que se le den sus serbicios funebres de la manera mas satisfactoria para todos sus familiares en lugar de andar sufriendo tan terribles desaygres; por lo cual aqui rremito mi suma correspondiente de $3.00 en ayuda de gastos que se orijinen en sus funerales, y que descanse en pas. “firma en esta un umilde Serbidor “J. O. García” (This letter is found in J. O. Letter to “Fondo Felix Longoria,” in care of “Dr. Ector P. Garcia,” HPGP, TAMUCC.) 21. Rudolfo de la Garza, “As American as Tamale Pie,” in MexicanAmericans in Comparative Perspective, ed. Walker Conner, pp. 237–242. 22. George W. Hinman, Jr., Colonel, Quartermaster Corps, Memorial Division, to American G.I. Forum (January 31, 1949), HPGP, TAMUCC. 23. Benjamin Márquez, LULAC: The Evolution of a Mexican American Political Organization, pp. 29–31. 24. García to Johnson (February 8, 1949), HPGP, TAMUCC. 25. Longoria Family Air Fare Receipts, HPGP, TAMUCC. 26. Longoria Family Travel Expenses Receipts, HPGP, TAMUCC. 27. Interview between Horace Busby and Michael Gillette, Washington, D.C. (August 16, 1988), Oral History Collection, LBJPL. 28. Taped interview with Beatrice Longoria and Adela Longoria de Cerra by Pat Carroll, Houston (May 5, 1990), HPGP, TAMUCC. 29. Ibid. 30. “A Brief History of Arlington, Virginia, National Cemetery,” page one of a five-page typed manuscript, in PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix, LBJPL. 31. “Burial at Arlington,” New York Times, February 17, 1949, p. 18, col. 3, in PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Newspaper Articles, 2 of 2], LBJPL. 32. David Botter, Dallas Morning News, February 17, 1949, in PPCF, box 3, Folder Longoria, Felix [Newspaper Articles, 1 of 2], LBJPL. 33. Ibid. 34. Taped interview with Dr. Héctor García by Joe Frantz, Corpus Christi (August 21, 1985), HPGP, TAMUCC. 35. Taped interview with Jack Montgomery by Pat Carroll, Three Rivers (November 13, 1992), HPGP, TAMUCC. 36. Taped interview with Vaughn Price and Ann Blackmon-Fair by Robert Miranda, Three Rivers (July 23, 1986), HPGP, TAMUCC. 37. Ramos, The American G.I. Forum, p. 17. 38. Ibid., pp. 27–31; Carl Allsup, The American G.I. Forum: Origins and Evolution, pp. 50 –51. 39. Ramos, The American G.I. Forum, p. 31. 40. Pycior, LBJ and Mexican Americans, pp. 93–94; Arnoldo De León, Ethnicity in the Sunbelt: A History of Mexican Americans in Houston, p. 133. 41. David Simcox, “The Maturing of U.S. Immigration Reform,” in U.S. Immigration in the 1980s, ed. David Simcox, pp. 3–7; Patrick Carroll and Ross Purdy, “A Socio-Economic Profile of Legalization Appli-

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cants in Corpus Christi, Texas,” in Unauthorized Immigration: Addressing the Root Causes, pp. 930 –931. 42. Victor Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors, p. 56. 43. Rosaldo, Culture and Truth, p. 19. CONCLUSION

1. David Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, pp. 114 –117, 128. 2. Ibid., pp. 6 –7. 3. My choice of pronouns is deliberate. “Which” instead of “whom” reflects the dehumanizing effect of this economic transformation on Mexican Americans within the Nueces Strip’s social milieu. 4. Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans, pp. 110, 112–114. 5. Ibid., p. 9. 6. Ibid. 7. Thomas Skidmore and Peter Smith, Modern Latin America, 5th ed., p. 6. 8. Taped interview with Dr. García by Pat Carroll, Corpus Christi (March 15, 1995), in HPGP, TAMUCC; taped interview with Judge Héctor de la Peña, Corpus Christi (March 21, 1995), in HPGP, TAMUCC. 9. Taped interview with Dr. García by Pat Carroll, Corpus Christi (March 15, 1995), in HPGP, TAMUCC; Mario García, Mexican Americans, pp. 1, 5, 15–18. 10. I must point out, however, that although Mario García recognizes that the Mexican American leaders of Dr. Héctor García’s generation believed that they made great strides on behalf of civil rights during this period, he does not. In his mind their accomplishments were far more mixed. They mitigated some of the worst civil rights abuses against Mexican Americans, but failed to integrate them into the broader society. This “Mexican American Generation,” as Mario García calls them, failed to win their people equal economic, social, and political opportunity with other mainstream ethnic groups. García, Mexican Americans, pp. 299–300. 11. Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World Economy in the Sixteenth Century, pp. 301–302. 12. Ibid., p. 349. 13. Immanuel Wallerstein, Essentials of Wallerstein, pp. 300 –302. 14. Ibid., p. 300. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid., p. 305. 17. Ibid., pp. 308–309. 18. Walter Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs, pp. 7, 13. 19. Manuel H. Peña, “Folksong and Social Change: Two Corridos as Interpretive Sources,” Aztlán, vol. 13 (Spring and Fall 1982), pp. 15, 38. 20. Renato Rosaldo, Culture and Truth, p. 2.

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21. Ibid., p. 17. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid., p. 19. 24. Victor Turner, Dramas, Fields and Metaphors, p. 37. 25. Ibid., p. 14. 26. Ibid., pp. 14 –15. 27. Peña, “Folksong and Social Change,” pp. 15–16, 18, 23. 28. Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors, p. 38. 29. Rosaldo, Culture and Truth, p. 21. 30. Ibid., p. 3. 31. Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors, p. 39. 32. Ibid. 33. Anthony Smith, Ethnic Revival, pp. 132–133. 34. Ibid., pp. 193–197. 35. Ibid., p. 41. 36. Carole Christian, “Joining the American Mainstream: Texas Mexican Americans during World War I,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 92 (4): 559–561. 37. Carl Allsup, The American G.I. Forum: Origins and Evolution, p. 16. 38. Turner, Drama, Fields, and Metaphors, p. 56. 39. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretations of Cultures, pp. 204 –205. 40. Ibid., p. 203. 41. Ibid. 42. Smith, Ethnic Revival, p. 189. 43. Ibid., pp. 204 –205. 44. The three of eight Spanish stanzas selected read: En Tres Ríos sucedío en los tiempos de la guerra; Félix Longoria murío peleando por esta tierra. [Stanza 1] Cuando el cuerpo del soldado llegó con sus familiares, la mortuoria de su pueblo le negó su funeral. [Stanza 3] Murío en la segunda guerra por defender su nación. Hoy lo cubre la tierra del más famoso panteón. [Stanza 7] See Peña, “Folksong and Social Change,” pp. 34 –35. 45. Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors, p. 50. 46. Ibid., p. 205.

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Austin American Chicago Daily Tribune Corpus Christi Caller Correo da Manha Dallas Morning News Detroit Free Press El Nacional (Mexico City) El Paso Herald Post El Paso Times El Popular El Universal Excelsior Houston Chronicle La Nación La Prensa La Prensa Gráfica La Verdad (Corpus Christi) Live Oak County Herald Live Oak News Los Angeles Times LULAC News Mexico City Herald New Mexican New York Times Novedades

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Acuña, Rodolfo, 16 Alpine, Texas, 26 American G.I. Forum, 3, 64, 138, 168, 179, 183–185, 191–192, 209; and Lamar Elementary School meeting, 64 – 65; and pledge to bury Felix Longoria in Corpus Christi, 62– 63, 110, 144, 156 Anderson, Jack, 154 Anglos, 5–7, 9, 11, 20, 30; attitudes of, toward Dr. Héctor García and Senator Lyndon Johnson, 76 –77, 130 –135, 139, 154 –157, 167–168; and educational segregation, 32– 35; and Longoria dispute, 116, 130 –132, 139, 144, 148–150, 179, 185, 190; political culture of, 147, 151–155; prejudice of, 22, 24 –25, 32, 35, 64 – 65, 68, 73, 75, 77–78, 84 – 85, 96, 102–103, 107–109, 114, 118–120, 126 –128, 130, 133,

139–144, 148–150, 169, 177, 179– 180, 183, 185–186, 188, 191; and residential segregation, 26 –29; and the term gringo, 16 Arlington National Cemetery, 66, 70, 134, 144, 150 –151, 156, 158, 169–170, 178–179, 184 –185, 187– 188, 193, 206 Army Air Corps, 152 Austin, Stephen F., 17 Austin American, 70, 75 Barrera Barber Shop, Corpus Christi, 183 Bentsen, Lloyd, Jr., 64, 163–164 Bentsen, Lloyd, Sr., 163 Berlanga, Hugo, 111 Bexar County Council of the American Legion, 70 –73 Bishop, Clifford, 81 Black, Hugo, 154

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Blackmon, Ann Fair, 34 –35, 190 – 191 Blucher, Gladys, 62 Bonacich, Edna, 218–219n47 “Border Thinking,” 20, 201, 211 Boyd, Bryan, 134 –135 Bracero program, 22–24, 108–109, 197; creation of, 165; and Longoria dispute, 147–148, 159–168, 173, 176 –177, 179, 192 Brown, Stuart Gary, 82 Brown Berets, 110 Buchanan, James, 82 Burney, Cecil, 25 Busby, Horace, 157, 187, 189

264

Campbell, Jay, 132 Campbellton Tejanos, 183 Canales, J. T., 117–118, 122 Caprestan, Delmira, 183 Caro, Robert, 93–94, 154 Carranza, Venustiano, 118 Caseres, Gilbert, 65 Castañeda, Dr. Carlos, 122 Cheatham, Tom, 170, 173 Chicago Daily Tribune, 80 Chicanismo, 110 Christian, Carole, 118, 132, 208 Churchill, James T. E., 70 Cisneros, Henry, 111 Cisneros, Tony, 183 Class bias, 212–213 Cold War, 83, 207 Collins, Grace, 101 Colonias, 3 Confederate States of America, 151 Conjunto, 31 Connally, John, 69, 137–138, 154, 156 –158, 162 Corpus Christi, Texas, 1– 4, 7, 145; and Mexican American activism, 111, 117 Corpus Christi Caller, 63, 137, 149– 150, 155, 174 Corpus Christi Shoe Hospital, 182 Correo da Manha, 73 Corrido: the Longoria incident and oral tradition, 211, 252n44 Cortez, Gregorio, 145 Cortez, R. A., 75, 115 Cortina War, 18–19, 210 Cosío Villegas, Daniel, 83 Cotulla, Texas, 93–94, 148–149

Cox, George W., 52 Cunningham, Cecil, 132–133 Dallas Morning News, 75 Dallek, Robert, 94 Dancy, Oscar, 160 Daniel, Price, 64 Davis, Carol, 94 De la Peña, Héctor, 35, 61, 63, 198 De León, Arnoldo, 20, 116 De Luna, Margarito, 55, 242n96 Democratic National Convention of 1939, 153 Detroit Free Press, 80 – 81 Díaz, Juan, 132 Díaz, Porfirio, 19, 21 Drozd, E. R., 132 El Eco de México, 65 El Nacional, 73, 167 El Paso Times, 166 El Popular, 73, 167 El Universal, 167 Ellison, Ralph, 240n60 Estrada, Pablo, 181, 249n9 Ethnocentrism, 11, 16, 29, 32, 68– 69, 73, 75, 85, 108–109, 141, 144, 191–193, 196 –198, 212–213; and meaning of ethnicity in South Texas, 222–223n12, 224 –225n23; and patriotism, 149–150, 208, 210 –211; and split labor markets, 218–219n47; and Texas politics, 151 Ewing, D. F. S., 183 Ewing, F. S., 183 Excelsior, 167 Farley, R. H., 71–72 Floore, Shag, 134 –135 Flores, Armando, 41 Flores, G. C., 181, 249n9 Flores, George, 173–174 Fogel, Walter, 24, 29, 33 Foley, Neil, 218n44 Forrestal, James V., 64 Fort Sam Houston, 151 Frantz, Joe Bertram, 243–244n29, 244 –245n39 Galván, Frank, 127 Gamio, Manuel, 97 García, C. P., 100

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García, Cleotilde, 100 –101 García, Dahlia, 100 García, Daniel, 94 García, Emilia, 100 García, Faustina, 98, 100 García, Gus, 170, 173, 175 García, Héctor Pérez, 1–3, 5, 10 –12, 21, 35, 61, 71–72, 76 –77, 111– 112, 116, 132–134, 136 –140, 143– 144, 148–151, 156 –157, 161–162, 164, 167–170, 176 –180, 184 –185, 187, 189–191, 196, 198, 205–206, 210 –211; and communitas, 68, 180, 185–186, 191, 193, 203, 208–209; and Lamar Elementary School meeting, 64 – 67, 151, 185, 206; and legislative committee investigating the Longoria dispute, 173–174, 178; life and career of, up to the Longoria dispute, 96 –109, 159; and Presidential Medal of Freedom, 4; and significance of the Longoria dispute, 129–131, 198–199, 207–208, 212–213; and South Texas dual school systems, 53; and South Texas labor camps, 35– 41, 42– 43, 195; telephone conversation of, with Thomas Kennedy, 62– 63, 148–149; and Viva Johnson Movement, 112; and Viva Kennedy movement, 4, 112 García, J. O., 183–184, 249–250n20 García, Jico, 100 García, José, 97–98, 107 García, José Antonio “J. A.,” 99–101 García, Mario: and LULAC strategies for integration of Mexican Americans into U.S. society, 239n46; and the “Mexican American Generation,” 111, 117, 121, 128, 199, 251n10 García, Richard, 117 García, Wanda Fusillo de, 108, 116 – 117 Garner, John Nance, 152–153 Garza, Ben, Jr., 117, 122–123 Garza, Joe, 35, 122 Garza Café, Corpus Christi, 183 Geertz, Clifford, 209 Geiger, Joe, 103 Gender bias: and politics, 5; and public voice, 6, 61– 62, 212–213

Gibson, Charlie, 154 Goebel, Della, 132–133 Goldman, Eric, 83 Gold Star Families, 185 González, Manuel, 117, 122–125 Gray, Jeff F., 133–134, 143, 172; and Good Neighbor Commission, 163–164, 170 –172, 175, 189–190 Green, George, 151 Groh, George: and legislative committee investigating the Longoria dispute, 173–174; telephone conversations of, with Thomas Kennedy, 63– 64, 138, 149–150 Gutiérrez, Baltazar, 183 Gutiérrez, Filiberto, Sr., 183 Guzman’s Red and White, 182–183 Hapsburg, Maximilian de, 19 Hardeman, D. B., 155 Hardy, Mrs. R. A., 82 Hayes, William, 81 Hernández v. The State of Texas, 192 Hinman, George W., 185 Hobsbawm, Eric: and “invented tradition,” 110, 235–236n71 Hondo Veteranos, 183 Honor, 11, 68, 109–110, 145, 155, 158, 193, 197–198 House, Thomas, 222n8 Houston Chronicle, 75 Idar, Eduardo, 122 Ignatiev, Noel, on the definition and application of race, 224n23 Immigration Reform Act of 1986, 192 Indians: and Anglo/Tejano relations, 19 Iwo Jima, 54 Jackson, Robert, 149–150 Jester, Beauford, 52, 64, 189–190; and Good Neighbor Commission, 161–165, 175–176 Johnson, Claudia Alta Taylor “Lady Bird,” 189 Johnson, Lyndon Baines, 4, 9–10, 15, 64, 96, 127, 132–133, 136 –137, 139, 148–151; life and career up to the Longoria controversy, 93–95, 153–160, 171–172; and the Longo-

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ria controversy, 70 –73, 150 –151, 155–159, 161–162, 164, 168–172, 175, 177–179, 185–187, 189–190, 193, 196, 203; and National Democrat/Texas Regular politics, 153– 156, 162, 164, 170 –172, 175, 177, 179, 196; photograph of, 95; and Senate race in 1948, 154 –155; telegram from, read at Lamar Elementary School meeting, 66 – 67, 69–70, 151; ties of, to Franklin D. Roosevelt, 153–154, 171, 243– 244n29

266

Kenedy ranching family of South Texas, 78 Kennedy, Jewel “Jane” Knezek: and Beatrice Longoria’s romantic involvement with Mike Zepeda, 222n8; and her husband’s telephone conversation with Dr. Héctor P. García about Beatrice Longoria’s use of the funeral chapel for her husband’s wake, 226n37; life of, with Thomas W. Kennedy, 90 –91; photograph of, 92; threats received by, as a result of the Longoria incident, 132 Kennedy, Susan, 91, 132 Kennedy, Thomas W., 61, 66 – 67, 71, 75–76, 80, 84, 86, 128, 131–142, 167–168, 172, 189–191, 202–203, 206, 210, 241-242n95, 242n96; and legislative committee investigating the Longoria dispute, 173– 175; life of, before the Longoria incident, 90 –93; meetings of, with Beatrice Moreno de Longoria to arrange for Felix Longoria’s wake and burial, 56 – 60, 191, 204 –205; photograph of, 92; telephone conversation of, with Dr. Héctor García, 62– 63, 148–149, 226n37; telephone conversations of, with George Groh, 63– 64, 149–150; telephone conversations of, with Thomas Sutherland, 161– 162 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 110 King ranching family of South Texas, 78 Kleberg, Robert, 78 Knight, Alan, 233–234n35 KWBU radio station, Waco, 248n5

Lack, Paul, 19 Lamar Elementary School meeting, 64 – 65, 69, 143–144, 179, 193, 206 La Nación, 73 La Prensa, 73, 167 La Prensa Gráfica, 167 Larin, Don, 166 Lasater ranching family of South Texas, 78 League of Latin American Citizens, 122–123 League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), 73, 115–116, 192; and the Longoria dispute, 156, 182, 184 –185, 209; and Mexican American integration into the U.S. mainstream, 123–128, 209, 238–239n46; and World War II, 127–128 Legislative committee to investigate the Longoria dispute, 170 – 175, 190 Limón, José, 20, 30 Lojano, Elia, 74 Long, George, 70 Long, Homer, 72–73 Longoria, Adela, 3– 4, 55, 60, 89, 186, 188; photographs of, 90, 188 Longoria, Alberto, 57, 136, 186 Longoria, Arturo, 186 Longoria, Beatrice Moreno de, 3–5, 9, 68, 86, 133–134, 137, 140, 142, 150 –151, 170, 179, 186, 188–191, 203; and arrangements in Three Rivers for Felix Longoria’s wake and burial, 55– 60, 156, 168, 170, 178–179, 191, 204 –205; and Dr. Héctor P. García, 61– 62; and Lamar Elementary School meeting, 64 – 67; and legislative committee investigating the Longoria dispute, 173–174; life of, with Felix Longoria, 87– 89; photographs of, 90, 188; romantic involvement of, with Mike Zepeda, 222n8 Longoria, Carolina, 27, 136, 142, 222n8 Longoria, Delfina Martínez de, 57, 130, 140 –143 Longoria, Dolores, 189; photograph of, 188 Longoria, Felix, 1–2, 5, 10 –11, 15, 53, 105, 127, 138–140, 146, 168,

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178, 184 –186, 208, 210; burial of, in Arlington National Cemetery, 66 – 68, 139, 144, 150 –151, 156 – 159, 170, 178, 184, 187–191; death of, 55–56, 58, 179; description of, 86 – 89, 149; photograph of, 90 Longoria, Guadalupe, Jr., 174, 186 Longoria, Guadalupe, Sr., 27, 87, 116, 135–138, 140 –142, 170, 173– 174, 179, 189 “Longoria corridor,” 7, 14 –15, 26, 35, 187; and communitas, 68– 69; map of, 8; oil and commercial agricultural industries, 79 López, Fernando, 41 Los Angeles Times, 74 LULAC. See League of United Latin American Citizens LULAC News, 74 –75 Luna, Andrés, 117, 122 Luzon, 1, 54 –55 Lyle, John, 64, 173 Manford, Durwood, 170 Manon Rice Funeral Home, 56, 62, 71, 148, 150; photograph of, 57 Márquez, Benjamin, 123–125; and LULAC’s strategy for Mexican American integration into U.S. society, 238–239n46 Maxwell Graduate School of Citizenship, Syracuse University, 82 McCracken, Bob, 149–150 McLeroy, E. B., 75 Mexican Americans, 6 –7, 12, 16, 20, 22, 125–126, 139–141, 155, 158, 235n66; attachment of, to the land, 31; attitudes of, toward the Longoria dispute, 74, 128–129, 141–145, 156, 158, 179–180, 184 – 186, 190, 196, 205–206, 211; and blacks, 124 –127; and citizenship, 9, 112, 125–127, 177, 179, 184 – 185, 206, 209–211, 239n56; as conquered and colonized peoples, 16, 116; construction of identity of, 113–115, 126 –128, 159, 179, 184 –185, 206, 208–211, 222– 223n12, 224 –225n23, 239n56; and ethnicity, 9, 30 –31, 121, 124 –128, 144, 159, 193, 210, 222–223n12, 224 –225n23; and family, 31, 158; intelligentsia, 109, 116, 148, 206,

208, 222–223n12, 224 –225n23, 233n33, 235n70; and Mexican nationals, 9, 23, 29, 108, 116, 124 –127; middle class, 9, 108, 113–115, 117, 123, 128, 222– 223n12, 224 –225n23; migratory labor, 23–24, 166; and patriotism, 123, 126, 207–211; and politics in South Texas, 9, 69, 117, 141, 143– 145, 155, 177, 193; population growth, 21; and racism, 9, 121, 124 –128, 144, 159, 193, 205, 210, 222–223n12, 224 –225n23; and religion, 31; and World War I, 118–120; and World War II, 125, 127–128 Mexican-American War, 6 –7, 16 – 17; and Anglo/Tejano relations, 17–20, 82– 83 Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO), 110 Mexicanidad, 9, 32, 84, 97, 101, 206, 209–210; meaning of, in South Texas, 222–223n12; and World War II, 103, 105, 126, 142, 207, 209–210 Mexican nationals, 7, 9, 192, 218n42; migration of, to Texas, 21–22, 96, 124 –127, 197 Mexican Revolution: and Mexican nationals’ migration to Texas, 21– 22, 96, 197, 218n33 Mexico City Bakery, Corpus Christi, 183 Mexico City Herald, 73 Midwest farmers, 7, 98–99, 109 Mignolo, Walter: and concept of “Border Thinking,” 20, 201 Miller, Agnes, 172 Mitchell, Henry, 183 Modernization Theory, 198–199 Montejano, David, 24, 29, 31, 84; definition of South Texas, 216n7; and the evolution of Anglo/ Tejano relations in South Texas, 77–79, 224 –225n23, 230n90, 239–240n59; and a Marxist interpretation of the Longoria incident, 196 –198; and Plan de San Diego, 237n20; and Texas Good Neighbor Commission, 160 Montgomery, Jack, 33, 76, 132, 134 – 135, 172, 189–190 Moreno, Sara, 61, 65, 67, 88, 104, 191

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Moya, Juan, 180 –181, 248–249n8 Moya, Manuela, 181 National Democrats, 151–154, 164, 167, 170 –171, 176 –177, 179, 190, 196 National Youth Administration, 94 Navarro, Roy, 181 New Deal, 151–153, 170 New Mexican, 74 –75 New York Times, 74, 80 Novedades, 73, 167 Nueces Strip. See South Texas

268

Obreros Hall, Corpus Christi, 123 O’Daniel, W. Lee “Pappy,” 153–154 Oltorf, Frank, 15, 171–172, 175 Order of the Knights of America, 122–123 Order of the Sons of America, 122– 123 Orquidea Club, 61, 104 Orta, Willie, 183 Ortiz, Canuto, 45 Ortiz, Solomon, 111 Overa, Luis, 183 Patriotism, 6, 11, 68, 80, 83– 85, 109–110, 123, 131, 196, 208; and race and ethnicity, 103, 148–150, 179, 185, 196 –197, 206, 209–211 Pearson, Drew, 6, 64, 154 Pegler, Westbrook, 64 Peña, Manuel, 145, 201, 203 Perales, Alonso, 35, 117, 121–122, 124 –126 Plan de San Diego, 118–120, 210 Price, Vaughn, 35 Pruitt, J. O., Jr., 183 Pycior, Julie, 93 Quill, Dan, 71–72 Quintanilla, Floyd, 142, 222n8 Quiroz, R. Anthony, 115, 128; and race, ethnicity, and citizenship, 239n56 Racism, 11, 29, 84 – 85, 102–103, 108–110, 113–115, 128, 139, 141, 144 –146, 183, 191–193, 197–198, 204 –205, 212–213; Latin Americans on U.S., 73–76, 80, 83, 165– 166, 196; and meaning of race in

South Texas, 222–223n12, 224 – 225n23; and patriotism in South Texas, 103, 148–151, 210 –211; and split labor markets, 218– 219n47; and Texas independence, 17, 68– 69, 73; and Texas politics, 151; and World War II, 104 –107, 208 Ramsey, Fred, 134 –135, 172 Raza Unida Party, 110 Reagan, Ronald, 4, 192 Redford, Mr. (banker), 134 –136 Reveley, Paul J., 158–159, 167, 189, 192 Rice, Manon, 56, 58, 140, 172, 204 Rockefeller, Nelson, 70 Rodríguez, Kate, 183 Rodríguez, Refugio, 180, 248n7 Roediger, David, 114 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 94, 151–153, 171 Rosaldo, Renato: bereavement as a cultural force and its impact on the Longoria incident, 201–202, 204 –205, 224n20, 226n28 Rosa’s Restaurant, 2 Royal, Kenneth, 64 Saenz, J. Luz, 121–122 San Antonio Express, 75, 133 Sánchez, Frank L., 182 Schermerhorn, Richard: application of his paradigm of “parallelism” in ethnically pluralistic societies such as the one that existed in post–World War II Three Rivers, Texas, 227–228n56 Seale, Bobby, 110 Sergi, Eugene, 70 Sherman (Texas) Democrat, 75 Sheridan, Philip, 19 Shivers, Allan, 176 Sierra, Justo, 189 Smith, Albert, 172 Smith, Alfred E., 151 Smith, Anthony, 103, 105, 109; and effects of World War II on Mexican American citizenship, ethnic revival, and identity, 206 –207; and the “intelligentsia strata” of an ethnic group, 233n33, 235n70 Smith, Robert E., 138, 160 –164, 167–170, 190

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Smith, William E., 59 Social Darwinism, 73, 120 –121 Society of Benito Juárez, Karnes City, Texas, 182 Solís, Juan, 183 Solís, Mike, 183 South Texas, 5–7, 10 –11, 14 –16, 20, 26, 29, 69, 95, 117, 128, 138, 147, 158, 179, 183, 206; and commercial capitalism, 24, 145, 212; construction of Mexican American identity in, 113–115, 179, 209, 211, 222–223n12, 224 –225n23; dual school systems in, 34 –53, 100, 195; and the Great Depression, 99–100, 117; labor markets and labor camps in, 23–25, 32, 35– 41, 42– 43, 195, 218n44, 218– 219n47, 235n66; map of, 8; and Midwest migrants, 24; and Plan de San Diego, 118–120; politics in, 9, 177, 197; rainfall and agriculture in, 99–100; Tejano/Anglo relations in, 32, 68, 77–79, 92– 93, 96 –100, 102–104, 115, 117, 128, 138–141, 145, 150, 155, 175, 177, 183, 185–186, 188, 191, 193, 195–197, 203, 205, 209–210, 212– 213, 222–223n12, 224 –225n23; and World War II, 207, 209, 211– 212 Southwest Texas State Teachers College, San Marcos, 93 Spain: and Anglo immigration into Texas, 15–16 Spiess, Karl O., 82 Stavans, Ilan: and “Spanglish” as A broader descriptor of the “TexMex” linguistic phenomenon, 220n78 Stern, Steve, 61; paradigm of Mexican gender relations, 215–216n5 Stevenson, Coke, 151, 153–154, 156, 159, 170, 172; and creation of Texas Good Neighbor Commission, 159–160; and Senate race of 1948, 154 –155, 177 St. Joseph’s Hospital, Omaha, Nebraska, 101, 102 Story, Cecil, 170, 173, 175 Sustaita, Lenore, 183 Sutherland, Thomas, 137–138, 143, 159–164, 167–170, 190; and leg-

islative committee investigating the Longoria dispute, 173–174, 190 Tafolla, James, Jr., 122–123 Tafolla, James, Sr., 117, 122 Taft-Hartley Bill, 171 Taylor, Paul, 19, 120 Tejanos. See Mexican Americans Texas Good Neighbor Commission, 52; and the Longoria dispute, 64, 67, 137–138, 143, 147–148, 159– 171, 173, 175–177, 179, 190; creation of, 159 Texas independence from Mexico, 16 –17 Texas Rangers, 118, 151–154 Texas Regulars, 151–156, 171–172; and bracero program, 159–160; and Good Neighbor Commission, 160 –171, 190; and Longoria dispute, 155–156, 164, 167–175, 177, 179, 189–190, 196 Texas State Board of Embalming, 64 Tex-Mex, 30 –31, 93, 220n78 Thomas family, 183 Three Rivers, Texas, 1–2, 7, 68, 79– 80, 90 –91, 116, 132–133, 139– 140, 142–146, 155, 169–170, 172, 174, 190 –191, 196, 203, 206; Chamber of Commerce of, 133– 135, 170 –171; educational segregation in, 33, 191; foundation of, 236n5; residential segregation in, 26 –29, 139–140, 191; Rotary Club in, 132 Three Rivers News, 137, 179 Tinsley, Byron, 175 Tipps, Charles R., 26 –28, 236n5 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 18 Treviño, Mathis R., 183 Truan, Carlos, 111 Truman, Harry, 64, 66, 157, 171, 189 Turner, Victor: and communitas, 68, 112, 193, 208–209, 212, 227n52; on human behavior as the product of both reasoned structural and emotive anti-structural forces, 233n34; “social drama” and the Longoria incident, 202–209, 212 University of Texas at Austin, 100, 102

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Valley Morning Star, Harlingen, Texas, 75 Vasconcelos, José: and concept of “raza cósmica,” 97, 108, 234n39. See also Knight, Alan Vaughn, Harry, 66 – 67, 157, 189 Vento, A. S., 74

War Memorial Hospital, Corpus Christi, 4, 103–104 Wassenich, Paul, 70 Weber, David, 82 Welhausen Mexican Ward School, Cotulla, Texas, 94, 148 Wellington, V. D., 76 Wilmot, Louis, 35, 117, 122 Wilmoth, Grover C., 166 Winchell, Walter, 6, 64 Windam, Representative, 173 Wooldridge Park, Austin, 153 World War I, 118, 197, 208 World War II, 152–154, 184 –185, 191, 195, 199, 202, 206, 208, 210 – 211; and bracero program, 165 Wright, Paul, 26

Wagner Act, 171 Wallerstein, Immanuel: Capitalist Systems Theory and the Longoria incident, 199–201 Warhol, Andy, 1

Zamora, Emilio, 235n66 Zayanckusky, Martin, 81– 82 Zepeda, Mike, 174, 222n8 Zimmermann, Arthur, 119–120 Zoso, Donato, 183

U.S. Army: and race relations, 102– 103, 105–106 U.S. Civil Rights Commission, 52 U.S. Department of State, 9; and Longoria dispute, 148, 158–159, 162, 165–167, 177, 179, 189, 192 U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, 148

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