Trouble in Crystal City
MARGOLIS, RICHARD J.
States of the Union TROUBLE IN CRYSTAL CITY BY RICHARD J. MARGOLIS So I say to you tonight, my fellow Texans, if you want your tax money used to establish a Little Cuba in Texas-to establish a...
...There was "no evidence" of wrongdoing, Judge Gesell insisted, to justify his overriding the President's claim of Executive privilege...
...The campaign paid off handsomely...
...Crystal City (population 8,000) is the seat of Zavala County, a lush agricultural territory lying to the south of San Antonio and to the north of the Mexican border...
...But before long Del Monte workers bearing cans of whitewash showed up and restored the pop icon's Anglo credentials...
...On the surface, things couldn't have looked better for the ZCEDC...
...In a clever argument, CSA officials noted that the Zavala co-op did not go far enough in helping poor people— that it would merely create a "new class of stoop laborers...
...citizens...
...Yet beneath the gloss things could not have been worse...
...The ZCEDC immediately sued, alleging that the denial of funds was a political payoff by the Carter Administration to Dolph Briscoe...
...Last month the word came...
...governor Dolph Briscoe (1976) Crystal City, Tex...
...Briscoe had helped Carter in the Presidential campaign...
...Nonetheless, the result of all those new objections was the suspension of the grant by CSA...
...Gutierrez had just received a Master's in political science from St...
...Known among Texans as the "Winter Garden Area," the land there has long been under the green thumb of wealthy white growers and corporations...
...With the War on Poverty practically moribund by the time ZCEDC came on the scene, its Federal angel was the Community Services Administration (CSA), puny heir to Lyndon Johnson's once-robust Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO...
...Someone painted Popeye brown and set a sombrero on his head...
...But that small triumph proved only a start...
...The Community Services Administration sent an official letter to Gutierrez that revoked the grant and bullyingly demanded repayment of certain previously paid-out funds...
...At that juncture, nature and capitalism took their course...
...The next morning citizens came from miles around to admire the Chicanoization of the six-foot high statue, which for years had reigned over the town square, a gift-reminder from the Del Monte people that Crystal City was "The Spinach Capital of the World...
...but he couldn't veto it, so most observers thought he had become embroiled in a losing battle...
...Together they succeeded in killing off a promising, Federally-funded cooperative that the Chicanos had been painfully organizing since 1975...
...For planting and harvesting energy they have relied on Mexican workers from across the Rio Grande, a cheap and plentiful source...
...In particular, the ZCEDC was high on Governor Dolph Briscoe's "hit" list...
...Nevertheless, when a delegation of students complained to the principal, that worthy replied that their words were "a bunch of phooey...
...The Chicanos suffered a setback when Federal Judge Gerhard Gesell ruled that the White House was not obliged to release its file of Carter-Briscoe memos...
...Gutierrez argued back that the corporation would pump thousands of dollars into the depressed local economy, paying over 200 workers an average of $3.50 per hour— much more than the typical wage paid in the "Winter Garden Area...
...Furthermore, CSA director Olivarez had "exercised her unbiased judgment in the matter...
...Worse, the new majority has been acquiring an appreciation for democratic processes-both their promise and their practice-and consequently has been making life uncomfortable for the white landowners (the new minority...
...a moderately liberal, rural-minded Democrat occupied the White House, and a Chicano from the Southwest was in the antipoverty chair...
...In all but word, it was the end of the line...
...He has a big stake in undermining Chicano political interests there...
...Faced with the prospect of a long, costly trial, and already in hock for $20,000 in legal fees, the ZCEDC reluctantly dropped its suit last July...
...The democratic current began to swell in 1970 when a typically Texas-style argument over the choosing of cheerleaders for the Crystal City High football team erupted into a full-scale revolt...
...Last month, just when it seemed the Chicanos were getting somewhere, their efforts were again doused with whitewash, not by Del Monte this time but by a ring of politicians in Texas and Washington...
...According to a report by Lisa Spann in the Texas Observer, Briscoe "even showed up in person to plead his case and also used his clout to line up congressional support for his crusade to save south Texas from the Raza Unida-tied co-op...
...and to prove it, he appointed Graciela Olivarez, a Chicano bureaucrat from Arizona, as the agency's new director...
...You're so strong...
...As John Shockley, an Austin-based scholar, tells it in his contribution to a collection on The Beginnings of Bronze Power (Morrow), things heated up as soon as a special faculty committee chose just one Chicano cheerleader out of five named-a maneuver as difficult as it was insensitive, since 88 per cent of the entire student body was Chicano...
...Even Graciela Olivarez, Carter's great brown hope, was heard to express reservations about the co-op plan...
...States of the Union TROUBLE IN CRYSTAL CITY BY RICHARD J. MARGOLIS So I say to you tonight, my fellow Texans, if you want your tax money used to establish a Little Cuba in Texas-to establish a communal farm in Texas-to promote Socialism in Texas-if you want Federal funds to finance efforts to destroy the free enterprise system that has built this state and this nation of ours, then you want a continuation of power of an administration that makes such grants to the Raza Unida Party...
...He called it the Zavala County Economic Development Corporation (ZCEDC), a project closely linked with Raza Unida but wholly dependent for funds on the Federal establishment...
...There followed the obligatory school boycott, a near-total success, then the administration's repentance and the selection of more Chicano cheerleaders...
...Mary's University in San Antonio, and the title of his dissertation—"The Empirical Conditions for Revolution in Four South Texas Counties"-left little doubt as to his ambitions...
...The brain behind this remarkable political success is said to belong to a young Crystal City native named Jose Angel Gutierrez, who with his wife happened to return to town during the height of the cheerleader dispute...
...Lame-duck Governor Dolph Briscoe led the pack, with President Jimmy Carter not far behind...
...Now, calling in his IOU, he began pestering top White House aides to prevent release of the ZCEDC grant money...
...In a subsequent election the Chicanos organized a new political party-la Raza Unida-and proceeded to win control of both the school board and City Council...
...Nowadays La Raza Unida is the most powerful political party in Zavala County, regularly electing its slate of Chicanos plus a handful of friendly Anglos...
...We are getting close to the point here, which means we are entering the Land of Abbreviations, so please pay attention...
...Gutierrez also put together a community action program that the Carter Administration has just torpedoed...
...After Nixon dismantled the OEO, the courts compelled him to leave a saving remnant, the CSA, to continue funding and administering the few antipoverty programs still extant...
...Over the generations they have dug in and multiplied, so that today Zavala County is 70 per cent Chicano...
...Although the incident occurred two years ago, it remains a fair sample of the cruel dilemma confronting the residents of this brown, poverty-stricken community groping for muscle in a white, affluent America...
...Closely identified with the politics of Raza Unida, the Chicanos' economic development corporation had become an instant target of reigning Texas Democrats, especially of those whose power base was in or around Zavala County...
...Soon attorneys for the CSA were finding a lot of things wrong with the Zavala proposal, errors they had not been able to spot during six months that the proposal had lain on their desks...
...I'm Popeye the sailor man: I am what I am what I am...
...Briscoe is from Uvalda County and owns 22,000 acres in neighboring Zavala...
...As the growers see it, the problem is that too many Mexicans have settled north of the border and become U.S...
...Gutierrez, he warned, wanted "a little Cuba in Texas...
...His chance seemed to come in 1975 when the ZCEDC announced plans for a 1,000-acre farm cooperative, to be controlled and managed by dues-paying county residents...
...It was Gutierrez, according to friends and foes alike, who led La Raza Unida to victory, and he is now chairman of the party as well as a county judge...
...Jimmy Carter, however, early on announced his intention to beef up CSA programs, especially those assisting minority Americans...
...Then Jimmy Carter took over the White House...
...The proposal, including an export-import operation and a savings and loan investment program, was sent to CSA with an initial price tag of $885,000...
...But in recent years the workers have been troublesome...
...in Crystal City, Chicanos outnumber Anglos by a ratio of 10:1...
...Briscoe promptly went on the warpath, labeling the co-op scheme "un-American" and "un-Texan...
...Oooo, Popeye," squealed Olive Oyl...
...To understand what happened, one must know something about south Texas politics and geography...
...Once the grant was awarded, Briscoe could hold it up for 60 days by insisting on his right of review...
Vol. 61 • November 1978 • No. 23
