On the Texas Borderline, A Solid, if Invisible, Wall

Says Vietnam veteran Max Balmadez, "They said we were trying a Mexican takeover of the Alamo."

As if they were foreign. As if they didn't belong.

Roots

I'm preparing to leave Texas, and Homero Vera and his wife, Letty, invite me to dinner at a steakhouse, where Homero hands me a thin book, "El Mesquite," written by Elena Zamora O'Shea, one of our cousins, in 1935. Narrated by a wise old mesquite tree, it is the story of our ancestral roots in this region and how we came to be marooned in our own country.

"If they were Spaniards when governed by Spain and Mexicans when governed by Mexico, why can they not be Americans now that they are under the American government?" O'Shea wrote.

I've experienced what O'Shea describes, like when a border patrol agent once saw me in my pickup and pulled me over. "Are you a citizen?" were the first words out of his mouth. It's even happened to a couple of Tejano judges who were deemed suspicious and detained.

But I am like the old mesquite tree: My identity has grown from this embattled yet glorious land and the cultures rooted here.

I remember one of my last conversations with my father three years ago, in the quiet of a Corpus Christi night as he lay in his hospital bed. He repeated his sacred promise. "I'm leaving you kids the ranch," he said quietly. "It's yours to do with what you want." And with his passing, he did just that, bequeathing a history that transcends borders.

The land is our birthright in this place now called Texas, and its history contains our Gettysburg, our Trail of Tears, the seeds of our culture. The land proves we've been here, we belong here. On these treasured memories, these beloved bones, that dreaded wall will rise.