The Magic Valley Boosters & Settler Place Myths
This land has been through many layers of colonization, starting with the stealing of land from the Native American Tribes here. The change from a ranching society to one based on mass agriculture added another coat of colonial extraction. One that brought loss of land and less economic opportunities for middle to lower class ranchers and vaqueros. (Juan Carmona, interview, September 15, 2023) They had to seek work in the agricultural sector, and work on the lands that some of them once owned. These labor jobs did not pay the same and required mass amounts of labor. The shift to mass agriculture was led by anglo merchants who saw a business venture on the lands of the Rio Grande Valley Delta. This led to the building of mass irrigation systems and an advertising campaign to lure more anglos from the north to invest in these lands, with the promise of cheap Mexican labor at hand. (8, Peons and Progressives) This campaign was called the Magic Valley. Mexican American Studies teacher at Donna High School, Juan P. Carmona adds “This economic shift also created resentment in the Mexican community and held back generations from becoming prosperous members of society. Those who reside in the Valley today are still playing catch up, from all that was taken from them.” (Juan Carmona, interview, September 15, 2023)
In the article, inventing the Magic Valley, scholars Christian Brannstrom and Matthew Neuman define a “place-myth” as a “discourse that legitimize[s] social practices that alter the material landscape.”(9, Inventing the Magic Valley, p.1) In the examples below, you see how images and advertisements created a myth of the Rio Grande Valley Delta.
The City of Palms, 1927, Rio Grande Valley Promotional Literature Collection, Box 1. The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Library Archives and Special Collections.
“In the magazine In Rio Grande Valley Paradise, Sharyland the cover presented the viewer with the imagined future of the area should it come under the productive and disciplined organization of “progressive” and “thinking men.” The illustration was an imagined aerial view of orderly rows and columns of crops and citrus trees, evoking notions of productivity, order, security, regularity, and discipline over the natural forces of land, water, and labor. No longer was the land littered with masses of dry shrub and cactus and randomly dotted with clusters of mud huts but rather the gridded profit-bearing trees and crops were regularly intersected by paved roads and planned infrastructure. These grids provided clear boundaries for property rights, provided efficient controlled channels through which capital could travel, and through social institutions, provided for the proper racial and class relationships.” (8, Peons and Progressives, p.15)
In Peons and Progressives, the authors describe that the racialization of Mexicans creates an image of a place that is profitable for the anglo landowner, keeps Mexicans subservient and the source of labor, and provides comfort and security for the new anglo settlers. The Texas Rangers often worked alongside wealthy investors and landowners, to instill terror into Mexicanos and keep them as the cheap labor promised in the advertisements. Through analyzing the promotional materials of early 20th century boosters, we also see the racialization of the Mexican for the continual colonization (exploitation of land and people as labor) for profit. Examining these booster materials is important in understanding that current racial narratives in the Rio Grande Valley Delta have a historical precedent.
American Rio Grande Land and Irrigation Company, See Texas First, 1930, Rio Grande Valley Promotional Literature Collection, Box 1. Photo courtesy of The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Archives and Special Collections.
The Mexican was called a peon, a low skill labor with an accompanying text found next to this image of a Mexican labor and his donkey, as a “gleaner”. This word refers to gathering in small portions, specific to gathering what is left after big harvests. Similarly as how natives were portrayed as uncivilized for being hunters and gatherers, and not having a system of agriculture. (8, Peons and Progressives) These images are part of the white imaginary, that created these perpetual place myths to denigrate, vilify, and belittle the local indigenous people.
(Home Sweet Home) Margaret H, McAllen Memorial Archives, Museum of South Texas History, Edinburg, TX.
Another example is how the promotional materials reference “Jacales”, as clusters not homes. (8, Peons and Progressives) These Mexican and Native American homes were made out of materials you would normally find in the landscape, sticks, mud, and grasses. Mexicans and Natives were seen as uncivilized, because they “failed” to tame the land and water for the “progress of civilization”. Irrigation was seen as progressive, providing the farmer with water, “whenever he needed it.” (8, Peons and Progressives)
References:
8, Peons and Progressives
Free Download https://philarchive.org/archive/WIMPAP
9, Inventing the Magic Valley
Free Download https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230264017_Inventing_the_Magic_Valley_of_South_Texas_1905-1941
Links:
Juan P. Carmona, Civil Rights History of the Rio Grande Valley
