A DEARTH OF HISTORY IN BROWNSVILLE?

By Juan Montoya

Northfield, Minnesota’s claim to fame happened on September 7, 1876 when the James and Jesse James and the Younger brothers attempted a raid on the First National Bank in the waning days of their criminal career after being chased away by lawmen from their southern haunts.
That’s it as far as Northfield history is concerned.

Other than that, it suffered the same ignominy of drabness and Midwest boredom as do countless other small burgs up north.
Yet, for a weekend every summer, the town (and its economy) comes alive as tourists from throughout the Midwest and Canada make the trek to see the reenactment of the raid and its aftermath (two town residents were killed and two of the Younger brothers were hanged).
The hotels are filled. Mementos and books detailing the raid are sold like hot hot dogs on street corners, and kids get to dress up like cowboys and get scared when real life bank robbers accost them on the street.

It’s great fun. And visitors gladly plunk their greenbacks to see it.
Compare that scene to Brownsville.
The Brownsville Convention and Visitors Bureau claims that Brownsville has “A History as Big as Texas."

What about the wealth of history available to us here to generate economic activity?

We have the first battles of the Mexican-American War, the last battle of the Civil War, the Cortina Raid of Brownsville, the setting up of Porfirio Diaz's revolution against the Mexican government, Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart's inaugural flights of mail service to Latin America, the capture of the Zimmerman Telegram at the bridge, the start of the Chisolm Trail, etc., etc., etc.

Yet, all we get for all this history is a commercially-manufactured celebration dubbed Charro Days which was an invention of local businessmen and chamber of commerce sunshine boys who needed to drum up business with our vecinos across the river.

For three or four days our local white population gets to dress up like Mexican peasants and charros and their wives as peasant girls and partake of events like A Taste of Brownsville, the Pan American Round Table costume party, dancing and dining ad nauseaum.

And, oh, yeah, our Ambassador of Good Will Ralph Cowen gets to make his imitation of the Mexico grito which sounds like a cross between a yelp and the sound of someone stepping on a dog. But beware, there is a younger Cowen being trained to carry on this most-important Charro Day tradition. We can hardly wait.

How do you think people across the river look at us?

For the rest of the year we build walls to keep them out, enforce strict rules on the interchange of commerce and tourism, and generally let them know that they are not really welcome here.

When was the last time you took your date on a leisurely walk across the river and into downtown Matamoros? And do you remember the grilling you got coming back from U.S. Customs and the ICE gestapo?

Then, in February, almost like clockwork for the last cold front of winter, we embrace them and hug our Metzican neighbors and even elect one of their novela or croon idols as our little "Mr. Ameego."

Last time Eugenio Derbez didn't want to come because it was going to cost him too much time and money to visit without pay (No hay honorario? Forget it! La gente de Brownsville es muy pinzel, guey!)

So what do we have as far as historical celebrations here? I can't think of a single thing. Oh, we have the Confederate Air Force jocks flying around the city that weekend. Seems this is where the United States launched its scouting expedition looking for Pancho Villa and came back with their planes all shot to hell.

You know, neighborly.

Peter Goodman and Joe Gavito unveil the gutted insides of the Capitol Theater each time there's a Brownsville Jazz Festival. Except for last year, when the weather was too cold for it to be opened to the public.

About the only time we see the haughty Mr. Goodman make his cameo it's usually to harangue against some poor widow who can't afford to rehabilitate her old house that has become a refuge for crackheads and their ilk.

Of course, we can always go gawk at the Stillman House, but in the back of our minds we know that the history of Brownsville didn't start with the invasion of the U.S. military. And we know that Stillman was nothing more than a glorified thief who took all he could and gypped the local folks (and even his lawyer accomplices) before he made off for New York to become a founding patriarch of Citibank.

We either get serious about this business or you can just admit that all we're doing is paying lip service to the historical grant foundations and state agencies that fund some of these folk's salaries.

Look. Worthington, Minnesota has something called King Turkey Day. This celebration harks back to the days when the city was a large poultry processing center. They have turkey races down Main Street and invite the governor and special guests to attend.

They even have Cuero, Texas, as a Sister City after they learned that the Texas city had staged a live turkey race - a turkey trot - as part of its turkey celebration.

How can it be that a town of 13,000 people whose only claim to fame was that it was a center for killing chickens and turkeys can put on this yearly festival and King Turkey Peter Goodman and fellow Tom Joe Gavito can't even manage a decent reenactment of the Cortina raid?