CHARRO DAYS: A FIVE DAY TRUCE TO THE CULTURE WARS

By Juan Montoya

We have built walls to keep its people out, our Congress has increased the number of armed guards along the border between them and us, call their country a failed state, speak of its politicians with disdain, and advise our citizens not to venture there.

But for the five Charro Fiesta "holy days," it suddenly becomes our good neighbor to the south, we praise its customs, adulate its cuisine, covet its women, and celebrate the image of the virile Mexican male harking back to its agrarian days.

Yup, it's Charro Days again.

But lest they actually take our charade seriously, we have made sure that a wall is in place separating Fortress America from Metzico to keep out the hordes of their violence-prone unwashed masses and seek to exert control over our southern border.

To an outsider looking in it must seem  nigh schizophrenic that while with one hand we extend an olive branch to our neighbors to the south, with the other we turn our heads away and hold our nose.

Gone are they days of "paso libre," when Northern Mexico residents were allowed a free pass across the river with only the promise that they would return after the annual twin-city celebration. That came to a stop when immigration authorities discovered that many of them had their children put on three change of clothes, crossed the bridge, waved a friendly ola and adios to the Customs officer, decided they liked it fine here...and didn't return. 

And sure enough, many of them went on to become upstanding local citizens. Others went further north.

But for these five high days, locals will make believe that they love their neighbors. And, yes, we'd rather they come here instead of us going over there. You understand, of course.

For this cultural war truce period, there will be no mention of the standard claims by locals that the only justification that hundreds of students attend classes in the local school district is a borrowed address in Brownsville, no complaints of the traffic jams at local schools mornings and afternoons as cars with Mexican license plates line up to pick up their kids, no allegations of so-called "anchor babies," a stop to the whining over the abuse of the medical and social services delivery systems by people plainly from across the Rio Grande, and willingly ignore the supposed haughty animosity by some well-to-do Mexicans toward border "pochos."

Instead, local gringos and Mexican-Americans will actually dress like they think Mexicans did in the bygone days of an agrarian economy and romp and dance through the city streets acting like, well, Mexicans.

For these few days, people on both sides of the Rio Grande make believe that the rampant violence that now plagues the southern side of the river and occasionally spills over into the Rio Grande Valley as cartel operatives settle scores with rivals on South Texas streets doesn't exist.

We make believe that the millions that go into Fred Rusteberg's IBC Bank (as he makes believe as well) is money earned by the Mexican depositors and their American middle men with their honest sweat. We make believe that the death of commerce in Mexican mercados, plazas, and Matamoros commercial districts have come to a standstill on their own. We try not to convince ourselves that the sudden surge of investment in Valley real estate, restaurants, and other commercial capital ventures whose Matamoros owners have transferred across the border to avoid extortion from La Mana and crooked police and bureaucrats and official high-handedness is due to our "improved business climate."

Even as Bean Ayala dons his too-tight charro pants and waltzes down Elizabeth Street with thrilled septuagenarian Snowbird babes, there are several families in Brownsville who are still hoping that their sons, who disappeared years ago while in Matamoros will somehow reappear alive. There are others who still get phone calls from people in Reynosa who pretend to be long-lost relatives and try to con locals to make arrangements to meet them in Mexico.

The parents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata got part of a road named after him after he was slain by the Zetas on the San Luis-Mexico City road while he was working for the U.S.  To date, the Mexican government has turned over a suspect it says was the guilty one. We can only hope that they are being honest for once and not turn over some poor sap who is no longer of value to them. It would be a decent thing for the family to see that Mexico really means it when it says that it cherishes the relationship between our two cultures and deliver the killers to justice.

It is patently unfair, of course, to hang this albatross around the neck of the Brownsville-Matamoros annual fiesta. But these are very unusual times and things tend to be mixed up and roiled so that one thing in inevitably tied to the other.

The silver lining - as the Chamber of Commerce Sunshine Boys like to say - is that the business fortunes of  Brownsville and South Texas have become the beneficiaries of the ills and violence plaguing our neighbors in Matamoros as the commercially active Mexicans place their investments on our side of the river. That alone, they say, is cause enough for celebrating and dancing in the streets in these austere times.

But while Matamoros residents look bemusedly on our anglo charros with their fake moustaches and pot-bellies drooping over their laboring braided leather belts, those of us on this side who invited them over the charco to participate in our decidedly commercial annual celebration should know they are fully aware that we're playing a game and should be thankful they are here at all.
Then - like someone who marries into another family (you can't pick your in-laws) - we'll pose for the group photo - grin our teeth, breathe a sigh of relief once it's over, and go on our merry way until the next family reunion comes around.