A MESSAGE TO NEWCOMERS: USE A MODICUM OF CIVILITY

By Juan Montoya
With the new month coming, a friend of mine needed to get her license plates renewed but hadn't been able to get away from work to do it.
As with most of us, her job and the daily chores made waiting in line at the Cameron County Tax Assessor-Collector's Office inconvenient and she couldn't find the time to do it. The Southmost and Las Prietas substations have been unable to process the renewals for some time now, and, being the frugal type, she balked at paying the surcharges levied at the commercial renewal places and at the HEBs.
I told her I'd be in the courthouse area and would renew it for her if she provided me with her license, insurance and renewal notice from the state and she eagerly accepted. Her vehicle inspection was due the same month and she also provided me with the receipt since the change to only one window sticker took effect this spring.
And so I found myself in the long line from the renewal counter out the door, looping around the hallway and then almost out the entrance to the tax collector's office. This was last Thursday, the last day of April and the registration would expire at the end of the day. Needless to say, there were a lot of people waiting to get their sticker.

The line moved slowly and when I commented this to the lady standing in line in front of me, she said this was the second time she had gotten in line because she had forgotten to get an inspection receipt from the inspection station. There were elderly waiting, even a woman in a walker who was there with her provider. We all waited to get out business done.
Just two people from the front, there were three young men who, judging by their language and dress, were obviously from Matamoros or had lived there before.
You know the type. Boots made of some exotic animal hide, designer dress shirt open at the top two buttons, shirt-tails worn outside, designer jeans, and the omnipresent key chain decoration (this time, a little cowboy boot) dangling from the left jean front pocket,
Those of us who live near the border can distinguish people are from El Valle when they speak, and sometimes you can even tell what barrio in Brownsville they are from.  Judging by the frequency of their use of the word "guey," it was obvious they were Mexican, from Matamoros or from some nearby border town.
At about that time – I was three people from the renewal counter – a man came in through the door and got into the back of the line. The way the line hugged the walls of the corridor, the new arrival was standing directly across from the bottleneck that formed across the corridor from the start of the line near the counter. The new arrival and the three friends knew each other. With  a nod and a wink, the new guy surreptitiously handed over his renewal papers to the one ahead of us. They smiled at each other and continued talking, this time joined by the new guy.
I – and the rest of the line – had been standing waiting to get service for the better part of half an hour. The new guy, because of his camaradas, didn't have to wait but maybe five.
No one said a word, except me.
"Entonces Usted no se tiene que esperar como nosotros?" I asked (You don't have to wait like the rest of us?).
He was taken aback and could only say something to the effect that he had forgotten un papel (the inspection receipt) and had gone back to get it.
"So did she," I said, pointing to the lady in front of me. "But she didn't go to the head of the line like you."
His friends cam t the rescue and said something like "Todos estamos aqui por lo mismo (we're all here for the same thing)."
"That's right," I said. "So what makes you any better that you don't have to wait?"
I only had three people ahead of me so it was a matter of minutes and I did my business and left. But I looked at the elderly people standing there waiting, including the lady with the walker, and I felt angry that these obviously healthy bucks showed such a complete and utter disrespect to them by gaming the system to get ahead of the line.
To me, this wasn't intelligent (vivos) and it wasn't savvy (al alba). It was a complete ignorance and disregard for the social contract we all observe toward each other.
As the violence-fueled exodus of economically-active leads more and more Mexican citizens to cross the river and live among us, it may be one of those features of living here that may take a while for them to adapt to and to accept.
You don't load a shopping cart and get in the express checkout register. You don't go to a convenience store and push your way to the head of the line because you are in a hurry. It's a convenience store. Everyone is like you, in a hurry. You don't get in the wrong traffic lane knowing there's an intersection ahead where you need to turn and then hold up traffic as you plead with the drivers in the other cars to let your pass when you should have known better.
The customs of privilege, favored classes, influence, and trampling on others' rights to get your way are the very things that led two to revolutions in Mexico. It took a Oaxacan native to set the rule: "El respeto al derecho ajeno, es la paz."
How soon we forget.