ENGAGED MEXICAN-AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS CLEAR WINNER

By Juan Montoya
In the U.S. democratic system, the motto is: you play the game, you take your chances.
The charm in that system, of course, is that you have the opportunity to play the game, to participate in the election of the public's representatives.
Winning or losing is just part of the game.
In some countries that's not even an option. In others, the system is so rigged against the individual from the get-go that it doesn't really matter if you vote or not.

There have been living among us – on both sides of the Gateway Bridge over the Rio Grande – a section of the population that for a long time stayed away from politics on the U.S. side. These folks has U.S. citizenship and so did their offspring. However, for the most part, they were business people and entrepreneurs who had a distaste for the petty games played in Brownsville and Cameron County politics. Whatever happened on the U.S. side really didn't matter to them or influence their investments on either side of the river.
On the U.S. side, they watched amused as city politicians climbed over each other to harvest the fruits of public service. They watched as the paid political ward heelers (or politiqueras) harvested the votes of the elderly and infirm to gain their paymasters political power.
On the Mexican side, the dominant PRI (and sometimes the PAN) for the most part stayed away from their interests. A small tribute during the campaign was sometimes required for the occasional favor one needed to do business with the city and state government.
Over time, that group has felt the gradual erosion of the city, state and federal government on the Mexican side as the northern part of the country (and the entire state of Tamaulipas) spiraled toward failure as governmental entities. Cartels now rule parts of the state. And the security apparatus that once kept their interests safe have now succumbed before the assault of chaos and insecurity. Extortion by armed criminals is now a way of life from the macro to the micro. And once you give in to extortion it becomes insatiable, and its demands keep growing until someone doing business finds himself (and herself) working for them.
Children, even those attending private schools, are not safe. Neither is anyone who appears to be doing well economically. Just as there was a Black Hand in American-Italian neighborhoods in the east, the gangs in Irish neighborhoods, and diverse mobs charging protection in other ethnic communities, La Maña is now entrenched in northern Mexican cities.
The result has been a flight of the Mexican business and middle class (often with U.S. citizenship) to the U.S. side. The occasional kickback to the fire or building inspector here does not compare with the systematic extortion on the Mexican side.
Once here, this population found itself with little or no representation in local government. Unlike those who fled the Porfiriato, this new group is not looking backwards. They have established their professional, businesses here and plan to make this community their permanent home. This is where they have educated their children and where they look forward to raising their future generations. Many of those children attended Catholic and private schools, went on to good colleges and universities and may even have voted in state and national races there. But the sense of civic participation in local politics was never instilled in them. Until now.
There is little or nothing nostalgic to remember now about living in Matamoros save for the ability to walk in the Plaza Juarez, your favorite restaurant or bar, or to take a walk in the mercado pedestrian mall or to court a girl around El Laguito without fear.
The candidacy of Yolanda Begum for the Justice of the Peace 2-2 court was one of the first forays into the fray of politcs here by that group. The Begum campaign was one characterized by loteria (chalupa) gatherings, fashion show fundraisers, and raffles mixed in with political appeals for the candidate. Begum was the top vote getter in the 2012 Democratic primary, only to have that victory snatched away by the blatant use of politiqueras hired by her adversary. If they indeed tried to pay that game, they were bested by an adversary who had nurtured these fraudulent tactics for decades.
So far, a handful of the paid politiqueras involved in that race have been indicted and some still face court dates from their vote harvesting for the Hernandez machine dating back to that race.
The fact that the political hierarchy (Gilberto Hinojosa, Joe Rivera, Sylvia Garza-Perez) of the Cameron County Democratic Party backed the Hernandez was not lost on this growing politically-active group. In the general election, they deserted the Democrats and went with Republican county judge Carlos Cascos.
Their growing clout was last felt during the recent city elections where Cesar de Leon was the top vote getter of the 15 candidates for the differing offices in the running. De Leon's 4,335 votes in the primary assured him of the At-Large "A" position without a runoff. More importantly, he beat out incumbent mayor Tony Martinez's 3,538.
In fact, the total votes in the early voting for the four candidates in the mayoral and District 1 runoff was 4,760, only 425 more than the 4,335  garnered by De Leon alone in the primary.
The growing clout of this new entrant into the city's political life is clearly being felt in the numbers. That's not necessarily a bad thing since he represents to voters an injection of youth, professionalism and they see in candidates like him someone without discernible political bonds or compromising attachments to the old system.
In other words, it's a fresh start. We can only hope that other industrious groups among us like the Korean-Americans, African-Americans, and Indian-Americans will likewise take an interest in city government and cast their political lot in the game with all of us. They would also be welcome.