Many decades ago, when Herminia Becerra had her three girls and was a migrant worker thinning sugar beets in Nebraska, she looked around and realized it was not her taza de cafe.
"Era una vida muy dura," she recalls. "You worked from sunup to sundown and had very little to show for it. I decided to try politics."
Those were the days when Ray Ramon was taking on the Cameron County political establishment and the establishment was fighting back. Ramon courted the barrios and the rural areas for support and found a willing adherent in Herminia.
"Ramon ayudaba la gente," she recalls. "I didn't ask him for any money. I took his cards and started walking the streets of Las Prietas getting him votes."
Ramon won. And soon, other aspiring politicians beat a path to her door seeking her backing and her support. Not one to wilt under the public gaze, Herminia soon teamed up with other politiqueras – as political practitioners are called here – and soon had a system of harvesting votes that many aspiring politicians courted.
She wears the name like a badge, proudly, but aware of the bad connotations the label implies. To date, a handful of politiqueras (or politiqueros), some of them her friends, have been indicted and convicted of illegally harvesting votes at adult day care centers or in the poor barrios of the city. But Herminia says she has loyal followers who give her their vote because she has helped them on a variety of ways.
"When their kids get put in jail, I can put in a good word form them." she said. "If they get a traffic ticket or need the city to patch a pothole on their street, I can talk to someone to come out and take care of them. They don't forget."
She has been featured in many nationwide media and her image – signing political ditties in front of the county courthouse or wearing outlandish costumes – has been disseminated across the country. While she is no ham, it is clear she enjoys the attention, especially around election time.
"Vamos a ganar...con Neece vamos a ganar," she laughs and launches into a song for her current candidate. "Verdad, mi'jo que vamos a ganar?"
11 comments:
The KISS OF DEATH for Neece. How could you do that, juan? he paid you, bro!...
I think Ben Neece will win this election and put the incumbent back on the streets making tortillas. Ben may not be the straightest arrow in the arena, but he probably has a pair big enough to stand up to Da Mayor. Vote Ben Neece! Make cannibas legal!!
shouldn't Cesar Chavez be in the photo you posted?
Esa Becerra needs to be locked up like the rest of the politiqueras. Everybody knows esa rata went around harvesting illegal votes. And then boast that she started as a politiquera with Ray Ramon. Y quien era Ray Ramon? Otro rata that got away with all the county corruption going on at the time. Want he tried for attempting to kill Adolph Thomae? She sounds like our own Aurorita de la Garza. She worked soooo hard... And had nothing to show? What does that tell you. She went as a politiquera and had a better life and know can show for it. What does that tell you? Que a esa Herminia was for sale and they paid her to harvest votes for candidates. She didn't to it out of kindness of her heart.. She did it because they paid her.. Bola de ratas...
If I were John Villarreal I'd run an ad with just this picture and say here are Ben Neece's biggest supporters. Ol' Benny Boy won't even get elected Dog Catcher after that!
Wtf was that for?
There were more than a handful convicted of vote stealing. You've gone soft, Juanito.
If that's Herminia, man she has lost weight
crooked fukken town left and right
These politiqueras are the flies buzzing around the steaming pile of shit that is Brownsville politics. They are a despicable bunch of human beings.
Is that guy in the photo Ray Liotta?
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