MAYRA MENTIRAS: I WORKED IN THE COTTON FIELDS AT 5....

"In 2004 she graduated high school in San Benito, TX. Growing up, Mayra worked alongside her parents in the cotton fields in Memphis, TX to earn extra money for school clothes and supplies, instilling the value of hard work and the importance of education in her at a young age..." From https://www.mayrafloresforcongress.com/about-mayra/ 

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

It was such a romantic narrative to spin, thought the Republican Party of Texas handlers of Mayra Flores, their candidate for U.S. Congress District 34 against Democrat Vicente Gonzalez.

Here she is, an immigrant, an Hispanic woman (Latina) even, who came to this country with humble (but honest) parents to work in the cotton fields and pull themselves up by their tirantes.

Can't beat that with a cotton stalk, can you?

It almost makes you feel all patriotic and fuzzy and to yearn for Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, except for one thing. It's a lie.

And it's a lie that she and her handlers have been trying hard to finesse after it was questioned by media types. How can she claim to work in the Texas cotton fields at 13 in 1999 to earn money for school clothes and supplies when the entire cotton planting, harvesting, and weeding was done mechanically and with the use of herbicides since before 1970, almost 30 years before?

Her literature says that she was born January 1, 1986, and that her parents (humble but honest) brought her to the U.S. at the age of six (1992). (See graphic below)

Flores' has repeatedly made (patently false) claims that she labored as a farm worker at 13 in the cotton fields in West Texas to earn money for school clothes. But it sells, don't it? Why let facts get in the

way of a good story? Her supporters defended the claim saying that perhaps she hoed weeds then, but why use hoers if there are plenty of herbicides?

But it sells and that is what mattered to Flores.

When a reporter asked her for an interview to ascertain her bona fides as a farmworker in the cotton fields, she refused an interview or to provide proof and directed him to talk to "the farmers" of Memphis, Texas instead, repeating her farmworker status claim. 

And when anyone is skeptical of her claims, she says she is being "victimized" because she is an Hispanic woman. Team Mentiras even dug up an eight-year-old post that blogger Jerry McHale had published (2014) – and which El Rrun-Rrun reposted then – parodying local politics using the "N" word for shock and awe and tried to say we had "amplified" his racist views in our "attack" on Flores.

That was a far reach, even for them. Eight years ago no one had heard about Mayra Flores. The pity of it is that we are hearing about her now.

Now it appears that in one of the latest Texas Republican Party mailouts that appeared in local mail boxes this week, the "cotton picking" narrative has changed yet again. 

You see, she "misspoke" about working in the cotton fields in West Texas. She actually worked in the fields in Burgos, Tamaulipas to buy school clothes and supplies. 

Yeah, that's the ticket. (See graphic at right.)

Ok. If she came to the United States (legally) at six, that means that her father had her working along his side in the hot cotton fields in northern Tamaulipas before then, say four or five? What a monster! Do you think any Mexican mother would allow her baby girl, la Niña, to be put to work out in the 90- to 100-degree-plus heat in the fields of Northern Tamaulipas?

Mechanical cotton pickers hadn't been introduced there yet in 1991?

And at four or five, what clothes and school supplies does a child need when they don't even attend school yet?

Well, are you sure it's a political narrative that is being spun, or is it merely a yarn that was spun and that is fast becoming unraveled which tries to paint Flores as a humble (but honest, well no, we take that back) immigrant just like you and your parents?

Pobrecita Mayra Mentiras. There go those nasty bloggers picking (no pun intended) on her again porque es una embustera.