END OF AN ERA: HERMINIA BECERRA, POLITIQUERA DEL BARRIO, DIES

By Juan Montoya

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."

Today, after decades of working the votes for candidates, she passed away at her home in Las Prietas, in west Brownsville. She was 95.

But back then, when she turned to politics, Ray Ramon, a Georgetown graduate, 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. For many who voted for him in the colonias, ranchitos and barrios, Herminia was the reason they had voted for the first time. Many admired her tenacity.

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 wore 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 in a variety of ways.

"When their kids get put in jail, I can put in a good word for 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 – singing political ditties in front of the county courthouse or wearing outlandish patriotic outfits– 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?"

Her death today marks the end of an era and – for good or ill – will remain a part of local political history and lore. Adios Herminia. Our condolences to her family.