A Tejana's Commentary on the Texas House Floor SB-4 Protest Showdown

Jos Antonio Navarro and Juan Nepomuceno Segun were founding fathers of the State of Texas, patriots who fought for Texas independence. Manuel Lorenzo de Zavala, Texas first vice president whose name is on the Texas Declaration of Independence along with Navarros, was born in Mexico. Seven Tejanos died in the Battle of The Alamo. The Texas Legislature and the State Capitol owe their existence to the vision and sacrifice of Tejanos and many of other people of Mexican origin. But to hear State Rep. Matt Rinaldi speak, if these foreign-born Tejanos showed up on the Texas House floor today, he would probably call ICE on them.

On Memorial Day, during an anti-SB-4 protest in the Texas State House floor, Rinaldi walked up to State Reps. Csar Blanco and Ramn Romero and said of the protesters, This is BS. Thats why I called ICE. Reps. Blanco and Romero, both Mexican-Americans, confronted Rinaldi for his racist comments, and it turned into what is being reported as a scuffle between Rinaldi and members of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus.

This incident is not necessarily unprecedented, considering Texas ugly history of anti-Mexican sentiment that followed the states Declaration of Independence in 1836. Outnumbered by the newly-arrived Anglo-American settlers, many Mexican families were forced out of their lands, many in a violent manner. The lynching of Mexican-Americans is a relatively unknown shadow that looms over Texas 19th-century history, a phantom that scholars write about every so often but that remains largely unexplored, perhaps because its an inconvenient truth. Mexican-Americans had to endure No Dogs or Mexicans Allowed signs in public spaces, and some places such as Cotulla, Texas, had a segregated Mexican school. The history is all there for us to analyze and to remember so that it will not be repeated, as the saying goes.

Despite our prominent role in Texas founding history, Mexican-Americans have had to fight for equality and justice in a state that once belonged to our ancestral country.

Weve managed to survive despite our tumultuous beginnings, leaving our past of discrimination, of being called greasers and beaners without hopes of an apology, far behind. Weve flourished as a community in a large, multi-cultural state that is just as proud of its Mexican origins as it is of its Native American, Czech, African, Anglo, German, Polish, and Asian. Each year, border sister cities such as Laredo, Texas and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, hold abrazo ceremonies on their international bridges as a reminder of the social, cultural and economic ties that strengthen our border cities. Texas governors like George W. Bush and Rick Perry generally stood up against anti-immigrant rhetoric and praised our trade partnership with Mexico; Governor Perry went as far as supporting in-state tuition for undocumented university students. Laws such as Arizonas SB1070 were a boogeyman from a far-away place, something that surely even Texas Republicans would never do. Despite setbacks--no state is perfect--Texas had managed to maintain its friendly state credo for all, including immigrants.

Now things have taken an ugly turn.

Texas has a governor who proudly announced on Twitter that he was warming up his pen to sign SB-4, a law that requires local law enforcement agencies to serve as immigration agents and will likely lead to racial profiling against Hispanics and create an environment of fear in the immigrant community. Its one of the most anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic laws passed in Texas in the recent past, a disturbing warning flag that hatred or fear of the other can be taken by legislators and made into law, thereby legalizing discrimination against the Hispanic community. Supported by Republicans and despised by activists and law enforcement chiefs alike, it's a reminder that in Trump's America, even a state with deep Hispanic and immigrant roots can turn against the community that forged it. SB-4 was sponsored by legislators who in the name of extremist, nativist politics have forgotten that Mexicans also fought for Texas independence and that hundreds of Mexican families founded the state alongside Anglo-American settlers.

When Rep. Matt Rinaldi taunted Reps. Csar Blanco, a Navy veteran, and Ramn Romero, and later, Rep. Poncho Nevres, by informing them that he had called ICE on Hispanic protesters, he dismissed the valor of Navarro, of Segun, of de Zavala, and of every single person of Mexican and Spanish descent who gave their life for Texas and later, for the United States. It was an ugly reminder of a past in which Mexicans were vilified and attacked, but it was also a reassurance that we have allies like Csar, Ramn and Poncho, who will not remain silent in the face of hate and bigotry. The fight against SB-4 intensifies, and so does the peoples resolve to fight for the diverse, multi-cultural Texas that we Tejanos of all colors and backgrounds have come to love.