Lone Star (137 page)

The differences, and the aspects of these differences, were endless; they could not be obviated unless the Mexican either consciously or unconsciously rejected his heritage. Americans offered him the chance to do so, as they offered all other immigrants, and Texans' contempt was extreme when the Mexican, still complaining bitterly because his own values were not accepted, let the offer pass.

The manifestations of discontent that in the 1960s began to appear—strikers bearing emblems of the Virgin of Guadalupe, union leaders demanding improvement of the workers' lot—were not nearly so important, or so dangerous to the whole society, as the new, sudden demands of the rising classes: bilingual education, instruction in Hispanic civilization, the fused society. These aroused little alarm, because their implications, in the practical and pragmatic, noncultural Anglo society, were not understood. Many people were inclined to grant them, thinking this might make Americans of Mexicans at last. Politicians who needed Mexican votes, and could no longer take for granted a group shaking off its inertia, were inclined even more so to go along.

The Texas Mexican could make it more easily politically than he could economically, in his new chosen land.

In the 1960s, when more than half of the nearly 750,000 people in San Antonio were Spanish-speaking, the outlines of the emergence, through political power, of a new Quebec were clear. Few Americans saw this, because few Americans enjoyed perspective. There was a grudging feeling that the Mexican had to be given a better break. Experimental classes in bilingual education were already under way; there were strong pressures to give Mexicans at least ceremonial membership on all public boards and offices, whether they were qualified or not. The day of the Anglo political boss was almost over; the Democratic Party writhed in concern, while the Republicans sniffed the signs of major overturn. It was beginning to be widely said, and believed, that the ballot was the American way to equality and respect. Few dared say that it was also the way to confirm a Mexican nation living entirely within the United States. Less concerned than any were a new horde of American-Anglo businessmen, many from the Northern states, who had realized that the "unique Spanish culture of old San Antonio" held glorious opportunities for profit. "Old Spanish culture," like spicy Mexican food, could be endlessly purveyed, above all to an increasing Northern American mass losing its own sense of identity and roots. Whatever came of this new confluence of cultures in Texas, it could no more be stopped than the original invasion had been, because out of it some men made money.

The Mexican could make a new Quebec in south Texas, but it was not likely he could remake the greater society to which he, like the Anglo-Texan himself, was irremedially attached. He was probably always doomed to feel somewhat a stranger in his own land, for which he had a profound love. Already, a new Mexican mythos was coming forth: the Mexican had always been there; the land had always resounded to the Spanish tongue; this land was theirs. All of this was true, but only in limited degree.

A defeated Anglo politician, driving past the Alamo, was perhaps more bitter than profound, when he said: "Next time, that place will not fall by bullets; they'll use the American way." In this, perhaps, was still a profound hope. At worst, the polarization into powerful Anglo and Hispanic societies could produce new trouble; it was not likely to create worse trouble, or more injustice, than there had already been before. At worst, it could create a Mexican Quebec. At best, it could make, instead, an American Alsace. This much was certain. The world was not made, nor was the great game of cultural life and death upon the planet done.

Chapter 37

PLUS ÇA CHANGE. . .

The old order changeth, yielding place to new

And God fulfils himself in many ways,

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

AS Texas in the 1960s emerged from the prospect of an empire into one of the nation's dozen "imperial states"—and with a Texan, Lyndon B. Johnson, as president—the focus of Northern and national attention was on "change." By "change," most observers meant: When will Texans become more like the rest of the nation?

Because Texas experienced little history but posted a stunning record of economic development—which are not the same thing—during the second half of the century, the state did grow more like the nation in many ways. It suffered most of the same maladies, from economic downturns, to urban woes, to revenue shortfalls, to inadequate public education replete with falsehoods about American history. It displayed the same flaccid commercial cosmopolitanism that pervaded America from coast to coast. And it had a few problems all its own, due to rapid changes in economic life and landscape.

The most striking change was the growth of Texas's cities. This, of course, was only a continuation of early-20th-century trends, but the pace was faster. Texas's metropolitan areas spread hugely, creating suburban tracts and decaying city cores. Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio now ranked among the ten largest cities in the nation.

Urban growth was part and parcel of population growth and movement.

Texas, 80 percent rural in 1940, reversed that ratio in the 1980s, while the state's population rose from 9,579,677 in 1960 to 16,986,510 in 1990. Growing to more than 18,000,000 during that decade, the population of Texas surpassed that of New York State. The 1970s, when Texas was as much a beneficiary of the oil boom as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), was the first decade since the 1870s when most of the state's population increase came from immigration, both from other states and abroad. And though Texas briefly lost people during the ensuing oil bust of the mid-1980s, the curve of population growth was not affected.

Texas's population, like the nation's, became more diversified. The great cities drew immigrants from many places—Nigerians driving cabs in Dallas, Vietnamese fishing on the coast. Mexican immigrants again flooded across the Rio Grande, now joined by other Hispanics from farther south. This raised some concern among Anglos, including the public and politicians alike. But a booming Texan economy by the 1990s demanded the labor of some 600,000 "illegals." The effects of the expanding economy actually succeeded in dampening ethnic tensions, since immigrants, legal or otherwise, displaced no natives on the job. At this point, it was the friction caused by cultural and language differences that remained the ever present and unresolved source of tension between Anglos and Mexican Americans.

In the arena of politics, Mexican Americans (90 percent or more in many south Texas and border communities) asserted control beginning in the last 1960s. Cities and counties directed by minority officeholders were, with few exceptions, no more poorly managed than before. Local politics were in fact less corrupt given the demise of the old Anglo bosses. As cooler heads always noted, state and federal rule of law prevailed. Society was no more disrupted than in Boston when the Irish took over local government.

The Hispanic population increased from 18 percent to 24 percent and growing. By 1980 Texas ranked behind only California in its number of Spanish-speaking residents, second in its concentration of Vietnamese, third in African-Americans, and ninth in American Indians. At least one-third of all Texans belonged to minority groups as these were now defined.

Yet much of the immigration actually reinforced the culture. Ninety percent of white immigrants came from adjacent, Southern, or Middle Western states. They tended to be young, well-educated, ambitious (most came seeking opportunity), and business-conservative. Although the historically low state and local taxation rose to the national median by the 1990s, Texas remained one of the few states that lacked both a personal and corporate income tax. Partnerships, a major factor with the high-tech industries, were not taxed by the state at all.

The vast swings of boom-and-bust that characterized the 1970s and 1980s were only a continuation of what had gone before. When the cotton kingdom crashed, Texas had depended upon cattle; when the cattle kingdom faded into the past, there was the wonderful discovery of gas and oil. When the three pillars of the historic economy—agriculture, petroleum, and land—collapsed beginning in the 1980s from freeze, drouth, and falling commodity prices, entrepreneurial Texas quickly recovered through rapid diversification. By the 1990s the computer and electronic industries created as much employment and wealth as the petroleum industry. Austin, for example, the second largest high-tech cluster in the United States after Silicon Valley in California, provided more than 100,000 well-paying jobs. The major casualties of the 1980s bust were Texas banks. While they did not go out of business, every large bank but one became victims of their own euphoria and were acquired by national banking groups. Similarly, while more farmers and ranchers were put out of business by drouth or markets, little land actually went out of production. Texas still ranked first in cattle, cotton, and other crops.

The borderlands, however, presented special problems for the state. In certain ways the Rio Grande Valley resembled third-world areas: overpopulated, undereducated, and plagued with numerous threats to public health. While border bloodshed ceased and relations with Mexico improved throughout the century, the border was the beneficiary of not-so-benign neglect. Primarily agrarian, the region developed few industries. Those who came seeking cheaper labor soon found it elsewhere. The jobs created by the North American Free Trade Agreement, which demanded English literacy, were often filled by workers from out-of-state. While the borderlands were doubtlessly shortchanged by state government (politicians put their money where the power is), they also failed to adapt to the demands of changing economics. Texas would have to invest more resources in the borderlands, but money itself offered no permanent solution to endemic social maladies.

Meanwhile, the border areas suffered from increasing violence, both from the vast narcotics-smuggling trade and a lively business in crossing illegal aliens, not merely from Mexico but from around the world. In 1998 the federal government tardily responded with increased border and immigration patrols, but these measures offered no elegant solution to what had become not merely a problem for Texas but for the entire nation.

The effects of all these changes were, however, magnified for Texas. Just as religion is said to be invigorated in soldiers' foxholes, the bad times seemed to strengthen, not weaken, the Texas mystique. The 150th anniversary year of Texan independence, 1986, was celebrated statewide with ceremonies and special events. In contrast, the sesquicentennial of Texas's statehood in 1995 was barely noted. Texans, it seemed, were most adamant about celebrating the fact that they had declared their independence from arbitrary government, won the issue on the battlefield, and maintained a lonely sovereignty symbolized by the banner with a single star. They defeated a foreign power, sent their flag on the high seas, and voluntarily joined the United States under special terms. No other American state could make that boast.

The fact that in this same year ranchers, oilmen, banks, and builders were going bankrupt in droves only made many Texans vow that when things improved, they would handle booms better the next time around.

As Texas became truly "imperial," producing presidents (Lyndon Baines Johnson and George W. Bush), surpassing New York State in electoral votes, and its representatives acquiring renewed power in Washington, national attention naturally turned increasingly toward Texas politics. Here the changes, on the surface, were profound.

Democrats ruled the political process for more than one hundred years because of the War Between the States. While there had long been intramural battles between local (conservative) and national (liberal) Democrats, with few exceptions the conservatives prevailed within the state. Democrats fought bitterly in primaries but coalesced on election day, since "Republican" had been a bad word from the days of Governor Edmund Davis. In 1964 Democrats held all 31 seats in the Texas Senate, and 149 of 150 in the House of Representatives.

When President Lyndon Johnson signed federal civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s, he remarked somberly that he was "signing away the South for the next fifty years." Whether or not this was accurate, a generation of election returns presents a dramatic political story.

In 1968 Republicans elected two state senators and eight members of the House. The Democratic vote for governor slipped from an average of 72 percent to 57 percent. In 1972 the Democratic candidate, Dolph Briscoe, eked out a 47.9 percent plurality; the Republican, Hank Grover, received 45 percent, and the La Raza candidate, Ramsey Muñiz, 5.6 percent. However, as Democrats coopted the La Raza vote, Briscoe received 61.4 percent at the next balloting in 1974.

In 1978 Republican William P. Clements took the brass ring with exactly 50 percent, to John Hill's 49.2 percent.

A blip in the Texas economy (over which no Texas governor, then or later, had any control) caused Clements to be thrown out in favor of Mark White, a conservative Democrat who some characterized as being to the right of Attila the Hun. But in 1986, when Texas experienced a much larger crash in its economy, Clements beat White handily.

In 1990 Ann W. Richards defeated an inept Republican, Clayton Williams (who friends in the petroleum industry said was "too dumb" to be governor), saving Texas from embarrassment and becoming the state's second woman governor. Richards, however, proved to be a better candidate than governor; she had no real political agenda except to usher in the "New Texas" and many of her appointments, purely political in nature, were disastrous. She was defeated easily in 1994 by Republican George W. Bush, son of the president, who proved to be both focused and immensely popular in all parts of the state.