Texas Hispanic Centers on the Border of Change
Ray Suarez visits Hispanic Center counties along the US-Mexico border.
By Ray Suarez for the American Communities Project
When you look at a map of the world, it makes an unspoken proposition: that borders separate peoples and nationalities and languages and cultures as neatly as their lines and colors set them apart on the map. The world is, and has always been, more complicated than that. Strict observance of borders may have legal power, to describe and delineate authority, responsibility, and possession. But borders do not describe the human condition nearly as well.
In the spring of 2025, just a few months into the new presidential administration, the border continues to be a place of focused attention, controversy, and commerce. It is also home to a never-ending cat-and-mouse game between the U.S. government, and criminal gangs running billion-dollar businesses, shuttling drugs and people north, and guns south.
Need clothes for the new school year? Head north.
Need a crown for a broken tooth? Need lip-filler, or a drug your insurance policy won’t cover without a massive co-pay? Walk south.
Want to take advantage of cheaper home prices south of the border, and better wages north of that line? Live in Reynosa, Nuevo Progreso, or Ciudad Miguel Aleman, grab your credentials and cross an international border every weekday morning to head to the third grade, or to a job in trucking or construction, in the United States.
In Rio Grande City, the largest jurisdiction in rural Starr County, one big-box retail parking lot saw every third car from a northern Mexican state. This is, in so many ways, one place. But one place with a line running through it. And that line can make simple things complicated.
For all that, the border is very much open for business. To the relief of politicians, developers, and business interests. At the same time — the Border Patrol will tell you — for the cartels controlling human trafficking operations at this part of the border, business is bad. Reported with satisfaction in Washington, and affirmed all along the vast frontera, border crossings are way, way, down.
Read the entire post here: https://www.americancommunities.org/texas-hispanic-centers-on-the-border-of-change/
And join Ray and American Communities Project Director Dante Chinni for a live chat Tuesday May 27th at 1 pm.