Yolanda Chávez Leyva

Forthcoming in Between Guadalupe and La Malinche, an anthology of Tejana writers. Inés Hernández Avila and Norma Cantú, editors. Austin: The University of Texas Press.

"Where are you going?"

"We want to go inside. Would you please step aside?" the Texas Ranger growled. His companions stared at her.

"No." Jovita answered. She planted her feet more firmly. Her boots, covered with the fine dust, which blew in from the unpaved streets, dug in just a little bit more. She stretched out her arms and held onto the doorframe. Jovita’s heart was beating so loudly that she could hear it like a drum pounding in her ears. But she couldn’t allow herself to look scared. She concentrated instead on the rhythm of her breathing, on the feel of her black cotton skirt against her legs, on the weight of her dark hair wrapped in a bun at the back of her head. The moment stood still.

With the four Rangers standing before her, she answered, "No. You have to come through this door and I’m standing here. And you cannot come in here because it’s against the law. If a woman stands at the door, you can’t go in."

Hicks, Ramsey, Chamberlain and another man stood in front of her. She knew them well, especially Charlie Ramsey. Charlie was a big man, over six feet tall, with enormous hands. He had a perpetual sneer on his face. Her brothers had been in school with Charlie and his brother. Even as children, the Ramseys had been bullies.

Hombres ignorantes sin cultura, she thought to herself.

The Rangers smirked at each other as they stood in front of her. This would be easy. They had found her alone at the newspaper office. How long could she stand there, Charlie laughed to himself? She was, after all, just another Mexican and a woman on top of that. Sure, she could read and write and speak English, but a Mexican is still a Mexican. That’s something that no amount of schooling could change.

Charlie’s thoughts abruptly returned to their task. His skin turned hot at the thought of why they were there. Who did they think they were, these Mexicans? Coming into the United States, criticizing the President of the United States! The President was a good man, an honorable man. President Wilson had sent American boys down into Mexico to help end the fighting but those Mexicans knew nothing about gratitude. For four years now the Mexicans had been fighting each other. And for what?

Charlie had seen the consequences of this so-called "revolution." Each time a battle was fought on the Mexican side of the river, hordes of Mexicans would cross into Laredo-- women carrying babies in their shawls, old men too weak to fight, snotty-nosed, barefooted children crying because they were hungry. Sometimes he felt sorry for them, especially when he looked into their eyes. He had learned to look away quickly at those times. After all, he always told himself, you can’t trust a Mexican.

In the shadows behind the woman Charlie could see the printing presses, heavy giants with levers and rollers protruding from their sides. The small, wooden tables with lines of types were arranged at the front of the long, rectangular office. The single light bulb, hung low in the middle of the room, was turned off. Two narrow windows at the back of the office supplied the only light. He squinted into the dimness of the newspaper office. Was someone standing on the little balcony to the left? No, he didn’t think so. She was alone.

That would make it easier. The four men planned to destroy those machines, to stop that little newspaper-- what was it called? -- from ever printing anything un-American again. This time the Mexicans would learn that they couldn’t criticize the government of the U. S. of A. If President Wilson sent American boys into Mexico, it was because they needed our help. You don’t condemn someone who lends you a hand. So, these Mexicans had to be taught to be grateful. This would be a lesson for the others.

"We’re going to teach you a lesson," Charlie said out loud, half unconsciously.

Standing there, Jovita remembered the aftermath of other "lessons" taught by the Texas Rangers-- mexicanos shot in the back, or hanged from trees. Even children couldn’t escape the vengeance of the Texas Rangers. Hadn’t they hanged that little boy in front of his family a few years back? To be a mexicano in South Texas in 1914 was dangerous. Often falsely arrested as thieves, murderers or rustlers, mexicanos found themselves labeled criminals simply because they were born Mexican.

Jovita knew why—the ranchers, with the help of the Texas Rangers, tried to keep the people ignorant and scared, grateful for anything the americanos would give them. And the situation was getting worse as the revolución continued. The americanos feared that the revolutionary ideas, the fight for equality, would cross the border into South Texas. Everything and everyone was saturated with fear.

Jovita felt a chill and a disturbing image flashed through her mind. Sometimes the Rangers took photographs of themselves, mounted on horses, posing like proud hunters before their trophies. The anonymous dead lay rumpled on the ground, facedown in the sun-parched grass. They didn’t even seem human in these photographs; they looked more like piles of rags thrown haphazardly on the ground.

Sometimes mobs of americanos took the law into their own hands, killing innocent mexicanos. Jovita and her father had written about many of these atrocities for their newspapers, El Progreso and La Crónica. Twenty-year-old Antonio Rodríguez was one of them. Accused of killing a white woman in Rocksprings, Rodríguez had been arrested and jailed. Two days later an angry mob burned him at the stake. The crowd cheered when the flames engulfed his contorted body. They didn’t even turn away at the smell of Antonio’s burning flesh. Jovita wondered if they knew his name, these witnesses to his death? There were so many dead that sometimes even she could no longer remember all their names.

"The Rangers, los rinches son los peores de todos," she thought to herself.

Many people kept silent about the rinches, hoping their silence would buy them safety. Others expressed their pain or anger through corridos. People still sang about Gregorio Cortez, the mexicano who’d outsmarted so many pinches rinches.

"Síganme, rinches cobardes, yo soy Gregorio Cortez!"

People sang this whenever they gathered in little groups, to celebrate a cumpleaños or a bautismo or just to relax at the end of a long week working on the ranchos. People sang the corrido because it reminded them that the Rangers didn’t always have to win. The Rangers didn’t always have to win—Jovita lo sabía. Her father, Nicasio Idar, had told her that.

Nicasio had been both justice of the peace and assistant city marshal in Laredo. He knew the law. His children reminded themselves of that always. He knew the law. And he taught his children to speak up for what was right. Jovita was proud of her father. He had written many words in defense of the mexicanos in Texas. When she became an adult, she joined him in his work. In June of 1911, Jovita and her father had published an editorial in their newspaper, La Crónica, criticizing what they had called the "cowardly, infamous and inhumane lynching" of a young mexicano in Milam County.

"There is nothing else but to organize," they had proclaimed.

And Jovita, her father and brothers had done just that. They organized with other men and women through el Primer Congreso Mexicanista to fight against the poor treatment of mexicanos in Texas. In their newspapers they published editorials calling for change in the mistreatment of Mexican children. She thought about Bee County where the Mexican children were kept out of the white school, sent instead to what could only be described as a jacalón. Los niños tenían verguenza que los trataran como animales.

It hurt Jovita to think of the children, so eager to learn, relegated to run-down buildings, taught only to work in the fields or as maids in the homes of white people. How could the people ever rise if each generation of children were kept down?

The children wanted to learn. She remembered the mexicanitos who came to her, often shyly at first, to ask her to teach them to read and write. In the afternoons, after spending the day at the newspaper office, she would meet them at the Idar house. Eran tan vivitos estos niños! Within six months they could read and write both English and Spanish! They made her very proud.

All of this went through Jovita’s mind as she stood in the doorway of the newspaper office, her arms outstretched, her eyes staring defiantly back into the faces of the four Texas Rangers.

"Well, what shall we do?" Charlie finally asked. The others shrugged their shoulders at him, and the four men turned to leave.

For an hour after they left Jovita stood in the doorway of El Progreso, her leg muscles tight, her neck stiff. Would they return? How long should she wait?

At home, her mother, the elder Jovita, worried about her daughter. "La van a matar," she told her husband. He shook his head, "No, no la van a matar. They won’t kill her if she stands her ground." As the afternoon slipped into dusk and finally darkness, her mother sent one of the brothers to bring Jovita home.

On the walk home, Jovita was elated. She had stood her ground. The Texas Rangers had left! Those thieves, those smugglers, those murderers who hid behind their badges and the title of "ranger" had run away from her! She remembered the words of the corrido,

Well, in this case it was una sola mexicana. Jovita smiled.

At home, she sat with her father and mother, sipping cafesito con canela¸ thinking about the next day’s work. They should warn Manuel that the Rangers were after him. Manuel García Vijil, recently arrived from Oaxaca, had written the editorial for El Progreso that had so angered the Rangers. Manuel had written about the injustice of the American government in sending troops to Mexico to interfere with the nation’s internal affairs. He had to be warned that his life was in danger. In Texas a mexicano put his life in danger any time he expressed his opinion. This was something that Jovita knew well. She wasn’t sure that Manuel did.

Before she fell asleep, Jovita replayed the day’s events. "If a woman stands at the door, you can’t go in," she’d told the Rangers.

The next morning, before light, four men walked up to the office of El Progreso. Armed with sledgehammers, they broke open the door and swaggered into the darkened office. Swinging the heavy hammers, they attacked the linotype machine, the presses. The frightful sound of metal hitting metal filled the office. In a matter of minutes, the wreckage gave physical form to the anger they had swallowed just a few hours earlier. As the last man walked out, he took one final swing, hitting the window. Shattered glass flew in all directions. He walked out laughing.

When Jovita and her father arrived later that morning, the office of El Progreso stood before them in ruins. Unrecognizable pieces of linotype machine, jagged fragments of windowpane, and loose type lay all over the floor. The door swung back and forth in the morning breeze.

Father and daughter stood in the doorway for what seemed like hours.

Cobardes, thought Jovita. They couldn’t stand up to me so they came at night to do their work. For a second, Jovita felt a heaviness take over her. She felt unable to move, her arms and legs paralyzed. She turned to look at her father. She sensed that he felt that same burden. Slowly, Jovita walked into the office and turned on the light. She saw the full destruction as that single light bulb lit up the room.

Jovita bent down, carefully picking up a piece of type, then another, then another, placing them on the wooden table at the front of the office. Nicasio joined her.

"Let’s clean up the office, papá. We have to think about the next issue of the newspaper, ¿qué no?"

"Sí, mi’ja. The next issue."

The Rangers didn’t always have to win—Jovita lo sabía.