This is a draft of what has been done, but it does not end there. Using historical records, Ancestry family lines, the Canales Investigation, WWI records of veterans from Starr County, and the GI Forum book What Price Wetbacks, I am hoping to reconstruct what those of us with deep roots in Texas lived through. Many, if not most, people don’t think about their ancestors past their grandparents, if that much. But there are some, like me, who do care. This is for those who want to know of their struggles that allowed us to be born in the greatest country in the world. They survived turmoil in the early 1900s on both sides of the Rio Grande River: the Mexican Revolution on one side and the Pinche Rinches and being drafted to fight in the Great War (WWI). In the early 1800s, they were constantly raided by Apaches and Comanches; one newspaper account reported that everyone north of the Rio Grande fled to the south bank to seek shelter. Only two cities stayed and defended: Roma and Rio Grande City.
That was what our ancestors had to survive, but survive they did; we are the products of that survival. We may not know their names, but we are Americans because they were brave, hard-working people. They were not famous; you won’t read about them in the history books, but they are the true heroes of the borderland.
The Forgotten
