Americans In Texas Research Articles

How Alta Vista Became Prairie View: Lawrence Washburne Minor and the Beginnings of Public Higher Education for African Americans in Texas

How Alta Vista Became Prairie View: Lawrence Washburne Minor and the Beginnings of Public Higher Education for African Americans in Texas

A comparative study of English vowel shifts and vowel space area among Korean Americans in three dialect regions

AbstractRecent sociophonetic research has focused on the ways in which race and ethnicity influence language as well as how language is used to construct racial and ethnic identity. Comparisons of the speech of members of one ethnic group across different regions are still uncommon. In this study, fifty-one native American English speakers of Korean descent, hailing from three different dialect areas of the United States (Los Angeles County and Orange County, California; Harris County, Texas; and Gwinnett County, Georgia), were recorded speaking English in casual interviews. Their speech was analyzed for characteristics of local sound patterns in each region, including the Short Front Vowel Shift (California Vowel Shift) and the Southern Vowel Shift, as well as overall Vowel Space Area. All three groups showed evidence of the Short Front Vowel Shift, and none demonstrated the Southern Vowel Shift. The Californian speakers had the smallest vowel spaces, while the Georgian speakers had the largest. We relate these findings to the ways Korean Americans in Texas and California understand their ethnic identity vis-à-vis a kind of metropolitan or urban speech style in a highly multicultural environment, while, in comparison, Korean Americans in Georgia may use vowel space to highlight their orientation toward or away from local mainstream (white) cultural identity.

The Union League and Biracial Politics in Reconstruction Texas

Texas has often been omitted from histories of Reconstruction in the former Confederate states, but no one has done more to correct this than Carl H. Moneyhon. He has written well-researched, detailed studies of the era, the Republican party, and prominent Republicans in the Lone Star State just after the Civil War, and he adds to that fine body of work with this analysis of the rise and fall of the Union League of America in Texas. The Republican party organized in Texas in the summer of 1867, after the passage of the First Reconstruction Act. From the start, the league played an important role in mobilizing the African American electorate and binding it to the Republicans. African Americans in Texas had already been pushing for economic and social improvements, doing enough to realize that full equality, if it could be had, would require an alliance with sympathetic whites to seize political power. White leaders among the new Republicans understood the importance of the voting bloc controlled by the league, in which African Americans were always a majority. The result was a biracial coalition that weathered challenges from conservative Democrats and the Ku Klux Klan, which arrived in 1868, and The Union League of America in Texas in 1873 became the last chapter in the former Confederacy to be disbanded.

Under a Black Light: Implications of Mexican American School Segregation Challenges for African Americans in Texas

Background/Context: School segregation scholarship underlines that litigation challenging the segregation of Mexican American students in Texas schools stressed their legal racial identity as white. The other white race strategy, as scholars call it, granted Mexican Americans the right to access resources designated for the country’s dominant racial group. Put differently, a defining feature of this argument pivoted on Mexican Americans’ non-Blackness. An emerging body of more critical history scholarship has engaged almost exclusively the concept of whiteness to interpret this legal strategy. Few to no comparative analyses, however, examine Mexican American civil rights struggles outside this lens of whiteness, raising questions about Blackness’s relationship to Juan Crow and the other white race strategy. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: This historical essay examines analyses of Mexican American school segregation litigation in Texas to consider how these legal arguments affected Black Texans. Positioning these considerations in the history of education to address this historiographical silence, I emphasize four notable court cases from 1930 to 1970: the 1930 Salvatierra case, the 1948 Delgado case, the 1957 Hernandez case, and the 1970 Cisneros case. I highlight how accounts of Mexican American legal strategies against Texas school segregation implicate African Americans. This critique represents an effort to grapple meaningfully with the groundbreaking, extant scholarship on Mexican American education and suggest new vantage points and considerations that interrogate and challenge antiBlackness. Research Design: Conceptually, I couple antiBlackness with Toni Morrison’s literary metaphor of the Africanist presence to reveal that a writer’s choice to leave Blackness unarticulated does little to invalidate its existence or significance. This historical essay engages particular elements of historiography, framing that affords greater latitude for innovation than the parameters of historiography in and of itself. The chronological organization I use demonstrates links between specific cases and the legal strategy underpinning them in a way that the thematic organization expected of a historiography would obscure. Although much of the scholarship I examine is situated within the history of education, I use wider, interdisciplinary perspectives and other forms of evidence for deeper insight, support, and analysis. Specifically, I integrate primary source evidence alongside germane perspectives from other fields, including legal studies, human geography, Black studies, educational policy, and literary studies. Conclusions/Recommendations: I argue that this historiography has understated the antiBlack implications of the other white race strategy’s racial dimension, that is, the specific ways this litigation tactic excused and perpetuated African American segregation. I demonstrate that a conceptualization of school de/segregation in Texas history is more illuminating from a Black/non-Black perspective than from a white/non-white one. This emphasis clarifies how white supremacy has historically worked in tandem with antiBlackness to shape social, cultural, and political behavior and outcomes in education, even for non-Black peoples of Color. This analysis (1) clarifies the central role race and racial identity have historically played in U.S. history, (2) illustrates the possessive investment in whiteness as a valuable form of property that has historically determined access to key resources in this country, and (3) reveals the primacy of antiBlackness that has historically undergirded claims refuting discriminatory treatment experienced by non-Black peoples of Color. This examination represents a clarion call for scholars interested in justice and equity to admit, interrogate, and contest any adherence, witting or unwitting, to antiBlackness.

Digital Juneteenth: Territorializing the Freedom Colony Diaspora

AbstractAfter Juneteenth, formerly enslaved African Americans in Texas founded hundreds of historic Black settlements known as freedom colonies. Later, freedom colonies’ populations dispersed, physical traces disappeared, and memories of locations vanished as descendants passed away. In the absence of buildings and legally recognized borders, intangible heritage—stories, ephemeral traditions—define a sense of place. Betraying the perception that these places have disappeared, founders’ descendants express commitments to freedom colonies by returning periodically to plan commemorative events, rehabilitate historic structures, and steward cemeteries. The Texas Freedom Colonies Project (The TXFC Project), a team of faculty and student researchers, documents settlements while supporting descendant communities’ historic preservation aims. By making diasporic publics legible and increasing the visibility of communities’ settlement patterns and remaining extant features, The TXFC Project elevates stakeholders’ concerns in urban planning domains. In 2020, COVID-19’s social distancing requirements challenged diasporic descendants’ efforts to foster social cohesion. Consequently, The TXFC Project hosted a Facebook Live “talk show,” leveraging social media platforms to amplify freedom colony descendants’ work. The team analyzed event transcripts revealing cultural adaptations to socially restrictive conditions during Juneteenth commemorations and indicating that virtual storytelling helped territorialize widely dispersed, unbounded places for stakeholders facing natural and human-made disruptions.

Exploring the provider and organization level barriers to medication for opioid use disorder treatment for Black Americans: A study protocol

ObjectivesThis study seeks to examine the provider and organizational factors that could be limiting the treatment of Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) for Black Americans in Texas. Formative research at the provider and organizational level will assist in understanding the current facilitators, potential barriers, and capacity for OUD treatment for Black Americans. Study designUsing the exploration phase of the Explore, Preparation, Implementation, Sustainment (EPIS) framework, the project will be a formative assessment of local factors that influence Medication for OUD (MOUD) treatment availability for Black Americans to guide the design of a culturally and locally relevant multi-level intervention strategy. Methodsand analysis: This project will utilize emergent mixed methods to identify and clarify the problems that are obstructing treatment for Black patients with OUD. First, the perspectives of individual providers in their openness and willingness to provide MOUD treatment to Black Americans diagnosed with OUD will be explored through in-depth interviews. The organizational capacity factors associated with increased availability to treatment for Black American OUD patients will be examined with the organizational leaders using an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design. Leader and program managers of organizations that provide MOUD will be invited to participate in an online survey, with the option to participate in a follow-up in-depth interview. All qualitative data from the provider and organization staff interviews will be analyzed with a thematic analysis approach. The analysis of the two different types of qualitative data will be analyzed together, as a form of triangulation. ConclusionsThis project will assess the understandings of individual providers as well as the organizational-level awareness of the cultural contexts of MOUD intervention for Black Americans. This formative research seeks to highlight the current status of the opioid crisis in the Black community, and what additional supports are needed.

Migrant Citizenship: Race, Rights, and Reform in the U.S. Farm Labor Camp Program

Migrant Citizenship: Race, Rights, and Reform in the U.S. Farm Labor Camp Program

Abstract PO-074: The impact of perceived racial discrimination and racial residential segregation on cancer screening among African American women: A multilevel, longitudinal analysis of 2-1-1 Texas callers

Abstract Although racism is increasingly being studied as an important contributor to racial health disparities, its relation to cancer-related outcomes among African Americans remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to help clarify the relation between two indicators of racism—perceived racial discrimination and racial residential segregation—and cancer screening. We conducted a multilevel, longitudinal study among a medically underserved population of African Americans in Texas. We assessed discrimination using the Experiences of Discrimination Scale and segregation using the Location Quotient for Racial Residential Segregation. The outcome examined was “any cancer screening completion” (Pap test, mammography, and/or colorectal cancer screening) at follow-up (3–10 months post-baseline). We tested hypothesized relations using multilevel logistic regression. We also conducted interaction and stratified analyses to explore whether discrimination modified the relation between segregation and screening completion. We found a significant positive relation between discrimination and screening and a non-significant negative relation between segregation and screening. Preliminary evidence suggests that discrimination modifies the relation between segregation and screening in that segregation is positively related to screening when no discrimination is reported but negatively related to screening when discrimination is reported. Conclusion: Racism has a nuanced association with cancer screening among African Americans. Perceived racial discrimination and racial residential segregation should be considered jointly, rather than independently, to better understand their influence on cancer screening behavior. Citation Format: Lynn N. Ibekwe, Maria Eugenia Fernández-Esquer, Sandi L. Pruitt, Nalini Ranjit, Maria E. Fernández. The impact of perceived racial discrimination and racial residential segregation on cancer screening among African American women: A multilevel, longitudinal analysis of 2-1-1 Texas callers [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Virtual Conference: 14th AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2021 Oct 6-8. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2022;31(1 Suppl):Abstract nr PO-074.

Racism and Cancer Screening among Low-Income, African American Women: A Multilevel, Longitudinal Analysis of 2-1-1 Texas Callers.

Although racism is increasingly being studied as an important contributor to racial health disparities, its relation to cancer-related outcomes among African Americans remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to help clarify the relation between two indicators of racism—perceived racial discrimination and racial residential segregation—and cancer screening. We conducted a multilevel, longitudinal study among a medically underserved population of African Americans in Texas. We assessed discrimination using the Experiences of Discrimination Scale and segregation using the Location Quotient for Racial Residential Segregation. The outcome examined was “any cancer screening completion” (Pap test, mammography, and/or colorectal cancer screening) at follow-up (3–10 months post-baseline). We tested hypothesized relations using multilevel logistic regression. We also conducted interaction and stratified analyses to explore whether discrimination modified the relation between segregation and screening completion. We found a significant positive relation between discrimination and screening and a non-significant negative relation between segregation and screening. Preliminary evidence suggests that discrimination modifies the relation between segregation and screening. Racism has a nuanced association with cancer screening among African Americans. Perceived racial discrimination and racial residential segregation should be considered jointly, rather than independently, to better understand their influence on cancer screening behavior.

Diabetes And Race

Diabetes And Race

Developing a digital marketing tool for ethnic ventures' mixed business model and market-shaping: A design scientific approach of web demographics

Based on the advanced market conceptualizations and the emergence of market-shaping strategy and mixed business models, this study develops a theoretical definition and a practical solution of digital marketing for ethnic ventures' mixed business model and market-shaping strategy. This study argues that building an ethnic foothold can feasibly empower ethnic ventures' market-shaping over mass customization and customerization and thus allows the ventures to grow fast through their mixed business model combining business-to-business and business-to-consumer. Subsequently, for the main part, adopting a design scientific approach and relying on web demographics' interoperability and geographic reference, we design and test a procedure of market-shaping strategy for ethnic ventures. Exemplified by a data subset collected from people-finder websites regarding Vietnamese Americans in Texas, our process of mixed business model and market-shaping strategy uniquely involves three stages: (1) acquisition and identification, (2) description and secondary clustering, and (3) conscription and network-targeting.

Health screening results of Cubans settling in Texas, USA, 2010-2015: A cross-sectional analysis.

BackgroundProtecting the health of refugees and other migrant populations in the United States is key to ensuring successful resettlement. Therefore, to identify and address health concerns early, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends a domestic medical examination (screening for infectious and noninfectious diseases/conditions) shortly after arrival in the US. However, because refugee/migrant populations often have differing health patterns from one another and the US population, the collection and analysis of health information is key to developing population-specific clinical guidelines to guide the care of resettled individuals. Yet little is known regarding the health status of Cubans resettling in the US. Among the tens of thousands of Cuban migrants who have resettled in the US, some applied as refugees in Cuba, some applied for parole (a term used to indicate temporary US admission status for urgent humanitarian reasons or reasons of public benefit under US immigration law) in Cuba, and others applied for parole status after crossing the border. These groups were eligible for US government benefits to help them resettle, including a domestic medical examination. We reviewed health differences found in these examinations of those who were determined to be refugees or parolees in Cuba and those who were given parole status after arrival.Methods and findingsWe conducted a retrospective cross-sectional analysis of the Texas Department of State Health Services database. Cubans who arrived from 2010 to 2015 and received a domestic medical examination in Texas were included. Those granted refugee/parolee status in Cuba were listed in federal databases for US-bound refugees/parolees; those who were paroled after arrival were not listed. Overall, 2,189 (20%) obtained either refugee or parolee status in Cuba, and 8,709 (80%) received parolee status after arrival. Approximately 62% of those who received parolee status after arrival at the border were male, compared with 49% of those who obtained prior refugee/parolee status in Cuba. Approximately one-half (45%) of those paroled after arrival were 19–34 years old (versus 26% among those who obtained refugee/parolee status in Cuba). Separate models were created for each screening indicator as the outcome, with entry route as the main exposure variable. Crude and adjusted prevalence ratios were estimated using PROC GENMOD procedures in SAS 9.4. Individuals paroled after arrival were less likely to screen positive for parasitic infections (9.6% versus 12.2%; adjusted prevalence ratio: 0.79, 0.71–0.88) and elevated blood lead levels (children ≤16 years old, 5.2% versus 12.3%; adjusted prevalence ratio: 0.42, 0.28–0.63). Limitations include potential disease misclassification, missing clinical information, and cross-sectional nature.ConclusionsWithin-country variations in health status are often not examined in refugee populations, yet they are critical to understand granular health trends. Results suggests that the health profiles of Cuban Americans in Texas differed by entry route. This information could assist in developing targeted screenings and health interventions.

Football at Historically Black Colleges and Universities in Texas by Robert C. Fink

Reviewed by: Football at Historically Black Colleges and Universities in Texas by Robert C. Fink Alan C. Atchison Football at Historically Black Colleges and Universities in Texas. By Robert C. Fink. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2019. Pp. 282. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.) Since the 1950s, football has dominated American sports pages year round. In addition to reports of trades, drafts, game summaries, etc., current articles address themes as diverse as social protest (e.g., kneeling during the National Anthem), the lifelong effects of injuries, and dwindling youth participation. These issues reflect the game’s broad influence on American culture. Football is also a major part of black culture; most National Football League players are African American, a strong indication of minority interest and participation in football from youth leagues to university elevens. Football at Historically Black Colleges and Universities in Texas examines the historical impact of America’s game on black Americans’ culture. Concentrating on the eight historically black colleges in Texas (Bishop College, Jarvis Christian College, Paul Quinn College, Samuel Huston College, Prairie View A&M College, Texas College, Texas Southern University, and Wiley College) that consistently fielded teams in the twentieth century, Robert C. Fink divides football history into eight eras. Beginning with the post-Civil War years and continuing through World War I, the first chapter briefly chronicles the overall expansion of football at both white and black colleges. This was a time of minimal sway, especially in Texas, as the first black college in Texas did not field a team until 1901, and all college teams played abbreviated schedules (far fewer than ten games). With so few games, how and when did the game become a major cultural factor in the black community? Fink’s information, using sources such as the major twentieth-century African American newspapers Dallas Express and Houston Informer, provides some answers. These dailies contain vivid accounts of major contests, descriptions of players and coaches, as well as discussions of tactics and strategies, which Fink ably incorporates into his narrative. More importantly, in these chapters readers will discover, through stories highlighting band performances, homecoming traditions, and various festivities that surrounded the annual State Fair Classic played in the Cotton Bowl on Negro Day at the State Fair of Texas, the connection between the college game and the African American community. The author implies that football was a driving force in black life. However, after many pages lauding the cultural effects of the game, Fink notes, “for many African Americans in Texas, the State Fair game ranked second in importance” to Negro Day at the State Fair (132). Elsewhere, Fink comments on newspaper accounts of other games that contain more coverage of pre-game and half-time activities than the football teams’ performance. [End Page 479] Similarly, one other claim lacks satisfactory support. For example, Fink emphasizes that segregation allowed black college football to develop “away from the control of whites” (22). Yet the growth of black collegiate football and associated groups and events mirrored the development of the white game: bands, cheerleaders, homecoming festivities, and post-season bowl games. Football at Historically Black Colleges and Universities in Texas provides valuable insights into the connection between football and black culture. Fans will find it an interesting and entertaining read. But Fink’s well-documented monograph raises a number of important questions that beg for further research. Anyone endeavoring to answer those questions will find the book’s bibliography valuable and extensive. While Fink’s work does not totally “fill the void in the historiography” (2) of football at predominately black colleges, it does add a valuable portion. Alan C. Atchison San Marcos, Texas Copyright © 2020 The Texas State Historical Association

Refusing to Forget

Racial violence is a common topic in U.S. history, and lynching especially has drawn the attention of the general public. However, only in the last ten years has racial violence against Mexican-descent people in the United States garnered significant attention. A few years ago a team of historians, among them Monica Muñoz Martinez, Trinidad Gonzalez, Sonia Hernández, as well as the literary scholar John Morán Gonzáles, established the Web site Refusing to Forget about a particular era and place. The site focuses on a major period of violence against Mexicans and Mexican Americans in Texas from 1910 to 1920. The site is divided into three substantive parts: “History,” “Projects,” and “Resources.” The “History” section addresses the era. However, it needs to offer a little more post-1848 history to establish the era's ethnic subordination and provide broader context for the general public. It does mention the Mexican Revolution, the Plan de San Diego, and border militarization.

Community-Based Participatory Research: a Family Health History-Based Colorectal Cancer Prevention Program Among Chinese Americans.

Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial/ethnic group in the USA, as this population increased by 72% between 2000 and 2015. Chinese Americans are the largest Asian subgroup, with a high immigrant proportion (63%), a high poverty rate (14%), and a large percentage of low English competency (41%). Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second most commonly diagnosed cancer and cause of cancer death among Chinese Americans. As CRC has a genetic predisposition, family health history (FHH) has been proposed as a preventive tool to stratify CRC risk and guide personalized screening and behavioral modifications. The purpose of this study was to adopt a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach to develop the first culturally and linguistically appropriate FHH-based CRC prevention program for Chinese Americans in Texas. The program development involved five CBPR steps: (1) establishment of partnership and research team, (2) literature review and needs assessment, (3) creation of a theoretical framework of the FHH-based CRC prevention, (4) development a culturally and linguistically appropriate intervention, and (5) program evaluation. Key components of this program included two intervention activities: (1) a culturally and linguistically appropriate FHH-based CRC prevention workshop and (2) a follow-up individualized phone consultation and health insurance enrollment and navigation services (if needed). The pilot study suggested feasibility of the program. This CBPR-grounded, FHH-based CRC prevention project can serve as a model for future cancer prevention programs targeting other types of cancers that also have FHH components.

Increased health information technology investment decreases uncompensated care cost: A study of Texas hospitals.

Many previous research studies have demonstrated that investing in health information technology (IT) in a hospital setting has potential benefits, including eliminating duplicate or unnecessary tests and adverse drug events, conserving healthcare provider time and effort by making information more readily available, and reducing cost by increasing efficiency or productivity metrics. However, the effect of health IT on uncompensated care has not been reported yet. The objective of this study was to examine the effect of health IT investment on uncompensated care provided by hospitals. The general linear model (GLM) with log link and normal distribution was used to estimate the association between health IT spending and the provision of uncompensated care using Texas American Hospital Association (AHA) data from 2004 to 2010. The total health IT investment was significantly and negatively associated with the provision of uncompensated care. When health IT investment was increased by 10%, the provision of uncompensated care was reduced by 2.7%. Health IT investment was also significantly and negatively associated with bad debt. When health IT investment was increased by 10%, bad debt was decreased by 3.2%. Health IT investment was negatively associated with the provision of uncompensated care. This means that health IT could reduce administrative burden and improve efficiency of tracking patient insurance status and billings.

Addressing the Needs of African American Male Smokers Through Community Outreach and Tailored Smoking Cessation Strategies.

The prevalence of adult smokers within the state of Texas population is 19.2% with 25% of those smokers being African American. Although the smoking rate of African Americans in Texas is very high, they only represent about 18% of the calls to the Texas Tobacco Quitline. To investigate this phenomenon, researchers from Texas A&M University completed a qualitative study to investigate the social norms and awareness of the Quitline among African American males. Focus groups were conducted in a rural community to determine perceptions and attitudes towards smoking among the African American population, as this was an exploratory study. The focus group participants were 71% smokers and 90% identified as African American. Data collected during the focus groups revealed information three major themes which were derived from the research question. These themes were social norms of smoking, smoking cessation, and services needed for smoking cessation. Information learned was insightful because little information exists about successful smoking cessation strategies specifically for African American male subpopulations. With this information, data can be further synthesized and outreach strategies can be further developed to help decrease the gap in health equity as it related to African American males and smoking and increase calls to the Quitline.

Spatial mining of migration patterns from web demographics

ABSTRACTVolunteered Geographic Information, social media, and data from Information and Communication Technology are emerging sources of big data that contribute to the development and understanding of the spatiotemporal distribution of human population. However, the inherent anonymity of these crowd-sourced or crowd-harvested data sources lack the socioeconomic and demographic attributes to examine and explain human mobility and spatiotemporal patterns. In this paper, we investigate an Internet-based demographic data source, personal microdata databases publicly accessible on the World Wide Web (hereafter web demographics), as potential sources of aspatial and spatiotemporal information regarding the landscape of human dynamics. The objectives of this paper are twofold: (1) to develop an analytical framework to identify mobile population from web demographics as an individual-level residential history data, and (2) to explore their geographic and demographic patterns of migration. Using web demographics of Vietnamese–Americans in Texas collected in 2010 as a case study, this paper (1) addresses entity resolution and identifies mobile population through the application of a Cost-Sensitive Alternative Decision Tree (CS-ADT) algorithm, (2) investigates migration pathways and clusters to include both short- and long-distance patterns, and (3) analyze the demographic characteristics of mobile population and the functional relationship with travel distance. By linking the physical space at the individual level, this unique methodology attempts to enhance the understanding of human movement at multiple spatial scales.

"A Bunch of Tough Hombres": Police Brutality, Municipal Politics, and Racism in South Texas

"A Bunch of Tough Hombres":Police Brutality, Municipal Politics, and Racism in South Texas Brent M. S. Campney (bio) "Everybody knew the McAllen police were a bunch of tough hombres, especially the Boys on C shift," reported the Dallas Morning News on March 29, 1981. "Working the midnight-to-8 a.m. shift along the border is like being at war, the cops said. You have to be tough. The Boys on C shift worked at being tough." Many of the "Boys" wore black T-shirts with gold letters bearing "the legend, 'C Shift Animals.' They even had their own slogan: 'Kick…and Ask Questions Later.'" Only days earlier, the public had become aware of their misdeeds, revealed in six years of booking room videos recorded by the McAllen Police Department (MPD) and subpoenaed by a civil rights attorney. On these videos Anglo and Mexican American officers alike confirmed suspicions that they had beaten, kicked, and abused prisoners—in virtually all cases, working-class Mexican Americans.1 Station KGBT in nearby Harlingen played television footage of the beatings, bringing a flood of outrage. "One woman, like many of the callers, was almost in tears when she thanked us over and over again for showing such terrible things going on," noted a representative of the station. "She said as soon as she got through talking to us, she was going to call the McAllen police to demand an answer [as to] why those things had happened."2 She was not alone. "The police switchboard was lit up for hours after the tapes were shown on TV," declared James C. Harrington, the attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which had secured the videos and released them to the media.3 As investigators probed the scandal, some pointed to the mayor—already locked in a heated, racially tinged political race with Ramiro Casso, a Mexican American challenger—as an enabler. On May 3 the News reported that "the federal grand jury investigation of accusations of [End Page 787] brutality by McAllen police has broadened to include the possibility of a cover-up of the incidents by Mayor Othal Brand and other city officials."4 This study tells the story of the 1981 MPD scandal, its impact on the ongoing municipal election between an Anglo incumbent and a Mexican American challenger, and its role in unifying Mexican Americans in South Texas during a period in which they were beginning to seize the reigns of local and regional power. Historians such as David Montejano, Marc Simon Rodriguez, and Brian Behnken have incorporated the issue of police brutality into their scholarship on the Mexican American civil rights movement during the post World War II period. In his discussion of Colorado, for example, Rodriguez found that between "1962 and 1964, police brutality became a significant issue for Mexican Americans in Denver and was the spark that ignited community activism. Several young men had had interactions with the police, and what should have been no more than minor skirmishes led to the young men's deaths."5 Nevertheless, historians have focused on particularly egregious incidents in places like East Los Angeles and Dallas rather than on the issue of police violence more broadly. This study places police violence at the center of the story and addresses its significance in enforcing repression, promoting resistance, and transforming local and regional power relations.6 The study proceeds in five sections. In the first it details the history of police violence against Mexican Americans in Texas and in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (hereafter, the Valley) in the 1970s. In the second section it examines the role in these events of Othal Brand, the so-called Onion King, who owned one of the most powerful agribusiness interests in Texas and served as the mayor of McAllen. In the third it analyzes the MPD scandal, the roots of which dated back to the early 1970s. In the fourth it explores the mayoral campaign, election, and election runoff, all of which not only highlighted the police scandal but underlined racial and class divisions in this South Texas city. In the final section it considers the historiographical implications of its findings. To tell...

Alcohol Use Patterns and DSM-5 Alcohol Use Disorder on Both Sides of the U.S.-Mexico Border.

Alcohol consumption patterns on the U.S.-Mexico border and their relationships with DSM-5 alcohol use disorders (AUD) have been understudied. Yet, the effects of drinking by Mexican-origin individuals may differ between cities on versus off the border both in the United States and in Mexico. We characterize prior 12-month drinking patterns and examine their relationships with AUD, in border and off-border cities of Texas and adjacent Mexican states. Data come from the U.S.-Mexico Study of Alcohol and Related Conditions involving 2,336 Mexican Americans in Texas and 2,460 Mexicans in bordering states of Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas in Mexico. Drinking pattern was defined as an interaction between volume and maximum amount, or intensity (never vs. ever 5+/4+ [men/women], 8+, and 12+ drinks in a day). DSM-5 AUD was assessed using an adaptation of the Alcohol Sectionof the World Health Organization Composite International Diagnostic Interview core. Separately by gender, 5 logistic regressions models controlling for age were estimated predicting symptoms in 2 or more AUD criteria domains from volume, heavy pattern and, successively, effects of country, and (by country) residing on vs. off the border, or in each of 3cities/country. A segmentation analysis for Texas males based on rate of experiencing AUD generated several distinct volume groups, each partitioned by an empirically selected maximum, and helped identify a drinking-pattern typology. In gender-stratified models of AUD rates using this typology, adjusting for age, significant volume and intensity effects were seen, more strongly in the United States. Border versus interior differences implied more AUD for given patterns at the border in the United States and the reverse in Mexico, with some city differences also evident. Drinking-pattern analyses confirm that border proximity may affect drinking problems but in opposite directions in the United States and Mexico, possibly related to economic and psychological stresses specific to respective communities.