Speaker 1: This is Latino USA, the radio journal of News and
Speaker 1: Courturre Latino USC Latin Latino USA. I'm Maria Inojosa. We
Speaker 1: bring you stories that are underreported but that mattered to.
Speaker 2: You, overlooked by the rest of the media.
Speaker 1: And while the country is struggling to deal with these,
Speaker 1: we listen to the stories of Black and Latino Studio
Speaker 1: United Latino Front, a cultural renaissance organizing at the forefront
Speaker 1: of the movement. I'm Maria ino Jossa nose Bayan. Hello,
Speaker 1: dear listener, Here's a show from Los Archivos and a
Speaker 1: quick warning. This story has some graphic references to violence
Speaker 1: and murder. Over the last few years, there have been
Speaker 1: several reports of law enforcement agents on the US Mexico
Speaker 1: border going rogue.
Speaker 2: Border Patrol agent Joel Luna has been dealt a twenty
Speaker 2: year prison sentence for organized criminal activity in a case
Speaker 2: involving the decapitation of a.
Speaker 3: Would be snake.
Speaker 4: Had pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute marijuana
Speaker 4: for receiving a bribe.
Speaker 1: Importation of Customs and Border Protection agents have traffic drugs,
Speaker 1: taken bribes, and allegedly raped migrants. In one dramatic case,
Speaker 1: an agent turned out to be a serial killer.
Speaker 5: Juan David Ortiz confessted killing four women in a two
Speaker 5: week time span in the Laredo, Texas area near the
Speaker 5: US Mexico border. Ortiz was a border patrol.
Speaker 1: What these individual reports reveal is just how much discretion
Speaker 1: law enforcement has while policing the border, and under the
Speaker 1: Trump administration's recent policy changes, these powers have expanded even more.
Speaker 6: Human rights groups have complained for months that border agents
Speaker 6: are wrongfully turning away people seeking asylum.
Speaker 7: In the US.
Speaker 8: The Trump administration began hearings Monday in makeshift tent courthouses
Speaker 8: in South Texas.
Speaker 9: Customs and Border Protection is advancing a program that allows
Speaker 9: border patrol agents to conte the first interview in the
Speaker 9: asylum process.
Speaker 1: While historically there have been few attempts to increase oversight
Speaker 1: or reform, the government once actually did investigate the way
Speaker 1: policing happened on the border. But that was over one
Speaker 1: hundred years ago. From Futromedia and PRX. It's Latino USA.
Speaker 1: I'm Mariano Posa. Today, we go back one hundred and
Speaker 1: one years to a rare moment in time when the
Speaker 1: State of Texas investigated the way we police our border.
Speaker 1: One of the early forms of law enforcement on the
Speaker 1: US Mexico border were the Texas Rangers. The Rangers were
Speaker 1: founded in eighteen twenty three and they still exist today.
Speaker 1: And the image they conjure up is that of a
Speaker 1: lone cowboy on a horse with a star shaped badge.
Speaker 1: They have a lot of cultural importance even today. There
Speaker 1: there's a baseball team named after them and killed on
Speaker 1: the Error.
Speaker 2: Rangers get that first One of the.
Speaker 1: Afternoon and a big movie that came out last year and.
Speaker 2: You put cowboys on bunnang clubs.
Speaker 1: Texas Rangers, but their narrative is complicated. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of history here, but basically, back in the early eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: the southern border of Texas was disputed by the US
Speaker 1: and Mexico. It wasn't until eighteen forty eight, after the
Speaker 1: Mexican American War that the Treaty of Guadelupe Valgo established
Speaker 1: the Rio Grande as the border. That meant Mexicans who
Speaker 1: were living in the region were suddenly in US territory
Speaker 1: and Anglo or white settlers moved in. So there's tension
Speaker 1: over land, which increased with the Mexican Revolution in nineteen ten,
Speaker 1: and it's around then that the Ranger force started growing fast.
Speaker 4: So they are protecting in name, Anglo settlers from savage
Speaker 4: Native nations and from you know, treacherous Mexicans.
Speaker 1: That's historian Monica Munos Martinez. She's the author of the
Speaker 1: Injustice Never Leaves You, Anti Mexican violence in Texas. She's
Speaker 1: an assistant professor of American Studies at Brown University, and
Speaker 1: she's from South Texas.
Speaker 4: And so what you have is the recruitment of men
Speaker 4: who have no training. They can shoot on site, they
Speaker 4: can arrest prisoners.
Speaker 1: Claiming that they were protecting Anglo ranches from raids by
Speaker 1: Mexican bandits. The Rangers terrorize the Mexican and African American community,
Speaker 1: beating and even taking the lives of as many as
Speaker 1: five thousand people. In nineteen eighteen, a group of Rangers
Speaker 1: was part of a ruthless massacre of fifteen men and
Speaker 1: boys in the border town of Borbenide, Texas.
Speaker 4: It is the most well documented example of gross abuse
Speaker 4: and injustice in a haunting story because despite the number
Speaker 4: of witnesses, there were no prosecutions of the Texas Rangers
Speaker 4: that participated.
Speaker 1: After hearing about all of these abuses, one man would
Speaker 1: decide that all of this was just too much. The
Speaker 1: Rangers needed to be held accountable for their violence. That
Speaker 1: man would end up starting an investigation into the Rangers
Speaker 1: that would capture the nation's attention, and it would leave
Speaker 1: behind a narrative about the US Mexico border that would
Speaker 1: linger even today. To tell us the story of how
Speaker 1: it all turned out, producer Liza Jaeger is going to
Speaker 1: take it from here.
Speaker 9: Jose Tomascanalis didn't really want to be at the center
Speaker 9: of an investigation of the Texas Rangers, but from the
Speaker 9: very beginning that's how it was. Well, I mean, I
Speaker 9: think maybe we should just start with, like, who was
Speaker 9: he like as a person?
Speaker 7: This guy is you know, he's in terms of like
Speaker 7: top forty hits, right, this guy was a hit.
Speaker 2: This is Richard Ribb.
Speaker 9: He's studied canalist for years, since he started his PhD
Speaker 9: back in the nineties. He's writing a book about him
Speaker 9: for ut Press, and he knows a lot of details.
Speaker 7: And he's this incredibly well educated, sharp looking. If I
Speaker 7: don't know if you've seen pictures of him, he was
Speaker 7: a good looking young man. Like what very fine cheekbones.
Speaker 9: Canalis was born in eighteen seventy seven on a ranch
Speaker 9: in South Texas, a really huge, fancy ranch.
Speaker 7: He was from the landed elite in South Texas, whose
Speaker 7: family in South Texas dated back into the late eighteenth century.
Speaker 9: Canalis is descended from Spanish immigrants who set up in
Speaker 9: Texas back when it was Mexico.
Speaker 2: By the time Canalis is.
Speaker 9: Born, they'd been living in the region for over one
Speaker 9: hundred years, so he's of Mexican descent as well. They're
Speaker 9: one of the most powerful, wealthy ranching families in the region.
Speaker 9: But Canalis from early on isn't going to be a rancher.
Speaker 9: He goes to law school in Michigan.
Speaker 7: And soon he is conducting the legal affairs and real
Speaker 7: estate affairs for the King Ranch.
Speaker 9: Back from law school, Canalis starts working as a lawyer
Speaker 9: for one of the biggest ranches around.
Speaker 7: Which would be you know, the equivalent of Exxon Mobile
Speaker 7: or Amazon or something today.
Speaker 9: It's a huge, important job, and Canalis does it well.
Speaker 2: He becomes pretty well known, powerful.
Speaker 7: And eventually came into the political side of things.
Speaker 9: In nineteen oh five, he becomes the sole official of
Speaker 9: Mexican descent in the Texas legislature.
Speaker 2: And it's important to.
Speaker 9: Know that for Canalis, being a legislator isn't really.
Speaker 2: Just a job.
Speaker 9: He was really religious and law legal system. For him,
Speaker 9: all of that gets wrapped up in his faith.
Speaker 7: Canalis is all about the rule of law. If the
Speaker 7: rule of law breaks down, then we're no more than
Speaker 7: savage beasts.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 9: So that's his mentality and the other thing to know
Speaker 9: about Canalis he is very familiar with the Texas Rangers.
Speaker 4: He idolizes as the Texas Rangers.
Speaker 9: Historian Monica Munos Martinez. Again, Canalis is familiar with the
Speaker 9: Rangers because.
Speaker 2: He grew up with them.
Speaker 7: He tells stories about the Rangers, like camping on their property,
Speaker 7: about them swapping horses with the Rangers, and that you
Speaker 7: know they were glad to see them when they came around,
Speaker 7: and they you know, they were men of honor.
Speaker 9: But as a state representative, Canalis starts getting reports about
Speaker 9: the Rangers, and they're telling a really different story that
Speaker 9: the Rangers, especially those rangers who are hired fast in
Speaker 9: a group, pretty untrained, are not the Rangers of his youth.
Speaker 9: He hears about men shot in the back just for
Speaker 9: reporting a crime, or burnt alive, beaten to death, all
Speaker 9: of this with no prosecutions, no serious oversight, And to Canalis,
Speaker 9: all of that sounds like the rule of law breaking down.
Speaker 4: So he starts to be unsettled by this culture of impunity.
Speaker 9: And then a relative of Canalis, a rancher, is tortured
Speaker 9: by a group of rangers. It happens when he's on
Speaker 9: his own property. They claim that he's helping bandits. Canalis
Speaker 9: writes about the case to the governor.
Speaker 7: Like, you've got to clean these guys up. These rangers
Speaker 7: are a destructive force and if he could just talk
Speaker 7: to somebody, get him to see the light, then they
Speaker 7: would act responsibly.
Speaker 9: But the governor doesn't do anything about it. And then
Speaker 9: one day Canalis is walking down the street by his
Speaker 9: law office and.
Speaker 7: He hears this shout from behind him and approaching him
Speaker 7: is this massive individual six four two eighty.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's a ranger named Frank.
Speaker 7: Hamer, and he says to Canalis, you better stop what
Speaker 7: you're doing or you're going to get hurt.
Speaker 9: As in, stop complaining about the rangers. And that for
Speaker 9: Canalis that's a turning point.
Speaker 4: Him with all of his privilege. He's not even protected
Speaker 4: from this kind of racial intimidation.
Speaker 9: So in January of nineteen nineteen, Canalis arrives at the
Speaker 9: Statehouse in Texas with a plan. Canalis, lover of law
Speaker 9: and order, has written a bill, a bill recommending some
Speaker 9: simple reforms.
Speaker 7: And it creates quite a fewer.
Speaker 9: He wants rangers better discipline, a bond system, basically meaning
Speaker 9: that if a Ranger killed someone, the victim's family could
Speaker 9: seek compensation.
Speaker 7: So it comes in and the word gets out that
Speaker 7: Canalis wants to take down the Rangers. That's the message.
Speaker 9: Canalis doesn't want to take down the Rangers. He just
Speaker 9: wants to pass a bill for more oversight perform.
Speaker 7: And Canal you know, way, whoa whoa, whoa. Wait, who's
Speaker 7: calling for the dissolving of the Rangers?
Speaker 2: Not me, But the legislature decides.
Speaker 7: Let's let's have a hearing about all this. Let's have
Speaker 7: a hearing on the existence of the future existence of
Speaker 7: the Rangers.
Speaker 2: Are not a public hearing on the legislature floor.
Speaker 5: The committee will now come to order.
Speaker 9: So for this next part of the story, we're going
Speaker 9: to take you inside that investigation, which is over one
Speaker 9: hundred years old. So to bring it alive, we have
Speaker 9: some voice actors who will be reading a bit from
Speaker 9: that transcript.
Speaker 2: It's January thirty.
Speaker 9: First, nineteen nineteen, and Canalis is in the middle of
Speaker 9: this six hundred square foot room at the State Capitol
Speaker 9: in Austin. There are all these rows of desks, a
Speaker 9: podium up front, and a serious audience. Every Texas Ranger
Speaker 9: has been called to Austin for the investigation, and they've
Speaker 9: shown up at the Capitol building filling the room.
Speaker 4: You know, there are accounts of the room being so
Speaker 4: packed that people are spilling out to the hallways and
Speaker 4: looking in from the windows.
Speaker 9: And the plan for this whole thing is get a
Speaker 9: bunch of witnesses to talk about exactly how the Rangers
Speaker 9: are acting, and at the end decide are they doing
Speaker 9: a good job or are they breaking the law?
Speaker 2: And Canalis he's pretty much.
Speaker 9: Single handedly in charge of making the case against the Rangers.
Speaker 7: He's in over his head. He's in way over his head.
Speaker 7: I mean, this all has come up on the fly, right,
Speaker 7: It's not like he's been planning this for six months.
Speaker 7: He's putting this together on a week's notice.
Speaker 9: But if you read those first few pages, of the transcript.
Speaker 9: Canelis seems to start out pretty confident. He has his
Speaker 9: letter he's written up with a bunch of charges against
Speaker 9: the Rangers, and he hands.
Speaker 2: It out to all these important people in the room.
Speaker 9: On the first day of testimony, this big group of
Speaker 9: men shows up to talk. They're all Anglo businessmen and ranchers,
Speaker 9: and they're there to talk about general conditions on the
Speaker 9: border and their personal histories with the Rangers. So one
Speaker 9: of the first witnesses Canelis questions is a guy who
Speaker 9: runs a car shop in Idelgo County, in a town
Speaker 9: called Mercedes, which is right near the bottom tip of Texas.
Speaker 2: He jumps right in.
Speaker 10: You say you live in Mercedes, Yes, sir, you remember
Speaker 10: the incident of the young man that came to Mercedes
Speaker 10: during the Bandit trouble we had in nineteen fifteen on
Speaker 10: the branch train arrived there about noon and was arrested
Speaker 10: by rangers. He had his hand in a sling and
Speaker 10: was arrested by rangers and was found dead a few
Speaker 10: minutes afterwards.
Speaker 2: So here Canalis.
Speaker 9: He's reminding the guy of this case where a wounded
Speaker 9: man had come to town for medical help, and because
Speaker 9: the man was of Mexican heritage and had arrived a
Speaker 9: few days after a bandit raid in town where bandits
Speaker 9: were injured. He was shot and killed by the rangers,
Speaker 9: no questions asked, even though he had nothing to do
Speaker 9: with the raid.
Speaker 10: This wounded man. You know, it was a day or
Speaker 10: two after the incident that this man arrived at Mercedes
Speaker 10: on the noon train with his hand in a sling
Speaker 10: to see the doctor and was arrested and immediately taken
Speaker 10: out and shot, thinking he was one of those persons
Speaker 10: wounded in that.
Speaker 9: And Canalis is kind of like, come on, remember this
Speaker 9: thing that happened, But the car shop owner up on
Speaker 9: the stand says no, multiple times, No.
Speaker 3: I never heard of any such case as that.
Speaker 9: And maybe it's then that Canals starts to realize that
Speaker 9: he's not going to be like collectively putting heads together
Speaker 9: with everyone in the room to get to the bottom
Speaker 9: of what's really going on with the rangers. The investigation
Speaker 9: is going to be a fight one version of reality
Speaker 9: against another, And for many of the witnesses in those
Speaker 9: first few days, their reality of the US Mexico border
Speaker 9: is that it's a violent place. This is an Anglo
Speaker 9: settler from South Texas on the stand being questioned.
Speaker 5: Would you be afraid to continue your residence there if
Speaker 5: they should abolish the Rangers.
Speaker 10: I think it would be dangerous. I think would start
Speaker 10: all over again. The bandits and outlaws across the river
Speaker 10: now will come on this side more.
Speaker 2: We were almost terror stricken down there.
Speaker 10: We look upon the rangers as more or less of
Speaker 10: a godsend.
Speaker 3: To our valley.
Speaker 9: They're describing a border region where the rangers are necessary
Speaker 9: and Mexicans are outlaws.
Speaker 2: One lawyer who.
Speaker 9: Testifies says the border is infested with banditry, and Canalis
Speaker 9: has a different narrative. He has a lot of evidence
Speaker 9: on his side, stacks of testimonies from people who've written
Speaker 9: to him about ranger abuse.
Speaker 2: Except there's a catch.
Speaker 4: People know that if you bring charges against the Texas Ranger,
Speaker 4: you're likely going to be killed. People know this.
Speaker 9: People are too afraid to testify in person. The next
Speaker 9: few days of the trial are just this barrage of witnesses.
Speaker 9: Canellis doesn't even get his own witnesses on the stand
Speaker 9: for days, and it's not until the seventh day that
Speaker 9: Canalis actually gets someone on the stand who is of
Speaker 9: Mexican heritage a man named Jesus Vireal.
Speaker 2: He's in law enforcement in South Texas, a constable.
Speaker 9: Viareal says one day he was driving three men to
Speaker 9: his ranch when a ranger pulled them over. The ranger
Speaker 9: interrogated them aggressively, and Villareal tells the story on the stand.
Speaker 11: They got hold of me by the throat, mouth and
Speaker 11: nos and they held me that way about five minutes.
Speaker 5: They told me to speak. I could not speak.
Speaker 2: He says.
Speaker 9: The rangers beat them with pistols until they confess to
Speaker 9: a crime draft divasion, but that it was a false confession.
Speaker 11: I told him there was an untruth. Then the cocked
Speaker 11: pistol was put into my mouth. They told me I
Speaker 11: would tell the truth or they would kill me.
Speaker 9: Via Reel is one of just two Mexican American victims
Speaker 9: of ranger abuse who speak during the investigation, and at
Speaker 9: the end of his testimony, he gets asked to do
Speaker 9: this thing to point out his abuser, the man who
Speaker 9: he's just told that whole story about.
Speaker 2: He's in the room.
Speaker 9: The investigation is by all accounts grueling, but janels he
Speaker 9: feels like he's doing pretty well.
Speaker 4: I think that he wholeheartedly believes that if you show
Speaker 4: the ways in which people are being denied due process,
Speaker 4: that that is going to alarm politicians, and so I
Speaker 4: think that he has more faith in American democracy at
Speaker 4: that time that looking at the conditions, looking at the context,
Speaker 4: than I would have had.
Speaker 9: But Monique says that there's also this bigger thing that's happening.
Speaker 9: The Ranger investigation is being reported on every day, not
Speaker 9: just locally but also nationally. It's read by people who've
Speaker 9: never been to Texas, let alone South Texas.
Speaker 4: So people are developing these ideas about what the border is,
Speaker 4: what Mexicans are, and because many people have been actually
Speaker 4: been there, the people who are testifying or setting the scene.
Speaker 9: Of a place full of Mexican outlaws and horse thieves
Speaker 9: and draft dodgers on the border, the.
Speaker 4: Attorneys create this narrative that there is a crisis on
Speaker 4: the border and that Anglos are under threat and that
Speaker 4: they are being murdered in mass by Mexicans, which is
Speaker 4: not accurate.
Speaker 9: It starts to become evident that that's not an accident.
Speaker 2: It's a strategy paint.
Speaker 9: The border as lawless and Mexicans as violent, disloyal and
Speaker 9: patriotic and anyone who disagrees probably shouldn't be trusted.
Speaker 1: Coming up on Latino USA, the investigation of the Texas
Speaker 1: Rangers is about to get personal. Stay with us, Yes, Hey,
Speaker 1: we're back. It's nineteen nineteen and j Di Canales is
Speaker 1: the only member of the Texas State Legislature of Mexican
Speaker 1: heritage and he begins a full scale investigation into the
Speaker 1: lawless behavior of the Texas Rangers, who have been known
Speaker 1: to arrest, torture, or even murder Mexican Americans on the
Speaker 1: border with impunity. And in this part of the hearing
Speaker 1: things start to heat up. Producer Liza Jeger takes us
Speaker 1: to Austin, Texas and the biggest day of the instigation.
Speaker 9: The Rangers hearing is pretty well publicized. People in Austin
Speaker 9: are paying attention, but there's one moment that's advertised in
Speaker 9: the papers for days beforehand. It's the tenth day of testimony,
Speaker 9: when Canalis himself is slated to take the stand.
Speaker 4: People were spilling out of the room trying to watch
Speaker 4: what was happening.
Speaker 9: It's ten am and Canalis settles into his seat at
Speaker 9: the front of the room, poised and smiling, and then
Speaker 9: he starts talking.
Speaker 4: So he actually starts with a long monologue he gives
Speaker 4: he introduces himself to the people in the room, and
Speaker 4: really it's like he's introducing himself to the journalists who
Speaker 4: are going to be writing about this.
Speaker 10: My name is J. T. Canales. I was born in
Speaker 10: the old county of Nuess, state of Texas, very near
Speaker 10: to the present town of Kingsville. I am forty two
Speaker 10: years old, will be next month. I went to the
Speaker 10: public schools of my county, came to Austin and attended
Speaker 10: business College.
Speaker 9: He talks about his degrees, his history of service for
Speaker 9: the state, and Canalis. He's being strategic here, like, come on,
Speaker 9: you guys, we're on the same team.
Speaker 2: We're all from the same world.
Speaker 4: He was lighter skinned, his wife was anglow, and so
Speaker 4: he very much is trying to align himself in terms
Speaker 4: of his family history and his political work with the
Speaker 4: other men, the other white men who are in the
Speaker 4: Texas legislature.
Speaker 2: He starts narrating how he feels like the Rangers for
Speaker 2: almost one hundred years were this great heroic force.
Speaker 10: They were a capable set of men and did not
Speaker 10: need any restriction because their own conscience was a self
Speaker 10: restraint and law.
Speaker 2: But that little by little they've gone rotten.
Speaker 10: In nineteen fifteen, so far as my recollection goes, is
Speaker 10: when the first general outrages perpetrated by Rangers began.
Speaker 9: He explains that bandit raids on the border increased because
Speaker 9: of economic instability after the Mexican revelation, and then he
Speaker 9: spends the next two and a half hours explaining how
Speaker 9: the Rangers have come to violate the people's trust as
Speaker 9: law enforcement.
Speaker 3: Are you ready for the cross examination?
Speaker 9: And then it's time for questions. The Rangers lawyer, this
Speaker 9: man named Robert E. Lee Knight, gets up mister Canalis
Speaker 9: and he starts grilling Canalis mostly about his motives.
Speaker 5: Have you not consciously or do you think it is
Speaker 5: possible unconsciously permitted yourself to be worked into a condition
Speaker 5: where you are prone to the outrageous perpetrated and magnify
Speaker 5: the casual mistakes of those struggling with the situation down there?
Speaker 5: About what you have testified?
Speaker 9: Okay, So what's happening here is he's asking this really
Speaker 9: roundabout question where he's basically saying, don't you have an
Speaker 9: agenda here?
Speaker 2: An anti white, pro Mexican agenda?
Speaker 10: No, Sir, I do not at all I say here
Speaker 10: that the men who killed the Austins and others down
Speaker 10: there committed cold blooded murder.
Speaker 9: Canalis is like, no, I'm not biased. These murders are
Speaker 9: just wrong. And basically for hours, this is the tone
Speaker 9: of the back and forth between Knight and Canalis. The
Speaker 9: committee actually has to take a break for dinner, and
Speaker 9: when they come back, there's a surprise testimony. State Representative
Speaker 9: Claude Hudsmith has traveled all the way from DC to testify.
Speaker 3: You have lately been elected a member of Congress.
Speaker 6: Yes, from the sixteenth Congressional district.
Speaker 2: Hudsmith is a really big deal.
Speaker 9: He's one of the most respected politicians in the state
Speaker 9: from El Paso, and from the start his testimony is aggressive.
Speaker 6: I don't believe in this, mister Chairman. In extending very
Speaker 6: much clemency to men who come across that river and
Speaker 6: murder our wives and children, you have got to kill
Speaker 6: those Mexicans when you find them, or they will kill you.
Speaker 4: He describes Mexicans as inherently violent. He calls the murderers
Speaker 4: and rapists. You know, it's all transcribed, and he says
Speaker 4: things like you can't give them a chance. You have
Speaker 4: to shoot them when you see them, you know, saying
Speaker 4: if you remove the Texas Rangers, I will calm down
Speaker 4: from DC and lead a mob if I have to.
Speaker 6: Now, I'm going to be candid with you, tell you
Speaker 6: about mob law. If I had it in my power,
Speaker 6: I would lead a mob in a minute against them.
Speaker 3: You are speaking as a citizen.
Speaker 6: Yes, I'm speaking as a citizen. We are not going
Speaker 6: to stand for those bandits to ravage our country.
Speaker 9: After Hudspith, the Rangers lawyer picks up the cross examination
Speaker 9: of Canalis, and that's when things start to get even uglier,
Speaker 9: more personal.
Speaker 5: Now, mister Canalis, you are by blood a Mexican, are
Speaker 5: you not.
Speaker 10: I am not a Mexican. I am an American citizen.
Speaker 5: Your father or grandfather came from Mexico.
Speaker 10: My father came from Mexico.
Speaker 5: How old were you when he came here.
Speaker 10: I don't know. I wasn't born then, And you.
Speaker 5: Don't know from family history or tradition where he came. No, sir,
Speaker 5: and all of your people are not Americans, that is,
Speaker 5: are not citizens of the United States. Mister Canalis, have
Speaker 5: you any blood relatives on the other side? I have
Speaker 5: got some, yes, sir, how many?
Speaker 10: I don't know. I can't tell you because I haven't
Speaker 10: been to Mexico in a long time.
Speaker 9: The lawyer is basically saying to the room, look at
Speaker 9: this guy. Because he has Mexican heritage, we should think
Speaker 9: twice about everything he says and this whole investigation.
Speaker 3: You want this committee to assume that because mister Canalis
Speaker 3: has some relatives in Mexico, that he is disloyal.
Speaker 5: No, sir, I do not. I simply offer it under
Speaker 5: the ordinary rules the proceedings of this character. Hear me
Speaker 5: a moment. It will do no harm. There is a
Speaker 5: saying that blood is thicker than water. Not accusing the
Speaker 5: gentleman of consciously having motives that are not worthy, but
Speaker 5: I say that might unconsciously influence him in this matter.
Speaker 9: And remember, for Canalis this whole time, the heart of
Speaker 9: his problem with the Rangers hasn't actually been that they're
Speaker 9: targeting Mexicans or people with Mexican heritage. He's upset because
Speaker 9: they're breaking the law. So Monica says, for him to
Speaker 9: be personally attacked like this, it's a blow.
Speaker 4: He saw himself as a Texan, as an American and
Speaker 4: didn't identify as being Mexican, and in this investigation, in
Speaker 4: the ways in which he is treated, this is an
Speaker 4: effort by these lawyers to put him in his place
Speaker 4: and to say you are a Mexican. Just try to demean.
Speaker 12: Him anything, for they're with this witness, Gentlemen absolutely through.
Speaker 9: By the time the hearings closed that day, it's been
Speaker 9: twelve hours since Canelis first took the stand. The hearings
Speaker 9: end on February eleventh, eighty three people have testified. A
Speaker 9: few days later, the Hearings committee releases their report.
Speaker 7: The committee says, Okay, we've carefully considered this stuff and
Speaker 7: Rangers are fine. They exonerated them, finest force the world
Speaker 7: has ever seen.
Speaker 5: Kind of stuff.
Speaker 9: They go out of their way to commend the Rangers
Speaker 9: captain and his general for doing excellent work. They've been
Speaker 9: under trying conditions, the report says, and done a good
Speaker 9: job in a violent place. They do include a few
Speaker 9: specific incidents of abuse.
Speaker 7: This guy and this guy and this guy were bad apples,
Speaker 7: you know, like this guy went row, that guy went rogue,
Speaker 7: you know, this guy.
Speaker 2: And there were some big changes afterwards.
Speaker 9: Many members of the force were dismissed, mostly the ones
Speaker 9: that were hired quickly and without qualifications, and a way
Speaker 9: to hear complaints was put in place. But overall, systematically
Speaker 9: the Rangers procedures mostly don't change and the findings don't
Speaker 9: call for any prosecutions. Later, the Rangers captain writes about
Speaker 9: the report to a friend and tells him quote, the
Speaker 9: committee report was all we could hope for vindication complete.
Speaker 7: But even after the hearings, House Bill five is still around.
Speaker 9: This is Canalis's original bill for Ranger reform, but now
Speaker 9: it's gutted of power. Mostly it just gives the Rangers
Speaker 9: a raise, which infuriates Canalis.
Speaker 7: He fights it to the nail on the House floor,
Speaker 7: almost coming to blows.
Speaker 2: The bill passed.
Speaker 9: When Canalis Is asked about it in the newspaper later,
Speaker 9: he says, I do not recognize my child. Canellis doesn't
Speaker 9: run for office again. After that session. He goes back
Speaker 9: to Brownsville.
Speaker 4: He continues to work as a lawyer, not.
Speaker 2: In politics, via legal advocacy.
Speaker 9: And in nineteen twenty nine he helped to found what
Speaker 9: is one of the main civil rights organizations for Latinos today, LULAC,
Speaker 9: the League of United Latin American Citizens.
Speaker 4: And he then continues to help design this legal strategy
Speaker 4: for seeking more rights for Mexican Americans, and so the
Speaker 4: way that he does that shifts, So you know, the
Speaker 4: idea of who they're fighting for, whose rights they're trying
Speaker 4: to defend, shrinks.
Speaker 9: In the early days, members were US citizens only, and
Speaker 9: women were not encouraged to join. And Monica argues that
Speaker 9: in that early advocacy, a particular strategy starts to take shape.
Speaker 4: So it's essentially, you know, the strategy of civil rights
Speaker 4: that says, like, we will through this respectability politics. You know,
Speaker 4: we are well educated, we have good jobs, we have
Speaker 4: histories of military service, and we have good patriotic citizens
Speaker 4: that they, as a legal strategy, claim a category of whiteness.
Speaker 9: And she says, canalists latching onto that strategy. It might
Speaker 9: have been related to his experience in nineteen nineteen in
Speaker 9: the Ranger investigation.
Speaker 4: Historians have interpreted his conservative politics in the twenties and
Speaker 4: thirties and forties and thereafter is really being shaped by
Speaker 4: this experience in the trial.
Speaker 9: When it comes to what the Ranger investigation meant for
Speaker 9: law enforcement on the border, this is a moment of
Speaker 9: some reform, some acknowledgment.
Speaker 4: Some people look at this investigation in nineteen nineteen is
Speaker 4: saying that's the endpoint. The crimes were put on display,
Speaker 4: and so the Texas Rangers were reformed, and then after
Speaker 4: that the Texas Rangers were wonderful.
Speaker 9: Right for historians like Monica and for many descendants of
Speaker 9: people who were hurt by the Rangers, it wasn't that
Speaker 9: simple because mostly the investigation affirmed a culture of anti
Speaker 9: Mexican policing, one that didn't change after those weeks in
Speaker 9: the hearings.
Speaker 4: You know, dismissing Texas Rangers is not an act of
Speaker 4: justice when you don't see the prosecutions. It means that
Speaker 4: many of them also rejoin law enforcement and other capacities.
Speaker 4: Some of them become federal officers, They become US Immigration
Speaker 4: Customs Inspection agents, some of them become prison guards. Some
Speaker 4: of them go on to be in the Border Patrol.
Speaker 9: The Border Patrol, by the way, was founded in nineteen
Speaker 9: twenty four, just five years after this investigation, and it
Speaker 9: came out of a section of a congressional bill push
Speaker 9: or by none other than Claude Hudsmith, the guy from
Speaker 9: the investigation who called Mexicans murders and rapists, and Monicae
Speaker 9: says the investigation left another legacy too.
Speaker 4: What you really saw was that there was a media
Speaker 4: and pr machine that was being animated by politicians, by
Speaker 4: Texas rangers to cast the border as a dangerous place
Speaker 4: and to justify state.
Speaker 9: Violence, a place in crisis and full of others. That
Speaker 9: image that the state lawyers and the Anglo ranchers and
Speaker 9: the rangers painted of the US Mexico border it stuck.
Speaker 4: That's something that actively goes on today, the separations of families,
Speaker 4: people being denied their legal rights to claim asylum. There's
Speaker 4: an active effort to portray people, racialize them in a
Speaker 4: way that denies them any sort of public sympathy and
Speaker 4: instead sanctions publicly the kinds of brutality that we're seeing
Speaker 4: on the border today.
Speaker 9: And so this idea of the border as this violent,
Speaker 9: lawless place where law enforcement doesn't have to follow the
Speaker 9: same rules as they do elsewhere, that's not something new.
Speaker 9: It's over one hundred years in the making.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to historians Monica Munjos Martinez and Richard Ribb.
Speaker 1: Rib is currently working on a book titled Shame and
Speaker 1: Disgrace to My Native State, j Ticnalees and the Quest
Speaker 1: to Reform the Texas Rangers. It comes out in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two and special thanks to our voice actors Marlon Bishop,
Speaker 1: Brandon Gomez, jg Lilly, Tim Lopez, Raul Pes and Brian Pickett.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Liza Jaeger and edited by
Speaker 1: Sophia Paalisa car fact checking by Amy Tardiff. It was
Speaker 1: mixed by Stephanie Lebou and Julia Caruso. The Latino USA
Speaker 1: team includes Andrea Lopez Cruzado, Daisy Contreras, Mike Sargent, Marta Martinez,
Speaker 1: Victoria Strada, Reinaldo, Leanos Junior, Patricia Sulbaran, and Elizabeth Lowenthal Torres.
Speaker 1: Our editorial director is Vinandza Santos. Our associate engineers are
Speaker 1: gabriel A Bias and JJ Carubin. Our marketing manager is
Speaker 1: Luis Luna. Our theme music was composed by Zane Rouinos.
Speaker 1: I'm your host and executive producer Maria jo Josa. Join
Speaker 1: us again on our next episode. In the meantime, look
Speaker 1: for us on social media and remember not de vayas
Speaker 1: Luka Joe.
Speaker 8: Latino USA is made possible in part by public Welfare Foundation,
Speaker 8: catalyzing transformative approaches to justice that are community led, restorative,
Speaker 8: and racially just. W. K. Kellogg Foundation, a partner with
Speaker 8: Communities Where Children Come First, and the John D. And
Speaker 8: Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation,