FINAL REPORT - Social Work in Colonias - April 22, 2008
By Patty Cano, Sharon Cornet, Terri Garay, Kathleen Harris, Alex Lom,
Lisa Mora, Naomi Orona, Maribel Perez, Maria Prater, and Karina Salvio

Our own group definition of colonias is:

Colonias are poor, rural communities, where home ownership is a privilege.  Colonias have no formal ties with the government, cities and towns.  So often they do not have the services that are available to urban areas like running water, treated sewerage and street maintenance.  Residents do not pay high property taxes, nor have restrictions as zoning ordinances and building codes.

Our group (one of three within our entire class), which we named “Justicias” (meaning ‘Justice’), surveyed the Nuway and Mayfair colonias, that sit side by side,

without any delineating visual divisions between them, so we counted them as one area.  This is where we did our study. 

Colonia Location:       Nuway/Mayfair Colonias

                                    (Mayfair Subd #3,4,5, and Nuway addition)

                                    Northern area of Canutillo, TX, south of Village of Vinton

                                    Greater area: NW side of El Paso county, west of the Franklin Mountains,

just east of the Rio Grande river.

Survey Group:            Group Name: “Justicias” (Justice)

            Patty Cano                    Sharon Cornet               Terri Garay                    Kathleen Harris
            Alex Lom                      Lisa Mora                     Naomi Orona                Maribel Perez
            Maria Prater                  Karina Salvio

Colonia walks:           

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Methods

The methods we used as a group to serving the colonias were various. First we began by forming a group, which gathered a total of ten members. Once the group was established we interchanged contact information in order to keep in touch with one another outside the classroom.

The next step was to decide on what colonia we were going to visit. Since there are many colonias near the El Paso area, it was hard to make a decision. One of our members mentioned she had knowledge on certain colonias and one of them was Nuway (combined with the Mayfair colonia since they were within the same community group area). The group agreed that Nuway/Mayfair would be the colonia(s) we were going to survey. Once we obtained a map of the colonia, our group leader divided the area into five different sections. Those five sections were then color-coded. The sections were then referred to as; red, green, blue, orange, or purple areas. Once Nuway/Mayfair was divided into five sections, the group members were then paired off in order to have two or three members per section.

While this was going on within the group, the class as a whole was discussing and deciding on what questions would be asked to the residents of the colonias that we were planning to visit. Once the six questions of the survey were decided on, our group set up different dates and times to go and visit the colonias. We would set up a certain time and then we would all meet at the Outlet Mall of El Paso (near Canutillo at Interstate-10).  

The first visit included a “colonia walk” in which we took flyers on “get the vote out” to colonia residents to see how many people were registered voters, and to inform them of where they could go to vote or become registered voters, if they chose.  This gave our class a chance to get to know some of the people within the colonias we chose to work in, as well as familiarize ourselves with the area itself, and to scope out which utility services and other things like roads, curbs, etc. were available.  The rest of the colonia walks were strictly for introducing our survey and gathering information from the residents as they responded.  The goal was to ask some open-ended questions such as “What are your needs?” as well as gather information on some basic demographics.  The survey was semi-structured and we were to take notes.   Each pair that went out was to have at least one bilingual person since some of the homes had only Spanish speaking people living there.

When we arrived to the Outlet Mall near the colonia, we would find our parking spot (which was also our meeting point). We carpooled to the colonias, and the group would go with their partners to their assigned color area. In order for the residents to identify us, our group leader bought us clipboards and nametag holders. The holders were clear plastic casings in which we could slide our UTEP I.D. cards inside, and then pin them to our shirts in order for the Nuway/Mayfair colonia residents to be able to identify us and to dispel any fears that we might be with Immigration, or with any religious group(s) that proselytizes the area occasionally, etc.

When we arrived to the houses within the colonia, we would begin by introducing ourselves and would explain the motive of our visit and ask them if they wanted to participate in the survey. When all the five sets of pairs obtained their information after the various visits we made, our group leader told us to e-mail all of the responses we gathered to her and that she would use a coding system (a system she had previously learned in her previously taken “Methods of Research” Sociology courses) in order to get accurate results from the qualitative (detailed) data and produce quantitative (numerical) data via percentages and rates of the responses in the survey.  The results were formed into graphs, which are shown later in this report.

After all the information was gathered, our group then assigned different sections of the report to all of the members. Each member was to work on the assigned section and turn in to the group leader. Once the group leader received everyone’s part in the report, she put the sections in order and the report with everyone’s part was created. The survey results that were coded were also turned in to another member of our group who agreed to do the PowerPoint presentation as a supplement to the report.    

Color-coded Map - Source: www.mapquest.com 

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Results of “Get out the Vote” initial colonia walk:

Our first visits were to introduce ourselves as UTEP students to the residents so they would get to know us.  We had flyers to “Get out the vote,” which we passed around at each house.  Some homes had dogs, so we didn’t enter, and others had locked gates, or were just abandoned (very few).   Others had gates and dogs but the dogs were small and let us pet them so we came in. 

We walked the neighborhood in small groups of 2-3 for each section we had marked on our map.  We talked with the people about voting, gave them a flyer, and began asking if they were registered voters, telling them how they could become registered if they were not already, writing down phone numbers for them, giving them information to ensure they knew where to go to vote, and casually asking about the community when appropriate.  Most people were very welcoming, but some people, whom we knew were home, refused to answer the door. 

Of the 28 homes that 2 people in our group went to for “Get out the vote,” we found these situations (others in our group also found similar results):

1. Non-registered
2. 1 registered voter
3. Vacant
4. Vacant
5. Out
6. Out
7. 1 registered voter
8. Vacant
9. 1 registered
10. Out
11. Out
12. 1 registered voter, 1 non-registered
13. 2 registered voters
14. Out (not there)
15. Out
16. Out
17. Out
18. Vacant or construction
19. Out
20. 3 registered voters
21. Out
22. Out
23. Out
24. Out
25. Gate locked – Out
26. Out
27. Large barking dogs inside fence – did not go in
28. 1 registered voter, 1 non-registered

Out of the 28 homes on 4 streets:

57% were out/away from the home (1 of them had dogs that kept us from entering the yard)

14% were vacant or was in mid-construction phase 

4% had no registered voters

25% had registered voters

Out of the 25% of homes (7 homes total) that had registered voters:

71% had 1 registered voter (and 2 of the 7 homes had 1 non-registered voter as well)

29% had 2 or 3 registered voters in the household

Both women and men were registered voters, young-medium-aged adults to the elderly.

One person claimed his wife was a voter but that he “did not qualify” to vote (he spoke perfect English and appeared semi-Caucasian and we didn’t ask why he did not qualify).  One man, who was not a registered voter, said he owned frontage on Doniphan street, as well as the 5 houses perpendicular to it (along McArthur Dr.).   His house was located behind his business (which was on Doniphan) and he had, many years ago, bought the water rights and paid to purchase and install water lines himself for those 5 homes.  The city water goes to all 5 homes, and they split one bill, which averages about $100/mo ($20/home).  The man, who was up in years, also had a well on his own property, which he used to water his lawn and trees and plants.  He said the city water tasted fine, and that he didn’t drink the well water (no reason given).

One man, who was not a registered voter, was very open and talkative.  After giving him information on how to become registered voter, we asked him about the community and water system.  He didn’t seem to know where his water came from but said that he did receive a water bill.  He was unaware of the old water system that is currently in place that feeds the homes in the community.  

The water system for the area is toward the back of the subdivision, and several galvanized metal water tanks are clumped near the end of Joy St and Selva.  The system is maintained but some people think the water tastes bad, and others think it tastes fine.  Still others don’t know because they buy bottled water and only drink that.  No one has any real complaints about the water or the price of their water bill.

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On a later SURVEY visit to Nuway/Mayfair our group went walked the Nuway/Mayfair streets again.  This time we took the survey that was created by the class.  The Q&A is below is what we used:

1)       What do you feel your needs are?

2)       What transportation do you have?

3)       Do you receive any government/social services?

4)       How many people live in the household?

5)       What in your community do you think needs the most improvement?

6)       How long have you been living here?

We will be covering the results of this survey shortly, but first we felt it was imperative to give a history of the “conditions” that people live in within colonias, as compared to other comparable areas throughout history.  To put colonias in perspective we must be able to see the bigger picture.
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History of Colonias: Putting Colonias in Perspective

Based on the definitions (given earlier) of what a “colonia” is, there is no doubt that there are issues within colonias that are of peak interest to the state of Texas.  We will be covering the colonia laws shortly, but first there must be some background given.  Colonias exist all along the U.S.-Mexico border, but we will only be covering Texas colonias here.  It was in 1995 when the most obvious colonia laws were enacted, but prior to that colonias were really beginning to be developed and identified in the mid-1980’s.  Before that many older colonias had sprung up, especially since the 1950’s.  Historically, however, colonias must be not only compared and contrasted with other “poor” areas within the United States, but it helps to keep this ethnocentric view of colonias within the larger context of societies around the globe, since urban sprawl and poverty are prevalent worldwide. 

Historically, humankind has created settlements that grew as naturally as the families and children that made them up.  Eventually these settlements transformed into small to medium populations, and were more like villages and towns.  When overcrowding became a problem, the periphery of the village or town was the natural area of expansion.   Some groups broke off and went elsewhere, repeating the process as they settled into a new area.  This has been the natural and foundational process of civilizations expanding throughout every continent and island known today.  One could say that this has been happening for hundreds of years, but in reality it has been occurring far longer. 

Native Americans were originally small bands or tribes that spread throughout the Americas, coming across the Bering Strait land bridge from what is now Siberia .   The Mound Builders were some of the many groups and descendants of those original travelers, becoming sedentary farming communities.   They built great mounds (some used for burials) and temples that are found for hundreds of miles on both sides of the Mississippi river, some as early as the 6^th century.  There is some information now known about their societal structure, thanks to archaeology, but it is important to note that they did have “riches” that they considered valuable, such as artifacts made of copper, stone, mica, and obsidian.  They also made pottery, pipes, and played sporting games as well as gambled.  This Mississippian culture spread and was greatly varied.  At 13^th century Cahokia (located today at Collinsville, IL) their central plaza and population of 30,000 wasn’t surpassed until Philadelphia’s periphery expanded in the late 18^th century.  It would be well to note that the great Cahokia lacked “city water” that was plumbed in, or paved roads, sewer lines, and many other modern amenities, and could quite well be considered colonia-like in its definition regarding such services.  Stratification and “the rich” or “the poor” is less known, since bartering predated our current paper money, but even the most prominent of leaders at Cahokia would have lacked these basic “necessities” that our modern age takes for granted.

During the Renaissance period in northern Europe the Commons were areas of public land use, where people could graze their cattle or sheep, or utilize the area for other traditional uses such as communal water, fishing, and other resources.  Roads crossed into these areas and although the Monarchy of the times would usually control the land use (monitor it so that it was not overgrazed or misused), it was an area typically used only by commoners (those lacking nobility)… generally meaning “the poor.”  Certainly, the lack of infrastructure during these times could be compared to colonia-like circumstances such as we have today.

It was the 9^th Century B.C. ancient Roman times that were closest to the technology of our modern age of the 19^th and 20^th centuries.  They had vast aqueducts that brought clean water into the cities, and ran separate channels to bring the toilet sewage out of the city.  Water was also brought into agricultural and industrial sites.   Bridges, roads, baths, architecture, and other engineering feats were prevalent in ancient Rome.  This great civilization included stratification and specialization in manufacturing as well as agriculture.  Commerce and banking were part of the peoples’ daily lives, and international trade rose up via smaller communities outside of ancient Rome.  Supply of water from the aqueducts sometimes ran short due to illegal piping of water from them to other areas.  This example is not unlike the small piping of water from a single source to a number of homes along streets in colonias near Brownsville, TX.  The demand for the water was greater than the supply, causing shortages and occasional sanitation problems.

Prior to ancient Rome human settlements were typically around areas of water, including rivers, lakes, streams, and at the edges of oceans.  Temporary handmade dwellings, small one-room huts, many-roomed dwellings for multiple families, or other indigenous home construction types were (and still are today) found worldwide, and within many varied societies and cultures.  These were typically associated with agricultural societies, such as Meso-Americans and other cultures throughout what is now called Asia, Indonesia, Australia, Africa, Europe, etc. 

Paleo-Indians, archaic peoples, and other smaller societies were made up of one to many family-sized groups, such as tribes, or bands.  Many of these groups were hunter-gatherers, and often did not stay in one place for very long at a time.  These Nomadic peoples were on the move, collecting food at different locations according to the seasons, and where the animals being hunted were found.  Being nomadic, these peoples were not settled in one place like colonias are, but they still dealt with the same circumstances of no indoor plumbing, no “city water,” no electricity or other amenities, etc.  

Modern Native American tribes now live on reservations, and because of the poor conditions, many of them have left the “rez” permanently, or go back and forth between the reservation and cities.  Casinos have brought a lot of money to some of the tribes (such as the Mescalero Apaches in the Sacramento Mountains of New Mexico) so that living conditions have improved dramatically (at least for some tribes).  Rarely do you find modern Indians, such as the Lakota/Dakota (Sioux), living in tee pees or other non-permanent dwellings, although it is not unheard of, and it is certainly not considered unusual, or “substandard,” or “wrong” by people within these cultures.  City living, or “civilized” living is a concept adopted by the modernization and industrialization of our current American culture (as well as other nations), which has vastly changed since the original native “Americans’” (Indians’) style of life.  Our enculturation (what we’ve been taught to believe) has biased us today regarding anything outside of our own set of values and beliefs, including the “American Dream” of owning a house, with a dog and/or cat, a garage, appliances, full utilities, and 2.3 kids per household.  Anything less than that is now considered substandard.  This ethnocentric view stands alone when it is compared to the equal or perhaps even greater quality of life that others have obtained outside of that paradigm.

There are even people today - from all backgrounds - who consider living in caves as “better” than the stick-and-brick, stamp ‘em out houses that contractors and developers promote in TV commercials and billboard signs at the edges of cities or other subdivision-zoned areas.  Historically, cave dwellers in North America knew the seasons, the heavens (celestial sphere/stellar constellations), and were in touch with their environment.  They understood what we now call “passive solar design” regarding the caves they chose.  Not too unlike Stonehenge (used for religious and astronomical purposes), which is based on the summer and winter solstices (longest and shortest days of the year, due to the precession of Earth’s orbit), there were approximately a dozen Pueblo Indian families who lived in the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico in the late 13^th and early 14^th centuries.   They understood the cycles of the sun in the sky and how it affected them during different seasons.  In the summer the sun is highest in the sky, and the Gila cliff dwellings (a cave in a cliff side) had an overhang that would keep the sun out, and so the cave would be cool (almost like air conditioning).  In the winter, when the sun was very low in the sky, it would shine into the cave, warming the rock, and would slowly radiate that heat back out into the cave during the night.   Fires assisted in cooking as well as heating these living areas, but it was only the caves or cliff dwellings that faced solar south (not magnetic south) that had this natural passive solar design built in to the dwelling.  Even the prehistoric peoples who used these kinds of caves as shelters/homes understood these ages-old and simple but effective technologies. 

Today, with modern civilization growing and swallowing up different areas of the world, acculturation (cultures dying off) has become a severe problem.  The pre-colonial cultures, such as the San of South Africa (remember the movie “The Gods Must Be Crazy” where this peaceful tribal people discovered a coke bottle that changed their lives?), have nearly all been removed completely from their heritage and culture and lifestyle.  This heritage could be completely lost, forever, due to what Western cultures consider “progress.” 

Progress is not always superior.  Modern “civilized” people typically know very little about their surroundings, the natural processes of the earth and the heavens, and do not often utilize simple passive solar aspects in their home designs (running up very high A/C-heating electric bills instead) because knowledge of these things has been overshadowed by modern technological advances, therefore promoting ignorance of indigenous knowledge.  Native Americans in the Midwest U.S.A utilized astronomy and navigation.  One of the archaeological sites where an earthen lodge used to stand is now located at Dancing Leaf Earth Lodge, in Wellfleet, NE.  Based on the archaeological evidence of the Indians who originally lived there, and traveled through there, a reconstruction of an earthen lodge and medicine wheel have more recently been built.  People today are able to spend the night in such a lodge, made of large wooden poles, and covered over with earth, except for a doorway and single opening at the top for light, and to let smoke from a fire out.  From the outside it merely looks like a mound of earth, but inside these homes are very cozy and are a downright decent shelter from the cold and bitter winter winds, as well as the scorching heat of summer.  The Native Americans who built the original earthen lodges did so at each location they traveled to (and obviously stayed a while).  Their knowledge and usage of what is presently termed in anthropology as archaeoastronomy, or ethnoastronomy, is not typically known to people today, because when plotted on a map, these earthen lodges run in absolutely straight lines on the map, and are located up to hundreds of miles apart from each other.  Certainly these people knew more than they have been given credit for, since their dwellings were easily located via the knowledge of the ever-moving but also ever-predictable constellations in the night sky.

In accordance with current Texas colonia laws, living in such earthen lodges would be considered “backwards” and something only “ignorant” or “poor” people would do, simply based on the criteria of services that are required in order for people to live in the counties along the U.S.-Mexico border.  Texas legislators, although having good intent, have made it so that the properties owned in colonias cannot be sold without having the proper utility services.  This is based on Chapter 232, Subchapter B, C, & E of the LGC (Local Government Code), including HB 1001.  Electric service, even if available at the site, cannot be provided to colonia dwellers (unless they are grandfathered in) until after they receive city water.  This loss of electricity actually produces, creates, and propogates 3^rd world situations, when prior to that colonia dwellers might have had running water (albeit not from the monopoly-promoted city water supply) and a higher quality of life for the parents and children and elderly grandparents of these families.  Electricity service loss not only drops peoples’ property values significantly (without adequate compensation by the state), but causes people to abandon their homes/investments, creating a low density problem so that incorporating these areas into the city, in the long run, is that much harder. 

According to Peter Ward’s book Colonia and Public Policy in Texas and Mexico: Urbanization by Stealth these types of laws need to be rescinded so that penalties to the land owners can end, with property codes allowing minimum norms, so that density levels will increase by self-help programs, development of social infrastructure, and policies that will allow smart growth in colonia areas.  Without people in these areas, there is a lack of services that follows (or vice versa), and so bringing services such as city water to rural areas is a mighty feat since funds are not typically available to populated areas of such extreme low density.   The cost is prohibitive, and so the colonia laws that were intended to protect colonia dwellers, has caused the state to shoot themselves in the foot, while at the same time punishing the people they were claiming to help. 

The human rights and property rights that are being violated by the state of Texas, and perpetrated via those state laws onto the colonia dwellers themselves (via loss of electricity, which would otherwise bring them quality of life; and loss of property value, which has still yet to be compensated), are by far the most devastating of consequences to date.  It is obvious that Texas state legislators were not thinking things through prior to these colonia laws being created and accepted as policy.  Perhaps they were listening to what they were told, and believed because of their own enculturation, rather than asking the colonia dwellers themselves what they needed, or wanted, or didn’t need, or didn’t want?    As Dr. G. Gina Nunez-Mchiri, and anthropology professor at UTEP once said, “Community development, without the ‘community,’ is not community development at all.”  It has become obvious that the voice of the people in Texas colonias have not been heard effectively, and that statehood has prevailed.

Additionally, the highly researched and excellent advice from Peter Ward has been devastatingly ignored (available now for nearly a decade).  Local El Paso County families are being turned a way for a Certificate of Compliance (needed in order to receive electricity without having city water service) or an exemption, at the rate of 2-3 people per week.  These are the people who speak out and actually make it down to the El Paso County Attorney or County Roads and Bridges offices, and don’t include the families who just give up or don’t know where to turn.  Many people in colonias are not even aware of their rights, or how the colonia laws can hurt them if they decide to temporarily move away from their homes, or try to sell them or rent them out.  It is a financial loss that can be devastating to the very poorest of the poor, who often have no recourse.  

With families and homeownership being more prevalent in colonias compared to the cities, the conservative number of 2-3 people per week turning to the county for inadequate help could very well represent 2-3 families (easily 3-10 people per household depending on if extended families, the elderly, and/or a large number of children are in the home).  Sticking within this range of numbers, this equates to 6-30 people who are being affected weekly, in El Paso County alone.  That amount equals 312-1,560 people per year, and since the laws affecting these people have been in effect since 1995, that is 13 years worth of damage done to families.  This could equal 4,056-20,280 people in all, or 1,352-2,028 families, provided the rate of 2-3 people/families per week has been consistent all of these years (a study needs to be done here).

Realize this does not include the other border counties along the U.S.-Mexico border.  The full amount of counties affected by the 50-200 mile range covered in various colonia laws are Bee, Brewster, Brooks, Cameron, Dimmit, Duval, Edwards, El Paso, Frio, Hidalgo, Hudspeth, Jeff Davis, Jim Hogg, Jim Wells, Kinney, La Salle, Maverick, Nueces, Pecos, Presidio, Reeves, San Patricio, Starr, Terrell, Uvalde, Val Verde, Webb, Willacy, Zapata, and Zavala.  The counties listed in bold indicate higher populations due to urban areas.  The counties listed in italics represent counties with targeted colonias, according to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.  When the numbers are summed up for ALL of these border counties, in regards to colonias, and families affected, the damages done to these families might easily run into the tens of thousands.  Currently, Texas colonias have approximately 400,000 people living in them.   

The map below shows the 1,248-mile long “border area” with the Rio Grande (the river that separates Texas, U.S.A. from Mexico) running down the center.  El Paso is at the top left (most western) corner of Texas.

Specific counties in Texas (along the U.S.-Mexico border) are shown below.

Kathy Staudt, in her book, “Free Trade?” also covers the issues of the lack of services and compared Juarez, Mexico with El Paso, Texas – with Juarez leading over El Paso in providing some services, and El Paso leading in others (p.117).  The breakdown is here (1992 statistics) for service provisions in the new peripheries (most rural areas):