We don't live in Mexico

 

But we are certainly close.  This *is* the U.S., but the Mexican influence is considerable.  If you wonder how that influence got here, it’s because this used to *be* Mexico.  Years ago, Mexico wanted to settle the lands to the north, so it invited immigrants and provided land grants.  The people that settled here to the north were an independent bunch though and decided to secede from Mexico in 1836.  That secession was contested, but ultimately Texas became an independent country.  The border between the two countries was defined as the Rio Grande River.

 

Problem solved?  Not really.  It turns out there were two different rivers referred to as the Rio Grande.  The river to the south, that flows through Brownsville, the U.S. referred to as the Rio Grande, while Mexico referred to it as the Rio Bravo.  The river to the north, that flows through Corpus Christi, the U.S. referred to as the Nueces and Mexico referred to as the Rio Grande.  The current border didn’t get settled until after Texas joined the United States, and the Mexican American War in 1848 defined the border between the two countries as the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo River.

 

The Rio Grande Valley where we live; we’re in the middle, between the Rio Grande and the Nueces (or the Rio Bravo and the Rio Grande from Mexico’s point of view); and it is still predominantly Mexican American/Latino here.

 

If it is ever suggested that anyone here should go back to where they came from, it wouldn’t be the people in our neighborhood who should leave, it would be we gringos.