The story is: MY MOTHER, Lipan Apaches, South Texas….

After 2 years of surveillance and harassment, my mother, Dr. Eloisa García

Tamez called me on the phone last summer in July…while I was in Arizona.
I was wrapping up my ‘academic’ research interviews of Teresa Leal and
Lori Riddle.
My mother told me: “Margo…the Homeland Security office called me on
my office phone today… [she was breathing fast and hard, and her voice
was animated, rapid speech] … and they told me they wanted me to give
up the land in El Calaboz …and that I didn’t have a choice, that I had to
sigh a ‘waiver’----. By that time, I could tell by her voice that the
increasing government pressures and harassment to local landowners was
becoming much more serious, because she was now telling me that, from
her office at UT-Brownsville [map of where the govt. wants UT-B land]
she argued with the Homeland Security agent. The problem, she said, was
that her phone line was private, not public. What bothered her as well was
the manner in which the agent spoke to her. She explained, ‘He was so
rude, so matter-of-fact-, and he said, ‘you know, this is eminent domain
and we’re going to take this land either by your signed waiver or by force if
you do not agree to sign the waiver—either way, we’re going to build the
wall.’” This was one of a long series of phone calls she received for the next
few months…not only at the university, but also at her home, on her
private line, her cell phone, and encounters in public.
• These became a trail of violations by the federal government against hundreds of citizen land
owners in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.
• My mother felt that her constitutional rights were being violated, and that she and others
were being shut out of the decision about something very frightening—an 18 foot high steel
and concrete wall…”” IN a very proud voice, she told me, “I asked him his name and if he
was born here, and he told me his last name—Anzaldúa. Well… I gave him a history lesson
like no other, …for more than 30 minutes!” She explained to him that she would never ever
give up the ancestral lands given to her by our Nde’ and Nnee’ [Apache] people, and that she
is the protector of the lands, and that she is a land grant title holder, which means that the
Spanish empire recognized our people, even in colonization, and designated over 22,000
acres for our family. To indigenous people, this means that her authority over these lands is
above the state. Unfortunately for the Texas Apaches….the ‘history’ that the federal agents
are thinking of…or negating…is NOT the history she was telling them….the indigenous
woman’s oral history and sciences of Nde’ Shimaa Shinii…