John Quinones Standup OC
Immigration, the movement of people from place to place, is a process associated with the border in the minds of most Americans. But that movement is always seen as people moving from south to north. In our next story we witness the tremendous migration from north to south -- of Americans who come to the border region every year.
For people who live in the northern United States, the South Texas border is an attractive alternative when winter approaches. They come south, creating large seasonal communities during the mild winter months in South Texas. This influx creates opportunities, challenges...and disparities for everyone who lives in the region.
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WINTER TEXANS
Produced by Hector Galan
NARRATION
Every September the journey begins. Thousands of America’s new migrants head south. Their destination…South Texas on the US-Mexico border...the fastest growing retirement community in the country. These are the Winter Texans. They come from places like Ohio, Michigan, Illinois…in a constant search for the good life.
JOAN STANLEY VO
Wouldn’t it be wonderful after... (OC)... after you’ve retired to be able to do just exactly what you’d like to do when you like to do it. (VO) And there is a way to do that.
CHUCK COOLEY (VO)
This is a fantastic lifestyle. I would not want it any other way...(OC) After working for about 40 years in the electrical trade, you kinda deserve a little bit of a break like this.
PETER BROWN
We came down... found that we like the area. Liked the people, like the park, and just decided to make this our winter playground.
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Following the same roads as the Winter Texans, are the farmworkers. As winter approaches up north, they too begin their yearly journey to south Texas. Thousands of migrant farmworkers, like Winter Texans, will converge on the border for part of the year. South Texas has been the traditional home base for many of America’s migrant farmworkers. The population doubles in this region as they wait out the winter. They survive on a yearly income of 15,000 dollars or less per family. The majority are Mexican American and the area vibrates with its own unique culture.
CHAD RICHARDSON
This region is unlike anywhere else in United States and perhaps, even the world. There’s one of the most interesting mixes of people you’ll find anywhere, you’ll find here. A very mobile population that comes and goes. It just creates a very interesting mix of people and circumstances.
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In recent years, this area has experienced unprecedented growth. It is called the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.
JUAN CORTEZ
We know it as "El Valle." El Valle de Tejas and where the Gulf of Mexico and Mexico and the U.S. come together and you have a blending of different cultures also here.
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The border with Mexico has been a major attraction for winter tourists. One of the first R.V. parks established here is called Fun-N-Sun.
JOAN STANLEY (OC)
We have the, the sun, and what we were trying to create was fun. And it was a name that caught on. It was a happy name. It was an inviting name.....(VO)and so it became Fun N Sun.
PEOPLE AT TABLE (OC)
Welcome to the ghetto. We haven’t had a job in 18 years.
SKIP BELLS (OC)
People say, when I retire I’m going to Florida to die, until I die, here they say well, I’m going to become a Winter Texan and have some fun.
CHUCK COOLEY (VO)
We have more friends down here that we actually call friends than we do back up in Iowa....(OC)....Up there, about two houses away is the only people that I really know. And that’s about it. But down here you seem to know everybody. It's just that everybody’s your friend and you talk together just as like, if you’ve been around them for a long, long time.
VERN VINCENT (VO)
They are typically 68 years of age...(OC)....They come as a couple generally. They plan to come and spend about 3 months in this part of the country during the winter months to escape the, the climate.
JOAN STANLEY (OC)
We have nuclear engineers, we have people that have been very, very important in what they’ve done in the professional world. And then we have some that have not made that mark....(VO)....But they’re still able to afford that RV or afford a park model or mobile home whatever it is.
CHUCK COOLEY (OC)
Why, I think you could drive around the park and find anything that would go from 1,000 dollars on up to 400 to 500 thousand dollars...
WOMAN IN MAIL ROOM (OC)
All the way back here. We have 1,475 boxes
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With over six thousand residents, Fun N Sun is the largest RV park in the Valley. It has its own postal center, a clearinghouse for messages from home.
WOMAN IN MAIL ROOM (OC)
Well, it's just mailed Grandma and Grandpa Fun N Sun, San Benito, Texas. That’s all it is on there. Sometimes they’ll put a box number on there when we do find out who it is we tell them to tell their grandkids to put a box number or put their last name on there anyway. Put Grandma and Grandpa Jones or whatever it is.
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There are over two hundred RV Parks here attracting an estimated 150,000 Winter Texans every year.
VERN VINCENT (VO)
They bring to the valley approximately 320 million dollars in one seasonal visit....(OC)...So that's a tremendous impact on the economy in the area.
JO LISTON (VO)
We could not do without them....(OC)....and especially when the peso went down in value and we had a freeze and we had floods. We still have the winter Texans who come and will inflate our economy which we need desperately.
JOAN COOLEY (OC)
They buy cars, they buy trailers. They buy, they buy everything while they’re here and its fresh money coming into the community. (VO) They have had to build huge hospitals extra than what we have normally had. The hospital never stops growing. Because obviously when you have this age group, you have more need.
VERN VINCENT (VO)
We have better roads, better overall infrastructure of all kinds because of the presence of the winter Texans
JUANITA VALDEZ
It may be booming for some but not for farmworkers or low income people, so, I guess, we don’t see that because it’s not something that we get any, any benefit out of. And when we say "we", I mean, that doesn’t help the unemployment as I see it for low income people or for farmworkers.
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Over 125,000 migrant farm workers have permanent residences in the Valley. As they wait to go north for the next harvest, the unemployment rate here skyrockets.
CHAD RICHARDSON (VO)
That unemployment rate stays steady at about 15 to 20 percent, which is really high. (OC) There’s a lot of factors behind that. A lot of the people that are unemployed are only unemployed part of the year. A lot of the work is seasonal.
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Farm workers live in areas that are usually poor and the housing substandard. Although farm workers and Winter Texans arrive in the Valley at the same time, their worlds are far apart.
JUANITA VALDEZ
People that come from up north, this is nice and sunny and warm for them so they come down here but it’s like, like their own world. Where they live and how they live, how they travel, where they eat. It’s just... it’s just very different than the, the world we live in.
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Another place that has welcomed Winter Texans with open arms is across the border in Mexico. When this small town of Nuevo Progreso began catering to Winter Texans, it grew almost overnight.
WILMA BEATTY (VO)
It is the Winter Texans that made that town. When we first came, there was just two lanes of traffic, cement....(OC)...Then there was dirt, mud a lot of the time. (VO)...Now the sidewalks are all smooth, nice, even, the street is all paved, lots of pharmacies, lots dentists and everything is immaculate in any of the stores.
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Every Spring, the town of Nuevo Progreso sponsors "Tourist Day," in appreciation of the hundreds of thousands of dollars Winter Texans spend here.
JOSE LUIS MARINO [SUBTITLES]
80% of our business comes from Winter Texans. The other 20% is from the people who live here in the valley. That's why sales go down so much
when they leave.
CHAD RICHARDSON
The Winter Texans live isolated to a large extent in their parks. The exception to that, of course, would be those that do volunteer work in the schools or the hospitals or some of those places and they do interact as equals. They often have very, very different experiences.
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Many Winter Texans do get involved in the local community, volunteering in hospitals, schools, and programs that help the poor.
GLADYS MARTIN (OC)
We are making toys that we donate to the South Texas hospital for the children...(OC)...And everything that we work with is donated by the residents and other people around the Valley.
MARIA ALVARADO (OC) [SUBTITLES]
We've seen that some of these people, come and give us things. They come to stop and talk and give out clothes and food...also during Christmas, they go to the churches and provide gifts for the poor.
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Hundreds of Valley school children have benefited from the ongoing efforts of retired teachers who volunteer as tutors.
CHAD RICHARDSON
We have some really poignant stories of, of Winter Texans coming back and one they're saying they don’t know if anybody will remember them or anybody will care. And they walk in the door of the school and two little kids come up and greet them and give them a big hug and tell them they’re so glad they’re back. You know that sort of thing is more than just a superficial impact.
KEN MICHAELS
We hope in a small way that we are doing something but, as I say, we get as much from the program as we give to the program.
PRINCIPAL LEE MEANS (OC)
As a former principal, I know firsthand what you all mean to us and to our students. We can’t wait for you to get back here every year. You provide so much to our children.....(VO) We love you. We’re so happy to see you come and we're so sad to see you go home when you go back to those cold northern states.
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The annual Luau at Fun N Sun marks the end of the season.
NANCY AND BILL MITCHELL (OC)
We’ve been here since Dec. 28 and we’re leaving now to go back to Kansas.... (VO)....we had our next door neighbor that we kind of went places with and they left a week ago...(OC)...and we both of us cried because we hadn’t seen them before in our lives....(VO)...but we met them while they were down here and we both cried when she left.
MARIA ALVARADO VO/OC [SUBTITLES]
We're getting ready to leave. We'll go to Ohio to pick cucumbers and cabbage. We're almost the last ones to leave, closing and boarding up all the doors.
NANCY AND BILL MITCHELL (VO)
Really a nice place. Just a nice place. It's the best place I’ve ever been to.
MARIA ALVARADO VO [SUBTITLES]
If we had steady work, I think we would just stay here.
JUANITA VALDEZ
It hasn’t changed. The migrant stream is still here. It’s families with their children, leaving their home. Trying to make it all the way to the States where they’re going to go work. Find employment, find a place to live.
VERN VINCENT
We certainly think that the whole Winter Texan industry is going to grow in the future. We got people who are retiring younger now. They have more disposable income. The growth of the elderly population is increasing, it’s going to be one out of every five people in the future by the year 2020 is going to be a retiree. So we see nothing but growth in this area in the future.
JUANITA VALDEZ
America, it has two sides to the way they treat a group of people, for example our Winter tourists, and how they treat us as migrant farm workers. We traveled many different states up north for many years with my family. I don’t ever remember one sign in one town ever welcoming us. It is just this double standard that we have, I think is what we criticize the most and that people don’t see.
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There is a stillness in the Valley now that both groups are gone, but there remains a note of expectation for next year, when the cycle begins again.
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