Rick Noriega, the balding man in the yellow tie, surrounded by students in front of City Hall in Houston, students rallying in March for immigrant rights, for Latino Pride, for a future despite the deafening roar of a city bent on growth at the expense of the vast majority of laborers. He stands in the middle in all his complicatedness. Rallying with them, monitoring them, encouraging them to go back to school and concentrate on their standardized tests...Rick Noriega - a state representative who represents my neighborhood, the East End and other Latino/Mexican American/Chicano barrios on the East Side; he just got back from a tour of duty in Afghanistan with the National Guard. His wife Melissa has functioned as politician while he has been out soldiering. Now, just after getting back to Texas, Bush and Rick Perry, the Texas governor, are sending him to the Texas-México border to work on the new National Guard mobilization to further militarize the border.
I find this Houston Chronicle article on Noriega compelling. It reflects his position, between it all, unable to clearly articulate a position against the mission now that he is being deployed to the border. And now, he contradicts everything he said to "serve the nation." Sad. Troubling. So indicative of where Texas is right now, in the middle of wars, border fortification and hurricanes, praying that someone it all goes right. Steadily unaware of how all our labor is serving to create contradictions, destruction, a superior position for Texas, but on such unsteady ground.
