Editor’s Note: This interview first appeared in Path Finders, an email newsletter from the Daily Yonder. Each week, Path Finders features a Q&A with a rural thinker, creator, or doer. Like what you see here? You can join the mailing list at the bottom of this article and receive more conversations like this in your inbox each week.
The email version of this interview misidentified Sandra as Gage and Gage as Sandra in their respective photos. They are correctly identified here.
I met Sandra Fuentes and Gage Brown at the Kinney County Library in Bracketville, Texas. We were there to talk about their work with the Border Organization, and grassroots organizing around immigration issues in Texas border counties. But over the course of nearly two hours, our conversation went well beyond my initial interview questions, and offered fascinating insight into grassroots organizing in today’s political climate.
Enjoy excerpts of our conversation about building power locally, personal development, and loving where you live, warts and all.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Anya Petrone Slepyan, The Daily Yonder: How did you find yourself with the Border Organization, and what has it meant for you?
Gage Brown: I graduated college in 2020, so coming back to my hometown and seeing nothing had changed, and even had gotten worse for a lot of my classmates, was so depressing because I see such potential for creating utopia in these rural communities. We have the social capital, we have the natural resources. It’s so possible, but we’re so far from it. I had an art studio downtown, but hearing the news every day, and that was shortly after George Floyd’s murder too, it was like so much shit is hitting the fan. And so I just felt really restless. And Roberto Lopez with the Texas Civil Rights Project reached out and was like, ‘do you know what’s happening with Operation Lone Star?’ [Texas’s state-level immigration crackdown]. And I didn’t really, but I started to get involved.
Coming out of a liberal arts university back to my rural hometown, it felt like, whatever I learned there I need to unlearn as soon as possible, because the language is so inaccessible and it separates you from people. And I just want to be part of my own community again. I feel like I’m seen as an outsider when I’ve lived here just as long as anyone else. And so the Border Organization’s model is that it’s not about convincing anyone of what they need to do, or what kind of future we want to see. It’s just asking people what they want, and reminding people of their own self-interest because people have just forgotten their autonomy.
Sandra Fuentes: I’ve been at it for 32 years, so longer than Gage has been alive. I started because the organizer at the time went to my kids’ elementary school, and asked the principal for a list of people who were heavily involved in their children’s education, and I was on that list. So I met with him, and he asked me, ‘why kids’ education?’ And I said as a stay-at-home mom, it’s the least that I can do. And I don’t trust the educational system so I want to keep an eye on things. He asked me what I was seeing, and I said my kids are doing okay, but I don’t like that the kids in bilingual class are treated as second-class citizens by other kids. It angered me so much. And he asked me why it mattered to me, and I couldn’t say. But he pushed and pushed and pushed, and eventually I said it bothers me because I loathe, loathe injustice. And I hate it when people in power take advantage or bully the people who are powerless just because they can. And that’s why I got involved.
Sandra Fuentes has been with The Border Organization for 32 years. She recently began organizing in Kinney County, and was proud to be described as a woman who was there to stir up trouble. “It’s good trouble,” she said. (Photo Courtesy of Sandra Fuentes and Gage Brown)
We can make a change if we work with other like-minded people, and I saw a growth and development in me that was life-changing, and I wanted other people to come to that realization about themselves as well. And we’ve seen it. Cafeteria ladies who know their demands go up and talk to school board members. They’ve never spoken publicly in their lives, and the first time they go they’re shaking in their boots, but they get it done and they win. And from there they take charge. We fought for them to get their GEDs paid for, and once they have that they can apply for higher positions. So you have a cafeteria assistant and three years later, she’s manager of the cafeteria. And that would not have happened if they weren’t involved with an organization fighting for their own self interest: better pay, better working conditions, more staff. So that’s the payback I get, seeing people develop as human beings.
DY: What differentiates the kind of organizing you do with the Border Organization from other types of political activism or engagement.
SF: The Border Organization is multi-issued. When I go talk to the school board members in Kinney County, we will be talking about immigration issues. But we’re also going to be talking about issues concerning education. We’re also involved in getting out the vote. We don’t endorse candidates, we’re non-partisan. But we’re very partisan to our agenda. And where does our agenda come from? It comes from the meeting I had last night, where I asked our leaders what’s important to you guys? What do you want to work on?
GB: We’re a broad-based organization, so our leadership is always changing. We want people to come to the table to say what they want to see changed, and if we can build the leadership to work on that issue, it’ll go on our agenda. It’s about who has power locally and at the state level, and we’re just trying to build that power. But it’s long, long work and that’s hard to illustrate to people. And so many people don’t understand the dynamics on the border.
Gage Brown is a 5th generation resident of Kinney County. She’s been called ‘the Leslie Knope’ of Bracketville because of her passion for and fierce optimism about her community. (Photo by Ilana Newman, The Daily Yonder)
People aren’t going to be motivated to vote unless they know they’re voting for something that’s actually going to change their material conditions. So that’s what we try to focus on. Last year before the election I was block walking in [Val Verde County] and it’s so close to the border there, you can see Mexico from people’s backyards. And the first three houses I came to, I asked them what their main concerns were, and they said ‘all the illegals coming across the border.’ And my next question was, ‘how is that affecting you in your day to day life?’ and they couldn’t answer that question. Then I would ask, ‘what about the potholes on your street, is that concerning to you?’ And if we can get them focused on that, agitated around that, and then sitting around a table every month with people who are talking about immigration issues, or queer issues, then people like these older men I talked to will start to understand [these issues] when it’s never crossed their minds before. So it happens really organically.
APS: How does this grassroots style disrupt local power structures, especially in rural communities?
SF: People in power like it that way: top to bottom. People at the bottom, that’s all they know. But at the Border Organization, we talk to everyone, and make sure everyone has a spot at the table. Because if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu, right? The Border Organization has been in Del Rio since 1987, and we’re already a well-established political power. And that’s important because power speaks to power. But in Eagle Pass and Bracketville, I’m trying to establish power, and Gage is trying to do the same thing in Uvalde. It’s a long, slow, tedious process, but we’ll get there. People need to be included in decision making in their schools, their cities, their counties, their hospitals.
And so in Kinney County, my job is to establish the Border Organization and create a sustained political power for the long haul. And so someone here told me that someone had said, ‘there’s a woman in town stirring up trouble.’ And I wasn’t worried, I rejoiced. Like yes, I’ve finally arrived, and they’re taking notice that I’m here to stir up trouble. And it’s good trouble.
GB: Since the beginning of European contact here, what keeps you safe is your proximity to power and how well you can play by their rules. And the Good Old Boys have stayed in power because they’ve sewed these divisions between people. So when we can get those people in the same room and talking about how they are alike, rather than different, it’s the decolonization we’ve needed. And that’s why what we do works, is that we don’t allow those narratives to stick with people anymore.
That, and getting people off social media. That’s a frustration I see with other activist groups that are more based in urban areas. It’s easier, and it may work for certain goals, but it has done such a number on people’s autonomy to be on social media and feeling like they are observers in the political landscape and not participants. And so we’re very intentional about getting people here in person and meeting face to face, and getting that sense of who someone is in real life.
APS: How have your own life experiences and histories contributed to your connection with the communities you work with?
SF: We have to meet people where they’re at. So that means we need to be prepared. If we’re talking to a superintendent or if we’re talking to a bus driver, we better know their lingo, and what they’re having to deal with. It’s a bit easier for me because I’m 66 years old. I’ve worn a lot of hats. I went to college on a basketball scholarship, and I was a migrant, doing stoop labor in Wisconsin. I was raised on a ranch, I’m a cowgirl, in Kinney County, I was a truck driver. So when I meet people, and they want to talk about where they were migrant workers, hey, I can relate to that. If they want to talk about having to round up steers for the season, I can relate to that. If they want to talk about how difficult it is to be a mother, I can relate to that. Or if they want to talk about sports, let’s talk sports. They want to talk about their experiences, and they want to talk about what they want to change in their community, and I can help them think about how to accomplish those things.
GB: I grew up on a ranch 25 miles down a dirt road from Bracketville, and my family has been here a while. So my mom and I joke that it’s like we’re in the mafia, like we’d have to get jumped out if we want to leave. We’ve been here for five generations and the house we live in now is the house my great-great-grandpa built, and I’m so grateful to be able to continually reflect on that and continue their legacy here, because I talk to people who still remember my ancestors. And they served this community and I want to make them proud.
I love it here so much. And someone once called me the Leslie Knope of Bracketville, because I’m so fiercely optimistic about this place. It’s totally transformed me to commit and recommit to this place over and over again.
This interview first appeared in Path Finders, a weekly email newsletter from the Daily Yonder. Each Monday, Path Finders features a Q&A with a rural thinker, creator, or doer. Join the mailing list today, to have these illuminating conversations delivered straight to your inbox.
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