Cattle brought most of the gringos to South Texas, but oil gave them a glimpse of wealth and power. Despite their light skin, the Parr men, patróns of South Texas, spoke Spanish as their first language. Like the cactus and barbed wire, the bougainvillea and orange tree in this arid land, they flaunted their charm and made no excuses for the thorns. They paid medical bills for the Hispanics. They helped their children go to college. But when it came time to vote, their benevolence demanded obedience.
In Duval County, it’s politics as usual. This is the world, Isabel (Izzie) Martin is transported to––a world of wealth and deprivation, of generosity and expectation, and most of all, of firm class lines. When her parents divorce, she and her mother come to live at her uncle’s Rancho de las Higueras, Ranch of the Fig Trees––a luxurious haven if it weren’t for those insidious little rumors about the family’s involvement in election fraud––an 87 graveyard vote margin that launched Lyndon Johnson into the U.S. Senate.
On April Fool’s Day, Isabel witnesses a terrible event that leads her to believe her beloved uncle, Tío, contributed to his brother George Parr’s death. At the funeral she overhears that Senator Johnson, may court Tío’s allegiance when he needs another election in the bag. Although she doesn’t understand all she sees and hears from this generation who withheld “adult” information, she is determined to find the truth about her uncle while vowing to protect him with her silence.
She finds a friend in young gringo, Burt Charles. He is everything to her––her partner in crime, a voice of reason, her one solace in this burnt out country where everyone speaks Spanish––except her.
Ethnic and class lines induce skirmishes between her and Marisol, the Hispanic daughter of the Villanueva family who has worked for the Parrs for generations. Marisol is incensed at the extravagance that the younger Izzie flaunts. Izzie hates Marisol’s use of Spanish that excludes her. She resents Marisol’s academic success and attachment to a frail baby sister whom she believes to be spoiled.
In this coming-of-age novel, Mary Bryan Stafford sheds new light on the South Texas history of the Parr family and explores with humor and poignancy the dynamics of the times and the attitudes towards race and class in the South Texas of the 1950’s.
