(Re)Storying Cameron Park Through Its Own Eyes

• In Event: Who's Telling the Story? Interrogating Narratives of Latinidad Across Geopolitical Educational Contexts

Abstract

In the 2000 U.S. Census, a historically overlooked site near Brownsville, Texas, called Cameron Park was determined to be “the poorest community of its size” in the whole United States. Cameron Park is a colonia–an unannexed residential area in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands “that may lack some of the most basic living necessities such as potable water, septic or sewer systems, electricity, paved roads or safe and sanitary housing” (Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, 2015). Like many colonias in the Rio Grande Valley, Cameron Park has been the subject of news stories and academic research that analyze problems in areas of health, development, and, to a lesser degree, education. Little research has taken an asset-based approach to studying Cameron Park, and even less has asked residents for their own (hi)stories of what it means to be from and in Cameron Park. Yet members of this community have spent decades organizing, rallying, and transforming their space. They have successfully demanded services and recognition from county officials and an accessible school for their children from the local district. Moreover, they have built homes, families, and a close-knit community over generations. Using oral history methods and critical discourse analysis of local news media archives, I seek to understand how Cameron Park residents conceptualize the history of their community and their relationship with formal educational institutions, as well as what, how, and whether they want outsiders to learn about their community. The archive of oral histories developed from this research will be a public resource for local teachers, Brownsville and Cameron County officials, and researchers to learn about Cameron Park as its people understand it, and for Cameron Park residents to have a lasting and buildable resource on the history of their community.

Author

• Anna Rodell, University of Florida
  Presenting Author