festival in austin, like a high up guy at textile was on a panel and there was a local reporter from texas tribune who said, like, hey, what happened? i was up with that and he was like, there's this quote and it's in the book. and i still find it stunning. he said, like, you know, part of the the bond was to make that road safer. lots of people injured or die on that road because it's not well-designed for bike or pedestrians. cars move very fast on it. and so that part of the project and he said something like you know we understand the need to make texas roads safer but not at the expense of vehicular capacity because that's that should be the priority, right? because that's our highest priority not texans lives. it is moving texans quickly. a car. well, i mean, i'm going to pause to think about that for a minute. you know, one of the things that that i think that many of us have heard over the years is,

you know, texas is unique geographically we're such a big state. a lot of our cities kind of developed after the advent of the automobile, unlike of the cities in england and in the northeast. and so i was curious to get your take on the argument that we sometimes hear that public transit can't work on the same level in texas cities, that it would that we might see it elsewhere and that we and texans love the freedom of being able to drive their own cars. and it's just the nature of the state. it's just not going to adapt to what we might see in other states. i want i'm just going to present that devil's advocate argument and kind of get your take on it. yeah, i love that question. and argument. i mean, how many of you love to drive? okay, we're going to gamble. we're going to gamble. i don't love to drive, but i in austin have to drive everywhere to get where i'm going there no other alternatives.

and i think we have been sold this narrative that cars are freedom. cars offers independence and autonomy and therefore should do everything in our power to incentivize car travel because that's what americans want that's what americans have so like that's what we do like our behavior is dictated by the infrastructure that is built for us. and then a state like texas, there just aren't options. so i like i want to quarrel with the like and i know obviously not with you just with the argument that like texans love their cars like i would gladly get rid of my car if i had viable alternatives. the reason i am counted in the number of drivers on i-35 is because i have no other options. so i think indeed, like to the people who love driving in here, like those who love driving should still encourage transit because it gets people like me off the road and you have a clearer road. you know, it's like everyone should support that. that's yeah, it's a win win. yeah, exactly. it's we're to start taking questions in a minute. but i want to ask you one last thing. i think at one point, someone in the book and i apologize for not

remembering who it was in regard to this this issue that we're talking about is asked, what's the transition plan? because obviously, even if we if we say we're going to maybe remove some highways, that that better have caused more damage than than anything. and if we end, we start to move more toward public transit. it's it's not an easy process. it's a time consuming process. what what would the transition look like? how would that work? when you look at that. yeah, and that's a great question. and texas engineer asked that. and to go back to your previous question about sprawl like we have built cities the car it's not easy to to reverse that it's not going to happen tomorrow like we have to retrofit our cities in some way and there is going to be like some perhaps short term with that. i mean, i would argue that term pain is much less than the pain of living through the hottest summer on record for example like that like we absolutely have huge urgency to change how get around and move but like indeed that that and i'm not trying to undersell how difficult of a challenge that is

i think for me it's like i look at the money are going to spend on these highway expansions $65 billion over the coming decade imagine what we could do if put that money into bus rapid transit like imagine what we could do if we built light rail with that money. so i think like beginning to think about how we spend our as a state and what is it prioritizing and incentivizing is like to me the transition plan is like a bus that comes every 5 minutes instead of every 30. and as you pointed out in, in the book state law dictates that texas devotes, what, 97% of its budget, the roadways or highways? yeah, according to the texas state constitution, 97% of our state funding is required to be spent on roadways. right. okay. so we can start some questions. we, though. okay, let's start with sir. thank you. we. this is kind of more of an observation, but, you know, we

talk about how we don't like to drive. right. and we talk about how these highways are just creating more congestion. but in this in san antonio, the voters have routinely against alternatives such as light rail. so do we change that narrative? is it is it fear of the unknown? why keep doing this? it's been born. how many times? three times. yeah. and overwhelmingly. and until such time as we feel the pain, i don't think you know. or they or legislators change that percentage. is there any i mean, any hope that the voters say one thing, but we act when go to the polls in a whole different manner. and so how do we bridge that gap? yeah, i don't know that much enough about the votes that happened in san antonio. the same thing happened in austin. we rejected a transit bond twice. i will say, though, like i didn't vote on the i-35

expansion, i haven't voted on any highway expansion in the state of texas. and so i'm like, why are asking to be asked to vote on transit and? the answer is because the state does not fund transit. so cities are being asked to pony up more money to pay for transit system. so in austin where i live, we pass project connect agreeing as a city to raise our property. i think that was a hard pill for a lot of people to swallow. housing is incredibly expensive in austin and so the idea of paying more for housing to get transit was a hard sell. we ultimately passed it. i don't know the specifics of san antonio, but i would imagine voters are being asked to pay more in sales tax or some other kind of bond to for a transit system. and i think it's like certainly like understand people are strapped for money and they might reject that but again like that's actually be the responsibility of the state our state transports an agency is only funding highways. i think that's the bigger. you speak to any document table connection between the oil

industry and highways and everything you're talking about now. yes. is one i don't know enough about the oil industry specifically, but the connection like concrete companies and highway construction companies, is very clear. and the associated general is the lobby arm for the highway industry in texas. the people who build and maintain our highways and spend millions of dollars electing people like greg abbott and dan patrick. and so like the connection highway and concrete companies is very clear. the members of the texas transportation commission certainly have connections to oil and gas money. i don't i didn't do the investigative journalism to document it. but like, you know, the laura ryan, who's a former commissioner, owned dealerships. i wonder if you think can you hear me whether gerrymandering is an issue here, too? we have 65% of the states, 30 million people live in the five

metro areas. and yet getting on i-35 from here to austin and back as a nightmare, there's no level initiatives to deal with that. we had a $34 billion surplus in the last year of the texas legislature. there were no substantial mass transit initiatives that tapped into that money. so it just seems to me that the republican leadership in the state either doesn't accept the driven science induced demand or is some other reason for why they simply engage in mass transit. yeah that's a great question. i mean, i think it is true of a lot of texas politics, which is like cities are dominated, rural interests like there is that absolutely dynamic in the texas legislature of like the liberal cities need to be constrained needs can't be you know that that that was the whole dynamic of the last session is like cities don't have the authority pass regulation the death start

bill like basically kneecapped cities so like i think you see it in transportation which is like the chairman of the texas at the senate transportation commission is this man, robert nickels. he rural texas. he has an enormous of power. but like his constituents don't really need or want transit. i certainly think like in rural texas are an appropriate solution. but like, i mean, the like voters in texas don't have much power in the state legislature and that is manifest negatively in many ways. and one of them is transportation. yes. in the book you don't really address the highway lobby, which is oil and gas motor vehicles, highway construction and suburban development. all those industries make a lot of money off of highway building and, you know, are you sure it's the transportation commission

that's making these decisions? is it the highway lobby? oh, i mean, it's absolutely a story of political corruption. and i did do that reporting for my story in the texas observer that ran in 2021, looking the associated general contractors just as a as a slice of that highway lobby of how much money they give to texas politicians. and like i said, they give now they've given more than millions of dollars to governor abbott to get him. so the texas transportation commission answers to governor abbott, who certainly gets a lot money from highway contractors. so like, i'm not diminishing that at all. i think the political corruption is really important. i think, though, like the story i was trying to get at is, okay, so there's that, the political corruption, but there's also this idea that we have been sold that like cars are freedom. and that is something that i heard again, again like in hearings and at texas capitol, there was a hearing in 2021 to open up the state highway fund to fund transit.

and someone was there testifying, saying oh, you know, public transit is for socialists highways or capitalism. it's reductive and absolutely false. like you can disprove we spend millions and billions of dollars subsidizing highways but that that perception remains so like absolutely there's a story of political corruption. but i think there's also like a kind of there's a wrong correlation and like politically that like highways are i mean, transit is for like liberals, cities like that's disproven when you look in the 1960s about how people were talking about in the 1970s and 1980s, like reagan raised the gas tax and funded transit this this political dynamic that we live in today. it's new that the idea that transit is for liberals. well that that actually was going to be my question. it was this associate or how we define how we think freedom that word and how that relates to transit. so you really kind of already answered it but if you wanted to pursue it a little more, feel free free.

yeah, i don't have that much more to say except like i certainly don't feel free chained to my car. i think a lot of people feel that way, particularly young people. okay, i think we have someone back. yes. um, you mentioned concrete companies have car companies, especially american big car companies affected this in any way over whether it was the building 1962 or from then to now. i mean, car companies like, general motors is of behind the inception of the interstate highway program, which i document in the book, like in the 1940s, their general sponsored this exhibit called highways horizons that basically sold roosevelt the idea of creating a like a, you know, interregional highway network, which eventually morphed into the interstate highway system. i didn't do the reporting to document how car companies have influenced how we spend our money, but like certainly if i had a year in some. like that, like i have no doubt

that the federal infrastructure bill was influenced by car money. i just haven't documented think with had for one quick question is it is there anyone else who. yes. we'll get the mike over to. what? my question is this. the subject was the future of the highways and i'm in the design field and i know when we were taught on roads that don't widen it, you either find alternate route or an alternate transportation. and what my question when my of my generation when i would promote broadway won't this be they would say i don't i'm don't do a bike but when i talk with all these 20, 30 year olds, my nieces, they live near downtown, they bike to work, they will sometimes take cars. it's that rental system that are

we in 50 years going to have dinosaurs, highways. you're going to think we put all these billions of years and you take away two generations, my generation behind, us. and then all the 15 year olds, 20, 30, they won't be driving that much and they're going to want transportation. and i just think this is wonderful, this proactive going, we don't need it. and i've been in conferences listening to and houston and they were trying not to cry when they're doing these presentations. they thought for over ten years. and i just wish was an alternative just the future. yeah. i mean to your point like young people don't want these like not just like you can see like drivers license registration for among young people is much lower. it's on the decline than it has been. but also like young people see connection between highways and climate change. i talked to this activist, 60, in portland and she protested the oregon department of transportation for two years,

saying climate leaders don't widen the freeways. so i think there's like a parallel movement i will also say that like driving doesn't serve a lot of people like a quarter of texans don't drive when i was reporting this like my dad lost his ability to drive like it's not just for young people lots of older people people who have any kind of disability prevents them from driving like our form of transportation and simply does not serve them. and so like i absolutely agree, there's a huge demand there's a latent demand for other forms of transportation besides driving, did you ever talk to like a think tank or some futuristic they're looking at 75 years. yes. and thank you for bring up the title of the session, which is the future of american. i was is like, yeah, i checked there's indeed i've talked to lots of think tanks and researchers. the ultimate argument of the book is we should tear these highways down. so i went to the city of rochester, new york. they removed a section of their inner loop highway and filled it in and built housing on top of

it. and it is absolutely remarkable to see like land that used to just be exclusively for speeding cars polluted land concrete is now like three storey apartment complexes where people live and walk around and go to the brewery down the street. and that to me is like vision for the future is like we, we built these things over the course of a decade. we can absolutely tear them down. i think on that encouraging note, i for anyone had a question that we weren't able get to. we got we're gonna have to wrap things up, but i want to thank all of you for coming in. please help me. thank megan kimple. thank all. have a great day. thankas i mentioned, my name ise

flores. i serve as chancellor for the alamo colleges district here in san. i was born in the rio. most importantly, my father was born in san felipe and served, graduated from san felipe. a high school was a city in del rio and. he's his past. but my mother graduated from del rio high school and we're fortunate. we've served and have lived here in san antonio for for many and in my audience, i have in the audience i have my wife, marta martinez flores, and my daughter mia. but you all are here to hear from jesse esparza. and so i want to provide an introduction. dr. hassell's jesse esparza, who is an associate professor and interim chair of the of history at texas southern in houston. his area of expertise is on the history of latinos. the united states emphasize, the civil rights activism.

dr. esparza's manuscript rosa schools, the fight for latino autonomy in a west texas borderlands town, was published by the university of oklahoma press as part of their new direction s.a. history series. it has already received two book awards, two and counting, right? yes. so the 2024 outstanding book award, the texas association of chicanos in higher education or and the 2020 for texas foco nonfiction book award by the national association, chicana and chicano studies or knox. dr. esparza teaches mexican-american texas and civil rights history. he received his b.a. and master's degrees from southwest texas state university and a ph.d. from university of houston. so if y'all will please join me and welcoming the good doctor.

thank you. thank you. i appreciate the invitation. and i appreciate the space to talk about such an work and such an important community. so thank you. so i know this is i mentioned my personal experience, right and connected in my my dad's mentioned the book. i want to do one thing and i just want to ask folks that are from del rio or san felipe if if they can stand or have family from there so we can recognize them. so you know, we can know the audience. yeah, for sure. and, and jesse that that's what i wanted to actually with if you can if you can tell us folks who have may have read your book or who have experience in san felipe and del rio, can you can you us about russell schools. yes. so russell schools is essentially the story of a one of a kind school district that

existed in a borderland town in the city of del rio. in this mexican-american community, the city of del rio, known as san felipe and this is the story of a of a community of the people who organized and established in 1929. right. as we coming into the great depression estab large an independent school district, the first of its kind, arguably the only kind of school system that would be organized by mexican-americans at the height of jim crow. that is, say, at a time with mexican-americans were segregated when they were disenfranchized when they were victims of environmental discrimination when they were overpoliced at mass incarcerate it. here you have this community in west texas in the city of del rio in 1929, on the cusp of going into the depression, establishing an independence school district recognized by the state board education then 98 now. but recognize by the agencies coming out of austin and it's an accredited school with an

accredited high school and its graduating learners as early as 1932. that's what this story is this is the sort of the rise fall if you will and the legacy of this school district known as san felipe is the named after the community that birthed it. and how did you're from san antonio? we were talking about that earlier. right, and graduated from breckenridge high school. how did how you hear about or come across san felipe in the story of the school district? so had never in coming up k-through-12 i've never heard of san felipe or you know san felipe and even when i to college you know despite to change my major like for like most people do i eventually landed in history as a major and even then as an undergrad i had never of the school district. then i got into graduate program and in the graduate programs still in summer school, i never heard of the school district. then i go to the university of houston and i'm uah there for

about two years before i learn this school district, the school system and was actually my advisor, dr. guadalupe san miguel, who was a giant in our field and who served as my advisor when i went to uah who recommended this this, the school district as my because when i initially went to uah, i to do the student walkouts, you know, i was fascinated by the youth movements, the chicano movement and what students were doing in san antonio, in houston and dallas and wherever and. so when i met him, i said, hey, i want to do what you do. i want to write my dissertation on, the chicano walkouts. and he was like, not don't that it's been done to death everyone's done that everyone knows that history you right and rightly so i mean there's a lot more work to be done. but he knew what i didn't know at that point. that moment was that we need to, as historians, really sort of focus on histories that aren't being discussed at all that no one hears about. and so was he who recommended that i maybe not switch lanes, but maybe move over a lane or so

to consider doing community. and i was like, no, i don't want to do that. want to i want to do the walkouts. and he was like just go down there and go see what you can find. so i went on an excavation down there and i went out and i hung out from about a week, a week and a half. i talked to one or two people while i was down there and i was like, wow, i had no idea that this existed here. and i was just i was fascinated and i was amazed and was hooked. so i came back to my advisor, said, okay, bet, let's do it. this is what i'll. and so initially became my dissertation. it was my dissertation project and then that sat kind of on the shelves for. and around 2020 i picked it back up and turned it into a manuscript, a two time award winning manuscript. i'm just saying saying. so you mentioned the week or so that you spent down there. so what what did that look like when you when you went? then it felt like i went back in time, actually. you know, this was a small community. i was familiar with the city del rio. i had visited the real before. but in the times that i visited del rio, i had not been in this

neighborhood. i had not known about the this community and and know sort of the historical importance of what had happened there. i knew of other significant moments like the athletic case, for example, that comes out of the city of del rio in 1930, the first court case in the state of texas that tried to destroy segregation in schools, brief mexican-americans, i knew that. of course i knew that. but i didn't know about san felipe. but it was like going back in time and it reminded me a lot of when i use to visit family in mexico these small houses, these small streets and certainly it's not all like that, but this is what i remember when i first went there and that was my impression said, wow, this is. and then i saw that they had a museum, they call it a center, they called it a memorial center. and i it it is a memorial center, but call it more of a museum. and it's really a research facility houses the most extensive collection of memory, billion artifacts dedicated to telling the history of school district in that community.

and i had a chance to go in there and again. i was just floored and i was just i was just amazed by the wherewithal of this community to preserve this history. i mean, these are valiant acts of preservation and that that they engaged decades before i went down there write this history. i'm not the first historian to or the first person to document the history. san felipe it i'm not and i won't be the last mean what i've done with this book is just the tip of the iceberg because one of the things i've learned is there's much more history that came out of this community and there's much more history to tell for sure what what what is one of the most interesting things that you during that process? i was really impressed with how mexican-americans since before really or i guess at the turn of the 20th century mexican americans have always resisted. they resisted the things that oppressed them. they fought back they weren't sort of these you know, they didn't stand on the sideline and they weren't idle and they whatever resources were

available, they fought tooth and nail. they fought with grit and gardeners and blood. and they fought with every day. and it really sort of just confirmed for me that mexican-americans have the long history of activism and, that they engage what my good friend of my good mentor, cynthia orozco, calls a spectrum of resistance that is to say, they use the courts. they city hall, they take it to the streets, protest politics. but also form their own institutions from religious institutions to cultural to businesses. and then also to educational educational spaces, san felipe, isda. so, you know, that really was confirmed for me. and that's one of the things that i really appreciated in my earlier research when i started doing this research. one of the things that in in looking and reading the jesse that i took away is what you mentioned. always think of the white women to have starting right in the fifties and really accelerating in the sixties. but you you say that it began earlier. right.

that arc of resistance so that it began how much earlier i would take it back to the early 19 tens and 19 teens, because a lot of the the tenants of the chicano as we might understand them today this idea of autonomy, this idea of this idea, you know, being self-sufficient and self-reliant and that existed in san felipe. it in the 19 tens and the 19 teens decades before. that idea was sort of really propelled during the chicano movement of the 1960s and seventies and even into the eighties. and so i do do sort of extend the periodization of the chicano movement. we understand it backwards into an earlier period. and i talk the revolutionary zeal that existed in this community, a lot of that sentiment and a lot of that idea being inspired by the revolution in mexico ideals of freedom and and liberation and uplift community uplift social uplift, economic uplift and so on and so and that was already cemented

into community and so next logical step for them was to ensure that they controlled every institution in their community that included the schools as well. so that sense of autonomy, one of the one of the takeaways, i think for for readers is just as you mentioned, the role that the schools played within the community as key anchors. so have you seen that in other research that you've conducted in in other writings and other manuscripts that you're developing have is this analogous or is this something that is is unique? it's a bit of both. i've seen i've seen examples of of what existed in san felipe and other schools. but i see it sort of at a sort of microcosmic level, not to the extent that it existed in this very unique independent school system, this school district demanded excellence in achievement