Oh Texas, The Lone Star State, cowboy country, a state so big that is larger than France and twice as large as Germany and Japan. With a vast border covering 1,254 miles between the state and Mexico it didn’t come as a surprise to me to see a large Mexican population as I arrived in McAllen, Texas one Sunday afternoon.

The surprise came hours later, when I realized that I was in a Mexican county inside American lines. The closer we got to the border the more Mexican it got. The Anglo life was missing in person, in business, in language and culture. Even if there was a border, it was a just a representative of a massive structure to keep people in instead of out.

La Pulga

Sunday afternoon, we drove into San Juan, Texas in search of the communities that represented the Mexican immigrant experience, the only problem? The whole town was representative of the characteristics we were looking for. Where can you get a whole town on a Sunday afternoon? La Pulga.
Luis and I set out to enter one of the biggest flea markets I ever seen. The entrance fee was 25 cents, but we’re filming a documentary, once the cameras were out, those around us got nervous, suspicious and eventually security came to us and told us we couldn’t bring the camera inside. I asked to speak to the owner, a Korean man named Steve; sitting inside a booth in what it looked like a box office for a rodeo event, with everybody sporting cowboy hats and boots on top of a dirt surface.

After minutes of explaining to Steve about the documentary and HITN.TV, he agreed that I could tape as much as I wanted, as long as I made the immigrant community look good, hard working, etc etc, he stressed.
How can I explain what La Pulga in San Juan looked like? It’s a poor’s man Mall, a concreteless structure made from the ground up with wooden and zinc panels. Everything you need and the stuff you don’t, you will find there. In a big hall outside Steve office, a Norteno band played for the hundreds of folks sitting on wooden picnic tables eating, drinking, dancing, while outside those wall hundreds or maybe thousand browsed through the endless labyrinth of stores and food markets.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to buy anything, but the reality is I wanted the rooster buckle, the Chapulin Colorado piñata, and maybe those ostrich black boots that would’ve made my life a living hell in New York, both because of my friends and due to the city’s walking culture. I didn’t get any of it, but I wanted too, I thought to myself, I’m here for another four days, either I get it here or I will find it somewhere else, it never happened. Sorry friends, No Gama in cowboy boots. Not this summer.

Everything went smoothly we recorded almost everything, no problems, everybody was eager to be part of the video. At the end, I almost forgot were in Texas, almost took out my passport leaving the Pulga, just kidding. When I left I returned to the old lady who charged 25 cents to get in, I handed her 50 cents and she denied my offering, she just wanted to know where I was from. Apparently while I was recording inside she made a bet with the security guard as to my nationality.

“Are you from Honduras or Puerto Rico? She asked.
“Puerto Rico” I replied.
“Yes, I told you so” said the old lady rejoicing to the security guard.
“Here you go, and thank you sir” said the security guard, handing over what seemed to be five dollars in ones. The old lady just won five dollars on my name, she was happy I was happy.
They say everything is big in Texas, but the small details are the ones worth paying attention to.