Cameron Park Votes

For the first time in history, the people who live along Florencia Avenue exist.

Florencia Avenue is a two mile long road in the parish that is home to ninety-seven families. For the past thirty years, people who lived along this street, located in the fifteenth richest entity in the world (Texas), did without a paved road. There were no police patrols, intermittent garbage pickup, and unreliable school bus service. If it rained, cars slid off of the road into the ditch; when it was dry, axles were broken and wheels were bent. Residents kept mailboxes on the side of the county highway, where the mail was routinely stolen.

Although monies had been appropriated for paving, county leadership never acted on the projects. "Why would we?" they responded to requests for help, "You people don't vote. It is like you don't care. You are lazy."

The residents were not lazy, not by any civilized measure. Everyone in the household that could work does work--otherwise, there is no food, there will be no electricity and the water would be cut off. They paid their taxes, proportionately more than the wealthy neighbors on the other side of the highway. But the services that the rest of America takes for granted were denied to these folks. It was as if they were invisible.

In 1998, the parish got involved in politics. Not partisan politics--the parish never said whom to vote for--but we encouraged people to exercise their right and honor their obligation to be heard. We organized debates and meet-the-candidates fora.

In the 1996 presidential election, only 151 people out of the more than 1,500 registered voters actually voted. In the 2000 election, the parish helped turn out a 1,000 voters. We became one of the highest voting precincts in the region.

We do indeed exist, and in a time of close election races, we had to be taken seriously.

Slowly the fruits of that effort have been seen. This morning, ten years after we launched our Get Out the Vote campaign, trucks began laying down asphalt.

The Florencia Avenue mailboxes stood attentively, awaiting their opportunity to serve.

(Top photo by Anthony Padilla, Brownsville Herald. Other photos by M. Seifert)