Todd Condie and Dr. John Bennion, Humanities, Classics, and Comparative Literature

Eight years ago I moved to west Texas. In fact, I moved about as far west in the state of Texas as one can get. The housing plots adjacent to my own are bisected by the interstate border with New Mexico. Not forty yards beyond that invisible line of demarcation, the Rio Grande, itself a border-to-be, flows serenely through fields of knee-high grasses.

But in eight years of residency alongside the Rio Grande’s banks, I had never once elected to actually touch its water. The tiny river had achieved such a reputation as a polluted menace that few ventured to touch it; in fact, most simply ignored it.

In response to this curious relationship between the river and the people that lived alongside it, I proposed to research and write a feature length magazine article comparing the history of this legendary river with its present state. In this article, I would analyze the importance of the river to human society and, conversely, the effect of human society on the river.

The abstracts of the river are indeed grand. Commencing two and a half miles above sea-level in the high mountain glaciers of southern Colorado just east of the Continental Divide, the Rio Grande flows nearly two thousand miles to the Gulf of Mexico. For 1250 miles, the river straddles the United States and Mexico, a natural barrier that, thanks to artificial political significance, separates the lands and the peoples of the region in a most unnatural way.

For hundreds of years the river has been the focal point of civilizations. It was the site of European colonization decades before the pilgrims ever sighted Plymouth Rock. Wars have been fought over it. It has drawn millions to its banks with, first, the promise of water, and later, the promise of prosperity.

But the Rio Grande of today is far removed from the river of ages past. The Rio Grande today is a river of misnomers. The weak band of water that trickles through the American Southwest hardly merits the adjectives “grand or “great.” Its waters are depleted and polluted, but possession of every drop of them is the subject of incredible international and interstate strife.

In completing my article I compiled data from everything from the National Geographics of 1913 to Paul Horgan’s Pulitzer Prize-winning history, Great River. My research took me from the familiar shelves of several libraries to places in my own backyard that I had never known existed, places like the Border Colonias, unincorporated settlements on the outskirts of border cities where American citizens live in third-world conditions. I visited the headquarters of the International Boundary and Water Commission, the bi-national organization entrusted with monitoring the river’s physical and political status. I interviewed members of the Texas Clean Waters Commission on the ecological threats facing the river. I spoke with the Border Patrol, the National Park Service, chambers of commerce, and noted academics of the region. I visited the streets of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. I explored the region’s centuries of Spanish on the Ysleta Mission Trail. In short, I became an expert on my homeland, and more particularly, on the central feature of my homeland, the Rio Grande.

The finished product was a 16-page general interest article that considers the historical, political, ecological, and economic significance of the river to the borderlands region and to the United States and Mexico as whole nations. Though in its present state the article is perhaps too broad and too lengthy to be considered for publication by a commercial magazine, I feel that with minimal alteration several sections of it would make wonderful individual articles. Publishing possibilities will be pursued over the next few months.

Initially, my proposal had mentioned including photographs with the article. This may have been an act of hubris. Though I consider myself an accomplished amateur photographer, I found that my attempts managed to appear somewhat accomplished yet still markedly amateur. In fact, the entire project became an exercise in testing my abilities. I found that my background in academic research little prepared me for practical journalism. This project was extremely beneficial in developing such skills as fieldwork and interviewing. I also became aware of how much I enjoyed this kind of work; I have even altered my career plans because of it.

But perhaps the most vital result of this project was the intimate relationship I formed with a land that, despite years of residence, still felt foreign to me. After I finished my final draft I walked down through the riverside fields and placed my hand in the gentle flow of the Rio Grande for the first time.