Land Of Tough Vatos And Soft Women: In The Rio Grande Valley, No Way Out Of Bad Love...Marrying El Diablo...

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
Editor-In-Chief

HARLINGEN, Texas - The cold-blooded killing of schoolteacher Sonia Perez in nearby Rio Hondo a few weeks ago startled many in this town and in the surrounding communities where families like to think they cling hard to the Mexican culture, the culture that says women are revered, that says wives and mothers and grandmothers can do no wrong. Times and customs are changing.

Women who are born to deep South Texas have come to learn that a punch to the face comes sooner or later after the wedding vows, after the pain of giving birth, after giving children to men more animals than human, after the realization that love here always segues into cheating and beatings.

Any sort of psycho-analysis would likely lead back to the part of the Hispanic culture often referred to as the "Macho" gene, that soul-killing ingredient in the makeup of such a man that says "total control" is part of the deal. I go where I wanna go; you can't. I do what I wanna do; you can't. What! You're talking back to me! STF!!!

And so it begins.

Cheating comes and so do the insults. The once-lovely wife is now too-fat for lovemaking, too gone for showing-off at the nightclubs, too saddled with duties at home. And change that boy's effin diapers now!!!

It is a story of utter endurance for Valley women. They must run the marital obstacle course as if scared deer, as if to not do it brings on a quick, bloody whipping. What is life down here? Women, perhaps even a woman such as teacher Sonia Perez, know it as the result of a bad decision on a man they thought they had in the cup of their hands, back when the kissy-kissy led to lovey-lovey and all seemed as in the neatest movies. "Mi amor, pasame una chela..." And then it all went south. Something happens and it's over way before it should be over. Things come up at work and you stay longer, or so you tell the poor wife. Stuff pops up on a guy's shirt and it's not good. Money isn't as plentiful when the movida wants her due. The beaten wife endures.

Mother always warned her against Jose. He had an eye for the ladies, for the good times. And he drank like a sonofabitch. That temper? It would become a huge problem later, she told her daughter, even as the girl flashed bright gleamings off her romantic eyes. She'd change him, is what her mother would hear often. Jose would be a good man, no matter that his father had been in jail for beating his wife silly, for being drunk, for thinking he was Mr. Big Stuff. It was a distinct pattern anyone could see, only it was a pattern forever ignored. Jose had his good moments and she would remember only those. So he slapped her a bit and said strange stuff about the wife and other men, like that some guy at her job looked like he'd want to do her. Or the neighbor who kept saying the Old Lady was a "looker," his eyes working themselves up and down her tight jeans and flowing blouse, eyeballs there on her ass, his own wife looking completely humiliated and embarrassed.

It's a life, but it's a horrible life.

Sonia Perez never had a chance with that Vato...

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