The Rio Grande Valley on the Texas-Mexico border is an area rich in stories and storytellers who write in a variety of genres and languages. Taking the corridor of U.S. Highway 83 as a guide, which runs the length of the region, connecting the major towns from the upper Valley down to the Gulf of Mexico, we could go jacaleando—a literary road trip—from one end of the Valley to the other.
However, any discussion of border literature must begin with Gloria E. Anzaldúa, the queer Chicana, Tejana visionary of “Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza.” Now in its fifth edition, “Borderlands” is itself a text of mixed genres and provides an overview of the history of the place and its people through poetry, prose, academic theory, and the ground-breaking use of the local language, the code-switching of the region that mixes Spanish and English.
The late author is interred at Valle de la Paz cemetery in Hargill, Texas. UTRGV, the university nearby, which Anzaldúa graduated from in ’68 when it was known as Pan American College, unveiled a literary landmark on campus in her honor in 2022. At the dedication, the Mexican American Studies department and local activists and literary groups that have been celebrating Anzaldúa’s legacy for years, held a symposium and led a pilgrimage to her grave to commemorate her life and work.
Illustration by Frida Retana.
Upper Valley
Starting in the Upper Valley on U.S. Highway 83, we might make our first stop in Roma, birthplace of Jovita González. According to the UTRGV Library Special Collections and Archives digital exhibit on women of the Valley, González was a folklorist who traveled the region to record music and the stories of people for the Works Progress Administration. She was the first Mexican-American president of the Texas Folklore Society, and the author of historical novels that include, “Caballero,” “Dew on the Thorn,” and the story collection “The Woman Who Lost Her Soul.”
Peñitas / La Joya is the setting for the coming-of-age stories that make up “The Jumping Tree” by YA author Rene Saldaña Jr.
Mid-Valley
The nearby town of Mission is known for the frontier novel “She Came to the Valley” by Cleo Dawson, who was born in Oklahoma in 1902 and moved to Mission with her family. In 1943, she published the fictional account of her family’s life on the border. The book was the basis for a movie that came out in 1979. The local history museum recently held an exhibit displaying the screenplay, costumes, publicity photos and movie stills, showcasing how the movie was made. A five-dollar ticket for the movie screening included a paperback copy of the book.
Mission is home to award-winning high school librarian Margarita Longoria. She’s the founder of Border Book Bash, a teen and tween book festival in the Rio Grande Valley, and the editor of the 2022 anthology “Living Beyond Borders: Growing Up Mexican in America,” a collection of short stories, personal essays, poetry, and comics from a wide range of authors.
Alton, a one-light town so small it’s also known locally as the Five-Mile Line, or El Cinco, referring to the number of miles it is from Mission. Despite its tiny stature, the town is home to the big surreal and unsettling prose of Fernando A. Flores, author of “Valleyesque,” a collection of satire set on the border. Originally from Reynosa, Mexico, the author grew up in Alton and now lives in Austin.
In McAllen, a retail hub not just for locals but for shoppers from Mexico, who cross the international bridge, we have border fiction about immigration and crossings of all kinds (emotional, spiritual) in “Everyone Knows You Go Home” by Natalia Sylvester, and the memoir “House Built on Ashes” by José Antonio Rodríguez, a professor at UTRGV.
Also based out of UTRGV is Professor Emmy Pérez, Chair of the Department of Creative Writing, which houses the MFA program. She’s a 2020 Texas Poet Laureate, and the author of several collections of poetry, including “With the River on Our Face,” and the recent chapbook “Boxes with Zero Tolerance.” Her new book, “Paper america: New and Selected Poems,” comes out in late March.
Daniel García Ordaz, who goes by the moniker the Poet Mariachi, is a two-time Poet Laureate of McAllen, and co-founder of Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival, now in its 19th year. He’s a multi-lingual author and speaker, whose work spans poetry, like, the collection “Cenzontle / Mockingbird: Songs of Empowerment,” to writing books for young readers.
Another Poet Laureate of McAllen (2015-2017) is Priscilla Celina “Lina” Suárez, a self-described “pocha Tejana writer and poet,” and one of the founding members of the Gloria Anzaldúa Legacy Project (GAL), who have been celebrating the life and work of Anzaldúa for years. Suárez is the author of “Cuentos Wela Told Me: That Scared the Beeswax Out of Me!” and, most recently, “La La Landia: A Journey Through My Frontera CD Shuffle.”
And yet another Poet Laureate of McAllen for 2022 and 2025 is Victoria Lopez, founder of Unfolded: Poetry Project, a nonprofit committed to fostering a creative community through workshops, events, and resources for poets and writers. She’s the author of the novel “Fire in May.”
Pharr, San Juan, Alamo has Cristela Alonzo, the stand-up comic, Hollywood producer, and star of her eponymous TV-sitcom. She’s also written a memoir. “Music to My Years: A Mixtape-Memoir of Growing Up and Standing Up” about the struggle of growing up first-generation American in the RGV and holding on to her dreams of becoming a comic.
In Edcouch-Elsa, David Rice is another writer who has been writing about the struggles of growing up on the border since the ‘90s, starting with his first book, “Give the Pig a Chance,” and more recently, “Crazy Loco.”
Mercedes is known as the birthplace of Rolando Hinojosa, author of “The Valley / Estampas del Valle.” The book is the first in a number of Hinojosa’s novels that altogether are referred to as the Klail City Death Trip Series, set in the fictional county of Belken on the U.S.-Mexico border and with a cast of recurring characters.
Lower Valley
Harlingen is where author César Leonardo de León was raised. Born in Monterrey, Mexico, he is the author of “Speaking with Grackles by Soapberry Trees,” which received the Texas Institute of Letters’ John A. Robertson Award for Best First Book of Poetry.
In San Benito, birthplace of music legend Freddy Fender, we have some queer coming-of-age rep in the YA novel “Just Your Local Bisexual Disaster” by Andrea Mosqueda.
And Brownsville has, well, “Brownsville,” the debut story collection by Oscar Casares, who went on to write the novels “Amigoland” and “Where We Come From.”
This is by no means an exhaustive, complete list of local RGV authors. The books here are many I’ve read over the years, that were recommended by friends, spotted in bookstores, or discovered in those early years while rifling the card catalog in search of names like mine at the local public library.
That said, there are countless storytellers who have yet to be published but can be heard at local open mics and literary gatherings. Maybe you’re one of them.
The point here is that we have a deep and rich history of storytelling from and about the RGV. And it’s important to know what has come before and what new direction you can take when you start your own writing and reading journey.
Author Bio:
Erasmo Guerra is a Lambda Literary Award-winning novelist and the author of the nonfiction story collection “Once More to the River: Family Snapshots of Growing up, Getting Out, and Going Back.” He was born and raised in Mission and now lives in New York.
