Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

While the rest of Mayra Martinez’s family played lotería at her sister-in-law’s home in San Juan, the 16-year-old girl opted to stay home in Little Mexico, a colonia south of Alamo, to talk to her boyfriend on the phone.

"She talks to Jaime every night," said Dalia Martinez, Mayra’s sister-in-law, rolling her eyes.

With the house all to herself, Mayra plopped on the couch and dialed. Jaime answered, and the two lovey-dovey PSJA Memorial High School students began to chat away the Friday night in March.

Unexpectedly, a poorly dressed man — "como 30," the shy dark-haired girl said — appeared in the doorway. Because the temperature was warm, Mayra had left the door to the Martinez’s trailer open. She recalled that the scruffy man didn’t come in. He simply stayed on the steps and politely asked her for money.

Mayra told him she didn’t have any money. Then she asked him to go away, and he disappeared from her sight.

Thinking he had left, Mayra continued her conversation with Jaime.

Suddenly, the man, who Mayra believes was under the influence of drugs, stormed into the house. He grabbed her hard by her waist. Immediately, she noticed what he had in his hand.

A knife.

Mayra was about to become one of many victims in area colonias, where social and economic factors such as illegal immigration and low wage possibilities make residents more vulnerable to crime.

Police say they cannot patrol each and every colonia — roughly half of the state’s 1,500 colonias are in Hidalgo County — around the clock. And that means someone is going to fall victim to crime.

Although statistics show crime has decreased during the past decade in households earning less than $7,500 annually — which could describe the situation many colonia residents are in — crime has not decreased nearly as much as in higher income brackets.

Plain and simple, people who live in colonias are more likely to be victims of crime.

Back in Little Mexico, Mayra saw the knife and screamed.

The man lifted her up and managed to toss her like a rag doll onto the couch. Pinning her on her back, he stretched his unwanted body over hers. With the knife still in his hand, he groped her all over.

Mayra kicked the attacker with all her might. He fell to the floor, she said, and she raced to the bathroom, slammed the door and locked it. She leaned against it for extra support.

During all this, Jaime, still on the phone, jumped into the car and began driving over to Mayra’s home.

"I heard the screaming. I thought something bad was happening. I was scared and speeding," he said. "She was still in the bathroom when I arrived."

By that time, the man was gone, even though Mayra’s shakes weren’t.

Dalia said she called the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Department after Mayra and Jaime called her. The police didn’t show up for about two hours, she said.

According to the Martinez family, the follow-up investigation soon went stale, but they weren’t surprised. Despite a higher rate of crime, the colonias chronically are ignored when it comes to crime prevention, they say.

"I agree with them, but that’s prior to 2005," said Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño, who took office Jan. 1.

"They (the colonias) were thoroughly ignored."

But you can’t forget the unveiling of the department’s mobile substation, specifically targeted at crime prevention in the colonias, and the marches and National Night Out, Treviño said.

"We’re everywhere," he said. "… All I’m asking is, give me a fair shake."

Good intentions, even recent improvements to make colonias safer, might not be enough to convince families like the Martinezes that they are, though.

Nevertheless, like many who cannot afford a home anywhere else, the family said that despite their fears, Little Mexico is where they will remain.

AGAINST ALL ODDS

Little Mexico is situated in a patchwork of colonias south of Alamo that, as ARISE worker Eva Soto says, is stereotyped for its violence and gang turf wars. ARISE — A Resource in Serving Equality — is a nonprofit organization working for the betterment of numerous colonias. Each colonia — legally defined by the governor’s office as unincorporated border communities lacking adequate water and sewer systems, paved roads and safe, sanitary housing — faces similar problems, the organization says.

This particular swath of floodplain is a place the commercial world has not touched. There are no H.E.B. stores, no Wal-Marts, no fast food restaurants. In some places, there aren’t even streetlights.

John Garland, an AmeriCorps volunteer who has worked for ARISE for more than two years, said he has memorized the location of all major potholes so he can ride his bike in the darkness.

This is a part of the Valley most Valleyites will never visit.

Tower Road is the main artery that slices through these neighborhoods, partitioning the South Tower Estates area — commonly referred to as "Mexico Chiquito" by the people who live there — into colonias, including Little Mexico, South Side and El Gato subdivisions No. 1 and No. 2.

Tower Road is also literally a line in the dirt that divides some of the youths and young adults into their respective turf gangs — Southside and the Po Boys — which are also closely associated with the schools, said Ramona Casas, co-founder of ARISE. Those on the west side of Tower Road go to school in the PSJA school district, while east-siders attend school in Donna.

Soto, who has worked with ARISE for seven years, said it is hard to hear about the reputation her hometown has. She wrinkled her nose as she remembered a television news report earlier in the year about a drive-by shooting in which Sheriff Treviño called her neighborhood "infested."

"I got so angry," Soto said. "It’s saying things like this. They are talking about me, like I am going to be bad."

Her relatives, who do not live in colonias, try to persuade her to leave every time they hear about crimes happening in the area, she said.

Soto doesn’t like how people gossip about her hometown, which she loves dearly, but she doesn’t sugarcoat a deep-running truth about it, either. Crime has increased in the South Tower region from a decade ago, she admits.

"Maybe we didn’t pay attention," she said, sighing.

"(But) we work hard here against the stereotype, to steer the youth in different directions, to find other things for them to do … We are trying our best," she said emphatically.

Against all odds, a handful of colonia residents are trying for a turnaround, Soto and Casas both said.

A major hurdle is convincing residents to trust the police and put themselves out on a limb for the betterment of the whole. It is hard for someone who is here illegally, who has an innate fear of law enforcement, to pick up that phone and just call for help, experts say.

The U.S. Department of Justice estimates only 48 percent of all violent victimizations and 38 percent of all property crimes were actually reported to police in 2003.

The National Crime Victimization Survey, administered in 2003 by the Department of Justice to more than 83,000 households and nearly 150,000 people age 12 and older, supplements the FBI’s statistics by gauging the actual level of crime rather than relying on crimes reported to police.

The survey refers to violent crime as rape and sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault and simple assault. Murder is not included because the survey relies on victim interviews. Besides, murder is generally a reliable statistic because it’s hard to hide a dead body. Property crime refers to household burglary, motor vehicle theft and theft.

From 1993 to 2003, violent crime decreased by 55.4 percent and property crime decreased by 48.8 percent. However, violent victimizations for families with an annual household income of less than $7,500 decreased only by 41.4 percent.

Similarly, property crime rates for households with an annual income of less than $7,500 decreased less over the past decade but remain higher than the rest.

The Martinez family admits they don’t call the police about everything that goes on in the neighborhood. They called when Mayra was assaulted because it was so horrible.

"Police don’t come fast," Dalia said.

Casas said police are always telling them there is nothing they can do without more information or descriptions.

"The police also come to the house where the report was initiated," she said. "They (victims) don’t want the police car to be at their homes."

Dalia said she has seen Hidalgo County Sheriff’s deputies patrolling her neighborhood, but up until recently, she said the cars are there only in the daytime.

"What about the nighttime?" Dalia asked.

"Fumando marijuana (smoking marijuana), car racing, loitering — this is what the kids do around here, and it’s a problem to us.

"And by the time police arrive, nobody is here," she said.

ACTION DESPITE THE FEAR

A woman, who asked to not be identified for fear of retaliation from gangs in the area, said she worries her sons will fall victim to bad influences.

So she involves herself in Casas’ 2-year-old committee on abolishing crime in area colonias, not because she wants to but because she feels she has to.

"She is scared," her 14-year-old son said. "But she has to do it for the family, for us."

To get more people to come to the meetings, she tapes fliers to their doors.

"Meetings are held, but people don’t have faith in the police, they don’t show up," she said.

Nevertheless, she tries to recruit.

At a Thursday morning meeting in May, about 10 people attended a meeting in the Puerta del Cielo church. They came to discuss a parade they had participated in with other organizations like La Union del Pueblo Entero (LUPE) and the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Department on Día de los Niños at the end of April. The march was meant to unite the South Tower area colonias and "break that stereotype of police to a young child," Casas said.

As it is, police are the "substitution of the boogeyman," said Garland, the AmeriCorps volunteer.

The march was a success for the colonias, the people agreed, but next on the meeting’s agenda was to demand the substation Sheriff Treviño had promised.

A sheriff’s substation and an enforced curfew are two major initiatives the colonia residents are pushing.

So far, the sheriff has delivered at least part of his promise. A mobile substation staffed with two service officers and two dedicated deputies began making rounds in the South Tower area in November.

It’s a step shy of a permanent police presence because the unit will eventually leave, moving onto another colonia with the similar problems, but residents in the South Tower area are happy their voices have finally begun to be heard.

The meeting participants further envisioned ways to integrate the police with the community. One inventive local proposed a soccer game. Señores versus officers, he said, with the purpose of breaking the ice and talking about problems and solutions.

The small group also made plans to reschedule a youth fair where employers, schools, law enforcement and military representatives could talk to the teens. They even said they wanted to invite the sheriff.

"We are starting relationships with law enforcement," Casas said.

It was tense for years, she said after the meeting. The march, however, was a new beginning.

A known drug-dealer actually left the neighborhood, she said. And, as if she were proud, Casas reported vandals stole an ARISE van, drove it to another street in the area and spray-painted an obscenity on it. They also took tools from one of the ARISE buildings and threw them into a nearby cornfield, she said.

"The police said it was in reaction to the march," she said, beaming. The gangs are realizing times are changing, she said. "… we are looking for a better future. That’s what we want."

Held up as an example of a colonia that has vastly improved, Casas points to Las Milpas, an area south of Pharr that for many years was notorious for its poverty, lack of infrastructure and services, and crime.

"They used to say, ‘Matan gratis.’ Go to Las Milpas and get killed for free, it means," Casas said one day as she discussed her work over pan de polvo and a tall, perspiring glass of water.

But since 1987, the year ARISE was founded by Casas and Sister Gerrie Naughton, of the Sisters of Mercy, Las Milpas has shaped up to be a model colonia, she said.

Paved roads, streetlights and eventual incorporation into the city of Pharr. A success story.

Casas developed the committee because she wants the same sort of victory for other colonias in Hidalgo County.

The first step in helping neighborhoods battle crime is to help people recognize the need for an involved community, she said.

"There was a stereotype (in Las Milpas)," she said. "She (Naughton) started helping us be proud. We understood we needed to organize for ourselves. When I started getting involved, the first step was to recognize myself, who I am, what I want to become, that I am a human being and I have rights, too."

Casas said colonias were formed based on the need for a community relationship.

When she came to this country 25 years ago, she lived on a ranch in Mission without any legal documentation.

"We thought we would hide in a faraway place. We started to feel very isolated. I wanted to connect with people … I need neighbors, I need church, I need community and I need people around me," Casas said.

She moved to Las Milpas and got involved.

Now, colonia residents need to muster up their courage and do the same if they want to battle crime, she said. The government and schools must get involved, too.

"We cannot approach this huge issue by ourselves," she said. "If we left everything as it is right now, it would get worse."