ABSTRACT
Since we were young children, we recall family stories about working toward the public good. Our father tells stories of his mother, our Abuela Virginia, who managed the affairs of the modest family ranch, el rancho Alameda, in the Municipio Dr. Cos in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon. Virginia saw a steady stream of wandering mexicanos between the 1920s and the early 1950s trek from the interior of Mexico on their way to the United States. Mama les Baba de comer a todos que pasaban por el rancho (My mother fed everyone who walked through our ranch), recalls our father, Jose Angel, as he describes how his mother practiced her own brand of philanthropy. Our mother tells similar stories of how her mother, Agueda, monitored the northward activity of immigrants who headed north of the Rio Grande River, y les Baba refugio (and she gave them refuge). Abuela Agueda did this from her residence at Capote Ranch, which sits on the northern bank of the river in Hidalgo County.
