[dropcap]W[/dropcap]orried the war might cut off their supply of cheap labor, the Texas Dirt Farmers Congress appealed to the federal government on Jul. 22, 1941 to reopen the border with Mexico.

Texas did not always have such a significant Mexican presence as today. In fact, at the end of the nineteenth century, less than one Texan in 20 had ancestral roots south of the Rio Grande. Even in cosmopolitan San Antonio, the Lone Star melting pot with a population of fifty-three thousand, Germans outn...