West Side remembers devastation of 1921 flood
The West Side hosted a history symposium Saturday that began outdoors at the Alazán Creek near Guadalupe Street.
It was a little foggy as marigold petals and pieces of sage were tossed in the water to remember about 80 San Antonians who died in the Flood of 1921.
That disaster marked a centennial this year. A hundred years ago, it brought national attention to a city’s negligence. But it summoned only momentary shame.
As much as times have changed, however, the West Side’s history of inequity — and the inequity itself — remains along racial, ethnic and class lines.
The daylong gathering at the Guadalupe Theater featured Char Miller, author of “West Side Rising: How San Antonio’s 1921 Flood Devastated a City and Sparked a Latino Environmental Justice Movement.” He spoke about how the city’s then-predominantly white leaders systematically made policy decisions that benefited the city’s elite at the expense of the poor.
Their choices led to the 1921 flooding deaths and were part of a pattern of “slow violence,” he said.
“All railroads but one rolled through the West Side,” Miller said. “All tank farms (storing oil and gas) were located on the West Side. All landfills were located on the West Side.
“All stockyards were located on the West Side. All slaughterhouses were located on the West Side. All laundry services were located on the West Side.
“It was a sacrifice zone,” Miller said. “By design, by law, by code, by policy, all that would punish the West Side, in every sense, were located there.”
Weeks after the flood, he added, the city decided to put yet another incinerator on the West Side, impacting air quality.
Other parts of town where communities of color settled similarly suffered what we now call environmental racism. Gentrification has become the newest ill in the area.
One of the most powerful speeches on that topic came from Graciela Sanchez, executive director of the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center, which helped the Westside Preservation Alliance put on the event along with the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center and other groups.
Sanchez characterized the aggressive investors targeting the West Side not as investing in the area but as collecting from it.
Her family has lived on the West Side for almost 130 years, she said, and her late mother told stories of the stereotypes that have long been held about it.
“The history of this neighborhood has always been about how bad we are, how lazy we are, how poor we are, all negative,” Sanchez said. “Those lies have been part of our history for over 100 years.”
Groups like the Esperanza are now focused on saving residents “from being pushed out because of this oncoming gentrification,” she said.
“We have to be able to stop it, and say, ‘No more,’ ” she said. “Now you see how important this land is, and you see how important living downtown is, and so now you want this land, and you want these properties.
“No,” Sanchez said.
“We’re going to stay here, because this is what we have built, and as we improve this neighborhood, we deserve to stay.
“Monies have been put into this neighborhood, but not enough,” she said. “We’ve always been left behind.”
Miller said history proves Sanchez right.
After the flood, San Antonio leaders moved to protect the downtown core and northern communities from flooding by building Olmos Dam. They “spent public money to protect private capital,” he said.
“Because people on the West Side died, (San Antonio) built a dam that wouldn’t help the West Side one iota.”
Saturday’s events included the reading of the names of flood victims. Their names were read at the creek, during an afternoon session and at a closing ceremony.
The victims were carried away by the raging waters and pummeled by the rush of debris. Some corpses were so decomposed they were immediately buried where they were found.
I watched the event on Facebook, where it was live-streamed, and was struck by the photo on the cover of Miller’s book.
Taken a few days after the flood, it depicts a young Mexican American girl holding a baby.
She stares at the camera without self-pity and with a resiliency in her stance.
We don’t know her name, if she had a home to go to, or if her parents survived.
But she held the future in that baby, and it’s still unfolding.