El Cenizo is booming on the border [Texas]

Express-News Border Bureau ^ | 09/06/2005 | Mariano Castillo

[lentulusgracchus]

Colonia is Spanish for Colony!

It's been Spanish for "colony" ever since Spanish was Latin.

Cologne, in Germany, is the Julio-Claudian Colonia Agrippinensis, or "Colony of Agrippina [the Elder]".

[lentulusgracchus]

Actually, I remember reading that the colonias began as some kind of downmarket real-estate play by Mexican land-speculators who didn't have anything like the money to do it right -- and weren't worried about getting it right, anyway.

Why they chose our side of the border, I'm not sure. It began in the 70's, I think.

[antisocial]

Texas has a nice little Bureaucracy (agency) in Austin that does nothing but try to get tax money both from the State and Fed. Gov. to improve the lives in these colonias. They have ACLU type lawyers and look for all the loopholes in state and federal law in order to get these places all the money they can, they even help them get citizenship.