Generational Truthtelling of Boss Rule, Texas Ranger Violence, and Indigenous Survival in Somi Se’k

A multidisciplinary public program exploring the histories of waterways, territorial control, and Indigenous survival in the Rio Grande Delta. Through visual art, oral history, music, archival installation, storytelling, and community dialogue, the event examines how rivers, resacas, lakes, wetlands, irrigation systems, and crossing routes shaped both cultural life and systems of political power in South Texas. Centering Carrizo, Karankawa, Black, and Mexican-descended histories, the project investigates how Boss Rule governance and Texas Ranger violence operated through the control of waterways, fertile lands, labor routes, and mobility throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The program explores how state sanctioned violence, surveillance, land seizure, and environmental transformation were used to consolidate political and economic control across the Rio Grande Delta.