Author’s Note: “Duranguito” was released in 2023 and is available on PBS. The film was funded by various organizations and individual contributions. Directors and cinematographers included Zane Abraham and Nikki Martínez. People featured in the film and general informants included Paulina Almanza, Alexsandra Annello, Jud Burgess, Verónica Carbajal, Julia Castillo, Robert Díaz, Max Grossman, Joe Gudenrath, Cassandra Hernandez, Yolanda Chávez Leyva, Don Luciano, Angie Martínez, Francisco Méndez, Romelia Mendoza, Aaron Montes, Antonia Morales, Mike Patiño, Cynthia Rentería, José Rodríguez, Sam Rodríguez, David Dorado Romo, and David Stout.
This article was copublished with El Paso Herald Post.
The film “Duranguito” chronicles the successful struggle to save Duranguito, [1] a historic Mexican American barrio (neighborhood) in downtown El Paso, Texas, from bulldozing by the city in order to build a sports and entertainment arena. In constructing and telling the story, the filmmakers relied on local informants, particularly activists who played key roles in the long conflict with local authorities, powerful developers, and downtown businesspeople.
The endeavor to save Duranguito was long and arduous, but in the end right beat might. Determined defenders of Duranguito felt that placing the arena in Duranguito would be highly detrimental to the Mexican American community because it would continue the on-going displacement of low-income residents and because that neighborhood provided an ideal space for the creation of a much-needed historical district. The fight to save Duranguito lasted several years between 2016 and 2023.
While the film “Duranguito” is a valuable historical document and a fine teaching tool, it unfortunately has a problem that the moviemakers, as well as several leading activists (who I believe influenced the movie content), have refused to acknowledge or sought to rectify. The problem is that J.P. Bryan, a major figure in the struggle, is not even mentioned in the film. An oilman and historical preservationist from Houston, Bryan tirelessly advocated for saving Duranguito and spent at least one million dollars of his own money to finance vital legal expenses incurred in El Paso and Austin. His infusion of cash largely explains why the proposed demolition of Duranguito did not succeed.
This article seeks to understand why Bryan’s personal and financial support to the cause was not included in the documentary. The issue raises critical questions about acknowledging reality, even if that reality is not what we wish it to be.
Background
The bitter controversy over Duranguito has its roots in the 1990s, when the City of El Paso began considering downtown renovation projects for select neighborhoods largely populated by Mexican Americans. Various plans had been proposed as the 21st century got under way, to include the building of new sports and entertainment facilities.
In 2006 influential white Anglo businesspeople, developers, and politicians founded an exclusive consortium called the Paso del Norte Group (PDNG) that unveiled a redevelopment scheme formulated without having properly consulted residents and businesses in neighborhoods targeted for revitalization. The PDNG characterized those areas as “blighted.” A brochure painted an unflattering portrait of the city with a picture of an elderly Mexican man, accompanied by the words “gritty,” “dirty,” “lazy,” and “uneducated.” The outside world allegedly saw El Paso that way – a city populated by “backward” Mexicans. The PDNG felt that El Paso needed to counter such a perception by instead projecting “modernity,” “vibrancy” and “trendiness.” [Quotes mine]. The brochure featured photos of two young and attractive white celebrities. PDNG leaders were oblivious to the racism in that publication.
The PDNG revitalization vision called for tearing down old buildings and building new structures, including an arena, upscale town houses, condos, lofts, hi-end shops, bars, restaurants, a big box store, entertainment spots, art galleries, and parking garages. Backers of the plan asserted that young people would flock to these new venues, property values would rise, and the city would take in more tax dollars. Depressed neighborhoods supposedly would disappear and badly needed economic development would follow.
Residents and owners of small businesses in the Segundo Barrio and Duranguito became alarmed at the prospect of being uprooted by what they believed were profiteers seeking to take over their communities. The PDNG plan sparked condemnations by defenders of Mexican American barrios, including activist groups and the Catholic Church. Protestors expressed their discontent in the streets, in the press, and at city council meetings. Bishop Armando Ochoa called the plan unjust and divisive and warned against displacing poor people by diminishing low-cost housing. [2] Historians denounced the lack of concern by the PDNG and city leaders for the rich cultural heritage in the areas targeted for demolition. Structures that had played important roles in significant events such as the Mexican Revolution would be obliterated, and buildings designed by prominent architect Henry Trost would be razed. Many Latinos/as perceived the PDNG as an organization that had little or no respect for Mexican and Mexican American history.
The controversy over the PDNG initiative raged on until 2009, when circumstances changed drastically because of three unexpected developments. First, the “Great Recession” that began in 2007 and peaked in 2009 triggered a severe economic downturn in El Paso, as it did in the rest of the country. For many businesspeople, prospective investments in new ventures lost their glitter. Second, drug-related violence across the border in Ciudad Juárez rose to unprecedented levels, with that city becoming the world’s most dangerous metropolis by 2008. The mayhem in Juárez seriously disrupted business activity on both sides of the border, dampening PDNG spirits. Third, Texas voters approved a state constitutional amendment that “prohibited the government from acquiring land for non-public use,” and “required the government to determine if each property in a neighborhood was blighted before deciding if the neighborhood itself was blighted.” That constitutional amendment took away the power of the City of El Paso to condemn “blighted” property for the purpose of pursuing “redevelopment.” [3]
By 2010, only a small part of the downtown revitalization plan promoted by the city and the PDNG had been implemented. Investors had purchased some tall buildings, refurbished others, and attracted a few new businesses. But the grand scheme that called for the redevelopment of hundreds of acres was going nowhere. Property owners and residents of Duranguito and Segundo Barrio breathed easier. [4]
With the dream of massive revitalization increasingly out of reach, key members of the PDNG strategized to salvage one of the most important parts of the original downtown plan – the building of new sports venues. Following the 2011 election of two additional PDNG-friendly candidates to the El Paso City Council – aided by financial support from the political action committee run by leaders of the PDNG – in June 2012 the Mountain Star Group (MSG), owned by wealthy businesspeople Paul Foster, Woody Hunt, and Alejandra de la Vega, pressured city representatives to authorize the building of a tax-financed $50 million baseball stadium to house the MSG’s newly acquired minor league team. The council agreed. That decision sparked intense dissatisfaction in the community because voters had no say in the matter and because the council also approved the demolition of the city hall building and a children’s museum to make room for the stadium. Despite the protests, the new baseball facility, named The Southwest University Park, began operations in 2014.
All the while, PDNG operatives quietly worked with city officials to formulate a Quality-of-Life Bond to present to the voters in the fall 2012 election that included a proposition for funding the ballpark with taxes collected from out-of-town visitors who stayed in local hotels. Another proposition in the bond sought voter support for the building of a “multi-purpose performing arts and entertainment” facility, which the PDNG and their allies understood to mean a sports arena. The bond ballot writers deliberately avoided the use of the words “sports” and “arena” to lessen voter objections. To boost voter support of the bond, the ballot included proposals to create a Mexican American Cultural Center and make library improvements. The scheme worked and the bond passed.
Jubilant arena boosters claimed that the voters had endorsed their project, denying any intent to cause confusion with misleading ballot language. Planning for the building of the arena began. Any informed person easily understood the deception to which the voters had been subjected.
It took some time for the city to decide where to place the “multi-purpose performing arts and entertainment” center, namely the arena. After going back and forth on possible sites, in 2017 the city council finally picked Duranguito as the location. That decision sparked fierce backlash from barrio activists and historic preservationists. Protests and legal challenges to the city’s plans ensued. Arena demonstrators carried on a well-organized campaign as they continuously clashed with politicians in city council meetings and, on various occasions, confronted demolition crews ready to flatten buildings in Duranguito. Activists devised a rapid communication system to notify protestors that they were needed immediately to repel impending threats. Antonia “Toñita” Morales, the oldest resident in Duranguito and its most determined defender, became an inspiration to the activists. (She died at 97 years of age in October 2025).
Attorneys Verónica Carbajal and Carmen E. Rodríguez represented the interests of Duranguito residents while Max Grossman, a UTEP art history professor and historical preservationist, assembled a team of lawyers to file lawsuits to prevent the city from destroying historic buildings. Grossman received substantial financial support from Houston resident J.P. Bryan, who had an affinity for the history of El Paso and a deep interest in preserving heritage structures in Texas. Historians Yolanda Leyva and David Romo led the Paso del Sur organization in the resistance against the city. Paso del Sur made an impressive video (using funds provided by Bryan) that promoted the creation of a historical district in Duranguito.
As the conflict dragged on, the push to build the arena gradually lost steam as construction costs skyrocketed while the city faced a serious financial downturn during the Covid 19 pandemic of 2020-2022. The crisis eventually changed the political landscape, with new, anti-arena candidates elected to the city council in 2022. In early 2023 the new council officially scrapped the arena project, and the community rightfully claimed victory. Sadly, however, by then most of the residents of Duranguito had been relocated to other parts of the city as urban renewal took its toll. Many buildings remained empty.
With the demise of the arena project in Duranguito, the city has come up with a new initiative. It has acquired some properties in the neighborhood for the purpose of adding space for a major expansion of the adjacent Convention Center. The possibility that the acquired properties might be demolished has triggered new concerns among preservationists. More broadly, activists continue to hope that the city will finally commit itself to constructing new affordable housing in Duranguito while at the same time supporting the creation of a long wished-for historic district.
Bryan’s Exclusion from the Film
When I saw the film “Duranguito” in 2024, I was impressed. The story of the protracted fight was well told. But I was puzzled that Bryan’s substantial contributions to the struggle to save the neighborhood were totally missing. That did not make sense. Without J. P. Bryan’s intervention in the courts through the financing of lawsuits against the city, Duranguito would have been razed, and the proposed sports arena would have been built. Favorable rulings over the years achieved by a team of attorneys funded by Bryan and coordinated by Max Grossman kept the city from demolishing the neighborhood. A crucial court battle culminated in a decisive hearing in 2020 at the Texas Supreme Court, which denied an appeal by the city to review the plaintiffs’ lawsuit. After that setback, the city unsuccessfully kept pursuing legal permits that would allow it to flatten buildings. Finally, in 2023, a new city council that had an anti-arena majority voted to move the arena project out of Duranguito. Reluctantly, the city terminated legal proceedings. [5]
Bryan spent more than one million dollars in legal expenses to preserve the historical structures and the rich heritage of Duranguito, with some El Pasoans also making modest financial contributions. A former president of the Texas State Historical Association, Bryan was relentless in speaking in favor of converting Duranguito into a historic district. He articulated views shared by Mexican Americans, denouncing the lack of interest in El Paso in capitalizing on the city’s rich multicultural history. He felt that city leaders had been derelict in not taking advantage of great opportunities to bring about economic development to the city through the promotion of heritage tourism, as other cities in Texas had done.
Bryan stated in a 2018 interview: “I was inspired by my visit to Duranguito when I saw what I believed were incredible opportunities to attract historical heritage tourists to this community in overwhelming numbers because you complement that same visitation with all the Trost buildings that are part of the architectural heritage of El Paso. El Paso is the only city in the [country that can] demonstrate that there are five cultures represented in this community: Native American, Spanish, Mexican, Anglo and Chinese. No other city in America can lay claim to that, and we can show them the buildings that identify those cultures.” [6]
Bryan’s support for the preservation of Duranguito greatly frustrated establishment backers of the arena project, including the El Paso Chamber of Commerce and former Mayor Dee Margo, who called Bryan an outsider who meddled in El Paso’s affairs. Bryan responded that, although he lived in Houston, his involvement in heritage and preservationist activities in El Paso went back decades, and that he understood the history of the city better than Margo. “If there’s something of historical significance to El Paso that’s being destroyed, I’m going to speak up,” said Bryan. And he did just that on numerous occasions, including in a packed forum in 2018 (which I attended) where he expressed outrage at what the city wanted to do in Duranguito and urged El Pasoans to “rise up” and protect their historical and cultural heritage. Bryan also forcefully refuted misleading and false claims made by mayor Margo in a televised debate in 2019 (which I saw) between the two of them.
Without a doubt, Bryan’s personal support and sizable financial contributions rank as one of the most important aspects of the Duranguito story. Without that intervention, Duranguito as a distinct neighborhood would have become nothing but a memory. Citizen protests, as important and praiseworthy as they were, alone could not have overcome the overwhelming power of the city and its wealthy overlords. Only the courts could do that.
Seeking an answer to my question regarding Bryan’s exclusion from the film, I emailed several Duranguito activists who I considered to be friends and leftist allies. They had been intimately involved in the Duranguito campaign and were prominently featured in the film. My presumption was that these activists would be bothered by Bryan’s exclusion, knowing how important his contributions had been. I also assumed they had had a voice in shaping the movie because of their deep knowledge of El Paso, community leadership, and personal acquaintance with all the participants in the struggle. The rather young, Ohio-based moviemakers were reportedly working on their first significant film, and they necessarily had to rely on information and guidance provided by key activists and other well-informed El Pasoans regarding the Duranguito situation.
To my surprise, my activist friends actually approved of Bryan’s omission from the film. Yet they claimed they had nothing to do with that decision, insisting that the moviemakers had complete control regarding what to include or exclude from the film. I found that characterization unconvincing. It was inconceivable to me that my friends, who had strong views regarding community self-determination and who resented non-Hispanics whose involvement in the Duranguito struggle drew too much media attention, would refrain from making their feelings toward Bryan known to the moviemakers.
Below I summarize points brought up by my friends in individual emails:
- The organizers and rank and file participants in the long struggle to save Duranguito are the ones who deserve the credit for the victory; it was okay to minimize or dismiss the financial contributions of a rich Anglo man who was not from El Paso.
- A deep resentment existed in the community regarding the impression that Bryan, through his El Paso associate Max Grossman, funded and oversaw the entire legal work. The Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid actually made significant contributions via community lawyers who provided pro-bono work on behalf of barrio litigants; moreover, University of Texas at El Paso historians gave key pro-bono testimony in various hearings.
- Bryan seemed primarily interested in the possible destruction of historic buildings and allegedly showed no concern for the residents who faced displacement from their homes.
- A primary motive for Bryan’s involvement supposedly was to “strike back” at one of his nemeses, El Paso Mayor Dee Margo, a staunch supporter of the arena project.
- Bryan’s conservative politics clashed with the progressive views of the activists.
Having heard from my activist friends, I then emailed the moviemakers to get their explanation for Bryan’s omission. I emphasized the need to correct the film for the sake of historical accuracy. I urged them to protect the movie from disparagement from the people who supported the destruction of Duranguito; it would be easy for arena backers to cite the Bryan exclusion as an example of bias in the film and argue that its contents could not be trusted. Alas, I got no answer from the moviemakers.
Reflections
As someone who, during my 40-year university career, taught courses on historical methodology and published books on the history of the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez metropolis and other areas of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, I was disturbed by the exclusion in the Duranguito film of Bryan’s remarkable contributions to the saving of that neighborhood. The film is a historical work. In telling a non-fiction story, moviemakers must follow basic rules of objectivity and must include all relevant facts and events, as well as people who play important roles. I taught such principles to several generations of undergraduate and graduate students. I advised them that failure to adhere to these rules in writing history papers or theses warranted significant penalties, even failing grades.
The omission of Bryan from the film is a form of deception. Why present an incomplete picture of reality? Was it done to sustain the narrative that the success of the struggle should be attributed exclusively to the protestors? Were the actions of contributors like Bryan not deserving of recognition? Was the intent to cancel the uncomfortable truth that an Anglo rich man, an outsider from Houston, a Republican, arguably played the most significant role in the story?
Those who tell the Duranguito tale to current and future generations must not exclude the contributions made by Bryan and the court victories. Otherwise, audiences will be cheated out of having a complete understanding of what actually happened. Avoiding the truth diminishes the story’s – and the storyteller’s – authenticity and credibility.
This incident has broader significance. Knowing the truth about anything is a big deal under any circumstances. Truth evasion shatters trust, causes dissension, and weakens or destroys relationships. Influencers, especially politicians, journalists, educators, and attorneys have a singular responsibility to be truth promoters. So do mentors and role models. Truth misrepresentation can have tragic consequences, as evident in the erosion of democracy in the United States in recent years brought about to a significant degree by the disinformation spread by the U.S. president and top government officials. Shading the truth has done a lot of damage to the country. An important lesson for everyone is that, even if inconvenient or uncomfortable, truth must be recognized and accepted.
Finally, I found it remarkable that Bryan, an Anglo resident of another city and conservative Republican, cared more about El Paso’s history and was willing to spend substantial amounts of his own money to preserve that heritage than wealthy El Pasoans, including apathetic Mexican Americans. The reluctance of local well-to-do Latinos/as to join the Duranguito crusade was deeply disappointing. But even more distressing was the fact that a number of the elite Latinos/as actually supported the plan to raze Duranguito and build the arena there.
Did the pro-arena Mexican American city council members and well-heeled Mexican American donors to pro-arena political candidates not consider the history and culture of their own people worthy of preservation and celebration? Did they not understand how important this is for the formation of self-identity and pride for young Hispanics? Was their reluctance to help Duranguito because they did not want to rock the boat with rich Anglos who were promoting the arena project? Was it because their political or business interests would be jeopardized if they spoke out? Or because they would lose their seats on boards of banks and other institutions controlled by the Anglo power brokers? Was it because they would no longer be welcome at social events organized by Anglo elites? Answers to these questions were hard to come by. One elite Latino businessman told me that he supported the arena because he thought it would be economically beneficial to El Paso.
There are indeed consequential lessons to be learned by having a comprehensive understanding of what happened during the struggle to save Duranguito. The way the story is told is equally important.
Notes:
- Duranguito got its name from Durango Street, which goes through the neighborhood.
- Open letter to El Paso City Council, June 7, 2006.
- El Paso Inc., November 9, 2009; “Texas Eminent Domain, Proposition 11 (2009),” https://ballotpedia.org/Texas_Eminent_Domain,Proposition_11(2009).
- http://www.elpasoinc.com/news/what-downtown-plan-few-signs-of-progress-after-three-years/article_bcdd0c73-ef58-55fd-af9f-320baca36d84.html
- Key court rulings on Duranguito. 2017: initial trial court ruling – an Austin trial court judge ruled that the city could build a multipurpose center but not use voter-approved bond money for a sports arena. 2019: Third Court of Appeals reversed the 2017 ruling, finding that the city could build a multipurpose center that would accommodate sports events, and that the bond funds were authorized for a broader purpose. 2020: the Texas Supreme Court denied a request to hear the case, letting the Third Court of Appeals’ ruling stand and effectively ending that phase of the legal battle. 2023: the city filed a motion to dismiss the case after the Texas Supreme Court denied the appeal, which affirmed the legality of the city council’s decision to abandon Duranguito as a potential arena site and indicated the end of the legal battle. 2023: the city settled the case, officially ending the six-year legal fight over the arena’s location in the Duranguito neighborhood. Summary of the legal battle provided by Google AI.
- “J.P. Bryan: Retired Houston oilman funding lawsuits to block the arena.” El Paso Inc., December 23, 2018.
About the Author:
Dr. Oscar J. Martínez is a Regents’ Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Arizona and a former professor at the University of Texas at El Paso. He is the author of numerous books and other publications on Mexico, Mexican Americans, and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. His latest book is Latinx El Paso: Odyssey of a Mexican American/Hispanic Community (Amazon, 2021). He is a founding member of the El Paso Social Justice Education Project, the Community First Coalition, and the Committee for Mexican American Leadership at UTEP.
