01/14/2023 11:00 am – 12:00 pm
Mission Historical Museum
900 Doherty Ave, Mission, Texas 78572
Mission, Texas

The Mission Historical Museum presents MHM Lecture Series: Tequila Sunset: Liquor Smuggling in Prohibition Era South Texas by George T. Diaz
Join us as George T. Diaz presents a lecture on Liquor Smuggling in the Prohibition Era in South Texas on Saturday, January 14th at 11:00 a.m. at the Mission Historical Museum. Admission is FREE to the public. Coffee and light refreshments will be served.
Tequila Sunset: Liquor Smuggling in Prohibition Era South Texas
Between 1920 and 1933, mounted ethnic Mexican liquor smugglers, [tequileros] supplied Mexican liquor to thirsty American markets. While Anglos and ethnic Mexicans both violated U.S. laws, American law enforcement took a much higher toll on tequileros than their Anglo counterparts. Indeed, American law enforcement’s war on tequileros was so successful that by the end of the 1920s, it had effectively ended tequilero forays into South Texas. Dr. Díaz’s talk will cover corridos about smuggling and compare them to law enforcement and English language accounts from the era to uncover a history of smuggling across the Rio Grande.

George T. Díaz is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, where he teaches U.S. History, Borderlands, and Mexican American History. His award-winning book, Border Contraband: A History of Smuggling across the Rio Grande (University of Texas Press, 2015), is a social history of smuggling in the borderlands. Díaz is co-editor of the collection Border Policing: A History of Enforcement and Evasion in North America (University of Texas Press, 2020). His current book project, Mañana Land: Life and Death in a Mexican Prison in Texas, considers incarceration and capital punishment in the early 20th century. Díaz is also co-editing “Texas Punishment: Reconsidering Incarceration in Texas History” a special issue of the Southwestern Historical Quarterly scheduled for publication in 2025.