摘要：Traditionally, the Rio Grande Valley and the surrounding area has not much received much attention, but the 1,000- mile border region is home to 2 million people and contains the cities of Laredo, McAllen, and Brownsville, which are some of the country's fastest growing metropolitan areas. Scattered around these ever expanding urban areas are rural housing settlements called “colonias.” The inhabitants of colonias are usually low-income Mexican-Americans, many of whom have recently moved from Mexico. The origins of the colonias can be traced back to the Bracero program, which invited Mexicans, under controlled circumstances, to come to the United States to work. Further spurring colonia growth was the development of industry along the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, known as the “maquiladoras”, drawing more people to the region. The high expectations which preceded (and followed) the NAFTA Treaty also added incentives for people to move to the region. The reasons for the development of the colonias include, but are not limited to, inadequate oversight by state agencies and the Legislature, the reluctance of some local governments to serve colonias, disputes between cities and water-supply corporations regarding which entity would provide service, failure to ensure that households hook up to newly built systems and poor enforcement of rules that were supposed to prevent the spread of colonias.1 The border region of the Rio Grande Valley is the primary location of most of the colonias in the state, although several others are scattered throughout south and south central Texas. Despite nearly a decade of local, state and federal efforts, conditions in the colonias have remained largely unchanged.
