Outside the bunkhouse, the Rev. Rudy Hernandez unlimbered his marimba and began to waft La Paloma into the evening air. One by one the men strolled out to listen, and Hernandez' assistant got ready the tracts. The Cottonpatch Crusade was under way in Pecos, Texas.
Before World War II, Pecos was nothing but a dusty crossroads cattle town. Then some oil wells came in, and irrigation experiments on the bone-dry soil paid off so well that Pecos became a thriving cotton center (pop. 12,450). To pick the crop each year, Pecos depends mainly on the braceros—legally imported Mexican laborers who come north...
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