Last week the MTX Files, a Xica Media digital resistance site, released hundreds of previously confidential/unpublished multimedia to the site, revealing a chronicle of the events surrounding the chemical contamination in Mission, Texas.
Mission, Texas is a birthplace of Monsanto Ag and for decades produced 9 of the 12 most hazardous contaminants known to man, known as the “Dirty Dozen,” which were outlawed by the United Nations in 2001. Mission is also the birthplace of Agent Orange.
Video from American Orange
The archive contains documents produced between 1949 and 2008, including:
- The complete original community website (including a searchable version)
- 246 photos
- 91 video clips of community interviews
- 82 video clips of public meetings
- 58 scientific/government reports
- 47 press articles covering the case
- 11 in-house multimedia (community-produced guerrila media) files
- 11 legal files regarding the class-action lawsuit (including expert testimony)
- 2 corridos produced by local RGV artists
- 1 feature documentary trailer for “American Orange“
The publication of these documents were intended to document, digitize, and disseminate the story of Mission and the longstanding, intergenerational contamination of Mexican/Mexican American people in the U.S.
We remember the public chemical baths in El Paso in the same era, done to folks crossing the border every day to work. Now let us also remember that Monsanto, the agrochemical industry, and “science” around the human impacts of chemical exposure were quietly born in a MeXicanx barrio in deep South Texas.
Decades-long silence/secrecy by government agencies has hidden this story from public view for far too long. The people have a right to know.
