Boca Chica

[ambient music] [wind blowing] [music playing] [waves crashing] [wind blowing] [music fades out] [animals chirping] MARY HELEN FLORES: I remember getting up.

It was still dark in the mornings.

And my parents loading the car and stopping on the way to get ice for the ice chest.

You could hear the thumps of the connections on the concrete road.

And as you got closer to the beach, those connections disappeared.

My father and I share a birthday in March.

And we would take his RV out there and spend our birthday week at Boca Chica Beach.

[engine humming] We haven't been able to go to the beach since SpaceX has been here, because they close the beach whenever they want to.

[ethereal music] [music fades out] That's where the launch site would be.

- We know that public beaches are supposed to be accessible to the public.

First it was The Texas Open Beaches Act that the legislature passed, then the voters of Texas decided that they wanted that guarantee, of access to public beaches, enshrined in the Texas Constitution's Bill of Rights.

It's like they were looking ahead and saying, we're going to make sure that they have a tool if the legislature ever decides to take away that open access to public beaches.

We discovered that there is a law that was passed by the legislature.

And it amended the Texas Open Beaches Act.

An exception that makes it so that the local government can close access to a public beach if it's for spaceflight activities.

And there's only one public beach that has spaceflight activities near it.

[music playing] JUAN MANCIAS: This land right here is some of the old stomping grounds of the Carrizo Comecrudo.

We joined this case because we were concerned about the blocking of our access to our birthing creation story.

And that we can't go and give thanks to the creator for giving us life.

Our creation story is based on that whole concept that creation follows us on those rivers.

Those rivers are our ancestors.

Those rivers will be us, you know.

And that's what connects us to what's there.

It comes off the Rocky Mountains.

The San Antonio River empties into the Nueces.

And all these other places they flow into the river.

We know that these are our ancestors coming together and bring all this beauty into the Rio Grande that goes down into the Gulf of Mexico.

All this beauty, all this wonderfulness, all this resiliency that they had was brought into being right here in Boca Chica.

And it was like a birthing canal, you know, and gave birth to the first woman.

These are our lifeways.

This is our very existence, our very spirit, you know, as the water.

- Come here, Franklin.

[waves crashing] Want some water?

[wind blowing] When my mom was a little girl on the beach, on Boca Chica, her and her friend.

Here they're swimming.

It's my mom.

She was probably about five.

I was about six years old.

1971.

That's my mom and dad, and me, and my sister Karina, and sister Cindy.

My sister Yvette was not born yet.

So that's us.

That's my dad.

It was a very happy day.

And my sister Karina right in front of the mouth of the river.

It's the mouth of the rivers right here.

[dreamy music] [wind blowing] They call him Charlie.

He's not afraid of people.

They're not afraid of people, that's for sure.

[music playing] [car doors shutting] [ethereal music] [crackling] [wind blowing] [ambient music] [wind blowing] [ambient music] ♪ ♪ ♪ - [Announcer] Support for "Reel South" is provided by the ETV Endowment and the National Endowment for the Arts.

And South Arts.