Laredo Washington Birthday Mixes Culture
Saturday, February 17, 2007 1:08 PM ESt
The Associated Press
By LYNN BREZOSKY


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LAREDO, Texas (AP) — Linda Leyendecker Gutierrez lives and works a few blocks from the Rio Grande and traces her lineage in two branches — from one of this Spanish colonial city's oldest families and to Revolutionary War orator Patrick Henry.
And she says she has a God-given gift of designing the elaborate hand-beaded gowns for the annual Society of Martha Washington colonial ball, which combines red, white and blue patriotism with Latin American flair in what could be the nation's biggest President's Day celebration.
A city that is 94 percent Latino and can sound, feel, and smell more Mexican than American presents its aristocracy during a tribute to a president whose birthday elsewhere is more associated with department-store sales.
The citywide tribute lasts a full month and draws all strata of society. The events include a chili pepper festival, a grand parade, a New Orleans-style "jamboozie," a wine tasting, and an air show. It also includes a debutante ball where the young ladies of Laredo — and Gutierrez's dresses, some of which were ordered when the debs were newborns — come out.
It has become a display of international friendship culminating with the "abrazo," the Spanish word for hug, when a child from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, embraces a child from Laredo.
The dresses designed by Gutierrez and others weigh up to 80 pounds, supported by a lattice of hoops, and may have flourishes of beading and lace from all over the world.
"They think it's 'comical,'" Gutierrez said of outsiders. "It's a beautiful pageant and the whole celebration's incredibly good for Laredo."
Laredo became part of Texas in 1848, when everything north of the Rio Grande became the United States. Mexican loyalists moved south, forming Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Those who remained — including those whose names are still prominent in Laredo today — saw their daughters marry the Anglo men who left the East Coast to make their fortunes.
"Laredo has always been divided with strong class lines," Texas A&M International historian Stanley Green said, "but not ethnic."
In 1896, a men's social group decided the city needed an American-style celebration. In seeking a symbol of unity, the men ruled out Abraham Lincoln for the Southern city, but figured no one could object to George Washington.
Almost from the beginning, Green said, Laredo's innate biculturalism came out, with Mexican soldiers joining the parade and Mexican food and entertainers playing starring roles. And the debutante ball has long been a display of blended Texas-Mexico class consciousness.
"This had been an intended implantation of American culture," he said. "But within a very short period of time the celebration became what Laredo's always been. A sort of bicultural, binational, city."
The debutante ball was added in 1939, with Gutierrez's grandfather, Thomas Aquinas Leyendecker, playing the first George Washington. She herself came out in 1960.
Her atelier is in a restored colonial-era home a few blocks from the Rio Grande.
On headless mannequins recently hung several dresses in their final stages. All are resplendent, wide around as Christmas trees, and each is unique.
They can be of silks, satins, and velvets, be coated with beads and sequins, have trains several feet long or layers of ruffling. They take months for Linda, her daughter Ana Gutierrez Volpe, and her small staff to make — work on dresses starts when the last pageant is over.
"You don't see this any more," she said, exhibiting a wash of beading on one of the gowns. "This is hand-done. Each bead is done one by one."
The fete follows a certain template. Two prominent members of Laredo society are chosen one year before the ball to play Martha and George — this year Martha is Laredo National Bank vice president Adrienne Goodman Trevino and George is James Notzon, sixth great-grandson of Laredo founding father Capt. Don Tomas Tadeo Sanchez de la Barreda.
The story line changes each year, but debutantes and their escorts play contemporaries of Martha and George who are coming out in the couple's honor.
The fittings start with the corsets and bloomers. Martha gets first dibs on fabric color, and after that it is first come, first serve, for each debutante.
Trevino's dress is a 50-pound cascade of embroidered tapestry, silk, and velvet with beaded lace ruffle sleeves.
Gutierrez gets indignant when asked how much the dresses cost, but estimates have ranged from $12,000 to $30,000.
"The cost of the dresses has always been the biggest discussion," she says. "Would you ask someone how may acres they own? I would never divulge the confidence of my clients."
Trevino has spent the last year being the most popular woman in Laredo as the Martha Washington of 2006.
"When you've had a year of this, you almost expect that when you walk into a restaurant they should applaud," Trevino said as heavy makeup was applied for a Feb. 2 photo shoot.
"I'll get stopped at the grocery store — 'Is Martha doing her chores? Her own chores?'"
For two photo shoots, a dress rehearsal, the ball, and the parade, Trevino undergoes a transformation, along with the debutantes.
There is heavy makeup and wigs with long ringlets held up with jeweled hair ornaments.
Then there are the bloomers and corsets and hoops, followed by the weighty dress.
If Trevino, who came out in 1970, or the debutantes wants to sit down, an assistant must crawl under the dress and place a stool.
At a recent media day for the event, Trevino — as petite as the original Martha Washington — stood with Notzon as photographers from U.S. and Mexican media took pictures.
"The Marthas," as members of the Society of Martha Washington are called, sipped wine and traded stories of their own days as debutantes or Martha, of being transported to events in moving vans or flatbed trucks.
All agreed Trevino looks beautiful.
"I came out pretty good?" she beamed.
Norma Cantu, a Laredo-born English professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, grew up watching the debutantes on floats at the parade the day after the ball.
"As children we don't stop and analyze what's going on," she said. "When I went back in the 80s I was very aware of the social inequalities. We had a high unemployment rate, lots of poverty, a lack of running water — very serious social and health concerns. That's when it became 'what are we doing spending all this money on dresses?'"
But she said the standard of living has gotten better in Laredo and she now has a scholarly appreciation of the event.
"Culturally, we are Mexicans," she said. "For people who are not from the area it sounds really strange. It was an attempt early on to Americanize."