In the fifth episode of Parts Unknown’s twelfth and final season, late host Anthony Bourdain takes in the vast space and hardscrabble land of West Texas, near the United States-Mexico border. With talk of putting up a wall between the two countries and a hostile attitude toward immigrants from President Donald Trump and his administration, it may be a surprise to find so many Texans who actually live near the border are much more accepting of their southern neighbors.
Bourdain visits the Means Ranch Company near Van Horn, Texas, where the Means family has been ranching cattle since the 19th century, and dines on fresh braised goat (fresh, as in killed yesterday) with jalapeños, onions, and tomatoes. The feast also includes jalapeño-cheese grits, buttermilk biscuits, and battered and fried jalapeños, all served up buffet style alongside a horse ring. He makes his way to Marfa, a community that doesn’t quite make sense. Artists, cowboys, and blue collar workers live side by side, and the word “hipster” gets thrown around a lot. Here, Bourdain meets TJ Mitchell, a cowboy-turned-bar owner who could be described as a caricature of the Western male. At Mitchell’s watering hole, all of Marfa’s different personalities come together.
In Presidio, Texas, and Ojinaga, Chihuahua, Mexico, sister towns that are split by the border, he dines with Mexicans and Americans, who are not worried about crime and see each other as friends. The biggest difference between residents of the two towns is that the Americans are allowed to go back and forth across the border; the Mexicans are not.
This is the penultimate on-location installment of the series, with only an exploration of Manhattan’s Lower East Side and another special episode remaining in the season. Here, now, are the most interesting quotable moments from Parts Unknown: Far West Texas.
Mitchell, on what life is like out west: “It’s one of the most rugged and remote destinations in the United States. Everything out here will bite, poke, or prick you — everything. People live in cubicles, and they’re king of their domains. Out here, you ain’t king of shit.”
Bourdain, on how Marfa is a wildly unique place in the middle of cowboy country: “I drove three hours through ghost towns and dead gas stations and nothing but nothing, you know. Suddenly I arrived in Marfa. It’s like, ‘Would you like some bruschetta, some salumi, some $900 ponchos.’ What’s going on?”
Mitchell, on what a wall between the United States and Mexico would do to people who live along the border: “My ranch is on the river, it’s on the border. We can’t survive without the river, and we can’t survive without the people on that side of the river. They can’t survive without us. That, and they’re our friends, for god’s sakes. Loyalty is a big thing in Texas, and you ain’t going to build a fence between me and my loyal friends.”
Rainer Judd, daughter of the minimalist artist Donald Judd, on why her father chose a remote Texas town to live: “When my father, Donald Judd, came to Marfa in the early ’70s, it was a rancher community and a railroad town. ... He did a lot of looking for places that had very few people and very few trees and lots of space. He had been working hard for so long, and I think coming out to Marfa was this reward.”
David Beebe, an elected official in Marfa, on the necessity for the town’s residents to hold a number of jobs: “I would say that every job here pays 10 bucks an hour, whether you’re the attorney or the barista or the janitor. So you’re going to have to work a lot of different jobs to make it, because it’s expensive to live here.”
Sandro Canovas, a builder of adobe dwellings and immigrant, on how Marfa’s changes are not good for everyone: “The tradition of the adobe is barely alive because of what’s happening with the gentrification in Marfa. The Mexican and American minorities are being displaced. The people who have lived in adobes for generations have to sell their homes because of the new taxes — taxes that are only on adobes. A lot of us, you know, we also find this discriminating.”
John Ferguson, mayor of Presidio, on Americans being afraid of Mexicans: “The state of Texas is so much more diverse than it used to be, and I think it makes it much [better]. And I know some people, it scares them, and I think it’s just the fear of the unknown. It’s not a fear based on anything concrete. Here, we’re all family.”
Bourdain, on what it means when governments put up walls to separate people: “I’ve been to a few places where they do have a wall. Few things are uglier in the entire world, of all the places I’ve seen. Few things have been more an indication of an utter failure of otherwise smart people to figure shit out.”
For more details on Bourdain’s trip to West Texas, plus essays and dining guides, head over to Explore Parts Unknown.
• West Texas [Explore Parts Unknown]
• All Parts Unknown Coverage [E]