Ruby T. Lomax writes in her field notes: "Judge Hobart Davenport introduced us to Miss Manuela Longoria, teacher of a suburban grade school where the pupils are all of Mexican families. Miss Long oria herself is well-educated She is always helpful with the annual 'Charro Festival' in training the school children for their parts. Miss Longoria's own songs we recorded in her home in Brownsville, where she lives with an older sister who does not yet speak English. Miss Longoria's songs are traditional, most of them from her mother and her father. The Blalack School children sang us the songs that they use at play in their own homes. It is interesting that when Mrs. Lomax asked them how to spell certain titles they shook their heads, saying that they could not spell Spanish words. Their written and spoken school work is all done in the English language." From the Texas State Historical Association's Handbook of Texas: "Blalack was on the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway near U.S. Highway 83 four miles northwest of Brownsville in southern Cameron County. In 1907 a school at the site had twenty-four students under the instruction of one teacher.... In 1948 the community comprised several scattered dwellings. By 1983 it no longer existed, and the site was in the Brownsville city limits."