The White Country opens with a chilling scene: three masked horsemen, wearing white hoods, descend upon a shack where a Mexican journalist and his pregnant wife are hiding. They murder the journalist and drag the wife away, intending to kill her before her child can be born on American soil. This brutal act is a warning—a violent message to others who dare cross the border.
Set in 1911, a time when Texas is rife with racism and unrest, The White Country follows John Lourdes, the first minority-born agent of the Texas Bureau of Investigation. As Mexico is ravaged by famine and political corruption, thousands of desperate people cross into Texas, igniting a wave of hatred and violence that would echo for generations. The border becomes a lawless land, plagued by bandits, drug smugglers, and hooded vigilantes led by a figure known only as “The Whiteman.”
Tasked with uncovering this mysterious leader, John Lourdes is sent on a dangerous mission to Laredo. With only a member of the clergy and a Spanish newspaper editor and his daughter as his allies, Lourdes must navigate a landscape of corruption and terror. His journey takes him through a leper colony in the desert, an assassination attempt during a performance of The Wizard of Oz, and into the heart of a destructive movement, threatening the soul of the nation. Torn between justice and revenge, Lourdes faces not only external enemies but the demons of his own past, in a story of survival, identity, and the enduring battle against hate.