Another View
San Antonio Express NewsThere are only five out of 12 Tejano heroes’ names inscripted in bronze in the Alamo chapel. This shameful exclusion must be corrected before anything else is done at the mission.
The descendants of the Tejanos, the original settlers of Texas, and most Mexican-Americans do not feel welcome at the Alamo.
The exclusion of the Tejano names in the chapel and on the Alamo Cenotaph is evidence of why Latinos feel ostracized. Under the Daughters of the Republic of Texas and their curator, the story of the Alamo did not include the truth about these individuals and their part in the fight for independence from Mexico.
The Tejanos settled on this land about 120 years before the Battle of the Alamo, and these mixed-race people are the ones who have given Texas its identity. They brought the longhorn from Spain, and they originated the cowboy boots and hat, as well as the vaquero, or cowboy, culture that is still popular today. They also made their mark early by giving Spanish names to geographical formations such as rivers, creeks and mountains.
It will be shameful if this conscious effort to sublimate the Tejanos who lost their lives is not corrected at this time. San Antonio de Valero, the Alamo, will be going through a big transformation soon with the help of state funding. What would have happened if the UNESCO delegates had looked into the cultural history of exclusion that has been prevalent at the Alamo?
Included in the plans to upgrade the mission grounds should be a plan to erect a monument or public artwork dedicated to the Tejanos. It should illustrate the history of the original setters and clearly state the history of this land. This artwork will serve to revise the Alamo narrative to be all-inclusive.
As stated in an Express-News article (“Rampage fallout felt in Texas; State is not transfixed by its Confederate past,” front page, June 23), “Texas was different, by birth and by destiny. ... Texas has come to venerate a different set of heroes ... those who defended the cause of Texas independence at the Alamo.”
Well, Jim Bowie was a swindling slave trader, and under the law of this land at that time blacks were free in Mexico. But they were re-enslaved when Texas won its independence from Mexico. Many re-enslaved people escaped to Mexico where they founded Nacimiento de los Negros in Coahuila, Mexico.
The Tejanos settled on this land about 120 years before the Battle of the Alamo, and these mixed-race people are the ones who have given Texas its identity. They brought the longhorn from Spain, and they originated the cowboy boots and hat, as well as the vaquero, or cowboy, culture that is still popular today. They also made their mark early by giving Spanish names to geographical formations such as rivers, creeks and mountains.
Included in the plans to upgrade the mission grounds should be a plan to erect a monument or public artwork dedicated to the Tejanos. It should illustrate the history of the original setters and clearly state the history of this land. This artwork will serve to revise the Alamo narrative to be all-inclusive.
As stated in an Express-News article (“Rampage fallout felt in Texas; State is not transfixed by its Confederate past,” front page, June 23), “Texas was different, by birth and by destiny. ... Texas has come to venerate a different set of heroes ... those who defended the cause of Texas independence at the Alamo.”
Well, Jim Bowie was a swindling slave trader, and under the law of this land at that time blacks were free in Mexico. But they were re-enslaved when Texas won its independence from Mexico. Many re-enslaved people escaped to Mexico where they founded Nacimiento de los Negros in Coahuila, Mexico.
In Texas up until the civil rights laws, Mexican-Americans were the African-Americans of the South. In Travis Park there is a monument to the Confederate dead. The Confederacy was for slavery, pure and simple. This monument should be rededicated to the Tejanos to make a wrong, on many fronts, right.
2 comments:
If you let the left rewrite history, they'll turn Tejanos into negroes like a Disney or Netflix movie.
Anyone regardless of race should be recognized if they made a difference in the creation of our great State.
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