Tejano Tales

(Music plays)

John Phillip Santos: 

Welcome, Bienvenidos, to ‘Becoming Texas’. Using history, music, philosophy, and pop culture, we’ll explore what it means for the unheard voices of Texas history to finally be heard in the public square and how those new voices will transform what it means to be Texan. In future episodes of the series, we’ll explore the long ignored Indigenous and African American legacies of Texas, and we’ll devote another episode to the little-known stories of mysticism and esoteric belief in the state’s history.

Today, Tejano Tales exploring the new historiography that is revealing the centuries long struggles of Mexican American people in the state.

Why Tejano Tales? Well, for a long time, canonical Texas history really was written by the victors. Preeminent voices like Walter Prescott Webb, well held, perhaps unfavorable, if not outright racist opinions about Mexican Americans. But that began to change as Mexican Americans were able to access higher education. A new kind of narrative slowly began to emerge, especially in the work of figures like Americo Paredes in the 1950s and later in the seventies and eighties David Montejano, Antonia Castaneda, Frank de la Teja, Andrés Tijerina.

They began to tell a story that was rooted in the experience of the Mexican American world of South Texas and Central Texas, connecting those stories to the origins of the community and the colonial period of New Spain. Still, more recently, a new generation of historians has emerged. In 2014, a group of historians calling themselves “Refusing to Forget”, they wanted to set out to do history in a new way. Writing histories particularly focused on the 1910 to 1920 period when there was a scourge of anti-Mexican violence in South Texas, in West Texas, that may have amounted as many as 5,000 lynchings. These were historians Benjamin Johnson, Monica Munoz Martinez, John Moran Gonzalez, Christopher Carmona, Trinidad Gonzalez, and Sonia Hernandez.

Beyond the work that they did as historians, they also were effective in organizing efforts to create historical markers which were put in sites in South Texas and West Texas commemorating these lynching events. In 2016, in an effort to expand the public awareness of this history. They organized an exhibition at the Bullock Museum of Texas History, ‘Life and Death on the Texas-Mexico Border 1910 to 1920’.

It was a phenomenal show that broke attendance records at the museum. Recently, these Refusing to Forget historians visited UTSA in this ongoing effort to expand public awareness of this all but forgotten history of anti-Mexican violence. Now, the voices of the Refusing To Forget historians. Monica Munoz Martinez.

Monica Munoz Martinez:

The Refusing to Forget project came together as a group of scholars, researchers and authors who realized that there was a history of anti-Mexican violence. So as historians, we wanted to participate in sharing an accurate version of the history of anti-Mexican violence in Texas, specifically between 1910 and 1920. It was a period of brutal racial terror that was state sanctioned. And the people who participated in acts of violence included the Texas Rangers, local law enforcement, U.S. soldiers and everyday civilians. Some of them had long careers in law enforcement and continue over 100 years later to still be celebrated. These were crimes that needed to be remembered not only because there was a need to confront that history, but also to understand and learn the lessons from that history, because they’re urgent for understanding the world that we live in today. For understanding the rhetoric and the roots of the rhetoric, but also the long impacts that are suffered and cultures of violence that shape not only violence in the forms of murders, but also that shape policy, that shape policing practices, that shape immigration policy. And so we came together to realize that historians have been writing this history. It has been documented, but it wasn’t reaching public audiences. And so we wanted to clear that history widely and to have honest conversations.

John Philip Santos:

Sonya Hernandez.

Sonya Hernandez:

So, this is part of a larger process about nation making, border making, and so if we look at the late 19th century, early 20th century transformations that were taking place, not just on this side of the border, but also in Mexico. So, you know, to put it sort of, you know, in broader terms, the Progressive era and the Porfirian period, there were you know, there were larger ideas about redefining what a citizen was. And certain people did not fit a definition or that description of the model citizen. This creates, in many ways, an excuse to label and identify people as or in opposition to state progress and state development or, you know, threats or bandits or bad individuals or activists. It becomes just the pretext and the excuse to justify the killing, the indiscriminate killing, of people who looked a certain way.

John Philip Santos:

Trinidad Gonzalez.

Trinidad Gonzalez:

So, when we’re looking at the killings of Mexicans from the 19th century to the early 20th century, particularly South Texas, particularly then in the Valley. This is the state engaging in specific efforts to displace the continuous landowning Mexicanos who are there. But they’re going to use the pretext of banditry, Mexicans are violent. They’re going use all the racist tropes that we’re familiar with today and those tropes that we know today, they’re used to justify the state sanctioned killing of Mexicanos, particularly Mexicanos who own land. These ranches now being cleared are Mexicanos, and so there’s a land theft that’s being conducted by the state of Texas.

John Philip Santos:

Christopher Carmona.

Christopher Carmona:

A lot of these Texas Rangers are coming from the South. They’re borrowing a lot of the tactics that they’re using, especially to lynch African Americans. And they brought them down and utilized them down in South Texas. We’re just talking about, you know, the psychological effect that lynching has, because it’s not just murdering someone, it’s murdering someone and creating a spectacle. And when you do that, you create a sense of fear within the community. Plus, a lot of these people that were lynched, were not allowed to be buried, they were left there for days, sometimes weeks at a time, because if they tried to bury them, they would–they would be murdered as well.

John Philip Santos:

Once again, Monica Munoz Martinez.

Monica Munoz Martinez:

In terms of thinking about state sanctioned violence, part of what in telling the history we were, we had to rely on a corrupt state archive. Right. So, so many of the records about this violence are told from the perspective of the people who are pulling the trigger. Oftentimes, people think about racial violence, we tend to think about it as vigilante and mob violence. And certainly, for decades before this era, people of Mexican descent were targeted by mob violence and were victims of lynching. But it is an important history to tell about this being state sanctioned and the way that this is not only an era of state sanctioned violence in the form of murder or these horrific acts of terror, but also that this is the era when Juan Crow laws are being passed.

It’s an astonishing time of conflict where you see the state working, using violence and then putting into law. Practices that limit and restrict the rights of people of Mexican descent. It’s not only the state agents, but it’s also the politicians that were creating the society and the judges that didn’t bring people to trial. It was sanctioned through multiple institutions. When we think about what does it repair look like? What does reconciliation look like? It has to be more than just public history exhibits. That’s just the start.

John Philip Santos:

John Moran Gonzalez.

John Moran Gonzalez:

The state itself is a contradictory ground of action. Obviously, most of the time it is working in an extraordinarily racially repressive manner simultaneously. It is providing some of the archives which subsequent generation sites have been able to recover and use in seeking some semblance of justice for families, but also a kind of reckoning for those state actions. There is no statute of limitations for justice. And so over 100 years later, the state archives have been important here. These were people who were denied due process at any level. So, we also have the archives generated by the community itself, that is, by journalists such as Jovita Idar, journalists who were writing in the Spanish language press of the day. There we’ve got a counter archive to what is getting published in the English language media, which is merely repeating what politicians are saying in demonizing Mexican people and indeed amplifying that demonization. In the Spanish language press, we’ve got a very different stories. One of how the state is not simply failing to protect the civil rights of people, but actively perpetrating violence against them. There has been this history by other writers as well. We’re telling this history through literature precisely because of the barriers erected to the telling of official history by a Juan Crow Society.

Monica Munoz Martinez:

The failure, again, of the state to preserve these histories, to preserve these important objects that as historians and as professors and as librarians and as teachers, we have a responsibility to teach new generations as we’ve been meeting, to help preserve these histories, because we have to help in collecting and preserving so that we can continue to tell the stories.

For our work, we wanted to return to this history of racist violence. Look at the state records. Expose the crimes that were documented, but also to put a face to the names of the victims, to learn from family members, to share the stories of people who had been impacted by this violence from generation to generation. To learn the family histories and the impacts of this violence that targeted people who were not protected by class, by gender, by citizenship, or even age.

(Music plays)

John Philip Santos:

In the following segment, you’re going to hear a conversation between Monica Munoz Martinez and Norma Rodriguez, who is a descendant of Jesus Bazan and Antonio Longoria, two of the lynched individuals whose stories have been told by the Refusing to Forget historians. The conversation is illustrative of the importance that oral histories play. These stories have been kept alive through family memories, and only now are they finding their ways into official histories. But here we hear from Norma Rodriguez in her own words.

Norma Rodriguez:

And what she told me was that when she was eight and her brother Armando was 11, they were at the homestead and their grandfather had taken their mother and their grandmother to Mission. The men went back to their ranches and as they approached Jesus’ ranch, they pulled over because they knew that the Model T that the Rangers were in were behind them.

So, they pulled over, so that they pulled their horses over so that they could pass. But what happened was that one of the Rangers, Ransom I believe, shot them, just killed them, shot them in the back. They were unarmed. They didn’t say anything. They just shot them. The Rangers had not wanted them to be buried. And they have told them that, you know, no one wants to touch the bodies, especially not the family. But nobody else wants to touch the bodies because this is going to be something that they wanted the community to know that everybody was in danger if they want to cross the Rangers. And of course, this was a crime of impunity. They knew that they would never be prosecuted.

Some years later, Epigmenia, Jesus’ wife donated that area to the county, and it is now called Bazan Cemetery, but she originally called it Campo de las Flores, and it’s still there. It’s very small and it’s right by the road. And now big rigs go by. It’s a constant traffic. Sometimes I go to the ranch and I’ll spend the night, and around 9:00 the traffic finally stops and you think, Oh, finally they’re at rest. Finally. And you can hear the broken windmill. And it sounds like a funeral song because it’s broken. And as it’s screeching at night, but somehow I find that comforting.

Monica Munoz Martinez:

These were people who were prominent residents, and there were no death certificates issued after they were murdered. There were no investigations. And so, the question for me was, how did the families live in the aftermath? How did the women survive? How did they hold on to their land? You know, another prominent saying at the time was, ‘you don’t buy land from the husband, you buy from the widow’.

And they had to figure out how to not make more orphans, how to not have their family, their sons be targeted. And so those were the kinds of histories that I could only have access to because people like Mrs. Rodriguez were trying to document the history, trying to learn the history, but were also trying to make it publicly known.

It’s only with the collaboration of community members that you learn those family history. Those are the memories that help us to humanize the victims.

Norma Rodriguez:

Believe it or not, there are some that will have nothing to do with it. That they just I mean, they understand it. They accept it. They’re very sorry about what happened. But they don’t want to talk about it. They don’t want to interview– be interviewed. They don’t want to have anything like that.

Monica Munoz Martinez:

Some of the work that I did was to trace the longer histories of violence by some of the Texas Rangers, people like James Monroe Fox, first appears in the historical record and newspapers for shooting a black prisoner in Austin. It’s a horrific story to see him moving across the state, targeting different people of color in different roles as law enforcement officers. People like Captain Ransom, he bragged about learning how to kill Mexicans during his military service, fighting in during the Spanish-American War in the Philippines. And so, this is not only a history that intersects when we think about conquest and colonization and slavery. So, these Texas rangers from the 1910 to 1920 who were committing acts of native genocide, who were hunting enslaved people, who were trying to seek freedom by crossing the border into Mexico.

You know, these were–these were Texas Rangers that were committing acts of white supremacist violence against different racial and ethnic groups. And they practiced those methods. And then they taught new generations of Texas Rangers.

John Philip Santos:

Another important source for historians seeking to work in areas where archival information is scant, is popular culture, and specifically the border ballad tradition of South Texas. The corridos, these traditions of folk songs turned out to be, in a sense, impromptu archives of the popular memory that otherwise would not have found any kind of recording in scholarly sources or journalism. One such important ballad was The Corrido of Gregorio Cortez.

Sonia Hernandez tells us of this story.

Sonia Hernandez:

Much of the story was kept alive through the musical tradition, through corridos, through Mexican folk ballads and Americo Paredes, right? A lot of us here have heard some version of The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez. But that’s one way to sort of continue these stories, right, that even as they were quite hurtful, it was really important for these families to keep those memories alive and pass it down from generation to generation.

John Philip Santos:

Now we hear from UTSA student Cristian Montano, interviewing noted Tejano musicologist, musician and scholar, Juan Tejeda on the critical importance of the corrido tradition and the Ballad of Gregorio Cortez.

Cristian Montano:

We’re exploring the way the Tejano and Mexican stories have been left out of Texas history. As you said before. How have the corridos been a source for the Chicano, Chicana and Mexicano communities to have their stories told?

Juan Tejeda:

The corridos is part of our musical traditions that we’ve created. The Tejanos, the Texas Mexican on the border, right. Out of this confluence and conflict of cultures, outright war, you know, and racism and violences demanded some resolution, right? And that part of those resolutions, a lot of it, I think, is coming in the creation of new art forms, right. And new ways of telling our story and the corrido tradition. It’s this fusion, Anglo, Mexican, Spanish, indigenous, right. Coming together to create new forms of cultural expressions. We speak Tex-Mex, you know, or Spanglish, we code switch, you know, in the middle of each sentence, you know, we say, my mother will say, “No, e tu Tia Elisa, she was watching the Spurs, y empieza gritar and she says “Aye no, hay que David Robinson!”.

So, you know the Spanish English mixture and indigenous words thrown in there. This is another you know typical of this border culture of our reality. You know, our food is not your typical Mexican food. We’ve created new forms, you know, as a result of this meetings of cultures and blending, so we’re this hybrid race. In a lot of ways, the music is the voice of our people. You know, it’s the most popular form of artistic expression. You know, a lot of people may not read, you know, they may not go to theater plays, they may not go to art exhibits, but you’ll find most of our people and most people in general that they will listen to music. Right. So, the corrido tells our stories, you know, and that’s when the most important things about our arts, you know, and our artists, they tell our people stories. Much like historians tell our stories, also, the artists have always done that to.

(Music plays)

John Philip Santos:

Well, adding to the wealth of knowledge that are contained in oral histories and family memories alongside the work of artists and musicians. We have politicians. A notable story in this regard is the career of J.T. Canales, a congressman elected out of Brownsville, Texas, early in the 20th century who would lead a series of extraordinary investigations and public hearings into the acts of the Texas Rangers during this murderous period of anti-Mexican violence. UTSA student Joshua Wilson shares his thoughts about the Canales legacy.

Joshua Wilson:

Inevitably, when shift happens, you get to see clashes, you know. The clashing that needs to be focused on in this context is the racially charged encounters that happen between Tejanos living in Texas and the Texas Rangers. Jose Tomas Canales is a central figure in the story. Canales was a Texan through and through. He was born and raised in the state. His mother was born in the state. He attained a law degree in the University of Michigan and he came back to Texas and started practicing law in Brownsville. Turn of the century right. From there, Canals wanted to try his hand in the political game. So, he joined the Democratic Party and was added to the Texas House of Representatives, serving the 95th District.

In his years, he was a noble supporter of prohibition, and women’s suffrage was actually a big thing at the time. You got to remember, this is like the 1910, 1900s. This directly put him at odds with other Texas Democrats. Throughout his time in the Texas government, Canales was a very notable critic of the Texas Rangers. Like many people during this era, specifically people of Mexican ethnicity, he had seen some of the like the horrors and the things that Texas Rangers had committed.

In January 1919, he filed 19 total charges against the Texas Rangers. Canales wanted them to be a force that people could rely on but not fear. And over the course of two weeks, they listened to about 80 or so witnesses, and they spoke of a lot of the horrors that they saw, you know, in the Southern region of the state.

One of the most notable examples of this was the Porvenir massacre. A raid had happened in the area and the Texas Rangers had been deployed to, you know, get information, you know, trying to bring people to justice. Instead, what they did is they went to the little village of Porvenir in the dead of night. They had taken about 15 men and boys from the village. And by morning, they had killed every single one of those people. This had obviously, like, shook the entire village. And I think the entire village had fled to Mexico for safety. After that had happened. They were called the Company B Texas Rangers. The captain tried to say that they had been ambushed when they entered the village. He tried to say they found property that was stolen.

Everybody that was involved had been tried and nobody were found guilty. The Canales investigation ultimately unveiled that the Texas Rangers may have killed around 5,000 people of Mexican ethnicity between 1914 and 1919. After the trial was over and everything was heard, the judges made their decision. They did conclude that something needed to change. But what would change wasn’t what Canales wanted.

While J.T. Canales’ investigation had long lasting effects for the Texas Rangers, it had long lasting effects throughout history. You know, for people of Mexican descent, you know, we primarily saw maybe this come to a head in the 1960s with the Civil Rights Movement. But in modern day, we can see like how this has come to fruition. People are gaining knowledge by just listening to this podcast. People are understanding, people are listening, you know, people are trying to, in my opinion, better themselves. And no matter how difficult that can be, talking about it, you know, help, trying to get people to understand and trying to get people to, you know, see your point of view. It’s something that we need to keep doing.

John Philip Santos:

In a moment, my conversation with UTSA colleague and historian Omar Valerio Jimenez.

Omar is an associate professor of history at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where he teaches courses on Latinos, Borderlands, U.S. West, Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration. His publications include the ‘Latina Latino Midwest Reader’, ‘Major Problems in Latino Latina History’ and ‘River of Hope: Forging Identity and Nation in the Rio Grande Borderlands’. His current book project, ‘Remembering Conquest: Mexican Americans Memory and Citizenship’, is under contract at the University of North Carolina Press. It analyzes the ways in which the memories of the US-Mexico war have shaped Mexican American civil rights struggles, writing, oral discourse, and public rituals. Omar Valerio Jiménez, welcome.

Omar Valerio Jiménez:

Thank you. Thank you for having me here.

John Philip Santos:

So, Omar, I know from your back story that you had an unconventional initiation into Texas history. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey to how you first got involved in making Texas history?

Omar Valerio Jiménez:

Sure. So, I was born in Matamoros and my dad was a Tejano. He was born in Texas, but his family had fled the Mexican Revolution, like a lot of families. Most of my family, my extended family were in Mexico, and in Mexico. If you’re, you know, going to university, the men were going to become ingenieros, right. They were going to become engineers, and I ended up going to MIT to get an engineering degree. So, I was doing a research paper, at one point, like a term paper and I ran across an article by Juan Gomez-Quinones on the Plan de San Diego during the Mexican Revolution. And I was floored because I thought, I have never heard of the Plan de San Diego, you know, never.

John Philip Santos:

The legendary or notorious or mysterious.

Omar Valerio Jiménez:

Yeah.

John Philip Santos:

Uprising.

Omar Valerio Jiménez:

And I just started asking myself, like, why didn’t I learn this? This is about Texas, and this involved Tejanos. Why didn’t I learn that? And so, you know, I started trying to dig in, you know, into that kind of history more. And I thought, well, I don’t think I can be an engineer for the rest of my life. When I was working as an engineer, I remember that David Montejano’s book had just come out, ‘Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas’. And I read that book and I thought, this is what I’m going to do. So that’s how I came to do this.

John Philip Santos:

So, it’s a, it was a pivot of conciencia It was a really you were moved by conscience to shift the focus of your life path.

Omar Valerio Jiménez:

I gave it a go. I worked for five years. I actually have publications in engineering, but I just decided I’m not really happy. So, I decided to change it. So I had this conversation with my dad, and my dad had to drop out of school when he went and when his family went back to Mexico, he used to tell the stories, he’s passed away, about how he had gotten a scholarship when he was in, I think, fifth grade to go to like a teaching sort of junior high slash high school in Saltillo.

And he remembers the names of the four children who were offered fellowships, including him. And he couldn’t take it because he had to drop out to help his family. So, my dad grew up, you know, working farms, working bus driver, and then eventually became a carpenter. And that’s how I knew him, you know, when I was born, he was already a carpenter.

So, I told him, I’m going to be I’m going to go back to graduate school. And he told me, “Cuando yo estaba chico, yo no tuve eso oportunidad. Yo que tenie trabajar.” I didn’t have that opportunity. I had just work, whatever work. I couldn’t choose what to do. And I drove back to Houston thinking like, oh, my dad doesn’t approve, right?

I was like, you know, and by the time I got to Houston, I had figured it out. And what he was telling me was I didn’t have the choice. But you do. So, you do what you want to do. And I thought that was just a lovely thing to tell. And so, I called him and I said, ‘thank you’.

And he goes, ‘yeah, that’s what I meant’. But I was I was all like, I was all crestfallen. I was like, oh, he doesn’t approve of what I’m going to do. And my dad’s, you know, was a man of few words. So, he didn’t tell me much. He didn’t explain himself. But yeah, it was it was just a beautiful thing to have his blessing.

John Philip Santos:

The Valley is clearly a critical nucleus for the shift in the way of understanding the story of Texas.

Omar Valerio Jiménez:

You know, the Valley has been predominantly Tejano for throughout the 19th and most of the 20th century. I think among families, right, that kind of collective memory that gets passed along is a memory of Los Rinches, the memory of La Matanza, memory of these events in Tejano history that might not be included in Texas history books, but that families pass along to one another, to other, you know, various generations.

John Philip Santos:

How did it affect the Tejanos of the Valley in terms of that that part of the story being left out or even erased?

Omar Valerio Jiménez:

Well, I mean, I think I think it depends on who we’re talking about. Right. I think there’s always been a current of Tejanos throughout Texas, but also in the Valley in South Texas that have been trying to sort of prove their patriotism and prove their loyalty.

John Philip Santos:

You know, one of the remarkable developments in the last year has been this movement of the Refusing to Forget scholars, the historians who organize themselves, not only to do lines of research around anti-Mexican violence, and particularly the period between 1905 and 1920, maybe as many as 5,000 dead, murdered Mexicanos in that period, many with the collaboration of the Rangers and other officials.

And that’s an instance where academic historians begin to try to influence the public square, literally, with monuments. How much of an impact has that had in the Valley itself in terms of communities and public remembrance.

Omar Valerio Jiménez:

I think it is having had an impact. I haven’t lived in the valley for a while, but friends of mine who do and who teach there have told me students are more aware of that history. And so, you have university students with more of a hunger to learn more. Right. And so, they’re asking more about these kinds of questions.

John Philip Santos:

But even I mean, the struggle over teaching Mexican American studies in Texas schools is still quite controversial. So not much has really changed in terms of how Tejano, Tejana students are taught about this history in our public schools.

Omar Valerio Jiménez:

I think that the forces of, you know, the political disagreement about what should be taught in Texas schools and what should be included in textbooks has, you know, has continued to be fought. Right. But I do think that there has been change in the sense of we can go and hear Professors that are teaching these subjects. We hold workshops on Tejano history for high school teachers and junior high teachers. And so, they’re sharing their knowledge. So, in that sense, I would say there has been a change, but it’s not enough. And I mean and I would say the other thing is, as someone who teaches Texas history, some of the Texas history books that are used, at least at the college level, there are several that have Tejano historians as the coauthors. And those textbooks have a very different a different interpretation.

John Philip Santos:

But out of this narrative, what can we say about where we are in the story and what Texas is becoming?

Omar Valerio Jiménez:

So, I’m generally not an optimist, but I’m an optimist about the teaching of history. We’re living in a time when movements like Black Lives Matter has questioned how our nation, our state, have remembered past events and how there’s been problems with those kinds of memory. So, there’s been this questioning and then there’s been a backlash. Right now, there’s this this this effort to stop the teaching of so-called critical race theory, which isn’t taught in in primary schools or in elementary schools or high schools. Even right now, we’re living in a moment of history where, you know, there’s these debates about Confederate monuments coming down. There’s the debate, there’s debates about whether or not that Texas Ranger statue at Dallas Love Field should have come down. And I think that those are teachable moments. I think these are moments where students, the general public is interested in history. We should seize that moment.

John Philip Santos:

So, but for the next century, shall we say, maybe with the emergence of this Tejano narrative into, you know, a central focus through the demography of Texas and the awakening of this kind of historiography, what will that shift bring with it?

Omar Valerio Jiménez:

I also believe that the demographics are on our side. You know, there’s Latinos are a young population, Tejanos are a young population. It’s only growing the number of Tejanos Mexican Americans, Latinos going to college is growing. All of that is going in the right direction. These students are going to learn more about their history. There’s going to be more of a need for more professors, whether they’re Latino or not, to teach Latino history, to teach Latino studies, to teach Mexican American history, to teach African American history. I think the demographics are going to determine how history is taught in the future.

John Philip Santos:

I always, always these days tell people that the significant change agent that that we await, she’s about 12 years old and she lives in, you know, La Hoya, Texas or Mission, Texas growing up in that zone in the Rio Grande Valley.

Omar Valerio Jiménez:

And she loves to listen to Selena. I think that we sometimes have to believe and trust that people can make the right choice. You know, in terms of what they want to learn, if given the opportunity. And I think I think it’s too hard to argue against demographics. You know, you can’t stop that tide. And, you know, I never took a course with a Mexican American historian as an undergraduate. And I think today there’s a lot of more of those opportunities.

John Philip Santos:

Omar Valerio Jiménez. Gracias for your work, your wisdom, and for sharing this time with us.

Omar Valerio Jiménez:

Oh, thank you. Thank you for the opportunity.

John Philip Santos:

Superb.

In the following segment, we’ll hear from a group of UTSA students as they reflect on the story of how Texas history can suddenly rise up and haunt the present. In this case, they deal with the ‘Come and Take It’ slogan made famous by a confrontation in Gonzalez, Texas, in 1835 between a Mexican military detachment and Independence Insurrectionists. In this case, it has to do with how come and take it became a slogan for the UTSA football team.

Student 1:

The history of the ‘Come and Take It’ flag is one that has been around for centuries. In the modern era, the historic slogan has been altered for use by political parties, such as the statement about Second Amendment rights. The connotations associated with the slogan have changed the original meanings behind what the Battle of Gonzales stood for the start of the Texas Revolution. A Tejano is a Texan of Mexican descent and in the 1830s and on, Tejanos experienced the loss of land, economic power, and government positions all within the Texas territory. Tejanos were shown discrimination due to language barriers, economic opportunities, and schooling. Laws written within the Republic of Texas were written in English so that those who only spoke Spanish weren’t able to understand.

During the Republic of Texas, only four elected officials were Tejano within Texas’s Congressional office. The topic of the Come and Take It flag brings history to light, such as racism against the Tejanos around during the time of the Texas revolution. Due To the flag’s associated connotations, the University of Texas at San Antonio, a Hispanic Serving Institute, chose to revoke the usage of the come and take it flag within the athletics programs. Beginning along with the UTSA football program in 2011, the UTSA student section in the fourth quarter would hold a massive bright orange flag with the words ‘Come and Take It’ written below the mascot. The flag wouldn’t become a formal tradition at UTSA until 2016. Since then, it has been used at every sporting event with the slogan and mascot printed on towels for fans to swing above their heads.

The topic of whether or not the slogan should be revoked from the University of Texas at San Antonio’s campus was brought up as a petition by a former professor who stated, “Like the Alamo, the Gonzalez flag is an open wound for many Mexican Americans, especially Mexican American Texans. The reason for this adaptation of the flag being removed is because of the historical grounds that it stands on, such as the racism towards Tejanos and the connotation of being pro-slavery.”

When the United States first annexed the Republic of Texas, Texas entered the US as a slave state, while the University of Texas at San Antonio used the come and take it flag as a form of a rallying cry that students could get behind at athletic events. Mexican Americans at the institution have spoken out that history is being forgotten and overlooked by the slogan’s usage within athletics. One of the reasons for the decision to remove the fourth quarter tradition was that the differing agendas organizations used contradicted the University of Texas at San Antonio’s mission statement. As a student at University of Texas at San Antonio, there are conversations containing differing opinions as to whether or not the tradition should be revoked and whether the slogan should be reinstated across campus.

Texas is navigating towards a future in which these ideas can be mentioned and discussed from multiple viewpoints. We have adopted as a society to manage these difficult conversations and learned how to embrace how each person involved in the exchange expresses how they’re feeling when it comes to a difficult conversation. The hope is that future generations are able to ask these questions and seek these answers without fear of judgment.

John Philip Santos:

Before we close, one last chance to hear from some of the voices of the Refusing To Forget historians as they reflect on the future horizon of what Texas is becoming. Benjamin Johnson.

Benjamin Johnson:

Center of Gravity is kind of whose stories get told and whose stories don’t write what gets defined as distinctively Texas and what doesn’t.

John Philip Santos:

Sonya Hernandez

Sonya Hernandez:

It’s important to normalize this history. Right now, we can’t do that because it’s not taught in these other courses. So, we have to teach this material through these kinds of programs.

John Philip Santos:

John Moran Gonzalez.

John Moran Gonzalez:

First, I think we have to acknowledge that in terms of expressive culture, it really began with the corrido and documenting of what we have been discussing. There’s a contemporary revival of folks who are writing poetry and novels about these incidents. So, people today, and especially young folks, are really taking up this issue in representing it in expressive culture.

You know, it’s great that we also now have some access to be able to tell it through, you know, kind of academic histories and that sort of thing. But I think young people today have really taken it up. And I think we’re just going to see, especially now that we’re having a whole generation of native digital filmmakers, right?

Everybody can become a film maker with their phone and they’re going to have lots of practice at it. I think we’re going to see some great stuff in the future.

John Philip Santos:

Trinidad Gonzalez.

Trinidad Gonzalez:

We need our educational systems to clearly delineate the problems with racism and point to how we should move beyond those problems of racism. But it needs to be addressed, right? This is my argument, was that there needs to be a way of addressing this. And I pointed out that we needed to at that point we had African American studies, African-American studies was coming on board. I said, we need to continue the development of these courses. We need to then talk about K-12 education that deals with the problems of racism.

And that way we’re going to move to a better. It’s taking scholarship and our intellectual work and put it into practice to help change and make the better world. And that’s what the art of this event has been about since its beginning.

Sonya Hernandez:

But this has to be a conversation that involves all parties. It’s not just history for Latinos. This is history for everyone. Because, you know, there are things that that that happened on a daily basis in this country that have there’s a longer legacy and there’s a longer lineage and there’s a deeper legacy. And we have to be aware of that. And this all goes back to the very what I see is like this, you know, there’s a slowly chipping away at our democracy that should concern us all, not just Latinos. Right. And this is all part of this this larger, larger moment that we are all living in and that we have a responsibility to each other.

John Philip Santos:

That’s Tejano Tales, the inaugural edition of Becoming Texas. Thanks again to the Refusing to Forget historians. Thanks to Omar Valeria Jimenez for joining us. The segments on corridos and the 1919 Canales hearings were prepared by students, Cristian Montano and Joshua Wilson. Becoming Texas is a production of UTSAs Institute of Texan Cultures and the Honors College. Robert Gonzales produces Becoming Texas. Josh Peck edited the program. Elizabeth Lopez is Curator for Education at the Institute of Texan Cultures. Kirstin Cutts is the Institute’s Museum Education and Outreach Specialist. Veronica Rodriguez is executive producer and AM Architect, provided the beautiful music backdrop. And I’m John Phillip Santos, editor, and host. Please join us next time for Becoming Texas.