ipl-logo

Tejanos Essay

580 Words3 Pages

Last semester I attended a historical marker ceremony at my university followed by a lecture by Dr. Andres Tijerina. In his lecture, Dr. Tijerina explained the history of the region and the people who once occupied the land. With a research focus in Texas and Mexican American history, Dr. Tijerina asked the crowd to embrace their Mexican heritage and complained of the lack of research concerning Tejanos in Texas. Immediately intrigued by Dr. Tijerina, I purchased his book Tejanos and Texas Under the Mexican Flag, 1821-1836.
Tijerina’s book encompassed research often ignored in Texas historiography. He not only explained the relationship between Anglo Americans and Tejanos, but of constant change and the transfer of power on the Mexican frontera. Tijerina introduced new concepts of Tejanos and their culture in isolated Texas. Tejanos played an important role in the development of Texas despite their constantly overshadowed contributions. Anglos in Texas and the Texas revolution remain popular topics in Texas research, but the development of Texas also includes Tejano influence.
Furthermore, understanding …show more content…

Tijerina explains how Texas consisted of people of various races and ethnicities including Spanish, Indian, Mestizo, and Afro-Mexican, but he does not develop an analysis of race in the borderlands, although it remains essential in the development of Texas. Race was a peculiar theme in Mexico at the time due to the abolition of slavery and various racial mixing. Although Mexico implemented liberal racial policies, Afro-Mexicans and mestizos moved to the Texas frontier to escape racial discrimination. Continued exploration of race relations during the period of Tijerina’s concentration is imperative to the history of Texas, especially since he specifies Tejano politics and culture but did not define limitations based on

Show More
Related

Summary Of From Indians To Chicanos By James Diego Vigil

631 Words | 3 Pages

The second stage “Spanish Colonial Era,” includes three hundred years of rule, unequal classes, culture and race discrimination that result in the peasant class. Stage three is “ Mexican Independence and Nationalism,” which starts with social groups, to resist or carry out social changes and an independent Mexico trying to become a nation and the Mexican American war. Stage four “Anglo-American and Mexicanization Period,” studies the growth of the Mexican-American people, the effects of immigration in the twentieth century, the 1960’s Chicano movement and its importance today. Vigil is arguing that it is important to comprehend the cultural changes to which indigenous communities experienced and how the native people of that land were classified as

Read More

Purple Politics-Our History Has Become Invisible By Sandra Cisneros

586 Words | 3 Pages

While trying to prove the local commission wrong, Cisneros asserts that “We don’t exist.” Cisneros claims that her history was lost in the colonization of German immigrants. Cisneros also claims that Tejanos were forced out of the area and isolated by the immigrants. Because of this, Cisneros wants to reclaim her Tejano history by keeping her house purple. I agree because the German immigrants forcing Tejanos out of the area is similar to the trail of tears.

Read More

Quixote's Soldiers Summary

741 Words | 3 Pages

In order to write this book, the author clearly uses different manuscripts and papers that helped him to explain and show the situation of this social movement. He also uses and gets information from people that were living those situations, for instance in Chapter one, he mentions a note from Journalist Ruiz Ibañez: “Contrary to the common belief that those groups are composed of “punks” and hoodlums….”1. Related to him, he is an American historian and sociology that obtained his sociology and political science degrees in the University of Texas at Austin and Yale University, as well. Currently, he is a professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and he is president of the Center for Latino Policy Research. He wrote not only Quixote’s Soldiers but also, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836-1986.

Read More

Review Of Rodolfo 'Gonzales' Speech: The Chicano Nationalist Movement

834 Words | 4 Pages

During the Chicano Nationalist Movement, a well-known speaker, Rodolfo ‘Corky’ Gonzales, delivered a speech titled Chicano Nationalism: Victory for La Raza. In this speech, Rodolfo Gonzales tries to unify the Latin American people within the United States by using the idea of a family and to create a new political organization for the Chicano people. This speech was a cumulation of various ideas which stemmed from his own life, the experiences of the Chicano people, and the Chicano Nationalist Movement in general. Each of these factors contributed to the context of the speech and how the ideas within the speech are presented by Rodolfo Gonzales.     Rodolfo ‘Corky’ Gonzales was born to Federico and Indalesia Gonzales, two Mexican immigrants, on June 18, 1928.

Read More

Que Vivan Los Tamales Analysis

560 Words | 3 Pages

Que Vivan Los Tamales analyses the history of Mexico's evolving national identity via food. Mexican cuisine has changed dramatically from the the era of the aztecs, to the period of Spanish colonialism through to the Porfiriato dictatorship. Through these periods we we see food being used in a manner to unify the nation and create a national united identity. Below I will argue how the country attempted to unify its people though cuisine. When the Spanish conquered Mexico, they tried to impose old world techniques and spices onto the Mexicans.

Read More

Macaria's Daughter Analysis

1149 Words | 5 Pages

Situated near the U.S.-Mexico border during the early twentieth century is the fictional setting of Fort Jones, the outskirts of which is where Americo Paredes’ short story “Macaria’s Daughter” takes place. Emblematic of the disappropriation of Mexican land, as well as the increased marginalization of the Mexican people, the overbearing presence of Fort Jones reveals the struggle for preservation that characterizes the Mexican-American community of the story. “Macaria’s Daughter” is the tragic account of what happens in a small community when the upholding of Mexican values and institutions, and opposition to Anglo-American culture, become more important than a young woman’s life. In this essay, I will argue that “Macaria’s Daughter” is a text

Read More

The Truth In James E. Crisp's Sleuthing The Alamo

871 Words | 4 Pages

In the book Sleuthing the Alamo, by historian James E. Crisp we are faced with some surprising truths about the Texas Revolution as he draws attention to many facilities that have been said to be truths over the years. These facts are often covered by tales of racism and political correctness. Over the course of this engrossing interpretation of the Texas Revolution this historian works like a detective to bring light to the more difficult truths behind all the tales that many believe. I believe James E. Crisp’s thesis to be fairly straightforward. This historian wishes to bring truth to the light.

Read More

De Leon's Struggle Of Mexican Americans During World War I

263 Words | 2 Pages

De Leon is attempting to demonstrate that Mexican Americans, during the World War I years and the 1920s, expected to become more socially integrated, accepted, and acculturated into American Society, especially Texas, where there were large numbers of Mexican Americans, and an age of modernity was taking place. De Leon, highlights the endeavour that Mexican Americans took to display their patriotism by helping the United States defeat the axis powers during World War I, in order to become more accepted and experience less stifling social conditions in Texas, and also becoming involved and represented in politics and the workplace. De Leon emphasized how Texas Mexicans contributed to the war effort as combatants, by volunteering in the armed

Read More

Aztlan Colonial New Mexico Analysis

504 Words | 3 Pages

“Aztlan, Cibola and Frontier New Spain” is a chapter in Between the Conquests written by John R. Chavez. In this chapter Chavez states how Chicano and other indigenous American ancestors had migrated and how the migration help form an important part of the Chicanos image of themselves as a natives of the south. “The Racial Politics behind the Settlement of New Mexico” is the second chapter by Martha Menchaca.

Read More

Race Nation And Culture By George Sanchez Sparknotes

873 Words | 4 Pages

Some advocated for limited Mexican immigration into the United States since they realized that they would make it difficult for them to integrate into white society because Mexicans were typically seen as “poor, dark-skinned, and did not speak English.” This shows how Mexican officials helped shape the way migration was handled as well as how they contributed to the racial subordination they faced in the United

Read More

The Caddo Nation: Texas

136 Words | 1 Pages

Texas was given its toponym from the word “Tejas”, meaning “friends” or “allies”. The place name indicates that a confederacy of multiple Southeastern Native American tribes, called the Caddo Nation, were the first to settle in Texas, since the word “Tejas” derives from the Caddo language. Texas borders Louisiana, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Texas’s proximity to Louisiana allows access to the Port of South Louisiana, New Orleans, Shreveport and Baton Rouge. The Port of South Louisiana is the 4th biggest volume shipping port in the world and the largest bulk cargo port in the world and the three cities have a thriving film industry.

Read More

La Mexicano Analysis

871 Words | 4 Pages

Octavio Paz, a Mexican poet and essayist, is one of the many philosophers with a written piece regarding his understanding of Lo Mexicano. Paz’s “Sons of La Malinche” was first published in the Labyrinth of Solitude in 1950 and is a rather grim interpretation of the Mexican character, however, it captures the crisis of identity that Mexico was burdened with after the conquest. Paz uses the Spanish term “chingar,” (when literally translated means “to screw, to violate”) and its associated phrases to understand the conquest and the effect

Read More

Summary Of Mexican American Culture

899 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout “The Mexican in Fact, Fiction, and Folkore” examines the term “Mexican” as it is applied in Southwest literature and argues the Anglo society has made a conscious effort to misrepresent Mexicans (Rios 60). He states the people of Mexican descent are viewed as un-American because they are perceived as filthy, lazy, and dumb. Ricatelli adds to the conversation of Mexican stereotypes by examining the literary expressions of Chicanas and Mexicanas in the literature of both the United States and Mexico. In “The Sexual Stereotypes of The Chicana in Literature” Ricatelli explains how in Yankee literature, the Chicana is referred to as the “fat breeder, who is a baby factory” meanwhile the Mexican is described as an “amoral, lusty hot tamale” (Ricatelli 51). He makes note of these stereotypes in order to highlight the ethnocentric and nativist points of view that dominated Anglo literature.

Read More

Essay On Chicano Culture

906 Words | 4 Pages

Chicano culture came as result of a mixture of different cultures (Shingles and Cartwright 86). Despite the assimilation by the majority whites the Chicanos have preserved their culture. This paper seeks to prove that Chicano culture has deep cultural attributes that would appeal to the larger American culture, leading to strengthening of

Read More

Essay On The Mexican American War

1083 Words | 5 Pages

In the letter written by Rafael Antonio Manchola, a Tejano living in Texas, about Anglo-Americans states, “they

Read More

More about Tejanos Essay

Related Topics

Open Document