San Antonio native, military veteran, merchant, and mayor pro tem José Antonio Menchaca (1800–1879) was one of only a few Tejano leaders to leave behind an extensive manuscript of recollections. Portions of the document were published in 1907, followed by a “corrected” edition in 1937, but the complete work could not be published without painstaking reconstruction. At last available in its entirety, Menchaca’s book of reminiscences captures the social life, people, and events that shaped the history of Texas’s tumultuous transformation during his lifetime. Highlighting not only Menchaca’s acclaimed military service but also his vigorous defense of Tejanos’ rights, dignity, and heritage, Recollections of a Tejano Life charts a remarkable legacy while incorporating scholarly commentary to separate fact from fiction. Revealing how Tejanos perceived themselves and the revolutionary events that defined them, this wonderfully edited volume presents Menchaca’s remembrances of such diverse figures as Antonio López de Santa Anna, Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett, Sam Houston, General Adrián Woll, Comanche chief “Casamiro,” and Texas Ranger Jack Hays. Menchaca and his fellow Tejanos were actively engaged in local struggles as Mexico won her independence from Spain; later many joined the fight to establish the Republic of Texas, only to see it annexed to the United States nine years after the Battle of San Jacinto. This first-person account corrects important misconceptions and brings previously unspoken truths vividly to life.
San Antonio native, military veteran, merchant, and mayor pro tem José Antonio Menchaca (1800–1879) was one of only a few Tejano leaders to leave behind an extensive manuscript of recollections. Portions of the document were published in 1907, followed by a “corrected” edition in 1937, but the complete work could not be published without painstaking reconstruction. At last available in its entirety, Menchaca’s book of reminiscences captures the social life, people, and events that shaped the history of Texas’s tumultuous transformation during his lifetime. Highlighting not only Menchaca’s acclaimed military service but also his vigorous defense of Tejanos’ rights, dignity, and heritage, Recollections of a Tejano Life charts a remarkable legacy while incorporating scholarly commentary to separate fact from fiction. Revealing how Tejanos perceived themselves and the revolutionary events that defined them, this wonderfully edited volume presents Menchaca’s remembrances of such diverse figures as Antonio López de Santa Anna, Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett, Sam Houston, General Adrián Woll, Comanche chief “Casamiro,” and Texas Ranger Jack Hays. Menchaca and his fellow Tejanos were actively engaged in local struggles as Mexico won her independence from Spain; later many joined the fight to establish the Republic of Texas, only to see it annexed to the United States nine years after the Battle of San Jacinto. This first-person account corrects important misconceptions and brings previously unspoken truths vividly to life.
This book offers a different perspective than that found in mainstream US and Texas history because it acquaints readers with pre-1836 people, places, and events. The title Friendly Betrayal aims to capture the Spanish Mexican Texans disappointment when they (1) first welcomed US immigrants to Mexico (Texas) as fellow Mexicans and (2) how (after 1836) the growing Anglo Saxon majority treated our ancestors as foreigners in their own homeland. Part I contains a fictionalized storyline that delves into the initial blending of Native American and Spanish European cultures that produced todays mestizo people. Due to their genetic cultural (not political) ties to Mexico, this group (generally called Mexican Americans in the United States) continues to strongly maintain, defend, and preserve their unique identity, history, and heritage on this side of the border. Part II contains supporting background information.
There were seven flags over Texas. The green flagit is the first flag of Texas independence. It is the spark that lit the revolt for liberty in our state. It started as a gentle glow of a peasants lantern. Then, it expanded to a beacons potent light; beckoning Don Bernardo led his army in answering the call for freedom. It was not a flag of conquest, but a flag of self-rule. It was not a flag to build an empire, but to end an unjust one. It was a precious flag, wrapping those who carried it with the ideals of equality. It was the first breath of a new life, the first step of a long journey, the sign of a new beginning. It is the green flag, the first flag of Texas independence.
The diagnosis and management of congenital heart defects has rapidly evolved over the decades. This book presents the role that cardiac CT and MRI may play in the management of congenital heart defects.
The Last Knight The Story of Don Bernardo Gutierrez de Lara Uribe (1774-1841), a Texas Hero (By Jose Antonio Lopez) Once there was a magical land called Tejas. Here is where our Spanish-Mexican ancestors settled to raise families, build their homes, and ranching communities. They were a rare breed of men and women; a hearty stock, strong of both mind and body. They tamed what historian Jerry Thompson calls the Wild and Vivid Land of South Texas. In so doing, they invented the ranching and cowboy phenomena. However, all was not well. Spain ruled Tejas with oppressive and unjust laws. In response for direction to rid America of European colonial rule, several great American-born leaders answered the call to duty during those turbulent times of the late 1700s and early 1800s. Among these were George Washington, Simon Bolivar, and Bernardo Gutierrez de Lara Uribe. While most people may have heard of the first two, few are familiar with Don Bernardo. The Last Knight is the story of this great Texas hero. To begin with, Don Bernardos life has the drama, action, and intrigue of a Hollywood movie, but it is a true story. He was born in Revilla (now Guerrero), on the southern bank of the Rio Grande back when the Rio was just another South Texas river. (The shape of Texas was very different than it is today.) As a young man, Don Bernardo decided to get involved in bringing social change in his community and throughout Texas and Mexico. It was in this restless period of early Texas history that Don Bernardo volunteered to help Father Miguel Hidalgo in his struggle to gain Mexicos independence from Spain. That is why September 16th is today celebrated in Texas. Don Bernardo was appointed a Lt Colonel in the Republican Army. After a trip to the U.S. to seek help and volunteers, he began his revolution in Nacogdoches. That the struggle began here in the Louisiana border was very significant in a historical sense. Nacogdoches and Los Adaes represented the eastern boundary of New Spain. As a matter of fact, Los Adaes is the first capital of Texas. On April 17, 1813, he wrote Texas first Declaration of Independence and its first constitution. He won a series of battles. He became the first President-Protector (governor) of the Independent State of Texas. However, his hope of victory over the Spanish forces vanished quickly, when he was relieved of command and forced to move to Natchitoches, Louisiana in exile. When Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821, Don Bernardo was asked to return to his homeland. He did so in 1824. Upon arriving, he became the governor of the new state of Tamaulipas. He also was appointed to several military posts, including Commandant General of Tamaulipas and Commandant General of the Eastern Interior States (Texas, Coahuila, Tamaulipas, and Nuevo Leon.) He died in 1841 after an illustrious career as a rancher, military leader, Indian fighter, gifted communicator, skilled diplomat, governor of two states (Texas and Tamaulipas), and commandant general of four states. He was a man who possessed rare leadership qualities. We owe our gratitude to this great hero who shared in the first vision of a free and independent Texas.
At a time in our history where the Spanish Mexican roots of this great place we call Texas are being questioned, this third volume of selected essays is most timely. For example, if Texas history begins in 1836 as implied in mainstream Texas history, why then is everything historically old (towns, roads, rivers, mountain ranges, regions, etc.) named in Spanish? Our ancestors’ legacy is why we have a right to practice our heritage year-round; not just during Hispanic History Month. Importantly, the network of vibrant communities in New Spain connected by the Camino Real are indeed what first attracted U.S. Anglo Saxon and Northern European immigrants to Texas and the west. In remembering our ancestors, “Aquí todavía estamos, y no nos vamos”. (Here we still are and we’re not leaving.)
The Last Knight The Story of Don Bernardo Gutierrez de Lara Uribe (1774-1841), a Texas Hero (By Jose Antonio Lopez) Once there was a magical land called Tejas. Here is where our Spanish-Mexican ancestors settled to raise families, build their homes, and ranching communities. They were a rare breed of men and women; a hearty stock, strong of both mind and body. They tamed what historian Jerry Thompson calls the Wild and Vivid Land of South Texas. In so doing, they invented the ranching and cowboy phenomena. However, all was not well. Spain ruled Tejas with oppressive and unjust laws. In response for direction to rid America of European colonial rule, several great American-born leaders answered the call to duty during those turbulent times of the late 1700s and early 1800s. Among these were George Washington, Simon Bolivar, and Bernardo Gutierrez de Lara Uribe. While most people may have heard of the first two, few are familiar with Don Bernardo. The Last Knight is the story of this great Texas hero. To begin with, Don Bernardos life has the drama, action, and intrigue of a Hollywood movie, but it is a true story. He was born in Revilla (now Guerrero), on the southern bank of the Rio Grande back when the Rio was just another South Texas river. (The shape of Texas was very different than it is today.) As a young man, Don Bernardo decided to get involved in bringing social change in his community and throughout Texas and Mexico. It was in this restless period of early Texas history that Don Bernardo volunteered to help Father Miguel Hidalgo in his struggle to gain Mexicos independence from Spain. That is why September 16th is today celebrated in Texas. Don Bernardo was appointed a Lt Colonel in the Republican Army. After a trip to the U.S. to seek help and volunteers, he began his revolution in Nacogdoches. That the struggle began here in the Louisiana border was very significant in a historical sense. Nacogdoches and Los Adaes represented the eastern boundary of New Spain. As a matter of fact, Los Adaes is the first capital of Texas. On April 17, 1813, he wrote Texas first Declaration of Independence and its first constitution. He won a series of battles. He became the first President-Protector (governor) of the Independent State of Texas. However, his hope of victory over the Spanish forces vanished quickly, when he was relieved of command and forced to move to Natchitoches, Louisiana in exile. When Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821, Don Bernardo was asked to return to his homeland. He did so in 1824. Upon arriving, he became the governor of the new state of Tamaulipas. He also was appointed to several military posts, including Commandant General of Tamaulipas and Commandant General of the Eastern Interior States (Texas, Coahuila, Tamaulipas, and Nuevo Leon.) He died in 1841 after an illustrious career as a rancher, military leader, Indian fighter, gifted communicator, skilled diplomat, governor of two states (Texas and Tamaulipas), and commandant general of four states. He was a man who possessed rare leadership qualities. We owe our gratitude to this great hero who shared in the first vision of a free and independent Texas.
Reproduction of the original. The publishing house Megali specialises in reproducing historical works in large print to make reading easier for people with impaired vision.
The catalyst for much of classical pragmatist political thought was the great waves of migration to the United States in the early twentieth century. José-Antonio Orosco examines the work of several pragmatist social thinkers, including John Dewey, W. E. B. Du Bois, Josiah Royce, and Jane Addams, regarding the challenges large-scale immigration brings to American democracy. Orosco argues that the ideas of the classical pragmatists can help us understand the ways in which immigrants might strengthen the cultural foundations of the United States in order to achieve a more deliberative and participatory democracy. Like earlier pragmatists, Orosco begins with a critique of the melting pot in favor of finding new ways to imagine the civic role of our immigrant population. He concludes that by applying the insights of American pragmatism, we can find guidance through controversial contemporary issues such as undocumented immigration, multicultural education, and racialized conceptions of citizenship.
2014 Runner-Up, MLA Prize in United States Latina and Latino and Chicana and Chicano Literary and Cultural Studies In Unbecoming Blackness, Antonio López uncovers an important, otherwise unrecognized century-long archive of literature and performance that reveals Cuban America as a space of overlapping Cuban and African diasporic experiences. López shows how Afro-Cuban writers and performers in the U.S. align Cuban black and mulatto identities, often subsumed in the mixed-race and postracial Cuban national imaginaries, with the material and symbolic blackness of African Americans and other Afro-Latinas/os. In the works of Alberto O’Farrill, Eusebia Cosme, Rómulo Lachatañeré, and others, Afro-Cubanness articulates the African diasporic experience in ways that deprive negro and mulato configurations of an exclusive link with Cuban nationalism. Instead, what is invoked is an “unbecoming” relationship between Afro-Cubans in the U.S and their domestic black counterparts. The transformations in Cuban racial identity across the hemisphere, represented powerfully in the literary and performance cultures of Afro-Cubans in the U.S., provide the fullest account of a transnational Cuba, one in which the Cuban American emerges as Afro-Cuban-American, and the Latino as Afro-Latino.
This volume explores voters’ political rationalizations. The author analyzes semi-structured interview data from 120 American voters collected from 2013-2015 about their positions on three economic referenda—or “direct democratic economic policies” (DDEPs) on the Arizona state ballot from 2008-2012. Building on the literature on voter reasoning and rationalization, the author firstly probes how the intersection of economic position and partisan affiliation shape partisan voters’ rationalizations of their DDEP positions. Secondly, he investigates the political and economic discourses that voters use to justify their DDEP positions. This book extends classic sociological theories of individual-level and collective legitimacy, along with contemporary theories of voter rationalization. The findings also help to build theories of American political ideology and values, neoliberalism, moral economy, and norms of self-interest.
A translation of a classic interpretation of Spain's national novel, first published in Spanish in 1976 (expanded from the 1948 version). Argues that Don Quixote was not nearly as quixotic to his original 16th century readers as he is today. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Nights of Wailing, Days of Pain Life in 1920s South Texas Jose Antonio Lopez Summary Life in 1920s South Texas was mercilessly miserable for U.S. citizens of Spanish Mexican (Tejano) ancestry. The courageous descendants of Native Americans and the first Europeans to set foot in Texas had been reduced by this time to the status of foreigners in their own homeland. It had been over eighty years since the 1836 Battle of the Alamo, but the suffering of the native inhabitants continued unrestrained into the twentieth century. In short, Tejanos looked like the enemy, spoke Spanish like the enemy, worshipped as Catholics like the enemy, and thus were treated like the enemy. Akin to a never-ending nightmarish inferno stoked by constant Battle of the Alamo reminders, the damage to the tormented Tejano psyche persists to this day. Nights of Wailing, Days of Pain involves the day-to-day life of a Tejano family, whose members are living in two parallel worlds. One is the world of their Spanish Mexican ancestors, inventors of the ranch and cowboy phenomena, and the other is the world of Anglo Saxon Texas that treats them as strangers in the only homeland they have ever known. The first world is a sanctuary providing comfort, but it is slowly disappearing. The second world is fraught with overwhelming anxiety and continues unabated to the present time. The book typifies the saga of countless Tejano families struggling to make a living in the harsh brush country of South Texas while at the same time fighting off those who wanted their land at all costs. The story begins with a scene worthy of a Russian czar. A ranch foreman, bloodied by a brutal beating, hangs feet first from the arm of a large oak tree. Although not charged with any crime, he had been left there by the Texas Rangers. It was a most undignified sight! How could this be? After all, this was the 1920s. Wasn’t the United States of America the land of the free, where a person was innocent until proven guilty? Wasn’t South Texas part of the United States of America? Had not the country recently fought a world war, the Great War to guarantee freedom for others in Europe? What about basic freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution for citizens in this country, regardless of their race, creed, or color? The man hanging from the tree was a U.S. citizen. So how could this be happening? Why was he being treated in such a cruel manner? The first chapters introduce the several main characters of the storyline. Chapa, the Rancho La Paz foreman, is a strong and capable young man who valiantly absorbs the rangers’ brutal punishment without betraying his boss. The beautiful Dona Carmelita “Meli” is the ranch owner’s wife. She is the social conscience of the community. Don Roberto Gutierrez, her husband, is the former county sheriff who traces his lineage to the first Spanish Mexican Texas settlers. He is suddenly accused of smuggling contraband horses and mules from Mexico. Justa is the ranch matron. She is a wise curandera (folk healer) whose counsel is sought by all. Sabi is Justa’s daughter and helps her mother with her duties at La Paz. Both of them are part of Don Roberto’s extended family. Epifania “Epi” Martinez is a Gutierrez relative who works at the courthouse. Amble Macray is a rich Anglo-Saxon cattleman from Fort Worth. He grew up with the Gutierrez family. He and his family are very supportive of Tejano culture and respectful of the Spanish Mexican roots of Texas. Amble has two brothers. One of them (Deck) is now the sheriff. Deck reluctantly participates in Don Roberto’s persecution and prosecution. They have one sister, Libby. They also have a half-sibling, Raymundo, a U.S. marshal. Scott Johnson is Don Roberto’s defense attorney. Scott is an idealistic young lawyer who is defending his first case. George R. Reed is a former county judge who controls most significant activities in the community. As the area political boss, he wants Rancho La
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