The Quest for Tejano Identity in San Antonio, Texas, 1913-2000 (Latino Communities:Emerging Voices--Political, Social, Cultural and Legal Issues)

145 Pages·2004·0.99 MB·English

by  Jr.

Latino Communities
Emerging Voices
Political, Social, Cultural,
and Legal Issues
Edited by
Antoinette Sedillo Lopez
University of New Mexico
A ROUTLEDGE SERIES
L C : E V
ATINO OMMUNITIES MERGING OICES
Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, General Editor
CHICANOPROFESSIONALS PUERTORICANNEWSPAPERCOVERAGE
Culture, Conflict, and Identity OFTHEPUERTORICANINDEPENDENCE
Tamis Hoover Renteria PARTY
A Content Analysis of Three Elections
RESISTINGGENTRIFICATIONAND Maria Cristina Santana
DISPLACEMENT
Voices of Puerto Rican Women of the
Barrio COLEGIOCESARCHAVEZ, 1973–1983
Vicky Muniz A Chicano Struggle for Educational
Self-Determination
CHICANOEMPOWERMENTAND Carlos S. Maldonado
BILINGUALEDUCATION
Movimiento Politics in Crystal City, LATINOSINETHNICENCLAVES
Texas
Immigrant Workers and the
Armando L. Trujillo
Competition for Jobs
Stephanie Bohon
CREATINGALATINOIDENTITYINTHE
NATION’SCAPITAL
The Latino Festival TELLINGOURSTORIES
Olivia Cadaval The Lives of Midwestern Latinas
Theresa Barron McKeagney
THEDEVELOPMENTOFALATINOGAY
IDENTITY DOMINICANSINNEWYORKCITY
Bernardo C. Garcia
Power From the Margins
Milagros Ricourt
LATINOFICTIONANDTHEMODERNIST
IMAGINATION
Literature of the Borderlands LATINONATIONALPOLITICAL
John S. Christie COALITIONS
Struggles and Challenges
VOICESOFGUATEMALANWOMENIN David Rodriguez
LOSANGELES
Understanding Their Immigration
CREATINGTROPICALYANKEES
Gabrielle Kohpahl
Social Science Textbooks and U.S.
SPANISHANDACADEMICACHIEVEMENT Ideological Control in Puerto Rico,
AMONGMIDWESTMEXICANYOUTH 1898–1908
The Myth of the Barrier Jose-Manuel Navarro
Patricia MacGregor Mendoza
BROWNEYESONTHEWEB
CHICANOEDUCATIONALACHIEVEMENT Unique Perspectives of an Alternative
Comparing Escuela Tlatelolco, A
U.S. Latino Online Newspaper
Chicanocentric School and a Public
Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez
High School
Elena Aragon de McKissack
PREGONESTHEATRE
LATINOSANDLOCALREPRESENTATION A Theatre for Social Change in the
Changing Realities, Emerging Theories South Bronx
Florence Adams Eva C. Vásquez
T Q T
HE UEST FOR EJANO
I S A ,
DENTITY IN AN NTONIO
T , 1913–2000
EXAS
Richard A. Buitron, Jr.
ROUTLEDGE
New York & London
Published in 2004 by
Routledge
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Published in Great Britain by
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publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-In-Publication data
Buitron, Richard A., 1961-
The quest for Tejano identity in San Antonio, Texas, 1913–2000 / by
Richard A. Buitron, Jr.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-415-94950-5 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Mexican Americans—Ethnic identity—Texas—San Antonio.
2. Mexican Americans—Texas—San Antonio—Social conditions—20th
century. 3. Mexican Americans—Texas—San Antonio—Intellectual
life—20th century. 4. Community life—Texas—San Antonio—History—
20th century. 5. San Antonio (Tex.)—Social conditions—20th century.
6. San Antonio (Tex.)—Ethnic relations. 7. San Antonio (Tex.)—
Intellectual life—20th century. 8. Mexican Americans—California—Los
Angeles—Social conditions—20th century. 9. Los Angeles (Calif.)—
Ethnic relations. I. Title.
F394.S2119M5135 2004
976.4'3510046872073—dc22 2004005110
ISBN 0-203-33706-9 Master e-book ISBN
DEDICATED to my mother,
–
Rose Hernandez Buitron, 1929 1999,
who taught me that history can give us
significance.

Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Chapter One
Formation of Community, 1519–1910 1
Chapter Two
Visions of Community, Part I 19
Chapter Three
Another Community: Identity among Working Class
Mexican Americans, 1935–41 37
Chapter Four
A City of Migrants: Los Angeles and Chicano Identity 45
Chapter Five
Visions of Community, Part II 55
Epilogue
Sandra Cisneros, Henry Cisneros and the Post-Modern Hispanic 81
Appendix 91
Notes 93
Bibliography 109
Index 125
vii

Preface
WPA writers trying to capture the essence of the Texan city of San Antonio
quoted a Spanish legend saying that he “who drinks at San Antonio’s river
once, will drink of it again.”1Since Mexicans established the first missions
in the early eighteenth century, San Antonio has retained its original flavor
as a former outpost in the Spanish Empire. After Texas became a republic,
and later part of the United States, San Antonio’s original population be-
came an ostracized minority. Yet even as an Anglo-American city, San
Antonio remained tied to its Mexican history. Even the siege of the Alamo,
the city’s defining event, was connected simultaneously to its colonial,
Mexican and American legacies. As San Antonio has changed and grown,
its residents of Mexican descent, the Tejanos, have struggled to establish
their identity. Like their city, they were at once a Mexican people and an
American people.
The initial stage of Mexican-American historical interpretation began
when the editor of the liberal journal The Nation, Carey McWilliams,
discussed his observations about the Mexican-American community in
North from Mexico, the first in a new tradition of Chicano historical
scholarship.2 McWilliams believed that Mexican Americans were unique
among ethnic groups and were not treated as other European immigrants,
socially, politically or historically. His thesis was emulated by later
Chicano historians such as Rodolfo Acuña.3
The internal colonial model was first conceived by African American
sociologist Robert Blauner and was frequently used by Chicano historians
in describing their situation in the U.S. It asserts that people of color were
deliberately and permanently assigned a marginal role in the U.S. by white
Americans, designated to be only a menial labor force. In such a scheme,
Mexican Americans never would be truly Americans, but exist in a
quasi-national status, not unlike citizens in Third World countries. The
internal colonial model only partially explains the history of Texans of
ix