Beyond the Alamo: Forging Mexican Ethnicity in San Antonio, 1821-1861 / Edition 1

by Ra?l A. Ramos

Overview

Introducing a new model for the transnational history of the United States, Raul Ramos places Mexican Americans at the center of the Texas creation story. He focuses on Mexican-Texan, or Tejano, society in a period of political transition beginning with the year of Mexican independence. Ramos explores the factors that helped shape the ethnic identity of the Tejano population, including cross-cultural contacts between Bexarenos, indigenous groups, and Anglo-Americans, as they negotiated the contingencies and pressures on the frontier of competing empires.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807871249
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	03/01/2010
Edition description:	1
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	845,367
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Raul A. Ramos is assistant professor of history at the University of Houston.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction: Forging Identity in the Borderlands: Situating San Antonio de Béxar 1

Prologue: Life in a Norteño Town 15

Part I Three Worlds in l821

1 Making Mexico: Insurgency and Social Order in Béxar 27

2 Indigenous Identities: Locating "lo Indio" in the Tejano World 53

3 American Immigrants: Colonization and Tejano Identity 81

Part II Becoming Tejano

4 Disrupting the Balance: Colonization Troubles, 1828-1834 111

5 La Pérdida de Tejas: Tejanos and the War of Texas Secession, 1834-1837 133

6 Tejanos as a Suspect Class: The End of Secession, 1837-1848 167

7 Voting and Violence: Tejanos and Ethnic Politics, 1848-1861 205

Conclusion Challenging Identities: Transnational Becomes Local 231

Notes 239

Index 281

Editorial Reviews

Ramos perceptively notes that despite their subordinate status, Tejanos resisted the status quo and sustained a measure of political influence through the century.—Journal of American History



Succeeds in 'bringing contemporary insight and relevance to the study of the past' and Texas history. . . . Recommended.—Choice



[Ramos's] first fine book demonstrates [that] history has no conclusion; it evolves in response to our present. . . . [Ramos has] an insider's passion for local detail and an academic's instinct to set this evidence in its broadest cultural context. . . . [Ramos] reveals how deeply this revolutionary era penetrated individual lives.—San Antonio Express News



An interesting and readable contribution to the discussion of identity formation in borderlands and Texas history from a Tejano point of view.—East Texas Historical Journal



Clearly written and thoroughly researched . . . not only a significant addition to scholarship on Chicano/a history, immigration, and nationalism, but also a work accessible to academics and students alike.—Canadian Journal of History



Impressive . . . tells a fascinating story of how the population of Texas, under a developing republic, created a tapestry of regional identities.—Ethnohistory



Ramos captures a community's survival through the turmoil of changes in sovereignty; from Spanish to Mexican, to Texan, to American, and then to Confederate, he traces the evolution of the Tejano identity.—Southwestern Historical Quarterly



Illustrates with a vivid style the vicissitudes local elite families embarked upon as they functioned as cultural brokers between two competing national projects.—Journal of American Ethnic History



Engaging and compelling. . . . A significant contribution to the study of race, ethnicity, and nation and deepen[s] our understanding of how Tejanos met the incredible challenges posed by manifest destiny and American economic transnationalism.—The Journal of Southern History



A thorough treatment of Tejano ethnic identity and race relations. . . . A great aid for those teaching histories of the American south-west, and a good fit as a required text for upper division and graduate seminars in Chicana/o history and the history of the West.—Social History

From the Publisher