What's Amiss in Tejano History?: The Misrepresentation and Neglect of West Texas Author(s): Arnoldo De León Source: The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. 120, No. 3 (January, 2017), pp. 314-331 Published by: Texas State Historical Association Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44647125 Accessed: 02-05-2021 04:02 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Texas State Historical Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Southwestern Historical Quarterly This content downloaded from 24.155.117.154 on Sun, 02 May 2021 04:02:15 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The counties and a few notable settlements of the Edwards Plateau and Trans Pecos regions of Texas. Map drawn for the author courtesy of Brittany Wollman and Mykisha Hampton. This content downloaded from 24.155.117.154 on Sun, 02 May 2021 04:02:15 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms What's Amiss in Tejano History ?: The Misrepresentation and Neglect of West Texas By Arnoldo De León* Scholars standing toScholars toTéjanos Téjanos ofin havethe standing in sizable Tejano theregion contributed ofthat sizableTejanois West history, Texas. regionhistory, As but a consequence,they that butmuch have they is West tohave paid advancing paid Texas. only As fleeting fleeting a consequence, theattention attention under- Tejano historical scholarship has salient faults. First, it has favored South Texas over other regions of the state. Second, the historiography has pos- ited that the same historical forces, developments, and encounters that molded Tejano life in South Texas shaped the lives of West Texas Téjanos. That literature is amiss as it ignores the fact that circumstances particu- lar to West Texas shaped Tejano circumstances there. Third, most works assume that West Texas is an extension of the rest of the state and noth- ing is distinctive about Tejano life there. Few works suppose that West Texas history has unique features and that differences separate West Texas Tejano history from South Texas Tejano history. Considering the discernible characteristics of West Texas, it cannot be affirmed that forces similar to those that determined the broader Mexican American narrative configured the West Texas Tejano experience. To correct the record, new works should portray West Texas Tejano life as shaped by connectedness to place. The distortion of West Texas Tejano history is most pronounced in the chronicling of the time period stretching from the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848 to about the mid-twentieth century. During that century's span, West Texas differed from the eastern section of the state in its history, its development, and its character. Not recognizing this * Arnoldo De León has published widely in the field of Tejano history. Presently, he is Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at Angelo State University. For helpful suggestions in conceptualizing and preparing this essay, the author thanks Ty Cashion, Sam Houston State University, author of the forth- coming intellectual history of Texas, "The Lone Star Mind"; Glen Sample Ely, independent scholar from Fort Worth; and Randolph B. Campbell and Ryan R. Schumacher, editors of the Southwestern Historical Quarterly. Vol. CXX, No. 3 Southwestern Historical Quarterly January 2016 This content downloaded from 24.155.117.154 on Sun, 02 May 2021 04:02:15 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 3i6 Southwestern Historical Quarterly January peculiarity, historians assumed the Mexican American presence in West Texas to have been not much more than a mirror reflection of Tejano life elsewhere. Sometime around the 1950s, however, West Texas began to resemble more closely other parts of the state. West Texas Tejano his- tory seems to have followed the same trajectory, aligning itself with what occurred in Mexican American history throughout the rest of Texas. No broad consensus exists on the boundaries outlining West Texas. For some historians, West Texas begins along the 98th longitude, continues along this coordinate towards San Antonio, and there the line takes a turn westward in the direction of a point somewhere between Eagle Pass and Del Rio, then follows the Rio Grande to El Paso. Others perceive West Texas as embracing the breadth of land stretching from the 1 ooth merid- ian and extending from there toward El Paso County in Far West Texas.1 A more narrow designation is applied in this essay however. Herein, the region is delineated as encompassing the larger parts of the Edwards Pla- teau and Trans-Pecos.2 Under this configuration, the region's northern boundaries stretch from modern-day Runnels County, to Midland and Ector Counties and continue west to the New Mexico boundary at El Paso County. Its southern boundary is the Rio Grande extending from El Paso to Kinney County, then north from the border back to Runnels County. Just as scholars disagree on the exact margins that identify West Texas, so do they differ on what lines demarcate South Texas. In this essay, South Texas is considered to encompass an expanse from Brownsville on the Rio Grande, west to Eagle Pass in Maverick County, northeast to San Antonio, then southeast to about Corpus Christi, and from there back to the Lower Rio Grande Valley.3 With some exceptions, much of the scholarship on Téjanos focuses on this part of the state to the comparative neglect of areas such as West Texas. It stands to reason that major attention would be given to Téjanos in South Texas for developments, traditions, and significant incidents there 1 Ty Cashion, "What's the Matter with Texas?: The Great Enigma of the Lone Star State in the Ameri- can West," Montana The Magazine of Western History 55 (Winter 2005): 10; Glen Sample Ely, Where the West Begins: Debating Texas Identity (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2011), 11, 15-17. See also "Introduc- tion: West Texas, an Overview" in Paul H. Carlson and Bruce A. Glasrud (eds.), West Texas: A History of The Giant Side of the State (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2014), 1. 2 Excluded in coverage are the Old Northwest Texas and the Panhandle regions, both of which gener- ally fall under the designation of "West Texas." This was done for a variety of reasons. First, the author takes a deep personal interest - as a long-standing resident of San Angelo and as professor of history at Angelo State University - in the history of the Edwards Plateau and Trans-Pecos areas. Equally important are considerations of article length and scope. To cover Northwest Texas and the Panhandle adequately required taking into account a magnitude of dynamics that stretch time frames, economic currents that follow different paths, and demographics particular to that vast expanse of the state. 3 Adapted from Daniel D. Arreóla, Tejano South Texas: A Mexican American Cultural Province (Austin: Uni- versity of Texas Press, 2002), 20. A discussion of the varying boundaries that the scholarship has given to South Texas may be found in Martha Menchaca, Naturalizing Mexican Immigrants: A Texas History (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011), 13-14. This content downloaded from 24.155.117.154 on Sun, 02 May 2021 04:02:15 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 2017 What 's Amiss in Tejano History ? 317 Map drawn for the author courtesy of Brittany Woilman and Mykisha Hampton Map 1 : Texas, with the counties of West Texas (for the purposes of this essay) and South Texas shaded. appeal to the historian's inquisitiveness.4 It is a cultural "Tejano home- land," in the words of geographer Daniel Arreóla.5 Noteworthy aspects of the region such as community building traceable to the colonial period attract study, and the continued spread of Spanish-speaking communities since has kept South Texas in scholarly focus. 4 Due to space constraints, the scholarship on South Texas is not discussed herein at great length. Readers might gain an acquaintance, however, by reading: Arnoldo De León, 'Texas Mexicans: Twentieth- Century Interpretations," in Texas Through Time: Evolving Interpretations, eds. Walter L. Buenger and Rob- ert A. Calvert (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1991), 20-49; Arnoldo De León "Whither Tejano History: Origins, Development, and Status," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 106 (January 2003), 349-364; and Arnoldo De León, "Mexican Americans," in Discovering Texas History, ed. Bruce A. Glasrud, Light Townsend Cummins, and Cary D. Wintz (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2014), 31-48. 5 Arreóla, Tejano South Texas, 58-62. As of 2010, Hispanics living in South Texas counties outnum- bered Hispanics living in West Texas counties by three to one: 2,891,806 to 931,124. Of Hispanics liv- ing in greater West Texas, however, almost two-thirds resided in El Paso County. Source: 'Texas Popu- lation, 2010 (Historical Race Ethnicity Categories)," <www.dshs.state.tx.us/chs/popdat/ST2010.shtm> [Accessed March 19, 2015]. This content downloaded from 24.155.117.154 on Sun, 02 May 2021 04:02:15 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 3 1 8 Southwestern Historical Quarterly January Considering that Tejano historiography is weighted in favor of South Texas, the impression can be readily taken that the history of Téjanos in the "homeland" represents the history of Téjanos elsewhere in the state. But West Texas must be considered a discrete zone with its own geogra- phy, culture, and history.