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

CONCLUSION: Challenging Identities: Transnational Becomes Local

Ideas, commodities even, refuse the bounds of a nation. All are inextricably connected, so that each is needed to explain the others. —Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Significance of History,” 1891 I went to Texas on my own initiative, there I spoke of the Mexican nation to the humble workers of those border areas, and while I believed that seventy years of banishment had extinguished any trace of patriotism, I found noble Mexican souls filled with a fervent love for their homeland [patria], augmented and transmitted from generation to generation, as do all people who are oppressed by their conqueror. —M. Romero Palafox, 1909 Conclusion Challenging Identities transnational Becomes local T his book started with Diez y Seis de Septiembre and ends with the same celebration, only seventy-five years later. On September 16, 1910, Mexicans marked the centennial of their independence with larger versions of the annual parades and celebrations. The Mexican government established a centennial commission to oversee the work of local organizing juntas patrioticas formed across the nation.The juntas extended into the borderlands area of the United States, with groups forming in San Antonio and south Texas as well as in Los Angeles, Tucson, and El Paso.1 Mexican Independence Day celebrations continued an existing tradition in these areas. By including Mexicans living in the United States in the centennial planning, the commission acknowledged an idea of nationalism that extended beyond the nation, a “Mexico de afuera” in a sense. Celebrations of foreign patriotic festivals by ethnic groups in the United States are common. But those festivities take on a different meaning in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands where history and demographics complicate traditional beliefs about nation, nationalism, and patriotism. As M. Romero conclusion Palafox noted in a letter to the commission, the Tejanos he interviewed in 1909 identified Mexico as their homeland.2 Many of them felt this way despite never having lived on Mexican soil.The Mexican homeland, or patria, served as an identity that Tejanos held well after the secession of Texas and its subsequent annexation by the United States. The meaning of patria and its relation to national identity changed for Tejanos from Mexico’s founding through Anglo-American colonization and the secession of Texas. That change reflected the shifting political boundary and new ethnic demographics of the borderlands. Those external alterations set in motion the development of Texas-Mexican borderlands identity, initially based on regional culture and eventually settling into more recognizable patterns of ethnic identity seen in 1850s San Antonio. Palafox’s observations on Tejano Mexican nationalism in 1908 and the subsequent organization of celebratory juntas take on added meaning in the context of growing discontent with the presidency of Porfirio Díaz. Indeed , Palafox himself points out that the juntas served “for them [Tejanos] to make an objective study of the state of affairs in our country, with the goal of preventing the perverse slander by the Magons, the Sarabias, etc.”3 Patriotic celebrations organized by officially sanctioned juntas served different goals from those organized through more popular means. For instance , the organizing junta in Corpus Christi involved the leadership of several sociedades mutualistas and unions in their celebration plan.4 Such a split took place for San Antonio’s Independence centennial celebration as two separate groups formed competing week-long celebrations.5 One group, led by the Grand International League of Mexico, held its functions in Central Park, while the other, composed of several mutualistas and the Grand Liga Mexicana, held its events in San Pedro Park. The festival in San Pedro Park seemed better attended, due perhaps to the sponsoring organizations’ larger membership and popular base of support. Also, prior to the split, San Antonio’s Tejanos usually held the main independence celebration in San Pedro Park.6 In 1895, over 5,000 attended the closing evening dance and fireworks at that location.7 This split continued through 1917, in the midst of the Mexican Revolution, when class divisions between the celebrations became more apparent. In that year, Mexican elites held their independence celebration in the casino, highlighted by the singing of arias and ballroom dancing to the sounds of a full orchestra.8 By the turn of the century, the festival had transformed into a civic event that incorporated the entire city, regardless of ethnicity. Of the 1895 celebration , the San Antonio Daily Express noted, “To judge from the nation232 conclusion ality of the people...