Mexican Americans in the Edwards Plateau and Trans-Pecos Region, 1900-2000: A Demographic Study

Percent of Mexican American Population in the Edwards Plateau and Trans-Pecos Region, 2000. Cartography by Sharalyn Bell. Mexican Americans in the Edwards Plateau and Trans-Pecos Region, 1900—2000: A Demographic Study By Arnoldo De León* As Texas Mexicans march almost inexorably towards becoming the majority population group in the Lone Star State, historians hasten to learn more of what not long ago many regarded as an invisible minority. This endeavor has at the present yielded an impressive amount of scholarship in the form of monographs, articles , historiographie essays, bibliographies, edited collections of works, and much more. Still, scholars recognize that too much ofTejano history remains undiscovered, and their curiosity has led them to research longneglected matters such as the military participation of Mexican Americans (especially in the two world wars); the lives of men and women who gave of their time to improve conditions around them; as well as subjects that some might consider peripheral, like religion and sports. Despite this juggernaut, little has been written about women, urban life, politics, entrepreneurship, and leisure activities, to highlight only a few topics yet to be fully explored.1 * Arnoldo De León is die autiior of several publications on Mexican-American history. He holds the G J. "Red" Davidson Professorship in History at Angelo State University. He wishes to thank the following individuals for reading earlier drafts of this paper and offering helpful comments for revisions: Roberto R. Treviño, University of Texas at Arlington; Diana Davids Hinton, University of Texas-Permian Basin; and Glen Ely, Texas Christian University. Deserving ofacknowledgment at Angelo State University are Robert Stiles, who assisted with the research, and staff at the Department of Information Technology, who prepared die maps. Thanks also to die two silent referees for the Quarterly whose constructive suggestions substantially improved me quality of die essay. 1 No one term accurately identifies Texas Mexicans—diat is, people of Mexican origin who live in Texas. Several terms are applicable—among them "Mexicans," "Mexican Americans," "Téjanos," and "Texas Mexicans"—and diese will be used interchangeably throughout this article. They should be understood to embrace die whole of die Texas-Mexican community, including bodi die native and foreign born. The words "Hispanic" and "Latino" have emerged as more popular labels during the last few years and will be used once die discussion reaches the post-1980 era. When singling out die foreignborn Mexican population, the word "immigrants" will be employed. Studies reviewing the state of Tejano history may be found in Arnoldo De León, "Texas Mexicans: Twenlietii Century Interpretations," in Texas through Time: Evolving Interpretations, ed. Walter L. Buenger and Robert A. Calvert (College Station: Texas A&M University, 1991), 20-49; and Arnoldo De León, "Whidier Tejano History: Origins, Development, and Status," Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 106 (Jan., 2003), 349-364. See further the annual update (since 1995) on Tejano scholarship published in die Vol. CXII, no. 2 Southwestern Historical Quarterly October 2008 1 50Southwestern Historical QuarterlyOctober Also insufficiently studied are Texas regions and the MexicanAmerican presence therein. Much attention has been extended to South Texas, true enough, but this has been at the expense of the northern, eastern, and western sections of the state. As a partial effort to correct this imbalance, this study looks at the Mexican-American population in thirty-nine counties in a section of the state that is among the least researched—namely, the Edwards Plateau and the Trans-Pecos. Specifically, this essay seeks to determine the historical forces that have lured Mexican-origin folks into this region, discern the cycles of population growth there, trace the demographic patterns of Mexican-American dispersal, and hopefully, prompt further scholarly study of Téjanos in that part of the state generally neglected in the literature (see map, p. 151, and Table i,p. 152).2 The area under study stretches along the 32nd parallel on the north and eastward toward the Hill Country counties of San Saba and Kendall, Quarterly each October; Bruce A. Glasrud and Arnoldo De León, Bibliophiling Tejano Scholarship: Secondary Sounes on Hispanic Texans (Alpine: SuI Ross State University Center for Big Bend Studies, 2003). The only available overview of Téjanos is Arnoldo...