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171 A b o i s t e r o u s c r o w d paraded through the streets of San Antonio to the city’s Alamo Plaza on the morning of 2 March 1859. Led by a band of musicians and members of the Alamo Rifles volunteer militia , the entourage included about twenty persons with badges identifying them as the “veterans of ’36,” military officers, the San Antonio Fire Association, the mayor and other local officials, teachers and school children, and the general populace, all gathered to celebrate the twenty-third anniversary of Texas independence. Prominent on the speaker’s platform erected for the occasion were two San Antonio Tejanos: José Antonio Navarro, one of three Mexican-descent signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence, and Antonio Menchaca, a veteran of the Texas Revolution renowned for his valor at the decisive battle of San Jacinto. According to the local newspaper report of this event, the speaker for the occasion, I. L. Hewitt, “was repeatedly applauded in a very enthusiastic manner, and especially in his allusions to the two venerable patriots on the platform, Col. Navarro and Capt. Manchaca [sic].”1 Hewitt extolled Navarro as a signer of the Declaration of Independence , a participant in the ill-fated 1841 Texan Santa Fe expedition, and subsequently a prisoner in Mexico who refused President Antonio López de Santa Anna’s offer of clemency if he would renounce his loyalty to Texas. Then the orator went on to exalt “Capt. Antonio Manchaca [sic], he who today bears the Lone Star flag,—Mexican born—’Twas he who fought shoulder to shoulder with the Texans at the battle of San Jacinto—True and faithful to our country then, may he long live to enjoy the fruition of his patriotism.” Yet amazingly, in this same speech, with both Menchaca and Navarro seated behind him on the dais, Hewitt claimed Texas’ winning of independence from Mexico demonstrated that “no enemy however countless in their numbers can force the bold Anglo Saxon to yield to a tyrant’s decrees—independent in thought and action, his political freedom he claims as his birthright.” This seeming contradiction reflected a common contention in ceremonial rhetoric around the Alamo and celebrations of Texas independence: the act of joining those who fought for independence created a free Texas JOSÉ ANTONIO MENCHACA narrating a tejano life Timothy Matovina 1 7 2 · t i m o t h y m at o v i n a and transformed people from various nations and backgrounds into true Texans and true Americans. Depictions of Menchaca that focus primarily on his military exploits and his “American” loyalties continued beyond his own lifetime . In the introduction to the partial publication of Menchaca’s memoirs, his longtime acquaintance James Newcomb avowed that the Tejano’s “sympathies carried him into the ranks of the Americans .” He even went so far as to describe Menchaca’s physical characteristics as bearing “the marks of a long line of Castilian ancestors,” rhetorically severing Menchaca from both his Tejano loyalties and his Mexican heritage. Similarly, the obituary of Menchaca published in the San Antonio Express avowed that he was “born a Mexican” but that “when the Texas war for independence came on, Don Antonio was found upon the side of our people, a contestant for that liberty and those privileges of citizenship which are bequeathed to the American.” Claims such as these reveal a larger pattern regarding some Tejanos and others deemed loyal to the Texas or U.S. causes. James Crisp has noted similar rhetorical commentaries regarding nineteenth-century Tejanos like José Antonio Navarro, whose patriotism led Anglo-Americans to claim he was “not of the abject race of Mexicans” but rather “a Corsican [European] of good birth.” In more contemporary times, Edward Linenthal shows that public ceremonies at the Alamo continue to mediate a message of “patriotic conversion” whereby through courage in battle those of diverse backgrounds leave behind their ancestral heritage to become Texans and Americans.2 Though Menchaca’s memoir itself encompasses a section on the Texas Revolution that is disproportionate in length to other subjects treated, the focus on his status as a veteran of that revolution was further amplified in Frederick Chabot’s 1937 publication of a portion of the memoir, which ends the narrative at the battle of San Jacinto because apparently Chabot had less than half the memoir at his disposal . A critical edition of the memoir has yet...

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