Here is the volume's introduction:
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Texas
has a special place in history and in the minds of people throughout the world.
Texas also has the distinction of having been a province of colonial Spain, a
state in the Republic of Mexico, and an independent country before it became a
part of the United States. Once the war between Mexico and the United States
ended and Texas joined the American union, its history followed a distinct
course of socio-economic incorporation, modernization, and identification with
the American South and Southwest. Tejanos, descendants of the indigenous and
colonial inhabitants of Texas, have been an integral part of Texas history as
this eBook amply demonstrates.
No
one would have imagined in 1952, the year that the Handbook of Texas was first published, that the Texas State
Historical Association would expand its major reference source on the history
of Texas with new entries on Tejanos. Nor would the founders of the Handbook have anticipated the
extraordinary and relatively recent growth of Tejano history with notable and
even award-winning works that contribute to the stature of the field and
explain the growing number of entries that grace the pages of the Handbook. We would be remiss if we did
not also credit the enlightened and path breaking spirit among the
community-oriented, critically conscious, social justice Mexican American
luminaries emerging in the late 1960s. This has given impetus and inspiration
to what has become an enduring commitment to historical recovery and
restoration projects of which the Handbook
of Tejano History and this eBook are now
a significant part. They meet up with the legacy agenda to extend voice,
presence, and power for underrepresented, misrepresented and disjointed parts
of our diverse communities’ histories and stories both within and outside the
academy.
The
Association recognized Tejano history as an emergent and promising field of
study worthy of attention during the development of the six-volume New Handbook of Texas, which lasted from
1982 to 1996. In 1988 TSHA leadership secured funding from the Texas Committee
for the Humanities to hire several staff researchers, including Cynthia Orozco,
Teresa Palomo Acosta, María-Cristina García, and others. From 1988 to 1996,
these writers worked with a number of advisory editors, including Arnoldo de
León, Jesús F. de la Teja, Robert S. Weddle, Donald E. Chipman, and Paul D.
Lack, to expand the Handbook’s content on Mexican American history. In
doing so, the Handbook improved its
claim of representativeness as it grew into the largest and most accessed
encyclopedia on Texas history.
The
Tejano Handbook Project, the Association’s more recent and concerted effort to
add to the Mexican American presence in the Handbook,
began in 2014 when Drs. Emilio Zamora and Andrés Tijerina proposed the idea and
secured the necessary financial support from the Tejano Monument, Inc. and the
sponsorship of the Association. The Tejano Handbook Project held two workshops,
one at the Association’s 2014 annual meeting in San Antonio, and another in
June 2014 at the Texas General Land Office in Austin, to encourage new
submissions and to ensure that the contributions abide by a well-defined
process of writing and production, and meet the highest standards of excellence
for an encyclopedia entry. The process involved solicitations for entries,
followed by submissions that Zamora and Tijerina, the co-directors of the
project, reviewed and subsequently referred to the Handbook’s editorial
staff for fact checking, copy editing, and online posting. Mike Campbell, the
Association’s Chief Historian, made the final decision on the entries.
By
all accounts, the Tejano Handbook Project has been a resounding success.
Prominent authors and new researchers, as well as faculty who assigned topics
to their undergraduate and graduate students, responded with high-quality
entries on historical figures, events, and themes. The overwhelming response
made it necessary to extend the project into a second year, to the point that
contributors have now exceeded by a hundred percent the original goal of 100
new entries to more than 200.
We
can also measure the success of the Tejano Handbook Project by noting the
significance of the new entries to both Tejano and Texas history. Emma
Tenayuca, a major labor organizer from San Antonio, for instance, reminds us
that we cannot speak about Texas history without acknowledging the important
Tejano contributions to intellectual, working class, women’s, and labor rights
history. Nor can we deny the extraordinary record of military service and
battlefield sacrifice by servicemen like José de la Luz Sáenz in World War I
and Frank Tejeda in Vietnam. Moreover, new entries on Spanish Texas, elected
officials, community leaders, ethnic conflict, education, and influential
organizations reflect the vitality and continued development of Tejano history.
The article on the Tejano Monument is especially emblematic of the importance
of Tejanos in Texas history. The statuary, located prominently on the south
lawn of the Texas Capitol, commemorates their history as a charter community in
Texas and serves as a landmark statement on the lasting and indelible influence
of embodied memory in the Tejano community. Taken as a whole, the new entries
re-figure the constitution of the Handbook
of Texas and in so doing, extend the value and fair use of Texas history in
our times.
The
attention given to the Tejano Monument is also appropriate because its board
had the foresight to advance historical knowledge by funding the current effort
to increase the presence of Tejanos in the Handbook
of Texas and other initiatives like the Tejano History Curriculum Project,
an Austin enterprise that is broadening the social studies curriculum in our
public schools. In both cases, Tejanos are demonstrating that despite historic
difficulties, they can find comfort in the recurring observation heard at the
2012 unveiling of the Tejano Monument, “We are still here.”
The
Association, with the approval of its board of directors, decided to mark the
achievement of the Tejano Handbook Project by sharing a representative sample
of the new entries generated by the project along with some previously
published articles as a tribute to Tejano history, but also as a demonstration
of our commitment to its development and use by researchers, teachers, students
and the general public.
As
co-editors of this eBook, Tejanos Through
Time: Selections from the Handbook of Tejano History, we especially wish to
thank our contributing authors, the staff and board of directors of the TSHA,
and the many persons who have labored long and hard to make Tejano history the
important field of study and lived experience that it is. It has been an honor
and a privilege for us to play a role in the enriching of our collective,
narrative past and in continuing to expand the scope of the Texas State
Historical Association and the Handbook
of Texas.
Emilio Zamora
C0-Editor
Professor, Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
C0-Editor
Professor, Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
Andrés Tijerina
Co-Editor
Professor, Department of History
Austin Community College
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