Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
Spring 1983
Citation
Great Plains Quarterly Vol. 3, No. 2, Spring 1983, pp. 124-25.
Abstract
Persons of Spanish-Indian or Mexican descent who were incorporated into the United States in the nineteenth century belonged to one of three major subcultures: the Californio, the manito (Hispanos of New Mexico and Colorado), or the Tejano. Leonard Pitt has written a comprehensive social history of the Californio (1966), and now Arnoldo De Leon gives us a counterpart volume on the Tejano. De Leon's purpose is to capture the essence of the "ordinary" Tejano in Central, South, and West Texas between Texas Independence (1836) and the turn of the century, and he develops the theme that in the nineteenth century the Tejano's culture was basically preserved while at the same time the Tejanos had to accommodate themselves to Anglos (pp. xii-xiii).
In his Hrst chapter De Leon gives an overview of Tejanos in the last century. The next eight chapters concern politics; rural workers; urban workers; housing, diet, and family structure; religion; folklore; entertainment; and education, community organizations, and Spanish- language newspapers. The Hnal chapter is a short epil~gue. The diverse information presented is drawn from primary sources including city directories, newspapers, and a sampling of the federal census schedules for Bexar County (San Antonio), the lower Rio Grande Valley, and El Paso County. An impressive number of secondary sources are also cited.
Comments
Copyright 1983 by the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln