The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 106, July 2002 - April, 2003 Page: 356
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
assumptions. In Alonzo's considered view, for instance, amicable rela-
tions between Anglos and Mexicans were common; Anglos did not suc-
ceed in the rapid dispossession of Tejano lands, rather, land loss only
occurred during the 188os, and for reasons other than Anglo fraud;
Tejanos experienced oppression, but to a lesser degree than previously
thought; and racism was not as brazen as earlier depicted, instead it was
complex and at times even subdued."
Scholars trained in the late 198os and the 199os, both in Texas uni-
versities and others outside the state, gradually became part of this corps
of younger authors revising old truths, or more generally, plowing fresh
ground that complemented earlier knowledge. This "second genera-
tion" investigated aspects of Tejano history that more senior historians
had either interpreted from the Chicano perspectives that now seemed
outdated, or had slighted, or had never considered at all. Younger histo-
rians, on the one hand, knew the Chicano movement from faint recol-
lections of childhood and from recommended readings in university
classes, while their Anglo American counterparts who entered the field
had grown up in an era of greater racial cooperation and understand-
ing. Therefore, questions of race, resistance to oppression, and of ethnic
celebration no longer held the earlier priority. Other matters attracted
those of more recent vintage. Tejano identity, for instance, emerged as
an issue to interrogate across sovereignties, specifically Spain, Mexico,
and the United States. Recent works on the subject of nationalism por-
tray ethnic identity among Tejanos from the colonization era to the pre-
sent as much more complex than earlier described, seemingly ever in
flux and often questioning itself.24
The direction that Tejano history took from its inception marked a
willingness among scholars to borrow from a pool of available historio-
graphical approaches, some of them established and time-tested, others
reflective of strategies then in vogue, and still others original and multi-
faceted in nature. Certainly much cross-fertilization occurred in the use
of perspectives from the "new social history." The works published dur-
ing the 1970s and 198os in the field of U.S. "ethnic history," and partic-
ularly black history, proved especially instructive. Studies of African
American life on plantations and in urban areas focused on such things
2" Alonzo, TejanoEmpare, 9, 11, 128-135, 131, 280, 282, 283, 161-181, 259-270.
2" Rail Alberto Ramos, "From Nortefio to Tejano: The Roots of Borderlands Ethnicity,
Nationalism, and Political Identity in Bexar, 1811-1861" (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1999),
15-16; Omar Santiago Valerio-Jimenez, "Indios Birbaros, Divorcees, and Flocks of Vampires:
Identity and Nation on the Rio Grande, 1749-1894" (Ph.D. diss., University of California at Los
Angeles, 2001), 9, 461-465. Elliott G. Young, "Twilight on the Texas-Mexican Border: Catarino
Garza and Identity at the Crossroads, 188o-1915" (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas at Austin,
1997), sees identity m South Texas during the late nineteenth century as forged by cultural and
economic links existing between Mexico and Texas.356
January
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 106, July 2002 - April, 2003, periodical, 2003; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101223/m1/424/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.