The South and the Alamo

The naming controversy over the soccer team in Houston should answer your question. Perhaps red state anglos should welcome the reconquista. Given citizenship, being part of Mexico may not be so bad. At least they have an immigration policy, not to mention a sane foreign policy.

"...the Alamo myth is still tainted by the fact that a driving force for Texas independence was perpetuating the institution of slavery." This is a good point, but if we're talking about it "mythically"---as in, how it affects the culture---it doesn't matter if most people ignore that part.
God bless.

the point is that within living memory Southern white people generally had a real knowledge of and emotional relationship to the gods of the Old South. And now they don't. What larger forces transforming Southern society caused that to happen? I've comboxed on this before. It is today's mass immigration that is dissolving "the Old South"--and that is probably the best thing coming out of a bad situation. But it is inevitable. Take New England. It is now 50% Catholic, albeit nominally, the most heavily "Catholic" part of the U.S. Consider this list of prominent New England politicians of the past 40 odd years: Muskie, Dukakis, Cianci, Sununu, Kennedy, Shaheen, Lieberman, Leahy, O'Neill, Weicker, Grasso, Volpe, Cohen... Puritan, Protestant New England is gone forever, swamped by demographic change. In the South - it's already happened to Florida, Virginia north of the Rappahanock, etc. The South as "the South" survived so long because it was untouched by the vast wave of immigration in 1840-1920. As of 1910, there were more foreign-born residents of Indiana or Iowa alone than in the entire ex-CSA outside Texas. Most of the US was at least 25% foreign-born or children of foreign born at that time. The South, except for a few isolated bits (e.g. New Orleans and the Rio Grande valley), was less than 5%. But the current waves of migration and immigration are not sparing the South. Towns in Georgia are sprouting Mexican neighborhoods. Gujaratis run most of the motels in Mississippi. In another hundred, nay, fifty years, the CSA/"Old South" will mean no more to the average resident of "the South" than the Congregational Church means to the typical resident of New England today. There may be a longer persistence of the idea of "the Old South" simply because so much has been written (and sung and acted) about it. That too will become archaic, and meaningless, but I don't know how fast. But not much past our lifetimes.

I'm reminded of something that a colleague of mine once told me. When he was in graduate school, he was in class where they read the Iliad. There was a student in the class who had grown up in Turkey, and she said that when the Iliad is taught in schools in Turkey (which is astonishing in itself), Hector is treated as the hero, defending the Turkish homeland from a Greek invasion. ;-)

I'm reading Orhan Pamuk's memoir of growing up in Istanbul. He talks about how either his wife, or the wife of a friend (can't remember), was in graduate school in NYC, and wrote a paper talking about the "conquest" of Constantinople in 1453. Her professor upbraided her for using "nationalist" rhetoric. But she was doing no such thing, at least not consciously: she had been taught to call it a "conquest;" to Westerners, it is a "fall."

I think there's a difference in the examples, as well. Not exactly sure in what way, but I just don't think all that many southerners are interested in holding on to a grudge over "the war between the states" anymore.
Americans v. Americans does not play out nearly as well as the Us v. Them at the Alamo.

I wish you would write that essay, Rawlins. People like me are a threat to your Texas culture. I'm not hostile to it at all; I'm just benignly indifferent. I mean, I like it, but I can't love it like you can (or like my wife, a native, can).

By all means write it, Rawlins! I'm a 6th-generation Texan, with my Sons of the Republic of Texas certificate on the top of the bookcase behind me, and I couldn't agree more.

Those who came here treated us who grew up here like the natives were treated by the Mormon missionaries in Hawaii. Hey, I call foul. We Mormons came as missionaries to the Pacific islands after the great evangelical waves of the mid- to late-19th century; we encountered natives in the early 1900s that already had Protestant Bibles translated into their languages, and who had already been pushed around by Victorians concerned about the fate of these noble savages. A lot of the success that Mormon missionaries had in Hawaii, New Zealand, Tonga and elsewhere was an accident of the fact that other Christian missionaries had preceded us, and made the sort of antagonizing mistakes which Rawlins mentions. Completely besides the point of the post, I know, but still.

This was a fun thread. I regret that I missed it yesterday. As many of you know, I was born and raised in the north but spent some of my adult life in the south. 5 years in Atlanta and 2 years in Plano. I agree that northern immigration to the south changed the metropolitan areas & the surrounding suburbs. I lived in a suburb of Atlanta. The neighborhood was a mix of natives and transplants. We all seemed to get along. One time, however, we were outside talking with a native couple in their early 70's. A car drove by with a license plate from the NE. The neighbors forgot who they were standing beside and said, "Go home Yankee!" We would go to Stone Mountain Park now & then to watch the light display against the rock. It's hard for northerners to understand all of the Dixie stuff. My husband would say, "They need to get over it!" To the southerners it was a display of southern pride. To northerners it was a display of divisiveness. It would be interesting to compare Civil War history as taught in southern schools vs northern schools. I was taught that the south was clearly in the wrong, & it's a good thing for our country that the north won. Plano, Tx was a different story. I met very few native Texans. My neighborhood was all transplants. My son attended a preschool at the Jewish Community Center. Native Texan Jews didn't seem any different than the Jews I met in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I don't even recall hearing much of an accent.
I remember when we first arrived in Plano, we asked a friend where we could find some good Texan barbecue. We never did find any good Texan barbecue. I can only recall eating at food chains. Some of them were pretty fancy chains, but they were still chains. My family really likes ethnic foods of all kinds. We would have liked to have found a small place that served good barbecue and beans. History is always taught with a bias. It's possible that areas that have a mix of native population & transplant might offer a perspective that's closer to the truth.

This is an immensely thoughtful and interesting post, Rod. It kills me to imagine kids growing up in Massachusetts who don't feel a connection to the Revolution and the Founding. The myth is important not just because we need myths and heroes, but because the protagonists worked to create enduring, good institutions.

Well, Rawlins, I guess it all depends on whether you think that the restaurants existed for the purpose of being living museums of ethnic cuisines, or for serving customers and making money. It's too bad that the new arrivals couldn't appreciate the "authentic" qualities of the indigenous food; but if the restaurants didn't cater to their customers they'd be out of business anyway, so how would that have been any better? If the "natives" are really upset that the restaurants have watered down the cuisine to accommodate the tastes of the "newcomers", then perhaps the "natives" need to band together to start a restaurant that serves only "authentic" cuisine -- and be sure to patronize it enough to ensure its survival. Of course I speak as someone from Ohio who moved to Texas three years ago, and who considers regards ordinary black pepper with great suspicion as an exotic spice. I still consider myself a Midwestener living abroad. ;-)

I grew up in Dallas. My maternal grandfather was born in Groesbeck then raised in Anna. hes parents arrived in the 1880s from Missouri. My father arrived from the New York after WW2 when he attended Med school in Galveston. I don't ever think he had a New Yawk accent. Unfortunately Dallas (if you can believe it) was in my opinion cosmopolitan. Too many folks from outside Texas who overwhelmed the Texas accent. I've had folks tell me I don't sound Texan, to which I respond with my best attempt "wall thas becuz my pairents spent their money sending me to good schools so I wouldn't sound like one" True to a point because I attended a small boys school run by Hungarian monks. and to this day I can still sound like a Hungarian! good thread

Rod, I read your column in the DMN today (Sun. 6/03). One thought I had was that, if Santa Ana is the hero of the Alamo story, then what does our young friend make of Juan Seguin and all the Tejanos who fought for Texas independence? Besides, how can Santa Ana be a hero to Mexicans? He was the one who *lost* Texas, despite his victory at the Alamo. And, from everything I've read, in Mexico he is regarded as one of the great villains of Mexican history. Only in *this* country could someone of Mexican heritage argue with a straight face that Santa Ana is a hero.

My family is from Atlanta and I remember it before the fancy buildings were built and everyone from the North (and Nigeria) started inundating the place. Atlantans have been pretty tolerant about it and only started grumbling five years ago.
A Tennesean friend moved to Atlanta after a few years in Arizona and her relief in being back in Dixie evaporated when she couldn't find decent cornbread (it has sugar in it!!)or ice tea anywhere. I know all that movement is good for Atlanta's economy, but frankly I miss the earlier simplicity along with biscuits and buttermilk in aluminum glasses or jelly jars.