“When I grew up, I learned that the ‘heroes’ of the Alamo were a bunch of drunks and crooks and slaveholding imperialists who conquered land that didn’t belong to them.”
That is a really horrible thing to say about the Tejanos that defended the Alamo. About 10% of the garrison were local Spanish-speakers from San Antontio. Juan Seguin was one of the officers in the garrison. They were defending Texas from invaders from the south.
Sounds like this lady is a racist that hates Hispanics. Probably hates herself and is projecting that hatred on her ancestors.
Technically speaking, this is not entirely inaccurate.
If you read the actual history of the early TX settlers, a startling percentage of them were "on the lam" from the States for one reason or another, often leaving a family behind and starting a new one in TX. Notably this included Sam Houston.
They were certainly heavy drinkers as a group, again notably including SH.
Just about all of them were slaveowners or aspired to be, despite the fact slavery had been abolished in Mexico.
None of this should take away from the fact that they fought for freedom and willingly gave their lives in its defense.