Posted on 09/06/2012 5:29:19 AM PDT by NYer
How lovely.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – The young Texas mayor whose keynote speech wowed the Democratic National Convention crowd Wednesday night draws political inspiration from his mother – who is a member of a radical civil rights movement and who reportedly thinks the truth behind the Battle of the Alamo is that Texans swiped Mexico’s land.
Maria del Rosario Castro, the mother of San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, said in 2010 that she grew up being told the battle was “glorious,” only to learn the so-called heroes were really “a bunch of drunks and crooks and slaveholding imperialists who conquered land that didn’t belong to them.”
“But as a little girl I got the message — we were losers,” she told New York Times Magazine. “I can truly say that I hate that place and everything it stands for.”
The Alamo, then a sprawling mission for missionaries and American Indian converts, was attacked in February 1836 by Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Though historical accounts vary, Texans, including famous frontiersman Davy Crockett, fought back for 13 days only to surrender, on March 6.
Maria del Rosario Castro also was a member of the La Raza Unida, a radical movement that defended the civil rights of Mexican-Americans in Texas.
I guess she would rather her sons be, at best, crooked Mexican politicians. If Mexico had kept Texas her people would have just migrated farther north.
Actually, not a bad description of a good many of the men who fought there. It was well known at the time that quite a few of the Texas settlers had chosen to leave the US because of legal problems, family issues, debts, etc. As had many of the Americans who came, mostly from the South, to fight for Texas.
Just like most men who choose to leave a settled community and strike out into the beyond. Most do so because things, for one reason or another, aren't comfortable for them where they are.
They were, as a group, most certainly slaveholders, or at least aspired to be. Mexican attempts to end slavery was one of the major irritants in the relationship between the settlers and the government.
Imperialists, certainly, depending on how you define the term. Most of those who were settlers took up land without any intention of honoring the terms for doing so: allegiance to Mexico and converting the Catholicism. The Americans, like Davy Crockett, who came to fight with them did so with the intention of taking the land from Mexico.
"Land that didn't belong to them." Someone is going to have make a moral case why the land belonged to Mexico, which had only been around for 25 years and never had effective control of the area. The Mexican case is based on stealing it from the Spanish King, who stole it from the Indians. All perfectly legitimate, but Texans stealing it from Mexico somehow is unfair.
The silliest part of her argument is that they weren't heroes. As if other heroes down through history were shining exemplars of every virtue. Heroes are just men, and as a rule show the failings of their age. The Spartans who died at Thermopylae were probably not very nice guys, as Sparta was not a very nice place, but they were no less heroic.
Her version also ignores the facts of Santa Ana's rise to power and atrocities against other sections of Mexico that resisted his dictatorship.
IOW, it's a much more complex and interesting story than either: Americans good, Mexicans bad OR Mexicans good, Americans bad.
At least six of the men who died defending the Alamo were native hispano Tejanos.
Stupidity and ignorance are always a bad mix!!!
Home is where the heart is.
you know; white people.
I’ve never been so proud that great-great grandpappy was one of the Texicans who hauled Stana Anna’s sorry behind to General Houston. San Antonio used to be a nice little city but with freaks like these running the place, it’s no wonder that the police admit they have no control over the gangs.
Thanks for that considered response.
When anyone wants to assert the legitimacy of Mexican rule over Texas, and Santa Ana’s dictatorship, I refer them to the bloody genocide waged at the same time in the Yucatan, the Caste Wars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_War_of_Yucat%C3%A1n
Perhaps Ms Castro does not include the Maya in her “Raza”?
These Castro guys need to be buried, before they become the Hispanic Obama. People were too nice with Obama when he first gained prominence, and then he got too popular to stop. We cannot make that same mistake again. As Barney Fife said, “You gotta nip it in the bud.”
“The Alamo, then a sprawling mission for missionaries and American Indian converts, was attacked in February 1836 by Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Though historical accounts vary, Texans, including famous frontiersman Davy Crockett, fought back for 13 days only to surrender, on March 6.”
WRONG!!! The Americans at the Alamo never surrendered! They were finally overrun by Santa Ana’s 5,000 strong army and no quarter was given. The Mexicans played “Daguello” meaning `cut-throat’, after the Texans refused to surrender without a fight. A few civilians were the only survivors.
As for Mamacita Castro, her view of Texas & the Alamo is not that uncommon among the Chicano community.
FUMC
I wonder how the high school and college history books in San Antonio describe the Spanish-American War and formation of Texas ???
“...settlers had chosen to leave the US because of legal problems, family issues, debts, etc. ..”
Certainly all of that is true to a point, but many went west for he simple reason of seeking a new life, new opportunities and the adventure of settling in a new location of their choice.
I am sure she will demand Mexico, stolen by Hernán Cortés, be given back to the Aztecs.
“WRONG!!! The Americans at the Alamo never surrendered!”
Thank you! You save me the trouble of pointing out that egregious and offensive error by the reporter.
“I can truly say that I hate that place and everything it stands for.”
Never mind that the flag flying over the Alamo was a Mexican tricolor with the number ‘1824’ on it, because the defenders wanted a return to the Mexican constitution of 1824 and the end of military dictatorship.
Never mind that a number of the defenders were Latins, or that Santa Anna had to suppress mestizos all over Mexico who were trying to throw off his dictatorship.
Ugly, stupid, ignorant bigot. Stump broke even for DEAD dictators. Peon.
Now we know to whom Gorda Maria pledges allegiance.
The Aztlan clowns crack me up, always doing their histrionics in Spanish instead of Nahuatl.
I've always said, how long are people going to cry about past history? Colonialism originates from time immemorial. It's all but dead now, excluding small efforts by various dictators in Africa, Asia, South America.
Being of Scottish heritage, maybe I should put in my request for reparations to England before the Irish do. I'd like to beat the rush. Maybe I should make the same request to Italy (home of the Roman Empire) because of their colonization of Briton. Maybe I can go further back and whine for mo' money.
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