Posted on 05/13/2010 6:39:52 AM PDT by laotzu
SAN ANTONIO -- San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro was recently profiled in the New York Times, which referenced him as the next national Hispanic leader and perhaps president.
"It's been a very promising response," said Castro. "It's a very flattering article."
But comments he didn't make could draw some strong opinions. His mother, Rosie Castro, had strong words when asked about her memories of the Alamo, a symbol of Texas independence.
"They used to take us there when we were school children," Perez told the Times. "They told us how glorious that battle was. 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. But as a little girl I got the message (that) we were losers. I can truly say that I hate that place and everything it stands for."
"I'm sure that a lot of people disagree with it," said Castro, when asked about his mother's comments. "I ... have a different perspective from what she does. I think that the struggles that the state of Texas went through at the Alamo and other places were necessary for the great state that we have today and all of us should be proud of it."
Today, tourists and locals walking around Alamo Plaza reacted to the comments.
"If what she did for further research proved to have validity, then I guess I'd side with her," said Parris Wedel, a tourist from Florida.
"I think it's a huge disgrace to people that live in San Antonio because it's part of their heritage, it's where they grew up," said Naomi Guerrero, who said she looked forward to her visit to the Alamo when she took Texas History in the 7th grade.
Castro said the attempt in the article was to show a generational difference.
"My mother's generation and generations before went through a particular experience that was painful at times," said Castro.
"I wouldn't want my mom making a comment like that, knowing that she would be disgracing me if I was the mayor," said Guerrero.
Rosie Castro was not available for an extended interview on Wednesday but said during the time period in which she was brought up, there was no real objective view of what happened.
Castro said said it's a non-issue to him and something he's addressed a long time ago.
How great there are no drunks and crooks in Mexico-not to mention that no one from the Aztecs to the Spanish ever conquered any one or took anyone’s land.
Tell this moron’s mother to take her fat, mustachioed a$$ back to her south of the border paradise. It’ll be tough getting along without her, but we’ll do our best.....
No. Probably should..
There were actually quite a few Spanish colonists in Texas before 1836. The El Paso area began to grow in the late seventeenth century, particularly after Spaniards and Christian Indians fled New Mexico after the Pueblo Revolt broke out in 1680. Several beautiful old missions and houses of worship can be found along El Paso’s Mission Trail.
San Antonio de Bexar was founded in 1718, and the construction of Mission San Antonio de Valero, aka the Alamo, began six years later. San Antonio also has a Mission Trail featuring several eighteenth-century missions.
Mission San Antonio de Valero was closed in 1794.
Well, it all comes down to what “quite a few” means. In 1835 it is generally thought that the population of Texas was about 35K. That was after relatively large immigration from the US. The total was consideraly less before 1800. While El Paso was settled relatively early, it would be hard to call the population large, unless you were comparing it to other settlements at the time.
On a visit to Texas in 2000, I stopped at Washington-on-the-Brazos to visit Independence Hall. Not much there today, but the site and the nearby museum makes it a worthwhile visit for anyone interested in Texas history.
Very interesting!!Thanks
I saw a story about this on the History channel.There’re
just too many people in this country who react only to
stimulus and not education or logic. Thanks for the info.
Actually, the main “cotton growing area” in early Texas was the Brazos River Valley from Waco South to the Gulf. East Texas was not particularly suited for Cotton farming. It is red clay hills or sandy loam with Pine forests. The Brazos River Valley is Blackland “Bottomland” and makes for great cotton farming. You don’t need 50” of rain to farm cotton.
Heavy rains at the wrong time can wipe out the crop.
I live east of Houston in Chambers County. We get 50” average annual rainfall and were never a huge Cotton producing area. A little further to the east is Beaumont which averages over 60” of rain and can easily get 70”+ in a “wet” year. That area was never a major cotton producer either. (But its great country for rice farming.)
Rosie the vieja is just plain ole stupid an angry an will die that way......
“This precisely the effing drivel espoused by the white hating bigoted south bashing race baiters that are allowed to flourish on this very forum:
When I grew up, I learned that the ‘heroes’ of the Alamo were a bunch of drunks and crooks and slaveholding imperialists”
Pretty accurate statement if you ask me.
I wasn’t trying to draw precise lines for agricultural purposes. For example, Katy used to be rice fields. My point was that rainfall patterns change dramatically as you move through Houston, and you don’t have to go far west of Houston before not a lot grows easily without irrigation (actually a lot of cotton is grown in arid parts of Texas today because of irrigation). In any event, most of Texas has a fairly harsh climate, certainly compared to central Mexico, which, when you add in Apaches, Commanches, and Karankawas, accounts in large part for the relative lack of enthusiasm by Spaniards/Mexicans for settlement north of the Rio Grande in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries.
Careful with that one...I buy a lot of beer also.
Every time the Mexicans and the Spanish before them tried to settle in any numbers in Texas the Apaches and especially
the Comanches would wipe them out.
In Texas it wasn’t the Army vs. the Indians, It was the Anglo/Scots-Irish settlers from Ky., Tenn. and the deep South vs. the Indians. They were the only group that could handle ‘em. And even then, it wasn’t easy. The Comanches were probably the meanest, toughest tribe of Indians in the New World. They ran the Apaches all the way to Arizona.
Texas was not the only state in Mexico to revolt, after Santa Anna’s coup. It was just the only state that won.
Mexico would have been far better off if the other rebelling states had won as well. And better still had Santa Anna’s junta been driven from power and the Mexican Constitution restored.
Seems they also stopped the conquistadores as well.
“The Comanches were probably the meanest, toughest tribe of Indians in the New World. They ran the Apaches all the way to Arizona.”
Seems they also stopped the conquistadores as well.
Yep. That they did.
“The Comanches were probably the meanest, toughest tribe of Indians in the New World. They ran the Apaches all the way to Arizona.”
Seems they also stopped the conquistadores as well.
Yep. That they did.
Re my post 130 to you.
I re-read my post to you. What I meant to say was that your statement was accurrate, not hers!
Some of us refer to the Commanches as the “Plains Nazis”. A very nasty group. Other Indian tribes probably had worse things to say about them. It was an utterly sadistic group.
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