In Texas: remembering the Alamo differently

Christian Science Monitor ^ | May 13, 2002 | Kris Axtman

[TADSLOS]

Ron Howard may very well get run out of Texas.

[Aggie Mama]

Native Texan bump. This makes me hang my head in shame. Although one thing strikes me as interesting....the school they mentioned was in north Houston, but was still considered HISD. My guess is that it's in the city limits. A good portion of people in Houston live in the suburbs and are not a part of HISD. Everyone around here knows that HISD schools are terrible.

[VinnyTex]

two cultures were simply too different, read: that the Anglo Celtic cultures were superior and the Hispanic Mexican cultures were inferior,"

Well how else do you explain why one of the richest countries in the world natural resource wise is still a 3rd world hell hole today.

[RightWhale]

Santa Anna

Spent the Federal budget into oblivion, lost the war for no good reason, and moved to Long Island to invent chewing gum, his greatest accomplishment.

[Mr. Jeeves]

He was embarrassed by the depiction of Mexico, his homeland, as a tyrannical country peopled with banditos.

Sounds like he needs a reality check, not the curriculum. Nothing much has changed in 150 years.

[Blue Screen of Death]

Santa Anna

I thought he was a cross dressing Christmas elf.

[NovemberCharlie]

Just how many times was Santa Anna president/dictator of Mexico, anyway?

[deport]

You may enjoy the read...

[deport]

Just how many times was Santa Anna president/dictator of Mexico, anyway?

Eleven......

Yet Santa Anna was Mexico's version of the unsinkable Molly Brown. Surviving defeats, disgrace and well-founded accusations of corruption, he served as president of Mexico eleven times and lived to die in bed at the age of 82. .....

[Charles Martel]

I thought he was a cross dressing Christmas elf.

Heh. Reminds me a great "Far Side" Christmas card I saw a few years ago. It read something like: "Due to huge cosmic mixup, the children received a visit from Santa Anna...". On the front of the card, the Generalissimo is pictured swooping down out of the chimney - sabre in hand - towards the terrified kids.

That one really tickled me... I must've laughed for a half-hour. Wish I could find a copy of the image online, but most of the "Far Side" sites have honored Gary Larson's request to remove his work.

[al_c]

Nothing much has changed in 150 years.

Nope ... not much has changed. But the more we learn about Texas/Mexico history, the more we learn that what we were taught was only half of it. Our "history" books were so full of crap ... maybe they need some of these changes (but without the P.C. garbage).

[w_over_w]

Wait till these schoolers visit the Bob Bullock Texas History Museum . . . total loyalty to the history of my Republic.

"I pledge allegiance to thee Texas, one and indivisable"

[vollmond]

7th graders.
The kids begin: Sad faces appear next to the colonists after the Stamp Act; angry faces appear next to the king after the Boston Tea Party

It brightens my heart to see the continued challenges our 7th graders face in school. A happy face would perfectly describe how I feel.

[skeeter]

He'd also like to see another, smaller monument placed next to the towering column in honor of the Mexican soldiers who died fighting for what they believed in.

Mr Fernandez obviously doesn't know much about the performance of Santa Anna's men in this fight. If he did he would be seeking to convince everyone that it was the Swedes who opposed Houston at San Jacinto.

I wonder how Mr Fernandez would feel about including the true story of Goliad, which happened concurrent with the Alamo, in the curriculum.

[Billthedrill]

Wait, this must be good news! Now in the Texas schoolbooks we'll have Vietnam seen as the response of the American allies to clear North Vietnamese aggression, right? Right? Uh...why did it get quiet all of a sudden?...

[ladtx]

Wait, this must be good news! Now in the Texas schoolbooks we'll have Vietnam seen as the response of the American allies to clear North Vietnamese aggression, right? Right? Uh...why did it get quiet all of a sudden?...

I don't get your point.

[chilepepper]

I think it is very healthy to see both sides - one should never shirk reality, in all its brutishmess.

HOWEVER, this is all a cute trick to frame the question to suit an agenda.

Why stop with a comparison of Mexico and Texas? Why not ALSO consider the feelings of the Aztecs when the brutish Spanish conquered them?

Or the feelings of the Indians of central Mexico when the brutish Aztecs conquered them?

Or the feelings of the saber tooth tigers when the brutish Indians of central Mexico exterminated them?

[chilepepper]

Just for the record, Santa Ana died of that ripe old age in New York City. No country bumpkin he...

[goo goo g'joob]

"We were our own country for 10 years, electing presidents and a Congress and sending ambassadors abroad."

Here, boys and girls, is THE reason that Texans are the way WE are.