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Empathy in Texas History: Truly Embracing Our Cultural Fabric

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Tony Maples Photography

 

The City of San Antonio is set to celebrate its 300 year anniversary of founding and in the midst of it all, many Texans are hoping the festivities are inclusive of everyone’s ancestors. Recognizing the development of a Spanish mission in San Antonio and the subsequent venture into statehood, Texans are also looking to recognize the multiplicity of their origins aside from the romanticized version of the state’s history. Understanding that many of today’s population in the area are descendants of the individuals that were being ostracized at that time takes some delicate grappling.

Like many growing up in the area, Vincent Huizar identifies with the other side of the Texas history coin. “Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett and all those people weren’t part of me,” Huizar says. “I wasn’t descendants of them. I was a descendant of the other people they were coming in and killing and getting rid of.” Quoted in a recently published article, Huizar captured the crux of the situation in his own words. And, now, Texas historians are making efforts to broaden the ways in which the state commemorates and observes its history.

Empathy in Texas History: Truly Embracing Our Cultural Fabric

Photo: Pixabay

“It’s very difficult to understand how things are today without looking to the past and how we got here and the experience of our ancestors,” says managing editor for The Handbook of Texas, Brett Derbes. “No one wants to feel they’re not represented in that history.” Over the years, the idealized version of this state’s history has been recognized as a mixture of Crockett and Bowie at the Alamo, white male settlers moving in and taming the wilds, cowboys and cattle drives, and oil wells gushing black gold. This, in large part, left out many other ethnic groups as well as women in general, which isn’t unique to just Texas, but begs that the question of where we all come from gets a closer look as we start to commemorate our existence.

What was the Native American experience, the Mexican-American and Tejano experience, and the African-American experience in Texas? Where was that material? Up until the 1960s, Texas students were taught state history from the illustrated “Texas History Movies” book, which was sponsored by Mobil Oil. Largely criticized for its biases and racial stereotypes, the comparable popular adult book on the subject matter was “Lone Star” by T.R. Fehrenbach. Written in 1968, it told the history of Texas from the white male settler perspective of white male settlers and has also been challenged. Many other race lines and roots were obscured.

In 1968, it was the City of San Antonio that helped to bring about a broader historical view of Texas when it played host to the World’s Fair. Their efforts resulting in the largest fair pavilion, which was divided into various ethnic group sections, featuring the Spanish and Native Americans as well. Following the closure of the fair, the pavilion remained open and was named the Institute of Texan Cultures. Following that, the Handbook of Texas, which has been published by the TSHA since the 1950s, began to expand. It was into the 1980s when it started to include more perspectives and several focuses, such as Tejano Texas history, women in Texas history, and the African-American Texas experience, to name a few.

Empathy in Texas History: Truly Embracing Our Cultural Fabric

Photo: Facebook/Onnitcha Kehanant

According to Dr. Sarah Gould, from the Institute of Texan Cultures at the University of Texas, San Antonio, broadening the view of Texas history continues to be “a work in progress.” In 2010, the Texas Board of Education was criticized for a curriculum that appeared to have political persuasion to it. And, more recently, two proposed Mexican-American studies textbooks have been declined for approval in the past year, although the board has identified that it’s open to such studies. As the Tricentennial draws closer, however, it also draws another thing: Attention. Attention to aspects of Texas history which have traditionally been overlooked. Some remain skeptical of what San Antonio’s 2018 celebration will look like. What remains to be seen are the benefits that inclusion and the incorporation of other perspectives could mean to the people of Texas, who are already a part of the state’s cultural fabric. Historians believe there are many. “When you show [people] there are multiple perspectives it allows them to better imagine themselves in those situations, and it also teaches them to be empathetic,” Dr. Gould explains. “I don’t think it would be too much to ask we bring that concept of empathy into the teaching of history.”