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ON THE ROAD AGAIN: The story of The Alamo
BY ANNE WINKLER-MOREY, from her cross-country bicycle trip
Posted at 10:20 p.m., Jan. 6, 2012
Twenty-six million people visit San Antonio every year. There are two main attractions: the beautiful Riverwalk, and the Alamo.
Half the businesses in town are called Alamo: Alamo Optical, Alamo Forest Products, Alamo Motors, Alamo Mobility, Alamo Junior High, Alamo Draft Theater, Alamo Glass, Alamo Pizza, Alamo Quarry, Alamo Community College, Pie Alamo-d, Alamo Dome—where the Alamo Bowl is held. Even Alamo Bikes—a great bike store with most helpful staff, highly recommended, despite the name.
What do I have against the Alamo? Isn’t it great that a historical site is a major tourist attraction? What is not to like?
In 1992 the Science Museum of Minnesota displayed a replica of the fleet Columbus used to sail the ocean blue in 1492. Members of the American Indian Movement came to the exhibit and poured blood on the ships. After much debate the museum decided to leave the ships up with the blood stains, and expand the exhibit to explore more thoroughly diverse perspectives of Columbus’ impact on the Americas.
A few years back, Chicano scholars staged a teach-in in front of the Alamo, providing a different story than the one the Daughters of the American Revolution provided. Unfortunately it did not lead to a deepening and widening of the story told at this historic site. It is still just a glorification of the 1836 battle.
The leader William B. Travis “drew a line in the sand” we are told. Davy Crockett, and Jimmie Bowie and the rest answered the dare and paid with their lives. What were they fighting for?
“Liberty!”
What kind of liberty? One that embraced slavery (outlawed by Mexico in 1829) and the destruction of Native America.
For Mexicans, the Texas battle of 1836 begins the process of losing half their territory in the U.S./Mexican War. For Mexican Americans it ushers in an era of property theft, separation and inequality. The Alamo could be a fantastic site if all of these issues were discussed. Keep the popular format; add diverse, even, yes, opposing stories. Show people that history is not just memorization, it is a subject of debate: hot, meaningful stuff.
But for now, it is still a one dimensional Davy Crocket tale. Like the Ripley’s carnival across the street from the Alamo, we can just BELIEVE IT OR NOT.
To balance out your visit to the Alamo I suggest a visit to the Alameda, the Smithsonian Museum a few blocks away from the Alamo, in the Market Square. Currently they have an exhibit focused on the 100th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution. San Antonio was the “unofficial capital of Mexico” during the decade of upheaval across the border. Representatives of every faction in the war and every segment of Mexican society were represented and active here.
The museum also runs a video celebrating the work of Mexican American songwriter Lalo Guerrero. In the video you can hear him sing the sardonic song “Pancho Lopez”—to the tune of Davy Crockett. Guerrero uses humor to lay bare myths about the Crockets and Lopezes.
So, go see the Alamo. Ask questions. And see the Alameda too.
San Antonio tidbits learned from locals, museums, and walking around. Dec. 30 – Jan. 6.
1. The great-great-grandmother of a San Antonio woman was a slave who lived in the White House in the 1830s. Andrew Jackson bought her in 1818 when she was 8 years old, to be a servant-for-life for his 3-year-old daughter. She followed the family into the White House, and Jackson’s daughter to San Antonio when they came to engage in the cotton trade. She died in the 1920s at the age of 113.
2. A painter came to San Antonio in 1961 to study at the BlueBonnet School of Art, but left disgusted because there was only one subject allowed: the Texas state flower, and only one way to paint them: impressionistically a- la- Mo-net.
3. San Antonio began celebrating Juneteenth—the holiday that marks the time in 1865 when slaves in Texas learned they were free—in 1904, with parades down the center of downtown.
4. Venustiano Carranza, leader of a more moderate faction of the Mexican Revolutionary forces, and president of Mexico, 1917 - 1920, fled to San Antonio in 1913 and hid out in his daughter’s house on North Flores, a couple blocks from where today you can get great vegetarian food at the Green Cuisine, while getting your bike fixed at the Alamo Bike shop.
5. In downtown San Antonio there are tunnels and abandoned underground casinos. During the prohibition era they did a steady business. At the end of the night the Casino owner would shove the day’s profits under the door leading to the basement of the bank. The next day the teller would deposit the cash. There was also a brothel, with two hallways. One where the business was contracted and one where wives looking for their husbands were directed.
6. In 2010, 2,000 women held a march for women’s rights in downtown San Antonio. They addressed reproductive rights, violence against women, and the treatment of housekeepers at the Downtown Hyatt Regency Hotel.
7. The River Walk began as a flood control project 100 years ago. The current walls were erected in the ’30s, a WPA project. From the ’30s to the ’70s the area around the Riverwalk was home to San Antonio’s poorest residents. In the ’70s the City realized the economic potential. One wonders what happened to those living there at the time. The latest (and I would say, greatest) part of the Riverwalk, the part that allows you to walk from downtown to the museums and the zoo, was finished just in 2009. (?)
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