Francis X. Galan,PHD,Visiting Professor of History at Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio welcomed those in attendance and introduced Dr. John Moran Gonzalez,the honorary speaker and author of Border Renaissance: The Texas Centennial and the Emergence of Mexican American Literature.
Dr. Gonzalez is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Texas in Austin, attained his undergraduate degree magna cum laude at Princeton University and a PHD from Stanford University. He has also received major fellowships from the Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson National Foundation and is a Faculty Affiliate with the Center for Mexican American Studies, the Department of American Studies, the Program in Comparative Literature and the Center for Women and Gender Studies at UT-Austin. He also serves as a research affiliate with the Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Project.
Dr. John Moran Gonzalez welcomed those in attendance and specifically acknowledged Sister Flores from the Center for Mexican American Studies and Research for the invitation to present his book. Dr. Gonzalez's overview of his recent book described it as an academic study of Mexican Americans during the 1930's and how Mexican Americans responded to what they saw in the media and specifically during the Texas Centennial of 1936. The Texas Centennial celebrated the 100th anniversary of Texas' independence from Mexico. During this period, the media was saturated with stories of this celebration throughout Texas.
Dr. Gonzalez emphasized that "Mexican American were also listening to what was being said and did not like what was being said about Mexicans, Mexico and about themselves."
Dr. Gonzalez explained the genesis for this project and talked about the Historical Roadside Marker program and one in particular by adding that "..I learned a particular version of Texas history that molded the very landscape into a narrative made familiar through repetition across thousands of Texas highways. Mostly I learned that Indians had been defeated here and Mexican defeated there with Anglos triumphant everywhere, building churches, railroads and towns and civilization in general. The history presented on the roadside markers seemed to commemorate a great many violent events that shaped Texas. But did not mention those that even in days past did not flatter the Anglo Texan's sense of self-righteousness in settling the frontier."
"This book is about how Mexican Americans lived with Texas history during the Centennial celebration of 1936 when the State's official history unequivocally cast my ancestors and other Texas Mexicans outside the imagined community of Texas and the United States. Since the initiation of the Historical Roadside Marker Program, Mexican Americans have slowly but surely been taking back the property and civil rights so often lost in the aftermath of the Texas Revolution and the US-Mexican war."
Dr. Gonzalez's presentation was followed by a reception in the Blue Room with copies of his new book available.
