The uniquely Texan system that arose from the state's agricultural heritage, a mixture of practices and traditions from New Spain, Mexico, Europe, and the South, was the foundation for Texas' economic strength after the Civil War. In "Texas Roots," Jones brings alive this aspect of the state's history that contributed immeasurably to its identity and prosperity.

For two and a half centuries Tejanos have lived and ranched on the land of South Texas, establishing many homesteads and communities. This modest book tells the story of one such family, the Sáenzes, who established Ranchos San José and El Fresnillo. Obtaining land grants from the municipality of Mier in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, these settlers crossed the Wild Horse Desert, known as Desierto Muerto, into present-day Duval County in the 1850s and 1860s. Through the simple, direct telling of his family’s stories, Andrés Sáenz lets readers learn about their homes of piedra (stone) and sillares (large blocks of limestone or sandstone), as well as the jacales (thatched-roof log huts) in which people of more modest means lived. He describes the cattle raising that formed the basis of Texas ranching, the carts used for transporting goods, the ways curanderas treated the sick, the food people ate, and how they cooked it. Marriages and deaths, feasts and droughts, education, and domestic arts are all recreated through the words of this descendent, who recorded the stories handed down through generations. The accounts celebrate a way of life without glamorizing it or distorting the hardships. The many photographs record a picturesque past in fascinating images. Those who seek to understand the ranching and ethnic heritage of Texas will enjoy and profit from Early Tejano Ranching.

On the plains between the San Antonio River and the Rio Grande lies the heartland of what is perhaps the largest ethnic region in the United States, Tejano South Texas. In this cultural geography, Daniel Arreola charts the many ways in which Texans of Mexican ancestry have established a cultural province in this Texas-Mexico borderland that is unlike any other Mexican American region. Arreola begins by delineating South Texas as an environmental and cultural region. He then explores who the Tejanos are, where in Mexico they originated, and how and where they settled historically in South Texas. Moving into the present, he examines many factors that make Tejano South Texas distinctive from other Mexican American regions—the physical spaces of ranchos, plazas, barrios, and colonias; the cultural life of the small towns and the cities of San Antonio and Laredo; and the foods, public celebrations, and political attitudes that characterize the region. Arreola's findings thus offer a new appreciation for the great cultural diversity that exists within the Mexican American borderlands.

The open country of Texas between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande was sparsely settled through the nineteenth century, and most of the settlers who did live there had Hispanic names that until recently were rarely admitted into the pages of Texas history. In 1935, however, a descendant of one of the old Spanish land-grant families in the region-a woman, no less-found an ingenious way to publish the history of her region at a time when neither Tejanos nor women had much voice. She told the story from the perspective of an ancient mesquite tree, under whose branches much South Texas history had passed. Her tale became an invaluable source of folk history but has long been out of print. Now, with important new introductions by Leticia M. Garza-Falcón and Andrés Tijerina, the history witnessed by El Mesquite can again inform readers of the way of life that first shaped Texas. Through the voice of the gnarled old tree, Elena Zamora O'Shea tells South Texas political and ethnographic history, filled with details of daily life such as songs, local plants and folk medicines, foods and recipes, peone/patron relations, and the Tejano ranch vocabulary. The work is an important example of the historical-folkloristic literary genre used by Mexican American writers of the period. Using the literary device of the tree's narration, O'Shea raises issues of culture, discrimination, and prejudice she could not have addressed in her own voice in that day and explicitly states the Mexican American ideology of 1930s Texas. The result is a literary and historic work of lasting value, which clearly articulates the Tejano claim to legitimacy in Texas history. ELENA ZAMORA O'SHEA (1880-1951) was born at Rancho La Noria Cardenena near Peñitas, Hidalgo County, Texas. A long-time schoolteacher, whose posts included one on the famous King Ranch, she wrote this book to help Tejano children know and claim their proud heritage.

Winner, Texas Reference Source Award, Reference Round Table, Texas Library Association, 2003 T.R. Fehrenbach Award, Texas Historical Commission, 2004 Since the early 1700s, women of Spanish/Mexican origin or descent have played a central, if often unacknowledged, role in Texas history. Tejanas have been community builders, political and religious leaders, founders of organizations, committed trade unionists, innovative educators, astute businesswomen, experienced professionals, and highly original artists. Giving their achievements the recognition they have long deserved, this groundbreaking book is at once a general history and a celebration of Tejanas' contributions to Texas over three centuries. The authors have gathered and distilled a wide range of information to create this important resource. They offer one of the first detailed accounts of Tejanas' lives in the colonial period and from the Republic of Texas up to 1900. Drawing on the fuller documentation that exists for the twentieth century, they also examine many aspects of the modern Tejana experience, including Tejanas' contributions to education, business and the professions, faith and community, politics, and the arts. A large selection of photographs, a historical timeline, and profiles of fifty notable Tejanas complete the volume and assure its usefulness for a broad general audience, as well as for educators and historians.

What does it mean to be from somewhere? If most people in the United States are "from some place else" what is an American homeland? In answering these questions, the contributors to Homelands: A Geography of Culture and Place across America offer a geographical vision of territory and the formation of discrete communities in the U.S. today. Homelands discusses groups such as the Yankees in New England, Old Order Amish in Ohio, African Americans in the plantation South, Navajos in the Southwest, Russians in California, and several other peoples and places. Homelands explores the connection of people and place by showing how aspects of several different North American groups found their niche and created a homeland. A collection of fifteen essays, Homelands is an innovative look at geographical concepts in community settings. It is also an exploration of the academic work taking place about homelands and their people, of how factors such as culture, settlement, and cartographic concepts come together in American sociology. There is much not only to study but also to celebrate about American homelands. As the editors state, "Underlying today's pluralistic society are homelands—large and small, strong and weak—that endure in some way. The mosaic of homelands to which people bonded in greater or lesser degrees, affirms in a holistic way America's diversity, its pluralistic society." The authors depict the cultural effects of immigrant settlement. The conviction that people need to participate in the life of the homeland to achieve their own self realization, within the traditions and comforts of that community. Homelands gives us a new map of the United States, a map drawn with people's lives and the land that is their home.

A gripping narrative about a dramatic episode in the history of the American West--and a major contribution to our understanding of the origins of Mexican American identity In Revolution in Texas Benjamin Johnson tells the little-known story of one of the most intense and protracted episodes of racial violence in United States history. In 1915, against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution, the uprising that would become known as the Plan de San Diego began with a series of raids by ethnic Mexicans on ranches and railroads. Local violence quickly erupted into a regional rebellion. In response, vigilante groups and the Texas Rangers staged an even bloodier counterinsurgency, culminating in forcible relocations and mass executions. Faced with the overwhelming forces arrayed against it, the uprising eventually collapsed. But, as Johnson demonstrates, the rebellion resonated for decades in American history. Convinced of the futility of using force to protect themselves against racial discrimination and economic oppression, many Mexican Americans elected to seek protection as American citizens with equal access to rights and protections under the U.S. Constitution.