Tejanos

Tejano or Tex-Mex music is also a kind of music originating in Texas.

Tejano (Spanish for "Texan"; archaic spelling Texano) is a term used to identify individuals of Hispanic descent born and living in the U.S. state of Texas.

In 1821, at the end of the Mexican War of Independence, there were about 4,000 Tejanos living in Texas. In the 1820s, many Anglo settlers moved to Texas from the United States. By 1830, the 30,000 settlers in Texas outnumbered the Tejanos two to one. The Anglos and Tejanos alike rebelled against the centralized authority of Mexico City and the draconian measures implemented by the Santa Anna regime. Tensions between the central Mexican government and the settlers eventually led to the Texas Revolution.

Tejanos may variously consider themselves to be Spanish, Mexican and Hispanic in ethnicity. In urban areas as well as some rural communities, Tejanos tend to be well integrated into both Hispanic and mainstream American cultures and a number of them, especially among younger generations, identify more with the mainstream and may understand little or no Spanish.

It is necessary to draw this distinction because the people who came from Central and Southern Mexico starting just before, during, and after the Mexican Revolution to today are and were of a different ethnic heritage from the people who colonized Texas during the Spanish Colonial Period.

While a large number of the people who have come mostly from Southern Mexico since the Mexican Revolution up until the present have drawn their identity from the mestizos or genizaros and had their history and identity in the history of Mexico, the majority of the people who colonized Texas as well as most of the present-day Northern Mexican states in the Spanish Colonial Period were and drew their identity from the Spaniards and the criollos, and had their history and identity in the history of Spain and of the United States as a consequence of the participation of Spain and its colonial provinces of Texas and Louisiana in the American Revolution.

This difference caused the people of Texas, the colonial Tejanos or Tejano Texians, to identify more with the people of Louisiana, which was a Spanish colony, and of the U.S., rather than with the people of Central and Southern Mexico. For this reason as early as 1813 the colonial Tejanos established a government in Texas that looked forward to becoming part of the United States.

As revealed by the writings of colonial Tejano Texians such as Antonio Menchaca, the Texas Revolution was first and foremost a colonial Tejano cause, the Anglo Americans simply joined the colonial Tejanos in that cause, having been invited and recruited to do so by the colonial Tejanos, the Tejano Texians.

When Anglos first arrived in Texas, Tejano settlements consisted of three separate regions. The Northern Nacogdoches region, the Bexar-Goliad region along the San Antonio River, and the Rio Grande ranching frontier between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. These populations shared certain characteristics yet they were also independent from one another. The main unifying factor for these separate regions was their shared responsibility of defending the Texas frontier.

Ranching was a major element in the Bexar-Goliad settlement which was comprised of a belt of ranches extended along the San Antonio river between Bexar and Goliad. The Nacogdoches settlement was located in the Northern Texas region. Tejanos from Nacogdoches traded with the French and Anglo residents of Louisiana and were culturally influenced by them. The third settlement was located North of the Rio Grande toward the Nueces river. These Southern ranchers were citizens of Spanish origin from Tamaulipas and Northern Mexico and identified with both Spanish and Mexican culture. They were of the same stock as the original Tejano settlers. Case in point is the fact that the Northern Mexican states of Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas seceded from Mexico in 1840 to establish la República del Río Grande (the Rio Grande Republic) with its capital in what is now Laredo, Texas. However, their much anticipated political marriage with their Tejano kin did not come to fruition.

The majority of Tejanos today are white Hispanics mostly consisting of Spanish Americans, with some of most Mexican Americans whose ancestors arrived in Texas prior to and during the Mexican Revolution. [1] Colonial Tejanos, who can be correctly identified as Tejano Texians, are descended from the colonists who pioneered Texas as citizens of the Kingdom of Spain through the Spanish Colonial Period starting in the 1600s through the 1800s up to the Texas Revolution and who were generally of pure Spaniard blood, or hispanicized European heritage, including Frenchmen like Juan Seguin, Italian like Jose Cassiano, or Corsican like Antonio Navarro, generally of white Mediterranean race. Germans, Poles, Czechs, Swedes, Irish (see also Irish Mexican), Scots, Welsh, and Anglo Americans - who arrived in the nineteenth century – were also considered Tejanos as they were Hispanicized and the former three racial groups contributed greatly to Tex-Mex music. Among them were black Africans, both enslaved and freed, and Amerindians who had integrated socially and religiously into colonial societies. There were also people of mixed blood among them ranging from mulattos to mestizos who were excluded by the Spanish law of "limpieza de sangre", purity of blood, from participating in the colonization of Northern New Spain including Texas and the American Southwest and many Asians and Arabs with ancestry from Mexico where they adopted Mexican culture speaking Spanish and moved to Texas during Mexican Revolution. For these reasons a colonial Tejano, or Tejano Texian or Tejano Texan, which today can also include a mestizo and mulatto with Asians and Arabs, is more accurately classified as a "Spaniard Texan" or "Spaniard Texian" or "Spanish Texan" or "Spanish Texian" or "Spanish American" or as a "Texan of Spanish heritage", as opposed to the more familiar "new Tejano" who is of Mexican heritage. Included in the most Tejanos today are Hispanics of other national groups who settled Texas in the mid-20th century. Filipino Americans of Spanish ancestry and Chamorros with part-Spanish blood also live in Texas but they never call themselves as Tejanos as Filipinos and Chamorros identify themselves as they are, although they have Spanish blood.

In direct relation to this distinction, genuinely Tejano music is related and sounds more like the folk music of Louisiana known as "Cajun" music blended with the sounds of Rock and Roll, R&B, Pop, and Country with some influences of Mariachi. The American Cowboy culture and music was born from the meeting of the Anglo-American Texians who were colonists from the American South and the original Tejano Texian pioneers and their "vaquero" or "cow man" culture.

In the Spanish language, the term "tejano" is simply the term to identify an individual from Texas regardless of race or ethnic background. During the Spanish Colonial Period of Texas, before Texas was wrested from Spain and became a part of Mexico in 1821, the colonial settlers of Northern New Spain, including Texas and the American Southwest, understood themselves to be and called themselves Spaniards, as opposed to the people of Central and Southern Mexico who generally understood themselves to be and called themselves mestizos or Amerindians or Mexicans. This is also a crucially important reason why the term "Spaniard Texan" rather than "Mexican Texan" is more correctly applied to the Tejano Texians, and to their descendants.

The majority of Tejanos of both first generation (the first settlers) and those who descend from recent early and mid twentieth century Mexican immigrants are concentrated in Southern Texas. Bexar county, especially San Antonio, is the historic center of Tejano culture. Duval county has one of the highest concentrations of Tejanos.

Famous Tejanos

• Selena
• La Mafia
• Roy Benavidez
• Vikki Carr
• Ryan Cabrera
• Henry Cisneros
• Jade Esteban Estrada
• Freddy Fender
• Hector P. Garcia
• Alberto Gonzales
• Henry B. Gonzalez
• Nicholas Gonzalez
• Eva Longoria
• Felix Longoria
• Jose M. Lopez
• Trini Lopez
• Los Lonely Boys
• Lydia Mendoza
• Nina Mercedez
• Lupe Ontiveros
• Federico Peña
• Jennifer Peña
• Bobby Pulido
• Robert Rodriguez
• Efren Saldivar
• Sarah Shahi
• Juan Seguín
• Lee Trevino
• Jaci Velasquez

See also

• Texian

References

TexMex FM*Tejano Music Radio