Travis County Commissioners Court
August 22, 2006
Item 3
Number 3 is to approve proclamation recognizing the month of September as tejano heritage month in Travis County.
>> and I believe someone is here, if you will come up to the table and whoever else wants to come with you, I'll read the proclamation and then we'll give it to you to take with you. Whereas tejano are known as Texas' first pioneers and whereas it is a descent ent of the first inhabitants of the Texas pioneers and are considered to be the first families of Texas and whereas tejanos lived in this area nearly 150 years prior to the Texas revolution and created the area's first towns, governments, missions, ramplz and roads, and whereas in 2002 Texas tejano.com completed its extensive research on its subject of tejano pioneers and began publishing their efforts in order to educate the public on the tremendous contributions that tejanos had on the development of the at a time. And I guess that includes tejanos as well?
>> absolutely.
>> whereas the efforts of Texastejanos has throwed a series of books highlighting the lives of various tejanos that have made an impact on Texas history appeared whereas the month of September has been ditionnated tejano heritage month in order to bring awareness and education about the legends and legacies and true lives of tejano pioneers, now there are be it proclaimed that Travis County Commissioners court does here by recognize the month of September as tejano heritage month in Travis County. And I would move approval.
>> second.
>> good morning.
>> thank you, Commissioner Gomez. We bring you greetings from the great county of bexar county south of Travis County and also greetings from the city of san antonio. My name is rudy rodriguez and I'm the founder and president of Texastejano.com. And we want to thank the Commissioners for championing this proclamation in your great county and we want to thank the others that are here from the Austin greater hispanic chamber of commerce for having received it on our behalf w me is diane solino and mary ramirez and my assistant also mr. Eric moreno, who is responsible for many of the things that we are going to be exhibiting at the Austin capital visitors center and other things that will be being shown live on the capital grounds. And I wanted to introduce ms. Lupe moreen who is here to bring the residents of this city an opportunity to learn a little bit about heritage and legacy as it applies to tejanos. And Commissioner, tejanos is both feminine and masculine.
>> I just wanted to make sure. [ laughter ]
>> and on behalf of charles lata, who is the president of the alamo legacy and mission association in san antonio, who is our co-chair in all the things that we do throughout the state, we thank you for this fine proclamation. And we understand it's a unique honor to come from another county and receive such a fine proclamation and civil acknowledgment of the work that we're conducting here in this city. The investment you're going to make I think will bear out with a lot of fruits as we move forward, the beginning of September with our partners here in your community, with a ribbon cutting, and we invite the judge and all the Commissioners to come forward Saturday morning. We'll be hosted in front of the capitol. We have a stage for remarks. We'll be joined by governor representatives both from the great state of Texas and the governor is coming from our bordering state as well as the sister city mayor of saltillo. And so we are very pleased that we have almost an international circumstance occurring only three years out with the activity of tejano heritage month. So we invite you to come out. We know we'll have some strong dark coffee and some free taquitos and everything is open -- it's free of charge. We invite your whole community and county to be here with us on September the 9th at 9:00. Since the Commissioner brought up the issue about tejano, I want to give you a short definition because we know that tejano, the name has had a current understanding relevant to music. In other words, a gentleman said, I saw on the agenda that you're here to celebrate the music. And of course that's part of our cultural part of our history and legacy if we will in the hispanic history in Texas, but tejanos are the descend ents of the first spanish, mexican and indigenous families on the Texas frontier starting in 1690. That's when (speaking spanish) was founded to see if the french were trying to make a land grab for Texas. And fg they found fort la salle over in the matagorda bay area. From that moment he came with the authority of spain to plant a flag and declare it a province and officially build approximate buildings and the first roads in Texas, build the first missions, cities or towns as it is referred to in spanish, which ultimately became the first communities in Texas. Tejanos had its own capital from the early 1700's to 1821, almost 130 years you have tejanos on the ground, building roads, the first cities, first civil government was san antonio. In 1733 we have a legacy with the carnary islanders. The first laws -- we're still debating, arguing and trying to develop water lorks the right to capture. We have a wonderful engagement this morning. I felt like I was at Commissioners court in bexar county or at city hall. We have similar issues. And we still have similar laws from those original at originaltejanos. You need water on the frontier for your livestock, your crops. So that's part of the legacy of what at the means gave and credited in the development of Texas. 100 years later you have the are creation of the republic of mexico. 1821. Many times tejanos are referred to as mexicans. The identity that we're trying to strive for here is exactly the following, 130 years have you the creation of the republic of mexico. 13 years later you have the republic of Texas, 1836. Not even a generation later. But importantly 150 years later you have the republic of Texas, but you have tejanos on the ground for all that period of time. So it's significant to understand that the chronology from 1690 to the late 1800's, and we're geography specific. In our era of an expanding hispanic population and demographics, the media rushes to try and label us and try to identify us as well. Are you chicano, are you latino, mexican-american, and we submit this here in Texas we are tejanos. Obviously in more modern times we have our neighbors to the south, mexico, which is giving us both legal immigration and illegal immigration here, but it's sound to say that we have -- we're grounded in the fact of chronology from 1690 and geography of Texas as where tejanos came from, what we started and what we've contributed. It's not too far here in are your archives. The general land office has the first ranches surveyed, the first towns that were surveyed, so we're very proud to be able to bring this to bear because in the past there hasn't been that information in textbooks, there had hasn't been documenttaries, there hasn't been exhibits, and that's our leadership role along with the chamber to bring to the public. So we invite you once again, we have a wonderful website if your viewing audience is looking, Texastejanos.com. And with your permission, judge, we have a little certificate we'd like to hand out to you all proclaiming you official tejanos and thanking you for -- to y'all hire today and we invite you once again Saturday, September the 9th. Our chambers are going to help host us there?
>> continue oak?
>> 9:00 o'clock.
>> I just wanted to thank judge and Commissioners for having us this morning. And on behalf of the greater Austin hispanic chamber of commerce, we're proud to be partnering with them and also invite to you come out on Saturday. It will be a great convenient, a family convenient, because we have activities for everyone, not to mention the fact that it will be on the state capitol grounds and we will have senator barrientos presenting a proclamation and we'll have a proclamation from the city as well. We thank you and look forward to seeing you.
>> thank you. And for you the mystery-- history too. I had wondered about it. It's like african-american and the african-american names you can write a book on.
>> we want to write those books and be able to identify where we come from. Whe a wonderful conversation with general venezuela, one of 16 generals from Texas out of 16 hispanic yes or nos. We were talking about this very subject. We are many faces, but we still have to identify to the rest of the world where we came from, what we've done. So we salute you today for having helped identify that here in Austin.
>> thank you. And we'll meet with Commissioner Gomez behind closed doors and try foig out where she fits in all of this. [ laughter ] all in favor? Nan. That passes by unanimous vote. We'll try to see you on September 9th.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, August 22, 2006 7:33 PM