“Acknowledging the shared past and looking toward the future, all events will have as a common thread an intercambio (exchange) and collaboration between the cultures of Spain and San Antonio, creating experiences and memories completely unique to Olé.”
The Historic Pearl is hosting the Ole San Antonio as part of the city’s tricentennial celebrations. The goal is to enrich the community with the connections that Spain and The Alamo City have in common.
“Billed as a “monumental initiative” built around gastronomy, music and dance, and art and architecture, Pearl’s summer-long Tricentennial program Olé imports a talented array of Spanish chefs, performers and artists…” –Bryan Rindfuss
Photo by: Gateway Photography (Geremy Landin) Photos from The Historic Pearl of the Southerleigh Bar and Restaurant Signage
The events taking place at this locality are both entertaining and a great marketing tool. Offerings of free shirts and bags for the first 100 attendees in many cases as well as extended hours for many of the businesses present.
Not only is this in support of their business but The Pearl has been known for contributions to local artists and groups as well.
Joe Reyes, local guitarists and producer was one of these great performers from last night. Joined by several other artists. The group wooed the audience with some great tunes and cultural melodies.
Photo by: Gateway Photography (Geremy Landin) Photos from The Historic Pearl of Joe Reyes Guitarist and Producer playing for the public at the August 31 event.
What is forgotten is the history behind it all though. The Historic Pearl even has it in it’s name but where is the history aspect of it all. A little blurb in the beginning and some talk at the end just didn’t seem sufficient for me and assumably for several others present.
Reading further into the Pearl’s history as a brewery and small complex brought out some interesting thoughts from locals and guests of the event from last night.
Rosa Guzman, a local of the area, says, “The pearl was not something I remember much from childhood in San Antonio,” she added, ” There were many breweries around in my mom’s time but the current look and feel of the brewery is nothing like she [Guzman’s mother] could remember.
Personally though, the history of the site is not known by many of the locals attending these events. From what I can tell, I don’t seem to see any sort of ambassadors or collaborators providing this history either.
Places like The Historic Pearl are great and have a wide array of opportunity for community engagement. It would be nice to see a history timeline or a sort of historical site collaborator to really emphasize the history presented at “The Historic Pearl”. None-the-less, the events are fun and interesting for sure!
In lieu of our normal Intro to Public History class, we visited the Rinconcito de Esperanza, which translates to Little Corner of Hope. The Rinconsito de Esperanza is a cultural hub dedicated to documenting the history of Westside San Antonio.
On this trip I learned about a prominent Mexican American historical figure, Emma Tenayuca. Emma was born on December 21, 1916, in the Westside of San Antonio, Texas. Emma had ten siblings and lived with her grandparents. Throughout her life, Emma witnessed the poverty and misery that plagued the Mexican American people in her community. This empathy for others and drive for equality strengthened Emma into a courageous and passionate young woman, later earning her the nickname “La Pasionaria”. At a very early age, Tenayuca joined in the Labor Movement to combat social injustices. At the age of 16, Emma joined a picket line against the Finck Cigar Company, where she was arrested for her involvement.
Emma Tenayuca, American Labor Leader | Photo Courtesy of The San Antonio Light Collection, The Institute of Texan Cultures at UTSA
Pecan-Shellers’ Strike
In 1938 at only 21 years old, a courageous Emma lead the historic Pecan Shellers’ Strike. The wages for pecan shellers had dropped to a measly three cents an hour. Owners were getting richer and richer, while only working one or two hours a day. Meanwhile, the pecan shellers, mostly made up of Mexican American women, worked from dawn until dusk and still did not earn enough to feed their families. Workers faced deplorable wages and unsafe working conditions. The inadequate ventilation and fine dust from the pecans contributed to a higher tuberculosis rate in San Antonio. Emblazoned by the sheer injustice, Emma mobilized 10,000 pecan shellers to go on a strike of 400 factories for nearly two months. With nearly empty factories, the owners lost a lot of money for the duration of the strike. Throughout this time, Emma was threatened and thrown in jail repeatedly but persevered. Ultimately, the owners were forced to raise the worker’s pay. Unfortunately, the factories mechanized their operations, which led to thousands of layoffs.
Emma Tenayuca, leader of the Pecan-Shellers’ Strike of 1938 | Photo Courtesy of The Institute of Texan Cultures
The strike was documented in newspapers nationwide. It was a small victory but it gave the community hope and was a step forward in the struggle for equality. It showed that one person, no matter how small, can make a difference. Being a Mexican American resident of San Antonio, I gravitated to Emma’s story. Emma Tenayuca led a spirited movement utilizing her tenacity and dedication to justice. Following the Pecan-Shellers’ strike, many San Antonio residents ostracized Emma because of her controversial political ties to communism. Angry protesters sent numerous death threats and eventually forced Emma to flee San Antonio in fear for her safety.
Over 20 years after the Pecan Shellers’ Strike, Emma returned to San Antonio to get her Masters Degree in Education from Our Lady of the Lake University. Emma then taught bilingual education, and devoted herself to teaching children of migrant workers how to read. She continued to empower others until her death in 1999. This last part of her story is especially compelling for me because Emma dedicated the latter half of her life to education. It feels me with hope to think that I too can make a lasting difference.
How Emma’s Story Lives On
Although Tenayuca’s life was fraught with controversy, she has come to be known as a pioneering Hispanic heroine in San Antonio. Beginning in the 1970s during the Chicano Movement, scholarly organizations such as the National Association for Chicano and Chicana Studies recognized Emma for her civil rights activism. In 1991 Emma was inducted into the San Antonio Women’s Hall of Fame. In 2008, Carmen Tafolla and Sharyll Teneyuca, Emma’s niece, wrote a children’s book illustrating the life and trailblazing spirit of this San Antonio heroine. The book, titled That’s Not Fair! / ¡No Es Justo! is a wonderful legacy for a powerful Mexican American figure.
Finding your love for your hometown is something that you gently fall into. When you’re there, its easy to hate it — you can see up close the flaws and shortcomings that you learn to live with. It seems often that things will not change. That every weekend, there will be nothing to do, that the construction will never end yet the roads will never be fixed. My hometown, Corpus Christi, is precisely like this. And yet, after taking a walk in San Antonio’s historic West Side, I began to reflect on the historical architecture present in Corpus, and it is in this reflection that I realized how little I knew. Thus, I began to dig a bit deeper into the architectural monuments I so easily took for granted.
Heritage Park
Just as the name would suggest, Heritage Park showcases twelve Corpus Christi homes of historical significance, dating all the way back to 1851 (The Merriman‐Bobys House). Between them, one can see architecture ranging from Victorian to Colonial, speaking to the diversity not only of the structures themselves, but the long-gone inhabitants that are a testament to the diversity of the Bay Area. Members of the NAACP, co-founders of LULAC, Mexican-Americans, Irish-Americans, African-Americans… the whole array can be seen represented in Heritage Park, not for the superficial reason of ‘inclusion’, but because the original owners of these homes made their mark in the coastal bend community.
What pains me about Heritage Park is that very little work has been done in terms of bringing this fascinating history to the public. A quick search for ‘Heritage Park’ reveals that the historic site has no website, no social media — hardly a trace! It is only within the last few days that I learned the park itself was used for anything other than special events. Sure, most Corpus Christians know of the historical site, but of its history? What a tragedy! Most of the online reviews are about the types of pokemon you can find there on Pokemon Go! All this to say, taking this Public History course has allowed me to appreciate Heritage Park much more, and additionally it has allowed me to realize how desperately it is in need of a good public historian.
The Art Museum of South Texas
Any art museum houses hundreds of individual pieces of breathtaking art. But can the building itself be called art? Only naturally. At the Art Museum of South Texas much care has been put into the architecture of the two buildings — one from 1972, one from 2006. The original building, crafted by Philip Johnson is a love letter to the region, constructed of shells, sand, and concrete (a.k.a. shellcrete) and fashioned into a castle reminiscent of adobe style homes, perfect for keeping the sticky heat and humidity away from the precious pieces within. Much of this I knew, as my mother was once obsessed with the structure of the museum, pulling out her little architecture book and flipping to the page that featured our hometown museum any time it would come up in conversation with our guests.
The two buildings of the South Texas Art Museum coexisting!In 2006, Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta was brought in to design a new addition to the museum, and that, he certainly did. Where the original building was old school adobe, the new building was the definition of modern, complete with black pyramids on the roof and a hot pink accent at the entrance. My mother was livid, but I personally think the two styles compliment one another, the old and the new, the rounded and the decidedly sharp. If you pay the museum a visit now, you’ll be able to see the two together, and appreciate each artist’s input. Don’t worry, student entry is a measly $4!
The Harbor Bridge
Of all the interesting and historic architecture in Corpus, however, there is one thing that stands apart — the iconic Harbor Bridge, and its skeleton-like silhouette. Finished in 1959, it stands at 243 ft. tall. (You can see more specs here. ) But despite its iconic status and sixty years of service, the end is nigh for this beloved Corpus Christi monument. My grandmother would describe how she used to take a ferry boat across the channel that the Harbor Bridge connects, and that the bridge brought that era to an end. Nowadays it seems as though the bridge will now be left in the dust, a plan for a new bridge already being put into action, its completion expected in 2021.
The CC Harbor Bridge, lit up for pride month. Captured by my awful cameraOrdinarily, I am very much “out with the old and in with the new”, but there is something uniquely nostalgic about crossing the bridge to go to the beach or the Texas State Aquarium. Ask any resident, and they’ll express their sorrow about the loss of the bridge, although it may be for the best. The new bridge will be significantly higher, allowing cruise ships and larger shipping vessels to enter the Port of Corpus Christi. I do hope I’ll be in town when its time to say our final goodbyes, but if not, I’ll know its in a better place — bridge heaven.
In conclusion, I prompt my readers to think about the architecture of their hometown, wherever that may be. There’s no town too small or city too big not to have key buildings that made an impression on you, whether you hung around them very much or not. Leave a comment telling me where you’re from and which buildings remind you most of your life growing up, or which you consider ‘classic hometown’.
Change, it is the one constant in the story of human history. Nothing stays the same, attempting to fight change is an exercise in futility. To survive the change of time all things must adapt and adjust to a new paradigm. Failure to change means death, whether we are discussing dinosaurs or giant corporations. Sometimes change can be beneficial, things shift in a positive direction and people’s lives improve. Other times changes are not so good, life becomes more difficult or important knowledge is lost. One of the byproducts of change is gentrification. Some argue that gentrification is good because it revitalizes blighted neighborhoods; contrarily it’s a force of destruction of personal history and economically disadvantaged people. How can a historic neighborhood hold on to its history and benefit the people who currently live there?
San Antonio: The Historic West Side
Walking along the streets of the historic west side of San Antonio the surrounding history is palatable, however so is the destruction of that history. Land speculators are leaving lots empty in hopes of a big payday sometime in the future while razing older properties and replacing them with buildings that are more modern. This leads to the destruction of the community’s history and forces the people who live there to move due to rising rents and other economic hardships. The Esperanza Center has been pushing back against these speculators in an attempt to hold on to the history and culture of the neighborhood for the people that live there. Their approach is to acquire properties and restore them for new tenants or re-purpose them so that they will avoid being torn down. This is a good approach but the speculators impede the process by leaving lots empty lots or even worse, hampering the attempts to improve the neighborhood by placing fences on their properties in inconvenient places. Their approach is direct but requires large financial backing and cooperation from local politicians. This brings up another roadblock for the Center’s mission; the politicians are not invested in saving old buildings. The people in charge are going to take their directions from their political donors, and those donors want to make money developing the neighborhood. Current political climates favors the people who drive gentrification. There are opportunities to make money that do not include saving the history of old neighborhoods; revitalization in the name of progress is the fuel of gentrification. It is a tough uphill battle; however, the people of the Roxbury section of Boston tried a more radical approach.
“Faces of Dudley” mural in Boston. (Greg Cook)
Boston: Roxbury
Gentrification happens when the local people do not have direct control over their neighborhood. The blog Black Perspectives talks about the events in the Roxbury district of Boston, MA. During the 1980’s in Boston, a couple of men tried to stand up and improve their neighborhood by taking the neighborhood away from the city. Curtis Davis and Andrew Jones formed a group called The Greater Roxbury Incorporation Project (GRIP) with the goal being leaving Boston proper and forming a new incorporated city that the local people would control. Even though Boston was the idealistic center of the American Revolution, its city planners were not so forward thinking over the years. Boston became the most segregated city in the Northern US, making it very susceptible to the forces of gentrification. In forming a new city out of the old neighborhoods, the people could stop this process and revitalize the area for its residents. By spending resources on attracting economic opportunities that would not drive out the economically disadvantaged residents, the city would stop the process of gentrification. Ultimately, GRIP did not achieve its master goal of independence, however it did succeed it getting reforms into government that would eventually aid the area and make improvements to benefit the people there.
Two Paths, One Goal
The Esperanza Center and GRIP are just two examples of people trying to control the destinies of their local neighborhoods and deter the process of gentrification. I hope that they will succeed in protecting the history that the people in city hall easily neglect. It is easy to order a building toppled when it is just numbers on a budget sheet, but to the people who live there those building mean so much more. They are touchstones to loved ones who are no longer with them. Preserving the buildings is to preserve the memories of those who came before us and made us into what we are today.
In the ongoing discussion of what public history is and what defines the scope of the field, the focus seems to be on distinguishing the field from academic history. One thing that I feel is overlooked in the discussion is the role that teachers in grades K-12 play. This group of people falls perfectly in the transition from academic history to public history.
The Importance of Teachers
Grade school teachers are in a unique position in the field of history. They can be a literal bridge between the academic field and the realm of public history. Although our first expose to history usually comes from our parents and family, teachers can make a lasting impact on ones attitude toward history for the rest of their life. Teachers keep track of new academic developments in history, but they present the information on a very personal level that would definitely fit under the umbrella of public history. Teachers answer to a local authority and will respond accordingly. It is very easy for teachers to customize their lessons for their audience. They are able to adjust the depth, scope, and point of view to fit whatever community they are working in. This ability allows them to target the needs of the community they serve. This is the very essence of what public history is.
The Shortcomings of Teachers
I would even suggest that classroom education should be considered a 5th part of the public history domain. Museums already offer programs to help teachers improve and engage their students, but there is still much work to be done especially at the lower grade levels. The main problem at the lower levels is that those teachers are not exposed to academic courses in history specific topics. This often leads to a more mythological history being taught at those levels. The result is students who often need to be retaught basic history later in their academic careers. Programs designed to work with and increase the ability of lower grade teachers would be an immense benefit to the education system. This would improve the education at the higher grade level as the need for reteaching would be diminished; leaving more time to focus on the important topics and concepts that need to be covered during class.
Conclusion
There is a battle going on that most people are not aware of, a battle for control of history. In this digital age conspiracy theorists and intentional fake news is displacing legitimate information and facts. Classroom teachers are on the front line of this battle. They are in a position to educate students on how to tell the facts from the fakes. They can also inspire their students to continue to educate themselves and to continue their learning beyond the classroom. Teachers would handover the students to the public historians to accomplish this continued learning. By utilizing public history resources museums would not seem so foreign and these young learners would get more out of the experience. I strongly feel that public history programs need to keep classroom teachers in mind for the benefit of society.
Please click here to learn more about Norbert “Geremy” Landin
This evening the students from the St. Mary’s University were welcomed to one of the sites of the Esperanza Center in San Antonio Texas. The Director, Ms. Graciela Sanchez, quickly grasped the attention of all 10 students present.
“The people of Esperanza dream of a world where everyone has civil rights and economic justice, where the environment is cared for, where cultures are honored and communities are safe.”
-Graciela Sanchez; Director of Esperanza Peace and Justice Center
This part of their mission and vision is truly shown in the work that is done in and around the Rinconcito Center. In the past, I know that several of the students in this program (including myself) have been to museums and art exhibits. During a recent museum course there was talk about the different places that have been visited but I don’t quite think that this experience matches any of the ones that were mentioned in the past.
When entering the Rinconcito Center there is a drastic difference in what we are used to seeing in homes and apartments and visitors can quickly delve into the history from the time of the “Casa De Cuentos and Casita.” The center has owned the building and property at 816 Colorado St. since 2001 and since then, great work in preserving the housing and developments that surround the area has been done in hopes of saving that history that as Sanchez said, “is gone once they’re gone.”
As the students travel through the areas at the center, different pieces catch the eyes of future public historians and Director of Public History at St. Mary’s (Dr. Lindsey Wieck)
The students continued their walk down the street with a main focus on the structures and projects following the path towards The Guadalupe Center for cultural arts. “Fotohistorias del Westside” mark the path along the South side of the street lining the fence of J.T. Brackenridge Elementary School (a school named after Confederate veteran and bank president, JT Brackenridge, who was born in Warwick County, Indiana and passed in 1906). This school is one of San Antonio ISD’s 90 campuses.
Virgen de Guadalupe vela located next to the Guadalupe Center for Cultural Arts
The tour ended at the Plaza Guadalupe over at 1327 Guadalupe St. but the conversation did not. Conversations on the way back to the starting point of the tour led to ideas of projects with different shops, councilmen, and locals about oral history and community activism.
Sanchez is passionate about the work that she does and was excited to show us the public history aspects involved in her work. Having visited places on the westside and knowing the stigmas and negative energy that is posed towards the people and areas surrounding made it easier to want to learn and absorb as much information as possible. The connection that we have made as a course and cohort is tremendous and will continue to be a great source of energy and program development for public history at St. Mary’s and in San Antonio in general.
Graciela Sanchez, Director of the Esperanza Center introduces the student from St. Mary’s University’s Master in Public History Program to the back part of the Esperanza Center
As the students travel through the areas at the center, different pieces catch the eyes of future public historians
Graciela (Director) introduces the students to the many art works that are created by those that cooperate in the program from around the neighborhood
Pieces that line the walls of the MujerArtes studio in the rear of the center
Graciela (left) explains the use of the space as well as the use of the money that the individuals that create these pieces make.
This piece was found drying on a table outside of the MujerArtes Center behind the Riconcito de Esperanza Center. The detail is so precise.
Director Sanchez begins the walking tour off the site of the Riconcito Center. The walk lasts about 1 hr with questions and covers homes around the neighborhood and the area included in the center.
Graciela explains the need for the art and various activities that are done in this neighborhood. The murals across the street depict graduates and positive things that the Westside has contributed and will continue to show in the work that is being done
As the tour comes to an end, Graciela explains the importance of the council meetings and the access that is provided for these meetings. Much of the information that is provided to the individuals in this neighborhood could be seen as bias and has much to be worked on. This is when students start to think up ideas to work with different orgs. or parts of the Esperanza Center to bring Public History to the Westside.
My name is Norbert Geremy Landin, but I usually go by Geremy! I am way too excited about this unexpected Master in Public History program and the future that is to come because of this program. I had no plan on going to St. Mary’s for my masters degree much less in Public History but as I walked along the empty summer halls at St. Mary’s, I was invited to take a look at the program, and here I am a few weeks later.
The goal here is to attain this degree and the knowledge to succeed while working with the City of San Antonio or in organizations like the San Antonio Fiesta Commission on large scale projects and events as well as building a network and relationship with the people that are in these fields and do these things already. I am hopeful that the public history program will help me with these goals for sure!
Fiesta Papel Picado
Lately I’ve reflected on the ideas that brought me closer to believing that I could achieve something in a program like public history and I couldn’t think of a better example than the short film/documentary that I was tasked to complete for Dr. Teresa Van Hoy’s Civilizations course. That documentary was the first time I felt like I had complete freedom of creativity and decision making in a course of that magnitude. Now I’m here in the place where I belong; learning alongside people of different backgrounds and understandings of history.
Hello, everyone! I’m tremendously excited to be a part of the new Public History program at St. Mary’s University, and to have the opportunity to work once again with many of my former professors, as well as meet new and interesting people, many of whom share my interests.
First, i’ll share a bit about myself. I’m originally from Washington, D.C, but have lived in roughly twenty different states during my life and even more homes. My family traveled quite a bit, so I became accustomed to adapting to the world around me. I’ve always been quite an avid reader, and my house generally has more bookcases than anything else. I love stories and storytelling and a wide array of arts. I’ve always wanted to learn more artistic skills, but for the meantime I do calligraphy, and play the piano and the guitar. While nearly everything else I do is generally grounded in reality, I love chaotic and imaginative shows like Doctor Who.
My primary goal as an aspiring historian is to help tell the stories of cultures that have long been overlooked, or whose stories have been generally omitted from the historical record. I’m particularly fascinated and respectful of cultures that have had to struggle to maintain their cultural identity against larger, more aggressive or more influential neighbors. Some of the foremost examples that come to mind are the Korean, Armenian and Tibetan cultures.
Participants in the Lurol festival seek protection from evil, and perform both ceremonial and festive rites derived from native, Buddhist and Bon traditions.
My favorite subject, and what I aspire to write about in the future would be the religiously driven fanaticism driven relentlessly into a fever pitch that tore central Europe apart during the 17th century. The period of the Thirty Years War and the Wars of Religion in France have been a focus of my reading for years, and shall continue to be.
I was so glad to meet all of my fellow graduate students in the St. Mary’s University Public History program, and look forward to working with all of you and learning more about your own interests!
Hello everyone! My name is Sara Ramirez and I am super excited to be part of the inaugural year of the Public History graduate program at St. Mary’s University. I graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor’s of Science and Arts in Biology and have since spent my professional career in informal education. I’ve worked as an educator at the San Antonio Zoo and the Doseum, the Children’s Museum of San Antonio. Presently, I am a Library Assistant with the San Antonio Public Library. I am also a member of the 2018 class of the Alexander Briseño Leadership Development Program.
I believe the Public History graduate program will help to integrate my different interests and passions including history, environmental science, sustainability, digital inclusion, and allow for community engagement and collaboration. This is a truly unique and amazing program. I am eager to begin working on different projects and get to know my professors and classmates better!
Greetings, welcome to the first of many posts in this blog. My name is Scott, and I have been teaching history for the past 18 years. This year I am taking on the challenge of graduate school. I am excited to be here. The program seems wonderful, and I am working with a great group of professors and students.
My Mission
My main goal as a teacher is to try and make the world a better place, both for my individual students and society at large. I try to give my students the tools they need to improve their lives and have the maximum opportunities to create the best future for themselves. By helping the student achieve their potential they go forth into the community and make it a better place. They become examples to the friends and families and show them that improvement is possible. Their success in turn improves their neighborhoods and by extension, the community improves. Sometimes I am successful, sometimes I’m not so successful, but I do my best and keep trying to get through to the students.
Final Thoughts
I am excited at the opportunities that this graduate program will provide for me. The opportunity to use my education experience to reach more people has an appeal to me. I have loved going to museums all my life; having the chance to work in a place like that and helping to develop the exhibits and the displays would be an amazing path for my career. I am looking forward to making the most of this opportunity.
