Remembering the Alamo Is Easier When You Know Its Many-Sided History

[snopes]

When it comes to the Alamo — particularly in San Antonio where this old Spanish mission turned fort attracts nearly three million visitors a year — the history and its mythical meanings have been wrestled over almost as much as the blood-soaked terrain was in preceding centuries. “Remember the Alamo!” was the old battle cry; in recent decades the fight was over just what was being remembered.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/arts/30conn.html

[Seburiel]

Living in the San Antonio area for so long, and hearing 'Remember the Alamo' as sort of the city's motto, it came as a surprise when, touring the Alamo with my family, we were told by someone called an 'Alamo Ranger' (I'm not sure if they are police or private security) informed us that 'Remember the Alamo' is a racist phrase...
*sigh*


*grumble grumble grumble*
I understand being sensitive to others, but this PC crap is killing me

[Beachlife!]

Originally Posted by Seburiel

Living in the San Antonio area for so long, and hearing 'Remember the Alamo' as sort of the city's motto, it came as a surprise when, touring the Alamo with my family, we were told by someone called an 'Alamo Ranger' (I'm not sure if they are police or private security) informed us that 'Remember the Alamo' is a racist phrase...
*sigh*


*grumble grumble grumble*
I understand being sensitive to others, but this PC crap is killing me

Forgetting PC altogehter, it is a racist phrase, isn't it? I'm not sure what it means to you, but the phrase generally means "remember what the Mexican's did". Which translates to a call to hate, or at least dis-trust Mexicans.

[Elbe]

Originally Posted by Beachlife!

Forgetting PC altogehter, it is a racist phrase, isn't it? I'm not sure what it means to you, but the phrase generally means "remember what the Mexican's did". Which translates to a call to hate, or at least dis-trust Mexicans.

Racist? Wouldn't it be similar to remembering events from every other war we've faced? Remember d-day isn't racist, it's just, I guess I would call it, a verbal memorial. Although I guess if people use it to dislike today's mexicans, and then translates that into an entire race, I could see it as being racist, but many things can sound racist when said by racists.

[Beachlife!]

Originally Posted by Elbe

Racist? Wouldn't it be similar to remembering events from every other war we've faced? Remember d-day isn't racist, it's just, I guess I would call it, a verbal memorial. Although I guess if people use it to dislike today's mexicans, and then translates that into an entire race, I could see it as being racist, but many things can sound racist when said by racists.

Remember D-day???

Remember Pearl Harbor, yeah that's racist too. Try saying it in real loud in Tokyo some time and tell me you don't come off as a racist. Same thing with saying remember the Alamo. It's been used to mean 'remember what the Mexicans did', not 'remember what a few people attacking us did'.

[Elbe]

Originally Posted by Beachlife!

Remember D-day???

Remember Pearl Harbor, yeah that's racist too. Try saying it in real loud in Tokyo some time and tell me you don't come off as a racist. Same thing with saying remember the Alamo. It's been used to mean 'remember what the Mexicans did', not 'remember what a few people attacking us did'.

I will admit, I avoided pearl harbor. I used d-day because it would be plain silly to claim racism over it. But I don't think it changes my original point: just because it can be used by racists doesn't automatically make it a racist phrase. I imagine it's quite possible that most usage of "remember the alamo" is with a racist intent, but then if someone uses the phrase to pay some small tribute to an historic event in american history does that make them racist?

So, umm, I guess it depends on it's usage. Screaming "remember pearl harbor" in tokyo would be considered racist (or, at the very least, anti japanese), and yelling "remember the alamo" to a bunch of mexicans would as well. But that doesn't mean you can't use the phrase in other situations without sounding racist (or anti-mexican). Returning to the d-day one, yelling "remember d-day" in berlin probably wouldn't be racist but could be taken as anti-german.

[Beachlife!]

Originally Posted by Elbe

I will admit, I avoided pearl harbor. I used d-day because it would be plain silly to claim racism over it. But I don't think it changes my original point: just because it can be used by racists doesn't automatically make it a racist phrase. I imagine it's quite possible that most usage of "remember the alamo" is with a racist intent, but then if someone uses the phrase to pay some small tribute to an historic event in american history does that make them racist?

So, umm, I guess it depends on it's usage. Screaming "remember pearl harbor" in tokyo would be considered racist (or, at the very least, anti japanese), and yelling "remember the alamo" to a bunch of mexicans would as well. But that doesn't mean you can't use the phrase in other situations without sounding racist (or anti-mexican). Returning to the d-day one, yelling "remember d-day" in berlin probably wouldn't be racist but could be taken as anti-german.

So you're saying it's okay to say 'remember the Alamo' as long as there aren't any Mexicans around???

[Troodon]

I spent a lot of my childhood in Texas, and IMO "Remember the Alamo" is no more inherently racist or anti-Mexican than celebrating the Fourth of July is anti-British.

[Vanilla Gorilla]

Originally Posted by Beachlife!

So you're saying it's okay to say 'remember the Alamo' as long as there aren't any Mexicans around???

I have lived in Texas nearly 25 years and have yet to hear someone say "Remember the Alamo" in other then historical context(i.e. Texas History class or the tour of the Alamo). Most of the people I know who would use racist slurs will just stick to the standard anti-hispanic insults.

But to ban the term in say a history class would be plain silly.

[Vanilla Gorilla]

Just FYI in relating to Texas History. "Remember the Alamo" was not the only battle cry. The other was "Remember Goliad".

[Ryda Wong, EBfCo.]

Originally Posted by Troodon

I spent a lot of my childhood in Texas, and IMO "Remember the Alamo" is no more inherently racist or anti-Mexican than celebrating the Fourth of July is anti-British.

I think that many in the chicano/a community would totally call bs on that.

ETA: Ahhh. The key term here is "inherently." Inherently, no. However, the implication is most certainly racist.

[Beachlife!]

Originally Posted by Vanilla Gorilla

I have lived in Texas nearly 25 years and have yet to hear someone say "Remember the Alamo" in other then historical context(i.e. Texas History class or the tour of the Alamo). Most of the people I know who would use racist slurs will just stick to the standard anti-hispanic insults.

But to ban the term in say a history class would be plain silly.

And nobody suggested it should be banned from history class or anywhere.

If it's not used anywhere out side of history class then the discussion is probably moot, eh?

[Elbe]

Originally Posted by Beachlife!

So you're saying it's okay to say 'remember the Alamo' as long as there aren't any Mexicans around???

I did say "to mexicans", with the idea in mind that you would say it to mexicans to insult them directly.

[Troodon]

Originally Posted by Ryda Wong, EBfCo.

I think that many in the chicano/a community would totally call bs on that.

ETA: Ahhh. The key term here is "inherently." Inherently, no. However, the implication is most certainly racist.

I can't make any universal pronouncements, but I personally have never heard the phrase used in a racist way (or even used outside of history class). I think that the white students in history class probably felt pride when that section of Texas history was covered, and the Hispanic students probably did not, but I wouldn't call that racism - it's more like what I feel during discussions of the Soviet Union. I'm from there, so it doesn't make me happy that the Soviet Union was, in a lot of ways, the "bad guy", and that in the end it failed. However, I don't take it personally.

In general, in our Texas history classes, the teachers included the contributions of Mexicans and Mexican culture to Texas and tried to give us a balanced picture of Texas history.

[The Goof]

Yes, it must be racist since there were obviously no Mexican/Hispanic Defenders at the Alamo.

[Ryda Wong, EBfCo.]

Originally Posted by Troodon

I can't make any universal pronouncements, but I personally have never heard the phrase used in a racist way .

I think I'm perhaps looking at it in the more historical context, in which the Alamo was used as a rhetorical, symbolic device to push for Texas succession. A cursory review of the literature of the period shows the anti-mexican bias pretty clearly.

Now, it could very well be the case that everyone except scholars has forgotten about that, but, somehow, it doesn't seem likely.

Indeed, the rhetoric seems to be active in at least some decidely non-scholarly circles, as evidenced by this post on the website conservative chat (warning, graphic racism):

: ALL THE WHITE MEN I HAVE EVER ENCOUNTERED IN SCHOOL HAVE ALWAYS SPOKEN TRUTHFULLY ABOUT BROWN CHICANO EXCREMENT!

: I AM NOT A SCHOOL STUDENT ANY LONGER AND I WELCOME YOUR AGRESSIVE ADVANCES TOWARDS ME YOU DIRTY BEANER! EVERY SCHOOL STUDENT YOU HAR BECOMES AN ANTI MEXICAN WARRIOR WHEN HE/SHE GETS TO MY INFLUENTIAL AGE! I HAVE PUT MANY OF YOU BEHIND BARS ON DRUG CHARGES AND THEY NEVER KNEW FROM WHERE THE BLADE STRUCK!

: YOU SHOULD NOT FORGET THERE ARE 200,000,000 CAUCS OF EUROPEAN DECENT VERY ALIVE AND VERY WELL LIVING IN THE USA! THAT IS MORE THAN ALL THE BROWN AZTEC EXCREMENT OF THE USA & MEXICO COMBINED! I THINK YOUR BROWN UGLY HIDE WOULD LOOK QUITE INTERESTING HANGING FROM MY WALL, PERHAPS I'LL CUT IT INTO PAGES AND USE IT AS AN ILUSTRATION BOOK ABOUT HOW THE ANGLO MEN SHREADED THE CHICANO MALES WITH THEIR CANNON SHNAL! REMEMBER THE ALAMO!


And the KKK apparently has used it recently (from the SPL:

Both Klan groups, like most others, have concentrated heavily on immigration. A recent IKA pamphlet said that the huge pro-immigrant marches held last year showed that American cities are "terrorized by hateful, racist illegal aliens marching under a foreign flag." Not to be outdone, the BOK website, under the headline "REMEMBER THE ALAMO!" announced this winter that it was time for white Americans "to declare war on these illegal Mexicans."



KKK normally isn't comprised of academics either.

So, yeah, there does seem to be a undertone of racism still./

[Troodon]

There are no doubt racists who use the phrase, but I don't think that the KKK or random crazy people on message boards are indicative of the mindset of the majority.

[Ryda Wong, EBfCo.]

Originally Posted by Troodon

There are no doubt racists who use the phrase, but I don't think that the KKK or random crazy people on message boards are indicative of the mindset of the majority.

Meh. I think that's difficult to say. In my parent's generation, it was laden with racist implications, fed by the early films and "historical accounts" in the popular culture. Perhaps now it's better, but I don't know for sure.

[Beachlife!]

Originally Posted by Ryda Wong, EBfCo.

Meh. I think that's difficult to say. In my parent's generation, it was laden with racist implications, fed by the early films and "historical accounts" in the popular culture. Perhaps now it's better, but I don't know for sure.

There certainly was a popular joke from my youth in which a couple of Texans yell this phrase just before tossing two Mexicans out of a plane.

Originally Posted by Beachlife!

So you're saying it's okay to say 'remember the Alamo' as long as there aren't any Mexicans around???

Reminds me of a conversation a couple of friends had while talking about the Alamo...

"Remember the Alamo? That's where a bunch of your ancestors murdered a bunch of my ancestors..."
"Wait, that means the Alamo was a place where a bunch of my ancestors murdered another bunch of my ancestors. Man, I don't know how to feel about that..."

You can guess at the racial makeup of that group of friends.