Tejana Cultural Studies Minjares Digital Project

Tejana's Experiences with Assimilation and Bicultural Identities

[tejanaculturalstudiesminjares]

“Welcome to America, Indeed” by CGP Grey on Flickr. August 13, 2010

[tejanaculturalstudiesminjares]

Am I Too Dark? by Emilia Cruz, 2017.

https://www.artcenter.edu/connect/dot-magazine/articles/emilia-cruz-illustration-netflix-gentefied.html

[tejanaculturalstudiesminjares]

Fiesta Market Square at San Antonio, Texas, August 31, 2023. Photo pictured by Laprensatx on Instagram. @laprensatx

San Antonio was established as a borderland with multiethnic influences coexisting within itself by the people with environmental aspects that built the physical culture, language, events, traditions, and spirit.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by La Prensa Texas (@laprensatx)

[tejanaculturalstudiesminjares]

Jerry Myers and Juanita Myers, husband and wife, on their wedding day, May 31, 1969, at Saint Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church in Phoenix. 

Jerry Myers brought Juanita Myers to the hall to make a last payment for their future home. However, once they arrived and explained their visit, his payment was denied because the hall assumed it was a white family, based on his appearance, not an intermarried couple.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/2019/05/23/50-years-later-no-one-discriminates-against-my-wife-mexican-american/3754633002/

[tejanaculturalstudiesminjares]

“Necesita prueba qué barreras del idioma pueden generar confusión? La niña hispanohablante quedó embarazada después que su maestro le dijo que hiciera un ensayo."

Reminder Memes created by Someeecards User Card

Note: This “no sabo” meme is referring to the fact that Hispanic kids born in the U.S translate “embarrassed” to “embarazado (pregnant)”

https://www.someecards.com/usercards/viewcard/MjAxMi0xYzY0MThlOTIxYWE5ZDBi/

[tejanaculturalstudiesminjares]

Family photo of Frank Gerhart, Marguerite Gerhart, Jim Gerhart (the author's uncle), and JoAnn Gerhart (the author's mother). Photo courtesy of Anthony Pignataro. 

Anthony Pignataro looked through his grandmother, Marguerite Gerhart, and found a digital copy photo of her with a tanned skin tone and thick hair. He inferred she wasn't white, and upon investigating "Marguerite" was not her birth name. As he said "Like her mother, who Americanized her name from Maria to Mary", he concluded that his grandmother didn't want to be associated with her given name.

https://www.gustavoarellano.org/2021/08/mexican-american-passing-as-white/

[tejanaculturalstudiesminjares]

Class pictures of students attending “Campo Juvenil” in Woodmen of the World, La Feria, Texas July 4, 1933, and “Escuelita” in La Feria, Texas. Photos courtesy of Amparo Verduzco.

As an act of preserving traditions and cultures for future generations, Escuelitas served as the starting ground for the development of their cultural background.

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/utxa/reader.action?docID=3571820&query=The+Borderlands+of+Race