Remember the Alamo - San Antonio

This morning we began our day at the legendary Alamo. We found there a continuation of the theme we have found elsewhere, one side of the story glorified with the other side of the story left untold. After we received one of the classic “history talks” by the historic site guide, we ended up having a really interesting conversation with a history professor from Furman University, who was crafting a class examining history- the actual facts of a past event- versus memory- how we tell our stories and the biases that come with that- and the relationship between the two. That was a really interesting way for us to view the account of the Alamo that we heard retold and saw portrayed at this site and for the rest of the things we have seen along the way. We noticed on the nice brochure they hand out, on the list of names of the soldiers that died at the Alamo, one black man is described as “John, the free black man” whereas in the history talk the guide casually mentioned that this man “may have been free or may have been a slave, we’re not really sure”…to notice the careful crafting of the story the Alamo tells through the products it puts out for visitors.
Another interesting part of the Alamo we noticed was a plaque put up to let visitors know that the Daughters of the Texas Revolution saved the Alamo in order to protect it from commercialism. However, on the actual grounds of the site, the most elaborate part was the gift shop, and all around this site were ways in which it had indeed been commercialized. Why did they feel the need to declare they were protecting it from commercialism when it was so clearly all around?
We had some good Tex-Mex by the rather odd man-made river that runs through the city, and then spent some time interviewing people in San Antonio, most of them locals. We asked them the question we have been asking others and ourselves all along this journey: what does it mean to be an American? In this city, we also tried to examine this larger-than-life identity of Texas that some people from this state proclaim. We got both some predictable and some interesting answers. I was surprised to hear from the ostentatiously-dressed gay couple that they loved living in San Antonio, thought the city had a diverse mix of people from all walks of life and felt more than accepted in their rather non-traditional lifestyle, which totally contradicts some of the expectations (and possibly prejudices) I had about people who lived in Texas. Almost all of the people we asked about what it meant to be an American said that it meant to be free. We have been trying to follow up that stock answer that everyone seems to produce with “free to do what or free from what?” We heard “freedom to do what I want, within reason of the law”, “freedoms that other countries don’t have” and other rather vague ideas about this concept of freedom. We have found over and over again that people have difficulty defining in any kind of concrete terms what it means to them to be an American. It is making me examine my own definition of a patriotic American citizen and see if my definition is changing along the way.

Fun note to end on... Andi bought the oh-so-exciting souvenir of Alamo crackers, mainly because of the priceless description on the back:
Alamo Crackers
"Remember the Alamo!" was the battle cry of a new breed of settlers in search of independence. "Remember the Alamo....crackers!" is the cry of a new breed of snackers in search of a treat independent of the rest.

It goes on to explain that these crackers, like their namesake, "never surrender" to good taste....(though I'm not sure precisely what that means).

Anyway, stay tuned for El Paso.