“Remember the Alamo!”

The banner slogan was draped across the blackboard of my social studies class in El Paso, Texas. The black letters jumped off the white background. The slogan on the banner was appropriate because the elementary school was named after Sam Houston, first president of the Texas Republic. . . .

It was September and we were going to the auditorium to see the movie, The Battle of the Alamo. Texas history was the course of study for the year and the whole week before the film we made salt maps of the state. I was very proud of my carved Ivory soap model of the Alamo. . . .

That year, my class at Houston School was about half Anglo and half Mexican. . . . The Battle of the Alamo was an old film, very dark and gray. The battle brought together small, overdressed Mexican men and big white men dressed in buckskins. As you probably know, the battle was fierce and it was won by a villain named Antonio López de Santa Anna. He was portrayed as a small ruthless man who made martyrs of the Anglos that day at the Alamo. There were 187 Anglos killed and 600 Mexicans killed.

After the film was over, the dark shades on the windows were lifted and the lights turned on. I felt uncomfortable as I looked around the auditorium. . . . I avoided the looks of my friends because I couldn’t understand my confused feelings. I felt sick. I was painfully aware of being Mexican. And it wouldn’t be the last time that year.

. . . I walked back quietly until my friend Linda ran up to me. Linda’s family was from Monterrey [Mexico] and she didn’t live far from me.

“Gloria, who did you cheer for?” she asked in a quiet tone. I looked at her and looked around before I answered. “The Mexicans,” I replied softly. Linda shrieked, “Me too.” . . .

When we were back in the classroom, the teacher stood in front of the room directly beneath the banner. She was a slender, very white woman with sky blue eyes. . . . “The men at the Alamo were heroes—true Texans,” she said in a soft voice. . . .

“Yeah. And Texas is for Texans,” yelled a voice at the back of the classroom. . . . Even though I was born in Mexico, I had been a Texan since I was two years old. I am also a Mexican. Joe pushed me from behind and uttered a chant of mockery. My friend José across the aisle slugged him. He gestured to Joe with his fists to leave me alone. . . . Angry and confused, I put my head down so that no one could see me cry.

Source: Gloria López-Stafford, A Place in El Paso: A Mexican American Childhood (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996), 3–5.