Musings from an earlier time in my life
Lately, to take a break from my current writing project, I have been taking a look at some of my earlier writings. Today I ran across this column that appeared in several Texas newspapers. Personally, it is an eye-opener. Hope you enjoy it, as well as my intellectual growth from that time.
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Hispanic studies at A&M are long overdue
February 11, 2004
Texas A&M University has announced that it will offer a Ph.D. in Hispanic studies. Several years ago I may have found that idea gratuitous but today I think I would say, "it's about time."
As an impetuous young man, I had little time for history. Why should I be concerned about what others had done years, even centuries before my time? I was interested in the here and now and perhaps more importantly in what was coming just down the road. History was for chumps and squares who had nothing better to do.
As far as Mexican American studies programs that were springing up in every college campus in the southwest and the Ivy League universities, they were for losers that had to dwell on their roots because they had no roots to hang on to. Me, I had been raised Mexican American and did not need some pseudo-Hispanic with long hair telling me about my "Chicano" roots.
Over the years I have become fascinated with the history of South Texas.
With time, I came to realize how wrong I was on both counts. History is important and so are Mexican American studies. I will concede that neither of these courses of study is likely to provide a road to wealth to anyone and can only provide a good living to a handful. But there is more to life than money.
"But Hispanic studies," Ray Keck, President of Texas A&M University International in Laredo told the Associated Press, "is the center of our history, our society, economic infrastructure, our political life and our art and cultural life."
Indeed it is, to those of us that call Texas home.
Over the years I have become fascinated with the history of South Texas. It is a rich history that has hardly been told. I have recently completed my first manuscript, a historical novel on the Plan of San Diego. For those who are not familiar with the Plan of San Diego, it was an irredentist movement launched in South Texas by Mexican Americans in 1915. It reveals much about who we were and why we became what we are today.
History has a way of doing that. As noted historian Will Durant once wrote, "those who ignore history are bound to repeat it." I can assure you there is much in our history in Texas that we would just as soon not repeat.
To their credit, Texas A&M saw the need to offer this area of study. The doctoral program will be much more than just the study of Spanish; it will incorporate the disciplines of history, culture, and philosophy. The flagship campus at College Station will administer the program but students will be able to take courses at A&M system schools in Corpus Christi, Kingsville, and Laredo. Students at all these branches will be able to take courses through the technology of teleconferencing.
Students will be able to fashion their own course of study, choosing from Spanish language and literature, bilingual and bicultural studies, Hispanic cultural history, and linguistics. Those enrolled in the program must be bilingual in Spanish and English and must be able to read a third language.
My oldest child often gets frustrated with what she calls my generation's preoccupation with matters of race. As a child of the '60s, I have to plead guilty to being more than a little interested in relationships between varying groups. It does not, however, make me guilty of ethnocentrism.
The reality is that Texas has seen more than its share of ethnic or racial conflicts. It would be foolish for us not to learn from the history of those relationships and the lessons they can provide us.
History, as has been said, can be a valuable teacher. So what better place to make sure future generations learn from the past than at a first-rate university. Texas A&M has long been known as a leader in many fields, it is good to see it provide leadership in this important area of study.
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| Carlos Blanton, Ph.D. |
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