Important issues in Tejano history

 

Andres Tijerina

(My good friend and fellow historian Andres Tijerina wrote to me regarding our ongoing discussion on Tejano words and language. I believe his thoughts are valuable and asked him if I could share them with you. Here they are, enjoy!)

by Andres Tijerina, Ph.D.

There's no question your website generates important issues in Tejano history.  Here are a few points on our language that I've made through the years:

1. Mesteño and other Tejano ranching words are not incorrect and were not even listed in the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española, because mustangs and longhorns existed only in South Texas, not Spain or anywhere else in the world.  That Diccionario defines Mesteño as existing en Tejas.
   
   
2. The Spanish that was brought in 1750 to Nuevo Santander (South Texas) was in fact insulated from the etymological changes in the Spanish spoken in Spain.  Our Tejano ancestors kept the original Spanish spoken in the 1700s.  If anybody is wrong, Spain lost the original words.
   
   
3. The official 1521 reports of Bartolome de las Casas and Hernan Cortes include the words truje, naiden, and ansi, which modern Tejanos are criticized for using today as incorrect Spanish.
   
   
4. The people in Spain and Mexico use words that we Tejanos taught them because they didn't have automobiles and modern technology, so we had to teach them words like carro, troque, parkin, mitin, and flet.  If these words are incorrect, then Anglos are wrong for using English words like lasso, corral, and ranch because they also adopted Tejano words instead of rope, stockade, and farm.

Noah Webster didn't argue with the British on American words.  He just wrote the American Dictionary of the English Language.  It's a truck, not a lorrie.

So who's wrong?  Tejanos taught a whole new vocabulary to Americans, Mexico, Spain, etc.  The irony is that when they use our language, they consider them correct, but when Tejanos use our own unique language, they say we're incorrect.

It's not a question of language or history.  It's a question of power.  Like when a Texas historian tried to make us change a couple of details on the Tejano Monument.  We didn't argue history with him.  We just got the Texas Legislature to pass a bill authorizing us to erect the Tejano Monument as we designed it.

¡Punto!

Here is a link from Amazon to books Andres has published. Check out his long publishing record and if you feel the urge, support his efforts by purchasing one.

https://amzn.to/3njO9OX