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The term Tejano, derived from the Spanish adjective
tejano or (feminine) tejana (and written in Spanish with
a lower-case t), denotes a Texan of Mexican descent,
thus a Mexican Texan or a Texas Mexican. The term
received greater currency at the end of the twentieth
century than previously with subsequent changes in
nuance and usage. It encompasses cultural manifestations
in language, literature, art, music, and cuisine. As an
adjective, Tex-Mex is a recently coined term related to,
but not synonymous with, Tejano. Broader terms used at
different times or for different segments of this ethnic
group are Hispanic American, Latin American, Mexican,
Mexican American, and Chicano. As early as 1824, Miguel
Ramos Arispe, author of the (Mexican) Constitution of
1824, referred to the citizens of Texas as Tejanos in
correspondence with the town council of Bexar. After the
Mexican War of Independence and the establishment of a
federal government, the term Coahuiltejano denoted the
citizens of the Mexican state of Coahuila and Texas.
Hispanics in Texas identified themselves simply as
Tejanos as early as January 1833, when leaders at Goliad
used the term. The term Méjico-Tejano appeared in print
in 1855, when the San Antonio newspaper El Bejareño
reported a letter by José Antonio Navarro read at the
second meeting of the Spanish-speaking members of the
Bexar County Democratic party. Throughout the nineteenth
century, Mexican (mexicano) was the term generally used
in popular reference for a Mexican national or a Mexican
American. As the boundaries of Texas changed to include
the Nueces Strip, Laredo, and El Paso, so too did the
term Tejano come to include the Hispanic and Mexican
residents of those areas. Historians have applied the
term specifically, perhaps anachronistically, to those
Mexican Texans in Spanish Texas, to distinguish them
from residents of other regions, and in Texas from the
end of the Spanish era in 1821 to Texas Independence in
1836, in contradistinction to the Texian or
Anglo-American residents of that time and of the
Republic of Texas. Increasingly, Tejano, as a term
denoting regional identity, referred to Mexican Texans
of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and to the
Hispanic Texans of the Spanish era. The term occurred
with greater frequency in speech and written forms as
the political activity of the ethnic group became
pronounced, particularly following the Chicano movement
of the mid-1960s. Tejano is now widely enough used that
it is considered a naturalized item in the Texas
lexicon. |
