I Would Rather Sleep in Texas: a History of the Lower Rio Grande Valley and the People of the Santa Anita Land Grant.I Would Rather Sleep in Texas: A History of the Lower Rio Grande Rio Grande, city, Brazil Rio Grande (rē`  grän`dĭ), city (1991 pop. Valley and the People of the Santa Anita Santa Anita may refer to:
abbr. International Standard Book Number ISBN International Standard Book Number ISBN n abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m 0-87611-186-X.) I Would Rather Sleep in Texas by three generations of a South Texas family--Mary Margaret McAllen Amberson, James A. McAllen, and Margaret H. McAllen--is a sprawling mass of anecdotes, impressive genealogical research, and antiquated historical interpretations. This long, repetitive genealogy fails as history due to its inability to explore the meaning of events beyond the narrow confines of its subjects' worldviews. The book details the exciting lives of McAllen ancestors. Family matriarch Marfa Salome Balli de la Garza Young McAllen, daughter of a wealthy Spanish family, succeeded in her lifelong struggle to retain ancestral lands that dated to the 1790s. Her father pursued a domestic policy during the 1840s and 1850s of ensuring that "each of his ... children married a new settler of European or Anglo descent" (p. 126). For "old Spanish Old Spanish n. Spanish before the middle of the 16th century. families" of the Rio Grande Valley "intermarriage in·ter·mar·ry intr.v. in·ter·mar·ried, in·ter·mar·ry·ing, in·ter·mar·ries 1. To marry a member of another group. 2. To be bound together by the marriages of members. 3. with newcomers, flush with cash from mercantile activity, provided them with the means to maintain their lands and social status ..." (p. 126). Salome's second husband was a Scotch-Irish merchant named John McAllen. Surviving "slave" labor on an Irish plantation and over a year in a Mexican jail, McAllen rose in border society to become a wealthy entrepreneur (p. 144). The book also discusses merchant Charles Stillman, whose money from the Confederate-Mexican cotton trade helped found the National City Bank of New York The Bank of New York, abbrieviated to BNY, was a global financial services company that existed until its merger with the Mellon Financial Corporation on July 2, 2007.[1] The bank now continues under the new name of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation. (currently Citigroup). When I Would Rather Sleep in Texas strays from genealogy into broader historical interpretation, its weaknesses become evident. The central problem is the authors' inability to give meaning to conflict. For example, in the analysis of famed border bandit bandit: see brigandage. Juan Cortina, Amberson and the McAllens fail to explain how such an "angry man" bent upon "an incremental mission of vengeance against the American and European-born population of the Lower Rio Grande Valley and the government of Texas" was so popular for so long among Mexicans on both sides of the fiver (p. 161). The authors display little interest in examining the region's atmosphere of racial strife, so well documented in recent decades. I Would Rather Sleep in Texas also exhibits a jarring lack of curiosity regarding some incredible instances of violence, including the brutal lynching of a Tejano shoemaker in 1862. Hardly any larger meaning or context to the act's gruesome details is advanced aside from bland statements about vigilantism Taking the law into one's own hands and attempting to effect justice according to one's own understanding of right and wrong; action taken by a voluntary association of persons who organize themselves for the purpose of protecting a common interest, such as liberty, property, or among the "people" and how "People lived on, dealing daily with unexpected violence and rustling that continued to plague the Rio Grande border area" (p. 184). The book seems out of step with modern historiography due to this baffling baf·fle tr.v. baf·fled, baf·fling, baf·fles 1. To frustrate or check (a person) as by confusing or perplexing; stymie. 2. To impede the force or movement of. n. 1. disinterest dis·in·ter·est n. 1. Freedom from selfish bias or self-interest; impartiality. 2. Lack of interest; indifference. tr.v. To divest of interest. Noun 1. in the causative force of systematic racial violence. Accordingly, the authors interpret the 1915 irredentist ir·re·den·tist n. One who advocates the recovery of territory culturally or historically related to one's nation but now subject to a foreign government. movement of Tejanos and the "Plan de San Diego" as mere Mexican banditry spurred by German diplomatic intrigue; unaddressed is whether this was also a social movement caused by decades of racial oppression. Also illustrative of this dismaying lack of interpretation is the haunting story of how one of Salome McAllen's friends, another Tejana intermarriage pioneer, maintained hope that her sons "would marry Mexicans as I have great fear that I will be presented with a 'gringita' [white girl] that cannot speak Castilian, and tell me, what could be worse?" (p. 341). The authors here and elsewhere miss the opportunity to explore the fascinating and unique process of assimilation on the border over a century ago. In I Would Rather Sleep in Texas, Mary Margaret McAllen Amberson, James A. McAllen, and Margaret H. McAllen have produced a giant, remarkable, and flawed work of history. CARLOS KEVIN BLANTON Texas A&M University |
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