Monday, October 13, 1986/The Battalion/Page 3
State and Local
panish heritage in Texas explored
storian: State
velopment
ided by settlers
By Carolyn Garcia
Reporter
|ex;ins have a saying that if you
ad a good life and say your pray-
s, when you die vou can go to
las
lut historian Robert S. Weddle
I Texas was anything but heav-
|i| lor Spanish com|uistadors.
meddle spoke at a symposium
alrdav in Rudder Tower explor-
igilieSpanish heritage in Texas.
He pointed out that until La
le's voyage, Spanish expeditions
ihet with disaster, especially on
lacoast.
fTht' 1")54 ileet went down while
jig back to Spain, he said. Three
|ie lour ships sank, sending more
an 00 men plunging into the Gulf
sitli only one man surviving.
Respite the seafaring disasters,
be quest for economic enrichment
j| territorial advancement spurred
pain on, Weddle said.
there is a saying that the French
xlored for trade, the Spanish for
)| and the English for coloniza-
on, he said. “This is just not true,
[the French had landed in Mexico
nd found what the Spanish did,
would hardly have walked
The conquistadors found Texas
use they went looking for an-
thei Mexico."
He said that when no second Mex-
§vas found, Texas became a low
rity until the French showed an
ilterest in it.
Weddle said Texas emerged
in ugh four stages of development:
Irh exploration, cultural absorp-
J I, defensive occupation, and de
mand revolution.
|elix D. Almaraz, a historian from
Antonio, said this development
p advanced by offers of land and
es brought to Texas by Spanish
llers.
pimaraz said the Spanish citizens
ten not happy with the missions
i. ;
a 1
San Antonio’s Misin de Nuestra Senora de la Pur-
sima Concepcin de Acuna, which was built in
Photo courtesy of Chester C. Christian Jr.
1731, stands as a reminder of early Spanish influ
ence in Texas.
and presidios. He said the citizens
wanted a real town.
In August 1781 the first munici
pal settlement in Texas was estab
lished, Almaraz said.
“The Spanish settlers were very li
tigious,” he said. “They always
wanted to go to court over every
little grievance. They had cases by
the handfuls, which turned out
lucky for historians because now we
have all these records to work with.”
David E. Vassberg of Pan Ameri
can University said Spanish culture
in Texas may be stronger now’ than
it was in the 1800s.
“We have Spanish food, language,
religion, customs, folklore and art,”
Vassberg said. “And this interest in
Spanish things is spreading.”
Topics discussed in the sympo
sium included the linguistic roots of
Texas Spanish, literature and
folklore, the Spanish missions as an
thropological sites, and a look into
ranching practices and their history.
T his event and a photographic ex
hibit titled "The Spanish Heritage in
Texas" are being presented as part
of the 1986 Texas Sesquicentennial
celebration.
The exhibit includes 52 large
black and white photographs, maps
and illustrations with texts in both
English and Spanish.
The exhibit is sponsored by Texas
A&M, the U.S.-Spain Joint Commit
tee for Educational and Cultural Af
fairs, the Texas Committee for the
Humanities and the Comission Na-
cional para la Conmemoracion del V
Centenario del Descubrimiento de
America.
A second exhibit, “Centuries of
Architecture in Spain,” has been
loaned to the University by the gov
ernment of Spain.
This exhibit includes 30 color
photographs with texts in both En
glish and Spanish.
The exhibits will be on display
through October 29.
A&M prof says U.S.
needs awareness
of Soviets, culture
By Fawn Haynes
Reporter
It is vital that every U.S. citizen
he aware of conditions within the
Sov iet Union, a teaching assistant
from the Department of Interdis
ciplinary Education said Satur
day.
Hugh H. Hughes gave his
views on Soviet people and cul
ture during a seminar held in
Rudder Tower.
"I think it is time for us to pull
our heads out of the sand and
wake up to the reality that the So
viet Union does exist," Hughes
said. “The Soviet Union is a
power that we need to under
stand in order to play our inter
national game of chess with them
and come out equal and not on
the short end.”
Hughes cited several negative
impressions Americans have
formed about Soviet people:
• Soviets torture people.
• Soviet cities have walls.
• The weather is bitterly cold.
• All Russians are short, fat
and grumpy.
He added that because of the
American press or propaganda,
U.S. citizens get the impression
that the Soviet people are unemo
tional.
Hughes, who escorts Russian
Language Seminar students to
the Soviet Union, said in the past
the country w’as a forbidden place
to go, but now tourists are wel
come.
Hughes coordinated the A&M
Russian language trip to the So
viet Union, which ran from May
20 to July 6 this year. The pro
gram is sponsored by the Univer
sity of Texas at El Paso and has
existed for about 12 years, he
said.
The group included students
from Texas A&M, UTEP, the
University of Colorado and Pur
due University. It spent four
weeks in Moscow and two weeks
in Leningrad, Hughes said.
Moscow is the center of Rus
sian culture and is a spectacular
and exciting place to visit, he said.
He said the massive and majes
tic subway system always im
presses the group.
Another Moscow sight is the
blocks and blocks of apartments
divided by miles of woods, he
said.
"It’s a city that doesn’t make
you feel like you’re in a city,"
Hughes said. "It looks like a
country in itself.”
Hughes said the group saw
people relaxing in parks, mothers
walking with their children and
men sitting together drinking
beer.
“We didn’t see anybody in
chains," he said. “We didn’t see
anybody being w’hipped by po
lice. In fact, w’e didn’t see any po
lice at all except those directing
traffic.”
Hughes said he found out that
in some ways the Soviet people
know’ more about the Americans
than the Americans know about
them. He said he believes this is
because they are looking for
knowledge.
“If you’re a tourist, they will
ask you questions and pump you
dry of information,” he said.
He said this is odd because
Americans have free press, and
the Soviets’ press is entirely anti-
American. Everything evil that
has ever happened is the Ameri
cans’ fault according to the Soviet
press, he said.
“You’ll see that (anti-American
propaganda) on TV, hear it on
the radio and read it in the
press,” Hughes said.
But Hughes said the Soviets
like Americans even though ev
erything they read in their press
is anti-American.
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