Kathy Vargas

The Mexican Museum in San Francisco commissioned several Chicano photographers, myself included, to consider the American West from the Latino perspective. Since I live in San Antonio, I knew I had to confront my relationship with the Alamo. I hit on the idea of altarpieces, since the Alamo is considered a “shrine.” I created diptychs. The first panel depicts my reality; the second, in a silver matte, enshrines what the power structure values. To make sure the images were understood, I added text, which reads…

My father told me that my great, great grandfather, Juan Vargas, had been present at the Battle of the Alamo – on the Mexican side. A Tejano since 1830, he was taken up as Santa Anna made his way through San Antonio. But because Juan was an indigeno, Santa Anna wouldn’t have given him a gun. Rather, he was armed with a broom. I always teased that great, great, grandpa ‘swept up’ after the Battle of the Alamo.
My father, however, always felt that our ancestor was rather glad not to have had to kill anyone on either side – Texans or Tejanos.
When I was little, my cousins from Michigan wanted to visit the Alamo whenever they came to town. I’d go along, and my dad would buy us coonskin hats, just like Davy Crockett’s, and we’d have our picture taken in front of the ‘shrine.’ On one visit, I refused to wear a coonskin hat because, on TV, Davy Crockett killed Indians, and my father always said we were part Indian. Was Davy fighting us? If so, I didn’t want his hat. Another part of me was Mexican, but the Mexicans were the bad guys at the Alamo. It was very confusing. Was I the bad guy? I see families lining up to pose before the Alamo, and I wonder if, walking away, they have, for one moment, blamed Mexicans – my family – the way, in front of other monuments, we have all blamed the ‘other.’ I was very young, but I understood some things.
I understood that even when there are papel picado Alamos, it’s Davy Crockett who is celebrated.
Then there’s the Order of the Alamo with their duchesses, princess and queen at Fiesta time: beautiful dresses my mom would let me wave to until I said, ‘when I grow up I want to be one of them.’ My mother explained that I couldn’t be: expensive dresses and ‘old’ families, she said. She never used the word ‘racism’ only ‘money’ and ‘lineage’ – but I got the message. It was the first time I’d looked honestly at who I and my family were.
Many parades have gone by in San Antonio since that time, and little girls still wish – and learn they can’t be.
In my teens a movie company came to town to make a film called Viva Max, in which the Mexicans retake the Alamo. I couldn’t help but be gleeful. ‘We’ would win again. Then I had to rethink that ‘we.’ I was born and raised in Texas. Still, after being called a ‘messican’ by ‘Texans’ most of my life, you couldn’t blame me. I envisioned a composite of Max and Juan Vargas, with his indigeno’s broom, fighting John Wayne. The Daughters of the Republic of Texas, official guardians of the Alamo, were sick that the Mexicans were coming and tried to stop the filming. But the producer “donated” $10,000 for the upkeep of the shrine, and things got much easier for the movie company. The ‘battle’ wasn’t really between Max and John Wayne, though.”
Then we had the raspa threat. It was about preserving the ‘dignity’ of the place. The raspa vendors selling their ices in front of the Alamo obscured the view of the monument, commercializing it for pennies. Of course, most of those vendors were Chicanos and Chicanas. The Daughters tried to have them expelled. Perhaps those vendors would’ve been more welcome if they’d brought in bigger bucks …
My ambiguous relationship with everything Alamo was finally clarified and resolved by rock and roll, in the form of Ozzy Osbourne. (Thanks, Ozzy!) One night, after a performance in San Antonio, Ozzy insisted on a midnight visit to the Alamo. But having had much too much to drink, and there being no bathrooms open at that hour, Ozzy tempted fate by pissing on part of the Alamo – the cenotaph, not the Alamo building itself, but close enough. The earth did not swallow him, and lightning bolts did not strike him dead. But he wasn’t about to get away with this sacrilege. The Furies took the form of the infamous Daughters of the Republic of Texas, who ‘exiled’ him from our town. Since Ozzy was a reasonable man and needed San Antonio on his tour schedule, he apologized and donated $10,000, and he was forgiven. It made me understand what was really important.
The Mexican American community found the tourist flick “Alamo, the Price of Freedom” racist and offensive, and tried to shut it down, but they lost, and it kept running its version of Alamo history.
… like the ‘lovely’ over-priced souvenirs sold in the official Alamo gift shop: felt banners, Alamo cookies, plastic Bowie knives, and even bottled ‘Heroes of the Alamo’ water.
If only Santa Anna had known what the going price was! Maybe we Tejanos wouldn’t have been called ‘messicans’ all these years.