Archaeological Perspectives on Tejano Erasure in the Rio Grande Valley

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "In the Sticks but Not in the Weeds II: Historical Whitewashing and Modern Reimagining of Rural America’s Fantasy Past", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Anglo settlement of the Rio Grande Valley began in the late 19th and early 20th century. Part of this colonization involved the whitewashing of the region’s history, including the erasure of Tejano communities, populated by descendants of earlier Spanish, Mexican, and Mestizo settlers. Historical scholarship has typically minimized this history and instead focused on myths about the 'taming' of the region by Anglo settlers. This paper discusses a collaborative project that began in 2023 at a rancho dating to the 19th and 20th centuries. The paper’s focus is archaeology’s emerging contribution to documenting and raising awareness about the region's Tejano and Mexican American culture. Ongoing efforts include working with descendants and the Texas Historical Commission to secure a historical marker for the site.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• In the Sticks but Not in the Weeds II: Historical Whitewashing and Modern Reimagining of Rural America’s Fantasy Past   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow