by Juan Batista
Notes
Notes for Introduction
Finding good sources on Texas history is not easy. Most are hagiography or mythology, designed to sell books by pandering to wishful thinking. There is a lot more money to be made this way than by telling the whole ugly and often disturbing truth. There are entire publishing companies that make their living peddling lies about Texas. One of the worst is Republic of Texas Press, who often publish books glorifying the racism and ethnic cleansing that is a central part of Texas history. Sadly, most of the garbage written on Texas, and especially the mythical “Republic of Texas,” are children’s books. If you encounter someone who is heavily invested in the mythology surrounding Texas, keep in mind that nonsense was probably drilled into their head as a kid.
As a general rule of thumb, very little that is not from an academic press can be trusted. Even academic institutions can be infiltrated by the mythmakers. The Texas State Handbook Online, while ostensibly sponsored by the University of Texas and Institute for Texan Cultures, has quite a few entries written by obvious amateurs relying on outdated or dubious sources, hagiography, and works infused with racist presumptions of yesteryear. Check the years of their sources before relying on said articles.
Very few books on Texas history written before 1980 can be trusted. One of the few exceptions is Americo Paredes’s landmark work in ethnography, With His Pistol In His Hand, which debunks the mythology surrounding the Texas Rangers and gives a Latino view of Texas history.
Other good works on Texas history include Arnoldo De Leon’s They Called Them Greasers, Alwyn Barr’s Black Texans, and Randolph Campbell’s Gone to Texas. Probably one of the worst books on Texas history is the sadly influential racist garbage, TR Fehrenbach’s Lone Star, which openly celebrates race war and the alleged superiority of whites.
Yet even this cannot compare to how poor the official textbooks adopted by the state are. Textbooks as recently as the 1990s were barred from having “too many minorities.” Today’s standards ordered the removal of any mention of Thomas Jefferson’s beliefs on religion, mention of the separation of church and state, criticism of McCarthyism, use of the word “democratic,” and even require capitalism be called “free enterprise.” It goes without saying, something like lynching will never be discussed, and slavery downplayed.
The state of Texas requires a semester of Texas History in middle school and another at the college level. The Texas School Board has even barred the mentioning of Tejanos dying at the Alamo. One of the best works on the Alamo is Sleuthing the Alamo. Again, most of the books on the Alamo are aimed at kids, and about as inaccurate and sanitized as one would expect. Most of the adult writing on the topic is aimed at fans of westerns, so again, one should expect they won’t have their fantasies challenged. Two of the best books debunking the mythology surrounding the Texas Rangers are, again, Paredes’s With His Gun In His Hand and Robert Utley’s Lone Star Lawmen. Curiously, while extensively debunking the mythology and exposing Ranger brutality, corruption, and incompetence, Utley defends them at times, though only their competence as lawmen.
Notes for The Governor Flirts With Secession
Perry’s speeches and activities at the time of his secession speech were reconstructed from the following sources:
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2009/04/17/texas-secession-perry-one-third-of-texans-are-wrong-texas-cant-secede
https://www.statesman.com/news/content/region/legislature/stories/04/17/0417gop.html
https://www.texastribune.org/texas-issues/secession-controversy/texas-wont-secede--but-it-wont-shut-up-either/
https://blog.chron.com/texaspolitics/2009/04/perry-says-texas-can-leave-the-union-if-it-wants-to/
https://blogs.chron.com/texaspolitics/archives/2009/04/perry_says_texa.html
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/15/gov-rick-perry-texas-coul_n_187490.html
https://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/09/22/325842/rick-perry-no-truth-on-secession/
https://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/04/poll-texas-republicans-approve-of-rick-perrys-secession-remarks.php
The resolutions quoted are taken directly from State of Texas websites.
Notes for The Governor Pals Around With Terrorists
For sources on the ROT militia, see articles on hate watch websites run by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Anti-Defamation League, the cult survivors’ website Rickross.com, and from the ROT’s own websites. Information on the Texas Secession Movement was taken entirely from their own websites.
Notes for Another Resolution Passes
The memo is modeled after actual Fox News memos leaked to the press.
Notes for Carlos Guerrero Editorial
Obviously the Carlos Guerrero character is fictional, though there are elements of him taken from actual activists. (Don’t think he’s fictional? Just translate his name.)
For Juan Cortina, see the biography by Carlos Larralde and Jose Jacobo. The best work on the Plan of San Diego is Richard Sandoz’s Rebellion in the Borderlands. For the Brown Power movement, the most accessible would be the PBS series Chicano!
The bigoted remarks that I show O’Reilly, Limbaugh, and Savage using, they have all used before. That is a matter of public record. Just check transcripts of their shows. One can also finds clips of them online. Hannity’s practice of attacking anti-racist civil rights groups as “racists” is also a matter of public record.
Notes for The Militias Rally
Most of the signs listed are in fact actual signs carried by Tea Parties. Some are signs that were carried at rallies protesting “illegal immigration.” In some cases I added quotes that secessionists have said about Perry, combining them with Tea Party of anti-immigration slogans.
Notes for the Final Breakaways
The best works on Germans of Texas come from the German Texans Heritage Society, including Rudolf Biesele’s History of the German Settlements and several diaries of German colonists. The best works on persecution of Germans during World War I are Arnold Krammer’s Undue Process and Frederick Luebke’s Bonds of Loyalty. The account of an independence movement by German colonists comes from a public speech given by a descendant of Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels.
Notes for Would It Work?
There have been a number of statistical charts showing the harmfulness of the small government philosophy and how it afflicts residents on a state by state basis, among them https://infographicworld.com/demo/REDvsBLUE/index.html.
Notes on Appendices
The maps are entirely my own very poorly done crude works, but are based on public domain maps, with very crude alterations using Windows Paint.
Quotes from the would-be “Texas Republic” leaders are taken from Arnoldo De Leon’s They Called Them Greasers. Quotes from the ROT militia leaders are taken from articles on hatewatch websites run by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the cult survivors’ website Rickross.com. and from the ROT’s own websites. Quotes from the Texas Nationalist Movement were taken entirely from their own websites.
About the Author:
Juan Batista is the pen name of a professor of American Indian and Latin American history who chooses to separate his career as a professional historian from his novels and short stories. Batista describes all his fiction writing as much like himself, Indigenous Mexican Latino-Indian Mestizo Tribal-Centered, usually alternate history or science fiction, and occasionally fantasy or horror, designed to provoke thought, debate, reflection, and then action.
Coming from
Juan Batista:
More Indigenous Mexican Latino-Indian
Mestizo Tribal Centered
Alternate History!
Coming in Fall 2012:
Confederate Tyranny
It is 1864. The Confederate Secret Service will win the Civil War the only way the Confederacy could ever have hoped to win…by terrorism! Almost 150 years before 9-11, Confederate agents carry out biological warfare on northern cities.
For three generations, the Confederacy’s ever tightening dictatorship uses terror and repression against Blacks, Natives, Mexicans, Jews, Catholics, Mormons, Germans, Cajuns, and women to stay in power.
But the day of reckoning is coming. The Confederate alliance with “our beloved brother Adolf” will only bring disaster…
Coming in 2013:
Spanglish America
It is 1848. The newly victorious American government decides to annex all of Mexico, and its population, three-quarters the size of the US’s.
It is just a matter of time until the United States of Indo-Mexica-America. It will be the most powerful, prosperous, free, and righteous nation the world has ever seen…
A nation of Spanglish-speaking Americans…