History Commons^™

A Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis Of Texas History Curriculum Discourse, Maribel Santoyo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This qualitative study examines how race, citizenship, nation-building, and belonging are constructed across Texas history curriculum discourse. Grounded in Fairclough's three-dimensional model of discourse, Machin and Mayr's (2012) multimodal framework, Weedon's (1987) theory of subjectivity, Foucault's (1980) concept of power/knowledge, and Anderson's (1983) concept of imagined communities, the study investigates how official curriculum texts shape the histories students are invited to know and the civic identities they are invited to inhabit. Findings suggest that the Texas history TEKS, SB3, and Texas history textbooks for Grades 4 and 7 work together as an interconnected discourse system through which official knowledge is …

Interview No. 1839, Gilberto Aguero

Combined Interviews

This interview with El Pasoan Gilberto Aguero, reflects on his childhood growing up in South Central El Paso during the 1940s and 1950s. Born in El Paso in 1941, Aguero describes a simple but happy upbringings with his six siblings. He attended Alamo Elementary and later graduated from Bowie High School in 1959. Much of his childhood centered around outdoor activities such as roller skating, baseball, football and spending time with neighborhood friends. Aguero remembers the area as close-knit where families lived near one another and children spent most of their time outdoors. He recalls accompanying his mother on grocery …

Manufacturing A Confederate Martyr: John Yates Beall, John Wilkes Booth, And The Politics Of Postwar Memory, Corin M. Fyrdrian

Student Papers (History)

John Yates Beall, a Confederate naval officer and privateer executed by the United States in 1865, has often been remembered through a Lost Cause framework that casts him as a chivalric martyr and “victim of honor.” This thesis challenges that interpretation by situating Beall’s life, wartime actions, trial, execution, and postwar memory within competing ideas of honor, legality, violence, and Confederate nationalism. Through analysis of Beall’s military activities, legal arguments, newspaper coverage, personal writings, and later narratives, this thesis argues that his postwar image was not merely preserved but actively constructed. Lost Cause writers transformed his execution into a moral …

Microcosms & Warscapes, Heather J. Lathers

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This poetry collection features sensory-centered writing and common objects, scenes, and interactions to authentically capture the multi-perspective and nuanced experiences of wartime. Detailed language is critical when poets become mouthpieces for those enduring war's pain. Focusing closely on items such as teacups, boots, bones, mud, rice, and rats creates a kind of intimacy not often found in war writing. Specific conflicts addressed include World War I, Vietnam, and The Cambodian Genocide. The poems here, in various forms and voices, aim to spotlight the lost, marginalized, abused, and forgotten-- the much-needed humanity war stories tend to neglect. Ultimately, these pieces seek …

We Are Still Lipan: Identity Erasure, Settler Colonialism, Historical Memory And The Persistence Of The Non-Reservation Lipan Apache, Freddy Cabral

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation challenges the long-standing historical narrative that the Lipan Apache disappeared in the late nineteenth century. Instead, it argues that the non-reservation Lipan Apache survived through strategic adaptation, mobility, kinship networks, and cultural continuity across the United States-Mexico borderlands. By examining the Lipan experience under Spanish colonial rule, Mexican governance, the Republic of Texas, and the State of Texas, this study demonstrates that shifting political regimes consistently pursued Indigenous land, labor, and subordination through structures of settler colonialism and racial hierarchy. Using the frameworks of settler colonialism, white supremacy, genocide studies, oral history, and autoethnography, this dissertation shows how …

Interview No. 1842, Esperanza Quintana Martinez

Combined Interviews

Esperanza Martinez was born in 1935, in Las Cruses New Mexico and grew up in Chihuahua and El Paso. Esperanza was 90 years old at the time of the interview, as she reflects on how much the world has changed. Esperanza’s life was hard and sad but it is her family relationships that give her fulfillment in life. The relationship that she had with her husband (Jose Martinez) was one that she felt shortchanged in, and now that he has been dead for a few years she finds that it is important to voice her emotions. An important detail to …

Interview No. 1845, Carlos Sierra

Combined Interviews

Carlos Sierra was born in Juarez, Chihuahua in 1958 and moved to El Paso, Texas when he was in the seventh grade. After mastering English in his ESL courses and completing his high school education at Bowie, he continued his education at EPCC and UTEP in business, gaining the knowledge to help his brother effectively run Sierra manufacturing. He has come to value education, continuing personal development outside of formal education and encouraging his own children to pursue bachelors degrees and beyond. Most of the discussion focuses on manufacturing in the Chamizal area, including the work study programs at local …

Interview No. 1835, Matrina Estrada

Combined Interviews

Martina Estrada was born and raised in Durango, Durango, Mexico. She recalled memories from her childhood and playing games such as canicas (marbles), dodgeball, and chinchilagua. In 1979, she immigrated to the U.S. when she was about 15 or 16 years old, and she learned English at the Lamar adult school. In El Paso, Estrada would spend some weekends dancing at the Montana Village dance club where she met her husband. She mentioned different aspects of her life in the city and about her time at the Hilos de Plata Senior center in South Central El Paso. Estrada shared insights …

Interview No. 1833, Concepcion Portillo-Cardona

Combined Interviews

Summary to be posted soon.

Interview No. 1832, Alma Peña

Combined Interviews

Summary to be posted soon.

Interview No. 1837, Guadalupe Luna

Combined Interviews

Guadalupe Luna shares about growing up in the Guardian Angel area of South El Paso.

This area has always been a close-knit community, based on family, religion, and culture. Luna went to the Guardian Angel Catholic School from pre-K to 8th grade and participated in many of the Catholic traditions and customs that were part of this community. Luna talked about many of the stores and businesses that were part of her everyday life and helped to develop a sense of community among neighbours through Nava’s grocery store, attending church bazaars, and enjoying dining at the many restaurants and recreational …

Interview No. 1841, Rubén Casas

Combined Interviews

This interview with El Pasoan Rubén Casas reflects on his childhood both in Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, as well as his experiences growing up in Segundo Barrio. Casas describes his early life in Juárez as centered around family, where relatives lived together on his grandmother’s property and spent time together daily. In 1959, when he was around ten or eleven years old, his family moved to El Paso after his mother wanted a different life for the family. The transition was difficult because he struggled to adapt to a new culture, environment, and language. Despite the challenges, he gradually …

Interview No. 1836, Charlene Carrasco

Combined Interviews

Charlene Carrasco details her childhood growing up in Segundo Barrio, El Paso, Texas. Carrasco spent most of her childhood in an adobe house her grandfather built close to St. Ignatius Church. Like many in the community, Carrasco experienced poverty and dangerous environments. Those who lived in the community during this time all experienced constant shootings, stabbings, and exposure to gang violence. Carrasco recalls living constantly aware of her surroundings with her family, even practicing safety measures during drive-bys. Carrasco states that as everyone in the community was in the same position, there was a strong sense of community as neighbors …

Interview No. 1838, Victor J. Perches

Combined Interviews

Victor J. Perches recounts his childhood in South El Paso, along with his attendance at Douglass Elementary, Guillen Middle School, and Bowie High School in the 1970s and 1980s. According to Victor, Douglas Elementary was a very safe and supportive place. The teachers provided support for students who had difficulty succeeding due to economic problems in the neighborhood . He recalls there were meals, activities, and other events available to students who lived in Salazar Housing Project, making them less likely to join gangs due to being occupied. Perches talked candidly about the social situation in his area, poverty, gang …

Interview No. 1840, Norma Flores

Combined Interviews

This interview with El Pasoan Norma Flores reflects on her childhood growing up in Segundo Barrio and the strong family and community ties that shaped her life. Born in 1949 at Newark Methodist Maternity Hospital in South El Paso, she described growing up primarily with her grandmother on Grama St while her parents and siblings lived nearby on Frutas St. Norma shared vivid memories of her neighborhood life, including children playing outside together, helping with household chores and walking to school at Guardian Angel Catholic School. She recalled both joyful and difficult moments, such as spending summers outdoors with family …

Interview No. 1823, Sylvia Torresdey

Combined Interviews

Sylvia Torresdey (Sylvia Chavira), born in 1955 at El Paso’s Hospital Dieu, grew up as one of six sisters in a family that maintained a vibrant transnational life. While her parents, Juanita Payán and Don Nasiano Chavira, established a residence in El Segundo Barrio to ensure their daughters could attend school in El Paso, the family maintained a home in Juárez’s Colonia del Carmen. Torresdey describes a childhood of constant movement across the border, crossing the bridge daily or weekly to bathe, collect clothes, and share weekend meals with her parents in Juárez. This bilingual upbringing involved speaking Spanish at …

The Birth Of A City: The Politics Leading To The Incorporation Of The City Of El Paso, Michael Britt

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

While the history of the Civil War and Reconstruction-era focuses on the eastern United States, those events rippled across the country and affected the development of places far from the national capital and sites of the major battles. Most histories of El Paso, Texas focus on the era after the arrival of the railroad and growth of Fort Bliss as a major military installation. The region that now encompasses El Paso County, Texas experienced European migration centuries before the United States developed, and its Spanish and, later, Mexican background would impact how the area integrated with the United States. Texas …

Restoring Balance: Choctaw Policy And The Environment In New Spain's Eighteenth-Century Frontier, Fior Daliso Garcia Lara

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

During the colonial period, Indigenous peoples in the Lower Mississippi Valley used their deep ecological knowledge to respond to imperial pressures. Eighteenth-century Louisiana was a contested borderland where Spain, France, and England vied for expansion through alliances, warfare, and trade with Native tribes. As European powers vied for control of the region, Native groups devised strategies to assert sovereignty over their territories and livelihoods. My dissertation examines the ecological history of the Choctaw and Spanish Louisiana from 1763 until the United States Indian Removal Act in the 1830s. It argues that imperial disputes over Indigenous lands compelled the Choctaw to …

Imperial Ideology And Subversive Practice In Arthurian Legend, Emma Katherine Keppler

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This project approaches Arthur and Arthurian legend as vital elements in British self-identification from the medieval period onward by examining narratives of national origin in legendary history, romance, and other forms of cultural production. In my readings of these texts, I am concerned with how national identity and otherness are constructed and negotiated in a literary space, how myths of utopian origins rely on the endorsement and glorification of cultures of violence that sustain and justify imperial enterprises in the Middle Ages and beyond. It is my argument that in the absence of actual voices of resistance, romance tropes often …

Interview No. 1791, Ingrid Leyva Vasquez

Combined Interviews

Ingrid Leyva Vásquez was born in Chihuahua, Chihuahua, but grew up in Ciudad Juárez. She considers herself a borderland resident since she often travels back and forth between the United States and Mexico. She remembers traveling to El Paso on weekends to spend time with family or enjoy family celebrations. Her family had birthday celebrations at Furr's and went shopping at the dollar store; she felt that her childhood was typical for Juárez.

However, she also addresses the violence created by the Calderon Administration and the “narco” war. Ingrid is the middle child of three women and was raised solely …

La Viuda Del Panamá -- A Sixteenth-Century Novel, Maria Cecilia Herrera Astua

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

La Viuda del Panamá es una novela histórica acerca de Sir Francis Drake y su amante, María Isabel Domínguez--una viuda mestiza de quien él se enamora cuando ella lo salva de una muerte segura. Isabel oculta su ascendencia india porque, en el pueblito Nombre de Dios, esa circunstancia es un pecado social. Mas al corregidor don Pedro—un viudo quien ha tenido un matrimonio infernal—no le interesa la pureza de sangre. Nacido en un hogar judeo-musulmán, don Pedro se enamora de Isabel desde el día en que ella lo atiende en la posada La Costeña y decide ofrecerle un futuro impensable …

Interview No. 1787, Antonio Marín

Combined Interviews

Mr. Antonio Marín is a former resident of El Segundo Barrio. Arriving to the United States from Jalisco, Mexico, at the age of 5, he recalls entering for the first time through the Santa Fe port of entry from Ciudad Juárez to downtown El Paso. He and his family first rented a single-room apartment and then moved to a two-room flat in a tenement. Antonio attended Aoy Elementary and Bowie High School. He talks about how Southside El Paso was a segregated community of Mexicans and Blacks, where they would get along well in places like Douglass Elementary. Mr. Marín …

Interview No. 1789, Jorge Peña

Combined Interviews

In this interview, Mr. Jorge Peña describes his childhood living in Ciudad Juárez. Walking to school, playing with other kids on the street, as well as his family are some of the memories he has from these early years. One that stands out is crossing to El Paso to eat at restaurants and go shopping, creating a positive impact in his desire to cross the border in the future. When the time came for Jorge to enter high school, he came to El Paso to live with an aunt. He then attended Irving High School, went to El Paso Community …

Interview No. 1788, Simon Chandler

Combined Interviews

Simon Chandler was born in Marlborough, Wiltshire, England. He graduated from North Staffordshire in 1990. After that, he began traveling through America. He got to El Paso in 1991 to work as a volunteer in Casa Anunciacion.

Before coming to the United States, Simon had impacting life experiences in Africa and Israel, shaping his approach to community life and community service. After that, he came to the United States to know the culture more profoundly, leading him to El Paso as a volunteer at Casa Anunciacion. His plans to travel to Peru changed unexpectedly, keeping him and his family in …

Cultivating Honor: How Indigenous Students Harness Resilience And Cultural Wealth To Thrive At A Borderlands University, Lourdes Garcia

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This qualitative study sheds light on students' lived experiences regarding Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) at Borderlands University (BU), a Hispanic-serving institution on the U.S.-Mexico border where First Peoples lived for thousands of years. This study supports Indigenous students whose dismal national college graduation rates must be addressed. It recognizes studentsâ?? cultural wealth and richness (Yosso, 2005) and is grounded by the Peoplehood Matrix (Holm, 2003; Tachine, Cabrera, and Yellow Bird, 2017). This study was consistent with previous studies revealing that prioritizing student support raises equity and improves the overall academic experiences for all students in higher education (Tachine …

Interview No. 1792, Osvaldo Velez

Combined Interviews

Mr Velez grew up in Segundo Barrio during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. He associates those times with gang warfare because of the introduction of guns. He also remembers that in Segundo Barrio, many families lived in tenements. With the number of people living in the tenements, there were a lot of activities in the community, including social gatherings, parties, and family parties. In the absence of technology, most time was spent outside, whether it was hearing local gossip, visiting family and friends, or socializing; that was life in a small community. He lived in a tenement on the corner …

A Tejano Story: Resisting Anti-Mexican Violence And The Texas Rangers, Jose Andres Yznaga Jr

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A Tejano Story: Resisting Anti-Mexican Violence and The Texas Rangers Writing about Los Tejanos cannot be told without including the Texas Rangers. It only complicates the narrative when writing a screenplay for the big screen. The story cannot be told without acknowledging historical facts; the Texas Rangers came hard against the Tejanos after the battle for Texas Independence even though many Tejanos fought in that war and shared the same vision as their Euro-American counterparts of breaking their ties with the Mexican government. Just However, like lynching across this country, that history cannot be erased, nor can the exploits of …

Invoking The Holocaust At The Border: Holocaust Museums, Commemoration And Community Activism In The Southwest., Mayra A. Martinez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This thesis is a localized study that engages with the literature on Holocaust memory and memorialization in the U.S. and asks how the themes and methodologies of those scholars elucidate Holocaust memorialization and education along the U.S.-Mexico border. During 2018-2019, the U.S. witnessed migrant Caravans from Central America, Haiti, Africa, and South Asia as migrants fled violence, displacement, and extreme poverty to cross multiple borders and perilous terrain to seek refuge at the U.S.-Mexico border. During these same years, Holocaust analogies and Holocaust memory were instrumentalized by human rights advocates, descendants of survivors, and public officials who either linked migrant …

Young Adult Novel: Historical Fiction Primer Inning, Ariel Orlando Moreno

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Novela histórica juvenil que usa el beisbol como vehículo principal para narrar algunos de los hechos acaecidos durante los primeros años de la construcción del canal de Panamá. La novela explora las interrelaciones personales al mismo tiempo que las interacciones entre Panamá y los Estados Unidos. Al mismo tiempo toca temas como desigualdad, racismo y prejuicios.

Coastal Frontiers: The Littoral Borderland In Alta California And The Spanish Pacific World, Chantra Vanna Potts

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation explores the intricate relationship between Spanish exploration, the economy of the Pacific World, and their impact on colonization in Alta California during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It offers a new perspective on the history of the region by situating it within the context of the Eastern Pacific Basin and littoral borderlands, highlighting the transregional and global processes that shaped social and economic exchanges among Spanish colonists, Indigenous people, European and Anglo-American merchants, and diverse groups of sailors on the northern frontier of New Spain. Using the theoretical framework of mental mapping, or the subjective mental representation …