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:''Tejano or Tex-Mex music is also a kind of music originating in Texas.''
A 'Tejano' (Spanish for "Texan"; archaic spelling ''texano'') is a person of Hispanic descent born and living in the U.S. state of Texas.
In 1821, at the end of the Mexican War of Independence, there were about 4,000 Tejanos living in Texas. In the 1820s, many Anglo settlers moved to Texas from the United States. By 1830, the 30,000 settlers in Texas outnumbered the Tejanos two to one. The Anglos and Tejanos alike rebelled against the centralized authority of Mexico City and the draconian measures implemented by the Santa Anna regime. Tensions between the central Mexican government and the settlers eventually led to the Texas Revolution.
Tejanos may variously consider themselves to be Spanish or Mexican in ethnicity. In urban areas as well as some rural communities, Tejanos tend to be well integrated into both Hispanic and mainstream American cultures. Several of which, especially among younger generations, identify more with the mainstream and may understand little or no Spanish.
It is necessary to draw this distinction because the people who came from Mexico starting just before, during, and after the Mexican Revolution through today are and were of a different ethnic heritage than the people who colonized Texas during the Spanish Colonial Period, of a different history. While a large plurality of the people who have come from Mexico since the Mexican Revolution up until the present are and drew their identity from the mestizos or genizaros and had their history and identity in the history of Mexico, the majority of the people who colonized Texas in the Spanish Colonial Period were and drew their identity from the Spaniards and the criollos, and had their history and identity in the history of Spain and of the United States as a consequence of the participation of Spain and its colonial provinces of Texas and Louisiana in the American Revolution. This difference caused the people of Texas, the colonial Tejanos or Tejano Texians, to identify more with the people of Louisiana, which was a Spanish colony, and of the U.S., rather than with the people of Mexico. For this reason as early as 1813 the colonial Tejanos established a government in Texas that looked forward to becoming part of the United States. As revealed by the writings of colonial Tejano Texians such as Antonio Menchaca, the Texas Revolution was first and foremost a colonial Tejano cause, the Anglo Americans simply joined the colonial Tejanos in that cause, having been invited and recruited to do so by the colonial Tejanos, the Tejano Texians.^[1][2][3]
The majority of Tejanos today consist of Mexican Americans with a significant number of them being Latinos or Chicanos generally of Amerindian or mixed Spanish and Amerindian heritage. The majority are also predominantly White Hispanic as were most Mexicans who arrived in Texas prior to and during the Mexican Revolution. [1] In addition to this, colonial Tejanos, who can also be correctly identified as Tejano Texians, are descended from the colonists who pioneered Texas as citizens of the Kingdom of Spain through the Spanish Colonial Period starting in the 1600s through the 1800s up to the Texas Revolution and who were generally of pure Spaniard blood, or hispanicized European heritage, including Frenchmen like Juan Seguin, Italian like Jose Cassiano, or Corsican like Antonio Navarro, generally of white Mediterranean race. Among them were black Africans, both enslaved and freed, and Amerindians who had integrated socially and religiously into colonial societies. There were also people of mixed blood among them ranging from mulattos to mestizos^[4][5][6][7] who were excluded by the Spanish law of "limpieza de sangre", purity of blood, from participating in the colonization of Northern New Spain including Texas and the American Southwest.^{[8][9][10][7]} For these reasons a colonial Tejano, or Tejano Texian, which today can also include a mestizo and mulatto, is more accurately classified as a "Spaniard Texan" or "Spaniard Texian" or "Spanish American" or as a "Texan of Spanish heritage", as opposed to the more familiar "new Tejano" who is of Mexican heritage.
In direct relation to this distinction, genuinely Tejano music is related and sounds more like the folk music of Louisiana known as "Cajun" music blended with the sounds of Rock and Roll, R&B, Pop, and Country with some influences of Mariachi. The American Cowboy culture and music was born from the meeting of the Anglo-American Texians who were colonists from the American South and the original Tejano Texian pioneers and their "vaquero" or "cow man" culture.^{[12][13][14][15]}
In the Spanish language, the term "tejano" is simply the term to identify an individual from Texas regardless of race or ethnic background. During the Spanish Colonial Period of Texas, before Texas was wrested from Spain and became a part of Mexico in 1821, the colonial settlers of Northern New Spain, including Texas and the American Southwest, understood themselves to be and called themselves Spaniards^[16], as opposed to the people of Central and Southern Mexico who generally understood themselves to be and called themselves mestizos or Amerindians or Mexicans. This is also a crucially important reason why the term "Spaniard Texan" rather than "Mexican Texan" is more correctly applied to the Tejano Texians, and to their descendants.
The majority of Tejanos of both first generation (the first settlers) and those who descend from recent early and mid 20th century Mexican immigrants are concentrated in Southern Texas. Bexar county, especially San Antonio, is the historic center of Tejano culture. Duval county has one of the highest concentrations of Tejanos.

Contents

Famous Tejanos

See also

References

Famous Tejanos

Jose Antonio Navarro,
Juan Seguin,

★ Blas María de la Garza Falcón,
Flaco Jimenez,
Isidro Lopez,
Esteban Jordan,
Tony de La Rosa,
Little Joe,
Lorenzo de Zavala,
Mirabeau B. Lamar,
Jesse Trevino,
Lisa Lopez,
Rosita Fernandez,

★ Selena

★ Roy Benavidez

★ Vikki Carr

★ Henry Cisneros

★ Jade Esteban Estrada

★ Freddy Fender

★ Hector P. Garcia

★ Ben Garza

★ Alberto Gonzales

★ Henry B. Gonzalez

★ Nicholas Gonzalez

★ Eva Longoria

★ Felix Longoria

★ Jose M. Lopez

★ Trini Lopez

★ Los Lonely Boys

★ Nina Mercedez

★ Lupe Ontiveros

★ Federico Peña

★ Jennifer Pena

★ Bobby Pulido

★ Robert Rodriguez

★ Efren Saldivar

★ Yolanda Saldivar

★ Juan Seguín

★ Lee Trevino

★ Jaci Velasquez

See also

★ Chicano

★ Texian

References

1. Antonio Menchaca “Memoirs” dictated to and handwritten by Charles M. Barnes, as published in the Passing Show, San Antonio, Texas June 22-July 27, 1907.
2. Jose Antonio Navarro, Commentaries of Historical Interest, San Antonio Ledger, December 12. 1857, McDonald & Matovina, p.63.
3. Alex Loya "The Continuous Presence of Italians,Frenchmen and Spaniards in Texas (Including the Participation and Consequence of Texas and Louisiana in the American Revolution)" chapters 3 "Spaniard Americans" & 11 "The American Destiny of the Spaniard Texians".
4. The Residents of Texas, 1782-1836, The Institute of Texan Cultures, TXGen Web Project, Texas Census Reports, transcribed by Michaele Burris:

★ Census report of (San Fernando de Bexar), 9/2/1782 Residents of Texas, 1782-1836, Vol 1, pp. 39-44.

★ Census report of the Mission of San Jose de San Miguel de Aguallo. Residents of Texas, 1782-1836, Vol 1, pp. 44-46. 19/11/1790

★ Census Report of the Mission of Our Father San Francisco de la Espada. Residents of Texas, Vol 1, p. 46. 22/11/1790

★ Census report of the Jurisdiction of La Bahia del Espiritu Santo. Residents of Texas, 1782-1836, Vol 1, pp. 47-54. 1790

★ Year of 1790 General Census Report [Bexar] Residents of Texas, 1782-1836, Vol 1, pp. 58-74.

★ Census report of Villa of San Fernando de Austria, Capital of the Province of Texas. Residents of Texas, 1782-1836, Vol 1, pp. 75-92. December 31, 1792

★ Census report of Mission of San Antonio Valero, Dependency of the Villa of San Fernando. Residents of Texas, 1782-1836, Vol 1, pp. 93-95. December 31, 1792
5. 1784 Census of El Paso, Texas (Timmons, "The Population of El Paso Area- A Census of 1784", New Mexico Historical Review vol. LII (1977):311-316).
6. 1787 Census of El Paso (Census of the El Paso Area, 9 May, 1787" enumerated by Fray Damian Martinez and Nicolas Soler, Juarez Municipal Archives, roll 12, book 1, 1787, folios77-142).
7. Alex Loya, chapter 4 "Colonists Not Conquistadors".
8. Don Adams & Teresa A. Kendrick "Don Juan de Onate and the First Thanksgiving"
9. Robert S. Weddle & Robert H. Thonhoff, “Drama & Conflict; the Texas Saga of 1776”, p.50
10. Robert McCaa, Ph.D., University of Minnesotta Department of History.
11. Alex Loya, chapter 4 "Colonists Not Conquistadors".
12. Gene Hill,"Americans All, Americanos Todos"
13. Gilbert Y Chavez’ “Cowboys-Vaqueros, Origins of the First American Cowboys”
14. Lawrence Clayton, "Vaqueros, Cowboys and Buckaroos", 2001.
15. Alex Loya, chapter 15 "The Legacy and Heritage of the Spaniard Texians".
16. Census and Inspection Report of 1787 of the Colony of Nuevo Santander performed by Dragoon Captain Jose Tienda de Cuervo, Knight of the Order of Santago, with Historical Report by Fray Vicente Santa Maria.