From: firstinitiallastname@texas.net   
      
   Chris Mark wrote:   
      
   > Any thoughts on why in Texas a fusion of American and Mexican culture took   
   > place whereas in California it doesn't seem to have, or at least didn't last.   
   > It seems in the 19th century there was the beginning of a fusion in   
   > California--I'm thinking of things like the popularity of Jackson's novel   
   > "Ramona" and the annual Hemet pagent that, I believe, is still put on.   But   
   > nothing like the Tex-Mex phenomenon, with food, music, etc., etc.   
      
   First, I'm speaking from considerable ignorance of California history.   
      
   I reflect, though, that, while California was booming, Texas was still   
   almost wholly agrarian and very sparcely populated, with a good deal of   
   the work being done, at least west of the Colorado, by Mexicans. A   
   considerable part of West Texas was disputed territory for quite a long   
   time, and the border was very porous. While the earlies exploitation of   
   Texas was Spanish, Texas wasn't much of a going consern for Spain. The   
   Hispanic history of Texas is, for purposes of actually controlling and   
   populating, Mexican.   
      
   But what may be more at work is more in the character of Texas. Texas   
   was a place you came to to leave behind your old life. Folks didn't come   
   to Texas to get rich and go back home. They came to stay and to become   
   part of it. And mostly they were tough, independent folks. I think that   
   mindset of being prepared to adapt set up conditions where culture and   
   practices were readily adopted. Mexican vacqueros taught Anglos from the   
   "old states" how to work cattle in the way that worked here. The   
   language of cattle was Spanish from Mexico.   
      
   And there was not such an overpowering wave of Anglo immigration to   
   towns like San Antonio that the Mexican aspects of culture and trade   
   could be swept away.   
      
   In Texas, the break from Mexico wasn't a wholly American revolution. We   
   must remember that the justification for the beginnings of the Texas   
   revolution was the goal of returning to the Mexican constitution of   
   1824, rather than an outright break-away.   
      
   And a great deal of Texas is physically no different than northern   
   Mexico. Land can shape people and make their meldings conform to its   
   demands. And economically, there wasn't a sharp distinction between the   
   way of life of a early Anglo rancher and the Mexicans around him. When   
   you operate largely without cash and without flour or even sugar and   
   have limited access to the more elaborate things of life, there's less   
   cultural gap, regardless of the gap in privilege or legal status.   
      
   Texas came into being as mongrels and often misfits. Everything was, to   
   some degree, a merger with things of elsewhere. The gradual change from   
   Texican to Texian to Texan left a lot of room for mutual adaptation. For   
   all that there were divisions, there was also a lot of sharing and a   
   specialized local culture that wasn't entirely American and wasn't   
   entirely Mexican. And those from both cultural roots changed in response   
   to the other.   
      
   --   
                          Gerald Clough   
       "Nothing has any value, unless you know you can give it up."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)