Remembering the Alamo: Memory, Modernity, and the Master Symbol

"Remember the Alamo!" reverberates through Texas history and culture, but what exactly are we remembering? Over nearly two centuries, the Mexican victory over an outnumbered band of Alamo defenders has been transformed into an American victory for the love of liberty. Why did the historical battle of 1836 undergo this metamorphosis in memory and mythology to become such a potent master symbol in Texan and American culture?

In this probing book, Richard Flores seeks to answer that question by examining how the Alamo's transformation into an American cultural icon helped to shape social, economic, and political relations between Anglo and Mexican Texans from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. In the first part of the book, he looks at how the attempts of heritage society members and political leaders to define the Alamo as a place have reflected struggles within Texas society over the place and status of Anglos and Mexicans. In the second part, he explores how Alamo movies and the transformation of Davy Crockett into an Alamo hero/martyr have advanced deeply racialized, ambiguous, and even invented understandings of the past.

Author: Richard R. Flores
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 06/01/2002
Pages: 216
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.77lbs
Size: 9.66h x 6.34w x 0.57d
ISBN: 9780292725409

About the Author
Richard R. Flores is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he also directs the Américo Paredes Center for Cultural Studies.