Some months ago I was looking for a book with the most up-to-date story on Texan independence. Nothing stood out to me so I let the urge pass.
Not long after, the provocatively-titled Forget the Alamo began riding the critical circuit, gaining steam with every bemoan from ticked off right-wing Texas government folk. It was perfect timing; I put in an early hold at the library and a few weeks later it was in my apartment.
I've publicly lamented about the fairy-tale narrative around the Alamo, the Republic of Texas, the whole grand parade of "freedom" and "liberty" evoked in seemingly any circumstance. Freedom and liberty to enslave, to properly complete the idea.
I'm glad the truth behind the legend is being unearthed and shared with the public. Because the toxic propaganda was masked as fact for so long. It still is, amazingly. The way symbols have been used to keep other people down in this country should be universally known; that's the way their oppressive power ceases. This book does that in a casual yet well-researched manner, and I think access to work like this goes a long way in raising interest and care for historical narratives.
It is incredible, though, to see how tied people get to the idea of a place. It gets personal real quick. We imbue meaning in the world around us, greatly so in physical locations. Threatening one's understanding of a place must be a destabilizing force in a human psyche with few equals. I guess I get why traditionalists refuse to see the Alamo as a military blunder by half-drunk criminals and slave owners fighting for a militant, deeply racist society built on the shared value of making money on the backs of black people. Doesn't make their purposeful ignorance right, though.
I was reading through this book while at my childhood home in San Antonio, alone there for the first time in years. It was strange to feel the duality of a place--a potent symbol sharing a town with an ordinary home and human being, the name San Antonio standing in for both that and this. Nothing in life is experienced the same way twice.
