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The KUT Longhorn Radio Network Presents: Mexican American Experience Collection

Audio recordings including interviews, music, and informational programs related to the Mexican American community and their concerns in the series "The Mexican American Experience" and "A esta hora conversamos" from the Longhorn Radio Network, 1976-1982.

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PROGRAM INFO

Title:
Andres Tijerina: We Have A History Here In Texas.
Program #
2007-05071
Theme:
Identity

Series:
Host:
John Mckiernan-Gonzalez
Guest:
Andres Tijerina
Date:

Andres Tijerina: We have a history here in Texas.

Dr. Andres Tijerina reflects on his public life as a student and a historian. He begins with his life growing up homeless working in the fields of West Texas, and the contradiction he experienced being told he was only American but being treated and excluded as a foreigner and a Mexican. His experience of exclusion created a void and a desire for a history that would explain his community’s experiences. He goes on to discuss the impact of being a minority in a meritocratic community at Texas A & M, his combat experience in Vietnam, and the ways he was mentored at Texas Tech by Allwyn Barr and Dr. Figness. This was a startling contrast to his experience of segregation at the University of Texas at Austin. He discusses the ways Mexican American graduate students created an esprit-de-corps, and became involved in the administration of the library and ultimately became involved in the greater east Austin community. His participation in The Mexican American Experience grew out of the social and political networks forged in east Austin.

Dr. Andres Tijerina then discusses the way his work as a historian opened a career in public service in the State of Texas and the Texas Good Neighbor Commission. Even while he was fully immersed in his work in the GNC and in Motorola, he kept his foot in the Texas State Historical Association. After his dissertation became a standard text for Texas historians, he decided to turn it into a book, and left Motorola for a job at Texas A&I. Ultimately, his wife asked him to abandon Kingsville and commit to her career here in Austin. The comversation ended with a discussion of current public history projects, including his research on Austin’s segregation of Mexican-Americans for the Supreme Court suit, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Eric Holder.

KEYWORDS

Air Force
Alejandro Saenz
Alex Saenz
Allwynn Barr
Austin Community College
Austin History Center
Austin Light
Austin, Texas
Boy’s club
Brown Berets
Chicanos in American Society
Child Ladder Technique
Children
City Council
College Station, TX
Commercial radio
Computer Programming
County Commissioners
David Figness
Derecho de Cabeza
Discrimination
Dolph Briscoe
Droppings
Drug Stores
Elite
Elite Officer Corps
Elitism
Emilio Zamora
En familia
Enrique Quiroz
Esprit de corps
Exclusion
Foreigners
Formal Human Subject Forms
Fraternal community
Gender
Gilbert Hinojosa
Graduate Advisor
Graduate education
High School
IBM Cards
Informed consent
Joe Frantz
Juanita Garcia
Juanita Garcia
Kingsville
KUT
Laboratory
Language Discrimination
Language Rationale
Lubbock
Lubbock Mexican American archive
Marriage
Master’s Thesis
Meritocracy
Mexican American Library Program
Mexican Americans
Migrant Labor
Military citizenship
Military service
Motorola
Nettie Lee Benson
Outsiders
Paul Rosas
Ph.D
Pharmacy
Pioneers
Provost
Public space
Racialization
Radio
Rats
Restaurants
Roberto Villareal
San Angelo
Santos Reyes
Santos Ruiz
Scholarships
Seasonal labor
Segregation
South Texas
Stanley Ross
Tejano
Tejano studies
Tejanos
Texas A&M
Texas Good Neighbor Commission
Texas State Historical Association
Texas Tech
Thanksgiving
Theater
Victor Nelson Cisneros,
Vietnam
West Texas
White faculty
 

Center for Mexican American Studies | Department of History | The Benson Latin American Collection

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