Tejanos

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 Mexican 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 Hispanic or Latino in ethnicity. In urban areas as well as some rural communities, Tejanos tend to be well integrated into both Hispanic and Anglo-American cultures.

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 ones who colonized Texas during the Spanish Colonial Period, of a different history. While the majority, not all, of the people who have come from Mexico since the Mexican Revolution are and drew their identity from the mestizos (people of mixed Indian and Spaniard blood) or genizaros (Indians who lost their tribal identity and adopted Spanish names and the Spanish language, of which much of the modern day Mexican immigrant population in the U.S. consists) and had their history and identity in the history of Mexico, the majority, not all, of the people who colonized Texas in the Spanish Colonial Period were and drew their identity from the Spaniards and the criollos (full blooded Spaniards born in the New World), 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.

While a new Tejano is a Mexican American, Latino or Chicano generally of Indian or mixed Spanish and Indian heritage, a colonial Tejano, who can also be correctly identified as a Tejano Texian, is a descendant of those colonists who pioneered Texas as citizens of the Kingdom of Spain through the Spanish Colonial Period starting in the 1500s 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, although there was also a small number of people of mixed blood among them ranging from mulattos to mestizos 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. For these reasons a colonial Tejano, or Tejano Texian, is more accurately classified as a "Spaniard Texan" or "Spaniard Texian" or "Spanish American" or as a "Texan of Spanish heritage", as opposed to a "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.

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, 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.

Famous Tejanos

• Steven D.
• Selena
• Roy Benavidez
• Vikki Carr
• Henry Cisneros
• Freddy Fender
• Alberto Gonzales
• Henry B. Gonzalez
• Nicholas Gonzalez
• Eva Longoria
• Jose M. Lopez
• Trini Lopez
• Lupe Ontiveros
• Federico Peña
• Robert Rodriguez
• Efren Saldivar
• Yolanda Saldivar
• Juan Seguín
• Lee Trevino
• Jaci Velasquez

See also

• Chicano
• Texian