Since the 1900s, awareness of the Mexican American experience has grown, producing a myriad of fictional novels to be published. However, from the Tejano perspective, accurate Mexican American historical fiction about the time when Texas was a territory being fought between Mexico and the United States is still underrepresented.
Historical Fiction stories about that time period from a Tejano point of view are few: George Washington Gomez and With His Pistol In His Hand by Americo Paredes, Caballero by Jovita Gonzalez, and El Mesquite by Maria Elena Zamora O’Shea. These books, although written and printed in the 1930s, were mostly available to academia and not published for the public in general until the 1990s.
There are now abundant Tejano history books of that time period by authors like Geraldo Poyo, Gilberto Hinojosa, Jesus F. de La Teja, John Moran Gonzalez, Monica Munoz Martinez, etc. These books help fill in the gap which had been so long missing: the Texas Mexican American side of history. They also facilitate the research for those of us who want to write historically accurate fictional novels on the subject. For me, they were invaluable in my research for “Love’s Rebirth: A Tejana Story.”
Hopefully, more Hispanic writers will consider writing about this era of Texas history from the Tejano perspective.
In my humble opinion, it is incumbent on us to know about the past in order to understand the present, because history repeats itself, the good and the bad. Popular fiction books have a higher circulation than academic ones and thus are a significant source of information when history is accurately portrayed.
In short, Tejano Culture, with its traditions, is part of the Texas scene since its roots, and part of American life and literature.