Program Description:  While the fall of the Alamo on March 6, 1836, has become an iconic moment in Texas--and due to the influence of Hollywood in American history--it was only one event in a chain that began decades earlier in Mexico's struggle for independence from Spain and stretched through the American Civil War. The siege and battle of the Alamo is a good way, then, to examine how ethnic, racial, political, economic, and social tensions in the westering of the United States worked themselves out in the face of Mexican and indigenous interests in what was to become the American Southwest.

Bio:  Jesús F. “Frank” de la Teja is Regents’ Professor Emeritus and University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at Texas State University in San Marcos. He obtained the Ph.D. in Latin American history from the University of Texas at Austin, and between 1985 and 1991 he worked in the Archives and Records Division of the Texas General Land Office. In 2018-2020 he served as Chief Executive Officer of the Texas State Historical Association.

He has published extensively on Spanish, Mexican, and Republic-era Texas, including the award-winning San Antonio de Béxar: A Community on New Spain’s Northern Frontier, and most recently Faces of Béxar: Writings on Early San Antonio and Texas. He served as book review editor for the Southwestern Historical Quarterly from 1997 to 2014 and as managing editor of Catholic Southwest: A Journal of History and Culture from 1991 to 2005.