Interviewers for this project share video excerpts from a major interview session with former students of el Colegio Altamirano (1897-1958). Students who detail their lessons and how the experience shaped their lives and their families’ lives. Also included are interviews with men and women who did not attend the tuition-supported school and how their life experience differed from Colegio students.
ABSTRACT: This session builds off scholar Philis Barragán Goetz's work, reading, writing, and revolution: escuelitas and the emergence of a Mexican American identity in Texas, which is the first book-length study on the history and significance of escuelitas [Mexican and Mexican American Spanish-language community schools], of which el Colegio Altamirano is the most famous. Barragán Goetz places escuelitas at the center of the history of south Texas, discussing their connection to progressivism, modernization, the public school system, the Mexican Revolution, and the Mexican American civil rights movement to argue that their proliferation and decline—in the context of these historical developments—illustrates the role of education in the creation of a Mexican American identity. El Colegio Altamirano, which opened in 1897 and closed in 1958, provides an ideal example for how these alternative educational institutions shaped Mexican American identity, as well as how significant the experience of attending an escuelita was for students. Throughout the 61 years el Colegio was open, ethnic Mexicans in Hebbronville faced two key obstacles to educating their children: the lack of access to public education until 1921, when the first public school opened there, and afterward, the discriminatory pedagogical approach of public education once it arrived. El Colegio offered its community a solution to both barriers. Additionally, el Colegio’s curriculum, while remaining intellectually rigorous, prioritized linguistic and cultural pride in the Spanish language and Mexican history and traditions. This curriculum allowed for the school to serve as a vehicle for cultural negotiation, allowing the community to negotiate, resist, and accommodate as necessary in response to the larger historical developments surrounding them. Finally, el Colegio, like other escuelitas in south Texas, provided a space for women teachers to assert themselves as leaders and intellectuals in their community. Each of these themes will be discussed in the interviews.
