TO is a junior at the University of Southern California, originally from San Antonio, TX.

Growing up in Texas, TO had lots of folk stories to share about the Alamo:

“Everyone in the Alamo died because they were slaughtered by the Mexican Army, but they chose to stay anyways and didn’t surrender…and then at the Battle of San Jacinto which ended the Texas Revolution, there was a kid there that was fighting, and I guess he was supposedly at the Alamo but he didn’t die because he was a kid and they let him go…the Mexican Army was losing this battle so they were retreating and this kid came upon a soldier, and obviously the Texans were shouting “Remember the Alamo!” And the Mexican guys were all shouting “me no Alamo,” trying to say they weren’t at the Alamo, and this kid who had escaped looked at one of them and said “me Alamo” and killed him.

Another one was about the Mexican surrender and the end of the revolution…the leader of the Mexican Army, Santa Anna, got shot in the foot. They were obviously losing so he put on a foot-soldier’s uniform, and was captured with the other foot soldiers. So he was trying to get away with just being a normal soldier, except then the other soldiers started calling him ‘el presidente’ – the Texans figured out who he was and eventually forced him to sign over Texas and retreat.”

My analysis:

These stories about the Texas Revolution aren’t necessarily found in the history books, and their origins aren’t clear, but they give Texans some great folk heroes to refer back to when talking about the Revolution. A lot of times the stories about battles and wars that are repeated aren’t necessarily true, at least not exactly the way they’re told – no one can really verify some of the stories about Paul Revere in the American Revolution, and often the real origins just aren’t as exciting. Folk stories like these about important events give the descendants a more lyrical way of sharing history with the next generation, and in general are just more exciting to tell.