Thomas H. Kreneck - Del Pueblo: A History of Houstons Hispanic Community

Del Pueblo

NUMBER TWENTY-ONE: GULF COAST BOOKS

SPONSORED BY TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY-CORPUS CHRISTI

JOHN W. TUNNELL JR., GENERAL EDITOR

A list of titles in this series appears at the back of the book.

Del Pueblo

A History of Houstons Hispanic Community

THOMAS H. KRENECK

Texas A&M University Press

COLLEGE STATION

Copyright 2012 by Thomas H. Kreneck

Manufactured in the United States of America

All rights reserved Texas A&M University Press edition Houston International University edition copyright 1989 by Thomas H. Kreneck

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992

(Permanence of Paper).

Binding materials have been chosen for durability.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Kreneck, Thomas H.

Del Pueblo : a history of Houstons Hispanic community / Thomas H. Kreneck. Texas A&M University Press ed.

p. cm. (Gulf Coast books ; no. 21)

New, revised edition.Summary, CIP data view.

Original edition published by Houston International University, 1989.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-1-60344-692-1 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 1-60344-692-3 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN-13: 978-1-60344-735-5 (e-book)

ISBN-10: 1-60344-735-0 (e-book)

1. Hispanic AmericansTexasHoustonHistoryPictorial works. 2. Hispanic AmericansTexasHoustonHistory. 3. Houston (Tex.)HistoryPictorial works. 4. Houston (Tex.)History. 5. Houston (Tex.)Pictorial works. I. Title. II. Series: Gulf Coast books ; no. 21.

F394.H89K57 2012

305.896807307641411dc23

2011047422

Frontispiece: Members of the singing and theatrical group of Magnolia Park, ca. 1928. Courtesy Houston Metropolitan Reserach Center, Houston Public Library, Chairez Family Collection.

To those people of

Houstons Hispanic community who,

during the 1970s and 1980s,

shared their memories and historical materials with me

and contributed to this book.

Contents

Preface to the Texas A&M University Press Edition

THE PUBLICATION OF Del Pueblo: A History of Houstons Hispanic Community by Texas A&M University Press is a revised and updated second edition of the book that appeared in 1989. The initial volume carried the title Del Pueblo: A Pictorial History of Houstons Hispanic Community because it included more than 240 images. This second edition contains fewer illustrations in proportion to the text, thus making it more balanced in its presentation and requiring the abbreviated title. While the 1989 edition concluded at that date, the present survey ends at the year 2000.

The 1989 volume and this second edition resulted in large measure from work I did in the late 1970s and 1980s, when I served as an archivist and then First Assistant of the Houston Metropolitan Research Center (HMRC) of the Houston Public Library. In 1978, I founded and until December 1990 developed HMRCs Mexican American archival component. During those twelve years I had the privilege of documenting the history of Houstons Hispanic community as I solicited the donation of many archival and manuscript collections, historic photographs, oral history recordings, print materials, and other items from that population. The associations that I made with people and the activities involved in the effort formed one of the most meaningful professional experiences of my career. Del Pueblo therefore represents my tribute to HMRC and to the community whose history this book attempts to portray.

I made the initial edition of Del Pueblo a pictorial history because my collecting efforts had yielded an abundance of old photographs. The many family collections proved especially fruitful in the number of images they contained. Coming directly from the residents, such photos portrayed Hispanics as they saw themselves rather than as outsiders would have viewed them. This dimension, it seemed to me, made the photographs more worthy as a method of understanding a community. My own special interest in photos as documentation added to this focus. The resulting positive acceptance of the book by the people who had donated materials to the Mexican American archival component validated my belief. The public unveiling of Del Pueblo in 1989, held in the large reception area on the top floor of Houstons El Mercado Del Sol, attracted more than eight hundred people. This turnout proved most gratifying to all of us involved in the publication.

As indicated by the credit lines, I supplemented the historic images in the book with photographs I personally took of the community during the 1980s. Indulging my own interest in taking photographs endeared the book to me even more.

For a combination of reasons, I chose to publish the first edition of Del Pueblo through Houston International University (HIU), a community-based institution initially founded on the university-without-walls concept. Those motives included my involvement with the solidarity movement in support of the people of Central America and my impatience with traditional academia. Also, I felt that HIU, under then-president Leonel J. Castillo, represented a more grassroots approach. The other many folks who contributed to that initial effort will be thanked in the original Preface that follows.

The 1989 edition of Del Pueblo has been out of print for many years, and numerous individuals have requested that it be reissued in some form. As mentioned above, the second edition contains fewer photographs, but I have retained what I term the essential images from the first book. To help make it a more updated version, the second edition also contains some images from the 1990s and from earlier decades that the first version did not. I hope that the second edition will meet the expectations of those kind folks who wanted to see it released once again. The photographs remain a key element in this volume for conveying the communitys history.

I wish to thank a number of people for assisting with the publication of the second edition, including Cecilia G. Venable for her expertise in reproducing the images; Dr. Arnoldo De Len, my constant comrade, for his thorough editing of the manuscript; Dr. Chrystel K. Pit, Dr. Guadalupe San Miguel Jr., and Dr. Roberto Trevio for new historical insights; Dr. David J. Webb, genealogist extraordinaire, for his sleuthing pertinent records; Dr. Gayle Davies for crucial research assistance; Douglas Weiskopf for his recollections; Steve Gonzales of the Houston Chronicle for arranging the permission to use important images; Dr. C. Elaine Cummins and my brother James R. Kreneck for their continual encouragement; as well as Benny Martnez, Loretta Martnez Williams, Linda A. Senz, and my many other friends in the Houston Hispanic history circles for their support. I also want to thank Dr. John W. Tunnell Jr., General Editor of the Texas A&M UniversityCorpus Christi Gulf Coast Series, for his sponsorship.

Finally, and equally important, I want to express my special gratitude to the Houston Metropolitan Research Center, its able former chief administrator Kemo Curry, its current acting manager Elizabeth Sargent, and its staff, including Amber Seely and Joel Draut, for supporting this second edition. I am deeply grateful for their help and for Ms. Currys (and later Ms. Sargents) permission to use the images included in this present volume. HMRC remains a treasure house of Houstons history, and it will always hold a profound meaning to me. I am grateful to have been part of its early development, and I am extremely proud of its current work under Ms. Curry, Ms. Sargent, their staff, and its many supporters.