Is the Alamo Heights area racist? (San Antonio, Austin: lease, house, high school)

[wCat]

Originally Posted by SA Greed

IF IT'S NOT SCOTTISH IT'S CRAP!!!!! J/K GUYS. old SNL skit.

I remember that one!

[SA Greed]

Hey Camaro guy, off topic, my wife wants to know what year the new Camaro will be released? Thanks.

[CamaroGuy]

Originally Posted by SA Greed

Hey Camaro guy, off topic, my wife wants to know what year the new Camaro will be released? Thanks.

I believe it will be released in 2009 but I could be wrong. I have a 79 Camaro that I just can't seem to let go.lol Cheap insurance and registration are two good reasons to hold onto a car.:-)

[mimimomx3]

I grew up in San Antonio in the 70s and 80s. Back then, AH/OP/TH was where the old money, anglos lived. The Fiesta parade queens and so on...it was racist, it was insular, it was a very tight community. Non anglos might not have been legally excluded from living there, but they surely where not invited in with open arms. Nonanglos were certainly welcome to WORK there, however. Things are different now, and many of those Anglos have been forced to accept the 'new money' neighbors of all colors who can afford to buy homes there. Now, joining the Argyle club or San Antonio Country Club, well....that's something else entirely. I think if you're non Anglo, the only way you'll get in there is if you know how to bus a table....

I'll be sure to tell the Hispanic couple sitting next to me at the Argyle that they're not supposed to be members, they're supposed to be pouring my water.

[wehotex]

Originally Posted by mimimomx3

I grew up in San Antonio in the 70s and 80s. Back then, AH/OP/TH was where the old money, anglos lived. The Fiesta parade queens and so on...it was racist, it was insular, it was a very tight community. Non anglos might not have been legally excluded from living there, but they surely where not invited in with open arms. Nonanglos were certainly welcome to WORK there, however. Things are different now, and many of those Anglos have been forced to accept the 'new money' neighbors of all colors who can afford to buy homes there. Now, joining the Argyle club or San Antonio Country Club, well....that's something else entirely. I think if you're non Anglo, the only way you'll get in there is if you know how to bus a table....

is that still true today? i can remember my sisters' mother in law commenting that there was not one single mex american in the fiesta court, except maybe for an out-of-towner. this was in the mid 80s.

[CamaroGuy]

Well I found San Antonio to be less polarized than Los Angeles. The people in Fredericksburg and New Braunfels were extremely friendly too.:-)

The Order of the Alamo controls who gets picked to be on the Fiesta Court, and they tend to vote in girls from the same small group of families, who, shocker, all have members in the Texas Cavaliers and the Order of the Alamo. So yes, it's still rare to see an in-town Duchess who is Latino/Hispanic, because the families in the Order of the Alamo are predominantly Anglo, with a smattering of Mexican National/rich ranchers thrown in. The out-of-town girls tend to be a little more varied.

In Laredo, it's very segregated - they have the Border Days, and the Anglo girls get to be "Martha's" and the Hispanic girls are the "native princesses" - both are equally prestigious when it comes to debuting, but totally divided up according to ethnicity.

The percentage of people in the Tricities involved in the Coronation, though, is very small. THAT is a very insular group of people, and represent a small niche of their own.

[wehotex]

Originally Posted by Rockin' The TriCities

The Order of the Alamo controls who gets picked to be on the Fiesta Court, and they tend to vote in girls from the same small group of families, who, shocker, all have members in the Texas Cavaliers and the Order of the Alamo. So yes, it's still rare to see an in-town Duchess who is Latino/Hispanic, because the families in the Order of the Alamo are predominantly Anglo, with a smattering of Mexican National/rich ranchers thrown in. The out-of-town girls tend to be a little more varied.

In Laredo, it's very segregated - they have the Border Days, and the Anglo girls get to be "Martha's" and the Hispanic girls are the "native princesses" - both are equally prestigious when it comes to debuting, but totally divided up according to ethnicity.

The percentage of people in the Tricities involved in the Coronation, though, is very small. THAT is a very insular group of people, and represent a small niche of their own.

you've got to be kidding? isn't laredo something like 90% mex american? where would they find enough white "marthas"? do they import them fr dallas? don't they call that "george wahington days" or something like that?

George Washington Days! That's it. I knew it was something like that. Which is why they call them Marthas -the entity that puts on the debutante stuff is the Society of Martha Washington.

You're talking about a very, very small group of people who are involved in the debut aspect of the George Washington Days. There are maybe 15 Marthas a year, tops.

This is an excerpt from a New York Times article from 2004 about GW Days -

This year's festival, staged as always by the Washington Birthday Celebration Association and its ancestral hierarchy of leading Laredan families in the Society of Martha Washington, was bigger than ever. It ran for 17 days through 34 events in Mexico and the United States, including a lavish presentation of 13 debutantes in handmade ball gowns... as they reprised a gala reception South Carolinians threw for George and Martha Washington in 1791.

Imprisoned in the enormous costumes under cascades of curly falls pinned to their real hair, the debutantes struggled to keep smiling as they stood beside their mostly younger, and shorter, escorts and executed complex bows in honor of the exalted Laredans who were portraying George and Martha, Federico Carlos Zuñiga, a businessman, and Lorraine Withoff Laurel, a great-great-granddaughter of a former mayor of Laredo.

''You really have to want to do it,'' said one of the debutantes, Maria Louisa Bramlett Ballas, 18, of Houston, whose pink bejeweled gown, at a mere 95 pounds, was one of the lighter ones.