This writings page is a collection of writings and research by HOLA members as well as articles about the history of Latinas and Latinos in Tarrant County. Please contact us to have your own research added.
Written work by Cecilia Sánchez Hill
In these three short essays (intro to essays), Cecilia Sánchez Hill discusses the Mexican American activism taking place in Fort Worth during the 1960s and 1970s. She focuses on the struggles between the differences in activist’s strategies in “Division,” the War on Poverty efforts in “The Establishment of the Greater Tarrant County Community Action Agency,” and the efforts of a group of Mexican American parents to gain equitable opportunities for their children in education in ” Rufino Mendoza and the Mexican American Educational Advisory Council.”
Written work by Dr. Peter Martínez
Both articles, “Helping and Hurting the Poor” and “Colonia Mexicana,” focus primarily on a barrio called La Corte, which was generally referred to as “Little Mexico” by much of Fort Worth’s population in the 1920s and 1930s. The first article, “Helping and Hurting the Poor,” was written in 2008 and was awarded the George Wolfskill Award for Best Graduate Paper as part of the 2009 Barksdale Essays in History competition. This research was primarily built upon Fort Worth Housing Authority archived documents, City Directory information, and newspaper clippings. The second article, “Colonia Mexicana,” was published in the Spring, 2019 edition of The Journal of South Texas. This essay builds upon the first but adds more specific and detailed information that was obtained through reports and theses from the Fort Worth Independent School District’s archives and various sociology theses that were published in the late 1930s and early 1940s (mostly by Texas Christian University graduate students). The process of removing the community is explored in greater depth in the latter essay.
Articles by Richard Gonzales
HOLA member and journalist, Richard Gonzales, frequently researches and writes columns for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that highlight the Latina/o past and present in the city. Through Gonzales’s column, readers can learn about various topics from Fort Worth’s first Mexican neighborhood, the struggle for bilingual education in Fort Worth ISD, to the hidden Mexican heritage of Texas Rangers Baseball manager, Ted Williams. Please note many of his articles are behind a paywall.
“The Mexican-American in Fort Worth,” July 26, 1970
Six white interns, on summer vacation, in 1970, from various universities across Texas and the Midwest, investigated the conditions of the Mexican American community for a special edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The Star-Telegram’s interest in the plight of Mexican Americans in Fort Worth is evident of both the gains made by the older WWII veteran activists led by Gilbert Garcia in the twenty-five years since the end of the war and the national attention the younger Chicano activists brought to the continued inequalities in the lives of Mexicans in the United States
HOLA Tarrant County 