veloped through cycles of boom and bust that persist to this day.
1728 Christopher Martinez
Christopher “Rooster” Martinez is a spoken word poet and educator from San Antonio, TX. He is a graduate student at OLLU’s MA/MFA program in Creative Writing, Literature and Social Justice. Christopher is an organizer with Fresh Ink Youth Slam and co-founded the Blah Poetry Spot. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Button Poetry, The Huffington Post Latino Voices, the Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Pilgrimage Press, and Sagebrush Review.
Ten-Years-Young is a performance poem which interweaves the narrative of early, San Antonio history with the San Anto touchstone of blended cultural identities during those early years. The poem will address early-Spanish and Catholic influences, reference early settlements and construction that took place from the city’s inception, and present the Indigenous populations and the religious indoctrination which took place. The poem seeks to balance the early mestizaje historia of the city by being fair to both the light and dark cultural histories imbedded in blood and soul of San Antonio. Christopher believes poetry is the result of a thorough meditation of the light and heavy aspects of life, history, and culture, and where they intersect.
1729 Mari Hernandez
1730 Ervin Raska
1731 Henry Cardenas
Armed with a decree from Spain’s King Philip V, 56 settlers from the Canary Islands arrived in the Presidio de San Antonio on March 9, 1731. This band of exhausted immigrants traveled across the ocean to Havana, Veracruz, then onward to Texas to begin a new life. They joined the military community established in 1718. The immigrants formed the nucleus of the villa of San Fernando de Bexar, the first regularly organized civil government in Texas. These brave men and women brought their customs, dress, and foods. My painting depicts their traditional dress.
1732 Laura Mijangos
In 1732 there were several groups of people congregating in the San Antonio area-there was the native Caldoan tribe, who were hunters and gatherers, the Spanish settlers, the Canary Island recruits, who were farmers, and the Lipan Apache Indians. I chose to focus on the women of that time by depicting one that represents them all: a compilation of their varied cultures. However disparate their mores, they each struggled to overcome challenges in an attempt to survive amidst a harsh climate, food shortages, and violence. This piece is an attempt to capture the essence of their courage and ascension beyond boundaries.
1733 Kathrine Maple
July 23rd, 1733 Captain General Jose de Urrutia from Spain was appointed as Captain of San Antonio de Bexar Presidio (known today as the Spanish Governor’s Palace). His appointment was due to being the best informed of all Spaniards on Indian affairs in Texas. The Presidio furnished escorts for officials and supply trains as well as protection for the priests at the five nearby missions and families who came to settle in San Antonio. The keystone above the front entrance is marked with the coat-of-arms of Spanish King Ferdinand VI.
1735 Joseph Erik Montano
The Last of the Famous International Faithboys is an interactive assembled media piece that examines the historical paradox between the resettlement of the Spanish presidios in the 1730s to San Antonio and the quick decline of the missions due to raids and the dying influence of Spain on the region. Viewers are invited to maneuver the mirror to reflect different colors and watch the words of the poem become masked. The piece is accompanied by a musical composition that utilizes phasing to reflect the historical contrast, where the selected tones of the composition, along with the lines of the poem, match the assigned year.
1736 Arturo Infante Almeida
In the early eighteenth century, exploration and settlement along the banks of the river and around recently built missions, expressed the continuing clash of two worlds. Today, the impact of that history continues to resonate in the customs, traditions and cultures of San Antonio.
1737 Jennifer Datchuk
