Growing the Heart of Texas: Exploring the Role of Mexican Americans in Food Production and Rural Communities

FAIN: AKA-260429-18

Texas A & M University, College Station (College Station, TX 77843-0001)
Gabriela Zapata (Project Director: October 2017 to November 2019)
Leonardo Lombardini (Co Project Director: June 2018 to November 2019)
Maria Irene Moyna (Co Project Director: June 2018 to November 2019)

To develop a four-course interdisciplinary minor in Hispanic Agriculture Studies for students in Texas A& M University’s College of Agriculture & Life Sciences.

We propose to develop an interdisciplinary minor in Hispanic Agriculture Studies that will offer Texas A&M students a deeper recognition of the social and economic role played by Mexican Americans in the state’s agricultural production and food culture. The curriculum will highlight Mexican American contributions to the demographic vitality and economic viability of Texas by integrating humanities (Spanish, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis) and agricultural sciences (soil, crops, animal husbandry, horticulture, nutrition). Aimed at majors in Agriculture but with broad appeal, the minor will develop linguistic and cultural skills through experiential and service learning activities. It will expose students to the state’s multi-layered social history. Four interdisciplinary courses will be developed about the land, food, peoples, and narratives of Hispanic Texas. They will be based on Open Educational Resources and framed within the multiliteracies pedagogy Learning by Design.

Associated Products

Growing the Heart of Texas: Exploring the Role of Mexican-Americans in Food Production and Rural Communities (Web Resource)
Title: Growing the Heart of Texas: Exploring the Role of Mexican-Americans in Food Production and Rural Communities
Author: Gabriela C. Zapata
Abstract: This website provides information about the project, links to the instructional materials created (syllabi and sample units), and other useful resources.
Year: 2019
Primary URL: http://bit.ly/HeartTexas

Vaquero: Genesis of the Texas Cowboy (Exhibition)
Title: Vaquero: Genesis of the Texas Cowboy
Curator: Humanities Texas
Abstract: Vaquero: Genesis of the Texas Cowboy,” an exhibition created by the Wittliff Collections at the Alkek Library, Texas State University-San Marcos, presented in partnership with Humanities Texas, the state affiliate for the National Endowment for the Humanities. This exhibition is made possible in part by a We the People grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. In the early 1970s, noted Texas historian Joe Frantz offered Bill Wittliff a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity—to visit a ranch in northern Mexico where the vaqueros still worked cattle in traditional ways. Wittliff photographed the vaqueros as they went about daily chores that had changed little since the first Mexican cowherders learned to work cattle from a horse's back. Wittliff captured a way of life that now exists only in memory and in the photographs included in this exhibition. The exhibition features photographs with bilingual narrative text that reveal the muscle, sweat and drama that went into roping a calf in thick brush or breaking a wild horse in the saddle. Poster for the exhibit is included in the website for the grant.
Year: 2019
Primary URL: http://bit.ly/HeartTexas

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