Forgetting the Alamo, Or, Blood Memory

Chicana Matters Series

by Emma Pérez

Runner-up, Best Historical Fiction in English, Latino Book Awards Competition, 2010 This literary adventure takes place in nineteenth-century Texas and follows the story of a Tejana lesbian cowgirl after the fall of the Alamo. Micaela Campos, the central character, witnesses the violence against Mexicans, African Americans, and indigenous peoples after the infamous battles of the Alamo and of San Jacinto, both in 1836. Resisting an easy opposition between good versus evil and brown versus white characters, the novel also features Micaela's Mexican-Anglo cousin who assists and hinders her progress. Micaela's travels give us a new portrayal of the American West, populated by people of mixed races who are vexed by the collision of cultures and politics. Ultimately, Micaela's journey and her romance with a black/American Indian woman teach her that there are no easy solutions to the injustices that birthed the Texas Republic. This novel is an intervention in queer history and fiction with its love story between two women of color in mid-nineteenth-century Texas. Pérez also shows how a colonial past still haunts our nation's imagination. The battles of the Alamo and San Jacinto offered freedom and liberty to Texans, but what is often erased from the story is that common people who were Mexican, Indian, and Black did not necessarily benefit from the influx of so many Anglo immigrants to Texas. The social themes and identity issues that Pérez explores—political climate, debates over immigration, and historical revision of the American West—are current today.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Queer, LGBT, Historical, Lesbian, Latinx

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Emma Pérez, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Texas/El Paso, has written numerous essays in feminist theory and is author of the novel, Gulf Dreams.

Reviews

[Nikhil · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5.

To forget the Alamo is to invert colonialist history, to assert the story of the true face of settler colonialism (blood memory) where statues are made and hagiographies written for butchers, child rapists, and necrophiliacs. This text concerns the violent dispossession by settler whites of the lands, bodies, and occasionally souls, of Black, Brown, and Native folks living in Texas during the first half of the nineteenth century. The violence of these blood memories/dispossession is nauseating/infuriating, even more so when juxtaposed with colonialist historical narratives that persist.

Our main character, traumatized by the violence she experiences and sees, cannot hold these blood memories and so flees, justifying her flight as a pursuit of vengeance. But her vengeance isn’t aimed correctly, because she cannot hold the truth to know who to kill. Her pursuit of this vengeance, chasing and chased by violence, is impotent. Common to narratives of colonialist dispossession, victories are rare and defeat common. The text ultimately suggests that the greatest strength lies in preserving these blood memories for the next generation in preparation for the coming war. This strength, and these blood memories, are held by women in their role of transmitting culture.

[Lexi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well. I did not enjoy this, essentially, at all. The protagonist annoyed me more than I thought I could ever be irritated by a fictional character. Also, there was this weird thing where the author would try to end the chapters with foreshadowing, but it was really just a statement that the main character was too naive to know that something dramatic would happen later on in the story. There was also an immense amount of side characters who got introduced in the same manner over and over again, becoming nearly impossible to distinguish. The only redeeming quality that I could find in this book was the unique way it dealt with identity in terms of gender and sexuality, but I couldn't glean any more from it than that.

[B. H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't know what to expect of this novel, having grown accustomed to a certain "paint by the numbers" approach to fiction that tries to re-introduce forgotten voices into historical narratives. This, however, was brilliant and heartbreaking, and very unexpected. Definitely not for the fainthearted, but I found it unable to tear myself away from it. A revenge novel that takes back to the years of the US's bloody (was there every any other form) conquest of Texas, and the aftermath of history, and who has to deal with those consequences once the battles are done. A complex story about survival and how do we live (or don't) with the violence done to us—and how do we repair it (if we ever can).

Spoilers: It would have been a full five stars, but last paragraph kind of spoiled it for me for being a bit too on the nose when I thought the book had avoided it.

[Hunteraa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perez writes a fascinating novel that encompasses an intimate and thought provoking look into the life of a young, Chicana, cowgirl. Perez’s characters are complex, ever-changing and truly captivating. As I was reading I was heart broken at the tragic, gruesome history this novel exposes, but with the help of the complexities of the characters and the constant twists and turns of the novel I was able to see how important it is that these stories are told.

Emma Perez writes in a different work she produced titled “Queering the Borderlands” that “to decolonize our history and our historical imaginations, we must uncover the voices from the past that honor multiple experiences, instead of falling prey to that which is easy — allowing the white colonial heteronormative gaze to reconstruct and interpret our past.” (p. 123). In Perez’s novel Forgetting the Alamo, Or, Blood Memory she identifies the stories of those who are on the margins. The ones who are unfit for the heteronormative gaze who are queer or native people or slaves. She tells the story of Texas in 1836, including it’s horrors, and she brings those important, decolonized characters to the forefront of her work.

This book is definitely one of the hardest books I have ever read, but I am happy to admit that at the end of the novel I felt that all tragedies were abated and the character development left the readers with a family of characters who represented the overall beautiful message the author set out to explain and represent.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually really loved this book! It’s basically a Western infused with the real history of Texas after the fall of the Alamo, with a Tejana lesbian cowgirl protagonist. What’s not to love?

Pérez explores the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality through a genre and setting that does not address these themes nearly enough. Though the book is fiction, she tells a history that is vastly underrepresented and forgotten all too often. Aside from that, this book is (though bleak) genuinely fun to read. Micaela’s adventures are compelling and her motivations are sincere. Her flaws are logical given what she’s been through, and I really enjoyed getting to know her.

I rate this book 4/5 because its unique protagonist does not save it from falling into kitschy Western genre tropes. Most of these tropes are super fun so I didn’t mind too much, but I did get a bit tired of the whole “introduces new character that the protagonist gets attached to and then they get instantly killed off or disappear, further driving the protagonist’s anger and desire for revenge” thing. Like, I feel like a lot of those characters were not particularly distinct from one another or they just borrowed traits from Old West stock characters. Maybe that was the point? But either way whenever Pérez introduced any character that was particularly likable I would realize pretty much instantly that they had, like 20 pages to live at a maximum. Still a great read though!!

[Karin A · Rating 2 out of 5]

This wasn’t my book. I have to mark it as DNF.. very slow read for me, couldn’t get into the book. Lots of characters pop in and out off the story and decisions of the MC that I just couldn’t follow..

[Max · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

Perez's work in Forgetting the Alamo is an important retelling of the aftermath of the Texas revolution. I think that anyone who hopes to understand anything related to the past or present of the American southwest must read this book. Of course, things today are in many ways radically different than 1836, but in many other ways the struggle of Mexicans in Texas starts here. In particular, this book reckons with the presence of Anglo U.S Americans in the lands known as Texas. From the onset, Perez characterizes their presence as an invasion, and then following their victory at the Alamo and San Jacinto details the ways that life for Mexicans was completely transformed. Whereas they once were landowners, their land is repossessed and they are forced to work as laborers. Violent murder is on every turn. Families are destroyed.

Historical relevance aside, this book also has a lot to offer in terms of literary merit. I think that the writer develops the characters in really complex ways that highlight just how fundamentally "anti-simple" (if you'll allow me to make up words) race relations and HISTORY is and always has been in the south (particularly Texas).

The story focuses on Micaela Campos, the oldest daughter to a farming/ranching family. She begins with a complete family: her father Agustin, a deeply flawed man who is unwilling to consider his only adult child his heir; her mother Octavia, a Tonkawa-Mexican woman who is weary of the world and decidedly un-nurturing; her twin siblings, too young to understand the ways of the world; and her cousin Jedidiah, the half-white son of a cruel & despicable farmhand and basically an older brother to Micaela.

When her father and cousin ride into battle during the Texas revolution, they leave Micaela behind. She rides out after them anyways, and the destruction and slaughter she finds is the beginning of the rest of her life. Overnight, everything changes: nearly all her family is killed, her land is taken, and she knows exactly who did it. That very same day, Micaela dons her father's clothes, takes his pistol, mounts her horse, and goes on a long and difficult path to avenge her people for everything that has been done to them.

The book is gruesome: do not pick this book up if you want anything clean-cut and easily digestible. Classic Westerns are clean and picturesque compared to the horrors that Micaela experiences. Genocide, massacres, scalpings, rape, and un-avenged injustice abound throughout this novel. It is honest, and it is bleak.

Micaela discovers early in her life that she is a lesbian, and a major portion of the story is dedicated to her romance with Clara. While they both are trying to make the best of their circumstances, they each make so many mistakes that hurt one another, and they are separated time and time again. Each time, they always find their way back to each other, and their love allows them to move past the hurt that everyone in their land is feeling.

This is the real revolutionary Texas. It's not white pioneers conquering an uninhabited land, kicking out what few violent natives live there. It's Mexicans suffering the backlash of a devastating war that they lost. It's black people still enslaved and enduring an ongoing trauma. It's indigenous tribes coming to terms with what must have felt like their impending doom, slaughtered and massacred in their homes. It's cutting a scar into your face like that of your uncle, and it's trying to track down the one man whose death will make it all better all the while knowing nothing will change.

It's a quick read. Events move quickly, which is why it feels so dense and like so many things happen. Because of this, it's quite easy to zip through the whole thing because following Micaela around can be pretty easy when she's doing all the work. She is a frustrating heroine, but one can't help but sympathize with her fury.

[Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

An alternative Lesbian Chicana history - Texas 1836 - A re-imagined history of real people with real heart

Emma Pérez's new novel Forgetting the Alamo, or Blood Memory powerfully presents a revenge tale from an unusual point of view, that of a displaced Chicana in 1836 Texas. The Texas Revolution's decisive Battle of San Jacinto serves as a triggering event for this wide-wandering story. After the Mexican population had largely been driven from the area, Mexican troops under Santa Anna killed several hundred Texan troops at the Alamo. Later that year, Texan troops took revenge and killed more than 700 Mexican soldiers in 18 minutes during the Battle of San Jacinto under the battle cry of "Remember the Alamo."

In an exciting and cinematic gambling scene, Pérez introduces Micaela, the multi-racial narrator who undergoes a moving transformation when she stumbles across the ghastly massacre at San Jacinto, including her dead father. She returns home to find that her siblings have been murdered. Disguised as a man, she picks up her father's rifle and begins her quest to seek revenge on the marauders.

During her quest, Micaela encounters Walker, who represents the new non-native presence taking over Texas. Walker is also the father of her mixed race cousin, Jed. Since Micaela is connected to Jed by blood (one of the book's major themes, as indicated in the title), she knows that he must have some good about him, even though he repulses her because of his reliance on his good looks, luck, and ability to pass as completely white.

Micaela learns the tortured history of her Mexican and mixed American Indian family from Miss Elsie, the strong pioneer woman who takes in abandoned and abused women, and who runs the whorehouse in San Antonio (the site of the Alamo). While disguised as a man, Micaela can travel freely throughout Texas, working among the accepting American Indian, mixed race, and black men. While working on a farm, she falls in love with Clara, a black woman who values family more than anything else and discovers that Micaela is actually a woman.

Cervantes's Don Quixote may offer a helpful way to understand Pérez's novel. Both are episodic stories with narrators who travel on horseback over a wide area to interact with a variety of common characters. Both narrators adopt a new way of dress to go undercover (Don Quixote as a knight; Micaela as a man). Both novels play with character names; men in Forgetting the Alamo include the completely evil Rove (for Karl Rove), the opportunistic Walker (for George Walker Bush), and the cruel Colonel (for Dick Cheney).

But Don Quixote is light and satiric (Quixote's horse is named Rocinante, which can be translated as "reversal"), while Forgetting the Alamo is tragic and ultimately deals with the displacement of the original settlers of the Southwest (Micaela's horse is named Lágrimas, or "tears").

The writing is sharp and clever. The dialogue is realistic. But Forgetting the Alamo is not a simple alternative history or a romance. Micaela becomes a less likeable character as she progresses. She is jealous, uncontrollably violent at times, alcoholic in response to the carnage she witnesses, and sociopathic in her plans for revenge. Sometimes her adventure feels like a myth as she wanders across several states but repeatedly runs into the same men. Again and again, the newly invading white colonists are stupid and sadistic. Vicious betrayals and murders are commonplace.

In the end, however, Micaela survives. Unlike the Mexican warriors at the Battle of San Jacinto or any number of massacres of American Indians, she manages to tell her story. Though unable to participate in the resettling of Texas, she understands the importance of her people's history. The slightly uplifting end of the novel does not undo all the violence that preceded it, but makes readers aware of the unrecognized sacrifices that the original Texas inhabitants were forced to endure.

[eth · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was a book i've had for the longest time for a class (that i ended up dropping) that i've been meaning to get around to reading..and i'm glad i did! yet another book i've read this year that's explored queerness in a time and place where it's not accepted. however, i've never read a book that took place during this time period, so that was interesting! my only gripe is that the writing did get a bit confusing with a lot of characters to keep track of, and it jumped around a lot, but other than that this was a beautiful albeit violent story

[Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I shook my head and grinned from the bottom of my soles all the way to the top of my head's crown. Someone like Clara had never walked into my life before but here she was. An apparition. Lying delicate and simple with long hair spread behind her head like she was in the air. Flying. She smiled up at me and a sharp twinge went through me."

Beautiful, brutal, a necessary and unconventional point of view of an oft explored terrain. I am humbled by and grateful for this story.

[eris111 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read this for a writing course.
Although I wouldn't voluntarily pick this book to read, I have to say that it was an interesting read - perspective wise. Story acknowledges and focuses on the existence and experience of mixed race and homosexual individuals. I'd say it's important to have books like this out there. On a large scale, the Tejanos are portrayed as the victims and the whites are more like the oppressors in this story.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I liked: Recommended by a friend and I absolutely loved this book! A young Chicana, struggling with her sexual identity (and the Catholic guilt it comes with), family dynamics, racism, abuse of power, all during the Texas Revolution. Thoroughly enjoy reading about historical events from the perspective of those whose voices were silenced and this one was a 10/10!

[Koritha Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Addressed the stratification of Mexicans, Native Americans, and Anglos in the "settling" of Texas and surrounding regions. Very eye-opening but also unexpected with a protagonist who isn't considered straight, white, and male.

[Nicole Nielsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible story! cried multiple times. would recommend this book to anyone, especially my fellow texans

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was great. I usually don't go for historical novels, but there was something about this book that just grabs you once you start reading, and you just have to keep reading. The writing is fantastic, which helps a ton, of course. The style of the book is sort of a picaresque novel, like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, only much better. The main character is a strong, flawed, "wild west" woman, and she's riding her horse all over "Tejas" and into New Orleans to get revenge for the murders of her siblings and her father. It reminds me of Huck Finn in the way that each chapter is a sort of new "stop" along her travels, and there is the almost unreal quality of continually running into the same people, even though she's traveling all over Texas! Micaela travels dressed as a man for her own protection against marauders and rampant, rapist men; she stops in saloons to gamble in poker; she drinks whiskey like a drunk, needing that sip in the morning to make it through her day; she falls in love with Clara and experiences jealous rages, brief moments of togetherness before going separate ways. The great thing about this book is the perspective from the Mexicans & Native Americans, who live in what is now Texas before it is part of the United States. The American white man is the villain in almost everything, and the battles such as San Jacinto, Santa Anna, the Alamo, are all told in real-life ways, rather than decreeing every white U.S. general or whatever, a super great patriotic hero. Truth is, they were terrible people, scalping Native Americans to extinction, treating Mexicans with the same racist disregard and nonsensical massacres, and being all-around terrible. Sure, we have the United States now, but don't you wonder why they don't teach us this stuff in history class in school, and why these battles are always glorified?

[Emīls Sietiņš · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this book for my WGS course and I really enjoyed it.
This book contains a lot of violence and the writing style is different from what one would imagine. The pacing of all the events happening in this book is very fast, sometime skipping over things that other books / authors would not ignore so easily. Journeys that last for days have been written in one-two sentences. Characters randomly/ magically meet throughout the book at various instances at different places which, in my opinion, was quite unrealistic.
That being said I still enjoyed the novel and the message that it had for its readers. The way how we remember history is important. The stories that survive throughout the time and that are written in our history books are not the only stories. Writing a novel from a queer latina's perspective which is set in a time which often is referred to as one of the bloodiest times of US / Tejas history is very significant. It helps us to think about an erasure that has been done to our memory - erasure that has eliminated all perspectives of history except one - the white masculine imperialist one. What happens when the same piece of history is being told from a different perspective?

[Travis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wonderful idea for a novel, but not great storytelling. Even at just over 200 pages, a slow read for me. Chicana/o land ethos, queer identity, western genre tropes are the biggest themes. A melodrama, even though it doesn't want to be--it mentions that history is too complex to be two-sided, yet all whites are villains and all women are victims and/or heroes. A number of other inconsistencies or unnecessarily confusing parts or storyline (did Campos fight with or against Houston's forces?). Of academic interest because it addresses (but doesn't fill) a void in literatures of Texas, Southwest, US.

[Kiddrah]

Read this for my graduate Multicultural Lit course.

Perez has created a great story that all readers can relate to in terms of memory and repression. The theme of running either to something or away from something is prevalent and can be realized in all the characters. The story provides a history of Mexico, before and after the border was moved to its present location. As well, more profoundly Perez tells the truth behind the Alamo (Mexican's were also slaughtered), which is something that is not always made clear.

[Gabriela Caballero · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked the plot of the book. I think re-imagining protagonists in history that would today read as queer is incredibly important work. Also as a native to South Texas, I must say it's incredibly refreshing to read a story that explores how the new white groups who were the catalyst of the Republic of Texas were colonizing forces and not heroes. However, the writing style was difficult to read. While I can admire the text for it's academic merits, the art of how it was related needs some work.

[D'Argo Agathon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of a strange, rambling little story... but not a bad one. Interesting but meandering plot, great dialogue but weird (non)use of commas throughout the narrative, fun but fairly one-dimensional characters...

[Lily · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good story, but the writing wasn't the best. Still very much appreciate all the research/historical facts that went into the making of the book, tells a side of Texas/American history that doesn't get acknowledged/retold nearly often enough.

[Heather Montes Ireland · Rating 5 out of 5]

How I loved this book!

[Josie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book minus the dead kittens

[Ray Cha Cha · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good!