A LOOK INTO SOMEONE’S HERITAGE THAT IS HISTORICALLY TORN WILD WEST HERITAGE

WRITTEN AND

Illustrated

BY ANNABELLA VACA

The Vaquero - I am a descendant of cowboys. Of vaqueros. The words “wild west” instantly conjure imagery of men in large hats riding horses, perhaps even wrangling cattle. I try to picture a man I’ll never know. A man my family barely knew, my great-great-grandfather. He was a vaquero who traveled the cattle run paths from Mexico, throughout Texas and onward North. He wooed the young women of the small towns he entered, with tales of the countryside. Of heroism.

He’d leave with the promise to return on his way back south. But those promises were lies. He was a vaquero, not suited to be a husband. My greatgreat-grandmother never knew his last name. Her son, my great-grandfather, was left without a paternal name, or a paternal history. With nothing to inherit, they gave him a made-up name that represented the abandonment: the last name “Vaca” (cow in Spanish).

The Vaquero disappeared from my family, leaving us with an ancestral dead end. My great-grandfather was ashamed of this and thus rarely talked about his parents. We know a little more about my great-great-grandmother’s side of the family. We discovered ancestors who took up residency in San Antonio, TX. We pieced together that more than likely they participated in a widely known Texan historical moment: The Battle of the Alamo.

Ancestors At War - Whenever people find out I’m half Mexican, they always ask me: “When did your father’s family immigrate?”. This leads me to answer in the form of a history lesson.

Disclaimer: This could give you AP U.S. History PTSD, but I promise I’ll be brief.

My father’s family never immigrated. They’ve lived in Northern Mexico forever. After Mexico won its independence from Spain, tensions rose between Texas and the Mexican government. New colonists from the states had settled in Texas and did not want to be part of Mexico. This began the Texas Revolution. The most well-known battle from this revolution was the Battle of the Alamo, Texans

December 2022 Wild West Issue

vs Mexicans. The Mexican army won the battle and killed every Texan soldier.

This Mexican victory did not last long. With their armies defeated, Texas declared independence from Mexico. However, Texans did not force local Mexicans off their land. Afterward, Texas was vulnerable and got swallowed into America as the twenty-eighth state. This is how my family got drawn into the states. To summarize: We never crossed the border; the border crossed us.

Now for my mom’s family; I can say exactly when her family came to America. My mom is “whiter than white”- but specifically English and Czech. On the English side, my family immigrated and settled in Jamestown. We owned a library before moving south for more land opportunities after the Spanish succession. As they worked their way south, a portion of my family settled in Tennessee. There, a great-uncle of mine, Daniel Branch Price, married Eliza Crockett, a first cousin to Davy Crockett. For those who are confused, Davy Crockett was a real person people wrote folk songs about. He was a frontiersman who later ran for congress and a cowboy who famously died at the Battle of the Alamo. This means my ancestors fought and killed each other in the most infamous Texas battle. On top of that, the direct ancestors on my mother’s side continued to migrate south and settled in, you guessed it, Texas. Which means they’re part of the colonists who came to Texas and wanted to declare independence from Mexico.

In 2019, I went with my parents and my dad’s parents to visit the Alamo in San Antonio. This is where my dad made a very out-of-pocket joke. The moment we arrived, he turned to me and said “Look Bella, this is where all of daddy’s family killed all of mommy’s family!” Nearby tourists stopped in their tracks. My dad then decided to talk to them directly, “But we’re all good now! See, she’s here!” He pushed me forward and presented me with a birthday cake. My dad’s father smacked the back of his head. I was sixteen at the time and it is still one of the funniest things my dad has ever done.

Mixed - To this day, my wild west heritage is something unique to me and my identity: descending from cowboys and vaqueros who were at war for so long. But I often feel a disconnect from my Latin heritage. Assimilation has forced a lot out of my family since we have been in this country for so long. My father was never taught Spanish, my family doesn’t celebrate Mexican holidays, and much of my extended family considers themselves Texan or Texican at best. They don’t even think they’re Mexican anymore. It’s pretty devastating to think about the effect American colonists had on my ancestors.

They forced my family to abandon our traditions and now there is little that ties us back to Mexico. Since I am white-passing, I am often forced to prove my Latinness. I’ve almost gotten used to the shocked looks I receive when I reveal my ethnicity. The stifled laughs I get when Spanish people hear my full name: Bella Vaca (beautiful cow).

That’s the difficult thing about being mixed: Latin people don’t think I am Latin enough and non-Latin people don’t recognize why my heritage means so much to me. I’m very proud of my wild west heritage though. Two halves who collided in the wild west. There’s a toughness to descending from cowboys. I’ve met no one else with a mixed background quite like mine. It makes me who I am and the type of artist I am.