Byline: Gemma Cruz-Araneta

IF your blood pressure shoots up whenever you encounter views in direct contrast to those you have long held dear, then brace yourself for this totally Mexican position.

Generations of pro-Americans have wept through many Hollywood remakes of "Remember,

the Alamo!" Tourist guides at that must see destination in Texas perpetuate heart-rending legends about the valor of Davy Crockett, a hardy poacher with a raccoon hat, and Jim Bowie, killer of grizzlies and ferocious fauna. American history has deified. William Barrett Travis for that singular act of drawing a demarcation line, ostensibly between noble death or cowardly surrender, as the Mexican army ferociously rammed its way through the fort gates.

Well, amigos, south of the border down Mexico way, "El Alamo'' is seen in a totally different light. The cowardly bandidos were Travis, Crockett, and Bowie and the rest of them. Heroic and noble were the Mexican soldiers who galloped all the way to the northern province of Texas to defend their country's territorial integrity. Every Mexican student knows that "El Alamo" is a tragic reminder of the United States of America's relentless Westward expansion during which it gobbled up half of their country's territory.

Call it "Manifest Destiny," "Monroe Doctrine," democracy, hot pursuit (of Indian nations), a search for markets, whatever, the US government encouraged white American settlers to set up homes, farms, and shops on Mexican territory to as far West as the Pacific Ocean. Land speculators salivated at the prospects of quick profits and so did corrupt Mexican generals like Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana. An assortment of miners, plantation owners, cotton traders, slave traffickers (William B. Travis!) adventurers and poachers (Bowie and Crockett) and ambitious shipowners coveted Texas. These groups were instructed to agitate for independence from Mexico.

In fact, Alexander Hamilton had planned to fragment Texas into three "slave states" so the South could increase its senatorial representation. Meanwhile, Washington (seat of government) cast a blind eye when Philadelphia sent two hundred volunteers to Texas; Kentucky followed suit with three hundred and Tennessee and Arkansas with a total of three thousand homesteaders. Many clever devices were used - subsidized agitation with politico military support, secession from Mexico and simulated independence and finally statehood was granted by the USA. "The Alamo" became the template for future interventions and takeovers. (To be continued) gemma601@yahoo.com