06-15-2022
Today’s San Antonio City Council agenda will be packed, as it is every week.
The council will decide whether to increase the homestead exemption, which gives homeowners some relief on their tax bills. It probably will approve new boundaries for council districts to reflect population changes documented in the 2020 Census.
Farther down on its agenda, it may settle lawsuits filed by the Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation against the city, the nonprofit Alamo Trust, the trust’s former CEO, Douglass W. McDonald, and Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush.
Tap Pilam, whose members are lineal descendants of the indigenous people buried at Mission San Antonio de Valero Mission, now known as the Alamo, sued the various defendants for the right to continue their annual religious remembrances in the Alamo Church. The lawsuits also sought a voice for Tap Pilam in deciding how to handle human remains discovered during excavations in Alamo Plaza, which is undergoing an expensive and contentious makeover.
Details of the legal settlement won’t be made public, but the outcome is unlikely to be satisfying for Tap Pilam.
The reimagining of the Alamo isn’t likely to be all it could have been, either. It’s likely to cling to myth. The site’s complex history is apt to remain inadequately told in a country that prefers a sanitized version of the past. In the case of the Alamo and the famous 1836 battle, it’s a version that omits the role of slavery, white supremacy and the seizure of lands from people who were here before European settlers arrived.
The legal settlement was still being negotiated when I sat down recently with Ramón Vásquez, a Tap Pilam tribal leader and executive director of its nonprofit, AIT-SCM.
That’s short for American Indians in Texas at the Spanish Colonial Missions.
Rather than rehash disputes with the city, the Alamo Trust and the state, Vásquez chose to speak of his organization’s growth and promise, of how what began 27 years ago in the basement of Blessed Sacrament Academy on the South Side with volunteers is now a thriving operation with a staff of 11 employees and 10 contractors and a $1 million budget.
With its first grant, it expanded to the West Side and established its two signature programs — the Fatherhood Campaign, dedicated to domestic violence prevention, and Rites of Passage, a development program for young men based on indigenous teachings.
In 2006, AIT-SCM became the first tenant in the Avenida Guadalupe Building, next to the historic Guadalupe Theater. By 2020, it had outgrown its space and took over an entire floor. Then it set up doula birthing services across the street in the old El Parian Building.
As it fought to safeguard thousands of indigenous grave sites, the group’s cultural and educational work continued.
Last July, it established the American Indians in Texas Legal Defense Fund.
The tribal community made even bigger news a few weeks ago when it purchased a $1.2 million property on East Commerce between Hackberry and Pine Streets on the near East Side.
The four buildings, 12,000 square feet in all, will house the tribal group’s administrative offices, programs and a cultural center and gallery. Its former owner, the nonprofit Communities in Schools, will rent space there until its new location is ready, Vásquez said.
AIT-SCM plans to move into its new digs in August and hold a grand opening in the fall. Vásquez expressed gratitude for financial support from the San Antonio Area Foundation and the Local Initiatives Support Corp.
Opening a cultural center was a longstanding goal.
Vásquez, who has served on the boards of several national indigenous groups, says studies show Native Americans in urban areas who lack their own cultural centers don’t fare as well in several key social indicators as those who do have such centers.
“Census data show the Native American population in Bexar County grew by 40 percent and grew by 150 percent statewide,” he said.
More Mexican Americans and others are acknowledging their Native American roots on census questionnaires.
Vásquez told me about AIT-SCM’s new Heritage Food Truck, an early example of the kind of small businesses that the for-profit Tap Pilam Industries will incubate.
“The idea is to be able to cultivate Native American artisans, food businesses and construction businesses, as well as lawn care and home maintenance for the elderly,” Vásquez said.
“Then we’re creating a process where we’ll listen to what other people” — especially young Native Americans with dreams of starting a business — “want to do,” he said.
In a country deeply divided over inclusion, diversity and even its own democratic ideals, Tap Pilam has decided to focus on expanding its reach and promoting healing.
The latter remains a common thread in its work.
Healing was an objective of Tap Pilam’s lawsuits, too. And the work goes on.
“The best thing we can do is stay relevant,” he said. “What we’re doing is building a nation.”
To read more click here