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How Would You Describe Today’s San Antonio?
Today, our city is approximately 60 percent Hispanic, mostly of Mexican descent – and even a greater variety of national, ethnic and cultural groups have come to live in this ever-hospitable community of more than 1,200,000. In its nearly 300 years, San Antonio has continued to flourish, becoming our country’s seventh largest city and second largest in Texas.
San Antonio is widely admired for its heart-warming “Hispanicity” and its popular spirit of the Old West, as well as for the enduring symbol of patriotism known as the Alamo. Its always-festive River Walk and the other-worldly mystique of its ancient Spanish missions captivate both San Antonians and visitors. Our people have created a city that is -- for both Texans and others throughout the world – a favorite place to visit.
The annual celebration of our beginnings will be a time to recall events and favorite stories of the people who have made ours a city of fiestas, parades, and rodeos, of sports heroes and mariachis, of the Alamo, the River Walk, Spanish missions and plazas – a city of the heart, of the arts, and of food, fun and fond memories.
From the springs of the Head of the River and the flowing terraces of the San Pedro, through the green bowers by the old cathedral and Main Plaza, past the cherished Alamo, beside River Walk restaurants, in the shadows of the four Spanish missions, we can hear stories of the Indians, Hispanics, Europeans, Anglo-Americans, African-Americans, and those who followed. Their stories are heard where they lived along those historic streams with sibilant names – San Pedro, Olmos, San Antonio and Salado – and the meandering acequias from which the people drew their water for drinking, washing, irrigating and milling.
Italo Calvino wrote in a book titled Invisible Cities about “cities of the mind, cities of the memory, the cities that once visited do not go away, but stay with us, nearly omnipresent.” San Antonio remains magically visible as it casts its spell on the eyes and hearts of all who visit or stay. It is “a city of the mind,” a city of the memory.
So let’s regenerate living memories of those exciting and productive days of our city’s earlier history. Let’s celebrate the good things and good people we should keep alive in our hearts and minds. Let’s celebrate San Antonio’s on Saturday, October 22, 2011. And in all the Octobers that follow!
A tribute to all who shaped our Heritage
