Conventional Wisdom

It's Bill White's party, be wild: Five places for Democrats to be seen in CorpusChristi

Texas State Aquarium, home of the last remaining Gulf wildlife?
The USS Lexington, great for supporting uncontroversial wars from 70 years ago.
Photo by Frank H. Brueckner
Selena's red Porsche, at the Selena Museum
Art Museum of South Texas
Democrats: Do not attempt this at home. Or at Corpus Christi.

With Texas Democrats descending on Corpus Christi for the 2010 state convention, there's not a lot of political drama planned. (Not unless they release a platform as controversial as the Texas GOP did this week, at least.)

So if these Dems want to make political hay from their Bill White exercise in confirming inevitability, they are going to have to get out and about around the city.

To aid in this exercise, CultureMap is proud to provide a list of the sights worth seeing in CC, and how they can be best used by the politicos.

The USS Lexington
A visit here, to the most highly-decorated aircraft carrier from World War II, shows support for a strong military that advocating diplomacy rather than Predator drones and using a Rhodes scholarship to avoid service in Vietnam doesn't always convey. Bonus points for incorporating a slam on George W. Bush for the "Mission Accomplished" banner.

Selena Museum
With Hispanics quickly becoming the most populous minority in the country, and Texas one of the first majority-minority states, there's never been a more important time to appeal to Latino voters. A somber visit to the Selena Museum, a tribute by the Quintanilla family to Tejano's biggest star would be a good start.

Be sure to get a basic knowledge of Selena's discography and learn the lyrics to "Como la Flor" and "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom." Fans are united but no one likes a panderer.

Texas State Aquarium
While the oil spill continues to devastate American ecosystems and wildlife, a trip to the Texas State Aquarium, with its focus on Gulf animals, provides one last glimpse of creatures soon to be seen only covered in oil and on the endangered species list.

Yachting Center of Corpus Christi
Usually sports are a great, all-American interest for a politician. But any sport involving more money than skill — polo, yachting, skiing — is out, lest you be associated with such elitest tastes as classical music and arugula. Think of the pictures of John Kerry windsurfing and keep your feet firmly on the sandy beach.

Art Museum of South Texas
Elitest labels be damned, supporting the arts is usually good politics. But before your visit, just have your staff make sure none of the artists on display have any "Virgin-Mary-made-of-elephant-dung" shenanigans on their résumé. That shit doesn't even fly in New York.

When in doubt, just do what comes natural: Shake hands, kiss babies, and blame Bush for everything.

unspecified

HISTORY CORRECTED

Houston documentary maker helps correct biased Texas historical marker

Photo by Virginia Diaz-Laughlin

Medrano stands in front of the Karankawa marker while filming 'Truly Texas Mexican.'

It's not often that a film has an impact past the box office, but one documentary has helped tell the truth about the Texas Gulf Coast's long-disparaged Karankawa people.

For years, the Indigenous Peoples of the Coastal Bend and the Karankawa Tribe of Texas have fought for a corrected Texas Historical Commission marker in Corpus Christi. Houstonian Adán Medrano’s 2021 film, Truly Texas Mexican, helped finalize a push that will lead to a long-due correction on July 25.

The old marker was plainly offensive. Not only did it say the Karankawa people had "gained a reputation for savagery," but it repeated the long-discredited claim that they practiced cannibalism — a contention born out of the colonial need to justify violence against the tribe.

Medrano, a San Antonio native who currently lives in Houston, became part of the fight when he stood in front of the marker and made a direct appeal to correct the sign.

"I call upon the historians who live in Texas to come up and stand up and say, 'Take this down. This is a lie,'" he said during a scene in Truly Texas Mexican.

Two of them heard the call. Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi history professor Dr. Peter Moore and historian Dr. Tim Seiter of the University of Texas at Tyler joined the years-long Indigenous effort following the film's release. Led by the Indigenous Peoples of the Coastal Bend and the Karankawa Tribe of Texas, the academics helped research and draft a replacement that honors them as one of Texas' first peoples.

The marker not only replaces racist mythmaking with scholarship and tribal knowledge, it presents the fact that Karankawa descendants aren't a historical footnote but a living community still present in South Texas today.

Medrano's advocacy here continues his work with the T exas Indigenous Food Project, a nonprofit dedicated to celebrating the Indigenous foodways of Texas and the Americas. But in many ways it is a continuation of a career devoted to amplifying voices rarely heard in popular culture. In 1976, he founded San Antonio's CineFestival, now the nation's longest-running Latine film festival.

At 10 am on July 25, representatives of the Indigenous Peoples of the Coastal Bend and the Karankawa Tribe of Texas will unveil the corrected marker, joined by Medrano. Visitors can find it at 6001 Ennis Joslin Rd.

adan medrano film indigenous history history