The Texas Historical Markers Program: Racial and Ethnic Narratives

Yusik Choi and Alberto Giordano ()
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Yusik Choi: Independent Researcher, Gumi 39313, Republic of Korea
Alberto Giordano: Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX 78666, USA

Geographies, 2023, vol. 3, issue 4, 1-22

Abstract: In this article we explore the text of the over 16,000 historical markers erected in the state since 1936, using GIS and corpus linguistics to determine the where , how , what , and when of how Texas memorializes its racial and ethnic groups. Unsurprisingly, our results indicate that the story of Texas is implicitly a narrative of white people. More interestingly, the term “African (Americans)” begins to be commemorated especially after the 1990s, but only in stories of community, religion, school, and children, as Texas historical markers do not to dwell on narratives of slavery, the civil rights movement, and lynchings. “Indians” and “Mexicans” in the 1930s and 1960s exemplify the most egregious case of derogatory semantics we found in the markers. As concerns racial and ethnic groups, in general they tend to be memorialized where they were historically present, whether or not such groups are still there. The analysis also reveals the increasing concentration of the markers in urban areas.

Keywords: commemoration; corpus linguistics; historical markers; GIS; Texas (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q15 Q5 Q53 Q54 Q56 Q57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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