Insight Guides Texas by Insight Guides

Author:Insight Guides
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Travel, USA
Publisher: Apa Publications
Published: 2018-01-29T05:00:00+00:00

Pick up a copy of the city’s own free weekly magazine, San Antonio Current, which lists all the local and nearby festivals, as well as music, theater, arts, and nightlife.

The San Antonio Museum of Art.

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Hispanics and American Indians

Hispanic politicians from San Antonio have made major inroads into politics at the national level and are proving a dynamic force. The first Hispanic mayor of a major US city, Henry Cisneros, elected in 1981, reelected in 1985, and tapped as President Bill Clinton’s Secretary for Housing and Urban Development (HUD), was a groundbreaker. The dynamic twin brothers Joaquin and Julian Castro have put San Antonio on the map again in recent years – Julian followed in Cisneros’s footsteps as mayor of San Antonio (2009–14) and served as President Barack Obama’s Secretary for Housing and Development (2014–17), while Joaquin is a US Congressional representative for the 20th district that includes San Antonio.

San Antonio’s early American Indian history, as well as local history and flora and fauna, is explored in the Art Deco Witte Museum (3801 Broadway; tel: 210-357-1900; www.wittemuseum.org; Mon−Sat 10am−5pm, Sun noon−5pm) in Brackenridge Park. San Antonio’s original inhabitants, the Payaya Indians, were hunters who supplemented their catches with the fruit of pecan and mesquite trees, and prickly pear cactus. The Payayas cooperated readily with the Europeans, but the Apache, who controlled the plains to the north, took more convincing, and the nomadic Comanche were always a threat.

The Witte Museum also includes the four-story H-E-B Body Adventure multimedia exhibit, which offers kids an interactive way to explore their bodies, take virtual adventures, and learn about Texas. Behind the museum is a complex of historic houses, including one owned by Francisco Ruiz, who was the uncle of José Antonio Navarro and the second of the two native-born Texans who signed the Texas Declaration of Independence.

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