Plaza Towns of South Texas

Abstract

Most towns in south Texas were founded after the area had become part of the United States, yet plazas as traditional Spanish-American features were included in town layouts. The decision to construct a plaza resulted from a strong Hispanic identity among ethnic Mexicans in these communities and from the recognition by influential Anglo-Americans of the form's symbolic role. Plaza towns are more numerous in south Texas than elsewhere in the Hispanic-American borderlands. AS a physical form and social space, the plaza is a common feature of settlements throughout Hispanic America that varies in type, form, and landscape characteristics (Stanislawski 1969; Elbow 1975; Gade 1976). In the borderland region shared by Mexico and the United States, differences of this sort are more pronounced than in Latin America, in part because of the interactions of Hispanic and Anglo-American traditions. This article examines the plaza as a townscape form in the Hispanic- American borderland and shows that the plaza is diagnostic of regional culture identity there, especially in south Texas. Among the issues addressed are why some but not all Hispanic-founded or predominantly Hispanic- populated towns of south Texas have plazas; the nature of plaza variability according to morphology, social function, and landscape characteristic in selected towns; and how plazas have functioned as landmarks of Hispanic identity in the past and the present. The plaza as a symbolic social form can be a telling signature of Mexican American regional variation in the Hispanic- American borderland.