Changing Texas
Changing Texas

Author: Steve H. Murdock

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 2014-03-25

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 1623491665

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Drawing on nearly thirty years of prior analyses of growth, aging, and diversity in Texas populations and households, the authors of Changing Texas: Implications of Addressing or Ignoring the Texas Challenge examine key issues related to future Texas population change and its socioeconomic implications. Current interpretation of data indicates that, in the absence of any change in the socioeconomic conditions associated with the demographic characteristics of the fastest growing populations, Texas will become poorer and less competitive in the future. However, the authors delineate how such a future can be altered so that the “Texas Challenge” becomes a Texas advantage, leading to a more prosperous future for all Texans. Presenting extensive data and projections for the period through 2050, Changing Texas permits an educated preview of Texas at the middle of the twenty-first century. Discussing in detail the implications of population-related change and examining how the state could alter those outcomes through public policy, Changing Texas offers important insights for the implications of Texas’ changing demographics for educational infrastructure, income and poverty, unemployment, healthcare needs, business activity, public funding, and many other topics important to the state, its leaders, and its people. Perhaps most importantly, Changing Texas shows how objective information, appropriately analyzed, can inform governmental and private-sector policies that will have important implications for the future of Texas.

Changing National Identities at the Frontier
Changing National Identities at the Frontier

Author: Andrés Reséndez

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 9780521543194

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This book explores how the diverse and fiercely independent peoples of Texas and New Mexico came to think of themselves as members of one particular national community or another in the years leading up to the Mexican-American War. Hispanics, Native Americans, and Anglo Americans made agonizing and crucial identity decisions against the backdrop of two structural transformations taking place in the region during the first half of the 19th century and often pulling in opposite directions.

Wildlife and Man in Texas
Wildlife and Man in Texas

Author: Robin W. Doughty

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 1983

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9780890964163

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The author uses letters, journals, and travel accounts to show the early attitudes toward the uses of indigenous birds and mammals of Texas. Surviving on nature's bounty and remorselessly exterminating her threats--wolves, cougars, and other wily critters--settlers exploited Texas' pristine fecundity. Some species benefited from disturbed environments; others were unable to adjust to human presence and disappeared. By the 1880s concern about the diminishing numbers of many preferred species led to enactment of game laws and other efforts to protect and manage wildlife. Today, the author argues, habitat change is the most pressing issue confronting conservationists.

Lone Star Nation
Lone Star Nation

Author: Richard Parker

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2014-11-04

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 160598714X

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To most Americans, Texas has been that love-it-or-hate it slice of the country that has sparked controversy, bred presidents, and fomented turmoil from the American Civil War to George W. Bush. But that Texas is changing—and it will change America itself.Richard Parker takes the reader on a tour across today's booming Texas, an evolving landscape that is densely urban, overwhelmingly Hispanic, exceedingly powerful in the global economy, and increasingly liberal. This Texas will have to ensure upward mobility, reinvigorate democratic rights, and confront climate change—just to continue its historic economic boom. This is not the Texas of George W. Bush or Rick Perry.Instead, this is a Texas that will remake the American experience in the twenty-first century—as California did in the twentieth—with surprising economic, political, and social consequences. Along the way, Parker analyzes the powerful, interviews the insightful, and tells the story of everyday people because, after all, one in ten Americans in this century will call Texas something else: Home.

Mexican American Civil Rights in Texas
Mexican American Civil Rights in Texas

Author: Robert Brischetto

Publisher: MSU Press

Published: 2021-10-01

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 1628954469

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Inspired by a 1968 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights six-day hearing in San Antonio that introduced the Mexican American people to the rest of the nation, this book is an examination of the social change of Mexican Americans of Texas over the past half century. The San Antonio hearing included 1,502 pages of testimony, given by more than seventy witnesses, which became the baseline twenty experts used to launch their research on Mexican American civil rights issues during the following fifty years. These experts explored the changes in demographics and policies with regard to immigration, voting rights, education, employment, economic security, housing, health, and criminal justice. While there are a number of anecdotal historical accounts of Mexican Americans in Texas, this book adds an evidence-based examination of racial and ethnic inequalities and changes over the past half century. The contributors trace the litigation on behalf of Latinos and other minorities in state and federal courts and the legislative changes that followed, offering public policy recommendations for the future. The fact that this study is grounded in Texas is significant, as it was the birthplace of a majority of Chicano civil rights efforts and is at the heart of Mexican American growth and talent, producing the first Mexican American in Congress, the first Mexican American federal judge, and the first Mexican American candidate for president. As the largest ethnic group in the state, Latinos will continue to play a major role in the future of Texas.

Last Chance in Texas
Last Chance in Texas

Author: John Hubner

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2008-04-29

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 1588361632

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A powerful, bracing and deeply spiritual look at intensely, troubled youth, Last Chance in Texas gives a stirring account of the way one remarkable prison rehabilitates its inmates. While reporting on the juvenile court system, journalist John Hubner kept hearing about a facility in Texas that ran the most aggressive–and one of the most successful–treatment programs for violent young offenders in America. How was it possible, he wondered, that a state like Texas, famed for its hardcore attitude toward crime and punishment, could be leading the way in the rehabilitation of violent and troubled youth? Now Hubner shares the surprising answers he found over months of unprecedented access to the Giddings State School, home to “the worst of the worst”: four hundred teenage lawbreakers convicted of crimes ranging from aggravated assault to murder. Hubner follows two of these youths–a boy and a girl–through harrowing group therapy sessions in which they, along with their fellow inmates, recount their crimes and the abuse they suffered as children. The key moment comes when the young offenders reenact these soul-shattering moments with other group members in cathartic outpourings of suffering and anger that lead, incredibly, to genuine remorse and the beginnings of true empathy . . . the first steps on the long road to redemption. Cutting through the political platitudes surrounding the controversial issue of juvenile justice, Hubner lays bare the complex ties between abuse and violence. By turns wrenching and uplifting, Last Chance in Texas tells a profoundly moving story about the children who grow up to inflict on others the violence that they themselves have suffered. It is a story of horror and heartbreak, yet ultimately full of hope.

Make Your Bed
Make Your Bed

Author: Admiral William H. McRaven

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Published: 2017-04-04

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 1455570230

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Based on a Navy SEAL's inspiring graduation speech, this #1 New York Times bestseller of powerful life lessons "should be read by every leader in America" (Wall Street Journal). If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed. On May 17, 2014, Admiral William H. McRaven addressed the graduating class of the University of Texas at Austin on their Commencement day. Taking inspiration from the university's slogan, "What starts here changes the world," he shared the ten principles he learned during Navy Seal training that helped him overcome challenges not only in his training and long Naval career, but also throughout his life; and he explained how anyone can use these basic lessons to change themselves-and the world-for the better. Admiral McRaven's original speech went viral with over 10 million views. Building on the core tenets laid out in his speech, McRaven now recounts tales from his own life and from those of people he encountered during his military service who dealt with hardship and made tough decisions with determination, compassion, honor, and courage. Told with great humility and optimism, this timeless book provides simple wisdom, practical advice, and words of encouragement that will inspire readers to achieve more, even in life's darkest moments. "Powerful." --USA Today "Full of captivating personal anecdotes from inside the national security vault." --Washington Post "Superb, smart, and succinct." --Forbes

The Impact of Global Warming on Texas
The Impact of Global Warming on Texas

Author: Jurgen Schmandt

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2011-06-01

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 029272330X

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When The Impact of Global Warming on Texas was first published in 1995, it discussed climate change as a likely future phenomenon, predicted by scientific studies. This entirely rewritten second edition presents evidence that early climate change impacts can now be observed and identifies the threats climate change will pose to Texas through the year 2050. It also offers the hopeful message that corrective action, if taken now, can avert unmanageable consequences. The book begins with a discussion of climate science and modeling and the information that can be derived from these sources for Texas. The authors follow this with an analysis of actual climate trends in the various Texas climate regions, including a predicted rise in temperatures of 5.4 degrees F (plus or minus 1.8 F) by the end of the century. This could lead to less rainfall and higher evaporation, especially in regions that are already dry. Other important effects include possible changes in El Niño (climate variability) patterns and hurricane behaviors. Taking into account projected population growth, subsequent chapters explore likely trends with respect to water availability, coastal impacts, and biodiversity. The authors then look at the issues from a policy perspective, focusing on Texas's importance to the national economy as an energy producer, particularly of oil and gas. They recommend that Texas develop its own climate change policy to serve the goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing energy independence, ensuring regional security, and improving management of water, air, land, and wildlife.