Manchaca Road officially renamed to Menchaca Road after year-long lawsuit is dismissed
Manchaca Road officially renamed to Menchaca Road after year-long lawsuit is dismissed
The Austin City Council approved a resolution more than a year ago to change the street's name which said it was to correct a misspelling of the name of the man whom the street is named for, Jose Antonio Menchaca.
AUSTIN, Texas - Rob Amoroso is a manager at Manchaca Village Vet Clinic and has helped run the organization Leave Manchaca Alone for a couple of years.
“It's not very well thought out. I just wish the council would have taken our input,” he says.
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The Austin City Council approved a resolution more than a year ago to change the street's name which said it was to correct a misspelling of the name of the man whom the street is named for, Jose Antonio Menchaca.
Menchaca was one of the heroes in the Battle of San Jacinto and later became mayor pro tem of San Antonio.
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“Menchaca was a man who was liked by everybody. He was a guard for Santa Anna after Santa Anna was captured at the Battle of San Jacinto. He liked him, everybody liked him, Indians that he fought against liked him,” Bob Perkins said.
Perkins, a retired Travis County District Court judge, helped contribute towards the name change. He says Menchaca Road is a simple physical change but it's a big change in terms of a cultural deal.
"What nobody talks about is these campaigns Menchaca was here for were about killing indigenous people and that to me is kind of ironic we're celebrating that," Amoroso said. "It's all about a theory, that's not good enough for the costs and disruptions that it causes.”
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Amoroso says, fortunately, his business is right at the cut-off of city limits for the name swap but if he did decide to rebrand, it would cost upwards of $50,000.
“If they do nothing, over time they might seem ignorant and if they want to do something, it will cost them thousands of dollars. Signage, stationery, licenses, websites, uniforms. All for what a theory? That's not right,” Amoroso said.
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"You have a choice. You can say Menchaca the way he said it and he's the one that put his life on the line for Texas, you can pronounce his name the way he pronounced it which would be Menchaca or you could take the slaveholder's name," Perkins said.
“City council injected race into this story. But it has nothing to do with that whether it's Menchaca or Manchaca, they're both Hispanic names, it's not about that at all,” Amoroso said.
Leave Manchaca Alone released the following statement to FOX 7 Austin: