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Santino Zertuche

ENGL 1301-130

Dr. Sharity Nelson

21 September 2023

A Genre Analysis

The Republic of the Rio Grande Laredo Texas Museum is the author of the booklet

“Laredo Legacies: A Tribute to Our Past and a Legacy for Our Future”. I found this informative

booklet in the STC building in Texas A&M International University (TAMIU) on Tuesday

September 5th. The Museum utilizes this booklet to try to inform and interest students of Tamiu

about Laredo’s past and also to promote their exhibit. They are trying to reach out to students and

try to get them to learn about the different occurrences, stories, specific dates, wars, and

impacting people that are fundamental to Laredo’s past. The author uses many different text

features to achieve their goal such as the use of two languages, subheadings, and image

descriptions.

In this booklet the author uses the convention of bilingual communication: Spanish and

English. Throughout the pages they include many images with small descriptions or captions that

come in both languages so both Spanish and English readers can understand what the images

portray. Under a photo of an important signature on a document, the description reads “Signature

of Tomas Sanchez” in English, and “Firma de Tomas Sanchez” in Spanish. The subtitles shown

throughout the booklet also come in both languages, such as “War on the Rio Grande” and

“Guerra en el Rio Grande”. They do this so it can be read and understood by the students all of

the students at Tamiu. The Museum chose to use Spanish and English as the two languages
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because they know that Tamiu has a high Hispanic proportion, meaning Spanish is also a strong

language here. Making their booklet bilingual was the smartest thing they could have done

because it made their audience larger, and it made it more suitable for Laredo. The usage of these

two languages made their audience Spanish, English, and Bilingual speaking students.

Subheadings are another text feature that is added to this booklet to help the readers

better understand what they are reading. In the paragraph “War on the Rio Grande” they speak

about how the Rio Grande was declared a boundary and its part in the war. If someone was

reading this booklet to learn about the war for a homework assignment for example, the subtitle

would help them locate the information they need faster. In the paragraphs where the writing is

Spanish the subtitles are also in Spanish, making it easier to be located by people who want to

read in Spanish. Having these subheadings does not only make it more organized but it also

makes it more engaging, helping their readers to not lose interest as quickly. What these mini

“headlines” or text do is, they break all the text up into smaller paragraphs to make everything

easier to find.

Many different images such as photographs, maps, and drawings are shown in the

booklet. To help their readers they added small descriptions to almost all these images. There is a

very vague image on page six of this booklet, which shows giant clouds of smoke coming from a

pile of debris on a field. The description under this image reads, “Burning of Nuevo Laredo,

1914” after reading this the readers will understand the importance of it being in the booklet. If

this image didn’t have a description, it would be pointless and confusing because the readers

would not know what the importance of it is. Even though all the images don’t have descriptions,

the ones that needed them the most have them. Image descriptions are written captions that

explain and describe the essential meaning and information the image conveys. Many times,
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when we view images, we don’t fully understand what it is trying to get across, this is where

image descriptions step in.

The main goal of the booklet written by the Museum of Laredo Rio Grande is not only to

get students to know of the museum exhibit they have, but to help those who are interested in

learning about Laredo’s history get informed rightfully. The many different text features that are

used in this booklet such as image descriptions, subtitles, and the usage of two languages

furthermore prove my point when I say that they are trying to inform people of important things

that have occurred in Laredo. The booklet’s title doesn’t only talk about the past, it also says a

legacy for our future meaning this information will also help our future generations understand

what happened in the past. This booklet may also be used by the readers for informational studies

on an assignment or for work they are doing on Laredo. By making this booklet the Museum is

helping the community and informing all the people in it about their city’s past; they are giving

back to the community.