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Making Myth of Emily

ISBN: 0-9773465-0-1

$18.99

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All proceeds from Auris Books sales support The Auris Project and its programs.

 Making Myth of Emily takes an unorthodox look behind this enduring legend and details how the Yellow Rose of Texas myth resulted from determined efforts to hide the racial identity of Emily West de Zavala. In compelling detail, Myth shows that Emily, the wife of Texas ’ interim vice-president, was beautiful, cultured, well-traveled, wealthy—and black.

 Award-winning investigative journalist Denise McVea presents extensive evidence that shows how Texas historians, blinded by racial sensibilities, split one woman into two. Along the way, the author recalls the Texas Revolution from a new and refreshing perspective. Following the Zavalas through New Spain, the United States, Paris, Mexico, and finally, to Texas, McVea tells the story of one woman of color who intimately experienced some of Texas’ most significant historical events.

Emily’s story, painstakingly recreated from thousands of historical documents and family records, reveals the need for more diverse interpretations of Texas’ vast anecdotal past. 

Currently, the book is available as a collector's item on a limited basis. Order here.

For more about the Yellow Rose of Texas Legend, click here.

About the Author 

An award-winning investigative journalist and community advocate, Denise McVea's reporting over the years has brought about important social change for marginalized communities.

As a reporter for The Oregonian newspaper, she was the first journalist to investigate and report mismanagement and human rights violations in the Portland, OR Immigration and Naturalization Service. Subsequent coverage of the issues raised by McVea's reporting  eventually earned the newspaper a Pulitzer Prize.  In Dallas, she advocated for poor and minority communities by uncovering discrimination and abuse in the county jail system and the city housing departments.

As a New Voices Fellow in Human Rights and International Cooperation (2001-2003), she helped bring national and international media attention to issues affecting indigenous tribes in the U.S. and Latin America.

Fluent in Spanish, McVea founded the Auris Project, Inc. in 2003, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing poor and otherwise marginalized communities with key rights and development information and support. With the help of a growing international community, she is pioneering new ways to bring information and support to disenfranchised communities. 

The author of numerous articles and two books, she divides her time between San Antonio, Texas and Catorce, San Luis Potosi, Mexico.    

(c) Photo by Helene David