The 2025/26 speaker program of the German Texan Heritage Society and Dallas Goethe Center will commemorate the 250th anniversary of the U.S. by focusing on our rich multicultural, multilingual, immigrant heritage. Dr. Julia Brookins will offer the spring presentation which will be hosted by the Texas State Historical Association’s TX Talks program. The presentation will be via zoom at 7:00 p.m., March 17, 2026. Go here to register for the program – https://tsha.wildapricot.org/event-6518407 – after which you will receive the Zoom link and a reminder prior to the program.
Dr. Brookins is Senior Program Analyst, Teaching & Learning, Special Projects Coordinator for the American Historical Association. After graduating from Harvard she earned her Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago and was a Fulbright Scholar at the Freie Universität, Berlin.
In her presentation “The Collision of Race and Nationalism in Early Texas; The Veramendi Cases of New Braunfels,” Dr. Brookins will discuss how race and nativism affected a lawsuit over a property dispute as the norms of Anglos, Germans, and Tejanos collided in antebellum Texas.
Due to the Adelsverein buying property without clear title for German immigrants for the establishment of New Braunfels and then becoming insolvent, lawsuits followed. Decided by the Texas Supreme Court in favor of the New Braunfels citizens, the Court’s opinion in 1879 went beyond issues of law relying on the German pioneers’ contributions to the economic development of the region. Resolving decades of complex litigation, the Court’s decision reflected the role cultural norms played in affirming America’s integration of both new lands and new people.
After graduating from Harvard, Dr. Brookins was a Fulbright Scholar at the Freie Universität, Berlin, and earned her Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago. She is an education program analyst for the American Historical Association.