Denise McVea is a black woman from San Antonio, Texas, who speaks better Spanish than me. I used to read her stories in the alternative press in Dallas, where she was highly regarded. However, nothing prepared me for the stunning revelation - a decade-long investigation - into the story behind the Yellow Rose of Texas - the legendary mulatta whose seduction and betrayal of the Mexican General Santa Anna changed the course of history by allowing the Texan rebels the opportunity to defeat the Mexican army at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836. According to McVea's painstaking research in Texas, Mexico, New York, and France, the mulatta was Emily West de Zavala . She was the legal wife of Lorenzo de Zavala , a prominent liberal Mexican politician who fled from Mexico, traveling through New Orleans, New York, and finally making a home in Texas after becoming the ideological enemy of Santa Anna. The Yellow Rose is a myth. But Emily West de Zavala was real, and according...