Somos Primos

 January 2007 
Editor: Mimi Lozano ©2000-7

Dedicated to Hispanic Heritage and Diversity Issues
 Society of Hispanic Historical and Ancestral Research

Paper on "Migrant Workers in Michigan: 1969 Field Notes" last item under National Issues.

"Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, 
and under a just God cannot long retain it."  
Abraham Lincoln

  Letters to the Editor : 

SHHAR Board:  Bea Armenta Dever, Gloria Cortinas Oliver, Steven Hernandez,  Mimi Lozano Holtzman, Pat Lozano, Yolanda Magdaleno, Henry Marquez, Yolanda Ochoa Hussey, Michael Perez, Crispin Rendon, Viola Rodriguez Sadler, John P. Schmal. 

UNITED STATES

Photo: Richard Avolio  puts up a cloth background behind a display for Hispanic Heroes, 
traveling photo exhibit, Corpus Christi, Texas.   Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Dec 22, 2006

The wife of Guy Gabaldon exits on the arm of  St. Major Sal Navarro, USMC (Ret.)

A Memorial to a Hero, Guy Gabaldon
December 9, 2006
written by 
Mercy Bautista-Olvera

As I was walking in the park towards the Memorial Ceremony of Guy Gabaldon, I couldn't help but thinking of this man, the courage and bravery of a young U.S. Marine who single-handedly captured more than 1,000 Japanese soldiers during the Battle for Saipan, he took part of the invasion of Saipan in June 1944, Guy Gabaldon as a young Marine persuaded Japanese soldiers to give up their arms, and follow him to American lines, bringing him the nickname "The Pied Piper of Saipan,"

At this memorial the remarks by Hon. Superior Court Judge Frederick P. Aguirre, Major General Gus Hernandez, and Col. John Telles, USMC (Ret) were touching, it seemed as they all had a good relationship with Mr. Gabaldon as close friends. Mr. Gabaldon spoke to them of his adventures, how Guy would say a remark as "Ai te Guacho" (slang Spanish) meaning (see you later) to Superior Court judge Frederick P. Aguirre as they said their good-bye's. Guy Gabaldon never forgot where he came from, East Los Angeles was his hometown. He started shining shoes as a young boy to earn money, learning Japanese from his neighbors in East Los Angeles helped him communicate with Japanese soldiers to surrender. The placing of the Wreath in front of Guy Gabaldon’s photo by Major General Gus Hernandez was emotional, it reminded me of all men and women who died for their country and the bravery of Guy Gabaldon during WWII. Guy Gabaldon's sons, Ray and Jeff gave the Eulogy, they both gave a beautiful eulogy of the man, the father they knew, the beloved man who gave encouragement and guidance to his children. Ray Gabaldon was speaking about his dad with such emotion, that it was heartbreaking, both sons described on how their father was, a caring loving father who loved his family. Some of us were in tears when Col. John Telles, USMC (Ret.) presenting Guy's widow Ohana, with the Flag, how she held that flag so tight to her heart, at this time there was silence from everyone. Ohana, his wife walking holding this flag with his sons and members of the Gabaldon family after the Memorial Ceremony was also memorable.

The Memorial was very emotional, to see young men and women in uniform, to hear Humberto Argucia sing "The National Anthem," "America the Beautiful," "God Bless the USA," and listening the bagpipes of Ron Berenshot, play "Amazing Grace" touched our hearts, there were tears all around us. Mimi Lozano, the editor of Somos Primos was acknowledged for the distribution of lithographs of the Pied Piper of Saipan to non profit organizations for public display. The Congressional Medal of Honor was mentioned, sadly to say our hero, Guy Gabaldon passed away on August 31, 2006, Guy Gabaldon earned the Navy Cross, the Marines’ highest award for valor, but his family deserves the Congressional Medal of Honor as well. There is a petition to elevate Guy Gabaldon’s family with the Congressional Medal of Honor which he deserves for his courageous actions on the Island of Saipan. (There could also be a sculpture of Guy Gabaldon in the near future.)

Left to right: Ohana, Jeffrey, Heather and Ray Gabaldon
Grandchildren, Hunter, Leah, and Ellie 

 Dr. Josh Valdez, 
Senior Vice President 
of Health Care Management
WellPoint West Region

Ohana receives plaque from Supervisor Michael Antonovich, LA Co.

Judge, Orange Co.
 Fredrick Aguirre

National Issues

Looking at crime and immigration
December 05, 2006
http://blogs.chron.com/bluebayou/2006/12/looking_at_crime_and_immigrati.html
Sent by Howard Shorr howardshorr@msn.com


One of the talking points on illegal immigration these days is that illegal immigrants are responsible for an increase in crime in the US. The problem, of course, is that the actual data on this is unclear. That hasn't stopped people from insisting that it must be true and offering anecdotal evidence - which shows us some disturbing examples of crime committed by illegal aliens but doesn't actually prove anything about the overall reality.

It seems, however, that people are now trying to study the situation:Even President Bush, whose perceived generosity to undocumented workers has earned him vilification on the right, commented in a speech this May that illegal immigration "strains state and local budgets and brings crime to our communities."

So goes the conventional wisdom. But is it true? In fact, according to evidence cropping up in various places, the opposite may be the case. Ramiro Martinez Jr., a professor of criminal justice at Florida International University, has sifted through homicide records in border cities like San Diego and El Paso, both heavily populated by Mexican immigrants, both places where violent crime has fallen significantly in recent years. "Almost without exception," he told me, "I've discovered that the homicide rate for Hispanics was lower than for other groups, even though their poverty rate was very high, if not the highest, in these metropolitan areas." He found the same thing in the Haitian neighborhoods of Miami. In his book "New York Murder Mystery," the criminologist Andrew Karmen examined the trend in New York City and likewise found that the "disproportionately youthful, male and 
poor immigrants" who arrived during the 1980s and 1990s "were surprisingly law-abiding" and that their settlement into once-decaying neighborhoods helped "put a brake on spiraling crime rates."

The most prominent advocate of the "more immigrants, less crime" theory is Robert J. Sampson, chairman of the sociology department at Harvard. A year ago, Sampson was an author of an article in The American Journal of Public Health that reported the findings of a detailed study of crime in Chicago. Based on information gathered on the perpetrators of more than 3,000 violent acts committed between 1995 and 2002, supplemented by police records and community surveys, it found that the rate of violence among 
Mexican-Americans was significantly lower than among both non-Hispanic whites and blacks.

There's more detail about all of this work in the article, and it's worth reading.

It's not really possible to draw a firm conclusion from any of this; first of all, it's difficult to separate illegal from legal immigrants in these kinds of studies. It is reasonable, I think, to assume that behavior in the two groups wouldn't be that different, considering that they are often members of the same communities.

But the studies do illustrate the dangers of forming conclusions from no evidence or anecdotal evidence. That danger is compounded when you're talking about a highly emotional topic, and the political climate encourages people to use the most dramatic possible stories - or poorly supported statistics that make good headlines - for their own interests.

In that kind of environment, it's wise to take anything presented as known facts with a grain of salt. But it's good to see someone studying the issue.

Preparing a Family Health History

According to the American College of Medical Genetics (ACMG; http://www.acmg.net), knowing your family's medical history can help your doctor predict conditions that may pose a risk to your health—meaning you can take actions to minimize those risks.

"Some families may already be collecting genealogical information but haven't gathered details about health history," said ACMG Executive Director Michael S. Watson. As with traditional genealogy, asking relatives is the best way to start. Since you’re all gathered around the table anyway, pose these questions from the ACMG:

1. What health problems are known to run in our family? 
2. Has anyone in our family had cancer, heart disease or other adult-onset health problems at an early age, such as between 20 and 50?
3. Does/did anyone in our family have mental retardation or learning problems, or have to attend a special school?
4. Have there been any early deaths in the family (including stillbirths, infant deaths and multiple miscarriages)?
5. Have any relatives had extreme or unexpected reactions to medications?

Examine your genealogy research, too, for clues to relatives’ illnesses and causes of death. Record the information using the My Health Portrait Web-based program at http://familyhistory.hhs.gov, print out the family health history chart and take it along on your next checkup.  Source: familytree-newslette@fwpubs.com

Circulo Biográfico Médico Hispanoamericano.
Jaime Gomez-Gonzalez, Leopoldo Briceño Iragorry, Miguel Rabi Chara, (Editores)
Ateproca, Caracas 2007
IBSN 980-6905-25-3

La Academia Nacional de Medicina de Venezuela nos presenta este CD Rom con la versión electrónica del DICCIONARIO BIOGRAFICO MEDICO LATINOAMERICANO
cuyos editores son los Drs. Jaime Gómez-González (colombiano), Leopoldo Briceño-Iragorry (venezolano) y Miguel Rabí Chara (peruano). 

La realización de este extraordinario instrumento de trabajo ha estado a cargo de la Editorial ATEPROCA, CA de Caracas, que ya nos tiene acostumbrados a un excelente nivel de realizaciones.

"La obra consta de 3.307 minibiografías de médicos ordenadas alfabéticamente por cada uno de los 21 países de origen. Las páginas del libro están numeradas de manera correlativa , y cada número va precedido de otro con el que se identifica el país, separados por un guión.

Esta primera edición del Diccionario Biográfico Médico Hispanoamericano, que verá su edición impresa a comienzos de 2007, es una muy loable iniciativa del colega colombiano y colaborador de Compumedicina, Jaime Gómez González, quien con el apoyo de numerosos otros médicos de todos nuestros países, y la efectiva colaboración de la Academia Nacional de Medicina de Venezuela, aportando la dinámica cooperación de su Secretario, doctor Leopoldo Briceño-Iragorry, han podido llevar a efecto este tan importante proyecto de auténtica integración cultural, con las minibiografías de médicos que ya no están con nosotros, pero cuyas obras constituyen la base sobre la que podemos seguir construyendo una medicina de muy alto nivel al servicio de toda la sociedad.

Compumedicina.com® extiende sus más sinceras felicitaciones a la Academia Nacional de Medicina de Venezuela, a los editores, a los colaboradores y a la Editorial ATEPROCA, ya que este Diccionario establece un precedente integracionista significativo, que permitirá conocernos mejor y así poder trabajar más eficientemente en el mundo globalizado en que vivimos.

by

Refugio I. Rochín
With Editor Notations by Danny Layne, JSRI

Occasional Paper No. 61
July 2006

http://www.jsri.msu.edu/RandS/research/ops/oc61.html

List of Families Attended 
and Information on Some Families
Summer 1969

Refugio I. Rochín is currently the Director of Research and Evaluation at the Educational Partnership Center of the University of California, Santa Cruz. His team conducts research and evaluates projects aimed at increasing the awareness and preparation of students in grades 6-12 for access to college. According to Dr. Rochín, "building college-going communities among low-income, minority students and parents is an important mission for all. Everyone gains in the process of educating others."

He was the first Director of the Smithsonian Institute’s Latino Initiative in Washington, D.C. He is the former Director of the Julian Samora Research Institute and Professor of Agricultural Economics and Sociology at Michigan State University and Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics and Chicano Studies at the University of California, Davis. His research interests include immigration/migration issues, farmworkers, and rural populations. He received his M.A. in Communication and his Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from MSU.

Danny Layne, an award-winning photographer and writer with more than three decades of journalism experience, is JSRI’s Publication and Network Administrator. He joined the JSRI team in 1995 and has been instrumental in establishing and solidifying the Institute’s web site as well as JSRI’s publications program. He holds a degree in photography and a BA in journalism from MSU. Layne, a former Marine Combat Correspondent, lives in Eaton Rapids with his wife and youngest daughter.

Rochín, Refugio I. (Dr.) and Danny W. Layne. "Migrant Workers in Michigan: 1969 Field Notes" JSRI Occasional Paper #61. The Julian Samora Research Institute, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, 2006.

More studies on varied topics pertaining to Hispanic/Latino/Chicano issues http://www.jsri.msu.edu/RandS/research/ops/

For a look at the events that influenced our world  in 1969,

Click 1969

THE SUPREME COUNCIL OF THE MEXICAN-AMERICAN MOVEMENT COLLECTION, 1942-1955

Left: Valadez is pictured here with members of the Mexican Youth Conference, a civil rights group with roots in the YMCA. Valadez is in the second row back, fourth from the left. He was president of the conference when this photo was taken in San Pedro in 1942.

Work begun on Valadez Middle School 
By Adam Townsend, The Orange County Register, December 8, 2006

LACENTIA – Construction officially started this week on the planned Gualberto Valadez Middle School, a facility that officials at the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District say will take pressure off Kraemer Middle School.

School and city officials and friends of the late Gualberto Valadez gathered Wednesday at the site of the new school – 10 acres freshly bulldozed in preparation for the project.

They honored the school's namesake and talked about the design of the new school, which is on the same plot as Melrose Elementary.

"On this site, which is a combined 20 acres, we'll have 1,500 students who will be able to call this home," said Superintendent Dennis Smith.

Valadez was a teacher at the former La Jolla middle school starting in the late 1930s. He was also active in advancing civil rights for Hispanics in the U.S. and was instrumental in starting sports programs for the youth in Placentia.

He died last month at 93, but he was alive to see the board of education officially name the proposed school after him.

Kraemer Middle School currently operates at double its capacity, housing extra classrooms in temporary portable buildings. The district expects to siphon off half those kids to the new middle school by 2009.

Contact the writer: atownsend@ocregister.com

As an added bonus, when you are on a society membership list, you can be counted as someone with an interest in family history. When legislation arises that threatens the records we use, these membership numbers can be used to exert influence over those we vote into (or out of) office.  

Check out the societies that are out there for your area of interest and see what they have to offer. You can find many societies through the Federation of Genealogical Societies at Society Hall: http://www.familyhistory.com/societyhall/main.asp
Source: http://www.ancestry.com/s23560/t9248/rd.ashx

Editor: The Society of Hispanic Historical and Ancestral Research, SHHAR, invites you to become a member.  We have NO membership dues.

The SHHAR website has links and many resources, specifically for beginning family history.   www.SHHAR.org  Somos Primos readers are invited to start by gathering family information through oral interviews of older family members and add it to the SHHAR networking database: http://home.earthlink.net/~shharmembers/networking.htm

SHHAR is unique.  Although we do have quarterly meetings in Orange County, California, to which all are invited, our emphasis is world-wide networking. Successful networking is possible by the marvel of the internet, the SHHAR database, and the opportunity of contacting individuals who submit articles and letters.  Articles are submitted by skilled researchers, professional archivists, authors, librarians, genealogists, university professors and students throughout the world.  In addition, many articles are submitted by family researchers who want to share their information, hoping to make more family contacts.    

International Networking: 

In this issue, we start a new service to promote more international networking.  Angel Custodio Rebollo, Somos Primos staff writer and columnist for El Diario in Huelva, Spain will be coordinating the project.  Angel is literate in Italian, Portuguese. Angele will receive the queries,  condense the information and forward for inclusion in Somos Primos'  International file.  We have queries this month from Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela.
For more information, go to International Networking. 

Self Identity: Hispanic/Latino Widely Accepted, but Multiethnic is Used

Lourdes Medrano -- Arizona Daily Star, December 5, 2006 
Source; http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/news/newsbyid.asp?id=50884
December 6, 2006 • Volume 4, Issue #204

Hispanic, Latino, Chicano, Xicano, Mexican or Mexican American? 
J.J. Federico said he can wear most of those ethnic labels comfortably, although he prefers Mexican American and Latino. "In my opinion, there isn't just one ethnic identity," the 20-year-old said. 

The views of Federico, who was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Nogales, Ariz., match those in a wide-ranging survey of the nation's largest ethnic-minority group. 

The Latino National Survey found that the so-called pan-ethnic identity of Hispanic/Latino has gained wider acceptance among people who trace their roots to Spanish-speaking countries. But the study also found that most of the 8,600 respondents identified with multiple identities. 

"There was a simultaneous strong sense of pan-ethnic identity, national original identity and American-ness," concluded the summer study conducted in 15 states -- including Arizona --and the Washington Metropolitan area. 

John Garcia, a UA political science professor who spearheaded the survey with five colleagues from other universities, said the rising presence of a pan-ethnic identity cuts across age, national origin and education. 

"It's an added dimension of who you are," he said. "A lot of it is being reinforced by mixed connections" between Hispanics of different backgrounds, as well as by the pervasiveness of the pan-ethnic labels in mainstream society. 

In the survey, Hispanic was the preferred umbrella term used, Garcia noted, although the Latino label was quite popular. 

"We've taken the position that the whole concept of Latino is an American identity," Garcia said. "It has no meaning outside the U.S., so when we think about if you say Latino, you're not American. ... that's not the reality which people have." 

The term Hispanic grew out of government efforts to count the population as a separate ethnic group, and Garcia said the Latino label surfaced as an alternative. The perceived meaning of both has been debated intensely over the years by those who subscribe to one, the other or none. 

The survey also showed that about half of Latinos surveyed see themselves as a distinct race, despite the U.S. Census Bureau's classification of Hispanics as ethnic minorities that may be of any race. 

The Latino survey was one of myriad efforts to analyze a complex and diverse group -- about 42 million, or 14 percent of the population -- that includes people from various nationalities who have been in this country for several generations as well as recent immigrants; those with and without legal U.S. status; and those who speak Spanish or not. 

In interviews, Tucsonans said they don't mind using the umbrella labels of Hispanic, Latino and Latina in addition to more specific references to identity. In Tucson, like in Arizona overall, residents of Mexican descent comprise the vast majority of Hispanics. 

Lillian Pope, 28, said that depending on where she is and who she is with, she usually identifies herself as Mexican and Hispanic. "Here, I mostly say I'm Mexican, but when I lived in the D.C.-area I used to say Hispanic because there are more Hispanics from different countries there." 

The legal assistant, who is the process of becoming a naturalized citizen, said she does not identify with the terms Latina or Chicana. But she is not offended by them, either. 

Louis Hollingsworth, an attorney, also said the way he identifies himself varies with the situation. "If I'm talking to people of Mexican or Latino descent, I identify myself as a Latino. If I'm talking to an Anglo I tend to say I'm Hispanic. If I'm asked what kind of Hispanic I am, I'll say I'm of Mexican descent. 

One self-identifier he won't use is Chicano, which he -- like other native Tucsonans -- said they view as militant. The term grew out of the Chicano Movement of the 1960s that with fierce ethnic pride demanded social justice. 

"I'm not suggesting that it wasn't necessary or that it didn't benefit Latinos of Mexican descent," Hollingsworth said. "But it's not how I like to perceive myself." 

But for Chucho Ruiz, 26, the term conjures up images of self-determination and his indigenous roots. "I feel closer to it," he said, noting that he spells his self-identifier as the more contemporary Xicano, because in the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs, the "x" sounds like "ch." 

Pepe Carrillo, 50, a naturalized citizen who came to the U.S. at 11, said he describes himself as Cuban, American, Hispanic, and then Latino -- usually in that order. 

"I'm Cuban by birth and American by being immersed in this country most of my life," the home inspector said. "But I can wear any of those titles: I don't have a problem." 

Lorenzo Barcelo, who is originally from the Dominican Republic, said he uses the terms Hispanic and Latino interchangeably. "To me, they are the same." 

Maggie Amado-Tellez, who was born in Tucson, said she thinks of herself as a Latina, although she has identified herself as Mexican American. 

"In the end, I'm an American," the said. "When I'm talking about being Latina, I'm not talking about my nationality. I'm talking about my culture." 

Lorraine Lee, executive director of Chicanos Por La Causa, said she proudly describes herself as a Chicana, Chinese-Chicana, or Asian-Chicana. "I'm very proud of that history because that's what set the foundation for where we are today," she said of the Chicano Movement. 

Sometimes, though, she turns to the Latina term. The umbrella labels that describe all Hispanics or Latinos can act as a unifying force as the country undergoes demographic changes, Lee noted. 

"People are unsure of who we are, what we're about and how to handle us," she said. "But we want what everybody else wants -- food on our table, a roof over our heads and a better future for our children." 

Goya Producciones, dedicada a la producción y a la edición de material audiovisual, está especializada en temas culturales, artísticos, religiosos, históricos y científicos.
http://www.arteguias.com/videomedieval.htm

National Latina Business Women Association
First Annual Conference, Building the Latina Business Woman
November 16, 2006, Long Beach, California


For information on the 2006 conference: www.nlbwa.com 
 [[Surprise, as  Board member, I am being highlighted.]]

2007 NLBWA Conference, November 15. . . . .  SAVE the DATE

Mexico Creates Network of U.S.-based high tech Migrants
Kathleen Miller/Silicon Valley


Armed with a cybernetics engineering and computer systems degree, Mexico City native Angel Camacho arrived for his first day on the job as an engineer in California’s Silicon Valley and was immediately given an assignment by another engineer: Take out the trash. (…)
The problem is creating local jobs for the graduates. A recent analysis by Mexican and U.S. immigration experts found that nearly a third of all Mexicans with advanced degrees leave Mexico for the U.S. 
“Immigration has become a way to make up for the lack of opportunities in Mexico’s job market,” said the executive director of the government-run Institute for Mexicans Abroad, Carlos Gonzalez.
These professionals are often overlooked in the vast flood of Mexican migration. Of the estimated 11 million Mexican immigrants living in the United States, less than 5 percent have at least a bachelor’s degree, feeding a stereotype among Americans that Mexicans don’t do high-tech work. 

“When they want a good-looking yard or well-paved road, they hire a Mexican,” Camacho said. “But it’s not the same with their IT servers. If they want them to run properly, they usually hire Indian or Chinese immigrants.” 

Gonzalez said the talent network could help turn Mexico’s brain drain into a “brain gain” as immigrants “who are working in very specialized niches of the global economy will return to our country, if not physically, at least through their ideas and projects.”

Source: Sintesis informativa 12/06/06  lazos@sre.gob.mx

Anti-Spanish Legends

I suggest we expand on that theme, show our historical presence by using Spanish phrases and words when ever appropriate to an events, create sound bites.  

Gracias y afectuoso saludo.
Sinceramente, Ernesto Figueroa-Figueroa

ERNESTOFIGUEROA@webtv.net

Reactions to Herman Badillo’s Book, One Nation, One Standard

Fernando Ferrer:

Joanne Rodriguez: ¡Ay, Dios mio! What are we going to do about idiots like this!

Reginaldo Atanay: ¡Excelente exposición!

José Luis Morin:

Fred Uria:

H. Velez-Colon:

Alberto O. Cappas:

Veronica Gonzalez:

Virginia Sanchez-Korroll:

Reminiscences of a Naval Aviator
A group of short stories by Daniel L. Polino

These stories were written for my kids and grandkids, so no blood/guts or sex! An 18 year old kid, who never drove a car, until WW II ended. May you get as much enjoyment out of reading my stories as I got out of living them - - and getting out of it alive. 
Mimi, You may use any of these stories in your literature. Dan Polino  

Introduction: World War II created many conditions that made it possible for young men and women of this country to become involved in adventures that would not have ordinarily been possible. The V-5 aviation cadet program made it possible for me, a recent vocational high school graduate, to experience the opportunity to fly many of the aircraft available in naval aviation, and meet people from other parts of this country and other countries, in the pursuit of the wings of gold. Many of my experiences were humorous, and many were tragic; but all were worthy of remembering. That's the purpose of this book of short stories - to record the more memorable of these for my family and friends to enjoy.

There are many books written about combat - this is not one of them. Instead, I will take you through the phases of my life in naval aviation including cadet days, a naval aviator during World War II, and the post-war ready reserve. Happenings that remained in my memory, together with the different personalities involved will be reflected on. This book is dedicated to my friends in naval aviation who, due to the hazards faced in everyday flying, never lived to be middle aged. Two were my roommates, Bob Pietsch from my hometown of Buffalo, New York, and Marion Teague from Minnesota.

In the early days of World War II, with our Pacific fleet in a shambles as a result of the destruction at Pearl Harbor, the need for building a large naval air arm was given a top priority. Many young men with only a high school education were accepted into the V-5 aviation cadet training program, which was sponsored by the U.S. Navy. Prior to that time, a minimum of two years of college was required before anyone would be accepted for naval aviator training.

My first assignment was to the training center established at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at Troy, New York; better known as R.P.I. The first few months were spent in the classroom learning those subjects that were to help us fly and navigate in our new, temporary career. After three months of ground school we were introduced to flying at the adjacent Troy airport, in a program sponsored by the U.S. Navy and administered by a civilian school, flying civilian-type aircraft. We learned to fly in the popular Luscombe aircraft, a very forgiving plane with a single parasol wing, fixed landing gear, and a 90 HP engine. The fuselage was all metal, while the wings were fabric-covered. Our instructors were civilian pilots who became role models for very impressionable young men.

Before describing the details of my first solo flight, I'd first like to describe the layout of the Troy, New York, airport; at least, as it was in the early 1940's. It consisted of a large grassy field with a small hanger and ready room. There was one basic runway, identified by the fact that the grass was shorter where the planes took off and landed. In other places the grass was 12 to 18 inches high. At the upwind end of the runway, as you took off you'd fly over a row of trees approximately 50 feet high, beyond which was a line of power poles, followed by a drop of approximately 25 feet to the road that bordered the field. Beyond that point was a very large cemetery with many acres of tombstones, certainly not one's first choice for an emergency landing.

The throttle on the Luscombe aircraft consists of a narrow rod projecting horizontally out of the instrument panel, capped by a small knob, much like the choke handle found on some of the older cars and trucks. Full throttle meant that the rod was pushed all the way toward the panel. Idle position was with the rod pulled all the way out, a displacement of about six inches. Being somewhat tense and excited at the prospect of a hard landing, with an iron grip on the throttle knob, I had the throttle halfway in at the moment of impact. The result was that the force of the landing caused the throttle rod to bend down 90 degrees against the panel. It was jammed so that I couldn't push the rod inward, or pull it out to the idle position. Anyone with automobile driving experience would have reached over and turned off the ignition switch, but then I had no experience in either an auto or aircraft.

So - there I was with an aircraft that was so damaged that it shouldn't be
flown again, proceeding down the runway with something a little better than half-throttle, dodging other aircraft that were foolish enough to try to cross over toward the hanger at a time like this. I managed to control the Luscombe up over the trees, power lines, and cemetery to a safe altitude where, while circling the field, I managed to straighten out the throttle rod so that it was workable and could be returned to the idle position. At that point I made my downwind approach, pulled the throttle back to idle, and spiraled down to a reasonably good landing. Taxiing back to the hanger I was met by a very excited airport manager and a stunned instructor, followed by some shaken cadets. Without a word to me, the manager inspected the aircraft and found: An engine loose on its mounting, a loose wheel strut, broken internal bulkheads in the fuselage, and an unusual accordion effect on the aluminum under-skin of the body. Needless to say, the aircraft was beyond repair and was surveyed (scrapped).

Descriptions of my (first) solo landing by the spectators were very colorful. Upon impact, the wing tips bent down to momentarily meet the grass. One of my cadet friends, upon seeing the landing, had the great urge to relieve his bladder, which he promptly did. My instructor said that it was the biggest thrill that he'd had in his years of flying.

In my own defense it should be noted that in the ensuing ten years of operational flying, during which time I flew everything the Navy had, under conditions including night carrier landings, I never damaged another aircraft. Some of my squadron mates, however, could have qualified as Japanese aces on the basis of the number of planes they destroyed (ours). My first solo is an event that I'm sure neither my instructor nor I will ever forget. As the saying goes - any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.

July 2006, a friend of mine told me about Sergeant Rafael Peralta, who was a United States Marine killed in Iraq in 2004 during Operation Phantom Fury in the city of Fallujah. Peralta an immigrant from Mexico, sacrificed his life to save his fellow Marines when he absorbed the blast of an enemy hand grenade with his body. Peralta is under consideration to receive the Medal of Honor.

When I was a child growing up in New York City, the only heroes that we Hispanics had were "El Zorro", The "Cisco Kid" and "Speedy Gonzalez". Our history books failed to make mention of the numerous contributions which Hispanics have made to the formation of our country. I didn't know about our participation in the Revolutionary War nor about our heroes in the Civil War. As I grew older, I became aware that our people produced good singers and that in some cases some Hispanics were given minor stereotyped roles in Hollywood and that we had a Desi Arnez who was in love with Lucy in the television sitcom "I love Lucy", but that was it.

I therefore set it upon myself as a goal to write about the positive contributions which we Hispanics have made to this country in general. After reading about Sergeant Rafael Peralta, my friend suggested that I write about our brave soldiers who in some cases have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. I started by writing a List of Hispanic Medal of Honor recipients with contains a short profile of each of our heroes. I then realized that the only information available in the Internet on these amazing men was only their Medal of Honor citation. I therefore decided to do some research and write short biographies which I plan to share with our readers in "Somos Primos".

I want to dedicate this Medal of Honor series to all our readers, to our youth and especially to our brave men and women in the Armed Forces serving our country. I want the nation, the world to know, especially during this time when you hear a lot of talk about anti-immigration laws, building of border walls to keep immigrants out and English-only legislation which forbids the use of Spanish, that yes, we do have many heroes who themselves were either immigrants or sons of immigrants. I hope that you all enjoy this series and that it fills you with the same pride that I felt when I wrote it.

I would like to thank my friend ERcheck for collaborating with me on some of the articles in this upcoming series.


Who is Tony the Marine?

Tony Santiago, a.k.a. "Tony the Marine," is a writer and administrator for Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, specializing in Puerto Rican related topics. He is also the editor of the Puerto Rican Military Channnel of El Boricua magazine and a contributor in Somos Primos.

Tony was born on March 9, 1950 in the South Bronx section of New York City, to Puerto Rican parents. When he was 13, his family moved to Queens during a time in history when the United States was going through the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam conflict. He was raised in the mean streets (Simpson St.) of New York where he was a member of a gang called "The Torchmen" a branch of the "Crowns". When his family moved to Queens he created and led a gang called "The Vikings".

Upon graduating high school he continued the family tradition by joining the United States Marine Corps. and soon served in Vietnam. In the Marines he and a group of fellow Puerto Ricans formed a group called "Puerto Rican Power in Unity" which eventually became "Latin Power in Unity". The objective of this group was to unite all the Hispanic Marines regardless of their national background, as a brotherhood. Together they shared their cultures and demanded to be treated equally as their black and white counterparts in the military.

Upon being honorably discharged from the Marine Corps, Tony went to Puerto Rico with the intention of getting in touch with his roots. There he met and married his wife Milagros and together they had three children.

He enrolled in the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico and majored in Business Administration and accounting. He was a magna Cum laude student. Tony has also graduated from the Puerto Rican Real Estate Academy and the American Banking Institute with honors. He studied computers in the Polytechnical Institute of Caguas , Puerto Rico and was the owner of a wholesale business and of other ventures.

In Puerto Rico Tony realized that as a child he was never taught about the contributions which Puerto Ricans had made to society. When he was a student in the United States, he recalled that he never heard nor read about any contributions made by Hispanics to that nation. The only Hispanic heroes that he ever heard about were "El Zorro" and "El Cisco Kid". He then made it a point to read and study the lives of Puerto Rican and Hispanic historical figures and soon had a library in his house with books about these people.

In 1990, he sold his business and retired, moving to Arizona, there his children finished their superior education and went to college. He spent many hours in the campuses library, while his children attended classes, looking for more information about Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics who helped shape our society but were relatively unknown.

With the wealth of information that he meticulously gathered and indexed, Tony began his own personal goal of educating the nation.  Somos Primos is very happy to welcome Tony and look forward to his series on the Medal of Honor Recipients.

Welcome to the Cold War Museum
http://coldwar.org/museum/museum_features.html
Sent by Bill Carmena

From the 1940s until the 1990s the rivalry between the democratic Free World and the nations of the Communist bloc affected Americans' daily lives and events throughout the world. This "Cold War" actually became a "hot" one in Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf War but generally took the form of espionage and diplomatic maneuvers, with the United States, the Soviet Union and China as the major combatants. The Cold War Museum seeks to memorialize the people and events of those years and educate future generations about that era.

EXAMPLE FOR 1940s
· Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1945) - President 1932 - 1945 
· Atomic Bomb Development Summary 
· Joseph Stalin (1879-1953) - Premier 1927 - 1953 
· Nike Missiles (1945) 
· Potsdam Agreement (1945) 
· Harry S Truman (1884/1972) - President 1945 - 1953 
· End of World War II (1945) 
· Separation Of Berlin (1945) 
· U.S. Constabulary (1946 - 1952) 
· UFO Crash in Roswell, New Mexico (July 3,1947) 
· Marshall Plan (April 3,1948) 
· Czechoslovakia Coup (February, 1948) 
· Berlin Blockade (June 24, 1948 - May 12.1949) 
· Berlin Airlift (June 26, 1948 - May 12, 1949) 
· Soviet Atomic Bomb Test (August 29, 1949) 
· H-bomb development Summary (1949) 
· American History - 40's 
· Links 

Cuentos

Literature

THE FUNERALS FOR CARLOS V
     By 
Vicente Riva Palacio

Nachito vivia el la vecindad de Las Ranas en el barrio de East Austin, Tx. Y tenia ocho anos. Sus padres Ignacio & Elena Hermandez siempre lo apoyaban aprender todo a su gusto; pero tambien lo cuidaban muy bien y les gustaba mucho que "Chito' tenia mucha curiosidad.

Don Ignacio trabajaba por la Cuidad como jardinero. Y por eso le daba orgullo que su hijito tenia interes en la naturaleza.

En dias cuando llovia mucho Chito siempre les pedia a sus padres permiso para salir y andar entre las condiciones que las llovisnas creaban. Y Don Elena siempre le decia "Esta bien pero cuidate mucho..y vale mas que no triagas lodo adentro de la casa!  Y Chito salia corriendo.

Haci es que parecia que ya gozaba todo de lo bueno en su vida. El siempre se quedaba asombrado y mistificado porque cuando llovia siempre habia ranitas brincando como si apenas habian caido de el cielo: Y tan derepente que tenia que reflejar: Donde vienen estos animalitos maravillosos destinados a llegar ser sapos?

Un sabado por la manana cuando se padre estaba en la cosina esperando que su 'ama acababa de ser tortillas a mano, Chito se acerco y pregunto:"Ama..'apa, donde vienen las ranitas?"

"Las ranitas vienen de el cielo mijo," respondio su mama.

"Apa! puedo salir a jugar afuera? pregunto el nino.

"Ta' lloviendo mucho, mijo. Valemas preguntarle a tu mama."

"Ama, por favor..dejame ir afuera a jugar!"

Y como era un dia de verano y no estaba haciehdo frio..le dijo: "Esta bien, mijo..entonces salte a jugar, pero valemas que te quites los zapatos porque no quiero tener que ponerlos en la estufa para secarlos. Y tambien vale mas que no triagas lodo adentro de la casa, porque le dire a tu padre que te de nalgadas."

"No voy a taer lodo 'apa porque me lavare los pes antes de entrar."

"Ta' bueno mijo..entonces sale a jugar..nomes que tengas mucho quidado..no se vayas a golpear!"

Chito pronto se quito la zapatos y salio corriendo. Y pronto se encontro con su amigo Luis Lopez que sabia como hacer barquito con los palitos de 'popsible' para ponderlos en las corrientes que hacian la llovisnas. Derepente notaron ranitas que parecian que apenas habian caido del cielo.

"Miro 'Viz' las ranitas que acaban de cayer de el cielo!"

"Mentiras, dijo Luis..no calleron de el cielo."

"Ajaa! Me dijo mi mama."

"Pos, no es verdad..vienen de las charcos."

"Tu eres el mentiroso," le grito Chito.

"Y tu no sabes nada," respondio Luis.

Un poco despues encontro un charco grande que ya tenia tiempo de estar alli.

"Ito! Mira. Vez ese charco grande?"

"Si, que tiene?"

"Vamos alli y te voy a ensenar de una vez donde vienen las ranitas. "Fueron pronto y Luis levanto una pierda grande y la tiro adentro del el charco. Y salieron ranas grandes y chiquitas.

"Y vez!" dijo Luis.

"Si," respondio Chito. Y se puso muy pendiente porque sus padres no le dijieron la verdad. Y cuando llego a la casa se limpio los pies con mucho cuidado y entro a la cocina donde estaba su mama cocinando cosido de res.

"Ama..ahora vi donde vienen la ranitas. Luis me enseno que viven le los charcos. Porque me dijieron que venian de el cielo?"

"Pos..porque la lluvia viene de el cielo, y ademas todo viene de Dios que esta en el cielo. Mi'jo, ademas, todo eso es un misterio."

Chito se quedo pensativo..y despues pregunto: "Ama, porque hay tantos misterios?"

"Haci lo quiso Diosito Lindo..El Creador de todo en la vida," le dijo su mama con calma..
Aquerdate que El tambien hace los charcos.

THE END

SURNAME

Surnames identified in the Surname Column, 2000-2006

If you want to find mention of a specific surname in all the issues of Somos Primos, 
use the KEYWORD SEARCH. It will list the specific issues in which the surname is found. 

For example: Farias, 61 hits; Cardenas, 69 hits; Guerra, 111 hits.  http://www.somosprimos.com/sitesearch.htm

From: MIMILOZANO@aol.com to cstorey1@satx.rr.com and crisrendon@earthlink.net 
Subject: Re: Ancestors found in Somos Primos website 

Dear Catrina . . . It is really exciting when you make a connection. I am forwarding your information to Cris Rendon (a Texan also) who has compiled a monumental work, interconnecting Texas primos. 

Cris is our database coordinator and maintains an online database.
http://home.earthlink.net/~shharmembers/networking.htm

I suggest that you search it out and then contact Cris at crisrendon@earthlink.net
Cris will be the best resource for you. 

I will add your email to receive monthly notification of when the latest issue of Somos Primos is online. If you prefer not to be notified, just let me know. 

I invite you go to our SHHAR and Somos Primos websites and explore all the resources available.

Feliz Navidad. . . . Mimi

Subj: Re: Ancestors found in Somos Primos website 
From: crisrendon@earthlink.net to MIMILOZANO@aol.com, cstorey1@satx.rr.com

Hello Mimi and Catrina, Based on the information that Catrina has provided my computer determined that we are all related. 

Nohemi (Mimi) LOZANO and Catrina HINOJOSA are 10th cousins 1 time removed. Their common ancestors are Capitan Pedro GARZA and Maria Lucia ROCHA.

I am also related to Catrina.
Crispin D. RENDON and Catrina HINOJOSA are 6th cousins 2 times removed. Their common ancestors are Nicolas SALINAS MORONES and Micaela CANALES.

With some more research we could find we are even closer.

Tu Primo,
Crispin Rendon

Patriots of the American Revolution

Official website of El Regimento de La Luisiana,a unit of living historians dedicated to faithfully replicating the life & times of the Spanish soldiers which fought the British in the American Revolution, and which garrisoned Spain's North American colony of Louisiana for over thirty years.

In 2002, individuals who had long replicated soldiers of the unit on their own came together to form a cohesive, single unit.  Since that time, the unit has taken part in various events around Louisiana and the Gulf Coast of the United States, including the annual "Prelude to the Siege of Baton Rouge, 1779" in Vicksburg, Mississippi (site of Spanish Fort Nogales), the Bicentennial Ceremony of the Louisiana Purchase, and various other local events. Our unit is generally based in and around Louisiana, with members also located in Texas, Missouri, Maryland, Mississippi, and Florida as well.  Membership in our unit is open to individuals 16 years of age and older. Basic requirements for participating with our unit are mainly:
 1) meeting the minimum uniform requirements, and
 2) yearly dues to the Brigade of the American Revolution in order to attend B.A.R. events.

Robert H. Thonhoff wins the 
Presidio La Bahia Award 
for a Fifth Time

AUTHOR/HISTORIAN ROBERT H. THONHOFF, of Karnes City, Texas, holds his latest prize- winning publication, A Quadrilogy of Essays, for which he was awarded last December 2, the Presidio la Bahia Award for 2006. The slipcase set of essays, two in English and two in Spanish, are about the vital contribution of Spain, including Texas in the winning of the American Revolution. The award is presented annually by the Sons of the Republic of Texas "for outstanding contribution in the field of the Spanish Colonial Period of Texas History." This is the fifth time since 1970 that historian Thonhoff has won the prestigious award for his writing efforts. The essays, which tell a story that most Americans, including the author, never heard, read, or learned in school of college, would also be enlightening to persons of Hispanic descent worldwide. They are posted on www.granaderos.net .

BUENOS AIRES PATRIOTS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, M-Z
By Granville Hough, Ph.D. 

ORANGE COUNTY, CA

Tracing your Native American Heritage
Native American genealogist Daniel Bartosz 

Saturday, January 13, 1–4 pm
Southwest Museum of the American Indian, Mt. Washington 
234 Museum Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90065 
323.221.2164 
www.southwestmuseum.org

Many Americans have a Native American heritage.  For some, it may be a very small part of who we are. Some may be eligible for tribal benefits. Too many have little or no knowledge of our genealogies and the cultures represented in them.

Representatives from local Native Nations will be available to share information about several of the Los Angeles area peoples. The Museum Store will have a wide selection of books and videos about genealogy and various Native American cultures.

Reservations are suggested. Call 323.667.2000, ext. 353
To contact Daniel Bartosz, email: kc6toi@yahoo.com

Tropical America, 1932
David Alfaro Siqueiros
18'H x 82'W

The article below was previously published 
in Somos Primos, June 2005 as part of the  
 Olvera Street 75th Anniversary Celebration,  1930-2005

We are happy to report that the Getty Museum has undertaken to restore Topical America 
 to its initial condition.  It is estimated that the task will be completed by 2009. 
Thanks to Dan Hogan for sharing the information.  hogan-4@sbcglobal.net 

In executing this work, along with his other murals in Los Angeles, Siqueiros extensively used mechanical equipment, such as the airbrush, for the first time. So emotionally charged was the allegorical imagery that within six months, a section of the mural visible from Olvera Street was painted out. Within a year, the work was completely covered. Portraying the struggle against imperialism was particularly offensive to Christine Sterling, the leading promoter of Olvera Street, presumably because it did not conform to her image of a docile and tranquil Mexican village. 

Virtually forgotten for years, the mural was rediscovered in the late 1960s when the whitewash began to peel off. However, it was severely damager shortly thereafter by exposure to the sun. A plywood cover which now hides the work, was installed in 1982 to prevent further deterioration. The mural has now been conserved. 

David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896-1974), born in Chihuahua, Mexico, joined Jose Orozco and Diego Rivera as the 20th Century's most influential muralists. They revolutionized mural content and style by portraying Mexico's rich history and contemporary economic problems in visually bold political terms.

Source of information: http://www.ci.la.ca.us/tourist/tropical.htm
For more about Siqueiros or to receive a free newsletter concerning activities on Olvera St. go to: http://olvera-street.com/html/siqueiros_mural.html

Information below from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

David Alfaro Siqueiros (December 29, 1896 in Camargo, Chihuahua, Mexico - January 6, 1974 in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico) was a painter and muralist known for his social realism work.

His notable projects include his collaborative mural at the Mexican Electricians' Union (1939-40), From Porfiriato to the Revolution at the Museum of National History (1957-55), March of Humanity and the Polyforum Cultural Siqueiros on Avenida Insurgentes (1965-71), and his role in procuring mural commissions for artists on the University City campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 1950s Mexico City.

Siqueiros was one of several well-known Mexican muralists working at the time, including Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and Rufino Tamayo. His art directly reflected the time period in which he flourished as an artist. His art was deeply rooted in the Mexican Revolution, a violent and chaotic period in Mexican history in which various social and political factions fought for recognition and power. The period from the 1920s to the 1950s is known as the Mexican Renaissance, and Siqueiros was active in the attempt to create an art that was at once Mexican and universal.

Political activism was an important piece of Siqueiros' life, and frequently inspired him to set aside his artistic career. In 1911, when he was only fifteen years old, Siqueiros attended the Academy of San Carlos and was involved in a student strike that protested the academy's method of teaching and urged the impeachment of the school's director. One year later, when he was just sixteen years old, he conspired against Victoriano Huerta's dictatorship. At the age of eighteen, he participated in the Constitutionalist Army fighting against the forces of General Victoriano Huerta. He briefly gave up painting to focus on organizing miners in Jalisco. He ran a political art workshop in New York City in preparation for the 1936 General Strike for Peace and May Day parade. The young Jackson Pollock attended the workshop and helped build floats for the parade. Between 1937 and 1938 he fought in the Spanish Civil War alongside the Spanish Republican forces, in opposition to Francisco Franco's military coup. He was exiled twice from Mexico , once in 1932 and again in 1940, following his assassination attempt on Leon Trotsky.

From 1919 to 1922 he traveled to Belgium, France, Italy, and Spain to study art. Throughout his career he traveled internationally, promoting his version of muralism in the United States, South America (including Uruguay, Argentina and Chile), Cuba, Europe, and the Soviet Union.

Siqueiros was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize for the year of 1966. His nephew is filmmaker David Siqueiros.  

Original art by Siqueiros is available. .   go to ARTCYCLOPEDIA
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/siqueiros_david_alfaro.html

Commercial Art Gallery Guide
David Alfaro Siqueiros in Museums and Public Art Galleries  
 
David Alfaro Siqueiros in Artnet Galleries: Artnet homepage for this artist
Diane Villani Editions, New York, 2 works listed
Pan American Art Gallery, Dallas, Texas, Nahuatl
Mary-Anne Martin/Fine Art, New York, Macbeth or the Criminal Act
ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries, Coral Gables/Miami, Florida, Sentimental Friendship
Susan L. Halper Fine Art Inc., New York, From the Mexican Suite
Galería Enrique Guerrero, Mexico City, Mexico, Niño Sentado

CALIFORNIA

California’s Heritage Discovery Center 
Home of the Wilbur-Cruce Spanish Mission Horse 

The following article is by Robin Collins, President and Founder of Heritage Discovery Center, a new non-profit dedicated to preservation and continuation of the rare breed of Spanish Mission horse from the Wilbur-Cruce Ranch. Currently located on temporary quarters in Madera County, the HDC is working to establish a living historical agricultural museum that will highlight these wonderful horses and interpret Spanish Colonial life through a living museum.

I have been fascinated by ‘behavior’ as far back as I can remember.  I was curious about frogs, deer, foxes, birds, and all wildlife. I was raised in the Los Angeles area and fortunate enough to have a second home in Big Bear Lake, where I grew up surrounded by the bounty, beauty and magnificence of nature. 

I have always been in the companionship of animals, all shapes and sizes.  Thanks to my wonderful parents, I have had the honor of sharing my life with horses since I was three years old.  I cannot remember what made me so determined to have a horse, but at seven years of age, with money I had saved, I purchased my first horse. I loved them all any color, shape or size.  And so I started to collect them, any color shape or size.  Mom always said about my love of horses, “If it was breathing, it was a beautiful horse.” 

I did my homework in the barn, slept with my horses, took them everywhere I possibly could and refused to go anywhere they could not go.  I believe you could call this “Horse Crazy,” a fantasy so many young people have, but so few get to make into a reality. 

My parents tried to understand and allowed me to start a horse directed lifestyle in my early years.  My Mother and Father decided that if I so inclined that I should ride with the best horseman that she could find. Lucky me! And so I became a student of Jimmy Williams, Master Horseman in every discipline. (Williams since received the honor of being inducted into the Show Jumping Hall of Fame. He was a founder and director of the Pacific Coast Horse Show Association.) 

My Mother picked me up after school and drove me to the Flintridge Riding Club nearly every day – what amazing dedication on her part.  There I learned not only about riding horses but behavior and life, both for me, and for the horses. Jimmy Williams trained people not only to ride but also horses and animals of all kinds to do anything and everything.  Many Disney movies are full of his “animal magic,” not to mention his stunt work in such classics as the very first “Mark of Zorro” with Tyrone Power and his training the horse Albarado in the Walt Disney feature film "The Horse in the Grey Flannel Suit."

I was fortunate to be able to observe and learn some of this behind the scenes training magic for a period of over twenty years.  This was in addition to riding and training performance horses for the Hunter/Jumper international circuit.  I also had the privilege of training horses and people that became Olympic Level Competitors from teams from the USA, Canada and Mexico. From the 1960s through the 1990s, my professional life consisted of training horses and animal behavior modification. My career was on a steady track – or so I thought! 

In 1990 I was offered another incredible opportunity.  Some Spanish horses, descendents from the earliest period of the Spanish presence in the New World, were placed into a conservation program to preserve their rare and unique genetics.  I was given the chance to share in their future. 

These horses came from the Mission and Rancho Dolores, Father Kino’s Mission in Sonora, Mexico, and were maintained on a ranch in Arivaca, Arizona for approximately 120 years.  This ranch was founded and owned by the Wilbur-Cruce family, beautifully described by Mrs. Eva Antonia Wilbur-Cruce in her book about the life and times of her family and horses on the ranch, A Beautiful Cruel Country (University of Arizona Press, 1990).

These horses were gathered and placed into this conservation program with the collaboration of Mrs. Wilbur-Cruce and the American Minor Breeds Conservancy, now known as the American Livestock Conservancy. Philip Sponenberg, PhD, Director for the AMBC, had done the scientific documentation of the horses, determining that they were, indeed, pure descendants of horses imported to Mexico and the American Southwest by the Spanish. Along with Mrs. Wilbur-Cruce, a strictly structured program for care and breeding was set, and the horses were placed with three conservation breeders. I was one of the three chosen to lead a conservation effort of the horses. I traveled to Arizona to meet my new herd, and I returned to California with twenty horses --six stallions and the balance in mares and foals. My new direction had begun.

At that time I was living in Carmel and our show horses were located at the Laguna Seca Ranch in Monterey.  This ranch had been a great stallion station and breeding operation -- such great stallions as Royal Orbit, Indian Hemp and Determined stood here.    This was a wonderful facility for the Wilbur-Cruce herd -- not to mention that it was California’s Capital of the Spanish Colonial period.  I soon realized that the horses from the Wilbur-Cruce Mission strain of Spanish Horse was an incredible living history on the hoof -- still part of the great story of the Spanish, Mission and Californio period of our region’s history. As many of the historians and artisans who reside in Monterey County came forth with illuminating historical facts and stories about theses horses I began to realize that their history was my own.

Stories of the treks of Portola and Father Serra as well as Juan Bautista de Anza bringing the colonists through the Mission Chain to Monterey and San Francisco brought more awareness of the participation and importance of the Spanish Horse.  Further colonization of California created the fabled lifestyles of the Californio and Vaquero, and vast herds of Spanish Cattle dotted the landscape.

I grew eager to revisit all that I was learning about out fabulous Colonial Period.  I had visited the Eastern Colonial Parks, such as Williamsburg and Sturbridge Village, and looked for a similar Western experience. I felt the need for people to share in the magnificent history of the Spanish Horses (Wilbur-Cruce remnant) I wished for the opportunity for people to share in California’s natural bounty, Native American and Spanish history as well. And so the idea for the Heritage Discovery Center began. 

There was someone who understood the history and above all the horses, my mentor Jimmy Williams. He knew the human history and he knew the role the horses played and understood their great importance in our history.  As I trained this horse to step forth from the pages of history into today’s re-enactment of our Spanish Colonial history, Jimmy shared the nuances of the Vaquero culture with me. The Wilbur-Cruce horses were invited to participate in a documentary film about Portola & Serra coming to Monterey and the history of Monterey as California’s Capital. Jimmy’s knowledge of the period proved invaluable; he explained how the Vaquero used his reata and rode in a ‘Center Fire’ saddle. He also talked about how people of the early Californio period depended on their horses and why it was called the ‘equestrian’ period of California.  Jimmy Williams passed before he could witness the finalization of the HDC, but his knowledge/inspiration and spirit of the partnership of horse and man will remain.

Generation after generation of these rare Spanish horses has proven that the history told about these horses is accurate and that they truly are living icons of a time past.  To visit these horses is to step back in time when horses were a part of our daily lives and man was proud of his equine partner.  These horses invite you into their social groups with enthusiasm and joy.  Their character is generous and communicative as a dear friend would be.  To know them is to feel their passion and spirit for life, as they make you part of theirs.

To ride one of these intuitive horses is to experience someone knowing your every move and desire, to frolic with the foals is to share time with your personal freedom, to share time with the mares is to witness unconditional love, and to be close with one of the Stallions is to feel your unbridled spirit.

Preservation of these unique equines time is a must.

I researched all of the Spanish Horse registries and found the Spanish Barb Breeders Association to be the most appropriate organization to use to develop registration identification for the preservation of this unique gene pool. These horses have returned from our colonial times to demonstrate adaptability to the 20^th century. They have shared the pageantry and celebration of our history by participating in the Rose Parade, the Santa Barbara Fiesta, Interpretive days at various Mission celebrations, and ceremonies for the Los Californianos, and the Anza Trails Association.   

These are horses with keen intelligence that have shared human experience for thousands of years.

These horses are the Treasure that the Spanish left behind.

 ”Our history was written on the backs of horses. Never was there an animal as completely absorbed in the service of man as the horse.”  

 These horses are a living testament to the Spanish Colonists’ partnership with this noble breed.

 I believe this is my favorite poem about the horse, a favorite I share with Bill Cooke, director of the Kentucky Horse Park:

“Where in all the world is nobility found without conceit?
Where is there friendship without envy?
Where is beauty without vanity?
Here ones finds gracefulness coupled with power and strength, tempered by gentleness.
A constant servant, yet no slave.
A fighter, even without hostility.
Our history was written on his back.
We are his heirs.
But he is his own heritage...the Horse.”

At the Heritage Discovery Center these living ambassadors of our equine legacy are embraced and celebrated, recognized for their contributions to our human development.  At HDC we will come to better understand our partners in history. These horses link us intrinsically with a heritage we all share.  We need your help to continue to perpetuate this precious living legacy.  With your contribution and support, you have the opportunity to preserve this integral part of America’s history and bring the history of Spanish California to thousands upon thousands of children and families, students and seniors, tourists and residents of our great State alike – we look forward to your participation and support.

Robin Collins
President and Founder
Heritage Discovery Center
Madera, California

Working title: Hispanic American Heritage: Cultural Traditions and the Built Environment.

It appears that the timing and mission of the Heritage Discovery Center is right on target in terms of the National Parks vision. 1992, the National Park Service established the Spanish Colonial Research Center in partnership with the University of New Mexico. The Spanish Colonial resources of the National Park Service provide numerous ways to explore Spanish heritage and its legacies in the United States, particularly in architecture, location, and documentation of the population.

[For information on research projects visit: http://www.cr.nps.gov/crdi/research.htm
National Center for Cultural Resources http://www.cr.nps.gov/crdi
National Park Service 202.354.2266 202.371.2422 fax ]

In 1960, a Spaniard Luis A Bolin, authored a book entitled Parques Nacionales Norteamericanos. It was published in Madrid by Editora Nacional. It was then translated by Herbert Weinstock and published by Alfred A Knopf, Inc. as the National Parks of the United States in 1962.

Traces of Spain in the National Parks & Monuments of the U.S.

DURING the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, Spanish activity in the regions later integrated into the United States was far more intense than may people now suppose. Vestiges of that activity lie in full view. Some have tried to hide them, but others have sung their glories. To bring them back to life it is sufficient to stir up old memories.

It is thus that the memory of Spain's ventures-exploratory, military, or spiritual, always heroic in the face of peril is honored in areas that now form part of the United States and its possessions. This tradition provides a treasury of resources which, through Spanish and American public opinion, can help to cement Spain's close relations with a country to which so many peoples are linked today by close friendship. [[ and family lineage - editor]]

November 27, 2006

First Lady Maria Shriver
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814

Subject: Save the Juana Briones House

Historic Preservation

Dear Madame:

It is with the utmost urgency that I am writing this letter to bring you up to date regarding the status of the legendary Juana Briones House. Efforts to save the house from demolition within a very short time remain tenuous, at best.

Plans for the Briones House were to remodel the house which would serve as a public educational resource for California history. The loss of this treasure of a house would be devastating for citizens of our county and state.

The owners of the Juana Briones property at 4155 Old Adobe Road and the City of Palo Alto have engaged in discussions regarding the house. However, the court has ruled in favor of the owners, Mr. Jaim Nulman and Ms. Avelyn Welczer. This couple is adamant about having the house destroyed. The historical significance of the house, built in the 1840s on the land called the Rancho La Purisima Concepcion, and now the oldest house in Palo Alto, is a testament to our Early California heritage.

Your support is needed to help us save the Juana Briones House.

Sincerely,  Lorraine Frain Descendant Briones 
Web site: http://www.brioneshouse.org

PALOMINO Productions

AND PRESENTATION OF PARTICIPATING ARTISTS. 
VIEW VIDEO CLIPS on PALOMINO Productions’ web site www. PaloPalomino.com
Contact: PALOMINO Productions (PaloPro2004@yahoo.com OR (510) 236-3257)
La Peña Cultural Center (www.lapena.org OR (510) 849-2568)

NORTHWEST UNITED STATES

SOUTHWESTERN UNITED STATES

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Ricardo Palacios ricklaw@netscorp.netwww.tamu.edu/press or 
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Juan Salinas, Rodeo Roper and Horseman
by RICARDO D. PALACIOS

One of the best tie-down calf ropers ever to come out of South Texas, Juan Salinas grew up on a 15,000-acre ranch near Laredo, with the finest of horses to ride and hundreds of head of cattle to practice on. He roped in Texas rodeos large and small, and from 1936 to 1946, he followed the national rodeo circuit, competing from Texas to New York’s Madison Square Garden.
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9 1/2 by 6 1/2, 195 pages, 38 b&w photos, $22, cloth.

African-American

Page 1

Ben Vinson III

Barnard College, Columbia University
Prepared for delivery at the 1998 meeting of the Latin American Studies Association,
The Palmer House Hilton Hotel, Chicago, Illinois, September 24-26, 1998

Page 2

Creating Racial Identities: The Free-Colored Militia in Colonial Mexico

The question of identity has been one of considerable importance to the study of race in Latin America. Particularly for the multitude of racially mixed offspring produced by miscegenation, it has been debated, what exactly was the degree of consciousness that race could produce? What degree of strength, if any, should be attributed to the caste boundaries created in the colonial period, and how did the reins of “caste” contribute to the 19th and 20th century heritage of the region?1 With the new and emerging research on the African Diaspora in Latin America, the question has often been asked: did the free mulato, moreno, or pardo ever feel a specific identity, especially during colonial times, and especially when racial discourse was apparently created by, and served the interests of those who held the supreme positions of power?

I feel that some of these questions can be addressed through an analysis of the militia. Few colonial institutions offered blacks (and I use the term “blacks” loosely to incorporate the free-colored castes, including pardos, morenos, and mulatos) the same amount of political, social, and legal strength as did participation in the military establishment. Military legal immunities, known collectively as fueros, offered a measure of autonomy from the traditional state channels of criminal litigation. While there has been some debate regarding the actual worth of the privilege, it is undeniable that under the fuero, military cases were reviewed by a designated legal appointee, the auditor de guerra, who often reviewed case files from a stance that took into consideration the free-coloreds’ value as soldiers.2 This distinctly military perspective mitigated the effects of racial prejudices and biases that frequently prevailed in ordinary civilian courts. Furthermore, free-colored militiamen enjoyed other special benefits, called preeminencias, which liberated them from numerous civil obligations that were often imposed by municipal and provincial authorities.

1For a sample of the literature and debates on race and class in Latin America see: Peter Wade, Race and Ethnicity in Latin America (London and Chicago: Pluto Press, 1997); John K. Chance and William B. Taylor, “Estate and Class in a Colonial City, Oaxaca in 1792,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 19, (1977): 454-87; Idem, “The Ecology of Race and Class in Late Colonial Oaxaca,” in Studies in Spanish American Population History, ed. David J. Robinson (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1981), 93-117; Dennis Nodin Valdes, “Decline of the Sociedad de Castas in Mexico City” (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Michigan, 1978); Magnus Mörner, “Economic Factors and Stratification in Colonial Spanish America with Special Regard to Elites,” Hispanic American Historical Review (HAHR) 63, no. 2 (1983): 335-369; Lyle N. McAlister, “Social Structure and Social Change in New Spain,” HAHR 43, no. 3 (1963): 349-370; Woodrow Borah and Sherburne F. Cook, “Sobre las posibilidades de hacer el estudio histórico del mestizaje sobre una base demografica,” Revista de historia de América 53/54 (1962): 181-190; Patricia Seed, “The Social Dimensions of Race: Mexico City 1753,” HAHR 62, no. 4 (1982): 569-606; Rodney D. Anderson, “Race and Social Stratification: A Comparison of Working-Class Spaniards, Indians and Castas in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1821,” HAHR 68, no. 2 (1988): 209-41; R. Douglas Cope, The Limits of Racial Domination, Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 1660-1720 (Madison, Wisconsin: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1994); Richard Boyer, Cast and Identity in Colonial Mexico: A Proposal and an Example (Storrs, Connecticut; Providence, Rhode Island; and Amherst, Massachusetts: Latin American Studies Consortium of New England, 1997); Robert McCaa, Stuart B. Schwartz, and Arturo Grubessich, “Race and Class in Colonial Latin America: A Critique,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 25 (1979): 421-33; with a reply to this article by Chance and Taylor, “Estate and Class: A Reply,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 25, (1979): 434-42; and Herman L. Bennett, “Lovers, Family, and Friends: The Formation of Afro-Mexico, 1580-1810” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1993).

2Christon I. Archer, The Army in Bourbon Mexico, 1760-1810 (Albuquerque: Univ. of New Mexico Press, 1977); Lyle N. McAlister, The “Fuero Militar” in New Spain, 1764-1800 (Gainesville: Univ. of Florida Press, 1957).

Page 3  

Additionally, select tax exemptions, such as relief from mandatory tribute and service fees (servicios reales) served to distance the free-colored soldier from ordinary civilian blacks.3

In the view of some scholars, military status placed the soldiers in a separate social space that eroded the inhibiting effects of the caste system. Many free-colored militiamen sent their sons to the university, entered prestigious liberal professions, changed their baptismal registers to specifically mention that they were white, took fair-skinned brides, and used the honorific “Don” before their names to emphasize “hidalgo” status.4 In Mexico, there were certain militia families, such as the Santanders of Puebla, who reputedly possessed fortunes in excess of 70,000 pesos during the early 18th century, more than enough to be considered among the city’s elite members.5

In Jalapa, some free-colored officers played a role in local political assemblies in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.6 The possibilities for wealth, class, and even racial mobility have caused the militia to be perceived as a stepping stone towards achieving social whiteness, or at least to serve as a vehicle for lesser-grade “passing.”7 Undoubtedly, some soldiers used the militia in this capacity, as the evidence maintains. But for others, I argue that quite a different process was occurring. Within the military, and specifically the militia framework, I believe that the unique military privileges, along with the numerous struggles for added rights, actually worked to solidify racial ties by imbuing concrete meaning onto racial abstractions. In other words, while the pardos, morenos, and mulatos who participated in the militia may have been legally and socially 

3Free-coloreds in 18th century Mexico were subject to 12-16 reales of tribute fees per year as full tributaries. See: Archivo General de la Nación (AGN), Californias, vol. 58, exp. 1, fs. 6-8, 70; AGN, Civil, vol. 130 pt 2, 1757, Mexico City, fs. 5-11.

4George Reid Andrews, The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires, 1800-1900 (Madison, Wisconsin: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1980), 113-137; Peter M. Voelz, Slave and Soldier: The Military Impact of Blacks in the Colonial Americas (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1993); Allan J. Kuethe, “The Status of the Free-Pardo in the Disciplined Militia of New Granada,” Journal of Negro History 56, no. 2 (1971): 105-117; Leslie B. Rout Jr., The African Experience in Spanish America, 1502 to the Present Day (Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1976), 150-151; and Herbert S. Klein, “The Colored Militia of Cuba: 1568-1868,” Caribbean Studies 6, no. 2 (1966): 17-27.

5Archivo Judicial de Puebla, INAH Puebla, exp. 3108, fs. 1-277.

6Patrick J. Carroll, Blacks in Colonial Veracruz: Race, Ethnicity, and Regional Development (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 1991).

7Kuethe, “Status of the Free-Pardo,” 105-117.

distinct from their civilian brethren, these very distinctions provided for a deeper racial understanding.8 Before engaging in a fuller analysis of how free-colored participation in the militia offered opportunities for the formation of a race-based identity, a few words are needed about the evolution of the free- colored militia in Mexico itself. I maintain that an important explanatory factor behind the development of a militia inspired racial identity lies in the periodization of events. It is not coincidental that the 18th century surfaced as a significant time for the expression of free-colored militia issues which incorporated a language of self-recognized, racial difference among the colony’s pardos, mulatos, and morenos.

Free-colored militia duty in Mexico first came about during the 16th century, specifically after the publication of the royal decree of 1540, which stipulated that Spanish colonists residing in the Indies were to provide for their own defense.9 By the 1550s, free-coloreds were found serving as auxiliaries to regular army units in the coastal port of Veracruz, and in 1562, a unit of pardo and moreno auxiliary militiamen operated out of Mexico City.10 The earliest years of the militia’s history are admittedly sketchy in the existing archival record, but what surfaces is that from the middle of the 16th century until the opening decades of the 17th century, free-coloreds were incorporated rather cautiously into the colonial defense scheme. On one score, this caution was produced by many of the difficulties that the colony had experienced with its resident black population. The first century after the conquest saw a considerable number of hostile acts performed by enslaved blacks and free-coloreds. There were menacing highway raids reported in New Galicia and Guanajuato. Multiple runaway slave communities were founded in Veracruz and Oaxaca, of which the best known was the settlement of Yanga, which successfully resisted the colonial government for some thirty years. In Mexico City itself, there were several botched rebellions planned, including a 1611 effort to crown a black king and queen to replace the sitting viceroy. Atop these episodes was the fact that slavery, between 1521-1639, was at its peak in Mexico, importing over 110,000 individuals, representing nearly half of all slaves imported to the Indies during those years.11 

Some colonial administrators confessed that they felt the colony was being inundated with blacks, and that they needed to implement more thorough measures of social control. A few royal officials, like Viceroy Gelves in the early 1620s, acted upon their intuitions 

8An initial examination of these themes can be found in Ben Vinson III, “Free-Colored Voices: Issues of Representation and Racial Identity in the Colonial Mexican Militia,” Journal of Negro History 80, no. 4 (1995): 170-182.

9Paul E. Hoffman, The Spanish Crown and the Defense of the Caribbean, 1535-1585: Precedent, Patrimonialism, and Royal Parsimony (Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1980), 41. For additional information on the early free-colored militia in Mexico, as well as information on the 18th century see: Vinson III, “Las compañías milicianas de pardos y morenos en la Nueva España, un aporte para su estudio,” in Población y estructura urbana en México, siglos XVIII y XIX, comp. Carmen Blázquez Domínguez, Carlos Contreras Cruz, and Sonia Pérez Toledo (Xalapa, Veracruz: Universidad Veracruzana, 1996), 239-249.

10AGN, Indiferentes de Guerra (I.G.), vol. 197-B, Narcisso Sagarra, Ildifonso Silva, and Juan Pastor to Marques de Branciforte, June 25, 1795, Mexico City; Jackie Booker, “Needed but Unwanted: Black Militiamen in Veracruz, Mexico, 1760-1810,” The Historian 55, (Winter 1993): 260.

11Colin A. Palmer, Slaves of the White God: Blacks in Mexico 1570-1650 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1976), 28, 119-44. 

Page 5

By the middle of the 17th century, three different types of free-colored militia service had clearly emerged. The least common type comprised militia units founded in former maroon communities. In this capacity, the militia essentially served as part of a larger social engineering project. Oftentimes, as had occurred with Yanga’s settlement and other runaway communities along the Veracruz coast, colonial towns were founded directly atop the sites of former slave resistance. Whites, mestizos, and even Indians were encouraged to migrate to these settlements.

But in the initial years after a maroon community had been defeated, the colonial government’s institutional apparatus was usually weak, and white and mestizo immigration to the area did not always occur in great numbers. To better integrate these communities into the greater colonial scheme of provincial design, the militia was seen as an attractive tool. Administrators realized that by offering high ranking commissions to former maroon leaders, they could provide crown sanction to these individuals’ leadership status, thereby serving to better tie their fortunes to the colonial government. The hope was that these ex-maroon leaders would be given the incentive to encourage their followers to emulate their example of crown loyalty. While in practice there were a range of responses to the crown’s designs, ultimately, royal bureaucrats hoped that the militia would help transform these settlements into centers that actively fought against further seditious slave activity and that protected their relatively isolated areas from all forms of hostile enemy incursions.

Much more numerous than the militia units founded in former maroon settlements were those which I call companies of the “independent type.” These were upgrades from the freecolored auxiliary forces which characterized much of the early and experimental forms of freecolored service in the 16th century. What most distinguished companies of the independent type from their predecessors was that the level of white supervision over their command structure and responsibilities was considerably reduced. Also, their military role was more pronounced, being less a support force than a separate field group. Additionally, matriculation into these companies was predicated almost wholly on race. Only free pardos, morenos, mulatos, and moriscos, could join. Sometimes these companies were even further delineated according to phenotype, as occurred in Veracruz, where the dark-skinned negros and morenos served apart from the lighter mulatos and pardos. Significantly, even officers were drawn almost exclusively from the freecolored racial categories, giving added racial independence from white and mestizo units. 

Freecolored companies of the independent type were most commonly found in the colony’s major cities, like Puebla, Campeche, Mérida, Veracruz, Valladolid, and Guadalajara. With fairly large and diverse populations, these centers were logical areas to possess militia forces that were stratified along racial lines.

The third major type of militia unit that bore free-colored participants were those of the “integrated type.” Not specifically based on racial premises or quotas, the racial composition of these forces was subject to wide variation, depending upon constantly shifting, regional demographic realities. In the rural towns of

Page 6
the Pacific and Gulf coasts, free-colored participation 6 in these types of companies ran extremely high. For instance, in 17th century Papantla, located along the northern portion of the Gulf coast of Mexico, free-coloreds came to comprise almost the totality of the town’s sixty soldiers, including officers. The situation persisted through the opening decades of the 18th century, where by 1749, nearly all of the 300 soldiers were pardos and morenos.12 Elsewhere along the coasts, the percentage of free-coloreds serving in integrated units frequently numbered between 70-90%, with all but the highest officers being drawn from the pardo and moreno groups.13

The period between the 1670s and 1762 was arguably among the most instrumental for the solidification, elaboration, and articulation of expressly free-colored demands within the militia framework. Some of this had to do with an increase in the meaning of militia service for its participants. Prior to these years, militia duty was primarily a casual affair. Companies congregated only a handful of times per year, and those that met most frequently did so at quarterly intervals, uniting once every four months for training purposes.14 Apart from making emergency musters to repel pirate raids and Indian attacks, the other major responsibility for freecolored soldiers in the early 17th century entailed gathering at their headquarters towns during Easter and Christmas to perform ceremonial marches. Additionally, the troops maintained security details during these holiday seasons to tame the drunken revelry that normally occurred.

Prior to 1670, the free-colored militia in most locations also had very little social impact in terms of its privileges. Many of the benefits and rights that I discussed earlier were simply non-existent. For instance, the characteristic tribute and tax exemptions, veritable hallmarks of free-colored service, were not in effect except for in the extreme southern Gulf port of Campeche. Most military fuero privileges were equally absent for the rank and file. Even ascension into the commissioned grades was jealously guarded in several cities and towns. Whereas after 1670, Mexico’s blacks would acquire posts of truly illustrious stature, prior to that time there were few free-colored officers holding a position above the captaincy.

The 1670s through the 1720s witnessed dramatic change for the free-colored forces. To begin with, after a daring and successful pirate raid was made on Veracruz in 1683, the colonial government provided for the expansion of the number of operable companies. In the diocese of Puebla, which was one of the zones most threatened by the attack, free-colored soldiers appeared in the fighting forces of nearly 50 towns and cities. The expansion process continued elsewhere as other raids were made. In New Galicia, there were 23 operating free-colored companies in place, possessing nearly 1,400 men, by the middle of the 18th century.15 Surprisingly during these years, free-coloreds even came to play open roles in militia units that were supposedly reserved exclusively for whites. When emergency situations arose, the more well-to-do españoles resorted to hiring replacements to fill their posts. Free-coloreds and mestizos drawn from the lower classes

12AGN, I.G. 488-A, Ildefonso Arias de Saavedra to Dn. Pedro Mendinueta, January 15, 1788.

13AGN, I.G., vol. 231-B, Luis Bermudo Sorrano, 1763; AGN, I.G., vol. 490-A, Aug. 9, 1766, Gorostiza to Villaba; AGN, I.G., vol. 490-A, Gorostiza to Marques de Croix, Oct. 17, 1766; AGN, I.G., vol. 490-A, Gorostiza to Villaba, Oct., 1766; and AGN, I.G., vol. 484-A, Tomas Gil de Onzue to Martin Mayorga, June 18, 1781.

14Hoffman, The Spanish Crown, 40.

15AGN, I.G. 252-B, Don Nicolas Lopez Padilla, October 13, 1772, Guadalajara; AGN, I.G. 46-A, Pedro Montesinos de Lara, Puebla, October 14, 1758.

were among the soldiers of choice for stand-in duty. As the numerical presence of free-colored soldiers increased throughout the colony, and especially along the key strategic coastal sites, crown administrators felt prodded to concede benefits to the militiamen in order to retain a loyal and reliable defense force. Between 1710-1720, negotiations along these lines resulted in the conferral of the colonelcy to the free-colored militia, a rank that brought a measure of significantly increased autonomy to Mexico’s free-colored forces. Based out of Mexico City and Puebla, by the 1720s, the free-colored colonel had achieved the equivalent status of military inspector. He alone was commissioned to organize, supervise, train, and inspect all of the free-colored companies of the independent type throughout the viceroyalty. Among the many documents he carried with him in retinue was a special letter stating that he was to receive “all the assistance, favor and support that he will need [for the task],” without molestation from local governments.16

In actuality, there were many towns like Acayucan in colonial Mexico. This is to say that there were several communities which were heavily populated by free-coloreds and where the militia’s involvement in politics was pronounced. Indeed, in the colony’s central coastal lowlands, some accounts for the 18th century reveal that the free-colored population outnumbered whites by a ratio of 10:1.17 In such settings, colonial officials were almost pressed to rely upon some measure of local free-colored expertise for affairs to run smoothly, especially in cases where those who assumed office were unfamiliar with their provinces.

Since many pardo and moreno militia officers were well-known and prominent figures in their communities, by courting militia favor, administrators and clergymen built alliances that

16AGN, Civil, vol. 158, pt 7, exp. 16, 1742, Puebla, fol. 8v.

17Cook and Borah, Essays in Population History: Mexico and the Caribbean (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press,1974), 2:190-197.

touched the deep, grassroots areas of their jurisdictions, often bringing into sway soldiers who lived in the most remote fringes of their respective provinces. Almost like Indian caciques, the free-colored corps performed a mediating function between what administrators perceived to be a broad and cohesive pardo community, and what the free-coloreds understood to be the colonial state. It is important to note that in most official contexts, blacks, while normally discussed in implicitly collective terms, were not normally assigned the same degree of internal cohesion as attributed to Indians living communally in pueblos de indios. Vagrancy, loitering, and rootlessness, were the traditional images and adjectives seen repeatedly in state documents pertaining to mulatos, pardos, and morenos. However, when blacks were discussed in relation to the militia, there was a different tone. While discussions of free-colored aimlessness could still abound, these might be counterbalanced with discussions of a militia-inspired, structural integrity among the their race. Consequently, a supposedly vagrant population could simultaneously be discussed as territorially rooted, thanks to its militia ties. Ultimately, therefore, I believe that the militia’s presence, and the strides made in the late 17th century towards providing the militia with more responsibilities and meaning, actually served to increase the plausibility of an existing, formal pardo community in the eyes of the state.

On the flip side, free-colored participation in the corps could increase black self-perceptions of racial solidarity, especially when layered with opportunities for obtaining collective political or economic gains. As the militia institution underwent changes in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the prospects for racial bonding along these lines gathered strength. Take the case of Tamiagua, another coastal community along the Gulf coast. Here, free-colored residents readily referred to themselves as the vecindad de pardos libres militares during the first three decades of the 18th century. Quite literally, this meant the “community of free pardo militiamen.”

Taking its cue from the town’s free-colored residents, colonial bureaucrats in Mexico City adopted the nomenclature to refer to Tamiagua’s blacks as well. Interestingly, while a significant number of the town’s free-colored population was enrolled in the militia’s rosters, not everyone belonged to a military family. Yet the term encompassed civilians and militiamen alike. A quick historical glance reveals that the decision of Tamiagua’s free-coloreds to present themselves as the vecindad de pardos libres militares emanated from their long-standing efforts to secure fishing rights in the town’s outlying rivers. Since the 1640s, free-coloreds had been embroiled in legal struggles with successive alcaldes mayores, community whites, and Indians to acquire sufficient river access that reflected their dominant percentage of the town’s population. Over the years, the sustained conflicts had brought the town’s pardos together and actually gave meaning to race, since free-coloreds began to define themselves appositionally in relation to the other racial groups vying for river control. This led to the production of some rather interesting, pardo written histories about their evolution in the town, with accounts stretching back into the 16th century. But until the 1730s, free-colored arguments were largely ineffective in bringing about the policy changes that they desired. Even after legal victories had been achieved between 1644-1661, local officials continued to monopolize the town’s economic resources by disproportionately allowing river access to Tamiagua’s whites and Indians. It became evident thatit would take a harder-edged approach for free-coloreds to secure greater control.18

Understanding the situation, free-coloreds began using the influence of the militia towards enhancing their image before the state, particularly during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, 

18AGN, Tierras, vol. 1458, exp. 7, 1-97v.

when the institution itself began to mature. Tamiagua’s pardos completely understood that they were more likely to receive supportive attention from crown bureaucrats if they fashioned themselves as a tightly knit vecindad of pardo soldiers, rather than as ordinary civilian blacks. At the same time, at the local level, free-coloreds actively used the militia as an organized strong-arm to thwart threats by local authorities. In 1710, free-colored militiamen organized a rebellion, freed prisoners, confronted and wounded the teniente de justicia, and avoided punishment for their actions by paying a bribe of 1000 pesos. The combination of altering their image at the viceregal level, and exercising raw militia power at the local level, produced a greater cohesiveness amongst Tamiagua’s pardos that was racially bound. As a testament to the success of their machinations, the free-coloreds were issued full river rights in 1732. In some documents, they were conferred these rights not just as pardos, but explicitly as the vecindad de pardos militares, re-emphasizing the role that the combination of race and military status played in their winning arguments. In my estimation, the major lesson to be learned from Tamiagua is that while race, in this case pardoness, often assumed meaning outside of the military context (keep in mind that in Tamiagua pardoness was intimately linked to the struggle over fishing rights), the insertion of military service and militia ties provided a distinct political edge and enhanced the commitment for many to associate with race.19

Tribute exemption was among the most important privileges to be secured by the soldiers. Apart from Campeche, the first exclusions were acquired in 1679 by captains Agustín Torres and Manuel Fernández Morgado for the militia companies in the port of Veracruz. In their arguments to the Real Audiencia, the two officers stressed that free-colored military services were rendered voluntarily and without pay. Furthermore, the men in their units furnished their own weapons and uniforms, making the militia financially independent of the royal treasury. All of these costs weighed heavily on the soldiers who were said to be poor. Moreover, being located in the port of Veracruz had advantageously placed the militiamen in frequent contact with sailors who kept them abreast of happenings throughout the Atlantic World. Thanks to this source of news, the captains added that they were well-aware that free-colored militiamen in Santo Domingo, Havana, Campeche and Guatemala, had already been granted tribute relief. Following their statements, a full investigation was called into the matter. On July 10, 1679, after three years of inquiry, the soldiers’ tribute exemption request was granted.20

19Ibid.

20AGN, Californias, vol. 58, exp. 1, fs. 1-5; AGN, General de Parte, vol. 33, exps. 77-78, fs. 68-87; AGN, Tributos, vol. 40, exp. 11, fs. 182-192v; Recopilacion de Leyes, Libro VII, Titulo V, fol. 287v; and AGN, Reales Cédulas Originales, vol. 11, exp. 113, fs. 316-317. This last document intimates that the tribute exemption process may have been underway as early as 1669 in Veracruz, sparked by the appeals of militia captains Diego Perez and Francisco de Torres. However, the preponderance of evidence from other sources confirms the 1676 petition was the definitive push that secured the privilege.

The successful bid for tribute exemption in Veracruz sparked an immediate tide of requests for similar exclusions throughout the Gulf coast region. First were the petitions of soldiers in Acayucan, representing the province of Guazacualco.21 These were followed by Guachinango (1679), Papantla (1688), Tabasco (1691), and eventually the town of Jalapa (1697), among others. By the end of the 17th century, exemptions had been granted to select locations along the Pacific coast.22 What characterizes all of the petitions is that every successful request took the form of individual contracts between the crown and the free-colored inhabitants of a specific town or region.23 Royal officials preferred handling matters in piecemeal fashion, reviewing situations case by case, and granting exclusions on the merits of each request. Often, the initial appeal for exemption would originate from a cabecera (head town), and then be applicable to several locations within a province. In the majority of cases, the exclusions were said to last indefinitely, although there are some instances where contracts lasted for just a few years.24 Likewise, there were regional differences as to who was included in the exemption. But in almost every case, over time, the militiamen’s wives and children were eventually relieved. 

Tribute exemption had a galvanizing effect on militia participation and free-colored behavior. In many of the rural areas were the dispensation was placed into effect, free-coloreds joined the corps as never before. Given the fact that prior to the 1760s, there no limits on troop enrollment, entire communities were said to be on roster, from youths who were well under age, to the elderly and decrepit. Even men who lived well over 30 leagues distance from the nearest headquarters town claimed militia status, although they clearly lived too far to render effective service.25 In truth, the general increase in militia participation was the first step in a series of processes by which blacks began to reinterpret the military exemption as applying to all freecoloreds, including those of non-militia status. There were also individuals who joined the militia briefly, perhaps for a week, and then quickly abandoned ranks, later claiming to tax collectors that 

21AGN, I.G., vol. 492-A, exp. 3, Testimonio de las diligencias practicadas en el superior gobierno por representacion que hicieron a su ex.a los pardos y demas milicianos de la provincia de Goazacoalcos sobre la reelevacion de pasar al puerto de Veracruz cada que haiga novedad de hostilidades, por los fundamentos que expresan, 1767; and AGN, I.G., Tributos, vol. 40, exp. 11, fs. 167-233.

22AGN, Tributos, vol. 34, exp. 7, fs. 163-173.

23The term “contract” is used in the petition of the militiamen of Tamiagua: AGN, Californias, vol. 58, exp. 1, fs. 23-62.

24AGN, Tributos, vol. 40, exp. 1, 1677. This document mainly discusses Indian exemption in Tabasco.

25AGN, I.G. 502-A, Thomas Roncali to Mayorga, Feb. 13, 1783, Acayucan.

they had once served and were entitled to relief. The frequency of such turnover in units along the Gulf and Pacific coasts reached a critical point in the 1770s. Local officials complained that although some towns had companies of only 50 men, up to 300 would be excluded from tribute on the grounds that they had once been soldiers.26 Blacks further expanded militia benefits by redefining the scope of military privilege. Initial tribute exemptions were intended exclusively for the militiaman, his wife and children. After the 1760s, Bourbon reformers eliminated the privilegefor children.27 But in practice, entire kinship networks— including parents, siblings, nephews, and grandchildren— would successfully claim exclusion, citing that at least one of their family members was enrolled.28

Important to the process of expanding tribute privileges beyond the circle of soldiers were the actions of local officials. These included the alcaldes mayores and their subordinates who often accommodated the claims of free-colored civilians towards exemption status. Such allegations seem to contradict everything we currently know about the character of these officials, their profit driven behavior, and the nature of their offices. Presumably, they would have wanted to incorporate as many people as possible under tribute coverage to expand their regions’ income and increase their opportunities for graft. Yet, it is important to keep in mind that our present understanding of the tribute practices of the alcaldes mayores comes mainly from research on Indian communities, where the majority of the work on colonial tribute policy has been done.

Tribute collection among free-coloreds abided by a different set of rules, especially from those that functioned among Indians residing in pueblos de indios. Militia service played a crucial role in modifying the free-colored tribute arrangement. For instance, provincial administrators were sometimes nervous that if tribute exemption laws were interpreted too narrowly, free-coloreds would not provide military duties, especially sentinel and watchtower details, thereby leaving important regions defenseless and exposed to attack. Fears of sparking civil unrest and rebellion in their jurisdictions was another concern. In Acayucan during the 1780s, there was a real anxiety that since so many men were in the militia, any tinkering with the tax structure could trigger an uprising that would be difficult to subdue.29 Additionally, members of the justicia and various alcaldes mayores did not want to compromise the important supplementary functions that the militiamen performed, such as armed escort services, prison guard duty, and night patrols.

Laxity in collecting tribute from free-coloreds stemmed greatest from worries over securing rural labor. The decline of slavery in colonial Mexico placed an added emphasis on seeking new workers for sugar and cotton plantations, haciendas, ranchos, etc. Some of these estates belonged to the alcaldes mayores themselves, who boasted diverse portfolios in their attempts to maximize profits during their short tenure. The partial recovery of the indigenous population in the late 17th and 18th centuries, alongside emigrations from the pueblos de indios offered solutions to growing labor needs, but not adequately for all regions, as documents from

26AGN, I.G., vol. 307-B, Juan de Riva to Martin Mayorga, Dec. 10, 1780, Mexico City.

27AGN, I.G., vol. 307-B, Posada to Mayorga, April 21, 1781, Mexico City.

28AGN, I.G., vol. 422-A, Francisco Cañaveral y Ponce to Martin Mayorga, April 4, 1781, Acapulco.

29AGN, I.G., vol. 492-A, Maritn de Solis, June, 2, 1679, Mexico City; AGN, I.G., vol. 502-A, Pedro Moscoso, Feb. 7, 1782, Acayucan.

Igualapa, Tabasco, and Xicayan, as well as studies of Morelos and Veracruz have made clear.30 Considering these realities, many alcaldes mayores understood that the best means of attracting and retaining the free-colored labor source in their provinces was by being flexible with privileges. If free-coloreds were being charged tribute with zeal in one jurisdiction but not the next, experience taught that there would be mass migration to escape the region imposing the burden. Eventually, a mosaic-like system of regional privileges evolved in colonial Mexico. In areas where free-coloreds figured prominently into the rural population, and where they comprised an esteemed labor source, local officials were often more lenient in the application of colonial tribute laws that prejudiced blacks. A few examples include Chicontepec, Guachinango, Xicayan, Panuco, Tampico, Papantla, and Tehuantepec.31 Again, tribute leniency mainly involved extending exemption to free-colored civilians by winking at their false claims of being soldiers.

What effect did this have upon the development of racial identity? For civilians, over time, leniency in the application of tribute laws caused tribute exemption to be viewed by blacks as a genuine legal right, institutionalized by custom if not by written law.32 When reforms threatened to change tribute policies, civilians protested vociferously. Particularly in the period after 1762, both the advent of Bourbon military reforms in Mexico and a renewed interest in fiscal austerity brought tribute privileges under wholesale attack. Take the examples of Tepic and Sentispac

30Cheryl English Martin, Rural Society in Colonial Morelos (Albuquerque: Univ. of New Mexico Press, 1985), 149-153; AGN, Padrones, vol. 18, fs. 209-305v; AGN, Californias, vol. 58, expediente formado a msta. de Don Phelipe Izusquiza, gefe de las companias de caballeria de Xicayan sobre que no matriculen en los tributarios los que son soldados, 1780; AGN, Tributos, vol. 34, exps. 4-6, fs. 106-117v; AGN, Tributos, vol. 40, exp. 9, fs. 81-159v. In Veracruz, Patrick Carroll has traced a shift in labor patterns from slaves to free workers. He notes a strong transition from slave to free workers between 1630-1720, intensifying after 1720. However, a glance at Adriana Naveda Chavez’s work on the 18 sugar haciendas registered in the area of Cordoba in 1788 reveal that although free-coloreds represented approximately 28% of the free-labor force, they comprised only 9% of total workers. Here, the majority of laborers continued to be slaves. In the smaller ranchos near Cordoba, of which 145 were registered in 1788, the percentage of free-coloreds was smaller, representing just over 7% of the labor force. None of the rancho workers were slaves. The patterns found in Naveda Chávez’s study are repeated further north in the Huasteca. Antonio Escobar notes that in 1743, almost half the hacienda residents were either pardo or mulato, the majority being slaves. In all, there were 878 hacienda residents, of which 132 were pardos and 392 mulatos. Of the mulatos, 277 were slaves. Interestingly, although slaves may have comprised the core workforce on haciendas in the Huasteca and near Cordoba, evidence suggests that the alcaldes mayores did not radically alter their disposition towards extending privileges to free-coloreds in these areas, for fear of losing those free-coloreds that did play important labor roles on these estates. References include: Carroll, Blacks in Colonial Veracruz, 61-78; Adriana Naveda Chavez-Ita, Esclavos negros en las haciendas azucareras de Cordoba Veracruz, 1690-1830 (Xalapa, Veracruz: Universidad Veracruzana, 1987), 54-55; Antonio Escobar Ohmestede, “La población en el siglo XVIII y principios del siglo XIX, Conformacion de una sociedad multiétnica en las Huastecas?,” in Población y estructura urbana en México, siglos XVIII y XIX, comp. Carmen Blázquez Domínguez, Carlos Contreras Cruz, and Sonia Pérez Toledo (Xalapa, Veracruz: Universidad Veracruzana, 1996), 277-291.

31For Guachinango see: AGN, Tributos vol. 40, exp. 11, fs. 167-233. Here, the teniente general suspended tribute payment in the late 1780s. The document also makes references to customary tribute exemptions in the jurisdictions of Papantla and Chicontepec. For Panuco and Tampico see: AGN, Tributos, vol. 40, exp. 15, fs. 270-74. For Xicayan see: AGN, Tributos, vol. 34, exp. 7, fs. 118-178v. For Tehuantepec see: AGN, Tributos, vol. 34, exp. 3, fs. 60-93. For discussion on Tabasco see: AGN, Tributos vol. 40, exp. 9, fs. 121-127.

32My thinking here is shaped by E.P. Thompson, Customs in Common, Studies in Traditional Popular Culture, (New York: The New Press, 1993).

during the late 1770s. Here, civilians had been accustomed to receiving tribute relief for nearly two decades. Free-colored militia units had been founded in these areas in 1753, with tribute clemency for civilians following shortly thereafter. When the crown tried to impose the tax with vigor in the early 1780s, civilians responded uproariously with the argument that they were duly exempt on account of the sheer fact that they were pardos and morenos who inhabited the coast.

In this interesting example, civilians were claiming relief because they were free-coloreds, whereas the crown held them accountable for tribute on these same grounds. In their writings, the civilians essentially saw no difference between themselves and the free-colored militiamen, who they described as “just the same.”33 From their perspective, formal militia duty became a secondary criteria for tribute exemption. They lived in the same communities as the militiamen, were of the same caste, and contributed indirectly to the safety of the region. In their estimation, as elsewhere in the coastal areas of Mexico, these had become sufficient terms for free-colored civilians to advocate exclusion.

When engaged in this role, militia duty assumed a different function. Indeed, when the militiamen’s rights were challenged alongside those of free-colored civilians, sometimes the militiamen perceived of themselves as protectors of the broader free-colored population. In Acayucan for instance, when a free-colored soldier from the company of Lt. Juan Domingo Ramos was abusively whipped by provincial authorities, the officer expressed: “Never before in Acayucan has a pardo been whipped.”34 Although the soldier was a militiaman, the infringement upon his rights threatened to violate the status of all free-coloreds in the community. To curb future abuses, Lt. Domingo Ramos retaliated by planning a small confrontation with the local authorities. In short, what I am saying is that the militiamen’s defense of military privileges in general, and tribute immunities in particular, opened numerous possibilities for collaborative activities with civilians. The underlying goals of these activities involved the collective protection of self-perceived, free-colored rights at large.

33AGN, I.G., vol. 307-B, Juan de Riva to Martin Mayorga, Dec. 10, 1780, Mexico City.

34AGN, Civil, legajo 24, exp. 156, 1762, Acayucan, fol. 32.

In closing, let me briefly summarize the major points of my presentation. The free-colored militia began tenuously in Mexico as an institution with few responsibilities and little social impact. As the militia matured in the latter portion of the 17th century, its participants gained a significant degree of autonomy over their internal affairs and began to press for added privileges. The accruing of military-related benefits and the increase in the number of prominent ranks open to blacks worked towards substantiating their place within the colonial defense scheme. As a result, the militiamen acquired political capital and leverage, which they then used to enhance their position in Mexican society. In many areas, particularly along the rural coasts, militia earned privileges held important implications for civilian free-coloreds, as they found themselves acquiring many of the rights that were supposed to be reserved solely for soldiers. Through garnering privileges, militiamen and civilians altered their legally assigned status as pardos and morenos. Rather than “passing,” or engaging in social whitening, a reverse process occurred. 

Sent by Dr. Carlos Munoz, Jr.
Professor Emeritus, Department of Ethnic Studies
cmjr@berkeley.edu
510-642-9134
FAX 510-642-6456

Mel Gibson directs a scene of Apocalypto, photo by Andrew Cooper, Icon Distribution. 
The Orange county Register, December 8, 2006

The following information concern the new movie by Gibson was sent by: 
Dr. Carlos Munoz, Jr. cmjr@berkeley.edu  [Editor: some segments edited down] 
Professor Emeritus, Department of Ethnic Studies
510-642-9134  FAX 510-642-6456
http://ethnicstudies.berkeley.edu/faculty/munoz

Gibson's Film is far from a Tribute to the Maya
by Gabriela Erandi Rico, Doctoral Student
Department of Ethnic Studies, University of California, Berkeley

During the past week or so, tickets were distributed to U.C. Berkeley's students in order to attract Mexican-Americans to view Mel Gibson's new film, "Apocalypto." When I first heard about the film, I was struck by Gibson's investment in a project "reviving" an ancient Mesoamerican civilization not only because as a Mexican Indian (P'urhepecha/matlatzinca), I have great respect for the Maya but also because I've been fortunate to visit Catemaco, the wondrous place where the film was shot and was thus interested in how the site was used to capture the plot of the film. Curiosity got the best of me although I was a bit apprehensive about Gibson's ability to accurately portray a Native American society or to present Native people in a positive light.   I was right.

I came out of the theater with mixed feelings-mostly awe, disgust, rage and indignity. Although I admit that I was visually awe-struck by the awesome aesthetic reconstruction of Maya architecture and by sitting through a film mostly casted by Native American actors and listening to a dialogue completely in the Maya Yucatec language, there were many elements of the movie I found deeply offensive.   

The central aspect of the film was undoubtedly violence. While I understand that violence is necessary to keep the plot moving along in an action film and while I can even entertain the notion that shock value is a gripping method effective in capturing the audience's attention, I thought the use of violence in this film was grossly sensationalized, sometimes inaccurate and often unnecessary. The scenes that most stand out in my mind were those of unjust bloody battles, outright violent murder (including of women and children) with heavy and sharp weapons, and of course, mass human sacrifice. While I can see how human sacrifice can be a good attention-grabber for an adrenaline-hungry audience, I thought Gibson made his point after we saw one head falling from the steps of the central Mayan pyramid and that it was not necessary to have to sit through several scenes of sharp obsidian blades plunging into human flesh to extract pulsating hearts followed by fierce decapitations of sacrificial victims, all while onlookers of the Mayan king's loyal subjects cheered and demanded more. The killers were portrayed as sadistic and bloodthirsty while the victims were other frightened, naïve (and apparently weaker) Indians. This nonstop violent carnage throughout the movie combined with the highlighting of human sacrifice portrayed the Mayas as bloodthirsty savages. While the stereotype is a painfully familiar one for Native people, I find it quite ironic that Gibson thought we would be somehow flattered at his interest in reconstructing our past "reality" or that we would find it at all glorifying.

While sacrifice was, indeed, an important part of Aztec and Maya spirituality, many of the accounts given by Spanish soldiers and priests have been widely contested because of the bias coming from the source (conquistadores and Christian converters). The depictions in Maya and Aztec codices indicate that various forms of sacrifice were practiced and that they were, indeed, violent-but archeologists have been unable to find the mass numbers Spanish accounts claimed-proving that their alleged "eyewitness reports" (like Gibson's representation) were gross exaggerations. Furthermore, it's widely acknowledged by scholars who study the art of warfare that Mesoamerican societies like the Mayas and the Aztecs followed a strict set of rules of war. Their warrior societies did set out to find captives, yet the honor of the warrior was experienced in confronting another warrior on an individual basis and having him submit to his strength and valor-not, as Gibson portrays, in raiding villages or burning houses and definitely not in killing/raping women or disposing of children. Such cowardly acts would bring shame and dishonor to aspiring warriors.

The truth (one acknowledged by Gibson) is that the Mayas were one of the greatest civilizations in the Americas. They were highly advanced in astronomy, architecture, the arts and mathematics. They gave the world the concept of zero, came up with the most advanced writing system in the Western Hemisphere and designed a calendar far more accurate than the Gregorian one we live by today. Out of all these aspects of Maya society, Gibson chose to highlight sacrifices. This is far from paying tribute to the Mayas for their contributions.

The film opens with a quote by W. Durant, "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within," somehow suggesting that the divisions and warfare a decadent Maya society was wreaking on itself were what essentially led to its downfall. This quote makes sense at the end of the film, when Jaguar Paw's run ends at his and his persecutors' surprise upon witnessing the arrival of European ships. The Spanish conquistadors (who were historically savagely violent in their own regard) are presented as mere bystanders to Jaguar Paw's persecution; religious symbolisms such as crosses and bibles in the hands of friars indicate that the Spanish have arrived to Christianize the heathens in order to save them from the savagery they inflict on each other. The quote on the film's billboards, "No one can outrun their destiny," can thus be read as the tragic truth that Jaguar Paw's exhaustingly heroic escape back to this home in the jungle is really in vain because he will still face destiny at the hands of the newly-arrived Spanish colonizers (and he will thus probably be killed or keep running). Such is the epic story of our tragic hero!-still destined to be extinguished by the annals of history and the arrival of modernity. Not quite a flattering portrayal for Maya/Native people.
 
During a time when the portrayals of Native Americans in the mainstream media are scarce, all representations of Native people make a statement. This is what's scary about continuing to see films like Apocalypto being undertaken by directors like Gibson. Indigenous scholars like Vine Deloria and Shari Huhndorf have theorized why as a population, which has been continuously preyed upon, dispossessed and colonized, Native Americans are particularly vulnerable to appropriation and co-modification. Indian cultures continue being capitalized upon and Indians continue being disposable, exotic (and in this case violent) others. The only good thing Apocalypse did for Native people was to leave money in indigenous communities in Mexico, expose audiences to the Maya Yucatec language (thus enlightening them), and of course, give jobs and jumpstart careers for a few indigenous actors. Otherwise, it's just another example of a white man's gaze following and misrepresenting Indians.



Maya say Gibson movie portrays them as savages
By Mica Rosenberg, (Reuters)  Dec 6, 2006

Much like his bloody epic about the death of Christ, a new Mel Gibson production about the collapse of the Mayan civilization is angering members of the culture it depicts even before it hits the screen. The "Passion of Christ" was accused by some of being anti-Semitic -- long before Gibson's career-damaging outbursts against a Jewish policeman in Malibu this year.

Now indigenous activists in Guatemala, once home to a large part of the Mayan empire that built elaborate jungle cities in southern Mexico and northern Central America centuries ago, say his film "Apocalypto" is racist.

Gibson's representatives were not immediately available for comment.

Only trailers for "Apocalypto," which will be released on Friday, have been shown in Guatemala, but leaders say scenes of scary-looking Mayans with bone piercings and scarred faces hurling spears and sacrificing humans promote stereotypes about their culture.

"Gibson replays, in glorious big budget Technicolor, an offensive and racist notion that Maya people were brutal to one another long before the arrival of Europeans and thus they deserved, in fact, needed, rescue," said Ignacio Ochoa, director of the Nahual Foundation that promotes Mayan culture.

At their height, the Maya built monumental cities in the Peten region of Guatemala, but the civilization went into decline after the 8th century, some say because of overuse of natural resources.

The culture is not thought to have been as blood-thirsty as the neighboring Aztec empire, but some archeologists say human sacrifice was common in the final years before the Spanish conquest.

More than half of Guatemala's population is descended from the original Maya. They face frequent discrimination and most live in poverty with little access to education and social services.

Over 200,000 people, mostly Mayan, were killed during Guatemala's 36-year civil war that ended a decade ago. Some rights groups say the army tried to wipe out the Maya.

Lucio Yaxon, a 23-year-old Mayan human rights activist, said Apocalypto's heart-pounding trailer was unrealistic.

"Basically the director is saying the Mayans are savages," said Yaxon, who speaks Kaqchikel, one of 22 Guatemalan Mayan languages, as well as Spanish.

But Richard Hansen, an archeologist who Gibson consulted on the making of the film, says the director took pains to ensure authenticity and historical accuracy.

The entire script is spoken in Yucatec Maya and the star is a Native American dancer named Rudy Youngblood. Gibson's use of indigenous actors has won praise from Latino and Native American groups in the United States.

"I am a little apprehensive about how the Maya themselves are going to perceive it," said Hansen, who directs an archeological project at the Mirador Basin in northern Guatemala, "but Gibson is trying to make a social statement."


Dr. Carlos Munoz, Jr.
Professor Emeritus
Department of Ethnic Studies
510-642-9134  FAX 510-642-6456
http://ethnicstudies.berkeley.edu/faculty/munoz

NEW BOOK: Ajq'ijab by Jean Molesky-Poz

Dear Friends:  A old friend of mine and colleague at the University of Santa Clara, Jean Molesky-Poz, has published a book on the Maya.  I've sent you all several excellent critical reviews of Gibson's  Apocalypto.  Her book is an excellent corrective to the racist negative image of the Maya as violent savages depicted in the movie.  A description of her book is below.  I strongly recommend it.  It can be ordered from the U of Texas Press, link below, or from your local bookstores.  

"Based on ethnographic work with contemporary Ajq'ijab', in conversation with interdisciplinary resources,  the work  illuminates contemporary Maya worldview and spiritual practices.   It opens with a discussion of how the public emergence of Maya spirituality is situated within the religious political history of the Guatemalan highlands, particularly the recent pan-Maya movement.  It investigates Maya cosmovision, and its foundational principles, as expressed by Aj'qijab'. and then  at the heart of this text,  Aj'qijab' interpret their obligation, lives and responsibility of their spiritual work.   In subsequent chapters, it  explores aspects of Maya spirituality --   sacred geography, sacred time (how the 260-day sacred calendar is "the heart of the wisdom of the Maya," the matrix of Maya culture) and ritual practices (the distinct way and method of ancestral study, with special attention to the fire ceremony).  What's also useful, is the ethnographic work is presented conversation with  archaeology, anthropology, hieroglyphics, and literature, so the read can examine "transformed continuities"  of Maya life."

http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/molcon.html

SEPHARDIC

History of Sephardic Groups (1915-1985) in New York City
Compiled by the Sephardic Brotherhood of America
to Commemorate Their 70th Anniversary 

http://www.sephardiccouncil.org/sjb.html

TEXAS 

Perez Elementary Named For Fallen Austin Marine
Julie Simon Reporting, Oct 15, 2006 
http://keyetv.com/topstories/local_story_288233943.html

(CBS 42) AUSTIN There was a hero's tribute Sunday for an Austin man who died serving in the United States military. Lance Corporal Nicholas Perez was the first Travis County serviceman to die in Iraq. Sunday, the community officially   dedicated the school which bears his name. 

School was something that was very important to Nicholas Perez. He graduated from Travis High School with honors back in 2003.

Even though Perez Elementary School opened its doors last August,2006 on Sunday friends, family, and a U.S. congressman gathered to make it official.

There were a mother's tears of sorrow and of pride. Yolanda Valdez was overcome with emotion as the school named for her son, Nicholas, was officially dedicated.

The little boy, who loved the outdoors, loved his country and the man that died serving it, is now immortalized at this South Austin elementary school. His parents are so proud.

"It's an honor," his father told CBS 42's Julie Simon. "And the legacy lives on as far as Nicholas Perez goes on… The program was wonderful. It was more than I ever expected."

At the dedication, those in the audience were treated to a dance routine by the students. Members of the armed forces saluted their fallen brother. And Congressman Lloyd Doggett explained how even though Perez is gone, he will serve as a sort of big brother to the students at the school.

"For as long as they sit and learn at the desks which will fill the classroom here, Nick will be a role model in spirit as he was in life," Doggett said. Nicholas' parents, his sister, and the nephew who bears his name though the two never met were all in attendance.

Nicholas Perez was just 19 years old when he died. Nicholas Perez was killed on Labor Day weekend back in 2004. He died just two days before he was scheduled to return home. 
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

[[Editor: This brief news story does not reflect the effort it took to accomplish having the school named after Nicolas Perez. Dan Arellano writes: darellano@austin.rr.com ]]

"The Tejanos in Action, of which I am the Commander, are responsible for having the school in the background named after Lance Corporal Nicolas Perez, the first to give his life in Iraq, from Austin. The school district has had a monopoly on to whom they choose to honor,  by naming a school named after them, and it usually was an elder Anglo educator. It would take a struggle of over a year and many heated debates. The Hispanic Community, here in Austin is growing and we demanded a say in the highly political election process and after numerous rejections we were able to convince them of the political consequences of their actions. Needless to say we were successful in changing an old "good old boy" political system here in Austin."                                        

1874 In this year Donna Benigna Hodges' first husband, Morgan Barclay buys first of two tracts from the Matamoros heirs of Jose Narciso Carvazos. He is licensed by Cameron County Commissioners to operate the ferry at Paso Real. When her second husband, Mr. Hodges, dies she maintains the ferry until the coming of the railroad ends stagecoach travel. Years later, bed-ridden in her home above the Paso Real crossing she appeals to Santos Lozano to care for her after two ranch hands are killed by bandits. The Lozanos take her to Harlingen and care for her. Having no heirs she wills her ranch to Micaela Lozano. Thus the mercantile Lozano family also becomes ranchers.

In 1880 Francisco Saldaña filed a patent on Survey 45 and officially was granted the land after occupation and improvements in 1886. Various members of the Saldaña family likely owned a total of about 510 acres south of survey 27. They called it La Providencia Ranch. Plats of about 170 acres each were numbers 45 (F. Saldaña), 46 (E. Contreras), and 47 (S. Saldaña). The "F" may have been Francisco, who was to marry Anselma Sanchez and upon her death Josefa Abrego. The "S" was his son Secundino from his first marriage. E. Contreras was Estevan (also spelled Esteban) Contreras, who had married Librada Saldaña. Their daughter Josefa, who was baptized in the Presbyterian Mexican Church, Brownsville on 3/7/86, lived on the ranch until 1896-98. Another daughter was to be Anita Saldaña Contreras de Rosales. Herlinda Saldaña of the ranch family was to marry Joaquin S. Sanchez, have a son Jose, and live at 831 Curtis Street, Harlingen. Paulo Saldaña, Sr. and Jr. were other family members.

The first of the Lozanos to come into the area are Geronimo and his wife Luisa Rodriguez Lozano. She had been born at Santa Rosalia, southeast of Brownsville. They likely came to the El Muerto Ranch which was located along what is now Godwin Road running north from FM508 east of Combes. Some time after 1906 when his brother Santos started a mercantile store in newly developing Harlingen town, Geronimo was to do the same, also on Jackson Street, thereby starting only the second mercantile store in town.

He will die in 1918, but the family will continue to live in their dwelling at the corner of C and Van Buren Streets. Later son, also Geronimo, will long have his home at 122 W. Madison. It has since been torn down. The senior Lozanos will parent sons, Luiz (father of Yolanda L. Gonzales, a lifelong Harlingenite), Geronimo, and Zaragosa, together with Mrs. Felipa Lozano de la Villareal, and Mrs. Eloisa Lozano de la Rosa. Luisa Lozano, who was born in 1877, will die in Harlingen on or about 11/21/51 at age 74.

It was sometime before the turn of the 20th century when the El Muerto Ranch was in existence. It was located in former School Lands about four miles north-northwest of where the center of Harlingen would be. It was in survey 28 platted to one J.M. Gonzales. Here Don Julian Villareal and his wife Guadeloupe Montalvo Villareal built a house of sod, mud and sticks. They were soon joined by Calixtro Rosales (1859-1947) and his wife Modesta Villegas Rosales (1859-1944) who also built a simple abode. Their daughter was Leonor Rosales Alvarez would be 100 on 2/2/00. At age 48 on 10/18/1882 Julian would die. His son of the same name would later remove to Harlingen to establish a dry goods store with his brothers. This Julian was born 8/26/76 and died 3/8/38. Both are buried in the El Muerto Cemetery located on Godwin Road east of Combes and running north from FM 508. In 1990 Ofelia Olsson would compile a brief history of the cemetery and a comprehensive list all those buried there.

1900 Jesus Saldana is part of the extended family operating La Providencia Ranch. It is located in Surveys 45 and 47 directly west of what will initially be Harlingen. The sendero opened in 1904, and which would become Harrison Street, runs a mile or so to the S. Saldana property. This is important because the ranch is a source of good water, a necessity the community still lacks. From the well on the ranch, water is hauled by the barrel until the canal reaches Harlingen in early 1908. The charge is 50 cents per barrel for this service.

The wagon road going south from the adjacent F. Saldana ranch to allow a low water crossing of the Arroyo Colorado is now Tucker Road. Just beyond where it ends on the north side of the arroyo was a community named Castenas. [For more information on this subject see "The Location of La Providencia Ranch" link.]

1906(early) Santos Lozano, who had come from Alice in 1905, buys the second commercial lots on Main (Jackson) Street. He builds a small frame structure for a general store with living quarters upstairs. This building is removed in 1915 and replaced by a large two–story brick structure. The bricks are imported from Monterrey, Mexico. Initially the building has "S. Lozano and Son-1915" etched on the top of its north-facing and west-facing facades. Don Guillermo Lozano, Santos' son, will open the first meat market west of the railroad.

Santos Lozano was born in Ejidos San Nicolas de los Garzas (now part of Monterrey), Nuevo Leon State, Mexico in 1863. His parents, Felipe and Otta Gracia Lozano had immigrated to Texas during the Mexican-French War and ended up in Collins, TX when Santos was two years old. In Alice Santos would eventually operate a mercantile store for fourteen years before making his way to Harlingen. After the death of his first wife, Micaela Beasley, he would marry Tomasa Cantu. His oldest son J.B. Lozano was born in Alice 4/12/92, educated at public schools, and, in 1909, became a merchant with his father in Lozano and Son. He was to marry Herlinda Hinojosa 5/12/12. His younger brother, Santos V. Lozano was born in Alice on 7/27/94, and also educated in public schools. When he entered the business the store was called S. Lozano and Son Dry Goods Store. He came to Harlingen at age 11 and was to serve in WWI in a medical detachment. He later was an American Legion member and was in the Woodmen of the World. Both brothers were proud of their Irish-Mexican heritage. The other Lozano children who came to Harlingen by train in 1905 were Fidelia, Porfirio, Otila, and Alfredo.In the 1920s the Lozanos will have placed store branches in La Feria, Donna, and Raymondville. Santos would die at the ripe old age of 90. A daughter, Macaela "Mickey" Lozano was born in Harlingen on May 10, 1910. She would go on to graduate Harlingen High School, attend Texas A&I, and receive a B.S. Degree in Education from Pan Am. She married Manuel I. "Meme" Garibay who died in 1954. Retiring as a teacher in 1981, Mrs. Garibay was to die in Brownsville on 11/14/04 at age 94. Micaela's sister Sofia was also born in Harlingen.

The Secundio (Papa) Gutierrez family moves to a homestead at 313 W. Van Buren, Harlingen. The family has its origins in Amozoc Puebla, Mexico. Secundio's father, Manuel brought the family to Brownsville in 1862 due unrest in Mexico. Soon after he moved to northern Cameron County where he and his teenage son found work on different ranches. At age 22 Secundio was married by Father Keralum to Guadelupe (Lupita) Loya Loya. The ceremony took place on the El Mameado Ranch which was 2.7 miles north of FM 498 on an extension of FM 507. They settle in La Jarita, which is on FM 1420, and in 1876 started a succession of nine children. In 1890 they move to La Crucita Ranch. This ranch incorporated three smaller ones – La Crucita, El Gigante, and La India. Its initial acquisition was by Manuel Gutierrez. At this, their second home, they have four more children. The ranch encompasses Surveys 39, 40, 293, 294, and 295. It is bounded on the south by the Arroyo Colorado, the north by Garrett Road, the east by Tucker Road and the west by Altas Palmas Road. What is now Dilworth road cut through the ranch and led to a low water crossing of the arroyo and on to Turner Road leading to the Military Road. These provided a route to go to Brownsville. The serious drought of 1896 dries up the rangeland and kills their stock. The below-average region rainfall actually extended from 1893 through 1902. Survey 39 later fell into the hands of the Georgetown Railroad Company and eventually was subdivided by the developer F.Z. Bishop. Survey 40 came into the possession of G.S. Dorough and 294 Dayton Moses. 293 and 295 were bought by the Corpus Christi, San Diego and Rio Grande Narrow Gauge Railroad Company. Secundio after selling the ranch will close his general store in that area and late commence a bakery on W. Van Buren then open a dry goods and grocery store on W. Harrison. Rosaura Guttierez is the daughter of Eugenio, one of the 13 children. She is active on the Cameron County Historical Commission, among many other activities. Joseph Muniz, assistant Harlingen librarian, is the great grandson of Petra, the sister born the year before Eugenio was in 1885.

Raul Gonzalez raulgonzalezjr1652@hotmail.com

EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI

Katrina Begets a Baby Boom by Immigrants
by Eduardo Porter 

Photo by Lee Celano for The New York Times
Sara Alvarado, a Honduran immigrant, with son, Jackson Antonio, born in New Orleans. 

Babies born to workers who flocked to help rebuild New Orleans are
straining its decimated health system.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/11/us/nationalspecial/11babies.html?th&emc=th
Sent by Dorinda Moreno  dorindamoreno@comcast.net

The throng of babies gurgling in the handful of operational maternity wards here has come as a big surprise — and a financial strain — to this historically black and white city, which before the hurricane had only a small Latino community and virtually no experience of illegal immigration.

“Of all the myriad things that have changed after Katrina, this wasn’t high on anybody’s priority list,” said Dr. Mark Peters, chief executive of East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie.

Because many immigrant mothers cannot afford to pay for prenatal care or delivery services, New Orleans’s newest citizens are adding an unexpected load to the decimated health infrastructure in a city abandoned by many of its doctors. Much of the state-financed Charity Hospital system, which before Hurricane Katrina provided the bulk of care to New Orleans’s uninsured and indigent population, remains closed.

Lacking health insurance and barred from most government assistance, expectant immigrant mothers can go to only the handful of charitable clinics that are still operating and that do not question a woman’s immigration status when offering low-cost prenatal care.

“Prenatal care is our daily nightmare,” said Shaula Lovera, the program coordinator for the Latino Health Access Network, an outreach service operated by Catholic Charities.

The two health units providing prenatal care run by the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals saw more than 1,200 pregnant women from January to mid-November. Virtually all were Latino immigrants.

“Before the storm, only 2 percent were Hispanic; now about 96 percent are Hispanic,” said Beth Perriloux, the head nurse in the department’s health unit in Metairie.

There are so many pregnant women that the clinics have reached capacity. Dr. Erin Brewer, the department’s medical director, said, “We’ve gone from having a maternity clinic two to three days a week to five days a week.”

Many immigrant women are forgoing prenatal care and showing up, ready to deliver, in hospital emergency rooms, where they are required to be seen even if they are in the country illegally.

“When I felt the pains I just went to the women’s and children’s hospital,” said Noemi, an illegal immigrant from Oaxaca, Mexico, who arrived in New Orleans right after the storm as part of a cleaning crew from North Carolina. She left the city but then returned in October, a month after giving birth to her daughter Alejandra in Lake Charles, 200 miles west.

“If they hadn’t received me, my girl would have been born in the hall,” Noemi said. (She asked that her last name be withheld to protect her identity.)

There has been a small Latino population in New Orleans for several decades, mostly Hondurans who came after Hurricane Mitch battered Central America in 1998. But that population has started to grow.

According to the Louisiana Health and Population Survey, released in November, the number of Latinos living in households in Orleans and Jefferson Parishes has increased by about 10,000 since 2004, to 60,000, even as the total population has fallen by about a quarter, to roughly 625,000.

Last summer, researchers at Tulane University estimated that there were 5,000 to 7,000 illegal Latino workers in Orleans Parish alone, excluding nonworking relatives. But some community workers estimate that tens of thousands have arrived since the storm.

Immigrants can be seen working on roofs, installing Sheetrock and laying tile all over town, from the up-market Lakeview neighborhood in the west to East New Orleans. At the Lowe’s home improvement store in the city’s Bywater neighborhood, clusters of day laborers mill about in the parking lot every morning, waiting for jobs.

Most are not new to the United States. They come from Texas, Florida or California, seeking construction work that can pay $150 a day. But there are some newcomers, including Sara Alvarado, a 26-year-old Honduran, who arrived in the United States in August after a monthlong odyssey through Mexico with her partner, Tony, 32.

When Ms. Alvarado finally got to New Orleans, brought into the country by coyotes, or smugglers, who charged $6,000, she was more than six months pregnant. The last time she had seen a doctor was four months before.

EAST COAST

In New York’s General Election of November 2, 1937, residents of New York City’s Seventeenth Assembly District went to their neighborhood voting stations to vote for three candidates: a Republican, a Democratic and a Socialist. By the time the polling booths had closed, the three candidates had received the following votes:

Meyer Alterman, the Democratic candidate – 6,218 votes

Oscar Garcia-Rivera, the Republican candidate – 8,798 votes

Jose Castro, the Socialist candidate – 275 votes

New York’s Red Book of 1938 tells us that another 2,516 votes out of the 17,807 cast were categorized as "unrecorded." With this vote, Oscar Garcia Rivera became the first Puerto Rican to hold elective office in the continental United States. Although the Democratic Party held considerable power in the Northeast during this period of American history, the people of Spanish Harlem had cast their vote for a Republican – and for a native-born Puerto Rican – who would serve their community in the New York State Assembly for three years (up to 1940).

Born November 6, 1900 in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, Garcia Rivera attended primary and secondary schools in Mayaguez before coming to New York City in 1925. Even at an early age, Oscar had demonstrated exceptional scholarship and leadership qualities. He served as Valedictorian at the Escuela Central Grammar (Junior High School) and was later elected as Class President at the Mayaguez High School in 1925.

After moving to New York, García Rivera became active in union causes and eventually fulfilled his dream to study law at Columbia University. In 1930, he became one of the pioneer law graduates from the St. John's University School of Law, which had been established three years earlier. He was admitted to the Bar of the State of New York in 1934 and then established his own law firm.

When Garcia Rivera decided to run for office 1937, he received widespread support from many notable politicians, including Mayor LaGuardia. With his election, Garcia Rivera became the first Puerto Rican in history to be elected to public office in the continental United States. In 1938, Garcia Rivera was refused renomination by the Republic party. The Republican County Committee decided to swing its support to an African-American attorney, John Ross, because Garcia Rivera "hung around too much with Communists and members of the American Labor Party." But, Garcia Rivera was determined to his serve his community and, according to historian Angelo Falcon, he charged a "Tammany plot" and ran instead on the American Labor party line and defeated the Republican candidate.

During this short stay in the New York Assembly, Assemblyperson Garcia Rivera became a strong advocate of minimum wage laws, controlled working hours and the right of workers to organize. Even after leaving office, he continued to play a significant role in New York’s Republican Party, as a member and officer in the New York Puerto Rican Republican Association.

Oscar Garcia Rivera became a pioneer for the Puerto Rican legislators who would follow in the subsequent decades. Between 1940 and 1950, the Puerto Rican population of New York City increased from 61,463 to 254,880. And by 1960, it had reached 612,574. With their growing population came a new political clout. In 1953, Ed Flynn, boss of the Bronx County Democratic organization, selected Felipe N. Torres as candidate for the New York State Assembly. With the support of Bronx Democrats, Torres won his bid for office.

Born in Salinas, Puerto Rico, Felipe Torres had graduated from Ponce High School, Puerto Rico, and served as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army during World War I. Shortly after the war, he came to New York (in 1919). After receiving an LL.B. degree from Fordham University Law School, Señor Torres was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1927 and engaged in the general practice of law. Felipe N. Torres was first elected to as a member of the Assembly to fill a vacancy in the Bronx’s Fifth District. Reelected four time times, Assemblyman Torres served in this position until 1962.

As Señor Torres represented his constituents in the Bronx, he was joined by another Puerto Rican in the New York Legislature. In 1958, Jose Ramos Lopez, a Democrat, was elected to represent the 14th Assembly District of New York County.

Mr. Ramos Lopez was born on December 2, 1915 at Bayamon, Puerto Rico, but attended primary schools and high school in New York City. He received his LL.B. degree from St. John’s University Law School in 1939 and after practicing law for a few years became the Deputy Commissioner in the New York City Department of Correction from 1953 to 1954.

As a representative for his Manhattan district, Assemblyman Ramos Torres sponsored bills to provide collective bargaining rights, unemployment insurance and workers' compensation for hospital workers. He also sought to ease voting restrictions for Puerto Ricans by omitting a literacy test for any who had voted previously. In 1964, he easily won reelection to the 14^th district, defeating the Republican candidate by 18,380 to 1,135 votes. In 1967 he was elected as a Civil Court judge and in 1978 he was appointed an acting State Supreme Court justice, serving until his retirement in 1985 in the civil division of Supreme Court in Manhattan.

With the publication of the 1960 census, it was revealed that Puerto Ricans represented 9.2% of the population of New York City. Although Puerto Ricans represented almost one in every ten New Yorker in the Big Apple, their representation in the Assembly was only 4% (two of out 50 seats).

In the 1962 General Election, one more Puerto Rican elected official took his place in the New York Assembly. Carlos M. Rios, a Democrat-Liberal born in Ponce, Puerto Rico on March 5, 1914, was elected to represent the 10^th Assembly District of the Yorkville, East Harlem area of New York County. Although he only served until 1965, Assemblyman Rios would become one of the founders of the Puerto Rican National Civil Rights Organization and of the Legion of Voters.

Two years later, Eugene Rodriguez, a native of New York City and graduate of the Brooklyn Law School, was elected to serve the Fourth Assembly District. He had served with counter-intelligence corps of the U.S. Army during the Korean Conflict. Assemblyman Rodriguez would soon be followed to the Assembly by Robert Garcia.

Puerto Ricans have a long tradition of serving in the American military and received acclaim for their heroic contributions to the American cause during the Korean War. In 1950, Robert Garcia, a native of the South Bronx, enlisted in the U.S. Army. He served in the 15^th Regimental Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division and earned two Bronze Stars during the Korean War. After the war he attended City College of New York and New York Community College. In 1957 he trained as a computer programmer at the RCA Institute and worked as a computer engineer until 1965. In 1965, Mr. Garcia was elected to the New York Assembly and two years later he became the first Puerto Rican elected to the New York State Senate. By 1975 he had risen to the rank of Deputy Minority Leader. He would serve as a Representative to Congress from 1978 to 1990.

These six men were pioneers. Their determination and effort paved the way for many politicians, including Herman Badillo, who would become the first Puerto Rican elected as a Representative of New York to the U.S. Congress in 1971.

Baver, Sherrie. "Puerto Rican Politics in New York City: The Post-World War II Period," In James Jennings and Monte Rivera, Puerto Rican Politics in Urban America (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1984).

East Harlem News. "People, Places and Events in our Community: Oscar Garcia Rivera," January 1, 2000: Online: <http://www.east-harlem.com/mt/archives/000102.html>. [Accessed June 10, 2006].

Falcon, Angelo. "A History of Puerto Rican Politics in New York City: 1860s to 1945," In James Jennings and Monte Rivera, Puerto Rican Politics in Urban America (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1984).

Hartman, Myron D. (ed.). The New York Red Book, 1961-1962 (Albany, New York: Williams Press, Inc., 1961).

Hartman, Myron D. The New York Red Book, 1965-1966 (Albany, New York: Williams Press, Inc., 1965-66).

Hutchins, Mason C. (ed.). An Illustrated State Manuel: The New York Red Book, 1938 (Albany: J.B. Lyon Company, Publishers, 1938).

New York Times, June 30, 1938.

Sánchez Korrol, Virginia E. From Colonia to Community: The History of Puerto Ricans in New York City (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983).

 

Education-Based Latino Outreach Founder/Director Mr. Jose Ruiz passed away December 6
Sent by Javier Bustamante  javier.bustamante@ssa.gov

The Hispanic Business Association of Baltimore named Jose Ruiz as the Hispanic of the Year 2001 at their second annual awards ceremony held on May 24, at the Latin Palace in southeast Baltimore . Mr. Ruiz was Mayor O’Malley’s Hispanic Liaison a position he created in 1979. He spent the last 24 years working to improve opportunities for Hispanics in Baltimore . He was the Director of the Governor’s Commission on Hispanic affairs from 1988 till 1995. In this position he organized the first Annual Public Service Achievement Award Program for Hispanics and also organized the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Maryland.

Mr. Ruiz was the founder and former director of Education-Based Latino Outreach EBLO a non-profit educational organization that provides tutoring and cultural activities to Hispanic youth and families. It was his efforts and initiative that led to the establishment of English as a Second Language Classes for adults held in Canton Middle school . EBLO’s Mi Segunda Casa, an after school program for children and Saturday School , a weekly tutoring program are only two of the many programs that were established as a result of his leadership. EBLO’s annual fundraiser Latino Fest was organized by Mr. Ruiz in 1980 and has grown to be one of Baltimore ’s premier festivals. Mr. Ruiz organized La Plaza Hispana: a celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month for the Fells Point Fun Festival.

He was the host and producer of “Fiesta Musical” a weekly Latin music radio show that airs on Tuesday nights from 9pm till midnight on Morgan State University’s public radio station WEAA 88.9FM.

In his first year as Mayor Martin O’Malley’s Hispanic Liaison, Mr. Ruiz organized the First Bilingual Hispanic/Latino Business Summit in collaboration with the US Small Business Administration to provide the Hispanic community and business owners with access to the programs and services that are available to increase business opportunities. He supported and assisted in the initiation of the first Eating Together Program for Hispanic senior citizens in collaboration with the Commission on Aging and Retirement Education CARE. His work with Baltimore ’s minority community led him to organize the first coalition among African American, Hispanic and Korean community members in partnership with the NAACP to increase their awareness of the importance of improving race relations within Baltimore ’s ethnic communities.

He was a tremendous support to the entire Hispanic business community worked tirelessly to help Hispanics achieve the American Dream.

Rest in Peace
Javier Bustamante, Chairman
Baltimore Hispanic Round Table

Angelo Falcón
President and Founder, National Institute for Latino Policy  www.latinopolicy.org

Formerly the Institute for Puerto Rican Policy

MEXICO

Durango Antiguo 

Familia Villarreal Verra
vanacleto@hotmail.com

Espadaña Press is pleased to announce the publication of our new guidebook to colonial Oaxaca: Exploring Colonial Oaxaca

Our mission at Espadaña Press is to increase public awareness of the rich artistic and architectural heritage of Spanish colonial Mexico, through our illustrated guidebooks and regular features and updates on this web site.

Each month we post a new page, usually featuring the colonial monuments of Mexico with interesting stories or news items. In our constantly updated Art in Peril feature, we focus on those colonial monuments or artworks at risk from neglect, vandalism or theft.

Our new book describes the choicest of Oaxaca's colonial artistic and architectural treasures, in our traditional, compact 6" x 9" format, ideal for the traveler. Best of all, in addition to the numerous maps, plans and detailed line drawings, our Oaxaca guide includes for the first time a generous 40 pages of select color images by Mexican photographer Felipe Falcon, that do ample justice to some of the finest religious art in the region.

Listed at $25.00, we are offering our new book at a 20% discount when ordered direct from us via mail or through our web site. We hope that you will add our Oaxaca guide to the other Espadaña Press books on your bookshelf.

Remember too, when you order all six of our unique guidebooks to colonial Mexico, including our new guide to Oaxaca, at the discounted price of $100.00, we will ship them at our expense* to any address in the US. (* via USPS Media Mail)

rperry@west.net. or call (805) 682-3664.
http://www.colonial-mexico.com
Espadaña Press
PO Box 31067
Santa Barbara, CA 93130

FECHAS HISTORICAS DE TORREÓN
Fundacion y Desarrollo, 
La Aduana de Torreón, Coahuila 
1948-2007
by 
Jose Leon Robles de la Torre

1957- 50 ANOS, BODAS DE ORO de la Ciudad de Torreon, 1907-1957

1932.- 25 ANOS/ BODAS DE PLATA de la Ciudad de Torreon/1907-1957

1907- La Villa de Torreon/ elevada al Rango de Ciudad. 

1893.- Torreon elevado a Rango de Villa.

1850.- El Primer "Torreon" construido por D. Leonardo Zuloaga. 

1848.- Abril 24, se firma la Escritura de la Hacienda de San Lorenzo de la Laguna (que comprendia Torreon)/ otorgada por Don Jacobo Sanchez Navarro/ por si/ y apoderado de su hermano Lie. Carlos Sanchez Navarro/ por venta que Ie hicieron a D. Leonardo Zuloaga y D. Juan Ignacio Jimenez. La firma fue en Saltillo/ Coah. 

1948/ Marzo 16/ Se Fundo la Aduana Interior de Torreon/ coah./ que es un FRAGMENTO de la Historia de Torreon/ en su "CENTENARIO" como Ciudad, 1907-2007