SEPTEMBER 2014

Editor: Mimi Lozano ©2000-2014
Table of Contents

 

 

THE LATINO JOURNEY CONTINUES 
BY IGNACIO GOMEZ

"I originally was commissioned to design a national ad celebrating the quincentennial and the importance of the latinos. 
My thinking behind the art was to show the emerging strength of the Latino presence in the United States, via education.  
I developed, 'The Latino Journey Continues' using my family and me, along with national Latino Heroes and other role models.  
Viva Education!"  Ignacio Gomez 

For information to purchase print copies, please contact: Imelda Gomez: imeldagomez@me.com 

 

United States
Heritage Projects
Historic Tidbits 

Hispanic Leaders
Latino Patriots
Early Latino Patriots

Surnames
DNA 
Family History

Education
Culture
Books and Print Media

Orange County, CA
Los Angeles County, CA
California 
Northwestern US
Southwestern US
Texas

Middle America
East Coast
African-American
Indigenous
Sephardic
Archaeology

Mexico
Caribbean & Cuba
Central & South America
Philippines
Spain
International

 

Somos Primos Staff   
Mimi Lozano, Editor
Mercy Bautista Olvera
Roberto Calderon, Ph,D.
Bill Carmena
Lila Guzman, Ph.D
John Inclan
Galal Kernahan
Juan Marinez
J.V. Martinez, Ph.D
Dorinda Moreno
Rafael Ojeda
Ángel Custodio Rebollo
Tony Santiago
John P. Schmal
 

Submitters to September 2014 

Rodolfo F. Acuña 
Ray John de Aragón
Dr. L. Eve Armentrout Ma, Esq.
Dan Arellano
Salomon R Baldenegro
Francisco Barragan
Tanya Bowers
Shlomo Buzaglo 
Eddie AAA Calderón, Ph.D. 
Terry Cannon
Melody Capote
Rosie Carbo
Bill Carmena
Roy Cavazos
Bill & Bonnie Chapa
Robin Collins
Tricia Cortez
Michael H. Cottman
José Antonio Crespo-Francés
Joan De Soto
Winston De Ville
Cherilyn Eagar
Stephen V. Estopiñál
Refugio Fernandez
Frank Feuille
Marylouise Fraijo Ambriz
Guillermo Fresser  
Eddie U. Garcia
Henry A. García, jr.
Dr. Lino García, Jr.  
Daisy Wanda Garcia
Jimmie E. Gates
Ignacio Gomez
Imelda Gomez
Francisco J. Gonzalez
Yvonne Gonzalez Duncan 
Eddie Grijalva 
Richard Griswold Del Castillo
Odell Harwell  
Walter Herbeck  

José Angel Hernández
Jorge Iber, PhD
Bernadette Inclan
John Inclan
Soeren Kern
Galal Kernahan
Rick Leal 
José Antonio López
Jerry Javier Lujan 
Jan Mallet 
Juan Marinez
Henry Marquez Loza
Charles Martell
Laura Matthew,Ph.D.
Frank Medina
Joseph Mendez-Parr
Carol Mondello Tapia y Settle
Abel E. Morales   
Luis Antonio Morales
Alex Moreno
Dorinda Moreno
Enrique G. Murillo, Jr., Ph.D.
John Liston Nau, III
Jim Nikas
Maria Angeles O'donnell Olson
Dr. Cynthia E. Orozco
Ricardo Palmerín Cordero
Jose M. Pena 

 

J. Gilberto Quezada
Oscar Ramirez
Ángel Custodio Rebollo
Armando Rendón
Stephen R. Renouf
Erasmo Riojas  
Refugio Rochin, Ph.D.
Letty Rodella 
Norman Rozell
Steve Rubin
Lorena Ruiz de Frain
Bill Rumble
Margarita Sandoval Skare
Tony Santiago
Richard Santillan
John P. Schmal
Louis F. Serna
Herman Sillas
Monica Smith
Corinne Staacke   
Dr. Frank Talamantes, Ph.D.
Nadia Tamez-Robledo
Viola Teeter
Lenny Trujillo
Val Valdez Gibbons
Yomar Villarreal Cleary
Davis Walker
Kirk Whisler
Tony Zapata

Letters to the Editor

America - New Song!  fantastic song and video ------ makes you proud to be an American!!   http://www.youtube.com/v/6TPgJSZf5Vw?version=3&autohide=1&autoplay=1  
------Pass this one on and on!!! Sent by Eddie Grijalva 

This is to all of those from the 40s and 50s. I can't believe we survived it . .  http://vimeo.com/52231459  Sent by Val Valdez  Gibbons 

P.O. 415
Midway City, CA 
92655-0490
mimilozano@aol.com
www.SomosPrimos.com 
714-894-8161

 

 

Quotes to Consider 

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibility, while bad people will find away around the laws."
~ Plato

"There is no nonsense to errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action."
~Bertand Russell

"There is a lure to power.  It can get into a man's blood just as gambling and lust for money have been know to do."
~Harry S. Truman

"The work of the individual still remains the spark that moves mankind forward." 
~Igor Sikorsky (1889-1972)  aircraft pioneer  


 

 

 

UNITED STATES

September 11, 2001 Jihadist Attack Remembered: Sept 10-12 conference, Washington, D.C.  
9/11 Memorial Museum in New York, opened May 2014
Navy Bibles will stay! A victory for religious liberty! 
Discover Our Shared Heritage: El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, National Historic Trail
The Rise of Latina & Latino Studies in the United States  
NALIP's Top Latino Writers
The Chicana/o Legacy Gaining traction but still No. 9 by Rodolfo F. Acuña
What we Owe our Tejano Ancestors by José Antonio “Joe” López  
Past deeds pave our way to the future by José Antonio López
Braceros and farm workers from Mexico by Dr. L. Eve Armentrout Ma, Esq.
Preserving Places that Matter in American Latino History, National Trust for Historic Preservation
Percentage of Hispanics associated with the Best Medical Schools in the US    
Concerned daughter writes to White House about her mother and other struggling homeowners  

 

September 11, 2001 Jihadist attack Remembered http://tool.donation-net.net/Act4America/Conference2014Info.cfm?dn=1097&commID=175187916&ID=247186

ACT! For America’s 
2014 National Conference in Washington, 
DC September 10-12.

This year two of the speakers at this important national security event are among America’s foremost experts on Jihadist terrorism. 

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Erick Stakelbeck of CBN News is a correspondent, host and terrorism analyst for CBN News, where he covers the global war on terror, U.S. national security, the Middle East and the growth of radical Islam at home and abroad. Stakelbeck’s first book, The Terrorist Next Door: How the Government is Deceiving You About the Islamist Threat was released in 2011 by Regnery Publishing to major acclaim. His second book was released by Regnery in July 2013 and is titled The Brotherhood: America’s Next Great Enemy. It warns about the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and the global Islamist movement. From 2003 to 2005, Stakelbeck worked as a senior writer and analyst at the Investigative Project on Terrorism. His articles on Islamic extremism, global terrorism and national security have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Weekly Standard, Washington Times, New York Post, Jerusalem Post, and National Review Online.


As our nation pauses to remember the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, ACT! For America will be highlighting the importance of national security issues, providing valuable information on how YOU can impact the security of our country and the preservation of our liberty.

Conference Information: https://www.regonline.com/Register/Checkin.aspx?EventID=1440288 

John Guandolo is the Founder of Understanding the Threat, an organization dedicated to providing strategic and operational threat-focused consultation, education, and training for federal, state and local leadership and agencies. Mr. Guandolo is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and served as an Infantry and Reconnaissance officer in the United States Marine Corps. After his service in the Marines, Mr. Guandolo joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), serving at the Washington Field Office. Shortly after 9/11, Mr. Guandolo began an assignment to the Counterterrorism Division of the FBI’s Washington Field Office developing an expertise in the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Doctrine, the global Islamic Movement, and a myriad of terrorist organizations to include Hamas, Al Qaeda, and others. In 2006, Mr. Guandolo created and implemented the FBI’s first Counterterrorism Training/Education Program focusing on the Muslim Brotherhood and their subversive movement in the United States, Islamic Doctrine, and the global Islamic Movement. He was designated a “Subject Matter Expert” by FBI Headquarters. This course was hailed as “groundbreaking” by the FBI’s Executive Assistant Director in a brief to the Vice President’s National Security Staff. After his FBI career, Mr. Guandolo worked for the Department of Defense conducting Strategic Analysis on the Global Islamic Movement.  

 

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9/11 Memorial Museum in New York, opened May 2014 where the Twin Towers once stood. The museum itself offers a multilevel experience: part history of the World trade Center and why it became a target; part remembrance of the nearly 3,000 people who lost their lives that day; part tribute to the resilience of New York; in all 
an impactful recapturing of the sights and sounds of that terrible day.

In the quiet inner space of the "In Memoriam" exhibit are images of those who died, accompanied by stories from family and friends.  In the central historical exhibition, audio and video clips re-create the timeline of events.  artifacts, both large and small, include a ruined ambulance, bits of charred paper, outdated mobile phones, ID cards, shoes, and a shop's rack of dust-covered clothes.  at the years pass and our individual memories fade, these items and the exhibits they represent will continue to bear witness.

180 Greenwich Street, New York, 212-266-5211  
http://www911memorial.org 

Source: Westways, September 2014, pg. 28


Student suspended for saying 'Bless You' in class  

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Wednesday, August 20, 2014

When a fellow student sitting next to her sneezed last Monday, high school senior Kendra Turner responded with a gentle “bless you.”

For this common courtesy, Kendra was corrected in front of her class by the Dyer County High School typing teacher. The teacher told Kendra, “We will not have Godly speaking in my class!”

At the first of the school year, the teacher specifically prohibited the words “bless you,” along with other words such as “stupid,” “dumb” and “boring” in her class.


When Kendra tried to explain that this automatic response is simply part of her Christian upbringing, the teacher sent her to the office where she was served with an in-school suspension.

 

http://www.wbbjtv.com/news/local/Parents-Student-suspended-for-saying-bless-you-to-fellow-student-who-sneezed-271925581.html 

 

Navy Bibles will stay! A victory for religious liberty!
Friday, August 15, 2014

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Dear Mimi, Your American Family Association alerted you last week to an anti-Christian decision the Navy made to remove every Gideon Bible from all 34 Navy Lodges and all 24,000 Navy Gateway Inns & Suites guest rooms.

That decision was made in response to just one letter from the atheistic Freedom From Religion Foundation. We urged you to contact the admiral in charge of all Navy lodging, and you did!

Today, AFA has received word that the Navy has reversed its wrong-headed and unconstitutional decision, and the Bibles will be allowed to stay!

Said Tim Wildmon, president of AFA: "This is great news! I know thousands of AFA supporters voiced strong objection to the purging of Bibles by the Navy from their lodges. This reversal proves that those who believe in religious freedom can make a difference, when we take action."  

Are you registered to vote?

For 30 years Focus on the Family has been nurturing and defending families worldwide. Visit FocusOnTheFamily.com   for articles and resources to help you and your family thrive.  

On Tuesday, Nov. 4 (and before with early voting), voters will decide the direction of the country for the next two years.  Will you be one of those voters? How about your family and friends? Are they registered to vote? 

Here's one simple—and effortless—way to find out: Visit Focus on the Family's Commit2Vote2014.com  

In a matter of moments, you can confirm your voter registration status. And, if you're not yet registered, you can get the registration process started! All by using the user-friendly "Resources" widgets.

In the words of President John F. Kennedy reflecting on Dante's Inferno: 
"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those that maintain neutrality in times of moral crisis."

Sent by Cherilyn Eagar  cherilyn@americanleadershipfund.com

 

Discover Our Shared Heritage: El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro 
National Historic Trail

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Dear Friends and Colleagues:

The National Park Service is pleased to announce its new on-line El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary. The itinerary is available on the National Park Service website at
http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/El_Camino_Real_de_Tierra_Adentro/. The El Camino Real itinerary is the 58th in the online Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary Series, which supports historic preservation, promotes public awareness of history, and encourages visits to historic places throughout the country. The National Park Service’s Heritage Education Services and its National Trails Intermountain Region produced this travel itinerary in partnership with the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers.

Thank you to all who contributed to the preparation of the itinerary.

Best wishes, Carol D. Shull
Interim Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places
Chief, Heritage Education Services
National Park Service
1201 Eye Street NW 
Washington, DC 20005
202-354-2234
FAX: 202-371-1616

Sent by Tanya Bowers 
TBowers@savingplaces.org  

 

The Rise of Latina & Latino Studies in the United States  

Dr. Cynthia E. Orozco, chair, History, Humanities, and Social Sciences, Eastern New Mexico University, Ruidoso; Co-founder, Chicana Caucus, National Association for Chicano Studies in 1983, and author, No Mexicans, Women or Dogs Allowed, The Rise of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement  

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The children of Central America crossing the US Mexico border are in the news. Another equally important development not noticed by the media was the Chicago inaugural meeting creating the first national Latina and Latino Studies Association. Mexican American studies courses have existed since the late 1960s. The National Association for Chicano Studies has existed since 1972. The Puerto Rican Studies Association was founded in 1993. Cuban scholars  also organized in the Cuban and Cuban-American Studies group in 2004. And there has even been a national Hispanic and Latino group connected to an ethnic studies organization..

     The Latina/Latino Studies Association took root in downtown Chicago. It is “the first organization dedicated to the comparative and interdisciplinary study of Latinas/os.” Latinos, like Arturo Schomburg, an Afro-Latino, wrote about Latinos in the 1920s. LULAC first called for the study of, curriculum about, and centers about Latin America and Mexican Americans in the United States in 1940. A few early Latino scholars existed in Texas such as Dr. Carlos Castaneda, a naturalized Mexican, and Tejana Jovita Gonzalez. Mexican Manuel Gamio studied Mexicans in the United States. In New Mexico there was Dr. George I. Sanchez and Dr. Ruben Cobos. Ernesto Galarza, a Californian, also wrote.  

After World War II more Latinos had access to the G.I. Bill and then the Great Society programs allowed for the first significant wave of Latino students. The first Chicano Studies program developed in 1969 and others followed in the Southwest and Midwest.  The1970s saw another wave of Mexican immigrants. Puerto Rican Frank Bonilla founded the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College in New York in 1973 and Julian Samora created Latino Studies at Notre Dame.  In 1971 Chicano-Boricua (Puerto Rican) Studies was founded at Wayne State University in Detroit, another early Latino program. In 1981 the Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social, a Latina academic organization, was formed. According to Ramona Hernandez by 1990 there were at least thirty research centers studying Latinos.

   In 1986 the Inter-University Program for Latino Research was created, perhaps the first national Latino Studies institutional network. Florida International University in Miami created the Cuban Research Institute in 1999. The Dominican Studies Institute at City College in New York appeared too. Feminists introduced gender in the 80s and the LBGT community ensured  that by the 1990s sexuality was integrated in these studies.    

 

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  Major reference books on Latina/os have been available for years. These include the Latinas in the US: A Historical Encyclopedia and the Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas.  The Journal of Latino Studies was created in 1993 and the Journal of Latino/ Latin American Studies in 2004. 

 The 1980s saw the first wave of “new immigrants.” El Salvadoreans, Hondurans, and Guatemalans, many fleeing native civil wars and typically impacted by US foreign policies. The children of these immigrants have slowly made it to the professoriate. Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, Salvador, Columbian, Guatemala, Mexican, and Spanish scholars  were present in Chicago.  In more recent times, the newest immigrants (now often called migrants) have felt an uncomfortable fit with the name “Latino,” feeling the need to refer to “pan-Latino.” “Latino,” they argue, was imagined or enacted with Mexicans, Cubans, and Puerto Ricans in mind; today newer migrants feel excluded by “Latino” or feel it is just too Mexican. Moreover, by the mid-1990s the synthesis between the Latino and Latin American experience was considered more readily. Thus, though the conference called itself “international,” there was an attempt to think transnationally rather than get Latin Americans to this distant land for a conference.   

Many conference sessions made reference to “Latinidad,”-- what it means to me Latino in the US and Latin America. And nowadays this is not a one-way process—more often than not it is transnational with Latinos moving back and forth to their various homelands. This is the Latino diaspora. Several sessions focused on the regions of the American Southeast, “El Sur” (The South), West Coast, and even America del Norte (US). Recall that the United States is not America—all of Latin America and Canada are part of America.

    The conference included presentations, roundtables, and film. The session on the blog called “La Bloga” noted that ten years ago seven writers dedicated assigned days to write about Latino literature; now they have 1,000,000 readers. Some of these bloggers have written seven or eight books themselves. They conduct interviews such as with Richard Blanco, Obama’s inaugural poet. They even review children’s books.

    Films shown there included Cesar’s Last Fast; Wildness; Mala Mala; and a review of  US-Mexico Borderlands filmmaker Paul Espinosa’s works. Recent films about Salvadorean Americans include Words of Revolution, Gay Latino Los Angeles, and Children of the Disapora as discussed by scholar Ester Trujillo.  

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  Presentations addressed diverse topics such as Latino Chicago, sexualities, Afro-Latinos, and archives. Latino Chicago focused on Latina/o Chicago: 1960-1980s; Columbian Migration to Chicago; and the emergence of a Latino arts movement in Chicago.  Maya Chinchilla, a Guatemalan American lesbian poet, discussed the politics of being a “Central American American” and read from her recent book “The Cha Cha Files: a Chapina Poetica.” A panel on sexuality was titled “This Bridge Called  My Lack,” a reference to the book “This Bridge Called My Back.” Afro-Latinos with origins toHaiti and other Caribbean nations discussed musicians like Arsenio Rodriguez and Negrophobia.

     The panel “New Approaches to the History of Cuban America” included talks about Grupo Abdala, a progressive student organization of nationalists and anti-imperialists. Sitela Alvarez addressed Padre Felix Varela’s relevance in New York and how a US stamp was named after him. Julio Capo talked about “sexiles,” queer Marielitos in the making of Cuban Miami. Heavy-weight scholar Maria de los Angeles Torres commented. In another session Jeanine Navarette discussed the 1970-73 era when politicians began greeting the new Cuban American voter. More often than not elected officials addressed foreign policy, support of Cuban American businesses, bilingual services, and naturalization.  

Perhaps one of the most impressive sessions was “Central Americans in the US: Notions of Belonging and Non-Belonging” organized by Yajaira M. Padilla of the University of Arkansas. Perhaps it was one of the first times that “Central American American” women scholars of Guatemalan, Honduran, and Salvadorean descent discussed their field of study and the “perpetual non-belonging” to Latinos.

     Significant attention was given to the formation of a permanent national/international Latina/o Studies Association. A committee had already spent long months studying various organizational models.  Latina/o Studies is no longer Chicano-centric. Women and genders are integral; sexualities are discussed. Conference chairs Frances Aparicio and Loudes Torres made sure of this.

     Old school and new schools presenters came from Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, New York, Texas, New Mexico, California, Colorado, Utah, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Florida, Massachusetts, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, Kansas, Connecticut, Tennessee, Missouri, Vermont, East Carolina University, Nebraska, Iowa, Oregon, Louisiana, Kentucky, New Jersey, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Washington, and Washington D.C.  Wyoming has Latino 

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  Studies but was not present. What happened to the Dakotas, Montana, Alaska and Hawaii? Baja California, Cuernavaca, and at least one Spaniard were there too.     

Women were present in large numbers, quite different than the first National Association for Chicano Studies conference I attended in 1979 in Colorado Springs.  Women found it necessary to form a caucus in 1983 and the first major conference addressing gender was in 1984, thirty years ago.  

 The new Latina/o World Order is here. When Long Beach, California can elect a gay Latino immigrant and Bell, California can elect a past child migrant mayor AND when Brazoria, Texas can refuse to admit Central American migrant children, the new Latina/o World Order is here. Scholar Maria de los Los Angeles Torres was right—the United States did not realize Cuban Americans were here to stay; in the post 9/11 world and anti-Latino immigration era, they too are no longer welcome. Regardless, academia will have to continue to adjust. Latinas and Latinas, ever more hybrid, diverse, and multi-dimensional, are here to stay.  More and more Latina/Latino studies are being demanded and allowed.

 


NALIP's Top Latino Writers
Posted by Nalip on August 14, 2014
http://www.nalip.org/nalips_top_latino_writers_2014?utm_campaign=writers_list_1&utm_medium=email&utm_source=nalip

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We swept the industry for NALIP’s  “Latino Writers” Series, because we believe there is nothing as inspiring as seeing other Latinos making it in the industry. Each installment of this this series will announce different tiers of writers you should definitely know, whether they have penned big blockbusters or are someone on the rise that studios should keep in mind during their staffing season.     

This week’s installment we give you the Top Latino Writers, tha range from Transformers Roberto Orci to Peter Murrieta of the Disney Channel’s "Wizards of Waverly Place". Discover the Latino scribes every Latino media maker should know.

 

 Alfredo Barrios, Jr. served as one of the executive producers of the hit USA Network show, "Burn Notice." Born and raised in Los Angeles, Alfredo is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. After a five-year stint as a litigator at the Los Angeles office of O'Melveny & Myers, he ventured into screenwriting and was staffed on various television shows, including "First Monday," "Mister Sterling," "Lyon's Den," "Law & Order," "Just Legal," "Close to Home," and "Justice." He has pilots in development at both FX and Fox Television Studios. A prolific writer and producer, Alfredo has now begun to direct as well. He's also found time to serve as a board member of the Writers Guild of America, West. He currently lives in Manhattan Beach with his wife, Lisa, and two boys, Little Alfredo and Diego.Rep: CAA; The Shuman Company 

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Born and raised in Los Angeles, Natalie Chaidez launched her career after graduating from UCLA film school. Best known for TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES, HEROES, and NECESSARY ROUGHNESS, Natalie has enjoyed a prolific career steeped in drama. TV drama. She’s currently developing “Alien Hunter,” a pilot for Gale Ann Hurd/Syfy, and is serving as showrunner for the new Syfy series, 12 MONKEYS. In her spare time she takes to the track as a member of California’s premiere roller derby league, L.A. Derby Dolls.   Rep: UTA

Manny Coto graduated from the American Film Institute and has had much experience in sci-fi and fantasy genre. He wrote and directed an episode of Tales from the Crypt and also wrote an episode for and produced The Outer Limits when it was revived on Showtime in 1995. He was given the chance to create and write a series for Showtime after The Outer Limits was cancelled. The resulting series was Odyssey 5 and starred Peter Weller.

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Coto joined the writing crew of Enterprise in 2003, when the show was in its third season; his episodes include "Similitude", "Chosen Realm" and "Azati Prime". He became a co-executive producer later that season. In the fourth season he became executive producer of the show, alongside series creators Rick Berman and Brannon Braga. According to his bio on StarTrek.com, he has been a fan of Star Trek all his life and once wrote a Star Trek comic book.  

 

After that he became executive producer on the fifth, sixth, seventh, and the eighth and final season of 24. In 2010 Coto joined the crew of Showtime drama series Dexter as a writer and executive producer for the fifth season. He continued to work as a writer and executive producer for the show's sixth and seventh seasons, airing 2011 and 2012.  Coto has also directed a number of films, including Cover Up (starring Dolph Lundgren), Dr. Giggles, and Star Kid. Rep: Jackoway Tyerman Witheimer Austen Mandelbaum Morris&Klein; UTA 

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After graduating with a degree in History from Duke University in 1984, Rene Echevarria moved to New York City to pursue a career in theater. He joined the Circle Repertory Lab Company in 1985, where he assistant directed a production of Victor Muniz' play "Darts", and acted in a production of Gorky's "Lower Depths". In 1986, he acted in Kristin McCloy's play "Isosceles" at the Chelsea Theater, and in 1987, he was seen in the La Mama Theater adaptation of Aeschuylus' "Oresteia". He collaborated with Kristin McCloy on the full-length play "Prepared", which was presented at the World's End Theater in London during 1988, and went on to be performed at that year's Edinburgh Festival. In 1989, he wrote a spec script for 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' called "The Offspring". He became a Story Editor for the show's sixth season, and 
Executive Story Editor during its seventh and final season, for 

which the show received an Emmy Nomination for Best Dramatic Series. Echevarria then took the job of Co-Supervising Producer on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993). His 30-plus episodes of Star Trek have won him a Humanitas nomination, a Peabody nomination, two Hugo nominations, and a NASA Vision award for best depiction of humanity's future in space. In 1994, he received a Special Achievement award from the Latino Media Organization HAMAS. With fellow Star Trek Producer 'Ken Biller', he developed the scenario for _Star Trek: The Experience (1998)_, a theme park attraction built by Paramount Parks at the Las Vegas Hilton. In 1999-2000, Echevarria was supervising producing on Paramount's short-lived but critically praised Now and Again (1999) on CBS. In July 2000, he signed on as co-executive producer of Dark Angel (2000) the science fiction series created by James Cameron for the Fox network, as part of an overall multiyear deal with 20th Century Fox Television to develop new projects for the studio.
Rep: William Morris Endevor Entertainment; Jackoway Tyerman Wertheimer Austen Mandelbaum Morris & Klein

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Two-time Emmy Award winning producer/writer Peter Murrieta 
is a versatile performer, producer and writer. His roots, grounded in improv and sketch comedy, have established him as an executive producer and show runner for the live-action series for Cartoon Network “Level Up,” and for Disney Channel’s “Wizards of Waverly Place.” He was also the creator/show runner of the WB's "Greetings from Tucson." Murrieta’s primetime television background made the Disney Channel franchise "Wizards of Waverly Place" and the network's telefilm "Wizards of Waverly Place The Movie" a huge hit. Nominated for a total of three Emmy Awards for both “Wizards of Waverly Place” the series and the telefilm, Murrieta took home the award for Outstanding Children’s Programming for his work on “Wizards of Waverly The Movie” in 2010 and for the series in 2009. 

Murrieta got his start at Second City in Chicago as an improv/sketch comedian, and after moving to Los Angeles earned a coveted writing fellowship from Walt Disney Television. That led to writing stints for "Jesse," "Three Sisters" and "All About the Andersons" before creating the critically acclaimed "Greetings from Tucson" which was based on his own experiences growing up in Tucson. He then went on to produce and write "Hope and Faith" for ABC. A successful entrepreneur, in 1995, Murrieta and his wife Aliza founded the Bang Comedy Theatre which prides itself on being a purveyor of innovative comedy and a studio dedicated to the ongoing study and performance of improvisation. Through intimate, hands-on improv and an acting training staff, Bang offers the tools needed to create dynamic scenes and characters in the moment. Their actors are delightfully truthful, charmingly grounded and riveting dangerous. Murrieta has written feature films for Revolution Studios and Paramount and currently resides in Los Angeles with his wife, two children.   Rep: Odenkirk/Provissiero Talent Management; UTA

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Roberto Orci is the billion dollar filmmaker behind some of the decade’s biggest films and television shows. While his films span genre and scope, Orci has become an expert in the field of science fiction with such films as Star Trek, Ender’s Game, Transformers, and Eagle Eye. Last year Orci’s production banner with Alex Kurtzman, K/O Paper Products signed an overall deal at CBS Television Studios. CBS recently picked up Scorpion, the drama inspired by Walter O’Brien, from Orci and Kurtzman with Nick Santora and Justin Lin with plans to launch Fall 2014. Also on CBS, Hawaii Five-0, which Orci created and executive produces alongside Kurtzman, will return for a fifth season this fall. Kurtzman and Orci were also the co-creators of the cult hit "fringe" as well as last years breakout hit sleepy Hollow. 

Orci is currently preparing for the premiere of Matador starring Gabriel Luna and Alfred Molina. The spy drama, the second scripted series for Robert Rodriguez’s El Rey network, will premiere this July. Most recently, Orci co-wrote and executive produced Sony’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which was released this May, and has earned over $630 million at the worldwide box office so far. Last year, Paramount released the blockbuster Star Trek: Into Darkness, which Orci co-wrote and produced alongside Kurtzman. Additionally, Summit released Ender’s Game produced through K/O Paper Products as well as the surprise summer hit Now You See Me, also produced through K/O Paper Products. Orci is currently developing the sequel to Now You See Me as well as Universal’s The Mummy. Orci began his career in television, writing for the popular series Hercules. He went on to write for Xena: Warrior Princess where he became a head writer for the show at age 23. Orci also wrote on the hit J.J. Abrams series Alias, which began a fruitful collaborative relationship. Orci eventually went on to serve as an executive producer on Alias.  Rep: CAA

 

The Chicana/o Legacy Gaining traction but still No. 9 
By Rodolfo F. Acuña 

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Students and community activists don't appreciate how far we have come since the 1960s as a result of activism. They take for granted that Latinos are getting national attention, taking for granted simple things like being able to go to a swimming pool, attend college or walk into a department store. They rationalize that the attention is because of their hard work, the Democratic Party or that people are getting less racist.

They often fail to understand the significance of numbers erroneously attributing the growth of the Latino population to immigration. While immigration has paid a role it is not the dominant factor; most growth has been internal. During the 1960s, Mexican American women had a high fertility rate that drove the increase of a national Latino population. 

Many believe we are beyond racism and that Americans love Mexican Americans and Latinos who are getting better looking as a consequence of less starch in their diet. Some cite the Deferred Action (DACA) as evidence of this change and cite that because of this shift the Dreamers are now eligible for temporary work permits, Social Security numbers and 
protection from deportation. They ignore that DACA excludes millions of Mexican and Latino youth and their parents. What is more tragic is that the forgotten will never qualify because they lied about their immigration status at a young age. 

The truth be told, the Dreamers are the cream of our society, they are the kids that every rational person would want as a daughter or son. They survived all odds, made it to college, and are enduring despite society. For Americans to kick them out at this stage would be more than stupid. Given their scholastic achievement it would be like throwing $100,000 a deportee out the window -- a half million of them. 

The traction Mexicans and Latinos are receiving is no accident. When the topic of why Mexicans and Latinos are in vogue, I think of a response by the late Ernesto Galarza to the question of why our Democratic Party friends always failed to pass legislation that benefitted Mexican Americans and farm workers is appropriate. 

Galarza replied that it was not a matter of liking Mexican Americans rather one of priorities. In a normal session of Congress or the state legislature lawmakers passed about a half dozen major laws. Every party has an agenda listing ten or more priorities.Farmworkers have always been on the Democrat's list of priorities, but they were usually number 
10 on the list. They liked us, according to Galarza, but never got down to number 10. Indeed, they traded Mexican American issues for others. They condoned gerrymandering, for instance, because it kept them in office. During the 1960s California had a critical number of Spanish-speaking people, but that was not enough to stop Democrats from prioritizing their favorite bills. 

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Just twenty years ago the Democratic Party sold us out on Leticia A, a California case that was filed in the 1980s to deny undocumented youth equal access to higher education. Before Leticia A immigration status was not an issue. Twenty years ago Proposition 187 was also passed by two-thirds of California voters. 

What has changed? Our numbers and more voters. They could gerrymander us in the 60s, 70s and 80s but the courts and militancy changed this. During the 90s because of a change in term limits, the California Chicana/o representation in the legislature was large enough to punish the Democrats. As a consequence, we moved from 10 to ninth or eighth on the agenda depending on whether it was an election year. 
Contrary to popular belief not all Mexican Americans are immigrants. Some go back five and six generations, and are veterans and vote regularly. 

During the 1960s, Chicana/o and Puerto Rican militancy had widened  access to higher education and grew a middle class -- something that  benefitted succeeding generations of Latinos. Today the Mexican base is  at least 35 million -- ten times as large as in 1970. 

Numbers gave us the only power poor people have which is the power to disrupt. Undoubtedly the Dreamers' militancy had a huge impact on the immigration question. But their real power was their story within the Mexican/Latino community. What moved Obama was the large bloc of Mexican 
American voters. It gave the Dreamers a wedge -- they could have seriously set back the Democratic Party agenda. But the truth be told, it was not enough to stop Obama from deporting more undocumented families than any president in recent history. 

After all these years, Mexican Americans and Latinos are still not a  priority. A barometer to measure their traction is foreign aid from the  U.S. In 2012 the top recipients of U.S. foreign aid were: 

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*Top 25 Recipients of U.S. Aid* *In Millions $* 
Afghanistan 12,885.50 
Israel 3,100.10 
Iraq 1,940.10 
Egypt 1,404.00 
Pakistan 1,214.90 
Jordan 1,135.30 
Ethiopia 870.10 
Kenya 749.20 
Colombia 644.30 
Haiti 510.40 
West Bank/Gaza457.40 
South Sudan 444.30 

Russia 440.90 
Somalia 419.60 
Tanzania 402.00 
Congo (Kinshasa) 388.40 
Uganda 352.40 
Nigeria 335.90 
Sudan 298.10 
South Africa 274.70 
Mozambique 274.00 
Ukraine 273.30 
Yemen 258.50 
Bangladesh 256.80 
Liberia 247.10 

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Note the large number of African countries receiving aid; it is not based on humanitarian grounds, but to protect the interests of American corporations that in turn do not pay taxes. Note that Russia receives a hefty sum of aid -- why? It has oil just like the African nations. Not one nation in Middle America aside, from Haiti is in the top 25. [Editor: Ethnic groups in  Haiti, black 90%; mulatto 9%; white 1%. Only Columbia is listed for South America.]

This situation will never change based on numbers alone; they will not reprioritize the Democratic Party agenda. The American War on Drugs will continue as well as the American stereotype of Mexico being a big Tijuana. 

How people look at us is in great part based on the image Americans have of Mexico. How can anyone respect a country whose leaders sell its patrimony and themselves? There is no reason for the U.S. to give foreign aid to Mexico when its leaders are privatizing its oil (and every other natural resource) and the North American Free Trade 
Agreement is making Mexican a U.S. swap meet. American corporations are accomplishing what 1848 did not. 

The Chicana/o Legacy is clear. Its youth movement widened access to higher education for all Latinos./Cisneros v. Corpus

Christi Independent School District/ (1970) was the first case extending the U.S. Supreme Court's /Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka/ to Mexican Americans and other Latinos. 

Yet this was still not enough to shift the priorities of the Democratic Party.As Galarza pointed out, it is not that Democrats hate us; it is that we are still Number 10 --- perhaps 9. We don't have the power to shift the paradigm. 

Being large is not the same as being respected. Changing the name from Chicana/o to Latino does not move the needle. If we had power we would bring down the U.S border wall that has killed thousands more than the Berlin Wall. 

Numbers don't mean a thing -- statistics are fodder for elites to 
control us. Recently I had a conversation with a prominent Hispanic who proudly told me that they counted Spaniards and Italians as Latinos because it padded the numbers. However, he could not answer how this made us number 1. Look at the above chart of the top 25 recipients of American foreign aid and see where we as Middle Americans stand. 

Editor:  If you also want to look at where we stand, research the distribution of student VISA holders . . . by country.

 

What we Owe our Tejano Ancestors  

by José Antonio “Joe” López  

To All:  I was motivated to write the article below after attending a workshop Jun 28th in Austin at the Texas General Land Office.  The gathering (to develop materials for a Tejano History piece in the Texas Handbook of History Online) was organized by Drs. Tijerina, Zamora, and other top-notch historians.    

Sadly, we’re on a bumpy path in sharing pre-1836 Texas history with others.  The on-going immigration debate is yet another obstacle in reaching our goal.  Very candidly, I hope you join me in not allowing anyone to connect the current illegal immigration debate with our endeavor to preserve our long-standing Spanish Mexican heritage “on this side of the U.S. Mexico border”.      

Saludos, José Antonio “Joe” López  

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SAN ANTONIO, July 10 - For over 150 years, mainstream Texas history books have been written as if Texas history begins in 1836.   By design, conventional Texas history books cut out or reject the foundation story of Texas, simply because it doesn’t fit the Sam Houston model.    

Equally unfortunate, that restrictive method (l) tends to treat early (pre-1836) Texas history as Spanish & Mexican “foreign” history; and (2) ignores the direct connection between Native Americans and today’s Mexican-descent Texans and Southwest people. The result? Mainstream Texas history instruction omits the very roots of Texas. That is unfair to the memory of the Spanish Mexican Tejano founders of Texas. How can we fix this long-standing problem?    

For about the last thirty years, a group of dedicated Tejano history aficionados of both Tejano and Anglo backgrounds have tried to offer a more fair and balanced account. However, selling that idea to a skeptical public raised on movie myth-inspired Texas history hasn’t been easy.     

That said, the unveiling of the Tejano Monument in Austin in 2012 has finally popped that balloon of ignorance. The memorial  now serves as a permanent beacon putting a spotlight on pre-1836 Texas people, places, and events. There 

have been other efforts to make Texas history curriculum more inclusive (see next paragraph). More recently, a dedicated effort supported by the Texas State Historical Association is about to bring together Tejano history stories with the goal of establishing a Tejano History Handbook Online.    

Based on grass-roots petitions and testimony in 2010, the Texas State Board of Education agreed that the teaching of Texas history in the classroom is incomplete. As such, they approved the inclusion of some Spanish Mexican people in the STAAR social studies and Texas history school curriculum. It’s not much, but it’s a start.    

Albeit, what is the main problem with the way Texas history is taught today? The clear answer is that mainstream Texas history at all levels tends to pigeonhole Texas history into three distinct eras: Spanish colonial, Mexican Republic, and Republic/State of Texas. Worse, as presented in the classroom, the first two eras are not connected to the third (Texas history). Such an approach implies that the people who lived during the first two eras have disappeared and thus are treated as detached (unconnected) parts of mainstream Texas history. The fact is that the descendants of the Spanish Mexican people who lived in the first two eras (pioneer settlers who founded Texas) are still here today in the form of Mexican-descent Texans.     

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Regrettably, generations of Mexican-descent Texas students have been treated as foreigners in their own homeland. They know little of their ancestors’ history. What are some lessons that a more open discussion of Texas history will provide Texas children? Below is a partial list of topics that especially Mexican-descent children in South Texas must discover, study, and get to know their impact on (help or hurt) Spanish Mexican people of the U.S. Southwest:    

(l) The First Texas Independence occurred on April 6, 1813; (2) The 1836 Battles of the Álamo, Goliad, and San Jacinto are part of a chronological chapter in Mexico’s history, not the U.S. Mexico didn’t lose Texas, South Texas, & Southwest until 1848; (3) They must learn that in Texas in 1836, the Anglo immigrants from the U.S. were the aggressors, not General Santa Anna; and (4) they must learn that the name Álamo refers to the Presidio (no longer exists) and not to Mission San Antonio, sister mission to San José, San Juan, Concepción, and Espada.  

(5) The real story as to how the U.S. “won” the west by following El Camino Real routes; (6) learn about “Borderlands” families that were split in two in 1848 as a result of the U.S. Mexico War; and (7) for high school and college students, develop lessons on the Mutualista Movement, Jovita Idar, LULAC, Mexican-descent military veterans; Dr. Hector P. Garcia and the American GI Forum, The Class Apart (1954 Supreme Court Decision - Hernandez v. Texas), 1964 Civil Rights Act, etc..    

Other aspects of little-known early Texas history facts that Texas students must know in higher grades: (a) The Black Legend (Leyenda Negra); (b) Manifest Destiny; (c) Learn why and how U.S. encroachment into the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, Illinois, Mississippi Valley and the Northwest displaced existing Spanish settlements, presidios, and missions; (d) 1836 Texas Independence negative effect on Spanish Mexican-descent Texans (Tejanos).

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In summary, nowhere else in history has one ethnic group robbed another group of its heritage to embellish their own. Yet, that’s what’s been done to the Álamo and La Bahia (Goliad) Presidio.    

It’s time to honor these magnificent historical structures for their strength, beauty, and creativity of their Spanish Mexican builders. They must no longer be marketed only because armed Anglo expatriates from the U.S. died there.    

So, what do we owe the memory of our Tejano ancestors, founders of Texas, and their growing number of descendants? We owe them inclusion in mainstream Texas history. The first chapters of our state’s history may be written in Spanish, but what’s wrong with admitting that Texas history is truly bi-cultural and bi-lingual?  

Simply stated, Tejano history is not a “separate but equal” history. Tejano history is and will always be Texas history.
   

José Antonio “Joe” López was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and is a USAF Veteran. He now lives in Universal City, Texas. He is the author of three books: “The Last Knight (Don Bernardo Gutierrez de Lara Uribe, A Texas Hero,”, “Nights of Wailing, Days of Pain (Life in 1920s South Texas)”, and “The First Texas Independence, 1813”. Lopez is also the founder of the Tejano Learning Center, LLC, and http://www.tejanosunidos.org/, a web site dedicated to Spanish Mexican people and events in U.S. history that are mostly overlooked in mainstream history books.     

Editor:  I included Joe's article under US because the distortion of the  history of the Alamo affected the perception that US history has placed on all Mexican-American: we are suspect, we are not real Americans because our ancestors fought against the heroes of Alamo".  

 

“Past deeds pave our way to the future”
by José Antonio López  
August 10, 2014
 

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SAN ANTONIO, August 10 - As the crown jewel of our blended Hispanic and Native American family roots in Texas, the Tejano Monument in Austin shines bright on the south lawn of the state capitol building.

Since its unveiling in March 2012, Austin residents, government officials, tourists, and school children visiting our state capital are now able to see for the very first time, a memorial dedicated to the true founding of this great place we call Texas.

All Texans should be proud of the efforts led by Cayetano Barrera, M.D., McAllen, and carried out most ably by the Tejano Monument, Inc. Committee members, Dr. Andrés Tijerina, Renato Ramirez, Homero Vera, Richard Sánchez, Jaime Beaman, and so many others, such as Estella and William Zermeño, Benny Martínez, and dedicated working group members. Armando Hinojosa, Laredo, deserves special credit for his gifted artistic creation. In bronze and stone, he expresses the dignity that Tejano descendants feel in their hearts.  

Helping to tell our incredible early Texas story, the following list of deeds keeps growing, considering that the concerted effort began just a few short years ago:  

1. Our Native American kin has relentlessly tried to dispel undignified movie myths about cultures originating in what’s now the U.S. There are plenty of sites on the internet featuring each group’s goal to preserve their heritage. This is crucial learning for Mexican Americans because being Native American is what makes us Mexican-descent people of the Southwest.

2. For years, Mr. Dan Arellano has organized tribute events to remember the 1st Texas Revolution (1810-1813); First President of Texas Don Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara’s reading of the 1st Texas Declaration of Independence and 1st Constitution (1813); Battle of Medina (BOM) memorial and archeological digs.  

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3. An Austin school district has already set up Tejano history lessons as part of its school curriculum. The Laredo ISD has added a block of early Laredo history in the curriculum at my alma mater Martin High School. Others are in the process of doing the same.

4. Dr. Andrés Tijerina is part of an effort by the Texas State Historical Association to identify and record long-forgotten early Texas Spanish Mexican historical sites.

5. More recently, Dr. Tijerina and Dr. Emilio Zamora plus others are also putting together what will be a Tejano History segment of Texas Handbook of History Online.

6. Mr. Bill Millet has produced a long-awaited PBS film entitled “Texas before the Alamo”.

7. Thanks to Texas State Representative Eddie Rodriguez (D-Austin), a proclamation (H.R. 1411) was read honoring the 200th Anniversary of the first Texas Constitution (1813-2013).

8. The Texas State Hispanic Genealogy/History Societies (Austin, Dallas, Corpus Christi, El Paso, East Texas, Houston, Laredo, San Antonio, Victoria, and Zapata) continue to spread the word regarding our early Texas pioneer families. Also, Laredo’s Webb Co. Heritage Foundation; Edinburg’s Museum of South Texas History, and Zapata County Museum of History preserve early Texas history via their unique memorabilia and displays.

9. Mr. Renato Ramirez, Chairman of the Board/CEO, IBC-Zapata, continues to promote mariachi bands at UT-Austin, Texas A&M Kingsville, and Texas A&M College Station. His efforts are designed to raise funds to assure awareness of mariachi music’s vital influence in Texas history. In enthusiastically pursuing his goal, he aims for complete understanding by the general public as to why it was proper for young Sebastien de la Cruz to sing our national anthem for the San Antonio Spurs attired in formal Mexican vaquero dress. Truly, Texas’ Mariachi style roots are much older than other music genres in Texas that came after 1836.  

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10. Last but certainly not least, in the information management arena, Mimi Lozano (Somos Primos) has spent great amounts of her energy, time, and talents to provide a one-stop shop online web site for a worldwide audience learning about Hispanic history; Armando Rendón does as well with Somos En Escrito; there is also Beto Calderon; Foro de Comunicación; as well as the online LARED-L list server; Steve Taylor, Rio Grande Guardian; Dr. Lino Garcia, Jr.’s FESTIBA events at UTPA; LareDos, Mr. Rudi Rodriguez of Texas Tejano is pressing on with plans for a Williamsburg-style Tejano Village permanent interactive exhibit in downtown San Antonio; and my own web site www.TejanosUnidos.org. My apologies if I’m forgetting someone.  

Yet, our Tejano heritage is under attack. The threats are constant. The most recent immigration-related situation at the border is cause to worry. Certain politicians and media are raising the temperature of the immigration debate by questioning our Spanish Mexican heritage and Spanish language “on this side of the border.” To ensure we reach our goal to educate others about our rich story, the best defense is a good offense. Let’s combine our hard work.

As such, I make three appeals. 
(1) To our Native American brethren, join us in our quest. The wicked border fence impacts Navajo and Apache Nations much more than it does Mexican-descent Borderlands families. It’s time to reaffirm our bloodline ancestral family ties.  

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(2) To Early Texas history aficionados mentioned above. All of our worthy efforts will be for naught unless we push together. At every turn, let’s reject any attempt to diminish our heritage.

(3) To our extended family living in the Rio Grande Valley. You are now center stage due to the on-going immigration debate. Critics of your way of life who are just recently becoming aware of the border don’t understand why there are so many Mexican-descent Texans who choose to speak Spanish as their language of choice. Only through learning of early Texas history will they discover why it is we are not immigrants in the U.S. To learn more, make plans to attend the 35th Annual Texas State Hispanic Genealogy Conference in McAllen, TX on Sept 25-27.  

In closing, our past deeds do pave our way to the future. How do we fulfill our future? By speaking with one voice under an

 “Aztlán-Euro Alliance” umbrella or something similar. Individually, we represent a small group and cause a small ripple in the ocean of public opinion. However, as a combined force, we will orchestrate millions of voices causing an impact of tsunami proportions. Bottom line: If we don’t do it ourselves, no one else is going to do it for us.  

José Antonio “Joe” López was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and is a USAF Veteran. He now lives in Universal City, Texas. He is the author of three books: “The Last Knight (Don Bernardo Gutierrez de Lara Uribe, A Texas Hero,”, “Nights of Wailing, Days of Pain (Life in 1920s South Texas)”, and “The First Texas Independence, 1813”. Lopez is also the founder of the Tejano Learning Center, LLC, and www.tejanosunidos.org, a web site dedicated to Spanish Mexican people and events in U.S. history that are mostly overlooked in mainstream history books.

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All:  The purpose of this e-mail is to acquaint you with an organization which promises to grow and unite the Latino/Hispanic Texas community.  Its founder is Joe Lopez.  Please go to the following web-site, read its description, information, and we would appreciate it if you will send the information to your distribution list: Here is the website address: www.TejanosUnidos.org

Jose M. Pena

 

 


Braceros and farm workers from Mexico
by Eve A. Ma

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It’s summer, time for good fruit, good vegetables…and time for people to harvest them – thousands of people.  It’s also a good time to think back on the bracero program, along with other “programs” that brought farm laborers into the United States from Mexico.  Of course, not all farm laborers in the United States have come from Mexico, but in the past 50 years, the great majority did.    

Back to the bracero program:  it was originally intended to be Mexico’s way of contributing to the World War II effort.  The United States experienced a major labor shortage due to the war, and negotiated a treaty with Mexico to supply that labor.  The workers were to be temporary, and would not be allowed to apply for permanent residency or citizenship.  They also were to be confined primarily to farm labor.  This was the original bracero program.    

The program provided farmers in the United States (especially owners of very large farms) with labor, allowing for continued large-scale production of food.   In addition, it gave Mexicans, who at that time were passing through an economic downturn and anxious for jobs, what was theoretically to be decent work under decent conditions for decent pay.  

While some owners of these large farms indeed provided what they were supposed to, others provided the workers with poor conditions, or failed to pay them all they were owed, or engaged in other abuses.  In addition, as they first entered the United States, the workers were subject to practices such as being sprayed with DDT at the border.  (At that time, the full extent of the harm of DDT was not known.)  

The work was very hard, in many cases made especially difficult because they were required to use something known as the “short-handled hoe,” a tool which required the laborer to bend over all day while working in the fields.  Long-handled hoes existed which would not have required this, but the farm owners considered these to be bad for the plants.  (Apparently, the plants were more important than the workers, many of whom experienced severe back problems because of using the short-handled hoe.)  

The bracero program was continued in one form or another long past the end of World War II.  It ended in 1964 due to fears that the Mexican workers were taking jobs from native born citizens of the United States.  In addition, a serious car accident involving a bus loaded with braceros in which many were killed helped convince the Mexican government that the program needed to be ended.  

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At the outset of the bracero program, Texas (a major user of Mexicans as farm laborers) was unwilling to join it.  This was because its farmers wanted to pay lower wages and be less careful about the conditions under which the workers lived.  The workers entered the state illegally, and thus were particularly vulnerable.  The farmers insultingly called them “wet backs,” since many of them had to swim the Rio Grande in order to enter Texas, and employed them by the thousands.  

In 1946, however, the government of Mexico withdrew all its workers from Texas due to serious abuses and at that point, the state entered the bracero program.  

There are many sites on the internet which talk about the bracero program and farm laborers from Mexico.  The Smithsonian recently organized an exhibition about it, which can be found on-line and which I like very much.  The exhibition includes some great posters with especially fine photographs, plus text in both English and Spanish. 

You can find the posters at: http://www.sites.si.edu/bracero/Bracero%20Posters.pdf, and traveling exhibit at http://www.sites.si.edu/bracero/.     

In addition, I am in the process of creating a documentary, Strong Roots, Bright Flowers:  Arts of Mexican Immigrants and Chicanos, which talks about the bracero and other farm labor programs as they are related to the creation of música norteña/TexMex music.  You can see a short trailer from it on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFw-3QVjLDM, or sign up for our monthly newsletter where we can keep you up to date www.palominoprodvd-cd.com.    

Eve A. Ma (Dr. L. Eve Armentrout Ma, Esq.)
Producer-Director, PALOMINO Productions
P.O. Box 8565, Berkeley, CA., 94707, USA
www.PalominoPro.com
info@palominopro.com  

 

 

 “Preserving Places that Matter in American Latino History”
NATIONAL TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION
The Watergate Office Building 
2600 Virginia Avenue NW Suite 1100 Washington, DC 20037
www.PreservationNation.org
 

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Concurrent to the “Preserving Places that Matter in American Latino History” session held at the 2014 National Council of La Raza Conference which the National Trust for Historic Preservation cosponsored with the National Park Foundation’s American Latino Heritage Fund, the Este Lugar Vale: Preservation 101 training went live on PreservationNation.org. The training provides an overview of the approaches, players, and policies which can help save Latino cultural resources.

 

Please spread word of the training with your networks. Many thanks go out to the various subject matter experts who contributed case studies of places that matter to different Latino communities. Should partners be interested accessing the power point, they should get in touch with me, Tanya Bowers or 202-588-6245.

Thanks, Tanya  
Tanya Bowers |
DIRECTOR FOR DIVERSITY
P 202.588.6245 F 202.588.6082    TBowers@savingplaces.org 

 

 

Percentage of Hispanic associated with the Best Medical Schools in the US  

Editor: There was more data included on the list. I extracted what I thought would be of most interest.
% of Hispanic graduate enrollment and % of medical school Hispanic faculty

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2014 Best Medical Schools
August 20, 2014
Staff — HispanicBusiness.com

1. University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
University of Texas School of Medicine at San Antonio
http://www.som.uthscsa.edu
Hispanic graduate enrollment    19.7%
Percent of medical school Hispanic faculty 14.8%

2. University of Miami, Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine
http://www.med.miami.edu
Percent Hispanic graduate enrollment    12.2%
Percent of medical school Hispanic faculty 24.5%

3. University of Texas
University of Texas Southwestern Medical School
http://www.utsouthwestern.edu
Percent Hispanic graduate enrollment    10.9%
Percent of medical school Hispanic faculty 4.9%

4. University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
UT Health Medical School at Houston
http://www.uth.edu
Percent Hispanic graduate enrollment    13.1%
Percent of medical school Hispanic faculty 7.1%

5. Baylor College of Medicine
http://www.bcm.edu
Percent Hispanic graduate enrollment    13.9%
Percent of medical school Hispanic faculty 6.5%

6. University of Texas Medical Branch, School of Medicine
http://www.utmb.edu
Percent Hispanic graduate enrollment    19.0%
Percent of medical school Hispanic faculty 8.3%

7. Stanford University, School of Medicine
http://www.stanford.edu
Percent Hispanic graduate enrollment   
10.3% <lowest % of Hispanic graduate students
Percent of medical school Hispanic faculty 
4.2% <lowest % of Hispanic faculty

8. Florida State University, College of Medicine
http://med.fsu.edu
Percent Hispanic graduate enrollment    11.3%
Percent of medical school Hispanic faculty 4.8%

9. Florida International University
Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine
http://www.medicine.fiu.edu
Percent Hispanic graduate enrollment    31.1%
Percent of medical school Hispanic faculty 
25.8%
<highest % of Hispanic faculty

10. University of New Mexico, School of Medicine
http://www.unm.edu
Percent Hispanic graduate enrollment    
31.5%  <highest % of Hispanic graduate students

Percent of medical school Hispanic faculty 13.2%

Source: Dr. Frank Talamantes, Ph.D,
Professor of Endocrinology (Emeritus)
University of California, Santa Cruz, California, 95064 
Sent by Juan Marinez 

 


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Good afternoon Mimi --  

I'm attaching a letter I wrote to President Obama regarding a financial crisis many of our elders are facing who have invested in 1031 Exchange properties. The letter is about my family's struggle to care for our mother with Stage 5 dementia while we face foreclosure of an investment purchased with half of her life savings.   

Mimi, I'd appreciate it if you would include my letter to the White House in an upcoming issue.  Sending you many, many thanks,  Carol Mondello Tapia y Settle

 

The bottom line message to the letter was this:  In April 2014, the Obama Administration announced three new housing initiatives aimed at providing struggling homeowners with federal mortgage assistance to help them avoid losing their homes. Those who have invested in 1031 Exchange properties are in the exact same situation. The properties they have invested in have not recovered from the financial collapse of 2008 and have foreclosed or are on the verge of doing so in the near future. Their hope in the American Dream, like our mother’s, is fading fast. Mr. Obama, please consider providing mortgage assistance for those who will lose their life savings due to 1031 Exchange property foreclosures.  

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August 22, 2014  
The White House  
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW  
Washington,  DC  20500   

Dear Mr. President:

My mother, Virginia Tapia y Mondello, is 86 years old and she will likely lose half of her financial nest egg to a 1031 Exchange property foreclosure.  This woman comes from a time in our country’s history where everyone who worked hard and saved their money could live decently into their old age.  Now she and other elders in this tragic situation need your help – and they need it NOW.   Virginia is a proud   United States  citizen, a daughter of Mexican immigrants, and she lives in a surreal paradigm.  On one hand, she is the epitome of the American Dream and on the other hand, she is epitome of a real-life American financial horror story, in which many abuelitos y abuelitas have lost most, if not all, of their life savings due to ill-advised investment schemes.

We, her children, did not anticipate in 2005 that our mother would eventually need specialized care due to a stroke.  After many discussions at the kitchen table, we kids decided to move our mom into a personal care home close to us and we transferred the sale of her home to a 1031 Exchange property that would provide tax deferment and monthly dividends to cover her health care costs.

Today, Virginia has Stage 5 dementia with severe impairment, and half of her nest egg will likely be lost this year to a 1031 Exchange property that is about to go bankrupt. We worry that we will not have enough money personally or by way of the family trust to provide her the care she needs and deserves.  

In April of this year, your Administration announced three new housing initiatives aimed at providing struggling homeowners with federal  mortgage assistance to help them avoid losing their homes.  Those who have invested in 1031 Exchange properties are in the exact same situation.  The properties they have invested in have not recovered from the financial collapse of 2008 and have foreclosed or are on the verge of doing so in the near future.  Their hope in the American Dream, and like our mother’s, is fading fast. Mr. Obama, please consider providing mortgage assistance for those who will lose their life savings due to 1031 Exchange property foreclosures.  

With the utmost respect, 

Carol Mondello-Settle, MPH 

 

 

Who Was Haym Solomon and what vital role did he play in United States History?
and what does it half to do with a US dollar bill?

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On the rear of the One Dollar bill, you will see two circles. Together, they comprise the Great Seal of the United States . The First Continental Congress requested that Benjamin Franklin and a group of men come up with a Seal. It took them four years to accomplish this task and another two years to get it approved.
If you look at the left-hand circle, you will see a Pyramid.

Notice the face is lighted, and the western side is dark. This country was just beginning. We had not begun to explore the west or decided what we could do for Western Civilization. The Pyramid is uncapped, again signifying that we were not even close to being finished. Inside the Capstone you have the all-seeing eye, an ancient symbol for divinity. It was Franklin 's belief that one man couldn't do it alone, but a group of men, could do anything
.

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cid:DB625A3641364DA08BAD7661040AD480@CarolePC

The Latin above the pyramid, ANNUIT COEPTIS, means, 'God has favored our undertaking.'The Latin below the pyramid, NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM, means, 'a new order has begun.' At the base of the pyramid is the Roman numeral for 1776. (MDCCLXXVI)

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If you look at the right-hand circle, and check it carefully, you will learn that it is on every National Cemetery in the United States .

It is also on the Parade of Flags Walkway at the Bushnell, Florida National Cemetery , and is the centerpiece of most heroes' monuments.

Slightly modified, it is the seal of the President of the United States , and it is always visible whenever he speaks, yet very few people know what the symbols mean.

The Bald Eagle was selected as a symbol for victory for two reasons:
First, he is not afraid of a storm; he is strong, and he is smart enough to soar above it.  Secondly, he wears no material crown. We had just broken from the King of England .

Also, notice the shield is unsupported. This country can now stand on its own. At the top of that shield there is a white bar signifying congress, a unifying factor. We were coming together as one nation.

cid:B64707C2311147CAB7F77F53001C6348@CarolePC

In the Eagle's beak: ' E PLURIBUS UNUM' 
meaning, 'from many - one.'

Above the Eagle, we have the thirteen stars, representing the thirteen original colonies, and any clouds of misunderstanding rolling away. Again, we were coming together as one.

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Notice what the Eagle holds in his talons. He holds an olive branch and arrows. This country wants peace, but we will never be afraid to fight to preserve peace. The Eagle always wants to face the olive branch, but in time of war, his gaze turns toward the arrows.

An (untrue) old-fashioned belief says that the number 13 is an unlucky number. This is almost a worldwide belief. You will almost never see a room numbered 13, or any hotels or motels with a 13th floor. But think about this:

13 original colonies,
13 signers of the Declaration of Independence ,
13 stripes on our flag,
13 steps on the pyramid,
13 letters in 'Annuit Coeptis',
13 letters in ' E Pluribus Unum,'
13 stars above the eagle,
13 bars on that shield,
13 leaves on the olive branch,
13 fruits, and if you look closely,
13 arrows.

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cid:08D13674EFEE4C3F9DB0999744AF2C8B@CarolePC
Star of David

And finally, notice the arrangement of the 13 stars in the right-hand circle. You will see that they are arranged as a Star of David.   This was ordered by George Washington who, when he asked Haym Solomon, a wealthy Philadelphia Jew, what he would like as a personal reward for his services to the Continental Army. Solomon said he wanted nothing for himself, but he would like something for his people. The Star of David was the result. Few people know it was Solomon who saved the Army through his financial contributions ...then died a pauper. Haym Solomon gave $25 million to save the Continental Army, money that was sorely needed to help realize America’s –our- freedom and independence from England


Therein lies America’s Judeo-Christian beginning. Most American children do NOT know any of this. They are not taught because their history teachers do not know it. They were not taught.  

On America’s Freedom:  Too many veterans gave up too much to let the meanings fade. Many veterans came home to an America that did not care. Too many veterans never came home at all. They served, they died for youfor me.

Sent by Yomar Villarreal Cleary 


Hispanic Heritage Month
Sept 15
 to Oct 15

HERITAGE PROJECTS

Guy Gabaldon Statue Project, Los Angeles, CA 
Otra Vez by Daisy Wanda Garcia: Dr. Hector P. Garcia Clinic Restoration, Corpus Christi, TX
Veterans' and Family Outreach Center, Big plan for Garcia's Old Clinic by Nadia Tamez-Robledo
Raising Funds for the Santa Rosa de Lima Mission in Tucson. AZ
The San Pedro Creek Improvement Project, TX
Saving Lincoln Center: An El Paso Community's Effort to Protect its Chicano Heritage
Looking for Mexican Americans and baseball in Texas
New Charlesfort-Santa Elena National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places Lesson Plan The Telling Project, Carlos Alvarez Studio Theater, San Antonio, Texas
Strangers into Neighbors: The Latinos and Hispanics in Alamance County, North Carolina
Latest update on the Trujillo Adobe
Over 2200 Apparitions of the Blessed Mother throughout the world in the 20th century
Doing Your Own Documentary, San Francisco  
Save Our History, the Chicana/o Archive Project
Story Corps

 


Guy Gabaldon Statue Project 

Thursday, August 14th, on the recommendation of Chris Espinosa, the General Manager of El Pueblo de Los Angeles, a first informational presentation was made by  Steve Rubin and Ignacio Gomez to acquaint the El Pueblo de Los Angeles commissioners with the Guy Gabaldon Statue Project.  The meeting was held in the Pico House, located on historic Olvera Street.  

Steve read a letter addressing the vision of a statue recognizing World War II East L.A. Marine hero, Guy Gabaldon to be placed in a public site in the city of Los Angeles.  Artist Ignacio Gomez showed his clay model, based on a painting by Henry Godines, painted while Gabaldon was alive and able to approve the details.

Veteran activists and members of Veterans of Foreign Wars,  Tony Zapata (Los Angeles County) and Francisco Barragan (Orange County) were there in support of the project.  Also present, a supporter of veterans rights, was Bill Rumble husband of Carol Jacques, Vice-President of El Pueblo de Los Angeles Commission.

 

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Left to right - Bill Rumble, Steve Rubin, sculptor Ignacio Gomez, 
Tony Zapata of VFW, Francisco Barragan of VFW

We now await being put on the formal agenda for approval of use of location  in the Father Serra Park.  Related to the statute project is an effort headed by Tony to gain support to rename the street on which Guy lived to Guy Gabaldon St. 

On Nov 10, 11 am,  Los Angeles building will be named after Gabaldon. Click.  

 

 

OTRA VEZ

By Daisy Wanda Garcia
Dr. Hector P. Garcia Clinic Restoration Project

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Every time I go to Corpus Christi, Texas, it is an emotional experience.  For one, I feel that I am returning home and I am going to visit my parents.  The memories of the times I lived in Corpus Christi, and then returned monthly to visit my parents after I moved to Austin, TX keep flooding back when I pass familiar sites.  This time, my trip to Corpus Christi, TX was about helping repurpose and renovate Papa’s clinic at 1315 Bright at Morgan Ave.  My friend John Valadez, PBS documentary film producer took the long drive with me from Austin to Corpus Christi.  We discussed his projects and other historical issues. 

It began with breakfast with Tim Archuleta, Editor of the Corpus Christi Caller Times and Phil Sanchez of NEAT. John Valadez, Alicia Gallegos Gomez, South Texas radio personality and Patsy Vasquez Contes, National AGIF chair and event coordinator who put together this series of meetings to promote this goal.  I called it a “power breakfast.”

Tim Archuletta, Luis Vasquez Contes, Patsy Vasquez Contes,
John Valadez, Alicia Gallegos, Phil Sanchez

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Phil Sanchez presented his plan to use the clinic for a veterans outreach facility while preserving the clinic historically. We were impressed by Phil’s innovative and detailed plan.  Afterwards, Patsy organized a tour of the clinic.  My cousin Amador Garcia, President of the National Archives and Historical Foundation was present.  Also, Representatives of the National Trust for Historic Preservation along with elected officials, community leaders, representatives of corporate America and the press were on hand. 

Before I entered Papa’s clinic, I saw a clump of ginger plants which my mother had given Papa so long ago.  The plants were struggling to survive. A spent bloom was on one of the bushes.  It made me cry and reminded me of the struggles to preserve Papa’s clinic. What a parallel! 

Inside I went to Papa’s office and I could visualize where he had his desk and papers and pictures which adorned the wall.  I remembered many of the historically important personalities who passed through the doors of his clinic including Bill Clinton, future President of the U.S.  In the reception area an old 1995 calendar still hung on the wall abandoned when the building was closed.  John Valadez went through old drawers and noted that there were books left in the clinic as well.  The walls and ceiling were ripped open where vandals had ripped the copper tubing out.  The clinic though structurally sound was in need of a facelift.

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Afterwards, Patsy invited all who toured the building to a meeting at the Police Lodge #22.   Phil Sanchez gave a power point presentation of his plan to set up a veterans outreach program.  John Valadez gave an emotional plea why the building was important and its role in the Hispanic Civil Rights movement.  Earlier in the month, John had traveled to Three Rivers Texas.  The funeral home where the Felix Longoria incident happened was demolished.  All that remained was the historical marker that indicated the history of the site. 

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According to Valadez, Papa’s clinic is one of the most important sites of Historical significance in Texas of the Hispanic Civil Rights movement and must be preserved.  When the public thinks of Civil Rights, they are only acquainted with the African American movement.  Most are unaware that Hispanics had a civil rights movement. The Longoria incident marked the beginning of this movement.  After listening to all the presentations, the National Trust Representatives promised to help us qualify for funding.

Alicia Gallegos Gomez, South Texas radio personality.
John Valadez, John Valadez, PBS documentary film producer 

Inside I went to Papa’s office and I could visualize where he had his desk and papers and pictures which adorned the wall.  I remembered many of the historically important personalities who passed through the doors of his clinic including Bill Clinton, future President of the U.S.  In the reception area an old 1995 calendar still hung on the wall abandoned when the building was closed.  John Valadez went through old drawers and noted that there were books left in the clinic as well.  The walls and ceiling were ripped open where vandals had ripped the copper tubing out.  The clinic though structurally sound was in need of a facelift.

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VETERANS’ AND FAMILY OUTREACH CENTER
Big plans for Garcia’s old clinic
 
Restoration, new facility goal


By Nadia Tamez-Robledo

nadia.tamez@caller.com  
361-886-3627

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The lights have been off for a long time at the clinic where Dr. Hector P. Garcia served his patients.

But Daisy Wanda Garcia, his oldest daughter, can see past the crumbling floors and peeling paint to what used to be there. His desk, his bookshelves, his bust of John F. Kennedy — which she now has.

The place where the American GI Forum, the veterans and civil rights organization he founded, was born will have a sec­ond chance at life if a partnership of nonprofits reaches its fundraising goal of at least $100,000 to restore the building and begin working toward a Veterans’ and Family Out­reach Center. Supporters and local officials toured the doctor’s old office Wednesday.

The National Archives & Historical Foundation of the American GI Forum, which owns the building in the 1300 block of Bright Street, is work­ing on the project with the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the California-based nonprofit National Education, Advocacy & Training Inc. The latter was co-founded by American GI Forum member Phil Sanchez.

 
Daisy Wanda Garcia looks around what used to be her father’s private office Wednesday during atour of Dr. Hector P. Garcia’s former clinic.
Photos: Michael Zamora/Caller-Times

The American GI Forum, founded by Dr. Hector P. Garcia, and partnering nonprofits plan to establish a new veterans’ ser­vices office in Corpus Christi. Garcia founded the American GI Forum in 1948 to advocate on behalf of World War II veterans who faced discrimination in getting their benefits. Contributed photo.  

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The American GI Forum is trying to duplicate what Sanchez’s organization has done in California, which is building a onestop veterans' resource center in San Bernardino County. Like its California counterpart, former American GI Forum national Chairwoman Patsy M. Vazquez-Contes said the Corpus Christi facility will have housing, child care, job training and basic medical services. The goal is to give veterans everything they need to be back on their feet after living there a couple years.

"It's long overdue for Dr. Hector," she said. "It's not going to happen overnight, but we're moving forward." Larry Spaller, a Corpus Christi resident and Vietnam War veteran, said it can be frustrating for veterans to access their benefits. He was 30 percent disabled when he applied for disability benefits and was 100 percent disabled by the time he was granted benefits three years later, he said.

"I think it would be especially helpful for people who are not in the system yet," he said.

Vazquez-Contes said the next steps for the collaborating nonprofits are to apply for grants and purchase land around the Garcia clinic. Sanchez said ideally they will acquire 15 acres. 

They hope to open the center in 2015 or 2016 and will serve an area with 80,000 veterans, according to a news release.

Supporters said Wednesday the project also is about preserving part of civil rights history. The office was where people used to line up to ask Garcia's advice, medical or otherwise, and where the early American GI Forum laid its plans and where he called presidents directly to demand more Hispanic political appointees.

It would be a perfect tribute to her father, Daisy Wanda Garcia said, because he wanted the building to be used by the forum and community organizations after the medical office closed in 1995.

Efforts to create the center are the third time Garcia has been involved in trying to preserve the clinic. It's tough, but she remembers her father's example.

"Did he ever give up? No, even when he should have," she said with a laugh. "So I plan to persevere with papa."

Twitter: @CallerNadia

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Visitors walk through dark hallways Wednesday during a tour of Dr. hector p. Garcia's former clinic.



Filmmaker John Valadez looks through an old desk inside a former examination room during the tour.  
Photos by Michael Zamora/Caller-Times


William D. Bonilla (from left), assistant Jason Martinez, Gi Forum member Armando Garcia and Valadez take a look inside the former pharmacy.

Report/Press Release:
On August 13, 2014:  Community leaders met with the goal of establishing a Veterans’ and Family Outreach Center serving South Texas.  

The group met in the morning and toured the historic building of Dr. Hector P. Garcia Clinic located at 1315 Bright Street, Corpus Christi, TX. 

Following the tour was lunch and presentations at the          Fraternal Order of Police Corpus Christi Regional Lodge #27
at 3226 Reid Drive, Suite B, Corpus Christi, Texas 78404.  

The groups represented were the National Education, Advocacy & Training, Inc. (NEAT) – Phil Sanchez.  
American GI Forum – Patsy M. Vazquez-Contes; Luis A. Vazquez-Contes. National Trust for Historic Preservation, Sehila Mota Casper. 

WHY: The nearest Veterans’ Serving Organization is in San Antonio, TX, leaving more than 80.000 veterans in South Texas with few options, including having to drive 130 miles to seek help from a veteran’s center.  Community leaders believe establishing the center in the historic building owned by the American GI Forum National Archives pays tribute to ALL veterans.

For more information, contact: Patsy M. Vazquez-Contes
President of the National GI Forum
361-232-8296* patsymloera@aol.com  

 

Raising Funds for the Santa Rosa de Lima Mission in Tucson

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Estimadas/os: For those who may be interested, my latest “Political Salsa y Más” blog, in which I focus on the Santa Rosa de Lima Mission in Tucson’s Old Pascua Yaqui Village is on “Latinopia”—the link is below.

For the past 85 years, the Santa Rosa de Lima Mission has been a spiritual and community anchor of the village. Like the Yaquis who built it, Santa Rosa has a strong heart and spirit, but its frame has taken a beating, and it is in need of serious repairs. As it always does, the Pascua community has risen to the occasion and has launched a restoration fundraising drive to pay for the needed repairs—and you can help!

While you’re in Latinopia check out its other great features. Created by Chicano media pioneer Jesús S.Treviño, Latinopia is a video-driven website with sections on Art, Literature, Theater, Music, Cinema and Television, Food, History, and Sci Fi. It is chock full of information!

[The 1997 four-part PBS documentary series that Jesús co-produced, “CHICANO! History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement,” remains a classroom staple throughout the country.]

Jesús is a talented Director who has directed episodes of many popular television series (e.g., Law and Order, Criminal Minds, ER, NYPD Blue, Crossing Jordan; The Practice, Chicago Hope) and has won dozens of national and international awards and recognitions—e.g., ALMA Award for Outstanding Director of a Television Drama and Outstanding Co-Executive Producer of Best Prime-time drama series, and (twice) Directors Guild of America award.  

Sent by Salomon R Baldenegro
baldenes@email.arizona.edu 

HERE’S THE LINK TO LATINOPIA: http://latinopia.com/blogs/political-salsa-y-mas-with-sal-baldenegro-8-17-14-mission/

 

San Pedro Creek Restoration Project, San Antonio, TX 

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Members and Friends of Los Bexareños,

1) On Saturday, August 23, 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. there will be a Public Workshop at the Christopher Columbus Italian Society hall at 201 Piazza Italia, San Antonio, TX.   Jerry Geyer, Co-Chair of the San Pedro Creek Subcommittee is urging all Hispanic heritage supporters to attend.

The San Pedro Creek was the primary water source for the first Spanish presidio and for the settlement that grew into modern San Antonio.  The goal is to have at least one part of the improved creek ready for San Antonio's 300th Anniversary celebrations in 2018.

All design concepts created thus far will be on display, and the public can ask questions, make recommendations and participate in the design process.  This will be the most efficient way to learn about the project.  The engineers and architects will be there along with our citizen volunteer team and the San Antonio River Authority.  This is a great opportunity to make a contribution that will impact future generations.

Sent by Luis Antonio Morales
lousyl@icloud.com

 

 

 

Saving Lincoln Center: An El Paso Community’s Effort to Protect its Chicano Heritage

Latina Lista: News from the Latino perspective  By Cassie Keener
Preservation Nation  

Posted: 13 Aug 2014


In a predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood, the Lincoln Center has been a gathering place for people in this El Paso community since the early 20th century. It has served as a school, church, and cultural arts center, yet has been threatened with demolition since its closing in 2006 (though the community didn’t learn it was threatened until 2011).

Owned by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), the fate of the Lincoln Center has been uncertain for the past few years. Demolition was planned in order to create a connecting path between Interstate 10 and Cesar Chavez Highway, but the opinions of the public are making an impact strong enough to delay the project.

The walls of the Lincoln Center hold an incredible amount of history for the people of Chicano ancestry in the El Paso area, and the community has demonstrated how much they value the center through their preservation efforts. Created and organized by the Lincoln Park Conservation Committee (LPCC), the Save Lincoln Center Campaign is leaning on strong community involvement as a form of advocacy.

In addition to the support of community members, the LPCC is partnered with the Senecu Fine Arts Society and the Fire Power 40 Program, has strong support from Senator Jose Rodriguez, and is in the process of working with El Paso Community College. Together, their advocacy efforts have halted demolition of the Lincoln Center and continue to raise awareness of the historical significance of the building.

http://latinalista.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/image11.jpg

Young members of the community participate in a traditional dance at the Annual Lincoln Park Day.

Community members have attended City Council and Metropolitan Planning Organization Meetings to voice their concerns and stay updated with the progress of the campaign, and they also rally outside of the center when impending decisions are being made or when the building is threatened to show their support.  

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“We start the rallies with music to kick off the event, and invite speakers like Senator Rodriguez to motivate the crowd and thank them for their support,” said Miguel Juárez, member of the LPCC and advocate for Lincoln Center. “This place has served as a community center since 1912. There’s a lot of history and a lot of people who care about it.”

Without notice, TxDOT put a fence around the building in May with the intent to demolish it. The community was there when it happened, and some advocates even formed a human chain around the building to prevent the fence from going up.

“We didn’t even know [in advance] it was happening,” Juárez said. “We had to be notified through social media.”

An emergency City Council Meeting was held that same day to seek a temporary restraining order to delay demolition. Nearly 100 people attended within two hours’ notice to offer their support. The public outcry from this community for the preservation of Lincoln Center was certainly heard, as the fence has been taken down.  

“It’s a very textured project. There are a lot of issues, issues that are very technical,” said Juárez. “But it’s also very community-driven and community-focused.”

http://latinalista.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/image21.jpg

“El Corazón de El Paso,” painted in 2009 by Gabriel S. Gaytán. The heart and arteries is a symbol of freeways US 54 and I-10 meeting at Lincoln Park, then branching out to other areas of the city.

The LPCC hosts an Annual Lincoln Park Day in September to raise awareness and celebrate the art and culture that has stemmed from the Lincoln Center, such as the large-scale murals on the pillars of the I-10 and US 54 freeway interchange.

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The mural project began in 1983, but wasn’t fully carried out until Chicano artist Carlos Callejo proposed working with several other artists and students in the area to help complete the murals in 1999.

The murals have various themes, but many depict images of Chicano heritage and relate to the history of the culture. There are also large murals inside of the Lincoln Center, and if the building is saved, advocates hope for it to be turned into a Latino Cultural Arts Center.

 

 

Follow the progress of the Save Lincoln Center Campaign on the campaign’s website and Facebook page. 

The National Trust for Historic Preservation works to save America’s historic places. Join us today to help protect the places that matter to you.

Cassie Keener is an Editorial Intern at the National Trust. She enjoys writing, spending time outdoors, and is a movie and music enthusiast.

Sent by Dorinda Moreno pueblosenmovimientonorte@gmail.com  

 

 

Looking for Mexican Americans and baseball in Texas

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08/07/14, jorge.iber@ttu.edu writes:

Ms. Lozano:

I am a historian who specializes in the story of Mexican Americans/Latinos and sport.  I am currently working on a project that deals with Mexican Americans and baseball in Texas.  I was wondering if Somos Primos might have some photos that we could utilize?  If possible, please give me a call at 806-834-5511 at your convenience, so that we can touch base.  Thanks.

Sincerely,
Jorge Iber, PhD
Associate Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
Professor, Department of History
Texas Tech University
http://www.depts.ttu.edu/artsandsciences/DeanOffice/aboutIber.php  


August 08, 2014  mimilozano@aol.com  
To: Iber, Jorge; terymar@earthlink.net

Cc: andrest@austincc.edu; jlopez8182@satx.rr.com; jmpena@aol.com; darellano@austin.rr.com; jmarinezmaya@gmail.com; euribe000@aol.com

Subject: Re: Searching for baseball photos

August 08, 2014  mimilozano@aol.com  

Dear Jorge . . .Wonderful to read that you specialize as a historian in the area of Mexican-American Latinos and sports.

I think a good contact is Terry Cannon. His work is national in scope, viewing local baseball teams as an important recreational pastime in the United States, with many social benefits to individuals, their families, and their communities.  

He has been quite inclusive of Mexican Americans involved with city teams, sponsored by local merchants, Los Angeles and Orange County.

I am also forwarding your email to Texas historians, Andres Tijerina, Joe Lopez, Jose Pena, Dan Arrellano, Juan Marinez, and  Ernesto Uribe who may have some contact suggestions for you.

 Since you are acquainted with Somos Primos, you know, along with Latino history and heritage, I look for and include articles on successful and outstanding individuals.  I would welcome any articles on Latino athletes from you, over-coming great odds, breaking barriers, breaking records, etc.

Best wishes on your research. Mimi
www.SomosPrimos.com
714-894-8161  

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Friends & Reliquarians:

Longtime Baseball Reliquary chronicler Don Malcolm has written a fascinating article, “A Purpose Pitch for the Ages,” which was posted today on The Hardball Times Web site. We are sharing the link to the article here, because Malcolm’s essay offers much food for thought.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/purpose-pitch-for-the-ages/

In the opening paragraphs of his essay, Malcolm makes the argument that “we need accessible, alternative sources for history and culture that maintain a critical distance from established and endowed institutions. In the little world of baseball, the Baseball Reliquary is by far the best shot to synthesize all the material necessary for such an ongoing mission.”

After providing a brief interpretive history of the Baseball Reliquary, Malcolm makes several recommendations for ways that the Reliquary might develop more of a national presence while holding on to the grassroots, “an ti-organization” flavor that has been its hallmark. Malcolm is fully aware that a number of these actions would require financial resources above and beyond the budget which the Reliquary currently operates under; in fact, he is absolutely correct in his statement that the organization is “far more monetarily impoverished than what’s implied by the term ‘underfunded’” (and what modest operating expenses the Reliquary has go to cover, or come close to covering, the costs associated with the annual Shrine of the Eternals Induction Day).

This fall, the Baseball Reliquary will unveil a new and improved Web site, and will make its substantial research collection available to the public through the newly-formed Institute for Baseball Studies at Whittier College – both projects which should elevate the national profile for the Reliquary.

The timing of Malcolm’s article, just as the Baseball Reliquary (founded in 1996) is about to transition from its teen years to adulthood, offers a unique opportunity for a discussion about the Reliquary’s future and where you, our loyal Reliquarians, would like to see our energies focused over the next few years.

We’d welcome your reaction to Don Malcolm’s assessment, as well as your own opinions as to how we might best, as the author states, make the Baseball Reliquary “a viable ‘critical companion’” to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

We will look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely, Terry Cannon
Executive Director
The Baseball Reliquary
e-mail: terymar@earthlink.net
phone: (626) 791-7647  

 

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From: "Iber, Jorge"
Sent: Aug 12, 2014 7:05 AM To: mimilozano , "terymar@earthlink.net" , Richard Santillan
Cc: "andrest@austincc.edu" , "jlopez8182@satx.rr.com" , "jmpena@aol.com" , "darellano@austin.rr.com" , "jmarinezmaya@gmail.com" , "euribe000@aol.com"

Subject: RE: Searching for baseball photos  
Mimi (if I may) and all:

Thank you so much for passing my name along to these individuals.  In a nutshell, Dr. Richard Santillan and I are doing is an attempt to capture, via photos, the history of the significant ties between Mexican Americans and baseball here in Texas.  Richard has authored several books on this topic in California.  Here is a link to the most recent effort:

http://www.amazon.com/Mexican-American-Baseball-Central-Images
/dp/1467130877/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=
1407851965&sr=1-1&keywords=Santillan%2C+Richard
.
  
We are hoping to replicate the success of these works here in Texas.    

The first work will cover the SA to CC area, but our goal is to eventually do books that cover this history everywhere in the Lone Star State.  If any of you would be willing to help us in pursuing photos on this topic, we would be very grateful.  

My direct number at Texas Tech is: 806-834-5511, or you may reply via this email address.  Thanks, and I look forward to working with all of you as we move these efforts forward.

Sincerely,
Jorge Iber, PhD

In a message dated 08/12/14 08:42:37 Pacific Daylight Time, rsantillan@earthlink.net writes:

Mimi, this is Richard Santillan, thank you so much again for all your past and continued support for our book series on Mexican American baseball, and thank you even more for helping out my friend Jorge in Texas. Our California book series, as you know, has been highly successful due in large part with the generous help of individuals and groups like yourself and Somos Primos, Richard  

In a message dated 08/12/14 11:26:46 Pacific Daylight Time, mimilozano writes:

Dear Richard and Jorge . . . I can do one more thing.

I will include this thread of correspondence in Somos Primos under Heritage Projects.
We have Tejanos scattered all over the U.S. and the world, maybe it will help.

Do send along status updates . .

God bless your efforts mightily . . . Mimi
www.SomosPrimos.com
714-894-8161  

 

 

New Charlesfort-Santa Elena National Park Service Teaching 
with Historic Places Lesson Plan

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Dear Colleagues and Friends,

We are pleased to announce that the National Park Service’s Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) program has launched its 155th lesson plan: Digging into the Colonial Past: Archeology and the 16th-Century Spanish Settlements at Charlesfort-Santa Elena.  The lesson is currently featured on the TwHP homepage, http://www.nps.gov/nr/twhp/ .

The Charlesfort-Santa Elena lesson plan was created cooperatively by the National Park Service, the Santa Elena Project Foundation, and the Kingdom of Spain.  It was written by historian and education specialist Jaclyn Jecha for the Santa Elena Project Foundation, with assistance from Dr. Paul E. Hoffman of Louisiana State University. The project was initiated by the National Park Service Archeology Program through a Memorandum of Understanding with the Kingdom of Spain and supported by the Spanish Embassy. This lesson is the 155th in the Teaching with Historic Places series that brings the important stories of historic sites listed in the National Register of Historic Places into classrooms across the country.

Attached is a news release issued by the National Park Service. Please let others know that the lesson plan is available and share the news release widely, especially with the media in your area. We also hope that those of you who administer appropriate websites will add a link from your websites to the new lesson plan. Thank you to all who contributed to its preparation.

For a direct link, go to http://www.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/155
santaelena/155santaelena.htm
.  

Digging into the Colonial Past: Archeology and the 16th-Century Spanish Settlements at Charlesfort-Santa Elena

Images courtesy of the Library of Congress and the National Park Service

At the beginning of the 16th century, France and Spain engaged in a series of wars. The conflict between these two powerful kingdoms spread across the globe as the French and Spanish governments fought to increase their power, wealth, and prestige in Europe.

This competition transferred to "the new world" of the Western Hemisphere, as European nations became interested in the wealth available in areas like the Caribbean. During this time of conquest and competition, France attacked Spanish ships and posed a threat to Spanish interests in North America, creating an unstable environment.

Both France and Spain raced to settle and control the southern coast of North America. On a small island off the coast of present-day South Carolina lie the ruins of Charlesfort, the French outpost for a year, which later became Santa Elena, a Spanish colonial town from 1566 to 1587. The site has been abandoned now for more than 400 years.

For more than a century, historians and archeologists have worked to piece together the story of Santa Elena. Today, documents have been found that reveal the thoughts and motivations of Spanish colonists. Excavations uncovered artifacts and outlines of homes and fortifications. This valuable evidence lets us peek into the lives of the Spanish colonists and Spain's ambitions for North America in the 16th century.

 

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At the beginning of the 16th century, France and Spain engaged in a series of wars. The conflict between these two powerful kingdoms spread across the globe as the French and Spanish governments fought to increase their power, wealth, and prestige in Europe.

This competition transferred to "the new world" of the Western Hemisphere, as European nations became interested in the wealth available in areas like the Caribbean. During this time of conquest and competition, France attacked Spanish ships and posed a threat to Spanish interests in North America, creating an unstable environment.

Both France and Spain raced to settle and control the southern coast of North America. On a small island off the coast of present-day South Carolina lie the ruins of Charlesfort, the French outpost for a year, which later became Santa Elena, a Spanish colonial town from 1566 to 1587. The site has been abandoned now for more than 400 years.

For more than a century, historians and archeologists have worked to piece together the story of Santa Elena. Today, documents have been found that reveal the thoughts and motivations of Spanish colonists. Excavations uncovered artifacts and outlines of homes and fortifications. This valuable evidence lets us peek into the lives of the Spanish colonists and Spain's ambitions for North America in the 16th century.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
About This Lesson
Getting Started: Inquiry Question

Setting the Stage: Historical Context
Locating the Site: Maps
Map 1: North and South America, 1562.
Map 2: 16th-Century Spanish Florida
Map 3: Santa Elena and Surrounding Area.
Map 4: Parris Island Golf Course and Archeological Site.

Determining the Facts: Readings
Reading 1: A History of Spain's Santa Elena.
Reading 2: Life at Santa Elena.
Reading 3: Archeological Excavations.
Document 1: Archeological Artifacts.  

Visual Evidence: Images
Illustration 1: French colonists near Parris Island, present-day South Carolina.

Illustration 2: French settlement at the mouth of St. John’s River, present-day Florida.
Drawing 1: 1578 plan of Fort San Marcos.
Photo 1: Artifacts from the Charlesfort-Santa Elena site.
Photo 2: Artifacts at the Charlesfort-Santa Elena site.
Photo 3: Excavating Charlesfort-Santa Elena.

Putting it All Together
Creating a Historical Argument.
Town Planning.
Analyzing Artifacts.
Local History, Local Treasures.
Historic Preservation in Your Community.
Supplementary Resources

 RELATED INFORMATION
How to Use a TwHP Lesson
Lessons on Related Topics
TwHP Home
National Register Home
About the National Register
How the National Register
Helps Teachers
Contact TwHP

This lesson is based on historic Charlesfort-Santa Elena, a National Historic Landmark located on Parris Island in South Carolina. It is among the thousands of properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places.  

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Best wishes, Carol D. Shull
Interim Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places
Chief, Heritage Education Services
National Park Service
1201 Eye Street NW
Washington, DC 20005
202-354-2234   FAX:  202-371-1616  

Like us on Facebook!  https://www.facebook.com/HHPreservItNPS
Follow us on Twitter! @HHPreservItNPS

Sent by Tanya Bowers TBowers@savingplaces.org
Latino Preservation latinopreservation-l@lists.nationaltrust.org    

http://www.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/155santaelena/155santaelena.htm

 

The Telling Project, Carlos Alvarez Studio Theater, San Antonio, Texas

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For many civilians, the realities of war are just images on the local news from far-off lands in upheaval. Most only hear about war from talking heads, not from those who lived it. KLRN, in partnership with the Telling Project,  the Veterans Artist Program and the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, is hoping to change this by bringing the highly acclaimed Telling Project to San Antonio.

Playwright Jonathan Wei developed The Telling Project, a theater performance piece, to give veterans a voice to share their experiences --about enlistment, boot camp, deployment, and coming home—with the communities they have served. Most importantly, veterans perform their own monologues, in their own words.  The goal of the play is to connect veterans and their stories in an intimate setting with civilians who may not fully understand the military experience and the struggles many veterans face.

The Telling Project has performed in Portland, Washington, DC, Sacramento, and 15 other communities around the country to positive reviews, and now it’s your chance to see this impactful project.  

 

Praise for The Telling Project:

 “This is real theatre – what we hope for – and connects us with a very important national issue.” - a civilian

“Very real and honest.” -Combat veteran wounded warrior

“Powerful, truthful, very touching, gave me a clearer picture of the military.”- Family member of a veteran

“I can’t say that doing the Telling Project is something that is easy for me to do. But, I really do believe that telling my story is part of my healing journey from PTSD, depression and alcoholism.  I thank you all for the opportunity to tell my story.  We did something good.  We brought a Little light into the darkness.”  - Telling Project performer  

 http://thetellingproject.org/  Telling: San Antonio will run for six performances at the new, state of the art Tobin Center for Performing Arts in the Carlos Alvarez Studio Theater from October 1-5, 2014.  

 

 

STRANGERS INTO NEIGHBORS: THE LATINOS AND HISPANICS IN ALAMANCE COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA 
PHOTO PROJECT AND PUBLIC EXHIBITION/ PROYECTO Y EXPOSICION FOTOGRAFICA PUBLICA

https://www.facebook.com/STRANGERSINTONEIGHBORS 
http://latinimage.blogspot.com/   Fotografía Latin Image 
Photography by Alfonso A. Tobar

Editor Mimi: 
Kudos to photographer Alfonso A. Tobar.  Applying his photographic skills, he has showcased the Latino community in a warm, positive, inviting series of photographs, capturing the spirit of the Latino families and business people.  The broad community support he has in Almance, North Carolina is revealed in the impressive support that his one-man project has attracted. 

Thank you to Tanya Bowers, TBowers@savingplaces.org who sent the following:

September 5, 2014, 6-8pm the International Civil Rights Center & Museum as part of Greensboro's First Friday will host "A Night of Celebrating Hispanic Heritage with Dance, Music, and Photography". Mr. Alfonoso Tobar will exhibit his photo project STRANGERS INTO NEIGHBORS - THE LATINOS AND HISPANICS IN ALAMANCE COUNTY, NC. Followed by Ms. Emonie Whitley, of the Vinmark International Dance Academy, teaching dances within the Hispanic cultures. This is a FREE event and open to the public!

International Civil Rights Center & Museum
134 South Elm Street
Greensboro, NC 27401Do check it out. You will leave his site with a smile on your face.

 

Latest update on the Trujillo Adobe:

The project to restore the Trujillo Adobe in Riverside, California is titled "Spanish Town Heritage Foundation".  The project is incorporated in California and registered with the Registry of Charitable Trusts.  The project is incorporated in California and registered with the Registry of Charitable Trusts.

A confirmation has been received from the IRS and the "Spanish Town Heritage Foundation" is a 501(c)3 charitable organization sanctioned by the IRS.  The 2014 Riverside Tamale Festival made a profit of $14,000.

Progress is being made due to the selfless efforts of our Primas:  Darlene Elliott (Trujillo), Nancy Melendez (Trujillo) and Suzanne Aramas (Trujillo).
Si Se Puede!
Lenny Trujillo
lennytrujillo51@aol.com  
 

 
 2200 Apparitions of the Blessed Mother throughout the world in the 20th century    

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Some interesting revelations sent by Jerry Javier Lujan  

You will be totally amazed with what will be revealed to you by following  all the links   On this site, especially the videos which deal with the Jumanos, Javier Sierra, and the Apocalypse, and the over 2200 Apparitions of the Blessed Mother throughout the world in the 20th century.    

http://mariadeagreda.webs.com/franciscanvideo.htm 

Listen to the Franciscan friar video, then  explore all the links, especially the videos 
 

Register Today: Doing Your own Documentary, San Francisco     

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Doing Your Doc: Diverse Voices, Regional Visions, September 12-14, 2014 is a 3-day regional documentary development/production seminar for Latino/a, African American, Native/Pacific Islanders, Asian, Middle Eastern, LGBTQ, and regional documentary makers in communities traditionally under-served by professional mentoring and information. The artists participating in this program are producing personal, community, social justice, and public media documentaries that reflect their experiences, and tell the stories of their regions and cultures.

 

From beginners to veterans, this weekend program gets your project one step closer to completion with:
• Screening of a film with Q&A
• Distribution case study session
• How to develop your documentary workshop
• Lecture on post-production sound and scoring
• Doc film funding 101 session
• Special grant session with ITVS
• One-on-one mentorship of your project with industry professionals   NALIP  For more information.

 

http://www.nalip.org/doing_your_doc_san_francisco_2014?utm_campaign=dyd_sf&utm_medium=email&utm_source=nalip
 

Save Our History, the Chicana/o Archive Project

rgriswol@mail.sdsu.edu
August 5, 2014

We want to make our history available to all. Our goal is to process 25 archival collections.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/save-our-history-the-chicana-o-archive-project/x/8182353 

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You may not realize it but you can make history every day. Old photographs, notes, posters, newspapers, movies, papers that are in the garage or stored in the back of your closet, are important records for future generations. They tell your story and by extension the story of our time.  

For five years now a committee of community members and academics have been working to create a resource to tell the story of the Mexican American people's struggles in San Diego, California - an important border town with connections to Mexico.

I am the chair of the committee and have worked for 35 years as a history professor at San Diego State University and have published eight books about the Mexican and Chicano history of the U.S.  

Working with a committee of people we have have been developing a Chicana/o Archive. This is a collection of personal papers, documents, photos, and media gathered by people who have been active in the struggles of the 1970s. We have worked to build an important archive collection, one that will benefit present and future students and community members who want to tell the story of how Chicanas and Chicanos have sought to improve their lives here in the San Diego border region. ​

I am now retired from San Diego State University and my wife Rita is a retired professor from Mesa College. We are devoting our lives to making this archive available to as wide an audience as possible.

The Latino history of San Diego is largely unwritten because people do not know about what others have done or their struggles in life.

We have taken old stuff and organized it and want to make it available to the general public and to students and scholars. The archives will be a permanent record for others to draw inspiration from. The library at San Diego State University has been willing to house this collection and give invaluable technical assistance, but their funds are not enough to process and digitize this collection.

The digitzation of the materials is costly. Here is the estimated cost to do this. Leonard Fierro I Carrie Fierro papers $ 300 Michael Ornelas Historical Audio Video Collection $300 David Martinez Papers $ 450 Felicitas Nunez Teatro Chicana Photos $ 150 Rita Sanchez Mesa College Papers $ 300 Sergio Elizondo Papers $ 750 Rene Nunez Papers $ 350 Chicano Collection Ephemera/C. Puerto $300 Chicano Moratorium Film Collection $500 Fallbrook History Audio Video Collection $100 Jose Villarino Audio Video Collection $300 

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Oliva Puentes Reynolds Audio Video Collection $300 Chicano Library and Chicano Collection $200 Chicano Tribute Wall Collection (RitSanchez) $300 Cesar and Bette Beattie Gonzalez Collection $400 Chicana/o Studies Department Collection $400.

Total Cost $5360

The digitization will be done by the SDSU Department of Special Collections and Archives. The costs estimated above were provided by the head archivist.

So we need $5000 to make this archive usable for students in local high schools as well as outside of San Diego.

Any amount will help. If you donate at the $100 level we will send you a historical poster created out of the more than 35 movement posters in our collection. If you can give at the $500 level we will personally give you a tour of the archive if you can make it as well as list you as a major contributor on our website. If you donate in the $1000 level we can place your name or that of your organization tagged to the permanent finding aid for the collections listed.  

If we do not reach our funding goal we will use what funds we have to digitize the most important of the collections listed above.

The Impact

Your contribution will make a difference in thousands of people's lives, students in colleges and high schools as well as those seeking information about the Chicano movement around the world.  

The San Diego State University Library’s Chicana & Chicano Archive Project has been selected as a recipient of a 2011 Excellence in Historic Preservation Award by the City of San Diego’s Historical Resources Board.  

The Archive has been recognized in national and regional media as being of excellence and contributing to San Diego's community.

Several years ago the Committee was able to receive a SDSU presidential grant of $30,000 to begin the process of collection development. We have had numerous community fund raisers as well. You can help by passing this campaign on to your friends and colleagues. Share it using the Indiegogo tools.  
Visit our Website: http://rgriswol.wix.com/chicanoarchive

Sent by Refugio I. Rochin Rrochin@gmail.com http://www.linkedin.com/in/refugiorochin/ 
http://works.bepress.com/refugio_rochin/
 

 

 

 


Become a Community Partner with Story Corps
http://storycorps.org/mobile-tour/

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Our goal is to make the StoryCorps recording experience accessible to all. One way we do that is by partnering with local organizations that serve diverse populations. StoryCorps interviews celebrate the voices and milestones in your community and encourage meaningful interactions between your organization and the people you serve. Community partnerships are free of charge, and conversations can be recorded in any language.

To learn more about the benefits of community partnership and our partner criteria contact mobiletour@storycorps.org.

 

 

To receive the StoryCorps Newsletter, write to:  newsletter@storycorps.org

http://storycorps.org/listen/Subject:

To: Monica Smith <tortelita@aol.com

For more stories, visit our Listen page and subscribe to our free podcast.

800-850-4406

 

 

HISTORIC TIDBITS

WW II Aircraft Carriers on the Great Lakes by Oscar Ramirez
La Battallia del Encinal de  Medina by Dan Arellano
August 19th, 1749: Apaches bury the hatchet in exchange of Conversion to Christianity

 

WW II Aircraft Carriers on the Great Lakes!
http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=48962
Photos are down below article,  you don't have to go anywhere else, after you go to the url.

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Shipmates:

The Great Lakes provided vital support for the war effort in WWII, from building 28 fleet subs in Manitowoc to providing the bulk of US industrial output, we could not have won the war if not for the benefits of the Great Lakes and their related industry. However there was another benefit of the lakes that is often overlooked. Japan quickly lost the war because, among many other things, its navy could not replace its carrier pilot losses. We could. But how did we train so many pilots in both comfort (calm seas) and safety (no enemy subs)?

 

We took two old side-wheel Great Lakes passenger steamers and turned them into training carriers on Lake Michigan! Virtually every carrier pilot trained in the war got his landing training on these amazing ships! Sadly nothing but these great photos and the wrecks of the aircraft that ditched alongside them remain to tell their fascinating story! Thanks to Tom Ursem for sending this link!

BY the way, there is also "Military Landing Strip" on Grosse Isle Check it out! USS Sable and USS Wolverine
Sent by Oscar Ramirez osramirez@sbcglobal.net 

 

La Battallia del Encinal de  Medina
by Dan Arellano danarellano47@att.net

To Protect, Preserve and Promote Tejano History

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On August 18th, 1813 ourTejano ancestors set out to fight in what would become known as the biggest and bloodiest battle ever fought on Texas soil; the Battle of Medina.  Twenty three years before the Alamo our anccestors would fight against a mighty Spanish army and they would  choose to fight to the last man. After 300 years of Spanish tyranny they chose to fight and die on their feet rather than to continue to live on their knees.

On August 7th, 1812 Bernardo Gutierrez de Lara and Augustus Magee crossed the Sabine River flying the Emerald Green flag of the First Texas Republic. This Green Flag would fly over Texas for 1 year and 11 days and under this flag our ancestors would defeat the Spanish at every skirmish and battle leading up to the Battle of Medina. Unfortunately Spain was still a super power and would send a powerful Spanish Army to quash the revolution. This army would be led by General Juaquin de Arredondo who had earned the nick name "El Carnicero," the butcher. He had earned that title because the previous  year he had murdered hundreds of Mayan Indians in the Yucatan Penninsula for daring to revolt against his Spanish King. Under his command would be a young 19 year old Lieutenant Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.

At the Battle of Medina the Republicans numbered 1400 combatants, comprised of 900 Tejanos, 300 US Citizens and 200 Lipan Apaches. They would face a Spanish Army with 1830 well armed, and well trained disciplined  men. The Republicans were lured into a trap which would result in over 300 Republicans falling dead or mortally wounded, but the battle would rage for over 3 hours. On the initial encounter the badly mauled Republicans, shaken and scared would fall back in to the safety of the forest and would regroup and continue to fight.  

Our Tejano ancestors would charge on the left trying to out flank the Spanish and then again to the right to no avail, suffering numerous losses. There was so much smoke and dust no one was sure who was winning. Suddenly over the shouts of wounded and dying men a gust of wind cleared the field of all the dust and Arredondo realized he was winning and orders his bugler to sound the bayonet charge.  After the battle over 900 bodies were left to rot for over nine years. Another 100 would be captured and executed as they tried to escape to Louisiana. 

 

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Charging into San Antonio the Spanish Cavalry arrested over 500 Tejanos suspected of supporting the rebels. The following morning several are released but 327 would be detained. Ten a day would be taken out and shot, numerous would be beheaded and their heads placed on spikes and displayed around Military Plaza. No one would be spared the wrath of Arredondo not even the women or children. Over 400 wives, mothers and daughters of the Tejanos were forced on their knees from 4 in the morning to ten at night to grind the corn to make the tortillas to feed the despised Spanish Army: several 

 

of the women would be brutally and repeatedly raped several dying as a result of the brutality and through the windows of their make shift prison the mothers could see their children searching for food and shelter. So disastrous was this event  that one third of our Tejano community would be dead, one third would flee to Louisiana and the remaining  third would live in terror. To this day these unsung heroes have remained unknown and unrecognized for their ultimate sacrifice.

Dan Arellano Author/Historian  
President Battle of Medina Historical Society  

 


Apaches bury the hatchet 
August 19th, 1749

Source: Texas Day by Day  Texas Historical Association

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On this day in 1749, four Apache chiefs, accompanied by numerous followers, buried a hatchet along with other weapons in a peace ceremony in San Antonio. The ceremony signified the Apaches' acceptance of Christian conversion in exchange for Spanish protection from Comanche raids, which had decimated the Apache population. Five years later Giraldo de Terreros established San Lorenzo, the first formal mission

 for the Texas Apaches, in the jurisdiction of San Juan Bautista in Mexico. When the Apaches revolted and abandoned the mission less than a year later, the missionaries argued in favor of a new mission closer to Apache territory. Construction of the ill-fated mission of Santa Cruz de San Sabá, in the heart of Apachería, began in April 1757; on March 16 of the following year, a party of 2,000 Comanche and allied Indians killed eight of the inhabitants and burned the mission buildings.    


HONORING HISPANIC LEADERSHIP

Emigdio Vasquez, Renowned miuralist portrayed pride, struggle 1939-2014
Sara Estela Ramírez  . . .   "La Musa Texana" dies in Laredo

 

 


Emigdio Vasquez, Renowned miuralist portrayed pride, struggle
1939-2014


Emigdio Vasquez has been called “the godfather of Chicano art.”
Orange County Register, August 14, 2014 by Alejandra Molina 

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He’s embellished walls with everything from pachucos to migrant workers to other vivid scenes of barrio life. In his work, Vasquez illustrates people walking along the shops of Santa Ana’s “Calle Cuatro,” highlights day laborers waiting for work, and in one of his most recognized murals, showcases “The Legacy of Cesar Chavez.”

In recent years, his family has defended his work as a depiction of cultural and iconic pride amid outcry from some Orange County city officials who saw it as validation of gang lifestyle.

Vasquez, the man behind numerous iconic paintings depicting the working class of Orange County, died of pneumonia on Saturday. He was 75.

Vasquez was born in 1939 in the mining town of Jerome, Ariz. In the early 1940s, his father, who worked for Phelps-Dodge copper mines, decided to move the family to Orange. Vasquez attended Mater Dei High School and took art classes in the early 1950s. He then transferred to Orange High, where he continued creating his art. He also attended Santa Ana College and Cal State Fullerton.

 

He started by making his own comic books as a child and turned to oil painting in the late 1950s. He was creating murals about a decade later.

To date, Vasquez has painted 22 murals throughout Orange County, in locations including Cal State Fullerton, the Fullerton Museum, Anaheim City Hall, the wall of an Anaheim market, and Santa Ana College.

“I think he will be remembered as someone who cared about the working class. He captured the community and the grittiness of life,” said his daughter Rosemary Vasquez-Tuthill, 54.

In “Proletarian Family,” Vasquez portrays a middle-aged working-class couple with their children. In “Bread Line,” he shows a line of men smoking cigarettes, shuffling toward an unseen point. “His artwork is timeless,” Vasquez-Tuthill said.

In an undated artist’s statement, Vasquez said of his work, “Life often holds harsh realities. Many of these appear on my canvasses. Translating elements of beauty and struggle are essential to me. I want to convey to the viewer the intense reality which people experience ... These feelings are a commentary on our lives and times.”

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Vasquez’s son, Emigdio “Higgy” Jr., began working in October to restore the artwork painted by his father in 1979. The project began after Chapman University bought the apartment complex where the mural was painted on the 400 block of North Cypress Street.

Artists and those involved in the Santa Ana arts scene began recalling Vasquez’s work when news of his death began to spread.“Emigdio’s art represents our community and celebrates Chicano culture like no other artist has been able to do yet in Orange County,” said Alicia Rojas, with the Santa Ana Community Artist/a Coalition. “His work portrays working-class people, their struggles and also their pride.”  

“Emigdio was a significant artist for Santa Ana and Orange County because he captured a world and a culture that is rapidly disappearing,” said Sandra “Pocha” Peña, a downtown arts advocate and director of the OC Film Fiesta.

 

In 2013, Vasquez, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, became the first Orange County resident to be presented with a prestigious Maestro award from the Latino Arts Network, an association of Latino museums and cultural centers partnered with the California Arts Council. The award recognizes unsung heroes, artists and cultural workers.

“I consider him the Diego Rivera of the modern age. He was the godfather of Chicano art,” said fellow artist Abram Moya Jr., 64, of La Habra, who has known Vasquez since the 80s. “He is one of the heroes of Orange County. You get a lot of people who are all talk. He wasn’t like that. He had his ideology, and he was very humble about all of it.”

Vasquez is survived by six children, Adolph, Rosemary, Dora, Emigdio Jr., Sarah and Vera; four brothers and one sister. His wife, Rosie, died in 2011.  A memorial fund has been set up at gofundme.com/96l0e0.   

Contact the writer: amolina@ocregister.com
Staff writer Richard Chang contributed to this report.

 

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Short description of image content

Emigdio Vasquez

CSUF Degrees: B.A. in art, 1978; M.A. in art, 1979

Background: Vasquez is an muralist and painter, known internationally for his work in the photo-realistic style. He made his own comic books as a child, basing them on stories his father told him about the Mexican Revolution. He began oil painting in the late 1950s and murals in the 1960s. His works can be seen on walls and buildings throughout Orange County. His body of work documents and comments on the daily life of working people in the barrio, capturing the urban experience.

Mike Vines comments on Vasquez' work on the website Fine Art at Home:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ga1cISf365Q/THbda7nCfuI/AAAAAAAAADg/REtUJljTWtA/s400/vasquez-large.jpg

Emigdio Vasquez, (Arizona and California 1939 – Present), Early Morning at OVC (1980), 24-1/2″ x 30-1/2″, Oil on canvas.


Emigdio Vasquez, Glass of Beer surrounded by Vegetables.

"I first became acquainted with Emigdio Vasquez some 20 years ago during one of my visits to Rita Chemer’s Gallery in Tustin, California. When entering the gallery that day I was confronted with an assortment of colorful and realistically rendered scenes of Chicano life and historical figures from the past and present. These reflective depictions of everyday, ordinary people struck a chord with me as I had always thought a missing study in modern art to be that of ordinary man.

The variety of Emigdio’s interest and his skill in translating his sentiment onto canvas was made evident by the range of paintings that were present in the gallery that day. I saw poignant illustrations of day laborers lingering in places such as the Old Orange Deli south of the Circle (Orange, CA), and in stark alleys and dusty streets that were cautiously hidden from public view. I saw contemporary and historical figures from Cesar Chavez to Emiliano Zapata along with landscapes and still life compositions. I was particularly delighted with an incredibly realistic still life of a glass of beer surrounded by vegetables on a wood-grained tabletop. How true to contemporary times was this painting in comparison to the Victorian “Dead Pheasant on the Kitchen Board” still life that can still be found in most museums and hotel rooms but has little relevance to here and now."
http://www.fineartathome.com/2010/08/emigdio-vasquez-early-morning-at-ovc.html 

 

Sara Estela Ramírez  . . .   "La Musa Texana" dies in Laredo

August 21st, 1910
Source: Texas day by day, Texas Historical Association  

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On this day in 1910, poet and political leader Sara Estela Ramírez died in Laredo at about the age of twenty-nine, twelve years after arriving in Texas from her native Mexico. In Laredo, she taught Spanish and became a prominent supporter of the Partido Liberal Mexicano, the most progressive political party in the era leading up to the Mexican Revolution, and a close friend of PLM leader Ricardo Flores Magón. She probably published most of her poetry and essays in Spanish-language newspapers such as La Crónica, and starting

 in 1901 became the publisher of two papers, La Corregidora and Aurora. Her journalism was apparently tied to her work with Regeneración y Concordia, a feminist organization to which she belonged, and she is considered one of the founders of Mexican feminism. Twenty-one of her poems and essays, all published between 1908 and 1910, constitute the body of her known work. She was eulogized in La Crónica by Jovita Idar, who bestowed on her the nickname "La Musa Texana."

 

EDUCATION

Insights From National Leaders, Latino Youth/Education Policy Issues, Antonio R. Flores, Ph.D. Michael Derrick Tubbs Founder, The Phoenix Scholars, Stockton, California
Free Cash for College Workshops

 

http://ih.constantcontact.com/fs162/1011195004046/img/921.jpg

Antonio R. Flores, Ph.D., is the president and CEO of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU), which represents more than 450 colleges and universities committed to Hispanic higher education success in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Latin America and Spain.  

 

 

2014 Nat'l Latino Voter Education Series

Insights From National Leaders      
Latino Youth and Education Policy Issues  

The explosive Hispanic population growth of the past few decades has propelled this youthful demographic to American politics' center stage. Although Latinos have yet to register and vote proportionate to their numbers, we can expect an increase in civic engagement as their education and economic levels continue to improve.  

Last in line are likely to be Hispanic youth, since voting participation rates for the young always lag those of the more mature. Young people have more distractions from following political issues and candidates and actually voting. Because the Hispanic median age of 27 is far younger than other populations, this lag in Hispanic voter participation could persist for some time.  

However, several issues could motivate greater Latino youth civic engagement in the years ahead. One is federal and state higher education policy and funding. We have seen how higher education can be one of the first areas to be cut when state economies get tight. Education is not seen as a necessity (like prisons) nor does it have a strong voting constituency to support it.  

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The consequence of these state level cuts (and of limitations in federal financial aid, especially Pell grants for low-income students) is that educational opportunities are further limited. The reduction of college slots, course offerings, and financial aid combine to make college less accessible.  

Voting blocs of young Latinos could shine light on these cuts and blighted opportunities, and force legislators to give the same priority to the future they give to the present.  

For example, we have seen how "DREAMers" have become increasingly organized and by going public have brought attention to the plight of hundreds of thousands of undocumented students. Many have no ties to their native country but are too often denied the opportunity to become full citizens of, and full contributors to, their new homeland.  

Comprehensive immigration reform, and especially a fair DREAM Act to create real higher education and citizenship opportunities for undocumented students, is another issue that can galvanize young Latino voters. Being a voice at the polls
for the voiceless DREAMers is an important dimension of solidarity. The young Latino voter is a vivid reminder that  Latinos have not only been in much of this nation even before

 

it became the U.S., but that we are here to stay and have a stake in the future of this country.  

Every issue that touches Americans touches young Hispanics as well, such as health care, for example. Many young Latinos deal daily with minority health issues that impact their parents and grandparents, and they want better health care options for their families. True, one has to make the jump from personal experience of family health issues to power at the polls to compel policy attention to health disparities. But the connection is there to be made, especially if we consider that Hispanics remain the most underinsured population.  

And, as we see the growth in numbers of Hispanic elected officials, we have additional arguments in pushing for greater Latino involvement. We have advocates in power and we can have more if we flex our political strength in numbers at the polls. But we have seen that we can make a difference. We have reason to hope.  More importantly we have reason to vote.  

Kirk Whisler kirk@whisler.com 
Latino Print Network | 3445 Catalina Dr. | 
Carlsbad | CA | 92010

 

 

MICHAEL DERRICK TUBBS FOUNDER, THE PHOENIX SCHOLARS, STOCKTON, CALIF
www.PHOENIXSCHOLARS.ORG   

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Michael D. TubbsTubbs was born into poverty with a teen mom and incarcerated dad. "Growing up, it seemed as if the only options presented to people from backgrounds like mine in the media and in society were prison or death, and I promised God that if I ever became successful, I would give back," he says. In 2012, the 23-year-old interned at the White House, earned a master's degree from Stanford University and became the youngest city councilman in Stockton,  Calif.. 

Tubbs kept his promise to God by founding The Phoenix Scholars, a nonprofit organization he started in 2010 that matches first-generation college students with college mentors to help them navigate the school, financial aid and scholarship processes. To date, the organization has helped more than 400 high school students. Tubbs also is the co-founder and co-executive director of the Summer Success and Leadership Academy, a summer residential program that prepares 40 at-risk youth to be leaders in their communities and puts them on a trajectory for college. "The most rewarding part is [being] in a position to serve."

Ebony magazine, Vol. LXIX, No. 7  May 24 http://phoenixscholars.org/2011/12/18/phoenix-scholars-in-the-news-2/ 

 

FREE Cash for College workshops!
($1,000 incentive scholarships) awarded during our 2014

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  8/5/14: Yearly, a broad array of community stakeholders and organizations, regionally coordinated by LEAD, and jointly planned with the Partners of the IE Regional Collaborative, host more than 100 FREE Cash for College workshops across San Bernardino and Riverside Counties. Students and families can attend FREE Cash for College workshops for help to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and Cal Grant GPA Verification Form required for Cal Grants.

Currently
1 out of every 7 Cash for College Financial Aid workshops in the whole state of CA takes place here in the Inland Empire, from January 1 through March 2nd.  In just the last few years, we have:


 

- assisted close to 12,000 families in the Inland Empire to complete their FAFSA financial aid application.

- brought in to date more than $ 65 million dollars to our region in what may or would have easily been otherwise unclaimed financial aid monies.  

This year (2014), we had: - scheduled a total of 104 workshops.
- assisted a total of
4,656 students who had attended our workshops.
-
84 scholarship awardees (one per each 25 persons or combined workshop).  

Find out more about Cal Grants:  http://lead.csusb.edu/cash.htm

Sent by Enrique G. Murillo, Jr., Ph.D.
EMurillo@csusb.edu   

 http://www.publications.csac.ca.gov/common/files/products/28.CSAC%2010%20Things%20Students%20ENG.Spanish%20G-121.pdf  


 

CULTURE

Salón: Culture and Conversation by Bernadette Inclan
September 17, 2014: The San Francisco Art Institute, ART and Revolutions Exhibit
Seeking U.S. Art All Over Map
The Xoloitzcuintli, Mexican Hairless Dog by John Inclan
Ding dong, muerto me llevan en un cajon  
Lydia Mendoza,
guitarist/singer of Tejano, Conjunto, & traditional Mexican-America music  
Loaf of Art
La Virgin by Rafael Jesus Gonzalez 

Salón: Culture and Comversation
by Bernadette Inclan

Several years ago, my husband Joseph and I attended a party at the home of a new friend, Chris.  Although she is part of the executive board of the hospital in which I work, she is also a licensed chef and her buffet included homemade hors d'oeuvre and interesting beverages. At the height of the party, she announced that the entertainment would shortly as she gathered the guest to the sitting area.  We were fascinated; what kind of entertainment do you have at a cocktail party? Was she going to introduce a celebrity, a musician, or maybe an artist?  During the mingling hour, I heard several of teh guest ask when was the entertainment? But I didn't quite connect what they meant.  As we excitedly grabbed our chairs, Chris took the mike and announced that it was "open mike," which meant, as we learned that anyone could show of his or her talents.  She began the session by reciting a poem that she had written. Another person choose to play a song on his guitar; another person read a story that he had written and published; and another recited a part from a play. It was one of the most enjoyable parties that we had ever attended and it was a springboard to do what we do now at our gatherings. 

During one of our first parties where I introduced Phoenix's Latin American novelist, Stella Pope Duarte, I learned from a guest that this soiree was similar to the gatherings of Early Modern and Revolutionary France. Salón, from the French word salon, a living room or parlor, was a conversational gathering.  This was usually a select group of intellectuals, artists, and politicians who met in the private residence of a socially influential (and often wealthy) person.  Well our circle of friends and family, who are well educated and talented in one field or another.  Why not share their expertise and knowledge in a soiree?

The theme for the this Salon was "Encuentros de las Mentes" and a number of would-be writers presented their stories.  One reader read a chapter of a book that he was sending to a publisher; I presented my children's book, while my graphic artist, Darren Foster displayed the pictures that he drew.

Stella Pope Duarte, presents her award winning novels.
Chris Power reads one of her published poems.
John Inclan mingles with the guests
 
The San Francisco Art Institute: ART and Revolutions

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 We will be screening the documentary ART and Revolutions at The San Francisco Art Institute, September 17, 2014 at 7:30pm. Diego Rivera created a mural at SFAI, one of his first in the USA, back in 1931. SFAI is one of the top arts schools on the West Coast.

Short background: This film tells the story of Mexican artist and printmaker José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913) who while working for Mexican publisher Antonio Vanegas Arroyo (1852-1917) created a vast portfolio of work. Posada's illustrations made through their twenty-three year collaboration inspired and significantly influenced the graphic images of today's social movements from battling fascism, to protesting wars and crusading for civil rights.  

http://www.posada-art-foundation.com/#!events-exhibitions/c1f7e
Please post and come if you are able! And if you do bring friends please!

Thank you, Jim Nikas
jimnikas@gmail.com  

 

 


Seeking U.S. Art All Over Map. Just Check GPS.

By RANDY KENNEDY
FEB. 8, 2014

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The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark., is trying to find 100 under-recognized artists, culled from a list of more than 10,000, to feature. Go to: www.nytimes.com 

Representatives of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art visiting the studio of Tamara Wilson, left, a graduate student, in Albuquerque. Alice Walton is the museum’s founder. Credit Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

PHOENIX — Two men stepped out of a rental car here recently and walked up to a modest ranch-style house with a cat and a grapefruit tree in the yard, worried that the homeowner might mistake them for missionaries or salesmen.  

They were neither. They were representatives of one of the world’s wealthiest art patrons, Alice Walton, the Walmart heiress and founder of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark. And they had come all the way from there to the door of Monica Aissa Martinez, 51, hoping to discover nothing less than genuine, unheralded American art talent. The men, Don Bacigalupi, the museum’s president, and Chad Alligood, a curator, crowded into the artist’s small studio off her kitchen and quickly admired her work, a mix of Southwestern mysticism and anatomical precision that looked something like X-ray images as painted by Gustav Klimt. Then they bade her goodbye and hopped back into the car. They had reason to hurry. Preparing for a show that will inevitably be seen as a kind of heartland response to 

the Whitney Biennial, they had already logged 50,000 miles visiting 500 artists in 30 states, and they had almost 500 more artists to go.  

Monica Aissa Martinez at her home studio in Phoenix, is one of 650 artists who have been visited by representatives of the Crystal Bridges Museum of Modern Art, founded by Alice Walton. Credit Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

The goal of their unusual art hunt — an old-fashioned, Kerouacian canvass of the country — is to find 100 underrecognized artists, culled from a list of more than 10,000, to feature in September in an ambitious show that will represent Ms. Walton’s first attempt to plant her institution’s flag firmly in the world of contemporary art.  

Her museum, which has drawn more than a million visitors since opening in 2011, is a 21st-century version of Gilded Age collections like those amassed by Henry Clay Frick in New York and Isabella Stewart Gardner in Boston. But Crystal Bridges is in a small city in the Ozarks, the first museum of its size to open between the coasts in more than a generation.

The Whitney Biennial, the much-argued-about barometer of the country’s art, helped bring artists like Georgia O’Keeffe, Jackson Pollock and Jeff Koons to prominence. Hoping to make their own discoveries of that caliber, Ms. Walton’s emissaries have looked high and low, sometimes literally.  

 

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During a trip to Portland, Ore., Mr. Bacigalupi was invited to an artist’s dark basement where she showed him a sculpture resembling a coffin and he momentarily feared for his safety. He and Mr. Alligood, a Harvard-trained curator who grew up in rural Georgia, have ventured to places so small the GPS has given up (a farm near the unincorporated town of Ponca, Ark.). They have seen art on a goat farm, in a soap factory, in a defunct pie factory. They interviewed one artist they were fairly sure was high on cocaine and another who was profoundly stoned.

“There have been times over the past few months,” said Mr. Bacigalupi (pronounced BAH-chee-ga-LOO-pee), a Brooklyn-born contemporary art specialist, “when I wake up and literally have no idea what city I’m in.”

While the Whitney many years ago broadened its focus beyond the United States, Crystal Bridges is building its show not only around the curators’ road trip but also against the all-American backdrop of the museum’s growing collection by artists like Sargent, O’Keeffe, Rockwell and Pollock.  

Searching for American Artists

Since July, two curators for the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art have visited more than 650 artists across the country.

The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Jennifer Doyle, an English professor and contemporary art specialist at the University of California, Riverside, said she saw the idea as a challenge by a nonurban museum to the art-world dominance of New York and Los Angeles. Bentonville has a population of 38,000, smaller than the average weekly attendance at the Museum of Modern Art.

“If you want to assert your own set of cultural values, then this seems like a grandly ambitious scheme to try to do that,” Ms. Doyle said. “It’s almost like a census.”

She added: “Personally I wish it wasn’t Walmart money that was doing this. But I guess it would be the shooting-fish-in-a-barrel critique to point out that Walmart is often blamed for hurting the sorts of places — small-town, middle-class America — where they’re now looking for this kind of individual expression.” 

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Mr. Bacigalupi said Walmart rarely came up in discussions with artists, though one, in Ohio, was wary of showing them a work in which a miniature Walmart truck was foundering in an oil spill — his sculptural metaphor for the recession. But Mr. Bacigalupi reassured him it was “the kind of adventurous work we’re looking for.”  

While Walmart and its subsidiary Sam’s Club have contributed to make admission to the exhibition free, he stressed that the company had no involvement in shaping the show.

“I think certainly people are aware of the source of Alice’s wealth,” Mr. Bacigalupi said. “But I think all of that is so far past now, and critics have begun to take on the museum as a museum.” (Ms. Walton, 64, who is the youngest child of Sam Walton, Walmart’s founder, but not involved in the company’s operations, declined to be interviewed about the project. Forbes estimates her worth at $33 billion, making her the world’s eighth richest person.)  

Catalina Delgado-Trunk, an artist, talked with the curators Don Bacigalupi, right, and Chad Alligood in Albuquerque. Credit Ruth Fremson/The New York Times.

By early February, traveling together and separately, Mr. Bacigalupi and Mr. Alligood had visited 650 artists in more than 120 cities and towns. The only part of the country they had not yet penetrated was the vast, tricky northern Great Plains, where airports and artists are few and far between.

“You see a lot of work that starts to look the same, a lot of artists who have a career locally but aren’t going to be able to make the jump, and then every once in a while you find that artist who blows you away, who you just can’t believe, and it makes all the miles worth it,” Mr. Bacigalupi said, describing a recent discovery of a young artist in Las Vegas who mashes up art-historical imagery with that of Latino street culture. (“Think Henry Moore meets a piñata, ” he wrote in an email.)  

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The curators have tried to stay away from commercial galleries, hoping for artists the market has not discovered. They compiled their list of prospective artists by talking to fellow curators, museum officials, local art leaders and established artists.

“For a lot of artists, this is the first time they’ve ever been visited by an art professional, by a museum curator,” Mr. Alligood said, adding that for all the artists visited personally, he and Mr. Bacigalupi have interviewed more by Skype, telephone and email.

To manage the stupendously difficult task of keeping track of what they have seen, the curators have leaned toward the analog, a ring-binder notebook with a rudimentary Olympic-type scoring system: 10 possible points for a quality called “engagement,” 10 for “virtuosity” and 10 for “appeal.” So far, the highest rating is a 28.  

In Mr. Bacigalupi’s office in Bentonville hangs a large map of the United States that sums up their thinking, months before they will make definitive choices. 

Pins are stuck in several states for likely choices, but many more are clustered out over the Pacific Ocean, representing artists from various states in a sort of holding pattern who may yet be brought to shore (metaphorically) for this shot at art-world recognition.

Unrolling paintings to show the curators in Phoenix, Ms. Martinez said she hoped to be on their map’s terra firma.

“I’m really fortunate because my work has been collected here,” she said, knocking on her studio table. “That’s not the hard part anymore; it’s getting out of Phoenix. But I’m trying.”

Looking at her two visitors, soon on their way to meet seven more artists across the city, she added, “I don’t know how this happened, but I’m pretty happy about it.”

A version of this article appears in print on February 9, 2014, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Seeking U.S. Art All Over Map. Just Check GPS..  

Sent by Dorinda Moreno pueblosenmovimientonorte@gmail.com

 

 

The Xoloitzcuintli

Mexican Hairless Dog

By John Inclan

 

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The Xoloitzcuintli, native to Mexico, and the national dog of Mexico, is one of three hairless breed of dogs in the world.  In America it is known as Xolo and Mexican hairless dog and the breed  can trace its name from the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs. Xōlōitzcuintli  Xolotl=God and Itzcuīntli=Dog.

Archaeological findings show that the Xoloitzcuintli has existed in Mexico for more than 3,000 years.   Most likely, the early forerunners of the Xolo originated as spontaneous hairless mutations and this hairlessness may have offered a survival advantage in the tropical region of Mexico, Central and South America. In ancient times, they held high spiritual value evidenced by their frequent appearance in art and artifacts produced by the Toltec, Maya, and Aztec civilizations. The native people believed the dogs were needed by their masters’ souls to help them safely traverse through the underworld. They were also useful companion animals. According to Aztec mythology, the god Xolotl, created the Xoloitzcuintli from a sliver of the Bone of Life from which all mankind was made. Xolotl gave this gift to Man with the instruction to guard it with his life and in exchange it would guide Man through the dangers of Mictlan, the world of Death, and propell them toward the Evening Star in the Heavens. Today, some native people in Mexico continue to believe this breed has healing qualities. The Aztecs also raised the breed for their meat. Sixteenth-century Spanish accounts tell of large numbers of dogs being served at banquets. Aztec feasts could have 80-100 turkeys and 20-40 dogs served as communion food. One should note that archeological sites have found that the Aztecs consumed few domesticated animals like Xolos or turkey and over 90% of the bones found are of deer.

When Columbus arrived in the Caribbean in 1492, his journal entries noted the presence of strange hairless dogs, subsequently, from this first European encounter, the Xolos were introduce to Europe.

Despite the Xolo's more than 3000 year history in Mexico, the breed did not receive any official notice in its homeland until the 1950s. The Fédération Cynologique Internationale (FCI) is an international federation of kennel clubs in Thuin, Belgium. Founded in 1940, it was not prepared to declare the Xolo an official purebred at that time. According to breed historian Norman Pelham Wright, author of The Enigma of the Xoloitzcuintli, Xolos began to turn up at Mexican dog shows in the late 1940s. While they were recognized as indigenous specimens of a native breed, interest in them was minimal at that time, because information was scarce and no standard existed by which to judge them. Within a decade,  the FCI realized that the breed would become extinct if drastic action were not taken to save it. This led to the widely publicized Xolo Expedition of 1954. With the official sanction of the FCI, Wright and a team of Mexican and British dog authorities set off to discover if any purebred Xolos still existed in remote areas of Mexico.

Eventually ten structurally strong Xolos were found and these dogs formed the foundation of Mexico's program to revive the breed. A committee headed by Wright authored the first official standard for the breed and on May 1, 1956 the Xolo was finally recognized. Currently Mexico is a member of the worldwide FCI.

 

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The Xolo has been developed by natural selection for thousands of years, and is therefore generally not prone to health and structure problems as other dog breeds more modified by human selection efforts. Xolos came from tropical climates and are not suited for outdoor life in colder temperate and northern climates where they should be considered an indoor dog breed. They need bathing, light grooming and skin care as with other dogs of similar physical type. Acne as well as other skin problems can arise from poor breeding, neglect, over-bathing and over-lotioning, stripping natural protections and clogging pores.

My own interest with this breed comes from my rescued dog named Charlotte, AKA Carlota. Unlike a Chihuahua, it’s a unique looking dog, and she draws a crowd wherever she goes. You will find this breed entered in the Ugly dog contest because some find this breed as UGLY.   A genetic study was conducted to determine the origin of the Xoloitzcuintli breed. This study did not find a close genetic relationship between Xoloitzcuintli and the Chinese Crested Dog. The study concluded that this breed did not result from a separate domestication of dogs in the New World but appears to have been a result of a mixture of several Old World dog breeds.

 


          Famed Artist Frida Kahlo holding her pet Xolo.

 

Ding dong, muerto me llevan en un cajon  

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Mimi, I have been a reader for about two years now, and this is the first time I have contacted you. I have been trying to find an old Spanish or Mexican poem or saying that our grandmother used to sing for us, quite a few years ago. My grandmothers name was Eucebia Martin del Campo de Pegueros. She passed away in 1969. 

I think it is a Mexican poem because the Spanish would not say borrego but cordero.

Anyway, I hope some of your members may know where to research this or may know the poem. I thank you in advance. The poem, as I can remember went like this:

I remain: your seguro y atento servidor  
Abel E. Morales  
abelito126@aol.com

 




Ding dong, muerto me llevan en un cajon;

Si el cajon fuera de palo, muerto me llevan en un caballo;

Si el caballo fuera tordillo, muerto me llevan en un Castillo;

Si el Castillo fiera de fuego, muerto me llevan en un Borrego;

Si el Borrego fuera de lana, muerto me llevan en una cama;

Si la cama fuera muy dura, muerto me llevan en una sepulture, etc

 

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Lydia Mendoza
May 21, 1916 - Dec 20, 2007
An American guitarist and singer of Tejano, conjunto, and traditional Mexican-America music.  


I just got my US Postage Stamps to day I always pick our my stamps wanting the special ones to use & keep what a surprise I found her & we remembered her; she was outstanding. 
You felt it in your Heart !!!! 

Lydia Mendoza: The First Lady Of Tejano
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia_Mendoza

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=lydia+mendoza&fr=chr-att

Sent by Bill and Bonnie Chapa  thechapas@yahoo.com 

 


Loaf of Art 
Editor:  I am always amazed and delighted with man's creativity and nature's abundance.
Loaf of Art. Each Color Was Layered to Form the Picture. Apparently Each Slice Sold for $5000.
http://m.tickld.com/x/46-incredible-photos-you-may-not-have-seen-before    Sent by Jose Pena
 


  La virgen,
pura como una gota de azogue,
en la cintura un cinturón de zafiros,
reina sobre la tierra mudable.
La vigila Mercurio
mientras ella ordena cuidadosamente
las cuentas de cornerina, de sardónice
en la calma de la noche plena.

© Rafael Jesús González 2014  

 


Virgo c

 The virgin,
pure as a drop of quicksilver,
girdled with sapphires,
reigns over the changing earth.
Mercury watches her
as she carefully orders
the beads of carnelian, of sardonyx
in the calm of full night.

    © Rafael Jesús González 2014  

 

Editor:  I greatly admire Rafael's skill in writing poetry in both Spanish and English, so beautiful.   
Rafael Jesús González,  P.O. Box 5638, Berkeley, CA 94705
 


BOOKS & PRINT MEDIA

Ten Years of   "SOMOS PRIMOS"  DVD of past print issues (1990-1999)
Wilbur-Cruce Spanish Mission/Ranch Horse, A Beautiful, Cruel Country 
         by Eva Antonia Wilbur-Cruce  
Mobile Must Fall by Stephen Estopinal
Colonial Spanish Texas and Other Essays by Dr. Lino Garcia

The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction  by Linda Gordon  
New Mexico Book of the Undead by Ray John De Aragon
Terror on the Border by J. Gilberto Quezada
Border Boss by J. Gilberto Quezada
The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction by Linda Gordon  
Mexican American Colonization during the Nineteenth Century: 
        A History of the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands by José Angel Hernández.

Text Box: GOOD NEWS!
"SOMOS PRIMOS"
 DVD IS READY

TEN YEARS of  "SOMOS PRIMOS" 
DVD OF PAST ISSUES (1990-1999)
$10.00 INCLUDING TAX OR $12.50 IF IT INCLUDES SHIPPING

YOU CAN NOW ORDER TEN YEARS (1990-1999) OF PAST QUARTERLY ISSUES OF "SOMOS PRIMOS", HERETOFORE ONLY AVAILABLE IN PRINT.  ALL ISSUES ARE INCLUDED IN ONE DVD IN JPG FORMAT.   INDEXES ARE AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST FIVE YEARS (1990-1995) AND THE REMAINING COPIES EACH HAVE A TABLE OF CONTENTS.  

THE DVD WITH ALL THE PAST ISSUES (1990-1999) IS AVAILABLE AT THE LOW PRICE OF $10.00 INCLUDING TAX PLUS $2.50 FOR SHIPPING.  TO ORDER YOUR COPY SIMPLY COMPLETE THE ORDER FORM BELOW AND MAIL IT WITH YOUR CHECK FOR $12.50.  EXPECT YOUR DVD WITHIN TEN DAYS AFTER YOUR ORDER HAS BEEN RECEIVED.    

NAME:___________________________________________

ADDRESS: _____________________________________________________

CITY:_____________________   STATE:_______________________ ZIP:_____

NUMBER OF DVD'S DESIRED ____________________            AMOUNT ENCLOSED:  ______________________

MAKE CHECKS PAYABLE TO: SHHAR
P.O. BOX 4911
ANAHEIM, CA 92803

 

 

 

Wilbur-Cruce Spanish Mission/Ranch Horse

A Beautiful, Cruel Country

by Eva Antonia Wilbur-Cruce

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A Beautiful, Cruel Country (Hardcover) ~ Eva Antonia Wilbur-Cruce Cover Art



Our Ranchito basks in the sun, rather idle now, compared to the life of turmoil it lived at the turn of the century. It is still the home of a herd of horses that enjoys the creek with us. The strain of the Spanish horse—our “rock horses” that I have praised so highly in this book—a colorful remnant of the past.



The Spring Corrida

"These horses were brought here from Rancho Dolores in Mexico, the headquarters of Father Kino, who had brought them from Spain 

Grandfather Wilbur brought fine Morgan horses from Colorado, but they didn't survive. The Spanish horses thrived in the desert and were the horses of the day. They were our companions from sun up to sun down and sometimes deep into the night, year in and year out. They had speed, stamina, and intelligence, and, strange as it may seem, they had feelings. I have seen them die heartbroken. In all the sixty years that I spent in the saddle off and on, only once did my horse play out on me, and that was due to my own hard riding.

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Riding twenty miles away from any habitation, approximately seven hours away from any help, usually made me nervous and tense, and this put my horse on the alert, so I watched him closely for any signal. I knew if danger were near he would tell me. Years of close association had taught me his language.

The Spanish horse was made to build the West, and that he did.
And so the Spanish horses were made for the country and were much like the country itself, rugged and beautiful. 

They carried themselves well and carried their riders with utmost care, placing their small feet on solid ground and balancing themselves as they reached out for better footing. 

It was amusing to see an 800-pound horse under a 200-pound man with an enormous saddle and a 1000-pound bull at the end of a rope. They knew the danger they were under, but they worked with their riders with courage and outstanding intelligence. And none more beautiful! These were the horses that went to that spring corrida."

From ‘ Horses and Heroes’ Contact: Robin Collins
Eva Antonia Wilbur-Cruce 40222 Millstream Lane
"A Beautiful, Cruel Country" Madera CA 93636
The University of Arizona Press – 1987 Phone 559 868-8681
Pages 107-108 www.ranchodelsueno.com

 Sent by Robin Collins 

 

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Mimi, this is just off the press!!  

The year is 1780 and the American Colonies are in revolt against Britain. Spain entered the conflict as an ally of the rebels in 1779 and seized Baton Rouge from the British, securing the flow of supplies to the western front. Bernardo Gálvez, the Spanish Governor-General of Louisiana has determined to send a reconnaissance force into Florida to prepare for an assault on the British fort at Mobile.

Sergeant Diego deMelilla of the Spanish Fixed Regiment of Louisiana has been selected to lead that reconnaissance. Grieving over the recent loss of his beautiful wife, deMelilla is confronted with hardships, British soldiers and a mysterious woman. Through it all, one fact remains – if Spain and the American Revolution are to succeed, Mobile Must Fall.

Stephen V. Estopiñál  
6166 Breeze Point Drive  
Gonzales, Louisiana 70737  

Author of The deMelilla Chronicles: 
El Tigre de Nueva Orleáns,  
Incident at Blood River
, Anna and Escape to New Orleans

 


Colonial Spanish Texas and Other Essays

My book on ' Colonial Spanish Texas and Other Essays ' is now available for the general public.
If interested, please send me complete name, complete mailing address, and a check for
$15 to : Dr. Lino Garcia,Jr..
1723 W. Smith
Edinburg, Texas 8541

Essay from Colonial Spanish Texas and Other Essays
The roots of Texas education planted in Colonial Spanish days  

By Dr. Lino García, Jr.  

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When Pánfilo Narváez and Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca along with a few hundred Spanish soldiers landed on Galveston Bay on November 6, 1528, the exploration and the settlement of the territory of Texas brought into this state European institutions that still prevail at the present time. One of these was Spain’s yearning for and dedication to the education of its citizens.

Hundreds of Spain’s best and most brilliant scholars, and educators from the best universities in Spain and Europe flooded the New World with a mission to educate the natives, and the children of the Spanish explorers and conquerors that had subsequently arrived in the new world. It is no wonder that in Colonial Spanish Texas early attempts were initiated by the Spanish and Mexican authorities in establishing schools.

Max Berger in his “Education in Texas during the Spanish/Mexican Periods” gives us an insight into the early efforts by Spanish/Mexican citizens of Colonial Spanish Texas in establishing the first system of public schools. Spanish soldiers occupied Texas by establishing military outposts, with the early Spanish missions an integral part of that military policy. The Indian population was to be Christianized, educated, and prepared to be citizens of the Spanish Empire. Thus, every mission had as its component an industrial school for instructions in industry and agriculture.  

The Spanish language was also taught to the Indian population. The first of such a mission with its instructional component was established in Texas in 1690, and within five or more years twenty-five such Spanish missions were also started. We know that the first settlement in Texas by Spanish families and soldiers was the founding of San Fernando de Béxar (later San Antonio) in 1718; and thereafter it was inevitable that a need for education existed for the children of Spanish settlers, soldiers, and governmental officials in the Texas of that time.

It is known that the first such non-mission school began its operation in San Antonio, Texas, in the year 1746. It was a normal parish school as was in place throughout the Spanish Empire; it was conducted and had as its mission the training of the young in religious doctrines. Another such school was opened in San Antonio in the year 1789, but closed soon in 1792.

A few years later in 1802, an official edict was pronounced by the Spanish government in Texas that called for a school to be in operation prescribing compulsory attendance, and with penalties for parent for any failure to comply. One year later another official order was proclaimed establishing schools at all military posts in Texas, with provisions to grant a small salary for its teachers.  

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Spanish authorities had a penchant for details and for direct authority in all its affairs in the New World, which also included Spanish Colonial Texas, and it is no wonder that detailed instructions for the organization of its schools also reflected that policy. Thus, in San Antonio a school was established with public funds, offering free tuition , and setting the stage for the later on famous “Public Free Primary School’ that opened in San Antonio in the year 1828 and that had its blessings from the Mexican authorities who then ruled Texas after the state gained its independence from Spain in 1821.

We know that at La Bahía in the year 1818, a soldier by the name of Galán taught a class of eighteen children; receiving no salary, except for a few donations of meat, lard, salt, and the small salary he received as a soldier. The majority of the children, wrote a citizen then, “...are taught out of pure charity, the custom being not to give anything to this unfortunate wretch.” It was difficult to sustain any semblance of an educational system during the turbulent years of unrest between 1819 and 1821, when Texas was liberated by the Independence Movement of 1816, and when the territory reverted back to the Mexican authorities.

However the Mexican government, which ruled Texas after 1821, issued a proclamation allowing the states control of their educational endeavors, and such was the case in Texas. Thus, the new constitution of Coahuila and Texas of 1827 required all cities to establish primary schools in the territory.  

We know that in 1828 the then governor of Texas José María Viesca encouraged parents to send their children to the best schools possible; and that by 1833 the state of Texas started the practice of granting land grants to establish local institutions of learning.

However, it was still difficult to establish a long lasting educational system of learning given the political unrest that set upon the Texas of that time. In San Antonio, the best of schools existed in all of the territory, but they were still far from perfect. Other factors were lack of teachers, and the high level of poverty of the state. However, San Antonio managed to establish a law known as the “Public Free Primary School,” which was free, subsidized by public funds and private subscriptions.

Rules were immediately established to conduct this endeavor, such as classes held from six to ten in the morning during the summer, and seven to twelve in the winter months; with classes held in the afternoon from two to six during the whole year. The instructor was to open the school with a prayer; and held strict observances of religious events. The lessons included the “three R’s”, with lessons in manners, morals, and religion. The teacher was hired on a four year contract at a salary of five hundred dollars a year, payable in monthly installments. These early schools in Spanish/Mexican Colonial Texas existed until the year 1834.  

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By this time in history the Mexican authorities were granting huge land grants to northerners to come to Texas to settle but with certain conditions, one being that they must learn the language spoken by its citizens, which was the Spanish language, and the other that they convert to Catholicism and pledge allegiance to the Mexican authorities.

In 1831, the townspeople of San Antonio constructed a school building, with contributions from the citizens of various sums of money; others gave lumber, nails, hinges, a calf, a barrel of corn, or personal services. A teacher from the north was hired but soon the citizens objected to his being in the classroom due to the fact that it was discovered that he lacked a proper passport to be in the Texas of that time. The early contract with northerners required that schools be erected in each new colony, and that all instructions be given in Spanish, the official language of Texas of that time.

As the year of Texas Independence approached, one of the provisions of the new constitution was the establishment of a strong public school system in Texas. Early advocates of such efforts included Tejano patriots such as Lorenzo de Zavala, Antonio de Navarro, and Juan Seguín: Zavala introducing legislature to establish the first system of higher education in Texas; both Navarro and Seguín attempted to donate thousands of their own land for the purpose of establishing the first universities.  

After the Texas Revolution culminated in the Battle of the Alamo of 1836, schools again began to flourish, but it cannot be denied that the early efforts of Spanish/Mexican authorities in establishing the first schools, with laws governing its administration was the embryonic source of the present Texas system of education now in existence.

Sadly, for much of the late 19th century and half of the 20th century, Spanish/Mexican children of Texas were subjected to segregated schools. This in spite of the fact that their ancestors worked diligently and did the heavy lifting in order to establish an educational system in Colonial Spanish Texas that set the stage for the present educational institutions that we all now enjoy.

Lino García, Jr.,a Brownsville, Texas, native, is Professor Emeritus of Spanish Literature at University of Texas-Pan American. He can be reached at 956-381-3441 or at LGarcia@UTPA.edu.

Posted 2nd February 2010 by Armando Rendón

 

 

 

New Mexico is a land of shadow and mystery. From the old coal mines near Ratón and the isolation of Isleta Pueblo to the peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and beyond, ghouls and spirits lie in wait. Witches transform into vampire bats, werewolves howl and the undead rise with the light of the moon. La Llorona walks the banks of rivers and roads, her legendary and mournful cries terrifying any who cross her path. They are stories passed down by the fearless Comancheros, devoted Franciscan monks, fierce ciboleros and others to the present day as warnings of the evil in the world. In a captivating exploration of New Mexico’s most fearful tales, Ray John de Aragón recounts stories from the state’s rich and spine-chilling cultural folklore.

When author Ray John de Aragón was a little boy, his family’s favorite pastime was storytelling. He always enjoyed listening to the older members tell about ghosts they claimed they heard or saw. They also told of witches who had lived nearby and about haunted houses. If dishes rattled, if furniture mysteriously moved or if musical instruments began playing on their own, everyone knew some unexplainable supernatural force was behind it. The stories were scary but exciting, and the author admits he had trouble sleeping at night. Ray John went on to major in American studies in college as an adult, further exploring the Spanish traditions, heritage and culture of New Mexico. This included the folklore. The author’s interest is in preserving the oral “ghost” history of the region and passing it on to future generations.

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The History Press, based in Charleston, SC, brings a new way of thinking to history publishing—preserving and enriching community by empowering history enthusiasts to write local stories for local audiences. Since 2004, we have published nearly three thousand of the highest quality local and regional history titles from coast to coast.

New Mexico Book of the Dead By Ray John de Argón
ISBN: 978.1.62619.732.9$16.99; 128 pp.

Access Catalogue Online at www.historypress.net
Available as an e-book wherever books are sold
Author interviews or high-res photographs, contact: 
Publicist: Danielle Raub     843.577.5971, ext 235 danielle.raub@historypress.net 

 

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Hello Mimi, 

I just want to let you know how much I enjoyed reading the August edition of Somos Primos. And I also want to thank you for including my small contribution. As always, it is a delightful pleasure to read all the interesting and engaging news stories and to view the color photographs. Kudos to you and your staff for doing a superb and magnificent job. Your publication, a paragon of excellent journalism, provides a wealth of wonderful information, and serves as a beacon of inspiration and pride of our Hispanic cultural and historical heritage. 

In essence, the novel I have written is, by my own definition, my memoirs, based on partly autobiographical and partly fiction, a combination of both if you will, to communicate all my recollections of my life of what I remember most growing up in the Barrio de la Azteca in Laredo, to my personal experiences at St. Augustine, St. Mary's University, and on through my life, and concluding with my tenure as an administrator in the South San Antonio Independent School District.  

I tried to recollect all the wonderful and colorful people who crossed my life and who influenced me along the way. These people are my characters in the novel, the persons I encountered growing up, living with, and working with, and whose voices I wanted to record by way of dialogues, for posterity. I hope you will enjoy my life story as much as you can discern between what is fiction and what is nonfiction, and that I will leave up to the you--the reader. 

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All the fictional characters are based on real people and, by and large, the circumstances and situations, are also based on true events. The school administration building, for example, is based on the old Escuela Amarilla or Central Elementary School in Laredo. The description of Mount Sacred Heart School, where my protagonist, Whitaker Saxon, went to school, is really my beloved St. Augustine High School.  

I also make reference to the school's fighting song melody, which was borrowed from the Fighting Irish of the University of Notre Dame. And Mount Sacred Heart Catholic Church is actually based on St. Augustine Catholic Church. Sister Teresa Benedicta, the school's librarian is based on Sister Casilda's character. Richard Morales, the star basketball player, wears number "54" on his jersey, which happens to be the number I wore. In my description of the Barrio de la Azteca, and I do not know if you ever went by there or lived there, but if you did, then you should recognize the Los Garcia grocery store, La Tienda de Don Felix, and the description of Pablo Torres's house is based on Julio Cantu's two story wooden house. Julio used to work for the Western Union Telegram and he would ride his bicycle delivering telegrams all over Laredo.  

I also make reference to the school's fighting song melody, which was borrowed from the Fighting Irish of the University of Notre Dame. And Mount Sacred Heart Catholic Church is actually based on St. Augustine Catholic Church. Sister Teresa Benedicta, the school's librarian is based on Sister Casilda's character. Richard Morales, the star basketball player, wears number "54" on his jersey, which happens to be the number I wore. In my description of the Barrio de la Azteca, and I do not know if you ever went by there or lived there, but if you did, then you should recognize the Los Garcia grocery store, La Tienda de Don Felix, and the description of Pablo Torres's house is based on Julio Cantu's two story wooden house. Julio used to work for the Western Union Telegram and he would ride his bicycle delivering telegrams all over Laredo.  

My description of Nueva Santa Dolores is really Nuevo Laredo. As with most novels, my new novel is no different, as I stated earlier, it is partly autobiographical and is based on my own personal experiences as a school administrator. Any similarities between the school district in my novel and South San are entirely coincidental. All the characters and names are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is again purely coincidental (wink, wink). 

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The novel's main protagonists--Whitaker and his wife Sylvia--spend the entirety of the story living their personal and professional lives to which they are called by their talents and time and place in the world, while simultaneously confronting problems of drug cartels, religious faith, school board politics, a crippling personal psychological disorder, and unfulfilled dreams of parental expectations. My novel is a contemporary and multicultural work of adult fiction, a compelling fast-paced story, filled with 404 pages of drama, suspense, adventure, humor, and mystery. 

It took me six years to write and re-write my novel, having done two or three drafts of each chapter before I finally decided that I had done all the necessary emendations. I spent about a year creating and developing every single character and kept a profile folder on each one. I wanted them, whose physical attributes and personalities were mostly based on real people, to be just right for the different story lines. They had to fit just right. Consequently, I did several revisions until I had all the characters just like I had envisioned them in my mind. 

I wanted to share with you these random thoughts, and I hope you will enjoy reading my novel, Terror on the Border. When the book came out in 2011, it was on the bestseller list for Amazon books for five consecutive months. And, check out the customer review in Amazon books.com under my name--

J. Gilberto Quezada.

Stay healthy and may God bless you abundantly. 

Gilberto  

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Biographical Sketch of J. Gilberto Quezada

J. Gilberto Quezada, a native of Laredo, Texas, is an author, historian, and a retired educator. He graduated from St. Augustine High School in 1965, and received a Bachelor's and a Master's degree in Latin American history from St. Mary's University in San Antonio. Later, Quezada earned a Master's degree in Mid-Management from the University of Texas at San Antonio.

He served as president of the San Antonio Historical Association, the second Hispanic to hold the leadership reins of the 74 year old organization. In addition, Quezada also served on the Institute of Texan Cultures Board of Directors, the Higher Education Advisory Board for the City of San Antonio, and on the Executive Council of the Texas State Historical Association. He was an active member of the Texas Oral History Association, Los Bejareños Genealogical Society, and the Bexar County Historical Commission.  



Quezada has written several scholarly essays that have appeared in the Journal of South Texas, the East Texas Historical Journal, the Confederate Veteran Magazine, and the Journal of Texas Catholic History and Culture. Furthermore, he has done book reviews for scholarly historical journals from throughout the Southwest.

He is the son of the late Eloisa L. Quezada and Pedro Quezada, and is married to Jo Emma Bravo Quezada, daughter of the late Ana María Casso Bravo and Eddie Bravo from Zapata, Texas.

jgilbertoquezada@yahoo.com 

 

 

BORDER BOSS by J. Gilberto Quezada 

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Mimi, It has been fifteen years ago this past April since the publication of Border Boss: Manuel B. Bravo and Zapata County. And I am very happy to say that it has been well received by both the scholarly community and the general public with equal enthusiasm.  The hardbound copy came out in April 1999 and the paperback edition was published in 2001. Border Boss won the prestigious Texas Institute of Letters Award, the Webb County Heritage Foundation Award, and the American Association for State and Local History Award. In somber retrospect, I am extremely proud to have written this book and to have juxtaposed it against the backdrop of Texas and national politics. Political Scientist Dr. Nancy Beck Young, in her essay published in a book titled, Beyond Texas Through Time: Breaking Away from Past Interpretations (Texas A&M University Press, 2011), discusses and praises Border Boss for its nuanced interpretation of political bossism for its applicability as, "a model of how to construct a biography of a local political official and make an argument with regional and national thematic importance....

 

This fine book is an excellent model for future historians wishing to explore the post 1945 inroads of minorities and women into the Texas political power structure." Border Boss was also discussed in a 2005 book titled, The Bushes: Portrait of a Dynasty, by Peter and Rochelle Schweizer, and was published by Knopf Doubleday.

And just recently, in Dr. Beatriz de la Garza's new book, From the Republic of the Rio Grande: A Personal Historty of the Place and the People, which was published in 2012 by Texas University Press, she cites the leadership of Judge Bravo during the construction of Falcon Dam. Border Boss was also mentioned in Robert A. Caro's third installment on Lyndon Johnson entitled, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate (2002), and in Ignacio M. García's book entitled, Viva Kennedy: Mexican Americans in Search of Camelot (2000).

I believe Border Boss has stood the test of time, and I hope it will continue to make a worthwhile contribution to the historiography of Texas politics .

Take care and may God bless you abundantly  . . . 

Gilberto

 

 

Hi!

I would like to share with you: (a) an email I sent to Dr. James Shapiro, and (b) his reply. He holds the Larry Miller Professor of English at Columbia University. Moreover, he is an internationally acclaimed Shakespeare scholar and has published award-winning books, such as, Rival Playwrights, Shakespeare and the Jews, 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, and Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?

 
Dear Dr. Shapiro,

Please accept my most sincere congratulations on the publication of your new book, Shakespeare in America: An Anthology From The Revolution to Now. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading it and I am going to recommend it to my family and friends. The selections of the essays and anthologies are not only quite comprehensive but also exceedingly interesting, informative, and engaging. After reading your book, I realized the tremendous and widespread influence that Shakespeare had in our American literary culture.

You mentioned in the Introduction that due to the voluminous collection of works on Shakespeare and because this book is only a one volume collection, you had to leave out other scholarly essays, treatises, and other works that were too lengthy to be anthologized. There is another genre that was not consulted and that would be the novels that talk about Shakespeare. In this regard, I would like to inform you that William Shakespeare is included in my novel, Terror on the Border, on pages 126-128, and I am attaching these pages to this email for your perusal. When my novel was published in the summer of 2011, it was on the bestseller list for Amazon books for five consecutive months.

My name is J. Gilberto Quezada and I am also the award-winning author of a political biography enitled, Border Boss: Manuel B. Bravo and Zapata County, published by Texas A&M University Press. And since it came out over fifteen years ago, I am very happy to say that it has been well received by both the scholarly community and the general public with equal enthusiasm. The hardbound copy came out in April 1999 and the paperback edition was published in 2001. Border Boss won the prestigious Texas Institute of Letters Award, the Webb County Heritage Foundation Award, and the American Association for State and Local History Award. In somber retrospect, I am extremely proud to have written this book and to have juxtaposed it against the backdrop of Texas and national politics.

At any rate, I thought you might be interested in knowing that the Bard is alive and well in my novel.

Cordially yours, 
J. Gilberto Quezada

 

Here is Dr. James Shapiro's reply:

Dear J. Gilberto Quezada,  

Thanks so much for your kind letter and for bringing to my attention your novel, Terror on the Border, a fine contribution to the ongoing history of Shakespeare in American writing.

With best wishes,  James Shapiro  

 

The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction
by Linda Gordon

cover of book



In her gripping book, Linda Gordon has written a model study of the creation and maintenance of race relations that manages to capture both the breathless sensationalism of the era’s tabloids and the complexity … an ingenious narrative device enables her to reconstitute the distinct social structures of the area while rendering a taut journalistic account of the unfolding drama…. The magnificence of her achievement: her masterly assembly of the historical detail and acute sensitivity to the intricacies of human relations as mediated by power, prejudice and the passage of time. New York Times. 

"This is an unusual and interesting work of history, whose chief strength lies in the way it lovingly recreates the spirit of a particular Arizona community and, through its insistence on micro-historical detail, gives the reader a sense of how racial assumptions and antagonisms operated within everyday life." Times Literary Supplement  

"Gordon's extraordinary achievement in this book lies in her narrative strategy as much as in her insights as a social historian. . . . Class and the dangers of copper mining are the aspects of the story most clearly represented in the extraordinary photographs that illustrate the book. . . . The complexities of class, race and gender, of labor and bigotry and greed . . . are what this book is about." Women’s Review of Books.

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"Linda Gordon's splendid book takes an episode that might have been seen as a bit of western exotica and makes of it a
painful revelation of American life and character, not only in its day but in ours." Journal of American History.

Most of all, Linda Gordon's emotionally gripping and frequently amusing account of "the great Arizona orphan abduction" is a good read. It is a fine example of "nonfiction narrative" or "narrative nonfiction," and holds the potential to attract new readers to women's history and history in general. The motley crew of lead characters affirms once again the old adage that reality can be stranger than fiction. 
   ~ Journal of Women’s History
 

 The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction.  
Harvard University Press, 1999; paperback 2000.
* Winner of the Bancroft Prize for best book in US history,
* Winner of the Beveridge Prize for best book on the history of the Americas
* Winner of the Willa Cather Nonfiction Prize for Writing the West
* Winner of the Southwest Book Award
* Winner of the Wisconsin Library Association Banta Award for best book in all categories.

Sent: Dorinda Moreno pueblosenmovimientonorte@gmail.com 

 

"Mexican American Colonization during the Nineteenth Century: 
A History of the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands." 
By José Angel Hernández.
 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. . 
Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index.)  

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Mexican American Colonization during the Nineteenth Century
Book Review from Southwestern Historical Quarterly
July 2014, Reviewed by John McKiernan-González
Texas State University.   

American newspapers have started reporting on the difficulties faced by “repatriated” long-term residents of the United States deported to Mexico. "Mexican American Colonization during the Nineteenth Century," an account of Mexican responses to Mexican repatriation efforts, provides a backstory to contemporary issues of migration, displacement, and repatriation that are reshaping popular understandings of citizenship and belonging around the world. Although the institutional scale and geographic range of these transnational removal and repatriation programs [End Page 90] have expanded since the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Patriot Act, the politics of removal and repatriation were central to community formation in the northern Mexican borderlands after 1848. This book makes a strong argument that Mexican authorities aimed to capitalize on the skills and resources developed by Mexicans in the United States to build communities that would help demarcate and defend the Mexican border against United States and American Indian encroachment.  

American newspapers have started reporting on the difficulties faced by “repatriated” long-term residents of the United States deported to Mexico. "Mexican American Colonization during the Nineteenth Century," an account of Mexican responses to Mexican repatriation efforts, provides a back story to contemporary issues of migration, displacement, and repatriation that are reshaping popular understandings of citizenship and belonging around the world. Although the institutional scale and geographic range of these transnational removal and repatriation programs [End Page 90] have expanded since the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Patriot Act, the politics of removal and repatriation were central to community formation in the northern Mexican borderlands after 1848. This book makes a strong argument that Mexican authorities aimed to capitalize on the skills and resources developed by Mexicans in the United States to build communities that would help demarcate and defend the Mexican border against United States and American Indian encroachment.  

Hernández’s historical analysis begins with organized attempts to help bring Mexican communities back to the Mexican fold after 1848. His historical intervention is fascinating, as Mexican American Colonization places the coerced and 

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recruited movement of Mexicans to Mexico within larger debates over nation-building in the Americas. The author argues that the establishment of Mexican communities in northern Mexico should be understood alongside the establishment of Seminole and European religious and ethnic communities in the states of Coahuila, Nuevo León, Chihuahua, Sonora, and Baja California. Here he emphasizes that Mexicans moved to populate most of northern Mexico, and the drama of multi-ethnic European, American, and indigenous settlement has mistakenly overshadowed this larger assertion of Mexican control and community formation in this borderlands. This settlement in this multi-ethnic region made it difficult for competing European and American migrants to establish themselves and helps explain why Mexico managed not to become a popular destination during the peak period of European migration and commercial expansion. To me, this is the key insight: Mexico’s relative lack of European settlement is evidence of successful nation-building, not a failure to whiten or modernize according to American norms.  

Hernández maintains a keen focus on the Mexican side of the repatriation question after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. This is where the narrative is both dramatic and engaging.

In Gold Rush California, Francisco Ramírez, the editor of 'El Clamor Público,' encouraged Mexicans and Latin Americans to

seek their fortune in Sonora, a place far less politically hostile to their presence. In territorial New Mexico, Mexican emissaries like Father Ramón Ortiz sought to recruit Hispanic ciboleros experienced in trade and conflict with Comanche and Apache communities. In post-annexation Texas, families like the Menchacas led families from East Texas to colonias in northern Coahuila. This drama continued in Mexico, where many of the colonias almost never received proper titles or guarantees to the land and resources that they helped transform into productive rural communities.  

Hernández effectively moves repatriates from the dustbin of Mexican history and makes their experience of displacement, recruitment, and mobilization central to understanding key processes in Mexican and world history. In this sense, José Angel Hernández’s stark portrayal of displacement stands as a counterpoint to the blurry and unequal situations analyzed in American border towns in Anthony Mora’s "Border Dilemmas: Racial and National Uncertainties in New Mexico" and Omar Valerio-Jiménez’s "River of Hope: Forging Identity and Nation in the Rio Grande Borderlands." I strongly recommend this book.

Sent by Walter Herbeck walterhole@gmail.com
Source: Juan Marinez marinezj@msu.edu

 

 


Latino soldiers
 Cebu, Phillipines, WW II

USA LATINO PATRIOTS

Youtube: First "Air Force One". 
Youtube: Project Vigil: D-Day 2014
Youtube:  
Hitler's GI Death camp
Photo: Erasmo "Doc" Riojas, SEAL Reunion
Honoring Borinqueneer Raul Reyes   
Hispanic Medal of Honor Calendar of Upcoming Exhibits

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I just returned from the UDT/SEAL reunion in Little Creek VA. It will be my last, I will turn 83 in 14 days, too old to travel on those lil UNITED airplanes made by Mattell toys. 
Erasmo "Doc" Riojas   
docrio45@gmail.com
 
http://www.sealtwo.org 

 

A little bit of history. Very interesting!
Video about the first "Air Force One". 
http://www.youtube.com/embed/ehwvZXVKmPU 
  
Sent by Jan Mallet 
janmallet@verizon.net
   

 

Project Vigil: D-Day 2014, The saluting 11-year-old boy on Omaha beach There are still honorable people alive and well …..
 just perhaps, our younger generation may do better than we
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8k9Si28k0Fk


A documentary of a not well known WW II travesty, that is until recently, with the assistance of Anthony Acevedo, a WW II veteran, who documented the vicious treatment of American prisoners of war in Nazi Germany. We owe Anthony Acevedo a tremendous gratitude for his personal diary describing those horrendous times of our American G.I. prisoners of war.

Hitler's GI Death camp: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra1LlD5aULQ

Joseph Mendez-Parr, Colorado
jlskcd2005@aol.com

 

 

Greetings Borinqueneers 
CGM Alliance Members and Contributors. 


In case you missed it when it aired on television,  Please watch Borinqueneer veterans
  Raul Reyes Castañeira and Norberto Rivera on the 
Univision hit news show, “Aqui y Ahora”:

http://noticias.univision.com/video/490224/2014-08-03/aqui-y-ahora/videos/historia-de-los-borinqueneers?
ctx_t=collection&ctx_v=6723bac48b02ab3c427e9903fd955b9d~b625491571d28cf74c3c364b1e825415&
ftloc=channel8671:wcmWidgetUimHulkDeckCards4x4

NOTE: Borinqueneer Raul Reyes was the inspiration and guiding spirit for the 
Borinqueneers Congressional Gold Medal.
Thank you for your support.
In Solidarity, 
Frank Medina, National Chair

Borinqueneers Congressional Gold Medal Alliance

239-530-8075

“Like” our Facebook Page: http://facebook.com/BorinqueneersCGMAlliance
FOLLOW US on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/CGMBorinqueneer 
Visit our Website:
http://www.65thCGM.org

Sponsored by: 
You Are Strong! Center on Veterans Health and Human Services

www.youarestrong.org

 


HISPANIC MEDAL OF HONOR CALENDAR OF UPCOMING EXHIBITS
Rick Leal 
ggr1031@aol.com
   

1. NSHMBA (NATIONAL SOCIETY OF HISPANIC MBA's Annual Conference and Career Expo on Sept 25-27, 2014 Philadelphia, PA. Special Guests: Medal of Honor recipient Mr.Santiago J. Erevia and his wife, Dr. Andres Tijerina and his wife. Sarah Cortez and President of HMOH Mr. Rick Leal and Chief of Staff of HMOH Mr. Rick Cochran and last but not least Singer/Song Writer Jeff Senour - Military Writers Guild of America (Best Song and Video) "YOU WON'T BE FORGOTTEN".

2. DIA (DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY) Sept 28-31 in Washington, D.C. Mr. George Rodriguez, Division Chief, Americas Military Capabilities and Director for Analysis (DIA and all the Division Committee Members are all in agreement that having the displays at DIA during Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration will greatly enhance our ability to educate our work force about the significant contributions Hispanics have made to our great Nation's history. Special Guests Note: (Same guests as shown above plus Special Guests from the (DIA).

3. The HMOH Traveling photo exhibit will be at the PENTAGON during Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration on Oct 9th-16th in Arlington, Virginia. Mr. Norvel "Rock" Dillard, Department of Defense, Acting Director, DOD Diversity & Inclusion Management. Special Guests: Our HMOH guests plus Special Guests from the Department of Defense.

4. The amazing and Historic event will be held on Nov 9th, 2014 the unveiling of the MEDAL OF HONOR SYLVESTRE HERRERA 'WALL OF HONOR' at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport "USO" at EAST end of Terminal 4. The Wall will represent Arizona's 21 Medal of Honor Recipients and there stories, Memobilia, Photos, Videos and performing once again Jeff Senour Best Song of the Year.'YOU WON'T BE FORGOTTEN" Special Guest to do the unveiling: Governor of Arizona, Mayor the Adjutant General plus the HMOH Guests.

5.  Nov. 11th   Veterans Day Parade in Phoenix, Arizona (The largest parade in country).  Medal of Honor recipients Santiago Erevia and Al Rascon will be Grand Marshal.

 

EARLY LATINO AMERICAN PATRIOTS

Dorothy Perez, Recipient of Prestigious SAR Award by Henry A. García, jr.  
United States of Spain? Guillermo Fresser 

TCARA celebrated its 10th Anniversary, July 23, 2014
 

DOROTHY PÉREZ

RECIPIENT OF PRESTIGIOUS SAR AWARD

By Henry A. García, jr.  
For Los Bexareños Genealogical and Historical Society
   

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On 19 February 2014, Dorothy Pérez was awarded the Lydia Darragh Medal by George Harcourt of the Sons of the American Revolution, Texas Society (TXSSAR) and Bob Hancock, President of the Sons of the American Revolution, Texas Society – San Antonio Chapter (SAR). Her brother, Rueben Pérez (SAR), and a member of Los Bexareños Genealogical and Historical Society, was there to support his sister. The event was held at the Petroleum Club, in San Antonio, Texas.

The National Family of the Sons of the American Revolution Certificate reads as follows: 

Dorothy Perez has been awarded the Lydia Darragh Medal in grateful recognition of her continued long support for the Sons of the American Revolution.  The medal is one of the most prestigious awards that the Sons of the American Revolution can recognize DAR women who have excelled in their support to the organization and for their dedicated community involvement. Only five of these awards have been made based on support to the organization and community involvement.  

Dorothy has been both a DAR member and Canary Islands Descendants Association (CIDA) member for over 25 years. 

 The award was named after Lydia Darragh, who was a member of the Quaker faith. By majority, they did not believe in warfare and most were neutral during the Revolutionary War.

However, Lydia overheard the British Officers’ plan to initiate a surprise attack on George Washington and his troops, who were bivouacked near Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania.

Lydia Darragh chose to forego potential British punishments, and managed to provide her data to George Washington and his troops of the impending attack; thus giving the American troops adequate time to prepare and counter the invasion. The four-day battle ended in a stalemate and the British withdrew their forces and went back to Philadelphia.


(LEFT TO RIGHT) Rueben Pérez (SAR), Dorothy Pérez (DAR), Martha Von Nimtiz, Regent of San Antonio de Bexar DAR, and Robert Hancock, President of San Antonio Chapter SAR. Copyright 2014. Henry A. García, Jr. All Rights Reserved.


 

United States of Spain?
Guillermo Fresser 
Become a fan  

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The U.S. Senate has just given the OK to hang on its walls a portrait of Bernardo de Galvez. Who? Bernardo de Galvez, the cheerful and humble Spaniard who was Governor of Louisiana, Viceroy of New Spain, Commander in Chief of the Caribbean fleet, which included the French navy, and one of the biggest heroes of the American Revolutionary War. Never heard about him? Don't be ashamed. I am not surprised. It's only recent that I accidentally discovered the immense contribution that Spain made to the creation of the United States while I was doing research for my book, One Hundred Miles from Manhattan. The Spanish legacy in the US is something nobody seems to have a clue about. Neither Americans, nor Spaniards. Two thirds of the actual territory of the U.S. was once under Spanish rule, and for some reason, that fascinating part of history has never been told.

We tend to picture the Spanish conquistadors as being mostly located in Mexico or down in the jungles of Peru. Well, surprise, surprise. The Spaniards were also the first Europeans to see the Grand Canyon, the first to cross the Mississippi River, the first nonnative Americans to populate the Great Plains or the first Europeans to land in Alaska. The reality, as portrayed in the book Banderas Lejanas (Far away Flags) is that "much before the United States existed as a nation, Spain had already conquered the Far West and fought or made treaties with the main Indian tribes that Hollywood would later make famous." Where do you think cowboys came from? Which language do you think the words lasso, corral, rodeo or stampede came from? Look for google images of the annual El Rocio pilgrimage in the south of Spain and you would think you are witnessing an episode of The Little House on the Prairie.

It turns out that Spain also played a pivotal role when the United States gained its independence from England. I'll give you an example. Guess who was standing to the right of George Washington in the American victory parade of July 4, 1783. Ready? Bernardo de Galvez. Whaaat? Yes, Galvez, a guy from Macharaviaya (a small hamlet of 500 inhabitants in Malaga, Spain) after whom the city of Galveston, Texas, was named. Galveston is actually a derivation from the old Galveztown, you see. Now. Why on earth was this guy to the right of President Washington in such a historical moment for this nation? Very simple: Washington thought he owed a big portion of his victory to the King of Spain, both for his military and economic support. And he seemed to be particularly moved by the courage and fine military strategy of General Don Galvez (as the President warmly referred to the Spaniard in the complimentary letters that he addressed to His Catholic Majesty from his headquarters in New Windsor). As Martha Gutierrez-Steinkamp writes in her book Spain: The Forgotten Alliance, "it wasn't until Spain entered the war, as an ally of France on the side of the colonists, that British naval superiority was overwhelmed. What appeared to be a local conflict with the objective of controlling the rebellion in the colonies, suddenly turned into a naval conflict that took place in all the oceans." The Spanish participation was also crucial in the final battle of Yorktown. Spain had no soldiers in New York, but its generous infusion of money from Mexico and Cuba, paid for the French forces in America and made possible the full support of the combined troops of Rochambeau and Washington."

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Okay, so what exactly did General Galvez do? Pretty much he denied the British the opportunity of attacking the Americans from the South. Let me mention just a few facts. First, he destroyed the English commerce on the Mississippi. In 1776, as Governor of Louisiana, he issued an order urging all English subjects to abandon the territory within fifteen days. Soon after, he signed a treaty with the Americans which allowed them access to the Spanish port of New Orleans. The patriots could then navigate and enjoy free trading along the Mississippi river, making it possible for supplies to be sent to the their soldiers. But wait, there's more. Bernardo and his troops (an army of 7,500 men made up of Spanish, French, African-American, Mexican, Cuban and Anglo-American forces) defeated the British at battles in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Natchez, Mississippi, and Mobile, Alabama. Then, Galvez alone also gained control of British West Florida. In 1781, he managed to get past the English controlled Pensacola Bay (Panzacola under prior Spanish domain), forcing his indecisive Caribbean fleet to follow him. In addition to the conquest of this strategically crucial land for Washington's defense, Galvez captured large quantities of English war material and left the British with no naval bases in the Gulf of Mexico. For his bravery, the King of Spain allowed him to include on his coat of arms a ship with a flying pennant that had written on it, "Yo Solo," or "I Alone."

In Washington's words: "if the Spaniards would but join their fleets to those of France and commence hostilities, my doubts would all subside -without it, I fear the British Navy has it too much in its power to counteract the schemes of France." 

So, without the support of the Spanish Armada -- the world's most powerful fleet in the 18th century -- the colonies would have never won the war against England. But it was only the French that received the glory. Specifically General Lafayette, which has a street named after him in practically every city of the United States. How is that possible? Very simple. It wasn't in Spain's King Carlos III best interest to publicize the news that his country supported the freedom of the North American colonies ... since the idea of independence could dangerously spread to the Spanish colonies of Central and South America.

And now, let me introduce to you Teresa ¨Tere¨ Valcarce, better known as "Demonstration Tere" due to her addiction to rallying for causes. Anytime there is a good reason to fight for justice, you will find her there. Tere was born in El Ferrol, Spain, and studied tourism in the Andalusian province of Malaga. There she used to work at the information counter of the airport. One day in 1991, a passenger approached her seeking help. He introduced himself as an American, but Tere detected a southern Spanish accent from Cadiz. "Pal, you're Spanish." "No, I am not" "I think you are." He was indeed an American, but raised on the military base of Rota where his father was posted. To make a long story short, they stayed in contact and approximately four years later, he sent her a message: "tomorrow morning I will land in Malaga again". It was meant to be. Malaga was celebrating its annual fair, la Feria. After having a drink over here, and a dance over there, they started to see each other and in 1999 they were married and moved to Maryland. Tere had her first child Paul in 2005, and two more would follow: Lucas and Lucia. In 2008 Demonstration Tere became a U.S. citizen.

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At Christmas the response of the United States House of Representatives came. The recommendation was for Galvez's painting to be part of a temporary exhibit, and not to be displayed in the permanent collection on Capitol Hill. Big disappointment. Now what? In January, the Prime Minister of Spain, Mariano Rajoy, came to the US for a visit. Tere managed to access Mariano and tell him the story. Rajoy went ahead and mentioned the Galvez Resolution to Obama. One day later, Rajoy granted the Medal of Queen Isabel to Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat of Cuban origin that has close ties with Spain. The Spanish Prime Minister decided to tell him the story too, and suddenly a door opened. Menendez, as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, could accept gifts from foreign nations on behalf of the United States. What about a painting from an old Revolutionary War hero?

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Tere went to pay a visit to Senator Menendez's staff. She presented the case, and Menendez thought it was fair to resolve such a historical error. The local government of Malaga (Diputacion Provincial) requested that a letter be send to the U.S. Senate which would grant permission to accept the painting. It did, and on Thursday October 17 the response of the Senate Ethics Committee came: the portrait of Galvez was accepted as a gift to the U.S. and earned a place on the Senate's walls. Yahoo!

Now, what a great opportunity to set the story straight and to finally learn about a missing piece of our common past. So, in the country of show business, why don't we make it fun? Wouldn't it be exciting if the newly crowned King Felipe VI of Spain, on his first official trip to the United States in September, be the one to hang the picture? The momentum is now on Galvez's side. Last January, a group of Congressmen from Florida introduced a joint resolution in the House of Representatives requesting "that Bernardo de Galvez, who risked his life for the freedom of the United States, played an integral role in the Revolutionary War and helped secure the independence of the United States, is proclaimed posthumously to be an honorary citizen of the United States." On July 22, the resolution was referred to the House Judiciary Committee. An honorary citizenship is an extraordinary honor neither lightly conferred nor frequently granted. Only 7 people have obtained it to date. Among them: General Lafayette -the other Revolutionary War hero -- Winston Churchill and Mother Teresa of Calcutta. 

If granted to Galvez, people are going to want to know who that fellow was. The painting's history may help to clarify Galvez importance to our country. Otherwise, historian Douglas Brinkley will be spending many hours going back and forth from CBS to CNN studios giving all sorts of explanations.

The visit of Felipe VI will also coincide with the celebration of Spanish Heritage Month in the U.S. What better timing than to recall a forgotten legacy, especially one that will generate much interest. Finally, in gifting Galvez's portrait to the people of the United States, Felipe VI will follow a family tradition. Let's rewind to 1976. That year, his father King Juan Carlos I paid his first official visit to Washington and brought to the people of the U. S. .... a statue of Galvez! Today, the equestrian bronze stands among the statues of the American liberators on Virginia Avenue, behind the Department of State.

I can't wait to see a happy ending of Galvez's last battle. There is nothing better than a country reconciling with its past. Through him, Americans may surprisingly discover how much Spanish influence plays a role in their daily lives, much more than can be imagined. I mean, I don't envision Steven Colbert to suddenly changing his name to Esteban... It's just that Galvez's legacy happened to be a single star in a constellation of many other Spanish American legends ... some of which may feed the appetite for the media, hungry for good stories.

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For example, did you know that the dollar was the Spanish currency used in the thirteen colonies and its actual symbol $ was directly copied from the peso sign? Or that the bearded medieval character, Lord of the Rings material, framed in laurels on the wall of the U.S. Capitol's Chamber of the House of Representatives is Alfonso X, king of Castile from 1252 to 1284?

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, the hamlet of Macharaviaya, Malaga, will have no choice but to ready itself for the imminent influx of American tourists interested in discovering the land of the General that helped to achieve their country's independence. Somebody better start working on new T-shirts with Galvez style wigs and the logo I ALONE, because it may well be a bestseller next 4th of July.  
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5618526

Sent by Maria Angeles O'donnell Olson, Honorary Consul of Spain, San Diego   conhon.espana.sd@gmail.com 

 

 

TCARA celebrated its 10th Anniversary, July 23, 2014 

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Dear Mimi,

TCARA celebrated its 10th anniversary on July 23, 2014 on Bernardo de Galvez's Birthday honoring LTC Jack Vance Cowan. 

Speakers who spoke about Jack's amazing leadership: Left to right seated Judge Robert Thonhoff, Honorary Historian of TCARA and Author of The Texas Connection with the American Revolution; LTC Jack Vance Cowan, Founder, Executive Director & Past President of TCARA; Standing left to right: Corinne Staacke, TCARA Founder , Past Regent DAR San Antonio de Bexar Chapter; Sylvia Sutton, Past TCARA President, National DAR Hispanic Task Force; Cathy Slaughter, TCARA President; Robert Hancock, President of San Antonio, Texas SAR, Chairman of Hondo Historic Commission, Rose Marie LaPenta, TCARA Founder and Past President. Absent Judge Edward Butler, Past National President of SAR (his speech was read by Cathy Slaughter). Jack was presented a special TCARA Medal by Corinne Staacke.

Corinne Staacke  

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TCARA Minutes July 23, 2014

President Cathy Slaughter called the meeting to order, followed by the pledge to the American Flag. She asked that each person stand and introduce themselves.

The meeting celebrated Bernardo de Galvez’s birthday and the Tenth Anniversary of TCARA and to honor LTC. Jack Vance Cowan, founder, past President, and Executive Director of TCARA.   

Speakers were: Judge Robert Thornhoff, author of the book The Texas Connection with the American Revolution, Texas State Historical Commissioner, and educator; Judge Edward Butler, Past Chapter President of San Antonio and Past President of National Sons of the American Revolution (absent) with Cathy Slaughter reading his message; Col. Robert Hancock, Chapter President of Sons of the American Revolution and President of the Hondo County Historical Commission; Sylvia Sutton, Past President of Texas Connection to the American Revolution Association and National Daughters of the American Revolution Spanish Task Force; Rose Marie La Penta, Founder and Past President of TCARA; Corinne Staacke, Founder of TCARA, Past Regent of San Antonio de Bexar Chapter DAR, Founder and Past President of the David Crockett Chapter United Daughters of the War of 1812, Founder and President of the Colonial Dames of America Chapter XXXVI, Past Chapter President of Lanqueduc  Chapter National Society of Huegonots.  

LTC Jack Vance Cowan, Founder, Executive Director 
& Past President of TCARA

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Each speaker honored LTC Jack Vance Cowan with his valuable leadership in the Texas Connection to the American Revolution Association as follows: Naming and obtaining the State Charter, and IRS Tax Exemption; Giving Speeches from Kindergartner to Senior Citizens, including University of Texas San Antonio, Texas A. & M. San Antonio and Texas A. &M. at Kingsville, SAR, DAR, USD 1812, and many other organizations and places; Erecting TCARA booths at various events; TCARA has participated in five July 4th Parades in Washington D. C. and six George Washington Parades in Laredo, Texas as well as other towns with Jack’s design and trailer for floats;  Works with Mimi Lozano in publishing events of TCARA in Somos Primos International E-magazine; 

Sold or distributed between 200 to 300 Texas Connection with the American Revolution books; Arranged a Living Tree Planting honoring Judge Robert Thonhoff at Karnes City Courthouse; Arranged a Nacogdoches trip for members; Opened the door to DAR and SAR for Spanish descendants to join; Helped in forming SAR Chapter in Mexico City; TCARA sponsoring Spanish Medal of Honor Exhibits; A Margaret Thonhoff Hensley Scholarship for Texas A. & M. SA History Majors.  

Created a Collegiate TCARA Chapter at Texas A.& M. in San Antonio with Dr. Amy Porter; Contributed historical information on the panels made by Texas A. & M. and designed and built stands for each panel to stand alone; Designed the first web page for TCARA and recently arranged for an up dated professionally designed web-page by Carol Foreman.  

LTC Cowan has served in the USA Army Special Forces, a U. S. Special Agent. He was received the  Best Writer Award from the Army in Washington D. C.. After his military career he form his company, American Claims and Investigations and later was with USAA in Claims, Investigations and Negotiations Department.  

He has been Chapter and State Presidents of the National Society of Huguenots, Chapter President of SAR, and Chapter President of Los Grenaderos Y Damas de Galvez.  His other memberships include Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem (Knights Templar), Order of the Founders of North America 1492-1692, Jamestowne, Founders of Manakin the Colony of Virginia, War of 1812 and Sons of the Republic of Texas.  

Corinne Staacke presented LTC Jack Vance Cowan with a special award of the TCARA pin encircled with a silver bazel with Colonel Jack Vance Cowan and Founder engraved on it.  

Announcements:John L. Hinnant announced the Alamo Garrison Living History Guild will be joining TCARA soon.  
Cathy Slaughter announced TCARA will host his Excellency 
Cathy Slaughter furnished the beautiful cake.  
Miguel Angel Fernandez de Mazarambroz, Consulate General of Spain in Mexico – Ministry of Foreign Affairs Kingdom of Spain; Mr. Bill Millet, Producer and Director of the movie “Texas Before the Alamo” and Dr. Felix Almaraz, noted author of many books on the Spanish era, and his wife Delores on July 28 Monday at the Petroleum Club. Members to make arrangements with Corinne Staacke.

 

 

SURNAMES 

GRIJALVA 

For the record...  Don Juan Pablo Grijalva  by Eddie Grijalva  

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Don Juan Pablo Grijalva, soldier, settler, rancher and pioneer -- came to California with the Anza expedition in 1775. At that time there were only five missions, two presidios and a single Rancho of some 120 square yards (140 varas).

 Grijalva's heritages dates to the time of Cortez and his legacy includes the only Spanish rancho in Orange County.

"Juan Pablo Grijalva, Alfaréz (second-lieutenant) at the San Diego Presidio, retired from active duty at age 54 in 1796. [He] petitioned for...Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana...in 1801. Grijalva received concession documents in 1802 [and] died in 1806."  1

"Grijalva created the first Rancho in what became Orange County," 2 [and was] "a founding father of Orange County." 3 "He was kind of the Pioneer's pioneer [and] was the first to stake a private claim in Orange County."4 [In fact] "the first adobe building in Orange County, outside the limits of Mission San Juan Capistrano, was erected by the grantee* of Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana, Juan Pablo Grijalva about the year 1800."5 "The historical traditions of Orange County
begin with the San Juan Capistrano Mission and Juan Pablo Grijalva." 3  Unlike most soldiers, he was held in high regard: "Lieutenant Grijalva...fills his post with honor and stands in high repute."  6


The final quote is by Padre Presidente Fermin Francisco de Lasuen. Lasuen founded nine missions, the last of which took away Grijalva's first rancho at Las Flores. * In actuality, grants were given only in the Mexican period; this was a concession.  

The Grijalva Heritage

The Grijalva story begins in 1518 when Juan de Grijalva led an expedition to the Yucatan. Discovering a large river, the soldiers insisted it be named for Juan and the Rio de Grijalva, so named, flows today. The expedition itself was so successful Gobernador Diego de Velasquez ordered a second command for Hernando Cortez the following year; the result was the conquest of the Aztec empire. 7

Sebastian de Grijalva, a member of the entrada of Panfilo de Navarrez in New Spain, received his command of Sosola y Tenexpa in 1520 which was preserved in the hands of the family through three generations. 8

Hernando de Grijalva helped lead the exploration of the west coast of Mexico in 1533. The San Loranzo, a ship captained by Hernando de Grijalva, became separated from Hernando de Cortez' flagship, and later discovered an island about
four hundred miles west of Colima, New Spain (Mexico) and later put in at Acapulco in 1534. Cortez discovered California as a part of the expedition. 8

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Presidio Terrenate

Padre Kino, a Jesuit priest, opened the Sonora territory including Northern Mexico, Arizona and New Mexico from 1687 to 1711. Juan Pablo Grijalva, born near Mission Guevavi (Arizona) in 1741, grew up in Prima Alta Sonora. At that time, there were more than 50 Missions, six Pueblos and perhaps three Presidios. 9

He enlisted in the military at Presidio Terrenate, Sonora, (Mexico) on January 1, 1763. He married Maria Dolores Valencia about a year later and over the course of 12 years, they had two girls. 10

The record shows that he served honorably for ten years, receiving a promotion to corporal and that he could read and write. During his years of service in the garrison of Terrante, Sonora he had nine campaigns against both the Apaches and Seris, and during which he was twice wounded. 11
 
The Anza Expedition

Juan Pablo Grijalva was second corporal of the Presidio Terrenate when appointed by Juan Bautista de Anza as Sergeant of the Expedition to Alta California. An
important factor of the trip were the women and children -- four of which were born along the way (Bancroft states eight). 12

The initial group of 177 people left San Miguel de Horcasitas on September 29, 1775, increasing the people to 240 at Presidio Tubac. From Tubac the march would slowly descend from an elevation of 3,250 to almost sea level at San Francisco. 12

During the stay at Santa Olaya, Padre Garces overtook the party, having already set out to explore the country toward the mouth of the Colorado. Anza divided his force into three parties under the command of himself, Sergeant Grijalva, and Alfaréz Moraga. 13

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Of Grijalva's family, his wife and two daughters, we know some detail. There is a name of Claudio, listed as Grijalva's son, however it proves to be only a young man who changed his last name to Grijalva so he could come on the expedition. The expedition reached San Francisco on June 27, 1776.  

San Francisco

Stationed in San Francisco for 10 years, Grijalva participated "...in 11 barricades in California [where] he made 10 departures with two terminations, in performing these, [included] eight commands to discipline harmful and fugitive Indians. 11

Established on September 17, 1776, the Presidio San Francisco stood on the headland of the peninsula. The Mission Dolores [Mission de Nuestro Sera Pico Padre
San Francisco de Asis a la Laguna de los Delores] was founded about one month later on October 9. 12

Later the next year, a portion of that same group went on to found Mission Santa Clara [Mission Nuestra Madre Santa Clara de Asis de Thamien] on January 12, 1777.
That same year, they also started the first pueblo [Pueblo San Jose del Rio Guadalupe] on November 29 - the foremost reason for the Anza Expedition. 12

During Grijalva's tenure at Presidio San Francisco, both daughters married soldiers at Mission Dolores. Maria Josefa Grijalva, the oldest married Antonio Yorba, then a widower on November 3, 1782. She was then 16, he almost 40, only two years younger than her father. 10

Maria del Carmen Grijalva married Pedro Regaldo Peralta on October 27, 1785. He had come as a boy on the Anza Expedition with his family. She was 14 he was 21. The following year, Juan Pablo Grijalva was transferred to San Diego. His wife went with him, leaving his two married daughters behind. The Yorba family followed by 1789. 10
 

Presidio San Diego

In late 1785, a vacancy came available at the Presidio in San Diego through he death of Alfaréz Jose Velasquez. Transferring in 1786 to San Diego, Grijalva gained
the promotion, and remained active as Alfaréz until his retirement. 12

The 1788 Registry of the existing Missions, [was taken] by Alfaréz Juan Pablo Grijalva at Presidio San Diego. From Loreto, Baja California to San Francisco, Alta California. 14

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Later, Grijalva led a group to Northern Baja California where "...having founded this mission in the mountain range among the Rosario y Santo Domingo, [we] fulfill the orders of the Viceroy on the 27th of March, 1793. The chosen site was
named for the indigenous Casilepe, and now has given it that of San Pedro M rtir de Verona. He returned again in April of 1794. 15

[Beginning] January 3 1795, [from] San Diego, Grijalva and Grejera, [had] ...taken the census of the missions of the North. Juan Pablo Grijalva on visit(s) to the Escoltas (Military Escorts) de San Miguel, de San Juan, San Gabriel, y de San
Miguel. 14

Padre Juan Mariner in 1795 filed a "report on the survey which we made in company with Alfaréz Juan Pablo Grijalva, Corporal Juan Vicente, etc." Claudio, when in the military, accompanied them to locate the site for the Mission de San Luis Rey de Francia.16 On June 13, 1798 Padre Presidente founded this his last mission.
   

Rancho Las Flores

1796 March 1st, San Diego Juan Pablo Grijalva, second-lieutenant to the company of the Viceroy, requests his retirement... On the margin you see the endorsement
of Governor Borica.  11

An Indian uprising in 1796 brought Grijalva to Mission San Miguel in Baja California where during the foray his horse was shot out from under him. He was 55 years of age, and retired that same year.  11

He petitioned for Rancho Las Flores (probably around 130,000 acres) the following year. Founded in 1798, the Mission San Luis Rey claimed Las Flores for
agriculture, taking it from Grijalva. We now call Rancho Las Flores, Camp Pendelton.  1

Padre Presidente Fermin Francisco de Lausan, who had founded this mission had praised Grijalva only a few years before. 17
 

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Rancho Santiago De Santa Ana

Not to be daunted, Grijalva traveled up El Camino Real to an area we now refer to as Orange. Receiving a post-retirement promotion to Lieutenant, he again petitioned for land, this time for Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana, only about 60,000 acres, about 1801. 1

The diseño shown on pages 8 & 9 is the first map drawn of northern Orange County. The original resides in the Bancroft archives in Berkley. It is made on linen, in color and is the predecessor of the diseño of 1809. Three casas were present on the Rancho. 12

In Yorba tradition, Juan Pablo Grijalva was the first to occupy the Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana [Paraje de Santiago]. [He] built an adobe on Santiago Creeks south side, just north of El Modena, at the point of the hills. 18

The adobe ruins and evidences of a vineyard are attested by American pioneers in that vicinity as late as 1900. Old settlers also recall that there were tan and tallow vats on the north side of Santiago Creek opposite the adobe so that the ruin may have had some occupancy by vaqueros, employees of the Yorbas, throughout a period of years. 18

 

Grijalva Testament

1806 June 21, San Diego. Juan Pablo Grijalva: his testament. Conferred by the...Lieutenant graduate, Pablo Grijalva. He leaves his goods to his wife and grandsons, Jos‚ Antonio Yorba and Juan Pablo Peralta. Nothing is left to his
daughters Maria Josefa and Maria del Carmen. 11

1806 July, 25 San Diego. Rodriguez and Arrillaga: Death of an official. Advised of the death of the...Lieutenant graduate, Pablo Grijalva. 11

...I report to his Excellency the Governor, that I have examined the archives of this garrison, and that I have not found the document which the deceased Grijalva
presented to the Government in order he might place himself with his property in [Rancho de] Santiago. 12

...Dona Dolores Valencia [Grijalva], widow of said deceased...replied that she know[s] from the deceased Captain Don Raymundo Carrillo, that [although] it
existed in his power; that he did not deliver it to her. She heard her deceased husband say that he had presented for himself alone. 12

Actually, there is evidence Grijalva's grandson and namesake, Juan Pablo Peralta, lived with the Grijalvas after 1800, working the Rancho which would some day be his.
 

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Casa Remnants

William Wolfskill passed the point [of Hoyt Hill] in 1831 and saw adobe ruins. The ruins [in 1870] were not very different when he first saw it. 20

Wm. W. Hoyt...on a high spur of the hills just above the present junction of Alameda [Hewes] and Santiago Boulevards, built a ten-room house. It is on the site of the Grijalva Adobe, built about the year 1800. When the Hoyts built their home in 1888 the lava rock that formed the foundation of the adobe was still in place and was used around the new dwelling. Pieces of rusty iron, spurs, bits, etc.
have been found around the site of the first house in Orange County outside the mission village of San Juan Capistrano. 21

"I was born on Hoyt Hill [in 1889], near where the house still stands. I don't remember them [the adobe ruins], but they were there. It was supposed to be the first house in Orange County. There were terraces. They don't show...[but]...they
were made from the stone that was in the [adobe] house and they used the stone to build up the terraces against the driveway. [But the adobe was there]...because the ruins were there...when Father bought the property. I guess they were put together with adobe. They filled the walls with the stones and used the adobe for binding." 22

In 1992, Eddie Grijalva went home. Not to his, or his fathers -- not even his grandfathers. He went home to 200 years ago, that of Juan Pablo Grijalva. Near the Hoyt Victorian, a rock wall helps to shore up a driveway. A neighbor points to a three car garage and states the adobe was there, about 35 years ago. The owner of the house gives one of the old stones from the wall to Eddie, who donates it to the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana. A piece of the old casa of Juan Pablo Grijalva is now home -- resting in the Bowers Museum.. 23

 

Rancho Towns

The Peralta Hills are named for Juan Pablo Peralta - the grandson and namesake of Juan Pablo Grijalva - the original Ranchero of the Rancho de Santiago de Santa Ana. North of the hills by the Santa Ana River is Santa Ana Arriba, (Upper Santa Ana) the townsite and adobe of the Peraltas. 24

Southward near the vicinity of the Portola crossing of the Santa Ana river, is Santa Ana Viejo, (Old Santa Ana) the main town of the area. The name Santa Ana stayed with the river and this place: there is California State Historical Marker
#204 near Lincoln and Orange-Olive road. Later, in the early 1800s, a town started up on the site, called Santa Ana. It grew to the point of having a general store and a mayor, but faded away prior to 1850. 25

The settlement of Santa Ana is mentioned in 1846-47 (Emory), and the name Santa Ana Viejo shows on maps after that time. The modern city of Santa Ana, at its present site south of Santiago Creek, was not founded until 1869. 24

The river is now west of the old river bed - floods have changed the course several times. Santa Ana Viejo was a real town, essentially started by the Yorba family. The Yorba hacienda site overlooks the location of the old town. One Yorba casa sat on the hill where the old Olive grade school is now on Orange-Olive Road, past Lincoln. 25

Near Chapman Ave. on the Santa Ana river was Santa Ana Abajo (Lower Santa Ana), an extension of the town to the north. Also here was (and still is) a favored crossing of the Santa Ana River, El Camino Real the forerunner of Highway 101, now the Santa Ana Freeway, I-5. South of here is the junction with Santiago Creek and the site of El Refugio (the Refuge), one of the earliest haciendas. 25
 

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Edward Trinidad Grijalva
"Grijalva's personal search for his roots has unearthed information that challenges conventional versions of Orange County history."26 "[He] traces his roots back to his cousin, Juan Pablo Grijalva, a military leader during the De Anza trek and colonization. Juan Pablo applied for the first Spanish land grant in what is now Orange County where Eddie was born and raised." 27 

In 1992 he located the remains of Juan Pablos casa in the city of Orange, where Eddie now lives. In addition, Eddie is a Gabrielino Indian which maintains a direct link between the Spanish and Gabrielino of 200 years ago. 3

 



"Presentations by Eddie Grijalva are a testament to California's heritage and inspire individuals to pursue their own history."2 "Eddie is a bona fide historian/researcher whose credentials include access to the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley." 28 "Spending time with Eddie Grijalva is like touching history." 3

* Again, grants were given only in the Mexican period; this was a concession.
 

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References & Bibliography (see footnote numbers next to text above):

1 - Eddie Grijalva, Orange City Magazine, Fall 1994.
2 - Douglas Westfall, Orange County Publisher.
3 - Paul Apodaca, Educator on Native Americans, Chapman University
4 - Jim Sleeper, Orange County Historian & Author.
5 - Don Meadows - Historic Place names of Orange County.
6 - Padre Presidente Fermin Francisco de Lasuan, Padre Serra's successor.
7 - Bernal Diaz, Conquest of Mexico, 1530s.
8 - The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft Vol XV.
9 - Marie Northrop - Spanish & Mexican Families of Early California Vol I.
10 - Cartes del Teniente Grijalva, 1794-1806. * 
11 - The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft Vol XVIII.
12 - Padre Pedro Font, 1774.
13 - Explicacion del Registro desde San Diego, 1795. *
14 - Con las Memorias de este Presidio, 1794. *
15 - Informe sobre exploradas pro Pedro Mariner, 1795 *
16 - Wayne Dell Gibson, Orange County Historian & Author.
17 - WPA Historical Project, 1936
18 - Francisco Mar¡a Ruiz, Concession de Arrillaga, 1810.
19 - William Wolfskill - Told to M. Pleasants, 1870c.
20 - Don Meadows - Historic Place Names of Orange County.
21- Jessie Hoyt Campbell - Cal State Univ Fullerton, Oral History Program, 1976.
23- Laura Saari - Orange County Register, 1992.
24- Excerpted from the Orange Addition, Dec 1994.
25- Excerpted from the Orange Addition, Nov 1994.
26- Brian Langston, Publicist, Bowers Museum
27- Mimi Lozano-Holtzman, Society of Hispanic Historical and Ancestral Research
28- Joe Osterman, Orange County Historian

* Bancroft Library Manuscript
 



DNA

We all grow up with the weight of history on us. Our ancestors dwell in the attics of our brains as they do in the spiraling chains of knowledge hidden in every cell of our bodies. ~Shirley Abbott

Sent by Marylouise Ambriz

My DNA tells me who I am
New DNA discovery: totally new outlook on evolution

 

MY DNA TELLS ME WHO I AM 

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Dear Mimi,

Thank you so much for letting us know what is going on in our world. Mimi, I would like to share my recent experience so that you may advise other latinos of their roots.

Roots?? Read This :My Mother's grandparents were from Mexico but my grandparents on my father's side were CAVAZOS. The Cavazos family has a very long history in what is now Texas and going back to when this part of the United States belonged to Mexico and before that, to Spain. :  

Cavazos was my father's last name and his mothers maiden name was De Leon, another family name deeply rooted in the history of Texas. My surprise came when I had my DNA analyzed back in May of 2014. My DNA read like this:

 

Greek 25%  
Italian 25%  
Spanish 25%  
Native American 25%  



Mimi, had I known my heritage when I was a young boy and later in high school, it would have made a great difference to how I felt about myself. This information has a huge impact on what I think about myself now, and who my ancestors were.

It is always nice to hear from you, God Bless You.

Roy Cavazos, Tomball, Texas 
Cavazointl@aol.com
 

 

New DNA discovery: totally new outlook on evolution

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December 2013:  Scientists have found the oldest DNA evidence of humans’ biological history – sounds like an evolution breakthrough. However, instead of clarifying human evolution, the finding is adding new mysteries, NYT reports. Analysis of a DNA test of a 400,000-year-old human thighbone found in a cave in northern Spain known as the "Pit of Bones," shows an unexpected evolutionary twist, German scientists report.  

The fossil found in Spain, had previously seemed to many experts to belong to a forerunner of Neanderthals and as the early hominins looked a little like Neanderthals, researchers expected their DNA to share a common ancestor When Dr. Meyer and his colleagues drilled into the femur, they found ancient human DNA inside, just as they had hoped. However, after analyzing mitochondrial DNA extracted from the bone, it was found that early Europeans share a common ancestor with another mysterious species – eastern Eurasian sister group to the Neanderthals, the Denisovans. "Our expectation was that it would be a very early Neanderthal," Dr. Meyer said.  

First discovered in Siberia in 2010, the Denisovans were a genetically different group of people who are known only by a pinkie bone and a tooth. "Everybody had a hard time believing it at first," Dr. Meyer said. "So we generated more and more data to nail it down."

 

Until now, Denisovans were known only from DNA retrieved from 80,000-year-old remains in Siberia, 4,000 miles east of where the new DNA was found.  "Right now, we’ve basically generated a big question mark," said Matthias Meyer, a geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and a co-author of the new study.  

The mismatch between the anatomical and genetic evidence surprised the scientists, who are now rethinking human evolution over the past few hundred thousand years. Finding such ancient human DNA was a major advance, said David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School. "That’s an amazing, game-changing thing," he said. "This would not have been possible even a year ago," said Juan Luis Arsuaga, a paleoanthropologist at Universidad Complutense de Madrid and a co-author of the paper.

Since the 1970s, Spanish scientists have excavated 28 nearly complete skeletons of humans from the cave. Based on the anatomy of the fossils, Dr. Arsuaga has argued that they belonged to ancestors of Neanderthals, which lived in western Asia and Europe from about 200,000 to 30,000 years ago but the new finding give a totally different picture of human evolution especially as Denisovans were believed to be limited to East Asia, and they were not thought to look so Neanderthal-like.  

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As The New York Times writes, based on previously discovered ancient DNA and fossil evidence, scientists generally agreed that humans’ direct ancestors shared a common ancestor with Neanderthals and Denisovans that lived about half a million years ago in Africa. In 2006, a team of French and Belgian researchers obtained a fragment of Neanderthal DNA dating back 100,000 years, which until now was the oldest human DNA ever found, Science Direct says.  

Around the same time as that discovery, Russian scientists sent the Max Planck team 80,000-year-old Denisovans’ fossils they had found in a cave in Siberia. When the German scientists sequenced the entire genome from the finger bone of a girl, it turned out to be neither human nor Neanderthal.  

This made the scientists assume that their shared ancestors split off from humans’ lineage and left Africa, then split further into the Denisovans and Neanderthals about 300,000 years ago. The evidence suggested that Neanderthals headed west, toward Europe, and that the Denisovans moved east. Humans’ ancestors, meanwhile, stayed in Africa, giving rise to Homo sapiens about 200,000 years ago. Humans then expanded from Africa into Asia and Europe about 60,000 years ago. They then interbred not only with Neanderthals, but with Denisovans, too. Later, both the Denisovans and Neanderthals became extinct.  

Dr. Arsuaga doubts that Denisovans were spread out across so much of the Old World, from Spain to Siberia, so one alternative explanation could be that the humans of Sima de los Huesos were not true Neanderthals, but belonged to the ancestors of both Denisovans and Neanderthals.  

It is also possible that the newly discovered DNA was passed to both Neanderthals and Denisovans, but eventually disappeared from Neanderthals, replaced by other variants.  

Beth Shapiro, an expert on ancient DNA at the University of California, Santa Cruz, assumes that the humans of Sima de los Huesos belong to another branch of humans, which might have been a species called Homo erectus and have originated about 1.8 million years ago having become extinct within the last few hundred thousand years. "The more we learn from the DNA extracted from these fossils, the more complicated the story becomes," Dr. Shapiro said.

This new genetic link has baffled experts from around the world. Thus, Professor Chris Stringer from London's Natural History Museum says it shattered the previous record of 100,000 year old DNA. "With the DNA from the rest of the genome, we really can build up a very full story of these earlier stages of human evolution which so far we haven't been able to do," he said.  

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Professor Allan Cooper, the Director of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA at Adelaide University said the discovery is "quite remarkable and interestingly we're starting to find similar patterns when we look at other animals and we use ancient DNA and go back in time. We find that species are not sticking to their own boundaries."

Professor Cooper added the discovery has turned human evolution theory on its head. "If all, you know, humans are humans and they don't breed to anything else. Then we find out humans have got Neanderthal and Denisovan in them, so they must have interbred with both of them. Okay, that's complicated enough. Now we've got Denisovans interbreeding with Neanderthals, we've got this group in Spain which looks like Denisovan but should be Neanderthal."

Dr. Meyer hopes that he and his colleagues will be able to get more DNA from the Spanish fossil, as well as other fossils from the site, to help solve the puzzle.

http://voiceofrussia.com/2013_12_05/New-DNA-discovery-
totally-new-outlook-on-evolution-7832/

Sent by John Inclan  
fromgalveston@yahoo.com
 

 

When the Neanderthals Disappeared

Analysis of 40 European archaeological sites suggests a gradual extinction of Neanderthals over thousands of years.

Neanderthals overlapped with early modern humans and, based on genetic evidence, even interbred. But the extent of the overlap of the two species both in terms of time and geography is still not fully known, mainly because it has been difficult to accurately date archaeological specimens that go back more than 30,000 years. Using newer techniques, a large-scale dating effort of Neanderthal specimens from Western Europe to Russia now narrows the timing of the extinction of Neanderthals to a span of 2,000 years—between 39,000 and 41,000 years ago. The study is published today (August 20) in Nature.

http://www.the-scientist.com//?articles.view/articleNo/
40805/title/When-the-Neanderthals-Disappeared/

Sent by Juan Marinez marinezj@msu.edu 

 

FAMILY HISTORY RESEARCH

About Genealogy by Kimberly Powell
        Search WWI POW Records Online for Free  
        How to Trace the History of Your Home  
FamilySearch Adds More Than 1.5 Million Indexed Records and Images 
        to Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ghana, Italy, and the United States  
Helpful Hints from Readers
 

Source: About Genealogy by Kimberly Powell
newsletters@about.com
   

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Search WWI POW Records Online for Free

 During the First World War over 10 million soldiers and civilians were captured and sent to detention camps. Records of these POW's can now be researched online for free through the Historical Records agency of the International Committee of the Red Cross. 
http://genealogy.about.com/od/wwi/fl/Red-Cross-
WWI-POW-Records.htm?nl=1
 
Search Related Topics:  world war i  red cross  POW records

   

How to Trace the History of Your Home  

Whether you live in a Manhattan brownstone apartment or a castle in France, your home may be harboring a fascinating history. Learn how to uncover the history and genealogy of a house or other building with this step by step guide.
http://genealogy.about.com/od/basics/a/house_history.htm?nl=1

Search Related Topics:  house histories  architecture  title search  

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August 22, 2014

FamilySearch Adds More Than 1.5 Million Indexed Records and Images to Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ghana, Italy, and the United States

FamilySearch has added more than 1.5 million indexed records and images to collections from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ghana, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, and the United States. Notable collection updates include the 524,584 images from the Italy, Torino, Ivrea, Civil Registration (Tribunale), 1866–1937, collection; the 217,208 images from the New Zealand, Archives New Zealand, Probate Records, 1848–1991, collection; and the 148,311 images from Spain, Province of Tarragona, Municipal Records, 1430–1943, collection. See the table below for the full list of updates. Search these diverse collections and more than 3.5 billion other records for free at FamilySearch.org.

Searchable historic records are made available on FamilySearch.org through the help of thousands of volunteers from around the world. These volunteers transcribe (index) information from digital copies of handwritten records to make them easily searchable online. More volunteers are needed (particularly those who can read foreign languages) to keep pace with the large number of digital images being published online at FamilySearch.org. Learn more about volunteering to help provide free access to the worldís historic genealogical records online at FamilySearch.org .

FamilySearch is the largest genealogy organization in the world. FamilySearch is a nonprofit, volunteer-driven organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. To help in this great pursuit, FamilySearch and its predecessors have been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years. Patrons may access FamilySearch services and resources for free at FamilySearch.org or through more than 4,600 family history centers in 132 countries, including the main Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.  

Helpful HINTS from readers

If you are conducting historical or genealogical research in your family roots, you may want to consult the colonial records at the Archivo General de la Nación (AGN).  Google:  http://www.agn.gob.mx1/.  And then, click on these two websites:  "agn.gob.mx--Inicio-Archivo General de la Nación," and "Locating Colonial Records of Genealogical Value."  The AGN is currently working an agreement with the Family Search and Ancestry.com to copy these valuable documents, which are of tremendous significance in finding birth, death, and marriage information.    

Gilberto J. Quezada 
 
jgilbertoquezada@yahoo.com
 


This album of old pictures shows the reasons why we should all put labels, names, or notations on every single picture. We might know what the pictures are all about at the time we take them; however, later on, we forget and this creates problems.......I am guilty of that situation. I have many photos from all over the world, but I can't remember what the picture was meant to say.  

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mamaladama/sets
/72157627010812333
 

Old Laredo, TX: mamaladama

Family photos, many from an album put together by my paternal gfather, Federico (Lico) Vidaurri....

If you recognize any of the photos, please share your information.  
Jose M. Pena
JMPENA@aol.com
 

 

 

 

ORANGE COUNTY, CA

September 13: SHHAR Monthly Meeting: John Schmal, "Finding Your Roots in Mexico"
September 27:
15th Logan Barrio Family Reunion
Incoming Cultures: Influences and Legacies in Orange County, Smithsonian Collaboration
Martyred Priests, Their Journey to Orange County

Two of OC’s founding clans mend fences after a 125-year rift, September 18, 1995 
Yorba Cemetery, A portal to the past, Quick overview... family history  
Ramon Peralta Adobe, The story of people and change, Quick overview...
 

Lorenzo (Larry) Luera Ray High School Class of 1954, Part 1 of 2

September 13  - SHHAR Monthly Meeting, Open to the Public, no cost.

"Finding Your Roots in Mexico" 
Presented by John Schmal 
Orange FamilySearch History Library Center
674 S. Yorba, Orange, CA

John will give some tips and how to do family research in Mexico. John is a long time Board member of  SHHAR and author of the following books: 
The Dominguez Family a Mexican-American Journey (Paperback)
The Indigenous Roots of a Mexican-American Family (Paperback)
The Journey to Latino Political Representation (Hardcover)
Naturalizations of Mexican Americans Extracts Volume 1 (Paperback)
Naturalizations of Mexican Americans Extracts Volume 2 (Paperback)
Naturalizations of Mexican Americans Extracts Volume 3 (Paperback
Naturalizations of Mexican Americans Extracts Volume 4 (Paperback


9:00-10:00 Hands-on Computer Assistance For Genealogical Research
10:00-10:15 Welcome and Introductions
10:15-11:30  Speaker, John Schmal

For more information, please contact President Letty Rodella Lettyr@sbcglobal.net

 

 

15th Logan Barrio Reunion
Saturday, September 27, 2014, 12noon – 6pm:
Family Members Of The Early Pioneers In Historic Logan Invite You To Celebrate the 15th Logan Barrio Reunion, Chepa’s Park , 1009 Custer St., Santa Ana, Ca 92701
For Information, please call:
Norma Cardona Peralta(714) 543-5743 or Mary Acosta Garcia(714) 415-8629
 
"Incoming Cultures: Influences and Legacies in Orange County."
The Heritage Museum of Orange County will be hosting a Smithsonian exhibit 
from October 6, 2014 to November 15, 2014. 

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On Saturday October 25, 2014 the theme is "Incoming Cultures: Influences and Legacies in the OC. "

We would like to display stories and pictures of the the different barrios or colonias that made up Orange County. Please let me know if you can bring picture displays, story telling, special performances of Latino culture. We want to celebrate the diversity of Orange County and will also have other cultures and nationalities that will display pictures, or dance, etc. (ie. Vietnamese, African Americans, Japanese, German, Jewish, and Native American's.). Our curator is Kevin Cabrera and we will be meeting at the museum on August 29 at 6:00 pm to discuss.  

 

Please let me know what you can contribute or refer me to someone who can participate. We are very excited about this event and will send you more information on each weekend's event. I'm also working closely with Mimi Lozano and genealogy (which will be held on November 15). Thank you for your help!

Yvonne Gonzalez Duncan 
Heritage Museum of OC
Board Member  
714-423-9150-cell   

 

 

MARTYRED PRIESTS

THEIR JOURNEY TO ORANGE COUNTY

 

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On the 21st of May, 2000, Pope John Paul II, celebrated a mass which elevated to Sainthood of twenty-seven martyrs, executed during 1920 - 1931 period in Mexico. Included among the Saints were Priests and lay persons who were brutally executed by federal troops for practicing their catholic faith. Six of the Priests were members of the Knights of Columbus; the celebration prompted the Knights of Columbus to create a memorial cross bearing the relics of the six Saints.

The viewing of the relics was then scheduled to be viewed and have special masses of celebration. The journey was to be throughout Mexico, where it was received with great joy and piety by all of the faithful who attended. The decision was made to then extend the journey throughout the United States and eventually the entire continent.

The first celebration outside of Mexico was scheduled at the Cathedral in Los Angeles, California on April 29, 2006. An unannounced and unscheduled celebration mass was held on Friday, April 28, 2006 in Orange County, becoming the first mass outside of Mexico. 

The mass was held at the beautiful church, of St. Anne, in the heart of Santa Ana, California. I personally became aware of the viewing the day before and was therefore able to attend on that date, April 28th along with five brother knights, becoming the first to share the honor representing the Knights of Columbus, along with the California State Deputy, Emilo Moure and the director of media relations, Andrew T. Walther of New Haven, Connecticut.

I felt humbled and proud to be among the first to view outside of Mexico. The mass was presented by the pastor of St. Anne, Father Cirilo Flores and assistant pastor, Father Tim. The adoration and faith of all in the procession was indeed overwhelming.

It is ironic that the relics of these Saints made their first visit in a humble but pious parish in Orange County.

Henry Marquez Loza - Past Board Member of SHHAR

 

 

 

Foresters and Picos shake away feud

Two of Orange County’s founding clans mend fences after a 125-year rift.

By Peter Larsen and Dan Chang
Register staff writer Liz Pulliam con tributed to this account.

The Orange County Register 
Monday Sept. 18, 1995
Editor: It was such fun to have expedited this reunion.

 

Tony Forster, 60, and Al Pico, 79, participated in the peace-making Sunday, September 18, 1995.

 

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San Juan Capistrano: Tony Forester and Al Pico distant, distant cousins whose roots run deep in the history of California, met and shook hands Sunday.

Big deal? You bet.

Since 1873 when brother’s-in-law Juan Forester and Pio Pico sued each other over ownership of Rancho Santa Margarita y Las Flores, the Picos and Foresters have not had much to do with one another.

After the trial, the Foresters got the Ranchos, and the Picos . . . well, they didn’t get the ranchos.

The rift drove a bitter wedge between the two families, although the passing of time has dissolved nearly all trace of active acrimony. The meeting Sunday — as part of Hispanic Heritage Days at the Mission San Juan Capistrano — is "a symbol intended to bring the two families back together.

"It's water under the bridge," said Al Pico, 79, as about 25 observers looked on and the two men clasped hands.

Tony Forster, 60, nodded and threw an arm around Pico's shoulder.  That's right," Forster said.

But the past held a wealth of animosity after Forster, an Englishman who found his fortune in the Wild West, and Pico, the last of the Mexican governors of California, started to fight over the 133,000 acres that today is Camp Pendleton.

Both families stand among the most prominent in California history. School kids learn of the exploits of Gov. Pio Pico and Gen. Andres Pico in the struggles they and Mexico eventually lost as California became the 31st state of the union. Their names, along with that of Forster. and his descendants, are found attached to towns, schools and boulevards.

Yet for years; Forsters and Picos kept their distance, neither hostile nor friendly, all because of the old land dispute.

That all changed Sunday because Mimi Lozano Holtzman, organizer of the Hispanic Heritage Days, happened to mention to Tony Forster, a former mayor of San Juan, Capistrano and current president of its historical society that among those to speak at the program was Al Pico.

"He said, 'Are you sure he's going to be there?' " she said, recalling that his manner seemed odd, prompting her to inquire of his interest in Pico.

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"He said, 'There's been a little family argument,' " Holtzman said. "I said, 'How long?'

"He said, 125 years.' "

Forster told her that 10 years earlier when he had returned to the old Santa Margarita ranch house used by Pico and later Forster— and now the general's quarters at Camp Pendleton — a guest asked Forster if he wanted to meet a Pico.

"When I extended my hand, he turned and walked away," Forster said. "I just said, 'Gee, that's pretty deep-seated hostility.'"

Forster thought the man was Al Pico. Al Pico said it was not.

As Forster told Holtzman the story, Holtzman said, "I thought 'Gee, wouldn't it be wonderful that this would act as a way to bring them together,' " Holtzman said.

Both Forster and Pico quickly agreed to meet and make peace, although both had been amused to see officials at the mission bill it as a meeting of two families "who have maintained a Hat-field-McCoy-style feud for over a century."

Jim Graves, a spokesman for the mission, later confessed to the non-mortal sin of hyperbole.

"It was more like a cold war as opposed to a hot, shooting war," he said sheepishly.

Both Pico and Forster said they had looked forward to meeting because of all they had in common: the land their ancestors once roamed, the Irish women their fathers married and a love for family history.

Both grew up in historic families, garnering bits and pieces of the family lore.

As Mexican folk dancers twirled on a nearby stage and the smell of frybread filled the air, Al Pico recapped his family's journey, from Italy to Spain to Indiana and then California, as part of the festival's lecture series on historic Hispanic families.

Al Pico said he remembers that when he was a boy, his aunts still talked about the dirty trick they thought Forster had played on them — after marrying a Pico sister, no less.

 

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"I can remember my aunt saying she would talk to Andres and he always said, 'Dolores, I just cannot understand how my sister could let that happen to us,' " Al Pico said.

But the old dispute never ruled his world so much as the old ways. 'Like his great-grandfather Jose Antonio Pico, brother to Pio and Andres, Al Pico was a rancher most of his life, raising cattle on old family land near San Jacinto in Riverside County./

Tony Forster, for his part, said he remembers playing with a neighbor as a boy and discovering a cache of Juan Forster's diaries and letters that had been thrown on a trash heap after the death of Tony Forster's great-uncle.

"All that I had heard, though, was that something had gone on back a long time ago, and that the Picos felt they had been swindled out of the ranch," Forster said.

What had happened, according to a variety of local historians; was that Pio and Andres Pico had rung up phenomenal debts and had fallen behind on the mortgage for Rancho Santa Margarita. Pio Pico cut a deal with his brother-in-law Forster and from there the family stories branch onto different paths.

A FAMILY ONCE DIVIDED RECONCILES

More than a century after a bitter battle over land drove a wedge between Juan Forster and his in-laws, the Pico brothers, their descendants make peace Sunday.

The Forsters believe that Juan Forster agreed to purchase the ranch in exchange for paying off the mortgage. The Picos believe that Pio Pico only meant to sell half the ranch. The courts eventually sided with Forster.

In an irony not lost on Al Pico, Forster's heavy debts persuaded his heirs to sell much of his property to James Flood and Richard O’Neil after Forester’s death in 1882.

The O'Neill heirs still own Rancho Mission Viejo, from which the communities of Mission Viejo and Rancho Santa Margarita have been carved.

So in the end, Pico pointed out, he and Forster have another point in common: Neither family managed to hold Rancho Santa Margarita into the 20th century, when its value soared.

And Sunday's meeting brought one more irony. Among the observers to the ritual handshake was David Belardes, leader of 'Juaneno Indians who were the rancho land's first inhabitants.

The Juanenos have been gripped by a feud of their own, with a rival north-county group challenging the leadership of Capistrano-based organization that Belardes heads. The dispute has prevented the Juanenos from receiving federal recognition as tribe, Belardes said.

Will the two groups ever come together, as did the usurpers their land?

"I don't know," said Belardes shaking his head. "I don’t know."

 

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FORSTER FAMILY

PICO FAMILY . . . . Pico Siblings

Married-1837
John (Juan) Forster 
Ysidora Pico

Pio Pico
Andres Pico
Jose Antonio Pico
Ysidora Pico

Three sons, one of them was Marcos Antonio Forster

Jose Pico children include Francisco Pico

Marcos Antonio Forster's children include Frank Forster

Francisco Pico's children included Albert Francisco Pico

Frank Forster's children include Marco "Tom" Forster

Marco "Torn" Forster children include Tony Forster

 

Albert Francisco Pico's children include Al Pico  

 

Yorba Cemetery

A portal to the past

Quick overview... family history

 

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The Yorba's were the first family to be granted lands entirely within Orange County; hence, they are considered one of the oldest pioneer families in the area. Their history in this region dates back seven years before the American colonies declared their Independence from Britain in 1776.

It is said that Jose Antonio Yorba was a soldier who accompanied the Portola Expedition of 1769. Approximately forty years after this expedition and during his retirement, Jose Yorba and his nephew Juan Pablo Peralta petitioned the Spanish government for 62,000 acres of land that would become the Rancho Santiago de Santa ana.

In 1801, Don Bernardo Yorba was born. He was Jose Antonio's third surviving son. When his father died in 1825, he inherited a portion of the Yorba lands. In 1834, Bernardo petitioned and received from Mexican Governor Figueroa 13,000 acres of land on the northern side of the Santa Ana River. Bernardo called this land Rancho Canon de Santa Ana, the Canyon of St. Anne.  

Bernardo built a two-story rancho on his land. It is said that the house had 50 rooms, and was one of the finest adobes in California. The dwelling became known as "San Antonio", in honor of St. Anthony de Padua, and had the only school outside of the Mission School at San Juan Capistrano.  

Bernardo's Will : Two weeks prior to his death in 1858, Bernardo willed to the Catholic Diocese a plot of land to build a church and the establishment of a cemetery.

The cemetery was established approximately % mile northwest of the chapel on a gently sloping hill on 100 square feet of land that some corrals were located. The Yorba cemetery is the oldest private cemetery in Orange County and the second oldest cemetery in county; the cemetery at San Juan Capistrano is the oldest.

Bernardo was laid to rest in the Old Calvary Cemetery in Los Angeles. In 1923, Bernardo and nine other family members were laid to rest in the cemetery after a road improvement project in Los Angeles forced the closure of the Calvary Cemetery.

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The cemetery and area ...

The first recorded burial at the cemetery is in 1862, the last burial was 1939. Over 400 people are buried in the cemetery; their names are recorded on two plaques welcoming people to the site.

In 1827, Bernardo's hacienda was torn down by the Kraemer family. The California Centennials Commission established State Historic Marker #226 in 1950 incorporating pieces of the adobe salvaged from the building. The marker is located Vz mile east of Imperial Hwy on Esperanza. The road was named for Bernardo's granddaughter who died in infancy.

 

The Board of Supervisors in 1967 accepted the deed of trust for the Yorba cemetery from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles. It is the goal of Harbors, Beaches and Parks to preserve and maintain this one-acre site for public visitation and education.

When visiting the site you will see white crosses. This is an effort, in conjunction with the Santa Ana Canyon Historical Council and the Cemetery Angels, to identify the burials of those who have since lost their headstone to vandals, fires and time.

Source: County of Orange- Harbor, Beaches and Parks/ Phone Number: 714-973-3190  

 

 

Ramon Peralta Adobe

The story of people and change

Quick overview...
 

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The Ramon Peralta Adobe is the last surviving adobe structure in the Santa Ana Canyon from the era of Spanish and Mexican land grants.

The house is located on land that was once part of the vast Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana. The rancho was the only land grant in Orange County made by the Spanish government.

The adobe was built in 1871 in what was then known as the town of Peralta. Paula Peralta de Carlos Dominguez owned the land that the adobe was built on. The area was a small ranching and farming community on the south side of the river. There were nine adobes in the area. In the late 1800s, a saloon, pottery shop, and a school were added to the community.

In 1873, Ramon died. It is believed that a fire from vagrants scorched the interior of the adobe in 1875 and that vandals caused further damaged between 1873 and 1881.

In 1881, Pablo Dominguez and Felipe Yorba moved into the adobe. Changes were made to the house to meet the needs of a growing family. These changes are reflected in the adobe as it is seen today.

Walter E. Pyne purchased the adobe in 1908 after Felipa's health declined.  

The adobe was converted to a roadside cafeteria in the 1920s to service motorist traveling between Orange and Riverside Counties

In the late 1960s, the cafeteria (adobe) was abandoned after the completion of the Riverside Fwy (91).

Harbors, Beaches and Parks assumed ownership of the property in 1976.

 

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In the early 1980s, an agreement was made between the County of Orange and C. Robert Langslet for the lease of the adobe property for commercial development. The agreement stated the adobe would be restored and operated as a historic site at no cost to the County.  

In 2006, family descendents from the Santa Ana Canyon Historical Council started raising funds to build the Ramon Peralta Adobe Museum. The museum opened to the public in April of the same year and is dedicated to the preservation of the area's history and public education.  

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Adobe owners...

Ramon Peralta built the adobe in 1871. The adobe was a small house, 20 feet x 20 feet with six rooms. Rocks from the Santa Ana River were hauled to the site to make the foundation. The walls are stacked "mud" bricks made of a sandy loam with straw mixed in for binding. When Ramon died in 1873, the adobe was abandoned for several years.

Pablo Dominguez married Felipa Yorba in 1881. The young couple moved into the adobe in that same year after completing extensive repairs. Pablo and Felipe raised five children in the house.  

As their family grew, Pablo and Felipe modified the adobe to meet their family needs. One of the interior walls was removed and the area enlarged to make a main room. A gabled roof with a second-story bedroom was added, along with doors and windows being hung  

Pablo died in 1895. Felipe grew too ill to take care of her children and the adobe. After she moved to the other side of the river, the house and property were sold to Walter E. Pyne. Mr. Pyne purchased the property to extend his citrus farm holdings in the area and fell in love with the adobe. He is given credit as the person who saved the adobe.

Mr. Pyne converted the adobe to into a roadside cafeteria in 1920. The area saw a boom of travelers along the newly paved Santa Ana Canyon Road; the only road linking Riverside County to Orange and Los Angeles Counties.

The adobe experienced for the next four decades many new families and modifications to meet the needs of a successful restaurant.

Source: County of Orange- Harbor, Beaches and Parks/ Phone Number: 714-973-3190

 

 

Editor: I have been going through files and came across this life Cuento from Larry Luera. Regretfully, I did not find it while preparing the August issue, in which I published the news of Larry's recent death. I am happy to share a little more about Larry. He was a dedicated community activist with LULAC, and in other capacities. 

Lorenzo (Larry) Luera Ray High School Class of 1954
Part 1 of 2  

 

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In January of 1959,1 did not sign up for any classes at the University of Arizona. I was working 40 hours a week at the San Manuel mine for the past year and going to school at the same time, while taking a full load. I lost three friends, who were killed at work, and I had lost 25 pounds in weight at the same time. I found myself falling asleep whenever I came to stop light on my way drive back to Tucson, a drive of 47 miles. I kept working till April of 1959. When I quit work, I packed my belongings in my car and headed for Southern California.

I drove west until I ran out of road in El Segundo, right by LAX. It was a Sunday and the next day I went to North American Aviation and applied for work. I was hired as a Junior Engineer on the XB-70 Bomber, a triple sonic bomber airplane. I was in the mechanical department, drawing up parts of the outer skin of the XB-70. One month prior, I was working 1,875 feet underground and 30 days later I was working on a state-of-the-art bomber. It was a dream come true, to the point where I used to pinch myself to make sure it was real.  

I, as advised, filed my change of address with the draft board and received by draft notice in June. I ended up in Fort Ord for the basic training and for the second eight weeks of weapons specialist training. I was placed on special assignment for about two weeks at the Presidio of Monterey Language School where U.S. agents learn a foreign language/s with local dialects included.  

Now, it was the second week of December, 1959 and a group of us were given travel orders to Fairbanks, Alaska. I arrived at the Fairbanks Airport at 2:30 PM. My new home for the next 18 months was very dark and the outdoor temperature a cool -24 F°. I was assigned to the Military Police, Corp of Engineers working cross service with the Air Force at Ladd Airforce Base, on the outskirts of Fairbanks. A few days later, I and everybody else were invited to one of the big hangers. Bob Hope, Jane Mansfield and others were entertaining the troops.  

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While waiting to be assigned, I was asked to join the boxing team since I took boxing at the UofA. Before I knew it, I was in a boxing ring fighting against the current Alaska welterweight champion who was supposed to be in a tune-up fight on his road to the 1960 Olympics. He knocked me down 5 seconds after the start of the fight. I slipped in the second round and it was called a knock down. Right afterwards I caught him with a right flush to the jaw and he went down. I could not knock him out, but he did not land another blow. I hit him hard and often. He hung on but, had to be carried out of the ring. I won on a split decision. He did not fight again but, neither did I.  

After I got out of the service, I went back to North American Aviation. Soon after, the XB-70 program was cancelled. I ended up in a special project, designing a capsule that was implanted in a chimpanzee whom was then placed in a rocket, send up into space while the capsule monitored five body functions that were transmitted to ground equipment. Afterwards, I ended up in reseach projects, on the Minute Man ICBM program, and then some secret projects and some just dreaming up projects.

I transferred to the Apollo Spacecraft Project in Downey, CA, around 1964. 

I was assigned to the Apollo Space Craft electrical department. Before I knew it, I was writing test procedures for electrical/electronic equipment before installation on the spacecraft. I bought a time delay relay (Leach Relays, Inc.) that was installed on Apollo I, right in the area where the fire started, that killed three astronauts. I went through a lot of research and analysis in order to successfully prove my relay was not the cause of the fire. I worked on all of the Apollo space flights, supporting the flights from our control center in Downey, CA .  

In 1972,1 was transferred to the Space Shuttle Program. I was now a responsible engineer of different avionic spacecraft packages. Part of my assignment involved traveling to Manchester, New Hampshire; Davenport, Iowa; Newark, New Jersey; Grand Rapids, Michigan; and Seattle, Washington on design reviews and buyoff of equipment. I was involved in the design of all four space shuttles and in the purchase of equipment that was used on the fifth space shuttle. I helped design the first solid state instrument for use on spacecraft. I asked Weston Instruments, Inc. in Newark, New Jersey to undertake the the project after finding a Liquid Crystal manufacturer with the viewing angle needed for use on spacecraft.

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While all these was going on I had gotten married and my three boys were born, one after another, 1968,1970, and 1971 (Leo Louis, Joseph Frank, and Lawrence Santos). My daughter (Ines Lydia) was born later in 1976. My two bedroom house in Redondo Beach was too small, so in 1973 we moved to Westminster, CA.

In 1982,1 received an offer from Northrop Aircraft in Hawthrone, CA. The big increase in pay made me jump at the offer. I now found myself working on the F-20, fly-by-wire, state-of-the-art fighter. It was a small flying machine, compared to the Space Shuttle and I had a lot of fun on the program until it was cancelled in 1987. That is when I was laid-off from Northrop.  

I was hired at McDonnell Douglas in 1987 to work on the Navy Trainer, T-45 Program. The program was going great until the progam was transferred to McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis, MO (we were told that St. Louis was short on work and needed the work). I then went to work on the new commercial passenger aircraft, MD-90.1 worked on the new design of the Electrical Emergency Subsystem and also, on any problems that were encountered by the airlines. I was again laid off due to lack of orders and cancellation of orders from the airlines. That was 1992.  

 

Meanwhile, my kids were growing up from youngsters to young adults. All four graduated with honors from Westminster High School. I now have a manager at Circuit City, a civil engineer (UCLA), a high school science teacher (Long Beach State University), and a manager at the Disney Land Store in Down Town Disney, Anaheim, CA.

After getting laid off from McDonnell Douglas, I joined the other laid off, 250,000 Aerospace workers, going from odd job to odd job. Too many to talk about each one.

Now, at the same time, somehow, I would like to slow down a bit, and just talk about my grandkids. Six that are in school seem to be doing realyl good. I have been blessed with one granddaughter and six grandsons. The granddaughter is the oldest, age nine, and then six grandsons, ages eight years to four years of age.

I have been appointed by the Westminster Police Chief to his advisory committee. This is in addition to being appointed in 1981 through the present to the Orange County Harbors, Beaches, and Parks Commission (first Latino appointed to a paid commission position in Orange County). Previously, I was appointed to City of Los Angeles Police Department Hispanic Advisory Committee.

 

LOS ANGELES, CA

Nov 10th: Chronically Homeless Vets to Get Homes in Boyle Heights  
Sept 7th:
Apostolate of La Virgen de Los Remedios 
View from the Pier by Herman Sillas 
Ralph M. Terrazas: First Latino Chief of LA Fire Department Confirmed by City Council
Great Read In this group, she's just Gloria Molina, quilter by Abby Sewell
 

Dedication of new building 
November 10, 2014, 11 AM

Named for Boyle Heights East L.A. WW II War Hero: Guy Gabaldon 
3553 Beswick St.
Los Angeles, CA 90023

Chronically Homeless Vets to Get Homes in Boyle Heights

By Gloria Angelina Castillo, EGP Staff Writer

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Construction of a housing complex for elderly homeless veterans began five months ago; project partners gathered last week for a ‘beam signing’ celebration at the facility. 
(Photo courtesy of ELACC)

An apartment complex (1-bedroom units) to house chronically homeless senior citizens who are veterans of the US Armed Forces is going up on the eastside. Construction of the Beswick Senior Apartments—the first of its kind in Boyle Heights—is scheduled to be complete in fall of 2014.

Lea esta nota en ESPAÑOL: Veteranos Crónicamente Sin Techo Tendrán Hogar en Boyle Heights

The $12.5 million-dollar low-income development project at 3553 Beswick St. was celebrated last week with the signing of a construction beam by co-developers East LA Community Corporation (ELACC) and New Directions for Veterans, Inc., and others. The beam will be incorporated into the two-story structure with 32 one-bedroom units to house veterans. 

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The apartment complex is meant to be permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless and disabled U.S war veterans who are 62 and older, according to ELACC. “It’s about time something like this would happen… and hopefully this is the start of many” [more], said Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 4696 Commander Tony Zapata, who led the Pledge of Allegiance.

Zapata, a long-time resident of Boyle Heights, participated in ELACC’s community meetings, advocating for the apartments construction. “These brave people who have served this country deserve decent housing… I can’t stand to see a veteran living under a bridge,” Zapata said in a written statement.

Zapata’s VFW members will help rename the development, according to ELACC.

Maria Cabildo, president of ELACC, said construction on the development began five months ago but a ground-breaking ceremony was not held in order to “show action” and to cut perceptions about how long the construction is taking to complete.

The project, however, was not without opposition, according to Cabildo who said some Boyle Heights residents do not support ELACC’s affordable housing developments. “These individuals have a serious compassion deficit,” said Cabildo, who at the same time commended veterans living in the community who support the development.

New Direction for Veterans President and CEO Gregory Scott called the event historical, but he too acknowledged that they received pushback from residents who oppose homeless veterans moving into their neighborhood.

“… New Directions is not far from that pushback when we’re trying to do right, but we always know that compassion always wins … no matter what the opposition is,” he said.

Scott said New Directions wants to someday eliminate the term “homeless veteran.”

“Our vision and mission is to empower all veterans and their families to live a vital and sustainable life. We believe that no man or woman who wears a service uniform, who risks their life to serve this county, should ever be without a home or a job or food in their homeland,” he said. “Nobody thinks being homeless is the best, most comfortable, safest way to live. Nobody wants to beg for food, or beg for attention looking for food, shelter, clothing…”

Opponents of affordable housing in Boyle Heights have previously told EGP that they oppose such projects because they do not give priority to local residents and because they exclude undocumented immigrants in the mostly Latino community, while bringing in the homeless from other parts of the city. They in turn draw their homeless associates to loiter in the area.

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Residents worry that the chronically homeless suffer from mental illness, perhaps caused by trauma. As a result, affordable housing projects targeted to the chronically homeless, including veterans, is unattractive to some local homeowners.

According to ELACC, however, the new apartment complex will offer on-site case management, mental health services, and other services provided by New Directions. Other partners include the Department of Veteran Affairs, Los Angeles County Department of Military Affairs, Behavioral Health Services, and Weingart East LA YMCA.

Eastern LA County is home to 856 homeless veterans according to the 2011 Greater LA Homeless Count Report, ELACC stated in a press release.

http://egpnews.com/2013/10/chronically-homeless-vets-to
-get-homes-in-boyle-heights/
 

For more information on the Gabaldon dedication please contact Tony Zapata, Commander VFW Post 4696, Tzap793@aol.com.
Click for two other projects honoring Gabaldon. 

 

 

Apostolate of La Virgen de Los Remedios 

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It is with great honor that we join the Apostolate of La Virgen de Los Remedios and the Filipino community of Southern California in celebrating the anniversary of the Coronation of The Virgen de Los Remedios.  We invite you all to come and join us at the Cathedral of Our Lady of The Angels on Sept 7th, 2014, 3:30PM.  Please arrive early.    

La Hermandad de Las Américas de Nuestra Sra. del Rocio
Tiene el honor de unirse al Apostolado de la Virgen de los Remedios y a la comunidad ! lipina de Sur de California en su Celebración de Virgen de los Remedios  

“58th Canonical Coronation Anniversary”
Domingo 7 de Septiembre, 2014 - 3:30PM
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
555 W Temple St, Los Angeles, CA 90012  
More information:  818-448-5185

 

VIEW FROM THE PIER 

by Herman Sillas
 Aug 18, 2014   

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               When I think of my cousin Eddie Barba, I get a big grin.  My first memory of him is a going away party his parents threw when he left to fight in WW II.  He was seventeen and I was seven.  Eddie was my hero and I remember his good-looking girl friend as they danced the night away along with all their friends.

               Eddie wound up in England training for the European invasion. He was in the Army Air Force, and when the Air Force became a separate military entity, he was assigned to the 9th Air Force.  He served as a waist gunner on the B 25s as they flew missions over Germany.

               By this time, Eddie had married a young English girl.  She came to the U.S. with their baby son, while Eddie remained in Europe getting an education through the service.  When he came home, he and his wife had another son.

               In 1953, Eddie started his upholstery business on 48th Street and Western in Los Angeles.  He also began purchasing and selling antiques.  During this period and the years that followed, I’d see Eddie at family parties and functions.  He loved to dance.  After he and his wife divorced, I recall seeing him at family parties and always with a beautiful date.  I was in awe of his dancing ability.  He was a Mexican James Brown.  

  During the 1965 Watts Riot, white owned businesses were being burnt down as rioting African Americans demonstrated their anger over their treatment by the establishment. Eddie’s business was in the middle of the riots, but his African American neighbors told him to go home, adding, “Nothing is going to happen to your building.” And nothing did.  Eddie is that kind of guy.  When you met him, you liked him.  Again, when the police officers in the Rodney King incident were acquitted, Eddie’s business remained untouched by angry looters. 

             When Eddie turned eighty, he asked his sister Aurora and her husband Momi if he could  use their home and sprawling backyard for his birthday party.  By this time, Eddie also had a daughter named Pamela.  More than three hundred persons attended.  The party started early in the afternoon with mariachis and finished in the evening with two live bands. It was a party never to forget.  

             Unbeknown to Eddie, his younger sister, Chachi, was secretly handing out keys to women in attendance and telling them to hold the key until she asked for it.  In the late afternoon designated speakers praised Eddie and kidded him about his adventures.  The last speaker was Chachi.  She took the mike and announced, “I know my brother. . . . .

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He has had a great life filled with romance.  But ladies, he is now eighty years old and it’s over.  He needs to rest.  So all you women, that have a key to his home, bring it up and turn it in.”  From all parts of the gathering women came forth holding a key high in their hand.  The yard rocked with laughter.  

               Eddie will be celebrating his ninetieth birthday in August at Momi’s house again.  Eddie, now known in East Los Angeles as “Don Eddie,” is looking forward to the day as Pamela prepares the activities.  Don Eddie quit playing golf a couple of years ago after over fifty years of weekly playing in a foursome.  Now every morning he walks to the local coffee shop, where he presides over the meeting of “El Club de los Parjaritos Muertos” (The Club of the Dead Birds). 

 On Mexican holidays celebrated in East Los Angeles, Don Eddie wears his black Zapata sombrero and puts on his black charro outfit over his slim body. Then he mingles with the crowd to its delight. The Don is loved for his everlasting smile, sense of humor and outward enjoyment of life.  He is constantly told, “I can’t believe you are ninety.”  

               He answers with a laugh and says, “Yeah?  Well believe it!  When I order a one minute egg, they want cash up front.”  Viva Don Eddie!  That is the view from the pier.

***30***

(Herman Sillas, a San Clemente resident and attorney, can be found most weekend mornings fishing on the San Clemente Pier.  He may be reached at sillasla@aol.com)

 

 

Ralph M. Terrazas
First Latino Chief of Los Angeles Fire Department Confirmed by City Council
by Ashley Soley-Cerro, August 8, 2014  

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The Los Angeles Fire Department appointed its first Latino chief Friday since its founding in 1886.

Ralph M. Terrazas, the department’s 18th fire chief, was chosen by Mayor Eric Garcetti and confirmed by the L.A. City Council, on Aug. 8, 2014. (Credit: LAFD).

“I am honored and humbled to begin leading the 3,200 men and women of the LAFD as their fire chief,” Terrazas said. “It’s an exciting and challenging time to be taking the helm and together we will redouble our efforts to transform the LAFD into a metric-driven, technologically sophisticated, community-focused organization that reflects the communities we serve.”

http://ktla.com/2014/08/08/first-latino-chief-of-los-angeles
-fire-department-appointed-by-city-council
 

 

Terrazas was a 31-year veteran of the department, where he was a chief officer for 14 years; developed the department’s Professional Standards division, which works to ensure the department’s mission was maintained; and worked on the Proposition “F” Fire Station Bond, which facilitated the construction of 19 new LAFD stations.

Most recently he managed and trained about 500 members at 54 fire stations as the assistant fire chief at the South Division’s “A” Platoon, which covers half of the city.

Terrazas, a Long Beach native, earned a bachelor’s degree in public administration and certificate in fire protection administration from San Diego State University, and a master’s degree in public administration with an emphasis on human resource management from California State University, Los Angeles


 

Great Read In this group, she's just Gloria Molina, quilter

By Abby Sewell, L.A. Times 

Women filed into a classroom at an East Los Angeles community center. Some came alone, some in groups of two and three. Most were Latina and edging past middle age. They hauled tote bags full of fabric and rolled suitcases holding sewing machines.  One of them was Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, toting her own bundles of material.  

As one of the "five kings and queens" who run a sprawling county government, Molina is among the most powerful women in Los Angeles. She wrestles weekly with issues including abused children slipping through the cracks, overcrowded and aging jails, and how to spend a $26-billion annual budget. Some people travel to golf courses. We travel to quilt shows. - Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina

In the board room, Molina is known for the candid, sometimes caustic commentary she levels at county employees and fellow officials. Former Sheriff Lee Baca was a frequent target of her ire: On various occasions, she accused him of "stealing" resources from communities in her district by cutting back sheriff's patrols, and she publicly urged voters to oust him over abuses in the county jails.  

But on this Saturday morning, she was relaxed, even playful, and focused on a different kind of mission: showing 35 or so women how to piece together a new pattern for a quilt. It was the monthly meeting of the East Los Angeles Stitchers, TELAS for short, a group that Molina and a few friends founded three years ago to share their love of quilting with a larger, particularly Latina audience.  

"I have a bit of a cold, and I've been so busy I haven't gotten everything done," Molina told the assembly from the front of the room, "but we're going to get it done together." Then she began calling up members to show off their latest projects.  

lRelated  LocalGloria Molina helps with quilting workshopSee all related8One proudly unfurled a quilt in red, white and blue with a snowflake-like carpenter's star pattern, to be donated to a veterans group. Another presented a purse with intricately embroidered flowers in orange and pink on a black background. Molina exclaimed, "You did not make this!" and then hugged her, proclaiming, "This is our master embroiderer!"  

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Patricia Lopez, a retired high school counselor who has known Molina since their childhood in Pico Rivera, apologized for being late as she stood up to present the sapphire-pattern block of the month to the group: "I slept through the alarm, and I don't have a husband to wake me up." Another woman shouted, "You're lucky!" and a third, "What about a lover?"  

Molina launched into the day's project, a mystery block that the women would construct step by step without having seen the final design. The quilters set to work, cutting fabric and bending over their machines, trading gossip and jokes.  

Here, I'm just another quilter. I'm Gloria. - Gloria Santos

Molina made the rounds to check on their progress, occasionally calling out, "Ladies! Ladies!" At one point, she swatted an overly talkative friend with a strip of fabric so she could demonstrate the next step. "Why aren't you using your loud, outdoor voice?" her friend rejoined. "I know you have one."  

As one of 10 children in a family with limited means, Molina grew up sewing her own clothes. So did her friends, some of whom later joined the quilting group."I made everything I wore — I think Gloria did too," Lopez said.  

Molina, 66, recalled that as young women she and another quilting group member "would go shopping in the day for fabric, make a dress in the afternoon and wear it in the evening."  Some members of the quilting guild worked with Molina in her days as an activist with the Chicana political group Comisión Femenil Mexicana Nacional in the 1970s. Molina went on to become the first Latina elected to the state Assembly, then to the Los Angeles City Council and the county board.

During her 23-year tenure at the county, she turned to quilting.  The group has a core of about 30 members, but more than 100 have signed up online on its Yahoo group, including some as far away as Colorado and New Mexico. Members of the Los Angeles group have traveled to Mexico to exchange patterns with quilters in Puebla de los Angeles and Oaxaca and are planning to go on a quilting cruise together.  

"Some people travel to golf courses," Molina said. "We travel to quilt shows." Molina, who has carried her sewing machine to government conferences and to the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, said she tries to retreat to her sewing room each evening. "If I have 10 minutes, there's something I can do with a quilt," she said. "If I have 20 minutes, there's something I can do."  

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When former Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke retired, she got a Molina quilt. So did former county chief administrative officer David Janssen — made out of old ties his wife had saved.  

Molina, 66, recalled that as young women she and another quilting group member "would go shopping in the day for fabric, make a dress in the afternoon and wear it in the evening."  Some members of the quilting guild worked with Molina in her days as an activist with the Chicana political group Comisión Femenil Mexicana Nacional in the 1970s. Molina went on to become the first Latina elected to the state Assembly, then to the Los Angeles City Council and the county board.

During her 23-year tenure at the county, she turned to quilting.  The group has a core of about 30 members, but more than 100 have signed up online on its Yahoo group, including some as far away as Colorado and New Mexico. Members of the Los Angeles group have traveled to Mexico to exchange patterns with quilters in Puebla de los Angeles and Oaxaca and are planning to go on a quilting cruise together.  

"Some people travel to golf courses," Molina said. "We travel to quilt shows." Molina, who has carried her sewing machine to government conferences and to the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, said she tries to retreat to her sewing room each evening. "If I have 10 minutes, there's something I can do with a quilt," she said. "If I have 20 minutes, there's something I can do."  

When former Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke retired, she got a Molina quilt. So did former county chief administrative officer David Janssen — made out of old ties his wife had saved.  

Now that Molina is preparing to retire from her county post at the end of the year, she said, "Obviously, they're all waiting in the wings to get a quilt."

Back at the meeting in East L.A., the mystery block finally emerged as an Irish chain pattern in vibrant colors on a black background — although in Molina's haste to prepare the project after a grueling week at the county, she had been off on her math and made the block larger than intended. 

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 "This mystery quilt has been a mystery to all of us," she acknowledged ruefully, before sending the women on their way until next month.  

People who know Molina only from her tough political persona are often startled to learn about her hobby. After all, this is a woman who recently blasted county attorneys for not allowing her to see internal sheriff's department reports about a man fatally shot by deputies, snapping, "It is unbelievable that I have a set of lawyers that will not advocate on my behalf."  

But the supervisor is not the "hard-ass that sometimes comes across," said fellow quilter Evelyn Martinez, a longtime friend and former chief executive of First 5 LA. "There's a very soft side to Gloria, a very nurturing side."  

 

Constituents have sometimes used the monthly gatherings to bring issues to Molina's attention — like the 20 women who showed up one week with flowers and a petition about neighborhood issues in City Terrace. But for the most part, the group is a respite from political concerns. And many of the members take little interest in Molina's public persona. "To me, it's neither here nor there," said Lucinda Nuñez of San Fernando, who stumbled across the quilting group during an Internet search. She now brings along her 11-year-old granddaughter, Jadin. "It's just fun."  That suits the supervisor fine.  "Here, I'm just another quilter," she said. "I'm Gloria."

For more information on the group, visit 
http://www.facebook.com/TelasDeLaVidaTheElaStitchers
.
Follow: abby.sewell@latimes.com 
News about L.A. County government  
Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times

Sent by Joan De Soto
CasaSanMiguel@aol.com

CALIFORNIA 

Irwindale, Beauty in the Dust by Marylouise Fraijo Ambriz
A History of Neighborhood House in Logan Heights: Mary & Helen Marston by Maria Garcia
A Trail for Humanity's Final Walk Begins in Chicano Park by Brent E. Beltran
Mi Vida Con Carino by Lorena Ruiz de Frain, Final, Part III, Life in Los Altos  

 

 Irwindale, Beauty in the Dust 
by Marylouise Fraijo Ambriz

crown022002@yahoo.com 

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We are the roots that have broken through the rocks, and bask in the San Gabriel sun. 
We are the cactus that has fed so many of our poverty stricken ancestors. 
We are the the chamizal that was used to warm up their humble abodes. 
We are that lonely tumble weed that blows through the dirt roads. 
We are the churches that our grandfathers and great grandfathers built, stone by precious stone. 
We are Irwindale and Irwindale is us.

 ~ Marylouise Fraijo Ambriz, Great Great Granddaughter of Gregorio and Maria Francisca Fraijo, the first settlers of Irwindale

Gregorio had purchased land through out Los Angeles but was always pushed out by land grabbers, once actually burned out. Gregorio and Maria Francisca purchased 80 acres in 1871 from Don Enrique Dalton, owner of Rancho Azusa de Dalton. Cities that have been established on the Rancho lands originally granted to Henry Dalton are Azusa, Arcadia, Monrovia, Baldwin Park and Irwindale. The land wasn't much to look at it . It was nothing but rocks, cactus, and Chamizal. Gregorio viewed it as paradise. He knew that no one would steal this from him, and he was right. According to an 1890 Engineering map, Gregorio had acquired 120 acres. He sold much of his property to his children. He sold land to friends, Facundo Ayon and Guadalupe Ruelas. Ruelas was his childhood friend from Sonora. Later other families of Martinez, Paredes, Mora, Silvas, Arvisu,Ruiz, and Cruz came to this small community that was to be called Irwindale.  

Irwindale is a city in the San Gabriel Valley, in Los Angeles County, California.
The population was 1,422 at the 2010 census, down from 1,446 at the 2000 ...  

Attached is a photo of Gregorio Fraijo, First settler of Irwindale and the other photo is El Divino Salvador Church, built by the descendants of Gregorio Fraijo and Facundo Ayon.

Many descendants of these families still live in Irwindale. Their properties have been in their families for over 100 years. I live in the house that my great grandfather, Fructouso Fraijo, built for his bride Andrea Carrasco in 1885.  Fructouso was the son of Gregorio and Maria Francisca Fraijo and Andrea was the step daughter of Facundo Ayon.   Irwindale is no longer a town of jack rabbits and cactus but when I close my eyes I still see it that way, and I am proud.

 


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Mary Marston

A History of Neighborhood House in Logan Heights: Mary and Helen Marston

by Maria Garcia on July 12, 2014  

in Culture, History of Neighborhood House

SDFP exclusive series The History of Neighborhood House: From 1918 to the occupation in 1972

By Maria Garcia, ​From San Diego Free Press​  

 

The Marston family history is synonymous with the history of San Diego. Volumes have been written about their philanthropy and their contributions to the history of San Diego. For those of us that grew up in San Diego, we remember the Marston Department Store. My biggest memory of the department store is of the escalator and the smell of perfume.

I am sure we never bought one thing there. Despite her fear of escalators, my mother would take us there for the express purpose of riding the escalator. It was our simple version of the “E” ride at Disneyland. We would walk around the store, go up to the second floor and ride the escalator down with that beautiful smell greeting us at about the halfway point. In my mind the “Marston” name and “rich” are one and the same.

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George Marston came to San Diego in 1870. Within a few years he was in the mercantile business, working as a clerk. When he opened the Marston Company, it became the only major department store in San Diego. Over the course of his life he changed his political affiliation from Republican to New Deal Democrat. His wife Ann Marston came from a more progressive background. Her mother was a Quaker and her father had been an anti-slavery activist in Philadelphia. George and Ann Marston had an influence on the the political views of their daughters, Mary and Helen.

Both Mary and Helen attended Wesley College, which was a very progressive school, especially for that time period. Social work had become an academically recognized profession. There was an expectation that women who attended college would participate in charity work upon graduation.

In the early 1900’s the Settlement House movement had just come into being. It was natural that after Helen Marston’s volunteer work in both Chicago and New York settlement houses she would want to develop a settlement house in San Diego. Neighborhood House was the outcome. Both sisters served on the Neighborhood House board of directors, with Mary serving as Chairman of the Board at various times.

 

Kyle E Ciani’s extensive research on Helen Marston Beardsley notes that the Helen and Mary, the reformers, were ultimately transformed by their actual interaction with the families they encountered in their settlement work. Mary and Helen Marston were raised in a privileged environment that was a veritable Who’s Who in San Diego society. Dinner guests included former President Theodore Roosevelt and Booker T. Washington. That same privilege limited their exposure to Mexican people and culture, leaving them with many preconceived notions.

The stereotypes of Mexican people were that they were lazy, not motivated, etc. When Helen and Mary started their volunteer work at Neighborhood House they saw men who maintained two jobs in order to support their family. They saw women who not only maintained their own home, but did laundry or ironed for others in order to add to the household income. When the cannery opened, women worked there and continued to raise a family. Within a short period of time the reality of what they saw daily made many of the stereotypes visible for what they were.

 

 

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Ushers for the Marston Garden Fête

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On the other hand, a great deal of the newspaper stories about Neighborhood House focused on character flaws or traits that were considered un-American. Newspaper bylines would scream out with such things as “Mexican kids learn to drink milk.” The Americanization of the Mexican is a theme seen over and over again. These “ideas” had to come from someone and it stands to reason that Mary or Helen Marston contributed to some of these topics, when being interviewed by the press. It is also possible that these stories were put forth to solicit sympathy for these “poor little Mexican kids,” knowing it would result in more donations for Neighborhood House.

Fund raising for Neighborhood House was ongoing and essential. Much of the fundraising was done at an annual Marston House garden party. They took place year after year.

 Activities were planned to show the work that was being done at Neighborhood House. Musicians, some of whom had learned to play musical instruments at Neighborhood House, performed in the beautiful garden.

In the days before Hwy 163 existed music would flow across the canyon to the area where the Girl Scouts camp is now located. The dancers from Neighborhood House performed traditional Mexican dances and the “singing mothers” came and sang a few songs. Remember that many of the Marston’s guest were progressive and I am sure felt they were contributing, more than financial support to Neighborhood House. In future articles I will discuss the views of some of the performers.

 

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Neighborhood House officers

Something I often think about is the influence that the Marston family was able to use to solicit financial support for Neighborhood House. We cannot question that the name Marston brought other names such as Scripps to support the activities and the many causes or programs found at Neighborhood House. When the second floor was added to the 1809 National Ave building, it was paid for by Mary Marston. When the “escuelita” was added it was paid for by Ellen Scripps.

This tells me that there was considerable influence used to support Neighborhood House. Books were donated to the library, children’s’ toys were donated to be used as Christmas gifts, thus there was a constant flow of money or in-kind contribution based on friendship or business contacts.

In the 1930’s Helen became an active member of the Socialist Party and at one time was the secretary of the local Socialist Party. She was once a member of a delegation of ACLU that requested an injunction to allow farm workers to peacefully assemble. Over the years she would return to the Imperial Valley in support of farm workers. In 1936 she married and moved to Los Angeles.

In the early 1950’s Helen Marston tried to start the first chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in conservative San Diego. For this effort she was tried as a communist in the shameful McCarthy era of our country’s history. Helen was found not guilty.

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Helen’s husband died in 1961 and she moved to a small cottage in La Jolla. She worked along with her friend Florence Stevens in a variety of peace activities. Along with the Quakers, both Florence and Helen protested the Viet Nam war. She spent her final years in the Marston House, which she shared with her two sisters, Mary and Elizabeth. Upon her death, a Quaker religious service was held.

Mary Marston, the oldest of the Marston children and was born in 1879. She was her father’s “consentida” (favorite). At one point Mary had a young man she was interested in marrying, but he was considered by George Marston as not being “good enough” to be a son-in-law. Mary was devastated and swore that if she could not marry the man of her choice she would not marry at all.

Newspaper articles indicate that Mary became more involved and her presence at Neighborhood House became very obvious after Helen moved to Los Angeles. When shown a picture of Mary Marston, several of those interviewed would comment about how nice she was or that she was there a lot.

It was Mary Marston, during the 1920′s, who promised Laura Rodriguez’ father, Mr. Gallo, that his young daughters could come and live with the Marston family upon his death, which they did. 

Miss Mary died in July of 1987 a few weeks short of her 108 birthday. When I called Laura Rodriguez to express my condolences — knowing that Miss Mary was the closest thing to a mother Laura had ever known — Laura was very sad, and later wrote me a note saying “I’m going to the [Marston] House for the last time as soon as I feel I can make it without drowning in tears.”

Miss Mary, the last living child of George and Ann Marston, gave the Marston home to the City of San Diego in 1987. It is now a museum at the northwest corner of Balboa Park and has been operated by SOHO since 2009.

More information can be obtained about the Marston family by searching historical documents, however for the purpose of this series, only information that helps to understand their involvement in Neighborhood House is being included.

What cannot be denied about the Marston family and specifically about Helen and Mary Marston is that their work and dedication is the reason there was a Neighborhood House at 1809 National Ave. The community of Logan Heights and the Marston family would forever be tied through history as well as personal relationships.

 

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Maria Garcia is a retired school principal and has been an activist in the Chicano movement since 1968  
Previous articles in the History of Neighborhood House series here.
Sent by Dorinda Moreno 
pueblosenmovimientonorte@gmail.com
 

 

The History of Neighborhood House in Logan Heights: Emma Lopez

Posted: 02 Aug 2014

SDFP exclusive series The History of Neighborhood House: From 1918 to the occupation in 1972 By Maria Garcia Emma Lopez is a spunky lady who will turn eighty-eight in November. She was born at 821 Beardsley in Logan Heights and started attending Neighborhood House when she was around nine years old, in the early 1930's. Her parents owned the Neighborhood Café which they had purchased in 1935. The Neighborhood Café was next door to Neighborhood House. Like the others interviewed Emma has very fond memories not only of Neighborhood House but of the Logan Heights community. It has been very difficult finding women that attended Neighborhood House. Unlike the boys that spent most of their day at Neighborhood House the girls took a specific class and then went home. Emma's participation in Neighborhood House activities reflected that social expectation. While she was allowed to attend activities at a young age as she got into her mid-teens her participation was more limited. Emma's independent streak, however, exposed her to a few more adventures than other girls of that time.

Sent by Dorinda Moreno  

 

The History of Neighborhood House in Logan Heights: Testing the Meaning of “Americanized,” Part I
Posted: 16 Aug 2014 08:08 AM PDT

The Castro Sisters, Frank Peñuelas, Leonard Fierro and the beginnings of the Toltec Club By Maria Garcia One of the goals of the settlement house movement, which was established in urban centers at the beginning of the twentieth century, was to "Americanize" the immigrant populations that had settled in those cities. When Neighborhood House was established in 1914 as the only United States settlement house on the Mexican border, its role was to "uplift" Mexican immigrants in the Logan Heights community and Americanize them in doing so. The Americanization process included everything from introducing Mexican families to white flour and white bread to the provision of the first English as a Second Language (ESL) classes in the city to support for cultural, social and recreational activities in which athletics programs for the boys were particularly prominent. When I recently spoke to Rose Castro, she provided a particularly illuminating comment about Neighborhood House--"They taught us leadership!" ...

Sent by Dorinda Moreno pueblosenmovimientonorte@gmail.com 


 

A Trail for Humanity’s Final Walk Begins in Chicano Park

by Brent E. Beltrán on August 18, 2014 

A Trail for Humanity's walkers and supporters march through Barrio Logan. Exclusive San Diego Free Press video package of the Barrio Logan portion of the 300+ mile pilgrimage to the border, Video by Horacio Jones  

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San Diego Free Press would like to welcome videographer Horacio Jones into the Freep family. Horacio runs CinemaViva, a San Diego based video production company where he recently created a documentary on Chicano Park called Cycles of Change: Restoring Quetzalcoatl in Chicano Park. Horacio plans on creating one video package a week for SDFP on a variety of topics. Please welcome him by commenting below.  

On the morning of Saturday, August 16 over 100 people gathered by the temescal (sweat lodge) in Chicano Park for a ceremony to honor the walkers of A Trail for Humanity. On July 22 a group of women and children left Merced, California on a journey south to the US-Mexico border in San Ysidro to pressure the Obama administration to put a halt to its deportation enforcement only policies; call for an end to the use of police as immigration enforcement agents; demand an end to family separations; and stem the tide of racial profiling that has incarcerated so many migrants and African Americans.  

Those gathered at Chicano Park came to support these dedicated women and march with them on the final leg of their walk to the border. The video below, with interviews of one of the lead organizers of the walk, Cindy Gonzalez, Barrio Logan walk organizer Max Bojorquez, and Gretchen Burns-Bergman of Moms United, captures the Barrio Logan portion of A Trail for Humanity’s 300+ mile pilgrimage.  

Horacio Jones has been a video producer, director, camera operator and editor for over 10 years. He has directed several documentaries, short films and numerous corporate and event videos. Currently he is the owner of at http://www.CinemaViva.com where he oversees the day-to-day video production and editing tasks necessary to maintain a successful video production company. He also teaches filming and editing techniques to students attending the Film Connection Film Institute.  

 

Brent E. Beltrán is a third generation pocho that lives next door to Chicano Park in San Diego's Barrio Logan. He's the former publisher of Calaca Press, is married to his dreaming heart watcher and is the proud father of a baby Dino-saur. He's an MMA watching junkie who likes to get his nerd on by viewing superhero and sci-fi movies/tv shows. He writes the somewhat regular column Desde la Logan and is the newest addition to the SDFP Editorial Board. He can be contacted via email at desdelalogan@gmail.com and through his Twitter account @DesdeLaLogan.

Sent by Dorinda Moreno  

 

 

Mi Vida Con Carino by Lorena Ruiz de Frain

Final, Part III

Life in Los Altos

 

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It was now Spring, 1965, and Donaldo was working for the job shops and I was working for an aerospace company in Sunnyvale. We lived in Los Altos where Maria attended the local grammar school. That summer, Maria wanted to spend time with her grandmother, Evita, who still lived in Pacoima. We drove Maria to the airport in San Jose. The Pacific Airlines flight attendant escorted Maria to the airplane for the flight to Burbank. I had dressed Maria in her Sunday best clothes and she looked so grown up.

One of my favorite things to do was to fly with Donaldo in his Cessna airplane from San Jose Airport to the Nut Tree in Vacaville. We would have lunch at the famous restaurant and tour the farm and fly back to San Jose. On one of our flights, we flew from San Jose to Whiteman Airpark in Pacoima. Mom picked us up at the airport and drove us to her home which was across the street from the airpark. The return flight was an adventure to remember, as it was getting dark and we could barely see the highway below. Fortunately, there was a foil moon and we did get back okay. On New Year's Eve, in the mid-1960's, Maria and I accompanied Donaldo in his red and white 172 Cessna airplane for a flight over San Francisco. It was truly a magnificent flight. Donaldo was an excellent pilot and the single engine airplane, flew like a charm.  

In the mid-1960's, we were living in a nice neighborhood in Los Altos close to the Village when Dad Lyman left Philadelphia and came to live with us. Dad Lyman, being an old-time farmer that he was, immediately went to work and planted a vegetable garden in the back yard of our house. He planted corn and tomatoes.  

His home-grown, red tomatoes were the best. He planted flowers, mostly marigolds, in the front yard, and he took care of all the gardening around the house. Our place really looked nice. Even though he had achieved his fame as one of the oldest persons to have ever ridden a bicycle from the East Coast to the West Coast in August of 1964 at the age of 80 years, he continued riding his bicycle every day and rode all around town. Two years prior to relocating to Los Altos, Dad Lyman had felt so confident about himself that he once again took to the road on his bicycle. This time, he began his bicycle trip from Vancouver, Canada, and headed East. He soon discovered that the roads were narrow and unsafe, and the winds were blowing too strongly against him, so he decided to put his trip on hold, and took a flight back to his home in Philadelphia. 

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This was an amazing man, considering that he was a cancer survivor. He had been working long hours at the mill in Philadelphia during World War I. Consequently, he became ill from overwork and had been treated for a sore on his tongue that wouldn't heal. A new, experimental treatment was employed to treat the cancerous sore—the doctor inserted needles containing radium directly into the tongue until the cancer was cured. Throughout the years, we all shared stories about life in the early days and we became good friends.  

My daughter, Maria, was a teenager when she went to the San Fernando Valley to live with my mother, Evita, and Juan, and Barbie. By this time, Mom owned and operated her own restaurant, El Zocalito, specializing in Mexican Cuisine. Maria worked at the restaurant after school and on week ends. Mom, a gifted cook in her own right, taught Maria the secrets of cooking Mexican foods. Eventually, Mom closed down her restaurant due to Juan's failing health. Shortly thereafter, Maria returned home and continued her education at Los Altos High School.  

My Daughter. The Teenage Bride

My daughter, Maria, was still in high school when she decided to get married. She had a nice wedding in the Village and many of her classmates attended the ceremony. The following year, Maria's son, Steve, was born at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View. This was a joyous occasion for all of us - I was now a grandmother! Our baby boy was indeed a gift from heaven.

The Business Women

The Business and Professional Women, Mountain View Local Organization, California Federation, voted me in to the organization in the mid-1970's. The installation ceremony was held upstairs, above the old Mervyn's Restaurant in downtown Mountain View. I have served as president, secretary, woman of achievement coordinator, and held many other posts during the past 25 years.

 

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We celebrated our 50th Anniversary on February 2, 2000 at Mac's Restaurant in Los Altos. In attendance were many of the Past Presidents of the Local Organization. Long ago, BPW/USA had branched out from the Young Women's Christian Association.     Fortunately, our Mountain View Local Organization has had neighbors in the community and dear friends, especially the ones who worked at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, who supported us and provided guest speakers for our meetings. Our members attended many luncheons and dinners at the Moffett Field Facility. We were kept apprised of the latest technology and developments regarding space exploration, astronauts and the space station, and programs such as the SETI Program, with their Radio Astronomy Antennas located at the Arecebo, Puerto Rico facility. My grandchildren attended many of these events and were greatly inspired by all the space programs offered at their schools that they became members of the young astronauts groups. Our club members and local communities were supportive of projects and programs that dealt with outer space. One of my favorite movies was, "2001: A Space Odyssey". Then, there had been the first lunar landing on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong, said, as he stepped onto the moon's surface: "That's xone small step for^Man, one giant leap for Mankind." Wow!! Times were great and we felt so proud to be Americans and continued to embrace space exploration.  

The Woman Astronaut

On June 3, 1993, the Mayor of San Jose, Susan Hammer, issued a Proclamation declaring that day as "Ellen Ochoa Day" in San Jose. Our Latino club held a reception at the space exhibit center in Sunnyvale honoring Dr. Ellen Ochoa, the first Hispanic Woman Astronaut to fly into space aboard the Shuttle Discovery, Mission STS-56. Dr. Ochoa showed a film about her space voyage and answered many questions from the audience. Dr. Ochoa had been employed by NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View and had also attended Stanford University in Palo Alto, so she was familiar with us and the Bay Area.

Women of Achievement

Once a year, in October, our BPW/USA Local Organization honored a Woman of Achievement from the local community. One of our Woman of Achievement honorees was Ms. Zuniga, an engineer and a candidate for the astronaut program, who was working at NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View. Our Woman of Achievement in October 20, 1992, was Ms. Maria Loya, Principal at Slater Elementary School,  Mountain View.

 

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Ms. Loya was recognized for her dedication to educating her students and for her own humanitarian efforts in providing food and shelter for many of the students in her school district who were living below the poverty level We will always remember Ms. Loya as a kind hearted, unselfish woman who was one of the best ever role models for students and teachers, alike. Ms. Loya was a former nun and she was taken from us while she was still in her prime.  

Our organization has always supported upward mobility of women in the workplace, as well as legislation that is in favor of fair treatment of women worldwide. The members of BPW/USA have not only spent their time and expertise, but also provided their own money needed to provide the many programs which have contributed significantly to the betterment of humankind in our local communities as well as throughout the world. My membership in the Mountain View Local Organization of BPW/USA has been a good thing in my life, and I am grateful to all the members who mentored and supported me throughout my working career.  

The USA Bi-Centennial

In the Spring of 1976, Donaldo picked up tickets for a 21-day tour of Europe. I had recently completed an Arts History course at Foothill College so this was just perfect timing for me to visit Europe.

Our trip began in San Francisco, where we boarded a flight on Pan American Airlines, arriving 15 hours later in London's Heathrow Airport. We stayed overnight in London then the next morning we took a flight aboard Caledonia Airlines from Gatwick Airport to Schiphol, Amsterdam.

One of the first places we visited was the Diamond polishing shop in Holland. A group of us entered a small room and the door behind us quickly locked. The jeweler brought out a handful of uncut diamonds for us to look at. The diamonds were exquisite. Unfortunately, Donaldo and I were not in the market for diamonds at that time. Holland is well known for its beautiful and numerous windmills that are prominently situated

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throughout the country. It seemed as though we had gone back in time as we stood there, admiring these gigantic, functioning windmills—a fantastic sight. We spent a night in Heidelberg, Germany, and the next day took a cruise along the beautiful Rhine River.  

Lucerne, Switzerland, is a quaint and beautiful city. We stayed there one night and rested during the day before continuing on to the next country. We were fortunate to visit Innsbruck, Austria, where just earlier this had been the site of the Winter Olympics.

Imagine a stroll down the Champs Elysees in Paris! This was definitely something I had only dreamed of doing. For me, it was a pleasant experience, and yet, hard to believe I was actually there.

We visited the Louvre Museum and saw fantastic works of art, such as Leonardo da Vinci's portrait of the Mona Lisa.

We toured the French Riviera, Nice, and Monte Carlo. We were allowed in the casino at Monte Carlo. Not being a gambler, I could still appreciate the business aspect of the place where the high-rollers came for fun and games.  

In Italy, we stopped and toured Florence, which is beautiful—there is so much history there, especially at the time of the Renaissance when the great artists worked and lived there. We had a picture taken of all 50 people in our group as we were leaving Florence.

At one stop, we had time for a quick lunch on the Spanish Steps, another historical place.

To see Venice and its hundreds of water ways and the Rialto Bridge and all the other bridges is really something to see—it is like living in a water world all its own.

We spent an evening in Saint Mark's Square, where hundreds of sophisticated Venetians congregate. Refreshments were being served along the out-door sidewalk cafe while a symphony concert played the sweetest music I had ever heard.

The Roman Colosseum, a famous monument, is humongous. To think of all the popular events that had taken place there, and all the blood shed, not to mention the Gladiators who fought to the death, to me, seemed somewhat surreal as we walked around the grounds.  

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A tour of Vatican City and the Sistine Chapel was in itself something to behold. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, depicting the Creation and all the other frescos painted by Michelangelo, is breathtakingly spectacular.  

Kicked out - Saint Peter's Basilica

In the afternoon after our tour of Vatican City and Saint Peter's Basilica, I remained inside the church so that I could see the Pope. The Pope was scheduled to come to the church in a few minutes. A Swiss Guard approached me. He asked to see my "cod". I did not know what he meant, so he asked me if I had an appointment to see the Pope. I replied that I did not have an appointment so I was quickly escorted out of the church. Oh, well, sometimes the best intentions just don't work out.

Towards the end of our trip, we arrived in London, England, U.K. A guide took us through Westminster Abbey, which is awesome, not only in architecture, but mostly the history of it all.  

It was then on to the Tower of London. The tour guide escorted us to a special room where the Crown Jewels were kept. I could not believe my eyes—I could only marvel at the sight of this treasure—even the Queen's crown, and a collection of the most gorgeous, sparkling diamonds, rubies, emeralds and many other precious gems which were encased in glass cabinets.  

Our return flight home was via Charles De Gaulle International Airport to Heathrow Airport then on to Seattle and on to San Francisco International Airport (SFO).

Traveling in Europe at that time was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and a most memorable one.   We were the happiest, however, when we finally got back home and were on U. S. soil.

The BBQ in San Fernando

Brother Lenny and his wife hosted a BBQ at their home in San Fernando in the late 1970's to welcome our brother, Tim, and his family who were visiting from Michigan. Tim's mother, Jessica (my step-mother), now a Valleyite, was among the guests as was our mother, Evita, and two of our father's brothers. Everyone had a good time and for sure, we were coming full circle.  

Maria's daughter, Martita, was born at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View in the early 1980's. Then Maria and her family moved from Mountain View to Montana where they lived and were all very happy. The children wrote the cutest letters to me about their adventures in the snow and how much they loved their new life.

 

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Maria's second son, Phil Baby, was born in Palo Alto in the mid-1980's. The family had returned to the Bay Area and were adjusting to living in this fast-paced environment. However, within a couple of years, they relocated to Vacaville where Maria had a great new job as a Manager at a department store.  

Donaldo and I relocated to Mountain View in the early 1990's to be closer to our jobs. We were now close to transportation, the shopping centers, and El Camino Real, Highway 82. There are historic Bells all along El Camino Real, the path taken by Father Junipero Serra (1713-1784) when he was in the process of establishing the Spanish Missions in California in the 1700's.  

One afternoon in the mid-1990's, a Latino Mentoring club would be holding their meeting in Sunnyvale. My friend, Carmelita, took me with her to the meeting where she introduced me to Dr. and Mrs. Burciaga. This couple was affiliated with Casa Zapata at Stanford University. According to my Latina friends who had attended a women's conference in Palo Alto, the guest speaker at the conference was Mrs. Burciaga, whose topic was about Juana Briones. My friends were impressed with the Juana Briones legacy and talked to me about this extraordinary pioneer Latina woman who had lived in her Palo Alto adobe with her children in the mid-1800's. Soon, thereafter I, too, became a Juana Briones enthusiast. Carmelita and I had become good friends, and she and I shared many of our childhood stories about living in Santa Maria. Now, we were adult women, living and working in Silicon Valley—a long way from Santa Maria—it is a small world after all. All too soon, Carmelita and her husband retired and left the Bay Area.  

Searching for My Roots

Sometime in the early 1990's, my daughter, Maria referred me to a Ruiz family who resided in Vacaville. Maria was working and living with her three children in Vacaville at that time. Within a few months, I contacted Mr. Ruiz by phone and we chatted about our respective Ruiz family backgrounds. We discovered that we were not related; however, Mr. Ruiz referred me to the Los Californianos Organization that does family research. I contacted a member of Los Californianos and she invited me to attend a meeting with El Groupo scheduled for that coming Saturday at the library in San Leandro.   The members at the meeting asked me for my "names"—well, I was a Ruiz from the Ruiz family. What they wanted to know was, who were my ancestors and their names. At that time, I knew the names of my parents and their parents—that was all. With the encouragement of these wonderful people, I began a serious search for my roots.

It was June, 1992, when Maria was still working and living in Vacaville, that her fourth child, Toby, was bom . That same week, Maria's teenage daughter, Martita, graduated from middle school. Then, a day or two later, Maria's eldest son, Steve, graduated from high school. The following month, Maria's granddaughter, Alejita, was born in Vacaville! Maria was like Mother Goose and the Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe, she had so many children she did not know what to do! What Maria did was to move into a larger house in Vacaville to accommodate her new baby, her three children, plus her new grandbaby and her mother—WOW!! Our family was growing—now there there six generations of my maternal family living in California.  

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Shortly after Steve graduated from high school, he enlisted in the U. S. Marine Corps and was stationed at Camp Pendleton, San Diego, California, for basic training. Steve completed basic training and he invited the family to attend his graduation ceremonies and we accepted. One could see that the Marines were in top form and well trained as they marched in formation to the incredible marching band music. All of us felt such pride to be Americans, and our Steve was now a real Marine—a Warrior. During his military career, Steve was deployed to Okinawa and then he was sent back state-side to Twenty-Nine Palms where he served with the Military Police.

Discovering Our Heritage

One evening upon my return home from having spent the weekend in Vacaville with Maria and her family, I received a telephone call from Ms. Taylor, the genealogist with the Los Californianos Organization. It was September, 1993, and Ms. Taylor informed me that our family qualified for membership in the organization. We are descendants of the presidial soldiers who were garrisoned at the Presidios in Santa Barbara, Monterey, and San Francisco, and at some of the missions and pueblos. I was overjoyed with this news. Never in my entire life did I ever expect such good news for our family. Now I could tell my grandchildren true stories about how it was that our ancestors came to be in Alta California in 1769.  

 

Who We Are - Los Descendientes de Los Soldados de Cuera

Inasmuch as the time of my provisional membership with Los Californianos was running out, Ms. Taylor, the Genealogist, provided me with the names of my antepasados (ancestors)and I was able to create my pedigree chart.   Ms. Taylor had traced our family back to 1727 in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. The news of this was overwhelming. How could this be, my long, lost heritage? Who was I and was this really true? Was I worthy of such an honor? Did I deserve this, me an ordinary citizen? And, now what? How could it be that my family and I could be so blessed as to have ancestors who came to the New World and then for them to go on a journey to the New Frontier, to colonize Alta California, for a better life. Now, for sure, I had to begin a more thorough search of my ancestors. To begin with, in my favor are the Mission records which were maintained by the good Padres prior to 1850, and prior to Statehood. From our earliest beginnings, we are confronted with self-identity. For example, we ask the question, "Who Am I?", or, "Who really Am I?" There are many answers to the question—it depends on the individual asking the question. If the premise is true that we are a product of our environment, then our Spanish Californio heritage speaks for itself—we (this family) are Californios in every sense of the word and have been for the past two hundred and thirty years. Our ancestors came to Alta California from what is now Mexico, with three of the major colonizing expeditions.  

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Mom referred me to cousin, Marion Moreno, who was living in Santa Barbara, and aunt Felicia Moreno de Stepka, who was living in San Diego, to assist me with our family search. We were able to obtain documents and information from various sources, including Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church in Santa Barbara, and copies of mission records owned by Los Californianos. There are stories about the family that have been handed down from generation to generation, some of which can be verified, such as the property in Santa Barbara owned by Soledad Vasquez y Briones de Garcia, my great grandmother Tomasa's mother.

Trip to Hawaii

My brother, Lenny, and his wife, escorted a tour group to Hawaii in 1997. Our brother Tim and his wife had signed up for this trip. However, Tim was unable to travel so he invited me to go to Hawaii in his place and I accepted the offer. The tours of the Island and the entertainment were superb. One day on my own, I decided to take a bus to tour the World War II Memorial, the U.S.S. Arizona. Standing directly in front of the Memorial Wall where the names of the brave men who perished aboard the U.S.S Arizona are listed, is a very sad and sobering experience—one that I shall never forget—the tour was also closure for me, some 50 plus years later.  

 

Juan Briones de Miranda

On October 5, 1997, after ten years of hard work, the Women's Heritage Museum, the Bay Area Network of Latinas (BANELA), City Officials, and the San Francisco community, placed a plaque in honor of Juana Briones de Miranda in Washington Square Park, North Beach, San Francisco. Juana Briones was a mother of eight children and was greatly admired as a curandera and humanitarian. My grandchildren and nephew participated in the unveiling of the plaque, an honor indeed, for our family. Juana Briones was my great grandmother Tomasa's great grandaunt.

Even though we had lived in Los Altos, it would be another 30 years later that I realized that we were within a few miles from El Rancho La Purisima Concepcion, the Juana Briones adobe.  

Aunt Marie's Birthday

Aunt Marie Moreno de Bierend celebrated her 104th birthday with family in Santa Barbara. Cousin, Marion Moreno y Yanez, hosted the birthday party at his home in Santa Barbara for her. Mother, Evita, and her sister, Bertie, were in attendance. That was a missed opportunity for me and I regret not making time

 

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 to attend this very special party. My family and I sent a bouquet of red and white carnations to aunt Marie for her birthday which she liked very much. Aunt Marie had been an Army Nurse in World War I in Demming, New Mexico. She was a professional nurse throughout her career, and was inordinately proud of her heritage. Our beloved Aunt Marie Moreno Bierend passed away on March 27, 2000, in her sleep at home in Santa Barbara at age 105 years.

Our cousin, Marion Moreno passed away at his home, which he always referred to as "Camelot" on August 27, 1999. My daughter, Maria, and her younger daughter and I made the trip to Santa Barbara to attend the memorial services which were held in Goleta in September. Many of Maestro Marion Moreno's friends and former music students from all over the world came to pay their respects to the man whom they loved and admired. The service was a fine tribute to Marion. The pianist, Gil Rosas, played an Instrumental - Just a Closer Walk with Thee. Marion was becoming so family oriented and liked visiting with us, especially with Mom.

The Year 2000 went quickly for me, in spite of all the hype and intimidation we endured going into it (Y2K). As in any family, we all shared the joys and happiness and achievements and sorrows that befall a family in everyday life.

 

As the saying goes, "Only in America" could we as a family have survived what we did in the twelve months that were now history. As a family, we empower and inspire each other, as well as motivate and encourage each and everyone to be the very best that one can be. Maria's children have continued their studies, realizing early on that education is the key to success. Phil is a college student at U.C. Davis and is involved in sports—wrestling, football, rugby, while holding down a job.  

In the Spring of 2001, Maria's son, Steve received his Bachelor of Arts Degree from Kansas Wesleyan University. Steve had been accepted at the university on a football scholarship.

Later that Spring of 2001, Maria's daughter, Martita, received her Bachelor of Arts Degree from Chico State. I was fortunate to attend the graduation commencement exercise which was held in the morning. Much to my surprise, one of the guest speakers was Dr. Carolyn Shoemaker, comet discoverer.

As we look forward to the future and all the challenges it presents, we must not ever forget our past, and those who have gone before us.

 

NORTHWESTERN UNITED STATES 

Mariachi Nuevo Santander Performed in  Oregon Shakespeare Festival
World War II Bracero Program in Oregon

 


Award-winning Mariachi Nuevo Santander to perform at acclaimed Oregon Shakespeare Festival - News - Your Valley Voice
 

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Roma High School's Mariachi Nuevo Santander, from Roma, Texas, won first place in San Antonio’s 19th Mariachi Vargas Extravaganza group competition, earning them the opportunity to open for Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán at the 2013 concert. They will also perform in Ashland, Oregon as part of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Green Show, in summer 2014.  Posted

San Antonio- Roma High School’s award-winning Mariachi Nuevo Santander will travel to Ashland, Oregon to perform at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Green Show July 31 through August 6. This outstanding Roma, Texas ensemble will represent the Mariachi Vargas Extravaganza as first place winners of that event’s high school mariachi group competition held in San Antonio last December.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is a prestigious event that presents theatrical plays in the picturesque mountain community of Ashland, Oregon. The city has a worldwide reputation for cultivating the arts through live, intimate theater experiences, and is located in the majestic Southern Oregon wine country. Students from Roma High School’s mariachi will perform during the festival and will have the opportunity to see plays, explore the scenic parks in and around Ashland, and participate in community activities.

The 13 members of Mariachi Nuevo Santander will perform 40-minute shows on the following days: Friday, August 1; Sunday, August 3; and Tuesday, August 5. The shows will include their award-winning performance from the Mariachi Vargas Extravaganza, traditional songs representing different states of Mexico and various eras of mariachi history, and a tribute to Mexico’s greatest artists and songwriters.

Mariachi Nuevo Santander performs under the direction of Eloy Garza, mariachi director for Roma High School. “We’re honored and excited about this invitation to perform for a whole new audience in Oregon,” says Garza. “We’ve been working hard all summer long to put together a great show that will demonstrate our passion and pride for mariachi music and show the best of our culture. We hope to create new fans and show people how mariachi music has evolved through multiple generations.” All shows start at 6:45 p.m., and are free and open to the public. The shows are held on the main outdoor stage in the center of downtown Ashland.

Mariachi Nuevo Santander's upcoming appearance in Ashland marks the fourth consecutive year that winners from the Mariachi Vargas Extravaganza have been invited to perform at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Green Show, thanks to its producer, Claudia Alick. 

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The Mariachi Vargas Extravaganza is a seven-day mariachi music festival that hosts the largest, longest running, and most competitive mariachi group and vocal competitions in the world.

Members of Mariachi Nuevo Santander include: Jazmín Alaniz, Yarettsy Escobar, Clyde Guerra, Mario Gutiérrez, and Javier Martínez (violins); Luis Donaldo Cantú, Emmanuel Peña, and Héctor Ramírez (trumpets); José Alejandro García (vihuela); Alicia Alanís and César Pérez (guitars); Juan Mireles (guitarrón); and Juan Moya (harp).

 The group will be accompanied by director Eloy García, assistant directors Dominga Garza and Yamil Yunes, Roma Independent School District board member Clyde Guerra, chaperone María Isabel Escobar, and Mariachi Vargas Extravaganza producer Cynthia Muñoz.

For more information on the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Green Show, log on to http://Osfashland.org/greenshow. For information on this fall’s 20th Annual Mariachi Vargas Extravaganza in San Antonio, log on to mariachimusic.com.

 

 

 

World War II Bracero Program in Oregon

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Last night I saw a doc program on the Bracero Program back in the 1940's. I vaguely remember something about it, but only vaguely.

Back when we badly needed foreign laborers to harvest our crops, feed our troops, work on the rail roads, the government set up a legal agreement with the Mex gov to get workers. Here in Oregon over 50,000 mexicans were transported by the US government to harvest, hops in the valley here, fruits, and sugar beets in the east. In those days, Mexicans did not where Oregon was!  

 

It was during WWII when labor was scarce. Over its life, 4 1/2 million workers came to the US to work. It was a legal agreement with the Mex gov. It lasted from 1942 to 1964. Of course those were very different times. It was organized, volunteers were tested for ability to work hard, tested for TB, STDs, fumigated etc. In 1942 its first year, 50,000 volunteered from Mexico city alone (they did not expect so many!).  

Check out the full story, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracero_program  
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/7/29/small-farms-labor.html  

Frank Feuille
Eugene, OR

541 844 1245

 

SOUTHWESTERN UNITED STATES   

Colores YouTube   
My Days as a Colonist / Soldier with Don Juan de Onate – Part 8 by Louis F. Serna
After being part of Mexico, could the Far West ever have become part of the Deep South?  
           By Galal Kernahan  

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July, 2014.
Best regards-Old guy  

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COLORES | Albuquerque Historic Rail Yard.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yUNuu-p5U2M

This is a great PBS 25 minute documentary on YouTube.
Sent by Oscar Ramirez  osramirez@sbcglobal.net


My Days as a Colonist / Soldier with Don Juan de Onate – Part 8

By

Louis F. Serna
sernabook@comcast.net 

Oct 2013  

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Gracias a Dios.! September came and went with several events I recorded for Capitan Villagra’s approval. He continues to compliment me on my work and even mentions me to the General who when we see each other, he jokingly says, “Vamos a tumbar otra carpa..!” Let’s go take down another tent..! I have seen his cold anger and I have seen his care-fre side… I prefer the latter..! It is October 6th and the General sets out with a sizeable squad to explore the salt beds near Manzano, and then east to the land of the Jumanos, and then back west to look for the elusive passage to the South Seas which he has heard so much about. The route takes him by the high rock face where the men stop to carve their names on the sandstone walls and he himself leaves his own message, saying that he is in search of the South Sea. They stop at Acoma to marvel at the pueblo atop the high mesa and how impregnable it appears. They can see natives along the edge peering down at them, waving to them to come up the steep walls. At first, they are apprehensive about exposing themselves to arrows, stones and even fiery oils that can be rained down on them, but Onatge decides that they must not show fear and climb the precipices to show their respect for the invitation. They reach the top and receive gifts of maize and tasty fowl. The General even receives a second show of obedience to the King of Spain and the God of the Spaniards! Onate is impressed but he feels an air of contempt from the Acoma’s. He warns his men to remain at the ready, saying to them, “Let us beware of Greeks bearing gifts!” a reference to the age-old story of the Trojan horse.! All goes well and the General leaves Acoma and heads west for the land of the Zuni where they are well received with a warm feast of maize, tortillas, and Conejos.. rabbit on the spit.! 

The next day, they leave for the lands of the Hawikuh where fifty eight years earlier, Vasquez de Coronado fought his first major skirmish of his expedition. Many years later, it was told that the battle was a terrible mistake made by two different cultures. The Chiefs of the Hawikuh gathered at the entrance of the village and drew a line of clean white maize pollen across the path of the on-coming Spanish. The line was their way of welcoming them by blessing their path to their village.! The Spaniards mistook the line as a challenge not to cross it and they drew their weapons and charged forward, starting a battle that was totally unnecessary.! Perhaps a perfect example of the term, “culture clash”.! On this day, there was only embracing and gestures of goodwill. A few days later, the Gobernador sent out a party to look for a salt lake said to be near-by and they chanced upon a lone haggard looking soldier who looked about to collapse! It was my Capitan Villagra! He had set out alone from Puaray, thinking to join the General at Acoma, but they had already left for the Zuni village. At Acoma, Villagra said that he had received a very cold reception so he decided to push on to the Zuni village. The Acomas directed him to a trail they said Onate had taken. That night, he stumbled into a cleverly disguised trap that had been set, perhaps for the General himself? His horse was killed in the fall and Villagra decided to rush away from the vicinity of the Acomas on foot, shedding all his equipment. Onate reflected on the apprehension he had felt while at Acoma, although they had been received courteously, and he decided to issue a warning to all the men at the home camp, to be very careful around the Acoma fortress. The trip continued cautiously until the 13th of December, when the General decided to return to the home camp. 

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He had instructed Juan de Zaldivar to meet him at Zuni and he had not arrived so the General was worried that there might be trouble there so they started back by way of Agua de la Pena. Onate was surprised to see Bernabe de las Casas riding toward them at a full gallop with six other soldiers! The General rode up to meet them shouting, “Que pasa..? Que hasen aqui..?”  “What happened? What are you doing here?” Bernabe responded out of breath and dropping his head reverently, “Senor… Juan is dead..! He was killed at Acoma along with Capitanes Escalante, Nunez and several others..!” Onate almost collapsed at the terrible news! Juan…! His favorite nephew who had been his right hand and his conscience on so many difficult decisions was dead..? How could this happen..? As Onate collapsed into a field stool that Villagra quickly brought to him, he asked, “Y ahora que..?” what now Villagra? Trying to maintain composure, Villagra gently said to the General, “We must leave now. The whole colony may be in mortal danger..!” With that, Onate said, “Yes! Break camp with all haste and let us return to our families.!” The trip back was terrible for everyone, expecting the worst and not knowing if this was just the work of the ever defensive Acomas, or a conspiracy of all the pueblos, to strike the colony while Onate was away. His only consolation was that he had left Vicente in charge of the colony and there could be no warrior as fierce as he when it came to defending the Espanoles.

In fact, Onate feared that Vicente might take it upon himself to go out and sate his anger on all the pueblos in the state of rage that he must be in at losing his brother, Juan! Onate and his troops arrived at their base camp to find everything in order but in a state of shock at the loss of lives at Acoma! They were overjoyed to see the men return and even celebrated their return, even in their sorrow. I noted that life in this place was either moments of great joy or great sorrow.., and only hardship in between.!  

Immediately, the General was in control again, issuing orders in preparation of retaliation against the Acomas, whatever that might be, as this attack on the Colony cannot go unpunished! Again, as if Juan was whispering in the General’s ear, Onate knew that he must use restraint in order not to lose the obedience he had worked so hard to develop among the other pueblos! It is indeed a time for his finest hour., a time when his decisions whatever they may be, will determine the future of the Espanoles in this new land. Onate whispers to himself, Dios mio.. and Juan.. help me to make the right choices. He raises his eyes to the heavens and calls out to everyone, “Let us pray for guidance… God bless us.., our King… and Spain..!”

 

 


After being part of Mexico,
could the Far West ever have become part of the Deep South?

By Galal Kernahan

 

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"What-ifs" are intriguing. They can be helpful in understanding what happened in early years of California's mid-19th century between it's remarkable November 13, 1849 electoral birth as a Free State and the April 12, 1861 outbreak of Civil War. The State of California had already begun functioning before admission as the 31st State in the Union.

The Civil War had its origins largely in moves to extend slavery into the American West. Slave States seceding from the Union grew from seven to eleven. Up to 750,000 lives were lost before the Confederate States of America ceased to exist. Some California collaborators were among those who had done their most for the South's Slave and King Cotton cause.

How close had they come to success? That depends on who was doing what and how the score was kept. One compiled a remarkable success story almost to the very end. His curtain dropped with the onset of the War Between the States.  

He was well-schooled in the ways of Congress. He used his grasp of political manipulation in California's first U.S. decade to augment a personal fortune and amass notable personal influence. He had positioned himself as one of the first U.S. Senators most of its California's decade as a State by avoiding the "slavery issue." If the California State being born at the 1849 Monterey Convention he attended, was committed to being a State free of slavery (as it had been when part of Mexico), it simply became an avoided non-issue for him.

California, when part of Mexico, had long banned slavery. When the American Era came, California gold-seekers concerned about slave holders deploying teams of slaves in the diggings, adamantly supported California as State free of slavery.   

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The new State's population explosion of newcomers was turning Mexican Californians into a diminishing minority in numbers and influence. The remaining once influential Mexican leaders found their properties disappearing during re-certification of their land rights. They were coming to be minority subject to unanticipated prejudices. One was an extension of the low esteem in which Native Americans were held.  

At first glance, no one was likely to gainsay the advantages of sending an experienced federal legislator back to the Nation's Capitol to speak for California. Few understood all that might go with such a conferral of political power.

On the other hand, newcomers increasingly dominated political privilege and decision-making. Like how to use to one's personal advantage the patronage an experienced federal legislator knows how to exploit.

When Dr. William McKendree Gwin won the draw to be California's Second Member (after Fremont) of the U.S. Senate. He went on to a second lucky draw for a full six-year term. About a year after that first California term, he won another. It was actually his third election to Congress. Before winning office in a California election, Mississippi sent him to the Nation's Capital for his first.

His new political base was San Francisco. With the approach of Civil War, the city was undergoing explosively erratic growth. As the Civil War approached, American California experienced controversial outbreaks of Southern sympathy. Even leading San Francisco churches divided against each other. Dr. William A. Scott, pastor of Calvary Presbyterian Church, was "interlarding his sermons with disunion politics" while Thomas Starr King of the Unitarian Church has been described as "flaming with passion for the Union." (page 230, THE THIRTY-FIRST STAR, by James A.B. Sherer, Putnam Sons, NY, 371 pp.,)

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The thought the brand-new State of California was distant and disconnected from the looming War between the States is simply untrue. In the end, young "action" enthusiasts were outnumbered by those opposed to throwing themselves into the rebellion while beginning to be involved in carving out California lives for themselves. There weren't enough restive youths seeking wartime adventure opportunities regardless of ideology. This was clearly illustrated by the misadventure of Asbury Harpending, a Kentucky young adult just turned twenty in San Francisco.  

His story begins on Page 253 of the aforesaid THIRTY-FIRST STAR. He saw a great opportunity for young San Franciscans like himself. They must be willing to arm themselves and take up the cause of disunion. A great opportunity became clear to him (and, he hoped, through him to other battle-ready young San Franciscans). He was sure it was great news for him and all his young co-conspirators  

Here is a little of his reasoning: "He and his associates intended to seize Alcatraz Island and the other Federal strongholds by night. . .He reasoned that at least 30 percent of the population of California was from the South and most of the

  rest didn't much care either way. . .Then came what seemed a tremendously encouraging development. Mid-January 1861, General Albert Sidney Johnston was rotated into command of the U.S. Department of the Pacific.

It seemed to young Harpending as if he had won the lottery! Through General Johnston's arteries flowed the blood of the South. He was a Kentuckian! Harpending and some of his Associates were invited to meet the new local commander. Their excited anticipation was so great they decided to ask him for advice should war break out in California.

The General was a giant of a man. "Before we go further," he said, "there is something I Want to mention. I have heard foolish talk about an attempt to seize the strongholds of the government under my charge. Knowing this I have prepared for emergencies, and will defend the property of the United States with every resource at my command and with the last drop of blood in my body,

"Tell that to all our Southern friends."

 

 

Hello to everyone, family and friends.

I hope everyone had a great 4 th of July, 2014.

Best regards-Old guy  

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I have read, but I’m slow to respond to some of the recent mail on topics of interest. Not that I didn’t want to, but I’m slowing down in my actions and response in reacting to news. I just celebrated my 80 th birthday on July 6, 2014 during a trip visit to Colorado and New Mexico. If you can bear with me, I would like to share the events on the trip. If any recall some of the JAB photo albums (Angel’s pictures, f80 crasher, JAB in the 50’s, etc) I show a fellow named Glen Simpson. Glen and I have been friends since our days at Johnson, when we met in 1956. Glen stayed in the Air Force and retired Master Sergeant, while I separated from the service in 1959 and pursued a successful engineering career in Industrial and Military works. It was a pleasant drive from Las Vegas to Glen and his family at Fort Collins Colorado. If you have never traveled the route I took, up I-15, west on I-70 through Grand Junction to Denver, you might want to one day. Beautiful country, but only travel it in the spring or summer and never in winter, unless of course you are going skiing at Vail or Aspen Rocky Mountain High. By the way, I stopped in on my niece Aloha and husband Ronald Min and spent the night at their home in St. George, Utah. Such great people, worried that I was traveling alone and called me to make sure I was OK during my trip.  

While at Glens, he took me touring the area of interest around there, in particular, Estes Park. While having lunch in the pictures village, I notice a large gorgeous hotel up on a hillside slope that reminded me of the Coronado Hotel in San Diego. I mention this to Glen and he stated that it was The Stanley Hotel, the one built by the Stanley Steamer fame and the one used in the movie “The shining” starring Jack Nicholson. It’s no wonder it caught my attention, as it stands out in its surrounding. Never knew this fact, though I saw the movie many times. On the way to Estes Park we took hwy34 west out of Loveland, along the Big Thompson Canyon Road that only recently was reopen after a devastating rainstorm in September of 2013 of the Big Thomson River. All the way from Hwy 34 to almost Estes Park the swollen river had wiped out bridges, roadway, houses and cabins with a massive destruction overflow of water. As we passed the wiped out towns and resident area, local people were just recently allowed to return to pick up and clean up the storm damage. In one section of the road we encountered a lady asking for donation relief money to help on reconstruction. A very nice lady, that gave us a description account of what happen along that area, we gave gladly, but she need not have accounted what happen, because we saw the devastating after effect along the way.  

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While at Glens I was also finally able to meet Glen’s brother-in-law, Alvin Plucker. Some of you may recall the January 23, 1968 incident when the North Koreans fired on and captured the USS Pueblo off North Korea and held the crew prisoners for eleven months. Alvin was a navy crewman aboard the Pueblo at that time. He invited us over to his house in nearby La Salie to tour his house and property and I was able to get to know him. A very pleasant man with a quite disposition and soft speaking voice, he related some of incidents of the attack by the North Koreans, and the brutal tortuous treatment they received. He is sort of a celebrity, especially in Pueblo Colorado, the town’s name sake of the ship. The North Koreans by the way still have possession of the USS Pueblo, though they released all the crew members. The US government still has the Pueblo listed as an active naval vessel, though it is in a North Korean port. Alvin still does speaking engagements on occasion on the Pueblo incident. Alvin and wife have about 15 acres of property behind his home with a creek or stream running through it with the house situated about 80-90 feet above it. Good thing too, because the September 2013 storm also hit the lowland and the water reached half way up to the house. 

The small lake and stream he had is now filled with trash and debris and it will take some time in order to recover to its former condition. I said good thing because the lower level of his house is actually a four room museum showcase of many interesting articles. Beside to having one room full of Pueblo memorabilia, the other rooms are full of archeological, and geological artifacts of museum quality that his has found and dug and excavated over the years. He has 3 rooms full of Items such as arrow and spear heads, genuine bow and arrows, skeleton and bone remains of prehistoric animals. A man after my own heart, a geologist, archeologist, rock hound, tool maker, digger , artifacts and gold searcher all wrapped into one. I have attached a few photos I took of Glen and I in our Johnson AB jackets, Alvin, and the USS Pueblo before the capture. Behind Alvin there is a picture of Commander Lloyd Bucher, Captain of the Pueblo during the incident I have just finished reading the Commanders book “ Bucher: My Story” that Alvin gave me along with an ABC film movie “PUEBLO” starring Hal Holbrook .  

 

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After a week at Glen’s, I traveled down I-25 from Denver to New Mexico to visit my daughter Nancy and her family. Nancy’s job was moved from Albuquerque to Huntsville, Alabama, so she and her family (husband Ed and daughter Sokie) relocated to live in Huntsville this last spring. Her son Eddie, however stayed in Albuquerque, working and living there in their home. Nancy and family drove to Albuquerque on a week vacation for the 4 th of July and I was able to go and meet them there at this time. It was great seeing them again after a long time, especially the grandkids (Sokie and Eddie), when I last saw then was at Kathy’s wedding back in June 2008. Sokie has grown into a smart beautiful woman and Eddie as well, into a big strong guy. Nancy had a half a dozen invitation for dinner from her friends there in Albuquerque so I was able to eat, drink and party with and also meet them. We spent the 4 th of July night watching fireworks and partying at one Nancy’s friend who is a retired postal worker that lives in Los Lunas, about 30 miles south of Albuquerque. While in Albuquerque, we were able to go to a new Indian casino ( can’t remember the name), that recently opened. Lots of slot games that I hadn’t seen before (new games I don’t see in Vegas), lots of fun. Had to go and did visit the Albuquerque fea market , and picked up some cool items, mostly books to read. 

 

Also attached is a photo of Nancy and her family. Too soon, Nancy and family had to leave and I also to get back in time to attend Pete and Lois Congo’s 50 th wedding anniversary party in L.A. Pete and Lois had a great anniversary bash where I was able to see old friends again (Honeywell/Hughes and Rockwell Collins). I didn’t get to see the little munckens while in LA, since Kathy, David and the kids were in Seattle visiting her in-laws and others friends.

Best regards-Old guy  

Editor:  Sorry, I transferred this charming cuento, but did not remember to get the name and email of "Old Guy".  Even though "Old Guy" is 80 years old, it is obvious that his memory, sharp mind, and enthusiasm is young at heart.  
A great example to all of us . . .

Will "Old Guy" please contact me.  . . .  
Mimi 714-894-8161

 


 

TEXAS


Sept 25-27, 2014: 35th Annual Texas Hispanic Genealogical and Historical Conference
 
Sept 28: Post conference luncheon planned 
Dear Texas History Enthusiast  
Legacy of Texas, maps, art, flags
1871 tax assessment document of Cameron County
Laredo, Texas Memories by Gilberto J. Quezada 
        Laredo Transportation 
        Laredo Exhibit Honoring Sisters of Mercy's 120 Years of Service in Laredo
        An Unforgettable Reunion
        Correspondence between Gilberto and Jose M. Pena
Do any of these Laredo streets look familiar?
Creating Beauty from Devastation in Galveston by Rosie Carbo
A 1954 Candidate Uses Family History to Help Him Win an Election by Eddie Garcia
Las Porciones Society
House Resolution 709
Clash with Ranchers radicalizes rancher
Border Bandits, Part III by Norman Rozzell
 

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35th Annual Texas Hispanic Genealogical and Historical Conference Hosted by Las Porciones Society    
September 25, 2014 – September 27, 2014 
Casa De Palmas Renaissance McAllen Hotel  
101 N. Main Street     McAllen, Texas 78501

Alex Moreno, President, Las Porciones Society  
P. O. Box 3323    Edinburg, Texas 78540  

State Conference Email: amoreno1947@gmail.com  
Website: http://www.southtexasgenealogy.org 

 

Post conference luncheon planned, September 28 in Edingburg

Following the de Leon's exile from Texas in 1836, half of our ancestry  returned to the Victoria area (approx 1846) and the other half settled in the valley.  Here is a chance for us to get together with the family that settled in the Valley, on Sunday, September 28 in Edingburg.

Please, if you have any questions, do not hesitate to call, either me, using the number below, my cell 361-649-4680 or Viola Teeter in Harlingen, 956 357-0160.


Dear Texas History Enthusiast  

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The day was February 13, 1897. Ten individuals met on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin for the purpose of founding an organization to promote the discovery, collection, preservation, and publication of historical material pertaining to Texas. Less than one month later, twenty-five men and women gathered for the first formal meeting of the Texas State Historical Association. The meeting was conducted by the light of two lanterns, since the lighting system failed; lanterns lighting the path of historical discovery have served as the symbol of the association ever since.

Every spring, in commemoration of that very first meeting in 1897, hundreds of Texas enthusiasts gather at the annual meeting of the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) to discuss virtually every topic and era of Texas history.

This much-anticipated annual meeting draws TSHA members from almost all 50 states, making it one of the most widely attended annual conventions of any state historical society. In fact, the number of new members at this year’s annual meeting more than doubled!

There is nothing like a TSHA Annual Meeting for seeing old friends and for being energized and inspired by the latest work being done by scholars who work in the field.  

 But the TSHA annual meeting is just one of many exclusive events and resources offered by the Texas State Historical Association.  

Recognized as the most trusted authority on Texas history, TSHA is among the fastest-growing historical societies in the country. Just look at the many ways we are making Texas history available to the world:

In the past year, our association has experienced one of its greatest periods of membership growth in our 118-year history.

The Handbook of Texas Online website has been viewed more than 11 million times annually, garnering viewers from as far away as Turkey and Argentina.

We’ve recently launched the Explore Texas History Resource Center, a free online resource providing new pathways for exploring our rich Texas history.  Already, more than 15,136 people have signed up.

Due to its growing demand, TSHA will launch an online version of the Texas Quiz Show, an exciting competition that tests middle school students from across the state on their Texas history prowess.  

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 There’s no doubt that TSHA has experienced unprecedented growth in the past several years. That’s why we need devoted Texas enthusiasts like you to help us meet this growing demand.  

TSHA has many exciting endeavors on the horizon—taking the Texas Quiz Show online and improving FREE access to the last 115 years of the Southwestern Historical Quarterly, for example—and we want you to be a part of this exciting future.  Become a member of TSHA at the $50 level or higher before our fiscal year ends on August 31, and you will receive a FREE copy of the 2014–2015 Texas Almanac! Imagine, you get the satisfaction of passing on our rich Texas heritage and you receive a FREE copy of the go-to source for all things Texas! Time is running out, so add your name to TSHA’s exclusive membership roster right now! Thank you for your support and for keeping Texas history alive.  

Sincerely, John Liston Nau, III
jnau@tshaonline.org
President, Texas State Historical Association
Copyright © 2014 Texas State Historical Association. All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is: Texas State Historical Association
1155 Union Circle, Denton, TX   #311580
Denton, TX 76203
Add us to your address book

 



http://legacyoftexas.us3.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=cfcbc399b8bc9f1bd8a8c189b&id=acc396fb1e&e=18cc48cd42

https://legacyoftexas.com/
 
Free shipping on all maps, art, and flags

 

 

 

1871 tax assessment document of Cameron County

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In searching for information for my book, I found the 1871 tax assessment document of Cameron Cnty, which shows the "estate" of what I believe to be Jose Angel Fernandez, my great, great grandfather.  He did not have very much property left by that time, as you might be able to see, about $300's worth.  But the U.S. Census of 1860/70 show that at least two of his children, Demetrio and Marcelino, my great grandfather, had what I believe to be their share of the inheritance left behind by Jose Angel.  Marcelino's inheritance ended up in the attic of Papa Refugio/Mama Lolita's house, and lay forgotten, the house sold, and the bakery people in the corner of 19th and Coleman ended up with it and proceeded to buy/construct what they have now.  The old gold/silver coins they had to slowly use so as not to be found.  And so goes all of Papa Refugio's inheritance...  Oh well...

Sinceramente, Refugio Fernandez
cnsfernandez1943@sbcglobal.net 

 


LAREDO, TEXAS MEMORIES
Gilberto J. Quezada 
 jgilbertoquezada@yahoo.com 

Laredo Transportation Co.

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Do you remember the old buses in Laredo?  My Dad worked for the Laredo Transportation Company all his life.  Finally, after some thirty years, he was promoted to inspector, the one with the white cap.  These photos are from 1943. 

The photo above shows several bus drivers in front of some buses, a good view of the bus.  My Dad is second from right to left.  The photo shows my Dad with his right hand on the floor gear shaft.  You can also see a punch holder on his waist. 
 
   
And, on the third photo, my Dad is the one on the far left.  I do not remember the restaurant, even though the inside looks more like a diner.                               

Editor: Thank you Gilberto . . . When did your Dad start working with the bus line . . . 
I am curious about when the busline was being used. Sabinas Hidalgo where my Chapa family lived, migrated out in 1924 and 1925 through Laredo. Mom mentioned a train, but I wonder if it was by bus??  Mimi  

Gilberto:  More than likely, your Chapa family ancestor is correct in that they came to Laredo by train. At that time, the Texas Mexican Railway was the favorite and modern mode of transportation between Mexico and the United States. By 1888, the National Railways of Mexico was completed from Nuevo Laredo to Mexico City. Seven years earlier, the railroads from Corpus Christi and San Antonio had reached Laredo. Also, an international railroad bridge was erected across the Río Grande at Laredo so that trains could travel back and forth between the interior of Mexico and Laredo.  

 


HERITAGE FOUNDATION PRESENTS EXHIBIT HONORING

SISTERS OF MERCY’S 120 YEARS OF SERVICE IN LAREDO

 

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The Webb County Heritage Foundation will present a retrospective exhibit of historic photos, artifacts, and memorabilia documenting the Sisters of Mercy’s 120th anniversary of service in the Laredo border community beginning with an opening reception on Thursday, August 14 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Villa Antigua Border Heritage Museum, 810 Zaragoza St. in Laredo.

“We are proud to present this visual chronicle of the Sisters of Mercy’s work in our community beginning with their arrival in 1894 and following the evolution of their mission to the present,” said Margarita Araiza, Executive Director of the Webb County Heritage Foundation. “The Sisters have had a personal and professional influence on countless families and individuals in Laredo, and are associated with the advancement of public medical services and social outreach unparalleled in our community,” she said.

The public is invited to the opening reception and following that, the exhibit will be on display throughout the months of August and September. 

Museum hours are Tuesday – 
Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

For more information, contact the Webb County Heritage Foundation at http://www.webbheritage.org/
956-727-0977 or visit us on facebook.

Margarita Araiza, Executive Director  
Webb County Heritage Foundation  
500 Flores Ave. Laredo, Texas 78040  
Tel. 956-727-0977

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 Photo above:  Early Religious Sisters of Mercy, Sister Mary Ernestine Colgan, Sister Mary Benigna McGrath, Sister Mary Pauline Curtin, and Sister Mary Veronica McCarthy, are shown wearing the old style habits during the late 1930's 
or early 1940's. 




The hospital moved to Matamoros Street 
and Juarez Avenue in 1899.

 

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Photo above: Early Religious Sisters of Mercy pose with Mother Mary Clare O'Connell, RSM, on the front porch of the hospital during the late 1890's.


Sent by J. Gilberto Quezada
jgilbertoquezada@yahoo.com 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Unforgettable Reunion
by J. Gilberto Quezada

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For the past several years, I had made it a point to call my first grade teacher and my other three nuns often and to visit with them at least twice a year.  I vividly remember Sister M. Elvira, she now goes by her baptismal name of Sister Rosa Ruiz, when as a six-year-old in 1953, I was in her class at St. Augustine Parochial School in Laredo, Texas.  She was in her late twenties and in her fifth year as a teacher.  There were forty-one well-behaved students in the class.  We were all seated in alphabetical order facing the front of the room in five straight rows.  She managed quite successfully with no teacher assistants to teach us the rudiments of a first grade education in that learning environment that consisted of two large rectangular blackboards with the alphabet on top of each one, printed in white letters against a green background, a colorful globe, and on the front wall were two small flags--the United States and Texas, with a big crucifix in the middle, a set of abacus, a record player, and the three-foot shelves around the room were filled with library books, 45 and 78 rpm records and art supplies.    

Three ceiling fans circulated the northwesterly air that swooped in through four elongated windows on the west side and six elongated windows on the north side.  The classroom was in the northwest corner of the second floor, allowing us a clear view of San Agustín Plaza and of the neighboring two-story commercial buildings.  I had to laboriously climb three flights of stairs amongst a sea of strange faces.  In those days, the first grade students were not required to wear a uniform.       

From my diminutive position, I had to crook my little neck every time this towering Anglo-looking woman, clothed in a black wool serge habit that concealed her towering slender body, with a white roman collar that covered her throat, and her head, ears, and forehead were covered with a starched shortened coronet (The Sisters of Divine Providence did away with the guimpe a couple of years before), called on me.  As she stood by my side, the rustling sound of her rosary with the large black beads and the gold crucifix that hung around her waist came to a standstill.     

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On many occasions, this distinctive sound was a warning signal of her imminent approach and for us to behave.  She eventually caught on and would sometimes hold the rosary with her right hand to catch us off guard.  Staring down at me, I listened attentively to her authoritarian but soft voice that flowed from her colorless lips.  And from my vantage point, all I could see was a pair of gentle, smiling green eyes evenly affixed on a small white oval face, and her cheeks were always rosy like if she had a permanent blush.  Her exposed small and delicate hands were as white and smooth as her face.  I sometimes wondered what color of hair she had.  When she got close to me, I would take a deep breath, I liked the way she smell, it was an impalpable emanation, an aura of a holy scent.  I was intimidated by this commanding adult figure, but I was more frightened by the massive three-story yellow brick building with no central air-conditioning that was built in 1927, and that housed grades first through twelve.     

After I was promoted to the second grade, I never saw her again until forty-three years later when I was working in the South San Antonio Independent School District.  On an unusual cool Monday morning, May of 1996, it was an inservice day and all the first grade teachers were participating in an all-day workshop in the spacious room across the hall from my office.  I heard noises in the hall.  The teachers were on a break when I heard a knock at my open office door, at the Parent Development Center, where I was working as a school administrator, and there was this petite elderly woman, with short dyed brown wavy hair, wearing gold rimmed glasses, and a brown skirt with a white blouse, covered by a navy sweater, pointing to my nameplate on the door.  I got up from behind my executive mahogany desk and politely offered her a seat on one of the two comfortable leather black armchairs in front of the desk.  The conversation went something like this:  

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She:  "Your last name--Quezada--is rather unusual.  Are you from Laredo?"     

Me:  "Why, yes, I am from Laredo."  I was surprised that she had guessed my hometown.

She:  "There are not too many people with that last name.  It is a very memorable one.  Did you attend St.     Augustine School?"  And she smiled.

Me:  "Why, yes, I did."  Now my curiosity was really piqued.  I cleared my throat and straightened my posture.

She:  "Do you remember the name of your first grade teacher?"

Me:  "Yes, of course.  Her name was Sister Elvira."  I responded proudly and even pulled my chest up.  

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She paused a few seconds, smiled and still looking at me with her gentle green eyes that seemed magnified almost four times by the thickness of the lenses.  Then without blinking an eye, she calmly replied, "I am Sister Elvira, and I have never forgotten you."  I literally fell off my chair, I did not recognize her.  She said something to me in Spanish; I could not believe what I had just heard.  My beloved first grade teacher was sitting in front of me after all these years.  My mouth felt dry like if I had a huge cotton ball inside my throat, and I tried to swallow, but a knot in my throat delayed any immediate response.  I regained my composure and was finally able to utter something like, "You are!!  But you were so tall and Anglo-Saxon looking and spoke no Spanish."  ( I was now six-three and she was still five even).  She smiled again and said, "I now go by my baptismal name of Sister Rosa Ruiz.  And as you can see, I no longer have to wear the religious habit.  I had to speak English because in those days we were not allowed to speak Spanish in class."  

Her authoritarian and soft voice had not changed, but somehow, I was no longer intimidated by her presence.     

With tears in our eyes, we warmly embraced, and we had a very good and long visit.  I looked at her and said, "My debt to you, Sister Rosa, is eternal.  I owe you a debt of immeasurable gratitude."  And she responded, "I have always had a special place in my heart for you."  She told me that she grew up in Lower Colonias, New Mexico, and had taken her vows at Our Lady of the Lake Convent in San Antonio when she was eighteen.  I found out that she was the oldest of seven children and that her father was a farmer and a carpenter and her mother took care of the household.  She also told me that her Mother Superior had given permission for the Sisters to work in public schools if they so desired.  Their salary, of course, would be handed over to the convent.  Many parochial Catholic schools had closed throughout the state, including a few in San Antonio.     

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I had a rare opportunity, perhaps once in a lifetime, to express my gratitude to her personally for giving me such a great start.  She worked for the school district for five year teaching first grade at Price Elementary School before retiring.  Then she went to work in an orphanage in Mexico for a few more years before finally retiring.  Sister Rosa lived at Our Lady of the Lake Convent when she went to her eternal reward at the age of 85 years old.  She passed away on Sunday, July 27, 2014, and I attended her wake and rosary four days later.    

May God bless you abundantly.    

Gilberto Quezada    
jgilbertoquezada@yahoo.com

 

Correspondence between Gilberto and Jose M. Pena 

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Yesterday evening, I was reviewing the voluminous folder I have in my file cabinet entitled, "The Spanish Archives of Laredo," which contain my research notes when I worked with Miss Carmen Perry at St. Mary's University during the late 1960s in translating, cataloguing, and indexing the Laredo Archives. The folder also contains my research notes on a number of topics pertinent to the history of Laredo.  These invaluable and venerable old documents provide a glimpse, among other factors, into the social history of Laredo under Spanish (1749 to 1820) and Mexican (1821 to 1848) rule.  
The oldest manuscript is from the Spanish period and is dated 1749.    

It is interesting to note that what we take for granted nowadays, like taking a bath in the privacy of our own home, with all the conveniences of cold and hot running water, was not the case in Laredo during the latter part of the eighteenth century.  In 1784, and perhaps earlier, it was customary for both sexes to bathe together in the Río Grande, and nobody thought otherwise, keeping in mind that the frontier town of Laredo was surrounded by wilderness and marauding Indians.  Laredo consisted of about seven hundred inhabitants, composed of Spaniards, mestizos, mulatos, and Carrizo Indians.  There were about eighty-five primitive dwellings.  

The Franciscan padre who had to travel by horseback all the way from Revilla (Guerrero Viejo) at least once a week to administer the sacraments, however, thought differently about such a practice, and he gained the support of Don Santiago de Jesús Sánchez, the lieutenant alcalde, to put a stop to this indecent behavior.  During the month of May of 1784, the alcalde issued a decree against the practice of mix bathing in the Río Grande, and after the people were summoned to the plaza de San Agustín by the drum-roll, he stood in the middle of the plaza and read it in a very loud voice to those present, stating in part, "because it has been carried to excess and without any regard for self-respect, setting a bad example for the children, thus causing the loss of self-respect and morality, and because. . .it is an offense to both Majesties, God and the King."    

Furthermore, the decree ordered the heads of families to prohibit their daughters to bathe in the company of men, even if it included their own brothers, and to report any one caught watching the girls bathe.  Whereby, the alcalde might, "proceed forthwith to place any girl so offending in a safe place where she may be properly admonished."  The decree further stated that married men might accompany their wives while bathing, "it being well understood that they must go alone, or at most 

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with their daughters, but no other outsiders shall go with them; and in order to avoid any kind of friction and frivolous quarrels, which are taking place constantly."  And the alcalde concluded by stating that, " I further order that those who may be present inform those who may not be present of the same."  That way, nobody would be ignorant of the new law.    

Even specific times during the day were set aside for separate bathing of the sexes.  Men were to bath after the ringing of the Angelus (around noon) and the women at sunset.  The alcalde in his efforts to enforce the decree and to establish some semblance of morality in the frontier town of Laredo, declared a penalty for violating the decree, which amounted to ten days in jail and a fine of six pesos.

Gilberto  

 

Gilberto:  

Thanks for a very interesting footnote in the history of Laredo.  During my research on my book I remember reading a similar document on Laredo.  During the period that I reviewed, men and boys would bathe one day, women and girls would bathe the next.  There were also observations of peeping toms and lovers meeting clandestinely and "making out" which resulted in some pregnancies...

What is also interesting is that Jose Tienda de Cuervo made a survey of settlers in the 23 villages and found mostly married families, some single people, a number of widows or widowers, --- but only 1 "wayward! woman who had divorced or separated from her rightful husband (the ratio was about 1 divorce out of  over 2,000)....Compare this with today's divorce rate (1 of every 2 or 3???)....  

Thanks for the tidbit on the social life in Old Laredo...
Jose M. Pena  JMPENA@aol.com

 

 

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Can you identify any of these streets in Laredo, Texas?

TEXAS HIGHWAYS article on Guerra family in South Texas http://www.texashighways.com/culture-lifestyle/
item/7512-an-interwoven-legacy-guerra-family
 

Sent by Walter Herbeck  


 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mamaladama
/sets/72157627010812333/

This album of old pictures shows the reasons why we should all put labels, names, or notations on every single picture. We might know what the pictures are all about at the time we take them; however, later on, we forget and this creates problems.......I am guilty of that situation. I have many photos from all over the world, but I can't remember what the picture was meant to say...Jose M. Pena  JMPENA@aol.com 

 

 

Creating Beauty from Devastation in Galveston, Texas
By Rosie Carbo  

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When I was a university student in Houston, Galveston Island was a magnet during holidays and after finals. Like many tourists, I was drawn to its beaches, flip-flop-friendly venues and overall Margaritaville culture.

But this spring, I discovered that beneath Galveston’s fun-filled veneer, there’s a population of some 50,000 civic-minded residents.

On a more recent trip with a group of other travel writers, I realized that Galveston is not just Houston’s laid-back neighbor 50 miles south. The residents of this town are as resilient as the 100-year-old oak trees, some of which date to the 1800s, that once shielded homes from the sizzling Texas sun.

The East End Historic neighborhood, with gardens and yards dotted with whimsical tree sculptures, illustrates the indomitable spirit of Galveston Island. This residential district boasts what could be one of the largest outdoor collections of oak tree-sculptures in the nation.

Take a walking tour or go by bike, car or solar-powered shuttle bus and you’ll see the “Tin Man and Toto” created by chainsaw artist Jim Phillips, “The Lion King” by fellow artist Earl Jones, and a “Great Dane” by artist Dale Lewis.

These artists are not famous. They are no Picasso, Van Gogh or Matisse. But their work is every bit as inspiring as works by those artists. In fact, with 1.5 million visitors each year, Galveston’s tree-sculptures are a must-see outdoor attraction for many a tourist.

“There’s something about the wood. It doesn’t matter what shape you put it in, they love it, especially the kids and the elderly,” said Jim Philips, one of the first artists commissioned to create works of art from salt-choked oak trees.

Philips, who has turned his hobby into a full-time career, said most of the artworks represent what the homeowner envisioned the dead oak tree to be. For example, one of the directors of the Wizard of Oz film was born in the house where “Tin Man and Toto” now stands.

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The tree sculptures also represent a family pet, an elusive dream, or a special memory for many of the homeowners. Take the Geisha sculpture on one front yard. It was commissioned by a homeowner who has traveled to Japan several times due to a special interest in the Far East.

As we zipped up and down the East End neighborhood, I found that the unique sculptures resonated with me, rekindling memories of the disaster that led to the tree-sculpture saga five years ago.

On September 13, 2008, Galveston was devastated by Hurricane Ike. Some residents headed to the Houston mainland on Interstate 45 north. Others hunkered down in beach houses, landmark hotels, and Victorian-era homes amid winds clocked beyond 110 mph.

When it was over, much of Galveston Island and nearby Bolivar Peninsula lay in ruins. The Strand, a historic downtown business district, was inundated with more than 15 feet of saltwater. Quaint boutiques, restaurants and the Grand 1894 Opera House suffered water and wind damage.

After Ike destroyed much of the town, including hundreds of oak trees, Donna Leibbert, a member of the Galveston Island Tree Committee and Galveston Island Tree Conservancy, began brainstorming. She told city officials dead oak trees could be re-purposed into art. When the city gave the go-ahead, she recruited Phillips, Jones, and Lewis.

Galveston lost nearly 40,000 trees to Ike, but both organizations are devoted to ensuring the island is replanted. Since Ike, the conservancy has planted 11,000 new trees with the help of myriad volunteers. These two groups prevented dead oak from ending up in landfills.

Ironically, 200 tons of the oak tree remnants went to Malaga, Spain to be used in completion of “Galveztown,” a full-scale 1779 replica of a historic brig. Bernardo de Galvez, Spanish Governor of Louisiana, is Galveston’s namesake. The brig is named in his honor and will one day sail to Galveston.

Residents, whose homes and businesses were destroyed, found hope when their beloved oak trees became owls, dolphins, dogs, cats, birds and angels. A bit of Americana here and a touch of popular culture there popped up first in the East End.

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Soon, the entire beach town was captivated by the tree-sculptures. A larger-than-life “Railroad Engineer” by Phillips towers near the Railroad Museum and Schreiber Park has a “Wildlife Tree” by Lewis. At Adoue Park, Jones sculpted a “Grandmother Reading to Her Grandchildren” through a donation from the Adoue family.

While there are chainsaw artists scattered across the United States, the three artists who surfaced after Hurricane Ike stand out like superheroes. Armed with their shiny, powerful chainsaws, these men have left a tree-sculpture legacy that inspires Galveston residents and visitors alike.

In my tour group, a New York-based writer was so amazed with the outdoor sculptures that she wrote: “This not only told me a story of survival but of making something beautiful from remnants of a devastating natural disaster as well.” 

New York’s Hurricane Sandy survivors, who also dealt with felled trees, could learn from Galvestonians, she said.

Resuscitating thriving businesses was more challenging. Ike dumped millions of gallons of water and left so much mud in its wake that some businesses along The Strand were forced to close. For a few, closing temporarily after the storm surge meant financial challenges that spelled the beginning of the end.

Still, there were die-hard businesses that refused to succumb to the deluge of Hurricane Ike. LaKing’s Confectionery, Couteux Couture, the Grand 1894 Opera House, Tremont House Wyndham Grand Hotel and many others stood their ground, shook a collective fist at Ike, and reopened after the storm.

“This place was like a river, and when the water receded there was mud everywhere,” said Diane Olson, owner of Olson Historic Properties and the chic lady’s boutique Couteux Couture. “I was born and raised here, so where was I gonna go?” She didn’t go far, reopening down the street on The Strand.

 

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Olson articulated what most Galveston residents felt after Hurricane Ike, the most devastating hurricane since the storm of 1900, which took more than 6,000 lives. Still residents remained, prompting officials to build a giant seawall. The 17-foot high wall had withstood other storms, until Ike came ashore.

Nevertheless, a full year after Ike devastated the island, and outsiders reported Galveston’s demise, news spread of its miraculous resurrection. A local business mogul, who owns a chain of restaurants and built the Pleasure Pier, said that despite hurricanes people always return to the Gulf of Mexico waters.

He may have a point. In the late 1880s Galveston was christened the “Playground of the South” due to its 32 miles of beaches, the vibrant Strand, several cultural venues, and family-friendly activities. Coincidentally, post-Ike rebuilding efforts have spurred the town’s Golden Age revival.

Today, the island has reclaimed its playground title with new and restored entertainment venues. Some of the most popular include Moody Gardens with its remodeled Rainforest Pyramid, the Pleasure Pier, Lone Star Flight Museum and the Galveston Railroad Museum.

Since 2010, Galveston has attracted five new cruise ships, including Disney Magic, Crown Princess, Carnival Magic, Carnival Triumph, and Royal Caribbean’s Mariners of the Seas. In May 2011, the Historic Pleasure Pier replaced the 1960s-era Flagship Hotel damaged beyond repair by Ike.

Seawall Boulevard also stands as a testament to the resilient nature of this barrier island and it residents. Cruise along the Seawall and you’ll see hotels and restaurants dating back decades. The iconic Hotel Galvez & Spa and San Luis Resort & Spa have weathered several hurricanes and offer views of the Gulf of Mexico.

Gaido’s Seafood restaurant resisted Ike’s fury and continues to thrive more than 102 years after its founding. The landmark is one of many businesses along Seawall Boulevard, across from the pedestrian-friendly beachfront promenade.

 

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Founded in 1837, Galveston was also known as the “Ellis Island of the South,” according to our tour guide. It was the gateway for European immigration in the South. That’s why Galveston has the largest and well-preserved concentration of Victorian architecture in the country. Also, European values inspired the building of The Grand 1894 Opera House.

Since I’m an opera fan, I broke away from my group while strolling around bustling Pier 21. It was an easy, walking distance escape to the Opera House. Inside, I saw a waterline marker denoting the 9 feet of saltwater that had inundated the opulent lobby. I could see from the main theatre’s interior why so many opera legends had once performed here.



Serendipitously, while our group dined one night at Rudy & Paco’s (named one of America’s best restaurants by Open Table) we caught a glimpse of Hal Holbrook. The famous actor, known for his role as Mark Twain, was dining at R&P’s prior to his performance next door-at the opera house.

 



As I looked back on my forays to Galveston as a Houston university student, I felt guilty. I had missed this hallowed island’s soul in my quest to swim and sunbathe. Had I not taken this journey, I may never have seen the sculptures or known about Mother Nature’s dual role in spurring artistic endeavors and bringing closure for some survivors.

Realizing Galveston is more than Texas’ number one vacation destination was my epiphany. This island is a living, breathing, ever-evolving oasis, reinventing and reshaping itself through its residents and the artists it inspires. Now, as I recall the Tin Man, the Great Dane, the Geisha and so many other symbols of man’s triumph over nature, I too smile broadly.

Rosie Carbo is a travel writer, who finds both the history and beauty of the cities and countries that she visits.  

Source: Literary Traveler.  August 10, 2014 
http://www.literarytraveler.com/articles/creating-beauty-
from-devastation-in-galveston-texas/
  

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A 1954 CANDIDATE USES HIS FAMILY HISTORY TO HELP HIM WIN AN ELECTION  
by Eddie U. Garcia
eddie_u_garcia@yahoo.com 

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In this 60 year old Texas artice a candidate for County Clerk, Duval County utilized his family history to solicit votes from relatives with a mutual heritage. Juan G “Chancla” Garcia wrote that his family has resided in the district more than 100 year and his ancestor Julian Flores had lived in 1809 when his land grant was originally settled.    

 

The San Diego, Texas native Juan G Garcia stated that a 4 league land grant had been denounced to Julian Flores, the grantee of San Diego de Arriba, also to Julian’s son Ventura Flores, the grantee of San Diego de Abajo . He mentioned that his people came from 2 separate descendants of Julian Flores. Juan may not have known of an additional Flores lineage on his mother’s side of the family.

A 1 Jose Diego Flores + Maria Luisa Hinojosa
2 Jose Julian Flores + Maria Teresa Ramirez; 
3 Jose
Jacinto Flores + Maria Matiana Gonzalez; 
4 Jose Antonio Santos Flores + Maria Teodora Ibanez;  
5 Maria Felipa Flores + Avelino Andres Garcia Perez; 
6 Maria Andrea Garcia + Jose Dario Garcia;
 
7 Juan G Garcia + Alicia Gomez;

B 1 Jose Diego Flores + Maria Luisa Hinojosa
2 Jose Julian Flores + Maria Teresa Ramirez; 
3 Maria
Isabel Flores + Jose Remigio Garcia; 
4 Jose Francisco Garcia + Maria de San Juan Salinas; 
5 Maria
del Carmen Garcia + Juan Jose Garcia; 
6 Jose Dario Garcia + Maria Andrea Garcia; 
7 Juan G Garcia + Maria Andrea Garcia; 
8 Juan G Garcia + Alicia Gomez;

C 1 Jose Diego Flores + Maria Luisa Hinojosa
2 Jose Julian Flores + Maria Teresa Ramirez; 
3 Maria
Isabel Flores + Jose Remigio Garcia; 
4 Jose Antonio Garcia + Maria Jacinta Perez; 
5 Avelino Andres
Garcia Perez; 
6 Maria Andrea Garcia + Jose Dario Garcia; 
7 Juan G Garcia + Alicia Gomez;

What the candidate failed to include in the article was that his 3 daughters Amanda Isabel, Anna Maria, and Sylvia Alma were descendants of Julian Flores on their mother’s side of the family. The maternal grandfather of Alicia (Gomez) Garcia was the son of Jose Francisco Garcia.

D 1 Jose Diego Flores + Maria Luisa Hinojosa
2 Jose Julian Flores + Maria Teresa Ramirez; 
3 Maria
Isabel Flores + Jose Remigio Garcia; 
4 Jose Francisco Garcia + Maria de San Juan Salinas; 
5 Jose
Albino Garcia + Maria Francisca Garcia; 
6 Isabel Garcia + Francisco Gomez; 
7 Alicia Gomez + Juan
G Garcia.  

 

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Jose Francisco Garcia Maria de San Juan ‘Juana’ Salinas

Jose Francisco Garcia was killed by bandits on August 25, 1877. Some details about his death would have remained hidden from the public if that 1954 article had not been located by Helen Wallace, a descendant of Ventura Flores.  

 

Juan wrote about his Flores family and San Diego during another century. His father Jose Dario Garcia was a Deputy under Sheriff Corrigan and his mother Maria Andrea Garcia was among the older girls that were educated at Incarnate Word Convent in Corpus Christi. The boys were sent to St. Patrick’s during those early years of San Diego.

Juan G Garcia knowledge about the Flores family must have been attributed to his birth in 1898 during the Spanish American War. He was raised among other direct Flores descendants and some had multiple Flores lineages like himself.

As the candidate that wrote the article Juan estimated that it was possible that 300 Garcia voters in 1954 might be able to trace their ancestry to Maria Isabel Flores (+Jose Remigio Garcia). All her grandchildren had the Garcia surname even the ones from a daughter that married a Garcia. 

 

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The Estate of Isabel Flores from her father Julian Flores, 3452 1/6 acres of the San Diego de Arriba Land Grant, was inherited by 7 children, but only 3 heirs were listed in the article.   

1 Jose Antonio Garcia  
2 Jose Francisco Garcia

3 Maria Francisca Garcia  
4 Jose Maria de Jesus Garcia
5 Jose Eduardo Garcia
 
6 Juan de Dios Garcia
 
7 Jose Rafael Garcia

 

At the end of Juan G Garcia’s article he made a personal appeal to all the 800 Flores descendants he estimated living within Duval County to vote for him for County Clerk. He also asked them to vote for the Freedom Party candidates and listed all their names.  

That 1954 article also included an unusual reference to a comment that James G Luby apparently made to the author of the article. It was stated that the father of Julian Flores was a pure Aztec Indian and his wife was an Irish woman. Except for that article there is no confirmation available of an Indian heritage for Diego Flores and the surname Hinojosa is not an Irish name. In genealogy untrue facts seem to continue being in print and it is seen by others.  

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Another article¹, “San Diego de Arriba and San Diego de Abajo”, from the El Mesteno that was published in December 1997 provides historical facts about the San Diego Land Grants. That article is now being reprinted at the end of this Somos Primos article. It was researched and authored by Homero S Vera, Museum Coordinator of the Kenedy Ranch Museum, Sarita, Texas. This article also establishes a more accurate timeframe when Julian Flores lived in the region and the grants were located within the future Duval County and Jim Wells County.

By Eddie U Garcia  
eddie u garcia@yahoo.com
 

(760) 252-3588
 

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Note¹: From the EL MESTEÑO: Vol. 1 No. 3 December 1997

San Diego de Arriba and San Diego de Abajo

The grant of San Diego de Arriba and San Diego de Abajo were first surveyed by Don Faustino Contreras on May 5, 1809. He had come to the place called San Diego to survey 16 Leagues of agostadero de grande mayor for four citizens of the Villa of Mier: San Diego de Arriba for Don Julián Flores, San Diego de Abajo for Don Ventura Flores – (Julián’s son), San Leandro for Jose Antonio de la Peña, and Santa Florentina for Juan Sánchez Rosales. Each tract consisted of four leagues.

They were denounced on May 30, 1810 on behalf of the grantees by Don Jose Pascual Guerra, for the sum of $184.00 pesos and paid to the government treasury of San Luis Potosi.

The Grantees graze the land for several years but due to flood and unfriendly Natives they were forced to go back to Cuidad Mier. After Spain lost the war for Independence, they set out to reclaim their lands. With a new government installed they had to file a claim and on February 19, 1831 paid $296.00 pesos to the treasury of Cuidad Victoria, Tamaulipas. On April 18, 1831 the possession of land was granted to them. During this time José Antonio de la Peña died and his son, Ygnacio de la Peña, was the heir to his four leagues.

On July 22, 1831, Don José Santiago de Ynojosa, Mayor of the Villa de Mier, went to said tract of land, San Diego de Abajo, and rode with Ventura Flores in all four direction and legally declared him owner of his four leagues. He also rode with Jacinto Flores, brother of Ventura, and heir of Julián in all four directions of San Diego de Arriba and legally declared him owner.

by Homero S Vera,  
Museum Coordinator
 
Kenedy
Ranch Museum of South Texas
 
361-294-5751 - Fax: 361-294-5228
 
P.O. Box 70; Sarita, Texas 76385
 
hsv@kenedy.org

Grant Addendum Timeframe  
1. The Republic of Mexico denounced to Julian Flores and Ventura Flores as grant owners on 22 Jul 1831.  
2. 11 Dec 1860 Decree: Trinidad Flores y Perez vs. The State of Texas, No. 590, San Patricio File 1-423;  
3. Partition Suit of 1873: Cause No. 988: James Wells Papers, Box 2H344, Center of American History –  
University of Texas, Austin; (with 640 acres, ½ from each grant, for the township of San Diego, Texas;)  

 

 

Las Porciones Society 

http://southtexasgenealogy.org/history/

Brief History of Las Porciones Society

1. Informal group meetings began before 1984 when individuals would attend State Hispanic Genealogy Conferences which began in 1979. These meetings usually revolved around sharing genealogy information.

2. 1984-the Las Porciones Genealogical Society began meeting on a semi-formal basis at the homes of different members. The leaders of the group were Gilberto and Patsy Diaz, Carroll (Kelly) and Odie Norquest, George Gause, Ramiro Davila, Jr. and Eloy Gonzalez.

3. 1987-Formal organization of the group. Las Porciones Society is formally incorporated in Texas and a tax-exemption is secured from the IRS. The word “Genealogy” was deleted from the name to indicate that the group was expanding its focus to include not only genealogy, but also local and regional history.

4. 1987, 1992 and 2002-LPS hosts the State Hispanic Genealogy Conference. Tours were organized around the area. In 2002 five busloads of genealogists traveled to Mier and Camargo to view historical sites and genealogical resources. LPS received many compliments for its conferences.

5. Book Sales-George Gause, a member of LPS, was one of the first book sellers at the State Hispanic Genealogy Conferences selling history books from Mexico and South Texas. LPS took the lead in promoting the first Carl Duaine book that was a trailblazer in Hispanic Genealogy of South Texas. In recent years, LPS has gotten away from book sales.

6. Journals-LPS was one of the first Hispanic Genealogy groups to publish journals on South Texas and Northern Mexico Genealogy. In 1988 and 1989, LPS published journals twice a year. The Journals featured transcriptions of census and other primary materials which had not been previously published.

7. Efforts of Members

a) Joe Escobar-Illustrated and published the English version of “Mier en la Historia”

b) Joel Rene Escobar-Translated the notes of attorney Seabury on South Texas family trees and published it in 1995 as “The Seabury Papers”. This book covers many families whose land titles were litigated by the attorney. He complied additional family tree books on the Escobar, Saenz, Gonzalez, Balli and Guerra families.

c) Kelly Norquest-Developed Database of Pena Family Tree and will custom publish for different lines upon request.

d) Dr. Cayetano Barrera-Inspired the Tejano Monument and was the President of the group that succeeded in placing it on the front lawn of the Texas Capitol.

e) Amancio Chapa-Documented the Chapa family tree which descends from Juan Bautista Chapa who came to Monterrey in about 1650. He has established a connection with the Italian village from which his ancestor came and recently worked with a relative who republished the 17th century accounts of Juan Bautista Chapa and a family tree in Italian.

f) Dr. Lino Garcia-Writing monthly newspaper articles on Spanish, Mexican and Tejano history. He got into a dispute with Texas Monthly as to whether Stephen F. Austin was the father of Texas, arguing that Austin couldn’t be called the father if he wasn’t here when Texas was named, but came more than 100 years later.

8. Association with Special Collections at UTPA-LPS donated SAGA books to library for use of genealogists. LPS has helped procure genealogy books for the collection which has one of the most extensive holdings re Hispanic genealogy. LPS loaned a Miniature Spanish Vaquero statute (replica of Tejano Monument figure) to Library. For many years, LPS meetings were held there until parking became a severe problem.

9. Collection of Porciones Maps-Purchased from Texas General Land Office and placed on large panels. Displayed at various museums and schools.

10. Monthly meetings-For many years now, LPS has met monthly about 10 times a year. Most meeting feature a speaker on genealogy or historical issues. Recent speakers have included Joe Lopez, well-known author and advocate; Dr. Alejo Salinas, author of a family history; and Dr. Lino Garcia, UTPA professor on his recent trip to Spain.

 

 

House Resolution 709 

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House Resolution 709 adopted by the 83rd Texas State Legislature recognizes that Texas has been a Republic on two different occasions. We celebrate March 2nd as Texas Independence Day but we must never forget the one founded by our Tejano ancestors on April 6, 1813


On Wednesday August 6th, 2014 the Bexareno Genealogy Society and the Battle of Medina Historical Society will address the San Antonio City Council requesting recognition of this First Republic and the Emerald Green Flag of Liberty. This Green flag flies at the Commissioners Court in Guadalupe County, at the Freedonia Hotel in Nacogdoches, in front of the Presidio in Goliad and at the Tejano History and Civil Rights Museum in Corpus ; but ironically it is no where to be seen where it was founded.   

 

This First Republic was founded at the Spanish Governors Palace, across the street from City Hall in downtown San Antonio by Bernardo Gutierrez de Lara , a Tejano Hero on April 6th 1813. Our request is a simple one; to fly the Green Flag in honor of our ancestors who fought and died in order to be free and to fly it in front of the Spanish Governors Palace; and we even donate the flag.

Please show your support by signing up to speak or just be present at 6 PM. If we do not preserve, protect and promote our Tejano History no one will do it for us.

Citizens to be heard City Hall Downtown San Antonio  
Dan Arellano Member Bexareno Genealogy Society President Battle of Medina Historical Society danarellano47@att.net    512-826-7569  

 

 

Clash with Rangers radicalizes rancher

August 3, 1915
Source: Texas Day by Day, Texas State Historical Association

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On this day in 1915, Aniceto Pizaña escaped a gunfight with Texas Rangers at his ranch north of Brownsville and became a full-fledged revolutionary. Pizaña was born in Cameron County about 1870. He met Ricardo Flores Magón in 1904 and with Luis De la Rosa helped formed the Floresmagonista movement to redress the injustices done to Mexicans on both sides of the Rio Grande. In Brownsville Pizaña helped to form a branch of the Mexican Liberal party, which by 1915 had joined other Floresmagonistas in using the Plan of San Diego to combat injustices by guerrilla warfare. The plan called for the American Southwest to become an independent republic. 
At first Pizaña did not fully support the plan and headed a moderate faction favoring reform over revolution. But after

Pizaña's wife, brother, and son were captured, the latter having been shot in the leg, by rangers who arrived at his ranch to investigate a raid near Brownsville, Pizaña swore revenge and decided to support the plan. Commanding raiding parties from the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, he was primarily responsible for the guerrilla activities of the revolutionaries, generally swift nocturnal attacks. He used regular Mexican troops in the raids, weeded out ineffective men, and used strict discipline to produce troops of combat quality. By 1916 Mexican provisional president Venustiano Carranza was being pressured by the United States government to stop Pizaña's raids. Pizaña was arrested in Monterrey in February 1916 and lived in Tamaulipas until his death in 1957. 

 

 

 BORDER BANDITS, PART_III  
by 
Norman Rozell 
 

What brought Washington officials off the fence, when it came to sending more troops to South Texas in order to secure the border, was the publicity of frequent and widespread criminal acts against civilians by the border bandits. 

September 28, 1915  a woman living near Harlingen was attacked by two and wounded in her forearm.

October 5, 1915 patrol of 6th Cavalry ambushed near Mercedes, casualties are sketchy

October 17,1915 bandits derail and burn locomotive and train three miles south of Olmito near the Tandy Ranch. engineer dies and two passengers are murdered. The two-passenger car train was on its way from Harlingen to Brownsville. Spikes and fish plates were removed from the track and then the bandits used a wire cable to pull the rail to one side just as the train approached. When the locomotive hit this section, it tipped over and plunged to its side in a ditch. The throttle of the engine pierced  engineer H. H. Kendall's chest. It later had to be cut in two in order to remove his body. Fireman Woodall was badly scolded from the hot steam which escaped from the ruptured boiler but survived. The stopped train was then riddled with bullets before the bandits boarded it. The armed guard of 3rd

U. S. Cavalry soldiers in civilian dress were shot as well as civilians. One soldier named McBee was dead, having been shot several times. Soldier Claude J. Brasher had been shot in the face but was still alive and the last soldier, H. C. Layton was painfully wounded. Passengers took cover wherever they could. Dr. S. E. McCain and Harry Wallace, who took refuge in the men's toilet were both wounded. Brownsville businessman Morris Edelstein and Brownsville attorney John Kleber had safely found shelter on the floor between seats. While the baggage and mail cars had overturned the two passenger car had remained upright.

Morris Edelstein, the Brownsville merchant, who was aboard the train documented what had occurred with the help of his son Ben. As the bandits had approached him, he addressed them in Spanish and asked that his suitcase be left alone. They took him for a Mexican and did so. “There was another passenger, a traveling salesman, whom the bandits seized and were ready to kill, when my father shouted in Spanish, 'Don't kill him he is German!' (Which he was not). In those days the people in Mexico had a high respect for Germans. Some of the generals in the Mexican army were of German descent.  The Germans were also friendly to the bandits.  They furnished the bandits with guns, ammunition and other necessities, hoping that the bandits would drive all of the Texas settlers out of the state. The bandits stole the black porter's shoes forcing him to run some three miles barefoot [to the Cottingham Ranch] before he could spread the news of the train robbery.

The traveling salesman profusely thanked Dad for having saved his life but swore that he would never return to Texas. For as long as he lived, every year at Christmas time the traveling salesman mailed Dad a Christmas card.”

“ There was also an elderly Mexican couple on the wrecked train. When the Rangers came to examine the wreck, they came across the elderly couple, thinking that they may have assisted the bandits. Dad told the Rangers that these people had boarded the train in Houston, that they were only passengers and had no connection with the bandits. The Rangers proceeded down the aisle. (One can only imagine what was on their minds.) “

Lawman John Peavey was among those who arrived early on the scene. He and others then commenced to track the bandit band. They found stolen items (the raiders had taken personal possessions from both the living and the dead, including shoes from all the men) discarded all the way to the river and to near the Villa Nueva Ranch where the bandits crossed the river into Mexico.

He also wrote of vigilante justice associated with the incident. Ten Mexicans living near the Tandy Ranch had been taken into custody and four had been hung. Peavey later wrote “It was an ugly and grim sight. I had seen things like this before but to me it still seemed cold and cruel.” Six others were shot by their Ranger and civilian captors. Peavey, who had seen the bandit tracks coming and going to the river knew that these men were innocent. Sheriff Vann fingered Ranger Captain Ransom as the leader of the executioners. Vann, who was no “white hat” lawmen did gain some admiration in 1915 and 1916 for his objections to the lynching of Tejanos. Years later Vann would arrest three Rangers for going into people's homes and taking their guns.

October 21, 1915 bandits attack army outpost at Ojo de Agua Ranch; three soldiers are killed.  Sgt. Schaefer and eight soldiers were camping and most asleep at the site that afforded little cover. About 60 to 80 Mexican bandits attacked them and killed the sergeant along with privates Joyce and McConnell.  The carnage would have been worst had not Capt. W.J. Scott heard shots from his camp near Penitas. With 20 raw recruits from New York and New Jersey they rode bareback toward the fray and the attacking Mexicans fled. Nine soldiers of the combined group were wounded. This was not until six Mexicans and their Japanese leader had been killed.

These same Sediciosos also mounted an attack on the nearby Dillard homestead. The Spanish speaking son, George, in this mixed Anglo-Tejano family helped scout for army units.

After Texas Senator Sheppard personally came to the Valley to assess the border unrest and the situation as a whole, he wanted to see the site of the skirmish. Frank Rabb arranged for the Senator and three or four colonels to visit the site. From Mission he drove them there by car but was later admonished for not bringing along added protection.

After the engagement, Major General Frederick Funston, Commanding General Southern Department, "asked for another regiment of infantry to be placed in Harlingen to act as a guard so that the size of each cavalry patrol could be increased.  The War Department complied by sending the 28th Infantry from Dallas.", this according to historian Charles Cumberland.

October 25, 1915 bandits attack the outpost that had been set up near the October 17 train derailment near Olmito  After dark a volley is fired into the encampment but before any retaliation can be enacted the culprits disappear into the thick brush. Herman Moore of the 4th U.S. Infantry is shot and later dies of his wound.

November 5, 1915 river patrol of 6th Cavalry fired upon near Mercedes pump house; many bandits reportedly shot and killed

January 24, 1916 some members of the 4th U. S. Cavalry were picked up by Mexican bandits and made prisoners The two men, stationed near Progreso, apparently swam across the river to purchase liquor. Carranza soldiers nabbed Wheeler and Peterson. The Commanding Officer of the 5th Field Artillery foolishly directed a lieutenant and twenty-four men to cross the river to negotiate a return of the two soldiers. In doing so , four of the 26 swimmers drowned. After being brought to Matamoros the two derelict soldiers on the third day were transferred across the bridge. They were tried by a special court martial and suitably punished. “The officers who permitted the crossing of the river were reprimanded for violating existing orders.”

June 11, 1916  Matamoros commander General Ricaut orders the arrest of de la Rosa and his followers in Monterrey, however most of de la Rosa's followers get away

June 16, 1916  a band of sixty de la Rosa marauders attacks an army patrol in Webb County and four American soldiers are killed

June 14-17, 1916  10 miles north of Brownsville and a few miles from San Benito a detachment of soldiers is fired upon by a group of about 20 raiders One raider is killed. Still in pursuit three days later 50 soldiers cross the river. Ignoring warnings by Mexico's General Ricaut not to cross the border, General Parker orders over a hundred more cavalrymen to follow this band into Mexico. They do so with considerable equipment. After a one-day incursion and camping the night seven miles outside Matamoros, a minor skirmish, and a pledge by Ricaut to apprehend the raiders, the U.S. troops return across the border.

July 17, 1917  Hill Sugar mill in Harlingen burned to ground; fire attributed to bandits More likely as the bandit troubles were well winding down, the fire were set by disgruntled individuals who had an ax to grind with Lon C. Hill. The wood-clad factory, located at the site of the present baseball stadium, had been closed since the spring of 1914. It had cost at least $125,000 to erect in 1911.

December 1917  Historian Benjamin Heber Johnson tells us in his Revolution in Texas".  "Although the identities of most raiders were usually completely unknown, army officers sometimes suspected former Sediciosos.  This was the case in a December 1917 incident, when a cavalry unit near Harlingen shot at five men attempting to cross the Rio Grande.  They killed one of the men who, an officer stated, 'may be one Mariano Casarez, wanted by civil authorities for charges of banditry…connected with de la Rosa and Pizaña in their raids of 1915.' "

By July 8, 1915, Cameron County Judge H. L. Yates had seen enough. He wrote General Frederick Funston, now in charge of the Southern Division of the very real dangers confronting Americans in the Valley.

With unsettled conditions along the border the fort had been reactivated in 1914. Cavalry patrols were scheduled to begin along the border. Despite the turmoil, active regular land promotional excursions for northerners continued, and thousands of dollars of sales were reported. Even the somewhat isolated community of Monte Christo northwest of Edinburg had come into existence.  It had been founded in 1909 by the Melado Land Company of Houston and the following year had a post office. The community was to disappear by 1915 when the town’s main water well failed.

The men of La Feria organized themselves for self-protection. The vigilance committee and a rifle club

obtained fifteen Krag rifles and 3,000 rounds of ball cartridges from the government. If threatened the women and children would use the substantial Bailey Dunlap house for refuge. Later Captain Broadstreet would command an army unit stationed in the town.

When on October 19, 1915 the U.S. government under President Woodrow Wilson officially recognized Carranza as the head of Mexico it believed cross-border disturbances would cease. They didn't entirely.  Fortunately Gen. Frederick W. Funston, upon request, had in early August begun to receive sufficient military help to supplement his 300 troops at Fort Brown. Two batteries of artillery and the 26th Infantry Regiment from Texas City had been dispatched to Brownsville. Soon Funston dispersed 14,000 troops along the South Texas border. By the end of the month,the now distraught Funston asked the War Department for additional reinforcements. Soon the 4th Infantry and 16th Cavalry were sent to Harlingen and the 19th Infantry split between Del Rio and Fort Houston. By November over half the total mobile forces of the US Army were in south Texas. Additional National Guard units from various states would supplement these soldiers. Funston had additionally asked for twenty bloodhounds and fifty Apache Indians trained in scouting work. He wished to track the raiders and, if necessary, follow them into Mexico. The War Department and its Secretary, Lindley Miller Garrison, were set aghast at this request but did send a new regiment of infantry, namely the 23rd Infantry who had recently come to Florida from duty in the Philippines. With nearly all regular army soldiers now in the Valley any additional ones would have to come from the national guard.

Carranza after inflicting defeats on Villa and Zapatista forces was able to consolidate some control.  On 10/1/15 he removed Nafarrete from his post, likely in part to appease mounting American protests. Several months later Carranza was able to make a triumphant visit to Matamoros, but by 11/15/15 thousands of U.S. troops under the command of Maj.-Gen. Frederick N. Funston, commander of the Southern District, had been dispatched to the border. Even two military planes were dispatched to the Valley from Fort Sill. They were used to survey suspected illicit activities along the US side of the border but were frequently fired upon from south of the river.

With nearly six weeks of bandit, some historians now say—insurrectionist, activities, many settlers were nervous and angry, but that was not reason enough to take the law into their own hands.  However some did so on 7/25/15 when one Adolfo Muñoz was taken from the custody of Deputy Sheriffs Frank Carr and Daniel Hinojosa while being transported from San Benito to Brownsville. Eight masked men were in the highjacking party. This suspect of the robbery and murder of a reclusive merchant was then both hung and shot. Five days earlier Hidalgo County deputy sheriffs had, at Mercedes, killed the Manriquez brothers, Lorenzo and Gregorio. Portrayed as robbers, they were killed while “resisting arrest.”

The fact was that few law enforcement people were willing to risk their lives in order to protect those in their custody.  Most were in fact sympathetic to the vigilante aggressors and the swiftness of vigilante justice.  They were not unique. This had been made abundantly clear with national publicity when Leo Frank, a Jewish businessman, was sprung from prison and lynched in Cobb County, Georgia a half month later. His death sentence for the murder of his employee 13-year old Mary Phagan had been commuted to life imprisonment by the governor. Frank always maintained his innocence in the crime.  He was posthumously pardoned by the state in 1986. Some Valley victims are only now receiving the scholarly objectivity which they deserve.

In what may have been the single worst episode, but glossed over by the newspapers, was what occurred in a remote area west of Donna prior to October 2, 1915.  The bodies of fourteen Mexicans (some accounts say that they were actually local Mexican Americans) were reportedly discovered strewn on a lonely country road west of town.  They had been killed several days before as indicated by the condition of the corpses.  Who they were and who might have killed them was never explained by the Brownsville newspaper which did not follow up on the subject.  Was this lack of follow due to the acceptance of the prevailing law enforcement attitudes at this time, implicit agreement with the action, or intimidation? The newspaper account had been very circumspect.  The victims were in fact hung and left to decompose near the Ebenezer railroad depot.  Later personal accounts attributed the action to victorious Rangers who had encountered forty raiders on September 28 and brought about the hanging of those taken prisoners.

More vigilante justice is revealed in a Brownsville Sentinel newspaper account of Tuesday 5/23/16 in a front-page article submitted by a Special Correspondent. It  reads:

"Sheriff Atkins of Wallace (sic) County personally identified Col. Luis Morin, an alleged Villista, as being "Captain Morin" who last fall lead an attack by bandits on Norias ranch where two were killed and two wounded.  Morin was arrested two weeks ago near San Antonio by federal officers, it being alleged that he was behind a plot hatched for a Mexican uprising in Southern Texas.                     Another important identification was made by Doc Scarrett (sic), a brakeman on the Brownsville train wrecked last October near Brownsville, at which time Dr. McCain and two others were fatally wounded.  Scarrett (sic) said that Victoriano Ponce was one of the bandits that robbed the passengers on that train.  Ponce, who has been working as a baker at Kingsville, was arrested by Sheriff Scarborough. Morin and Ponce tonight were taken to the Brownsville jail.                                   NOTE:--Inquiry at the jail at a late hour elicited the information that no prisoners had been received during the night." The next day the newspaper noted "J. S. Scarborough, Sheriff of Kleburg County, wired the Sentinel last night that he had no information of the whereabouts of Luis Morin further than that gleaned from newspaper accounts. Following reports yesterday that Luis Morin and Victoriano Ponce had been killed while attempting to escape from Willacy County officers and Texas state rangers near Norias, the Sentinel wired Sheriff Scarborough for confirmation.  Mr. Scarborough replied as follows: "Morin was delivered to authorities of Willacy County on 5/21 and was identified as a noted bandit who took part in the Norias  ranch raid as well as other raids in the Valley. I have no further information other than newspaper reports.  Signed J.S. Scarborough" Neither the men nor their bodies were ever found.

The Hebronville area was also the scene of Ranger depredations. Wounded suspects were brought in and often incinerated near a lumberyard. There were other documented and undocumented incidents regarding the local Hispanic population. While legal maneuvering presents some semblance of justice, physical intimidation is overtly unjust.  So it was with the lynchings which occurred in the Valley.  Lynching often refers to hanging; it means in broad terms execution in any form without due process of law.

To its shame Texas stands third among the states, after Mississippi and Georgia, in the total number of lynching victims between 1885 and 1942 according to The Handbook of Texas Online.  Fifty-three percent of these died in the 1915 troubles.  “Six mobs in Cameron, Willacy, and Hidalgo counties accounted for twenty-six of the victims.

Numerous transgressions on the U.S. side occurred in this period.  These resulted in deaths, cattle rustling, thievery, and the destruction of property.  Frank C. Pierce, a friend of the Tejano community, provides a detailed chronology of most raids and the events leading up to them. He could personally list one hundred and two victims by name. There is some evidence that followers of Carranza may have instigated some of the thirty raids into Texas that resulted in twenty one American deaths.

On the other hand Pierce and federal reports indicate more than 300 Mexicans or Mexican-Americans were summarily (without due process of law) executed by Texas Rangers and deputy sheriffs. Most occurred between 8/4/15 and 6/17/16. Major General Frederick Funston, who commanded the army's Southern division estimated that state and local authorities “did execute by hanging or shooting approximately three hundred suspected Mexicans on the American side of the river.”Walter Prescott Webb, the famous biographer of the Rangers estimates that between 500 and 5,000 Mexicans were killed in the Valley during this period. This is highly speculative as Webb was never in the area during this period as Pierce was and his wide range of figures leaves them questionable.  Webb puts the American  civilian deaths at 62 and those of soldiers at 64. In April 1916 one newspaper placed the number of killing of Latinos at 1,500.

Pierce, a Brownsville native, had some insightful comments to make about the situation.  Quoting from his book: “Proportionate to the number of new settlers, comparatively few murders or killings took place, although thieving became a profession so that almost every family of Americans in the valley suffered the loss of their fine-blooded stock, farming implements, etc.”  He was very objective and honest when he wrote “The author cannot let pass his opportunity to say that during the bandit raids of 1915 many evil influences were brought to bear to clear the country of Mexicans.  To his knowledge more than one was forced to flee and convey his chattel before going.” Tejanos fleeing into Mexico were entering a world every bit as disruptive as they were leaving. There was to be little solace for them. By early 1916 things had turned the corner for the better north of the river; many Tejanos began to return. Not only that, but conditions were so poor in interior Mexico that Mexican aliens began to come across the border to the United States. With World War I on the horizon, America would need these potential workers.

In 1998 Emma L. Balli and Perla B. Balli of Olmito would voice the sentiments still held by many Valley Hispanics even after the passage of many decades. In the book that they authored, Padre Island Trials and Tribulations “La Verdad”, they offered the following critique:

“The original Tejanos and Mejicanos settled in what is now known as Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Cameron, Kenedy, Refugio, Hidalgo, Starr, and Willacy Counties.  In Texas not one single county is named for these early settlers:  The Ballis, Tijerinas, Hinojosas, Villareales and others.  They were to become unacceptable on their own lands, and ultimately ostracized either by force, intimidation, murder, shooting, and burning of their properties.  They were offered no protection from the anglo law.  The law itself was made up of the same anglos who wanted to take over their land -- unscrupulous persons, unethical attorneys, and corrupt judges, consequently many people died defending their lands.  When the Texas Rangers or the sheriff arrived to confiscate a rancho, the owner had no choice but to leave.  Whole families were lynched, shot, or tortured.  Some were forced to sign their life belongings away under threat of death.  Attorneys with the help of the law forced the land owners to sign away their land deeds.  These un-American activities were repeated elsewhere in Texas, New Mexico, and California.  The same tactics were repeated again in the early turn of the 20th Century 1915-1921 when immigration authorities rounded up many Mexicans.  The authorities raided homes and deported families back to Mexico, even though they were born here.  If you were a Mexican, you were a target and if you owned land you were considered high priority.  You did not meet the new status quo “white and spoke English”; it was the construction of power.  You did not meet the paradigm of race.  From Brownsville, Texas to San Diego, California, these exploits took place.  Somebody called this the Rainbow Era because of the great settlement program initiated by the real estate companies that seized the majority of the lands here in the Rio Grande Valley.  The real estate companies paid a prospective buyer a round trip ticket to the valley.  Large caravans of northerners were seen traveling to the Rio Grande Valley to buy land.  What a sickening scenario this must have been for the local folks here in the Valley.  On one side you see the poor land owners deported back to Mexico and on the other side you see the so called Rainbow Era residents coming in to take over lands confiscated by whatever means by these large real estate companies.  We call this: "The Era of Shame 1915-1921."

Charles C. Cumberland in his Southwestern Historical Quarterly article of 1953 titled “Border Raids in the Lower Rio Grande Valley—1915” had this to say:

“But the lynchings and executions were not the only indications of fear and vengeance. Posses burned homes in which raiders purportedly held meetings; vigilante committees and local officials seized arms and ammunition belonging to families of Latin extraction; and other self-appointed law enforcers forced Latin families in outlying regions to move into populated centers where they could be more effectively watched.  These actions by the responsible citizens of the Valley precipitated a mass exodus from the region. Families of Latin extraction, fearful of the actions which might be taken by irate officials and posses, began leaving the rural areas in great numbers. General Nafarrete reported that hundreds of families were fleeing into Mexico in early September [1915]; one American observer estimated that three hundred families arrived in Brownsville within a two-day period; and another estimated that at least half the Latin-American families in the Valley left the rural areas during September and October. So serious was the movement, which threatened to disrupt the economy of the Valley, that mayors of the principle towns issued a joint statement designed to allay the fears of the fleeing group, but as long as the raids continued the feeling against the Latins increased,and the mass migration continued.”

Noted here is that in the aftermath came the very brave actions of J.T.( Jose Tomas) Canales. This Brownsville attorney and area representative in the Texas legislature in 1919 launched an investigation into Texas Ranger conduct during the Bandit Era. While he got no immediate satisfaction and his very life was threatened by his aggressive action, the state would, in the next few years, pass legislation that would reorganize the rangers, rein them in, and make them more accountable.

Anglo-Americans, Cumberland reports, were moving north or to Corpus Christi and San Antonio. Before the violence was over more than one-half of the Valley's population had left and most farms were abandoned. The economy was in shambles.

Upon de facto recognition of Carranza on October 19 by the Wilson administration, bandit activity ended for the most part.  Anders says “The Mexican government even paid Pizana and de la Rosa $50,000 to stop organizing raids and awarded the latter a commission in the regular army.”  In early October Carranza replaced Nafarrate with General Eugenio Lopez, who began to cooperate with the U.S. Forces. In November, Carranza visited Matamoros and conferred with Governor Ferguson and Colonel Blocksom. He pledged his full support to combat lawlessness along the Rio Grande. He subsequently appointed General Alfredo Ricaut to take charge of the Matamoros garrison. Ricaut was an outspoken advocate of improved relations with the United States.

The massive military buildup along the border had commenced by the summer of 1916. Public awareness and opinion had been raised by the Pancho Villa's ordered-attack on Columbus, New Mexico, where seventeen soldiers and civilians were killed. On May 7, 1916, President Wilson had ordered a partial mobilization of the National Guard. Initially 5,260 men from units in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico were called up. Soon Wilson concluded that even this number, even supplemented with all available regular Army troops, was insufficient to protect the 3,000 mile border. On June 18, he ordered the mobilization of the National Guards of all the remaining states. By July 4, 1916, 27,160 troops from fourteen different states were on duty along the Rio Grande. This number rose to nearly 111,000 by the end of the month. By late August the border was home to 16,000 regular Army and 184,000 guardsmen. McAllen alone, with only 2,000 residents, became home to nearly 19,000 guardsmen.

Valley political operatives were unhappy with General Funston. They lobbied to have him replaced. On May 20, 1916, Funston was relieved by Brigadier General James S. “Gallopin'” Parker. By August he took charge the newly created Brownsville District headquartered in Fort Brown. Here 28,000 National Guard and regular Army troops were stationed. In fact, the Brownsville area politicians and district Congressman John Nance Garner had felt that Brownsville and its businesses had been “short-changed” by the low number of troops stationed at the fort. They had pushed for larger numbers and were successful.

Because General Pershing had launched various attacks within Mexico south of New Mexico on June 21, 1916 and at earlier times, there was actually a threat of war with Mexico, therefore the U.S. military remained “in a state of  readiness for large-scale action.” Fortunately this proved unnecessary.  

In addition to Fort Brown, military units were stationed across the LRGV. These were at at the outskirts (First Illinois Cavalry, three miles north on the Old Alice Road) of Brownsville, San Benito, Harlingen, Mercedes, Donna, Pharr, McAllen, Mission, and Rio Grande City. Parker commanded 2,000 regular Army troops and National Guardsmen from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Virginia. In addition, Major General John F. O'Ryan commanded a separate 12,000 strong New York National Guard Division, whose units were stationed in many of the above-named towns.

One of the largest encampments was Camp Llano Grande occupied in 1916-17.  This was located near the present day Texas A & M Experiment Station at the intersection of FM 1015 and Business 83.  Units from Indiana, Nebraska, Minnesota, and North Dakota were stationed here on an area occupying over 200 acres.  The camp included a headquarters building, commissary, and recreational facilities. Wither's lodging house was transformed into the camp hospital. South of the railroad tracks were parade grounds, tent encampments, and stock pens.  Once U.S. involvement into the Great War was imminent, the camp was abandoned in March 1917, one month prior to U.S entry into the war.  The troops stationed there were then called to war service in France.

Over the period, there were stationed at the camp Indiana National Guard troops totaling 3,702 in an artillery battalion, field hospitals, infantry regiments, ambulance companies, sanitary company, and signal company.  Nebraska troops numbered 2,153 who, in addition to the above units, had a machine gun company.  Minnesota guardsmen numbered 5,117 and consisted of infantry and field artillery regiments.  The North Dakota National Guard contingent numbering 1,007 members was also headquartered there though its camp was in Mercedes.

Briefly here is some information concerning the troops in Harlingen:

The 26th U.S. Infantry was under the command of Col. R.L. Bullard.  The 3rd U.S. Cavalry was under the command of Col. A. P. Blocksom who had been commanding officer of the LRGV from June 1914.  By the end of July 1916 the 2nd Texas Infantry in Harlingen was under the command of Col. B. F. Delameter and the 3rd Texas Infantry in Harlingen under Col. George P. Rains. One early AZO photo postcard shows a crude wooden structure about 16' by 12'. This appears to be the quarters for officers.  Next to it is a tent of similar size with a fly to divert rain. In front of these is an open convertible car with an enlisted man driver.  Standing beside it, as the label indicates, is Col. Gaston, 6th Cav., Harlingen, Tex. This is Joseph A. Gaston who arrived on August 14, 1915 and departed on April 20, 1916.

1/19/15  With the area still fairly quiet servicemen were able to arrange for an inter-service football match.  The 12th Cavalry at Harlingen played the Coast Artillery contingent from Brownsville to a 13:13 tie. Lt. Burwell was the Harlingen's team captain and quarterback. He played well as did W. Largent and lineman Gee.

2/19/15  Captain A.O.P. Anderson commanding Troop B of the 12th Cavalry thanks Lon C. Hill for suggesting willow poles for erection of a corral and then permitting the cutting of them from his property.

4/14/16  By this date additional troops are already being stationed in Harlingen, since Texas Governor Oscar Branch Colquitt has sent national guard units to the Valley to ease border tensions which have escalated.

5/18/16  It is reported in the newspapers that Brig. Gen. James Parker is to establish his headquarters in Brownsville.  He is to command the three regiments of Texas militia being sent to the Valley.  Two of these regiments will remain in the lower valley. 

1915-17  Soldiers of the 6th U.S. Cavalry, 26th Infantry, and the 3rd Texas National Guard are stationed in Harlingen as part of efforts to quell border unrest. The 3rd Texas Infantry arrived on May 9, 1916 and remained in Harlingen (and Donna) until September 7, 1916. They even have several field hospitals for the minimum of 12 companies involved here. The muster of Texas National Guard officers (158) and enlisted men (3,572) had begun on May 16, 1916 after which they were mobilized at Fort Wilson near San Antonio.  It is now Fort Sam Houston.  Second and Third Regiments of Infantry and Field Hospital were stationed all along the Lower Rio Grande Valley from Harlingen to Roma. From about August 1914 Col. A. P. Blocksom was in charge of Valley forces but upon arrival of the 26th Infantry between August 1 and September 15, 1915 Col. Robert Lee Bullard took charge of forces in Harlingen and to the west.

On 8/3/16 on the orders of Major A.R. Sholars, Companies K and L of the Third Texas Infantry are moved by truck from San Benito into Harlingen as the first step in consolidating all Texas troops into Harlingen.  On August 6 the City Council orders a committee of three to consult with Texas State Adjutant General Hulen for plans of cooperation between the general and the City Council and the City Health Officer regarding the campsite. [Brigadier General John Augustus Hulen was later to organize and command the 36th Division in World War I. His profession was a railroad executive, but since joining the Third Texas Volunteer Infantry as a private in1887 he had frequently been called back to active duty.  He held the position of adjutant general from 1902 until his retirement in 1907.  He was recalled in 1916 as commander of the Sixth Separate Brigade.] This month the city appoints a City Health Officer to overlook the soldiers.  The city provides the camp with free water and lights.

The Sixth Cavalry Camp site covered what would now be several city blocks.  It approximately encompassed the area between 3rd and 4th Streets and apparently ran north to south between East Jackson and Harrison Avenues. A goodly number of tents are lined up in orderly fashion. A large corral area is bordered by what are now 2nd and 3rd Streets and serves to pen the horses.

Under the Sixth Cavalry was a band consisting of 18 individuals. A rare Runyon postcard pictures these musicians.

One Robert Runyon photo is labeled "The Twelfth Cavalry Camp."  It shows a modest number of tents adjacent to and on the west side of the rail tracks between where Adams and Washington Streets meet Commerce. This may have been only a temporary bivouac for this unit. The 12th Cavalry had arrived in the Valley on May 14, 1914 and left about a year later. Two other Runyon photos show troops embarking on a train near the first Harlingen depot.

South Texas Lumber Company account records of early 1916-17 provide a record of some of the units stationed in Harlingen.  These include Companies A, D, F, G, J, and L of the 26th Infantry and Companies C, E, F, and H of the 3rd Texas National Guard (and later K and L). These are supported by Field Hospital #5, Field Hospital #1 Texas National Guard, and Ambulance Company #5.  In addition to the 6th U. S. Cavalry, there is also the 26th Infantry Band.  The officers of the 26th Infantry have organized an Officers' Club.

Because of unsettled conditions Gen. Funston responded to raids in the area by assigning five-man guards of soldiers for trains running between Harlingen and Raymondville.

On 6/30/16 army engineers of the 2nd Division of the US Engineer Corps sent from Washington DC arrived in Harlingen together with a trainload of pontoons. These could be used to forge the Rio Grande should a large military expedition force cross into Mexico.

Accounts with the South Texas Lumber Company indicate the names of some of the soldiers stationed in Harlingen during the Border Trouble period.  These include:

Major A.R. Sholars                                          Lieutenant Purcell

Major J.G. Jenning                                           Lieutenant J.L. Redmond

Captain O.P. Storm of Dallas                           Lieutenant W.R. Wheeler

Captain John B. Chambers                               Lieutenant Malony

Captain W. B. Breedlove                                  Sergeant Furman

Captain B. Compton                                         Sergeant Vincent

Captain Everett Hughes                                    Sergeant G.M. Roper

For a time Capt. Charles J. Nelson was in charge of the quartermaster depot at Harlingen.

As time passed, the individuals responsible for the disturbances were greatly outnumbered by U.S. soldiers, therefore no set battles were instigated by raiding forces, which could range in size up to 60 to 80 men. The Federal military frowned upon vigilantism and eventually brought a semblance of order and moderation to the chaotic situation.

The morale of many of the National Guard troops stationed in the Valley was low. They didn't expect to be stationed here as long as they were, they were experiencing primitive camp conditions, and the South Texas environment with its heat, brush, and insects among other things was a challenge. Some mounted cavalry units lacked their horses when sent south. For big-city folk, such as the Seventh New York Infantry Regiment was, the Valley was an area of desolation that depressed them. One of the positives of having troops on active duty in the Valley was that they were made fit, were involved in active combat-type situations, and were given training that they might not have received otherwise. These paid dividends when many were called to serve in World War I. President Wilson was to de- mobilized the fifty thousand guardsman still along the border on February 18, 1917. He left fifty thousand regular army troops in place. In early 1917 a 10-day war exercise had been held between soldiers of the mid-Valley and Brownsville. This wound up the tour of duty for many of them.

As some troops in the Valley were sent home, some possibly to handle the impending nationwide railroad strike, the cost of maintaining troops on the border had added to the federal government’s budget deficit of  $50 million.  This was one of the reasons Congress had approved a federal income tax to take effect on 1/1/17.  Unmarried people earning $3,000 or more would be taxed 2%, married above $4,000 the same, and those $20,000 or above on a graduated scale 1 to 13%.  Corporations with a capital stock value of $75,000 or more would pay a 2% tax.

As late as January 8-9/1918 the Valley saw a foray of American soldiers crossing into Mexico at La Grulla.

The Mexican Service Medal was an award of the U.S. Military by General Orders of the U.S. War Department on December 12, 1917. The Mexican Service Medal recognizes those service members who performed military service against Mexican forces between the dates of April 12, 1911 and June 16, 1919 in eight specific engagements.

An Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, created the Mexican Border Service Medal recognizes those military service members who performed military service on the U.S.- Mexico Border between the dates of January 1, 1916 and April 6, 1917.

Individual state also issued Border Service medals to their national guard units.

I conclude this series by noting events that took place far from the Valley. An unusual photo was taken, likely in July 1919. The border law officers in the picture were:  V.C. Dow, deputy sheriff from El Paso; Marcus Hines, U.S. Customs Officer; Tom Mayfield of Donna; and E.W. Anglin police chief of Harlingen. The photo was preserved by Lawson Anglin, one of E.W.'s sons and himself later a lawman as Cameron County motor patrolman.

Tom Mayfield, who once worked as a supervisor on John Closner's San Juan Plantation, became a Hidalgo County deputy sheriff and played a major role in uncovering the Plan of San Diego, an insurrectionist manifesto conceived in 1915.

Elmer William Anglin managed the properties and business ventures, including land clearing, of Hill.  In this job he was closely connected to the growing young town which came into official being in April 1910.  He served on the first cemetery committee as a trustee, served as a school trustee prior to 1920, and after 1910 he performed as police chief for 16 years. From 1939 through 1959 he was a justice of the peace.

Marcus Hinds was a U.S. Customs officer who had taken part in the fight at Norias Ranch house.

Surprisingly the picture was not taken in Texas, but in Lansing, Michigan.  This is how it came about. After serious border incidents began to occur along the U.S.-Mexico border and the turmoil related to the Mexican revolutionists added to unsettled conditions, the federal government sent army troops (nearly 50% of the total number in the ranks) to the border then had to supplement them even more with National Guard troops.  Henry Ford, fearing the loss of some of his automobile factory workers to guard call up duty, voiced opposition to government plans.  Opposing Ford was the equally vehement Chicago Tribune.  When the newspaper labeled him "an anarchist", he found reason to sue it for a million dollars.

Terry hoover, archivist at the Henry Ford museum tells us “Robert McCormick, the ultra-patriotic publisher of The Chicago Tribune, ordered his staff to contact large American businesses to learn whether they would continue to pay employees called to duty their normal wage. When the newspaper contacted Ford Motor Company, Frank Klinginsmith, the treasurer, responded with the standard company policy that the men would forfeit their jobs and receive no aid. This was incorrect—the 88 employees sent to the Mexican border had been given special badges ensuring each man their current job when they returned.

Knowing Henry Ford’s pacifist position, the Tribune, without checking the accuracy of Klinginsmith’s statement, immediately published an article and editorial questioning Ford’s patriotism and calling him an anarchist, stating that “If Ford allows this rule to stand he will reveal himself not merely as an ignorant idealist, but as an anarchistic enemy of the nation that protects him in his wealth.” Henry Ford was inclined to ignore the articles, but his attorney Alfred Lucking thought the charges intolerable and urged the industrialist to sue for libel saying it damaged Ford’s reputation.”

The border lawmen were called north to testify in the trial that ensued in Mt. Clemens, Michigan. They provided accounts of the border disorders and banditry. According to a Fiesta magazine article Lawson Anglin recalls his father spending thirty-eight days in Michigan.  The judgment ran against the Tribune, but the judgment by twelve farmers was reduced to six cents.  It was after the trial that this group picture was taken.  In a jovial mood Hines and Dow donned Mexican sombreros rather than their own usual hats, possibly Stetsons.

In 1919 a 66th Congress U.S. Senate sub-committee headed by Senator Fall conducted hearings later published in several volumes as Investigation of Mexican Affairs, directing the committee in foreign affairs to investigate the matter of outrages on citizens of the United States in Mexico. A number of Valleyites, including Lon C. Hill, traveled to Washington , D.C. to testify before the “notorious committee”. Historian Charles Cumberland, in his Southwestern Historical Quarterly article, noted “most of the witnesses who appeared and most of the members of the committee were biased against Mexico and desired to bring about intervention by the United States. This material must be used with extreme caution; much of the testimony is inaccurate.” So we learn that years after the Bandit Wars had concluded, controversy still followed the disturbing decade. That the LRGV was so resilient and was to offer so much in the way of agricultural production in the 1920s is a reflection of a remarkable period in its history.

 

MIDDLE AMERICA

1691 Tira from Santa Catarina de Ixtepeji, Oaxaca Mexico, 
            featured in Milwaukee,Wisconsin Mexican Fiesta

John N. Harper’s  ACADIANS, Writings by Winston De Ville
 

Tira from Santa Catarina de Ixtepeji, Oaxaca Mexico 
featured at 

Milwaukee Hispanic Scholarship Foundation Booth
at Annual Mexican Fiesta, Lake Michigan, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

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The Milwaukee Hispanic Scholarship Foundation  hosted  its annual Mexican Fiesta on the shores of beautiful Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on August 22, 23, 24, 2014 at the Henry W. Maier Festival Park also known as the Summerfest grounds.    This year there was a special exhibit, in the genealogy booth, on a scroll or “tira” that was discovered at the University of Wisconsin  Milwaukee (UWM) American Geographical Society Library (AGS) in 2012.  

A copy of the scroll from Santa Catarina de Ixtepeji, Oaxaca, Mexico,  from 1691, was displayed along with maps from the 1800’s from the AGS  Library collection. The seven foot long tira contains a genealogical  history of a noble Zapotec family depicting their lineage and land ownership. The scroll is written in the Zapotec language as well as in Spanish. Below is a description of the tira written by Professor  Laura Matthew from Marquette University.

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The Tira de Santa Catarina Ixtepeji tells the history of a Zapotec town in Oaxaca, Mexico, from its founding around 1350 until the creation of the Tira in 1691. 

 The Tira was commissioned by the ruler of Ixtepeji, don Domingo Juárez de Zárate. Don Domingo went to the Spanish colonial court claiming title to rich agricultural lands outside the town. These lands appear on the right hand side of the map, divided into grids with a pyramid on top. They probably belonged to an ancient but poor founding family of the town, not to don Domingo’s family.      

 Don Domingo and his sons also wanted to be recognized as descendants of “Indian conquistadors.” They claimed descent from Coqui Lay, lord of Santa Catarina Ixtepeji who helped Hernando Cortés fight the Aztecs in 1521. As an Indian conquistador, Coqui Lay was rewarded with privileges like riding a horse, carrying a sword, and not paying tribute – privileges that don Domingo and his sons also claimed and wanted to protect.  

 

Don Domingo and his sons presented the Tira to the Spanish courts at least three times: in 1691, 1709, and 1718. Each time, the Spanish judge wrote on the Tira in Spanish that he had received it. The rest of the written text is in a rare type of Zapotec that is no longer spoken in Ixtepeji. 

The right-hand side of the Tira shows the foundation of Ixtepeji, a migration of its inhabitants after the Spanish came, and the disputed lands. The founding ancestor of Ixtepeji, named Lao Quechi, is a large figure with a shield standing at the end of a road.       

The middle of the Tira shows Lao Quechi’s great-granddaughter marrying into the family of Coqui Lay, the “Indian conquistador.” Coqui Lay’s ancestors are represented for seven generations until they reach Coqui Lay himself. A Spanish conquistador appears on a horse below him.      

The left-hand side of the Tira shows Coqui Lay’s descendants until don Domingo Juárez de Zárate and his sons. All these Zapotec rulers of Santa Catarina Ixtepeji have Spanish names and wear Spanish-style clothing. 

 

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Professors Laura Matthew and  Aims McGuinness shared their knowledge of the tira 
and its discovery at the Fiesta’s Genealogy Booth.  

Click to an article under Mexico written by Dr. Matthew, describing the discovery at the
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee (UWM)  by the American Geographical Society Library (AGS) in 2012.   

Information and photos sent by Margarita Sandoval Skare, 
Volunteer Coordinator for the Genealogy Booth at Mexican Fiesta  
skaremm@milwpc.com
, Milwaukee Wisconsin 414-476-6702   
 


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Announcing ~  

John N. Harper’s  ACADIANS

Writings by Winston De Ville

With a preface by the editor, this volume offers genealogical and historical research material on Acadians in old Acadia and Acadians in Louisiana. With subjects dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, among the articles are Reuben Gold Thwaites’ Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents:

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An Essay Review  ~  On Mouton Family History and Acadian Identity {1703}  ~  The Melançon Family of Acadia: A Vignette {1704} ~  The Acadians in 1730 ~  A Note on the Johnson Family of Nova Scotia: 1732  ~  Acadians at Opelousas: 1768  ~  Acadians at St. Gabriel: An Undated French Map of  Land Grants in Spanish Louisiana {1769} ~  Comments on “Acadians at St. Gabriel: An Undated French Map of Land Grants in Spanish Louisiana” {1769}  ~   The Militia of Iberville Post: 1770 ~ Acadians in Philadelphia: 1771  ~  Farmers of Valenzuela in 1779 ~ Attakapas 1785 Militia List ~ The Louisiana Settlement of Some Acadians in 1785 ~ Of Clavinette and Violin in Colonial Louisiana: Questions on Acadian Music in 1785  ~   Michel Leger: A Document for His Family History {1785}  ~  The Guidry Family: Notes on an Early Westward Migration in Louisiana {1785} ~   Opelousas Post Slave Sale of 1790  ~  Rice Farmers of the German Coast: 1792  ~  Charles Johnson: A 1794 Vignette  ~  Charles Jeansonne: His 1797 Succession  ~ “Cajuns” and Neo-Ethnicity: Concerns of an Acadian-American Genealogist.   

Among the most numerous surnames (variously spelled) in the index are: ARCENEAUX, BABIN, BERGERON, BLANCHARD, BOUDREAUX, BREAUX, BROUSSARD, COMMEAUX, DOUCET, DUGAS, FOREST, GAUDET, HEBERT, JOHNSON/JEANSONNE, LANDRY, LEBLANC, MELANCON, PREJEAN, RICHARD, SAVOY, THIBODEAUX.

129 pages. Index. Wrappers. ISBN 1-59804-725-6. $28.50.
THIS IS THE SECOND VOLUME IN THE SELECTED PAPERS SERIES.
Provincial Press books are AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY FROM CLAITOR’S PUBLISHING DIVISION
Post~Office Box 261333          Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70826
www.ProvincialPress.us    www.Claitors.com  

 

 


EAST COAST 

Maps of  Spanish Missions 
September 6, 2014: Admiral Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés & Founding of St. Augustine
Los Floridanos Society

 


Maps of  Spanish Missions 

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If you have ever wondered about early presence of Spanish missions and exploration this article has the best maps and historical background on what occurred during the mid 1500 and up the 1700's. You can judge for yourself great maps as well make it easier to follow. Sent by Juan Marinez

Source: José Antonio Crespo-Francés rio_grande@telefonica.net
July 13, 2014

Estimados amigos, familia y compañeros de armas, Acompaño este sencillo trabajo publicado ayer para recordar a otro español olvidado explorador en tierras norteamericanas, se trata de Juan Pardo. spero resulte de vuestro agrado, JACrespo-Francés

 

El domingo 13 de julio de 2014 en la publicación digital www.elespiadigital.com aparece en la sección Informes el artículo titulado “La expedición de Juan Pardo”. En estas líneas traemos a la luz la memoria de este capitán, explorador y conquistador español, otro olvidado de la segunda mitad del siglo XVI. Sus movimientos exploratorios se desarrollaron por las tierras de los actuales estados de Carolina del Norte y del Sur así como por el este de Tennessee, en los Estados Unidos de América.

http://www.elespiadigital.com/index.php/informes/6151
-expedicion-de-juan-pardo

 

DON PEDRO MENÉNDEZ DE AVILÉS AND THE FOUNDING OF ST. AUGUSTINE

Saturday, September 6, 2014
St. Augustine, Florida

ST. AUGUSTINE, FL – July 28, 2014 – Four hundred and forty-nine years ago, in September 1565, Admiral Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés stepped ashore on Matanzas Bay and founded St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest continuously occupied, European city, port, and parish in the continental United States. On Saturday, September 6, 2014, the annual, historical reenactment of Menéndez' landing and anniversary commemorations will be held at Mission Nombre de Dios  ( www.missionandshrine.org ) in St. Augustine, Florida. .  

Photo by Stacey Sather, courtesy of Florida Living History, Inc.  

 

This heritage Event will feature:
· the historical re-enactment of Admiral Don Pedro Menéndez
    de Avilés’ landing in 1565 by Florida Living History, Inc.;
· period liturgical music provided by volunteers from
    Cantorae St. Augustine ( www.cantorae.com  );
· a Mass of Thanksgiving;
· a Grand Procession following the Mass of Thanksgiving;
· a performance of a scene from a 16th-century Spanish play by Florida Living History, Inc.’s Theater with a Mission group, will follow the Mass and Procession; this presentation is funded by a grant from the Florida Humanities Council through the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The anniversary commemoration will begin at 10AM and will end, approximately, at noon; admission is free of charge to the public. Ample, free parking is available on-site. Seating is limited, so please consider bringing a folding chair. Additional activities will take place next door at Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park 
( www.fountainofyouthflorida.com/ ), following the Founding Day heritage commemoration at Mission Nombre de Dios.  

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Florida Living History, Inc.’s partners in St. Augustine’s traditional Founding Day Event include:
· The Florida Historical Society –
     http://myfloridahistory.org/  ;
· The St. Augustine 450th Commemoration – 
      http://staugustine-450.com / ;
· The St. Augustine Historical Society –
      www.staugustinehistoricalsociety.org/  ;
· The St. Augustine, Ponte Vedra & The Beaches Visitors & Convention Bureau – www.floridashistoriccoast.com/  ;
· Viva Florida 500 – www.vivaflorida.org/  ;
· And others!

This heritage Event is sponsored by Mission Nombre de Dios ( www.missionandshrine.org/  ) - the Birthplace of America and Cradle of Christianity in the continental United States - and by Florida Living History, Inc. (www.floridalivinghistory.org ). Financial support is provided, in part, by the Florida Humanities Council and by the continued support of Florida Living History, Inc.’s donors.  

 

Founded in St. Augustine, Florida, in 2009, Florida Living History, Inc. (FLH), is a community based, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization of volunteers dedicated to educating the public about Florida's colonial and territorial history, using living-history programs, demonstrations, and recreated portrayals of significant historical events. FLH supports educational initiatives that promote a greater understanding and appreciation of Florida's, and America’s, rich and diverse heritage. 

For more information on Florida Living History, Inc., please contact us via e-mail at info@floridalivinghistory.org or phone us, toll-free, at 1-877-FLA-HIST (1-877-352-4478)!  Copyright Florida Living History, Inc.
Mission Nombre de Dios
CONTACT: Davis Walker
Florida Living History, Inc.
E-mail: info@floridalivinghistory.org
Telephone (toll-free): 1-877-FLA-HIST (1-877-352-4478)

 


LOS FLORIDANOS SOCIETY

By Stephen R. Renouf, Vice President
usina@aol.com   

 

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Los Floridanos, Inc., Florida’s First Spanish Families, 1565-1763, is a historical association formed to educate members of the public concerning the history, heritage, and preservation of the First Florida Spanish Families; to learn what is already known through the work of the Historical Society, University of Florida, Flagler College and other college historical archives; to assist in promoting and funding further historical research; and to promote fellowship among the descendants of the First Spanish Period.

Research: Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, has scanned the Catholic Church records of baptisms, marriages and deaths in St. Augustine, and the scans can be accessed on their website:  http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/esss-landers.pl.  This is a work in process, but many of the records going back to 1594 are now online.  Below is the page showing the May 4, 1599 baptism of my ancestor, Juan Díaz, son of Luis Díaz and María De Los Reyes, performed by Father Ricardo Artur (Richard Arthur), an Irish Priest, in the City of St. Augustine.  

Who are Los Floridanos?

Although Florida was discovered in 1513 by Adelantado Juan Ponce De León, the Spanish were unable to establish a permanent colony for over 50 years.  After French Huguenots attempted to settle Florida, the Spanish dispatched Adelantado Pedro Menéndez de Avilés to Florida in 1565.  Menéndez destroyed the French colony and founded the town of St. Augustine on September 8, 1565.  

The term “Los Floridanos” refers to the children of the Spanish settlers born in Florida during the First Spanish Period (1565-1763).  The first Floridano was Martín de Argüelles, born in St. Augustine in 1566 — the first recorded European child born in what is now the United States.  Spanish settlers, with names such as Solana, Díaz, Sánchez, Álvarez, Arfían, Aguilar, Rodríguez, and Montes de Oca, endured many hardships — such as pirate, French, English and Indian attacks, and the harsh environment — to build St. Augustine, the oldest permanent European settlement in the continental United States.   

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In 1763, Spain ceded its Florida Colony to Great Britain, ending 250 years of Spanish rule.  The Floridanos were evacuated by the Spanish to Cuba.  Two Floridanos, Manuel Lorenzo Solana and Francisco Xavier Sánchez, remained in St. Augustine during the British Occupation.  Some of the Floridanos and their descendants returned to Florida in the years following 1783, when Great Britain ceded East and West Florida back to Spain.

Events: Los Floridanos Society participates in events related to the history and culture of Florida during the First Spanish Period (1565-1763).  One event in which we participate on an annual basis is the St. Augustine Founder’s Day Celebration at Mission Nombre de Dios honoring the founding of St. Augustine on September 8, 1565 by Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés.  In 2015, we will celebrate the 450th anniversary of the founding of St. Augustine.  We are starting the planning process for celebrations starting on September 4, 2015, and culminating with the 450th anniversary on September 8, 2015.  

 

Membership: Los Floridanos Society has three levels of membership:  
GOLD — for members who can prove descent from the First Spanish Families of Florida, 1565-1763.  Dues are $15 per year.  
SILVER — for the spouses and family of Gold Members who lack direct descent from the First Spanish Families of Florida.  Dues are $10 per year.  
BRONZE — for all interested in supporting the mission of the society but lack direct descent from the First Spanish Families of Florida.  Dues are $5 per year.

If you are interested in becoming a member of Los Floridanos, please contact us at the address or e-mail below.  There is also a membership information form on the website.

Los Floridanos Society
Post Office Box 1891
St. Augustine, FL   32085-1891
E-mail: Information@LosFloridanos.org
Website: www.Los Floridanos.org



AFRICAN-AMERICAN

Hard Times for Black Colleges by Michael H. Cottman  
Rosenwald Schools 
Breaking Ground Caribbean Cultural Center: African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI)  
B.B. King to chair National Monument in the Mississippi Delta to honor cotton pickers.

 

Hard Times for Black Colleges
by Michael H. Cottman
 

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George Cooper, PhD. Is a man on a mission, but safeguarding America’s 106 historically black colleges is not an easy job.

Appointed by Pres. Barack Obama as the executive director of the White House Initiative for Historically Back Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in 2013, George Cooper is faced with a tremendous challenge: finding creative ways, with limited federal funds.

What we want to do is provide additional resources to allow these institutions to survive. Cooper, who served four years as president of South Carolina State University said ”branding” HBCUs is a top priority in his effort to help struggling schools increase enrollment. On historically black colleges and universities recently announced its first class  of HBCUs , recognizing 76 undergraduates, graduate and professional students for their accomplishments in academics, leadership and civic engagement. Cooper said these All-Stars will serve as ambassadors of the White House initiative by providing outreach and communications with fellow students about the value of education at HBCUs.

The president’s fiscal year 2015 budget includes continued investments in HBCUs through $75 million for a college success grants program for minority serving institutions and

 Historically Black Colleges and Universities that would support the development of sustainable strategies for reducing cost and improving outcomes for students, an “Obama administration official told Ebony, adding that “under the Obama administration the Department of Education has increased its overall funding for HBCUs from
$3 billion in 2007 to $4 billion in 2012, including increased Pell Grant Funding to support 200,000 students.”

Although Cooper and knowledge the tremendous challenges for he faces, he insisted that he is prepared for the task ahead.

I am really excited about being here, said Cooper was also served as administrative and faculty roles at Alabama A&M University and Tuskegee University. This is a great time to be here and a great opportunity for me to use my skills as an advocate for HBCUs.

“I am proud that I am a graduate of two HBCUs,” he added.  “My parents are HBCUs graduates, my daughters are graduates of Florida A&M. and Bowie State University. So it is true that the HBCU experience has really prepared me and my family to be successful, and those are the things that are important.


Ebony, Vol. LXIX, No. 7,  May 2014

 

 

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CALL FOR 2015 NATIONAL ROSENWALD SCHOOLS SESSION PROPOSALS

Are you making advances in preserving the history and legacy of Rosenwald Schools? Are you involved with a first-rate Rosenwald school project? Do you have a session idea targeted to the conference theme: Sharing the Past, Shaping the Future? If so, then consider submitting a proposal to the 2015 National Rosenwald Schools Conference to be held June 17-19, 2015 in Durham, North Carolina.


 
   

We seek proposals that explore timely, relevant ideas and issues and foster best practices and models. Of special interest, are sessions that present innovative practices and programming, target a compelling topic connected to Rosenwald schools, and have the means to engage attendees and promote positive outcomes. See the Rosenwald Schools Conference Sessions Submission page for session descriptions and more information. Only online submissions will be accepted.  

Breaking Ground Caribbean Cultural Center: African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI)    
Bringing Caribbean African Culture to Harlem
Tuesday, September 16, 2014 10:30am-2:00pm  
120 East 125th Street, NY, NY 10035    

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Join the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute and our project partners for a groundbreaking celebration for our new office at the historical landmarked Firehouse located at 120 East 125th Street in Harlem, NY.  

CCCADI has been named the developer of a decommissioned, historic landmark firehouse located at 120 East 125th Street in East Harlem, El Barrio. Through our Capital Campaign we have successfully raised $5.5 million in city and state support to renovate the Firehouse, planned to be our new home for late 2015. We want to acknowledge and thank the following supporters for their new and renewed support of CCCADI, programs and capital campaign: Partners in Preservation/American Express Initiative, the New York Community Trust, the Ford Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Rockefeller Foundation/Innovation Grant, MetLife Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Hearst Foundation, The Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone (UMEZ), Time Warner and National Cares Mentoring Project.  


Further information: Melody Capote, Deputy Director
CCCADI   (212) 307-7420 x3004   mcapote@cccadi.org
Lisa Banks, Event Coordinator
(516) 353-8048   banks244@hotmail.com  

In the words of Dr. Marta Moreno Vega. President & Founder of the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute: "CCCADI values, connects and advocates for the traditions, history, culture and advancement of the African Diaspora. Through the dual tenants of arts and advocacy, CCCADI aims to create a paradigm shift within the global community toward cultural equity and social justice via new standards, policies and language. The Center has been, and will remain, an accessible community resource, a "first voice" institution, which produces culturally-grounded, purpose-driven and activist-oriented works, while simultaneously serving as a beacon of motivation and inspiration for many.

"CCCADI's work has always been at the vanguard, in line with the living tradition of Diasporic peoples as cultural innovators. Our work has helped transform a lexicon reflective of self-empowerment. For example, the Center is widely credited for coining the term "cultural equity" and for popularizing use of the word "Diaspora" in relation to African descendants. Additionally, we have produced watershed moments in the presentation of innovative works - performances, exhibitions, conferences and scholarship - that highlight the uniquely African aesthetics evident in our global culture."  

 

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B.B. King to chair National Monument in the Mississippi Delta to honor cotton pickers.  
Jimmie E. Gates, Jackson Clarion-Ledger August 8, 2014    

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(Photo: Charles A. Smith)  

 B.B. King has become the honorary chairman of the effort to build a National Monument in the Mississippi Delta to honor cotton pickers. King will replace the late Maya Angelou as the Honorary Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the Cotton Pickers of America and Sharecroppers Interpretative Center.

Khafre, Inc, based in Indianola, Mississippi, began the effort in 2009 to build the complex to say thanks to those who helped without accolades, fanfare, or even recognition, build the cotton empire that fueled the American economy for nearly two centuries., says C. Sade Turnipseed, founder and executive director. The nonprofit group says the approximately 25 feet tall monument will be erected on approximately 20 acres of prime cotton/"blues" land along Highway 61.  

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"The Cotton Pickers Monument Complex would not only help heal wounds that have festered for decades, but would also help to empower the generations of family members who have been negatively impacted by this unfortunate era in American history," Khafre said in a statement. " By embracing the shared history of many races and individuals from different social classes, it is Khafre, Inc's sincerest hope and deeply held conviction that this monument/educational center will help bridge deep racial divisions and distrust through education, outreach and recognition of the strength of the human soul. This is truly a historic endeavor that has the rare opportunity of actually transforming lives, communities, and the conversations about race in America and throughout the world. "  

Contact Jimmie E. Gates at jgates@jackson.gannett.com or (601) 961-7212. Follow @jgatesnews on Twitter

B.B. KING - Singin' the Blues FULL ALBUM - YouTube www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCxbN9ZeHTA
Apr 3, 2013 - Uploaded by Temo Hernández

Singin' the Blues is the 1956 compilation album of blues performer B.B. King on the Bihari brothers' Crown ...

 

INDIGENOUS

Indigenous Coahuila de Zaragoza by John P. Schmal

 

Indigenous Coahuila de Zaragoza

By John P. Schmal  

The state of Coahuila is located in the northern reaches of the Mexican Republic. Bordered by the United States (Texas) on its northern border, Coahuila also touches the state of Chihuahua on its west, Durango on the southwest, Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí on the south, and Nuevo León on the east. As the third largest Mexican state, Coahuila is made up of 151,595 square kilometers, which is equal to 7.7% of the national territory.    

Politically, the State of Coahuila – with its capital in Saltillo -- is divided into thirty-eight municipios.  With a population of 2,748,391 people in 2010, Coahuila has the 17th largest population in the Mexican Republic, which is roughly 2.4% of the Mexican population.    

The distribution of Coahuila’s population is roughly 90% urban and 10% rural, compared to a 78% urban and 22% rural distribution, nationally.  Its largest cities are:    

  • Saltillo (648,929 inhabitants)
  • Torreon (577,477 inhabitants)
  • Monclova (200,110 inhabitants)
  • Piedras Negras (143,915 inhabitants)
  • Ciudad Acuna (126,238 inhabitants)   

The state was named Coahuila de Zaragoza: after the ethnic tribal group Coahuiltec and General Ignacio Zaragoza (1829-1862), who was known for his defeat of the French invasion force at Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862.  

Political Chronology

From 1575, the present-day area of Coahuila was part of Spain’s Nueva Vizcaya province. On January 23, 1691, Coahuila became a part of the Province of Coahuila and Texas, and later became part of Nueva Vizcaya (until 1787). After that, Coahuila had become a separate province as part of the “Provincias Internas,” a colonial, administrative district of the northern Spanish Empire.  

In 1822, Mexico became an independent republic. The Constitution of 1824 created Nuevo León, Coahuila and Texas as a single state.  Nuevo León was detached on May 7, 1824, after Coahuila and Texas had adopted a new constitution on March 11, 1827.  Later, on November 14, 1835, Coahuila was separated from Texas and given statehood on its own.  

Coahuila was occupied by U.S. forces in 1847 and 1848, but stayed a part of Mexico after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) detached a significant part of Northern Mexico and annexed it to the United States. However, from 1856 to 1868, Coahuila and Nuevo León were granted joint statehood. Finally, in 1868, Coahuila earned separate status as the sovereign state of Coahuila de Zaragoza.  

First Contacts with Spaniards

After the Spaniards had conquered Tenochtitlán (Mexico City), they began to gradually expand to the north in search of new territories. The silver rush emerging in Zacatecas (commencing in 1546) inspired an increasing number of Spanish entrepreneurs to move further north. The first Spanish explorers probably wandered into Coahuila sometime after 1535.  Initially, the arid conditions and fierce resistance of the indigenous groups in the region made it difficult for the Spaniards and their Indian allies to establish a permanent settlement.  The Spaniards’ initial interest in Coahuila was focused on the region’s mineral wealth. Various entrepreneurs and explorers entered the area in the hopes of beginning new settlements, where silver or gold could be mined.    

Nearly all of the indigenous people encountered by the Spanish explorers and settlers spoke dialects of Cotoname, a Coahuiltecan language in the Hokan group. But some of the people living in the sparsely inhabited area west of the Sierra were called Tobosos, who probably spoke an Uto-Aztecan language. In the South, the newcomers confronted Coahuiltecan-speaking Cabezas.  

Alberto del Canto, later the magistrate of Saltillo, is believed to have discovered silver at the future site of Monclova in 1577, but his settlement – Minas de la Trinidad – was subsequently abandoned because of Indian hostility.   

Irritilas and Laguneros

According to Peter Gerhard, “The North Frontier of New Spain” (1982), a missionary who knew the Parras region in 1595 wrote that the “original” inhabitants of the area were Yritilas (Irritilas) and Mayranos. Both groups are identified with the people who were later called Laguneros or Salineros, who extended westward to the vicinity of Cerro Gordo.  

Inhabiting the Laguna de Parras (San Pedro), the Laguneros – also known as the Irritilas – were described by the Spaniards as “Lake People,” because they occupied the lakes of the tablelands of Mapimí. They were believed to have been an Aztecoidan branch of the Uto-Aztecan stock, but this is not certain. The Indians lived primarily from fishing, hunting, and gathering, but they probably also sowed maize around the lakeshores as floodwaters receded. They are now extinct.  

Tobosos

The linguist John Reed Swanton regarded the Toboso Indians as a “predatory tribe living in the Seventeenth Century in the Bolsón de Mapimí and extending northward at least to the Río Grande.” From their positions in both Coahuila and Chihuahua, the Tobosos frequently raided Spanish settlements to the east in Coahuila and Nuevo León. Some evidence originally linked the Tobosos with the Athapaskans (Apaches), but more recent research has produced enough evidence to indicate that the Toboso language was probably Uto-Aztecan.    

Guachichiles

The Guachichiles, of all the Chichimeca Indians, occupied the most extensive territory, extending some 100,000 square kilometers from Lake Chapala (Jalisco) in the south to Saltillo (Coahuila) in the north.  Considered both warlike and brave, the Guachichiles roamed through a large section of the present-day state of Zacatecas. The Aztecs used the term “Guachichile” as a reference to “heads painted of red,” a reference to the red dye that they used to paint their bodies, faces and hair. The Guachichil group of tribes is regarded as connected with the present-day Huichol language group (of Jalisco and Nayarit) and has been classified as part of the Aztecoidan division of the Uto-Aztecan linguistic family.

 

The Guachichiles and their “Chichimeca” cousins, the Zacatecos, waged the 40-year war (1550-1590) known as the “Chichimeca War” against Spanish forces, primarily in the vast region south of Coahuila (Zacatecas, Northern Jalisco, Aguascalientes, Western San Luis Potosí and Guanajuato).  They were never decisively defeated in battle, but were pacified through gifts that included many of the materials used by Spaniards and “civilized” Indians to live and thrive in their Spanish settlements. A detailed discussion of the Chichimeca War is discussed in the article below:  

http://www.houstonculture.org/mexico/zacatecas_indig.html  

Zacatecos

The Zacatecos were an indigenous tribe related to the Cazcan of the Aztecoidan family and Uto-Aztecan stock, occupying a large part of the State of Zacatecas and smaller portions of eastern Durango and southern Coahuila.  They were bordered by the Irritilas and Laguneros on the north, the Tepehuán on the west, and the Guachichile on the east. On the south, they were bordered by the Cora and Cazcan. According to David Frye, “Northeastern Mexico,” by 1620, some elements of the Zacatecos had moved farther north to live among indigenous groups in the mission town of Parras in the aftermath of the Chichimeca War.  

Conchos (Northwest Coahuila)

The Conchos have been described in great detail by several researchers.  They were named for the Spanish word for “shells,” a likely reference to the many shellfish found in the Conchos River.  The Concho Indians lived near the junction of the Rio Concho River and Rio Grande Rivers in northern Chihuahua.  However, the Conchos are also believed to have extended their reach into the modern-day state of Coahuila.  

The Conchos were placed by Mason and Johnson in the Taracahitian division of the Uto-Aztecan linguistic stock, with two major subdivisions: the Chinarra around the salt lakes and sand dunes of northern Chihuahua, and the Chizo, an eastern subdivision that inhabits the area east of the Concho and near the big bend of the Río Grande.   In 1934, Kroeber placed the Concho in the Cahita-Opata-Tarahumara group, most closely related to Opata and less so with the Tarahumara.    

The Apaches

In the north the Spanish frontier met the Apache southward expansion. In the first half of the seventeenth century, Apaches acquired horses from Spanish colonists of New Mexico and achieved dominance of the Southern Plains. The Apache expansion was intensified by the Pueblo Indian Revolt of 1680, when the Apaches lost their prime source of horses and shifted south to prey on Spanish settlements in Coahuila. Juan Domínguez de Mendoza recorded the names of numerous Indian groups east of the lower Pecos River that were displaced by Apaches.  

In 1780, the Comanches from the north began to harass the Apaches with raids that reached as far south as Monclova. As a result, the Apaches moved toward the coastal plain of Texas and became known as the Lipan Apaches. The Lipans in turn displaced the last Indian groups native to southern Texas, most of whom went to the Spanish missions in the San Antonio area. By 1790 the Spaniards had turned their attention from the aboriginal groups and focused on containing the Apache invaders in Coahuila, Chihuahua and Texas.    

The Coahuiltecan Tribes

The Coahuiltecan tribes were made up of hundreds of bands of hunter-gatherers who ranged over the eastern part of Coahuila, northern Tamaulipas, Nuevo León and southern Texas south and west of San Antonio River and Cibolo Creek. It is believed that the Coahuiltecans reached all the way to the Gulf coast at the mouth of the Nueces. Northeast of that point they were succeeded by Karankawan tribes. Toward the north, the Coahuiltecans were displaced by the Apache and Comanche. However, some tribes along the lower Rio Grande may have belonged to a distinct family, Tamaulipecan (described in 1864 by Orozco y Berra).  

The Coahuiltecans were tattooed and wore a breechcloth or hide skirt, fiber sandals, and, in bad weather, they covered themselves with animal hides. Animal teeth, bones, feathers, stones, and seeds were worn as jewelry and sometimes woven into their intricately braided hair. Shelter consisted of small temporary huts of brush or grass, sensible structures given their way of life and the climate of the area over which they ranged. It was the practice of the Coahuiltecans (or Coahuiltecos) to move from one traditional campsite to another, following the seasons and herds of migrating animals. During the Spanish colonial period a majority of the Coahuilatecan natives were displaced from their traditional territories by Spaniards advancing from the south and Apaches advancing from the north. A large number of the small tribal groups or bands belonging to the Coahuiltecan stock remain unknown to this day and even their locations – in some cases – are not clear.  

Early Settlements

On July 25, 1577, the Portuguese explorer Captain Alberto del Canto founded San Estevan (later known as La Villa de Santiago del Saltillo) near a mission that had been established four years earlier. Saltillo became the oldest post-conquest settlement in Northern Mexico.  However, in 1581, the Saltillo inhabitants were forced to retreat to Durango and Mazapil by sustained Indian attacks. But after 14 years, the Spaniards were able to return and establish San Esteban de Tlaxcala in 1591.  

In 1578, Francisco de Urdinola established the town of Parras, which was actually abandoned for a few years, but settlers returned there in 1598. Between 1583 and 1585, an expedition led by Luis Carvajal y de la Cueva resulted in the foundation of Nuevo Almadén. Other settlements followed in the Seventeenth Century, but unfortunately, no major concentrations of gold or silver veins were found.  Coahuila's earth's richness is in metalloids such as iron, carbon, fluorite, and others, which would be discovered much later.    

Tlaxcaltecan Settlements

In 1590, Viceroy Luis de Velasco II commanded that 400 families of loyal, converted Tlaxcaltecans Indians (from Tlaxcala in the south) be settled alongside the Chichimec and other nomadic tribes of the northern frontier area. In June 1591, a caravan of 100 wagons and 932 colonists began their journey. These 932 colonists consisted of 690 married individuals, 187 children and 55 single or widowed individuals. On August 5, 1591 the caravan arrived at Cuicillo, where the caravan split up for different destinations. One of the four groups --

245 Tlaxcaltecans led by Capitan Buenaventura Paz -- was sent from San Juan del Rio to parts of Nuevo León, Durango and Coahuila.  

The purpose of the Tlaxcaltecan caravan was to offer the Tlaxcalans an opportunity to serve as examples of “civilized Indians” for the native Indians.  They would play a role in the Christianizing of the nomadic desert tribes. The town of San Estebán de la Nueva Tlaxcala in Coahuila was among the settlements founded for this purpose. In 1674, Fray Juan de Larios conquered a great deal of the territory of Coahuila and established the village of Guadalupe, another Tlaxcalan settlement. Nearby, the city of Monclova was also established in 1674 and soon after it was declared the capital of the area.

 

Missions as a Place of Refuge

In northeastern Coahuila and adjacent Texas, the displacement of Coahuiltecans and other nomadic groups by the Spaniards and Apaches created an unusual ethnic mix. Inevitably, the numerous Spanish missions in the region would provide a refuge for the displaced and declining Indian populations. In the mission system, local Indians mixed with displaced groups from Coahuila, Chihuahua and Texas.  

The number of Indian groups at the missions varied from fewer than twenty groups to as many as 100. Missions in existence the longest usually had more groups, particularly in the north. Mission Indian villages usually consisted of about 100 Indians of mixed groups who generally came from a wide area surrounding a mission. Although survivors of a group often entered a single mission, individuals and families of one ethnic group might scatter to five or six missions. Some Indians never entered a mission.  

The former hunter-gatherers were willing to become part of the mission system for a number of reasons. The irrigation system promised a more stable supply of food than they normally enjoyed. Diseases brought by Europeans had depleted their numbers, making the Coahuiltecans even more vulnerable to their now-mobile enemies. The presidio – frequently located close to a mission -- offered much greater protection from the Apaches.  

The missionaries, along with lay helpers and usually no more than two soldiers and their families, instructed the natives in the Catholic faith and in the elements of Spanish peasant society. The Indians learned various trades, including carpentry, masonry, blacksmithing, and weaving; they also did a great deal of agricultural work.  

Because the missions had an agricultural base, they declined when the Indian labor force dwindled. Missions were distributed unevenly. Some were in remote areas, while others were clustered, often two to five in number, in small areas. A large number of displaced Indians collected in the clustered missions, which generally had a military garrison (presidio) for protection. Eventually, all the Spanish missions were abandoned or transferred to diocesan jurisdictions.  

Classification of the Coahuiltecans

Initially, the Spaniards had little interest in describing the natives or classifying them into ethnic units. There was no obvious basis for classification, and major cultural contrasts and tribal organizations went unnoticed, as did similarities and differences in the native languages and dialects. The Spanish padres referred to each Indian group as a nación, and described them according to their association with major terrain features or with Spanish jurisdictional units. Only in Nuevo León did observers link Indian populations by cultural peculiarities, such as hairstyle and body decoration. Thus, modern scholars have found it difficult to identify these hunting and gathering groups by language and culture.

 

The first attempt at classification of the Coahuila Indians was based on language, but came after most of the Indian groups had become extinct. Over time, Indians from other linguistic groups entered the Texas, Tamaulipas and Coahuila missions.  Eventually, many of the ethnohistorians and anthropologists came to believe that the entire region was occupied by numerous small Indian groups who spoke related languages and shared the same basic culture, the Coahuiltecan culture. By the mid-nineteenth century, Mexican linguists had constructed what is now known as "Coahuiltecan culture" by assembling bits of specific and generalized information recorded by Spaniards for widely scattered and limited parts of the region.

 

A majority of the Coahuiltecan Indians lost their identity during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Their names disappeared from the written record as epidemics, warfare, migration, dispersion by Spaniards to work at distant plantations and mines, high infant mortality, and general demoralization took their toll. Small remnants of tribes merged with larger remnants of other groups. By 1800 the names of few ethnic units appear in documents, and by 1900 the names of groups native to the region had disappeared.

 

Loss of Ethnic Identity

A majority of the Coahuiltecan Indians lost their identity during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Their names disappeared from the written record as epidemics, warfare, migration, dispersion by Spaniards to work at distant plantations and mines, high infant mortality, and general demoralization took their toll. Small remnants merged with larger remnants. By 1800 the names of few ethnic units appear in documents, and by 1900 the names of groups native to the region had disappeared. Missions and refugee communities near Spanish or Mexican towns were the last bastions of ethnic identity. The Indians caused little trouble and provided unskilled labor. Ethnic names vanished with intermarriages. By the end of the eighteenth century, missions closed and Indian families were given small parcels of mission land. Eventually, the survivors passed into the lower economic levels of Mexican society.

 

Population Figures

According to the “Handbook of Texas Online,” estimates of the total Coahuiltecan population in 1690 vary widely. One scholar estimates the total nonagricultural Indian population of northeastern Mexico, which included desert lands west to the Río Conchos in Chihuahua, at 100,000; another scholar (Ruecking, 1953) compiled a list of 614 group names (Coahuiltecan) for northeastern Mexico and southern Texas and estimated the average population per group as 140 and therefore reckoned the total population at 86,000.

 

Kikapú

Kikapú is the only current indigenous language that might be considered indigenous to Coahuila. The Kikapú of Coahuila are part of an Algonquin speaking tribe of northern origin that also lives in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas. The Mexican Kikapú live primarily around the town of El Nacimiento de los Kikapúes, located in the municipio of Melchor Múzquiz, Coahuila. According to the INI (2003) and the National Council on Population (Consejo Nacional de Población CONAPO), there were 339 Kikapú speakers in 1995 and only 138 in 2000, but it is likely that many tribal members do not speak the language (but may be considered part of the Kikapú ethnic group).  

The Background of the “Kickapoo Indians”

Before contact with Europeans, the Kickapoo lived in northwest Ohio and southern Michigan in the area between Lake Erie and Lake Michigan. Beginning in the 1640s, the Algonquin tribes in this region came under attack from the east, first by the Ottawa and Iroquian-speaking Neutrals, and then the Iroquois. By 1658 the Kickapoo had been forced west into southwest Wisconsin.  

About 1700 they began to move south into northern Illinois and by 1770 had established themselves in central Illinois (near Peoria) extending southeast into the Wabash Valley on the western border of Indiana. After wars with the Americans and settlement of the Ohio Valley, they signed treaties during 1819 ceding their remaining land east of the Mississippi River and relocated to southern Missouri (1819-24). Initially, most moved to the lands assigned them, but many remained in central Illinois and refused to leave until they were forcibly removed by the military in 1834.  

Several bands of Kickapoo did not want to stay in Missouri and began wandering south and west, spreading across Oklahoma and Texas all the way to the Mexican border (and beyond). In 1832 the Missouri Kickapoo exchanged their reserve for lands in northeast Kansas. After the move, factions developed, and in 1852, a large group left and moved to Chihuahua in northern Mexico, where some of the Kickapoo had already made their home. The Mexican Kickapoo (known as Kikapú in Mexico) were joined by other tribal members between 1857 and 1863, but  between 1873 and 1878, approximately half of the Mexican Kickapoo returned to Oklahoma in the United States.  

In 2000, the largest concentration of the Kikapú were found in the Coahuila’s north central municipio of Múzquiz, where 106 of the 125 Kikapú speakers lived at the time of the 2000 census.    

Indigenous Coahuila in the Twentieth Century

By the late Nineteenth Century, nearly all the indigenous groups of Coahuila had disappeared.  The 1895 census recorded only 19 indigenous speakers in the entire state.  This number increased slightly to 55 in 1900 and to 263 in 1910.  In 1910, Coahuila had 262 Kikapú speakers, which means that only one indigenous person in the state spoke a language other than Kikapú.  

In the unique 1921 Mexican census, residents of each state were asked to classify themselves in several categories, including “indígena pura” (pure indigenous), “indígena mezclada con blanca” (indigenous mixed with white) and “blanca” (white). Out of a total state population of 393,480,  

  • 44,779 persons (or 1.1%) claimed to be of pure indigenous background
  • 306,433 persons (or 77.9%) classified themselves as being mixed
  • 39,853 persons (or 10.1%) classified themselves as white.

The 2010 Census

According to the 2010 Mexican census, only 6,105 persons five years of age or more in the State of Coahuila actually spoke an indigenous language. The most represented languages in the State were:  

  • Náhuatl (931 speakers)
  • Kikapú (433 speakers)
  • Mazahua (336 speakers)
  • Zapotec (225 speakers)

With the exception of the Kikapú speakers, the majority of these indigenous speakers were either migrants from other parts of Mexico or the children of migrants who arrived in the State at a later date. In 2010, only 39 residents of Coahuila were monolingual speakers of their indigenous language. In the final analysis, Coahuila ranked at the bottom of all the Mexican states for the number of its indigenous speakers.  

Mexicans Considered Indigenous

The 2010 census included a question that asked people if they considered themselves indigenous, whether or not an indigenous language was spoken. The results of this question indicated that 15.7 million persons in Mexico 3 years of age and older identified themselves as “indigenous.”  By comparison, 6.9 million people in the same age bracket were tallied as indigenous speakers, meaning that approximately 8.8 million Mexicans aged 3 and older did not speak an indigenous language but considered themselves to be of indigenous origin.  

In all, only 14,638 residents of Coahuila in 2010 were classified as indigenous, about 0.5% of the state’s population and more than double the number of indigenous speakers (6,105). The two municipios with the largest number of “indigenous” persons were Saltillo (3,992) and Torreón (3,219), but Múzquiz with 760 indigenous persons had one of the highest percentages of all Coahuila municipios.  

The Future

Most of Coahuila’s indigenous population disappeared, dispersed or assimilated in the Eighteenth Century. While the Kikapú speakers hang on in northern Coahuila, the only other source of indigenous speakers in the State will come from the migrant workers who travel from Oaxaca, Guerrero and other southern states.  

Coahuila is Mexico’s top mining state in large part because of its large coal reserves. Thanks to Coahuila’s coal industry, its export-oriented manufacturing industry (the maquiladora) and Saltillo’s prosperous automobile industry, it is likely that migrants will continue to enter Coahuila’s border, thus bringing an influx of new indigenous speakers from other states.  

Copyright © 2014, by John P. Schmal.

Sources:  

Alessio Robles, Vito’ “Coahuila y Texas en la Epoca Colonial” (Mexico City: Editorial Cultura, 1938; 2d ed., Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1978).  

Bolton, Herbert Eugene (ed.). “Spanish Exploration in the Southwest, 1542-1706” (New York: Scribner, 1908; rpt., New York: Barnes and Noble, 1959)  

Campbell, Thomas N. “Coahuiltecans and Their Neighbors,” in “Handbook of North American Indians,” Vol. 10 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1983).  

Campbell, Thomas N. “The Indians of Southern Texas and Northeastern Mexico: Selected Writings of Thomas Nolan Campbell.” (Austin: Texas Archeological Research Laboratory, 1988).  

Campillo Cuautli, Hector. “Diccionario Ilustrado y Enciclopedia Regional del Estado de Coahuila” (Mexico, D.F.: Fernández Editories, 1987).  

Departamento de la Estadística Nacional, “Annuario de 1930” (Tacubaya, D.F., Mexico, 1932).  

Departamento de la Estadistica Nacional, Estados Unidos Mexicanos, “Censos General de Habitantes: 30 de Noviembre de 1921, Estado de Jalisco,” (Mexico, Distrito Federal: Talleres Graficos de la Nación, 1926)  

Forbes, Jack D. “Unknown Athapaskans: The Identification of the Jano, Jocome, Jumano, Manso, Suma, and Other Indian Tribes of the Southwest,” Ethnohistory 6 (Spring 1959).  

Frye, David. “The Native Peoples of Northeastern Mexico” in “The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas: Volume II: Mesoamerica: Part 2” (edited by Richard E.W. Adams and Murdo J. MacLeod (Cambridge University Press, 2000)).  

Gerhard, Peter. “The North Frontier of New Spain” (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1982).  

Gibson, Arrell Morgan, “The Kickapoos; Lords of the Middle Border” (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963).

Griffen, William B. “Culture Change and Shifting Populations in Central Northern Mexico” (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1969).  

Hackett, Charles W. (ed.) “Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773” (Washington: Carnegie Institution, 1923-37).  

INEGI, “Censo de Población y Vivienda (2010): Panorama Sociodemográfico de México” (March 2011).  

Nielsen, George R, “The Kickapoo People” (Phoenix Indian Tribal Series, 1975).  

Powell, Philip Wayne. “Soldiers Indians and Silver: North America's First Frontier War.” (Tempe, Arizona: Center for Latin American Studies, Arizona State University, 1975).  

Ruecking, Freidrich H., “The Economic Systems of the Coahuiltecan Indians of Southern Texas and Northeastern Mexico (1953).  

Sauer, Carl. “The Distribution of Aboriginal Tribes and Languages in Northwestern Mexico” (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1934).  

Swanton, J.R. “Linguistic Material from the Tribes of Southern Texas and Northeastern Mexico” (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1940).

 

SEPHARDIC

Sephardic Jews founded key cities in Mexico
San Antonio scholar to discuss culture at Laredo temple by Tricia Cortez, Laredo Morning Times  

The Different Perspectives of Jewish Law, the Jewish People, and the State of Israel towards the Secret Jews (Anusim) By Shlomo Buzaglo  

 
 

Sephardic Jews founded key cities in Mexico

San Antonio scholar to discuss culture at Laredo temple
by Tricia Cortez, Laredo Morning Times

 

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In the 1500s, Sephardic Jews founded several key cities in Mexico, namely Monterrey, Saltillo, Monclova, Guadalajara, Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí. They soon moved northward and quickly established themselves as part of the ruling class.

"The fact that Nuevo Reyno de Leon (now the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon) was founded by Sephardic Jews is extremely important and serves as the basis of contemporary culture of Northern Mexico and South Texas," historian and scholar Richard G. Santos said. "Today, we find many of their descendants as business people, educators and in the arts. Some are acutely aware of their Sephardic roots, many are not," he said.

Santos, a San Antonio native with deep Mexican Jewish roots, will give a talk this evening on how the Sephardic Jewish culture "is very much alive today." The lecture is free and open to the public and will be held tonight at 8:30 p.m. at Congregation Agudas Achim, 1301 N. Malinche.

Author of "Silent Heritage: The Sephardim and the Colonization of the Spanish North American Frontier, 1492-1600," Santos teaches English and history at Southwest Texas Junior Community College in Crystal City.  

He has conducted extensive research over the past 25 years on Sephardic Jewish colonizers, combing the national archives of Mexico City, state archives of Nuevo Leon and Coahuila, municipal archives of Monterrey and the archives of New Mexico, and several towns along the Rio Grande.

More than 400 years after Sephardic Jews colonized and laid their roots in the New World, their influence can still be felt in colloquial Spanish phrases, foods such as flour tortillas, cabrito al pastor, capirotada and pan de semita and "our general world view and religiosity," Santos said. "What they really passed on were survival skills," he said. "They survived not only expulsion from Spain but religious and social discrimination."

Furthermore, the philosophy of the Spanish American frontier, "cumplo pero no obedezco (I deliver but don't obey)" can be attributed to Sephardic culture, Santos added. Hailing from the Iberian peninsula, records show that Sephardic Jews settled in Spain and Portugal as far back as 1500 B.C. Sepharad means "the land where we grew up to be princes and princesses," Santos said.  

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  When they were expelled from Spain in 1492, by order of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, many left for the New World and lived their lives as crypto-Jews, practicing their religion in secret. Some were also sincere converts to Catholicism. The alternative was death at the hands of the Inquisition.  

  One key Sephardic colonizer in the New World is Don Luis de Carvajal y de la Cueva, a Portuguese Jew, who established the kingdom, now state, of Nuevo Leon in 1580. Don Luis was a businessmen who dealt in African slaves, Native American slaves, wine and European merchandise. In 1576, he captured the British pirates of John Hawkins near Tampico, Santos said. One year after founding Nuevo Leon, Don Luis re-established what is now Monterrey in 1581.

This Mexican city, originally named Santa Lucia, was founded in 1575 by Alberto del Canto, a Portuguese Jew born in the Azores Islands. In 1575, Del Canto also founded the cities of Monclova (originally called la Trinidad), Cerralvo (originally San Gregorio) and Saltillo.  

  One interesting side note, Santos said, is that Don Luis de Carvajal changed the name of Santa Lucia to San Luis in 1581, before the name was permanently changed to Monterrey in 1596. "It is interesting that descendants of the original founding Sephardic families refer to Monterrey as San Luisito," Santos said.  

Another important Sephardic family during this era was the Oñate family. They were Basques of Jewish ancestry. Don Cristobal de Oñate founded the cities of Guadalajara in 1528 and Zacatecas in 1548 while his son, Juan, established the city of San Luis Potosí in 1591. Don Juan later became the founder of what is now New Mexico in 1598, but he was not the first to make this northward trek.

Seven years earlier, Gaspar Castaño de Sosa, a Portuguese Jew, took the entire population of Monclova up the Pecos River and into New Mexico in 1591 . There, Castaño de Sosa was arrested and the would-be colonists are brought to Zacatecas, from whence they returned to Saltillo and Monclova.  

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  According to Santos, Don Luis de Carvajal and other Sephardic colonizers "suffered the same fate as other conquistadores."  

 "Once they were seen as being too powerful, they were removed from office," he said. In Don Luis' case, he was arrested by the Inquisition in 1585 and charged with harboring Jews and heretics, namely his sister and her children. She and her children, with the exception of two who escape, are burned at the stake. Don Luis, meanwhile, died in 1591 in jail in Mexico City.  

  Santos said these Sephardic families were tightly knit and initially safeguarded their identity, property and wealth by only marrying among themselves. 

By 1800, however, they began to intermarry outside their group. Birth and death records also show that they identified and recognized all wives, as well as all legitimate and illegitimate children, Santos said. Because these families became part of the ruling class, they successfully relocated priests and others who complained of too many Jews in a particular area, Santos said. He noted that it is difficult to assess how many Sephardic Jews settled in the region since many hid their identities and never gave their real names or where they were born or their parents' names.

Tricia Cortez may be reached at 728-2568 or by e-mail at tricia@lmtonline.com 
Sent by John Inclan  
fromgalveston@yahoo.com
   

 

 


The Different Perspectives of Jewish Law, 
the Jewish People, and the State of Israel towards the Secret Jews (Anusim)

By Shlomo Buzaglo  

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The topic of the conference is an important area of concern when out of the millions of descendants of the forced Jewish converts to Christianity (Conversos) scattered around the world, there are potentially thousands who wish to return to Judaism and to the Jewish people.  

The conference was divided into two sessions:  

(1) The Descendants of the Marranos in Jewish Law

(2) The Attitude of the State of Israel and the Jewish People towards the Descendants of the Marranos

President of Netanya Academic College (NAC) Prof. Zvi Arad gave the welcoming remarks. He presented an award to the Sabah Foundation, which is providing funding to Netanya Academic College to continue its work in this area through its International Institute for Secret Jews (Anusim) Studies (IISJAS). Shlomo Buzaglo manages the Institute and coordinates its activities with Casa Shalom—Institute for Marrano-Anusim Studies.    

NAC Senior VP Dr. David Altman introduced the subject. He claimed the need to create a kind of 'Yad Vashem' for the descendants of the Conversos since the subject is unfamiliar to Israelis and to most Jews, and insisted on the need to place this issue on the national agenda. The controversy dealing with whether our ancestors were willing or forced to convert should not be our main concern; we have to help those wishing to return to their religious heritage.    

In the first Session, chaired by Prof. Zvi Gilat of Netanya Academic College, the speakers tended to give their opinion about the Jewishness of the descendants of the Conversos.  

Prof. Michael Corinaldi who is Chairman of the (IISSAJ) at NAC, stated categorically that the descendants of the Conversos are indeed part of the Jewish people. He explained that the New Christians were not considered as Old Christians, and therefore New Christians never married with Old Christians. The Anusim themselves submitted to the new religion only outwardly, which explains the position of Rabbi Shlomo ben Shimon Duran, the Rashbash (1400-1467), that Anusim should be returned to Judaism and not converted. 

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Rabbi Eliahu Touitou who has worked in South America, Portugal and Spain in the field of descendants of Anusim, also endorsed this viewpoint and emphasized the large numbers of potential returnees to Judaism who have been turned away by the mainstream Jewish authorities without halachic justification.  

Rabbi MK Dov Lipman of the Yesh Atid party, and a member of the Knesset Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs, spoke about the need of looking for and bringing back home all the zerah Israel (the "seed of Israel" i.e., descendants or Jews).  

Rabbi Moshe Pinchuk who is the head of the Jewish Heritage Center at NAC, emphasized that the classical and clear-cut interpretation is that someone who is born of a Jewish mother is by definition Jewish. But the problem arises when there are people who have Jewish fathers or grandparents, known as "the seed of the Jews" in rabbinical discourse. He stated that in the original Law of Return adopted by the Knesset in 1949 the prior definition was used, but it was quickly modified in practice in 1952 to include persons with Jewish fathers and grandparents. In other words, a purely religious definition was inadequate for the State of Israel, which needed an ethnic or national definition. Some rabbinical authorities support this approach and others reject it.    

In the second Session,Shai Hermesh spoke for the World Zionist Congress and supported the view that more or less all descendants of Anusim were potentially Jewish. By helping descendants of Anusim to come back to their roots, an historical injustice will be corrected, our national demographic discrepancy with non-Jewish populations compensated, and the drop in worldwide Jewish figures during the last 70 years will level off.  

Abraham Duvdevani of the World Zionist Organization spoke in more practical terms and from his personal experience pointed out the difficulties of the shlichim (emissaries) on the ground in determining whether or not after 500 years someone is legitimately Jewish because they have some residual Jewish practices and claim to be Jewish, or are moved by Messianic motivations. He concluded that ultimately the secular state authorities must depend on the rabbinical authorities to classify for them who indeed is or is not a Jew.  

The Session ended with two personal statements. The first was by Cecilia Mendes, a Portuguese attorney practicing law in Lisbon, who discovered in her teens that she was descended on her maternal side from Chuetas. Her grandmother left Majorca (an act that was previously forbidden to Chuetas), married and lived in Seville. Subsequently her mother married and moved

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 to Lisbon. In her research on her maternal descendants she discovered that over the centuries the Chuetas were cruelly treated by the Christian authorities. They were not only forbidden to leave the island, but were restricted to certain crafts and locations. The Chuetas (a group of fifteen families who converted to Christianity in 1435 to stay on the island) were required to take Christian names that were carefully recorded for posterity, so that there was no intermarriage or social interaction between 'Chuetas' and 'Old Christians' in Majorca. Thus, after taking conversion classes in Judaism, Ms. Mendes was able to present her evidence of Jewish matrilineal descent to the rabbinate in Jerusalem and was accepted as Jewish without the need for conversion. She ended by pointing out that she was a consultant for the drafting of the new law recently adopted by the Portuguese Parliament that extends Portuguese citizenship to any Sephardic Jews who can prove that their antecedents lived at any time in Portugal.  

The Conference ended with a statement by Mrs. Gloria Mound, Executive Director of Casa Shalom and Senior Advisor to the IISJAS, who pointed out in summary that although the issue of the rights of the descendants of Anusim has been raised numerous times with the relevant authorities, including the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption, the Jewish Agency and personally with Rabbi Lipman, as far as she could determine, apart from a lot of promises, nothing has actually been done to facilitate the return of the descendants of the Anusim to the Jewish people and to Israel.

Summary of the conference was prepared in four languages by Shlomo Buzaglo, the new managing director of the International Institute for Secret Jews (Anusim) Studies. Shlomo Buzaglo is also the coordinator between the Institute and Casa Shalom, at Netanya Academic College, Netanya, Israel. With thanks to Shlomo Buzaglo and Adina Moryosef, associate director.

http://sephardichorizons.org/Volume4/Issue3/conference.html 
Source: Sephardic Horizons Volume 4, Issue 3, Summer 2014

 

ARCHAEOLOGY

 

Before they left Africa, early modern humans were 'culturally diverse'

 

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(Phys.org, Aug 18, 2014) —Researchers have carried out the biggest ever comparative study of stone tools dating to between 130,000 and 75,000 years ago found in the region between sub-Saharan Africa and Eurasia. They have discovered there are marked differences in the way stone tools were made, reflecting a diversity of cultural traditions. The study has also identified at least four distinct populations, each relatively isolated from each other with their own different cultural characteristics. The research paper also suggests that early populations took advantage of rivers and lakes that criss-crossed the Saharan desert. A climate model coupled with data about these ancient water courses was matched with the new findings on stone tools to reveal that populations connected by rivers had similarities in their cultures. This could be the earliest evidence of different populations 'budding' across the Sahara, using the rivers to disperse and meet people from other populations, says the paper published in the journal, Quaternary Science Reviews.      

The researchers from the University of Oxford, Kings College London and the University of Bordeaux took over 300,000 measurements of stone tools from 17 archaeological sites across North Africa, including the Sahara. For the first time they combined the stone tool data with a model of the North African environment during that period, which showed that the Sahara was then a patchwork of savannah, grasslands and water, interspersed with desert. They also mapped out known ancient rivers and major lakes, building on earlier research by Professor Nick Drake, one of this paper's co-authors. By modelling and mapping the environment, the researchers were then able to draw new inferences on the contexts in which the ancient populations made and used their tools. The results show, for the first time, how early populations of modern humans dispersed across the Sahara, one after the other 'budding' into populations along the ancient rivers and watercourses.  

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Lead researcher Dr Eleanor Scerri, visiting scholar at the University of Oxford, said: 'This is the first time that scientists have identified that early modern humans at the cusp of dispersal out of Africa were grouped in separate, isolated and local populations. Stone tools are the only form of preserved material culture for most of human history. In Africa, owing to the hot climate, ancient DNA has not yet been found. These stone tools reveal how early populations of modern humans dispersed across the Sahara just before they left North Africa. While different populations were relatively isolated, we were interested to find that when connected by rivers, they share similarities in their tool-making suggesting some interaction with one another.' The researchers used a variety of tests in order to rule out causes of variability, such as differences in raw materials. This was done to establish that tool-making traditions were consistently culturally distinctive among the different populations in the study.     

 Dr Scerri said: 'Not much is known about the structure of early modern human populations in Africa, particularly at the time of their earliest dispersals into Eurasia. Our picture of modern human demography around 100,000 years ago is that there were a number of populations, varying in size and degree of genetic contact, distributed over a wide geographical area. This model of our population history supports other theories recently put forward that modern humans may have first successfully left Africa earlier than 60,000-50,000 years ago, which had been the common view among scholars. Our work provides important new evidence that sheds light on both the timing of early modern human dispersals out of Africa and the character of our interaction with other human species, such as Neanderthals.'  

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 Co-author Dr Huw Groucutt, from the School of Archaeology at the University of Oxford, said: 'The question of whether there was an early successful exit from Africa has become one of whether any of the populations discovered in this paper went in and out of Africa for some or all of this time. A crucial next step involves fieldwork in areas such as the Arabian Peninsula to understand how these populations spread into Eurasia.  The ongoing fieldwork by the Oxford University based Palaeodeserts Project is seeking to do exactly that, and we are making some remarkable discoveries in the deserts of Arabia, which may also have been the region where both Neanderthal and Homo sapiens populations may have interacted.'  

http://phys.org/news/2014-08-left-africa-early-modern-humans.html
Sent by John Inclan  

 

 

 

 

MEXICO

Lost and Found: Three hundred year-old Mexican document found in Milwaukee   
130 representative of the Yaqui Tribe went to Mexico City
Carlos Slim supported 165,000 young people to attend a university
Bautismo de Deodoro Pedro Regalado Francisco de Paula de la Santisima Trinidad
La historia familiar oral se desvanece en sólo tres generaciones  
El registro del bautismo de Aurelio Maicotte
Personajes extranjeros radicados en la Capital de Mexico y Archivaldo Pasqual Francisco Epitacio

 


Lost and Found: Three hundred year-old Mexican document found in Milwaukee

Published April 3, 2012 Uncategorized4 Comments
Tags:
American Geographical society Library, codice de Santa Catarina Ixtepeji, colonial Latin America, Guatemalan history, Laura Matthew

Laura Matthew on the secret life of primary sources and the responsibility historians have to them, and to each other, when documenting the past.

I have been thinking about how documents are lost, then found.

A week or so ago, my friend and colleague Aims McGuiness from the History department at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee (UWM) left me a voice mail message. “There’s this mysterious document at the American Geographical Society Library here at UWM,” he said. “It looks colonial-era, and maybe Mexican. The librarians don’t know what it is, or how they got it. Could you come look at it?”

“Ooh, fun!” I emailed him back (yes, that’s a direct quote). “I can always make time for a lost document.”

Little did I know. A few days later, Jovanka Ristic and Kay Guilden at the AGS Library unrolled in front of me a piece of bark paper on textile, about six feet long and two feet wide. The document had the characteristic look of an indigenous land title from Mexico’s mid-colonial period, a mix of traditional pictographic narration and alphabetic text.

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Two sections in Spanish told me that the document dated from 1691-1709, and came from Santa Catharina de Tepexi. The rest of the text looked oddly like Zapotec – odd, because Tepexi is in the current state of Puebla, whereas Zapotec is spoken further southwest in Oaxaca. Since I am no expert in indigenous languages (nor, as it turns out, in Mexican geography), this was as far as my observations could take me.

But I knew who could take it further. The next day I wrote my friend and colleague Michel Oudijk at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Michel and I co-edited a book together in the mid-2000s. He studies ancient Zapotec history through the pictographic writings of the colonial period. He also wrote a book on the leader of Tepexi, Puebla, during the conquest period. “Hey Michel,” I wrote, “there’s this document here in Milwaukee….” I described what I’d seen, and sent some pictures the librarians had provided.

Michel Oudijk and Bas van Doesburg examining the tira 

Laura Matthew, Aims McGuinness and Christopher Baruth 
looking at the tira

“Wooooooooooooooowwwwwwww, Es el Códice de Santa Catarina Ixtepeji!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” came the response in my email a day later. (Again, a direct quote).

As it turned out, Michel and his friend and colleague Sebastián van Doesburg had been searching for this document for over a decade, in archives throughout Mexico, Europe, and the United States. It is not from Tepexi in Puebla, but from the Zapotec town of Santa Catarina Ixtepeji in Oaxaca. Sebastián had even published an article on the document in 2000, based on a grainy black-and-white photograph of the document’s left-hand corner from the 1950s that he had found in the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City.

Scholars writing in the 1960s reported that a document on leather from Santa Catarina Ixtepeji had been sold to a German consul in the early twentieth century. The scholars included this information in their catalogues of pictorial manuscripts from Mexico, with the hope that someday, somewhere, a document that was once seen would resurface.

(Sebastián’s research suggested that in fact there may have been two lost documents from Santa Catarina de Ixtepeji. The second, it seemed, was sold by a British consular official in Oaxaca named Rickards, a Mexican of Scottish descent, from his private collection. This is the document at the AGS Library).

I rode the bus home that afternoon with a big, goofy smile on my face. I will not use the once-lost Códice de Santa Catarina de Ixtepeji in my own research – but I know exactly how excited Michel and Sebastián were feeling at that moment.

I know, because last year I got an email from my friend and colleague Christopher Lutz, informing me that Sebastián van Doesburg had found the lost city council books of the first successful Spanish capital of Guatemala. Those books, dating from 1530-1553. had been stolen and sold from Guatemala sometime in the last decade of the nineteenth century.

At the time, Sebastián was doing research in the Hispanic Society in New York City. The archivist there asked him to look at these books. Sebastián looked, and though it wasn’t his area of research, knew they were important. He wrote Chris, and voilá. A century-long mystery solved, an incalculable resource for the history of Guatemala returned to the scholarly community. The “lost” cabildo books are currently being transcribed for publication by a Guatemalan team of historians.

I rode the bus with a big, goofy smile on my face that day, too.

There is an unpleasant side to this tale. Countless pieces of Mesoamerican history are scattered throughout Europe and the United States, as a consequence of direct or indirect imperialism and the power of the purse. Antiquities-hunting became something of a craze in the nineteenth century. Dealers scoured indigenous villages for old stuff they could sell to the highest bidder, often a foreign business magnate with a penchant for collecting.

Scholars also bought, copied, and “borrowed” manuscripts. Sometimes things were simply taken. And this swindling continues. In 1995, the politically-appointed president of the national archives in Guatemala sent his wife to sell sixteenth-century documents to Swann Gallery in New York City. Oftentimes, these precious pieces of the past end up hanging on someone’s living room wall or tucked away, “lost,” in an unorganized bundle sold or donated to a library after the buyer’s death.

When I once found a document signed by the famous conquistador Bernal Díaz de Castillo in the Guatemalan archives, I sat in satisfied awe for a few moments at my desk. But I was careful to mention it only to a few trusted Guatemalan friends and colleagues. A document with Díaz del Castillo’s signature currently goes for $125,000; royal decrees from seventeenth-century Guatemala go for $30,000.

Today, I can’t keep the smile off my face. I have repeated the mantra “friend and colleague” because even though research and writing can be solitary, it also means being part of a community. Friends and colleagues, librarians and archivists, all share time together in the archive. We share ideas about what we find, and the challenge of writing about it in some coherent, convincing way. We also share information, and each other’s joy at finding a key fragment of the past that was once lost.

When one of those fragments is recovered, so is piece of history. It’s why we do what we do, and there are few moments that are quite as satisfying.

Update: AGS curator emeritus Christopher Baruth has discovered that the Códice was sold to the AGS in 1917 by a mining engineer, A.E. Place. Baruth suspects that Place had bought it from the private collection of Rickards, whose family was also involved in the mining industry.

Laura Matthew is an assistant professor of Latin American History who specializes in colonial Guatemala. Her first book, Memories of Conquest: Becoming Mexicano in Colonial Guatemala will be coming out soon (Spring 2012) through the University of North Carolina Press.

Genealogist volunteer Margarita Sandoval sent the article by Dr. Matthew and shared the following: 
Professor  Laura Matthew from Marquette University explains how the scroll was discovered at UWM by the AGS Library staff. Many people collaborated in its discovery, identification, and authentication. Those involved included  Christopher Baruth Curator UWM, Professor Aims McGinness UWM   Associate Professor of History, Laura Matthew Marquette University   Assistant Professor of Latin American History, and researchers Michel  R. Oudijk and Sebastian van Doesburg from the National Autonomous   University of Mexico, Mexico City.  Michel R. Oudjik and Sebastian  van Doesburg presented a lecture at the UWM AGS Library on April 10,   2014. The program “The Ixtepeji Scroll: Mapping Cultural Landscape of   a Zapotec Noble Lineage” was part of the Arthur Holzheimer Lecture  Series. I attended this lecture and found it to be most interesting and important to the Mexican community.   Click to the article about the Tira at the Mexican Fiesta in Milwaukee.

Margarita Sandoval Skare, 414-476-6702  
Milwaukee Wisconsin  
Volunteer Coordinator for the Genealogy Booth at Mexican Fiesta  
skaremm@milwpc.com
 


For additional reading on the subject:
1. Matthew, Laura. "Lost and Found: Three hundred year-old Mexican document found in Milwaukee" Historians@Work: A blog from Marquette University history faculty April 3, 2012
http://marquettehistorians.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/lost-and-found-three-hundred-year-old-mexican-document-found-in-milwaukee/ 
Matthew, Laura. “El hallazgo del Codice de Ixtepeji”
http://www.eljolgoriocultural.org.mx/index.php/del-impreso/en-portada/item/1069-el-hallazgo-del-odice-de-ixtepeji
  

2. Hunt, Laura L. "Scholar network turns lost into found" UWM Today website July 9, 2012
http://www5.uwm.edu/news/2012/07/09/scholar-network-turns-lost-into-found/ 

3. El mapa histórico ilustrado de Santa Catarina Ixtepeji 7/09/2012 11:16:00 p. m. Pedro Donaire, Spanish translation of Laura
Hunt’s article Referencia: ScienceDaily.com , 5 de julio de 2012 Fuente: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

4. Lank, Avrum D. “Scroll of the Centuries” Milwaukee Magazine, March 4, 2013 A document forgotten in a desk is unlocking the forgotten tale of a Mexican kingdom. http://www.milwaukeemag.com/article/342014-Scrollofthecenturies 

5. AGS Library Collections website. http://www4.uwm.edu/Libraries/AGSL

6. Van Doesburg, Sebastián (2000). "El Lienzo de Santa Catarina Ixtepeji; un documento pictográfico tardío de la Sierra Juárez".
Acervos (in Spanish) (Oaxaca) 17: 28–34.

7. “Codex of Santa Catarina de Ixtepeji” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_ofSanta_Catarina_Ixtepeji  


 


130 representatives of the Yaqui Tribe come to Mexico City to ask them to stop destroying their villages/surroundings.
Actividades de la Tribu Yaqui en la Cd de México: llegada de 130 yaquis, Vier con Senado y Semarnat, Sab9/ difundir
http://circulodeestudios-centrohistorico.blogspot.com/2014/08/actividades-de-la-tribu-yaqui-en-la-cd.html  
Sent by Dorinda Moreno pueblosenmovimientonorte@gmail.com   

"Carlos Slim is one of the worlds most important philanthropists and most people have never heard about his humanitarian activities. He owns stock in more than 200 companies that employ more than 200,000 people in Latin America and beyond. He has used his resources to help develop the communities where his businesses are located. In his own country, Mexico, he has personally supported more than 165,000 young people in attending university, paid for numerous surgeries, provided equipment for rural schools and covered surety bonds for 50,000 people who were entitled to their freedom but could not afford. He recently created the Carso Institute for Health, and designed it to provide a new approach to health care in Mexico. He has four billion dollars of investments ready to promote education, health and other great challenges, and has recently announced an additional six billion dollar investment in several programs, including his Telmex Foundation."  www.carlosslim.com/responsabilidad_ing.html

Sent by Refugio Rochin, Ph.D. rrochin@me.com 

 

 

Registro del bautismo DEODORO PEDRO REGALADO FRANCISCO DE PAULA DE LA SMA.TRINIDAD.

Envío la imagen del registro del bautismo ( ya había enviado la del Registro Civil ) de Don Francisco Rincón Gallardo y Doblado esposo de Doña Luz Díaz Ortega.  

LIBRO DE BAUTISMOS DE LA YGLESIA PARROQUIAL DE LA ASUNCIÓN DE AGUASCALIENTES, AGS.  

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Márgen izq. Reg. 380. Deodoro Pedro Regalado Francisco de Paula de la Santisima Trinidad.  

En la Yglesia Parroquial de la Asuncion de Aguascalientes, á nueve de Mayo de mil ochocientos setenta y cuatro Yo el Presbitero Don José Ma. Gonzalez de Licencia Parrochi bautizé solemnemente y puse los Stos. Oleos á un niño que nació el dia tres a la una de la tarde en la primera calle del Obrador de esta ciudad a quien puse por nombre Deodoro Pedro Regalado Francisco de Paula de la Santisima Trinidad, hijo legitimo del Señor Don Rodrigo Rincon y de Da. Viriginia Doblado. A.P. Sr. Don José Ma. Rincon y Da. Ana Ma. Roso de Rincon. A.M. Sr. Don Manuel Doblado y Da. Dolores Gaitan P.P. Sr. Don Eduardo Rincon y Da. Guadalupe Rincon de Tornel, a quienes adverti su obligacion y parentesco espiritual para constancia lo firmé con el Sr. Cura.

Jesus Torres.           Yg°. de la Parra.  

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Investigó y paleografió. Tte. Corl. Intdte. Ret. Ricardo Palmerín Cordero.
Miembro de Genealogía de México y de la Soc. de Genealogía de Nuevo León. De: Ricardo Raúl Palmerín Cordero duardos43@hotmail.com  

 

 

La historia familiar oral se desvanece en sólo tres generaciones

 

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¿Se ha sentido alguna vez alarmado por no poder recordar una historia familiar o experiencias que usted sabe que ha escuchado muchas veces a sus abuelos relatar? ¿Alguna vez se preguntó por qué sabe muy poco acerca de la vida personal de sus abuelos o bisabuelos?

Aaron Holt de la Administración Nacional de Archivos y Registros dice que “sólo se necesitan tres generaciones para perder una porción de historia familiar oral”. Si quiere evitar la pérdida de esas preciadas historias de la familia que han pasado de generación en generación, Holt continuó diciendo, la historia “debe repetirse intencionalmente y con precisión una y otra vez a través de las generaciones a fin de ser preservada”.

Jim Ison, un Gerente de Área de FamilySearch.org quien recientemente dirigió la palabra en la conferencia nacional 2014 de la Sociedad Genealógica en Richmond, Virginia, dijo que la idea de que los relatos de su familia pudieran perderse en tres generaciones le dio la determinación de asegurarse que esto no sucediera.

Ison, un genealogista acreditado, compartió un descubrimiento similar que tuvo el año pasado durante una sesión de RootsTech 2013 presentada por el director general de FamilySearch, Dennis Brimhall. Dijo que Brimhall hizo una pregunta para detenerse y pensar: “¿Qué desearán sus bisnietos que usted hubiera hecho?”  

Ison ha dedicado toda una vida investigando la genealogía de su familia, extendiendo y documentando meticulosamente generación tras generación de su árbol familiar. Pero se encontró frente a una pregunta muy interesante en verdad, “¿Qué DESEARÍAN sus bisnietos, la mayoría de los cuales probablemente nunca llegaría a conocer en esta vida, que él hubiera hecho?”

Ison pensó: “Nadie conoce a mis antepasados o sus historias como yo. Yo soy el nexo entre mis nietos y mis abuelos.” Decidió en ese momento en 2013 poner a un lado su pasión por la investigación genealógica y su objetivo a largo plazo de rastrear su genealogía hasta el gran Carlomagno, y en su lugar comenzó a enfocarse en las admirables historias personales de sus padres y abuelos, cosas que él pensó que sus bisnietos querrían saber y que desearían que él se hubiera tomado el tiempo para hacerlo.

Comenzó con una caja con fotos viejas de la familia que tenía guardada en el armario y que su padre le había pasado a él, la cual su padre había recibido de su madre. “Al igual que mi padre”, Ison señaló: “Guardé la caja en mi armario para preservar su contenido por otra generación. El problema es que una caja no permite que las fotos se puedan compartir, acceder o disfrutar a través de las generaciones”.  

 

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Para comenzar con su nuevo proyecto, Ison escogió una pareja particular de abuelos, Lorilla Spencer y Frank (Reight) Ison. Escaneó sus fotos y las cargó a su cuenta gratuita de FamilySearch.orgy agregó otros documentos fuente que había acumulado durante sus años de investigación. Luego editó y agregó historias que su padre había escrito sobre sus abuelos años antes y las conservó y compartió en línea a través del Árbol Familiar de FamilySearch.

“Las fotos pasaron de mi caja de zapatos a la ‘nube’ en línea en FamilySearch para preservarlas para el futuro”, dijo Ison triunfalmente. “Ahora un bisnieto a 1.600 kilómetros de distancia puede ver las mismas fotos y leer las mismas historias”.

Ison citó la investigación de un artículo del New York Times de 2013 por el autor Bruce Feiler, quien observó: “La cosa más importante que usted puede hacer por su familia puede ser la más simple de todas: Desarrollar una fuerte narrativa familiar”. La investigación observó que los niños que sabían más acerca de sus antepasados—quiénes eran, dónde crecieron, las enfermedades que sufrieron y las pruebas difíciles que tuvieron que enfrentar—tenían mayor seguridad en sí mismos y manejaban el estrés personal de mejor manera.  

Por el bien de la posteridad, Ison se centró en resaltar esos aspectos más destacados de la vida personal de los antepasados que conoció y descubrió a través de la investigación.

Por ejemplo, la madre de su abuelo bávaro murió cuando él era un niño pequeño. Su bisabuelo se volvió casar con una “madrastra malvada”, que los castigaba todas las mañanas y les decía que la paliza era por todo lo malo que fueran a hacer durante el día que ella no se enteraría. Este abuelo y su hermano mayor, finalmente huyeron de la casa y cambiaron su apellido para evitar su captura. Emigraron a Estados Unidos, trabajaron duro y tuvieron mucho éxito.

Su abuela fue maestra de escuela a una edad muy joven. Ella quedó emocionalmente afectada cuando su prometido murió en un trágico accidente. Para escapar del constante recuerdo de su dolor en la comunidad local, solicitó enseñar en Alaska, pero fue rechazada, irónicamente, porque no estaba casada. Solicitó en Georgia pero se le negó porque era una “Yankee” de South Dakota. Solicitó en Kentucky y fue aceptada, lo que explica por qué estuvo dispuesta a viajar más de 2.000 kilómetros a caballo por su cuenta, sin las comodidades del hogar y la familia.  

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Cuando estaban recién casados, el hogar de estos mismos abuelos se quemó por completo.

Ison creó preguntas a partir de las historias y las fotos de estos dos abuelos, Frank y Lorilla, que pudieran motivar a sus nietos a saber más sobre sus fascinantes bisabuelos.

A los 9 años, ¿por qué Frank y su hermano se fueron de la casa?
¿Qué hizo en Estados Unidos mientras que servía en la marina alemana?
¿Quién fue responsable de que cambiara su apellido de “Rieght” a “Ison”?
¿Cuántos años tenía Lorilla cuando comenzó a enseñar?
¿Qué se le entregó como parte de sus materiales normales para enseñar? (Respuesta: una pistola)
¿Por qué se mudó a más de 2.000 kilómetros de South Dakota a Kentucky?  

 

Ison dijo que se maravilló al ver lo fascinados que estaban sus nietos buscando las respuestas en las fotos e historias que publicó en internet en FamilySearch.org y la facilidad con que navegaron las herramientas en línea para hacerlo.

Para los nietos más pequeños, publicó 75 páginas de historias y fotos, y ha creado otras actividades divertidas como crucigramas, tablas de bingo y juegos de memoria con información sobre los antepasados, que disfruta hacer con los nietos cuando lo visitan. “Se sorprenderá al ver la cantidad de preguntas que sus nietos tendrán de sólo una historia sobre algún antepasado”.

Ison ahora repetirá el proceso con otros abuelos y antepasados en su árbol, muy contento en su nuevo papel como la conexión intergeneracional de su posteridad.

https://familysearch.org/blog/es/tag/arbol-familiar/ samuelsanchez@genealogia.org.mx 

 

 

Envío la imagen del registro del bautismo de Aurelio Maicotte,
( la cual no incluí en mi correo sobre el el General Fortunato Maycotte ).

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LIBRO DE BAUTISMOS DE LA IGLESIA DE SAN JOSÉ DEL PROGRESO, COAH.

Márgen izq. Num°. 19 Aurelio Maicotte.
​​ En la Capilla de San José del Progreso, á los treinta y un días del mes de En°. de mil ochocientos ochenta y ocho bautizé, puse oleo y crisma á un niño de un año, hijo natural de Apuleyo Maicotte y Juana Martinez, Padrinos Gregoria Chapa y Fernando Y. Treviño. Doy fé.

Nota. transcribo tal como está escrito, como sabemos la madre se llamó Juana Camero Martinez.

Investigó y paleografió.
Tte. Corl. Intdte. Ret. Ricardo R. Palmerín Cordero.
Miembro de Genealogía de México y de la Sociedad de Genealogía de Nuevo León. 
Fuentes Family Search. Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los últimos Días.

 
De los personajes extranjeros radicados en la Capital de nuestro País en la primera mitad del Siglo XIX y que contrajeron matrimonio con Damas Mexicanas, enseguida transcribo el registro del bautismo de un niño de ese origen y que se llamó Archivaldo Hope Garay.
LIBRO DE BAUTISMOS DE LA IGLESIA DEL SEÑOR SAN JOSÉ DE LA CD. DE MÉXICO.

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LIBRO DE BAUTISMOS DE LA IGLESIA DEL SEÑOR SAN JOSÉ DE LA CD. DE MÉXICO.


Márgen izq. 218. 
Archivaldo Pasqual Francisco Epitacio.

En 23 de Mayo de 1842 en esta Parroqa. del Sr. Sn. José de Mexc°. Yo el Presb°. Franc°. Campuzano ( V. P.) bautisé solemnemente y puse los Stos. Oleos á un Ynfante de seis dias de nacido á quien puse pr. nombres Archivaldo Pasqual Franc°. Epitacio, hijo de legmo. matrimonio de D. Archivaldo Hope natural de Liberpool, en Ynglaterra, y de Da. Ma. de los Dolores Garay, natl. de Veracruz: nieto por linea paterna, de D. Pedro Hope de Liberpool, y de Da. Ana-------, natl. de Virginia en los Estados Unidos de Norte America: y por la materna, de D. Pedro Garay y Aguado, natl. de Jalapa, y de Da. Maria de los Reyes Jimenez, natl. de Veracruz: fueron sus padrinos D. Pedro Garay, y Da. Guadalupe Garay, á quienes adverti su obligacion y parentesco espiritual, y para que conste lo firmé con el Señor Cura.

Santiago Barrientos Franc°. Campuzano.

Nota. solo no entendí el apellido de doña Ana.

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Fuentes. Family Search. Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los últimos Días.
Investigó y paleografió, Tte. Corl. Intdte. Ret. Ricardo R. Palmerín Cordero.
Miembro de Genealogía de México y del Noreste y de la Soc. de Genealogía de Nuevo León.   

 

 

Señor General de División Don Manuel María Lombardini

Envío el registro del bautismo efectuado en el Sagrario Metropolitano de la Cd. de México del Señor General de División Don Manuel María Lombardini, ingresó a los doce años de edad en la carrera de las armas, fue un distinguido militar ( combatió durante la Primera Intervención Francesa en la llamada Guerra de los Pasteles, Intervención Norteamericana 1846-1848, Comandante General de la Plaza de México ), político conservador fué Presidente Provisional de la República por breve tiempo el año de 1853 falleciendo ese mismo año.  Fuentes. Family Search. Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los últimos Días.

" En veinticinco de Julio del año del Señor de mil ochocientos dos con licencia del Sor. Dr. y Mro. Don Josef Maria Alcala Cura de esta Santa Yglesia. Yo el Br. D. Manuel Morales Cura y Juez Ecco. del pueblo de Mazatepec bautise a un infante que nació el día veinte y tres del presente, pusele por nombres Manuel Apolinario Josef Maria Ygnacio Antonio, hijo legitimo de legitimo matrimonio de Don Juan Domingo Lombardini natural de la Ciudad de Veracruz y de Da. Mariana de la Torre, natural de esta. Nieto por linea paterna de Don Josef Antonio Lombardini y de Doña Geronima Rita de Llano y por la materna de Don Bernardo Josef de la Torre y de Doña Maria Luisa Sanchez Leñero fue su padrino Don Vicente Francisco Vidal instruido en su obligacion y parentesco espiritual ". Dr. y Mro. D. Jose Maria Alcala. Br. Manuel Morales.

Este registro lo localicé hace más de nueve años así como todo lo que hé investigado por espacio de más de doce años, gracias a los films ( bautismos, matrimonios y defunciones ) que posee la Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los últimos Días.  Gracias hermanos Mormones.

 

 

Indigenous Guerrero: A Remnant of the Aztec Empire

By John P. Schmal

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Location and Description

The Mexican state of Guerrero is located in the southern coastal region of the Mexican Republic. Guerrero covers an area of 63,597 square kilometers, occupying 3.2% of the national territory.  The state is bordered to the north by the states of Michoacán, Mexico and Morelos; to the east, by Puebla and Oaxaca; and to the south, by the Pacific Ocean. Politically, Guerrero is divided into eighty-one municipios.    

Dominated by the Sierra Madre Mountains of southern Mexico, Guerrero is extremely mountainous, except for a narrow coastal strip of flatlands. Environmentally, the state is divided into the following regions:  

  1. Tierra Caliente: The northwest interior, which borders Michoacán and Estado de Mexico
  2. La Montaña (The Mountain): the mountainous region in the northeast, bordering on Puebla and Oaxaca
  3. Sierra del Norte: The far north adjacent to Morelos, Estado de Mexico and Puebla
  4. Centro: The Central Valleys in the middle of the State
  5. Costa Grande: The Coastal strip northwest of Acapulco
  6. Costa Chica: The Coastal strip southeast of Acapulco    

The capital of Guerrero is Chilpancingo de los Bravos. In 2010, Guerrero had a population of 3,388,768 inhabitants, representing 3.0 of the total population of the Republic of Mexico.  

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  1. Tierra Caliente: The northwest interior, which borders Michoacán and Estado de Mexico
  2. La Montaña (The Mountain): the mountainous region in the northeast, bordering on Puebla and Oaxaca
  3. Sierra del Norte: The far north adjacent to Morelos, Estado de Mexico and Puebla
  4. Centro: The Central Valleys in the middle of the State
  5. Costa Grande: The Coastal strip northwest of Acapulco
  6. Costa Chica: The Coastal strip southeast of Acapulco    

The capital of Guerrero is Chilpancingo de los Bravos. In 2010, Guerrero had a population of 3,388,768 inhabitants, representing 3.0 of the total population of the Republic of Mexico.

Fifteenth Century Inhabitants

By the 15th century, the territory that now comprises the modern State of Guerrero was inhabited by several indigenous groups, none of whom had major cities or population centers. 

The most important groups were located in the following zones:  

·       Tierra Caliente: Purhépecha, Cuitlatecos, Ocuiltecas and Matlatzincas

·       La Montaña: Tlapanecos and Mixtecs

·       Central Valleys: the Coixcas and Tepoztecos

·       Sierra del Norte: Chontales, Mazatecos and Tlahuicas (a Náhuatl language)

·       Costa Chica: Yopis, Mixtecos and Amuzgos

·       Costa Grande: Tolimecas, Chubias, Pantecas and Cuitlatecos

 

During the 15th century, both the rising Aztec and Purhépecha empires started to intrude upon the Cuitlateco domain, which eventually fell. The Purhépecha held some areas of the Costa Grande, while the Aztecs began moving into other areas of Guerrero, eventually subduing nearly all the peoples shown above.  

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The Aztec Empire of 1519

From the mid-Fifteenth Century to 1519, the Aztec Empire grew into the most powerful Mesoamerican kingdoms of all time. By 1519, the island city of Tenochtitlán (now Mexico City) had become a city of about 300,000 citizens.  And the Aztec Empire itself ruled over about 80,000 square miles of territory extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, and southward to Oaxaca.  This empire contained some 15 million people, living in thirty-eight provinces.  In all, the Emperor received the tribute of 489 communities. The term, Aztec, is used to describe all the Nahua-speaking peoples in the Valley of Mexico, while the culture that dominated the Aztec Empire was the tribe known as Mexica.  

Subjects of the Aztec Empire

By the early Sixteenth Century, numerous native states existed in Guerrero as provinces and tributaries of the powerful Aztec Empire. The authors Michael E. Smith and Frances F. Berdan, in “Aztec Imperial Strategies” (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1996) divided the Empire into 52 tributary and strategic provinces. The Aztec provinces that lay in the present-day state of Guerrero were:  

·       Chiauhtlan: Located along the Morelos and Puebla borders in northeastern Guerrero, this province was dominated by Náhuatl speakers.

·       Quiauhteopan: Located south of the Mezcala River in Guerrero and in State of Pueblo, this province had several languages spoken within it: Náhuatl, Mixtec, Tlapanec and Matlame.

·       Tlacozauhtitlan: In this part of present-day Guerrero, Tlapanec, Matlame, Tuxteca and the Cohuixca variant of Náhuatl were spoken.

·       Tepequacuilco: Located in north-central Guerrero, this province was divided between Náhuatl-speakers (Cohuixca) in the east and Chontal speakers in the west.

·       Zompanco: Located in the mountainous area of east-central Guerrero, south of the Río Mezcala, this area’s dominant language was the Cohuixca version of Náhuatl.
 

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·       Tetellan: This province located along the Río Balsas had inhabitants that spoke the Cuitlatec, Tepuzteco and Chontal languages and was on the border of Purépecha territory.

·       Tlalpan: Located in the mountainous eastern part of Guerrero, this province primarily had Tlapanec language speakers.

·       Cihuatlan: This province located along the Costa Grande of Guerrero features “muchos lenguas,” including Tepuzteco, Cuitlatec, Panteca and Náhuatl.

·       Tecpantepec: This province – stretched out along the Costa Grande on either side of the Cihuatlan province and extending inland – featured the Cuitlatec language along the coast and Tepuzteco in the inland area.

·       Ayotlan: This province was located on the edge of Yope territory in what is now the Costa Chica of Guerrero and featured several languages: Náhuatl, Tlapaneca, Yope, Zinteca and Quahuteca.

·       Ometepec: This province – now located in southeastern Guerrero on the border with Oaxaca – contained speakers of the Náhuatl, Ayacstla, Amuzgo and Tlapanec languages.  

Yopitzinco

For all its strength and breadth, the Aztec Empire failed to conquer several regions that became “independent enclaves” within their vast dominion.  One of those enclaves was in Guerrero. Yopitzinco – an isolated mountainous area along the Costa Chica of Guerrero, southeast of Acapulco – was occupied by the “Yope” or “Tlapaneca,” who had a reputation as fierce warriors. Yopitzinco actually comprised four Yopi states (Cacahuatépec, Pochotitlan, Xocotlan, and Xochitépec).

 

The Tlapaneca call themselves Méphaa and are discussed in more detail below. The Pacific coastal regions to the north and south of Yopitzinco were conquered by the Aztec monarchs, Ahuítzotl (reigned 1486-1502) and Moctezuma II (reigned 1502-1520), but the Yope territory remained free of Aztec rule.

 

Indigenous Groups at Contact

With the collapse of the massive Aztec Empire in August 1521, the Spaniards proceeded to assert their authority over the many peoples who had been subject to the Aztecs – as well as the fiercely independent Yopes who had avoided Aztec domination for so long. The primary indigenous Guerrero groups living in the colonial period are discussed below:    

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The Amuzgos

The Amuzgos lived in the lower parts of the Sierra Madre del Sur in the present-day states of Oaxaca and southeastern Guerrero. The Amuzgo language belongs to the Otomanguean linguistic group and consists of two dialects, one in Guerrero and one in Oaxaca. The Amuzgo language is similar to the Mixtec and their territory overlaps that of the Mixtec region. Linguists have estimated that the Amuzgo language separated from the Mixtec language sometime between 2000 and 1000 B.C.

 

For a long time, the Amuzgos were an independent people, but around 1100 A.D., they came under the domination of the strong coastal Mixtec kingdom of Tututepec. For the next three hundred years, they paid tribute to the Mixtecs in the form of animal cotton, fabrics, skins, gold, maize and frijoles. In 1457, the Aztecs began their conquest of Amuzgo territory, replacing Mixtecs as the rulers of the region and then being replaced by the Spaniards in the 1520s.  

The arrival of the Spaniards and the Afro-Mexicans gradually pushed the Amuzgos into the more inaccessible mountain regions and away from the coast. They were devastated by several epidemics during the Sixteenth Century and lost much of their land to intruders, although they pressured authorities for restitution, which was finally granted in the 1930s.  

The Amuzgos still maintain much of their language and dress and are known for their textiles hand-woven on back strap looms with two-dimensional designs which can be complicated. Today, most of the Amuzgos live in or near four municipios: Xochistlahuaca, Tlacoachistlahuaca and Ometepec in Guerrero and San Pedro Amuzgos and Santa María Ipalapa in Oaxaca.  

Náhuatl

With the expansion of the Aztec Empire, several Náhuatl languages were introduced into and gradually dominated several regions of Guerrero, including the Sierra del Norte, the Central Valleys, a sliver of Costa Grande and the Tierra Caliente.  Today, the Náhuatl enclaves that exist in some of the far-flung reaches of the former Aztec Empire represent the remnants of the early colonies established by the Mexica during their Fifteenth Century expansion in the southern Mexico (including Guerrero).

 

The primary Náhuatl languages of Guerrero today include the Coatepec, Guerrero and Ometepec tongues. The Tlahuica tongue which was spoken in the Sierra del Norte is now primarily spoken in Morelos, which has always been its stronghold.    

 

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Matlatzinca

The Matlatzinca inhabited a considerable amount of territory in pre-Hispanic Estado de Mexico and Guerrero, as well as some smaller portions of present-day Michoacán.  The name Matlatzinca – a Náhuatl term given by the Mexica to this group – can be translated as "the gentlemen of the network" or "those that make networks."  The Aztec Empire overcame the Matlatzinca in 1474 who remained under their rule till the arrival of the Spaniards in 1522. Today, the majority of Matlatzinca live in one community: San Francisco Oxtotilpan, located in the municipio of Temascaltepec, State of Mexico.  

 

Tlapaneca

The Tlapaneca call themselves Méphaa, which can be translated as “the one that is an inhabitant of Tlapa.” “Tlapaneco” is an Aztec designation that came from the Náhuatl word “tlauitl,” meaning “red ocher” and has a pejorative connotation: “the one that is painted (of the face),” which to the ears of the Méphaa means “to have a dirty face.”  Tlapa included an extensive territory located in the eastern portion of the present state of Guerrero that was contiguous with the Mixtec region of Oaxaca.  

Tlapaneca ranges from the coastal region of Guerrero to the slopes of the Sierra Madre Mountain Range in the southern part of the state. The Méphaa consist of two primary groups:  

 

·       The Méphaa of the north, seated in Tlapa

·       The Yopes of the south, centered in Yopitzinco

  

Tlapaneca ranges from the coastal region of Guerrero to the slopes of the Sierra Madre Mountain Range in the southern part of the state. The Méphaa consist of two primary groups:  

 

·       The Méphaa of the north, seated in Tlapa

·       The Yopes of the south, centered in Yopitzinco

 

Tlapa was the more important ceremonial center of the region and was divided in four chieftainships: Buáthá Wayíí (Huehuetepec), Mañuwiín (Malinaltepec), Miwíín (Tlacoapa) and Xkutií (Tenamazapa). The imperial expansion of the Mexica and the Aztec Empire led to military incursions within the territory of the Méphaa, and by 1486, Tlapa fell to the Mexica and became part of the Aztec Empire. The Yopes, however, remained independent.
 

The land of the Tlapaneco was subjugated by the Spanish conquistadors by 1523. However, between 1531 and 1535, the Yopes mounted three separate rebellions against the Spaniards. They continued to fight for their land well into the Mexican revolution of the Twentieth Century.  During the Cardenas era, they had some limited success in their struggle for land.  

 

By 1987, speakers of the Tlapanec language were estimated to number 75,000 individuals, many of whom were living in four municipios: Malinaltepec, Tlacoapa, Zapotitlán Tablas and Acatepec). However, a considerable number of Tlapanec speakers also lived in adjacent municipios.    

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Chontal

The Chontals – also called Tequistlatecan – inhabited Oaxaca and a small amount of territory in the northern Sierras of Guerrero. They spoke two related but mutually unintelligible languages, Huamelultec (Lowland Oaxaca Chontal), and Highland Oaxaca Chontal. The name “Chontal” comes from the Náhuatl, meaning "foreigner" or "foreign", and is also applied to an unrelated language from the State of Tabasco.

 

Cuicatec

The Cuicatecos (“People of Song”) inhabited a territory that now includes portions of present-day Guerrero, Oaxaca and Michoacán.  They were neighbors of the Purépecha who occupied a large part of Michoacán.  It is believed that the Cuicatec speakers may have numbered about 60,000 people before the conquest.  They were defeated around 1456 by the Aztecs and then subdued later by the Spanish conquistador, Martin Mezquita.  They resisted conversion to Catholicism during the colonial period and fled into the mountains to avoid forced labor.  Today, many of the Cuicatec people still live in the mountains. The Cuicatec language is an Oto-Manguean language which closely resembles the           Mixtec language.  

The Mixtecs

Dr. Ronald Spores, in “The Mixtecs in Ancient and Colonial Times,” wrote that “when the Spaniards arrived in south-central Mexico in the early Sixteenth Century, they entered a region of northwestern Oaxaca known to its inhabitants as Ñu Ñudzahui and to the Náhuatl-speaking Aztecs as Mixtlan, “Place of Clouds.” Soon, the Spaniards would begin calling this region “La Mixteca.”

 

Dr. Spore’s description of the Mixteca states that “the Mixteca of western Oaxaca was an extensive and diversified region extending about 270 kilometers from southern Puebla to the Pacific Ocean and about 180 to 200 kilometers from eastern Guerrero to the western edge of the Valley of Oaxaca and the area known as La Cañada.” In all, it is believed that the Mixtec Indians inhabited some 40,000 square kilometers ranging from Oaxaca through parts of Guerrero and Puebla.  

The Mixtec enjoyed considerable influence and prestige in southern Mexico for several centuries, having eclipsed their neighbors the Zapotecs of Oaxaca.  However, around 1458, the Mexicas began their conquest of Mixtec territory and eventually they became subjects of the powerful Aztec Empire.  

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The Mixtec ethnic group is very diverse, speaking approximately 57 different languages that have evolved over time. Even now, the Mixteca region is still divided into three primary areas:

 

·       The Mixteca Baja (Ñuiñe) in the north and northwest of present-day Oaxaca

·       The Mixteca Alta (Ñu Dzahui Ñuhu) in the mountainous central area

·       The Mixteca de la Costa (Ñundehui) in the southwest and south.

 

The Mixtecs and their cousins, the Zapotecs (discussed below), are discussed in greater detail in another article by this author at the following link:

 

http://www.houstonculture.org/mexico/oaxaca_cultures.html  

The Mixtecs

Dr. Ronald Spores, in “The Mixtecs in Ancient and Colonial Times,” wrote that “when the Spaniards arrived in south-central Mexico in the early Sixteenth Century, they entered a region of northwestern Oaxaca known to its inhabitants as Ñu Ñudzahui and to the Náhuatl-speaking Aztecs as Mixtlan, “Place of Clouds.” Soon, the Spaniards would begin calling this region “La Mixteca.”

 

Dr. Spore’s description of the Mixteca states that “the Mixteca of western Oaxaca was an extensive and diversified region extending about 270 kilometers from southern Puebla to the Pacific Ocean and about 180 to 200 kilometers from eastern Guerrero to the western edge of the Valley of Oaxaca and the area known as La Cañada.” In all, it is believed that the Mixtec Indians inhabited some 40,000 square kilometers ranging from Oaxaca through parts of Guerrero and Puebla.  

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The Mixtec enjoyed considerable influence and prestige in southern Mexico for several centuries, having eclipsed their neighbors the Zapotecs of Oaxaca.  However, around 1458, the Mexicas began their conquest of Mixtec territory and eventually they became subjects of the powerful Aztec Empire.

The Mixtec ethnic group is very diverse, speaking approximately 57 different languages that have evolved over time. Even now, the Mixteca region is still divided into three primary areas:  

·       The Mixteca Baja (Ñuiñe) in the north and northwest of present-day Oaxaca

·       The Mixteca Alta (Ñu Dzahui Ñuhu) in the mountainous central area

·       The Mixteca de la Costa (Ñundehui) in the southwest and south.

The Mixtecs and their cousins, the Zapotecs (discussed below), are discussed in greater detail in another article by this author at the following link:  

http://www.houstonculture.org/mexico/oaxaca_cultures.html

 

·       The Mixteca Baja (Ñuiñe) in the north and northwest of present-day Oaxaca

·       The Mixteca Alta (Ñu Dzahui Ñuhu) in the mountainous central area

·       The Mixteca de la Costa (Ñundehui) in the southwest and south.

 

The Mixtecs and their cousins, the Zapotecs (discussed below), are discussed in greater detail in another article by this author at the following link:  

http://www.houstonculture.org/mexico/oaxaca_cultures.html  

 

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The Zapotecs
The Zapotec Indians occupied large parts of central Oaxaca and some parts of Guerrero. They emerged as a dominant tribe more than 2,000 years ago during the Pre-Columbian period. The Monte Albán complex associated with the Zapotec culture dates back several hundred years before the Christian era.    

 

From about 500 B.C. until 800 A.D., the Zapotecs were a dominant group. However, by 800 A.D., Zapotec culture went into decline with the invasion of their neighbors, the Mixtecs. For the most part, the Zapotecs of Oaxaca were able to avoid complete surrender to the Aztecs.  However, after a several short campaigns, the Spaniards defeated the Zapotecs between 1522 and 1527.  Even today, the Zapotecs speak the fifth most common language group in Mexico. However, the Zapotec ethnic group is so diverse that there are actually 64 separate Zapotec languages that have evolved over the last few thousand years, each language diverging as the Zapotec communities became isolated from one another over time.

Purépecha

The Purépecha, in addition to living in the neighboring state of Michoacán inhabited some portions of the present day state of Guerrero, primarily in the north of the Costa Grande and Tierra Caliente. A detailed discussion of the Purépecha and their history can be found at the following link:

 

http://latinola.com/story.php?story=12428

 

Spanish Infiltration

Initial Spanish interest in the Guerrero area revolved around the search for gold.

In 1521, Rodrigo de Castañeda took possession of the mining area of Taxco, while Gonzalo de Sandoval took control of the Chontal area, the northern mountains, the Iguala Valley and Coixcatlalpan. In the spring of 1523, Sandoval conquered the coastal areas of present-day Guerrero and Colima and brought the Aztec tributary states under his control.   

 

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Further conquests were made by Juan Rodríquez de Villafuerte and Simon de Cuenca in 1523 when they occupied Cihuatlán and most of the rest of the coastline. They destroyed the Indian settlement of Zacatula and founded Villa de Concepción on its site. Villa de Concepción – the eighth Spanish municipio established in Mexico and the first on the Pacific Coast – initially contained 122 Spaniards and two brigantines. The settlement included a shipyard which the Spaniards would use as a point of departure to explore the Pacific Coast and seek a route to the Philippines. However, the settlement was attacked and destroyed by natives later in the century. Today, Zacatula is known as La Unión.

 

For the most part, the Spanish takeover of the Costa Grande did not meet with serious resistance after the news about the fall of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) had arrived. This area produced cash crops such as cotton, cacao and coconuts. Under the Spaniards, these crops were produced on the large encomiendas and haciendas, which exploited the local indigenous population for labor.

 

The Founding of Taxco (1529)

The city of Taxco, now located in northern Guerrero – 164 kilometers (111 miles) southwest of Mexico City and 50 miles south of Cuernavaca (in Morelos) -- was founded in 1529 by Hernán Cortés as one of the oldest colonial cities in Mexico.  At the time of the Spanish contact, Taxco, was an area of barren hills and low mountains.  Taxco is famous for its beautiful colonial architecture and narrow cobbled streets.  

 

Acapulco

The seaport of Acapulco, located 300 kilometers (186 miles) from Mexico City, is one of Guerrero’s most precious resources.  Thanks to its beautiful beaches and luxurious resorts, Acapulco, with its year-around hot climate, is an important tourist center and the destination of many Americans.  The area of Acapulco had a complex linguistic and political nature long before the arrival of the Spaniards.  Several semi-independent states were associated in some way with the neighboring Cuitlatecan Kingdom of Mexcaltépec.  

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In the autumn of 1521, the expedition of Rodrigo Alvarez Chico discovered a large protected bay which he called Bahía de Santa Lucía. This natural port was later given the name Acapulco and was honored by the Spanish crown as the “City of the Kings.”

 

Acapulco became the most important shipping port along Mexico’s Pacific coastline. Expeditions sailed from Acapulco to Peru and the Far East in search of new conquests.  The commercial route from Acapulco to Asia became a very profitable commercial endeavor for centuries to come.  

Zacatula (Southwestern Guerrero)

The coastal province of Zacatula (now in southwestern Guerrero), explains Professor Gerhard, was the home of “a great many independent or autonomous states people by farmers and fisherman, speaking a variety of languages:”  Chumbian, Tolimecan, Pantecan, and Cuitlatecan.  The Mexica had invaded this area during the reign of Ahuítzotl (1486-1502) and established their control as far as Xuluchuca.

Political Chronology (1821-1849)

When the Mexican Republic became independent in 1821, the present-day area of Guerrero belonged to the states of Michoacán, Mexico, Puebla, and Oaxaca.  However, on October 27, 1849, the state was established and named for the revolutionary leader, Vicente Guerrero, with Chilpancingo de los Bravo as its capital. 

 

Indigenous Guerrero in the Twentieth Century

The state of Guerrero has always had a significant population of indigenous people. In the 1895 census, some 92,444 persons were registered as speaking indigenous languages.  This figure rose to 117,735 persons in 1900 and to 121,234 in 1910.  However, the ravages of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) – which took the lives of one in eight Mexicans – caused a steep drop in the population of Guerrero.  Thus, in the 1930 census, Guerrero’s population of indigenous speakers five years of age or more had dropped to 79,585.  

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The 1921 Mexican Census

In the special 1921 Mexican census, we can get a view of the widespread mestizaje of Guanajuato’s modern population.  In this census, residents of each state were asked to classify themselves in several categories, including “indígena pura” (pure indigenous), “indígena mezclada con blanca” (indigenous mixed with white) and “blanca” (white).  

Out of a total district population of 566,836 people, the three classifications of race were tallied in Guerrero as follows:  
·
       248,526 individuals (or 43.8%) claimed to be of pure indigenous background.    
·
       306,361 individuals (or 54.0%) classified themselves as being of mixed origin.  
·
       Only 11,706 individuals (or 2.1%) classified themselves as white.  

In addition, 243 residents of Guerrero either ignored the question or gave another classification (such as “other” or “foreigner”).    

The 2000 Census

According to the 2000 census, the population of persons five years and more who spoke indigenous languages in Guerrero amounted to 367,110 individuals. These individuals spoke a wide range of languages, including:

 

·       Náhuatl (136,681)

·       Mixteco (103,147)

·       Tlapaneco (90,443)

·       Amuzgo (34,601)

·       Zapoteco (660).

 

In the 2000 census, the state of Guerrero had nine municipios that had populations of at least 90% indigenous speakers.  Metlatónoc –with 24,025 indigenous speakers – had a 99.5% indigenous population, with the Mixtecos making up the majority of these people.  Acatepec – with an indigenous population of 98.9% – was primarily dominated by the Tlapaneco, who represented 20,002 of the 20,027 indigenous speakers in the municipio.   

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The Náhuatl Language

Today, the Náhuatl language continues to be the most common indigenous language spoken in the Republic of Mexico. Speakers of this language are dispersed across large areas of Mexico.  In the state of Guerrero, the Náhuatl speakers represents around 40% of the indigenous population of the state and they are distributed through forty-five municipios in the mountainous interior of Guerrero. Náhuatl was the primary language spoken in seventeen of Guerrero’s municipios in 2000.  

The Mixteco Languages

In 2000, the 103,147 Mixteco speakers in Guerrero represented 23.6% of the indigenous-speaking language. But they represented less than a quarter of Mexico’s total Mixteco-speaking population of 444,498 in that census. Within Guerrero, the Mixtecos mainly occupy 262 communities and 10 colonies (colonias) in 16 municipios in La Montaña and Costa Chica regions of the state.    

The Tlapaneco

Unlike the Mixteco and Náhuatl languages, the languages of the Tlapanecos are primarily confined to the State of Guerrero. The 90,443 Tlapaneco speakers registered in Guerrero in 2000 represented 91% of all the Tlapanecos in the entire Republic. Within the state itself, the Tlapaneco – or Méphaa – occupy about 536 communities located in 13 municipios.  

The 2010 Census

In the 2010 Mexican census, Guerrero boasted the sixth largest population of indigenous speakers: 456,774 individuals in all. (Only Oaxaca, Chiapas, Veracruz, Puebla and Yucatán had more indigenous speakers.)  

By percentage, Guerrero ranked number five among the Mexican states with indigenous speakers representing 15.1% of the entire population. The Náhuatl language continued to be the single largest language group, with 27.5% of the residents of Guerrero speaking that language.  

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Mexicans Considered Indigenous

The 2010 census also included a question that asked people if they considered themselves indigenous, whether or not an indigenous language was spoken. Within the State of Guerrero, 22.6% of the persons 3 years of age and older were considered indigenous, ranking the state as the eighth largest state with an indigenous population.  

Most Spoken Languages

In the 2010 census, Náhuatl remained the most widely spoken language in Mexico with 1,544,968 persons five years of age and older speaking that tongue. Náhuatl speakers, in fact, represented 23.08% of the indigenous speakers 5 and older in the Mexican Republic.  

 

The Mixtec language group was the third most common language group (476,472 persons – or 7.12% of all indigenous speakers), and Zapotec was the fifth most common language spoken.  

Even the Tlapaneco language – spoken very little outside of Guerrero – had 120,072 speakers, ranking it in 16th place among the Mexican languages (1.79% of the total indigenous speaking population of Mexico).  

Copyright © 2014 by John P. Schmal. All Rights Reserved.

 

Bibliography  

Berdan, Frances F. et al. “Aztec Imperial Strategies” (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1996).  

Carrasco, David (ed.). “The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures: The Civilizations of Mexcio and Central America, Volume 2” (Oxford University Press, 2001).  
Carrasco Zúñiga, Abad. “Los Tlapanecos,” (México: INI, 1992: Monografías de los Pueblos Indígenas de México).  
Centzuntli, “Ocuiltecos (Tlahuicas)” [dated April 22, 2010] Online: http://centzuntli.blogspot.com/2010/04/ocuiltecos-tlahuicas.html  

Departamento de la Estadística Nacional. “Annuario de 1930,” (Tacubaya, D.F., Mexico, 1932).  

“Estado de Guerrero – Coyuca de Benítez.” Enciclopedia de los Municipios de México (in Spanish). Mexico: Instituto Nacional para el Federalismo y el Desarrollo Municipal. 2009. Retrieved January 21, 2011.

 

“Estado de Guerrero – La Unión.” Enciclopedia de los Municipios de México (in Spanish). Mexico: Instituto Nacional para el Federalismo y el Desarrollo Municipal. 2009. Retrieved January 21, 2011.

 

Estado de Guerrero, “Los Pueblos Indígenas de Guerrero y su Lengua Materna.” Online:

http://guerrero.gob.mx/articulos/los-pueblos-indigenas-de-guerrero-y-su-lengua-materna/

[Accessed February 9, 2014].

 

"Estado de Guerrero Historia" [State of Guerrero History]. Enciclopedia de los Municipios de México (in Spanish). Mexico: Instituto Nacional para el Federalismo y el Desarrollo Municipal. 2005. Retrieved June 24, 2010.  

Gerhard, Peter. “A Guide to the Historical Geography of New Spain” (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1972).  

Instituto Nacional de Estadística Geografía e Informática (INEGI). XII Censo General de Población y Vivienda 2000; Censo de Población y Vivienda 2010.

INEGI, “Censo de Población y Vivienda (2010): Panorama Sociodemográfico de México” (March 2011).  

López, Héctor F. “Diccionario Geográfico, Histórico, Biográfico y Lingüístico del Estado de Guerrero” (México: Pluma y Lápiz de México, 1942). 
Ravicz, Robert y A. Kimball Romney. “
The Amuzgo,” in “The Handbook of Middle American Indians: Vol. 7, Ethnology, Part One,” pp. 417-433 (1969).
Scheffler, Lilian. “Los Indígenas Mexicanos: Ubicación Geografica, Organización Social y Política, Economía, Religión y Costumbres,” (México, D.F.: Panorama Editorial, 1992).

Spores, Ronald.  “The Mixtec Kings and Their People,” (University of Oklahoma Press, 1967).  
Spores, Ronald, “The Mixtecs in Ancient and Colonial Times,” (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984).  

 

 

CARIBBEAN/CUBA

Tony "the Marine" Santiago
Puerto Rican Population Declines on Island, Grows on U.S. Mainland 
Puerto Rican leadership and activism in the pro-immigration movement.


TONY SANTIAGO
Cover of Wikimedia Foundation's 2012-2013 Annual Report.
 Milestones as a Wikepedian 

Note: Tony the first portrait on thye Wikimedia Foundation Report  CONGRATULATIONS. 
WE ARE PROUD OF YOU.

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Wikipedia updates Tony Santiago information 
This page was last modified on 10 August 2014 


Antonio Santiago Rodríguez (born March 9, 1950) — better known as Tony the Marine or as Tony Santiago — is a United States Marine veteran, writer, and military historian from New York City, New York, focused mostly on the military history of Puerto Rico and its service members.

For his work, Santiago was recognized by the 23rd Senate of Puerto Rico for being "one of the main contributors of content related to Puerto Rico in the open online encyclopedia known as Wikipedia". The Senate also recognized him as one of the main writers on subjects which relate to Puerto Rico, and an important historian of the Puerto Rican military experience.

 

According to Phoebe Ayers,  member of the Board of Trustees of the Wikipedia Foundation, this may be the first time that Wikipedia has been mentioned in a parliamentary or congressional resolution of this type. She also stated that it's probably the first time that contributions to Wikipedia have been cited in a formal governmental award, too. 

Photos highlight some accomplishments.  For the full information, Please go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Santiago
Sent by Joe Sanchez bluewall@mpinet.net 

 

 

Pew Research, Hispanic Trends Project
Puerto Rican Population Declines on Island, Grows on U.S. Mainland
By D’Vera Cohn, Eileen Patten and Mark Hugo Lopez
August 11, 2014

Puerto Ricans have left the financially troubled island for the U.S. mainland this decade in their largest numbers 
since the Great Migration after World War II, citing job-related reasons above all others.
http://www.pewhispanic.org/2014/08/11/puerto-rican-population-declines-on-island-grows-on-u-s-mainland/ 

Sent by Bill Carmena

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The darker the brown, the higher the concentration of Puerto Ricans residing in that area.

 

Hispanics of Puerto Rican origin are a growing population in the 50 U.S. states and District of Columbia. About half of Puerto Ricans live in the Northeast, but the South, especially Florida, is home to a growing share of this group. Of the nation’s 358 counties with at least a thousand Puerto Rican residents in 2010, only five – all in the greater New York metropolitan area – experienced declines in their Puerto Rican populations between 2000 and 2010.

http://www.pewhispanic.org/2014/08/11/puerto-rican-population-by-county/ 

 

Puerto Rican leadership and activism in the pro-immigration movement.

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The untold story of Puerto Rican leadership and activism in the pro-immigration movement... [one] group of Latinos exempt from the U.S. immigration system are, the people of Puerto Rico, who haven’t been considered immigrants by the United States since being granted U.S. citizenship in 1917...still, in the Puerto Rican communities of Chicago, Philadelphia and New York, to name a few, we see heavy and continued support for immigration reform.  

 

Puerto Ricans and Immigration Reform http://larespuestamedia.com/pr-solidarity-immigrant-reform

Posted by Francisco J. Gonzalez guajataca01@yahoo.com 
on La Red Latina WWW Network

 

CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA

Mexican and Central American Children at the U.S. Border
Coyote trafficking in persons, arms and drugs between Guatemala and Honduras.
Malfalda, Popular Comic Strip
Archaeologists Uncover Ancient Mathematical Devices of the Inca in Peru 
      by April Holloway, 
José Antonio Manso de Velasco, un 'tsunami' que dio nombre a un título nobiliario  
      Por José A. Crespo Francés*
Gray-Eyed Man of Destiny by William Walker in Nicaragua

 

Mexican and Central American Children at the U.S. Border
Latin American News Digest, Issue, July 16-31, 2014      

Moving children to, and over, the U.S. border is a big business; the region’s leaders say they are going to do something about it, but commentators are not so sure; Mexico plans to shut down traffic on “the beast.” 

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 In El Universal of Mexico City Laura Castellanos looked at the business of moving kids.  In the Honduran border town of Corinth a reporter talked to a coyote about trafficking in persons, arms and drugs between Guatemala and Honduras.  “We charge six thousand U.S. dollars: $1500.00 here, $1000.00 in Villahermosa, and $3500.00 at the border,” he said bluntly. “I work more with children than with adults,” he explained.  He said that on every trip he takes 12 to 14 children. This was the second of the month.  Organizations and shelters that assist children repatriated in Tamaulipas, Chiapas, Honduras and Guatemala, consulted by El Universal, estimate that at least 75% of children who migrate to the United States unaccompanied go with a coyote.  The U.S. Border Patrol arrested 56,547 unaccompanied children, 40% of whom were girls, from October 1, 2013 to June 30, 2014, a period in which the number of migrant children exploded.  Of these, nearly a third were from Honduras, followed by those from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Mexico.  A Conservative estimate is that 75% of the 56,547 minors detained each paid $5000.00 dollars, whereas profits for organized crime were about $212 million.  That rivals what the U.S. pays to patrol the Texas border with Mexico over three years. 

El Faro Magazine of San Salvador editorialized that the presidents of El Salvador, Panama, Guatemala, and Honduras say they will
take action to prevent more children from making the dangerous journey through Mexico to reach the United States.  Their primary effort was a campaign to announce throughout Central America what a bad idea it is.  It warned parents of the dangers they face and the likely futility of the entire venture.  Their children are in danger of being kidnapped, raped, killed, detained, abandoned, hunted by ranchers, or dying from dehydration or exhaustion.  “But the campaign will hardly solve the problem, because parents do not send their children that way because they think there are no dangers.”  They send them because they believe the risks are worth it.  In exchange for the dangers, they might have the possibility of a better life, out of poverty, violence, and the lack of opportunities.  The “humanitarian crisis,” as identified by the president of the United States and created by the arrival of children at the border, has helped to expose the drama many years in the making, but also raised the question of what has caused this sudden increase young migrants from Central America.  The answer is not to be found in the “patches” so far proposed, but by analyzing the complexity and structure of the problem.  Central America must generate more and better jobs and invest more public funds in the improvement of the quality of life of its people (and not to enrich corrupt officials). 

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Prensa Libre of Guatemala City reported that the Mexican government is set to implement a series of measures to ensure that illegal migrants crossing the country in route to the United States can no longer take the freight train known as “The Beast.”  According to Mexican officials the restrictions will begin “soon,” but they declined to give further information.

 By purchasing a subscription now, you can read many more articles like this twice a month, now fully linked to the original stories.  

 

In our quest to expand the reach of news and analysis produced by Latin American media we’re keeping subscription rates low to make sure that this service is accessible to as many interested readers as possible.  
Latin American News Digest, Issue, July 16-31, 2014       
If you have any trouble subscribing, logging in, opening a piece, or anything else, please contact the editor at wjohngreen@latinamericannewsdigest.com .  
Sent by Jose M. Pena JMPENA@aol.com 

 

 
 Coyote about trafficking in persons, arms and drugs between Guatemala and Honduras.

In El Universal of Mexico City Laura Castellanos looked at the business of moving kids.  In the Honduran border town of Corinth a reporter talked to a coyote about trafficking in persons, arms and drugs between Guatemala and Honduras.  “We charge six thousand U.S. dollars: $1500.00 here, $1000.00 in Villahermosa, and $3500.00 at the border,” he said bluntly. “I work more with children than with adults,” he explained.  He said that on every trip he takes 12 to 14 children. This was the second of the month.  Organizations and shelters that assist children repatriated in Tamaulipas, Chiapas, Honduras and Guatemala, consulted by El Universal, estimate that at least 75% of children who migrate to the United States unaccompanied go with a coyote.  The U.S. Border Patrol arrested 56,547 unaccompanied children, 40% of whom were girls, from October 1, 2013 to June 30, 2014, a period in which the number of migrant children exploded.  Of these, nearly a third were from Honduras, followed by those from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Mexico.  A Conservative estimate is that 75% of the 56,547 minors detained each paid $5000.00 dollars, whereas profits for organized crime were about $212 million.  That rivals what the U.S. pays to patrol the Texas border with Mexico over three years.

El Faro Magazine of San Salvador editorialized that the presidents of El Salvador, Panama, Guatemala, and Honduras say they will take action to prevent more children from making the dangerous journey through Mexico to reach the United States.  Their primary effort was a campaign to announce throughout Central America what a bad idea it is.  It warned parents of the dangers they face and the likely futility of the entire venture.  Their children are in danger of being kidnapped, raped, killed, detained, abandoned, hunted by ranchers, or dying from dehydration or exhaustion.  “But the campaign will hardly solve the problem, because parents do not send their children that way because they think there are no dangers.”  They send them because they believe the risks are worth it.  In exchange for the dangers, they might have the possibility of a better life, out of poverty, violence, and the lack of opportunities.  The “humanitarian crisis,” as identified by the president of the United States and created by the arrival of children at the border, has helped to expose the drama many years in the making, but also raised the question of what has caused this sudden increase young migrants from Central America.  The answer is not to be found in the “patches” so far proposed, but by analyzing the complexity and structure of the problem.  Central America must generate more and better jobs and invest more public funds in the improvement of the quality of life of its people (and not to enrich corrupt officials).

Prensa Libre of Guatemala City reported that the Mexican government is set to implement a series of measures to ensure that illegal migrants crossing the country in route to the United States can no longer take the freight train known as “The Beast.”  According to Mexican officials the restrictions will begin “soon,” but they declined to give further information.

 By purchasing a subscription now, you can read many more articles like this twice a month, now fully linked to the original stories.  In our quest to expand the reach of news and analysis produced by Latin American media we’re keeping subscription rates low to make sure that this service is accessible to as many interested readers as possible.  But we can’t do it without your help.  Subscribe today, and share this link. 

Latin American News Digest, Issue, July 16-31, 2014       

If you have any trouble subscribing, logging in, opening a piece, or anything else, please contact the editor at wjohngreen@latinamericannewsdigest.com.

Sent by Jose M. Pena JMPENA@aol.com   

 

 

Malfalda, Popular Comic Strip

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MAFALDA is a cartoon character that is very similar to the old US cartoon character NANCY... they even look alike. The big difference being that Mafalda is more philosophical and almost exclusively aimed at an adult audience, while Nancy was enjoyed by kids and adults alike. Mafalda is a very popular comic strip in many South American newspapers from Panama all the way down to Argentina and Chile.

 

 

Nancy Is Happy: Complete Dailies 1943-1945 (Vol. 1) 
(Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy) by Ernie Bushmiller

Editor:  I find this a little strange.  I remember the Nancy cartoons.  How and why, it's main character  is being used for a series in South American is both amusing and puzzling 

 

Archaeologists Uncover Ancient Mathematical Devices of the Inca in Peru
By April Holloway, 
www.ancient-origins.net | June 26, 2014

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A team of archaeologists have discovered twenty-five well preserved quipus, an ancient form of record-keeping used by the Inca, in the archaeological complex of Incahuasi in Peru, according to a report in Peru This Week. The finding is rare and significant because the quipus were found in ancient warehouses rather than in burials, as most discoveries in the past.

Quipus, sometimes called ‘talking knots’, were recording devices historically used in the region of Andean South America. A quipu usually consisted of coloured, spun, and plied thread or strings from llama or alpaca hair, or made of cotton cords. For the Inca, the system aided in collecting data and keeping records, ranging from monitoring tax obligations, properly collecting census records, calendrical information, and military organization. The cords contained numeric and other values encoded by knots in a base ten positional system. A quipu could have only a few or up to 2,000 cords. Together the type of wool, the colours, the knots and the joins held both 

statistical and narrative information that was once readable by several South American societies. In some villages, quipus were important items for the local community, and took on ritual rather than recording use.

The discovery took place at Incahuasi (Inca House), located in the valley of Cañete, close to the town of Lunahuana. Built in the 15th century, it is the most important and strategic city built by the Incas in the region. It is kind of a small Cusco, as it is the exact image of this Inca city, built by orders of Inca Pachacutec. It comprises four sections: the palace of the Inca, the quarters with its barns and warehouses, the convent city, and the fortress.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/767783-archaeologists
-uncover-ancient-mathematicaAl-devices-of-the-inca-in-peru
/?sidebar=related-left
 

Sent by John Inclan  fromgalveston@yahoo.com 

José Antonio Manso de Velasco, un 'tsunami' que dio nombre a un título nobiliario  
Por José A. Crespo Francés*
El Espía Digital – www.elespiadigital.com

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El Virrey José Antonio Manso de Velasco y Sánchez de Samaniego dirigió eficazmente las tareas de reconstrucción de Lima en 1746 tras un terrible tsunami. 1

En recientes fechas Chile padeció los terribles efectos de un fortísimo terremoto y del 'tsunami' generado tras él.

Al leer sobre el tema y sobre la continua actividad sísmica en la costa americana del Pacífico, me viene a la memoria otro caso tampoco muy lejano y parecido.

Parece sorprendente el enunciado de estas líneas, pero un título nobiliario español recuerda el dramático 'tsunami' ocurrido en el siglo XVIII en el Virreinato del Perú así como la férrea voluntad de un hombre para salir adelante y liderar la reconstrucción de Lima.  

Terremoto en 1746

Debemos recapitular sobre el terremoto de Lima acaecido el 28 de octubre de 1746 y, a juzgar por sus efectos relatados por los cronistas, de magnitud aproximada X/XI en la escala de Mercalli sobre un máximo de XII. Las amplias zonas afectadas fueron la Costa y Andes del Centro de Perú causando entre 15.000 y 20.000 muertes.

Según diversos testimonios, desde veintitrés días antes los marinos notaban exhalaciones ígneas que parecían envolver al Callao y se sentían ruidos bajo tierra, "similares al mugido de centenares de bueyes y a disparos de piezas de artillería".

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El viernes 28 de octubre a las 22:30 la tierra comenzó a estremecerse durante unos interminables cuatro minutos. Cayeron derribadas hasta las más sólidas construcciones, templos, conventos, edificios públicos y privados; una vez culminado el seísmo, una espesa e impenetrable nube de polvo que 
podía cortarse con un cuchillo ocultó la población.  

Grabado del maremoto en Arica (Perú), en 1868  

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Lima contaba con 60.000 habitantes y 3000 edificaciones repartidas en un diseño cuadrangular de 150 manzanas. Perecieron 1.141 personas; en la ciudad sólo quedaron 25 casas en pie. La nocturnidad del seísmo, al sorprender durmiendo a la población en sus casas, contribuyó a aumentar el número de víctimas.

Además, casi simultáneamente, un tremendo 'tsunami' de 17 metros de altura azotó el Callao penetrando el agua hasta cinco kilómetros tierra adentro, matando aproximadamente a 5.000 personas; apenas se salvaron 200 en la zona afectada. Ambos fenómenos fueron de tal magnitud que arrasaron por completo la costa central del Perú, considerando al terremoto como el mayor ocurrido en Lima hasta la fecha y el segundo en la historia del Perú después del de Arica de 1868, sucedido entre Chile y Perú.

El coraje personal y cívico del entonces Virrey José Antonio Manso de Velasco y Sánchez de Samaniego levantó al fondo la moral de sus conciudadanos poniéndose de inmediato en apoyo a las víctimas y manos a la obra para la reconstrucción. Su reacción ante el terremoto fue el paradigma del triunfo del 
esfuerzo sobre la destrucción y la muerte, brillando su 

liderazgo, trabajo, ejemplo y sacrificio que demostró, decidido a vencer la desolación emprendiendo desde el primer momento la reconstrucción de Lima.  

Tomó especial interés en la reconstrucción de la Catedral Metropolitana y Primada de las Indias Occidentales, ante la que quiso retratarse en su cuadro más representativo. Lo sobresaliente de sus obras mereció el reconocimiento unánime del pueblo y el mérito de sus acciones traspasó el océano alcanzando el conocimiento del Rey.

Reconocimiento real Fernando VI, conocedor de los detalles de la eficaz actuación del Virrey en tan dramáticas circunstancias, consideró de justicia premiarlo creando por Real Cédula de 8 de febrero de 1748 un título nobiliario que lo dice todo y cuyo nombre él mismo eligió: Conde de Superunda.

'Super' significa en grado sumo, enorme; y 'unda', onda u ola. Es decir, el título nobiliario guarda la memoria de la "ola gigante", aunque hay quien lo traduce erróneamente como "sobre las olas", y sigue vigente en la actualidad.

 

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Firma del Virrey Superunda  



Parte del retrato del Virrey José Antonio Manso de Velasco y  Sánchez de Samaniego con la Catedral Metropolitana  y Primada de las Indias Occidentales al fondo. En la parte antero-inferior del retrato se puede leer:  El Excelentísimo Señor Don José Antonio Manzo de Velasco, Conde de Superunda, Caballero de la Orden de Santiago, Teniente General de los Reales Ejercitos de Su Majestad, Gentilhombre de Cámara con entrada y de su Real Consejo, Virrey Gobernador y Capitán General de los Reinos del Perú, Vice Patrono Real que Reedificó la Santa Yglesia Catedral Metropolitana de Lima, Primada de las Indias Occidentales, arruinada en el terremoto del 28 de Octubre del Año 1746.

 

 

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Vida anterior

José Antonio Manso de Velasco y Sánchez de Samaniego, de la Casa de Velasco, había nacido en Torrecilla de Cameros, en la Rioja actual. Ingresó en los Reales Ejércitos en 1705, participando en los conflictos relacionados con la Guerra de la Cuádruple Alianza1, la Guerra de Sucesión hasta 1714, luego en las expediciones a Cerdeña2 (1717) con el marqués de Lede3 y el duque de Montemar4, Ceuta5 (1720), sitio de Gibraltar6 (1727), reconquista de Orán7 (1732), y guerras de Italia8 (1733-1736), obteniendo al final el grado de Brigadier y recibiendo, en recompensa a sus méritos, el hábito de la Orden de Santiago.

Pero como las desgracias nunca vienen solas, le llegó el momento del retiro que por su avanzada edad solicitó a S.M concediéndoselo. De regreso a la península ibérica para terminar sus días, se encontraba de paso en 1762 por el puerto de La Habana en la Capitanía General de Cuba cuando le sorprende un conflicto armado con Inglaterra que implica el sitio de la isla.

Dado que era el militar de más alto rango en ese momento en el territorio, el Conde de Superunda es nombrado por el Gobernador de Cuba Presidente de la Junta Consultiva de Guerra, y es así como el viejo conde a sus 74 años encabezó la resistencia de la plaza mal artillada de La Habana con tropas mal entrenadas y con peor equipamiento, la cual sólo duró 67 días debiendo rendirse ante los ingleses.  

Una vez apresado por los ingleses es llevado a Cádiz donde en su calidad de Presidente de la Junta Consultiva de Guerra fue llevado ante la justicia marcial por el oprobio causado a la corona a causa de los términos de la rendición de Cuba, siendo condenado a la pena de "suspensión por 100 años de todo empleo militar" y confinamiento en la ciudad de Granada, muriendo finalmente olvidado, después de una vida de entrega, trabajo y sacrificio, en Priego de Córdoba, sin poder volver a ver su tierra riojana.

En Priego se encuentran sepultados sus restos en la Iglesia de San Pedro.

* Coronel en situación de Reserva.

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1 La Guerra de la Cuádruple Alianza fue un conflicto bélico que tuvo lugar entre 1717 y 1721 en Europa y que enfrentó a la Monarquía de la España de Felipe V con la Cuádruple Alianza, coalición formada por el Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico, la Monarquía de Francia, el Reino Unido de Gran Bretaña y las Provincias Unidas de los Países Bajos. 
2
La conquista española de Cerdeña, también conocida como la expedición española de Cerdeña, fue un enfrentamiento militar tuvo lugar entre los meses de agosto y noviembre de 1717 entre España y el Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico, además del suceso desencadenante de la Guerra de la Cuádruple Alianza.Las tropas comandadas por el III marqués de Lede y el I duque de Montemar, apoyadas por la Armada Española, derrotaron fácilmente a las tropas austro-imperiales y conquistaron la isla de Cerdeña, gobernada por la Casa de Habsburgo desde el Tratado de Utrecht de 1713, regresando el dominio de esta a los españoles. 
3
Jean François Nicolas de Bette, castellanizado como Juan Francisco de Bette, (Lede, 1672 - París, 11 de enero de 1725) militar español de los territorios flamencos. Fue III marqués de Lede, comendador de Biedma en la Orden de Santiago, que dejó para recibir el toisón de oro en 1703, tomó parte activa en la guerra de sucesión española y en la guerra de la Cuádruple Alianza. Fue capitán general de Baleares en 1715, virrey de Cerdeña en 1717, de Sicilia en 1718, Grande de España en 17205 y consejero de estado de Luis I.
4
José Carrillo de Albornoz y Montiel, I duque de Montemar, G.E. III conde de Montemar (Sevilla, 8 de octubre de 1671- †Madrid, 26 de junio de 1747), general jefe en la toma de Orán en 1732. Llegaría a ser ministro de Guerra. 
5
Después de regresar las tropas enviadas a Cerdeña y Sicilia, Patiño organizó una expedición para liberar la plaza de Ceuta, sitiada por los moros desde 1694. El ejército del marqués de Lede era de unos 16.000 hombres y la escuadra estaba al mando del teniente general don Carlos Grillo, con las galeras de don José de los Ríos y tres buques más de la Orden de San Juan de Malta. El desembarco tuvo lugar en noviembre de 1720 y el reembarco de las tropas en 1721. El buque insignia del general Grillo era el navío de 80 cañones Gran Princesa de los Cielos. Las galeras realizaron un ataque de diversión mientras se realizaba el ataque general.

 6 El asedio a Gibraltar de 1727 fue el segundo llevado a cabo por las tropas españolas, tras el primer sitio de 1704 con la intención de recuperar la ciudad de Gibraltar tras haber sido tomada en 1704 por la coalición anglo-holandesa en la Guerra de Sucesión española.
 7 La expedición española de Orán de 1732 o la conquista española de Orán y Mers el-Kebir, fue una campaña militar llevada a cabo por España, del 15 de junio al 2 de julio de 1732, contra el protectorado otomano de Argel. La gran expedición española encabezada por José Carrillo de Albornoz, duque de Montemar, y Francisco Javier Cornejo derrotó a las tropas otomanas bajo el mando del Bey Hassan conquistando las fortalezas de las ciudades de Orán y Mers el-Kebir, ciudades gobernadas y administradas a partir de 1708 por el imperio Otomano, cuando ambas ciudades, previamente gobernadas por España, cayeron en manos otomanas durante la guerra de Sucesión Española. 
8
En el marco de la Guerra de Sucesión polaca, que tuvo lugar entre los años 1733 y 1738, fue una guerra con un alcance global europeo a la vez que una guerra civil polaca, con considerable interferencia de otros países, cuyo objetivo inicial era el de determinar quién iba a suceder a Augusto II como rey de Polonia y Lituania, pero que en realidad supuso también un nuevo enfrentamiento dirigido por los Borbones con la intención de socavar o eliminar el poder de los Habsburgo en la Europa occidental, como continuación de la propia Guerra de Sucesión española. Aprovechando la cercanía a Francia de territorios austriacos en la península italiana, como la Lombardía o el ducado de Parma, un ejército formado por tropas franco-piamontesas invadió Italia. Por otro lado, tropas francesas avanzaron en la zona del Rin y Lorena, a la vez que tropas españolas invadían el Reino de las Dos Sicilias, en cumplimiento de lo acordado en el primero de los Pactos de Familia. Los principales enfrentamientos durante el conflicto, aparte de algunos menores, fueron las batallas de Bitonto y San Pietro, el sitio de Gaeta y la batalla de Guastalla, por orden cronológico. Debido pues a las circunstancias políticas y geográficas de los países involucrados en el conflicto, fue en el territorio italiano donde realmente se decidió el resultado de la guerra.

 

 

Gray-Eyed Man of Destiny

William Walker in Nicaragua

William Walker (top) was an unlikely swashbuckler. He was short and slight and had a squeaky uoice.
 But he was also brilliant, having graduated
summa cum laude from the University of Nashville at the age of 14. 

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Only one native-born American has ever become president of another sovereign nation. His name was William Walker. At various times in his life he'd been a doctor, a lawyer, a newspaperman, and a hypnotist. But it was as a filibuster (from a Dutch word meaning freebooter or soldier of fortune) that he seized the presidency of Nicaragua in 1856.

Walker had been approached two years earlier by an American investor, who had cut a deal with one of Nicaragua's warring factions to provide a mercenary army. After carefully wording his contract so as not to run afoul of U.S. neutrality laws, the 31-year-old adventurer took the job. He landed in Nicaragua on June 16, 1855, at the head of a tough band of 58 fighting men drawn from daredevils and soldiers-for-hire. They called themselves the Immortals. The country they found was in perpetual revolution; there had been 15 presidents in six years. Its chief importance, as far as most North Americans were concerned, was lhat it was the site of Commodore : Cornelius Vanderbilt's Accessory Transit Company, which carried s passengers and freight across the Isthmus of Panama in the era before I the canal was built.

The Nicaraguans quickly realized that Walker was a dangerous man. There were fierce early battles and the daredevil invaders once had to make 8 life-or-death dash for freedom after being surrounded. But in less than five months Walker's growing band of mercenaries captured the enemy faction's capital of Granada in a surprise attack. 

From that point Walker was the power in Nicaragua. The newspaper he founded touted him as gray-eyed man of destiny," foretold by Indian lends, who would lead the nation. It was an myth to embrace, for Walker, although he weighed barely 120 pounds, had piercing gray eyes that seemed like windows on a will of steel. After ruling through a puppet government, he himself took the oath as president on July 12, 1856.• But amid these moves to consolidate his empire, the filibuster had made one fatal mistake: he had crossed Cornelius Vanderbilt. Soon after seizing power, 

Walker had conspired with the men who headed Vanderbilt's transit company to squeeze the Commodore out. In response, the powerful American shipping magnate financed an invasion of Nicaragua by Costa Rica; he even managed to enlist the aid of the British and American navies. Walker held on until May 1, 1857, before surrendering and being sent back to the United States.

Continuing to claim the presidency of Nicaragua, Walker tried several times to return. He was executed in Honduras in September 1860. To this day he is remembered by Latin Americans as a hated symbol of Yankee imperialism.

Source: Strange Stories, Amazing Facts, Reader's Digest, Ed. Tim Dwyer, Pleasantville, N.Y.

 PHILIPPINES

Half a Century of Being in the USA
by Eddie AAA Calderón, Ph.D.

 

 

It is indeed very hard for me to believe that I have been in this country for exactly 50 years, and the month of September, 2014 is the start of my anniversary year. I was a 22 year old M.A. political science student at the University of the Philippines (UP) and was six months shy of writing a Master's thesis when my professor in Political Science, Dr. Pedro L. Baldoria who received his Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Southern California asked me and two other UP students in August, 1964 if we were interested in pursuing an M.A. degree at Occidental College in Los Angeles, California on a Chevalier Scholarship grant in Diplomacy and World Affairs. 

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The scholarship award was administered by Dr. Edward W. Mill who was the head of the Diplomacy and World Affairs office at Occidental College. Dr. Mill, a Princeton University Ph.D. graduate, was vested with the Order of Sikatuna award, the highest official honour bestowed to outstanding people by the Philippine government. Dr. Mill received the honour by helping train the first Philippine diplomats right after the Philippines became independent in 1946. He was once an exchange professor of Political Science and International Relations at my alma mater. 

Dr. Baldoria told me that if I would accept the scholarship offer, I had to work fast to get all my travel papers and documents ready and to leave in less than two weeks before the start of school by the third week of September, 1964.

He also told us scholarship recipients that the transportation 
cost was not in the scholarship package which only included the tuition fee and monthly living allowance.

Dr. Baldoria's scholarship news offer had rendered me speechless. I had dreams and so much yearnings-- so did my parents for me-- of going to the USA since my high school years. An emphatic yes was therefore my answer as I trembled much in disbelief. I did tell this to my parents that evening when 
I came home from school and my father was very happy to hear it. He also told me that he would gladly pay for the transportation cost which was expensive.
My mother, however, was very silent. She started to cry telling me that though she was joyful that I would realize my dream of studying abroad she would miss me dearly. I also had to break this news to a maiden who I recently met and started to woo three months earlier.

 
Carlos P. Rómulo on his 80th birthday
.





M
y picture together with my parents, my sister, my maternal grandmother, closest relatives, and friends at home hours before my departure to Los Angeles, California on September 19, 1964.My dog whose name was Bulldog was in that picture and I did really miss him a lot when I was in the USA.

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I had never traveled outside the Philippines and though I was overwhelmed with joy to study abroad and especially to receive a scholarship grant, I felt some sort of an apprehension of living in a foreign country especially for a long period of time and also going there alone. My two other compatriots had already gone ahead of me by three days and therefore I had to go on a solo flight. Despite the fact again that I was overwhelmed with joy and emotion I thought of my parents and sister, my friends, my relatives, my newly found sweetheart, my dog Bulldog, and of course my country who I would miss quite a bit. I also did not have the time to visit my relatives on both sides in the two provinces to bid goodbye because I was too engrossed in getting all my papers done.

As my father was busy helping me for my travel preparation to the USA, he had my mother travel to her hometown to tell all her relatives and friends there of my departure. My relatives were in our house during the day of my departure to say goodbye to me. I also did not have the time to personally bid adieu to my friends from my mother's hometown where I spent many lovely evenings serenading women.*

I could not forget the reaction of my parents in the afternoon of September 19, 1964 when I boarded the Philippine Airlines to go to Los Angeles, California with happiness and sadness intertwined all over their faces. It was my mother who could not stop shedding tears as she hugged me intensely. My father told me that my sister who was studying for the M.D. degree would follow me afterwards.

I carried with me this apprehension when I left the country but that feeling was relieved when I arrived at the Los Angeles airport after seeing my soon to be Filipino classmate accompanied by Dr. Mill and a graduate assistant greet me. I was also happy that my Filipino classmate had found an apartment for us and it was a short walking distance from the college.

I spent two years at Occidental College and received a Master's degree. Occidental College was incidentally the alma mater of President Barak Obama. I was about to leave Los Angeles to go to Minnesota for the Ph.D. studies in the 1966 school year with a scholarship grant when Dr. Mill told me the very sad news that Dr. Baldoria had died of cardiac arrest the night before he and his family were to go to the United States.

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Dr. Baldoria was to teach at Occidental College for the school year 1966-1967 as an exchange professor of international relations and diplomacy. He was also an exchange professor of international relations in a university in New York before this assignment.

I could not believe that being in the USA had accorded me opportunities such as meeting and spending week-ends with American families (who became my foster families) interested in foreign students, attending many conferences sponsored by my two schools and by private organisations for foreign students, visiting many parts of the country sponsored by the Rotary Club and other private organisations, working as an intern in a scholarship program during the Summer of 1967 for VISTA (Volunteer in Service to the USA) with Puerto Rican tobacco farm migrants, going to Chile, South America in 1968 on a five month living and learning study program under the auspices of the University of Minnesota, among others. I lived with a Chilean family in Santiago, the nation's capital, during my whole stay and also had the opportunity to travel to other parts of Chile. I could not believe that Chile was located at the southernmost part of the world.

In 1969, my sister, an M.D. came to the USA and has since lived in Minnesota. My father's wish that she would follow me became a reality. My sister told me upon arrival that I had to plan visiting the Philippines soon because our mother was saddened by my and her absence from home. So I did make that plan to go back home in consonance with my doing a Ph.D. dissertation research in 1970.

For a travel plan to go home in 1970 to do the Ph.D. dissertation research, I decided to take a world tour starting from Portugal. Upon reaching home, my parents and my God son were there to greet me with tremendous smiles from their faces and showered me with intense hugs. My first order of business was to interview Dr. Carlos P. Rómulo who was the topic of my dissertation. He was the first Philippine delegate to the United Nations (UN) when it just came in existence and later became the first President of the UN General Assembly from 1949 to 1950. He also became the Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs (a position similar to that of the US Secretary of State) from 1950 to 1952 and then Philippine Ambassador to the USA in 1952. He was President of my alma mater, the UP, from 1962 to 1968 and also Secretary of Education from 1966 to 1968 while still the President of the UP.

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After my Philippine stay I proceeded to go back to the USA stopping first at Papua-New Guinea and the rest including South America. The itinerary of my world tour and pleasant experience is in a series of articles that I wrote for the Somos Primos Magazine attached below**.

My parents came to Minnesota in 1971 for a year vacation. They came again for good in 1976. My sister and I had sponsored their going with a tour group from New York to see the Holy Land, Jordan, Egypt (riding a camel by the great Sphinx of Giza), Rome/Vatican to see the Pope, and Switzerland (the site of the Black Madonna). Then we gave them a car tour of southern Canada from British Columbia to Nova Scotia and also almost the whole of the USA. We also took them to Cancún, Mexico. Had not my father suffered a heart attack, we would have taken him and our mother to France for another vacation.

I then received a teaching position even before receiving my Ph.D. in a college in a small town in northern Minnesota which is now a university. After receiving my Ph.D. I felt really lonely living in a small town and I decided to move back to Minneapolis, a larger and the biggest city in Minnesota. I did get a nice job at the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights until I retired. While working for the Civil Rights Department I was very happy to win many big and important cases where our people and others filed complaints of 

discrimination particularly in employment and housing based on race. The following are few examples of the cases I handled.

I took the complaint of a Filipina who alleged being discriminated due to her race when she applied for an elementary teaching position with a local public school. She not only had a previous experience teaching in a California public school but she also had an M.A. degree in education. Those newly hired were Caucasian and some African American recent graduates with no teaching experience and M.A. degrees. This alone showed a clear pattern of race discrimination because of her Asian affinity in my investigation which my Department wholeheartedly supported. The case was then taken to a public hearing and then to the court when the city public school made an appeal. However, the Filipina finally won her case. Consequently the city public school had to hire her as a teacher with retroactive pay and seniority status from the date she said she was refused the teaching position. She also received a fourth of a million dollars in settlement which also included pain and suffering. The case was jointly filed with the US EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a federal agency). The EEOC had deferred this case to my place of work for investigation and findings of probable/no probable case of racial discrimination. The EEOC was very pleased with the result of the case especially after the settlement. That Filipina also became the envy of many teachers in the public schools and many of our Filipino compatriots.

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Another Filipino filed a a race discrimination complaint case against a city public works department with my office which I did the investigation. The Filipino alleged that he was refused to be hired as as an engineer despite superior qualification because of his race. My investigation showed that he was indeed discriminated. The case went to a public hearing which supported the findings of discrimination. He was finally given the job plus a $58,000 for lost employment opportunity, pain and suffering award. This case was also jointly filed with the EEOC. These two Filipino cases were featured in the Filipino newspaper, The Philippine News from San Francisco, California in the early 80's.

This newspaper was founded in 1961 by Alex Esclamado. (I have lost my copy of this newspaper which featured the two Filipinos who won their cases.)

The other big case I had was from the Hmong people about 160 of them who filed complaints en masse of racial discrimination in housing against their landlords when the landlords refused to return their rent deposits after giving in writing a month's notice to leave the apartments. The Hmong renters alleged that African-American and Caucasian renters were able to get their
deposits back when they moved to another apartments. The owner of the apartment complex settled the complaints even

 before I finished completing the investigation by agreeing to return to the Hmong complainants their rent deposits. It was settled during a meeting --an informal hearing-- I had with the owner and key representatives of the Hmong renters. The Director of my office, the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights, was so pleased with this that he informed the Mayor of Minneapolis and the US Department of Housing. where the complaints with the city of Minneapolis was filed jointly, of the good deeds that I had done. I consequently received commendation from the Minneapolis Council and the US Housing Department for resolving the housing complaints. I was also grantedan advance pay hike by the Minneapolis City Council. From thence on, I had become popular with the Hmong people and consequently many Indochinese came to our office to file complaints of discrimination with me and asked the Department that I be the investigator.

The rest of my life was spent as a bachelor as I was busy taking care of my parents together with my sister until the Lord called our parents to heaven in 1991 (father) and 1998 (mother). I also revisited the Philippines 23 years later (1993) after my last visit in 1970, then in 1995, 1997, 1998 and the year 2000.

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When my mother died in 1998 I decided to end my being a long time bachelor. I then traveled to Eastern Europe and Central Asia to meet the women for a marriage purpose. In March of 2001, I went to Kyrgyzstan, a Muslim republic in Central Asia to meet someone who later became my wife.*** Kyrgyzstan is one of the 5 Muslim republics in Central

Asia which used to be provinces/states of the defunct Soviet Union. Two months later in May, May, 2001, I traveled to Poland to have a rendezvous with a Ukrainian woman from Kremenchug, the Ukraine and I paid for her travel to Poland and back to her country. I could not forget this experience as we visited the concentration camp in Auschwitz for a side trip.**** I was all set to go to Moscow in October of that year to meet a Russian woman but I decided to cancel it as I already made a decision who to marry.  

Getting married in 2002 gave my Kyrgyz partner and I two sons ages 10 and 7. My two sons keep me continuously active, making making me feel that I am in the spring and summer instead of the autumn of life. Taking care of my parents had again prevented me from having my own family which my parents had been asking me to do. I still have the feeling of sadness that my parents, especially my mother, were not able to see their grandchildren.

I remember my mother in 1976 when I picked her and my father up from the airport as they were coming to the USA for good. 
The first question my mother asked was: Son, where are my grandchildren? I was caught off guard and had to tell her and my father this: Mama and Papa I am sorry but I am still very much single! Of course they knew that but they could not help but show anxiety for my still staying single late in life. In the Philippine tradition as I was growing up, a person could not or was not expected to be a parent unless s/he were married.

I had been active in doing volunteer work for the non-profit neighbourhood organisations during my bachelor years until my parents' health became a concern. While working for the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights I also got involved in creating for the first time in Minnesota which I called the Centre for Asians and Pacific Islanders (CAPI) and I consequently became its first president. That was in the early 80's when the Indochinese refugees came to Minnesota and in particular the Twin Cities of St Paul and Minneapolis due to the war in their country. 

With this activity and noticing the influx of the Indochinese refugees, especially the Hmong people (from Laos) in the southside neighbourhoods of Minneapolis (Phillips and Elliot Park), Don Fraser, then Mayor of the city of Minneapolis, asked me to be part of an Indochinese committee that met once a week in his office to welcome the Indochinese refugees in Minneapolis.

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The Mayor also heard negative rumours regarding the not so positive reactions of the native American residents who were the predominant residents of those southside neighbourhoods against Indochinese refugees. He then asked the Director of my place of work in 1981 to have me investigate the negative rumours and write a report. The Indochinese people were from the former French Indochina consisting of the Hmong and Lao people from Laos, the Vietnamese, and the Cambodians. They also came to other parts of the USA and mostly in California. The refugees who found their way in Minnesota were sponsored by many private non-profit agencies. The University of Minnesota

was very interested in my report that it asked my permission to have it in the book that dealt with the Indochinese people, especially the Hmong, in Minnesota. The book contains 19 page investigative reports I did for the city of Minneapolis.*****

The Centre (CAPI) was created to help the refugees resettle, find jobs, provide them with free grocery and clothing, assist them find housing with the help of many private organisations, health and legal assistance, and other vital matters. I had to seek financial --fund raising-- and other assistance from the State of Minnesota, Hennepin County, and private organisations to establish the CAPI and to make it in continuous operation. The CAPI is still in service in Minnesota.

Getting married and having children have cancelled my continuous involvement in volunteer activities. But the coming of cyberspace communication -the internet- has since provided me a new spice of life and that is to be involved in the internet exchange of mails with friends in the Philippines and all over the world. The internet has also made me join other individuals and groups assisting our countrymates as they work and live in foreign countries, especially in the Middle East. I also found it enjoyable to write articles each month for the Somos Primos Magazine which I started during my retirement which in reality is not a retirement at all as I have two young sons to take care. This opportunity to write has helped me mentally active and productive in my "retirement years".

And last I and others who came to this country in 1964 are happy that the year 1964 gave birth to the Civil Rights Act that was signed by President Lyndon Johnson. This important Act is celebrating its 50 anniversary and it has afforded minorities and women the same rights and equal opportunity as the Whites and the male population of the USA.

I also could not believe that in all my 50 years in this country, the Summer of 2014 is the coldest of all the summer seasons I have ever experienced in life.

____________________

* 2/12 http://somosprimos.com/sp2012/spfeb12/spfeb12.htm#THE PHILIPPINES
Harana in the Philippines: A Personal Experience  

3/14 http://somosprimos.com/sp2014/spmar14/spmar14.htm#THE PHILIPPINES
The Harana Article: Un Update

**7/12 http://somosprimos.com/sp2012/spjul12/spjul12.htm#THE PHILIPPINES
1) Remembering my Ist Trip Around the World Part 1
2) Remembering my Ist Trip Around the World Part 2
(This article describes also an
Australian friend I met in Turkey who accepted my invitation to visit me and my country
on her way home.)

8/12 http://somosprimos.com/sp2012/spaug12/spaug12.htm#THE PHILIPPINES
1) Remembering my Ist Trip Around the World, The Asian Experience Part 3
2) Remembering my Ist Trip Around the World, The Asian Experience Part 4

9/12 http://somosprimos.com/sp2012/spsep12/spsep12.htm#THE PHILIPPINES
1) My Trip Around The World, South America, Chile, and Argentina, Part 5
(The unbelievable trip to the Isla de Pascua is also described in this article)
2) My Trip Around The World, Uruguay, Brazil, Venezuela, and Colombia, Part 6

10/12 http://somosprimos.com/sp2012/spoct12/spoct12.htm#THE PHILIPPINES
Remembering my Ist Trip Around the World, An Epilogue

***6/12 http://somosprimos.com/sp2012/spjun12/spjun12.htm#THE PHILIPPINES
1) 10 Years of Marriage. I Can't Believe That Time Has Gone By So Quick
2) La Joya del Kirguistán, the Jewel/Gem of Kyrgyzstan

****12/12 http://somosprimos.com/sp2012/spdec12/spdec12.htm#THE PHILIPPINES An Unforgettable Auschwitz Experience for a Filipino Tourist

Calderon, Eddie, The Impact of Indochinese Resettlement on the Phillips and
Elliot Park Neighbourhoods in South Minneapolis
pp. 367 to 386 in
The Hmong In the West by Bruce T. Downing and Douglas P. Olney, Southeast
Asian Refugee Studies Project Center for Urban and Regional Affairs,
University of Minnesota, 1982

http://www.cura.umn.edu/sites/cura.advantagelabs.com/files/publications/M1081.pdf

 

 

 

  SPAIN

Hernán Cortés  
Estados Unidos... ¿de España?  
Gálvez: marino español que se aventuró,solo contra las defensas inglesas de Florida

 

Un Fraile Franciscano de Sevilla

Unido a la historia de Hernán Cortés, a su regreso a Castilla Fray Pedro Melgarejo fue distinguido con los títulos 
de “Predicador de su Majestad y Consejero de Yndias”.    
28 julio 2014

Hernán Cortés  
Ángel Custodio Rebollo.  

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Con la envergadura que tenía la campaña que Hernán Cortés había emprendido en México, las autoridades  decidieron enviar tropa de ayuda para reforzar su ejército.  

Se encargó de formar expedición Rodrigo de Bastidas que equipó la flota con tres barcos, “La María”, una nao de 150 toneladas   que iba acompañada por dos carabelas más pequeñas.  

Esta fue la base de la que se ha denominado la “expedición de Julián de Alderete”, porque ese era el nombre del Tesorero para la misma designado por el Rey.  

Alderete, a quién nos hemos referido en un  anterior artículo, había sido camarero del Obispo Fonseca y creo que esto influyó para que  el prelado decidiera que acompañara a Julián, un fraile franciscano natural de Sevilla, llamado Pedro Melgarejo de Urrea.( Los apellidos no eran muy andaluces porque uno era  de origen castellano y el otro aragonés, aunque suponemos que fuera descendiente de alguno de los muchos que apoyaron al 

 

Rey en la conquista de Sevilla y después fijaron su residencia en Andalucía.)  

Este Fraile llevaba unas “bulas de cruzada”, que previo pago te concedía el derecho de perdonar los pecados que hubieses cometido. Muchos historiadores comentan  que el Fraile Melgarejo, regresó a Sevilla inmensamente rico.  

Al llegar Alderete y el Fraile a Texcoco, Cortés, que percibió la influencia que los informes de esta pareja tendrían ante los superiores, los llevó a lo alto del templo, para que viesen Tenochtitlan desde allí y observaran la importancia de aquella conquista.  

A su regreso  a Castilla  Fray Pedro Melgarejo fue distinguido con los  títulos de “Predicador de su Majestad y Consejero de Yndias”.  

El 29 de noviembre de 1528 fue designado Obispo de Dulcigno, una población en el Adriático situada en lo que hoy es Montenegro, de cuyo cargo dimitió en 1536.

 

 

Guillermo Fesser Hazte fan

Journalist

Estados Unidos... ¿de España?

Publicado: 21/07/2014 07:05 CEST Actualizado: 21/07/2014

 

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El Comité de Ética del Senado estadounidense acaba de dar luz verde para que se cuelgue en el Capitolio un retrato de Bernardo de Gálvez; el malagueño alegre y sencillo que fuera gobernador de Luisiana, virrey de Nueva España, comandante en jefe de todas las fuerzas del Caribe (incluida la armada francesa) y héroe de la independencia norteamericana con una talla equiparable al Marqués de Lafayette. ¡Un momento! ¿Gálvez? ¿El Capitolio? ¿A alguien le suena de algo este pavo? ¿No?, pues no me extraña. A mí tampoco me sonaba de nada.

Sólo cuando empecé a documentarme para escribir el libro 
A Cien Millas de Manhattan, caí en la cuenta de la inmensa contribución de nuestro país a la construcción de Estados Unidos y de lo poco que sabemos de ello. Vamos, que no to tenemos ni idea. Ni los norteamericanos, ni los españoles. La historia la escribieron los ingleses y se encargaron de quedar bien ellos y dejarnos mal a nosotros. Pero ahora Gálvez nos brinda la oportunidad de resarcirnos. Y vamos a utilizarla.

Esta es la historia de Teresa Valcarce, más conocida como Tere "Maripancartas" (debido a su adición a manifestarte en favor de causas justas), que es la española residente en 

Washington DC que ha provocado la buena nueva, y de la necesidad de que el rey Felipe VI, cuando venga en septiembre a la asamblea de la ONU, en su primer viaje oficial a Estados Unidos, se traiga un martillo y un clavito de acero especial para paredes de pladur - que es lo que aquí se trabaja - para colgar personalmente el cuadro. ¿Por qué lo digo? Porque ese martillazo real puede conseguir que el legado español empiece a encontrar el reconocimiento que se merece en un país en el que, no nos olvidemos, las 2 terceras partes de su territorio actual estuvieron un día bajo bandera española.  

Así es: al pensar en la gesta de los conquistadores en América, solemos imaginarlos siempre en México o en las selvas de Perú. Hasta que cae en manos de uno Banderas Lejanas y descubre que españoles fueron los primeros europeos que avistaron el Cañón del Colorado, cruzaron el río Misisipi, atravesaron las grandes praderas o llegaron a Alaska. Una fabulosa narración en la que Fernando Martínez Laínez y Carlos Canales Torres dejan claro que, "mucho antes de que Estados Unidos existiera como nación, España había conquistado ya el Far West y combatido o pactado con las principales tribus indias que luego el cine de Hollywood haría famosas."  

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Pero es que, además, España tuvo un papel preponderante en la consecución de la independencia de Estados Unidos. Atención, pregunta: En el primer desfile de la victoria norteamericano del 4 de julio de 1783, ¿quién estaba a la derecha de Washington? Respuesta: Bernardo de Gálvez, vecino de Macharaviaya (un pueblito de 500 habitantes a 30 minutos de Málaga ciudad). Bueno, pues ná. ¿Y qué pintaba este paisano allí? Simplemente que se lo merecía.  

Este militar que había dado nombre a una ciudad en Texas y a una bahía en el golfo de México (Galveston, derivación de Galvez town, que es la traducción inglesa de ciudad de Gálvez) ganó dos batallas definitivas para la victoria de los patriotas norteamericanos. Primero en Pensacola (hasta poco antes Panzacola), capital de una Florida que llevaba siendo inglesa desde 1763. Allí Bernardo hizo la machada de entrar en la bahía con su barco en solitario, forzando al resto de los navíos a seguirle. Por su hazaña, el rey le permitió lucir en su escudo de armas la leyenda YO SOLO. Y, finalmente, en Yorktown, estado de Nueva York, donde la estrategia militar de Gálvez consiguió ponerle punto y final a la American Revolucionary War.  

Tere Valcarce nace en El Ferrol y estudia turismo en Málaga. Trabaja en el mostrador del aeropuerto cuando, en 1991, se le acerca un pasajero a pedir información. Afirma que es norteamericano, pero Tere le detecta acento de Cádiz.   

El general Washington declaró que sin el apoyo de la Spanish Armada - la flota más poderosa del mundo en el siglo XVIII- las colonias no hubieran ganado nunca la guerra a Inglaterra. Pero sólo los franceses, y especialmente Lafayette, que tiene calle prácticamente en todas las ciudades de Estados Unidos, se llevaron la gloria. ¿Por qué? Muy sencillo. Lo explica Martha Gutiérrez-Steinkamp en su Alianza Olvidada: al rey Carlos III no le interesaba prodigar que España apoyaba a las colonias del norte porque la idea de la independencia podía contagiarse a las colonias del Sur. Y sin enterarnos seguimos. Pero vamos de una vez con Maripancartas.

"Nene, tu eres de El Puerto." "Que no soy" "Que si eres" Pues al final el chico tiene razón. Resulta que es norteamericano, pero criado en la base militar de Rota donde destinaron al padre. Total, que mantienen contacto y, 4 años más tarde, él la pone un llama/cuelga: "aterrizo mañana en Málaga". Es feria y,

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cosas que tienen que suceder, una copitas y empiezan a salir. En 1999 se casan y se vienen para USA. En 2005 Tere tiene su primer hijo, Pablo, y luego vienen 2 más: Lucas y Lucía. En 2008 se hace ciudadana norteamericana.   

En marzo del año pasado su madre le manda un artículo del Diario SUR en el que se menciona que EEUU tiene una cuenta pendiente con un tal Gálvez. "¿Estados Unidos una cuenta pendiente con un héroe de guerra?" se sorprende Maripancartas. No puede ser porque, "si hay algo que los americanos hacen bien es honrar a sus héroes." Contacta al autor del artículo, el periodista Manuel Olmedo, investigador de la figura de Gálvez, y éste le proporciona copia de un documento que descubrió en los archivos nacionales de Washington. Se trata de una resolución fechada en mayo de 1783 por la que el Congreso de Estados Unidos acepta un retrato de Gálvez, donado por un patriota de nombre Pollok, y toma la decisión de colgarlo en la sala "in which Congress meet", donde se reúne el Congreso. Toma ya.  

En marzo del año pasado su madre le manda un artículo del Diario SUR en el que se menciona que EEUU tiene una cuenta pendiente con un tal Gálvez. "¿Estados Unidos una cuenta pendiente con un héroe de guerra?" se sorprende 

Maripancartas. No puede ser porque, "si hay algo que losamericanos hacen bien es honrar a sus héroes." Contacta al autor del artículo, el periodista Manuel Olmedo, investigador de la figura de Gálvez, y éste le proporciona copia de un documento que descubrió en los archivos nacionales de Washington. Se trata de una resolución fechada en mayo de 1783 por la que el Congreso de Estados Unidos acepta un retrato de Gálvez, donado por un patriota de nombre Pollok, y toma la decisión de colgarlo en la sala "in which Congress meet", donde se reúne el Congreso. Toma ya.

Tere Maripancartas le consuela a Olmedo: "no te preocupes, que en un momentito me acerco yo al Capitolio y les digo que hay un error y que lo tienen que arreglar" Dicho y hecho. Maripancartas se pone en marcha. Llama a Filadelfia, a Washington, al Congreso, a los archivos... y a nadie le consta que la resolución de 1783 se haya cumplido. Y Tere: "¿qué hago, que hago?" En esto aparece un equipo de Españoles por el Mundo a rodar un programa en Washington.... y la citan. La casualidad quiere que, el mismo día del rodaje, tengan que grabar a otro español por el mundo que tiene cita con un congresista de Maryland. Y nene, como diría Tere, mira por donde, se trataba de Chris Van-Hollen: justo el congresista que le corresponde a Maripancartas.  

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Al terminar la entrevista Van-Hollen se despide de Tere, pensando que es parte del equipo técnico. Le dice: "nice to meet you", encantado de conocerte. Maripancartas le agarra del brazo y le responde: "si, nice to meet you, pero usted de aquí no se mueve." "¿Cómo que no me puedo ir?" protesta el diputado. "Porque me tiene que ayudar." "¿Yo?" "A ver: no le queda más remedio porque soy ciudadana norteamericana y usted es mi congresista." (Diferencia sutil entre los políticos españoles que se deben a sus partidos y los norteamericanos que están al servicio de sus votantes. Es lo que tienen las listas abiertas.)

Tere le cuenta: "existe una resolución del Congreso de hace 231 años que no hemos cumplido y tenemos que cumplirla." El tipo se queda de piedra y tras una pausa, le pide que, por favor, se lo vuelva a repetir. Maripancartas lo hace y la reacción de Van-Hollen consiste sólo en 3 letras: "Wow!" Que en español se pronuncia guau. Se despiden y, esa misma tarde, cuando llega a casa, ya tiene un correo electrónico de la oficina del congresista: "estamos interesados en el caso Gálvez. Por favor, ponte en contacto con nosotros." Eso ocurre en Emancipation Day, el 16 de abril de 2013. Desde entonces y hasta octubre, Maripancartas prepara con la oficina de Van-Hollen un informe para presentárselo a la Cámara de Arte del Congreso.  

Por el camino surge un nuevo problema. El retrato original donado por Pollok ha desaparecido. ¿Qué hacer? La Asociación Bernardo de Gálvez en Málaga pone sosiego: "Tere, tú no te preocupes, que nosotros donamos un cuadro. Tú encárgate sólo de que lo cuelguen." ¿Cómo lo resuelven? Con una buena copia.

Cuando Bernardo de Gálvez volvió de Estados Unidos, Carlos III en reconocimiento a sus hazañas le pidió al pintor de la corte, Maella, que le hiciera un retrato. El óleo pertenece a una colección privada que no tiene intención de soltarlo. Así que la diputación le pide a Carlos Monserrate, malagueño que ha hecho retratos de ministros y altos mandatarios (y que vive a 5 minutos de donde está el original colgado, con lo cual lo ha podido ir a visitar infinidad de veces) el favor de que lo calque. Y el 4 de junio, a las 4 de la tarde para ser más precisos, llega el cuadro a la embajada de España en Washington.  

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Rebobinamos. Mientras Monserrate copia los pelos de Gálvez, en navidades llega la respuesta de la Cámara de Representantes norteamericana. Recomienda el cuadro para una exposición temporal, pero no permanente. Disgustazo en toda regla. ¿Ahora qué? En Enero aparece Rajoy y le hacen una foto fumándose un puro por las calles de Nueva York. Maripancartas accede a Mariano, a quien le parece interesante la historia y decide comentársela a Obama. También la menciona en el Senado, donde acude a concederle la Encomienda de Isabel la Católica al senador Robert Menéndez, director del Comité de Asuntos Exteriores del Senado. Un demócrata de Nueva Jersey, de origen cubano, que tiene lazos muy estrechos con España. Menéndez, como Chairman, si España le regala el cuadro, puede aceptarlo en nombre de Estados Unidos y colgarlo en el Capitolio. Bingo.

Maripancartas va a la oficina del senador, le plantea el caso, y a Menéndez le parece estupendo. Solicita a la diputación de Málaga que redacte una carta pidiendo al senado norteamericano que acepte el cuadro.... Y el jueves 17 de octubre llegó la respuesta del Comité de Ética del Senado, encargado de aceptar o rechazar regalos. El retrato de Gálvez se acepta.  

Ahora sólo queda sacarle partido a esta oportunidad que nos 

brinda la historia. ¿Lo redondo? Que su majestad Felipe VI, ensu primer viaje oficial como monarca a EEUU a finales de septiembre, sea quien cuelgue el cuadro. ¿Motivos? Coinciden tres fundamentales para sacar rendimiento a esta noticia. Primero: el estado de Florida acaba de pedir al Congreso que le conceda a Bernardo de Gálvez la ciudadanía honorífica. Va a ocurrir y ello va a provocar que se hable de Gálvez en los medios de comunicación norteamericanos porque este no es un honor que se conceda todos los días. Hasta la fecha sólo 7 seres humanos han sido merecedores de ella. Entre ellos Lafayette, el otro héroe revolucionario, Winston Churchill y la madre Teresa de Calcuta. Así que la gente de USA se va a preguntar quién diantres es este Gálvez y el historiador Douglas Brinkley no va a dar abasto del estudio de la CBS al de la CNN dando explicaciones. Segundo: la visita de Felipe VI coincide con el Spanish Heritage Month (el mes del legado Hispano que se celebra en Estados Unidos del 15 de septiembre al 15 de octubre), con lo cual encaja de maravilla reivindicar un Spanish Legacy que nadie conoce pero que a todos les va a fascinar en cuanto se enteren. Y, tercero: la entrega del cuadro seguiría la tradición, pues Juan Carlos I en su primer viaje oficial a Estados Unidos, en 1976, regaló una estatua ecuestre de Bernardo de Gálvez. El bronce de Juan de Ávalos está con las estatuas de los libertadores en la Avenida de Virginia, Washington DC, justo detrás del departamento de estado.  

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¿No queríamos marca España? Pues este acontecimiento, si se lleva con humildad pero con un plan estratégico, puede encumbrar la imagen de nuestro país en Estados Unidos por todo lo alto. Y que se vaya preparando Macharaviaya a recibir hordas de turistas norteamericanos queriendo conocer la tierra del General al que su país le debe la independencia. Si yo fuera el de Kukutxumutxu empezaba ya a diseñar camisetas con los pelos de Gálvez y el logo YO SOLO, I ALONE porque la primavera que viene se pueden empezar a vender como roscas por la costa del sol.  

 

España / DEFENSA/HISTORIA MILITAR

Gálvez: el marino español que se aventuró 
«solo» contra las defensas inglesas de Florida

ESTEBAN VILLAREJO/MANUEL P. VILLATOROabc_es / MADRID Día 25/07/2014

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El país que estos días dirime entre Obama o Romney vivió en Pensacola una batalla decisiva para su independencia. Y, fíjense por donde, aquella lid de 1781 fue librada y ganada por la Infantería de Marina de la siempre olvidadiza España. Una vez más las casacas rojas de la Pérfida Albión se cruzaban en el rumbo de nuestra Historia. Esa vez, al inglés le tocó perder.

El de Pensacola, en tierras de la Florida occidental, fue un desembarco audaz y osado dada la dificultad de acceder a su bahía. Una empresa temeraria que, exitosa finalmente, alumbraría para siempre el arrojo (cojones, que se dice ahora) de uno de los personajes más influyentes y desconocidos de la Historia común de España y de EE.UU: Bernardo de Gálvez Gallardo Madrid, vizconde de Galvestón y conde de Gálvez. Tras aquel fuego de Pensacola su escudo de armas siempre luciría el lema de «Yo Solo», porque así fue cómo entró en el bastión inglés de la Florida: «El que tenga honor y valor que me siga».  

«Para entender el desembarco de Pensacola, antes debemos remontarnos a la Guerra de los Siete Años (1756-1763), ganada por el Reino Unido a una coalición de naciones entre las que se encontraba Francia y España», relata José María Moreno Martín, jefe de la sección de Cartografía del Museo Naval, que este mes exhibe como «pieza destacada» un mapa en ocho viñetas sobre la batalla de Pensacola.

Tras esa guerra, la España de Carlos III y la Francia de Luis XV, y después Luis XVI, aguardaban avizor una primera oportunidad para devolver el golpe a Inglaterra. Y esa vino con la sublevación de las Trece Colonias (1775) que para sufragar las guerras de la metrópli veían cómo sus cargas impositivas aumentaban sin cesar. La gota que colmó el vaso fue el nuevo impuesto del té, que originó un motín en Boston.

España ayudó con dinero a los rebeldes norteamericanos desde el inicio  

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España desde el primer momento ayudó económicamente a los rebeldes norteamericanos llegando a pertrechar a 30.000 rebeldes con sus uniformes, fusiles y 216 cañones, pero... ¿debía intervenir militarmente como hizo posteriormente la Francia de Luis XVI tras la insistencia de Benjamin Franklin? He ahí el dilema del Rey Carlos III. «España se encontraba en una posición más delicada. Por un lado nos encontramos con las tesis del Conde de Floridablanca, que abogaba por mantenerse neutral so pena de desencadenar un efecto dominó de independencias en las colonias españolas americanas. Por otro lado, el Conde de Aranda, embajador de España en París, veía en el apoyo a las Trece Colonias una oportunidad idónea para recuperar Gibraltar», explica Moreno Martín.

Definitivamente se impusieron las tesis del Conde de Aranda y en 1779 España declaró la guerra a Gran Bretaña. Ya nada sería igual en la Guerra de Independencia de las Trece Colonias: Inglaterra se vería obligada a dividir esfuerzos en el Canal de la Mancha (contra Francia), el Mediterráneo (contra España) y el Golfo de México, donde Inglaterra había arrebatado años antes a España algunas plazas marítimas como era el caso de Pensacola, también conocida como San Carlos de Panzacola. Conclusión: las fuerzas de la guerra por la Independencia de las Trece Colonias se niveló. Por un lado, Reino Unido (120 navíos y 100 fragatas) y, por el otro, Francia (60 navíos y 60 fragatas) y España (60 navíos y 30 fragatas).  

Es aquí donde saldrá a relucir el ingenio del entonces gobernador de la Luisiana, el malagueño Bernardo de Gálvez (Macharaviaya, 1746 - Tacubaya, en Ciudad de México,1786) quien comenzó a forjar su leyenda militar como capitán en tierras de Nueva España, llevando a cabo una campaña contra los indios Apaches. Con 24 añitos y heridas a doquier, el futuro «Yo Solo», ameritaba ya el galón de comandante de armas de Nueva Vizcaya y Sonora (aproximadamente el actual estado de Nuevo México). El héroe militar español en tierras del ahora EE.UU. forjaba su leyenda, aunque antes regresaría a España para participar en la fallida expedición de Argel (1775), foco central de la piratería en el Mediterráneo.

En su vuelta a América en 1776 Bernardo de Gálvez es destinado a la plaza de Luisiana. Y es por eso que cuando España decide librar batalla a Inglaterra en el Golfo de México todas las venturas se dirigen hacia él. Fijó como objetivo recuperar Pensacola; antes caerían las posesiones británicas de Manchac y Baton Rouge -en la desembocadura del río Mississipi- o Mobila (1779). El círculo se estrechaba así en torno a la capital de la Florida. Sin embargo, su disposición geográfica y su estrecho con escasa profundidad impedía acometer la empresa.  

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«Se trataba de una operación bastante complicada, por no decir inverosímil», destaca el jefe de cartógrafos. Un 28 de febrero de 1781 partía desde La Habana la expedición española con 36 buques de guerra con José Calvo Irazábal como de jefe de la escuadra. En sus tripas los ansiosos infantes de Marina aguardaban el desembarco. Por tierras otras tropas españolas y después francesas esperaban el desembarco para envolver la plaza de Pensacola.

En este momento nos dirigimos de nuevo al Museo Naval de Madrid. En el mapa de 8 viñetas que se exhibirá durante dos meses más como «la pieza detallada» (encargado a raíz del

 

informe de la toma de Pensacola «con la clara intención de narrar la historia de una batalla») observamos en su parte central a los navíos españoles frente al escenario de la batalla. La ciudad de Pensacola en su bahía y la isla de Santa Rosa en la bocana de acceso, formando un estrecho con la posición fortificada de Barrancas Coloradas, desde donde provenía el principal riesgo de la empresa. Sent by

María Ángeles O'Donnell de Olson

Cónsul Honoraria de España en San Diego

 


INTERNATIONAL

Remembering 9/11 and the history of Muslim acts of Terrorism Against Europeans
Hand of God sent missile into sea
Catalonia to Muslims: Support Independence, Get Mega-Mosque
Islamic Statement: "We Will Take Spain Back"

 

Remembering 9/11 and the history of Muslim acts of Terrorism Against Europeans
Compiled by Charles Martell

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This is all factually (and historically) correct - and verifiable if one would decide to do some research toward that end...... 
if you even go back further.

..... in 732 AD the Muslim Army which was moving on Paris was defeated and turned back at Tours, France. 

…in 1571 AD the Muslim Army/ Navy was defeated by the Italians and Austrians as they tried to cross the Mediterranean to attack southern Europe in the Battle of Lapanto. 

...in 1683 AD the Turkish Muslim Army, attacking Eastern Europe, was finally defeated in the Battle of Vienna by German and Polish Christian Armies. 

RECENT HISTORY: 
...in 1968, Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by a Muslim male.

...in 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by Muslim males.

...in 1972 a Pan Am 747 was hijacked and eventually diverted to Cairo where a fuse was lit on final approach, it was blown up shortly after landing by Muslim males.

...in 1973 a Pan Am 707 was destroyed in Rome, with 33 people killed, when it was attacked with grenades by Muslim males.

...in 1979, the US embassy in Iran was taken over by Muslim males.

...during the 1980's a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by Muslim males.

 

...in 1983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by Muslim males.

...in 1985, the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and a 70 year old American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard in his wheelchair by Muslim males.

...in 1985. TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens, and a US Navy diver trying to rescue passengers was murdered by Muslim males.

...in 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by Muslim males.

...in 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed the first time by Muslim males.

...in 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by Muslim males.

... On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked; two were used as missiles to take down the World Trade Centers and of the remaining two, one crashed into the US Pentagon and the other was diverted and crashed by the passengers. Thousands of people were killed by Muslim males.

...in 2002, the United States fought a war in Afghanistan against Muslim males.

...in 2002, reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and beheaded by a Muslim male.

...in 2013, Boston Marathon Bombing 4 Innocent people including a child killed, 264 injured by Muslim males.

Sent by Yomar Villarreal Cleary ycleary@charter.net 

 

'Hand of God sent missile into sea'  
Iron Dome operator: 'I witnessed this miracle with my own eyes'
Published: 8/5/2014               

Joe Kovacs

This is a wonderful article regarding God's intervention for Israel in their battle with Hamas. There have been several accounts coming out giving God the glory for saving the nation of Israel is these times. Our God is awesome. To Him be the glory.http://www.wnd.com/2014/08/hand-of-god-sent-missile-into-sea/

This reminds me, too, of stories I’ve heard from “Wallbuilders” about the history of the USA. Miraculously a fog also protected George Washington and his men s they crossed the Delaware only feet from the enemy. The fog even muffled the sound of their oars in the water.                

More claims of divine intervention are being reported in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, with an operator of Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system saying he personally witnessed “the hand of God” diverting an incoming rocket out of harm’s way.

Israel Today translated a report from a Hebrew-language news site, which noted the Iron Dome battery failed three times to intercept an incoming rocket headed toward Tel Aviv last week.

The commander recalled: “A missile was fired from Gaza. Iron Dome precisely calculated [its trajectory]. We know where these missiles are going to land down to a radius of 200 meters. This particular missile was going to hit either the Azrieli Towers, the Kirya (Israel’s equivalent of the Pentagon) or [a central Tel Aviv railway station]. Hundreds could have died.

 

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“We fired the first [interceptor]. It missed. Second [interceptor]. It missed. This is very rare. I was in shock. At this point we had just four seconds until the missile lands. We had already notified emergency services to converge on the target location and had warned of a mass-casualty incident.

“Suddenly, Iron Dome (which calculates wind speeds, among other things) shows a major wind coming from the east, a strong wind that … sends the missile into the sea. We were all stunned. I stood up and shouted, ‘There is a God!’

“Their God changes the path of our rockets in mid-air, said a terrorist,” was the headline in the July 18 edition of the Jewish Telegraph.

“I witnessed this miracle with my own eyes. It was not told or reported to me. I saw the hand of God send that missile into the sea.”

The commander’s account is reminiscent of a recent newspaper headline which trumpeted the possibility of supernatural protection.

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It was a partial quote from Barbara Ordman, who lives in Ma’ale Adumim on the West Bank.

Her exact quotation was: “As one of the terrorists from Gaza was reported to say when asked why they couldn’t aim their rockets more effectively: “We do aim them, but their God changes their path in mid-air.”

She opened her piece by noting: “In October 1956, [Israeli Prime Minister] David Ben Gurion was interviewed by CBS. He stated: ‘In Israel, in order to be a realist, you must believe in miracles.’”  

Ordman also noted religious texts, specifically the Jerusalem Talmud, teaches Israelis not to depend on miracles for survival.

“It argues that we must not desist from our obligations and must not wait for miraculous intervention from the Supernatural,” she wrote.

Meanwhile, the Times of Israel reported a senior officer in Israel’s army said divine miracles protected his soldiers during fighting in the Gaza Strip.  

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Givati Brigade commander Col. Ofer Winter told the weekly publication Mishpacha that he “witnessed a miraculous occurrence, the likes of which he had never seen before during his military career.”

Winter indicated a predawn raid intended to use darkness as cover was delayed, forcing the soldiers to move toward their objective as sunrise was approaching.

With the troops in danger of being exposed at daybreak, Winter explained how heavy fog quickly descended to shroud their movements until their mission was accomplished.

“Suddenly a cloud protected us,” he said, referring to clouds the Bible says guided the ancient Israelites as they wandered in the desert. “Clouds of glory.”

Winter said only when the soldiers were in a secure position, the fog finally lifted.

“It really was a fulfillment of the verse ‘For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to give you victory,’” he said, quoting Deuteronomy 20:4.

The Times of Israel notes Winter made headlines over an official letter he sent to battalion and company commanders July 9, telling his subordinates that “history has chosen us to spearhead the fighting (against) the terrorist ‘Gazan’ enemy which abuses, blasphemes and curses the God of Israel’s (defense) forces.”

The dispatch came under fire from some, since it portrayed the Operation Protective Edge as a religious war against non-Jews. The Israeli government’s stated aim is to stop rocket attacks at Israel and destroy a network of tunnels dug under the border from Gaza used to launch terror attacks inside Israeli territory.

In his interview with Mishpacha, Winter defended his message, saying everyone finds God when in combat.

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“Anyone who attacked me for the letter apparently has only seen weapons in pictures, was never in combat, and doesn’t know what fighting spirit is,” he said, revealing that before going into action his custom was to recite the blessing with which the ancient Israelite priests would bless the army before it went to war.

“When a person is in a life-threatening situation he connects with his deepest internal truths, and when that happens, even the biggest atheist meets God,” he said, claiming soldiers see so many miracles, “it is hard not to believe [in God].”  |
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/08/hand-of-god
-sent-missile-into-sea/#a4TpcpvfOFXLXixz.99
 

This message may contain copyrighted material which is being made available for research of environmental, political, human rights, economic, scientific, social justice issues, etc., and constitutes a "fair use" of such copyrighted material per section 107 of US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material in this message is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research/educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

 Sent by Odell Harwell  
aodell.harwell74@att.net

 

 

 

Catalonia to Muslims: 
Support Independence, Get Mega-Mosque
Qatar to Fund Third-Largest Mosque in the World

by Soeren Kern  
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4581/barcelona-mega-mosque
 
August 7, 2014

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Muslim leaders in the Spanish autonomous region of Catalonia say they have been promised a mega-mosque in Barcelona if they support independence from Spain in a referendum set for November 9.

Officials from the Catalonia's ruling Convergence and Union Party (CiU) are seeking the ballots of all of the roughly 100,000 Muslims in the region who are eligible to vote. "If you support us in the referendum, there will be a mosque," CiU officials are said to have promised Muslim leaders, according to Spanish media.

The mega-mosque in question is said to involve a 2.2 billion euro ($3 billion) project to convert a historic bullfighting stadium in Barcelona into the third-largest mosque in the world, after those in Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.  The tentative plan calls for the Emir of Qatar to purchase the stadium, known as the La Monumental, and to cover all costs associated with converting the property into a mosque. The 5-year project would be completed around 2020.

 
The historic bullfighting stadium "La Monumental" in Barcelona may become the largest mosque outside of Saudi Arabia, under a tentative plan worked out between Catalan nationalists and the Emir or Qatar. (Image source: Sergi Larripa/Wikimedia Commons)  

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The mosque would have an interior capacity for 40,000 worshippers and an exterior capacity for another 80,000. The mosque complex would include a Koranic study center, a library, a conference room and a museum of Islamic art and history.

The mosque would also include a research center on the history of Al Andalus, the Arabic name given to those parts of Spain, Portugal and France that were occupied by Muslim conquerors (also known as the Moors) from 711 to 1492.

Moreover, the mosque would be accompanied by a towering 300-meter (985-foot) minaret which, if approved, would dominate the Barcelona skyline. The proposed minaret would completely overshadow the spectacularly emblematic Sagrada Familia, a Roman Catholic cathedral that is situated less than one kilometer from the bullfighting arena. The spires of the church, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, are only 170 meters (560 feet) tall.

 

An interior view of "La Monumental" stadium in Barcelona. 
(Image source: Re Artù/Wikimedia Commons)

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Catalonia is home to an estimated 465,000 Muslims, who account for more than 6% of the total Catalan population of 7.5 million. This gives Catalonia the largest Muslim population in Spain.

By way of comparison, if Catalonia were to achieve independence, it would emerge as the country with the third-largest Muslim population in Western Europe, in percentage terms, just behind France and Belgium, and far ahead of Britain and Germany

Nevertheless, there are no official mosques in Catalonia, and Muslims normally worship in makeshift prayer centers that are located in shops and basements. Although the capital of Catalonia, Barcelona, is home to an estimated 50,000 Muslims, it remains one of the only major cities in Spain without an official mosque.

The Muslim community of Barcelona has pleaded with municipal officials for a purpose-built mosque for more than two decades, and although many promises have been made, none has materialized.

"The law says that everyone has the right to pray in a dignified place, not in a shop," says the leader of the Catalan Islamic Federation, Mowafak Kanfach, who is heading the push to convert the stadium into Barcelona's first real mosque.

The stadium, which opened in 1914, has been closed since January 2012, when a Catalonia-wide ban on bullfighting entered into effect. The current owners of the property, the Balañá Group, are said to be prepared to accept the Qatari offer.

Kanfach says that a "pre-project proposal" was submitted to municipal officials in Barcelona in early 2014. He believes that the project stands a good chance of being approved because the Qatar Foundation, a non-profit organization founded by the current Emir's father, already has a strong presence in the city, and the state-owned Qatar Airways sponsors Barcelona's football team.

But a leader of the Catalan branch of the center-right Popular Party (PPC), Alberto Fernández Díaz, says the mega-mosque is "not suitable" for Barcelona because the "people and countries" involved in the project may have "values which collide with ours."

Others are worried that the mosque could become a hub for Islamic terrorism. Analysts say that Catalonia, which has the largest concentration of radical Islamists in Europe, is already a main center for Salafi-Jihadism on the continent and has the potential to become one of the top incubators for Islamist terrorism in the West.

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Adding to those concerns, at least three Muslim proponents of the mega-mosque with close links to the CiU have recently been tied to radical Islam. Spanish counter-terrorism officials say that the individual representing Pakistani immigrants within the CiU, Khalid Shabaz (aka Chuhan), is believed to "hold extreme ideological views." He was arrested in 2011 for fraud and document forgery. During a recent trip to Pakistan, Chuhan was photographed wearing traditional Pakistani dress and holding an assault rifle in his hands.

Shabaz's right-hand man, Shaoib Satti, was arrested in January 2013 for heroin trafficking in a major Catalan anti-narcotics sting operation. Noureddine Ziani, a well-known Moroccan proponent of the Barcelona mega-mosque, was deported in May 2013 because the Spanish intelligence agency CNI considered him to pose "a grave danger to the security of Spain."

Kanfach counters concerns about terrorism by saying that the citizens of Barcelona "should be proud that Muslims are transforming the pain of the bulls into a spiritual center."

City officials have so far denied that the mosque project even exists, possibly to forestall public opposition to the plans.

Kanfach says that Catalan nationalism is at play in the official denials.

  "The only reason they are denying the existence of the project is clear," Kanfach claims. "They want Catalan construction companies to have part of the pie. They do not care whether or not the project is 'in the local interest,' they simply want guarantees that Catalan, and not Spanish, companies will get contracts."

According to Spanish media reports, the project as currently envisioned involves only German firms. So far, the Emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Tamim al-Thani, has commissioned KSP Engel, Zimmermann Architekten and Krebs und Kiefer International.

In mid-July, the PPC called for a vote on a proposed municipal regulation that would prohibit the stadium from being used for religious purposes. The CiU abstained from voting on the basis that it cannot vote against a project that does not exist. All of Barcelona's other political groupings rejected the proposed regulation on the grounds that it was "discriminatory and incoherent."

It remains unclear whether Catalan Muslim leaders will rally Muslim voters for Catalan independence in the absence of clear guarantees on the mosque issue.

 

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Catalan multiculturalists have long attempted to bribe Muslim immigrants into voting for Catalan independence. Catalan pro-independence activists, for example, often post signs in front of unofficial mosques around Catalonia which state that "Catalan sovereignty will help to integrate Muslim immigrants."

Muslim mass immigration has been a key component of the Catalan independence movement for many decades. In an effort to promote Catalan nationalism and the Catalan language, Catalonian pro-independence parties have deliberately promoted immigration from Arabic-speaking Muslim countries for more than three decades, in the belief that these immigrants (unlike those from Latin America) would learn the Catalan language rather than speak Spanish.

But many of those immigrants are attached to Salafism, a radically anti-Western ideology that seeks to impose Islamic

Sharia law in Catalonia and other parts of Europe.

In an ominous sign for the future of Catalonia, Salafi preachers—who reject democracy because it is a form of government designed by man rather than by Allah—are calling on Muslims who are eligible to vote to support Catalan separatist parties as a means firmly to establish Islamism in Catalonia.

Consider Abdelwahab Houzi, a Salafi jihadist preacher in the Catalan city of Lleida who adheres to the radical Wahhabi sect of Islam. He recently declared: "Muslims should vote for pro-independence parties, as they need our votes. But what they do not know is that, once they allow us to vote, we will all vote for Islamic parties because we do not believe in left and right. This will make us win local councils and as we begin to accumulate power in the Catalan autonomous region, Islam will begin to be implemented."

 

 


Islamic Statement: "We Will Take Spain Back"

by Soeren Kern
August 17, 2014
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4616/islamic-state-spain

Calls to reconquer al-Andalus are becoming more frequent and more strident.  

"Clearly Spain forms part of the strategic objectives of global jihad. We are not the only ones but we are in their sights." — Spanish Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz. Radical Muslims in Spain have launched a social media campaign aimed at generating support for the jihadist group Islamic State [IS].

The campaign involves posters that include images of famous Spanish landmarks and monuments emblazoned with Arabic slogans such as, "We are all the Islamic State" and "Long Live the Islamic State."

One poster includes an image of the medieval Islamic Aljafería Palace in the Spanish city of Zaragoza and the black flag associated with the IS. Another uses an image of the famous La Concha beach in the Basque city of San Sebastián. Yet another includes an image of the statue of Jesus Christ on Monte Urgull in San Sebastián, with the Arabic words "Al-Andalus Country" instead of "Basque Country."

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The poster campaign comes after IS jihadists produced a video in which they vow to liberate al-Andalus from non-Muslims and make it part of their new Islamic Caliphate.

The video shows a jihadist speaking in Spanish with a heavy North African accent. He says:

"I say to the entire world as a warning: We are living under the Islamic flag, the Islamic caliphate. We will die for it until we liberate those occupied lands, from Jakarta to Andalusia. And I declare: Spain is the land of our forefathers and we are going to take it back with the power of Allah."

Radical Muslims (and many moderate Muslims) believe that all territories Muslims lost during the Christian Reconquista of Spain still belong to the realm of Islam. They claim that Islamic law gives them the right to return there and re-establish Muslim rule.

In recent years, the return of "occupied" Al-Andalus to the fold of Islam has become an obsession for Muslims of all stripes, and calls to reconquer al-Andalus have become more frequent and more strident.  

Commenting on the latest video, Spain's Secretary of State for Security, Francisco Martínez, said Spanish police were remaining "vigilant" in the face of a "grave" jihadist threat.

Meanwhile, Moroccan authorities have warned Spanish police that some of the more than 3,000 Moroccan jihadists fighting in Syria and Iraq are beginning to return home, and that many of them are likely to attempt to infiltrate the Spanish mainland via the North African Spanish exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.

The Moroccan Interior Minister, Mohamed Hassad, recently identified 1,221 Moroccan citizens who have joined jihadists groups in Syria and Iraq, as well as another 2,000 ethnic Moroccans who are citizens of other countries, including Spain.  

Spanish and Moroccan counter-terrorism forces have stepped-up efforts to break up jihadist cells that have been proliferating in both countries.

On August 14, nine members of a recruitment cell for the IS were arrested in northern Morocco, not far from the North African Spanish exclave of Ceuta.  

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The arrests were made in the Moroccan cities of Fez, Tétouan and Fnideq, in what the Spanish Interior Ministry said was a joint intelligence operation between Moroccan and Spanish counter-terrorism police.   

All the detainees are Moroccan citizens, several of whom made repeated trips to Ceuta to recruit jihadists and raise financial support for the IS.

"The jihadists recruited by the cell received instruction in weapons handling, assembly and placement of explosive devices and car theft, in order to participate in suicide terrorist attacks or to fight in conflict zones," a statement by the Spanish Interior Ministry reported.

Some of those recruited by the cell are believed to have participated in beheadings in Syria and Iraq. Police say they are also examining computers and data storage devices to determine if there were plans to carry out a terror attack on Moroccan soil.

On August 4, a 19-year-old Spanish woman and a 14-year-old Spanish girl were arrested in Melilla just days before they were due to join the jihad in Syria. They are first Spanish females to be prevented from becoming jihadists.

"Both were trying to cross the border to Morocco with the aim of contacting the network that would move them immediately to a conflict zone between Syria and Iraq," the Spanish Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The 19-year-old was released after surrendering her passport. The 14-year-old—who police say appeared "completely convinced" that she was doing the right thing by becoming a jihadist—is currently being held in a juvenile detention center where she has no access to the Internet. The girl's parents said she had recently become radicalized after spending time perusing jihadist websites.

In June, Spanish police in Madrid arrested ten individuals (eight Moroccans, one Argentine and one Bulgarian) on allegations that they were members of an international network that recruited jihadists for the IS.

The ringleader was a 47-year-old Moroccan national named Lahcen Ikassrien, who was arrested in Afghanistan in 2001, and released after three-and-a-half years in Guantánamo. In July 2005, the U.S. government handed him over to Spain, where he faced charges of cooperating with al-Qaeda. In October 2006, the Spanish High Court acquitted him on the grounds that no firm evidence existed of his ties to the terrorist group.  

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Ikassrien, who lives in Madrid, was part of a cell led by Abu Dahdah, a Syrian-born Spaniard sentenced to a 27-year prison term in Spain for his part in the September 11, 2001 attacks, and for being one of the founders of al-Qaeda in Spain. In February 2006, the Spanish Supreme Court reduced the Abu Dahdah's penalty to 12 years because it said that his participation in the 9/11 conspiracy was not proven. He was released in May 2013.

In May, Spanish police broke up a cell in Melilla that allegedly recruited 26 jihadists (24 Moroccans and 2 Spaniards) for al-Qaeda groups fighting in Libya and Mali. All six members of the cell are Spanish citizens. One of them, Benaissa Laghmouchi Baghdadi, is the first Spanish jihadist known to have returned from the fighting in Mali. Police say the cell used social media platforms such as "Sharia4Spain" to recruit jihadists.  

In March, police in Spain and Morocco arrested seven suspected jihadists who belonged to cell operating in the southern Spanish city of Málaga. Four of the suspects were arrested in Spain and the other three in Morocco. Spanish officials said the cell was one of the largest of its kind in Europe and responsible for recruiting more jihadists than any other network discovered in Spain so far.  

The suspected ringleader of the cell is a wheelchair-bound Spanish convert to Islam named Mustafa Maya Amaya. Maya, 51, was born in Brussels after his Spanish parents moved to Belgium in the

1960s to look for work there. After converting to Islam, he changed his given name from Rafael to Mustafa.

Police say Maya—who maintained close ties to jihadist cells in Belgium, France, Indonesia, Libya, Mali, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey and Syria—is suspected of recruiting dozens of volunteer jihadists on the Internet and, after a careful selection process, sending them to join terrorist organizations in the Middle East and North Africa.

The sting operation was conducted on March 14, just three days after Spain marked the 10th anniversary of the 2004 Madrid train bombings, which killed 191 people and wounded nearly 2,000. Since then, more than 470 suspected Islamic extremists have been arrested in Spain, according to Spanish Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz.

"Clearly Spain forms part of the strategic objectives of global jihad," Fernández Díaz said on the eve of the anniversary. "We are not the only ones but we are in their sights."

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter.

09/02/2014 07:18 AM

TABLE OF CONTENTS

UNITED STATES
September 11, 2001 Jihadist Attack Remembered: Sept 10-12 conference, Washington, D.C.  
9/11 Memorial Museum in New York, opened May 2014
America - New Song!
Navy Bibles will stay! A victory for religious liberty! 
Discover Our Shared Heritage: El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, National Historic Trail
The Rise of Latina & Latino Studies in the United States  
NALIP's Top Latino Writers
The Chicana/o Legacy Gaining traction but still No. 9 by Rodolfo F. Acuña
What we Owe our Tejano Ancestors by José Antonio “Joe” López  
“Past deeds pave our way to the future” by José Antonio López
Braceros and farm workers from Mexico by Dr. L. Eve Armentrout Ma, Esq.
Preserving Places that Matter in American Latino History, National Trust for Historic Preservation
Percentage of Hispanics associated with the Best Medical Schools in the US    
Concerned daughter writes to White House about her mother and other struggling homeowners 

HERITAGE PROJECTS
Guy Gabaldon Statue Project, Los Angeles, CA 
Otra Vez by Daisy Wanda Garcia: Dr. Hector P. Garcia Clinic Restoration, Corpus Christi, TX
Veterans' and Family Outreach Center, Big plan for Garcia's Old Clinic by Nadia Tamez-Robledo
Raising Funds for the Santa Rosa de Lima Mission in Tucson. AZ
The San Pedro Creek Improvement Project, TX
Saving Lincoln Center: An El Paso Community's Effort to Protect its Chicano Heritage
Looking for Mexican Americans and baseball in Texas
New Charlesfort-Santa Elena National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places Lesson Plan
The Telling Project, Carlos Alvarez Studio Theater, San Antonio, Texas
Strangers into Neighbors: The Latinos and Hispanics in Alamance County, North Carolina
Latest update on the Trujillo Adobe
Over 2200 Apparitions of the Blessed Mother throughout the world in the 20th century
Doing Your Own Documentary, San Francisco  
Save Our History, the Chicana/o Archive Project
Story Corps

HISTORIC TIDBITS
WW II Aircraft Carriers on the Great Lakes by Oscar Ramirez
La Battallia del Encinal de  Medina by Dan Arellano
August 19th, 1749: Apaches bury the hatchet in exchange of Conversion to Christianity
HISPANIC LEADERS

LATINO PATRIOTS
Youtube: First "Air Force One". 
Youtube: Project Vigil: D-Day 2014
Youtube:  
Hitler's GI Death camp
Photo: Erasmo "Doc" Riojas, SEAL Reunion
Honoring Borinqueneer Raul Reyes   
Hispanic Medal of Honor Calendar of Upcoming Exhibits


EARLY LATINO PATRIOTS
Dorothy Perez, Recipient of Prestigious SAR Award by Henry A. García, jr.  
United States of Spain? Guillermo Fresser 

TCARA celebrated its 10th Anniversary, July 23, 2014    

SURNAMES
Grijalva

DNA
My DNA tells me who I am
New DNA discovery: totally new outlook on evolution

FAMILY HISTORY
About Genealogy by Kimberly Powell
        Search WWI POW Records Online for Free  
        How to Trace the History of Your Home  
FamilySearch Adds More Than 1.5 Million Indexed Records and Images 
        to Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ghana, Italy, and the United States  
Helpful Hints from Readers

EDUCATION
Insights From National Leaders, Latino Youth/Education Policy Issues, Antonio R. Flores, Ph.D. 
Michael Derrick Tubbs Founder, The Phoenix Scholars, Stockton, California
Free Cash for College Workshops

CULTURE
Salon: Culture and Conversation by Bernadette Inclan
September 17, 2014: The San Francisco Art Institute . . . . ART and Revolutions
Seeking U.S. Art All Over Map
The Xoloitzcuintli, Mexican Hairless Dog by John Inclan
Ding dong, muerto me llevan en un cajon  
Lydia Mendoza,
guitarist and singer of Tejano, conjunto, & traditional Mexican-America music.  
Loaf of Art
La Virgin by Rafael Jesus Gonzalez 


BOOKS AND PRINT MEDIA
Ten Years of   "SOMOS PRIMOS"  DVD of past print issues (1990-1999)
Wilbur-Cruce Spanish Mission/Ranch Horse, A Beautiful, Cruel Country 
         by Eva Antonia Wilbur-Cruce  
Mobile Must Fall by Stephen Estopinal
Colonial Spanish Texas and Other Essays by Dr. Lino Garcia

The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction  by Linda Gordon  
New Mexico Book of the Undead by Ray John De Aragon
Terror on the Border by J. Gilberto Quezada
Border Boss by J. Gilberto Quezada
The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction by Linda Gordon  
Mexican American Colonization during the Nineteenth Century: 
        A History of the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands by José Angel Hernández.

ORANGE COUNTY, CA
September 13, SHHAR Monthly Meeting: John Schmal, "Finding Your Roots in Mexico"
September 27:
15th Logan Barrio Family Reunion
Incoming Cultures: Influences and Legacies in Orange County, Smithsonian Collaboration
Martyred Priests, Their Journey to Orange County

Two of Orange County’s founding clans mend fences after a 125-year rift, September 18, 1995 
Yorba Cemetery, A portal to the past, Quick overview... family history  
Ramon Peralta Adobe, The story of people and change, Quick overview...
 

Lorenzo (Larry) Luera Ray High School Class of 1954, Part 1 of 2  

LOS ANGELES COUNTY
Nov 10th: Chronically Homeless Vets to Get Homes in Boyle Heights  
Sept 7th:
Apostolate of La Virgen de Los Remedios 
View from the Pier by Herman Sillas 
Ralph M. Terrazas: First Latino Chief of LA Fire Department Confirmed by City Council
Great Read In this group, she's just Gloria Molina, quilter by Abby Sewell

CALIFORNIA

Irwindale, Beauty in the Dust by Marylouise Fraijo Ambriz
A History of Neighborhood House in Logan Heights: Mary & Helen Marston by Maria Garcia
A Trail for Humanity's Final Walk Begins in Chicano Park by Brent E. Beltran
Mi Vida Con Carino by Lorena Ruiz de Frain, Final, Part III, Life in Los Altos  

NORTHWESTERN, US
Mariachi Nuevo Santander Performed in  Oregon Shakespeare Festival
World War II Bracero Program in Oregon

SOUTHWESTERN, US
Colores YouTube   
My Days as a Colonist / Soldier with Don Juan de Onate – Part 8 by Louis F. Serna
After being part of Mexico, could the Far West ever have become part of the Deep South?  
           By Galal Kernahan  

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July, 2014.
Best regards-Old guy  

TEXAS
Sept 25-27, 2014: 35th Annual Texas Hispanic Genealogical and Historical Conference 
September 28: Post conference luncheon planned 
Dear Texas History Enthusiast  
Legacy of Texas, maps, art, flags
1871 tax assessment document of Cameron County
Laredo, Texas Memories by Gilberto J. Quezada 
        Laredo Transportation 
        Laredo Exhibit Honoring Sisters of Mercy's 120 Years of Service in Laredo
        An Unforgettable Reunion
        Correspondence between Gilberto and Jose M. Pena
Do any of these Laredo streets look familiar?
Creating Beauty from Devastation in Galveston by Rosie Carbo
A 1954 Candidate Uses His Family History to Help Him Win an Election by Eddie Garcia
Las Porciones Society
House Resolution 709
Clash with Ranchers radicalizes rancher
Border Bandits, Part III by Norman Rozzell

MIDDLE AMERICA
1691 Tira from Santa Catarina de Ixtepeji, Oaxaca Mexico, 
            featured in Milwaukee,Wisconsin Mexican Fiesta

John N. Harper’s  ACADIANS, Writings by Winston De Ville

EAST COAST
Maps of  Spanish Missions 
September 6, 2014: Admiral Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and the Founding of St. Augustine
Los Floridanos Society

AFRICAN-AMERICAN
Hard Times for Black Colleges by Michael H. Cottman  
Rosenwald Schools 
Breaking Ground Caribbean Cultural Center: African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI)    
B.B. King to chair National Monument in the Mississippi Delta to honor cotton pickers.  

INDIGENOUS
Indigenous Coahuila de Zaragoza by John P. Schmal

SEPHARDIC
Sephardic Jews founded key cities in Mexico
San Antonio scholar to discuss culture at Laredo temple by Tricia Cortez, Laredo Morning Times  
The Different Perspectives of Jewish Law, the Jewish People, and the State of Israel towards the Secret Jews (Anusim)
        by Shlomo Buzaglo  

ARCHAEOLOGY
Before they left Africa, early modern humans were 'culturally diverse'

MEXICO
Lost and Found: Three hundred year-old Mexican document found in Milwaukee   
130 representative of the Yaqui Tribe went to Mexico City
Carlos Slim supported 165,000 young people to attend a university
Bautismo de Deodoro Pedro Regalado Francisco de Paula de la Santisima Trinidad
La historia familiar oral se desvanece en sólo tres generaciones  
El registro del bautismo de Aurelio Maicotte
Personajes extranjeros radicados en la Capital de Mexico y Archivaldo Pasqual Francisco Epitacio


CENTRAL & SOUTH AMERICA
Malfalda, Popular Comic Strip
Archaeologists Uncover Ancient Mathematical Devices of the Inca in Peru by April Holloway, 
José Antonio Manso de Velasco, un 'tsunami' que dio nombre a un título nobiliario  
      Por José A. Crespo Francés*
Gray-Eyed Man of Destiny by William Walker in Nicaragua

PHILIPPINES
Half a Century of Being in the USA by Eddie AAA Calderón, Ph.D.


SPAIN
Hernán Cortés  
Estados Unidos... ¿de España?  
Gálvez: el marino español que se aventuró <solo> contra las defensas inglesas de Florida

INTERNATIONAL
Remembering 9/11 and the history of Muslim acts of Terrorism Against Europeans
Hand of God sent missile into sea
Catalonia to Muslims: Support Independence, Get Mega-Mosque
Islamic Statement: "We Will Take Spain Back"

  09/02/2014 07:18 AM