Mexico, Mayo 28 y 29, 2016: Asociacion Estatal de Cronistas E Historiadores de Coahuila, A.C.

   tables

June Letters to the Editor
P.O. 490  | Midway City, CA  |  92655-0490  | 714-894-8161 
mimilozano@aol.com 
www.SomosPrimos.com 

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                                                                                            Photo credit: Steve Taylor

Equally important, there were two other acts steering us ahead.

(l) In 2010, the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) reluctantly agreed with grass-roots testimony to include a few pre-1836 people, places, and events in the classroom.

(2) Led by policies initiated by former Texas General Land Office (GLO) Commissioner Jerry Patterson, the official Handbook of Texas History Online now includes a Tejano History Online. 

So, the expectation in 2012 was that finally the SBOE would abandon its post-1836 Texas history strategy and agree to a more inclusive approach benefiting teachers, students, parents, and the general public. 

Timing couldn’t be better. In just a few years from now Spanish-surnamed Texans will again reclaim the majority in a state founded by their ancestors. At a minimum, this unbroken link to the founding of Texas gives them ownership of Texas history. Yet, there’s more to the story. 

Specifically, modern-day students will also get to know of the momentous 1960s journey to attain education for Mexican-descent citizens at a par with Anglo students. The struggle continued to ensure equality in employment and housing. 

To be sure, the 1960s effort followed the path illuminated by returning WW II and Korean War vets. It was they who in fact demanded that the same freedoms they had fought for in battle overseas would also apply in their barrio. 

In response, I offer the following. As to the first point (a), Texas Mexican Americans (Chicanos) today are the descendants of Spanish Mexican Tejanos who first invited and then gave Stephen F. Austin his land grants. In return for their goodwill, Mr. Austin said of his Mexicano and Mexicana friends in Texas, “This is the most liberal and munificent government on earth to emigrants.” 

As to the second point (b), the unquestioned patriotism of Mexican-descent Texans has been amply cited by generals and admirals; awarding them with a high number of medals of valor, including the Medal of Honor for their bravery in defense of the U.S. As to assimilation, bicultural, bilingual Tejanas and Tejanos shouldn’t be penalized for preserving their unique heritage. Remember, Texas is in New Spain, not New England. 

As to the third point (c), since it appears that many Anglo Texans fear the word “Chicano (Chicana)”, I offer this advice. The word Chicano is merely a shortened version (nickname) of the word Mexicano, pronounced in its original Mexica dialect. Equally important, Mexican American and Chicano Texans use both terms purely in a historically cultural sense, with absolutely no intended political identification or allegiance. 

Cultural preservation is important. After all, Texas was first a province of New Spain (Mexico) before it became a slave state in the U.S. Incidentally, the Mexican flag is one of the six recognized flags of Texas. Truly, the tri-color Mexican flag has flown over Texas four times longer than Sam Houston’s Republic of Texas flag. 

Most importantly, the first U.S. Anglo immigrants swore allegiance to the Mexican flag the symbol of Mexico, their new home. Also, to runaway slaves it represented freedom as they escaped to Texas from the U.S. before 1836. 

Yet, the book’s writers fail to see the wisdom in Austin’s words in embracing his Mexicano brethren. It’s lamentable, but not surprising. Thus, because of its outright negative content, further analysis of equally offensive passages in the book serves no useful purpose. The question is how can we dismantle deceptive Texas myths that continue to ignore the Spanish Mexican legacy in Texas? 

In one word, Education (no pun intended). The SBOE can do this in three easy steps. First, heed the clear Tejano Monument message. That is, Tejanos (of blended Spanish European and Native American bloodlines) are the true founders of Texas. Second, reject racist textbooks as the one currently being reviewed for adoption. Third, own up to the long-standing oversight and make early Texas history part of seamless mainstream Texas history in the classroom. 

At this point, I remind readers that nowhere else in history has one ethnic group robbed another group of their heritage to embellish their own. Yet, that’s what Anglos have done to Texas history in general, and specifically, the Álamo and La Bahia Presidio in Goliad. These historic structures must no longer be marketed only because armed Anglo immigrants from the U.S. died there. They must be honored for their strength, beauty, and creativity of their Spanish Mexican builders.
 

Finally, in the sage words of the savvy mechanic in the old Fram oil filter commercial “You can pay me now or pay me later”. It is wise advice, considering that Mexican-descent Texans are poised to again take over as the majority group in Texas. So, they may one day have to dismantle Texas history myths (miseducation) themselves. Hopefully, the SBOE will choose for once to be proactive in taking the next step. Will it be forward or backward? It’s their choice. Proceed. 

In the Edgewood Independent School District in San Antonio, there is a Gus García Middle School, 
named in his honor.  Photo below.

Thank you to Gilberto Quezada for gathering the information and also sharing a personal family touch. 
jgilbertoquezada@yahoo.com

Photo sent by Gilberto Garcia

MATADOR
A Hero's Journey 
Dawn Of The Golden Matador 
  The Life And Times Of Gus C. Garcia
by Isidro Aguirre

“Life is like a bullfight…..” 
“.......Sometimes you win. If you lose, you die.” 

Sent by Walter Centeno Herbeck Jr. 
tejanos2010@gmail.com 

Granada Hills Charter High School 
wins national Academic Decathlon — again

By Carla Rivera, LA Times, April 30, 2016

Members of the 2016 Granada Hills Charter High School Decathlon Team

Granada Hills Charter High School, a perennial powerhouse in academic competitions, continued to build on that legacy Saturday by winning the national 2016 Academic Decathlon for the second year in a row.  

The win marks the fifth time in the last six years the San Fernando Valley campus has claimed the national title.  

The team of nine students scored 54,195 points out of a possible 60,000 in the rigorous three-day competition, beating 48 other national and international teams.

Highland Park High School in Texas placed second during the competition in Anchorage. Students were tested in 10 events: art, economics, essay, interview, language and literature, mathematics, music, science, social science and speech. The study topic this year was India.  

Granada Hills team members are Mark Aguila, Julian Duran, Isha Gupta, Joshua Lin, Christopher Lo, Aishah Mahmud, Melissa Santos, Mayeena Ulkarim and Jorge Zepeda.  

The students were jubilant after the team’s name was announced and also relieved to have continued the school’s winning tradition.  

 “It’s huge relief,” said Melissa Santos, 17, who was the top scoring student overall. “We were sitting there clasping each others hands because this is legacy for Granada Hills and for California to keep, and we didn’t want the hard work and trust everyone placed in the team to go to waste.”

Christopher said the team was confident going into the competition, but soon realized they were up against other students who were just as prepared.  

“We were looking at the Texas school and seeing they had the potential to beat us and that was scary,” the 17-year-old junior said. “Granada Hills being such a competitive and prestigious school put a lot of pressure on us.”  

It was Christopher’s first national academic decathlon competition, and the experience of being on the team has somewhat made up for what he admits has been a less-than-stellar academic career thus far. The teams must include A-, B- and C-level students to encourage all participants to excel and push their limits.  

“I’ve never seen my family so proud,” Christopher said. “As a C-team member finding a way to redeem myself really has been a way to unlock my family’s true dynamic.”  

Finding students like Christopher to compete may be the secret of Granada Hills’ success, said Jon Sturtevant, one of the team’s coaches.  

“We’ve been good at finding kids who have an aptitude for really working hard,” Sturtevant said. That includes a willingness to devote 12 hours a day, six days a week to studying and training.  

“You just can’t stack the deck with the top kids at school. You have to find kids who have the motivational skills, and that’s where I think we do really well.”  

Granada Hills Charter also won first place during Friday’s Super Quiz event, the only portion of the competition open to the public.  

Earlier this year Granada Hills Charter won the Los Angeles Unified School District Academic Decathlon and last month California’s Academic Decathlon. LAUSD schools have won 17 national titles.  

“I am amazed and in awe of the decathletes’ talent, competitive spirit and enduring drive to succeed and win,” LAUSD board member Scott M. Schmerelson said in a statement.  “Congratulations to each of them for their magnificent victory and for representing L.A. Unified.”  

The team is scheduled to return to Los Angeles on Sunday morning. The campus will hold a welcome rally at 8 a.m. Monday.

Twitter: @carlariveralat

Third time Anaheim High School, California 
Receives Independent Learning Center ( ILC) Program National Grant!

Yvonne Gonzalez Duncan-Director
Orange County LULAC District 1
Anaheim LULAC Council #2848

Yvonne, 
Congratulations! The LULAC Institute, Inc. and Ford Motor Company Fund are pleased to announce that LULAC Council #2848 has been selected as one of two re-granted winning Ford Driving Dreams Grants Program sites to keep implementing your innovative program during the 2016 - 2017 academic year.

We fully understand how excited you will be about being selected, and how much you would like to share this news; however we ask you to please hold any and all communications until we make the office announcement about winning LULAC Councils to the media during the LULAC National Convention in Washington, DC (July 2016).

Attached you will find a calendar of important dates and events and your official award letter. Please play close attention to the dates. I want to schedule a conference call to answer questions and discuss the program and answer any questions you may have. Please let me know your availability to schedule a call on either 6/13 or 6/14.

In addition, you will receive a Letter of Agreement (LOA) and the Program Coordinator Handbook next week. The handbook is intended to serve as a resource that outlines some key program deliverables and corresponding timetables to help ensure program goals are met, and that each site is able to communicate program achievements, challenges, and any other milestones.

During the National Convention, we invite Program Coordinators to attend an orientation and training. I am attaching a travel request form for you to fill out and return to me. The program will cover two nights hotel lodging (7/14 – 7/16) as well as airfare (under $500). You are welcomed to stay longer but please note that additional room nights would be at your own cost. If you need to leave at a specific time or airline please note on the form, if not I will use my discretion. 

LULAC can only secure travel arrangements for the Program Coordinator (we are only able to coordinate flights arrangements for the coordinator identified in the signed application form). This is not interchangeable or negotiable- if the Program Coordinator was already planning to attend the LULAC National Convention in Washington, DC grant funds will not be used for a different or additional individual. 

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me. 

Best, Sandra Caraveo
LULAC National Membership Office 
221 N. Kansas Suite 501
El Paso, TX 79901
915-577-0726 (P)
915-577-0914 (F) 

How I learned to Be Proud of Having Mexican Immigrant Parents 
by Alvaro Huerta, Ph.D.

                                                 Salomón Chavez Huerta and Carmen Mejía Huerta. Mexico, 1954

Alvaro Huerta, Ph.D.
Urban Planning Scholar, Author and Public Intellectual
When I first applied to UCLA, I wrote in my personal essay that I didn’t have any positive role models in my violent neighborhood.

Having grown up in East Los Angeles’ Ramona Gardens housing project, I wrote that most of the adults represented gang members, drug dealers, thieves, tecatos (heroin addicts), alcoholics, felons and high school dropouts (or push-outs). I also wrote about my disdain for housing authority officials and government workers for behaving like prison wardens and guards toward us: project residents who depended on government aid or welfare.

Moreover, I decried the police abuse that I had witnessed and experienced, like the time when a cop pointed a gun at me. My crime: being a 15-year-old making a rolling stop while learning how to drive.

Lastly, as the product of low-performing public schools, I highlighted the low expectations most teachers and counselors had for their poor Chicano students. Fortunately for me, I excelled in mathematics.

While I was eventually accepted to UCLA, I should have been more truthful in my essay. In fact, I did have positive role models: my Mexican immigrant parents.  

But why didn’t I give them credit? Did they represent drug dealers, criminals or rapists, as some buffoons want to us to believe? No. They never committed a crime or received a parking ticket. It’s difficult to get a ticket when you can’t afford a vehicle.

Did they migrate to this country to take jobs from American workers? No. My father, Salomón Chavez Huerta, first arrived in this country as a farmworker in the Bracero program — a U.S.-Mexico guest worker program from 1942 to 1964. He also worked as a janitor and day laborer.

My mother, Carmen Mejía Huerta, worked for more than 40 years as a domestic worker, cleaning the homes and taking care of the children of white, middle-class families. Like millions of Mexican immigrants, my late parents took jobs that most American workers reject due to dismal pay, lack of upward mobility and low social status or stigma, i.e., immigrant jobs.

In retrospect, I should have written about their remarkable stories of hard work, sacrifice and resilience in a hostile society. It’s amazing how two Spanish-speaking parents with only a couple of years of education in a small rancho raised eight children, sending four of them to elite universities. This includes raising the most accomplished Latino artist, Salomón Huerta, in the United States.

Instead of being proud of my Mexican parents, I was ashamed of their low social status.

Actually, since I grew up in segregated neighborhood where all of the residents received government aid, like most of my childhood friends, I never thought of myself as Mexican or poor. As a kid, I assumed that all parents spoke only Spanish and kids wore hand-me-downs. I also considered food stamps to be the common currency for all Americans when purchasing food.

It wasn’t until being bused to a white-majority junior high school, Mt. Gleason Jr. High, in the suburbs that I first experienced overt racism and realized that I was poor. For the first time, I was different than most people. Not only was I different, but also labeled as inferior by my white classmates. It was the first time in my life that I was called a “wetback,” “beaner” and “low-rider.”

This idea of being different or inferior followed me to college. I will never forget my first summer class at UCLA, for instance, when the professor asked us to share about our parents. While we had other racialized minorities in the class, I was the only Chicano student from the mean streets of East Los Angeles.

“Both of my parents are UCLA alums, and they’re both attorneys,” an African American student said with pride.

“My mom is a doctor, and father is an engineer,” a Latina student boasted.

“I’m a foreign exchange student from Latin America, and my father is a diplomat,” another student said with delight.

I panicked. What should I say, I thought to myself? Should I say that my mother cleans homes and father sweeps floors in a factory?

Not being able to compete with my privileged classmates with their professionally accomplished parents, I uttered something general like, “My parents are workers in the U.S.”

While I will never forgive myself for not giving my parents credit for motivating me to pursue higher education, growing up in a society where brown people are scapegoats for America’s failures, it makes sense that I would feel embarrassed about my Mexican roots and working-class background.

As the largest ethnic group, accounting for more than 55 million U.S. residents, Latinas and Latinos in this country deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.

As a Chicano scholar with degrees from UCLA and UC Berkeley who, as a teen, internalized the pejorative narratives against brown people and the working class in this country, I have a clear message to Latinas and Latinos, especially young people: Don’t allow American leaders to make you feel inferior due to your ethnic heritage or ashamed of your social status.

How I Learned to Be Proud of Having Mexican Immigrant Parents
Source: Huffingtonpost.com

Editor Mimi:  I invite readers to send in their stories.  It is the accumulation of all of our family stories which reveals who we are . . . .  If we want our story to be told correctly, then we have to write it.

Artist Carlos Aguilar speaks to students in front of mural that he painted.

Massive mural in Santa Ana, California

Four years in the making, sheds light on Mexican-American history
By 
Brooke Edwards Staggs, OC Register, 
May 14, 2016
Nick Agro, Staff Photographer

SANTA ANA – Noe Espindola stood tall in his khaki dress uniform Saturday morning, as the 89 year old spoke to Fullerton College students gathered on a corner in one of Santa Ana’s oldest barrios.  

Behind him was a painting. Espindola is depicted, also in uniform. But he’s a teenager in combat fatigues, clutching a weapon, as he was 72 years ago when he headed to the jungles of the Pacific as a paratrooper with the Army’s 11th Airborne Division.  “We stayed until we drove the Japanese out,” Espindola said, as his wife of 69 years, Barbara, looked on. “Thank God I made it.”

Four years ago, on the side of the popular La Chiquita Restaurant, artist Carlos Aguilar started painting a portrait of Espindola along with dozens more of the estimated 500,000 Mexican-American soldiers who fought in World War II.  

As the massive mural at Washington Avenue and Custer Street finally nears completion, “Among Heroes” has become more than a work of art. It’s now a gathering place for veterans’ and their family members, a classroom for college students and a reflection of American history that’s often overlooked.  

“With this,” Aguilar said, pointing up at his mural with two worn paintbrushes, “I not only get to be part of this neighborhood’s history, but also I get to bring history back to this community.”

The 36 year old’s own history started in central Mexico.  One night in 1991, his mom fled a troubled marriage. She left Aguilar with relatives and ventured to the United States to find work. Two years later, she sent for her son, who crossed the border in the trunk of his uncle’s car.  

Aguilar didn’t know English his first year of school in Mission Viejo, so he’d spend time sketching everything he saw.  “I was always drawn to art,” he said. “That’s where I found my peace.”  

Aguilar studied graphic design at Saddleback College. He’d added a few murals to the streets of Santa Ana since he moved there in 2005. But in 2012, he got a vision for something bigger.

The owner of La Chiquita Restaurant not only agreed to donate his wall for Aguilar’s “Among Heroes” project, he also helped with paint and other supplies.  

As word of what Aguilar was doing spread, residents of the Logan barrio began bringing donations and photos of their relatives, asking if he could add them to the wall.  

Randy Flores – whose grandparents moved to Logan when it was segregated in 1910 – brought Aguilar a photo of his uncle, Alex Morales. Flores said no one in his family knew Morales had fought in the Army until after he died, when he received a full military burial.  

“It’s just an honor for him to be up here,” Flores, 46, said.  

Morales is one of 160 soldiers Aguilar has painted between taking on construction jobs to make ends meet. He’s added scenes such as a concentration camp to drive home the importance of what soldiers were fighting for, doubling the scope of the original mural to cover the entire side of the building.  

When Gerald Padilla, an ethnic studies professor at Fullerton College, caught wind of what Aguilar was doing, he jumped to support the effort. He and his colleagues have now brought more than 1,000 students to hear Aguilar reflect on the soldiers that grace the wall.  

“This is the generation that paid the price for us to be here,” Padilla said.  

That notion struck home for 35-year-old Lia Santos, who couldn’t go to college until Gov. Jerry Brown signed the California DREAM Act in 2011.  

“I literally thought I was one of those soldiers without a face,” she said, pointing to portraits Aguilar did to represent those missing in action.  

Today, she’s studying to become a school psychologist and teaching her daughters that American history is more colorful than what’s depicted in many textbooks.  

“This is the other side,” Santos said. “This is what everyone needs to know so racism can end.”

As far as things have come, Aguilar said he’s struck by the country’s recent surge in racial tension.  

He encouraged students Saturday not to be discouraged, but to keep finding creative ways to give back – just as he intends to do.  

While Aguilar dreams of a second mural to mark Sept. 11 and honor veterans of the War on Terrorism, just talking about another massive project makes his shoulders droop.  

Before he can tear down the rickety scaffolding along Custer Street, he’s got four portraits to add to “Among Heroes.” Then he’ll walk away from his life’s work, tired but proud.  

“I started this project with no money in my pocket and I leave here the same,” he said. “But I leave with a lot in my heart.”  

Contact the writer: 714-796-7963 or bstaggs@ocregister.com

* Orange County California, once known as a white enclave, is now home to one of the nation's most Latino cities - Santa Ana - and home to the largest Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam.

Laguna Beach, CA monitors thrice-damaged sculpture honoring 9/11 victims
By Bryce Alderton, LA Times, May 15, 2016
ALWAYS REMEMBER

Jorg Dubin has repaired his 9/11 memorial sculpture "Semper Memento," which has been damaged three times since it was installed in Laguna Beach's Heisler Park five years ago. (Scott Smeltzer / Coastline Pilot)  

"Semper Memento," a sculpture honoring the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, seems as though it has been under attack itself since it was installed in Laguna Beach's Heisler Park five years ago.  

So the city recently put a surveillance camera in the area so the sculpture, by Laguna Beach artist Jorg Dubin, could be monitored.  

Two weeks ago Dubin reinstalled the stainless-steel sphere, which he was able to fix after it sustained a 5-inch-wide dent earlier this year, the third time it has been damaged since its installation in 2011.  

"I take it personally because I designed and built the piece," Dubin said.  

"Semper Memento," which translates to "Always Remember," contains two steel beams from the World Trade Center ruins resting atop a concrete base in the shape of the Pentagon, with a grassy area in the middle.  

I take it personally because I designed and built the piece.— Jorg Dubin, Laguna Beach artist Dubin alerted the city about the dent in early March after a friend walking in the park told him about it.  

Dubin said he first had to figure out whether the sphere could be repaired or if it would need to be replaced. He recommended the former, and the city's Arts Commission agreed at a meeting in late April to pay the estimated $1,000 repair cost.  

Every year, the city budgets $10,000 for repairs and maintenance of its 97 public art pieces, Cultural Arts Manager Sian Poeschl said.  

In the last 15 years, six incidents of damage were reported, including the three to "Semper Memento," according to a city staff report.  

After removing the 75-pound sphere and taking it to his Laguna studio, Dubin discovered that he was able to use a rubber mallet to tap the steel back into place.  

No one has been arrested, and Laguna Police Chief Laura Farinella said the department has "no idea if the damage was done maliciously or not," the staff report said.  

Last year, vandals knocked the sphere off its base.  "Both felt aggressive, but the last one [a few months ago] was aggressive with intent to damage," Dubin said. "Someone tried to leave a mark, so to speak."There is something about what these [memorials] represent that some segment does not seem to like."  

Dubin's Sept. 11 memorial is not alone. In a 2014 incident in Brooklyn, N.Y., paint was smeared on a photo of a New York police officer killed in the attacks.  

Though damage to Laguna's public art is "rare," Poeschl said the city keeps close watch over the 97 works.  

City staff, arts commissioners, artists and residents are constantly looking for any blemishes or more serious damage to the sculptures, murals and paintings, she said.  

The new camera is one of 20 throughout the city that will help police monitor high-traffic areas such as Main Beach and the intersection of El Toro and Laguna Canyon roads. With the cameras, dispatchers can quickly assess a situation — perhaps a fight or vehicle collision — and determine how many officers are needed.  

"They make us more effective in responding to the community," Farinella said. Poeschl said she will ask the City Council to boost to $15,000 the amount reserved for public art repairs when it considers the budget later this year.

bryce.alderton@latimes.com

Take Action: 
Army cancels Christian speaker 
at atheist's request
June 3, 2016

"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech."

~ Benjamin Franklin

Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin (U.S. Army, Ret.) was invited on March 31 to speak at a prayer breakfast for soldiers on Monday's D-Day anniversary event at Fort Riley, Kansas. General Boykin, a founding member of Delta Force and 36-year veteran, was eager to speak to Fort Riley's young soldiers about the importance of faith to the soldier.

This week, following an angry demand by atheist Mikey Weinstein, which actively stalks General Boykin in his stand for military religious freedom, Fort Riley officials promptly canceled the prayer breakfast, citing "scheduling conflicts." Not only would the event be "rescheduled," but the official said General Boykin would not be invited back as a speaker.

The message is clear: the men and women in uniform at Fort Riley will not be permitted to hear from one of the Army's own highly decorated heroes because he is unapologetic about his Christian faith.

When military officials are so frightened by anti-Christian activists that they deny Christian soldiers the opportunity to hear from a man who has seen his faith at work in his distinguished career, how do we expect them to respond to the real threats that are facing America today?

These soldiers fight to defend our freedoms. Now it's time you help defend theirs. Call the Fort Riley community relations office at (785) 239-3632 or (785) 239-2022, or Commanding General Maj. Gen. Wayne Grigsby's office at (785) 239-3516 and let them know that:

• Capitulating to Mikey Weinstein atrocious request to stop soldiers from hearing from men like General Boykin does a disservice to the men and women who serve our country.

• Canceling the prayer event interferes with soldiers' rights to voluntarily assemble and practice their faith.

• The Commanding General of the 1st Infantry Division, Maj. Gen. Wayne Grigsby, should apologize to the soldiers of Fort Riley and assure them that the leadership of Fort Riley will stand up to the anti-religious freedom agitators and defend their rights of assembly and the right to believe and live out their faith.

Your voice is important -- please call, or send Fort Riley officials a message on their Facebook page.

If our mission resonates with you, please consider supporting our work financially with a tax-deductible donation. The easiest way to do that is through online giving. It is easy to use, and most of all, it is secure.

Tim Wildmon, President
American Family Association

7 year old told he can not share Bible verses with friends on school grounds

HISPANIC MARKET STATS

As venture capital dries up, tech start-ups discover frugality
By Tracey Lien, 
LA Times, May 1, 2016

Chief Executive Domingo Guerra, left, confers with his team at Appthority, a San Francisco start-up that has opted to do business out of a co-working space. (David Butow / For The Times)

Tech start-up Appthority's office has plush conference rooms, soundproof phone booths, an enormous kitchen and a view of San Francisco Bay. It has ping-pong and foosball tables, beer on tap and 11 types of tea.  

The cybersecurity company owns none of it. And that's how the company's president and co-founder, 
Domingo Guerra, likes it.  

"Any time you have flexibility and you don't have a liability, it looks good on the books," Guerra said. Although his 30-person company has raised $20.25 million from venture capital firms such as Venrock and U.S. Venture Partners, it operates out of a WeWork co-working space, where amenities such as Wi-Fi and office furnishings are included in the rent.  

As investor sentiment in the tech industry cools, start-ups are facing a new reality: Money doesn't always come easily. The abundant venture capital funding that convinced companies they could stay private longer is now harder to come by — such funding in Silicon Valley fell 19.5% in the first quarter of 2016 compared with the same period in 2015. And Wall Street has grown so skeptical of Silicon Valley that not a single tech firm has dared to go public so far this year.  

In this climate, having good-looking books is now top of mind for start-ups that don't want to go the way of companies such as Foursquare, which halved its valuation in order to raise money earlier this year, or SpoonRocket and Shuddle, which shut down after running out of money.  

To that end, small and midsize start-ups are trying to outlast the downturn by cutting back on one of tech's trademark innovations: outlandish spending.  

There was a time, for example, when Appthority was thinking about getting its own office. But after heightened investor scrutiny stretched the company's latest fundraising process to seven months — more than its previous rounds — Guerra decided a co-working setup was its smartest bet.  

"If we had leased our own office, most landlords wanted us to sign a five- to 10-year lease, and they were asking for a seven-month security deposit, which would have been six figures," Guerra said. "From an investment perspective, it was a lot of liabilities."  

A few blocks away from Appthority in San Francisco's Financial District, Wonolo — an on-demand staffing start-up that has raised $8.9 million from investors such as Coca-Cola Founders and CrunchFund — has slowed down hiring.  

"We're not rushing to make a hire just because a position has opened up," said AJ Brustein, Wonolo's co-founder and chief operating officer. "We're being smarter about who we hire, and that might mean we're taking longer than we'd want."  

Waits of up to two months, Brustein said, ensure the company finds the right person and reduces the chances of hiring someone who might be a poor fit, which would ultimately be costly.  

The company has also opted for a modest office, choosing to take out a yearlong sublease on a 7,000-square-foot space to accommodate its 27 employees.  

The decision came after a fundraising push that started in October dragged into January. By then, "it was very clear every single VC in the Valley was writing about doom and gloom," Brustein said. "We kept that in consideration when we moved into an office — it's not necessarily the type of office we would have gotten six months ago, but it was one that we could pay for."  

Commercial real estate firms have noticed the shift. Cushman & Wakefield's San Francisco market leader J.D. Lumpkin said that tech start-ups are starting to make "scrappier, more responsible real estate decisions" to avoid spending huge amounts of money on a lease.  

We're not chasing Uber-sized top-line growth -- that's expensive and risky. Just because we have money in the bank doesn't mean we're going to spend it.— Mark Woodward, chief executive of Invoca.  

Subleasing is on the rise — even larger tech companies such as Twitter and Dropbox are renting parts of their offices to start-ups — and a growing number of deals on ambitious office spaces have been put on hold.  

"Some start-ups are doing well, like Lyft and Fitbit," said Robert Sammons, Cushman & Wakefield's director of research in San Francisco, who noted that those firms are still expanding into bigger offices and snapping up long-term leases. "But for some start-ups, their growth patterns haven't panned out."  

It's a reality check, Sammons said. Tech has traditionally spent more on leasing and renovating real estate than other industries.  

Payments company Square, for example, built an atrium into its office. Github has a full wet bar.

Numerous start-ups have spent millions making their offices workplace wonderlands. And, Sammons said, "board members are now saying, 'What are you doing? You're not even profitable.'"  

Real estate is only one of many considerations for start-ups navigating the downturn, said Dale Chang, vice president of portfolio operations at venture capital firm Scale Venture Partners, which has invested in companies such as Box and DocuSign.  

"I advise our companies to be smart at all times about growth," Chang said. "Even in frothy times, I don't think going out there and spending a lot of money is the right strategy."  

Instead, Chang advises his portfolio companies to focus on the core set of activities that the company was set up to do. Making an app? Hit the ball out of the park with it. Offering software as a service? Make it best in class. Anything that isn't integral to that — marketing, hiring, office expansions — can be slowed down.  

Start-ups that have raised funds in recent months have had to alter their investor presentations to address that too.  

Invoca, a 160-person Santa Barbara company that makes analytics tools for marketers, closed a $30-million round in March after a seven-month fundraising process that stretched out like bubble gum.  

Its previous rounds took half the time. Going into it, the company's chief executive, Mark Woodward, said investors were "way, way, way more conservative compared to prior months," and were no longer just interested in companies with high growth. They wanted to know the quality of Invoca's technology, the market opportunity, the business model, its competitive position, and how defensible that position was.  

"They wanted to know if Facebook or Google decided to enter our market, would they wipe us out tomorrow?" Woodward said.  

When the company raised funds two years ago, the money went toward aggressive hiring of sales and marketing teams and research and development. The latest round, Woodward said, will get the company to self-sustainability, at which point it won't need to raise funds again.  

"We're not increasing spending by a dime on marketing," Woodward said. "We're not chasing Uber-sized top-line growth — that's expensive and risky. Just because we have money in the bank doesn't mean we're going to spend it."  

Back in San Francisco, Jeff Burkland, the founder of Burkland Associates, a firm that offers chief financial officer services to start-ups, said that over the years he's seen companies try different strategies to extend their runway.  

Slowing down hiring is one. Finding shorter, more flexible leases is another. In extreme cases, founders might decide to not take a salary, or move some of their work to offshore contractors.

Building a war chest before a downturn hits is also an option; a move that rewards those who take advantage of frothy times by accepting funding well before they need it. If a company had plans to raise funds within the next two years, Burkland advised them last year to get it over with.  

Which is why Segment, a data hub start-up where Burkland is the CFO, raised funds last fall even though the company didn't need the extra cash yet. "We felt like the market was too warm to stay that way," said Peter Reinhardt, Segment's chief executive. "We had all this investor interest, and we felt like it wasn't going to be that great in six months."  

The fundraising process — emailing investors, setting up meetings, signing a term sheet — took only 11 days.  

Ultimately, Burkland said, it's about staying nimble and being adaptive. Trimming excess, finding flexibility and, sometimes, being scrappy. You know, like a start-up.  

 tracey.lien@latimes.com  Twitter: @traceylien

Mendez vs. segregation: 70 years later, famed case 'isn't just about Mexicans.
  It's about everybody coming together'
By Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil, LA Times, April 17, 2016



Sylvia Mendez at home, Fullerton, CA. Mendez's father, Gonzalo, center of Mendez vs. Westminster, which desegregated California schools years before the Supreme Court's landmark Brown vs. Board of Education. (Scott Smeltzer / Daily Pilot)

NO READING, WRITING

When Sylvia Mendez was growing up in the 1940s, Orange County was largely segregated, according to Gilbert Gonzalez, author of the book "Chicano Education in the Era of Segregation." Public parks, swimming pools, restaurants and movie theaters were all segregated, and houses were often sold with racially restricted covenants, stipulating that the property could only be resold to whites.

"This is the general pattern throughout the Southwest where the Mexican community appeared," said Gonzalez, professor emeritus in the Department of Chicano/Latino Studies at UC Irvine.

RESISTANCE TO CHANGE

GONZALO PUSHED BACK

After closely following the case, the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, which called Mendez a "dry run for the future," used much of the same legal reasoning in 1954 in Brown vs. Board of Education, a landmark case that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional.

Marshall argued this case before the Supreme Court, which by then included Chief Justice Warren, who wrote the unanimous decision that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."

Tour of historical spots helps Mendez education efforts
By Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil, LA Times, April 17, 2016



Sandra Robbie, shown here in 2007, in her 1967 Volkswagen van at her home in Santa Ana. Robbie drove the bus across the country to educate people about Sylvia Mendez and Civil Rights. 
Mark Dustin, Huntington Beach, CA Independent

Sandra Robbie couldn't believe it took her so long to learn about Mendez vs. Westminster.
She grew up in a Mexican American family in Westminster in the 1960s and 1970s, but never heard about the landmark case that not only ended school segregation in her hometown but also laid the groundwork for desegregation across the United States.

It was only in 1997, when the Mendez School in Santa Ana was being built, that she learned the story.
"In my mind, I was screaming," she said. "It doesn't get bigger than this! And nobody thought it was important enough to mention? I was finally seeing people like my family and my community - people of all different colors - represented in a story that not only changed Orange County and Westminster, where I grew up, but an entire nation."

Chicano Movement in Texas
Melon strike 50 years ago in Starr County sparked Chicano movement in Texas
by Kristian Hernandez, Monitor staff writer

Starr County in the 1960s

Preserving History

HERITAGE PROJECTS

This is Lladro 'bridle less' nothing on his head to guide him...he is a GREAT ambassador...
also his foundation parents were Francisco & Antonia, named after Padre Francisco Kino and Mrs Antonia Wilbur-Cruce.   'Bridle less' horses were always considered the finest throughout  time...this demonstrates the horses total trust and desire to be our partners by choice...not force...

Mustano

Excerpt from Robert Vavra’s Classic Book of Horses

By Robert Vavra

Mustano is one of the most fascinating horses in this book, a true wild Mustang who represents a rare link to the past.

Robin Keller, the person who now shares Mustano’s life – for one hesitates to say “owner” when dealing with so regally autonomous a horse – believes Mustano and the other horses she raises on her Laguna Seca, California ranch are among the few direct descendants of the horses Columbus brought with him to the New World.

Foaled about 1974, 14.2 hands, a gorgeous black-gold buckskin with an abundant mane and tail, Mustano looks as though he could have stepped down from a sixteenth century Valasquez painting.

“Spanish Mustang in phenotype, his blood work shows up several rare markers, most of which indicate Andalusian ancestry,” says Robin.

Mustano was gathered from the open range on the California/Nevada border in February 1985, which is when Robin first saw him.  He was held in the Susanville Bureau of Land Management pens in Northern California.  He was the only senior stallion in the herd of twenty-two individuals, the rest mares and foals.  Years later, Robin learned that cowboys tried to ride Mustano and failing, shipped him to Cottonwood to the livestock yards to be sold by the pound for slaughter.  Unable to attend the sale herself, Robin sent a friend to bid on Mustano for her.  The friend purchased Mustano, his lead mare, and several of his band of offspring from the slaughter yard.

“It is fair to say that we have had considerable impact on each other’s lives,” says Robin.  “I saved his and he changed the whole focus of mine.  After his capture, Mustano’s life was upside down.  All he had known was taken from him – his independence, his job and his freedom.  All was denied him after ten wild years.  It was clear he had to adapt or die”

Robin, who shares my fascination with equine social behavior, deeply felt the responsibility for Mustano’s life and the quality of that life when it had been so altered in ways almost too immeasurable and profound for humans to really understand.  “Few, if any of us, have ever known such freedom,” says Robin.  “It wasn’t my task just to help him try to adapt to new surroundings, but to grant him self-esteem and to replace his noble position in a world of confinement, a world void of his subjects and his realm.”

“Due to his wild beginnings, he was approachable only by his standards,” she says.  “He visits with me voluntarily and I truly believe he considers me a friend. 

“Mustano’s personality is deep, sensitive, complete, confident, and just,” she says. “He is willing to attempt to comply with any fair request.  For someone who used to make all the requests, this is quite a statement.  He is always vigilant, totally aware of his surroundings, and he is a great band of herd manager, overseeing each individual with love and care.”

Mustano’s unique qualities brought him to the attention of Dr. Phil Sponenbure of Virginia, who found him rare, not only because it is highly unusual to find a true Spanish horse on the range today, but also because of the stallion’s color.  Dr. Sponenburg, a scientist who has written a book on equine color, has seen only one other horse close to Mustano’s black-gold color.  All of which makes Mustano an important horses for breeding. 

Because of Mustano, Robin’s focus of horse involvement has changed radically – from the horse show world to developing her Wild Horse Discovery Center which features wild horses with special cultural, historical and genetic values.  As Robin was in the process of developing this Center, she was notified of a rare find in Arizona: horses that had been isolated on a ranch for a very long time, and which has come from the Spanish Mission Chain – the Wilbur-Cruce horses.  That story is told on the following page through Francisco, Robin’s other stallion.  

Francisco

Excerpt from Robert Vavra’s Classic Book of Horses

By Robert Vavra

            While in pursuit of appropriate Spanish –type mares for Mustano, the herd of Wilbur-Cruce horses was brought to my attention by Dr. Phil Sponenburg and Marye Anne Thompson, breeder of the Cerbat Spanish horses in Arizona,” says Robin Keller of Carmel, California.   In July 1990, Robin was able to obtain eighteen horses from the Cruce herd including five stallions, nine mares and a couple of youngsters.

            Again these wild horses’ lives were turned around, especially that of the Paint stallion, Francisco, as he was the premier leader of all the bands on the ranch.  He alone left the gathering process totally unscathed.  “He was extremely solitary and formidable, separate from the rest,” says Robin.  “For him to relinquish his position and his authority was very hard.”

            “My first strong memories of this horse are of an aloof individual who denied everyone interaction of any kind.  He would not even recognize you with his eyes (one blue, one marble).  A distant resistance.

            “He spiraled into a very deep depression the first two months,” she adds.  “At times he looked as though he was fading away emotionally.  He would reject all our efforts to be friendly, to offer him gestures of goodwill or to share our company in any way.”

            Robin saw that he was uniquely beautiful.  Foaled on the Wilbur-Cruce Ranch in Arivaca, Arizona in about 1982, he was 15.2 hands high, an overo roan sabino liver chestnut Medicine Hat Paint.

“His ancestors were purchased from the Mission Chain, Mission Dolores, in Magadalena, Mexico.  He has been confined all his life on the ranch, as were the other members of his herd, for generations.  He is not a feral horse, but a pure Spanish horse, descended from the original bloodlines brought over by the Conquistadors,” says Robin. 

            “This horse’s personality appears to be a contradiction,” Robin continues.  “His composed exterior hides the warmth and depth of a loving, care-taking individual.  He is a family man in every way.  He is a nurturing, loving partner to each mare, his courtships are lengthy and complete according to her desires and he is a doting father.  He plays boisterously but patiently with the colts, endearingly and nurturingly with the fillies.  He must be coaxed to interact or display himself, except when he is being the nurturing family man.”

            The special part about Robin’s own relationship with Francisco is that “he accepts me as his own and I am free to interact with him and his band at any time, under any circumstances.”

            After approximately six months of ground work and ground socializing, including being tacked and given the foundation for riding, and with thirty days of actual saddle time, Francisco’s education has reached a level where a rider can work cattle from him, rope steers and dally.  After approximately thirty days ranch work, Francisco was returned to the breeding program at Robin’s farm.

            “The offspring he has sired are tractable, sensitive, very athletic, and all colorful,” says Robin.  They perform liberty work at her Wild Horse Discovery Center.

            “As with Mustano, this horse creates dreams – dreams of another level of understanding, compassion, and success.  A success in our helping one another to make the world a better place,” says Robin.

            “As we all strive to become wiser and better educated, let us not forget the wisdom and the education that these wild species have learned through the art of survival.  By studying these societies, we are allowed to witness the one constant in life, Mother Nature, as a harsh ruler, generally with ways to bring things back to balance.  Perhaps by studying a society such as that of the wild horses, we will better find the balance in life,” says the already-wise Robin.  

HISTORICAL TIDBITS

THE ALAMO: THE REAL STORY
INVESTIGATES THE HISTORY, MYTH AND POPULAR CULTURE OF WILD WEST 
DOCUMENTARY 




To view the documentary, click on the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXeE0wowc68 

HONORING HISPANIC LEADERSHIP

Sergeant Santiago J. Erevia

Santiago Erevia, Medal of Honor recipient, dies at 70

By Kevin Lilley, Army Times, March 23, 2016

Erevia received the Medal of Honor, March 18, 2014; Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart, Air Medal, Army Commendation Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Service Medal with five Bronze Service Stars, Combat Infantryman Badge, Sharpshooter Marksmanship Badge with Auto Rifle Bar, Marksman Marksmanship Badge with Rifle Bar, Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal with "60" Device, Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross with Gold Star Device and Republic of Vietnam Civil Actions Honor Medal, First Class.

Medal of Honor recipient Sgt. Santiago Erevia was born in Nordheim, Texas, in 1946. He volunteered to join the U.S. Army in San Antonio when he was 22-years-old.

Then-Spc. 4 Erevia distinguished himself May 21, 1969, while serving as a radio-telephone operator during a search-and-clear mission near Tam Ky City, in the Republic of Vietnam.

In 1970, Erevia left active service with a two year reserve obligation. In 1972 he joined the Texas National Guard and went on to serve 17 years. Erevia also found employment with the U.S. Postal Service; after 32 years of public service there, he retired in 2002.  

Erevia has four grown children and live[d] in San Antonio with his wife. [He enjoyed] refurbishing his home and walking to stay fit.  

https://www.army.mil/medalofhonor/valor24/recipients/erevia/?f=recipient_list 

Santiago J. Erevia, whose heroism during a Vietnam War firefight in 1969 earned him a Medal of Honor nearly a half-century later, died Tuesday in San Antonio. He was 70.

Erevia was one of three living Medal of Honor recipients out of the 24 service members celebrated at the White House on March 18, 2014. Each received the award after a review of records ordered in 2002 by Congress aimed initially at undoing potential discrimination against Jewish- and Hispanic-Americans who received valor awards during World War II, Korea and Vietnam. The review eventually expanded to include troops of other backgrounds.

On May 21, 1969, then-Spec. 4 Erevia was aiding wounded soldiers in C Company, 1st Battalion, 501st Infantry, 101st Airborne Division, in Tam Ky when his unit came under heavy fire from four nearby bunkers, according to his award citation. The radio telephone operator armed himself with ammunition taken from his wounded comrades, as well as two M16s and several hand grenades, and charged his attackers.

He eliminated three bunkers before running out of grenades. When he reached the fourth bunker, he "silenced the occupant ... at point-blank range" with his rifle, the citation reads.

"Through his heroic actions the lives of the wounded were saved and the members of the Company Command Post were relieved from a very precarious situation," it continues.

He was awarded the DSC in 1969 and left active service the next year, according to a biography at Army.mil. He served 17 more years with the Texas National Guard, overlapping with time as a U.S. Postal Service employee. He retired from the USPS in 2002.

A cause of death was not immediately available. Erevia's passing was reported by the Bexar County (Texas) Veterans Service Office; Erevia frequently crossed paths with VSO staffers during veterans-outreach events, said Queta Marquez, the county's veterans service officer.

Retired Master Sgt. Jose Rodela, another San Antonio resident honored in 2014 as part of the so-called "Valor 24," told MySanAntonio.com that Erevia "was really humble. Obviously, he got a lot of attention after getting the Medal of Honor, but he was always very humble."

Senior reporter Michelle Tan contributed to this report.

Helen and Cesar Chavez with six of their eight children in 1969
 at the United Farm Workers’ “Forty Acres” property outside Delano. 
 Standing from left are Anna, Eloise and Sylvia. Seated from left are Paul, Elizabeth and Anthony.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, LULAC National President Roger C. Rocha, Jr. issued the following statement regarding the passing of Helen Chavez, the widow of civil rights leader Cesar Chavez, who led the United Farm Workers of America for 31 years. Together, they fought to ensure equal treatment and fair wages for farmworkers across the country.

"Helen Chavez played an integral role in the fight to change deplorable living and working conditions for farmworkers, including the unfair wages they received at the time. 

Rodriguez shared his genealogy expertise
By Mary Mills Heidbrink, Staff Writer, 
Express News, June 10, 2016

Jesse Rodriguez
Born: Jan. 2, 1921, San Antonio
Died: June 6, 2016, San Antonio at 95 years old

Latino soldiers
 Cebu, Phillipines, WW II

  LATINO AMERICAN PATRIOTS

World War Two veteran Vince Speranza tells the Airborne Beer story that occurred while he was serving in the 101st Airborne Division at the Battle of the Bulge. The 101st Airborne was cutoff from the rest of the Army and was holding out in Bastogne when Vince was sent back to try and find some radio batteries for his company. As you see, he got a little sidetracked on his mission as he stopped to visit a wounded friend.  http://biggeekdad.com/2014/05/airborne-beer-story/ 
Sent by Dave Andrews  bgd@biggeekdaddy.com   Editor Mimi: Do watch it!!  

THE RESPONSE by Lt. Col. Grant L. Rosensteel, Jr.   

TWO VETERANS RECEIVED THEIR MARTIN HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA IN LAREDO, TEXAS.  
COACH JOHN VALLS WAS A JUNIOR AT MHS WHEN HE WAS DRAFTED IN THE U.S. ARMY DURING WWII. 
June 2, 2016, 72 years after he was drafted

VA Launches Veterans Legacy Program

Lt. Commander John Waldron & Torpedo Squadron 8

Kill marks on "Bad Angel”

In 1942, the United States needed pilots for its war planes lots of war planes; lots of pilots. Lt. Louis Curdes was one. When he was 22 years old, he graduated flight training school and was shipped off to the Mediterranean to fight Nazis in the air over Southern Europe.

===================================

===================================

Pilot Lt. Louis Curdes in his P-51 
Mustang "Bad Angel”.

One might think that such harrowing experiences would have taken the fight out of Louis, yet he volunteered for another combat tour. This time, Uncle Sam sent him to the Philippines where he flew P-51 Mustangs.

Soon after arriving in the Pacific Theater, Louis downed a Mitsubishi reconnaissance plane near Formosa. Now he was one of only three Americans to have kills against all three Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, and Japan.

===================================

===================================

One of "Bad Angel's" .50 caliber machine guns built into its wings.

===================================

===================================

.50 caliber ammo for P-51 Mustangs.

EARLY LATINO AMERICAN PATRIOTS

From Across the Spanish Empire Spanish Soldiers 
Who Helped Win the American Revolutionary War, 1776-1783, 
Arizona, California, Louisiana, New Mexico and Texas Military Rosters 
by Leroy Martinez 

Forward by Judge Edward F. Butler, Sr.
President General 2009-2010 
National Society Sons of the American Revolution

I have had the pleasure of knowing Leroy Martinez for over 10 years. During that time we have frequently conferred, including several face to face meetings in California and Arizona. Our time together has been spent analyzing the archival records that clearly prove that Spain was a principal ally in the American Revolutionary War.

Leroy has been an indefatigable researcher. His research has allowed him to piece together an interesting story. Unfortunately, for 100 years or more, France has been given credit for much of the financial support provided by Spain. This book clearly dispels that myth. He shows that King Carlos III was clearly the leader of the Borbon Compact, being senior in age and experience to King Louis of France.

This book should be on the required reading list of all American History teachers. Every young Hispanic student should be taught that their ancestors played an important role in the battle for American independence.

Ed

Table of Contents................................................................................................................ iii

Acknowledgments.................................................................................................................^

Forward............................................................................................................................. vii

Illustrations........................................................................................................................ix-x

Chapter I Introduction........................................................................................................1-6

Chapter II Events fiom 1565-1784......................................................................................7-12

Chapter III Reference to Spanish Words.......................................................................... 13-16

Chapter IV Spanish Governors..........................................................................................17-19

Chapter V Spanish Presidios and Posts ............................................................................20-29

Chapter VI Treaty of Paris 1783........................................................................................30-33

Chapter VII Arizona Tucson Records 1776-1783 ..............................................................34-43

Chapter VIII California Presidio Records 1776-1783 ..........................................................44-81

Chapter IX Louisiana Military Records 1776-1783 ............................................................82-173

Chapter X New Mexico Santa Fe Presidio Records 1776-1783....................................... 174-195

Chapter XI Texas Presidios Records 1776-1783............................................................. 196-228

Chapter XII Spanish Uniform and Facings......................................................................229-232

Chapter XIII Ancestors Military Papers .........................................................................233-234

Index ...........................................................................................................................237-269

KingCarlos  III .......................................................................................................................cover

Spain's Colonial Military Flag.................................................................................................. xii

Spanish Coins..........................................................................................................................4

Short Sword...........................................................................................................................10

Spanish and British Ships at Battle.......................................................................................... 11

Medical Tools........................................................................................................................15

Spanish Governor's Palace......................................................................................................18

Presidio map in America.........................................................................................................20

British Print of Treaty of Paris 1783.........................................................................................30

Spanish Halbert Lance............................................................................................................32

Soldado de Cuera Oil on canvas painting.................................................................................34

1779 Tucson Presidio partial archive copy...............................................................................35

Dedication to the Tuscon Presidio Spanish Soldiers ................................................................42

California Presidio Map..........................................................................................................44

1781 San Francisco Presidio partial archive copy ....................................................................45

Buffalo Knife, Machete, Sword, and a Soldier's Leather Jacket.................................................81

Portrait of Bernardo Galvez.....................................................................................................82

Standard used By Spanish Governor of Louisiana Bernardo Galvez..........................................83

Gulf of Mexico Map.............................................................................................................172

Map of Santa Fe Presidio and Surrounding area, New Mexico................................................174

1779 Santa Fe Presidio partial archive copy...........................................................................175

Grey Stone Santa Fe Presidio ...............................................................................................194

Criollo Cattle (direct Spanish cattle descendant) Oil Painting ..................................................196

Texas Presidio Archive Record ............................................................................................197

18^{lb Century Spanish Musket...............................................................................................216}

Spanish SURNAMES

Genealogia de la Familia Michel por Alfredo I, Pena Perez

DNA

Why genetic research must be more diverse
First DNA from ancient Phoenician shows Europe ancestry
Scientists have discovered the British are descended from a tribe of Spanish fishermen.
Extinct Humans' DNA is Helping US Today

First DNA from ancient Phoenician shows Europe ancestry

By AFP Breitbart, May 26, 2016

Miami (AFP) – The first DNA analysis of 2,500-year-old remains from one of the great early civilizations of the Middle East, the Phoenicians, has shown the man had European heritage, researchers said Wednesday.  

The mitochondrial DNA — or genetic information from his mother’s side — came from a man known as “Young Man of Byrsa” or “Ariche,” whose remains were uncovered in the Tunisian city of Carthage.  

The findings in the journal PLOS ONE suggest his maternal lineage likely came from the north Mediterranean coast, on the Iberian Peninsula, perhaps near what is modern day Spain or Portugal.  

Phoenicians are known as the creators of the first alphabet, and inhabited the coastal cities, Tyre, Sidon, Byblos and Arwad, in what is now Lebanon and southern Syria.  

However, since their writings were made on papyrus, little remains except what has been written about them by Greek and Egyptian scholars.  

According to lead study author Lisa Matisoo-Smith, a professor in the department of anatomy at New Zealand’s University of Otago, the remains reveal the earliest known evidence in North Africa of a rare European genetic population, or haplogroup, known as U5b2c1. “U5b2c1 is considered to be one of the most ancient haplogroups in Europe and is associated with hunter-gatherer populations there,” she said.  

“It is remarkably rare in modern populations today, found in Europe at levels of less than one percent.”  

The matriarchal DNA of the man, whose remains were found by gardeners working outside the National Museum of Carthage in 1994, “most closely matches that of the sequence of a particular modern day individual from Portugal,” she added.  

The discovery sheds some new light on the history of the Phoenicians, who are thought to have originated in Lebanon and spread across the Mediterranean.   Carthage was a prominent Phoenician port and trade center established by colonists from Lebanon.  

However, researchers were unable to find any links between the ancient man’s mitochondrial DNA and that of 47 modern Lebanese people who were analyzed for the study.  

“Hopefully our findings and other continuing research will cast further light on the origins and impact of Phoenician peoples and their culture,” said Matisoo-Smith.  

http://www.breitbart.com/author/afp/
Sent from John Inclan fromgalveston@yahoo.com

Scientists have discovered the British are descended from a tribe of Spanish fishermen.

Native Tibetans make use of a gene derived from Denisovans to stay healthy at high altitudes.  Photo credit:Nicolás Marino

Early human history was a promiscuous affair. As modern humans began to spread out of Africa roughly 50,000 years ago, they encountered other species that looked remarkably like them — the Neanderthals and Denisovans, two groups of archaic humans that shared an ancestor with us roughly 600,000 years earlier. This motley mix of humans coexisted in Europe for at least 2,500 years, and we now know that they interbred, leaving a lasting legacy in our DNA. The DNA of non-Africans is made up of roughly 1 to 2 percent Neanderthal DNA, and some Asian and Oceanic island populations have as much as 6 percent Denisovan DNA. Over the last few years, scientists have dug deeper into the Neanderthal and Denisovan sections of our genomes and come to a surprising conclusion. Certain Neanderthal and Denisovan genes seem to have swept through the modern human population — one variant, for example, is present in 70 percent of Europeans — suggesting that these genes brought great advantage to their bearers and spread rapidly.

“In some spots of our genome, we are more Neanderthal than human,” said Joshua Akey, a geneticist at the University of Washington. “It seems pretty clear that at least some of the sequences we inherited from archaic hominins were adaptive, that they helped us survive and reproduce.”

But what, exactly, do these fragments of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA do? What survival advantage did they confer on our ancestors? Scientists are starting to pick up hints. Some of these genes are tied to our immune system, to our skin and hair, and perhaps to our metabolism and tolerance for cold weather, all of which might have helped emigrating humans survive in new lands.

“What allowed us to survive came from other species,” said Rasmus Nielsen, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Berkeley. “It’s not just noise, it’s a very important substantial part of who we are.”

The Neanderthal Within

The Tibetan plateau is a vast stretch of high-altitude real estate isolated by massive mountain ranges. The scant oxygen at 14,000 feet — roughly 40 percent lower than the concentrations at sea level — makes it a harsh environment. People who move there suffer higher rates of miscarriage, blood clots and stroke on account of the extra red blood cells their bodies produce to feed oxygen-starved tissue. Native Tibetans, however, manage just fine. Despite the meager air, they don’t make as many red blood cells as the rest of us would at those altitudes, which helps to protect their health.

In 2010, scientists discovered that Tibetans owe their tolerance of low oxygen levels in part to an unusual variant in a gene known as EPAS1. About 90 percent of the Tibetan population and a smattering of Han Chinese (who share a recent ancestor with Tibetans) carry the high-altitude variant. But it’s completely absent from a database of 1,000 human genomes from other populations.

In 2014, Nielsen and colleagues found that Tibetans or their ancestors likely acquired the unusual DNA sequence from Denisovans, a group of early humans first described in 2010 that are more closely related to Neanderthals than to us. The unique gene then flourished in those who lived at high altitudes and faded away in descendants who colonized less harsh environments. “That’s one of the most clear-cut examples of how [interbreeding] can lead to adaptation,” said Sriram Sankararaman, a geneticist and computer scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The idea that closely related species can benefit from interbreeding, known in evolutionary terms as adaptive introgression, is not a new one. As a species expands into a new territory, it grapples with a whole new set of challenges — different climate, food, predators and pathogens. Species can adapt through traditional natural selection, in which spontaneous mutations that happen to be helpful gradually spread through the population. But such mutations strike rarely, making it a very slow process. A more expedient option is to mate with species that have already adapted to the region and co-opt some of their helpful DNA. (Species are traditionally defined by their inability to mate with one another, but closely related species often interbreed.)

FAMILY HISTORY RESEARCH

EDUCATION

Tejano Carlos E. Cansino’s Memories of Migrant Farm Worker Travels in the 40s/50s

Sent by Dr. Cynthia E. Orozco, Ph.D. 
 Cynthia.Orozco@enmu.edu
who writes:

        Thank you for reminding me of the indelible racist scar I suffered when I was a little boy passing through Fremont, Nebraska in the 1940s. I grew up in a poor Mexican American migrant farm worker family. My father had been born in Texas, where I was born to go work in the sugar beet fields of Minnesota and would have to pass through Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa to get to our destination. At that time the US Supreme Court in 1896 passed Plessy v. Ferguson also known as “separate but equal” (segregation law) directed at Blacks. It was in effect in the 1940s. But it was also applied in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California to the Mexican mestizo (Spanish/Indian) people in public accommodations and especially in education. “No Mexicans or Colored trade solicited” said signs in restaurants; there were separate school facilities, “Mexican schools.” But for Mexicans there were no colleges or universities established.

     On our car trip to the north we adequately prepared. My mother would make plenty of flour tortilla tacos. My dad liked to drive all day and night and with his two Mexican buddies they talked and passed the time driving. We could not stop for food because the Whites would not serve us.

     Two incidents I clearly remember. One time he went to a restaurant because we were low on tacos and they would not serve him. He came out furious and asked for a pencil to write the restaurants’ name down to report it but the sad part of it was that he was illiterate because he had dropped out of the segregated, demeaning elementary school in Texas. And another time my dad got tired of driving and in the outskirts of a small town like Fremont at night he stopped to rest. Pretty soon a sheriff came and pointed his gun at my dad and told him to leave.

     And in Minnesota mostly German farmers got rich from our toil in the long half mile rows of sugar beets and would not even invite us to their house or much less to their Fourth of July picnics. In the states of Kansas and Nebraska, “illegals” have worked in the dirtiest jobs in meat packing plants, chicken hatcheries, doing farm work and construction.

     Finally as a youth to get out of the fields, I volunteered for the U.S. Army and served in the Korean War in 1950 as a combat medic. In the battle field the Whites were still racists toward us “Mexican boys” making jokes and they did not allow me to get promoted to sergeant. 

It was then I decided to come back and get a college education.

The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows . . .  Sydney J. Harris 

A chance to grasp: 
Four Tustin High students 
design and build a prosthetic 
for Irvine seventh-grader

By 
Susan Christian Goulding, 
Nick Agro, staff photographer
the Orange County Register, 
May 16, 2016

Ed Hernandez, Tustin High teacher and T-Tech Academy director, helps Nick Caiozzo get a good fit on his new prosthetic hand. 

Nick Caiozzo grew up shrugging off his disability – a left arm that stops just below his elbow.  “I’ve never felt embarrassed about it,” said Caiozzo, 13, a seventh-grader at Orchard Hills School in Irvine.

At a time of life when most kids just want to blend in, Caiozzo nonchalantly demonstrates his new eye-catching prosthetic – its bright purple wrist, white palm and red fingers telegraphing superhero powers.  

“I can pick up this water bottle,” he said, showing how the fingers contract when he bends his arm.  Remarkably, the contraption was made by teenagers – who manufactured it for less than $200 on a 3D printer.  

Four Tustin High juniors created the mechanical arm in their school’s T-Tech Academy of Technology and Engineering program, under the direction of teacher Ed Hernandez.  “Anyone can crank out random gizmos and gadgets with 3D printers,” student Brandon Rossano said. “We made a working prosthetic arm for Nick.”  

Eight years ago, Tustin High became the first school in Orange County with a 3D printer. “We stay on the cutting edge,” Hernandez said. “We are a leader in the educational use of 3D technology.”

Other Orange County school programs also have practiced manufacturing prosthetic applications on 3D printers. Earlier this year, seventh-graders at Johnson Middle School in Westminster donated their devices to a nonprofit, Enabling the Future, which serves people without hands.

Tustin High now boasts six late-model printers, on which novices mostly produce phone cases, bottle openers and light switch plates. In February the T-Tech students decided to seek a bigger purpose, so Hernandez put out the word in the school district.  

“Our intent was not to use somebody as a guinea pig, but to help a member of the Tustin Unified community,” he said.  Orchard Hills’ principal connected the teens with Caiozzo for the project.  “It sounded interesting,” Caiozzo recalled. “I said, ‘Sure, why not?’”  

Caiozzo was born without the lower third of his left arm. Doctors told his parents that the congenital defect was due to “amniotic banding,” in which fibrous amniotic strings become wrapped around an extremity of a developing fetus, restricting blood flow.  

“My husband and I were not upset for ourselves but for him,” said his mom, Kris Caiozzo. “We worried, will he be able to do whatever other kids can do?”  

The couple soon realized they could set aside those fears. Nick enjoys typical teen activities – hanging out with friends, practicing tennis, skiing, swimming and playing video games.  

During Nick’s first visit to Tustin High, the four engineers-in-training interviewed him and took measurements. He continued to drop in on them periodically for fine-tuning.   “We got feedback from him that guided us in improving the arm,” said Eric Baker, one of the four students.  

In a sense, all involved were lending each other a hand. The students gained experience and Nick gained a device that, although still mostly a novelty to him, could pave his road to a more sophisticated prosthetic in the future.  

Most children missing an arm naturally adapt to relying on one hand, Kris and her husband, Steve Caiozzo, came to learn. So in general, adding a prosthetic is not 
a high priority – especially because replacing it as the child grows could become cost-prohibitive.  

But access to a free mechanical arm provides him an opportunity to practice operating a prosthetic limb before he becomes a less flexible adult.  “You can be more successful at wearing a prosthetic if you get accustomed to it as a kid,” his mom said.  

Although he probably won’t strap it on 24-7, Nick is already looking at ways to put his new hand to use. “I could serve a tennis ball with it,” he said.  Now when serving, he bounces the ball on the ground and swings with his right hand – a maneuver not allowed in competitions. The hand’s creators are exploring ways to better shape it for tossing up a ball.  

“The arm is something that can always be improved on,” said Angelica Verde. She and her colleagues insist on perfection, or at least as near to perfection as they can get.

“When we’re building something just for ourselves, we can get away with little flaws and errors,” Derek Weaver said. “But when we’re designing something for someone who actually needs and wants it, we have to take into consideration every detail.”

Contact the writer: sgoulding@ocregister.com

Crystal Cortez, CSUF student, Joshua Sudock, staff photographer

CSUF geology student 
Crystal Cortez studies 
special fossil as 'the shark 
by Angie Marcos, 
Orange County Register, 
May 3, 2016
 

A 10 million-year-old juvenile shark fossil that Cal State Fullerton geology student Crystal Cortez is studying in the university’s geological sciences lab was found nearly 25 years ago during the expansion of Alicia Parkway in Aliso Viejo.  Today, a Starbucks sits on the site where the fossil was excavated.

“It’s funny but it shows me, and it shows the world, hopefully, that paleontology is still a very active field since there are still fossils being found all over the place,” said Cortez, 28.

For the past three years, Cortez has worked to identify the components of the fossilized specimen, part of the extinct “carcharodon hastalis” species – or, simply put, an early white shark.  This fossil is unique for a number of reasons.

First, it is a well-preserved specimen, made up of a partial skeleton of the front portion of the shark, which includes the full snout, many teeth, and some vertebrae and cartilage.

Cortez and her faculty mentor, James Parham, suspect this is because the specimen is entrapped in diatoms, which are algae-like microscopic organisms typically found on the sea floor. While finding fossils of shark teeth isn’t rare, it is rare to find a detailed fossilized specimen, said Parham, CSUF assistant professor of geological sciences.

Because most sharks are made up of cartilage, after millions of years, typically only teeth remain fossilized.  “This one is preserved,” Cortez said. “We have a skeleton which is very rare. That is why I decided to start working on it in the first place.”

Second, fossilized shark specimens don’t usually lend themselves to being differentiated between adult or juvenile-aged. This particular specimen does.  The presence of lateral cusplets – projections on the top of the teeth – and the size of the teeth compared with adult shark teeth from the species allowed Cortez to determine the specimen was young when it died.

She and Parham believe this to be the only known juvenile fossil species of its kind found and studied in Orange County. Cortez is working to determine exactly how old the juvenile shark was when it died. “I am very interested in predators, their behavior, how they work and how they function,” Cortez said.  “I really just fell in love with the project,” she said.

The Cooper Center, which is a repository for the fossils that are found during environmental mitigation, houses fossils and specimens that have been excavated and are waiting to be studied and researched.  The center is a collaboration between Cal State Fullerton and Orange County.

Almost immediately, Cortez suspected the partial skeleton to belong to that of a juvenile shark because of its size – but more research needed to be done in order for her to be certain.

After deciding to take on the research project, Cortez spent about nine months researching everything there was to know about sharks from the same time period.  What she found – or didn’t find – surprised her.

There aren’t many published works about early white sharks in California. While at first this was intimidating to Cortez, it ultimately served as motivation to tell the story behind the fossil.

“I love the idea of sharks and what they can actually teach us because they are so diverse and susceptible to climate change,” Cortez said.  

“I like looking at the morphology and how it connects with what they are actually doing,” she said. For example, depending on the shark species, their location and what they are eating, sharks’ teeth take on a different shape – something that fascinates Cortez.  Go back about four years ago, and Cortez had very limited knowledge about sharks.

As a student at a neighboring community college, Cortez participated in CSUF’s STEM² summer research program, which allows community college students to conduct research in science, technology, engineering and math on the CSUF campus.

In 2013, when she became a student at CSUF, Cortez became interested in fossilized early white sharks when she was introduced to the topic by Parham.  That same year, she visited the Cooper Center to find a fossil to research, never thinking she would come across such a rare find, she said.  She quickly became engulfed in the world of sharks – reading, writing, listening and discussing theories and ideas with shark experts. Now, Parham refers to Cortez as “the shark expert” in the department.  “I like when the student can turn me into the student,” Parham said.

‘A forgotten science’ Besides her passion for discovery and piecing together the history of early white sharks, Cortez wants to educate the public about her findings, as well as the overall importance of paleontology.  “My favorite part is getting to talk to the public and showing (my research) off,” Cortez said. 

While she spends a lot of time interacting with fellow researchers at national conferences, she also spends time explaining her findings and the importance to anyone that will listen, she said.

“The key to the present is the past,” Cortez said. “We need to be able to understand past ecologies and how species evolved with each other so we are able to understand what we are seeing now and what we could see in the future.”

“Paleontology allows society to study what kind of impact species have on not only the Earth, but the ways in which humans lived, live or will live,” she said.  However, because the field’s studies span millions of years, some people view paleontology as a field that is not relevant to present time, she said.

“It’s kind of a forgotten science,” Cortez said. “It’s more than just dinosaurs. It can help us in the future and help us interpret ecological systems.”  Parham believes Cortez’s research could have an impact on future research conducted on the early white shark species.

“When you add in the fact that it is a member of the great white shark lineage, it makes for an important insight into the evolutionary history of white sharks, while at the same time providing a unique look at the species that lived along our coast about 10 million years ago,” he said.

He praises Cortez’s undertaking of the research subject as an undergraduate student.  “The fact that she is leading this study and has presented on it at prestigious scientific conferences demonstrates the kinds of high-impact practices that we can do at Cal State Fullerton,” Parham said.

“These students are not merely numbering fossil specimens and putting them in boxes, but actually doing science with Orange County fossils and adding to our understanding of life on Earth,” he said.

Cortez hopes her research will assist future researchers and scientists.  She also hopes the public will learn from her research.  “I am hoping that they can take away that there are a lot of cool specimens that are coming out of Orange County,” Cortez said. “For a lot of people, it’s in their backyards.”

While Cortez will graduate from CSUF this month, she plans to continue working on the fossilized juvenile shark project and publishing her findings and research.  After graduating, she plans to enroll in a biology program to better understand the biology of the shark, before looking into a graduate program in paleontology.  “I really enjoy the research and I love figuring things out,” she said.

Contact the writer: amarcos@ocregister.com  

Musician Daniel Lopez
 Ana Venegas, staff photographer

Musician Daniel Lopez, 
Varsity Arts' Artist of the Week 
headed to UCI for math or engineering major by Staff Report, OC Register, 
May 13, 2016
Updated May 18, 2016 


Santa Ana High School trumpet player Daniel Lopez Perez is the first student from his high school accepted into the Claire Trevor School of the Arts at UCI.

For the past four years, Santa Ana High School students have been learning alongside musicians from UC Irvine in a series of master classes and coaching sessions that lead to year-end concerts in which the high school and college students play side by side. Along with helping the high school students become better musicians, this collaboration also aims to show them the benefits of pursuing a college education.  

As a result, the music program at Santa Ana High has seen an increase in students applying to college, and for the first time, the school has a student, Daniel Lopez, who has been accepted into the Claire Trevor School of the Arts at UCI as a music major. He also plans to major in math or engineering.  

“This collaboration has never been about developing musicians,” said Stephen Tucker, maestro for the UCI Symphony Orchestra. “It has always been about developing young people who have been valued and encouraged in a way that they can now see themselves going to college, continuing their education and taking advantage of opportunities. Music is how we are connecting with them, but this is bigger than music.”  

What instruments do you play? Trumpet, piano, drums, bass, guitar.  

How did you get involved in music? I became involved in music when I was 8 years old and I was placed in my first band class. When asked what instrument I wanted to play, I said the trumpet. Two weeks later, I had my first trumpet, and music slowly began to grow on me.  

What is your favorite piece of music? Who is your favorite composer? My favorite piece of music is Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, and my favorite composer is Gustav Mahler.  

Who have been your influences? Did you have a mentor in your development as a musician? If so, how did they help you? One of my biggest influences would have to be my band director, Victor de los Santos, who has provided me with unwavering support both as a teacher and as a fellow musician throughout my entire high school career.  

What inspires you? Living my life for God’s glory is my biggest inspiration. The hard work that my parents put in day in and day out also never ceases to inspire me.  

Other than music, are you involved in any other activities? If yes, what are they? I am currently an umpire for Santa Ana Pony Baseball, an intern for U.S. Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez and a member of the Santa Ana High School Quiz Bowl Team.  

What do you get out of playing music? Being involved in the arts helps better develop my creativity and strengthen my time-management skills, among other things. Playing music allows me to forget about the everyday problems in life and is a great stress reliever. Also, the friends I have made while making music are some of my closest.  

How do the arts figure into your long-term goals? The invaluable skills that I’ve learned as a musician, such as teamwork, listening, leadership and communication, I hope to incorporate into an engineering career in industry.  

What is the best advice you have received? “Listen twice as much as you speak.” And: “If you don’t practice it slow, there’s no way you can play it fast.”  

Do you have any other thoughts about being a musician that you would like to share with us? Becoming a musician was one of the best choices 
I have ever made.

CULTURE

The Eye
‘Project Runway’ Exclusive: Layana Aguilar Reveals Gown 
For Disney’s ‘Elena Of Avalor’ [POLL] Google News, May 11, 2016

(Photo : Disney) Former "Project Runway" contestant Layana Aguilar recently collaborated with Disney to design a beautiful red ball gown for their new princess Elena, who will make her debut in the animated series "Elena of Avalor" this summer.

Disney recently collaborated with "Project Runway All Stars" fan-favorite contestant Layana Aguilar to create a gorgeous ballgown for the main character in their upcoming series "Elena of Avalor."

Fans of "Project Runway" will remember the Brazilian-born Aguilar, who appeared in season 11 and again on the fifth season of "Project Runway All Stars."  

After appearing on "Project Runway," Aguilar has gone on to create her own successful brand, which includes a contemporary womens-wear label. She has also designed for celebrities such as Beyoncé and Heidi Klum.  

Recently, Aguilar and Disney worked together to design a ball gown for the company's newest princess, and we've got the first look at Elena's gorgeous ballgown.    

For fans who can't wait to watch "Elena of Avalor," the young princess will start making appearances at World Disney World at the beginning of August, with her Disneyland debut occurring in the fall.   "Elena of Avalor" is set to debut on August 1, 2016, on the Disney Channel.   Keep checking back with Fashion &Style for the latest news about "Project Runway" and "Elena of Avalor."

Sent by John Inclan

Después de varias opiniones en muestra conversación, 
creemos que los romanos usaban la orina para blanquear sus dientes.

What is Mexcellent? 

Let Enrique Garcia Naranjo explain

By Enrique Garcia Naranjo, 
LA Times, May 1, 2016

 
Enrique García Naranjo is a poet and performer in Tucson. (Chelsea Gleisner)

Late-night cruise down South 12th, stereo bumping "Forever Written" by Combine Vibes, and I’m on my way to eat tacos de tripas. Tonight I’m planting myself at Tacos Apson, named after the 1960s Mexican rock 'n' roll outfit of the same name. The spot is pinnacle Southside Mexcellence — equal parts Mexican and excellent. After I place my order, I take a seat outside and enjoy the evening stars over Southside Tucson. Across from the restaurant, I see the blue gates of Pueblo Magnet High School, my alma mater. I eat my tacos and look closely at the school. Within its walls, I found poetry.  

I became an active participant in the Tucson Youth Poetry Slam, or TYPS, a competitive poetry reading series for high schoolers from across the region. I began writing and performing poems about mi raza, my family, my community and myself. Inspired by Anzaldúa and León de la Rosa, I write my poetry in Spanglish to capture the tongue-dance of my upbringing.  

With a newfound appreciation for literature and a constant evolution of ideas about identity and history, my poetry became an outlet for all the emotions I never had words for. Thanks to the TYPS and its mother organization Spoken Futures, I read my poems across Arizona and have read in spaces where poetry had previously been unthought of. In 2012, this included a school board candidate forum.  

The Tucson Unified School District had stopped sending school buses to pick up students attending Pueblo without warning the community. Students forced to walk or take public transportation were showing up late to class and being penalized.    

I was a part of Pueblo High’s Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Aztlán, or MEChA, chapter, and we organized a forum about the inequity of transportation for Southside schools in Tucson. We invited school board members and candidates running for school board seats. To no surprise, the incumbent members declined our invitation, but all of the candidates running were in attendance. Before we started the forum, I performed a bilingual poem about the history of segregation and inequality in Tucson’s education system. Three months later, two of the candidates were elected as board members — and yellow buses returned to Pueblo.  

In 2014, a year after I graduated, I published my first collection of poetry, "Tortoise Boy Says," with Spoken Futures Press. It’s a culmination of my experiences as a young Chicano navigating the spectrums of identity and language in Arizona. I believe in the importance of empowering youth to find their voices and stories, this act is survival and resistance — it certainly was for me.

Especially now, in a moment in time where politicians and public figures like Donald Trump and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio are speaking to the deeply rooted racist and sexist sentiments of the U.S.’ white power structure. Platforms for marginalized voices are more important than ever to add depth to what it means to be an American.  

There is urgency in the poems written by black, brown, native, Asian, undocumented, queer and trans writers that cannot be understood without first recognizing why we are standing up, writing and performing: We are — and have been — done with being passive recipients of cultural and physical violence simply because of our bodies and experiences. Coming of age in Arizona, where racist legislation has targeted the Mexican and Chicana/o community, the talk of deportations and 50-foot border walls is nothing new.  

Thinking about my experience as a young poet of color, I understand how important my occupancy in literary and cultural spaces is, but I recognize that I am a cis-gendered, able-bodied, heterosexual Chicano. If I in turn failed to recognize who’s not in the room, I repeat the cycle of erasure. Hence this continual work to amplify voices that have gone unheard — just as mine was in my early teens. In solidarity with Black Lives Matter and Ni Una Mas, movements that demand the rehumanization of people stripped of their essence, I acknowledge the miraculous nature of being brown and proud and loud, of being Mexcellent, of being alive and thriving with poems rolling off my tongue like prayers.

Enrique García Naranjo is a 21-year-old poet, performer and pocho from Tucson. He is a Tucson Youth Poetry Slam alumnus and a Spoken Futures INC staff member. His work has been published by and included in the Acentos Review, Brown, Proud y Loud Zine, Sunday Kinfolk and more. Recently, García Naranjo finished his third Borderlands Theatre production, '"The Ghosts of Lote Bravo" by Hilary Bettis. Between reading and performing, García Naranjo can be found crate digging for vinyl to sample.

Sent by Mercy scarlett_mbo@yahoo.com

Check out the entire song here:
http://www.latinorebels.com/2016/05/10/mets-closer-jeurys-familia-has-a-new-customized-bachata-song-and-we-kind-of-dig-it/

La Vaca Loca, El Torito Pinto, and The Correfoc by Jaime Cader

BOOKS & PRINT MEDIA

The 2016 Finalists for the 18th Annual International Book Awards are another reflection of the growing quality of books by and about Latinos.   In order to handle this large number of books, the Awards had nearly 200 judges. The judges glowed more than ever about the high quality of the entries and how many great books there were. The Awards celebrates books in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Finalists are from across the USA and from 17 countries outside the USA. 

This has been a great year of growth for Latino Literacy Now’s efforts. Our most recent Latino Book & Family Festival in San Bernardino was our 59th – and combined attendance is now over 900,000. The Int’l Society of Latino Authors was created and is off to a great start. The Empowering Speakers Bureau was also started as a source for GREAT speakers. Education Begins in the Home, a key reading based program, has also joined the Latino Literacy Now Family. Our Changing the Face of Education in California Program is preparing a key report to be released this Fall. And we are proud to announce that our major new website with many key pull factors for readers, students, and anyone involved in the Latino community will be unveiled this Summer. The first formal event for the 2016 Finalist will be at the American Library Associations Conference at the end of June in Orlando.

The Int’l Society of Latino Authors was created and is off to a great start. The Empowering Speakers Bureau was also started as a source for GREAT speakers. Education Begins in the Home, a key reading based program, has also joined the Latino Literacy Now Family. Our Changing the Face of Education in California Program is preparing a key report to be released this Fall. And we are proud to announce that our major new website with many key pull factors for readers, students, and anyone involved in the Latino community will be unveiled this Summer. The first formal event for the 2016 Finalist will be at the American Library Associations Conference at the end of June in Orlando. 

The Awards themselves will be held September 8th in Los Angeles at the Dominguez Ballroom at California State University Dominguez Hills. The Awards are produced by Latino Literacy Now, an organization co-founded by Edward James Olmos and Kirk Whisler, and co-presented by Las Comadres de las Americas and Reforma, the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos. Major sponsors include the California State University Dominguez Hills. 

Since the book was released, I am honored and humble to say that I have won three awards by the International Latino Book Awards.

.I would hear Papi and Mami saying to me "Rosaura continuar la lucha, se merece algo mejor." 

Editor Mimi: Neither of Rosaura Torres husbands' were Latinos, one was an English surname and the other German surname.  

Rudolfo Anaya's "Bless Me, Ultima" 
to be made into an opera
By Russell Contreras, 
Associated Press, April 26, 2016

Dr. Hayes-Bautista (UCLA) pulls together the issues of slavery, civil rights, white supremacy, and women's property rights, showing how Mexico's 1810 war of independence shaped and influenced the United States Civil War.  It is EXCELLENT, insightful, and explains why Mexican citizens in the United started celebrating the Battle of Puebla and the Cinco de Mayo.

To view the book discussion, visit the link below: http://www.c-span.org/video/?319231-9/book-discussion-el-cinco-de-mayo 
Source: Mr. Dennis Lopez   Sent by Dr. Tom

 Sebastian Junger’s ‘Tribe’ Examines 
Disbanded Brothers Returning to a Divided Country
Books of The Times by Jennifer Senior, OC Register, May 18, 2016

The writer and documentarian Sebastian Junger, author of
 “Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging.”
Photo Credit: Tim Hetherington

Year after year, we hear arguments for taking the stink out of our sulfurous political rhetoric. It would be better for congressional productivity. It would be better for our international dignity. It would be better for our national literacy, our local advocacy, our general civility and the future etiquette of our children.  

But the one argument I had not heard, until reading Sebastian Junger’s “Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging,” is that we should clean up our act for the sake of our returning troops.  

Mr. Junger never makes this point explicitly. What he writes, simply, is this: After months of combat, during which “soldiers all but ignore differences of race, religion and politics within their platoon,” they return to the United States to find “a society that is basically at war with itself. People speak with incredible contempt about — depending on their views — the rich, the poor, the educated, the foreign-born, the president or the entire U.S. government.”  

It’s a formula for deep despair. “Today’s veterans often come home to find that, although they’re willing to die for their country,” he writes, “they’re not sure how to live for it.”  

With that, Mr. Junger has raised one of the most provocative ideas of this campaign season — and accidentally written one of its most intriguing political books. All without mentioning a single candidate, or even the president, by name.  

“Tribe” is not a typical Junger book. He doesn’t tell one knockout story, as he did in the “The Perfect Storm,” which made him rich and famous, or as he did in “War,” which — along with his documentaries “Restrepo” and “Korengal” — established him as one of the country’s most mesmerizing chroniclers of the Afghanistan war. Rather, he gives us an extended-play version of an article he wrote last summer for Vanity Fair — one that’s part ethnography, part history, part social science primer, part cri de coeur.  

Mr. Junger’s premise is simple: Modern civilization may be swell, giving us unimaginable autonomy and material bounty. But it has also deprived us of the psychologically invaluable sense of community and interdependence that we hominids enjoyed for millions of years. It is only during moments of great adversity that we come together and enjoy that kind of fellowship — which may explain why, paradoxically, we thrive during those moments. (In the six months after Sept. 11, Mr. Junger writes, the murder rate in New York dropped by 40 percent, and the suicide rate by 20 percent.)  

War, too, for all of its brutality and ugliness, satisfies some of our deepest evolutionary yearnings for connectedness. Platoons are like tribes. They give soldiers a chance to demonstrate their valor and loyalty, to work cooperatively, to show utter selflessness. Is it any wonder that so many of them say they miss the action when they come home?

But his arguments about how “detribalized” we’ve become are undeniably strong. It’s not just that our personal loyalties have shrunk to a universe the size of a teacup. (Our immediate families, maybe a few friends.) It’s that we have so little regard for what’s collectively ours. We litter. We fudge on our taxes. Medical providers defraud Medicare; bankers perform sleights of hand with the markets and destroy the commonweal.  

But Mr. Junger’s most powerful — and surprising — argument is the one he makes about the military’s epidemic of post-traumatic stress disorder, which in many cases he suspects may not be PTSD at all. Why, if you think about it, would roughly 50 percent of our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans apply for permanent PTSD disability when only 10 percent of them saw combat? “The problem doesn’t seem to be trauma on the battlefield,” he concludes, “so much as re-entry into society.” And, he suggests, this problem might deserve its own diagnostic term.  

If the United States were more hospitable to veterans’ needs, its returning soldiers wouldn’t be foundering. It is our failure to adapt to veterans that’s the problem, not the other way around.  

According to the work of three anthropologists who have looked closely at this issue, Mr. Junger writes, there are three critical factors to soldiers’ successful reintegration: 

First, they must be rejoining a society with reasonably equal, and decent, economic opportunities. Second, they must be rejoining a society that has an intuitive understanding of what soldiers have gone through, rather than perceiving them as victims. And third, “veterans need to feel that they’re just as necessary and productive back in society as they were on the battlefield.”  

Which means that of all the countries on earth for a soldier to come home to, the United States is among the very worst.  

Our veterans re-enter an unstable working class. They are awkwardly thanked by strangers for their service — which, as Mr. Junger ruefully observes, only highlights the schism between the few who have served and the great many who have not. And instead of jobs, they are offered lifelong disability.  

Soldiers go from a world in which they’re united, interconnected and indispensable to one in which they’re isolated, without purpose, and bombarded with images of politicians and civilians screaming at one another on TV.  

“How,” Mr. Junger asks, “do you make veterans feel that they are returning to a cohesive society that was worth fighting for in the first place?”  It’s an urgent question. 

Most histories of Civil War Texas—some starring the fabled Hood’s Brigade, Terry’s Texas Rangers, or one or another military figure—depict the Lone Star State as having joined the Confederacy as a matter of course and as having later emerged from the war relatively unscathed. Yet as the contributors to this volume amply demonstrate, the often neglected stories of Texas Unionists and dissenters paint a far more complicated picture. Ranging in time from the late 1850s to the end of Reconstruction, Lone Star Unionism, Dissent, and Resistance restores a missing layer of complexity to the history of Civil War Texas.

 Sent by Walter Herbeck Tejanos2010@gmail.com 

ORANGE COUNTY, CA

 
July 9, 2016 
Mexican Immigration trends in the United States through the years.  
by Tom Saenz and Refugio Sanchez

The Society of Hispanic Historical & Ancestral Research (SHHAR) invites the public to its monthly meeting to be held on Saturday, July 9, 2016. 

The featured speakers will be Tom Saenz and Refugio Sanchez who will make a presentation on Mexican Immigration trends in the United States through the years.  They will specifically discuss some key factors affecting immigration, number of immigrants, distribution, the significance of their contributions to U.S. history.  Their talk will also include a discussion of the Bracero program  (1942-1964).

The free program, sponsored by SHHAR, will be held at the Orange Family History Center, 674 S. Yorba Street, Orange, CA.  

Both Tom Saenz and Refugio Sanchez are members of the SHHAR Board of Directors.  Tom is a retired teacher and Administrator from the Orange Unified School District with extensive experience in working with immigrants from many countries.  He will also incorporate some of his life time personal experiences.  Refugio is a retired electrician from Orange Unified and the son of a Bracero and with many personal and family experiences to share.   

Genealogical research assistance will be available from 9-10 a.m. and the presentation will be from 10:00-11:30 a.m.  For more information about this presentation, please contact Letty Rodella, President shhar@att.net

Photos from the June 11th SHHAR meeting.

 The SHHAR meeting enjoyed  attendance of Prof. Angelina Veyna with a few of  her Santa Ana College students.
Bordering the group is Art Montez (Vietnam veteran) on the far left and John Palacio, (MALDEF) on the far right.

Left to right:  Arturo Montez and Zeke Hernandez

Heroes Hall, O.C.'s future veterans museum, rolls to its new home
By Bradley Zint, LA Times, May 1, 1016

Photo: Kevin Chang/Weekend  

Heroes Hall, a former World War II-era Army barracks now destined to become Orange County's veterans museum, was moved to its new home Monday morning at the Orange County Fairgrounds. The two-story, 4,800-square-foot building had been stored at the fairgrounds' eastern corner since 2013 after being saved from demolition earlier that year.  

On Monday, crews hoisted Heroes Hall onto a flatbed for its slow half-mile journey across the 150-acre fairgrounds to a new foundation near Centennial Farm just a few hundred feet south of the building's previous home near where the Plaza Pacifica is now.

Heroes Hall board members, veterans, fairgrounds staff and others came to watch the old barracks make its slow crawl.

At one point, as Heroes Hall was being driven across the parking lot, more than a dozen people — in what became a ceremonial act but also a necessity because of the wind — held onto a giant American flag attached to the building's side and walked alongside.

A few minutes later, the hall and its flag holders stopped in front of a stage set up for a ceremony whose speakers included state Sen. Janet Nguyen (R-Garden Grove).  "From this day forward, these old barracks will breathe new life," she said.  

Heroes Hall was formerly known as the Memorial Gardens Building, a name taken from a veterans memorial garden erected in 1954 then torn out in the 1980s because of the Pacific Amphitheatre construction.

In 2013, the fairgrounds planned to demolish the Memorial Gardens Building to make room for Plaza Pacifica — billed as a grander entrance for PacAmp — but the Fair Board backed off after hearing concerns from veterans and voted to reuse the historic structure as a veterans museum.

"I think she's been standing here, waiting to take on this purpose," said Michele Richards, the fairgrounds vice president of business development. Officials pointed out that only 5% of Heroes Hall's original wood needed replacing, a testament to its sturdy build. The barracks was constructed about 1942 for the Santa Ana Army Air Base. At the time, it was one of 800 buildings within the 1,337-acre base.  

Heroes Hall, set to open Nov. 11, Veterans Day, will feature rotating exhibits about Orange County's military history, legacy and the sacrifices made by veterans. It will take up more than 12,000 square feet, including an outdoor pavilion.  

bradley.zint@latimes.com Twitter: @BradleyZint

Executive Director, Sara Guerrero
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THE AWARDEES

Sent by Ed. Alcantar edshrl10@outlook.com
and Eva Booher  EVABOOHER@aol.com 

LOS ANGELES, CA

HOUSE OF ARAGON 
by Michael S. Perez

You can read the book in its fullness on your I-Pad at: http://www.amazon.it/The-House-Aragon-English-Edition-ebook/dp/B008PK2E3S   
If you do not have an I-Pad, you can read the chapters from the Somos Primos homepage, 
we will be adding them with the chapter introductions.  
Go to:  http://somosprimos.com/michaelperez/michaelperez.htm  
Michael Brakefort-Grant is a Pen name for Michael S. Perez.
 If you would like to contact Michael, please contact me. 714-894-8161 ~ Mimi

CALIFORNIA 

The Mexican “Repatriation” of the 1930s and My Family

by M. Guadalupe Espinoza 
mgespinoza2009@hotmail.com

"I have images of documents of everything that I mentioned in this piece."

My family is unfortunately part of the 1.2 million Mexicans and Mexican Americans that were unconstitutionally deported to Mexico in the 1930s.  Both of my grandmothers and their American born children were victims of those mass unconstitutional deportations.  Neither of my American born parents completed their education and they never recovered from the brutal childhood they were subjected to.  That is not to mention the suffering that the unconstitutional deportations of the 1930s inflicted on my two grandmothers.  They were two young women with young children at the time:  Felicitas Castro and Librada Oropeza.  My mother, Ramona Espinoza, was born in San Dimas, California in 1926 and my father, Arturo Espinoza, was born in Buena Park, California in 1924.  They were both raised in Mexicali, Baja California.

My maternal grandmother, Felicitas Castro, legally entered the United States in 1922.  In February of 1932, she lived in Belvedere Gardens a neighborhood in East Los Angeles, California with her husband and her four American born children.  Her husband was a gardener and they lived on Hammel Street.  Her American born children’s birth certificates state that my grandmother was a housewife.  She had baptized three of her four American born children at “La Placita” Our Lady Queen of Angels Church in Los Angeles, California.  They had plans to baptize their youngest child and only son in the same church in California in 1932.  Instead he was baptized in Mocorrito, Sinaloa in Mexico.

In February of 1932 my grandmother, Felicitas Castro, was 31 years old and she was still breast feeding her youngest child.  She had lived legally in California for ten years at that time and she took her two school aged American born daughters to get vaccinated at the Los Angeles County Hospital.  She wanted to register them at Hammel Street School.  My mother, Ramona Espinoza, remembers that she still had the scab of that shot on her arm while on the train south to La Ilama, Sinaloa where her grandfather, Anatolio Castro, lived.

            Ramona remembers that train ride south and the first mango she had ever eaten.  “Do you remember the first mango you ever ate?” she asked me once.  She remembered that first mango on the train ride south on their way to Sinaloa.  While in Sinaloa, Ramona recalled the apples she used to eat in California and how she would ask her mother for apples.  She had tired of the bananas and mangos.  She wanted the food she used to eat in California.  To this day Ramona’s favorite dessert is apple pie.

            My mother’s father, Pilar Garcia, was unable to go with his family to Mexico.  He was imprisoned in the county hospital because he was in an automobile accident on the eve of the family’s departure to Mexico.  He was accused of vehicular manslaughter and was later found to be innocent.  My mother remembers how her mother removed her father’s clothes from their trunk when my grandmother realized that my grandfather would not be going with them to Mexico.  It was how my mother lost her father.  He never joined his family in Mexico.  She was six years old and she did not see her father again until she was 18.  When she visited him for the first time in 1944 her father had remarried and had another family in Los Angeles.  

In 1932 the train dropped them off at the end of the line in Los Mochis, Sinaloa where my grandmother and her children had to cross a river to get to their grandfather’s village.  It was the rainy season and the river was full.  They waited several days to see if the rain stopped and whether the water level would go down but it never did.  My grandmother hired some men to get them across on a horse drawn cart.  While crossing the river the water level rose until the cart floated and my mother recalls how the men commented that the horses were swimming.  They eventually made it to the other side but they had almost lost their lives while crossing that river.  My mother was six years old and she remembers this as if it were yesterday.  Her younger sister, Natalia, who was two years old at the time had recurring nightmares for many years because of this experience.

            The family lived in La Ilama, Sinaloa for a year until my grandmother decided to return to the United States.  My grandmother fattened a pig and sold it as well as the property, “La Casa de la Cacachila”, she had inherited from her mother, Ramona Montoya.  She remembered how easy it had been to enter the United States the first two times.  It was much easier to get into the United States in the early 1920s.  Furthermore, in 1932 the Americans had told her that she could return to the United States in a year so she headed North with her four American born children.  She wanted a better education for her children and she wanted to be reunited with the father of her children.  She was going home.

            The trip back to Los Angeles was long and dangerous.  When they arrived in Nogales, Sonora my grandmother discovered that it would not be easy to get back into the United States.  They were still deporting families in 1933 so she was forced to go to Mexicali to see if she could cross the border there.  It was too dangerous to stay in Nogales, Sonora and she did not have enough money to go back to her village in Sinaloa.

They crossed the desert from Nogales to Mexicali on a “diligenia”, a car used as public transportation.  My mother remembers that trip vividly.  She remembers leaving everything in an alley in Nogales, Sonora.  My mother remembers how my grandmother put as many pieces of clothes as possible on each child and how she quickly went through her trunks to get all of the important documents.  She frantically found her children’s baptismal records and their birth certificates.  My mother recalls wearing the cute turquoise coat with the leopard collar that her father had bought her in Los Angeles the year before on that trip.  My mother recalls how all of the family photos were left behind in that alley in Nogales, Sonora.  She particularly remembers a picture of herself in a Buster Keaton hairdo and on the bicycle her father had bought her in Los Angeles.  She had enjoyed looking at that picture while in Mexico.  She never saw it again.

            They crossed the desert from Nogales, Sonora to Mexicali, Baja California on the Mexican side.  It was very dangerous and very hot.  They were running out of water so the driver put gasoline in the water so that they would not drink as much water.  To this day it is difficult to know how that affected my mother and her young siblings since the gasoline of the 1930s had very high levels of lead.  The car broke down several times and they had to wait for the driver to fix it.  My mother remembers sleeping on the ground and hearing the sound of the rattlesnakes in the area.  The car travelled across open country as there were no roads.  She was seven years old and she remembers everything.

They arrived in Mexicali with only the clothes on their backs, dehydrated and deathly ill.  As a matter of fact my mother almost died from the dehydration and its effect. She still suffers from chronic dehydration and stomach problems to this day.  She never recovered from the experience of crossing that desert in that “diligencia”.

Once in Mexicali, my grandmother and her American born children were unfortunately not allowed to return to the United States.  All of her life my grandmother would recall the moment when the American immigration officers told her that she would not be allowed to return to the United States, the country in which her four children had been born and where the father of her children lived.  She would spend years trying to return to the US but she was forced to raise her four American born children in Mexicali, Baja California in destitute conditions.

They had no home, no money and no relatives in Mexicali.  It was cold and they had no blankets and no bed.  My mother remembers using her little coat as a blanket and how it got smaller and smaller as she got bigger and bigger.  My grandmother got a job as a waitress and was paid one Mexican peso a day and a room for her four children.

In the early days they went hungry.  There was no food, no beds, no blankets, no father, very little.  My mother recalls how she and her younger sister, Estella, scrounged for plant roots to cook as there was no gas.  She was eight years old and her sister was six.  My mother and her siblings recall eating only once a day.  My mother recalls finding an old dusty orange peel in the alley and eating it.  She recalls being so hungry she tried to eat berries that made her wretch.  In Los Angeles they had had all of the commodities including gas to cook with.  In California, her father worked and her mother cared for the children all day long. 

As there was no money for school supplies they did not go to school.  My mother remembers moving from house to house in those early years.  To this day my mother is afraid of anyone knocking at her door.  The children stayed home alone and were always afraid of someone breaking into their house.  For years they lived in fear of the man that pulled at the door every night while my grandmother was at work.  The doorbell in the house where my mother now lives has been disconnected. 

My mother recalls picking cotton in the intense Mexicali heat when she was eight years old.  She recalls babysitting the neighbor’s children and taking the leftovers home to her siblings.  She recalls how her mother became ill and was not able to work and how there was no food in the house.  She recalls going house to house begging for food and that someone finally gave her some old hard tortillas.  She recalls how her siblings hungrily ate up the hard tortillas as she watched them.

My grandmother taught my mother how to waitress so that she could waitress in her place if she ever got sick again.  She recalls how my grandmother joined the union and how my mother became the secretary of the union.  My mother recalls how her mother eventually started to bring the leftovers from the restaurant home for her children to eat. 

My mother was the eldest of the children and she became the second mother.  She was only eight years old when her mother left her home alone with her siblings.  She stood on a stool to cook for her siblings before school each morning.  It may be the reason why her brother sends her a Mother’s Day card every year.

My grandmother worked two jobs and in 1938 was able to buy a piece of property with a mud hut on it.  The government of Baja California offered these properties to the many families in Mexicali displaced by the unconstitutional deportations of the American government in the 1930s.  My mother’s family finally had their own home and they would never have to move again.  She was 12 years old at the time.  My mother remembers the first time it rained because the mud hut leaked.  They sat on the bed wet and muddy from the falling rain and mud.  Their mother was at work and they were home alone. 

My mother recalls how her mother then hired a man who built them a room made out of adobe bricks.  In time my grandmother built more rooms.  My mother recalls how one day her mother had a carpenter make a “bed” out of leather straps and how she bought a “mattress” of cotton balls.  She recalls how my grandmother bought baby chicks which eventually grew into hens and they then had eggs.  She recalls how my grandmother planted fruit trees of all types on their property.  My mother recalls selling peaches in the neighborhood to make money.  She recalls how eventually her mother had a fence put in around the property.  She recalls how her mother planted daisies, “margaritas”, in front of the property and how her house was known as the house with the daisies in front.  She recalls how her mother used to give her an orange as a birthday gift every year.

Eventually my grandmother was able to send her children to school.  My mother was ten years old when she began her formal education and she finished her primary school education when she was 16.  My mother was a good student and she was on the flag squad.  She and her younger sister, Estela, loved school.  My mother was such a good student that she got a scholarship to study medicine in Mexico City.  Unfortunately, the family did not have enough money so when my mother was 16 and her younger sister, Estela, was 14 they went to work in the fields of the Imperial Valley to help feed and clothe their younger siblings.  They used their American birth certificates and baptismal records to cross the border every morning and my mother gave up her dream to study medicine in Mexico City.

She and her sister would leave their home in Mexicali at 2:00 a.m., cross the border and work all day picking carrots or whatever crop was in season.  They would get home at 10 p.m. in the evening.  Year after year my mother and her sister worked in the Imperial Valley and when that work ended they would go north to work in Sanger, California.  My mother recalls looking for work as a salesperson in the stores in Calexico and how she was not hired because she did not speak English.

We believe that the American Consulate in Mexicali was fully aware of the presence of the American citizens in Mexicali at the time.  All of my grandmother’s American born children were asked to register at the American Consulate and were given a file number.  We believe it is the reason why the owners of a cannery in Northern California came to Mexicali in 1944 knocking on the doors of all of the families with American born children.  They offered my mother and her younger sister a job at their cannery in Northern California. 

The cannery was in Thornton which is a small town outside of Stockton, Californian in Northern California and my grandmother eventually agreed to let her daughters work at the cannery.  So they worked every year at that cannery as did other American born young people who had been raised in Mexicali or Nogales.  My mother’s sister, Estela, got married and settled in Thornton.  She still lives in that town.

In one way or another, many of the American born children of the families that had been deported in the 1930s eventually came back to the United States, the country of their birth.  Many of them even served in the military.  My mother’s only brother, Anatolio Garcia, served in the Korean War.  He was 18 years old and had just moved to Los Angeles to work with his father when he was drafted.

My mother, Ramona Espinoza, married my father, Arturo Espinoza, in Mexicali, Baja California on May 2, 1948.  In 1949 they came to live in Orange County where they had four American born children.   My mother now has ten grandchildren, five great grandchildren and two great great children.   Spanish is her dominant language.  She was a housewife most of her life and became a catechism teacher in Orange County.  

In 1962 my mother applied to have my grandmother, Felicitas Castro, readmitted to the United States.  Thirty years after my grandmother had been inhumanely deported in 1932, she was given a new US green card.  My grandmother, Felicitas Castro, immigrated once in 1922 
and again in 1962 to the United States.  In fact, she immigrated legally twice to the United States.  Her immigration records are evidence of this.

When my grandmother immigrated to the US for the second time in 1962, she did not move back to California right away.  She had built her home in Mexicali and felt comfortable there.  In 1974, however, the American government found out that she was still living in Mexicali and they forced her to move back to the United States. 
The American government had forced her to leave the United States in 1932 and in 1974 they forced her to move back to California.  They never let her live her life in peace.  She passed away in California in 1998.

My grandmother, Felicitas Castro, had worked hard and in time her American born children seemed to have survived what happened to them in 1932.  In fact they never recovered from those early childhood experiences of their formative years.  They were never able to complete their education and we will never know what their lives would have been like if they had been allowed to stay in the country of their birth, the United States of America.  They most probably would have participated in the political system.  My mother just turned 90 and she enthusiastically votes in each and every election.

VIEW FROM THE PIER

By

Herman Sillas

Fifty plus years ago, my folks and I went to meet Cora’s parents to ask their permission for Cora’s hand in marriage.  Mexican tradition required this step.  Cora and I had dated each other for over a year, but this was the first joint gathering of our families.  After introductory remarks, my father cleared his throat.  He told Cora’s father that I was a good son, a hard worker and that we had come seeking his permission to allow me to marry his daughter.

Cora’s protective father responded that Cora didn’t cook, didn’t help around the house nor keep her room clean.  I assured him that I loved Cora and would take care of her in spite of his comments.  He nodded his head and gave us permission to wed.  Cora’s mother brought out the tequila and we all toasted the future.  I was a law student and we married a year later.

We both worked.  Cora didn’t drive a car, but cooked our meals.  Each one was an improvement.  Today she is a great cook.  In those early years, I drove her to the market and pushed the cart as she filled it.  I didn’t like going to the market and eventually we could afford a car for her.  I obtained the services of a driving school to teach her how to drive.  We both loved her new found freedom.  She could drive around to see her friends and shop.  Better still, I didn’t have to go to the market anymore.

Over the years I learned to barbeque and cook other dishes as well.  But Cora let me know that the kitchen was her domain.  At best I was an allowed trespasser.  After our children left home, cooking required less effort.  Eventually, it was just Cora and I eating together.  As we aged, I’d accompany her to the market and push the cart to help her out.  I didn’t mind doing it then, but never focused on what she was buying.  “Cosco,” “Ralph’s,” the “99cents Store,” “Trader Joe’s,” and “Smart and Final,” were her destinations.  She was a bargain hunter and I tagged along.

Recently due to a minor stroke, Cora is under doctor’s order to stay home while she gets some physical therapy.  Don’t worry folks, she is doing fine.  With God’s blessing, Cora will be out and about in no time.  In the meantime, I have become the shopper and the cook.  She gives me the shopping list designating the product, label, volume and which store to visit.  I head out . . . . alone. 

I push the cart down the aisles holding Cora’s list in my hand.  As I searched for the items, I began to realize how fortunate we are in this town.  I thought about all the people involved in bringing food to us: the growers, cattlemen, fishermen, farm workers, butchers, meat packers, wholesale buyers, canneries, truck drivers, warehouse persons, managers, clerks, cashiers, and box persons.  Then I thought of the food industry, trying to meet our tastes and government’s regulations in an effort to protect us.  Our choice of good food is endless. 

But becoming a forced shopper, I gained respect for Cora and all other committed shoppers.  What I once viewed as a time wasting process, I now recognize its importance.  Cora always checked labels for ingredients’ quality, quantity and price.  She picked vegetables and fruit that were fresh.  All these steps bring us better health.  Cora seeks information from other shoppers and gives them tips as well.  Recipes and food secrets were also shared at the takeout line.  Serving as a temporary full-time shopper, I discovered a new world.  When Cora returns to the market aisles, I will accompany her, but do more than riding shotgun, I’ll be a selector too.  That’s the view from the pier.

***30***

(Herman Sillas, an attorney and artist, fishes at the San Clemente Pier most Saturday mornings.  He is the author of the award winning book, “View from the Pier-Stories from San Clemente.” He may be reached at sillasla@aol.com)

NORTHWESTERN UNITED STATES 

Sent by Ed. Alcantar edshrl10@outlook.com
and Eva Booher  EVABOOHER@aol.com 

SOUTHWESTERN UNITED STATES