Somos Primos

JUNE 2016

Editor: Mimi Lozano ©2000-2016

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Letters to the Editor

Magnificent as always, congratulations, thanks a lot Mimi…. 
Have a good Sunday,  Maye   
Maria Elema Samtos Coy  
mayelena47@hotmail.com

Hello Mimi, I’d love a subscription to Somos Primos. 
I’ve heard many great things about Somos Primos, 
and I’d love to know more and possibly get involved somehow. Is there a way I could volunteer or help? Let me know and thank you for all your hard work. Best Regards,  Natalie 

Natalie D. Navar, Archivist
Center for Oral and Public History (COPH)
California State University, Fullerton
(657) 278-3693

SOMOS PRIMOS  |  www.SomosPrimos.com   |   P.O. 490   |   Midway City, CA    |   92655-0490   |   mimilozano@aol.com   |  714-894-8161

A Childhood Search for Hispanic Pride 

My paternal grandfather 
was an umpire in the Mexican League 
and an avid baseball fan. 

by Gilberto Quezada
jgilbertoquezada@yahoo.com

Hi Mimi,  

My paternal grandfather was an umpire in the Mexican League and an avid baseball fan.  I grew up in the Barrio de la Azteca during the 1940s and 1950s, the first oldest, working class neighborhood in Laredo, Texas.  The Apaches were our hometown team, and I knew many of the players' names, but I can only remember Ismael "El Oso" Montalvo.  People called him "El Oso" because he had hair all over his body; he had to shave every day around his wrists, around his neck, and around his chest, to appear presentable.  They said that when he walked barefooted, he never left a footprint.  My grandfather would take me to the games on Saturday afternoon to watch them play at the old Washington Park on San Bernardo Avenue, which was demolished in 1962 in order to construct the Laredo Civic Center.  When I saw "El Oso" play, he was a first baseman, not knowing at the time that our paths would cross years later.  I understand from my grandfather that when he was younger, he was a very good pitcher.  

In 1997, Alan M. Klein, a cultural anthropologist, wrote Baseball on the Border:  A Tale of Two Laredos, and the book is dedicated to the memory of Ismael Montalvo (1913-1996).  Dr. Klein interviewed Mr.Montalvo in 1993 and in 1994.  There is an interesting photo of him with the 1935 La Junta team.  He was 22 years old!  I knew that Mr.Montalvo was from San Benito, Texas  because he had told me when he hired me to work after school as a bartender at the American Legion Post 59 on Zaragoza Street and right next to our house.  We lived at the corner of Zaragoza and Santa Ursula.  I was a junior at St. Augustine High School but I appeared much older.  According to the book, he was 18 years old when he dropped out of school and went toLinares, Mexico to pitch for their team for about two months.  Then, in the same year, he played with the Mexico City Aztecs, the number one semi-pro team in Mexico.  The following year, in 1932, he played in San Antonio with the Mexican Nationals before moving to Laredo the next year.  Of the six pitchers that year, Mr. Montalvo had the best record at 13 wins, 2 losses, and no ties.  He also led the team with three shutouts.  And both Fernando Dovalina and him pitched nine complete games.  In 1939, Mr. Montalvo played for the Tampico team, along with Santos Amaro and Ramón Bragaña.  After that, he played for the Laredo Apaches.    

All the players in the Apaches team were Latinos, mostly from Laredo, Mexico, and Cuba, and many of them became stars in the Mexican League and in the Mexican Pacific Coast Winter League.  And, I wanted to see if there were any Latinos in the major leagues.  So, I started collecting baseball cards in 1952 and continued for several years.  The mom and pop grocery stores in the Barrio de la Azteca sold the TOPPS package for a penny and that included a big slab of chewing gum.  My favorite teams were the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees, and my collection included: Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Whitey Ford, Jackie Robinson, Phil Rizzuto, Willie Mays, Roy Campanella, Ernie Banks, and many others.   

I felt a certain hubris and an immense sense of pride when I anxiously tore the red wrapping and saw the few Latino players, all in all, a total of only twenty-nine: Al López, Roberto "Bob" Clemente, Camilo Pascual, Pedro Ramos, Carlos Paula, Bobby Avila, Al "Chico" Carrasquel, José Santiago, Mike Garcia, Román Mejias, Juan Pizarro, Luis Arroyo, Raúl Sánchez, Luis Aparicio, Minnie Minoso, Rubén Gómez, Héctor López, Willy Miranda, Hank Aguirre, Félix Mantilla, Jim Rivera, Camilo Carreón, Chico Cárdenas, Chuck Estrada, Frank

Herrera, Mike Cuéllar, Ossie Alvarez, Chico Fernández, and Felipe Alou.  I looked at these baseball cards almost on a daily basis.  They were my heroes.  My self-esteem increased by a thousand percent and my positive self-concept by another a thousand percent!!!  

Among the baseball players of the 1940s and the 1950s, Ted Williams was one of my favorites.  He is considered one of the greatest hitters of all-time, having played his entire career with the Boston Red Sox.  Except for the time that he served as a Navy pilot during World War II and as a Marine pilot in the Korean War, Ted Williams, a towering six-four, won six batting titles, the American League's Home Run crown, the RBI title four times, and the Triple Crown two times.  During the 1941 season, he finished with a .406 average and was the last major league player to top the .400 mark.  He retired in 1960 and six years later, was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.    

I would have liked him more and he would have been my idol if I knew what I know now.  In 2013, I read a new biography written by Ben Bradlee Jr., entitled, The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams, and I found out that he was half Mexican on his mother's side!!!  She and her family emigrated from Chihuahua, Mexico to Santa Barbara, California in 1907.  Her name was May Venzor and her parents were Pablo Venzor and Natalia Hernández.  What deep satisfaction and exuberant excitement I would have felt then
 if I had known this important fact about his life.

Gilberto  

"Anyone over the age of thirty knows that Ted Williams was arguably baseball's greatest hitter. The Red Sox hired him as their hitting coach after he retired ..."     Click here: ted williams - Google Search

Latinos in Heritage Conservation 2015 national summit in Tucson, Arizona.| 
Credit: Latinos in Heritage Conservation and Sehila Casper

The Freedom Tower, designated as a National Historic Landmark in 2008, is considered the “Ellis Island of the South” for its role between 1962 and 1974 as the Cuban Assistance Center in Miami, Florida, offering nationally sanctioned relief to the Cuban refugees who sought political asylum from the Communist regime of Fidel Castro. | Credit: Alan Parker via Flicker Creative Commons, Caption information via National Park Service.

My parents—like so many new immigrants to the United States—had educated their children, first-generation Mexican-Americans, about their homeland. I was taught about our shared heritage and that Texas, among other states, had once been a part of Mexico. But I noticed a conspicuous absence among the exhibits that day. Where were all the Mexicans? Through donated items, my hometown museum had built an interpretation only of the Anglo pioneer settlement experience. As I took in everything around me at the small depot museum, I thought, “It’s not you, it's me. I am an outsider.”

In my career as a historic preservationist, I am often reminded of that experience. It not only helped shape me personally, but also influences the work I do and want to do. Since starting at the National Trust one year ago, I have frequently been asked, "How can we work with our Latino communities?" I have been told that Latino communities don't want to work with city officials or city nonprofits. Is that true? I can't say for certain, but what I do know is that Latino heritage is significantly under-represented within our traditional preservation framework, and there is much work to be done. As a field officer at the Trust, I aid this effort by saving America's national treasures and advocating for the preservation and inclusion of under-represented communities with an emphasis on Latino heritage.

While a number of veteranos (respected veterans) have tirelessly worked for decades advocating for Latino inclusion, many of us are newer to the mission. A Latino preservation stakeholder group—Latinos in Heritage Conservation—emerged in 2014, advocating for the preservation of Latino history, culture, and places. And there are other organizations doing the important work of documenting the contributions of Latinos: San Francisco Heritage and the San Francisco Latino Historical Society documenting Latino history and creating a Latino historic context statement through Nuestra Historia: Documenting the Chicano, Latino, and Indígena Contribution to the Development of San Francisco.

In Texas, Refusing to Forget is bringing to light the sanctioned anti-Mexican borderland violence during the 20th century through a powerful museum exhibit and through Texas State Historical Marker nominations.
Rhode Island Latino Arts records the experiences of Latinos through the Latino Oral History Project of RI (Nuestras Raíces).

During a city visit in the field, I met an Anglo colleague doing an exceptional job of working with Latinos to preserve and interpret Latino heritage. What was their secret for success? They invited the Latino community not only to join, but also to lead! That is the key to making these projects effective: They have to either be led by Latinos or be community-based projects that include Latino stakeholders every step of the way.

In contemplating how to include Latino preservation in our work, I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes from the seminal “With Heritage So Rich” report:

In sum, if we wish to have a future with greater meaning, we must concern ourselves not only with the historic highlights, but we must be concerned with the total heritage of the nation and all that is worth preserving from our past as a living part of the present.

The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 was passed to prevent the loss of heritage deeply valued by the citizens of our nation. As we embark on the next 50 years of preservation policy, we must evaluate what has been done to preserve our nation’s rich Latino heritage and evolve to integrate Latino preservation into our work. I am hopeful that the preservation future reflects my heritage, so I’d like to ask you: How do you work with Latino communities? Latinos, how can we better integrate this work into your communities?

About Sehila Casper
Sehila Mota Casper is a field officer in the Houston Field Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Become a Part of the Forum Community

Information: NCLR Annual Conference

What did the Founders say about Article V?

George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and the other Founding Fathers knew that one day the federal government would forget their place and abuse their power.
 
So the Founders voted unanimously to include the Convention of States option in Article V of the Constitution, which allows the states to propose constitutional amendments that rein in Washington, D.C.
 
But that’s not the end of the story.
 
They had lots more to say about Article V, and we've included some of their thoughts (along with those from other American defenders of liberty) in a new video. Check it out! 

Sent by Kathie Kennedy  
MFTKathie@msn.com

"Constitution 101: The Meaning and History of the Constitution"

"To Secure These Rights: Economics, Religion, and Character"

If you would like help navigating this online course, please visit the help section. If you are unable to find the answer to your question there, please email onlinecourses@hillsdale.edu. Enjoy the course! 

About "Constitution 101: The Meaning and History of the Constitution"

Taught by the Hillsdale College Politics faculty, this course will introduce you to the meaning and history of the United States Constitution. The course will examine a number of original source documents from the Founding period, including especially the Declaration of Independence and The Federalist Papers. The course will also consider two significant challenges to the Founders’ Constitution: the institution of slavery and the rise of Progressivism.

Hillsdale College  
 33 East College St    
Hillsdale,  MI   49242   USA

Committee on the Status of Minority Groups in the Economics Profession
CSMGEP Profiles: Refugio Rochin-Rodriguez, University of California
Cultivating Social and Economic Development
Dr. Refugio (Will) Rochin, 
Professor Emeritus of Chicana/o Studies and Agricultural Economics at the University of California

The mission of the Smithsonian Center for Latino Initiatives is to disseminate and advance understanding.
During my time at the Smithsonian Institution [August 1998 - October 2002] I made it a personal interest to gather information on Latino Patriots and raise funds for a special exhibition at the Smithsonian Museum of American History.

I visited the Museum's collections often and rarely found recognition or visible displays of Latino Patriots. Behind the scenes, the Museum had suitable collections, especially from the Vietnam War Memorial. Much of the later was gathered daily from the people who left momentous or recuerdos for loved ones. The Vietnam Memorial Wall has dozens of extraordinary heroes, many Latino. Yet - nothing got displayed in a meaningful way at the Smithsonian. Also behind the scenes, the Museum did not have a Researcher or Curator to focus on Latino Patriots. Although I tried to fund such scholars, the Museum was reluctant to hire new blood.

I left the Director of the Museum [Spencer Crew] with the attached doc(s) to show what could have been collected and done. Unfortunately a change in Secretary [from Michael Heyman to Lawrence Small] resulted in the Departure of Spencer Crew, the Museum Director. I too left within a year, joining nine other directors who left before I did. 

I then joined the institute for Latino Studies at The University of Notre Dame and set up an office for the IUPLR within the Washington DC Center of the University of California]. SEE:  IUPLR https://iuplr.uic.edu/ 

We need supporters for Latino Patriots via the Smithsonian Institution and the current Commission working on the matter:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_to_Study_the_Potential_Creation_of_the_National_Museum_of_the_American_Latino 

Congressman Xavier Becerra can be instrumental in pursuing Medal of Honor Nominees. We should keep in mind that several Latino heroes are Native, Asian and African-American. 

This is a quick note but effort is needed to advance acknowledgement and designation of Medal of Honor nominees from the legacy and heroism of U.S. Latinos.

Refugio

Refugio I. Rochin, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus, University of California Davis and Santa Cruz
rrochin@ucdavis.edu 
https://www.aeaweb.org/about-aea/committees/csmgep/profiles/refugio-rochin-rodriguez 

"Mimi, I am sending you a study which I first wrote in 2000 concerning Latino Patriots. I  gave it to Roberto Suro when he opened the Pew Hispanic Center. I was on his board. Suro added it to the PEW files.  I expanded the study in 2005 when I was heading the Julian Samora Research Institute. You are welcome to share with your readers."  Editor Mimi:  In July, Somos Primos will start sharing Dr. Rochin's study, as a series.

Defending American Shores

By Jennifer Vo and John P. Schmal

Dedication: This article is dedicated to the memory of Eusebio "Chevy" Javier Basulto, Specialist, Fourth Class (1953-2016).  

The state of California is a very special place for many people. Millions have come here from other parts of the United States and from around the world to live, work, and prosper. My name is Jennifer Vo and for me and my family, California is truly a very special place. This may be due to the fact that – my Chumash Indian ancestry notwithstanding – I am an eleventh-generation Californian of Mexican descent.  

In recent months some negative comments about Mexicans have flooded the media. Some people even seem to regard the word “Mexican” as synonymous with “foreigner” or “alien.” But those people don’t realize that many Mexican Americans have invested a great deal in this country. One need only look at my family to understand that many Mexican Americans have dedicated their lives to defending the United States. And three members of my family died while in the service of the United States military (including two in World War II).  

A Great Source of Pride  
From my earliest memories, my family has always expressed great pride in its California roots. When my mother, Sarah Melendez Basulto Evans, was just a teenager, she went to her grandfather's funeral in Oxnard, California. After the church service, the family drove to the Santa Clara Cemetery in Oxnard for the burial service.  

Recounting that day almost 50 years ago, my mother said, "Once the graveside service had ended, Uncle Simon [Melendez] took me for a long walk, pointing out the various tombstones for many of our ancestors. I was amazed that he could recount so many stories and names from our family history. As we walked along, Uncle Simon explained to me that our family had been in California for a very, very long time. For him, this was a great source of pride. I remember his words very clearly when he said, 'Our family has known no home but California. This is where we belong.' From that day forward, I have always felt a great emotional attachment to California, the land of my ancestors."  

My mother told me that Uncle Simon had explained to her that our California family has had a long and proud tradition of military service extending back to our earliest California ancestors. One generation after another had joined the military to defend the only land that we could call home. And, although Mexican Americans in California have been treated unfairly at times, our resolve to defend this state and this country has never wavered. Growing up, my mother expressed these sentiments to me, and for this reason, I have always been proud of my family’s military service.  

From the first moment Juan Matias Olivas entered California in 1781 — and for the better part of eleven generations — my family has played a role in the defense of California. Over a period of two centuries, the flags, the causes, and the surnames have changed, but my family's legacy of military service to California has endured.  

In the Service of Spain  
Four of the soldiers who took part in the “Expedition of 1781” to establish the Pueblo of Los Angeles in California were my ancestors, including my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Juan Matias Olivas, an Indian from the city of Rosario in the present-day Mexican state of Sinaloa, who in 1780, enlisted for ten years as a Spanish soldado de cuera (leather-jacket soldier). A year later, Juan Matias Olivas and his wife embarked to California on the expedition of 1781, which was a 960-mile journey through hostile territory. Juan Matias and his family were present at the founding of the Pueblo of Los Angeles in September 1781 and were later housed in the Santa Barbara Presidio.  

In 1798, Juan Matias was discharged from the military after eighteen years of service. He retired with his family to the Los Angeles Pueblo. At the same time, Juan Matias retired, his son, Jose Pablo Olivas, my great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, followed in his footsteps, becoming a soldier at the Santa Barbara Presidio. Juan Pablo died in 1817 when his son Jose Dolores Olivas was only fifteen, but Jose Dolores also joined the military, becoming the third generation of Olivas soldiers.  

Becoming American  
In April 1822, news reached California that Mexico had achieved its independence from Spain and suddenly my ancestor Jose Dolores Olivas became a Mexican soldier. Between 1830 and 1850, Dolores Olivas and his wife became the parents of twelve children, including my great-great-great-great-grandmother, Maria Antonia Olivas (who was born in 1834). During this twenty-year period, Dolores retired, and California became a part of the United States, as a result of the Mexican-American War, which ended on January 13, 1847 with the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga.  

A year later, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed on February 2, 1848, granting American citizenship to my Olivas ancestors. At the time of the 1850 American census, my great-great-great-great-grandmother, Maria Antonia Olivas — now an American citizen — was only 15 years of age. María Antonia Olivas was truly a daughter of the California military establishment. She was descended from five pioneer California families (Olivas, Fernández, Valenzuela, Feliz and Quintero) and eight of her male ancestors had been California soldiers.

Serving Under a New Flag  
The American Civil War (1861-1865) divided the American people into two camps and resulted in more casualties than any other war in American history. Many of the hostilities in this war took place in the eastern half of North America, especially in the Southern states. For the most part, California — which became the 31st American state in 1850 — seemed far removed from most of the battlefields and action that was taking place.  

However, in 1863, the United States Government became concerned about possible Confederate incursions of California. In order to avoid such an invasion, the U.S. Government authorized the military governor of California to organize four military companies of Mexican-American Californians into a cavalry battalion in order to utilize their "extraordinary horsemanship." Major Salvador Vallejo was selected to command this new California militia, with its five hundred soldiers of Spanish and Mexican descent and the First California Native Cavalry was born.  

The First California Native Cavalry  
Soon after, Maria Antonia’s two brothers, Jose Victoriano Olivas and Felipe Olivas, enlisted, as did their three first cousins, Antonio, Pablo and Blas Olivas. Initially the Native Cavalry guarded supply trains, marched in parades, worked on irrigation projects and patrolled the California waterfront in the Los Angeles area.  

The Five Olivas Cousins  
In March 1865, Brigadier General John S. Mason announced that the Native Cavalry would be traveling eastward to fight Apache Indians. Once they had reached Arizona, the battalion was also charged with patrolling the International Line with Mexico. At this time, the French were occupying Mexico, but a full-fledged insurgency was taking place against the occupiers and the possibility of hostile forces crossing into the United States was real. On April 9, 1865, after four years of civil war which led to an estimated 630,000 deaths and at least a million casualties General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, in Virginia.  

However, although the war had ended, the Native Cavalry continued to do its duty, operating against Indian insurgents, pursuing bandits and guarding the southern border of Arizona from the spring of 1865 until April 1866. One of the five Olivases, Jose Pablo Olivas, died from tuberculosis during this time. But eventually the four surviving Olivas cousins were mustered out. Because the military tradition had been such a strong factor in my family's history, my ancestors took great pride in their service, and many Santa Barbara residents welcomed them heartily upon their return in the spring of 1866. At the time they were mustered out, the veterans of the Native Cavalry C were welcomed home with a parade and two-day fiesta in Santa Barbara.  

World War II  
On December 7, 1941, an event that affected every American took place. The surprise attack on the American naval fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii brought America into the struggle against Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Japanese Empire, a triumvirate of tyranny. And when Uncle Sam called for recruits, his call was answered. By the end of the war in September 1945, sixteen million men and women had worn the uniform of America's armed forces.  

Uncle Luciano  
In 1942, my great-uncle Luciano P. Ortega — the brother of my great-grandmother Isabel Ortega — joined the armed forces. Luciano was attached to the 34th Infantry Regiment of the 24th Infantry Division, which would fight on the front lines in the war against Japan in several crucial campaigns. The 24th Infantry Division was among the first to see combat in World War II and among the last to stop fighting. After a period of intensive training, the Division took part in operations in New Guinea in early 1944. Later in the year, Uncle Luciano's unit would take part in the campaign to liberate the Japanese from Leyte in the Philippine Islands.  

The Ultimate Sacrifice (Luciano Ortega)  
On October 20, 1944, Uncle Luciano and the 24th Division landed on Leyte and advanced steadily to Breakneck Ridge by November 12, 1944. The Japanese resistance was tremendous and, on November 19, Uncle Luciano was killed in action. He was buried in the Manila American Cemetery in the capital city. My great-great-grandmother, Theodora Tapia Ortega, never reconciled herself to her son's death and refused to accept it. Instead, she continued to believe that he was missing in action and would someday return home to Saticoy.  

The Ultimate Sacrifice (Chello Ortega)  
Late in World War II, Chello O. Ortega, the son of Paz Ortega (a sister of Luciano and Isabel Ortega) and Laurencio Ortega, went to war. He was the second Ortega to go to the Army from Saticoy and — like his uncle Luciano — was sent to the Pacific Theater. On May 8, 1945, Nazi Germany had surrendered unconditionally to Allied forces. However, the war in the Pacific Theater continued unabated. From the end of December 1944 through March 1945, Chello's unit, the 383rd Infantry, prepared for the invasion of Japanese territory.  

Cousin Chello was with the American troops that landed on Okinawa after the invasion began on April 1, 1945. The fighting was tough and the Japanese fought for every inch of the island because this was the first time American troops were landing on true Japanese soil (as opposed to occupied territories). The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific Theater of World War II and it lasted 82 days from early April until mid-June, 1945.  

Chello took part in the 383rd’s attack on Conical Hill and helped to defeat a Japanese counterattack on May 13th. However, he was killed in action the following day and a day later, on May 15th, his unit finally secured Conical Hill. Initially, Chello was reported as “missing in action.” In fact, according to the military report, Chello’s body was not identified until June 19th, five weeks later, and not until July did the Ortega family in the Saticoy community find out that Chello had been killed in action. Two months later, Japan would surrender and peace would finally come to America after three years and nine months of war.  

The Korean War  
As World War II drew to an end, the three Melendez brothers – the sons of Refugio Melendez and Isabel Ortega and brothers to my grandmother Dora –  were teenagers. The Korean War began in 1950, only five years after the end of World War II. Within the next four years, all three of my grandmother's brothers, Raymond, Donald (Danny) and Simon Melendez, would serve in the United States Army. Raymond (Raymundo) Ortega Melendez had been born in 1929 and yearned to join the military. In 1945, at the age of 17 –  with his parents' permission – Ray entered the American armed forces. This would mark the beginning of a long military career, which would take him through the Korean and Vietnam Wars before his retirement in 1969. By the time he retired from the military, Uncle Ray had achieved the rank of Command Sergeant Major.  

Behind Enemy Lines (Simon Melendez)  
Born on October 28, 1930, Simon Ortega Melendez was raised in Saticoy and attended Ventura Junior High School and Ventura City College. When the Korean War started, Simon joined the 2nd Division of the U.S. Army and became a machine gunner. It would be Uncle Simon's destiny to take part in two of the bloodiest battles of the Korean War. The "Battle of Bloody Ridge" began in August 1951 and continued up until September 12, 1951.

On August 27, 1951, Simon was hit in the neck and legs by mortar shrapnel and in the back by grenade fragments. At the same time, he was separated from his platoon. For seven days, he was behind enemy lines and disoriented by torrential rains that made his weapon inoperable. The rain did not stop until the sixth day, and on the seventh day he was able to make his way into the area of the 9th U.S. Regiment. When asked how he managed to make his way through enemy lines for seven days, 21-year-old Simon explained that "my extreme faith in God brought me through." Soon after this, Uncle Simon was able to have a three-day reunion with his brother Ray near the front lines. Raymond, who had already been in the service for six years, was a paratrooper and had been stationed about a 100 miles from Simon's position.  

Soon after, Simon was once again in the thick of the fighting when his unit took part in the "Battle of Heartbreak Ridge," which lasted from September 13 to October 22, 1951. The Battles of Bloody Ridge and Heartbreak Ridge were the two bloodiest battles of the Korean War. By the time he left the service, Simon had been awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts. He also founded the Mexican-American Korean War Veterans of Ventura County and became a life member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion. Simon Melendez, the proud Korean War veteran, died at the age of 71 on June 15, 2002, surrounded by a family that adored him. Even to this day, Uncle Simon's memory remains strong with me and my family, in large part because he had a larger than life personality that endeared him to everyone.  

Career Soldier (Donald Melendez)  
Donald Ortega Melendez, who was born in 1936, entered the service in 1954 soon after the Korean War had ended. Like his brother Raymond, he initially joined the paratroopers. During his first stint overseas, Donald was assigned to the 9th Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Infantry division. He did three separate hitches overseas and was on service during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Uncle Donald spent 25 years in the military and achieved the rank of First Sergeant before he retired in 1979.  

Continuing Service  
Even since the Korean War, many members of my family have served in the American military. Luciano Ortega's daughter, Geraldine, joined the military for a long period of time. Donald's son, Daniel Melendez, followed in his father's step and served as a paratrooper from 1970 to 1982. Uncle Simon had two sons who spent a number of years in the military. And my sister, Amanda served in the military until recently.  

Uncle Chevy  
When he was twenty years old, my mother's brother, Eusebio Javier Melendez Basulto — known affectionately as “Uncle Chevy” — followed in our family's military tradition by enlisting in the U.S. Army. He served in Military Intelligence with MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) Unit 406 ASA, where he achieved the rank of Specialist, Fourth Class. Uncle Eusebio's military career lasted from 1973 to 1985, a total of 12 years, after which he became a chemist in the civilian world. Chevy was very proud of his service to his country, and considered his military service to be one of his greatest accomplishments.  

My Uncle “Chevy” Javier Basulto passed away unexpectedly following a sudden illness on Tuesday, March 1, 2016 at the age of 62. His smile, unique sense of humor and dedication to family and country lives on in our hearts. This story is dedicated to my Uncle Chevy, who was one of many in my family to serve this country with distinction. The preceding paragraphs discuss in detail the strong commitment of one Mexican-American family to the defense of America. Many other Mexican-American families have similar stories that can be told.  

Copyright © 2016, by Jennifer Vo and John P. Schmal. All rights under applicable law are hereby reserved.

Eligibility Criteria for
  Deferred Action Programs & Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals 

Lacked lawful status on November 20, 2014
Are not an enforcement priority (due to certain criminal convictions or immigration violations) as defined by a November 20, 2014 memo issued by the Department of Homeland Security

Present no other factors that would make a grant of deferred action inappropriate.

The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) estimates that as many as 3.6 million individuals could potentially be eligible for the DAPA program.

Triple Crown jockey Victor Espinoza back in the saddle looking for a Derby three-peat

By Ryan Kartje, OC Register, May 6, 2016 

Jockey Victor Espinoza celebrates aboard American Pharoah after winning the 140th Preakness Stakes horse race at Pimlico
 in 2015. He is back in the hunt for another Kentucky Derby win riding Whitmore. Matt Slocum, The Associated Press

In the waning hours of a euphoric 11-month journey, in which he ended horse racing’s 37-year Triple Crown drought, raced mini-motorcycles on “The Tonight Show” and jived to “La Bamba” on “Dancing With The Stars,” Victor Espinoza looked up from the entrance of the Kentucky Derby Museum’s newest exhibit Sunday night to see his own face staring back from every direction.

For Espinoza, it was a surreal scene, at the end of a surreal year. Like walking into the final epilogue of your own biopic. The exhibit was opened to honor American Pharoah, the first horse since Affirmed in 1978 to sweep from Kentucky to Pimlico to Belmont Park. But in a grander sense, it was for all of horse racing, to revel in the lifting of a burden the sport had felt until last May, when Espinoza and American Pharoah first sat at the Churchill Downs gate.

In every corner of the room, mementos of Espinoza’s charmed run with “The Greatest Living Racehorse” stood enclosed in glass – the blue and yellow silks he wore, the saddle he rode, the trophies he’d held in the Winner’s Circle. At one end stood a statue of him and American Pharoah, draped in a garland of fake roses. Hundreds of photos and newspaper clippings and even an oil painting hung on the exhibit’s walls, nearly all of them depicting the 42-year-old jockey atop the legendary horse. As he explored, Espinoza was overcome by pangs of nostalgia.

“I didn’t know what to say,” Espinoza said. “I never thought in my mind that (the Triple Crown) would really happen. And now, I’m in a museum, a part of history.”

As the Kentucky Derby returns this weekend, Espinoza seems particularly taken with this notion. But with the sport hoping to move forward, the jockey that rode his way to horse racing immortality now finds himself, in some ways, back at the start. Espinoza will mount 20-1 long-shot Whitmore on Saturday, a horse he only met earlier this week, and again, he’ll ride with history on the line. No jockey has won three straight Kentucky Derbys. Only six have won two in a row – a club that Espinoza joined last year – but of the previous five, none won another after his back-to-back wins.

This year’s field is wide open, with only undefeated Nyquist, trained by Hall of Fame trainer Doug O’Neill, anywhere close to a clear favorite at 3-1. But ahead of this 142nd running, all anyone outside of racing’s inner circle really wants to talk about is the 141st.

For Espinoza, this is a difficult line to toe. He enjoys reliving the memory of his summer with American Pharoah, one he’ll almost certainly never match. But how does one move forward in a sport so focused on a near-unattainable goal when that goal is finally attained? How does one move on knowing they’ll never quite reach that same high or live that history again?

“No matter what happens now, it won’t be the same,” Espinoza said. “It was 37 years. We made history. I’m human. I’m here just for a short time. But history, it’s here forever. That’s what we have.”

• • •

What Espinoza didn’t have, three weeks before his run at a third straight Derby win, was an actual horse for the race.

Summer was a whirlwind of talk shows and appearances and, eventually, dance rehearsals, so jam-packed that Espinoza did most of his sleeping on the go – in cars and on planes. The media tour felt endless and tiring. At times, he longed to return to the simplicity of the track. But for weeks and months, he continued on, knowing he and the sport might never have such an opportunity again. It’s why he accepted an invite from “Dancing With The Stars,” in spite of “a lot of heat” from owners who privately called him selfish.

“We could have just gone back about our business and concentrated on the everyday,” his agent, Brian Beach, said. “But I think it helped lift racing’s profile.”

Espinoza’s racing profile, too, had never been higher. He won the Breeder’s Cup with American Pharoah in November and the Dubai Cup with California Chrome in March, putting the finishing touches on an historic year. Still, as the Derby drew closer, none of his potential mounts came to fruition. The threat of the Triple Crown-winning jockey not riding in the next year’s Kentucky Derby was, for a brief period, very real.

Beach admits to some anxiety about this – “I don’t like leaving things to the last minute like that,” he says. But when Whitmore’s original jockey committed to ride a different Derby horse, trainer Ron Moquett chose Espinoza over five other jockeys who wanted into the field. A Triple Crown resume certainly didn’t hurt.

At Santa Anita Park, a few days before the Derby, Espinoza walks the dirt path from the track to the jockey room, describing fondly what he sees in Whitmore, who he feels has “never had a real chance to run.” But soon, he’s pulled away again. A woman asks for a photo. Another asks about American Pharoah. “Win number three, Victor!” one man cheers. The reminders are constant.

Outside the jockey’s room, he wonders aloud what goals might lie ahead. Growing up poor in Mexico, Espinoza constantly set benchmarks to keep himself focused, mimicking the strategies of billionaires he idolized. But now, with over $186 million in lifetime earnings, a Triple Crown to his name, and wins in five of the last six Classics races, he has reached most of those marks he once set.

A third straight Kentucky Derby victory, however, would make for arguably the best three-year stretch in horse racing history. Not since Jimmy Winkfield in 1903 has a jockey even finished in the top three in the follow-up to consecutive Derby wins.

Calvin Borel, the last to win two in a row, finished 10th in his attempt at a third in 2011. Eddie Delahoussaye, who won the Derby in 1982 and 1983, had the best finish since Winkfield (4th place), but was disqualified after his horse, Gate Dancer, bumped another down the stretch.

Derby success, any jockey will remind you is fleeting and fortuitous. Delahoussaye, who went on to place in later Derby years, has seen winning jockeys lose their way before in search of it.

“You can’t worry about how you’ve done it before, how you’re successful,” Delahoussaye said. “The Derby doesn’t work that way. Every day is a different day, a different horse, a different race. You worry about that, and you’ll never ride a horse right again.”

Even with the specter of last summer lingering, Espinoza insists he has no trouble focusing on the Derby, which he says will always remain a benchmark. Only three other jockeys – Eddie Arcaro, Bill Shoemaker, and Bill Hartack – have managed to win four times at Churchill Downs, and joining that rarefied air would cement his place alongside the greats.

At 42, there is time to add a few more to his mantle. But after a charmed run like his, Espinoza said he looks at things differently now. He knows the racing world may again never bend to his favor like it did with American Pharoah.

“But the day I stop aiming for that is the day I probably stop riding,” he said.

• • •

After meeting Whitmore for the first time on Tuesday, Espinoza made the drive east to Ashford Stud in Versailles, Ky. He was there to see an old friend.

American Pharoah looked so different from the last time he’d seen him, six months earlier. He put on weight. He looked older, more mature. Still, when the horse peered down at the jockey, Espinoza could still sense the bond between them.

“It’s amazing how the time goes by,” he said.

There’s a wistfulness to his voice, as he says it. Before long, he’ll be immortalized in the Hall of Fame, and forever, they’ll remember him for helping unbind the sport from four decades of narrative shackles. But as he – and the rest of the sport – moves forward from the Triple Crown, the reality that he may never again ride a horse like American Pharoah or California Chrome has set in. To move past that realization is no easy thing.

Part of him, though, relishes the idea of riding an underdog. Few have given Whitmore a chance to win this weekend, and even as history pulls Espinoza back to last summer, the lure of proving himself again – on Whitmore or another horse – pushes him ahead.

“Anything is possible,” he said. “If I told you last year that I’d win the Triple Crown after 37 years ... ”

At the thought, Espinoza’s voice trailed off. A grin stretched across his face.

“I guess we’ll just have to do that all over again,” he said.

Contact the writer: rkartje@ocregister.com

Northwestern University Scholar Dario Fernandez-Morera 
tilts at the windmill of the Andalusian Myth – and the myth topples.
By Danusha V. Goska
April 26, 2016

To Sabotage the Future, Lie about the Past

                                       Fernandez-Morera corrects these claims.

The Muslim Conquest of Spain was a ruthless, religiously-sanctioned Blitzkrieg that was recorded, in the words of one jihadi war criminal, as his bringing "Judgment Day" to his victims. Invaders, not peaceful immigrants, burned all the churches in their path and pilfered the wreckage to build their mosques that were, as Muslim chroniclers attest, inferior in construction and design to the Christian monuments they replaced. Jihadis expressed their lust for sexual slaves as war booty and their "love of death." One "burned in his desire to hurt" Christians. Libraries were burned, as in Zoroastrian Persia and Christian Alexandria. Jihadis butchered Christian corpses and boiled the meat in cauldrons. Crosses were so abhorrent that looting Muslims had to shatter them before distributing their gold as booty.

No, indigenous Christians in Spain were not extras in the cast of Deliverance. Their culture was more advanced than that of the invaders; the invaders said as much in their histories, boasting of the eye-popping wealth and meticulous crafts they looted, and the great beauty and refinement of the women they carried off to be raped. Ibn Khaldun commented on the ignorance of Arabs and the low level of their culture, and how they needed Christians and Jews to handle their affairs.

In 981, Al-Mansur demolished Leon. He left one tower standing as testimony to the high quality of the city he was able to destroy. This anecdote tells the reader much about the resumes of jihadis, from Al-Andalus to the World Trade Center, the Bamiyan Buddhas, and Palmyra. 

Fernandez-Morera writes that the popular idea that Islam preserved classical knowledge and passed that knowledge on to Christian Europe "is baseless." He reports that Arabs were astounded by the knowledge of the ninth-century Saint Cyril. Cyril replied that the Muslim Arabs were like someone who carried around a container of ocean water and thought he was pretty special. Eventually he met a Greek who lived on the coast and who told him that to brag of such a container would be crazy; his homeland possessed an endless abundance of sea water.

In his chapter on the daily reality of life in Al-Andalus, Fernandez-Morera pays much attention to Muslim law. Any questioning of Islam or Mohammed could result in being tortured to death. Simple pleasures like wine, garlic, pork, silk and music were condemned. Muslim judges ordered that musical instruments in private possession be confiscated and destroyed. There was music – in spite of condemnation. Musicians were often non-Muslim slaves.

Christians and Jews were polluting and extra care was taken to avoid contact, even with utensils once used by a Christian or Jew. Christians must not even walk past Muslim graves; in doing so, they pollute the dead. Muslims must not accept Christmas invitations or greetings. Once a Jew took water from a well, Muslims refused to use that well.

Physical and cultural alienation of one group from another surpassed co-existence; this is reflected in language. Only six percent of Spanish words have Arabic roots; by comparison, thirty percent of the words in English, a Germanic language, have French roots, as a result of the Norman Conquest of 1066.

I often had to take a breather while reading the chapter on the tolerant Umayyads. "The celebrated Umayyads elevated religious and political persecutions, inquisitions, beheadings, impalings, and crucifixions to heights unequaled by any other set of rulers before or after in Spain," Fernandez-Morera writes. They even crucified the dead, disinterring corpses of alleged Christians in order to desecrate them. They crucified fellow Muslims – at one point, seventy-two Muslim scholars of religious law.

Crucifixions were stage-designed to be "spectacular" and cause onlookers to "faint with horror." Some victims were sliced to death slowly: first hands, then feet, then heads. One victim was crucified on the Cordoba palace door. The corpses of black children hung from a well's ropes as a counterweight.

Innovation is condemned in Islam and innovators were found out and eliminated. A Muslim historian praised this surveillance: spies "penetrate the most intimate secrets of the people, so that [Abd al-Rahman III] could know every action, every thought of good and bad people … the explicit and hidden vices of the … population … God showered gifts upon him … because of his … subjugation of men … to interrogate the accused and carry out an Inquisition against them … terrifying them and punishing them severely." That same Abd al-Rahman III, the "servant of the most merciful," declared that Muslims deviating from strict adherence "deserve extermination.”

Al-Andalus was no paradise for women. Consider just this one law. A man who buys a non-Muslim sex slave must mutilate her genitals. Does that fact not tell you volumes about Muslim Spain? Muslim Spain ran on slaves; one of its main exports was slaves. Countless thousands were castrated.

Islamic law tells the rest of the story: the veiling, the stoning, the paralyzing, silencing, and erasing command that a woman requires a male relative to go out in public or to speak for her. "A Muslim wife" a legal manual instructs, is permitted "to have fun with other women with whom there are not men – but only during the day and only once a week." Many of the celebrated women of Muslim Spain were slaves.  

Texas Cemetery Sued Over "Whites Only" Policy by Alexa Ura 
The Texas Tribune, May 5, 2016 

Texas cemetery refused to bury widow’s Hispanic husband because of ‘whites only’ policy: lawsuit

Sent by Jimmy Franco 
jimmyfone@GMAIL.COM

Memoirs by Daisy Wanda Garcia 

Lately I have been saying that I am looking forward to this part of my life. I am comfortable with myself and my friends, in new digs. But most important, my fur babies Donna and Shirley are happy and love the big back yard.

Last night I was speaking with my old friend Mimi Lozano. She politely asked me how my relocation was coming along. And hinted that it was time to begin writing my articles and working on my memoirs about my father Dr. Hector P. Garcia. I had taken a hiatus because I had too much on my plate with moving, unpacking and trying to downsize. I had over 100 boxes to unpack which were an accumulation of thirty four years of treasures found at estate and garage sales. As I unpacked each and every object, I felt that this was karma for the many decades of my weekly purchases at these sales. It was hard to let go of some because I had memories attached to them. Some objects were gifts from family members and many of my father’s books. Not to mention my vast library. But gone they are. 

With regards to my memoirs about my father, Dr. Hector P. Garcia. I have written over 100 articles for Somos Primos since 2007 about different facets of his life. When I met Mimi Lozano in 2006, she encouraged me to write. I procrastinated and Mimi would call me and ask me for articles. Finally I relented because I knew this was a task I must do. 

The articles range in time from when my mother and I were in Italy and then came to the Americas to join my father in Corpus Christ, Texas. Since I was the first born, Papa took me with him. Beginning with early house calls when he was beginning his medical practice to his work on organizing the AGIF and Civil Rights and then the part of his life where he was winding down. I have been privileged to meet heads of state, politicians and ambassadors from other countries. Because of my father, I traveled through many states in the USA and in foreign countries. The high light though was when I went to D.C. when President Reagan awarded Papa with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. 

So thank you for the ride Papa. Again, I have to thank Mimi for rekindling the fire in me. I am honored to resume writing again.

The Garcias, children of Jose and Faustina Garcia have a unique history, six medical doctors, in one family, Mexican immigrants, in a time of no special educational support, or minority ratios to help the Spanish speaking immigrants, saw their vision materialize.   

Surely this story needs to be told: One family, six Spanish speaking immigrants became medical doctors,  with few, if any quotas opening doors for Mexican Americans attending Texas universities the 1930-1940s.

It is an amazing story.

Wanda invites readers whose lives were touched by Dr. Garcia, or any of his sibling 
to please contact her at: wanda.garcia@sbcglobal.net 
She would like to include your stories to help honor her Papa and her grandparents.

Lost Photographs of Hitler's Germany
Color photo from Germany, one of a collection of lost photos.
Sent by Eva Booher

Historic Latino Urban Riots

Rioting at Roosevelt Park in Albuquerque, New Mexico, June 1971 (Guy Bralley/Albuquerque Journal)

Unlike the riots in Watts in 1965 or Detroit in 1967, Albuquerque lacks the evocative label of 1960s urban uprising. The actors were primarily Mexican American, and the riot occurred in the summer of 1971. Despite these anomalous characteristics, the rebellion was one of at least 14 Latino urban riots that occurred that year.

This year marks the 45th and 50th anniversaries of at least 17 Latino urban riots. These incidents have happened at least 57 times since 1964, but they are remembered in isolation. Preserving this history is crucial because the issues that sparked them, such as municipal neglect, discrimination and poverty, still exist in many communities around the country. Sadly American political culture portrays Latinos as recent arrivals, which makes it appear that these issues are temporary. Failure to address persistent issues in the community might increase the likelihood of another urban uprising in the near future — a plausible claim considering the incident of social unrest in Anaheim, California in 2012.

Most Americans are unaware of Latino urban riots because they fall outside of the black-white binary. Despite numerous books and documentaries about the 1960s and ’70s, these riots are rarely, if ever, mentioned. Sociologist Gregg Lee Carter published the only comprehensive piece of scholarship about the topic where he listed 43 riots in Mexican-American and Puerto Rican communities between 1964 and 1971. Nevertheless, there are some shortcomings in the list: some of the riots were melees, he missed several incidents, and they continued well beyond 1971.

I have provided an updated version of Carter’s list with hopes that people will become more interested in recovering this history and learn from it. By looking at several online newspaper databases and the works of other scholars, I included 25 additional riots. I disregarded racial violence, school and prison settings, as well as eliminated several of the incidents in Carter’s list. To determine what constituted a riot, I factored in that the event had to have at least 100 participants, result in significant property damage (destroying and/or severely damaging vehicles and buildings), and trigger a police response. With the exception of Los Angeles in 1992, Latinos were the primary actors in these riots; however, there were several incidents were whites and Blacks participated in almost equal numbers. There were numerous other incidents of civil unrest, but because property damage was minimal I did not include them. This list is incomplete because not all newspapers are digitized. Additionally, there was a discrepancy in reporting when Blacks and Latinos both rioted because some journalists reported only on Black rioters.

A glance at this list reveals some unique characteristics. Unlike Black riots of the 1960s, Latino riots occurred mostly in the 1970s, and they continued well into the early 1990s. Over two-thirds of them were in Puerto Rican communities. They occurred in major cities and in communities as small as Coachella, California, which had about 9,000 residents in 1970. Rioting broke out mostly in the Northeast. New Jersey had the most with 17 incidents.

In February 1968, government officials signaled alarms of anger in the Latino community. The Select Commission on Civil Disorder reported that “the rising needs of the Spanish-speaking people are being neglected as we grapple with the more massive pressures from the Negro population.” Political and police officials apparently ignored this warning when they admitted to indifference. “For all intents and purposes—politically, economically, and socially—the Puerto Rican community has been invisible,” noted Greater Urban Coalition leader Gustav Heninburg after the 1974 riots in Newark, New Jersey. “Until Sunday [the riots], nobody had taken them seriously.” In many communities, it took a riot just for local officials to acknowledge the Latino community.

These riots varied in severity. Rioting in Oxnard, California in July 1971 lasted for nearly two hours with several buildings destroyed and damaged. But rioting in Camden, New Jersey in August 1971 lasted for four days with property damages estimated in the millions. Today, Oxnard doesn’t bear any of the scars of rioting, but Camden, on the other hand, lost its middle-class tax base and remains the poorest and one of the most dangerous city in the country.

Not all of these incidents were sparked by police violence. The three-day riot in Passaic, New Jersey in August 1969 began after the eviction of a Puerto Rican household of twelve. In other incidents, rioting occurred after a public gathering. The riots in Hartford, Connecticut in September 1969 allegedly began when a crowd stood outside the Hartford Times office building to protest the publication of an article where a fireman made disparaging comments about the Puerto Rican community. “They are pigs, that’s all pigs,” he said. “A bunch of them will be sitting around drinking beer and when one is finished… he just throws the bottle anywhere… They dump garbage out of their windows. They lived like pigs.” It’s unlikely for a newspapers to publish such comments today, but as long as disadvantaged communities suffer from economic, political, and social marginalization, mending police-community relations won’t be enough to avoid riots.

At least one riot exposed intra-Latino conflict. In December 1990, several hundreds of Puerto Rican youth in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood went on a rampage after the acquittal of six officers who beat a drug dealer to death. Expressing Puerto Ricans’ perceived insignificance in the city, local resident Clemente Montalvo said, “We want the people to know that we exist.” Continuing, he said, “Cubans get everything; we get nothing. When the Cubans jump, they get what they want.” Nearly 26 years later, the myth of Latino sameness prevails in American political culture. The dominant issue of immigration and the common assumption that all Latinos are Mexican has rendered Puerto Ricans invisible.

Like most rebellions, the underlying issues of discrimination, municipal neglect, poverty, police harassment, poor housing, poor schools and unemployment were all factors. But unique to Latinos, many expressed frustrations that the black-white binary overshadowed problems in their communities. It took a riot in 1991 for Washington, D.C. political officials to acknowledge the sense of alienation in the Salvadoran community. This could occur in other cities that have always been defined by the black-white binary where local officials might struggle to incorporate Latinos into the political system.

Oddly, Latino urban riots never lead to a national discourse about race relations. Nor did any right-wing dialogue emerge about a Latino underclass culture, which was the explanation for Black urban riots. This could be explained by the fact that most coverage of Latino riots reported them as isolated incidents. Whatever the case may be, the absence of any such dialogue shows that even rioting could not eliminate the black-white binary.

It was not until the 1992 Los Angeles riots that Americans acknowledged that race expanded beyond black and white. Images of Korean shop owners protecting their stores and whites, Blacks, Latinos and Asians rioting and looting revealed a complex picture of race in America. Yet this appears to have been forgotten after the unrest in Ferguson and Baltimore. Several memes and tweets circulated on social media claimed that Latinos and Asians have never rioted nor would they ever engage in such activities. These individuals attempted to juxtapose Latinos and Asians with Blacks as being less troublesome. Riot-shaming neglects the fact that identical outbreaks of violence have occurred in Latino communities and the reality that they could happen again.

There are numerous low-income and working-class Latino communities that sit on powder kegs, but they have been rendered invisible by the immigration debate. Public officials’ and commentators’ efforts to paint Latinos positively in the midst of anti-immigration sentiment has also lead to the neglect of these communities.

Major cities with long-established Latino communities such as Cleveland, Milwaukee and Detroit have seen an increase in concentrated poverty between 2000 and 2013. In Philadelphia, Latinos have the highest poverty rate — at 44 percent as of 2016 — and are located in the poorest congressional district in Pennsylvania. Even worse, local officials often ignore the population. During a 2015 roundtable discussion about police-community relations, Al Dia, a Philadelphia-based Latino newspaper, noted that out of “22 panelists there wasn’t a single Latino.” Their absence was striking considering the fact that the community has dealt with the issue of police brutality for decades.

The Northeast is filled with cities and towns were residents are severely disadvantaged. Since the 1970s, low-income Puerto Ricans along with some Dominicans and Blacks have left New York City and New Jersey for affordable housing and safer neighborhoods in other parts of New York as well as Pennsylvania and New England. Although they find what they were looking for, they also encounter a whole new set of challenges.

In Pennsylvania, these groups have settled in cities such as Allentown, Reading, Lancaster and York only to encounter high unemployment, overcrowding, slumlords, poor schools, and persistent poverty. They are segregated into deteriorating homes where their children contract high levels of lead poison. The Reading and Allentown school districts, which are 81 percent and 68 percent Latino, are the most fiscally disadvantaged school districts in the nation. In Allentown, students articulate these frustrations in the schools, which were plagued with violence last fall. Meanwhile, Allentown city officials have invested close to $1 billion into a downtown revitalization project, even though local residents feel that they are not reaping the benefits.

Another example is Rhode Island. Latinos are located in cities such as Central Falls, Providence, Pawtucket and Woonsocket. Statewide, Latinos have the highest poverty rate and are also overrepresented in the prison system — making up 12 percent of the state’s population, but 24 percent of the prison population. Once released, ex-felons are discriminated against in public housing and employment.

In October 2015, Pawtucket avoided a violent altercation after 200 students protested an incident of police brutality at Tolman High School. While standing outside city hall, the crowd became aggressive after someone smashed a car window. The students started spitting and threatening officers. Police responded with pepper spray. Luckily violence was avoided, but it served as a sign to local officials concerning boiling frustrations in the community.

Police-community relations remain tense in poor and working-class communities. From 2010 to 2014, the Houston Police Department has killed civilians at a higher rate than New York and Los Angeles. In fact, Houston police have killed more people than Los Angeles police despite having a smaller population. The vast majority of unarmed victims have been Black and Latino. As of today, there has been no prosecutions or significant discipline of an officer. San Francisco has had several incidents of police shooting unarmed Latino men. Many of these killings have occurred near or in the Mission District, a predominately working-class Latino community. Over the past several years the area has experienced rapid gentrification that has led to a 27 percent decrease of the Latino population between 2000 and 2013. Both of these cities pride themselves in their ethnic diversity and social tolerance, but this narrative hides an ugly history and grim reality.

The similarities between now and then are striking, which is why the history of Latino urban riots need to be preserved. Fortunately, some scholars are doing just that. Newark Public Library archivist Yesenia Lopez is archiving the history of over a dozen Puerto Rican riots in New Jersey. Graduate students are researching the history of the Camden, New Jersey and Pharr, Texas riots of 1971. Still, more needs to be done, because most of these riots risk falling into oblivion.

This history is important because it’s a reminder that the black-white binary is problematic. Continuing to see racial conflict this way not only renders Latinos as invisible, but also makes it appear that they are unaffected by the most pressing social justice issues of our times. This should also serve as a lesson for Latino political organizations and media outlets who generally focus primarily on immigration. Viewing Latinos as recent arrivals renders insignificant the experiences of those here prior to recent waves. It dehistoricizes social and economic issues within the community. Unless these issues are addressed, some communities might articulate these grievances in an unpleasant way.***

Aaron G. Fountain, Jr. is a Ph.D. student in the Department of History at Indiana University-Bloomington. He tweets from @aaronfountainjr.

Source: Latino Rebels, Raul Colon raul.colon@gmail.com

General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 
Did Not Retire from the Marine Corps 

Sent by Oscar Ramirez, April 27, 2016  
osramirez@sbcglobal.net

Director Rodrigo García's life echoes across biblical 'Last Days in the Desert' 
By David Ansen, LA Times, May 8, 2016 

Actor Ewan McGregor, left, director Rodrigo Garc,Äôa and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki 
work on the set of "Last Days in the Desert." Photo Credit: Francois Duhamel / Broad Green Pictures.

Director Rodrigo García is not a religious man, nor was his father, the Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez. So why he felt compelled to tell a story about Jesus' 40 doubt-ridden days in the desert is a riddle he's still trying to solve.

"I don't know what organ of my body this film came from," he confesses. "I kept asking myself, 'What are you doing? A movie about Jesus?' But I couldn't get it out of my head."

García's movie "Last Days in the Desert," premiered at Sundance last year and opens in Los Angeles on May 13. It's a radical departure from his earlier, female-centric films — and from his HBO series about therapy, "In Treatment."

Hushed, spare, intensely personal, featuring an appealingly human and vulnerable Jesus — and beautifully shot by multiple Oscar winner Emmanuel Lubezki — "Last Days in the Desert" isn't your standard biblical epic. In "Last Days," Jesus is called Yeshua, and he's played by Ewan McGregor, who also plays his alter ego, "The Demon," a.k.a. Satan.

At its heart it's a story of fathers and sons. García invents a family Jesus encounters in the desert. They take him in, and Satan challenges him to resolve the problems that are tearing the family apart. There is a sick mother (Ayelet Zarer), a stern and stubborn father (Ciarán Hinds) and their teenage son (Tye Sheridan), who wants to escape from his father's yoke and find his fortune in Jerusalem. Set against this father-son struggle is Jesus' relationship with his silent Father, who has laid out a destiny for his chosen son.

"Yeshua needed to free this boy because he could not free himself," García explains. One of the movie's conceits is the sibling-like rivalry between Jesus and the duplicitous Satan, who tries to turn Jesus against his Father. Satan, the fallen angel Lucifer, has actually seen the face of God, and he holds this intimacy over Jesus, who never has.

García is talking about the film in one of the family homes in Cartagena where last year it was selected as the opening-night film of the Cartagena Film Festival. In tribute to his late father (affectionately known as "Gabo" to his legion of fans), the festival mounted a sidebar of some of Márquez's favorite films. 

Actor Ewan McGregor, left, and director/writer Rodrigo Garcia of "Last Days in the Desert."  
Photo Credit: Larry Busacca / Getty Images  

García keeps a low profile; even many who know his work, including such films as "Nine Lives" and "Albert Nobbs," don't realize that he is Márquez's son. He's never kept it a secret, but he's been reticent to say too much about his father, never wanting to ride on his coattails.

Márquez wasn't just any writer; the author of "A Hundred Years of Solitude" was a literary colossus, as iconic in his field as a Frank Sinatra or a Marlon Brando or a Michael Jordan. At his funeral in April 2014 in Mexico City, attended by the presidents of Colombia and Mexico, tens of thousands of mourners paid tribute.

"There were 10 years of interviews before people stopped asking me about my dad," García recalls. "But everyone always assumed I didn't want to talk about him. And then when I did junkets for 'Albert Nobbs' nobody asked anymore. And I felt a little sad." Then, half-jokingly, he adds: "Maybe I made this movie so people would talk about him again."

When roundups of the most interesting independent filmmakers are made, García's name often gets overlooked. Is it because his films have always focused, with uncanny empathy, on the lives of women?

Starting with "Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her," followed by the masterly anthology "Nine Lives," then "Mother and Child" and "Albert Nobbs" (the one movie he didn't write himself), García has inspired a slew of great performances, sensitively constructing a cinematic world far from the testosterone-fueled, postmodern visions of the Tarantinos and Nolans.  

"I'm neither commercial nor hip," García says with typically self-effacing humor.

"Last Days" is García's own distinct, humanistic take on Jesus. It will not rile the faithful, as Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" did. It does not indulge in the S&M spectacle of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ." It is not a solemnly pious epic like George Stevens "The Greatest Story Ever Told" or a fierce polemic like Pasolini's "The Gospel According to St. Matthew."

In the film the wily Demon, who delights in messing with Jesus' head, compares God to a storyteller who's trying to perfect the Earth by constantly writing and rewriting it, willing to start the universe all over just to change the shape of a branch.

"That was my riff on how artists work," García notes. "They're just insatiable. The art comes first. God would perfect the universe at the expense of everything else." It's Satan's way of taunting Jesus with the idea that God doesn't care about him, only with the story he's been cast in.

It wasn't until García was halfway through writing his screenplay that the parallels to his own life struck him.

"Both Yeshua and the boy are trying to find their destiny from under a powerful father. I'm not so blind I don't see that." But once he saw it, it became emotionally much harder to write: to keep the focus on his tale, not himself. "Writing the second half was exhausting." Then he adds with a laugh, "but my father was not a silent God."  

Ciaran Hinds stars as Father and Ewan McGregor as Jesus in the imagined chapter of Jesus' 
forty days of fasting and praying, "Last Days in the Desert."  Photo credit: Gilles Mingasson / Broad Green Pictures

García, the firstborn son of the globetrotting Márquez, had an unusually peripatetic childhood. He was born in Colombia, then raised in Mexico City, and between ages 8 and 14 lived in Barcelona with his dad, his mother, Mercedes, and his younger brother Gonzalo before returning to Mexico City for high school, then to Harvard for college.

"He was preoccupied with the impact his fame and success could have on us," García says of his father. "That it could paralyze or crush us."

The Márquez household was filled with his father's left-wing artistic friends — the novelists Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa were regulars — and storytelling was prized above all. Instead of church on Sundays, García remembers garrulous lunches for more than a dozen people, where the taletelling would go on deep into the afternoon.

"My dad was always at home. He had no hobbies. He wrote from 9 to 2, and he engaged with others." He says his own work ethic comes from his father. "My brother and I are the same, we can't do anything but the task at hand. It's impossible for me to take a vacation. "

García also inherited his father's love of movies. As a young journalist, Márquez wrote frequently about films, and in the early days of his career, before "A Hundred Years of Solitude" sealed his fate as a novelist, worked on many screenplays. He prized the Italian neorealists, De Sica in particular. Truffaut's "Jules and Jim" was his favorite film. He revered Kurosawa, particularly "Red Beard," which he took his son to see many times.

Years later, Kurosawa wanted to make a film of Márquez's "The Autumn of the Patriarch," recast in medieval Japan. But to his dad's disappointment, the project never got funded. Though many movies have been made from the stories and novels — few of them good — Márquez refused to let anyone film "A Hundred Years of Solitude." He told his sons that after his death they were free to sell the rights if they needed to. The only way it could be adequately filmed, García concedes, is as a television miniseries. He's not eager to see that happen.

"My favorite thing my father wrote or said is in 'Love in the Time of Cholera': 'Nobody teaches life anything.' I love that. Life trumps all. Reality is always better, bigger, more astonishing than anything. By comparison, 'Life imitates art' is foolish. Life imitates nothing. Life rules supreme."

Márquez died while his son was editing "Last Days," a film that, García admits, is haunted by the idea of death. It would be foolish to get too Freudian about the interweaving of autobiography and fiction in the movie; art is not therapy, and the mysteries of the creative process are best left hidden from the artist. Indeed, sometimes he is the last person to see what is standing in front of his eyes.

"It's a testament how much we don't see what we don't want to see that it only occurred to me in the last few years that my father wanted to be a director," García says later at his office in Culver City. "Which of course I knew my whole life. But it hit me: Oh, wait a minute! I am a director — which was his dream. It wasn't until my 50s that I put it together."  

calendar@latimes.com  

HERITAGE PROJECTS

The inspiration for the new SPAR initiative, the Spanish Presence in Americas Roots  
was in meeting Robin Collins about six years ago, and a personal epiphany* last year. 

Lewis and Clark vs the real grand explorers of the United States  
          [*epiphany, an experience of sudden and striking realization, generally used to describe scientific breakthrough, religious or philosophical]. 

For thirty years Robin, a horse trainer and horse lover,  has dedicated her life to protect the horses.  She said, "there is something very special about the Wilbur Cruce lineage." (The Arizona family who first recognized the unique qualities of the descendents of this special breed.)  "They have an affinity for people.  Almost like the connection between dogs and people. The horses seem to sense and respond to your emotions, probably because of the closeness of the Spanish/Mexican soldiers, ranchers, and vaqueros with their horses."  

For over five hundred years the Wilbur Cruce Spanish horse in temperament and body as remained the same. The Native Americans who quickly adapted to the presence of the Iberian horse on the continent called the horses, Big Dog." 

HDC LEGACY Fundraiser

Somos Primos has the pleasure of announcing the First Annual Fundraiser for The Heritage Discovery Center (HDC). 
I, as editor of Somos Primos have never requested any financial support for Somos Primos, instead all efforts have been to promote the wonderful heritage projects which are sent to me, whether in the form of events, books, music, forums, conferences, etc.  

However, I stand totally behind Robin Collins in support of her effort to preserve the Wilbur-Cruce herd.  It totally amazes me and fills me with great pride to know what our Spanish/Mexican ancestors and their horse accomplished in the Americas.   They are the living remnant, the icons, the facts, living proof of what our ancestors did for our country.

The Heritage Discovery Center’s major role is for the preservation of the descendants of the original Iberian Horses and the enduring legacy that they helped develop.   This Hispanic history has enriched the lives of mankind for centuries.  I hope you will 
realize the unique opportunity we have to assist financially in helping these horses to live and perpetuate their lineage.   

The annual fundraiser will provide The Heritage Discovery Center the ability to maintain the current Iberian horses now and for the future.  

The Relaunch is establishing “THE LEGACY” made up of contributors comprised of Hispanics who have the vision the Iberian horses being the gateway from the past to the present.   

If you visit the website www.ranchodelsueno.com you will understand why it is an opportunity to partner with the Heritage Discovery Center and its equine division Rancho del Sueno. There is no other organization sharing this history with the public in North America.  

The goal for 2016 is $60,000.00. The amount of $5,000.00 is to be raised each month.  

Caring for the Iberian horses and the Heritage Discovery Center is only possible by supporting THE LEGACY.  Currently there are 56 horses and to feed the horses alone is $5,000.00 a month.  

Like many of you I did not read in textbooks of the people, my people who had settled in the southwest before the English landed on Plymouth Rock.  As I found nuggets of gold of my family history a new world opened to me. When I went to the Heritage Discovery Center and introduced to the Iberian horses immediately I found a very deep connection. They are an intrinsic part of each one of us. Please visit the web site www.ranchodelsueno.com  and join me in preserving our history.  

The Heritage Discovery Center is a 501 c 3 nonprofit organization. Go to the WEBSITE TO PROVIDE YOUR GIFT.  
You may call Robin directly 559 868-8681:  Heritage Discovery Center, 40222 Millstream Lane, Madera  CA  93636, or
contact, Delia Gonzalez, SPAR Public Affairs director, 317-416-7234.

PLEASE NOTE - since 1804, the Californias had a Governor. 
West of the Mississippi was not barren and uncivilized.

José Joaquín de Arrillaga Initiative 



 Current "caserío" of the Arrillagas in Aya (Aia) the hometown of the Governor in Guipuzcoa province,
 in the Spanish Basque Country, Spain.

SPAR's 
Promotion of Stationary and Traveling Exhibitions

SPAR, the Spanish Presence in Americas Roots is developing a list of current or proposed Hispanic/Latino historical exhibitions in the United States of America and in Puerto Rico.

Purpose of developing the inventory list is for SPAR – Spanish Presence in America Roots to assist organizations in their promotion.  If you are interested in SPAR in promoting your exhibition, please e-mail fromhuffman@gmail.com, the following information:

Traveling Exhibition:
Tour dates:
Venue Period:
Floor Plan:
Security: Low, moderate or moderate to high
Rental Fee:
Shipping: One-way inbound, paid by host venue, etc
Audience:
Languages:
Support: Exhibit technician oversees installation and take-down. 

Promotional and Education material available:
Traveling Exhibition History:
·         A list of past exhibition venues: 
·      Over the last three years

Stationary Exhibition History: 
·         Opening date
·         Is there an ending date?

Contact information:
Name:
Title:
Address:
Best number to be reached on:
Fax:

STATUS:
·         For Profit
·         Not-for-Profit
Web site URL:
Face book site:
Twitter:

HISTORICAL TIDBITS

Rewriting the History Before Columbus - Charles C. Mann

This lecture by Charles C. Mann explains the importance of Columbus from a global perspective, showing the interconnections resulting from the Columbian Exchange of  animals, foods, and agriculture.  Mann's perspective-altering information is based on highly researched supportive evidence, correcting long-standing assumptions made by historians  and scientists.  Mann does not place blame on any specific group, but rather explains the catastrophic changes resulting from the eagerness to expand their diets in both Europe and the Americas.  

About 1491: “A landmark of a book that drops ingrained images of colonial America into the dustbin one after the other” — Boston Globe
Won the U.S. National Academy of Sciences' Keck Award 

“Indians were here far longer than previously thought,  . . . and in much greater numbers. And they were so successful at imposing their will on the landscape that in 1492 Columbus set foot in a hemisphere thoroughly dominated by humankind.”

I suspect you will watch the youtube many times to absorb and internalize the historic connections which Mann identifies.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhncJH4UFQI   I did. . . 

Charles C. Mann (born 1955)[1] is an American journalist and author, specializing in scientific topics. His 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus won the National Academies Communication Award for best book of the year. He is the coauthor of four books, and contributing editor for Science, Atlantic Monthly, and Wired.  Mann has also written for Fortune, The New York Times, Smithsonian, Technology Review, Vanity Fair, and The Washington Post.[2] 

In 2005 he wrote 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, followed in 2011 by 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created.[3] 
He served as a judge for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award in 2012.[4]
He is a three-time National Magazine Award finalist and a recipient of writing awards from the American Bar Association, the American Institute of Physics, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Lannan Foundation.[2] He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts with his wife and children.[5]   From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Website . . . http://charlesmann.org/ 

HONORING HISPANIC LEADERSHIP

Photo credit: Caller-Times 

Dr. Cuitlahuac “CP” Garcia
Born: December 12, 1923 – Eternal Rest: April 24, 2016

Amin David, founder of Los Amigos of Orange County, dead at 83
1932 - May 21, 2016   Anaheim, photo credit: Chris Prevatt       

Sent by Frances Rios francesrios499@hotmail.com 

Nativo Lopez’s letter:

Farewell Letter to Amin David
Nativo-Vigil: Family of Lopez
California Republic
May 20, 2016

Amin and Irene David and Family
Anaheim, California

Dearest Amin, Irene, and Family:

I write you on behalf of my family, and myself, to express our deep and heartfelt appreciation for your earthshaking contributions to our lives and to those of Orange County and beyond over the years. We have been touched by your presence, words of wisdom and counsel, on many occasions, and not just through Los Amigos of Orange County, but on a personal level.

I remember it almost as if it were yesterday my first attendance at Los Amigos in 1982 to seek help in combating the INS immigration raids occurring in OC at the time. I was a young organizer sent by Bert Corona to form Hermandad Mexicana amongst immigrant families and to seek out allies in that endeavor. I don’t even remember who advised me to attend the first meeting. I experienced being called upon at the opening of the meeting by you to introduce myself to the group – as is customary for Los Amigos newcomers. Later when my name came up on the list to share with the group the issue of immigration raids in the city of Santa Ana and other cities, and make my plea for support, you were the first to engage me and express solidarity to our cause. The others present chimed in with ayes. And, thus we were on our way to building grassroots organization comprised of Spanish-speaking immigrants throughout OC; and we always counted on your unconditional support. Our community was and is better for it, and together we have repeatedly engaged the authorities in defense of the voiceless, victimized, and downtrodden, who over the years have found their own voice, shunted victimhood, and come of age as their own advocates. The Dreamer movement is a prime example of this.

But this is also demonstrated by the thousands of small, medium-sized, and chain Mexican businesses that have flowered throughout the county. In what field of endeavor do you not find a Mexican and Latino plying his trade or expounding her views – from the most essential and so-called menial manual trades to all areas of science, medicine, technology, electronics, automotive, retail, clothing, fashion, journalism, philosophy, music, arts, education, politics, religion, security, policing, military, healthcare, union, and on and on? Who from these representative fields have not found their way to a Wednesday Los Amigos breakfast to voice their concerns, share a story, or seek assistance at one time or another? What OC politician, school board member or superintendent, police chief or community liaison, city manager, or religious leader has not found him or herself called on the carpet to be held accountable to the community via Los Amigos or to be praised for a good job? Who amongst the people of humblest origin in OC have not found a home at Los Amigos, a sincere welcome, or a that-a-boy handshake, applause, and expression of indignation at their plight and the group’s support?

This is the legacy of el Señor Amin David, which will live on in the annals of OC history and in the hearts and minds of the hundreds of thousands who became witnesses to the boundless empathy expressed by you without reservation. Even if Los Amigos was not in the position to lend monetary support (which on many occasions was the plea) or move political mountains for redress, a person at least left the breakfast gathering knowing that she counted on the moral support of the leader. Per chance an assignment to one or more of the voluntary attendees to draft a letter, attend a meeting, speak at city council, call on a police chief, appeal to a school board, accompany at a court hearing, or call upon an elected official. We will never know how many lives were touched, and continue to be touched, by this dynamic or the replication of empathy manifested by pay-it-forward examples. I suspect that it is endless.

The community’s needs are limitless. This is driven by the ever growing inequities heaped upon society by the voracious greed of the one percent, and those who seek to emulate them. Thus, the demands on leaders and organizations are forever overwhelming. Some could even say that a streak of selfishness parades amongst the people when it demands more and more from its leaders. And, such demands separate the leader from his family who are unceremoniously called upon to sacrifice their time from Daddy. Ultimately, the leader makes the choice. I recall you replying to me on one occasion when I questioned your commitment to a specific project of Hermandad Mexicana. You told me that, “this is the life that you have chosen, Nativo.” I was stunned by the veracity of the observation. It was a learning moment for me. I have never forgotten it.

Los Amigos is the life you have chosen, and it has been a life well rewarded by the lives it has influenced. I have certainly been influenced by you and count you as my mentor. During the struggles for amnesty in the 80s and against the migra raids you stood with us and took on Harold Ezell, District Director of the INS at the time. That same decade Hermandad organized massive rent strikes throughout OC to address issues of uninhabitable living conditions, and you stood with the tenants. Hermandad became the largest organization enrolling amnesty applicants for legal residency, and you encouraged the people not to be fearful. In the 90s, again, Hermandad left no stone unturned in search of eligible citizen candidates as it fought to turn back Proposition 187 in 1994, which had its origin in OC, and you rallied with us.

In my darkest moments during the Dornan investigations in 1996-98, from the OC District Attorney to the U.S. Congress, you stood with me and Hermandad. We ultimately prevailed and were exonerated. But, you did not know at the time that we would succeed. More Latinos were elected to political office during the 90s into the new millennium, and you stood with me as I took my seat on the Santa Ana Unified School Board. You stood with us to pass the largest school bond in the history of the district, which resulted in a massive school construction program for the children, and the first ever project labor agreement to assure that union members performed the work. Again, you stood with me in 2003 during the controversial recall campaign over bilingual education and the construction of an unwanted school on the wealthy side of Santa Ana. This is the same side of town that up until 1964 permitted property deeds prohibiting blacks, Jews, and Mexicans to own property.

You stood with me when I was forced to defend myself against scurrilous charges of voter fraud by the Los Angeles District Attorney in 2009-10. I imagine you asked yourself, what the hell mess has Nativo got himself mixed up in now? You only showed support and didn’t question my intentions or motives, but probably wondered about my methods.

While we haven’t visited over the past five years, I want you to know of my deep gratitude for your friendship and political loyalty, and my appreciation to your family for allowing you to play the role of leader and mentor to our community. I can only repay you for your boundless empathy and service to others and to me by paying-it-forward and emulating you. I am totally confident that you would not have it any other way.

Be well my elder brother, God is great and is with you. You enter the pantheon of all the great leaders and elders of previous generations that were lionized by our people for their good deeds and service to others. You will live on in the minds and hearts of the people because the seeds you planted have borne good fruit.

“Of life’s two chief prizes, beauty and truth, I found the first in a loving heart and the second in a laborer’s hand.” – Khalil Gibran

“Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.” – Khalil Gibran

“For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.” – Khalil Gibran

My sincerest affection and love,
Your friend and fellow-traveler, Nativo

When I heard that Amin’s battle with cancer had ended, I originally wrote that he was “a pillar of his community” — but something about that metaphor bothered me. Yes, he was a pillar — but pillars meet their end by falling. He didn’t fall. Then I thought: well, he was also a bridge — between his community and the government, between individual people and groups, and notable between the “haves” of Orange County and the “have-nots” in need, but that wasn’t quite right either — an old bridge ends with its collapse. He didn’t collapse.

And then I realized what Amin David was.

Amin David was a scaffold. He was the structure that held up other people and communities so that they could climb up higher, that let them reach places where they could build something big. He was strong but gentle, bringing many people together, protecting them on stable platforms where they could, together, get needed things done.

And in the end, when its work in a given worksite is done, a scaffold neither falls nor collapses. It is simply taken away, and the lasting beauty and grandeur of what it helped people accomplish remains. That is what Amin David did for Anaheim’s Latino community — and for many others of us who wish it success. He helped it build; he helped it rise. He will be missed — but not as much as he would be if he hadn’t had the shrewdness and grace to plant generations of leaders who would follow him.

Latino soldiers
 Cebu, Phillipines, WW II

  LATINO AMERICAN PATRIOTS

Memorial Day always gives my heart a twinge
By Eddie Morin

Now the ugly specter of envy raises its head because there is a vile attempt to alter the facts and deny the honor granted to Raul Morin. This effort manifests itself as "The All Wars Committee" and is not above lying to achieve its goals. Focusing on the planned redesign of the memorial area by the city of Los Angeles, this group has brazenly laid claim to represent the veteran community. They insist that the area has always been called: "All Wars Memorial"-an intentional deception. I have pointed out how there is no such marker in all the memorial area but this does not discourage them, they just obliviously continue with this arrogant claim and hope that if they keep repeating this lie then it will ultimately be accepted as the truth.

A brief litany of the resistance that I have encountered along the way: back in August of 2009, I sat down with Councilman Jose Huizar and he stated to me, "don't worry, we are not going to change the name. I explained that I wanted to be part of the committee meeting regarding the redesign plans and, later, I was informed of the next meeting. This "All-Wars Committee physically barred me from attending. I formed my own committee and attended the next few meetings. And then on February 14, 2011, with less than 24 hours notice, I was informed that there was a meeting with the L.A. Commission of Public Works.

COLLEGE GAME PLAN MAY 13 2016
Alfonso Gonzales, 96-Year-Old WWII Vet, Becomes USC's Oldest Graduate
by Elizabeth Chuck, MAY 13 2016, 

Hello readers of SURVIVOR

Thank you for your patronage. A new edition that includes more photos and some follow-up on some of the men will be published this fall.

EARLY LATINO AMERICAN PATRIOTS

EL VIRREINATO DE NUEVA ESPAÑA.- Fuente = BIBLIOTECA MILITAR DE BARCELONA

OFICIAL DE DRAGONES DEL REGIMIENTO DE MEXICO

DRAGONES DEL REGIMIENTO DE MEXICO.

OFICIAL DE "MILICIANOS DE TIERRA DENTRO"

  "MILICIANOS DE TIERRA DENTRO"

REGIMIENTO DE LANCEROS
DE MEDIALUNA,DE SAN MIGUEL EL GRANDE

REGIMIENTO PROVINCIAL 
DE INFANTERIA DE MEXICO -1771

OFICIAL DE GRANADEROS BLANCOS 
DE VERACRUZ-1767

REGIMIENTO PROVINCIAL 
DE CABALLERIA DE SAN CARLOS -1771

REGIMIENTO DE DRAGONES PROVINCIALES DE SAN CARLOS -1771

​http://miniaturasmilitaresalfonscanovas.blogspot.mx/2011/10/el-virreinato-de-nueva-espana-fuente.html
Sent by Dr. C. Campos y Escalante
campce@gmail.com 

Any member of the Spanish Army, Navy, or militia who served in support of Galvez, in the Gulf of Mexico, from Texas to Florida, along the Mississippi River, or were members of the Louisiana Infantry Regiment between December 24, 1776 and November 26, 1783, may be considered to have performed qualifying military service in support of the Patriot cause. Any resident of the Spanish territories bounded within by the area now included in the present day contiguous United States of America, who provided material aid or contributed to the donativo requested by King Carlos III in 1780 to fund Spanish involvement in the war effort, may be considered to have performed qualifying patriotic service. Exceptions will be considered on a case by case basis.

NSSAR Record Copy Clerk 
recordcopy@sar.org 

Submitted by Hon. Judge Edward Butler  
sarpg0910@aol.com 

   REGIMIENTO DE DRAGONES PROVINCIALES 
DE LA PRINCESA

Granaderos y Damas de Gálvez
San Antonio Chapter
King William Fair:  April 23, 2016

On Saturday, April 23rd, the Order of Granaderos y Damas de Gálvez San Antonio Chapter participated in the King William Fair, an official event of Fiesta San Antonio.  Uniformed members of the group led the parade as the Vanguard for the second year in a row.  Banner Carriers led the way, followed by the Color Guard then the Fife & Drum Corps.  As the Vanguard, they brought the regal sights and sounds of a Spanish Colonial Color Guard and Fife & Drum Corps to the parade which had 72 entries this year.

The ‘Other’ European Ally of the Continental Army
Part 2, Concise history of Bernardo de Galvez
By Hon. Edward F. Butler, Sr.

After the Battle of Saratoga Spanish involvement in the Revolutionary War deepened after the Battle of Saratoga (Oct. 1777), and it seems Spain even encouraged France to deepen its commitment prior to France’s becoming a military ally. In an October 1777 letter from Spanish Prime Minister José Moñino y Redondo, 1st Count of Floridablanca, to the French ambassador at Madrid, he states that a long duration of the American war would be “highly useful” to Spain and France. “We should sustain the Colonists, both with effectual aid in money and supplies” and with “prudent advice.” I

Four months later, in February 1778, France declared war on Britain. Spain followed in 1779. But the Bourbon Family Compact was not enough for King Charles III to risk going to war. By that time France had a new king, Louis XVI, who was Charles III’s nephew. Charles was thirty-eight years older than Louis XVI, and at the time of his nephew’s coronation, Charles had been a king for nearly forty years (he had been King Charles VII of Naples and Charles V of Sicily prior to assuming the Spanish throne).

He pushed his nephew into signing a treaty (Treaty of Aranjuez) promising that in return for Spain’s participating in the American Revolution, France would aid Spain in the capture and return of Gibraltar, Minorca, and Florida from the British.

II It seems Charles was hell bent on redeeming his family’s honor after Spain lost both Minorca and Gibraltar on his father’s watch and Florida on his own watch. After France signed the treaty, in April 1779, Spain then declared war on Britain and provided military assistance to the Patriots on several fronts.

Together, Spain and France sought to tie up the British military in other parts of the world, so that their reinforcements to the Colonies would be harder to come by. In 1779, the French and Spanish navies alarmed the British people with a combined fleet that sailed into the English Channel and approximated the coastline in what was planned to be an invasion of Britain.

This was the only potential invasion of England that came out of the American Revolutionary War. Plagued by innumerable delays and poor weather, however, the invasion was eventually called off. Nonetheless, the show of strength caused sufficient enough concern on the home front that George III was forced to maintain a significant military presence in England. 

III

Immediately following the armada scare, John Paul Jones began his string of successful raids along the English coast. King Charles III of Spain by A.R. Mengs. 1761

King Louis XVI of France by Joseph-Siffrein Duplessis, c. 1776 The Flag of Burgundy at St. Augustine, Florida. —Credit: Steve Alvarez

The Flag of Burgundy at San Juan, Puerto Rico. —Credit: tripadvisor.com 
18 SOR Drumbeat Volume 34, Number 1

He also captured several British ships. His forays alarmed the military and helped turn the tide of public opinion against the Crown.

Jones was supplied by Gardoqui & Sons and used the Spanish port of La Coruna as a base of operations for eighteen months. The most sustained effort, however, by the allied navies to draw British firepower away fromthe Colonies was the Great Siegeof Gibraltar, between 16 June 1779   and 7 February 1783. A battle of nearly four years in length, it occupied a large number of ships of the English navy and thereby kept those vessels (and men) away from the Colonies. At onepoint, the combined Franco-Spanish army attacking Gibraltar  totaled over thirty thousand men. Spain deployed    fifty ships of the line and a large number of frigates.

The effort was, to say the least, a large and ongoing strain for British forces.

IV  The Western Theater

Prior to and during the Revolutionary War, the lands along the Mississippi River were sparsely settled, with English outposts on the east bank and Spanish villages on the west bank. From south going north, the British controlled Manchac, Natchez, Memphis, Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Fort St. Joseph, and Detroit. The Spanish occupied villages on the west bank, including New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Arkansas Post, St. Genevieve, and Fort San Carlos (Saint Louis, Missouri).

V 
In 1777, the year Spanish King Charles III named Bernardo de Gálvez as Governor of Louisiana, there were only 1,448 people registered as living in the Illinois country.

Said region was the name attached to upper Louisiana. The King had sent Gálvez to Louisiana the prior year and had named him Colonel of the Louisiana regiment and second in command of provincial forces.

Bernardo came from a distinguished, prominent family which had served the Spanish court in various ways. His father was the Governor of the Kingdom of Guatemala, which then encompassed all of Central America.

His uncle was Minister to Prussia, later Minister to Russia. Before Bernardo left Spain, the king informed him directly that Spain would be entering into the hostilities between Britain and the Thirteen Colonies, but to keep it a secret for the time being. As the top commander, his duties were to develop and maintain friendly relations with the nearby Indians; to build good relationships with the nearby trappers and settlers, most of whom were French; to develop agriculture; and to recruit and train a militia. To help him and protect him, he was provided with a small detachment of troops from the Royal Spanish army.

Two of the first things he did was to seek additional men to defend the frontier and name a lieutenant governor for Spanish Louisiana. He was promised seven hundred volunteers from the Canary Islands for the Louisiana Infantry Regiment. These Canary Islanders were transported, starting in 1778, and many saw action inthe Louisiana territory.

VI As for selecting the second in-charge, Gálvez named Fernando de Leyba to the post. Leyba was to super-intend the affairs of the entire Louisiana territory extending from the Arkansas River to the Canadian line. In addition to being named Lieutenant Governor, Leyba was also appointed Commandant of Fort San Carlos, the Spanish fortress at the tiny village of St. Louis, and of St. Genevieve, an even smaller Spanish settlement about thirty miles south of Fort San Carlos. Although small, Fort San Carlos played a huge role in the western theater.


VII

When Leyba settled in at Fort San Carlos, he brought with him knowledge of the impending war between Spain and England. It wasn’t long before he witnessed massive amounts of aid coming up river, bound for Fort Pitt at the Forks of the Ohio. Without specifically revealing what he knew, Don Fernando began urging the townspeople to construct a series of four stone towers and entrenchments for self-defense. Many St. Louisans thought such preparations were foolish and a waste of money.

They were convinced that their village would never be attacked, and that life would go on indefinitely the way it always had. Yet it was only a matter of time before storm clouds would gather and the earth would rumble.

Fort San Carlos and the small village surrounding it were sitting ducks, along a major strategic transportation route which the British wanted to control.

Clark’s Spanish Friends
Not long after Leyba arrived at St. Louis, he met George Rogers Clark, a lieutenant colonel of the Virginia militia who had been dispatched to the Northwest primarily to defend the newly created Kentucky County from hostile natives and to try to capture British villages north of the Ohio. Clark was a lot like Daniel Boone, in that he explored the backwoods far and wide, and won the respect of nearly everyone who met him.

In mid-1778, Clark had embarked with under two hundred men down the Ohio River, where they captured Fort Massac at the mouth of the Tennessee River before moving overland to take Kaskaskia (Illinois) on 4 July. Five days later, they took Cahokia.

After that, he sent envoys to Vincennes on the Wabash River, and they brought back news of the town’s allegiance to Virginia. Each town had succumbed without a single gun being fired.

Leyba was impressed with Clark’s achievements, to say the least. During Clark’s first visit to Fort San Carlos, Leyba ordered a two-day celebration, including an artillery salute, a formal dinner with thirty guests, and dances on two evenings followed by late suppers each night at Leyba’s home.

They became fast friends. Over the years Leyba honored him with gala banquets, and the two men frequently corresponded. After Clark’s death, his family sustained that the general long held romantic sentiments for Leyba’s sister.

VIII
Through Leyba and a former soldier of the Spanish army, Francis Vigo, Clark would receive much-needed supplies from Gálvez in New Orleans. Vigo had been a soldier in New Orleans but by then lived at St. Louis and had established a furtrading business there. He, like Clark, knew the region well and knew the natives. Clark ended up recruiting Vigo to spy on the British, and Vigo also was wealthy enough to finance Clark’s expedition.

IX 
In December 1778, Henry Hamilton, British lieutenant governor at Fort Detroit, departed with five hundred men down the Wabash River and easily retook Vincennes, which he renamed Fort Sackville. Clark sent Vigo to scout out the fort and report back to him at Kaskaskia. But Indians captured Vigo once he arrived and turned him over to Hamilton.

Since Vigo was a Spanish citizen and thus, in late 1778, a non-combatant, Hamilton was obliged to let him go. Nevertheless, Hamilton was suspicious of him and told him not to “do anything injurious to the British interests on his way to St. Louis.”

This commemorative postal card was issued in 1986. Vigo’s surname was of Italian extraction and he was born in the Piedmont region, but at the time of the Revolution he was a Spanish citizen and soldier. In the Old Northwest, he was known as “the Spanish merchant.”  Source: Ebay.com
This statue of Francis Vigo, completed in 1936, greets visitors at the George Rogers Clark National Historical Park in Vincennes, Indiana. The Wabash River flows in the background. Source: alamay.com

True to his word, Vigo traveled to St. Louis before returning to Kaskaskia to inform Clark of the British hold on Fort Sackville.  Feeling uneasy, Clark marched his men for eighteen days through freezing and flooded terrain in February 1779 to retake the fort by surprise.

Hamilton surrendered the next day. For those brave and trying exploits, Clark was hailed as a hero throughout Virginia.  While Virginians were grateful to Clark, the Commonwealth had not supported his efforts with enough cash and supplies.

Had it not been for Vigo, Leyba, and Gálvez, supplying him with materials, money, intelligence, and encouragement, it is highly doubtful that Clark would have been able to carry out his mission in the Illinois country.

Britain’s Grand Design

By the end of 1779 and beginning of 1780, Britain had begun seriously eyeing the Mississippi Valley as a potential second front. From the Illinois country, they planned to sweep down the Mississippi to New Orleans, targeting Spanish settlements along the western side of the river and taking control of river commerce. By cutting off the strategic flow of weapons and supplies coming up the Mississippi, the British army would have been able to shut down a crucial supply chain and, effectively, surround the Continental Army. To carry out this strategy, they had to rely heavily on the assistance of their Indian allies.

It can be said one of Britain’s greatest weaknesses (failures) in the American Revolution was their belief that Native Americans in the West and Loyalist sympathizers in the South would repeatedly risk their lives for the Crown’s sake. “Upon the declaration of war against Great Britain by Spain in 1779,” writes the late historian Milo Milton Quaife, “Britain proceeded to plan a comprehensive campaign which would sweep the whole western American frontier from Canada to Florida and result in destroying the power of both Spain and the colonists in the Mississippi Valley.

“From Pensacola in the South and Detroit in the Northwest, as centers of operation, the British forces were to converge upon lower Louisiana, having taken St. Louis en route.”

X
The British officer in charge of the campaign was named Emanuel Hesse. He set out in early 1778 with a few British regulars and over two hundred Indians from Northwest tribes hostile toward France.

Meanwhile, Leyba appealed to the early St. Louisans to fund their village’s own defense. In the end, though, he donated much of his personal money to the cause. Although he had wanted to build four stone towers, by mid-April of that year, only one had been completed.

It stood forty feet tall and measured thirty feet across. Leyba named it Fort San Carlos in honor of Charles III. The fort was located where Fourth and Walnut streets intersect in downtown St. Louis.

In anticipation of Hesse’s forces, Leyba had three four-pound cannons and two six-pounders placed atop the fort. By this time, his health was failing. His wife had already died in the Illinois country wilderness, and all he wanted was to take his two young daughters back to Barcelona. Instead, tensions mounted in St.Louis, which was protected by only sixteen Spanish soldiers and the able-bodied men of the town who comprised the militia.

XI

In upper Louisiana, George Rogers Clark, Fernando de Leyba, and Francis Vigo, along with Clark’s militia, proved valiant enough to stop the Brits. Galvez’ brilliant defense of lower Louisiana and along the Gulf Coast was yet to come. 

In February 1779, Clark recaptured Fort Sackville in Vincennes without any blood shed.
—Source: wikipedia.org

IAllen W. Gardner, A Naval History of the American Revolution, Vol. 1 (Houghton Mifflin & Co., 1915), p. 334.

IICharles Edward, Leading American Treaties (Macmillan, 1922), pp. 24-25.

IIIEdward G. Gray, Jane Kamensky, The Oxford Handbook of the American Revolution (OUP USA, 2013), p. 322.

IVRichard Van Alstyne, Empire and Independence: The International History of the American Revolution (New York: Wiley,

1965), pp 248-249.

VJohn Walton Caughey, Bernardo de Gálvez in Louisiana, 1776–1783 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1934); Lorenzo

G. LaFarelle, Bernardo de Gálvez: Hero of the American Revolution (Eakin Press, 1992).

VICaughey, pp. 82, 95, 165-166

VIIRobert B. Roberts, Encyclopedia of Historic Forts: “The Military, Pioneer, and Trading Posts of the United States,”

(Macmillan, 1988), pp 255, 325

VIII James Alexander Thorn, Long Knife, The Story of a Great American Hero, George Rogers Clark (Ballantine Books, 1986),

pp. 198, 230, 411

IXDorothy Riker, “Francis Vigo,” Indiana Magazine of History, Volume 26, Issue 1 (Indiana University, 1930), pp 12-24.

XMilo Milton Quaife, Chicago and the Old Northwest, 1673-1835: A Study of the Evolution of the Northwest Frontier (University

of Chicago Press, 1913), p. 94.

XIThomas E. Chavez, Spain and the Independence of the United States: An Intrinsic Gift (University of New Mexico Press,

2004); Missouri, A Guide to the Show-Me State, American Guide Series (Oxford University Press, New York, 1941).

‘Footnotes to the “Other” European Ally, Part II’

SAR and is the founder of the SAR’s Mexico Society and Spain Society, respectively.

GALVEZ BOOK EVENT JUNE SCHEDULE

Galvez / Spain - Our Forgotten Ally In The American Revolutionary War:
A Concise Summary of Spain's Assistance
by  Judge Edward F. Butler, Sr.  

Sat. Jun 6    9:00 a.m. Los Bexarenos Genealogical Society Meeting  San Antonio Public Library - distribution of flyers

 Tue. June 9   Texas Connection with the American Revolution   11:30 a.m. Petroleum Club, San Antonio, TX

Wed. June 17  San Antonio Chapter, SAR   
11:30 a.m. Petroleum Club, San Antonio, TX

NATIONAL SOCIETY SONS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION CONGRESS

Tue. Jun. 23 - book table in lobby on 6/22-24
and Mon. June 30   Time TBA - National Society Sons of the American Congress, Galt Hotel, Louisville, KY

Sat. Jul. 4   SAR Congress in Louisville, KY

Spanish SURNAMES

Naming system in Spain
The surname Bautista 

Naming system in Spain
Currently in Spain, people bear a single or composite given name (nombre) and two surnames (apellidos).

Batista is a Spanish or Portuguese surname literally meaning "batiste".

https://www.houseofnames.com/bautista-family-crest 

DNA

My venture into DNA
by Armando Zamarripa

After a few months I had my X chromosome, Maternal (mtDNA), tested. My Mother's Haplogroup was U, which is more Eastern European-Russian. My mother use to tell me her grandfather was "Dutch" but this was far from it. Great information but I didn't have much luck finding close relatives with the Genebase.

Armando also submitted pedigree information and about a corrido about his grandfather,  Click

FAMILY HISTORY RESEARCH

5 Places to Find Historical Books Online for Free

Millions of new US an international records this week including Philippines Civil Registration (National) 1945-1984 and Paraguay Catholic Church Records 1754-2015.   Find these and more by following the links below. 

Help Us Publish More Free Records Online
Searchable historical records are made available on FamilySearch.org through the help of thousands of online volunteers worldwide. These volunteers transcribe (or index) information from digital copies of handwritten records to make them easily searchable online. More volunteers are always needed (particularly those who can read foreign languages) to keep pace with the large number of digital images being published weekly online on FamilySearch.org. Learn how you can volunteer to help provide free access to the world’s historical genealogical records online at FamilySearch.org/Indexing.

FamilySearch is the largest genealogy organization in the world. FamilySearch is a nonprofit, volunteer-driven organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. To help in this great pursuit, FamilySearch and its predecessors have been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years. Patrons may access FamilySearch services and resources for free at FamilySearch.org or through more than 4,900 family history centers in 132 countries, including the main Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.

EDUCATION

Become a NHBWA member, 2020 N. Broadway Ave., Suite 100, Santa Ana, CA 92706 

Sent by patty@nationalhbwa.com 

Orange County, California Department of Education 
Makes surprise visits to announce the 2017 Orange County, California
Teachers of the Year
Newsroom OCDE.US
May 9, 2016

Once again, Bautista was surprised in front of his class, which broke into applause and let out a loud “Woohoo!” after Superintendent Mijares made the announcement. Like his colleagues, he was informed he would be receiving $15,000 in October courtesy of the Dr. James Hines Foundation, and he was presented with additional prizes by sponsors Disney and Schools First Federal Credit Union. “Are my feet touching the ground? I can’t even feel anything,” Bautista said.

In addition to teaching and counseling, Bautista coordinates the college’s Center for Teacher Education and is heavily involved with curriculum development. As part of his efforts to train the next generation of teachers, he regularly partners with Cal State Fullerton and Fullerton College. 

“He’s amazing,” said Dr. Micki Bryant, dean of Santa Ana College’s Counseling Division. “We can’t get him to stop coming up with new ideas.”

Bautista sees his role in higher education as one that guides, supports and encourages students to discover their gifts. 

Abiding by his philosophy of “meeting students where they are,” he works hard to instruct the students from the level at which they are in life at that exact moment. Bautista says this could mean anything from grooming future teachers to reducing the anxiety of a single parent returning to college or aiding a veteran in re-acclimating to civilian life. It’s all about helping to figure out what educational path is best for each student.

He believes teachers can change lives, and he enjoys helping students visualize a better future en route to reaching their full potential.

11:15 a.m. | Tustin Memorial Academy | Tustin Unified School District

In Room 14 at Tustin Memorial Academy, Courtney Smith was leading about 20 kindergartners in a song about Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf. The class, we learned, was practicing for an upcoming school play. But the song had to be briefly interrupted Monday to name Mrs. Smith a 2017 Orange County Teacher of the Year.

Surrounded by numbers, letters and bright colors, Superintendent Mijares presented the fourth Golden Apple to Smith, as the room filled with educators, sponsors and media.


“There are five top teachers in Orange County,” he said, “and you are one of them.”  Smith expressed her gratitude and embraced her husband, Tim, whose appearance was also a surprise.

“I feel very humbled and honored,” she said, “and it’s such an amazing privilege to work for this school district.”

Smith pulls out all the stops to engage students, using music, costumes and hands-on lessons to drive instruction. This year, her class has been working to hatch real duck eggs, and they recently backlit one to reveal some movement inside.

“She’s an amazing teacher,” Principal Wendy Hudson told the Newsroom. “She’s the kind of teacher you want your child to have every single year.”

A teacher for 17 years, Smith focuses on the specific areas in which students struggle while celebrating their strengths.

Providing a safe place for students to be accepted and encouraged, she is constantly utilizing cutting-edge techniques to ensure every student is valued. One example includes a daily focus on using the “TUMS” approach when the day starts. TUMS stands for “Touch,” “Use their name,” “Make eye-contact” and “Smile.” This proven technique, she says, makes a big impact on every child in her care.

She says her goal is to instill in her students a love for learning, to challenge them to grow academically, and to develop their skills and talents so they can be the best they can be.

12:25 p.m. | Dana Hills High School | Capistrano Unified School District

The last stop of the day is Dana Hills High School, where science teacher Kristine Clarke has just been named the fifth and final Orange County Teacher of the Year. 

Clarke teaches AP chemistry, biotechnology and forensics at Dana Hills. Because the Prize Patrol arrived during lunchtime, however, the Prize Patrol wasn’t able to surprise her during class. Instead, Superintendent Mijares and the school’s principal, Jason Allemann, opted to make the announcement in the school’s indoor lunch area, known as The Mall.

But wouldn’t you know it? Clarke was still in her classroom teaching a few students how to dust for fingerprints. Another staff member was dispatched to bring her out.

“I’m very honored,” Clarke said after the announcement was made over the PA. “I’m very blown away.”

This time the entire student body cheered, as did two special guests. Clarke’s parents, Mary and Mark of Orange, made the trip to celebrate the honor.

Clarke describes science as a discipline that comes to life through experience, and she uses her own research background to inspire her students.

Giving her students a glimpse into the professional world, she developed a class that mimics working in a real research laboratory. She advocates for the future of the students, and strives to provide them with skills that make them marketable. Several have gained internships as a result of completing her class, benefitting from connections with real experts in the field.

Clarke says science is a hands-on discipline and students learn best when they are exposed to science through experiments. Some examples include bringing in a real FBI forensic scientist to demonstrate how to compare fingerprints or analyzing blood spatter and performing a DNA analysis.

***
This year’s winners were selected from a field of 63 educators who were honored in their home districts. The process included both applications and interviews for the 15 semifinalists.

In addition to being recognized at the gala dinner in October, Orange County’s four K-12 Teachers of the Year are now eligible to compete for state honors. We’re told California usually announces its Teachers of the Year in November.

http://newsroom.ocde.us/ocde-makes-surprise-visits-to-announce-the-2017-orange-county-teachers-of-the-year/ 

Sent by Yvonne Gonzalez Duncan 
yvduncan@yahoo.com 

ADIOS CHAUCER!  ADIOS SHAKESPEARE!

AMERICANIZING THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT AND ITS CURRICULUM 
—A LATINO PERSPECTIVE

From Pluma Fronteriza, Part 1, April 20, 2011; Part 2, April 21, 2011; 
posted on LatinoStories, May 20, 2011; posted on la-mano@yahoogroups.com, May 20, 2011.

By Felipe de Ortego y Gasca

Scholar in Residence / Chair, Department of Chicana/Chicano and Hemispheric Studies, 
Western New Mexico University; 
Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature

In my education in the segregated public schools of the nation and in my pursuit of the Ph.D. in English,  I was enlightened by my study of Chaucer and Shakespeare and the other stalwarts in the pantheon of English letters. I got a good education, but in retrospect I see now how much better my education would have been by studying the works of African American writers and other non-English writers of the United States: like Isaac Bashevis Singer and Ole Rolvaag.

It’s time to look seriously at what departments of English in American universities should be about. Surely at the beginning of the 21^st century, Americans ought to have a clear sense of American literature and its place in the university curriculum. But it appears we don’t. Perhaps the problem stems from the nomencla­ture we’re still using to identify departments of English language and literature–Departments of English? That strikes me as rather anachronistic. H.L. Mencken had it right. Our language is not English; it’s American. So why are we still clutch­ing the label of “Department of English”? Because so many of us have been indoctrinated into believing that a special relationship exists between England and the United States, so much so that we think of England as the “mother” country.

Right! The country that oppressed its colonial citizens, waged punitive military actions against them, and 30 years after the Treaty of Paris torched the American capital in an effort to bring Americans back into the English fold. This is the mother country? Thanks Mom!

The fact of the matter is that the United States has many mother countries. The ancestors of Americans did not all come from England. In fact, today there are fewer Americans with English ancestry. I harbor no ill will towards England, having spent a year there looking for Hamlet’s ghost, researching Shakespeare for my work on The Stamp of One Defect: A Study of Hamlet (1966), but it’s time to accept our national identity for what it is and, surely, what it is still to become.

Reinforcing the proposition to Americanize the English department’s offerings in literature is a review of Marjarie Garber’s The Use and Abuse of Literature that appeared in the Books section of the El Paso Times (Sunday, April 3, 2011), in which professor Garber who teaches English at Harvard is lamenting the decline of those who read literature. She cites a report from the National Endowment for the Arts indicating that “less than half the adults responding to a 2002 Census survey inquiring if they had read any novels, short stories, poetry or plays in their free time.” Ann Levin, the reviewer, adds that what scares Professor Garber “more than ignorance of [T.S.] Eliot is unmistakable evidence that the study of literature is no longer considered essential for a well-educated individual.” Not surprisingly, Garber cites the writers Americans should be reading: Woolf, Eliot, and Shakespeare, failing to take into account the contemporary demographic profile of the United States and its writers like Baldwin, Morrison, Anaya, Chavez, Tan, Momaday, et al. In the near future, the United States will be a minority-majority country, most of whom will be Latinos.

This is not to say that Woolf, Eliot, and Shakespeare should not be read, only that there are others writers to read besides these Anglo-centric authors—that is, writers from England’s literary tradition. Why not Cervantes? Per the purpose of this piece, why not American writers like Ole Rolvaag or Isaac Bashevis Singer? Or Richard Wright or Ralph Ellison? Faulkner and Hemingway for that matter? Why not Ricardo Sanchez, Maria Elena Viramontes, Jose Antonio Villarreal? It’s time to acquaint American students with the richness of the American literary tradition as it has evolved to the present as a result of its multicultural mix of people. 

The facts of the matter are that in the early part of the 20^th century there were entrenched factions of Anglophiles in the departments of English at American universities that were hostile to American literature “as a worthy subject of historical and philological inquiry” (Vanderbilt, 185). It was only in 1921 that the Modern Language Association (MLA) acknowledged formation of an American Literature Group (Ibid.186). Although not as formidable a hostility, since then, however, Departments of English in American colleges and universities have given preference to courses in English literature than to courses in American literature. This is not to say that American literature is sucking hind teat, just that an audit of literature courses offered by English departments in American colleges and universities reveals the bias toward offering courses of English literature still present in those departments.

While a number of American professors like Bliss Perry and Brander Mathews were teaching courses on American writers during the early years of the 20^th century, most Americans like Alfred Knopf had “priggish notion[s], based on complete ignorance, that there was no American literature” (Vanderbilt, 187). Toward the end of the second decade of the 20^th century, J. B. Hubbell complained that no graduate courses in American literature were offered at Harvard during his two years there from 1906-1908, though four Chaucerians “were busily employed” during that time (Ibid.). In 1913, Arthur H. Quinn offered a graduate course in “Forms and Movement in American Literature,” perhaps the first course in American literature at an American college or university (Ibid. 188). In the years from 1910-1918 “no more than 10 to 15 percent of the English curriculum was reserved for American literature” (Ibid. 190). The underlying assumption for this preference was (and continues to be) that there existed/exists a special relationship between the United States and England, the mother country and that the United States is the child, deserving of less attention.

Great strides were made in the 1920’s in teaching American literature in the colleges and universities of the United States. Still, English literature remained preferable in the curricula of American departments of English, that is, American departments of English valued English literature over American literature. 

Though not yet a trend, a number of English departments in American colleges and universities are transitioning toward a profile that identifies them as departments of languages and literatures, focusing their course offerings on more American literature. There is nothing Catonist in seeking this change. As a Xenophobe, Cato thought that Rome should be for the Romans. This is not an “America for Americans” campaign. It’s an effort toward long overdue multicultural parity and equity.

That transition is still problematic because of the conditioning many of us were apodictically subjected to in pursuing degrees in English. In a recent C-Span interview, Henry Louis Gates, a pioneer in solidifying African American literature in public and higher education, extolled the virtues of English literature as the summa literature of all literatures. That kind of praise for English literature coming from someone whose kindred writers have been suppressed makes the going for American literature more difficult and tenuous.

But as Shakespeare’s Marc Antony intoned before the bier of Julius Caesar in Rome after his assassination: The fault dear, Brutus, lies not in our stars but in ourselves. As I have mentioned, the reason why American literature has been second-fiddle to English literature is that the American literati has not valued American letters. Why not?

From the very beginning, the United States was a motley aggregation of peoples from various parts of the world–mostly Europe with the exception of American Indians, African slaves,  and the Sephardic community of New York. They did not think of themselves as a single ethnically hegemonic group. I’m talking about the beginning of the United States–1776–not about the antecedent British colonies. In his Letters from an American Farmer (1782), St John de Crevecoeur (1735-1813) tells us about the multicultural and multilingual character of the United States at its founding, providing us with “some of the best surviving pictures of the diversity of tongues and types . . . that soon were to be welded into a new nation” (Stern and Gross 317). In Crevecoeur’s words: “They are a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes” (Ibid.). He does not mention the American Indians, the Sephardic Jews of New York who came with the Dutch nor the diversity of African slaves nor the Hispanics in the population.

     There were many other diverse groups of people in the American population at the beginning. According to Thomas Sowell,

Over the years a massive stream of humanity . . .  cross­ed every ocean and continent to reach the United States. They came speaking every language and representing every nationality, race, and religion. Today, there are more people of Irish ancestry in the United States than in Ireland, more Jews than in Israel, more blacks than in most African countries. There are more people of Polish ancestry in Detroit than in most of the leading cities of Poland and more than twice as many people of Italian ancestry in New York than in Ven­ice (3).

In the beginning the strength of the new nation was considered resident in the differences of its people—differences which were prized and celebrated. All tolled, the 13 states consisted of some 3 million people, half of them slaves. In the first history of the United States, Salma Hale described Americans as “coming from every quarter of the world, speaking many different languages, dispersed over a vast extent of the territory” (12). While they thought of themselves as Americans, the concept that would aggregate them all as a nationality was still years ahead of them. The nation was still fissured with ethnic and racial enclaves.

      The United States started its democratic experiment with a multicultural and multilingual crew. So, why departments of English? Why not departments of American Studies? Or American literature? I realize these identifiers may not be everyone’s cup or tea, but surely together we can come up with the right name for our purposes.

     Americans have been conditioned to believe that England is the sole mother country of the United States. From a post-colonial point of view, the United States has many mother countries: Germany, Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, to name but a few. As is evident, not all Americans are of English stock. Large numbers of them are from Indigenous American groups, Ireland, Scotland, Africa, Italy, Germany, Scandinavia, Middle European backgrounds. Increasing numbers of them are from Middle-East, Asian-Pacific, and Indo-Hispanic origins. These demographics are not new, as Crèvecoeur pointed out in his Letters from an American Farmer .

The face of our nation is changing, and its literary canon must change with it. Census projections predict that by the middle of the 21^st century whites will comprise a numerical minority in the American population. Even now, however, while the American population may be about 65% white, not all whites are of English stock. Paramount in a reconsideration of what to rename departments of English is the groundswell of American writers whose origins are not from England but from a diversity of countries whose national languages are not English.

     At the moment it appears that the largest and most significant demographic growth will be with American Hispanics, the majority of them Mexicans. The U.S. Census Bureau projects an American population of 439 million by the year 2050, one-third of whom will be Latinos—66 percent of whom will be Mexican Americans. Of the 310 million Americans today, 50 million are Latinos—16% of the U.S. population. And two/thirds of American Latinos today are Mexican Americans, fueling the demographic growth trend of Latinos in every county of the United States—every county. With this demographic profile of the United States looming in the future, does it not make sense that American literature reflect that demographic diversity? However that demographic diversity does not yet include American Hispanics—that is, Hispanics of the United States. Here and there an American Hispanic author is included in the anthologies of American literature. However, not in numbers commensurate with their proportion in the American population.

     Another third of the American population by mid-century will be minorities of color with origins from throughout the world: from Asia, Indonesia, Pacific Islanders, Africa, the Middle East, and a plethora of other places. Surely, the character of American literature must then reflect the character of its population? Is it not time to begin acknowledging and preparing for these demographic changes in the present?

     Some changes are occurring in snippets here and there. Some textbooks are beginning to reflect the full sweep of the American experience. Some anthologies of American literature have become more inclusive, the best of which is the Heath Anthology of American Literature edited by Paul Lauter, et al. with an Advisory Board that includes Latinos. But a 2002 McGraw Hill anthology of The American Tradition in Literature (10^th Edition) includes only one Hispanic writer, Isabel Allende born in Lima, Peru of Chilean parents, as representative of American Hispanic writers—that is, American Hispanic writers of the United States. This would be like including Inua Achebe, the African Nigerian writer, as representative of African American writers. Since Isabel Allende now lives and writes in the United States, she is technically an American Hispanic writer. The caveat, however, is that she has not lived the American Hispanic experience of the Mexican American born in the United States nor the experience of the Puerto Rican as a life-long citizen of the United States.

     Minority writers of the United States are contesting—nay, challenging—the narrow aperture of the American literary canon. As Walter J. Ong put it, “a minority literature often negotiates for its own identity with the majority culture and constantly redefines itself, ultimately bringing the majority culture to define itself more adequately” (Baker 3; see Ortego 2010). This is precisely also the challenge of the project on Recovering the U.S. Literary Heritage of the United States led by Nicolas Kanellos at the University of Houston. The contention of the Recovery Project is that Hispanic writers before 1776 in what is now the United States ought to be considered very much a part of American literature just as the British writers before 1776 in what is now the United States are considered a part of American literature. Both are colonial roots of American literature. Moreover, the Recovery Project argues that the literature extant in the territory dismembered from Mexico and acquired by the United States as a consequence of the U.S.-Mexico War (1846-1848) and ratified by the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo on February 2, 1848, rightly constitutes the roots of Mexican American literature (see Ortego 1971a).

In 1887, John Gilmary Shea presented the case in an article entitled “The First Epic of our Coun­try, by the Poet Conquistador of New Mexico, Captain Gaspar de Villagra” (United States Histori­cal Magazine, April). In the 1933 preface to Gilberto Espinosa’s translation of Villagrá, F. W. Hodge acknowledged that Villagrá’s work “may claim the distinction of being the first published history of any American common­wealth” (17). Jingoistic American history has negated that proposition, principally because Villagrá’s work was written in Spanish. To this Thomas M. Pearce did not mince words:

The English tradition, as it is carried on by the English language [in  the United States], has made few concessions to other elements in the literary history of this country (“American Tradi­tion and Our Histories of Literature”  (16).  

Villagrá’s work deserves consideration as the first epic in the literary history of the United States, for the fabric of American literature is not one woven exclusively on the Atlantic frontier by New England Puritans and Southern Cavaliers, but one woven in the American Southwest by Spanish and Mexican settlers as well.

In his article of 1942, professor Pearce argued that:  

If we must write history by chro­nology, let the  literature tell the story of the land. The English epic Beowulf found no mention in English literature until an anti­quary published a garbled summary in 1705; no English translation was made until 1837. Yet we do not introduce Beo­wulf into English histories as litera­ture of the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. It is discussed as the beginning, the source materials (18).  

This point was emphasized by Genaro Padilla in “Discontinuous Continuities: Re-mapping the Terrain of Spanish Colonial Narrative” (Herrera-Sobek, 34).

Indeed the Spanish literature of exploration dealing with the Southern and Southwestern portions of the United States—the chronicles of American exploration—have been excluded as part of our national literary heritage though they treat of the same themes of exploration as their British counterparts.

From 1527 to 1848, some 321 years, Spanish letters flourished in New Spain [subsequently called the Republic of Mexico after 1821]. There were thou­sands of other works by these people in New Spain and Mexico over that span of time. The parallel between New England and New Spain as precursors of American letters is all too striking with the exception that in New Spain the language of letters was Spanish. But the point is that if the United States can claim the writings of colonial New England as the roots of Ame­rican lite­ra­ture, it can equally claim the writings of colonial New Spain as roots of American literature also. The point is that New Spain is as relevant to the American experience as New England.

However, the fly in this ointment is that American teachers of English in high schools and colleges are ill-prepared not only for the ethnic diversity of their classrooms but also ill-prepared to teach the diversity of American literature since so few are exposed to the diversity of American literature since the focus of their training has been on Chaucer, Shakespeare, and the English literary canon. Like me in 1952, my first year of  teaching, when teachers of English stepped into their classrooms all they knew about American literature were the works of what was then the American literary canon, limited to Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Mark Twain. Nurtured on the Western Tradition, this is what they taught and what they passed on to subsequent generations of American students. Sacrosanct, the illumination of the Western Tradition in literature continued unabated until the emergence of minority movements of the post-Brown v. Board of Education era (Ortego 1971c).

My contention in this essay has been not to negate the English Tradition in which I was steeped but to augment it by opening the aperture of the American literary canon to include a more representative group of American writers (Ortego 1971b).

REFERENCES

Baker, Houston. 1982. Three American Literatures: Essays in Chicano, Native American and Asian American Literature for Teachers of American Literature. Modern Language Association.  

Hale, Salma. 1825. History of the United States from their first Settlement as Colonies to the Close of the War with Great Britain in 1815. New York: Charles Wiley.  

Herrera-Sobek, Maria. 1993. “Reconstructing a Chicano/a Literary History: Hispanic Colonial Literature of the Southwest. University of Arizona Press.  

Levin, Ann. 2011. “These days why read? Harvard prof makes the case” review of The Use and Abuse of Literature by Marjorie Garber, Pantheon Books, El Paso Times, Books 2F, Sunday, April 3.  

Mencken, H L. The American Language. Knopf, 1936,  

Ortego y Gasca, Felipe e. 2010. “Chicano Literature and Critical Theory: Forging a Literature of Opposition,” Somos en escrito: Latino Literary Online Magazine. February 11.  

Ortego y Gasca, Felipe de. 2009. “Reflections on Chicanos and the Teaching of American Literature, Latino Stories.com, July 6.  

Ortego y Gasca, Felipe de. 2008. “Latino American Literature,” in Books and Beyond: The Greenwood

Encyclopedia of New American Reading, Greenwood Press.  

Ortego y Gasca, Felipe de. 2006. “Chicano Poetry” in The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poets and Poetry. Greenwood Press.  

Ortego, Philip D. 1971a. Backgrounds of Mexican American Literature (diss.), University of New Mexico.  

Ortego, Philip D. 1971b. “Which Southwestern Literature in the English Classroom?” Arizona English

Bulletin, April.  

Ortego, Philip D. 1971c. “The Chicano Renaissance,” Journal of Social Casework, May.  

Ortego, Philip D. and Jose Carrasco. 1973. “Chicanos and American Literature,” Searching for America edited by Ernece Kelly, National Council of Teachers of English and the Conference on College Composition and Communication. Reprinted in The Wiley Reader: Designs for Writing, Edited by Caroline D. Eckhardt, James F. Holahan, and David H. Steward. New York: John Wiley and Sons.  

Pearce, Thomas M. 1942. American Literature, November.  

Shea, John Gilmary. 1887. United States Historical Magazine, April  

Sowell, Thomas. 1981. Ethnic America. Basic Books.  

Stern, Milton R. and Gross, Seymour Lee, Editors. American Literature Survey. 1968. Viking Press.  

Vanderbilt, Kermit. 1986. American Literature and the Academy: The Roots, Growth and the Maturity of a Profession, University of Pennsylvania Press.

CULTURE

Lladro

As it has been since ancient times, horses have inspired artists though the centuries… These noble, free spirited symbols of inspiration still today share our global art and history.  As created in the timeless beauty of Spain’s Lladro porcelain, started in a Moorish-style kiln in Almacera on Spain’s eastern Mediterranean coast, these horses still represent this enduring heritage. 

As you meet our Spanish Stallion, Lladro, it is obvious that the ‘living art’ he exemplifies is here and now, revealing the majesty and elegance of the glorious past. Lladro immortalizes the extraordinary beauty and essence of the Iberian horse.

New Song: "Somos Familia"

Our friends at Latino USA co-produced a segment with ESPN about a new bachata entrance song that Mets relief pitcher Jeurys Familia created with Zacarías Ferreíra.

We have to admit: as cheesy as it might sound, we actually like the song “Somos Familia” a lot. It’s catchy, it’s positive, it has this message of love and in the end, aren’t we all familia? Check out the entire song here:

~ Raul Colon raul.colon@gmail.com 

2016 Tony Awards Nominations: ‘Hamilton’ Nabs Record 16 Nominations

Lin-Manuel Miranda star in "Hamilton" on Broadway. 

He's A Genius
Miranda, who previously won a Tony for his first Broadway musical "In the Heights," was awarded the MacArthur "genius grant" in 2015. But he was already something of a prodigy as a youngster growing up in Inwood, a neighborhood on the northern tip of Manhattan, and was admitted to a school for gifted children.

"I went to a school where everyone was smarter than me. And I'm not blowin' smoke, I...was surrounded by genius, genius kids," Miranda told "60 Minutes" last fall. "What's interesting about growing up in a culture like that is you go, 'All right, I gotta figure out what my thing is.' Because I'm not smarter than these kids. I'm not funnier than half of them, so I better figure out what it is I wanna do and work really hard at that."

He Always Loved To Sing
What Miranda found was theater. He was in nearly every school play and his love of music was fostered at home as a child. His family collected cast albums and Miranda knew every line and lyric.

"He loved to sing," his mother Luz Towns-Miranda told "60 Minutes." "He was always creating and he loved words and songs."

He Identifies With Alexander Hamilton
Hamilton's story is an immigrant's story, and so is Miranda's. His parents moved from Puerto Rico, where they were born, to the mostly Hispanic neighborhood of Inwood. His father, Luis, is a political consultant and his mother is a psychologist. And like Hamilton, whom he plays in the show, Miranda feels a drive to pack as much as he can into his life.

"Here's the thing about Hamilton. I think Hamilton was ready to die from the time he was 14 years old," Miranda told "60 Minutes." "I think what he has is what I have, which is that thing of, 'Tomorrow's not promised. I gotta get as much done as I can.'"

Right after graduating from Wesleyan University in 2002 with a degree in theater arts, Miranda began working on "In the Heights," a musical about his old neighborhood. The show won the 2008 Tony for best musical, and two months later Miranda read Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton while on vacation.

Miranda Married His High School Classmate
Miranda married wife Vanessa Nadal, a litigation attorney, in 2010.  "We re-met in our mid-20s. She was out of my league in high school -- and then I got cool enough to date her when I was about 25 or so," Miranda told People magazine.

Sent by Mercy Bautista Olvera  
scarlett_mbo@yahoo.com 

A Corrido
by Melissa_Aleman 
April 30, 2016 
http://addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300 

Evelina Fernández: Scripting New Roles for Latino Actors with Premeditation

Lalo Guerrero: The King of Chicano Music
 posted by Jimmy Franco Sr. 
Source: Latino Point of View, Mar 6, 2012

Lalo, a son of Arizona, was a trailblazer who synthesized different genres of music such as boleros, corridos, boogie-woogie and rhythm and blues with the struggles of Chicanos, and by doing so, he created a new Chicano musical art form and a proud and inspirational legacy.

An interview by Jimmy Franco with Dan Guerrero, son of Lalo Guerrero.

Lalo was a major contributor to the development of Chicano music and culture.

Dan, can you give me some background on your father’s younger days and family background?
Lalo was born to Eduardo and Concepcion Guerrero in 1916 in the Barrio Libre section of Tucson which is now known as the Barrio Viejo. He was part of a large family and was named Eduardo Guerrero Jr., but was called Lalo by everyone who knew him. His father was a boilermaker who worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad. Lalo developed an interest in music and films at an early age.. He would attempt to sing popular songs that he heard and expressed this budding talent in school plays and other programs.

How did your dad get involved in music?
My grandmother Concepcion used to sing and play the guitar so she taught young Lalo these skills. As he grew up, his mother became his one and only music teacher and his primary musical influence. By the time he was in his teens, Lalo had a quartet called Los Carlistas which was named after a neighborhood social club. This quartet often played at the Charro Cafe which still exists in Tucson, but is now located at a different site. My father also began to write songs and composed the classic ranchera “Cancion Mexicana” which was made famous throughout Mexico by the popular singer Lucha Reyes.

What were the early years of his career like in regard to the type of audiences he played for and the struggles that he encountered?

Lalo and Los Carlistas performing in New York City during the 1930’s.

In 1938, a young Lalo and the popular Los Carlistas group, were chosen to represent Arizona at the World’s Fair being held in New York City. Lalo and the group drove all the way across the country in order to perform at this event. While in New York, the group also appeared on the Ted Bows Amateur Hour radio program which was held at the Radio City Musical Hall. During the depression years of the late 1930’s, my dad moved the family to Mexico City due to the dismal economic situation that they faced in Arizona. While in Mexico City, Lalo broadened out his musical knowledge and repertoire by performing and listening to popular boleros and to the music of famous contemporary artists such as Augustin Lara, Jorge Negrete and other prominent musicians. After a short period of time, my father’s family eventually returned to Tucson Arizona which they considered their permanent home.

Did Lalo encounter any discrimination or restrictions on his ability or opportunity to develop his career?
Of course. During this period of segregation within the U.S. there were certain venues and clubs, where despite my father’s talent, he was not allowed to play in due to the discrimination faced by Chicanos. I presume that it must have been frustrating for him to encounter such racial barriers that blocked his artistic creativity and ability to perform, but those were the social obstacles that minorities faced during this period in history.

As a band leader where he combined vocals with his rhythmic maracas.

He also could not get a lot of work with the popular swing bands of the time even though his English was perfect, so he decided to sing his songs in Spanish and bilingually. In reality, he suffered dual discrimination as his career was stifled here in the U.S. due to the racism, while in Mexico, his music was not totally accepted and was considered to be that of a pocho or Mexican-American. He did well as a composer during those times, but could not make a breakthrough in his career as a singer in English. My dad was not to be stopped, so he decided to broaden out his appeal by singing in both English and Spanish which was somewhat distinct at the time and this eventually became a part of his evolving musical style.

How did the move to Los Angeles during the 1940’s provide your father with more opportunities to showcase his talent?  His decision to relocate his young family from Arizona to L.A. was based upon the premise that there would be more work available to him and that L.A. would hopefully provide an opportunity to perform before a broader audience and therefore enhance his career.  

My dad began singing in a duet with Lupe Fernandez at the Cafe Caliente which was located on Olvera Street. He also performed with a larger group for a number of years at the Cafe La Bamba which was on Sunset Boulevard near Olvera Street. He wore ruffled sleeves when he performed at La Bamba and sang a variety of Latino songs for an audience that included many movie stars who often frequented the club.   Performing with his group at the La Bamba restaurant near L.A.’s Olvera Street.

El Trio Imperial and Lalo record a hit song for Imperial Records. When did his career as a recording artist begin and with which songs?  He decided to record at Imperial records with a group named El Trio Imperial which took the name of the record label. This record company then asked him to record an Augustin Lara song named “Pecadora” as a solo and it became a big hit which greatly advanced his career. From that time forward my dad began to record more frequently and perform solo as he further developed his own style and career.

The style and lyrics of your father’s songs resonated deeply with many Chicanos during the 1950’s, where did he find the inspiration and material for many of the lyrics that he wrote?

My dad was essentially a historian through music. He wrote and performed his music for the Chicano community and others who appreciated his talent. The inspiration and lyrical content for his songs came from the culture and history that he observed around him and which he experienced on a daily basis. He created his own style of corridos that ranged from parodies of mini-skirts, tortillas and Santa Claus, to more serious lyrics about social issues that dealt with Cesar Chavez, the August 29th Chicano Moratorium and the death of journalist Ruben Salazar.  

Were Lalo’s songs ever criticized by mainstream conservative music critics?
No, not very much except for the song Pancho Lopez. The reason is that his music was geared to a specific Chicano audience. Hit songs such as “Pachuco Boogie, Marijuana Boogie, Vamos a Bailar”, and other musical creations of his were essentially ignored by mainstream critics who dismissed them as part of a sub-culture type of music much like rhythm and blues was. Thus, his music was not viewed as a threat to the predominate music of the time that was performed by white musicians for a conservative white audience.

Many young Chicanos and blacks during the 1950’s listened to rhythm and blues music on the radio that was then considered “race music”, while white audiences primarily listened to popular music performed by white musicians. How did your father find his place culturally and musically within these different and separate worlds of musical genres and society?

Yet, on the other hand, he wanted to express and connect with the sentiments of his people and their struggles with a musical form that related to their experiences.

Lalo performed with accordionist-vocalist Flaco Jiminez from San Antonio at an American Music Festival held in Paris France. Participating U.S. musicians at this festival also performed blues, jazz and other American musical art forms. So, my dad and Flaco played Chicano-Tejano music, but it was viewed and appreciated by the audience as an integral part of the family of traditional American music. In a culmination to his long and productive career, a ceremony was held at the White House in 1997 in which President Clinton awarded my father the National Medal of Arts which is the nation’s highest arts award.

Before your dad passed away, I had the privilege of hearing him perform in Los Angeles and he still expressed the vibrancy and life that his music always projected. How was he able to do this at such a late age?  He was semi-retired and living in Palm Springs for a period of time where he regularly performed at the “Las Casuelas” restaurant. However, he eventually returned to Los Angeles to perform songs such as “Muy Sabroso Blues” with the same energy and enthusiasm as always.   Lalo loved to play before a live audience where he could relate to them and this mutual rapport motivated and gave him the energy to continue performing all the way to the end.

In 2003, he recorded some songs with Ry Cooder for a CD titled Chavez Ravine. This musical narrative depicted the unjust expulsion of Chicanos from Chavez Ravine and the destruction of their community during the 1950’s in order to make way for the building of Dodger Stadium. By 2005, after a long career of six decades, Lalo’s voice and guitar fell silent as he passed away and Chicano music lost its most creative innovator and trailblazer.

What do you think your dad’s reaction would have been to what is happening in Arizona with its present racial laws and restrictions aimed at Chicanos and other Latinos?
I am sure that he would have been very upset at what was happening in his beloved Arizona and would most likely have found a way to protest this injustice. I recently participated in a demonstration in Arizona against these racist laws with Dolores Huerta and Linda Ronstadt. I know my father would have participated and raised his voice and guitar in opposition to this growing repression against Chicanos and the violation of their basic rights in his home state.

Why is it important that we keep Lalo’s musical legacy alive and make it known and appreciated to a broader and younger audience?

My dad’s musical legacy is part of our proud history and it depicted the world around him that he observed and experienced. His music was constantly evolving in order to keep pace with changing conditions, musical tastes and people’s new experiences. Lalo’s lyrics and music projected a vibrancy and feeling for life that resonated with people who saw him as one of them and who spoke, felt and understood them and their lives. My father was a socially conscious historian who expressed himself musically, and in doing so, he brought contemporary social issues to his audience in a creative and entertaining way. He was also very outspoken and proud to be a Chicano and loved his culture and utilized it musically while performing for his audiences.  

For more on the legacy of Lalo Guerrero log on to the web site: LaloGuerrero.com
Sent by Walter Herbeck tejanos2010@gmail.com
LatinosPOV.com

BOOKS & PRINT MEDIA

Bless Me, Ultima is a 2013 film directed by Carl Franklin. It is an adaptation of the 1972 novel of
  the same name by Rudolfo Anaya.

Welcome to the new weekly video  Podcast and YouTube Show Latino Reads Each week we will feature Award Winning Authors and other great information for anyone who loves to read. This weekly show is available on iTunes as Podcast and on YouTube. Marie Elena Cortés has worked hard on this show and we hope you enjoy it.

Source: Hispanic Marketing 101, 
Kirk Whisler, kirk@whisler.com 
760-579-1696

What is a Mexcellent? Let Enrique Garcia Naranjo explain
by Enrique Garcia Naranjo, March 12, 2016
Photo credit:  Chelsea Gleisner


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

Sent by Mercy Bautista Olvera  
scarlett_mbo@yahoo.com  

The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise
Muslims, Christians, and Jews under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain 
by Dario Fernandez-Morera

Mimi, it is an honor to send you my thoughts on this recently-published early Southwest history book. 

It’s a step-by-step account of New Mexico’s history.  Plus, it skillfully folds into the story, the well-researched account of the courageous Maestas Family, present at every step of the way.  

In fact, the sub-title says it all: “True Stories of Early Spanish Colonial Settlers and the Mestas/Maestas Families”.  In truth, the Maestas story in New Mexico symbolizes the larger narrative of our rich heritage and its influence in Southwest history.  

Indeed, stories such as these are what separate our large Spanish Mexican-descent group from our other sister Hispanic groups that came later to the U.S. as immigrants.  I recommend the book to history aficionados who wish to know how and why it is that the rest of us in the Southwest owe so much to the origins of New Mexico.  Enjoy the book!

Saludos, Joe López
www.TejanosUnidos.org   

It takes a great deal of inspiration and support to honestly and fully share your story with all of the ups and downs, fears and blessings that come up along the way. I have had the good fortune to receive both inspiration and support from numerous mindful, influential people in my life. They have each inspired me in their own way and helped me to become the strong, confident Latina woman that I am today.  The women who share their stories in Today’s Inspired Latina, Volume II also have bold, touching, inspiring stories to share. Such openness takes courage.

Like many modern Latina women grew up with my share of challenges to overcome, just a few included:
*Being separated from my mother at a young age 
* Moving from my beloved Dominican Republic to the United States at the impressionable young age of 12 
* Having to learn English at an age when most young women are filled with self-doubt and worry
* Overcoming bullying and harassment during my early teen years
* Developing a profound love for my culture and heritage while embracing new customs, a new language
* Discovering the power of education as the key to success in life and business
* Finding a deep reserve of persistence, focus, and determination and using it to propel me to success in the
   male dominated field of computer science engineering

Today’s Inspired Latina, Volume II, is a collection of 26 personal stories of Latina success coming together to build a national movement to motivate you, your community, and the next generation. You deserve to be happy, empowered, and successful, but it can be a challenge if you don’t have examples to look up to or follow.

Whether you need support, community, or simply to enjoy a feel good book, I invite you to spend time getting to know your Latina sisters. You can pre-order volume II of Today’s Inspired Latina HERE in hard copy. My goal is that you will see yourself reflected back from the pages of this inspiring collection and that you will come away from it feeling empowered and ready to move forward in your life.

CHOOSE SUCCESS! 
Along the path to success, I had my share of ups and downs, just like many of the women featured in Today’s Inspired Latina, Volume II. And, like these women, I could not have done it alone. My younger brother, Ruben, and my mother, Eddy, were key figures in my development. Both inspire me daily with their own commitments to greatness and personal leadership. They embrace their heritage while holding themselves to high standards. I am deeply grateful for their strength, encouragement, compassion, and support. Without their examples, I would not be where I am today and I certainly would not have had the courage to share my story so boldly and publicly.

The many other Latinas featured in Today’s Inspired Latina, Volume II also have stories of overcoming, achieving, and the importance of support along the way. Myself and all of the contributors, led by Jackie Camacho-Ruiz collaborated on this important piece of Latina inspiration to encourage others like yourself and the Latina women in your life to go out and seek your own path to success. 

This volume and the stories of these extraordinary, strong, courageous Latina women will offer you: 
· A sense of self-identity within the Latina community
· Encouragement to pursue your dreams
· Deep reserves of will-power and a can-do attitude in the face of challenges
· A mirror to see that you have the shoulders of many other Latina women supporting you
· Empowerment to embrace your Latina heritage
· Examples of self-fulfillment and self-empowerment
· And much more

Today’s Inspired Latina, Volume II Official Release Date is May 5, 2016
This Book Is For You If:
You enjoy uplifting tales of everyday women achieving extraordinary success 
You enjoy stories of success and empowerment
You want to encourage other Latinas in their own life and business success journeys
You are ready to support the Latina women in your life
You want to see yourself reflected in the stories of others

https://fannymairena.com/get-the-book# 
Sent by Mercy Bautista Olvera 
scarlett_mbo@yahoo.com 

Divided into ten chapters, Rules for Radicals provides 10 lessons on how a community organizer can accomplish the goal of successfully uniting people into an active organization with the power to effect change on a variety of issues. Though targeted at community organization, these chapters also touch on other issues that range from ethics, education, communication, and symbol construction to nonviolence and political philosophy.[3]

ORANGE COUNTY, CA

June 11th: PBS Documentary, On Two Fronts, Latinos & Vietnam 
Presented by Art Montez and Zeke Hernandez, Vietnam Era Veterans

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

Genealogical research assistance will be available 
from 9-10 a.m. Program, 10:00-11:30 a.m.  
For more information 
Contact: Letty Rodella shhar@att.net

Huntington Beach 
Might Rename Arevalos Park
And 
Erase a Part of OC Latino History
By Gustavo Arellano 
OC Weekly, May 17, 2016

If you're not from Huntington Beach, trying to find Arevalos Park is a bit tricky unless you're a cyclist. The tiny greenbelt is right next to the Santa Ana River, right at the part where our Mississippi breaks out of its concrete straightjacket and reverts to its natural state. Arevalos is easiest to access from the bike trail; otherwise, a visitor usually gets lost going through the residential neighborhoods that surround it.