Letters to the Editor:

UNITED STATES

National American Latino Museum in Washington

"The number of Hispanics running for public office has easily doubled in the region since the year 2000, with more winning election."  

82nd Annual LULAC National Convention 
Cincinnati, OH from June 27 through July 2, 2011.
For convention information and registration, contact the LULAC National Office at (202) 833-6130.

An article in The New York Times today highlights the hurdles facing the potential creation of a National American Latino Museum in Washington, D.C. Take a moment to learn more about the work of the National American Latino Museum Commission and stay up-to-date on the upcoming release of the final report to Congress.Here are 3 things you can do today to stay informed:
1. Learn more about the work the National American Latino Museum Commission.
2. Join the conversation on Facebook , become a fan.
3. Tell your friends and family about the work of the Commission.
Sincerely, The National American Latino Museum Commission

This week the Senate (May 6, 2011) passed a resolution honoring the members of the military and intelligence community who carried out the mission that killed Osama bin Laden by a roll call vote of 97-0. (S.Res. 159) 

It should be noted that the Senate also agreed to a resolution recognizing the historical significance of the Mexican holiday of Cinco De Mayo. (S.Res. 167)
Sent by Elroy Martinez Eloy_Martinez@DSOC.SENATE.GOV

Latino Commission’s Final Report.

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/05/commission-asks-congress-to-support-a-smithsonian-american-latino-museum/

We are pleased to share the great news on the Latino Museum being proposed for Washington DC. The report by the Latino Museum Commission was delivered to President Obama and to Congress yesterday and we believe this further strenghthens our national preservation goals as well.

Our firm was invited by the National Parks Service to be part of the national team that worked closely with the Commissioners and prepared the final report with recommendations. Now is the time to contact your representatives and senators in Congress to support this effort and make it into law. 

Best, Warren Antonio James, AIA, LEED
Warren A. James Architects + Planners
138 East 112th Street
New York NY 10029-2671
T. 212.691.0980  F. 212.691.4141
S. wjames.com

Source for the following statements: 2009 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates, Selected Population Profile in the United States: Mexican http://factfinder.census.gov

31.7 million: Number of U.S. residents of Mexican origin in 2009. These residents constituted 10 percent of the nation’s total population and 66 percent of the Hispanic population.

52.4%:  Percent of Mexican-origin people who were male.

19.6 million: Number of people of Mexican origin who lived in California (11.5 million) or Texas (8.04 million). People of Mexican origin made up nearly one-third of the residents of these two states.

25.6: Median age of people in the US of Mexican descent. This compared with 36.8 years for the population as a whole.

673,000: Number of Mexican-Americans who were U.S. military veterans.

1.5 million:  Number of people of Mexican descent 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree or higher. This included about 404,000 who had a graduate or professional degree.

34.7%:  Among households where a householder was of Mexican origin, the percentage of married-couple families with own children younger than 18. For all households, the corresponding percentage was 21 percent.

4.2 people:  Average size of families with a householder of Mexican origin. The average size of all families was 3.2 people.

15.8%:  Percentage of employed civilians 16 and older of Mexican heritage who worked in managerial, professional or related occupations. In addition, 27 percent worked in service occupations; 21 percent in sales and office occupations; 15 percent in construction, extraction, maintenance and repair occupations; and 18 percent in production, transportation and material moving occupations.

$39,115:  Median income in 2009 for households with a householder of Mexican origin.  For the population as a whole, the corresponding amount was $50,221.

25.1%:  Poverty rate in 2009 for all people of Mexican heritage. For the population as a whole, the corresponding rate was 14.3 percent.

69.0%:  Percentage of civilians 16 and older of Mexican origin in the labor force.  The percentage was 65 percent for the population as a whole. There were 14.5 million people of Mexican heritage in the labor force, comprising 9 percent of the total.

49.7%:  Percentage of householders of Mexican origin in occupied housing units who owned the home in which they lived. This compared with 65.9 percent for the population as a whole.

11.4 million or 36.0%:  Number and percentage of Mexican-origin people who were foreign-born; 2.6 million of them were naturalized citizens. Among the population as a whole, 12.5 percent were foreign-born.

76%:  Percentage of Mexican-origin people who spoke a language other than English at home; among these people, 37 percent spoke English less than “very well.” Among the population as a whole, the corresponding figures were 20 percent and 9 percent, respectively.

Trade With Mexico

$393.0 billion
The value of total goods traded between the United States and Mexico in 2010. Mexico was our nation’s third-leading trading partner, after Canada and China. The leading U.S. export commodity to Mexico in 2010 was unleaded gasoline ($5.9 billion); the leading U.S. import commodity from Mexico in 2010 was crude petroleum ($22.6 billion). Source: Foreign Trade Statistics

http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/top/top1012yr.html#total and http://www.usatradeonline.gov

Businesses
Source for statements in this section: Hispanic-Owned Firms: 2007

1.0 million
Number of firms owned by people of Mexican origin in 2007. They accounted for 45.8 percent of all Hispanic-owned firms. Mexicans led all Hispanic subgroups.  http://www.census.gov/econ/sbo/get07sof.html?11

$155.5 billion 
Sales and receipts for firms owned by people of Mexican origin in 2007, 45.1 percent of all Hispanic-owned firm receipts.
http://www.census.gov/econ/sbo/get07sof.html?11

47.7%
Percentage increase in the number of businesses owned by people of Mexican origin between 2002 and 2007.
http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/business_ownership/cb10-145.html

70.5%
Percent of all Mexican-owned U.S. businesses located in either California or Texas. California had the most Mexican-owned U.S. firms (36.1 percent), followed by Texas (34.4 percent) and Arizona (4.1 percent). http://www.census.gov/econ/sbo/get07sof.html?11

16.5%
Ratio of Mexican-owned firms to all firms in Texas, which led all states.  New Mexico was next (15.1 percent), followed by California (10.9 percent), Arizona (8.6 percent) and Nevada (4.9 percent). http://www.census.gov/econ/sbo/get07sof.html?11

32.3%
Percentage of Mexican-owned U.S. firms in the construction and repair, maintenance, personal and laundry services sectors. Mexican-owned firms accounted for 5.1 percent of all U.S. businesses in these sectors.
http://www.census.gov/econ/sbo/get07sof.html?11

Mexican Food

$100.4 million 
Product shipment value of tamales and other Mexican food specialties (not frozen or canned) produced in the US in 2002.
Source: 2002 Economic Census  http://www.census.gov/econ/census02/guide/INDRPT31.HTM

$48.9 million 
Product shipment value of frozen enchiladas produced in the United States in 2002. Frozen tortilla shipments were valued even higher, at $156 million.  Source: 2002 Economic Census http://www.census.gov/econ/census02/guide/INDRPT31.HTM

374
Number of U.S. tortilla manufacturing establishments in 2008. The establishments that produce this unleavened flat bread employed 16,311 people. Tortillas, the principal food of the Aztecs, are known as the “bread of Mexico.” One in three of these establishments was in Texas.  Source: County Business Patterns: 2008 http://www.census.gov/econ/cbp/

The preceding data were collected from a variety of sources and may be subject to sampling variability and other sources of error.  Facts for Features are customarily released about two months before an observance in order to accommodate magazine production timelines. Questions or comments should be directed to the Census Bureau’s Public Information Office: telephone: 301-763-3030; fax: 301-763-3762; or e-mail: pio@census.gov

By Felipe de Ortego y Gasca

Scholar in Residence and Chair, Department of Chicana/Chicano and Hemispheric Studies, Western New Mexico University; Professor Emeritus of English, Texas State University System—Sul Ross; Editor-in-Chief, ABC-CLIO Greenwood Encyclopedia of Latin Issues Today 

 Cinco de Mayo:

A Battle for Recognition

By Dr. Lily Rivera

Speech first given May 3, 2001 
San Bernardino Hispanic Employees Alliance

lilyrivera1@yahoo.com

Forget all the articles you've ever read that purport to explain why we celebrate Cinco de Mayo in the United States. They've got it all wrong.  It's not about celebrating a victory in a battle on the Fifth of May in 1862, in the City of Puebla, in the country of Mexico. It's not about honoring poor and untrained peasants who, though far out-numbered, defeated soldiers from what was then the greatest military force in the world, the French army.  

No, it is not about that, and it is not about recent immigrants, either. It is about those of us who were born here, whose parents, grandparents, and great grandparents came to this country long, long ago. It is about us as American citizens who have been marginalized socially and economically, a people who have had to wrench their rights and privileges from an unwilling populace through the force of law. It is about those of us who, until only the most recent of times, were not included in this country's history books.  

We celebrate the Cinco de Mayo, not in recognition of a battle in another nation, but to battle for recognition in this nation—recognition that we are equal to all others in intellect and goodness, that we represent a positive element in American Society. We seek recognition so that our children's potential will be allowed to flourish, that we will be given equal opportunity in the workforce and leadership of this nation, goals that statistics confirm we have not yet achieved. Finally, we connect to a battle in the history of our forefathers because we need appreciation for the contribution we have made to this country.  

For cxample, when we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, our local newspaper observed that day by publishing four full pages of stories about men who served in Vietnam. I read names like Kimball, White, Stenzler, Russell, Kaufman, Lockwood. I didn't find a single Sanchez, Lopez, Gonzales.  

We are all familiar with the Vietnam War Statistics, that nearly 60,000 men and women lost their lives in the battlefields of that country, that nearly one in every five of those combatants was a Hispanic soldier. Recognition of the Hispanic contribution to the Vietnam War would have taken nothing from the recognition given to other war heroes. Yet, not one, not one Garcia, Rodriguez, or Nuñez was mentioned in our local newspaper's four pages of coverage.  

This matters. What is reported in today's press is significant because today's newspaper article is tomorrow's historical document. If today's periodicals mention only the crimes Hispanics commit and the failures they experience, that is all that the world will know about us. If our deeds are not applauded, if our achievements are not celebrated, if our contribution to this nation is not lauded today, our grandchildren will have nothing to honor about us tomorrow.  

We celebrate Cinco de Mayo because we have a need for heroes, not just because heroes do great and glorious things, but because we see them as people like us. In finding commonalties with them, we draw courage, inspiration, and a belief in ourselves as worthy human beings. So, we reach back a century and a half. We reach south 2,000 miles, south to the heroes of another nation, of another time. We connect to the weak and the brave in a place far away in a moment long ago, for we see in their struggle and in their victory something within us, the potential for victory against great odds, the potential to contribute historically, significantly to this nation.  

Our battle for recognition is not easy. There are those who suggest that Hispanics are unpatriotic, that we are not loyal Americans because on this day, we wave a flag from another country. Such people must be reminded that there is no disloyalty to this nation in honoring our roots in the same way Irish Americans do on St. Patrick's Day and that German Americans do during Octoberfest. All Americans must recognize that what makes this nation great is that it is, and we are, red, white, blue—and brown, and that no group's loyalty to this country is minimized by celebrating its heritage.  

Part of the battle for recognition involves the fact that to many people in this nation, we are not “real” Americans. It is a sad fact that while many of us are generations removed from being immigrants, too many Hispanics are still generations away from being seen as “real” Americans.  

My family, like yours, exemplifies this. My husband, Tom Rivera, was born 71 years ago. In the same house in which his father was born. In Colton. In California. In the United States. Yet, to many of our neighbors, we are and always will be their "Mexican"' neighbors. I ask, and we should all ask, how many generations must we produce in order for our people to be considered real, full Americans? As long as we are not viewed as such, we will neither be the neighbor of choice nor the coveted employee.  

If Hispanics are to achieve recognition in this nation, I believe that we must achieve three goals.  

First, we must learn to like ourselves. People who do not like themselves, who have no respect for their own kind, allow themselves to be trampled. America has a history of giving disenfranchised people equal treatment only as a result of being forced to do so by this nation's courts. Unless we respect ourselves enough to speak up for ourselves, we will not fully enjoy the fruits of American citizenship.  

Self-love begins by touching our past. We should learn how our forefathers came to this nation, the struggles they endured, the sacrifices they made. We would be wise to visit the land of our ancestors, plant our feet where they once walked, bathe in the rivers that watered their crops. We should stand before the pyramids built by the Aztecs and the temples created by the Mayans and marvel at their spectacular engineering feats. It is through the touching of our past that we acquire the knowledge that leads to self-esteem.  

Secondly, we must pledge to move ourselves beyond the “firsts.” We take great pride in having a first Hispanic doctor, a first Hispanic mayor, a first Hispanic congressman. These are commendable achievements. I agree. But, we should also be ashamed. Our forefathers founded this entire region and many of the major cities in California more than 200 years ago. Yet, it is only in the very recent past that we have been able to celebrate the first mayor, the first… We should be ashamed that we have not worked harder to improve our lot, have not pushed ourselves to greater achievements.  

In our push for progress, we must be prepared to make sacrifices, just as our forefathers did. We, too, must risk. We must get involved in the social, educational and political processes of this nation, no matter how much failure and resentment we encounter. We may not succeed, but our failure, our experience, will become a stepping stone for the path that others can follow.  

Thirdly, if we are to gain recognition and assure our full participation in this land, we must speak out against injustice and inequality. When people are arrested, they are reminded that they have the right to remain silent. But the American Civil Liberties Union reminds us of a far greater right—the right not to remain silent. We must exercise that right and not hesitate to address loudly and frequently the issues that prohibit us from developing our full potential and sharing our talents with this great nation.  

One hundred forty-nine years ago, at the end of what we now call the Cinco do Mayo battle, its leader, General Ignacio Zaragoza, wrote to the Minister of Defense in Mexico City to report his soldiers’ victory. He wrote:  

“Las armas nacionales se han cubierto de gloria…puedo afirmar con orgullo que ni un momento volvio la espalda al enemigo el ejcrcito mexicano.”  

“I delight,” he wrote, “in informing you that the armies of this country have covered themselves in glory. I can confirm with pride that not for one second did any soldier retreat; not for a moment did our military turn its back to the enemy to run away in defeat.” And neither must we ... whether the enemy is ourselves or an unjust system.  

True victory in this battle for recognition lies not just in our personal academic and financial success. A minority of successful Hispanics is not proof that we have achieved parity as a people. The battle will only be won when Hispanics no longer remain at the top of the dropout list, the prison population, and the unemployment lines. We must continue to celebrate Cinco de Mayo without apologies until the day when Hispanic Americans stand truly equal to all other Americans.                           

Dr. Lily Rivera, a retired educator was born in San Jose, California and now lives in Grand Terrace California. Text of speech revised 2011to reflect my husband’s current age and the number of years since the Battle of Puebla.  Lilyrivera1@yahoo.com                                                                    

Sent by Juan Marinez  marinezj@anr.msu.edu

WITNESS TO HERITAGE

I concluded by sharing with the Commissioners the words of an old WW2 friend, who had told me, in tears, that El Segundo Barrio deserves to be right up there with Ellis Island and Angel Island because we have paid for it with our blood and with our lives, given when we were young and when we answered - here! - when our county called.

He stated that although there is an item on the agenda regarding the Segundo Barrio Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy plan developed by the Department of Community Development, which includes a goal to identify historically significant buildings, the City's historic preservation staff was not included in the preparation of that document.

But, we holler out loud and clear, because we speak for our culture and the blood of our veterans, ¡¡Si se puede!!

That is, with your help. Please call, fax or e-mail the members of city government. If you are displeased with them, let them know. But above all, let them know that El Segundo deserves to be on a par with Ellis Island and Angel Island.  Their contact information appears below. And please copy viejolex1@gmail.com

John Cook: mayor@elpasotexas.gov   Phone: (915)541-4145  Fax: (915)541-4501
Ann Morgan Lilly : district1@elpasotexas.gov   Phone: 915-541-4151  Fax: 915-541-4380
Susie Byrd : district2@elpasotexas.gov   Phone: 915-541-4416  Fax: 915-541-4348
Emma Acosta: district3@elpasotexas.gov   Phone: 915-541-4515  Fax: 915-541-4258
Carl L.Robinson: district4@elpasotexas.gov   Phone: 915-541-4140  Fax: 915-541-4213
Rachel Quintana: district5@elpasotexas.gov   Phone: 915-541-4701  Fax: 915-541-4360
Eddie Holguin Jr.: district6@elpasotexas.gov   Phone: 915-541-4182  Fax: 915-541-4262
Steve Ortega: district7@elpasotexas.gov   Phone: 915-541-4108  Fax: 915-541-4134
Robert O'Rourke: district8@elpasotexas.gov   Phone: 915-541-4123  Fax: 915-541-4300

ERASING HISTORIC REALITY
PERSISTENCE OF THE BLACK LEGEND

HONORING HISPANIC LEADERSHIP

NATIONAL ISSUES

Will Public Workers and Immigrants March Together on May Day
Proud Act introduced  by Congressman Baca

Valenzuela Brothers, born in Mexico to an American mother and Mexican father.  Brought up in the United States, both served in the Vietnam War.  

Working In These Times, 4/28/11

Hispanic Link Weekly Report April 28, 2011
Vol. 29, No. 8

Charlie Erickson
Source: Hispanic Link
1420 N St. NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 234-0280

Sent David Bacon dbacon@IGC.ORG


Roberto Vazquez                         <admin@lared-latina.com>

Ghost Town

Just a few miles across the Rio Grande, the residents of Ciudad Mier lived in terror, forgotten by their government and at the mercy of drug cartels. Could anyone survive this nightmare?

By Cecilia Ballí

Source: Texas Monthly, 
February 2011

YEAR OF FEAR: After last February, when a war broke out between two rival cartels, Ciudad Mier descended into chao

The Bad Ones came to town around eight o’clock on a cold February evening, and no one was prepared. When the gunfire and the explosions began, panic coursed through the narrow streets and spilled into the small cement and cinder-block homes where families were warming their dinners. Children cried, doors and windows slammed shut, people dropped to the ground. They closed their eyes and felt their hearts race. Outside they could hear the ceaseless spitting of AK-47’s and .50-caliber sniper rifles, the thunder of blasting grenades. Just three miles south of the Rio Grande, the Mexican town of Ciudad Mier would never be the same.

It’s not like the Bad Ones—this is what the Mierenses would come to call them—hadn’t been there already. It’s not like they hadn’t been running their operations out of Mier and the surrounding towns, carrying their loads of cocaine and marijuana through the surrounding brushland and up to the lip of the river, where they placed them on boats or rafts or inner tubes and floated them across into Texas. Even if no one spoke of them by name, they were already deeply woven into the social fabric. But on this day, they came like an invading army. The following morning, on February 23, the onslaught resumed before the sun had even risen. Forty SUVs swarmed the local police station. Armed to the teeth, dozens of men descended and forced their way in, taking every one of the officers, confiscating files, radios, and weapons. Then they scattered about town, setting houses on fire. Word spread that they were kidnapping dozens of people, perhaps entire families. It took more than three hours for the military to respond, and when soldiers finally confronted the men, bodies fell on both sides.

As people would come to tell it, that was the day, one year ago this month, “when the war began.” Thirty-five days before, 63 miles away, one man had killed another in the border city of Reynosa, and now it was raining fire. The murder was the culmination of more than a year of tension between the Gulf cartel and Los Zetas. Although the Zetas, originally a group of deserters from the Mexican army’s special forces, had begun as the enforcement arm of the Gulf, they gradually gained clout after 2003, when the Gulf’s leader, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, was arrested. By 2008, they were an organization in their own right, operating alongside the Gulf in an alliance known as the Company. While both groups held ground in the larger cities, the area around Mier became more tightly controlled by the Zetas. Then the tension exploded. The man who had been killed in Reynosa was a plaza boss for the Zetas, managing the flow of drugs through the city. The Zetas demanded the killer, but the Gulf refused. That is how the war began.

After the explosions subsided, Mayor José Iván Mancillas Hinojosa phoned the governor of Tamaulipas and begged for help. But the reinforcements would take nine months to arrive. The state had been embroiled in conflict ever since President Felipe Calderón, who had declared war on the cartels immediately following his inauguration, in 2006, had unleashed the marines on the Gulf and the Zetas. But now it became a three-way battle that would bring Tamaulipas to its knees. The same days that Mier was attacked by the Gulf last February, the cities of Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo and the towns of Valle Hermoso, Díaz Ordaz, Camargo, and Miguel Alemán all experienced terrifying gun battles. Over the next months, decapitated and dismembered bodies appeared hanging from trees and utility poles. The severed head of a state police commander was delivered to a military post. Banners were strung in which the Gulf cartel exhorted the government to step aside and allow them to wipe out the Zetas, since “poison can only be combated with poison.”

For the average resident in Mier whose life was not directly touched by the drug trade, the Zetas and the Gulf cartel were one and the same: Los Malos, “the Bad Ones.” But now Mier became a battleground between the two. Throughout that spring, summer, and fall, the townspeople would have to withstand more gunfights, each lasting six, seven, eight hours at a time. The police station was bombed. The buildings became so severely scarred by repeated rounds from AK-47’s and heavy-caliber rifles that they began to look like sieves. Then, on November 5, in Matamoros, marines tracked down one of the Gulf’s top leaders, Ezequiel Cárdenas Guillén, a.k.a. Tony Tormenta, and killed him. The Zetas saw an opportunity to regain the upper hand in Mier. The same day that Cárdenas fell, word spread that the Bad Ones were out in the streets, shouting for all Mierenses to leave town or be killed. Of the families who remained, hundreds panicked and fled, leaving behind only those who were too frail to move.

Those who had visas crossed into Texas. Others crowded in with friends in nearby Miguel Alemán, where the mayor set up a temporary shelter in the Lions Club for some five hundred people who had no place to go. Relief aid trickled in. Then the journalists came, Mexican and American, and wrote stories that described the shelter as the first for drug war “refugees” in Mexico. On November 20 the Wall Street Journal suggested that Tamaulipas was a failed state.

This was a public relations disaster for the federal government, which was still reveling in the killing of Cárdenas. Its strategy of targeting cartel leaders had once again unleashed a wave of violence, and it had no plan for containing the resulting unrest in Mier and across Tamaulipas. So four days later, officials announced a new mission, dubbed Coordinated Operation Northeast, which would finally send additional troops and federal police to the state (and to neighboring Nuevo León, where the Gulf and Zetas were also fighting). It had taken them three weeks to respond to the mass exodus of Mier, a town of 6,500 citizens. But just five days after the reinforcements arrived, a spokesman for Calderón declared that crime in Tamaulipas was down by almost half. Then came the order to shut down the shelter, since, according to the government, it was safe for the Mierenses to go home.

Although Mier is a few miles from the Rio Grande, it has no “twin city” on the Texas side and no international bridge. To get there, you cross upriver at Falcon Dam or downriver at the Roma toll bridge and proceed along Mexican Federal Highway 2, which parallels the border. The drive takes less than fifteen minutes from the crossings, but it can quickly feel desolate. They call this region La Ribereña, “land of the river,” a long, narrow strip of territory bound by the highway and the Rio Grande and running from Nuevo Laredo down to Matamoros and the Gulf of Mexico. The 150-mile stretch between Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa is more affectionately known as La Frontera Chica, “the small frontier.” The four towns along it—Guerrero, Mier, Miguel Alemán, and Camargo—are small in population but rich in history. Along with Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa, they form the cradle of the borderlands: More than 250 years ago, when the river was not yet an international boundary, Spanish colonizers founded three of the towns (Miguel Alemán came later), and the newly landed families dispersed north and south. Today all the longtime Mexican American families of South Texas can trace their roots to one of these settlements. Yet the vastness of the area, its proximity to the international line, and the rugged and desolate terrain make it a prime spot for drug smuggling. Most of the drugs that enter South Texas come through here; once on American soil, they get transported up to Laredo or down to McAllen, then stuffed into hidden compartments in cars and trucks or mingled with legitimate goods in tractor-trailers and rolled out north to an insatiable market.

In early December, a day after the shelter had been shuttered and the families had supposedly returned to Mier, I visited the town with a friend whose ancestors were from there. I had already looked at photos of the scorched buildings, the pockmarked walls, the charred hulks of trucks, the shattered windows everywhere. But seeing the entire landscape of devastation in person left me speechless. I had reported from Nuevo Laredo in 2005 and Ciudad Juárez in 2009, when each border city was considered the most unstable in Mexico due to drug violence. Yet Mier was the first place I’d seen that embodied the true meaning of “war.” As we drove into town, dozens of soldiers stood guard at a checkpoint, some of them hiding behind piles of sandbags with mounted rifles. No signs of normal life remained, even on a sunny Saturday at noon: On the surface, Mier appeared all but empty. Occasionally a car or pickup truck rattled down the desolate streets, breaking the silence. Up ahead of us, two soldiers waded through knee-high weeds that had sprouted in a lot where only the blackened skeleton of a building remained.

Turning down a side street, I glimpsed a flash of life. Two older women were hunched over, vigorously sweeping the ground outside their house, which stood between buildings that had been ravaged by fire. I rolled down my window and asked for directions to the main plaza and whether it was safe to drive there. “I can’t assure you of anything right now,” one of them replied. I told her that we were looking for a friend of a friend who lived there; the woman recognized the name, but she informed us that the person had left town months before. I said that we were journalists and asked if she might let us inside her home to chat. She seemed to frown, so I started to explain that I didn’t want to be seen with my notebook, but a military convoy rolled by just then and slowed to a crawl, the soldiers eyeing us suspiciously. The woman motioned for us to park and follow her inside.

She was in her fifties and had a solemn, self-restrained presence. I’ll call her Romelia. She quickly offered me a chair and a glass of water. The other woman turned out to be her older sister, Lupita. Lupita’s daughter, Marta, also joined us, and then Lupita’s husband, Lorenzo, and their son. The five adults sat or stood around the kitchen and studied us quietly. The room was small and immaculate, its brown floor tiles shining. On the white plastic dining table, a corner altar remembered a niece and nephew who had died too soon.

“We don’t have anything to say,” Romelia began, evidently fearful and distrusting. “The facts speak for themselves.” Lupita agreed. She was dressed in brown, knitted short pants, and her gray hair was pulled back in a tiny ponytail. “Words aren’t necessary,” she said, in a deep, commanding voice that belied her wiry frame. “You’ve seen the images. The houses burned, the streets emptied out, the people leaving? Whatever we have to say is irrelevant.”

Despite their initial hesitance to talk, a story gradually unfolded. This particular family’s misfortunes had begun when five SUVs pulled up outside their home and the Bad Ones started to torch the house next door. The family panicked, but the criminals stayed outside, leaving them no escape route. Their only alternative was to hide and pray. They crammed Lorenzo, the oldest family member, into a small closet. They could hear the laughter of the men outside as the building was engulfed in flames. Why had the house been targeted? The second floor was being expanded and the garage sported an elaborate wrought-iron gate—maybe its owners were involved in the trade and had ended up on the wrong side of the war. If so, Romelia’s family didn’t care, and they certainly didn’t ask. That was a commandment in border towns like Mier.

Hiding soon became their way of life. Whenever shooting would erupt, everyone hit the floor. The gunfire sometimes lasted for hours. The local police were gone and the state police had pulled out—the city was defenseless. Although soldiers from a nearby regiment occasionally patrolled the streets, the criminals would return as soon as they left. And so Romelia, Lupita, Lorenzo, and their families began to live with the rituals of war. They locked themselves in by six every evening, having gathered enough water to last through the night, because they knew the city’s water pump was too dangerous for work crews to get to after dark. The violence always felt as if it were inching closer. “Even the dogs don’t bark anymore when they hear the shots,” Romelia said. “The animals hide.”

More than 100 people, perhaps as many as 140, had disappeared. (One story told of a young woman who had been dating a trafficker; when the Bad Ones came to get her, her parents clung to her in desperation and all three were whisked away.) Both roads that led out of town—Highway 2, along the border, and Highway 54, heading to the industrial and commercial capital of Monterrey—were impassable: The criminals hijacked cars, sacked tractor-trailers, and ambushed one another. The local economy was dead. Americans had always come in the fall and winter to hunt doves and white-tailed deer, but this year they had stayed home. Many of the ranches, the region’s largest industry, had been appropriated by the cartels. (Statewide some five hundred ranches had ceased to operate.) Cows were left to die; some of the ranchers who had risked visiting their properties had never made it back home. Pemex, the government-owned petroleum company that had reliably propped up the local economy with its natural gas exploration, had pulled out all of its workers after some were kidnapped. And dozens of businesses were shuttered: restaurants, hotels, money exchanges, grocery stores, travel agencies, pharmacies, building supply stores, phone companies, gas stations, health clinics, auto repair shops—all of them had closed, having been ransacked, burned, or damaged from gunfire. On the day I visited, only two small grocery stores and a boot shop remained in business.

Families watched their income dissolve. Marta had earned a living making cakes and tamales for family banquets, but who was having parties anymore? Her husband had worked as a welder, but who could afford security bars these days? Jobless, she had sold her car so she’d have enough money to move temporarily to Matamoros, where she hoped to find employment. After she’d spent six weeks there, however, her father-in-law went missing when he visited a ranch to sell some cows. Marta had returned to Mier to be near her mother-in-law, who was slowly losing the will to live. “We’ve been unemployed for nine months,” she told me, exasperated. She had hazel eyes and fair skin and was dressed in aqua-blue sweatpants—the same sweatpants she wore every day, she told me. When I asked what the family was living off of, her mother chimed in, “From the food provided by the DIF [a federal assistance program] and our relatives in the United States.”

Lupita had spent thirteen days in the shelter in Miguel Alemán, but she had felt depression taking hold, and a doctor had diagnosed her with nervous colitis. So she had gone back home to Mier. The family didn’t have the wherewithal to leave for another Mexican city, and crossing the border to join their relatives in Texas would have required renewing their border-crossing visas, which would mean proving their financial solvency to the U.S. consulate and coughing up almost $200. It might as well have been $2 million. “They changed our life,” Marta said, her eyes growing wet. “They changed our whole life.”

Two days later, safety would return, if only temporarily, when the streets of Mier were flooded with one thousand federal police and army and navy troops. They did not come to stay but to protect the governor of Tamaulipas, Eugenio Hernández Flores, and the Mexican minister of the interior, Francisco Blake Mora, who were visiting to determine what kinds of interventions were needed. Although the population was down to about one thousand, more than a hundred families lined the cobblestone streets near the main plaza, which is graced on the south by the Church of the Most Pure Conception, a gorgeous structure built in 1755, with a handsome carved sandstone facade. The church had been one of the main reasons that, in 2007, the Mexican tourism department had named Mier a pueblo mágico, a “magical town,” because of its rich history and culture. These days the joke was that the town was magical because of how easily people disappeared.

After a six-hour wait, the townspeople finally spotted a helicopter preparing to land. The distinguished visitors boarded an armored SUV and took a short tour of the wreckage before arriving at the main plaza. Handsome, blue-eyed, smiling widely, and dressed smartly in a white shirt and black designer jacket, the governor acknowledged the crowd. Behind him, in a white windbreaker, the minister appeared somber, more reserved. The townspeople contemplated the men respectfully for a brief moment. Then, one by one, the voices that had been silent since February began to rise from the crowd.

“Every family has a relative that’s disappeared. Why did it take you nine months to get here?” “My son was killed and my husband is disappeared!” “We want military vigilance!” “We want the soldiers to stay, but we want them to defend us, not to hide in their barracks like they do every time the shooting starts!” “There’s no security, but we also want work. There are no jobs!”

One woman’s voice grew so hoarse from screaming that it was hard to make out what she was saying: “ . . . living in terror during the night! . . . We haven’t had water!” The governor seemed unmoved by her cries; he glanced at someone else and smirked. Minutes later, an elderly woman in a pink shawl politely attempted to get his attention. “My grandson,” she told him in a small voice. “His pharmacy is closed. He doesn’t have any work.” The governor scanned the crowd distractedly and said, “Yes, I can imagine.”

A local online news columnist would later describe the promises made that afternoon with a penetrating world-weariness: “Security as long as necessary, credits for business owners, temporary jobs, ranching subsidies, thorough investigation of disappearances, rule of law, the full weight of authority, cooperation among the three levels of government, frontal attack on organized crime, blah, blah, blah.”

Romelia and her family wanted these things too, and they hoped the government would deliver this time. On the day I visited Mier, as we sat shuttered in their small home, I had turned to Lupita and asked how long she and Lorenzo had been married. Fifty years, she had replied proudly. They had celebrated their anniversary on September 15, the same night that Mexico had marked two hundred years of independence. She recounted how she and Lorenzo had met in singing contests when they were young, how they had fallen for each other’s voices. Then she offered to sing us the tune her husband had performed the day he had won her heart.

She grabbed a green plastic chair and pulled it up close to her old man, who was resting his hand on a cane. He grinned broadly as she began the melody, then immediately jumped in with a harmony, his raspy voice melding perfectly with hers, as if they had never stopped singing. It was a classic by José Alfredo Jiménez. As they sang, their voices filled the room and spilled out onto the quiet street, and their grandchildren, who had been playing outside, gathered around the screen door to listen.

What a beautiful love
What a beautiful sky
What a beautiful moon
What a beautiful sun.

What a beautiful love
I hold it dearly
Because it feels
Everything that I feel.

Copyright © 1973-2011 Emmis Publishing LP dba Texas Monthly. All rights reserved.

 http://www.texasmonthly.com/2011-02-01/letterfromtamaulipas.php#

ACTION ITEM

Johnny Hernandez named McCormick spokesman

Community Service
Sandra Hutchens, Orange County Sheriff
The National Hispanic Business Women Association (NHBWA) is proud to honor Sheriff Sandra Hutchens as the recipient of the Community Service Award. In her time as Sheriff of Orange County, Sheriff Hutchens has made numerous changes to the department with the goal of restoring honor to the department. New leadership staff has been added and policies have been revised all with a commitment to the department’s core values: “Integrity without compromise; Service above self; Professionalism in the performance of duty; Vigilance in safeguarding our community.”
May 2011
Volume 4–Issue 5
2024 N. Broadway, Suite 100, Santa Ana, CA 92706-714-836-4042
Join Us!

Education
Milly Lugo, Santa Ana Public Library
Ms. Milly Lugo is a public reference librarian and instructor at the Santa Ana Public Library (SAPL). NHBWA will recognize her more than 24 years of experience in both the private sector and the SAPL as the recipient of the Education Award.
At the Santa Ana Public Library, Ms. Lugo provides reference assistance to English-and Spanish-speaking library users. As part of the city-side English language learning campaign she has written and received a grant from the California State Library under the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) which provided state of the industry workforce English language learning kits for the community.

EDUCATION

Source of visual. . . May Issue of Heritage Makers, 

LARGEST U.S. MINORITY GROUP HAS LOWEST EDUCATION ATTAINMENT LEVELS

Senior Administration Officials, Community Leaders and Educators Meet at Miami-Dade College to Discuss New Report and Improving Education Excellence for the Hispanic Community and All Americans

On April 27, the White House Initiative for Educational Excellence for Hispanics released a new report at a community conversation at Miami-Dade College entitled, "Winning the Future: Improving Latino Education." The report highlights how the success of Hispanic students is key to our nation's future.  Click here to view the blog post on the report and here for an electronic version of the report. 

MIAMI – Hispanic success in education and in the labor market is of immediate and long‐term importance to America’s economy, according to a new report released today by the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics and the U.S. Department of Education. The report shows that Hispanics have the lowest education attainment level overall of any group in the U.S.

Hispanics are by far the largest minority group in today’s American public education system, numbering more than 12.4 million in the country’s elementary, middle and high schools. Nearly 22 percent, or slightly more than 1 in 5, of all pre‐K-12 students enrolled in America’s public schools is Hispanic, but they face persistent obstacles to educational attainment. Less than half are enrolled in any early learning program. Only about half earn their high school diploma on time; those who do complete high school are only half as likely as their peers to be prepared for college and only 4 percent have completed graduate or professional degree programs. 

Senior Obama Administration officials met with dozens of educators and community leaders at Miami Dade College today to release the report and to outline strategies to meet President Obama’s goal for the nation to have the best-educated workforce in the world by 2020.

White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics director Juan Sepúlveda said Latino education attainment is important in the global contest for jobs and industries.

“Hispanic students have graduated at lower rates than the rest of the population for years, making America’s progress impossible if they continue to lag behind,” said Sepúlveda. “Strengthening and improving educational excellence in this community isn’t just a Hispanic problem. It’s a challenge to the entire country.”

The nation’s Hispanic population increased by 15.2 million in the last decade, accounting for more than half of the nation’s total population growth. The report shows that Hispanics will drive the growth of the labor force over the next several decades, accounting for 60 percent of the nation’s growth between 2005 and 2050.

Sent by Juan Ramos  jramos.swkr@verizon.net 

CULTURE

Viewers Ethnicity Impacts On Their ‘Addiction’ to TV, By Melissa Macaya
Hispanic Link, April 28, 2011

Hispanics watched television 4 hours and 35 minutes daily, under the white viewers average of 5 hours, 2 minutes and that of U.S. viewers overall, 5 hours,11 minutes. African Americans (7.12) watched four hours more a day than did Asian Americans (3.14).

Report online at: is online: http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/who-watches-
whatand-how-much-u-s-tv-trends-by-ethnicity/

For members of Murrieta Valley schools' Ballet Folklorico Club, celebrating Hispanic heritage is not just reserved for Cinco de Mayo. The club was founded in 1998 by Murrieta Valley High School students. Through the efforts of Murrieta Mesa High School counselor Adriana Alarcon, it went districtwide two years ago, Murrieta Valley Unified School District spokeswoman Karen Parris said. 

LITERATURE

BOOKS

Paulina Rael Jaramillo, author of New Book Delves into Immigration Issues in the Southwest.

"The American Southwest: Pride~Prejudice~Perseverance" is capturing the attention of educators and students interested in immigration, education and the issues surrounding the controversial Arizona law. The book has been endorsed by Dr. Tom Rivera, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies at California State University who states the following, "an excellent resource for those who seek a better understanding of the historical events that shaped the regions cultures, communities and peoples."

Although most of Jaramillo’s adult life has been spent in California, her family history goes back over 400 years in New Mexico. She is currently speaking at colleges, universities and other venues on "Immigration and Education. Her book is in circulation at various university and public libraries and is available for purchase on Amazon.com. To schedule a book signing or speaking engagement or to purchase an autographed copy visit www.theamericansouthwest.net .

Paulina Rael Jaramillo
Phone: 909-337-7032 Cell 909-723-2054
P.O. Box 225, Rim Forest, CA, 92378
Paulinajaramillo@charter.net 
www.theamericansouthwest.net

USA LATINO PATRIOTS
NCLR 2008 Conference, San Diego
Lft. to Rt.  WWII Jet Pilot, Lt. Col. Henry Cervantes,
Medal of Honor Recipient, Rudy Hernandez,
Rick Leal, President, Hispanic Medal of Honor Society

Thank you to Campus Crusade for Christ for producing it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=07DGeLvDw8I
Sent by Juan Marinez marinezj@anr.msu.edu

Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez speaks to a crowd during a Latino Leaders Network luncheon Sept. 22, 2011 in Washington, D.C. Sanchez, the first coalition forces commander in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, urged youths to take control of their own destiny. 

"You can control your destiny, but it requires unrelenting perseverance and a never-accept-defeat approach to life," said retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez as he addressed a crowd during a Latino Leaders Network luncheon. 

The Hispanic population is underrepresented in the Army, making up only 11 percent of the enlisted force in 2009. Latinos have a higher high school drop-out rate than any other ethnicity in the U.S. In 2008, for example, 18.3 percent of Hispanic high school students walked away from their studies -- which may be why Latino enlistments are lagging. 

Sanchez highlighted his own struggle to defy this statistic by describing his meager upbringing in Texas and how, as a Hispanic teenager, he didn't receive support from teachers or other role models to reach his full potential. He explained that when he asked a high school guidance counselor for help applying to military academies he was told not to try -- he should become a welder like his father. 

The retired general wasn't swayed. He received help from his Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps instructors, and was awarded both Army and Air Force ROTC scholarships, as well as nominations to West Point and the Naval Academy. 

Sanchez eventually chose the University of Texas, and later graduated from Texas A&I University (now called Texas A&M University). He went on to hold commands in South Korea, Panama and Germany, and prior to heading the invasion into Iraq, he led troops during Operation Desert Storm and in Kosovo. 

"You have achieved what so many of us want to see our young people achieve -- you are a role model," said California Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez of the retired general. 

Despite successfully earning three-star rank, Sanchez said that during most of his career in the military, he didn't have a Hispanic mentor -- someone of similar background who he could look up to. 

"Considering my beginnings, the odds have surely been against me," Sanchez said. "I had to prove wrong those who had very low expectations of me." 

Currently, Hispanics make up only six percent of the active-duty officer corps, but when Sanchez enlisted, that number was even smaller. Sanchez explained that his superiors and peers at first didn't believe in him, simply because of his ethnicity. 

"Nobody expected Hispanics to succeed in the officer corps," he noted. 

Since then, Sanchez said, the climate for Latino servicemembers has changed -- no other organization has embraced equal opportunity like the military, he said. 

However, Sanchez would like to see more Latino young people improve their lives by considering the military as a career. 

The retired general stressed the importance of moral courage, and for advice offered, "only you can compromise your integrity." 

Sent by Delia Gonzalez Huffman

PATRIOTS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Hispanics in the American Civil War

By: 
Tony (The Marine) Santiago

Nmb2418@aol.com

Notable Military Personnel

UNION FORCES


*Admiral David Farragut - Farragut was promoted to vice admiral on December 21, 1864, and to full admiral on July 25, 1866, after the war, thereby becoming the first person to be named full admiral in the Navy's history. Farragut's greatest victory was the Battle of Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864. Mobile, Alabama at the time was the Confederacy's last major port open on the Gulf of Mexico. The bay was heavily mined with tethered naval mines, also known as ''torpedoes''. When the USS ''Tecumseh'', one of the ships under his command, struck a mine and went down, Farragut shouted through a trumpet from his flagship to the USS Brooklyn|, "What's the trouble?" "Torpedoes!" was the reply, to which Farragut then shouted his now famous words "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" The fleet succeeded in entering the bay. Farragut then triumphed over the opposition of heavy batteries in Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines to defeat the squadron of Admiral Franklin Buchanan.                                        



Farragut was promoted to vice admiral on December 21, 1864, and to full admiral on July 25, 1866, after the war, thereby becoming the first person to be named full admiral in the Navy's history.

Battle of Mobile Bay by Louis Prang

*Colonel Carlos de la Mesa - Grandfather of Major General Terry de la Mesa Allen, Sr. commanding general of the First Infantry Division in North Africa and Sicily, and later the commander of the 104th Infantry Division during World War II. Colonel Carlos de la Mesa was a Spanish national who fought at Gettysburg for the Union Army in the Spanish Company of the "Garibaldi Guard" of the 39th New York State Volunteers.

*Colonel Miguel E. Pino - Commanded the 2nd Regiment of New Mexico Volunteers, which fought at the Battle of Valverde in February and the Battle of Glorieta Pass and helped defeat the attempted invasion of New Mexico by the Confederate Army.


*Colonel Federico Fernandez Cavada - Cuban born Cavada Commanded the 114th Pennsylvania Volunteer infantry regiment when it took the field in the Peach Orchard at Gettysburg. Because of his artistic talents, he was assigned to the Hot Air Balloon unit of the Union Army. From the air he sketched what he observed of the enemy movements. On April 19, 1862, Federico sketched enemy positions from Thaddeus Lowe's Constitution balloon during the Peninsula Campaign in Virginia. Cavada was captured during the Battle of Gettysburg and sent to Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia. Cavada was released in 1864 and later published a book titled "Libby Life", which told about the cruel treatment which he received in the Confederate prison.

Sketch made by Col.Federico Fernandez Cavada 
From Thaddeus Lowe's Constitution balloon

*Lieutenant Colonel Julius Peter Garesché - When the American Civil War broke out, he declined a commission as Brigadier General of volunteers, and was made chief of staff, with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the regular army, to Major General William S. Rosecrans. In this capacity he participated in the operations of the Army of the Cumberland at the Battle of Stones River.  Riding with General Rosecrans toward the Round Forest, Garescé was decapitated by a cannonball.
 

*Major Manuel Chaves' - was in charge of Fort Fauntleroy in northwestern New Mexico. On March 28, 1862, Chaves led 490 New Mexico volunteers on a daring raid. As the main Union troops fought the Confederates, Chaves's men lowered themselves down a 200 foot slope, taking a small Taxan guard completely by surprise and capturing the Confederates' supply train. They destroyed the wagons and burned all the supplies.  

*Major Salvador Vallejo - Officer in one of the California units which served with the Union Army in the West.  

*Captain Adolfo Fernández Cavada  -  Served in the 114th Pennsylvania Volunteers at Gettysburg with his brother  Colonel Federico Fernandez Cavada.  

*Captain Roman Anthony Baca - Member of the Union forces in the New Mexico Volunteers. He also served as a spy for the Union Army in Texas.                                                                 

*Captain Luis F. Emilio - The son of a Spanish immigrant, was among the group of original officers of the 54th selected by Massachusetts War Governor John Albion Andrew.  Captain Emilio emerged from the ferocious assault on Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863 as the regiment's acting commander, since all of the other ranking officers had been killed or wounded. He fought with the 54th for over three years of dangerous combat.                                                                                                      

*Lieutenant Augusto Rodriguez - A Puerto Rican native who served as an officer in the 15th Connecticut Regiment, Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, of the Union Army. Rodríguez served in the defenses of Washington, D.C. and led his men in the Battles of Fredericksburg and Wyse Fork.

 
   

CONFEDERATE FORCES

*Colonel Santos Benavides - Commanded his own regiment, the "Benavides Regiment." He was the highest ranking Mexican-American in the Confederate Army. On March 19, 1864, he defended Laredo against the Union's First Texas Cavalry, whose commander was Colonel Edmund J. Davis, a Florida native who had previously offered Benavides a Union generalship, and defeated the Union forces. Probably his greatest contribution to the Confederacy was securing passage of Confederate cotton to Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico, in 1863. On March 18, 1864, Major Alfred Holt led a force of about two hundred men from the command of Col. Davis near Brownsville, Texas to destroy five thousand bales of cotton stacked at the San Agustín Plaza. Colonel Santos Benavides commanded forty-two men and repelled three Union attacks at the Zacate Creek in what is known as the Battle of Laredo.

*Colonel A.J. Gonzales - Gonzales became U.S. Citizen in 1849 and he settled in Beaufort, South Carolina. Gonzales was active during the bombardment of Fort Sumter and because of his actions appointed Lt. Colonel of artillery and assigned to duty as Chief of Artillery in the department of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Gonzales, who served as a special aide to the governor of South Carolina, submitted plans for the defense of the coastal areas of his homeland state. According to Major D. Leadbetter in a letter to the Secretary of War:

"The project of auxiliary coast defense herewith, as submitted by Col. A. J. Gonzales, though not thought to be everywhere applicable, is believed to be of great value under special circumstances. In the example assumed at Edisto Island, where the movable batteries rest on defensive works and are themselves scarcely exposed to surprise and capture, a rifled 24-pounder, with two small guns, rallying and reconnoitering from each of the fixed batteries, would prove invaluable. A lighter gun than the 24-pounder, and quite as efficient, might be devised for such service, but this is probably the best now available. Colonel Gonzales' proposed arrangements for re-enforcing certain exposed and threatened maritime Posts seem to be judicious and to merit attention."

Gonzales was able to fend off Union gunboat attempts to destroy railroads and other important points on the Carolina coast by placing his heavy artillery on special carriages for increased mobility.

HISPANIC WOMEN

*Lola Sanchez - A Cuban born woman, who was upset when her father was accused of being a Confederate spy by the Union Forces and sent to prison, was a Confederate spy by the Union Army and sent to prison. This event angered her and she decided to become a Confederate spy.  The Union Army had occuppied her residence in Palatka, Florida and Sanchez overheard the officers plans of a raid. She alerted the Confederates and as a result the Confederate soldiers surprised the Uniion troops and captured them.                                     

*Loreta Janeta Velazquez a.k.a. "Lieutenant Harry Buford" - A Cuban woman who masqueraded as a male Confederate soldier during the Civil War. She enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1861, without her soldier-husband's knowledge. She fought at Bull Run, Ball's Bluff and Fort Donelson, but her gender was discovered while in New Orleans and she was discharged. Undeterred, she reenlisted and fought at Shiloh, until unmasked once more. She then became a spy, working in both male and female guises.

MEDAL OF HONOR   

*Corporal Joseph H. De Castro - Served in Company I, 19th Massachusetts Infantry and was the first Hispanic-American Medal of Honor recipient". During the battle, De Castro attacked a confederate flag bearer from the 19th Virginia Infantry regiment, with the staff of his own colors and seized the opposing regiment's flag, handing the prize over to General Alexander S. Webb.  General Webb is quoted as saying, "At the instant a man broke through my lines and thrust a rebel battle flag into my hands.  He never said a word and darted back.  It was Corporal Joseph H. De Castro, one of my color bearers.  He had knocked down a color bearer in the enemy's line with the staff of the Massachusetts State colors, seized the falling flag and dashed it to me".  

*Seaman Philip Bazaar - was a resident of Massachusetts, who joined the Union Navy at New Bedford. He was assigned to the USS Santiago de Cuba, a wooden, brigantine-rigged, side-wheel steamship under the command of Rear Admiral David D. Porter. In the latter part of 1864, Union General Ulysses S. Grant ordered an assault on Fort Fisher, a Confederate stronghold.  which protected the vital trading routes of Wilmington's port, at North Carolina. On January 12, 1865, both ground and naval Union forces attempted a second land assault, after the failure of the first. During the land assault, Bazaar and 5 other crew members carried dispatches from Rear Admiral Porter to Major General Alfred Terry, while under heavy fire from the Confederates to Major General Alfred Terry. Bazaar was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions.  

*Seaman John Ortega -  was a resident of Pennsylvania who joined the Union Navy in his adopted hometown in Pennsylvania. Ortega was assigned to the USS Saratoga during the Civil War. The USS Saratoga was ordered to proceed to Charleston, South Carolina for duty in the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. Ortega was a member of the landing parties from the ship who made several raids in August and September in 1864, which resulted in the capture of many prisoners and the taking or destruction of substantial quantities of ordnance, ammunition, and supplies. A number of buildings, bridges, and salt works were destroyed during the expedition. For his actions Seaman John Ortega was awarded the Medal of Honor and promoted to acting master's mate.  

Hi Mimi,

It has been a while since I've been in touch, but I have been busy! The Admiral Farragut Birthplace has been officially acknowledged by Knox County, TN, and by the Town of Farragut, TN. It will receive funding for a Civil War Trail Marker and directional signs from the TN Department of Tourism, the Knox County Parks and Recreation Department, and the Farragut Folklife Museum, and the annual maintenance fee will be paid by the local Hispanic Heritage nonprofit group HoLa Hora Latina Organization!

The marker is scheduled to be placed on public land on the riverfront adjacent to the birthplace sometime in June, and HoLa’s director, Coral Getino, and I will do our best to make it a big event... Carroll Van West, PhD, who is in charge of the Tennessee Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission, was a huge advocate. He plans to be here and wants to have the TN Tourism Commissioner and Tennessee’s governor also attend. Dr. West is Editor-in-chief of The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture web site and director of the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area, the only National Heritage Area in the United States that takes in an entire state; he is also director of the Center for Historic Preservation at Middle Tennessee State University (the only historic preservation degree program at any Tennessee university).

I will get you more information about the placement and unveiling of the sign as soon as I have a specific date, but here is the preliminary information. 

On the left is what the trail markers look like, and on the right is what directional signs look like:

This is copy that I sent to the Trail Marker people.

Birthplace of Admiral David Glasgow Farragut

David Glasgow Farragut led the naval battle of Mobile Bay, which was one of the great turning points of the Civil War. In recognition of his role in history he was named the first Admiral of the United States.

Farragut had humble beginnings. He was the son of an immigrant and was born in a log cabin in what was then a sparsely inhabited wilderness.  

Farragut’s father, George, had come to the American colonies in 1776 from Spain as a merchant sea captain. During the Revolutionary War he fought on the side of the American colonies and received land grants for his military service. He married Elizabeth Shine from North Carolina and settled in Knox County.

George Farragut was a cavalry officer in the Tennessee militia at nearby Campbell’s Station, and in 1796 he bought 640 acres along this riverfront and began operating a ferry. On July 5, 1801, the future admiral was born in the family home, which was on the promontory just across the cove from where you are standing.

The Farraguts moved to New Orleans when David was 6 years old because his father had been commissioned to serve as a Navy gunboat captain on the Mississippi River. Less than a year later, his mother died of yellow fever, and David’s childhood essentially ended.

Farragut was commissioned a midshipman in the United States Navy on December 17, 1810, at the age of nine and a half, and he was involved in his first battle at sea during the War of 1812. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1822, commander in 1844, and captain in 1855.

Despite strong ties to the South and his self-professed identity as a Tennessean, when forced to choose between the Union and the Confederacy in 1860, he remained with the U.S. Navy.

Farragut was known as a brave and capable officer, but he did not have a particularly noteworthy career until the last years of his life. He was 63 years old at the Battle of Mobile Bay, where he spoke the famous words “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.” He was promoted to full admiral on July 25, 1866, at the age of 65.

Thank you for your help!!!!

Margot

Margot Kline
865-363-3565
margotkline@gmail.com
http://farragutbirthplace.blogspot.com

http://blog.preservationnation.org/2010/02/22/birthplace
-of-admiral-farragut-in-danger-of-being-forgotten

Editor: I asked Margot to give readers a history of her sequence of action to accomplish saving Farragut's birthplace.  As Hispanics we have the right to have a sense of pride, that the first Admiral of the United States Navy was in fact of Hispanic lineage.

What actually got me interested in preservation of the Admiral Farragut site is the research that I had been doing into the Bluegrass/Ebenezer area of Knoxville, Tennessee, where I live. And what got me started on that was the hope that instead of continually fighting developers one rezoning battle at a time, my HOA and others in the Bluegrass/Ebenezer area could get community and county support for planned development that would preserve the area’s heritage. I am not against development. I am just against ugly strip malls and development that destroys or blights parks, 200-year-old historic homes, etc. and damages rather than enhances the quality of life of the people who live in neighborhoods.  

During the past 2 years I have gotten more and more involved in community organizations, and I am now the president of the Council of West Knox County Homeowners (as of April 5, 2011).  

The Bluegrass/Ebenezer area was mostly farmland until about 15 years ago, but since then it has been one of the fastest-growing parts of town. Recently released census data indicates that this area has the highest per-household income of anyplace in Knox County other than the Town of Farragut. It is a very old area with incredible history that goes back to the mid-1700s, but much of its heritage has been lost in the process of development. Even the name of the community is a little vague at this point. I’m calling Bluegrass/Ebenezer pretty much anyplace that is zoned to West Valley Middle School, but it’s variously called Statesview, South Cedar Bluff, Cedar Springs, and Bluegrass, but seldom Ebenezer.  

I have tons of information you would not believe—the predecessor to Cedar Springs Church used to be located next to Maple Grove Inn on Westland; on the hillside across from Kroger’s Marketplace on Kingston Pike there was once a highly esteemed school called Mount Ebenezer Academy that was founded by The Rev. Samuel Ramsey, one of the founders of the Presbyterian Church in Tennessee and brother of Francis Ramsey (Ramsey House). Knoxville’s founding families sent their sons to this school and sent their daughters to a school for girls that his wife ran.  

Ebenezer is named for Ebenezer Byram, who was a descendent of John Alden, who came over on the Mayflower; Ebenezer had a train station and a post office in the middle 1800s until sometime in the middle of the 20^th century; Statesview House, the home of Charles McClung (Knoxville’s city planner and the surveyor of Kingston Pike as well as James White’s son-in-law), is still standing at the corner of S. Peters Rd. and George Williams Rd.; Ebenezer Mill, one of the oldest grist mills still in existence in Knox County, is located on Old Ebenezer Rd. The Cedar Springs graveyard, founded in 1796, is located next to Maple Grove Inn on the grounds of the first Cedar Springs Church, and it contains the graves of Samuel Ramsey as well as many other of Knox County’s earliest settlers along with many who fought in the Revolution and the War of 1812.  

Even Bluegrass School is historically significant—the county bought the land it is on in 1923 and there has been a grade school in continuous operation there since that time. The first school building burned, but the main building there today dates back to 1936. [This local history would probably be boring to anybody not from here]  

Jan. 23, 2010—my husband’s birthday—is when I found out the exact location where Admiral Farragut was born. We had been at my step-daughter’s house which is in Northshore Landing subdivision directly across from the birthplace. I have driven down that stretch of Northshore for 30 years and never even noticed the farm that was there because for years it was very overgrown. That day was the first time it caught my attention because I noticed two tall stacked-stone pillars at the entrance to a new subdivision called Stoney Point Farm.  

I was curious and picked up a flyer, which read, “Welcome to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own a piece of history! A portion of the beautiful farm in West Knox county where Admiral David Farragut (the first admiral in the United States Navy) was born, is being developed into a small, gated community. Five acres of gently rolling farmland have been carefully subdivided into nine unique lots of varying sizes.”  

I kind of felt like throwing up to tell you the truth. My dad served in the Navy during World War II and survived the battle of Okinawa. My husband was in the Navy during the Viet Nam War, and my nephew did two tours of duty on a Navy aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf. In my world, Admiral Farragut is an American hero up there with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and the thought that his birthplace and the 205-year-old farm where he was born were about to be plowed up for a gated subdivision seemed beyond comprehension to me. (Discussion of blocking the rezoning came up two years ago, but that’s another story—I looked into county legislative records to determine how this plot of land was approved for rezoning and found that earlier efforts to acknowledge this as Farragut’s birthplace had been more or less ignored).  

A little more history:

When it was first surveyed in 1792, Kingston Pike ran from downtown Knoxville to Campbell’s Station. Four miles west of town, it branched off to the south at what is now called Lyon’s View Pike, turned left at what is now Northshore Drive, and ran westward until it got to the area that is now intersected by Pellissippi Parkway. It continued on for a mile and then crossed the river at Lowe’s Ferry Landing. Knox County records show that Admiral Farragut’s father, George (Jorge) Mesquida Farragut, bought 640 acres at Stoney Point and started the ferry that came to be known as Lowe’s Ferry (the farm was called Stoney Point even then).  

The land was heavily forested and still used as hunting ground by Cherokees. George Farragut was the first person to obtain a license to run a ferry between Knox and Blount in this southwest part of the county. It is important to note that this was at the farthest reaches of civilization at that time. Campbell’s Station, about 5 miles to the northwest, was a frontier fort, and it was the closest place with a post office. George Farragut was an adventurer, a land speculator, and a militia captain in the area. He was reported to be a good friend of John Sevier, who he had met during the Revolutionary War when both were soldiers. He bought and sold several tracts of land from James White and Stockley Donaldson between 1791 and 1805.  

In West Knox County there was also Wright’s Ferry on Toole’s Bend, and Bond’s Ferry (Louisville Ferry) on Keller Bend, but the ferry at Stoney Point was one of the most accessible places to cross the river. It was hard to put a boat in along much of the river because there were high bluffs on one side of the river or the other for much of the way between Sequoyah Hills and the Farragut’s farm. And sometimes Indians shot down from those bluffs.  

Lowe’s Ferry Pike was sometimes called the Knoxville Road in the 1790s and early 1800s, but in the early 1800s, after David Farragut had moved with his family to New Orleans (September 1807), after his mother had died of yellow fever (June 1808), and after young David had joined the Navy—at age 9 ½ (December 1810)—the ferry was bought by Abraham Lowe and the road became known as Lowe’s Ferry Pike. The ferry ran between Knox and Blount Counties from 1797 until the mid 1940s, when TVA flooded the lake, and it is a significant historical site in itself as an example of the earliest colonial settlement of this area. Old Lowe’s Ferry Road still exists on the Blount County side of the river.  

Mr. Lowe bought Stoney Point farm  not long after the Farraguts had left, and members of the Lowe family ran it for several generations. Both Lyon’s View Pike and Northshore Drive were for decades known as Lowe’s Ferry Pike. I have a Knoxville map dated 1895 that shows no Lyon’s View Pike—it is still known as Lowe’s Ferry Road at that time. Northshore Drive is also part of Lowe’s Ferry Pike/Road until at least until 1949 according to TVA records.  Most of the earliest records are in Rule's Standard History of Knoxville, Tennessee, The Lewis Publishing Company, 1900.  

Not getting to the library enough and relying on internet searches kept me from doing as much verification of research as I would have liked early on. But I’ve found some incredible stuff in unlikely places, such as the Army Corps of Engineers website and The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).  

For a month or two after I found out about Farragut’s birthplace I lobbied national associations and government offices to make people aware of the plight of this nationally significant site. I immediately got tremendous support from Hispanic Heritage groups, because they are very proud that Admiral Farragut’s father, who was Spanish, was a Revolutionary War Hero and one of the area’s first settlers. Dr. Refugio Rochin, Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Davis, and Founding Director of the Smithsonian Center for Latino Initiatives, was the first person I contacted for advice. I got his email from Linkdin and was completely blown away when he not only responded but forwarded my request for help and networking support to about 100 people. Two of the people I met through him were Mimi Lozano, Director of the Society of Hispanic Historical and Ancestral Research; and Tanya Bowers, Director for Diversity, Office of the President National Trust for Historic Preservation. Locally, Ethiel Garlington, Ann Bennett, and the other people at Knox Heritage and the MPC Historic Zoning Commission have also been fantastic.  

I eventually got emails and phone calls from hundreds of people around the country—In March 2010 I even got a call from Paul Loether, who is the director of the National Register of Historic Places and National Historic Landmarks Division of the Park Service in DC. He was amazingly friendly and made phone calls to state level historic preservation people, which I’m sure helped early on.  

With Mimi Lozano as a liaison, I got a request from Tanya Bowers to write an article about the birthplace for the National Register’s website  http://blog.preservationnation.org/2010/02/22/birthplace-of-admiral-farragut-in-danger-of-being-forgotten/

I also created a blog about the preservation efforts in March 2010 http://farragutbirthplace.blogspot.com 

After learning from people in D.C. that TVA was the best place to seek help, I requested “mitigation” from TVA in the form of an archaeological site evaluation. They were not at all helpful. I was hoping they would determine that significant historic artifacts are on the Lowe’s Ferry public land and on the 50-foot shoreline area that’s under their jurisdiction. TVA admitted to me that if there are important historic artifacts on the land then the federal government is legally obligated to protect them, and it is a federal offense to damage or remove them, but they said this site is not a high priority for them and that they wouldn’t get involved until/unless the shoreline was going to be disturbed in the immediate future. The final subdivision approval was scheduled before the MPC on April 8, 2010, and I asked for the approval to be delayed until a TVA site study could be completed, but the attorney for the property owner removed the item from consideration at the last minute. Zoning permission had already been given, and the private land owner was only asking for a new variance for utilities underneath one of the entrance walls. If the MPC had denied the variance the owner would have been delayed, but without the variance, development could go on even if they had to tear down a section of wall. They opted not to risk the delay.  

I didn’t take this as defeat. By this time a lot of people were starting to get interested in helping save this site.  

About 10 people locally offered a lot of encouragement early on, talked to people they know to drum up support, and shared information with me. Most of these people are professionals who didn’t want their names in the news at first. (People have been more openly involved since Knox Heritage and the Knox County Parks and Recreation department became affiliated early last summer.) This situation has been described to me as touchy, explosive, a firestorm, etc. by people who previously tried to halt the rezoning of this land from agricultural to planned residential. The privately owned property that lies immediately adjacent to Lowe’s Ferry has a long history of land swaps with TVA—as recently as 12 years ago, when land swaps were done—and it involves a Limited Partnership with members who have chosen to remain unknown to the public. Stoney Point’s owner of record is a widow in her 60s who lives in a very small, rusted out mobile home on the property, yet the attorney who represents her is one of Knoxville most expensive and well-known real estate experts, and he frequently represents large developers.  

There has already been a good amount of money spent on a new road into the property, an electric entrance gate, a large stone wall, and landscaping at the entrance. In addition, the lots have been graded, a new survey was done, the water and sewer lines were put in, and 4-page full-color ads were placed in real estate listing magazines. I believe that the owner did not have the resources to do all of this work and has had the backing of silent partners. I also believe that she owes a great deal of money to them now… there is a rollback deed on her land… so negotiating with her has been very difficult. I spoke with her three times during the spring of 2010, and she was very curt. Since then, Doug Bataille (director of Knox County Parks and Recreation) has attempted to work out a plan to preserve the public part of the birthplace and possibly get an easement to a small section of her land that contains a 1900 birth monument. This monument was placed there by the Bonny Kate Chapter of the DAR and was dedicated by Admiral George Dewey during a highly publicized celebration that took place May 15, 1900. There has even been discussion of the county paying to move the monument the 10 feet or that it would have to go to be on county land.

This is what became a sort of creed for me: Be sure that your project or mission is something that 99% of people will see as a worthy and just cause. Know that you will still look like a kook sometimes. If you really still want to work to save a famous birthplace, an irreplaceable historic building, a Civil War battlefield, or whatever, start with a simple internet search of the person or thing you are interested in. Get on Google books and jstor.com and search there too. Many older books have been digitized and you can download the full text. Read everything you can find at the library, on genealogy sites, in the local courthouse. Google every association or special interest group that you think has any possible chance of joining your effort. Find the names of their boards of directors and patrons. Do reverse white pages searches, facebook searches, Linkdin searches, etc. to get email addresses, and create a mailing list. Send out a statement of your purpose and identify the people who want to help. Ask them for occasional, limited advice or assistance. Send updates. Be positive. Don’t be afraid to email anybody. ANYBODY. The President, the Chairman of the Board of the Fortune 500 companies. The Ambassador to Spain. Do it because it’s the right thing to do. Don’t expect anything, and be happy with every small step in the right direction.  

Lowe’s Ferry Landing is in one sense geographic coordinates on the map. Farragut wasn’t of course born on the dock, but people also say he was born at “Lowe’s Ferry” the way you might say you are from a neighborhood or a crossroads. Farragut was America’s first Admiral and was extremely important to the Union’s efforts to keep the country from dividing into two nations. He is probably the most famous person to have been born in Knoxville.  

I wrote most of the above before May 2010 to give a writer who was doing a newspaper story. Between May and January 2011 I worked on developing more local affiliations. I contacted Finnbarr Saunders, who was at that time the County Commissioner of the 4^th District (where the birthplace is located). I also talked at length with Ethiel Garlington of Knox Heritage, who helped me make a proposal to the Tennessee Historical Commission to consider nominating the birthplace to the National Register of Historic Place. Ethiel then brought in representatives from Hola Hora Latina and Centro Hispanico de East Tennessee. Knox Heritage named the birthplace one of Knoxville’s Fragile Fifteen sites in mid May 2010 http://www.knoxheritage.org/fragile15 and also recommended the Tennessee Preservation Trust to name it one of Tennessee’s top 10 endangered places. The 2010 Ten in Tennessee list, which includes Farragut’s Birthplace, was announced at a press conference on Thursday, May 20 at 10:00 a.m. in the Old Supreme Court Chambers at the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville. http://www.tennesseepreservationtrust.org/ten  

I also approached the Farragut Folklife Museum board, the Admiral Farragut Academy Alumni Association, a noted Bluegrass/Ebenezer area developer named Chuck Pilgrim, and the Council of West Knox County Homeowners to join the Preserve Farragut cause. With the help of the developer, who set up a meeting, I spoke with then-mayor Mike Ragsdale, who put me in touch with Doug Bataille, head of Knox County Parks and Recreation. This last endorsement from Bataille was probably the single most important step toward recognizing the birthplace and improving public access to the birthsite. Doug Bataille recommended that the county develop a boardwalk and greenway to connect the birthplace side of Admiral Farragut Park to the side of the existing park that has a parking lot… there is currently no public access to the exact birthplace, and archaeology needs to be done to remove any artifacts before any development of the public land takes place.  

In late spring 2010, with Mimi Lozano’s help, I also got in touch with Admiral Jay DeLoach, who is the director of U.S. Naval Museums. He was visiting Knoxville for the unveiling of a new Farragut statue in the Town of Farragut, and while he was here he also visited the birthplace. Doug had members of the park maintenance crew cut the barbed wire fence to allow us access. While we were on the site, we noticed that several mature cedar trees had been freshly cut on what appeared to be public land. We alerted Doug, and he went out to the land and witnessed the private property owner’s employees in the process of cutting trees. He talked to the owner and she disputed the boundary. Doug had a new survey done which showed that the trees were in fact on Knox County land that also that Knox County, through a deed from TVA, owns ALL of the shoreline at Farragut’s Birthplace. This created a new negotiation environment with the owner of the private land that is planned for development.  

Kim Trent, the head of Knox Heritage; Coral Getino, the head of Hola Hora Latina; and I, as the head of the newly formed group we named Preserve Farragut’s Birthplace, got together to host a fundraiser dinner in September 2010, and this helped raise more awareness.  

The owner of the private land put her lots on the market with a realtor, and the sales flyers and MLS listings indicated that the lots had water access. I filed a complaint with the Knoxville Board of Realtors to have the promotional materials amended because the lots do not have water access. The wording was changed. Soon afterward the owner took the lots off the market for about 3 months. In February 2011 she put them back on the market for sale by owner, at a greatly reduced price. Doug Bataille continues trying to negotiate with her attorney.  

During the fall of 2010 I developed more contacts with various Civil War Sesquicentennial groups and with local organizations like Legacy Parks and The Knoxville Tourism and Sports Corporation. I went to Nashville for the kickoff of the Tennessee Sesquicentennial events November 12 and met Dr. Carroll Van West, who is one of the state’s leading authorities on preservation and public history. He in turn put me in contact with the Tennessee Tourism Commission, which is running a new Civil War Trails Program.

First row, from from left to right:

Don’t know; Dr. Van West, director of MTSU Center for Historic Preservation, director of the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area, and co-chair of the Tennessee Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission; State Tourism Commissioner Susan Whittaker; Terena Boone of Knoxville Sightseeing Tours; Charlotte Brothers, sales manager at Knoxville Tourism and Sports Corporation; Governor Phil Bredesen; me; Cherel Henderson, director of the East TN History Center; don’t know; don’t know; don’t know  

Second row, from left to right:

Wes Cate of Knoxville Tourism and Sports Corporation; Norman Shaw of Knoxville Civil War Roundtable; Joan Markel, head of education outreach at UT's McClung Museum; Ethiel Garlington of Knox Heritage; Lisa Oakley, curator of education for the East Tennessee Historical Society; Kim Davis, communications manager of Knoxville Tourism and Sports Corporation; don’t know; and Randall Grimsley of Knoxville Civil War Roundtable  

In August the Knoxville/Knox County Historic Zoning Commission had sent a grant proposal to the State Historical Commission asking for funding to do archaeological research at Lowe’s Ferry. This grant proposal contained wording that was out of date… based on information that was known in 2008 but not updated to include new research that verified the exact birthplace of Farragut.  

I didn’t know how the proposal was worded until late November, and at that time I realized there was still a great deal of confusion about whether Farragut was actually born at Lowe’s Ferry or at Campbell’s Station, which is often listed as his birthplace as well.  

I wrote the info below in January 2011:  

·         Over the Christmas break I did a lot of research at the McClung Collection of the East TN History Center and transcribed the deed for Admiral Farragut Park from TVA to Knox County. Knox County is legally obligated to maintain this land as a public park. If they don’t, the U.S. Government has the authority to revoke the deed.

·         I also got a copy of the 1797 permit that Knox County gave to George Farragut allowing him to run a ferry “on his own land at Stoney Point on the Holston.”

·         I made copies of newspaper articles from April and May 1900 from microfilm in the East TN History Center and have started transcribing them. These give details about legislative committees that were formed and investigations that took place in April 1900. The county leaders determined the exact location of the Farragut home based on first-hand knowledge and eye witness accounts from people who had seen the main dwelling cabin at Lowe’s Ferry before it was demolished in 1895. The cabin is described in great detail in the writings of Marshall DeLancey Haywood, a noted author of North Carolina history and the librarian of the North Carolina Supreme Court from 1918-1933. The cabin was sited exactly where the monument now is. UT Professor emeritus Charlie Faulkner’s preliminary investigation in the late summer/early fall of 2008 also confirmed this, because he found artifacts around the monument that he dates to the late 1700s.

·         I found out this is the third time in 110 years that people have wanted to make this site a national park or at least give it proper protection….

·         Dr. Carroll Van West recommended to me that efforts to preserve the birthplace should be divided—with funding sought for only the public land and this being the primary focus since there is federal money for Civil War sites that are on public land but not for preservation on private property.

·         I made presentations of my new finding to the Knoxville Historic Zoning Commission on Jan. 20. They voted unanimously to continue seeking funds from more sources and to focus on getting grants to develop, restore, and improve the public  land. These funding sources include the Tennessee Historical  Commission, the TN Dept. of Transportation, the TN Civil War National Heritage Area fund, Legacy Parks Foundation, National Humanities Foundations, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Department of the Interior, private foundation funds, etc.

·         Charlie Faulkner, who is a member of the Knoxville/Knox County Historic Zoning Commission, was concerned about the possible damage or destruction to artifacts at the original cabin site and urged that we should continue trying to find and preserve any artifacts around the monument, although these are on private land. He offered to do the archaeology on the private property area for FREE. He will do this on the condition that the county obtains permission for him—he doesn’t want to do anything to hurt the trust that property owner, Lylan Shepherd Fitzgerald, has in him up to now, so he doesn’t want any part of negotiations with her. He said he’ll be taking names of volunteers to help dig J

·         I let Doug Bataille and Dr. West know about Charlie’s offer. Doug responded that he will continue trying to get permission from the property owner’s attorney and feels like Charlie’s offer is a really good bargaining chip. Dr. West responded that he is very glad we’re moving forward because Nashville public television is doing a series about important Civil War sites and they will want to film the Farragut birthplace while they are doing a segment on Knoxville.

·         I spoke to the Farragut Folklife board on Jan. 25 and gave them the information above. Sue Stuhl, who is the Town of Farragut director of parks and recreation, said that she and Doug Bataille have been talking and that they want to work together to put a marker on the accessible side of the park as soon as possible, so that people who visit the park know it is Farragut’s Birthplace. She said they have been talking about putting this close to the water’s edge below the parking area, where there is a nice view across the cove to the birthplace. She said they have discussed also putting in a bench and other small improvements.

·         I spoke with Dr. Van West in person in Murfreesboro Feb. 2, and he gave me the paperwork to fill out to get the Civil War Trail marker placed at Farragut park. He agreed to fast-track the application and explained that the state would pay $4,400 of the total cost and Knox County/Town of Farragut would only have to pay a match of $1,100.

·         I got the information about the trail marker to Doug Bataille and then he, Mul Wyman of the Farragut Folklife Museum, and Coral Getino of Hola Hora Latina met the third week of February and made plans for getting the final authorizations signed. Doug determined that it had to be approved by the county law director and the County Commission.

·         On March 28 the Civil  War Trail Marker was approved. The Town of Farragut has agreed to pay half with Knox County payng the other half.

·          I sent the resolution that the County Commission voted unanimously to pass. It took another few weeks for the paperwork to go through all the various offices and then get sent to the Tennessee State Tourism office. I also sent the Tourism Office images and captions to go on the trail marker.

 Margot 

Spanish SURNAMES

CUENTOS

If March comes in like a lion, it will go out like a lamb

Author Ben is the boy in arms with his mother and sister Virginia. 
 I have thoroughly enjoyed Ben's little mini-stories.  He seems to find humor in crossing the street, or buying a pair of shoes.  Life is a delight to Ben and it comes across in his writings.
Thank you Ben for reminding us to remember the joys of life.

For you, we have gathered seven essays by talented writers who honor their Latin grandmothers — Puerto Rican, Colombian, Cuban and Mexican — through beautiful words of tribute.

Issa M. Mas writes “The Horror of Mealtime” recounting funny and dramatic childhood dinner-time struggles with Abuela.

Alexandra Rosas Schultze writes “The Reach of a Small Moment” about the sweet compliment Abuela delivered to the 4-year-old Alexandra, a moment that has carried Alexandra through a lifetime.

Jennifer Ramón-Dover’s grandmother used to wait outside for Jennifer each day as she got off the bus after school. Jennifer used to roll her eyes at the over-protectiveness. Now, she misses it. Her essay, The White Butterfly.

Cuban author and playwright Teresa Dovalpage shares an excerpt from her

book Habanera: Portrait of a Cuban Family. The passage is about "An Abuela Called

Muñeca," a beautiful grandma who carried on an affair in front of her young granddaughter.

Lydia P. Harris writes “Searching for Abuelita in the Kitchen,” an essay on her desire to learn her deceased grandmother’s easy way in the kitchen, before the lesson becomes forever unavailable. 

Lisa Quinones-Fontanez in "My Mother As Abuela," 
  marvels at seeing her mother patient and tender as a grandmother, far different from the woman she was as a mother. Her mother as grandmother allows Lisa to see and understand her mother better.

Maria Aquilino had a Cuban grandmother and a Mexican grandmother -- Guantanamera

This delightful collection is free. You are invited to share. http://tikitikiblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/
Celebrating-Abuela-with-Tiki-Tiki.pdf

FAMILY HISTORY RESEARCH

Sent by Paul Nauta NautaPG@familysearch.org

ORANGE COUNTY, CA

LOS ANGELES, CA

GREGORIO LUKE'S NEW LECTURE SERIES

CALIFORNIA 

HIGHLIGHTS 
INCLUDE: 

Hispanic Link Weekly Report April 28, 2011
Vol. 29, No. 8

Thomas Starr King

California and the Civil War

by Richard Duree

On July 4, 1860, a Confederate flag was flown over the Los Angeles main plaza. The brewing animosity between Union and Confederate sympathizers was not limited to the East Coast. California was equally divided between northern (Union) and southern (Confederate) sympathizers. The actions of seceding or of splitting the state into two parts, northern and southern, were hotly debated. This was still the time of free v. slave states and in view of California's immense wealth, that was no small concern; whichever side gained California's support would have gain immense wealth and power.

  At the time, the Governor and most of the Legislature were Confederate sympathizers. A 16,000-member organization, Knights of the Golden Circle, labored actively with politicians and civic leaders to procure the state for the Confederacy and was a powerful force for the Confederate cause.