December  2002
Editor: Mimi Lozano, mimilozano@aol.com

      Dedicated to Hispanic Heritage and Diversity Issue
          Publication of the Society of Hispanic Historical and Ancestral Research © 2000-1
http://members.aol.com/shhar      714-894-8161

Discovery of America
by Salvador Dali

"If you have once experienced the peace that comes from unity,
 it is always a goal you seek to achieve."  
John H. Groberg  
In the Eye of the Storm

By Lloyd Darden
June 1944–– “Carrier planes of a powerful Pacific Fleet Task Force attacked Saipan, Tinian and Guam, Japan’s heavily defended bases in the Marianas Islands. The three islands are among the most important bulwarks on the way to Admiral Nimitz’s ultimate goal, the China coast and eventually the Japanese home islands.” —Chronicles of the XX Century

        This historical offensive took place only months after Private First Class Guy Gabaldon joined a Marine intelligence unit, R2, in the Pacific. “Everyone said that prisoners were scarce as hen’s teeth,” he recalls. Japanese soldiers believed they would be tortured horrifically if captured—so they preferred death. That was conventional wisdom, but Gabaldon couldn’t accept it. To do his job, he had to have prisoners.

Justice for my People: The Dr. Hector P. Garcia Story

The untold story of an inspiring leader in the Mexican-American struggle for civil rights.
http://www.justiceformypeople.org/

Justice for my People: The Dr. Hector P. Garcia Story is a ninety-minute documentary produced by Jeff Felts of KEDT-TV, Public Television in Corpus Christi. The program is available to Public Television stations across the United States, and for individual purchase on DVD and VHS.for his numerous years of  selfless community service to the Latino community 

Six years in the making, the program traces the rise of the Mexican American civil rights movement from the 1920s to the 1980s through the ideals, choices and actions of Dr. Hector P. Garcia. Although he is not widely known by the general public, Dr. Garcia's work produced profound change in the treatment of Mexican Americans and earned him a place among the most important leaders in American civil rights history.

Dr. Hector P. Garcia

The life of Dr. Hector P. Garcia - Mexican Revolution refugee, medical doctor of the slums, war veteran, civil rights activist and confidante of presidents - parallels the slow, painful rise of his people to first class citizenship.

Garcia's achievements are of historical importance. Through peaceful protest and legal recourse, he confronted the violators of the civil rights of "his people" at the same time that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. worked for equal rights for African Americans.

Justice for my People: The Dr. Hector P. Garcia Story illuminates the critical issues of each decade through Dr. Hector Garcia's personal experience. Twenty on-camera interviews were recorded with scholars, contemporaries, and adversaries to place each incident in context. History is brought to life by interviews with men and women who worked with Garcia during those crucial years, offering personal insights into life as an American minority.

John F. Kennedy meeting Mexican American leaders.

Newsreels, photos and action video show Garcia's growing commitment to help gain "justice for his people" as he is caught in the maelstrom of post-war racial and ethnic struggle in South Texas. His fight for justice is traced from Mathis, Texas to Washington D.C., and finally to the United Nations. Garcia's own recorded voice provides memorable insights into his life and character.

When young Americans of any ethnic group look for a hero to emulate, they need look no further than to the example of Dr. Hector P. Garcia. In making himself into an inspirational leader, Garcia was forced to overcome many of the obstacles that have held back others who began in similar circumstances:

• He chose not to be satisfied with a life of poverty.
• He chose not to accept prejudicial treatment.
• He chose not to allow injustice to his people.
• He did choose to get an education so that he might engage in a profession that would provide him with economic opportunity while serving others.
• He did choose to peacefully resist prejudice by building his life and work on the foundation of the principles set forth in the United States Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
• He did choose to fight for the rights of others who were unable to fight for themselves.
• Garcia chose to follow the American dream and to give others the dream, too.

Now, with the production of this Public Television documentary of his life, Dr. Hector P. Garcia can be an inspiration to a new generation of Americans.

Website Copyright 2002 KEDT  Web site developed by Farenthold Consulting, LLC

Sent by  Vivian Drake vivian.drake@mail.va.gov

BY TRICIA CORTEZ
Times staff writer 
        Just two days before the Armistice was signed to end World War I on Nov. 11, 1918, David Barkley Cantu drowned while swimming the icy French waters of the Meuse River to infiltrate German enemy lines. Cantu is Laredo's only Medal of Honor winner and was one of three Texans
to receive the nation's highest honor for military service. As such, he lay in state at the Alamo, the second person to ever do so. (The first is Sam Houston). 
        However, Cantu's Hispanic background was not discovered until 1989, a full 71 years after his death, making him the U.S. Army's first Hispanic Medal of Honor recipient. 
         "Family records indicate he did not want to be known as of Mexican descent, for fear he would not see action at the front," according to the Handbook of Texas Online Website. He went by the name David B. Barkley. In 1921, three years after his death, a school in San Antonio was named after him. 
        In 1940, the U.S. government began construction of a camp 11 miles southwest of Abilene and named it after him, but spelled it incorrectly (Barkeley) because of a clerical error. It became one of the state's largest military installations and had a peak population of 50,000. It also served as a camp for German prisoners of war and was deactivated in April 1945. Part of it is now part of Knaus Ranch, which is used for deer and turkey hunting. 
        Cantu is one of four acts in the nationally touring production called "Veteranos: A Legacy of Valor." The show will come to Laredo next week, and opening night will be Friday, Nov. 15 at the Civic Center. Born in Laredo, probably in 1899, to Antonia Cantu and Josef Barkley, Cantu enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army and was assigned to the 89th Division of the 356th Infantry. 
        According to his Medal of Honor citation and the Handbook of Texas Online, Cantu was given the mission of swimming the Meuse River near Pouilly, France, to ascertain the enemy's location. "He and another volunteer swam the river, crawled 400 yards behind enemy lines and made maps of the location enemy artillery units," his citation reads. 
        The purpose was to gather information about the strength and deployment of German formations.  "As the two men were returning to the river, the Germans discovered them and opened fire. They made it into the water. However, once in the river, Barkley was overcome by cramps and drowned," the citation reads. His partner made it back and relayed the information, "enabling their
unit to launch a successful attack against the enemy."  Cantu's death on Nov. 9, at the believed age of 19 years old, came two days before the Armistice went into effect and ended the war. His sacrifice earned praise from Gen. John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force, according to the Handbook of Texas Online. Cantu earned the U.S. Medal of Honor and the French Croix de Guerrre and Italian Croce Merito.  
(Staff writer Tricia Cortez can be reached at 728-2568 or tricia@lmtonline.com.)  11/09/02 

Spain, the United States and the American Frontier:  
Historias Paralelas, Developed by the Library of Congress 
http://international.loc.gov/intldl/eshtml/

About Historias Paralelas

The Spain, United States, & the American Frontier: Historias Paralelas project represents progress toward the realization of a vision shared by leaders of esteemed cultural institutions in Spain and the United States. The fulfillment of this vision will result in a multimedia digital library portal which provides Internet access to the historical treasures of several institutions.
        The October 1999 signing in Seville, Spain of a landmark agreement between the Institución Colombina and the Library of Congress provides for a digital collaboration that will bring unique documents from the cultural heritage of both nations to the fingertips of students and lifelong learners around the world. This initial collaboration was further advanced on February 24, 2000, by the signing of an agreement with the National Library of Spain in a Great Hall ceremony at the Library of Congress in the presence of King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofía of Spain.
         The site features maps, rare books, manuscripts, prints and photographs, and motion pictures from the Library of Congress. These selected items relate to Spanish influence and interaction with other cultures existing in the geographic areas of North America, the Caribbean, and present-day Mexico between 1492-1898. Bilingual, English/Spanish access is provided throughout the site whenever possible. An interface with search and browse by Subjects, Titles, Geographic Locations features, supports navigation to 118 maps, two rare books, and one book from the United States Congressional Serial Set. In addition, links are offered to eight relevant American Memory collections and three Exhibitions from the Library of Congress. The American Memory format emphasizes direct access to primary source materials via specialized search and browse list tools for each collection. The Exhibitions format features a blend of historical context and images of historical treasures which have been displayed at the Library of Congress.
        A sampler of materials recently scanned by the National Library of Spain is included in the preview and highlights portraits of key figures in the joint history of the two countries. 
                                                                                                                                                Sent  by Johanna de Soto

Extract from Mexican-Americans should take pride in a heritage that spans the centuries 
Raul Amaya, Special to the Times
http://www.borderlandnews.com/stories/opinion/columnists/20021020-34271.shtml


The story of Mexicans in America is an enduring story that remains important year-round, beyond last Wednesday's completion of Hispanic Heritage Month. Why? Because Mexicans and other Hispanics form one of the main chapters in the story of the American immigrant.
        Indeed, all of America's inhabitants have descended from immigrants who came seeking a better life.
        Mexicans share a legacy of being great adventurers. Our ancestors traveled great distances by foot and by ship to reach America.
        Mexicans are the fusion of Asians, Europeans, and Africans. Our black blood comes from the 700-year occupation of southern Spain by the Moors of northern Africa, which ended the same year that Columbus set sail for China.
        Anthropologists believe Native Americans emigrated from northeastern Asia to the Americas 40,000 to 60,000 years ago when the ocean level was low enough to allow a land bridge to be formed along the Bering Strait between Siberia and Alaska. Our Asian ancestors probably came to the Americas seeking new hunting grounds. Over time, they eventually inhabited all of the Americas.
Mexicans' most prominent Indian ancestors were the Aztecs. According to legend, the Aztecs migrated from their ancestral homeland, called Aztlan, sometime in the 12th century. They did so because they were told by their legendary man-god Quetzalcoatl that if they wanted to be a great people, they'd have to trek south until they came to an island, in the middle of a lake, where they'd see an eagle resting on a cactus plant, with a snake in its beak.
        By the 13th century, they had settled in Tenochtitlan, today's Mexico City. According to Chicano legend, Aztlan encompassed the states of California, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and portions of Nevada, Utah, and Colorado.
        The theme of immigrants and adventurers continued when the Spaniards were the great explorers of the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Some people believe that the first Mexican was the son born in 1520 to Hernando Cortez, conqueror of the Aztec empire, and Doña Marina his Aztec slave, interpreter and lover. Doña Marina was given to Cortez soon after he landed on Mexico's east coast by the Indians the Spaniards encountered there. Also known as "La Malinche" (the traitor), Doña Marina played a critical role in Cortez's conquest of the Aztecs.
         Doña Marina informed Cortez that Montezuma, the Aztec's ruler, believed that Cortez was the man-god Quetzalcoatl, who predicted he would return to assume the leadership of the Aztec Empire. Legend had it that Quetzalcoatl came from the east, would later return again from the east and unlike the Aztecs was supposedly light-skinned, fair-haired and had a beard. Quetzalcoatl gave the Aztecs a calendar by which to calculate the day of his return.
        Cortez's arrival coincided with that date. Doña Marina also informed Cortez that many of the Indian tribes the Spaniards met as they marched from the east coast of Mexico toward central Mexico, where the Aztecs' capital was located, hated their Aztec conquerors and would fight with him to overthrow them. 
        Cortez and Montezuma highlight one of the most interesting chapters of our rich Mexican history. It is a great heritage that every Mexican-American child should be taught. In fact, it's important for all people to understand and take pride in their heritage.

Raul F. Amaya, a personal financial consultant who lives in East El Paso, writes often for the El Paso Times.  El Paso Times, Sent by Roberto Camp 

Congress Gets Its First Sister Act with Loretta And Linda Sanchez  (Extract)

         LAKEWOOD, Calif. - Democrats Loretta Sanchez and Linda Sanchez won election victories Tuesday that will make them the first pair of sisters to serve in the House of Representatives, signaling another milestone in the increasing power of the Hispanic vote.
        "This is the first wave in a series of very large tidal tsunamis that will hit America during the 21st century," said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at University of Virginia "The Hispanic vote is going to restructure and redefine American politics, not just in California and the Southwest, but the entire country."
        "I'm not here to take over the world," said Loretta Sanchez. "My passion is to get more women elected in politics. And if it's a Hispanic woman, it's even better."  Linda Sanchez said her victory still has to be put in perspective. While she called it "momentous," she said there is still much to do. "Unfortunately, we still have a fairly small Hispanic caucus in Congress. We'll be lucky if we add three or four new members."
        While the Sanchezes are making history for women, a pair of brothers - and Republicans - are sharing in the milestone of Hispanic relatives going to Congress in Florida. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, who was unopposed for re-election, will go to the House with his brother, Mario Diaz-Balart, who easily won election on Tuesday. 
        There are 19 Hispanic members in the House, none in the Senate. 
The U.S. population is 12.5 percent Hispanic; 12.5 percent of the 435 House seats would be 54. 

Extract from: Census: Salsa Supplants Sauerkraut , September 10, 2002

By GENARO C. ARMAS, Associated Press Writer

          LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) - The city's Cabbage Hill neighborhood got its name from the many German immigrants who grew cabbage to make sauerkraut, but nowadays you're more likely to hear "hola" than "hallo" as younger Hispanic families displace older German residents.  he makeup of many cities across the United States changed in the 1990s as the number of people of European ancestry declined and were replaced by Latino and, to a lesser extent, Asian immigrants.
        The shifts are especially noticeable in cities in the Northeast and Midwest that were heavily settled in the 19th and early 20th centuries by European immigrants. They arrived there for many of the same reasons that today's new immigrants do: jobs and cheaper housing.
        Immigration from northern and western Europe has decreased to a trickle compared to the 19th and first part of the 20th centuries. Many new immigrants from those countries today don't have the familial connections in those cities that drew immigrants before them.
       In general, fewer people associate with any ancestry. While the U.S. population rose 13 percent between 1990 and 2000 to 281 million, the number of ancestries cited on the survey — based on a sample — declined from 296 million to 287 million over the decade. People could write in up to two heritages that described their background.  Cultural ties can often dissolve as people marry spouses from other backgrounds, Brittingham said. "Some people have so many ancestries they may not know what to report." 
        The five largest white ancestries in the United States:
_German largest at 42.9 million, 15 % of the population. Down 58 million or 23% a decade ago.
_Irish ancestry dropped from nearly 16 percent of U.S. residents in 1990 to 11 percent in 2000. -English declined from 13 percent to nearly 9 percent.
        Ancestries traced back to other parts of Europe did not show as big a drop. For instance, Polish was selected by 3.2 percent of U.S. residents in 2000, as opposed to 3.8 percent in 1990, while Italian declined from 5.9 percent to 5.6 percent.  Overall, whites number at least 194.6 million, up 13 percent over the decade. Hispanics number 35.3 million, up 58 percent, and now rival blacks as the nation's largest minority group.  The Asian population also rose to at least 10.2 million, up 52 percent. Chicago's Polish population stood at more than 210,000, or 7 percent of city residents, in 2000, down from nearly 262,000 in 1990, or 9 percent of the city's population then.

HISPANIC Trends Magazine Debuts  Mi2N - October 21, 2002

        HISPANIC Trends, a national magazine geared at Hispanic American business and political leaders-as well as anyone wishing to reach the fast-growing Hispanic marketplace-debuted today in Los Angeles at the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC) 23rd Annual National Convention and Business Expo.
        "With Hispanic Americans taking a more prominent role in the nation's economic and political landscape, the time is ripe for a new magazine that takes the pulse of this dynamic segment," said publisher Sam Verdeja, from Hispanic Publishing Corp.
        The new magazine will be a "prime networking tool and source of information on business opportunities, marketing strategies, and legislative and political issues," said USHCC president and chief executive officer George Herrera. 
        HISPANIC Trends also is "sure to become an indispensable part of any strategic plan to reach today's Hispanic entrepreneur and professional," added Elizabeth Lisboa-Farrow, chair of the USHCC board of directors.
        True to its name, the premiere issue of HISPANIC Trends keeps tabs on the upcoming political elections and the latest happenings at major companies run by Hispanic executives. It also includes a special eight-page section, "Dynamic Trend," filled with numbers, facts, graphs, and charts illustrating the robust strength of the U.S. Hispanic market.
        The magazine will cover much more than trends. A central mission, according to editor Joe Vidueira, is "to provide readers with the tools and information they need to attain their own professional and business goals." Toward that end, the debut issue includes "how-to" articles on topics ranging from investing to keeping a business thriving during turbulent economic times. On the cover are Mexican Americans Rick and David Cantu of Washington's Redapt Systems & Peripherals, a high-tech firm that has managed to thrive in a difficult economic environment. 
        The magazine, which may be accessed online at www.HispanicTrends.com, will have an initial circulation of 50,000 copies. It is co-published by the Hispanic Publishing Corporation, which also publishes HISPANIC Magazine, http://www. HispanicOnline.com  and VISTA Magazine; and the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the representative of more than 1.2 million Hispanic-owned businesses in the United States and Puerto Rico.  Copyright 2002Tag It 

Doctors to be recruited from Mexico  
By Jake Henshaw  Times-Delta Sacramento Bureau

        SACRAMENTO -- California is poised to become the first state to recruit Mexican doctors and dentists to work temporarily in medically underserved areas, as the result of a bill that has been signed into law. Assembly Bill 1045 will allow up to 30 doctors and 30 dentists from Mexico to work in the state for up to three years without the ability to renew their licenses. The measure addresses the medical-care shortages and the language and culture barriers in many underserved communities. The first Mexican doctors and dentists will begin work here sometime between July 2003 and Jan. 1, 2004 . 
        The measure was opposed by the state medical and dental professional associations because it doesn't require the Mexican medical workers to meet the same standards as California doctors and dentists.  
        Participants in the new temporary program would have to be licensed and board certified in Mexico and would have to complete courses in California medical procedures and ethics as well as English. But they wouldn't have to pass the standard test that physicians practicing in the United States now must pass, because of the unwillingness of the testing agency to provide it for this purpose, according to the bill's backers. Instead they would take continuing education courses and participate in supervised medical training and meet other requirements.

http://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/news/stories/20021002/localnews/203944.html
Source: Hispanicvista.com  

Extract from: Hispanics Developing Their Spending Power
Scripps Howard News Service - September 23, 2002

         Researchers at the University of Georgia reported recently that Hispanics in California spent far more than Hispanics in any other state in the nation,  They outdistanced Hispanics in Texas, the next- closest state, by a nearly 2-to-1 ratio.  The results were reported in the annual "National Minority Buying Power" study.
        The study, which used information compiled by the U.S. Census Department, also found that spending by other minority groups is growing significantly, with California also ranked number one for Asian-Americans and Native Americans.
        Fundamentally strong national and regional economies, favorable demographics and better employment opportunities were some of the factors that contributed to the growth of spending power nationwide by a variety of ethnic groups who are expected to have a combined buying power of $1.4 trillion by 2007, the study found. 
        "The immense buying power of the nation's Hispanic, African-American, Asian and Native American consumers is energizing the U.S. consumer market as never before," Jeff Humphreys, author of the report, stated in a release. "The statistics for each group are very compelling, and suggest we are experiencing a shift in economic power that's reshaping the retail and commercial landscape of America."
        Hispanics in the Golden State spent $170.7 billion in 2000, compared to $93.7 billion spent by Hispanics in the Lone Star State, and $52.4 billion spent by Hispanics in Florida.  
        Overall, Hispanics nationwide are expected to spend $580.5 billion this year, up from $490.7 billion in 2000 and $223 billion spent in 1990.  
        If trends continue, Hispanic buying power nationally should exceed that of African-Americans by 2005. By 2007, Humphreys expects Hispanic buying power to surpass $926.1 billion.

Mexican pavilion to be updated at Florida's Epcot Center (Extract)
Efe - October 30, 2002

        Mexico City, Oct 30 (EFE).- The Mexican government is negotiating with Walt Disney Co. to revamp the country's pavilion at Epcot Center in Central Florida, Tourism Minister Leticia Navarro said. Disney officials and Mexican authorities plan to meet in November to decide upon changes in the pavilion that need to be made before the end of the year.
        Navarro said that the pavilion's current features and exhibits are inadequate because they are based on Mexico as it was in the past and not as it is today.Epcot Center is made up of two different areas: Future World, dedicated to communications, health, transportation and the environment, and the World Showcase, which focuses in particular on the areas of culture and food from the 11 countries that have pavilions there.
         The countries represented in the World Showcase are Mexico, Germany, Canada, China, the United States, France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, Morocco and Norway.  Spain is negotiating to become the 12th country in the World Showcase with an eye toward better establishing its image in the southern United States.                                             EFE  http://www.HispanicOnline.com 11- 7-02

Spanglish' heads towards mainstream   (Extract)  Bangkok Post - November 5, 2002

      In the wacky cartoon world of the ``Mucha Lucha'' wrestling school, Buena Girl is trying to help her friend gain weight in preparation for his match with three big ``brutos''.  ``And now for the ultimate in buena eats! El Masked Montana's mega torta!'' she says, stuffing an enormous sandwich into his mouth. The WB network's new show is peppered with a blend of Spanish and English dialogue often called Spanglish. And TV isn't the only place you'll find it.
        An Amherst College professor recently completed a Spanglish translation of the first chapter of Don Quixote, and Hallmark is expanding its line of cards that mix America's most commonly spoken languages.  Not everyone is happy to see Spanglish creep into the mainstream. Critics see it as a danger to Hispanic culture and advancement. But Spanglish speakers, who often move nimbly between the two languages and cultures, say it is an expression of ethnic pride.
        ``Spanglish is proof that Latinos have a culture that is made up of two parts. It's not that you are Latino or American,'' said Ilan Stavans, the professor of Latin American and Latino culture who translated Miguel de Cervantes' masterpiece. ``You live on the hyphen, in between. That's what Spanglish is all about, a middle ground.''
        Spanglish speakers span generations, classes and nationalities. Immigrants still learning English may turn to Spanglish out of necessity. Bilingual speakers may dip into one language, then weave in another because it's more convenient.  ``There are certain words or sayings that are just better in Spanish,'' said Danny Lopez, 28, who speaks Spanglish with friends and family, though seldom at work.
        ``When I talk to my dad, I'll say, `Hey Dad, I remember sitting in abuelita's cocina when we were little, and we were drinking a taza of cafe,''' said Lopez, describing memories of his grandmother's kitchen. His family has lived in the United States for four generations.
        Stavans traces Spanglish's origins back to 1848, when the treaty that ended the US-Mexican War signed over much of the Southwest to the United States, abruptly transforming Spanish-speaking Mexicans into Americans. Stavans translated Cervantes into Spanglish this summer in response to a Spanish-language purist who asserted the linguistic mix would never be taken seriously until it produced a classic like Don Quixote.

``In un placete de La Mancha of which nombre no quiero remembrearme, vivia, not so long ago, uno de esos gentlemen who always tienen una lanza in the rack, una buckler antigua, a skinny caballo y un grayhound para el chase,'' his translation begins.  

        But Antonio Garrido of the Instituto Cervantes in New York, said a Spanglish Don Quixote is ``a joke''. ``The idea is good English and good Spanish. Spanglish has no future,'' said Garrido, director of the institute created by the Spanish government to promote Spanish and Hispanic-American language and culture. ``A person who doesn't speak English well in the United States doesn't have a future.''
        Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria, a professor of Hispanic and comparative literature at Yale University, agreed, saying Hispanics should learn to speak both English and Spanish well. He fears ``we're going to end up speaking McSpanish, a sort of anglicised Spanish. I find it offensive the United States' values and cultural mores, all of that, are transmitted through the language filter into Spanish culture.''  He cited one example of a Spanglish pitfall: In a deli in Puerto Rico, he saw a sign that warned parking was for customers only. ``Violadores'' will be prosecuted, it said. The word was used because it sounds like the English word for violators, but the problem is that ``violador'' primarily means ``rapist'' in Spanish, he said. 
        Stavans, who said he speaks Spanglish with his children, doesn't advocate replacing English with Spanglish. But he says it should be recognized as a valid form of communication. ``Language is not controlled by a small group of academics that decide what the words are that we should use. Language is created by people and it is the job of academics to record those changes,'' he said. 
        A recent survey by the Los Angeles-based Cultural Access Group found 74 percent of 250 Hispanic youths surveyed in Los Angeles spoke Spanglish, most often with friends, other young people and at home.  ``This is the way that young Latino kids speak,'' said Donna Friedman, the Kids WB! executive vice president.
        Hallmark says its cards also echo how people speak. ``Que beautiful it is to do nada, and then descansar despues,'' reads one, which translates to, ``How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then rest afterward.''  The greeting card company is expanding its line of Spanish-language cards, which includes Spanglish ones. They're aimed at younger recipients rather than mothers, aunts or grandmothers, ``who may not approve of mixing languages'', according to the company.
        In Los Angeles, Lalo Alcaraz and Esteban Zul run a Web site, pocho.com, which offers ``satire, news y chat for the Spanglish generation.''  ``We don't live neatly in two worlds. I teach my kids Spanish, yet my wife and I speak English to each other,'' said Alcaraz, whose new Spanglish comic strip, La Cucaracha, will appear in newspapers next month. Spanglish is ``its own unique point of view. It's more of an empowering thing to us, to say we have a legitimate culture.''

To see more of the Post Publishing Plc, or to subscribe, go to http://www.BangkokPost.net 
Source HispanicOnline.com

'Cucaracha' creator to draw syndicated comic strip

By Maria Elena Fernandez, Times Staff Writer
November 14, 2002, E-mail story Print

        The creator of "L.A. Cucaracha" is going national with "La Cucaracha," a rare Latino-themed syndicated daily comic strip, which promises more fodder from the Spanglish, warped world of its main character.  Creator Lalo Alcaraz, 38, of Los Angeles signed a 10-year contract with Universal Press Syndicate, which also syndicates "Doonesbury" and "The Boondocks," to begin his biting and satirical strip on Nov.25.
        Set in a "hyper-Boyle Heights" neighborhood, "La Cucaracha" will use humor to address political and topical issues, such as immigration, and will portray Latinos in a rounded and multidimensional way, Alcaraz said.
        "L.A. Cucaracha" will continue in the LA Weekly, but Alcaraz is considering changing its name to avoid confusion between the two strips. "La Cucaracha" has been picked up so far by 35 newspapers across the country, including the Los Angeles Times. "I hate stuff that's watered down and not specific," Alcaraz said. "The more specific you are when you create art, the more universal it
is. That's not what Hollywood does, but if I followed Hollywood's advice I'd be doing a cartoon about a white man, and that's not interesting to me."
        "Baldo," a Latino-themed comic strip by Hector Cantu and Carlos Castellanos, has been distributed by Universal Press Syndicate for the last two years. If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives.

For article licensing and reprint options: 
Lalo Lopez Alcaraz  pocho@pocho.com  
Lalo Alcaraz EBAY arte auctions! http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/cartoonista/
AND COMING FALL 2002: the La Cucaracha daily comic strip by Lalo Alcaraz! In funny pages near you...visit http://www.lacucaracha.com  join the lalo yahoo group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laloalcaraz/
Sent by Anthony Garcia  agarcia@wahoo.sjsu.edu


El Libro de Calo: The Dictionary of Chicano Slang 
Compiled by Harry Polkinhorn, Alfredo Velasco & Malcom Lambert 1988 100 pgs (pbk) ISBN 0915745194 $23.95. Class use $17.95 Includes index & concordance. The most authoritative dictionary and guide to understanding the dialect popularly spoken by Chicanos in the Southwest. It includes user's guide, concordance from the English to Caló and index. http://www.floricantopress.com

Also, if you would like copies of the magazines that contain the following lists, Hispanic Business Rich List (September 2002) and Hispanic Business 100 Influential Hispanics  
(October 2002), go to http://www.HispanicBusiness.com/store  (805) 964-4554  
Single copies are only $3.99.  

Teachers, youth leaders, and those of you with business offices, please consider getting copies of these two issues and sharing them in your community. Being exposed to this information will be promoting our heritage, our strength, our potential.  The startling increases of Latinos in communities all over the U.S. is causing concerns.  Showing them our economic accomplishments can diffuse those growing anxieties.  

In the EDIT MODE. . . run a FIND surname search. It will be a fun way to encourage young people to search.  It will also be a source of  pride and encouragement to find a highly successful individual with their surname.  

Hispanic Business 100 Influential Hispanics October 2002

Heather Martinez Zona, President, New York Women’s Bar Association, Ms. Zona is the first Hispanic female and the youngest elected president of the NYWBA. She is also an associate in the firm Heller Ehrman & McAuliffe, where she represents policyholders in disputes with insurance companies. She founded the "Take Our Daughters to Work Day" program, sponsored by the NYWBA and the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

        You'll noticed some disagreements in the following information, but it is presented for your evaluation, interest, and further research.

The Saga of the Perez Family and its Multicultural Diaspora Around the World
http://www.humanitas-international.org/perezites/homepage.htm
http://www.humanitas-international.org/perezites/index.html

Very diverse Perez shields 
http://cgi.svnt.com/impbanner?c=15&p=espana/alicante/heraldica

PEREZ

BLASONES Y APELLIDOS



por
Fernando Muñoz Altea

Extract from BLASONES Y APELLIDOS, 828-page book by Fernando Muñoz Altea
In its second edition, the book can be ordered from blasones@mail.com
or at P.O. Box 11232, El Paso, Texas   79995  or by contacting Armando Montes   AMontes@Mail.com  

Jose Guadalupe Hernandez, construction worker, 35 years old. Born, Fresnillo, Zacatecas.

Salvador Sarmiento, Orange County Superior Court commissioner, 51 years old. Born, El Paso, Texas (parents from Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua)

Leticia Vargas, translator and instructor at Orange County Sheriff's Academy, 47 years old.
Born, Guadalajara, Jalisco since 1973.

 President of  Zacatecan Federation of Los Angeles and president of the Council of Presidents of Mexican Federations, which represents 300 clubs.

Founder of  Zacatecan federation of hometown clubs, member for 15 years.

Centro Cultural board member, previously worked with ex-convicts, volunteered at a public law center and campaigned against domestic violence.

Legal Aid, Homeless Issues Task Froce, Hispanic advisory gorup to Orange County District Attorney's Office.

The Venues: 
Latin American Graphics will be circulated by Curatorial Assistance. The exhibition is curated by Felix Angel, award-winning Colombian artist, curator and architect, resident of Washington, D.C. and a printmaker himself.  The exhibition will be on display at the museum from November 16, 2002 until February 16, 2003. Once it leaves MoLAA it will travel to the following venues: Rutgers-Camden Center for the arts, New Jersey; Grand Rapids Art Museum, Michigan; Museo de las Americas, Denver, Colorado; The Museum of Art and History McPherson Center, Santa Cruz, California; Lowe Museum of Art, Coral Gables, Florida and the Historic Arkansas Museo in Little Rock.
        We would like to extend our gratitude to the artist, collectors and institution who are lending us their work of art for our exhibition: The Americas Collection, Coral Gables, FL, Ernesto de Soto Workshop, Estate of Naul Ojeda, Galeria Botello, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, Galeria Coabey, San Juan, Puerto Rico, Galeria Lyle O. Reitzel Arte Contemporaneo, Dom. Rep., The Inter American Development Bank, Washington D.C., Jeffrey J. Wagner, MoLAA, Museo de Historia, Antropologia y Arte, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Ortiz- Gurdian Foundation, Leon, Nicaragua, Private Collector, Washington D.C. Viteri Centro de arte, Quito, Ecuador.
                    
  This exhibition is sponsored in part by Wells House Hospice.

A Glimpse of La Historia Society Museum
Museo de Los Barrios in El Monte

[[This is a very touching description of a visit by writer Kat Avila to the museum]]

Oh, They Were So Young by Kat Avila | Web Published 11.20.2002

         I got a phone call at the rectory, "Father, they are coming. A whole caravan, about 40 cars, full of Anglo toughies and Marines. They started beating zoot suiters in Los Angeles, and now are heading for El Monte." --from "Memoirs of Juanote" by Monsignor John V. Coffield, (c) 1999
         I went to visit La Historia Society Museum/Museo de Los Barrios at 3240 Tyler Avenue in El Monte, California (not to be confused with the nearby El Monte Museum of History supported by the El Monte Historical Society on the same street). I went there to hear stories, because many of the stories my father Alfred Avila told me came from his experiences growing up in this area, within a barrio called La Mision, as well as the adjacent La Colonia. La Mision is one of eight El Monte barrios documented by the museum, the other seven being Canta Ranas, Chino Camp, Hicks Camp, La Granada, Las Flores, Medina Court (Hayes), and Wiggins Camp.
        The small two-room building, acquired from the City of El Monte, temporarily houses the office and budding museum of La Historia Society of El Monte. The museum's grand opening was last year on September 29, 2001. The non-profit Society was established on March 21, 1998, to preserve and showcase the local history and contributions of Mexican Americans, other Latino groups, and the Tongva people (better known by their non-indigenous name of Gabrielinos after the Mission San Gabriel).
        Land for a permanent museum has been generously donated by the City of El Monte. Robert Bautista, who is on the Society's planning committee for the new facility, shared with me their ambitious plans for an autonomous center that will educate and support both students and researchers. Toward this end, the members of the Society have held fundraisers and sold calendars featuring photographs from their museum collection.
        In past years, I had attended events sponsored by La Historia Society. One was a book signing by Monsignor John V. Coffield for his book "Memoirs of Juanote" in January 2000. I had wanted to see him because he had baptized me on my first birthday when he was at Dolores Mission. He was a courageous Irish American priest who had been assigned to a parish in the Medina Court (Hayes) barrio and whose activism on behalf of that parish and the surrounding immigrant community during the 1940s and 50s had an everlasting impact on the residents. He earned a lifetime membership in the California Teacher Association for his leadership during efforts to desegregate the schools in the El Monte School District.
        Another La Historia Society event I had attended was a Mass and reunion of all the El Monte barrios held on September 9, 2000, partly to commemorate the founding of the original Mission San Gabriel, or Mision del Santo Arcangel San Gabriel de los Temblores, on September 8, 1771. The barrio La Mision gets its name from its predecessor. The reunion was also held to acknowledge the beginning of the El Monte barrios from the hope-filled masses who fled the violence of the Mexican Revolution (1910-20).
        "Nothing remains of the old buildings [the original Mission San Gabriel] save a few adobe tiles, which are still occasionally plowed up by the Japanese farmers...," says a 1932 Historic Spots in California guidebook. In the 1930s, the population of El Monte was 75% European/European American, 20% Mexican/Mexican American, and 5% Japanese/Japanese American.
        This was the time of the repatriation of Mexicans and their U.S.-born children. I have a copy of a letter that was sent to my grandfather. It reads simply, "Will you please call at 438 So. San Pedro, Los Angeles, at 8:00 A.M. on Saturday, May 27, 1933. There is a Mexican Government Boat leaving here on the 30th of this month. This is an opportunity for you to repatriate on your own Government's Boat."
        1933 was also the year Mexican and Japanese strawberry pickers in El Monte went on strike for higher wages, the "El Monte Berry Strike," and they were eventually joined by other workers in the Los Angeles area.
        In the summer of 1942, after the forced evacuation of Japanese/Japanese Americans to U.S. internment camps (echoing the earlier Mexican repatriation), my father's family moved to El Monte from their previous home in an area below Boyle Heights known as "The Flats" (Old Russia Town Flats). My father attended segregated schools until 1945.
        Dr. Ben Campos, the first Ph.D. to come out of the El Monte barrios and who is my guide through La Historia Society's museum, shows me a wall filled with photographs of the schools they attended. There's Temple, Lexington, and Columbia for the lower grades. Later I look up Ben in my father's El Monte Union High School and Rosemead High School yearbooks (my father was one grade ahead). Oh, they were so young!
        In the back of the museum there is a wall honoring the men and women of the local barrios who served in the U.S. military. There's a picture of Gilbert Aguilar, one of my father's closest buddies who was killed in Korea as a member of the California National Guard, the sad news received by my father while he himself was en route to Korea as a member of the U.S. Navy. Also, I see photographs of my uncles who served during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.
        On the other walls are photographs of everyday barrio life and street maps arranged under the names of each of the barrios. There is an interesting interactivity with the community represented by yellow post-it notes on some of the photographs. The notes have been placed there by visitors recognizing people in the photographs or making corrections.
        El Monte today is over 70% Latino, with Mexicans comprising the largest portion, and about 20% Asian, mostly Chinese (not including Taiwanese) and Vietnamese. La Historia Museum/Museo de Los Barrios will help El Monte residents to understand historically and culturally a large part of the city's population. The planned permanent facility will open up that opportunity even further.
        Current museum hours are Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, from 11:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m., and on Sunday from 1:00-4:00 p.m. Please call (626) 279-1954 to verify the museum's hours and for more information.

Kat Avila buscandocalifornia@yahoo.com   regularly writes on issues affecting the Chicano and Asian American communities in Southern California.

LatinoCities, Inc. | 548 S. Spring St., Ste. 1005, Los Angeles, CA 900 13
Phone: 213-688-7695 | Fax: 213-688-7791 | Email: info@latinola.com

These touching gravesite photos were sent by an El Paso resident and a friend of Somos Primos, Concepcion Vasquez, cvasquez_us@yahoo.com

First Governor of California 
Don Luis Antonio Arguëllo

First Mayor of California
Don Francisco de Haro

A monument to Mexican-American soldiers at the California state Capitol drew generations of Latino veterans. Extract of a posting on HispanicVista.com, 11-12-02

Veterans of past wars gathered at several spots around the Sacramento area November 11, 2002 to remind everyone of the freedom they fought for.
        "It's for the fallen and for all the veterans that are here today and all over the United States . I'm a veteran and we need to be honored and appreciated," Vietnam veteran Harold Hiatt said.  
        "I would say to the American people, if you see a veteran, just say thank you to him, because what we went through was unbelievable," Korean War veteran Joseph Kearny said.  
        A monument to Mexican-American soldiers at the state Capitol drew generations of Latino veterans. "We're proud. We're proud to have this so that we can show that we Latinos, we did something during World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and I believe I had some cousins who took part in Desert Storm also," World War II veteran Alfred A. Lobatos said.  

San Fernando Valley History Digital Library, California State University, Northridge 
http://digital-library.csun.edu/
Alphabetical index with photos and bits of information on a great variety of subjects, from hotels, to families, from Indians of North America to iron pipes and invitation cards.    Sent by Johanna de Soto

California :Four Directions Institute  http://www.fourdir.com/gabrielino.htm
Quake: Earthquake History: California, Nev  http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/info/eqhistory/
                                                                                                                  Sent by Johanna de Soto

Efforts to create a museum in San Diego to honor immigrants were boosted yesterday when Gov. Gray Davis announced that the ambitious project will receive a $2.5 million state grant. Los Angeles has also been campaigning to house the Immigration Museum of New Americans, but the museum's main proponent said last night that the grant will make it possible to build the facility in San Diego, her home for more than 60 years.

The grant comes from Proposition 40, a $2.6 billion bond measure for parks approved last March. The $2.5 million grant represents only a fraction of the $25 million museum proponents say they need to build the facility. 

The goal of the proposed museum is to pick up the story of American migration after World War II, where the tale trails off at the popular Ellis Island National Immigration Museum in New York Harbor. Like the Ellis Island museum, the West Coast version will contain exhibits, artifacts, oral histories and videos.

The West Coast location seemed logical because it's where most of the immigration has taken place since World War II. People arriving from Latin America and Asia have replaced those from Europe as the new migrant majority. Settlement patterns have shifted particularly to California.

Although the museum is still in its formative stage, it sponsored an essay contest this year for immigrants and the children of immigrants, with the winners honored at a reception attended by hundreds of high school and college students and their parents.  

"It's easier to raise money in L.A., but I think we can do a jewel here in San Diego," Deborah Szekely said. "I have support from our universities. I know a lot of people."

Deborah Szekely, a longtime San Diego philanthropist and business leader is promoting behind the project. Szekely herself is the daughter of Jewish immigrants who settled in New York.  Szekely, 80, came up with the idea for the museum two years ago, seeing it as a way for second-and third-generation immigrants to appreciate their heritage.

In 1940 she and her husband founded Rancho La Puerta near Tecate, North America's first health spa. The Golden Door opened in Escondido in 1958.  Two decades later, Szekely started the Combined Arts and Education Council, which raised $6 million to rebuild the Old Globe Theatre. From 1984 to 1990, she led the Inter-American Foundation, which promotes grass-roots development in Latin America and the Caribbean. In 1990 she started Eureka Communities, a leadership development program for nonprofit organizations.

Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn had hoped to house the museum in Los Angeles. His economic development director, Jonathan Kevles, who leads the campaign, couldn't be reached yesterday, but in an interview last week he said Los Angeles was still very much interested in landing the museum.                                                                                              Sent by Tawn Skousen

        Now that the National Museum of the American Indian is nearing completion on the Mall in Washington D.C, and the nascent National Museum of African American History and Culture, by an act of Congress, has taken a step toward also achieving a permanent home, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus is strengthening its efforts toward realizing a Latino equivalent.
        Where better to place such an institution than in the Civic Center area of the City of Los Angeles, to complement both our new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels and the venerable founding El Pueblo site, surrounded with by far the largest Latino community in the U.S.-- some four and a quarter million Spanish-speaking residents?
        This firm has presented to federal, state and local officials a plan to do just that as part of our proposed Trade and Cultural Center of the Americas to be built over the 101 Freeway, between Grand Avenue and Alameda Street, in covered highway right-of-way airspace, as was the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle, along with a substantial mixed-use component.
        My purpose in writing is to express my admiration for the work of LatinoLA and to inquiry as to whether any of its subscribers might help with volunteer outreach work on a museum of some 400,000 square feet so as to build this important educational and cultural monument in the City of Los Angeles:

National Museum of Indigenous/Hispano/Latino Mesoamerican History, Art & Culture, Los Angeles, California.  Major Departments and Themes:
Great Indigenous Societies - Olmec, Mixtec, Zapotec, Mexica, Azteca, Maya, and Inca: A permanent comprehensive anthropological survey from the original continental migration to the roots of conquest.
European Arrival and Conquest - Caribbean, Central America, South America: “How were a few 16th Century Spanish adventurers able to so easily subjugate so many of this hemisphere’s native peoples? Why were the powerful leaders of the great indigenous empires not able to resist conquest, or even themselves journey to conquer Europe?”
Modern Continental Heritage – Temporary and traveling exhibits and performances reflecting contemporary Latino art, values, sensibilities and customs; Spanish language and architectural influence; Recognition of indigenous identities.

Martin K. Zitter is President, CEO of BridgeVillages, L.L.C. He is a real estate developer, a museum lover, and a student of Pre-Columbian, Pre-Conquest, Mesoamerican, and Latino and Hispanic history, art and culture. BridgeVillages@email.com

El Centro College's History Department Southwestern Studies Program

El Centro College's History Department

Index:
To Heritage of Mexico (History 2380)
To Texas History (History 2301) & Culture
To American Indian Links Page
To Texas Indians Links Page
To the Olmec Page
Aztec and Inca Page
To Early Pueblos (Anasazi) Page
To Cochise, Mogollon, and Hohokam
To Capstone Program: Caddo, Hope, Zuni, and Pueblo Indian Resources
To Other Precolumbian Peoples of the Americas including Maya
To Other Links about the Southwest
El Centro's Archaeology, Anthropology, and Rock Art Links - Includes Texas, Mexico, and Southwest
To the Pottery Page
History 1302 - The West
El Centro's Geography Links
http://pw1.netcom.com/~wandaron/southwest.html                      Sent by:  Johanna de Soto

The Mexico/Arizona Biographical Database is now online!  There are biographical records on more than 18,000 Hispanic individuals, most of whom lived in Arizona before 1875.
Search the Database  > The Story: Hispanic Pioneers in Territorial Arizona
Scott Solliday  mexicoarizona@ix.netcom.com,                                 Sent by:  Johanna de Soto

Western Americana   http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/westernamericana.html

The Bancroft Library Collection provides original and secondary materials in a variety of formats to support research in the history of the American West, Mexico, and Central America. The collection documents in its broadest sense the history of human activity in North America west of the Rocky Mountains from its earliest days to the present, with greatest emphasis on California and Mexico from the period of European exploration and settlement onward. In addition to the many rare and unique items, holdings include privately issued and current trade publications. Certain formats are more vigorously pursued; e.g. printed materials for all the guidelines as indicated. Pictorial collections are concentrated primarily on California.  
                                                                                       Sent by:  Johanna de Soto

The AGES Project: Preserving and Sharing the Sonoran Archives

• TAP: A Brief Description  http://ages.library.arizona.edu/

A binational effort to preserve and share the historical archives of Sonora, Mexico

The AGES Project (TAP) will preserve the basic record of Arizona and Sonora. TAP will scan the historical documents in the Archivo General del Estado de Sonora (AGES), or General Archive of the State of Sonora, in Hermosillo, and make them available free-of-charge over the World Wide Web. These images also will be converted to microfilm for long-term preservation. Several institutions in Sonora and Arizona, listed above, are cooperating on this project. Click here for an example.

The AGES Project addresses many interests. Since Arizona was part of Sonora during the Spanish and Mexican periods – that is, until 1854 – these documents contain Arizona’s legal records. Government agencies use information from such documents in making decisions about present-day access to resources. Also, tribal and family historians in Arizona are anxious to obtain more information about their ancestors here and in Sonora. For example, groups such as the Pascua Yaquis will be able to use this information to reconstruct their tribal history and to evaluate membership applications.

Indeed, professional historians have identified the AGES as a particularly rich archive. It has survived a variety of upheavals relatively intact; thus it contains rich information about U.S. economic relations in Sonora, U.S. and Mexican relations with Indian groups, invasions by private armies from the U.S., and the early careers of several Mexican revolutionary leaders and presidents, among many other topics.

Mexican researchers have similar interests to those in the United States. In addition, for Sonorans, this project represents an opportunity to organize their central archive, to preserve its treasures, to provide intellectual access to them through indexing, and to make them physically accessible to the world in ways that will not harm the fragile documents. Indeed, researchers around the world will enjoy unprecedented access to this region’s historical sources. The first three sections to be scanned will focus on Arizona and Sonora’s relations and their joint legal heritage.                                                                 Sent by:  Johanna de Soto

Type of Information Recorded in 1870 Census
http://www.archives.state.co.us/1870/index.htm

Name, Age, Race and Gender of individuals in household
Professional Status/Title
Value of Real Estate and Personal Property
Birthplace
Parents Birthplace
Month Born in Census Year (only in the year of the census)
Month Married (only in the year of the census)
School Attendance (only in the year of the census)
Male Citizen Over 21 and Voting Status
Whether a Pauper or Convict

A Cuarto Centennial History of New Mexico, "Truly an enchanted land."
Genealogists helping genealogists since 1960
by Robert J. Torrez, former New Mexico State Historian
New Mexico State Records Center and Archives

In 1998 New Mexico reached another milestone in our long and colorful history. Our state observed its Cuarto Centennial, 400th anniversary, of the founding of the Spanish colony at the Tewa village of Ohkay in 1598. Join us as we briefly review four hundred years of the fascinating story.  http://www.nmgs.org/artcuarto.htm  
                                                                                                     Sent by:  Johanna de Soto

NEW MEXICO maps   http://www.livgenmi.com/1895nm.htm

Black women explore a shift in the dating scene
Extract of article by John Blake, Cox News Service

        Natasha Baily represents a quiet revolution taking place among some black women. For years, they’ve complained about the shortage of eligible black men. When it comes to interracial dating, people have traditionally focused on black men men dating white women. Yet statistics show that more black women are becoming involved with white men.
        According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of black female/white male marriages remained relatively static between 1960 and 1980, increasing from 26,000 to 27,000. But by 2000, the number of such marriages had jumped to 80,000. Images of black women pairing up with white men are now common in popular cultures as well. Commercials and music videos are full of such couples. The reasons driving black women to flip the dating script are varied. Some of it is simple exposure. Social divisions along color lines remain, but they aren’t as rigid. Black women find themselves more in contact with white men in school, at the office and in social settings.
        Janice Flowers is a coordinator with pre-dating events, (www.pre-dating.com) a national company that schedules mixers for professionals. She says more black women are telling her that they are willing to date white men. " Because we’re so used to seeing them in social situations, it’s becoming less of a taboo," she says. The reason most often cited, through, for the change in dating attitude is demographics. A disproportionate number of black men are in jail or are murder victims. One in every 20 black men older than 18 is in prison, the 2000 Human Rights Watch report concluded. Black teen-age males are seven times more likely to be murdered than white teen-age males, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
        The result is that black women face a marriage squeeze. According to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, the percentage of black women who are married decline from 62 percent in 1950 to 36 percent in 2000. Melanie Robinson, 29, says many black men know the numbers favor them, so they have less incentive to treat a black women well. "They have their opinions, so they can pick and choose," she says. "It is different being the odd man out," he says. "Actually, what goes through my mind is, I wonder if that’s what it’s like for her being on the other side of the table."
        Even after black women have taken the big step and married a white man, some still wrestle with a residue of guilt. Nicole Smith, a Los Angeles actress, has been married to a white man since 1999. She and her husband, Geoff Cunningham, made a movie about interracial dating, "Rocky Road." Smith says her sister threatened to never speak to her again after she heard about the marriage. Now her sister has changed after seeing how well their marriage works. Still, Smith sometimes questions if she’s being true to her black identity. "I question how much of a conscious black woman I am," she says. "I always keep that dialogue going." Baily doesn’t appear to have those questions now. She’s in love. She says that she decided that compatibility, not color, is what’s ultimately important in her relationship. "I’ve always understood that you can love your heritage and live your heritage," she says. "But that doesn’t mean you close off the rest of the world, especially when you are dealing with matters of love."                                                O.C. Register, 7-21-02

The Chichimeca Indians 
by John P. Schmal

THE CHICHIMECA INDIANS  

by John P. Schmal  
JohnnyPJ@aol.com

        If your ancestors are from Zacatecas, Guanajuato, Aguascalientes or Jalisco, it is likely that you may be descended from the indigenous peoples who inherited these areas before the Spaniards arrived from the south. The historian Eric Van Young of the University of California at San Diego has called this area, the "the Center-West Region" of Mexico. This cultural region, according to Dr. Van Young, includes all of the modern states of Jalisco, Michoacán, Colima, Nayarit, and Aguascalientes, as well as parts of Zacatecas and Guanajuato, amounting to about one-tenth of Mexico's national territory. 
        The states of Jalisco, Zacatecas and Aguascalientes did not exist in the Sixteenth Century, but substantial parts of these states belonged to the Spanish province of Nueva Galicia, which embraced some 180,000 kilometers ranging from the Pacific Ocean to the foothills of the Sierra Madre Occidental. 
        Across this broad range of territory, a wide array of indigenous groups lived before 1522 (the year of contact with Spanish explorers). Domingo Lázaro de Arregui, in his Descripción de la Nueva Galicia - published in 1621 - wrote that 72 languages were spoken in the Spanish colonial province of Nueva Galicia. But, unfortunately, some of the Amerindians who lived in this area have not been studied extensively. Dr. Van Young - in analyzing this - has explained that "the extensive and deep-running mestizaje of the area has meant that at any time much beyond the close of the colonial period the history of the native peoples has been progressively interwoven with (or submerged in) that of non-native groups." 
        Unfortunately, our image of pre-Hispanic Jalisco is obscured by the cultural shock, the devastation, and widespread displacement that was inflicted upon the indigenous peoples of western Mexico during the Sixteenth Century. Four primary factors influenced the post-contact indigenous distribution of Jalisco as it evolved into a Spanish colony. These factors are presented below in chronological order:

A. The occupation and conquest of Nuño de Guzmán (1529-1536).

B. The influence of epidemics in reducing the indigenous population.

C. The Mixtón Rebellion (1540-1541).

D. The Chichimeca War (1550-1590)

The Chichimeca Indians
In 1522, shortly after the fall of Tenochtitlán (Mexico City), Hernán Cortés commissioned Cristóbal de Olid to journey into the area now known as Jalisco. In these early days, the Spaniards found it necessary to utilize the services of their new allies, the Christianized sedentary Indians from the south. 
       These indigenous auxiliaries - serving as scouts and soldiers - were usually Mexica (from Tenochtitlán), Tarascan (from Michoacán), Otomí Indians (from Querétaro), Cholulans, or Tlaxcalans. Unlike other Indians, they were permitted to ride horses and to carry side arms as soldiers in the service of Spain.
        As the Spaniards and their Amerindian allies from the south made their way north into present-day Jalisco, Guanajuato and Zacatecas, they started to encounter large numbers of nomadic Chichimeca Indians. Philip Wayne Powell - whose Soldiers, Indians, and Silver: North America's First Frontier War is the definitive source of information relating to the Chichimeca Indians - referred to Chichimeca as "an all-inclusive epithet" that had "a spiteful connotation." 
        Utilizing the Náhuatl terms for dog (chichi) and rope (mecatl), the Mexica had referred to the Chichimecas literally as "of dog lineage." But some historians have explained that the word Chichimeca has been subject to various interpretations over the years, including "perros altaneros" (arrogant dogs) and "chupadores de sangre" (blood-suckers). The Spaniards borrowed this designation from their Mexica allies and started to refer to the large stretch Chichimeca territory as La Gran Chichimeca (the Great Chichimeca). 
        Although Chichimeca was used as an umbrella term for all of the nomadic hunters and gatherers inhabiting this part of Mexico, these indigenous peoples were actually divided into several distinct cultures. However, because most of the Chichimeca Indians were rapidly assimilated into the Hispanic culture of Seventeenth Century Mexico, there have been very few historical investigations into their now extinct cultures and languages. Ironically, these indigenous peoples are - in large part - the genetic ancestors of the present-day inhabitants of Guanajuato, Jalisco, Zacatecas, and Aguascalientes. And, as a result, they are thus the ancestors of many Mexican Americans.
        The historian Paul Kirchhoff, in his work "The Hunting-Gathering People of North Mexico," has provided us with the best description of the Chichimeca Indian groups. Most of the Chichimeca Indians shared a primitive hunting-collecting culture, based on the gathering of mesquite, agave, and tunas (the fruit of the nopal). However, many of them also lived off of acorns, roots and seeds. 
        In some areas, the Chichimecas even cultivated maize and some calabashes. From the mesquite they made white bread and wine. Many Chichimec tribes utilized the juice of the agave as a substitute for water when the latter was in short supply.

The Zacatecos Indians
The Zacatecos Indians, occupying 60,000 square kilometers in the present-day states of Zacatecas, eastern Durango, and Aguascalientes, may have received their name from the Mexica word zacate (grass). But some contemporary sources have said that the name was actually taken from the Zacatecos language and that it meant cabeza negra ("black head"). This would be a reference to the Chichimeca's penchant for painting their bodies and faces with various pigments (in this case, black pigment).
        The Zacatecos Indians lived closest to the silver mines that the Spaniards would discover in 1546. The Zacatecos Indians inhabited large portions of northwest and southwest Zacatecas. Their lands bordered with those of the Tepehuanes on the west and the Guachichiles on the east. They roamed as far north as Parras, where they came into contact with the Irritilas of Coahuila.
        The Zacatecos Indians belonged to the Aztecoidan Language Family and were thus of Uto-Aztecan stock. It was believed that the Zacatecos were closely related to the Caxcanes Indians of northern Jalisco and southern Zacatecas. 
        The Zacatecos were "a tall, well-proportioned, muscular people, their strength being evidenced by the great burdens they carried for the Spaniards." They had oval faces with "long black eyes wide apart, large mouth, thick lips and small flat noses." The men wore breechcloth, while the women wore short petticoats of skins or woven maguey. Both sexes wore their hair long, usually to the waist. 
        The Zacatecos Indians married young, with most girls being married by the age of fifteen. Monogamy was their general practice. The Indians smeared their bodies with clay of various colors and painted them with the forms of reptiles. This paint helped shield them from the sun's rays but also kept vermin off their skin. 
        Some Zacatecos Indians grew roots, herbs, maize, beans, and some wild fruits. Most of them hunted rabbits, deer, birds, frogs, snakes, worms, moles, rats, and reptiles. Eventually, the Zacatecos and some of the other Chichimecas would develop a fondness for the meat of the larger animals brought in by the Spaniards. During their raids on Spanish settlements, they frequently stole mules, horses, cattle, and other livestock, all of which became a part of their diet.
        Although most of the Chichimeca Indians were nomadic, some of the Zacatecos Indians had dwellings of a more permanent character, inhabiting areas near the wooded sierras. They inhabited homes constructed of adobe or sun-dried bricks and stones. They slept on the floors of their one-room homes and a fireplace in the middle of the floor, surrounded by rocks, was used for cooking food. 
        Mr. Powell writes that the Zacatecos were "brave and bellicose warriors and excellent marksmen." They were greatly feared by the neighboring tribes, in particular the Caxcanes, whom they attacked in later years after they began cooperating with the Spaniards. 

The Guachichiles
The Guachichile Indians were the most populous Chichimeca nation, occupying perhaps 100,000 square kilometers, from Lake Chapala in Jalisco to modern Saltillo in Coahuila. The Guachichiles inhabited all of eastern Zacatecas and some parts of western San Luis Potosí.
        The Guachichile Indians were classified with the Aztecoidan division of the Uto-Aztecan linguistic family. It was believed that they were closely related to the Huichol Indians, who continue to live in Nayarit and the western fringes of Zacatecas in the present day era. 
        The name "Guachichil" was given to them by the Mexica, and meant head colored red. They had been given this label because "they were distinguished by red feather headdresses, by painting themselves red (especially the hair), or by wearing head coverings (bonetillas) made of hides and painted red." 
        The archaeologist Paul Kirchhoff wrote that the following traits characterized the Guachichile Indians: "painting of the body; coloration of the hair; head gear; matrilocal residence; freedom of the married woman; special forms of cruelty to enemies." In the development of tribal alliances, the Guachichiles were considered the most advanced of the Chichimec tribes. They were a major catalyst in provoking the other tribes to resist the Spanish settlement and exploitation of Indian lands. "Their strategic position in relation to Spanish mines and highways," wrote Mr. Powell, "made them especially effective in raiding and in escape from Spanish reprisal." 
        The Spanish frontiersmen and contemporary writers referred to the Guachichiles "as being the most ferocious, the most valiant, and the most elusive" of all their indigenous adversaries. In addition, the Christian missionaries found their language difficult to learn because of its "many sharply variant dialects." As a result, the conversion of these natives to Christianity did not come easy. 
        In the development of tribal alliances, the Guachichiles were considered the most advanced of the Chichimec tribes. They were a major catalyst in provoking the other tribes to resist the Spanish settlement and exploitation of Indian lands. "Their strategic position in relation to Spanish mines and highways," wrote Mr. Powell, "made them especially effective in raiding and in escape from Spanish reprisal." 

The Guamares
The nation of the Guamares, located in the Guanajuato Sierras, was centered around Pénjamo and San Miguel. They extended as far north as San Felipe, and almost to Querétaro in the east. They also extended as far west as Aguascalientes and Lagos de Moreno. Because many of my Indian ancestors came from Lagos de Moreno, it is highly likely that the Guamare Indians are among my ancestors. 
        The author, Gonzalo de las Casas, called the Guamares "the bravest, most warlike, treacherous, and destructive of all the Chichimecas, and the most astute (dispuesta)." One Guamar group called the "Chichimecas Blancos" lived in the region between Jalostotitlán and Aguascalientes. This branch of the Guamares painted their heads white. However, much like the Guachichiles, many of the Guamares colored their long hair red and painted the body with various colors (in particular red). 

The Caxcanes
If your ancestors are from northern Jalisco – both the Three-Fingers Border region (with Zacatecas) or Los Altos – it is likely that you have many ancestors who were among the Caxcanes Indians. The Caxcanes Indians were a tribe of the Nahuatlan (Aztecoidan) division of the Uto-Aztecan linguistic stock. Caxcanes Indians occupied portions of present day Aguascalientes, southern Zacatecas and northern Jalisco. Their range - at certain times - extended south toward Lake Chapala and beyond the Río Grande de Santiago.
        Dr. Phil C. Weigand of the Departmento de Antropología of the Colegio de Michoacán in Mexico has theorized that the Caxcan Indians probably originated in the Chalchihuites area of northwestern Zacatecas. After the collapse of the Chalchihuites culture around 900 to 1000 A.D., Dr. Weigand believes that "the Caxcanes began a prolonged period of southern expansion" into parts of Jalisco. 
        Dr. Weigand has further noted that - at the time of the Spanish contact - the Cazcan "were probably organized into small conquest states." He also states that the "overriding theme of their history seems to have been a steady expansion carried by warfare, to the south." 
        Dr. Weigand also observed that the Caxcanes "appear to have been organized into highly competitive, expansion states. These states possessed well-developed social hierarchies, monumental architecture, and military brotherhoods." The Caxcanes are believed to have built their primary peñoles (fortifications) and religious centers at Juchípila, Teúl, Teocaltiche, Tlatenango, Nochistlán, Jalpa and El Chique. 
       The Caxcanes played a major role in both the Mixton Rebellion (1540-41) and the Chichimeca War (1550-1590), first as the adversaries of the Spaniards and later as their allies against the Zacatecos and Guachichiles. The cocolistle epidemic of 1584 greatly reduced the number of Caxcanes. In the decades to follow, the surviving Caxcanes assimilated into the more dominant cultures that had settled in their territory. Today, Dr. Weigand writes, "the Caxcanes no longer exist as an ethnic group" and that "their last survivors" were noted in the late 1890s. 
       All of these Indian groups were involved in the Mixtón Rebellion (1540-1541) and the Chichimeca War (1550-1590). Mr. Powell's book "Solders, Indians and Silver" is a very detailed description of this war, which stands as the longest lasting war between the Spaniards and an Amerindian tribe. Although the Apache and Yaqui Indians offered serious resistance to the Spaniards over a period of time, these campaigns were not continuous as the forty-year struggle against the Chichimecas were.

Copyright © 2002, by John Schmal and Donna Morales. This passage - utilizing the works of the sources listed below - is an extract from Donna S. Morales and John P. Schmal, "The Indigenous Roots of a Mexican-American Family." This work about the indigenous ancestors of Ms. Morales will be published in mid-2003 by Heritage Books.

Sources:
Peter Masten Dunne, Pioneer Jesuits in Northern Mexico (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1944).

J. Lloyd Mecham, Francisco de Ibarra and Nueva Vizcaya (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1927).

Paul Kirchhoff, "The Hunting-Gathering People of North Mexico," in Basil C. Hedrick et al. (ed.), The North Mexican Frontier: Readings in Archaeology, Ethnohistory, and Ethnography (Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1971), pp. 200-209

Donna S. Morales and John P. Schmal, "Mexican-American Genealogical Research: Following the Paper Trail to Mexico" (Bowie, Maryland: Heritage Books, 2002).

Philip Wayne Powell, Soldiers, Indians and Silver; North America's First Frontier War (Tempe, Arizona: Center for Latin American Studies, Arizona State University, 1975).

John R. Swanton, The Indian Tribes of North America, Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 145 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1952).

Eric Van Young, "The Indigenous Peoples of Western Mexico from the Spanish Invasion to the Present," in Richard E.W. Adams and Murdo J. MacLeod (ed.), The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas, Volume II: Mesoamerica, Part 2 (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 136-186.

        Indians enrolled in tribes and living on Indian reservations are found in NARA microfilm publication M595, Indian Census Rolls, 1885-1940 (692 rolls). These census rolls were usually submitted each year by agents or superintendents in charge of Indian reservations, as required by an act of July 4, 1884 (23 Stat.98).
        The data on the rolls vary to some extent, but usually given are the English and/or Indian name of a person, roll number, age or date of birth, sex, and relationship to the head of the family. Beginning in 1930, the rolls also show the degree of Indian blood, marital status, ward status, place of residence, and sometimes other information.
        For certain years-including 1935,1936,1938,and 1939-only supplemental rolls of additions and deletions were complied.
        There is not a census for every reservation or group of Indians for every year. Only persons who maintained a formal affiliation with tribe under federal supervision are listed on these census rolls. Indians will also be found in microfilm publication T626, Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930 (2667rolls).                                                        The Family Tree, August/September 2002              

The Bureau of the Indian Affairs has long been the custodian of tribal records and maintains a small set of pages to help you with your genealogical research. There are good basic steps to the beginning your research, tips on how to proceed as you seek documentation, and some good information on tribal enrollment. There is even a special page on Cherokee ancestry. But, best of all, the pages are dotted with links-both online and off-to repositories and agencies that can help with research.  See: BIA: Doing the Genealogical Research at the following Web site: http://www.doi.gov.bia/ancesstry/genealog_research.htm; and 
Our Native Americans: Their Records of Genealogical Value at  http://www.everton.com/shopper/specials.php.                        The Family Tree, August/September 2002

                            Family Tree, Issue August/September 2002, Volume XI No. 4
Learn about Native American and European genetic markers on the web. Here are a couple of the websites that discuss genetic markers in regard to your teeth: http://www.wf.net/~jyates/teeth.htm and http://www.members.tripod.com/~wynkoop/webdocs/native.htm.

        In an attempt to keep tribal members up to date on what is being done with the Lenape Language Project, Director Jim Rementer has prepared the following update:  We plan to begin classes in the fall on the Conversational Lenape. If you are interested in attending these classes, please call us at 918-336-5272, extension 503.
        CD-Rom Project: One of the projects we are working on is a CD-ROM Collaborative Project. We are working with some members of the Miami Tribe’s Language Project (the Miami language is related to Lenape) to produce a CD which can be used on your home computer, or at schools and libraries, to give basics of the Lenape language.
        Mini-Dictionary: We have recently published the Conversational Lenape Mini-Dictionary. This is compilation of the words that were taught in the conversational Lenape classes. Jan Brown did the layout on the computer, and she used it to produce this 48 page mini-dictionary. The Mini-Dictionary is available through the Delaware Tribal Gift Shop for $2.00. Call 918-336-5272, ext. 244.
        Phrase Book: This is the next project we hope to make available to tribal members. Like the Mini-Dictionary , a pocket size book which is convenient for easy access and study.

Information shared at the Society of Hispanic Historical & Ancestral Research meeting in September. 
Jews in the Caribbean 
New Mexico Sephardics
Texas Spanish Jews  
Sephardic Websites in Mexico

So You Want to Convert

by Michah'el Ben-Yehudah, olingergallegos@msn.com  

        After speaking to hundreds of people on what we Anusim are, the most prevailing question I am asked is, "How do I get back to my Jewish ness, my roots?" It is amazing how many descendents of "Secret Jews" want to be reabsorbed by their newfound heritage. I am asked, "What does it take to be considered a Jew."
        Few realize being Jewish is not just proving you descend from the Marranos and Conversos. Just because your fourteenth great-grandparents were Jewish, does not make you a Jew in the eyes of those who have the say – the Bet Din – the religious court. The fact that more and more Anusim are becoming interested in changing the direction of their lives and encountering the Jewish aspect of their heritage is becoming an aspect of Jewish religious courts daily. They are finding out that it is a bit of a problem and is not as easy as shrugging the coat of their present ethnicity and/or religion.
        By virtue of Talmudic ruling, to be a Jew is to be a practicing religious Jew, preferably in one of the four divisions of Judaism – Orthodox, Reform, Conservative or Reconstructionism. The only other alternative to do so is to prove ones maternal and ancestral line. But is that enough? In today’s world, can we divide the Jewish faith from Jewish ethnicity?
        Though one does not have to be a religious Jew in order to be considered a Jew, one must be born a Jew or converted to Judaism at a minimum to be considered so by the religious community [It is that community which controls the approval system.]. In other words, you are trying to get into a closed society, and those are the only two ways - born to a mother who can trace her maternal line continually back to Jewish mothers and grandmothers, or traceable back to a converted female in the matrilineal line.
        For those wishing to clothe themselves entirely in the Jewish life style, the best method is get with a rabbi and decide which division of Judaism is acceptable to your religious needs. Those needs may or may not include your background as a Christian. However, if they do, do not expect to be accepted by traditional Jewish communities. One may be an atheist as a Jew, but never may one join another religion and still be accepted. And if your mother was not a Jewess, then plan on accepting one of the religious divisions as a means of being accepted.
        Once you have made the journey through the religious maze, you now must decide whether to make Aliyah, immigration to Israel. Is your religious conversion enough? In many cases, no, it is not. The Shas movement [religious party in Israel] for years controlled the means by which one was able to obtain Israeli citizenship. For many years you would only be able to obtain citizenship were you able to prove lineage, OR convert to the Traditional/Orthodox movement of the faith.
        As of February of this year, the traditional movement was given a very damaging blow. The High Court of Israel voted in a nine to two decision to allow Reform and Conservative conversions to be considered for those wishing to apply for Israeli citizenship. Previously, the methods described were all that were accepted. They were the only ways to obtain the annotation of "Jewish" on your identity card. Today that has been taken care of by removing the ethnic identity statement; however, without that conversion, descent is the only other way. 
        If you are Christian, and it is too much to take on the Jewish faith, or deny your Christian training, then you are left with very few alternatives. Now the State of Israel has made it a little easier than it used to be. In 1950, David Ben-Gurion justified the "Law of Return" as a stamp of nationality for the Jewish State. However, in 1970, an amendment to the Law was passed that allowed those who can prove descendency from a Jewish grandparent, either gender, as eligible for citizenship [Even so, in 1976, the United Nations assailed the law as state sponsored racism]. It is now open to many more than ever before. So decide well, but decide with the knowledge of how at your side.

Catholic Archives of Texas Overview of Holdings
MANUSCRIPTS COLLECTION

• Spanish and Mexican Manuscript Collection (1519-1890) {54 linear ft.}:
  Mission era and Indian records, photostats and originals. Records from different archives in Spain, Mexico, and the United States relating to Spanish and Mexican political and religious affairs in Southwestern United States. Groups of documents containing inventories, lists of families, Texas land grants and transfers of Anglo-American, Irish, German, and other colonies in Texas. Among important documents from archives in Spain (Archivo General de Indias) are testimonies, reports and royal cedulas of missionaries and governors of presidios relating to Indian affairs and exploration of Texas (La Bahia, LaSalle, and the San Xavier Mission). Printed guide to the collection available, records' description on RLIN and OCLC. Included in the collection:
• Ecclesiastical Records (1703-1881) {22 linear ft.}:
  Detailed records kept by the Church officials giving information about missionary work among the Indians and early settlers: sacramental records, censuses and church records from Archivo de la Cathedral de San Fernando (in San Antonio) 1703-1880; Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Paso del Rio del Norte, presently Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico (1707-1890); Iglesia de San Augustin de Laredo (1767-1899), photostats and original documents. Also some copies of records from cathedrals in Monterrey and Durango in Mexico. These records have been also photocopied on microfilm and microfiche (1000 ft. mf.). Also available Archives of Vincentian Motherhouse, Paris (AVMP), (1836-1856) containing correspondence of missionaries in Texas with Paris Motherhouse; includes letters of Jean-Marie Odin, first bishop of Texas. Arranged in two groups: alphabetically under name of sender and chronologically there under.  http://www.onr.com/user/cat/catho195.html
                                                                                         Sent by Johanna de Soto

by Anne deSola Cardoza, Halapid Summer, 1995

Jewish food, oral traditions, culture, and secret religious customs are showing up today in the folklore, habits and practices of the descendants of early settlers in southern Texas and the surrounding areas of Mexico. In northern Mexico and what today is Texas, the Jews of Nuevo Leon and its capital, Monterrey, Mexico, lived without fear of harassment from the Holy Office of the 1640’s and beyond. Many of the leading non-Jewish families today of that area are descended from secret Jewish ancestors, according to scholar, Richard G. Santos. Under Luis de Spanish Jews colonized the states of Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, Tamualipas and Provencia de Tejas in the 1640-1680s and thereafter.

According to Richard G. Santos, Tex-Mex pastries such as pan dulce, pan de semita, trenzas, cuernos, pan de hero, and pan de los protestantes are similar to familiar Jewish pastries eaten by Sephardic Jews today in many parts of the world. Killing a chicken by wringing its neck. Other foods are Nopalitos lampreados, Capirotada to which raw sugar, cinnamon, cheese, butter pecans, peanuts and raisins are added.

The township of San Fernando de Bexar, today’s San Antonio, was established in 1731 by 16 families who were descendants of Canary Islanders. These families intermarried with the local population of nearby Nuevo Reyno de Leon, many of whom were Spanish and Portuguese secret Jews.

List of Canary Islanders Taken at Cuautitlán, November 8, 1730
Source: The Municipal Government of San Fernando de Béxar, 1730-1800
Manual 
San Antonio, The First Civil settlement in Texas, A Guide for Teachers, K-12
Robert M. Benavides, President of Canary Islands Descendants
Marian L. Martinello, The University of Texas at San Antonio
Thomas H. Robinson, Granaderos de Gálvez
Prepared for the 250th anniversary of the arrival of fifteen Canary Island families at San Antonio.
San Antonio, February, 1981

Juan Leal Goras.  Son of Antonio and Maria Pérez, native of Lancerota Island, 54 years old. Wife, Catharina Rodriquez, deceased.     Children: Vicente Leal (18 yrs),  Bernardo Leal (13 yrs).

Juan Curbelo. Son of Domingo Curbelo and María Martin Enriquez, native of Lancerota, 50 years old.   Wife: Garcia Perdomo y Umpienes, daughter of Marcos Perdomo y Umpienes and María Cabrera, about 46 years old.  Children: Joseph Curbelo (25 yrs),  Juan Francisco Curbelo (9 yrs),  María Curbelo (13 yrs).

Juan Leal Jr., Son of Juan Learl of the first family, native of Lancerota, 30 years old.
Wife: Garcia de Acosta (also called, María de Acosta), daughter of Peter Gonzales Cabezas and Francisca de Acosta, Teneriffe   Children:  Manuel Leal (2 yrs),  Miguel Leal (10 yrs),  Domingo Leal (7 yrs),  Pedro Leal  (5 months),  María Leal (6 yrs).

Antonio Santos, Son of Simon and Anna Leonor Rodríguez, native of Lancerota
    Wife: Isabel Rodríguez. daughter of Domingo de Vargas and Leonor Rodríguez, native of Lancerota.      Children: Miguel Santos (17 yrs),  Catharina Santos (12 yrs),  María Santos, native of Palma, (7 yrs),  Josepha Santos (2 yrs old).

Joseph Padrón.  Native of Palma, about 22 years of age.     Wife: María Francisca Sanabria.,  Daughter of Luis Sanabria y Francisa Lagarda, native of Lancerota, about 22 years old.   

Manuel de Niz (also called Manuel de Nistrosa).  Son of Juan and Andrea Mireles, native of Grand Canary, about 50 years old.     Wife: Sebastiana de la Péna, Daughter of Domingo de Leon and Gregoria Suarez de la Péna, a little over 42 years old.

Vicente Alvarez Travieso.  Son of Juan Alvares Travieso and Catharina Cayetano, native of  Teneriffe, 50 years old.   Wife: María Ana Curbelo. Daughter of Juan Curbelo and Gracia Perdomo Umpienes, native of Lancerota, about 18 years old.

Salvador Rodríguez.  Son of  Francisco Rodríguez and Isabel de los Reyes, native of Lancerota, about 42 years old.  Wife: María Pérez Cabrera,  Daughter of Domingo and María Pérez, native of Lancerota, about 42 years old.       Child: Patricio Rodríguez.  Son of above, native of Lancerota, about 15 years old.

Francisco (de) Arocha.  Son of Simon de Arocha and Angela Francisca, native of Palma, 27 years old.  Wife: Juana Curbelo. Daughter of Juan Curbelo and Garcia Perdomo de Umpiences, native of Lancerota, 14 years old.

Antonio Rodríguez.  Son of Juan and María del Carmen, native of Grand Canary,  18 years old more or less.  Wife: Josefa de Niz.  Daughter of Manuel de Niz and Sebastiana de la Péna, wife of above, native of Grand Canary, 19 years old.

Joseph Leal. Son of Juan Leal Goras and Louisa Hernández, native of Lancerota, 22 years old.
Wife: Ana Santos.  daughter of Antonio Santos and Isabel Rodríguez, native of Lancerota, 15 years old more or less.

Juan Delgado. Son of Luis Delgado and María Melean, native of Lancerota, 19 years old more or less.      Wife: Catharina Leal.  Daughter of Juan Leal and Lucia Hernández, wife of above, native of Lancerota, about 16 years old.

Joseph Cabrera. Son of Manuel Cabrera and María Rodríguez, native of Lancerota, about 50 years old.     Children: Marcos (de) Cabrera. (6 yrs),. Ana Cabrera (13 yrs).

María Rodríguez-Provayna.  Daughter of  Manuel and Paula Umpienes, native of Lancerota, about 27 years old.   Husband  Juan Rodríguez deceased in Veracruz        Children:  Pedro Rodríguez Granadillo. (13 yrs ),  Manuel Francisco Rodríguez (Granadillo) (3 yrs)     Josefa Rodríguez Granadillo (10 yrs),  Paula Rodríguez Granadillo. (10 yrs),  María Rodríguez Granadillo. (5 yrs),.     Juan de Acuña.  Son of Juan Rodríguez and the above María, native of Cuautitlán, about 1 month old.

Mariana Meleano. (also called  María Meleano, Daughter of Francisco and Ynes de Hoyos, native of Lancerota, about 30 years old.. Husband: Lucas Delgado deceased.   Children: Francisco Delgado (16 yrs),  Domingo Delgado (16 yrs)  Leonor Delgado.(4 yrs)

Phelipe Pérez.  Son of Domingo and María Grandos, native of Teneriffe, 20 years old.
Joseph Antonio Pérez.  Brother of foregoing and son of the same parents, 19 years old.

Martín Lorenzo de Armas.  Son of Roque and Teresa de Aviles, native of one of the Canary Islands, about 20 years old.
Ignadcio Lorenzo de Armas.  Brother of the preceding and son of same parents, native of one of the Canary Islands, about 22 years old.

Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church
Pearsall, TX, Death Registry (1906 - 1956)
http://historicdistrict.com/Genealogy/Frio/dregistry.asp?PG=6                    Sent by Johanna de Soto

1910 Federal Census Index for Val Verde County, Texas
http://www.rootsweb.com/~txvalver/Page-a.htm
NOTE: they have charts that you might want to look at.                              Sent by Johanna de Soto

A Note From Albert Seguin Gonzales, Founder, SFHS
        These past few years have marked a new era in Texas history with the recognition of a native born Hero of the War for Texas Independence. What tremendous honors have been bestowed upon a Native Son by other fellow Texans.
        196 years after his birth and 166 years after the battle of San Jacinto, a man who believed in education, personal freedoms, the right to self-government and basic human rights has once again been honored with the naming of two elementary schools and one High School in his memory, and all accomplished in the same year.

To see the photos from their recent reception:  http://www.seguinfamilyhistory.com/arlnrecp.html
Sincere congratulations to the Seguin Family Historical Society for leading the way.        

The Index to Texas Probate Records

http://three-legged-willie.org/texas.htm
A W.P.A. project of the 1940's generated indexes for probate records housed in at least 30 Texas counties.  The purpose of this project is to bring the data from all 30 county indexes together into one alphabetical listing.  Over 26,000 probate cases from eleven Texas counties  are now available at this web site; these records represent about 45% of the total project.  I expect the entire project to be online by  May 2002.
 

Almost 300  students  at McNeil High School have helped with data entry and proofreading for information that appears on my web page.    Please take a moment to send a note to the McNeil High School students who have contributed to this Probate Index project.  Your email messages help students understand the importance and impact of community service work.

All counties are alphabetized into one list. The counties include:  Brown, Bowie, Camp, Chambers, Delta, Guadalupe, Newton, Robertson, Rusk and Williamson.  Should you find a name that is of interest to you, please contact the Court House in that particular county for more information.  Addresses and phone numbers are listed at the bottom of this web page.  Unfortunately,  due to my time constraints, I am unable to answer specific requests for information.

Copyright 1999, 2000  by Rebecca Osborne, Ph.D.   All rights reserved.

Confederate Indigent Families Index Texas State Library Archives and Manuscripts

http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/arc/cif/acname.html
Related Links
Surnames A - C | Surnames D - G | Surnames H - L
Surnames M - P | Surnames Q - Z

Please be aware that only an index of names appears at this site. Linda Mearse has transcribed the records on file in the State Archives in her book, Confederate Indigent Families Lists of Texas 1863-1865. In order to help preserve the original records, please request the Mearse transcription through interlibrary loan. Please contact your local library for further details. 

[[Please note, there are Hispanic surnames, but not too many.]]   Sent by Johanna de Soto

THEIR FINAL HONOR: Texan and Mexican troops Memorialized at Battleground

       For more than 160 years, the San Jacinto Battleground near Houston has been called the site where Texas' independence was won. But during the decades to follow, few have recalled that the site is also the final, unmarked resting place of more than 600 Mexican soldiers killed in the surprise attack by Gen. Sam Houston's army.
        Dozens of Texans gathered at the San Jacinto Battleground State Historical Park on Sunday, November 3rd to finally consecrate the land and honor not only the Texan troops, but also the Mexican troops who died there and whose bodies were left forever in the marshes.
        Participants, some the descendants of those who died in the battle, gathered in a Day of Prayer at the San Jacinto Monument that culminated in the placing of a large wreath in the still waters of the marsh where so many warriors met their fate and then were virtually forgotten.
        "It is our hope that, after 166 years, this Day of Prayer will help heal that period in our history when the relationship between Mexico and Texas was tumultuous, and pave the way for a closer relationship with our neighbor, with whom we share a common heritage," said George Donnelly, president of the San Jacinto Museum of History. 
       "This day means a lot because it recalls the memory of my ancestors who fought on the Texas side," said Loretta Martinez Williams, who helped lay the wreath and who serves as secretary of the Houston chapter of the Tejano Association for Historical Preservation. "It also recalls the memory of families who fought on the Mexican side and some who were split on both sides." 
        The La Porte battleground site is where Gen. Sam Houston's 820-man army surprised Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna's army on April 21, 1836, after Santa Anna failed to post sentries. The battle lasted just 18 minutes. Besides those killed, 700 Mexican soldiers were captured.
        Rev. Joe S. Vasquez, auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Galveston-Houston, said, "Recognizing the grounds around the monument not only as a battlefield but also as a hallowed burial place is long overdue, Vasquez said, as he walked in full vestments to the marsh. "As far as I know, there was nothing done formally in the way of prayer for those who died in the battle, so I think this is an excellent thing to do," he said. 
        Making people aware of the broader historical significance of the battleground site is a first step in plans to restore the entire site, officials said. "I don't know why we haven't told that story, but our failure to tell that story has overlooked a really significant aspect of what that site represents," said Ted Hollingsworth, a resource coordinator for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.  
        Hollingsworth said records of the battle are not clear, but "the one thing we do know is that the bodies were not specifically interred and were not removed from the battleground."  Since Texans did not want to give the Mexican army a chance to reassemble and renew fighting, "we did not allow Mexican nationals back into Texas for a long time," Hollingsworth said. "We did not allow them to come to the battlefield to deal with the dead."
        Hollingsworth said a letter to the Texas government from Peggy McCormick, who owned the land, is evidence that the Mexican bodies were not buried or recovered.  "There is a reference to a trench being dug at some point, and some of the bodies being pushed off into a ditch," Hollingsworth said. "The complaint she made to the Texas government many months after the battle was that her cows were eating the bones of Mexican soldiers and it was ruining the milk, and she couldn't use the milk from her cows."  
        No evidence that the government acted on McCormick's complaint has been found, he said. The first systematic archaeological study of the battleground is scheduled to begin this winter. "Whether or not we find human remains, what we learn about the battle will tell us a lot about where those human remains are," Hollingsworth said. 
        What is found may paint a clearer picture of the battle. "Most people don't realize that the story we've been telling centers around the markers that are placed out there," Hollingsworth said. "The markers are placed there based on the recollections of one veteran who came out to the battleground 60 years after the battle. Quite frankly, we think he did a good job, but we've never been able to confirm that archaeologically."
        The archaeological project also will help in creating a master plan for the 1,000-acre park that is home to the San Jacinto Monument and the Battleship Texas.  "We felt like we needed to bring some religious closure to these poor people, plus all of the other soldiers who had been buried in a common grave," Donnelly said. "At the same time, we wanted to make it an event that would honor all of the dead at San Jacinto."

        A family is at odds with itself over the sale of an heirloom and a piece of Texas history - a 20 inch Bowie knife once carried by Gen. Sam Houston.  The knife, once taken into the Battle of San Jacinto by Houston, belonged to the family of Solomon Fisher, it's first caretaker.  One of Solomon Fisher's six sons, Elton Darwin, loaned the knife in 1940 to the San Jacinto museum, where it was displayed for 60 years until November 2000, when it was loaned to the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin. 
        While the knife was on display in Austin, San Jacinto museum officials asked Fisher family members what they wanted to do with the family heirloom.  At first, the family extended the loan to the Austin museum and then decided to sell the knife at auction, where it sold for $270,000 on Nov.
10. 
        However, Fisher relative, Johnny Glenn Jennings Jr., doesn't like that the knife was sold without more consensus among members of the extended Fisher family, The Baytown Sun reported Sunday.  Jennings believed the knife would always stay at the museum for the public's education. 
        "I'll be damned if the worse didn't happen. The Fisher family, and it's a large one, all they want is for the knife to end up back under the display case," said Jennings, the great-grandson of Jerry Henry Fisher, one of Solomon Fisher's brothers. "We don't want anyone to think we sold out." 
        Ownership of the knife was determined by two wills.  Elton Fisher left the knife to his wife Velma Lorene Fisher in a will dated Jan. 14, 1941. She left it to five heirs - three adults and two minors - in a will dated Jan. 14, 1977.  The wills were all the proof museum officials needed to return the knife.
        "We were able to prove through the will of (Elton) Fisher (and Velma Fisher) that these are the people who are the rightful heirs," said George Donnelly, president and CEO of the San Jacinto Museum Board. "We are satisfied about the identification."  11/18/02 
                                                                                Sent by Walter L Herbeck epherbeck@juno.com

Center for American History .\about/contact.html..\about/contact.html

The Center for American History houses numerous materials useful in the study of genealogy during the Texas colonial period. Most of the information beneficial for genealogy during this time period is located in the manuscript collections. Those collections include a wide range of materials, such as censuses, birth records, marriage records, baptismal records, death records, title and land grant information, correspondence, printed materials, mission reports, and reports of colonial officials. Much of the information is in Spanish, although some collections include English translations.

http://www.cah.utexas.edu/guides/texascolonial.html Sent by Johanna de Soto

There are many libraries and genealogical societies in Texas. Many contain a wealth of information to assist with your research.  http://www.lonestargenealogy.com/courses/texas/records.html
                                                                                                      Sent by Johanna de Soto

The Handbook of Texas Online is a multidisciplinary encyclopedia of Texas history, geography, and culture sponsored by the Texas State Historical Association and the General Libraries at UT Austin. Please see the introduction for further details.

Search the Handbook of Texas Online

Enter one or more words to find all articles containing any of the words. See search help for advanced search options.

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/index.new.html Sent by Johanna de Soto

Val Verde County, Texas - Births,
1947 Surnames Magallanes - Zuniga ====================================================================== USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file contributor. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Gene Phillips genephillips@juno.com
 8 Nov 2000 ====================================================================== Information in this database comes from the Texas Department of Health. As of March 2000, Birth Indexes from 1926-1995 and Death Indexes from 1964-1998 are available on the Internet, microfiche or CD-ROM. http://www.tdh.state.tx.us/bvs/registra/index.htm

http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/tx/valverde/vitals/births/1947/valvb47m.txt 

Conference: The Louisiana Purchase and its Peoples
Assessing Historical Knowledge on the Eve of the Third American Century
January 22-25, 2003
Omni Royal Orleans Hotel, Grand Ballroom, 621 St. Louis St.
Call (504) 598-7171 for information or visit http://www.louisianapurchase2003.org
Presentation in English
Louisiana Purchase Bicentennial Conference
The Historic New Orleans Collection, Louisiana Historical Association

 The Opelousas Militia in the 1770's - 1780's

           1770 Muster Roll      1776 Muster Roll      1785 Muster Roll

Explanatory Notes:  The 1770 muster roll includes the age and nationality of all but one of the men. In the nationality listings, "Creole" should be interpreted as being born in Louisiana of French (non-Acadian) stock. "French" means they were a first generation immigrant to Louisiana from France, and "Canadian" would suggest that they came from Quebec. "Acadian" is self-explanatory. Many of the first names are given in their Spanish version (e.g. Carlos for Charles, Santiago for Jacques, etc.) as this was during the period of Spanish rule. Many families that think of themselves as "Cajun" are either a mixture of Creole and Acadian stock, or pure Creole. The rural Louisiana culture that came to be known as "Cajun" is actually a mixture of these two main groups. These early rural Creoles developed a culture that was completely distinct from the urban Creoles of New Orleans, with the latter having a stronger Spanish influence.

Johnson / Jeansonne HOME PAGE                                                           Sent by Johanna de Soto

        The Sephardic presence on the East Coast was extremely important to the development of commerce. In September 1654, twenty-three Sephardics arrived in New Amsterdam (New York), forming the nucleus of families who would experience three centuries of power and achievement. The heads of these families were Asser Levy, Abraham Israel De Piza (or Dias), David Israel Faro, Mose Lumbroso, Mercado (or De Mercado) de Mereda and Rachel Nunes, plus fourteen young people. Soon other Sephardics joined the original group, Salvador Dandrada, Jacob Henriques, Abraham de Lucena and Joseph d’Acosta, and Louis Gomez, Aaron Lopez.
        Moses Levy became the first Jew (a Sephardic) in America to be elected to a public office, and also one of the New York’s earliest philanthropists, involved socially and politically. East coast Sephardics supported the Revolutionary cause with voice and purse.
        By the late 1700s and early 1800s, German Jews (Ashkenazic) were present on the East Coast and marriages between the two Jewish groups, Spanish elite and German immigrants commenced. Some Ashkenazic sounding surnames were actually Sephardic surnames changed during their centuries in Germany, Franco became Franks and Garcia became Gratz. However, names like Baruch and Loeb gained dominance and Spanish surnames lost their visibility on the East Coast, until more recent history.

The Sephardim Community at Newport, Rhode Island

Roger Williams, founder of colony that became Rhode Island, believed in religious liberty. The legal cornerstone was the colony’s Code of Laws of 1647which included that "all men may walk as their consciences persuade them, everyone in the name of his God." Soon Sephardics were making Rhode Island their home. They prospered in the shipping industry and rose to leadership both socially and politically.

A plaque by the United States Department of Interior, National Park Service reads: 
National Historic Site

TOURO SYNAGOGUE of Jeshuat Israel Congregation

Founded in 1658.

The oldest synagogue building in the United States was designed by Peter Harrison. Ground was broken August 1, 1759. It was dedicated on December 2, 1763. Here 1781-84 the Rhode Island General Assembly met, and during Washington’s visit to Newport in 1781 a town meeting was held her. The state Supreme court held sessions here at that period. The building was reopened for religious services on August 2, 1850. In 1790 George Washington wrote to this Congregation that . . . "Happily the government of the United States . . . gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance."

[[Editor's note: About ten years ago, my husband and I in happened on the Touro Synagogue.  I had already read  The Grandees by Stephen Birmingham, published about 30 years ago.  I was delighted for the opportunity of visiting the Touro Synagogue in person. The contributions of the Jewish people to the American Revolution was considerable and certainly warrants serious research.]]

B'nei Shaare Zion Congregation 
This site is dedicated to the Mexican Jews in Mexico.      
http://www.bsz.org/amexicojew.htm

 Mexico Report
Kulanu - A Mexican Chanukah  

Focus on Mexico

The Crypto-Jews: An Ancient Heritage Comes Alive Again

Director compelled to preserve Mexican Jewish roots 

 Virtual Jerusalem - Mexican Jews History and Demography
  Sent by Johanna de Soto

Ancestors of Crispin D. RENDON
http://home.earthlink.net/~crisrendon/

Genealogy is a never ending exploration. The last ten years have yielded a wealth of information about my ancestors. They came from Tamalipas, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, Nueva Vizcaya, Nueva Galica, Mexcio City, the Caribbean, Sicily, Old Castile, Spain. Some were Native American while most were from Spain. Some had their roots as Sephardic Jews (Marranos) who became New Christians "Conversos". One fought with Cortes. Many were soldiers who fought in the Grad Chichimeca War. Some were captains and generals. One was the founder of Saltillo. One was the founder of Monterrey. Two were encomienderos. There is a lot to know about them, and much more to discover.

Table of Contents:  Ancestors  Surname List Name Index

Surname List:

Abrego , Aguirre , Alejandro , Alvarez Tagle , Arismendez , Avila , Ayala , Ayala Valverde , Baez Benavides , Barraza , Benavides , Berridi , Botello , Botello Morales , Caballero , Camacho , Campo , Canales , Canto , Cantu , Cardenas , Cavazos , Cerda , Cerda Santos Coy , Cervera , Cortez , Diaz , Diaz Molina , Duran Uzcanga , Escamilla , Escobar , Farias , Fernandez Castro , Fernandez , Fernandez Rio Frio , Fernandez Tijerina , Flores Abrego , Flores Cerda , Flores , Flores Valdes , Garcia , Garcia Avila , Garcia Davila , Garcia , Garcia Pruneda Arce , Garcia Pruneda , Garcia , Garcia Sosa , Garza Arcon , Garza , Garza Falcon , Garza , Gomez Castro , Gongora , Gonzalez , Gonzalez Hidalgo , Gonzalez , Gonzalez Leal , Gonzalez , Gonzalez Paredes , Guerra , Guerra Canamal , Guerra Canamar , Guerra Resa , Guillen Abrego , Gutierrez Baeza , Gutierrez Castro , Gutierrez Garcia , Gutierrez , Hernandez , Herrera , Hinojosa , Jaen Lopez , Leal , Leal Leon , Leal , Leon , Lombera , Longoria , Lopez Jaen , Lopez , Lopez Prieto , Lopez Rio Frio , Lopez Viera , Marquez Barrera , Martinez Guajardo , Melendez , Mendoza , Montano , Montemayor , Moya , Munoz Herrera , Munoz Merrera , Navarro , Nunez Hinojosa , Nunez , Ochoa Elejalde , Ochoa , Olea Camacho , Ovalle , Pena , Perez , Perez Escamilla , Perez , Perez Leon , Perez , Ponce , Porras , Prieto , Prieto Villela , Quintanilla , Ramos Arriola , Ramos , Rendon , Reyes , Rios , Robles , Rocha , Rodriguez , Rodriguez Baca , Rodriguez , Rodriguez Montemayor , Rodriguez , Ruiz , Salazar , Salazar Trevino , Saldivar , Salinas , Salinas Morones , Salinas , Salinas Selvera , Sanchez , Sanchez Barrera , Sanchez , Sanchez Huerta , Sanchez , Sanchez Ortega , Sanchez , Sanchez Zamora , Santos Coy , Silva , Sosa Farias , Sosa Navarro , Suarez Longoria , Suarez , Tamez , Trevino , Trevino Quintanilla , Valencia , Valensuela , Vela

Prepared by:

Crispin Rendon, Tel: (909) 686-7121 
3430 Bahia Place, Riverside, CA 92507

Send e-mail to: crisrendon@earthlink.net 

Archivo General de la Nación Mexico
http://www.agn.gob.mx/indice.html

El Archivo General de la Nación (AGN) es el archivo más importante de América, tanto por el volumen de documentos que resguarda, como por la antigüedad de los mismos.

Si bien el documento más antiguo que guarda corresponde al siglo XIII, sus fondos están integrados por documentación que data fundamentalmente de la época virreinal hasta nuestros días. Sin afán de ponderar su acervo, basta decir que contiene la memoria colectiva de los mexicanos.

Just go to it and browse.  . . . . .                                                               Sent by Johanna de Soto

4,000+ pages of free Mexico maps with 2,500+ still, & panoramic Mexico pictures incl. Mexico weather forecasts.  Our 28 virtual city tours with 450+ panoramic, 360º pictures of Mexico!
These are interactive maps that you click on the icons to see the photo.       Sent by Johanna de Soto

Diplomado de Administración de Base de Datos
http://serpiente.dgsca.unam.mx/
 Sent by Johanna de Soto

Introduction: The Janos Presidio records were donated to the Benson Latin American Collection in the 1940s by J. Evetts Haley, who had received them from an unknown Mexican general. They were described by the Benson's Mexican Archives Project in April 1995. The physical extent of the records is nine linear feet. The materials are in Spanish; their bulk dates are 1706-1858. The records have been partially microfilmed. A partial calendar of documents dated 1707-1828 is available in Rare Books Reference. The suggested citation for the Janos Presidio records is "Records of the Presidio de San Felipe y Santiago de Janos, 1706-1858, Benson Latin American Collection, General Libraries, University of Texas at Austin."   Prepared by the Mexican Archives Project, April 1995.   Sent by Johanna de Soto

, 
San Pedro de Jesus Maldonado Lucero

        In the U.S., betrothed couples can choose to have a religious or a civil wedding ceremony. If they choose the religious one, the state recognizes it. In Mexico, however, couples desiring to have a religious ceremony must also be married in a civil ceremony.
        This separation of church and state dates back to the 1857 Constitution and the government’s later enforcement of several articles which gave the state administrative power over the clerical profession and took away authority from the Catholic Church.
        In 1926, a small army of Catholic peasants who took on the name "Cristeros" (followers of Christ) fought to regain religious freedom. Before they were through, as many as 50,000 men from every socioeconomic background took up arms against the government.
        The "war" produced many religious refugees, some of whom came to El Paso. The city welcomed the persecuted, and from this support stemmed the founding of new seminaries and monasteries, which still exist today.
        In 1917, President Plutarco Eli as Calles and the former president, General Alvaro Obregon, weakened the Catholic church in Mexico by enforcing the articles of the 1857 Constitution included in the 1917 version. Article 3 called for secular education in the schools, thus outlawing parochial education. Article 5 closed all seminaries and convents. Article 24 forbade worship outside the physical boarders of the church.
        Article 27 prohibited religious groups from own real estate, thus nationalizing all church property. Article 130 prohibited priest and nuns from wearing religious vestments, but more importantly, it took away from the clergy the rights of voting and speech, prohibiting the criticism of government officials and comment on public affairs in religious publications.
        The closing of seminaries began during the Mexican Revolution, leaving nuns and priests with no place to live or work. The government also ruled that only Mexican-born clergy would be allowed to remain and participate in religious activities in Mexico. By 1917, hundreds of religious had been expelled from Mexico or had fled the country.
        The Catholic Church did not want to retaliate violently against the government, so from 1919 to 1926, they obeyed the laws. However, in 1926, President Calles introduced legislation which fined priests $250 for wearing religious vestments and imprisoned them for 5 years for criticizing the government.
        Archbishop of Mexico, Jose Maria Mora y del Rio, declared that the Catholic Church could not accept the government’s restraints. On July 31,1926, the Archbishop suspended all public worship by ordering Mexican clergy to refrain from administering any of the Church’s sacraments.
        Many priests were martyred while celebrating mass, either by being shot or by being beheaded. In a last affirmation of their faith, the Cristeros would shout, "Viva Cristo Rey!" (Long live Christ the King!) just before dying.
        Padre Miguel Agustin Pro was one of the best known of the martyred priests. Pro used elaborate disguises so that soldiers would not recognize him as a priest. Known for his indefatigable sense of humor, he visited the faithful often dressed as a beggar. He administered the sacraments, provided jokes and laughter, and helped financially those in need. Rich families often received the sacraments from Padre Pro in his disguise of businessman. Pro and his brother, Humberto, were arrested for being erroneously linked to a car bombing which injured ex-president Obregon. The car used in the bombing was traced back to Humberto Pro, the previous owner.
        Calles took advantage of the opportunity to execute a priest publicly in an attempt to discourage other priests from participating in politics. He ordered Pro be shot at the police station and invited reporters to the execution. Padre Pro carried a small crucifix and his rosary and held his arms out forming a cross as he was shot. Pope John Paul ll beatified him on September 25, 1988.
        Another martyr, San Pedro de Jesus Maldonado Lucero, served the people’s spiritual needs in Chihuahua, Mexico. Maldonado attended seminary in Mexico in1914, but the political conflict forced him to leave. He came to El Paso and received his ordination on January 25,1918, from Bishop Anthony J. Schuler at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Then he returned to Chihuahua to serve the faithful.
        After Calles’ anti-Catholic laws were implemented in 1926, Maldonado became a government target for performing religious ceremonies in private homes. He succeeded in celebrating night masses on one ranch or another, performing marriages and baptisms and administering other sacraments. In 1937 during Holy Week, the mayor and soldiers in Santa Isabel, Chihuahua, arrested him and beat him to death for defying government bans on hidden religious celebrations.
        Like Maldonado, many other priests and nuns along with ordinary Catholics, Mormons and Episcopalians left the country and found refuge in broader cities in the United States, among them, El Paso. Patrick Cross writes that by 1929, some 25,000 priests in approximately 12,000 parishes no longer could minister to the spiritual needs of Mexican Catholics, over 10 million strong.
        In a personal interview, Dr. Jesus Cuellar, this writer’s grandfather, recalled that at the age of 13, in 192, he was helping Father Gregorio Paredes with a secret mass in a house in Guanajuato.
        In order to save the priest’s life and to keep the Eucharist from desecration, Cuellar took the Chalice Containing the Eucharist and ran out to hide in the neighboring house. He and Father Paredes hid in a basement for 3 days, waiting for the soldiers to leave.
        Persecuted Mexican Catholics received worldwide sympathy. Boston banned the new religious regulations calling them "the most brutal tyranny." New York parishioners crowded Catholic and Protestant churches to offer prayers for a peaceful solution in Mexico.
        El Paso Bishop Revered Schuler welcomed Juarez Catholics and even granted priests permission to perform marriages and baptisms without requiring residency for the Mexican citizens. Between 1926 and 1929, the number of people attending services at El Paso Catholic churches suggested that downtown churches were serving great numbers of Catholics from Mexico.
        Since priests and nuns in Mexico could no longer teach there, many of them came to El Paso. Three nuns from the order of Perpetual Adoration and two from the servants of the Sacred Heart arrived in El Paso on August 2,1926. Sacred Heart church received the nuns from the Sacred Heart Order with open arms.
        Because there was no Perpetual Adoration order in El Paso, Bishop Schuler provided the funds for the foundation of such a monastery to train nuns. Other exiled nuns from Mexico City and Guadalajara soon joined the first nuns.
        Reverend Mother Maria Concepcion del Espiritu Santo was in charge of the nuns who came from Guadalajara. She found a suitable location for the monastery in a house at 1401 Magoffin. Along with money from the diocese, the Catholic community raised funds and helped pay $7,550 for the property in monthly installments.
        Once El Paso became a diocese in 1926, it allowed to establish seminaries and became the home to Franciscans at St. Anthony’s Seminary at Hastings and Crescent in 1935. Before this, the persecuted Franciscan order of Michoacan, which had not had a seminary since 1910, had lived in Santa Barbara, Calif., after their departure from Mexico.
        The monasteries and seminaries established at this time succeeded so well that an additional Perpetual Adoration Monastery in the Lower Valley and the Roger Bacon Seminary soon followed to house homeless priests and nuns.
        During the religious persecution, some Mexican nationals who sought and found asylum in El Paso decided to stay here. However, many returned to Mexico but continued to enroll their children in the parochial schools here. Perhaps the trend of bring children to school across the boarder began when El Paso met those needs so many years ago.
        Even though Catholicism is no longer openly persecuted in Mexico, the religious persecution of the 1920s is still felt. The government prohibits priests from owning property, criticizing government officials or commenting on public affairs. The state still does not recognize weddings performed by priests.               
        In 2000, the Pope canonized 25 priests of the Cristero era, including San Maldonado. The blood of the thousands of Cristeros and martyrs that flooded the land nourished the spirits of those left behind; their courageous cry can still be heard in the hearts of the faithful, "Viva Cristo Rey!"

Breve Reseña de 
Don Rodrigo de Frías y Lovado Conquistador de Cíbola

por
José Luis Vázquez y Rodríguez de Frías

Palomino y Cañedo menciona a Rodrigo de Frías de la siguiente manera: El 13 de Agosto de 1574 se presenta Rodrigo de Frías, vecino de 60 años más o menos, a declarar en una petición en Guadalajara respecto a la fundación del convento de San Agustín. El 15 de Febrero de 1575 fue levantada en Guadalajara una petición del clérigo Miguel Lozano donde aparece Rodrigo de Frías, vecino de 60 años más o menos: "… y sabe que ha sido vicario de Teucaltiche y su partido tiempo de 2 años, y después que dexó de ser vicario en el dicho pueblo de Teucualtiche y su partido. Ha sido y al presente es vicario del pueblo de Tlaltenango, lo qual sabe este testigo porque lo vido ser vicario" confirmando que Rodrigo de Frías ha de haber residido en el partido de Teocaltiche antes de 1575; y a "Hernando Martel, alcalde ordinario, regidor y vecino, de muchos más de 50 años "…quel dicho miguel lozano ha sido vicario en muchas partes deste Obispado, Como es en Compostela y en Teucaltiche y en Tlatenango, lo cual sabe este testigo porque a la sazón que el dicho Miguel Lozano fue vicario de Teucaltiche y en Tlatenango, este testigo era allí alcalde mayor, e lo vido ser allí vicario" confirmando que Rodrigo de Frías y Hernando Martel se conocían. Archivo General de Indias, Guadalajara. Leg. 46, (Jorge Palomino y Cañedo, Los Protocolos de Rodrigo Hernández Cordero 1585-1591, Banco Industrial de Jalisco, Guadalajara, Jalisco. 1972). Posiblemente se refiera al mismo encomendero por la edad similar, sin embargo nótese por los dos documentos anteriores que desconoce su propia edad. Sin embargo en la información de Luis Gómez de Alvarado fechada a partir del 4 de Diciembre de 1573 en Guadalajara, hijo del Conquistador Hernán Flores y de Isabel de Alvarado hermana del Ilustre Adelantado y héroe de la batalla de Otumba aparece el "Alcalde Ordinario de Guadalajara Rodrigo de Frías vecino y de más de 60 años de edad y poblador (pues dice: está en ésta tieRa que a más de treynta y siete años)" coincidiendo en la fecha de pasaje a Indias de 1536. Archivo General de Indias, Ga, Leg. 46, Ramo 28. Dávila Garibi en su obra Monseñor Romo y su Ascendencia menciona que uno de los hijos del conquistador Hernán Flores es Gómez de Alvarado. Hernando Martel participó en la guerra del Mixtón en calidad de soldado bajo las órdenes del Capitán Juan de Villalba.

En el Archivo General de la Nación existe el siguiente registro: Guadalajara - Autos promovidos por Rodrigo de Frías contra Juan de Saldívar por la posesión de una caballería de tierra llamada Toluquilla, la cual posteriormente pasó a poder de la compañía de Jesús, que sostiene un pleito por posesión de agua contra Alonso Martín, Indio. Archivo General de la Nación, Tierras. Vol. 3506, Exp. 1, f. 5.

Con respecto a la encomienda de Jalostotitlán, en la testamentaria de Hernando Espino del 17 de Abril de 1590 se menciona otra vez a Gómez de Alvarado del que Palomino y Cañedo menciona: "Debe referirse, entre los varios homólogos que vivían entonces, al Gómez de Alvarado casado con doña Bernardina de Frías, cuyas casas estorbaban tanto al arquitecto de la catedral Martín Casillas el viejo (ancestro también del autor), pues se hallaban levantadas en lo que hoy es la plaza frente a la catedral y que entonces debía ser el atrio, cuando al fin las demolieron. Gómez de Alvarado fue encomendero de Jalostotitlán y me ocupo de su línea en mí estudio sobre los Ávalos". Aún cuando Rodrigo de Frías vivió en su encomienda de Xalostotitlán también pasó tiempo en Guadalajara.

Rafael Diego Fernández Sotelo en su obra La Primera Audiencia de la Nueva Galicia 1548-1572, Instituto Cultural Dávila Garibi 1994, hace referencia de Rodrigo de Frías: En la relación de funcionarios públicos de la Nueva Galicia en la sección de alcaldes mayores menciona: "Alcalde mayor de las minas cercanas a la zona de los chichimecas, proveídas a Rodrigo de Frías, con doscientos pesos de salario "en los gastos de justicia que hiciera" ". En el "Testimonio de los negocios que provee la Real Audiencia de Galicia" menciona: Alcalde mayor de las minas que están e parece que están pobladas, no embargante que en cumplimiento de una cédula de Su Majestad, que sobre ello proveyó e mandó que se proveyese aquél cargo, fue proveído a un Rodrigo de Frías vezino de este reyno el cual tomó la posesión, con dozientos pesos de salario en los gastos de justicia que hiciere Durante el tiempo de su cargo". En el "Testimonio de la razón de todas la cédulas y provisiones de Su Majestad" menciona "Yten, otra cédula de Su Majestad, firmada de su real nombre, dada en Madrid, a treinta de julio de quinientos e sesenta e quatro años, por la qual Su Majestad reboca la provisión que havía dado Don Luis de Velasco, visorrey de la Nueva España, a Joan de Xasso, alcalde mayor de las minas de Comanxa, y manda que en el entretanto se guarde la provisión dada por la Audiencia de este nuevo reino a Rodrigo de Frías, alcalde mayor; y que el licenciado Valderrama, del consejo, recibiese cierta ynformación de cada una de las partes y la embiase al Real Consejo de Yndias". En el "Testimonio de los naturales que hay en los pueblos de Indios de Galicia" documentado por Bernardo de Balbuena, escribano de Su Majestad dado "En la ciudad de Guadalajara del Nuevo reyno de Galicia en veynte días del mes de febrero de mil e quinientos e setenta años" menciona a los pueblos de encomenderos documentado: "El pueblo de Tlacotlán, de Juan de Saldívar, cuatrocientos indios; El pueblo de Suchilipa, de Diego Flores (de la Torre hijo del Conquistador de la Nueva Galicia y Abanderado Real Alférez Real Hernán Flores natural de Salamanca y de María Ysabel Alvarez de la Torre, seiscientos indios; El pueblo de Apoçol, de Francisco Delgadillo, quinientos indios; El pueblo de Jalostotitlán, de Rodrigo de Frías, doscientos y cincuenta indios".

Efemérides en la Vida de Rodrigo de Frías.

1514 Aprox. Nace en Talavera de la Reina

1536 Cruza el mar océano a Méjico

1540-1542 Participa en la fallida Conquista de Cíbola.

Mayo 1544 – Enero 1548 En Méjico testificando en favor de Francisco Vázquez de Coronado.

1564 Alcalde Mayor de Guadalajara

1570 Encomendero de Jalostotitlán

1574-1576 Vecino de Guadalajara

1575 Antes de Vecino de Tlaltenango

Rodrigo de Frías el encomendero casó con Casilda de Mayoral. De este matrimonio solo se ha documentado un vástago: Bernardina de Frías quién casó con Gómez de Alvarado a quienes perteneció la encomienda de Xalostotitlán.

Documentado se encuentra el siguiente bautismo: En 18 de Junio 1604 en Guadalajara baptisé a Bernabé hijo de Rodrigo de olivares y maría de mendoça vez^os de Xalostotitlán, fueron sus padrinos don Ju^o Fernándes de íjar y doña bernardina de frías.

Existen tres documentos que mencionan a Bernardina de Frías: El primero, el testamento con fecha de 31 de Diciembre de 1625 documentado en la cuidad de Guadalajara de doña bernardina de frías, difunta vuida de Gómez de Albarado, hija legítima de Rodrigo de frías y de casilda de mayoral vezinos que fueron desta dha cuidad, donde menciona las capellanías de mil cuatrocientos pesos de principal sobre unas casas de su morada que antes habían sido de Casilda de Mayoral, difunta su madre, nombrándose al capellán don An^to de Ábila de la cadena a quién nombra su albacea, siendo testigos juan despinoça, miguel de agundes, Fran^co Rodrígues de la vera , fran^co lópez de messa vezinos y estantes en esta dha cuidad. Protocolos Notariales de Francisco de Oriendaín, Vol. 3, Foja 6-10.

El segundo es el codicilio de dicho testamento donde menciona tener hecho testamento ante Her^do Enríquez del Castillo, escribano público, mencionando como albacea al doctor don An^to de Ábila de la cadena, Deán de la santa yglesia catedral que quién por estar ausente nombra por albacea a el Licenciado Ju^o de ortega; mencionando que los Indios del pueblo de Xalostotitlán de mí encomienda me son deudores de todo el tributo del año pasado de mil seisientos y veinte y seis, quiero y es mí voluntad que los dichos mis albaceas lo cobren y lo den de limosna a la yglesia del dicho pueblo de Xalostotitlán y ornamentos della, y también digo y declaro que en dicho testamento por cláusula de él mando que se le de a Josepha de Chavarría my ahijada cien pesos, y escribo y lo consto que se le añadan de mis bienes trecientos pesos mas, que por todo sean cuatrocientos y con esto quiero que se guarde y cumpla el dicho mí testamento y este codicilio que en fecha en Guadalaxara tres de Agosto de mil y seisientos veinte y siete años, siendo testigos Benito R^s, Jusepe de medinilla y Don F^do Bracamonte vecinos y presentes en esta cuidad. Protocolos notariales del escribano Juan Sedano, Tomo I, Foja 191v.

El tercero es el testam^to de doña bernardina de frías, biuda de gómes de Albarado vezina de esta cuidad de gu^a, estando como estoy enferma en una cama y en mi… juicio y entendimiento… digo que yo e echo y otorgado mí testamento… ordeno y mando lo siguiente: primeramente digo que en el dho testamento tengo nombrado… y sepultura, donde mí cuerpo sea enterrado y m^do que se cumpla la dha cláusula y tengo nombrado por albacea… de los dhos mis bienes a el canónigo licen^do P^o gonzáles polanco … donde anula testamentos anteriores y codicilios a cinco días del mes de noviembre de mill y seisientos y beinte y nuebe como a las ocho oras poco más o menos de la noche. Siendo testigos Bernabé de olivas y diego de aguilar y juan López truxillo y luis de campos, y algunos vezinos y estantes. Protocolos Notariales del Escribano Juan Sedano, Tomo I, Foja 277.

Referencias: Genealogía de Nochistlán Antiguo Reino de la Nueva Galicia en el Siglo XVII según sus Archivos Parroquiales, José Luis Vázquez y Rodríguez de Frías, Editorial El Labrador, Cd. Juárez, Méjico, 2001, pp. 206-207. asturias_vazquez@yahoo.com

LOS PRIMEROS POBLADORES ESPAÑOLES 
DE 
JALOSTOTITLÁN, JALISCO

  Por  
Guillermo Padlla Origel

Xalostotitlán, fue un centro hispano importante durante finales del siglo XVI, XVII Y XVIII, encontramos que en junio 30 de 1552 la real audiencia de la Nueva Galicia entregó a Isabel de Ruíz un sitio de ganado mayor en estas tierras; en 1543 se asentó Don Juan Vázquez de Zermeño y Don Rodrigo de Frías encomendero de estas tierras en la cañada de san Juan ; en 1567 después de la fundación de la villa de Santa María de los Lagos, se establecieron Don Alonso de Arguello , Álvaro Gutiérrez, Juan de Sandoval y El Capitan Juan de Mota.

En 1572 se erijió la parroquia donde los franciscanos ejecutaron labores de Párrocos y a petición de los Vázquez de Zermeño se nombró a san Salvador como patrono de estas tierras de la jurisdicción de Xalostotitlán como: Mitic, San Gaspar, Mexquitic, San Juan, san Miguel el Alto, valle de Guadalupe y parte de Tepatitlán.

Después estuvo Don Francisco Gutiérrez de Mendoza el Viejo, en un sitio de ganado mayor cerca de Teocaltitán , que dio origen a la hacienda de Necaspiloya y asi sucesivamente creció la población española , como ustedes veran casados entre parientes y con los apellidos de aquel tiempo según les convenia el del padre, la madre o abuelos.

De los siguientes tres personajes y sus esposas se deprende una gran generación de la cual veremos en su inicio su Genealogía:

Don Diego González, con su esposa Doña María Rubio y fue su hijo:

I.-Don Francisco Gutierrez Rubio I, casado con Doña Ana González Florida I,
y fueron sus hijos:

Ta.-Capitan Don Miguel Guterrez Rubio,casado con Leonor de Hermosillo, por 1682 y fueron sus hijos Don Francisco y Don Lázaro Gutiérrez Rubio y Hermosillo

b.-Doña Ana González Florida II, murio en jalos el 7 de mayo de 1672 y se caso con Don Juan González de Hermosillo, quien murio en jalos el 6 de enero de 1666

c.-Doña Maria González , casada con N. Muñóz de Aceves y fue su hijo Juan de Aceves casado con Beatriz de Hermosillo , y fueron sus hijos a su vez:

Don Juan de Aceves casado con Andrea Rodríguez Becerra , don Carlos Y doña Catalina de Aceves y Hermosillo

d.-Don Diego Gonzalez Rubio I, casado con Doña Polonia de Tores II, yfuron sus hijos :

Antonio, Diego, María, Domingo y Catalina casada con Luis López, y fue su hija Doña Petronila Muñoz de Nava

e.-Don Francisco Gutiérrez Rubio II , el mozo, se caso con Francisca Husrtado de Mendoza y Olivares y fue su hija Francisca Gutierrez de Mendoza y de Laris

f.-Doña Catalina Gutiérrez Rubio, casada con Don Francisco Muñoz de la Barba, quine murió en jalos en 1667 y fueron sus hijos:

Ana Muñoz, Benito Muñoz, Josefa Muñoz, María Muñoz ,Isabel Gonzalez, Francisca Gutierrez de la Barba, casada con Nicolas Ramírez de Hermosillo


II.-Don Juan Gonzalez de Hermosillo I, con Doña María Muñoz y fueron sus hjijos:

a.-Doña Beatriz de Hermosillo, casada con Juan de Aceves y fue su hijo Juan de Aceves y Hermosillo casado con Andrea Rodríguez Becerra

b.-Don Juan González de Hermosillo II, casado con Ana Gonzalez Florida II,

c.-Doña Leonor de Hermosillo, casada con el Capitan Don Miguel Gutiérrez Rubio, y fueron sus hijos: Francisco y Lázaro Gutiérrez

d.-Don Gonzalo de Hermosillo

e.-Don Francisco Muñoz Cabeza o de Hermosillo, murio en jalos el 2 de agosto de 1672 y se caso con Doña Francisca de Torres y fueron sus hijos:

Juan Gonzalez, Francisco Muñoz, María Hermosillo, Gonzalo Hermosillo, Ana Muñoz, Sebastiana González, Catalina González y Melchor de Hermosillo

f.-Doña Teresa Gonzalez de Hermosillo, casada con Don Silvestre Camacho Riquelme I, y fueron sus hijos:

Catalina de Hermosillo, Gonzalo Fernández, Juan de Bustamante, Silvestre Camacho II, casado con Ana Flores de Palencia, Luisa Gutierrez de Hermosillo, casada con el Capitan Don Cristóbal de Padilla de Avila y Arias de Valdés, nacido en Guadalaxara en 1640,( genearca de todos los Padillas de orisgen alteño) y biznieto del Capitán Don Lorenzo de Padilla Davila y Machicao fundador de Lagos de Moreno en 1563 y de Doña Mariana Temiño de Velasco, y Jerónimo de Hermosillo casado con Catalina González

g.-Don Diego Alonso del Pedroso, y Hermosillo, casado con Doña Paula de Torres, y fueron sus hijos:

Capitan Don Agustín Garcia de Hermosillo I, casado con Maria Muñoz de la Barba y Gutierrez Rubio, Don Diego Alonso Ramírez de Hermosillo, casado con Luisa Muñoz de Nava y Gonzalez de Ruvalcaba , Don Matias Gonzalez, Maria de Hermosillo, Isabel Ramírez, casada con Carlos de Aceves y Hermosillo, Paula de Torres y Nicolas Ramírez de Hermosillo, casado con Francisca Muñoz de la Barba y Gutierrez Rubio

h.-Don Cristóbal Muñoz de Hermosillo, casado con Leonor de Talavera

III.-Don Nicolás Ramírez, casado con Doña Polonia de Torres I, antes vecinos y fundadores en 1575 de Aguascalientes, dueños de la estancia de Peñuelas, y fueron sus hijos:

a.-Paula de Torres, casada con Diego Alonso del Pedroso y Hermosillo con sucsecion antes mencionada.

b.-Doña Francisca de Torres, casada con Francisco Muñoz Cabeza , con sucesión antes mencionada

c.-Doña Polonia de Torres II, casada con Diego Gonzalez Rubio I, con sucesión antes mencionada.

Tambien se asentaron en ese tiempo los matrimonios formados por .

Manuel Gómez y Catalina de Mendoza, Andres de Estrada Bocanegra y Luisa Flores Rubí ,Sebastián Ramírez y Maria de Hermosillo, Rodrigo de Olivares y María Hurtado de Mendoza, Juan Ximenez y Regina de Mendoza, Diego Ortiz de Moya, Juan de Saavedra e Inés de Brenes, etc.

Notas.-  

Información de una cofradía del siglo XVII del P. Rosario Ramírez Mercado

Jalostotitlán a través de los siglos por José Antonio Gutiérrez Gutiérrez y

Retoños de España en la Nueva Galicia tomo II por Mariano González Leal

by Peter E. Carr

        At the time of the first voyage of Columbus, there were several crypto-Jews on his expedition. Certainly by the later ones, other Jews came as well. However they had to do so in secrecy because by this time Jews in Spain and its holdings either had to convert to Catholicism or be expelled. In fact, after the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, many went to live in Portugal.
        However, by 1497, they were expelled from Portugal, too. Many went to live in friendly European places such as Holland. In Holland, they were still under the Spanish Crown until 1581 when The Netherlands gained its independence and religious tolerance was established. Some Jews went as far a field as the Portuguese colony of Brazil. Although they were forbidden to practice their faith, the Jews in Brazil prospered and maintained their faith secretly, hence the term 'crypto-Jews'.
        Holland again enters the picture when in the 1630s, they entered the harbor at Recife in northeast Brazil, and claimed it for themselves. By 1642, there was a sizable Jewish community from Amsterdam, The Netherlands in the Recife area which numbered well over 3,000 members.       
        In 1654, Portugal attempted to regain control of the area from Holland. By 1664, the re-conquest had taken place. Once again the Jews were expelled from the area and left aboard 16 ships. Many Jews returned to Amsterdam. Among these was Isaac de Fonseca who would later become the first rabbi on the North American mainland.
        Others settled in the Caribbean islands of Curaçao, Jamaica, Barbados, and Martinique as well as Surinam. Some of the Sephardic Jewish names in Curaçao are reflected in census records of the early 18th century. These are: Curiel, Correa, Henriques, Alavares, Fonseca, Nunes, Salas, Gomes and others.
        At the time the Jews arrived in 1665, Surinam was a British colony. The Jews had been lured to settle here by the British government by being given 10 acres of land, British citizenship, and recognition of the Sabbath. When in 1667 Surinam came under Dutch control, the Jews were once again in customary friendly hands. However, many moved to the British colony of Barbados in order to retain their British citizenship.
        For over half a century, Surinam prospered under Dutch control and Jewish plantation management. Though the Jews in Barbados prospered and enjoyed freedom starting as early as 1660s and for a long time, resentment appeared among other settlers. Restrictions on Jewish trade were put into effect.  
        It was not until 1802 that all restrictions were once again removed. As far back as the early 1650s, a Sephardic synagogue had been established in Barbados and named Nidhe Israel, meaning the Dispersed Ones of Israel. Some of the headstones from the 1660s are still readable and in good shape. 
        By 1671, Jews in Jamaica were being asked to leave by the newly-arrived British settlers. Though not successful, a special tax on the Jews was passed in 1693.
        In 1703, Jews were barred from using indentured Christian servants. Through all this, the Jews remained on Jamaica. There is a list dating from 1754 of Jewish landholders in Jamaica which includes such names as Fertado, Alvarez Fernandez, Gutteres, Gabay, Mendez, Henriques, Israel, Lousada, La Cruz (surprisingly as this may seem), Perera and various others.
        On the French colony of Martinique as well as other French colonies, King Louis XIV ordered all Jews expelled in 1683. There were other smaller Jewish colonies on some of the smaller Caribbean islands. The larger islands, like Cuba, did not have any sizable Jewish settlement until well into the 20th century.
        From these islands, many Jews would trade with mainland Spanish colonies such as Venezuela, Honduras, and even Mexico, though for the most part trade restrictions by the Spanish Crown did not allow easy contact or interchange between Caribbean Sephardic Jews and those on the mainland under Spanish control. 

Puerto Rico  http://www.ku.edu/kansas/pr/index.html

This is a Great Resource, links to maps, archives, libraries, museums, sites, collective biography, census, and individual bibliographies of:

• Pedro Albizu Campos
• Obispo Juan Alejo de Arizmendi
• Ramón Emeterio Betances
• Julia de Burgos
• José Campeche
• Roberto Clemente
• Juan Antonio Corretjer Montes
• Loida Figueroa
• Eugenio María de Hostos
• Rafael Hernández Colón
• Juan Mari Brás
• Luis Angel "Canena" Márquez
• Luis Muñoz Marín
• Ramón Rivero "Diplo"
• Beato Carlos Manuel Rodríguez
• Ernesto Ramos Antonini
• Arturo Alfonso Schomburg
• More Biographies                                                                     Sent by Johanna de Soto

Cash Wiring Grows Despite High Fees   (Extract)

United Press International - November 23, 2002

        WASHINGTON, Nov 23, 2002 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- According to a Pew Hispanic Trust, released November 22, immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean were on track to send a whopping $25 billion to their homelands this year as "remittances" continue to provide an important source of dollars to developing nations, 
        Immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic and a host of other Western Hemisphere nations have long set aside a portion of their often times meager earnings and wired them to their families in their native lands. The influx of dollars not only helps out the relatives' standard of living, but also provides a steady stream of coveted U.S. dollars to the economies of the homeland.
        The amount of money sent out of the United States was expected to grow, not only because there are more immigrants, but also because transfer technology has improved and the banking industry -- both inside and outside the United States -- has become more aggressive in trying to capture a portion of the remittance business.
        "U.S. banks are moving aggressively to capture a greater share of the remittance market, and they are getting encouragement, even assistance, from both the U.S. and Mexican governments," the report explained. "In principle, these developments should increase competition and lead to lower fees, greater investments in technology, and a more efficient remittance flow."

LUSA Web:  A Portuguese-American Neighborhood, Ship List Database
http://www.lusaweb.com/genealogy/gendata/shiplist.cfm
Portuguese Passenger Ship Database:
A growing Database of  passenger ship lists, where you can search for Portuguese ancestors who left their homeland by ship.
This database is an ongoing project started by LusaWeb with the help of many dedicated  volunteers who spent countless hours transcribing these passenger ship lists.
If you have extracted a Portuguese passenger ship list and would like to add it to our archives, or would like to participate in the project,  please contact us at Webmaster@lusaweb.com 
                                                                                                 Sent by Johanna de Soto

They Came by Ship: The Transatlantic Passenger Lists of  the Calitrani Immigrants
by Mario Toglia  http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~calitri/Calitri/TheyCameByShip/Ships.htm 

History books have discussed at length the reasons why our Italian forebears have emigrated to the United States:   the land droughts, the lack of work, the abundance of manpower, the endless toil of eking out a living on a small overused parcel of land for low pay as well as the political turmoils of the times.  This website will seek to list the numerous Calitrani immigrants who braved the ocean crossings to seek a better life in America for themselves and their families from the early 1880's to the period prior to World War II.  Alphabetical by ship and by surname
                                                                                                           Sent by Johanna de Soto

New France   http://home.primus.ca/~lmrobert/index.html

This site provides tidbits of information about colonists of New-France and their descendants from 1534 to 1899, in the form of passenger lists, places of origin, activities, maps, military rolls, people who took part in some historical events, etc.                                          Sent by Johanna de Soto

Italian immigrants to the United States from Argentina and Brazil, databank.
http://213.212.128.168/radici/ie/defaultie_e.htm                                      Sent by Johanna de Soto

Biblioteca Nacional de España  http://www.bne.es   Examples of resources on this site.

El Catálogo Colectivo Español de Publicaciones Periódicas (C.C.P.P.) incluye las publicaciones periódicas que se conservan en unas 1.100 bibliotecas españolas. El mantenimiento y actualización de este Catálogo lo realiza la Biblioteca Nacional. Si desea más información puede solicitarla en la dirección electrónica: info.ccpp@bne.es ; Fax: +34 91 516.80.16; teléfono: +34 91 580.78.53)

El Directorio Bibliotecas Españolas contiene las descripciones de las bibliotecas y de los centros de documentación españoles en cualquier país. El mantenimiento y actualización de este Directorio lo realiza la Biblioteca Nacional. Si desea actualizar o modificar alguno de los datos se debe dirigir a la dirección siguiente: dibi@bne.es

El Sistema de Recuperación de Recursos Electrónicos es el sistema desarrollado por la Biblioteca Nacional en colaboración con la Fundación Telefónica ( proyecto Atril Virtual ) para permitir el acceso desde un navegador de Internet a los fondos digitalizados de la Biblioteca Nacional, permitiendo en estos casos no sólo la consulta de referencias bibliográficas, sino también el acceso al propio fondo. El acceso a este servicio se permite a través de la consulta al Catalogo bibliográfico Ariadna y a través de las Exposiciones Virtuales.                                     Sent by Johanna de Soto     

HISTORY

WHO AND WHAT WON THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR? 
SEAPOWER, CLANDESTINE AID, UNKNOWN TREATIES, TREASURE SHIPS, 
BIOLOGICAL WARFARE, U-BOATS, OR OTHER?

By Granville W. Hough, 
South Coast Chapter, CASSAR