Somos Primos

 July 2006 
Editor: Mimi Lozano
©2000-6

Dedicated to Hispanic Heritage and Diversity Issues
 

Society of Hispanic Historical and Ancestral Research
Celebrating 20th Anniversary 
1986-2006

Los Angeles's Olvera Street
Birthplace of Los Angeles featured in Pictorial History Book by Bill Estrada
in Tribute to the 225th Anniversary of the city of Los Angeles.
For more information, click. 

 

Content Areas
United States . . . 5
Anti-Spanish Legends . . . 38
Military/Law Enforcement Heroes . 41
Cuentos . . . 51
Surname. . . 73
Spanish SARs. . . 75
Orange County, CA . . . 81
Los Angeles, CA
. . . 93
California . . . 100
Northwestern US . . . 105
Southwestern US . . . 105
Black  . . . 109
Indigenous . . . 113
Sephardic . . . 117
Texas . . . 120
East of Mississippi  . . 141
East Coast
. . .150
Mexico
. . . 158
Caribbean/Cuba . . . 173
Spain . . . 177
International
. . . 181
History
. . . 183
Family History 
. . . 189
Archaeology
. . .197
Miscellaneous
. . .199
Calendar
Networking
Meetings   
SHHAR meeting 7/22/06   

END

 

 Letters to the Editor : 

I would like to thank you for an article shown in your June 2004 issue: The Autobiography of Paul Edgar Trejo. It shows a photo entitled, Descendants of Tibo (Santos) Trejo and Maria Clotilda Garner. The little girl in the lower right hand corner, Josephine, is my aunt via marriage to my uncle Lester Creekpaum. Although I knew her from the time I was a very young child, I actually knew nothing of her background. It was wonderful to read about her family history, and see the photo. She was a wonderful woman who gave me much good advice and many recipes. I miss her very much. Her second husband, my uncle Lester Creekpaum, died in 2003 and is buried beside her in Tulsa Ok. 
Many thanks, and best wishes.
Susie McJones  susiemcjones@gmail.com

§
American Indian Origin 
I’m currently writing because I took my children to a dentist and the dentist he mentioned that my children are of American Indian Origin.  He showed me  something on the back of our teeth. He said that is only on American Indians not Aztec or Mayan.  At first I thought it can’t be because I was born in San Francisco Del Oro Chihuahua Mexico. How can I find out more or what can I do?  This really interests me. My mothers last name is Bejarano Arellano or Amezcua and my fathers is Gardea Lazcano. . Thank you for you’re hard work and time.
Sincerely, Mary Delgado mdelgado_37@hotmail.com

§
Thanks for all you do with Somos Primos, we know its a lot of work for you but the information you share has an impact across the country. The February issue was great, especially in terms of highlighting key aspects of the Hispanic Federal employment issue. Please keep up the fine work and keep the faith...
Gil Sandate  gsandate@loc.gov 
Director, Office of Workforce, Library of Congress Washington, D.C.

§
Keep the newsletter coming.  I really enjoy it.   << did I use in June?
Sandie Cisneros Lamm (Lozano-Villareal)

§
Dear Mimi,
Congratulations on being named Woman of the Year for 2006!
March is Women's History Month, and you deserve the recognition, not only from your community, but also from the entire Latino Community.  Believe me, your efforts are dearly appreciated.  We all are so very proud of you, Mimi. Take care, Lorri Ruiz Frain 
lorrilocks@earthlink.net


§
Thank you for the work you do and the cartoon.
Saludos, Antonio Piña tpina@padillahomes.com
Dear Ms. Lozano ~
I am delighted to find this organization and publication. My heritage is mixed (Spanish, Italian and Lithuanian) and I find it tiresome to hear people, though fewer of us who self-identify as Latinos/Latinas/Hispanics, who try to focus on our differences rather than what unites us. Thank you for your tremendous work and scholarship.
Lee Marie Sanchez uudrelee1@att.net

§
I just went to your site. It was extremely interesting. You have done a fantastic job of trying to bring about understanding and harmony between the two races. Thank you for all your hard work!  I would like to be informed when new issues of your magazine are available, please. Thanks so much for the offer.

Sincerely, Nathleen Albright
ldsafricanamericanaffairs@adelphia.net

§
Mimi, I'm still getting e-mails about the article I wrote about my dad for Somos Primos 2004. 
This is so sweet. Mercy scarlett_mbo@yahoo.com

Mercy: Your story was very interesting and well written.  I bet my great-grandmother’s mother Silva Bautista from Jerez and Zacatecas probably knew your grandfathers family. Her husband, my great-grandfather Magdalena Duarte Moreno also had many family members in Zacatecas, Zacatecas. We all came here for the same reason: A better life for us and our children. I thank God for having such wonderful parents and grandparents.
Regards, Albert Duarte Prieto  aduarte@ksimaging.com Santa Maria, California

§

Ola Mimi, Thank you so much for posting my short story on Granny Felipa and the rest of her brothers and sisters. I have uncovered some more pictures and will forward those to you as soon as I am able. I admire all of your work which must be truly a labor of love. It makes me very proud to be a member of the Lozano Family 
oscaroke@cox.net
Oscar R Cisneros Jr.

§
To: Jaime Cader frequent submitter:
What's nice is having a hot cup of coffee and reading Somos Primos early on a Sunday...I always learn something new. And it is so interesting, and getting even better than the time before!!I'm sure Somos Primos will gain in popularity due to the internet.  I learn something new every time I read it. Somos Primos should be a teaching tool, there is something in it for everyone, everywhere.
 
Keep up the great work!!  
Purliemae Wiggins Purliemae@aol.com

 


"My parents didn't speak English.  They learned it little by little.  
They realized that education was the ticket to a better future."  
Tony Cardenas, 
Former California State Assemblyman, now a member of the Los Angeles City Council

   Somos Primos Staff:   
Mimi Lozano, Editor

Reporters/columnists:
Johanna De Soto
Lila Guzman
Granville Hough
Galal Kernahan
Alex Loya
J.V. Martinez
Armando Montes
Michael  Perez
Ángel Custodio  Rebollo
John P. Schmal
Howard Shorr

  Contributors o this issue:  
admin@genealogicalstudies.com.
eventos@genealogia.org.mx
Genealogia-Mexico@googlegroups.com 
hot_ss@yahoo.com 
lbrown@jcollinsassociates.com 
Mrremap1@aol.com 
ORDONEZ49NINER@aol.com


Selina Aguirre
Nathleen Albright
Mary Allen 
Ruben Alvarez 
Gustavo Arellano 
Armando A. Ayala, Ph.D. 
Katie Baird
Christopher Bentley 
Sylvia Bisnar
Eliud Bonilla
Eva Booher,
Mercy Bautista Olvera
Jaime Cader 
Bill Carmena
Oscar R Cisneros Jr.
Sandie Cisneros Lamm
Robin Collins
Harry W. Crosby 
Mary Delgado
Gloria DeLaTorre-Wycoff 
Johanna De Soto 
Albert Duarte Prieto 
Edna Elizondo González 
Macial Fernandez
Mario Garcia
Gloria Golden 
Bobby González
Robert Gonzalez 
Benita Gray 
Eddie Grijalva 
Lila Guzman, Ph.D.
Michael R. Hardwick 
George F. Haskins 
Lorraine Hernandez 
Paula Hinkel 
Win Holtzman
Granville Hough, Ph.D. 
Zeke Hernandez
Bernadette Inclan
John Inclan
Norma Keating
Ignacio Koblischek
Charles Lara
Alex Loya 
Micheal Lozano 
Orlando Lozano 
Rafael Antonio Manchola 
Carlos Marquez 
Susie McJones 
Cindy Mediavilla, 
Dorinda Moreno 
Paul Newfield III 
Charles Ngheim 
Yolanda Ochoa 

Rafael Ojeda
Willis Papillion
Jose M. Pena 
Addy Perez-Mau 
Debra Perez Hagstrom 
R. Perry
Alfredo I. Peña Pérez-Plazola 
Antonio PiñaClaire Prechtel-Klusken 
Mike Price
Joseph Puente
Juan Ramos, Ph.D. 
Ángel Custodio Rebollo 
Norman Rozeff
Jo Russell 
Robert Robinson
Rudi Rodriguez 
Lorri Ruiz Frain
Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, Ph.D. 
Lynn Ruggieri 
Lee Marie Sanchez 
Richard Sanchez
Gil Sandate 
John P. Schmal 
Diane Sears
Albert Seguin 
Howard Shorr 
Frank M. Sifuentes 
Johnny Silvas 
Bob Smith 
Mira Smithwick
Bishop Jaime Soto, 
Barry Starr
Janete Vargas
Ricardo Valverde 
Purliemae Wiggins 
Arturo Ynclan 
Estella Zermeno
SHHAR Board:  Bea Armenta Dever, Steven Hernandez,  Mimi Lozano Holtzman, Pat Lozano, Yolanda Magdaleno, Henry Marquez, Yolanda Ochoa Hussey, Michael Perez, Crispin Rendon, Viola Rodriguez Sadler, John P. Schmal


United States

National issues
Hispanic One Hundred hosts John McCain at bipartisan event
Bishop Jaime Soto Invocation
Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on Immigrants & being an American in 1907
Mission of the Society of Hispanic Historical and Ancestral Research 
 
Sons Live Out a Dream, Passing the Torch to a New Generation
Study of Latino Professionals Shatters Stereotypes
Newsweeklies Rarely Cover Hispanics
A Look at History - Repatriation / Bickering Delays Illegal-Immigrant Deal 
Educator brings attention to historic period and its affect on her family

Action Item:  

Commission to investigate removal of Mex-Americans during depression
A message from an appalled observer at World War II Memorial in D.C.

Education
Ana Maria Armano, a month short of 80th birthday receives B.A.
Course helps Latinos understand kids' schools 
Website for Diversity Education
French in Maine
Most states fall short in teaching the culture of Latin America and Mexico 
A Guide to the Tool Kit for Hispanic Families
The 7 Secrets of Big Picture Thinkers by Nancy Marmolejo



Culture 
Race and Latino!
Tejano Texian 
Our Lives are better left to chance
In Search of Fatherhood 
Latino Rhythms and their influence on Classic Soul Music: 

Business
Would you believe? . . Meet the Fakers
Multi-ethnic business a piece of cake

 

National issues

Hispanic One Hundred hosts John McCain at bipartisan event, 
May 31st , Orange County, California
Keynote speaker: Senator John McCain
Invocation: Most Reverend Jaime Soto, V.G.
Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of Orange

Lord God, Father of all: Your spirit is over all, in all, and through all. It is your providence and grace that has brought together people of every land and race to forge one nation under your wise and watchful gaze.

Grant us a glimmer of that gleeful gaze with which you embrace the diverse fabric of humanity that is this American enterprise. Give us a taste of your delight knowing all the good that comes when brothers and sisters dwell as one.

May we never tire of doing the good. May we never weary or worry about the challenges before us. Give us the courage rooted in the spirit you once breathed upon Adam and Eve, commanding them to multiply and be fruitful.

Bless the food we are about to share. Grace with gladness our fellowship. Enlighten our conversations with your truth and guide our words by your gentle charity.

Awaken our minds with remembrance of those who walk boldly into harm's way to protect our freedoms. Stir our hearts with gratitude for their sacrifices. May we cherish what they defend and struggle here to uphold the Union made stronger by our commitment to be indivisible with liberty and freedom for all. This is our hope and this is our prayer we bring before you Father through Jesus Christ, our Lord, quien vive y reina por los siglos de los siglos. AMEN.

 


[[
Editor:
I was sitting at the table with Bishop Soto, with whom I've had the pleasure of working on several heritage events. I was very touched by his prayer and asked if I could get a copy. Bishop Soto with no hesitation, took his copy out his vest pocket and handed it to me. It gives me great pleasure to share it and know that it will read for many years to come.]] 
Bishop Soto assumed a position as Associate Director of Catholic Charities of Orange in July, 1986. In December of 1986 he assumed the directorship of the Immigration and Citizenship at Catholic Charities. He was involved with the implementation of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.  Bishop Soto was ordained Bishop on May 31st, 2000. 
For more information on Bishop Soto, go to http://www.rcbo.org/bishop/auxbishop.htm

 


Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on Immigrants & being an AMERICAN in 1907.
Sent by Sylvia Bisnar  Biziebiz@aol.com

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... 
We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language.. and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."  . . . . . Theodore Roosevelt 1907

Mission of the Society of Hispanic Historical and Ancestral Research  

[[Editor: In answer to questions about Somos Primos by readers, below is information from our By-Laws.  Somos Primos is the voice of the Society of Hispanic Historical and Ancestral Research. We are incorporated as a 501-c3 non-profit organization.  We are unique in that all of our activities are filled by volunteers.  There is no paid staff and no dues.

Somos Primos' content is generated through the submissions of readers and current news. Every attempt is made by your editor to include the varied enlightening and uplifting philosophical positions that reflect our Hispanic/Latino heritage and diversity.]]
 

Item 2 in the Article of Incorporation: Purposes:
This corporation is a nonprofit public benefit corporation and is not organized for the private gain of any person.  It is organized under the Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation Law for public and charitable purposes of the corporation are to increase and develop public and individual awareness of Hispanic historical and cultural contribution through educational programs, speakers, publications and assistance, etcetera.

In the Articles II: Philosophy
The concept, as a Society at large, is to research, conserve and share information on Hispanic Ancestral Heritage.  As a group the Society will assist other individuals interested in learning about their genealogical and cultural background.  Although our primary interest is in assisting the Hispanic Community in search of their heritage, we will, however, extend this service to other individuals regardless of  race, color, political, or religious beliefs.

Article III: Concepts
Based on the philosophy of the Society, we propose the following:
A. To use all means at our disposal; to implement, with discretion, the principles set forth in our
     philosophy.
B. To foster the learning, sharing, and research of Hispanic History, Genealogy, and Heraldry.
C. To promote and encourage accurate interpretation of Hispanic history and heritage for the enjoyment of the members and public at large.

For more information, please call me Mimi Lozano 714-894-8161 or write mimilozano@aol.com



Sons Live Out a Dream, Passing the Torch to a New Generation

By Steve Hymon, Times Staff Writer, May 7, 2006
Los Angeles Times, Orange County Edition 
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-council7may07,1,264511.story?
coll=la-headlines-california
Sent by Granville Hough, Ph.D.

Four couples crossed the border from Mexico with little but hope. 
Now all have children serving on L.A.'s City Council.


Ed Reyes
District 1


Tony Cardenas
District 6


Alex Padilla
District 7


Jose Huizar
District 14


With waves of marchers filling the streets around City Hall in recent weeks to protest the nation's immigration policy, the four — Cardenas, Jose Huizar, Alex Padilla and Ed Reyes — have had a unique vantage point. They are on the inside looking out, having come from families that made the leap in just two generations from poor immigrant laborers to elected leaders in the nation's second-largest city. 

These four are not the first Latinos on the council, but their families' stories are all variations on the classic American immigrant tale: the sadness of leaving one's native home entwined with the hope for a better life in a country that offers both promises and obstacles. 

The youngest, Tony Cardenas, was elected to the state Assembly in 1996 and to the Los Angeles City Council in 2003. Today, at 43, he is one of four council members whose parents grew up in Mexico and came — and are here legally — to the U.S. for work and a better life.


The Cardenas Family
Andres Cardenas married Maria Quezada in the state of Jalisco, Mexico, in 1946. Young, poor and with little in the way of a future, the newlyweds immigrated to the United States.

Andres' education went as far as the first grade, Maria's the second. He started picking crops near Stockton, later became a day laborer and eventually started his own gardening business. He and his wife settled in Pacoima, where they raised 11 children. 

The Cardenas family had a bit of good luck. Maria Cardenas was born on Catalina Island, making her an American citizen. When she was 3, her family returned to rural Temastian, in the state of Jalisco, where eventually she met Andres Cardenas.

After moving north, Tony Cardenas' father got his first job in the United States, picking crops in the fields near Stockton. Today a giant photo of him digging potatoes resides on the wall behind his son's City Hall desk, a reminder and a promise all in one.

The family settled in Pacoima in 1954 and bought a house the next year. Cardenas' father eventually began his own gardening business and didn't have to look far for help. His five sons quickly learned that weekends, holidays and summer vacations involved spending time with a shovel.

"My parents didn't speak English. They learned it little by little," Cardenas said. "They realized that education was the ticket to a better future in their own rudimentary way. They kept the house clean, kept us on the straight and narrow, and none of us ever got into trouble with the law."

Of the 11 Cardenas children, eight went to college. One son drowned in a 1971 accident. Tony Cardenas started his own realty firm and then decided to run for the Assembly, in part, he said, because no one from Pacoima had ever before made it to Sacramento. Today he represents parts of the northeast San Fernando Valley on the council. 


The Padilla Family
Padilla's father was from Puerto Vallarta, on Mexico's western coast, and his mother from the desert city of Chihuahua, not far from the Texas border. They came to the U.S. independently of each other, met at a dance in downtown Los Angeles and wed in 1967 or '68. 

To this day, Padilla isn't sure if, initially, his parents came here legally. After marrying, they returned to Mexico and applied for legal residency in the U.S., which was granted.

His father, Santos Padilla, was "master of the griddle" at several of the Du-Par's restaurants — he's still working as a cook — and his mom, Lupe Padilla, had a regular stable of homes that she cleaned. In the afternoons during the school year, the public library in Pacoima served as baby-sitter for the three Padilla children. In summer, they switched to the local pool. 

"We would swim until noon and then they would shut down the pool for an hour, and we would go to a free lunch program because we lived In a poor census tract," PadUla recalled.

In 1990, much to his own surprise, Padffla was accepted into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He had applied to, but -not visited, the school and had never traveled east of El Paso.

Although he graduated with a degree In mechanical engineering, he returned home after college in 1994 and tell in love with the world of local politics. He said he was driven largely by that year's Proposition 187,' which called for denying illegal immigrants many social benefits but which was overturned in federal court. "

In 1999, Padilla was elected to the City Council at age 26 representing parts of the northeast Valley. Two days later, his mother became a U.S. citizen in a ceremony at the convention center, joining his .father, who had' earned his citizenship in 1998.

Padffla, now 33, is the youngest member of the council -and was three times elected its president. His next stop could be the State Senate. But he has a formidable opponent for the Democratic nomination for,, the 20th District seat in Assemblywoman ndy Montanez (D-San Femando), whose parents immigrated from Mexico in 1970 and also struggled to build a better life

The Reyes Family
Anyone who watches council meetings knows that Ed Reyes frames roost issues —from planning to policing to the price of cable television — in terms of how they will affect the poor in his mostly Latino district, west of downtown and part of northeast LA.

He is not a dour man.. But when he is asked to recount his childhood, it is clear that some of the memories nearest the surface are the hard ones. His father, Luis, was born in Denver, the son of a Mexican Immigrant who worked for U.S. railroads; At age 3, Luis Ramos Reyes. moved back to Mexico. He met his wife, Eustolia, in Mexico City and they returned north in the mid-1950s; she had to live in Tijuana for two years waiting for her papers. They had seven children; Ed Reyes was the first born in the U.S.

Reyes' parents, like their peers, received little in the way Of "formal education. In the U.S., the councilman remembers, they tried to assimilate with a certain "humbleness." .:

He has sharp memories. They include his father's hands, swollen from working to a freezer at the meatpacking plant that made Dodger .Dogs, and his mother in the kitchen of their Cypress Park home before dawn, making tortillas.

Reyes, 47, can recall being mocked for not being able to recite the alphabet In English in first grade and his father suffering a similar fate at work mocked by the foreman

"I remember my parents would make us step aside for a well-dressed white person," Reyes said. "To see all the people come out for the marches was a way of shedding that and saying we have as much rights as anyone."  Last Monday, on the day when hundreds of thousands marched in LA. In support or immigrants' rights, Reyes and hits family put on T-shirts labeled "Team Reyes" and hit the streets.

The Huizar Family
Jose Huizar was born on a ranch near the mountain town of Jerez in Zacatecas, in northern Mexico. His family lived in a three-room house with no plumbing or electricity.

'We didn't own It. We were borrowing it" Huizar said. ''People would lend out their homes, Otherwise they wouldn't be maintained, and it just kind of flowed back into the earth."

His father, Simon, Joined a U.S. government program to supply American farmers with laborers. He traveled the southwestern states picking crops, and, to the early 1970s — when Hulzar.was 3 — the family landed in Boyle Heights. Simon Hulzar found work as a machinist; His wife, Isidra, worked at a meant packing plant.

Jose Huizar hit a rough patch in middle school and was once kicked out for fighting. But he righted himself with the help of a mentor. He went on to UC Berkeley, to Princeton for graduate school and finally to UCLA's law school He won election to the Los Angeles Board of Educatio in 2001 and, last fall, captured a seat on the council to replace Antonio Villaraigosa, representing, a huge swath of east and north-west LA

Last Monday, the day of the latest marches, Huizar was stuck in a hearing on the city's budget. At lunch, he finally had his chance to wade into the crowd;

"What realty hit me about the marches is that I think about what my life would be like if I hadn't left Mexico," said Huizar, 37. "I still have some family back. there. These guys go out to work each and every day in a tough climate tending to cows, picking asparagus and peaches.  "They work hard and still live in poverty. And that could have been me."



Study of Latino Professionals Shatters Stereotypes
By Jennifer Millman © 2006 DiversityInc.com® June 16, 2006
Sent by Willis Papillion willis35@earthlink.net

Most Latino professionals are fully bilingual, work in various industries and are well integrated within American corporate culture, according to a recent survey of Latinos in the workplace. 

The Hispanic Alliance for Career Enhancement’s (HACE) latest findings may give many Americans pause. More than 500 professionals completed HACE's e-mail-administered 2006 Latinos Professional Pulse Survey http://www.hace-usa.org/news.htm. The results reveal an image of Latino
workers that confounds long-held stereotypes and addresses questions raised amidst the political fervor over immigration that has rocked the nation in recent months.

"With so much focus on the issue of immigration, many people are unaware that a significant number of college-educated Latinos are successfully working in professional positions and advancing in their careers," said Abe Tomás Hughes, HACE’s president and CEO. "This is an upwardly mobile
segment comprised of English-dominant individuals of Hispanic heritage that are, in practically all cases, citizens or legal residents authorized to work here. They represent model citizens of this country and offer a clear picture of how Latinos are increasingly contributing to the future of the
U.S." 

Diversity Inc Bookstore 
http://store.diversityinc.com/cgi-bin/commerce.exe?preadd=action&key=VINCERO001
Heritage Hispanic-American Style is a rich, entertaining cultural compendium of facts that surveys the vast Hispanic culture, from its birthplace in Spain to the lands of the new world where its language, religion, and customs greatly influence two continents. 

Twenty-seven percent of respondents work in publicly-held Fortune 1000 companies and 30 percent work in private businesses. More Latinos work in nonprofit, government or academia than whites, according to the survey. 

"You see Latino involvement across all industries and economic sectors. In the military, they have the greatest ratio of Medal of Honor recipients [of] any group, which shows both courage and dedication," said Alma Morales Riojas, president and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based MANA, A National Latina Organization. "For those of us who are not only Latino but have dealt
in issues of equal opportunity and diversity, we know our common traits. We have no problem once we get in the workplace; the problem has been getting our foot in the door."

Survey results confirm Latinos' capacity for advancement. Of the 500-plus professionals who completed the survey, 65 percent reported receiving promotions at some time in their careers, with more than 90 percent occurring in the last five years. 

The survey also indicates that money is not the primary objective for most Latinos, as most said they seek progress over plumped-up paychecks. They consider growth potential (96 percent) and positive environment (96 percent) important/very important in future career choices. Nearly 80 percent of respondents say working for a company on The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies
for Diversity list is a factor in their career decisions. (See who's in The DiversityInc 2006 Top 50 Companies for Diversity http://www.diversityinc.com/public/21029.cfm.
 
More respondents report satisfaction with their jobs than not by a margin of nearly 2 to 1. This translates to higher retention rates that minimize disruption and contain costs often generated from high turnover. Three out of five Latino professionals have been at the same job for more than two
years, the survey shows. 

"I think it’s well documented that Latinos, whether they hail from Mexico, Puerto Rico or South America, historically have a track record of pride in their work and loyalty to their employer," said Riojas, who also chairs the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility’s board of directors.
"Even in places where there are employment issues, Latinos are consistently more likely to see challenges as opportunities to grow and move ahead." 

By a ratio of 2 to 1, most do not have affinity groups or other forums for interaction with other Latinos at work. But this has not stopped these professionals from integrating themselves into corporate culture.

The majority of Latino professionals in the United States have been in the country for more than a generation. Nearly 90 percent are fully-or-limited bilingual, both written and spoken, and not a single respondent cited a total lack of English skills.

Almost 40 percent said speaking Spanish is not important for their current jobs, but the majority believes that may change as Latino numbers continue to rise faster than any other segment of the population. (See also Despite New Law, Spanish is Here to Stay) http://www.diversityinc.com/public/21667.cfm .

"The idea that there are Latinos in this country who are fully integrated, fully English proficient and working very diligently in high-powered professional jobs puts to rest the idea that these are 40 million of the same kind of folks," said Lisa Ramirez, director of Affiliate Member Services at the National Council of La Raza. "That's just not the case."


Newsweeklies Rarely Cover Hispanics
by Seth Sutel, June 14, 2006  news@hbinc.com  (HispanicBusiness.com)

A study commissioned by a Hispanic journalists' association has found that the three main newsweekly magazines ran very few stories about Hispanics last year, despite the growing importance of the Latino population. 

The five-month study, released Wednesday, found that only 18, or 1.2 percent, of the 1,547 stories that appeared last year in Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report were predominantly about Latinos. 

Joseph Torres, deputy director of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, which commissioned the study, said the coverage of Hispanics tended to focus on immigration, despite the fact that most are born in the United States. Of the 18 stories that were mainly about Latinos, 12 focused on immigration, the study found. 

In those stories, Latinos were often portrayed as a "disruptive force" to U.S. society, Torres said. 
Torres did say that the study, which was conducted by researchers at Arizona State University, noted that both Time and Newsweek devoted cover stories to Hispanics last year, with Time listing the 25 most influential Hispanics in America and Newsweek chronicling a "Latin Power Surge" following the election of Antonio Villaraigosa as mayor of Los Angeles. 

"We praised them for that" in the study, Torres said of the twin cover stories on Hispanics. "Outside of immigration, the coverage was much better." 

"This report raises important issues," Steve Koepp, deputy managing editor of Time, said in a statement. "We welcome the feedback and are glad to see our cover story on the 25 most influential Hispanics commended for its broad representation of Hispanics in America." 

Donna Dees, a spokeswoman for U.S. News & World Report, said in a statement that the magazine's mission was "to help readers of all backgrounds make sense of the week's news events." She also noted that the report found that nearly 80 percent of the magazine's stories mentioning Latinos were not predominantly about Latinos. 



Illegal immigrant turned U.S. citizen has come a long way
By John Gittelsohn,
The Orange County Register, 06/26/06
Sent by Ricardo Valverde  RValverde@ochca.com

The smugglers who brought Vilma Palma across the border put her in a coffin-sized box concealed under a pickup truck bed. They told her to stay still and quiet until they passed the immigration checkpoint at San Clemente. The truck tires roared as Vilma, then just 9, sped blindly north to an uncertain future.

"There was a hole, and I could see my sister," Vilma recalls of the last leg of her journey 12 years ago from El Salvador. "It was too loud to talk, so I just lay there."

Vilma's entry to the United States started as a nightmare, but she turned it into an American dream.

She became a U.S. citizen last year. Now 21, she graduated from UC Irvine this month and plans to go to law school. Today, she will be honored with 13 other winners of the Merage Foundations' $20,000 American Dream Fellow award.  How did the little girl in the box find her way?

Vilma was born with little promise on Sept. 29, 1984, in Jayaque, a coffee-growing village in the foothills of southern El Salvador. When she was 7 months old, her mother, Blanca Palma, left her infant and two older daughters with their grandmother and went to seek a new life in California.

"She was a single parent with three kids," Vilma says of her mother. "That was the only way she could get enough money to live."

Blanca Palma found work in the fields of the Coachella Valley. After a 1986 immigration amnesty, she became a legal U.S. resident, and she paid consultants to help bring her daughters to California through legal channels.

"She found out years later that her attorneys never filed any papers," Vilma says.  It was an injustice Vilma cannot forget.

In 1994, Blanca Palma paid $3,000 to smuggle her daughters to California. They entered Mexico on a barge, hopped a freight train to Guadalajara and flew to Tijuana. On the moonlit night of March 11, 1994, the girls walked barefoot on a beach to bypass the U.S. border fence. They boarded a San Diego trolley and then transferred to trucks with hidden compartments.  

"The only thing in my mind was 'Let's not get caught,'" Vilma says. Once she settled into her new home, Vilma set bigger goals. Her mother would come home from the fields exhausted, beaten by the 100-degree heat, her hands and back aching from harvesting grapes or broccoli or strawberries. Vilma would massage her mother's feet.

"She would tell me to do well in school, so I didn't have to work like her," Vilma says. Her two older sisters never finished high school. "They had a lot of potential, but they didn't have the opportunity," Vilma says. Vilma created opportunities.

She started third grade in Coachella speaking only Spanish. By fifth grade, she was Student of the Year, staying after the last bell rang to study in the computer lab.

She attended Coachella Valley High, where more than a third of her freshman class dropped out, many following their parents to the fields.

Vilma followed the advice of guidance counselors. She enlisted in a string of programs - Upward Bound, AVID, COSMOS and SAGE - building a network of adult mentors and high-achieving friends.  "You need to have a drive to succeed," she says. "And people need to push you."

Vilma took honors and Advanced Placement classes, graduating with a 3.96 grade-point average. She won a full college scholarship from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The summer before her senior year, Vilma attended a math and science program at UC Irvine. The director was Melina Duarte, who also graduated from Coachella Valley High. Duarte took Vilma under her wing and persuaded her to attend UCI, becoming a surrogate sister, introducing Vilma to internships, professors and administrators.

"She was a shy little girl who seemed like she felt very out of place here," Duarte says. "Some students like her don't make it past their first year. She got a 4.0 in her first quarter."

For Vilma, the new challenge was an opportunity. People gravitated to the dark-eyed, sweet-natured young woman, offering her a hand up.

"She juggles a lot, but does it with a sense of grace and a sense of calm," says Karina Hamilton, director of SAGE, a UCI program for disadvantaged students where Vilma worked as an intern. "She has a quiet strength."

Vilma majored in criminology and interned with the Orange County public defender's office. She spent a quarter studying in Madrid.

"She searches for opportunities and takes them. She doesn't just sit and wait," Duarte says. "For her to have made it here is a big deal. To go where she's going is bigger."

Winning the Merage Foundations award in May was a big deal. Fellow winners are graduates of Harvard and Stanford. But Vilma didn't feel like she could enjoy it because she still didn't know what she was doing next year. She was wait-listed at USC, Cornell and UCLA law schools.

On June 9, Vilma's cell phone rang as she was driving to Irvine from the public defender's office. It was an admissions officer from UCLA, who asked if she still wanted to go to law school. Of course, she said yes.  "I called my mother," Vilma says. "I called everyone. Then I got home and started sending e-mails. I was so happy."

In her applications for the Merage award and law school, Vilma wrote about her goal of returning to the Coachella Valley with her law degree and starting a legal center for the people she grew up with - the people she could now so easily leave behind if she wanted.

The center's main purpose would be to help immigrants, to open America's door for more newcomers, to protect people from the kinds of scams that kept her, as a little girl in El Salvador, separated from her mother.  "So many people helped me," Vilma says. "It's time to give back."

 


A Look at History - Repatriation / Bickering Delays Illegal-Immigrant Deal 
~~ What history can tell us about anti-immigrant zeal ~~
By Cragg Hines, cragg.hines@chron.com  Houston Chronicle, April 5, 2006
Hines is a Houston Chronicle columnist based in Washington, D.C. 
Sent by Zeke Hernandez zekeher@yahoo.com
 
THE sharp-edged, vigilante tone of the current immigration debate is as old as it is regrettable.
Today's rancor sounds all too familiar to academics who mine the often-neglected field of immigration history and to politicians who are beginning to pay attention to some startling findings.

California state Sen. Joe Dunn remembers being "absolutely devastated" as he read the story of
concerted government action to force at least 400,000 Hispanics out of the United States as economic woes mounted in the Great Depression. Some historians estimate total Hispanic departures at closer to 2 million if the tally includes families, fearing deportation or further financial hardship, whose departure was nominally voluntary.

It is a sordid story that echoes from the farm fields of the Rio Grande Valley and Winter Garden of Texas to the barrios of Los Angeles and as far north as Detroit and Gary, Ind.

Most alarming, Dunn, D-Santa Ana, said, was that up to 60 percent of those forcibly stampeded across the border, some on locked trains, were U.S. citizens. So-called "repatriations," at least in those instances, were actually illegal forced removals from a homeland.

It is as shocking as the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, except that very few people know about it.

Dunn's reading of Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s, by historians Francisco E. Balderrama and Raymond Rodríguez (University of New Mexico Press, revised edition 2006) led him to introduce legislation offering an apology from California for the coerced relocations.

After several attempts, and the removal of any suggestion of reparations, a bill was passed last year
by both Assembly and Senate, was signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and became law Jan. 1.

A plaque marking the apology is to be erected in Los Angeles, possibly at La Placita, a downtown park in the historic Olvera Street area, where perhaps the most notorious deportation raid took place in February 1931.

An apology and plaque are not much, but it's more than any other governmental or private entity with a hand in the sorry campaign has done.  Today, Rep. Hilda L. Solis, D-Calif., will introduce in the U.S. House a bill that could lead to a national apology.  Solis's proposal calls for appointment of a seven-member commission to investigate the deportations and report back to Congress within a year. Its members would be appointed by the president
and congressional leaders.

"The time has come," said Solis, a third-term House member from a heavily Hispanic district in eastern Los Angeles who has been interested in the mass deportations since she first learned of them in a Chicano studies program in college. She recalls seeing government records of how raids and removals were plotted.

"I was really horrified this information was not given any exposure," she recalled. "It's amazing how we're robbed of our heritage."

Solis, whose father came to the United States from Mexico in the 1940s, envisions a careful inquiry into the period, which she knows may be sensitive as it could include such questions as bank and insurance claims. But she hopes her proposal will strike a responsive chord with the Bush administration, especially its ranking Hispanic, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.

Lack of knowledge about the mass deportations is a result of what historian Abraham Hoffman called "a kind of benign neglect."

Hoffman, author of Unwanted Mexican Americans in the Great Depression: Repatriation Pressures, 1929-1939 (University of Arizona Press, 1974) said that just as studies of blacks in American history suffered for a long time from the "Booker T. Washington and all the other Negroes" syndrome, study of Hispanics' role was classed in many minds as "Cesar Chavez and all the other Mexicans."

Even Hispanics are generally unaware of the mass deportations, said Nora Rios McMillan, a historian at San Antonio College who has written about the removals. "I had not been aware of it," said McMillan, whose family came from Mexico in the 1920s and established a grocery in Edinburg. Few historians between the Depression and the 1960s delved into the deportations, she said. McMillan's research, as well as that of others, shows many of the deportees were children, most of whom were citizens, even if their parents were not, and could not speak Spanish.

Balderama and Rodríguez write that the raids stemmed at least in part from Secretary of Labor William N. Doak's "personal vendetta to get rid of the Mexicans." His motivation, they said, "was purely political, for he was acting under President (Herbert) Hoover's orders to create a diversion to counteract organized labor's hostile attitude toward his administration. "Deportation meant jobs for real Americans," the authors said the reasoning went. Sound familiar?

Deportation: A removal from one country to another, or to a distant place, exile, banishment
Repatriation: Return or restoration to one's own country.


Educator brings attention to historic period and its affect on her family
Hispanicvista.com Week of March 27th, 2006  Sent by Howard Shorr  Howardshorr@msn.com

By Valerie Orleans March 17, 2005 Christine Valenciana, assistant professor of elementary and bilingual education, was always aware that her mother, as a child, had been forced to return to Mexico in 1935. What Valenciana didn’t realize was that her mother was just one of up to 2 million Mexican and Mexican-Americans who were deported during that era.
“I thought what happened to her and her family was an isolated incident,” she recalled. “I had no idea that this happened on a much larger scale.”

Here, Valenciana discusses her work as it relates to the mass deportation of people, many of whom were American citizens, that was systematically practiced during the Great Depression.

Q: How did you first learn that close to 2 million Mexican and Mexican-Americans were deported to Mexico in the 1930s? 
A: I was a history major at Cal State Fullerton, and one of the classes I took was a community history class. Having a Mexican background, I was interested in researching an area that had to do with Mexican-Americans. While I was trying to determine a topic, I spoke with my mother, Emilia Castaneda, about her experience as a child. That’s when I discovered that many families had been deported to Mexico in the late 1920s through the 1930s.

Even prior to this, there were “whisper” campaigns and employers were asked not to hire those suspected of being of Mexican descent. Actually, there were laws passed that “aliens” could not be hired to work. In addition, massive deportation raids were conducted throughout the country, including Orange and Los Angeles counties. An atmosphere of fear was created in the Mexican-American community.
Q: So what happened? Why were these people deported? 

A: During the Great Depression, anywhere from one to two million people were deported in an effort by the government to free up jobs for those who were considered “real Americans” and rid the county governments of “the problem.” The campaign, called the Mexican Reparation, was authorized by President Herbert Hoover. Although President Franklin Roosevelt ended federal support when he took office, many state and local governments continued with their efforts.

Estimates now indicate that approximately 60 percent of the people deported were children who were born in America and others who, while of Mexican descent, were legal citizens.
Q: How did you go about conducting your research? 

A: It was all primary research because historians hadn’t really paid much attention to it. I spoke to my mother, who referred me to some of her cousins. I made public announcements and found other interviewees. It snowballed from there. These interviews are housed in the Center for Oral and Public History. Now, I am conducting new research focused on the education and language of the children and families involved. 

Q: What was it like for those who were deported? 
A: It was traumatic, of course. For example, my mother was nine years old. She lived in Los Angeles. Her dominant language was English, although she knew rudimentary Spanish. Suddenly, she was removed from the only home she’d known, taken out of her school and away from her friends, and sent to an unfamiliar country. She didn’t understand the customs. She was forced to live outdoors. She was teased because she couldn’t speak Spanish very well. And keep in mind that she was an American citizen. 

Q: What was it like for adults? 
A: It was very difficult for them as well. Mexico also was going through a depression at that time, and it was hard for the adults to find jobs in Mexico. Returning Mexicans were unwanted. Many of these people had jobs, homes and families in the United States. They hadn’t been in Mexico for decades – they couldn’t just pick up and start again.

This act literally broke up families. For instance, some who were deported had subsequent children who were born in Mexico – that meant that some children in the same family were American citizens while others were not. As these children grew older and married, they often had children who were born in Mexico and so these children were not considered American citizens either. The effects of this unconstitutional deportation are far ranging and have ramifications even today.

Q: Were there ever any attempts to rectify this wrong? 
A: Part of the problem is that many did not realize this was part of a huge concerted effort. Now that they’re aware of it, there have been some attempts to recognize what happened. Some looked at what happened to those who were interned in Japanese camps during World War II and recognized that they were, in fact, discriminated against. It’s also important to realize that it took the Japanese community several decades to organize in response against their treatment – and they were still in this country. 

Q: What kind of attempts have been made to publicize this? 
A: One of our alumi – Bernie Enriquez, a field representative for State Sen. Joseph Dunn – was aware of the Mexican Reparation, having read my husband’s – Francisco Balderrama – book, Decade of Betrayal. He brought the book to the attention of Sen. Dunn [D-Santa Ana], who introduced a bill in 2003 asking for a removal of the statute of limitations for survivors like my mother to make claims against the state of California for, what was quite frankly, an unconstitutional deportation. 
MALDEF [Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund] filed a class action suit on behalf of the survivors. Sen. Dunn sponsored a state senate hearing in July 2003 on this unconstitutional deportation. My mother was one of the survivors who spoke. My husband was an expert historian witness.

Q: What was that like watching your mother? 
A: I had very mixed emotions. On the one hand, I was tremendously proud of her. This is a woman – in her 70s – with very little formal education, speaking before a group of powerful legislators. On the other hand, I was nervous for her and helped her prepare. But she did just fine. I asked her what she hoped to get out of all this. She said simply, “I just want people to know what happened.” 

Q: Did they get an apology? 
A: No. Both Governors Davis and Schwarzenegger refused. Apologizing is an admission of guilt and neither wanted to get involved in what they considered financial ramifications. What was very disappointing about Schwarzenegger’s response was that he indicated that those affected had had years to file civil suits. But most of those who were deported were children. They were abused, had their constitutional rights violated and were kicked out of their country. They weren’t even aware that they had constitutional rights let alone that they had been violated.  

Q: So what happens now? 
A: Sen. Dunn will re-introduce related legislation. We are doing our best to educate others about what happened so that this never happens to anyone again. People were denied their rights, sent to a foreign land and children were not allowed to finish their education.

 

 

                                                Action Items

Commission to investigate removal of Mexican Americans from US during Great Depression

Dear Friend:    This week I will introduce legislation to establish a commission to investigate the removal of Mexican Americans from the United States during the Great Depression. I am writing to seek your organization's support of this important bill and to invite you to join me in raising our nation's conscience about this dark chapter in American history.

Absent from American textbooks and curricula, as many as two million American citizens of Mexican descent were removed from the United States from 1929 through 1941 to, in the words of authorities, keep scarce jobs for "real Americans," not Mexican-Americans. Laws forbidding employment of Mexicans were accompanied by cries to "get rid of the Mexicans!" The forced deportees hailed from all areas of the country, including Illinois, Michigan, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, New York, and California. Those forcibly relocated outside the United States included U.S. military veterans of World War I.

As my legislation notes, there has never been an official inquiry into the mass removal of Mexican-Americans during the Great Depression. Like the legislation which established a commission to study the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, my bill would create a federal body to investigate the mass removals and to report its findings and any recommended remedies to Congress. It is important that the public and our government learn more about this troubling episode in American history which has left a lasting impact on communities and families all across the country. 

I hope I can count on a letter of support from your organization for this important legislation. Should you have any questions regarding this bill, please do not hesitate to contact me or Eleonor Velasquez of my staff at Eleonor.Velasquez@mail.house.gov or (202) 225-5464.

Thank you for your attention to this important matter. 
Sincerely, HILDA L. SOLIS, Member of Congress
Sent by Mira Smithwick, SagaCorpus@aol.com


Editor:  Thank you to Kathlyn Acuna and Paul Newfield who sent information identifying this as a Urban Legend. http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/memorial.asp.  Both of the following were part of Roosevelt's speech, but the first sentence below was used on the monument, and not the second.
No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory.

With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.

 MESSAGE FROM AN APPALLED  OBSERVER:

Today I went to visit the new World War II  Memorial in Washington, DC.    I got an unexpected history lesson.  Because I'm a baby boomer, I was one of the youngest in the crowd.   Most were the age of my parents, veterans of "the greatest war," with  their families.  It was a beautiful day, and people were smiling and  happy to be there.  Hundreds of us milled around the memorial, reading  the inspiring words of Eisenhower and Truman that are engraved  there. 

On the Pacific side of the memorial, a  group of us gathered to read the words President Roosevelt used to announce the attack on Pearl Harbor:  Yesterday, December 7, 1941-- a date which will live in  infamy--the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately  attacked. 

One elderly woman read the words  aloud: "With confidence in our armed forces,  with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable  triumph." But as she read, she was suddenly turned  angry.  "Wait a minute," she said, "they left out the end of the quote.   They left out the most important part.  Roosevelt ended the  message with "so help us God.'"   

Her  husband said, "You are probably right.  We're not supposed to say    things like that now." "I know I'm right," she  insisted.  "I remember the speech." The two looked dismayed, shook  their heads sadly and walked away.   Listening to their conversation, I thought to myself,  "Well, it has been over 50 years.  She's probably  forgotten."  But she had not forgotten.   She was right.

I went home and pulled out the  book my book club is reading --- "Flags of  Our Fathers" by James Bradley.   It's all about the battle at Iwo Jima    I haven't gotten too far in  the book.  It's tough to read because it's a graphic description of the  WWII battles in the Pacific.   
  
But! right there  it was on page 58.  Roosevelt's speech to the nation ends in "so help  us God." 
The people who edited out that part of the  speech when they engraved it on the memorial could have fooled me.  I  was born after the war.  But they couldn't fool the people who were  there.  Roosevelt's words are engraved on their  hearts.

Now I ask: "Who Gave Them the Right to Change the Words of History?" People need to know before everyone forgets. People today are trying to change the history of America by leaving God out of it, but the truth is, God has been a part of this nation, since the beginning.  He still wants to be...and He always will  be! 

Sent by Bill Carmena  JCarm1724@aol.com  "I personally heard the speech on 8 Dec 1941  and "So help us God " was used . Why was this important historical phrase deleted ?????"

Editor:   I have received this message from many people, but no one identified themselves as Bill Carmena did, remembering the day and the speech by Roosevelt, when it was given. 

Contact your elected officials and ask them why the important historical phrase was deleted.  Surely now is the time to take a stand as a historically founded Christian nation. Perhaps Dr. James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress, assigned the task as public guardian, caretaker of the history and documents of Congress should hear from you too. An email that suppose to reach him:  bicentennial@loc.gov   

Veterans History Project Staff Contact Information
Bob Patrick, Director
(202) 707-4916   (888) 371-5848 (toll free)    (202) 252-2046
vohp@loc.gov  www.loc.gov/vets

Peter Bartis  (202) 707-4919 Senior Program Officer
Contact for Military and Veterans Organizations and Associations, Members of Congress

Anneliesa Clump Behrend  (202) 707-9822  Public Relations Specialist
Contact for Media and Press; Public Outreach and Relations 

I hope everyone will pick up the phone and make a call asking,  why were the words of Roosevelt not accurately quoted and what can be done to rectify this inaccurate historical portrayal of our President's character and leadership? . . .  Mimi



Education



Left to right, niece Alejandra Ruano, daughter -in-law, Kristi Edwards and son Paul Edwards. Photo: Sang H.Park OC Register

Ana Maria Armano, a month short of 80th birthday receives B.A.

 
http://campusapps.fullerton.edu/news
/2006/CLE_honoree.html

Born: June 11, 1926, Chicago, Illinois
B.S. degree: May 11, 2006, Fullerton, Calif.
Sent by Granville Hough

Appropriately timed to celebrate her 80th birthday next month, Ana Maria Armano has been selected to receive the Continuing Learning Experience Award at Cal State Fullerton. 

Presented by Continuing Learning Experience (CLE), the honor, along with $250, is presented each year to an older Cal State Fullerton graduate with a high G.P.A. Armano is graduating cum laude with a B.A. in anthropology and will take part in commencement ceremonies Sunday, May 28. She is looking forward to wearing her cap and gown when she crosses the stage and is recognized for completing her bachelor's degree - with her family and friends in attendance.

Born in Chicago, Armano was taken to Mexico by her parents at age 3 to live with her grandmother and uncles. She recalled evenings after dinner when she would sit on her grandmother's lap and listen to the narratives by one of her uncles about books he had read. She usually fell asleep before the end of the stories and couldn't wait until she could read the works of such literary figures as Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo for herself. Thus began her zest for learning, which continues to this day.

Years later, she moved back to the United States, where she married and had a son and daughter. She has three grandchildren and lives in the city of La Habra.

Armano worked in the business office of the Centinela Valley Union High School District for many years. Being bilingual, she received training to teach one evening adult business class each semester. After she retired, she began pursuing her college education. 

Following her graduation from El Camino College, she enrolled at Cal State Fullerton in 1998. She majored in anthropology because of an interest in the origins and development of man. If she hadn't studied anthropology, Armano says, she would have majored in astronomy.

"If I don't work toward my master's degree, I'd like to study speech and take gourmet cooking classes," she says. 

In addition to being active in her church and with her friends, Armano loves to read and especially enjoys the novels of American authors Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck, and those of the Scottish writer A. J. Cronin. 

Her commencement exercise is scheduled for 11 a.m. Sunday, May 28, in the Titan Student Union's Portola Pavilion.    http://campusapps.fullerton.edu/news/2006/CLE_honoree.html


Course helps Latinos understand kids' schools 
By Juan Esparza Loera,  (Updated Monday, December 5, 2005)
Willis Papillion,  willis35@earthlink.net 

Juan Pacheco, a 41-year-old farm supervisor in Dinuba, never went to college because he had to work in the fields to help his family. That course, he vowed, will not be repeated by his three youngest children, ages 14, 12 and 7. Three adult children never went to college.

But Pacheco faced a hurdle common in Latino households: With little understanding of the school system, how can he help his children with their homework and make sure they are taking the necessary courses to get into college?

"I think a lot of parents want to help their children, but we come from another culture. If our children wind up in college, fine. If they don't, then they come to work with us," says Pacheco about Latino expectations of education.

The answer came in a telephone call a few months ago asking him to participate in a conversational meeting (organizers don't call it a class) sponsored by the Parent Institute for Quality Education (PIQE). Once in the course, Pacheco — who reached the high school level in his native Baja
California, México — learned the basics about college-eligibility tests and how to motivate his children to go to college.

Pacheco was among 32 parents who gave up one evening a week for nine weeks to graduate last week. Now he notices 14-year-old Lilia, an aspiring lawyer, talks more openly with him about school. When she graduates from college, she will be the second in her immediate family to earn a college degree. (An uncle died six months after getting a chemical engineering degree.)

PIQE is laying groundwork to change the ugly statistics about Latinos in education: Only 22.9% of high school graduates in 2001 met the requirements for University of California or California State University admission; Latinos make up more than half of high school dropouts; and only 7.1% of
Latinos 25 and older hold a bachelor's degree or higher.

Because Latinos will represent California's majority in a couple of decades, recent studies underscore the need to change the dismal statistics if the state's future economy will have enough educated workers.

Alma R. García, director of the PIQE office in Fresno, knows the problems. The youngest of seven daughters, García worked alongside her parents in the fields as a child. Her mother thought a high school diploma would be good enough for her daughters to get a good job.

It took a migrant education counselor visiting the family's Madera home to convince García's parents that college should be an option. Her older sisters went to college; by the time García was finishing high school, college was expected.

"I'm really a believer that if we can get the first older children to go to college, they can set an example," says García. "I see parents today with the desire to get more involved in their children's education. But many are not familiar with the school system."

PIQE and other similar parent involvement programs are a start, but, as Pacheco points out, 32 PIQE participants from a high school with 1,350 Latino students doesn't cut it. 

Juan Esparza Loera is editor of Vida en el Valle, The Fresno Bee's bilingual publication. 
He can be reached at jesparza@vidaenelvalle.com  or(559) 441-6781. 
http://www.fresnobee.com/includes/zTestz/redesign/images/fbfooterlogo.gif



Website for Diversity Education
Sent by Robert Robinson  rgrbob@earthlink.net
http://www.diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_5971.shtml

 

 

FRENCH IN MAINE
by Pam Belluck, The New York Times, June 4, 2006
http://www.languagehat.com/archives/002396.php
Sent by Win Holtzman

A story by Pam Belluck in today's NY Times describes the changing fortunes of the French language in Maine:
Frederick Levesque was just a child in Old Town, Me., when teachers told him to become Fred Bishop, changing his name to its English translation to conceal that he was French-American.

Cleo Ouellette's school in Frenchville made her write "I will not speak French" over and over if she uttered so much as a "oui" or "non" — and rewarded students with extra recess if they ratted out French-speaking classmates.

And Howard Paradis, a teacher in Madawaska forced to reprimand French-speaking students, made the painful decision not to teach French to his own children. "I wasn't going to put my kids through that," Mr. Paradis said. "If you wanted to get ahead you had to speak English."

That was Maine in the 1950's and 1960's, and the stigma of being French-American reverberated for decades afterward. But now, le Français fait une rentrée — French is making a comeback...

You can go to the article to read about the comeback; what I want to focus on is the bad old days. I can understand the reaction against the language of the enemy during wartime, against German during both world wars for example; it's irrational and deplorable, but understandable. But why on earth were people subjecting their neighbors and their neighbors' children to that kind of harassment in the '50s and '60s? It shocks me to learn that during the very years when I was happily learning French, others of my generation were being punished for using it in a supposedly free country. If anyone can explain this to me, please do. I mean, generalized "why can't they speak English" griping is one thing; forcing people to change their name is quite another.

Incidentally, Benjamin Zimmer discusses this story in Language Log and demolishes the idea that "French-American French, derived from people who left France for Canada centuries ago, resembles the French of Louis XIV more than the modern Parisian variety."


Most states fall short in teaching the culture of Latin America and Mexico, 
Source: Cox News Service (6-7-06)
Sent by Howard Shorr howardshorr@msn.com

Despite growing ties to the southern hemisphere, two-thirds of U.S. states have weak or non-existent standards for teaching the history and culture of Latin America and Mexico, a study released Tuesday found.

The study was conducted by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington-based non-profit organization dedicated to improving elementary and secondary education.

Renowned historian and foreign policy expert Walter Russell Mead, who conducted the study, said he was "aghast" at what he found. While most states didn't make a passing grade in world history instruction, his report is especially critical of a lack of effective standards for teaching the history and culture of Latin America and Mexico. He found that many states overlooked these histories while excessively focusing on modern European history.

Texas received 97 out of a possible 170 points and an overall grade of C in the study, the first to evaluate states' academic standards for teaching kindergarten through 12th grade world history. These standards are what a student is expected to know on the subject.

For Latin American and Mexican history and culture, Texas scored a 5 on a scale of zero to 10.
"As a representative for a border district, and coming from the state of Texas, a state that's history is so connected to Mexico and Latin America, I am deeply troubled that the state ranked so poorly," Rep. Ruben Hinojosa, D-Texas, chairman of the Education Task Force for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

"Clearly, this needs to change, especially as our economy and way of life becomes more and more international.? If we do not stress the importance of world affairs and other cultures with our children, they will fall behind."?

Colorado received 81 out of a possible 170 points and an overall grade of D in the study, the first to evaluate states' academic standards for teaching kindergarten through 12th grade world history. These standards are what a student is expected to know in the subject.

For Latin American and Mexican history and culture, Georgia scored a 9 on a scale of zero to 10.
Georgia received 156 out of a possible 170 points and an overall grade of A in the study, the first to evaluate states' academic standards for teaching kindergarten through 12th grade world history. These standards are what a student is expected to know in the subject.

North Carolina received 64 out of a possible 170 points and an overall grade of F in the study, the first to evaluate states' academic standards for teaching kindergarten through 12th grade world history. These standards are what a student is expected to know in the subject.

For Latin American and Mexican history and culture, North Carolina and Ohio scored a 3 on a scale of zero to 10.  Colorado scored a 4 on a scale of zero to 10.

Ohio received 67 out of a possible 170 points and an overall grade of F in the study, the first to evaluate states' academic standards for teaching kindergarten through 12th grade world history. These standards are what a student is expected to know in the subject.

Four states — Alaska, Idaho, Missouri and Montana — received zeros for standards that give "superficial or cursory attention" to Mexico and the Western Hemisphere.

Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Nevada and Texas, which all have large Hispanic populations, were among 30 states to score between 1 and 5 for standards that cover Mexico and Latin America and have "significant gaps or shortcomings."

Fifteen other states, including other Hispanic population centers like Arizona, California and New Mexico, earned scores of 6 through 10 for having standards that "propose a coherent and thorough approach" to Latin American and Mexican history. Even so, these states do not require students to study world history.

Two states, Iowa and Rhode Island, did not receive grades because neither state has world history standards. 
Eight states received an A and 33 received a D or an F.



A Guide to the Tool Kit for Hispanic Families

This toolkit will show you what to expect from your schools, your teachers and your child, at all ages and grade levels. It will tell you how to help your child through school, what resources are available, and what you, your family and your community can do to help your child learn.
http://www.ed.gov/images/ed_c_dline.gif     

Table of Contents
1.     Title Page
http://www.ed.gov/parents/academic/involve/toolkit/part.html#p1 
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2.     Letter from Secretary Spellings
http://www.ed.gov/parents/academic/involve/toolkit/part_pg2.html#p2   
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3.     Letter from Adam Chavarria
http://www.ed.gov/parents/academic/involve/toolkit/part_pg3.html#p3   
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4.     Using the Tool Kit-A Guide
Stage One: Preschool
http://www.ed.gov/parents/academic/involve/toolkit/part_pg4.html#p4    
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5.     Help! Questions & Answers - Preschool
http://www.ed.gov/parents/academic/involve/toolkit/part_pg5.html#p5   
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6.     Stage Two: Elementary School
http://www.ed.gov/parents/academic/involve/toolkit/part_pg6.html#p6    
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http://www.whitehouse.gov/results/

    

 

The 7 Secrets of Big Picture Thinkers by Nancy Marmolejo

You can bring out the creative thinker in you by following these 7 success tips. Whatever direction you're headed, these strategies will help you move forward and make the most of your natural strengths and great ideas.

1. Catch your ideas: No matter how outrageous or silly, catch your ideas and revisit them from time to time. You might have a diamond in the rough that you can't yet see. Write it down, tell it to someone, draw a picture, pace the floorŠ whatever technique helps you remember and develop your ideas, use it!

2. Understand your strengths: There is an old saying that goes something like this: Just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you SHOULD.

A big challenge for creative people and entrepreneurs is concentrating your efforts on what comes easily and effortlessly. To pinpoint your strengths you can take a formal assessment, but I often ask clients to start with a simple question and jot down whatever comes to mind:  If I could devote my life to serving others- and still have the money and lifestyle I need- what would I do? How would it look?

3. Avoid overwhelm: Overwhelm can be described as either having too much on your plate or PERCEIVING what you have to be too much.

The first step to take is getting real with time management. If your time management skills are poor, then you are creating the overwhelm that is zapping your energy and focus. Next, learn how to say "No". Accepting too many responsibilities will burn you out, blur your focus, and zap your big picture thinker gifts. 

4. Listen: What do you hear people asking for? What are they NOT asking for? What are they griping about? Become a great listener in all your interactions. Ask open ended questions (ones that can't be answered with a yes or no). Keep your ear to the buzz and maybe you'll zero in on the next big thing.

5. Develop your intuition: Learn to trust your hunches and listen for inner nudges. Your next great idea may already be inside of you yearning to break free. Visionary thinkers often act on these hunches. Become best friends with your intuition and see new possibilities come to you.

6. Talk about your ideas: Create a personal board of directors: a supportive group of people who you respect, trust, and encourage you. Ask for their honest feedback, brainstorm with them, or call on them when you need help.

7. Give your mind time to wander: If you're sitting in front of a computer frustrated because a solution isn't presenting itself, then change your location. Take a walk. Get out and play. Get out and do something (anything!) other than what you SHOULD be doing. Studies show that the most creative, innovative thinkers are not slaves to the desk. They add variety to their lives and keep their minds sharp by enjoying all the gifts the world has to offer. Big picture thinkers have the natural gift to see the potential in just about anything. When you sharpen your visionary skills, you too can enjoy success and joy in all aspects of life and business.

About the author: Award winning business owner Nancy Marmolejo is dedicated to helping Latina entrepreneurs achieve maximum success by tapping into their natural strengths and great ideas. She has helped clients skyrocket their profits, high level leaders eliminate overwhelm from their lives, and established business owners fall back in love with their work. Her company, Comadre Coaching, has been featured in Latina magazine, Univisión TV, The Orange County Register, and many more online and offline outlets.

Get a free taste of Comadre Coaching by visiting www.ComadreCoaching.com for a complimentary copy of Get Creative Now! and The 7 Secrets of Big Picture Thinkers e-Course.

Information, info@comadrecoaching.com or contact  Katie Baird ktcosmos@looseends.net  i
Loose Ends, www.looseends.net, 928-445-4724  http://www.LooseEnds.net/loosespeak.html



Culture 
 

Race and Latino!
June 7th, 2006
SouthernBoyWKG73@wmconnect.com 

I am used to statements like the following: "Are you White, Black or Mexican?" "Are they White, Black, or Latino?" "Is he/she White, Black, or Latino?" etc. etc.! "He/she looks Hispanic/Latino!" The real problem with this is these and statements like these act or declare, the Mexican, Hispanic, and Latino are races and thus outside the realm of Black and White. However, I have seen White Mexicans! I have seen White/Black Hispanics! I have seen White/Black Latinos! Whether they consider themselves White/Black or not is not relevant. If you look White/Black and anthropologists who study these things consider you White/Black (Caucasoid/Negroid), then that's logically what you are! 

La Raza claims Hispanic settlements earlier than Whites, but that's a contradiction, since the Hispanics they refer to were Spaniards aka. White Europeans just like the British! Hispanic means of or relating to the Spanish culture, language, and nationality. It's not a race! Latino is more of a broad term that is better qualified to designate Latin America. Just to let you know, it was the French who coined the term Latin-America/n to distinguish themselves from Anglo-America! But I've heard the nonsense spouted off, "French peoples and cultures are not Latino, because they are White! That is such a stupid, uneducated statement to declare.

The French and the Spanish both belong to the Caucasian (White) race, but with different languages! Not only the Spanish, but the French, Portuguese, Italians, and Romanians all speak related Romanic (Italic) or Latin languages, thus making all them Latino technically speaking, yet they are all predominantly White people in each country! Even the Spanish Conquistadors considered themselves White! The Mayans, Incas, etc. considered the conquering Spaniards and Portuguese to be White describing them as "having eyes like chalk with pale faces and sandy hair and beards! A few having dark hair and eyes!" 


Oh! I love this one! "I am half White and half Latino!" How dumb! That would be like me saying "I am half White and half Anglo!" Can you see the utter nonsense of these statements? Latino is a culture or language ethnicity, not a race! Many Latinos are White especially in Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uraguay, and Costa Rica! Many are Black also, such as in Haiti, Dominican Rep., and Brazil! Many more Latinos are a Mixed group (Puerto Ricans and Mexicans) to varying degrees branching features from near Black to near White and every shade of brown in-between! 

Roberto Clemente was a Black Puerto Rican, not Black and Puerto Rican, but a Puerto Rican who was Black! Gloria Estefan, Andy Garcia, the late Jerry Garcia, Shakira, Cameron Diaz, the Estevez/Sheen family, and Ricky Martin to name a few are all Caucasian (White) people! They physically look Caucasian and if Forensic Anthropologists studied them or their skeletons that would be their conclusions too! I get sick and tired of people treating White or Black Latinos as being neither Black nor White "because they are Latino" or they themselves, due to political propoganda, personal axes to grind, brainwashing, or whatever, declare "No, I am neither Black nor White, I am Latino!" 

I even heard Samuel L. Jackson in one of the DIE HARD movies when he was riding with Bruce Willis when they were arguing and Jackson yelled, "Do I look Puerto Rican to you?!" This being said because of the ludicrous consensus that Puerto Ricans have a single definite look! I have seen Black Puerto Ricans, the same race as Jackson, and White Puerto Ricans the same race as Willis! True, Puerto Ricans are the most Mixed Caribbeans but it still doesn't negate the fact that there is still plenty of Black one's and White ones too! 

On the same token, Latino is not a look or physical appearance or phenotype! It is a language/culture/ethnicity, nothing more or less! Just like here in America where we are all Anglos (Anglo is the equivalent of Latino/Hispano) by language/culture/ethnicity, but some Americans are White Anglos, some are Black Anglos, and some are Mixed Anglos! This scenario applies to Latinos as well! Truthfully, the whole world has only 2 main races and those are White (Caucasoid/Blancoid) which can be divided into 2 branches (Nordic and Mediterranean) and Black (Negroid)! A third race from the varying admixtures of these 2 main races is also feasible, a Mixed or Multi-race. This Multi-race would suffice for Mongoloids, most Aboriginal Americans (both North and South Americans), Pacific Islanders, etc. Asian, Indian, Latino, Hispanic, African, European, Pacific Islander, Arab, etc. are not races but rather continents, languages, areas, or misnomers! All people past, present, and future the whole world over are either Black, White, or Multiracial!  Thanks.   Billy


Dear Billy . . . .  Thank you for your very passionate burst of thoughts . . .  I will see how it might fit into an upcoming issue of Somos Primos.  I surely agree to many aspects of your conclusions.

Regards, Mimi
6/8/2006


June 8, 2006

Thanks for your reply Ms. Lozano. I must state that it was not my intention to be unpleasant in my attitude. I was merely getting to the point and stating facts, though, I come across as abrasive sometimes.

I forgot to mention a couple of other points in my previous email. Cajuns from Louisiana, aside from the obvious English language, also speak a Criole (Mixed) dialect that is by far predominantly French in origin with substantial Spanish and West African dialects as well. Thus, the Cajun dialect is, in effect, a Latin dialect. This would be inference make the Cajun people Latino as well, whether those Cajuns are White as many are, Black, or Mixed as many also are. Cajuns have predominantly French sir names, thus making them Latino, but it certainly does not describe a race in and of itself! 

My Dad's side of the family emigrated from Spain to the South (southern USA), I think soon after the War for Southern Independence, not sure exactly when. Anyhow, none of us today speak Spanish or cling to that culture. We know our European heritage but do not live by it. We are Americans, and I pride myself as being a Southerner, flying my Confederate Flag high and proud in Florida! My Dad's side has always considered themselves White and proudly so! Others see us as White and rightfully so! The concept of us being Latino or Hispanic would never be tolerated by my Dad's side of the family. 

My Mom was actually born in France and came over here to the South when she was 2. She speaks no French at all, but still holds dual citizenship. She considers herself White, and she is, as others also see her that way. She considers herself a plain ole American though she was born in France! My Mom never went around projecting herself as French to others. She doesn't  go around saying, "I'm French this and French that!" However, my Momma or Daddy's families are well within their rights and logic to call themselves Latino, but it's not even an issue. Therefore, I could also claim Latino as well, but I don't. Even if I did, I would constantly run into arguments by those saying, "you don't look latino!" or "Naw! You can't be Latino! You're White!" and other such stupid ludicrous nonsense, proving that people don't even understand the proper definition of Latino in the first place! It's not a physical look as I stated before, and it's high time that people begin to learn this! They should know it, but, common sense is lacking in most people today! 

My family is Southern Americans and good ole country people that love to hunt and fish, pick and sing bluegrass music, and general stuff associated with living in rural Dixie. What gets me is that Latinos that have been here in the USA for several generations still act as if they were Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, etc., etc.! You might hear Americans of Italian, Irish, Polish, German, Russian, and Greek, which are all incidentally mainly White, declare their ancestral pride in fairs an festivals and such. They may be more inclined to talk about their heritage than those Americans that have roots going all the way back to the Revolutionary War, but they still all consider themselves American first! Latinos, seem to put Latino (Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, etc.) first. Honestly though, if you weren't born in Mexico, Cuba, or Puerto Rico, you are not Mexican, Cuban, or Puerto Rican! You may be of Mexican, Cuban, or Puerto Rican descent or ancestry, but that's not where you were born so that's not what you are! 

You are whatever country you're born in, period! If I was born in Mexico I would be a Mexican! If I was born in Greece, I would be Greek! If I was born in China, I would be Chinese, period! Likewise, if you're born in America, you're American, period! Your nationality is the nation where you were born, not where your ancestors came from! If that was true, no Americans would would be Americans, not even the "American Indians" because all humans had to originally emigrate from overseas to get here! That would apply to Mexico, the Caribbean, South America, etc., as well!

Actually, all nations on Earth came into being by people moving, migrating, invading, absorbing, and assimilating! If you want to talk ancestry and apply it to nowadays in regards to what we all are, then we might as well go back to Babel and the Ararat Mountains where Noah's Ark landed and a city was built before God fragmented the human race into languages and races and before anybody scattered abroad on the face of Earth. Technically we would all be Babylonians, or Araratians! Although this is true, it would be ridiculous to strictly go by that measure, so it is better to not do it at all. Thanks again.  Billy



Tejano Texian by Alex Loya
(Click for more information on Alex Loya)

Much confusion exists regarding the identity of those who are called "Tejanos". A Tejano today is classified as a "Mexican Texan" or a "Texan of Mexican heritage". While this classification would correctly identify the "new Tejanos"; those people from Texas whose ancestors came from Mexico beginning in the period of time just before, during and after the Mexican Revolution of 1910 through today, it is a misnomer when applied to the people who were in Texas beginning in the Spanish Colonial Period before the first Anglo-Americans came to Texas and through the Texas Revolution. Immigration from Mexico to the U.S. in the period after the Mexican War and before the Mexican Revolution of 1910 was almost non-existent and statistically insignificant.

To this effect, it is incorrect to assert that Texas during the Spanish Colonial Period was a part of Mexico which was under Spanish rule. Mexico as a modern nation did not exist but until 1821, before this time Texas was a part of Spain, a province of New Spain, and the people born in Texas were citizens of the Kingdom of Spain, not of Mexico, since the country of Mexico did not yet exist. While the flag of Spain governed Texas for 308 years (from 1513 through 1821), and for a period of 301 years (from 1520 through 1821) the flag of Spain waved over Texas uninterrupted, the flag of Mexico waved in Texas for only 14 years. This period of Mexican jurisdiction over the people of Texas, from 1821-1835, was a period of an imposed Mexican rule which the colonial Texans never wanted, imposed by the historical circumstance of having been dropped in the lap of Mexico by Spain when Mexico earned its independence from Spain. The colonial Tejanos had never wanted Mexican rule, having had established an independent republic in 1813 which looked forward to becoming part of the United States. Because Mexican rule was imposed upon the colonial Tejanos and they never wanted it, from their perspective the period of Mexican jurisdiction would be correctly identified as the period of Mexican occupation.

It is necessary, therefore, to distinguish between the "new Tejanos", those people from Texas whose ancestors came from Mexico beginning in the period of time just before, during and after the Mexican Revolution of 1910 through today, and the "colonial Tejanos" or "Tejano Texians", that is, those people who were the original pioneers of Texas who tamed the wilderness of Texas starting in the Spanish Colonial Period and up through the Texas Revolution, and to define the colonial people of Texas in a more historically accurate way that would reflect their family histories and traditions and their self identification and the history and historical data that supports them.

It is necessary to draw this distinction because the people who came from Mexico starting just before,during and after the Mexican Revolution through today are and were of a different ethnic heritage than the ones who colonized Texas during the Spanish Colonial Period, of a different history. While the majority, not all, of the people who have come from Mexico since the Mexican Revolution are and drew their identity from the mestizos (people of mixed Indian and Spaniard blood) or genizaros (Indians who lost their tribal identity and adopted Spanish names and the Spanish language, of which much of the modern day Mexican immigrant population in the U.S. consists) and had their history and identity in the history of Mexico, the majority, not all, of the people who colonized Texas in the Spanish Colonial Period were and drew their identity from the Spaniards and the criollos (full blooded Spaniards born in the New World), and had their history and identity in the history of Spain and of the United States as a consequence of the participation of Spain and its colonial provinces of Texas and Louisiana in the American Revolution. This difference caused the people of Texas, the colonial Tejanos or Tejano Texians, to identify more with the people of Louisiana, which was a Spanish colony, and of the U.S., rather than with the people of Mexico. For this reason as early as 1813 the colonial Tejanos established a government in Texas that looked forward to becoming part of the United States. As revealed by the writings of colonial Tejano Texians such as Antonio Menchaca, the Texas Revolution was first and foremost a colonial Tejano cause, the Anglo Americans simply joined the colonial Tejanos in that cause, having been invited and recruited to do so by the colonial Tejanos, the Tejano Texians.[1][2][3]

In summary, while a new Tejano is a Mexican American, Latino or Chicano generally of Indian or mixed Spanish and Indian heritage, a colonial Tejano, who can also be correctly identified as a Tejano Texian, is a descendant of those colonists who pioneered Texas as citizens of the Kingdom of Spain through the Spanish Colonial Period starting in the 1500's through the 1800's up to the Texas Revolution and who were generally of pure Spaniard blood, or hispanicized European heritage, including Frenchmen like Juan Seguin, Italian like Jose Cassiano, or Corsican like Antonio Navarro, generally of white Mediterranean race, although there was also a small number of people of mixed blood among them ranging from mulattos to mestizos[4][5][6][7] who were excluded by the Spanish law of "limpieza de sangre", purity of blood, from participating in the colonization of Northern New Spain including Texas and the American Southwest.[8][9][10][11] For these reasons a colonial Tejano, or Tejano Texian, is more accurately classified as a "Spaniard Texan" or "Spaniard Texian" or "Spaniard American" or as a "Texan of Spaniard heritage", as opposed to a "new Tejano" who is of Mexican heritage.

In direct relation to this distinction, genuinely Tejano music is related and sounds more like the folk music of Louisiana known as "Cajun" music and to the music of northern Mexico, rather than to the folk music of central and southern Mexico such as Mariachi and other Latino music. With the abundant use of the accordion, genuinely Tejano music is part of the foundation of Country Western music. The American Cowboy culture and music was born from the meeting of the Anglo-American Texians who were colonists from the American South and the original Tejano Texian pioneers and their "vaquero" or "cow man" culture.[12][13][14][15]

It should be noted that in the Spanish language, the term "tejano" is simply the term to identify an individual from Texas regardless of race or ethnic background.

It should be noted as well that during the Spanish Colonial Period of Texas, before Texas was wrested from Spain and became a part of Mexico in 1821, the colonial settlers of Northern New Spain, including Texas and the American Southwest, understood themselves to be and called themselves Spaniards[16], as opposed to the people of Central and Southern Mexico who generally understood themselves to be and called themselves mestizos or Indians or Mexicans. This is also a crucially important reason why the term "Spaniard Texan" rather than "Mexican Texan" is more correctly applied to the Tejano Texians, and to their descendants.

For bibliographical citations regarding the above article and for a more detailed history of the colonial Tejanos, or Tejano Texians, please click on the following Texas A&M University, Sons of Dewitt Colony Texas link, the citations are located through the chapters posted: http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/images/texforum/txforumloya.htm

[edit]

References

  1. ^ Antonio Menchaca "Memoirs" dictated to and handwritten by Charles M. Barnes, as published in the Passing Show, San Antonio, Texas June 22-July 27, 1907.
  2. ^ Jose Antonio Navarro, Commentaries of Historical Interest, San Antonio Ledger, December 12. 1857, McDonald & Matovina, p.63.
  3. ^ Alex Loya "The Continuous Presence of Italians,Frenchmen and Spaniards in Texas (Including the Participationn and Consequence of Texas and Louisiana in the American Revolution)" chapters 3 "Spaniard Americans" & 11 "The American Destiny of the Spaniard Texians".
  4. ^ The Residents of Texas, 1782-1836, The Institute of Texan Cultures, TXGen Web Project, Texas Census Reports, transcribed by Michaele Burris:
    • Census report of (San Fernando de Bexar), 9/2/1782 Residents of Texas, 1782-1836, Vol 1, pp. 39-44.
    • Census report of the Mission of San Jose de San Miguel de Aguallo. Residents of Texas, 1782-1836, Vol 1, pp. 44-46. 19/11/1790
    • Census Report of the Mission of Our Father San Francisco de la Espada. Residents of Texas, Vol 1, p. 46. 22/11/1790
    • Census report of the Juristiction of La Bahia del Espiritu Santo. Residents of Texas, 1782-1836, Vol 1, pp. 47-54. 1790
    • Year of 1790 General Census Report [Bexar] Residents of Texas, 1782-1836, Vol 1, pp. 58-74.
    • Census report of Villa of San Fernando de Austria, Capital of the Province of Texas. Residents of Texas, 1782-1836, Vol 1, pp. 75-92. December 31, 1792
    • Census report of Mission of San Antonio Valero, Dependency of the Villa of San Fernando. Residents of Texas, 1782-1836, Vol 1, pp. 93-95. December 31, 1792
  1. ^ 1784 Census of El Paso, Texas (Timmons, "The Population of El Paso Area- A Census of 1784", New Mexico Historical Review vol. LII (1977):311-316).
  2. ^ 1787 Census of El Paso (Census of the El Paso Area, 9 May, 1787" enumerated by Fray Damian Martinez and Nicolas Soler, Juarez Municipal Archives, roll 12, book 1, 1787, folios77-142).
  3. ^ Alex Loya, chapter 4 "Colonists Not Conquistadors".
  4. ^ Don Adams & Teresa A. Kendrick "Don Juan de Onate and the First Thanksgiving"
  5. ^ Robert S. Weddle & Robert H. Thonhoff, "Drama & Conflict; the Texas Saga of 1776", p.50
  6. ^ Robert McCaa, Ph.D., University of Minnesotta Department of History.
  7. ^ Alex Loya, chapter 4 "Colonists Not Conquistadors".
  8. ^ Gene Hill,"Americans All, Americanos Todos"
  9. ^ Gilbert Y Chavez’ "Cowboys-Vaqueros, Origins of the First American Cowboys"
  10. ^ Lawrence Clayton, "Vaqueros, Cowboys and Buckaroos", 2001.
  11. ^ Alex Loya, chapter 15 "The Legacy and Heritage of the Spaniard Texians".
  12. ^ Census and Inspection Report of 1787 of the Colony of Nuevo Santander performed by Dragoon Captain Jose Tienda de Cuervo, Knight of the Order of Santago, with Historical Report by Fray Vicente Santa Maria.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tejano_Texian" Categories: Articles to be merged

 

Our lives are better left to chance
By Johnny Silvas
johnny.silvas@icdbridges.org
Via Dorinda Moreno  dorindamoreno@comcast.net


My family and I recently attended a Sweet Fifteen. In Hispanic culture, it’s more traditionally known as a Quinceañera. I want to share with you some special moments I witnessed that day. 

I saw a moment during the church service; a Mom standing up and sharing some special thoughts of what she described as her strong-willed daughter. As she began to speak, her voice began to shake. She spoke with pure conviction of the bond they shared with one another. We all began to feel the true love they had for one another. If mom had only kept talking I believe all the parents, especially the moms in attendance, would have been in tears.

There was another moment, one that made me a strong believer of a daddy's love for his little girl. This moment took place at the reception.

You need to first paint a picture in your mind of how special it is for a father to dance his last dance, if you will, with his little girl. The young girl looked especially beautiful that day, almost magical in her long white dress. You could see her sparkle as she walked along to the middle of the dance floor. She was Cinderella and daddy was Prince Charming standing there holding her hand.

"The Dance" by Garth Brooks began to play and the magic began as they started to dance. As the Dad held his young daughter they looked like they were dancing on air. Her dress swayed from side to side as he held her tight. How special she must have felt to be in her daddy's arms that night. The song came to an end and it was time for daddy to let go but he couldn't. He began, first with little shakes trying hard to hold on as finally tears streamed down his face as he broke down and began to cry. It was a very special moment. Here was this giant of a man, towering over his young child, but yet with the innocence of a baby, he fought hard to hold back his tears. He held his little girl by her arms and gave her a big kiss on her forehead. He embraced her as he wiped his tears. I felt a big lump in my throat and I quickly began to share his pain. It was as if though I couldn’t turn away, as if I felt all his love as a father pour out of him. It made me sad but at the same time it made me even happier. This is what it was all about. Daddy had been there for his little girl. As Garth Brooks sang his last note I could feel dad "looking back on the times he shared" just like the song was saying. Daddy kissed her again and then his little girl turned around and he stared at her as she walked away. His little girl had now grown into a beautiful young lady. There was not a dry eye in the room.

Hug your children everyday and tell them you love them. Time stands still for no one. One day you'll be looking back happy you never missed the dance.

The Dance By Garth Brooks
Looking back on the memory of the dance we shared 'neath the stars alone.
For a moment, all the world was right, how could I have known that you'd ever say goodbye!
And now, I'm glad I didn't know the way it all would end, the way it all would go.
Our lives are better left to chance, I could have missed the pain, but I'd of had to miss the dance.
Holding you, I held everything, for a moment, wasn't I a king. But if i'd only known how the king would fall. Hey, who's to say, you know, I might have chanced it all.
And now, I'm glad I didn't know the way it all would end, the way it all would go. Our lives are better left to chance. I could have missed the pain, but I would have missed the dance!



Since its launch on 15 October 1999, IN SEARCH OF FATHERHOOD(R) has provided Men -- especially Fathers -- from all Walks of Life throughout our global village with an uncut and uncensored forum that explores a myriad of issues related to parenting from a male point of view. IN SEARCH OF FATHERHOOD(R), a quarterly international male parenting journal which has facilitated and continues to facilitate a Global Dialogue on Fatherhood is a blog! The Global Dialogue on Fatherhood is interactive! 

Is there an issue you want to discuss that relates to Fatherhood? The IN SEARCH OF FATHERHOOD(R) Blog at http://Insearchoffatherhood.blogspot.com  is the place to discuss the issues that are tugging at your heartstrings. 

The IN SEARCH OF FATHERHOOD(R) Blog at http://Insearchoffatherhood.blogspot.com
is your safe haven!

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Post Office Box 3885
Philadelphia, PA 19146-0185
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Latino Rhythms and their influence on Classic Soul Music: 
A Black Hole? (or rather, a ‘Latino Hole’!)

It is some time in the Summer of 1964 on a blazingly hot week-end day on a street corner somewhere in Chicago. A small gaggle of young black ladies are hanging loose, checking out the passing ‘talent’ to see if any is worth more of their time and their attention is drawn to a young gentleman of Latino appearance way across the broad thoroughfare, walking along, transistor radio in hand out of which is pulsing the unmistakable rhythm of a Cha-Cha-Cha, singing and shouting, utterly absorbed in his musical transport away from the scruffy streets. The tongue is completely incomprehensible to them but they detect that something special must be going on to have that effect and he looks kind of cute, so why not swallow your natural shyness and go over to have a word with him? There's nothing to lose. After a short period of good-natured ribbing one of the number does just that.

She speaks not a word of Spanish and he just the faintest smattering of English. First she waves to him in an effort to snap him out of his waking reverie. He looks up with a start, wondering quite what is going on, but she reassures him with a still-shy, but friendly beckoning, motioning that she'd quite like to share in his musical experience. A short distance away they find a convenient alleyway where he can put down his radio and he can teach her the words of the songs he so adores so, although she has no grasp of their meaning, she can sing and shout along too. After all, it sounds hot and cool, no matter. Before long, she ‘gets the message’. It's the sound that's king. The actual meaning of the words is secondary. The sound, it gradually dawns on her, is not a million miles away from the Soul that regularly filters out of the loudspeaker of her own radio. The rhythm so familiar to her first gets to her feet and then, stage-by-stage, works its way up her whole body. "What is this I'm dancing here?", she wonders. "Why yes, it's the Monkey!" Her new acquaintance is amazed that you could think of doing anything else but the Cha-Cha-Cha to the music that is so familiar to him, but he follows her every move and finds that it does indeed fit perfectly. So, he's taught her something and the compliment has been returned. They exchange numbers and agree that they'll meet the same time the following week.

This has been a somewhat long-winded re-telling of the story told by the Chicago girl group, The Rubies, on their 1964 VeeJay disc, ‘A Spanish Boy’.

Fast-forward to the twenty-hundreds by way of The Rubies' appearance on the 1980s-released Charly R&B label compilation, ‘Rare Soul Uncovered: Volume III (In Style)’.  

Somebody on the board of those in charge of programming on the BBC takes it upon themselves to suggest reviving the hoary old format of ‘Come Dancing’, this time as a sort of celebrity/reality phone-in vote show entitled ‘Strictly Come Dancing’. As it emerges via bush telegraph that such an offering is on the way the viewing public isn't sure at first, but the combination of celebrity and barely suppressed sexual tension eventually proves an irresistible mixture and ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ becomes the unexpected British TV hit (more like TV phenomenon) of the year 2004 and the format is exported to all corners of the Earth, mostly under the title of ‘Dancing With The Stars’, or various translations thereof. 

On several Saturday evenings in the gathering gloom of a British autumn (we have ‘autumn’, not ‘fall’) the proud owner of ‘Rare Soul Uncovered: Volume III (In Style)’, in common with another ten to fifteen million viewers is in his living room in front of the box of wonders and the same realisation that struck those fictitious potential lovers forty-and-a-bit years previously occurs to him during the Latin Dance portions of the contest. It's not just a meeting of two separate cultures. It is all part of one and the same culture. The same basic rhythmic structures are all there. 

A frantic search through the said party's record collection begins to answer the question, "Is Soul really as much Latin as it is Black?" Countless incidences arise where this could be the case – much more than I could readily mention here. 

This is, as it were, the ‘case for the defence’ and also the first instalment of what could be a mini-series of items for SomosPrimos.com on the theme of this Black/Latino culture that is Soul. Everybody ‘knows’ that this crucial part of the popular culture of the twentieth century and beyond originated in the churches of Black America and rather fewer may be aware of the impact of Doo Wop. Referring back to the title of this item is there a ‘Latino Hole’ that badly needs filling? How did this hole come into existence – and perhaps more importantly, why?

Are there any readers ‘out there’ with the answer to this question?
If so, please send your answers to Christopher Bentley. 
old_soul_rebel@yahoo.co.uk

This item is © (2006) Christopher Bentley and may not be published by means of any medium by any other party without the writer's express consent.

 

Business



Orange County Register, Parade Section, June 25, 2006
Note the multi-racial family structure.

Abstract:  Multi-ethnic business a piece of cake
By Jan Norman, The Orange County Register, June 11, 2006  
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/money/
homepage/slideshow_1176474.php?pos=1


Multi-ethnic business partners say their diverse backgrounds are no cause for conflict. 'Race is an issue only if you make it an issue,' one businessman says.
  
Finding their niche: Rena Puebla, left, and Ellie Genuardi are co-owners of Renellie International in Costa Mesa, which sells white, Asian, black and Hispanic bride and groom figures for wedding cakes.  Photo by Ana Venegas

When Rena Puebla, who is black, married Ron Kokawa, of Japanese descent, in 2000, she couldn't find multi-racial bride and groom figurines to put on top of her wedding cake.

The entrepreneurial bulb went off in Puebla's brain, and she called longtime friend Ellie Genuardi about starting a company to make multi-racial cake toppers. Renellie International in Costa Mesa now sells white, Asian, black and Hispanic bride and groom figures.

The women became friends because they had much in common, Genuardi says. Both were born in Pennsylvania. Both had owned businesses: Genuardi owned L'Unique Gift Co. gift basket retailer in Irvine; Puebla still owns Coast Concierge Services in Costa Mesa.

But until their Web site designer mentioned it, they didn't think about their partnership being a multi-racial reflection of their product line.

"We looked at each other and said, 'Oh my God! We are!' " said Genuardi, who is of Italian descent, with a laugh. "I don't look at people that way (by race). Growing up, that never came up in our household."

Multi-racial business partnerships are a natural outgrowth of Orange County's increasing ethnic diversity. Yet owners of such businesses tend to be colorblind, saying they focus instead on the same business skills and personal relationships that bind other business partnerships.

REGION OF DIVERSITY FUELS ENTREPRENEURSHIP Orange County is a rainbow of ethnicities. In 2004, according to U.S. Census estimates, 32.4 percent of the county's residents were Hispanic; 15.4 percent, Asian; 1.4 percent, black; and 2.7 percent various other ethnicities.

That data help explain the growing proportion of businesses owned by minority entrepreneurs. The Census Bureau does not track multi-ethnic firms but did find that businesses owned by Asians, blacks and Hispanics increased from 25 percent of all Orange County firms in 1997 to 28.6 percent in 2002, the latest data available. 

However, the Census Bureau only counts a business in an ethnic category if the minority owns 51 percent or more. Companies like Renellie International – a 50-50 partnership – wouldn't be counted as a black-owned business. 

Ethnicity Population* Percent Businesses* Percent
Hispanic 955,000 32 30,000 11
White 1,417,000 48 199,000+ 71
Black 40,000 1 3,600 1
Asian 453,000 15 46,000 16
Other 79,000 3 NA NA

*Numbers are rounded +includes 50-50 partnerships and firms that aren't in other categories
Source: U.S. Census Bureau

 

ANTI-SPANISH LEGENDS

Comments about Racism against Latinos, Ladera Ranch location
Raza isn't racist, changed perspective on the Latino student club MEChA

 

"Quien controla el pasado controla el futuro; 
quien controla el presente controla el pasado." 
George Orwelll



Comments about Racism against Latinos, Ladera Ranch location
From: charliengheim@hotmail.com  To: mimilozano@aol.com

To: store feedback/Corp/Kohls@KOHLS

From: Charles Ngheim   charliengheim@hotmail.com   05/14/2006

Okay, I don’t know anything about how you  hire your managers, so I will assume you don’t purposely hire racist bigots. As I walked by a large heavy set white male with a name tag that said Everett from the Ladera Ranch Store, I heard him make a  comment under his breath about a Latino
person that I found very offensive. I heard this person comment how he could not stand those dirty wetbacks. This happened between 5:00pm and 5:15 pm I believe, but don’t quote me on the time. As an Asian I have no doubts he feels the same about us also. For this reason I can’t shop at your store again, nor will any of my friends or family. How sad a world we live in when a person such as this is also in a position of power? My future wife is a Latina. This really upsets me to hear this kind of hatred. We were going to register our wedding at Kohl’s. Now you can forget it. I’m sickened at the thought of it. 


From: store.feedback@kohls.com
To: charliengheim@hotmail.com
RE: Comments about Ladera Ranch location - #0597
Date: Mon, 15 May 2006 06:12:50 -0500


Dear Mr. Ngheim:

Thank you for your comments regarding your experience at the Ladera Ranch store. I have requested that a member from the Executive Team respond to you within 72 hours.

We realize your time is valuable and appreciate the time you took to contact us. We hope that you will allow us to serve you again in the future. 

If you have any further questions, please contact us at store.feedback@kohls.com and we will be happy to assist you.

Sincerely,Thomas
Kohl's Customer Support Specialist
Kohl's Corporate Office
store.feedback@kohls.com 

 

Student club MEChA is more about culture/education than reconquista 
By Gustavo Arellano From the Los Angeles Times, Editorial Page, June 15, 2006 
Sent by Juan Ramos, Ph.D. jramos.swkr@comcast.net

THE REVOLUTION always finishes the same way: Someone claps. Then someone else. Someone else. Others join. More. Faster. More. Everyone in unison. Rhythmic. Louder. Faster. Finally, someone shrieks, "¡Qué viva la raza!" (Long live the Mexican race!). "¡Qué viva!" (May it live!), everyone screamed in response. And then we go off to continue the reconquista.

The above scene ends just about every meeting of MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán), the high school and college club for Mexican American students that scares the bejesus out of everyone else. Frankly, I don't blame everyone else.

Starting with the name (Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán, "Aztlán" referring to the mythical Aztec homeland that prophecy held was north of Mexico and would be repopulated by descendants of the People of the Sun), continuing with slogans like Entre la raza todo; fuera de la raza, nada (Within the race, everything; outside of it, nothing) and concluding with that tribalistic clapping circle, the average MEChA meeting might look to outsiders like a gathering of brown-skinned brownshirts.

That's at least how anti-MEChA alarmists see it. For them, MEChA is what the Communist Party was for McCarthyites — a boogeyman of an organization you can use to spook citizens away from the aspirations and causes of its ex-members. The casualties include Antonio Villaraigosa in his first mayoral race, Cruz Bustamante in his unsuccessful 2003 gubernatorial run and Gil Cedillo every time he tries to get the Legislature to approve driver's licenses for illegal immigrants.

Now KABC-AM (790) is playing the MEChA card against the Academia Semillas del Pueblo, a charter school in Lincoln Heights. Because the MEChA chapter of Pasadena City College supports the school, goes KABC's reasoning, Academia Semillas del Pueblo is obviously a racist school teaching kiddies to reconquer the Southwest, one Nahuatl lesson at a time.

It doesn't help MEChA's case that Semillas del Pueblo Principal Marcos Aguilar, a former UCLA Mechista, once dismissed the importance of Brown vs. the Board of Education during an interview, adding that "the white way, the American way, the neoliberal, capitalist way of life will eventually lead to our own destruction." Or that members of Pasadena City College's MEChA chapter recently destroyed an entire run of the campus newspaper because they considered the paper's coverage of one MEChA event inadequate.

But, as in Islam, a few indige-nazis are stains sullying a noble organization. I should know. I am a Mechista. As both a member of the invading army and a proud son of Mexican-hating Orange County, I can testify that, without a doubt, MEChA is harmless.

Sure, the organization's founding documents, the Plan de Santa Barbara and the Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, call for a Chicano homeland. But few members take these hilariously dated relics of the 1960s seriously, if they even bother to read them. Little of the modern-day MEChA remains separatist, other than the occasional Che-spouting junior and a few cute mestizas with Aztec names like Citlali who sport Frida ponytails, black-frame glasses and Chuck Taylor high-tops.

MEChA's primary objectives are not secessionist but educational (get as many Latino high schoolers into the universities as possible and help them stay there) and cultural. For many Mexican American students, MEChA is their family by proxy, a support network for those of us who were the first in our families to graduate from high school, let alone college.

The open-borders philosophy expressed by many Mechistas isn't born from an irredentist ideology but from their experience of having relatives divided by borders. All that raza clatter isn't racism, it's the traditional way immigrants climb the success ladder — through solidarity and education. The loaded term itself is better understood as representing the immediate community, not as a proclamation of Mexican superiority to all other races.

Look, I get the widespread skepticism about MEChA's intentions. I myself was apprehensive about joining the club when I attended conservative Chapman University in Orange. I had heard whispers about the obsession with protests, the vitriolic speeches bashing everyone who wasn't brown, the infamous MEChA clap.

But then I actually attended a meeting. I encountered some extremist rhetoric — but it was aimed at increasing Latino enrollment on our minority-deficient campus and mentoring at-risk high school students. And it wasn't just Latinos involved in this radical clique. We had African Americans, Asians, gabachos … even a Kazakh student named Amir who proudly wore his MEChA shirt complete with the organizational logo: an eagle gripping a stick of dynamite and looming over a banner that reads "La Unión Hace la Fuerza" (Strength Through Unity). We cared about bettering the world, and MEChA allowed us to do something about it.

We protested Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas when he appeared on campus; we supported striking janitors and held events for all the major Mexican holidays. But mostly we spent our free time recruiting high school students to Chapman and holding educational carnivals for elementary niños y niñas.

Chapman administrators loved our dedication, holding us up as models of what others could aspire to. My fellow Mechistas went on to work for nonprofit organizations, consulted for the Democratic Party, became bankers and psychologists, made it in Hollywood, interned at the Cato Institute — and this Mechista went on to graduate summa cum laude from UCLA and work for a free newspaper. Not a single Mechista in our group dropped out.

Years later, I proudly call myself a Mechista. To be a Mechista is to care for those who face the same struggles you once did, to preach the gospel of education to immigrants so they can prosper and assimilate. To be a Mechista is to be American — an American with sore hands from so much clapping, that is. . . 


Gustavo Arellano is a staff writer with Orange County Weekly, where he writes the "¡Ask a Mexican!" column. A portion of this essay originally appeared in the Weekly.  
Contact the author at: GArellano@ocweekly.com
Read other essays at: http://www.ocweekly.com



 

 

MILITARY AND LAW ENFORCEMENT HEROES

It is the VETERAN,who gives us freedom
Link to Muslim cartoons that caused riots and deaths
Special DEA agent, Enrique "Kiko" S. Camarena
Medal of Honor Winner Jose M. Lopez Dies at 94
Staff Sergeant Roy Benavidez
Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month websites
Red Skelton's Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag
Pray for our Military. . . They believe in Prayer
Lakota Tribe in North Dakota Funeral Activities and Observance
Hero Military Search 



It is the VETERAN, not the preacher, who has given us freedom of religion. 
  
It is the VETERAN, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. 
  
It is the VETERAN, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. 
  
It is the VETERAN, not the campus organizer, who has given us freedom to assemble. 
  
It is the VETERAN, not the lawyer, who has given us the right to a fair trial. 
  
It is the VETERAN, not the politician, Who has given us the right to vote. 
  
It is the VETERAN, who salutes the Flag, 

Sent by Carlos Marquez  cbmeducateteachers@hotmail.com

 


For those curious about the Muslim cartoons,
 that caused riots and deaths,
 they can be viewed at http://www.michellemalkin.com/   
Sent by navart@bellsouth.net

Senator Hiram Johnson in a 1917 speech before the US Senate said,
 "The first casualty when war comes is truth."

 


Special Agent Enrique "Kiki" S. Camarena, 1947-1985 
Source of information: DEA website
Sent by Lila Guzman, Ph.D.  lorenzo1776@yahoo.com

July 26, 1947 to March 5, 1985 Special Agent Enrique S. Camarena, of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Guadalajara, Mexico, Resident Office, was kidnapped and tortured by Mexican drug traffickers on February 7, 1985. It is believed that Special Agent Camerena's death actually occurred on February 9. His body was discovered on March 5, 1985. He was 37 years of age at the time of his death.

Special Agent Camarena joined DEA in June 1974 as an Agent with the Calexico, California District Office. He was assigned to the Fresno District Office in September 1977, and transferred to the Guadalajara Resident Office in July 1981. During his 11 years with DEA, he received two Sustained Superior Performance Awards, a Special Achievement Award and, posthumously, the Administrator's Award of Honor, the highest award granted by DEA. 

On the afternoon of his disappearance, Special Agent Camarena was en route to meet his wife for lunch. He was abducted by five assailants as he left the U.S. Consulate, one of whom identified himself as a Mexican law enforcement official. Special Agent Camarena was never seen alive again, and is believed to have been extensively tortured for two days before he died from a crushed skull. Major organized crime figures from Mexico, including Rafael Caro Quintero, Rueben Zuno Arce, Miguel Felix Gallardo, Humberto Alvarez Machain, Mario Verdugo and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo were arrested for Enrique Camarena's torture and murder. This event had triggered Operation Leyenda, the largest homicide investigation that DEA had ever undertaken.

Prior to joining DEA, Special Agent Camarena served two years in the U.S. Marine Corps. He worked in Calexico as a fireman and then as a police investigator, and was a narcotics investigator for the Imperial County Sheriff Coroner. Special Agent Camarena was survived by his wife, Geneva and three children, Enrique, Daniel and Erik.

Special Agent Camarena's death inspired millions of people around the world to lead drug-free lives. Each October, thousands of schools, communities and state and local drug abuse prevention organizations distribute red ribbons to honor Special Agent Camarena's memory. The millions of Americans who wear these ribbons demonstrate visibly their commitment to this cause. DEA's Miami Division hosts a golf tournament each year in memory of Special Agent Camarena. Proceeds from the tournament benefit the DEA Survivors Benefit Fund.

THE ENRIQUE S. CAMARENA EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION is an all-volunteer, 501(C)(3) nonprofit, public benefit corporation dedicated to eradicating drug abuse nationwide. The focus is the nationwide promotion of anti-drug abuse programs at all levels. The Foundation's special project is to instill lasting drug abuse awareness by providing bronze busts of Special Agent Camarena to schools, libraries, and public buildings as a memorial for all the law enforcement officer's ultimate sacrifice in fighting drug abuse.

To this day, most people still remember these tragic events if not the name Kiki Camarena. By reintroducing these events through a meaningful symbol, a life size bronze bust of Special Agent Camarena, we hope to make it a representative memorial for all our nation's fallen heroes in the fight against drug abuse.

Busts are being placed in schools, libraries and public buildings to rekindle public awareness and commitment to support drug education and prevention. Schools and government building have been renamed. Recently, the Argentine government requested and received permission to name a school in that country in honor of Special Agent Camarena.

We urge you to join in this endeavor. For the stronger the support for this project that highlights the tragic events surrounding the death of Special Agent Camarena, the greater the impact that it will have in eradicating drugs throughout the United States.

Your financial support means all the more because it shows your appreciation for the ultimate sacrifices made by all law enforcement officers involved in freeing our nation from the ravages of drug abuse.

Please make checks payable to: Enrique Camarena Foundation
P.O. Box 28691  San Diego, CA 92198 

An excellent book about the kidnapping and murder of Agent Enrique 'Kiki' Camarena was recently written by retired DEA Agent James Kuykendall who was Kiki's boss in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico at the time of his abduction. Agents who participated in the investigation say the book is right on target. It is well written and to the point. The book, O PLATA O PLOMA? (Lead or Silver?) can be purchased directly from the author by sending a check ($20 for soft cover or $30 for hard cover) to: James Kuykendall, 402 St.Thomas Drive, Laredo, TX 78045. The price includes shipping and handling and Mr. Kuykendall will autograph it for you.

James Kuykendall is a member of the Camarena Foundation Advisory Board and donates much of his time to volunteer work improving anti-drug efforts by talking with groups about the problem. He and another retired agent, Fritz Villerreal, recently purchased a bust of Agent Camarena to be installed at a new courthouse in Zapata, Texas. He is also donating a portion of the profits from "O Plata O Ploma?" to the Camarena Foundation and has a website at www.silverorlead.com .

Geneva 'Mika' Camarena, Kiki's widow, has read the book, is pleased with it, and appreciates 'Jaime's' efforts. It will help you to understand the facts leading to the abduction, the ramifications of the entire incident that caused a national furor, and why we need to do more to bring the drug problem to an irreducible minimum. 
The Enrique S. Camarena Educational Foundation
A Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation
P.O. Box 28691, San Diego, CA 92198    858-485-1356 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/17/AR2005051701535. html?referrer=emailarticle


                                   
Medal of Honor Winner Jose M. Lopez Dies at 94
By Adam Bernstein washingtonpost.com, May 18, 2005; Page B06  
Sent by Gil Sandate gsandate@loc.gov

Jose M. Lopez, 94, a retired Army master sergeant who received the Medal of Honor for engaging in a series of "seemingly suicidal missions" during the Battle of the Bulge, died May 16 at a daughter's home in San Antonio. He had cancer.  
Jose M. Lopez, shown in January, fought at Normandy and in the Battle of the Bulge. (By Billy Calzada -- San Antonio Express-news via AP)

Jose M. Lopez, 94, a retired Army master sergeant who received the Medal of Honor for engaging in a series of "seemingly suicidal missions" during the Battle of the Bulge, died May 16 at a daughter's home in San Antonio. He had cancer.

Sgt. Lopez was born in Mexico, orphaned when he was 8 and worked in a series of subsistence jobs. A short but sinewy man, he boxed lightweight for many years in his youth. After a series of seafaring misadventures -- he once was stranded at sea for weeks on a cargo boat with nothing to eat but a cache of bananas -- he enlisted in the Army during World War II.

He landed at Normandy a day after the June 6, 1944, invasion, and a bullet smacked into his ammunition belt, grazing his hip.

"I was really very, very afraid,'' he told journalist Bill Moyers for a television special in 1990. "I wanted to cry, and we saw other people laying wounded and screaming and everything, and there's nothing you could do. We could see them groaning in the water, and we had to just keep walking.''

At dawn on Dec. 17, 1944, he and his men were outside Krinkelt, Belgium, shortly after the start of the German offensive through the Ardennes known as the Battle of the Bulge.

Lugging a heavy machine gun, Sgt. Lopez climbed into a shallow, snow-covered hole that left everything above his waist exposed. He heard the rumbling of a tank, which he figured was American; an Allied soldier a few hundreds yards away had failed to signal him of approaching danger.

When he saw the German Tiger tank come into sight and the horde of German foot soldiers around it, he thought of dozens of his men just a few hundred yards away. Aiming at the soldiers around the tank, he killed 10 of them. That prompted the Tiger tank to fire rather recklessly in his direction. It took three shell blasts to knock Sgt. Lopez over, and he suffered a concussion.

He nevertheless repositioned himself to prevent enemy soldiers from outflanking him, resetting his gun and killing 25 more Germans.

Allowing time for his comrades to retreat to a safer position, he then dashed through the dense and protective forest and avoided contact with a cascade of enemy small-arms fire. Eventually, the Americans fell back to Krinkelt and held out through the night. The Germans bypassed the town.

A few months later, Gen. James A. Van Fleet presented Sgt. Lopez with the Medal of Honor. The citation recognized the "seemingly suicidal missions in which he killed at least 100 of the enemy . . . [and which] were almost solely responsible for allowing Company K to avoid being enveloped, to withdraw successfully and to give other forces coming up in support time to build a line which repelled the enemy drive."

Jose Mendoza Lopez was born July 10, 1910. He never knew his exact birth town but was raised in Veracruz. (His Medal of Honor citation lists Mission as his birthplace.)  His father was gone; his mother said he had drowned. She died of tuberculosis.

With other relatives dead or unable to support him, Lopez made his way to Texas and settled in the Rio Grande Valley town of Mission. There, a family let him sleep in their shed and fed him.

He spent time hooking rides on freight trains, and at 17 found himself in Atlanta. Standing 5 feet 5 inches and weighing 130 pounds, he nevertheless fought and pummeled a much bigger man.

A boxing manager who witnessed the beating trained the newly named "Kid Mendoza" and saw him through 52 victories and three losses.  Sgt. Lopez once said the greatest moment of his boxing career was meeting Babe Ruth, who attended one bout in Atlanta and shook hands with the contenders before the first bell.

In 1936, he joined the U.S. Merchant Marine and held other maritime jobs. After his World War II service, he fought in Korea until a ranking officer heard that a Medal of Honor recipient was in battle. He was ordered to the rear and spent months picking up bodies and registering them for burial.

He later was a recruiter, mowed lawns and plowed snow. He was placed in charge of a motor pool and oversaw large crews of maintenance personnel. He retired in 1973.

To maintain his physique, Sgt. Lopez jogged until age 88. He also saw a trainer three times a week, a regimen that ended three month ago as his illness worsened.

His wife of 62 years, Emilia Herrera Lopez, died in February 2004. Survivors include five children, Candida "Marie" Pieratti of Mahopac, N.Y., Virginia Rogers of Ogden, Utah, Beatrice Pedraza of Lima, Peru, and John Lopez and Maggie Wickwire, both of San Antonio; 19 grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren.

To view the entire article, go to Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive c/o E-mail Customer Care
1515 N. Courthouse Road Arlington, VA 22201 



Staff Sergeant Roy Benavidez
Born: August 5, 1935 - Died: November 29, 1998 
http://www.psywarrior.com/benavidez.html
Sent by Bill Carmena JCarm1724@aol.com  and
             Robert Gonzalez Robert_Gonzalez@yoko.fisc.navy.mil

As the medevac chopper landed the wounded were examined one by one. Staff Sergeant Roy Benavidez could only hear what was going on around him. He had over thirty seven puncture wounds. His intestines were exposed. He could not see as his eyes were caked in blood and unable to open. Neither could he speak, his jaw broken, clubbed by a North Vietnamese rifle. But he knew what was happening, and it was the scariest moment of his life, even more so than the earlier events of the day. He lay in a body bag, bathed in his own blood. Jerry Cottingham, a friend screamed "That's Benavidez. Get a doc". When the doctor arrived he placed his hand on Roy's chest to feel for a heartbeat. He pronounced him dead. The physician shook his head. "There's nothing I can do for him." As the doctor bent over to zip up the body bag. Benavidez did the only thing he could think of to let the doctor know that he was alive. He spit in the doctor's face. The surprised doctor reversed Roy's condition from dead to "He won't make it, but we'll try". 

The 32-year-old son of a Texas sharecropper had just performed for six hours one of the most remarkable feats of the Vietnam War. Benavidez, part Yaqui Indian and part Mexican, was a seventh-grade dropout and an orphan who grew up taunted by the term "dumb Mexican." But, as Ronald Reagan noted, if the story of what he accomplished was made into a movie, no one would believe it really happened. 

Roy Benavidez's ordeal began at Loc Ninh, a Green Beret outpost near the Cambodian border. It was 1:30 p.m., May 2, 1968. A chaplain was holding a prayer service around a jeep for the sergeant and several other soldiers. Suddenly, shouts rang out from a nearby short-wave radio. "Get us out of here!" someone screamed. "For God's sake, get us out!" 

A 12-man team consisting of Sergeant First Class Leroy Wright, Staff Sergeant Lloyd "Frenchie" Mousseau, Specialist Four Brian O'Connor and nine Nung tribesmen monitoring enemy troop movements in the jungle had found itself surrounded by a North Vietnamese army battalion. With out orders, Benavidez volunteered so quickly that he didn't even bring his M-16 when he dashed for the helicopter preparing for a rescue attempt. The sole weapon he carried was a bowie knife on his belt."I'm coming with you," he told the three crew members. 

Airborne, they spotted the soldiers in a tight circle. A few hundred enemy troops surrounded them in the jungle, some within 25 yards of the Americans' position. The chopper dropped low, ran into withering fire and quickly retreated. Spotting a small clearing 75 yards away, Benavidez told the pilot, "Over there, over there." 

The helicopter reached the clearing and hovered 10 feet off the ground. Benavidez made the sign of the cross, jumped out carrying a medic bag and began running the 75 yards towards the trapped men. Almost immediately, Benavidez was hit by an AK-47 slug in his right leg. He stumbled and fell, but got back up convincing himself that he'd only snagged a thorn bush and kept running to the brush pile where Wright's men lay. An exploding hand grenade knocked him down and ripped his face with shrapnel. He shouted prayers, got up again and staggered to the men. 

Four of the soldiers were dead, the other eight wounded and pinned down in two groups. Benavidez bound their wounds, injected morphine and, ignoring NVA bullets and grenades, passed around ammunition that he had taken from several bodies and armed himself with an AK. Then Benavidez directed air strikes and called for the Huey helicopter to a landing near one group. While calling in support he was shot again in the right thigh, his second gunshot wound. He dragged the dead and wounded aboard. The chopper lifted a few feet off the ground and moved toward the second group, with Benavidez running beneath it, firing a rifle he had picked up. He spotted the body of the team leader Sergeant First Class Wright. Ordering the other soldiers to crawl toward the chopper, he retrieved a pouch dangling from the dead man's neck; in the pouch were classified papers with radio codes and call signs. As he shoved the papers into his shirt, a bullet struck his stomach and a grenade shattered his back. The helicopter, barely off the ground, suddenly crashed, its pilot shot dead. 

Coughing blood, Benavidez made his way to the Huey and pulled the wounded from the wreckage, forming a small perimeter. As he passed out ammunition taken from the dead, the air support he had earlier radioed for arrived. Jets and helicopter gunships strafed threatening enemy soldiers while Benavidez tended the wounded. "Are you hurt bad, Sarge?" one soldier asked. "Hell, no," said Benavidez, about to collapse from blood loss. "I've been hit so many times I don't give a damn no more." 

While mortar shells burst everywhere, Benavidez called in Phantoms "danger close". Enemy fire raked the perimeter. Several of the wounded were hit again, including Benavidez. By this time he had blood streaming down his face, blinding him. Still he called in air strikes, adjusting their targets by sound. Several times, pilots thought he was dead, but then his voice would come back on the radio, calling for closer strikes. Throughout the fighting, Benavidez, a devout Catholic, made the sign of the cross so many times, his arms were "were going like an airplane prop". But he never gave into fear. 

Finally, a helicopter landed. "Pray and move out," Benavidez told the men as he helped each one aboard. As he carried a seriously wounded Frenchie Mousseau over his shoulder a fallen NVA soldier stood up, swung his rifle and clubbed Benavidez in the head. Benavidez fell, rolled over and got up just as the soldier lunged forward with his bayonet. Benavidez grabbed it, slashing his right hand, and pulled his attacker toward him. With his left hand, he drew his own bowie knife and stabbed the NVA but not before the bayonet poked completely through his left forearm. As Benavidez dragged Mousseau to the chopper, he saw two more NVA materialize out of the jungle. He snatched a fallen AK-47 rifle and shot both. Benavidez made one more trip to the clearing and came back with a Vietnamese interpreter. Only then did the sergeant let the others pull him aboard the helicopter. 

Blood dripped from the door as the chopper lumbered into the air. Benavidez was holding in his intestines with his hand. Bleeding almost into unconsciousness, Benavidez lay against the badly wounded Mousseau and held his hand. Just before they landed at the Medevac hospital, "I felt his fingers dig into my palm," Benavidez recalled, "his arm twitching and jumping as if electric current was pouring through his body into mine" At Loc Ninh, Benavidez was so immobile they placed him with the dead. Even after he spit in the doctor's face and was taken from the body bag, Benavidez was considered a goner. 

Benavidez spent almost a year in hospitals to recover from his injuries. He had seven major gunshot wounds, twenty-eight shrapnel holes and both arms had been slashed by a bayonet. Benavidez had shrapnel in his head, scalp, shoulder, buttocks, feet, and legs. His right lung was destroyed. He had injuries to his mouth and back of his head from being clubbed with a rifle butt. One of the AK-47 bullets had entered his back exiting just beneath his heart. He had won the battle and lived. When told his one man battle was awesome and extraordinary, Benavidez replied: "No, that's duty."

Wright and Mousseau were each awarded the Distinguish Service Cross posthumously. Although Master Sergeant Benavidez's commander felt that he deserved the Congressional Medal of Honor for his valor in saving eight lives, he put Roy in for the Distinguished Service Cross. The process for awarding a Medal of Honor would have taken much longer, and he was sure Benavidez would die before he got it. The recommendation for the Distinguish Service Cross was rushed through approval channels and Master Sergeant Benavidez was presented the award by General William C. Westmoreland while he was recovering from his wounds at Fort Sam Houston's Hospital. 

Years later, his former commander learned that Benavidez had survived the war. The officer also learned more details of the sergeant's mission and concluded that Benavidez merited a higher honor. Years of red tape followed until finally on February 24, 1981, President Reagan told White House reporters "you are going to hear something you would not believe if it were a script." Reagan then read Roy Benavidez's Citation for the Medal of Honor. 

Benavidez however, did not regard himself as a hero.  He said of his actions. "The real heroes are the ones who gave their lives for their country, I don't like to be called a hero. I just did what I was trained to do."  

In addition to being a recipient of the Medal Of Honor, MSG Benavidez was the recipient of the Combat Infantry Badge for his Viet Nam war service, the Purple Heart Medal with 4 Oak Leaf Clusters, Viet Nam Campaign Medal with 4 Battle Stars, Viet Nam Service Medal, Air Medal, Master Parachutist Badge, Vietnamese Parachutist Badge, Republic of Viet Nam Cross of Gallantry with Palm, and other numerous decorations.

Upon retirement Master Sergeant Benavidez lived in El Campo, Texas, with his wife, Lala, and three children, Noel,Yvette and Denise. He was a member of the: Medal of Honor Society, Legion of Valor, Veterans of Foreign War, Special Operations Association, Alamo Silver Wings Airborne Association, and Special Forces Association, The 82nd Airborne Association, West Point Honorary Alumni Association, and countless other organizations. 

An elementary school in Houston, Texas is named Roy P. Benavidez. 

Master Sergeant Roy Benavidez died on November 29, 1998.  Over 1,500 people attended his funeral to say goodbye. He is buried in the shade of a live oak tree at the Fort Sam Houston National Cementary, a fitting final resting place for someone who gave so much of himself to this great nation.  In addition to his heroic actions in combat, he will also be remembered for his work with youths.  He spoke at schools and colleges and even runaway shelters. He promoted patriotism, staying-in school, encouraged continuing education, and drug free programs for students. Vision Quest, an organization known for working with problem youths, named a youth boot camp Fort Roy P. Benavidez in Uvalde, Texas after him. Master Sergeant Benavidez was further recognized by the naming of the Roy P. Benavidez Elementary School in Houston, Texas. 

In August 1999, the U.S. Army dedicated the $14 million Master Sergeant Roy P. Benavidez Special Operations Logistics Complex at Fort Bragg, NC.

On September 14, 2000, the U.S. Navy Secretary Richard Danzig announced that the U.S. Navy plans to name a new ship after Master Sergeant Roy P. Benavidez. The ship, scheduled to be christened next summer as the USNS Benavidez, will be the seventh in a class of large, medium speed roll-on/roll-off sealift ships.  Army Secretary Louis Caldera made these remarks on the Navy's announcement: 

"Master Sergeant Roy Benavidez was a true American hero, rising from humble origins in South Texas to become an Army legen. Wounded over 40 times as he saved the lives of eight fellow soldiers under heavy fire in Vietnam, he always said he was only doing his duty to his fellow soldiers and to the country he loved. The Navy's recognition of his selfless service is truly an appropriate tribute to Master Sgt. Benavidez's memory, and to the ideals of our nation that he epitomized." 

If you would like to read more about Master Sergeant Roy Benavidez's life, before, during and after the Vietnam War, then I recommend that you read his book co-authored with John R. Craig, "Medal of Honor - A Vietnam Warrior's Story" (Brassey's, Inc, 1995). 



Preparing for Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month
Hispanic Congressional Medal of Honor Recipients

The following websites have compiled by Rafael Ojeda to facilitate events and programs who writes, "I hope that this will help us to celebrate the lives of all our veterans not only our decorated heroes. God Bless them all and their families.

Rafael Ojeda RSNOJEDA@aol.com

http://www.homeofheroes.com/e-books/mohE_hispanic/index.html
http://www.acolorofhonor.org/archive/hispanicveterans/index.htr
http://www.gtz-ind.com/05202005_PressRelease.html
http://www.dod.mil/special/Hispanic2001/moh_home.html
http://www.puertorico-herald.org/issues/vol3n46/Hispanic   (the letters before the 3 is vol).
http://www.medalofhonor.com  click "recent passing" of Jose C. Rodriguez Nov 1, 2005.
plus the death of other vets.
http://www.medalofhonro.com/JoseValdez.htm    A Highway in NM named after him).



Red Skelton's Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag
Originally recorded from the Red Skelton Hour, January 14, 1969
To hear him explaining his feelings about the flag and what the flag represents, go to:
http://unknownprogrammer.home.comcast.net/index.html
Sent by Eddie Grijalva grijalvaet@sbcglobal.net

I

me, an individual, a committee of one.

Pledge

dedicate all of my worldly goods to give without self-pity.

Allegiance

my love and my devotion.

To the Flag

[of the]
our standard, Old Glory, a symbol of freedom. Wherever she waves, there's respect because your loyalty has given her a dignity that shouts freedom is everybody's job.

United

that means that we have all come together.

States

[of America]
individual communities that have united into 48 great states. 48 individual communities with pride and dignity and purpose, all divided with imaginary boundaries, yet united to a common purpose, and that's love for country.

and to the Republic

For Which It Stands
Republic ... a state in which sovereign power is invested in representatives chosen by the people to govern. And government is the people and it's from the people to the leaders, not from the leaders to the people.

One Nation

One Nation ... meaning, so blessed by God.

Indivisible

incapable of being divided.

With Liberty

which is freedom, the right of power to live one's own life, without threats, fear, or some sort of retaliation.

And Justice

the principle or qualities of dealing fairly with others.

For All

For all ... which means, boys and girls, it's as much your country as it is mine.



Pray for our Military. . . They believe in Prayer
Sent by ORDONEZ49NINER

 

 

Lakota Tribe in North Dakota Funeral Activities and Observance

This is the funeral activities and observance by the Lakota Tribe in North Dakota of one of their young men, killed in Iraq. The tenderness, respect, love, and unity is very touching as the traditions of their people are shown towards, the young Marine.  http://multimedia.rockymountainnews.com/slideshow/slideshow.cfm?type=DEFAULT& ID=012006lundstrom&NUM=1  Sent by Dorinda Moreno 
 


Hero Military Search

New Project by Heaven Sent Jewelry is seeking information on Your Hero has served or is currently serving in the U.S. military.  Tell us about your HERO (Your husband, wife, grandfather, son, daughter, uncle, grandson/grand daughter, etc) 

To participate
1) Tell us about your HERO.  No more than two paragraphs
2) Email us a jpeg (less than 500K) picture (military uniform or solo to hsjewels@msn.com
3) Submissions must have: Name, Rank, and Branch of Service & Home State.
4) Email Heading should read HERO
5) Sing up for our email blast to receive information pertaining to HERO Search
 
Deadline July 21st  Results  July 28th

By entering, entrants acknowledge compliance with these official rules including all eligibility requirements. All entries/photographs become the property of Heaven Sent Jewelry.



CUENTOS

Book: Scarred by Scandal, Redeemed by Love, Gloria DeLaTorre-Wycoff
Boxed Memories, Richard Sanchez
The Day Roosevelt Died, Summer l944, Frank Sifuentes

Who is Frank Sifuentes?
Nuestra Familia Unida Podcasts 
Traveling to Ancestral Locations in Search of True History by Mary Allen 

Inspirational Stories 
Micheal Lozano Embarks on a Journey of Self-Discovery, Part 3

 


This is a story of a woman's indomitable will.   Maria arrives in Los Angeles at eighteen and soon enters into a passionate love-affair with her brother-in-law, a prominent leader in the Mexican-American community.   Pregnant and alone, she is ostracized by unforgiving relatives.  What follows are years of poverty, raising her three children in dingy one-room apartments  With admiration and pride, her eldest daughter describes the struggle and the triumph of this amazing woman, and her strength and unending love for her family.
               Ted C. Synder, Ret. Professor of Journalism and Government

This is an extraordinary account of an immigrant woman.  In her memoir, DeLaTorre-Sycoff imparts more than a tribute to her mother, Maria.  it reveals the complexity of a woman who struggles against critical odds as a single unmarried mother, worker and survivor.  This story is also a disclosure of the harsh and complex realities immigrant women negotiate in their attempt to live in disparate and often conflicting worlds.  Disruption, destitution, sexism, racism and rejection characterize Maria's life, but so do adaptation, cohesion, uncompromising love and celebration  The lessons lived and learned about survival and adaptation profoundly affect and influence her three children who become college graduates and community leaders.

This memoir is a story of acceptance and forgiveness.  There is no rancor on these pages but rather an acceptance of a life that was as much shaped by the forces of the times, as it was by the difficult personal choices and decisions made by a unique woman.  DeLaTorre-Wycoff enlightens our understanding of how women utilize their intuitive and socially interactive skills to not only survive, but to transcend their circumstances.  She conveys a ray of hope to those of us who resonate with her spirit for living, loving and transformation. 
                 Naomi Quiñónez, Ph.D. Professor, American Studies, Poet, Author
                 "Sueño de Colibri /Hummingbird Dream": "The Smoking Mirror"

Gloria DeLaTorre-Wycoff, born and raised in Los Angeles, now lives in Lake Forest, California.  After raising five children, she earned a bachelor's and master's degree.  She has received awards for her contributions as a community leader and volunteer.  Today she prides herself on being the loving matriarch of a four-generation family.

Writing about a recent June weekend, Gloria wrote: "Dear Mimi, it’s been a marvelous whirlwind of a week with my family – 3 daughters, 1 sons, grand and great-grandchildren, sister, and nieces, nephews, etc.  We celebrated my 75th and had a ball." 

 

DeLaTorre Publishing
25422 Trabuco Road, #105-538
Lake Forest, CA 92630-2797
949-768-6105
gloria@delatorrepublishing.com
www.delatorrepublishing.com
www.redeemedbylove.com


Boxed Memories by Richard Sanchez

 

I spent many hours looking through the box of faded photographs, not just once, not just today, but many times, over the years. The blue box of photographs is a treasury of memories, captured moments and black and white smiles. In the scalloped Fox and Kodak images, are moments that we left behind. It was yesteryear, so very long ago. I remember the place, and I remember.

The magic in the blue box of photographs takes me back to a wonderful time, a happy time. Our house, on Twenty-First and Fay was full with noise and laughter. We had both our parents and I never lacked a brother or sister. There were plenty of us to go around.

 

My paternal grandparents lived next door. I remember the place, but the people in the photos are so much younger than I recall. My ‘buelo Diego stands proud in one of the pictures. He stands, well dressed with his handsome young sons. Those are my uncles and my dad.

My ‘buelo Diego was a good man. From the platicas and cuentos that I have heard, he was a hard worker and was always eager to help. He helped my great grandfather bring our families to Texas. La familia settled in Edinburg where they worked and eventually bought a couple of lots to build on. At that time, Twenty-First and Fay were at the edge of town.

When I hunt my memories, I find myself up early in the morning. My sisters and I are out the door. My dad sends us out to go greet my ‘buelo, to darle los buenos dias. Like little soldiers, we walk the path from our house, across ‘buela Veva’s garden, and to our grandparents front door.

My grandparents are up very early. At seven thirty, they are up, dressed and have already had their breakfast. They sit in their living room and pray the rosary, thanking God for another blessed day. They pray the rosary in the evening too.

We approach my ‘buela Veva and greet her with a handshake and a bow. We tell her one at a time, "Buenos dias, abuelita." We then line up to greet my grandfather, ‘buelito Diego. He sits in his chair, but does not move his head. Only his eyes can follow us.

My "buelito Diego is old and he is sick. He no longer talks, he only mumbles. Sometimes, he tries to talk, but he is difficult to understand and only ‘buela can understand him. When ‘buelo Diego walks, he has to shuffle from room to room, he can no longer lift his legs to move his feet. It is as if he is paralyzed. When we shake his hand in our "Buenos dias" greeting, his hand is in a loose fist and he cannot open it. Still, we shake his hand in our greeting.

For a long time now, ‘buelo’s right hand shakes on its own. It moves up and down as if he is strumming the strings on a guitar. But there is no guitar, his hand moves on its own. ‘Buela says he shakes because he is sick.

I feel bad for my grandfather. He wants to talk and respond to our words, but only mumbles come out. Soon he tires, he whimpers, and tears began to flow from his graying eyes. I think his heart aches with love for his grandchildren. That is what my heart tells me. Sometimes, hearts can talk when people can’t. That is my ‘buelo Diego in the photographs. He was not a big man, but he had a big heart.

That is my ‘buelo Diego in the photographs. He was not a big man, but he was a good man and he had a big heart. I will remember ‘buelo Diego and I will follow in his footsteps. Some day, down the road in life, someone may say something about me; I hope they say that I too was a good man, just like my ‘buelo Diego. Then, when I can no longer talk, when I can no longer walk, I will smile and my heart will be full.

Richard Sanchez  r-osunchase@msn.com
3400 W. Hwy 490, Edinburg, Tx 78539



THE DAY ROOSEVELT DIED, Summer l944

Written by: Frank M. Sifuentes 

Those of us still above ground who were born in the l920's and early 1930's remember World War II with a profound sense of having been impacted, changed and redirected by it.

During these years, 1941-45. I sold newspapers and shined shoes, and was able to read about what was happening in the battle fields, and was able to hear lots of conversation about the war.

And like most Austinites, the movies became my favorite form of entertainment, which assured that I saw over and over the Movie-Tone reports of Lowell Thomas, with films showing details of the horrors.

Not to mention the series of movies about the war, such as Bataan with Robert Taylor and Robert Walker (who played a U.S. sailor). It added up to a global picture in which civilizations had gone berserk!

But in Austin the calm and the peace remained. And we were 'energized' and offered 'war created' opportunities. People planted victory gardens, bought liberty bonds and stamps, endured rationing of gas, sugar, nylon stockings and other items.

The schools involved us in war related activities. My sister Carmen tells Of how she won a contest selling liberty stamps in the sixth grade and of how it was a glorious moment in her life. Her prize was a ride in an Army Jeep to Bergstrom Air Base to join the fighting men in having lunch. Prior to that she was scarcely aware there was a war going on.

The Americanization of the first born of immigrant Mexicans was greatly intensified. For how could we continue having reverence for the Mexican Flag, when reverence for any flag other than the American flag was considered un-American.

When we, the students of Zavala Elementary School - every one of us Mexicanos - recited the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag and sang the Stars Spangle Banner, and American the Beautiful we did it with authenticity, and with a real sense of pride and purpose. And we did it with the sweet feeling of belonging, made more real by the super outstanding teaching of Miss Stohl, who made sure we became part of Americana.

Few elementary school students could sing Dixie, Home of the Range, Clementine, Buffalo Gal and American the Beautiful better than Miss Stohl's Zavala Elementary School music classes. It didn't matter to her in the least that most of us spoke more Spanish than English. Our English sounded just fine when we sang for her.

When reports came in of the losses of military men who were from East Austin, our Americanization seemed to have become complete. Though it was difficult to fathom that Elias Lopez, Armando Botello, And others from out part of town had given their life for their country.

Mexico, less than 200 miles away from Austin, psychologically became as far away as Japan.

What held this World War II consciousness together more than anything was the voice of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the only president my generation had ever know. He belonged to us and we belonged to him. His tears and sorrows were our tears and sorrows. 

He was guiding us skillfully and masterfully through this incredible National ordeal. And when he told us we were winning this monumental world struggle against the evils of fascism and Japanese Imperialism, we could be sure he was telling us the truth and rejoiced.

Never in our wildest dreams did we believe he would die on us.

But he did - of a cerebral hemorrhage in the summer of l944 after having been elected for an unprecedented 4th term. 

They say he died from wear and tear from the war experience which is probably true; however after watching the movie, (and reading the book) Winds of War it's possible he died from drinking too many martinis and smoking too many cigarettes.

I vividly remember the day President Roosevelt died.

I was a 13 year old who had finally become a viable pin-setter at a West Austin bowling alley which had leagues playing every evening; bowling was a rage in Austin.

It was a frightful experience for me. Having to set pins for two lanes was really difficult because they had pin-setting machines that were large, heavy and had to be slammed down so smoothly that all the pins would be left standing. If one fell, especially if it fell on the other pins, we'd have to get down on our knees and stand them up again, and very often just as the player was about to send the cannon ball down the lane as fast as he or she could.

Fanatical bowlers got real grouchy when the pins would fall on their own and delayed their gratification, as if each ball they zipped down the lane was a step closer to ending the war. And sometimes just for the fun of it one of those characters would throw the ball to see how fast we could get out of The way.

I nevertheless remember these bowling pin-setting experiences fondly.

There were some real characters, besides myself, working there. Like Jesse Soliz and Lee Mendez, who were a bit sex crazed. They enjoyed working at the bowling alley because they loved to watch 'pierna' (leg) as the women sat in shorts or forgot to cover up. And when the ones who wore dresses bowled, they showed their legs but good.

Jesse was good and fast at setting pins. He easily to care of his two alleys and would jumped over to one of mine when he saw I was lagging and catching dirty looks from the players. Once when he quickly placed the bowling ball on the groove as I was stooping to pick up pins, it accidentally fell on my head.

On the day Roosevelt died, I was working at this bowling alley, enjoying the pay of 10 cents a line, which added up by the end of the evening because each player bowled about ten games. And the players who were generous would give us a tip, especially if they had won.

We were on a break, until the next league got ready to go, when we heard on the loud speaker the news that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had died. It was a terrible surprise, but I got another surprise I was not ready for in the least.

Just as the word came across on the speakers, I heard nothing but cheers. And one man jumped up and said with so much anger, "Good, I'm glad that son of a bitch is dead!". And there was a lot of agreement.

Obviously the bowling league for that night was made up of Republicans who were frustrated for having been out of power since l932, and were growing weary of the FDR 'dictatorship'.

However, I had no way of knowing anything about electoral politics. In l944 there probably were only about two dozen Mexican Americans in all of Austin who paid the poll tax allowing them to vote.

And why any American would be happy about the death of our great President FDR was totally beyond my comprehension.

FDR had been our President. The President of all the people. He had brought work to Mexicans, Afro American and Anglo Americans alike. He first wanted to avoid the war, then decided it was good business to arm the European powers fighting against the evil Hitler. Then he declared war on Japan, and then on Germany, changing America forever.

 


Who is Frank Sifuentes?

I've been an active writer since l966 in terms of aiming at being published in the Chicano press; and in letter to the LA TIMES editor (since 65 my letters expressing concerns over racism in all of our country's major institutions: With major focus on immigration, education, law enforcement AND Chicano life and culture.

I was one of the founders of Con Safos Magazine, La Raza Newspaper, a magazine Francisca Flores and I published called Regeneration.  We published 10 issues the first year and put it into the hands of CalState LA writers; mostly women and a couple of visual artists, including Harry Gamboa. They published 2 or 3 issues; and as students went on to their chosen career. 

In terms of published articles, I had many in La Raza Magazine clear up to the time it became a Magazine. Don't know if I told you that in those days to put a by-line was considered vanity fair and a sort of stepping stone to qualify for main media (captive press). I agreed with that. And only by-lined a couple.

There 3 or 4 other magazine I published in during the 70's and 80's; one was organized by Roberto Rodriguez called America:2000.

While I continued in a career in human services; child-abuse and domestic violence, health and community development. In fact since l966 I used my gift for writing to develop training plans; and write proposals for funding.  It is in proposal writing that I can take real pride in because my proposals brought resources into the community.

From l971 to 1973 I was Community Relations Secretary for the Southwest Region of the American Friends Service Committee. hree of the four projects I developed there ended up establishing counter institutions in the field of direct positive social action.

From l969/71 I was the founding director of Centro Joaquin Murieta de Atzlan and we recruited and sent 3000 gente chicana into colleges and universities. That Project lasted another 4 years.

After that I did a year a USC Centro Chicano as academic counselor and recruiter. We recruited more chicanos in one summer than they had enrolled from the beginning. While there I organized Festival de Flor y Canto. 

Spent three years, l975-78 as Community Activity Coordinator for 10 L.A. County Youth Opportunity Centers  

During the school year of  l980-81 I was Supervisor of Recruitment of Chicanos for Cal State Dominguez with fairly middling success. Then I worked for El Centro Community Mental Health Center 1982-85; and was fired because I joined the union; I sued and received an award of $5000 after turning down the option of being reinstated and back pay. Then I became Resource and Development Coordinator with Plaza Community Center that provides early childhood education, health and family counseling. My proposal established a permanent institution named Plaza Family Support Center. 

This brings me to my last place of employment Multicultural Area Heath Education Center where I also worked as RD&PR Coordinator. By this time I had been regularly publish articles on health and human service issues. And published about 50-60 articles. Including cultural
issues. And ended my formal career in l994. Spending full time writing and started a new serious of c/s magazines with a $2000 a year grant from CAC.

In l996 I had a serious heart attack that resulted in open heart surgery. by l997 my wife and I began a new career in Resident Managers of Section 8 senior housing. And here we are circa 2006.

In terms of social action I am happy to have remained in the background. However, I can tell the story of where I was and what I did from l967 on with thanks to God for allowing me to survive without becoming a cultural hero of any kind of substantial way. But if people want a word that can define me within the context of social movement for peace and justice. They can say, I was a link, and that much of what I linked did not remain in the records.

YA YA YA..soy frank sifuentes, Conzafos.

 

Nuestra Familia Unida 6/26/06  Two new messages in this issue. 
1. Low Riders Podcast/PabloNeruda/New Cuentos de Kiko
Posted by: "Joseph Puentes" makas@nc.rr.com makas_nc
Have a listen to the "Low Riders" poem by Jim Moreno in the Poetry 
section of the NFU podcast: http://nuestrafamiliaunida.com/podcast/poetry.html

2. HearOnEarth/EnlaHistoria 
From: Joseph Puentes

Many new Cuentos de Kiko in the Oral History area by Frank Moreno Sifuentes:
http://nuestrafamiliaunida.com/podcast/oral_history.html#kiko
===> "Las Lagrimas de Mama Grande Juanita - 1938" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "Mama Grande Lupe - Influenza" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "1915 - Mexican Immigrant" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "Immigrantes Mejicanos" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "The Day Roosevelt Died - 1944" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "With Due Respect to Erma Bombeck" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "The Black Squad - 1948" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "From Drive By Shootings to Toxic Clouds" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "My Unusual Birth - 1932" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "The Three Musketeers" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "Early School Memories - 1938" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "Chrismas Memories- 1943 - Losers Weepers Finders Keepers" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "El Lote Grande de Nuestra Vecinidad" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "Shoe Shine Boy in a White Man's Barber Shop - 1945" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "Canicas Con Stella by Starlight" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "Pedro Chaisse - Mexican Immigrant 1924" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "Canicas Con Connie Castillo - Christmas 1947" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "My Personal Resolve - Korean War Revisit" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "Halloween Night - 1944" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "It Remains Prohibited" by Pablo Neruda
===> "Japanese Love Goddess - 1951" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "La Calle Ancha Del Pasado" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "La Nieve" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "Las Cucarachas" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "Las Lindas Mujeres" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "My Testimony To The 9-11 Event" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "Puppy Love At A Distance - 1945" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes
===> "The Bean Contest" by Frank Moreno Sifuentes

There have been many new podcasts made available to the http://NuestraFamiliaUnida.com podcast project. A great collection of Oral History stories by Frank Moreno Sifuentes including his translation of the Pablo Neruda poem, "It Remains Prohibited." But two new poets (Jim Moreno and Diego Davalos) to the podcast have by far taken center stage with their poetry. Have a listen to Jim Moreno's "Lowrider" poem and Diego Davalos' "Reclamando La Linea" and "Cesar."

http://NuestraFamiliaUnida.com/podcast/poetry.html

There is still much work to be done in getting the word out to the community about the Nuestra Familia Unida podcast project. Please consider joining the planning committee for the project at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/podhi/ Any questions or comments can be directed to Joseph Puentes: NFU@JosephPuentes.com



Traveling to Ancestral Locations in Search of True History by Mary Allen

Hello! I actually returned on December 8 from Mexico City and San Felipe "Torres Mochas", Guanajuato, but I believe a large piece of my heart is still in Mexico. That trip has totally changed my life. Really. I don't really know where to begin because it was such an incredible experience. 

Much of the success of this trip I attribute to the kind help of many of you. There is Carol Turner who advised me about collecting "classic" photos, which I did. I purchased a good digital camera just before I left and gave up trying to master the manual on the plane. Luckily my new primo's son was into things electronic and taught me how to use it. Lucky me! My 80-year-old primo Enrique Guzman Romero has been into genealogy for decades and has written extensively about his town especially researching why it is called "Torres Mochas". He has a magnificent collection of photos of several generations of the Romero family. The most outstanding was his collection of wedding photos. Beautiful. I have to go back when the weather is warmer because even with four days there just was not enough time to copy all the photos I wanted and gather information.

And thanks to Victor Villarreal for warning me about traveling alone. Just before I was to leave, I broke my left foot. That really affected my plans but there was no way I would not go. But I was fortunate that Continental Airlines helped me all the way there and back and I had to do very little hobbling. I took your advise about the airport taxi in Mexico City and got the pay in advance kind. Truthfully, my impetuous nature was challenged a bit because I had to depend on others to help me because I just could not manage the cobblestones with my "boot". Sigh. And I always seemed to be on cobblestone. 

And thank you, Joseph. My first stop was to visit a 93 year old prima who asked me to come to her convent in Mexico City even though she confided to others she had no idea who I was. Imagine my chagrin when doing more looking through old photos I found one of the two of us, together. She is blind and almost deaf but she got a chuckle when I told her I had evidence that we had met in 1967 and had posed for several photographs together in San Antonio, Texas. 

Joseph had advised me to actually make a list of the questions I would pose. That was so important. I had no problem with the small tape recorder; she couldn't see it, but because I had to speak into her ear, I had to make my questions clear and brief. She was so alert and had great answers. Once she started talking she was off non stop, she remembered so much that I hardly had to coax her at all. She came up with wonderful anecdotes about her life as a young woman. She even spoke of what a wonderful pianist "Manuel" was. I took a chance and asked her if she meant the Manuel Ponce who wrote "Estrellita". That's exactly whom she meant and she was off on an anecdote about him.

We had three wonderful sessions. Then she got the flu and she was so medicated that she slept for the next three days that I was there. I regretted not being able to visit more with her but it gave me an opportunity to speak to the other Sisters in the convent and I heard great stories about their experiences during the revolution and when they were young. With them I visited a wonderful bazaar of indigenous arts and later a Pastorela at a school. I ate some interesting foods. But it was so cold. Even though I had warm clothing with me, it just wasn't enough.

Sister Beatrice drove me to the airport when I was gong to Leon, Guanajuato. She has nerves of steel. She just smiled when she heard me gasp. 

My primo and his son Oscar met me at the airport at Leon. What a blessing because our destination was another hour away...at a fast clip through some very mountainous, curvey upward climbing highway. I clung to the seat as I looked down town. It was beautiful but just so far down there and I wondered if it was really necessary to drive so fast. 

Emilie Garcia had advised me to take large photos. I took her advice and prepared a bound copy of our family photos. It was a hit. My host and primo, Enrique, seemed to like it very much. He carried it around, showing it off. Thanks, Emilie.

But the gift Enrique had for me far surpassed anything I could imagine. He teased me about my complaints that I came from " una familia muy chiquita". I followed him to his studio and watched as he reached for a long roll which he slowley unrolled across his desk. It must have measured about 7 ft. "Aqui esta tu familia "chiquita"", he smiled. I couldn't breathe! It was covered with names and photographs. I really wanted to cry. Immediately I saw my great grandfather's photo as a handsome young man. And I learned that his mother's name was Josefa Galvan.

There were so many beautiful people all down the length of the tree. There were hundreds of names. I was speechless. "Jamas puedes decir que tienes una familia chiquita!" But I wondered how I was going to get a copy of this. From the drive through the small town I seriously doubted that there was a "Kinkos". But, on the fourth day he surprised me by carefully rolling it up and giving it to me before I left for the return trip. Such generosity.

I did contribute something to him, however, that he did not expect...a branch, well, maybe a twig, on his great tree. Somehow, my grandmother Petra Romero Gonzalez, had disappeared altogether. Her brother and sister were there, but she appeared no where. He was so surprised that he got on the phone and called relatives in San Luis whom he had interviewed and who had spoken affectionately about the other two siblings but never mentioned Petra. And they still did not know about her. They insisted she did not exist but of course I had photos of her and even some documents clearly identifying her. She even lived in the area for 40 years.

I went through some very sad moments and Enrique and I were on the internet, on the phone and even made a couple of visits to interview living relatives who still remembered the family. I was crushed when they would shake their head and say they never heard of her. It really made me very upset. Petra was the child of Victor Romero Galvan's first marriage. He had many children from his second marriage and I knew that my grandmother for some reason did not like the second wife. In fact when her mother died, she was sent to live with her "madrina", but she knew the second wife, Sotera Gutierrez. Enrique and I worked an average of 5 to 8 hours a day, far into the night, searching everywhere and everything, photos, lists, calling here and there, to no avail.
Now I just want to know "why". In fact I have a list of 13 "whys". 

I don't remember who told me about dreaming about our ancestors. I did. A lot. Maybe it was because I studied the photos all four days that I was there. Over and over, looking for a familiar face in a group photo. Looking for some clue. In my dreams I could see them all, walking around, saying something to me, but I couldn't understand. It was a recurring dream and I could see their mouths move, but couldn't hear the words . I could especially see my bisabuelo, come so close to me, speak, smile and move away. I told Enrique; he just shrugged his shoulders. He saw that I was upset. So, we promised to meet when it is warmer and my foot is healed and go to San Luis Potosi where there is another primo who has a collection of family letters. We hope maybe one of them will give us some information.

When I got home, I wasted no time in moving all of Petra's material from the Romero binder to the Garana binder. They won't get her back until they let me know why they ostracized (?) ignored(?) alienated (?) her. There is a story there and I so want to know even though in knowing it may cause more hurt. My father warned me when I started this many years ago. He said to be certain you were ready to accept anything you might find out. Now I wonder if he knew something. It would be safer to just get dates and connections and not stories...but people are more than dates. And if what I learn is shocking or hurtful, I'll deal with it.

So, back to the drawing board. 

On ROMERO family tree there are the following who lived in Salinas, SLP, Aguascalientes, San Luis Potoso,SLP, Lagos de Moreno, Jalisco. The oldest names date to 1800. 

ALVARADO, AVILA, ANDRADE, ARAGON, AGUIRRE, BALERO, BLANCO, CARREON, CORTEZ, CASTANEDA, CASTILLO, CARMIN, CHAVEZ, CHENHOLLS, CAMPOS, CERVANTEX, CANALES, CASTELAZA, CORILLO, CONTRERAS, CASTRO, DE LA ROSA, DELGADO, DE ESNAURRIZAR, DELGADILLO, DEL TORO, ESQUIVEL, ESCUDERO, FLURY, FONSECA, GARCIA, GARZA, GAMA, GUEVARA, GALLARDO, GRIMALDO, HERNANDEZ, HIGUERA, IZCARENO, ISAIS, JUAREZ, KOUBICHER, LUNA, LOPEZ, LLAMAS, LICON, MARIN, MATA, MANTECA, MENDIOLA, MONTOYA, MEDINA, MUNOS, MEDELLIN, NAJERA, OWENS, OROZCO, OTERO, PINA, PEDROSA, PRIETO, PEREZ, PONCE, RIVERO, ROJAS, ROMERO, RODRIGUEZ, REGALADO, RAMOS, RUIZ, ROMAN, REBOLLEDO, ROBINSON, SALINAS, SAUSO, SNCHEZ, SAN JOSE, SALDIVAR, TREJO, UGARTE, VIDALES, VALADEZ, VELARDE, VELEZ, ZUAREZ, 


My poor primo tried so hard, but we came up with nothing. Well, when I left, I was so grateful for all and he did go to his computer, type up our twig and paste it on. I came back with many anecdotes about life in their times; Mimi Lozano suggested that I write them up and submit them to her. I may. It was Mimi who lead me to Ranchos so I am especially grateful to her.

Again, thanks to everyone for the help and encouragement. If any of the above names are of interest to anyone, I'll be happy to provide what I have.

I think I have become genealogy obsessed. Now I just can't stop. But I still did not find a thing about the GARANA side!

Mary
mary.allen3770@sbcglobal.net

PS You may not hear from me for a while, but rest assured that everyday I read everything single item with great interest and gusto. I wish you all a peaceful Christmas and a wonderful new year full of new discoveries. May your ancestors be kind and allow themselves to be found!! 12/17/2005



Inspirational Stories 
http://www.innerloca.blogspotcom/

Hi everyone, One of my friend, Nancy Marmelijo, interviews some women with inspirational stories through a pod cast. I thought this could be a great resource for the youth... It's free , perhaps it could be used to inspire the youth.  Please feel free in passing this around... it will only be effective if people hear it. I do believe that our Latina's will be inspired by hearing from Latina's in their back yard.

I'm number # 8, most of the interviews are about 30 minutes. If you have a chance, check out Dr. Nora Comstock, she is the founder of Las Comadres..an awesome organization that is one of my favorites. Dr. Ana Nogales, Nancy Marmeljo, Tanya are some members of the group. There's no fee ... wealth of information and great opportunity in meeting Latina's nation wide. 

Take care, Addy Perez-Mau
Co-founder S.H.E. www.stayhomeentrepreneur.com
Office (714) 619-4816 "Say it with Emotion"
Check out our BLOG http://heavensentjournal.blogspot.com



               Micheal Lozano Embarks on a Journey of Self-Discovery, Part 3

Texas greeted me with a bang. A severe thunderstorm blasted in as I crossed the state line into Texas on Interstate 10. I watched in horror as a car careened out of control on the other side of the highway and flipped over. I couldn’t do anything because there was so much traffic on my side. Feeling helpless, I continued on cautiously. Even Dudley looked scared. I inched along through Beaumont, Texas. The rain finally let up as I got closer to Houston.

The Spanish explored Texas’ eastern and western regions in the early sixteenth century. In 1519, Spanish Captain Alonso Alvarez de Piñeda sailed from Jamaica with four ships into the Rio Grande River. In 1540, another explorer, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado explored the Texas panhandle. Some of the missionaries that came after Coronado, began trading with the Tejas Indians. The name "Texas" was a Spanish word given the Indians which meant "friends" or "allies." The tribal names of these Texas Indians were "Hasinai" or "Assinais." The name "Texas" stuck and became the most used name for this territory.

As I approached Houston, I wanted to see where General Sam Houston won the Battle of San Jacinto to gain Independence for Texas. I took Route 225 east of Houston when I came to a 570 foot tall monument. The monument is capped by a huge Texas Lone Star. A museum sat at the base of the monument. On April 21, 1836, after a month and a half of retreating from battle, General Sam Houston stopped at this point and turned to fight. It appears that an act of providence had an effect on Houston’s decision to fight. Houston captured some Mexican couriers who had secret dispatches which revealed the strength and disposition of the Mexican forces. Houston was exactly in the right place at the right time. General Santa Anna had divided his force and only had 950 hand-picked men with him as he pushed in hot pursuit of the running Texans. Houston also knew that another 550 Mexican soldiers were coming to join Santa Anna. Houston, with 900 men, was not very concerned about this relatively small addition to Santa Anna’s force; the numbers were still comparable since Houston had the advantage of knowing the ground where the fight would be initiated. Santa Anna was expecting his second-in-command to join forces with him with an additional 2,500 men, but Houston attacked while they were too far apart to effect a link-up. While Santa Anna rested in an open field surrounded by water, Houston burned the only avenue of escape—a bridge that traversed the watery maze. In essence Houston was cutting off his own escape route if his attack did not succeed. Santa Anna did not believe that Houston would attack. So Santa Anna had his troops rest and waited for his separated army to join him. The stars were aligned perfectly for Houston. He waited until about 4:00 p.m. to launch his attack. The Mexicans were napping and unprepared when the 900 Texans rushed their camp yelling "Remember the Alamo!" They flew into a panic. Surprise was total. In 20 minutes the battle was over. The Mexicans lost 630, had 208 wounded and 730 taken prisoner. The Texans lost nine men and had 30 wounded. Houston was shot in the leg. Santa Anna was one of the captured. Houston forced Santa Anna to sign an agreement saying he would never again take up arms against Texas and would withdraw all Mexican forces from Texas. The Mexican government denounced the agreement and Santa Anna resigned his presidency. Houston had Santa Anna travel to Washington D.C. to meet with President Andrew Jackson in order to give the agreement some semblance of legitimacy. The agreement was really a chance for Santa Anna to save his life and not an agreement of formal Independence from Texas. Even though the Mexican government did not agree to Texas independence, Santa Anna’s agreement was given legitimacy because The United States, Britain, and France acknowledged their independence, and Mexico wasn’t strong enough to do anything about it. This lack of a formal agreement set the stage for the United States to go to war with Mexico nine years later.

As I looked west, I imagined seeing 773 miles of wide open country clear through to the New Mexico border. Texas is one big state. With 267,338 square miles, it is the second largest state next to Alaska. I have visited this state more than any other. I approached Houston on Interstate 10. It is the fastest growing city in the United States. Its two million people make it America’s fifth largest city. The Houston-Galveston area is the oil capital of the United States. The picture I have in my mind is of actor John Travolta playing "Bud" in "Urban Cowboy." I imagined Houston life as working at the oil refinery and drinking Lone Star beer at Gilly’s. In real life, Texans are boisterous people. You will find no other people so full of life. They love to dance, are fanatics when it comes to sports, and they love barbecue, chili, and the Mexican plate. You can go just about anywhere in the state and find a rodeo. They have college rodeos, prison rodeos, Mexican rodeos and the traditional rodeo. The rodeo in Texas is the best show in town. Everyone goes and the fans take personal interest in the cowboys. There are even groupies who follow the cowboys just as if they were rock stars. The cowboy hat is proper attire for man, woman or child.

The Houston Ship Channel is the third busiest in the nation. Its location made it ideal for trading with the world, but in 1900 the location worked against the people of this area. That year a hurricane blew through Galveston and flattened the city killing 6,000 people.

On these same shores, in 1528, the greatest odyssey of all time took place. This journey even outdid Lewis and Clark’s, but is not widely known because of its Spanish origin. Conquistador Pánfilo de Narváez left Santiago, Cuba with four ships and 400 men to establish a town on the Rio Grande River called the "Rio de Las Palmas." His fleet was blown off course in a storm and ended up on the coast of Florida. He decided to disembark with the horses and three quarters of his soldiers, and march overland to the Rio Grande while the fleet met up with him further up the coast. After looking for the men on shore for a year, the fleet gave up and sailed back to Cuba. Narváez then decided to build five barges to try to reach Mexico. They pushed off from Pensacola Bay. Before long, the five boats were lost at sea and fewer than 100 cold, naked Spaniards were washed up on the Texas shore near Galveston Island. One of these men was Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, the ship’s treasurer. On the Island with very little food or shelter the survivors began to die one by one until there were only 15 men. They finally turned to cannibalism. Before long the Indians came upon Cabeza de Vaca and made him a slave. He was taught all the Indian ways and soon learned how they survived solely on the natural resources of the area. This tribe of Indians was known as the Karankawas. De Vaca later met a larger tribe that the Karakawas traded with, called the Coahuiltecans. They traveled as far inland as the San Antonio River. After five years alone with the Indians, de Vaca learned that there were three other Spaniards with another Indian tribe down by the coast. The three men were: Dorantes, the doctor’s son, Castillo, and Estevánico, a Black man from Morocco. The four of them decided to escape to Mexico. They headed down the Gulf Coast until they reached the Rio Grande River. After much walking, they entered the Sierra Madre Mountains in northern Mexico. They passed through the Indian villages that became the town of Cerralvo. My Grandmother, Refugio Bosque Lozano, was born in Cerralvo. They were told that the Indian tribes between Cerralvo and the coastal Spanish settlement of Panuco near present day Vera Cruz, were hostile to whites. They would be immediately killed if they were discovered. With this route to safety being so dangerous, they decided to go west to the other big ocean, the Pacific, where there were other Spanish settlements. They had no way of knowing the distance was over 2,000 miles. They moved along the mountains where present day Monterrey is located. This range naturally guided them back north until they re-crossed the Rio Grande River somewhere near Big Bend National Park at a town called Lajitas. They criss-crossed the Rio Grande River near Ojinaga, Mexico and Presidio, Texas. The party then cut across western Texas on what is known as the Shell Trail until they reached Casa Grande, the largest ancient Native American city in the Mexican borderland, between Douglas, Arizona and Chihuahua, Mexico. They traveled with the friendly Tarahumara Indians until they came out of the Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains to the Pacific plain in December of 1536. They were discovered by a Spanish scouting party and taken to their leader, Captain Lázaro de Cárdenas. They were later brought to Diego de Alcarez, the leader of the Spanish expedition. They had survived being shipwrecked nearly eight years earlier and a 2,500 mile journey. They traveled 7,000 miles total by land and sea since they left Cuba. Cabeza de Vaca is my true inspiration. There can be no greater traveler then this great survivor. He eventually made his way all the way back to Spain and wrote a best-selling book about his story. He returned to explore Paraguay in South America and tried to stop abuses of the Indians which brought him the hatred of other Spaniards who rebelled against him. He was sent back to Spain to live the rest of his life poor and humiliated.

I traveled down the coast of Texas straight south. The land was flat and almost treeless. There were miles and miles of rice and grain fields. I traveled through the coastal town of Matagorda. This is where the Colorado River empties into the Gulf of Mexico. There isn’t much to see here. It is a secluded beach without many facilities—only a few rental properties along the riverfront for vacationers. The reason I wanted to come here is that the famous French explorer Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, died here in an unsuccessful attempt to start a colony on what he thought was a western arm of the Mississippi River. He arrived off Matagorda Bay in January of 1685. La Salle built a fortification he called Fort Saint Louis. He only had 180 settlers by this time out of the original 300 and four ships. Pirates took one ship. One ship ran aground and sank with all their food, medicines, and tools. Another ship sailed back to France with a group of disgruntled settlers. He only had one ship left, the Belle, to continue his explorations and for safe resupply from Canada. La Salle left for extended periods of time which caused much despair. Finally, a storm sank the last ship, the "Belle." By January, 1687, there were only 37 people left alive. LaSalle took 17 men with him to seek help. His men had become so angry with his leadership that in March, five of his men ambushed and killed La Salle. Five of the men eventually made it back to Canada and then back to France but no help was sent to the remaining colonists who were killed or made slaves by the Indians. After more than 300 years, the wreck of the "Belle" was found in Matagorda Bay in 1995. A team of archaeologists from the Texas Historical Commission excavated the underwater site by building a waterproof cofferdam around the sunken ship in order to recover and preserve the artifacts of the La Salle ship.

The harsh elements of Texas weather have a way of driving people mad. I can empathize with La Salle. I remember a few times while traveling in Texas that my family and I behaved badly. The kids went crazy and my wife was ready to mutiny. As I traveled on the same road along the coast, I remembered that we stopped to camp at Goose Island State Park. My daughter was two years old. My wife decided to go for a jog. She asked me to keep an eye on the kids. I got my two children to lay down to take a nap with me. My son went to sleep but my daughter got up and decided to follow her mother down the park road. When my wife came back, she asked me where my daughter, Leigh, was. I said she was lying right next to me, but I didn’t know where she went. We searched all over for her in a panic. We finally found her walking down the road crying about a half mile away. My wife never let me forget my carelessness. I was so thankful that my baby girl was ok. Another time, my wife and I got into an argument on a lonely Texas highway and I said "Let me out of the car." She let me out and she drove off and left me in the middle of nowhere. After letting me stew for a while, she turned around to get me. Another time while letting the kids ride in the back of the truck under the camper, we thought that we would get some peace and quiet for a while. It was great to not have to hear all their whining. Listening to two- and four-year-olds bicker can sometimes get to you, especially when trapped in a confined place for days. My wife and I were having a good time just making conversation when I noticed that we were low on gas. I pulled over at the nearest gas station. When I opened up the camper to get the kids out I couldn’t believe my eyes. My daughter’s entire body from head to toe was covered with red permanent marker spots. We made quite a scene at that lonely Texas gas station as my wife yelled at my daughter and I yelled at my son, and my wife and I yelled at each other for putting the kids back there by themselves. It just shows you how fast peace, happiness and harmony can turn to utter chaos.

I came next to Corpus Christi, Texas. In this area of Texas it is immediately obvious that this area is more Tex-Mex than just Tex. The radio stations play more Tejano music than American popular music. Tejano music has been evolving over 150 years. It started with popular Mexican folk music being spiced up with German and Czech accordion tunes. I went to Germany and the Czech Republic to see for myself if there really were similarities in the music of these two separate parts of the globe. I was surprised to hear the same lively accordion tunes in Prague. The horns used the same polka rhythm. The German use of the accordion was very similar. In the early 1800s German immigrants came to Monterrey, Mexico to start beer breweries. They brought their love of German accordion music with them. They soon adapted the accordion music to the famous Mexican orchestra sound. The marriage of the two sounds stuck and grew into Tejano music. Later American fiddle music was also added. The Spanish style of music using guitar and violin music extensively was also a great addition to Tejano music. As Mexican artists learned of other world styles they were influenced by Rhythm and Blues, Rock and Roll, and Soul, but, the most influence came from the wide range and variety of popular Mexican folk music which was inspired largely by polkas, waltzes, rancheras, redovas, mambos, boleros, and other Spanish dance styles.

There are many more Mexicans living and working in Corpus Christi than Anglos. And Spanish is spoken more than English. Along with this comes some discrimination. Some people’s problem with marriage and relations between Mexicans and Anglos becomes more obvious here. There is great pride among Mexican Americans in retaining their Mexican customs. Mexican Americans are especially proud of their heroes and one of the most well known in south Texas is singer Selena. She was born Selena Quintanilla in Corpus Christi on April 16, 1971 to Abraham and Marcella Quintanilla. (Author’s note –One branch of the Lozano family descended from Mexico settler Bartoleme Quintanilla in the early 1500s) When Selena turned 9, her father realized she had real talent and started a family band with Selena as the lead singer. Her sister Suzette was the drummer and her brother, Abraham III, was the guitar player. They named the band, "Selena y Los Dinos." This was the story of a loving father and his children going from rags to riches. They started playing at local venues, traveling the back roads of South Texas to play at county fairs and festivals. By 1987, Selena was named "Female Vocalist of the Year." She was an icon among Tejano music lovers of Texas, Mexico and other places around the country where there were large Mexican populations. Selena was quickly bringing Tejano music to new heights. She was now performing to crowds of over 60,000 people in such venues as the Houston Astrodome. She married her fellow band member Chris Perez in 1992, and in 1993 she won her first Grammy award. Selena was able to successfully break through to the mainstream pop music market with several hits. Tragically on March 31, 1995, Selena was gunned down in the parking lot of the Day’s Inn Motel by a disgruntled former president of her fan club who was embezzling money. Thousands of mourners came from all parts of the United States and Mexico to pay their last respects to the young, beautiful Mexican star. People magazine put Selena on the cover of a commemorative edition, only the third such tribute in the publication’s history. A major motion picture entitled "Selena" was made about her life starring Jennifer Lopez. Today there is a museum in Corpus Christi that celebrates her life and retraces her rise to stardom. Thinking of the pain that must have overcome Abraham at losing his daughter, Selena, I thought of my own daughter. I’d like to get closer to my daughter. We were very close while she was growing up, but after she entered college, we found less time to share with each other. I hope we can find the time for each other again because life is so short. We never will have another chance to live a day that has passed by. I love her so very much.

I headed down Highway 77 through King’s Ranch, the largest Ranch in Texas. Between Kingsville and Raymondsville there is nothing but range lands for cattle. You will go 75 miles with no gas stations or towns. When I came out of this desert, I entered a Garden of Eden. All of a sudden, when I entered the Rio Grande Valley, I saw palm trees and fruit trees. There were green fields and rivers. The weather was very tropical. It was as if I had entered a new climate. The Valley is the home of my father’s family. My parents have a second home here and live part of the year in Indiana. They call these retired winter Texans, "snowbirds."

When I was deathly ill five years earlier, the one image in my mind as I went in and out of consciousness, was Padre Island in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. I could smell the salt water breeze. I could see the bright sun reflecting off the Gulf of Mexico surf. I could see and hear the seagulls as they flew down the white sandy beach. I also had a song ringing in my head. It was a song from the 1989 movie called "Midnight Cowboy." In this movie, the character played by Dustin Hoffman, had a last wish to get to a place where the sun keeps shining. The character played by Jon Voight helps him to attain his dream by traveling across America to Florida. When he finally gets to his destination, he dies. There is a song about this odyssey called "Everybody’s Talkin" sung by Nilsson. This was the song that I kept hearing in my mind while doctors frantically called a "Code Blue." Code Blue is called when a patient is slipping into critical condition and life support is needed immediately to save a life. As doctors swarmed around me giving transfusions and oxygen, I was, in my mind, on the beach at Padre Island. As the doctors were working to keep my heart beating, I was walking into the surf on the beach. The waves were hitting me in the chest and a brilliant sun was shining on me. I could hear the song’s lyrics,

"Everybody’s talking at me. I don’t hear a word they’re saying, only the echoes of my mind. I’m going to where the sun keeps shining through the falling rain. Going where the weather suits my clothes. Banking off the northeast winds, sailing on summer breeze, skipping over the ocean like a storm."

I have been to Texas more times than I can remember, but I had not been back here since that fateful day that my life began to slip away. I wanted to surprise my parents, so I had not told them that I was coming to visit. When I got to their house I was filled with emotions. I knocked on the door. I couldn’t wait to see the look on their faces. They weren’t there. My surprise didn’t seem to be working. I figured they went to the store or something and they would be right back. After waiting a couple of hours, they still had not returned. Since I had been waiting so long to get back here, I decided why wait any longer to get to the beach. So, I headed straight to the most secluded beach in the area. It is a place called Boca Chica. I drove up on the beach. There wasn’t a soul there. This beach has no facilities, stores, or lifeguards. It is one of the few places left in the country where you can see what a beach looked like hundreds of years ago. Dudley and I ran along the beach enjoying our private paradise. It was the most beautiful day I could wish for. The sun was hot and brilliant. I got my fishing gear out and did some surf fishing. After a while Dudley got too hot and retreated to the shade underneath the truck. I guess I just wanted to enjoy every minute of this long sought after day. I didn’t notice how severely the sun was burning me. After a while, I decided that it was too hot to stay any longer, so we headed back to Harlingen to see if my lost parents had returned. I then realized that I had stayed in the sun too long because I could feel the pain of a red hot sunburn.

I went back up to their house and found they still were not there. I was worried that something might be wrong and called some family members to find out, but no one knew anything. Finally, as I waited outside, a neighbor came out and asked me what I was doing there. She told me that my parents had gone to a friend’s beach house at Padre Island. I was near them, but had no idea how to find them. I knew they were both not well, so it surprised me that they were not at home. My Dad was undergoing radiation treatment for cancer. My Mother was barely able to walk after a fall. Dudley and I waited for their return. The next day my parents returned. I decided to just walk in and see surprise them. When my Mother saw me she thought I was the landscaper. I finally said, "Mom, it’s me, Mike." She said, "Mike? Mike who?" I said Mike, your son. She said, "How can you be Mike, he’s up in Boston." She thought I was a ghost or something. Finally, I went over and hugged her and she recognized me. She yelled to my Father to come out of the bedroom. She said, "Lee, you’re not going to believe this. It’s Micheal." They were so happy to see me. We had a nice time talking about my journey. I told them my plans to go to Mexico to trace our family history. 
                              My mother, Ramijia Perez Lozano


In conversations with my Father, I learned that the Mayor of San Benito, Texas, was a distant relative. My father generally doesn’t know or care too much about his family history, but I did get out of him that he remembered some family from his father’s side when he was growing up in Harlingen, Texas. My father said he had an uncle on his father’s side of the family named Augustine Gonzalez Castillo. 

Photo above of Cesar Gonzalez taken May 20, 2006 by Gabe Hernandez of the Valley Morning Star Newspaper.  

Served as Mayor of San Benito, Texas for 22 years.  San Benito is in Cameron County in the Rio Grande Valley near the Texas - Mexico border. He was Mayor from 1974 till 1988 and was reelected again in 1996 and served until 2000.  He was elected again in 2004 and served until  he retired  in 2006.  He served as President of the Mayor's Association for the State of Texas.  He was also the chairman of the Texas Municipal League Insurance Board, Chairman of the Texas Dept. of Human Resources. 


I was anxious to start on the family history part of my journey. Even though I don’t speak Spanish, it was like pulling teeth to get any help from my parents, especially in helping me to contact people who prefer to speak Spanish, or can’t speak English at all. I knew my lack of fluent Spanish would be a major obstacle, but I was not about to let anything stop me in my quest. In order to get started I figured I would start with the Mayor of San Benito since he spoke English in his capacity as Mayor. He has been Mayor for 22 years. I made an appointment with his secretary by phone. He called me back and said he remembered my father. He said that he was interested in finding out more about our family connection. When I got to his office, I found a modern building with nicely decorated professional surroundings. When the Mayor came in he was dressed in blue jeans and a cowboy shirt. He was a white haired, tall, rugged looking man about 74 years old. Mayor Cesar Elizondo Gonzalez welcomed me. We went into his office and he told me what he knew about his family history. His father, Augustine, was born about 1892 and died in 1944. He married Guadalupe Elizondo. They were in the meat market grocery store business. The family businesses were the Gonzalez Cattle company, L& B Meat Wholesalers, and the La Villita Meat Market. Both his parents were from Santa María La Floreña, Mexico. This is the same small town in Mexico that my grandparents are from. They had three children; a girl named Ida, a son named Jesus, and a third son, Augustine Jr. Augustine Jr. was the mayor’s father. The mayor’s mother, Guadalupe Elizondo, had four brothers, Jesus, Frederico, Francisco, and Filiberto. All I could tell from this conversation was that we were probably related through his mother, Guadalupe Elizondo. Even though my father called the Mayor’s father, Augustine, "his uncle," I don’t think he was an uncle. I have learned that Mexicans sometimes call older cousins "uncle." I did not know the exact relationship, but the Mayor did not know very much about his family history, either. I thanked him and told him that I would let him know if I was able to unravel the family history when I got to Mexico. I have since heard that my cousin had a stroke and has retired as Mayor. He is recovering well and is enjoying his retirement with his wife, Chelo, visiting with his four children and many grandchildren. While in Harlingen, I went to the local library which had an extensive genealogy section to find out more about the Lozanos in the area. It was here that I began to learn about how the Lozanos ended up in this part of Texas. I also began to learn about the history of Mexico in relation to the Lozano family settlement in the United States.

While at my parent’s house, I saw my uncle, Ruben Lozano. Ruben worked most of his adult life for Nabisco Company in Chicago and returned to Harlingen to retire. My dad’s oldest brother, Jesus (Jesse) who passed away, still has some children living in Texas. Two of his children, my cousins Lydia Galvan and Roberto Lozano, came to visit me. Lydia is a rental property owner. Roberto (Bobby) had much trouble with drugs and had been in and out of prison. He had found religion and was trying to get his life back together when we spoke. After getting out of prison the last time, he went to live in a trailer home that Lydia provided him while he tried to determine how to escape his demons. One day they found him unconscious in the trailer. Although he was rushed to the hospital, he never regained consciousness and died. He had fallen asleep and not turned on the air conditioner. Since the temperature was in the mid-nineties, the heat could have been responsible for his death. He was 60 years old. I remember that Bobby always enjoyed life a little bit too much. When I was a senior in high school, I took a bus trip from Hammond, Indiana with my cousin, Lupe "Junior" Lozano, to Harlingen, Texas. Our Texas cousins, Bobby and Jesse "Junior" Lozano took us to Mexico to party. I got drunk and lost my virginity with a Mexican girl that night in Mexico. I ended up vomiting my guts out on the curb in front of my grandmother’s house that night. My grandmother was angry with me after that. When I got back to Indiana, I confessed what I had done to my girlfriend, Matie Sanders, so my Mexico indiscretions ended up costing me my high school sweetheart, also.

Another cousin, José Gonzalez, who we used to call Uncle Joe because he was the same age as my father used to take us fishing at Padre Island at night. We would wade out about a half mile until we got to where the water started to get deep then we would stick poles in the sandy bottom and hang a lantern from it, and fish there all night. It was real effective and quite scary. When I was in college I went down to Texas with my buddy, Dave Pennington. We came into town without telling anybody, so none of my relatives knew we were there. We decided to hang out at the beach. That day, I told Dave that I was going to go fishing at night like my Uncle Joe had taught me. I went in the water by myself. At about ten o’clock in the evening I ran out of bait. I saw a light in the distance about a half a mile away. There were other fishermen out here. I thought that maybe I could ask if I could buy some bait from them. As I got closer I saw that there were two men. I slowly came into the illumination of their lantern and saw that one of the men looked a lot like my Uncle Jose. Then as I got closer, I was positive that it was him. I said "Tío José, I am Micheal, Lee’s son." Then I said something stupid, "Don’t you recognize me?" He didn’t because he hadn’t seen me in about fifteen years. Finally he spoke in broken English because he didn’t speak English very well and I didn’t speak Spanish. He said that he remembered a son of his cousin Lee named Micheal, but "How could you be him?" I said "I am Micheal." He then gave me a big hug. It was one of the strangest things to ever happen to me in my life. I couldn’t believe that of all the people to meet in the middle of the night out on the Laguna Madre flats of Padre Island was my childhood fishing inspiration, my Uncle Joe. I spent the rest of the night with Uncle Joe and his friend catching huge reds and trout. I thought I was in a dream. When I was a young boy, my father and his cousins José Gonzalez and Chile Escobedo used to take us fishing at Port Mansfield. I decided to revisit. One of my goals on this journey was to relive some of the favorite experiences of my past. I was looking forward to spending the day fishing at Port Mansfield. I got up two hours before sunrise and headed 40 miles to the Port. When I got there, I waded out in the bay and caught my bait. Then I set up to fish in three feet of water. I caught two nice sized fish called "reds." I don’t think there will ever be the number of fish as when we used to fish at Port Mansfield, but it is still a nice area to fish. Dudley didn’t like being left on shore, so he started to follow me out in the water. He did this for a while until he got tired then he went back to shore. After a while, he got bored waiting for me, so he decided to go back to the truck which was about a half mile away. I got nervous with him running loose because every time anyone came around, he wanted to protect the truck from what he perceived as intruders. He would do a pretty convincing pit-bull impression. After watching him do this for a while, I finally had to give up my fishing and give him some attention to settle him down. Fishing and Dudley don’t agree.

Life on the border is a tale of three social economic groups. The first is the group of my family’s heritage. We are the Mexican Americans who have been here long enough to establish ourselves both in jobs and the American culture. The second group is those who have recently come to this country and who are attached more to Mexico than to the United States. A third group is those who have fallen through the cracks in American society. These are the chronically unemployed, drug users, alcoholics and criminal elements. I met a man named Juan who lived in an abandoned refrigerator turned on its side. He was about 45 years old. He once was a professional boxer. When his common-law wife left him because of his addiction to alcohol, he just gave up on himself. He maintained that his wife put a curse on him. He now lives in a vacant lot and goes every day to the church soup kitchen. Another person I met was Teresa. She was twenty five years old and a prostitute. She became addicted to drugs when she was eighteen. Her arms and legs are pocked-marked with needle sores. She is now a heroin addict. She makes money for food and drugs by turning tricks for ten dollars a session. She has no hope for the future. She wanders the streets all night. She hangs out near convenience stores bumming cigarettes and looking for her next customer. Another person I met was Rosa. She came from Salinas, Mexico to find a better life. She was thirty three years old and had three children. She could not speak English. Rosa works as a housekeeper for a wealthy family in San Benito. She makes enough money "under the table" to keep her family afloat by subsistence standards. She sends what little money she can to her parents in Mexico. She hopes her children will grow into educated Americans with good jobs. Her chances for improving her life much are slim, but she feels she is making money honestly. She does not feel that getting paid "under the table" is dishonest. Another person is "Chile." He spoke a little English but he didn’t feel comfortable talking in English. He was born in the Rio Grande Valley. He works as a construction contractor. He has made a decent living and is considered an upper middle-class Mexican-American. Even though he doesn’t speak English very well, he hasn’t found it necessary because very little English is needed to do business in this region of Texas. His children are fully Americanized and speak English fluently. Their education and career training has prepared them well to be productive Americans. Another person is my cousin, Rolando who went to junior college to learn computer programming. He has a good job working in the computer industry. He likes everything about growing up with the good things that Americans have. He makes good money and has time to enjoy his favorite hobby of fishing. The future looks bright for Rolando.

In the Rio Grande Valley, there is a wide spectrum of economic prosperity. On one end of the scale, you have people living in the most primitive two room shacks with outdoor plumbing. At the other end of the spectrum, you have people like Joe Gavito who made millions in the tomato and chili pepper business. Joe’s grandfather was Santos Lozano, who established the first business in Harlingen in 1905. My family came to Harlingen because my paternal grandfather had a relative named Augustine who had a meat market in Harlingen. He asked my grandfather, Gustavo, to come to Harlingen to work at his market. The name Santos Lozano has long been connected prominently with the history of Harlingen, Texas. He started the first store in Harlingen. Santos’ parents brought him to Texas because of strife in Mexico. Santos was born in 1863 in San Nicolas De Los Garza, a part of Monterrey, Mexico. His parents were Felipe and Otta Lozano. In January of 1861, Benito Juárez came to power in Mexico. Mexico had been in a virtual civil war for the previous three years. It was called the "Guerra de Reforma" (the War of Reform). Both sides used a draft to forcibly swell their ranks, but in a country of eight million, there were never more than twenty-five thousand men under arms. The War of Reform was not a popular war. The great mass of the people neither approved of it nor enlisted in it. It was a war between the ruling minorities." At this time, the Catholic Church was under attack by the winning liberal side. Churches were destroyed and Bishops were expelled from the country. Mexico had forcibly divided Church and State. In 1861, President Juárez signed a moratorium on repayment of Mexico’s debts to foreign countries. In response, England, France and Spain signed an agreement that was designed to force Mexico to honor its debts. England and Spain were satisfied that Mexico would honor its debts because of their show of force, but France decided to continue its interference in Mexico in order to reestablish a foothold in North America. France knew the United States was too occupied by its own Civil War to do anything about France imposing a monarchy in Mexico. In May of 1863, the French army expeditionary force in Mexico forced Juárez out of Mexico City. He fled to the north of Mexico. Napoleon III installed the brother of the Emperor of Austria-Hapsburg, Archduke Maximilian von Hapsburg, as the Emperor of the new Monarchy of Mexico on April 10, 1864. Maximilian was executed by firing squad in 1867. Because of all the fighting that was taking place, Felipe Lozano decided to take his family into Texas. He grew up in Alice, Texas. Life in Alice centered on raising cattle and other livestock. Young Santos Lozano learned everything about rounding up cattle. Eventually he became a cattle buyer. He then started a mercantile store in Alice, Texas. In 1905 he moved to the site of a new railroad station, Harlingen, Texas, to help develop the town around the newly completed railroad. This was the new location for Santos Lozano’s general store. This was the beginning of the town that today has grown to a city with a population of 57,564.

By the time that Santos established his business in Harlingen in the early 1900s, another period of unrest was sweeping Mexico that would cause more Lozanos to cross into the United States. The Mexican Revolution started in 1910. My grandparents, Gustavo Lozano and Refugio Lozano Bosque, fled to Texas in 1915. I talked to my father’s oldest sister’s family in Fort Worth, Texas to find out what they knew about our family history. My Aunt Rosa who was about 90 years old at this time and in poor health, had passed on some of her family’s early history to her son, Samuel. My cousin, Samuel passed the oral history to me, and I researched the written history of Mexico from local book stores and libraries. In 1910, Mexican President Porfirio Díaz was celebrating the Centenary of Mexico’s Independence from Spain. He was essentially a dictator. His suppression of land rights, racial inequality, religious and political freedom were about to explode into total revolution. The leader of the revolution was a man named Francisco Madero. His top lieutenants were Pancho Villa and Pascual Orozco in the North and Emiliano Zapata in the South. By the end of November, 1910, President Porfirio Díaz was forced into exile. Francisco Madero was too lenient of a President with the old establishment and before long, he was overthrown by the military under General Victoriano Huerta. A rival, Venustiano Carranza, an elder of the revolution, decided to dispute the usurper, Huerta. Carranza was able to defeat Huerta who went into exile on July 15, 1914. The former allies started fighting with each other and became bitter enemies. The area of Mexico where my family is from is called Nuevo Leon. This area was controlled by Venustiano Carraza. Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata controlled the west and the south-central regions. The military of the Carranza government came to the ranch of my great-great grandfather, Eugenio Lozano Gonzalez, and asked him for help guiding the troops through the mountain passes in their military campaign against Pancho Villa. Eugenio ordered his son, Gustavo, to go with the government soldiers. My grandfather Gustavo was newly married to my grandmother Refugio Lozano Bosque who was six months pregnant. He left his wife with his father and went into the army as their guide. Gustavo was very unhappy that he was ordered to join the soldiers and leave his pregnant wife, but there was nothing he could do. If he refused, he would have been executed. He held a grudge against his father for many years because his father volunteered him for military service instead of going with them himself. After fighting with the Carranzistas for eight months, young Gustavo deserted and returned to the family hacienda to be with his new wife and baby. The baby had already been born when he returned. It was a girl named Rosa. This is my father’s oldest sister, Rosa. She was born in Santa María la Florena. Gustavo’s father, Eugenio, told his son that he should not have returned because the troops would come looking for him. Eugenio was very afraid that the troops would burn down his home or harm the remaining family, so he told Gustavo that he had to take his wife and child and flee to the United States. They left on horseback with only the clothes on their backs.

When Young Gustavo and his wife, Refugio, and baby Rosa got to the United States they had a hard time making a living. Gustavo went from being in a well-to-do Mexican family to being dirt poor in the U.S. In order to make a living, Gustavo took whatever job he could get. He worked on fishing boats in the Gulf at Galveston and Corpus Christi. He worked as a sharecropper in Carrizzo Springs and Bryant, Texas. He worked for the railroad in St. Louis, Missouri. While in Bryant, Texas, the family had hundreds of chickens and other farm animals that they sold for eggs and meat. They ended up back in Harlingen working at a relative’s market. During these years, he raised a family of six children. The children were Rosa (1913-Santa María, Mexico), Jesus (1918-Carrizo Springs, Texas), Eugenio (1922-Granite City, Illinois), Librado (1924-St.Louis, Missouri), Guadalupe (1926-Santa María, Mexico), and Ruben (1929-Bryant, Texas). Gustavo was not a great father. He came about it honestly. His mother died when he was four years old and he was raised by his stepmother, Ramona Garza. His stepmother mistreated him. She treated him more harshly than her own children by Gustavo’s birth father, Eugenio. One time she got so abusive that she threw young Gustavo across the room and dislodged his hipbone. Gustavo suffered from this injury for the rest of his life. While Gustavo was growing up, his father and stepmother had six children. They were Osvaldo, Quiatilda, Filomon, Domingo, Celia, and Salvador. In 1923 Eugenio died. The oldest son from the second marriage, Osvaldo, took over the ranch. Gustavo took his family and went back to the Lozano ranch in Mexico in 1926 to claim his share of the inheritance. Gustavo stayed in Mexico for one year. This is why my uncle Lupe was born in Santa María La Florenia, Mexico on December 12, 1926. By 1927, Gustavo decided not to stay in Mexico and returned to Texas. He ended up in Byrant, Texas working as a sharecropper, a person who farms someone else’s land for hire. After this, Gustavo returned to Harlingen, but his relationship with his wife, Refugio, had deteriorated. In 1932, he decided to leave his wife and children and return to the ranch in Mexico. Gustavo lived in Mexico until he died in 1955. When Gustavo died, my father Librado, my uncles Ruben, Gene, Jesse, my aunt Rosa, her husband Arturo and their son Anselmo went to the funeral in Mexico. They already had resentment against their dad for leaving their mother and them without any means of support. They had seen him only once in 23 years. So when they heard he had died, it was a family’s last offering of respect to go from Chicago to the ranch in Mexico to attend the funeral. When the family got to the ranch, they found that their father had already been buried. There was an argument over why the family buried him before the American family arrived. The relatives got drunk and an argument ensued between my father, Librado, and Osvaldo, the oldest son from the second marriage. The argument got so out of hand that Osvaldo forced the Lozanos from the United States to leave under the barrel of a gun. Because of this family feud, there was no longer any contact between Gustavo’s American family and the Lozano Mexican family.

                  Librado Lozano

I was now going back to Mexico to try to reestablish the broken link of the U.S. and Mexican Lozanos. Before going into Mexico, more than ten miles across the border, visitors must get a temporary visitors’ permit, a vehicle registration permit, and Mexican auto insurance. I had to look on the U.S. side to find an insurance company that carries this type of insurance. It costs about $150, but there is a wide difference in price at various companies. It helps to know that when getting this done at the border headquarters, bring copies of your passport, car registration, insurance, and driver’s license. The border officials don’t speak English and they tend to be impatient with Americans. So come prepared to stand in long lines and to have communication problems. After I got all this done, I was ready to start my trip into Mexico. I would be leaving Dudley with my parents because I didn’t want to take a chance of anything happening to him while in Mexico. I got so many warnings from my parents about things to watch out for in Mexico, that I began to get paranoid. When the day arrived to leave, my parents advised that I take a longer route that would keep me on the American side longer, rather than just taking the shortest route to Monterrey that would require going through more of Mexico. The reasoning was that there was less chance of something happening to me if I was on the American side for more of the journey. So I headed along the border on the American side until I got to Roma, Texas and then I turned towards Mexico.



SURNAME

 

EL APELLIDO DE LA GARZA

Desde hace mucho tiempo he intentado averiguar datos sobre este apellido, y ahora trato de ordenar la información que he ido recopilando y exponerla, para que otros mas doctos que yo en estos menesteres, completen el correspondiente trabajo.

El apellido De la Garza, aunque es bastante limitado en la Península Ibérica, esta muy extendido por México y el Sur de los Estados Unidos y también he encontrado De la Garza, en Argentina, Venezuela y otras naciones de Centroamérica.

Lo que no cabe duda es que hay tres ramas del apellido, dos en el norte de España, Guipúzcoa y Galicia y otra en el sur, ubicada en Lepe (Huelva).

La rama gallega, se sitúa en Monforte de Lemos, en la provincia de Lugo, y puede ser un apodo por alguien que tenía piernas muy largas y delgadas o una deformación del nombre García.

La otra, la de Guipúzcoa, tiene una rama en la provincia de Burgos, en un pueblo que se llama Arroyo y su significado puede ser “llama”, ya que esa es la traducción de la palabra “garza” en euskera.

Y vamos a la rama andaluza. El apellido “De la Garza”, que llegó a América pocos años después del Descubrimiento, lo llevó a aquellas tierras  Marcos Alonso de la Garza Falcón, nacido en Lepe, hijo de Marcos Alonso Falcón y Constanza de la Garza,  que según he podido averiguar eran familias judías que residían en Lepe y que se convirtieron al cristianismo antes de la expulsión  de los judíos de Castilla.

Muchos judíos conversos cuando adoptaron apellidos castellanos, los hicieron con nombres de aves y por eso encontramos que el apellido del hombre era “Falcón”, o sea “Halcón” en castellano actual y el de la mujer era “De la Garza”, nombre de un ave zancuda, de cabeza pequeña con moño largo y gris, pico prolongado y negro, que vive a orillas de ríos y pantanos.

Hay un proverbio español que curiosamente enlaza los dos apellidos y dice así: “Aunque la garza vuela alta, el halcón la mata”.

Marcos Alonso de la Garza Falcón se casó con Juana de Treviño, hija de Diego de Treviño y Beatriz de Quintanilla, se fueron a residir a Monterrey y murió en 1610.

También hubo barcos que llevaron este nombre, como una nao de 80 toneles, propiedad de Francisco García , de Palos de la Frontera, que hizo varias veces la travesía al Nuevo Mundo.

He encontrado “De la Garza”, ajusticiados por la Inquisición; militares en las milicias españolas en Argentina y otros muchos pequeños datos, que incluso han sido repetitivos, pero no me aclaraban nada.

Espero que mis modestos apuntes puedan contribuir para los muchos “De la Garza” que estudian o desean conocer mas sobre el origen de su apellido tanto en América como en España, y que entre ellos esta mi esposa, que tiene “De la Garza”, como séptimo apellido, pero ella es natural de Burgos y por lo tanto no procede de la rama andaluza, que fue la que llegó a América.

                              Ángel Custodio Rebollo Barroso custodiorebollo@terra.es

 

 

 
Spanish Sons of the American Revolution
US researchers find 18th-century British warships 
Spanish Covert Aid
Spanish Patriots of Chile
Patriots of Cuba, Query on Patriots of Cuba 
Patriots and Near-Patriots of Chile by Granville W. Hough, Ph.D.

 

US researchers find 18th-century British warships 
Introduction to article
by Richard C. LewisTue May 16, 7:48 PM ET 
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060516/ts_nm/life_ships_britain_dc&printer=
1;_ylt=A9FJqYBOkGpEHToBrgRg.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-

Sent by John Inclan fromgalveston@yahoo.com

Four ships from a British fleet used during the U.S. Revolutionary War have been found off Rhode Island, and one may be the vessel 18th century explorer Captain James Cook sailed on his epic voyage to Australia, archaeologists said on Tuesday.

Researchers with the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project said they believe the four ships, and two others previously discovered, are part of a 13-vessel transport fleet intentionally sunk by the British in Newport Harbor in 1778 to keep French ships from landing to aid the Americans' drive for independence.

Using historical materials and sonar, the archaeologists discovered the ships in Narragansett Bay, within a mile (km) of Newport, Rhode Island's shoreline.

Divers found ballast piles about 30 feet underwater, with the ship's keel and other parts embedded in the sea floor. They also found at least one cannon, an anchor with a 16-foot (4.9-meter) shank and a cream-colored fragment of an 18th-century British ceramic teapot.

According to the team of archaeologists, one of the 13 ships in the sunken British fleet was the "Lord Sandwich," which records show was once the Endeavour, the vessel Cook used to sail the Pacific Ocean, map New Zealand and survey the eastern coast of Australia in 1768-1771.





SPANISH COVERT AID
http://www.americanrevolution.org/secret.html
Sent by Bill Carmena

The following is a translation of a Royal Order signed by Jose de Galvez, Minister of the Indies, to Luis de Unzaga, Spanish Governor of Louisiana. Written in Madrid, December 24, 1776.
Original in the Archivo Historico Nacional, Madrid, Estado, Legajo 4224. Copy and supporting documentation at Archivo General de Simancas, Spain, Estado, Legajo 4609, No. 18 - 25.
(material in parentheses added by the editor)

"The King (Carlos III) is informed regarding documents in letters numbering 181 and 184 of 7th and 30th of last (1776) September of the Americans' intentions delivered through General Charles Lee, major general and second in the American military command and commander in chief of the Southern District and through his agent Mr. (George) Gibson, reduced principally to solicit the establishment of systematic commerce with us and to inform that if in the event of the (American) seizure of Pensacola, as they are attempting, Your Majesty will be pleased to administer it (Pensacola). The answer regarding these items you (Luis de Unzaga) gave to General Lee has merited royal approval and His Majesty commands me to caution you very secretly that assisting the Americans in their project to capture Pensacola and the other English settlements on the right bank of that river (Mississippi), you inform them (the Americans) with the maximum caution and secrecy that the King (Carlos III) will be delighted that they may obtain it and that independence assured,the ceding that they (Americans) promise to Spain will be dealt with.

In order to facilitate both objectives, you (Unzaga) will be receiving through the Havana and other means that may be possible, the weapons, munitions, clothes and quinine which the English colonists (Americans) ask and the most sagacious and secretive means will be established by you in order that you may supply these secretly with the appearance of selling them to private merchants, to which objectives and corresponding secret instructions will be sent and some business person that may serve as contact.

By this same mail the corresponding secret information is given to the governor of the Havana (Diego Jose Navarro), informing him that through the monthly mail and free commerce ships that he will receive various items, weapons and other supplies that he will be sending to you without delay and that also he (Navarro) may send you then the surplus powder available in that Plaza (Havana) from the Mexico Factory and whatever muskets might be in that same Plaza in the certainty that they will be quickly replaced.

At the order of His Majesty I inform you of everything for your information and governance, with special duty that you may take advantage of the opportunities which may occasion or present for the continuation of observations respective to these important objectives in order to transmit them to His Majesty.

May God protect you many years.
Madrid, 24 of December of 1776.
                             Joseph de Galvez to the Governor of Louisiana."



Patriots of Cuba, query answered by Granville W. Hough, Ph.D.

My first query on the Patriots of Cuba was from Cuba Collectibles regarding Captain Don Rafael de Limonta. It happens that Cuba Collectibles has an authentic letter written by Capt Limonta in 1779
which they wished to sell to any interested descendant or historian. They wanted to know how I got the details of his service. I explained that I went to the nearest LDS Family History Center, looked up the call number for Legajo 7261, then ordered the appropriate roll from Salt LakeCity. Once it arrived, I looked up section XI, then went to page or number 91. There I could read Capt Limonta's record of service, probably as he recorded it himself. I extracted what I needed for proof
of his service during the Revolutionary War. All I needed was thelocation of the nearest LDS Family Center, and a little patience. This satisfied Cuban Collectibles and they put the 1779 letter on auction. However, what was of interest to me was the background material used by Cuban Collectibles on the Limonta family. Rafael was one of five brothers, sons from the second marriage of Alferéz Don Manuel Bernardo Limonta y Carmona, Spanish Army Infantry, and this information comes from Tomo VI de Historia de Familias Cubanas. The Limonta family was apparently prominent in Santiago. So I suggest to Cubanas and their descendants that the Historia de Familias Cubanas may give family details to what can be learned from the service records of the Legajos,
particularly for prominent families.

 

PATRIOTS AND NEAR-PATRIOTS OF CHILE
By Granville W. Hough

My purpose in listing Spanish soldiers and sailors of 1779-1783 is to remind their descendants that these members of the Spanish armed forces took part in a great revolution in human affairs which continues to this day. Male descendants can join the Sons of the American Revolution and honor their forefathers, even as other descendants honor their heritage by serving in the Armed Forces today. Previous issues of Somos Primos have listed Patriots of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo, Philippines, and other parts or borders of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. This month the listing will begin for Chile, one of the more remote parts of the Spanish world. In 1779, it was the southern extension of the Viceroyalty of Peru. It had only a few settlements, which were mostly self-sufficient. Nearly all the Spanish had moved south from Peru. Few came through the perilous Straits of Magellan. The native Indians had been pushed southward, but they remained strong and warlike. Spanish soldiers guarded the coast and blocked the Indians or anyone else from interfering with the Spanish monopoly on the gold, silver, and other mineral wealth of Peru and Bolivia.

The Chilean units consisted of regular Spanish units plus the militia units of settled areas. There were several hundred soldiers in all, and their key persons, about seven or eight per company, are mostly listed in three bundles (legajos) of service records, numbers 7266, 7267, and 7288, but infrequently in others. Each soldier’s record shows the year service started and the units of service up to the date the legajo was prepared, usually 1787 to 1800. There may exist in archives other legajos which list ALL the soldiers in each unit, but these have not been published. Because the published legajos are for key persons, or cadre, they are for experienced persons with some education who have served long enough to be trusted with leadership of a company. There are some exceptions, as for cadets, who might be educated young people just entering service, or for the equivalent of our "Soldier of the Month" who might be mentioned as an honor. So a Lieutenant in 1787 would likely have service of ten to twenty years, going back well before the war with England began in 1779. A cadet might be a former enlisted man of long service learning to be an officer, or he could be a fourteen year old
boy training alongside his officer father.

Before listing the actual units, we might recall that Chileans were among the first immigrants to California after the Gold Rush began. Many settled in California, as they found the climate to be similar to that of Chile. Even today, we consume Chilean fruits and vegetables in the off seasons of California. So many California natives find their ancestry goes back to the Gold Rush, then to Chile. Their forefathers may have been in the following units:

Asamblea de Caballeria of Chile, years 1791-1793, 1795, 1797-1800, legajo 7267.
Cuerpo de Dragones of Chile, years 1787, 1789-1795, 1798, 1800, legajo 7266.
Cuerpo de Dragones de la Frontera of Chile, years 1796, 1797, 1800, legajo 7266.
Batallón de Infantería of Chile, years 1787, 1789, 1791, 1792, 1796, legajo 7267.
Batallón de Infantería de la Concepción of Chile, years 1793, 1794, legajo 7266.

Batallón de Infantería de la Plaza de Valdivia, years 1787, 1791, 1793, 1796, 1797, 1799, 1800, legajo 7266.
Batallón de la Plaza de Valdivia, years 1787, 1792, and 1796, legajo 7267.
Batallón Fijo de Infantería of Valdivia, year 1794, legajo 7267.
Milicias de Caballeria de Principe, Arregladas y Disciplinadas, year 1797, legajo 7267.
Milicias Disciplinadas de Princesa, year 1797, legajo 7267.
Milicia Compañía de Dragones de Reina, years, 1792, 1798, and 1800, legajo 7267.

The following units were in territory not considered to be part of Chile at the time but later obtained after Chile became independent:
Dragones Regimiento de Milicias Provinciales Disciplinadas of Arica, years 1795, 1796, 1800, legajos 7288 and others.
Compañías Veteranas de Infantería & Dragones of Chiloe, years 1794, 1798, and 1800, legajos 7288 and others.
Partida de Asamblea de Infantería of Chiloe, years 1794, 1798, legajos 7288 and others.

All individuals listed in the reference: Catalogo XXII del Archivo de Simancas: Secretaria de Guerra (Siglo XVIII), "Hojas de Servicios de América," Valladolid, 1958. (The individual’s record will show starting date of service, and any wartime or combat service.)

Juan José Aguirre. Sargento, Asamblea de Cab. Del Reino de Chile, 1800, legajo 7267:V:169.
Luís Alava. Gobernador, Politico y Militar de Valparaiso, Lt Col de Inf., 1793, legajo 7266:I:143.
Hermenegildo Alba. Cadet, Milicias Provinciales Disciplinadas de Infanteria de Castro Choloe, 1800, legajo 7288:IX:109.
Esteban Albarracin. Sargento 1st Cl, Bn Inf de Valdivia, 1800, Legajo 7267:II:85.
Luis Albarracin. Lt, Milicias Disciplinadas, Dragones de Arica, 1800, legajo 7288:II:29.
Juan Alcala del Olmo. Ayudante Mayor, Regimiento Provincial Cab. del Principe, legajo 7276:XII:42.
Juan Augustín Alcalde. Alférez, Milicias de Cab del Principe, legajo 7267:XII:526.
José de Alcazar. Capt, Bn de Inf de Chile, 1800, legajo 7267:I:8.
Pedro Andrés de Alcazar. Capt, Dragones de la Frontera de Chile, 1800, legajo 7267:IV:124.
Juan de Aldama. Alférez, Regt. Provincial de Dragones de la Reina, 1800, legajo 7276:XV:35.
Bautist Alderete. SubLt, Milicias Provinciales Disciplinadas de Inf de Castro, Chiloe, 1800, Legajo 7288:IX:66.
Luis Alvarado. SubLt, Milicias Provinciales Disciplinadas de Inf de Castro, Chiloe, 1800, legajo 7288:IX:78.
Marcello Alvarado. Sgt, Milicias Provinciales Disciplinadas de Inf de Castro hiloe, 1800, legajo 7288:IX:46.
Angel Alvarez. Sgt, Asamblea de Cab del Reino de Chile, 1800. Legajo 7267:V:170.
Eusebio Alvarez. Capt, Milicias Provinciales Disciplinadas de Inf de Castro, Chiloe, 1800, legajo 7288:IX:28.
Francisco Alvarez. Cadet, Milicias Provinciales Disciplinadas de Inf de Castro, Chiloe, 1800, legajo 7288:IX:108.
Francisco Javier Alvarez. SubLt, Milicias Provinciales Disciplinadas de Inf de Castro, Chiloe, 1800, legajo 7288:IX:70.
Ignacio Alvarez. Capt, Milicias Provinciales Disciplinadas de Castro, Chiloe, 1800, legajo 7288:IX:12.
Juan Alvarez. SubLt de Bandera, Milicias Provinciales Disciplinadas de Inf de Castro, Chiloe, 1800, legajo 7288:IX:77.
Juan Alvarez. Lt, Milicias Provinciales Disciplinadas de Inf de Castro, Chiloe, 1800, legajo 7288:IX:41.
Manuel Alvarez. Lt, Dragones de la Frontera de Chile, 1800, legajo 7267:IV:117.
Pedro José Alvarez. Cadet, Gragones de la Frontera de Chile, 1800, legajo 7267:IV:145.
Tadeo Alvarez. Cadet, Bn Inf de Chile, 1800, legajo 7267:I:44.
Domingo Alvarez-Ramirez. Sgt Major, Bn de Inf de Chile, 1787, legajo 7266:VI:785.
Camilo Alvarez-Rubio. Cadet, Bn de Inf de Chile, 1789, legajo 7266:V:616.
Fernando Amador. Lt Col, Dragones de la Frontera de Chile, 1800, legajo 7267:IV:105.
Gerardo Ampuero. Sgt 1st Cl, Comp. Inf Disciplinada de San Carlos de Guapilacuy, Chiloe, 1800, ldgajo 7288:VIII:4.
Basilio Andrade. Capt, Esquadron Milicias Disciplinadas de Cab de Castro, Chiloe, 1800, legajo 7288:X:3.
José Bernardo Andrade. Lt Col, Milicias Provinciales Disciplinadas de Inf de Castro, Chiloe, 1800, legajo 7288:IX:2.
Pedro Andrade. Sgt, Comp Veteranas de la dotación de Chiloe, 1800, legajo 7288:XI:9.
Rafael Anguita. Sgt, Dragones de la Frontera de Chile, 1800, legajo 7267:IV:135.
Augustin Angulo. Sgt, Dragones de Milicias Disciplinadas de Arica. Legajo 7286:II:50.
Andrés de Angulo. Capt, Bn de Inf de Chile, 1797, legajo 7267:XI:442.
Cayetano Angulo. Sgt, Dragones del Reino de Chile, 1794, Legajo 7269:XXV:1030.
Prudencio Ansotegui. Sgt, Partida de Asamblea de Inf de la dotación de Chiloe, 1798, legajo 7286:XVI:3.
José Antonio Apestiguia. Lt, Dragones de la Reina, 1800, legajo 7276:XV:29.
Tomás Ignacio Apestiguia. Lt, Dragones de la Reina, 1796, legajo 7273:I:20.
Nicolás Arechavala. Alférez, Cab. de Principe, 1800, legajo 7276:XII:30.
Francisco Arenas. Lt, Comp. Veteranas de la dotación de Chiloe, 1800, legajo 7288:XI:6.
Alonso Arias. Lt, Asamblea de Cab. del Reino de Chile, 1791, legajo 7266:III:374.
José de Arias. Alférez, Micias Disciplinadas Dragones de Arica, 1800, legajo 7288:II:41.
Juan Arias. Cadet, Bn Inf de Chile, 1800, legajo 7267:I:46.
Bernardo Aroca. Sgt, Asamblea de Cab del Reino de Chile, 1800, legajo 7267:V:166.
Francisco Artaso. Capt, Bn de Inf de Chile, 1797, legajo 7267:XI:443.
Marcelo Arteaga. Capt, Bn de Inf de Valdivia, 1797, legajo 7267:XIII:534.
José María Artiga. Alfaréz, Dragones de la Frontera de Chile, 1800, legajo 7269:IV:128.
Juan José Arredonda. Sgt, Milicias Disciplinadas Dragones de Arica, 1800, legajo 7288:II:52.
Tiburcio Arredondo. Sgt, Milicias Disciplinadas Dragones de Arica, 1800, legajo 7288:II:53.
Mariano Arrinaga. Sgt, Partida de Asamble de inf de la dotación deChiloe, 1798, legajo 7286:XVI:2.
Pablo Asenjo. Lt, Bn Inf de Valdivia, 1792, legajo 7266:II:234. This may be the same person who was Ayudante Mayor, Bn Inf de Valdivia, 1800, legajo 7267:II:62.
Santiago Asenjo. Cadet, Bn Inf de Valdivia, 1800, legajo 7267:II:95.
Marcelo Asenjo. SubLt, Comp. sueltas de Inf del partido de Carelmapu, Chiloe, 1800, legajo 7288:XIII:8.
Fermin Avendaño. Sgt, Inf Provincial Milicias Disciplinadas de Castro, Chiloe, 1800, legajo 7288:IX:103.
José Antonio Avendaño. Sgt, Comp. Dragones de la Reina, 1800, legajo 7267:III:102.
José Avila. Lt, Bn Inf de Valdivia, 1787, legajo 7266:VI:741.
Manuel Ayecovido de Osuna. SubLt, Bn Inf de Valdivia, 1800, legajo 7267:II:76.

Alberto Baeza. Sgt, Bn Inf de Chile, 1800, legajo 7267:I:35.
Diego Baeza. Cadet, Bn Inf de Chile, 1800, legajo 7267:I:52.
José Baeza. Capt, Bn Inf de Chile, 1793, legajo 7266:I:91.
César Balbiani. Lt Col, Comp. Veteranas de la dotación de Chiloe, 1800, legajo 7288:XI:15.
Matias Baluarte. Ayudante Mayor, Milicias Disciplinadas Dragones de Arica, 1800, legajo 7288:II:25.
Juan Antonio Baraona. Sgt, Asamblea de Cab. del Reino de Chile, 1800, legajo 7267:V:165.
Modesto Barria. Sgt, Milicias Provinciales Disciplinadas de Inf de Castro, Chiloe, 1800, legajo 7288:IX:93.
Venancio Barria. Sgt, Milicias Disciplinadas de Inf de Castro, Chiloe, 1800, legajo 7288:IX:94.
Francisco Barrientos. Sgt, Escuadron Milicias Disciplinadas de Cab. de Castro, Chiloe, 1800, legajo 7288:X:8.
Alonso Barriga. Lt, Bn de Inf de Chile, 1792, legajo 7266:II:273.
Pedro Rafael Barril. Cadet, Bn Inf Valdivia, 1800, legajo 7267:II:91.
Valeriano Barril. Sgt, Bn Inf Valdivia, 1797, legajo 7267:XIII:550.
Pedro Barrios. Lt, Milicias Disciplinadas Dragones de Arica, 1795, legajo 7285:XI:31.
Alejandro Barrios y Liendo. Capt, Milicias Disciplinadas Dragones de Arica, 1800, Legajo 7288:II:8.
Pedro Barrios y Liendo. Lt, Milicias Disciplinadas, Dragones de Arica, 1800, legajo 7288:II:22.
Rafael Gambino Barrios y Liendo. Capt, Milicias Disciplinadas, Dragones de Arica, 1800, legajo 7288:II:9.
Manuel Barrios y Machin. Cadete, Milicias Disciplinadas, Dragones de Arica, 1800, legajo 7288:II:70.
Antonio Barrios y Nieto. Lt, Dragones Milicias Disciplinadas, Dragones de Arica, 1800, legajo 7288:II:26.
Francisco Barrios y Nieto. Capt, Milicias Disciplinadas, Dragones de Arica, 1800, legajo 7288:II:13.
Pedro Barrios y Nieto. Alférez, Milicias Disciplinadas Dragones de Arica, 1800, legajo 7288:II:44.
Nicolás Barrios y Rejas. Lt Col, Milicias Disciplinadas de Arica, 1800, legajo 7288:II:2.
Manuel Basabe. Lt, Bn de Inf de Chile, 1800, legajo 7267:I:24.
Antonio Bascuñan. Alférez, Militias Cab. de la Princesa, 1797, legajo 7267:XXVII:663.
Francisco Bascuñan. Cadet, Dragones de la Fronters de Chile, 1800, legajo 7267:IV:141.
Miguel Bascuñan. Alférez, Milicias Cab. de la Princesa, 1797, legajo 7267:XVII:667.
Ignacio Bazan. Capt, Bn Inf Valdivia, 1800, legajo 7267:II:66.
Lorenzo Becerra. Lt, Milicias Provinciales Disciplinadas de Inf de Castro, Chiloe, 1800, legajo 7288:IX:37.
José Gregorio Belaunde. Alférez, Milicias Disciplinadas Dragones de Arica, 1800, legajo 7288:II:46.
Manuel Vicente Belaunde. Capt, Milicias Disciplinadas Dragones de Arica, 1800, legajo 7288:II:10.
Pedro Ramón Belaunde. Cadet, Milicias Disciiplinadas Dragones de Arica, 1800, legajo 7288:II:67.
José María Benavente. Cadet, Dragones de la Frontera de Chile, 1800, legajo 7267:IV:146.
Juan Miguel de Benavente. Capt, Dragones de la Frontera de Chile, 1800, legajo 7267:IV:112.
Pedro José Benavente. Capt, Dragones de la Frontera de Chile, 1800, Legajo 7267:IV:108.
Nicolás Bertiz y Cordoba. Alférez, Milicias Disciplinadas Dragones de Arica, 1800, legajo 7288:II:33.
Tomás Bertiz y Cordoba. Lt, Milicias Disciplinadas Dragones de Arica, 1800, legajo 7288:II:33.
Antonio Bocardo. Capt, Bn de Inf de Chile, 1787, legajo 7266:VI:789.
Juan Bontes. Sgt, Escuadrón Milicias Disciplinadas de Cab. de Castro, Chiloe, 1800, legajo 7288:X:10.
Bautista Borjes. SubLt, Milicias Provinciales de Inf de Castro, Chiloe, 1800, legajo 7288:IX:73.
Ignacio Borjes. SubLt de Granaderos, Milicias Provinciales Disciplinadas de Inf de Castro, Chiloe, 1800, legajo 7288:IX:12.
Marcelo Borjes. Capt, Milicias Disciplinadas de Inf de Castro, Chiloe, 1800, legajo 7288:IX:12.
Ventura Borjes. Lt de Granaderos, Milicias Provinciales Disciplinadas de Inf de Castro, Chiloe, 1800, legajo 7288:IX:50.
José Antonio Botarro. SubLt, Bn Inf de Chile, 1800, legajo 7267:I:26.
José María Botarro. Ayudante Mayor, Asamblea Cab. Reino de Chile, 1800, legajo 7267:V:152.
Juan de Dios Britos. SubLt, Inf de Valdivia, 1800, legajo 7267:II:81.
Feliciano Buendia. Sgt, Bn Inf de Valdivia, 1789, legajo 7266:V:651.
Felipe Bueno. Cadet, Bn Inf de Valdivia, 1799, legajo 7267:VII:265.
Francisco Buenrrostro. Sgt, Bn Inf de Valdivia, 1800, legajo 7267:II:87.
Manuel Bulnes. Capt, Bn de Inf de Chile, 1800, legajo 7267:I:14.
Juan Bustios. Porta-guion, Milicias Disciplinadas Dragones de Arica, 1800, legajo 7288:II:37.

Questions about any of the above or about the Sons of the American Revolution may be addressed to gwhough@oakapple.net (to be continued)

 

 

ORANGE COUNTY, CA

July 22: Genetics, DNA and Genealogy by Norma Keating, R.N. 
Comments on DNA from Yolanda Ochoa 
Kaiser to request DNA samples from 2 Million adults
DNA diet plan, Kit tests for genetic cues to aid in healthier eatingScientists Find A DNA Change That Accounts For White Skin
Welsh and Irish Celts genetic blood-brothers of Basques

DNA forces El Salvador to face past

DNA reunites Salvadoran families
Canales, Garcia and Salinas Family Trees
Santa Ana planners to present downtown recommendations

July 20: First shovel celebration for Grijalva Gymnsium/Sports Center 
July 20: Hispanic Business World Inaugural Reception 
National Archive Center may go to Great Park
The LATINO OC 100 2005-2006 Yearbook being Produced


Genetics, Migration and Family Lines
Learn how human genetics can help you find and prove your family lines.

by Norma Keating, R.N. 

July 22, 2006 

674 S. Yorba, 
Orange LDS Meeting House 
Park in the back, Everyone welcome, FREE, Come and enjoy
Refreshments following the meeting.
Meeting schedule:  

1-2 p.m.: Beginners, one-on-one assistance. Meet at the Family History Center located at the back of the building, on the north end.  (Please call so we can reserve a computer for you in the FHC. Call: 714-894-8161).  The remainder of the meeting will be on the South end of the bldg.

2-4: p.m.: Program, announcements, speaker, sharing and introductions of attendees
4-5: p.m.: Refreshments and Networking by regional areas of interest facilitated by SHHAR Board members:  Cris Rendon will facilitate a Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, Mexico networking group. Pat Lozano a Jalisco group. Michael Perez expertise is New Mexico.  Yolanda Ochoa in Chihuahua and Sonora. What ever your research interest, our Board can help.   

Norma Keating
An active genealogist for 32 years and professional researcher for 12 years, Norma Storrs Keating, RN, BSN, is the owner of Your Family Connection.

Norma has a BS in Nursing from Indiana University and maintains her RN license in New Jersey and California, taking 30 units of continuing education every two years and reviewing literature to keep abreast of the rapid changes in the medical/ genetics field. She also holds a Certificate in North American Research from Brigham Young University.

Norma teaches genealogy classes for the Yorba Linda, California Parks & Recreation Department and speaks at genealogy conferences and meetings across the United States. Currently, she is the President of the North Orange County California Genealogical Society, volunteer coordinator for the genealogy booth at the Orange County Fair and a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists.

Norma will touch on how genealogists are using DNA as a tool to track and prove family lines and relationships. DNA is used for genetic linking, one-name studies and tracing movements of peoples around the globe. She will explain what DNA is and how it can help you solve a "brick-wall" problem. Using a case study, she will illustrate how to establish and run a surname study of your own.

For more on Norma and to contact her directly:
Norma Storrs Keating, Your Family Connection
4653 Avenida Rio Del Oro, Yorba Linda, CA 92886-3013
Office: 714-970-7040 FAX: 714-970-6573
http://www.yourfamilyconnection.com
norma@yourfamilyconnection.com
normakeating@earthlink.net

 
Comments from Yolanda Ochoa 
[[Yolanda is web mistress for SHHAR's resources and links, she shared the following:]]

Family Tree DNA - this site is listed on our SHHAR Links.  Sephardim.com uses them and they are considered to be very reputable.  Gary Felix has a project called the DNA of the Conquistadores of which I am a part of. 

On the DNA - It takes around 3 months to get the Y-DNA process completed.  They put the DNA through all these marker tests.  The more markers that you request for tests 12, 24, 32, the more money it costs.  It is a difficult process to try and make heads or tails of.  My Y-DNA line shows that we are Haplogroup R1b.  This is the most common Haplogroup for people from Europe. 
On my DNA report there was a lot of Celtic, German, Scottish, English,Welsh DNA that showed.  Our Y-DNA has had at least one 99.9% percent match with at least 3 people.  One of these people has traced his family tree to Chihuahua Mexico and also New Mexico.  He is still working on his Genealogy to see where we have our common ancestor.  Another guy comes from a Portuguese background and English background.  Another recent match also is English. It's interesting but I still do not understand everything because it is very complex.  

Family Tree DNA does have a message forum where you can discuss your DNA results.  Their experts are also very available to answer any questions.

I took the Mitochondrial tests as well (Female DNA).  It showed that my mother's ancestors were 54% Native American, 43% European and 10% Sub-Saharan African.  I may be off by some percentages.  

Kaiser to request DNA samples from 2 Million adults
http://www.bizjournals.com/eastbay/stories/2006/06/05/daily25.html
East Bay Business Times - by Chris Rauber

Kaiser Permanente is making plans to ask for DNA samples from up to 2 million adult enrollees in Northern California, possibly as early as this year, according to a spokesman for its Research Institute in Oakland. 

Kevin McCormack, the spokesman for Kaiser's research institute, confirmed a June 7 report in the Wall Street Journal that said Oakland-based Kaiser "is developing plans" to request DNA samples from "up to" 2 million adult members. McCormack said Kaiser will request samples from all adult members in Northern California, but will only obtain samples "from as many as are willing to take part." 

Its goal is to help identify genetic and environmental factors "that affect a person's risk of developing a disease," McCormack said. The timing is uncertain at this point. "Hopefully, this year," he said. "It's a matter of planning, developing and getting things together." 

Kaiser has more than 8.5 million enrollees nationwide, more than three-quarters of them in California. More than 3.2 million of Kaiser's enrollees reside in Northern California. 

Other health care organizations around the nation are undertaking similar research efforts, as they attempt to build on data created by the Human Genome Project and later studies, the Journal reported. Research along similar lines is being pursued at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Northwestern University, and the National Institutes for Health. 


Abstract: DNA diet plan, Kit tests for genetic cues to aid in healthier eatingAP via Orange County Registers
Nutrigenomics:  It's an emerging field of nutrition science that suggests the best diet to help you with healthy living won't be found in a fad or best seller, but in something a bit more intimate – your DNA.

Just as your DNA predisposes you to particular eye and hair colors, it also influences how your body processes nutrients, your chances of developing particular health conditions and how one affects the other.

In other words, having gene variation XYZ instead of ABC not only might make you more or less likely to get heart disease, but also better or less able to process the antioxidants that could help manage or prevent the condition.

The test looked at five things – how well my body utilizes antioxidants, how well it deals with inflammation, and the presence of gene variations that raise homocysteine levels (a risk factor for heart problems), influence cholesterol levels and affect blood flow.

It didn't look good. Of 12 variations that could increase my risk, I had seven. The booklet even included a depressing chart showing "optimal health" and "action required" in opposite corners. My "you are here" dot was nowhere near optimal health.

 

Scientists Find A DNA Change That Accounts For White Skin
By Rick Weiss, Washington Post Staff Writer, December 16, 2005; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/15/AR2005121501728_pf.html
Sent by Dr. Armando A. Ayala   DrChili@webtv.net

Scientists said yesterday that they have discovered a tiny genetic mutation that largely explains the first appearance of white skin in humans tens of thousands of years ago, a finding that helps solve one of biology's most enduring mysteries and illuminates one of humanity's greatest sources of strife.

The work suggests that the skin-whitening mutation occurred by chance in a single individual after the first human exodus from Africa, when all people were brown-skinned. That person's offspring apparently thrived as humans moved northward into what is now Europe, helping to give rise to the lightest of the world's races.

Leaders of the study, at Penn State University, warned against interpreting the finding as a discovery of "the race gene." Race is a vaguely defined biological, social and political concept, they noted, and skin color is only part of what race is -- and is not.

In fact, several scientists said, the new work shows just how small a biological difference is reflected by skin color. The newly found mutation involves a change of just one letter of DNA code out of the 3.1 billion letters in the human genome -- the complete instructions for making a human being.

"It's a major finding in a very sensitive area," said Stephen Oppenheimer, an expert in anthropological genetics at Oxford University, who was not involved in the work. "Almost all the differences used to differentiate populations from around the world really are skin deep."

The work raises a raft of new questions -- not least of which is why white skin caught on so thoroughly in northern climes once it arose. Some scientists suggest that lighter skin offered a strong survival advantage for people who migrated out of Africa by boosting their levels of bone-strengthening vitamin D; others have posited that its novelty and showiness simply made it more attractive to those seeking mates.

The work also reveals for the first time that Asians owe their relatively light skin to different mutations. That means that light skin arose independently at least twice in human evolution, in each case affecting populations with the facial and other traits that today are commonly regarded as the hallmarks of Caucasian and Asian races.

Several sociologists and others said they feared that such revelations might wrongly overshadow the prevailing finding of genetics over the past 10 years: that the number of DNA differences between races is tiny compared with the range of genetic diversity found within any single racial group.

Even study leader Keith Cheng said he was at first uncomfortable talking about the new work, fearing that the finding of such a clear genetic difference between people of African and European ancestries might reawaken discredited assertions of other purported inborn differences between races -- the most long-standing and inflammatory of those being intelligence.

"I think human beings are extremely insecure and look to visual cues of sameness to feel better, and people will do bad things to people who look different," Cheng said.

The discovery, described in today's issue of the journal Science, was an unexpected outgrowth of studies Cheng and his colleagues were conducting on inch-long zebra fish, which are popular research tools for geneticists and developmental biologists. Having identified a gene that, when mutated, interferes with its ability to make its characteristic black stripes, the team scanned human DNA databases to see if a similar gene resides in people.

To their surprise, they found virtually identical pigment-building genes in humans, chickens, dogs, cows and many others species, an indication of its biological value.

They got a bigger surprise when they looked in a new database comparing the genomes of four of the world's major racial groups. That showed that whites with northern and western European ancestry have a mutated version of the gene.

Skin color is a reflection of the amount and distribution of the pigment melanin, which in humans protects against damaging ultraviolet rays but in other species is also used for camouflage or other purposes. The mutation that deprives zebra fish of their stripes blocks the creation of a protein whose job is to move charged atoms across cell membranes, an obscure process that is crucial to the accumulation of melanin inside cells.

Humans of European descent, Cheng's team found, bear a slightly different mutation that hobbles the same protein with similar effect. The defect does not affect melanin deposition in other parts of the body, including the hair and eyes, whose tints are under the control of other genes.

A few genes have previously been associated with human pigment disorders -- most notably those that, when mutated, lead to albinism, an extreme form of pigment loss. But the newly found glitch is the first found to play a role in the formation of "normal" white skin. The Penn State team calculates that the gene, known as slc24a5, is responsible for about one-third of the pigment loss that made black skin white. A few other as-yet-unidentified mutated genes apparently account for the rest.

Although precise dating is impossible, several scientists speculated on the basis of its spread and variation that the mutation arose between 20,000 and 50,000 years ago. That would be consistent with research showing that a wave of ancestral humans migrated northward and eastward out of Africa about 50,000 years ago.

Unlike most mutations, this one quickly overwhelmed its ancestral version, at least in Europe, suggesting it had a real benefit. Many scientists suspect that benefit has to do with vitamin D, made in the body with the help of sunlight and critical to proper bone development.

Sun intensity is great enough in equatorial regions that the vitamin can still be made in dark-skinned people despite the ultraviolet shielding effects of melanin. In the north, where sunlight is less intense and cold weather demands that more clothing be worn, melanin's ultraviolet shielding became a liability, the thinking goes. Today that solar requirement is largely irrelevant because many foods are supplemented with vitamin D.

Some scientists said they suspect that white skin's rapid rise to genetic dominance may also be the product of "sexual selection," a phenomenon of evolutionary biology in which almost any new and showy trait in a healthy individual can become highly prized by those seeking mates, perhaps because it provides evidence of genetic innovativeness.

Cheng and co-worker Victor A. Canfield said their discovery could have practical spinoffs. A gene so crucial to the buildup of melanin in the skin might be a good target for new drugs against melanoma, for example, a cancer of melanin cells in which slc24a5 works overtime.

But they and others agreed that, for better or worse, the finding's most immediate impact may be an escalating debate about the meaning of race.

Recent revelations that all people are more than 99.9 percent genetically identical has proved that race has almost no biological validity. Yet geneticists' claims that race is a phony construct have not rung true to many nonscientists -- and understandably so, said Vivian Ota Wang of the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda.

"You may tell people that race isn't real and doesn't matter, but they can't catch a cab," Ota Wang said. "So unless we take that into account it makes us sound crazy." 
© 2005 The Washington Post Company



The Welsh and Irish Celts have been found to be the genetic blood-brothers of Basques, scientists have revealed. The gene patterns of the three races passed down through the male line are all "strikingly similar", researchers concluded. 

Basques can trace their roots back to the Stone Age and are one of Europe's most distinct people, fiercely proud of their ancestry and traditions. The research adds to previous studies which have suggested a possible link between the Celts and Basques, dating back tens of thousands of years. "The project started with our trying to assess whether the Vikings made an important genetic contribution to the population of Orkney," Professor David Goldstein of University College London (UCL) told BBC News. 

'Statistically indistinguishable' 
He and his colleagues looked at Y-chromosomes, passed from father to son, of Celtic and Norwegian populations. They found them to be quite different. "But we also noticed that there's something quite striking about the Celtic populations, and that is that there's not a lot of genetic variation on the Y-chromosome," he said. To try to work out where the Celtic population originally came from, the team from UCL, the University of Oxford and the University of California at Davis also looked at Basques. "On the Y-chromosome the Celtic populations turn out to be statistically indistinguishable from the Basques," Professor Goldstein said. 

Pre-farming Europe 
The comparison was made because Basques are thought by most experts to be very similar to the people who lived in Europe before the advent of farming. We conclude that these populations are reflecting pre-farming Europe," he said. Professor Goldstein's team looked at the genetic profiles of 88 individuals from Anglesey, North Wales, 146 from Ireland with Irish Gaelic surnames, and 50 Basques. 

"
We know of no other study that provides direct evidence of a close relationship in the paternal heritage of the Basque- and the Celtic-speaking populations of Britain," the team write in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

Viking TV But it is still unclear whether the link is specific to the Celts and the Basques, or whether they are both simply the closest surviving relatives of the early population of Europe. What is clear is that the Neolithic Celts took women from outside their community. When the scientists looked at female genetic patterns as well, they found evidence of genetic material from northern Europe. This influence helped even out some of the genetic differences between the Celts and their Northern European neighbors. The work was carried out in connection with a BBC television program on the Vikings. 


DNA forces El Salvador to face past
By Nathaniel Hoffman, Contra Costa Times,  6/14/06  
Sent by Jaime Cader  jmcader@yahoo.com

With help from UC Berkeley's Human Rights Center and the California Department of Justice DNA lab in Richmond, Perez Navarrete and his group in El Salvador hope to identify more children who were taken from their families by force during the civil war that engulfed the country in the 1980s and '90s.

Photo by Gregory Urquiaga/Times

Angela Fillingim, who was adopted from El Salvador, lived in Berkeley and now attends UC Davis.

DNA reunites Salvadoran families
Berkeley project helps children stolen or adopted during Central American nation's 12-yr civil war.
By Michelle Locke, AP via San Union-Tribune, June 15, 2006
Sent by Jaime Cader  jmcader@yahoo.com


BERKELEY – Angela Fillingim grew up knowing she had been adopted as a baby during El Salvador's civil war. But it wasn't until she took a high school Spanish class that she really began wondering about her past. Was she an orphan? Was there a family she had never met living far away? 

The answers for Fillingim and others searching for lost relatives may lie in a new DNA database developed by the California Justice Department and the University of California, Berkeley, Human Rights Center to reunite the shattered families of El Salvador. 

“It's just a new experience to think, 'Well, OK, I have another family, I have another mother,” Fillingim said Thursday. “I need to meet them, not only for myself but also for them, and to embark on this other part of my life.” 

Hundreds of children disappeared in El Salvador during the country's 1980-92 civil war, some stolen, some voluntarily put up for adoption. 

The DNA Reunification Project was started by Human Rights Center Director Eric Stover and the Rev. Jon Cortina, co-founder of the Salvadoran missing children's group Asociacion Pro-Busqueda de Niñas y Niños Desaparecidos. 

Stover, who started the project when he was working with Boston-based Physicians for Human Rights, brought the work to Berkeley. Scientists at a nearby state crime lab agreed to help. 

The database contains DNA from parents who are looking for long-lost children. Next month, it will be turned over to Pro-Busqueda, and workers will concentrate on trying to collect DNA from children adopted by families all over the world, a difficult and delicate task. 

The database effort is one of a number of initiatives developed over the last decade as new technology has revolutionized identification techniques. 

“There is software out there to compare large numbers of reference individuals to large numbers of known individuals,” said Moses S. Schanfield, chair of the forensic sciences department at George Washington University. Schanfield worked in Croatia identifying remains of war victims. A DNA database was also created to identify victims of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York. 

So far, there have been more than 700 requests from families in El Salvador whose children are missing. Of those, 158 families have been reunited, though not necessarily through DNA, Stover said. 

Not knowing what happened leaves families in “a limbo world of somewhere between hope and denial,” he said. “The simple fact of seeing their child coming towards them and knowing that they really did survive is extremely important.” 

Pro-Busqueda workers following a paper trail have located a woman they believe is Fillingim's mother; DNA results are pending. Fillingim, a 21-year-old student studying sociology at UC Davis, said it appears her mother voluntarily put her up for adoption. 

Fillingim's parents supported her search and her father, Jerry Fillingim who spoke at the news conference, said news that Angela's birth mother is alive and wants to meet her was “really a very moving thing for us.” 

For Fillingim, who hopes to visit her mother and teenage brother in El Salvador when she has a break from her studies next spring, getting the answers to her questions is both exciting and a “little bit scary.” 

“I realize that I can't change the past,” she said. “But I can be grateful for all the opportunities that I have now.” 


Canales, Garcia and Salinas Family Trees
Sent by Mario Garcia  sancudobaboso@hotmail.com

Folks, I've submitted the family trees to the LDS in Salt Lake City for safe keeping. They are the largest depository of family records in the world. The three files were submitted today(1-20-06) so it may take a few days for the LDS to get the data transferred to their website at familysearch.org.

I wanted to keep the files safe and I felt that the LDS Family Center was better than on my rickety old hard drive or on CDs or floppies here at home.

The three files were on the following ancestors and their descendants:
Pablo Garcia - my ggrandfather
Jose Miguel Salinas - my ggggrandfather
Crespin Canales - my gggrandfather

I'm also in the process of getting a web page for each the family ancestors above but with pictures, stories, and possibly audio and video included. We'll see how that goes. If you have any stories that you want to pass on about your parents, grandparents, or just stories that would a little insight into the lives of your family, please email them to me and I'll include them in the family tree webpages for all to read.

I have already received one or two Word documents from one of the Canales family members so don't be shy and honor your ancestors. I know of one cousin that has poems that her father wrote....what a treasure we have in our families. Please share them so we can better understand where we come from and who our ancestors were. They definitely were more than just a name 
on a tombstone or in a document.  

Mario Garcia  sancudobaboso@hotmail.com

QUESTION: 20 Jan 2006 
Dear Mario. . . good thinking . . . I have Salinas in San Antonio and I will be looking forward to getting into the LDS records.  Are your lines in Northern Mexico, South Texas?? Thanks, Mimi

Yes Mimi, my line is along the border and in South Texas. I have a James Salinas who is also looking for his roots. He is from San Antonio as well and he has been looking for a long time. His Salinas Lineage goes back to 1835 or so in the SA area. He is also tied to OUR Salinas male clan thru the YDNA results he just got back last year. So he and our Salinas are BLOOD!

I have also added the same Salinas and Canales files to the Rootsweb.com database.
http://wc.rootsweb.com/~salinas  If I can be of any help, please let me know. Mario

Friday, 20 Jan 2006 

Hi Mario . . . what a great story to share: DNA tying to a real historical person . . My Salinas goes back to Josepha Salinas married to Jose Ignacio Candelario Arocha one of the Canary Islanders that entered San Antonio in 1731) Jose Ignacio parents were Simon Arocha (cattle rancher) and Maria Ignacia Urrutia (also Canary Islander descendant). Josepha was the daughter of Jose Salinas and Espiciaca Rodriguez. Jose Salinas was the son of Francisco de Salinas and Margarita Menchaca. We must all be primos!!!!

Thank you for your invitation to ask questions . . . What did the YDNA show up in terms of ethnic/racial background? Did it show indigenous and Sephardic lines? How about black lines?
This is all so fascinating . . . God bless, Mimi


Friday, 20 Jan 2006

Dear Mimi . . .  we are all in one way or another tied to the Mother Continent of Africa since that is where the Adam and Eve of wEwEHomo Sapiens began according to the DNA results being done. But from that branch, other branches or Haplogroups splintered off as humans migrated out of Africa and to the European and Asian Continents.

The male ancestors that passed on their YDNA genetic material to their male offspring and eventually to the male Salinas' of today were of the I1c or Nordic Haplogroup. These ancient males spawned from the Balkans and Norway area thousands of years ago and then their seed continued on, migrating thru the lands and across oceans until they landed on the shores of the Americas and their descendants are now living among us. It is so fascinating and yet somewhat incredible at the same time, isn't it?

The mtDNA carried by the females is more ancient than the YDNA material carried by the males. The mtDNA is more like the original mtDNA carried by the first Eve in Africa thousands and  thousands of years ago. This female genetic material does not mutate as often as the male DNA and therefore has less changes to it. Did you know that if you unraveled the DNA helix in each of your cells, it would reach from earth to the moon. Extraordinary. It has taken super computers several years to finally map the human genome.

As mentioned before per our email conversation with you and Robert Tarin several months ago, the female mtDNA projects are not being pursued as vigilantly as the YDNA projects....maybe because the male reseachers are more interested in finding out where they come from....I don't know. But the YDNA data collected from the Mexico project seems to indicate a European origin of those being tested. There is an indication of Jewish ancestry by some of the males being tested but not as high as being found in conclaves in parts of Europe and the Middle East. It stands to reason that you would find Jewish ancestry in the due to the Spanish Inquisition in the 1500s, but I just don't know how many Jewish families actually made it to the Americas. I'm sure there is a Paper somewhere out that has the answer.

I can't remember, off hand, what the African Haplogroup is so I can't comment on that but I did see a documentary done on several black women who originated out of the Caribbean Islands. The women were all of black ancestry and they all had their DNA tested. Not all of them lived on the 
islands. Some lived in England. Anyway, the mtDNA tests showed that some of those women's ancestors came from an island on the West Coast of Africa.They knew that from the previous DNA samples done by other independent research labs from samples taken from all over the world.

One woman actually went to the island and met up with women that had the same bloodline as she. The tribe was called the Bubi Tribe(?) of West Africa. This woman was able to bond somewhat with the African women but she and they were too far apart economically, socially, and education wise to make the bond binding. But it was a good story and this woman left with a much better appreciation for herself and where her roots came from.   Mario


Santa Ana planners to present downtown recommendations
The ideas stem from residents' suggestions for the area.
By Amy Taxin,
The Orange County Register Thursday, June 22, 2006
Sent by Ricardo Valverde

SANTA ANA — City planners will share recommendations with the public for a new plan for downtown, the Civic Center and the corridor surrounding Santa Ana Boulevard. The recommendations stem from a design session held last month to gauge residents’ opinions about what they envision for the area – which also includes the train depot and the Logan and Lacy neighborhoods. Planners will make the presentation at the following meetings, which are open to the public. Meetings up ahead:

  • Historic Resources Commission- July 6, 4:30 pm, 20 Civic Center Plaza, confer rm 1600 
  • Redevelopment and Housing- July 18, 3:30 p.m., 20 Civic Center Plaza, Council Chambers.
  • Downtown Merchants- July 19, 7:30 a.m., 20 Civic Center Plaza, conference room 1600.
  • Board of Recreation and Parks - July 26, 5:30 p.m., 888 W. Santa Ana Blvd., 2nd floor 

Information: www.santa-ana.org/pba/planning/Renaissance_Specific_Plan.asp or 714-667-2700.

 

Grijalva Park, July 20, 2006, at 5:00 PM.
The first shovel celebration of the 4 million dollar Gymnsium/sports Center to be held. The Grijalva Center is named after the Early California  historical figure, Juan Pablo Grijalva.  
Sent by Eddie Grijalva  grijalvaet@sbcglobal.net

National Archive Center may go to Great Park, 
By Jeff Rowe, The Orange County Register, June 7, 2006

Documents would move from the regional repository in Laguna Niguel. Securing the National Archives for the Great Park is an opportunity to create "one huge history program," . Great Park Corp. chief executive Wally Kreutzen Kreutzen said. Some nationally historic documents such as the Emancipation Proclamation could be made available as part of a rotating exhibit, he said. Such exhibits would help lure repeat visitors to the park, Kreutzen said.

In the Great Park, the National Archives would get a more central, publicly accessible location among a planned family of museums where it could step up its educational programming and attract meetings and seminars.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle to getting the National Archives to move to the Great Park is in Washington. Great Park Corp. chief executive Wally Kreutzen said he hopes funds for the move and the new building will be included in the federal budget for fiscal year 2008.

Great Park officials and National Archives executives are eager for an agreement; the memo is the first in a series of steps to bring the archives to the Great Park. "It would be a prestigious institution to have as an anchor," said Ken Smith, the New York-based architect whose team is designing the 1,347-acre public portion of the Great Park.
CONTACT US: 949-553-2914 or jrowe@ocregister.com



The LATINO OC 100 2005-2006 Yearbook and website is now being produced. A picture and a bio for each of the selectees will be inserted into the publication. 2006 of the Yearbooks will be printed. They will be distributed to elementary, intermediate, high schools as well as colleges and universities in Orange County with high percentages of minority students and drop out rates. Distribution will also include Community Centers, Boys & Girls Clubs, Girls Inc., and the Probation Department and Juvenile Halls. Copies will also be distributed to public libraries in Orange County as part of their reference sections. Yearbooks autographed by selectees at the Yearbook signing party will also be given to the Library of Congress, California State Archives Library, Orange County historical societies and organizations for their collections. 

Space Available Latino serving organizations will also be listed as a reference directory. The LATINO OC 100 Yearbook will also be transferred to a Web Page as a link from Stay Connected OC. Links, if available will be added to the bios of Selectees to their e-mail addresses or web sites. 

Only 16 ads that fill 10 pages will be available in this inaugural LATINO OC 100 Yearbook. It will be debut at the exclusive Yearbook Signing Party to take place in August. 

Platinum $2,000 *Only 6 pages will be available in this historic publication *Full page ad in year book 8"x10" *10 tickets and recognition at the exclusive LATINO OC 100 Yearbook signing party *10 tickets to LATINO OC 100 Night on the July 23 Fullerton Flyers Baseball Game and VIP reception *100 copies of yearbook for corporate and community distribution *Banner ad and link on Web Site 

Gold $1,000 *Only 3 pages, a total of 6 ads will be available in this historic publication *Half page ad in year book 4"x5" *6 tickets and recognition at the exclusive LATINO OC 100 Yearbook signing party *6 tickets to LATINO OC 100 Night on the July 23 Fullerton Flyers Baseball Game and VIP reception *50 copies of yearbook for corporate and community distribution *Half Banner ad and link on Web Site 
Silver $ 500 *Only 1 page, a total of 4 ads will be available in this historic publication *Quarter page ad in year book 2"x2 1/2" *4 tickets and recognition at the exclusive LATINO OC 100 Yearbook signing party *4 tickets to LATINO OC 100 Night on the July 23 *Fullerton Flyers Baseball Game and VIP reception *25 copies of yearbook for corporate and community distribution *Quarter Banner ad and link on Web Site 

Contact Information



Ruben Alvarez and Macial Fernandez
phone: 714-331-3095


LOS ANGELES, CA

July 4th: Descendants of  Los Pobladores at Olvera St.
July 7-11: National Council of La Raza National Conference, Premier of
                    East L.A. Marine, the Untold True Story of Guy Gabaldon
July 7-9: Cesar E. Chavez y  Bernardo de Galvez
July 10th:
 Book signing by Dr. Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez
New Book: Images of American Series: Los Angeles's Olvera Street
Database of all the missions and Los Angeles Plaza Church 
Naturalization Index Published for Los Angeles County
Reginaldo Francisco del Valle: UCLA's Forgotten Forefather
Health Net is open for business in East Los Angeles!  
July 27th: Where the Leaders Meet National Latina Business Women Assn
August 4: Promoting a Positive Image
Nov 10-12: 2nd Annual Los Angeles International Tamale Festival 
My Hot Tamale website

 

July 4th: Descendants of Los Pobladores of Olvera St. 
Members of the Los Pobladores 200 will be at Olvera Street on July 4, 2006, with displays, family histories and information on the early families of Spanish California and the changes under Mexico and the ties with the US since 1846. Sent by Bob Smith Regriffith6828@aol.com

July 7-11: National Council of La Raza National Conference 

Achieving the American Dream in a New Century
Realizando el Sueño Americano en el Nuevo Siglo

The NCLR Annual Conference serves as a catalyst for new thought and progress for over 23,000 community organization leaders and activists, elected officials, members of the corporate and academic communities, senior citizens, and youth. The Conference will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center, West Hall at 1201 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles, 90015.

West coast premier of  East L.A. Marine, the Untold True Story of Guy Gabaldon to be held on Saturday. For up to date information, go to: http://www.nclr.org/section/events/conference/

Dr. Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, El Paso book signing, A Legacy Greater than Words.  This book took us over a year to compile and we spent over $45,000 on staff alone, plus another $11,000 on printing costs (UT Press is distributing).  Dr. Rivas-Rodriguez will have a book signing in Los Angeles July 10th at a location restaurant to be named. 

"We'll be at the NCLR conference, distributing information about our project, from the Medal of Honor exhibit, on July 8, 9 and 10th, so please find us there. For more information about scheduled book signings, or to have me come to your city, please contact Kathryn Gonzalez, interim project manager at (512) 471-1924.  We don't travel- money, but are delighted to help sponsors consider creative ways to get us in your community to sell books and make presentations..."  
thanks,  Maggie

 



Images of American Series: Los Angeles's Olvera Street
Birthplace of Los Angeles Featured in Pictorial History Book by Arcadia Publishing
New Book Celebrates Olvera Street's History  

As the City of Los Angeles approaches its 225th Anniversary this year, it is only appropriate to pay tribute to the city's birthplace. Over 200 black and white vintage photos, many never before seen of the birthplace of Los Angeles. The text and photo features all of Olvera Street's favorite pastimes, important faces, the Golden Years, and more.

About the Author: 
William D. Estrada is a native of Los Angeles and curator or history at El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument. He is a social and cultural historian, and received his bachelor of arts, master of arts, and doctor of philosophy degrees in history at UCLA. He has researched and curated several exhibitions and has directed numerous public history programs that examine the rich history and diverse cultural heritage of Los Angeles, especially the experiences of the Mexican American community. From 1981 to 1989, he served as assistant dean of students at Occidental College in Los Angeles, and he has taught United States History, California History, Los Angeles History, and Chicano/a Studies at California State University, Long Beach and Northridge, East Los Angeles College, Santa Monica College, and Occidental College. He is the author of several publications; most recently are two essays in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States (2005). His forthcoming book The Los Angeles Plaza: acred and Contested Space will be published in 2007 by the University of Texas Press.

Los Angeles's Olvera Street $19.99, 128 pages/softcover, Arcadia Publisher is now Available at area bookstores, independent retailers, and on-line bookstores, retailers, or through Arcadia Publishing at www.arcadiapublishing.com  or (888)-313-2665 Price: 

About Arcadia Publishing: Arcadia Publishing was launched in Dover, New Hampshire, in 1993 as a small publisher of local history. The first ten titles in what would become the Images of America series were published in the summer of 1994.

Since the company was established, it has blended a visionary management approach with the innovative application of state-of-the-art technology to create high-quality historical publications. Arcadia has become the largest publisher of regional history books in North America, and with offices in Charleston, San Francisco, Chicago, and Portsmouth, the company has successfully established an extensive publishing program of more than 3,000 titles.

Arcadia is best known for its popular Images of America series, which chronicles the history of communities from Bangor, Maine to Manhattan Beach, California. With more than 200 vintage black-and-white photographs, each title celebrates a town or region, bringing to life the people, places, and events that defined the community. Arcadia also publishes other series, including Campus History, Images of Sports, and Postcard History, as well as transportation, military, and corporate histories.

About the Images of America Series: Since its inception in 1993, the Images of America series has preserved and shared the history of hundreds of individual communities throughout the country. Each title records a town's or city's unique story through more than two hundred historic images. Due to the popularity of this series, it has expanded over time to include worthy local and regional historical topics including the examination and celebration of transportation, industry, architecture, ethnic groups and more.

Our mission is to make history accessible and meaningful through the publication of books on the heritage of America's people and places. Have we done a book on your town? Visit www.arcadiapublishing.com

Lynn Ruggieri, Publicity Manager 843.853.2070 x 363 lruggieri@arcadiapublishing.com
420 Wando Park Blvd., Mount Pleasant, SC 29464 o Telephone: 843-853-2070 Facsimile: 843-853-0044 o www.arcadiapublishing.com



Database of all the missions and Los Angeles Plaza Church 
http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/refmaterialsamples/huntington.pdf  
This is a database of all the missions and Los Angeles Plaza Church baptisms, marriages, and burials. Per Steven W. Hackel, Associate Professor of History at Oregon State University. This is really exciting for researchers of early California ancestors.
Good luck, Lorraine Frain lorrilocks@earthlink.net



Naturalization Index Published for Los Angeles County
Sent by Lorraine Hernandez Lmherdz@msn.com  

The Southern California Genealogical Society has announced the publication of a new three-volume series: The Naturalization Index of the Superior Court for Los Angeles County, California 1852-1915.  Quoting from the society's announcement: The index includes mention of every naturalization transaction (Declaration of Intent, Final Papers, denials, etc.) that occurred in Los Angeles County Superior court. The index includes more than 40,000 entries, with close to 27,000 unique names and more than 350 countries or combinations of countries or origin, i.e., Hungary-Canada-Great Britain. The three volumes are available for purchase separately or as a three-volume set. The publication can be ordered through the SCGS website shopping cart at www.scgsgenealogy.com/catalog..

This series is the first tangible output of SCGS's 1890 Project. The goal of the 1890 Project is to account for all of the individuals -- fathers, mothers, children, lodgers, residents and visitors -- who would have been enumerated on the 1890 U.S. census for Los Angeles County. This project is a legacy for all future genealogists and historians of the Los Angeles area. Read more about the 1890 Project at http://www.scgsgenealogy.com/1890project.htm 

The Southern California Genealogical Society, founded in 1964, is headquartered in Burbank and staffed entirely by volunteers. The society's 30,000-volume library, considered one of the finest genealogy research libraries west of the Mississippi, is open to the public free of charge. SCGS publishes a respected quarterly journal and a newsletter for its members; provides numerous lectures and seminars for all levels of researchers; sponsors a number of special interest groups; and hosts the yearly Genealogy Jamboree, which attracts visitors from all over the United States. The 38th Annual Genealogy Jamboree will be held June 8-10, 2007.

For more information: Southern California Genealogical Society
417 Irving Drive, Burbank, CA 91504
818-843-7247  scgs@scgsgenealogy.com  www.scgsgenealogy.com

Reginaldo Francisco del Valle: UCLA's Forgotten Forefather
Sent by John P. Schmal
March 30, 2006, Contact: Lauren Bartlett ( lbartlett@support.ucla.edu
Phone: 310-206-1458  http://newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=6924


When UCLA reflects back on its historical roots, recent research shows that the founder of its predecessor institution, the Los Angeles State Normal School, was Latino.

Reginaldo Francisco del Valle, who served as both a state Assemblyman and state senator, was the force behind the creation of the normal school, which is the predecessor institution of UCLA, according to the paper, "Reginaldo Francisco del Valle: UCLA's Forgotten Forefather," produced by the UCLA Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture and published by Southern California Quarterly.

"When UCLA celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2019, homage should be paid to Reginaldo Francisco del Valle," said David Hayes-Bautista, lead author and center director. "The normal school provided the institutional platform from which the UCLA campus grew and developed. In past celebrations, including the 1930 dedication of UCLA, Del Valle was not recognized, and it
is important that he is given his due."

Hayes-Bautista praised Del Valle's focus as a state legislator. "Del Valle spent years in the Legislature to secure establishment, funding and winning of independent governance for the Los Angeles State Normal School," Hayes-Bautista said. "It is commendable for a legislator to be so
dedicated to such an important cause and succeed."

The creation of the Los Angeles Normal School with autonomous governance was a struggle for Del Valle involving several bills over a number of years. He first introduced a bill in the 1880 legislative session, but was unable to win approval as five other cities introduced competing legislation to establish a normal school in one of those areas. In the 1881 session, Del Valle successfully introduced and negotiated the passage of the bill that then-Gov. George C. Perkins signed into law to establish the branch state normal school.

In subsequent years, Del Valle's initiative ensured sufficient funding for construction and operation of the school. Del Valle developed a legislative scheme in 1885 to allow those in Los Angeles to make their own decisions, rather than have decisions made by people at the normal school in San Jose.
His first attempt at passage was not successful. He retired after the 1886 session, and in the following year, his legislative scheme finally was enacted, carried by Assemblyman John Brierly.

"Del Valle should be considered the intellectual author of the bill carried by Assemblyman Brierly," Hayes-Bautista said. "Del Valle was the one who developed the legislative scheme to achieve this goal via extensively amending 12 sections of the Political Code and repealing the 13th."

The normal school provided the only access to publicly financed post-secondary education in the southern region, but was limited by being only a teacher's training college. As the population in Southern California grew after 1886, with Los Angeles County surpassing San Francisco County in
population by 1910, public pressure grew on the University of California to establish a campus in the southern part of the state.

To accommodate a growing student body, the normal school moved to a larger site on Vermont Avenue in 1914 — now the site of Los Angeles City College — but demand for education continued to grow. An agreement was reached in 1919 in which legislation abolished the state normal school, and in its place at the Vermont Avenue site, a southern branch of the University of
California was established.

"Del Valle would not have felt disappointment at the dissolution of his hard-fought legislative victories because they provided the platform upon which the Regents built UCLA, which grew in ability and prestige to rival its sister campus at Berkeley," Hayes-Bautista said.

Merry Ovnick, editor of the Southern California Quarterly, which published the paper, said, "The journal's focus is the history of Southern California, the state as a whole and the American West. This paper is a valuable contribution to our readers' understanding of the past. Equally important, it corrects a long-standing oversight by acknowledging Del Valle's role in bringing a state-supported institution of higher learning to Southern California."

Five hundred reprints of the article were made possible by Health Net of California. "We are proud to support the publication of a paper that sheds light on the important accomplishments and contributions Latinos have made to the state of California," said Ana Andrade, vice president of Latino programs for Health Net of California.

About the UCLA Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture 
Since 1992 the UCLA Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture has been a resource for cutting-edge research, education and public information about Latinos, their health and their role in California. Under the leadership of Hayes-Bautista, the center, part of the David Geffen School
of Medicine at UCLA, has been the lead institution to explode myths and stereotypes about Latinos in California society, provide reliable data on Latino health, emphasize the positive contributions of Latinos to the state's economy and society, and inform the public about the important emerging Latino medical market.

About UCLA

California's largest university, UCLA enrolls approximately 38,000 students per year and offers degrees from the UCLA College of Letters and Science and 11 professional schools in dozens of varied disciplines. UCLA consistently ranks among the top five universities and colleges nationwide
in total research-and-development spending, receiving more than $820 million a year in
 competitively awarded federal and state grants and contracts. For every $1 state taxpayers invest in UCLA, the university generates almost $9 in economic activity, resulting in an annual $6 billion
economic impact on the Greater Los Angeles region. The university's health care network treats 450,000 patients per year. UCLA employs more than 27,000 faculty and staff, has more than 321,000 living alumni and has been home to five Nobel Prize recipients.

 

Health Net is open for business in East Los Angeles!

Mexican Consul General Ruben Beltran and East Los Angeles residents joined Health Net of California (HNCA) on Wednesday, June 7, to celebrate the grand opening of a first-of-its-kind community enrollment and customer service center. The store, located at 5055 Whittier Boulevard in the heart of East Los Angeles, is focused on reaching the more than 2 million uninsured in Southern California – half of which are Latinos.
“We believe it is important to reach out to underserved populations where they shop, work and socialize,” said Stephen Lynch, president of HNCA. “This new store provides a venue where our customers have access to vital information regarding health care.”
According to research conducted for Health Net by UCLA and ProfMex, a nonprofit research organization, two of the main reasons Latinos remain uninsured are because they don’t know how to purchase health insurance and they don’t know why they need a health plan. The community store is staffed by counselors who provide one-on-one service in English and Spanish and help consumers select a health plan that best suits their needs. It will offer educational programs, health and wellness information and enrollment services to the local community.
The store is part of the Salud con Health Net initiative, a comprehensive effort to develop products and services that meet the unique needs of the Latino community. Included in the initiative are Health Net’s Latino-focused products, including Mexi-Plan, the first individual cross-border health plan, developed in conjunction with the Mexican Consulate.
 
"We believe it is important to find solutions to close the Latino health care gap in California," said Ana Andrade, vice president of Latino Programs. "Given that Latinos account for more than half of the uninsured population in California, it is critical that we increase awareness and understanding of the vital role health plans play in improving health care access, quality and health status."
 
"It's a good day for Health Net," Stephen Lynch told the participants. "This store is a way for us to come out of the corporate office and work together in the community. Through this store, we can educate people about the coverage available to them and their options. We want to find a way to bring the uninsured into the main stream of how medical care is delivered. Congratulations to Ana Andrade, Maria Lugo and everyone who made this effort a reality."


July 27, 2006, "Where the Leaders Meet"
Time: 6:00-9:30pm

Complimentary Invite, but RSVP by July 20th-1-877-734-7206 ext 707
On behalf of National Latina Business Women Association board of directors in collaboration with local chapters in California co-hosted by Board of Governors of the University Club of Pasadena, NAHREP-LA Board of Directors. Please join us to a mixer evening "Where the Leaders Meet" for power networking and business opportunities. Food and drink and for those aficionados Cigars. 
University Club of Pasadena, 175 North Oakland Avenue
Pasadena, California 91101-1713   (626) 793-5157 fax (626) 793-1784


August 4, 2006: Promoting Positive Images of the Latino Community!
Hispaniclifestyle.com

Mark your calendars and make your reservation to attend the 10th Annual Business Expo and Conference on Friday, August 4, 2006 at the Ontario Airport Hilton, Ontario, California. What makes this event different from other business expo’s, is the Annual recognition of the regions Top Latino Owned Businesses. In 2005 attendees had the opportunity to network with Latino owned businesses that generated over 1.7 billion dollars in annual revenues while employing thousands in Southern California.

Hispanic Lifestyle’s trademark event features; A Presentation on the state of Latino owned businesses, A panel discussion on the impact of Latino marketing in the age of immigration, walkouts and boycotts, and the Annual Recognition of the Regions Latinos owned businesses. The topic of our Keynote address will be Latino businesses and their Impact on creating National Policies.

The all day event offers sponsorship and exhibitor opportunities you can download the sponsorship application For more information, call 951.940.9099 or send your e-mail request toEvents@Hispaniclifestyle.com or check out the link and or download the sponsorship application at http://hispaniclifestyle.com/HispanicLifestyle/BizExpo_06.html or call 951.940.9099




2nd Annual Los Angeles International Tamale Festival and Carnival 
November 10, 11, and 12, 2006 
Location to be announced.  http://www.eastlosangeles.net/tamalefestival/

The 1st Annual Los Angeles International Tamale Festival was visited by approximating 40,000+ people! In many interviews that we conducted people said that it’s was a great idea to have this festival here and that they would be back next year! We at East Los Angeles Net also conducted a Best Tamale Contest which was held on Saturday an almost all of our tamale vendors participated and the winners of the contest displayed there trophies that weekend. Let’s not forget the Tamale Eating Contest it was held on Sunday, 10 people participated in this contest and Justin of Irvine, Ca he was named the winner for eating 10 “TAMALES” within the time frame allowed. The tamales where donated by the vendors. 

Tamale Man of EL Sereno he made the biggest tamale Los Angeles has ever seen! Did he break the record for the biggest tamale? There were many types of tamale that weekend and over 40 live musical groups at the event which made this a great place to be at with family & friends. 

We published the “Tamale Times” newspaper which included a entertainment lineup & schedule for the event, articles from Tamale Man, Molly’s Tamales and John Rivera Sedlar from the Tamale Museum.  Join us at this year at the festival it will be the festival you will remember for a long time! Stop by and say hi to George and staff from www.EastLosAngeles.Net. For Vendor or Sponsorship information (323) 318-4553 (cell) George or visit http://www.eastlosangeles.net/tamalefestival


My Hot Tamale
http://www.sonofthesouth.net/tamales/  
"your source for everything Tamale" 
Website for how-to with recipes, equipment needed, etc .plus links to other sites. Sent by Johanna De Soto

About our Tamale Recipe

I grew up on a ranch in West Texas.  There was a Hispanic family that lived and worked on the Ranch.  The mother was a lady named Goya, and she cooked like you could not believe.  Since that time, I have traveled all over the world, and have eaten in the World's finest five star restaurants, but I can honestly say that I have never had food that came close to the stuff that came out of Goya's tiny little kitchen in the small little cinder block house on a remote ranch in West Texas.  Goya died in 1998, but luckily she shared her recipe with me, and taught me how to make tamales.  This site is dedicated to Goya's memory, and her most delicious Tamales. As time goes on, I plan to add more of Goya's Mexican Food recipes to this site.  Sent by Johanna De Soto

Julie Kiser, Regional Sales Manager
Arcadia Publishing
420 Wando Park Blvd.
Mt. Pleasant, SC 29464
phone: 843-853-2070 ext. 161
facsimile: 843-853-0044

 

CALIFORNIA

Discovering the Painted Caves of Baja California
The Bear Flag Revolt
California Stories, a New Approach to Strengthening Communities
Sources at your fingertips. . .
Historical LA Times Newspaper database
Plan would open Prop. 40 funds to missions
Gringo Gazette North - Northern Baja's English Voice
Our Talmantes-Farias Picnic day
California Roll Call
Mission San Miguel Arcangel Landmark Plaque

 

Discovering the Painted Caves of Baja California:
http://www.innerexplorations.com/catsimple/dis.htm

A Visit with Harry W. Crosby - Baja California DVD Collection: Three movies: The Hidden Magic of Baja, 22 Minutes
Expedition to the Guaycura Nation in the Californias, 11 minutes. 
Discovering the Painted Caves of Baja California: with Harry Crosby. 37 Minutes, DVD, $25 
How to Order http://www.innerexplorations.com/home/list.htm
Sent by Johanna De Soto 
 
Harry Crosby is one of the great modern explorers of Baja California. He spent months on muleback in its rugged mountainous interior discovering and recording its ancient cave art, and he became fascinated with the daily lives and the history of the current inhabitants of those sierras, some of whom are the descendants of the soldiers who accompanied the first Jesuit missionaries to Baja California two hundred years ago. He documented these adventures in books like Last of the Californios, The Cave Paintings of Baja California, and Antigua California, and here he introduces us to this other Baja California.

Format: The interview is interspersed with beautiful scenes of cave paintings and rancho life in the Sierra de San Francisco. Find out about Harry Crosby's new novel, "Portrait of Paloma," at www.harrywcrosby.com.  Although this work, uncharacteristically, is not based in Baja California, it was inspired by a misadventure in the mountains of the peninsula during one very strange night in the Arroyo de Valladares, not far from the site of the old Misión de San Pedro Mártir. Oddly, the story revealed there takes place largely in Spain, England, and Santa Fe, New Mexico

The Bear Flag Revolt
Extract: Of illegal immigration and bloodshed -- in 1846 
Celebrated killings highlight dubious path to statehood 
by Rebecca Solnit, San Francisco Chronicle, June 25, 2006 
Sent by Dorinda Moreno dorindamoreno@comcast.net
and  hot_ss@yahoo.com

. . . . . But the Bear Flag Revolt wasn't epic or heroic, just a strange squabble that melded into the Mexican-American war. It began when a number of Yankee settlers near Sutter Buttes in the Central Valley, inflamed by rumors that a small army of Mexicans was coming to drive out the illegal aliens -- the Americans -- decided to jump the gun and seize the place. They set out in the second week of June, recruiting as they went, so that about 30 of them stole into Sonoma's plaza at dawn on the 14th. 

There, the illegal aliens stormed Vallejo's home and took him hostage. Some wore buckskin pants, some coyote-fur hats, some had no shoes. One account describes them as "a marauding band of horse thieves, trappers and runaway sailors." Vallejo was a man of culture, a rancher and a reluctant governor, not averse to being annexed by the United States but not inclined to become a prisoner or a second-class citizen. It was his open immigration policy that had created the problem in the first place. They raised a flag with a bear so badly drawn that some of the Mexicans thought it was a pig; a better version of it is still the California flag, though the grizzly on it became extinct 84 years ago. The ironies pile high. 

Capt. John Charles Fremont, who had entered California illegally with a band of scouts and soldiers, egged on the revolt and then joined it, stealing horses, commandeering supplies and pretty much doing anything he liked. That morning of June 28, he and his chief scout Kit Carson were near the shores of San Rafael when the de Haro twins rowed their uncle across so that he could, by some accounts, visit his son in Sonoma. Carson asked Fremont what to do about these unarmed Californios. 

Fremont waved his hand and said, "I have got no room for prisoners." So Carson, from 50 yards away, shot them. As one history relates it, "Ramon was killed as soon as he reached the shore. Francisco then threw himself on his brother's body. Next, a command rang out: 'Kill the other son of a bitch!' It was obeyed immediately." When the uncle asked why the boys had been killed, he was shot down, too. Berryessa's son Antonio ran into a Yankee wearing his father's serape -- the bodies had been stripped of their clothing and left where they lay -- and asked Fremont to order its return to him. Fremont refused, so Berryessa paid the thief $25 for the garment. 

The son remained bitter for the rest of his days. The father of the twins is said to have died of grief. California became part of the United States. Carson shot more people in cold blood soon afterward, near what is now Las Vegas. Later he became a popular frontier hero, the subject of many laudatory and partly fictitious books. Fremont's star rose. He became the 1856 presidential candidate for the new Republican Party. He ran on an antislavery platform, but old scandals, including commanding the murder of Berryessa and the de Haros, surfaced. San Francisco surveyor Jasper O'Farrell testified against him in the only first-hand account of the murder, and Fremont failed to carry the state of California. Several more Berryessa men were murdered by Yankees after the war, and the family lost its vast holdings of Bay Area land. 

There are far more deaths that history neglects to mention, including the deaths of those crossing the line drawn in the sand after the Mexican-American war. It's all a reminder of the arbitrariness of borders and the color of justice. 

But the picture remains of those three men on the shores of San Rafael. I grew up one town over, told that history had happened elsewhere, back in those days when everything before the Gold Rush was glossed over. I wish that someone would put up a monument to these three victims, maybe as statues on the shore or maybe as a mural in what is now the barrio in that town, the Canal District near what may have been the murder site. Or in the center of the city, on Fourth Street, whose only claim to fame now is that some of the cruising scenes of George Lucas' "American Graffiti" were shot there. 

Much happened in California 160 years ago, and it has everything to do with what is happening now on the border created then and with the status of Latinos who are often treated as invaders, even when for many of them the story is, "We didn't cross the border; the border crossed us." 

Rebecca Solnit is the author of "Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities" and "River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West." Contact us at insight@sfchronicle.com


California Stories 2004-2005

"A NEW APPROACH TO STRENGTHENING COMMUNITIES"
An independent study find that California Stories projects promote a sense of community.  Download the lasest report on California Stories and discover how our projects are making a difference in California    www.californiastories.org
California Council for the Humanities, 312 Sutter St., Suite 601, San Francisco, CA 94108


Sources at your fingertips. . .

Original research in narrow areas of focus are theses and dissertations. They can be through  Proquest Information and Learning by clicking on http://il.proquest.com
California Libraries Catalog can be accessed throughout the state, at http://www.calcat.org
Source:  Cindy Mediavilla, cmediavi@ucla.edu


Historical LA Times Newspaper database
Sent by Paula Hinkel phinkel@pacbell.net

The Historical LA Times newspaper database is available online at the SCGS Library in Burbank. Unfortunately, due to restrictions placed by the owners  of the content, The Tribune Companies, we are unable to make this database available for use from home. However, our SCGS members are welcome to comet o the Library and use the database at no charge.

The first publications to be generated by the 1890 Committee have just been released. The Naturalization Index of the Superior Court for Los Angeles County, California includes every "naturalization transaction" with each alien that occurred in this court only. The index includes more than 40,000entries, with close to 27,000 unique names and more than 350 countries or combinations of countries or origin, i.e., Hungary-Canada-Great Britain. Compiled by the 1890 Committee of the Southern California Genealogical Society. Softbound. The three volumes are available for purchase individually or as a set and can be ordered through the SCGS website
shopping cart www.scgsgenealogy.com/catalog


Abstract:  Plan would open Prop. 40 funds to missions
California's constitution now keeps money from religious-linked historical sites  by Michael Coronado and Heather Ignatin 
The Orange County Register , Monday, June 5, 2006 

Mission San Juan Capistrano request for $500,000 in Prop. 40 money was turned down this year.  Photo by Chas Metivier


Background: The California Clean Water, Clean Air, Safe Neighborhood Parks, and Coastal Protection Act, known as Proposition 40, provides $2.6 billion to conserve natural resources, to acquire and improve state and local parks, and to preserve historical and cultural resources. Voters approved the bond measure in 2002. 

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO – Backers of California's missions are seeking a change in the state constitution that would allow public money to support historic landmarks with religious affiliations. 

The constitutional amendment is in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and voters could be asked to decide on the proposal as early as November. 

Currently, historic landmarks in California that are connected to a religious entity have been refused money from Proposition 40, a $2.6 billion bond measure passed in 2002. 

Mission San Juan Capistrano had a $500,000 request rejected this year as work continues on a three-year, $1.5 million restoration of Serra Chapel, where Father Junipero Serra celebrated Mass in 1783. 


Gringo Gazette North - Northern Baja's English Voice
http://www.gringogazettenorth.com/2.htm Sent by Johanna De Soto
[[This is a fascinating collections of topics and articles touching on the border events, businesses]]


Our Talmantes-Farias Picnic day
Seal Beach, California, 2006

"L to R Marisa Materna my niece, Me, my daughter  Sharon, My brother Ron Materna, my John, my Two great grandchildren, Kira and Nico Clark, Sharon's is Grandma from her son Dan. The other cutie in the back is a Cline married to Nancy.  Thanks, Eva

For information of the 2007 reunion, please contact EvaBooher@aol.com

  

The day was Saturday June 3, 06, it was a lovely day for a gathering. We had a change in plans, seems they had two parties scheduled in the same place? Making the mistake, they offered us the Club house, at the last minute, which I thought would be better than out in the hot sun?  Without extra charge for the Air Conditioned Club House. We set up all the tables and pictures and sign on the wall and T-shirts displayed by 11 o'clock we were ready. My daughter Sharon and my brother Ron and his daughter Marisa, with my two Great Grandaughters helping, the change was not too bad. Then to find a Bar B-Q, as the barbecues were at the Picnic area. We found a big one and put it on the porch and got it ready to light.
 
They started coming in slowly, with all there lawn chairs which now, they did not need? No time to call them, they were all set up to camp outside. They Registered and got their T-shirts, had their pictures taken and we went along just fine for a while. The dessert table looked Yummy! After the crowd grew they seemed to settle out side. It was a beautiful day? How though would I try and share some family stories, pictures, or welcome speech, or Bob Smith give his short talk he had planned?  Not unless they all came inside, they were hard to herd, everyone was having so much fun we few inside entertained our selves.
 
I did get them inside once, to get a count. We had about 80, coming and going. It was interesting to hear them introduce themselves as we tried to take a count. We had some good laughs. It was fun meeting new cousins and some were with the family for the first time and others had not seen each other in 6 years. Others had seen the article in the SHHAR and called me. They had not known where their family was? Another couple,newly weds, came because their cousin in St Thomas in the Virgin Isles had told them about the reunion. You never know just how many there are out there yet?
 
The eldest person there, was Margaret Talamantes Lamorie Cruz, she was 95. The furthest they came was from was Pennsylvania.  We had a drawing for a Family Tree Book, that was won by Mrs. Gilbert Talamantes, of Mar Vista , CA. Now, everyone wants one. So we did wet their interest some, in Genealogy I hope. I just wish we could have joined together more closely to get to know each other. Sharing our selves as a whole and not in groups? Maybe next time we will?
 
Eva Booher, Santa Monica, CA  evabooher@aol.com


California Roll Call

Ron is the coordinator for San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara Counties genealogy/history websites. He also is manager of the CA-Spanish website, query board, and mailing list. -) 
Visit the California Spanish Genealogy website http://www.sfgenealogy.com/spanish/
Ron@sfgenealogy.com

The purpose of the Roll Call is to let everyone know who you are and what you are working on. You never know, someone may just may have the information (or just got it recently) that you need! Or, you might have info that someone else needs.

So, PLEASE respond to either (1) or (2):
(1) If you have pre-1849 California-Spanish families: Surnames being researched: [list as many as you wish] Geographical Areas: [what parts of California are your families from?] Brickwall: [list one brickwall from your research that you would love help with]
(2) If you aren't related to the early Spanish families: What's your interest in California-Spanish Genealogy?


Mission San Miguel Arcangel Landmark Plaque
National Historic Landmark Plaque Dedicated was on held on June 15
Special guest was the Secretary of the Interior. Music provided by the New World Baroque Orchestra and Chorus directed by John Warren.
Sent by Benita Gray GRAY850@aol.com       


NORTHWESTERN UNITED STATES

Save the date: October 14
Family History Library 9TH Annual Hispanic Family History Conference 
Co-hosts, BYU Center for Family History & Genealogy and Legado Latino

 

 

SOUTHWESTERN UNITED STATES

The Presidio Line by Michael R. Hardwick
Resources of New Mexico State University
Index to Manifests of Permanent & Statistical Alien Arrivals at El Paso, TX



The Presidio Line
by Michael R. Hardwick

In the latter half of the eighteenth century frontier conditions in northern New Spain had deteriorated to such an extent as a result of Indian depredations, management of presidios etc., that the Spanish crown found it necessary to order an examination of the entire frontier with the view of relocating presidios and making whatever other adjustments might be necessary to prevent further abandonment of the frontier settlements. The Marques de Rubi was given the assignment of investigating this problem.  He began his investigation in 1766. Royal engineers Nicolas de La Fora
and Joseph de Urrutia assisted Rubi by drawing plans of presidios and drafting maps of the area traversed.

As a result of the Rubi recommendations, a new line of defense was established, uniform fortification plans were prescribed, and numerous changes were made in regulations governing military personnel. The new line of fortifications was to be composed of some fifteen presidios situated at about 40 league (or 120 mile) intervals extending from the Gulf of California on the west to the Gulf of Mexico on the east along what is now approximately the northern boundary of Mexico. The order implementing the realignment of the Presidios of the Frontier Line was published in 1772: REGLAMENTO e instrucción para los presidios que se han de formar EN LA LINEA DE FRONTERA de la Nueva España.

Hugo O'Conor was named to the post of Commander-Inspector of the military forces of the frontier provinces and took over the command on 17 February 1772. Between 1773 and 1775, O'Conor succeeded in relocating 12 presidios that had to be moved and added two others. Detachments of
troops were ordered to be stationed at San Antiono de Bejar and Arroyo del Cibolo in Texas. These however were not considered to be Presidios of the Frontier Line. (pp 7-8, Spanish Presidios of the Late Eighteenth Century in Northern New Spain, Rex E. Gerald, Museum of New Mexico
Research Records No. 7, Santa Fe, 1968).

Presidios of the Frontier Line (from west to east): 

Santa Gertrudis del Altar
, founded 1755 with 30 soldiers from the presidio of Sinaloa. Presidio was designed to restrain the Seris, Pimas and Papagos.

Tubac, founded 1753 following the Pima uprising of 1751. The garrison was moved to Tucson in 1777.

Terrenate, founded 1742 southwest of Huachuca mountains Sonora. Late in 1775 Santa Cruz de Terrenate was relocated near what is now Fairbank Arizona. Apache Indian attacks forced relocation of the of the presidio again in 1780 to a site near the arroyo of Las Nutrias.

Fronteras, originally founded in 1692. It was located for a while to the north in the San Berardino Valley, possibly in Arizona. Later in 1780 it was moved south by Teodoro de Croix.

Janos, founded 1690.

San Buenaventura, founded in 1776 by troops from Guajoquilla.

El Paso del Norte, founded as a result of the Revolt of 1680 in upper New Mexico. Spaniards moved downriver (southward) and founded presidio at the site of present Juarez, Chihuahua. Presidio was constructed in 1683. In 1773, because the town of El Paso was well populated and could defend itself, the presidio was moved southward to Carrizal.

Guajoquilla, erected in 1752 on orders from the Viceroy Revilla Gigedo. Later known as San Eleazario.

Julimes, located in 1777 at the former site of the presidio of La Junta at the confluence of the Conchos and Del Norte (Rio Grande) rivers.

Cerro Gordo
, founded after 1772 as part of the new frontier defense.

San Saba, San Saba-Aguaverde was founded in the new presidial line after 1772.

Santa Rosa del Sacrament, now Ciudad Melcho Muzquiz, Coahuila. It was moved north after 1772.

Monclova, founded in 1674. The villa or town of Monclova was the capital of Coahuila in 1780. At that time the presidio was located to the east nearer the Rio Grande.

San Juan Bautista, found in 1699.

La Bahia del Espiritu Santo, founded in 1772 as the last and easternmost presidio of the line. The original site was where Fort St. Louis stood on Matagorda Bay. It was moved in 1726 to the Guadalupe River and later removed to the north bank of the San Antonio River at the site of the
present town of Goliad, Texas.

San Antonio de Bejar, founded May 5, 1718 was not considered a presidio of the line, but it was defended by a detachment according to the regulations of 1772.

Arroyo del Cibolo, founded in 1771 as a detachment site. Presidio was deactivated in 1782 at orders of Teodoro de Croix, (pp.94,95, Lancers for the King, Brinckerhoff amd Faulk, Phoenix, 1965).


Resources of New Mexico State University
http://lib.nmsu.edu/books.shtml

Find Books with the online:
NMSU Library Catalog
WorldCat -- catalogs for libraries worldwide
NetLibrary EBooks -- electronic books
LIBDEX: Library Web-based Catalogs 

Regional library catalogs can be searched:
Dona Ana Branch Community College Library
New Mexico State University at Alamogordo
University of Texas/El Paso (UTEP) Library
University of New Mexico (UNM) Library
Thomas Branigan Memorial Library of Las Cruces 

New Mexico State University Library | Box 30006, Dept. 3475 | Las Cruces, NM 88003-8006 | (505) 646-2932 ©2006 NMSU Board of Regents - Legal Information 




Index to Manifests of Permanent & Statistical Alien Arrivals at El Paso, TX
The National Archives and Records Administration announces the completion of A3396, Index to Manifests of Permanent and Statistical Alien Arrivals at El Paso, Texas, July 1924-July 1952  (19 rolls). RG 85. 16mm.

A3396 has been placed in the National Archives Building Robert M. Warner Research Center in cabinet 31A / 2, and it is being provided to NARA Regional Archives at Anchorage, Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Fort Worth, Kansas City, Laguna Niguel, Pittsfield, San Francisco, and Seattle.
  
The National Archives and Records Administration announces the completion of A3431, Nonstatistical Manifests of Temporary Alien Arrivals at Laredo, Texas, July 1908-February 1912  (3 rolls). RG 85. 16mm.

A3431 has been placed in the National Archives Building Robert M. Warner Research Center in cabinet 31A / 1, and it is being provided to NARA Regional Archives at Anchorage, Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Fort Worth, Kansas City, Laguna Niguel, Pittsfield, San Francisco, and Seattle.
  
Descriptive material is on all rolls of the microfilm publication.  A3431 is indexed by A3379, Nonstatistical Manifests Statistical Index Cards of Aliens Arriving at Laredo, Texas, May 1903-November 1929 ( 112 rolls), which has been available since 2005.

Descriptive material is on all rolls of the microfilm publication. 
Sent by CLAIRE PRECHTEL-KLUSKENS  claire.kluskens@nara.gov
microfilm projects archivist Archives I Research Support Branch (NWCC1) 202-357-5353

 

BLACK

African Roots Stretch Deep into Mexico
Mexico as a haven for fugitive slaves



AFRICAN ROOTS STRETCH DEEP INTO MEXICO 
By Roberto Rodriguez and Patrisia Gonzales
© 1996 Chronicle Features Reproduced in Mexico Connect with Permission.
Please visit the LatinoLink http://www.latinolink.com/pages
http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/feature/ethnic/bv/spec0303.html
 
3 March 1996 -- In Mexico, various Indian peoples still play ancient instruments. And their songs and dances -- which tell of uprisings against their masters -- pay tribute to their ancestors. 

These Mexicans play African "hand pianos" and perform "the dance of the black people." Mexican "corridos" -- or song-stories -- tell of slave uprisings. And the marimbas of Mexico, as well as those of Central America and Ecuador, all have their origins in Africa. All are examples of the still thriving African legacy in Mexico. 

Since 1492, the history of the Americas has been forged by three cultures: indigenous, European, and African - the third root of the Americas, according to the late University of Veracruz professor, Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán, who was considered Mexico's foremost expert on the African influence on Mexican culture. 

The early African presence in the Americas is normally associated with the slave trade in the United States, the Caribbean, Brazil, Central America, Colombia and Peru. Not generally taught in history textbooks is that Mexico was also a key port of entry for slave ships and consequently had a large African population. 

In fact, during the colonial era, there were more Africans than Europeans in Mexico, according to Aguirre Beltrán's pioneering 1946 book, "The Black Population in Mexico." And he said they didn't disappear, but in fact took part in forging the great racial mixture that is today Mexico. 

"Because of race mixture, much of the African presence is no longer discernible except in a few places such as Veracruz and the Costa Chica in Guerrero and Oaxaca," wrote Aguirre Beltrán. 

In Mexico, many of the Africans that entered came to what are now the states of Yucatan, Michoacan, Tlaxcala, Mexico, Chiapas, Veracruz, Guerrero and Oaxaca. Contrary to popular thought, they did not remain in the south but migrated throughout the whole of Mexico, where they were employed in occupations such as mining, the textile industry, ranching, fishing and agriculture. Blacks in Mexico weren't simply slaves. Many were explorers and cofounders of settlements as far north as Los Angeles and other parts of what is today the Southwest United States. 

Prior to independence from Spain, there were numerous slave rebellions throughout the Americas, including in Mexico. The first documented slave rebellion in Mexico occurred in 1537; this was followed by the establishment of various runaway slave settlements called "palenques." Some rebellions were in alliance with Indians and mestizos even as far north as Chihuahua. In 1608, Spaniards negotiated the establishment of a free black community with Yagna, a runaway rebel slave. Today, that community in Veracruz bears its founder's name. 

The principal guerrilla fighters for Mexican independence from Spain were Indians, mestizos and mulattos. One of the primary leaders of the independence movement, José María Morelos y Pavón, was mulatto, or of African ancestry, as was Vicente Guerrero, Mexico's second president, who officially abolished slavery in 1822. Slavery was actually not done away with until 1829. 

Of note, Aguirre Beltrán's research was not well-received in Mexico, says Gabriel Moedano Navarro, director of ethnohistory at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico. By 1946, the psyche of the Mexican nation as a mixture of Indian and Spanish blood was well-formed. 

Also hidden from history is Mexico's role as a sanctuary to African American slaves during the 19th century. Unknown to even most historians, descendants of these slaves still live in Mexico. 

In the summer of 1850, the Mascogos, composed of runaway slaves and free blacks from Florida, along with Seminoles and Kikapus, fled south from the United States, to the Mexican border state of Coahuila. Accompanying the Seminoles were also 'Black Seminoles' -- slaves who had been freed by the tribe after battles against white settlers in Florida. 

The three groups eventually settled the town of El Nacimiento, Coahuila, where many of their descendants remain, including some of our distant relatives. 

The African presence in Mexico is not so much denied as it is obscured. Aguirre Beltrán's work has brought to light something most Mexicans and Mexican Americans have historically been unaware of -- that they, like other Latinos, have not only Indian and Spanish blood, but African blood as well. 

In times of racial discord between Latinos and African Americans, this historical confluence of cultures should serve as a reminder that both communities share common ancestors. In fact, if we probe far enough, we're all related. 

Latino Spectrum is a nationally syndicated column, distributed by Chronicle Features.
Rodriguez/Gonzales can be reached at XColumn@AOL.COM. 
Sent by Bill Carmena  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-Mexican



Mexico as a haven for fugitive slaves
Source: Mexico welcomed fugitive slaves and African American job-seekers by Ron Wilkins
Sent by Dorinda Moreno dorindamoreno@comcast.net

From the very beginning of his Texas colonization scheme, a determined Stephen Austin sought to have Mexican officials acquiesce to the settlement of slave-owning whites into the territory. It was generally acknowledged that the people and government of Mexico abhorred slavery and were determined to prohibit its practice within the Mexican republic. 

Beginning in 1822, at least 20,000 Anglos, many with their slave property, settled into Texas. Jared Groce, one of the first of Stephen Austin's Texas settlers that year, arrived with 90 enslaved Africans. 

The Mexican Federal Law of July 13, 1824, clearly favored and promoted the emancipation of slaves. Mexico had even stipulated that it was prepared to compensate North American owners of fugitive slaves. Determined instead to have things their way, Anglos began to press for an extradition treaty which would require Mexico to return fugitive slaves.

From 1825 until the end of the Civil War in 1865, Mexican authorities continuously thwarted attempts by slave-holding Texas settlers to conclude fugitive slave extradition treaties between the two parties. During this period of extremely tense relations between the two governments, Mexico consistently repudiated and forbade the institution of slavery in its territory, while U.S. officials and Texas slave-owners continuously sought ways to circumvent Mexican law. The Mexican authorities thwarted repeated attempts by slave-holding Texas settlers to conclude fugitive slave extradition treaties between the two parties.

In 1826 the Committee of Foreign Relations of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies refused to compromise on the issue of fugitive slaves and defended the right of enslaved Africans to liberate themselves. Mexican government officials cited "the inalienable right which the Author of nature has conceded to him (meaning enslaved persons)." Congress member Erasmo Seguin from Texas commented that the Congress was "resolved to decree the perpetual extinction in the Republic of commerce and traffic in slaves and that their introduction into our territory should not be permitted under any pretext".

Again in October 1828, the Mexican Senate rejected 14 articles of a newly-proposed treaty and harshly criticized Article 33, stating "it would be most extraordinary that in a treaty between two free republics slavery should be encouraged by obliging ours to deliver up fugitive slaves to their merciless and barbarous masters of North America".

Reporting on the growing number of Anglo settlers in Texas, Mexican Gen. Teran reported, "Most of them have slaves, and these slaves are beginning to learn the favorable intent of Mexican law to their unfortunate condition and are becoming restless under their yokes …" Gen. Teran went on to describe the cruelty meted out by masters to restless slaves: "They extract their teeth, set on the dogs to tear them in pieces, the most lenient being he who but flogs his slaves until they are flayed."

On Sept. 15, 1829, AfroMexican President Vicente Guerrero signed a decree banning slavery in the Mexican Republic. Yielding to appeals from panicked settlers and Mexican collaborators who saw Mexico benefiting economically from the Anglo presence, Guerrero exempted Texas from the prohibition on the introduction of slaves into the republic, on Dec. 2. Several months later, the Mexican government severely restricted Anglo immigration and banned the introduction of slaves into the republic. 

Undeterred, the Anglos succeeded in negotiating a new treaty with Mexico in 1831, which included Article 34, which called for pursuit and reclamation of fugitive slaves. After considerable wrangling between the Mexican Chamber of Deputies and Senate, Article 34 was removed from the treaty. Also, by 1831 it became apparent through debate within the Mexican Senate that the government's welcoming of fugitive slaves was not completely altruistic. 

Some Mexican officials, fearful of U.S. military intervention, had begun to see it as wise to encourage the development of runaway slave colonies along the Northern border as a way to lessen the threat posed by the U.S. As historian Rosalie Schwartz put it, many Mexican officials "reasoned these fugitives, choosing between liberty under the Mexican government and bondage in the United States, would fight to protect their Mexican freedom more vigorously than any mercenaries." As the interests of Mexican officials and U.S. abolitionists coincided during the early 1830s, a modest number of former slaves established themselves in Texas and fared well during the period. 

In 1836, after the fall of the Alamo and its slave-owning or pro-slavery leaders, such as William Travis, Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett, Mexican forces were defeated and an independent Texas was eventually annexed by the United States. However, before the expulsion of Mexican forces from Texas, Brig. Gen. Jose Urrea evicted scores of illegally-settled plantation owners, liberated slaves and, in many instances, granted them on-the-spot titles to the land they had worked. 

Oddly enough, many Black people call for "40 acres and a mule" - a reference to Union Gen. Sherman's Special Field Order 15 and Gen. Howard's Circular 13, which made some land available to former slaves. But what one never hears are references to Mexican Gen. Jose Urrea and the land titles that he and his men granted to former Texas slaves following the defeat of the Alamo, a generation before the Civil War. 

Even after the loss of Texas, Mexican officials refused to formally acknowledge Texas independence on the grounds that it "would be equivalent to the sanction and recognition of slavery." After Texas independence, the slave population mushroomed, and the number of runaways across the South Texas-North Mexico border increased. In 1842, Mexico's Constitutional Congress reasserted the nation's commitment to fugitive slaves. In 1847, 38,753 slaves and 102,961 whites were listed in the first official Texas census. In 1850, in a new treaty accord with the United States, Mexico again refused to provide for the return of fugitive slaves

The slave institution in Texas was continuously undermined by defiant Tejanos (Mexicans in Texas), who took great risks and invested enormous resources toward facilitating the escape of enslaved Africans. The Texas to Mexico routes to freedom constituted major unacknowledged extensions of the "Underground Railroad." Tejanos were variously accused of "tampering with slave property," "consorting with Blacks" and stirring up among the slave population "a spirit of insubordination."

Plantation owners in Central Texas adopted various resolutions aimed at preventing Mexicans from aiding the slave population. Whites in Guadalupe County prohibited Mexican "peons" from entering the county and anyone from conducting business or interacting with enslaved persons without authorization from the owners. 

Bexar County whites suggested that "Mexican strangers entering from San Antonio register at the mayor's office and give an account of themselves and their business." Delegates to a convention in Gonzales resolved that "counties should organize vigilance committees to prosecute persons tampering with slaves" and that all citizens and slaveholders were to endeavor to prevent Mexicans from communicating with Blacks. 

Whites in Austin decreed that "all transient Mexicans should be warned to leave within 10 days, that all remaining should be forcibly expelled unless their good character and good behavior were substantiated by responsible American citizens" and that "Mexicans should no longer be employed and their presence in the area should be discouraged." In Matagorda County, all Mexicans were driven out under the bogus claim that they were wandering, indigent sub-humans who "have no fixed domicile but hang around the plantations, taking the likeliest negro girls for wives … they often steal horses, and these girls too, and endeavor to run them to Mexico".

By the year 1855, the estimates were that as many as 4,000 to 5,000 formerly enslaved Africans had escaped to Mexico. Slaveholders became so alarmed at this trend that they requested and received approximately one fifth of the standing U.S. Army which was deployed along the Texas-Mexico border in a vain effort to stem the flow of runaways. 

Defiant Mexicans stood their ground, refused to return runaways, and continued supporting slave uprisings and providing assistance to escaping slaves. In the words of Felix Haywood, a Texas slave, whose experience is recalled in "The Slave Narratives of Texas, "Sometimes someone would come along and try to get us to run up north and be free. We used to laugh at that. There was no reason to run up north. All we had to do was walk, but walk south, and we'd be free as soon as we crossed the Rio Grande".

What a difference a border made

1857 was a year whose profound irony made it one of the most interesting. 1857 was the year that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Dred Scott, an enslaved African who had sued for his freedom, on the grounds that his owner had forfeited any claim to him after taking him into a free state. Ironically, 1857 was the same year that the Mexican Congress adopted Article 13, declaring that an enslaved person was free the moment he set foot on Mexican soil.


INDIGENOUS

Indigenous Identity in the Mexican Census:
Peruvian land 
Urban Indians in Ciudad Juarez
Learn an Indigenous Language
MANA hosts W.O.M.B. Grandmothers Gathering.
Native American selection of  Ancestry books
 

Indigenous Identity in the Mexican Census:
http://www.indigenouspeople.net/CENSUSSTORY.htm
Sent by John Schmal 


Peruvian land 
La Paz, Bolivia. President Evo Morales launched a sweeping land overhaul Saturday giving about 9,600 square miles of state-owned land to poor Indians.  Morales marked the start of his "agrarian revolution" just weeks after nationalizing Bolivia's natural gas industry. OCRegister, 6-5-06 


Urban Indians in Ciudad Juarez
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/indigenous_peoples_literature/message/18638?l=1
Sent by Dorinda Moreno dorindamoreno@comcast.net

Uprooted from the land, more and more indigenous Mexicans are finding homes in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. New figuresfrom Mexico's National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics (INEGI) report that approximately 14,606 people from dozens of indigenous groups call the border
city home. Drawn from the INEGI's 2005 population andhousing census, the new population count represents a 74percent increase over 2000's census figures. ConsideringCiudad Juarez's floating population, however, the indigenous population registered by the INEGI is likely an undercount. According to the INEGI, 42 indigenous languagesare spoken in Ciudad Juarez, including Chinateca, Nahuatl,Tarahumara, Mixtec, Zapotec, Popoluca, Huave, Huichol,Tzotzil (Mayan), and numerous others.

Many of Ciudad Juarez's residents hail from hard-pressed rural zones where the land is not producing and jobs arefew and far between. "Over there money and grains are missing," said Ciribina Rosa, an indigenous Raramuri(Tarahumara) who sells herbs in downtown Ciudad Juarez. "There is no corn to eat."

Working the streets and international bridges as vendors or beggars, or toiling away as day laborers, noticeable numbers of indigenous people began arriving to Ciudad Juarez more than 40 years ago. The largest ethnic group, Mazahuas from Mexico state, number about 4,000 people, according to Carlyn James, the local coordinator of the Tarahumara State Coordinator. "(Indigenous people) probably come with the idea of later crossing to the United States to work," James said.

Setting down roots in Ciudad Juarez, indigenous groups have established distinctive neighborhoods. For instance, many Raramuris live in three neighborhoods scattered through out the city and its outskirts, while Mixtecos from southern Oaxaca state inhabit the Anapra colonia near the New Mexico border. In the Raramuri colonias, bilingual schools help teach the children Spanish. According to James, the Raramuris best preserve their language and cultural traditions in the hustle and bustle of a busy border city that's also heavily influenced by US culture.

Among the indigenous population, men still predominate with 55 percent of the population. Some government officials are concerned about the special problems facing women. A new program sponsored by the federal Commission for the Prevention and Elimination of Violence Against Women in Ciudad Juarez seeks to train indigenous women as promotersagainst domestic violence in their communities.

"(Indigenous women) live in a triple vulnerability, because they are women, indigenous and poor," contends Pablo Navarrete, the commission's Ciudad Juarez director.

South of Ciudad Juarez, urban Indians are gaining in population in the state capital of Chihuahua City too.According to the 2005 INEGI census, the number ofindigenous people residing in Chihuahua City increased from 6,823 in 2000 to 9,330 in 2005. Numbering 5,090 persons, the Raramuris constituted the largest ethnic group in Chihuahua City last year. Statewide, Chihuahua's indigenous
population rose from 103,057 persons in 2000 to 136,661 in 2005. The leap is attributed to population increases in Chihuahua's two largest ethnic groups, the Raramuris and the Tepehuans, as well as migration from Mexican states outside Chihuahua.

Sources: 
El Diario de Juarez, May 30, 2006. Article by Rocio Gallegos. 
Norte, May 27, 2006. Article by Sonia Aguilar.

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies, 
New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico



Learn an Indigenous Language
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NativeAmericanLanguageandPodcastCenter/

...if you want to learn an Indigenous Language or can help to teach a Language...please join and help this group to literally spread the word...make podcasts for use by others...share links and language sources...practice your native tongue...it is very important as when a people lose their language...all else is lost forever in short time...and then we have no rights to anything...
Mike Price



MANA hosts W.O.M.B. Grandmothers Gathering.
Sent by Debra Perez Hagstrom  thyme2be@yahoo.com

In an experiential learning environment hosted by MANA de Orange County, California traditional knowledge was shared as a way to gather and empower one another.

Seven Blossoms (Siete Azares) Tea and Pan de Maize were offered as a beginning meal.
Food is one of the most basic ways to help us remember our heritage, express our ethnicity and share as community.

The presentation was opened by Gloria DeLaTorre Wycoff, with an acknowledgment of our Ancestors from the Four Directions. We welcomed and greeted each other in a circle. Gathering in a circle is an important tradition, it is a form of equality, and everyone in a circle is equal.
Nellie Caudillo Kaniski graciously read Prietita and the Ghost Woman/Prietita Y La Llorona by Gloria Anzaldua.

This story conveys the authors respect for las curanderas, the traditional healers of her people. While writing this book the author studied her Chicana/Mexicana culture and also found a powerful, positive side, the female part of all of us. 

Herbal and Plant knowledge taught by Indigenous Grandmothers/Elders was shared by Valerie Cardenas Dobesh. The colorful presentation of herbs and plants such as Ruda/Rue, Manzanilla/Chamomile, Lavender, Mint and many other plants were wonderful to see, smell and taste. Manzanilla has been used for hundreds of years to assist with pink eye. It can also be made into a tea to help with relaxation. Mint tea assists and calms an upset stomach. 

The group as a whole began to remember herbs and plants that their Grandmothers, Mothers and family members used.

Also prepared and served by Debra Perez Hagstrom was Nopal Salad along with Tortillas de Maize. 

Indigenous Elders and Grandmothers have been gathering to share and pass on cultural Traditional knowledge with Women of all generations. The Grandmothers are here to assist us in remembering who we are, and to use our heart connections to nurture and support each other as we come back together as family.

One such gathering will take place in August 29th –September 1st 2006 on Catalina Island, “A gathering of Grandmother Wisdom-Keepers” from the Four Directions will be meeting and celebrating cultural awakening was shared by Debra Perez Hagstrom. Wisdom of Mother Beauty (WOMB) along with Morning Star Foundation will be hosting this event in California. We are fortunate to have this opportunity to listen, learn and be inspired by these Traditional Indigenous Grandmothers. For more information you can email her at thyme2be@yahoo.com. This quote was shared by Gloria:

‘We inherit from our ancestors gifts so often taken for granted. …Each of us contains within… this inheritance of soul. We are links between the ages, containing past and present expectations, sacred memories and future promise.’ 
Edward Sellner

*Our ancestors gathered and sat in a circle around a fire, everyone had access to the fire and to each other. Nopal, maize and agave have been staple food, instrumental in enabling human settlement and cultural development of the Chichimeca groups. (Uto-Aztecan linguistic family) In Mesoamerica Maize is its lifeblood. The creation myths of Mesoamerica told that creation has been improved at each step, but also its beings, plants and foods, so that present day humans, "Maize People," were the best possible creature, and maize the best possible food.

Nopal, Nopales or Nopalitas has been used as a medicine and a source of nourishment, since prehistoric times, and was traded by various indigenous/ethnic groups in Mexico and other parts of tropical America. http://maize.agron.iastate.edu/maizearticle.html Knishinsky, Ran. Prickly Pear Cactus Medicine: Treaments for Diabetes, Cholesterol, and the Immune System. Vermont: Inner Traditions Medicinal Use Of The Latin Food Staple Nopales: The Prickly Pear Cactus By Miguel Angel Gutierrez



Native American selection of  Ancestry books
( limited quantities, prices varied) Newsletter4@ancestorstuff.com Newsletter #239

GEORGIA: CHEROKEE RATION BOOKS 
Item #114-GN-0235 Retail: $38.50 SAVE $7.70 AncestorStuff Price: $30.80

MISSISSIPPI: CHOCTAW OF MISSISSIPPI 1929-1932 (Bowen) 
Item #114-GN-0201 Retail: $35.00 SAVE $7.00 AncestorStuff Price: $28.00

MISSISSIPPI: MISSISSIPPI CHOCTAW INDIAN CENSUS (With Births, Deaths and Marriages 1933-1939) (Bowen) 
Item #114-GN-0202 Retail: $33.00 SAVE $6.60 AncestorStuff Price: $26.40

NATIVE AMERICAN: 1832 - COUNTRY FOR INDIANS WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI 
Item #114-GN-0121 Retail: $6.50 SAVE $1.30 AncestorStuff Price: $5.20

NATIVE AMERICAN: 1832 CREEK CENSUS (Douthat) 
Item #114-GN-0108 Retail: $22.50 SAVE $4.50 AncestorStuff Price: $18.00

NATIVE AMERICAN: 1901-1907 SENECA, EASTERN SHAWNEE, MIAMI, MODOC, OTTAWA, PEORIA, QUAPAW &WYANDOTTE INDIANS 
Item #114-GN-0218 Retail: $35.00 SAVE $7.00 AncestorStuff Price: $28.00

NATIVE AMERICAN: 1932 NAVAJO CENSUS 
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NATIVE AMERICAN: 1932 STANDING ROCK SIOUX CENSUS 
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NATIVE AMERICAN: BIRTH AND DEATH RECORDS FOR NATIVE AMERICAN TRIBES: CHIPPEWA - Turtle Mountain Reservation 1924-1932 
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NATIVE AMERICAN: BIRTH AND DEATH RECORDS FOR NATIVE AMERICAN TRIBES: KIOWA, COMANCHE, APACHE, FORT SILL APACHE, WICHITA, CADDO and DELAWARE INDIANS 1924-1932 
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NATIVE AMERICAN: BIRTH AND DEATH RECORDS FOR NATIVE AMERICAN TRIBES: OGLALA SIOUX - Pine Ridge Reservation; 1924-1933 
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NATIVE AMERICAN: BIRTH AND DEATH RECORDS FOR NATIVE AMERICAN TRIBES: STANDING ROCK SIOUX 1924-1932 
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NATIVE AMERICAN: BIRTH AND DEATH RECORDS FOR NATIVE AMERICAN TRIBES: WESTERN NAVAJO RESERVATION - Navajo, Hopi and Paiute 1925-1933 
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NATIVE AMERICAN: CHEROKEE CITIZENSHIP DOCKET BOOK: 1880-1884 &1887-1889 (Bowen) 
Item #114-GN-0205 Retail: $48.50 SAVE $9.70 AncestorStuff Price: $38.80

NATIVE AMERICAN: CHEROKEE DESCENDANTS. Volume I; Cherokees East of the Mississippi River (Bowen) 
Item #114-GN-0162 Retail: $16.50 SAVE $3.30 AncestorStuff Price: $13.20

NATIVE AMERICAN: CHEROKEE DESCENDANTS. Volume II; Cherokees West of the Mississippi River - "A" - "M" (Bowen) 
Item #114-GN-0172 Retail: $45.00 SAVE $9.00 AncestorStuff Price: $36.00

NATIVE AMERICAN: CHEROKEE DESCENDANTS. Volume III; Cherokees West of the Mississippi River - "N" - "Z" (Bowen) 
Item #114-GN-0173 Retail: $40.00 SAVE $8.00 AncestorStuff Price: $32.00

NATIVE AMERICAN: CHEROKEE DESCENDANTS. Volume IV; General Index of Eastern and Western Cherokee January 5, 1910. Part I; "A" - "M" (Bowen) 
Item #114-GN-0174A Retail: $55.00 SAVE $11.00 AncestorStuff Price: $44.00

NATIVE AMERICAN: CHEROKEE DESCENDANTS. Volume IV; General Index of Eastern and Western Cherokee January 5, 1910. Part II; "N" - "Z" (Bowen) 
Item #114-GN-0174B Retail: $35.00 SAVE $7.00 AncestorStuff Price: $28.00

NATIVE AMERICAN: COLONEL RETURN JONATHAN MEIGS - Day Book #2 (Douthat) 
Item #114-TN0851 Retail: $20.00 SAVE $4.00 AncestorStuff Price: $16.00



SEPHARDIC

Albert Gallegos: Remnants of Crypto-Jews Among Hispanic Americans
Sephardic Research Website

 

Albert Gallegos
from Remnants of Crypto-Jews Among Hispanic Americans
By: Gloria Golden ©2005

 
I discovered information about my heritage after having traveled to Spain eleven times, meeting people and asking questions. Visiting friends in Granada, Spain, I was told that the name Gutierrez is Jewish. My friend, whose last name is Gutierrez, informed me that he is Jewish. Another family name on the maternal side of the family is Salas, a Jewish name. Although not proven, I have been told that Gallegos is a Jewish name. I found this out from a tour guide in Sevilla, Spain. He said Gallegos is a Jewish name from northern Spain.

Growing up, I never thought of it. Nothing gave me any inclination that we were Jewish. My grandparents and parents said, "Your heritage is Spanish." They were adamant about remembering our heritage. They probably didn't know if we were Jewish. The family was very Catholic, and a church was built on our property. They buried the family under the church, which was their own cemetery, or immediately right outside the church. There is a tombstone in the family cemetery on the property with the name Trujillo that has a Star of David on it. It is an old sandstone one, and it's hand carved.

The family blessed the children by placing their hands on their heads and making the sign of the cross. Blessings were given on special occasions, if you were leaving, going on a trip, getting married, or having a birthday.

In the old days, when Grandfather died, Grandmother wore black. They lit candles on the year anniversary of the deceased back then. Handfuls of dirt were thrown on the coffin as it was lowered into the grave. There were flowers as well.

We didn't believe in circumcision. There weren't many icons in our home and the family was not secretive. My grandmothers were Gonzales and Padilla. They prayed at altars set in their bedroom and prayed in Spanish. They prayed the rosary. They didn't pray in church because we lived about forty or fifty miles from the church. The priest would come to the area once a month.

There weren't many people where we lived. Mostly everyone is related to one another.
When I went on a trip to northern Spain, I was told by people we visited, that the Spanish we were speaking was old Castilian Spanish. We still speak that Spanish and the people of northern New Mexico primarily do so as well.

Nobody avoided church in our family. There weren't any Penitentes on Father's side. In my family, on Mother's side, my aunts were married to Penitentes.

Education was very important in our family. It was important going back to my grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandparents.

The Gallegos family came with Cortez and entered the New World through Cuba. They stayed there awhile before coming to Mexico, Mexico City, and then north. It's documented that most of Cortez's people came through Cuba. Those who came with Cortez were military people. I don't definitely know if anyone is Jewish.

On Father's side, on some occasions, cousins married cousins. This didn't happen too often and stopped around 1910. Marriages were generally arranged for the purpose of keeping status and wealth within the family. The family wanted us to marry within our own. This didn't happen on Mother's side.

We ate empanaditas, which contained meat and raisins, during Christmas. Quelites were eaten during their season of growth which was in the spring.

Our family attends church. As I grew up, I learned at home to believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth. I learned that when I was a little kid. We believed in the teachings of the Catholic Church. We weren't religious growing up and attended mass once a month. The Gallegos grandparents read the Old Testament. It doesn't feel important that I find out if I'm Jewish. I'm interested in genealogy and interested in the truth. I'm not emotional about it.



Sephardic Research Website
http://www.sephardim.org

A good site for ongoing research information on Spanish and Portuguese Jewish lines, such as the following three items:

December 6, 2005 The following was written in Ian Randle's Spring / Summer Catalogue regarding a recent publication:

The Island of One People---An Account of the History of the Jews of Jamaica, by Marilyn Delevante & Tony Alberga:

" The expulsion of Jews from Spain under penalty of death in 1492 and the journeys of 'discovery' of Christopher Columbus triggered the settlement of Jews in the 'New World' .

This recently published book recounts the considerable political, ecconomic, and cultural strides
of the Jewish population from the period of Spanish occupation to the acheivements of the Jewish Community in 2004. The book traces the Island's Jewish population from their origins in Iberia, Spain in the Middle Ages, to their settlement in Jamaica in the 15th Century. It also explores many notable Jewish families and their rise to occupy positions in the upper echelons of Jamaican Society."
ISBN # 976-637-212-8 Hardback. Ths book is available from the web site www.jewsofjamaica.com 


February 4, 2004  On the recommendation of Dorothy Kew,a link is being added to Patricia Jackson's subscription web site, Jamaican Family Search, www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com. Patricia's site has a great deal of information about Jewish records, including transcriptions of the Jewish cemetery at Falmouth which she did herself a year ago while in Jamaica, plus records of both the Sephardic and Ashkenazi congregations, birth and death records of the Amalgamated congregations, and a few records from the Montego Bay synagogue.  It's worth the subscription which is quite reasonable.


Spanish and Portuguese Jewish Liturgical Music

The Spanish and Portuguese Jewish community is distinguished by an ancient liturgical tradition and unique synagogue architecture. The music for this liturgy was published at Bevis Marks in the first half of the 19th century by the Haham David A. DeSola, and later by Rev. Moses Gaster in his edition of the Spanish and Portuguese siddur. These traditions are found in Amsterdam (the Esnoga), London (Bevis Marks), Jamaica, the Virgin Islands, Curacao, Barbados, New York (Shearith Israel), and Philadephia (Mikve Israel). At long last I have been able to translate a number of music files which I had transcribed some ten years ago into sound files. These files represent some of the Spanish and Portuguese liturgical music tradition, including Torah and Haftarah trope. Many pieces are in 4-part harmony which is represented here by the piano to keep the file size small. In time I will update this area to correct errors, and add new music.



TEXAS 

August 31-September 3 :  27th Hispanic Genealogy & History Conference
Bexar Genealogy
July 8, 
Meeting, Texas declares September as Tejano Heritage Month 
Dedication of TX State Historical Marker of Don Rafael Antonio Manchola
July 11th: Austin's 1st Latino Book & Art Festival 
Pulido123.com
October 13-15: Elizondo Reunion
Archaeologists unearth bones at French settlement in Texas
Treaties signed by the Republic of Texas 
October 29: Juan Nepomuceno Seguin Event
Book: Inherit the Dust from the Four Winds of Revilla
South Texas Archives
Lozano Building Holds Many Memories and Stories
Book, Chapter 10:
Continuous Presence of Italians and Spaniards in Texas as Early as 1520, Including the Participation and Consequence of Texas and Louisiana in the American Revolution by Alex Loya
Wills/Testaments from Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon, Mexico Inventory
Escudos de Cantabria por María del Carmen González Echegaray

 


27th ANNUAL TEXAS CONFERENCE

ON HISPANIC GENEALOGY & HISTORY

Aug 31 - Sep 3, 2006

Corpus Christi , Texas
Latest information on State Conference 
http://www.freewebs.com/sagacorpus/

 





Bexar Genealogy
http://bexargenealogy.com/ Sent by Arturo Ynclan  AYnclan@edd.ca.gov

Welcome, This site is dedicated to genealogy research of the early families that settled in and around La Villa de Béxar, which has become the city of San Antonio in Bexar County, Texas.  For an explanation of where the name originated see : The Name Béxar.

Our heritage comes from the brave and adventurous men and women who where not only part of the founding of San Antonio de Béxar and the Villa of San Fernando but who fought for Texas Independence in 1836.

As this site evolves, hopefully more and more of San Antonio's history and early people will come to light. I hope you find this web site helpful with your knowledge of San Antonio's history as well as its early settlers.  Hopefully, this will allow you to add to your own family history.

I have utilized many different internet sources to provide the historical background used by this site, however, the genealogical information is from my own database which consist of more than 19,000 individuals.  I have taken as much care as possible to ensure the accuracy of the information used on this web site but should be used for informational purposes only.

Thank you and enjoy!  Steve Gibson
If you would like to see if you tie into my database or would like to add your family line or if you have questions or comments on this web site, email me at:  webmaster@bexargenealogy.com
  


State of Texas declares September as Tejano Heritage Month 
Texas Tejano.com and the Alamo Legacy & Missions Association (ALMA) cordially invite you to join us beginning at 10:00am on Saturday, July 8, 2006 in the Auditorium at the Main Branch of the San Antonio Public Library (600 Soledad) to learn about the upcoming Tejano Heritage Month Celebrations!

The State of Texas has officially declared the month of September as Tejano Heritage Month. Festivities include an exciting and festive Texas Tejano Breakfast that will serve as the kickoff on the grounds of the State Capitol in Austin! This will start two months worth of celebrations, symposiums and lectures, film screenings and exhibit displays, ceremonies at the Alamo, the University of Texas at San Antonio and San Fernando Cathedral, a student program of awards and a fun-filled concluding Tejano Fiesta at Casa Navarro.

Refreshments will be served and Texas Tejano.com will be unveiling its Calendar of Events for this year’s festivities! Also, Texas Tejano.com will be unveiling the plans for two of our very exciting upcoming projects: the Recuerdos de mi Familia y Tejas Oral History Project and the Tejano History Online project.

We are also inviting the individuals, organizations and sponsors involved in making this very exciting celebration happen so that they might share their ideas and goals. We want to open the floor up and allow everyone to briefly explain what their group/organization is currently planning or are involved in. If you or your organization would like to learn more or want to participate in some manner, we invite you all to attend.

For more information, please contact Texas Tejano.com at (210) 673-3584 or visit us online at www.TexasTejano.com. We look forward to seeing and hearing from you all soon and thank you for helping us make Tejano Heritage Month an event to remember!

Viva Tejano Texas!
Rudi Rodriguez  President/Founder, Texas Tejanos
Charles Lara, President ALMA




Greater Austin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce  
1st Latino Art & Book Festival
Tuesday July 11th,  5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Information: contact Selina Aguirre
saguirre@hispanicaustin.com

2800 S. IH 35, Ste. 260
Austin, Texas 78704
tel: 512.476.7502
fax: 512.476.6417 
Featured Authors and Artists
Dan Castro
Ileana Isern
Miguel Vargas
Mirta Toledo
Peter Ortiz
and more!!
"This is a great website for Texas Family genealogy". .  Arturo Ynclan  AYnclan@edd.ca.gov

Pulido123.com

amily Tree Charts in .pdf format
Alfonso Nuñez de Hinojosa
Antonio Canales
Antonio Guerra Canamar
Aparicio Peña
Bartolome Gonzalez
Ferdinand V
Gaspar Garcia
Ignacio Villarreal
Jose Antonio Escobar
Jose Canales
Jose de la Garza
Juan Goraz Leal
Juan Ignacio Vera
Juan Saens de Pontecilla
Lorenzo Guajardo
Marcos Alonso
Miguel Ramirez
Vicente Navarro

Family Tree Charts in .pdf format
from Adam to King Ferdinand
Adam
Priam
Antenor II
Dagobert
Othon-Guillaume de Macon

 
Web Pages I Have Created

CJ's Emporium

Duval Real Estate
El Mesteño Magazine
Falfurrias Jersey Baseball

Falfurrias Jersey Baseball 
mirror site

Heritage Museum - Falfurrias
Jim Wells County Historical Commission
La Mota Ranch - Nature Retreat
Linda Escobar - La Tejana
 Little Sister from Laredo, Texas
Los Arroyos del Rio
Oasis Swimming Pools
Premont Cowboy Varsity Baseball
Rebecca Pulido's Homepage
Sound Express DJ Service

South Texas Heritage Trail

South Texas Metal Art

St. Theresa's Catholic Church

Tex-Mex Oldies Radio 24/7

webmaster


Elizondo Reunion` October 13-15, 2006
Sent by Edna  Yolanda Elizondo González ednayelizondo@yahoo.com.mx

Hola Mimi.
Saludos a los Primos Bexareños. Dile a los Primos que la reunión de los Elizondo va bien al parecer ya tenemos un Auditorio en la Macroplaza de Monterrey, solo tenemos que llevar una carta para separarlo formalmente , pronto ya vamos a mandarles la información, sera si Dios quiere el 13, 14, 15 Octubre del 2006, el próximo sábado tendremos la 2a junta de los Organizadores, para ya ir organizando la información del programa y darles opciones de Hoteles y lo que necesiten, este fin de semana de la Reunión de los Elizondo conincide con la feria del Libro que organiza el Tecnologico de Monterrey, por si quieren algun libro el correo del Tec de Monterrey departamento de la Feria del Libro es: aruiz@itesm.mx por si alguno de ustedes desea algun libro lo pidan, si necesitan alguna otra cosa que deseen tener infomación por favor mandame decir y si podemos con mucho gusto.

Archaeologists unearth bones at French settlement in Texas - 

http://www.thc.state.tx.us/news/newsbriefs/nb2003/nb0803.htm 
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/TT/fta60.html 
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/FF/qbf45.html 
Sent by Bill Carmena JCarm1724@aol.com

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/11/29/texas.dig.ap 
Sent by Paul Newfield III skip@thebrasscannon.com




Dedication of Texas State Historical Marker of Don Rafael Antonio Manchola

Goliad County Historical Commission 
Date: Saturday, July 15, 2006 
Time: 2:00 p.m. Reception following

Location: Courthouse Square Historic District in Downtown, Goliad, TX 127 North Courthouse Square (Market St)  Attendance free. 

Keynote Speaker: Armando Alonzo, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Texas A&M University
Closing Address: Andrés Tijerina, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Austin Community College

Estella Zermeno, wzermeno@txcr.net 
Project Chair Goliad County Historical Commission Market House Museum
Doris Freer, Chair of the Goliad County Historical Commission
205 S. Market St. Goliad, TX 77963
For information, please call (361) 645-8526


Don Rafael Antonio Manchola 

Early Goliad leader Rafael Antonio Manchola was born to a Spanish aristocratic family circa 1800.
In 1822, he arrived arrived in La Bahia, and tow years later he wed Maria De Jesus De Leon,   daughter of Empresario Martin De Leon and Patricia de la Garza.  Manchola served as attorney and business agent for De Leon and became one of the region's principal advocates for its citizens.  He became commander of Presidio of Nuetra Senora de Loreto and in 1828 became state deputy in the Coahuila and Texas Legislature.  He also served as alcalde in Goliad.

DURING THE 1829 LEGISLATIVE SESSION, MANCHOLA HELPED ESTABLISH THE MUNICIPALITY OF GUADALUPE VICTORIA. HE ALSO CORRESPONDED WITH STEPHEN F. AUSTIN ABOUT TEXAS' WELFARE, AND HE DECLARED HIS SUPPORT FOR THE SEPARATE STATEHOOD OF COAHUILA AND TEXAS. THAT YEAR HE PETITIONED THE STATE TO CHANGE LA BAHIA'S NAME TO GOLIAD, AN ANAGRAM OF THE NAME OF FATHER MIGUEL HIDALGO, HERO OF THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION.

THROUGHOUT HIS CAREER, MANCHOLA'S WORK INCLUDED STRONG ADVOCACY FOR DEMOCRACY AND FOR INCREASING ANGLO SETTLEMENT. IN 1832, HE PLANNED TO ACCOMPANY WILLIAM WHARTON TO MEXICO CITY TO PETITION FOR STATEHOOD FOR COAHUILA AND TEXAS. BUT THE TRIP WAS CANCELLED. THE FOLLOWING JULY, HE DIED OF CHOLERA DURING AN EPIDEMIC, LEAVING BEHIND HIS WIFE AND SEVEN-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER FRANCISCA. ALTHOUGH HIS WIDOW RECEIVED SEVERAL LAND GRANTS, SHE AND THE DE LEONS FLED TEXAS DUE TO ANTI-MEXICAN SENTIMENT DURING THE TEXAS REVOLUTION, DESPITE THEIR CONNECTION TO EARLY SUPPORT OF SETTLEMENT AND INDEPENDENCE. 


(2006)


Treaties signed by the Republic of Texas 

http://www.republic-of-texas.net/newarchive/treaties/index.shtml
Sent by John Inclan fromgalveston@yahoo.com 
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/toc/index.html
Sent by Paul Newfield III skip@thebrasscannon.com
 

JUAN NEPOMUCENO SEGUIN
Guadalupe County Coliseum, Seguin, Texas

Save the Date: Sunday, October 29, 2006 1:00 p.m. Free Admission
Sent by Albert Seguin A Seguin 2@aol.com and John Inclan fromgalveston@yahoo.com

Maclovio Perez, Master of Ceremonies, San Antonio Television Newscaster 4 WOAI 
Rick Noriega, Texas State Representative` Portrays Col. Juan N. Seguin
Henry Cisneros, Keynote Address, Former Mayor of San Antonio
Served as U. S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development City View, Chief Executive Officer
Additional corresponding Events and Activities are also scheduled entertainment for the entire family


INHERIT THE DUST FROM THE FOUR WINDS OF REVILLA.
 
I sincerely hope that the book represents an objective historical perspective with many untold facts about Mexico before the conquest; the establishment of Revilla (Guerrero Viejo); awarding of the land-grants (Porciones); the turmoil of 250 years that affected the area; Indian conversions and attacks; division of land (and people) when Texas seceded from Mexico; studies and errors of the Bourland and Miller Commission; the U.S. and Mexican War; defects of and problems with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; political turmoil, revolutions, and problems of Mexico; and the destruction of Guerrero.  The book also includes some genealogy and gives fairly good coverage to certain Texas lands that were confiscated or stolen from or lost by members of the Associacion de Reclamantes.  Although this was an original U.S. debt, it was later converted, through an international agreement, to a Mexican debt.  The debt amounts to over $193.0 million plus interest and has not been paid in over 80 years. 
 
The publishing company (Xlibris Corporation) has created a distinct web site address for the title and for the author page. The links are as follows:

 

Book page: www.xlibris.com/FourWindsofRevilla.html

Author page: www.xlibris.com/JoseMPena.html

 

You can get the description of the book and an excerpt of the summary chapter by clicking on the above address.    Hope you enjoy the book.

 

Keep in touch,  Jose M. Pena  JMPENA@aol.com

 

 

 


James C. Jernigan Library at Texas A&M University - Kingsville
Sent by Arturo Ynclan 
AYnclan@edd.ca.gov


The South Texas Archives, a division of the James C. Jernigan Library of Texas A&M University-Kingsville, was established to preserve and to make available to the public documentary materials about the history and natural history of South Texas.  The Archives are housed in Baugh Hall with the entrance facing Richard Street.  Offices are located on the second floor. 

Current holdings include rare books covering the history of South Texas, the manuscript collection, as well as the official archival records of this university.  The collection also holds microfilm, which includes preservation copies of local government records, old newspapers, and area ranch records.  Also, included in this collection are photographs and negatives of historic significance; and oral history tapes.  The South Texas Archives was designated as a Regional Historical Resource Depository for the Texas State Library and Archives System and holds local government records from the eleven surrounding counties. 

The South Texas Archives is available for use by the general public and the students, faculty and staff of Texas A&M University-Kingsville from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday-Friday and from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Saturdays.  During the school term the Richard Street entrance is open during the day.  It is advisable to call and make an appointment to use the Archives when classes are not in regular session.  

South Texas Archives
James C. Jernigan Library, MSC 197
Texas A&M University-Kingsville
Kingsville, TX  78363-8202
(361) 593-2776



Lozano Building Holds Many Memories and Stories

Norman Rozeff

When in the early morning hours of July 11, 2004, the Santos Lozano Building at 117-119 West Jackson Street, Harlingen was engulfed in flames, the structure would burn spectacularly, perhaps fittingly for its proud heritage. Its aged timbers and flooring were not readily consumed but for hours fought against the efforts of firefighters to extinguish them. The gap created by the burned-out structure was made more ghostly when scorched exterior walls still retained their stateliness. Not only was a physical gap created by the building's destruction but a spiritual one as well.

Santos Lozano had come from Alice to Harlingen in 1905. In early 1906 he was to buy the second commercial lots on Main (Jackson) Street. The first lots in the townsite platted by Lon C. Hill had been purchased by Mr. and Mrs. A. C. Weller, who, in early 1906, had come up from Brownsville with their daughters. While Weller was to do exceedingly well for a time with saloons around town, Santos had more conservative ideas. In early 1906 he builds a small frame structure for a general store with living quarters upstairs. This building was removed in early 1915 and the brick, two-story, S. Lozano Building was erected. Its bricks came from Monterrey, Mexico.

Santos V. Lozano was born in Ejidos San Nicolas de los Garzas (now part of Monterrey), Nuevo Leon State, Mexico in 1863. His parents, Felipe and Otta Gracia Lozano had immigrated to Texas during the Mexican-French War and ended up in Collins, TX when Santos was two years old. In Alice, Santos would eventually operate a mercantile store for fourteen years before making his way to Harlingen. After the death of his first wife, Micaela Beasly, he would marry Tomasa Cantu. His oldest son J.B. Lozano was born in Alice 4/12/92, educated at public schools, and, in 1909, became a merchant with his father in Lozano and Son. J.B. was to marry Herlinda Hinojosa 5/12/12. His younger brother, S.V. Lozano was born in Alice on 7/27/94, and also educated in public schools. When he entered the business the store was called S. Lozano and Son Dry Goods Store. He came to Harlingen at age 11 and was to serve in WWI in a medical detachment. He later was an American Legion member and was in the Woodsman of the World. Both brothers were proud of their Irish-Mexican heritage. In the 1920s the Lozanos had placed store branches in La Feria, Donna, and Raymondville. Another Santos son, Don Guillermo Lozano, would open the first meat market west of the railroad. The family patriarch, Santos, would die at the ripe old age of 90.

The family and the building have many interesting tales to tell. It was in 1903 that the children of La Providencia Ranch hands were taught by Miss Margarita Villareal (later she becomes Mrs. G. M. (Willie) Lozano. Their son G. M. Lozano, Jr. will marry another early arrival to the Harlingen scene. This is Ida Priestly, who arrived here in 1922, as her father with ancestors from Clarksville, TX takes up tenant farming in the Rangerville area. In 2002 she is to celebrate her 86th birthday.) Having been graduated after eleven years of schooling in Brownsville, Margarita is qualified to teach. Instruction is in English. Later the school moves into the second floor of the Lozano Building. This serves some of the Hispanic children until the school district builds a facility for them.

It is in late 1910 that Santos, who is a registered voter, signs a petition which will allow Harlingen, now with a population of 1,126 individuals, to form a commission form of government and officially become a city.

In the Bandit Era centering around 1915, a strange set of circumstances occurs. The story is this. In 1874 Donna Benigna Hodges' first husband, Morgan Barclay buys the first of two tracts from the Matamoros heirs of Jose Narciso Carvazos. He is licensed by Cameron County Commissioners to operate the ferry at Paso Real. When her second husband, Mr. Hodges, dies she maintains the ferry until the coming of the railroad in 1904 ends stagecoach travel. Years later, bed-ridden in her home above the Paso Real crossing she appeals to Santos Lozano to care for her after two ranch hands are killed by bandits. The Lozanos take her to Harlingen and care for her. Having no heirs she wills her ranch to Micaela Lozano. Thus the mercantile Lozano family also becomes ranchers.

Four years after the construction of the Lozano Building, a city ordinance to ban the construction of wooden buildings in the downtown section passes, and the council moves to eliminate existing fire hazard structures. In May of this same year, 1919, Harlingen has a smallpox outbreak. Dr. Letzerich vaccinates many, but Mrs. Santos Lozano, who helps to nurse others, dies of the disease.

Harlingen "white way" is completed in late July 1921. Electric lights on ornamental poles line Main (Jackson) Street. On 8/27/21, Ku Klux Klansman, 104 strong, march down Main Street after citizens celebrate the electric street lighting inauguration with a block party. Masked and in full regalia they carry sign warning bootleggers to go and promoting "White Supremacy." On 8/31 John Myrick (father of Mrs. Jack [Elizabeth] Garrett), J. F. Seago, and T. Kingston lead an ad hoc meeting of 150 individuals in Lozano Hall. In two resolutions the body condemns the KKK as well as vice, and, importantly, supports the constituted form of government in enforcing the laws.

1920-26 Chaperonned dances take place in Lozano Hall to the music of a record player.

Not only is prohibition enforced but so are the "blue laws" wherein retail firms are suppose to be closed on Sundays. The hall serves as the gathering place for special events, and orchestras are even imported from San Antonio.

By 1930 the Lozanos close their Jackson Street business and lease it to C. E. Stone Company, which calls itself a department store. During one of its many renovations the etched sign atop the façade facing Jackson Street, S. Lozano & Son -1915, is plastered over and "Pioneer's Building" takes its place along both the Jackson Street and A Street facades. Numerous businesses are to occupy the premise over the years before Kattan's Western Wear purchased the building in 1998.

In 1970 perhaps it is fitting that a Lozano descendent, Sam Lozano, becomes mayor, for it was his pioneer ancestors who helped develop Harlingen prior to and after 1910. He was born here, is a graduate of St. Mary's University, has been a visiting teacher (truant officer) in Harlingen junior and senior high schools, and will become principal of Coakley Junior High School. He is both the first Hispanic elected to this office and the first native-born Harlingenite to fill the position.

It was in 1980 that the Santos Lozano Building, in later years better known as the Pioneer's Building, was awarded a marker designating it a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark. The structure was said to have been constructed of bricks brought from Monterrey, Mexico. The text of the marker reads: Built in 1915, this commercial structure is the oldest existing brick building in Harlingen. It was designed and constructed by Baltazar Torres of Brownsville for the mercantile business of Santos Lozano. It also served as a community center, providing upstairs space for bilingual school classes and special events. A post office was included on the ground floor. Continuously owned by the Lozano descendants, the structure has housed various businesses.

Stephen Fox of Houston, who has an interest in architecture, added the following information:

Baltazar Torres was a prominent early twentieth-century architect-builder. Unfortunately his career has not been well documented, so there are only a few buildings that can be securely attributed to him. One commercial building in Brownsville faces Market Street at 629 E. 11th Street and has a small plaque on it dated 1928. It identifies B. Torres as the architect-builder. The March 1913 issue of the nationally-circulated trade journal "American Carpenter and Architect" illustrates a house in San Antonio designed and built by Torres. It won an award in a national competition sponsored by the magazine.

Minnie Gilbert is the author of an entry on Santos Lozano and his brothers in "Rio Grande Roundup: Story of Texas Tropical Borderland (pp.167-174). It includes a description of and an historic photograph of the building.


VMS (7/15/04) Lozano Building Article Feedback
James Matz and others called to bring attention to the fact that the Texas Historic Landmark for the Santos Lozano Building was in error when it states "Built in 1915, this commercial structure is the oldest existing brick building in Harlingen." Matz notes that the Matz Building has an even older history. Its origins trace back to 5/14/10 when the School Board of Trustees considers a bond election. On 7/8/10 the issue is set for $40,000, payable in 40 years at 4% interest in order to construct, equip, and purchase the sites for two brick schools. Forty-six voters (51 in another account) out of the population of 1,126 participate on 11/9/10. All vote in favor. L.S. Green of Green and Briscoe, Architects, Houston is selected for the "Main School" to serve grades 1 through 11. There was no twelfth grade until the late 1930s. Abner W. Cunningham is instrumental in purchasing a whole city block between 5th and 6th Street along Main Street for the site of the school. It is purchased from Lon C. Hill for $3,500.

It is 4/25/11 when Andrew Goldammer is awarded a $25,000 contract to build a three story brick schoolhouse on the northwest corner of Main (Jackson) and 6th Streets. J.P. McDonald is to supervise its construction. Another source puts the low-bid contract at $22,800. Now called a $40,000 school, it is nearing completion by 10/26/11. The building is accepted 3/25/12.

The Central Ward School is occupied for student instruction on 4/1/12. E.W. Anglin, a school board member in 1911-12, recalls, "We gathered up all the classes scattered about town on April 1, 1912 and moved them all to the new brick building on Jackson Street. The next year was a rainy one and we had to build a board walk all the way from downtown to the school."

Robert Runyon , the famed Valley photographer takes numerous photographs of the impressive structure on a visit to Harlingen in 1912. First called the Central Ward School, it is, in 1936, renamed the Sam Houston School.

1921 Luz Ramirez, later to be Mrs. Bennie Leal of San Benito, is the first student of Mexican ethnic origin to be graduated from Harlingen High School. In 1922 Alfred Lozano, later to be Doctor Lozano, is the first Hispanic boy to be graduated. He was graduated from the University of Texas, Columbia University and Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, then went on to study in France. While he practiced four years in Harlingen, he also spent time in Alabama and in Corpus Christi, where he died at the early age of 35 in 1939. He was responsible for converting the top floor of the Lozano Building into offices and instruction rooms for Harlingen's first business college.

What was to become the Matz building serves as a school from 1912 to 1950 then several years as a community center. Before a new separate high school is built in 1925, the school is taxed for room with Harlingen's increasing school population. Two wooden classroom buildings for early graders are constructed to the north of the brick edifice. They are later moved south of the Alamo School on F Street when it too requires more classrooms. In 1952, with its name by now changed to Sam Houston School the Central Ward is purchased and renovated into an office complex named the E.O. Matz Building.

James Matz recalls working for his grandfather when much of the wooden interior was removed to reduce fire hazards. In chipping bricks for 10 cents a piece in order to reclaim them, he encountered some marked with Lon C. Hill's kiln identification. This was a bar K (K), the same as Hill used as his cattle brand. Hill's brick kiln operations were semi-commercial in that he used much of the production for his own use. The kiln and clay source were adjacent to the Arroyo Colorado, likely where the Harlingen Thicket now exists.

Runyon's 1912 photos, some taken from the high 50,000 gallon steel water tower built in mid-1912, also show the brick building occupied by the Letzerichs. It is at the northeast corner of Commerce and Jackson and now currently occupied by an antique store. In its early days it served as an office for Dr. Caspar W. Letzerich, the Harlingen Pharmacy operated by his brother Hugo L., and a dentist, who was ensconced upstairs. Some sources attribute its construction, as early as 1909, to E. H. Waterwall, who built the Verser House as well as other early Harlingen buildings. Photos labeled the year 1910 already show this building in existence.

While the legend which was on the Lozano Building may not be entirely correct the structure deserved a marker because of its importance in Harlingen history. Readers are directed to a chapter on Santos Lozano and his brothers in "Rio Grande Roundup: Story of Texas Tropical Borderland (pp.167-174). The article is authored by Minnie Gilbert, and the book is to be found in the Harlingen Library. It includes a description of and an historic photograph of the building.

 

 

 

Continuous Presence of Italians and Spaniards in Texas as Early as 1520, Including the Participation and Consequence of Texas and Louisiana in the American Revolution by Alex Loya is now available in it's entirely on the Texian Web Forum.

Somos Primos sends congratulations to Alex whose work is opening understanding among diverse historians.

The site in  acknowledging Alex states:  Alex Loya is a US Army Chaplain and a contributor to Somos Primos, the online magazine dedicated to Hispanic heritage and diversity issues.  Robert H. Thonhoff, author, historian, and former President of the Texas State Historical Association says concerning his work:

"We have much yet to learn in American history. With this fine book, Chaplain Alex Loya has uncovered and revealed a lode of significant gems of American history that have heretofore been buried deep in the sands of time. Imbedded within its pages are many new insights, which to my knowledge have never before been perceived by historians. A prime example is that the little place of Peñitas, Texas, subject to archeological confirmation, may well be the site of the first European settlement in what is now the continental United States of America! Moreover, his Loya ancestors were among its first settlers. Another perception revealed by author is that Texas was a veritable fourth front during the American Revolution. I think that Chaplain Loya may well be correct in these postulations and that he is on his way to being the world’s greatest authority on these subjects." http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/images/texforum/txforumloya.htm

                                                                 Chapter 10

1811-1845: THE TEXAS REVOLUTION

As I sat at my desk studying the documents that contained the history of Texas, my eyes filled with tears as I saw and realized something that, like the role of Texas and Louisiana in the American Revolution, is not widely known. We original Texians actually have a full history in Texas! We have a whole slew of statesmen, scholars, diplomats and patriots who fully participated in the Independence of Texas and its inclusion in the United States of America! We even have giants of history like Jefferson and Washington, like General Manuel Justinano Lorenzo de Zavala y Saenz, also known as General Lawrence De Zavala, who could read, write and speak fluent English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Latin and other languages and was honored by the Geographical and Scientific Society of France, the Courts of St. James, England, St. Cloud, France and the Court of Madrid, Spain. De Zavala was a friend of Adams, Louis Phillipe, Jackson, Lafayette and other giants of the era. Although few in number, the original Texans produced a remarkably high number of heroes and statesmen. And their faces were not the faces of the people you see today crossing over our southern border by the millions, but the faces that you see in the warm beaches of the Canary Islands and the mountains of Corsica, in the streets of Madrid, Southern France or Naples, faces like my brother’s and my father’s, my sisters’ and my mother’s, my cousins’, aunts’ and uncles’… The faces of the original Spaniard Founding Fathers of Texas who, with Houston, Bowie and Crockett fought and worked to preserve for us this American nation!

It seems like in the writing of history, both American and Mexican historians forgot to ask the people who had actually settled the land and had been there the longest what they thought and felt about the happenings in Texas. In American history it seems as though Texas history started with the arrival of Stephen F. Austin and his 300 Anglo-American settler families. In Mexican history it is forever claimed that Texas and the rest of the Southwest was stolen from the Mexicans, it was all theirs. How was it theirs? In pre-Hispanic days the Mexicas (from where you get the term Mexican), that is, the Aztecs, had no influence whatsoever in the area of Texas and Northern Mexico, none. The Aztec place name in Texas, Lipantitlan, simply shows that they passed through the area long ago in their migration, as all Indian groups passed through having arrived to the American Continent through the Bering Straight, but they had no power or jurisdiction in the area at the time of their empire. In fact, the fact that the Aztecs called the place "Lipantitlan" is in itself an acknowledgment on their part that they had no jurisdiction in the area since the name means "place of the Lipan", one of the Apache tribes. It was the Spaniards who tamed the wilderness of Texas, it was their children who were established in the land. I use the term "Spaniard Texan" or "Spaniard Texian" on purpose to reflect this reality and to assert the distinct identity and origin of the original Tejanos, who although not all were necessarily of Spaniard heritage per say, and a small number among them were indeed mestizos, they drew their identity from the Spaniards, like the Seguin family which, though it found its roots in France, it was said to be of full Castilian lineage. Perhaps as a matter of Providential justice some of them did write histories of what took place so that we are able to see and understand what the people who actually pioneered Texas thought about it all.

Probably the most invaluable and authoritative history of Texas was that written in the "Memoirs" of Antonio Menchaca, written in the handwriting of Charles M. Barnes, his amenuensis. Antonio Menchaca’s "Memoirs" are authoritative for a couple of reasons. First, they are authoritative because he was there, he is an eyewitness to what happened, from the very start. He witnessed the struggles, the friendships, the enmities, he knew who the tyrants and the liberators were. Second, Menchaca’s "Memoirs" are authoritative because they reflect the thinking, the understanding, the identity and the feeling, the emotion, of the original Tejanos like himself. Menchaca’s "Memoirs" however, are authoritative, most of all, because his contemporaries, both Anglo and Spaniard, considered his word and testimony authoritative. Whenever there arose disputes over whose property belonged to whom in the old city and county of Bexar, for example, Antonio Menchaca would be called upon to testify. His memory and knowledge of the genealogy of the old Spaniard families of Texas and of every incident in their history was so clear and pristine, that his word and testimony was considered final and authoritative and the truth of it was never doubted by either friend or foe (James P. Newcomb, Introduction to Menchaca’s Memoirs). It is clear that to the Texians who lived at the time, both Anglo and Spaniard, Menchaca’s history of Texas would be the final authority.

When one reads Menchaca’s "Memoirs", several things become palpably evident to the studious reader. First, his "Memoirs" make it evident that from the start, contrary to popular belief, the original Spaniard Texans felt a kinship with the Americans to the East more than with the Mexicans to the South. Second, Menchaca’s "Memoirs" make it palpably evident that to the original Spaniard Texians, the struggle for the independence of Texas from Mexico, began with the struggle of Mexico to be free from Spain in 1810-1811 and the events of 1835 were only the culmination of the same struggle which started in 1811. Third, Menchaca’s "Memoirs" make it palpably evident that from that time they, the original Tejano Texians, believed that being part of the United States was their destiny and their identity.

Menchaca’s "Memoirs", as other historical documents, clearly reflect that when Mexico began its struggle for independence from Spain, the royalist feeling was strongest and most entrenched in Texas, as in the rest of Northern New Spain. In fact, it was Texan royalists Elizondo, Herrera, Salcedo and Jose Menchaca who captured the Reverend Don Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, Mexico’s George Washington, and his co-revolutionaries Jimenez, Aldama and Allende, and it was in Chihuahua that they were found guilty of treason to the King of Spain and executed. Antonio Navarro plainly wrote that the northern provinces of Mexico had ultimately cast their lot with the King of Spain. This reaction of the colonials of Northern New Spain reflects the reality recorded in the census records, that the majority of them were criollos, and being full Spaniards born in New Spain, it was more difficult for them to rebel against the Mother Land. But not all original Spaniard Texians were royalists, that is, loyal to the King of Spain, and indeed there was a rebellion against Spain in Texas. Yet in his historical commentaries in the San Antonio Ledger in 1853, Jose Antonio Navarro observed that a number of the Texas rebels, as opposed to the royalists, really did not have any clear political sentiment, did not know the significance of the words liberty and independence and did not understand the reasons for the Reverend Miguel Hidalgo’s rebellion against Spain. Navarro makes it clear that in Texas those who were not loyal to the King of Spain, did not really actually espouse, though they certainly sympathized with, the cause for Mexican independence that Miguel Hidalgo espoused since they did not understand it.

Historically, in order to arouse the patriotic fervor of the Mexicans against the Spaniards during Mexico’s war for independence, the Reverend Miguel Hidalgo used the banner of a "dark Virgin". Miguel Hidalgo held up a banner in which the dark skinned Virgin of Guadalupe was depicted. With this banner in hand, he told the Mexicans that this was their Virgin as opposed to the Spaniards’ white Virgin. Although he himself was a criollo, of pure Spaniard blood, he did this to make it possible for the Mexicans to feel morally free to fight for their independence against the Spaniards, since the Virgin had taken for herself the Indian appearance of the Mexicans. Although they certainly held Hidalgo in high regard (the name "Goliad" is a "jumbled" form of the name Hidalgo and Hidalgo County is named after Miguel Hidalgo), those Texians who rebelled against Spain did not identify with Hidalgo’s dark Virgin in their cause. Although Alonso de Leon had named the Guadalupe River in her honor during the early exploration period of Texas, and although she had devotees in Texas, unlike the Mexicans, it was not an appeal to the dark Virgin of Guadalupe that stirred the Spaniard Texians up to fight.

In Navarro’s view, many among the Texas rebels just wanted to kill Peninsular Spaniards, that is, Spaniards born in Spain. Although not excuseable, it is perhaps understandable that the Texas and Northern Mexico rebels would feel this way because the Spaniards born in Spain not only discriminated against Mexicans of Indian or mixed racial heritage, mestizos, but also against those of their own race who were born in the New World, the criollos. Spaniards born in Spain would not allow full Spaniards born in New Spain rise above the rank of captain in the army, for example, and they, the criollos, were not allowed to hold certain governmental offices and positions of authority. In other words, the Spaniards born in Spain would not allow the full Spaniards born in New Spain attain their full potential. Consequently, according to Navarro, the Texian rebels engaged in a rebellion without understanding, and so without really espousing, Miguel Hidalgo’s cause. Other historians have concluded that the colonial Texans just didn’t have much to do with the War for Mexican Independence. On the other hand, as chapter 7 in this book touches on, although thus far ignored, there is no ambiguity regarding the Spaniard Texians’ full participation in the War for American Independence. As a theologian, this contrast would help me determine and decide which country Texas was always destined to be a part of; the United States of America.

Antonio Menchaca, however, reveals an entirely different understanding of the Texas rebels during Mexico’s War for Independence which has been virtually buried and forgotten, but which has everything to do with the legitimacy of Texas as an American State. When I began to read Antonio Menchaca’s "Memoirs" I was really kind of confused because in his historical account Menchaca continually referred to the Americans and the Mexicans fighting it out in Texas, making it clear that he was talking about, specifically, the Texas Revolution, and, actually, the Mexican War. Yet, as I read the dates, it didn’t make any sense, 1811, 1813 etc. I literally had to read his "Memoirs" again, taking time to not just read them but study them to understand exactly what he was talking about. As I slowed down and really studied his work, what Menchaca was communicating became crystal clear.

In a fascinating account of a battle that took place on June 3, 1813 on the hill side of the Atascosa Creek, approximately five miles from the Medina River, Menchaca clearly portrays the events of that era as a war between Mexicans and Americans for the independence of Texas, rather than the war between Mexico and Spain for the independence of Mexico. Menchaca describes how the Mexicans, led by a man by the name of Arredondo, with 400 soldiers, cavalry and two light pieces of artillery, set off to engage the Americans. These 400 men and their cavalry were only a decoy sent out by the Mexicans to ascertain the strength of the Americans. For this reason, Toledo, the American commander from New Orleans, had instructed his second in command not to pursue the Mexicans when they fell back because they would only lead the Americans to a trap to be engaged by the larger Mexican force. The American colonel, second in command, however, saw he had the advantage so he pursued the Mexicans inflicting heavy casualties on them until they got to the main body of the Mexicans. Toledo sent word to his second in command to disengage, but the colonel responded that the fight had already started, that he would fight until he either died or conquered. The American colonel challenged the American troops to fight as men and follow him. The Americans did.

" The battle began with great fury. As soon as it commenced Miguel Menchaca (the second in command on the American side), who cammanded one wing of the cavalry and Antonio Delgado, the left wing, pushed their men up with such vigor as to compel the cavalry which opposed them to retreat to the centre of the main body of Arredondo’s infantry… The battle had almost been declared in favor of the Americans, when by an accident Col. Menchaca was struck by a ball on the neck. He fell, and there being no one to cheer the troops on, it became discouraged, then frightened, disorder commenced. The Mexicans under Arredondo seeing this, took courage and charged with fury, got into the Americans and killed a great many of them." (Antonio Menchaca, Memoirs)

The tide turned in this battle, the Royalists defeated the Texas rebels and Spanish rule was once again established in Texas after a brutal reprisal against the Spaniard Texans by the Royalists in which hundreds of men were slaughtered and women and children forced into slave labor.

When I noticed the names of the American commanders in this battle, however, Colonel Miguel Menchaca and Antonio Delgado, as well as the name of the commander of the American forces whom Toledo had replaced, General Bernardo Gutierrez, and the name of the American commander himself, Toledo, who was actually a Spaniard (some sources say he was a criollo from Cuba) who came through New Orleans, as Antonio Navarro reveals in his "Historical Commentaries", I realized that in Menchaca’s account, an account which reflects the feeling of the original Spaniard Texians who were Menchaca’s contemporaries, the Americans were not only Augustus William Magee and his army of selfless Anglo-Americans whom Antonio Navarro called "Leonidas North Americans" referring to the outsanding courage and selflessness displayed by the Spartan soldiers who were led by King Leonidas in the ancient past, but the Spaniard Texian rebels whom he had said did not understand or really espouse and identify with Miguel Hidalgo’s cause of Mexican Independence (although Navarro had referred to those among the Texas rebels who had committed an atrocity as the ones who had no cause).

It became crystal clear that in Menchaca’s history, the events of 1811-1813 were not Texas’ cooperation with Mexico in its war to gain its independence from Spain, but were an entirely separate, separate in intent, Texan war to gain Texas’ independence both from Spain and from Mexico, and even then to eventually become part of the United States. In Menchaca’s account, in his view, which reflects the view of his Tejano Texian contemporaries and compatriots, the Texas Revolution did not begin in 1835, but in 1811, and it was a continuous struggle which did not end until Texas became part of the United States in 1845.

And eventhough in his "Historical Commentaries of San Antonio de Bexar by an Eyewitness" and his "Commentaries of Historical Interest" publised in a series of articles in the San Antonio Ledger in 1853 and then again in 1857-1858, (These articles in the San Antonio Ledger were the English translation of his Apuntes Historicos Interesantes de San Antonio de Bexar, which he wrote in Spanish. I have both the English and Spanish versions in my possession in the book entitled "Defending Mexican Valor in Texas" a compilation of Navarro’s works put together and edited by David R. McDonald & Timothy M. Matovina)) eventhough Antonio Navarro takes a different approach in describing the events in Texas that ocurred in 1811-1813, by identifying them as part of the overall War of Mexican Independence from Spain, and by identifying the Texan rebels as Mexican, the Spaniards as Spaniards and the Americans as Americans, he concurs with Menchaca in several points.

First, Navarro clearly identifies the majority of the Texan rebels or patriots as being criollos, of Spaniard or Canary Island origin, with a few men of Mexican origin among them, in contrast to the Mexicans of southern Mexico who fought alongside Hidalgo whom he identifies as Indians (McDonald & Matovina, pp. 48,65,67&75). Second, eventhough he identifies Magee, Kemper and Perry and their men as Americans in contrast to the Texans, he calls them patriots and compatriots. Third, he called the Americans compatriots while at the same time saying that the Spaniard Texians had by their courage earned their place among the Americans, thus making the Anglo-Americans one with the Spaniard Texians, even as Menchaca does (McDonald & Matovina pp. 46, 54 & 63). Lastly, Navarro clearly states that the blood shed by the Spaniard Texians in 1811-1813 was shed to gain the freedom all Texans now enjoyed as Americans (McDonald & Matovina p.63), in essence contradicting his own approach that the events in Texas in 1811-1813 were part of the overall War for Mexican Independence and, instead, like Menchaca, making the Texas Revolution an originally Spaniard Texian cause and one continuous struggle that began in 1811 and culminated and found its victorious goal in 1845 when Texas became part of the United States. We will look into this fact in more detail in the next chapter.

 

 

Wills and/or Testaments from Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon, Mexico Inventory
Photostatic copies held by The Rio Grande Valley Historical Collection
The University of Texas, Pan American
Sent by Arturo Ynclan AYnclan@edd.ca.gov

[NOTE: In accordance with donation restrictions, photocopies of those wills/or testaments which are photocopies of original wills (indicated by "O" to the extreme right) may be used within the library (notes may be taken) but copies may NOT be made. Wills marked "C"."P". and "T" may be copied.  In order to obtain a copy of original wills (photocopies) indicated by "O", please contact:

Mrs. Aminta Zarate 
Asociación de Reclamantes
721 Easr Baker Street
Edinburg, TX 78539
Ph (956) 383-8572

1. Abanca, Felipe Antonio 1879 [Valle de Yamas/Yanes, Provincia de Asturias de los Reinos de Castilla - Spain] (13 sheets-3 copies) O 

2. Alaniz, María Casilda 1807: [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (3 sheets-2 copies) O 

3. Anzaldúas, Alvino 1854: [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (9 sheets-3 copies) O 

4. Anzaldúas, Javier 1819: [Cerralvo, Nuevo León, México] (12 sheets-3 copies) O 

5. Ayala, Calistro 1788: [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (8 sheets-1 copy) O 

6. Ballesteros, María Anacleta 1851:[Montemorelos, N. L. and Tamaulipas, México] (7 sheets-3 copies) O 

7. Ballí, Jesús 1880: [Matamoros, Tamaulipas, México] (2 sheets-2 copies) P 

8. Ballí, José María * 1788 [Santiago las Salinas, Tamauilipas, México] (12 sheets) O 

9. Ballí, Juan Antonio 1798
[Valle de San Juan Bautista and Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (8 sheets-1 copy) O 

10. Ballí, Juan Antonio 1926 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (7 sheets-1 copy) C 

11. Ballí, Juan José 1804 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (1 sheet-1 copy) P 

12. Ballí, María Gregoria 1802 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (4 sheets-1 copy) O 

13. Ballí, María Gregoria 1819 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (9 sheets-3 copies) O 

14. Ballí, Nicolas (Padre) 1828 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (7 sheets-1 copy) C 

15. Ballí, Nicolas (Padre) 1828 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (2 sheets-1 copy) P 

16. Ballí, Santiago 1812 [Salinas, Nuevo León, México] (5 sheets-3 copies) O 

17. Benavides, Ygnacio 1826 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (17 sheets-1 copy) O 

18. Benavides, Antonia Inez 1777
[Villa de San Gregorio de Cerralvo Nuevo León, México] (5 sheets-1 copy) C 

19. Bocanegra, Miguel 1802 [Monterrey, Nuevo León, México] (4 sheets-1 copy) O 

20. Cano, Antonio Margil 1811 [Cadereyta, Nuevo León, México] (5 sheets-3 copies) O 

21. Cano, Francisco 1786 [Villa de Guadalupe, Nuevo León, México] (6 sheets-1 copy) O 

22. Cano, Juan José 1796 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (4 sheets-1 copy) O 

23. Cano, Juana Rosa 1849 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (5 sheets-1 copy) O 

24. Cantú Sánchez, Antonio 1873 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (5 sheets-1 copy) C 

25. Cantú, Nicolas * 1780 [Nuevo, León, México] (7sheets) O 

26. Cantú Cárdenas, Eusebio 1882 [Salinas, Nuevo León, México] (7 sheets-3 copies) O 

27. Cárdenas, José Antonio 1811 [Salinas, Nuevo León, México] (7 sheets-3 copies) O 

Cárdenas see/ver Cantú Cárdenas  28. Cavazos, Guadalupe 1846

[La Mota, Nuevo Leóon, México and Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (4 sheets-3 copies) C 

29. Cavazos, José Fernando 1828 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (14 sheets) O 

30. Cavazos, José Francisco 1827 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (8 sheets-4 copies) O 

31. Cavazos, José Narciso 1807 [Nuevo Santander, Nuevo León, México] (9 sheets-4 copies) O 

32. Cavazos, José Narcizo 1807 [Nuevo Santander, Nuevo León, México] (7 sheets-3 copies) C 

33. Cavazos, José Onofre 1783

[Monterrey, Nuevo León, México] (10 sheets-1 copy) O 

34. Cavazos, María Francisca 1835 [La Monte, Nuevo León, México] (2 sheets-1 copy) P 

35. Chapa, Augustina 1851 [Monterrey, Nuevo León, México] (8 sheets-1 copies) O 

36. Chapa, Miguel 1853 [Cerralvo, Nuevo León, México] (8 sheets-3 copy) O 

37. Domínguez, Estanislado 1823 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (7 sheets-1 copy) O 

38. Escobar, José Vicente Sains 1888 [Camargo, Tamaulipas, México] (1 sheet-1 copy) C 

Falcón see/ver Garza Falcón 

39. Fernández, Bartolomé * 1790 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (1 sheet) P 

40. Fernández, José Eugenio 1816 n.p.[Camargo, Tamaulipas, México] (2 sheets-2 copies) O 

41. Flores, José Antonio 1803 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (11 sheets-1 copy) O 

42. Galindo, José Claudio 1804 
[San José de Cuatro Ciénegas, Nuevo León, México] (4 sheets-1 copy) O 

43. Galván, Severiano 1802 [Nuevo León, México] (5 sheets-1 copy) O 

44. García, Bartolomé 1882 
[Villa de San Gregorio de Cerralvo, Nuevo León, México] (5 sheets-1 copy) O 

45. García, José Antonio Margil 1826 [Camargo, Tamaulipas, México] (16 sheets-1 copy) C 

46. García, Rafael García 1773 [Camargo, Tamaulipas, México] (6 sheets-1 copy) C 

47. Garza, Blas María de la 1854 [Camargo, Tamaulipas, México] (4 sheets-1 copy) P 

48. Garza, Esteban de la 1775 [Monterrey, Nuevo León, México] (7 sheets-3 copies) O 

49. Garza, Francisca de la (n.d) [Monterrey, Nuevo León, México] (4 sheets-1 copy) O 

50. Garza, José María de la 1833 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (13 sheets-1 copy) O 

51. Garza, José Miguel de la 1797 [Coahuila, México] (7 sheets - 1 copy) O 

52. Garza, José Prudencio de la 1802 [Monterrey, Nuevo León, México] (11 sheets-1 copy) O 

53. Garza, Juan Nepomuceno de la 1864 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (7 sheets-3 copies) O 

54. Garza, Juana Francisca de la 1807 [Monterrey, Nuevo León, México] (7 sheets-2 copies) O 

55. Garza, Manuel de la 1829 [lReynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (12 sheets-2 copies) O 

56. Garza, Manuel de la 1831 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (4 sheets-3 copies) O 

57. Garza, María Gertrudes de la 1794 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (5 sheets-3 copies) O 

58. Garza, Martín de la 1802 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (7 sheets-1 copy) O 

59. Garza Falcón, Ma. Gertrudes de la 1789[Cerralvo, Nuevo León, México] (3 sheets-1 copy) P 

60. Garza Hinojosa, Juan José de la 1796 [Not readable] (8 sheets-1 copy) O 

61. Garza Navarro, Pablo 1898 [Camargo, Tamaulipas, México] (10 sheets-1 copy) C 

62. Garza y Guerra, Francisco de la 1820 [Camargo, Tamaulipas, México] (4 sheets-1 copy) O 

63. Garza y Guerra, José Julian de la 1825 [Camargo, Tamaulipas, México] (7 sheets-1 copy) C 

64. González, Margarita 1829 [Mier, Tamaulipas, México] (2 sheets-1 copy) C 

65. Granados, María Joséfa 1787 [San Antonio, Texas, U.S.A.] (4 sheets-1 copy) P 

66. Guerra, Domingo 1808 [Monterrey, Nuevo León, México] (7 sheets-1 copy) O 

67. Guerra, Francisco Antonio 1817 [Monterrey, Nuevo León, México] (6 sheets-1 copy) T

68. Guerra, Francisco Antonio 1817 [Monterrey, Nuevo León, México] (8 sheets-1 copy) O

69. Guerra, Gertrudis 1839 [Cruilla, Nuevo León, México] (24 sheets-1 copy) O 

70. Guerra, José Ygnacio 1819 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (5 sheets-3 copies) O 

71. Guerra, Juan Nepomuceno 1829 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (6 sheets-1 copy) O 

Guerra see/ver Garza y Guerra  Hinojosa see/ver Garza Hinojosa 

72. Hinojosa, Vicente de 1821 [Villa de Reynosa del Nuevo Santander] (10 Sheets-2 copies) O 

73. Jinley, Guillermo 1829 [del estado del Norte] (6 sheets-1 copy) O 

74. Leal, José María 1847 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (10 sheets-5 copies) O 

75. Longoria, José Santiago 1794 [Cerralvo, Nuevo León, México] (4 sheets-1 copy) C 

76. Longoria, Matías * 1772 [Cerralvo, Nuevo León, México] (6 sheets) O 

77. Longoria, Matías 1772 [Cerralvo, Nuevo León, México] (3 sheets-1 copy) C 

78. López, José Antonio 1818 [Camargo, Tamaulipas, México] (4 sheets-2 copies) C 

79. López, José Norberto 1829 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (7 sheets-2 copies) O 

80. López, José Ramón 1801 [San Fernando, Tamaulipas, México] (4 sheets-2 copies) O 

81. López, Marcelino 1854 [Camargo, Tamaulipas, México] (19 sheets-1 copy) C 

82. López Navarro, José * 1829 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (9 sheets) O 

83. Luna, María Encarnación de 1780 
[Villa de Cadereyta, Nuevo León, México] (7 sheets-1 copy) O 

84. Madrozo, José Antonio 1806 [Real de Santiago de Boca de Leones] (5 sheets-1 copy) O 

Navarro see/ver Garza Navarro 

85. Ochoa, María Inez * 1849 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (19 sheets) O 

86. Ocón y Trillo, Juana de 1816 [San Antonio, Texas, U.S.A.] (5 sheets-1 copy) P 

87. Orozco, José Manuel de 1828 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (5 sheets-3 copies) O 

88. Pérez, Tomás 1879 [Camargo, Tamaulipas, México] (8 sheets-1 copy) C 

89. Rabelo, Pedro 1803
[Sentdidia Jurisdiccion de la Francia and Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (4 sheets-1 copy) O 

90. Ramírez de Olivares, María Catarina 1878 
[Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (4 sheets-4 copies) O 

91. Ramírez, Felipe 1918 [Monterrey, Nuevo León, México] (3 sheets-1 copy) C 

92. Saís, José Vicente 1851 [Camargo, Tamaulipas, México] (6 sheets -1 copy) C 

93. Saiz, Fernando 1905 [Camargo, Tamaulipas, México] (1sheet-1 copy) C 

94. Salamanca, Salbador 1784 [Villa de Ygualeja, Jurisdicción de la Ciudad de Ronda, Castilla-Spain-] (9 sheets-1 copy) O Sánchez see/ver Cantú Sánchez 

95. Serna, Pedro de 1831[Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (9 sheets-1 copy) O 

96. Serna, [Mora], José Lorenzo 1802 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (8sheets-1 copy) O 

97. Treviño, Bartolomé de 1788 [Monterrey, Nuevo León, México] (9 sheets-1 copy) C 

98. Treviño, Bartolomé de * 1809 [Monterrey, Nuevo León, México] (8 sheets) T 

99. Treviño, María Joséfa de 1820 
[San Gregorio de Cerralvo, Nuevo León, México] (5 sheets-1 copy) C 

100. Treviño, Tomás 1801 [Villa de Pilón, Nuevo León, México] (6 sheets-1 copy) O 

Trillo see/ver Ocón y Trillo 

101. Vega, Juan Antonio Ballí 1862 [Matamoros, Tamaulipas, México] (8 sheets-1 copy) O 

102. Velásquez, Joséfa 1857 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (5 sheets-1 copy) C 

103. Villanueva, José Antonio 1815
[Villa de San Rafael Grande and Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (8 sheets-3 copies) O 

104. Villarreal, José Manuel 1747 [Camargo, Tamaulipas, México](incomplete) (2 sheets-1 copy)C 

105. Zamora, Nicolás 1782 [Reynosa, Tamaulipas, México] (21 sheets) O 


For more information, please contact:  George Gause, Special Collections Librarian 
Lower Rio Grande Valley Historical Collection, University Library
University of Texas Pan-American, 1201 West University Drive
Edinburg, Texas 78541-2999
(956) 381-2726, (956) 381-2799  (956) 318-5396 Fax 
http://www.lib.panam.edu/info/speccoll/wills.html 

Escudos de Cantabria ... / por María del Carmen González Echegaray
 
This is a title which I know some of you have been waiting to use / consult. Cantabria: Area in Spain where MANY of those who settled in Northeast Mexico originated. Received, cataloged and ready to use (within UTPA Library / Special Collections.  And please help spread the word to those who might also have an interest. 
 
Contact, George Gause, Special Collections Librarian
Author González Echegaray, María del Carmen.
Title Escudos de Cantabria ... / por María del Carmen González Echegaray.
Location Call No. Status
  UTPA LRGV (Room 112)  CR673.C29 G66  v.1      LIB USE ONLY
  UTPA LRGV (Room 112)  CR673.C29 G66  v.2      LIB USE ONLY
  UTPA LRGV (Room 112)  CR673.C29 G66  v.3      LIB USE ONLY
  UTPA LRGV (Room 112)  CR673.C29 G66  v.4      LIB USE ONLY
  UTPA LRGV (Room 112)  CR673.C29 G66  v.5      LIB USE ONLY
  UTPA LRGV (Room 112)  CR673.C29 G66  v.6      LIB USE ONLY
Publication info. Santander : Institución Cultural de Cantabria, <1969?-1999>
Description 6 v. : ill. ; 23 cm.
Note Tomo1 has imprint: Santander: Joaquin Bedia Cano. Tomo 6 has imprint: Madrid : Hidalguia. At head of title: Instituto Salazar y Castro.
Contents -- t. 1. Trasmiera. -- t. 2. Las Asturias de Santillana.v.1.-- t. 3. Las Asturias de Santillana. v.2.-- t. 4. Asturias de Santillana y el bajo Asón -- t. 5. Valles de Soba, Ruesga, Pas, Liendo, Guriezo y provincia de Liébana -- t. 6. Campoo y Castro Urdiales.
Subject Heraldry -- Spain -- Cantabria.
Added author Institución Cultural de Cantabria.
Instituto Luis de Salazar y Castro.
ISBN 8450014484 (t. 3)
8485349172 (t. 4)
8485349342 (t. 5)
8489851212 (t. 6)
 

 

 

EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI

Hector Flores: Latino leader outgrew modest goals
Immigration cultivation: Farmers gain insight on new work force 
Man brings back the music of Clifton Chenier 
Country Roads Online:  Natchez to New Orleans



Hector Flores: Latino leader outgrew modest goals
He rose from farm fields to civil rights activist 
By Georgia Pabst, gpabst@journalsentinel.com, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, June 25, 2006
Sent by Zeke Hernandez  zekeher@yahoo.com

The national conference of LULAC was held in Milwaukee, June 26th to July 1st..
National president Hector Flores was recognized by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

As a boy, Hector Flores spent summers traveling from Texas to Indiana and Michigan to pick cherries and tomatoes. He remembers that all he wanted to be when he grew up was a crew chief. 

"The crew chief took us up north, and he would play with us. He was like a social worker. I didn't see any other potential for myself," he said.

But his ambitions, opportunities and education expanded far beyond those early expectations. He went to college, became a police officer and did civil rights work for the federal government. Now, he's director of recruitment and retention for the Dallas Independent School District.

For the last four years he also has served as president of the League of United Latin American
Citizens (LULAC), the nation's oldest Latino civil rights organization, which begins its annual
convention at the Midwest Airlines Center today. When the convention wraps up on Saturday, Flores, 64, will step down. He described his tenure this way:

"I believe in sticking to the core objectives, which include a civil rights agenda and education programs so that people can move up to economic success, be better citizens and prepare for the future."

Ernesto Chacon, a longtime Milwaukee activist who works in the local office of Gov. Jim Doyle, knows Flores and thinks he's helped energize LULAC. "He's moved the organization forward and aggressively addressed issues like immigration, education, voting and the development of young leadership," he said.

On the contentious issue of immigration, Flores said the organization supports the comprehensive U.S. Senate bill with some reservations, including opposition to the provision to make English the
"national language" and the building of a fence on the southern border. 

"We believe we need to secure our borders, but unfortunately the focus is on the southern flank, yet
not one single terrorist came from the south, but many (terrorists) drove over the Canadian border," he said.

With the growing Latino population - 50% of the nation's Latinos are younger than 25 - and a 50%
dropout rate, Latinos and new immigrants need education to work their way into the mainstream, he
said. "Every immigrant group has moved through public education to reach the American dream," he said."Education is the great equalizer."

Today, LULAC provides more than $1 million to local councils as matching funds for scholarships. Flores also heads the league's 17 National Educational Service Centers that work with high school and college students on leadership development. 

Flores grew up an only child in Dilley, Texas, a town of 3,000 near the Mexican border. His mother died shortly after he was born, and his grief-stricken father joined the Navy. He was raised by his
grandparents, who were farm workers. 

He spent two years in first grade because he didn't speak English. It was against the law to teach in
anything but English, so he was lucky to have had two bilingual teachers, he said.

"These two Anglos taught us bilingually and touched my life," he said.

The day after the school year ended, he would wake up at 4 a.m. and pile into a truck with the other farm workers, he recalled. After a stop at the church for a blessing, they would drive two to three days, stopping only for gas. One day while picking tomatoes in Indiana, he said, he decided he would work hard in school so that his children would not have to pick tomatoes. 

The summer after sixth grade, he went to the school library to ask the English teacher if he could check out some books. "She was so impressed that she steered me to books. That summer I read about 100 books," he said.

That teacher's interest and encouragement made all the difference. She told him he should go to college and talked to his grandparents about it. He began working his way through college in Chicago and then as a police officer in San Antonio. After nine years, he received a degree in political science from St. Mary's University in San Antonio. 

He worked for the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare in Dallas and for the U. S. Justice Department as a conciliation specialist dealing with allegations of police brutality and minority
recruitment. 

The grandfather of five is proud that his three children are all college graduates. 


Immigration cultivation: Farmers gain insight on new work force 
By Georgia Pabst, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel gpabst@journalsentinel.com Posted June 6, 2006
Sent by Howard Shorr howardshorr@msn.com

Waumandee - Every Monday morning around 7:30, Shaun Judge Duvall drives up to the office of the 1,000-acre Rosenholm-Wolfe Dairy farm in this valley rimmed by gently rolling green hills.

First, she'll give a Spanish lesson to owner John Rosenow, one of her best pupils. Next, she'll lead English class for six to eight Mexican workers. Then, it's Spanish classes for three English-speaking farm employees and a local EMT worker.The weekly lessons are part of a new way of life and doing business for Rosenow, whose Swiss and German ancestors homesteaded these Buffalo County lands near the Mississippi River more than 150 years ago.

But the classes are only part of an innovative program in agriculture called Puentes, Spanish for bridges. Started by Rosenow, Duvall and University of Wisconsin agricultural extension agent Carl Duley, Puentes tries to build understanding, economic benefit and mutual support between Midwest dairy farmers and the homeland of the workers who may save their industry.

Since 1999, dairy producers have not only studied Spanish at the local high school but have also visited the Zongolica region in the mountains of Veracruz, where their workers and their families hail from, to learn about the language and culture.

Dairy farmers such as Rosenow see such steps as necessary to sustain a labor force that's become crucial to the area's main economic engine. "The dairy industry would be shut down if the immigrants weren't here," says Rosenow.

Another dairy farmer who made the first trip, Chris Weisenbeck, agrees. "The trip was very worthwhile and paid big dividends in securing and understanding the labor force that's so necessary and vital to the dairy industry," he says.

"It improved their relations with the employees because they saw the reason workers come here and they got to see the good the dollars they pay the workers are doing in Mexico," says Duvall.

More cows than people. In this county of 712 square miles with more cows than people - 25,000 vs. 14,000 - Rosenow and others find themselves in the midst of debates dealing with red-hot issues such as immigration and labor, big dairy farms vs. small dairy farms and the very fate of dairy in Wisconsin.

Dairy farming is the largest industry in the county, accounting for $70 million of the $90 million in yearly agricultural receipts. "If the local farmers don't have labor, they can't produce milk, and if they can't produce milk, the cheese plants will leave and what happens to the local economies and to our identity in rural Wisconsin, which is so tied to cheese?" asks University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire geography professor Paul Kaldjian, who has studied the subject.

Farmers such as Rosenow, he says, aren't waiting for that to happen, but are instead taking proactive measures to understand their workers and the cultural changes taking place in western Wisconsin.

"They're an example to all of us in the immigration debate because they don't succumb to stereotypes," Kaldjian says. "They humanize what's taking place." Rosenow says he tried to hire local workers, but it became more and more difficult.

"At one time I thought if you were a lousy employer, you hired Mexican workers," Rosenow says. "We hired people who were in trouble with the law and high school kids who were busy juggling all their activities. We tried to recruit from Fleet Farm."

Finally, eight years ago, "out of absolute desperation," Rosenow says, he called a farmer friend in Minneapolis who he knew hired immigrants and soon had his first Mexican worker. 

"He milked cows for 10 hours a day for 54 days straight," says Rosenow, who still shakes his head in amazement. "He wouldn't take a day off, even though we insisted. It turned my life around."

That was in 1998. Friends and relatives of that worker soon followed, and now when one worker leaves, his replacement is already lined up, ready to take his place. Most stay a few years, then return to Mexico, Rosenow says. Soon, other farmers were seeking Rosenow's advice on how to tap into the Mexican labor pool.

Since 1998, Rosenow and others estimate, the Mexican population of Buffalo County has grown from zero to around 80 to 100. Most work on dairy farms, as more young Wisconsinites shun farm work or leave the state entirely.

"Rather than saying, 'How much do I have to work?' Mexicans ask, 'How much can I work?' " Kaldjian says. "It's a huge blessing to farming to have a willing, reliable source of labor."

Today, Rosenow employs 18 people, eight of them Mexican, to milk 550 Holsteins on a 24/7 basis. They start at $6.25 an hour for a 60-hour week. He provides housing in a small schoolhouse adjacent to the farm that Rosenow has converted into apartments.

Santiago Tentzohua, 29, works from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m., moving from cow to cow on the automatic machine that milks 18 cows at a time. He followed his brother, who has since returned to Mexico, and has been at the farm 18 months.

"This job is perfect for me because it's not very hard," he says with a smile. It allows him to send money home to his wife and two children. He hopes to stay two more years. 

When they're not working, Sanchez and the others rest, play soccer or watch Univision on a small TV. Severo Sanchez tends a small garden of beans, peppers, tomatoes and chiles. Are they legal?

Rosenow is always asked: Are the workers he hires here legally? He turns to a filing cabinet, where he pulls out the necessary government forms he gets from the people he employs. That's all he's required to do, but he also believes the immigration laws are often broken.

"The whole thing's a charade that doesn't make sense when you consider the number of visas issued annually and the fact there are about 11 million here illegally," he says. The debate in Washington concerns him greatly because of the need for workers and some of the harsh measures under consideration.

"Rather than shutting the border and building walls and fences, we need to build exchanges," Rosenow says. "Fences and walls don't stop the workers. It's made the problem worse."

Building bridges: Standing at six feet tall with tousled hair, Rosenow, 56, feels best in his work outfit of striped Dickies overalls, a T-shirt, cap and high rubber boots. He grew up on a small farm and got a degree in farm management from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. The large farm he oversees in partnership with his wife, Nettie, and neighbor Loren Wolfe grossed $2.7 million last year, he says.

He's passionate about the dairy business and wants to do right by his workers so they can do their best. He says that means managing through mutual respect instead of fear. He says the Puentes program, now a non-profit organization, provides benefits on both sides of the border. In cooperation with UW-River Falls, Rosenow developed a human resource management course called "Student Puentes." Last year, 11 agricultural students went to Mexico for 16 days to get exposure to the language and culture of the emerging Latino work force.

Duvall quit her job at the high school and now devotes her time to Puentes. She also does teaching, translation and training with 30 farmers in Wisconsin and Minnesota. In conjunction with Mexican officials, she developed a certification course for workers so they can prove they learned a skill here when they return to Mexico. About two dozen workers have received the certification. She and Rosenow arranged for the workers to be able to get accounts at local banks so they can send money to Mexico without high transfer fees.

Although his own business is changing and immigrant workers have helped ease his burden, Rosenow still rises every day at 4 a.m. and walks with his border collie from the farmhouse to work. His favorite time, he says, is around 7 p.m., when he drives 35,000 to 40,000 pounds of milk to the nearby cheese factory. "I enjoy it because I can reap the profits of the day."

 

 

Man brings back the music of Clifton Chenier 
Chenier's nephew looks to stop streak of club closings Sent by Mrremap1



Many of Clifton Chenier's albums and album covers hang on the wall on the Clifton Chenier Club in Loreauville. Chenier's wife, Margaret, opened the club in 1984, three years before the zydeco legend died. Now, his nephew, inspired by the closure of two of the oldest zydeco dancehalls, plans to reopen it.


Michael Vital of New Iberia is planning to open the Clifton Chenier Club in Loreauville. 
It is named in honor of his uncle.

Photo by Claudia B. Laws/The (Lafayette, Louisiana) Daily
Sent by Mrremap1

LOREAUVILLE -Hidden in sugarcane fields off Ferdnand Crochet Lane is a relic that many zydeco music fans forgot or never knew existed. A huge, fabricated metal building bears a new red awning with the name "Clifton Chenier Club."

But the owner is not some huckster trying to make fast money off the Grammy-winning King of Zydeco. He's the king's nephew, Mike Vital, and his father's late sister, Margaret, was Chenier's wife.

Margaret Chenier built the club on her family's property in 1984, three years before Clifton died. The club, which was never widely advertised, has sat idle for at least two years. But with the closing of two of the oldest zydeco dancehalls in the past year, Vital feels the time is right to put a historic zydeco club back on the scene.

 

 

Country Roads Online: Explore a world of cultural events from Natchez to New Orleans
http://www.countryroadsmagazine.com/cultural_icons.php

Would the Real St. Gabriel Church Please Step Forward?
By Stephanie Riegel Sent by Bill Carmena  JCarm1724@aol.com

Everyone agrees the church deserves better. But not on what “better” is. photographs by Brian Baiamonte

David Broussard and Eugene LeBlanc share a common love for this church, but have very different views on how to best honor its history.

There’s no disputing the Old St. Gabriel church needs to be restored. That part of the controversy is a no-brainer. Everyone agrees that the quaint, country structure that has languished in a semi-abandoned state for more than half a century now—ever since the “new” church was built in 1953—deserves better.

The difficulty lies in reaching a consensus on precisely how to fix up this local landmark. There are those who want to restore the church to its original form, a rare and historically significant example of Colonial Creole architecture. There are others who favor preserving it as it has looked for as long as anyone in these parts can remember, an unremarkable but picturesque example of rural Gothic Revival. 

The result is a standoff that has left the church shuttered and in a state of disrepair. With both sides at odds, all efforts to do anything are on hold. But while the building lies dormant, the issues that the controversy surrounding it raises are very much alive, namely: When restoring historic structures, how far back do you go? Which piece of the past should you preserve, the one that is most historically significant or the one to which the community is emotionally attached? Should the rules of historic restoration take precedence over the wishes and traditions of the local community? They are questions with no easy answers.

“Like everything it’s complicated,” says Bill Brockway, a retired professor of architecture at LSU who has studied the church extensively. “There’s one faction that wants it restored to the way it was originally built. Other people want it the way they remember it from the early part of the twentieth century. It’s a problem that they won’t resolve.”

That is unfortunate. Because to whatever era one would like to see the church restored it is old by local standards. Very old. Construction began in 1774, according to historical accounts, and was completed about the same time the Founding Fathers were signing the Declaration of Independence more than a thousand miles away. Most historians agree it is the oldest wooden church still standing in the Mississippi Valley.

The church was built by Acadians living under Spanish domination. They had arrived in the Louisiana territory some ten years earlier, a bedraggled group of exiles that had been kicked out of Maryland. By comparison, they were welcomed by the Spanish government, which greeted them with free land and other incentives if they agreed to settle permanently. Spain, after all, was desperate to populate the territory and establish its primacy in the region over competing colonial power Great Britain.

What’s more, the Acadians already had distant relatives here, as another group of Acadian settlers had arrived some years earlier. Thus, from their perspective Louisiana represented a vast improvement over the alternative. Not that life here was easy: the Acadian settlers faced disease, mosquitoes and unbearable heat.

But it was a new beginning and it would become home, and that meant they needed a church. Plans were drawn up in the late 1760s, though construction on the church did not begin until November of 1774. A settler by the name of Louis LeConte headed up the job for a sum of 1450 pisatres, and the settlers agreed to tax themselves to pay his fee. They even provided the labor on the project. Though Acadians, they built the church in the Creole style favored by the Spanish government.

All this history is important to the story of the church’s construction because it goes to the heart of why architectural historians and others in the camp who favor restoring the church to its original state are so strident in their beliefs. This story, they say, is one of struggle and triumph over adversity. It is a story of life in pre-Revolutionary America; a story about immigrant exiles who settled in a foreign territory and, using primitive building technology, constructed what was then considered to be the most important structure in a community: A church. 

“It has the potential to convey the character of those Colonial times, the settling of Louisiana,” says David Broussard, who more than a decade ago led an unsuccessful attempt to restore the church to its original form. “The Acadians who were sent here, what they had to deal with in terms of the rain and the heat, the wilderness. You can see that all in this building.”

Originally, it didn’t look much like a church, at least not the way we envision churches today. A classic example of Creole architecture, its roof was low and “hipped,” with an extension of several feet that surrounded the entire structure and shielded its exterior. In southeast Louisiana’s hot rainy weather, such a gallery would’ve been infinitely practical, as it offered worshipers protection from the elements when they pulled up in their wagons. The ceiling was shallow and arched; the windows, rectangular.

It was a simple building, but remarkable because of the way in which it was built. The timbers are massive and hand-hewn, attached not with nails but through mortise-and-tendoned joinery. The roof is of a Norman truss design. All told, the structure of the church—still visible beneath “improvements” made in the late nineeenth century—exemplifies a type of handmade construction that evolved in Europe over centuries.

That type of medieval building process was on the way out in those days just prior to the dawning of the machine age. To find an example of it in the walls of the Old St. Gabriel church makes the building that much more special, says Broussard, who restores antique furniture for a living. “This building conveys what they were up against, these early settlers, the rain, the heat,” he says. “And it’s all done at the end of medieval times, in terms of the building style they used. A few decades later it had all changed.” 

Indeed, by the early 1800s, America was in the throes of the Industrial Revolution; and, by the latter half of the century, the style of the Old St. Gabriel church was as outmoded as the technology that had been used to build it. In the 1880s, the parish decided to renovate the church and update its appearance. “They wanted it to look like the churches they’d seen in other parts of the country where the rich folks were,” Brockway says. 

To that end, they changed the roof to a Gothic Revival style with a gable at each end, and replaced the blunt, rectangular windows with arched lancet ones. They also modified the bell tower, vaulted the ceiling and replaced the floor, among other things. It gave the church a completely different appearance—the appearance it still has today. 

Which is where the problem begins. Because this Norman Rockwell-esque, country church is the church people living in St. Gabriel parish today know and love, the church where their parents and grandparents got married. Some even remember their own weddings or First Communions there. “This is the Old St. Gabriel church to the people who live here, who chose to stay here,” says long-time parishioner Eugene LeBlanc, who found himself embroiled in the restoration controversy and has tried to resolve it amicably. “The older parishioners who are still alive, they were married here, they were confirmed here.”

And if the church is going to be restored, they want it restored as the neo-Gothic church they remember from their childhood. After all, LeBlanc says, it’s looked that way longer than it looked in its original form. Then there is the fact that the church, during its years in active use, was constantly evolving, changing. During an interior renovation in 1909, the walls were covered with a painted, stenciled burlap -- a pale-green, textured wall covering that is fresco-like in appearance. The material still covers the walls today. In another significant change of the 1920s the altar was replaced. 

All of these improvements, such as they are, are part of the history of the church that the community knows and holds dear, LeBlanc explains. When restoring, should all those modifications be removed, or only the most recent ones? “What do we go back to?” LeBlanc asks. “The 1925 altar? The 1909 burlap? The 1880s neo-Gothic? Where do you draw the line?”

Broussard has his own thoughts on the matter. “You always go back to the period that is most historically significant,” he says. “Those are the guidelines from the U.S. Department of the Interior. You go to the most significant period and what’s so significant about this building is its Colonial structure.”

When Broussard talks about the issue he is resigned to the fact that while his perspective may be one more commonly embraced by academics, it’s not the popular choice. Not by a long shot. His cause is lost, and he learned that the hard way. 

It started in the early 1990s when Broussard became active with a citizens group trying to raise money to fix up the church. He began doing research and the more he studied the more he realized that St. Gabriel had a real treasure on its hands, something it could turn into a cultural and educational resource and attraction. “Historical architecture is capable of conveying the character of the culture it represents,” he says. “And that building could do that in such a grand way.”

Fascinated, Broussard brought in other experts—cultural anthropologists and architectural historians—to help him flesh out his finds. They launched a public relations campaign, complete with models and replicas of how the church originally looked, as well as written materials and supporting historical documentation. At one point, carried away by over exuberance, they even removed sections of ceiling boards from the church interior to better demonstrate the Colonial structure beneath. Locals were not impressed. “They came down here and started ripping things out – without even asking,” says LeBlanc, who is on good terms with Broussard and is quick to point out they are not adversaries.

As it turns out, many long-time parishioners perceived the efforts of Broussard and the academics he brought in as a bit arrogant. After all, the locals said, they knew the Old St. Gabriel church was older than it appeared, they just didn’t want it to look that way. “People around here felt like David and the others in his camp thought of us as ‘coonasses’ who don’t realize what we have here,” recalls LeBlanc of the controversy. “Well, we know what we have down here. We’ve known it for a long, long time.”

But tradition is a funny thing. While it goes back in time, it doesn’t always go back to the beginning. No one in St. Gabriel had a point of reference for the Colonial St. Gabriel Church. On the other hand, they had plenty of oral tradition and local memories of baptisms, weddings and funerals in the Gothic Revival structure. “It’s the emotional ties,” says LeBlanc. “I made my first communion there.’”

Fed up with the controversy it was creating in the parish, then-Bishop Francis Hughes put on hold any further restoration efforts for the time being. That was more than five years ago and until the parish puts forth a clear and clearly united plan to do something, the diocese is sticking by that decision. 

“The church [hierarchy] is never going to choose architecture over the faith of the community,” says Bob Furlow, a spokesman for the Diocese of Baton Rouge. “And that’s what this was getting to be about. It was becoming more about a historical landmark than a place of worship.” 

So for now the Old St. Gabriel church languishes in a state of limbo, a victim of its own beloved status in a community whose collective memory only goes back so far. With the controversy now several years in the past, Leblanc believes momentum is again growing to restore the church to its neo-Gothic appearance and to fix up the interior to look as it has since the 1909 wall-covering was added. “We’ve pretty much just concluded that we need to put the burlap wall covering back up and keep it looking the way it’s looked for the past one hundred years,” says LeBlanc.

But to do that would be a waste, according to Broussard, who has given up on his campaign but hasn’t altered his opinion on the matter. “What’s the point?” he asks rhetorically. “You’re just going to bury the more significant structure even further and make it harder for future generations to see what it really is, if they can see it at all.” 

Stephanie Riegel is a New Orleans native and former television reporter. She recently returned to her roots as a print writer, however, when Hurricane Katrina wiped out her home and neighborhood. She is currently living in Baton Rouge with her husband and three children, working from home as a media consultant and freelance writer.
All content © Country Roads Magazine. All rights reserved. 1-800-582-1792 



EAST COAST

Golfo de Mexico, Misiones Franciscanas 1606 map
Links to comprehensive Hispanic community studies
Yale University Art Gallery 
S: El Otro San Juan Del Puerto, La Florida

 



Link to 
EL OTRO SAN JUAN DEL PUERTO, Florida in 1606 
por Angel Custodio Rebollo Barroso

 

Links to comprehensive Hispanic community studies

Hello Mimi, 

Below are a few links to comprehensive Hispanic community studies we've completed in the past few years. These are communities in the mid-Atlantic sector of the U.S., in particular Allentown, Bethlehem, and Reading, PA; and Mercer County, NJ which includes Princeton, Trenton and their surrounding areas. All are communities where there has been significant Hispanic population growth over the past few decades and where there had been no prior targeted demographic research done regarding Hispanics or Latinos in those areas. In addition to demographic data, each report contains a brief history of that particular Hispanic/Latino community which, to our knowledge, are the first ever to be written specific to those communities.

The complete studies are available for viewing in PDF format and can be printed if a hard copy is desired although they are somewhat lengthy. 

As a genealogy enthusiast I can also see the value of these studies to those looking for some sort of historical record of the community in these areas. If you have any questions please feel free to email or call me or Lillian Escobar-Haskins who the lead researcher in every instance. Feel free to share these links with any other interested parties you may be aware of.

http://www.alegreadvertising.com/research/LVEDCStudyWeb.pdf
http://www.alegreadvertising.com/research/UWGMCStudy.pdf http://www.alegreadvertising.com/research/ReadingRpt2.pdf

Here is the link to the all the studies we've completed thus far. It might be better to use this link since all of the studies show up in thumbnails and your visitors can choose from among them: http://www.alegreresearch.com/research/community_studies.htm
 
Each time we complete a study we add it to this site so it is always up-to-date. We are currently conducting a study of Lancaster, PA where the School District of Lancaster is 52% Latino. The growth rate shows no sign of slowing down. It takes about 10-12 months to complete a study and the delivery date for this one is June, 2007.

Best wishes, George
George F. Haskins, partner 
Alegre Research and Demographics
Lancaster, PA 717-431-2100 
george.alegre@comcast.net

 

Yale University Art Gallery 

WHAT: The Yale University Art Gallery launches a new Web site dedicated to its renowned collection of artworks once held by the Société Anonyme. The launch of the site coincides with the opening of the two-year traveling exhibition The Société Anonyme: Modernism for America, which features more than 240 works drawn from the exceptional-and exceptionally broad-collection of European and American art dating primarily from 1920 to 1940.
WHEN: The site launches on April 19, 2006.
WHERE: http://artgallery.yale.edu/socanon

DESCRIPTION: The new Web site provides extensive information on the Société Anonyme, the extraordinary organization founded in New York in 1920 by artists Katherine S. Dreier, Marcel Duchamp, and Man Ray to present contemporary art to American audiences from the point of view of artists rather than curators, critics, or art historians. The group assembled more than 1,000 works of modern art, which were donated to Yale under the joint auspices of the Société Anonyme and the Katherine S. Dreier Bequest.

The Société Anonyme Web site is based on the traveling exhibition The Société Anonyme: Modernism for America, opening April 23, 2006, at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. The exhibition presents a wide range of work by Société Anonyme artists, highlights major exhibitions and activities of the group, and tells the story of how the collection developed and later found its way to Yale University.

Distinguished by its handsome design and clarity of navigation, the new site explores the collection through 165 works that are highlighted with large illustrations and informative texts. Together these paint a portrait of the history and educational mission of the organization.

The group's groundbreaking inaugural exhibition, as well as the one-artist shows it staged between 1920 and 1930-including exhibitions of such influential artists as Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Fernand Léger, and Joseph Stella, as well as lesser-known painters such as Louis Michel Eilshemius-can be explored. A segment on the Société Anonyme's 1926 International Exhibition of Modern Art in Brooklyn, which featured the American debuts of Joan Miró and Piet Mondrian, provides further insight into the influence of the group both at home and abroad.

The site includes brief biographies on 103 artists represented in the collection, with particular emphasis on Dreier and Duchamp, whose friendship is charted through photographs and letters. This section also features audio of an interview with Dreier and video footage of Duchamp's Rotary Glass.

A special resource section leads visitors to an online version of the out-of-print 1984 catalogue raisonné of the Société Anonyme collection, as well as to additional resources at Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, which houses Société Anonyme ephemera, photographs, and the many letters sent among the artists. Links to Web sites of artists' foundations and a list of selected readings are also present in this section.

The Société Anonyme Web site will continue to serve as an important resource for information on the artists, objects, history, and mission of the collection after the traveling exhibition closes. 

WHO: The site was produced by the Departments of Education, Programs, and Public Affairs at the Yale University Art Gallery, under the direction of Anna Hammond, Deputy Director for Programs and Public Affairs. The project was managed by Amy Jean Porter, Associate Director of Communications, and Christopher Sleboda, Director of Graphic Design. Site design is by Flat.

EXHIBITION TOUR: The Société Anonyme: Modernism for America begins its tour at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (April 23-August 20, 2006), before traveling on to The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. (October 14, 2006-January 21, 2007); Dallas Museum of Art, TX (June 10-September 16, 2007); and Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, TN (October 26, 2007-February 3, 2008). Sent by  lbrown@jcollinsassociates.com





Publicado en la revista del Ayuntamiento de San Juan del Puerto (Huelva),
en junio de 2006
.

EL OTRO SAN JUAN DEL PUERTO
Angel Custodio Rebollo Barroso


Todo empezó hace casi un año, cuando recibí una oferta de varios libros con la temática de la colonización de América.

Adquirí entre otros, una edición actual del libro de Eugenio Ruidiaz y Carabia, "La Florida, su conquista y colonización", publicado por primera vez en 1893. Cuando le daba un primer repaso, me detuve en unos anexos que se habían añadido en la edición actual y entre ellos había uno titulado "Misiones, Conventos y Casas de Indios" y en su lista ocupaba el segundo lugar un nombre; "San Juan del Puerto"

Al leerlo, mi curiosidad se despertó e intenté localizar las paginas donde se mencionaba San Juan del Puerto, pero el resultado fue negativo, ya que en un libro de mas de 800 páginas, era como buscar una aguja en un pajar.

Decidí indagar y me puse en contacto con historiadores e investigadores amigos y tan solo uno me dijo que había oído que en América existía una iglesia que se llamaba así, pero que no sabía mas.

Me puse en contacto con la Diócesis de Orlando, a la que pertenece La Florida y me contestaron muy escuetamente que en 1587 hubo una Misión en La Florida, fundada por la Orden Franciscana, con el nombre de San Juan del Puerto, pero que lamentablemente fue totalmente destruida en 1702.

Desde entonces he investigado en archivos y leído todos los libros que han caído en mis manos sobre las misiones y la conquista de La Florida por Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. He contactado con el Gobierno de La Florida, con los Franciscanos en los Estados Unidos,( quienes me han facilitado todas mis consultas), con varias asociaciones genealógicas y Cámaras de Comercio ubicadas en La Florida, he leído la correspondencia de Menéndez de Avilés y consultado en Internet, pero lamentablemente no he conseguido conocer el nombre del Franciscano que fundó la Misión de San Juan del Puerto, para saber si era alguien natural de esta población en España.

Como se acercan las Fiestas de San Juan Bautista y en mi deseo de tener finalizado este articulo para la revista que edita el Ayuntamiento, quiero comunicar lo que he averiguado y prometo informar en el futuro, de todo lo nuevo que llegue a mi poder.

Los españoles llegan a la Florida

En 1512, Juan Ponce de León descubre las tierras de La Florida, que llamó así por que llegó en los días de Pascua Florida. Vuelve en 1521, con la idea de conquistarla, pero tiene que abandonarla ante la hostilidad de los indígenas. Hay nuevos intentos en 1526, por Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón y en 1528, por Pánfilo de Narváez, pero siempre con resultados negativos.

En 1539 Hernando de Soto, a quien se le otorgó el titulo de Adelantado de la Florida, llega a la Bahia de Tampa, que llamó del Espíritu Santo, sin conseguir colonizar, lo que intenta de nuevo, Tristan de Luna y Arellano en 1559, también con resultados adversos.

Tantos intentos fallidos llegan a conocimiento de Felipe II, que dicta un Decreto prohibiendo que se realicen incursiones particulares a La Florida sin permiso expreso de la Corona española.

Y fue en 1565 cuando el Almirante Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, nombrado por Felipe II Adelantado de La Florida fondeó en lo que se llamó Cabo Cañaveral, hoy conocido en todo el mundo porque desde allí se lanzan los cohetes espaciales. El 8 de septiembre, fundo la primera población en lo que hoy son los Estados Unidos de América, San Agustín de la Florida, donde ese mismo día ofreció la primera misa el Padre Franciscano, Francisco López de Mendoza y Grajales y se creo la primera parroquia del país, que llamaron "Nombre de Dios" y que aún sigue en pié.

San Juan del Puerto. La Florida

La Misión de San Juan del Puerto, en La Florida, existió desde 1587, y fue fundada por los Padres Franciscanos y a su alrededor fue construido el pueblo, que también tenía la misma denominación, estando habitado por los indios Saturiwa, de la familia de los timucuanos, que eran sedentarios y semiagricolas, viviendo generalmente de la caza y de la pesca. Cultivaban maíz y cereales, y la siembra la hacían en parejas; el hombre delante cavando y la mujer le seguía sembrando.

Eran corpulentos, altos y bien formados y generalmente, había muy pocos de baja estatura. Eran débiles y flemáticos para el trabajo, aunque muy ingeniosos y siempre atentos a conocer y aprender todo lo nuevo. Trabajaban muy bien la madera y por lo general, eran excelentes carpinteros.

Las mujeres llevaban el cabello suelto y se cubrían desde la cintura hasta la rodilla con ramajes. Existía entre ellos la poligamia, lo que fueron desterrando por influencia de los misioneros.

El pueblo estaba regido por un cacique y en algunos casos por una mujer que llamaban cacica; el cacique, generalmente era corpulento, alto de cuerpo, enjuto y bien dispuesto. Altanero y aparentaba no sentir curiosidad por los visitantes o lo que traían, aunque a veces le vencía la curiosidad que no conseguían resistir. Al cacique de San Juan del Puerto, lo bautizaron los misioneros y le pusieron el nombre de Juan Quevedo.

El pueblo estaba formado por chozas circulares, cubiertas con hojas de palmito y en el centro había una zona comunal o casa de consejo, que denominaban "bujío grande" y era donde se reunían para tomar las decisiones tribales. En la plaza central, se celebraban los festejos en los que se cantaba y bailaba junto a una gran hoguera. Toda la aldea estaba protegida por una empalizada formada por troncos de árbol.

En un informe del Padre Franciscano Francisco Pareja, (de quien hablaremos mas adelante), hay una descripción sobre el pueblo y sus habitantes que creemos de interés y transcribimos a continuación: "Digo y declaro lo siguiente: que ha siete años que asisto en la conversión y enseñanza de estos naturales, y que todo este tiempo e estado instruyendo y bautizando, asistiendo en este pueblo de Sant Juan del Puerto, barra que llaman de Sant Mateo, así en este de donde soy Vicario y en los pueblos a él comarcanos, que son la Vera Cruz, questá cinco leguas, y Potayá questá cuatro; Sant Mateo, questá dos; Sant Pablo, questá legua y media; Hicacharico, questá una legua; Chinieca, questá legua y media; Carabay, questá un cuarto de legua, los cuales diez pueblos todos son cristianos, y en ellos había quinientos cristianos, entre grandes y pequeños, como consta en el libro de bautismo. En los cuales dichos pueblos hay sus iglesias, donde se les dice de cuando en cuando misa, y se celebran los demás sacramentos, yéndolos yo a visitar, donde, por entender la lengua, les declaro las cosas de la ley de Dios. Y fuera destas visitas acuden a la cabeza, ques dicho pueblo de Sant Juan, las fiestas principales a oír la doctrina, que se les enseña, y a oír misa y a celebrar los oficios divinos, donde hay naturales que ofician en las misas cantadas y vísperas, y se junta el recibimiento de las bulas y Semana Santa; y así mesmo a una cofradía de la santa Vera Cruz, que en este pueblo de Sant Juan, cabeza de la dicha Vicaría han instituido con su pobreza. Y ansi mesmo hay naturales, hombres y mujeres, que por estar adelante en las cosas de la cristiandad y tienen suficiencia, comulgan, aunque no son muchos los de la Comunión; y en lo que es las confisiones, no sólo al tiempo instituido por la Iglesia se confiesan, sino también entre año."

Trece años después, el mismo Padre Pareja emite otro informe que dice: "Digo que ha mas de veinte años que los más aprovechados van adelante en las cosas de la fe, y se les ha dado la Sagrada Comunión, la cual reciben con mucha devoción; y que así entre éstos como en los de la tierra adentro, siendo Custodio, examiné algunos que los Padres me pedían viese si se les podía dar la Comunión; y entre ellos hay indios que saben catequizar y mujeres indias que a otras también catequizan para ser cristianas, y que acuden así a las misas obligatoria que los domingos y fiestas ellos ofician y cantan, y en algunas partes tienen sus cofradías, la Procesión del Jueves Santo, y acuden de los pueblos de visita al de la cabecera para oír la Salve, que se canta los sábados, y se quedan a dormir para oír el domingo la misa. En todos los pueblos tienen sus iglesias, y se precian de hacerlas unos mejores que otros, y acuden a la mañana y tarde a tomar agua bendita y rezar, y se juntan en la casa de la comunidad a enseñarse unos a otros el canto y leer. Y cada vez que el religioso sale de su convento a alguna parte algo lejos, como es el presidio, a algunos negocios necesarios, o que se va a curar allá alguna indisposición que padece, muchos indios y indias piden que se quieren confesar, diciendo; "Quizá me podré morir antes que V.R. vuelva". Y cuando alguno está enfermo, luego envían algún correo de los pueblos, para que los confiesen y den la Extrema-Unión. Y aunque algunos mueren en las visitas, mandan en su testamento, que vocalmente hacen, que le lleven a enterrar donde los Padres dicen cada día la misa, que es la cabecera de tres o cuatro pueblos que tienen de visita cada religioso. Otros se hacen traer en canoas do está el Padre, estando indispuestos, para confesarse, y confesados se vuelven a sus casas o chozas; y son piadosos con sus difuntos, pues no sólo el día de la conmemoración general dellos les llevan alguna ofrenda, como son calabazas o fríjoles o alguna canastilla de maíz o algún cenacho de harina tostada; sino que entre año le dicen misa con alguna cosilla de las sobredichas que dan de ofrenda en limosna; y el lunes a la procesión de las Animas acuden a hallarse a ella y oír la misa. Estas son las señales que yo he visto y otras que, por evitar prolijidad, dejo de poner. Solo diré que han dejado todos los ritos y ceremonias y abusos que tenían ..."

"... En lo que toca si hay causas por do se les deba vedar la Sacra Comunión a muchos dellos no la hallo (sino es el escrúpulo de algunos religiosos), que entre ellos jamás he hallado ni rastro de idolatría, ni de hechicería sino de supersticiones, diciendo: Con esto sanarás, si no te curas con esta yerba te morirás; si canta el buho señal es que me ha de suceder alguna desgracia; no cozáis el pescado en agua caliente si fuere el primero que entrare en la pesquera, que no entra mas pescado en ella; no comáis maíz de la haza donde dio el rayo, que estaréis malos de tal enfermedad. Cuando la mujer para hacer lumbre aparte; poner a la puerta de la casa laurel diciendo que el demonio no la aporrearía, como lo solía hacer. Todas estas cosas y otras ha estirpado la palabra evangélica, sin que ya se acuerden dellas, antes la gente moza que se ha criado con la leche del Evangelio hacen burla y se ríen de algunos viejos y viejas que hacen algún descuido destas abusiones
.

¿ Si han hecho iglesias y pilas para bautizar y agua bendita ¿. Digo que se precian de tener mejor iglesia o templo que los otros lugares, y que ha acontecido venir infieles, como cda día vienen de sus pueblos a los de los cristianos, y llegar a tomar la bendición a los religiosos y preguntarles; "¿Qué buscáis por acá?. Responden: "Venimos a ver la iglesia y casa vuestra y de nuestros parientes", que en siendo de un nombre o linaje, aunque sea de cien grados, luego son parientes. Y al cabo de tiempo volver y decir: Padre, ya tenemos casa para ti y iglesia: Vennos a enseñar, que ya los cristianos nos han dicho que esto es lo que hemos de menester para ir a ver el Utinama que está arriba en el cielo: y pues los caciques de por acá que son mas orobisi, que quiere decir sabios, nos lo dicen, y se han hecho cristianos, nosotros también lo queremos ser, y guiarnos por lo que ellos dicen y hacen enseñados por vosotros."

En el informe del Padre Pareja se percibe la importancia que tenía San Juan del Puerto, ya que la misión allí establecida era Vicaría y de ella dependían diez iglesias que estaban en las aldeas de los alrededores. Aunque se conserva poca documentación de la época, se sabe que en San Juan del Puerto había unos 500 cristianos en 1602.

Padre Francisco Pareja

Misionero de la Orden Franciscana, nació en Auñon, un pueblo de la Diócesis de Toledo, en España. Era uno de los once franciscanos que llegó a La Florida con la expedición de Menéndez de Avilés y participó activamente en la fundación de San Agustín junto con Fray Francisco López de Mendoza y Grajales.

Años después el Padre Pareja se hizo cargo de la Misión y Vicaría de San Juan del Puerto, aunque no sabemos si fue él quien la fundó. Aprendió rápidamente la lengua timucuana, en la que escribió varios libros, de gramática y religiosos, por lo que se ha conocido mas profundamente esta lengua que ya está prácticamente perdida.

Sus obras publicadas son; "Catecismo en lengua castellana y timuquana" (México 1612); "Catecismo y breve exposición de la doctrina cristiana" (México 1612); "Confesionario en lengua castellana y timuquana" (México 1613; "Gramática de la lengua timuquana de Florida" (México 1614); "Catecismo de la doctrina cristiana en lengua timuquana" (México 1617); "Catecismo y examen para los que comulgan, en lengua castellana y timaquana" (México 1627).

El Padre Pareja se trasladó a México, se cree que para escribir y publicar sus libros, porque hay que tener en cuenta que sus escritos fueron los primeros libros publicados en la lengua de una tribu india en América.  Murió en México, el 25 de enero de 1628.

Destrucción de San Juan del Puerto

La región que los españoles llamaban Florida, no era lo que conocemos actualmente, ya que comprendía, además de La Florida misma, lo que hoy ocupa Carolina del Norte y del Sur, Georgia y Alabama. 

La Misión de San Juan del Puerto, que tenía una torre con campana y órgano en 1595, fue destruida en 1597 por un ataque de los indios Guale, pero años después fue reconstruida, ya que existen documentos de la visita a esta Misión en 1696 del misionero cuáquero Jonathan Dickinson. Hubo una revuelta de los indios en 1656 que los españoles lograron dominar. La región de La Florida sufrió dos grandes epidemias de peste en los años 1617 y 1672 y como es lógico San Juan del Puerto no se libró de ellas y afectó mucho a su numero de habitantes que quedó diezmado en las dos ocasiones.

El Gobernador inglés de Carolina del Sur, James Moore, celoso de los avances de los españoles en La Florida y especialmente por la importancia que había adquirido la Misión de San Juan del Puerto y su pueblo, los atacó en 1702 destruyéndolos totalmente y ya no fueron reconstruidos.

Estuvo enclavada cerca del río San Juan, en lo que hoy es Fort George Island y su localización exacta está marcada en el sendero Saturiwa de la isla, una zona de una gran riqueza turística y que forma parte de un parque de propiedad pública cerca de la desembocadura del río.

¿Quién la fundó ¿

Nos queda conocer quien fundó el pueblo y la Misión de San Juan del Puerto. Lo que no hay duda es la importancia que tuvieron, pues el río que pasa cercano al pueblo, cuya denominación es de Río San Juan, recibe su nombre de ésta prospera Misión. 

Creo y es mi criterio muy personal, que se llamó San Juan del Puerto porque por allí estaba alguien natural del San Juan de la provincia de Huelva, de donde habían partido varios naturales a la aventura americana 

He indagado en el catalogo de Pasajeros de Indias de esos años, y religiosos, tan solo encuentro procedente de San Juan a un clérigo, que creo no era de la Orden Franciscana. Me refiero al Licenciado Barbosa, natural de San Juan del Puerto, hijo de Pedro Rodríguez y Juana Gómez, que marchó a Nueva España el 1 de septiembre de 1561. 

También puede que lo fundase algún fraile franciscano, natural de San Juan del Puerto o de algún convento de los alrededores, pero que figurase en los documentos como de Sevilla, a cuya Diócesis pertenecía entonces toda la actual provincia de Huelva. Hay que tener en cuenta que había conventos de la Orden de San Francisco en; Moguer, que se llamaba Ntra. Sra. de la Esperanza; en El Monasterio de La Rábida; en Huelva, el que hoy está regido por los Padres Jesuitas y en El Terrón, en Lepe 

Estimo que es algo que es difícil de localizar porque en muchos casos no figuran los lugares de procedencia, sino los conventos de donde habían partido para integrarse en la expedición.

Hay dos datos que acercan a los franciscanos a San Juan del Puerto: uno, es que existen indicios de que hubo un eremitorio franciscano en este pueblo a finales del siglo XV, y otro es que aún se conserva en la Iglesia Parroquial de San Juan, un portapaz renacentista, obra anónima en plata con el escudo de la Orden en sus alegorías y que pudo ser donado por algún franciscano

En Moguer también hubo un convento femenino de la Orden Franciscana, el de Las Clarisas.

Como es actualmente aquella zona.

En la actualidad el lugar donde estuvo construido el otro San Juan del Puerto, pertenece a la jurisdicción de Jacksonville, población perteneciente al Estado de Florida y está dedicada la zona principalmente al turismo. Se han realizado, antes y ahora, diferentes excavaciones arqueológicas en las que se han conseguido muchas reliquias del pasado, que están expuestas en los diferentes museos. 

Como en casi todos los Estados Unidos, existen numerosas asociaciones genealógicas que estudian el origen de los apellidos, donde tienen protagonismo los de origen español y creemos que en cualquier indagación en un archivo puede aparecer, por sorpresa, el nombre del fundador del otro San Juan del Puerto.

                                                     Ángel Custodio Rebollo Barroso

 

 

MEXICO

Uayma: in living color 
Pinning blame on politicians
Heritage Discovery Center
Don Esteban Vázquez Godoy
Don Manuel María Ponce Cuéllar
Don Roberto Cabral del Hoyo
José Mariano Jiménez
Leon Trotsky
 XXII Congreso Nacional de Historia Regional 7, 8 y 9 de diciembre 
Archivos de Mexico
Obtaining print copies of  vital records in Mexico
Memoirs of Antonio
Menchaca  and other websites
The Genealogy of Mexico by Gary Felix, Outstanding resource


Uayma: in living color 

In colonial times Uayma was an major stop on the camino real between Mérida and Valladolid - Yucatán's second city. The site of an important Mayan ceremonial center, Uayma was chosen by the Franciscans for the grand mission of Santo Domingo, built from the stones of the ancient pyramids. Although Uayma flourished during the 1700s, when it was largely rebuilt by the secular clergy, by the mid-1800s the parish fell on hard times. 

During the devastating Caste War, the church was burned by Maya insurgents and abandoned, a roofless ruin. So it remained until recently. The adjacent cloister, its walls studded with ancient Maya stone carvings, was the first to be cleared. Then, starting in 2003, refurbishment and repair of the church began under the auspices of INAH and the regional Secretariat of Public Works. During the clearing and cleaning of the church, the original colors of the stamped stucco decoration that formerly covered the exterior and interior walls came to light - revealing bold hues of cream, turquoise and burgundy. Rosettes and starbursts, large and small, predominate among the eye-catching patterns that repeat on the facade and nave walls, both inside and out. One figural exception is the large, stylized double eagle motif of the Spanish crown, emblazoned on the facade above the choir window.Both church and convento have now been restored to their former luster. The vast nave has been re-vaulted and is open again for the use and enjoyment of residents and visitors alike. On November 18th 2004 Patricio Patrón Laviada, governor of Yucatan, presided over the reopening ceremonies. Credit should go to Elba Villareal de Garcia Ponce of "Adopte una Obra de Arte," as well as Fernando Garces Fierros the energetic INAH restorer, both of whom have led the recent programs to conserve and restore Yucatan's unique colonial arts and architecture.  http://www.colonial-mexico.com/Yucatan/uayma.html

ESPADANA PRESS, Exploring Colonial Mexico, 
http://www.colonial-mexico.com
Sent by rperry@west.net

 

Pinning blame on politicians
Source: Reuters via OC Register, 5-27, 2006
Photo: Daniel Aguilar

Sick of politicians who fail to keep promises, Mexicans are sticking pins in voodoo-style dolls of presidential candidates to needle them into becoming better public servants.

A Mexican firm is selling dolls of the main candidates in the July election, along with needles and a guide on where to prick the effigies.  "It is like acupuncture from a distance," said "Alberto Nava, a publicist and creator of the dolls.  "El Peje (the doll representing former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador) is sold out," said Monica Gutierrez, manager of a store that sells about a dozen of the dolls per week.  "If people were not afraid (of voodoo), I would sell hundreds, " she said. 

 


HERITAGE DISCOVERY CENTER

 

"The horses looked as if they had just walked out of the Past"

In 1519, Hernando Cortez landed in Vera Cruz, Mexico, with ten stallions and six mares. These Spanish horses would become the foundation of the great Mission and Rancho herds of the New World. The superior quality and versatility of these Spanish horses made them sought after by Royal Stud farms throughout the world. This is the race that became the ancestor to all indigenous breeds of the Americas.

In 1885, Dr Ruben Wilbur purchased 26 horses from Father Francisco Kino's historic

Rancho Delores in Sonora, Mexico, to stock his homestead ranch near Arivaca, Arizona. Through three successive family generations, spanning more than 120 years, the Wilbur-Cruce Spanish horses were kept in genetic isolation on the ranch.

"The Spanish Colonial Cruce horses are a most significant discovery of a type of horse thought to be gone forever"

In 1990, the riparian portion of the Wilbur-Cruce ranch was sold to the Nature Conservancy. Due to the horse's genetic importance, Dr. Wilbur's granddaughter, Eva-Antonia Wilbur-Cruce, donated the direct descendants of the original herd to the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. The Conservancy confirmed that these horses were pure and direct descendants of the original Spanish horses brought to the New World.

The ALBC asked Robin Collins, then President of the California Hooved Animal Humane Society, and noted animal behaviorist and horse trainer, to administrate and oversee the preservation of the largest portion of the remaining breeding stock. Ms. Collins continues to sustain, nurture, and preserve the rare genetics of these endangered Spanish horses through the Heritage Discovery Center, a California, 501-(c)3 nonprofit organization.

"The life of the Spanish horse, for the past 3,000 years, has been bound up with the history of civilization"

These horses link us intrinsically with a heritage we all share. Your help is needed to continue to perpetuate this rare and precious living legacy. With your contribution and support, you have the opportunity to actively help preserve this integral part of America's history. Please call Robin Collins at 559-868-8681, or visit our web site under the Equine section at  www.heritagediscoverycenter.com   Or send your tax-deductible donation to: 
The Heritage Discovery Center, 40222 Millstream Lane, Madera, CA 93638


Personajes de la historia
LIBRO: VIDA Y OBRA DE UN ZACATECANO
Por: José León Robles de la Torre
Sent by Mercy Bautista Olvera scarlett_mbo@yahoo.com

Don Esteban Vázquez Godoy (f),
poeta, historiador y coleccionista. 
Foto del libro Vida y Obra de un Zacatecano.
 
Hace unos días me visitó en mi domicilio el Profr. don Eusebio Vázquez Navarro, editor del libro mencionado. Me dio mucho gusto recibir ese regalo, porque eso me confirma que a lo largo y ancho de la geografía zacatecana, existen valores que cultivan o han cultivado las artes, las letras, la pintura, la música, etc., y que deben conocerse para ejemplo y orgullo de los zacatecanos. 
Uno de esos valores lo fue don Esteban Vázquez Godoy 1896-1972, que fue un gran poeta, recopilando en su libro Lira Negra, 62 poesías de 1923 a 1970, y que ahora incluyó su sobrino el Profr. Eusebio Vázquez Navarro, en cuyas páginas también se incluyen dos interesantes cuentos que son historias verídicas de su región de Juchipila, Zacs., y son La Regentita y Los Contreras. Pero veamos ¿quién es el autor? 

El libro que comento, contiene su autobiografía y dice: 
“Nací el 24 de noviembre de 1896 en Guadalupe Victoria, según acta de nacimiento que adjunto, pero siempre estuve entonces con mis padres radicados en esta ciudad de Juchipila, Zacatecas. Al transcurrir el año de 1909, cerca de donde yo vivía se constituyó El Club Antirreleccionista, aunque hay quien diga allá en la capital de la República, que se denominó Club Antonio Rosales. (Pág. 167). 

Según su acta de nacimiento que figura en el libro, nació en el Barrio de Guadalupe en la ciudad de Jalpa, Zacs., y fueron sus padres don Víctor Vázquez y su esposa doña Leandra Godoy, sus abuelos paternos don Zenón Vázquez y doña Patricia Rodríguez, y los maternos don Pedro Godoy y doña Sixta Cortés”. (P. 174). 

Otra de las aficiones de don Esteban Vázquez Godoy, fue la de “coleccionista”. Su ilusión era fundar su museo y lo realizó en 1950, fundando en la ciudad de Juchipila el Museo Xochipilli, formado por 16 pabellones, inaugurado el 14 de junio de 1950 en la ciudad de Juchipila, Zacs. 
Los primeros diez pabellones corresponden a la numismática, con monedas de las épocas de la conquista, con las monedas de Carlos y Juana de 1536 en que comenzó a funcionar la más antigua CECA (Casa de Moneda) del Continente Americano; monedas de la insurgencia de las acuñadas en las cuevas, especialmente en la de Cópor, Gro., por el generalísimo Morelos, para pagar a sus tropas; monedas de la República, de la Revolución, monedas extranjeras, monedas zapatistas, de billetes de diversos bancos y muchas más. 

El Pabellón 11 lo dedicó a la Oploteca (colección de armas) con piezas históricas muy valiosas. 
También se encuentran en su museo pabellones de hemeroteca y biblioteca, o sean colecciones de documentos y libros y otras importantes novedades que enriquecen ese museo de la provincia zacatecana. 

El sábado 24 de junio de 2006, será presentado en Juchipila, Zacs., el libro citado Vida y Obra de un Zacatecano, cuyo moderador será el Lic. Armando Joaquín Medrano, y los presentadores o comentaristas son el Profr. don Raúl López Robles y el Profr. don Bernardo García Durón. El primero es el cronista oficial de la ciudad de Juchipila, Zacs., y el segundo, cronista adjunto. 
El coordinador general será el Profr. don Eusebio Vázquez Navarro, editor del libro que dejara su tío don Esteban Vázquez Godoy (quien nunca fue casado). 
El director del museo es don Bernardo García Durón y el presidente de la asociación civil, don Humberto Rojas González. Felicidades.


Personajes de la historia
ZACATECAS Y SUS H0MBRES ILUSTRES
Por: José León Robles de la Torre
Sent by Mercy Bautista Olvera scarlett_mbo@yahoo.com


Manuel M. Ponce, extraordinario músico y compositor zacatecano. Foto tomada del libro Hemerografía de Zacatecas 1825-1950 de Rafael Carrasco Puente, Edic. 1951.

Don Manuel María Ponce Cuéllar. El nacimiento de este gran músico y compositor zacatecano, ha creado muchas confusiones, pues algunos de sus biógrafos dicen que nació el ocho de diciembre de 1886, otros que en 1884 y otros más que en 1882. Veamos: 
1.- Don Rafael Carrasco Puente, en su libro ya citado en este artículo, dice que nació el ocho de diciembre de 1884.
2.- l Profr. don Emilio Rodríguez Flores en su libro Historia de Zacatecas editado en 1979, dice que nació el ocho de diciembre de 1886. 
3.- El periodista Hugo del Grial en un artículo publicado en El Siglo de Torreón, Coah., el 23 de febrero de 1988, dice que Ponce nació el ocho de diciembre de 1886. 
4.- El Profr. don Salvador Vidal García, en su libro Biografías de Zacatecanos Ilustres, Edic. 1967, dice que Ponce nació el ocho de diciembre de 1882. 
5.- El Profr. don Roberto Ramos Dávila, que fuera cronista de la ciudad de Zacatecas y que en su honor lleva su nombre dicha asociación, en su libro Agenda Cívica de Zacatecas, edición 1984, dice que nació Ponce el ocho de diciembre de 1882. (Como se ve, no hay problema en el día y el mes, sino en el año). 

Varios biógrafos del culto músico y compositor, están acordes en que fue en 1882. Yo estoy de acuerdo con esta última fecha, ya que en 1882, el Gobierno del Estado de Zacatecas, celebró oficialmente el centenario del natalicio de este ilustre personaje. 

Mucho se ha escrito sobre Manuel M. Ponce. Cientos de artículos periodísticos, de revistas y libros. Veamos algunos de esos documentos que obran en mi poder. 

En la revista Todo de fecha 12 de mayo de 1960, aparece el artículo Impresiones Mexicanas, escrito por el Dr. G. T. Nicostra Di Leopoldo, en parte dice: “Hablar de Ponce... muchos pueden hacerlo con más competencia que yo. Pero yo tengo la ventaja de ser italiano y mis palabras parecen llegar de Italia, donde el maestro pasó algunos años de su juventud. Sin embargo, preferiría callarme y, por mi parte, me sentiría satisfecho con escuchar unas páginas de su música, pues es ésta la lengua más propia de un músico”. 

“Por cierto, en el arte de Manuel M. Ponce hay una fuerza de resistencia maravillosa; a los doce años de su muerte lo recordamos a él con su creciente cariño y admiración. Su música entusiasma todavía las plateas europeas; una gran Casa Editora de los Estados Unidos ha firmado un contrato para la publicación de todas sus obras. Pero, ¿por qué su música nos fascina? Él anheló ser original, sólo modernizado por los nuevos procedimientos musicales y quedó siempre como un artista siceno. Esto es, si bien es cierto que por su música cruzan los fantasmas de sus autores preferidos: Chpian, Liszt, Strauss y Debussy. Él rechazó toda reminiscencia o imitación. Todo pasa por el Tamiz de su espíritu y toma un aspecto personal. Ponce exterioriza líricamente sus propias impresiones con un lenguaje suyo; narra su vida interior, su pasión, su ternura y sus sueños. Su música pianística abarca una gran comarca sentimental... Pág. 30”. 

Este artículo es un pequeño fragmento del capítulo correspondiente al ilustre zacatecano y que figura ampliamente en muchas páginas en mi libro inédito Zacatecas y sus Hombres Ilustres, Filigranas, Fundaciones y Genealogías, 1546-2005.


Personajes de la historia / ZACATECAS Y SUS HOMBRES ILUSTRES
Por: José León Robles de la Torre
Sent by Mercy Bautista Olvera scarlett_mbo@yahoo.com

Don Roberto Cabral del Hoyo, uno de los grandes poetas zacatecanos, autor de muchos libros de poesía y galardonado en muchas ocasiones tanto en Zacatecas como en la Ciudad de México, donde vivió hasta su muerte.

Don Roberto Cabral del Hoyo nació el siete de agosto de 1913, en la ciudad de Zacatecas, en el Callejón del Santero No. 7, a una cuadra de Catedral. “Su padre, dice el interesado, fue don Fernando Cabral Velasco, quien trabajaba en Hermosillo, Son., como gerente del Banco Nacional de México, y su madre fue doña Amalia del Hoyo Rouset, que pertenecía a una familia de antiguos mineros y hacendados de Zacatecas”. 

Don Roberto, con quien me ligó una bonita amistad, dedicándome muchos de sus libros, era un poeta de alto nivel que manejaba magistralmente el soneto, con todas las reglas, con finura y sensibilidad, con sus estrofas elegantemente rimadas, con musicalidad y contenido, con medida natural, sin forzamientos ni rellenos inútiles, cerrando su contenido en los tercetos. También manejó y muy bien, el “Poema Libre”, dejando volar su imaginación como pájaros sobre los altos pinares de la sierra. 

Empezó tarde a escribir poesía, pues fue hasta 1941 cuando aparecen sus primeras composiciones, pero de allí en adelante, agarró vuelo y fue muy prolífico dejando varios libros de su cosecha. 

Ya radicado en México, de 1938 a 1948, escribe, dirige y produce programas de radio para la XEW, XEQ y Radio Mil. En ese mismo año de 1948, Editorial Cultura le publica su segundo libro De tu Amor y de tu Olvido y Otros Poemas. 

De 1948 a 1949 fue subdirector de Radio Educación, SEP, y en 1950 la Editorial STYLO, le publica su tercer libro Por Merecer la Gracia. 

De 1950 a 1959, fue redactor y jefe de redactores de la agencia de publicidad Young & Rubican de México, S. A. En 1959, la Editorial JUS, le publica su libro Contra el Oscuro Viento. 

De 1959 a 1964, desempeña el cargo de director general de Servicios Turísticos y posteriormente, la supervisión en el Departamento de Turismo del Gobierno Federal. En 1962, Editorial JUS le publicó su libro Tres de sus Palabras y en el siguiente año de 1964, Editorial Castalia le publicó su libro Palabra. 

De 1964 a 1978, fue productor de programas de televisión. Asesor de Publicidad y Relaciones Públicas del Fondo de Cultura Económica. En 1966, la Editorial Ecuador O. O. O., le publicó su libro Potra de Nácar.

En 1968, Cuadernos de Cultura Popular, le publicó su libro De Mis Raíces de la Tierra. Y en 1970, el Fondo de Cultura Económica le publicó Rastro en la Arena, y en 1971, el Gobierno del Estado de Zacatecas, le publicó 19 de Junio. 

En 1973, al cumplir Roberto 60 años de edad, fue declarado “Hijo Predilecto del Estado de Zacatecas”, en cuya ciudad capital, una calle lleva su nombre. 

En 1980, el Fondo de Cultura Económica, le publicó su libro Obra Poética y en 1985, le publicó Reflexiones Poéticas en San Ángel. Y en 1986, el Gobierno del Estado de Zacatecas, le publicó Tres Sonetos a Francisco García Salinas. Y en 1988 el mismo gobierno le publicó el libro Estas Cosas Que yo Escribo. 

Muchos libros más escribió el gran poeta zacatecano don Roberto Cabral del Hoyo (f) y cuya biografía completa se encuentra en mi libro inédito Zacatecas y sus Hombres Ilustres, Filigranas, Fundaciones y Genealogías, 1546 a 2006.



José Mariano Jiménez
Source: Wikipedia encyclopedia
Sent by John Inclan fromgalveston@yahoo.com

José Mariano Jiménez (August 18, 1781 – 
June 26, 1811) was a Mexican engineer and rebel officer active at the beginning of the Mexican War of Independence.

Mariano Jiménez was born in San Luis Potosí.
He studied in the Colegio de Minería in Mexico City to become a mine engineer, where he graduated in 1804. He soon moved to Guanajuato where he was able to follow the progress of the conspiracy, lead by Miguel Hidalgo, that aimed to achieve the
 independence of Mexico from Spain. 

A few days after the war started Jiménez joined Hidalgo's army and was able to rise quickly in rank until he achieved the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He distinguished himself in the 
battlefield such as during the Battle of Cerro de las Cruces where his positioning of the artillery line was instrumental for the rebel victory. He 
was a very active officer and participated in the defense of Guadalajara and San Luis Potosí.

A betrayal by one of his subordinates lead to 
his capture in Acatita de Baján in 1811. He 
was tried for insubordination and executed by firing squad on June 26, 1811, together with 
other members of the insurgency such as
 Ignacio Allende and Juan Aldama in Chihuahua.

Jiménez body was decapitated and his head
taken to the Alhóndiga de Granaditas where it was shown to the public inside a cage hung 
from one corner of the building. In 1925 his remains were moved to the mausoleum in the Independence Column in Mexico City.


Spanish text is not a direct translation, 
but another brief biography. 

Mariano Jiménez 
Genealogia-Mexico@googlegroups.com 
(1781-1811) 

Nacido en San Luis Potosí el 18 de agosto de 1781, Mariano Jiménez estudió para ingeniero en minas en el Colegio de Minería de México, se graduó en 1804 y se estableció en la ciudad de Guanajuato, donde estuvo al tanto de los brotes del movimiento insurgente. Jiménez tomó las armas a los pocos días de iniciada la lucha. Fue el 28 de septiembre de 1810 cuando se presentó ante el caudillo Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla para ofrecer sus servicios en favor de la causa. Sus méritos, su disciplina y su lealtad le valieron un rápido ascenso. A principios de octubre ostentaba el grado de coronel y para finales de ese mismo mes había ganado ya el de teniente coronel. La victoria de las fuerzas insurgentes en el Monte de las Cruces mucho se debieron a la dedicación y los conocimientos del ingeniero en minas que estableció estratégicamente la línea de artillería. Por órdenes de Hidalgo, Mariano Jiménez viajó a la ciudad de México en misión pacífica, para solicitar al Virrey la entrega de la capital al movimiento independentista, pero lo único tuvo en respuesta fue la amenaza de repelerlo violentamente si no se retiraba. 

Su participación fue sumamente activa. Llegó de la ciudad de México a Guanajuato y poco días después le tocó estar al frente en la defensa de la plaza; de ahí partió a Guadalajara y más tarde a San Luis Potosí. Cuando iba camino de Saltillo, se topó con los ejércitos realistas que tenían órdenes de acabar con la insurgencia, sin embargo, para su buena suerte muchos de los hombres de la parte enemiga se encontraban ya inconformes con el gobierno español y desertaron para unirse a la causa de la Independencia. Fue en esa misma ciudad del norte del país, donde Mariano Jiménez se reunió con los demás hombres del movimiento y con ellos se dirigió rumbo a Estados Unidos, según el plan trazado. La llegada a Acatita de Baján, Coahuila fue trágica para ellos, pues fueron sorprendidos y trasladados a Chihuahua. Jiménez fue fusilado el 26 de julio de 1811, junto con Juan Aldama e Ignacio Allende. Su cabeza también fue expuesta en la Alhóndiga de Granaditas hasta la consumación de la Independencia. 


Leon Trotsky



Al alba, una banda armada encabezada por el pintor estalinista David Alfaro Siquieros, ataca la casa de Trotsky en Coyoacán, que habitan también su mujer y algunos camaradas, secretarios y guardianes. Sale ileso porque al escuchar las primeras ráfagas de balas, se lanza fuera de su cama, su esposa lo empuja a contra la pared y lo protege con su cuerpo. 
24 May 1940
 

Leer mas
  http://www.inep.org/content/view/1600/44/

For more information on political figures in Mexico and current events, go to:
Instituto Nacional de Estudios Politicios (Mexico)
Internet para el Profesional de la Politica
Ideas que Usted convierte en Acciones
http://www.inep.org/component/option,com_
frontpage/Itemid,1/

 

 

Invitación al XXII Congreso Nacional de Historia Regional a realizarse los días 7, 8 y 9 de diciembre de 2006 en la ciudad de Culiacán, Sinaloa.  Source: eventos@genealogia.org.mx

Convoca la Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa, a través de la Facultad de Historia y del Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales.

La temática de trabajo será: Historia Económica y Social

Mesas de trabajo
. Empresas y Empresarios
. Actividades económicas: Agricultura, minería, industria, comercio y servicios
. Movimientos sociales y cultura política
. Género
. Aspectos culturales
. Personajes históricos

Bases
Los participantes observarán los siguientes lineamientos:
* Las ponencias tendrán una extensión máxima de 12 cuartillas a doble espacio para su lectura y
   hasta de 25 para su publicación.
* Se entregarán impresas y en diskette o CD, programa word o compatible.
* Presentar un resumen de media cuartilla a más tardar el 15 de septiembre de 2006.
* Presentar la ponencia completa a más tardar el 15 de noviembre de 2006.
* Incluir los datos generales y de identificación del ponente: Institución, domicilio, teléfono, correo
   electrónico y fax.
* Las ponencias aceptadas, que sean entregadas antes de la segunda quincena de noviembre, serán
   incluidas en un CD que se entregará durante el congreso.
* La selección y admisión de ponencias para su lectura y publicación estará a cargo del Comité
   Organizador.
* La propuesta de ponencia será avalada por el Comité Organizador que a más tardar el 3 de
 noviembre comunicará a los autores su aceptación.
* Informes y recepción de ponencias en: Facultad de Historia de la Universidad Autónoma de
   Sinaloa, con domicilio en Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez s/n, Ciudad Universitaria, Culiacán, Sinaloa,
   México. Tels. 01 (667) 716-10-81 y 713-86-86, C. P. 80040.
* Cuota de inscripción: 200 pesos.
* Los aspectos no contemplados en esta convocatoria serán resueltos por el Comité Organizador: Dr. Arturo Román Alarcón, rigrom@uas.uasnet.mx ; Lic. Ofelia Chávez Ojeda, mega_1845@hotmail.com ; Dr. Alonso Martínez Barreda, 
kaliman@uas.uasnet.mx; Dr. Gustavo Aguilar Aguilar, gusag@uas.uasnet.mx; Dr. Eduardo Frías Sarmiento, friedusa@uas.uasnet.mx; Dr. Félix Brito Rodríguez; febr@uas.uasnet.mx


 
Archivos de Mexico
eventos@genealogia.org.mx


Archivo Histórico del Distrito Federal 
URL: http://ahdf.df.gob.mx/

Archivo General del Estado de Campeche 
URL: http://www.campeche.com/sitios/archivoedo.htm

Archivo General del Estado de Chiapas 
URL: http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/chu/count-aia/Chiapas/General/index.htm

Archivo Histórico del Estado de Chiapas 
URL: http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/chu/count-aia/Chiapas/Historico/index.htm

Archivo Histórico del Estado de México 
URL: http://www.edomexico.gob.mx/secybs/cultura/Imc/archisest.htm

Archivo General del Poder Ejecutivo de Oaxaca 
URL: http://www.oaxaca.gob.mx/administracion/html/archivo.html

Archivo Histórico del Estado de San Luis de Potosí 
URL: http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/tavera/mexico/potosi.html

Archivo General del Estado de Quintana Roo 
URL: http://om.qroo.gob.mx/Archivo/QuienesSomos.php

Guía General del Archivo Histórico General del Estado de Sinaloa 
URL: http://www.sinaloa.gob.mx/Oola_hia/

Archivo del Congreso del Estado de Sonora 
URL: http://www.congresoson.gob.mx/Archivo/

Archivo General del Estado de Veracruz 
URL: http://www.ssg.segobver.gob.mx/dgg/agev/index.html

Archivo General del Estado de Yucatán 
URL: http://www.prodigyweb.net.mx/archivogeneral



Obtaining print copies of  vital records in Mexico
http://www.actaexpress.com/index_english.html

Contact Info: Phone 1-800-651-4112  Fax 1-877-471-3290  E-mail info@actaexpress.com
About ActaExpress: Our offices in Mexico and the United States, coupled with our network of 
agents located in every state in the Mexico, enables us to offer a reliable and economical alternative to those clients who desire to obtain their vital records from Mexico without the need for travel.

U.S. Office: ActaExpress Inc.  6248 Edgemere Blvd, Suite 665 El Paso, TX 79925-3414
Mexico Office:  ActaExpress de Mexico, S. de R.L. de C.V.
Campos Eliseos 9050, L3A, Colonia Antonio J. Bermudez, Ciudad Juarez, Chih., Mexico, 
C.P. 32460 

Memoirs of Antonio Menchaca  and other websites
http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/menchacamem.htm
Sent by Bill Carmena JCarm1724@aol.com

2785 Los Condes de Alastaya 
http://www.alastaya.com/history.htm
Sent by John Inclan fromgalveston@yahoo.com

History of Mexico http://www.jsri.msu.edu/museum/pubs/MexAmHist/toc.html
Sent by Bill Carmena JCarm1724@aol.com
 
The Genealogy of Mexico by Gary Felix
http://members.tripod.com/~GaryFelix/index1A.htm  <  Great collection . wonderful resource

Sent by Arturo Ynclan  AYnclan@edd.ca.gov

The information below is only one file of this very outstanding source of genealogical information.
http://members.tripod.com/~GaryFelix/index5A.htm?54,9

These men settled Nueva Galicia (parts of Aguascalientes, San Luis Potosi and Zacatecas) from the Iberian Peninsula  after Guzman’s expedition in 1530. As you can see it was the custom to take the prominent surname of a parent or grandparent and not necessarily the surname of their father.
  
Men Who Arrived in Nueva Galicia After Guzman (A-L)

Source of the information belowmes: Duaine, Carl Laurence. "With All Arms A Study of a Kindred Group" 
Edinburg, Texas: New Santander Press, 1987.
NAME BORN TO MEXICO NUEVA GALICIA FATHER MOTHER WIFE
Agaucil, Bartolome Cordoba 1529 1541 Teresa Vasquez (Married 1532)
Agudelo, Antonio de Cordoba 1526 1541 Alonso de Agudelo Constanza de Bobado Juana Sanchez de Quesada
Aldaz Navarro, Juan de Navarra 1538 1541 Juan de Aldaz Catalina de Illaregui (Dau. of Francisco Verdugo)
Aller, Antonio de Leon 1528 1541 Fernando de Aller Isabel de Robles (Home and wife in Mexico City)
Alvarez, Francisco Sevilla 1530 1541 Francisco Alvarez Francisca Alvaro
Alvarez, Luis Malaga 1539 1541 Pedro Martinez Catalina Diaz (Dau. of Gonzalo Carrasco)
Arana, Juan de Logroso 1538 1541 Juan Sanchez de Arana Juana de Barojo
Arce, Juan de Santander 1530 1531 Fernando de Arce Juana de Bustamante
Avina, Gregorio de Pontevedra 1523 1541 Alonso de Avina Maria Perez de Avina (Married in 1547)
Ayllon, Juan de Valladolid 1538 1541 Bernardo de Ayllon Brigida Garcia de Velasco
Barba, Alonso Badajoz 1524 1541 Alonso de Torre Barba Elvira Fernandes
Bazan, Alonso de Segovia 1535 1541 Andres de Bazan Maria de Castro (Dau. of Francisco Verdugo)
Bejarano, Francisco Caceres 1539 1541 Fernando Bejarano Maria Sanchez (Dan. of Juan Garcia de Piedra.)
Bolanos, Toribo de Salamanca 1529 1541 Jorge de Bolanos Catalina Nieta
Bosque, Bartolome Badajoz 1533 1541 Bartholome del Bosque Maria Zapata
Boteller, Antonio 'I'arragona 1529 1541 Mosen Juan Diego Fernanda Ricante
Busto, Antonio de Toledo 1532 1541 Antonio de Busto Elvira de Torremocho (Married in Spain)
Calvo, Juan Sevilla 1534 1541 Juan Calvo Beatriz Fernandez de Estrada
Caravallos, Diego Cuenca 1538 1541 Juan Rodriguez de Alcocer Juana Gonzalez
Cardiel, Juan Madrid 1533 1533 Lazaro Cardiel Mencia de la Fuentes (Dau. of Bartolome Amador)
Carmona, Marcos de Avila 1530 1541 Juan Sanchez Garcia Fernandez
Castilleja, Pedro de Huelva 1522 1541 Juan de Castilleja Marina de Torres
Cuesta, Gregorio de Ciudad Real 1538 1541 Jerinimo de Cuesta Catalina Gonzalez (Married in 1543)
Cuevas, Juan de Burgos 1527 1541 Alonso de Cuevas (Lawyer) (Dau. of Lawyer Tellez)
Curiel, Luis de Burgos 1538 1541 Alonso de Curiel Isabel Gonzalez (Dau. of Alonso Hidalgo)
Dorantes de Carranza, Andres Salamanca 1528 1536 Pablo Dorantes Beatriz Carranza Catalina de Mejia, Maria de la Torre
Encalada, Rodrigo de Valladolid 1539 1511 ? Encalada Maria de Villalp
Escalante, Diego de Valladolid 1532 1541 Cristoval de Escalante Maria de la Guardi
Escolastico ? Toledo 1539 1541 Luis Lopez Felipa de Salay de Cisle (Came w. wife, mother-in-law)
Espinosa, Gonzalez de Burgos 1535 1541 Juan de Espinosa Mariana de Gutierrez de la Riba
Estrada, Salvador de Jaen 1528 1533 Miguel de Estrada Blanca Alvarez
Fernandez, Francisco Caceres 1524 1541 Fernando Yanez Catalina Gonzalez
Fernandez, Francisco Sevilla 1533 1541 Fernandez Gomez Consuegra Ana Rodriguez (Brought wife)
Fernandez, Juan Artillero Flanders 1533 1541 Bartolome Fernandez Margarita Fernandez
Freyle, Juan Sevilla 1523 1541 Juan Rodriguez Freyle Fernanda Fernandez (Dau. of don Pedro)
Fuenllana, Luis de la Sevilla 1534 1541 Francisco M. de la Fuenllana Beatriz de Morales
Gaona, Jeronimo de Burgos 1538 1541 Juan de Gaona Catalina Alonso Conteras
Garcia de Camargo, Juan Caceres 1539 1541 Diego Garcia Navo Isabel Mendoza (Came with wife, 5 children)
Gomez, Juan Avila 1527 1541 Juan de Verney Maria Jiminez (Dau. of Gonzalo Jimenez)
Gonzalez, Francisco Salamanca 1532 1541 Alonso Gonzalez Catalina Gonzalez (Married in 1534)
Gonzalez, Tome Badajoz 1525 1541 Martin Arias Maria Mendoza
Guerrero, Juan Albacete 1535 1541 Beatriz Gomez
Guevara, Pedro Madrid 1537 1541 Ladron de Guevara (Married in Spain)
Gutierrez, Rodrigo Sevilla 1523 1541 Francisco Gutierrez Francisca Rodriguez (Married, 3 dau., 1 son - 1547)
Guzman, Rodrigo de Toledo 1528 1530 Alonso Nunez de Guzman Juana Ferreira
Hinojosa, Alonso Toledo 1535 1541 Pedro de Hinojosa Ines Gonzalez
Hurtado, Diego de Huelva 1536 1541 Antonio Remon Leonor Hurtado (Dau. of an old Conqueror)
lbarra, Diego de Guipuzcoa 1535 1541 Francosco de lbarra Maria Perez de Vanuilgui (Daughter of Viceroy)
lbarra, Miguel de Basque 1527 1541
Ibiza, Juan de Ibiza Island 1523 1541 Jaime Costa Catalina Palermo
Jasso, Juan de Navarra 1521 1541 Juan Perez de Jasso Graciana de Gorostiaga Maria Ponce de Leon
Jasso, Juan de (El Mozo) Navarra 1527 1541 Martin de Jasso Graciana de Aramburu (Dau. of Lorenzo Payo)
Jiminez, Llor Soria 1537 1541 Llor Jiminez Catalina de Zuniga Juana Ruiz
Jiminez, Rodrigo de Granada 1527 1541 Rodrigo Jiminez Elvira Alonso de Consuegra (Came with wife)
Lebron de Quinones, Jeron Caceras 1548 Cristoval Lebron Maria de Quinones
Leon, Francisco de Sevilla 1536 1541 Alonso de Leon Catalina Rodriguez (Dau. of Francisco Garcia Farfan)
Lopez, Andres Burgos 1528 1541 Andres Lopez de Caspedes Maria Gomez de Salazar (Dau. of Francisco Gomez)
Lopez, Gonzalo Badajoz 1533 1541 Alonso de Ecija Maria Lopez
Lopez Patino, Juan Caceres 1523 1541 Alonso Lopez Tocino (Dau. of Alvaro de Villanueva)
Lopez Tenerio, Francisco Badajoz 1524 1541 Ruy Lopez Tenerio Leanor Bemaldez
Lorenzo, Andres Barcelona 1523 1541 Miguel Lorenzo Marta Orello
Cortes A-E
Cortes F-L
Cortes M-Q
Cortes R-T
Cortes U-Z
Coats of Arms Montejo A-Z Guzman A-Z Nueva Galicia A-L Nueva Galicia M-Z
Coronado A-Z Luna A-Z Onate A-Z New Spain A-B New Spain C-D
New Spain E-G New Spain H-L New Spain M-O New Spain P-R New Spain S-U
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CARIBBEAN/CUBA

Rob Ossian's Pirate's Cove
Recreated Fixed Regiment of Puerto Rico
Book: The Last Puerto Rican Indian

 

Rob Ossian's Pirate's Cove
http://www.thepirateking.com
Sent by John Inclan fromgalveston@yahoo.com

 

I, Pedro Frances, citizen of Palos, master of the caravel named Niña, God save her, do declare and recognize having received and had turned over to me said caravel with rigging and following items:
 
•First the hull of the caravel with all
the masts and lateen yards of said caravel
•Carrying a mainsail and two bonnets
•A foremast mainsail and bonnet, both old
•An old mizzen sail
•A half-worn countermizzen sail
•In addition, a mainsail and bonnet [for the] mainmast nd a foremast mainsail and new bonnet
•2 half-worn cables
•1 old main tye runner [halyard], a mizzen tye runner

Archivo General de Indias (Seville, Spain). Contratación 3249, folio 178 vuelto.

Wealth of information.
Links to all the following
What's New on the Site?
Pirate
Biographies: Privateer
Biographies: Explorer
Biographies: Historical
Nautical History
Nautical
Archaeology
About the Pirate King
How to Contact Me
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Recreated Fixed Regiment of Puerto Rico
Sent by Eliud Bonilla,  George Mason University   ebonilla@gmu.edu

Hi Mimi, I wanted to invite you and your readers to check out our new English website for the Recreated Fixed Regiment of Puerto Rico. The URL is http://puertorico1797.com .  We have plenty of pictures, video clips, and history on the British attack of San Juan in 1797. 

Thanks, Eliud

The recreated Fixed Regiment of Puerto Rico is a living history group composed of volunteers. This organization is dedicated to educating the public of the life and times of soldiers, militia and their families  in 18th century Puerto Rico.  Activities include research, demonstrations, and lifestyle reenactments at living history events.

This website includes a history of the original Fixed Regiment of Puerto  Rico, information on the successful defense of San Juan against the British attack of 1797, uniform description, schedule of events, and information on how to join and contact us.

About Us

The San Juan 1797 Project is an endeavor who’s goal is to educate and commemorate the heroic events surrounding the attack and defense of Puerto Rico. Begun in early 2005, our group has grown quickly. Our members are located throughout Puerto Rico, the United States, and Europe.

The Fixed Regiment is just the first unit to be recreated. We wish to grow and represent other 1797 units including the Disciplined Militia, Royal Artillery, Company of Free Blacks, and Urban Militia.

We will host our first international reenactment event in 2007 in beautiful and historic Old San Juan.  More details coming soon.

 

 

Book Release
“The Last Puerto Rican Indian”
A Collection of Dangerous Poetry

The Last Puerto Rican Indian, is a book of poetry that challenges the reader to confront preconceived notions about the history and contemporary struggles of the Native Peoples of the Americas.  The book is the first title issued by the recently formed publishing company http://www.cemipress.com/,  which is a subsidiary of http://www.galeriacemi.com/
info@galeriacemi.com

.   
 
Bobby Gonzalez will be reading and signing his latest book The Last Puerto Rican Indian: A Collection of Dangerous Poetry on Thursday, June 22 at 6:30 PM at the Brooklyn YWCA located at 30 Third Avenue, Brooklyn, NY (between Atlantic Avenue and State Street in Boerum Hill, near the Downtown section of Brooklyn.).  For information call:718-875-1190 Ext:223.   Cost, $9.95, plus $4.70 s&h
 
Mr Gonzalez will also be presenting his book on Friday, June 23 at 7:00 PM in the Bronx at El Maestro located at 700 Elton Avenue off 156th St. and Third Avenue, Bronx, NY.

 Writing from the perspective of a modern Taino Indian, Mr. González takes on such varied themes as religious freedom (or lack thereof), cultural & physical genocide, violence against women, homophobia and the issue of racial/political identity.

           “Dangerous memories.
            Stolen histories.
            Identity theft on a Cosmic scale.

            Who/what determines
            Who/what we are?

            The Last Puerto Rican Indian,
            with an abundance of love,
            bites into a Cuban sandwich
            on the corner of 145th Street and Brook Avenue.”

There are also verses that pay tribute to outstanding indigenous leaders such as Anacaona of Haiti, Guamá of Cuba, Cotubanamá from Quisqueya (the Dominican Republic), Sitting Bull of the Lakota and Osceola of the Seminole.

This unique volume contains many rare and intriguing graphic illustrations which document the lifeways, art and spirituality of Natives folk from the Amazon and the Caribbean. Most of these pictures are over one hundred years old and have not been viewed by most of the general public since the late 19th century.

An added bonus is a suggested Taino reading list which is a guide to both primary sources and current publications.

"The Last Puerto Rican Indian is beautifully written with a multiplicity of voices that capture both profound sadness and passionate defiance.  Rich with spiritual meaning, Bobby Gonzalez brings us closer to the indigenous men, women and children of the Americas as he harmonizes between the past and the present, traveling great distances in time from before the conquest, through mass genocide and the resistance, to the contemporary and beyond. Affirming the enduring strength of our heritage, González declares, 'The Last Puerto Rican Indian has not yet been born.'"
     -  Iris Morales, community activist/former Minister of Information, the Young Lords Party

Visit Bobby González' website at http://www.bobbygonzalez.com/  




SPAIN

S: Indice Nominal de la Gaceta de Madrid. Enero de 1898 
S: Good Links to Spain 
S: Reconocimiento a un Hijo Ilustre: Bernardo de
Gálvez
S: Two Heráldica websites 

 


Indice Nominal de la Gaceta de Madrid. Enero de 1898 
(5.000 Fichas genealógicas). 

Estimado Sr./Sra.:

El proximo 15 de junio saldrá a la venta el primer tomo del "Indice  Nominal de la Gaceta de Madrid. Enero 1898".

Obra de imprescindible consulta para los genealogistas y aficionados a  esta ciencia ya que publicamos datos de personas pertenecientes a todos  los estratos sociales.

Nombramientos, alistamientos, condecoraciones, perseguidos por la justicia, busqueda de herederos, cambios de apellidos, títulos nobiliarios, escalafones profesionales, etc...asimismo transcribismos  todos los datos de interés, desde descripciones físicas hasta la  concesión de patentes.

Este primer número incluye unas 5.000 fichas genealógicas y tiene un  precio aproximado de 18 euros, gastos de envío incluidos para España.

Para más información: http://www.armorialpopular.com

Reciba un cordial saludo. 
Ignacio Koblischek  ignaciokoblischek@plenumweb.com



.
Good Links to Spain  http://www.tienda.com/links.html   http://www.spain.info
From: Billl Carmena  JCarm1724@aol.com


Reconocimiento a un Hijo Ilustre:  Bernardo de Gálvez
http://www.diariosur.es/pg060515/prensa/noticias/Malaga/200605/15/SUR-MAL-009.html

El Washington malagueño: Bernardo de Gálvez
Texto: Jesús Hinojosa

Su figura es venerada y etudiada en los Estados Unidos, pero prácticamente desconocida en España. Diversas iniciativas tratarán de difundir el personaje de Bernardo de Gálvez, sobrino de los conocidos mecenas de Macharaviaya, que ayudó a la independencia de las colonias americanas


BIOGRAFÍA 
1746: Bernardo de Gálvez nace en Macharaviaya. Es hijo de Matías de Gálvez y sobrino de José y de Miguel, los principales personajes de la conocida familia de mecenas.

1762: Hace sus estudios militares en la Academia de Ávila y, ya teniente, a los 16 años, participa en la guerra contra Portugal.

1770: Con el grado de capitán viaja a Méjico donde, aliado con los indios ópatas, lucha contra los apaches. En este año ya había conseguido el grado de comandante de Armas de Nueva Vizcaya y Sonora.

1775: Participa en la expedición de O'Reilly a Argel donde, tras conquistar el fuerte que defendía la ciudad, consigue el ascenso a teniente coronel. Antes fue destinado a Pau (Francia) con el regimiento de Cantabria, donde aprende a hablar francés, que le sería muy útil después, en la Luisiana.

1776: Es designado gobernador interino de Luisiana, cedida en 1763 por Francia a España.

1777: Se casa con doña María Feliciana Saint-Maxent, joven viuda criolla, con la que tuvo tres hijos: Miguel, Matilde y Guadalupe.

1778: Funda la ciudad de Galveztown, en el noroeste del golfo de México, en Texas.

1779: Conquista a los ingleses los fuertes de Manchac, sin una sola baja, y de Baton Rouge liberando la cuenca baja del río Mississippi de fuerzas inglesas que pudieran hostigar su capital, Nueva Orleans.

1781: Reconquista las plazas de Movila y Panzacola a los ingleses, lo que hizo que éstos se quedasen sin posesiones en el Golfo de Méjico, exceptuando la isla de Jamaica. Esta actuación le valió el grado de teniente general y, en 1783 obtiene los títulos de vizconde de Galveztown y conde de Gálvez.

1785: Tras un viaje a España vuelve a las Indias como gobernador de Cuba. Ese año, una vez fallecido su padre, asume el cargo de virrey de Nueva España.

1786: Muere en Méjico, a los 40 años, con un gran afecto popular. Fue enterrado en la iglesia del actual colegio de San Fernando. 

Un libro, una escultura, un congreso y un curso, entre las actividades propuestas

EN Washington, justo delante del edificio que alberga el Departamento de Estado norteamericano, se encuentra una estatua de bronce con un hombre a caballo. El personaje representado es un héroe en los Estados Unidos porque, gracias a su decisiva intervención, la joven nación creada el 4 de julio de 1776 pudo alcanzar cinco años después la victoria en la guerra contra Inglaterra, lo que propició su independencia. 

Su figura es estudiada en todos los centros escolares de Norteamérica, pero prácticamente desconocida en España y Andalucía, pese a tratarse de un malagueño. Bernardo de Gálvez, sobrino de los conocidos mecenas de Macharaviaya, José y Miguel de Gálvez, es el personaje representado en la escultura americana, un hombre con una vida cargada de tintes novelescos que pretende ser difundida en los próximos tres años por la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Telmo y un foro recientemente creado que lleva su nombre.

El pasado lunes día 8 se cumplieron 225 años de uno de los episodios clave en la interesante trayectoria de este precoz militar y político. Se trata de la toma del fuerte George que los ingleses mantenían como gran bastión junto a la bahía de Panzacola, en la zona norte del golfo de Méjico. Con esta conquista concluyó en 1781 la guerra de España y Francia contra Inglaterra en defensa de la independencia de las 13 colonias americanas.

La flota española dudó en penetrar en la bahía de Panzacola. Sus mandos argumentaron para ello que carecían de los medios suficientes y que los barcos podrían encallar por el escaso fondo de las aguas. Ante esta situación, Bernardo de Gálvez, asumiendo el riesgo, se adentró en la bahía a bordo de su bergantín Galvezton. Tras esta muestra de valentía, el resto de los buques le siguieron y el asedio a los ingleses acabó con la toma de sus posiciones.

Este gesto valió a Bernardo el apodo de 'Yo solo', una leyenda que puede leerse en el escudo de su apellido y que fue referida por el Rey Juan Carlos el 3 de junio de 1976 en su discurso para la inauguración del monumento citado anteriormente en Washington.

Aniversarios

Al 225.º aniversario de esta gesta se une este año la celebración de los 220 años de la muerte de dicho personaje y 260 de su nacimiento, lo que ha llevado a la Academia de San Telmo y al Foro Bernardo de Gálvez a promover la realización de diferentes actividades que sirvan para darlo a conocer.

Aunque sólo vivió 40 años, su existencia no pudo ser más prolífica. A los 16 ya participó en la guerra contra Portugal y, a los 24, con el grado de capitán, fueron destacadas sus incursiones militares en Méjico. Tras una brillante hoja de servicios, en 1776 fue nombrado gobernador interino de Luisiana y estableció su base de operaciones en Nueva Orleans con el fin de expulsar a los británicos de la zona norte del golfo de Méjico.

El académico Manuel Olmedo explicó que en Luisiana llegó a fundar hasta cinco ciudades a las que pobló con habitantes de las Islas Canarias, pero también de la Axarquía malagueña y de localidades del valle del Guadalhorce. La actual población de Galveston, en Texas, debe su nombre a Bernardo.

«Tras la victoria contra los ingleses, los americanos solían brindar por Washington y por Gálvez», comentó Manuel Olmedo, quien definió al personaje como uno de los tres malagueños más importantes que ha dado la historia, junto a Cánovas del Castillo y Pablo Ruiz Picasso.

«Resulta impresionante que, a pesar de las numerosas heridas que sufrió a lo largo de su trayectoria como militar, tuviera el arrojo y la valentía suficiente como para meterse en el bolsillo a los franceses y plantar cara a los ingleses», apuntó Olmedo, quien resaltó que, tras su muerte, se publicaron nueve libros sobre su figura. Además, se calcula que existen unos 20.000 documentos sobre su vida.

Documentación

El profesor Francisco Cabrera, miembro también de la Academia de Bellas Artes, señaló que los actos que se puedan organizar en los próximos años servirán para recopilar copias de una gran parte de esos documentos, que podrían cederse al Ayuntamiento de Macharaviaya para que complete el pequeño museo que existe en esta localidad sobre los Gálvez.

Por otra parte, Olmedo y Cabrera anunciaron que han solicitado un encuentro con el alcalde de Málaga, Francisco de la Torre, para exponerle los pormenores del conjunto de actividades ideadas y recabar el apoyo del Consistorio de la capital para ellas. 

Además, la Academia y los miembros del Foro Bernardo de Gálvez se han puesto en contacto con el embajador de EE. UU. en España, Eduardo Aguirre, que visitó Málaga el pasado Jueves Santo.

Manuel Olmedo indicó que Málaga siempre estuvo al tanto de los éxitos militares de Bernardo y apuntó como dato curioso que se cree que fue quien fomentó la costumbre de tomar el café con leche tanto en España como en Méjico.

En su corta etapa como virrey de ese territorio -apenas dos años, hasta su muerte- logró hacerse con el afecto de sus súbditos. Entre las muchas cosas que hizo durante su mandato (iluminación de calles, las obras del palacio de Chapultepec, destinar a beneficencia el 16% del producto de la Real Lotería y otros fondos de multas...) destaca su apoyo a la ciencia. Así, patrocinó la expedición de Martín de Sessé y Vicente Cervantes, que llevó a España un completísimo catálogo de diversas especies de plantas, aves y peces. Cuentan que su carácter abierto y popular, y su afición por los toros le llevó en una ocasión a lidiar un astado en una plaza mejicana.

Sus restos reposan junto a los de su padre, Matías de Gálvez, que le antecedió en el puesto de virrey, en la iglesia de San Fernando de Méjico, donde dos lápidas le recuerdan. En Málaga no existe aún elemento alguno que deje constancia de su importancia.


Two Heráldica websites 
Sent by Paul Newfield III skip@thebrasscannon.com
Source: Lola Duque de Estrada y Castañeda sent to genealogiacanaria@yahoogroups.com

Buenos días: Ya se puede bajar el Boletín nº 58 de la Real Academia Matritense de Heráldica y Genealogía. La dirección es: http://www.insde.es/ramhg/  

http://www.insde.es/ramhg/Default.asp?strClass=1&strType=A
Heráldica Artículos Bibliografía 
Genealogía Artículos Bibliografía 
Nobiliaria Artículos Bibliografía 
Miscelánea Preguntas   Frecuentes Efemérides Artículos Bibliografía Hemeroteca 
Confederación     Noticias    Fines     Directorio 

La Casa Real de España y el Reino de Jerusalén
La Constitución española de 1978 dispone que el Jefe del Estado ostentará el título de Rey de España y podrá también utilizar los otros títulos unidos históricamente a la Corona. Uno de estos es el de Rey de Jerusalén. Autor José Luis Sampedro y Escolar Publicado el sábado, 04 de junio de 2005 [Ver PDF Completo] 

El Escudo del Palacio de Correos de Madrid
La noticia de que el Ayuntamiento de Madrid va a instalar próximamente parte de sus oficinas en las dependencias del edificio hasta ahora conocido como Palacio de Correos nos lleva a formular algunas consideraciones que creemos de interés.

El madrileño Palacio de Correos y Comunicaciones se inauguró en 1919, siendo una de las grandes obras acometidas en el reinado de Don Alfonso XIII para transformar la Villa de Madrid en la sede de una Corte acorde con la importancia de la capital de la España que comenzaba a recuperarse del Desastre del 98. Autor José Luis Sampedro Escolar Publicado el jueves, 22 de abril de 2004 [Ver PDF Completo] 

La Heráldica en las Iglesias de la Comunidad de Madrid: Pinilla
Esta localidad serrana perteneció a la Comunidad de Ciudad y Tierra de Segovia y concretamente al Sexmo de Lozoya, hasta que en 1833 se incorporó a Madrid, como consecuencia de la estructuración provincial que se realizó en aquella fecha.Cuenta Pinilla del Valle con significativas muestras de arquitectura rural y dependencias agropecuarias típicas de la zona, también resulta interesante el molino del Navazo que estuvo moliendo grano hasta el pasado año de 1970, pero es su iglesia parroquial dedicada a San Miguel Arcángel la construcción que más destaca en el núcleo urbano. Su construcción data de finales del siglo XV principios del XVI... Autor Fernando de Alós y Merry del Val Publicado el Lunes, Abril 12, 2004 [Ver PDF Completo] 
La Heráldica en las Iglesias de la Comunidad de Madrid: Griñon

La villa de Griñón está situada al Sur de la Capital, en la comarca de La Sagra, distante de Madrid 30 kilómetros. Su acceso se puede realizar por la N-401, al llegar a Torrejón de la Calzada, nos desviaremos a la derecha, por la M-404, llegando a los pocos kilómetros.En Griñón encontramos diversos monumentos de interés como el Convento de la Madres Clarisas, del siglo XVI, fundado por el clérigo, natural de esta villa, don Rodrigo de Vivar, que cuenta con un espléndido retablo mayor, magníficamente restaurado, obra de Juan de Correa. Pero es su Iglesia Parroquial, dedicada a Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, el motivo de estas líneas... Autor Fernando de Alós y Merry del Val Publicado el Lunes, Abril 12, 2004 [Ver PDF Completo]



INTERNATIONAL 

Dutch Portuguese Colonial History 
S: Communication concerning El Savador Castes

 

Dutch Portuguese Colonial History 
http://www.colonialvoyage.com/index.html
Sent by Janete Vargas magnaguagno@gmail.com

Anywhere on the coasts of Asia, America and Africa you can find a fort, a church, a geographical name or a family name, that come from Portugal. These are the remains of the first European country that explored the world in search of spices and souls. 

Afonso de Albuquerque's dream, was an infusion of Portuguese blood in each of the colonies. 
As the Dutch Governor Antonio Van Diemen said in 1642 : 
"Most of the Portuguese in Asia look upon this region as their fatherland, and think no more about Portugal" 

In XVth century a small nation as Portugal began to explore the Atlantic ocean , since 1415 (conquest of Ceuta, Morocco) the Portuguese explored the African's coasts in search of a road to the East; and in 1487 Bartolomeu Dias doubled the cape of Good Hope. 
After ten years (1497-1499) Vasco de Gama arrived in India (18 May 1498), and opened a new trading route between Europe and Asia. 
This small nation was the ruler of the Indian ocean for about 150 years and the Portuguese language was for more than 250 years the trading language (lingua franca) of the Asiatic coasts. 

At the beginning of the XVII century another small nation, the United Provinces of Netherlands took the place of Portugal. The United Provinces with the West and the East India companies the GWC (WIC) (Geoctroyeerde West-Indische Compagnie) and the VOC (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) ruled the scene for nearly 150 years, until the coming of the English power. A msterdam was the commercial and financial capital of the whole Europe and The Netherlands was the leading commercial nation.



S: Communication concerning El Savador Castes
Jaime Cader  jmcader@yahoo.com

He encontrado mas informacion en los siguientes dos libros, el de El Salvador lo acabo de recibir por correo. Asi que en el libro "Historia de El Salvador, tomo 1" por el Ministerio de Educacion (1994) dice: (pagina 129) "En el caso salvadoreño, se llamo mulatos a quienes no eran ni españoles ni indios "puros..." "La elite española y estado colonial no podian ignorar el crecimiento de este estrato socio-etnico al margen de sus mecanismos de control. La solucion de este problema de seguridad interior provino de una amenaza exterior. Aunque ya en el siglo 16 algunas flotas extranjeras, llamadas piratas o corsarios por los españoles, habian atacado las colonias españolas en el oceano Pacifico, no fue sino hasta el siglo 17 que estos ataques se convirtieron en una amenaza constante. La seguridad de Centroamerica no podia confiarse al reducido grupo de españoles y para los españoles era impensable armar a los indios. La solucion fue establecer un vinculo institucional con los mulatos a traves de milicias dirigidas por oficiales españoles. A cambio de este servicio militar las autoridades españolas eliminaron el tributo sobre los mulatos, que de todas formas nunca habian sido capaces de cobrar."

El siguiente libro lo he tenido desde años pero tuve que sacarlo de una caja bajo otros libros en mi armario. Se titula "Oficiales y Soldados en el Ejercito de America" por Juan Marchena Fernandez -de la Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (C.S.I.C.) en Madrid, España.

Dice en la pagina 112 sobre el siglo 18: "En primer lugar, veamos cual es la evolucion general a lo largo del siglo, atendiendonos a la clasificacion tradicional de criollos y peninsulares, a la que nosotros hemos añadido los extranjeros (oficiales naturales de otros paises no peninsulares o indianos) que, aunque escaso, porcentualmente tiene un valor que no podamos despreciar." (hablando sobre el ejercito de dotacion)

pagina 113: "Este fenomeno es absolutamente diferente en el Ejercito de Refuerzo, en el que los porcentajes arrojan una abrumadora mayoria a favor de los peninsulares, lo cual es logico tratandose de unidades que vienen de España solo temporalmente a Indias:

Peninsulares 84,1 %
Criollos 2,9 %
Extranjeros 12,9 %"

Mi comentario: De los muchos documentos antiguos (mas bien actas de bautismos)que he leido de El Salvador, creo que solamente he visto uno que identifica a una persona como criollo.

Jaime C. 


HISTORY

American Civil War Retold In Pictures  
Did George Washington Know how to Tango?
A Pirate's tale from Jean Baptiste's Brass Cannon
Andersonville Civil War Prisoner of War web site 
Historical Documents website

 


    
     American Civil War Retold In Pictures    

      Library Of Congress Publishes Book 
           With Hundreds Of Rare Photos

Margaret E. Wagner, a senior writer and editor at the Library of Congress has completed a 
new volume, "The American Civil War: 365 Days," has nearly 500 photographs, lithograph, paintings, drawings and cartoons from the hundreds of thousands in the library's keeping. Many are rarely seen and some may never have been published. For more information, go to:  http://www.loc.gov/index.html


 

Civil War Union Gen. Herman Haupt, a civil engineer, moving across the Potomac River in a one-man pontoon boat that he invented for scouting and bridge inspection in an image taken between1860 and 1865. 



Did George Washington Know how to Tango?
By John D. Inclan
Edited By Bernadette Inclan

 


I love perusing books at estate sales. At a recent one, for the sum of one dollar, I came across a book on the ancestry of the English Royal family, Royal Highness Ancestry of the Royal Child by 
Sir Iain Moncreiffe of That ILK. What enticed me to read on was the chapter on the Spanish ancestry of the English Royal House. Sir Moncreiffe's particular emphasis was His Royal Highness, Prince Charles, heir to the throne of England and his connection to our own George Washington. 

The March 2006 edition of the Somos Primos Magazine features an article entitled "TEXAN PATRIOTS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION", Chapter 3, and the Spanish ancestry of George Washington. A quote from this article drew my attention "…George Washington, 'The Father of Our Country,' was abundantly endowed with some good Spanish genes that trace back to the great Spanish king and saint, San Fernando, and beyond". (Robert H. Thonhoff , "Essay on the San Fernando-George Washington Bernardo de Galvez Connection")!

George Washington, a descendent of EL Cid, Spain's National Hero Don Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, a descendent of Spanish Kings, and the commander in chief of the Continental army during the American Revolution as well as our first president of the United States (1789-97) inspires this article. 

History records that George Washington was born in Westmoreland County, Va., on Feb. 22, 1732. He was the eldest son of Augustine Washington and his second wife, Mary Ball, both from prosperous Virginia gentry of English descent. George spent his early years on the family estate on Pope's Creek along the Potomac River. His early education at or near the family residence included the first elements of Latin, mathematics, the classics, surveying and "rules of civility" from the "Young Man's Companion" adopted from the French credo. When his father died in 1743, George, who was a bit of a "mama's boy" and did not get along well with his quick-tempered, strong-willed, possessive mother, and went to live with his half brother Lawrence at Mount Vernon, Lawrence's plantation on the Potomac. Lawrence became a mentor to his younger brother, tutoring him in his studies, teaching him social graces, and introducing him into Virginia's society. Lawrence had married into the socially prominent and influential Fairfax family who helped to launch George's career. 

George's mother effectively quashed his early ambition to go to sea, so he turned his interests toward surveying. As a youth, Washington discovered his father's surveying instruments and books and this stimulated his interest. In 1748, Lord Thomas Fairfax, heir to vast estates in the northern neck of Virginia and in the Shenandoah Valley, wanted to know more about his lands, a domain reputed to comprise 5,000,000 acres, nearly one quarter of the commonwealth of Virginia. By this time, George had been living with Lawrence for several years at Mount Vernon. When Lord Fairfax organized a surveying expedition to his western lands, George, who was received as an intimate of the Fairfax family, was invited to go along for the experience. This journey into the wilds made George a surveyor and frontiersman, and lead directly to his military experiences. The earliest existing Washington diary records his activities. He wrote that he mingled with Indians and stored knowledge of their crafts, got acquainted with wildcat distillates at settler houses, engaged in rough sports, such as wrestling, leaping, tossing logs, running, throwing tomahawks or knives at targets. One night his pallet caught fire. Another time a rattlesnake made itself evident. As their provisions ran out he became acquainted with hunger. The experience was so to his liking that in 1748, George went to William and Mary College at Williamsburg to quality for a license as surveyor. At barely seventeen years of age, and with the help of Lord Tomas Fairfax, Washington was appointed surveyor for Culpepper County which was in its initial stages of formation and in need of a surveyor . So that summer, Washington went into the wilderness alone. In 1749, he helped lay out the Virginia town of Belhaven (now Alexandria). However, in 1751, George had to take leave of his surveying duties. His brother, Lawrence, who suffered from tuberculosis, or "consumption" as it was then known, took a serious turn for the worse. George accompanied his brother to Barbados in the belief that such a journey would enable Lawrence to overcome the ravages of the disease. George kept a meticulous diary during the voyage. 

George was introduced to the theater in Barbados. He saw a performance of a Tragedy with music adapted and conducted. From this time on, George dedicated himself as a patron of theatricals. Once he expressed a wish to take part in an amateur production. 

George left his brother in the Barbados, apparently in a state of convalescence. However, Lawrence soon returned to Virginia and died in 1752. Lawrence had given thought about his half-brother's future. He had resigned the duties and privilege of adjutant-general for one of Virginia's four military districts and had thereby requested the appointment of George to the post. To insure that George's prospects of advancement in the affairs of the Colony would not suffer from practical knowledge of soldier craft, Lawrence arranged with a respected former comrade-in-arms, Jacob Van Braam, a Dutch mercenary in English wars, to tutor George in basic military science during the times George wasn't surveying. George became executor and contingent heir to the Mount Vernon estate, which he ultimately inherited. 

George Washington wrote in 1702, that the history of his ancestors was, in his opinion, "of very little moment, and a subject to which I confess I have paid very little attention." However, the following presents the Genealogical Ancestry of George Washington.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, 1ST PRESIDENT OF THE USA, was born on 22 Feb 1732, Westmoreland County, Virginia; d. 14 Dec 1799, Mount Vernon, Virginia; m. MARTHA DANDRIDGE CUSTIS, 06 Jan 1759, at the Custis Plantation New Kent county, Virginia; b. 02 Jun 1731, New Kent County, Virginia; d. 22 May 1802, Mount Vernon, Virginia.
George was the son of Captain AGUSTINE WASHINGTON & MARY BALL .

Captain Agustine was the son of MAJOR LAWRENCE WASHINGTON & MILDRED WARNER (daughter of AGUSTINE WARNER II and MILDRED READE. .
Note: Mr. & Mrs. Agustine Warner II are ancestors of the current Queen of England, Elizabeth II. 
Mildred Reade, (above) was the daughter of Colonel George Reade and Elizabeth Martiau.
Col. George Reade was the son of Robert Reade and Mildred Windebank
Mildred Windebank was the daughter of Francis Dymoke.

Francis Dymoke was the daughter of Edward Dymoke, 16th Lord of Schrivelsby and Lady Anne Tailboy. Lord Dymoke was the son of Robert Dymoke, 15th Lord of Schrivelsh and Lady Jane Sparrow. Lord Robert was the son of Thomas Dymoke, 14th Lord of Schrivelsh and Lady Margaret de Welles. Margaret de Welles was the Daughter of Lionel de Welles, 6th Baron Welles and Baroness Jane Waterton. Baron Lionel was the son of Sir Eon de Welles and Lady Maude de Greystroke. Sir Eon de Welles was the son of John de Welles, 5th Baron Welles and Baroness Margaret de Mowbray. 

Margaret de Mowbray was the daughter of John de Mowbray, 4th Baron Mowbray and Baroness Elizabeth de Segrave. Elizabeth de Segrave was the daughter of John de Sebrave, 4th Lord of Segrave and Margaret, Duchess of Norfork. Margaret was the daughter of Thomas de Brotherton, 1st Earl of Norfork and Lady Alice Hayes. Thomas was the son of Edward I, King of England, (descendent of El Cid) and his 2nd wife, Marguerite of France, Queen Consort of England.
Major Lawrence was the son of COL. JOHN WASHINGTON & ANN POPE 1658, (daughter of NATHANIEL POPE and LUCY) 
John Washington was the son of Reverend LAWRENCE WASHINGTON & AMPHYLIS TWIGDON. 
.Rev. Lawrence was the son of MARGARET BUTLER & LAWRENCE WASHINGTON. He died 16 Dec 1616.
Margaret Butler was the daughter of WILLIAM BUTLER & MARGARET GREEKE. 

William was the son of MARGARET SUTTON & JOHN BUTLER. He died 14 Oct 1558.

Margaret was the daughter of Sir JOHN SUTTON & Lady CHARROL SUTTON. 

Sir John was the son of Lady JOYCE de TIPTOFT & Sir EDMUND SUTTON. 

Lady Joyce was the daughter of Lady JOYCE CHERLETON & JOHN DE TIPTOFT, 1ST BARON of TIPTOFT..

Lady Joyce Cherleton was the daughter of EDWARD CHERLETON, 5TH BARON OF CHERETON & Lady ELEANOR HOLAND, (daughter of Sir THOMAS de HOLAND and Lady ALICE FITZALAN).

Note ELEANOR HOLAND was a descendent of King Edward I of England by his second marriage 
Her father Thomas de Holand, 2nd Earl of Kent m Lady Alice FitzAlan
He was the son of Lady Joan Plantagenet, Princess of Wales m Thomas Holand, 6th Earl of Kent
She was the daughter of Edmund of Woodstock, 3rd Earl of Kent m. Lady Margaret Wake
He was the son of Edward I, King of England 2st wife, Marguerite of France, Queen Consort of England

Baron Edward Cherleton was the son of Lady JOAN de STAFFORD & JOHN CHERLETON, 2ND BARON OF CHERLETON 1360. He died 13 Jul 1374.

Lady Joan was the daughter of BARONESS MARGARET de AUDLEY & RALPH de STAFFORD, 1ST EARL OF STAFFORD. 

Baroness Margaret was the daughter of Lady MARGARET de CLARE & HUGH de AUDLEY, 2ND BARON OF AUDLEY ( son of Sir HUGH DE AUDLEY and Lady ISOLT DE MORTIMER). 

Lady Margaret was the daughter of Princess JOAN PLANTAGENT OF ARCE & GILBERT DE CLARE, 7TH EARL OF HERTFORD (son of Sir RICHARD DE CLARE and Lady MAUD de LACY. 

Princess Joan was the daughter ELEANOR OF CASTILE, Queen of England & EDWARD I, KING OF ENGLAND (son of HENRY III, King of England and ELEANOR of PROVENCE). 

Eleanor was the daughter of SAINT FERNANDO III, KING OF CASTILE & LEON & JEANNE OF DAMMARTIN, Countess of Ponthieu (daughter of SIMON II, Count of Dammartin, Aumale & Ponthieu and Marie (Jeanne), Countess of Ponthieu) 

King Fernando was the son of QUEEN OF CASTILE BERENGARIA & ALFONSO IX, KING OF LEON (son of FERDINAND II, King of Leon and his Queen URRACA of PORTUGA) .

Queen Berengaria was the daughter of ALFONSO VIII, KING OF CASTILE & ELEANOR OF ENGLAND, QUEEN OF CASTILE (daughter of HENRY II, King of England and ELEANOR of AQUITAINE) .

King Alfonso was the son of BLANCHE OF NAVARRE, QUEEN CONSORT OF CASTILE & SANCHO III, KING OF CASTILE (son of ALFONSO VII, King of Castile and his Queen BERENGUELA of Barcelona)..

Notes for Blanche of Navarre & Sancho III, King of Castile: It is from this union that the descendents of Charlemagne first enter this line. Source - Pedigrees of Emperor Charlemagne

Blanche of Navarre was the daughter of GARCIA RAMIREZ VI, KING OF NAVARRE & MARGARITA DE L'AIGLE (daughter of GISLEBERT DE L'AIGLE and JULIANA PERCHE). 

Garcia Ramirez was the son of ELVIRA Rodriguez, also known as CRISTINA, & RAMIRO SANCHEZ II, COUNT OF MONCON, (son of GARCIA V, King of Navarre and CONSTANZA de Maranon) 

Elvira, A.K.A. Cristina was the daughter of Don RODRIGO DIAZ de VIVAR, known as EL CID & JIMENA de GORMAZ (daughter of DIEGO RODRIGUEZ de OVEIDO and CRISTINA FERNANDEZ). 

George appears to be quite the ladies man. In July 1755, letters between him and Sally Fairfax suggest a closeness between them. George had met Sally in 1748, when his benefactor's son and friend, George William Fairfax, married Sally. Their correspondence exchange was flirtatious. George then became enamored with a Mary Philipse in 1756, after being introduced by a Virginia acquaintance, Beverly Robinson. Robinson was the son-in-law of Frederick Philipse II, inheritor of a large fortune accumulated in land speculation and as sponsor of privateering against Moslem shipping in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Susannah Philipse Robinson had an unmarried sister, Mary, then twenty-five. Evidence suggests that George proposed to Mary, but was rejected. However, it was fortunate for the nation. In 1775, the family who were staunch Tories, turned against the patriot cause. 

In March 1758, George met Martha Dandridge Custis, a pretty and rich widow from Virginia. However, on his way to Martha's side, he wrote a curious letter to Sally Fairfax that can only be interpreted as an affirmation of his continuing affection for her. Nevertheless, he married Martha Custis at her residence known as the "White House," in New Kent County, Virginia. 

The tall, radiant, charismatic, penetrating gray-blue eyed George was schooled in the social graces and dancing , which he loved, and would have been part of his curriculum. Captain George Mercer, an officer in the Virginia Regiment and who served under Washington as company commander and aide-de-camp, wrote in 1760: "He may be described as being as straight as an Indian, measuring six feet two inches in his stockings, and weighing 175 pounds. …His frame is padded with well-developed muscles, indicating great strength. His bones and joints are large, as are his feet and hands. He is wide shouldered, but has not a deep or round chest; is neat-waisted, but is broad across the hips and has rather long legs and arms. His head is well shaped though not large, but is gracefully poised on a superb neck. A large and straight rather than prominent nose; … His face is long rather than broad, with high round cheek bones, and terminates in a good firm chin.

So, did George Washington know how to Tango? The Tango, as we know it today did not originate until the 1940's. In answer to the question, No, George Washington never danced to the Tango.
As we reflect on celebrating this 4th of July, we can take pride on the realizations that not only are we inheritors of a rich culture, but our First President carried undisputable Hispanic DNA.

Source:
Burke's Presidential Families of the United States.
Pedigrees of Some of the Emperor Charlemagne's Descendants, Compiled by Marcellus Donald Alexander R. von Redlich, Vol I. 
Pedigrees of Some of the Emperor Charlemagne's Descendants, by J. Orton Buck & Tomothy Field Beard, Vol II. 
Ackerman, Diane, The Real George Washington 
Hallam, Elizabeth, General editor, The Plantagenet Encyclopedia. 
Kinnaird, Clark, George Washington, The Pictorial Biography . Bonanza Book. New York. 
Moncreiffe , Sir Iain of That ILK, BT, Royal Highness Ancestry of the Royal Child 



A Pirate's tale from Jean Baptiste's Brass Cannon
By W. T. Block
Sent by Paul Newfield, III

Sources: Galveston 'Daily News' of Jan. 4, 1875, March 6, 1893, March 3, 1907,and other papers

In 1874, while removing silt from West Galveston Bay, a dredge boat dug into the sunken hulk of an old gunboat, recovering one brass and three iron cannons near the present-day community of Texas City, Texas. There was much speculation at the time about the origins of the old relics, some suggesting that they must be from the wreckage of the Union frigate "Westfield," which exploded during the battle of Galveston in 1863. The iron guns were too rusted to reveal much about their history, but the brass weapon was a six-pound Napoleonic model, bearing a cross and a casting date of 1813 near the breech and a circular groove, left by some blunt instrument, near the muzzle.

When a copy of the Galveston "News" reached feisty, old Jean Baptiste Callistre at Lake Charles, La., a week later, all of the mystery about the brass gun was resolved. Callistre, a 90-year-old, ex-buccaneer of Barataria Bay and Galveston Island, felt as though he were meeting for a second time one of the dearest companions of his youthful days.

Callistre, born near St. Martinsville, La., about 1785, was in New Orleans in 1810 with a friend, Benjamin Dollivar, when both were recruited by Jean Lafitte to join Simon Bolivar's abortive expedition against the Spanish Royalists in Venezuela. Bolivar was defeated, but in the process Dollivar's and Callistre's skills as artillerists were honed extensively. Within a few months, they were back at Lafitte's pirate commune at Barataria Bay, La.

As soon as Lafitte received . . . . .  
Editor. . . 
"Go to the site for a fascinating cameo of that time period and more  pirate tales."
http://www.wtblock.com/wtblockjr/jean.htm




Andersonville Civil War Prisoner of War website 
Sent by Jo Russell  ljrussell@earthlink.ne

This message was posted on the White County IL list. Just a short reminder to the vets and newbies at this site of my free research for the asking here at Andersonville Civil War Prisoner of War site. 

There are more than 41000 Union soldiers on record from all states, and 4518 are from Illinois. Please email me directly at Frye@pstel.net with request so we don't tie up the county site.
Kevin . . .Andersonville Historic Site Historian / NPS Volunteer
http://www.angelfire.com/ga2/Andersonvilleprison/index.html


Historical Documents website  http://patriotpost.us/histdocs/
Lot's of history here . Good reference material . Pass it on . Bill Carmena 




FAMILY HISTORY

Marriage Among Cousins: A Gold Mine for Genealogists
Public Invited to Give Feedback on new LDS.org 
BYU'S Personal Ancestral File Tutorial 
Buying and Disposing of old books
New Free Genealogy Website (like myspace)
Genealogy Blogging - A Brief Guide
Check out Recipe Software
Genealogy Library Center accepts donations of Family History stuff 
Changing font size to view internet and emails easily 
New Google Search Technologies Make Information Easier to Discover,
          Organize and Share

 

Marriage Among Cousins:
A Gold Mine for Genealogists

By: Alfredo I. Peña Pérez-Plazola II

Usually the first thing someone thinks when hearing about cousins marrying cousins is "the horror of incest." But it’s not about that at all, and it has a deeper meaning and a whole different purpose among Mexican families.

One Big Family

In past centuries, when towns and cities were barely getting started, the population could be counted in the hundreds and sometimes in the thousands. The low population numbers in these towns, allowed for families to end up being related to each other several times. Within 50 or 100 years, 50-70% of the town could practically belong to the same family. Such is the case with El Grullo, Jalisco, and México. In 1860, there were 120 people living in El Grullo. Those 120 belonged to 10 families and none of them related to each other. By 1920, 9 out of the 10 families had married into each other and formed one big family.

One explanation for this is that there wasn’t really anybody else to marry. And this is how families ended up marrying into each other several times. But before the XX century, the reasons for marriages between relatives, was a whole different story. This was a story of power, social status, being in the right family, marrying the right man/woman, properties and money.

Properties
as one of the reasons families married into other families several times: to preserve properties within the family. In the early days of the conquistadors, by decree, all properties were lost after 3 or four generations. Although this law did not last for too long, families used marriage to preserve their properties.

Aristocracy
Some of these families belonged to families that had a distinguished lineage or were descendants from royalty. These families comprised what was known and is still known as the aristocracy. Their last names were the biggest clue to know the "who’s who" in México’s genealogy. Some of them still had their noble titles; others didn’t have titles but had the name to prove their aristocratic origin.

To preserve titles, properties, money or the name that tied them to their awesome ancestry, these families married into their own family or with other aristocratic families, over and over again. After a hundred or 200 years of doing this, their descendants kept their blood "pure." Meaning, they did not marry with natives, or Indians, only Spanish people. With this procedure they kept a very "concentrated" blood, which was the result of many years of marrying distant and not so distant cousins.

Marriage Dispensations
A marriage dispensation was necessary to allow all these marriages among cousins. This is where the genealogist wins the lotto. The priest would do through a lengthy report about the couple’s blood relationship. The report included a plea from the groom to be allowed to marry, a plea from the bride, a letter from two or three witnesses that know the couple and know about their blood relationship and a final letter from the priest. Everything was sent to the Sagrada Mitra (the church’s state governing body) for approval.

 

 

The Sagrada Mitra would then send it back approving the union and the priest would do a final letter in which he mentioned that the marriage had been approved and drew or wrote out how the man and woman were linked by the common ancestor. Some of the priests would be very artistic and would draw a nice family tree with the names of the ancestors for each person and showing the relationship. In other cases, the priest would just write it out as two columns with the common ancestor’s name centered at the top. Setting aside how the blood relationship was represented on the documentation, a marriage dispensation is a gold mine for the genealogist. If the husband and wife were distant relatives or if they were related through several lines, the representation of the family tree on the document will have more detail and more generations back. In any case, you will get the names for several generations in one place.

Marriage dispensations give you an inside look at the way people thought, lived, the things they believed in, their moral values, etc. I researched a case where the couple didn’t know they were related to each other, got married and had to remarry when their uncle turned them in to the church, claiming they had gotten married without permission. A scandal surged, the woman, pleaded to be allowed to continue being married, because she already had a child and could not afford to go back to live with her mother. She also claimed she could not marry someone else anymore. Also, one of the witnesses died during the investigation, which complicated things. In the end, their blood relationship was approved and they were remarried almost a year later.

If you are writing the story of your family and you come across a marriage dispensation, it will give you a lot of material to build a more detailed account of your family in past centuries. It will give you an inside look at your ancestor’s way of thinking, their lifestyle, moral and family values. A view that you won’t get anywhere else… a priceless account of your family history, told in the words of your own ancestors.

 

Public Invited to Give Feedback on new LDS.org 
http://www.lds.org/news/0,5014,5014-,00.html 
Sent by Lorraine Hernandez  Lmherdz@hotmail.com

The Church has released the redesigned LDS.org in beta form. The test is available to the public at http://beta.lds.org, and members are invited to review the site and give feedback before the Church replaces the existing LDS.org with the new site later this summer.  They also have a PDF on the new redesign http://www.lds.org/pdf/Whats_New_LDSORG.pdf

Here is what they say about FamilySearch: FamilySearch.org is the Church's site for genealogical research and family history work. It is the world's largest free genealogical Web site, with online access to billions of birth, marriage, death, and other genealogical records. It has over a million registered users. Many enhancements are being built for FamilySearch.

The projected storage capacity for the "new FamilySearch" as 18 petabytes at a cost of $8,100,000.00. What is a petabyte? Well, after gigabyte there are terabytes then petabytes. The Library of Congress has 20 terabytes of text - so we are talking lots of space here - fantastic numbers. This is no small undertaking.



BYU'S PAF TUTORIAL
Sent by Genealogia-Mexico@googlegroups.com

A new online tutorial is now available at no cost to students of family history and anyone interested in using Personal Ancestral File (PAF), the widely used genealogy computer program available from the LDS Church. "It is a learning aid and reference for BYU students and others who wish to learn about the PAF family history program," said Kip Sperry, Professor of Family History at BYU.

This free online interactive tutorial is primarily intended for BYU's Introduction to LDS Family History (Religion 261) students, but can benefit students in other family history courses as well, and is accessible to anyone including non-students. It is most helpful to those who haven't used the PAF program before, or have had little experience with PAF and may only need help in certain areas. It is
designed so users can pick and choose which areas of PAF they need to know more about.

Click on either a step-by-step textual guide or an interactive demonstration for each point of reference in the menu. Because the interactive tutorial has audio components, speakers or headphones are needed to be able to listen to the demonstrations. The tutorial covers the entire PAF program.  The website format displays a menu panel along the left side and a display panel for
information and demonstrations on the right side. The top of the menu begins with How to Use the PAF Tutorial, followed by options describing how to install PAF, and continuing with a total of 17 sections of tutorial instruction. Some of the sections include Create/Edit Individual and Create/Edit
Marriage within your pedigree chart, PAF Views, Backups to PAF files, GEDCOMs, and Match/Merge. The tutorial is based on lessons taught to Religion 261 students and focuses on the essential elements of PAF that are taught in that course.

For more information about PAF and family history, go to http://familyhistory.byu.edu. The link for the PAF tutorial is accessible through this website by clicking the PAF Tutorial link under the Resources menu. The PAF tutorial is also directly available at http://paftutorial.byu.edu.

This project was developed through the cooperation of BYU's Center for Instructional Design
(CID), Kip Sperry, Professor of Family History (faculty advisor and project coordinator), and the Center for Family History and Genealogy at BYU.


Buying and Disposing of old books

Do you have GOOD used genealogy books in your personal collection you just don't need or use anymore? If you do, let us know and we will list them in this monthly e-mail. Provide the information about the book as shown below and send to admin@genealogicalstudies.com.

If you are interested in one of these books, remember they are single copies, therefore, send an e-mail ASAP to the e-mail provided with the entry. The price indicated is the minimum the owner will accept, but if you would like to offer more, the individual with the highest offer will receive the book. Naturally shipping charges will apply. As these charges vary greatly depending on the destination, calculate on an average of $7.50. The owner of the book will provide the exact shipping/handling costs before completing your transaction. Owners of these books have been asked to contact the successful purchaser one week after this posting. ALL negotiation and responsibilities will be between the owner of the book and the prospective purchaser. The National Institute is not responsible for any issues arising from your discussions.


New Free Genealogy Website (like myspace)
http://www.myrootsplace.com 
 The Website Where You Control the Content !
Sent by Mira Smithwick sagacorpus@aol.com
 
Features:

Online Gedcom (similar to OneWorldTree but Maintained and Merged)
Genealogy Links (similar to Cyndi's List but You can add your own Links)
Forums
Chat
Genealogy News Blog
Syndication (Rss Feed)
Mailing Lists
Genealogy Store
Newsletter
Guestbook
Template Chooser (Have your Own Look)

Free Member Features:
Member Profile (similar to MySpace)
Member Photo Album
Member Blogs (Public & Private) (uses MySpace Images!)
Member Guestbook
Member Links Manager
Member Add News
Member Home Pages
Member Groups
Member Private Messaging (PMS)

Other Features: 
Research Services
Hosting Services

Premium & NSCFA Features: 
Gedcom Hosting
Edit NSCFA Gedcom
Web Page Hosting 



Genealogy Blogging - A Brief Guide
http://paperangels.googlepages.com/genealogy_blogging
Google has a blog search engine... http://blogsearch.google.com/

Also, on the right side of this page you will find a few blog directories where you can list your blog and search for others... Sent by Janete Vargas magnaguagno@gmail.com




Check out Recipe Software  http://www.livingcookbook.com/

Highly recommended by Johanna De Soto 
Software that you can put your own recipes in and print out your own cookbook.
[[ Sounds like a wonderful idea for family recipes and a very special family Christmas present.]] 

 

 

Genealogy Library Center accepts donations of Family History stuff 
Sent by Lorraine Hernandez  lmherdz@hotmail.com

A non-profit genealogical library established by Arlene H. Eakle to help you preserve your 
personal manuscript genealogy files and supporting books, maps, and other genealogical 
materials and to make these precious and valuable data available to genealogists who share common genealogy ancestry.

As we get older, our stuff has a kind of primary importance. Our children, even if they have the 
interest, usually lack the space to raise a family and preserve genealogy files too. The Genealogical Library Center, Inc. have bought a large building on Main Street in Tremonton Utah to store, protect, preserve, and make available to the public various genealogical research collection that need a permanent home.

They currently have 6 ½ tons of British Isles  professional family and locality files (Sherwood 
Collection); 3-million entry slip index to British Court documents; 50,000 entry card index to German Church Books; 12 file drawers of  American professional research files including original photographs (Hollingsworth Collection); 5 Virginia databases--rent rolls, 53 family notebooks, marriage records, land ownership maps, and "minutemen" for Culpeper County; Chamberlain Families of America Collection - family notebooks, correspondence files, US census entries and spreadsheets, FGR and Pedigree charts; etc. 

All collections, no matter how big or small are important to preserve. If you have a research collection that needs a permanent home contact: 

Arlene H. Eakle, Genealogy Library Center, Inc., 
56 West Main Street, Suite B,  Tremonton UT 84337. 

Mailing address:  P.O. Box 40, Garland, UT  84312 
800-377-6058   email: researchmyfamilytree@yahoo.com



Changing font size to view internet and emails easily 
Information shared by Tortelita

I just found this out and thought I'd pass this on. It's very useful when trying to read small print (especially in the early hours). If you hold down the Ctrl key on your key board and then turn the small wheel in the middle of your mouse away from you or towards you, the print size will change - it will either get larger or smaller - depending on which way you turn the wheel 
Try it. I did, and It works...what a surprise! Didn't know about this at all! 

Mimi,  Just thought I would add this to the above. The above only works if you have the kind of mouse as described. however, if you hold the Control key down and press the + key the letters will get bigger, also, if you hold the control key and tap the - key the letters will get smaller. This is standard on keyboards, predicated on the type of site you are looking at. Some sites are written so that you cannot change the font size. 

Elvira Prieto  elviraz@elpasonet.net


New Google Search Technologies Make Information Easier to Discover, Organize and Share


MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., May 10, 2006 - Today, Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced new technologies to enhance and improve the search experience. Three new products - Google Co-op, Google Desktop 4, and Google Notebook - advance the state of the art in search by helping users worldwide find and share more relevant information. The products all incorporate new capabilities that leverage user communities, enabling users to either share more information with others or benefit from other users' expertise to improve the accuracy of search results.

The company also introduced Google Trends, a new tool that enables users to examine billions of searches conducted on Google to gain insight into broad search patterns over time. "Google Co-op and the other new services announced today combine the power of Google's technology with the context, knowledge, and unique expertise of individuals," said Jonathan Rosenberg, senior vice
president, Product Management, Google Inc. "As a result, users can find the information they are looking for - no matter how specialized or specific - faster than ever."

Google Co-op Beta
Google Co-op beta is a community where users can contribute their knowledge and expertise to improve Google search for everyone. Organizations, businesses, or individuals can label web pages relevant to their areas of expertise or create specialized links to which user scan subscribe.

Once a user has subscribed to a provider's content, all of that provider's labels and subscribed links are added to the user's search results for relevant queries. These contributions serve as meta
information that helps Google's search algorithms connect users to the most relevant information for their specific query. Users interested in contributing can get started at www.google.com/coop .

For example, a doctor can label web pages related to arthritis, and users who subscribe to that doctor's information will receive options at the top of the results for more specific information such as "treatment," "symptoms," or "for health professionals" when they enter a relevant query.

As a first step, Google has worked with partners to annotate web pages related to health and city guides and to offer dozens of subscribe links to specialized content such as restaurant and movie information.  Going forward, the broader online community will begin building out new topic areas and subscribed links to help improve the way people find and discover information online.

Users can subscribe to content and providers at www.google.com/coop/directory . Google Co-op is available today on all English language Google domains including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

Google Desktop 4 Beta
Also announced today, Google Desktop 4 beta - available in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, and Brazilian Portuguese - offers another way for users to improve their search experience, by personalizing their desktops with the introduction of Google Gadgets. These gadgets are mini-applications that reside on users' desktops and deliver a variety of personalized information such as games, media players, weather and news. Google Desktop can also recommend new
gadgets and can automatically create a personalized homepage for users based on the subjects they frequently search and access.

Google currently has hundreds of gadgets users can add to their desktops and with the new Google Desktop Gadgets API, developers can easily create and share their own gadgets with other users.

Google Desktop 4 also enables users to:
· Access their Google Gadget content and settings from other computers and protect it from computer crashes by saving it online.
· Add favorite gadgets from their personalized Google homepage right onto their desktops.
· Easily access other Google services from their desktop. For example, users can view upcoming birthdays with the orkut.com gadget, see what's popular on Google Video, or access their Google Calendar directly on the desktop.
· Manually re-index their computers or remove deleted files from search results.

Additionally, Google Desktop 4 now offers an option for network administrators to disable Search Across Computers on both the consumer and enterprise versions of the product at the network level by simply blocking access to a specific URL.

Google Desktop 4 will be available in additional languages and include more localized features for users around the world as the product evolves. Additional information on the newest version of Google Desktop is available at http://desktop.google.com .

Google Trends from Google Labs
Available today from Google Labs at www.google.com/trends, Google Trends builds on the Google Zeitgeist to help users find facts and trends related to Google usage around the world. Google Trends enables users to learn how popular a particular search term has been on Google over time and see the relevant news articles that ran on that subject.

"For the first time ever, Google is making it possible to sift through billions of search queries from around the world to see what people are thinking about," said Marissa Mayer, vice president,
Search Products and User Experience, Google Inc.

With Google Trends, users will be able to observe the collective interests of all Google users to gain general insight into topics such as people's preferences on ice cream flavors, American Idol
contestants, or the relative popularity of brands and politicians in specific countries.

Google Notebook from Google Labs
Google Notebook is a simple way for users to save and organize their thoughts when conducting research online. This personal browser tool permits users to clip text, images, and links from the pages they're browsing, save them to an online "notebook" that is accessible from any computer, and share them with others.

Google Notebook is an interactive scratch pad for every website a user visits, offering a single online location to collect web findings without having to leave the browser window. For example, if a user were planning a vacation, she could clip the most relevant materials on the pages she visits and add personal notes to help organize all of her research.

Users can make their Google Notebook public and share the notes they've taken with others. As a result, the time and effort put into their research can be harnessed by the online community as a whole.

Google Notebook are available from Google Labs at www.google.com/notebook .

About Google Inc.
Google's innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google's targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the
Americas, Europe, and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com .

press@google.com 
GooglePress@googlegroups.com



ARCHAEOLOGY

Dental work in Mexico dates back 4,500 years
Peruvian Woman of A.D. 450 Seems to Have Had Two Careers 
Archeologists to Search for Lost Mission

 

Dental work in Mexico dates back 4,500 years
by Randolph E. Schmid 
Associated Press, Jun. 14, 2006
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0614ancient-dental0614.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060615/ap_on_he_me/ancient_dental_work

WASHINGTON - Thousands of years before screen idols began beautifying themselves with cosmetic dentistry, ancient Mexicans were getting ceremonial dentures.

Researchers report that they found a 4,500-year-old burial in Mexico that had the oldest known example of dental work in the Americas.

The upper front teeth of the remains had been ground down so they could be mounted with animal teeth, possibly wolf or panther teeth, for ceremonial purposes, according to researchers led by Tricia Gabany-Guerrero of the University of Connecticut. advertisement 

"It's like he was using the mouth of some other animal in his mouth," explained James Chatters, an archaeologist and paleontologist with AMEC Earth and Environmental Inc. in Seattle and a member of the research team.

Such modifications, typically using beasts of prey, became more common centuries later in the Maya culture, Chatters said in a telephone interview, but this is the earliest example that has been found.

The individual, age 28 to 32, would not have been able to bite with his front teeth but appears to have been well-fed nonetheless, Chatters said. The body indicated he didn't do hard work, perhaps having been an important person in society.

Found in the Michoacan area, the body had been placed on a large rock with another rock on top of it, Chatters said.

"The teeth were filed down so much that their pulp cavities were exposed, leading to an infection," Gabany-Guerrero said in a statement.



A Peruvian Woman of A.D. 450 Seems to Have Had Two Careers 
A mummy of mystery has come to light in Peru.
By John Noble Wilford,  New York Times, May 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/17/world/americas/17
mummy.html?ex=1148616000&en=0ac2d60f3d2690b6&ei=5070&emc=eta1

Sent by John Inclan fromgalveston@yahoo.com
 

Skip to next paragraph Enlarge this Image
Ira Block/National Geographic
A woman buried with a golden bowl on her face was wrapped in mummy cloths and buried with military items, hinting at a role as a ruler. 

She was a woman who died some 1,600 years ago in the heyday of the Moche culture, well before the rise of the Incas. Her imposing tomb suggests someone of high status. Her desiccated remains are covered with red pigment and bear tattoos of patterns and mythological figures.

But the most striking aspect of the discovery, archaeologists said yesterday, is not the offerings of gold and semiprecious stones, or the elaborate wrapping of her body in fine textiles, but the other grave goods. 

She was surrounded by weaving materials and needles, befitting a woman, and 2 ceremonial war clubs and 28 spear throwers — sticks that propel spears with far greater force — items never found before in the burial of a woman of the Moche (pronounced MOH-chay).

Was she a warrior princess, or perhaps a ruler? Possibly. "She is elite, but somewhat of an enigma," said John Verano, a physical anthropologist at Tulane University, who worked with the Peruvian archaeologists who made the discovery last year.

Christopher B. Donnan of the University of California, Los Angeles, was not a member of the research team but inspected the mummy and the tomb soon after the find. "It's among the richest female Moche burials ever found," said Dr. Donnan, an archaeologist of Peruvian culture. "The tomb combines things usually found either exclusively in male or female burials — a real mystery."

The National Geographic Society announced the discovery and is publishing details in its magazine's June issue. The excavations, more than 400 miles northwest of Lima, were supported by the Augusto N. Wiese Foundation of Peru.

The Moche culture flourished in the coastal valleys of northern Peru in the first 700 years A.D. The people were master artisans and built huge adobe pyramids. The woman's tomb was near the summit of a pyramid called Huaca Cao Viejo, a cathedral of the Moche religion.

Dr. Verano's X-ray examination revealed that the mummy was a young adult. Lying near her was the skeleton of another young woman who was apparently sacrificed by strangulation with a hemp rope, which was still around her neck. Such sacrifices were common in Andean cultures.

Radiocarbon analysis of the rope indicated that the burial occurred around A.D. 450. "Perhaps she was a female warrior, or maybe the war clubs and spear throwers were symbols of power that were funeral gifts from men," Dr. Verano said.



Archeologists to Search for Lost Mission
By Elliott Minor, Associated Press Writer, May 23, 2006 
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060523/ap_on_sc/lost_mission

ALBANY, Ga. - Amateur archeologists will get a chance to search this summer for the lost mission of Santa Isabel de Utinahica, built in the wilderness in the 1600s for a lone friar who was dispatched to evangelize among the Indians on the edge of Spain's colonial empire. 

"This was on the frontier," said Dennis Blanton, curator of native American archaeology at Atlanta's Fernbank Museum of Natural History. "It was perched on the edge of the known world in this hisphere. A barefoot Franciscan was dropped alone into alien territory and given his marching orders to convert these Indians and probably gather a certain amount of intelligence."

Fernbank and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources' Historic Preservation Division have teamed up to launch the exploration in June near the rural south Georgia town of Jacksonville, about 160 miles south of Atlanta.

"You'll get a sense of what these friars were dealing with," said Blanton, who will supervise the work. "We want to put people in the crucible and be a part of this educational experience."

The program is intended to give adults and high school and college students an opportunity to take part in an excavation and to heighten appreciation for the state's history and archaeological treasures. The amateurs will be guided by professional archeologists.

"This really is the perfect example of how archaeology contributes," Blanton said. "If we want to understand the situation on the ground in any detail, we've got to go move some earth and that's what we want to do."

The site is in a Telfair County forest in an area known as "the forks," where the Ocmulgee and Oconee rivers converge to form the Altamaha River. Based on historical accounts and American Indian artifacts, there's no doubt there was a mission in the area, one of the most remote of several dozen missions set up by the Spanish in northern Florida and southern Georgia, Blanton said.

The mission was named Utinahica after the Indians that lived in the area, Blanton said. They were ancestors to the well-known Creek Indians.

Archeologists have already surveyed the area using remote sensing devices and plan to check it further with ground penetrating radar, he said.

Spanish artifacts have already been recovered at three sites and those will be targeted first, Blanton said.

"We want to set a good model for what ought to be done on these places," he said. "We want people to come away with an appreciation of how it's done well. It'll be thoughtful and systematic. By the end of the summer, we'll be targeting places that look particularly interesting."

Blanton has hired two assistants to help with the program, which is expected to be offered again during the summer of 2007. Teachers who participate can get continuing education credits.

"My strongest personal interest is to get people in middle and south Georgia deeply involved," he said. "But we've got people coming from as far away as Oklahoma. It's really appealed to a lot of folks."

Most Georgians know about the role of the English and Gen. James Oglethorpe, who arrived with a band of settlers in 1733 to establish Savannah and the Georgia colony, but they know little about the role of the Spanish, who had a mission on St. Catherines Island south of Savannah that was active from about 1575 to 1680, Blanton said.

"There's nearly 200 years of prior European history that had a huge bearing on the later history we attribute to the English," Blanton said. "What we're trying to do is give people a healthy reminder of this longer history, which is also pretty interesting history. It's almost like reading fiction."


 

 

MISCELLANEOUS

Life in the 1500'S 

Sent by Orlando Lozano

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500's:

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married. Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the ! privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water." Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and off the roof. Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs." There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence. The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying "dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until when you opened the door it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway. Hence the saying a "thresh hold." (Getting quite an education, aren't you?) In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew ha! and food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, " Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old." Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off It was a sign of wealth that a man could "bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat." Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous. Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or "upper crust." Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a "wake." England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a "bone-house" and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realize d they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the g round and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the "graveyard shift") to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be "saved by the bell" or was considered a "dead ringer." And that's the truth... Now, whoever said that History was boring ! ! ! Educate someone...Share these facts with a friend 

 

 

 

END

                12/30/2009 04:49 PM