Somos Primos

 September  2007
Editor: Mimi Lozano ©2000-7

Dedicated to Hispanic Heritage and Diversity Issues
 Society of Hispanic Historical and Ancestral Research

Cartoonist, Sergio Hernandez

Articles concerning the issue of  
PBS and Ken Burns' *pseudodocumentary, THE WAR,
are scattered throughout this issue. 
For a chronology and weekly updates, go to www.DefendTheHonor.org
*pseudo, a Greek prefix signifying false or spurious.

I see so much violence between the Latino Gangs: Nortenos and Surenos. Have you ever thought about posting your web or donating articles to the Prisons and Jails. This might help in reducing the Latino violence if these young people believed they were primos or somewhat related in one way or another?

How do you think the word brother came about between blacks? They had to find some connection to fight against discrimination, so they banded together and call themselves brothers. Primos is an excellent idea and a start. Juan Bustos JBustos44@aol.com

Editor:  Dear Juan . . .  I think it would be a great idea . . . to promote the use of primos as a unifying term.. I too think it would help.  One of the events in my life that motivated me to do what I am doing, happened many years ago.  I was reading the morning newspaper about the deaths of  two Latinos in a confrontation between local Santa Ana gangs. When I saw the names of the two young Latinos that had killed each other, it hit me. I just started crying. . . I had both those surnames. All I could think of was . . . "they are killing family, they are killing their own primos.  If they only knew maybe it would make a difference."

I made  an appointment to meet with the director of  our local jail. I took over a computer that had information about the origin of Spanish surnames. The young people at the Orange County Fair loved to see that information. The Director thought it was a good idea, but after a week called me to pick up the computer. He said, the prison system was not in favor of giving prisoners access to the use of a computer.  

With computer capacities now of blocking off specific websites, it might be the time to develop the concept. If any reader is interested in developing a program of family history research in prisons, please let me.  mimilozano@aol.com  

UNITED STATES

Symposium, The Spanish Contributions to the Independence of the United States: Between Reform and Revolution (1763-1848)

This is only one aspect of a whole series of supporting activities and lectures. The Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery will also open the exhibition, "Legacy: Spain and the United States in the Age of Independence, 1763-1848," on September 27, 2007. 

A relationship often overlooked, this exhibition examines the lasting contributions made by Spain to the U.S. during the Revolutionary War era and into the early, formative years of the American Republic.

  Felix Colon de Larriategui by Francisco Goya, oil on canvas, 1794, 
  Indianapolis Museum of Art; Bequest Mr./Mrs. Herman C. Krannert 

For more information, click.

USS New York
It was built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center. 

The ship's motto: "Never Forget"

To cite this article:
Robert D. Putnam (2007)
Harvard University and University of Manchester
E-mail: robert_putnam@harvard.edu
Sent by Dr. Refugio Rochin rochin@cruzio.com

World War II Daily newscasts are day-by-day audio-visual accounts of important events occurring in every day of the Second World War. Stories are pulled from the news sources of the day-newspapers, magazines, newsreels-as is, without offering interpretation. Thus, you get the news as it was reported to your parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, with the benefit of pictures and 
the latest digital technology to enhance the sound they received. The goal is to  give you the war in a way you've never experienced it.  World War II Daily newscasts are archived. If you'd like to watch a previously podcast show, click on the date of the newscast you'd like to view from the calendar below and it will play.

Tributes section of World War II Daily. This is the place to recognize your father, grandfather, husband, uncle or any other special someone who served in the war with a lasting tribute that expresses your deep gratitude and respect. It's a different kind of gift for a birthday or anniversary (or to remember a lost loved one), but you don't need a special occasion to honor your vet. Any day is a good one to say thank you to and salute a veteran in your family for his-or her-selfless contributions to this country. To post a tribute, fill out the screen form and, if you wish, upload a photograph, scanned documents or other visuals you would like to include in your vet's commemoration. Once you submit everything, you will receive a special commemorative certificate that can be gift wrapped and presented to your vet or treasured as a keepsake. The cost for the tribute and certificate is $29.95, a small price to forever honor a true hero who has given so much to this country. You will also be supporting World War II Daily in its mission to preserve the history of the war by using the latest media and technology to appeal to a new generation. 

Sent by Steve Rubin

Dr. Garcia received this nation’s highest civilian award, the Medal of Freedom from President Ronald Reagan for his civil rights leadership, long before Martin Luther King’s rise to civil rights fame. The documentary also includes Mexico’s only entry into a foreign war, via Squadron 201. Esquadron 201 and its 300 pilots and support personnel who trained and participated in combat operations with the Americans in the Philippines, during World War II.

Houston, TX (PRWEB) June 1, 2006 -- Dr. Hector P. Garcia, who was America’s first civil rights leader and founder of the American GI Forum, the largest Hispanic Veteran’s Organization in the nation, is the principal in a new documentary.

The documentary reviews Dr. Garcia’s military history and his involvement in human rights for migrant workers in South Texas and the inhumane treatment of Hispanic Veterans after World War II. Hispanics are the most decorated of any ethnic group in American history and the documentary demonstrates the government’s poor treatment of returning Hispanic veterans after WWII.

Dr. Garcia received this nation’s highest civilian award, the Medal of Freedom from President Ronald Reagan for his civil rights leadership, long before Martin Luther King’s rise to civil rights fame. He was an alternate Ambassador to the United Nations and has been recognized for his leadership and services to this nation on many occasions. As a medical doctor, he treated migrant and poor Hispanics, often receiving nothing in return, except their undying gratitude.

The documentary also includes Mexico’s only entry into a foreign war, via Squadron 201. Esquadron 201 and its 300 pilots and support personnel who trained and participated in combat operations with the Americans in the Philippines, during World War II. Interviews with pilots and support personnel are included of this famous and heroic group.  For more information Click.

Felix Longoria was killed in the Philippines during WWII and the funeral home in his hometown of Three Rivers, Texas would not allow his wake to be held at the funeral home, because the "whites would not like it". The documentary shows Dr. Garcia’s and the American GI Forum actions to make sure he would be given all rights deserving of an American hero, who gave his life for this country.

The documentary, shown recently to AGIF members in Fort Worth, Texas received a standing ovation and was heralded as "a documentary every Hispanic should see." This DVD or VHS can be obtained from the production company, Digital 2000, Inc., for only $19.95, plus S/H and tax if you are a Texas resident. For more information, go to www.militarydocumentaries.com

Dr. Hector P. Garcia Papers, Special Collections & Archives,
Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi, Bell Library

When Jose Antonio Garcia, my grandfather, was growing up, his father had indoctrinated him with the code. In turn, Jose Antonio Garcia, a no nonsense strict disciplinarian, had reared the Garcia siblings by the Garcia code.

Living by the code helped my father survive youth in a hostile society, service in the military during World War II, and as an activist for civil rights. My father was the       second born male in the Garcia hierarchy. 

Dr. Hector P. Garcia and daughter 
Daisy Wanda Garcia before the 
Governor Mark White Inauguration Ball.
Jan 1983

The "Garcia Style" earned Papa mixed reviews from the community. Dr. Hector was passionate about the injustices against Mexican Americans. Yet many Anglo Americans misconstrued this passion as agitation and would discount the issue with the comment, "Hector is getting agitated again."

Ignacio Garcia in his book "In Relentless Pursuit of Justice" interviewed friends and foes alike about their impressions of Dr. Hector. The consensus of those interviewed was that they either hated or loved my father. There was no in-between, but all respected him. Garcia wrote about my father, "Dr. Hector made it difficult to disagree with him for friends and foes alike."

My father was a very complex person and hard to understand for those not operating on the same spiritual vibration. He never reacted to personal attacks so it seemed he was oblivious to criticisms. Few understood Papa protected his sensitive inner core by developing a thick shell in order to withstand the constant attacks and threats. My father chose to focus on where he was going because he believed that complaining would serve no purpose. Thus, he was able to accomplish much in his life by focusing on the solution and not the problem. My father was very spiritual. Many remarked how much wealth he could have accumulated if he had not spent so much on charitable works, how he lived a modest life. They did not understand my father did not measure himself by his possessions but by his passion, which was how he could help his fellow man.

Papa rarely spoke about his early years in Mercedes, TX, except to say he hitchhiked 30 miles to school every day, played baseball and won a typing contest. Papa enjoyed his military service especially the travels to foreign countries. He enjoyed learning about different cultures and languages. Dr. Cleo and other relatives would fill in the details.

My father believed in the Mexican tradition of the firstborn following in his footsteps. So, I was the child who traveled with my father and became involved in the American G.I. Forum and the world of politics. Since I was close to my father, many would ask what my father was really like. I would respond that I was as close to my father as he would allow.

My Papa’s successes in the arena of Hispanic Civil Rights did not happen by chance but by careful planning and setting long-range goals. Dr. Hector was a master strategist. He would analyze the players and the field, evaluate the situation and then plan a course of action. By the time Papa went through his analysis of a situation he was always certain that he chose the right course of action.

When I experienced problems, Dr. Hector took me under his wing and taught me the Garcia style of strategy. He taught me how to assess a situation. After all the preliminary evaluation and planning was complete, he asked me if I had "checked and double checked, Garcia style." He also cautioned "if things don’t go your way don’t bother to cry because it won’t do any good." The Garcia style of strategy served me well in my career and social interactions.

Dr. Hector was meticulous about details and expected the same standards from those presenting him with information. As expected when I would relay information to my father the inevitable question would follow. Papa would ask, "Did you check and double check Garcia style."* One of Dr. Hector’s practices was to carry a notepad and pen to write down reminders. Willie Davila recalled that Dr. Hector would insist that everyone in his company carry a notepad and pencil to write down his instructions. Willie Davila recalled, "Doctor would really get on us if we did not have a notepad."

My father was a leader and he wanted things done "Garcia style." To the casual observer the "Garcia style" appeared to be a simplistic set of rules. Tita Garcia, daughter of J.A. and my cousin conferred with me about some of the "Garcia style" rules and we produced this list.

1. "Never use pronouns." There is too much room for error.
2. "Keep your eyes and feet together when walking." Stay focused.
3. "Check and double-check details, Garcia style," which meant never take anything for granted or at face value. *
4. "Always address a woman by Senorita even if she has five children standing around her." The point was not to make assumptions.

1. "If after you plan and don’t get your way, don’t cry because it won’t help." Move on from a disappointment.
2. "If you speak without an organization behind you, people will think you are a fool." This meant wearing your G.I. Forum cap so that the public would recognize you had an organization behind you.
3. "Let it go." Focus on the solution and not the problem.
4. "Do the best you can and don’t worry about the outcome."
5. "Look beyond yourself and at the broader picture."
6. "Always try to change things to make them better."
7. "Actions speak louder than words."
8. "Look at the gray areas of life and think before making a decision."
9. "Get as much education as possible."

• "Do what you feel was right, regardless of the consequences."
• "Show no sign of weakness," when in hostile environment.
• "Always look for the reason and the excuse." Things may not be what they seem.
• Don’t look for sleeves on a vest.

My father changed the destiny of Mexican Americans in this country. Today, I see the fruits of my Papa’s labor in the outcry of Mexican Americans against the Ken Burns documentary. In the past we would have remained silent because of fears of reprisals. We would depend on the intervention of Anglo Americans to correct injustices because we were powerless and had no voice. But two Mexican American U.S. Senators demanded that Burns include the experiences of Mexican American veterans in his World War II documentary. Wow! We have come a long way since the time when a funeral home director could refuse the use of the facilities because a family was Mexican American. Today we hold elected offices, are educated and hold jobs with influence and visibility. We are no longer invisible but a vital force in our country. We earned our place thanks to Dr. Hector Garcia, our service to our country and valor on the battlefield. We will not be overlooked again!

*"Garcia Style" was certain procedures or methodology to follow when verifying information.

In 2000, President Bill Clinton honored Cruz Reynoso with a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor, for his lifelong devotion to public service. Reynoso has also been honored with the Hispanic Heritage Foundation’s Hispanic Heritage Award in Education and the American Bar Association’s Robert J. Kutak and Spirit of Excellence Awards, for his significant contributions toward increased cooperation between legal education, the practicing bar, and the judiciary.

Letters of tribute are being compiled to be presented to Professor Reynoso at the event. If you would like to submit a letter, please send to Jean Korinke at 400 Mrak Hall Drive, Davis, CA 95616 or contact at jfkorinke@ucdavis.edu or 530-752-1067 for a Tribute Form. Information: Julie Burgal at jburgal@ucdavis.edu or 530-752-0574. 

Sent by Dorinda Moreno dorindamoreno@comcast.net

'This tour is the type of opportunity we came to this country for,' says the mother of one teen taking the seven-college trip. 
By Jennifer Delson, Times Staff Writer, July 31, 2007

From subsidized apartments in gritty Orange County neighborhoods, 40 high school students began preparations to board a charter bus before dawn Monday, packing with them dreams of a college education.

With pillow in hand, Cesar Saucedo of Westminster prepares to leave on a bus with other low-income students from Orange County for a tour of Northern California colleges.   (Photo: Karen Tapia-Anderson LAT)

By 7 a.m. the Latino students had hopped on what organizers called the "Barrio to Boardroom Bus" in Santa Ana for a week-long tour of college campuses in Northern California.

Many of the teens had never stayed in a hotel or traveled outside Southern California. Thirty-five of the teenagers hoped to be the first in their families to graduate college.

Although pleased that their children had the opportunity to travel and scout colleges, the Spanish-speaking Mexican immigrant parents from Buena Park, Garden Grove and Huntington Beach were anxious about having their families separated. Many showed up two hours before the bus was scheduled to leave and began saying goodbyes, most through tears.

"This is huge for these families," said Yesenia Velez, board chairwoman of Orange County Community Housing Corp. Owner of 225 subsidized apartments, the nonprofit offers teen residents college counseling and, for the first time, an out-of-town campus tour. "Getting away from their neighborhoods is a big deal. For many of these students, this is the biggest trip they have haver taken. Even Disneyland would be big."

Mariel Pantoja, 16, a Buena Park student who hopes to be a police detective, woke at 4:30 a.m. so she would have time to go to her uncle's house to say goodbye, pack glue that will keep hair extensions in place, and to wipe her mother's tears.

"This is an opportunity we can't provide her," said her mother, Noelia Pantoja, 35, who came to the United States 17 years ago. "She really wants to go to college, and this program makes it seem possible."

Monica Cardenas, who heads the corporation's counseling program, conceived the bus tour with the hope of showing the teens "that there is a whole world out there."

Throughout the year, Cardenas and others have provided the students with information about colleges and taken them to local campuses. Cardenas, 24, knows firsthand about the barriers they face. Her father completed second grade; she graduated from Cal State Fullerton.

"There's no doubt that without this program, many of them would stray," she said.

Statistics show the odds are often stacked against the children of Latino immigrants. Nationally, one in five won't graduate from high school, said Richard Fry, a researcher with the Pew Hispanic Center.

Among Latinos nationwide, 47% do not attend college, 23% go to a four-year school, 25% go to community college and 5% get some form of postsecondary education, he said.

Students on the bus tour said their parents — who speak little English and haven't attended college — aren't the best career guides.  "That doesn't mean you don't want to go. I do," said Buena Park High School student Arturo Monje, 16, who hopes to be an engineer. "I want a better future for me and for my children."

Monje and other students will visit seven colleges in Northern California, in addition to seeing Hearst Castle and Monterey Bay. Accompanied by 10 counselors who work for the corporation, the students will visit Cal State Monterey Bay, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, San Francisco State, San Jose State, UC Davis and Stanford. They will stay in college dorms and hotel rooms, a first for most in the group. The tour is sponsored by numerous private foundations.

Buena Park High School student Christian Velador, 13, is looking forward to the free buffets at each campus, while his neighbor Michael Penaloza, 17, is worried he will miss his mother's mole and menudo.

After loading their luggage, 20 cases of water, 15 cases of Gatorade, 50 bags of Cheetos and several dozen doughnuts, the students filed onto the bus, waving to red-eyed parents.

"It is wonderful that they have this chance to see and learn," said Evangelina Flores, whose 17-year-old son Pablo Palominos is on the tour.

"I've only gotten my kids as far as the zoo, the science center and the Natural History Museum. This tour is the type of opportunity we came to this country for."

Latinos battle for more recognition in war film
By Lawrence Aaron
The Record, North Jersey Media Group, Columnist, Sunday, August 5, 2007
http://www.northjersey.com/print.php?qstr=ZmdiZWw3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eT
cxNzczOTgmeXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk5


NO WINNER has been declared in the war between Ken Burns and the Latino community over his seven-part epic called "The War."  Leaving out Latino contributions to World War II was bad enough. Adding a sprinkle of interviews to the finished product doesn't even begin to bolster the story enough to appease the critics.

Rep. Albio Sires, D-West New York, added his voice to the outraged tone in a Congressional Hispanic Caucus letter criticizing the PBS decision to air the World War II documentary that ignores the contribution of at least half a million Latinos.

Burns made a reluctant about-face, adding on-camera interviews to the ends of three episodes. Two of the three new veterans who tell their stories are Latino and one is Native American.

A spokesman for Burns' film, Joe DePlasco, says the 15-hour film is unchanged except for the interviews, which added half an hour. DePlasco carefully emphasized that the interviews appear before the credits roll at the end of the episodes.

Burns' solution is only OK: He can do better. No one could realistically ask him to completely reedit the series before it airs in September. But records and images were available for a deeper look at Latinos' contribution to the war effort.

History overlooks Latinos: History in general overlooks Latino military men, says Noemi Figueroa Soulet, who found great archival footage for "The Borinqueneers," a film about Puerto Rico's 65th Infantry Regiment.

"This is another example -- like the Tuskegee airmen, the Japanese-American Nisei unit, the Buffalo Soldiers -- of minority military contributions. I just wanted to add to the Latino chapter of this history." Her film airs this week on NJN and WNET-13 television.

Instead of doing just enough to silence the critics, Burns could take the high road and work with aspiring Latino film students to create an hour-long film exploring the missing pieces. The Latino community shouldn't have to work this hard to get recognition. Twelve of them got the Congressional Medal of Honor as soldiers.

The controversy started when a University of Texas journalism professor, Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, found holes in Burns' concept while working on an oral history project.

Rivas-Rodriguez is steaming over his attempt to simply throw them a bone. Here, gnaw on this and stop barking. It's not about just tacking on a few interviews, she said, pointing to a richer heritage of Latino contributions to World War II -- military and non-military.

Allies supplied her with anecdotes like the one about a worker named Alvarado, who was deported in the 1940s. He got his draft notice in Mexico, fought at Normandy, became a German prisoner of war, and ended up coming back to father 14 kids in America. Ten of them joined the military.

Rivas-Rodriguez' own recollections are rich in detail specific to Latin culture. Burns' project ignores civilian contributions like her mother's.  "They worked in factories. They were Rosita the Riveter," she said. "My mother was in San Antonio at Kelly Air Force Base ... and they worked on some of the instruments that were used on the airplanes.

"The Latino experience is deep and rich," Rivas-Rodriguez said. "The reason this issue has really resonated with Latinos across the board is it isn't only a Mexican-American issue, it is very much a Puerto Rican issue, a Cuban-American -- every ethnicity that's considered Latino has some experience with this and feels very strongly about it."

Suspicion: Mobilizing the troops here in the East, Angelo Falcón, president and founder of the National Institute for Latino Policy, feels that PBS and Burns' people haven't been dealing in good faith. 

"There's a lot of suspicion," said Falcón. "He gets a lot of money for his proposals full of talk about diversity....We're not trying to change his point of view; we're trying to get him to be inclusive."

Falcón feels like he's under attack, fending off accusations that his side is trying to censor Burns' material. The balance of power seems to shift with each skirmish. The winner has yet to be determined.

Lawrence Aaron is a Record columnist. Contact him at aaron@northjersey.com . Send comments about this column to letterstotheeditor@northjersey.com

On Monday, September 10, 2007 like an army on its way to battle, hundreds of thousands of Black Men in the City of Philadelphia will wake their children, make them breakfast, check their book bags, and then take them to school on the first day of school. This scene will be played out at thousands of schools across America and other parts of the world. Last year, about 300,000 men from 127 cities participated in the 2006 Million Father March. This year an estimated 500,000 men from 200 cities are expected to participate. The 2007 Million Father March provides an escort of safety, support and encouragement to children of all ages.  For more information about the national movement, other participating cities, and/or how your city may participate, please contact Black Star Project at 773-285-9600 or visit www.millionfathermarch.org.   Sent by Diane Sears bsi-international@earthlink.net

Largely obscured by the rancorous debate surrounding U.S. immigration policy is the emergence of a trend that should be a cause of concern to all Latino communities: the explosion of the number of Latinos in prison.

There were 55,000 Latinos doing prison time in the United States in 1985. That figure has increased by more than 400 percent in 20 years, a substantially steeper rate of increase than for whites or blacks. 

Currently, there are more than 450,000 Latinos in U.S. prisons or jails. With one-in-six Latino males born today expected to spend some time in prison during their lives, the future portends devastating consequences for Latino communities.

This incarceration data stands in stark contrast to a growing body of research suggesting that Latinos, who now make up more than one of every five persons held behind bars, are less likely than other groups to commit crime and that the immigration of the 1990s may have been partially responsible for the historic declines in crime.

Causes for rising Latino incarceration are complex, but an important explanatory factor is the "war on drugs." Despite using drugs at a rate proportionate to their share in the general population, Latinos are twice as likely as whites to be sentenced to a state prison on a drug charge. Nearly one in four Latinos sitting in prison has been convicted of a drug offense. Differential patterns in law enforcement -- where the police choose to pursue the war on drugs -- play a greater role in determining who is arrested and sentenced to prison than general trends in drug use.

Add to that the collateral consequences from a felony conviction. These can include barriers to employment, denial of certain licenses, lack of access to education and housing aid, loss of voting rights, and, in some cases, deportation.

Such "invisible punishments" create substantial obstacles to a successful re-entry to the community and increase the likelihood of recidivism. Despite this spate of distressing news, there are efforts that can be undertaken to stem the tide of disproportionate Latino incarceration.

First, lawmakers should heed the growing chorus of public officials, including high-ranking criminal justice practitioners, and revisit the wisdom of our current drug control strategy. This "lock 'em up" approach has resulted in a half-million people behind bars.

It takes a toll on communities of color while doing little to address the underlying causes of drug abuse. Investing in proven prevention and treatment strategies is far more productive than warehousing people. It's a much more effective tool to enhance public safety.

Secondly, state legislatures should expand upon the reforms implemented in 22 states since 2004 and reconsider such punitive sentencing provisions as mandatory minimums that expose individuals to punishments grossly disproportionate to the conduct for which they have been charged.

Restoring discretion to sentencing judges would permit full consideration of the circumstances of the offense. This could prevent the reoccurrence of cases like that of first-time offender Weldon Angelos, who, because of inflexible sentencing enhancements, was sentenced to prison for 55 years.

His offense? Three marijuana sales while possessing a weapon he never used. The criminal justice system does not exist in a vacuum. Crime and its associated costs generally reflect a failure to provide equal access to resources such as education, employment, housing and health care. Inequalities in the criminal justice system extend far beyond policing, courts and corrections.

True reform can be achieved only when we seek to bring a broad range of community stakeholders to the table, and invest not merely in police and prisons but in neighborhoods and people.

King is a policy analyst with The Sentencing Project. E-mail him at rking@sentencingproject.org. Arboleda is associate director, criminal justice policy, with the National Council of La Raza. E-mail her at aarboleda@nclr.org.

Sent by Howard Shorr   howardshorr@aol.com

I prefer to donate again when Mr. Burns and PBS create a documentary which is not exclusionary and inaccurate. According to Mr. Burns, Latinos/as don't dance, play music, baseball or defend their country which is absurd as is the exclusion of us (Latinos/as ) in all his pseudo documentary films.

Accordingly, I choose not to donate again to membership in PBS until it is more representative of all
the people who have supported it with our tax dollars to date.

Respectfully yours, Richard Esquivel

For more information contact: Dan Arellano 
darellano@austin.rr.com  512-826-7569

BY DAVID BAUDER
AP TELEVISION WRITER

NEW YORK -- Call it a guilt trip or a cultural awakening, but some Latino filmmakers feel that the controversy over Ken Burns' upcoming World War II documentary has unexpectedly opened doors for their work at PBS.

The maker of "Brown Is the New Green: George Lopez and the American Dream," which airs Sept. 12, said he believed PBS was anxious to air his film before Burns' because "they had egg on their face."

The Lopez film is one of five Latino projects that PBS is airing in the weeks before the start of Burns' "The War" on Sept. 23. Advocates were angered that the Burns epic did not feature the contributions of Latino soldiers, and their protest this spring forced PBS' best-known documentarian to add such material to the film.

The public broadcasting service in August distributed "The Borinqueneers," a documentary about the primarily Puerto Rican 65th Infantry Regiment in the Korean War. In September, PBS is airing a film about World War II veteran Hector P. Garcia, who fought for better treatment of Mexican-Americans; and separate "American Masters" segments on painter Diego Rivera and the artist José Clemente Orozco.

Include the Sept. 8 edition of the concert series "Austin City Limits" featuring Los Lonely Boys, and that makes it six.

"Now is the time," said Hector Galan, a veteran filmmaker who earned the contract to produce new material for Burns' film. "I think we should seize the moment when it is there. The timing is great."

PBS spokeswoman Lea Sloan said it was unfair to credit the Burns controversy for all of this activity, and noted that PBS already airs more Latino-oriented programming than other mainstream networks. But she did note that the episode caused PBS to work harder to reach out to this rapidly growing part of the population.

The Lopez film talks about how corporate efforts to profit from the Latino market shapes the perception of it. The notion of a Latino or Hispanic people was created by the U.S. government, the film says. The people it defines had simply identified themselves from their nation of origin, like Mexican-Americans.

Lopez talks about his efforts to integrate his work into American society, and how far people have come from the dimwitted comic caricature "José Jiménez" in the 1960s.

To a certain degree, "Brown Is the New Green" feels like a primer on Latino society for older white Americans -- a big part of PBS' audience.

The documentary was already in the works for PBS before issues were raised about "The War," said Phillip Rodriguez, the filmmaker. Another one of his projects, about Latino influence on politics, was just green-lit by PBS and he is trying to get backing for two more.

"I'm glad for the opportunity for an audience and I'm glad for an opportunity to educate Americans about an increasingly important segment of society," Rodriguez said. "I guess somebody had to get in their face to take this group seriously."

Another filmmaker, Mario Barrera, has been working for four years compiling an oral history of Latino World War II soldiers. Since the Burns issue surfaced, the Los Angeles PBS station KCET-TV has agreed to air his documentary, he said.

Barrera said he had hoped to convince more stations to sign up. But since the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is offering individual PBS stations grants for companion pieces to "The War," many are choosing to make their own.

"I think the individual PBS stations are more interested in the money," he said.

PBS' Sloan said the grants range between $1,000 and $10,000 and are given to help the individual stations create content unique to their markets.

She noted that PBS was praised three years ago for the series "American Family: Journey of Dreams," which focused on a Latino family. PBS is also close to hiring a diversity director, a position that was approved two years ago, who will highlight programming efforts of interest to different ethnic groups.

"We certainly have paid very special attention to Latino audiences, in part because we feel PBS hasn't been sufficiently recognized for the effort we have put in," she said. "It's made us redouble our efforts."

Both Galan and filmmaker Paul Espinosa said it has often been a struggle in the past to get PBS' attention for films about their community. Espinosa has a 25-year relationship with PBS, for whom he made a series in the 1990s about the U.S.-Mexican War.

He is currently making a film about a 19th-century figure from New Mexico, Padre Martínez, and believes PBS would be a logical destination.

"There's the potential that (the Burns controversy) will have a positive effect," Espinosa said. "I think it's caused a lot of soul-searching on the part of a lot of decision-makers."

Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, a University of Texas professor who spearheaded the drive to change Burns' film, said she hoped the new attention paid to these projects would not be short-term.

"It's not about political correctness," she said. "It's about historical inclusion."

Editor: This article was published all over the U.S. and sent to me by dozens of readers. In my local Orange County, CA Register, it was included in the Life, Wine & Food section, which was kind of a surprise, but at least it was there. 

Ken Burns  book signing in the Library of Congress, September 11th.
Ken Burns will address the Press Club luncheon September 19th . 

Submit questions online:
http://press.org/calendar/caldbevent.cfm?eventid=12872
National Press Club: http://press.org/index.cfm?thetype=other
529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor - Washington, DC 20045

20. Just Do Something!

Editor:  Click to information on some activities that I have been involved with in Orange County.  It is not too late to still put something together for Hispanic Heritage Month which can also counteract the impact of THE WAR. 

Dear Latino Movie Makers:

I want to alert you to an interesting and potentially gripping story from Guadalupe, California, a small agricultural community in northern Santa Barbara County.

During the past semester while on sabbatical leave from my professorship at San Diego Mesa College I conducted an original research project on the lives of the Vietnam veterans from this town during and since their war days. Out of this would come some of the most compelling stories of personal suffering and triumph that might be suitable for a cinematic treatment.

I invite you to visit my website that I constructed based on the documentary evidence both photographic and testimonial that I collected during my leave. The web site is at http://classroom.sdmesa.edu/mornelas  (do not use the www prefix).

In this website you will find about 18 oral testimonials transcribed, photos of many of the men and selected pages from the book I am in the process of completing. I have completed most of my writing and now my wife, a graphic designer, will be designing the book for publication in the near future. The proposed title is: The Sons of Guadalupe: Voices of the Vietnam Generation and Their Town. Both my wife and I are donating all profits and royalties from the sale of this book to the Guadalupe Chapter of the Vietnam Veterans of America.

Please keep in mind that in addition to the materials on the website I have many more resources that might be used in a filmic treatment.  Please contact me at your convenience as I am seriously interested in the filmic potential of this project. My thanks for your time.

Mike Ornelas
Professor of Chicano Studies
San Diego Mesa College
San Diego, CA.
619-267-7464

Latinos feted in war film 
Local veterans interviewed for new PBS special
http://www.sgvtribune.com/news/ci_6715129
By Tania Chatila Staff Writer 
gmariscal@ucsd.edu

Sorpresa TV Network, currently seeks youth-produced film and videos that showcase Hispanic culture and identity for our film competition (Sorpresa Youth Film Competition), a part of the 2007 Hamptons International Film Festival.  Sorpresa is the nation’s first Hispanic children’s television network and digital community. The five finalist films (which can be in either English or Spanish) will not only be shown at the festival, but also aired on our network throughout Hispanic Heritage Month.

For more information, go to www.sorpresatv.com or write: 
6125 Airport Freeway Fort Worth, TX 76117].

I recently finished a short documentary called "On Being Here: Reflections on Mexican America" (runtime 9 min). Some of you were interviewed for that and I'm grateful for all the support you gave to the project. On Being Here was screened August 31st at the Fine Arts Theater in Denton Texas as part of the Thin Line Film Festival. 

I'm already started working on my second film, which will be about Quinceañera parties and rituals. Since I was looking for girls who might already want to get taped I thought as a catch I'd offer free video of your Quinceañeras in exchange for total access to the Quinceañera preparations for the party.  In this way I can get footage, characters and a story for my documentary while the Quinceañera gets videography for free. I'm still looking for girls so here's the ad I've been posting in my search for Quinceañeras. If any of you is interested or know someone who might, please let them know.

Libia Lazcano
libialazcano@yahoo.com 
Sent by Dorinda Moreno

Mendez v. Westminster School District

A World War II-era legal case in which a group of civic-minded parents in California successfully sued to end segregation based on national origin in their schools, the Mendez et al. v. Westminster School District of Orange County et al. court case will be remembered on a U.S. postage stamp during its 60th anniversary.

As immigrants who came to the United States when they were children, Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez dreamed the American dream. He was born in Mexico and she was from Puerto Rico, but they met and married in California. So it came as an insult when, in 1944, the elementary school in Westminster, a farm community south of Los Angeles where Gonzalo and Felicitas made their home, closed its doors to their three children.

Segregated public schools were common at that time. In California and throughout the Southwest, children of Mexican descent attended specially designated ‘Mexican schools,’ frequently in inferior facilities. Discriminatory practices were also common in movie theaters, where Mexican patrons were required to sit in the balcony, and at public swimming pools, where they were welcome only on designated ‘Mexican days.’

After his children were turned away from the Westminster School in the autumn of 1944, Gonzalo Mendez went to discuss the situation with school officials. The school board offered his children ‘special admission’ — but on March 2, 1945, Gonzalo Mendez and several other Hispanic parents sued four school districts (Westminster, Santa Ana, Garden Grove, and El Modena) on behalf of some 5,000 children. Their groundbreaking lawsuit became known as Mendez v. Westminster.

Arguing for the plaintiffs in court, attorney David Marcus attacked the prevailing notion of ‘separate but equal,’ a rationalization that it was acceptable to offer separate public facilities based on national origin or other criteria so long as the facilities were comparable. Marcus argued that they were not comparable, presenting testimony from parents and students as well as sociologists and educators, who testified that ‘separate but equal’ treatment made children feel inferior and prevented them from entering mainstream American culture.

The plaintiffs argued successfully that such practices on the part of California schools violated their Constitutional rights. On February 18, 1946, Federal District Judge Paul J. McCormick ruled that merely providing the same textbooks, courses, and comparable facilities in separate schools doesn’t give students equal protection under the law, and that social equality is ‘a paramount requisite’ in America’s public school system.

The school districts appealed, but the decision was upheld when the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled on April 14, 1947, that the schools could not segregate on the basis of national origin. The opinion was specifically decided on the more narrow ground of whether state law allowed segregation based upon Mexican descent. The Court held that no statutes existed allowing this but that such discrimination had been carried out ‘under color or pretense’ of law. On June 14, 1947, a statute allowing segregated schools for Asians and Indians was repealed (effective September 19) by California governor Earl Warren, who later was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Mendez decision set an important if indirect legal precedent for cases in other states and at the national level. In 1954, Warren was chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court when it issued its ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, declaring segregation illegal nationwide. Earlier, Thurgood Marshall was one of the authors of an amicus brief submitted by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the Mendez case. That brief later served as a model for the argument used in Brown v. Board of Education. The American Civil Liberties Union, the American Jewish Congress, and the Japanese American Citizens League were also among those who filed amicus briefs in the Mendez case.

In 1998 the Santa Ana School Board named a new school in honor of Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez. An exhibit commemorating the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History included details on Mendez v. Westminster as well. In 2004, the Mendez family was honored at the White House for playing an important part in the history of American civil rights.

http://www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/2007stamps/
http://www.mendezvwestminster.com 
Sent by Rafael Ojeda

Whereas, Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez changed the history of the State of California and the nation's education system for the better and

Whereas, their efforts were critical to laying the legal groundwork needed by Thurgood Marshall in his landmark Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka KS and

Whereas, the Mendez family's actions led to the breakdown of then legal racial discrimination,"Separate but Equal", existing within the State of California and the nation, resulting in schools opening to all races, creeds and colors, and

Whereas, personal sacrifice and determination were shared by the entire Mendez family including Gonzalo Mendez Jr, Sylvia Mendez and Geronimo Mendez and

Whereas, Sixty years ago while our WWII Latina and Latino veterans were fighting for freedom overseas, the Mendez were fighting in the home front for civil and equal rights and neither one should ever be forgotten and

NOW THEREFORE, be it resolved that the State of Washington joins the State of California and the nation in the unveiling of the United State Postal Service's stamp in honor of the Mendez and recognizes their contribution to the education of children in the State of California as well as all children though out our nation.


On September 14, the Santa Ana Unified School District will hold a formal stamp unveiling event at the Gonzalo Felicitas Mendez Fundamental Intermediate School in  Santa Ana. 
Click for more information.

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month

THE BRONZE SCREEN
100 Years of the Latino Image in American Cinema
A film by Susan Racho, Nancy De Los Santos, Alberto Dominguez

Written by Nancy De Los Santos & Susan Racho USA, 90'

With: Dolores del Rio, Anthony Quinn, Jose Ferrer, Benicio Del Toro, Ricardo Montalban, Rita Moreno, Edward James Olmos, Cesar Romero, Raquel Welch, Jennifer Lopez, Ruben Blades, Salma Hayek, John Leguizamo, Jimmy Smits, Cheech Marin, along with directors, Greg Nava, Robert Rodriguez, Luis Valdez, cinematographers Gabriel Figueroa, John Alonzo... and many others.

THE BRONZE SCREEN is a remarkable, entertaining and largely untold story of the history of Latinos in the Hollywood motion picture industry. Inspiring as well as informing, it is a triumph and celebration of this rich, thriving culture that has made a major contribution to the art of motion pictures.

Telling a complex story, full of contradictions, and rich in irony, both comic and tragic, THE BRONZE SCREEN shows the struggle of many gifted artists to bring a measure of reality to their screen images and transcend crudely cliched movie roles. These roles often determined how other Americans and the world viewed them, reinforced mainstream prejudices and contributed to a poor self-image among Latino audiences - particularly those depicted in the 'greaser films' of the early 1900's.

Other screen villains would later come along - the urban gangster, Nazis and Japanese in World War II, the Arab terrorist - but Hollywood has never completely abandoned its stereotype of the violent, crazy Latino. THE BRONZE SCREEN uses extensive film footage, much of it never seen by contemporary audiences, to track the progression of this distorted screen image, from the early silent movies to contemporary urban gang movies. It examines stereotypes such as the lazy Mexican, the Latin Lover and his female counterpart, the Dark Lady.

THE BRONZE SCREEN explores how American and world history influenced the portrayal of Latinos on the movie screen, as well as how it eventually opened opportunities for Latinos in the film industry, and foreshadowed their increased prominence as actors, writers, and directors in today's cinema.

Latinos have made movie history. THE BRONZE SCREEN brings this to life as it deconstructs the history and prejudices, honors the past, illuminates the present, and opens a window on the future.

It is a celebration of great artists who ultimately have gained creative independence and industry stature, and tell their stories in their own voices... including the continuous fight against these typecasts.

Farmers Insurance and Workplace Hollywood will donate DVD copies of the HBO documentary, "The Bronze Screen: 100 Years of the Latino Image in Hollywood" compliments of Farmers Insurance, to 501 (c)(3) non-profit organizations, middle schools and high schools who will use the movie to promote self-esteem among Latino youth and also inspire them to pursue higher education and/or a career in the film industry.

On company or school letterhead, please tell us how you will use the movie to empower Latino youth. If you are representing a non-profit organization, please include your 501 (c)(3) letter verifying your status. With your request send a padded mailer envelope with $1.60 worth of postage to:

Workplace Hollywood
Attn: Bronze Screen Offer, 6121
Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood CA, 90038.

Allow at least 3 weeks for fulfillment. Be sure to visit www.bronzescreen.net to download the free Teachers Guide "Latinos in the Media," for details on the Historia essay and documentary film competition, and www.workplacehollywood.org  for training and career opportunities in the film industry. http://www.bronzescreen.com/film.php 

To obtain a copy, contact the producer, Nancy De Los Santos merida@sbcglobal.net
The DVD and CD are being packaged at a special price for Hispanic Heritage Month 
Click on the CD cover above
to purchase online
through PayPal, always safe,
fast and secure.
Please allow 2-3 weeks
for delivery--thank you! 
Only $25.00 plus shipping. 
CA residents: 8.25% tax
will be added to every order. 
OR CALL 1-800.340.5577
Operators will take your
order information.


CD includes the following song titles: 

1. El Chicano (2:55) 1977
2. Los Chucos Suaves (3:04) 1949
3. Nunca Jamas (2:37) written 1954 / recorded 1965
4. Cancion Mexicana (3:13) written 1937 / recorded 1991
5. Mambito (2:31) 1948
6. There’s No Tortillas (3:37) 1981 Parody Lyric by Lalo Guerrero
7. Vamos a Bailar (2:37) 1949
8. Muy Sabroso Blues (2:54) 1949
9. Manzanita (2:37) 1948
10. La Pachuquilla (2:55) 1947
11. La Minifalda de Reynalda (2:45) 1965
12. Marijuana Boogie (2:59) 1949
13. Hey Mabel (2:25) 1956
14. El Guiri Guiri (2:12) 1962
15. Barrio Viejo (4:28) written 1990 / recorded 1991
16. No Chicanos On TV (2:20) written1988 / recorded 1991
17. El Hombre Gordo (2:55) 1949
18. Tin Marin de do Pingue (2:25) 1956
19. El Borlote (2:22) 1965
20. Ya Supe Lupe (2:39) 1956
21. La Pollera Rota (2:12) 1968
22. The Ballad of Lalo Guerrero (3:23) 1992 

Hi, Mimi... I am a teacher in the Chula Vista Elementary School District. Recently, mutual acquaintances (Armando and Carol Ramos) have suggested that I contact you regarding the book that I have written. You can find out more about it by visiting our website: http://www.mariachiforgringos.com  Scroll down to the lower left of our Home Page and click on the Newsletters to see some of the recent successes the book has enjoyed. In addition, it was recently the subject of an article published in Pam Berger's InfoSearcher titled: "Music: a Powerful Teaching Tool for Second Language Learners." Ms. Berger is a past President of the American Librarians Association.I'd be happy to send you a copy of the article if you would like to read it. Please let me know how my book (and its author) can be of help to Somos Primos. Sincerely, Gil Sperry Author "Mariachi for Gringos"

The book explores mariachi in a clear, concise fashion. Although written originally, and primarily, for the non-Hispanic reader, it has been embraced by ALL who are looking for: * more knowledge of mariachi history * answers to their FAQs * comprehension of the 'stories' told by each song In addition, a poll of the leading mariachi experts in both Mexico and the United States has produced a consensus ranked list of the 50 Most Requested Songs for you to use, sing, or play. Included are: 1. the sheet music, with chords 2. the Spanish lyrics 3. a line-by-line English translation So... who will benefit from using this valuable little book? And how can you maximize your benefits from its utilization? First, click on each heading on the left side of this page to 'show and tell' all you need to know About The Book. If you are interested in a quantity purchase, go to the right side and investigate the appropriate Wholesale Promotions.

Once you've completed your search, you'll be ready to utilize Mariachi for Gringos. Keep in mind that Webster defines utilize as "the means to participate and profit from a particular endeavor."  Gil Sperry  gilsperry@yahoo.com

Editor:  Gil was kind enough to send a copy of Mariachi for Gringos.  I have really enjoyed refreshing my memory and relearning some of the lyrics.  In the 1940s, Besame Mucho was very popular, both in Spanish and English.  The Spanish words were very familiar, but the English translation was not.

Click to Las Mañanitas.

Rafael Ojeda suggests inviting astronauts to come to your child's school.
If you click the names of the two Latino astronauts you can get their Bios. 
http://oeop.larc.nasa.gov/hep/hep-astronauts.html
http://www.nasa.gov/about/speakers/AN_SB2_Landing.html

The Arts in Latin America  1492-1820, Los Angeles
Cantinflas Lives Up to His Name
Maria Felix Estate Auction Nets $7.3 million
Revolutionary Ideal: Transforming Community thru Oral History
On Speaking Spanish

For more information visit http://www.lacma.org

Los Angeles County Museum of Art
5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036, (323) 857-6000
E-mail, lacma@lacma.org  
Sent by Virginia Sanchez  virginia.sanchez@comcast.net

Cantinflas Lives Up to His Name

By Meg James, Times Staff Writer, Los Angeles Times, April 11, 2001

The late comedian's nonsensical speech is now part of the Spanish language. And it aptly describes the financial mess he left behind.

When the Mexican comedian Cantinflas shunned the film companies of his homeland and signed with Columbia Pictures in 1946, he changed the course of Latin American cinema and lifted himself to international fame.

He starred with Frank Sinatra and Debbie Reynolds, won two Golden Globe Awards, including one for his role in the 1956 best picture, "Around the World in 80 Days," all based on a simple character whose roundabout phrases and meaningless speeches confounded the wealthy and powerful. 

Cantinflas, who died eight years ago, is still performing handsomely for Hollywood. Last year, Columbia raked in an estimated $4 million in foreign distribution of the movies that Cantinflas, whose real name was Mario Moreno Reyes, made from the 1940s to the early 1980s.

But his tangled financial legacy is as confounding as any of his skits and with as many oddball characters. The studio, a subsidiary of Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Cantinflas' son are locked in a court fight in Los Angeles for control of the most popular and profitable of those films. Columbia claims that it bought the rights to 26 films four decades ago, the result of a convoluted series of Cantinflas transactions through offshore bank accounts and a British holding company.

The case, which is scheduled to resume in Los Angeles this month, has stretched out for eight years and fills 47 federal court volumes. It involves missing documents, shifting alliances and death-bed jockeying by those closest to Cantinflas in his final days.

"We're fighting for our rights," said Cantinflas' 40-year-old son, Mario Moreno Ivanova, on a recent trip to Los Angeles from his home in Mexico City. "I don't want to see Columbia, this foreign company, get the rights or become the owner of a Mexican national treasure. These films were my father's treasures--that he left me and that he left Mexico."

It might be simple to solve if only Cantinflas could say what he intended. Or would it? Reyes--the son of a postal worker and who unsuccessfully tried to sneak across the border into California when he was a youth--got his start in the 1930s in the dusty tent shows, the carpas, of Mexico City.

At first he tried to imitate Al Jolson by smearing his face with black paint. But the audience howled once he embraced his own Latin heritage as a lowly peladito, or slum dweller, a tiny mustache at the ends of his lip, a jaunty cap over his mussed black hair, a grubby vest and a rope for a belt, which sometimes failed to keep his pants up.

Cantinflas endeared himself to the masses by satirizing those with the most influence in Mexico: police and politicians. People identified with the struggles of the winsome ragamuffin and delighted in his talent. Cantinflas could talk his way out of any scrape with speech so florid--but so empty. "Everyone went to see Cantinflas talking nonsense," said film historian Gustavo Garcia. "He was famous for talking a lot and saying nothing. It's an art--a Mexican art."

The word "Cantinflas" has no meaning. But Cantinflas had such an effect on the Spanish-speaking world that his name became recognized by linguists.

The noun cantinflada is now defined in Spanish dictionaries as a long-winded, meaningless speech, and the verb cantinflear means to talk too much but say too little.

"To understand Cantinflas is to understand what happened in Mexico during the last century," said Gregorio Luke, a film expert nd executive director of the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach. "Cantinflas, the character, is a unique consequence of the history of Mexico."

David Maciel, head of the Chicano studies department at Cal State Dominguez Hills, said Cantinflas was "the single most important person in opening up Mexico to Hollywood. And then Hollywood just overran the Mexico cinemas."

Luke and others say Cantinflas' best films were some of his earliest, those made in the 1940s when he was poking fun at the social elite of Mexico. His wit was so foxy, his facial expressions so fanciful and his movements so fluid. "He had this tremendous talent to make you laugh in many different ways," Luke said. "It was Woody Allen meets Charlie Chaplin in Mexico."

Cantinflas' Legal Intent Is Unclear In Los Angeles, after eight years and more than 950 motions filed, the federal court case could be called, well, cantinflada.

"We've been waiting for months and years and years and months just to get this case tried, just to get this case started," lamented Senior U.S. District Judge William J. Rea last month. The 81-year-old judge then smiled weakly and shook his lowered head. He chortled hoarsely, prompting the lawyers to wonder aloud whether he was laughing or sobbing.

Cantinflas' financial transactions in the late 1950s and 1960s could provoke either. The comedian and his movie producer-business partner set up several corporations and accounts in the Grand Cayman Islands and tiny Liechtenstein.

They moved the money from Cantinflas' pictures through those accounts-- presumably free from Mexican taxation. No one is exactly sure what Cantinflas was up to. "You and I would both like to meet [Cantinflas] in the netherworld or the next world and ask him," said Virgil Mungy, a Chicago attorney who once represented Cantinflas but now is battling the comic's son in a separate case in Mexico.

Columbia's attorneys contend in court papers that the studio secured ownership of 26 films through some of those financial maneuvers in 1959, 1960 and 1968. Columbia says Cantinflas relinquished the rights to those films to get money to produce new pictures.

Studio officials say they have fulfilled their decades-old commitment to pay royalties to the actor and then to his tangled estate. Nearly $2 million awaits the family in an escrow account--money that won't be dispersed until the case is resolved and Mexican courts settle a lingering dispute over whether Cantinflas' son or his nephew inherited the films.

But there's a glitch in Columbia's case. Neither Cantinflas nor his producer ever signed the pivotal March 1960 document that Columbia says completed the transfer of ownership of the films to the studio's British subsidiary. Cantinflas' name appears nowhere on the convoluted three-page document.

In fact, the document contains no signatures. "The most important paper, the one that allegedly grants ownership to Columbia, is the one that doesn't have Cantinflas' signature," said Moreno's Pasadena attorney, Timothy C. Riley. That omission is reminiscent of Cantinflas' signature phrase and the title of his critically acclaimed 1940 film "Ahi esta el detalle" ("That's the Detail").
 
Riley believes the transactions were nothing more than a vehicle to secure short-term financing for new Cantinflas films. Later documents indicate that the loan was paid off within three years, lifting the title cloud from the films, Riley says. Besides, he argues, Cantinflas and his shrewd Russian producer, Jacques Gelman, never would have given away the rights to Cantinflas' most critically
acclaimed films for 810,000 British pounds.

"That doesn't make any sense," Riley said. Riley contends that Columbia is trying to rewrite history. He's upset that Columbia gained access to the files of Cantinflas' now-deceased lawyer in New York. And he's still miffed that records were missing from some Columbia files he was allowed to
inspect and that Columbia lawyers submitted, in the Mexican court case, revoked copyright certificates to show ownership of the films.

"You have to be sharp to protect yourself against these studio lawyers," Riley told Judge Rea during a March 8 court hearing. "It turns out, in fact, that some documents were missing," Columbia's attorney, Henry Tashman, told the judge that day. "We don't know why; we don't know how. But this is really quite irrelevant."

But relevance is in the eye of the beholder. Riley worries that Columbia's team of  attorneys-- ncluding one who served as a law clerk to Rea 10 years ago--will overwhelm the judge, who was first appointed to the bench by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan.

Cantinflas' son points to what he calls another flaw in Columbia's arguments. Moreno maintains that he--not the studio--has possession of the original film negatives. He said he keeps the negatives in canisters in a tiled, climate-controlled room in Mexico City that his father had built to store the
films. A laboratory technician comes to the house to dust and douse chemicals on the negatives to keep them fresh.

"My father always talked about Columbia as being the distributor of the films. He never, ever said the films had been sold," Moreno said. "If my father saw this, he would die again--of anger."

His Social Satire Was Lost on U.S. "Down with the Curtain" ("Abajo el telon") was Cantinflas' 25th feature film, released in 1954. By that time, Cantinflas was making pictures in Hollywood and starting to lose touch with his Mexican audience.

By the end of his career, in the 1970s and early 1980s, the comic who rose to prominence castigating the power structure was churning out pictures that were little more than propaganda pieces for the Mexican government, Garcia said.
  
"The real conflict of Cantinflas was his fight against his own character," Garcia said. "He always wanted to be in Hollywood. But unfortunately, his humor was extremely local. In a way, he was betraying not only Cantinflas, but the audience who loved that character."

His 1960 picture, "Pepe," with Shirley Jones, a song by Judy Garland and a cast that included Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Zsa Zsa Gabor, bombed.

Cantinflas' double-entendres in Spanish and social satire were not easily translated for an American audience. So the script, critics said, was reduced to tired racial stereotypes. "Pepe" would end Cantinflas' career in Hollywood, but by then he had achieved unrivaled status in Mexico and had begun hobnobbing with American celebrities. 

He helped arrange the wedding in Mexico of Elizabeth Taylor to her third husband, Michael Todd, producer of "Around the World in 80 Days," complete with a fireworks display that spelled out the couple's initials.

Cantinflas played host to President Johnson at his expansive ranch outside Mexico City. Johnson sent a U.S. government plane to Mexico when Cantinflas' Russian-born wife was dying of cancer to carry her to Houston for medical treatment.

And nearly 30 years later, when Cantinflas died, thousands braved a Mexico City downpour to file by and touch his closed casket, which lay in state. The presidents of Mexico, Peru and El Salvador attended his funeral.

But the years and weeks leading to his death were a behind-the-scenes scramble for control of the films or at least a chunk of the profits.

His longtime female companion in Texas sued in 1989 and obtained a $26-million settlement, which the octogenarian actor reduced two years later by agreeing to give her half of his share of the royalties from the pictures through 2000.

Less than two months before he died and in the midst of chemotherapy, Cantinflas signed an agreement that granted Columbia an additional 11 years of distribution rights for his final eight films.
That same day, he inked a deal to give his nephew the royalties from the films--a contract that was invalidated by Mexican courts. Still, the nephew renewed the lawsuit against Cantinflas' son and Columbia Pictures. That case is still pending.

"My father was the center and everyone lived off him," Moreno said. "Columbia knows that Cantinflas' films are a gold ine--even though they say that people aren't interested any more."
Days before his father's death, Moreno said, the family bickered in a Houston hospital over whether Cantinflas would die there or at home in Mexico City, which he did. Moreno says that fight was really about whether U.S. or Mexican law would rule in court--an issue still unresolved.

So "cantinflasque." Just as the epitaph that Cantinflas himself offered from his deathbed eight years ago: "It would appear that he's gone, but it's (not) certain." Copyright 2001

MARIA FELIX ESTATE AUCTION NETS $7.3 MILLION

October 24-28
THE REVOLUTIONARY IDEAL: 
Transforming Community through Oral History
Oral History Association's Annual meeting to be held in Oakland.

This is what I've been working on for the past ten months or so. I'm Co-Chair, with Horacio Roque Ramirez, of the Program Committee. The organization and the conference represent a very interesting mix of academic and community scholars and activists. There is a strong thread for educators, including workshops on oral history in the classroom, and new technologies- web and teleconferencing.

This year especially we are focusing on oral history as a form of democratized research that can illuminate individual, family, organizational, community, regional, national, and global history, culture, and politics. We especially invite local and regional community-based projects that are either using oral history or might benefit from this method for documenting their work. This year will include an unprecedented proportion of international presenters, from China, Japan, Latin America, the Middle East, Eastern and Western Europe, and the South Pacific.

Please take a look at the program  http://alpha.dickinson.edu/oha/org_am_oakland.html . I think you'll be excited about it. Please spread the word to colleagues, friends, family, students. Please forward this message to lists you belong to.

Thanks. Hope to see you in Oakland in October!
Norma Smith  nsmith@igc.org
The Edge of Each Other's Battles Project
5245 College Ave #424
Oakland, CA 94618
(510) 465-2094

Earning a Texas Education

This summer, young Texans across our state are struggling to find ways to finance their college education. Since 2003, when the Texas Legislature abdicated its tuition-setting responsibility over to the non-electorally accountable Boards of Regents, there has been a corresponding spike in the price of higher education (an average campus increase of 28%). All too often, it is the children of middle class families, who earn too much to qualify for grants but not enough to keep up with the spiraling price increases, who are squeezed out of the opportunity. The "golden handcuffs" of an excessive student loan burden will prevent many of these talented young Texans from going into the fulfilling but lesser-paying professions they aspire to, and block the route back to their hometowns in favor of higher salaries in the largest cities.

Source: Jesús Nieto, Associate Professor nieto@mail.sdsu.edu
School of Teacher Education
San Diego State University, Office: North Education 81
Office phone number: (619) 594-6125 nieto@mail.sdsu.edu

"Learn as if you were going to live forever.
 Live as if you were going to die tomorrow." - 
Mahatma Gandhi
Sent by Paul Trejo

Wanted: Latinos to fill federal jobs
Theirs is the only ethnic minority underrepresented in the government workforce. 

The U.S. is using media and other methods to try to change that.By Claudia Lauer
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, August 27, 2007  http://www.latimes.com


WASHINGTON — At 20, Rudy Rodas is looking at a bright future. The bilingual business major, who expects to graduate with honors from George Washington University next May, is the kind of candidate whom prospective employers fight over.

The federal government hopes to win his services with the help of a new campaign launched to solve an old problem: Unlike African Americans, Asian Americans and Native Americans, Latinos are still underrepresented in the federal workforce, according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

"It's something that's been an issue for decades," said office spokesman Ken Oliver-Mendez. "What's really new is we're using more media and broadening our approach toward recruitment. We've been actively going to Hispanic media outlets. We've been working with nonprofits trying to let the Hispanic population know about the federal government as an employer."

But unless this program succeeds where others like it have failed, the end result may be no more than a fractional gain: Despite the government's efforts, Latino representation in the federal workforce rose just two-tenths of a percentage point from 2005 to 2006.

Historically, minorities have found federal employment a road to opportunity. The proportions of African Americans, Asian Americans and Native Americans working for the government all equal or exceed the corresponding percentages in the civilian workforce.

Latinos, on the other hand, make up 7.6% of the federal workforce, compared with 12.8% of the civilian labor force. But Latinos have made significant gains in federal internship programs at the agencies where they are most underrepresented. Because internships tend to increase the likelihood of a job offer, an increase in the number of Latino employees might be expected -- though it doesn't seem to be working that way.

Latinos held more than 20% of the internships at the Justice Department in 2006, but 8.8% of the full-time jobs. According to Office of Personnel Management statistics, similar discrepancies exist at NASA, the Agriculture Department and the Department of the Army.

Efforts are being made to improve those numbers. The Hispanic Assn. of Colleges and Universities, or HACU, and the National Society of Hispanic MBAs sponsor government internships. A recent survey of the HACU-sponsored interns showed that 80% of those who graduated after their internships were offered full-time federal jobs, and 38% accepted.

"I would suggest that 38% is a tremendous number. That's a lot higher rate than I was expecting, considering the other numbers involved," said William Gil, the association's assistant vice president of collegiate programs and federal relations. "I think people know that there's a federal government out there and that they have jobs, but they don't know how to apply for those jobs. That's where the big chasm is. The internships are a way to eliminate that chasm."

HACU sponsors networking lunches for Latino campus groups and brings past interns to speak to students. Internship information is also distributed through the tight-knit national Latino fraternity system.

One of those fraternity pitches worked on Rodas, an intern since June at the Commerce Department. He has done so well that he has been asked to stay through the fall. "When I first started the internship, they told us that they were looking to hire people with the baby boomers retiring and they were looking at internships like HACU's to fill in these numbers," he said. "It's obvious to me that they're targeting multicultural students. . . . It's encouraging."

Rodas' parents emigrated legally from Guatemala before he was born. His father has two cleaning jobs and sends money to relatives in Guatemala; his mother is an employee at a lamp factory in Trenton, N.J.

"I was raised to understand that doing public service is important, and I think that's what working for the government lets you do," Rodas said.

Though the concept of public service as a higher calling might be enough to get Rodas and other Latinos to try federal employment, more is required to persuade them to stay. Jared Bernstein, a senior labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research center allied with the labor movement, laid out several reasons why federal employment was attractive.

"The federal sector is the most unionized sector in the economy," he said. "The impact of that is often a better compensation package, higher wages and better benefits -- especially for younger workers and non- college graduates."  He said that one lure for graduates was a slow job-market recovery in the private sector.

"By some measures, younger workers have been doing pretty badly in this recovery period," he said. "There's been an unusual stagnation in employment rates [and] young workers' employment rates have fallen pretty sharply."

By contrast, the federal government is expecting a retirement wave. The Office of Personnel Management estimates that 40% of the nearly 1.6 million federal employees will retire in the next decade and that 60% of federal employees will be eligible for retirement.

Still, Bernstein said, even with fewer available jobs in the private sector, the draw of signing bonuses, fast-paced work and the "glitz" factor of some employment opportunities could be too much to compete with.

Government officials say they're confident their initiatives will make a difference. The personnel management office aired its first TV campaign in the last year, and Oliver-Mendez and others have appeared on Spanish-language television stations to promote the federal jobs website, www.usajobs.gov.

Brent A. Wilkes, national executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said that his organization appreciated the efforts by the Office of Personnel Management and other agencies but that they may not be the answer to improving Latino hiring and retention.

"One of the problems is agencies have got a tendency to replicate the current demographics of the federal workforce, and the people who are doing the hiring aren't really Latinos," he said.

"The only way African Americans were able to get a fair representation, to get where they are today, is because desegregation was mandated and there were consequences put into effect for not having that fair representation."

He added: "There are no consequences for not having fair Hispanic representation. Something needs to be mandated to make that happen."  But such a mandate isn't likely, said Antonio San Martin, senior policy counsel at the Office of Personnel Management.

"The federal government is a merit-based employer," he said. "Giving preference based on race . . . would be a violation of law and the Constitution."     < Editor:  What?

claudia.lauer@latimes.com
Sent by Viola Sadler, Carlos Munoz, Ph.D. and Howard Shorr

Los Angeles - The Tomás Rivera Policy Institute (TRPI), based at the School of Policy, Planning, and Development at the University of Southern California, today released its detailed findings and strategies compiled from a host of the nation's top corporate, financial and Hispanic community-oriented companies and organizations in a new report sponsored by Merrill Lynch. The information was presented at a public conference on April 12-13, 2007, at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. The income and spending power of the Latino middle class is at its crest because this community is typically 5-10 years younger than the average U.S. population. Most business strategies mischaracterize or currently focus on the first-generation or recently-arrived Latino immigrant; however, the majority of U.S. Latinos are not recent immigrants, and are established in (or quickly moving into) the American middle class.

"Our presenters have provided exceptional insight and realistic focus to many facets of the Latino community residing in the United States. The Hispanic middle class will be a significant driving force over the next few decades in American society," said Harry Pachon, Ph.D., president and CEO of The Tomás Rivera Policy Institute. "Based on the research and recommendations of this group and the latest growth projections released by Los Angeles County, there is little doubt about the opportunity and potential that now exists among middle class and affluent Latinos. With the right political and business will, the economic promise of this market is ready to expand exponentially."

"At Merrill Lynch, we believe creating wealth in the Hispanic community is a social and economic issue of national importance," said Melissa Scauri, Vice President, Multicultural Marketing, Merrill Lynch Global Private Client group. "With that goal in mind, we are proud to partner with the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute to disseminate the insights and strategies found in this report. We feel everyone can benefit from gaining a better understanding of the growing affluence of the Latino community."

One of the key themes to come out of the conference's research and business findings is that the acculturation of Latinos - the blending of their cultural beliefs and traditions with American values - is at the core of the ambitions driving the growing ranks of the Latino affluent and middle classes America. The Los Angeles County Department of Finance has projected that Latinos will make up one of every three residents in the California over the next four decades. These new estimates give important prescience to some of the many findings captured in the TRPI summary report beyond basic infrastructure needs and include:

• The American financial system of banking is not adequately set up, or more accurately "adjusting" to meet the needs of Latino consumers evolving into this new middle class. For example, banks could:

- Offer "standardized" checking and savings accounts with lower minimum balance thresholds ($10 vs. $100) and provide debit card only transactions to help keep their costs low.

- Offer more cash-based banking services to such as check cashing and remittances, money orders, bill pay services and pre-paid phone cards at no or lower cost to attract and retain more Latino banking relationships.

• Home ownership could be dramatically impacted if the lending industry were to rethink current credit scoring methodologies and tracking non-traditional financial activities that Latinos prefer to use. Automation techniques currently used to profile and score individuals are not available or set up to track other potential financial activities such as cash or non- traditional banking relationships.

These are but a few of the key details assembled by TRPI in its summary report from the "Increasing Wealth in The Latino Community" conference. In addition, the summary contains considerable research and clarification of many of the "myths" that are commonly attached to Latino demographics. "Dispelling commonly-held misconceptions and uninformed views of who and what the economic force of the Latino community truly represents is a critical first step in addressing their needs and achieving common ground on actions that can be taken today in order to build on their growing prosperity," said Dr. Pachon.

Among some of the conference's key policy recommendations and business strategies are the following:

• Reevaluate policies to regulate business practices that foster predatory activity, including payday lenders, refund anticipation lenders, and unscrupulous check cashers. They can also include businesses that charge minorities or low-income buyers more, such as those applying for home or automobile loans.
• Engage mainstream financial institutions in providing affordable products and services. This could include checking accounts with affordable monthly fees, no minimum balance, free ATM transactions, bill payment and remittance services, and electronic benefit transfers so government checks go directly into the customer's account. It also could include access to investment products and retirement accounts.
• Encourage the creation of a new kind of financial infrastructure, one that would begin at the city or municipal level and would focus on the provision of financial services to local citizens.
• Address the question of Latino economic progress by planting the financial seeds for future generations. The goal is to learn about the psychological, social, behavioral, and economic effects of Saving for Education, Entrepreneurship, and Down payment (SEED) accounts; how to engage working-poor families; which public programs are most likely to garner support; and which systems deliver accounts efficiently to millions of children.
• Strengthen support of portal neighborhoods. These neighborhoods are generally the first place of arrival for immigrants and act as a kind of way station where newcomers can develop the necessary skills to integrate into the larger community.

Click here to access the full report.

Information regarding this free conference summary and its contents can be found on the web by visiting www.trpi.org. Information about the conference is also available on the website or by contacting:

The Tomás Rivera Policy Institute (TRPI)
University of Southern California
School of Policy, Planning and Development
650 Childs Way, RGL 102
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0626
(213) 821-5615

About TRPI

Founded in 1985, the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute (TRPI) advances informed policy on key issues affecting Latino communities through objective and timely research contributing to the betterment of the nation. TRPI is an affiliated research unit of the University of Southern California School of Policy, Planning, and Development and is associated with the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University.  

Sent by : jramos.swkr@comcast.net (Juan Ramos)

Source: Mariela Nunez- Janes Nunezjan@pacs.unt.edu 
Sent by beto@unt.edu 

Anti-Spanish Legends

Sent by  Joe Trujillo
Source: John S. Brown, John S. John.Brown@Equistarchem.com

Gus Hernandez appeared in Federal Court yesterday and pled guilty to all counts of impersonating a military officer, wearing the uniform of a military officer and wearing the Silver Star, Bronze Star and Purple Heart without authorization and without being awarded those medals. He also admitted that he did not receive a battlefield commission and that his award certificates are bogus. He admitted that his highest rank was a PFC in the Army.

Gus was sentenced to two years probation and a fine of $270.00. The U.S. attorney asked for a $2,000 fine and community service but the judge was lenient because of Gus' age, apparent ill health and his being destitute. He was unable to pay the fine and was given one week to pay.

The FBI is shipping Gus's confiscated uniform, medals and ribbons to their Washington D.C. office where it will be included in an FBI traveling display and will be taken across the country for exhibit. The FBI hopes to deter others from similar illegal acts.

The judge opined that the shame and humiliation was sufficient to deter Gus from repeating what he has done.

Jerry L. Shultz  JLShultz@aol.com

El Soldado Razo

Me voy de soldado razo
voy ingresar a las filas
por los valientes muchachos
que dejan madres queridas
que dejan novias llorando
llorando su despedida.

Mi Virgen Guadalupana
proteger a mi bandera
y cuando me halle en campaña
Muy lejos ya de mi tierra
les probaré que mi raza
sabe morir dondequiera.

Mañana salgo temprano
a desmontar nuevo día
y aquí va otro mexicano
que va a jugarse la vida
que se despide cantando
¡Qué viva la patria mía!

Virgen morena
mi madre te encomiendo
cuídala que es muy buena
cuídala mientras vuelvo.

Virgen bendita
mándale tu Consuelo
nunca jamás permitas
que la robe el cielo

Sent by Rafael Ojeda rsnojeda@aol.com 

Most of us in the Military Intelligence community were born in the United States where our citizenship is automatic. However, when do we choose to accept the responsibility for our citizenship by taking on the duties of defending our freedom and democratic process? Perhaps it occurs when we travel overseas and witness the alternatives to democracy, or when we read intelligence reports or hear survivor accounts of repression and strife in other countries. Do we choose to become actively involved when we compare our national ethos with that of others and conclude that the freedoms we experience in the United States outweigh the flaws?

Alfred Rascon was always involved. He was always "American by choice." Born in Chihuahua, Mexico, he immigrated with his family to Oxnard, California, where he attended school and grew up thinking he was an American. After graduating from high school in 1963, Rascon joined the Army.

It was only when he enlisted that Alfred Rascon discovered that because he was born in Mexico, he was not an American citizen. Even so, the U.S. Army accepted him, trained him as airborne and a combat medic, and assigned him to 1st Battalion, 503d Parachute Infantry Regiment, 173d Airborne Brigade.

In May 1965, Alfred Rascon went to Vietnam to serve with the Reconnaissance Platoon of the 1st Battalion, 1 73d Airborne Brigade, 503d PIR. He was first wounded in September 1965 on a mission with his Reconnaissance Platoon. Refusing evacuation, he treated five injured soldiers.

In March 1966, as part of Operation SILVER CITY, the 173d Brigade was clearing enemy forces from the Song Be River area in Long Khanh Province. On 16 March, Specialist Four Rascon's reconnaissance platoon was called to assist the 2d Battalion, which had been surrounded by a North Vietnamese Army (NVA) regiment. Advancing through the jungle, the platoon was attacked and suffered a number of casualties including SP4 Rascon. Though shot in the hip and wounded by grenade fragments, he immediately treated his fellow soldiers; then, under grenade attack, he used his own body as a shield to protect two soldiers. Both times he suffered additional injuries. Later in the engagement, despite guidance to pull back and in the face of advancing NVA soldiers, he recovered the platoon's M-60 machine gun and ammunition, which allowed his platoon to hold its position. SP4 Rascon then returned to care for the wounded and had to be forcibly dragged to the medical evacuation area by his fellow soldiers after the firefight. Rascon's wounds were so severe, he was given the last rites but he eventually recovered.

After Vietnam, he earned a college degree and became a naturalized United States citizen. In 1969, he applied for Officer Candidate School and earned a commission as an Infantry officer. He graduated from the Special Forces Qualification Course and the Defense Language Institute (German). He had follow-on ordersforan airborne unit in Germany but the Army inexplicably diverted him at the last minute to the 470th MI Group in Panama. There he served as the Assistant Adjutant, an Area Intelligence Officer, and later commanded a Special Forces Ml Detachment assigned to the 470th. As a result of this assignment, he received orders transferring him to Military Intelligence Branch.

In 1972, Rascon volunteered to return to Vietnam. This time, he served as an advisor to an Ml unit of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN).

From 1974 to 1984, he served in the 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized), attended the Military Intelligence Officer Advanced Course at Fort Huachuca, then returned to the 470th MI Group as an intelligence liaison officer and Detachment A Commander. He left the Army in 1984, having most honorably fulfilled his responsibilities as a U.S. citizen.

Alfred Rascon, however, was not finished serving his country. He dedicated the next ten years to developing intelligence resources for the Justice Department, starting in the Intelligence Division of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). He later transferred, accepting a promotion, and established the first intelligence unit at the United States National Central Bureau (USNCB), the U.S. office of the International Police Organization (INTERPOL). His next promotion moved him into the Intelligence Division of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) where he helped establish the Intelligence and Analysis Branch. He next served as the Senior Special Agent in Charge of Overseas Operations for the Anti-Smuggling Branch of the INS. Later, he returned to the Intelligence Division and served as the Senior Intelligence Operations Officer. In 1995, he became the Inspector General of the Selective Service, a position he held until his retirement in 2001.

This time, it was the United States which was not done with Alfred Rascon. Three months into his retirement, President George W. Bush asked him to accept a Political Appointee-Senate (PAS) confirmed position. His name went forward to the Senate Armed Services Committee with those of the proposed Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. He was immediately confirmed without opposition. Now the Honorable Alfred Rascon, he continues to serve the nation as the Director of the Selective Service, with a rank equivalency of Lieutenant General.

This is the seventh part of the Hispanic Medal of Honor series which consists of the short biographies of Korean War recipients Eugene Arnold Obregon and Joseph C. Rodriguez, I will start with the Vietnam War recipients, John P. Baca and Roy P. Benavidez..

The Korean War ended when a cease fire was declared on July 27, 1953. It was the first war in which the United States could not declare a complete victory. After President Harry S. Truman relieved General Douglas McArthur from his duties as Commanding General of the allied forces, politicians in Washington, D.C. who were not trained military leaders ran the war and many people believe that this was the primary reason that the U.S. and its allies did not win. Maybe that is why it is called "The Forgotten War", because our nation preferred that it be forgotten . However, this would not be the only time in history when politicians would run a war instead of those in the military who studied the concepts of war.

In the 1960’s, the U.S. deployed large numbers of troops to South Vietnam in what would become one of the most unpopular conflicts in the history of our nation, the Vietnam War. The youth of America joined the Armed Forces by the thousands, among them countless of Hispanic men and women. Not only did our youth have to deal with racism and language problems within the military, but when they returned back home they had to deal with a nation that for the first time in history disrespected their soldiers by calling them names such as "baby killers". Even our politicians who were to blame for the fiasco of the war placed the blame on our heroes.

But, we served and we served with pride and honor. Men such as John P. Baca and Roy P. Benavidez., who were awarded the Medal of Honor are living proof that despite all the odds that we faced, our people were and still are willing to give their lives in the name of our country no matter what.

Note: "*" after a name indicates that the person was awarded the MoH posthumously.

PFC Eugene Arnold Obregon (12 November 1930 -26 September 1950) was a United States Marine who was posthumously awarded the United States' highest military decoration for valor — the Medal of Honor — for sacrificing his life to save that of a wounded comrade during the Battle of Seoul. On 26 September 1950, Private First Class Obregon was fatally wounded by enemy machine gun fire while using his body to shield a wounded fellow Marine.

Biography
Eugene Arnold Obregon was born on 12 November 1930 in Los Angeles, California (L.A.) He attended elementary school and high school (Roosevelt High School) in L.A. before enlisting in the United States Marine Corps on 7 June 1948, at the age of 17.

Following recruit training at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, California, he was assigned to the Marine Corps Supply Depot in Barstow, California, where he served as a fireman until the outbreak of the war in Korea. He was transferred to the 1st Marine Provisional Brigade and served as a machine gun ammunition carrier. His unit departed the United States on 14 July 1950 and arrived at Pusan, Korea on 3 August 1950.

He was in action by 8 August 1950, along the Naktong River, and participated in the Inchon landing. Then, on 26 September 1950, during the assault on the city of Seoul he was killed in action while using his body to shield a wounded fellow Marine. For this action, he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

The Medal of Honor was presented to PFC Obregon's parents by Secretary of the Navy Daniel A. Kimball on 30 August 1951.

The wounded comrade was PFC Bert M. Johnson, 19, of Grand Prairie, Texas. He was hospitalized, recovered, and returned to duty in the United States at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

In addition to the Medal of Honor, PFC Obregon also was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart Medal, Presidential Unit Citation, and Korean Service Medal with three bronze stars.

"For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving with Company G, Third Battalion, Fifth Marines, First Marine Division (Reinforced), in action against enemy aggressor forces at Seoul, Korea, on 26 September 1950. While serving as an ammunition carrier of a machine gun squad in a Marine Rifle Company which was temporarily pinned down by hostile fire, Private First Class Obregon observed a fellow Marine fall wounded in the line of fire. Armed only with a pistol, he unhesitatingly dashed from his covered position to the side of the casualty. Firing his pistol with one hand as he ran, he grasped his comrades by the arm with his other hand and, despite the great peril to himself, dragged him to the side of the road. Still under enemy fire, he was bandaging the man's wounds when hostile troops of approximately platoon strength began advancing toward his position. Quickly seizing the wounded Marine's carbine, he placed his own body as a shield in front of him and lay there firing accurately and effectively into the hostile group until he himself was fatally wounded by enemy machine-gun fire. By his courageous fighting spirit, fortitude and loyal devotion to duty, Private First Class Obregon enabled his fellow Marines to rescue the wounded man and aided essentially in repelling the attack, thereby sustaining the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country."

Namesakes and Honors

A US Navy ship, a school, a Marine Corps barracks, an American Legion post, and three parks have been named in honor of Medal of Honor recipient Eugene Obregon. The Maritime Prepositioning ship SS Pfc. Eugene A. Obregon (T-AK 3006) entered into service in January 1985. The park just outside of the main gate of the Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow, California, Yermo Annex is named in honor of Obregon. A monument in Los Angeles' Pershing Square will be built dedicated in honor of Obregon.

Library of Congress veterans outreach
http://www.loc.gov/Today/pr/2007/07/-070.html 
http://www.loc.gov/vets/-

Sent by Rafael Ojeda RSNOJEDA@aol.com



 

Patriots of the American Revolution

Big thanks to Spanish colonial reenactors who did not let the period die.

Smithsonian Symposium, Washington, D.C.
September 27-29

The Spanish Contributions to the Independence of the United States:
Between Reform and Revolution 
(1763-1848)

Library of Congress Global Gateway
Links between Spain and the Library of Congress for resources on our Colonial period archives.
http://international.loc.gov/intldl/eshtml/

Through the presentation in digital form of books, maps, prints and photographs, manuscripts, and other documents from the collections of the partner libraries, this project illuminates five main themes related to the history of Spain and the parallel histories between the United States and Spain: Exploration and Early Settlement, Colonization and Settlement, Meeting of Cultures and Religious/Evangelical Activities, American Revolution, and Mutual Perceptions. Exploration and Early Settlement was launched in June 2005; the other sections are in process.

Parallel Histories: Spain, the United States, and the American Frontier is part of the Library of Congress' Global Gateway project to establish cooperative digital libraries with national libraries around the world. The site of the National Library of Spain, The Library of Congress’ partner in this project, is located at http://www.bne.es.

The mission of the Library of Congress is to make its resources available and useful to Congress and the American people and to sustain and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future generations. The goal of the Library's National Digital Library Program is to offer broad public access to a wide range of historical and cultural documents to contribute to education and lifelong learning. Digital collections from other institutions complement and enhance the Library's own resources.

The Library of Congress presents these documents as part of the record of the past. These historical documents reflect the attitudes, perspectives, and beliefs of different times. The Library of Congress, the National Library of Spain and the Biblioteca Colombina y Capitular of Seville do not endorse the views expressed in these collections, which may contain materials offensive to some readers.

Sent by Rafael Ojeda 

Cuentos

My Cousins Orlando and Vita Lozano
 by Mimi Lozano

I called Orlando and he explained that he had seen two Lozano sisters in a book at the public library in San Antonio, one was Tania (my sister) and Nohemi (me).  I had submitted family  information to Los Bexarenos, the genealogical society in Texas.  Orlando figured that since our first names were not too common, finding them together might mean that we were the Lozano family from California, daughters of Catalino Lozano.  Orlando said he was determined to track me down, and gratefully he did.

I met Orlando and his wife Vita in February.  It wasn't like they were strangers.  We had exchanged photos.  Especially fun was a video of their son's Jeffrey wedding in 1996.  Even though the wedding was formal and took place in Toronto, Canada, Jeff and his escorts all wore boots and white Cowboy hats.  Orlando had added an audio identifying family members.  I had also enjoyed my first hug from a Lozano cousin, when their daughter Laura visited Orange County to attend a conference.

What a blessing to meet Orlando and Vita in person. 
Many people have shared their feeling that meeting family members that they've not met before did not seem like meeting strangers.  That is surely how I felt.

They were kind enough to take me to my Dad's gravesite, which was also my Grandmother Francisca gravesite.  We then viewed family albums while they shared tidbits of family stories.   

I strongly suggest that you family information when possible. You might be as fortunate as I have been. Maybe there is a cousin out there looking for you. Below is a family photo given to me by Orlando.  It is a picture of my paternal grandparent, Jesus Lozano (Pena) and Francisca (Garcia Garza) Lozano.  Their three children would be Carlos, Zaragoza, and Benito.  

Apparently I got my coloring from Grandfather Lozano, he had reddish brown hair and green eyes.  My Mom and Dad both had dark hair and dark eyes.  

Letter to Society - Chicano Poem

Emilia Badillo writes: "I was given this poem over 20 years ago. I wonder if the young man is still alive. I never forgot it I had it, but just found it in my papers and thought you may like it or want to share it with our cousins. "  belenjoy@att.net

Editor: It was difficult to get a clear readable copy, so I copied the text.

Written by a prisoner in a federal penitentiary. This letter is noted for the device of parallel construction, used to sharpen ironic thrust, and thereby express the writer's view more forcefully.  Prisons are an integral part of the today's total Chicano consciousness.

From: Literature Chicano: Texto Y Contexto:
Chicano Literature  Text and Content. Antonia Castaneda, Schular, et al, eds. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1972

Next: CHAPTER IV: The Maya Race and Mythology

The Return of Papantzin

One of the weirdest legends in Mexican tradition recounts how Papantzin, the sister of Montezuma II, returned from her tomb to prophesy to her royal brother concerning his doom and the fall of his empire at the hands of the Spaniards. On taking up the reins of government Montezuma had married this lady to one of his most illustrious servants, the governor of Tlatelulco, and after his death it would appear that she continued to exercise his almost vice regal functions and to reside in his palace. In course of time she died, and her obsequies were attended by the emperor in person, accompanied by the greatest personages of his court and kingdom. The body was interred in a subterranean vault of his own palace, in close proximity to the royal baths, which stood in a sequestered part of the extensive grounds surrounding the royal residence. The entrance to the vault was secured by a stone slab of moderate weight, and when the numerous ceremonies prescribed for the interment of a royal personage had been completed the emperor and his suite retired. At daylight next morning one of the royal children, a little girl of some six years of age, having gone into the garden to seek her governess, espied the Princess Papan standing near the baths. The princess, who was her aunt, called to her, and requested her to bring her governess to her. The child did as she was bid, but her governess, thinking that imagination had played her a trick, paid little attention to what she said. As the child persisted in her statement, the governess at last followed her into the garden, where she saw Papan sitting on one of the steps of the baths. The sight of the supposed dead princess filled the woman with such terror that she fell down in a swoon. The child then went to her mother's apartment, and detailed to her what had happened. She at once proceeded to the baths with two of her attendants, and at sight of Papan was also seized with affright. But the princess reassured her, and asked to be allowed to accompany her to her apartments, and that the entire affair should for the present be kept absolutely secret. Later in the day she sent for Tiçotzicatzin, her majordomo, and requested him to inform the emperor that she desired to speak with him immediately on matters of the greatest importance. The man, terrified, begged to be excused from the mission, and Papan then gave orders that her uncle Nezahualpilli, King of Tezcuco, should be communicated with. That monarch, on receiving her request that he should come to her, hastened to the palace. The princess begged him to see the emperor without loss of time and to entreat him to come to her at once. Montezuma heard his story with surprise mingled with doubt. Hastening to his sister, he cried as he approached her: "Is it indeed you, my sister, or some evil demon who has taken your likeness?" "It is I indeed, your Majesty," she replied. Montezuma and the exalted personages who accompanied him then seated themselves, and a hush of expectation fell upon all as they were addressed by the princess in the following words:

"Listen attentively to what I am about to relate to you. You have seen me dead, buried, and now behold me alive again. By the authority of our ancestors, my brother, I am returned from the dwellings of the dead to prophesy to you certain things of prime importance.

Papantzin's Story

"At the moment after death I found myself in a spacious valley, which appeared to have neither commencement nor end, and was surrounded by lofty mountains. Near the middle I came upon a road with many branching paths. By the side of the valley there flowed a river of considerable size, the waters of which ran with a loud noise. By the borders of this I saw a young man clothed in a long robe, fastened with a diamond, and shining like the sun, his visage bright as a star. On his forehead was a sign in the figure of a cross. He had wings, the feathers of which gave forth the most wonderful and glowing reflections and colours. His eyes were as emeralds, and his glance was modest. He was fair, of beautiful aspect and imposing presence. He took me by the hand and said: 'Come hither. It is not yet time for you to cross the river. You possess the love of God, which is greater than you know or can comprehend.' He then conducted me through the valley, where I espied many heads and bones of dead men. I then beheld a number of black folk, horned, and with the feet of deer. They were engaged in building a house, which was nearly completed. Turning toward the east for a space, I beheld on the waters of the river a vast number of ships manned by a great host of men dressed differently from ourselves. Their eyes were of a clear grey, their complexions ruddy, they carried banners and ensigns in their hands and wore helmets on their heads. They called themselves 'Sons of the Sun.' The youth who conducted me and caused me to see all these things said that it was not yet the will of the gods that I should cross the river, but that I was to be reserved to behold the future with my own eyes, and to enjoy the benefits of the faith which these strangers brought with them; that the bones I beheld on the plain were those of my countrymen who had died in ignorance of that faith, and had consequently suffered great torments; that the house being builded by the black folk was an edifice prepared for those who would fall in battle with the seafaring strangers whom I had seen; and that I was destined to return to my compatriots to tell them of the true faith, and to announce to them what I had seen that they might profit thereby."

Montezuma hearkened to these matters in silence, and felt greatly troubled. He left his sister's presence without a word, and, regaining his own apartments, plunged into melancholy thoughts.

Papantzin's resurrection is one of the best authenticated incidents in Mexican history, and it is a curious fact that on the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadores one of the first persons to embrace Christianity and receive baptism at their hands was the Princess Papan.

Literature

Translation by Ted Vincent

¿Y que voy a deciros? ¿Y de que voy a hablaros en este día en que, pendientes de mis palabras, sentís en vuestros cerebros esa triste y melancólica serie de ideas que forman vuestros recuerdos, y esa febril y agitada angustia de vuestro espíritu que anhela por penetrar el nebuloso arcano del porvenir? Para cantar las glorias y la independencia de un pueblo, se necesitaría la pujante voz de la tempestad, para marcarle sobre la historia el camino de su porvenir, fuera preciso del dedo de Dios, pero grande el espíritu de un hombre, por pequeño que sea, se levanta y se cierne sobre los tiempos y sobre las naciones cuando su voz es la palabra de un pueblo, cuando sus palabras perdidas entre la multitud, despiertan, sin embargo, ese sentimiento noble y generoso que nunca muere en los corazones, y se llama "el amor de la patria," amor tierno y dulcísimo algunas veces como la brisa de la tarde, terrible y conmovedor otras como el aliento del huracán, pero que vive siempre al lado de ese santo amor, del amor de la madre.

Desde los tiempos de la fábula, desde aquellos días en que el modo de ser y de existir de los pueblos y los hombres, escapándose a las investigaciones de los historiadores, y burlándose de la profundas meditaciones de los sabios, los héroes, los reyes y los civilizadores se cubrieron con el luminoso manto de los semidioses, y no llegaron hasta nosotros sino dando su nombre a una constelación, o al través de fantásticas y encantadoras leyendas y tradiciones, la humanidad se ha dividido en dos grandes partidos, en dos grandes elementos que, luchando y combatiendo a cada paso, y vencedores o vencidos y dueños del campo y gobernando al mundo entre el fausto y la opulencia o tramando en el silencio misteriosas y terribles conspiraciones , han dirigido el destino de los pueblos, han impreso su sello a las épocas de la historia, y han sido el día y la noche, la luz y las tinieblas de la humanidad. El principio de retroceso y el espíritu del progreso han compartido alternativamente el reino de la tierra: ved a Prometeo que robaba el fuego de la inteligencia a los dioses para llevarlo al mundo, mirad a Eva que hacia comer el fruto del árbol de la ciencia a su compañero… En todas las religiones se encuentra ese símbolo, que bajo la forma de un mito, entonces, hoy es una realidad en las terribles luchas que todos los días y en todas las naciones estamos presenciando.

Los hombres, espantados del porvenir o halagados a veces por sus recuerdos, se dividen instintivamente, anhelando unos el bien y la felicidad de los pueblos en las conquistas que esperan hacer en el porvenir, sonando otros la felicidad y la fortuna como la emanación directa de las viejas instituciones, de las pasadas y olvidadas costumbres y de las ya gastadas tradiciones. Pero de esa lucha, como del choque del pedernal contra el acero, brota siempre la luz rojiza, como el reflejo de un incendio, porque es luz de sangre y de rencor, pero luz que, iluminando siempre, hace dar un paso a la humanidad, paso del que jamás retrocede y que es siempre un avance, porque tal es la ley eterna, que aun el mismo triunfo de las ideas retrogradas, por mas que aparezca como contrario al adelanto, hace marchar siempre el mundo en su camino de progreso y de civilización.

Las ideas del retroceso y del adelanto no se muestran siempre a la luz del sol bajo sus mismas formas, ni se engendran inexorablemente en los cerebros de sus mismo partidarios; son como dos serpientes que luchan, se deslizan entre la oscuridad, se enlazan entre sus anillos hasta que, a veces, no pudiendo distinguirse la una de la otra, se estrechan y se confunden. El clero mismo, considerado en los tiempos modernos como el enemigo de la ilustración, de la democracia y de la soberbia del pueblo, como el partidario del absolutismo, de la teoría del derecho divino y de la aristocracia de la sangre, ha sido, sin embargo, en la época del bajo Imperio, el fiel depositario y el ardiente propagador de la ciencia, y que cuidando del espíritu humano

Hay, sin embargo, dos épocas en la historia moderna, en que la verdad de estas teorías aparece con mas vivo esplendor: la apoca del descubriemento y conquista de la América, y el periodo de su independencia. La conquista y la independencia de Mexico no deben considerarse como hechos aislados, influyendo solo en un pueblo y en una nación, sin liga, sin relaciones, sin consecuencias en toda la América y en el resto del mundo, no; la conquista y la independencia de nuestra patria forman parte de nuestro grandioso todo, de esa inmensa obra de la humanidad que ha hecho del continente americano ese lugar escogido por la libertad, por la republica y por la democracia para plantear su imperio.

Todo la America fue conquistad casi a un mismo tiempo, como toda casi al mismo tiempo se hizo libre, marcando así las dos grandes eras del mundo de Colon… La conquista de Mexico, como la de todos los países del Nuevo Mundo, y aun de algunos del antiguo, fue hija de un principio monárquico y religioso intolerante,… llevando por remotos países el pendón de los reyes y la insignia del cristianismo. Nada era entonces la voluntad de los pueblos; el capricho del soberano, bien o mal dirigido por los doctores de la Iglesia, y apoyado en una concesión del pontífice romano, bastaba para convertir a una nación independerte en colonia, a un pueblo libre en tributario, a un país feliz y tranquilo en sumiso y desgraciado esclavo de un monarca que apenas tenia idea… de sus necesidades y de la índole de sus habitantes. A una sola palabra de aquellos monarcas los hombres tenían que abandonar sus hogares, y conducidos por capitanes mas o meno hábiles, mas o menos audaces y mas o meno afortunados, se lanzaban sobre frágiles embarcaciones atravesando borrascosos y desconocidos mares, para llevar con su religión la esclavitud y la guerra, a pueblos tan desconocidas para ellos como los mismos mares procelosos por donde acaban de cruzar. Pero ese era el espíritu de la época, y seria por demás injusto culpar (a) aquellos soldados, aquellos sacerdotes y aquellos reyes que, cediendo a las ideas de su siglo, y con toda la buena fe del fanático en sus creencias políticas y religiosas, seguían el camino natural marcado al progreso de la sociedad, y eran sin conocerlo ellos mismos, los mas entusiastas y constantes obreros del porvenir de la humanidad, y que preparaban sin comprenderlo, el triunfo lento pero seguro de la democracia y de la republica abriendo, con el regio aparato de los dogmas del derecho divino, ancho paso al sagrado principio de la soberbia popular.

La republica y la democracia eran plantas exóticas en el antiguo mundo, cuyos campos talados por los cesares, cuyas ciudades conquistadas por los señores feudales, y cuyos habitantes acostumbrados a unir la idea de su rey con la idea de Dios, no podían contener en sus diversos elementos esa savia fuerte, y poderosa que necesita para su existencia la soberbia del pueblo. La republica y la democracia necesitaban otra región, otros hombres, necesitaban un continente nuevo y una raza que hubiera perdido hasta las costumbres y los hábitos de los pueblos monárquicos.

La América era ese continente predestinado, la raza debía formarse de la mezcla, de la amalgama de conquistadores y conquistados, de vencedores y vencidos, de señores y de tributarios, y para esto, era necesaria la conquista, era necesario que los soldados de los monarcas del viejo mundo vinieran a echar por tierra las instituciones monárquicas del nuevo, que los principios de absolutismo y de gobierno hereditario vinieran a borrar hasta el recuerdo del absolutismo y del gobierno hereditario, y que los mismos sostenedores del derecho de conquista vinieran a soplar el fuego de la independencia, convirtiéndose asi, de terribles enemigos, en poderosos auxiliares de la libertad. Y asi sucedió. Los monarcas, que sin mas ley que su capricho, sangriento y terrible las mas veces, gobernaban los antiguos pueblos de la América.… Pero esas colonias eran gobernadas por virreyes, por adelantados o por capitanes generales que duraban pocos anos en el poder, y que eran exaltados o destituidos caprichosamente por la corte de España…

Los empleados no eran ni la sombra de un monarca; los pueblos de la America se acostumbraron a no ver en ellos más que hombres sujetos a la voluntad de otros hombres. Nada de sagrado, nada de Dios, nada de derecho divino aprendieron en aquella dominación. … Los tumultos, tan comunes en las colonias, enseñaron a los pueblos que había en ellos un poder, un derecho, una fuerza latente que trataba de ocultárseles, pero que existía que esgrimían como un arma los mismos que se la negaban. Los pueblos entonces comenzaron a comprender que eran algo que no creían; comenzaron a comprender que sus opresores eran menos de los que ellos presumieron. Aun hay más. Los pueblos de la America, que no llegaron ni a formarse idea del esplendor y brillo que rodeaba a los monarcas de una atmósfera luminosa, haciendo de ellos casi una divinidad para deslumbrar a los hombres, que no sintieron nunca uno de esos grandes rasgos que forman lo que se llama la magnanimidad de los príncipes, sufrieron todo el peso de las persecuciones religiosas y políticas, de los tributos y las gabelas. El único lado, pues, por donde se vivo la monarquía, fue por el mas odioso, por el de la guerra, por el de las persecuciones de la esclavitud, del monopolio, del estanco, de los impuestos, de los azotes, de la picota y de los autos de fe del Santo Oficio….

Esa lección diaria, y ese trabajo incesante, y esa gota cayendo constantemente por espacio de trescientos anos, preparo el terreno a la democracia, a la independencia y a la republica, minando y desmoronando hasta los últimos restos de monarquía y poder absoluto. … Los modernos apóstoles de la democracia habían tenido colaboradores, … ilustres héroes de nuestra independencia, infatigables obreros que comenzaron trescientos anos antes a preparar el desenlace de ese grandioso drama que se llama la independencia, de esa sublime epopeya que se llamo la libertad del Nuevo Mundo, de ese gigantesco paso de la humanidad que se llama y se llamara por muchos siglos la democracia en la America,… no uno ciudad, un pueblo, y una nación, sino una inmensa muchedumbre de pueblos y de ciudades, una fabulosa cadena de naciones que unidas entre si por la eterna y majestuosa cordillera de los Andes, iban a dar al asombrado mundo el ejemplo hasta entonces desconocido en la historia, de un continente democrático y republicano.

La democracia y la republica hallaron su asilo en ese continente; aquí el pueblo es todo, el pueblo gobierna, y si algunas veces gime en la opresión, y la sombra de la tiranía se proyecta sobre sus hogares, esa tiranía y esa opresión… no se atreven nunca a invocar como fuente de su poder el derecho divino. Abusando en nombre de la soberanía popular, y capaces de todos los delitos, de todos los crímenes, tiemblan ante la idea de apellidarse reyes y de llamarse majestades en un continente que vio nacer a Washington, a Bolívar y a Hidalgo… Franklin arrebatando el rayo a las nubes para ponerlo en las manos de los hombres, simboliza la America arrancando el poder de manos de los reyes para ponerlo en las manos de los pueblos…

Mexico no podía faltar al llamamiento, tenía señalado un puesto de honor en la lucha… La historia de aquella época esta viva en nuestra memoria… (podemos) hablar de hombres que cada unos el ellos necesitaría un Homero para poder cantar sus virtudes y sus glorias. Hidalgo el arrojo, Morelos la inteligencia y el valor, Guerrero la abnegación y la constancia; he aquí ese sublime conjunto, esa trinadita de genios en derredor de la cual se agrupa la plegad luminosa de nuestro liberadores que con tanta razón pueda llamarse la constelación Hércules de nuestra patria.

¿Quien de nosotros, los que formamos esta generación, no ha escuchado en los primeros a nos de su vida, allá en aquella edad en que las tradiciones y las leyendas se graban en la memoria como una lamina de diamante; quien no ha escuchado en esas noches tranquilas y al dulce abrigo del hogar paterno, y reclinada la infantil cabeza sobre el blando regazo de un madre amorosa, referir a los viejos amigos de la familia esa historia siempre repetida y siempre nueva para los carazones bien formados, la historia de la independencia de nuestro país?... Diez anos de lucha, ¿y en que punto, pudiera preguntarse, no hubo un combate? ¿Y que lugar no fue consagrado con la sangre de un mártir? Aquella sangre había sido el agua lustral de Mexico, que purificado apareció día de su apoteosis a tomar su lugar en medio de las naciones libres…

Hemos cometido errores, hemos tropezado y hemos caído, la guerra fratricida ha destrozado muchas veces al pueblo naciente… y hemos dado el patíbulo por único premio a hombres a quienes hoy glorificamos… ¿Pero que pueblo, sobre la tierra, podrá tirar sobre nosotros la primera piedra?...

¡Conciudadanos! ¿Será decir todo esto, lisonjear demasiado vuestro orgullo patriótico? Tal vez, y plegue al cielo que tal efecto pudieran producir mis palabras, porque quizás nuestro gran defecto nacional haya consistido en la poca fe que hemos tenido en nosotros mismos, y la demasiada veneración en las cosas y los adelantos de otros países, que al través de exageradas relaciones, han tomado a nuestro ojos proporciones gigantescas.

Nada importa que el porvenir ruja con la tempestad o se ilumine con la luz meridiana; nada importa el amago de la desgracia o la esperanza de la ventura envueltas en su seno: los que llevan en sus venas la sangre de esa raza que supo hacernos independiente, los que comprendan cuanto orgullo hay en llamarse mexicanos,… esos serán los que hagan de Mexico una nación poderosa, y lanzándose siempre los primeros en defensa de los sagrados derechos del pueblo,, … diciendo: Mexico es grande porque es republicano. Mexico es libre porque merece serlo, Mexico es la tumba de las tiranías y el asilo de las libertades.

Viva Mexico! 

Songs of the Moon by 
Rafael Jesús González

As in a summer night 
walking the ancient streets 
of a city in ruins 
is heard a little bird 
let its lonely song tree by tree, 
alley by alley until it is lost in the distance, 
the full moon sings to me. 
Its song, brilliant, lovely & sad 
tells of what was, attests to what is, 
promises what is to be.

Attentive always, I listen to the song of the full moon.
(c) Rafael Jesús González 2007

Como en una noche veraniega 
caminando por las antiguas calles 
de una ciudad en ruinas 
se oye un pajarito soltar 
su canto solitario árbol por árbol, 
callejón por callejón hasta perderse en la distancia me canta la luna plena. 
Su canto brillante, lindo y triste 
cuenta de lo que fue, 
atesta a lo que es, promete lo que será.

Atento siempre escucho el canto de la luna plena.

(c) Rafael Jesús González 2007

© Mimi Lozano  1962

SURNAME

by Lauro Enrique Garza Arzamendi

My childhood in Rio Grande City, and McAllen, Texas was spent in close relationship with my extended family. My father, Lauro Enrique Garza Barrera was a descendant of Spanish Land Grantees and the founders of Mier and Camargo, Mexico. They also held Spanish land grants and were colonizers of Roma, Los Saenz, and Starr County, Texas. All these places were located in the ancient Spanish colony of Nuevo Santander. My mother, Delia Canales Arzamendi, was a descendant of the powerful Canales clan, also Spanish land grantees from Monterey, and Mier, Mexico and Starr County, Texas. The Canales were influential merchants, generals, and governors of Tamualipas, Mexico. The Barrera Guerras, a merchant family, were a highly respected family in Mier where streets are named after my great grandfather and great uncle for their heroic deaths in the Mexican revolution.

The descendants of the Garzas, Barreras, Guerras, Canales, and others who came as colonizers of Nuevo Santander nurtured me in my infancy and childhood with ancestral memories and fascinating anecdotes of individuals and events in the colonization and establishment of Nuevo Santander. Not only did I grow up hearing the fairy tales of Hans Christian Anderson, I also heard stories of the Mexican Revolution my Barrera Guerra and Canales relatives had experienced.

I cannot emphasize enough the treasure of the Hispanic culture I enjoyed! I never have had a minority consciousness, or feelings of inferiority. As a child I was sent to the best Roman Catholic School in our city with New England nuns as my teachers, so that my English and education would be appropriate for the Nuevo Santander that had been absorbed by Anglo-America. My ancient established families nurtured me in love with a vision for the future.

My goal in any work I do for the Hispanic Genealogy Society is to communicate the great dignity and the immense value of our Hispanic heritage to this generation and the ones to come!

In the midst of all my childhood there was a great mystery; my mother's father, Luis Arzamendi and the Arzamendi family. My grandfather, Luis Arzamendi and the Arzamendis were hardly ever mentioned. Decades passed without a personal knowledge of my grandfather's family, until I determined to find out the truth. The search for the Arzamendi surname is not an easy one as it is a rare name, it is not even found in the list of the 50,000 most common names of the United States. According to the book entitled, "Surnames from Castille and Leon; 9th through 13th centuries" by Gonzalo Díez Mellón it means "shepherd from the mountain".

Last year, in 2006, I took my Aunt Victoria Vela Martinez of Edinburg, Texas to Mier, Mexico, Los Saenz, Rio Grande City, and McAllen, Texas to visit the tombs of our relatives and ancestors. As we stood at the grave of my Arzamendi grandparents, I asked her about the family history of Luis Arzamendi. Tia Victoria told me, "I don't know, we don't know anything." I replied, "Every human deserves to be remembered!" My statement may have seemed virtuous, but it was the result of the Hispanic culture that I was nurtured in by my ancestors. So many times as a child I would go with my Abuelas and Tias to the "panteons", cemeteries, to remember and honor our ancestors. Respect, honor, and loyalty are virtues intrinsic to the Hispanic culture and they are the forces responsible for its continuation for more than 500 years in Nuevo Santander. I believe it is the reason why more Congressional Medals of Honor have been awarded to Hispanics than any other ethnic group.

Alfredo Arzamendi Salazar, 
Chief of Northern Mexican Customs,
Great Grandfather of the author, 
Lauro Garza

1816 Second Lieutenant Don Joaquin Arzamendi served under Santa Anna

1816 Don Joaquin Arzamendi promoted to Lieutenant by the Viceroy
Recorded in "Santa Anna antes Santa Anna" by Enrique Gonzalez Perdero

1822 History of Tampico
General Juan de Dios Arzamendi noted in government archives

1822 History of MexicoColonel Bartolome Arzamendi noted in government archives as the son of General Arzamendi

1822-45 History of Veracruz
Don Jose Nicassio de Arzamendi

General Juan de Dios Arzamendi Salazar 1910, Commander of the 
Northeastern Army of Mexico 
Brother of Alfredo Arzamendi Salazar, 
Great Uncle of author, 
Lauro Garza Arzamendi

1845 History of Mexico General Commander of Tehuantepec and the Isle of Carmen General Juan de Dios Arzamendi

1846-48 American Invasion of Mexico
Capitan Don Luis Arzamendi

1853 National Secretary of Defense Archives Marching Orders
Commandant Don Joaquin Arzamendi

1855 National Secretary of Defense Archives Named to Principal Commander of the Sotavevento Coast
General Juan de Dios Arzamendi

1856-1857 in the Acayucan Battalion Colonel Don Bartolomé Arzamendi

Born 1864 mortally wounded in battle in 1914 General Juan de Dios Arzamendi
Promoted to Captain 1897, Lt. Colonel Nov. 1909, Brigadier General April 17, 1912  Commander of Arms Zacatecas 1912, Commander of Arms Tamualipas 1913, mortally wounded near Guadalcazar in 1914

Major Ricardo Calderon Arzamendi
Served in the 1920's, documented from a Matamoros Newspaper called the "Alarma" for his contributions to the understanding of the Battle of Celaya as well as documented in a book by an antagonist who sought to refute his opinion

Genealogy and the Wonderful Things That Can Happen!

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life.   Proverbs 13:12

The greatest discoveries of our lives begin with a great mystery and many obstacles. I have found in my life over and over, do all you can, trust in God, and then when there seems to be no progress in your work, a break comes.

Genealogy is just like police detective work. You must have the tools. You begin to search for witnesses and documented evidence, you interview the witnesses and people who know the events, and you copy and compile documents. You get hunches and you follow your leads. When you are tempted to get frustrated you divert your attention onto something else and the search always comes back looking for you. I also believe in the power of prayer and I do nothing without it.

The search for my Arzamendi history was the first Genealogical investigation of my life. I asked my DNA consultant, "Dr. Donald Yates, what is the best software tool I can use to trace family?" "Ancestry.com" he replied.

My first break came as I found records of living and deceased Arzamendis in Cameron County, Texas. This was a lead, as my Uncle Fred Arzamendi, whom I’ve known all of my life, was born in Cameron County. Then through ancestry.com records search I found phone numbers of living Arzamendis in Cameron County, Texas. The evidence was giving me leads, now I had to follow my hunches. It took a lot of nerve to pick up the phone and introduce myself to someone I had never met and arrange a meeting.

But it was at this point that I met two absolutely wonderful people and relatives. I called Mrs. Mary Rose Arzamendi Cardenas married to Don Renato Evaristo Cardenas and arranged to travel to Brownsville and meet them.

Mrs. Mary Rose Arzamendi Cardenas was my grandfather's niece and knew him; consequently she is my mother's cousin and my second cousin. In our culture we refer to such a person as Tia Prima or just respectfully, Tia. As soon as she laid her eyes on me for the first time, she said, "You look like your grandfather, especially in your coloring!"

Immediately the adventure, discovery, and fulfillment began! First of all the silence was broken, as I met a person who had actually known my grandfather Luis Arzamendi. I told my Tio and Tia I had found evidence of a General Arzamendi that fought in the Mexican Revolution. Unexpectedly Don Renato Cardenas tells me, "I've seen the uniform and sword of General Arzamendi in Matamoros!"

Helmet, Medals, and Sword of General Juan de Dios Arzamendi Salazar 
located at the Casa Mata Museum in Matamoros, Mexico

Tia Mary Rose showed me the first picture I had ever seen of my great grandfather Alfredo Arzamendi Salazar, the father of my mother's father! It was a picture of his inauguration as the Chief of Northern Mexico Customs in Mexico City, 1902. My personal quest for knowledge of my Arzamendi ancestors, their vindication, and my desire to honor my Arzamendi grandfather's memory was rapidly being rewarded.

Help Comes From a Big Heart!
A suprising source of totally unexpected help came from my introduction to my relatives, Don Renato Evaristo Cardenas and his wife, my blood relative, Mary Rose Arzamendi Cardenas. First of all, Tio Renato turned out to be a invaluable help, personally taking me to Matamoros and helping me in so many ways to accomplish my mission. He has been instrumental and a great key in the success of my quest. Mr. and Mrs. Cardenas, founders of a conglomerate of companies, are incredibly successful business people and very active in the political arena. They are world travelers, philanthropists, and benefactors of the University of Texas at Brownsville. In fact, two buildings on the campus are named after my Tia! I saw in Mrs. Mary Rose Arzamendi Cardenas the same positive qualities I've seen in many Arzamendis including my mother; energy, tenacity, and an avid devotion to an ideal. Their accomplishments are many, but to sum it up, when I walked into Tia Mary Rose's office she had four different pictures of herself standing with American presidents! The Arzamendis are a great people!

I came back to Houston planning to return to Brownsville and Matamoros to pursue the evidence. I resumed my research by looking for more references to the Arzamendis on ancestry.com and the internet. Another break came from google book search as I found many references to Arzamendis as military officers starting in 1816! I found a book at Rice University Library in Spanish on the history of the 1910 Mexican Revolution and read of my great uncle General Juan de Dios Arzamendi's heroic actions in a battle in 1914 outside of San Luis Potosi, where he was mortally wounded.

I returned to Matamoros with Don Renato and I saw the sword, helmet, and medals of my great uncle General Juan de Dios Arzamendi! However, with new discoveries came new mysteries. I found in the Mexican government archives of Veracruz a record of a General Juan de Dios Arzamendi from the year 1822. I had a hunch; the name was identical to the General Arzamendi of 1914. They had to be related!

Again on a return trip to Matamoros another breakthrough came. Tio Renato said to me, "I know a Dr. Alfredo de la Garza whose mother was an Arzamendi, he may be able to help you!" Don Renato gave me his phone number. I was not only getting to practice my boldness but my Spanish as well! I called the doctor and arranged to meet him.

This time I really found treasure! He not only had pictures of my great uncle General Juan de Dios Arzamendi, but historical documents and most importantly, a genealogical chart of the Arzamendi family line we shared!

  Two Generals Appear 
Dr. De La Garza’s genealogical chart confirmed the connection between the two General Arzamendis that I had suspected. The one recorded in 1822 and later years was the grandfather of my great uncle General Arzamendi. He turned out to be my great-great-great-grandfather! My determination to honor the memory of my grandfather Luis Arzamendi, led to a quest with answers that exceeded any solution I anticipated. It resulted in new relationships, new adventures, and a new heritage with a new identity for me.

Satisfaction, Fulfillment and Conclusion 
This is a very brief synopsis of all the many wonderful results, and of course I haven't been able to share all of them. This article is to honor the memory of my grandfather Luis Arzamendi and grandmother Maria Reyes Canales Arzamendi. They will live forever in my heart! The Arzamendis are a great people!

Rev. Lauro E. Garza, D.D. and his wife Linda are founders of All Nations Church, and Heavenly Vision Ministries Int. in Dickinson, TX. Lauro Garza is the author of "The Destruction of the Veil of Islam" available on amazon.com. He and his wife appear on television and other media around the world.  www.heavenlyvisionministries

ORANGE COUNTY, CA

Westminster City Cable 3 to honor Latino Veterans
Sometimes everything falls in place perfectly. The city of Westminster uses a cable line which videotapes city council meetings and other activities that take place in the city.  Lupe Trujillo Fisher is on the City Cultural Arts Commission. She is also in the same LULAC chapter that I am in, Westminster #3017. I asked Lupe if videotaping some Latino Veterans to air during Hispanic Heritage Month would fit under her responsibilities as a commissioner.  

Lupe inquired and within a week we were scheduled to videotape three Orange County veterans. LaVada Cordasco Perez is the City Cable TV Production Supervisor. I ask for help from Fred Bella, Co-founder of the United Mexican American Veterans Association, an organization to which I also belong to find three men. 

Within a day, Fred has found our three veterans.  Fred asked Ben DeLeon, Tony Mendez, and Frank Ramirez  to participate. They were perfect.  Lupe had never been an interviewer and felt uneasy about attempting it, but she too was perfect.   The day was long, but the results will be treasured.

I was especially pleased when LaVada decided to do the interviews in the sunken garden of Westminster.  She has a 3 camera system in place and was assisted by  volunteers who helped in setting up and monitoring the cameras. 

While the crew was setting up outside, 
the men were going over photos and  artifacts. Ron Gonzales of the Orange County Register sent a photographer to take some photos too. It was a busy day.
LaVada was as enthusiastic as were.

 
From left to right: Frank Ramirez (Korea), Tony Mendez (WWII), 
Lupe Truijillo Fisher, and Ben DeLeon (WWII)

If you receive Westminster Cable 3, don't forget to watch for the airing of the three programs during Hispanic Heritage Month. You will be touched, awed and proud.  LaVada is calling the series, Chats in the Park.  As I said, a perfect project.  Mimi

In the Late 60’s and exploding on the streets of East Los Angeles in August of 1970, the emotional and political seeds of debate towards the Viet Nam War have taken root. From childhood throughout high school, ROLL CALL is a story of friendship, a bond that would sustain three friends through the Viet Nam War.

One would return a hero. ROLL CALL also tells of the pride these warriors felt for their fathers who served valiantly and courageously in World War II and who returned to parades and unbridled honor. But for them, their favorite sons, awaiting their arrival of homecoming was misunderstanding, disillusionment and despair. They also brought home to east LA and ugly and tormenting secret, a secret of death.

Performances will begin on August 29, 2007 through September 22, 2007. The Opening Night performance on Wednesday, August 29^th at 8 p.m. will be followed with a, "Vietnam Veterans Welcome Home" ceremony recognizing ten invited Vietnam veterans and veterans in attendance.

Closing Night, September 22 will also have an after performance, "Vietnam Veterans Welcome Home" ceremony. The sponsors will be recognizing ten additional Vietnam veterans.

Performances will be Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. with Saturday matinees at 3 p.m. through September 22, 2007.

For ticket information Call: 323-261-8704
Contact: Leonora Uribe at: 323-261-8704
alfredo.lugo@verizon.net

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• Storytelling for children, such as Tom Martinez telling his family’s tales of fighting with Pancho Villa.

• Music of the Civil War era.

• A new exhibition will open in the Museum featuring Civil War Hispanic Medal of Honor recipients and Civil War Hispanic Marines.

• Join local dignitaries as we celebrate Latino Heritage Month in Los Angeles.

Drum Barracks Civil War Museum Phone: (310) 548-7509
1052 Banning Blvd. website: www.drumbarracks.org
Wilmington, CA 90717 email: susan.ogle@lacity.org 

A Facility of the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks and the State of California Department of Parks and Recreation.

Diversity gave birth to L.A. 
By John L. Mitchell, August 22, 2007  john.mitchell@latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-founders22aug22,0,2651560,full.story?
coll=la-home-local

Even as a child, Robert Earle Lopez knew his family tree was deeply rooted in the soil of Los Angeles. He'd heard stories:

In 1826, when the City of Angels was a mere struggling pueblo, Lopez's great-great-great grandfather, Claudio Lopez, was the mayor. Claudio's son, Esteban Lopez, owned much of the land that is now Boyle Heights. Esteban's son, Francisco "Chico" Lopez, made a fortune as a cattle rancher; and Chico's son Frank -- Robert Earle Lopez's grandfather-- became one of the city's first auditors.

In 1838, Marie Rita Valdez, another ancestor, was granted the deed for what is now Beverly Hills. Francisco Lopez, a distant cousin, discovered gold while digging for wild onions at the foot of an oak tree in Placerita Canyon, six years before the 1848 find at Sutter's Mill sparked the California gold rush.

Robert Earle Lopez grew up believing that his Spanish pedigree was strictly upper crust, grounded in Castilian nobility, as his aunt used to say. But a clearer picture emerged years later, after Los Angeles' bicentennial celebrations in 1981.

That's when Lopez, digging deeper into his family's history, discovered that one of his great-great-great-great grandfathers was Luis Manuel Quintero, one of the original settlers -- or pobladores -- who founded El Pueblo de La Reina de Los Angeles on Sept. 4, 1781.

Quintero was the son of a black slave. Indeed, Lopez learned, more than half of the city's original settlers traced all or part of their heritage to Africa.

The fact that his forebear was not a Spanish blueblood came as a surprise. But Lopez quickly embraced the lineage that connects him to the original 11 families whose 44 members -- a group of poor farmers of African, European and Indian extraction -- laid the foundation for the second largest city in the United States.

"I come from one of the colored guys," the 86-year-old boasts. "I guess by the time it got to me, there wasn't much color anymore. Still, I'm proud to say I come from that ragtag group that founded Los Angeles."

Not everyone connected to the original 44 shares his view.

Robert Lopez likes to say that his mother missed the chance to cast a ballot in the first presidential election in which women had the right to vote. She was in the hospital giving birth to him on Nov. 2, 1920.

By then, the Lopez family's vast holdings were gone and he was raised speaking English, rather than Spanish. His mother's ancestry was German. Still, the family name carried a strong sense of the past, something that, growing up in Boyle Heights and later in a Mid-City neighborhood, he was never allowed to forget.

Spanish soldiers from the Lopez clan could be traced back to the 18th century, he was told. He heard the family stories of Chico Lopez's long cattle drive to feed gold miners in Northern California. He was still a boy when the local civic club invited the family to an event honoring the Placerita Canyon site where gold was first discovered. And his aunt insisted they all came from Northern Spain.

Today Lopez knows better. "The only way I could come from Spain would be on a 747," he jokes.

Lopez's childhood was cut short by hardships: the Great Depression and the death of his father. He did a stint in the Army Air Corps, became part owner of an electrical instrument company and got married. He sold the business in the early 1960s and retired at 43. "I took the money and ran," he said. He took up sailing and made three trips to Hawaii before setting his sights on investigating his family's past.

At the time, the city was in the midst of its bicentennial celebrations. Some 200 descendants of the pueblo founders marched from the San Gabriel Mission to Olvera Street, where the names of the original families and their ethnicities were inscribed on a plaque in El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument plaza.

The march is now an annual event. The fact that Los Angeles, one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world, stemmed from a multiethnic pueblo is often touted as evidence that the city has remained true to its roots.

"Its cosmopolitan population has been one of the hallmarks of Los Angeles since its founding," said Doyce B. Nunis Jr., a professor emeritus of history at USC who headed a bicentennial committee and wrote a book in 2005 on the founding of Los Angeles.

The late Marie E. Northrop, a genealogist who wrote three volumes on Spanish Mexican families of early California, was credited with pulling together the descendants to complete the march and later, she and her husband Joe Northrop, who was a descendant, became the driving force behind Los Pobladores 200, an organization of original descendants of the first settlers of Los Angeles.

Lopez, who missed the bicentennial celebration, wanted in. But he wasn't certain about the connection between his forefathers and those who founded the city. None of the original settlers was named Lopez. With help from Northrop, he found the answer. His kinship with the original group of settlers did not come by way of his great-grandfathers but through one of his great-grandmothers.

Chico's mother, Maria Jacinta Valdez, was the key. Her mother, Maria Fabianna Sebastiana Quintero, was one of the seven daughters of Luis Manuel Quintero and his wife, Maria Petra Rubio.

With Quintero as his link, Lopez joined Los Pobladores, served as its president and became the membership chairman, a post he still holds.

Lopez celebrated his ties to Quintero, but others, including some in his own family, were unable to see beyond his color.

"There are three kinds of descendants," Northrop said in the late 1980s. "There are those who know and are proud. There are those who don't know and don't care. And then there are those who know but deny."

Nunis said some descendants were infuriated at the idea of putting the founder's ethnicities next to the names on the plaque honoring the settlement.

"Nobody wanted to put the races on the plaque," Nunis said. "No! No! No! They didn't, but we had the evidence. I put my foot down, and that was it."

Today, 25 years later, race remains a hot-button issue with some members.

"There are a lot of inaccuracies," said Ed Pico, a descendant of Pio Pico, the last Mexican governor of California, who is considered to have a racially mixed ancestry. "It's political. 'Half the founders were black or Mexican.' That's not the case."

Bob Smith, a member of Los Pobladores who traces his ancestry to the early British Empire, agrees that the founders were of mixed heritage, but disagrees with Northrop's accounting. For example, he says that Quintero is not black or Negro as he is listed on the plaque, but the product of an Indian mother and a Spanish and Moorish father.

Paul V. Guzman, a past president of Los Pobladores 200 who traces his roots to several founding settlers, disagrees.

"He was a Negro; he was black," Guzman said. "The Spanish brought thousands of slaves from Africa. I don't want to use the word prejudice, but you can't deny the heritage. We had members in good standing who left because of the question of black blood. They left and they shouldn't have."

Another bone of contention has been the founders' national origin. Smith has criticized Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for making repeated references to the founders as coming from Mexico, which gained independence from Spain 40 years after the city's founding in 1781.

"He's trying to rewrite history to boost the pride of Mexicans," Smith said. "California was founded under colonial Spain. But he doesn't like Spain for some reason."

For more than 55 years, Lopez and his wife Margaret have lived in the same modest house in Westchester where they raised five children and stored memorabilia stretching over eight generations: photocopied census books from L.A.'s beginnings as a pueblo of New Spain, a reprint of a family cattle brand and an array of family pictures from his youngest grandchildren to a portrait of rancher Chico Lopez.

There's a copper tub once used to make lard from cattle fat and a cast-iron salute cannon inherited from an Aunt Francisca, who was known for collecting family artifacts.

"She had sticky fingers," Lopez said.

From his house, Lopez said, he can easily check the lineage of almost all potential applicants for membership in Los Pobladores 200.

"All I need is the name of the grandfather and maybe a great-grandfather. If I can [trace it back] to 1850, then usually I'm home free," said Lopez, who has seen the organization dwindle -- largely the result of age and declining interest -- to about 100 members.

Those early settlers of Los Angeles, recruited from various villages in the Sonora and Sinaloa states of New Spain -- now Mexico -- gathered at the San Gabriel Mission before walking the last few miles to the settlement where a cornerstone was laid Sept. 4.

"They had to be coerced to come to this outpost of the empire," said Gloria Lothrop, a retired Cal State Northridge history professor. "They were lured by the offer of land, tools, seeds and animals."

Quintero, who was born about 1725 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, was the last pobladore to sign up for the expedition.

A tailor by trade and not a farmer, he didn't last long in early Los Angeles. Six months after founding the pueblo, he, his wife, Maria Petra Rubio, identified as a mulatto, and children left and became one of the first families in Mission San Buenaventura (Ventura) and later founding members of the presidio of Santa Barbara, where he died in 1810.

"He made a big splash," said Irene Sepulveda Hastings, current president of Los Pobladores 200. "I always tease my kids that we get our curly hair from Quintero."

On one recent day, Lopez was slowed by the pain of arthritis.  "I don't know," he said. "It seems like I turned 86 and suddenly got old."  "He's still a live wire," Margaret interjected.  Lopez closed his eyes for a moment.  "He always shuts his eyes when he's trying to remember something," Margaret explained.

Sitting slightly uncomfortably in a chair nearby, he opened his eyes and reflected on how much the city has changed. He was a boy when City Hall -- then the tallest building -- was under construction. Since then Los Angeles has gotten taller and deeper, filled in by waves of people from around the country and immigrants from around the world.

"There used to be one or two pages of Lopezes in the telephone book, but now you can't count them," he said.  In many ways, he added, there is a connection to those original families of the past:  "They were all looking for a better life."

Sent by Frances Rios, Howard Shorr, Dorinda Moreno, Nellie Kaniski,  Carlos Munoz, Ph.D.,  astevens@library.ucla.edu, and yotomas@yahoo.com .

In Southern California, a third border has also emerged in recent years. As the Latino population of Los Angeles and Orange Counties has burgeoned to nearly five million in the mid-1990s, architectural and legal barriers have been constructed at precisely those points where blue-collar Chicano or new immigrant communities connect with upper-income Anglo communities. Whereas the second border nominally reinforces the international border, the third border polices daily intercourse between two citizen communities.

Although other instances abound in suburban Southern California, we have documented the third border in the San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles County. Once the center of the California citrus industry, the San Gabriel Valley is a mature, built-out suburban landscape with 1.8 million residents. It is politically fragmented into more than forty shards, ranging from large secondary cities like Pasadena and Pomona to unincorporated county "islands" and special-use incorporations like the eponymous City of Industry.

Although the great orchards were subdivided into tract homes a half century ago, the citrus era left a legacy that continues to frame all social relations in the Valley: a fundamental division between a Chicano/Mexicano working class and an Anglo upper middle class. The traditional demographic balance, however, has been overturned. Chicano residents now outnumber Anglos by roughly three to two, and there is a growing Chicano managerial-professional class. Further, an influx of about 250,000 Chinese has given rise to a spectacular eight-mile-long linear Chinatown in the suburbs of Monterey Park, Alhambra, and San Gabriel.

Although many blue-collar Anglo residents have exited the southern tier of Valley towns where they were formerly the majority, the traditionally wealthy tier of foothill communities from Pasadena to Claremont remains highly attractive to young white professionals as well as to traditional elites. Here are the sharpest ethnic and class tensions. The function of the third border is to separate these two populations, to restrict Latino use of public space such as streets, shopping districts, and parks.

Take, for example, the boundary between El Sereno and South Pasadena. El Sereno is a protrusion of the City of Los Angeles into the western San Gabriel Valley. It is a well-groomed, blue-collar suburb, home to hardworking truckdrivers, medical secretaries, and postal workers. Most have last names like Hernández or Rodríguez. South Pasadena, on the other hand, is a separately incorporated small town, renowned for its big Midwestern-style homes, tree-lined streets, and first class schools. Its median home values are at least $100,000 higher than El Sereno's.

Some years ago, the South Pasadena city fathers decided that the twain must never meet and engineered the barricading of busy Van Horne Street. To those on its "bad side," this new border signifies the stigmatization of their neighborhood. Serenos were especially incensed when South Pasadena justified the street closure in the name of  "preventing drive-by shootings." Since many older Chicanos tell stories of decades of harassment by the South Pasadena police, it is not surprising that they regard the barricade in the same way black southerners once felt about segregated drinking fountains.

Ricardo Mirelles Córdova, who lives on "the wrong side" of the barricaded street between South Pasadena and El Sereno, asks: "How would you like your neighborhood and property values defined by being on `the wrong side' of the local equivalent of the Berlin Wall?" Raquel Sánchez wryly retorts: "I actually kind of like the border. It keeps all those speeding Lexuses and BMWs off our side so that the kids can play safely on the street."

A group of affluent homeowners in nearby Duarte, meanwhile, are lobbying the city to allow them to install a guardhouse at the entrance to their foothill subdivision. The purpose of the checkpoint would be to discourage "suspicious persons who do not belong in the neighborhood." Latinos in Duarte, up in arms over the incipient privatization of a public street, have protested that they and their children are, in fact, the object of this paranoia.

Parks have become another internal borderland. Ironically, for an area that once exulted in its orchards and wild mountains, there is now an acute recreation crisis in the San Gabriel Valley. It has been generated by the failure of postwar developments to set aside adequate park space and compounded by declining revenues in the wake of Proposition 13. For affluent families on quiet, palm-lined streets in the foothill belt, there is no real problem. But Latino apartment dwellers in the tract lands along the freeways usually have to leave their own neighborhood to find space for a Sunday picnic under a shady oak tree. Increasingly, however, they find signs telling them that they are not welcome.

San Marino is the richest city in the Valley and one of the wealthiest in the nation. It embalms ancient regional dynasties like the Chandlers of the L.A. Times and formerly provided a headquarters to the John Birch Society. In recent years, some of the housecleaners and gardeners who keep its lush lifestyle scrubbed and well-pruned started bringing their own families to San Marino's beautiful Lacy Park on weekends. But the appearance of "aliens" in their cherished park incited near hysteria on the San Marino city council.

The council's response was to impose a weekend-use fee for non-residents. Twelve dollars for a family of four is no deterrent to wealthy visitors, but it is too steep for San Marino's low-paid workers and their kids. (The council, incredibly, justified the fee by claiming that the city was nearly broke.) Meanwhile, San Marino's crown jewel, the world-famous Huntington Library and Gardens, built on the surplus value of Henry Huntington's Mexican track laborers, changed its long-time "donation requested" to a strictly enforced eight dollar per head admission–another deterrent to diversity amidst the azaleas.

Arcadia, home of the famous Santa Anita racetrack, also has a bad reputation amongst Valley Latinos. Historically, it was one of the few citrus-belt towns that refused to allow its Mexican workers to live anywhere in the city limits, even on the other side of the tracks. In 1939, 99 percent of its burghers signed a unique "covenant." Organized by a local escrow company, it promised to keep their piece of paradise "Caucasian forever." They have never given up trying.

When Arcadia's Wilderness Park became popular with Spanish-speaking families in the early 1990s, nativism reared its ugly head. One leader of the neighboring Highland Oaks Homeowner's Association complained: "I've seen their graffiti. I've heard their ghetto blasters. I don't want any riffraff coming into our city." Then-mayor Joseph Ciraulo, agreed: "The park has been overrun with these people." As a result, Arcadia restricted public use of the park, now officially a "wilderness center," to a single eight-hour period on Fridays.

Similar complaints about "noise," "gangbangers," and"graffiti" recently led County officials to accede to the wishes of the wealthy residents of the east Altadena area and ban weekend parking near trailheads and canyons on the flank of famous Mount Wilson. Again, the ban followed a rise in recreational use by low-income Latinos and African Americans.

In effect, well-heeled Valley communities, long accused of discriminatory policing, are now corporately privatizing recreational space. The NIMBY ("Not In My Backyard!") politics of residential exclusionism are rapidly fusing with the new nativism to create a third border distant from, but complimentary to, the first and second borders. While the other borders are meant to exclude Mexican immigrants from entry into the U.S., the third border serves as a new form of racial segregation deep within the country. Suburbs are no longer simply the settling place for white flight from the cities, they are emergent racial battlefields.

This crabgrass apartheid, represented by blockaded streets and off-limits parks, should be as intolerable as Jim Crow drinking fountains or segregated schools were in the 1960s. For Latinos, supposedly on the threshold of majority power in Los Angeles County, citizenship will never be fully achieved until this third border is dismantled.

CALIFORNIA

Heritage Discovery Center 

The Heritage Discovery Center continues its outreach by participating in many special historical community  events.  Most recently were their participation at the Purisma Mission, Carmel Mission Founder's Day, and the dedication of the De Anza Trail. 

Most interestingly, the HDC horses present at the dedication are descendants of the horses that were in the original 1776 trek.

Robin Collins stated, "We are trying to increase our network of interested parties and patrons that could appreciate what no-one else is doing and join -advise and assist us.  We are seeking help in getting Heritage Discovery Center's, "Living History Museum" in touch with other activists and academics that would like the early Californio Period told. This includes Native Americans, indigenous persons, Spanish, Mexicans, Mestizo, all that had an influence in making California such a special culturally rich place.

The goal is to create an Interpretive California Colonial Spanish Period which would be the only - and the largest - in the world.  The site would be a working ranch, with livestock and daily activities practiced during that time period.  Focus would be on representing the historical time periods, conservation, preservation, and the promotion of genealogical studies.

"We need stake holders who support our vision of cultural inclusion and education."

Robin L. Collins, President And Founder, HDC Inc,
e-Mail: hdclhm@aol.com
Barry R. Starr, Director
HERITAGE DISCOVERY CENTER Inc., A "Living History Museum",
Of The California Colonial Spanish Period
(Circa: Mid-Seventeen Hundreds to Mid-Eighteen Hundreds)
40222 Millstream Lane
Madera, Ca 93636; e-mail: HDCINC@NETPTC.NET
(559)868-8681, FAX (559) 868-8682

"Creating New Roots"
Retrospective
Exhibition August 31 - September 28, 2007

The Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts
2868 Mission Street San Francisco, California 94110 415-821-1155
Juan R. Fuentes Exhibition Curator

Call for Dia de Los Muertos Entries
for the Altar Competition. There will be a $500 award for the Best Traditional Altar and $500 award for the Best Contemporary Altar. We invite all members of the Community and Bay area artists to submit an entry for this year's "Hearts & Souls" Altar Exhibition.  

Deadline: All entries must be postmarked or hand-delivered between Sept. 4th and Sept. 8th. Artists will be notified of the juried selections and announced on Sept. 12th. All selected Artists must attend the orientation meeting at the Center on Sept. 19 at 7:00pm.

Entries: Please include a $15.00 check, entry fee, payable to: Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts (MCCLA), include a statement of the intent, a drawing of your proposed altar or installation. 

Information: (415) 643-2775.  DOD 2007 Entry Form. You can e-mail your entry to: patricia@missionculturalcenter.org, Phone 

Book: Sons of Guadalupe, California 
Investigation of the experiences of the 
Vietnam Era Veterans from Guadalupe

http://classroom.sdmesa.edu/mornelas/sons_of_guadalupe
_project.htm
Michael R. Ornelas, Professor of Chicano Studies
E-mail: mornelas@sdccd.edu

The Sons of Guadalupe project is an original investigation of the experiences of the Vietnam Era veterans from Guadalupe, California, a small agricultural town in northern Santa Barbara County. Included is an informal history of the region, the town, the multiple ethnic migrations into the city and other matters related to the town's current socio-economic dynamic. From this small town of 2,500 residents in the middle 1960s, 145 men were drafted or volunteered for military service between 1965-1970. Three men were killed-in-action: Michael Peter Pagaling, Arturo Carrasco and Phillip Hernandez. But virtually all of the veterans that saw military action in Vietnam have suffered for decades from physical afflictions brought on by their exposure to Agent Orange and psychological problems caused by their exposure to the madness and violence of war. I encourage you to read their testimonials which reveal the various maladies associated with the war some forty years ago.

The resources of the project are arranged in three categories: first, original and informal histories of the region as you see below, next Guadalupe's Vietnam Veteran Testimonials and third the photo gallery of all of the participants and additional photographic resources related to the town, the region and the experiences of the veterans in the war.

My book is rather about the small town of Guadalupe,  California and the Vietnam era veterans from this,  my hometown. From this little farming community of  2500 came 148 Vietnam era veterans. Nearly 80% of  these veterans were from poor Latino farm-worker  families. Needless to say it is a very compelling  story which I hope to convert to a documentary some  day. 

Juan's King Falafel is an introduction into the region and is named for a small take-out restaurant of this name that is run by a local Chicano, presumably serving Mediterranean food. It is one of the many examples of the ethnic elasticity of the town since its founding in the 1840s. Also includes the following sections: El Rincon del Mundo, The Skinny Bear, The Dune That Never Moves, Cantinflas was Here, and The Hanging Tree.

Don't Eat the Bear is a summary of the region and its unusual location in the middle of the Santa Maria Valley, surrounded by agricultural enterprises as far as the eye can see. Also includes: The United Nations, No Japs Allowed, On Sundays After Mass, The Cardena Rising Sun Club, Authentic Spanish Food and Bud Wong's Exotic Cuisine.

Soldiers Without Guns is a summary of the major economic and political pull and push factors that contributed to the enormous growth of the Mexican-origin population of the town. Most of the parents of the Sons of Guadalupe arrived during this recent wave of Mexicanization that surged with the Bracero Program in the 1940s. The town today, as a result of this latest wave of migrations, is now 87% Latino. Also includes the following sections: The Mexicans are Coming, Soldados Desembrazados: The Legend of Arturo Ortiz, Stealing from the Poor and 11 Mexican Restaurants.

We don't need no stinkin' forks is a summary of the California State Advisory panel of the 1972 Civil Rights Commission which investigated the school district when charges of excessive and persistent charges of corporal punishment became known. Originally charges were made by El Comite, a local Latino organization in town, and brought to the California Rural Legal Assistance organization. This began one of the most controversial investigations of any school in California, resulting in countless allegations of physical abuse of children as well as revelations on the scandalous state of education in the district. Also includes the following sections: Un Caballeriza, We Want Mexican Teachers and the Guadalupe Seven, No Forks Allowed, The Mean and Pugnacious Swinburne, Cruel and Unusual Punishment and Developmental Dyslexia.

The Sons of Guadalupe is a summary of the Vietnam veterans and their life before the Vietnam War and since, with a focus on their experiences in the school, their life before the war and the effects of the war on their psychological and physical condition since. You will find transcribed interviews with many of the veterans as they discuss their war experiences and their life since then. These interviews were conducted at various locations in California including Guadalupe, Nipomo Mesa, Santa Maria, Arroyo Grande, Pismo Beach, Monterey, Moorpark, San Francisco and other locations. Also includes: From Varela to Cañez, Barely 100 Pounds, Number 7, El Gordito, At 4 a.m., Talent-less Blondes, Erroneous Induction, The Short-Timer, Charley Owned the Night, The Black Cloud, 9 Per Day, The Heart of America.

Please visit my website on the project at classroom.sdmesa.edu/mornelas (do not use the www prefix). Click on the button entitled The Sons of  Guadalupe to access testimonials, a brief summary of  the five chapters, and a photo gallery still under  construction.

Sons of Guadalupe includes testimonials of the following Guadalupe Vietnam era veterans:
Henry Alfaro Rudy Alfaro Bobby Castillo
Jimmy Castillo Ysidro DeLeon Jimmy Inguito
Henry Leon Jr. Richard Noriega Manuel Razo
Rudy Razo Sal Rodriguez Mike Rosas
Santos Rosas Henry Ruiz David "Gordo" Sanchez
Richard Segovia Ernie Serrano John Varela
Chris Zarate

From left to right, Shirley Flor (Counseling Dept.), Starla Lewis (Black Studies Dept.), Jodi Corliss (Dean, Social and Behavioral Sciences and Multicultural Studies), Mike Ornelas (Chair, Chicano Studies Dept.), Cesar Lopez (Assistant Professor, Chicano Studies Dept.), Alessandra Moctezuma (Art and Chicano Studies Departments), Guadalupe Gonzalez (Counseling Dept.), Luis Leal (Professor Emeritus, University of California, Santa Barbara), Francisco Lomeli (Professor of Chicano Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara), Rita Sanchez,(Professor of Chicano Studies), Francisca Rascon (Professor of Spanish)Cesar Gonzalez (Professor Emeritus, Chicano Studies Dept.).

NORTHWEST UNITED STATES

The title of my presentation will be, “The Fall of Tenochtitlán and the Journey of the Plumed Serpent.” As you may already know, Hernán Cortés was thought to be the returning Quetzalcóatl (Plumed Serpent) by the Mexica/Aztecs. In my presentation I will be tracing the Plumed Serpent cult from its origin with the Olmecs. From there following its journey north to the Southwest region and then returning back into the Valley of Mexico.

El viernes 19 de octubre de 2007, el día antes de la conferencia anual de historia familiar hispana, George R. Ryskamp, profesor de historia y director precedente del Centro de Historia Familiar y Genealogía en Brigham Young University, ofrecerá un curso de jornada completa sobre metodologías avanzadas de la investigación genealógica. Se tratarán registros y técnicas más allá de los comunes. Se enfocarán las presentaciones en dos temas:

1. Finding & Using Sources that Tell the Story (El encuentro y uso de las fuentes genealógicas que cuentan la historia)

2. Research before 1650 in Spain & Mexico (Investigando registros de antes de 1650 en España y México)

El curso se hará en dos partes, de 8:00 a 12:00 horas y de 13:00 a 17:00 horas, en el aula de clases en el piso Main de la Biblioteca de Historia Familiar en Salt Lake City. El curso se ofrece gratuitamente.

For information on the Saturday schedule, click.

SOUTHWESTERN UNITED STATES

Teresa Urrea  Mexican Joan of Arc
(1875-1906)

Text in plaque is both in English and Spanish.

Theresa Urrea was an influential and legendary healer who helped inspire early revolutionary movements against the Mexican Director, Porfirio Diaz.  She became a health healer among Indians of Northern Mexico, drew thousands of followers and became known as the "Saint of Cabora."  Her sympathies for the poor inspired various uprising against the Mexican government by the Yaquis and other indigenous communities along the border.  While living in El Paso from 1896-1897, she was portrayed by loyal newspapers as a Mexican Joan of Arc, a goddess, a healer, and a revolutionary.  Crowds flocked to her home where she treated the poor free of charge.  After several death threats by Diaz sympathizers and criticism by the local Catholic Church, Theresa Urrea left El Paso and toured the United States performing her miracles, promoting revolutionary causes, and even winning a beauty contest in New York City.  Theresa Urrea was one of many exiles living in El Paso who would help spark the Mexican Revolution 15 years before it started.  She died in Clifton, Arizona in 1906.

The plaque  was placed on the wall of this building by the El Paso County Historical Society.  The building itself. was actually a rooming house (it still is) and Santa Teresa's room was on the very upper right.  

The building has belonged to one family since it was built in about the mid-19th century (after the "Mexican War" - the unprovoked invasion of Mexico by the Americans in 1845).  

Luis Urrea, a relative of "La Santa", who wrote a best selling historical novel about her, told me in an e-mail that: "The rooming house had an empty field in front of it that housed the tents and camps of her followers. Dig this--the field is still there, only now there's a flea market/swap meet there! On market days, it looks exactly like it did when she was there! You feel like you've stepped through time."

This woman, Martha Cruz, is the daughter of the current owner, who is 90 years old. Mrs. Cruz operates the boarding house and also functions as a notary public. She was very friendly, but she apparently knew almost nothing about Teresa Urrea. I had the enjoyable opportunity to  give her all the background on Theresa!

Source:  E Bryant Holman shared his concern and wrote:

A group of powerful investors in ElPaso want to use the "right of eminent domain" to raze a whole lot of historical building in the oldest part of El Paso, and one of these is the rooming house where the Santa de Cabora, a famous curandera, once lived. It is considered to be a historical landmark, and it is a travesty that this is being allowed to go forward, even though there is a public outcry against it.

Here is a letter from the Catholic Bishop of the Diocese that El Paso is in which is one of many expressions of dismay and concern for this plan.

For more information go to: http://www.ojinaga.com/cabora 
Sent by Dorinda Moreno 

CRUCES 
New play on the tragedies migrants experience crossing the border 
Friday September 21 at 7:00 PM 
Sunday September 23 at 2:00 PM

The play represents stories told by migrant workers who cross into the US through ever more dangerous areas since Operation Gatekeeper began in 1994, and questions the reasons and causes why so many Mexican migrants are forced to immigrate to the US.

The play is in Spanish with English translation on the screen. 
Ballet Folclórico "Tierra Caliente" will perform at the performance.
Friday September 21 at 7:00 PM & Sunday September 23 at 2:00 PM

Cal State San Marcos Theatre Room Arts 111 Tickets at the door 
More information: cvonson@palomar.edu (760) 744 1150 ext 5250

Las Madres project; a monument for immigrants

This is a very beautiful film about those concerned about the faceless immigrants in the Arizona desert, hundreds of whom die every year. This captures their humanity.

Ricardo is a 70+ yr. old priest who sends out 5-6 emails each day, many about the immigrants, more are reprints of important articles from major publications about issues related to Human Rights. If you are interested, email a request to be put on his list.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3eYDo3L5a4
Sent by Juan Marinez mailto:marinez@anr.msu.edu

Estimado David,
Your statement about Chicanos is very good and badly needed. However, we must correct the misinformed idea that Chicanos are only 50 percent Native (or around there). Enough studies in Mexico and other sources have proven that the Native stock of Mexicans is 80 percent or more (of course, some are white, and some have African and/or Asian blood as well). To assume 50 percent you would theoretically need an equal amount of Spanish and Indigenous people mating (more or less). This was not the case. The height of Spanish population in Mexico reached 150,000 during the colonial period (1519-1821). The Spanish population largely stopped growing by the 1820s after Mexican Independence. There were, however, far more native peoples who were "hispanicized" -- removed from their tribes, traditions, and languages.  Then the process became one of becoming "mexicanized.

" Many of them became the so-called "mestizos." At the time of Mexican independence 60 percent of the population was considered full-blooded native (and the rest of the 40 percent included many full-bloods who stopped calling themselves natives). There's no way there could be a 50 percent (so-called Half-Breed) Spanish blood infusion among Mexicans with these numbers. Most Mexicans have intermarried among tribes and with other Mexicans -- that's the heart of the real mestizaje. Yes, you can see the Spanish, African, and even Asian (or Arab) influences in our culture and often in our faces. We can't deny they exist. But again, the vast majority of who we are is native to this land. Even doctors have found gene similarities between Mexicans and Southwestern Native peoples (they have the same level of diabetes and other diseases related to Native genes). Chicanos, in fact, have more native blood than so-called Native Americans -- who number around 3 million and have a majority of mixed blood tribal members (which the tribes allowed after the blood count system was instituted in the US). Presently Mexico has more native peoples in sheer numbers than any other country in the Americas (proportionately, Guatemala, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru have higher percentages of Native peoples). In Mexico, it's claimed to be 10 to 20 percent of the population -- or between 10 and 20 million people (Mexico has had a hard time with census numbers, which only recently have begun to officially address these issues). However, we contend, along with many others, that most Mexicans have been removed from their traditional lands, tongues, and traditions over several generations and struggles. 

During the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1929, for example, when Mexico had a population of 15 million.   At the time, the estimates of the Native population was given as 40 percent. Again, the native numbers didn't go down because they were mating with Spanish people (who were no longer coming in significant numbers to Mexico). They went down because they were becoming "Mexicans" (misconstrued too often as mestizos).

Nobody denies the mixed blood among Mexicans and Chicanos -- it's just that the "myth" of Mexico's mestizaje tends to de-Indianize the population (that we are equal parts Indian and Spanish). It also denies the African (and Asian/Arab) in our genes, which are quite significant.

Gracias, Luis Rodriguez LRodrig555@AOL.COM
Editor/Xispas magazine

Shared by Dorinda Moreno dorindamoreno@comcast.net 

Back in the late 50s, I ran across a copy of Zane Grey’s THE TEXAS RANGERS. I was most impressed by an interview of Texas Ranger Joe Sitter featured in its preface. Little did I dream that my daughter would marry a grandson of Joe Sitter. And – that I was destined to meet a man who had actually known the Ranger..

In 1989 I made my first trip to Southwest Texas in search of my Lujan lineage. Another objective was to gather information of the killing of Ranger Joe Sitter by so-called "Bandido "Chico Cano. Somewhere along the way it was suggested I look for a book entitled PANCHO VILLA DAYS IN PILARES. I finally located a slim copy in a Marfa, Texas Library where I learned that author Joyce Means had since published a second larger book. I sent away for a copy, and thus began a series of conversations with Joyce that added details not covered in her book. She has a lot of information on Ranger Joe Sitter and Chico Cano, but what intrigued me most was her account of a massacre that took place in El Porvenir, Texas. How or why? —I wondered. What led up to the brutal killing of fifteen innocent men and boys? When Joyce told me that a son of Longino Flores, one of the murder victims was very much alive in Odessa, Texas; I wasted no time in going to meet him. I was certain he would have something to say about Joe Sitter who had patrolled the River –Front at El Porvenir. But alas I came away sadly disappointed because energetic, 94 year- old Juan Flores had taken a bus to Juarez, Mexico!

A few months later I received an e-mail from Elida Tobar who is tracing her Acosta lineage. After discovering that we do share common ancestry, (My grandfather’s mother was an Acosta) she wrote about a member of her family who was murdered in a massacre that took place in Valentine, Texas. My response was that the incident took place in El Porvenir—not Valentine, and added that lone- survivor Juan Flores lived in Odessa, Texas. Elida quickly put two- and- two together and determined that Juan was her great Uncle! She too wasted no time in going to see him.

Upon her return, wrote to tell of her amazing discoveries. First of all --that "Tio Juan" was the most energetic 91 year old she had ever seen, and more importantly—that the family knew nothing of the Porvenir Massacre! Incredibly for years, they had paid no mind to their father’s "ramblings". At Elida’s urging; they listened to Juan Flores’ painful recollections of that horrible night.

The serendipitous trail to Juan Flores widened when I received a phone call from documentary- producer Gode Davis. He spoke of his work-in –progress AMERICAN LYNCHING DOCUMENTARY, and it was from him that I learned that lynching is not limited to hanging, but also includes Mob-Rule killings. My response was that we had plenty of that and I told him about the Porvenir Massacre. I put him in contact with Elida Tobar, and the Flores family. An agreement to participate in the filming was reached, and Juan Flores told his story before the American Lynching cameras and crew. When he was done, according to writer Glen Justice –who was also present; "There was not one dry –eye in the room".

A few months later I spent an afternoon with a very alert and lucid 100 year old Juan. Naturally some of my first questions were about Texas Ranger Joe Sitter, and Chico Cano. I asked Juan if he remembered Joe Sitter... "Si" replied a smiling Juan. I remember him well. He camped outside our home when he was in the area. He spoke Spanish; mother always fed him beans, tortillas, and chile. "Fue un muy buen hombre".

One can only imagine Sitter’s rage had he lived long enough to see his amigos slaughtered. ( Sitter was killed in 1916). I avoided the Porvenir issue because it was extremely up-setting to Juan, and only discussed if he himself brought it up.

***

THE PORVENIR MASSACRE -- According to Juan Flores

January 27, 1918: A freezing yet beautiful moonlit sky shone over the tiny village of Porvenir along the Rio Grande in North-East Presidio County. The inhabitants slept soundly in their humble huts, never dreaming that before daylight fifteen of their men and boys would be dead. Around midnight his family was routed out of bed and out into the bitter cold. The women and children shivering with fright and cold watched their loved ones lead away. They dared not follow for they had been told they might be killed—some of the masked men spoke broken -Spanish. With the coming of day-light those left behind sought the help of school- teacher Henry Warner, and it was he who led the way in the direction of gunshots that were heard the night before. Juan Flores recalled that a voice in the search party shouted, "They’re over here!" To the horror of all they found the fifteen men and boys literally shot to pieces. Some were so horribly mutilated that collecting the bodies was a revolting job. (Robert Kiel, BOSQUE BONITO quote: "One of our men is still sick down there by the river. We had only our hands to work with. you know, and it was a terrible mess".

Juan Flores scoffed at the notion that Texas Rangers had anything to do with the killings. "Why", he wondered-- if the raid was a lawful search did some of the participants hide their faces behind kerchiefs? One in particular entered the Flores hut and went directly to where a rifle, a gift from Joe Sitter hung. Juan recalled that the man whose voice he recognized had often begged his father to sell or trade the weapon. (Perhaps somewhere, a gun collector has a rifle engraved with the initials J.S.). To his dying day, Juan cautioned his family about accepting the theory that it was the Texas Rangers who committed the murders. "They were all our friends" he said.

Space does no allow for the many versions of what might have precipitated the massacre. One theory is that it was in revenge of the equally horrifying Christmas day Brite Ranch raid in Candelaria, Texas. Supposedly: shirts and shoes that came from the Brite ranch General Store were found in El Porvenir. According to Juan there were no items at El Porvenir. Other sources say that residents were not given a chance to explain that hungry passersby had traded the items for beans and tortillas.

THE AFTERMATH

Juan Flores’ mother gradually lost her mind after that horrific night. She ended up a raving soul who ran out in the night screaming "Ay vienen los gringos" Her behavior became so commonplace that eventually it was all but ignored by all. The family did however take extra precautions to keep her away from fire-arms—yet one day she shot herself through the heart! Her 1936 Death Certificate reads: -- "Died of a self- inflicted wounds.".

As for Juan Flores, his daughter Benita recalls that as a nine-year-old, she woke to her father’s nightly terrified screams.. The nightmares became so bad that true to cultural definitions, it was determined that he was embrujado--bewitched. Eventually the family had no recourse but to have him admitted to a mental institution. It was there that he underwent shock –treatment "to relieve him of his night-mares". Now Juan had something new to fear --He would never mention the Porvenir episode again.

After learning of the Porvenir Massacre, Juan’s daughter Benita, and her husband Buddy embarked on an extensive search for the truth of what happened that tragic night. The trail is laden with frustrating discrepancies and set-backs, but they are determined to seek and receive the public apology Juan Flores longed for.

Juan Flores died a few months shy of his 101 birthday. His last wish was to be buried in El Porvenir because—"Alli esta enterado mi ombligo" (That is where my umbilical-cord is buried).

Elisa Lujan Perez 04—2007

Added readings: REVOLUTION ON THE RIO GRANDE: by Glenn Justice 
The University of Texas at El Paso, Southwestern Studies No. 95

BOSQUE BONITO By: Robert Kiel, Sul Ross State University, Alpine, Texas

African-American 

"This film affirms to African Americans that it's OK to come to the surface and say, 'Yes, I'm part Indian. "They're not giving up their blackness; they're just recognizing their Indian heritage." James Earl Jones narrates the film and the Neville Brothers provided music because they felt the neglected story needed telling. Why collaborate on such a film? "My answer is very simple: I'm part Cherokee through my grandmother," Mr. Jones says.

The Neville Brothers have been told all their lives that they have American Indian heritage. So Cyril Neville and his brothers, whose music is an amalgamation of jazz, R&B, and reggae, provided the music. "The Great Spirit who moves through all things meant for the Neville Brothers to do this," says the percussionist from his home in New Orleans. "It was a blessing to be involved because it helped answer questions I've been wondering about all my life." The film is healing, Mr. Neville says, and helps people like him understand their sometimes confused backgrounds. "When you know the truth, it sets you free. As another citizen of the First Nation said, 'The truth may sleep, but it never dies.' "

It really hit me in the 1980s while living in Boston. At that time the southern Irish economy was a complete mess. People were the greatest export from Ireland, and a lot of them were coming to the USA. At the same time, immigration from Haiti and the Dominican Republic was increasing, and into Boston these three groups came.

Documented or undocumented all three groups found themselves looking for work and housing. As a struggle for the rights of immigrants and against discrimination emerged, Haitians and Dominicans began to coalesce, but the Irish were a bit stand-offish. Immigrant rights activists were at first perplexed until they uncovered that the Irish were being encouraged by Irish American politicians to keep themselves separate from other immigrant groups because it was likely that a 'special' deal could be cut for them.

To put it another way, the Irish were being trained to become and accept becoming white.

The public face of immigration in the USA is not a rainbow; it is brown. Don't get me wrong. People from Asia, Africa, Europe AND Latin America are migrating to the USA, among other places. Yet in the popular media the portrayal of the immigrant is usually that of a Latino. Periodically one sees the face of an Asian or African. Rarely, unless one is discussing the Russian mafia, does the European face of immigration come to be unveiled.

This deserves exploring. If one goes to New York City, for instance, one will find that East European immigrants have made significant in-roads in the construction industry as both documented and undocumented workers. In fact, much of the work that has been carried out to rid buildings of deadly asbestos has been carried out by East European and Latino immigrants. Yet, East European immigrants seem to be almost invisible.

When anti-immigrant forces mobilize, they focus on creating a 'Berlin Wall' between the USA and Mexico. I have not heard about any walls keeping East Europeans out. I have not heard about stopping the East Europeans at the borders, when they exit planes or ships, or perhaps cross over from Canada.

In order to make sense of this we have to recognize that this racialization of immigration is not new and has very little to do with the numbers. In the 19th century while Asian immigrants were being persecuted, particularly on the West Coast of the USA, immigrants from Europe were coming to North American shores en masse. While it is certainly the case that there was widespread discrimination and prejudice by non-immigrants against southern and Eastern European immigrants, it never compared with the terror faced by Asians.

The problem for much of the USA with immigration is not so much immigration, but that there is so much immigration from South of the border, and specifically from Brown countries. This immigration upsets the racial balance-that is, the domination of a 'white bloc'-that the ruling elites have attempted to hold in place since the founding of the USA (when it was declared that whites could become citizens, whoever the whites happened to be). Although there is a section of the Republican Party that would like to turn a segment of Latinos (and Asians) into honorary whites, this does not go down well with the more extreme Right-wing that would rather that the USA be a more 'pure' white republic.

What is odd is that many African Americans ignore the reality of this racialization. While it is the case that among lower waged workers there is job competition with Latino workers, it is also the case that there is job competition with many other unskilled immigrants. Yet, anti-immigrant forces EVEN within Black America will tend to focus on the Latino or Brown face.

Recognizing the racialization of immigration should help one understand that much of what we are witnessing is a scapegoating of Latinos for much larger forces and factors that are underway in US society. In previous commentaries I have written about this, most especially the restructuring of capitalism that has been underway and that immigrants are the victims rather than the source. I have also addressed immigration to the USA as a major result of US foreign policy that has destroyed the political and economic infrastructure of so many countries, e.g., El Salvador. The scapegoating that we are seeing, including the rise of violent militias and public demonstrations against immigrant day laborers, tends to focus on the Latino as if it is the Latino who is the source of all of our problems.

Were there to be a serious discussion of immigration in the USA, it would have to address why there is a differential in treatment between East European and Latino immigrants in the public mind and in reality. There would need to be a discussion as to who is and who is not threatening the jobs of non-immigrants-if anyone. There would need to be a discussion as to why nearly 200,000,000 people have been in the process of migrating to places outside of their homelands and what that says about contemporary capitalism.

Yet those who scapegoat the Latino want no such discussion. As long as the face of immigration-documented and undocumented-is an 'evil' Latino we are absorbed in a madness out of which there is no escape and for which there are no answers.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member, Bill Fletcher, Jr. is a labor and international writer and activist, and the immediate past president of TransAfrica ***** {Bill Fletcher, Jr. } Labor and Social Action Bill Fletcher, Jr., is a longtime labor and international activist and the former President and chief executive officer of TransAfrica Forum, a national non-profit organization organizing, educating and advocating for policies in favor of the peoples of Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America. Fletcher is also a founder of the Black Radical Congress and serves as the Belle Zeller Visiting Professor at Brooklyn College - City University of New York.

Fletcher was formerly the Vice President for International Trade Union Development Programs for the George Meany Center of the AFL-CIO. At the Meany Center, he worked with foreign labor centers, aiding them in matters of education and organizational change, as well as working to construct stronger ties between respective educational institutions.

Additionally, Fletcher worked domestically to develop union movement capacity in its relation to organizational change/development. This latter work included supervising and coordinating Meany Center efforts to provide direct technical assistance to labor organizations as well as providing education and training to practitioners seeking to develop expertise in union transformation efforts.

Prior the George Meany Center, Fletcher served as Education Director and later Assistant to the President of the AFL-CIO. Fletcher's union staff experience also included the Service Employees International Union(SEIU), where his last position was Assistant to the President for the East and South. He served as the Organizational Secretary/ Administrative Director for the National Postal Mail Handlers Union. Prior to the Mail Handler's Union, Fletcher was an organizer for District 65-United Auto Workers in Boston, Massachusetts.

Fletcher got his start in the labor movement as a rank and file member of the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America. Combining labor and community work, he was also involved in ongoing efforts to desegregate the Boston building trades.

Fletcher is a graduate of Harvard University and has authored numerous articles published in a variety of newspapers and magazines. He is also the co-author of the pictorial booklet The Indispensable Ally: Black Workers and the Formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, 1934-1941.

While in Boston, Fletcher served as an adjunct faculty member with the Labor Studies Program of the University of Massachusetts-Boston.-

Sent by Refugio Rochin  rrochin@ucdavis.edu

"Do white poets generally project positive black imagery onto the world? Or do we tend to be - as we've been told we should be - color blind, in a world in which color affects the destiny of humankind? Worse yet, do many, or most, or all of us, intentionally or unwittingly, use black imagery to symbolize the negative? (For an example outside the realm of poetry, think of the westerns in which the bad guys can be identified by their black outfits.)"

The Six Nations:

Oldest Living Participatory Democracy on Earth
http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations

The people of the Six Nations, also known by the French term, Iroquois [1] Confederacy, call themselves the Hau de no sau nee (ho dee noe sho nee) meaning People Building a Long House. Located in the northeastern region of North America, originally the Six Nations was five and included the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. The sixth nation, the Tuscaroras, migrated into Iroquois country in the early eighteenth century. Together these peoples comprise the oldest living participatory democracy on earth. Their story, and governance truly based on the consent of the governed, contains a great deal of life-promoting intelligence for those of us not familiar with this area of American history. The original United States representative democracy, fashioned by such central authors as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, drew much inspiration from this confederacy of nations. In our present day, we can benefit immensely, in our quest to establish anew a government truly dedicated to all life's liberty and happiness much as has been practiced by the Six Nations for over 800 hundred years.

The Constitution of the Iroquois Confederacy 

ABOUT THE IROQUOIS CONSTITUTION:

by Gerald Murphy

For more on the Specific laws for the Chiefs and Lords:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/iroquois.html 

Following was published in Akwesasne Notes New Series, Fall -- October/November/December -- 1995, Volume 1 #3 & 4, pp. 62-63. 

Dating the Iroquois Confederacy by Bruce E. Johansen

The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, one of the world's oldest democracies, is at least three centuries older than most previous estimates, according to research by Barbara Mann and Jerry Fields of Toledo University, Ohio.

Using a combination of documentary sources, solar eclipse data, and Iroquois oral history, Mann and Fields assert that the Iroquois Confederacy's body of law was adopted by the Senecas (the last of the five nations to ratify it) August 31, 1142. The ratification council convened at a site that is now a football field in Victor, New York. The site is called Gonandaga by the Seneca.

Mann, a doctoral student in American Studies at Toledo University of Ohio; Fields, an astronomer, is an expert in the history of solar eclipses. The Senecas' oral history mentions that the Senecas adopted the Iroquois Great Law of Peace shortly after a total eclipse of the sun.

Mann and Fields are the first scholars to combine documentary history with oral accounts and precise solar data in an attempt to date the origin of the Iroquois League. Depending on how democracy is defined, their date of 1142 A.D. would rank the Iroquois Confederacy with the government of Iceland and the Swiss cantons as the oldest continuously functioning democracy on earth. All three precedents have been cited as forerunners of the United States system of representative democracy. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy functions today in Upstate New York; it even issues passports.

The date that Mann and Fields assert for the founding of the Iroquois Confederacy is more than 300 years earlier than the current consensus of scholarship; many experts date the formation of the Confederacy to the year 1451, at the time of another solar eclipse. Mann and Fields contend that the 1451 eclipse was total, but that its shadow fell over Pennsylvania, well to the southwest of the ratifying council's location.

According to Mann, the Seneca were the last of the five Iroquois nations to accept the Great Law of Peace. In an academic paper titled "A Sign in the Sky: Dating the League of the Haudenosaunee," Mann estimates that the journey of Deganawidah (The Peacemaker) and Hiawatha in support of the Great Law had begun about a quarter-century earlier with the Mohawks, at the "eastern door" of the Confederacy, about 25 years earlier. "Haudenosaunee" means "People of the Longhouse." "Iroquois" is a French term for the united nations of the Haudenosaunee, who also were called the "Six Nations" by English colonists. The five original nations (Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca) were joined by the Tuscaroras about 1700 A.D.

The 1451 founding date was first proposed in 1948 by Paul A.W. Wallace, who gathered Iroquois oral history in his White Roots of Peace and other works. In her paper, Mann suggests that Wallace knew enough of the Senecas' oral history to realize that a solar eclipse was a key element to determining the founding date. Wallace also was fluent in German, the language in which he would need to read T.R. Oppolzer's Canon der Finsternisse, the best historical eclipse tables available at the time. The first pre-contact solar eclipse in Seneca country occurred June 28, 1451. Mann believes that Wallace did not dare risk an earlier date because of the academic politics of the late 1940s. "As late as 1949," writes Mann, "white scholars were still trying to insist that Europeans . . . had invented wampum -- a back-bone artifact of the League!"

The argument that the Iroquois League was established substantially before contact with Europeans is supported by oral-history accounts. Mann and Fields cite Paula Underwood, a contemporary Iroquois oral historian, who estimated the League's founding date as A.D. 1090 by using family lineages as temporal benchmarks. Another traditional method to estimate the founding date is to count the number of people who have held the office of Tadadaho (speaker) of the Confederacy. A graphic record is available in the form of a cane that the eighteenth-century French observer Lafitau called the "Stick of Enlistment" and modern-day anthropologist William N. Fenton calls the "Condolence Cane." Mann and Fields used a figure of 145 Tadadahos (from Mohawk oral historian Jake Swamp), and then averaged the average tenure of other lifetime appointments, such as popes, European kings and queens, and U.S. Supreme court justices. Cautioning that different socio-historical institutions are being compared, they figure into their sample 333 monarchs from eight European countries, 95 Supreme Court Justices, and 129 popes. Averaging the tenures of all three groups, Mann and Fields found an estimated date that compares roughly to the 1142 date indicated by the eclipse record, and the 1090 date calculated from family lineages by Underwood.

Mann and Fields also make their case with archaeological evidence. The rise in interpersonal violence that predated the Iroquois League can be tied to a cannibal cult and the existence of villages with palisades, both of which can be dated to the mid-twelfth century. The spread of the League can be linked to the adoption of corn as a dietary staple among the Haudenosaunee, which also dates between 900 A.D. and 1100 A.D., Mann and Fields contend.

Assertion of the 1142 founding date is bound fo raise a ruckus among Iroquois experts who have long asserted in print that the Confederacy did not begin until a few years before contact with Europeans in the early 1500s, or even afterwards. In their paper, Mann and Fields dispute statements by Temple Anthropology Professor Elisabeth Tooker, whom they quote as placing the original date "in the period from A.D. 1400 to 1600 or shortly before." Mann and Fields believe that scholars who argue the later dates dismiss the Iroquois oral history as well as solar-eclipse of data. Since such scholars use only documentary sources with dates on them, and since such documents have been left to use only by non-Indians, the Native American perspective is screened out of history, they argue. "It is capricious, and most probably racial, of scholars to continue dismissing the [Iroquois] Keepers [oral historians] as incompetent witnesses on their own behalf," Mann and Fields argue in their paper.

Scholars who insist on proof of the Iroquois League's origins written in a European language engage in a circular argument, Mann argues. When such writing is the only allowable proof, dating the Iroquois League's origins earlier than the first substantial European contact becomes impossible. One must be satisfied with the European accounts that maintain that the League was a functioning, powerful political entity when the first Europeans made contact with its members early in the 1500s. "What I imply is that there is no `proof' of the League's origins `written' in a contemporary (i.e. Mid-sixteenth century) European language," Mann argues. "In fact, what written records exist point in exactly the opposite direction."

Mann also offers another example of what she believes to be the European-centered and male-centered nature of existing history. Most accounts of the Iroquois League's origins stress the roles played by Deganawidah, who is called "The Peacemaker" in oral discourse among traditional Iroquois, and Aionwantha (or Hiawatha), who joined him in a quest to quell the blood feud and establish peace. Mann believes that documentary history largely ignores the role of a third person, a woman, Jingosaseh, who insisted on gender balance in the Iroquois constitution. Mann's argument is outlined in another paper, "The Beloved Daughters of Jingosaseh."

Under Haudenosaunee law, clan mothers choose candidates (who are male) as chiefs. The women also maintain ownership of the land and homes, and exercise a veto power over any council action that may result in war. The influence of Iroquois women surprised and inspired nineteenth-century feminists such as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Matilda Joslyn Gage, according to research by modern feminist Sally Roesch Wagner.

While a high degree of gender equity existed in Iroquois law, sex roles often were (and remain) very carefully defined, right down to the version of history passed down by people of either sex. Men, the vast majority of anthropological informants, tended to play up the role of Deganawidah and Aionwantha, which was written into history. Women who would have described the role of Jingosaseh were usually not consulted. Mann points out that Jingosaseh, originally the name of an historical individual, subsequently a title, as a leader of clan mothers. The historic figure Tadadaho, originally Deganawidah's and Aionwantha's main antagonist, became the title of the League's speaker. Occasionally in Iroquois history, a title also may become a personal name -- Handsome Lake (a reference to Lake Ontario) was the title to one of the 50 seats on the Iroquois Grand Council before it was the name of the nineteenth-century Iroquois prophet. According to Mann, "it is only after the Peacemaker agrees to her terms that she throws her considerable political weight behind him . . . She was, in short, invaluable as an ally, invincible as a foe. To succeed, the Peacemaker needed her."

"Jingosaseh is recalled by the Keepers as a co-founder of the League, alongside of Deganawidah and Hiawatha," writes Mann. "Her name has been obliterated from the white record because her story was a woman's story and nineteenth-century male ethnographers simply failed to ask women, whose story hers was, about the history of the League."

The story of how Jingosaseh joined with Deganawidah and Hiawatha is one part of an indigenous American epic that has been compared to the Greeks' Homer, the Mayans' Popul Vu, and the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The Great Law of Peace is still being discovered by scholars; as recently as 1992, Syracuse University Press published the most complete available translation of the Iroquois Great Law. Once very five years, the Cayuga Jake Thomas recites the entire epic at the Confederacy's central council fire in Onondaga, New York, a few miles south of Syracuse. The recitation usually takes him three or four eight-hour days, during which he speaks until his voice cracks. According to the calculations of Mann and Fields, the Iroquois' central council fire has burned at Onondaga for more than 900 years.

Mann and Fields conclude: "The only eclipse that meets all requisite conditions -- an afternoon occurrence over Gonandaga that darkened the sky -- is the eclipse of 1142. The duration of darkness would have been a dramatic three-and-a-half-minute interval, long enough to wait for the sun; long enough to impress everyone with Deganawidah's power to call forth a sign in the sky."

Bruce Johanansen is a professor of Communication and Native American Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. His most recent books are Life and Death in Mohawk County (1993) and Ecocide of Native America (with Donald Grinde, Jr.), 1995.

Iroquois information sent by Jaime Cader

It was a summer-camp for workaholics. Besides taking part in every aspect of the large productions and performances, John and I wrote a script (on the Onondaga origins of the Iroquois League, on which the U. S. Constitution is based, the theme that year), directed it, designed and worked on the construction of the set, designed and worked on the costumes, and performed in it. I cannot find the script, lost forever perhaps, but I share with you, below, the closing poem.

That was the year that was: recently returned from a trip to Europe, that spring I attended the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival for my first time; the Sun Dance of the Arapaho in Ignacio, Colorado just before traveling to Vermont; and upon my return to San Francisco Bay, conducted the Wakwa Society's medicine wheel to mark the Harmonic Conversion.

Now, twenty years later, we are experiencing the darkness predicted before a new age of enlightenment is birthed: . .  But we need not, must not let it become even darker before the light breaks. We are, or must become, the  light. We are not powerless and must not allow ourselves to be made so. It is in our hands if we accept that responsibility (and even if we do not.) Throughout the world, let us work from the heart through our every work and art to heal ourselves and the Earth. 

RIG VEDA AMERICANUS.

SACRED SONGS OF THE ANCIENT MEXICANS, WITH A GLOSS IN NAHUATL.

BY DANIEL G. BRINTON [1890]
http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/aztec/rva/index.htm

Darrell McCovey

Darrell McCovey was born to the late Sadie Jones McCovey and Charles Alfred McCovey II in Requa, Calif., at Sturgeon Camp on Aug. 30, 1923. He was a member of the Yurok Tribe.

Darrell went to school at Pecwan until the eighth grade when he moved to Sherman Indian High School in Riverside. He enlisted in the Navy in 1943 and spent three years in the service. Darrell was proud of serving in the U.S. Navy on the USS White Plain in the South Pacific during World War II. He received a Presidential Award for Bravery in the battle of the Coral Seas.

Darrell fondly remembered being a member of the "Smokehouse" Gang, of which he was the last living member. The members were Billy Otis Pratt, Leo James, Gene Gist, Betty Ferris, Josephine George, Ellen Nixon and Marjory McCovey. He would tell us stories of their escapades with unbridled enthusiasm. Darrell accomplished a lot in his life; he was the last man alive to race in a wooden boat on the Klamath River from the bend at the Trees of Heaven campground to the mouth. He was a passionate fisherman and loved being on the river. Darrell was also proud of maintaining his boxing physique all of his life. He was a welterweight Golden Glove champion at 147 pounds for five years.

Darrell was a loving and forgiving man. He would forgive a person for anything and would immediately forget what you had done. He was known to be a big tease and to give nicknames that stuck for life.

Darrell’s family was important to him; he was a dedicated husband and father. He married his wife, Mavis, on May 19, 1951, after seeing her walking alongside the road in Hoopa. For 56 years Darrell loved Mavis every day as much as he did the first day he met her.

Darrell passed away at 10 a.m. Aug. 1, 2007, at Mad River Hospital. He was a resident of Panamnik "Orleans," Calif. Darrell was the grandson of Elsie Guy McCovey and Billy Jones and Dolly and Charles Alfred McCovey I. He was the husband of Mavis Smither MCovey. He was a wonderful father to Beavi, Loren "Long Gone," Robert "Chucker," Carol Lynn, Darrell Dean and Daryl Dele "Day-Pay" McCovey.

He was preceded in death by his beloved daughter Carol and sons Darrell and Dary, along with his grandchildren Amber Dawn, Misty Alvarado and Sky Alexander Hudelstan-McCovey, his brothers Leonard, Alan, Stanley, Marion, and Howard McCovey and sisters Ramona Trimble and Florence Burns.

He is survived by brother Charles McCovey III and Wife Maude; sisters, Bernice Rubidoux, Delores Reed, Sylvia Carroll and Carmen and Fred Moon; aunts, Elsie "Mindo" Bacon and Lena Nicholas; grandchildren, "Cogy" Gabriel and Curtis "Kit" McCovey, Chandra "Bianca" Alvarado, Nolan Colegrove, Lauren Alvarado, Telena, Robert "Cash," Daryl "Tuck," Lavone, Howard "Howie," Julian "JuJu," Lila and Violet McCovey. His great-grandchildren are Jonathon "Buster" Gastongauy, Dollie, Brennon and Carol McCovey, Edwardo McCovey Garcia, Kallista and Ashlend Colegrove and Isaac McCovey.

Pallbearers will be his grandsons Cogy, Kit, Noles, Cash, Tuck, Howie and JuJu McCovey. Honorary pallbearers will be all of his nephews along with Desmond "Murkie" Oliver, Gerald "Jerry" McCovey, Chuck Williams, Buster Owen, John Amos, Norman Goodwin, Hunchie Griffth, Mike McLaughlin, Bill "Laughing Boy" Pearson, Floyd "Pink Floyd" Flores and Curtis Hillman Sr.

Services will be held at the Wautec Shaker Church officiated by Joe Boy Lewis; interment will be at the Wautec Cemetery. Arrangements are under the care of Paul’s Chapel in Arcata.

http://www.eurekareporter.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?ArticleID=26933 

SEPHARDIC

http://genforum.genealogy.com/elsalvador/messages/585.html 

Many of the so-called Sephardic surnames are also Morisco surnames. The Moriscos are the Muslims that had to convert to Christianity. They too were eventually expelled from Spain. The only way to really know if one has a Spanish-Jewish or Muslim ancestor is to find documentation proving that one's ancestor belonged to one of those communities (it helps if there is a tradition in one's family stating this and that customs have been passed down from generation to generation). For a list of Morisco surnames, see the book "La Onomastica de los Moriscos Valencianos" by Ana Labarta, published by the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas in Madrid Spain. Among my ancestors I have the surname Pomar which is a Sephardic surname. However the Jewish Pomars are found in the Balearic Islands of Spain and my ancestors are from northern Spain. On the other hand, family tradition says that my ancestor having the Evora surname was Jewish.

Muchos de los apellidos que muchos piensan que son sefarditas, en realidad tambien son apellidos moriscos. Los moriscos fueron los musulmanes que tuvieron que convertirse al cristianismo y que eventualmente tambien fueron expulsados de España. La unica manera de saber si uno tiene un antepasado judio-español o musulman es si uno encuentra documentacion comprobando esto (ayuda si hay una tradicion en la familia diciendo esto y si han habido costumbres que se han pasado de generacion a generacion). Para ver una lista de los apellidos que usaban los moriscos, vean el libro "La Onomastica de los Moriscos Valencianos" por Ana Labarta, publicado por el Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas en Madrid, España. Entre mis antepasados tengo un apellido sefardita que es Pomar. Pero los Pomar judios son de las Islas Baleares de España y mis antepasados son del norte de España. Por el otro lado, entre mis parientes se dice que mi antepasado de apellido Evora era judio.

An Abbreviated List of Jewish Illumineries Of That Period
Yitsjak -( 4)Ambassador of Charlemagne (768-814).
Yehuda -(5) Ambassador of King Charles (The Bald) (843-847).

Abu Chaprut (915-970) Visor to Califs (Moorish Potentates), Physician to Califs, Pharmacologist, Financier and Diplomat.

Shemuel Hanaguid: (933-1056) Linguist, Poet, Author, Secretary to Visor of
Granada, Visor to King Habus (Granada), General of the Army of King Babis      (Habus' son).

Rabbi Shelomo Yitsjaki: (1040-1105) The famous Talmudist known as RASHI.(6)
Moshe Ben Ezra (1055-1140) Poet, Liturgist, Elegist.
Abraham Ben Ezra (1092-?) Encyclopedist, philosopher, poet, astronomer,
 mathematician.

Yitsak Alfasi (1013-1103) Noted Talmudist

Benjamin Tudela: (11??-1175) Geographer, traveled extensively in Europe, Middle
East, Balkans, etc. Wrote of his travels and observations. A source book for
historians, widely translated.

Abraham Ben Levi Ibn David (Ibn Daud): (1110-1180) Historian, Jewish and Greek Philosopher, Physician, astronomer, poet. Versed in New Testament and Koran. Preceded Maimonides in Aristotlean approach to religion arguing that philosophy was not anti-faith.

Ibn Gabirol (1040-1110) Prolific poet, Litanist, Philosopher.

Yosef Ibn Ferrusel (10??-1108) Physician, and Minister to Alfonso VI. Ferrusel was known as Cidellus.

Todres Abulafia (1247-1295) Prolific Poet (over 1000 poems in 3 volumes), Anthologist

Yaakov Ben Anatoli: (1194-1285) Translator. Translated Aristotle and Averroes from Arabic to Hebrew. Official translator for Emperor Frederico II (Naples) to translate into Italian.

Yosef Ben Kimji: (1105-1170) Grammaticist (Hebrew), Lexographer noted for systematizing and modernizing written Hebrew.

Yaakov Ibn Tibbon: (1230-1312) Mathematician, Physician, Astronomer, Inventor of Astronomical Instruments (New Quadrant, etc.)

Samuel Abulafia: (1320-1361) Financier, Community leader, Philanthropist (helped finance El Transito Synagogue, now Museum in Toledo), Treasurer and advisor to King Pedro of Castile, Diplomat. Tortured and killed by King Pedro; wealth confiscated.

Yitsak Abrabanel: (1437-1498) Minister of Finance under Alfonso V, King of Portugal. Also Finance Minister under King Ferdinand. Exiled 1492. Prolific writer on philosophical and religious matters.

Yehuda Abrabanel: (1460-1535) Famous Medical Physician and Philosopher. Exiled 1492.

Abraham Zacuto: (14??-1522) Mathematician, astronomer and cartographer., Professor at University of Salamanca. Reputed to have drawn maps for Columbus' journey. Exiled in 1492, he went to Portugal to advise the Court on astronomy. Advisor to King Juan II, and his successor King Manuel. Advised court on proposed Vasco de Gama Expedition. In 1497 Portugal expelled Jews, Zacuto went to Turkey.

Menash Ben Israel: (1604-1657) Philosopher, Editor

Some of the Notable Converts of Choice (7)

In Religion:

Bishop Pablo de Santa Maria (Castile) (1350-1435), formerly Salamon Halevi, Chief
      Rabbi of Burgos until 1390, wrote anti-Jewish Laws of Valladolid, 1412.

Diego Lainez: Friend of St. Ignatius of Loyola. He was Second in Command of the
      Company of Jesus.

Thomas de Torquemada (1420-1498) Grand Inquisitor who condemned 8,800 Jews
      to be burned alive, 96,504 to be tortured to (or otherwise put to) death.

Diego De Deza, Inquisitor General.

Joshua Larki aka Geronimo De Santa Fe (1412): Proselitizer, Inquisitor.

Pablo Christiani (see debate Nahman-Christiani).

Hernando del Talavera, Archbishop of Granada

In Literature XV Century:|Santa Maria y Cartagena, Caballeria, Santa Fe,
      Fernando de la Torre, Juan de Baena, Alfonso de Zamora, Francisco Lopez de
      Villalobos

(According to some historians Cervantes descended from a Converso family).

In Finance:
Diego Arias Davila (Castile) (1350-1435), Luis de Santangel and Gabriel Sanchez
      (Aragon). Santangel was the principal financier for Ferdinand and Isabel.

Abraham Senior, Chief Rabbi of Segovia, considerably financed Ferdinand & Isabel's
      reconquest campaign, later converted.

In Science: 
Moses Sefardi became Pedro de Huesca: Astronomer, Mathematician, named 
     Physician to King Henry I of England.

Converts who became Saints
Santa Teresa of Avila
Saint John of God

Conversos (or descendants) In the Sixteenth Century
Ausias March, Poet of Valencia.

Juan Luis Vives, Philosopher, Grammerian, Lexicographer (whose entire family was
burned alive later by Inquisitors).

Hernando de Pulgar, Chronicler.

Bartolmeo de las Casas, Defender of the American Indians and historian of the Indies.

Fernando de Rojas, Celebrated author "La Celestina", First Renaissance literary
work.
Mateo Aleman, Novelist
Luis de Leon, Humanist and Poet
Francisco de Vitoria, Jurist

Conversos Marry into Nobility
King Ferdinand's grandmother.
Zaportas married into Royal house of Aragon.
Sanchez married the Cavallerias.

Others: Santangel, Clementes, Villanovas, Coseons Espes, Enriquez, Lagunas, Cardozas, etc. King Philip II who signed anti-semitic laws in 1556 (Descendent of conversos).

"Up to 300,000 conversos remained in Spain at the time of the expulsion. They constituted the educated urban bourgeoisie. The richer families married with the Spanish (Christian) aristocracy and transmitted their blood line to the royal family itself" (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1988).

TEXAS 

A Dallas courthouse, rescued from demolition twice and vacant since the 1980s, has been restored as a museum.

Last week, workers completed the restoration of the 1892 Dallas County Courthouse, known as Old Red. A replica 
of the original 90-foot-tall clock tower, removed in 1919 because winds threatened to bring it down, tops the four-story Romanesque building.

A log cabin built on the site in 1856 served as Dallas County's first courthouse for two years until it burned down. A second courthouse burned in 1890, but the third survived. In both 1938 and 1946, the city voted to demolish Old Red for new skyscrapers but had second thoughts. A citizens group formed in the late 1980s to stabilize the former courthouse.

During the six-year project, workers also restored the building's cast-iron grand staircase, which had been removed in the 1920s.

The building opened in May as the Old Red Museum of Dallas County History & Culture. Together, the state and county chipped in $35.6 million, and private donors contributed another $14.5 million.

From Preservation Online, the online magazine of the National Trust for Historic Preservation  www.preservationonline.org   preservation@nthp.org

Border Bandits begins "Hidden History" tour, 
September 13-15
Austin, San Antonio and The Valley currently on the schedule

"For bringing this story to a general audience, Mr. Warnock, a self-described redneck, is my nomination for The Dallas Morning News' Texan of the Year. "  Macarena Hernandez
Dallas Morning News

"Much of the recent coverage of Ranger history in this period seems to have been spurred by Kirby Warnock's documentary film, Border Bandits."  Texas Monthly

"The documentary offers a first-hand account of the killings." The New York Times

"An excellent primer on border conflicts, with a very effective personal angle." Robert Draper, GQ Magazine

"It was in 1915 that Roland Warnock watched three Texas Rangers shoot two unarmed men in the back and ride away, leaving their dead bodies on the side of the road. It took 88 years to find out why."  The San Antonio Express-News

"Along the way Warnock, who isn't Hispanic, uncovered the bigger story."
The Dallas Morning News

Nearly two years after its release, Border Bandits embarks on an encore "Hidden History" tour of Austin, San Antonio and The Rio Grande Valley. Numerous requests for return visits combined with developments in pop culture have sparked the tour.

"A lot has happened since the film first came out in 2005," says filmmaker Kirby Warnock. "I kept getting calls from the theaters to come back, and the PBS controversy with Ken Burns kinda re-ignited the debate about what belongs in the history books."

Since its release, Border Bandits has earned a resolution honoring it in the Texas House of Representatives, a Best Documentary award from the Deep Ellum Film Festival, a nomination for "Texan of the Year" by the Dallas Morning News, a movement by Rep. Aaron Pena to have the story included in Texas history textbooks and a re-examination of Texas Ranger history, Walter Prescott Webb’s book in particular.

The "Hidden History" tour kicks off in Austin at the Hideout Theater, on Thursday night, September 13 at 7 pm. The film will be introduced by University of Texas professor, Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez. The subject matter is very near and dear to Ms. Rodriguez, who led the recent movement to have Ken Burns include Hispanic stories in his PBS documentary, The War. From there it moves to the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Westlake in San Antonio, Friday, September 14 at 7 pm, before winding up in the Rio Grande Valley at the Border Theater in downtown Mission, Saturday, September 15 at 2:00 and 4:30 pm. Warnock will appear at each and every screening to take questions from the audience.

"Warnock's documentary blows the doors off of the myths of the heroics of the Texas Rangers of the early 1900s," said Dr. Rivas-Rodriguez. "These days, the Rangers include men and women of color. But those of us who grew up in Texas grew up knowing that there was this other horrible, unacknowledged history of lynchings of Mexicans and Mexican Americans by the Rangers -- and how that was part of the theft of thousands of acres of land from them. Warnock goes about connecting the dots calmly, but forcefully."

Warnock chose the "Hidden History" title because the film, and the ensuing dialogue, has spurred interest in a chapter of Texas history that is not in the history books, but easily proven by existing records and documents.

Border Bandits is based on a story that filmmaker Kirby’s grandfather, Roland Warnock, told him nearly 30 years ago. In 1915 Roland was a 19-year-old cowboy working on the Guadalupe Ranch near present-day Edinburg, Texas. He told his grandson that a notorious "bandit" raid on the nearby McAllen Ranch was really an attempted revenge killing aimed at rancher James B. McAllen for keeping a 14-year-old Mexican girl in his house. In retaliation, Texas Rangers killed two Mexican-Americans living nearby, even though neither man was involved in the raid.

"As a baby boomer that grew up with The Lone Ranger, I was always fascinated and disturbed by my grandfather’s story," recalls Kirby. He spent nearly five years tracking down the descendants of the dead men, poring over Ranger reports and interviewing historians to find out what actually happened. The result is Border Bandits, a film that is both compelling and disturbing as it tells of a turbulent time in Texas history, when 3,000-5,000 Mexican-Americans were killed in the lower Rio Grande Valley.

Using period photos and re-enactment footage, Border Bandits is a true tale of justice gone awry during a time when American citizens of Hispanic descent were summarily killed for their lands. It has sparked intense interest in Texas, because of the state’s growing Hispanic population and its absence from Texas history books. The film caused Rep. Aaron Pena to introduce a bill in the last Texas legislative session after viewing the film, and even passed a House Resolution (HR 2140).

"It tells all of our stories, even those parts we’d rather leave out," wrote Alejandro Perez for the San Antonio Current after a sold-out screening.

For more information, visit www.borderbanditsmovie.com, or e-mail kirby@bigbendquarterly.com, or phone 214.942.4905. Theater links are as follows:

The Hideout, Austin, TX 
http://www.hideouttheatre.com/

The Alamo Westlake, San Antonio, TXhttp://www.alamodrafthouse-westlakes.com/welcome-to-alamo.html

The Border Theater, Mission, TX
http://bordertheatre.com/home/

Art Garza agarza0972@tx.rr.com

Celebrating Tejano Heritage

28th Annual Texas Conference on Hispanic Genealogy and History
September 13 to September 16, 2007
 Austin, Texas

"TCARA"

NEXT MEETING

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17

AT 6:00 P.M.

MAD DOGS BRITISH PUB

1039 NE Loop 410
822-7676

www.maddogs.net

At this Meeting 
"TCARA" will be giving out the 
"TCARA" Directory

WITH SPECIAL
Lineage and Non-Lineage Organization

Representatives Directory
To TCARA Members Only!

No charge for this special Directory to TCARA Members who pick them up at a TCARA Meeting. 

Genealogy Conference Plano, Texas
Saturday September the 22 
 2700 Roundrock Trl. Plano TX 75075
 9:00am to 4:00pm 
LDS Stake Center, Plano

The conference will include a long day session dedicated to Hispanic Research. Beginners are welcomed.   Somos Primos reader, Arturo Cuellar will be conducting two workshops, Hispanic Research (10:30-11:30 am) and Putting Your Family in PAF in Spanish, (11:45-12:45).   The afternoon will be one individual assistance on the computers.  For more information contact Arturo at ccuellar30@aol.com

Greetings to all HOGAR members, "primas", "primos" and friends:

We are proud to announce the completion of our 2007 300-page Tenth Anniversary HOGAR Journal and it looks great. We extend our deepest appreciation and offer our special thanks to the many 'primos' and friends, who graciously submitted and unselfishly shared their family histories, stories, trees, photos and their research and extraction work with HOGAR members and friends.

This year, we were privileged and honored to have received several articles from members and friends from the Monterrey, Cuidad Guadalupe and Santa Catarina, Nuevo Leon area. Even though they have their respective Genealogy Society in Monterrey, they are very supportive of HOGAR’s activites. In addition, with permission, we also included several excellent articles that had been published in SOMOS PRIMOS (www.SomosPrimos.com), a monthly free periodical produced by Prima Mimi Lozano Holtzman.

Odilón Arámbula, Gloria H. Benavides, Marissa Benavides, Marvin Lee Bowers, Shirley Ann Canales Bowers, Carol Brewer, Araceli Guadalupe Chavana Cerda, Juanita Galván Delgado, Arturo R. Garza, Alejandro Gómez, Arcilia Angeles González, Horacio González de Hoyos, Antonio Guerrero Aguilar, Bernadette Inclán, John D. Inclán, Janet Paulos Khashab, José A. López, Enriqueta Chapa López, Dahlia Guajardo Palacios, Vicente Riva Palacio, Crispín Rendón, María Dolores Méndez Rodríguez, Leonor Silva Urrutia, Dorina Alaniz Thomas, Raúl Mitre Valle, Ted Vincent and Jerry (J.M.) Benavides have articles in this year’s Journal, and you will find them in Santa Catarina, Cuidad Guadalupe, and Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico; California, Arizona; and Laredo, Richardson, Allen, Mesquite, Fort Worth, and Dallas, Texas.

Attached, please find the 2007 Journal's Table of Contents, which contains all the excellent articles shared by the above mentioned primos. 

We are aware of the many hours they have spent in their research efforts and we greatly appreciate the information contributed for publication. The data contributed will help our many 'primos' and friends in their genealogy research. 

HOGAR members who pay their $30.00 Family annual dues will receive their journal later this month or at the 28^th Annual Hispanic Genealogy Conference, which will be held in Austin, Texas during September. Nonmembers will be able to obtain their copy for a $30.00 donation.

Cariñosamente, Jerry M. and Gloria H. Benavides,
HOGAR Publicity, Chairs
Jgbenavide

 Raquel Martinez Benavides Reedy, a former Laredoan, was recently appointed as Associate Superintendent for Elementary Education for the Albuquerque Public Schools -- a very high position in the New Mexico School System. Her appointment comes after a long and distinguished career in the education field which she credits, along with her equally gifted husband (David) and daughter (Alexis), to a good education and to a Laredo upbringing "…and belonging to a community that embraces its own in such an unwavering manner…"

According to the National Center for Education Center for Education Statistics, the Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) is the 33rd largest school district in the country with close to 90,000 students. . There are 132 schools in the district. The APS budget for the 2007 and 2008 school year is over $658 million.

APS is divided into a cluster system based on the 11 high schools throughout the district and the elementary and middle schools that feed into them. Each cluster has a Cluster Leader Principal who not only runs his/her own school but supervises and helps coordinate the educational focus on student achievement for the cluster schools. This is a very unique and effective educational management approach. The superintendent and her leadership team of associate superintendents and directors oversee the work of the entire district.

Raquel Reedy was born and raised in Laredo. Her mother is Rosenda (Chenda) Benavides and her grandparents were Roman Benavides and Margarita Garcia Benavides. According to Raquel, education was cherished in her family. Her mother started a family tradition where the usual fairy tales ended with the prince kissing sleeping beauty and then "going off to college to get a career". Her mother worked tirelessly to ensure that she received the best educational experiences possible and Raquel says that she will always be grateful for her selfless sacrifices. Raquel also believes that her grandmother, Margarita, was the most widely read woman of her generation. She was an excellent role model for her sharing her sheer joy of learning. She has fond memories of her grandfather stressing the need for a good education because "Es algo que nunca te pueden quitar". These were wise words from people who lived and suffered through the Great Depression. Education has been one of the principal pillars in Raquel’s life.

After graduating from Ursuline Academy, Raquel went on to Laredo Junior College for a year. According to her, "…this wonderful institution helped so many of us to take our first tentative steps towards higher education. I know that thousands of Laredoans look back with fondness on LJC…" After LJC, she completed her degree at the University of Texas at Austin majoring in elementary and special education (with an additional emphasis on bilingual education). She was subsequently accepted at Harvard University and flew off to Cambridge, Massachusetts with much trepidation. Armed with the support of her beloved family and the encouragement of a Laredo community, the Harvard experience changed her life. She not only received her Master's degree there, but it was also at Harvard that she met her husband, David Reedy, a doctoral student in Applied Mathematics and Engineering.

Teaching in the Boston Public Schools during the famous busing riots was quite an experience for a young woman from Laredo! After marriage, both Raquel and David move to Albuquerque, New Mexico where David began his engineering research work at Sandia National Laboratory. At the same time, Raquel started her career with the Albuquerque Public Schools. During the time with APS, she has had a varied and progressive educational career -- a Personnel Specialist (six years), elementary school principal (20 years) and Cluster Leader Principal. After 31-years in the education field, her recent promotion to Associate Superintendent for Elementary Education for the Albuquerque Public Schools reflects a well-deserved recognition of a very productive and successful career.

Raquel and David Reedy have one daughter, Alexis Benavides Reedy -- their pride and joy. Alexis graduated from Swarthmore College (Pennsylvania) with a degree in Engineering. She recently completed her Master's degree at Emory University (Georgia) in Public Health and Epidemiology and has been accepted and will begin work next month on her medical degree at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine (in association with Case Western Reserve University, Ohio). This great family experience says much for those lessons learned in Laredo long ago. Education has been key in their family life and it is being carried on from generation to generation.

Raquel’s feelings about her Laredo upbringing are always strong and extremely positive. In a letter to a friend, Raquel tells him: "When I think back on Laredo I am so thankful for the opportunities that wonderful city offered me. Where else would someone benefit from the engrained sense of acceptance and belonging that exists only in Laredo? I was talking to our cousin, Arturo Jacobs, recently and we both marveled at the fact that he recently ran into a school chum he hadn't seen in decades and the two picked up their friendship as if dozens of years had not passed since they had last spoken. That, in a nutshell, is Laredo! Once a Laredoan, always a Laredoan! How wonderful to belong to a community that embraces it's own in such an unwavering manner! It is hard to explain to a non-Laredoan. How can you explain this kind of "belonging"? You can't. And so you thank your lucky stars that you belong to such a place and live your life knowing that there is a very special place that is always there cheering you on. "

We join the Laredo community in congratulating Raquel, David, and Alexis Martinez Benavides Reedy for all those magnificent accomplishments and wish them continued success..

JMPENA

Dan Arellano recommends the following site: 
http://www.tvc.state.tx.us/EVENTS/OTHER/PDF/WWII_Memorial_Dedication.pdf

Henry Wolff, Jr. recommends the following site:
http://www.thevictoriaadvocate.com/631/story/107674.htm 

ElsaPena & Walter L. Herbeck, Jr. recommend the following book: Dolores, Revilla, and Laredo (Three Sister Settlements) By Rogelia O. Garcia from Laredo, Tx copyright 1970. It is only 51 pages so it is easy reading.  

EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI

Southwest Michigan Hispanic Celebration
Lake Michigan College
4th Annual Hispanic Celebration
September 15, noon - 4 pm

We Proudly invite you, your family and friends to attend this year's festivities.  Our bilingual master of ceremony will give special recognition to our Veterans, honoring their service and sacrifice.

Learn and experience the Hispanic Culture, through food, music, art exhibits, business expo, and vendors. The day will also include games and  car show (low riders).  Let's all embrace diversity together.  it is with determination and partnership that we will have another successful year. 

125 Veteran's Blvd.  South Haven, MI Information: 269-621-3706
Sent by Juan Marinez  marinez@anr.msu.edu

EAST COAST

Buffalo Bill's eye was missing. His horse was in pieces. Now the cowboy is back. A restored billboard for the traveling entertainer's show was unveiled in June, five years to the day that a facade collapse revealed the poster, one of the oldest in the country.

For more than 120 years, a 26-by-10-foot billboard had been hidden in a brick building in Jamestown, N.Y., until 2002, when a demolition crew noticed it.

"There were some pieces that just crumbled like potato chips," says Pat Anzideo, project manager. "They were so fragile you didn’t want to breathe on them." The building's owner, the Reg Lenna Civic Center, immediately hired a conservator to save the poster.

"It's been like putting together a huge jigsaw puzzle," says Laura Schell, the conservator who removed and restored the billboard, which is now on display on the site of the same theater that the poster advertises.

After Schell removed and stabilized the poster fragments, they sat in storage until the group raised the money for the $109,382 restoration. In 2004, Save America's Treasures awarded a matching grant of $52,000 to the project. Cody's ancestors sponsored the initial work.

William "Buffalo Bill" Cody (1846-1917) worked as a gold prospector, Pony Express rider, Civil War soldier for the Union, and buffalo hunter—he gave the meat to railroad workers. But he became a star after author Ned Buntline penned a dime-novel series about his adventures and convinced Cody to go on tour with his play in the 1870s.

The Jamestown billboard advertises one of Cody's earliest shows, a May 1878 performance at the Allen Opera House. Today the poster is on display in a movie house built on the opera house site in the 1920s and restored in the 1990s.

"People just stand in awe," Anzideo says. "It was ephemera; it was supposed to blow away in two weeks. It was just an accident that caused it to be preserved and another accident that caused it to be discovered."

From Preservation Online, the online magazine of the National Trust for Historic Preservation    www.preservationonline.org
Contact us at: preservation@nthp.org

The musical West Side Story opened on Broadway in the fall of 1957. It was a story of romance and rivalry between white and Puerto Rican gangs in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Few people know that originally it was to be called East Side Story...and the conflict was between Catholics and Jews. The story was changed to reflect new ethnic tensions brewing in New York's neighborhoods.

The new story was prophetic. A month before the musical opened New Yorkers were stunned by the brutal murder of a white teenager from Washington Heights. Michael Farmer's death, 50 years ago today, marked a turning point in city.

A Radio Diaries Production, Produced by Joe Richman, with help from Deborah George, Ben Shapiro, and Anayansi Diaz-Cortes. Special thanks to Rob Snyder, CBS, and NYC Municipal Archives. Radio Diaries is a not-for-profit organization.
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Rising Voices of America: On the Hill, Latino Interns Have Much to Say About Who They Are and What We All Should Be By David Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 26, 2007; C01

This land is your land, this land is their land, and they hail from California to the New York island -- 34 of the best and brightest Latino college students, sojourning in Washington to do the congressional summer intern thing.

They arrived just in time to witness the spectacular flameout of the Senate's immigration reform bill in June, then to read about attempts to deny services to illegal immigrants in Prince William and Loudoun counties, then to immerse themselves in a project to provide services to one and all in Columbia Heights.

Washington makes them mad. And it inspires them.  It also has made them think deeply about who they are, and where they fit into this turbulent feat of political imagination and plain winging-it called America.

Such existential ruminations spark other considerations: Whom do you date? How good (or bad) is your Spanish? How comfortable are you with your skin tone? (Too dark? Too light?) Are you American enough? Is the reputation of la Raza riding on your every move -- or is that perpetual feeling of being watched just an illusion?

One of the first things they did upon arriving was question authority, as represented by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, host of the internship program, which is providing transportation, lodging and a $2,000 stipend for eight weeks. Why, the interns demanded to know, do the members of the caucus insist on calling it the Hispanic caucus? Don't they realize Hispanic is an oppressive, colonial term that emphasizes the Spanish (European, white) part of their identity? To them, Hispanic belongs in the same lame purgatory of embarrassing cultural artifacts as the Macarena and Speedy Gonzales.

The correct term, the interns informed the adults, is Latino, which, to the students, better embraces the three rivers of blood that cascaded together to form a People. White blood, African blood, Indian blood: Hispanic, Latino. Mexican, Guatemalan, Salvadoran, Nicaraguan, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Venezuelan, Colombian, Peruvian. . . . South American, North American . . . American?

Esther Aguilera, president of the institute, responded to her young charges by saying, well, yes, good point, but a few decades ago when the organization was forming, the U.S. census had gone with Hispanic, making it the official term. And thus the potent undertow of federal bureaucratic logic became another fact of Washington for the interns to experience.

Now, a few weeks after that baptismal rebellion over nomenclature, as the languid liberation of summer twilight settles over a plaza on the George Washington University campus, a group of the interns is sitting under a sculptural clock, sipping iced coffee and talking about identity. They're not who they were just a few years ago, but neither are they who they will become.

"I will never say I'm Hispanic," says Israel García, 22, a senior at the University of Colorado at Boulder. On his mother's side, his roots in a rural Colorado valley date back six generations, grafted with Apache stock. His father was an undocumented migrant lettuce-cutter from Baja California, Mexico, now a legal resident applying for citizenship.  García calls himself a Latino, an American citizen, but it's not that simple. "I don't underestimate the power of us being allowed to name ourselves," he continues. "And to be able to say 'this' is who we are."

Beyond the Ethnic Cul-de-sacs
The immigration debate has forced Latinos to ponder who they are, or risk having that answer imposed by others.

"The media tends to portray the mexicano standing in front of Home Depot, as if that is what the Latino population is made of," says Ricardo Zavala, 27, a senior at Texas State University, whose family came to Texas from Mexico five generations ago.

"We're finding our voice," says Cristina Seda, 20, half Puerto Rican and half Jamaican, from the Bronx, a junior at Trinity College in Connecticut. "We're realizing, okay, this is one way people have perceived us, and they've generalized us in a lot of ways in order to make a voter bloc and create a group of consumers, and to sell to us and market to us -- and to market us to the greater society: 'This is salsa, buy this, Americans, look at this culture, it's really exotic!' And we're seeing there are a lot of us, and people are recognizing us, and now we're trying to shape it for ourselves, instead of having our identity shaped from the outside."

There's a contradiction in how the interns want to be understood. On the one hand, they're tired of the diversity of the Latino community being ignored. The interns' families together claim roots in eight Latin American countries. When students from Caribbean cultures cook in the little campus kitchens, students from the American Southwest don't recognize the names of the dishes.

And yet, unlike their parents and grandparents -- who found solace and strength in Chicano power, Puerto Rican power, Dominican power -- this generation feels free to move beyond those ethnic cul-de-sacs. Historians say this is the first time a pan-Latino identity is emerging, a banding together forced by the immigration debate.

"I used to get offended when people would say, 'You must be Mexican,' " says Carmen Mendoza, a junior at the University of Wisconsin, whose parents fled the civil war in Guatemala. "Now I don't get mad because you know what? . . . At the end of the day I look Mexican, even though I'm not Mexican, and my people are having the exact same struggle as the Mexicans are having."

"Our generation is the first generation to grow up with accessibility to each other," García says. "We have such instant means of communication, like the Internet, like cellphones . . . that our parents and grandparents didn't have. The only means they had when they came to this country was to survive with one another, was to be proud of la patria."

Shared Experiences
The summer sky is deepening, darkening. Identity also comes in colors, but colors are deceptive.  "I'm sure this has happened to all of us," García begins. As he elaborates, the group sitting beneath the sculptural timepiece chuckles in recognition.

"People will say, 'Where are you from?' I'll say Colorado. No, but where are you from? I was born and raised in Colorado. But where are you from? Well, my family is from Mexico. And that's the answer they're looking for. It's like, you're obviously not like us. You're obviously not an American. Colorado is not a good enough answer for you."

García speaks English without an accent. His hair is short, stiff and black. His skin is bronze.  Listening and laughing with the others is Yuri Castaño. He could give what García calls "the answer they're looking for." He's from Mexico City. But Castaño is hardly ever asked. His skin is white, his hair brown and tousled.

"I have all the privileges of any white-skinned person in this country," says Castaño, 19, who immigrated with his mother about 10 years ago. He's a junior at the University of Pennsylvania. "Of course, it's beneficial to me in that sense, but in another sense, within the Latino community there's a little bit of a struggle to be recognized as Latino."  At Penn, he says, there are students who are known as Latin Americans who are richer and whiter. And there are Latinos who are poorer and browner.

"I could never identify with the Latin Americans, even though I was born and lived for 10 years in Mexico City, because I'm poor. But on the other hand, there's some tension with me and Latinos, because in terms of racial identity, they see me as white and not brown. . . . My identity has been evolving, to some extent. My sister is much darker, she looks much more indigenous than I do. I have felt shame about being light-skinned. The same way people have felt shame about being dark-skinned."

"I always wanted to look like my [lighter-skinned] sister, and my sister wanted to look like me," says Mendoza, who has grown past that longing and now proudly calls herself "la negrita indita" -- the dark Indian -- because of her Mayan heritage. Color is a head game, she says, and "You're never going to be satisfied."

Zavala, the fifth-generation Texan, is as light-skinned as Castaño. When he was growing up, Latino children would sometimes teasingly call him white. Now Zavala is dating an African American woman. He has realized that among the charms he appreciates in a woman is darker skin. "When I have children, I want them to have a darker tint because I don't want them ridiculed for being lighter," he says.

But identity is more than skin deep. Mendoza dated a white guy for six years. They had strong religious convictions in common. But he was from a more well-to-do family than hers, and she felt some cultural pressures.

"When I was around his family I would make sure I didn't wear my hoop earrings that day," she says. "I would make sure I didn't wear my hair big and curly like it really is, I would make sure that I straightened it. I would make sure I was on my best, best behavior because I wanted to prove I wasn't one of 'those' Latinos."

It didn't work out, not simply because he was white and she was brown, but because of all the strands of identity tied to those skin colors.

"I've dated Latinos, my boyfriend now is Native American," Mendoza says. "It's so much easier to date somebody who is Latino or a minority because you can just identify with them on a different level. There are certain things I could not express or get him to understand. No matter how much he loved me, no matter how great we got along, he was never going to understand, we didn't have that common bond."

Language Matters
A smattering of Spanish echoes in the brick building on F Street NW where the interns live in spartan suites. Many are fluently bilingual, but most conversations are in English, and group meetings are conducted in English.  Are you the language you speak?

Born in San Antonio, Krizia Martinez, 20, was spoken to in Spanish by her Puerto Rican parents. She started learning English in a bilingual class. At home she would play teacher with her brother, two years younger. "I would tell him, 'No, don't say it in Spanish, say it in English,' " she recalls. Now she is a bilingual senior at the University of Texas at San Antonio. But her brother can't speak Spanish, and he good-naturedly blames her. Martinez feels a little sheepish about her role.

"A good assimilator," she says ironically. "It's hard for him. A lot of people assume if you're of Latino background, you speak Spanish. . . . He's still very proud of being Puerto Rican. . . . As we try to shape our identity, we're trying not to lose what's important to us."

Zavala's great-great-grandfather was a vaquero, one of the early Texas cowboys. His father is a file manager for a law firm, his mother a mortgage loan processor. "My parents grew up in a time period where in the school system, if you spoke Spanish in class you got hit by your teacher," he says. "So when they had me and my younger brother, they felt that it would be hindrance to teach us Spanish. I'm really trying my best to learn it. And I definitely want to teach my children Spanish."

This tall, white, fifth-generation English-only Texan could melt completely into the big American pot. But that's not who he thinks he is. He can't fully explain why.  "I always felt that's who I am and I'm going to stay who I am," Zavala says. "A lot of mexicanos who are first-generation, they sometimes look at me and they go, 'How come you don't talk Spanish, or how come you don't eat certain foods every day like we do? How come your mother doesn't make homemade tortillas every morning?' My mom doesn't because she's fourth-generation and she doesn't know how to make tortillas. We grew up eating pizza pockets and corn dogs and spaghetti and Ramen noodles."

Job Experiences
Wearing smart dark suits, bunkered in cubicle warrens, they answer the telephones, catalogue mail from constituents, research legislation, attend hearings. In this epoch of the immigration wars, they've been on the receiving end of a lot of passion and venom blasted into Washington from the voters. The charged environment on the Hill has made the issue fresh and raw for the students, all of whom are legal residents or citizens, as the program requires.

Martinez, working in the office of Rep. Rubén Hinojosa (D-Tex.), went home one night and kept hearing the angry voice of a caller outraged about her taxes paying for school lunches for children of illegal immigrants.

García, a campus activist who helped organize a large immigrant rights march in Denver last year, is picking up tactical pointers from his perch in the office of Rep. John Salazar (D-Col.). Seeing the flow of communication coming in from advocates and voters, he concludes the most persuasive voices appear to be the ones anchored on a bedrock of usable fact. "I will never contact my representatives the same way again," he says. "Public policy is shaped by information."

Mendoza, assigned to the office of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), goes to a Senate-side cafeteria and notices many of the workers are Latinos. They immediately spot the Latina in the suit, rare enough on Capitol Hill.  "It's funny the sense of appreciation I get from them, and I give them," Mendoza says. "They speak to me in Spanish, they smile at me a little bit extra. It just feels good to see them, and they see me."

Mendoza's mother used to tell her, "No seas una Latina fea." Don't be a bad example. Don't disgrace the community. And if there have been times that directive feels like a burden, it also helps explain why many middle-class Latinos feel connected to working-class Latinos, why many with documents joined marches to support those without.

"We're Latinos and we share a common struggle," says García, who, like several of the others, grew up poor and feels privileged to be in college, when Latinos have the nation's highest high school dropout rates.

Some nights, the interns gather in the basement of their building to plan their community service project. It's going to be a health and education fair Saturday at the Mary's Center in Columbia Heights.  It's aimed at high school students and their parents. The education component will "demystify the college process," García says, "helping people understand college is not a place in the clouds."

Identity Questions   What is an American?
Sometimes they feel the vertigo of existing between identities. Mendoza, despite being born in the United States, suspects that because of her Mayan copper skin color, she will never be perceived as American enough. Or is that just a perception in her own head? When she visits Guatemala, her cousins have no doubt: She is "the American."

Other times she thinks: "I'm Latina, I'm Guatemalan, you cannot take that away from me. I also feel that I'm more American than others, too. What is the purpose of America? The way I see it, I'm fitting that mold of what our founding fathers wanted, which was for someone to come, have a new beginning and fight oppression."

"I refuse to accept that idea that we will never be 'American enough,' " says Seda, the Bronx-born daughter of a Puerto Rican father and a Jamaican mother. "I think it's our job to redefine, and define, what America is." The conversation beneath the clock is ticking down, and it's going to be a warm night.

"The thing that we're refusing to do is become just like the white population of this country, because we're not and we never will be," García says. "The American Dream is the simple idea that you can come and work and get something back and make your life better than what it was before. When we don't feel access to that dream anymore, we lose our stake in it, and we're not American anymore. But when we go back to our countries of origin, when we see, well maybe I've worked hard and look what I've gotten, and it's a lot more than what I had here, that's when again we're, like, maybe the dream is still alive. Maybe I am American."

Sent by Carlos Ray Gonzalez

MEXICO

When Mexico lost two oil tankers to
German bombs in WWII, it sent
pilots to train and fight alongside
U.S. forces. Today, the survivors
fight to keep their story alive.

In May of 1942, Bing Crosby began recording "White Christmas." The new Capt. Marvel Adventures #10 flew off newsstands for a dime. "Casablanca" officially became Production No. 410 at the Warner Bros. lot. Japanese Americans grabbed whatever they could carry and reported to relocation camps.

"You won't be able to miss it -- it's the most beautiful memorial in the whole city," says Ret. Col. Carlos N. Garduno, sitting in the breakfast nook of his Mexico City home. "Right there, in the park." Garduno is referring to a memorial in Chapultepec Park dedicated to Escuadron 201, the only Mexican fighting unit ever to operate on foreign soil.

The bombing of the Mexican tankers killed 21 Mexican men and sent the country's 45-year-old president, Manuel Avila Camacho, into a blistering rage. A career military man born to rural farmers, the president understood his hand had been forced. Mexico could join the combat or skulk away, passively.

Three days later the squad reported to Mexico City's Buenavista train station, accompanied by family and friends who sang the traditional despedidas ("farewells"). They boarded the line of six first-class railcars and pulled out of the station. What should have been a 10-hour journey to the border took 36 hours as the train stopped in several cities and towns so that well-wishers could see the men.

Members of the 201st were insulated from the changing winds of support back home, and they continued to make the enormous cultural, technical and language transition on the airfields of Texas. The land in Victoria was as flat as any pilot could hope for. Here, the 201st was rigorously trained to use the P-47, which was considered a hand-me-down from the Americans, some of whom were flying faster and lighter P-51 Mustangs. But the Mexicans lovingly called their bulky plane "El Jarro" (The Jug).

The 201st called themselves the Aguilas Aztecas -- Aztec Eagles. And some pilots named smaller groups within the 201st after Panchito, the gun-wielding, sombrero-wearing Walt Disney cartoon character. "We called ourselves 'Pancho Pistolas,' " Gallardo says.

Meanwhile, the Mexican Senate had given President Avila Camacho authority to send troops into battle whenever he deemed it necessary, and the news was an electrifying jolt to the pilots. The Aquarium was rocking with music and ice cold beer.

Still, the men of the 201st refuse to criticize their government for failing to adequately honor their sacrifice. These ailing warriors see themselves as true patriots. Many of them went on to become professional pilots or instructors. Sanchez's career was the most glamorous; after leaving the military, he flew for four Mexican presidents.
On a mild afternoon, Rojas visits Sanchez's well-kept, spacious home. Sanchez sits across from him, the ice in his cocktail tumbler twinkling as Glenn Miller streams smoothly from the stereo. "We weren't heroes," Cenizo Rojas says. "We were pilots who fulfilled our missions."

There is a comfortable silence between the men, and when the talk turns to Nancy Hudson, they both nod out of respect. Sanchez was married to her for 43 years, and they had two children and several grandchildren before she died in 1986. Sanchez rises from his chair to retrieve his favorite picture from the war years. For a man of 84, he still moves like a lifelong athlete, and a moment later he comes down the stairs with his bourbon in one hand and a framed picture in the other. The old black and white photo has a tear in it, but it is a clear and close-up shot of him and Nancy at an ice cream shop in Texas. They had just met a few weeks earlier, and their young hands were interlaced as she leaned in to him.  "This really happened," Sanchez says. "It really happened."



Los Angeles Times Magazine, July 25, 2004