Somos Primos

JUNE 2009
114th Issue Online

Editor: Mimi Lozano ©2000-9

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

1956, Plaza Theatre, Laredo, Texas
A 55-year old photograph becomes a 
personnel Identification Project 

SHHAR Meetings 
End

The past is the cause of the present 
and the present will be the cause of the future.

Abraham Lincoln

  Letters to the Editor : 

Dear Ms. Mimi Lozano:
I have to thank you for your help, which gave me contact with Yorba relatives in California. Please, put my message on your portal,  we are cousins.
Again, Thank You.  

Miquel Mula
mickmula@gmail.com
Spain

Contributors to this Issue
Rodolfo F. Acuna
Ernesto Apomayta Chambi
Dan Arellano
Dr. Armando Ayala
Mercy Bautista Olvera
Anna/Roberto Benavides
Arturo A. Bienedell
John Blackie
Esther Bonilla Read

UNITED STATES

HISPANICS BREAKING BARRIERS

Part VI

By

Mercy Bautista-Olvera  

In the coming months this series “Hispanics Breaking Barriers” will present the   contributions of Hispanics in United States government and leadership. Their contributions have improved not only the local community but the country as well.   Sadly, they have not always received their due recognition. Their struggles, stories, and accomplishments will by example, illustrate to our youth and to future generations that everything and anything is possible.  
 

John Trasviña: President and General Counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and Immigration Professor at Stanford Law School

Alejandro Mayorkas: (pending approval) Director of the Department of Homeland Security Immigration Agency  

Jennifer Chacón: University of California Davis (UC Davis), Professor of Law

Michael Huerta: Group President of ACS Transportation Solutions

Dr. Jonathan D. Moreno: Professor of Medical Ethics, and the History and Sociology of Science

Nancy Sutley: Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles for Energy and Environment    

 John Trasviña 

John Trasviña the President and General Counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and Immigration Professor at Stanford Law School, has been appointed by President Obama to serve as Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, Department of Housing and Urban Development.

John Trasviña was born in San Francisco , California . He is a graduate Stanford Law School and of Harvard University . Trasviña has devoted his legal career to public service in Civil Rights and Immigration policies.

In 1985, Trasviña began his career at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) in Washington D.C. as a legislative attorney.

From 1987-1993, Trasviña served as counsel to Senator Paul Simon on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, the last three years as General Counsel and Staff Director to the Senate Subcommittee  on the Constitution.

In 1993, Trasviña served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs at the U.S. Department of justice. In the senate and in his previous post in the administration, Trasviña handled numerous policy areas, including Civil Rights, Immigration and Judicial Nominations.

In 1997, President Clinton appointed Trasviña as Special Counsel for Immigration Related Unfair Employment Practices; he led the only federal government office devoted solely to immigrant workplace rights and was the highest-ranking Latino attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice. In the same year, John Trasviña, was named by “Poder” magazine’s the “Poderosos 100,” as one of the  “100 Top Leaders of the Hispanic Community,” and “Hispanic Trends” identifies him as a “Mover and shaker.”

John Trasviña returned to California , becoming the Director of the Discrimination Research Center at Berkeley  

Trasviña is a member of the San Francisco Elections Commission, president of the Harvard Club of San Francisco, and a board member of the La Raza Lawyers Association, ( CORO ) of Northern California . CORO trains ethical, diverse civil leaders nationwide, empowers communities to gain experience in government, and business. He also served on the boards of the Latino Issues Forum and Campaign for College Opportunity and recently served as Chair of the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda (NHLA).

In 2008, Trasviña received the President’s Award from the Pasadena National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and won the 2006 Attorney of the Year Award from the Hispanic National Bar Association.  

Trasviña has served on the board of the League of Women Voters of San Francisco, and was the director and fund raising Chair of the Conference on Asian Pacific American Leadership (CAPAL) in Washington . D.C. “Mr. Trasviña has spent his life as an incredible advocate for the Latino community and demonstrated a commitment to justice and equal protection for all under the law,” said the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) National President, Rosa Rosales. “What is most fulfilling to me is my ability to use my Harvard degree in service to my community, my nation and people who are oppressed or marginalized,” said Trasviña.

Alejandro Mayorkas

Alejandro Mayorkas is President Obama’s pick to serve as Director of the Department of Homeland Security Immigration Agency. It adjudicates a broad range of immigration and naturalization issues and oversees international adoptions, asylum, refugee status and foreign student authorization.

(Additional biographical information can be found on April 2009 (112^th issue on this website).

Jennifer Chacón

University of California Davis (UC Davis) Professor of Law, Jennifer Chacón served as a member of Obama’s Immigration Policy Advisory Group during his campaign. She was appointed to serve as an adviser on immigration on President Obama’s Transition Team.

Jennifer Chacón grew up in the border town of El Paso , Texas ; Professor Chacón has always been interested in issues of immigration and international law. 

Professor Chacón attended Stanford University , earning a Bachelors degree in International Relations. In 1995-98, she attended Yale Law School earning a Jurist degree in Law. After graduation, she served as a Law Clerk to the Honorable Sidney R. Thomas, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

From 1999-2003, Professor Chacón then joined Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York City . In 2003, she accepted a fellowship at Yale Law School and worked to publish “Misery and Myopia: Understanding the Failures of U.S. Efforts to Stop Human Trafficking” (Fordham Law Review, 2006), the first of what would be several influential articles touching on Immigration, International Law, and Human Rights.

Professor Chacón served as a Professor on Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure and Immigration Law at U.C. Davis.  In Chacon’s biography she says, “Identifying the conduct that is criminalized within a society and determining the manner in which the society chooses to protect its criminally accused and those convicted of crimes provides an interesting way to assess the nature and strength of that society’s commitment to democratic institutions”. “My research interests center upon the nexus of Criminal Law and Procedure and more general issues of Citizenship. I hope to contribute to the scholarship that both examines and advances the quest to build more perfect democracies, protective of the right of people”.   

In March 19, 2009, Professor Jennifer Chacón was honored with the Distinguished Teaching Award on the 30^th Annual William and Sally Rutter Recognition Celebration for Scholarship, Donors and Recipients in the UC Davis Activities and Recreation Center . The award honors “law teachers who give stellar performances in the classroom.” Since joining the UC Davis law faculty in 2004, Professor Chacón has earned the reputation as an excellent teacher as well as scholar.  A committee, including a faculty member, alumni member, and current student, selected Professor Chacón for the honor.

Dr. Jonathan D. Moreno

Professor Jonathan E. Moreno Professor of Medical Ethics, and the History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania has been appointed as Director of Bioethics in the Department of Health and Human Services Team on the Obama’s Transition Team. He has been a senior staff member for two presidential ethics commissions and is past president of the American society for Bioethics and Humanities.

In 1973, Dr. Moreno received his Bachelor's degree from New York ’s Hofstra University , School of Law with highest honors in Philosophy and Psychology. He was a University Fellow at Washington University in St. Louis , receiving his Doctorate in Philosophy in 1977, and was a Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in cooperation with the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. In 1998, he received an honorary doctorate from Hofstra University in New York .

During 1994-95, Dr. Moreno was Senior Policy and Research Analyst for the President's Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. He has given invited testimony before both houses of congress. He has served as a member of the National Human Research Protections Advisory Committee, a senior consultant for the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, and has advised the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Dr. Moreno is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies and serves on the Institute's Board on Health Sciences Policies. He is a member of the Academies' Committee on Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures. Dr. Moreno served as Co-chair of the Committee on Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research. He is also a member of the Council on Accreditation of the Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs. Dr. Moreno also served as President of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities.  He is a Bioethics advisor for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a Faculty Affiliate of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University , and a Fellow of the Hastings Center and the New York Academy of Medicine.

Dr. Moreno has written many books, his books include "Is There an Ethicist in the House ( Indiana University , Press, 2005), “Mind Wars: National Security and the Brain,” (Dana Press in 2006) and many others. Dr. Moreno has written more than 250 papers, reviews, and book chapters. He is also a member of several editorial boards.

He is a frequent guest on news and information programs and is often cited and quoted in major national publications, such as The Wall Street Journal, ABC World News Tonight, MSNBC News, CNN Crossfire and many others.

He has held full-time faculty appointments at Swarthmore College , the University of Texas at Austin , George Washington University and the SUNY Health Science Center at Brooklyn . He has also held appointments at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics, the Children's National Medical Center in Washington , DC , and has been a Special Expert in the Department of Clinical Bioethics at the Warren Magnuson Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda , Maryland .  

Michael Huerta

Michael Huerta the Group President of ACS Transportation Solutions, a company that provides technology solutions for collective revenue, enhancing safety and promoting security for the transportation industry was appointed to serve on Obama’s Transition Team.

Michael Huerta is originally from San Francisco , California . His parents are Solomon Huerta (1924-2000) and his mother Della Huerta.

Michael Huerta served as the Executive Director of the Port of San Francisco and Commissioner of the City of New York Department of Ports, International Trade and Commerce.

From 1993-1998, during the Clinton Administration, Huerta served in senior positions at the Department of Transportation (DOT), as Chief of Staff to Secretary Rodney E. Slater and as Associate Deputy Secretary of Transportation under Secretary of Transportation Federico Peña.

Nancy Sutley

Nancy Sutley, the Deputy Mayor for Energy and Environment for the city of Los Angeles , has been named the Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), in Obama’s administration. Sutley recently served in the Energy and Natural Resources on the Obama’s Transition Team.

Nancy Helen Sutley was born on April 20, 1962, in Queens , New York .  Sutley is the daughter of Argentinean immigrants, Bruno Sutley and Sara Alicia Sutley.

Sutley earned her Bachelors degree in Government from Cornell University and Masters Degree in Public Policy from Harvard University .

In 1999-2003, Sutley served as Special Assistant to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). She served as Deputy Secretary for Policy, Intergovernmental Relations at California Environmental Protection Agency and Energy Advisor to Governor Gray Davis.

2005-present Sutley has been Los Angeles Deputy Mayor for Energy and Environment, and Mayor Villaraigosa’s appointment to the Board of Directors for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. She served as a Senior Advisor to the EPA Region 9 Administrator in the Clinton Administration.

In her new position, as Chair to the Council on Environmental Quality, she will advise the President and Vice President on national and international environmental law, oversee the efficiency of the federal agencies, and make sure they comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

Sutley has been instrumental in cleaning environmental initiatives in Los Angeles . Moving the Department of Water and Power to wind and solar energy and replacing diesel trucks at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in California . Sutley has played a big role by helping Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa retrofit hundreds of city buildings to make them more energy efficient and imposing stricter environmental standards on new commercial buildings.

HISPANIC APPOINTMENTS DURING THE FIRST 100 DAYS 
OF THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

National Hispanic Leadership Agenda 
(20- page report)
http://ushli.org/research/reports/NHLA_Report_and_Grid.pdf 

Editor:  Below is data from the report.  Please do go to it and look at the fields in which vacancies are available.  The 16 departments surveyed in this report have a combined total of 205 vacancies which would be the logical place to start implementing a “Plan for Change and Improvement” and increasing the number of high-ranking Hispanics in the Obama Administration including Senior Executive Service level positions.

The all but total lack of Hispanic appointments to councils in the Executive Office of the President, as well as to Regulatory Agencies and Independent Agencies, is a great source of disappointment to NHLA and leaves very much room for improvement. NHLA respectfully urges the President to order a thorough review of all applications submitted to identify qualified Hispanic candidates for possible appointment to boards, commissions, and agencies, and to request more applications if necessary.

The Sub-Cabinet

NHLA also commends the President for nominating 17 highly qualified Hispanics to Senate confirmation required sub-cabinet level positions at various departments –

Edward M. Avalos Under Secretary Marketing & Regulatory Services USDA  
Luis C. de Baca Ambassador-at-Large Monitor Human Trafficking State  
Lorelei Boylan Administrator Wage & Hour Division Labor  
Gabriella Gomez Asst Secretary Legislation/Congressional Affairs Education  
Sandra B. Henriquez Asst Secretary HUD  
Mercedes Marquez Asst Secretary Community Planning/Development HUD  
Kathy Martinez Asst Secretary Disability Employment Policy Labor  
Alejandro Mayorkas Director, Citizenship & Immigration Services DHS  
Victor M. Mendez Administrator, Highway Administration Transportation  
Tom Perez Asst Atty Gen for Civil Rights DOJ  
Brig Gen Jose Riojas Asst Secretary, Operations/ Security/ Preparedness Veteran’s Affairs Frank Sanchez Under Secretary International Trade Commerce  
Daniel Sepulveda Asst Secretary Congressional Affairs Office of USTR  
John Sepulveda Asst Secretary for Human Resources Veteran’s Affairs |
Peter Silva Asst Administrator for Water EPA  
John Trasvina Asst Secretary Fair Housing & Equal Opportunity HUD  
Ines Triay Asst Secretary Environmental Mgmt Energy

NHLA is extremely disappointed in both the number of Hispanics appointed to date and in that not one single Hispanic has been nominated for a sub-cabinet position that requires Senate qw1confirmation at four major departments including Interior, Treasury, Defense, and Health and Human Services.

High Level Staff Positions

Though Hispanics are severely under-represented at this level as well, NHLA commends the President for appointing 28 well qualified Hispanics to other high level positions throughout his Administration including the White House (17), Transportation, Labor, Homeland Security, State, Office Personnel Management, Peace Corps, and U.S. Trade Representative (3). They are:

Lizette Alvarado Office of Presidential Personnel White House  
Anthony Bernal Director of Scheduling Dr. Jill Biden White House  
Xavier Briggs Assoc Director, Office Mgmt & Budget White House  
Alejandra Campoverdi Assistant to the Deputy Chief of Staff White House  
Carlos Elizondo Social Secretary for Vice President White House  
Kirsten Garcia Legislative Affairs White House  
Roberto Gonzalez Associate Counsel, Office of Legal Counsel White House  
Noerena Limon Staff Assistant, Presidential Personnel White House  
David Medina Deputy Chief of Staff Office of First Lady White House  
Luis Miranda Director Hispanic Communications White House  
Lizette Ocampo Staff Assistant, Legislative Affairs White House  
Carlos Odio Deputy Assoc Director, Political Affairs White House  
Michael Ortiz Legislative Affairs White House  
Dan Restrepo Western Hemispheric Advisor NSC White House  
Dag Vega Director of Communications White House  
Moises Vela, Jr. Director, Office of the Vice President White House  
Stephanie Valencia Office Public Liaison, Intergov’tal Affairs White House  
Lisa Garcia Intergov’tal Affrs/Public Liaison USTR Exec Office President  
Luis Jimenez Office of the U.S. Trade Representative Exec Office President  
Jennifer Urizar Office of the U.S. Trade Representative Exec Office President  
Elizabeth (Liz)Montoya Chief of Staff OPM  
Elisa Montoya Senior Advisor to the Director Peace Corp  
Esther Olavarria Deputy Asst Sec Policy Development DHS  
Laura Pena Special Asst Office White House Liaison State  
Oscar Ramirez Special Asst to the Secretary Labor  
William Ramos Director Intergovernmental Affairs Commerce  
Miguel Rodriguez Deputy Asst Secretary Legislative Affairs State  
Yasmin Yaver Office Governmental Affairs Transportation

Other Appointments

Additionally, the President has made four additional Hispanic appointments. Two have been appointed to the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, one to the President’s Advisory Council on Science& Technology, and one Judge. They are:

Noel Castellanos Faith-based Adv Council Member

Dr. Arturo Chavez Faith-based Adv Council Member

Mario Molina Adv Council Science & Tech Member

Marisa Demeo Judge DC Superior

The National Hispanic Leadership Agenda (NHLA), an ad hoc coalition of 29 national and state organizations, has released its report, "Hispanic Appointments During the First 100 Days of the Obama Administration." The 20-page report includes an Executive Summary and a grid on President Barack Obama's first 100 days. At last week's NHLA Board meeting, members voted to issue a "100 Days Plus" report every 30 days for the duration of the year. NHLA remains committed to working with the Obama Administration toward a truly representative government and reporting on the results to the Hispanic community. 

A Day of Remembrance
By
Daisy Wanda Garcia
May 15th, 2009

This week, Governor Rick Perry is expected to sign a bill that authorizes a day of remembrance in honor of Dr. Hector P. Garcia.  This Bill when signed by the Governor will designate the 3rd Wednesday in September that falls during Hispanic Heritage week as Dr. Hector P. Garcia Recognition Day. The bill encourages public agencies and schools to observe it with ceremonies, displays and exhibits that chronicle the life achievements of Dr. Garcia. This day of remembrance would have no time off for public sector employees and schools. Dr Garcia valued education and it would please him to know that children are not missing a day of school.  

The holiday came largely through the efforts of the Texas Hispanic Caucus and members of the American G.I. Forum. On the Senate Side, Texas Senator Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa introduced the legislation in the Texas Senate and Representative Abel Herrero introduced the legislation in the Texas House.  "Whether you talk about individuals that needed medical attention without the resources to obtain it or veterans who had given their ultimate sacrifice in our country but were not given the burials they deserved, Dr. Garcia was always the voice and conscience even when it was not a popular choice," Herrero said.[1]  
I am deeply grateful to all those who worked so hard to make this day of remembrance a reality. Sadly, what has come to my attention is that many of our youth do not know about the life of Dr. Garcia or who he was.  Some have asked why he deserves this honor.  

Over fifty years before his death in 1996, my father worked tirelessly to improve the life of Veterans and Mexican Americans in the United States.  After WWII when Dr. Garcia moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, he found that the quality of life for Mexican Americans was below standard.  

Life in South Texas was bleak for Mexican Americans. Dr. Hector found that the majority of Mexican Americans lived in conditions having no running water, no sanitary facilities and in extreme poverty.  Schooling was non-existent or held in substandard segregated schools.  Whole families had to work to earn enough money to afford food and little else. Tuberculosis and diarrhea and infant       1910, Corpus Christi. Mary and Jeff Bell Library Kilgore postcard collection. mortality were 
high among the Mexican American population.  La Gente was too poor to afford medical care, so they died from serious illnesses. Dr. Hector often told about the time a little child came to his office seeking help for his mother. When he arrived at their house, the mother’s tubercular lung had burst and her blood had sprayed on her children.  

Dr. Hector set out to change these conditions. For the next 50 years, he systematically attacked the “causes of suppression” such as discrimination, segregation in housing and schools and hospitals, denying veterans their VA benefits. He educated la Gente[2] about the importance of hygiene, education, and voting on his weekly radio program on KCCT radio.  Dr. Hector attacked health problems by giving free medical care and medicines to the indigent. He held lectures about sanitation and nutrition.  Dr. Garcia held rallies to urge the youth to stay in school and pursue higher education. Also, Dr. Hector extended his medial care to inhabitants of the colonias along the Texas-Mexico border.  

Hospitals were segregated.  They maintained separate wards for Anglos and Mexicans. Usually Mexican American patients were in kept the hallway while there were empty Anglo hospital wards.  Dr. Hector got the hospital administrator on the phone and convinced him to move the patients in the white ward. He followed up his phone conversation with a letter.  This is how he single handedly desegregated Memorial Hospital in Corpus Christi, TX.  

In 1948 he began an investigation of conditions for migrant laborers in Mathis, Texas. He found the impoverished workers to be ill-clothed, malnourished, and diseased from lack of basic sanitation. Also about this time he found that the Veterans Administration was non responsive to veterans returning from service in WWII.  In many cases the veterans did not receive their benefits and services as promised by the G.I. Bill of rights. On March 26, 1948 he organized the American G.I. Forum to advocate for veterans. Soon the American G.I. Forum had chapters in 40 cities in Texas and later throughout the nation. Later he involved the American G.I. Forum in civil rights issues.

Hernandez vs. the State of Texas, which held that Mexican Americans had equal protection under the 14^th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, opened the doors for Dr. Garcia to sue school districts that held separate school systems.  It took about thirty years of lawsuits to desegregate Corpus Christi ISD.  

So to answer the question why Dr. Hector deserves this honor. Dr. Hector Garcia served his country, community and the people for over fifty years of his life. He became the confident of presidents and elected officials and used his influence to improve the lives of all Americans.  President Ronald Reagan recognized Dr. Hector for his service to the nation by awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1986. He was the first Mexican American to receive this award.  

Hopefully, this “Day of Remembrance” will give my father visibility.  Dr. Hector P. Garcia is a real American Hero.  In this day our youth lacks real role models. When more individuals especially the youth know about Dr. Hector’s legacy, they will learn the true meaning of love for their fellow man and community service. Hopefully, Dr. Garcia, whose legacy was Education and Freedom, fought for equality and fair treatment for all Americans. One of his most profound statements became the American G.I. Forum’s motto, “Education is our freedom and freedom should be everybody’s business.”[3]

Now it is up to us to ensure that his legacy is carried forward. We can begin by making sure the day of remembrance is observed in our schools.

CARRY-ON DR. GARCIA'S FIGHT FOR CIVIL AND VETERANS' RIGHTS 

What better way to honor Dr. Hector P. Garcia, than to carry-on his fight for CIVIL RIGHTS and for VETERANS’ RIGHTS.   Listening to ‘Dr. Hector’ on the radio, I learned at a very early age – attending a segregated school where we were severely punished and ridiculed by English-speaking teachers, that the manner we were being treated by racist teachers, was known as ‘discrimination’ and that it was a violation of our “CIVIL RIGHTS”.   If we have not learned this about the Founder of The American GI Forum – then we have a lot to learn about THE MAN and  HIS LEGACY.    

Civil Rights equality for us, did not happen by accident.  It was men such as Dr. Hector P. Garcia, my father Luz Salazar, Attorney Gus Garcia, Judge Albert Pena and others who dared to fight against a racist system – who made it easier for us to be able to attend previously denied educational facilities, secure previously denied job opportunities, previously denied promotions to reach supervisory positions and ownership of Mexican-American businesses – and so many other RIGHTS we now take for granted.  Those who did not live here at the time and are unfamiliar with this part of The United States of America – will never understand our reason why we must keep fighting, so that our future generations will never again suffer the degradation and humiliation some hate-filled people made us go through.  We must all strive to NEVER bring shame to his name – nor to this great CIVIL RIGHTS and VETERANS’ RIGHTS organization.  

CONGRATULATIONS   
New children's picture book by Lila Guzman 

" DR. HECTOR P. GARCIA: FIGHTING FOR JUSTICE" 
took 1st place place in category 8 in 
Oklahoma Writers' Federation, Inc. competition. 

The Ruben and Maria Bonilla Family of Texas
Three sons, each  served as LULAC National President 

written by sister Esther Bonilla Read



Ruben Bonilla, Tony Bonilla, Hillary Clinton and William Bonilla
Left to Right

Raul Castro: The personification of the American dream
Former governor made mark despite racial hurdles
by Jack L. August Jr. - May. 3, 2009  Special for the Republic

Ethnic Studies 40Years Later: Race, Resistance and Relevance
October 7-10, 2009

NATIONAL ISSUES

U.S DECLARES WAR ON MEXICO 163 YEARS AGO

By
Richard G. Santos
International research historian, linguist and educator based in San Antonio. 
richardgsantos@yahoo.com

On May 13, 1846, U. S. President James Polk declared war on Mexico. He justified the declaration stating “American blood (had been shed) on American soil”. Polk was referring to an incident that occurred on April 25 when a Mexican patrol out of Matamoros, Tamaulipas ran into U.S. scouts along the road from Corpus Christi to Matamoros. The short and militarily insignificant skirmish resulted in a few men killed from both sides and both retreated thereafter to their respective base. U. S. victories at the battles at Palo Alto (May 8) and Resaca de la Palmas (May 9) followed. Congress had not yet been informed of the two battles when Polk declared war on Mexico. The U.S. Army and Navy invaded Mexico at five points (Texas Gulf Coast via Tamaulipas, Texas middle Rio Grande via Coahuila, New Mexico, California and Port of Veracruz). The 21 month war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848. Instead of acquiring all of Mexico (as had been the original intention), the US government bought the area now called the U. S. Southwest. 

Such is the history of the U.S.-Mexico War as known by the public as is so depicted in the U. S. history textbooks, movies and TV programs. All are written from the East Coast black and white worldview. Consequently, the ethnic minorities, history, culture and impact of the war and Treaty west of the Mississippi River are ignored. Moreover, the California Gold Rush, railroad expansion to the Pacific Coast and “Indian Wars” are unrealistically glorified with the negative impact ignored.

At the beginning of the war with Mexico the U.S. was determined to fulfill its self-perceived Manifest Destiny to “extend from the North Pole to the Isthmus of Panama and Atlantic to the Pacific oceans”. This political-geographic attitude and view was unquestionably documented in the 1876 book titled "One Hundred Years of Progress" by Charles Louis Flint website of book is: http://www.archive.org/stream/onehundredyearsp00flinrich Most interesting are the maps (attachment) that depict the U. S. in 1776, 1876, and as it was expected to be in 1976. True to Manifest Destiny, by 1976 the southern border of the US is depicted at the Isthmus of Panama! Mexico and the nations of Central America were depicted as yet un-named states of the union. 

What the textbooks and media do not depict are the anti-war riots in key Northern cities, the many U.S. citizens who fled to Canada and thence Mexico to join the Mexican Army, the massive desertions of U.S. troops on the field and the strong anti-slavery opposition to the war. Congressman Abraham Lincoln of Illinois was among those who opposed the war as abolitionists saw it as expansion of slave territory. Also not depicted in the textbooks and media was the plight of recently arrived European immigrants who were drafted into the U.S. army as a sure means of citizenship. Many did not speak English or spoke it very poorly. 

Moreover, the plight of Catholic immigrants is also not depicted as the discrimination was so severe that many deserted as soon as possible and others (like the San Patricio Battalion) changed sides and fought against the U.S. 

Another group totally ignored were the anti-Jefferson, anti-slavery U. S. citizens and Catholics of the Trans-Mississippi and Louisiana Territory. Some had been followers of third U. S. Vice President Aaron Burr who so disagreed with Jefferson that he and his followers contemplated establishing a third North American Republic. Many settled in what is now Arkansas, the Red River (Texas-Oklahoma border area), or entered Texas and New Mexico as legal and illegal immigrants. Many were involved in the creation of the Republic of Texas but opposed U.S. annexation and the war with Mexico. In time the Burr Conspiracy became the Spanish Conspiracy and finally the Lone Star Conspiracy which existed until the late 1880’s. Their story and that of the once imagined third North American Republic was lost and waits to be rescued and told by scholars and the media sure to sensationalize their history.

In the meantime, we must contend with the short-lived sham Republic of Texas that sought annexation to the United States shortly after the fall of the Alamo on March 6, 1836 and before the April 21 1836 battle at San Jacinto. Not yet a recognized Republic, the U.S. rebuffed the offer on the grounds that the United States does not get involved on the internal affairs of a friendly nation. (si ahorita, sure guy). Although the political history of the Texas Revolution has not been written, you can get an insight as to how it came about by studying the Phony Florida War. That U.S. Secret Service led effort failed but succeeded in Texas and California, both of which declared independence and created short-lived sham republics. 

James Polk assumed the presidency of the U.S. determined to annex Texas. The Treaty of Annexation was signed in December 1845 and Polk ordered the U.S. Army and Navy to occupy Corpus Christi Bay. The skirmish of April 25, 1846 mentioned above was sufficient grounds to declare war against Mexico. The U.S. Army then moved into New Mexico and the U.S. Navy conducted its first amphibious landing by invading California. The 21 month war was so unpopular that the U.S. paid for the Mexican territory it had conquered and failed to follow up on the acquisition of all of Mexico and Central America. Nonetheless, the continental United States as it is now was created by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the war. Whereas Texas was not a part of the Treaty because it had been annexed beforehand, the Southwest and its Spanish-Mexican residents thus became U.S. citizens. The Native American cultures that predated Spanish settlement of the area were not declared citizens of the U.S. until the 20th Century. Greed, ethnocentricity, prejudices and ethnic-cultural discrimination led to the violation of the Texas Treaty of Annexation, Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and all Native American treaties. That also remains to be told in the history textbooks and media. Hopefully, the next generation of scholars from history to anthropology will begin to correct our current ignorance and misconceptions of history.


End ………………… Zavala County Sentinel 13-14 May 2009 …… end 

 “It is the destiny of the United Sates to extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean and from the North Pole to the Isthmus of Panama ”.  

Note section in white was expected to become part of the US by  1970.  Charles Louis Flint, ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PROGRESS.

From: Richard G. Santos mailto:richardgsantos@yahoo.com 
Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 10:46 AM
To: Marinez, Juan   marinezj@anr.msu.edu

Subject: Mex War

As a side bar, I first did it in Mexico City during a presentaton to the Sociedad de Historia, Geografia y Estadistica. I next made it part of my presentation on Juan N. Seguin (Espia Tejano en la Comandancia Militar del Noreste)in Monterrey for the Sociedad Nuevoleonesa de Historia.

And as I used to tell my classes at Our Lady of the Lake, Trinity U, School of Aero Space Medicine and SW Tx:

Let us suppose I really, really like your house, property, furniture, belongings and everything you own. One day I do a home invasion, beat the you know what out of you, have you on the ground all bloody thinking you are about to die. I put a gun to your head and say: "See those items I have set aside? Well, it is about a third of what all I wanted and I
am gonna pay you $13 million for it.  Do you accept? Will you sell me one third of what I have conquered?"

Well, Mexico said yes and sold the southwest to the US.

Richard

Shared by Juan Marinez  marinezj@anr.msu.edu 
Dr. Armando Ayala  DrChili@webtv.net 

Cinco de Mayo: More than Mariachis and Margaritas 
by Andy Porras

ACTION ITEMS

JUSTICE NOT SERVED: 
PENNSYLVANIA HATE CRIME ASSAILANTS FOUND NOT GUILTY 
Latino hate crime trial ends with 'not guilty' verdict

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/05/01/pa.immigrant.beating 

POTTSVILLE, PA – A jury in Schuylkill County found the two defendants, Brandon Piekarsky and Derrick Donchak, accused of beating 25-year-old Luis Ramirez to death, not guilty.

“Tonight there is no justice in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. The jury's conclusion is an outrage. Luis Ramirez was brutally murdered. Witnesses testified that it was racially motivated as a result of hate and intolerance. In the week when Congress passed the Hate Crimes Act, this verdict underscores the importance of the passage of this Act. It is time for the Department of Justice to step in and bring justice to the Ramirez family and send a strong message that violence targeting immigrants will not be tolerated and will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” stated Henry Solano, MALDEF interim president and general counsel.

For more information about the case, please go to:  http://www.maldef.org/

A November 18, 2008 interview, emphasizes that the media itself has influenced the outcome by the neglect of public visibility to the death of not only Luis Ramirez in Pennsylvania, but also Marcelo Lucero, beaten to death in Long Island, New York.
http://maldef.org/multimedia/video_gallery/gladys_limon_on_abc_hate_crimes 

Please consider writing a letter directly to the Department of Justice, at:

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20530

The Luis Ramirez Murder: A Violent Act of Injustice

Editor:  Recommend viewing several MALDEF videos on Hate crimes  http://maldef.org/

BUSINESS

Chicana activist speaks to Orange County, California audience

Community groups gather around Elizabeth "Betita" Martinez in Orange.  

By Alejandra Molina, OC Register, March 12, 2009  

BOOKS

“César Chávez: A Triumph of Spirit,” 
a biography of Chávez co-written by 
Richard Griswold del Castillo and Richard A. Garcia

Included in the biography is a A Letter from Cesar Chavez - 
Extract from The New York Review of Books

In 1969, four years into a five-year grape strike, Chávez testified before Congress that if illegal workers were removed from California, “at least from the strike fields, we would win the strike overnight,” said Jorge Mariscal, who teaches Chicano studies at UC San Diego. “There is no question that in the early days, they had a strike going on. The growers were bringing in undocumented people to break the strike, so of course they had to be against that,” said Mariscal, who cited the quote in a book he wrote about the Chicano movement, “Brown-Eyed Children of the Sun.”

Anti-illegal-immigration activists have often referred to actions the union took at the border in protest of strikebreakers as justification for staging border watches.

During strikes against growers in the 1960s and early 1970s, it was common for growers to bring in workers from Mexico as scabs. In 1974, during a strike against citrus growers in Yuma, Ariz., UFW members stationed themselves at the Arizona-Mexico border.

“The UFW protested the inactivity of the (Immigration and Naturalization Service) and then began stopping Mexican undocumented workers at the border, trying to convince them not to scab,” reads a passage from “César Chávez: A Triumph of Spirit,” a biography of
Chávez co-written by Richard Griswold del Castillo, a professor of  Chicano studies at San Diego State University. Some strikebreakers did turn back, but there were also violent confrontations, according to the book.

Sent by Dorinda Moreno
fuerzamundial@gmail.com

Charles F. Lummis's A Tramp Across the Continent is the story of the author's walk from Cleveland, Ohio, to Los Angeles, California, between September 1884 and February 1885. Originally published as a series of weekly columns in the Los Angeles Daily Times , the account was revised into book form in 1891-1892 while the author recovered from a serious illness.

While the book covers the entire walk, most of its pages are devoted to southern Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Lummis conveys to his audience his own sense of wonder at encountering for the first time the wonders of the American Southwest--prehistoric Indian ruins, contemporary Native Americans, Mexican Americans, and the flora, fauna, and spectacular landscape of a region that was little known to readers of his day.

But the book is more than a simple guidebook. Lummis, a Harvard-educated New Englander, shows the prejudices he had to overcome. In doing so, he hoped to create a sympathetic attitude toward cultures and customs other than their own in his Anglo-American readers.

Published 08 January 2001 Citation: Fleming, Robert E.. "A Tramp Across the Continent". The Literary Encyclopedia. 8 January 2001.
http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6929 , accessed 19 May 2009.

Dr. Roberto Cabello-Argandoña

Dr. Roberto Cabello-Argandoña has written extensively about Latino issues and information and the Battle Puebla of Cinco de Mayo of 1862. In this battle, Mexican irregular forces defeated well-trained and superior French Imperial forces. The Battle of Puebla emboldened the Mexican resistance, which eventually expelled the invaders.

Dr. Cabello-Argandoña earned his law degree from the University of Chile, B.A. in Political Science, M.P.A., Masters in Management (Business) and M.I.S., Masters in Information Systems from UCLA, and a Ph. D. from USC.

He is the author of the book entitled CINCO DE MAYO: An Illustrated History. Nuestra Historia Series. 208 pgs. ISBN: 978-1-888205-05-3 Floricanto Press, 2008. It covers the political crisis in Mexico and the United States, itself in the midst of a civil war, and the somber prospects of foreign invasion in Mexico by three major world powers, Spain, Britain and France.

It presents an illustrated narrative probing the historical, political and international factors that led to the Battle of Puebla of 1862 from pre-Independence to the War of In dependence, international conflicts, War of Reform and the subsequent political and economic crisis of Mexico. It examines the question of the foreign debt, the allied invasion in Mexico in 1861, the subsequent departure of the Spanish and British forces and the extent of the French Intervention. It provides a most detailed account of the forces and activities of the French and Mexican sides, during the last three days before, the day of and the day after the battle itself. Examines also the inspiring history of a triumphant Chicano general, Ignacio Zaragoza, (1829-1862), born in a period of international conflicts and forced to flee from his home as a youth because of the American settler's revolt in Texas in 1836.

It includes nine patriotic poems (Spanish-English parallel text) written in California between 1864 and 1865 commemorating CINCO DE MAYO and published for the first time in monographic form.  

"This is an amazingly interesting work of historical narrative on Cinco de Mayo dating from 1861, California 1864-1865, and its geopolitical ramifications; ably introduced with a compilation of illustrations from the period." Cabello-Argandoña has been writing about the French Intervention in Mexico for many years. His main preoccupation has constantly been to bring to light the main historical lessons from a failed foreign occupation, the ever presence of enemies within and without, and the resiliency of the Mexican people and their boundless yearns for freedom and respect.

On May 2nd and May 3rd, the Mexican Cultural Institute in Los Angeles, hosted lectures by Dr. Cabello-Argandoña. The following pertinent topics were discussed in relationship to the Battle of Puebla:

1. Mexico was heavily indebted to European multinational bankers from France, Spain, and England.

2. The Government of Juarez in Mexico signed a moratorium of debt repayment to its European creditors.

3. Spain, England and France broke diplomatic relations with Mexico. 

4. America, the main backer of the Monroe Doctrine, was in a bitter civil war. 

5. Napoleon the III of France wanted Europe to challenge America's hegemony of Latin America and open new markets for European goods.

6. Napoleon the III convinced Austria to support an invasion force by
offering to appoint as Emperor of Mexico, Maximilian of Hapsburg, and the younger brother of Emperor Frantz Joseph of Austria.

7. Soon, Spain, England, and France sent their ships to occupy Mexico.

8. A dispute arose among the allies, and soon the English and Spanish forces left Mexico back to their home country.

9. The French General Lorencez crossed with his forces the Valley of Mexico to Puebla --like Cortez in 1519 and the American Army in 1847 before him--where he engaged the Mexican army, led by Ignacio Zaragoza.

10. The French were soundly defeated at the Battle of Puebla on May the 5th of 1862.

11. Mexican Americans in the American Southwest began forming clubs as early as 1863 to oppose the French invasion and to support President Juárez and Mexico. They began fundraising efforts and gathering at festivities and poetry readings on the Cinco de Mayo. These events gradually became enormously important in coalescing the sense of culture and national identity for all Latinos in the United States.

Author's website
Source: Abelardo de la Pena  newsletters@latinola.com 
Sent by Dorinda Moreno fuerzamundial@gmail.com

EDUCATION

The 'Herrera Dynasty': 
6 talented siblings, all accepted to UCLA
By  Letisia Marquez, 4/13/2009 

Lumina Foundation for Education

Universities asked to establish more 
Center for Mexican American Studies programs

http://www.riograndeguardian.com/archives_results.asp 

AUSTIN, April 18 - The House version of the state budget includes a provision asking Texas’ 40 public universities to consider setting up centers that study the history and culture of Mexican Americans.

The provision was added as an amendment by state Rep. Roberto Alonzo, D-Dallas, during Friday evening’s marathon debate on the $178.4 billion state budget for 2010-11. Alonzo’s amendment won unanimous approval.

“We have centers for Mexican American studies at UT-Austin, UT-Arlington, the University of Houston and other universities and they have been a very positive experience,” Alonzo said, in an exclusive interview with the Guardian after his amendment was accepted. “I would like all 40 public universities to look at setting up such centers.”

Alonzo said such centers study the history, culture, economics and politics of Mexican Americans. He said such centers will help the state prepare for the rapidly changing demographics that are sweeping the state.

By 2020, the Texas Hispanic population is expected to outnumber the Anglo population, according to the State Demographer’s office. Comptroller Susan Combs produced a report on the state demographer’s projections. Between 2000 and 2040 the Hispanic population will triple in Texas’ urban areas, from 5.9 million to 17.2 million. In rural areas, the Hispanic population is expected to double, from 777,000 to 1.6 million, Combs reported.

In 1980, the Hispanic population of Texas was just under 3 million. By 2040, there will be 18.8 million Hispanics in Texas. This projection indicates that the Hispanic population will grow by 530 percent from 1980 to 2040. These changes are being driven both by high immigration rates and high birth rates, Combs reported.

“These centers for the study of Mexican American life are important because of the big and continuous change in the demographics of the state of Texas,” Alonzo said. “A center teaches students, all students, the history the culture, the economics, the politics of Mexican Americans. The rest of the state needs to know. Mexican Americans need to know.

Alonzo pointed out that Mexican Americans have shaped the history of Texas. He said if that were not the case, the Colorado River would be the Red River, San Antonio would be St. Anthony, and Amarillo would be Yellow.

“We were part of Mexico. After the1848 war, the decision was made that Mexicans that live here could keep their Spanish language, their culture, their heritage and their lands. The reality is many people today do not know this. These centers will help with the change and manage the change that is coming,” Alonzo said.

Alonzo then proceeded to take out his state legislator ID card. The front of the ID was in English and the back was in Spanish.

Texas’ public universities will not be forced to introduce centers focusing on Mexican American studies. He said in his experience forcing universities to do things does not work.

“I just want to bring it to their attention. There have been studies at UT-Arlington which show that students are happy to be there because of the Center for Mexican American Studies. I have seen how well it works. I have been part of it. I think it would be a very positive experience for all the universities that set up a program like this,” Alonzo said.

In 2003, Alonzo succeeded in getting every community college in Texas that has a high or fast growing Hispanic population to set up Mexican American Studies centers. This came about through a request from Richland College in Dallas. “They came to me to ask if the legislature could help set up a center. It had bipartisan support and I worked with then-Rep. Fred Hill, R-Dallas,” he explained.

Earlier this year, Alonzo won a top award from the National Association of Chicano Studies at the group’s state convention in San Antonio.

University to launch new Latino studies program Princeton 
Extracts from article By Hyung Lee, Staff Writer  
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2009/04/07/23293/

The Value of a Bachelor's Degree

• Workers with a high school degree earned an average of $31,286 in 2007, while those with a bachelor's degree earned an average of $57,181.
• The race and Hispanic origin data show that 53 percent of Asians in the U.S. had a bachelor's degree or more education. For non-Hispanic whites, it was 33 percent; for blacks; it was 20 percent; and for Hispanics, it was 13 percent.
• Among younger adults (age 25-29), 88 percent had completed high school, and 31 percent had completed college. Among adults 75 and over, 73 percent had completed high school and 17 percent had completed college.

Source: Kirk Whisler
Hispanic Marketing 101  email: kirk@whisler.com
voice: (760) 434-1223  Latino Print Network overall: 760-434-7474
web: www.hm101.com  Podcast: www.mylatinonetwork.com

BILINGUAL/BICULTURAL EDUCATION

Our Beautiful Language  
Johnny Peña, Houston, Texas

How many times have we heard one of our own people, or we ourselves say “I don’t want them to grow up speaking English with a Spanish accent”?  As a result of this idea those children never learned to speak the language of their ancestors.  Spanish is an immensely beautiful language and yet how many times have we been reluctant to display our ability to speak it.  Even from childhood, I was always fascinated when I went to a movie and listened to some heavily accented Spanish or Mexican actor like Ricardo Montalban or Fernando Lamas speaking English with a vocabulary that was second to none.  On the other hand, how many times have we heard someone speak impeccable Spanish and left us tremendously envious?  Many New Mexicans my age, and older, spoke our own New Mexico Spanish before we spoke English, so we are naturally blessed with an accent that is very unique to New Mexico.  This is an accent that only a New Mexican or someone who lived in New Mexico can detect.  To me my accent is something I am extremely proud of and wear it like a badge of honor, for all to see.

From the language of our grandparents, what ever happened to “Buenos dias le de Dios Don Adolfo, or Doña Victoriana, como amanecio (may God give you a good day Don Adolfo, or Doña Victoriana, how did you receive the dawning)?  The respectful titles of “Don” and “Doña” were common place among our grandparents and today, even among older New Mexican.  However this form of greeting is very seldom used anymore.  My grandmother, on my mother’s side, Doña Victoriana Marquez de Otero, a very loving and gentle woman, showed surprise by saying “Alabo los dulces nombres! (I praise the sacred names).”  I really didn’t know the language and either didn’t have access to a Spanish dictionary or was too lazy to look up any of these words.  I would laugh thinking, why would she say “Al agua los dulces nombres (To the water with the sweet names),” a statement that makes no sense.  Another very common saying was “Dios no castiga con palos ni azotes (God does not punish with clubbings or beatings).  Dios mio, que paso (Mi heavens, what happened), was a very common question used by our elders when something unusual happened.  Ese huevo quiere sal (That guy wants something), a very unusual saying, was the way my father referred to someone who was hinting for a favor.   My step grandfather, on my father’s side, Don Lizardo Salazar, always referred to me as “que hombre tan bien parado (what a tall and proud standing man)’.  At the time I didn’t know what that meant, but I dearly loved to hear him say it.

Because people had more time available to them, they had more time to think and compose poems (Versos).  What ever happened to all those Versos that we as children used to hear and ignore because we didn’t understand the richness they brought to our lives.  My Father used to recite several Versos that he had learned over the years.  Probably the one he recited most was

“El Verso de Luperto Gonzales”

You soy Luperto Gonzales y me tratan de ladron.

Me siguio la policia de Albuquerque al Cabezon.

Al pasar por la angostura, el Pajaro Azul me espio,

Me hizo levatar la manos y ai mismo me mato.

Luperto Gonzales was from San Mateo and father of one of my father’s Compadres.  At his present age of 97 years, my Father doesn’t remember who composed the Verso.  

After I grew up and traveled throughout Latin America I ran across numerous other very descriptive sayings.  Hearing and learning these sayings merely re-enforced my love and admiration for this wonderful language my forefathers gave me.  As I grew older, I soon

realized that I was able to think in two languages, what a fascinating feeling.  There is, however, one problem, which I have never been able to master and that is to calculate in

Spanish.  Because I learned math in English, that is the language I calculate in.    

The world is definitely changing and our offspring must keep up with these changes.  We New Mexicans, however, do have one advantage unlike Hispanics from Texas, Arizona,

California and Colorado.  We were blessed with forefathers who insisted on making our state officially bilingual-Spanish/English.  We should feel honored that we’ve managed to maintain this blessing, in spite of the constant barrage of outside pressures.  The only other place, in the United States, that is officially bilingual Spanish-English is Miami, Florida.  Not the State of Florida, only the City of Miami.  The Cuban Americans have proudly held on to their Heritage and our beautiful Language. 

The young New Mexican, man or woman, that speaks English and Spanish not only propagates our ancestry but is respected for his uncommon knowledge of his ancestral

tongue.  Much to my surprise, I have found over the years that non-Hispanics respected me more if I openly carried conversations in both languages, and was not ashamed of it.    

Of major importance, in this day and time, is the fact that the world is no longer as large as it was 60 years ago, when I was a boy.  At one time in our lives we saw Latin America and Spain as places we would like to go visit but, we thought they had no real value in the way of commerce.  Spain and the Latin American countries are rapidly becoming industrialized and the need to “communicate” with them is of vital importance.  People in those countries are trying to learn English, but because they are trying to learn English does not justify us not trying to learn & perfect our Spanish.  Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula have two key and important languages, Spanish and Portuguese.  Individuals that speak Spanish have the basics of Portuguese and that language is relatively easy to learn. 

My aspirations of seeing my grandchildren speaking Spanish may hopefully come to fruition, in an English speaking environment.  I believe that for each language a person speaks, he is another person.  The greatest gift I can give my children and grand-children is the language and history of our ancestors, for it is as rich as is the history of United States.  Can we, New Mexicans, keep this Cultural Pride alive and moving, without losing our allegiance to the United States of America?  Without a doubt, that is very easy because we New Mexican love our country as much as we love our Heritage.  My grandfather used to say “Como es posible que sepas a donde vas si no sabes de donde vienes?” 

Sent by Rueben Salaz   saljustin@msn.com

Hispanic Farm Numbers 2007

Las Culturas 
This is an AMAZING website . .  with links to a great variety of sites. 
http://www.lasculturas.com/articles/hispanic-history/34-latino-patriotism?showall=1

Library

• Arts
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• Jobs
• Languages

• Latinas
• Literature
• Lowriders
• Music/Dance

The Latino Heritage Museum (LHM)

Over thirty–five years ago, responding to the growing demands for recognition by many Hispanic organizations, a Joint Resolution was approved on September 17, 1968 by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, 90th Congress.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress  assembled, That the President is hereby authorized and requested to issue annually a proclamation designating the week including September 15 and 16 as "National Hispanic Heritage Week"

The time period was selected to tie in with the celebrations of Mexican Independence Day and other Latin American Independence Day celebrations commemorated in our country during September 15 and 16.

Twenty years after the first resolution was passed, congress expanded Hispanic Heritage Week to Hispanic Heritage Month on August 17, 1988 .

It took over 400 years for the U. S. government to recognize the contributions of Latinos/Hispanics in America . Every American should know that the oldest, continuously inhabited city in the United States is St. Augustine, Florida (founded in 1565), and that Hispanic culture had a firm root in the Southeast and Southwest of what became the United States before the English arrived at Jamestown and before the Pilgrims dropped anchor in Massachusetts Bay. If, indeed, every American was taught these facts, he or she is unlikely to be taught much more about the Hispanic contribution to American civilization, however; it’s just not a part of today’s classrooms and textbooks. It is never brought home that Spanish, Hispanicized Africans and Native Americans and their mixed-blood descendants provided the basis for the development of much of American agriculture, mining, transportation grid, city planning, architecture and even law in the Southeast and Southwest. For example, such concepts as the right of women to inherit and own property, homestead rights, and the rights of adopted children to be treated the same as genetic offspring are examples of originally Hispanic legal principles that touch us today in the very heart of our existence: our families. Likewise, the Hispanic background of the United States helps us to understand the important role that Latinos have played throughout the 20th century in the development of this nation.

Hispanics have risen to great heights and established their mark on behalf of U.S. society in many fields of endeavor. There are literally too many distinctive landmarks of Hispanic progress during the past century to note.

The Latino Heritage Museum (LHM) takes on this task to research, document and educate Americans, Latinos/Hispanics and the world of these great accomplishments.

LHM realize the importance of this lost or forgotten history and showcases many surprising facts about the contributions of Latinos in the field of science, aerospace, communication medicine, and engineering. It also presents pioneers such as those who were the first in politics, education, entertainment, sports, media, cinema, and literature.

We celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month September 15 - October 15 to honor these achievements. The information LHM share is not just for Latinos but for everyone. It’s time that we as Americans understand that it took many different cultures to make this nation great. And as true Americans we celebrate Hispanic Heritage everyday!

http://www.latinoheritage101.com/Home_Page.html  Website set up 2008.

The Latino Heritage Museum (LHM) is an inspirational tribute to Latinos, Hispanic Scientists, inventors, and pioneers in the field of science, aerospace, communications, medicine, and business, sports, politics and arts/entertainment.  

LHM is a touring multimedia presentation, which consists of a museum containing over 100 authentic artifacts. The museum consists of a collection of the most significant Hispanic memorabilia collectibles, rare items, photographs, personal letters and autographs of Latino pioneers from around the world. LHM is a pioneer, the first of its kind, there’s no other museum like it.

The website has a list of Famous Firsts by Hispanic Americans, with links to website information for the individual.

Government

• Member of U.S. Congress: Joseph Marion Hernández, 1822, delegate from the Florida territory.
  
• U.S. Representative: Romualdo Pacheco, a representative from California, was elected in 1876 by a one-vote margin. He served for four months before his opponent succeeded in contesting the results. In 1879 he was again elected to Congress, where he served for two terms.
• U.S. Senator: Octaviano Larrazolo was elected in 1928 to finish the term of New Mexico senator Andieus Jones, who had died in office. He served for six months before falling ill and stepping down; he died in 1930. The first Hispanic senator to serve an entire term (and then some) was Dennis Chávez, of New Mexico, who served from 1935 through 1962.
• Administrator of the Federal Aviation Agency: General Elwood "Pete" Quesada helped create this agency to manage the growing aviation field and improve airline safety. He served in this position from 1958 to 1961. The agency became the Federal Aviation Administration in 1966.
• U.S. Treasurer: Romana Acosta Bañuelos, 1971–1974.
• U.S. cabinet member: Lauro F. Cavazos, 1988–1990, Secretary of Education.
• U.S. Surgeon General: Antonia Coello Novello, 1990–1993. She was also the first woman ever to hold the position.
• U.S. Secretary of Transportation: Federico Peña, 1993.
• U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: Henry Cisneros, 1993.
• U.S. Attorney General: Alberto Gonzales, 2005.
• Democrat to run for President: Bill Richardson, 2008. Though he eventually lost the nomination to Barack Obama, Richardson made history by entering the race.

Military

• Flying ace: Col. Manuel J. Fernández, Jr., who flew 125 combat missions in the Korean War.
•  Medal of Honor recipient: Philip Bazaar, a Chilean member of the U.S. Navy, for bravery during the Civil War. He received his Congressional Medal of Honor in 1865.
• Admiral, U.S. Navy: David G. Farragut. In 1866, he became the first U.S. naval officer ever to be awarded the rank of admiral. The first Hispanic American to become a four-star admiral was Horacio Rivero of Puerto Rico, in 1964.
• General, U.S. Army: Richard E. Cavazos, 1976. In 1982, he became the army's first Hispanic four-star general.
• Secretary of the Navy: Edward Hidalgo, 1979.

Science and Medicine

• Astronaut: Franklin Chang-Dìaz, 1986. He flew on a total of seven space-shuttle missions.

• The first female Hispanic astronaut was Ellen Ochoa, whose first of four shuttle missions was in 1991.
• Nobel Prize in Physics: Luiz Walter Alvarez, 1968, for discoveries about subatomic particles. Later, he and his son proposed the now-accepted theory that the mass dinosaur extinction was caused by a meteor impact.
• Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine: Severo Ochoa, 1959, for the synthesis of ribonucleic acid (RNA).

Literature

• Novel in English, written and published in U.S.: María Amparo Ruiz de Burton, Who Would Have Thought It? (1872). She's better known for her 1885 second novel, The Squatter and the Don.
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Oscar Hijuelos, 1990, for his novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love.
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Nilo Cruz, 2003, for his play Anna in the Tropics.

Music

• Opera diva: Lucrezia Bori, who debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in 1912.
• Rock star: Richie Valens, 1958.
• Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee: Carlos Santana, 1998.

Film

• Oscar, Best Actor: José Ferrer, 1950, Cyrano de Bergerac.

• Oscar, Best Supporting Actress: Rita Moreno, 1961, West Side Story.
• Oscar, Best Supporting Actor: Anthony Quinn, 1952, Viva Zapata!.
• Hollywood director: Raoul Walsh, 1914, The Life of General Villa.
• Matinee idol: Ramón Navarro, 1923, The Prisoner of Zenda.
• Leading lady: Dolores del Río, 1925, Joanne.

Drama

• Tony, Best Director: José Quintero, 1973.
• Tony, Best Supporting Actress: Rita Moreno, 1975, The Ritz. In 1977, Moreno became the first Hispanic American (and the second person ever) to have won an Oscar, a Grammy, a Tony, and an Emmy, picking up the last of those for her performance as guest host on The Muppet Show.

Television

• Star of a network television show: Desi Arnaz, 1952, I Love Lucy.
•  Broadcaster of the Year: Geraldo Rivera, 1971.

Baseball

• Major league player: Esteban Bellán, 1871, Troy Haymakers.
• World Series player: Adolfo “Dolf” Luque, 1919, relief pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds, against the infamous “Black Sox.” (He later pitched for the New York Giants in the 1933 Series and was credited with the win in the final game.)
• All-Star Game player: Alfonso “Chico” Carrasquel, 1951, starting shortstop for the American League.
• Rookie of the Year: Luis Aparicio, 1956, shortstop, Chicago White Sox.
• No-hitter: Juan Marichal, June 15, 1963, for the San Francisco Giants, against the Houston Colt .45s.

• Hall of Fame inductee: Roberto Clemente, 1973. He was also the first Hispanic player to serve on the Players Association Board and to reach 3,000 hits
• Team owner: Arturo “Arte” Moreno bought the Anaheim Angels in 2003, becoming the first Hispanic owner of any major U.S. sports franchise. In 2005, he renamed it the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Football

• NFL player: Ignacio “Lou” Molinet, 1927.
• NFL draft pick: Joe Aguirre, 1941.
• Starting NFL quarterback: Tom Flores, 1960.
• #1 NFL draft pick: Jim Plunkett, 1971.
• Football Hall of Fame inductee: Tom Fears, 1970. He also became the first Hispanic American head coach in 1967.

Other Sports

• Grand Slam championship winner: Richard “Pancho” González, 1948.
• LPGA Hall of Fame inductee: Nancy López, 1987. In 1978, she became the first player to have won the the Rookie of the Year Award, Player of the Year Award, and Vare Trophy in the same season.
• Heavyweight boxing champ: John Ruiz, 2001, defeating Evander Holyfield.
• NHL 1st-round draft pick: Scott Gomez, 1998.

Other Hispanic-American Firsts

• Supermodel: Christy Turlington.
• Labor leader: Juan Gómez, 1883. The first female Hispanic labor leader of note was Lucy González Parsons, 1886.
• Entertainer on the cover of TIME magazine: Joan Baez, 1962.

CULTURE

Cannibal and the Headhunters 

Sent by artist, Sergio Hernandez
chiliverde@earthlink.net 

Gregorio Luke at the Ford: Life-size Murals of Diego Rivera

Sunday June 7
Sun. June 7 at 8:30 p.m.

FORD Amphitheatre 
2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East
Hollywood, CA 90068

If you have not attended a multi-media presentation by Gregorio Luke, you have missed the experience of being overwhelmed by the beauty, passion, and history of Mexico's great muralists.  The June 7th presentation will be at the open-air Ford theater in Los Angeles.  

To get a feeling for Gregorio's dramatic presentation, click to this website and click on the Life and Times video.  
http://www.fordamphitheater.org/en/events/090607_2030.asp

WATCH
CHECK OUT GREGORIO AT THE FORD REHEARSAL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fft3Z9B7wBg&feature=channel_page
http://web.mac.com/gregorioluke/Site/Home_new.html

Gregorio Luke
3000 E. 2nd Street
Long Beach, California 90803

Robert Gumbiner, Founder 
left $25 million for Museum of Latin American Art
March 3rd, 2009

enlared conexion

CONEXIO´N • December 18, 2008 enlared 15

Founders of latinoteca.com wanted to create a site where teachers, students and others interested in Latino culture could find what they needed.  The result, says latinoteca .com co-founder Nicolás Kannellos, has been a well-received portal where Latinos and non-Latinos can find accurate information about Hispanic history and culture.

“We wanted to make this information available to the public,” Kannellos says of the Web site’s roots as a research project by professors at the University of Houston and its publishing house, Arte Público Press.

The Web site, he says, was a natural extension of the work he and others at the university did over the years, calling the site “an electronic hub for Latino cultural resources.” Latinoteca.com launched in September and contains free, downloadable texts, audio recordings, videos and other materials. There are sections for teachers and students, scholars and researchers, and authors and artists.

Kannellos says information is carefully screened before it’s posted on the Web site. “We explore the Web for correct, Latino cultural information. There’s a lot of inaccurate information out there,” says Kannellos, a professor of Spanish at the University of Houston and founding publisher of the acclaimed literary journal The Americas Review.

Some of the material on Latinoteca.com is historical information on art, history, journalism, literature and music about Latinos in the United States.

Kannellos says plans for the site include teaming up with a cultural organization dedicated to Latino history and art and expanding latinoteca.com to include a film database.

For more, visit latinoteca.com.  History & culture online.Web site serves as database for Latino resources.

Sent by Roberto Calderon, Ph.D.  beto@unt.edu

St. Isidore the Farmer   (b. 1070 – d. 1130)
Feast day: May 15th  
Spanish saint and patron saint of farmers and farmworkers

St. Maria, Farmwife
Feast day: September 14th
Spanish saint and farmwife

Editor:  St Isidore's Feastday was first inserted into the calendar for the United States in the year 1947.  The patron saint of farmers and farm-workers, honoring the farm workers, the land and the fruits of their labor.  http://www.ncrlc.com/isidoreandmaria.html

http://www.abqjournal.com/news/metro/182242151730newsmetro05-18-09.htm

Monday, May 18, 2009

Corrales Pageant Honors Patron Saint of Farming

By Aurelio Sanchez
Journal Staff Writer
          The mystery of the uniquely New Mexican pageant play, "Los Matachines," has continued unabated for hundreds of years, as it was again Sunday in Corrales to honor San Ysidro, the patron saint of farming.
        Los Matachines de Bernalillo acted out a ritual dance in Corrales that is said to represent the victory of good over evil.
        Different versions of the pageant are played out in New Mexico villages and pueblos every year, its mystery bolstered by uncertain New World beginnings altered by New World adaptations.
        "There are so many different versions all over New Mexico because they weren't recorded," said Charles Aguilar, a violin player in the Bernalillo matachines.
        The Bernalillo parish, the mother church for San Ysidro de Corrales, has continued the matachines tradition for more than 300 years, Aguilar said. Sunday's fiesta honored San Ysidro, the patron saint of farming, and parishioners carried his santo from the old church to the new one as part of the feast day observance.
        "People remembered what they saw and heard, and then they imitated it in their own versions," he said.
        Even the term "matachines" evokes wonder. The word matachin comes from 16th century French and Spanish, and can be translated to mean "clowning," or "trickery," generally referring to the men who dance as a group.
        Meanwhile, on Sunday as onlookers watched from both sides of Corrales Road, parallel rows of colorfully costumed soldiers formed a rough square, as they danced in place to the rhythmic cadence of guitar and violin music, the soldiers shaking gourd rattles in one hand and waving in the other hand a three-pronged wand, called a palma. Only the eyes of the soldiers were visible, as dark masks and scarves covered their faces under elaborate colorful headdresses.
        Inside the square of dancers, two main characters vied in mortal combat: El Toro, a malevolent bull, dressed in a headdress topped with bull's horns, representing evil, charging a whip-bearing character representing good, who repressed evil with a well-aimed crack of his whip.
        Told that the whip lashes sounded and looked real, Paul Chavez, who played the bull, said he was quick enough to avoid most of the lashes, but he attested to their authenticity.
        "I've got the welts to prove it."
        One story says it commemorates the casting off of more than 800 years of Muslim Moorish rule by the Spanish in the early 16th century.
        Another version casts a female lead character, La Malinche, as an Aztec paramour of Spanish Conquistador Hernán Cortés, who helped Cortés defeat Montezuma and conquer the Aztecs.
        In the version staged by the Bernalillo matachines Sunday, La Malinche represents purity and charity in the form of two young girls dressed in white.
        "I do it for God," 11-year-old Danielle Archuleta said, explaining why she wanted to play La Malinche, as her mother Lee Ann Archuleta and aunt, Josette Lopez, looked on proudly.
        "It's a big honor because she is doing it for God," Archuleta said, adding that another of her daughters has played the role, as she herself did when she was a little girl.

"Musica de la Raza - Aztlan to El Barrio"  Radio Show

NPR . Journalist writes about Hispanic Current Culture

Chicano music
Tony “Ham” Guerrero and Tortilla Factory. 

The Rose, A Sense of Place, 
Trailer of documentary, Rose Marine Theater in Fort Worth 
http://asenseofplace.tv/trailer_1.html
http://asenseofplace.tv/trailer_2.html
Sent by Roberto R. Calderón, Ph.D. 

 

The Official Mexican and Mexican American
Fine Art Museum of Texas

A LEGACY OF CHANGE

Mexic-Arte Museum's 25th Anniversary Exhibition
featuring the Permanent Collection, May 1 - August 2, 2009

Saturday, June 13, 2:00 PM
Jesse Herrera, "Celebration of the Patron Saint of San Miguel Tzinacapan, Puebla." (gallery talk)
Austin photographer will speak on his travels to Puebla, Mexico, over a period of eight years, to document San Miguel Tzinacapan's celebration of their patron saint.

Saturday, July 11, 2:00 PM
Sam Coronado, "Claiming Space, Creating Opportunity: The Serie Project and Mexic-Arte Museum's Promotion of Latino Artists." (gallery talk)
Talk will be about Sam's role in founding Mexic-Arte Museum, the development of the Serie Project, and the special relationship between the print center and the museum.

Saturday, July 18, 2:00 PM
Sylvia Orozco, "History of Mexic-Arte Museum." (gallery talk)
Founder and Executive Director, Sylvia Orozco, will talk about the beginning
of Mexic-Arte Museum and highlights of twenty-five years.

(512) 480-9373  info@mexic-artemuseum.org   http://www.mexic-artemuseum.org
419 Congress Avenue, Austin, TX 78701, (512) 480-9373

All Sundays during A Legacy of Change are FREE to the public.

• Another World is Possible:  La Peña makes that dream become a reality in small and large ways; a place where artists who are in Diaspora can call home, a place to preserve and pass on diverse cultural traditions; and organize to improve lives in our community and abroad.
  
• Celebrating Life and Community:  La Peña is a kaleidoscope of our diverse communities.  "Generation after generation, community after community, La Peña continues to be a vibrant community center, promoting cultural understanding and social justice through the arts" says Nadine Ghammache, Lebanese-American member of the staff collective
  
• Filling the Gaps:  La Peña is committed to filling gaps left by the devastated economy and a government that does not provide the quality of public education needed in today's world. La Peña continues to provide programming that is affordable and relevant to the pressing issues of today, and to involve community in thought, art and action.  Over 250 students each week take low cost and free workshops in Latin American music and dance, popular theater and hip hop.  Evening programs explore issues from environmental justice to the war in Iraq, offering opportunities to reflect, discuss, envision and to act.

• Surviving and thriving during this economic recession:  La Peña has thrived over the past 34 years despite numerous odds, including the Bush years and the dot.com bust.  La Peña continues because of grass roots support and because of the progressive art that emanates from our stage!

LAREDO'S JULIA VERA IN HARRISON FORD MOVIE

Mayborn Literary Non Fiction Conference

LITERATURE

VICTOR HUGO WRITES 
TO 
BENITO JUAREZ
Letter in 
Vicente Riva Palacio's newspaper, 
La Orquesta, 
June 31, 1867
Translation to English 
by Ted Vincent

One hears his voice throughout the civilized world, and his advice, if not always followed, is none-the-less admired, because he evokes the grandeur and elevation of men above their human weaknesses, Victor Hugo wrote a letter the 20th of June. Maximilian had faced the firing squad the day before in Queretaro, and so the voice and its profound counsel would have not been heard by the President of the Republic. 

Perhaps the end had been fated from the beginning for the one for whom he interceded. An identical fate occurred with the letter from Garibaldi, the two arrived too late. The letter to us began.

The letter, beginning with the sender’s preface to Riva Palacio.

The author of Hernani, Victor Hugo, has just written to Juarez, president of the Republic of Mexico, a letter which has been published in France, in an English journal, and that we copy and send on, shortening it by a few paragraphs...

The Letter from Hugo

To the President of the Mexican Republic, Juarez - You have been the equal of John Brown. America today has two heroes, 
John Brown and you. John Brown because 
he brought death to slavery, you because 
you kept freedom alive.


Mexico has been saved by a principal and by a man, and that man is you.

On one side two Empires ( France and Austria), on the other a man, a man with only a handful of men, thrown aside from city to city, town to town, ranch to ranch, woods to woods, pursued, nomadic, ...without money, nor bread, nor powder, nor cannons. The usurpation proceeded with all its legions of force. Right was stripped and abandoned. 
Yet you accepted the challenge of combat, 
and battle waged for five years. 



You had for your defenders impassable swamps, waters full of alligators, poisoness vegetation, the yellow fever of the hot country, the sandy ground without water, without grasses, where horses died of thirst and hunger...... In the war against the giants, your projectile has been the rugged 
mountains.

And one day, after five years of smoke and dust and blindness, the cloud dissipated and one saw two Empires had fallen to ruin. No more of monarchy, nor armies, no more than .this enormous usurpation in ruin And over this horrible swirl one man was still 
standing, Juarez, and at the side of this man liberty.

All that you have done, Juarez, in truth is great, yet that which you have yet to do is greater still.

Listen, citizen President of the Republic of Mexico. You have just demonstrated the power of democracy, now you will show its beauty.

After the ray you bring the dawn. To the barbarians you show civilization, to the despots, principles.

Give to the kings who lord over the people the humiliation of a surprise and complete defeat by giving them mercy.

It is a basic principle that protection be 
given our enemy. The grandeur of principles consists in ignoring all else. Men don't have names before they have principles. Humanity is a human collective, man represented through the his humanity. The principles 
know nothing of nobody, neither nor more than if they scratched themselves out. In their stupid anguish they know no more than this. Human life is inviolable. Oh, venerable impartiality is the truth! Oh, the beauty of 
right without distinction is the righteous 
path. Precisely, it is on those who warrant death legally where you ought to abjure the right.

The grandiose destruction of the scaffold, is more important than seeing to culpability.


That the violator of basic principles will be saved by a principle. That he has been shamed. That the violator of right has been saved by a right. Stripping away the false inviolability of the crown, and put yourself 
in the true light, that of the inviolability of humanity. That will give him the shock of knowing what really is sacred, and it is that very stance that led him to no longer be Emperor....

Never have you been presented an occasion more magnificent.

Juarez, give civilization a giant step forward. Abolish over the earth the death penalty. The world will see that this is a prodigious step. The nation is at that moment for the annihilation of the assassin usurper. Reflect that he is a man, Think about it, and tell yourself:

“You are the people as are the others. See it.

“This will be, Juarez, your second victory. The first over the usurpation - is sovereignty. The second, to pardon the usurper - is sublime.

.

.”Above the monarchial laws that flow with drops of blood, shine the law of light, and the coming of the most sacred page in the supreme book, that one sees from the Republices, honor to this order from God, 
 No mataras (do not kill).

These four syllables contain the obligation.

You ought to follow them.

The usurper will be saved, and the liberator will have done it. For 8 years, since Decemb er 2, 1859, without more right than would have any other man, I have followed the world in the name of democracy, and I had asked the United States for the life of John Brown. I was not obeyed. I ask Mexico for the life of Maximilian. Will I be rewarded?

“Yes. It can be said that at this hour it is already done.

Maximilian will owe his life to Juarez.

Victor Hugo

Hauteville House, 20 of June 1867

---------------------------------------------------
Introduccion de Riva Palacio a Una Carta de Victor Hugo al Sn. Juarez 

Entra las muchas tiras de periódicos que recibimos con la correspondencia del paquete encontramos una carta del célebre poeta francés, del amigo de la humanidad y de la democracia, del enemigo constante de la tiranía. Desde el destierro ve el filósofo y el postra las grandes cuestiones que los hombres agitan en la tierra, y apóstol y defensor de la vida humana no pierde oportunidad en destruir para siempre el hacha del verdugo y el horror de los patíbulos. 

Su voz se hace escuchar en todo el mundo civilizado, y sus consejos, si no son siempre seguidos, son sí admirados, porque envuelven la grandeza y la elevación suprema sobre todas las debilidades de los hombres, Victor Hugo escribía su carta el 20 de Junio. El día anterior Maximiliano había sido fusilado en Querétaro; así su voz y sus profundos consejos no han podido ser escuchados por el Presidente de la Republica. 

Quizás ha sido una fatalidad pare el principie por quien intercedía. Una cosa idéntica ha pasado con la carta de Garibaldi; las dos llegaron demasiado tarde. En cuanto al hecho triste que tuvo lugar en Querétaro, nos permitiremos en uno de estos días contestar al célebre poeta francés para que tenga el debido conocimiento de circunstancias especiales que é ignora, y que casi hicieron indispensable que Maximiliano tuviese un fin funesto. - La carta dice así: 

“El autor de Hernán, Victor Hugo, acaba de dirijir á Juarez, presidente de la Republica de México, la carta que se ha publicado en francés en un diario inglés, y que á continuación menos algunas párrafos que hemos creído de nuestro, deber el suprimir:

La Carta

“Al Presidente de la Republica mexicana, Juarez – Vos habéis igualado a John Brown. La América actual tiene dos héroes, John Brown y vos. John Brown por quien ha murió la esclavitud, vos por quien ha vivido la libertad.

México se ha salvado por un principio y por un hombre: ese hombre sois vos.

De una parte dos imperios, de la otra un hombre’un hombre con solo un puñado de hombres desterrados de ciudad en ciudad, de pueblo en pueblo, de rancho en rancho,, de bosque en bosque, persuigido,.(con) ni dinero, ni pan, ni polvora, ni canones... Aquí la usurpación llamadose legitimidad. Alli el derecho llamado bandido. La usurpacion precidida de todas las legiones de la fuerza. El derecho solo, desnudo y abandonado. Vos que sois el derecho habeis recogido el guante y acepiado el combate. La batalla de uno contra todos has durado cinco anos. 

Vos habeis tenido por defensores los pantanos intransitable, los torrentes lleno de caimanes’ las vegetaciones mórbidas; el vómito prieto de las tierras caliente; las soledades de sal, los arenales sin agua yh sin yerbas, donde los caballos mueren de sed y hambre; la grande y severa mesa de Anahuac, que como la Castilla se defiende por sus desnudo; los temblores de los volcanes, desde el Colima hasta el Nevado de Toluca. Vos habeis llamado en vustrro auxilio á vuestras barreras, naturales á la aspereza de los cordilleras, á las altas murallas basáticas, y á las colosales rocas de pórfido. Vos habeis hecho la guerrs de los gigantes, yh vustros proyectiles has sido las montanas.

Y un dia, después de conco anos de humo, de polvo y de ceguedad, la nube se ha disipado, y entonces se han visto dos imperios caidos en tierra. Nada de monarquia, nada de ejercitos; nada, mas que la enormidad de la usurpacion en ruina, y sobre este horroso derrumbamiento un hombre en pié: Juarez, y al lado de este hombre la libertad.

Todo esto vos lo habeis hecho, Juarez y en verdad es grande’pero lo que os resta que hacer is mas grande todavía.

Escuchad, ciudadano Presidente de la Republica mexicana: Vos acabais de demostrar el power de la democracia; ahora mostrad su belleza.

Después del rayo mostrad la aurora. A los barbados mostrad la civilización; á los déspotas los principios.

Dad á los reyes delante del pueblo la humillación del asombre; vencidios, sobre todo, por la piedad.

Los principios se afirman por la proteccion de nuestro enemigo. La grandeza de los principios constante en ignorarlo todo. Los hombres no tienen nombre delante de los principios. Los hombres es el hombre colectivo, al hombre representando á la humanidad. Los principios no conocen á nadie, ni á nada mas que a si raiamos. En su augusta estupidez no sabes mas que esta. La vida humana es inviolable. ¡Oh venerable imparcialidad de la verdad! ¡Oh hermosura del derecho sin discernimiento, ocupado solo de ser el derecho! Precisamente delante de los que had merecido legalmente la muerte, es donde debe abjurarse de las vías de hecho,.

La grandiosa destrucción del cadalso debe hacerse delante de los culpables.

Que el violador de los principios sea salvado por un principio. Que tenga esta docta u esta vergüenza. Que el perseguidor del derecho sea salvado por el derecho. Despojándolo de la falsa inviolabilidad de la corona, voz lo poneis delante de la verdaders inviolabilidad humana. Que se quede asombrado: que el lado por el cual es sagrado, es precisamente por el lado por el cual no es emperador.

Que este principe que no advinaba que era un hombre, sepa que hay en el una miseria, el rey, y un majestad, el hombre.

Jamas se os ha presentado una ocasión mas magnifica.

Juarez, haced que la civilización de un paso inmenso. Abolid sobre toda la tierra la pena de muerte. Que el momento de aniquilar a su asesino vencido, reflexiona que es un hombre, lo suenta, y le dice: 


Tu eras del pueblo como los otras - Vete.

Esta será, Juarez, vuestra segunda victoria. La primera, vencer la usurpación, - Es soberbia: La segunda, perdonar al usurpador, - Es sublima.

Si… á estos principios á quienes obedecen los jueces, á estos jueces á quienes obedecen los verdugos, á éstos verdugos obedecidas por la muerte, mostradles abrir se perdona á la cabeza de un emperador.

Sobre todos los códigos monárquicos de donde manan las gotas de sangre, abrid la ley de luz, y en medio de la mas santa pagina del libre supremo, que se vea el dede de la Republica, sobre esta orden de Dios: No matarás.

Estés cuarto afilabas contienen el deber.

El deber vos lo haréis.

¡El usurpador será salado, y el libertador no ha podido serlo! Hace 8 anos al 2 de Diciembre de 1859 sin mas derecho que el que tiene cualquiera hombre, he tomado la palabra en nombre de la democracia, y he pedido á los Estados-Unidos la vida de John Brown. No la he obtenido. Hay pido á México la vida de Maximiliano. ¡La obtendré!

Si. Puede ser que a esta hora esté ya concedida.

Maximiliano deberá la vida a Juarez - Victor Hugo

Hauteville House, 20 Junio de 1867.

ANTI-SPANISH LEGENDS

LA LEYENDA NEGRA/THE BLACK LEGEND

HISTORICAL DISTORTION, DEFAMATION, SLANDER, LIBEL, AND STEREOTYPING OF HISPANICS  

By Felipe de Ortego y Gasca

Scholar in Residence and Chair of the Department of Chicana/Chicano and Hemispheric Studies, Western New Mexico University; Professor Emeritus, Texas State University System—Sul Ross  

[From Real to Reel: Hispanics and the Eiconic Image in Film--Number 11 in a series on La Leyenda Negra]  

According to Reyes and Rubie, “Bandits and sleepy Mexican towns” were standard features in silent West­erns in which the vicious greaser image came into being. Bronco Billy and the Greaser and The Greaser’s Revenge (both 1914), for example, confirmed “the Mexican as an evil and sinister villain” (6). Reyes and Rubie contend that the problem of Hollywood movies with Latino subjects or characters has been the ignorance of film makers about Latinos and their history and culture (18). For example, “the battle of the Alamo in 1836 . . . left deep seated prejudices between Anglo Americans and Mexicans that are still reflected over 100 years later in such movies as Man of Conquest (1939), The Last Command (1955) and John Wayne’s The Alamo (1960)” ( 5). Films reflected the low esteem in which Hispanics were held by the non-Hispanic public. With few exceptions, Hispanics were rigidly typecast in films as gardeners or gangsters, as maids or madames. In the main, “Hispanic women have usually been relegated to some version of the stout mamacita, the sexy spitfire, and the suffering mother or girlfriend” (313)  

Like films, television was no better. “Although Hispanics have been featured on various series since televi­sion began, there have been few Hispanic star or character-driven vehicles” (Reyes and Rubie, 312). Though the George Lopez Show is an exception, its characterizations of Hispanics are stereo­typed with buffoonery and antics for comedic effect at the expense of Hispanics. To counter this trend, Hispanic actors organized Nosotros, to improve the images of Hispanics in American films and television.  

While it’s true that people should be able to laugh at themselves in comic situations, Reyes and Rubie conclude that “accepting unchallenged stereotyped portrayals in the movies is a form of passive racism.” That Hollywood’s bottom-dollar mentality “masks” that passive racism; that “the insidiousness of racism is not so much the overt acts of [fascism], but the moral cowardice of those who avoid speaking out against off-the-cuff offensive remarks.” For Reyes and Rubie there is “a fine line between the artistic tyranny of ‘politi­cal correctness’ and being sensitive to perpetuating a stereotype” (2).  

The most notable television shows that parlayed Hispanic stereotypes to success were The Cisco Kid and the Zorro series. Both employed unabashed stereotypes of Hispanics, not to mention that few Hispanics played the lead role. After a 38 year hiatus, Luis Valdez directed the 1994 version of The Cisco Kid with Jimmy Smits and Cheech Marin without the gratuitous stereotypes. While this was a formidable leap forward for Hispanics in films and television, the eiconic images of Hispanics in these media still abound.  

The pervasive casting of non-Hispanics as Hispanics has lessened today, providing Hispanic actors more opportunities for non-typecast roles. Until the civil rights era many Hispanic characters in film had been played by non-Hispanics. In Viva Zapata, for example, Marlon Brando played the key role of Zapata while Anthony Quinn played the role of the brother. In Villa Rides, Yul Brynner played the part of Pancho Villa. In The Milagro Beanfield War a number of Hispanics appeared in supporting roles, but the only American Hispanic (U.S.) actor was Freddy Fender. In a number of television shows there are references to (phantom) Hispanics with Hispanic surnames who do not appear on screen. And non-Mexican Hispanic actors are cast as Mexicans or Mexican Americans. In the TV series Empire (1962-64), Charles Bronson played Paul Moreno, a Mexican American ranch hand.  

Combating the effects of the Black Legend has been a steep incline for Hispanics in the United States. What is most evident about that struggle is that progress for Hispanics is not a matter of largesse oblige but of nous même oblige, collective efforts to overcome the obstacles in the wake of the Black Legend.

USA Laws which were directed at its Spanish Speaking Citizens, 
1845-1898, Part I
http://www.neta.com/~1stbooks/law.htm
 

The annexation of Texas in 1845 was the immediate cause of the war.  Other  factors lending up to the war was America's ambition to acquire New Mexico and California (Manifest Destiny), and the desire to extend slave-holding territory.  (Note: There is no doubt special legislation is needed to counter all the anti Hispanic Legislation which the Municipal, Country, State and Federal Governments have enacted for the past 150 years or more).

1861, During the 1860s, Tiburcio Vásquez, Joaquín Murieta, and others are branded as bandits for resisting the seizure of American Hispanic lands in California.

1865: Under provisions of the 1862 Homestead Act, Land speculators acquire American Hispanic land by using squatters to claim the land illegally. This land was obtained illegally with the aid and might of the U.S. Government against their own American Hispanic citizens. 

The "Tejanos" (American Hispanics in Texas) suffered outright repression from the Texas Rangers, who were known as the "Hispanic's Ku Klu Klan". 

1850 California: The new comers grew jealous of the experienced Mexican-Californio miners, and In 1850, the new legislature (with the might of the Federal U.S. Government) enacted a burdensome "Foreigner Miner's Tax" of $20.00 per month. This new tax was aimed at the American Hispanics and the Spanish speaking Californios, enforced by volunteer armed new comers. Many of our mining terms, like bonanza and placer are Spanish in origin by the way. 

Up to the at least the 1940s, Southwest Arizona, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and California: Birth certificates for American Hispanics did not indicate they were American born. A new born of American Hispanic origin (those who had been here for centuries included), was *born in Mexico* or *Mexican* instead of American. 
.
1850, four thousand Hispanic miners gather in Sonora, California, to protest the Foreign Miners' Tax, which was enacted to drive them from gold fields. Many Hispanics could not afford the extra taxation and left. 

1851 California counties with the highest Hispanic populations were taxed at a rate five times greater than any other region in the state. Many Hispanics could not afford another extra tax, and left. 

1854, the takeover of American Hispanic lands: The Surveyor of General Claims Office is established in New Mexico (includes Arizona) but cannot process claims fast enough to prevent the takeover. Loss of over 75% of Hispanics lands from illegal or legal offical means. A violation of the TGH. 

1855 Laws are enacted in California to prohibit many cultural pastimes of the American Hispanic population. 

1855 California. Soon the Anglos dominated the state legislature, enacting the tax and laws like the 1855 Greaser Act, which defined vagrants as (quote) "all persons who [were] commonly known as 'Greasers' or the issue of Spanish or Indian blood." The "Greaser" Act. A anti-vagrancy act by the State Legislature Excludes "Diggers" (Indians) but includes persons of mixed Spanish and Indian blood or "Greasers". 

This Law was intended to keep Hispanics from owning the mines, and provided 
another justification for expropriation of American Hispanic lands.This racist epithet is all too well known to date, which started with ordinary people, and made law in the California State Legislature 1855. 

1855, California The anti-Catholic Know-Nothings organize and hold a state convention in Sacramento. 

1855, California, The Legislature refuses to provide funds for translation of state laws into Spanish despite the fact that 1) The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidaldo provides for the protection and guarantee of the conquered Spanish speaking Americans, 2) the majority of the State's inhabitants are of Spanish speaking extraction. 

1857, California: Former delegate to the State Constitutional Convention Manuel Dominguez is barred from testifying for the defense in The People vs. Elyea because he is a mestizo. (Note: using mestizo was a way to separate Hispanics and keep them from uniting, this was and still used today in the southwest. Many whites considered Hispanics from the acquired western states as "inferior to Indians and Africans because they were racially mixed, a hybrid race that represented the worst nightmare of what might become of the white race if they let down their racial guard".) 

1855 Anglo businessmen attempt to run American (Hispanics) teamsters (wagon-drivers) out of south Texas, violating the guarantees offered by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. 

1857, Anglo businessmen try to push American Hispanic teamsters out of south Texas, violating the guarantees of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. 

1858, Miners and settlers move into Colorado in search of silver, forcing more Hispanic Americans from their land.

1800s - 1900s the western U.S. lynchings of American Hispanics were common on a daily basis. 

1862, The Supreme Court rules in favor of Daly City "squatters". The Homestead Act is passed in Congress, allowing squatters in the southwest to settle and claim American Hispanic lands. This was common in California and the southwest. 

1863 Arizona: Anglo segment was becoming numerical dominant. Anglo Arizonans were, for the most part, preoccupied with controlling the large American Hispanic population politically. 

1889 Northern Arizona: The 1889 Taylor Grazing Act: this law enacted was responsible for the elimination of the sheep industry in Concho, Arizona whose owners were primarily Spanish speaking sheep herders and Native Americans.. Concho, once a thriving Spanish speaking community , with the loss of the sheep industry left Concho and vicinity, in an almost helpless condition, and started its decline and loss of population. . 

Southwest, Arizona, New Mexico: 75% of American Hispanics lost their land in the late 1800s and beginning of the 1900s through illegal and "legal" methods. The "legal" methods land was lost is due to the language. The Character (language) of the Southwest was/is Spanish, however land owners were not permitted to argue their case in the Spanish language. All lawyers in the S.W. at that time were Spanish speaking. The U.S. Government brought in English speaking lawyers for the landowners and hence ended up with the land owned by the Spanish speaking landowners. 

1848: Land had been the basis of the California socio-economic system. With the loss of land after the U.S. conquest undermined that system. The protections provided by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo were ignored by the U.S. 
Holders of Spanish and Mexican land grants, most of whom were American Hispanics, were required to seek legal confirmation of their titles. 
The federal government placed the burden of proof on the landowners instead of automatically accepting all titles and then handling challenges on an individual 
basis. In direct contradiction to the protection by the TGH. 

1883 (May 12) Phoenix, Arizona: Phoenix merchants signed an agreement to receive Mexican currency only at the rates of: dollars, 80 cents; halves, 40 cents; quarters, 20 cents. 

Late 1800s, Northern Arizona (New Mexico at the time), my ancestor Marcos Padilla Baca was the Justice of the Peace when the first English speakers entered the region. The American Hispanics helped the interlopers with shelter and food, and were soon repayed by enacting laws which would put American Hispanics and Native Americans out of business. 

1884 Texas, there were daily lynchings of Hispanic Americans in the area around Fort Davis, Texas; many Anglos voiced the opinion that the lynchings should continue until no Hispanics remained in the area. Lynchings were a tool of racial oppression elsewhere in the Southwest as well; in California, lynching of Hispanics became so common that in the Hispanic community, American democracy became known as "linchocracia." 
(From Vernellia R. Randall Professor of Law, and Luis Angel Toro).

1898 Morenci - Clifton, Arizona: There was a prospect of trouble between American Hispanics and Anglos at Clifton and Morenci. The outbreak of racial conflicts was based on the sympathy of the Hispanics towards Spain in her troubles abroad. 
. 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In his Living History Newsletters Rick Collins writes, " Most Americans are not aware of the role of Spain in the settling of the New World, nor are they cognizant of the important contributions of Spain to the defeat of the British during the American Revolution. In his book, Entrada, Bernard Fontana suggests an underlying prejudice toward Hispanics as cause of part of that ignorance. Certainly the Leyenda Negra, or "Black Legend", so strongly touted by the Protestant governments of the Old World helped suppress Spain's contribution to American history. http://www.neta.com/~1stbooks/rick1.htm

If you know of laws, et that discriminate against Hispanics, please provide the information here 1stbooks@neta.com

Sent by Wanda Garcia  wanda.garcia@sbcglobal.net

MILITARY AND LAW ENFORCEMENT HEROES

Army Air Corp, Staff Sgt.

My Tio Eliseo "Pete" Villalobos
by 
 Sergio Hernandez 
CHILIVERDE@EARTHLINK.NET

Library of Congress Veterans Oral History Project

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/vhp/search?query=%2Brace:Hispanic&start=0

Examples of the oral histories being collected.  

Aceves, Frank Ibanez -- Electrician's Mate Second Class, Navy Veteran Vietnam War - United States Naval Training Center (USNTC), San Diego, Camp Pendleton, Coronado and Alameda, California; Midway Island; Vietnam

Acevedo, Joseph Walter -- Torpedoman's Mate Third Class, Navy Veteran World War II - San Diego Naval Training Station, California; New Guinea; Australia

Acosta, Paul E. -- Sergeant, Marine Corps Veteran Vietnam War - Camp Pendleton, California; Vietnam

Aguirre, Reyner Aceves -- Seaman Second Class, Navy Veteran World War II - Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

Alcon, Raymond Joseph -- Lance Corporal, Marine Corps Veteran Persian Gulf War - Camp Pendleton, California

Alegria, Roberto Antonio -- Sergeant, Marine Corps Veteran Persian Gulf War - California; Texas; South Carolina; Okinawa, Japan; Philippines; Saudi Arabia; Kuwait City, Kuwait; Iraq

Alexander, Kenneth Raymond -- E-8, Army Veteran Afghanistan and Iraq Wars - Kuwait; Iraq; Afghanistan

Alfaro, Trinidad -- Specialist Four, Army Veteran Vietnam War - Southern Vietnam

Alier, Jr., Louie -- Master Sergeant, Air Force Veteran Vietnam War, Persian Gulf War - Luke Air Force Base (AFB), Davis-Monthan AFB, and Williams AFB, Arizona; Thailand; Vietnam; Clark Air Force Base (AFB (Philippines); Panama; Guam (Mariana Islands); Guyana; California; Colorado; Japan; McChord AFB, Washington; Spain; Saudi Arabia

Almarez, George Joseph -- Petty Officer Third Class, Navy Veteran Afghanistan and Iraq Wars - Persian Gulf; Iraq

Almedina, Elvia S. Ramirez -- Staff Sergeant, Air Force Veteran Persian Gulf War - Lackland Air Force Base, Texas; Grissom Air Force, Indiana; Klein Brogel, Belgium

Alvarado, Benjamin -- Private, Army Veteran World War II - Camp Fannin (basic training) and Camp Howze, Texas; England; France; Germany

U.S. Postal Service for Purple Heart Stamp Ceremony, May 18th

WASHINGTON, May 18 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Assistant Secretary for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs, L. Tammy Duckworth , spoke at a U.S. Postal Service ceremony announcing the reissue of the Purple Heart stamp. Hundreds of people attended the morning event at the Washington Convention Center.

"This stamp is a tribute to our nation's wounded Veterans and a reminder of our society's commitment to care for them when the war is over," Assistant Secretary L. Tammy Duckworth said. "Many people who are severely wounded have their initial fears of a life destroyed replaced by the understanding that they can do just about anything."

This is the fifth issue of the Purple Heart definitive postage stamp. The Purple Heart stamp was first issued on May 20, 2003, at Mount Vernon, Va. The Purple Heart is awarded in the name of the President of the United States to members of the U.S. Military who have been wounded in combat or to the next of kin of those killed in action.

Assistant Secretary L. Tammy Duckworth is a recipient of the Purple Heart for wounds she sustained while serving in Iraq with the United States Army. In 2004, her aircraft was ambushed and a rocket-propelled grenade struck the Black Hawk helicopter she was co-piloting during a mission north of Bagdad.

SOURCE U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/prnewswire/press_releases/District_of_Columbia
/2009/05/18/DC19026

Sent by Rafael Ojeda 
RSNOJEDA@aol.com

Lawmakers want Medal of Honor for Mexican Native 
By Andrew Kreighbaum

WW II pilot 
Lt General Elwood "Pete" Quesada

LIEUTENANT GENERAL LEO MARQUEZ
Retired Aug. 1, 1987. 
http://www.af.mil/bios/bio.asp?bioID=6304  

Lt. Gen. David M. Rodriguez, 
left, will be a Senior Commander Afghanistan

WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is expected to bolster the U.S. military leadership in Afghanistan by appointing a three-star general to Kabul, according to senior defense officials. The move underscores growing concern in the military over the course of the conflict and marks the first time since the seven-year war began that the U.S. will have two senior commanders there.

The appointment of Lt. Gen. David M. Rodriguez, who holds the military's second-highest rank, hasn't been announced publicly, and his exact role in Kabul is still being discussed. He was chosen by Mr. Gates last year to be his personal military assistant after a widely praised tour as a division commander in eastern Afghanistan.

The decision by Mr. Gates to move Gen. Rodriguez back to Afghanistan is the latest in a series of moves by the Pentagon leadership to play a more hands-on role in the Afghanistan war, after a year of rising violence and increasingly vocal criticism of the campaign plan within the military and on Capitol Hill. An internal task-force agenda reviewed by The Wall Street Journal detailed the growing concern.

Last month, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, quietly assigned his top staff officer, Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, to head the task force with the aim of improving the effectiveness of the Afghan strategy. Such strategic planning is usually left to commanders in the region.

The appointment of Gen. Rodriguez and the creation of the task force are both efforts "to ensure that the Pentagon is on a war footing," said a military official familiar with the recent moves.

For more from this article, go to http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124173359782198081.html

Sent by Rafael Ojeda
Tacoma,WA

HISPANICS IN THE U.S. MILITARY

By John P. Schmal  

Hispanics in the Military (2001)  
At the end of September 2001 the Pew Hispanic Center reported that there were 109,487 Hispanics in the enlisted ranks, and they made up 9.49 percent of the active duty enlisted force. In contrast, Hispanics made up 13.35 percent of the civilian labor force 18 to 44 years old, the typical age range for enlisted service.  The Center’s statistics illustrated “significant variations in the extent of Hispanic representation among the armed services from a high of 13.99 percent in the Marine Corps to a low of 5.57 percent in the Air Force.”  

Hispanics in the Military (2007)  
More recent statistics from the Pew Hispanic Center have indicated an increase in the number of Hispanics on active duty in the military to 122,255 in 2007.  This Hispanic military population represented 11.06 percent of the total military of 1,105,470.  In the same year, the Heritage Foundation estimated that Hispanics and Latinos represented 12.93 percent of total recruits.  

In contrast to the military statistics, the entire population of Hispanics/Latinos, as estimated by the American Community Survey of 2005-2007, stood at 44,019,880, or 14.7 percent of the entire resident population. The 122,255 active-duty Hispanics in 2007 included 16,721 foreign-born soldiers.  

Hispanic Casualties (2001-2009)  
Hispanic Americans have also made up a portion of the casualties that American forces have experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan . Between October 7, 2001 to May 2, 2009, 53 military service members who classified themselves as Hispanics or Latinos died in the service of their country, representing 7.8 percent of military deaths. During the same period, 147 Hispanics have been wounded in action, representing 5.2 percent of all wounded service members.  

In a Congressional Research Service report dated March 25, 2009, Information Research Specialist Hannah Fischer reported that the total Hispanic/Latino military deaths in both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom up to February 28, 2009, was 450 individuals, representing 10.6 percent of all military deaths (4,245).  

Hispanic Military Officers

The Pew Hispanic Center report in 2003 lamented the small percentage of Hispanics among military officers and generals. For several years, Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, who commanded coalition troops for a year beginning June 2003, had been the highest ranking Hispanic in the military. He had been one of just eight Hispanics ever to rise to the rank of general in the Army by 2003. At the time of his retirement in 2006 – after 33 years in the military – only three Hispanic generals were left on active duty.  

Since General Sanchez retired, there has been a small amount of progress toward greater representation, but legislators have been taking steps to accelerate the process. According to the Defense Manpower Data Center, as of March 31, 2008, the 13 Hispanic flag and general officers in the armed forces at that time represented only 1.3 percent of the 963 flag and general officers.  In contrast, there were 54 African-American flag officers and general officers (including one four-star general) and 883 Caucasian flag and general officers.  

In response to this problem, the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) approved two amendments in the defense authorization bill to increase diversity representation within the senior officer corps of the U.S. Armed Forces, and expand Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) Units.  Once enacted, the newly established Senior Military Diversity Commission would be mandated to study policies that provide opportunities for the advancement of minority members of the Armed Forces.  Special emphasis was placed on developing and maintaining a diverse leadership at the general and flag officer positions.

Total serving in the United States Military: 1,412,529
Of that, total officers: 224,488

 38 generals/admirals
146 - lieutenant generals/vice admiral
284 - major general - rear admiral
455 - brigadier generals - rear admirals

Celebrating Commitment to Honor and Duty

In 2007, Bruce E. Phillips, in this article, “Top Hispanics in the U.S. Military: Celebrating Commitment to Honor, Duty and Country” (Hispanic Engineer & Information Technology, January 18, 2007), paid tribute to several of the highest rank Hispanic in the military, including:  

• Major General Thomas A. Benes, Director, Strategy and Plans Division, U.S. Marine Corps
• Major General William D. Catto, Commanding General, Marine Corps Systems Command
• Brigadier General Jimmie C. Jackson Jr., Deputy Commander, Combined Air Operations Center , Allied Command Operations (NATO)
• Brigadier General Robert Marrero-Corletto, Assistant Adjutant General (Army), Puerto Rico Army National Guard
• Rear Admiral George E. Mayer, Commander, Naval Safety Center
• Brigadier General Joseph V. Medina, Commanding General, Marine Corps Base Camp S.D. Butler , and Deputy Commander, Marine Corps Bases, Japan
• Brigadier General Roque C. Nido-Lanausse, Deputy Adjutant General, Puerto Rico Army National Guard
• Brigadier General Joseph Reynes Jr., Commander, 51st Fighter Wing, Osan Air Base, South Korea
• Major General Charles G. Rodriguez, Adjutant General, Texas National Guard
• Rear Admiral William D. Rodriguez, Chief Engineer, Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command
• Brigadier General Angela Salinas, Chief of Staff, Marine Corps Recruiting Command

Hispanic Representation Among Military Recruits

Each year, the Department of Defense is required by Congress to publish statistics on the social representation of the armed forces in terms of such characteristics as race, ethnicity, marital status, and age. One of the chief goals of the Congress is that the diversity in the armed forces should be proportional to the diversity in the general population. However, in a 2009 research publication, the Rand National Research Institute echoed the observations of earlier years by stating that “Hispanics are underrepresented among military recruits.” In 2007, Hispanics made up 17.0 percent of the U.S. population between the ages of 18 and 40, but only 11.4 percent of Army enlistment contracts and 15 percent of Navy enlistment contracts.”    

The Rand report indicated that “the under-representation of Hispanics is puzzling, considering that survey data on young people’s attitudes toward the military consistently indicate that Hispanic youth are more likely than other groups to express a positive attitude toward the military.” As an example of this attitude, it was pointed out that in a “December 2007 poll of American youth ages 18 to 24 conducted by the Department of Defense, 12.6 percent of Hispanic respondents stated they were probably or definitely going to join the military, compared with 10.1 percent of black respondents and 6.6 percent of white respondents” (Defense Human Resources Activity, 2008).  

Sources:  

Asch, Beth J.; Buck, Christopher; Klerman, Jacob Alex; Kleykamp, Meredith and Loughran, David S, “Military Enlistment of Hispanic Youth Obstacles and Opportunities,” (Rand National Research Institute, 2009)  

Department of Defense Personnel and Procurement Statistics, “Personnel & Procurement Reports and Data Files, Military Casualty Information.”  

Fischer, Hannah, “ United States Military Casualty Statistics: Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom,” Congressional Research Service, March 25, 2009.  

Pew Hispanic Center Fact Sheet, “Hispanics in the Military, March 27, 2003,” Online: http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/17.pdf  

Pew Hispanic Center , “Statistical Portrait of Hispanics in the United States , 2007.”  

Phillips, Bruce E., “Top Hispanics in the U.S. Military: Celebrating Commitment to Honor, Duty and Country,” Hispanic Engineer & Information Technology, January 18, 2007.  

U.S. Census Bureau, “2005-2007 American Community Survey 3-Year Estimates.”

Concepcion Sandoval, a WWII Rosie the Riveter  

Concepcion Sandoval, 92, of San Bernardino, passed away at home on May 14, 2009, surrounded by her loving family. She was a homemaker in her later years, but was proud of her work as a "Rosie the Riveter" during the WWII war effort. She was preceded in death by her husband, Bonifacio and her brothers, Fred and Jesus Gomez and Inez Gallardo. She is survived by her children, Robert Sandoval and Virginia Villanueva; granddaughters, Christina Vill anueva and Cathy Villanueva-Connor; two sisters, Ida Fajardo and Emelia Acosta; & four brothers, Armando Gomez, Frank Gomez, Augustine Gallardo and Jose Gallardo. A Funeral Mass will be held at St. Bernardine Catholic Church on Tuesday, May 19, 2009, at 9:30 A.M. Interment will follow at Mt. View Cemetery. Mt. View Mortuary (909) 882-2943  

Source: The Sun, San Bernardino newspaper
Sent by Ann Minter
ann_minter@eee.org

Sec. Shinseki Announces $215 Million in Projects for Rural Veterans

PATRIOTS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

http://www.eddiemartinezart.com/military/galvez/galvez.html

Spain & The American Revolution

An Illustrated Story

 By Eddie Martinez

INTRODUCTION  

I first began developing my presentation on the accounts of Hispanics in the Military early in 2005 after being invited by Mimi Lozano to join the participant team of Somos Primos’ 2005 Hispanic Heritage Activities, sponsored by the National Archives and Records Administration, Washington D.C.  

Bernardo de Gálvez - This segment of the American Revolutionary War is based on the accounts of Spain and Gálvez in aiding George Washington in the American Revolution.

http://www.neta.com/~1stbooks/vital.htm Spain’s Support Vital to U.S. Independence 
By Dr. Thomas E. Chávez:

“One of the more important figures to assist the Colonies' struggle for independence was Bernardo de Gálvez. He helped the cause through diplomatic, financial and military exploits against Great Britain in the Mississippi River Valley, the Gulf Coast, including the Floridas, Louisiana and in the Gulf of  Mexico. From 1776, when he became governor of Louisiana, until 1783 when the American Revolution ended, Gálvez's patience, audacity, appreciation of frontier people, diplomatic knowledge and military skill greatly contributed to the eventual British defeat.”

“Gálvez succeeded in supplying the successful campaigns of George Rogers Clark, who fought the British foe in the trans-Allegheny regions.”

New Spain’s Viceroy José de Gálvez appointed his nephew, Bernardo de Gálvez to Governor of Spanish Louisiana. Gálvez’s first act of defiance against the British was to order vaqueros and presidio soldiers to drive large herds of Texas cattle, horses, and military supplies to New Orleans.

Lorenzo’s Secret Mission, based on a true story by Lila and Rick Guzmán:  

“Colonel De Gálvez drew me [Lorenzo, Tejano] and Calderón away from the others. ‘Lt. Calderón is the special envoy sent by King Carlos to make certain the  supplies reach the Americans. I have assigned him the additional duty of escorting you on a particular service. I wish you to deliver a letter.’

                        He handed me a sealed envelope. ‘Give this to His Excellency, General      George Washington, commander in chief of the Continental Army.’ “

                        “I climbed into the flatboat. Spanish soldiers loosened the ropes and gave   the flatboat a hard shove. I waved to Eugenie and she waved back. The day I’d             looked forward to for so long had finally arrived, but as I watched Eugenie grow             smaller and smaller, I realized New Orleans was a city I could learn to love.             Leaving her behind left me with a sense of loss.

                        The flatboats turned the first bend in the river and she disappeared from       view.”

After Spain officially declared war on England, General Gálvez’s Louisiana Regiment immediately engaged British forces along the Mississippi River, winning every battle he fought. As the war for independence continued, Bernardo de Gálvez military forces grew with militia patriots from Spain, Ireland, Mayorca, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Hispañola, Venezuela (as well as other South America troops), and Mexico. From Louisiana his recruits included Frenchmen, Acadians, Germans, Canary Islanders, Indians, and Blacks, both slave and free. One of his top generals was Major General Gerónimo Girón, a direct descendant of the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II.

The Spanish Frontier in North America By Professor David J. Weber – “Pensacola Bay”:

“Gálvez’s own naval commander had refused to risk running his vessels aground on the sandbar at the bay’s entrance and exposing them to enemy fire from shore. Gálvez had disagreed and had ended the stalemate by flamboyantly leading two ships and two gunboats into the harbor through enemy fire and shaming his own naval officers into following him. For this feat, Carlos III honored Gálvez with the title, the conde de Gálvez. ‘To perpetuate in your posterity the memory of the heroic action in which you, alone, forced your entry      into [Pensacola] bay,’ Carlos III wrote to Gálvez, ‘you may put as a Seal in your             coat of Arms . . . the Motto: ‘I ALONE.’ (Yo Solo)

With East and West Florida restored to the empire and settlements firmly planted along the California coast from San Diego to San Francisco, the Spanish frontiers in North America had become transcontinental.”
 

Author and historian, Robert H. Thonhoff – “Honoring Gálvez”:  

“In 1789, Spain’s first ambassador to the United States of America, Diego de Gardoqui, stood at the side of George Washington during his inaugural parade in New York City, then our nations capital. Ambassador Gardoqui positioned the Spanish brigantine, the Galveztown, which served as Gálvez’s flagship during the Gulf Coast campaign, in New York Harbor, the only foreign warship thus honored.”

 http://www.thecajuns.com/galvezrw.htm President Ronald Reagan - Benardo de Gálvez”:

“Few Americans are aware that Bernardo de Galvez was the Spanish governor of the Louisiana territory that encompassed 13 of our present states. They are also unaware that long before any formal declaration of war, General Galvez sent gunpowder, rifles, bullets, blankets, medicine and other supplies to the armies of General George Washington and General George Rogers Clark.  Once Spain entered the war against Great Britain in 1779, this dashing young officer raised an army in New Orleans and drove the British out of the Gulf of Mexico. General Galvez captured five British forts in the Lower Mississippi           Valley. They repelled a British and Indian attack in St. Louis, Missouri and captured the British fort of St. Joseph in present-day Niles, Michigan. With reinforcements from Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, General Galvez captured Mobile and Pensacola, the capital of the British colony of West Florida. At Pensacola, Galvez commanded a multinational army of over 7,000 black and white soldiers.  These men were born in Spain, Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Hispanola, and other Spanish colonies such as Venezuela. The city was defended by a British and Indian army of 2,500 soldiers and British warship.

An American historian called the siege of Pensacola "a decisive factor in the outcome of the Revolution and one of the most brilliantly executed battles of  the war." Another historian stated that General Galvez' campaign broke the British will to fight. This battle ended in May 1781, just five months before the final battle of the war at Yorktown.

General Bernardo de Galvez and his contributions have been remembered even to this day with statues and even a city named in his honor, Galveston, Texas.

United States history textbooks seldom mention the important contributions by our "forgotten allies," Spain and Hispanic America, during the American Revolution. They also forget that they helped in the establishment and growth of the first democracy in the modern world. The neglect in reporting Hispanic contributions extends to all periods of American history. Textbooks also fail to mention the role of 10,000 Hispanic soldiers who fought on both sides of   the Civil War.”

Books on Spain, Bernardo de Gálvez & the American Revolution:  

Spain and the Independence of the United States, An Intrinsic Gift By Thomas E. Chávez, (University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 2002)  

Lorenzo’s Secret Mission and Lorenzo’s Revolutionary Quest By Lila and Rick Guzmán, (Piñata Books - Arte Público Press, University of Houston, Texas, Copyright © 2001 & 2003)  

The Spanish Frontier in North America By David J. Weber, (Yale University Press, New Haven and London Copyright © 1992)  

The Vital Contribution of Texas in the Winning of the American Revolution and

The Vital Contributions of Spain In the Winning of the American Revolution

(Spanish) Vital Contribución De España En el Triunfo de la Revolución Americana

By Robert H. Thonhoff, (Copyright © 2000 by Robert H. Thonhoff, Karnes City, Texas)

http://www.neta.com/~1stbooks/galvez.htm 
America USA - Bernardo de Galvez Hispanics in the American Revolution 1775-1783: 

Battle of Pensacola 
(05/09/09) 
The 288th Anniversary Celebration, Fort George on Palafox St.

Photos by John Blackie  jblackie@pnj.com
http://www.pnj.com/section/PHOTOGALLERY

Sent by Paul "Skip" Newfield III

Plans for Celebrations of Spain's earliest colonies in Florida 

SURNAMES: HERNANDEZ

Wednesday, May 26, 1993 *EXCELSIOR *  
Volviendo a Nuestras Raices

heraldIca

CONOZCA EL ORIGEN DEL APELLIDO

Both Hemandez and Femandez is a variant of Fernando which means "daring in peace." In the United States, Hemandez is the 5th most popular name and Femandez is the 11th most popular name. Many, many Hemandez and Fernandez were in Nueva Espana in the early 1500-1600'g serving in numerous capacities.

Concha Poblano DE MARA traces a direct maternal line back to MANUEL HERNANDEZ, born 1741 in Santa Maria de Abajo, Jalisco, Mexico. Manuel married Josefa Cervantes. They raised their family on the Hernandez ancestral land grant. The next five direct-line generations were all born in Santa Maria de Abajo, Jalisco, living on the hacienda as farmers and ranchers.

Son, Jose Maria Hemandez, born 1767, married Petra Gutierrez. Grandson, Antonio Hemandez, born 1787, married Guadalupe Diaz.

Great grandson, Rito Hernandez, born 1815, married Ines Jaime.  Great-great grandson, Jose Hernndez, born 1840, married Ignacia Ortiz.

Jose Hemandez and Ignacia Ortiz had 8 children, all born in Jalisco. In the late 1800's, when the children had all grown, the entire extended family decided to migrate together to Southern California. Much free publicity was given in travel books to the growing towns of Anaheim, Sani Ana and Orange. Santa Fe and Southern Pacific railroads were competing, fares greatly reduced. Land auctions, subdivisions, promotions all added to tremendous growth in Orange County. The city of Orange was praised as "especially adapted to orchards." The Hernandez clan came and purchased homes on the north side of the city of Orange on Cypress Street. Most were able to f work in the growing orchards and agricultural industry.

One of the Hernandez' 8 children was Micaela Hernandez She and her husband, Teodocio Poblano had come directly to Orange County with the extended Hernandez family. In 1917, their son, Marcos Poblano, married Tomasa Gonzales. The young couple moved to Arizona for work in the copper mines and there raised a family of 6 children.

Concha Poblano, granddaughter of Micaela Hernandez, was the fourth child born to Marcos Poblano and Tomasa in Arizona. Eventually the family moved back to Orange County where Concha met and married native Californian Steve DeMara on August 3, 1940. Steve's roots in Southern California go back 200 years to an early Spanish soldier coming from Sonora, Mexico.

Concha and Steve purchased their home in the city of Orange. After World War II, Steve worked I for the Post Office in Orange, retiring in 1981. They raised two daughters who graduated from Orange High School, now married and living in Corona.  

Other surnames on this line: Pablano, Villalobo, Gonzales, Morales, Coto, Gomez, Rendon.Compiled by Mimi Lozano, member of the Society of Hispanic Historical and Ancestral Research.

CUENTOS

Mother, Are You Still Watching Us? 
by Esther Bonilla Read
http://www.aftertheblessing.com

Mary Helen Berlanga
by 
Esther Bonilla Read

THE BEAN CONTEST EN LA ESCUELA ZAVALA
by Frank Sifuentes

ORANGE COUNTY, CA

SOCIETY OF HISPANIC HISTORICAL AND ANCESTRAL RESEARCH 

Researching in the Mexican states 
of 
Jalisco, Zacatecas and Aguascalientes

JOHN P. SCHMAL
Saturday, June 6th
9:30-11:30 am

Mexican Americans Finding Their Roots: Utilizing Local Resources

by John P. Schmal

Several million Americans have ancestors from the states of Jalisco, Zacatecas and Aguascalientes . This is not surprising when we consider that large numbers of Mexican immigrants from these states were moving to the United States during the first three decades of the Twentieth Century. Oral interviews and statistical data had indicated that these three states were among the five central Mexican states that fed large numbers of railroad workers to help build, maintain and expand the railroad industry in the United States . And, more often than not, the railroad workers would bring their families to join them after spending some time in the U.S.  

Immigrants arriving in the U.S. during the 1950s and 1960s also came from Zacatecas and Jalisco.  And, in recent decades, immigrants from these states continued to arrive in the U.S.   For many sons of Zacatecas, Jalisco and Aguascalientes , there is a sense of pride in having ancestors from these lands. Jalisco, in particular, has been an important cultural center for several centuries and is easily one of the most famous Mexican states.  

But Jalisco , Aguascalientes and Zacatecas are a good distance from most parts of the United States .  The City of Zacatecas is about 1,229 miles (1,978 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles , California , and the cities of Aguascalientes and Guadalajara are even farther away.  As a result, anyone who would like to research their family history might expect to spend many weeks and dollars in the pursuit of his or her roots, traveling to various towns to visit local churches or municipios.  

A Local Resource  
What many people do not know is that there is a local resource that is available to Americans in any part of the country.  The Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City Utah ) holds copies of many of the church and civil records for all three states. And, in addition to holding these records, the Library has developed important databases that assist genealogists in tracing their Mexican roots.  

Many years ago, Mormon missionaries visited many of the churches and municipio registries and asked for permission to make copies of their records.  The churches and municipios allowed their records to be copied and made available to a wide audience through the library. And these records are available to people of any religion at any Family History Center in the country (or the world)  

Family History Centers  
Family History Centers (FHCs) are branches of the Family History Library. There are over 4,500 centers in 88 countries and approximately 1,800 in the United States . Each FHC is a free resource available to any patron who has an interest in pursuing his or her roots. From these centers, patrons can order a roll of microfilm for $6.05. This roll of film will arrive at the library and be available for analysis and copying for one month.  A patron also has the option of requesting the film to be made part of the center’s permanent collection for an additional fee.  

Zacatecas  
The FHC owns 4,149 rolls of microfilm for the State of Zacatecas . Zacatecas is the eighth largest state of Mexico and is divided into 57 municipios.  The Library actually has the civil registration for nearly all of Zacatecas’ municipios. Furthermore, the FHL has parish registries for 84 of Zacatecas’ parishes.  

In all, eleven towns in the State of Zacatecas have church records going back to the 1600s, while another sixteen churches have records reaching back into the 1700s. For the most part, the baptism and marriage records of the Zacatecas churches in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century are remarkably detailed. With some exceptions, starting around 1800, the baptism records listed the child’s parents, as well as their abuelos paternos and abuelos maternos. Civil registration officially began in 1859, and beginning around 1885, most Zacatecas municipio records are very detailed.   

Aguascalientes 
I have been researching the records of Aguascalientes for almost two decades. I have found that the records of La Ciudad, as well as those of outlying areas like Calvillo, can be filled with an extraordinary amount of detail.  The church records in La Ciudad de Aguascalientes begin in 1616 and continue up to the present. In all, the Library owns 631 rolls of microfilm for the two Catholic churches in the capital city.  In addition, the Library also owns another 460 rolls for the civil records spanning from 1859 to 1961.  

The one major drawback to research in La Ciudad is that it has been a large population center since the 1700s. As a result, there are a lot of baptisms and marriages to look at.  The good news, however, is that many records from Aguascalientes are contained in the Library’s online databases which serve as excellent aides in genealogical research (the International Genealogical Index).  In all, the FHL owns 2,219 rolls of microfilm for Aguascalientes .  

Jalisco  
Jalisco is slightly larger than Zacatecas but, through time, has been inhabited by many more people (because of a more favorable climate). For the state of Jalisco alone, the Family History Library owns 19,597 rolls of microfilm, covering roughly 200 cities, municipios and villas. The Family History Library has the civil registration for most of the 124 municipios in Jalisco.  

The Library also owns copies of the parish records for 180 parishes located in every part of the State. Of the Jalisco churches, 46 have registers going back to the 1600s and another 37 have records stretching back to the 1700s. Like Zacatecas, Jalisco’s church records become very detailed around 1800.  And, some parishes started using indexes around 1850, a practice that enhances the researcher’s abilities.  

Guadalajara , the second largest city in Mexico and – some say – the cultural center of Mexico , was originally founded in 1542 and became a point of attraction for migrants in the early 1600s as the city became the economic powerhouse of colonial Mexico . Although some records for Guadalajara are available from the earliest days of its founding, the first church records commence in 1599.  Today, the FHL owns an impressive 3,400 rolls of microfilm from 14 Guadalajara churches and the municipio’s registry archives.  

The Family History Library Catalog  
Anyone who is interested in checking for the availability of records from any given location in Jalisco, Zacatecas and Aguascalientes can begin their search from this website:  

http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHLC/frameset_fhlc.asp  

As an example, to search for the records available for Nochistlan, Zacatecas, one would enter “Nochistlan” in the “place” field and “Zacatecas” in the “part of” field.  You will then receive two options:  

México, Zacatecas, Nochistlán  
México, Zacatecas, Nochistlán de Mejia  

Sometimes the name of the municipio and the city will be different. Once you have resolved those issues, you can complete your search, looking for church, civil or census records. To see what years the individual microfilms contain, you will need to press “View Film Notes.”

The International Genealogical Index  
Some of the records contained on the FHL’s microfilms have been summarized in short extracts that are contained in several databases. You can enter your own searches at this link:  

http://www.familysearch.org/eng/search/frameset_search.asp  

For Jalisco researchers, the best bet many be to go to the “International Genealogical Index” link (the fourth option), where you can search on individual states.  It takes time to become skilled in the use of this database, but over time, it can be a valuable resource for any researcher.

14th Annual Rancho Days Fiesta on June 6, 2009
Heritage Hill Historical Park
25151 Serrano Road
Lake Forest, CA  92630
(corner of Lake Forest and Serrano Road)
11AM to 3PM

Santa Ana Artwalk  
The World War II art of Henry Godines
June 6, 2009  
Exhibit will run through July 1, 2009  

Santora Building, Studio del Sotano, Unit B-11  
(basement galleries and studios)  
2nd St. and Broadway Santa Ana, Ca.

first Saturday of every month of the year  
7pm till 10pm - Free to the public

Parking, 3rd Street and Broadway parking structure for $2.00  
For more information call Jennifer Hieger @ (949) 394-5699

Email: tonycrisp@qmail.com

LOS ANGELES, CA

Marian Wagstaff, Educator
Integrated Compton school's faculty in 1940s
By Elaine Woo, May 24, 2009

Anything But Mexican Revised

Our elected officials became elected officials because there were poor Mexicans 
and then Latinos to justify them

By Rodolfo F. Acuña
Published on LatinoLA: April 4, 2009

CALIFORNIA

El Soldado: A meaningful memorial for our fallen heroes of war
The Memorial Mexican American Veterans Memorial Committee 

Sent by Rafael Ojeda
RSNOJEDA@aol.com  
Tacoma, Washington

General Mariano G. Vallejo (1808-1890)
By Zoeth Skinner Eldredge (1846-1915)
Source: http://www.sfmuseum.org/bio/vallejo.html

Sent by Rafael Ojeda

USS Mariano G. Vallejo

Native Soil: Across the Centuries in California

By Jennifer Vo and John P. Schmal

On May 12, 1752, the young couple Clemente de Balenzuela (Valenzuela) and Manuela Mendes brought their newborn son to Purísima Concepción Church in Álamos , Sonora .  In accordance with Roman Catholic doctrine, Father Pedro Gabriel de Aragon baptized their infant child, giving him the Christian name, Pedro Gabriel.  

Following the ceremony, Father Pedro quietly went to his small church office and opened the church’s baptismal book. Taking pen in hand, he recorded the baptism of his namesake, listing the parents and the child’s godmother, Ana María de Aragon, as witnesses to the ceremony.  With this event 257 years ago, the story of my family begins.  

I am Jennifer Vo, an eleventh-generation Mexican-American Californian, and Pedro Valenzuela is my ancestor. Although Pedro was born in Alamos, he would die many years later in Los Angeles , California , some 800 miles to the northwest. In the late 1770s the young Pedro Gabriel Valenzuela enlisted in the military. For a poor young man of mixed Indian and Spanish heritage living in the northern reaches of the Spanish Empire, joining the military provided him with an opportunity to improve his position and enhance his social status. Traveling to far-away lands in the service of Spain would bring even greater benefits – as well as greater risks.  

In 1780, when Captain Fernando Javier Rivera y Moncada passed through Álamos looking for recruits for a new expedition to the north, Pedro signed up. However, he had one thing to do before taking part in the preparations for the expedition. On January 29, 1781, Pedro – now 29 years old – married 15-year-old Dolores Parra. Three months later, Pedro Gabriel Valenzuela and María Dolores Parra departed from Álamos in what eventually became known as the Expedition of 1781.  It was a risk-filled journey of nearly 1,000 miles through hostile Indian territory . The ultimate destination, the San Gabriel Mission of present-day Los Angeles , was located in an area inhabited by indigenous tribes whose loyalty to Spain was not a certainty.  

In fact, Captain Rivera and several other soldiers on this expedition would eventually be attacked and killed by Yuma Indians. However, on July 14, 1781, Pedro Gabriel Valenzuela and María Dolores Parra, traveling with another part of the expedition, arrived safely at the San Gabriel Mission.  Although they were childless at the time of their arrival in San Gabriel , Pedro and María Dolores would eventually have a total of twelve children.  

For the next 17 years, Pedro served as a Spanish soldier in California . He would serve at San Gabriel , San Diego and eventually at the Santa Barbara Presidio. Pedro Gabriel Valenzuela was one of several of my ancestors who traveled to California in 1781. As a Californian living in the Los Angeles of today, I have great appreciation for the fact that several of my ancestors took part in the expedition that led to the founding of Los Angeles and laid a foundation for the settlement of California .  

However, as a person of Native American origins, I also realize the implications of that expedition on the indigenous peoples of this area, especially the Tataviam, the Tongva and my own ancestors, the Chumash.  But I also have Native American heritage through Pedro Gabriel Valenzuela and several of my other soldier ancestors, most of whom were Indians and mestizos from Sonora and Sinaloa.  Pedro Gabriel Valenzuela’s marriage record in 1781 described him as a mestizo, which implies a person of both Spanish and Native origins.  

In 1798, Pedro Valenzuela retired from the military and moved with his wife Dolores to Los Angeles , where Dolores continued to have children until 1806. Pedro and Dolores’ son, Antonio María Valenzuela, was only 12 at the time of their move to Los Angeles , but within a few years, he too would enlist and follow in his father’s footsteps, eventually serving in San Diego and at other presidios. Dolores died in 1811, followed in 1827 by Pedro Gabriel. By this time, the next generation of soldiers was carrying on their duties within California . From 1781 to 1848, many of my ancestors served in the garrisons at the presidios spread across the California coastline.  

In January 1822, news of Mexican Independence arrived and Antonio María Valenzuela and my soldier ancestors took an oath of allegiance to the new government that had taken over in Mexico City in August 1821.  My ancestors went from being Spanish soldiers to Mexican soldiers. Nothing else changed. They were still Californians and they were still defending their native soil. Many generations later my family still lives in California . However, our status changed considerably over time.  

In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo handed California over to the United States . My family became American citizens, but even more importantly, we remained Californians and this place was our home. And now, as Californians over the last two centuries, we have watched as new people entered California :  Anglo-Americans, Chinese, Italians, Japanese, African Americans, Armenians, Koreans, new waves of Mexican immigrants, and many others. In many parts of the state, persons of Mexican descent – and many Native Americans – were considered foreigners. By the 1870s we had lost political representation.  In some areas, my people were actually despised. Between 1848 and 1860, at least 163 Mexicans were lynched in California alone (William D. Carrigan, Journal of Social History, Winter 2003).  

Two important characteristics have run through my family for hundreds of years.  One is pride and the other is tenacity.  When Pedro Gabriel took on the life of a frontier soldier, he was taking on an extraordinary responsibility for himself and his family, with the knowledge that he would probably never return to Sonora . Pride and tenacity have played a significant role in the choices my ancestors made over the years.  

In 1863, during the American Civil War, five Olivas boys from the Santa Barbara area enlisted in the First California Native Cavalry Battalion. The five Olivas soldiers were brothers and cousins of my direct ancestor, Maria Antonia Olivas, and all six were great-grandchildren of Pedro Gabriel Valenzuela and grandchildren of Antonio María Valenzuela.  These young volunteers represented the next generation of soldiers in my family. One of them would die of consumption in 1864, but the rest were mustered out in April 1866 and returned to civilian life as veterans of the Union Army.  

My family saw its first casualties in action during World War II. My great granduncle, Luciano P. Ortega, was killed during the campaign in the Philippines on October 20, 1944. Luciano’s nephew – and my grandmother’s cousin – Chello Ortega, died seven months later during the two-and-a-half-month battle for Okinawa . Today, a plaque in Santa Paula pays tribute to their sacrifice.  

No sooner was World War II over than the United States became embroiled in the Korean conflict five years later.  By the time the Korean War had ended, my three uncles – Raymond, Donald (Danny) and Simon Melendez – had enlisted. For two of my uncles, the Korean War would mark the beginning of long military careers.  

My family’s service in defending California ’s shore began on Pedro Gabriel Valenzuela’s watch in 1781 at the San Gabriel Mission and continues up to this day. My sister, Amanda, is a Petty Officer Third Class in the U.S. Navy and, at the time of this writing, is en route to Somalia . Two hundred and twenty-seven years after Pedro began his service in California , my sister Amanda continues this proud tradition. As Mexican-American Californians, my family and I are keenly aware of the fact that some people look at Mexican-Americans and think of us as foreigners and newcomers.  And some very naïve individuals believe that we Mexican Americans are not patriotic. Nothing could be farther from the truth, and the Department of Defense, in a 1989 publication, “Hispanics in America ’s Defense,” provided a wealth of details about the contributions of Mexican Americans and other Hispanics to America ’s military from the earliest days of the republic to Vietnam . The news from Iraq and Afghanistan over the last eight years has confirmed that this dedication and sacrifice continues among Latino Americans.  

Copyright 2009 by Jennifer Vo and John P. Schmal. All rights under applicable law are hereby reserved.  

Research Credits: Jennifer Vo, Sarah Basulto-Evans, John P. Schmal and Robert Lopez. Edited by Jennifer Vo

About Jennifer Vo and John P. Schmal:

Jennifer Vo operates her own online editorial business, EditForYou.com, which provides high quality, reliable editorial and proofreading services. Jennifer Vo and John Schmal published “A Mexican-American Family of California : In the Service of Three Flags” with Heritage Books in 2004.  

Charles (Charlie) Samarron 

Roberto Martinez; Latino activist had 'keen sense of justice' 
Helped immigrants fight discrimination 
By Norma de la Vega 
Enlace Staff Writer, Blanca Gonzalez Union-Tribune Staff Writer 
May 21, 2009

Sent by Gus Chavez 
guschavez2000@yahoo.com 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Second article by Anna Gorman, L.A. Times, May 22 2009

The former director of the American Friends Service Committee in San Diego cataloged alleged abuses by border agents and testified before Congress about the effect of the crackdown.  The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-roberto-martinez23-2009may23,0,2019165.story 

Sent by Mercy Bautista Olvera

NORTHWESTERN UNITED STATES

Congratulations to Estela LeVario-Gutierrez 
First Hispanic Washoe County School Board

RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
http://www.rgj.com/

1. First Hispanic member joins Washoe County School Board Wednesday Sep 10, 2008

   cloza@rgj.com Estela LeVario-Gutierrez was sworn in Tuesday as the first Hispanic member of the Washoe County School Board, replacing the late Lezlie Porter. LeVario-Gutierrez, 44, was chosen fro...
   Cyndi Loza

2. Hispanic group vows to lobby for immigrants Friday Aug 29, 2008

   fmulllen@rgj.com The new Nevada Hispanic Services immigration policy statement pledges the organization will advocate for immigrants in legal proceedings, lobby for immigration law reform and offe...
   FRANK X. MULLEN JR.

3. Sparks Chamber to mark merger Wednesday Aug 13, 2008

   bodriscoll@rgj.com The Sparks Chamber of Commerce, which recently combined with the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Northern Nevada, plans a merger celebration on Thursday in Reno. The merger ann...
   BILL O'DRISCOLL

4. Colleges start new Hispanic programs Thursday Aug 7, 2008

   stimko@rgj.com As a newly enrolled Truckee Meadows Community College student, Carmen Chavez took advantage of a special program meant to guide first-generation college students. The advice from t...
   Steve Timko

5. Chambers merge in Sparks Tuesday Aug 5, 2008

   rhagar@rgj.com The Sparks Chamber of Commerce has absorbed the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Northern Nevada in a move that could increase the Sparks Chamber's membership by more than 200, ...
   RAY HAGAR

6. Hispanics support candidate McCain Sunday Jul 20, 2008

   By Ellie Lopez-Bowlan SPECIAL TO THE RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL The next presidential election is heading in a direction that will affirm that many Hispanics will vote for a Republican candidate. While...

7. Event honors Hispanic high school, college graduates Friday May 9, 2008

   cloza@rgj.com Reno students, educators and families chanted "Si, se puede" Thursday as they commemorated Hispanic high school and college graduates. The phrase, Spanish for "Yes, i...
   Cyndi Loza

8. Hispanic event celebrates 700 area graduates Thursday May 8, 2008

   More than 700 graduates from Washoe County schools, Truckee Meadows Community College and the University of Nevada, Reno have been invited to participate at 6 p.m. in the ballroom of the Joe Crowle...

9. Adelante event recognizes Hispanics Saturday May 3, 2008

   vcalderon@rgj.com Community outreach to Hispanic youths in the Reno-Sparks area is important to developing future leaders, event organizers and honorees said Friday at the 16th annual Adelante Awa...
   VICTOR CALDERON

10. Nevada grows more diverse Thursday May 1, 2008

    stimko@rgj.com The growth of Nevada's Hispanic population continues to outpace the growth of non-Hispanic whites, according to U.S. Census Bureau data being released today. While Nevada'...
    Steve Timko

SOUTHWESTERN UNITED STATES

Unique Military Funeral In Arizona

• Posted by M. David Hampton on May 13, 2009 at 9:30am

• View M. David Hampton's blog

(Sierra Vista) – On Saturday, May 16th, a military funeral will be held at the Southern Arizona Veterans’ Memorial Cemetery in Sierra Vista, Arizona during a special ceremony for 58 soldiers who served in Arizona in the U.S. Army from 1862 to 1881, all of whom died between 1860-1880.

Originally buried in a military cemetery that served Tucson’s Fort Lowell during the Civil and Indian Wars, the remains were uncovered two years ago when work began on a new county courts complex in downtown Tucson.

The soldier’s remains  will be buried in a specially built late 19th century style military cemetery on an acre of land within the Southern Arizona Veterans’ Memorial Cemetery. (See photograph above.) The “cemetery within a cemetery” has a stone and iron wall similar to the old cemetery found within nearby Fort Huachuca, and flies a 35 star American flag of the period immediately following the Civil War. The U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs has provided period headstones for the troopers and a monument describing what life was like for soldiers in Arizona during the Indian Wars has been placed by local Boy Scouts.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, Frank Salvas, Jr., Director, State Cemetery Grants Service of the VA, and Col. Joey Strickland, Director of the Arizona Department of Veterans Services will be in attendance at Saturday’s ceremonies

Sent by Monica Herrera Smith
Tortelita@aol.com

 
Re-burials from an old Tucson cemetery: 
Courts Complex/National Cemetery Article 

Diego de Almagro
the amazon

Michael Blakeman
science, technology & invention in the rio grande

Jorge Chavez
highlights in aviation

Amalia Celia Figueredo de Pietra
highlights in aviation

Alberto Santos-Dumont
highlights in aviation

Amadeo Flores
science, technology & invention in the rio grande

Miguel Garcia Granados
highlights in aviation

Dagoberto Godoy
highlights in aviation

Daniel Hagedorn
highlights in aviation

Arnold Herrera
science, technology & invention in the rio grande

Donald Lopez
highlights in aviation

Anesia Pinheiro Machado
highlights in aviation

Berta Moraleda
highlights in aviation

Rita Morales
science, technology & invention in the rio grande

National Aeronautic and Space Administration
meet dr.ellen ochoa

Dr. Ellen Ochoa
meet dr.ellen ochoa

Victor Ochoa
inventor & revolutionary victor ochoa

Francisco de Orrellana
the amazon

Augustin Parla
highlights in aviation

Vincente Pinzon
the amazon

Francisco Pizzaro
the amazon

Gonzalo Pizarro
the amazon

Jose Isabel Quiroz Garcia
science, technology & invention in the rio grande

Nena Russom
science, technology & invention in the rio grande

Francisco Sarabia
highlights in aviation

Dolores Venegas
science, technology & invention in the rio grande

Clemente Zamarripa
science, technology & invention in the rio grande 

Sent by Rafael Ojeda
RSNOJEDA@aol.com  

LETTER OF REBUTTAL
by 
Daniel Hogan Abrego

AFRICAN-AMERICANS

William Goyens, Melungeon Becomes Texas Millionaire

Gowen Research Foundation Newsletter
Volume 1, No. 4  December 1989
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gowenrf/melun001.htm

William Goyens, believed to be a son of William Goings and Elizabeth Goings, was born in 1794 in North Carolina of a "free colored" father and a "white" mother.  He rose above the constrictions imposed by his dark skin to become an adventurer, a soldier, a pirate, an interpreter, a diplomat and a Texas millionaire and philanthropist.

Early in his life, he became aware of the stigma of a dark-colored skin in slave-holding North Carolina, and he went to the district judge and re-quested a certificate from the court establishing that he was "free colored," the best he could do in North Carolina.  He carefully guarded this treasured document and carried it with him wherever he went for the rest of his life, presenting it upon occasions to prove that he was not a run-away slave.

William Goyens learned in his early years in North Carolina that slavery was forbidden in the Spanish province of Coahuila y Tejas and concluded that his destiny lay there.  He was aware that making his way across several slave states from North Carolina to Texas would be hazardous with his dark complexion, so he "became a Cherokee" and moved freely with the tribesmen toward the southwest.  In 1814, "William Goyens of the Cherokee Nation" gave power of attorney to John Lowery to collect money due him.

When the British Navy showed up at the mouth of the Mississippi in December 1814 with 50 ships and 10,000 men under Maj.-Gen. Edward Packinham, William Goyens an-swered the call for volunteers.

When Gen. Andrew Jackson assembled his forces, William Goyens served in three different units in the Battle of New Orleans, ac-cording to "War of 1812 Veterans in Texas" by Mary Smith Foy.  He was a private in the company commanded by Capt. James B. Moore.  When his fellow soldiers resented "serving with a nigger," he transferred to Capt. Jacob Short's company of U.S. Mounted Rangers.  When that became intolerable, he was became a member of Capt. Samuel Judy's company of Mounted Illinois Militia.

After the British withdrew following the death of Packinham and their defeat in the Battle of Chalmette, William Goyen affiliated with Jean Lafitte and his Barataria Bay pirates to avoid the threat of slavery, accord-ing to historian R. B. Blake.  He jumped ship in Galveston Bay and made his way in 1821 to Nacogdoches, his original destination, according to "Monument to a Black Man" by Daniel James Kubiak.

There his color proved to be an asset.  When the Mexicans and Anglos there staged an up-rising in the Guiterrez-Magee-Long revolt, the Spanish army came down hard.  Nacogdoches had been nearly obliterated by the Spanish reaction, according to "People and Places in Texas Past" by June Ray-field Welch.  Stephen F. Austin wrote that when he passed through the town in 1821, Nacogdoches had only five houses and a church left standing.  The home of William Goyens whom the Spanish commander regarded as neither Mexican nor Anglo was preserved.

William Goyens who fluently spoke Spanish, Cherokee and several Indian dialects was used by the Spanish, the Mexicans and later the Texans to maintain peace with the Indians who trusted him as well.  Goyens became a negotiator as well as an interpreter.

He became a large property owner in Nacogdoches, opened an inn, a blacksmith shop, a gunsmith shop, a wagon factory and operated a freight line, hauling goods from Natchitoches, Louisiana to Nacogdoches.  On a trip to Natchitoches in 1826, he was seized as a runaway slave by William English who planned to sell him in the Louisiana slave auction.  He offered William English more money for his freedom than he would bring in the slave market and posted bond to guarantee payment.  Upon return to Texas he retained attorney [later senator] Thomas Jefferson Rusk to represent him in court.  When his North Carolina certificate was produced as evidence, he won the case and was successful in getting his obligations to English declared null and void.  Having had a taste of victory in the courtroom, he be-came a constant litigant, being involved in over three dozens lawsuits during the next decade.

On May 7, 1826 he bought a lot in Nacogdoches from Pierre Mayniel for 70 pesos, and this became the first in a long string of real estate transactions recorded in his name in Nacogdoches.  He was recorded as a blacksmith in the 1828 census of Nacogdoches.  He was appointed by the Mexican government as an Indian agent to deal with the Cherokees, and upon occasions he negotiated with other tribes.  He was trusted by the Indians and the Mexicans and Anglo-Ameri-cans in East Texas, as well.

A flood of Anglos from the southern states began to flow into Mexican Texas, many bringing their slaves with them, and the practice was gradually tolerated by the government.  As further protection against being again labeled as a run-away slave, Goyens became a slave owner himself.  On January 3, 1829, he bought Jerry, 26-year-old slave from John Durst for 700 pesos.

In the Mexican census of 1828 the household of William Goyens was recorded:

 "Goyens, William 43, single blacksmith
   Linse, Jususa  20, agreg. single
   Linse, Maria  26, widow
    Manuel 10, her son"

On June 1, 1829, he was enumerated in the district "from Attoyac to Nacogdoches:"

 "Goyens, William  44, single, blacksmith
   Lindsey, Jesus   21, single
   Lindsey, Mary,    27, widow
    Manuel  11, her son [Henry]"

On June 30, 1830, he was recorded in the district "from Attoyac to Trinity River" and reported three slaves:

 "Goyens,  William     34, single, blacksmith,
             Catholic"
    Maria Petra,    32, Catholic
    Henry, her son   11
    Sallie, slave    30
    Luiza, her daughter    6
    Juliana, her daughter   3"

In that year he was recorded as a Catholic, a requirement of every land owner in Texas.  On January 18, 1831, William Goyens appeared on a "List of Foreigners living in Nacogdoches."

On June 30, 1831, the enumerator recorded him "in the district from Attoyac to the Trinity:

 "Goyens,  William   36, single, blacksmith,
          Catholic
    Ma. Polly   35, with him, Catholic
    Henry    13, child of hers
    Sexo, slave  32
    Luisa      7, her child
    Juliana      4, her child
    Eli       1, her child"

In 1832 William Goyens, at age 38, proposed marriage to Mary "Polly" Pate Sibley, a white widow who was born in Georgia in 1795, also age 38.  Her brothers came from Georgia to block her marriage to a black man, but then consented when they learned that she was marrying a "Melungeon" rather than a Negro, according to Benjamin Lundy.  She had one son, Henry Sibley, by her first marriage who visited Nacogdoches frequently from Louisiana.  In the Mexican cen-sus, married women were listed by their maiden names.  In 1832, the household was recorded as:

 "Goyens, William  38, single, blacksmith, Catholic
    Maria Mose 37, single, aggreg.
    Henry   14, her son
    Ma. Lera  34, slave
    Ma. Luisa    7, her daughter
    Ma. Juliana   5, her daughter
    Ma. Ylalla   3, her daughter
    Jose Juan      6/12, her son

In 1833, the family remained static:

 "Goyens, William  39, single, blacksmith, Catholic
    Maria Mose 38, single, aggreg.
    Henry   15, her son
    Ma. Sarah  35, slave
    Ma. Luisa    8, her daughter
    Ma. Juliana   6, her daughter
    Ma. Ylalla   4, her daughter
    Jose Juan    1, her son"