"A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them for a century."
Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, 1689 - 1755 

Letter to the Editor

The New Trade Center 
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/incredible-pictures-of-one-world-trade-constructio

September 11 attacks

Two Unsung Hispanic Heroes of 9/11 

By: Tony "The Marine" Santiago
Nmb2418@aol.com

            An F-16, the type of aircraft used by Lt. Col. Sasseville Frontera

              and Lt. Penney Garcia during the September 11 attacks  

On September 11, 2001, United Airlines Flight 93 was hijacked by four members of al-Qaeda terrorists as part of the September 11 attacks. The hijackers breached the aircraft's cockpit and overpowered the flight crew approximately 46 minutes after takeoff. [[Ziad Jarrah]], a trained pilot, then took control of the aircraft and diverted it back toward the east coast of the United States in the direction of Washington, D.C. The hijackers' specific target was the United States Capitol.  

That morning Major Daniel Caine, supervisor of flying with the 113th Wing of the DC Air National Guard, received a call that the Secret Service wanted fighter jets launched over Washington, DC. Then - Lieutenant Colonel Marc Sasseville, called Brigadier General David Wherley, the commander of the 113th Wing, to get permission to use their “war-reserve missiles.  

The four pilots who were available for the mission and who received authorization to get airborne in their fighter jets, were Lieutenant Colonel Marc Sasseville, Lieutenant Heather Penney Garcia, Captain Brandon Rasmussen, and Major Daniel Caine.  

The mission was to find United Airlines Flight 93 and destroy it however they could. Since the fighter jets were absent of missiles and packed only with dummy ammunition from a recent training mission, there was only one way to do it and that was by ramming the aircraft.  

Sasseville, flew his aircraft alongside the aircraft of Lt. Penney Garcia. According to Penney Garcia, Sasseville toldd her: "We don’t train to bring down airliners. If you just hit the engine, it could still glide and you could guide it to a target". He also told her that he would take out the cockpit and that she should take the tail.  

The fighter jets passed over the ravaged Pentagon building, however it wasn’t until hours later that they would find out that United 93 had already gone down in a field outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing all 44 people aboard including the 4 hijackers.                                    

Currently:  

Their mission was similar to the Japanese Kamikazi suicide missions of World War II.  They were willing . . . to give their lives.

This is a side of 9/11- we have never seen........it is riveting!
http://www.youtube.com/embed/MDOrzF7B2Kg?rel=0  

Amazing!!! I had no idea this went on on 9/11. A difficult video to watch, because of the subject; but, yet it shows Americans at their best, when they join together for the greater good to help their fellow man or women!! 
Tom Hanks is the narrator! Absolutely outstanding!! 

You may cry, as you watch it; but, you will feel better afterward, when you think about what these rescuers did!
 the statement at the end that they saved more people in 9 hours than were saved at Dunkirk in 9 days is AWESOME!!! Unsung heroes!!!  Never seen with all the coverage of 9/11 by main news programs. These men and women were heroes to those who were saved by their unselfish actions that day. Another perspective. Here’s a fascinating video showing an aspect of the events of 9/11/01 that I’d never heard of before and I’ll bet many of you haven’t either. 

Sent by Tony Santiago 
Nmb2418@aol.com

Delta Flight 15, 9-11 and Lewisporte, Canada

JoAnn Gama

President Obama has selected JoAnn Gama as a member of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics.  JoAnn Gama was born and raised in the north side of Houston, Texas.

In 1993, JoAnn Gama graduated from Sam Houston High School. She attended Boston University on a full scholarship. She later attended the University of Texas-American and earned a Master’s Degree in Educational Leadership. 

Gama taught 4th and 5th graders English as a Second Language in Donna, Texas. After one successful year of teaching, she was nominated by her peers as “Teacher of the Year.” 

In 1997, Gama joined “Teach For America,” a national corps of outstanding recent college graduates who commit two years to teach in public schools in low-income communities.

In 1998, Gama co-founded the IDEA Academy within the Donna Independent School District, along with fellow TFA corps member Tom Torkelson. After one year as a “school within a school” JoAnn and Tom applied for a state charter and opened up the IDEA Academy Charter School for grades 4 – 8.  The IDEA Academy was founded on the principle that students need to stay in school longer, work harder, and take more challenging classes in order to succeed in a four year college or university.

The IDEA Academy expanded to include a primary school encompassing grades K – 3, and a high school encompassing grades 9 – 12. During this time Gama served IDEA Academy in the role of School Principal.  IDEA has grown from one campus in 2001 when Gama helped found the charter district to 24 campuses serving over 12,000 students.

Gama also served as Chief Operations Officer overseeing transportation, food service, information technology, human resources, state reporting, maintenance and facilities, and new site development.  

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor administered the oath of office to Gama and to the rest of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence panel.  

As a member of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics, Gama and the rest of the 15-member advisory commission panel will assist in crafting the nation’s policy for improving educational opportunities and outcomes for Hispanics. The commission will devote itself to increasing access to early learning programs, reducing dropout rates, preparing more Latinos for college and more.

Dr. Hugo Morales

Dr. Hugo Morales, currently serving as National Latino Public Radio Network Executive Director of Radio Bilingüe, and a former lecturer has been appointed to California State University Board of Trustees by California’s Governor Jerry Brown. 

Hugo Morales was born in Oaxaca, Mexico, he is a Mixtec Indian.  His family emigrated from Mexico and moved to California. He grew up as a child farmworker in Sonoma County, California.  “My interest in education is part of my DNA. I know how an excellent college education changed my life, and I know the stakes now for students with the same hopes and dreams that I had for myself and my family.  Radio Bilingüe itself is first and foremost about education and ensuring access to information for those who are underserved,” stated Dr. Morales.  

Morales attended Healdsburg High School in Healdsburg, Sonoma County, California; he later attended Harvard College, Harvard University, and Harvard Law School.  

Anna Maria Chavez

Anna Maria Chavez has been selected as Chief Executive Officer of Girl Scouts of the USA.  She is a licensed attorney and practiced law in Washington, D.C., and a Girl Scout alumna, and lifetime member.

Anna Maria Chavez is of Mexican-American heritage, she grew up in Eloy, Arizona. When Anna Maria Chavez was a 10 years-old she joined a Girl Scout troop, although it was a small group of a dozen or so girls, Chavez recalls, "It was the first opportunity I had to travel with a group of girls without my family. It created a spark in me to explore."  She is married to Robert, a financial Industry executive, and they have a son, Michael.   

Juan Felipe Herrera

Professor Juan Felipe Herrera, a writer, poet, teacher, and activist has been named  Poet Laureate of California. He is the first Hispanic to be named California Poet Laureate.

Professor Juan Felipe Herrera was born in Fowler, California. He is the only son of migrant workers from Mexico; Felipe Emilio Herrera and Maria de la Luz Quintana. The three were “campesinos” who worked in the fields of the San Joaquin Valley and Salinas Valley. Juan Felipe lives with his partner Margarita Robles, a poet and performing artist.  Juan Felipe is the father of the author and artist Joaquin Ramon Herrera.

Dr. David C. Lizárraga

Dr. David C. Lizárraga has been appointed by President Obama as a member of the Community Development Advisory Board, a key administrative Post in the United States Department of the Treasury.    

Dr. David C. Lizárraga was born in Los Angeles, California.  

He has served as President and CEO of TELACU, a pioneering institution committed to service, empowerment, advancement, and the creation of self-sufficiency.

Extracts from Latino Olympians: 
A Silver Medal & One Writer’s Bellyache by Rosa Ramirez

The biggest Latino winner in the Games was swimmer Ryan Lochte, who grew up in Central Florida. Crediting his Cuban-American mother for helping him succeed, he won five medals, including two golds in the 200 and
400-meter medleys. In the latter, he beat all time Olympic medal winner Michael Phelps.

But the Taekwondo stars, the López family, Steve and Diana, whose parents are from Nicaragua and represent the U.S., left London empty handed after having won five medals in previous Olympic Games, including a gold in 2000 and 2004, silver and bronze in 2008. The siblings were dealing with ankle and knee injuries before arriving at the Games.

Among other Latino medallists were gymnast Danell Leyva, who secured a bronze medal in the men’s high bar gymnastics all around competition; Mexican-American boxer Marlen Esparza (article below) ; sisters Jessica and Maggie Steffens, who are the daughters of Puerto Rico’s Carlos Steffens; Amy Rodriguez, of Cuban descent, who played in the women’s soccer team; basketball star Carmelo Anthony, who is half Puerto Rican, and according to ESPN, has a tattoo of the island’s flag on his right hand; and Brenda Villa in water polo.

Nine Latin American countries took a combined total of 56 medals. The United States took the most medals with 104, including 46 gold. Leo Manzano caused a little stir by wrapping himself in both an American flag and Mexican flag.

Hispanic Link, Vol 30, No. 16
1420 N St. NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 234-0280
E-mail: carlose@hispaniclink.org
Publisher: Carlos Ericksen-Mendoza
Editor: Jim Lamare
National Representative: Héctor Ericksen-Mendoza

© 2012 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Any use, reproduction, modification, distribution, display or performance of this material without NBCUniversal's prior written consent is prohibited.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/08/08/boxer-marlen-esparza-wins-bronze-medal-in-olympic-games/#ixzz23UlfSWDE
Sent by Delia Gonzalez Huffman  delia_huffman@yahoo.com 

Voting Ends 11:59 p.m. Eastern on Friday, September 7, 2012.   
  http://almaawards2012.com/
jmayorga@nclr.org   Reply To: events@nclr.org 

SAN JUAN, TEXAS MURAL DEDICATION   
AUGUST 10, 2012

Editor:  Collection of photos tracking the inspiring  process of  a community coming together and painting the mural.  
Photos and Video reflections of “Braceros: A Legacy of Triumph”

Mexico's Strategy
by George Freedman 
Stratfor Global Inteligence

A few years ago, I wrote about Mexico possibly becoming a failed state because of the effect of the cartels on the country. Mexico may have come close to that, but it stabilized itself and took a different course instead -- one of impressive economic growth in the face of instability.

Mexican Economics

Discussion of national strategy normally begins with the question of national security. But a discussion of Mexico's strategy must begin with economics. This is because Mexico's neighbor is the United States, whose military power in North America denies Mexico military options that other nations might have. But proximity to the United States does not deny Mexico economic options. Indeed, while the United States overwhelms Mexico from a national security standpoint, it offers possibilities for economic growth.

Mexico is now the world's 14th-largest economy, just above South Korea and just below Australia. Its gross domestic product was $1.16 trillion in 2011. It grew by 3.8 percent in 2011 and 5.5 percent in 2010. Before a major contraction of 6.9 percent in 2009 following the 2008 crisis, Mexico's GDP grew by an average of 3.3 percent in the five years between 2004 and 2008. When looked at in terms of purchasing power parity, a measure of GDP in terms of actual purchasing power, Mexico is the 11th-largest economy in the world, just behind France and Italy. It is also forecast to grow at just below 4 percent again this year, despite slowing global economic trends, thanks in part to rising U.S. consumption.

Total economic size and growth is extremely important to total national power. But Mexico has a single profound economic problem: According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Mexico has the second-highest level of inequality among member nations. More than 50 percent of Mexico's population lives in poverty, and some 14.9 percent of its people live in intense poverty, meaning they have difficulty securing the necessities of life. At the same time, Mexico is home to the richest man in the world, telecommunications mogul Carlos Slim.

Mexico ranked only 62nd in per capita GDP in 2011; China, on the other hand, ranked 91st. No one would dispute that China is a significant national power. Few would dispute that China suffers from social instability. This means that in terms of evaluating Mexico's role in the international system, we must look at the aggregate numbers. Given those numbers, Mexico has entered the ranks of the leading economic powers and is growing more quickly than nations ahead of it. When we look at the distribution of wealth, the internal reality is that, like China, Mexico has deep weaknesses.

The primary strategic problem for Mexico is the potential for internal instability driven by inequality. Northern and central Mexico have the highest human development index, nearly on the European level, while the mountainous, southernmost states are well below that level. Mexican inequality is geographically defined, though even the wealthiest regions have significant pockets of inequality. We must remember that this is not Western-style gradient inequality, but cliff inequality where the poor live utterly different lives from even the middle class.

Mexico is using classic tools for managing this problem. Since poverty imposes limits to domestic consumption, Mexico is an exporter. It exported $349.6 billion in 2011, which means it derives just under 30 percent of its GDP from exports. This is just above the Chinese level and creates a serious vulnerability in Mexico's economy, since it becomes dependent on other countries' appetite for Mexican goods.

This is compounded by the fact that 78.5 percent of Mexico's exports go to the United States. That means that 23.8 percent of Mexico's export revenue depends on the appetite of the American markets. On the flip side, 48.8 percent of its imports come from the United States, making it an asymmetric relationship. Although both sides need the exports, Mexico must have them. The United States benefits from them but not on the same order.

Relations With the United States

This leads to Mexico's second strategic problem: its relationship with the United States. When we look back to the early 19th century, it was not clear that the United States would be the dominant power in North America. The United States was a small, poorly integrated country hugging the East Coast. Mexico was much more developed, with a more substantial military and economy. At first glance, Mexico ought to have been the dominant power in North America.

But Mexico had two problems. The first was internal instability caused by the social factors that remain in place, namely Mexico's massive, regionally focused inequality. The second was that the lands north of the Rio Grande line (referred to as Rio Bravo del Norte by the Mexicans) were sparsely settled and difficult to defend. The terrain between the Mexican heartland and the northern territories from Texas to California were difficult to reach from the south. The cost of maintaining a military force able to protect this area was prohibitive.

From the American point of view, Mexico -- and particularly the Mexican presence in Texas -- represented a strategic threat to American interests. The development of the Louisiana Purchase into the breadbasket of the United States depended on the Ohio-Mississippi-Missouri river system, which was navigable and the primary mode of export. Mexico, with its border on the Sabine River separating it from Louisiana, was positioned to cut the Mississippi. The strategic need to secure sea approaches through the Caribbean to the vulnerable Mexican east coast put Mexico in direct conflict with U.S. interests.

The decision by U.S. President Andrew Jackson to send Sam Houston on a covert mission into Texas to foment a rising of American settlers there was based in part on his obsession with New Orleans and the Mississippi River, which Jackson had fought for in 1815. The Texas rising was countered by a Mexican army moving north into Texas. Its problem was that the Mexican army, drawn to a great extent from the poorest elements of Mexican society in that country's south, had to pass through the desert and mountains of the region and suffered from extremely cold and snowy weather. The Mexican soldiers arrived at San Antonio exhausted, and while they defeated the garrison there, they were not able to defeat the force at San Jacinto (near present-day Houston) and were themselves defeated.

The region that separated the heart of Texas from the heart of Mexico was a barrier for military movement that undermined Mexico's ability to hold its northern territory. The geographic weakness of Mexico -- this hostile region coupled with long and difficult-to-defend coastlines and no navy -- extended west to the Pacific. It created a borderland that had two characteristics. It was of little economic value, and it was inherently difficult to police due to the terrain. It separated the two countries, but it became a low-level friction point throughout history, with smuggling and banditry on both sides at various times. It was a perfect border in the sense that it created a buffer, but it was an ongoing problem because it could not be easily controlled.

The defeat in Texas and during the Mexican-American War cost Mexico its northern territories. It created a permanent political issue between the two countries, one that Mexico could not effectively remedy. The defeat in the wars continued to destabilize Mexico. Although the northern territories were not central to Mexico's national interest, their loss created a crisis of confidence in successive regimes that further irritated the core social problem of massive inequality. For the past century and a half, Mexico has lived with an ongoing inferiority complex toward and resentment of the United States.

The war created another reality between the two countries: a borderland that was a unique entity, part of both countries and part of neither country. The borderland's geography had defeated the Mexican army. It now became a frontier that neither side could control. During the ongoing unrest surrounding the Mexican Revolution, it became a refuge for figures such as Pancho Villa, pursued by U.S. Gen. John J. Pershing after Villa raided American towns. It would not be fair to call it a no-man's-land. It was an every-man's-land, with its own rules, frequently violent, never suppressed.

The drug trade has replaced the cattle rustling of the 19th century, but the essential principle remains the same. Cocaine, marijuana and a number of other drugs are being shipped to the United States. All are imported or produced in Mexico at a low cost and then re-exported or exported into the United States. The price in the United States, where the products are illegal and in great demand, is substantially higher than in Mexico. That means that the price differential between drugs in Mexico and drugs in the United States creates an attractive market. This typically happens when one country prohibits a widely desired product readily available in a neighboring country.

This creates a substantial inflow of wealth into Mexico, though the precise size of this inflow is difficult to gauge. The precise amount of cross-border trade is uncertain, but one number frequently used is $40 billion a year. This would mean narcotic sales represent an 11.4 percent addition to total exports. But this underestimates the importance of narcotics, because profit margins would tend to be much higher on drugs than on industrial products. Assuming that the profit margin on legal exports is 10 percent (a very high estimate), legal exports would generate about $35 billion a year in profits. Assuming the margin on drugs is 80 percent, then the profit on them is $32 billion a year, almost matching profits on legal exports.

These numbers are all guesses, of course. The amount of money returned to Mexico as opposed to kept in U.S. or other banks is unknown. The precise amount of the trade is uncertain and profit margins are difficult to calculate. What can be known is that the trade is likely an off-the-books stimulant to the Mexican economy, generated by the price differential created by drug prohibition.

The advantage to Mexico also creates a strategic problem for Mexico. Given the money at stake and that the legal system is unable to suppress or regulate the trade, the borderland has again become -- perhaps now more than ever -- a region of ongoing warfare between groups competing to control the movement of narcotics into the United States. To a great extent, the Mexicans have lost control of this borderland.

From the Mexican point of view, this is a manageable situation. The borderland is distinct from the Mexican heartland. So long as the violence does not overwhelm the heartland, it is tolerable. The inflow of money does not offend the Mexican government. More precisely, the Mexican government has limited resources to suppress the trade and violence, and there are financial benefits to its existence. The Mexican strategy is to try to block the spread of lawlessness into Mexico proper but to accept the lawlessness in a region that historically has been lawless.

The American position is to demand that the Mexicans deploy forces to suppress the trade. But neither side has sufficient force to control the border, and the demand is more one of gestures than significant actions or threats. The Mexicans have already weakened their military by trying to come to grips with the problem, but they are not going to break their military by trying to control a region that broke them in the past. The United States is not going to provide a force sufficient to control the border, since the cost would be staggering. Each will thus live with the violence. The Mexicans argue the problem is that the United States can't suppress demand and is unwilling to destroy incentives by lowering prices through legalization. The Americans say the Mexicans must root out the corruption among Mexican officials and law enforcement. Both have interesting arguments, but neither argument has anything to do with reality. Controlling that terrain is impossible with reasonable effort, and no one is prepared to make an unreasonable effort.

Another aspect is the movement of migrants. For Mexicans, the movement of migrants has been part of their social policy: It shifts the poor out of Mexico and generates remittances. For the United States, this has provided a consistent source of low-cost labor. The borderland has been the uncontrollable venue through which the migrants pass. The Mexicans don't want to stop it, and neither, in the end, do the Americans.

Dueling rhetoric between the United States and Mexico hides the underlying facts. Mexico is now one of the largest economies in the world and a major economic partner with the United States. The inequality in the relationship comes from military inequality. The U.S. military dominates North America, and the Mexicans are in no position to challenge this. The borderland poses problems and some benefits for each, but neither is in a position to control the region regardless of rhetoric.

Mexico still has to deal with its core issue, which is maintaining its internal social stability. It is, however, beginning to develop foreign policy issues beyond the United States. In particular, it is developing an interest in managing Central America, possibly in collaboration with Colombia. Its purpose, ironically, is the control of illegal immigrants and drug smuggling. These are not trivial moves. Were it not for the United States, Mexico would be a great regional power. Given the United States, it must manage that relationship before any other.

Given Mexico's dramatic economic growth and given time, this equation will change. Over time, we expect there will be two significant powers in North America. But in the short run, the traditional strategic problems of Mexico remain: how to deal with the United States, how to contain the northern borderland and how to maintain national unity in the face of potential social unrest.

Read more: http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/mexicos-strategy#ixzz24CQ3KZiZ 
Sent by Odell Harwell  hirider@clear.net

INVITATION TO BECOME A CHARTER MEMBER 

The Order of the Founders of North America 1492-1692  

An Invitation to Join The Order of the Founders of North America 1492-1692,

as a Charter Member

The mission of this Order is declared to be historical and educational, and it shall endeavor to perpetuate the memory of the leaders of the Old World who sponsored the discovery, exploration and settlement of the New World.  We also recognize the explorers and settlers who came to North America during the critical period of 1492 to 1692, and laid the foundations for the development of the new continent of North America.

Our objectives are 
· to recognize and promote fellowship among their descendants; 
· to inspire the descendants and community at large with a more profound respect for the industry & sacrifices of our  founding forbearers;
· to encourage historical research in relation to the discovery, exploration and settlement of North America; 
· to acquire and preserve the records of the individual leaders, explorers and settlers, as well as documents, relics, and  landmarks; 
· to mark the sites of the founding of North America with memorials; 
· to celebrate the anniversaries of prominent events of the first two hundred years following the discovery of the New  World in 1492; 
· to encourage research and writing about the period 1492-1692 through scholarships and awards; 
· to promote genealogical and historical seminars and educational travel to Europe to visit the homelands of our founders. 

The order shall be non-partisan, in conformity with regulations regarding 501(c)(3) organizations.

Editor:  The Order of the Founders of North America 1492-1692 is being spearheaded by individuals of mixed heritage.  
This is a wonderful opportunity for honoring our early ancestors' presence in the Americas, and giving visibility to the contributions of our ancestors in the foundation and building of the United States of  America. I sincerely hope that many of us will join.  I plan to begin the process.  I want my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to feel a sense of ownership and responsibility.  

WITNESS TO HERITAGE

Save Our Tejano History Campaign 
Press Conference held in San Antonio, August 15, 2012

Texas History after 1836 is well documented with historical markers but the hardships and sacrifices made by our Tejano ancestors has been forgotten. In particular the Battle of Medina; so disastrous was this event that one third of the Tejano community would be dead, one third would be in exile and one third would live in terror. On April 6th 1813 at the Spanish Governors Palace Bernardo Gutierrez de Lara declared the Independence of Texas. At La Quinta around 400 wives, mothers and daughters of our ancestors were imprisoned and brutally and repeatedly raped; several dying as a result of the brutality. At Plaza de Armas 327 Tejanos were executed and beheaded and there are no historical markers.

Bringing awareness to this forgotten part of history is the goal of the Battle of Medina Society. Dan Arellano,  President of the Battle of Medina Society, is a well known, dedicated history activist.  Dan with creativity and marking skills has lead archeological digs, organized parades, held meetings, plus supported the activities of many Texas groups who share his mission giving visibility to the presence and participation of Tejanos in the development of the Texas and the United States.  

Towards that goal Dan Arellano arranged to speak to the San Antonio City Council on Wednesday August 15, 2012.  He invited other members, and was joined, in addressing the City Council during citizen’s communication at 6 PM. Before addressing the City Council, Arellano held a press conference on the side walk of City Hall (photos below).  A large group  carried  signs saying “Save Our History”.

Dan Arellano President
Battle of Medina Society  
darellano@austin.rr.com  
512-826-7569

How to create your own Latino archive

Editor:  Special thank to Miguel Juarez, MLS, MA  who kindly forwarded a copy of  the 5-page Commemoration Program. Quite an impressive line-up of participants. Mr. Juarez is an Associate Librarian, Archives and Rare Books University of North Texas Libraries, 1155 Union Circle #305190  Denton, TX 76203-5017   (w) 940-565-2766  (cell) 310-709-4608  migueljuarez.soha@gmail.com 

The party itself is no more but the spirit of the Raza Party is still alive. Many of us have chosen different paths of activism, such as I with history and Battle of Medina, others have chosen health, welfare, political, and social injustice and we have decided to meet every Saturday morning for coffee and discussions. Its too early to tell where this will lead, who knows if the Democrats or Republicans don’t look out for our people perhaps it will rise again.  Dan Arellano darellano@austin.rr.com

ANOTHER article: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/news_columnists/o_ricardo_pimentel/article/La-Raza-Unida-s-legacy
-endures-3822770.php#ixzz24wobS8uq

ERASING HISTORIC REALITY

"If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness." - Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

Disinformation: How It Works
August 7, 2012 by Brandon Smith

HOTOS.COM

There was a time, not too long ago (relatively speaking), that governments and the groups of elites that controlled them did not find it necessary to conscript themselves into wars of disinformation.

Propaganda was relatively straightforward. The lies were much simpler. The control of information flow was easily directed. Rules were enforced with the threat of property confiscation and execution for anyone who strayed from the rigid socio-political structure. Those who had theological, metaphysical or scientific information outside of the conventional and scripted collective world view were tortured and slaughtered. The elites kept the information to themselves, and removed its remnants from mainstream recognition, sometimes for centuries before it was rediscovered.

With the advent of anti-feudalism, and most importantly the success of the American Revolution, elitists were no longer able to dominate information with the edge of a blade or the barrel of a gun. The establishment of Republics, with their philosophy of open government and rule by the people, compelled Aristocratic minorities to plot more subtle ways of obstructing the truth and thus maintaining their hold over the world without exposing themselves to retribution from the masses. Thus, the complex art of disinformation was born.

The technique, the “magic” of the lie, was refined and perfected. The mechanics of the human mind and the human soul became an endless obsession for the establishment.

The goal was malicious, but socially radical; instead of expending the impossible energy needed to dictate the very form and existence of the truth, they would allow it to drift, obscured in a fog of contrived data. They would wrap the truth in a Gordian Knot of misdirection and fabrication so elaborate that they felt certain the majority of people would surrender, giving up long before they ever finished unraveling the deceit. The goal was not to destroy the truth, but to hide it in plain sight.

In modern times, and with carefully engineered methods, this goal has for the most part been accomplished. However, these methods also have inherent weaknesses. Lies are fragile. They require constant attentiveness to keep them alive. The exposure of a single truth can rip through an ocean of lies, evaporating it instantly.

In this article, we will examine the methods used to fertilize and promote the growth of disinformation, as well as how to identify the roots of disinformation and effectively cut them, starving out the entire system of fallacies once and for all.

Media Disinformation Methods

The mainstream media, once tasked with the job of investigating government corruption and keeping elitists in line, has now become nothing more than a public relations firm for corrupt officials and their Globalist handlers. The days of the legitimate “investigative reporter” are long gone (if they ever existed at all), and journalism itself has deteriorated into a rancid pool of so called “TV Editorialists” who treat their own baseless opinions as supported fact.

The elitist co-opting of news has been going on in one form or another since the invention of the printing press. However, the first methods of media disinformation truly came to fruition under the supervision of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who believed the truth was “subjective” and open to his personal interpretation.

Some of the main tactics used by the mainstream media to mislead the masses are as follows:

Lie Big, Retract Quietly: Mainstream media sources (especially newspapers) are notorious for reporting flagrantly dishonest and unsupported news stories on the front page, then quietly retracting those stories on the very back page when they are caught. In this case, the point is to railroad the lie into the collective consciousness. Once the lie is finally exposed, it is already too late, and a large portion of the population will not notice or care when the truth comes out.

Unconfirmed Or Controlled Sources As Fact: Cable news venues often cite information from “unnamed” sources, government sources that have an obvious bias or agenda, or “expert” sources without providing an alternative “expert” view. The information provided by these sources is usually backed by nothing more than blind faith.

Calculated Omission: Otherwise known as “cherry picking” data. One simple piece of information or root item of truth can derail an entire disinfo news story, so instead of trying to gloss over it, they simply pretend as if it doesn’t exist. When the fact is omitted, the lie can appear entirely rational. This tactic is also used extensively when disinformation agents and crooked journalists engage in open debate.

Distraction, And The Manufacture Of Relevance: Sometimes the truth wells up into the public awareness regardless of what the media does to bury it. When this occurs their only recourse is to attempt to change the public’s focus and thereby distract them from the truth they were so close to grasping. The media accomplishes this by “over-reporting” on a subject that has nothing to do with the more important issues at hand. Ironically, the media can take an unimportant story, and by reporting on it ad nauseum, cause many Americans to assume that because the media won’t shut-up about it, it must be important!

Dishonest Debate Tactics: Sometimes, men who actually are concerned with the average American’s pursuit of honesty and legitimate fact-driven information break through and appear on T.V. However, rarely are they allowed to share their views or insights without having to fight through a wall of carefully crafted deceit and propaganda. Because the media know they will lose credibility if they do not allow guests with opposing viewpoints every once in a while, they set up and choreograph specialized T.V. debates in highly restrictive environments which put the guest on the defensive, and make it difficult for them to clearly convey their ideas or facts.

TV pundits are often trained in what are commonly called “Alinsky Tactics.” Saul Alinsky was a moral relativist, and champion of the lie as a tool for the “greater good”; essentially, a modern day Machiavelli. His “Rules for Radicals” were supposedly meant for grassroots activists who opposed the establishment and emphasized the use of any means necessary to defeat one’s political opposition. But is it truly possible to defeat an establishment built on lies, by use of even more elaborate lies, and by sacrificing one’s ethics? In reality, his strategies are the perfect format for corrupt institutions and governments to dissuade dissent from the masses. Today, Alinsky’s rules are used more often by the establishment than by its opposition.

Alinsky’s Strategy: Win At Any Cost, Even If You Have To Lie

Alinsky’s tactics have been adopted by governments and disinformation specialists across the world, but they are most visible in TV debate. While Alinsky sermonized about the need for confrontation in society, his debate tactics are actually designed to circumvent real and honest confrontation of opposing ideas with slippery tricks and diversions. Alinsky’s tactics, and their modern usage, can be summarized as follows:

1) Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.

We see this tactic in many forms. For example, projecting your own movement as mainstream, and your opponent’s as fringe. Convincing your opponent that his fight is a futile one. Your opposition may act differently, or even hesitate to act at all, based on their perception of your power. How often have we heard this line: “The government has predator drones. There is nothing the people can do now…” This is a projection of exaggerated invincibility designed to elicit apathy from the masses.

2) Never go outside the experience of your people, and whenever possible, go outside of the experience of the enemy.

Don’t get drawn into a debate about a subject you do not know as well as or better than your opposition. If possible, draw them into such a situation instead. Go off on tangents. Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty in your opposition. This is commonly used against unwitting interviewees on cable news shows whose positions are set up to be skewered. The target is blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address. In television and radio, this also serves to waste broadcast time to prevent the target from expressing his own position.

3) Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.

The objective is to target the opponent’s credibility and reputation by accusations of hypocrisy. If the tactician can catch his opponent in even the smallest misstep, it creates an opening for further attacks, and distracts away from the broader moral question.

4) Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.

“Ron Paul is a crackpot.” “Gold bugs are crazy.” “Constitutionalists are fringe extremists.” Baseless ridicule is almost impossible to counter because it is meant to be irrational. It infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage. It also works as a pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.

5) A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.

The popularization of the term “Teabaggers” is a classic example; it caught on by itself because people seem to think it’s clever, and enjoy saying it. Keeping your talking points simple and fun helps your side stay motivated, and helps your tactics spread autonomously, without instruction or encouragement.

6) A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.

See rule No. 5. Don’t become old news. If you keep your tactics fresh, it’s easier to keep your people active. Not all disinformation agents are paid. The “useful idiots” have to be motivated by other means. Mainstream disinformation often changes gear from one method to the next and then back again.

7) Keep the pressure on with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.

Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new. Never give the target a chance to rest, regroup, recover or re-strategize. Take advantage of current events and twist their implications to support your position. Never let a good crisis go to waste.

8) The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.

This goes hand in hand with Rule No. 1. Perception is reality. Allow your opposition to expend all of its energy in expectation of an insurmountable scenario. The dire possibilities can easily poison the mind and result in demoralization.

9) The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.

The objective of this pressure is to force the opposition to react and make the mistakes that are necessary for the ultimate success of the campaign.

10) If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside.

As grassroots activism tools, Alinsky tactics have historically been used (for example, by labor movements or covert operations specialists) to force the opposition to react with violence against activists, which leads to popular sympathy for the activists’ cause. Today, false (or co-opted) grassroots movements and revolutions use this technique in debate as well as in planned street actions and rebellions (look at Syria for a recent example).

11) The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.

Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem. Today, this is often used offensively against legitimate activists, such as the opponents of the Federal Reserve. Complain that your opponent is merely “pointing out the problems.” Demand that they offer not just “a solution”, but THE solution. Obviously, no one person has “the” solution. When he fails to produce the miracle you requested, dismiss his entire argument and all the facts he has presented as pointless.

12) Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it.

Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. The target’s supporters will expose themselves. Go after individual people, not organizations or institutions. People hurt faster than institutions.

The next time you view an MSM debate, watch the pundits carefully, you will likely see many if not all of the strategies above used on some unsuspecting individual attempting to tell the truth.

Internet Disinformation Methods

Internet trolls, also known as “paid posters” or “paid bloggers,” are increasingly and openly being employed by private corporations as well governments, often for marketing purposes and for “public relations” (Obama is notorious for this practice). Internet “trolling” is indeed a fast growing industry.

Trolls use a wide variety of strategies, some of which are unique to the internet, here are just a few:

Make outrageous comments designed to distract or frustrate: An Alinsky tactic used to make people emotional, although less effective because of the impersonal nature of the Web.

Pose as a supporter of the truth, then make comments that discredit the movement: We have seen this even on our own forums — trolls pose as supporters of the Liberty Movement, then post long, incoherent diatribes so as to appear either racist or insane. The key to this tactic is to make references to common Liberty Movement arguments while at the same time babbling nonsense, so as to make those otherwise valid arguments seem ludicrous by association. In extreme cases, these “Trojan Horse Trolls” have been known to make posts which incite violence — a technique obviously intended to solidify the false assertions of the think tank propagandists like the SPLC, which purports that Constitutionalists should be feared as potential domestic terrorists.

Dominate Discussions: Trolls often interject themselves into productive Web discussions in order to throw them off course and frustrate the people involved.

Prewritten Responses: Many trolls are supplied with a list or database with pre-planned talking points designed as generalized and deceptive responses to honest arguments. When they post, their words feel strangely plastic and well rehearsed.
False Association: This works hand in hand with item No. 2, by invoking the stereotypes established by the “Trojan Horse Troll.” For example: calling those against the Federal Reserve “conspiracy theorists” or “lunatics”; deliberately associating anti-globalist movements with racists and homegrown terrorists, because of the inherent negative connotations; and using false associations to provoke biases and dissuade people from examining the evidence objectively.
False Moderation: Pretending to be the “voice of reason” in an argument with obvious and defined sides in an attempt to move people away from what is clearly true into a “grey area” where the truth becomes “relative.”
Straw Man Arguments: A very common technique. The troll will accuse his opposition of subscribing to a certain point of view, even if he does not, and then attacks that point of view. Or, the troll will put words in the mouth of his opposition, and then rebut those specific words.Sometimes, these strategies are used by average people with serious personality issues. However, if you see someone using these tactics often, or using many of them at the same time, you may be dealing with a paid internet troll.

Stopping Disinformation

The best way to disarm disinformation agents is to know their methods inside and out. This gives us the ability to point out exactly what they are doing in detail the moment they try to do it. Immediately exposing a disinformation tactic as it is being used is highly destructive to the person utilizing it. It makes them look foolish, dishonest and weak for even making the attempt. Internet trolls most especially do not know how to handle their methods being deconstructed right in front of their eyes and usually fold and run from debate when it occurs.

The truth is precious. It is sad that there are so many in our society who have lost respect for it; people who have traded in their conscience and their soul for temporary financial comfort while sacrificing the stability and balance of the rest of the country in the process.

The human psyche breathes on the air of truth. Without it, humanity cannot survive. Without it, the species will collapse, starving from lack of intellectual and emotional sustenance.

Disinformation does not only threaten our insight into the workings of our world; it makes us vulnerable to fear, misunderstanding, and doubt: all things that lead to destruction. It can drive good people to commit terrible atrocities against others, or even against themselves. Without a concerted and organized effort to diffuse mass-produced lies, the future will look bleak indeed.

–Brandon Smith

http://personalliberty.com/2012/08/07/disinformation-how-it-works/?eiid= 

HONORING HISPANIC LEADERSHIP

Raymond Lozano, Jr. 
Introduced Spanish-language TV to North Texas Metropolitan Area Dead at 80 Years of Age 
June 29, 1932 - August 11, 2012

Raymond "Raylo" Lozano Jr., born June 29, 1932 in Dallas, went to be with his Lord on Saturday, August 11th, 2012 at 4:30 p.m.  

He lived life his way. He provided fully for his family so that his children could fulfill their dreams. He always wanted to be with his family and church friends. "Raylo" was a career car man and loved selling cars. He also introduced Spanish television to the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, and founded the bilingual magazine Auto Revista.  

One of his passions was serving as a traveling lay minister. His sympathies were always with the poor and less fortunate. He grew up in the Little Mexico neighborhood of Dallas and attended Travis Elementary, North Dallas High School, and the University of North Texas.  He proudly served as a Marine during the Korean War.  

He is survived by his wife Helen of 53 years, his daughter Elaine Kutz and her husband Roy (residing in San Francisco, CA), son Raymond III and his wife Elaine and their children Grace and Mia, son Jacob and his fiancée Rakshya Bhadra (residing in New York, NY), son David and his wife Frida, his siblings Toñia, Ernest, Stanley, Kevin and Alda. Special thanks to the VA Hospital, Dr. Schubba Bhat, Dr. Stephen Lau, Dr. Jeffry Thompson, all the staff of DaVita, his "super nurse" Lavern, and Dr. Steven Meyer for his heroic efforts. 

To access the obituary and related information: http://obits.dignitymemorial.com/dignity-memorial/obituary.aspx?n=
Raymond-Lozano&lc=2251&pid=159147892&mid=5201828&locale=en-US

Sent by Roberto Calderon, beto@unt.edu 

Adrienne Jennings McMillan - Storyteller/Attorney
Passed away August 9th

Below are just a few comments: 

In addition to her profession as an attorney, and hobby as a storyteller, Adrienne also served in  the community in other capacities.  She was an Orange County Juvenile Justice Commissioner. 
 

Murió Gran Historiador, Miguel Mathes
August 13, 2012

El Colegio de Jalisco
http://coljal.edu.mx/index.php/page,biblioteca/id,4

Dr. Miguel W. Mathes.

El Dr. Miguel W. Mathes, nació en Los Ángeles, California, en 1936. Maestro en artes, por la Universidad de California, doctor en filosofía y letras, por la Universidad de Nuevo México. Académico de alto renombre que se ha distinguido por su vocación como historiador y su labor en la búsqueda y difusión de las fuentes históricas. Ha dejado una importante huella como docente en su cátedra de historia en la Universidad de San Francisco, de la que ahora es profesor emérito.

Recibió en 1985 de manos del Lic. Miguel de la Madrid, Presidente de México, la condecoración Orden Mexicana del Águila Azteca, máxima distinción que se otorga a extranjeros en nuestro país, con el objeto de reconocer los servicios prominentes prestados a la nación mexicana o a la humanidad. Esta presea se le concedió dada la generosa labor desarrollada por el Dr. Mathes en pro de la difusión del pasado mexicano y la conservación de nuestras fuentes documentales.

En 1995, dona a la Biblioteca de El Colegio de Jalisco, una valiosa colección compuesta por 45 mil volúmenes, reunida durante 35 años. A partir de este momento, la Biblioteca lleva su nombre y el Dr. Mathes es nombrado Director Vitalicio de la misma. Con la ahora conocida como Colección Mathes, que ya es parte de nuestro patrimonio cultural, se recopiló y recuperó importante información sobre el pasado del noroeste de México.

El Dr. Mathes ha recibido numerosos premios por el trabajo realizado en su trayectoria académica:

La Encomienda de la Orden de Isabel la Católica, otorgado en España por el rey Juan Carlos I.
El Diploma de Mérito, de la Universidade Federaldo Acre, Rio Branco, Acre, Brasil.
En Estados Unidos, ha sido objeto de diversos homenajes.

En México, además de la ya mencionada Orden Mexicana del Águila Azteca, se le ha distinguido como:

Académico Supernumerario de la Academia de la Historia de Occidente.
Académico de El Colegio de Historia, Guadalajara.
Miembro corresponsal de la Academia Mexicana de la Historia.
Miembro de la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadística.

Su apoyo se ha expresado también en la donación de ejemplares de sus múltiples obras a la biblioteca. Ha sido miembro de los consejos editoriales de la revistas Meyibó y Calafia, de Baja California.

Entre los libros de su autoría se encuentran: Documentos para la historia de la demarcación comercial de California (2 vols. 1965), Sebastian Vizcaino and the spanish expansion in the Pacific (1968), Documentos para la historia de la explotación comercial de California: 1611-1679 (2 vols., 1969), Documentos para la historia de la transformación colonizadora de California: 1679-1686 (2 vols., 1974), Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco: la primera biblioteca académica de las Américas (1982), Aportación a la historiografía de California del siglo XVIII (1985) y El arte litográfico en México: 1826-1900 (1985).

Sent by Roberto Calderon  beto@unt.edu

 

NATIONAL ISSUES

AMERICAN GREED

I am grounded in the value of my grandfather, Alberto Chapa, who told me . .  "Para un hombre, su palabra is todo."   Honesty has been an important code of behavior for me and I have grown increasing disappointed with the many manifestation of  incidents and decisions in high places, not honoring honesty.  

The recent Supreme Court decision, concerning Xavier Alvarez, of Pomona, who claimed falsely that he had been awarded the nation’s highest military accolade, the Medal of Honor, is a perfect example.  Alvarez, who was an elected official of a local water board in Los Angeles, made the false claim at a public meeting in 2007. 

U.S. Attorney’s Office filed charges against Alvarez' for violating the Stolen Valor Act, which was signed into law in  2006. The act makes it a crime for an individual to lie about being “awarded any decoration or medal authorized by Congress for the Armed Forces of the United States,” in written or oral form. 

Totally ignoring the Stolen Valor Act, the Supreme justices concluded the constitutional right of free speech protected Alvarez’s lie. Wearing the medals was against the law, but  lying about having received the awards, was not.  

Francisco Ibarra, former national commander of the GI Forum of the United States, told Weekly Report that "The Supreme Court’s decision devalues the true valor of what soldiers have done in combat, as well as other roles they played in war.” [Source: Hispanic Link Weekly Report,  Vol. 30, No. 13, July 11, 2012  E-mail: carlose@hispaniclink.org] 

For a couple of days, I looked for some more examples of individuals that were stealing in one form or another. One article focuses on what the which would not have been possible with out individual theft and government agency corruption or a complete lack of any oversight system in place, concerning and receiving unearned tax returns.  "The inspector general estimates that the IRS could issue as much as $21 billion in fraudulent tax refunds over the next five years. The scam is so rampant that thieves are apparently sending in false returns in bulk without even bothering to change the mailing address on the returns. The inspector general said it found one residential address in Lansing, Michigan that was the source of an astonishing 2,137 tax returns, and to which the IRS directed more than $3.3 million in potentially fraudulent refunds.  http://finance.yahoo.com/news/tax-scam-irs-pays-billions-151756498.html

Just a few days of looking for other examples of dishonesty in my local newspaper, the Orange County Register reveals the extent of the problem.  I think Dr. Nava is right on target in his activities to promote a return to teaching values in the classroom.

• Panel maker Abound Solar ate up $70 million of its $400 million Department of Energy (DOE) loan guarantee and filed for Chapter 7 liquidation on July 2.
• Solar Trust planned on building the world’s largest solar-power plant, and the DOE offered a $2.1 billion loan guarantee provided the firm raised private capital. Solar Trust filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on April 2.
• Enerl, an electric car battery company, got a $118.5 million DOE stimulus grant in August 2009 and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Jan. 26.
• Energy Conversion Devices, a solar-laminate supplier, received a $13.3 million stimulus tax credit to update its Michigan factory and hire some 600 people. It filed for bankruptcy in February.
• Raser Technologies received a $33 million stimulus grant to develop a geothermal plant in Utah. Raser declared bankruptcy in April 2011.

THIEVES BOOSTER STEAL $2 MILLION WORTH OF TOYS

A mother and son from Tamarac, Fla, may be placed on Santa's naughty list after being accused of stealing $2 million worth of toys. The Broward Sheriff's Organized Retail Crimes Unit arrested Ignatius "Michael" Pollara, 46, and his mother, Margaret Pollara, 70, on Thursday, accusing the pair of stealing more than $2 million in merchandise, WTVJ-TV reported.

Sgt. Rich Rossman said the son's alleged crimes were especially egregious. "He made it a goal of his to steal from all 50 states within one year, which he was very proud of and he did accomplish," Rossman told The South Florida Sun-Sentinel.The Pollaras allegedly used a system called "box stuffing," according to Rossman.

Private Prisons Spend $45 Million On Lobbying

Comeback America: 
Turning the Country Around and Restoring Fiscal Responsibility
Announcing the $10 Million a Minute Bus Tour

Press Release: Announcing the $10 Million a Minute Bus Tour
Wednesday, July 25 2012

The Hon. David M. Walker, former U.S. Comptroller General, today announced a first-of-its-kind national bus tour to engage Americans about our nation’s deteriorating financial condition — and show them what they can do to help restore fiscal sanity.

The “$10 Million a Minute Tour” will help voters understand that we face a fiscal cliff in January 2013 and a possible U.S. debt crisis within the next two years.

No matter what progress we make to improve economic growth and generate jobs, our nation’s current fiscal path puts our collective future severely at risk: jobs, education, health care, a secure retirement, infrastructure, national security, mortgage rates, an effective social safety net to prevent more poverty, and the success or failure of thousands of businesses.

Yet every minute, our nation’s financial hole gets deeper by about $10 million.

The Comeback America Initiative (CAI) has developed a U.S. Financial Burden Barometer (Burden Barometer) to supplement the “National Debt Clock.” The Burden Barometer is a far more accurate measure of our financial situation, since it includes both total liabilities and unfunded promises (e.g., Social Security and Medicare).

“We are at a crossroads in America. Our political leaders can keep hiding their heads in the sand and continue toward economic catastrophe. Or, they can take an honest look at our situation, and lead us by pursuing nonpartisan solutions, that can address our challenges in an effective, equitable, moral and sustainable manner,” said Mr. Walker.

Mr. Walker will kick off the tour in Manchester, N.H. on Sept. 7. From there, the bus will make its way to New York City, then on to at least 16 states, including swing states and key districts.

Can Immigrants Save Small-Town America?

Jose Lechuga in his store in Hazleton, PA

Hazleton’s Illegal Immigration Relief Act denies permits to businesses that employ undocumented immigrants and it fines landlords who rent them apartments.

Rep. Lou Barletta, who was then the mayor of Hazleton, said the law was needed because crime rates shot up and hospitals and schools were overburdened after an influx of Hispanics.  The city became a rallying point for anti-immigration forces as a prime example of the need to shut down borders.

Next month, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments on the legality of a law passed back in 2006 by the city council of Hazleton, Pa. Hazleton’s Illegal Immigration Relief Act denies permits to businesses that employ undocumented immigrants and it fines landlords who rent them apartments.

Rep. Lou Barletta, who was then the mayor of Hazleton, said the law was needed because crime rates shot up and hospitals and schools were overburdened after an influx of Hispanics. The city became a rallying point for anti-immigration forces as a prime example of the need to shut down borders.

But then a funny thing happened: The law didn’t deter immigrants. They kept coming, and as the Hispanic community became established, members started buying homes, cars and opening stores.  Now the Associated Press quotes a bakery owner hoping this new wave of entrepreneurs will revitalize his street. The Hazleton experience mirrors the findings in a recent study about what happens when immigrants come to town.

Patrick Carr, a sociology professor at Rutgers University, is lead author of the paper, published in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, which also looked at St. James, Minn., a town that welcomed immigrants.  “There are no real findings to indicate that immigrants brings anything but positive things,” Carr told Here & Now‘s Robin Young

Sent by Juan Marinez  marinezj@anr.msu.edu 

A native of Puebla, Mexico, Gonzalez feels more at home in Baltimore with every passing year. She attends city-run nutrition and exercise classes in Spanish and takes her two young children to a Spanish-language storytelling hour at her neighborhood library. She plans to earn a GED and become a teacher

Baltimore joins an increasing number of U.S. cities, most of them manufacturing behemoths fallen on hard times, that are courting immigrants to reverse half a century of population loss.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/baltimore-puts-out-welcome-mat-for-immigrants-hoping-to-stop-population-decline
/2012/07/24/gJQA4WEk7W_story.html   

Immigration lawyer known as 'the angel of justice' among Latinos by  Paloma Esquivel,
Los Angeles Times, August 20, 2012

Sent by Mercy Bautista Olvera 
scarlett_mbo@yahoo.com 

DHS Announces Application Process for Deferred Action, 
IPC Provides Data on Where Eligible Individuals Reside

For press inquiries contact, Wendy Sefsaf at 202-812-2499 or wsefsaf@immcouncil.org.
The Immigration Policy Center (IPC), established in 2003, is the policy arm of the American Immigration Council. IPC's mission is to shape a rational conversation on immigration and immigrant integration. Through its research and analysis, IPC provides policymakers, the media, and the general public with accurate information about the role of immigrants and immigration policy on U.S. society. IPC reports and materials are widely disseminated and relied upon by press and policy makers. IPC staff regularly serves as experts to leaders on Capitol Hill, opinion-makers and the media. IPC is a non-partisan organization that neither supports nor opposes any political party or candidate for office. 

Division of the American Immigration Council.
Sent by iwapgh@aol.com 

Stolen land will be reoccupied; 
South Central Farm; June 2006

Urban farms or myths? 

Critic: Urban farms are fun but more myth than viable option by Devon G. Peña

OUR RESPONSE: HISTORY SHOWS URBAN FARMS CAN FEED CITIES WHILE PROVIDING ECOLOGICAL SERVICES

(SEATTLE, WA) The excitement surrounding urban agriculture is partly rooted in a notable history and possible future capacity to actually help feed the entire nation. During the Second World War, so-called ‘Victory Gardens’ provided close to half of the fruits and vegetables consumed by the population; albeit, people in those days ate smaller, healthier portions. Perhaps the revival of urban farming will lead not just to a diet for a small planet but a diet for smaller people?

Victory Gardens, a.k.a. ‘War Gardens’, played a major role in the mobilization of the civilian population during the two world wars but were especially important during the Second World War. Most reliable estimates confirm that 40 to 50 percent of the fruits and vegetables consumed during this period were grown in urban gardens.

WW II era poster promoting Victory Gardens

The return of urban farming echoes these monumental efforts of the past, but the new ‘Victory Gardens’ are about a victory over poverty, hunger, malnutrition, and the dissolution of community ties. The phenomenal success and rapid growth of urban farming has created extraordinary opportunities for food justice and an ecologically superior, community-based approach to reinvention of our current food system, which is dominated by unsustainable and inequitable industrial models and a profit-driven top-down corporate anti-nature and anti-worker rationality.

Not surprisingly, this success has now unleashed a reactionary industry of naysayer pundits and would-be expert analysts who denounce urban farming as a left-wing liberal conspiracy to undermine American food security. There is now a torrent of critics who deride and demean; insult and belittle; and otherwise distort the truth about urban agriculture and its real perils and actual promise. Some of these critics fancy themselves both farmers and urban gardeners, adding legitimacy to the criticism since it appears to be coming from aficionados and insiders rather than corporate shills.

Among this latter type of critic is Maurice Hladik, a columnist for the on-line magazine, Ag Professional, who says he grew up on a farm in western Canada and was an active farmer into his early adult years. Before proceeding, I wonder: What exactly is an “active farmer”? Are not all farmers, by definition, active? It seems curious that anyone would identify as a formerly active farmer, since farming, when you are doing it, requires by definition a great deal of mental and manual activity.

This is a revealing tautology. You are either a farmer; or you are not. There is no in-between. A farmer may not be farming right now; but a true farmer never stops thinking about the land; the seed and water; the seasons of hunger and plenty. S/he may be displaced but they are always farmers. I have learned this from the landless farmers of Mexico who are now in the U.S., and who are always searching for that little bit of vacant land in the city or acre in the countryside where they can keep planting heirloom corn from Oaxaca or Chiapas. You can take the farmer off the land but you cannot take the love of the land out of a farmer’s heart; that is, unless farming was just another job, an occupation, and, in that case, you were never really a farmer, probably more of a contract grower, a mere bioserf, most likely for some corporation or bank that owned your ass. But now I am angrily mincing words with our tautological critics.

As a matter of self-disclosure: I am a full-time ‘seasonal’ farmer in rural Colorado because our growing and irrigation season runs from May through September. I am also an urban gardener, when possible; even if it is just a small patch of herbs, given my busy schedule when we live in the city of Seattle where I work as a college professor from the end of September through early April. Among my principal teaching areas are agroecology, ethnoecology, and the anthropology of food among other agricultural and food-related areas of research and scholarship. The university may pay my salary, but it is the land that sustains my soul. That does not make me less active a farmer than anyone else dedicated to food: to growing it; sharing it; cooking and eating it. We are all equal in our desire to feed a hungry planet by starting with ourselves and our families, neighbors, and local communities.

Hladik, who has reportedly earned two degrees in agricultural economics (one was not enough?), recently penned an op-ed piece that misrepresents the urban agriculture movement. He begins his commentary, entitled, “Urban Farming is an Urban Myth”, with the tale of a lettuce grower in the city:

I recently read an article that waxed eloquently about the virtues of urban farming in the U.S. and Canada, using the example of someone who was growing lettuce in the saddlebags of a rusted, old bicycle leaning against a garage. True, this was the delightful handiwork of a resourceful and imaginative gardener, but the author got carried away and used this as yet another example of how the urban farming movement has a meaningful impact on the nation’s overall food supply. As if four heads of lettuce were really going to have an impact on feeding the world!

Credit: Seedsavers Network

This is a fine example of how our critics use the poetic verses of overly enthusiastic writers to belittle a creative, serious, and significant social movement. Of course, four heads of lettuce will not feed the world, but no one I know in urban agriculture is making such an absurd claim. This is a classic straw-man [sic] argument. The lettuce patch enthusiasts I know are not deluded enough to think they can feed the world. They have a much more modest and realistic goal, which is to feed themselves high quality, culturally appropriate, fresh and organic produce a good amount of the time and perhaps with enough to spare to exchange or share with friends, neighbors, or fellow enthusiasts.

Besides, this is never just about the food; it is about community and sense of place; it is about sharing the labor and the fruits of that labor. This of course has no obviously intrinsic economic value and perhaps this is why our critic, the ag economist, cannot understand the nature of this movement and is so easily drawn toward belittling its modest yet profoundly transformational accomplishments and future potential.

Four heads of lettuce may not feed the world but multiplied a thousand-fold they can sure help to feed a city. And if you can help feed a city, that leaves more of the rural farm product to feed the world; no? Less food destined for our cities means more for the rest of the world. Perhaps Mr. Hladik is not really serious about feeding the world with the additional rural agricultural surplus consequent as a side effect of a revitalized urban agriculture? If so, then I can only understand his commentary as a poorly reasoned example of corporate agribusiness agitprop. Oh wait!, Syngenta is a major sponsor of his web page. That about covers it.

But let’s take the argument seriously for a moment more, in order to deflate points that could become destructive urban myths; this is how they get started, no? Better to nip them in the bud before they grow to larger proportions and start misinforming the grant making community, among others. Let me turn to another facet of Hladik’s argument, for he seems very committed to ‘sustainability’ and has the air of someone able to present serious questions for our weighty consideration. He asks a good question but then follows through with an erroneous and preemptive response that reveals how little he seems to know about farming and agroecosystems:

What about the sustainability of urban farming in North America? At any garden center there are mountains of topsoil available in convenient plastic bags and by the truckload. That soil does not just “happen;” it was once farmland that has forever been removed from productivity in its natural setting.

This is another straw-man argument. Most soil used in urban agriculture comes from urban compost piles; the University of Washington students keep one of these compost piles and it is so big they give the stuff away now. No one is going out into the countryside, under cover of dark or otherwise, to rob farms of their topsoil. First, why would they do that? Chances are most of those soils have already been plenty depleted by agribusiness monoculture ventures or are heavily contaminated with fertilizers and pesticides. If anything, urban farmers tend to be organic and they are not going after pesticide-ridden soil from bankrupt family farms or corporate monoculture plantations. The thought is anathema to us.

Anyone who thinks that topsoil for P-Patches comes from the national sacrifice zone of rural farms, now abandoned to satiate the pesky urban gardeners, surely must live on a different planet.

There is another problem with Hladik’s argument, one that is between the lines or in the subtext: When he waxes poetic that soil does not just “happen,” and once removed from the land it is lost forever, he appears to lack any understanding of how any wise rural farmer, using traditional polycultural and biodynamic methods, can constantly create and replenish the soil. I believe it could only be a contract grower, wed to monoculture practices, that can envision the idea of soil getting exported for cash, forever lost to the land, or eroding due to poor management associated with unsustainable industrial farming methods and practices.

Maybe agricultural economists do not understand the principles of soil formation. Hladik certainly seems completely unaware of the rich soil, pun intended, of ethnoedaphology (see my series on Sodbusters and the native gaze), which is based on evidence of how traditional, indigenous, or regenerative practices can actually produce and replenish the soil; rather quickly. Many of the best holistic farmers maintain large compost piles and add manure and other natural materials to enrich and deepen their soil horizons. This is more than soil conservation it is actual soil formation.

Biodynamic methods to produce soil are a viable business

A growing number of farmers are relying on biodynamic methods and the use of companion plants and inter-cropping planting patterns, which are by now legendary enough that I am left wondering how this once active farmer does not know of these things? Maybe Hladik sees the world through the lens of corporate monoculture, and that is a world where soil is being lost at an unsustainable rate? Under those conditions, I suppose I would also be eager to hold on to what is left. But this is not the reality for urban farmers who do not need to raid rural landowners for whatever remains of their topsoil.

 

Another revealing part of Hladik’s argument against urban agriculture as a strategy to feed ourselves (and by extension, the world) is apparent in his summary of the “big picture of national land use” in the U.S. Hladik states that a mere 2.1 percent of land-use is urban and 19.5 percent is in farmland. That accounts for 21.6 percent.

What happens to the balance of 78.4 percent, or most of the land mass in the country? Does it count if other organisms, besides human beings, are using the land? Apparently not. In this version of land use accounting, nonhuman uses disappear. I am left wondering why?

Hladik is wed to the reductionist thinking of neoliberal economics: If it is not subject to human use, then the land use is not worth counting. This is anthropocentrism of the worst type because urban and farm uses of the land are interconnected and not just in the sense of the evolving city-country relationship. Instead, human urban and rural activities affect other land uses including uses by other organisms that need land as habitat. In my estimation, there is no more important land use than habitat and yet in Hladik’s worldview this disappears completely; it is simply not worth counting.

But the data Hladik uses is also suspect to begin with. If we include the entire infrastructure of the built environment – buildings, roads, highways, bridges, canals, dams, transmission lines of the power grid, and yes, farms and their related physical plant – then the human footprint on the landscape is considerably larger than 2.1 or 21.6 percent of land use. One study reported by National Geographic places the total human footprint at 83 percent, leaving a mere 17 percent as non-urban and rural non-human.

A more accurate way to measure 'land use' accounts for the ecological impacts of all human activities. Global Footprint Network

Landscape ecologists are justifiably concerned and the study found that 20 percent of the continental U.S. land mass is within 500 meters of a paved road. This is the data Hladik should be working with rather than his simplistic binary of urban versus farm land use. Besides, it is not the percent of land use dedicated to city or farm use that matters but rather how the city and farm fit within a web of relationships in the landscape ecology of places. A well-built city or a well-designed and managed farm can create habitat, promote biological linkages and connecting corridors to support the diversity of life on the planet and respect the resilience of ecosystems and watersheds.

Hladik continues this attack on urban agriculture by questioning the availability of appropriate land – he refers to “the quality of urban terrain [as] often [too] marginal for food production” [brackets added]. There is a contradiction here as well that goes back to one of my initial premises about the wisdom of urban farming:

…the world is a better place where cities do not spring up on prime farmland. Then there is the clutter of houses, schools, hospitals, roads, railways, office buildings, historic sights [sic], universities, airports, etc. where nothing can be planted. Realistically, I would be surprised if the food production potential of the available urban land would amount to even one percent of that available on conventional farms utilizing open fields, pastures and rangeland [brackets added].

I agree that the world is, or would be, a better place if cities did not encroach on “prime farmland.” But this is one of the best arguments for making urban agriculture more viable and central to any strategy seeking to make cities more food self-sufficient and thus lessen urban pressures on the surrounding countryside. If people in cities can better feed themselves, you might even be able to convert some of the farmland back to wildlife habitat and restore broader ecological values. This possibility completely eludes Hladik.

The failure of his analysis extends to the demographic composition of urban farmers in the U.S. Hladik fails to understand who is doing much of the urban farming in the U.S. today. While belittling the lack of knowledgeable farmers in U.S. cities, he attempts to draw a distinction between the U.S. and so-called ‘developing’ countries:

...the presence of recent migrants with farming skills and household labor ability are quite different than in North America and, in such an environment, significant quantities of food are produced in urban settings.

Bob Ou, a Cambodian refugee, and Bilai Muya, a Somalian refugee, are urban farmers in San Diego, CA. Photo by Allen J. Schaben

This is quite simply inaccurate. Numerous studies demonstrate that immigrants comprise a major percentage of urban farmers. A good source to start looking at these studies is a recent dissertation by Professor Teresa Mares, We Are Made of Our Food: Latino/a Immigration and the Practices and Politics of Eating. There are many other studies demonstrating how Latin American, Asian, and African immigrants now comprise a significant force in urban agriculture – see, for e.g., the edited volume by Alison Alkon and Julian Agyeman, Cultivating Food Justice.

Many of these immigrants are displaced farmers and so they bring the skills and knowledge necessary to be successful urban and periurban farmers. Indeed, several programs exist across the U.S. to assist such displaced farmers make the transition back to farm ownership and operation; a good example is just up the road from us, the Viva Farms project in Skagit County, north of Seattle.

Hladik ends his commentary on a predictably condescending note:

As hobbies go, gardening arguably tops the list of activities that provide exercise, exposure to nature and a sense of pride in producing fresh nutritious food. Furthermore, as all human indulgences have some impact on the environment, the guilty pleasure of using some topsoil or water from the hose to grow a bit of food is perfectly acceptable. However, the bottom line is that urban farming is a myth when it comes to being a significant contributor to the nation’s food supply….Gardeners everywhere - just get out there and enjoy yourselves and the bounty of your efforts. The burden of feeding the world, or even your community, should not be your concern.

 

Social scientific studies of urban agriculture in the U.S. illustrate that this is not just a hobby. For most immigrant and low-income families this is quite simply a matter of survival, of avoiding hunger and malnutrition. Urban farms feed families; they provide access to safe, more nutritious, and organic produce. Significantly, urban farms and gardens provide crops for food or medicine that may not be grown by agribusinesses in the surrounding countryside. This has been illustrated by numerous studies, including my own work (Link 2 at Acequia Institute) on the diversity of crops grown at the former South Central Farm in Los Angeles.

The need to re-establish viable urban agriculture is not a burden; it is a central raison d’être of the food justice movement. Most urban farmers realize they cannot feed the world, but they understand how urban agriculture can help cities feed themselves. This can reduce the impact of the city on the surrounding countryside, a benefit that we are certain even Mr. Hladik would find commendable. Perhaps the most significant benefit of urban farming is an opening toward the transformation of agriculture in rural areas. The agroecological practices common among urban farmers, like organic composting and biodynamic inter-cropping, many of them introduced by immigrants, hold important lessons for conventional farmers in the countryside.

There was a time when conventional agricultural economists like Hladik argued that organic farming was impractical and could not feed the world. They alleged that organic farming could not operate at the economies of scale required to feed the world. They were obviously mistaken and organic produce is now the fastest growing sector in agriculture, both domestic and abroad. Unfortunately, from the vantage point of food autonomy, organic methods have been too successful and the same large transnational agribusiness corporations that control conventional agriculture now dominate the organics sector.

Perhaps this time the co-optation of a progressive and grassroots movement will be avoided and urban agriculture will not only come to contribute to the rebuilding of more sustainable and equitable cities, it will help us feed ourselves and by extension the rest of the world, by simply allowing others to live simply, according to their own cultural traditions and foodways?

To avoid co-optation, U.S. urban agriculture communities need to support a massive program of land redistribution in urban and rural areas in the U.S. and abroad. Stolen land must be reoccupied and farmed or restored to habitat; indeed, we must practice the principle that farms can be re-made as habitat. This is surely an idea that Mr. Hladik and his colleagues may not find comforting. Then again, a food revolution, as my friend Sandor Katz likes to say, will not be microwaved, and I will add, will not need the services of agricultural economists, and least of all the neoliberal ideologues that have hitherto dominated our national conversation about sustainable agriculture.

http://ejfood.blogspot.com/2012/07/urban-farms-or-myths.html#!/2012/07/urban-farms-or-myths.html 

Amazing Graze: Goats vs. Weeds at Presidio Golf Course

On August 7th, locals in San Francisco  were invited 300 goats arrive to tame non-native plants on the links, led by a team of Border Collies. Bring the kids and watch these furry weed eaters do their work! The more that weeds are kept under control, the more native grasses can flourish. The goats were on the job for 14 days. 

The fleet of environmentally friendly, self propelled weed eaters are supplied by California Grazing, a holistic land management company that provides brush and weed control through grazing. A team of Boer Goats, known for their calm temperament, will be on the job. Boer Goats are relatively recent arrivals to the United States, having been imported from South Africa in the 1990s.

U.S. - MEXICO
Environmentalists to Host
Eagle Pass-Piedras Negras
Ecological Friendship Abrazo

By José G. Landa

August 6, 2012

United States and Mexican environmentalists are hosting a bi-national ecological friendship abrazo to protect the Rio Grande River from contamination and pollution from current and future industrial economic development projects, including underground and open surface coal mining, on or near the U.S.-Mexico border at the City of Eagle Pass International Bridge No. 1 between the sister cities of Eagle Pass , Texas and Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, on Friday, August 10, 2012, at 10am, announced Jose Reyna, Vice-President of the Maverick County Environmental & Public Health Association. Joining the bi-national ecological friendship abrazo from Mexico is the Consejo Ciudadano Por Un Piedras Negras Mejor. “The purpose of the bi-national ecological friendship abrazo is to educate the public of ecological and environmental issues affecting both sides of the border,” said Reyna.

Sent by Roberto Calderon beto@unt.edu 

While We Dither On Oil, It's Drill, Beijing, Drill

ACTION ITEM

Comments on the National Park Service, 
American Latino Theme Study

by 
Ricardo J. Ramirez, 
Former Assistant Director, 
California Department of Parks and Recreation 

Historic Barrio National Historic Park:

The right historic park venue for interpreting Latino history

Ricardo J. Ramirez

Introduction

National Park Service Goals

The National Park Service is undertaking the preparation of the American Latino Theme Study that will increase opportunities for the public to learn about the role of American Latinos in the development of the nation. As part of the theme study, the National Park Service welcomes suggestions from the public about American Latino historic places and stories associated with them that could be added to the “study list” that forms a part of the theme study. This is a noble purpose which is welcomed and long overdue

The NPS is also undertaking the long neglected need to attract Latinos to our national parks; NPS studies find that Latinos are under-represented national park visitors. It appears that after years of discussion on the need to do something about the under-representation of Latino history and the chronic low rates of Latino national parks visitors, and driven by America’s large and growing Latino population, the NPS leadership is beginning to seriously address these long standing inequities. While this work begins to meet the NPS responsibility to the Latino community it also meets its responsibility to insure a prosperous and relevant NPS future. NPS visionaries understand that too meet these responsibilities and secure the desired NPS future, it needs to meaningfully engage the less engaged Latino community; I agree. Read John Reynolds 40 year NPS veteran essay: Whose America? Whose Idea? Making “America’s

Best Idea” Reflect New American Realities (http://www.georgewright.org/272reynolds.pdf)

Essentially, what Mr. Reynolds wants all of us to understand and accept for a prosperous and relevant NPS future is this:

Although the basis of the political relevancy that has served us (white America) so well for a century is still strong, its vitality as a reflection of our whole and evolving society is waning. He goes on to say, All is not lost . . . not yet. The National Park Service and its friends must act now in a strategic, focused, comprehensive manner supported by every park, every employee, and every organization the agency is associated with. The Park Service and individual parks must expand their focus to include people and organizations that have not been traditional allies or partners. It is up to the Park Service, and its leaders, to lead. It is up to the rest of us to actively assist. Our goal? Every American believes that parks and the park idea are essential and relevant to them. It is “we the people,” all of the people, that are the strength of the parks and the national

park idea.

The theme studies and the Latino historic sites study list will include many themes and historic sites for study that potentially can become national historic sites/parks such as the Cesar Chavez National Historical Park (CCNHP) The CCNHP will admirably meet one of the Latino community and NPS goals; to address the underrepresentation of Latino history in the national mainstream public history arena. However, it should not be a foregone conclusion that the CCNHP or other proposed similar Latino historic park venues will meet the NPS’s other critically important goal to attract Latinos in significant numbers to national parks, historic parks or other NPS facilities. I will present ample evidence to support this position. There is, however, a historic park venue that has the capacity to meet both of the NPS goals. I will describe the depth and scope of this historic park venue and recommend that the NPS conduct a survey to identify Latino historic sites with a venue that have the capacity to meet both its goals.

We Built It But They Didn’t Come – In Significant Numbers

La Plaza de Cultura y Artes' (LPCA)

The new and beautiful La Plaza de Cultura y Artes' (LPCA) located in Los Angeles, California a world class city with the largest Latino population of any U.S. metropolis has not attracted a significant number of Latinos or the general public. Given its location, its Mexican, Mexican, American (MMA), Chicano provocative history, one would expect that it would attract a large number of Latino visitors. Unfortunately, LPCA to date has not attracted large numbers of Latino visitors.

The LPCA leadership assumed it had a ready-made audience because LPCA was located across the street from legendary Historic Olvera Street (HOS); HOS enjoys nearly 2,000,000 million annual visitors the majority of whom are Latinos. HOS visitors would simply walk across the street and visit LPCA; this did not happen. Since LPCA opened it has had 39,000 visitors, many of whom were students. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/11/entertainment/la-et-la-plaza-20110411

So why didn’t HOS visitors, particularly Latinos, cross the street to visit LPCA? Even though HOS has 27 historic buildings and interpret Latino and non-Latino history, I do not believe the majority of HOS visitors primarily come for a history lesson, except perhaps tourist, which most likely explains why they do not cross the street to visit LPCA. Thousand of Latinos do come to HOS for fiestas, special Latino cultural events and traditional MMA celebrations; many participate in a form of living history. Furthermore, it is instructive to know that before the LPCA, there was The Latino Museum of History and Art. The museum closed after only a few years in operation.

Low Latino Visitations not a Surprise

A 2009 California Department of Parks and Recreation (CDPR) survey found that adult Latinos don’t frequent historical or cultural areas in significant numbers regardless of location; this was also true of non-Latino adults. (http://www.parks.ca.gov/pages/795/files/2009%20spoa%20complete%20findings%209_28_09.pdf See survey page 75).

Also an Association of American Museums (AAMs) survey on museum type’s attendance found that historic House/Site and history museum/historical society are the least visited of all type of museums. The median 2009 annual attendance for historic House/Site and history museum/historical society was 11,700, 10,000 respectively. http://www.aam-us.org/aboutmuseums/abc.cfm

Given the CDPR and AAM survey, 39,000 LPCA visitors is a respectable number even though it is lower than expected. Still for a city of 1.8 million Latinos the majority of whom are Mexican, Mexican-Americans, 39,000 is a disappointing number for the LPCA executive staff. The new LPCA executive staff is working on developing other approaches to attract more visitors. The LPCA is a "must see" by all peoples. I hope that the new executive staff is successful. It needs to be said that LPCA just opened in April 2011; however, they did anticipate 500 visitors per day. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/15/opinion/la-ed-laplaza-20111015

Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park (CASHP)

Another example of a historic site not registering significant visitation numbers is the CDPR CA SHP located in Earlimart, California in California’s San Joaquin Valley. (http://www.parks.ca.gov/pages/795/files/09)- Video (http://www.parks.ca.gov/mediagallery/?page_id=583&m=videos)

CASHP is an excellent presentation of African American history and one would assume that a significant number of African Americans would visit this important site. Unfortunately they do not; visitation numbers (includes African Americans) for fiscal year 2009/2010 were 7,758. (http://www.parks.ca.gov/pages/795/files/09)

The CDPR acquired this historic site in 1972. The CDPR and the African American community had over 30 years to develop and attract more visitors but unfortunately they have not and it isn’t because they have not tried. I believe the site location is what limits visitation. CASHP is hard to get to and is far from large population centers. Also, as the CDPR survey found people in general do not visit historic sites in significant numbers. This is unfortunate because CASHP has an important and inspiring story to tell all of us. Apparently strong and stimulating ethnic history alone is not enough to attract people of color as is the case with CASHP and LPCA.

Cesar Chavez NPS National Historical Sites

Another example of a historic sites that may not have the ability to attract a significant number of visitors in general and Latinos in particular are the proposed NPS Cesar Chavez National Historical sites. (http://parkplanning.nps.gov/document.cfm?documentID=43676)

The proposed Cesar Chavez historic sites are an excellent example of the NPS addressing the chronic under representation of MMA history and historic sites. However, given the CDPR and AAM survey findings and the LPCA and CASHP low visitation numbers, there is no strong reason to believe that the Cesar Chavez National Historic site(s) will attract Latinos in significant numbers regardless of the strong appeal among Latinos and non-Latinos for Cesar Chavez’s life experience and the history of the farm worker labor movement. The factors that may limit significant visitation number may be historic site venue and site remoteness; we have to wait and see.

California State Historic Parks Closure

The CDPR is scheduled to close 22 of its 51 SHPs in July 2012; this is nearly 50% of its SHPs! I don’t know all the criteria used for closing these particular SHPs but I would say location and low visitation was high on the list. The closure of 22 SHPs lends support to the CDPR 2009 CDPR survey findings which state that – adults, non-Hispanics and Hispanics spent the fewest number of days visiting historical or cultural buildings sites or areas regardless of location. There are, however, notable exceptions as I will point out.

It is instructive to note that NPS historic sites visitation numbers also support the CDPR survey findings with respect to less frequent visits to historic sites and historic parks. Of all visitors (281,303,769) to NPS facilities only 3% visited National Historic sites and only 10% visited National Historical Parks http://www.nature.nps.gov/socialscience/docs/PUSO_Abstract_2010.pdf)

Also, of 10 national parks listed as losing attendance in 2011,8 where historic parks/monuments. 
http://americasbesthistory.com/abh-stats.html.

I am not saying that we should not establish these sites, indeed we should. These sites are part of our history and should be included in the mainstream public history arena. What I am saying is that given the CDPR, NPS and AMA visitations surveys, the cited examples of low Latino and other people of color visitations and the CDPR scheduled closure of 22 of its 51 SHP, it is reasonable to conclude that Historic Houses/site and history museums do not have a strong appeal for MMA/Latinos, other people of color and the general public be they state or national historic sites.

Also, it is instructive to note that of the 22 SHPs scheduled for closure 6 interpret the Mexican Period history. To my knowledge I know of no Mexican American individuals or Mexican American/Latino Organizations that are working to prevent the closure of these Mexican Period historic sites. The CDPR is working hard to prevent closures; I hope they are successful.

What all this strongly suggests is that to attract MAs/Latinos in significant numbers, the NPS should consider the right historic park venue.

The right historic park venue - Old Town San Diego State Historical Park, San Diego, California

The most visited California SHP is Old Town San Diego SHP (OTSDSHP.) This SHP commemorates the early days of the town of San Diego and includes many historic buildings from the Mexican and early American Periods, 1821 to 1872. (http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=663), Video (http://www.parks.ca.gov/video_parks/?media=media2.xml&id=1)

Based on CDPR 2009/2010 Fiscal Year visitations numbers, OTSDSHP registered 5,585,474 visitations! (http://www.parks.ca.gov/pages/795/files/09-10%20statistical%20report%20final%20online.pdf)

OTSDSHP is the most visited SHP of all CDPR 51 SHPs and the most visited of CDPR’s 278 state park and recreation facilities with the exception of some CDPR State Beaches. No other SHPs or CDPR state park and recreation facilities come close to OTSDSHP visitation numbers. Attesting to OTSDSHP visitor appeal, it easily surpasses Yosemite National Park (YNP) one of our nation's supreme icon national park, in visitation numbers. YNP visitation numbers for 2010 were 3,401,000. Furthermore, if OTSDSHP was a national historic park, it would rank number 2 among the 2010 most visited national historic sites in America; just below The Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. OTSDSHP visitation numbers rank number 9 among the top 10 most visited national parks! http://americasbesthistory.com/abh-stats.html

What is it about OTSDSHP that attracts so many visitors? I believe that primarily it is location, the range of historical themes and a variety of commercial amenities, among other attractions. Importantly OTSDSHP is visited by a significant number of Latinos the majority of whom are Mexican, Mexican and Americans. (See OTSDSHP general plan and video) (http://www.parks.ca.gov/pages/21299/files/667.pdf)

(http://www.parks.ca.gov/video_parks/?media=media2.xml&id=1)

The right historic park venue - Historic Olvera Street (HOS), Los Angeles, California

Another historic park venue that has the ability to attract an extraordinary large number of visitors, with the majority being MMAs/Latinos, is renowned HOS.

HOS is in the oldest part of Downtown Los Angeles, California, and is part of the El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument. Many Latinos refer to it as "La Placita Olvera." Circa 1911 it was described as Sonora Town. Having started as a short lane, Wine Street, it was extended and renamed in honor of Agustín Olvera, a prominent local judge, in 1877. There are 27 historic buildings lining Olvera Street, including the Avila Adobe, the Pelanconi House and the Sepulveda House. In 1930, it was converted to a colorful Mexican marketplace. It is also the setting for Mexican-style music and dancing and holiday celebrations, such as Cinco de Mayo.

(http://olvera-street.com/)

HOS attracts 2,000,000 annual visitors this is more visitation numbers than any California SHP with the exception of OTSDSHP! Together OTSDSHP and HOS annual visitations total 7,585,474. This number is more than all the visitations registered for CSHPs, excluding OTSDSHP visitations. According to the 2010/2011California State Park System Statistical Report, the total SHP visitations for fiscal year 2010/2011 were 3,649,082. HOS alone enjoys more visitations than half the visitations of all CSHPs excluding OTSDSHP. (http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=23308)

What is it about the HOS venue that attracts so many visitors particularly MMAs/Latinos? Similar to OTSDSHP, I believe that primarily it is location, the range of historical themes and a variety of commercial amenities, among other facilities and attractions. (See Historic Olvera Street webpage (http://olvera-street.com/) Also, it is instructive to note that two other CSHPs with similar HOS and OTSDSHP venues also register high visitation numbers; Old Town Sacramento SHP (OTSSHP) with 561,666 (http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=497),

and Columbia SHP (CoSHP)with 499,641( http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=552)

Also, instructive to note is that LPCA, presumably, to attract more visitors will soon offer programs and events, to some extent, similar to those offered at HOS, OTSDSHP, OTSSHP and CoSHP. The LPCA new offerings invite the public to participate in the following experiences:

LA Plaza’s story will come to life through its exciting and unprecedented public programs. From performances by the most cutting-edge musicians to screenings of classic Mexican cinema; from mouth-watering cooking demonstrations to educational garden workshops; and from thought-provoking discussion series and book signings to illuminating family activities, LA Plaza will be the place to learn about, hear from, and explore the rich culture of Mexican Americans.

http://lapca.org/content/programs-coming-soon

Recommendations

The NPS wants to increase opportunities for the public to learn about the role of American Latinos in the development of the nation and, as important; it wants to attract Latinos in significant numbers to its many facilities to remain prosperous and relevant. From the CDPR, the AMA and the NPS visitation numbers surveys/reports we learned that historic park sites do not have a strong appeal for Latinos or non-Latinos. We also learned that adult Latinos frequent highly developed parks and recreation areas more than any other recreation areas. Furthermore, the LPCA and Colonel Allensworth SHP experience tell us that deep and stimulating people of color historical themes alone are not enough to attract them in significant numbers even though in the LPCA case there are 2,000,000 potential visitors in close proximity, the majority of whom are MMA/Latinos. However, the extraordinarily high number of visitations at two historic park sites (OTSDSHP , HOS) are found to be exceptions to the CDPR, NPS and AMA surveys/reports and strongly suggest that historic parks with venues such as HOS and OTSD do have outstanding visitation numbers and a significant number of visitors are Latinos, the majority being MMAs.

Given all these considerations and focused on Latino community and NPS goals, I make the following recommendations

1 To maximize NPS Latino exposure and to reach the highest number of Latinos, the NPS needs to focus on MMA historic sites for inclusion in the study list. This recommendation is based on the fact that of the 50.5 million Latinos in America 37.5 million identify themselves as MMAs with the majority living in California (11,430,146) followed by Texas (7,951,193), Arizona (1,657,668), Illinois (1,602,403), and Colorado (757,181.)

2. To attract the largest number of Latinos the NPS needs to study MMA historic site(s) with the highest potential for developing the right venue. The right MMA historic sites venue should have:

· A high level of relevance and emotional appeal for MMAs much like HOS and OTSDSHP.

· MMA historical and cultural themes that include the history of many individuals, male and female, as opposed to a single historical figure, event or place.

Note: the focus on MMA historical and cultural themes does not imply that other Latino group’s historical and cultural themes should not be included. Where appropriate these can be sub-themes.

· MMA historical and cultural resources with an extended historical time line sufficient to provide a broad forum for interpreting a full range of MMA historical and cultural themes.

· A deep and extensive MMA history and MMA historic site occupation.

· An urban location accessible to millions of MMA, other Latinos and non-Latinos.

· The capacity to develop park and recreation opportunities. Note: Some of the proposed historic park venue elements can be appreciated in the Los Angeles SHP (LASHP) General Plan) (http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=25057

· The capacity to generate significant revenue

· The capacity to attract millions of MMAs.

· The capacity to provide NPS access to millions of MMAs

· The capacity to improve the quality of life for residents in or near the historic site e.g. affordable housing, entrepreneurial and employment opportunities.

· The capacity to serve as a NPS gateway park to provide information on other local, state and national historic parks, national parks and to impart the NPS message; National Parks , America’s best idea

Note: Historic park commercial amenities should not eclipse the sites historical context. Commercial amenities should be used to enhance the historical experience. There are MMA historic sites with historical and cultural resources where inclusion of well developed commercial amenities can enhance the historical experience.

Historic site recommendation for the NPS Study List

A historic MMA barrio with a historical time line of early 1900’s - 1950 meets the requirements listed above for the right MMA historic site(s) venue.

A 1979 MMA California historic sites survey conducted by Mexican American/Chicano historians Jose Pitti, Ph.D., Antonia Castaneda, Ph.D., and Carlos Cortes, Ph.D., identified an early 1900’s southern California historic barrio as the ideal forum to interpret Mexican/ Mexican-American history and warned that urban renewal would most likely continue to critically destroy the unique cultural and historical resources of this and other historic barrios. The southern California historic barrio was described as follows:

With a population of 3,350, 85 percent of whom are Mexicanos, (Mexican,Mexican-Americans) South Colton's significance is that all of the trends in Mexican/Mexican-American working-class history are present in this small community. Threatened now by urban renewal and private development, South Colton is one of the very few barrios in California that offers the opportunity for preserving and maintaining the integrity of a community that clearly reflects the entire scope of Mexican/Mexican-American history

See website for additional information

(http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/5views/5views5h84.htm)

The conclusion is that an early 1900’s historic barrio as a NPS Historic Park is the right historic site to interpret the entire scope of Mexican/Mexican-American history, and to preserve these unique Mexican, Mexican-American historical and cultural resources of local, state and national significance. Furthermore, we can conclude that there is urgency about preserving these unique resources since many have already been lost.

What I am recommending is not new, the CDPR and NPS have long commemorated and celebrated people, places and historical events. What is new in that for the first time in America history a national historic park would commemorate and celebrate the MMA unique early 1900’s – 1950 barrio life experience. This life experience is unique in that it was lived simultaneously by thousand of MMAs in the many segregated barrios across the American southwest. I believe early 1900’s-1950 historic barrios and the barrio life experience is of national significance and meets the NPS requirements for a national historic park(s). There are already several MA communities in California that have awaken to their history e.g. Barrio Logan, San Diego, CA. La Historia Society, El Monte, CA., Barrio La Colonia, Oxnard, CA., San Bernardino, CA., Cypress Street Barrio, Orange CA. and at the grass root level are mobilizing to document and preserve the historic barrio life experience; there are probably others in California and other states. Certainly, MA/Chicano/Latino historians have already researched and documented the barrio life experience and have written several books on the barrio life experience.

To date this unique history has been absent in NPS historic parks and other mainstream public history arenas. The absence of Mexican American public history is unacceptable and detrimental at many levels, primarily our nation and the world remains historically illiterate of our country’s third largest ethnic group. Society at large is denied the historical knowledge and perspective it needs to understand the full scope and value of its unique and diverse society. Equally important, the absence of Mexican-American public history denies Mexican-Americans their history; essentially it denies their contributions, accomplishments and identity and perpetuates Mexican-American myths and misconception. The stereotype of Mexican American as simply “a tools of labor” continues to falsely identify a people with a deep history and rich culture. This stereotype denies their humanity. Moreover, and most detrimental, the absence of Mexican America history in our national historic parks subtly suggests that Mexican Americans are not Americans.

In Ken Burn’s recent NPS documentary it was said that the national parks are America; I would agree. By definition the absence of MA history in the NPS public history arena subtly sends the message that MAs are not part of America; are not Americans. This is the wrong message to send to 31 million MAs for many reasons. Specifically, given MA demographics, the NPS needs the MA community to be invested in the national park system to secure a prosperous and relevant NPS future. Also, it can be reasoned, that if national parks are America, connecting the MA community to NPs, strengthens the MA community connection to America. What nobler purpose can the NPS/national parks serve our country?

A historic barrio NHP meets NPS goals

An early 1900’s -1950 historic barrio NHP most certainly meets the NPS goals; to attract significant numbers of MA visitors, interpret MMA history and have access to millions of MMA to convey the NPS message that NPs are America’s best Idea and why the MA community should embrace the idea and invest in it. Also, a historic barrio affords the NPS an expanded historical time line that includes many historical themes for telling the entire scope of Mexican/Mexican-American history such as those identified for study in the NPS American Latino/a theme study project. No other MMA historic site has this capacity or affords NPS these many opportunities.

Here are examples of potential historic barrio themes; migration, immigration, barrio foundation and development, Mexico connection, education (segregated schools, Mexican schools), barrio politics, self sufficiency (home construction, smart home, edible landscapes, water conservation, food, food production) conservation (recycling, car pooling other transportation modes) Barrio Environmentalist (“Green” barrio,) media (barrio newspaper), barrio medicine, music, celebrations (religious, non religious), entrepreneurships, employment, labor (disputes, strikes), barrio organizations, in pursuit of the American Dream, racism, inclusion, law enforcement, justice, gangs culture , WWII (participants, heroes, lost), barrio economy, recreation modes/sports, religion, barrio ethnic diversity, barrio youth, barrio exodus ,barrio perspective , family values, car culture and much more.

The above historic barrio themes are well within the four board themes of the NPS American Latino Theme study Project.

· Making the Nation: (1) Empires, Wars, Revolutions; (2) Intellectual Thought; (3) Displacement, Migration, & Immigration; and (4) Media.

· Making a Life: (5) Religion & Spirituality, (6) Arts, (7) Gender & Sexuality, (8) Sports & Leisure, and (9) Food.

· Making a Living: (10) Labor, (11) Business & Commerce, (12) Military, and (13) History of Science & Medicine.

· Making a Democracy: (14) Struggles for Inclusion, (15) Latinos & the Law, and (16) Education.

Also, a historic Barrio NHP designed with the capacity to accommodate large numbers of visitors can serve to draw thousands of MMA visitors to celebrate and commemorate the many MMA festivals/events. For example a historic barrio NHP can be a place for a Tamale Festival similar in scope to the one that annually take place Indio, California. This International Tamale Festival draws 160,000 visitors. http://www.tamalefestival.net/Vendor.html. TheTamale has a long and deep history in the MMA community and a Tamale festival has an appropriate place in a historic Barrio NHP. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamale.) This is also true of a Salsa Festival. In Oxnard, California the Oxnard annual Salsa Festival draws 50,000 to 60,000 visitors. (http://www.see california.com/festivals/oxnard-salsa-festival.html) As with the Tamale, Salsa” has a long and deep history with the MMA/Latino community.

(http://ezinearticles.com/?History-of-Salsa-Sauce---The-Mexican-Connection&id=224897) In Sacramento, California, The annual Festival de la Familia draws 20,000 participants. http://festivaldelafamilia.org/about/

There are many more MMA/Latino festivals, celebrations and commemorations that have a MMA/Latino history and were part of the historic barrio life experience and as such have a place in a historic barrio NHP. Participation in these MMA/Latino fiestas is like participating in a form of living history.

Need for a NPS MM Historic Barrios Survey

Unfortunately, to my knowledge, at least in California, there is no official local, state or national documentation of historic barrios except for the South Colton, California MMA historic barrio as found in Five Views: An Ethnic Historic Site Survey for California. With Historic MMA barrios capacity to meet NPS goals, it would be in the NPS best interest to conduct a MMA historic barrios survey and develop a list of historic barrios for inclusion in the NPS study list. The study would determine which historic barrios meet the NPS requirements for a national historic park (s.) Given the MMA population numbers, surveys should take place in California, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. The first survey should take place in California.

________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Somos Primos reader,

Thank you for reading my paper. My name is Ricardo J. Ramirez - Former California Department of Parks and Recreation Assistant Director of Policy and Public Involvement. I have long been an advocate for the preservation and interpretation of Latino (Mexican American) historic sites and history in state and national historic parks. Currently Latinos and non-Latinos have a long awaited and welcomed opportunity to recommend Latino historic sites in their communities and or other locations throughout America for the National Park Service (NPS) American Latino Theme Study and study list.

I am currently conducting a survey to identify historic barrios/colonias in California and other states to be recommended for the NPS study list. The goal is to indentify barrios/colonias and determine if they meet the criteria for a Historic Barrio National Historic Park; I believe they meet the criteria! I am requesting your assistance in identifying historic barrios/colonias. If you are aware of historic barrios/colonias,please provide me with the location, barrio/colonias name, a photo if available and a short history on the historic site. If you have questions, recommendations or comments please e-mail me or call 916. 335. 1005

Thank you

Ricardo Ramirez 
Home 530 753 7668

Cell 916 335 1005

rrviarica@comcast.net

BUSINESS

Economic Lessons from American History by JOHN STEELE GORDON

1. Governments Are Terrible Investors
2. Politicians Have Self-Interest Too
3. Immigration is a Good Thing
4. Good Ideas Spread, Bad Ones Don’t
5. Markets Hate Uncertainty

Copyright © 2012 Hillsdale College. The opinions expressed in Imprimis are not necessarily the views of Hillsdale College.
Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.  Source: Odell Harwell hirider@clear.net

Goldman Sachs Launches 10,000 Small Businesses Initiative in Salt Lake City – The USHCC recently announced its strong support of Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses launch in Salt Lake City, Utah. The $500 million initiative, which began in 2009, provides small businesses across the country with greater access to business education, lending support, and other management services.

USHCC President & CEO Javier Palomarez was in attendance with Goldman Sachs Bank USA CEO Esta Stecher and Utah Governor Gary Herbert at the launch of the Utah initiative. Nationally, Goldman Sachs has committed $200 million for practical business and management education. These funds are directed to program partners, including local community colleges and business schools, to teach small business owners valuable marketing skills. 10,000 Small Businesses is also contributing $300 million to Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) in order to increase the amount of capital available to small businesses.                   USHCC President & CEO Javier Palomarez joined by  
                                                                                                                   Utah business leaders, including Governor Gary Herbert 
                                                                                                                   and Goldman Sachs Bank USA CEO Esta Stecher

The program has already helped nearly 700 businesses in seven cities across America. Among the first five groups of participants, 70 percent of graduates increased their revenues within six months of graduation and about 50 percent created new jobs. The program promises to help Utah's small businesses meet similar success.

Join LULAC and the Latinos Living Healthy initiative 

Jury says Muslim hotel owner discriminated

HEALTH ISSUES

Ancient Poop Gives Clues to Modern Diabetes Epidemic

EDUCATION

Hispanics Now Largest Minority Group on Four-Year College Campuses

One-in-Four Public Elementary School Students is Hispanic

Latinos now are the largest minority group on the nation's four-year college campuses, according to an analysis of newly available U.S. Census Bureau data by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center. For the first time, the number of 18- to 24-year-old Hispanics enrolled in college exceeded 2 million and reached a record 16.5% share of all college enrollments. Hispanics are the largest minority group on the nation's college campuses----four-year and two-year combined----a milestone first achieved in 2010.

In the nation's public schools, Hispanics also reached new milestones. For the first time, one-in-four (24.7%) public elementary school students is Hispanic. Among all pre-K through 12th grade U.S. public school students, a record 23.9% were Hispanic in 2011.

In both cases, rapid Hispanic population growth has played a role in driving Hispanic student enrollment gains over the past four decades. However, population growth alone does not explain all the enrollment gains made by Hispanic students in recent years. Today, with record high school completion rates, more young Hispanics than ever are eligible to attend college. And among these high school completers, a record share----nearly half (46%)----is enrolled in a two-year or four-year college.

Hispanics are the nation's largest minority group, making up more than 50 million, or 16.5%, of the U.S. population. Among the 30 million young people ages 18 to 24, 6 million, or 20%, are Hispanic.

In addition to gains in enrollment, the number of degrees awarded to Hispanic college students has also reached new highs. In 2010, 140,000 bachelor's degrees and 112,000 associate degrees were awarded to Hispanics. In both cases, Hispanics are a growing share of all degree recipients----13.2% among those with an associate degree and 8.5% among those who received a bachelor's degree in 2010. Despite these gains, the Hispanic share among degree recipients significantly lagged their share among 18- to 24-year-old students enrolled in two-year colleges (21.7%) and four-year colleges and universities (11.7%) in 2010.

The report, "Hispanic Student Enrollments Reach New Highs in 2011," written by Pew Hispanic Center Senior Research Associate Richard Fry and Associate Director Mark Hugo Lopez, is available at www.pewhispanic.org.

The Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center, is a nonpartisan, non-advocacy research organization based in Washington, D.C., and is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Sent by Roberto Calderon, Ph.D.  beto@unt.edu
Source:  Michael A. Olivas  MOlivas@UH.EDU

Gracias a la Vida
"Reason"
By 
Rodolfo F. Acuña

Annual Rosarito Beach International Mariachi & Folklórico Festival 

We invite you to review the site and gain a greater understanding of our organization, learn more about the students and families we serve and the valuable partners, supporters and friends we work with. I encourage you to call upon us should you have questions or wish to participate and/or contribute in some way to the future of our children, our families and our communities. Stay tuned – we are always growing!

http://aguilayouth.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Sym2011a.png 
Sent by Bill Carmena JCarm1724@aol.com

San Diego Tennis and Racquet Club

SHARE MY LESSON BY Randi Weingarten

Dear Willis,

Teaching is an extraordinarily complex and challenging enterprise, made even more so by the introduction of new academic standards to help all students develop 21st-century skills and by the blunt impact of years of budget cuts. For so many, it is reassuring to know that, for virtually every educational challenge they encounter, a fellow teacher out there somewhere undoubtedly has solved it. But it also can be frustrating: Who has come up with a solution, what is it, and where can it be found?

This is why I am very excited to announce Share My Lesson. Watch this video and start sharing!

The AFT has joined with Britain’s TES Connect to create an exciting new tool created by teachers, for teachers that allows educators—preschool through college—to upload their own lesson plans, download other educators’ resources, and rate and review resources on the site, all at no charge. This new and exciting platform is an online community where teachers can freely share resources with each other. Be one of the first to join—register with Share My Lesson now and start sharing!

Teachers are craving the tools and support they need to help their students succeed. Share My Lesson, with more than 180,000 resources already, will become the largest online community for educators in the United States—and a great resource to help give teachers what they need. We know that when teachers share and collaborate—whether it is about the content of their lessons, or their strategies for reaching students—students benefit. Register today and help us make Share My Lesson even better.

Share My Lesson will include a dedicated resource bank for the Common Core State Standards, which are coming to 46 states and Washington, D.C., starting in the fall. These standards have the potential to help students acquire the subject knowledge, deep understanding and ability to apply concepts that will prepare them for college, career and life. But we know teachers will need the tools to meet these new instructional challenges. Starting today, teachers can go to Share My Lesson to find and upload resources that address the new standards. Join us in this exciting new venture—register for Share My Lesson today.

I believe that Share My Lesson is the single most important tool the AFT has launched in more than a generation. For every teacher who has stayed up late into the night thinking about how to help a student struggling to understand a concept, or who has wondered about a fresh way to teach a lesson, Share My Lesson offers access to vast resources, right when teachers need them. This site will benefit both educators and students. Great ideas that enlighten and engage students in an individual classroom now will have a pathway to countless teachers and their students. Geography should not affect which children’s teachers have access to the best teaching resources.

In unity, Randi Weingarten  e-activist@aft.org 
AFT President
P.S. Stay Connected with Share My Lesson!

Willis Papillion, MSW
1578 Reo PL., NW
Silverdale, WA
360-697-5378
willis35@embarqmail.com

CULTURE

Canary Island Folk Dances
La Peña Cultural Center
Calendar of International cultural activities in North Texas
Mexican American School Board Members Association
Zapata, Texas High School Mariachi Band Inspires Documentary
Jose-Luis Orozco, Bilingual Educator, Children's Author, Recording Artist

La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley, Ca. 94705510-849-2568 www.lapena.org
For more information please contact Fernando at 510-849-2568 ext. 15 or  fena(at)lapena.org

Our Mission is to build mutual understanding and respect by linking diverse international cultural communities.
http://www.dfwinternational.org/InternshipWithDFWInternational.pdf 

Mexican American School Board Members Association 
MASBA Annual conference, September 28-30, 2012
Our mission is to advocate quality public education for all students in the State of Texas.

Zapata H.S. featured on PBS, Mariachi High

PBS recently featured, Mariachi High which showcased a year in the life of the champion mariachi ensemble at Zapata High School on the Rio Grande River in South Texas.  Zapata H.S. was the inaugural (2010) class AAA MASBA State Mariachi Champion and repeated in 2011. Last year Zapata H.S. was the class AAA runner-up.  

To attend the MASBA Annual conference, your school district must be a MASBA member. Annual membership dues (2012-2013) have been mailed. If you would like to have your membership dues invoice emailed to you, please email: MASBA.PR@gmail.com. Individuals may attend the conference by registering as a Friend of MASBA.
For more information about the annual conference, please email MASBA.PR@gmail.com or call (210) 478.7901.

High School Mariachi Band Inspires Documentary, Enlivens Community in Zapata, Texas  
by Lucas Kavner

lucas.kavner@huffingtonpost.com Posted: 06/18/2012

The 2011-2012 varsity group of the Mariachi Halcon band, with Eloy Martinez at far right, performs.

Eloy Martinez didn't fall into Zapata High School's mariachi band as much as he was completely bowled over by it. Six years ago, he was a fifth grader sitting in an office at the high school in Zapata, Texas, when he first heard the band playing down the hall.

He ran over and had put his ear against the door when the band's director spotted him and invited him in to watch the group practice.

"That first day I just sat there watching, listening," Martinez recalled. "I didn't play any instrument and I thought, I don't know what this is, but I like it."

He ran back to his mom and immediately had her change his schedule -- removing athletics activities that he had planned to pursue -- just so he could join the middle school's mariachi group. He picked up a violin and learned fast, and his agile singing voice impressed his teachers. ("They made everybody sing," Martinez said, sheepishly. "So I had to sing.")

By the time he was in eighth grade, he had become so proficient at performing that the high school's current band leader, Adrian Padilla, invited him to become one of the youngest members of Zapata High School's varsity group.

"Eloy is probably one of the best at what he does," Padilla said of Martinez, who will be a senior next year. "He's also heavy in 4-H, where he raises animals and competes," he added. "And he does theater. He wears many hats."

Performing with the school's award-winning mariachi group is now something many Zapata High students aspire to do. Only 24 students can be part of the Mariachi Halcon, the varsity group, which has won the state mariachi competition the last two years and is the subject of an upcoming PBS documentary, "Mariachi High," set to premiere at the end of this month.

Padilla says that when he first arrived in Zapata, Texas -- which has a population of just barely more than 5,000, with 33 percent of its residents living below the poverty line -- he was immediately struck by the students' talent.

"I don't know what it is about the place, about why the [kids] are so good," he said. "It must be in the water."

Then there's the music they grew up hearing at home. About 98 percent of the school's students are Latino and many of the band's players -- Martinez included -- grew up listening to mariachi music.

Performers in the group have a variety of personal styles, ranging from the dyed-hair goth to the shaggy-haired guitarist with a hemp necklace. Then there's the straight-A valedictorian.

Yet all 24 share an unwavering drive to succeed and compete -- a quality that initially drew "Mariachi High" director Ilana Trachtman and her collaborators, including co-director Kim Connell, closer to the action.

Trachtman recently followed the Zapata team from auditions through the state competition for her new PBS series, tracking the students in the group from auditions onward and noticing how the families rallied around the program.

"Across the board," she said, "the thing that makes these programs work are not as much district support, but this huge parental and community backing. It's parents driving the kids, raising money, sewing on buttons and coming to the concerts."

The program has become so popular that Zapata is now known more for its mariachi than its athletics, Martinez said. "We've finally realized people are noticing us and all the hard work we put into this."

Other towns are noticing, too. Today mariachi groups flourish in at least 500 schools from Washington to Illinois and throughout the Southwest.

Trachtman has been following their rise in ubiquity for years, and how the students have fought to promote it. At one school she visited in Tucson, a group of students had heard through the grapevine that one of their teachers had once played in a mariachi band, so they went to him asking if he'd start up a group at their school.

"Now mariachi education is a stream of music education," she said. "It's codified."

If there's a villain in this story, Trachtman said, it would be the rampant budget cuts threatening Zapata program and others across the country. Currently only 50 percent of 18-year-olds in America have been exposed to any kind of arts education during their time in school. Program administrators are increasingly being asked to prove that their programs are vital, that they provide incentives for students to remain engaged in school, especially to Latino students who have the highest dropout rates across the country.

Recent National Endowment for the Arts evidence further illustrates this. In a March 2012 study, "The Arts and Achievement in At-Risk Youth," the NEA found that 71 percent of low-income students with a high exposure to the arts attended college, compared with only 48 percent who had a low arts exposure. They also found that students highly exposed to the arts had better grades and test scores in all subjects.

"In example after example throughout this report, a greater percentage of high-arts students demonstrate a particular outcome (e.g., graduating from high school or doing volunteer work) than do low-arts students," the study concluded.

In Zapata's group, all the recently graduated seniors are now attending college and the majority finished high school in the top 10 percent of their class. They continue to play music even after their stint in the group ended, Padilla said. One student -- Beto, the first chair guitarist -- recently switched his college major from dental hygiene to music.

"When I heard that I was just like, wow," Padilla said. "I remember when [this student] first came to me and said he'd felt neglected and left behind. I told him that I guarantee by the time you're a senior, you're going to be top dog."

Eloy Martinez is currently concertmaster of Zapata's group, a senior mulling over offers for mariachi scholarships at a few state schools. Padilla believes he could have a career as a musician, but Martinez said he might want to go into the medical field. He's not sure yet.

For now, he's just trying to navigate what he calls the "surreal" experience of being on television, as part of this documentary. There's the upcoming sold-out screening of "Mariachi High" in Zapata.

"I'm getting Facebook messages from people I don't even know," he said. "They're like, 'I heard your mom has tickets' and I'm like, 'I don't know who you are.' Then they're like, 'I'll meet you at the store. Bring the tickets.'"

"Mariachi High" airs on PBS on June 29. Watch a preview below.

CORRECTION: This story has been updated. An earlier version of the report rendered the band leader's name as Adrian Padillo. His name is Adrian Padilla. A previous version also stated that Zapata High School's marching band had been eliminated. This is incorrect -- as a reader pointed out, the marching band is still alive and strong.

I am very excited about the coming Fall tour season – visiting schools, cultural arts institutions, book fairs and education conferences, as well as celebrations for Back to School and Hispanic Heritage Month. My bilingual musical presentations provide young children with wonderful lessons found in the richness of Latin American songs!

I thought we could explore additional opportunities to collaborate during the coming months.  Below please find a list of tour dates that may facilitate an author appearance or musical performance within your community.

2012
September 8 Minneapolis, MN
September 13-15 Raleigh, NC
September 15 Miami, FL
September 22 Washington, DC
September 29 San Francisco, CA

October 6 Phoenix, AZ
October 8-9 Jackson, WY
October 11 New York City, NY
October 11-13 Orlando, FL

October 13 Los Angeles, CA
October 18-20 Vancouver, WA
October 20 Houston, TX
October 24-27 San Antonio, TX
October 25- 27 Galveston, TX

November 2-3 Albany, NY
November 3 New York City, NY
November 7-9 Atlanta, GA
November 9-10 Santa Fe, NM
November 10 Albuquerque, NM

November 16-17 Denver, CO
November 15 Las Vegas, NV
November 15-17, 2012 Los Angeles, CA
November 29 - 30 San Juan, PR
Nov. 28 – Dec. 1 Los Angeles, CA
December 15 San Francisco, CA

2013
Feb 4- 5 San Diego, CA
Feb 15 Long Beach, CA
Feb 7-9 Orlando, FL

LITERATURE

United hosts bilingual webinar for U.S. Hispanic publishers
Blog--Letters from Garcia

United hosts bilingual webinar for U.S. Hispanic publishers

Blog--Letters from Garcia

BOOKS

The Forgetting River: A Modern Tale of Survival, Identity, and the Inquisition: 

Raised a Catholic in California, New York Times journalist Doreen Carvajal is shocked when she discovers that her background may actually be connected to conversos in Inquisition-era Spain , Jews who were forced to renounce their faith and convert to Christianity or face torture and death. With vivid childhood memories of Sunday sermons, catechism, and the rosary, Carvajal travels to the south of Spain, to the centuries-old Andalucian town of Arcos de la Frontera, to investigate her lineage and recover her family’s original religious heritage.

Doreen Carvajal  dorcarvajal@me.com 

Mujeres Heroicas de la Conquista de America
por Carlos B. Vega

Click here: Amazon.com: Conquistadoras: Mujeres Heroicas de la Conquista de America (Spanish Edition) (9780786416011): Carlos

This unique book has delved into Latin American history to trace the origins of the people who spawned a whole new race and civilization known today as "Hispanics.

Carlos B. Vega, Ph.D  
spain37@att.net
 

Latino soldiers
 Cebu, Phillipines, WW II

USA LATINO PATRIOTS

A TRAITOR IS ABOUT TO BE HONORED. 
Jane Fonda is being honored as one of the '100 Women of the Century 

Barbara Walters said:  Many died in Vietnam for our freedoms. 
I did not like Jane Fonda then and I don't like her now.  She can lead her present life the way she wants and perhaps SHE can forget the past, but we DO NOT have to stand by without comment and see her "honored" as a "Woman of the Century." 

Unfortunately, many have forgotten and still countless others have never known how Ms. Fonda betrayed not only the idea of our country, but specific men who served and sacrificed during the Vietnam War. 

The first part of this is from an F-4E pilot. The pilot's name is Jerry Driscoll, a River Rat. In 1968, the former Commandant of the USAF Survival School was a POW in Ho Lo Prison the ' Hanoi Hilton.' 

Dragged from a stinking cesspit of a cell, cleaned, fed, and dressed in clean PJ's, he was ordered to describe for a visiting American 'Peace Activist' the 'lenient and humane treatment' he'd received. 

He spat at Ms. Fonda, was clubbed, and was dragged away. During the subsequent beating, he fell forward on to the camp Commandant 's feet, which sent that officer berserk. 

In 1978, the Air Force Colonel still suffered from double vision (which permanently ended his flying career) from the Commandant's frenzied application of a wooden baton. 

From 1963-65, Col. Larry Carrigan was in the 47FW/DO (F-4E's). He spent 6 years in the ' Hanoi Hilton'...the first three of which his family only knew he was 'missing in action'. His wife lived on faith that he was still alive. His group, too, got the cleaned-up, fed and clothed routine in preparation for a 'peace delegation' visit. 

They, however, had time and devised a plan to get word to the world that they were alive and still survived. Each man secreted a tiny piece of paper, with his Social Security Number on it, in the palm of his hand. When paraded before Ms. Fonda and a cameraman, she walked the line, shaking each man's hand and asking little encouraging snippets like: 'Aren't you sorry you bombed babies?' and 'Are you grateful for the humane treatment from your benevolent captors?' Believing this HAD to be an act, they each palmed her their sliver of paper. 

She took them all without missing a beat.. At the end of the line and once the camera stopped rolling, to the shocked disbelief of the POWs, she turned to the officer in charge and handed him all the little pieces of paper... 

Three men died from the subsequent beatings. Colonel Carrigan was almost number four but he survived, which is the only reason we know of her actions that day. 

I was a civilian economic development advisor in Vietnam , and was captured by the North Vietnamese communists in South Vietnam in 1968, and held prisoner for over 5 years. 

I spent 27 months in solitary confinement; one year in a cage in Cambodia ; and one year in a 'black box' in Hanoi . My North Vietnamese captors deliberately poisoned and murdered a female missionary, a nurse in a leprosarium in Banme Thuot , South Vietnam, whom I buried in the jungle near the Cambodian border. At one time, I weighed only about 90 lbs. (My normal weight is 170 lbs) 

We were Jane Fonda's 'war criminals....' 

When Jane Fonda was in Hanoi , I was asked by the camp communist political officer if I would be willing to meet with her. I said yes, for I wanted to tell her about the real treatment we POWs received... and how different it was from the treatment purported by the North Vietnamese, and parroted by her as 'humane and lenient.' 

Because of this, I spent three days on a rocky floor on my knees, with my arms outstretched with a large steel weight placed on my hands, and beaten with a bamboo cane. 

I had the opportunity to meet with Jane Fonda soon after I was released. I asked her if she would be willing to debate me on TV. She never did answer me. 

These first-hand experiences do not exemplify someone who should be honored as part of '100 Years of Great Women.' Lest we forget....' 100 Years of Great Women' should never include a traitor whose hands are covered with the blood of so many patriots. 

There are few things I have strong visceral reactions to, but Hanoi Jane's participation in blatant treason, is one of them. Please take the time to forward to as many people as you possibly can.. It will eventually end up on her computer and she needs to know that we will never forget. 

RONALD D. SAMPSON, CMSgt, 
USAF 716 Maintenance Squadron, 
Chief of Maintenance DSN: 875-6431 COMM: 883-6343 

Sent by Rick Leal   ggr1031@aol.com

Filipinos in the US Military by Maria Embry 

I created a website (work on progress) to honor personnel of Filipino ancestry who served U.S. wars during WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, as well as Filipinos buried @ Arlington & a website that memorialized the Filvets fight for equity because of the rescission act during ww2...also have a database for Filipinos who went thru Ellis Island, the early sacadas in Hawaii & Filipinos in California. 

EARLY LATINO AMERICAN PATRIOTS

Mexicans that fought in the Confederates

Sent by Tom Saenz
Source: Margaret Garcia groyalme@aol.com

Texas Cattlemen During the American Revolution

If you are a descendent of any of these cattlemen, Somos Primos would like to publish your pedigree. Descendants of these ranchers can apply for membership in the Sons of the American Revolution. California soldados are being recognized for their protection of the California coast line against the British. Texas ranchers can be recognized for their support by supplying cattle. The cattlemen exporters are listed by the number of cattle that were exported.

The Making of Rear Admiral Farragut  
By MEREDITH HINDLEY  

Spanish SURNAMES

Descendants of Hernán (I) Martín Serrano in New Mexico: 
An Authoritative Account of the First Three Generations

Much of what we know about Hernán Martín Serrano and that time period comes from the work of Fray Angélico Chávez as portrayed in his Origins of New Mexico Families, but like all histories, it needs to be re-visited, rewritten and re-understood based on new information that is found over time. José Antonio Esquibel found new information, recorded in the Inquisition records of that time period. The records were plentiful but difficult to read and after years of translation and study José garnered a good deal of information that applies to Origins of New Mexico Families and specifically to the Martín Serrano family.

With his extensive research José Antonio Esquibel has gifted us with the fruits of his discoveries. His understanding of the social structure in daily affairs, military or religious lives of the seventeenth-century New Mexicans and his prolific interests have opened up roomfuls of information that we can all use to further our own genealogical and historical research. I applaud Fray Angelico Chávez's original work on the Martín Serrano family recorded in Origins of New Mexico Families and I believe that Chávez would be pleased that so much new information has come about and made available. Jose's findings re-weave and strengthen our genealogy, not only will our family pictures become more clear, but hopefully his findings will open up new avenues of research that we all can use in our own personal genealogies.

records but he does let us know that he was in New Mexico. He was a loyal and dependable soldier —just the sort of man that Juan de Oñate needed in order to build a new colony of the Kingdom of Spain. As with all genealogy projects, they are truly never finished, as new information becomes available. This compilation of José's extensive research should be appreciated and welcomed by all. 

Introduction ~ José Antonio Esquibel

I took on the task of updating the genealogy of the Martín Serrano with the intent of verifying and documenting familial connections with primary sources as part of my historical and genealogical compilation of the founding families of the Villa de Santa Fe. This entailed a review of the sources originally consulted by Fray Angélico Chávez cited in his Martín Serrano sections of Origins of New Mexico Families in the Spanish Colonial Period, as well as extracting additional details from copies of other original documents of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

Anyone familiar with the Martín Serrano sections of Origins of New Mexico Families is well aware of the confusion in understanding the relationships between the various people who carried the Martín Serrano or Martín surname (see pages 71-73, 222-226, 372-373 of the 1982 edition of Origins of New Mexico Families). This is compounded by the erroneous genealogical information on the Martín Serrano that made its way onto various Web pages as well as personal genealogy software and Internet genealogy databases over the past sixteen years.

The following genealogical compilation is an excerpt of a more comprehensive history and genealogy of the Martín Serrano family of seventeenth-century New Mexico published in the 2008 Summer, Fall, and Winter issues of El Farolito. This excerpt contains the names and familial relationship of the first three generations of the Martín Serrano family in New Mexico along with citations of sources, representing the most current genealogical account of the early members of this family to date (June 2012).

Also, none of the sources cited by Fray Angélico Chávez in the Martín Serrano section of Origins of New Mexico Families (page 73, notes 1–9) specifically refers to Hernán (II) Martín Serrano (b.ca 1558) as the father of Hernán (III) and his brother Luis (I). The designation of "el mozo" is the primary indication that Hernán (III) was a son of Hernán (II) and from which it is deduced that there was a direct father-son relationship.

Generation No. 1

+ 2 i. Sargento Mayor Hernán2 II Martín Serrano, born circa 1556-1558, Zacatecas, Nueva Galicia (Mexico).

+ 3 i. Capitán Luis3 I Martín Serrano, mestizo; died November 1661 in New Mexico.

+ 4 ii. Capitán Hernan3 II Martin Serrano, mestizo, born circa 1606-1607 either in San Gabriel del Yunque or Villa de Santa Fe, New Mexico (he gave both as his places of birth on separate occasions); died after October 1685.

Note: There is no primary documentation that María Martín, wife of Alonso Martín Barba, was a daughter of Hernán (II) Martín Serrano. Fray Angélico Chávez wrote that María Martín "was very likely a daughter," since he did not have any documentation to verify this relationship (Chávez, Origins of New Mexico Families, 72).

Generation No. 3

+ 5 i. Capitán Luis4 II Martin Serrano, mestizo, born circa 1628-1633, La

Cañada, New Mexico, "slender with swarthy complexion, black hair and beard, a mole on the left cheek;" still living in May 1697 and deceased by 1707.H

+ 6 ii. Alférez/Capitán Pedro4 Martin Serrano, born circa 1635-1637, New Mexico, "medium, thick set stature, is partly gray, lame in left leg;" deceased by September 1691.I

+ 7 iii. Domingo4 Martín Serrano, born circa 1649-1658 in the Villa de Santa Fe, New Mexico; buried February 27, 1735, Santa Cruz, New Mexico.J

8 iv. Antonio4 Martín, born circa 1643-1647, Puesto de Chimayó, New

Mexico.K

+ 9 v. Possibly, Apolinar4 Martín Serrano, born circa 1643-1648, New

Mexico; described as having "a medium, robust stature, a swarthy complexion much pitted by smallpox, thick black beard and hair; nephew of Francisco García Jurado in the third degree of consanguinity.L Martín Serrano Family 

4. Capitán Hernan3 III Martin Serrano (Hernán2, Hernán1) was born circa 1606-1607 in San Gabriel del Yunque or Villa de Santa Fe, New Mexico, and died after October 1685.M He married (1) Isabel de Monuera.N She died before 1664. He married (2) María de Madrid between 1664 -1675.O

10 i. María4 Martín de Monuera. She married Bartolomé de Ledesma.P

11 ii. Juan4 Martín Serrano, mestizo, resident of the jurisdiction of Las

Salinas, New Mexico, in the late 1660s.Q

12 iii. José4 Martín Serrano.R

+ 13 iv. Ines4 Martín Serrano.S

Note: The use of the given name Hernán and Hernando across and within various generations of the Martín Serrano family lead to confusion that Hernán (III) Martín Serrano was apparently married to three wives, María Montaño, Catalina Griego, and Josefa de la Asención González (Chávez, ONMF, 224 and 373). Instead, my additional research determined that María Montaño was the wife of Hernando Martín Serrano, born circa 1661, La Cañada, New Mexico, son of Luis II Martín Serrano and Antonia de Miranda (Chávez, "New Mexico Roots, Ltd.," 1092, Diligencia Matrimonial (DM) 1685, September 27, no. 3, Corpus Christi de Isleta). Josefa de la Asención González married Hernando Martín, born circa 1664, Villa de Santa Fe, New Mexico, son of Juan Martín Serrano and Ana Rodríguez (Chávez, "New Mexico Roots, Ltd., an Addendum, Part III," New Mexico Genealogist, 49:3 September 2010, 150). It is not certain which Hernándo Martín was married with Catalina Griego, the parents of Cristóbal Martín, native of New Mexico, who married Juana de la Cruz in1697 (Chávez, "New Mexico Roots, Ltd.," 1095, DM 1697, September 5, no. 5, El Paso del Norte).

For information the next two subsequent generations of the Martín Serrano family, consult José Antonio Esquibel, "Founders of the Villa de Santa Fe: Hernán Martín Serrano and Doña Ines" published in El Farolito (Quarterly Journal of the Olibama López Tushar Hispanic Legacy Research Center: www.hispaniclegacy.org), Vol. 11, Summer-Winter 2008, Nos. 2-4. 

A. In 1597, Hernán Martín Serrano was identified as the father of Sargento Mayor Hernán Martín Serrano, a native of Zacatecas, born circa 1558, indicating the elder Hernán was a resident of Zacatecas around 1558; see Archivo General de Indias (AGI), México, 25, N.22, B.3, f. 54v.

B. Sargento Mayor Hernán Martin Serrano gave his ages as 40 in 1598 (b.ca. 1558); see George P. Hammond and Agapito Rey, Don Juan de Oñate: Colonizer of New Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1953), II, 291. As Cuadillo Hernán Martín Serrano, he appeared as a witness on behalf of Capitán Gerónimo Márquez at the Villa de San Gabriel on October 5, 1601, and gave his age as 45, indicating he was born circa 1556); Hammond and Rey, Oñate: Colonizer of New Mexico, II, 723. Hernán Martín Serrano gave his birthplace as Zacatecas and named his father as part of a general muster of soldiers in the army of Oñate made in February 1597; AGI, México, 25, N.22, B.3, f. 54v. Most likely, the last account of Hernán Martín Serrano was his testimony dated January 27, 1626, Santa Fe, against Gerónimo Márquez, in which Martín Serrano gave his age as seventy and was described as an "antiguo poblador y vecino" of the Villa de Santa Fe; Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico (AGN), Inquisición, tomo (t.) 318, f. 267r.

C. The only record that refers to Juana Rodríguez, the wife of Sargento Mayor Hernán Martín Serrano, is the general inspection of the soldiers and their goods made at the Valle de San Bartolomé on December 7, 1597; AGI, México, N.22, B.3, f. 28r. There is no known account to confirm that Juana Rodríguez arrived in New Mexico.

E. In May 1626, Doña Ines was referred to as the mother of Hernán (III) Martín, el mozo (the younger, aka Jr.), and was described as "india mui ladina que se trata como española de nacion tana" ("an acculturated Tano Indian woman whom they treat as a Spanish woman"); AGN, México, Inquisición, t. 356, f. 314, May 29, 1626, Santa Fe. The fact that Hernán III was known as "el mozo," the younger, is the main source for deducing that he was a son of the elder Hernán II Martín Serrano. In 1628, Doña Ines was identified as the wife of Francisco "Pancho" Balón, an Indio Méxicano and blacksmith living in the Villa de Santa Fe; AGN, Inquisición, t. 304, f. 187. Balón was deceased by March 1631; AGN, Inquisición, t. 372, exp. 16, f. 8v.

F. There is yet no record uncovered that confirms the birthplace of Luis Martín Serrano, but it is presumed to be New Mexico since his father was a resident of New Mexico. Capitán Luis Martín Serrano submitted a petition dated October 29, 1661, to Governor don Bernardo López de Mendizábal requesting payment for some grain, and before the end of November 1661, Luis was deceased; AGN, Tierras, 3268, ff. 143-144. In April 1663, Governor López de Mendizábal made a reference to "the mestizo called Hernando Martín" and his brother, Luis Martín; AGN, Inquisition, t. 594, f. 181v. In December 1663, former Governor don Bernardo López de Mendizábal made a passing reference to "el Mestizo o Indio Luis Martin;" AGN, Inquisición, t. 594, f. 225v.

"Regarding the 68th charge, he [Don Bernardo López de Mendizábal] said that the charge against him is false, libelous, nor lewd, nor entitled as vita fratrum. After he heard this charge it came upon him that a mestizo named Hernando Martin, a buffoon and brother of another (whose name is Luis Martín, and not Diego, as was said), who is part of another charge against the defendant. This defendant heard it said, among other talk of nonsense, vita fratrum is here. And he heard this said, without this defendant having imagined it, because the said mestizo [Hernán] is of the same social quality as his brother [Luis], and very much out of favor with the Franciscan friars. This defendant prepared a report for the King, our lord, through his viceroy, and he recalls all of the conditions of the said provinces [of New Mexico], and among these the vexations and evil administration of the Franciscan friars." 

"Regarding charge number 159, he [Don Bernardo López de Mendizábal] said that the person, with regard to the referred to circumstance of the Apache woman, seems to be the Mestizo, or Indian, Luis Martin, whose social qualities this defendant has made clear, as well as the very inherent dependence with the [Franciscan friars], and he [Don Bernardo] expressly made his protestation in reviewing his memorial; and he [Don Bernardo] ordered [Luis Martín] placed in jail and shackled;……"

Sebastián Rodríguez de Salazar = Luisa Díaz de Betanzos

undocumented

Pedro Jurado de Gracia = Brianda de Salazar

 Agustín Romero = Isabel de Salazar

undocumented

Apolinario Martín Serrano 

2nd degree

Diego Martín Serrano 

3rd degree

Capitán Luis Martín passed muster in September 1680 after the Pueblo Indian uprising with his wife and twelve children, including four sons of military age, and he signed his account, indicating he was literate; Hackett, Revolt of the Pueblo Indians, I: 143. Capitán Luis Martín Martín Serrano Family Genealogy José Antonio Esquibel June 2012

Serrano gave his age as forty-eight in September 1681 (b.ca. 1633) and fifty in October 1681 (b.ca. 1631); Hackett, Revolt of the Pueblo Indians, II: 55 and 131. In the October 1681, his birthplace given as New Mexico and a physical description was recorded; see Gloria M. Valencia y Valdez and Francisco Sisneros, "Various Documents Relating to the Pueblo Revolt Period," Herencia (Quarterly Journal of the Hispanic Genealogical Research Center of New Mexico), 16:1 (January 2008), 43.

Luis Martín Serrano was described as a native of La Cañada by his son, Hernando Martín Serrano, in 1685; Chávez, "New Mexico Roots, Ltd.," 1092, DM 1685, September 27, no. 3, Corpus Christi de Isleta, New Mexico. Former Capitán Luis Martín gave his age as sixty in 1689 (b.ca. 1629) as a witness to the prenuptial investigation at El Paso del Río del Norte, New Mexico; Chávez, "New Mexico Roots, Ltd.," 1037, DM 1689, January, no. 8, El Paso del Norte. He was described as a mestizo by his son, Antonio Martín Serrano, in 1696; Chávez, "New Mexico Roots, Ltd.," 1094, DM 1696, no. 16, Santa Fe.

In 1684, his household consisted of himself and fourteen persons; AGN, Provincias Internas, t. 37 f. 53v. In December 1692, he and his second wife, Melchora de los Reyes, were accounted for in a census of settlers committed to going to the Villa de Santa Fe. Their household consisted of "three sons, and likewise, three daughters named Francisco Martín, twenty; Manuel, nine, Sebastián, six; Sebastiana, twenty; Catalina, fifteen, María de la Rosa, twelve; Catalina, nine, and Polonia, three;" Kessell, Hendricks, and Dodge, To the Royal Crown Restored, 40. In 1697, Luis Martín and Melchora de los Reyes were accounted for in the cattle distribution list with these children: Sebastiana [sic Sebastian?], María, Magdalena, Polonia, Manuel, Sebastiana, Antonia, and Petrona; see Kessell, Hendricks, and Dodge, Blood on the Boulders, 1141.

In 1703, Luis Martín provided testimony regarding the location of the camino real in the area of Santa Cruz and Chimayó, and gave his age as seventy-five (born circa 1628); Kessell, Hendricks, Dodge and Miller, A Settling of Accounts, 185-86. Luis Martín Serrano was deceased by 1707 when Melchora de los Reyes was listed as a widow in the 1707 census of the jurisdiction of Santa Cruz de la Cañada; see "1707 Census of Santa Cruz," in the New Mexico Genealogist, 28:1, 22.

Luis II Martín Serrano married (1) Antonia de Miranda, castiza, born at La Cañada, New Mexico; deceased by 1683. To my knowledge, there is yet no primary source uncovered that names the parents of Antonia de Miranda. Fray Angélico Chávez indicated that "perhaps" she was a daughter of Blas de Miranda and Juliana Pérez de Bustillo; Chávez, ONMF, 74. Antonia de Miranda was described as a native of La Cañada by her son, Hernando Martín Serrano, in 1685; Chávez, "New Mexico Roots, Ltd.," 1092, DM 1685, September 27, no. 3, Corpus Christi de Isleta, New Mexico. She was identified as being deceased in the prenuptial investigation record of her son, Francisco Martín Serrano, dated October 5, 1694; Chávez, "New Mexico Roots, Ltd." 1093, DM 1694, October 5, no. 8, Santa Fe. Her son, Antonio Martín Serrano, described her as a castiza (one parent being Spanish and one being mestizo/mestiza) and 

deceased in 1696; Chávez, "New Mexico Roots, Ltd.," 1094, DM 1696, no. 16, Santa Fe. Manuel Martín Serrano, a son by Luis Martín Serrano and his second wife, Melchora de los Reyes, was born circa 1683, indicating that Antonia de Miranda was deceased by that year; Kessell, Hendricks, and Dodge, To the Royal Crown Restored, 43 (Census of Settlers Committed to Going to Northern New Mexico December 1692-January 1693).

Luis II Martín Serrano married (2) circa 1673-1679, Melchora de los Reyes, born in New Mexico. Melchora de los Reyes was identified as a native of New Mexico by her daughter, Apolonia Martín, in 1722; Chávez, "New Mexico Roots, Ltd.," 692, DM 1722, June 8, no. 5, Santa Cruz. In December 1692, Melchora de los Reyes was listed with her husband, Capitán Luis Martín, in the census settlers committed to go to northern New Mexico; Kessell, Hendricks, and Dodge, To the Royal Crown Restored, 40. She and Luis Martín were also listed in the May 1697 cattle distribution census; Kessell, Hendricks, and Dodge, Blood on the Boulders, 1141. Melchora de los Reyes was listed as a widow in the 1707 census of the jurisdiction of Santa Cruz de la Cañada, "1707 Census of Santa Cruz," in the New Mexico Genealogist (Quarterly Journal of the New Mexico Genealogical Society) 28:1, 22.

Alférez Pedro Martín Serrano passed muster in September 1680 after the Pueblo Indian uprising with his wife and eight children, and he signed his account, indicating he was literate; Hackett, Revolt of the Pueblo Indians, I: 142.

Alférez Pedro Martín Serrano was accounted for as a soldier in a muster dated September 11, 1681, in which he gave his age as forty-six (b.ca. 1635); Hackett, Revolt of the Pueblo Indians, II: 56. In the October 1681 record of payments to settlers in which his age was given as forty-four (b.ca. 1637), his birthplace given as New Mexico, and a physical description was recorded; Gloria M. Valencia y Valdez and Francisco Sisneros, "Various Documents Relating to the Pueblo Revolt Period," Herencia (Quarterly Journal of the Hispanic Genealogical Research Center of New Mexico), 16:1 (January 2008), 42.

Pedro Martín was identified as holding the rank of alférez in the 1684 census of the district of El Paso del Río del Paso; AGN, México, Provincias Internas, t. 37, f. 55v. He was referred to as deceased when his son, Sebastián Martín, sought to marry María Luján in September 1694; Chávez, "New Mexico Roots, Ltd.," 1092, DM, 1691, September, no. 4a, El Paso del Río del Norte. Pedro Martín was referred to as a native of New Mexico by his son, Antonio Martín, in 1709; Chávez, "New Mexico Roots, Ltd.," 1098-99, DM 1709, no. 24, Santa Cruz. 

There were two men identified as Domingo Martín who passed muster in September 1680 after the Pueblo Indian uprising. One was Alférez Domingo Martín, married with two children and the other was Domingo Martín, married with five children and a servant; Hackett, Revolt of the Pueblo Indians, I: 142 and 146. One of these men was Domingo Martín Barba (b.ca. 1637) and the other was Domingo Martín Serrano (b.ca. 1649).

Domingo Martín Serrano was listed near Hernando III Martín Serrano on the September-October 1681 record of payments to settlers in which his age was given as thirty-two (born circa 1649), his birthplace given as New Mexico, and a physical description was recorded ("long face, thick beard, long black hair"); Gloria M. Valencia y Valdez and Francisco Sisneros, "Various Documents Relating to the Pueblo Revolt Period," Herencia (Quarterly Journal of the Hispanic Genealogical Research Center of New Mexico), 16:1 (January 2008), 42.

Domingo Martín Serrano married (1) Josefa de Herrera circa 1669-1673; she was born in New Mexico, daughter of Juana de los Reyes, and was still living in June 1714 but was deceased by 1725.80 Several prenuptial investigation records of Josefa de Herrera’s children confirm she was the wife of Domingo Martín Serrano. The oldest known child of Josefa de Herrera was born circa 1670-1674, indicating she married Domingo Martín Serrano around 1669-1673. In December 1692, she and her mother, Juana de los Reyes, were enumerated in the household of Domingo Martín Serrano as settlers willing to go to northern New Mexico; Kessell, Hendricks, and Dodge, To the Royal Crown Restored, 60. Josefa de Herrera was identified as a native of New Mexico by her daughter, Josefa Martín, as part of the prenuptial investigation when Josefa Martín sought to marry in 1719; Chávez, "New Mexico Roots, Ltd.," 29, DM 1719, Aug, no. 20, Santa Cruz. Josefa de Herrera and her husband, Domingo Martín, were godparents of a child of Miguel Martín and María de Archuleta that was baptized at Santa Cruz on June 30, 1714; AASF, Loose Documents, Roll #51, Santa Cruz, Baptisms, 1710-1721. Josefa de Herrera was deceased by April 1725 when Domingo Martín was referred to as a widower and sought to marry Juana Baptista; Chávez, "New Mexico Roots, Ltd.," 1105, DM 1725, April 15, no. 11, Santa Cruz.

K. John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks, Meredith D. Dodge, and Larry D. Miller, editors, A Settling of Accounts: The Journals of Don Diego de Vargas, New Mexico, 1700-1704 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002), 187; and Fray Angélico Chávez, "New Mexico Roots, Ltd.," 1037, DM 1689, January, no. 5. El Paso.

L. In September 1680, Apolinar Martín was accounted for among the survivors of the August 1680 Pueblo Indian uprising with his wife (not named) and two children (not named), and he was able to sign his name to the account; Hackett, Revolt of the Pueblo Indians, II: 145. Apolinar Martín was listed near Luis Martín Serrano, el mozo, and Cristóbal Martín Serrano, both sons of Capitán Luis Martín Serrano, in the September-October 1681 record of payments to settlers in which his age was given as thirty-seven, his birthplace given as New Mexico, and a physical description was recorded; Gloria M. Valencia y Valdez and Francisco Sisneros, "Various Documents Relating to the Pueblo Revolt Period," Herencia (Quarterly Journal of the Hispanic Genealogical Research Center of New Mexico), 16:1 (January 2008), 40. He was identified as Apolinar Martín Serrano in the prenuptial investigation record of his son, Diego Martín Serrano; Chávez, "New Mexico Roots, Ltd.," 1093, DM July 7, no. 6, Real de San Lorenzo.

Apolinar Martín Serrano married Antonia González Bas.103 She was identified as the wife of Apolinar Martín in two records. The first is the baptismal record of their daughter, Ángela, dated October 10, 1680, Guadalupe del Paso; see John B. Colligan, compiler, "Spanish Surnames Found in the First Book of Baptisms of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe del Paso del Río del Norte, 1662-1688."consisting of extractions from the original book of baptisms for Guadalupe del Paso made by Walter V. McLaughlin, Jr. for his thesis, August 1962, Texas Western College (now the University of Texas at El Paso/UTEP). The second record is the prenuptial record of their son, Diego Martín Serrano; Chávez, "New Mexico Roots, Ltd.," 1093, DM July 7, no. 6, Real de San Lorenzo. 

M. On May 24, 1632, Hernán Martín, mestizo, gave his age as twenty-five (b.ca. 1607); AGN, Inquisición, t. 304, f. 1845. On March 7, 1662, Capitán Hernán Martín Serrano declared he was a native of the Villa de Santa Fe and gave his age fifty-six (b.ca. 1606); AGN, México, Inquisición, t. 593, f. 288r. On June 1, 1675, Capitán Hernán Martín Serrano, declared he was sixty-eight years old (b.ca. 1607); AGN, Inquisición, t. 629, exp. 2, f.127r. Capitán Hernán Martín Serrano passed muster in October1680 after the Pueblo Indian uprising with his wife, children and grandchildren, giving his age as over eighty, and he signed his account, indicating he was literate; Hackett, Revolt of the Pueblo Indians, I: 157. In October 1681, Capitán Hernando Martín Serrano was accounted for among the settlers who received payment for their basic needs and was described as having "a good stature, is robust, with a gray beard and partly gray hair, a film over his left eye, and is seventy-seven years of age," and he signed his name to the record; Hackett, Revolt of the Pueblo Indians, I: 128.

N. On March 7, 1662, in the Villa de Santa Fe, Capitán Hernán Martín Serrano named his wife as Isabel de Monuera; AGN, México, Inquisición, t. 593, f. 288r.

O. On June 1, 1675, at Galisteo, Capitán Hernán Martín Serrano, declared he was married with María de Madrid; AGN, Inquisición, t. 629, exp. 2, f.127r.

P. To my knowledge, there is yet no record uncovered that identifies María Martín de Monuera as a daughter of Hernán III Martín Serrano and Isabel de Monuera. Her extended surname strongly suggests she was a daughter of this couple. On March 9, 1662, Bartolomé de Ledesma, age forty-three, more or less (b.ca. 1619), and a vecino of the Villa de Santa Fe, declared he was married with María Martín de Monuera; AGN, México, Inquisición, t. 593, ff. 292-94. Fray Angélico Chávez suggested that Bartolomé de Ledesma may have been the same person as Bartolomé de Salazar. However, Salazar's wife, known only as María, was already a widow in 1662, and Chávez writes that Salazar "died prior to 1662;" Chávez, ONMF, 101.

Q. To my knowledge, there is yet no record uncovered that identifies Juan Martín Serrano as a son of Hernán III Martín Serrano. Juan Martín Serrano was twice referred to as a mestizo by fray Juan Bernal in a letter date April 1, 1669 and another letter dated July 10, 1670. Charles Wilson Hackett, Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya and Approaches Thereto, to 1773 (Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1927), III: 178, and 272-74, and 275, citing AGN, México, Inquisición, t. 666, ff. 375 and 380.

S. Ines Martín Serrano was apparently a namesake of doña Ines, the mother of Hernán III Martín Serrano. She and her husband, Domingo Luján, were residing at El Paso del Río del Norte as early as April 1680 where one of the children, Gertrudis, was baptized on April 20; see John B. Colligan, compiler, "Spanish Surnames Found in the First Book of Baptisms of  Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe del Paso del Río del Norte, 1662-1688," consisting of extractions from the original book of baptisms for Guadalupe del Paso made by Walter V. McLaughlin, Jr. for his thesis, August 1962, Texas Western College (now the University of Texas at El Paso/UTEP). The second record is the prenuptial record of their son, Diego Martín Serrano; Chávez, "New Mexico Roots, Ltd.," 1093, DM July 7, no. 6, Real de San Lorenzo.

There is a baptismal record that was extracted by Margaret Buxton for a girl christened Josepha, baptized April 12, 1657, San José del Parral, posthumous daughter of Doña Francisca de Ariatia, "widow of Hernán Martín Serrano, who was a vecino of the Villa de Santa Fe." It is not clear from the record if this Hernán was the same person as Hernán II Martín Serrano came to New Mexico with Oñate or possibly a grandson, being a previously unknown son of either Hernán III Martín Serrano or his brother Luis Martín Serrano. There is not yet enough documentation to confirm which Hernán Martin Serrano was married with Doña Francisca de Ariatia, who was widowed by April 1657 and gave birth to Josepha out of wedlock. Josepha was most likely not a daughter of Hernán Martín Serrano since the record clearly identified her as a "daughter of Doña Francisca de Ariatia, widow of Hernán Martín Serrano" and not as the daughter of Doña Francisca and Hernán.

CUENTOS

'Miracle Story of Faith' by Julia Greiner

Love and God Bless to all.
If I receive an excess of money, know that it will be spent entirely on the Franciscans. 

BIOGRAPHY OF AMANDO SAENZ
Part 9 of 9

Closing Remarks

1931-Present
Written By: Samuel Saenz 10/28/2011 Co-Edited By: Tomas and Antonio Saenz

In his matured old age, Amando likes to kick back and have a beer and reflect on his philosophical values and outlook on life. In order to fully understand his spoken words and comments, one has to listen very closely to fully grasp the meaning of his delivered message.

On financial issues, he has developed a negative view of bankers and their money transactions. He has seen the banks fail in the 1930's, 2008 and now during the pending Global Crisis of 2011. He does not trust banks and avoids them as much as possible. He knows that he needs banks to operate his business and has now reduced his transactions to one bank. If it were possible he would prefer to keep his money hidden inside an old mattress. He keeps up with current business events and knows what is happening politically. In his natural state of being a self made businessman he constantly maintains his guard by keeping his ear to the ground. In addition he is always looking out at the horizons for signs of coming trouble and is ready to implement defensive measures when needed.

On billing statements, he likes to review them in depth and defends himself brilliantly by demanding they get off his account. He does not accept unapproved charges, especially with the cell phone companies. He dislikes their billing charge practices and penalty requirements. In one or two occasions he walked into the main office, dropped off his cell phone and billing statement and quickly walked out stating “get out of my account I am not going to pay you”. For several years he went around without a cell phone. Finally family members got him a cell phone and he accepted it only because of his security and health needs.

He likes to make fun and laugh at the young generations on matters dealing with emotional upheavals as they related to work and finances. Once in awhile when he hears a sad story that a person is depressed and appears to be lost in the jungle his first comment is “DEPRESSED!! WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? I do not know what that means, I am always busy working and I never have had that problem.” He seems to be saying that if you get out and work hard and stay busy, your depression problem will go away.

Another favorite theme that he likes to dwell on is in the area of personal finance problems involving money management issues which are presented to him to solve or for him to pay. His favorite advice and comment is: “you really do not have a problem, all you have to do is think like I do and you will solve your problem”. He likes to comment out loud and state “I don't understand these people, HOW COME THEY DONT'T THINK THE WAY I DO?” Here again, Amando is expressing his long life proven advice that “If you hunker down, and bite the bullet and manage your money affairs correctly, the problems will be resolved.

With regards to religion or family bonding matters, Amando has seldom commented on these subjects. During his childhood development days he was out on the streets chasing sailors or picking cotton, instead of attending church school. He was never taught to express brotherly love through verbal speech. Consequently in our large family, the love we shared was based on built in instincts. We cared and protected each other and operated as a group through our bonding love. Nothing needed to be said or declared, it was a totally understood commitment and we all shared the same feeling. Throughout this presentation of Amando’s life, the record clearly shows that his actions and deeds (in support of his brothers and sisters and of his immediate family) are superior to any written or verbally expressed statement. His powerful demonstration or declaration of his love for the family is manifested in his life style and value system. We all know that he has limitations and hang ups just like our old Tio Jose and the rest of us. In order to appreciate our human limitations let us consider the words of wisdom stated by a famous English writer (Alexander Pope) “To err is human and to forgive is Divine”. We human beings are not perfect and Amando says it all in his famous philosophical statement “HOW COME THEY DON’T THINK THE WAY I DO?” Truly, it can be said that Amando's secret weapon for being a winner was his strong and determined character as it had no limits.

                                                                                                           2011 Amando

Finally, on his eightieth birthday, we the brothers and sisters who shared Amando’ life would like to wish him Happy Birthday!!! And may he live more years. Furthermore Amando, we would like to recommend that you keep doing the things that make you happy and to be forceful on your wishes. At the same time, always be ready to forgive those that may trespass against you. Each one of us, in our own way, have advanced a prayer to the almighty, asking Him to keep blessing Amando and to preserve his health for a prolong life. We are asking our big brother to accept and believe that Jesus Christ is his lord savior. 

As it is written, “WHOSOEVER LIVETH AND BELIEVETH IN ME SHALL NEVER DIE” amen.

Picture of Samuel and Santos Saenz Family

1961

Front Row: Samuel Saenz & Santos Saenz

2nd Row (Left to Right) Antonio, Olivia, Brijida, Irma, Zulema, & Roberto

3rd Row (Left to Right) Samuel, Tomas, Amando, Rogelio, Leonardo, & David

Missing from picture: Deceased sisters Hercilia and Maria Elva

This request was sent to me by Tomas, a Board member of the Society of Hispanic Historical and Ancestral Research.

Please consider publishing in "Somos Primos" this living biography of our oldest brother, Amando Saenz Gonzalez, written by our second oldest brother, Samuel Saenz Jr. who grew up alongside Amando and was the first witness to his life story. You have in the past, written several articles (Dec. 2007, Dec. 2008, March 2011, Nov. 2010) on our family and this biography is a continuation of our story. It is the biography of Amando, but it also reveals the story and struggles of a migrant family of the 1940's and 50's and their ultimate success. Including a few pictures, the document is 44 pages long and so I have divided up into nine (9) sections as noted in red-please consider publishing it as a series. Best wishes!  Tomas 'Tom' Saenz Gonzalez

Editor:  Including the story of  Amando's life has been very touching to me.  The love of the family one for another, the leadership that Amando displayed, and the overcoming of poverty with such class and dignity was an inspiration.  Do lift your spirits by  reading all the previous parts, which reveal his unfolding strength and character.  January 2012 was the first chapter of Amando's story. www.SomosPrimos.com.  

FAMILY HISTORY RESEARCH

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