“I feel like maybe if I knew more, I would feel more prideful
of it and not ever try to dissociate from it rather than embracing
it,” said de Hoyos, a high school calculus teacher in Austin.
“… To be honest, I continue to struggle with that.”
De Hoyos’ experience is not an anomaly, even in a majority Mexican American city such as San Antonio. Despite the city’s long history of Mexican Americans fighting for increased pay, better education opportunities, and voting rights, those stories haven’t been formally collected and documented.
Retired educator Paul Ruíz spent the last several years gathering support for the new National Institute of Mexican American History of Civil Rights, which will document the historic social justice efforts of Mexican Americans in San Antonio and South Texas and educate people about their contributions through interactive panels, traveling exhibitions, and other means.
City Council in September allocated $500,000 in startup funding to the institute, with an initial $250,000 included in the 2020 City budget. The institute is eligible for another $250,000 in 2021, pending another City Council vote.
Because of the institute’s focus on Mexican American civil rights history, Ruiz believes it will be the first of its kind in the country.
“It speaks loudly that we can go to school in a place like Bexar County and not know anything about Mexican American contributions, Mexican American heroes, Mexican American struggles,” said Ruíz, who serves as the institute’s board chairman.
Although Texas last year set state standards for a Mexican American Studies course and more local schools are offering it, his hope is that the institute will educate people of all racial and cultural backgrounds about those topics while also highlighting the major role San Antonio has played in Mexican American civil rights history.
“It’s almost like we’ve kept [our history] in the closet,” Ruíz said. “I hope the institute opens the closet so that all of us can embrace this beautiful, untold history.”
From my own personal experience, the battle to rewrite history
started in 1968 when I worked for Dr. Hubert J. Miller, history
professor and chairman of the History Department at St. Mary's
University. I had my small table in the corner and behind his desk
in a little office on the second floor of the Richter Family
Math-Engineering Building. Working for him was an invaluable
learning experience. The topic that was foremost in his mind and
that he discussed with me on a daily basis was how he planned to
incorporate the study of the Mexican American history and heritage
into the course of History 201--U.S. History to 1877. I typed the
six-page syllabus which contained four pages of bibliography.
WASHINGTON—Michelle
Malkin, author and political commentator, was inspired to write her
newest book after caravans of migrants from Central America began
piling illegally across the U.S.–Mexico border in November 2018.
Malkin
names hundreds of nonprofit groups and churches, with billion-dollar
budgets, that are involved in eliminating America’s borders and
creating a global governance. She names corporations, Silicon Valley
CEOs, and Hollywood elites who push for a borderless America, and
the liberal media that she says is complicit. She calls hedge fund
billionaire George Soros the CEO of “Open Borders Inc.”
“Many
of them [are] either subsidized by George Soros or ensconced in
far-left law schools. [They] go down to the border and are providing
a plethora of ‘Know Your Rights’ seminars, essentially coaching
people to undermine the integrity of our asylum system by giving
them fake stories,” she said.
Jeff
Nyquist, an author and researcher of Chinese and Russian
strategy, said corruption is the “overriding element”
governing why Beijing is engaging in drug warfare. He told The
Epoch Times that the fentanyl trafficking ultimately leads to
the infiltration of the United States.
Para
un viajero curioso, la historia de los Estados Unidos de América es
también un relato de caminos y fronteras. Referente por ejemplo a
la presencia europea, una de sus páginas más tempranas y
fascinantes son las rutas españolas que se extendían por toda
América del Norte. Iban desde los límites de México hasta la
frontera canadiense y Alaska por el norte, y transversalmente
atravesando el país desde la Florida hasta California.
Descended
from blooded Spanish/Mexican stock originally brought to the New
World by way of seed stock from the Caribbean breeding stations, the
Wilbur-Cruce breed is a fragile, yet healthy, well documented
remnant reaching back to the Mexican ranch and missionary breeding
programs of the 1700 and 1800's that were based in what is now the
American southwest. The last remaining horses trace to an Arizona
ranch established in 1885 with Mexican stock from Father Francisco
Eusibio Kino from his historic Rancho Delores in Sonora, Mexico DNA
Genetic markers for the Garrano of Portugal, the Arabian of the
Middle East, the Turkomen of Central Asia, and the Caspian Horse of
Persia are common ancient markers still found in the Wilbur-Cruce
horses. Weighing in between 700-800 pounds and ranging from 13 to
nearly 15 hands, the three distinct types originally brought to
Mexico by the Spanish survive today - the athletic Barb ranch
working type, the more refined jennet riding horse, and the bold
Carthusian/Villano warhorse type in a wide color pallet that
includes most solid colors as well as tobiano, overo, and sabino.
Numbering less than 150, the range of the Wilbur-Cruce is restricted
to California and the American Southwest.
)
Hector
Perez Garcia, M.D. 
I
proceeded to my dorm (Charles Francis Hall) where I stayed from 1967
until 1970. The outside of the building looks the same but the
inside has been totally remodeled. For instance, I went down the
hall of the first floor to check for my Room 107 and instead I found
a classroom that took the place of several dorm rooms. And then, I
went up the third floor where we had a television set with plenty of
comfortable chairs and instead I found an art studio. I then
realized that Charles Francis Hall is no longer a residence hall.
Then, I walked over to the Father Louis J. Blume Library and to the
Richter Math-Engineering Center, which at one time housed the
history department, and where I worked in the afternoons as part of
the work-study program. 
What would I give to just hear my madrecita's voice one more
time. Sadly, she closed her eyes for the last
time on December 31, 2003, at 11:01 P.M. She was only 76 years
old. Just a few days before, on December 21, on a Sunday afternoon,
I had an emergency quintuple bypass surgery. And of all the days in
the year, on my Dad's birthday, December 23, Mamá was admitted to
the same hospital where I was staying (St. Luke's hospital in San
Antonio), with congested heart failure. My Dad had passed away in
1997. My mother and I spent Christmas together at the hospital. We
were just a few feet away from each other. She was in the Intensive
Care Unit and I had just been moved to a
room. A few days after I was discharged to go home and
start my convalescing, while she stayed in the hospital. On New
Year's Eve, I received the sad news from my niece. I do miss her
terribly. I never realized the profundity and the unselfish
love Mamá had for me. She and I were very close. I was her "consentido,"
maybe because while she was in labor, the mid-wife saved my life.
Instead of coming out normal, I somehow got twisted inside the
placenta and ended up feet first. The umbilical cord got tangled
around my head and neck. 
I'm
Tomás Summers Sandoval, a Chicano from Southern California,
associate professor of Chicanx/Latinx Studies and History at Pomona
College, and the author of Latinos at the Golden Gate (2013). You
can learn more about me and my work at my website." 
The
history of Mexican Americans spans more than five centuries and
varies from region to region across the United States. Yet most of
our history books devote at most a chapter to Chicano history, with
even less attention to the story of Chicanas.
`Memoria de España' is a documentary series of 27 chapters, each of
around 50 minutes run-time, produced by RTVE, the Spanish State TV
Network, screened at prime-time following the main evening news
bulletin, and doing very well in its ranking of audience share.
Maria Amparo Ruiz was born in 1832, in Loreto, Baja California.
She was a young teenager when she saw U.S. military forces invade
her homeland during the U.S.-Mexico War of 1846-48. That
life-changing episode was forever etched in her mind as it was for
every Californio.
Please note that Maria lived in our nation’s capital during the
turbulent Civil War and reconstruction years. It was also a time in
the U.S. when Spanish Mexican Mestizo and Native American people
were disparaged through deep-rooted hateful rhetoric driven by
Presidents Andrew Jackson and James K. Polk, and Senator John C.
Calhoun. However, Maria Amparo aptly held her own and, as mentioned
above, her societal contacts included a close relationship with Mary
Todd Lincoln.
Of consolation is the fact that Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton was a
true trailblazer who fought back. She sounded the alarm by
courageously recording that “liberty and justice for all” didn’t
apply equally across the board in the U.S.
Thought
you might like this.....My Dad, Rodney Leslie Crump, was a woodcarver, as a
hobby until he did it full time after retiring from
business. He was a member of a Guild and frequently exhibited
at fairs and community events. He enjoyed sharing his skill
and knowledge.
Mario
Villanueva is the newly appointed executive director of the Washington
State Catholic Conference (WSCC). Villanueva will lead advocacy efforts
and represent the bishops of the Archdiocese of Seattle, the Diocese of
Spokane and the Diocese of Yakima on public policy matters.
I
was thrilled to have a front-row seat at a recent performance by Gabriel
Ayala, award-winning, internationally known and acclaimed classical
guitarist. He played for Pope Benedict XVI at the 2012 canonization of
Saint Kateri Tekakwitha (the first Native American to achieve sainthood)
as well as at President Obama’s 2013 inauguration. And he has shared
the stage with Motown living legends The Four Tops, The Temptations,
Richie Havens, and many others.
Although
Gabriel has received many awards and is internationally acclaimed,
humility is a prominent character trait. In an interview with a New
Mexico newspaper, Ayala noted that, “When I’m at ceremonies, I cut
wood just like anyone else and when it comes time to pray, I’m there,
just like everyone else who prays for a better tomorrow.” (Ruidoso
News, “Gabriel Ayala of the Yaqui will perform Feb. 17 at Sacred
Grounds,” Feb. 12, 2018) Gabriel’s humility comes from his
upbringing. Raised by his grandmother on the Pascua Yaqui reservation
outside of Tucson, Arizona, he owned only one pair of shoes at a time,
which he took off after school so as not to wear them out. With 16 aunts
and uncles on his mother’s side and 11 on his father’s side, and 100
first cousins, Gabriel says he may have been poor regarding material
things, but he was a millionaire when it came to family.
Ayala
performs at an historic center… The controversy over the golf course
led to the creation of the El Rio Neighborhood Center. It’s
fitting that “proud Yaqui” Gabriel Ayala performed at the historic
El Rio Neighborhood Center. This center is the product of a long
struggle of the Chicano community against the City of Tucson, a struggle
rooted in our community’s quest for self-determination. The city (via
the Mayor and Council) had promised to build a community center in
Barrio Hollywood and Barrio El Rio but then reneged on its promise. The
community (under the auspices of the El Rio Coalition and the banner
“El Rio for the People”) took the city to task over this betrayal,
and after months of pickets, marches, rallies, and confrontations
involving arrests, the community won, and the El Rio Neighborhood Center
was built right where Barrio Hollywood and Barrio El Rio intersect. The
Old Pascua Yaqui Village community was an integral component of the
“El Rio for the People” movement. [I was involved in this struggle
and was arrested several times during the struggle.]
True
to its activist history, Barrio Hollywood has a robust neighborhood
association that continues to fight for the well-being of the barrio
residents. The association sponsors an annual Art Show that highlights
barrio talent as well as a monthly Open Mic at which barrio residents and
others can recite poetry, perform musically, etc. This year they combined
the Art Show with the Open Mic. Gabriel was one of the Open Mic
performers. He explained that he has a deep affection and respect for Open
Mics because that is where he performed when he started out and was
building his career. Thus, he still performs at Open Mics associated with
causes and groups he supports.
The
Yaquis are a huge cultural and economic force in the Tucson-Southern
Arizona area. Their Easter ceremonies draw tens of thousands of people to
Old Pascua, to Barrio Libre (another Yaqui community), and to the
Reservation. With its two casinos, Resort hotel, and professional-grade
golf course, the tribe’s economic footprint is immense. The tribe
employs hundreds of people, who stimulate the local economy by way of
purchases and retail taxes, etc. and purchases goods from local vendors,
which also generates tax revenues and supports many local jobs. The tribe
also contributes generously to local schools and non-profit organizations
and projects. Indeed, Tucson is fortunate to have the Yaquis in its midst.
Jesús
Mena is the son of undocumented Mexican immigrants from the Rio
Grande Valley. He was a prize-winner in the UC-Irvine Chicano
Literary Contest. His stories won first prize in the San Miguel de
Allende Writers' Conference. He served as managing editor of the
anthology, "201:Homenaje a la Ciudad de Los Angeles." His
columns and commentaries have been published in the Los Angeles
Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Oakland Tribune, Hispanic Link, and
aired on NPR's All Things Considered. His oral history of pioneer
immigrant activist Bert Corona is featured in Latinx Los Angeles:
Nonfiction Dispatches from a Decolonial Rebellion. Mena worked as a
journalist for the Brownsville Herald, Orange County Register and
Oakland Tribune and was director of communications at UC-Berkeley
and the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government.
There
is a corner house located one and a half blocks from our house in
San Antonio and every time we drive by there to get to Medina Base
Road and then on to Loop 410, I always admire an awesome, very old
Oak tree because it reminds me of the poem, "Trees," by
Joyce Kilmer. I may not remember the entire poem at my age now, but
some lines do come through from my subconscious to my cognitive
mental faculties. You may ask, why this particular poem? Well, when
I was in the fourth grade with Sister M. Emmanuel at St. Augustine
School, she made the whole class memorize this poem. There were
about forty students in the class and each one of us had to stand in
front of the class and recite "Trees" by Joyce Kilmer. 
"Trees" by Joyce Kilmer
All
these years since the publication of my award
winning political biography, Border
Boss: Manuel B. Bravo and Zapata County,
in April of 1999 by Texas A&M University
Press, I never thought that there would be a
connection with my book and the Texas Almanac.
One day while we were enjoying our stay in our
cottage in Zapata, I did a cursory review of
the books in our vast personal library.
Many of the books belong to us and others were
given to us by Jo Emma's parents, knowing how
much I love to read. In particular, the
one book that caught my attention was an old Texas
Almanac, 2002-2003, which I had not
had the opportunity to glance through it
before. Now, I made the time to review
it. I found some interesting Texas
trivia that we all know, for example, the
State Flower is the bluebonnet; the State Bird
is the mockingbird; and the State Tree is the
pecan tree. What I did not know was that
the State Dish is the Chili; the State Fiber
and Fabric is Cotton; the State Fish is the
Guadalupe bass; the State Fruit is the Texas
red grapefruit; the State Insect is the
Monarch butterfly; the State Musical
instrument is the guitar; the State Native
Pepper is the chiltepin; the State Plant is
the prickly pear cactus; and the State Pepper
is the Jalapeño pepper; and so on.
Pause
for a few seconds and consider the times in your
life when you have stood still and stared in
amazement and awe. Perhaps it was a
breathtaking sunrise or sunset, an encounter with a
wild animal, a peaceful lake, or the beauty of wild
flowers in the brush country of South Texas.
Were you struck silent by the sight? Well,
that is the awesome feeling I felt when Jo Emma and
I stood next to the steel cross on a cloudy
Wednesday afternoon of May 29, 2019. The
cross, which is the centerpiece of the Coming King
Sculpture Prayer Garden, is seventy-seven feet and
seven inches tall and weighs seventy tons and is
situated on top of a hill overlooking the town of
Kerrville and the Texas Hill County.
“Like
Panama, the country of her childhood, Bessy Reyna’s poems provide
a channel, a way to bridge east and west by reconciling the warring
needs of the body, the mind and the heart. Whether Reyna is dancing
with a stalk of sugar cane in Hartford, Connecticut, or in her
birthplace of Cuba, poem after poem is as lively as a salsa. Like
chewing sugar cane, her poems ultimately reward with their hard-won
sweetness, with the taste that leaves us wanting more.” —Vivian
Shipley
Hartford
Stage is opening the 2019-2020 season with the play “Quixote Nuevo”
by Octavio Solis. And, this can be considered a homecoming
celebration for him, because in 2009, Yale Rep in New Haven,
presented “Lydia” A very moving story about a Mexican family
living on the border of the USA and Mexico in Texas in 1970. Lydia
is the young undocumented maid who takes care of Ceci, a teenager
who is severely brain-damaged in a car accident. In her review in
the New York Times, Anita Gates wrote that Lydia was an accurate
portrait of people in pain. By now, Solis is the author of numerous
plays, among them are “Man of the Flesh,” Pastures of Heaven,”
“La Posada Mágica,” “El Paso Blue,” “Santos & Santos,”
“El Otro,” “Prospect,” which in 2004, was also made into a
movie directed by Solis, and others. “Quixote Nuevo” was
commissioned by Bill Rauch artistic director of the Oregon
Shakespeare Festival.
Steven
G. Kellman, gets to the essence of “Retablos” in his review in
the Texas Observer, when he writes that “Retablos” recounts “a
beautiful, messy youth on the border.” One of my favorite stories
in the book is “First Day.” It describes the day when his father
takes him to work at the “locally famous taco joint” where he
works as a day cook. As I read it, I kept seeing it as a short film,
because of the descriptions of the place, the workers, and the
intense friendships they develop with each other.
BR:
You participated in the production of Pixar’s animated film “Coco.”
Not only by being the voice of the “arrivals agent” but also as
one of the three cultural consultants hired to ensure the
authenticity of the story. Was this your first time working in
animation? Did you expect this film with an all-Latino cast to be
such a record-breaking film earning over 800 million dollars?
Our mother, Lydia
Thornton Moore, served in the 6888th Central Postal Directory
Battalion during WWII. The 6888th was the only all African
American Women's Army Corps battalion to be deployed
overseas. 
S
Según el tratado matrimonial, María sería reina de Inglaterra por
derecho propio y Reina Consorte de España; Felipe, en tanto, Rey de
España y Rey Consorte de Inglaterra pero ninguno de los dos podría
ejercer autoridad sobre el reino del otro. Felipe viviría en Inglaterra
junto a su séquito español el tiempo que considerara oportuno, pero
tenía prohibido colocar españoles en puestos estratégicos de la Corte
de los Tudor.
A los 37 años, María Tudor era muy culta. Hablaba y escribía en
latín y en francés y comprendía el castellano, sabía de arte y
religión, pero resultaba ser también una anciana arrugada, flaca, sin
cejas, ojos pálidos, amargada, resentida, de voz masculina, de gesto
enérgico, testaruda, violenta hasta la crueldad y con todos los dientes
rotos. En palabras de un historiador, era “auténticamente fea”.
La reina le pidió una y otra vez su regreso, pero Felipe le anunció
que sólo lo haría cuando sea coronado Rey de Inglaterra, cosa que el
Parlamento jamás consentiría. La felicidad de María desapareció de
su rostro y, recluida en sus aposentos, rara vez volvió a participar de
la vida cortesana. Felipe II volvió a Inglaterra durante algunas
semanas en 1557 y fueron las últimas que pasó con su esposa.
==
Since when does the United Nations dictate what
countries can say and do within their borders. The
Netherlands has taken a stand against the Islamic influx
that has been sweeping through the country. Officials
from the United Nations have stated that there is “no
place” for a ban on garments that cover the faces of
people in a tolerant society. The legality of such a ban
lies strictly in the hands of the Netherlands
government. If that country wants to ban certain things,
then the United Nations has no right to interfere.
Running into its eighth week as I write, `Memoria de España' is a documentary series of 27 chapters, each of around 50 minutes run-time, produced by RTVE, the Spanish State TV Network, screened at prime-time following the main evening news bulletin, and doing very well thank you in its ranking of audience share.
The concept is enormous: a chronological account of the history of the Iberian Peninsula since the absolute beginnings, through paleolithic times to the modern day. One might well argue how can you possibly get all that in 27 episodes! Evidently, then, a lot of streamlining has had to be carried out, many features are covered rather hurriedly perhaps, and there is no possibility of lengthily dwelling on any subject matter. To do so would have needed at least 54 episodes, and in the end would probably have added very little in terms of interest for the general public.
I am no historian: I mix up all those historical kings of the past as easily as anyone else. However, `Memoria de España' has been enthralling from the outset. Captivating, absorbing, as the beautifully filmed scenes with digital special effects pass before your eyes, accompanied by atmospheric music, and narrated by an excellent female voice. Actors are used mostly without dialogues showing us how they lived in their caves in Santillana del Mar and Atapuerca, among other places, the early civilisation of the Tartars followed by Carthaginians and the Romans and on to the Moorish invasion and settlement called Al-Andalús.
The photography is superb, covering just about every corner of Spain and parts of Portugal: ancient heaps of rubble and remains of ruined castles jump to life as the enacted scenes take place.
`Memoria de España is up there alongside such afamed series as Carl Sagan's `Cosmos' (1980) (qv) - and you cannot go much higher than that.
Evidently this series might be rather less interesting for people living in other parts of the world, except for those people who have a special feeling for Spain and its culture. However, it should be said that here there are excellent possibilities for practising your Spanish, and as such is highly recommendable, for example, in schools for children of about 14-18 years of age.
The series has been divided up into several parts such that specialist historians are responsible for different periods of time and special emphasis has been laid on maintaining criteria in the maximum authenticity possible.
Some years ago I had the cheek to write to RTVE complaining that they had no right to bombard the people with endless stupidities, trivialities, and other fare for brainless viewing time, in the silly attempt to compete with the other independent commercial channels. I said that if RTVE returned to more serious TV programming people would little by little realise the honesty of something that is worth watching and abandon the mindlessness of trivial garbage, such that audience loss would be negligible, basically because not all the people are perfect idiots all the time.
`Memoria de España' has proved my point: hopefully The high lords of RTVE will take note.