NOVEMBER  2003
Editor: Mimi Lozano mimilozano@aol.com ©2000-3
Many pictures, slow download, right-click on red "X" of missing picture, then left-click on "show picture"

  
Dedicated to Hispanic Heritage & Diversity Issues
          Publication of the Society of Hispanic Historical & Ancestral Research 
http://members.aol.com/shhar  714-894-8161

      Six Musket Salute to 
General Bernardo de Gálvez


Content Areas

United States
. . . . . . . . . . 4
Bernardo de Galvez
. . . . 30
Surname: Acosta
. . . . . . . 41
Orange County, CA
. . . . . 43
Los Angeles, CA
. . . . . . . 49
California
. . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Northwestern US
 
. . . . . . .70
Southwestern US
. . . . . . .78
Black
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Indigenous
. . . . . . . . . . . 87
Sephardic
. . . . . . . . . . . . 89















October 12, 2003
Long Beach, California

 

Texas   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
East of the Mississippi . . . 102
East Coast  . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Mexico
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
International
. . . . . . . . . . . 122
History
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .127
Archaeology
. . . . . . . . . . 133
Family History
. . . . . . . . . 135
Miscellaneous
. . . . . . . . . 136
2003 Index
Community
Calendars
Networking 



If Spain had not existed 400 years ago 
the United States would not exist today. 

Historian, Charles F. Lummis

Somos Primos Staff: 
Mimi Lozano, Editor
John P. Schmal, 
Johanna de Soto, 
Howard Shorr
Armando Montes
Michael Stevens Perez
Rina Dichoso-Dungao, Ph.D.
Salena Ashton
Contributors: 

Carol Adams-Ramos 
Judge Fredrick Aguirre
Jess J. Araujo, Esq.
Salena Ashton
Gail Ballard
Joyce Basch
Jerry Benavides
Lic.Roberto Calderon
Bill Carmena 
Peter Carr
Dennis V. Carter
Ricardo Castañon
Rebecca Catz
Lynette Chapa
Harry Crosby
Raul Damas
Joan De Soto
Rina Dungao, Ph.D.
Mickey Margot Garcia
George Gause 
Eddie Grijalva
Teresa Guerro-Daley
Dagmar Hernandez
Lorraine Hernandez
Steven Hernandez
Ing. Emma Rosa O. de Herrera
John Inclan
Granville Hough, Ph.D.
Nellie Kaniski
Amanda Keil
David Lewis
Daniel A. Olivas
Gloria Oliver  
Mary Lou Montagna
Armando Montes
PaulNewfield III
Lic. Guillermo Padilla Origel
Lic.Roberto José Pérez Guadarrama
Elsa Valdez
Cindy LoBuglio 
Elsa Pena Herbeck
Lupita C. Ramirez
Robert Rios
Emily Robinson
Lic.Salvador Sosa Carabaño
Howard Shorr
Mira Smithwick
Dr. Andres Tijerina
Ninfa Trejo
Lic.José Luis Vázquez  
Carlos V. Vega, Ph.D.
J.D. Villarreal
Tom Ascensio Villarreal
SHHAR Board:  Laura Arechabala Shane, Bea Armenta Dever, Bill Doty,  Steven Hernandez,  Mimi Lozano Holtzman, Henry Marquez, Carlos Olvera, Crispin Rendon, Viola Rodriguez Sadler, and John P. Schmal.  
The SHHAR Board is proud to announce the publication of its 5th Genealogical Journal. The first Journal was published in 1994.  After a break of several years, Steven F. Hernández the editor of the new publication volunteered for the task.. He has compiled an outstanding diverse assortment 
of studies, including the long awaited research of  Tony Campos.  Congratulations. . . Steven. .
 

 5th
Genealogical
Journal  
is
 now available
2003

TABLE OF CONTENTS for the SHHAR Genealogical Journal, Volume V

Bernardo de Gálvez by Robert H. Thonhoff ........................................................................  1

Some Periods in the Life of General Bernardo de Gálvez by Granville Hough........................  7 

Blasones y Apellidos: Gálvez by Fernando Muñoz Altea ..................................................... 11

Lasting Legacy of Insurgent General Pedro Moreno de Ortega y González de
Hermosillo: A Biographical, Historical, and Genealogical Study by Steven F. Hernández ...... 13 

Archivo de la Parroquia del Carmen y Abasolo, Nuevo León: Confirmaciones, 1893
Extracted and Translated by Viola Rodríguez Sadler............................................................. 57

Alonso de Robalcaba by Lic. Mariano González-Leal  ........................................................  63

Michoacán: A Struggle for Identity by John P. Schmal  ........................................................  79 

Los Hernández Gamiño: Breve Reseña de una Familia Alteña by Steven Francisco Hernández-López ...............................................................................................................  89

Descendants of Diego Rendón and María Valverde by Crispin D. Rendón ..........................  111 

El Origen de Tres Genearcas Alteños en una Solicitud de Órdenes del Siglo XVII
Transcribed by Ing. José Alfonso Rodríguez Ortiz ...............................................................  157

Basic Foundations of Significant Families of Mexico: Tello de Orozco
by Tony Campos and Steven F. Hernández ........................................................................  167 

To order a copy of the Society of Hispanic Historical and Ancestral Research Genealogical Journal, Volume V, send a check for $35. (which includes tax, mailing and postage charges) to:
SHHAR Press, P.O. Box 490, Midway City, CA, 92655-0490

UNITED STATES

A Soldiers Picture that You Rarely See
The Military Man and Woman
A Great Tribute
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
Dinner Alone
Naturalization Records and Ethnic Origins
The Truth Must be Told

Home Is Where Native Tongue Is
Hispanic growth shows no sign of slowing
Congressman Becerra introduces legislation
Latino Museum Proposed for Mall
Si.HISPANIA... the birth of a nation 
Sosa passes Mantle
Breakthrough for illegal immigrants, farmers 
Agricultural Job Benefits and Security Act
Nobility in the United States
U.S. Unveils Spanish Web Site
Restoring the Golden Door
Latino immigrant moms have healthier babies
Immigrant Success or Stagnation?
1-in-5 Speak a Foreign Language at Home Immigrants' Children Fuel Growth Among Latinos 
How did Hispanic moniker get chosen? 
Latin Lovers: The Don Juan Syndrome
Joke license drives home the pain of ethnic hatred
How did we identify ourselves in Census 2000?
U.S. Military Resources


A Soldiers Picture that You Rarely See
Sent by  J.D. Villarreal  juandv@granderiver.net


"Lord, hold our troops in your loving hands. Protect them as they protect us.  
Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need. Amen." 

  The Military Man & Woman  
Sent by Elsa Valdez Elsa.Valdez@med.va.gov
 

The average age of the military man is 19 years. He is a short haired, tight-muscled kid who, under normal circumstances is considered by society as half man, half boy. Not yet dry behind the ears, not old enough to buy a beer, but old enough to die for his country. He never really cared much for work and he would rather wax his own car than wash his father's; but he has never collected unemployment either.   

He's a recent High School graduate; he was probably an average student, pursued some form of sport activities, drives a ten year old jalopy, and has a steady girlfriend that either broke up with him when he left, or swears to be waiting when he returns from half a world away. He listens to rock and roll or hip-hop or rap or jazz or swing and 105 and 155mm howitzers. He is 10 or 15 pounds lighter now than when he was at home because he is working or fighting from before dawn to well after dusk. 

He has trouble spelling, thus letter writing is a pain for him, but he can field strip an M4 rifle in 30 seconds and reassemble it in less time in the dark. He can recite to you the nomenclature of an M60 or M249 machine gun or M203 grenade launcher and use either one effectively if he must. He digs foxholes and latrines and can apply first aid like a professional.  He can march until he is told to stop or stop until he is told to march. 


He obeys orders instantly and without hesitation, but he is not without spirit or individual dignity.  He is self-sufficient. He has two sets of fatigues: he washes one and wears the other. He keeps his canteens full and his feet dry. He sometimes forgets to brush his teeth, but never to clean his rifle.  He can cook his own meals, mend his own clothes, and fix his own hurts. If you're thirsty, he'll share his water with you; if you are hungry, his food.  He'll even split his ammunition with you in the midst of battle when you run low. 

He has learned to use his hands like weapons and weapons like they were his hands. He can save your life - or take it, because that is his job. He will often do twice the work of a civilian, draw half the pay and still find ironic humor in it all. He has seen more suffering and death then he should have in his short lifetime. 

He has stood atop mountains of dead bodies, and helped to create them. He has wept in public and in private, for friends who have fallen in combat and is unashamed.  He feels every note of the National Anthem vibrate through his body while at rigid attention, while tempering the burning desire to 'square-away' those around him who haven't bothered to stand, remove their hat, or even stop talking. In an odd twist, day in and day out, far from home, he defends their right to be disrespectful. 

Just as did his Father, Grandfather, and Great-grandfather, he is paying the price for our freedom.  Beardless or not, he is not a boy.  He is the American Fighting Man that has kept this country free for over 200 years. 

He has asked nothing in return, except our friendship and understanding. Remember him, always, for he has earned our respect and admiration with his blood.  And now we even have woman over there in danger, doing their part in this tradition of going to War when our nation calls us to do so. As you go to bed tonight, remember this shot. A short lull, a little shade and a picture of loved ones in their helmets. 
 
It is the Veteran  


It is the VETERAN, not the preacher, who has given us freedom of religion. 

It is the VETERAN, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. 

It is the VETERAN, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. 

It is the VETERAN, not the campus organizer, who has given us freedom to assemble. 

It is the VETERAN, not the lawyer, who has given us the right to a fair trial. 

It is the VETERAN, not the politician, Who has given us the right to vote. 

It is the VETERAN, who salutes the Flag, who serves under the Flag. 

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

On the ABC evening news, it was reported tonight (10-25-03) that, because of the dangers from Hurricane Isabelle approaching Washington DC, the military members assigned the duty of guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier were given permission to suspend the assignment.

They refused. "No way, Sir!"

Soaked to the skin, marching in the pelting rain of a tropical storm, they said that guarding the Tomb was not just an assignment, it was the highest honor that can be afforded to a serviceperson.

I don't usually suggest that many emails be forwarded, but I'd be really proud if this one reached as many as possible. We can be very proud of our young men and women in the service no matter where they serve. God Bless them, Joyce Basch joycebasch@juno.com

The tomb has been patrolled continuously, 24/7, since April 9, 1932 
For more information: http://www.tombguard.org/who.html

Dinner Alone

Sent by Lynette Chapa LMRobin@aol.com

I was sitting alone in one of those loud, casual steak houses that you find all over the country. You know the type--a bucket of peanuts on every table, shells littering the floor, and a bunch of perky college kids racing around with longneck beers and sizzling platters.

Taking a sip of my iced tea, I studied the crowd over the rim of my glass. My gaze lingered on a group enjoying their meal. They wore no uniform to identify their branch of service, but they were definitely "military:" clean shaven, cropped haircut, and that "squared away" look that comes with pride.

Smiling sadly, I glanced across my table to the empty seat where my husband usually sat. It had only been a few months since we sat in this very booth, talking about his upcoming deployment to the Middle East. That was when he made me promise to get a sitter for the kids, come back
to this restaurant once a month and treat myself to a nice steak. In turn he would treasure the thought of me being here, thinking about him until he returned home to me.

I fingered the little flag pin I constantly wear and wondered where he was at this very moment. Was he safe and warm? Was his cold any better? Were my letters getting through to him? As I pondered these thoughts, high pitched female voices from the next booth broke into my thoughts.

"I don't know what Bush is thinking about. Invading Iraq. You'd think that man would learn from his old man's mistakes. Good lord. What an idiot! I can't believe he is even in office. You do know, he stole the election."

I cut into my steak and tried to ignore them, as they began an endless tirade running down our president. I thought about the last night I spent with my husband, as he prepared to deploy. He had just returned from getting his smallpox and anthrax shots. The image of him standing in our kitchen packing his gas mask still gives me chills.

Once again the women's voices invaded my thoughts. "It is all about oil, you know. Our soldiers will go in and rape and steal all the oil they can in the name of 'freedom'. Hmph! I wonder how many innocent people they'll kill without giving it a thought? It's pure greed, you know."

My chest tightened as I stared at my wedding ring. I could still see how handsome my husband looked in his "mess dress" the day he slipped it on my finger. I wondered what he was wearing now. Probably his desert uniform, affectionately dubbed "coffee stains" with a heavy bulletproof vest over it.

"You know, we should just leave Iraq alone. I don't think they are hiding any weapons. In fact, I bet it's all a big act just to increase the president's popularity. That's all it is, padding the military budget at the expense of our social security and education. And, you know what else? We're just asking for another 9-ll. I can't say when it happens again that we didn't deserve it."

Their words brought to mind the war protesters I had watched gathering outside our base. Did no one appreciate the sacrifice of brave men and women, who leave their homes and family to ensure our freedom? Do they even know what "freedom" is?

I glanced at the table where the young men were sitting, and saw their courageous faces change. They had stopped eating and looked at each other dejectedly, listening to the women talking.

"Well, I, for one, think it's just deplorable to invade Iraq, and I am certainly sick of our tax dollars going to train professional baby killers we call a military."

Professional baby killers? I thought about what a wonderful father my husband is, and of how long it would be before he would see our children again.

That's it! Indignation rose up inside me. Normally reserved, pride in my husband gave me a brassy boldness I never realized I had. Tonight one voice will answer on behalf of our military, and let her pride in our troops be known.

Sliding out of my booth, I walked around to the adjoining booth and placed my hands flat on their table. Lowering myself to eye level with them, I smilingly said, "I couldn't help overhearing your conversation. You see, I'm sitting here trying to enjoy my dinner alone. And, do you know why? Because my husband, whom I love with all my heart, is halfway around the world defending your right to say rotten things about him."

"Yes, you have the right to your opinion, and what you think is none of my business. However, what you say in public is something else, and I will not sit by and listen to you ridicule MY country, MY president, MY husband, and all the other fine American men and women who put their lives on the line, just so you can have the "freedom" to complain. Freedom is an expensive commodity, ladies. Don't let your actions cheapen it."

I must have been louder that I meant to be, because the manager came over to inquire if everything was all right. "Yes, thank you," I replied. Then turning back to the women, I said, "Enjoy the rest of your meal."

As I returned to my booth applause broke out. I was embarrassed for making a scene, and went back to my half eaten steak. The women picked up their check and scurried away.

After finishing my meal, and while waiting for my check, the manager returned with a huge apple cobbler ala mode. "Compliments of those soldiers," he said. He also smiled and said the ladies tried to pay for my dinner, but that another couple had beaten them to it. When I asked who, the manager said they had already left, but that the gentleman was a veteran, and wanted to take care of the wife of "one of our boys."

With a lump in my throat, I gratefully turned to the soldiers and thanked them for the cobbler. Grinning from ear to ear, they came over and surrounded the booth. "We just wanted to thank you, ma'am. You know we can't get into confrontations with civilians, so we appreciate what you did."

As I drove home, for the first time since my husband's deployment, I didn't feel quite so alone. My heart was filled with the warmth of the other diners who stopped by my table, to relate how they, too, were proud of my husband, and would keep him in their prayers. I knew their flags would fly a little higher the next day.

Perhaps they would look for more tangible ways to show their pride in our country, and the military who protect her. And maybe, just maybe, the two women who were railing against our country, would pause for a minute to appreciate all the freedom America offers, and the price it pays to maintain it's freedom.

As for me, I have learned that one voice CAN make a difference. Maybe the next time protesters gather outside the gates of the base where I live, I will proudly stand on the opposite side with a sign of my own. It will simply say, "Thank You!"

Lori Kimble is a 31 year old teacher and proud military wife. A California native, Mrs. Kimble currently lives in Alabama.

        To those who fought for our Nation: Freedom has a flavor the protected will never know. 
                                                       GOD BLESS AMERICA

They Became Americans " Finding Naturalization Records & Ethnic Origins" by Loretto D. Szucs  http://www.ancestry.com/rd/prodredir.asp?sourceid=831&key=P1028

Citizenship documents are eagerly sought after for both their sentimental nature and the important information they hold, yet they can be difficult to locate and fully understand. Complex and
constantly changing naturalization laws have resulted in a great deal of confusion. "They Became Americans: Finding Naturalization Records and Ethnic Origins" addresses the complexities of naturalization records in a straightforward discussion. Dozens of illustrations and example documents enhance the reading and simplify your search for these unique sources of American genealogy.

Normally "They Became Americans" retails for $19.95, but for a limited time, 
you can buy it in The Shops @ Ancestry.com for $16.95.
 

 

Carlos B. Vega is Professor of Spanish, Montclair State University of New Jersey. 
Below are the first few paragraphs in 
Chapter 1: A Call to Reason

In writing this book we have embarked on a very arduous and ambitious mission. In essence, what we have set out to do is to challenge conventional history as it pertains to the role span and other Hispanic countries played in the making of the United States. The fact is that the vast majority of historians have simply squeezed out of their accounts most of the great deeds achieved by Spain in North America. Consequently, we, as a nation, know very little about the true historical facts, perhaps as little as two per cent of the whole truth. The rest, or the other ninety-eight per cent, has remained entombed until now in the catacombs of history
.

These words from the eminent American historian Charles F. Lummis should enlighten most readers on this historical injustice perpetrated on Spain. This is what he had to say over 100 years ago:

It is because I believe that every other young American loves fair play and admires heroism as much as I do, that this book has been written. That we have not given justice to the Spanish pioneers is simply because we have been misled. They made a record unparalleled; but our text-books have not recognized that fact, though they no longer dare dispute it. Now, thanks to the New School of American History, we are coming to the truth, - a truth which every manly American will be glad to know. In this country of free and brave men, race-prejudice, the most ignorant of all human ignorances, must die out. We must respect manhood more than nationality, and admire it for it own sake where found, - and it found everywhere. The deeds that hold the world up are not of any one blood. We may be born anywhere, - that is a mere accident; but to the heroes we may grow by means which are not accidents nor provincialisms, but the birth right and glory of humanity.

We love manhood; and the Spanish pioneering of the Americas was the largest and longest and most marvelous fact of manhood in all history. It was not possible for a Saxon boy to learn that truth in my boyhood; it is enormously difficult, if possible, now. The hopelessness of trying to get from any or all English text-books a just picture of the Spanish hero in the New World made me resolve that no other young American lover of heroism and justice shall nee to grope so long in the dark as I had to . . .

 

Villamel Publishing Company  
7311 Blvd. East
North Bergen, NJ, 07047
201-888-6750

Extract;
Home Is Where the Native Tongue Is, WASHINGTON, Oct. 9, 2003
CBSNews.com Sent from the Internet by Cindy LoBuglio lobuglio@thegrid.net
 
The Spanish-speaking population rose by 62 percent over the period to 28.1 million; slightly more than half also reported speaking English "very well."  California, New Mexico and Texas had the highest percentages of residents who did not speak English at home, but the greatest increase during the decade occurred in states that experienced explosive Hispanic immigration: Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina. 

For the first time, the Census Bureau printed out questionnaires in 2000 in languages other than English: Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog (the main native language of the Philippines), Vietnamese and Korean. Chinese is the language spoken most besides Spanish, with 2 million people speaking it at home. It was followed by French (1.6 million), German (1.4 million) and Tagalog (1.2 million). 
The number who spoke Russian increased the most during the 1990s, nearly tripling to 706,000. That reflected a rise in Russian immigration over the decade, the first since the fall of the Soviet Union. 

Data in the census report come from responses to the 2000 census long form survey distributed to about 1 in 6 households. The question asked if a person spoke a language other than English at home, and if so, it then asked to gauge how well they spoke English. The category is used in part to gauge how well people who speak another language can communicate in English in common activities like speaking with police or doctors, or at the bank or grocery store. 

The proportion of the population 5 and older in 2000 who spoke English less than "very well" was 8 percent, up from 6 percent in 1990 and 5 percent in 1980. 

The bureau found about 11.9 million people lived in linguistically isolated homes, meaning nobody in the home 14 or older knew English "very well." That was up 54 percent from 1990. 

In particular, Hispanics often live in neighborhoods where most people tend to speak a language other than English, said John Logan, a sociologist at the State University of New York at Albany, who has conducted research on the issue. He said that level of isolation can lead to a continued reliance on Spanish, even among those born in the United States. 

Extract:
Fast Hispanic growth shows no sign of slowing in next 20 years 
GENARO C. ARMAS, Associated Press http://members2.1stnetusa.com/~a/lafhc/
Sent by Howard Shorr howardshorr@msn.com

Almost half the Latino growth during the next two decades is expected to come from second-generation Hispanics, those born in the United States of at least one foreign-born parent, and 25 percent will be immigrants. That reverses the trend between 1970 and 2000, when immigrants accounted for nearly half the growth. 

Many recent immigrants have brought relatives to the United States, thereby reducing the pool of potential future immigrants, he said. Passel also cited recent studies that show women in Mexico, the country that now sends the largest number of immigrants to the United States, are starting to have fewer children.

The study also cited a previous Pew survey found that 72 percent of immigrant Latinos rely primarily on Spanish, compared with only 7 percent of second-generation Hispanics. 

Previous research by Passel, also cited in the report, found that 8 percent of foreign-born Hispanics marry outside their race or ethnicity, compared with one-third of second-generation Latinos. 

Those rates mirror trends seen in previous immigrant waves and are signs that children of foreign-born Hispanics are assimilating socially, said University of Michigan demographer William Frey. 

Extract: Congressman Becerra to introduce legislation to establish and fund: Museum of the American Latino

By SUZANNE GAMBOA, Associated Press Writer
http://www.hispanicvista.com/html3/092903fp.htm 

WASHINGTON – September 23, 2003 -  An American Indian museum is set to open next year, and discussions continue on the location of a museum dedicated to black Americans. 

What's missing, says a California lawmaker, is a museum on the American Latino. 

"If you walk the National Mall, you get as good a snapshot of America as you can find anywhere in the world, yet the lesson of our American history is still incomplete," said Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif. 

Becerra says now is a good time for serious consideration of a museum about Latino history in America and the contribution of Latinos to American history. Hispanics are now the largest minority in the United States, numbering about 38.8 million as of July 2002, or more than 13 percent of the population. 

"This is a way to give us a fuller understanding of who we are. It would not just be a museum for Latinos. It would be a museum to better recognize who America is," Becerra said. 

Becerra said he would like to see the museum constructed on the National Mall, the green expanse between the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial. 

That wish is certain to stir opposition, as did the sitting of the World War II Memorial, currently under construction between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. Mall preservationists went to court over the memorial, which features 56 17-foot pillars, two four-story arches and a sunken plaza with a pool, but the challenge failed to force it off the mall. 

Congress also has authorized construction of a black history museum and has designated four possible sites on or beside the mall. The House is debating its location. 

Extract:
Latino Museum Proposed for Mall, October 14, 2003
Congressional Hispanic Caucus backs the plan. But preservationists say construction is ruining the capital park's vista. By Shweta Govindarajan, Times Staff Writer, Los Angeles Times
Source: http://lmri.ucsb.edu/mailman/listinfo/reformanet   kmccook@tampabay.rr.com
 
WASHINGTON — Latino lawmakers are backing a proposal to build a museum on the National Mall that would commemorate the achievements of American Latinos, amid concerns from preservationists that construction along the Mall is obstructing its scenic green expanse.

The proposed National Museum of the American Latino would house exhibits relating to the artistic, historical and cultural accomplishments of American Latinos. The plan for the museum, which would be part of the Smithsonian Institution's vast and varied collection, has been unanimously endorsed by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles) is set to introduce a bill this week to create an advisory commission to plan the museum and select a location. The museum deserves to be on the Mall as a "a recognition of the American tradition of acknowledging our forefathers who helped us build this country," Becerra said.

"I'd like people to come away [from the museum] with a genuine,  comprehensive vision of what America is," Becerra said. "I don't see  how you do that if you don't incorporate close to 40 million 
[Latinos] and their predecessors who have made this country what it  is today."

"This is [the] right moment to give all Americans a chance to feel  they have a complete picture of America," Becerra said.

The National Mall, a two-mile-long stretch of parkland from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial, is a popular site for public gatherings, demonstrations and leisure activities.

In recent years, however, it has become a flashpoint among Washington preservationists who say construction on the Mall is ruining the deliberately crafted open space and interfering with the public's ability to enjoy it and reflect on its symbolism.

The National Museum of the American Indian and the hotly contested National World War II Memorial are under construction on the Mall. And Congress is considering legislation to build a national African American museum as well as an underground visitor center for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

The Senate has passed a proposal that would prohibit new memorials on the Mall; a similar measure is under consideration in the House.  The National Capital Planning Commission, which reviews plans for buildings proposed on federal property, would have to approve the Latino museum's location and design.

If approved, the bipartisan measure would create a 23-member commission whose job it would be to deliver to Congress a report written over two years detailing construction, funding and exhibits.


Si...! HISPANIA... the birth of a nation within our greater NATION!


SUMMARY: HISPANIC THINK-TANK: Our growing community --largest minority in the land-- should now focus on unity, education, improvement, and closer interaction within to achieve QUALITY over QUANTITY! This will project our entire American society into the millennium as a new BREED! 

By Ricardo Castañon  HispanicVista, October 6, 2003

Only in America could it have happened! Here, peoples of goodwill and open minds have found the ideal environment to work, live long and prosper. The legitimate "Pursuit of Happiness" guaranteed by the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and further endorsed by the Bill of Rights have created an atmosphere of positivism unlike anywhere in the rest of the planet. No other area of the world has experienced such a mix of races, beliefs and cultures. The "Old world" and the "New world" have come together to create nature's best!

HISPANIC BLOSSOM

Our Hispanic community, like other immigrant groups, has identified with the common denominator that characterized the founding fathers of this nation --we are all dissidents! We are nonconformist that seek to improve the world we live in. Through hard work and sacrifice, we endured the first stages of
"assimilation" --some like to call it. It was really a process of adapting to the language, ways and means of a more dynamic way of life WITHOUT losing one's own culture and traditions. It was really not that difficult; it was more like a dream-come-true. This scope of freedom and opportunity is what we had envisioned all along. As generations come and go, it becomes easier for the latter. Our offspring move about in today' society as fish-in-the-water, they have created their own milieu. Their genetic memory retains all the positive heritage we have been carrying for centuries, and their brain-cells absorb new data like a sponge!

This Hispanic-blossom is unprecedented and has unlimited possibilities. We have our hearts and guts united by the folklore and cuisine we are instinctively stimulated by. We have that ever-fresh
desire to constantly compete and continuously archive more. The bond that holds us together goes beyond bloodlines; it is our accumulated heritage and that almost spiritual eagerness --so natural in us-- that impels us to prove ourselves not only capable, but worthy of any endeavor.

ONE NATION WITHIN A NATION

In this age of high-tech-robotics, these qualities acquire special value. Our also innate ability to
adapt and improvise, plus our proven bilingual fluency give us a sharp edge. We have enough material and ethereal ties to move ahead and consolidate our community into one nation within our greater nation. We need to retain our identity, we need to nurture our personality with our past and present achievements. This is NOT to discern from other groups or society as a whole; but to contribute with our best and inherent assets for the benefit of all.

A COMMON HERITAGE AND DESTINY

The Aztecs, the Mayan, the Incas, the Toltecs, well... even the Pilgrims and the Quakers never dreamed of what they got started! This progressive mixture of vitality and wisdom from one into the other has sped up a genetic evolution scientists, historians and demographers never, until now, thought possible. Leave it to mother nature. Our society today, with the unreserved participation of every ethnicity in the land, will eventually produce an ALL-INCLUSIVE concept of a "Cosmic Breed" that will take humanity, with a common heritage and destiny, to the next level --to the conquest of the UNIVERSE!

Verdad que... Si?

---------------------------------------------------
Ricardo V. Castanon is the author of the trilogy "SIMPLE SIMON'S ODYSSEY... facing the big questions" a Latin perspective on practical philosophy. Available at http://www.SimonBook.com.  Ricardo is based in El Paso, TX. He can be reached at Rico@SimonBook.com

Sammy Sosa Passes Mickey Mantle, Sets NL RBI Mark 

CINCINNATI - On September 25th, Sammy Sosa moved ahead of Mickey Mantle with his 537th homer, a two-run shot that also made him the first NL player with nine straight 100-RBI seasons. 
Source: Yahoo! News, October 3, 2003

Extract:
Breakthrough near for illegal immigrants, farmers – 
“This fundamentally changes the dynamic of farm labor in America.”
By Michael Doyle, Sacramento Bee Washington Bureau and Dennis Pollock -- Fresno Bee
http://www.hispanicvista.com/html3/092903bi.htm
Article URL: http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/7473551p-8415956c.html

WASHINGTON – September 24, 2003 - Farmers and farm workers Tuesday uncorked a potentially groundbreaking compromise that offers hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants the prospect of becoming legal U.S. residents. Following years of discussions that were sidetracked by terrorism fears and stuck on some perennial controversies, negotiators presented what they uniformly described as a historic deal. The new legislation gives farmers streamlined access to foreign workers, and gives farm workers a fresh shot at precious green cards.  "It frees farm workers so they can finally join American society rather than hide in the shadows." 

In a telling sign of unity, Rodriguez was flanked by conservative Republicans and representatives of the politically potent agriculture industry. All are backing the legislation that supporters will be trying to get to President Bush's desk by the end of this year. 

In addition to the farm workers themselves, the proposal would permit immediate family members to remain in the United States without fear of being deported. Once the farm workers obtain permanent resident status, their spouses and minor children could likewise apply for permanent residency. Those going on to obtain U.S. citizenship could sponsor parents, unmarried children and siblings. 

The measure, introduced in both the House and Senate, gives undocumented farm workers the chance to earn legal permanent status if they agree to keep working in agriculture for a while. The bill also makes it easier to bring in foreign workers through what's called the H-2A program, which has been largely shunned by California farmers. 

Specifically, the new residency program covers illegal immigrants who can prove they've worked in agriculture for 100 or more days in the 18 months before Aug. 31. They must agree to keep working in agriculture at least another 360 days over the next six years. 

"It's a thoughtful compromise that has required give and take from both sides," said Bob Vice, ex-president of the California Farm Bureau Federation and a voice for agricultural employers. "We need a stable, legal work force," said Pat Ricchiuti, a Clovis grower and first vice president of the Fresno County Farm Bureau. "We need these people as much as they need us." 

Ricchiuti and other farmers, like Madera grower Steve Schafer, said the reforms should reduce the burden on farmers who must deal with documents that may not be legitimate. Selma grower Bill Chandler added that the proposed legislation should amount to a more humane way to deal with what many have called a shadow work force. 

The bill that took "thousands and thousands and thousands of hours" of work, in the words of Utah Republican Rep. Carl Cannon, could yet run afoul of lawmakers who've called for a complete moratorium on new immigration. The moratorium proponents, while a distinct minority on Capitol Hill, did gain strength after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that stalled the farm worker bill negotiations. 

Extract: US Chamber of Commerce supports Agricultural Workers’ Bill 
as important first step in immigration reform
http://www.hispanicvista.com/html3/092903gi.htm

Washington, D.C. – September 23, 2003 - The United States Chamber of Commerce applauded the introduction of the "Agricultural Job Opportunity Benefits and Security Act" as an important first step in immigration reform.

"This legislation represents an historic agreement between business and labor on an important issue for the future of our country – reform of immigration rules to address our current and future workforce needs," said Bruce Josten, the Chamber’s executive vice president for Government Affairs. "The excellent work of members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to achieve this result should be commended."

The legislation, worked out over years of negotiations between agricultural employers, farm worker unions and immigrant rights groups – and led by a bipartisan group of members of Congress, including Senators Larry Craig (R/ID) and Edward Kennedy (D/MA) and Representatives Chris Cannon (R–3/UT) and Howard Berman (D–28/CA) – would reform the current agricultural guest worker program and provide an earned adjustment program for undocumented agricultural workers already in this country.

"This comprehensive bill recognizes that immigration reform must include both legal ways for employers to hire foreign workers when U.S. workers are not available, and a path to legitimize the status of those immigrants that have been supporting our industries and economy with their labor," continued Josten. "While the needs of the agricultural community are unique, we hope that this approach can help pave the way for legislation to address the needs of the broader business community for essential workers."

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the world’s largest business federation representing more than three million businesses and organizations of every size, sector and region.

Nobility in the United States

http://www.almanach.be/search/u/unitedstatesofamerica.html
Sent by John Inclan from galveston@yahoo.com

[[ Interesting short explanation on the topic. Quick reading.]] 

NOBILITY IN THE USA: 1° The Constitution of the USA prohibits both the USA (Art I, Sect 9, cl 8) and the States (Art I, Secr 10) from granting titles of nobility;

THE CONCEPT OF NOBILITY: This concept is very often not very well understood in the USA, leading for example to confusion between royalty and nobility, the wrong assumption of the absolute prohibition of nobility titles in the USA, etc. 

Extract: U.S. Unveils Spanish Web Site

Firstgov En Español Aims To Improve Access To Federal Agencies By Offering Translations 
by Shweta Govindarajan, Times Staff Writer, Friday, October 17, 2003
Sent by Granville Hough, Ph.D.

A federal agency on Thursday launched a Spanish-language version of FirstGov -- a government-run Web site that provides information about official programs and services -- as part of President Bush's plan to use the Internet to improve public access to government information.

FirstGov en Español http://www.espanol.gov   is a centralized collection of major federal agencies' Web pages translated into Spanish, including the U.S. Postal Service, the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Department of Education. It is designed to demystify the way government works and to encourage Spanish speakers to seek information about living and working in the United States, officials said at a news conference announcing the Web site.

FirstGov en Español "is an easy ... portal for those who wish to access federal and state information in Spanish," said Stephen A. Perry, administrator of the General Services Administration, which developed and manages the site. The Web site "came out of the president's mandate, and it's an obvious void that needs to be filled."

The Spanish-language site serves as a gateway to Web sites for 55 federal agencies and 37 states, including California. Each agency listed there decides which information to translate, based on demand, said Teresa Nasif, director of the GSA's federal citizen information center. Because the site takes users to pages written in Spanish, not all content available on the English-language FirstGov will be available there, she said.

So far, more than 100,000 translated government pages are accessible from the site -- including the entire Web site for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Nasif said. Most of the translation was done in-house by bilingual employees of the Small Business Administration, she said, and professional translators from the State Department acted as proofreaders.

A goal of Bush's 2002 E-Government initiative was to make agencies function more efficiently through the use of technology. A demonstrated interest among the nation's more than 37 million Latinos to obtain government information in Spanish helped spark development of the new site, officials said.

Extract: 
Restoring the Golden Door
Source: Family Tree Magazine Email http://www.familytreemagazine.com/newsletter.asp

The fates of 30 un-restored buildings on the south side of Ellis Island are being decided right now.  Weeds and weather have taken their toll over the 22 acres comprising the majority of the island since its closure in 1954.  The National Park Service and nonprofit Save Ellis Island Foundation have suggested three options:

1) Protect with temporary means until the buildings get beyond the point and cost of saving, then demolish.
2) Rehabilitate the buildings over a period of 10 to 15 years.  The buildings facades restored, interiors stripped to house nonprofit institutions.
3) The third, preferred by the National Park Service, would unveil, after a five-to seven-year rehabilitation period, a new Ellis Island Institute, complete with a conference and retreat facility, a polity research center and educational program. The retreat facility would be available for only nonprofit organizations and appropriate corporate sponsors holding workshops on issues relevant to the island's history, such as family history, public health, immigration, historic preservation and ethnic diversity.

Latino immigrant moms have healthier babies
By Paul Chavez, Associated Press, October 03, 2003 
Sent by Howard Shorr howardshorr@msn.com

Contrary to expectations, Latino mothers from Central and South America who live in California gave birth to healthier babies and had a lower teen pregnancy rate than their counterparts born in the United States, according to a study of 2002 data released Thursday. 

The findings by the University of California, Los Angeles, Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture fall within the so-called "Latino epidemiological paradox," said David Hayes-Bautista, professor of medicine and the center's director. 

The paradox, which has been confirmed in other studies, exists because Latinos experience overall better health than non-Latino whites, despite having higher risk factors such as less access to health care systems, lower income and less education, Hayes-Bautista said. 

The findings were part of the UCLA center's research on the Salvadoran community in California. Data for the study came from the state's 2002 Department of Health Services Master Birth Files. 

Latino mothers gave birth to nearly 250,000 babies in 2002 in California, and 9.4 percent of them were mothers of Central and South American origin. The study found that 7.7 percent of U.S.-born mothers of Central and South American origin gave birth to a baby weighing less than 2,500 grams (5.46 pounds), compared to 6.5 percent of immigrant mothers who gave birth to low-weight babies. 

Researchers comparing the two groups also found the teen pregnancy rate was 20.2 percent for U.S.-born mothers, compared to 6.4 percent for immigrant mothers. 

"In other non-Latino populations, teen mothers come from the less-educated segments. However, in this case, the more-educated U.S.-born Central and South American women are more likely to become teen mothers," Hayes-Bautista said. "We need to understand this troubling trend." 

The findings raise research questions about the Latino health paradox, which includes findings that Latinos suffer fewer strokes and have less lung and breast cancer than whites and blacks. 

Researchers want to find the mechanism leading to the paradoxical outcome, Hayes-Bautista said. 

"Is it diet, the beans and tortillas? Is there some sort of mind-body spiritual connection? We don't know," Hayes-Bautista said. "But there are similar patterns, almost everywhere you have a Latino population, you see this same paradox." 

Carlos Vaquerano, executive director of the Salvadoran-American Leadership and Educational Fund, said the findings can lead to better outreach efforts. 

"This type of research helps us identify the needs in key areas such as health, education and population growth," he said. "Furthermore, this study provides our Salvadoran community with information important to our lives and well-being." 

U.S. census figures estimate that about 273,000 Salvadorans live in California, with more than 187,000 in Los Angeles County. 

A 2001 study by the UCLA center found that most Salvadorans came to California in the 1980s, when El Salvador was engaged in a 12-year civil war that killed 75,000 people. 

Extract:
Immigrant Success or Stagnation?: Confronting the Claim of Latino Non-Advancement
By Walter A. Ewing, Ph.D. and Benjamin Johnson.*
http://www.hispanicvista.com/html3/101703fc.htm

Latinos experience substantial socioeconomic progress across generations compared to both their immigrant forefathers and native Anglos. But this fact is lost in statistical portraits of the Latino population which don’t distinguish between the large number of newcomers and those who have been in the United States for generations. Advocates of restrictive immigration policies often use such aggregate statistics to make the dubious claim that Latinos are unable or unwilling to advance like the European immigrants of a century ago.

Introduction to an extensive article:
A question that arises repeatedly in the immigration debate is whether or not the children and grandchildren of modern-day immigrants from Latin America are moving up the socioeconomic ladder like the descendants of European immigrants who came to the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, comparing immigrant communities from these two eras is no simple task. The progress enjoyed by previous waves of European immigrants can be evaluated with a century’s worth of hindsight. Successive generations of Italian Americans, for instance, have provided an increasingly clear contrast to the first-generation (foreign-born) immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island a hundred or more years ago with little – if any – money, education or knowledge of English. Such neat historical comparisons are not possible for Latinos, nearly half of whom are first-generation immigrants just starting the process of advancement begun decades ago by their European counterparts. While evidence indicates that Latinos are experiencing substantial progress across generations, this fact is lost in statistical portraits of the Latino population which don’t distinguish between the large number of newcomers and those who have been in the United States for generations. Some advocates of restrictive immigration policies have seized upon such aggregate statistics to advance the dubious claim that Latinos are more resistant to upward mobility or “assimilation” than the Europeans of a century ago.   

The graph below shows that by the 3rd generation English is the primary/dominant language. 

Figure 3

Source: Pew Hispanic Center & Kaiser Family Foundation, 2002 National Survey of Latinos, December 2002.

US Census Bureau: Nearly 1-in-5 Speak a Foreign Language at Home
http://www.hispanicvista.com/html3/101703bn.htm
Mike Bergman, Public Information Office 
(301) 763-3030/457-3670 (fax)
(301) 457-1037 (TDD)    pio@census.gov      
 
Nearly 1-in-5 Speak a Foreign Language at Home; 
Most Also Speak English 'Very Well,' Census Bureau Reports

Nearly 1-in-5 people, or 47 million U.S. residents age 5 and older, spoke a language other than English at home in 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau said today. That was an increase of 15 million people since 1990.

The report, Language Use and English-Speaking Ability: 2000, [PDF] said 55 percent of the people who spoke a language other than English at home also reported they spoke English "very well." Combined with those who spoke only English at home, 92 percent of the population age 5 and over had no difficulty speaking English.

Among those who spoke a language other than English at home were almost 11 million additional Spanish speakers. According to the report, Spanish speakers increased from 17.3 million in 1990 to 28.1 million in 2000, a 62 percent rise. Just over half the Spanish speakers reported speaking English "very well."

The report found that more than 9-in-10 people age 5 and older spoke a language other than English at home in Hialeah, Fla., and Laredo, Texas, the highest such proportion among U.S. places of 100,000 population or more. The 10 places with the highest proportions included four in Texas and three in California. (See Table 1.)

The West was home to more than one-third (37 percent) of all those who spoke a language other than English at home, the highest proportion of any region. California led the states (39 percent), followed by New Mexico (37 percent) and Texas (31 percent). (See Table 2.)

The number of people who spoke a non-English language at home at least doubled in six states between 1990 and 2000, with the largest percentage increase in Nevada (193 percent). Georgia's residents who spoke a non-English language at home increased by 164 percent, followed by North Carolina (151 percent).                               

After English (215.4 million) and Spanish (28.1 million), Chinese (2 million) was the language most commonly spoken at home, eclipsing French, German and Italian over the decade of the 90s. 

Other highlights:

  - Of the 20 non-English languages spoken most widely at home, the largest proportional increase in the 1990s was Russian. Speakers of this language nearly tripled, from 242,000 to 706,000. The second largest increase was among French Creole speakers (including Haitian Creoles), whose numbers more than doubled, from 188,000 to 453,000.

  - The West and South combined had about three times the number of Spanish speakers (21 million) as the Northeast and Midwest combined (7 million).

  - More than 80 percent of the population spoke a non-English language in seven Texas counties -- Maverick, Webb, Starr, Kenedy, Zavala, Presidio and Hidalgo.

  The data are based on the responses from a sample of households who received the census long form. Nationally, about 1-in-6 households were included in the sample. Estimates in the report are subject to sampling and non-sampling error.

Extract:
Immigrants' Children Fuel Growth Among Latinos 
The Washington Post - October 14, 2003 
http://www.hispaniconline.com/lstyles/article.html?SMContentIndex=7&SMContentSet=0

The U.S.-born children of immigrants are replacing their parents as the fastest-growing generation in the Latino population, and the shift will have profound effects on the country's largest minority group.

A report to be released today by the Pew Hispanic Center predicts that by 2020, nearly half the growth in the nation's Latino population will be from the second generation. Within seven years, it is predicted to account for one in nine school-age children. And through 2020, it is forecast to make up one in four new members of the nation's workforce.

The growing influence of those in the second generation, who will outnumber their parents within two decades, will rewrite the profile of Hispanic life in the United States. The children of immigrants are likely to move closer to the mainstream than their parents -- marrying people from other backgrounds, for example. Their political views are likely to change as well, becoming more liberal on abortion, experts say, but less supportive of affirmative action. Their earnings and education will surpass those of their parents, experts predict, but will not close the gap with the Anglo majority.

"The biggest difference is that we're shifting from a process where the largest component is Spanish-speaking immigrants -- where language and immigration status were two enormous questions -- to growth of a population that is English-speaking and native-born," said Roberto Suro, the Pew center's director. "You totally move away from the issues that have been dominant. They have a totally different set of issues than their parents do."
Extract: How did Hispanic moniker get chosen instead of Latino or some other ethnic name? The Roots of 'Hispanic' - 1975 Committee of Bureaucrats Produced Designation
By Darryl Fears, Washington Post Staff Writer,  October 15, 2003

http://www.hispanicvista.com/html3/101703nat.htm

Sent by Jaime Cader   jmcader@yahoo.com
Washington Post article URL: (Registration required)  Copyrighted by Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26600-2003Oct14.html
 

Hardly anyone knows that 28 years ago, Flores-Hughes and a handful of other Spanish-speaking federal employees helped make the decision that changed how people with mixed Spanish heritage would be identified in this country. In 1975, when working for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, she sat on the highly contentious Ad Hoc Committee on Racial and Ethnic Definitions. Few records survive to document the committee's existence or its work.

"We chose the word 'Hispanic,' " she said in a recent interview. The choice resounded throughout the federal government, including at the Office of Management and Budget, which placed the word on census forms for the first time in 1980. But the decision touched off a debate in the wider community over whether "Latino" should have been the designated term, and that debate still rages. 

The story of how the term came to be embraced by government is more important than ever, Flores-Hughes said, because it is crucial to the debate over whether to identify people as "Hispanic" or "Latino," a debate that vexes the Spanish-speaking and Spanish-surnamed community and non-Hispanic Americans with connections to it. 

"Latino" refers to the Latin-based Romance languages of Spain, France, Italy and Portugal. The term embraces Portuguese-speaking Brazilians in a way that the word "Hispanic" does not. 

"Hispanic" is an American derivation from "Hispaña," the Spanish-language term for the cultural diaspora created by Spain. That diaspora is the result of a bygone age of conquest, which disturbs many of the people who prefer "Latino." 

"For us Spaniards, there's always a very strong link to the Spanish-speaking people across the Atlantic," said Javier Ruperez, the Spanish ambassador to the United States. "They are part of the Spanish family." 

Ruperez said he understands that people who prefer "Latino" "want to follow their own path. But it hurts. I think it's untrue to say that 'Hispanic' reflects imperialism. Our history is a part of human history. Empires come and go." 

A survey by the Pew Hispanic Center and Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation last year found that a majority of Hispanics and Latinos -- 53 percent -- have no preference for either term. An overwhelming majority prefer to identify themselves by national origin. 

But among those who listed a preference, "Hispanic" was widely favored. Activists, however, assert that "Latino" is fast becoming the favored term, as students, intellectuals and scholars refer to it almost exclusively in their works. Flores-Hughes said those activists wrongly insist that "Hispanic" was thrust on them by white bureaucrats who knew very little about their culture. 

Members of the ad hoc committee said it was hastily formed early in 1975, after educators of Puerto Rican, Cuban, Mexican and Native American descent stormed out of a meeting called to discuss a report at the Federal Interagency Committee on Education. 

The group never got around to discussing the report, on the education of Chicanos, Puerto Ricans and Indians. They were livid over how it wrongly identified certain groups. As Flores-Hughes put it, "they came ready for bear." 

Caspar W. Weinberger, secretary of Health, Education and Welfare at the time, knew he had a problem. He ordered that a committee be convened to solve the identity matter for good. 

The committee included African Americans, Asians and Pacific Islanders, Caucasians and Native Americans, in addition to Latinos. During the year they met, arguments erupted over now-outdated terms such as "colored" and "Oriental." 

But the most contentious arguments took place in the group that blended Spanish and English. It included Flores-Hughes of HEW, Philip (Felipe) Garcia of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Noboa-Rios of the National Institute of Education and Paul Planchon of the Office of Management and Budget. 

"There was never any consensus in that group to the very end," said Noboa-Rios, who preferred the term "Latino" and still does. "We came up with an agreement, but . . . there were some bad feelings. I know two people who didn't speak for up to a year after it was over." 

"I was like a little kid involved in every aspect of the office," said. Grace Flores-Hughes who went on to earn a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of the District of Columbia and a master's in public administration from Harvard University. She now lectures on managing a culturally diverse workforce in the public/private sector and serves as an appointee to the Federal Service Impasses Panel of the Federal Labor Relations Authority. 

Flores-Hughes grew up in Taft, Tex., not far from Corpus Christi. Her grandfather regaled her with stories about serving in the army of Pancho Villa. He was originally from Spain, she said, and his family moved to Mexico. 

"I was called a 'wetback,' a 'Mexkin' and a 'dirty Mexkin,' " she said. "In public school, I had to be careful what I said. If I spoke Spanish, they would send me home for three days." Her driver's license identified her as Latin American. 

That was going through her mind when arguments were raging on the committee. " 'Hispanic' was better than anything I had been called as a kid," she said. 

"Latino," she said, would have included Italians, so she would not endorse it. And "Spanish surname" would have given protection to people who had never been discriminated against, she said. Besides, she said, not everyone in the Spanish diaspora has a Spanish-sounding name. 

"It was hard eliminating all those terms," she said. "I felt alone. But I was determined to stick to 'Hispanic.' We kept going back to Spain. We couldn't get away from it." 


Latin Lovers: The Don Juan Syndrome

By JULIE CHAPA
http://www.hispaniconline.com/hh03/mainpages/culture/film.html

Introduction to an extensive fascinating article on the history of Latinos in the cinema: Since the days of early cinema, Latin men have portrayed some of the most virile, passionate and forbidden characters on the screen. With their swarthy good looks and smoldering eyes, these "Latin lovers" have caused female moviegoers to swoon for decades. But unlike his blond counterpart, the Latin lover was generally not cast in the leading role. He played the rogue to the Anglo gentleman. He was, however, suave and more than able to captivate even the strongest screen siren. Early actors such as Rudolph Valentino, Ramón Novarro and Gilbert Roland invariably set the stage for today's Latino film roles. 

[[ I particularly liked the following paragraph, but do read the whole article:]]

"Changing the image of Latinos from murderous greasers to the passionate, suave lover resulted from the loss of what the film industry sought from the beginning—money. The "greaser" movies were not embraced by all. They were virulently anti-Mexican. After ignoring a written protest from the Mexican government in 1919, Hollywood suffered a blow in 1922 when films promoting such stereotypes were banned south of the border. Hollywood's response? The "greaser" became the citizen of fictitious Latin American countries. This aura of mystery added a touch of romanticism to the character and became one of the reasons for the birth of the Latin lover image." 
Hispanic Heritage Plaza 2003 Culture of the Hispaniconline.com

Joke license drives home the pain of ethnic hatred
by Richard R. Aguirre 
Salem, Oregon Statesman Journal, October 19, 2003
Sent by Howard Shorr howardshorr@msn.com

I’ve tried to get the hurtful color photocopy out of my mind in the past month. 
The day it arrived by mail at the Statesman Journal, I shared it with a few astonished colleagues, hoping that act would ease my surprise and disappointment. Then I set it aside, expecting to forget about it.

Still, it haunts me. It reopened scars, pricked at my conscience and upset my sense of fair play.

Ethnic hatred is like that. It has the power to disrupt and damage even though time and distance have long separated me from my roots as a shy California kid — one of seven children of a union carpenter and a factory assembler — who remembers being called “dirty Mexican” and facing discrimination as a third-generation U.S. citizen.

The photocopy arrived just after the start of Hispanic Heritage Month in a pale blue envelope. It was was addressed to the Statesman Journal and had a Salem postmark. It also had a first-class stamp that depicted the U.S. flag — ironic given the envelope’s anti-American content.

Attached to the photocopy was a Post-It note that read: “Just got an advance look at California’s new driver’s license. Thought you might be interested in seeing it. Please forward to (Portland Mayor) Vera Katz.”

It was a photocopy of the bogus California driver’s license that has been making the rounds via the Internet and e-mail the past few weeks. Its point: to protest California’s decision to issue driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants.

Instead of “California,” the phony license has been issued by “Mexifornia,” bears the name “Jose Gomez Jr.” and lists a Los Angeles address.

The real “humor” was in the fine print:
•Expires: Never.
•Class: Illegal alien
•Sex: Mucho
•Weight: Too much
•Signature: X
•Entitled to: Drive, attend college, purchase guns, vote.

Pictured on the license is mustached Mexican character actor Alfonso Bedoya, costumed with the wide sombrero, bandoliers and filthy clothing that he wore as the bandit leader in the 1948 movie “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” His most famous line: “Badges? We ain’t got no badges! We don’t need no badges. I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ badges!”

The person who mailed the photocopy to the Statesman Journal clearly did so to share his or her disgust with the new California law. He or she may have thought it was funny, but those responsible for this ugly piece of propaganda have revealed the depth of their fear of Mexican immigrants and their hatred toward them.

It’s appropriate to debate U.S. immigration policy and to discuss whether California should be issuing driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants.

Supporters say it is a public-safety measure. They say that licensing will ensure that all drivers know the rules of the road and can buy insurance. Some police support the new law, saying that it will help them track down criminals and crime victims because all applicants must be photographed and fingerprinted, and their physical descriptions and addresses will be recorded.

Opponents say that licensing undocumented immigrants is a public-safety nightmare.
They point out that the law doesn’t require background checks, inviting fraud and undermining law enforcement at a time of heightened national security. They also say that Democrats passed the law to attract support from Hispanic voters.

California Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger has made it a priority to repeal the law during his first 100 days in office. Schwarzenegger has promised that if the California Legislature refuses, he will support a ballot measure to repeal the law next year.

Sponsors of the law say that the growing opposition may be the result of California’s tough economic times — and the cyclical scapegoating of immigrants in this nation of immigrants.

These are important issues to discuss and debate, but bringing in hateful stereotypes about Mexicans — and widely distributing them — is wrong. It also debases those who seek to ridicule immigrants.

I expect some who strongly disagree with my view on this controversy will send me venomous e-mails or phone messages. No worry. I’ve gotten them before, and so have other Statesman Journal reporters and editors who have explored sensitive racial and ethnic issues.

Others may be tempted to dismiss my comments as the biased ramblings of a “Hispanic activist.”

They would be wrong. I spend almost no time reporting on Hispanic issues, much less advancing an Hispanic agenda. I’m proud to be Mexican-American, but I’m also proud to be an American and an Oregonian.

And frankly, I rarely think about my racial or ethnic identity. I more often think of myself as a father, a husband, a son, a brother, a Statesman Journal employee, an editor and a columnist.

Forty years ago, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed that his children would one day live in a nation where they would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Forty years later, King’s dream remains just that — a fact made plain by the arrival of a color photocopy inside an envelope with a first-class stamp depicting the U.S. flag.


How did we identify ourselves in Census 2000? 
The preferred was Hispanic  

http://www.hispanicvista.com/html3/092903nat.htm
For full Census report go to: http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0072/twps0072.html

Table 1. Hispanic Origin Population by Detailed Group: 2000 and 1990

Hispanic Population by Origin Response

1990 Census 2/

Census 2000 2/

Number

Percent

Number

Percent

      Total

21,900,089

100.0

35,238,481

100.0

General Hispanic

1,403,150

6.4

5,540,627

15.7

   Hispanic

390,945

1.8

2,316,515

6.6

   Latino

1,577

0.0

411,559

1.2

   Spanish

444,896

2.0

765,879

2.2

   Other Hispanic response 1/

565,732

2.6

2,046,674

5.8

Mexican

13,393,208

61.2

20,900,102

59.3

Puerto Rican

2,651,815

12.1

3,403,510

9.7

Cuban

1,053,197

4.8

1,249,820

3.5

Dominican

520,151

2.4

799,768

2.3

Central American

1,323,830

6.0

1,811,676

5.1

   Costa Rican

57,223

0.3

72,175

0.2

   Guatemalan

268,779

1.2

407,127

1.2

   Honduran

131,066

0.6

237,431

0.7

   Nicaraguan

202,658

0.9

194,493

0.6

   Panamanian

92,013

0.4

98,475

0.3

   Salvadoran

565,081

2.6

708,741

2.0

   Other Central American

7,010

0.0

93,234

0.3

South American

1,035,602

4.7

1,419,979

4.0

   Argentinian

100,921

0.5

107,275

0.3

   Bolivian

38,073

0.2

45,188

0.1

   Chilean

68,799

0.3

73,951

0.2

   Colombian

378,726

1.7

496,748

1.4

   Ecuadorian

191,198

0.9

273,013

0.8

   Paraguayan

6,662

0.0

8,929

0.0

   Peruvian

175,035

0.8

247,601

0.7

   Uruguayan

21,996

0.1

20,242

0.1

   Venezuelan

47,997

0.2

96,091

0.3

   Other South American

6,195

0.0

50,941

0.1

Spaniard

519,136

2.4

112,999

0.3

1/ Includes: (1) people who wrote responses such as "Latin American" and "Spanish American," (2) people of mixed Hispanic ethnicities (only collected in Census 2000), and (3) people who checked the "Other" box but did not provide a write-in entry.

2/ These Census 2000 and 1990 census numbers are based on sample data representing the total population.

In contrast, the percentage of the population reporting the general terms "Spanish," "Hispanic," and "Latino" was 1.9 percent in the 1990-style panel and 11.9 percent in the Census 2000-style panel. The percentage marking the "Other" category with no write-in or an uncodable write-in also was higher: 5.0 percent in the 1990-style panel and 7.2 percent in the Census 2000-style panel. The differences between both of these sets of percentages were statistically significant.

 

Bernardo de Gálvez

October 12th


Long Beach Hails Heroic Spaniard  
History: General who aided American Revolution recalled. 
By Chad Greene, Staff writer, Long Beach Press Telegram

Sunday, October 12, 2003 - LONG BEACH The Spanish army invaded the Terrace Theatre in Long Beach on Sunday, not to engage in combat, but to educate the public about a forgotten hero of the American Revolution. 

Gen. Bernardo de Galvez became the governor of Louisiana, then a Spanish colony, in 1777. During the early years of the Revolutionary War, he sent supplies to the American colonies to aid them in their fight for independence. In 1779, however, Spain declared war on England, and Galvez promptly marched north from New Orleans, defeating the British in battle at Baton Rouge, Natchez, Mobile and Pensacola, now located in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, respectively. 

Sunday, the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra celebrated Galvez with a free concert featuring new works by composers Ana Lara and Robert Maggio. The symphony produced the concert in association with the Galvez Project, an organization dedicated to honoring the general. 

Before the show, historical re- enactors dressed in Revolutionary War-era military uniforms entertained and educated the crowd. 

Galvez was portrayed by Hector Diaz, a historical re-enactor from Columbia, Md. Diaz specializes in Spain's Louisiana Regiment, which made Galvez a natural draw. 

"Galvez was commander of the Louisiana regiment during the American Revolution,' Diaz explained. 

"He's quite a fascinating figure,' he said. "And, of course, he was a great contributor to the cause of American independence.' 

Judge Frederick Aguirre, the co-chair of the Galvez Project, wants the general to be accorded his rightful place in American history. 

"We can, hopefully, include his name in our children's history books,' Aguirre said. 

The celebration's focus on history was also reflected by the exhibitors housed in a tent set up in front of the theater, including heritage-preservation groups such as Los Californianos, Los Pobladores and the Sons of the American Revolution. 


Long Beach Poly High Brass Quintet opened the event with music of the time period.  Yesteryears Dancers continued to set the atmosphere with a collection of authentic colonial dances, La Gran
Cazar, Minueto, La Xameica, La Zarabanda, Son y jarabe, El Guion, La Contradanza La Marcha du Roy (La Bataille).  They were acompanied by Los Californios Musicians.
The Santa Ana High School Jr. Navy ROTC attracted passer- bys as they  performed their national award winning routines facing Ocean Blvd.
After the formal historical lectures, Bernardo de Galvez (Hector Diaz ) gave an impromptu lecture to San Bernardino students. 

How did it change your perceptions or attitudes?
It was hip and cool. 
I really enjoyed the music.
I feel very proud of my background.
First concert, more fun than expected.
This is my first time and I am extremely surprised how great the music is. 
I didn't dream it would be so wonderful.
That every culture is important and has an impact on today's future. 

Under a 70 by 40 foot tent, tables and displays were set up by community organizations, historical and genealogical societies. The LDS Church set up a children's activity table outdoors and computer stations indoors. 

Also inside were displays by Eddie Grijalva and Yolanda Alvarez.  
Click to recent articles about both of them in the Orange County Register.   Grijalva     Alvarez




Well-known in Orange County, pianist Frances Rios added a touch of dignity to the mornings events as she played a grand piano in the lobby.  In the afternoon classical guitarists Jose Zerimar and Jean Fritz delighted the audience with their skill.  Marta Gálvez said, "They are as good as any of our best guitarists in Spain."  

Children from the well-rehearsed Orange County Children's Therapeutic Art Center danced, played harps and sang. 

The children wait their turn as they watch the Cadets  prepare to demonstrate their skill in coordinated precision routines. Following the children, adults from Passionate Dance performed two numbers.

The posting of colors by the Santa Ana High Navy Jr. ROTC and the National Anthem was sung with power and deep emotion by Humberto Argucia, Los Angeles Firefighter.

Ffrom left to right, Martha Valesques, representing Nell Soto,  Ambassador Marta Lara, Maria Angeles Olson, Marta Gálvez, Humberto Argucia, and Judge Fredrick Aguirre. 

Chairwoman. Mimi Lozano received a Resolution from the Honorable Nell Soto, 32nd Senatorial District commending The General Bernardo de Gálvez Project.  Co-Chair Judge Aguirre, as Master of Ceremonies, introduced Maria Angeles Olson, Honorary Consul of Spain in San Diego, Ambassador Marta Lara, Consul of Mexico, and Marta Gálvez, a direct descendent of Bernardo de Gálvez, who traveled from Spain to attend the event.  Each special guest spoke in support of the Hispanic American Heroes Series.

Other dignitaries included Ma. Hellen M. Barber, the Philippine Consul, representatives of State Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia who lead the Assembly in formally recognizing the Gálvez project. Mrs. Macias, representing her daughters, U.S. Congresswomen, Loretta and Linda Sanchez. Carlos Olamendi, Bush appointee to the Arts Council of the Kennedy Center, and a member of the transition team for Governor Schwarzenegger.  Another transition team member was Long Beach Mayor, Beverly O'Neill, who with Toni Reyes Uranga lead the Long Beach Council in support of the Gálvez Project.  Councilwoman, Bonnie Lowenthal joined us for the concert and festivities.
Closing the formal ceremony was a duet by brothers Christopher and Joshua Ballard.  The young men presented a stirring, musical historical overview of the history of the United States.

     
http://www.christopherballard.com 
Christopher performed solo in President George W. Bush's inaugural festivities.

The dramatic finale of the pre-concert activities was the Soldados Historical Recreation honoring  General Bernardo de Gálvez.  Eighteenth Century Soldiers participating in the Gálvez ceremony were as follows: 

Los Soldados del Real Presidios de Santa Barbara y San Diego
Brigadier Phelipe de Neve, Capitan General de los Provincias Internas, Arizpe Sonora. Former gobvernador de los Californias. 
Tinente Colonel Juan Bautista de Anza
His Majesty, George III, 33rd Regiment of Foot, Lord Cornwallis'Company.
Fifers and drummers of the Luisiana militia played the famed Toques de Guerra.  

Phelipe de Neve (Michael Hardwick) pictured here with Father Serra, (Bruce Buonauro). 

 

From left to right:  Spanish Lt. Zuniga (Robert Stevens), Presidio of San Diego. 
British soldiers, Sergeant John Savage (Radford Polinsky)
Spanish Soldados from the Presidio of Santa Barbara, Drummer, Musician (John Warren), 
Soldiers, (David Martinez, Ben Valenzuela, Miguel Aberle, Paul A. Trujillo)  and 
Alférez  (George W. Decker Jr.)
Spanish Sergeant of the Guard (Jim Elwell Martinez), of the Soldiers of His Majesty, Presidio of Santa Barbara carries the scroll to be read.  http://www.soldados.us/StBarbara/index.htm


Don Bernardo was decorated with the Royal 
and most Illustrious order of Carlos III.

When the ceremony closed, as the crowd began to enter the Terrace Theater, the lovely sounds of a choir filled the air.  Millikin High School students under the direction of John Harvey brought a gentle solemnity to the occasion, a perfect ending and transition to the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra's General Bernardo de Gálvez Concert.

Thank you to all those that helped to bring this event to the Community

Individual members of the following organizations participated with displays and/or as re-enactors, or presentors:
Anaheim, South Jr. High,  BYU Center for Family History and Genealogical Center, California State Fullerton University, Canary Islanders Societies, Canary Islanders Societies of Texas, California State Genealogical Society, Center for Spanish Colonial Research, Chapman College,  Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Consulate of Mexico, Consulate of Spain,  Daughters of the American Revolutions, Em2group Galvez Maps, Fire in the Morning Photos, Grijalva Historical Display, Hispanic Business Women Association,  Hispanic CPAs, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Hispanic MBAs, Latino Advocates for Education, Lincoln-Juarez Opportunity Center, Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach Unified School District, Los Californianos, Los Granderos, Los Pobladores,  Los Soldados del Real Presidios de Santa Barbara y San Diego, Fifers and drummers of the Louisiana Militia, Orange County Children's Therapeutic Art Center, Orange County Department of Education, Orange County Mexican American Historical Foundation, Outstanding Music,   Para Todos, Public Affairs LDS Church,  Rancho Los Cerritos Hispanic History Committee,  San Bernardino Unified School District, San Bernardino LDS Public Affairs, Santa Ana Canyon Historical Council, Santa Ana College,  Soldados de Cuera, Sons of the American Revolution,  33rd Regiment of Foot, Lord Cornwallis' Company, Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance


SURNAME


ACOSTA

 

Desde la más remota antigüedad, se encuentra este apellido radicado en la Península Ibérica. y en contra de las versiones difundidas por algunos genealogistas, pasó de España a Portugal y no a la inversa.

Don Diego de Urbina y don Juan de Mendoza, Reyes de Armas de don Felipe II y don Felipe IV, respectivamente, aseguran que dicho linaje tuvo su primitivo origen en una familia romana, cuya memoria subsiste en diversas medallas de los tiempos de Julio César;y que de individuos de la mencionada familia se hace mención honorífica en el libro XXV de Valerio, en el III Cornelio Tácito y en el XIV y XVII de Plutarco, de sus “Varones ilustres”, y que algunos de ellos fueron los que llevaron el mencionado linaje a España. Esta opinión, un tanto fantástica, se puede considerar con bastantes reservas.

Los que afirman proceder de Portugal, señalan que viene de un Caballero que floreció en tiempos del Monarca don Manuel, que ocupó el trono del país lusitano desde el año 1495 hasta el de 1521. Con esta opinión coincide Manuel Faria Souza apuntando como tronco al Cardenal Jorge Acosta, que pasó a Roma con diferentes comisiones y vivió durante el pontificado de Alejandro VI.

El cronista Fray Bernardo Brito afirma que entre los Reyes godos hubo uno que se llamó Acosta, ya que se encontraron diversas monedas, en las que se hallaban grabados su nombre y dignidad. También el Obispo de Burgos, don Alonso de Cartagena, asegura que ese Rey godo reinó cinco años y siete meses.

García Alonso de Torres añade que los descendientes de ese Monarca fundaron la originaria y primitiva casa solariega de este linaje en las Montañas de Burgos, tomando su apellido del nombre propio del aludido Rey, su antecesor, costumbre muy practicada entre los godos.

Lo que parece estar fuera de toda duda, es que los Acosta tuvieron su más antiguo solar en las aludidas Montañas de Burgos, desde donde pasaron a Castilla, Aragón, Galicia, Portugal, Andalucía y América.

Brandón, en su “Origen de la Monarquía Lusitana”, le da al linaje en Portugal una antigüedad de tres siglos antes del reinado de don Alfonso VI, pues estima que los Acosta florecieron en aquel país en tiempos del Rey don Alonso Enríquez, y añade que eran hijosdalgo notorios, disfrutando de pingües mayorazgos que estaban vinculados con las más principales familias portuguesas.

La rama que se radicó en Castilla, además de pasar el linaje a Portugal, creó solares secundarios en León, Zamora, Cuenca, Andalucía e Islas Canarias. En este último lugar, muchos le antepusieron un patronímico.

Las armas primitivas son: EN CAMPO DE PLATA, SEIS COSTILLAS DE SABLE, PUESTAS EN TRES FAJAS.

Así vienen descritas y pintadas en el expediente de don Gabriel de Zequeira y de Acosta, Caballero Guardia Marina, nacido en La Habana el año 1783, según certificación que se acompaña del Rey de Armas don Julián Brochero, dada en 1726 a favor de don Félix Rodríguez de Acosta, natural de Oporto, Portugal. Esto, lo vienen confirmando distintos cronistas, entre ellos: Frías de Albornoz, en su “Nobiliario”, folios 90 y 201; “el Nobiliario de Diego Hernández, folio 253; “Casas, linajes y armas” de don Juan de Mendoza, tomo I folio 28 y tomo II folio 273; “Sumario de Noblezas y sus Blasones”, de Juan Baños de Velasco, tomo XII, folio 241 y tomo XVII, folio 41; “Genealogías del Nuevo Reino de Granada”, de Florez de Ocáriz, tomo I y tomo II; “Linajes Nobles de España”, de Vilar y Psayla, página 51, y otros muchos.

Don Joaquín y don José de Acosta y Godoy, naturales de Santiago de Chile, Teniente de Fragata el primero, vistieron el hábito de la Orden Militar de Santiago, en 1797, después de realizar las oportunas pruebas de su nobleza de sangre. Eran hijos de don Antonio de Acosta y Godoy, que pasó al Reino de Chile en calidad de Secretario del Gobernador don Antonio Güell y Gonzaga, natural de Madrid, Marqués de Salas y de doña Margarita Montealegre, con la que se unió en matrimonio en aquella villa el 2 de junio de 1757; nieto paterno de don Pedro de Godoy Acosta, natural de la villa de Abruceña, Almería y de doña Victoria Anelo, de la Alhambra de Granada.

En esta misma institución nobiliaria, ingresó en 1888, don Salvador Tavira y Almazán, natural de Madrid, donde llegó al mundo en 1848, Marqués de Salas y Conde de Montealegre de la Rivera, hijo de don Agustín Tavira Acosta, de la misma naturaleza, y de doña María del Pilar de Acosta Pinos, de Zaragoza; nieto materno de don Joaquín de Acosta y Montealegre, antes mencionado como santiaguista y de doña Vicenta de Pinós Copons, barcelonesa.

Ante la Real y Distinguida Orden Española de Carlos III, también probó el apellido don Salvador Tavira y Acosta, en 1837, nacido en Aranjuez, Madrid, en 1803, hijo de don Pedro Fernando Tavira, de Albaladejo, y de la chilena doña María Teresa de Acosta y Montealegre, de la misma estirpe que los Caballeros relacionados.

En la Sala de Hijosdalgo de la Real Chancillería de Valladolid, acreditaron su calidad de hijosdalgos: don Alvaro de Acosta, vecino de Valdespina, en 1546, don Francisco de Acosta, residente en Sebastián, en 1611; don Diego de Acosta Moreno y Meneses, de Cacabelos,Galicia,en 1760, y don Hipólito de Acosta, vecino de Valdespina, en 1799.

En la Real Compañía de Caballeros Cadetes Guardias Marinas, fueron admitidos, don Luis de Acosta y Blanco, natural de Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Cádiz, en 1741, y don José de Acosta y Montealegre, de Santiago de Chile, en 1783. En el Colegio Naval, ingresaron don José de Acosta y Vélez, de Cádiz, el año 1863, y en 1865, don José de Acosta y Bofante, nacido en el Arsenal de la Carraca, Cádiz.

Don Ildefonso de Acosta, fue Sargento del Batallón de Infantería de Milicias Disciplinadas de Voluntarios Blancos, en Mérida de Yucatán, el año 1799; don Juan de Acosta, Cadete de Infantería de México, en 1800; y don Mariano de Acosta, Subteniente del Regimiento provincial de Infantería de Córdoba, Orizaba y Jalapa, en 1800.

Don Diego de Acosta y Cabera, fue nombrado en 10 de junio de 1675, Fiscal de la Real Audiencia de Guadalajara, México; don Jerónimo de Acosta, Alcalde Mayor de Córdoba y San Antonio de Guatuco, en 30 de septiembre de 1707, y don Domingo Cayetano de Acosta, Regidor de Aguas Calientes, en 10 de julio de 1788.

Don Enrique de Acosta, en unión de su hermano el Maestre don Iñigo, pasaron a establecerse en Yucatán, en 1527. Ambos eran naturales de la ciudad de Sevilla, e hijos de don Francisco de Castellanos y de doña Leonor de Acosta.

Extract from BLASONES Y APELLIDOS, 828-page book by Fernando Muñoz Altea
In its second edition, the book can be ordered from blasones@mail.com
or at P.O. Box 11232, El Paso, Texas  79995  or by contacting
Armando Montes   AMontes@Mail.com


ORANGE COUNTY, CA

Nov 1: Noche de altares / Night of Altars
Nov 2:  Dia De Los Muertos
Nov 2: Celebración comunitaria 
Nov 5: International Festival 2003
Nov 5: Hispanic Advisory Commission

Nov 8: Orange CO Hispanic Women of the Year
Nov 8: 7th Annual Veterans Day Celebration
Nov 15: Escondido Family History Fair, "Free" 
Nov 15: Santa Ana Library Hispanic Family History
Nov 20-21: "Estrategias Indigenas en California"  
One man's search sheds new light on OC origins 
`Fire' for history burns in her heart
Congratulations to Rueben Martinez for receiving the 2003 HEEF Apple of Gold Award, Leader in Education and all the winners of the Women of this year's LULAC #147 winners. Well earned for their dedication to the community.  
Noche de altares / Night of Altars
Santa Ana Day of the Dead 2003
Continue the Tradition
Sent by Robert Rios riosr@uci.edu

On Saturday, November 1st, the Santa Ana Artist Village will celebrate the annual tradition of Day of the Dead along 2nd Street Promenade.  Take part in this unforgettable community event.  Community members, students and artists are invited to contribute by building an altar dedicated to a loved one, or  to bring awareness of a social issue.  Altars will be displayed outdoors for one day.

The Day of the Dead is a time for the dead to return home and visit loved ones, feast on their favorite foods and listen to their favorite music.  In the homes, family members honor their deceased with ofrenda or offerings which may consist of photographs, bread, candles, other foods, flowers, toys.  This yearly tradition has been going strong since pre-Columbian civilizations in the Americas.  Continue the tradition by participating in this year's Day of the Dead event in Santa Ana.

To participate please contact Rigo at 714 558-1934 or rigom@adelphia.net
Organized by: Centro Cultural de Mexico, POCHARTE & ARTO

Dia De Los Muertos *November 2nd- Sunday, 2pm - 9pm
Everyone is welcome to come and set up your ofrendas for memory of those who have gone into the spirit world. ALL EVENTS ARE FREE!!  

Alianza Indigena
511 S. Harbor, Anaheim CA 
714-758-1990  http://www.alianzaindigena.org  Sent by LOPEZ1212@aol.com


Celebración comunitaria / Community Celebration

Sunday, November 2nd, 4- 9 pm.;  FREE @ El Centro

El Centro Cultural invites the entire community to celebrate el Dia de los Muertos with dance and musical performances by Ernesto Chaves, la Banda de Oaxaca Renacimiento, los Danzoneros de Pasado, Son del Centro, y los Viejitos del Centro. Workshops in sugar skull decoration and mask making will be held on-site for the community. Traditional pan de muerto and other foods will be sold and different altars will be displayed including the community altar. Everyone is welcome to participate by bringing pictures and candles to add to the altar.

El Centro Cultural de Mexico, 1522 South Main Street, Santa Ana, CA
For information:  (714)  953-9305
Source: Nellie Kaniski  Kaniski_Nellie@RSCCD.org


INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL 2003…
The INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS OF Santa Ana College invite you to SAVE THE DATE:  November 5, 2003 at 11: a.m. to 2: p.m. Come join us at the Santa Ana College Mall, for Entertainment, Exotic Foods, Exhibits and National Dress… “See you there!”  Source: Nellie Kaniski  Kaniski_Nellie@RSCCD.org

SANTA ANA COLLEGE GALLERY EXHIBITION: "Community College Clay"   Oct 9 thru Nov 8,`03

            SAC Arts Gallery at the Santora Building, 207 N. Broadway, Suite Q, Santa Ana 
               

Santa Ana College presents a unique exhibition of faculty and advanced student ceramic work from many of Southern California's finest Art Departments. Participating community colleges: Cerritos, Cerro Coso, Chaffey, El Camino, Glendale, Grossmont, Long Beach City, Orange Coast, Pasadena City, Rio Hondo, Riverside, Saddleback, San Diego Mesa, Santa Ana College and Ventura. 

 

OPEN HOUSE is held on the first Saturday of every month; galleries and studios throughout the Village are free, open to the public on that evening with many studios hosting "after hours" events.

Free parking for that evening can be found in the city parking structure located at 3rd St. and Birch St.  The exhibition will continue through November 8, 2003.  Regular gallery hours during the week are:  Thursday - Saturday,  From 12 Noon to 4:00PM.

 

Mayde Herberg, Gallery Director, Santa Ana College

Caroline McCabe, Gallery Coordinator - SAC
Source: Nellie Kaniski  Kaniski_Nellie@RSCCD.org


The Hispanic Advisory Commission of the District Attorney's Office
 
and the Hon. Tony Rackauckas  invite the community to a public panel to discuss community issues: 

November 5, 2003, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.
SANTA ANA COLLEGE PHILLIPS HALL
1530 W. 17th Street
Santa Ana, CA 92706

FEATURED PANEL SPEAKERS
Most Rev. Jaime Soto / Chief Paul Walters 
Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of Orange Santa Ana Police Department 
Amin David / Chief Joe Polisar
Chair, Los Amigos of Orange County Garden Grove Police Department
Rusty Kennedy / Victoria Zaragoza
Executive Director, OC Human Relations Community Activist
Special Guests: Hon. State Senator Joe Dunn
Hon. Assemblyman Lou Correa
Moderator: Jess J. Araujo, Esq.
For information, please call 714-835-6990


*** 7th Annual Veterans Day Celebration ***

Saturday November 8, 2003 / 10 am - 3 pm
California State University, Fullerton
800 No. State College Blvd., Fullerton, CA
Free Admission and Parking
Info: 714-225-2499

"A Tribute to Mexican-American POWs & Iraq War Veterans"
Special Guests: POWs of World War II, Korean and Vietnam War.

* Helicopter Fly-Over  /  * Military Vehicles on Display
* ROTC Marching Units  /  * Food Court
* Displays of Memorabilia of Latino Veterans

By Latino Advocates for Education - to promote patriotism and to document
the contributions of our Latino military veterans.
Sponsors: Latino Advocates for Education, California State University
Fullerton, Gonzalez Northgate Markets.


"Orange County Hispanic Women of the Year"

League of United Latin American Citizens Santa Ana LULAC Council #147
is proud to present its 2003  Awards Banquet 

Saturday, November 8, 2003 
6 p.m. - Cocktail Reception & Entertainment 
7 p.m. - Banquet, Entertainment, Program & Raffle Prizes 

Yolanda Alvarez - Education 
America Bracho - Medicine Health Services 
Norma Cobb - Political Affairs 
Lupe Fisher - Community Volunteer Service 
Iola Gallardo - Community Volunteer Service 
Leticia Garcia-Irigoyen - Communications 
Mary Lara - Community Volunteer Service 
Lorena Marin - Service to Country 
Lucy Santana - Community Volunteer Service 
Carolina Sarmiento - Arts 
Genevieve Southgate - Business 
Mary Yorba - Community Volunteer Service 

Santa Ana Performing Arts & Event Center 
505 North Sycamore Street, Santa Ana, CA 92701 
Between Santa Ana Blvd. & 5th Street, Downtown Santa Ana 
(Self Park & Pay $3 parking structure or Free Parking Behind Center) 
$45 per person / $55 per person after Nov. 1st 
RSVP & Information: 714-835-9585 or zekeher@juno.com 

Proceeds Benefit LULAC's Student College Scholarship Fund 
Program Advertising Spaces Available for Business or Individual!

Escondido Family History Fair, "Free" 

Sat. Nov. 15- 8am - 5 Pm

Speakers- Barbara Renick, Alan Jones, Beth McCarty, Joan Lowrey
Classes for :Beginners, Native Americans, Hispanic, German Research, English Research, Court Records, etc. Visit the site for more info. & to print registration 
http://www.familyhistoryfair.org/info.html

Sent by Lorraine Hernandez  Lmherdz@hotmail.com  909- 698-6639

 


"Primera Conferencia de Estrategias Indigenas en California"  
November 21-22  No cost to attend conference..
Temas/Topics:  
*Indian Education in the k-12 schools/La educacion indigena en las escuelas k-12
*The Youth/La Joventud
*La Mujer
*La Cultura Indigena/Indian Culture

Alianza Indigena  714-758-1990
511 S. Harbor, Anaheim CA 
http://www.alianzaindigena.org
Sent by LOPEZ1212@aol.com
 

One man's search sheds new light on O.C. origins 
History buffs hear story of pioneer for whom Grijalva Park was named. 
JEBB HARRIS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER, Monday, October 6, 2003  

SHARING: 

Eddie Grijalva, right, shares a laugh Sunday with David Belardes, tribal chairman of the Juanenos Band of Indians, at Grijalva Community Park in Orange. Eddie was there to tell the Orange County Pioneer Council about his family’s roots. 
 

 

Photo:
 
By
 COURTNEY PERKES,
Orange County Register


ORANGE – Eddie Grijalva listened silently when his classmates told stories of their ancestors settling America from places like England and Germany.  He wished he could participate, but only knew a vague family story about a relative who was a soldier.

Decades would pass before Grijalva, now 70, discovered that his ancestor settled a wide swath of what is now Orange County back when the land belonged to Spain, and that he drew the area's first known map.

On Sunday, the retired school custodian shared the milestones of Juan Pablo Grijalva, a lieutenant in the Spanish army, as well as his own journey to recognize his family roots.

Grijalva's research began 22 years ago and culminated this spring with the dedication of Grijalva Park at Santiago Creek in Orange. 

Grijalva stood in the 15-acre park Sunday afternoon to address the annual Orange County Pioneer Council picnic. He told stories of how in 1799 his sixth cousin built the county's first adobe in Orange, and how years before, Juan Pablo watched Father Junipero Serra, who helped colonize California with the founding of the missions, baptize babies in San Francisco.

"How many people can say, 'My ancestor knew Father Serra and I have the document to prove it?' " Grijalva asked about 70 pioneer council members, who trace their family's arrival in Orange County to the years before 1926. "It pays to do your homework and be nosy."

Grijalva, a Buena Park resident who grew up in the part of south county then known as El Toro, began investigating Juan Pablo Grijalva after noticing his name in an exhibit at the Bowers Museum. His research led him to Sonora, Mexico, where the soldier was born in 1741, to missions throughout California and back to Orange County, where Juan Pablo died in 1806.

"By doing this, I feel a lot better about myself, my history, my heritage," Grijalva said.

He spent hours in research libraries where he read his ancestor's journal entries and studied the map Juan Pablo drew when he requested the land after serving 33 years in the military. The tricolor map that includes the Pacific Ocean and Santa Ana River is the oldest known map of north Orange County, Grijalva's research indicates.

"I wanted to do it right," Grijalva said. "Being that I don't have all these degrees, I didn't want to be embarrassed if someone asked me a question. I wanted to be able to back myself up."

The more Grijalva learned about his cousin, the more he wanted to see him recognized for his contributions.

"When I started, there was nothing named after him," he said.

When Grijalva learned of Orange's plans to convert a former gravel mine into a park at Prospect Avenue and Spring Street, he attended a naming committee meeting. He brought copies of his research on Juan Pablo and suggested his name. When the panel selected the name, Grijalva felt like he was floating.

"Pride. These buttons couldn't hold my chest in," Grijalva said, grasping his long-sleeved gray shirt.

He spoke at the park's dedication in April.

Sunday, he took questions, and showed old photos and translations of Grijalva's diaries.

"Eddie certainly added an additional dimension to our group by taking us much farther back than the settler that came from the East Coast or Midwest," said Gary Ball, 50, a member of the council, which was formed in 1981 to help record the histories of pioneer families.

Among the youngest in the audience sat Grijalva's granddaughter, Vanessa Borquez, 18. Despite growing up listening to the family history, she said she never grows tired of hearing about Juan Pablo.

"It's really interesting," she said. "A lot of people can't say that about their families. I always learn new things."

CONTACT US: (714) 704-3709 or cperkes@ocregister.com 

Extract:
`Fire' for history burns in her heart
by Theresa Salinas, Orange County Register, 9-30-03

Yolanda Alvarez is educating people bout the country's colonias early Mexican-American settlements that once flourished from Placentia to San Juan Capistrano. She runs a pictorial exhibit depicting lfe in these close-knit communities and recently helped start the Orange county Mexican American Historical foundation, aimed at harvesting photos, artifacts and oral histories. 

Alvarez is a second-generation Mexican-American.  Her father, Carlos, was reared on a ranch in San Juan Capistrano.  Her mother, Emma, was raised in Logan, a Santa Ana colonia.  In 2000, Alvarez, a graphic designer stumbled upon a cause that consumed her for the next three years, compiling a list of known colonias.  The project caught the interest of many old timers who contributed to her growing collection of photographs.   

Now with 100 pieces, Fire in the Morning has been viewed by 10,000 students in Santa Ana schools, and exhibited in many locations ranging from the Old Orange County Courthouse to Irvine Civic Center.  The exhibit is designed to combat Latino stereotypes and teach people about the area's rich Mexican-American heritage.  

"This is like a treasure," she said.  "It chronicles the struggles and triumphs of people in Orange county.  We should collect these stories before these communities are completely gone and only exist in memories of the people who lived there.  

For more information on the Orange County Mexican American Historical Foundation, see
http://www.ocmahf.com

LOS ANGELES, CA

Los Angeles City College Conference
Chiapas and Beyond Exhibit Opens
Latinos & Technology Conference
To All Relations: Coming Home
Assumption and Other Stories 
Returning to Aztlan:  A Chicano Art Retrospective
Malinche' s Children

Please note that that 4 of the 5 speakers
 are SHHAR Board and/or Galvez Executive Committee Members.


Chiapas and Beyond Exhibit Opens

November 1-30 2003
Sent by Carol Adams-Ramos siouxshe2@hotmail.com

You are invited to attend the artist's reception for Chiapas and Beyond by photographer Richard C. Wright on Saturday November 1st (All Saints Day) 2003, at the House of Brews-Library Plaza 231 N. Maclay Avenue in the City of San Fernando. 

Chiapas and Beyond exhibits the work of Richard Wright who has photographed the people of Chiapas, Mexico and Guatemala for the last 30 years. This will be one of the first public exhibits of these photographs.

A native of Everett, Washington, Wright drove to Panama City, Panama in 1972, camera in hand, taking photos along the way.  That trip marked the beginning of his deep love for Mexico and Latin America and his life's work to photograph the people of Chiapas and beyond. Over the years, Wright has gained the respect and trust of the indigenous people and families who he has chronicled for three generations. 

During his long stays in Mexico, Wright was received in the homes of world renowned photographers Manuel Alvarez Bravo and Manuel Carrillo.  Both photographers favorably supported and encouraged Wright's work.  Carrillo offered to assist Wright with a show in Mexico but unfortunately passed away before it could be completed. Manuel Alvarez Bravo shared with Wright which equipment he liked to use in his darkroom and encouraged him to try it, which he has done. 

He has persevered despite severe pain and an arthritic condition that has required surgery to replace his shoulders and elbows with artificial ones; Wright carries heavy photography equipment into remote areas. With each trip, he takes his previous work back to the remote homes and villages where he photographed.  It is not uncommon to see a museum quality family photo by Wright hanging on the wall of their humble dwellings.  He presents these photographic portraits to the families as his expression of respect and affection. For Wright, a trip to San Cristobal de Las Casas - Chiapas, Mexico is a return home.
Santa Ana Library. . .


 

 

Latinos & Technology Conference, Thursday, November 13

Last year’s inaugural conference was a great success, drawing enormous support from the community, elected officials and the media. Over 650 people attended the conference and we expect an equal or greater number this year. LTC 2003 will cover a wide range of technology issues relevant to business, education, public policy, nonprofit organizations and youth. 

 

This year, Hispanic Business Magazine hosts a roundtable forum, “Does Technology Really Mean Business?” introducing a report on use of new technologies by Latino businesses and their impact on cost, efficiency, market reach and competitiveness of Latino businesses.  A summary of this report, conducted by the research arm of Hispanic Business Magazine, HispanTelligence ®, will be followed by a panel of technology experts that will look at the impact of future technological developments on business and other sectors. A copy of this report will be distributed to all attendees. 

Thursday, November 13, 2003
Time:
8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Location:
Los Angeles Convention Center

For more information visit our website at www.latinos-tech.com

 

Sponsorship inquiries: Contact Emily Robinson at 310.699.9296.

Media inquiriese:  Contact Alicia Maldonado at 213.624.1030.

General Information:  James 562)695-7656.

For vendor Information: Rhonda 323)728-0583
Source: Nellie Kaniski  Kaniski_Nellie@RSCCD.org


To All Relations: Coming Home 
Sent by Howard Shorr  howardshorr@msn.com
 
ABOUT GREAT LEAP:  Great Leap is a multicultural performing arts organization that tours colleges and theaters nationwide. Founded in 1978 by artistic director, Nobuko Miyamoto, Great Leap is dedicated to using the arts to cross cultural borders as a powerful force for positive social change.  Please check out our website http://www.greatleap.org  for more details on any of the upcoming events and for 25th anniversary events coming soon!

Great Leap is currently leading a 10-week residency at Senshin Buddhist Temple that focuses on the shared experiences of the Japanese American, Mexican American and American Muslim communities with respect to relocation, repatriation and deportation.  The workshops, led by Nobuko, Ruben Guevara and Najeeba Syeed-Miller, will culminate in a choreo-poem, weaving stories and music, which will be presented at the "Breaking the Fast" event during the holy month of Ramadan at Senshin Buddhist Temple.  This is the third year that Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress (NCRR) and Muslim Affairs Council (MPAC) have joined forces to deepen ties and understanding between their communities.  This year. Great Leap widens the circle to include the Mexican American experience, along with other cultural offerings to engage, inspire and unite.

Sharing cultures, food and experiences  at the “Breaking the Fast” event Senshin Buddhist Temple
1311 W. 37th St, LA
Saturday, November 15, 2003, 3:30 to 7pm  Admission is free.  
To RSVP or with questions, please call (213) 250-8800.  


Assumption and Other Stories
by 
Daniel A. Olivas 
Olivasdan@aol.com

Attorney-author puts L.A.'s diverse population on paper
Review by Rigoberto González


The lawyer-turned-writer phenomenon is no longer new, but whenever another one comes onto the scene, it's still news -- especially when that writer brings into the craft a sharp investigator's sensibility for human nature. In Chicano letters, the most notable are Alfredo Véa Jr., Michael Nava and Yxta Maya Murray. With the publication of "Assumption and Other Stories" (Bilingual Press, $11 paperback), Daniel A. Olivas adds his name to that growing list. 

Set within the urban landscape of Los Angeles, the prose of the lean and efficient collection is reminiscent of film noir. Indeed, a few of the pieces -- a murder plot in the story "Rosie," a first day at a frustrating job in "Eight," a suicide at a Catholic school in "Assumption" -- are cinematic splices of events, allowing the reader to eavesdrop or witness from the safety of the shadows. 

The diverse characterizations of Olivas' work reflect the cosmopolitan city where these lives flourish or, in some cases, fail. Populating the pages are Cubans, Mexicans, Jews, interracial marriages and offspring with names like Quassia and Jonathan Cohen-Ramírez, and an assortment of Chicanos whose Spanish runs the gamut from fluent to so-so 

Racial tensions, however, are not at the center of Olivas' stories. Instead, he shows how people of varying histories attempt to reconcile their relationships by meeting on common ground. In "Quack," for example, the long marriage of Constance Whitcomb and Rudolfo Barbosa is tested after they both retire. Despite transgressions on both their parts, they seek out within their older selves the beauty that first brought them together. 

A similar process of healing occurs with blood relations. In "Miles," a father and son narrow the generation gap through music. In "Res Judicata," a father and daughter communicate through their different languages: Hers is the lingo of law, and his "those little aphorisms that amount to bite-sized bits of Mexican wisdom." Though they need to translate their tongues, both strive to understand. 

In the midst of all this drama, humor reigns, as in the hilarious "Third Person Omniscient" in which Owen Socrates Parédez, a born loser despite his grandiose name, wants to impress his parents with a mediocre story he scribed for night class. And in "19," Mrs. Villarreal, whose late husband bought matching tombstones assuming they would both be dead before the end of the millennium, drives off to solve her Y2K problem with the new owner of Manny's Memorial Granite, since she also outlived Manny. 

With scattered references to the famous neighborhoods, the Northridge quake, polluted skies and "those dirty little dust twisters that take over the streets of downtown in autumn," L.A. becomes another quirky character in "Assumption and Other Stories," perhaps the best homage an author can present to the city that is his muse. 

Olivas also pays tribute to the population of Los Angeles by bringing together characters so convincing they could have been lifted off the streets and set down in ink. 

http://www.borderlandnews.com/stories/living/20031005-29407.shtml
Review by Rigoberto González of New York City is an award-winning poet and writer. 
His latest publication is the novel "Crossing Vines."  Rigoberto70@aol.com


Returning to Aztlan:  A Chicano Art Retrospective
October 11 – November 22, 2003
Receptions:  Saturday, November 14, 6-9pm
dA Center for the Arts
252-D S. Main St., Pomona, CA 91766-1630
909. 397.9716, fax 909.629.8697
E-mail, mailto:info@dacenter.org   Website, http://www.dacenter.org


Malinche's Children
The Long Beach Press Telegram ran weekly Hispanic stories as part of National Hispanic Heritage Month in their U-Entertainment section. Here is the third article, a review of Malinche's Children written by Daniel Houston-Davila' and reviewed by Phillip Zonkel, staff writer.. The author bases his debut novel on a century of life in a small Norwalk Latino neighborhood.  It reflects the dichotomy of life in a barrio. Sent by Los Amigos of Long Beach Webmaster

CARMELAS, A SMALL fictional barrio with four dirt streets, set 17 miles southeast of Los Angeles, is the central focus in Daniel Houston-Davila's debut novel, "Malinche" s Children,'' now available in bookstores.In 19 mini-stories spanning almost a century (1900-1994), Houston-Davila chronicles the community's formation by Mexican farmworkers to its troubled existence nearly 100 years later when their descendants live uneasily between two worlds -- isolated from white California by lineage and language, yet cut off from their homeland, Mexico.

The stories tell how residents struggle with change in the barrio and beyond. They move from being invisible to claiming a place and finding a voice and identity. 

As a result, they are confronted with issues of loyalty, questions of betrayal, language, power, finding one's voice, discrimination, racism, self-esteem, identity, machismo, women's liberation, acculturation and assimilation.

The 348-page novel is based on Houston-Davila's heritage and experiences growing up in Norwalk.

The son of a Mexican woman whose family crossed the border from Mexico during the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) and a Scot who crossed the border from Canada just before the Depression, the 55-year-old author, who now resides in Belmont Shore, was reared in a lower-working-class neighborhood bordered on one side by the Santa Ana Freeway and the other by a barrio, an enclave of Spanish-speaking people.

"When my mother would get homesick for her language, she" d take my sisters and me and go a couple of streets over to this barrio where people spoke Spanish,'' Houston-Davila says. "We had a foot in both worlds.

"My mother would sit with these women, and the children would play around their feet. I would hear this beautiful language that wasn" t completely Spanish, and it wasn't quite English. It was like this woven tapestry,'' he says. "They would tell these beautiful stories, but unnoticed outside of this world, nobody heard these people. They were invisible.

"My mother" s people learned English imperfectly, and as they got older, their speech was more and more an unconscious blend of two languages, code-switching that I found lovely and telling,'' he says. "But language is power, and as beautiful as these hybrid tongues are, they limit power.

"As I grew older, I realized these poor people were like poor people everywhere. They had no voice. Nobody listened to their tales," ' Houston-Davila says. "I always remembered that if I ever was going to find a voice of my own that I could put on pages, it would be to tell the story of people who were voiceless and not listened to." '

His book title, "Malinche" s Children,'' draws on the historic and mythical figure of La Malinche, an Aztec woman who straddled two worlds, one of the invading Spanish explorer Hernando Cortes, and the other of the Aztec world she helped him conquer.

The daughter of a noble Aztec family, she was sold, by her mother, to traders and eventually was a slave in the Yucatan. Here, she learned Mayan dialects and still understood Nahuatl, the language of Aztecs and most non-Mayans. When Cortes arrived in 1519, she was offered to him as a slave.

Referred to as Dona Marina, the Aztec woman served as one of two interpreters at the first meetings between Cortes and the representatives of Aztec emperor Montezuma. She translated what the Aztecs said into the Mayan dialect understood by Cortes' other interpreter, and he relayed it to Cortes in Spanish. The process was then reversed, Spanish to Mayan and Mayan to Nahuatl.

Cortes was referred to as Malinche ("Captain" '), and she became known as La Malinche ("Captain" s Woman'').

She also gave birth to Cortes' son, the first mestizo (a person of mixed Spanish and indigenous descent). As a result, many refer to her as the mother of modern-day Mexico.

Houston-Davila uses La Malinche to represent the immigrant experience of living in two worlds.

"In the world I grew up in, I always saw Mexican-Americans, especially in Los Angeles, like Malinche," ' he says. "(Malinche) was dumped on the sand in front of strangers. But she found opportunity in that borderland, to make something out of where she did not choose to be.

"The Mexican-Americans were people who ended up somewhere, not necessarily where they would" ve chosen to be, but they made the best of it and came to define and name themselves,'' Houston-Davila says.

"But I saw much more often my father" s family trying to find a foothold here. In the end, not only did I see the Mexican-Americans as Malinche's children, but I saw lots of poor immigrants like Malinche's children.''

But it's Houston-Davila's devotion of giving a voice to the voiceless, particularly his Latino kin, that motivated him to put pen to paper.

"In the rapid Latinization of Los Angeles over the past two decades, Mexican-Americans who have been here forever, and like the people in my barrio, here for a hundred years, were somehow lost.

"Ignored in California until they found their voice in the mid-60s, they became invisible again when their particular circumstances that shaped them were forgotten in the flood of Latin immigration," ' he says. "These new immigrants were as different from Mexican-Americans as Africans were from African-Americans.

"The Cubans, the Central Americans, the new Mexicans came with firmer grasps of their histories, greater command of language, greater familiarity with how power works, more solid educations, making the burgeoning voice of the Chicano less distinct," ' Houston-Davila says.

"Those already in the barrio were always misunderstood, not only by the dominant culture, but now, too, by Latin immigrants who looked down their noses at people they saw as 'sin lengua, sin historia, sin cultura" ('without language, without history, without culture') without ever realizing that theirs was just a different language, a different history, and a different culture shaped by circumstances often imposed rather than consciously chosen.

"They don" t see that in the isolation of that world 50 years ago, there were no Spanish newspapers. There was La Opinion, but it didn't come to where we were, 17 miles southeast of Los Angeles,'' he says. "Even if it had, many of these people were illiterate in Spanish. When radio finally came, it was in English. When television came, it was in English.

"By tracing one tiny barrio and the lives played out there over 100 years, I can show the circumstances that shaped a people deserving to be remembered." '

In the book, he charts important 20th-century events that impacted the world within the barrio and uses them as backdrops: the Mexican Revolution, the Depression, Hollywood movies, World War II, the postwar housing boom, credit cards, birth control, divorce, and the new influx of Mexicans toward the end of the century.

"I want people to remember a certain historical truth that happened and shaped a whole people," ' Houston-Davila says. "Some of these people today are still being lost in the shuffle. We, who from the outside look in, can" t see the difference.''

Phillip Zonkel can be reached at (562) 499-1258 or by e-mail atphillip.zonkel@presstelegram.com
 

CALIFORNIA

A lonely watch over Laguna Beach
House OKs mission funds
The California Missions 
Americans Claims in a Baja Land Rush
Monterey County Historical Society
Images of Baja California
Juana Briones y Tapia de Miranda
San José Police Auditor Advises Mexican Police
2004 Hispanic Scholarship Directory 
Voting in California 100 Years Ago
Spanish and Mexican Periods (1766-1846)
California Spanish genealogy
Desert Trails: The Juan Bautista De Anza Trail
Cemetery Obliteration in Progress...  


Extract:
A lonely watch over Laguna Beach
Peruvian herder tends the fire-control goats that feed on threatening brush
by Lisa Muñoz, The Orange County Register, October 26, 2003 

A year after the 1993 wildfire devoured 389 Laguna Beach homes, the city began using goats to clear difficult-to-reach brush that breeds firestorms, hiring Peruvian-born herders to manage more than 600 weed-and grass-munching goats.

Agotilio, 39, came to Laguna  Beach three years ago to replace another goat herder, who returned to Peru.  Like many immigrant men, Agotilio has had to adjust to spending a lot of time alone.  He says he only occasionally misses his home in the village of Juancayo, in the province of Ayacucho.  His wife and two young daughters remain in Peru.

Like any good shepherd, Agotilio and his co-workers look after their flock.  They protect them from coyotes and rattlesnakes and make sure they stay together.  Every two to four days, they move the goats to new munching grounds and adjust the electric fence that surround them.
 


Capistrano will benefit as House OKs mission funds
by Dena Bunis, The Orange County Register, October 21, 2003

Washington - A bill that would provide $10 million to help restore California's historic missions, including the Great Stone church at Mission San Juan Capistrano, passed the U.W. House on a voice vote Monday.

If the Senate approves the measure, the money would to to the California missions foundation, which would match the federal grant over five years.  An additional $30 million is expected to be raised from private donations.

The money is to be used to repair art, artifacts and walls, improve pathways, and preserve historical books, manuscripts, hymnals and bibles.

"It is imperative that we protect the `Jewel of the Mission,' which ahs never been completely restored," said Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Newport Beach, one of 49 California lawmakers who sponsored the bill. Reps. Gary Miller, R-Diamond Bar, and Loretta Sanchez, D-Santa Ana, were also co-sponsors.

In 1999, the House approved $1 million in funding for the San Juan Capistrano church.  An additional $225,000 was approved earlier this year as part of a larger spending bill.

The measure is sponsored in the Senate by California's two Democratic senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein.


Athanasius Schaefer:The California Missions 

http://www.athanasius.com/camission/mission_main.htm

Sent by Joan De Soto The California Missions

Introduction to the website: What are the California Missions? Why were they built? Who established them? These are fundamental questions surrounding an enterprise that saw Spain achieve her greatest extension of empire in the late 18th-early 19th century. Here's the short answer: The California Missions were Christian evangelistic institutions founded and operated by the Order of Saint Francis with the purpose of spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ's resurrection to the Native Americans of Alta California. The complete answer, of course, is much more complex. Imperial competition, military logistics, and political intrigue are but a few of the major issues that shaped this period of North American history. And this window of time was brief. Only 64 years comprise the California Mission Period; from the 1769 founding of first mission at San Diego to the 1833 secularization order, which effectively dissolved the entire chain. 21 missions in all were founded, and they stretched from San Diego Alcala in the South to San Francisco Solano in present day Sonoma, California. Junipero Serra, the mission system's first president, envisioned that each mission would be a rung on a ladder, and that only a day's travel would separate each rung. This dream was largely realized. Again the question arises. Who were these early Americans? The answer begins with another question: who were the first Americans?

1769: San Diego Alcala
1770: San Carlos de Borromeo
1771: San Antonio de Padua
1771: San Gabriel Arcangel
1772: San Luis Obispo
1776: San Francisco Asis
(1775) 1776: San Juan Capistrano
1777: Santa Clara Asis
1782: San Buenaventura
1786: Santa Barbara
1787: La Purísima Concepción
1791: Santa Cruz
1791: Soledad
1797: San Jose
1797: San Juan Bautista
1797: San Miguel Arcangel
1797: San Fernando Rey de España
1798: San Luis Rey de Francia
1804: Santa Inez
1812: Fort Ross
1817: San Rafael Arcangel
1823: San Francisco Solano

 


Extract:
Americans Stake Claims in a Baja Land Rush
By TIM WEINER, NYTimes.com, October 26, 2003
Sent by Cindy LoBuglio lobuglio@thegrid.net

NOPALÓ, Mexico - Slowly but surely, acre by acre, Mexico's Baja Peninsula is becoming an American colony. 

"For Sale" signs are sprouting all over the 800-mile-long peninsula, offering thousands of beachfront properties. Americans are snapping them up. They have already created communities where the dollar is the local currency, English the main language and Americans the new immigrants transforming an old culture. 

"Everything's for sale, every lot you can imagine," said Alfonso Gavito, director of a cultural institute in La Paz, the capital of Baja California Sur, a state with 400,000 citizens and some of the last undeveloped beaches in North America. "It's like 20 years of changes have happened in three months." 

This new land rush, involving billions of dollars, tens of thousands of Americans, and hundreds of miles of coastline, is gaining speed despite the fact that Mexico's Constitution bars foreigners from directly owning land by the sea. 

Mexico's government wants foreign capital as much as Americans want a house on the beach - maybe more. So it worked around the Constitution. In 1997, it changed the law to allow foreign ownership through locally administered land trusts. A Mexican bank acts as trustee, the foreigner
its beneficiary. 

It took about four years before that new system worked smoothly. But now, most often, it does. One result has been a boom in migration, speculation and permanent vacation. "It's human greed - it's human nature," said David Halliburton, who owns a hotel outside Cabo San Lucas, on Baja's southern tip, where uncontrolled growth already strains the social fabric. "The amount of money coming in
here through overzealous developers and buyers is staggering." 

Baja is closer by land and air to the United States than it is to the rest of Mexico; state officials recorded more than 30 million trips by Americans who spent well over $1 billion last year. They say they have no idea how many Americans are living in Baja today, because a certain number are illegal immigrants who never register their presence. Anecdotal and statistical evidence suggests that the number is more than 100,000, probably far more, and growing fast since the Sept. 11 attacks and the souring of the economy in the United States two years ago. 

"Since 2001, we have seen a boom in real estate sales, and the full-time population of Americans is growing rapidly," said Tony Colleraine, an American in San Felipe, about 160 miles southeast of San Diego. He said about one-quarter of the town's roughly 30,000 residents were Americans. . . 
The history section is only one part of this extensive website. http://users.dedot.com/mchs/historymenu.html

Sent by John Inclan for the full English text of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. 
http://users.dedot.com/mchs/treaty.html

Early Explorations

Spanish Colonization

Mexican Era

American Era Settlement

American Era Growth and Development


Images of Baja California
by Harry Crosby
The Striking Rock Art of Baja California
http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/baja/crosby/crosby01.html

Jesuit missionaries reported their observations of peninsular California's magnificent rock art, but their writings were overlooked in the turmoil of their expulsion from all Spanish soil [1767] and the worldwide suppression of their order, the Society of Jesus, in 1773. In the 1890s, Leon Diguet, a French chemist employed by the mining company in Santa Rosalía, rediscovered some examples and reported them in a scholarly journal. The phenomenon reached a broad public through a Life Magazine article in 1963 that was prompted by a report from Baja California aficionado and mystery writer Erle Stanley Gardner. In 1975, my work, The Cave Paintings of Baja California, raised the total reported sites from about 30 to over 200. Since then, dozens of new sites have been discovered, mostly by local ranchers who had seen or heard of the attention that the art was receiving and the visitors that it attracted.

Juana Briones y Tapia de Miranda
, November 19th

Jeanne Farr McDonnell, who is in the process of writing a biography of Juana Briones y Tapia de Miranda, will be giving a talk at the San Francisco Main Public Library on November 19, sponsored by the Institute for Historical Study. Her subject is "San Francisco Cultural Geography: The Case of Juana Briones, 1812 - 1850." It will be in the community room at 6:00 p.m. The library is at 100 Larkin Street, and free metered parking is available after 6:00.


San José Police Auditor to Advise Mexican Federal Police on Public Accountability 
Teresa Guerrero-Daley to represent U.S. at international seminar 
Sent by: Teresa Guerro-Daley Teresa.Guerrero-Daley@sanjoseca.gov 
Congratulations to Teresa. . . .        

What:    Teresa Guerrero-Daley, San José Independent Police Auditor, has been selected to participate in the first "International Seminar on Police Accountability."  The program was held in Mexico City, October 28 through 31st, 2003 with participants representing nations including Germany, Colombia, Brazil, Australia, and others.

Background:    The Mexican government is convening an international effort to study the creation of an external oversight system for the Mexican Federal Police.  This is a step toward fulfilling President Vicente Fox's pledge to clean out corruption in police forces and special prosecutors'
offices in the Mexican federal law enforcement system. 

The seminar will be held under the auspices of Mexico's National Institute for Penal Sciences (Instituto Nacional de Ciencias). The San José Independent Police Auditor was selected from among hundreds of oversight offices in the United States to participate in the exchange of
professional experience that will also include participants from Germany, Colombia, Brazil, Australia, and other countries.  Guerrero-Daley's expenses will be paid by the Mexican government.

"This invitation clearly recognizes San José's leadership for effective police accountability systems and policies," said Teresa Guerrero-Daley.  "As Independent Police Auditor, I am honored to represent the United States, San José and our police department's excellent record for community access and accountability so that we can help Mexico and other nations improve the professionalism of their policing."

        The San José Office of the Independent Police Officer was established by the City Council in 1993 to provide oversight regarding the community interaction with police, evaluate complaints, and recommend changes to police policies and procedures.

For more information, see the San José IPA website at:
http://www.ci.san-jose.ca.us/ipa/home.html
Or contact: Xochitl E. Yañez, (408) 794-6231, Office of the Independent Police Auditor
2004 Hispanic Scholarship Directory, free of charge, 

The National Hispanic Press Foundation has partnered with the Daimler Chrysler Corporation Fund to kick off the Higher Education Initiative in Southern California and Detroit. It consists in the distribution of 10,000 copies, free of charge, of our 2004 Hispanic Scholarship Directory, to people who call our toll free number 1-877-POR BECA (1-877-767-2322), or  www.scholarshipsforhispanics.org, or visit the nearest participating dealership of Chrysler, Dodge or Jeep (R)

As part of this higher education initiative, you will be receiving soon
, free of charge, a copy of our 2004 Hispanic Scholarship Directory.


Now we are asking your help in reaching the Latino community in your area in two ways.  First, attached to this e-mail, you will find an ad that we made with the information on the 1-877 POR BECA number and the website where they can get the Directory (page1 of the attached Power Point Presentation).  We would really appreciate if you print some copies of the ad, and place them in a visible place in your organization, so the people can see the information and call by themselves.  Second, and since the call center has limited quantities available, we also need you to help us promoting the Directories that are available on each Participating Dealership in Southern California, where interested people can go and pick a Directory either in CD or printed version.

For more information on our Foundation and our programs, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Thanks for helping us in this noble campaign.

Sincerely, Melania Flores, Program Manager   
hispanicscholars@aol.com  
National Hispanic Press Foundation
941 National Press Building
Washington D.C. 20045
Phone: 202-662-7256
Fax: 202-662-7254
Check out our web site at:
http://www.scholarshipsforhispanics.org

61,691 Foreign-Born Voters of California in 1872: The Great Registers of Voters    http://feefhs.org/fbvca/fbvcagri.html
Sent by Joan de Soto

Sample Great Register Page: How to Obtain Naturalization Information About these Voters

Introduction
California became a territory of the United States of America on February 2, 1848 by the treaty of Guadalupe Hildago. It was the news of the discovery of gold later that same year, however, that resulted in the explosion of California's population. Prior to the discovery of gold, the population was estimated at 15,000 persons. The news of the gold discovery quickly circled the globe and hopeful miners of every nationality migrated to the California gold fields in hopes of finding their share of the riches in the precious metal. By the end of 1849 the population had reached 100,000. In 1852 it was 224,000, in 1860 the official census showed 380,000, in 1870 the population had reached 650,000, and by 1880 it was 865,000.

The administration of government with this quick growth required that formal voting procedures be implemented to create voter districts and avoid fraud. Voter registration became necessary and the "Great Registers of Voters" were created. The earliest Great Registers were produced in 1866 as a result of the enactment of Chapter CCLXV, Laws of the 16th Session of the California State Legislature; 1865-1866. This legislation, approved 19 March 1866, and known as the Registration Act, provided "for the registration of the citizens of the State, and for the enrollment in the several election districts of all the legal voters thereof, and for the prevention and punishment of frauds affecting the elective franchise."

Voting in California 100 Years Ago: How Things Have Changed

Cecilia Rasmussen, writing in the LA Times (Sept. 14, 2003):
George Mason University, Ph.D. in History, History News Network
http://hnn.us/articles/480.html#voting9-17-03
Sent by Joan De Soto

Because the Past is the Present and the Future too

Fewer polling places and myriad candidates await California voters in the gubernatorial recall election, but for all the obstacles, voting may be less complicated than it was 100 years ago. Then, the official system for identifying voters relied on a logbook of their descriptions and deformities.

Beginning in 1892, well before the driver's license became a universal form of identification, copperplate handwritten logs gave physical descriptions of voters, often noting missing limbs and other characteristics inflicted by a rough-and-tumble frontier life.

In leather and canvas-bound voter registration books kept under lock and key at a Los Angeles museum are "the great registers," decades' worth of the county's voter rolls from 1866 to 1908. The rosters include each voter's birthplace and, if he wasn't born in the U.S., the date he was naturalized.

William M. Hamlin was described as missing his "4th finger on his left hand and his 2nd, 3rd and 4th fingers on his right hand," while plumber Harry Ellsworth Dascomb was registered with an "artificial left eye," according to inky entries in the 1892 and 1896 voter registration books -- years when Grover Cleveland and then William McKinley were elected president.

Irish immigrant Richard Dwyer and Missouri-born Charles Herman Brown were each missing a left foot. Henry Judson Ball, a merchant, had a "ballet girl tattooed on his left arm." Henry Drake was mute. Real estate salesman Casper Caesar Cohn had "locomotion of the eyes," and Edward Griffiths, 22, had a "cork left leg." Andrew Boton Gillett was a 6-foot-1 gardener whose sole description was "Negro" -- the only black voter listed in the 1892 register.

Such vivid nuggets are found in the registration books at the Seaver Center for Western History Research, in the basement of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. They are relics of a time when reformers tried to clean up corrupt election procedures in the wake of frequent and wide-scale vote-buying. Under the original state Constitution, eligible voters were "white males of U.S. citizenship" and, because of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, "Mexicans 21 years of age." Voters had to have lived in California for at least six months and in the county where they were voting at least 30 days. Native Americans could not vote.

Before formal voter registration began in California in 1866, counties did not print official ballots with the names of all candidates. Voters simply cast a ballot with a "vest pocket ticket," which was printed by a political party and bore the names of only that party's candidates. Democratic tickets were one color, Republican tickets another....

Politicians embraced a new technology in the 1920s, using adding machines to tabulate election results. In 1928, the Board of Supervisors bought 150 mechanically operated counters for a total of $225,000. All a voter had to do was flip the lever alongside the candidate's name.

The machines worked well in small elections, but didn't have the capacity to list all the candidates in larger elections. Each thousand-pound hunk of metal, known as an "automatic," was consigned to storage and later sold to San Francisco for 15 cents on the dollar.

In 1949, the county Board of Supervisors voted to buy 200 Shoups -- named after the Ransom Shoup family in Pennsylvania. Each clunky voting machine had thousands of parts and cost $1,500. The machine could handle a ballot 10 columns wide, with 50 rows of names in each column, but it still wasn't big enough.

Soon the Shoups were gathering dust in county warehouses. Although a few labor unions rented them for their own elections, the cost of transporting and setting them up was just too high. In 1953, the county sold them to smaller cities for $180,000 -- a net loss of $120,000.

In the late 1950s, Los Angeles County sank nearly $1 million into developing a prototype "dream counter," an electronic vote-tallying device. The county earned almost $200,000 in royalties when the machine went into production. But within a few years the machines needed expensive improvements and county officials refused to sink any more money into the project.

In 1962, Joseph P. Harris, a political science professor at UC Berkeley, came up with the idea of listing the candidates and issues on a single standard IBM card and putting it into a ballot holder. The result was the "Votomatic," which he sold to IBM six years later. The method is still in use today, "chads" and all.

 


Spanish and Mexican Periods (1766-1846) 
San Francisco coastal Defenses: Presidio of San Francisco
http://www.nps.gov/prsf/coast_defense/spanish
Sent by Joan de Soto

A website of the National Park Service, with links to: 
Archaeology,   Architecture ,  Biographies,   Coastal Defense,   Native History,   Spanish Period,   Mexican Period,    U. S. Military,    Crissy Airfield,  1906 Earthquake, National Park,  Online History 
Publications

Presidio History 
The often fog-shrouded Presidio of San Francisco has a long and extensive cultural history spanning back thousands of years, to when it was the home to native people known as the Ohlone. The Spanish arrived in 1776 to establish the northernmost outpost of their empire in western North America. The Presidio was under Mexican rule for 24 years before the U.S. Army took control of it in 1846. Over 148 years, the army transformed the Presidio grounds from mostly empty windswept dunes and scrub to a verdant, preeminent military post. During that period, a major Army hospital, a pioneering airfield and an extensive coastal defense system were built here. In 1994, the Presidio became part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and in 1998 the Presidio Trust took over management of most of the Presidio's buildings and grounds. History continues to be made at the Presidio an the Trust turns it into the only monetarily self-sustaining national park site in the country.

California Spanish genealogy

Soldiers of the Anza 1775 Expedition  http://www.sfgenealogy.com/spanish/anzaexp.htm
Sent by John Inclan  fromgalveston@yahoo.com

As the soldiers of Anza's expedition were the founders and first settlers of the city of San Francisco, it becomes a matter of historical importance to know who and what they were. They left their imprint on the civilization of California and their names are as familiar as household words to all who know the country. The list is now given for the first time and the particulars concerning the families were taken from the Spanish archives of California, destroyed by the fire of 1906. In giving the members of the families I only enumerate the children accompanying the expedition. Many more were born in California. 

Ensign José Joaquin Moraga 
Sergeant Juan Pablo Grijalva 
Corporal Domingo Alviso 
Corporal José Valerio Mesa 
Corporal Gabriel Peralta 
Juan Antonio Amézquita 
José Ramon Bojorques
Justo Roberto Altamirano 
Ignacio Linares 
Carlos Gallegos 
Juan Salvio Pacheco 
José Antonio Garcia 
Pablo Pinto 
Antonio Quiterio Aceves 
Ignacio María Gutierrez
Ignacio de Soto
José Manuel Valencia 
Luis Joaquin Alvarez 
José Antonio Sanchez 
Manuel Ramirez Arellano 
Joaquin Isidro de Castro 
Felipe Santiago Tapia
Juan Francisco Bernal
Juan Atanasio Vasquez
Juan Agustin Valenzuela
Santiago de la Cruz Pico 
José Vicente Felix
Sebastian Antonio Lopez 
José Antonio Sotelo 
Pedro Antonio Bojorques

Accompanying the expedition were four families of settlers (pobladores) and three solteros (bachelors). The families were:
José Manuel Gonzales
Nicolas Galindo
Nicolas Antonio Berreyesa
María Feliciana Arballo

The three solteros were: Don Francisco Muños, Pedro Perez de la Fuente, Marcos Villela

Desert Trails
The Juan Bautista De Anza Trail
By Jay W. Sharp
http://www.desertusa.com/mag03/trails/trails07.html
Sent by Joan De Soto


On Monday morning, October 23, 1775, at the Royal Presidio of San Ignacio de Tubac, in what is today south central Arizona, Lieutenant Colonel Juan Bautista de Anza gave the command, "Everybody mount!" and his column of soldiers, vaqueros, muleteers, aids, servants and pioneers took to the saddle, ready to commence Spain’s first major expedition to settle California. 

"…Mass having been chanted with all the solemnity possible on the Sunday preceding for the purpose of invoking the divine aid in this expedition, all its members being present; and the Most Holy Virgin of Guadalupe, under the advocation of her Immaculate Conception, the Prince Senor San Miguel, and San Francisco de Assis having been named as its protectors, at eleven today the march was begun…" Anza reported in his diary of the journey. 

Anza would lead his column for 1200 miles and five and one-half months across the deserts of southwestern Arizona and southern California and up the coast of the Pacific Ocean through Alta, or Upper, California. He had been charged by Baylio Frey Don Antonio Maria Bucareli y Ursa – the viceroy, governor and captain-general of New Spain – to "better explore the country, and especially to conduct thirty families of married soldiers to the port of Monterey, in order by means of them to settle and hold the famous port of San Francisco," as Father Preacher Fray Pedro Font, the Franciscan chaplain of the expedition, explained in his diary. 

Cemetery Obliteration in Progress...  
http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ca/state/El_Dorado_House_Cemetery.htm
Iris Jones ijones@accessbee.com
 
A small cemetery in El Dorado County is in imminent danger of total obliteration.  To see more about the EL DORADO HOUSE CEMETERY, the cemetery of an 1850s era roadhouse on the old Placerville to Sacramento Road (part of the original Immigrant Road for wagons coming into to California from over the Plains), go to the link:

There is also a page of photos showing what has recently occurred. If you have cemeteries in similar condition, I would certainly like to know about them.

Sincerely,
Sue Silver, State Coordinator, California Saving Graves
http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ca/state

Iris Carter Jones, President
Join us - "A Golden Prospect"  NGS Conference in the States
In Sacramento, California, 19-22 May 2004
http://www.sacvalleygenes.org

NORTHWESTERN UNITED STATES

Mickey Margot Garcia, Legado Latino, Oct 18 
Hispanics learn about preserving family history
Ruby Chacon and Mimi Lozano Recognized
Mestizo Institute of Culture and Arts
Hispanic political/economic power reaffirmed
Kmart supervisors sharpen Spanish skills
Utahn wins Miss U.S. Latina 

Mickey Margot Garcia
Keynote speaker at Legado Latino Conference
October 18, 2003 Salt Lake City

Cuando empecé esta aventura no pensé que iva a tener tantas experiencias espirituales.

Cuando el Profesor George Ryskamp me invitó a dar esta plática, you le informé que yo no era especialista en la lengua española. Pero él me dijo que él me ayudaba.

Hacen veinte y ocho años que yo trabajaba para una compañia en Houston, Texas. Un día encontré a un amigo, Norman Brown, que estaba estudiando un mapa.  Yo le pregunté que hacia con el mapa y él me dijo que estaba haciendo un estudio genealógico sobre la familia de su esposa.  Me dijo que su familia tenía un rancho que se llamaba el Rancho de Santa Elena en el sur de Tejas.

Esta fué la primera vez que yo oyi la palabra "genealogía".

Su esposa se llama Edna Garza Chapa de Brown.  Lo que más me interesó de Norman fué que él no hablaba ni escribía español, pero estaba haciendo los estudios sobre los Chapa y los Garza.  Resultó que este rancho de Santa Elena tenía el mismo nombre del rancho de mi cuñado.  La tía de Edna le vendió su herencia a la familia de me cuñado.

Este estudio genealógico me interesó mucho y le pedí a Norman que, por favor, me enseñara a hacer estos estudios sobre mi familia.

Así comenzé mi trabajo genealógico.  Este señor me abrió muchas puertas que hasta este dia estan bien abiertas.  Y de esta manera he conocido a muchas personas que tambien me han ayudado a hacer mis trabajos.

En muy poco tiempo conocí al profesor Israel Cavazos Garza quien en esos tiempos era el director del Archivo Historico del Municipio de Monterrey.  Hoy es el historiador oficial de Monterrey y uno de veinte y cuatro historiadores de todo Mexico.  El me ayudó bastante; igual su señora esposa, Lilia.

También tuve el placer de conocer a George Ryschamp y a su esposa, Peggy, cuando presentaron una plática en Nacogdoches, Texas, hace muchos años.

En San Antonio, Texas, conocí a la Señora Gloria Cadena, la fundadora de los Bexareños, un club en esa ciudad dedicado a la genealogía hispanica. Esta señora es conocida como la Doña de la genealogía hispanica en Tejas.

Interesándome en este trabajo, pensé que probablemente pudiera encontrar un libro, ya escrito, sobre me familia.  Pues, resultó que mis antepasados no eran famosos.  Despues de muchos años, encontré que uno de mis antepasados venian de la familia de Venustiano Carranza, quien fué presidente de Mexico.

Después de algún tiempo pensé que ya estaba lista para pasar a la biblioteca Clayton de Houston dedicada a la genealogia.  Pero tuve problemas.

Pasé a la biblioteca. Firmé mi nombre en el libro a la entrada. Encontré un cuarto que tenía por nombre "Texana Room"  que estaba dedicado a la historia de Tejas.  Muy pronto me informé que mis antepasados vinieron a Texas de Mexico y que eran de Coahuila cuando era el estado de Coahuila y Texas.

La directora de esta biblioteca vino y me informó que para mí no había nada allí que me pudiera ayudar.  Y pensé, "Como podrá saber lo que yo busco?"

Después de esto subí al segundo piso y ella me siguió, y otra vez me dijo que no había nada para mí allí.

Ya estaba lista para salir del edificio cuando vino otra señora y me dijo que ella me podia ayudar ha buscar mis antepasados.  Me dió la dirección de otra biblioteca.  Me dijo que ella estaría en esta biblioteca el siguiente miércoles y estaría lista para ayudarme.  Me dijo que se llamaba Sister Harriet.  Vestía de una falda azul-marino con blusa blanca.  Pensé que era una monjita muy amable.

El día designado fuí a la biblioteca que ella me recomendó y allí estaba Sister Harriert con un señor y me lo presentó como su esposo!  Pero como podía ser si ella era monja?

Pues no era monjita!  Harriet y su esposo eran miembros de la Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Días.  Así empezé mi trabajo.

Harriet me informó de todos los trabajos que su iglesia había hecho en México y me enseñó como podía buscar mis antepasados.  Pensé que you debía decirle que you era Católica pero tenía miedo que ella me dijera que no había nada para mi. Pues, que surpresa!  Los Mormones tienen interés en todos.

Siempre me ha gustado la historia pero no soy estudiante de la historia de México.  Aprendí que se necisita estudiar la historia de la región donde vivieron sus antepasados.  Yo recordaba que mi familia hablaba mucho de Monclova y el primer viaje que hice en busca de mis antepasados fué a Monclova, Coahuila.

Este pueblo fué la capital de Coahuila y Tejas en los tiempos coloniales.  Cuando le dije a una tía que iba a buscar a mis antepasados, me dijo, "Deja a los muertos que descansen en paz."  Pues hasta hoy no lo he hecho!!

Le pedí a mi tía  que me explicara porque se habían salido de Monclova.  Empezó a contarme unas historias de la revolución y cómo se pusieron las cosas en el pueblo.  Muchas personas perdieron sus vidas en las batallas.  Dijo que se fueron en los trenes que salían cerca de Monclova.  Eran tantos los que se iban que hasta se iban arriba en los techos de los carros del tren.

Unos años despues fuí a Monterrey, Nuevo León.  Fuí a un museo que tenía artefactos de la revolución y alli ví un tren igual como el de los tiempos de que me había contado me tía.

Estoy muy agradecida que Diós me dió la oportunidad de conocer a mi bizabuela.  Ella nació en Monclova.  Sus padres y abuelos también nacieron allí.  Ella vivió hasta los noventa años y yo creo que en esos tiempos las familias eran mas unidas.  La llegué a conocer muy bien.

Ellos llegaron a Eagle Pass, Texas, y allí es donde nació mi padre.

En muchos instantes, haciendo este estudio me han pasado cosas que me hacen pensar que mis antepasados me están ayudando.  Por ejemplo, un día estaba revisando un microfilm de Torreón, Coahuila.  Torreon, que es un pueblito que fue formado de un rancho muy grande recientemente, fue en un tiempo parte del latifundo de los Sanchez-Navarro.  Está cerca del estado de Durango.  La historia de Torreón me interesó porque allí viveron mis abuelos por un tiempo.  En el censo de 1900 habían 2,00 chinos en Torreón.  En este pueblo llego un chino, fue invitado para abrir un restaurante y un hotel.  Este chino, llamado Foon Chuck muy pronto se puso a trabajar y en un tiempo corto tenía hasta su banco.  En 1910 gran cantidad de chinos se habían casado con mexicanas.  En 1925 se prohibieron estas uniones.  El primer medico fue un chino, Dr. Sam Lim.  El señor Foon Chuck emigró a Tamulipas.  Tenía su hacienda por nombre Hacienda Canton.  Los soldados llegaron a Torreón buscando a la gente rica, que pensaban que eran los Españoles y los Chinos.

A algunos los aventaban del techo de un edifcio de dos pisos y cuando caían al suelo les robaban de todo lo que traían.

Un día, buscando información sobre mi abuelo por parte de mi madre estaba revisando un microfilme, y cansada de no encontrar ninguna cosa, estaba para irme cuando empezé a enrollar el microfilme.  De pronto, frente a mis ojos estaba el certificado de la defunción de mi bizabuela, Margarita Galves.  Yo no sabía que la encontraría en Torreón ya que nació en Aguascalientes.  Aunque no la estaba buscando, ella se apareció.  Y por eso pienso que nos ayudan nuestros antepasados con la genealogía.

Depués de algunos años se formó un clubde genealogía hispanica en Houston.  Yo fuí uno de los primeros miebros, pero lo más importante es que me dedico a comprar libros para poner en la biblioteca Clayton.  Libros para ayudar en los estudios de genealogía hispanica.

Unos años pasados empezé a sacar información de los varios archivos en el norte de México.  Imformación que no es fácil encontrar.  Es dificil cuando uno empieza sus trabajos y no sabe por donde empezar.

Unos años pasados un primo y yo publicamos unos padrones de San Buenaventura, Coahila, del año 1869.  Otro fue el censo de 1828 de Abasolo, Santa Gertrudis y Bucareli, Coahila.  El último libro que yo publiqué es este, Los Matrimonios de Monclova, Coahuila, de 1689 - 1822.  El archivo de la parroquia de Monclova está cerrado al público, es muy difícil obtainer ayuda.

He hecho muchas amistades en varios archivos en el norte de México.  Estas personas están para ayudar a todas.  Por ejemplo el Archivo Municipal de Saltillo tiene testamentos desde más or menos de los años de 1600.

El Archivo Estatal en Ramos Arizpe esta muy cerca de Saltillo.  Este archivo contiene documentos de la época colonial.  Estos dos archivos están listos para ayudar a todos con brazos abiertos.  Ellos tienen correo electronico si uno desea.

Cuando you empezé este libro hice copias de cada página del microfilm de Monclova.  Así trabajé dia y noche en mi casa.  En Diciembre del año pasado cuando estaba lista para publicar fuí a Monclova para ver si el padre me permitía revisar las primeras páginas de los matrimonios de Monclova.  La primera página no estaba completa.  El padre no me permitió ver los libros!

Hoy es más fácil buscar información sobre sus antepasados.  Tiene uno que asistir a conferencias como esta, como también asociarse a grupos de genealogía.  Hoy con el internet es muy fácil hacer las estudios. Nadie les puede decir que no hay nada para ustedes!

Muchas gracias por su atención

To order a copy of the: 
Marriages of Monclova, Coahuila, Mexico During the Spanish Colonial Era, 1689-1822
Please contact Ms. Garcia at MMG8938@aol.com 
or send a check for $55 (includes postage) to:
Mickey Garcia
27127 Holly Lord
Magnolia, Texas 77355 


Extract:
Hispanics learn about preserving family history

Annual conference serves diverse needs of participants
By Jason Swensen, Church News staff writer, October 25, 2003
Sent by David Lewis dclewis@jps.net

      "Preserving Our Cultural Roots Through Family History." The event was organized by Legado Latino, the Hispanic Chapter of the Utah Genealogical Association and the Church's Family History Library.
      "The purpose of the conference is to instruct Hispanics on how to preserve their family history and culture, and acquaint them with the records available right here in Salt Lake ," said conference chairman Carlos Alvarez.
      Past conferences have been held at Provo 's Brigham Young University . But organizers wanted to make the event more accessible to the growing Hispanic community living along Utah 's Wasatch Front. "And we would like everyone to learn how to use the valuable Latin American resources of the [downtown Salt Lake ] Family History Library," Brother Alvarez said.
      Conference organizers also hoped to destroy two myths.
      "First, that the Church family history resources are available only to Church members. And second, that you have to pay to use those resources," Brother Alvarez said.
      Mickey Garcia, an author and genealogist from Houston , Texas , opened the forum with a speech at the Assembly Hall on Temple Square . Mrs. Garcia spoke of stumbling into family history more than 20 years ago while studying Mexican history. During her research she became acquainted with an LDS missionary couple who helped her learn genealogy basics. A Catholic, Mrs. Garcia was impressed by the couples' enthusiasm to help anyone of any religious affiliation.
      "The Mormons had interest in everyone," she said.
      Mrs. Garcia's burgeoning interest in history eventually led to research in
Mexico , bringing her closer to her ancestors and her ancestral homeland. "I'm grateful that God gave me the chance to know my great-grandmother," she said.
      She went on to form a genealogy club in Houston and publish information to help others. She's grateful for the Church-offered family history resources and encourages other Hispanics to take those first steps into their past.
      "When I began, I could not even read many of the [historical] documents. . . . but, little by little, I learned to do it," she said.
      After the meeting in the Assembly Hall, participants spent the remainder of the day attending classes and workshops at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and the Family History Library. Most sessions were conducted in Spanish, although a few were in English and Portuguese. Course topics ranged from getting started to traveling to Mexico for genealogical research. Bilingual sister missionaries were enlisted to help at various workshops.
      Brother Alvarez hoped everyone would go home better prepared. Classes were designed to serve family history newcomers, as well as advanced genealogists. Genealogy is for everyone looking to learn more about themselves via their past.

     


Ruby Chacon and Mimi Lozano Receive Awards 
at the Legado Latino Conference

Left to Right

Carlos Alvarez, Ignacio Delgado, Mimi Lozano, Ruby Chacon, Brenda Helsten, George Ryskamp

Mestizo Institute of Culture and Arts
Founder, Ruby Chacon

Ruby Chacon, an accomplished artist was selected for her use of art to promote cultural, heritage understanding of the Hispanic/Latino community.   She is the first Hispanic woman to have a one-person exhibit at Brigham Young University.  Below are two examples. For more examples or to contact Ruby directly, go to Ruby@mestizogallery.com or call 801.363.3161

[[ I applaud her art and the formation of the Mestizo Institute of Culture and Arts.  I don't know of any other art group focusing on promoting the mestizo-nature of our heritage. Onward Ruby! ]]

RITUAL 

EL PASTOR

[[ I gratefully received an award for my involvement with promoting Hispanic/Latino heritage. Receiving it from the hands of George Ryskamp was even more extra special.  In 1985 I attended a conference in Riverside, California that George organized, Buscando Nuestras Raices.  His effort, with the support of his wife Peggy, was the foundation for the movement among non-Early California Hispanics/Latinos in Southern California to search out their family history.  He started me on this adventure and he is the one that deserves the recognition!! ]]
  

Extract: Fund-raiser reaffirms Hispanic political and economic power
http://www.rgj.com/news/stories/html/2003/10/15/54163.php
Pedro Morales, Reno Gazette-Journal 
Sent by Cindy LoBuglio lobuglio@thegrid.net
Local legislators and one of the nation’s most prominent Hispanic voices reaffirmed the political and economic power of Hispanics in Northern Nevada and the nation at a Tuesday night fund-raiser in downtown Reno. 

Juan Andrade Jr. of Chicago, was the keynote speaker at the Latinos for Political Empowerment fourth annual awards banquet, said the region’s growing Hispanic population is producing leaders who can mobilize Hispanics to vote and exert their influence. Proceeds from the $590-a-ticket event go to LAPE services, which have helped increase the number of Hispanic voters in Northern Nevada, organizers said. 

Andrade, president and executive director of the U.S. Hispanic Leadership Institute, said his aim was to dispel the myth that Hispanics are in this country simply to raise their children. He said Hispanics possess $590 billion in consumer purchasing power annually, expected to reach $900 billion by 2010. 

He said Hispanics are opening about 100,000 businesses annually that produce $190 billion in revenue per year.
Extract: Kmart supervisors sharpen Spanish skills
By Joyce Swanson, Reno Gazette-Journal 
http://www.rgj.com/news/stories/html/2003/10/14/54143.php
Sent by Cindy LoBuglio lobuglio@thegrid.net

Carmen Trujillo easily switches from English to Spanish as she greets workers at Kmart’s distribution center in Sparks.Trujillo, who works for the center’s Human Resources Department, needs her bilingual skills to communicate with the staff, 80 percent of whom speak Spanish as their primary language. 

Over the summer, the distribution center’s entire 42-member management team returned to the classroom for a fast-track Spanish course that workers say raised morale at the warehouse. 

“For us Hispanics, it makes us feel good, that they really care about us,” said Felipe Fonseca. 

The Kmart distribution center, which employs nearly 400 people in a 1.5 million-square-foot facility, is the central warehouse for 98 stores in four western states. 

Utahn wins Miss U.S. Latina 

By Larry Weist, Deseret Morning News E-mail: lweist@desnews.com
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,515035630,00.html

      PROVO — Working hard and setting goals are the traits that brought a non-English-speaking woman to Provo and Brigham Young University 18 months ago.

Lydia Acuna, a Brigham Young University student, is crowned Saturday night in Cancun, Mexico.
Winning a beauty pageant over the weekend is icing on the cake for Lydia Acuna. Acuna, 23, was crowned Miss U.S. Latina last weekend in Cancun, Mexico. She will represent the United States in the International Miss Latina pageant in November in Cancun.

The BYU sophomore economics major cares less about the glamour of her title than she does about the opportunity to speak to and encourage Hispanics to better themselves. "I want to help the Latin people. I want to inspire the Latin people," said Acuna, a native of Obregon in the state of Sonora, south of Arizona.  "I want to let people know that if they set goals, they can get them."

She joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints two years ago in Mexico and found her life had changed to the point that she wanted to move to Provo and attend BYU.  "I was Catholic a couple of years ago, but after I got baptized, things weren't the same anymore so I decided to move here, go to BYU, learn English and get a scholarship," she said.

With grit and determination, Acuna started learning English and was accepted at BYU. She also got a scholarship, which helped a lot since her younger sister was attending college in Mexico and her father had retired in ill health from his government job. Ever mindful of her finances, Acuna saw the possibility of winning a scholarship and was talked into entering the Miss Utah Latina scholarship pageant this summer by her good friend, Betty Cervantes. She worked hard and she won, but not before almost quitting the pageant in Salt Lake City because the activities took so much of her time and she didn't have a car. 

"My friends stopped me from quitting. They drove me to all the activities," she said. "I wouldn't have made it without my friends." Acuna won the Miss Utah Latina crown Aug. 28. It was Utah's first Miss Latina pageant.  Acuna didn't tell her parents she had entered the Miss Utah Latina pageant because she felt the time wasn't right.  "My mother's mother was in the hospital and really, really sick. I didn't want to have them worry," she said. "The day after I won, my mother called and said I had to see my grandmother before it happens. I went down to see her and she was so proud of me." Her grandmother died two days later, she said.

In her travels as Miss U.S. Latina, Acuna said she hopes to increase awareness of the pageant and the number of states that have local pageants. She believes Hispanic women can set goals and achieve them.  "I want to give self-esteem talks to Latin women and say, 'You can do it also if you work really hard, educate yourself and learn English.' "

SOUTHWESTERN UNITED STATES

Reality television in a soap opera? Telenovelas
Latino American History: Resources on the Web
Beyond Origins of New Mexico Families
Cabeza de Vaca Volume Now Online  
Interpreters Needed 
7 border counties more than 80% non-English
History of Arizona
Arizona Hispanic
Nuevo México en el Archivo General de Indias


Reality television in a soap opera? Telenovela, meet the Internet.
http://www.hispaniconline.com/a&e/article.html?SMContentIndex=0&SMContentSet=0

Soap operas, a longstanding mainstay on Spanish-language television, are getting a new twist through a locally produced novela called "Los Charros." The show debuts on KWBA 58 next Sunday at 9:30 p.m., and it will give the viewing audience a chance to determine the outcome through voting on the Internet.

"What interested me most about this concept is the interactive aspect," said Ray Flores Jr., the president of El Charro and the cofounder of Interactive Novel@, which is producing "Los Charros." On Mondays after the Sunday cliffhangers viewers can log on to www.loscharros.com and vote for the direction they want the storyline to proceed.

To explain his inspiration, Flores pointed to "American Idol"-type reality TV. "The Hispanic market needed something like that," Flores said.

Flores and his partner in Interactive Novel@, local producer Sebastian Tonazzi, are taking their source material from the insanely popular telenovela. Novelas rule the Spanish-language television airways. They typically air every night, and unlike English-language soap operas, they wrap up their story lines and go off the air after six months or a year.

"Los Charros," a thirty-minute show, is set for a 10-week run.

Flores says the show will introduce novelas to English-speaking viewers. He and Tonazzi chose the local WB channel with that in mind.

"We want that huge market that likes a show like 'Friends' (syndicated on KWBA), but needed to be catered to with the bilingual format," Flores said.

Like much of the Tucson community, "Los Charros" will be bilingual, with about 30 percent of the dialogue in Spanish with English subtitles.

But what's truly new is the interactive nature of the program. Along with Internet voting, viewers will have opportunities to appear as supporting actors through local casting calls.

Local businesses will also be featured, including those of the Flores family and other sponsors, such as Food City. Also, since the storyline focuses on a family that is opening a restaurant, some scenes will be shot as Flores readies the newest El Charro venture, Charro Grill.

The restaurant - which Flores calls a "faster version of El Charro" - is set to open at East River Road and North Campbell Avenue in December.

The actors are local, too, including Manuel Ceballos; Paul Volpe; Gabrielle Dabdoub, an actress from Nogales; and Rafael Moreno, lead singer of the local band Descarga.

Flores said a couple of episodes are already in the can, but the interactivity will force the show to be taped quickly.

"It's going to look like reality TV," shaky camera and all, Flores said. "With real people who might actually be your next-door neighbor."

To see more of The Arizona Daily Star Online, or to subscribe, go to www.azstarnet.com.

Latino American History: A Guide to Resources & Research on the Web

http://web.uccs.edu/~history/index/latino.html
Sent by George Gause ggause@panam.edu

The Colorado University at Colorado Springs Department of History has put up this interesting page they have titled "Latino American History: A Guide to Resources & Research on the Web."  It has multiple layers of information including links to Spanish-language newspapers around the globe. 

Beyond Origins of New Mexico Families

http://pages.prodigy.net/bluemountain1/beyondorigins.htm
A website maintained by José Antonio Esquibel
Outstanding Resource for New Mexico researchers. Check it out!
Sent by Joan De Soto

This series of pages is designed to provide additions and corrections to the great work of New Mexico genealogy compiled by the late Fray Angélico Chávez (1910-1996), Origins of New Mexico Families in the Spanish Colonial Period. 

This seminal book was first published in 1954 by William Gannon, Santa Fe, New Mexico. A facsimile edition was published by William Gannon, Santa Fe, in 1975. Under the supervision of Thomas E. Chávez, nephew of Fray Angélico and Director of The Palace of the Governors (Museum of New Mexico), a revised edition was published by the Museum of New Mexico Press in 1992. This revised edition included the important addition of "Addenda to New Mexico Families," first published as a series in El Palacio, the magazine of the Museum of New Mexico, from 1955 to 1957, and "New Names to New Mexico," which also appeared in the same magazine in 1957 (September, October, November, December). Both of these related works were often difficult for interested people to locate. 

This web site contains new genealogical information on many New Mexico families that is based on research into primary documents, and highlights additional material published in past and current genealogical journals related to New Mexico colonial families or material from other publications.

If you have corrections and/or additions to Origins of New Mexico Families, please feel free to share that information by submitting it to Jesquibel@yahoo.com . Please submit the source(s) of the new information, providing a complete citation. Brief and relevant direct quotes from the source(s) are encouraged. Indicate the individual's name, or family name, for which you have new or corrected information and provide the page number from ONMF (e.g. Buenaventura de Esquibel, ONMF: 173, or Gabaldón, ONMF: 177). Your submission will be posted under New Items and eventually added to Beyond ONMF Volume 8 (both updated 3/1/03).Sorry, but queries will not be posted on this web site nor answered. Links for posting queries related to New Mexico genealogy research are provided.Watch this site grow as new items are added. Working together, we can continue to enhance New Mexico genealogical research and reduce the duplication of our collective efforts as we extend the lineages of our families. As you collect information from these pages for your genealogical files, remember to record the sources. It is important to give credit where it is due and cite all sources. Enjoy!! New Items (8/1/03)

Cabeza de Vaca Volume Now Online  
Sent by George Gause ggause@panam.edu 

Media Contact:  Michele M. Miller 
Special Collections / Alkek Library 
TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY-SAN MARCOS 
512.245.2313 / fax 512.245.7431 
e-mail: m.miller@txstate.edu
 
[NOTE: Accent marks and other diacritics may not translate. Please contact us if you have questions.]   

TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY-SAN MARCOS -- The Southwestern Writers Collection has just completed digitizing La relación, from its treasured 1555 edition of Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s La relación y comentarios. Every page of this earliest written record of what is now Texas and the 
Southwest is available online with a linked English translation. 

The site, located at http://www.library.txstate.edu/swwc/cdv  also serves as a comprehensive web archive of Cabeza de Vaca research and resources. 

La relación (“The Account”) is Cabeza de Vaca’s narrative of the ill-fated 1527 Narváez expedition, which left Cuba to search for riches in the New World only to fall apart in Florida. Remnants of the six-hundred-strong expeditionary force were shipwrecked off the Texas coast at present-day 
Galveston Island in 1528. 

Within four months, Cabeza de Vaca and three companions were the only survivors. For the next eight years, Cabeza de Vaca lived among the Native Americans, enduring slavery, serving as a trader, and eventually becoming recognized as a great healer and spiritual leader. Ultimately, this epic journey transformed the once-arrogant conquistador into a passionate defender of Indian human rights. 

After returning to Spain, Cabeza de Vaca wrote an account of his years in the Americas.  First published in 1542, this extraordinary adventure story has captivated readers for centuries. La relación is also of great anthropological and historical importance. In Texas alone Cabeza de Vaca identified twenty-three Indian groups, describing in detail their clothes, languages, eating habits, rituals, homes, and migrations. 

Cabeza de Vaca has become the object of intense academic and popular interest in recent years. Four new English translations of La relación have appeared since 1993, as have several new book-length studies. Since its purchase in 1988 by Bill and Sally Wittliff and an anonymous donor, the volume has been a cornerstone of the Southwestern Writers Collection and a catalyst for research. 

In 1995, Texas State’s Center for the Study of the Southwest sponsored a Cabeza de Vaca symposium that drew prominent scholars from the U.S. and Mexico. In 2001, the BBC documentary “Conquistadors” produced an entire segment on Cabeza de Vaca. Host Michael Wood visited the 
Southwestern Writers Collection first-hand to review and film our 1555 volume. 

In 1996 a Texas State research team led by Dr. Don Olson studied the edition very closely and discovered that a key word in the text had been mis-transcribed. Their subsequent research, published in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly—and now available in “Futher Studies / Essays” on the website—offers the strongest evidence to date of Cabeza de Vaca’s precise route. 

Created with assistance from a “Texshare” grant from the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, the Cabeza de Vaca Online project expands the use of this fragile book in research and education, and aids in its preservation by reducing the need for physical handling. 

The Cabeza de Vaca web archive features dozens of full-text academic articles as well as depictions of Cabeza de Vaca over the years, bibliographies, teaching guides, and scenes from the film “Cabeza de Vaca,” produced in Mexico in 1991. 

The Cabeza de Vaca Online project was led by Steve Davis, Assistant Curator of the Southwestern Writers Collection. The Assistant Project Director was Dr. Jill Hoffman, Special Collections Assistant. Teri Andrews was the Staff Artist and Designer. Consultants and other project staff include Connie 
Todd, Beverly Fondren, Michele Miller, Mark Busby, Mandy York, Michael Farris, Jeff Snider, James Buratti, Fazia Rizvi, and Nancy Reed. 

Discover more about Cabeza de Vaca at the Southwestern Writers Collection online exhibit “No Traveller Remains Untouched” at  http://www.library.txstate.edu/swwc/notravellersite

The Southwestern Writers Collection, in the Albert B. Alkek Library at Texas State University-San Marcos, was founded in 1986 and has since become a distinguished and steadily growing archive charged with preserving, exhibiting, and providing access to the papers and artifacts of principal 
writers, filmmakers, songwriters and musicians of the Southwest. Its resources attest to the tremendous diversity of creative expression among southwestern artists and contribute to a rich research environment within which students and others may discover how the unique conditions and 
character of the region have shaped its people and their cultural arts. Curator, Connie Todd. Assistant Curator, Steve Davis.

WHERE:  The Southwestern Writers Collection is housed in the Special Collections Department on the 7th floor of the Alkek Library at Texas State University-San Marcos, halfway between Austin and San Antonio. Directions and further information: call (512) 245-2313, or http://www.swwc.txstate.edu
CONTACT:  Connie Todd, Curator, (512) 245-8361 / Steve Davis, Assistant Curator (512) 245-9180 / Michele Miller, Marketing & Media Relations (512) 245-2313. 

Interpreters Needed,
Phoenix, AZ 
doutreach@mail.maricopa.gov

 
Dear Mimi, 

My name is Amanda Keil and I am the volunteer coordinator at Healthcare for the Homeless. 
I am writing because we are in desperate need of interpreters for our Spanish speaking clients. We are a free healthcare clinic for homeless individuals, providing nursing, addiction counseling and social services for those who are uninsured or undocumented. Many of our clients are monolingual Spanish speakers, and unfortunately not enough of our professional staff speak Spanish well enough to best serve these clients.  

I have been searching diligently throughout the community to find volunteers but haven't been very productive. Please let me know if it would be at all possible to pass this information on through your newsletter. If you know anyone who is at all interested let them know that it would not be a large commitment; we only ask for a few hours a week. Every little bit helps!

Sincerely, Amanda Keil (602) 258-2122 x 236 
Americorps Volunteer and Volunteer Coordinator, Healthcare for the Homeless 
1201 W. Madison 
Phoenix, AZ  85007 

Extract: 
Census shows 7 border counties more than 80 percent non-English
By Lynn Brezosky / The Associated Press, 
Sent by J.D. Villarreal juandv@granderiver.net

EDINBURG, Texas — Hidalgo County Judge Ramon Garcia remembers how he and his friends used to have to sneak around the school yard to speak Spanish. "Back then, total immersion in the English language was the concept," he said Wednesday.

But U.S. Census data shows English isn't the language of choice for more than 80 percent of people in seven Texas border counties who live in non-English Language households.

Garcia and other area leaders say that while times have changed, people fare significantly better if they can speak both languages. Garcia said much of his success as a trial lawyer comes from being able to help Spanish-speaking clients and that in a region where so many people speak Spanish, people need to know both languages.

Garcia, the son of a gas station manager who rose to become a millionaire trial lawyer and the highest elected official in the county, made sure his four children grew up listening and speaking Spanish.

The census shows that nationwide, nearly one in five U.S. residents age 5 and over speak a language other than English at home — an increase of 15 million since 1990.

While the number of Chinese, Russian, and French Creole-Speaking households also rose, the number of Spanish-speaking households grew 62 percent — from 17.3 million in 1990 to 28.1 million in 2000 nationwide.

In the Texas border counties of Hidalgo, Kenedy, Maverick, Presidio, Starr, Webb and Zavala, eight of every 10 people, or about 693,000 of about 866,000 counted by census takers said they spoke a language other than English at home.

In Laredo, nine of 10 people, or 170,100 of 189,000 speak Spanish. Census figures show that of cities with populations greater than 100,000, Laredo and Hialeah, Fla., had the highest proportion of non-English-only speakers in the nation.

But not everyone in a non-English language household is bilingual, and Spanish-only is still a handicap in the larger United States.  Laredo Community College's enrollment is now 8,000, which is more than double that of nearby Texas A&M International University. Officials attribute a large part of its increase to people seeking to improve their English. A second campus will be opening in March.

History of Arizona (Images online--Update adding Volume 3)

This database contains the first three volumes of a multi-volume series about the history of Arizona. These three volumes cover the time period from the early civilizations of the Native Americans,
through Spanish exploration of the 1500s, and into its territorial days as part of the United States. This history covers many events and aspects of Arizona history providing information on such things
as the conquest of California, the opening of the Santa Fe Trail, the Indian Wars, precious metals in Arizona, and early territorial days. Historical works, such as this, contain valuable information that can
be a great addition to your genealogical research. Although historical works will generally not mention your ancestors specifically, they do provide information on the time and place in which your ancestors lived, which in turn will help you place your ancestors into historical context.

Source Information: Ancestry.com. "History of Arizona" [database online]. Provo, UT: MyFamily.com, Inc., 2003. Original data: Farish, Thomas Edwin. "History of Arizona." Volumes I-III. Phoenix, Ariz.:
1915-1916. Ancestry.com subscribers can search this database at: http://www.ancestry.com/rd/prodredir.asp?sourceid=4717&key=D7393

Arizona Hispanic
Sent by Ninfa Trejo Ninfa.Trejo@pima.edu

Hola, I am the Book Editor for the Arizona Hispanic, a new thought provoking newspaper in Phoenix, AZ, aimed at the educated middle class Latina/os. I would like to contact as many Latina/o authors as possible. Please share this message and contact information with Latina/o authors who may wish to be interviewed. I've included the list of questions below the signature that I will ask the authors.

I've included my snail address for any brochures, books or catalogs anyone can send me. Also I would like to be kept up to date on all new books, fiction and non fiction, currently being published by Latina/os. If you have a name of an author or a book that you want me to review or profile, please contact me or pass this information along. I want to be alerted to any new book by a U.S. Latina/o or give me the information on how I can find out about new books being published.

Thank you for any assistance you can give me on this project.
Jo Ann Yolanda Hernandez
9919 E Main Street Suite N
Mesa AZ 85207

BronzeWord@juno.com

Ph: 480.358.1264  Cell: 480.650.2838
President, BronzeWord Author, "White Bread Competition"
Book Editor, Arizona Hispanic

Nuevo México en el Archivo General de Indias
Código de Referencia: ES.41091.AGI/13.109.1..//CONTRATACION,5281,N.45
Título: RELACION DE PASAJEROS
Sent by Peter Carr  anthro69339@hotmail.com

Alcance y Contenido
Relación de pasajeros a Nueva España encabezada por Alonso de Oñate, encargado de llevar refuerzos para la jornada de Nuevo México, dirigida por su hermano Juan de Oñate y el maestre de campo Vicente de Saldívar; le acompañan los siguientes pilotos, mosqueteros y carpinteros de ribera: - Juan Bernardo de Quirós, alférez, natural de Oviedo, hijo de Juan Bernardo de Quirós. - Francisco de Guevara, mosquetero, natural de Sevilla, hijo de Pedro de Guevara. - Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, mosquetero, natural de Granada, hijo de Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba. - Jorge de Portales, mosquetero, natural de Granada. - Juan López de Cárdenas, mosquetero, 
natural de Córdoba, hijo de Juan de Arriola. - Domingo Lázaro, mosquetero, natural de Velilla de Ebro, hijo de Juan de Arregui. - Cristóbal Rodríguez Lobato, mosquetero, natural de San Juan del Puerto, hijo de Francisco Rodríguez Pancho. - Rodrigo de Castro, mosquetero, natural de Ayamonte, hijo de Pedro de Castro. - Hernando Marín, mosquetero, natural de Ecija. - Francisco Gómez, mosquetero, natural de Lisboa. - Melchor de Tornamira, mosquetero, natural de Tudela. - Hernán García, mosquetero, natural de Martos, hijo de Alonso García de Cuenca. - Juan de Alarcón, mosquetero, natural de Argamasilla de Alba, hijo de Bartolomé de Chillerón. - Pedro García Cabeza, mosquetero, natural de Santaella, hijo de Juan García. - Miguel Fernández, mosquetero, natural de Santaella, hijo de Juan Bermejo. - Felipe de Liaño, mosquetero, natural de Madrid. - Hernándo Laviano, mosquetero, natural de Azpeitia. - Juan de Tolosa, mosquetero, natural de Madrid, hijo de Juan de Tolosa. - Martín de Velasco, mosquetero, natural de Orihuela. - Francisco Vallejo, mosquetero, natural de Toledo. - Francisco Martínez, mosquetero, natural de Madrid. - Miguel de Bengoechea, mosquetero, natural de Tolosa. - Antonio Gutiérrez, mosquetero, natural de Toro. - 
Andrés Juárez, mosquetero, natural de Fuente Obejuna, hijo de Sebastián Rodríguez. - Juan Gómez, mosquetero, vecino de Puebla de Guzmán, hijo de Hernando Alvarez. - Felipe de Avila, mosquetero, natural de Málaga. - Diego Ruiz de Aldana, mosquetero, natural de Cabra, hijo de Diego Ruiz de Aldana. - Juan González, mosquetero, natural de Islas Canarias, hijo de Domingo 
González. - Diego Rodríguez, mosquetero, natural de las Islas Canarias, hijo de Baltasar Medrano. - Alonso Díez, mosquetero, natural de Oviedo, hijo de Alonso Díez. - Cristóbal de Melgarejo, maestro mayor de carpintería, natural de Málaga, hijo de Juan Martínez de Santaella y Bernardina de Melgarejo, con su mujer Andrea de Lara, natural de Antequera, hija de Juan de Lara y María 
de Lara, y con sus hijos María, Cristóbal y Catalina. - Juan Bautista de Avila, piloto, natural de Sevilla, hijo de Cristóbal Rodríguez y Ana de Avila.

Nivel de Descripción Unidad Documental Simple Fecha inicial 1604-03-20

BLACK

Christopher and Joshua Ballard
Black Marines of St. Domingue 
Freedman's Bank Records information
Quick update on Christopher and Joshua Ballard .
The boys are scheduled to appear on both the Montel Williams Show and Oprah Winfrey's
Black Marines of St. Domingue 
Granville Hough, Ph.D. gwhough@earthlink.net

Reference: “Bulletin of the Généalogie et Histoire de la Caraìbe,” #150 (Jul Aug 2002), page 3569, (under the heading of “TROUVAILLES” submitted by Mary Kergall.)

Au Service Historique d l’Armée de Terre (Vincennes), dans les listes des soldats embarqués sur “le vaisseau le Citoyen, commandé par le capitaine de vaisseau Nieul à comter du 1er janvier 1780 jusques et y compris le 22 janvier 1781,” une liste des “Volontaires mulâtres de St-Domingue” du 23 janvier 1780 debarques en entier le 7 avril 1780…

Sergent: François Brillant; 
Caporau: Jean Baptiste Brillant, Charles Maurin (died on board 14 Mar 1780), Joseph Pardieu;
Fusiliers: Jean Baptiste Chaumaitre, Dominique Cherreaux, Philippe Couzard, François Daneuil, Pierre DuCheminJoseph Guillemotte, Augustin LaBastiére (hospitalized 23 Mar 1780 at St Pierre, Martinique), Jean Baptiste Menou, Bernard Olive, Joseph Patricot, Joseph Porre, Guillaume Ragen, Joseph Raymond (died on board 16 Mar 1780), François Rouviere, Jean Baptiste Severan, Jean Taveaux, Alexandre Tourron (hospitalized at Fort Royal 1 Apr).”  (The fond (record collection) is SHAT Xi 1)

(note:GWH, the French Navy did not have regular Marines on board their vessels but relied on detachments from army units.  Some soldiers preferred these assignments; however, it did not work to the benefit of the soldiers from St. Domingue.  Of the twenty who went on board the warship Citoyen, two died and two were hospitalized in less than three months.)

This is just one small listing of those soldiers who served from the French West Indies.  We hope to find many other such listings in the future.  Any descendants of the surviving soldiers are eligible to join the Sons of the American Revolution. This list was provided to Granville W. Hough by Augusta Elmwood.

Freedman's Bank Records opens up rich vein of information for African-American researchers. 
Darius Gray heads the Genesis Group, a Mormon church group organized in 1971 to support African- American Mormons.  The Freedman's Bank Savings and Trust Company, a Reconstruction-era institution that was once thought of as a tragic failure. Special to the Savannah Morning News 
By Chuck Mobley 
cmobley@savannahnow.com
  12-652-0339
Savannah Morning News, Georgia
http://www.savannahnow.com/stories/102403/LOC_beachspeaker.shtml
Sent by Gloria Oliver  oliverglo@msn.com

Darius Gray calls himself a genealogical researcher, a musty-sounding job title that hardly reflects the joy and pride he takes in the "Freedman's Bank Project," a CD-ROM database that has enriched many lives.

The CD-ROM "is an absolute gold mine for African Americans," Gray said.

It opens records from the Freedman's Bank Savings and Trust Company, a Reconstruction-era institution that was once thought of as a tragic failure. The bank lost money – lots of money – some $57 million in all.  But, at the same time, it gained something priceless, names – lots of names – 484,083 to be exact.

Darius Gray is a genealogical researcher and head of the Genesis Group, a Mormon church group organized in 1971 to support African-American Mormons. Special to the Morning News 
"I take care to remember that number," Gray said.  

It represents all the people named in the bank's files.

Names were recorded on an application card when each depositor opened an account. The cards listed spouses, children, parents, siblings, in-laws and other relatives. In some cases, they documented the breaking up of families when slavery was still legal.  The account information also often listed descriptive information such as age, size and complexion.

The Freedman's Bank Savings and Trust Company, a Reconstruction-era institution that was once thought of as a tragic failure. Special to the Savannah Morning News. "You really can get a picture of this individual," said Gray, who will be in Savannah Sunday for a speaking engagement on the topic at the Beach Institute.

It took a long time for such images to come into focus. The cards sat in the National Archives for decades – all but useless because they hadn't been indexed.  In 1988, Mormon church genealogical researcher Marie Taylor realized what a boon these records could be to black families. She also realized it was a staggering task and asked Gray, who heads a Mormon church program that reaches out to African Americans, for help.

Still, it was too much work for the two researchers and they turned to an unlikely source for help – Utah State Prison.  "The laborious effort to extract and digitize the Freedman's Bank records into a searchable database involved approximately 550 inmates over the course of 11 years," Gray said. They did the work during their "off-time hours," Gray added. Finally, during Black History Month in 2001, the "Freedman's Bank Records" were released. All 484,083 names are included on a CD-ROM that sells for $6.95 and can be used on most home computers.

"This is not a profit-making venture," Gray said. "The men at the prison did it out of love – they received no money. Marie Taylor and I got no money. The church hasn't made any money."

But the payoff for black families doing genealogical research has been invaluable. "The depositors of the Freedman Bank were former slaves – men and women who had little education, little money and little anticipation of what the future would ultimately yield," Gray said. "But today they can be found, remembered and appreciated by those who enjoy a very different life." 

 

 

INDIGENOUS

The Real Fight
DAR Accepts Pierre Juzan as “New Patriot”
Indian Nations in Louisiana

The Real Fight

An old Cherokee was teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
 
The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.  This same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person too.
 
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather which wolf would win.
The old Cherokee replied, "The one you feed."  

                                                                   Sent by Steven Hernandez  Pocorro73@aol.com

DAR Accepts Pierre Juzan as “New Patriot”
Sent by Granville Hough, Ph.D.
gwhough@earthlink.net

Raine Ennis has notified Granville W. Hough that her application for DAR membership has been accepted based on the service to the Spanish of Pierre Juzan as Indian agent.  The work of Medina Rojas was not used as the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Library could not find the book in year 2000.  (Granville Hough has since been notified that the DAR Library now has a copy, probably a gift from the DAR chapter at Madrid, Spain.)

Acceptance was based on a letter Juzan sent to Governor Gálvez on 11Jul 1780, wherein Juzan reports on British activities at Pensacola with the Choctaw Indians, the tribe of Juzan’s wife and children.  This letter is translated into English and is found in pages 382-383, Lawrence Kinnaird, ed., Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the year 1945, Volume II, Spain in the Mississippi Valley, 1765-1794, (Part I) The Revolutionary Period, 1765-1781, Washington, DC, US Government Printing Office, 1949.   

The DAR has listed Pierre Juzan as a “New Patriot,” meaning that Raine Ennis is the first descendant of Pierre Juzan to join the DAR. (Granville Hough notes there are more than a thousand potential “New Patriots” in the second reference shown above, waiting to be documented by descendants.)

References:
Granville W. Hough, “Choctaw and Illini Descendants of Pierre Juzan Eligible for SAR Membership,” Somos Primos, Oct 2000. 
Granville W. and N. C. Hough, Spain’s Louisiana Patriots in its 1779-1783 War with England – During the American Revolution, Borderlands Books, San Antonio, TX, 2000, email: gfarias@borderlandsbooks.com
Francisco de Borja Medina Rojas, José de Ezpeleta: Gobernador de la Mobila, 1780-1781, Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos de Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain, 1980.

Indian Nations in Louisiana

"So tractable, so peaceable, are these people, that I swear to your Majesties there is not in the world a better nation. They love their neighbors as themselves, and their discourse is ever sweet and gentle, and accompanied with a smile; though it is true that they are naked, yet their manners are decorous and praiseworthy.""...una gente in Dios" (A people one in God, InDios, Indians.)

Christopher Columbus, writing to the King and Queen of Spain, 1492.

http://www.eatel.net/~wahya/contents.html   http://www.eatel.net/~wahya/tribes.html

FEDERALLY RECOGNIZED NATIONS
COUSHATTA (Port Allen Parish) 
CHITIMACHA (St. Mary Parish) 
TUNICA-BILOXI (Avoyelles Parish) 
JENA BAND OF CHOCTAW (LaSalle Parish) 

STATE RECOGNIZED NATIONS
ADAI CADDO (Natchitoches Parsh) 
CHOCTAW-APACHE OF EBARB (Sabine Parish) 
CLIFTON CHOCTAW (Rapides Parish) 
FOUR WINDS CHEROKEE (Vernon Parish) 
(4 Winds is actually a Confederation, not a Nation) 
UNITED HOUMAS (Lafourche Parish) 

SEPHARDIC

Hispanics return to Jewish roots Univ of Tel Aviv's Latin American Center Journal online

Hundreds of Hispanics return to Jewish roots:  Hundreds of Christian Hispanics in South Florida are discovering they are descendants of Jews who hid their faith.
BY DANIEL SHOER-ROTH The Miami Herald Posted on Sat, Sep. 27, 2003 
dshoer@herald.com
  http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/6871628.htm

A few years after arriving in New Jersey from Cuba as a child, Olga Lea Pérez forged a friendship with a neighbor, a Jewish girl whose necklace carried a Star of David, who told Olga about the religious traditions of her family. That's when Olga felt her first link with the Jewish faith, though she didn't understand why.  ''I wanted to be like her. It was my neshama (Jewish soul) calling me,'' she says.

Three decades later in Miami, Pérez, who was baptized a Christian but did not practice her religion, again experienced the feeling of belonging to Judaism. While investigating the origins of her family in Cuba, she learned that she was the descendant of Jews who had concealed their religion.  ''Now I feel free because I know who I am,'' says Pérez, 38, who converted by Orthodox law. ``To realize that what I always felt was true is an incredible feeling.''

Dozens of Cubans in exile, and even on the island where they were born and raised with different beliefs and identities, are discovering what their subconscious mind has suggested to them for years: their Jewish roots. Through identity papers, records and genealogical studies, many have confirmed their Jewish origins and are returning to the religion, usually through conversion.

This group of Cubans is not alone in its discovery. In South Florida and the rest of the Americas, hundreds of Christian Hispanic families are turning to Judaism in the belief that they are descendants of the marranos, the Jews who converted to Catholicism during the 15th Century Spanish Inquisition to avoid being burned at the stake, said Nathan Katz, head of Florida International University's Department of Religious Studies.

Centuries later, they arrived in the Caribbean and South America and kept their traditions secret until they became totally assimilated. ''Suddenly, when they investigate the past of their families, they discover that the rituals observed by their ancestors had a Jewish, not Christian, origin,'' explains Rabbi Edwin Farber, chief of the conversion unit of the Rabbinical Assembly of South Florida, a Conservative organization. ``They feel they are recapturing something that was taken away from them: their true identity.''

Because the conversions are held in strict privacy, there are no figures to show how many Hispanics convert. It is estimated that every year in the United States, about 4,000 to 7,000 people adopt Judaism as their religion through a Rabbinical authority, Rabbi Farber said.

`A SPECIAL CONNECTION'

Mariano Moshe Otero, a 42-year-old Cuban American and a former evangelical minister, knew he was a Jew but had no proof. His mother told stories about his grandparents' home in Cuba, when they would cover the mirrors when someone died, a practice among some Jews.

One day, Otero, who is Orthodox, received a document that confirmed what he had always known. It was the birth certificate of his maternal grandmother, Dolores Caraza Levi, stating that she was a Jew. According to Rabbinic law, Judaism is passed down from the maternal side, which made Otero a member of the faith.

''I always felt I had a special connection,'' said Otero, who is taking Rabbinic studies and helping a dozen Cuban families in Miami track their religious roots through his organization Los Caminos de Israel -- The Roads to Israel.

Rabbi Farber explained that those who have been separated from their Jewish lineage must convert formally to the religion. The requirements include the study and acceptance of the Judaic doctrine, an expression of desire to join the Hebrew faith, a ritual bath and -- for men -- circumcision, he added.
Although the requirements are the same for all converts, the three main Jewish movements -- Reform, Conservative and Orthodox -- have different processes, such as different levels of studies.

EMERGING FREEDOMS

In Cuba, where the Jewish community is estimated to number 1,500, many young people who wish to return to the faith have converted or are in the process, especially if their grandparents and great-grandparents entered into mixed marriages, said Ruth Behar, a University of Michigan anthropologist who has studied the subject.

''After the revolution, people did not practice Judaism because religion in general was not practiced, especially by young people,'' Behar said.  Now that there's more religious freedom on the island and a spiritual awakening has occurred in some circles in South Florida and other parts of the hemisphere, the return to one's roots has become more pressing.

Los Caminos de Israel -- The Roads to Israel -- helps Cuban families in Miami trace their religious heritage. For more information, call 786-306-8211.

Univ of Tel Aviv's Latin American Center Journal online
Sent by Paul Newfield III  pcn01@webdsi.com
 
Date: Sept 29, 2003

Dear Colleagues,
I take pleasure in informing you that the online version of Vol. 14, n. 1 of : Estudios Interdisciplinarios de America Latina y el Caribe is now available at: : http://www.tau.ac.il/eial/
You are welcome to visit EIAL's site.

Cordially,
Dr Rosalie Sitman  rsitman@post.tau.ac.il
EIAL, Assistant Editor, Tel Aviv University

VOLUMEN 14  N 1 (2003) Introduccion:

LEO CORRY Universidad de Tel Aviv Pg. 5 : Higiene publica contra higiene privada: colera, limpieza y : poder en La Habana colonial
ADRIAN LOPEZ DENIS University of California, Los Angeles Pg. 11 No se debe llorar sobre leche derramada: el pensamiento : epidemiologico y la mortalidad infantil en Uruguay, 1900-1940
ANNE-EMANUELLE BIRN New School University, New York
RAQUEL POLLERO Universidad de la Republica, Montevideo
WANDA CABELLA Universidad de la Republica, Montevideo Pg. 35 : Plantas, petroleo, y progreso: las ciencias agricolas y las : ideologias de desarrollo en la epoca de Juan Vicente Gomez, : 1908-1935
STUART McCOOK The College of New Jersey Pg. 67 El hombre del maiz de la Argentina: Salomon Horovitz y la : tecnologia de la investigacion en la fitotecnia sudamericana
HEBE VESSURI Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Cientificas,
Caracas Pg. 89 Elites estatales, elites intelectuales y ciencias sociales en la : Argentina de los annos 60. El Instituto Torcuato Di Tella y la : Nueva Economia
MARIANO PLOTKIN IDES/CONICET-UNTref
FEDERICO NEIBURG Museu Nacional, UFRJ/CNPq Pg. 119 : Ciencia en la periferia de la periferia: hacia la formacion de : colegios virtuales
JOSEPH HODARA Universidad de Bar-Ilan Pg. 151 : De la modernidad y sus mapas  Revista de Occidente y la : nueva generacion en la Argentina de los annos veinte
KARINA VASQUEZ Universidad Nacional de Quilmes / Universidad : de Buenos Aires Pg. 167
:
RESENNA DE PELICULA / FILM REVIEW
LUCIANO LAROBINA: Los zapatos de Zapata. (Blanco y negro, 27 minutos, 35 mm, : Mexico, 2000.)  Ines Yujnovsky Pg. 189
:
RESENNAS DE LIBROS / BOOK REVIEWS
KATHERINE ELAINE BLISS: Compromised Positions: Prostitution, Public Health, and
Gender Politics in Revolutionary Mexico City. University Park, PA: : Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001,  Robert Buffington Pg. 191
PABLO PICCATO: City of Suspects. Crime in Mexico City, 1900-1931. : Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2001  Paola Chenillo Alazraki Pg. 194  : Gender and Sexuality in Latin America, A special issue of Hispanic : American Historical Review 81: 3-4 (Aug-Nov 2001): Pete Sigal Pg. 196
FRANCINE MASIELLO: The Art of Transition: Latin American Culture and Neo-liberal : Crisis. Duke University Press, 200,  Elizabeth Mahan Pg. 200
ROBERT WHITNEY: State and Revolution in Cuba: Mass Mobilization and Political : Change 1920-1940. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001,  Frank A. Guridy Pg. 203
MARY A. RENDA: Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S.: Imperialism 1915-1940. Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina : Press, 2001 : Mats Lundahl Pg. 205
PABLO TORAL: The Reconquest of the New World. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2001, : Robert Grosse Pg. 207
GAIL D. TRINER: Banking and Economic Development: Brazil, 1889-1930.New York: : Palgrave, 2000  Andres Regalsky Pg. 210
OSVALDO SANTIN QUIROZ: The Political Economy of Mexicos Financial Reform.: Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2001, : Shigeru Kochi Pg. 213: 
JOSE LUIS BENDICHO BEIRED: Sob o signo da nova ordem: Intelectuais: autoritarios no Brasil e no Argentina. Sao Paulo: Edies Loyola, 1999,: Marcus Klein Pg. 215
OSCAR R. NOCETTI y LUCIO B. MIR: Introduccion, estudio preliminar y transcripcion paleografica de Geronimo Luis de Cabrera, Relaciones de la jornada a los Cesares (1625).Santa Rosa (Argentina): Amerindia, 2000,: Pedro Navarro Floria Pg. 217
:
Please address all enquiries to the editor at: raanan@post.tau.ac.il or to: institut@post.tau.ac.il

TEXAS 

Tejano Association for Historical Preservation
Rio Grande City uses incentives 

Rio Bravo Association: Call for Papers
Texas Independence Day February 2004 
Censuses 1867 & 1875: Santa Rita de Morelos
HOGAR de Dallas Scholarship Committee 
San Antonio Public Library Newsletter
Volunteers Needed, BYU Immigrants Project
"Celebration of Culture" with Walls that Speak
The Residents of Texas, 1782- 1836 


Tejano Association for Historical Preservation

Lorenzo de Zavala Chapter

September Issue 2003
latejana3000@aaahawk.com

 

Latest News about the Tejano Monumento by Dr. Cayetano Barrera

On Saturday, August 9, 2003, a group of very prominent Texas historians and professors met at the Capitol in Austin to begin writing the text that will go on the plaques in front of the Tejano Monument that will be placed on the Texas Capitol Grounds. The plaques will tell the story of the Tejano experience in Texas from the 1500s to the present. The historians pictured L-R, are Dr. Carolina Castillo Crimm, Professor of History at the Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, Jack Jackson, Award winning author on Texas History, Dr. Gilberto Hinojosa, Professor of History at Incarnate Word University, San Antonio, Dr. Andres Tijerina, Award winning Author and Professor of History at Austin Community College and Chairman of the committee for the Tejano Monument, Inc., and Dr. Felix Almaraz, Professor of History at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Dr. Tijerina, Vice President of the Tejano Monument, Inc. Chairs the committee that will edit the final version of the text on the plaques. The blue ribbon panel of historians has graciously volunteered their time and talent to this endeavor, and they are greatly appreciated. 

The Tejano Monument Statuette is still available for sale of a limited edition by Artist Armando Hinojosa for $3000.00  All proceeds benefit the Tejano Monument.  For more information about the statuette contact Dr. Cayetano Barrera at cebdlg@aol.com or more information regarding the Tejano Monument, Inc. please visit the website of www.tejanos.com

The dedication ceremony of the Raul C. Martinez Annex was held on September 17, 2003 at 10:00 a.m, 1001 Staff Sgt. Macario Garcia.  Honorable Constable Victor Trevino, Precinct 6 was the eloquent emcee.  Hon. Ruben Guerrero, Atty. At Law opened with a prayer and also shared with the audience a few words about his memories of Constable Martinez.  Loretta Williams presented a history of the family and Mr. Benny C. Martinez shared early memories of his brother Roy.  He spoke of his bravery when he put out a fire as a young boy.  He also reminisced of when his brother served in the Civilian Conservation Corp and how proud the family was when Roy announced that he was going to defend his country by enlisting in the Army during WWII.  Lucy Martinez, his widow and son Roy, Jr. thanked the audience and Hon. Commissioner Garcia.  They also presented a portrait of Constable Martinez that was taken of him in uniform at his office on 1001 Staff Sgt. Macario Garcia.  American Legion Harrisburg, Post 472, and Ben Saenz, Commander performed the Presentation of Colors.  Ms. Carrion, Principal of Raul C. Martinez Elem. and students led the audience in the Pledge of Allegiance.  Miss Alicia Guzman performed the National Anthem.  Honorable Commissioner Sylvia Garcia warmly greeted the crowd and shared moving words of her memories of Constable Raul C. Martinez.  She invited Mrs. Martinez, Roy Jr., and wife Becky, along with the rest of the family to help with the unveiling.  She then cordially invited everyone present to attend the reception and tour the courthouse.  Mariachi Aguilas de America – Manuel Ortega, treated the guests with music and Alicia Guzman also serenaded the crowd.  Special guests were Hon. Judge Richard Vara, Robert de la Garza, Jr, Sheriff of Goliad, Esther Campos, School Board Member, Felix Fraga, Ex School Board Member and Ex City Councilman, Hon. Alfred J. Hernandez, Atty. At Law and Mrs. Hernandez, Jim DeVore, Chief Deputy, of Paul Bettencourt’s Office, Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector, Lanelle Killebrew, Daughters of the Republic of Texas, Tom Houston and Dick Reese, Sons of the Republic of Texas, Sylvia Gonzalez, District 8 Dir. LULAC, Rudy “Tejano” Pena, of Corpus Christi, Roy Zermeno of S.W. Bell, Author Abel Rubio, Linda Alonzo Saenz, President, T.A.H.P., Domingo Marquez, GI Forum, Richard Perez, D.A.V., Guadalupe Flores of V.F W. Post # 8930, Phillipa Young and son, Mr. Young, of LULAC # 60, Linda and Angel Seguin Garcia, History Class of Edison Middle School and Principal Mr. Dan De Leon.  It was a memorable day for all. 

Loretta Martinez Williams gave the following speech at the Dedication ceremony. Author Abel Rubio, family historians Estella Zermeno and Benny Martinez, provided the following information:

We’re here today to honor a man who opened new avenues for minorities, was the first in many areas and would also help others be first.  He was an inspiration to us all.  Raul. C. Martinez was a Tejano, a Mexican Texan and a proud American.  Raul’s family on his maternal side came from the Canary Islands, Lanzarote, a Spanish province.  This Cabrera Family was one of the 16 chosen families who were sent by King Philpe V of Spain to found the Villa de San Fernando and established the first civil municipal government in Texas, now the city of San Antonio.  They arrived March 9, 1731, were honored with Spanish Titles and granted land.  But like so many other immigrants trying to arrive to this great land, Raul’s 6th great grandmother and 6th great grand father Juan and Maria Cabrera died enroute on the Via Appa Road from Veracruz.  His fifth great grand Uncle Joseph Cabrera was a Spanish Soldier in Tejas by 1735.     In 1749 he was stationed at the Presidio La Bahia, Goliad.  His brother Marcos Raul’s 5th great grandfather served as a cavalryman in the Spanish army and died in battle with the Indians on March 8, 1769.

On Raul’s paternal side his 4th great grandfather Pedro Becerra was born in Louisiana in 1730 and his son Miguel, Raul’s 3rd Great Grand Uncle was born in 1757 at La Bahia, Goliad.  Miguel was listed in the 1780 Census at La Bahia as a Spanish soldier and took part in a trail ride to carry cattle and sheep to Bernardo Galvez' troops during the American Revolution.  Miguel Becerra was also the grandfather to Col. Juan N. Seguin, the only native Texan to fight both at the Alamo and at San Jacinto.  Manuel Becerra, Raul’s 3rd Great Grandfather served as the first Ayuntamiento (City Secretary) of Goliad in 1820 and held various public offices until 1835.

Manuel Becerra would be a land grantee, guide of Stephen F. Austin, and as sindico, civil judge signed peace treaties with the Karanakawa and Coco Indians.

Raul’s 4th Great Grandfather Vicente Cabrera was a Spanish Soldier, his 3rd great grand father Juan Manuel Cabrera was also a Spanish soldier and after the Independence of Mexico from Spain, served as a Mexican Soldier.  Raul’s 3rd Great Grand Uncle also named Juan Manuel Cabrera served under Seguin in the fight for Texas Independence and his name is listed in the barracks of the Alamo under Seguin’s 9th Company of Texas Volunteers.

Mariano Cabrera, Raul's 2nd great grandfather along with other families was ordered by the Mexican Gen. Filisola to leave Goliad during the Texas Revolution in 1836 bearing witness to Goliad’s darkest period of history.

Raul’s great grandfather Macario Cabrera served in the Confederate States of America.  Once again in times of war the family would be split as others would follow to muster in the Confederate Army.  Raul’s great grand Uncle Anacleto Cortinas would be the only member from the family to serve with the Union Army as a Sgt. in the First Texas Cavalry.

Raul’s great grand mother Paula Martinez, unhappy about the segregation of schools in Goliad served in 1933 as President of the Ladies Auxiliary LULAC Council #2.  His Father Placido served in 1937 as President of LULAC Council #21 in Goliad and became involved in the court case of Delgado vs. Bastrop that ruled segregation was illegal of Mexican American children in Bastrop ISD and three other districts.  This case began a 10-year struggle led by LULAC and the GI Forum in the courts against the segregation of Mexican American children in the Texas Public School Systems.

The legacy of this family for over 270 years, includes pioneers, founders and defenders of Texas.  They were tough Tejanos proud to be Americans.

To quote the eloquence of my Uncle Roy himself, “Our dues have been higher than most, we will continue to pay them.  We will continue to preserve our colorful heritage.  Our glorious past is as beautiful as America and we love America.” 


Extract:
Rio Grande City uses incentives to restore abandoned buildings
By JAMES PINKERTON, Houston Chronicle, 10-25-03
Sent by Juan D. Villarreal juandv@granderiver.net
 

Mauro Villarreal,  redevelopment manager for the city's Main Street program,  pictures a bustling Main Street lined with restored buildings that house high-end restaurants, a museum, small businesses and medical and legal offices.  Buildings of historical or architectural significance, 628 in all, are scattered throughout Rio Grande City, according to recent surveys by experts.  

Established as Rancho Carnestolendas in 1753, Rio Grande City survived fierce Indian raids and endured military campaigns during three different wars and the Mexican Revolution of 1910. 

In 1859, the town was seized by renowned Mexican patriot and bandit leader Gen. Juan Cortina until U.S. troops pushed him back across the river. During the Prohibition era, local merchants excavated tunnels from store basements to the riverbank to collect smuggled liquor from bootleggers. 

Today, city leaders are staking their economic future on this very rich, and still very visible, heritage. 
``Heritage tourism is the cornerstone of our economic development efforts," said city manager Leo Olivares, speaking from his office in the two-story brick city hall building constructed in 1877 with timbers from a steamboat that once plied the Rio Grande. "When you're looking at what your community can do better than others ... our advantage has been we've been here since 1753, and that is something we can capitalize on." 

But Olivares noted that historical restoration is a challenging undertaking for a small town in the state's poorest county, Starr, a small town that was incorporated only a decade ago and does not levy property taxes.  "It's not easy," he said. "What we can do is act as a catalyst by offering incentives." 

The city uses sales tax receipts to fund the $60,000 yearly budget of the Main Street program, as well as a $20,000 grant project to help property owners pay for facade restoration and beautification of historic buildings. Additionally, the Main Street program coordinates a low-interest loan program with two private local banks for buildings that meet historic criteria, Villarreal said. 

"The problem we've seen in our border towns is economics," said Kay Harvey-Mosley, director of community heritage development at the Texas Historical Commission in Austin. "It has been difficult for border towns to have the funding to have wonderful historical preservation programs." 

In 2001, the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed the 200-mile riverside corridor from Brownsville to Laredo -- known as "Los Caminos del Rio" -- on its list of the 11 most endangered historic places. Trust officials said that rapid land development, sparked in part by the North
American Free Trade Agreement, along with the extreme poverty of the region, combines to thwart historic preservation on both sides of the border. 

Rio Grande City is one of four Texas border towns that have joined the commission's Main Street Program. The state program provides no funding to selected cities, but sends teams of experts to survey historic areas within the city and develop detailed plans to not only restore buildings, but make them economically viable again. In exchange, the city must pay the salary for a Main Street manager to oversee preservation efforts for years. 

Part of the difficulty, Villarreal explained, is that in many cases the properties are owned collectively by the many descendants of the original builders. And because they feel a strong bond to the property, the descendants are reluctant to sell their interests to outside developers or real estate agents, he said. 

"We are having some success in convincing people to sell their (interest in a) building, if not to someone else, maybe to a family member who is interested in doing some restoration work to maintain the home," Villarreal said. 

He cited the recent completion of the two-story Southern Colonial home built by Arcadio Salinas in the late 1800s; descendant Joel Salinas restored the home and it will house the law offices of his children. 

And on Labor Day, Rosa Gonzalez and husband Roel moved their office supply business to the large brick building on Main Street constructed in 1887 by merchant Juan Garcia Peña. 
"It was a learning experience," recalled Rosa Gonzalez, who purchased the historic structure from Peña's heirs in Monterrey for $55,000. "You see these old buildings and ... the potential they have, and you want with all your heart to bring life back to these buildings." 

During eight months of restoration, the couple discovered a massive, 16-by-20-foot water cistern installed in the ground next to the 117-year-old home, along with walls four bricks wide and a roof made of three layers of brick. The restoration tab for the 3,800-square-foot structure reached $165
000.  The couple recycled the roofing brick and laid a patio, and plan to open a coffee shop and gift store.  "It was a lot of hard work, and a lot of tough decisions along the way, but overall my husband and I feel so proud of the building," she said. 

Despite the initial successes, Rio Grande City has only made a small dent in the extensive inventory of abandoned historic homes and buildings that need immediate repairs. Some stand open to the elements with windows and doors missing, and several have lost their roofs. 

"The 75 buildings we consider high-priority buildings are abandoned, every single one," Villarreal said. "They are in various states of decay and neglect. They need new plumbing, electric, paint, perhaps structural stabilization." 

Rio Bravo Association: Call for Papers

Sent by George Gause ggause@panam.edu

The Rio Bravo Association solicits proposals for its meeting on April  1-3, 2004. on the campus of Texas A&M University-Kingsville.  

    The Rio Bravo Association is a group of scholars both from the  United States and Mexico who have an interest in the culture along the  Rio Grande.  Scholars include those from fields such as history,  political science, languages, sociology, engineering, architecture and  urban design.

    The theme for the 15th Annual Meeting is 
"Sustainable Development in the Rio Bravo/Rio Grande Borderlands."

    Proposals may consist of individual papers or of papers grouped for a session.  For a session proposals, two, or, preferably, three papers should relate to a common theme.  For each paper proposed, please submit an abstract of 250 to 500 words, indicating the thesis of the paper, the sources and methodology employed in research, and how it enhances or expands knowledge of the subject.  Papers should have a reading time of twenty to twenty-five minutes.  also, please submit a 
curriculum vitae for each participant.

    Proposals should be postmarked by December 31, 2003 and  mailed to the address below.  Inquires are welcome by email, but please  send proposals by mail or fax.       

Texas Independence Day February 2004 
Sent by Mira Smithwick SagaCorpus@AOL.com 

During next year's Texas Independence Day celebration on the last weekend of February 2004, Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site plans to present a new play on the story of the Convention that made Texas a nation in 1836. The play will tell the story of the Convention using 4-5 actors supported by a narrator and the play audience, whose members will shape the outcome of each performance into either a historical or hypothetical outcome based on how they vote on key questions that confronted the actual convention delegates in 1836. Thus, the play will incorporate the approaches of living history "street theater" to interpret history in a way that makes the audience members into active participants in the story. One of the hypothetical outcomes, we envision is that the Convention votes to remain in session into early April-too long to allow the delegates to escape the oncoming Mexican Army. In this case, the Convention will be abruptly ended as Mexican Soldados burst into the convention hall and arrest the delegates.

Were this to happen, I think that the situation confronting the original convention would be brought home to the audience in a unique way. Therefore, we are looking for Mexican soldados to serve as extras in our play and arrest the delegates. If you would like to help us, please contact me at:
walter.bailey@tpwd.state.tx.us
   or call me at 936-878-2213 ext. 224. Thank you.

Walt Bailey, Exhibit Technician
Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site
Washington, TX 


Notice of New Book Published by Los Bexarenos Genealogy Society

Censuses 1867 and 1875 for Santa Rita de Morelos

Located at present day Morelos, Coahuila
By Donald May.

Papercover, 8.5X11 inches, Tape binding, 78 pages, indexed.
This book is available from Borderlands Books
P.O. Box 28497, San Antonio, TX 78228
Sent by elindio2@hotmail.com


HOGAR de Dallas Scholarship Committee 
 
Sent by George Gause ggause@panam.edu
 
HOGAR de Dallas is starting to prepare for awarding of the 2nd HOGAR de Dallas scholarship.  At the present time, the scholarship is offered to a Dallas ISD senior with a Hispanic surname and/or 
families, who will attend a higher education institution during the fall of 2004.  Since some of the research may be done in Mexico by the student (perhaps during the Christmas Holidays), the scholarship criteria's and due dates need to be established no later than November 30th -- sooner is possible.
  
The scholarship is based on submission of a family tree of the student's family/ancestors, along with an essay.  The family tree is to be at least three generation, preferably four (paternal and maternal).  
Besides the names, the student is to provide birth dates, marriage dates, death dates, burial places, etc.  The essay is to provide information about the research done, how it was done, how it 
enhanced the student's knowledge of his families, and any additional information that was beneficial to the research.  
  
The amount of the scholarship is based on whether three or four generations are submitted as well as the accuracy and completeness of the information.  The committee will determine who will receive 
the scholarship.
  
The scholarship will be awarded in May 2004.  The money will be sent to the college/university the student will attend, and will be applied towards the student's expenses.  The money is not given directly to the individual because we want to ensure the money is applied towards his/her education.  
  
More detailed information will be provided to the scholarship committee members.
  
If you would like to be a member of the scholarship committee, please let me know.  If you do not live in the Dallas area, I am sure we can arrange a communication method for your participation.
Thanks, Art Garza  AGarza0972@aol.com

San Antonio Public Library Newsletter

Sent by Lupita C. Ramirez LupitaCRamirez@aol.com  
and Elsa Pena Herbeck, epherbeck@juno.com

This is just the first couple of paragraphs for the October 2003 Newsletter. To have the newsletter sent to you, contact los-b@juno.com

The purpose of this electronic newsletter is to improve communication among archivists, genealogists, and historians in the geographical area of central and south Texas. It is coming to you from the Texana/Genealogy Department of the San Antonio Public Library.

On an almost weekly basis the staff in the Texana/Genealogy Department is told by patrons or someone from the list above that they didn’t even know we existed, much less that we would own a particular item for which they have been searching. People are also apparently unaware of the extensive photograph collection at the Institute of Texan Cultures or the wonderful library on the grounds at the Alamo. 

If you or your organization would like to advertise a new collection (or old one) or event please let me know (before 15 October, after that the fifteenth of each succeeding month), and I will include it in the next issue. Our goal is to do this on a monthly basis. We do not intend for this to be the “Texana/Genealogy Department” newsletter.  Researchers need all the help they can get. We have all, I am sure, been sent on “wild goose chases” because someone was sure they knew where we could get help. Perhaps this newsletter will help aid people in determining where they should go to get the answers for the questions that they have, while also serving as a means of advertising for programs, workshops or other special events. 

Volunteers Needed for BYU Immigrants Project 
Sent by Lorraine Hernandez lmherdz@msn.com

Volunteer Opportunities: We, the Center for Family History and Genealogy at Brigham Young University would like volunteers to help extract Spanish and German emigrant records for our Immigrants Ancestors Project. If you are interested, go to http://immigrants.byu.edu  to volunteer http://familyhistory.byu.edu/nl-sep03.asp

Project Information: http://immigrants.byu.edu/english/project_information/view.asp
The Immigrant Ancestors Project, sponsored by Brigham Young University’s Center for Family History and Genealogy, uses emigration records in emigrant home countries to locate the birthplaces of immigrants which are missing on many port records and naturalization documents in arrival countries. At present the project focuses on emigrants from Germany, Spain, Ireland, England and France, but plans are to add other countries.

Volunteers working with scholars and researchers at Brigham Young University are creating a database of millions of immigrants based on emigration records. Anyone with an Internet connection can search this database at no cost. Funds are being raised for the project to pay wages to student researchers, provide microfilm copies of needed records, and support computer development and maintenance.

Professor Cecilia C. Rhoades
Southwest Borderlands Cultural Studies, MSC #177
Texas A&M University-Kingsville
Kingsville, Texas 78363-8202
    Phone: (361) 593-2687
    Fax: (361) 593-2707
    Email: cecilia.rhoades@tamuk.edu

"Celebration of Culture" with Walls that Speak

Murals Were the Focus at the Texas State Fair's Mundo Latino, September 26 - October 19, 2003 
Sent by Jerry Benavides jgbenavide@aol.com

"Celebration of Culture" with Walls that Speak,  murals exhibited in the Women's Museum, was created especially for the State Fair of Texas.

Murals are paintings that are typically applied to a wall or ceiling surface. This recurring art form is found world-wide and is significant in Hispanic culture. 


A prestigious group of Texas Latino muralistsl contributed to the show, including Jesus Alvarado, Santa Baraza, Alma Gomez, Teri Ybañez, Carlos Callejo, Manuel Pulido, Carlos Canu, Luis Valderas, Mary Rodriguez, Ruth Buentoya, Jesus de la Rosa and Debra Vasquez. Latina artist and muralist, Viola Delgado, is curator.Another highlight is the "Little Mexico" exhibit, namesake of the pioneer Latino neighborhood in Dallas, provided by the St. Anne’s School and Church historical group. Featured painters include Leticia Huerta, Maria Teresa Garcia Pedroche, Jesus Galvan, Enrique Fernandez, Sandra A. S., Amalia Masari and Alba Alicia Espino. Other events scheduled for the 24-day run of the Fair include documentary films of each muralist, while artists from ALAS, the Association of Latino Arts and Studies, will be on hand with crafts demonstrations. The organization is dedicated to promoting, preserving and developing artistic expression within the diverse Latino communities of North Texas.

The Residents of Texas, 1782- 1836 

Texas Genealogy, The TXGenWeb Project
http://www.rootsweb.com/~txgenweb/restx.htm
Sent by  John Inclan fromgalveston@yahoo.com

This research project began in 1971 by The Institute of Texan Cultures. The original intent of the research was to prepare a draft containing information on Blacks in Texas prior to 1836. The research was broken down into three categories: statistical, census, and general information (general manuscript series). 

Since it was impractical to extract only the information concerning persons of Black origin, translation of the complete statistical and census reports of Spanish Texas was accomplished. This material includes demographic, statistical and qualitative data on many ethnic groups, and individual families can be traced for several generations. It also documents the existence of a large number of Blacks among the Spanish and Indian population in Texas long before the influx of Anglo Americans colonizers. 

The general manuscript series, consisting in large part of translated summaries, documents the Black's experience in Texas. The translation of this series was not brought to completion. In 1973 the project ended after an evaluation of the work revealed that the intended scope had been surpassed and that the work had the potential for a scholarly publication. 

In 1998 The Institute of Texan Cultures granted permission to The TXGenWeb Project to bring this very important collection of early Texas source material to the Internet where it will be freely available to researchers. If you have access to this 3 volume publication and would like to assist in bringing this work Online please contact Trey Holt. 

Vol. 1 - Statistical Reports of Texas, 1783 - 1820, and Census Reports of Texas, 1782 - 1806 
Vol. 2 - Census Reports of Texas, 1807 - 1834 
Vol. 3 - Census Reports of Texas, 1835, and General Manuscripts Series, 1603 - 1803 

EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI

Low-paying jobs attracting Hispanic to the South
Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies


(Atlanta-AP) 
--
Low-paying jobs are attracting lots of Hispanic immigrants to the South. 
Source: "Volga Santos" vsantos@univision.net
Sent by George Gause
ggause@panam.edu

   New figures from the Census Bureau show of the ten states with the most new Hispanic residents, six are in the South. Georgia tops the list with its Hispanic population growing more than 16 percent.

   A sociology professor at Georgia State University says "a toilet doesn't get flushed in a hotel, an onion doesn't get cut in a restaurant and a frame doesn't get built on a house without Latino labor."

   Charles Gallagher says Hispanics are drawn to the South because the region needs workers for manual labor in such industries as agriculture, construction, textiles and janitorial work.

   Rounding out the top five fastest growing Hispanic population areas are Washington D-C, North Carolina, Nevada and Kentucky.

   Webb County, Texas, remains the U-S county with the highest percentage of Hispanic population with 95 percent.

     On the Net: Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov/

Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies
http://www.selu.edu/Academics/Depts/RegionalStudies/
Sent by Bill Carmena JCarm1724@aol.com
 
Mission: The Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies preserves and promotes the history and the cultures of Louisiana's Florida Parishes, southwestern Mississippi and surrounding areas through scholarly research, lectures, and publishing. The Center is on the 2nd floor of the Linus A. Sims Memorial Library, Rm. 208 at Southeastern Louisiana University, Hammond, La. 

For more information contact:
Dr. Samuel C. Hyde, Jr., Director 
Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies 
SLU 10730 
Hammond, La. 70402 
(985) 549-2151 
FAX (985) 549-2306 
EMAIL: selahistory@selu.edu

Excellent site for Louisiana researchers. Go to the table of contents and look at the headings and links. http://www.eatel.net/~wahya/contents.html

EAST COAST

ObedArt.com
Long Wait for Taste of Home 
Fox Awarding Hispanic Athletes with 'Premios'
ObedArt.com http://www.obedart.com/emaillist.html

"My purpose is to send a message of love, positive energy, balance and tranquility through my art. I believe it is a tremendous responsibility to be an artist. The world we live in, the people around us and the messages we send sometimes become one in a painting, a sculpture or a drawing. Through art we express a view of the world and of what we are."
- Obed Gómez


Long Wait for Taste of Home 

Guatemalan Fried Chicken Draws a Crowd By Annie Gowen
Washington Post Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38248-2003Oct16.html
Sent by Raul Damas, Director of Operation, Latino Opinions, (703) 299-6255

 Friday, October 17, 2003; Page B01 There's ordinary fried chicken, and then there's Pollo Campero fried chicken, a crispy culinary treat many Central American immigrants say is without equal. They've been bringing takeout boxes from the Guatemalan fast-food chain on flights back to the United States for years -- some 3 million pieces of chicken a year. 

So when the restaurant chain, as much an icon in Central America as McDonald's is in the United States, opened its first outlet in the Washington area this month, customers came from as far away as Georgia and New York and began lining up at 2 a.m. for the 10 a.m. opening. 

Customers outside the Falls Church restaurant now form lines at 8 a.m. that last through the day, as do the traffic tie-ups on Columbia Pike, much to the chagrin of neighbors. The restaurant is racking up record sales and frying up 253 birds an hour, and it must start turning people away well before closing time. 

"The Hispanic population is so big around here, we thought it was going to be a hit, and so it was," Barahona said. The Washington area is home to 186,000 natives of Central America and their children, according to census figures. 

Pollo Campero, which means "country chicken" in Spanish, was founded in Guatemala in 1971 and now has 180 outlets throughout Central America and an estimated $300 million in annual revenue, according to Rodolfo Jimenez, the company's marketing director. 

Pollo Campero is among a half-dozen or so Latin American restaurant chains that have opened locations in the United States since 2001 -- looking to capitalize on the rapidly growing Hispanic population, with its estimated $600 million in annual disposable income. The chains include Venezuela-based Churromania International, which sells churros (sugared fried dough). 

Jimenez said Pollo Campero began planning to expand into the United States after it installed two takeout counters at airports in Guatemala and El Salvador in 1998 and realized how many pieces of Pollo Campero chicken were leaving the country. The practice became so widespread that El Salvador-based Grupo TACA airlines asked the company if it could design an odor-free box because TACA's airplane cabins reeked of fried chicken, Jimenez said. 

Hoping to capitalize on this phenomenon, the chain opened restaurants in Los Angeles and Houston last year. The first outlet in Los Angeles did $1 million of business its first seven weeks, the company said. Barahona said she expects $1 million in sales after five weeks. 

Barahona said the Pollo Campero chicken that makes its way past customs has garnered as much as $45 a box in neighborhoods and bodegas around Arlington. Now locals can buy it at market rate -- an eight-piece box for $9.99, a 12-piece box for $14.99 and a 16-piece box for $18.99. 

Barahona said its distinct flavor is the result of a marinade that is injected into the chicken's skin at the processing plant. The meat then is shipped to restaurants, where it's dipped in a light flour breading and refrigerated before frying, she said. 

Although the chicken is wildly popular with immigrants, people who live near the restaurant have not been welcoming of the addition to Northern Virginia's fast-food landscape. Residents in the formerly quiet streets off Columbia Pike said they never expected that one chicken restaurant would attract so many people -- and cause such a headache in their neighborhood. 

"I was shocked when I saw the line -- it was out the door and around the building," said neighbor Sue Edwards, 61, a nurse. "You thought they were giving gold away or something over there." 


Fox Awarding Hispanic Athletes with  'Premios'

By Deborah Wilker, Reuters/Hollywood Reporter 
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20031023/tv_nm/television_sports_dc_1 

MIAMI (Hollywood Reporter) - The inaugural "Premios Fox Sports" -- an awards show that will honor Hispanic athletes from the United States and Latin America, is set for Dec. 17 in Miami. The program will air Dec. 21 on the Fox Sports en Espanol cable channel in the United States and on Fox Sports Latin America throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. 

Although much recent Hispanic programming has been targeting a cross-cultural, multilingual audience, "Premios" will be broadcast "strictly in Spanish," said Raul De Quesada, vp marketing at Fox Sports International and producer of the event. 

"Fox Sports en Espanol has a very unique audience in the U.S. -- 17 million households, mostly males 18-49," De Quesada said. "So we think this is the best way to (handle it) the first year out. But that doesn't mean there won't be an English component in the future." 

Pro athletes from the United States and Latin America in baseball, tennis, basketball, golf, auto racing and other sports are among the nominees for a variety of awards to be voted on by fans. Familiar names like baseball stars Sammy Sosa and Alex Rodriguez are among them, along with LPGA rookie of the year Lorena Ochoa. 

Modeled on the Golden Globes' dinner-party setup, the evening will be broadcast from the Miami Radisson, with hosts Catherine Fulop (a former Miss Venezuela) and Mexican sports journalist Pablo Carrillo.. 

"It's a perfect formula -- music and sports together in a show like this," De Quesada said. "It's a very attractive package for advertisers." 

MEXICO

The Genealogy of Mexico
Pasajeros a Indias 
South Texas Archives: Colonial Archives
Arbol Genealógico de Los Béjar de Tinguindín
Comité Mexicano de Ciencias Históricas 
Petición Don Alonso Eduardo de Valenzuela 
Villarreal, Paras , Nuevo León, Rescoldos 
The Genealogy of Mexico. . . http://members.tripod.com/~GaryFelix/index1.htm
WOW. . . . ALL YOU NEED IS ONE LOOK!!!  Bookmark it. . . .
Sent by Paul Newfield pcn01@webdsi.com

Pasajeros a Indias 
Sent by Mary Lou Montagna
nandin@att.net 
The Spanish passenger list is available on the internet.  I followed the instructions and it works!!!  Let me know if you figure out any shortcuts. You can access the Pasajeros on line:  Go to this web site and it will give you instructions in English on how to start: http://www.ldelpino.com/aeren.html 
Then this is the site where the information is: http://www.aer.mcu.es/sgae/index_aer.jsp

South Texas Archives: Colonial Archives
http://www.tamuk.edu/news/2003/may/microfilm/
George Gause ggause@panam.edu

South Texas Archives at Texas A&M University-Kingsville Acquires Microfilm Documenting Spanish Colonial Period

KINGSVILLE (May 29, 2003) --- Scholars interested in the Spanish Colonial period in Mexico need now look no further than the South Texas Archives and Special Collections at Texas A&M University-Kingsville for information. The university's archives recently obtained 134 volumes of microfilmed Spanish government documents covering the late 1600s to 1821 and a region that spread from northwestern Mexico to the northeastern Gulf Coast. The region includes what is now South Texas and was once referred to as the Provincias Internas.

Homero Vera, field historian for the archives, said the new collection contains thousands of documents, including genealogical records of the founding families of the region. The collection also contains many military documents such as service members' records, lists of presidios and maps of the area. Vera said the collection also documents the Native Americans living in the area during the time period as well as some information on Spanish land grants.

The collection is entirely in Spanish and will be of most interest to historians, genealogists, archivists and cartographers. Vera said the collection is a significant addition to the archives not only because of its historical value, but also because A&M-Kingsville is one of only three universities in the United States to have all or a portion of the collection.  The University of Arizona owns the entire microfilm library of the Spanish  Colonial period while A&M-Kingsville was permitted to obtain half of it.  The Benson Library at the University of Texas at Austin owns small  portions of the microfilm.

"The importance of this is that we have the earliest documents of this region, all the earliest history," Vera said.

Vera hopes to someday complete the collection, but he said the process is very time consuming and complicated. He worked with staff at the National Archives in Mexico City to obtain the collection spending more than a year and a half working to close the deal. He renegotiated the deal several times due to multiple staff changes at the National Archives and made several trips to Mexico at his own expense in pursuit of the microfilm.

"There is a tremendous amount of bureaucracy involved in using the Mexican archives as compared to ours," Vera said. "We had to prove that we weren't going to gain anything monetarily by having this collection, only that we were going to let South Texas scholars gain knowledge about their own people and the history of the region."

Mexican officials expressed concern that historians and scholars would cease to visit Mexico to study these documents if they became readily available in the United States. In order to finally obtain the collection, Vera said the South Texas Archives and Special Collections had to agree to terms that included not permitting the microfilm to be photocopied or distributed outside the facility. The collection may only be used for scholarly research purposes and must be viewed within the South Texas Archives and Special Collections. The process of making the deal took about a year and a half.

"It was definitely worth the effort," Vera said. "This is a one of a kind collection. Texas A&M-Kingsville is one of only two universities in the country that has a large portion of this collection."

Vera said he had visited the National Archives in Mexico City and knew of the collection's existence, and that led him to pursue a grant to purchase the microfilm. He also obtained a complete index of the collection from the University of Arizona, which he said makes it much more user-friendly.

So far, Vera has only had time to look at about three of the reels from the collection. He said the microfilm is high-quality and very readable --- and also very exciting.

"I get to see my direct ancestors' names on there. That's something a lot of people can't do," he said. The collection was purchased through a grant from the Coastal Bend Community Foundation.

For more information contact Cheryl Cain at 361-593-2138 or c-cain@tamuk.edu


ARBOL GENEALÓGICO DE LOS BÉJAR DE TINGUINDÍN

GUILLERMO PADILLA ORIGEL
LEON, GTO. 2003

 


TRONCO:

I.-Don Gregorio de Béjar, vecino de Tinguindín y después del pueblo de Xacona, se casa con Doña Juana de Sandoval, hija legítima del Capitán y Conquistador de Michoacán Don Gonzalo de Sandoval y Doña Isabel Pérez, y fueron sus hijos entre otros:

II.-Don Agustín de Béjar y Sandoval, de la santa hermandad en Zamora, casado con Doña María de Morfín, y fueron sus hijos entre otros:

1.-Don Gregorio de Béjar Morfín,
casado con Doña Francisca de Alcocer y Espinoza, hija lexítima de Don Diego de Alcocer y de Doña Tomasina de Espinoza y


2.-Don Agustín de Béjar Morfín


II.-Don Gregorio de Béjar Sandoval
, nacido por 1600, se casó con Doña María de Liébana, originaria de Tangancícuaro y vecinos de Xacona, y fueron sus hijos entre otros:

1.-Don Cristóbal de Béjar y Liébana
, casado con Juana Bejines Romero el 13 de marzo de 1674

2.-Don Gregorio de Béjar y Liébana, casado con Doña Juana de Lupiana

3.-Don Juan de Béjar y Liébana , nacido por 1630 y se casó el 21 de abril de 1662, con Doña Gertrudis de Lupiana , hija lexítima de Don Diego Jiménez y de Doña María de Lupiana, vecinos de Tlazazalca y fue su hija entre otros de Don Juan y de Doña Gertrudis:

Doña Gertrudis de Béjar y Lupiana, casada con Don Joseph de Origel y Bedoya, hijo legítimo de Don Francisco de Origel y Guido y Doña Francisca de Bedoya

 


Comité Mexicano de Ciencias Históricas 
CMCH Boletín 269, Octubre 2003

http://www.colmex.mx/centros/ceh/cmch/default.html
Source: Roberto Calderon beto@unt.edu

El Comité Mexicano de Ciencias Históricas, A.C. fue fundado en 1966 y tuvo como sus primeros presidentes a los historiadores Alfonso García Ruiz y Moisés González Navarro. No fue sino en 1975 en que aumentó su presencia bajo la dirección del Dr. Enrique Florescano quien tuvo como activos colaboradores a la Mtra. Beatriz Ruiz Gaytán y al Dr. Bernardo García Martínez. Después fue presidido por el Dr. Alvaro Matute. La Mtra. María Teresa Franco que lo sucedió 1982 y dirigió el Comité hasta 1989. Contó con un grupo de activos miembros entre los que se destacaron Virginia Guedea, Juan Luis Mutiozábal, Josefina Z. Vázquez, Leonor Ortiz Monasterio, Elisa García Barragán, Andrés Lira, Aurora Flores Olea, Juan Fidel Zorrilla. Para suceder a la Mtra. Franco fue elegido el Dr. Hira de Gortari, quien contó con la colaboración de Alicia Hernández, Aurora Flores Olea, Luis González, Virginia Guedea, Rita Eder, Antonio Saborit, María Isabel Monroy, Briggitte Boehm y Ricardo Pozas Horcasitas. En 1994 asumió la presidencia del Comité el Dr. Andrés Lira con quien han colaborado Guillermo ZermeÒo, Valentina Torres, Aurora Flores Olea, Rita Eder, Briggitte Bohem, Ricardo Pozas, María Isabel Monroy, Gisela von Wobeser, Manuel Ramos y Carmen Blázquez.Posteriormente la Mesa Directiva estuvo conformada por Valentina Torres Septién, Norma Mereles de Ogarrio, Alicia Gojman de Backal, Tomás Calvillo Unna, Javier Garcíadiego, Virginia Guedea Rincón Gallardo, Manuel Ramos Medina, Salvador rueda Smithers y Gerardo Sánchez Díaz.Actualmente la Mesa Directiva está formada por Josefina Zoraida Vázquez, Verónica Zárate, Manuel Ramos Medina, María Teresa Jarquín, Gerardo Sánchez Díaz, Laura Hernández Montemayor, Ilán Semo, Ruth Arboleyda, Dra. Virginia Guedea, Juan Ortiz y Araceli Leal Castillo.El Comité Mexicano ha publicado dos directorios de historiadores y dos catálogos de tesis de historia presentadas en las instituciones de todo el país, tres biobibliografías (María del Carmen Velázquez, Silvio Zavala y Edmundo O'Gorman) y un registro nacional de instituciones dedicadas a los estudios históricos. Publica mensualmente un Boletín con información interesante para los profesionales de la historia. Deben destacarse los premios anuales a los mejores artículos y reseñas publicados en revistas mexicanas, que se vienen otorgando desde 1979 y que han constituido un reconocimiento y estímulo para los investigadores. 

For a bibliography of recommended books for specific geographic areas, go to Catálogo de Tésis.

Sede: El Colegio de México, A.C.
Camino al Ajusco 20, Pedregal de Santa Teresa, C.P. 10740, México, D.F.
Apartado Postal : 20671,
01000 México 
5449 2925 y 26
Telex: 1777585COLME
Cable: COLMEX
Fax:5 645.0464
Correo electrónico: cmch@colmex.mx
 



Petición de Título de Castilla de Don Alonso Eduardo de Valenzuela 
Vecino y Alférez de dha Ciudad de Anduxar, Año de 1759

Por 
José Luis Vázquez  
asturias_vazquez@yahoo.com


Este documento es un ejemplo clásico de documentación genealógica española. Es documento pertenece a la colección particular de Don José Luis Vázquez y Rodríguez de Frías autor de la obra Genealogía de Nochistlán Antiguo Reino de la Nueva Galicia en el Siglo XVII según sus Archivos Parroquiales. asturias_vazquez@yahoo.com. La ortografía ha sido conservada como en el original

Don Alonso Eduardo de Valenzuela Vecino y Alférez de dha Ciudad de Anduxar, puesto a L.R.O. de V.M. con el mar profundo Rendimento; Dize que hallándose en el Suppte de muchos siglos

a esta parte, de una Ylustre descendencia que erade de sus désimos quintos Abuelos, adquirida, y conservada a costa de su sangre y Caudales, en obsequio de la Religión y defensa de Vta Real Corona, en sus mayores urgencias, así conttra Ynfieles, como otros sus enemigos, de seando que este honor no se obscurezca Ni olvide, sino que protegido, y favoresido de una Real magnificencia, sirva la piedad de V.M. de maior impulso, inspirazión, e incentibo a la a la heredada lealtad de Sppte y sus subzeriores para mayores empeños, solicitta de uta. Real Soberanía y Clemencia, se sirba con decorarle con uno de los Títulos de Castilla.

Los merittos que para excitar a Vta. Real Grazia concurren en la dilatada ascendencia del
Suppte se reducen, a que su tercero Abuelo Paterno Dn Alonso Pérez Serrano fue Caballero de orn. De Alcántara: Dn Juan de Valenzuela y Mendoza, su bisabuelo, de Calatrava y Capitán de Caballos Corazas: Dn Alonso de Balenzuela Pérez Serrano su Abuelo, de Alcántara; Por línea Materna dho Dr Juan de Valenzuela y Mendoza su tercer abuelo; Dn Albaro Franco de Valenzuela su bisabuelo , del Orn de Santtiago; Dn Framco de Valenzuela su Abuelo, fue cabllero del del Sr Dn Phelipe Quinto (Glorioso Progenitor de V.M.) A quien tamvién sirvió en el Puerto de Santta María, año de 1706, en que por Rl. Orn. Se se mandó saliesse la Nobleza delas Andaluzías.

El referido Dn Alonso Perez Serrano, su terzero Abuelo, fue quinto nieto de Thoribio Sánchez, hermano de Sn Alonso Suarez de ka Fuente ovispo que fue de Jaén, Y Gobernador del Consexo, que en el año de 1517, fundó mayorazgo, sobre una sucesión tiene el Suppte. Pleito pendiente como octabo nietto del mencionado Thoribio su hermano, por haber sido el primer llamado Diego

Hernández Balttodano su nieto, de quien el Sppte lo es sexto, y se halla en actual goze y posición de otro Mayorazgo fundado por Thoribio Balttodano su quinto abuelo, hixo, de dho Diego Hernández, los que como primeros llamados ayaron el mayorazgo fundado por el referido ovispo

Gobernador del Consejo, y el citado Diego Hernández Balttodano sexto Abuelo del Sppte, fue quien por el Sr, Dn Phelipe segúndo en =10 de Septiembre de 1558 , se hizo merced , y despachó título firmado de la serenísima Princesa Da Juana, siendo gobernador de estor Reinos, de tal Alfé=

rez mayor de la Ciudad de Andujar, que ac=tualmente lo es el Sppte. En quien ha recaido Y de que se le despachó Título en 28 de Agosto de año próximo de 1759 como tal pose hedor del Mayorazgo fundado por el expresado Thoribio Balttodano, de quien fue Nieto dho Dn Alonso Pérez Serrano del Odn de Alcántara.

Da María de Medinilla, muger Que fue de dho Dn Franco de Valenzuela, Abuelos maternos del Sppte, fue décima nietta de Esteva Sánchez de Anquis, a cuio fabor en tiempo de los Señores Reyes Dn Juan el Segundo, y Dn Enrique Quartto se dio Sentencia arbitraria, y después en su consequencia, y en el año de 1591, Dn Luis de Medinilla Anguir, quatro nietto de dho Estevan Sánchez y quinto abuelo del Sppte, ganó executoria en la Real Chancillería de Granada, por la que se le mandaron, como a sus hijos y descendienttes guardar todas las exempsiones y Privilegios concedidos e la Casa de Medinilla, como descendientes del nomina do Estevan Sánchez de Anguis, comprendiendole en una sentencia arbittraria por Caballero hijosdalgo, y todos sus descendientes Y últimamente en 15 de Diciembre de 1650 Por el Alcalde Mayor de la Ciudad de Ubeda a quien se hallavan convertidos por la Real executoria las probanzas de las filiaciones de los descendientes del mismo Esteban Sánchez de Anguis, con visita de los que

expusieron la Ciudad, su síndico y Produrador General, que confesaron la certeza de lo relacionado, se pronunció sentencia declarando a Dn Juan de Medinilla (hijo de Dn Luis que ganó la executoria) y a Dr Luis, y otros sus hijos descendientes lejítimos por línea recta del Varón del dho Estevan Sánchez de Anguir, Caballero Hijosdalgo notorios de sangre, y que a los susodhos, y sus descendientes se les guardasen todas las honras, franquezas, y libertades que habían gozado, y Gozarán los de su clase.

Por línea recta es el Sppte dezimo quinto nietto de Tello Alfonso de Castro Gobernador que fue de la Ciudad de Córdova cuando se ganó de los moros, su nieto Juan Pérez de Valenzuela, fue Caballero de la Vanda Vasallo de S.M. (que entonzes hera distinguido carácter) Ayo, Y Mayordomo Mayor del Infante Dn Juan, y sele hizo merced de la Alcaldía de Baena, y de la Vara de Alguacil mayor de ella, con facultad de nombrar teniente, quatto alguaciles y Alcaide de la cárfel Y poder entrar el cavildo con Espada, tomando el mejor lugar a el lado de el Alcalde, refiriéndose en el título la honorífica expresión de que esta gracia se le confedía por el deudo, y por los servicios Y obligaciones que el Rey le devía y tenía. Y en el testamento que otorgaron el Comendador Martín Sánchez de Valenzuela y Sancha Martínez de Porras su muger duodécimos Abuelos del Sppte en 21 de Mayo de 1380, expezaron que dho Tello Alfonso su visabuelo, havía ganado de los moros a Valenzuela otros Lugares y mandaron decir misas , por su tío Payo

Arias de Castro y por los demás sus difuntos señores de aquella Villa, por haber muerto por el Santto Nombre e Dios conttra los Infieles de ella, haviendo merecido de la Sra Reina Da Ysabel, Juan Pérez de Valenzuela Señor de Valenzuela, nietto de dho Tello Alfonso de Castro, y dezimo terfer abuelo del Sppte, que con Fha de 30 de Junio de 1378, le escribiere S.M. una Cartta

desde Sevilla, notificándole, que en aquel día le havía nacido un hijo Principe, creyendo que de ello habría plazer, cuio honor con el del muchos otros blasones y Servicios se ha continuado en todos tiempos hasta El Sppte en su Casa, por cuia distinción se hospedó y aposentó en ella el Sr Dn Phelipe quartto, desde 16, hasta 19 de Febrero de 1624, Y el mismo honor mereció a los serenísimos Señores Dn Luis y Da María There sa de Borbón hermanos dignísimos de V.M. en 1º de Mayo de 1729 transitando para Sevilla; Y últimamente siendo necesario que en aquella Ciudad se levantase el Real Estandarte por V.M., no haviendo para ello subministrádose le fondos aun

que se pretendieron, representando sobre ello a la Sra Reina ynelitta Madre de S.M. ni temor propios dha Ciudad, para los cosos de tan solemne plausiblefension, y ver graboso a los vezinos el impensarlos; no pudiendo la heredada lealtad del Suppte, contenerse, y anteponiendo su amor a sus caudales e intereses, ofreció hazer, y con efecto hizo como tal Alféres mayor (sin ha ver exemplar de que otro alguno hasta hoy lo haya hecho) toda la función a su costa con el esempeño y esplendor que es notorio como aparese de uno de los documentos que a este reverente memorial acompañan ofreciendo, como ofeze (en caso de estimarlo V.M. condizente) justificar
Instrumentálmente con los que falten, todo el contexto, de su narrativa, que no produze por ahorrar a Vta Real Suprema compresión, la molestia que causaría sudifusión: En cuios términos que además de diferentes Patronatos de Iglesias gosa y disfruta el Sppte mas de Diez y Ocho mil ducados de renta annual de sus mayorazgos Suppca rendidamente a V.M.., que en vista de dhos documenttos y demás que lleva expuesto, dándose por servido de la innatta constante fidelidad, servicios del Sppte y sus ascendentes; se digne condecorarle para si y sus subzesores, de uno de los Títulos de Castilla, que sea del Rl. Agrado de S.M., en que reciviera execial mxo., que espera de vta.l Soberanía, y Clemencia.

Cualquier Impresor pueda imprimir este memorial so sacando mas que uno, o dos ejemplares con
apersivirmiento de que si sacare mas incurrirá en las penas de los que imprimen sin licencia.

Señor: Dn Alonso Eduardo de Valenzuela Alférez mayor de la Ciudad de Andujar.

Suppca a V.M.


Villarreal website,
“Paras , Nuevo León, Rescoldos Históricos” 
was added by Tom Ascensio Villarreal. TomAsnsio@aol.com

Please contact Tom directly for information on how to access the website which is on MyFamily.com.

This is a document about the history of the founding of Paras and especially about our Grandfather, Pomposo Villarreal, "Alcalde" (Mayor) of Paras and his Grandfather Facundo Villarreal, one of the founders of Paras. This is from a Civil record of Agualeguas N. L., where our G-Grand father Luiciano Villarreal was born (Dec 25 1846) and our G-G-Grandparents, Facundo Villarreal and Ma' San Juana Hinojosa were married (September 10, 1834).  Look for the green highlighted text and do a search for "Pomposo Villarreal" and "Facundo Villarreal" to get the highlights of our Abuelo's contribution. 
Tu Primo, Tom Ascensio Villarreal TomAsnsio@aol.com 

[[ The entire study is 41 pages, I've included nine pages beneath the index and strongly suggest that you go to the website. The index gives a sweeping understanding of the details that you'll find.]]

 

"Paras , Nuevo León, Rescoldos Históricos"

Colección de documentos sobre Parás , Nuevo León del Archivo General del Estado.

Datos poco consignados sobre el origen del Municipio de Parás, N.L.

Autor: Lic. Francisco Javier Alvarado Segovia, Cronista de Dr. Arroyo y de Iturbide, Nuevo León

Palabras Previas
Antecedentes Históricos
Incipiente inicio de la Villa
Repoblamiento
Súplica de destacamento para resguardo de las familias
Padrón o lista de los sorteos de las primeros habitantes
Caminos públicos en los primeros años
Adhesión al movimiento político de Juan Álvarez
Inventario del Municipio 1854
Epidemia
Adhesión al movimiento político de Santiago Vidaurri
Estadística de José María Hinojosa de 1856
Enajenación tercera parte del agua municipal
Decreto de 1858 de la reserva de ejidos
Venta de la tercera parte del agua
Contrabando de pieles
Nombramiento de la Primera Autoridad
Memoria 1859
Dictamen verbal; fuerte seca
Presupuesto de la Cárcel Municipal
Elección de la tercera sala de justicia
Nuevos pobladores 1861
Fango en el callejón
Construcción de la cárcel
Testimonios perdidos de fundación
Invasión villas del norte
Cortinas recluta gente en Parás 1861
Desertores 1862
Primeras letras 1862
Denuncio tres sitios de ganado menor por Nicolás de la Garza
Personajes importantes de Parás
Capilla en construcción 1863
Reseña del cultivo de caña, algodón y tabaco 1865
Robo en Charco Blanco
Acontecimientos 1877
Indios Bárbaros en el Rancho de Eulogio Martínez
Límites con Tamaulipas 1879
Visita del Gobernador Viviano L. Villarreal 1881
Censo 1885
Hacienda la Ventura 1889
Historia de la educación
Contrabando en el Tanque 1896
Fiestas públicas 1891
Cuatro sitios y caballería 1891
Contrabando Charco Blanco
Construcción y planos casa Consistorial 1892
Recomposición del panteón 1895
Construcción del local del establecimiento público de niños
Límites Vallecilo-Parás 1895
Nace en el rancho del Río de Sabinas; Juan José Villarreal
Límites Parás-Vallecillo 1896
Inauguración de las bancas con motivo de la toma de posesión del General Bernardo Reyes
Baltasar Chapa inaugura escuela particular
Cesan al director de la escuela
Nombran por el Consejo de Salubridad; médico a Vidal de la Garza 1904
Establecen escuela mixta en el Tanque
Camino Parás-Guerrero
Muere el único extranjero Francés que vivía en la Villa
Contrabando de dinamita 1911
Intento de robo Miguel Volpe
Amplían local de la escuela de niños
Presa de agua 1912
Solicitan cementerio fuera de la Jurisdicción
Pedro Pérez Hinojosa Carrancista deposita parque 1913
Robo en el juzgado 1914
Constitucionalistas recogen caballos 1914
Huertistas en Parás 1914
Queman los archivos de los juzgados 
Elecciones municipales 1915 
Capital del municipio
Inauguran retrato de José María Parás y Ballesteros 1919
Doctor Amador Escudero 1920
El General Irineo Villarreal
Pablo González Garza en Parás
Reparación del panteón 1920
Sociedad Atalayas del progreso
Ingeniero Bernardino Reyes 1922
Feria 1923
Reparación de caminos reales 1924
Presupuesto 1924; José Ángel Hinojosa
Panteón en Charco Blanco
Visita del Gobernador Gerónimo Siller
Capilla 1927
El Progreso nuevo poblamiento
Ruta de pasajeros 1937
Carretera Agualeguas Parás
Planta de luz
Molino de nixtamal
Los correos de Parás
Bibliografía
PALABRAS PREVIAS.

El 19 de septiembre de 1850, José María Flores en representación de varios vecinos de Agualeguas , pertenecientes al Estado de Nuevo León, ocurriendo al H. Congreso del Estado, y bajo el conducto del Gobernador Constitucional, que lo era en esa época José María Parás y Ballesteros, solicitando se les concediera a sus representados, los terrenos denominados "Huizachal"; una toma de agua, en el río de Álamo, para fundar un pueblo, dicho pueblo serviría de avanzada a los demás del Estado, sobre todo los de la franja fronteriza, de las invasiones de Indios Bárbaros que en aquel tiempo asolaban esas regiones, además también, para evitar tantas incursiones de toda clase de bandidos que igualmente abundaban en esta zona; los terrenos del "Huizachal" eran completamente baldíos, autorizándose su medida y deslinde correspondiente, habiéndose nombrado como perito agrimensor para que hiciera la medida a Pablo Chapa.

Por consecuencia, y en el decreto # 104, de la fecha de 17 de febrero de 1851, autorizándose dicha Villa, concediéndose a sus pobladores, 16 sitios de ganado mayor, aproximadamente 28,080 Hectáreas; un sitio de ganado menor, equivalente 780.2711 Hectáreas; una toma de agua en el río de Álamo, de Buey y medio (equivalente a 13 litros por minuto aproximadamente, ya que siendo un Buey equivalente a 9.333 litros por minuto) ; 7 caballerías ( 294 Hectáreas, esto equivale a una caballería, 42 hectáreas) para el uso de dichas aguas y 4 sitios de ganado mayor( un sitio de ganado mayor equivale a 1,755.6100 hectáreas) que medidos a costa de los pobladores debería de servir de fundo a la nueva villa, denominándola desde entonces "Villa de Parás", en atención al C. Gobernador que la impulsó.

La municipalidad colinda al norte y oriente con el Estado de Tamaulipas, con Ciudad Guerrero respectivamente; al sur con el municipio de Agualeguas; al poniente con Vallecillo, de acuerdo con el censo de 2000, tendrá aproximadamente 3,000 habitantes.

El palacio Municipal fue edificado en el año de 1891, durante el período municipal de Pomposo Villarreal , contaba con escuelas de niños y niñas, el de niños se llamaba "Instituto Juárez" inaugurado precisamente durante los festejos del natalicio de Benito Juárez el 21 de marzo 1906, cuyo presidente municipal fue Andrés Gutiérrez; la segunda Escuela se llamaba "Aquiles Serdán" de la misma fecha que la de niños.

Se manifiesta que cuenta con autoridad administrativa, así como de las localidades que de ella dependen: Rancho Santa Isabel, San Pablo, Indio Muerto, Hinojosas, Heriberto y Virginia Hinojosa, Florentino Gutiérrez, Palo Blanco, los Canales, el bagre, Tanquecillos, Ponciano Pérez, Pomposo Villarreal, El Contadero, Francisco Guerra, Ubaldo Treviño, la Carroza, Garza Robles, el Nogal, Los Chapa, San Agustín, el Barro, Alfonso Cantú, el Nogal, Garza Flores, Leonardo Cabrera, Teodoro Anaya, Tinajeros, El Porvenir, las Playas, Zepeda, Loma Bazán, Amolillo, El Beleno, Los Herreras, Cerritos, Santa María, las Lajitas, Amando Pérez, El Violín, el Mezquitito, Huizachal, Guadalupe las Norias, Puerto Rico, Arturo Martínez, El barro, la Presa Los Villarreales, Ruices del Norte, Buena Vista, San Martín, los Volpes, Jorge Nava, Llano Blanco, Ejido Parás, Los Cadenas, Congregación "el Tanque", Los Vela Charco Blanco 5 de Mayo, Piedras Pintas, Hacienda "la Carroza", Ojo de Agua Ventura, Colonia Emiliano Zapata.

Según censo de 1950, Parás tenía 1,893 habitantes, la superficie del municipio era de 1,500 Kilómetros, las principales actividades de la región; la agricultura y la Ganadería En orden de importancia las obras municipales: agua potable, pavimentación, drenaje, luz y fuerza, rastro, mercado, hospital, escuelas etc.

El servicio de agua se daba a domicilio, mediante tomas públicas, y en otros casos se proveería a través de un "Aguador" a base de tracción animal.

El ingreso del municipio en el cincuenta era aproximadamente de 3, 843.17 pesos.

El la jurisdicción existe una ruina arqueológica digna de mencionarse llamado "el Frontón de Piedras Pintas", en la margen izquierda del Río Sabinas, localizándose gran cantidad de piedras con figuras y Geroglificos, de los indígenas que habitaron toda esta región.

Parte de la conservación de su archivo histórico, fue quemado en el año de 1914, período comprendido en la Revolución Mexicana, por tal motivo no existe constancia de varios períodos administrativos, solo se han localizado en el Archivo General del Estado de Nuevo León, con cede en Monterrey, N. L. 13 cajas, de las cuales para fortuna de los habitantes de Parás, tienen un gran contenido histórico, desde la fundación, hasta los años cincuenta.

Entre "hijos" de Parás figuraron: el General Irineo Villarreal, Pablo González Moya, Baltasar G. Chapa; el Coronel Tomás María Chapa; el mayor Ignacio Pérez; el Capitán Serapio Garza, entre otros personajes.

ANTECEDENTES HISTORICOS.

Se consignan varios antecedentes desde el año de 1805 como es el caso de , Francisco Cordente, comerciante de la entonces Villa de Mier, del Capitán Gordino y José María Peña, Teniente y Comandante de Caballería Provincial de la Villa de San Ignacio de Loyola de Revilla en la entonces colonia de Nuevo Santander ( hoy Tamaulipas), quiénes solicitaban por medio de un apoderado, se lego a Fray Antonio Lazo, conocimiente del tribunal del juzgado de rentas y composiciones de tierras, cuya residencia, estaba y viera a quién pertenecieran las tierras que se denunciaban, del agostadero del " Huizachal", lugar que estaba situado en términos de la jurisdicción de esa provincia, lo que logró verificar, presentándose dicho apoderado, al efecto, ante el juez del juzgado privativo, para que en persona se registrara en el archivo del mismo juzgado; por sí se encontraran personas para que por " Justo y legítimo" título fueran dueños de dicho agostadero, lo que se ejecutó en dicho archivo.

No encontrando en todo el documento, que se acreditara dicha propiedad era " Público" en aquel "Superior tribunal" bando para que " Tuviese o pretendiese" mayor pertenencia. Continuando dichos pregones por el término de 60 días, con arreglo a la ley, fijando cedulones en las plazas principales de aquella Ciudad, para el mismo efecto, cuyo registro vencido, fue hecho en aquel plazo, que se le dieron por el mismo juzgado privativo; los documentos que acreditaban, no haberse encontrado en archivo, documento de propiedad de dicho agostadero, ni menos otros que por pertenencia lo disfrutasen, bajo de aquella buena fe.

Los documentos fueron enviados al Superior Gobierno de la entonces colonia, reconociendo interinamente el dominio y propiedad, del agostadero y tierras del "Huizachal". Las que pasaron inmediatamente a componerlas y denunciarlas, ante dicho señor Juez Privativo, quedando desde aquel entonces en poder de estos 3 personajes, antes mencionados, dichos agostaderos.

Dicha excusión se basó en aquel estado, con respecto a la providencia que acordó la Subinspección de Intendencia de San Luis Potosí, de que las tropas de la Brigada del Reyno, se reunieran en San Fernando de Béjar, por la sublevación intentada por los Angloamericanos, como se ejecutó, quedando dichas tierras de "Huizachal y Peñitas", comprendidas en dicha jurisdicción.

En tal virtud, dieron comisión a Santos Bazán, soldado retirado de dicha compañía, encargado de justicia del mismo rancho de Peñitas, que en cuanto estaría de su parte y en uso de la autoridad, que ejercía como Juez de Campo, en aquel territorio vigilara y que dicho agostadero y tierras de "Huizachal", se mantuvieran " Franco y libre".

Posteriormente José María Peña, desde la Villa de Revilla hacia marzo de 1814, decía que para pastar ganados menores solamente se utilizaría, este dicho agostadero y para la caballada de los vecinos, que se hallaban de día, abatidos por los Indios Bárbaros, que hostilizaban esa frontera. Introduciendo ahí de tal manera la poca caballada que había quedado; ya que eran "Tan útiles y necesarios" para montar las tropas, destinadas a defender esa Villa y demás de la provincia, en cuyo estado debería de estar dicha tierra de agostadero, sin alteración, ni variación alguna, hasta que el Gobierno de la Provincia, por representación de su vecindario y tropa, determinaran otra cosa.

Todavía más acá, marzo de 1830, se habían enviado dos documentos originales del Alcalde Primero de Ciudad Guerrero, Tamaulipas, dimanados de la situación, que tenían como colindante, con el agostadero de "Huizachal", haciéndole saber, por parte del Juzgado de Agualeguas, de los alegatos impuestos, que habían hecho sobre el particular, siendo que era constantemente poseído, dicho agostadero, por vecinos de éste Distrito, sin contradicción, ni embarazo de hacía muchos años, hasta esa fecha; y no por lo que los de Ciudad Guerrero, como se decía, pues sí acaso hubiera sido así, en aquellos muy " Muy antiguos" años que no se había visto y mucho menos en los puntos que por la parte, al sur citaban siempre, fueron retirados por los vecinos, cuantas veces se habían querido introducir, mediante la posesión que se hallaban , decía José Francisco Cantú desde Agualeguas.

Dos meses después; mayo de 1830, se presentó el Licenciado Pedro Agustín Ballesteros, para reclamar unos terrenos, que según el estaban en Jurisdicción de Vallecillo; terreno reservado, a un vecino de Álamo. Distante, dicho asiento del que poseía por cuenta de los señores Ballesteros. Dicho punto del Álamo, era el que dividía esa Jurisdicción de Agualeguas con la de Vallecillo; resultando que del terreno de los señores Ballesteros, quedaba dentro de Agualeguas. Por cuanto al terreno de "Huizachal", que denunciaba, nunca fue reconocido y tocado a Jurisdicción de Vallecillo, así lo informaba desde Agualeguas José Francisco Cantú.

A través del Juzgado Primero de Paz de Agualeguas; varios vecinos de la entonces dicha Villa, hicieron denuncio de los terrenos baldíos de "Huizachal", siéndoles concedido, aunque no se les había dado posesión por justos motivos que había tenido el Gobernador, comprometiéndose el padre de Manuel Bazán y Fulgencio Herrera, avecindarse a esa Villa de Agualeguas, con tal de que los comprendieran en los denuncios citados y de que no los lanzaran del Rancho.

Para julio de 1841, se seguían los reclamos a consecuencia de que los vecinos de Ciudad Mier, Tamaulipas, como los de Guerrero del mismo estado, perjudicaban a Agualeguas ya que se introducían al terreno de "Huizachal", en donde hacían corridas de caballada, sin tenerla, ya que los criaderos eran de Agualeguas, llevándose para esto algunos de ellos; herrada, según se decía que andaban en " Averiguaciones en uno y a otro punto", vecinos de Agualeguas, reclamando bestias conocidas por los hierros. Que se resistían a entregarlas, todo lo decía José Andrés Villarreal.

Para el año de 1842, decía Rafael de la Garza de haber llegado dos vecinos de Agualeguas, del punto de "Huizachal", de una partida de defensores de Mier, que en las inmediaciones del Río del Álamo, "Dieron muerte" los Indios Bárbaros, en el punto de la Laguna del Huizachal, distante de Agualeguas 8 leguas, rumbo entre norte y oriente a Salvador García, Comandante de dicha partida. Después, habían visto en la Cabecera del Llano terreno en disputa, ni era perteneciente a Mier, ni a Agualeguas, sino que era un terreno propiedad de nadie, según Gobernadores anteriores, habían dispuesto que el Departamento de Nuevo León, se pusiera de acuerdo con el de Tamaulipas. Lo disfrutaran en "Común" acuerdo los vecinos de: Mier, Guerrero y Agualeguas. Solo que dicho terreno llegaba hasta "Huizachal": así mismo era muy extraño que el quejoso se fuera a Mier, bajo el pretexto de tener un Rancho en la línea que dividía a aquella Jurisdicción con la de Agualeguas.

Existen otros antecedentes del "Huizachal" como el que consignaba Rafael de la Garza en el mes de octubre de 1842, sobre que era imposible montar una " Partida de hombres", que debería de cubrir la segunda línea de defensa contra los Indios Bárbaros, sobre todo en épocas de invierno, por que no había caballos, y los pocos que había " Estaban inútiles". El único arbitrio, con el que se podía contar sería "Hacer una corrida de caballada", en el Huizachal.

Más todavía Andrés del Bosque, hacia noviembre de 1850, comunicaba que él y siete vecinos que lo acompañaban, fueron asaltados por Indios, en el "Huizachal", de esa Jurisdicción de Agualeguas. Lugar en el cual estaban durmiendo y que por fortuna no hubo desgracias que lamentar en la gente, a consecuencia de que los Indios "Dieron el asalto", donde estaban las bestias persogadas; creídos quizá de que allí estaba la gente; ésta al escuchar los gritos, los sintió, escapando en cuclillas, sacando arrastrando los que encontraron, viniéndose a corta distancia de la lumbre. Que allí había, con la consigna de que sí llegaban a ella, allí les romperían el fuego; para fortuna de Del Bosque y su gente no hubo Indio que pasara "Por todo aquello". Y solo se llevaron cinco caballos, tomando el rumbo del poniente. Los indios enemigos eran de 10 a 12 según observaron la gente de Del Bosque.

Seguían las problemáticas con respecto al "Huizachal", ya que para junio de 1851, José María Flores solicitaba "por sí" y en representación de los ciudadanos que deberían formar la Villa de Parás en el punto de "Huizachal", de la corrida que pretendían hacer; Andrés Villarreal y Pedro Agustín Garza María, no concediéndoles el Gobierno, permiso para dicha corrida, solo hasta que pasaran los meses de la "Parición" de la caballada, así como del tiempo necesario, para que las crías se encomarcaran y no corrieran detrimento.

Sobre el escrito que había presentado Andrés Villarreal y socios. Relativo al terreno que habían denunciado desde el año de 1849, de las tierras baldías conocidas con el nombre de "Huizachal de los canales"; se ordenaba al Alcalde de Agualeguas; Andrés del Bosque, practicar las diligencias al calce de un escrito, que era enviado del Superior Gobierno, presentadas por el ocurrente; en donde prevenía entre otras cosas que sí había oposición se pasara al juzgado Primero de Instancia, para los efectos de dicho documento del estado número 248. Así que lo verificó el Alcalde Primero del año de 1850; Andrés del Bosque.

Después habiéndolo aprobado Andrés Villarreal, por medio informar la posesión que alegó tener; más habiendo oposición, desde el año de 1829, haciendo igual denuncio con el citado Andrés Villarreal, pasando igualmente el asunto al mismo Juzgado Primero de Instancia y después de practicadas algunas diligencias, en dicho Juzgado, volviendo dicho expediente al Primero, para que se abriera un juicio de conciliación a pedimento por medio de escrito del precitado A. Villarreal; efectuándose en autos, habiendo quedado el asunto en "Estado", no sabiendo "Porqué causas". Debiendo pues sin otros requisitos, proceder a medir y avaluar el terreno citado; pues aunque si iba a proceder, sobre que se pasara al Juez de Instancia, éste último ocurso, porque estaban ya practicadas las diligencias prevenidas en el primero, se contuvo el Alcalde porque Andrés Villarreal, dijo que en su concepto, sí debería de proceder a la medida, pues a los opositores de 1849, los reconocía sin ningún derecho, por haber pedido terreno para una nueva poblazón.

INCIPIENTE INICIO DE LA VILLA.

En un informe del alcalde José Andrés Villarreal de 1853, Alcalde Primero De Agualeguas al de la Villa de Parás, Nicolás de la Garza, que "a que horas y en que punto, se podrían reunir ambas autoridades" para la demarcación de la jurisdicción , ya que decía el alcalde de Agualeguas que no existía tal Villa "más de nombre" porque los vecinos y autoridades, residían todos en ese pueblo, queriéndola en su momento segregar parte de esta Villa, para anexarla a otra que estaba por constituirse. Suceso que se dio a raíz de unos denuncios que en los mismos terrenos hizo al Gobierno Estatal; ya que dicho alcalde de Agualeguas ¿con que poder trataba de suspender un soberano decreto? ¿acaso la legislatura no estaba al alcance cuando lo dio de que la Villa de Parás aun no estaba poblada por las poderosas razones de no haber sacado el agua a regar para de este modo acarrear más pobladores como así efectivamente sucedió, a los datos que había?. No se ha hecho acreedor el alcalde de Agualeguas a una severa reprehensión por el hecho de suspender el efecto de un soberano decreto?. Fue público y notorio que arrostrando peligros y toda clase de penalidades están esos nuevos pobladores trabajando en la apertura de la acequia?. Se decía que tenía dicho alcalde antipatías contra los vecinos de Parás, por eso se probaba que Andrés Villarreal, que fuera también vecino de Parás declarado por el Congreso en la merced del terreno que concedió al propio alcalde y su familia, a razón de ser guardias nacionales de la Villa, y por lo que paga al contingente, y para corrobora lo dicho, un fin de año el recaudador de contingente de Agualeguas en certificación que pidió, se le dio en clase de emigrado y en el año de 53, sin voz ni voto en las elecciones primarias de Agualeguas, resultó electo alcalde 1º.de esa Villa, según se sabía tenía su misterio dicho puesto.

En otro ocurso se excitaba a los habitantes matriculados, se les fue dando solares, cerca de la plaza y sus inmediaciones, encontrándose descubiertos, solo habiendo uno que otro cercado con barda y de hecho todavía algunos sin desmontar de Parás, residentes en Agualeguas ocurrieran por sí o mandaran familias en su lugar a ocupar sus posiciones desiertas, fijándoles un término de 15 días. Pero en vez de regresar, con sentimiento se veía que comenzaban a irse, dejando sus habitaciones cercadas las puertas con ramas, todo esto motivado por la falta de erario nacional de los que habían ido a Parás; llegando incluso a quitar el destacamento que había en esa población para su defensa contra las incursiones de indios.

REPOBLAMIENTO PARÁS.

Las familias; Susana Canales, Manuela Molina, Viviano y Pablo García, Pablo Hinojosa, vecinos repobladores de la Villa, que poseen ranchos con bienes y labores, inmediatos que solo los divide el Río, a quienes se les tenían dado solares, estando recibiendo las cargas vecinales, se presentaron quejándose PÉREZ, FELICIANO MOLINA, TOMÁS HINOJOSA, ANDRÉS MOLINA, SIMÓN MOLINA, VIVIANO GARCÍA, FRANCISCO CANALES, NICOLÁS GARZA, SOSTENES MOLINA, JESÚS PÉREZ, MIGUEL MOLINA, ROMUALDO POMPA, JOSÉ MARÍA CADENA, DESIDERIO RUÍZ, IGNACIO HINOJOSA, ANDRÉS GARZA.

LOS CAMINOS PÚBLICOS EN LOS PRIMEROS AÑOS.

El camino que se estaba abriendo y que debería de conducir de Parás a Ciudad Guerrero, quedaría concluido para la primer semana de noviembre de 1853. Así mismo se informaba que la apertura del camino de Parás a Vallecillo, no se concluiría porque no estaban delimitados los límites de la jurisdicción que la dividían. Lo mismo pasaba con el camino a Agualeguas, ya que por motivos de las grandes lluvias que había, no podían concluir dicho camino.

En octubre de 1860 el alcalde Primero Gerónimo Canales, le solicita al Primer Regidor Andrés González parara a exigir que se terminara la conclusión del camino que se estaba haciendo en ese momento.

Por otro lado y hacia 1860 se exigía a todos los dueños de labores recomponer el camino, sino lo contrario se harían acreedores a:

1º. Se limpiaran los caminos en un período no mayor de 8 días.

2º. Los contraventores de lo anterior, se les haría efectivo un peso de multa, sin perjuicio de obligarlos a recomponer sus pertenencias.

3º. Se obligaría a: Blas María de la Garza, Andrés Garza, Romualdo Pompa, rebajaran en el arroyo hasta dejarlo listo a satisfacción del Procurador.

SUPLICA DE DESTACAMENTO PARA RESGUARDO DE LAS FAMILIAS.

Ya que los Indios han acabado con muchos ranchos; matando a los pobladores y llevándose todos sus intereses, intimidándose la mayor parte de las familias que habitan en esa nueva población, al grado de quererse regresar otra vez para Agualeguas, saliendo ya algunas familias, teniendo precisamente que dejarlas solas ahora, que se iba a hacer la apertura de la toma de agua, que se había paralizado porque "hicieran por que vivir" y teniendo que alargarse a distancia de 1 legua, que es lo que faltaba para llegar el agua a la Villa, a lo que debe de dilatarse algún tiempo más, por tener que hacer algunos calicantos para pasar algunos arroyos de gran costo; más el temor de que los indios ataquen a las familias, que precisamente quedan solas, unas porque son familias muy pobres y otras porque sus soldados esposos salen a la milicia, amen de seguir ellos mismos haciendo los trabajos, particularmente cuando hay invierno, que es también cuando los indios hacen mas sus campañas con mas frecuencia. Con tal motivo, usando su paternal benignidad y empeñoso dando pruebas irreparables por el engrandecimiento y muy particularmente de los pueblos fronterizos, mandar situar un destacamento de hombres armados en este pueblo naciente y según los elementos que tiene dentro de muy pocos años, podría ser un de los más hermosos y rico de la frontera por su mucho agua y terrenos vírgenes.

Esta población esta fundada en la entrada que hacen los grupos indígenas para el interior, poniéndose en ella un destacamento como se ha dicho antes, se estará resguardada la entrada del enemigo, desde Vallecillo, hasta donde llegan los términos de Tamaulipas, y los pocos o muchos que lleguen serán castigados o por lo menos no podrían llevarse nada por ser un punto medio.

El soldado Rumualdo Ruiz, quien salió en orden de la guarnición a cortar tierra dijo que " en Zepeda de esta Villa, distante legua y media, rumbo al oriente y por la banda izquierda del río del Álamo, estaban los indios haciendo de comer" y por no ser sentido, no supo sí eran muchos o pocos. En ese mismo momento, el comandante mandó un sargento con 9 hombres a explorar, para que si fuese una partida corta; perseguirlos y castigarlos. Así mismo mandó recoger a todos los hombres que se encontraban trabajando en la "acequia" a fin de evitara las desgracias ocasionadas por dichos indios bárbaros.

Al regresar dicha partida, informaron al Comandante que los Indios mataron un becerro, llevándose parte de él, saliendo hacia el norte. Disponiendo el C. Comandante, que por esa noche, pasaran los soldados en el pueblo para mayor seguridad y muy de mañana salieran la tropa, por el rumbo que tomó el enemigo y perseguirlos hasta donde se pudiera.

A corta distancia de la Villa, se le incorporaron 25 hombres que venían de Agualeguas, en persecución de los mismos indios, siguiéndooslos todo el día, pero el resultado fue que los indios los "avistaron" a distancia de 1 legua, poniéndose en precipitada fuga sin poderles dar alcance por la cabalgadura tan mala que traía montada la tropa, persiguiéndolos solo hasta el arroyo del Coronel, jurisdicción de Ciudad Mier, muy inmediato al río Grande, donde pasó el enemigo. Lugar de donde se volvió el Comandante, hallándose en el tránsito un caballo de un vecino de Agualeguas herido de lanza.

Con muy pocas esperanzas de alcanzar a los indios, por la mala remonta y a corta distancia de la Villa a "un tiro de carabina", rumbo entre norte y oriente, los indios se llevaron un joven de 20 años, siendo el enemigo en número de 3 agarrarlo.

Los 9 hombres que habían salido para ver sí podían rescatar al joven que se habían llevado, volvieron con el muerto, y donde lo agarraron lo amarraron, llevándolo así hacia a bastante distancia del norte, lo desnudaron, dándole ahí mismo "lanzasos". El Sargento de la Guarnición; Gabriel Canales, volvió a perseguir a los indios con 9 hombres, a "trote y galope" con lo mejor que pudieron montar, forzando la marcha y al saberse "sentidos" por la tropa "echaron a correr", quedando uno de los indios, que iba en buen caballo, atrás en larga distancia, que tan luego como sentía a la tropa cerca, a toda carrera iba a alcanzarlos, así fue hasta que llegaron al río de Sabinas, pasando dicho río. Devolviéndose la tropa de ahí, porque empezaron a faltarles los caballos. Sobre los indios que dieron muerte al joven fueron 4, reuniéndose posteriormente en un centro de agostadero otros 2, según se observó habían "campeado" en la noche.

En otro caso hicieron correr los indios, a Antonio Ruiz, que iba de esta Villa de Parás, a un cuarto de legua a la de Agualeguas, según dijo Ruiz "Los indios venían por el camino de Sabinas para Mier, observando otro "polvo" más arriba por el mismo camino" los enemigos no lo pudieron alcanzar, aunque salió hecho pedazos por el monte que había por donde lo corrieron. No pudiendo salir a perseguir a los indios, porque en la Villa hay pocos hombres, además de que no había en que montarlos, así como por como estaban las pocas viviendas, esparcidas, apenas se podía en caso ofrecido. Que había una partida de indios en las Loma de la Oración, de que se invadiera esta población, ponerse a la defensiva y un tiempo muy corto por falta de municiones.

En otra ocasión se presentó Bruno Villarreal, vecino que fue de Agualeguas, dio parte que yendo para Guerrero, en compañía de otros vecinos de Agualeguas, y uno del citado Guerrero, frente a las Lomas de San Francisco, jurisdicción de Guerrero, les salieron los indios en gran cantidad "pié a tierra", a excepción de uno que venía a caballo, llevándose los caballos ensillados y cuanto llevaban, saliendo solamente con las armas: por lo que se empezó a recoger a la gente que estaba trabajando en la asequia y en las orillas del río para evitar algunas desgracias.

Por otra parte, de Simón Molina, de que Romualdo Ruiz que acababa de salir de esta Villa de Parás, para el Rancho del "tanque", le salieron los indios matándole una yegua que llevaba estirando; metiéndolo corriendo, los vaqueros del dicho "Tanque". El que dio parte, vio un grupo de hombres, por la banda derecha del río Álamo, frente al rancho Ibarreño, a fin de saber sí había vaqueros en el rancho Canaleño o indios que José María Ramos a dicho rancho, y supo no había ningún vaquero y le dijo a uno que subiera a la casa a "dar vista", como digiera no había nada, se volvió a esta y como habiendo andado como 20 pasos, cuando vio que los indios venían viajando el paso del río, al momento, salieron 6 hombres a auxiliar al señor Ramos al que encontraron al pasar el río, quién de ahí se fue con ellos a la casa del rancho y como a distancia de 200 pasos, se pararon los indios "gritándoles" al poco rato tomaron el camino que conduce a Mier, los indios que se "avistaron fueron 21, montados.

Por conducto del Comisionado municipal de Agualeguas, da cuenta de lo acontecido en Parás, con respecto a la aproximación de los indios, y por un "extraordinario" que fuera dar aviso a Agualeguas, así como arreglar el modo de poner en defensa a la población, ya que fue una sorpresa inesperada y tan inmediata a la Villa, que solo el río dividía, comenzando a salir a la calle, las mujeres y los niños, sin poderlos contener "llorando", más por sus maridos que andaban fuera; otra pior los hijos y deudos, que les parecían que en algunas partes estaban seguros, de manera que todo era confusión y espanto, aumentando más por la falta de hombres suficientes, de poseer pocas armas y casi nada de pólvora y balas para los rifles; mas ahora que todo esto a aquietado, se pasa a dar una noticia de lo acontecido:

"Después de haberse retirado los indios con dirección a ciudad Mier por el camino real a toda carrera según se aseguró por parte de los exploradores, por más de una legua, trayendo consigo un vecino de Agualeguas herido de una pierna derecha, atravesado por una flecha; así mismo llevándose 6 bestias, caballares y mulares, 2 de ellas ensilladas.

Por un recado de Don Remigio Herrera, que fue Comandante de la partida de Agualeguas yendo en persecución de los indios, por donde lo hallaría por" sí algo se ofrecía"; en el momento mismo no obstante la escasez de hombres, caballos, municiones, se montó a 10 hombres, salieron bajo el mando del Teniente Simón Molina, con orden de que saliera con la gente de Agualeguas, formando un solo cuerpo y a las ordenes de aquella partida, haber sí se lograba castigar aquel enemigo.

Muy extraño fue que el Comisionado de Agualeguas, no participó la ocurrencia de indios, ya que desde un día antes estos anduvieron en la jurisdicción, siendo que desde Parás se le dio la noticia; todo es más extraño aún porque la población de Parás comparada con la de Agualeguas, vendía 6 o 7 veces más, y con recursos de todo. No cabe duda que vino el aviso de los ranchos de arriba, más oportuno, no hubieran venido los indios, o hubieran entrado por el paso del río que pasa por Agualeguas, habiendo cometido más desastres, pero vieron a la gente en movimiento contuviendose. Así mismo el Comisionado de Agualeguas debió haber participado la noticia como debía.

La media Compañía que estaba organizada en Parás, para la defensa de la frontera hubiera estado en donde debería, los enemigos bárbaros no hubieran causado los mayores daños, que según informes los soldados se fueron a Lampazos, Vallecillo y Agualeguas. Se decía esto porque Jesús Carmona, que iba en unión de la Primera Autoridad de Parás; Blas María de la Garza y otros vecinos, iban a los trabajos que se estaban haciendo en la toma de agua, cuando los indios dieron muerte a Florencio García pero que a distancia de media legua les habían "pegado" los indios en número de 10 a 12, al instante Jesús Ramos, dio parte que en el rancho de las Encinas, acababan los indios de llevarse un caballo ensillado y herido a un vecino, en las orillas de Parás dieron muerte a José María Molina y aun sirviente de Carlos García, de acuerdo con el comandante del Cantón que salió a perseguirlos.

Estos eran entre otros hechos inusitados en el año de 1853.

INTERNATIONAL 

The Spanish Armada  1588
Papers of Latin and Latin American Artists
Spanish Explorers and Ordinary Ancestors  
Was Islam in Spain truly tolerant?
Lists of Passengers to America
Anillo de Genealogia Hispana  
Genealogia Paulistana 
Fundación Càtedra Iberoamericana 
Parentescos, Actas de Matrimonios Venezuela 
Dr. Jose Rizal and Community Building 

The Spanish Armada  1588

Website: http://tbls.hypermart.net/history/1588armada/
Sent by John Inclan  fromgalveston@yahoo.com 

The Spanish Armada of 1588 explores the story of King Philip II of Spain's attempt to invade England, which resulted in what is regarded as the longest naval battle in history. The Spanish Armada of 1588 explains why the massive fleet of 130 ships failed in its mission to end English meddling in Spanish affairs and exposes many of the myths which have grown around the story of the Spanish Armada Campaign. With the aid of contemporary illustrations and eye-witness reports, this site vividly describes the tragic story of how this Great Enterprise descended into an apalling tale of human misery and suffering. The Spanish Armada of 1588 site also contains a searchable on-line database, containing records of over 300 ships involved in the Armada Campaign. 

Papers of Latin and Latin American Artists, Smithsonian Archives of American Art
Archivos Virtuales website: http://artarchives.si.edu/guides/archivos/index.cfm
Sent by George Gause ggause@panam.edu 

Spanish Explorers and Ordinary Ancestors  
Did you have family who came from Spain 1509 - 1790?
Sent by Dennis V. Carter TexMexGenealogy@aol.com

SPANISH EXPLORERS AND ORDINARY ANCESTORS. The Spanish Ministry  of Education has placed the passenger lists, 1509-1790, from Spain to  America online and Luis del Pino, list administrator of the SPAIN-L  mailing list, has uploaded the instructions (in Spanish and English) on 
how to access these lists here: http://www.ldelpino.com/archivos.html

This article came from the recent issue of ROOTSWEB REVIEW, Sep 24, Vol 6, And there were other interesting items. You can subscribe - FREE - at...RWR-on@rootsweb.com -- this adds you to the RWR Mailing List. 

"Was Islam in Spain truly tolerant?"  
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/27/arts/27SPAI.html
10/1/20/03
Source: Ruth Bello atoyac2@yahoo.com
Sent by George Gause  ggause@panam.edu
 
"...throughout Andalusian history - under both Islam and Christianity - religious identity was obsessively scrutinized.  There were terms for a Christian living under Arab rule (mozarab), a Muslim living under Christian rule (mudejar), a Christian who converted to Islam (muladi), a Jew who converted to Christianity (converso), a Jew who converted but remained a secret Jew (marrano) and a Muslim who converted to Christianity (morisco)."

"Lists of Passengers to America"
Sent by DENNISKEE 

OK I have told you about getting logged on with the rootsweb site (Spain-L@rootsweb.com).
Here's how to gain access to the "Lists of Passengers to America" -  For information in English on how to access the lists of passengers in the AER database:  http://www.ldelpino.com/aeren.html   
 
These instructions were provided to the Spain-L rootswebsite on 19 September 2003, by Luis del Pino, his web address is :  http://www,ldelpino.com/archivos.html.
 
Please advise all that the procedure is all in Spanish.  
Good luck and enjoy. Saludos, Dennis
 

Anillo de Genealogia  Hispana   
Another great site found by Paul Newfield pcn01@webdsi.com
http://www.elanillo.com   http://www.elanillo.com/recursos_regiones.shtml#otros (Bookmark) 

(Genealogy pages joined to this Ring)  Qué hay en el Anillo  Páginas de Genealogía unidas a este Anillo  Estas páginas hacen posible que seamos más visibles en la Red, ya que el que accede a una puede fácilmente visitar cualquiera de las otras. Estas páginas aparecen resaltadas en negrita en los distintos sectores del Anillo. 

 (Surnames and Lineages) Apellidos y Linajes 
Base de Datos de apellidos documentados   (Surname data base) Ya hay más de 10.000 registros que han aportado nuestros visitantes. Se pueden hacer búsquedas por apellido y por pueblo.  Atención: No todos los que envían apellidos a esta base de datos tienen toda la información que quisieran. Algunos han encontrado un par de documentos, otros han conseguido un escudo, otros se han especializado en un pueblo en particular.  

 (Form to send surnames) Formulario para enviar apellidos.  
Si tienes información sobre apellidos que quieres compartir con nosotros, envíala a través del formulario. Lee las instrucciones antes de enviarlo. No olvides incluir todos los datos. 

(Message Board) Tablón de consultas 
Si no tienes información sobre tu apellido pero quieres ponerte en contacto con otros que puedan darte datos, deja aquí tu mensaje. Hay un índice para facilitar la búsqueda de los apellidos.

(Research papers on a specific surname) Formulario para enviar mensajes. 

(Research papers on a specific surname) Monografías de un apellido 
Páginas Web o documentos en Word con investigaciones sobre un apellido o linaje. 

(Links to other lists of Spanish surnames) Enlaces a otras páginas Web con listas de Apellidos Españoles 

(Archives, Dioceses, Libraries, Documents, Census, etc.)  Otros recursos valiosos donde encontrarás listas con apellidos españoles. Archivos, Diócesis, Bibliotecas, Documentos, Censos, etc. América del Sur, América del Norte, Caribe, Centro América, España 

Generales  Archivos de las Diócesis de España. (Contiene un cuadro con los documentos que hay en las diócesis, y cuáles son los que han sido microfilmados por los Mormones. Ampliado de una recopilación hecha por el Prof. Ryskamp)  Otras diócesis y parroquias en el Internet. No todas tienen documentos, pero con preguntar no se pierde nada. 

(Societies, Forums, E-mail groups and other genealogy associations)
Asociaciones, Foros, Anillos, Listas e-mail y otras agrupaciones de Genealogía  
Los genealogistas están constantemente buscando recursos y compartiendo hallazgos. Conéctate con ellos. Te serán de gran ayuda en tus búsquedas. El Anillo forma parte de la lista Genealogía de RedIris, ArgenGen, CubaWeb e Hispagén.

(What's new?)  Anuncios y Novedades  
Cursos, conferencias, talleres, publicaciones y otras noticias interesantes relacionadas con la Genealogía. Si te enteras de algo que quieres compartir con los visitantes del Anillo, avísame y lo publicaré. 

(Resources)  Recursos 
Cómo empezar - Primeros pasos en Genealogía
Todos empezamos igual, con muchas preguntas. Aquí encontraráas algunos artículos muy buenos con consejos prácticos de cómo lanzarse a buscar antepasados. Si eres nuevo en Genealogía, te recomiendo que los leas. Te ahorrarán tiempo y esfuerzo. 
Guías de teléfono 
Páginas blancas y amarillas para localizar gente. 
Buscadores y Metabuscadores
Para encontrar sitios en el Internet/La Red. 
Humor
Cómo somos los genealogistas! Averigua si ya eres un adicto.  
Recursos por regiones geográficas
 
Software
(History) Historia Artículos que te ayudarán a elegir tus herramientas y lugares donde bajar "demos" gratis. Artículos que te darán una idea de cómo vivieron tus antepasados y qué cosas pasaban a su alrededor.  

(Heraldry)  Heráldica, Enlaces a páginas Web que te ayudáran a interpretar los blasones o escudos de armas y uso de los apellidos.

(Paleography) Paleografía, Artículos, guías y láminas que te ayudarán a descifrar manuscritos antiguos.

(Sites for profit) Páginas ComercialesEscuelas, librerias y profesionales que ofrecen sus servicios comerciales. 


Genealogia Paulistana 
Luiz Gonzaga da Silva Leme  (1852-1919) 
http://www.geocities.com/lscamargo/gp/genpaulistana.htm
Sent by Paul Newfield pcn01@webdsi.com
 
Estes arquivos fazem parte do Projeto Genealogia Paulistana, que estava hospedado no site www.genealogia.com.br quanto este era gerido pela Associação Brasileira de Genealogia, a qual foi extinta. 

Nossos agradecimentos àqueles que participaram do projeto.  A transferência está sendo paulatina. Assim, volte sempre!  Qualquer dúvida, entre em contato: 
ls.camargo@ig.com.br   (Atualizado em 28/09/2003) 

Genealogical Information with dates back to the mid 1500s.  Specific surnames with links to pages. 

Fundació  Càtedra Iberoamericana, Universitat de les Lles Balears

http://www.uib.es/catedra_iberoamericana/
Source: catedra.iberoamericana@uib.es

En la página web de la FCI, arriba indicada,  pueden encontar el trabajo cuyo proyecto obtuvo el 
I Premio de investigación de la  Fundación Càtedra Iberoamericana 
La migración de argentinos a Mallorca (1990-2002) 
por Dra. Ana Jofre,  profesora de Geografía Humana de la Universidad de La Plata (Argentina). 
El trabajo está en formato pdf y está disponible en su totalidad y de forma gratuita.

Parentescos de Consaguinidad en Actas de Matrimonios en  Paraguana, Venezuela . Entre 1836 a 1890.

[[
This is an interesting collaboration between genealogists in Venezuela.  Roberto José Pérez Guadarrama asked for comments from his associates.]]

Estimados Colegas: En estos días pasados solicite su colaboración para entender mejor la terminología, descripciones de los Parentescos de Consaguinidad en Actas de Matrimonios en  Paraguana, Venezuela . Entre 1836 a 1890.
 
A continuación he trascrito un Acta de Matrimonio de Mis Tatarabuelos para que Ustedes me ayuden a completar algunas palabras que no pude transcribir y para descifrar los Parentesco Consaguinios entre Ellos.

Roberto José Pérez Guadarrama perezfru@telcel.net.ve
Contact Mr. Guadarrama about the Venezuela_genealogia@yahoogroups.com

Estimada Amiga Mimi
 
Te agradezco Tu decisión de publicar esta Acta de Matrimonio de Mis Tatarabuelos.
En la oportunidad que te envié esta Acta de Matrimonio para que la corrigieras e interpretaras, se la envié a otras Personas Conocedoras de Genealogía. Ellos me la corrigieron,... Ellos son la Ing. Emma Rosa Oropeza de Herrero y el Sr. Salvador Sosa Carabaño.  
  
" En la Iglesia Parroquial de la Purísima Concepción del Cantón Paraguaná a catorce de Junio de mil ochocientos setenta y nueve Yo el Infraescrito (!) Cura Rector de Santa Ana y encargado de ésta, presencié el Matrimonio que por palabra de presente contrajeron enfaciae ecclesiae (2) Custodio hijo natural de Josefa Guadarrama con Vicenta del Carmen hija legitima de Justo Valdés y Felipa Goitia (3) ambos contrayentes naturales i vecinos de esta Parroquia el Reverendísimo Señor (4) Dr. Víctor José Díaz dignísimo Obispo de esta Diócesis quien se digno dispensarles del impedimento de tercer grado igual dobles y el de cuarto también igual ambos de consaguinidad en línea transversal con que estaban ligados(5). Se precedió a la exploración de sus voluntades, el examen y aprobación de la doctrina cristiana y no resultó ningún otro impedimento. De las tres proclamas que con arreglo al Santo Concilio de Trento se leyeron en Misa conventual de tres días efectivos que lo fueron el once, el diez y ocho y el veinticinco del mes próximo pasado. Se confesaron y comulgaron y seguidamente (6) recibieron las bendiciones nupciales Siendo Testigos
de todo Rafael Colina y Florentina Navega de que certifico .
 
                                                                                      Miguel Antonio Vera."   
Notas: Roberto José Pérez Guadarrama perezfru@telcel.net.ve

( 1 ) Esta escrito incompleto dice algo como: Infradicto,...
( 2 ) Estas 2 palabras estan en Latín pero no se si estan bien escritas 
(3) Solo como referencia este Apellido proviene del Apellido: Goribarigoitia ( Por cierto desconozco su Origen,...). En los primeros años de 1800 se escribía completo pero a mediados del Siglo XIX se degenero a Goitia.
(4) Después de la palabra Señor hay una palabra abreviada que se le coloca antes de Personalidades con Títulos Nobiliarios,...  algo así como Su Excelencia, Su Majestad, Reverendísimo,...
(5) Esta parte es sumamente importante para Mi, en Ella explica que hay los Lazos de Consaguinidad que hay entre los que se casaron.
(6) Supongo que es guiadamente.

 

(1)  La palabra Infraescrito es una forma de deir el susudidcho 
(2)  Efaciae Ecclesiae es un termino en latín que se utiliza en estas partidas por la Iglesia para expresar que se sigue lo estipulado por ella al celebrarse un sacramento, matrimonio en este caso. Es raro que después no diga ´"según el Ritual Romano" o "según el RR".
(3) Es un apellido de orígen Vasco. Por lo general se cambiaba el original por una falla del escribano. De todas formas, al degenerarse un apellido, queda de la forma como se transformó. Cambiarlo al origína genera gastos y problemas de sucesión.
(4) El Reverendísimo Señor Dr. Víctor José Díaz Madroñero, Obispo de Venezuela para ese entonces, de muy grata memoria. En ese entonces se esra demasiado protocolar, por eso tanto tútilo al referirse al Sr. Obispo,
(5) Si efectivamente existe un parentezco consanguíneo, eran primos segundos y primos terceros, de madres primas hermanas y a la vez primas segundas.
(6) Sólo dice que una vez que se confesaron y comulgaron se le fueron dadas las bendiciones nupciales-
                                                                                      Ing. Emma Rosa O. de Herrera.
 

To: Roberto Pérez ; Venezuela_genealogia@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 10:36 AM
Subject: RE: 

Estimado amigo:
 
Me parece interesante  tu solicitud y y te comento:
(1) Infra...  A todas luces debe ser infrascrito, es decir el abajo firmante, ya que era común usar esta abreviatura. 
(2) Infatic eng:  Creo que debería decir in facie eclesiae o algo similar, ya que según indica la Enciclopedia Abreviada Calleja   es: "loc. lat. u. hablando del matrimonio cuando se celebra publicamente y con las ceremonias establecidas. (En presencia de la Iglesia)" pag 876. Impresa en Madrid por Blass y Cía. (sin fecha de edición por faltar la página, no obstante puede establecerse que fue entre 1914 y 1950)
(3) Según mi conocimiento debe ser Goitía y no Goitia.
(4)  ¿Cuales son esas palabras o letras que faltan?
(5) Impedimentos. Según el Código de Derecho Canónico (tengo una versión moderna) el impedimento matrimonial de tercero y cuarto grados corresponden a "consaguinidad lateral" y es "inválido el matrimonio ente tío y sobrinos carnales (grado 3o.), o entre primos hermanos (grado 4o.) o entre tío-abuelo y sobrino-nieto o, lo que es lo mismo, entre hermano del abuelo y nieto de hermano (grado 4o)" (c.1091). De este impedimento dispensa la jerarquía diocesana (es decir el Obispo).
(6) es "seguidamente", a continuación.
 
Esperando  haber satisfecho tu solicitud, quedo como siempre,
 
Cordialmente, Salvador Sosa Carabaño


DR. JOSE RIZAL AND COMMUNITY BUILDING
by 
Rina Dungao, Ph.D.

 

In the October issue, I introduced the Philippine’s national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal and his education, lifestyle and the reason for the building of a monument in his honor found at the Avenida de las Filipinas in Madrid, Spain. This month, I continue to let other nations know more about the Philippines’ national hero (also educated in Spain), his belief in community building, contributions and application of his learnings from other parts of Europe as well. Once again, due to limited supply in books and other research resources on the Philippine’s Spanish historical events, I will refer to Dr. Preciosa Soliven’s excellent book on "Half A Millenium of Philippine History" (1999) which shall serve as my main point of reference.

Rizal’s Education of the Youth

Just like so many leaders, Jose Rizal also believed that the "youth was the hope of the future". Filipinas Dentro Cien Anos (The Philippines Within a Century) is one of a series of four articles written by Dr. Jose Rizal in his book, La Solidaridad. Even at that point in time, Rizal was already thinking about what would become of the Philippines after a hundred years. He wanted his countrymen to be truly liberated, develop independence and stand tall with dignity alongside other free nations of the world. His solution was not one of a political nature (he was totally devoid of any political ambition) but more so, of a "social revolution" which he sought through the proper education of the youth. Although he wrote lengthily about the Filipinos’ laziness in his essay Sobre La Indolencia de los Filipinos, he also added that the tropical climate, poor educational system as well as political instability might have contributed to the Filipinos’ passive, slow or "laid back" work attitude.

He believed that pursuing and keeping national consciousness in the youth could be brought about by genuine service to the community anyone belongs to. During his four-year exile in Dapitan ( a Philippine province located in the island of Mindanao), he selected sixteen (16) high school boys whom he himself academically taught for free in a make-shift schoolhouse near his home. The boys were also taught how to earn a living by assisting in his medical clinic and his horticulture farm, making field trips in the mountains, seashores and caves for actual botany and zoology classes and keeping physically fit by learning "native fencing" (during that time, only slightly thin bamboo sticks were used for fencing as opposed to the real heavy swords), wrestling, boxing and swimming. Rizal believed in the saying: "sound body, sound mind".

Rizal’s Applied Engineering

Furthermore, in applying his knowledge as a perito agrimensor (land surveyor), Rizal actually planned lay-outs for new streets and later on constructed them through the cooperation and help of the townspeople. Armed with only a limited knowledge of engineering, he thought of building a water system from a stream way atop the mountains that would supply the water. This water supply became a reality in 1895 with the help of his students and the Dapitan townspeople.

H.F. Cameron, a well-known American engineer, saw the water supply work done by Rizal and the Dapitan townsfolk after ten (10) years and commented: "When one considers that Dr. Rizal had no dynamite with which to blast the hard rocks, and no resources except his own ingenuity, one cannot help but render homage to this man…"

Rizal’s Continued Concern for Public Welfare

Malaria, a fast-spreading disease at that time, was a main concern for Rizal, who proceeded to drain the marshes in order to minimize the dangers of malaria. He also provided the town with a lighting system that consisted of coconut oil lamps strategically placed in dark corners and streets.

Remembering what he was taught in Belgium and Baden, Germany, he invented a wooden machine for making bricks and manufactured 6,000 bricks in one day. He also introduced a hemp-stripping machine to improve the abaca industry by increasing the output of the abaca planters. He also trained the local fishermen how to use big fishing nets and how to actually weave those fishing nets, thus improving the over-all fishing methods of the local fishermen.

With this in tow, Rizal decided to teach and engage the people in setting up retail businesses (more so to lessen Chinese control over domestic trade) by going into the hemp-copra trade as well as the fishing business. He helped establish a cooperative association managed by the Dapitan farmers themselves for better farm products, to introduce cooperative marketing and to provide protection to its members.

To conclude, Rizal strongly believed that proper education for the youth as well as improving and getting genuinely and sincerely involved in one’s community (with no political ambitions whatsoever in mind) was a way in to establish true integrity, self-respect and national governance—traits and beliefs that will definitely still work in this day and age if only most people apply it themselves!

THE END

(Note: Data on Rizal’s work is from M.C. Romero, J. Sta. Romana and L. Santos’ book, "Rizal and the Development of National Consciousness". (year and publisher not indicated).

 

HISTORY

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CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS'S PORTUGUESE FAMILY
by Rebecca Catz

Sent by Joan De Soto


It was probably in the year 1479 that the then 28-year old Columbus took a decisive step in his private life and one that was to prove equally important to his future career. He married Filipa Perestrello e Moniz, the daughter of Isabel Moniz and Bartholomew Perestrello, the first governor of the island of Porto Santo.

Much has been written about how or why this humble Genoese, part-time seaman and dealer in books and maps, came to meet, woo, and marry a young woman of aristocratic birth on both sides of her family. According to Columbus's son Ferdinand, they met at the Convento dos Santos in Lisbon where Columbus used to go to attend Mass. Out of the dozens of churches and chapels in Lisbon, it is significant that Columbus should have chosen the Convento dos Santos as the place for his devotions. It was the convent that belonged to the nuns of the military order of Santiago, the purpose of which was to provide a home for the wives and daughters of this famous order of knights militant, while their men folk were away fighting the heathen in the Holy Land or elsewhere.

For an ambitious young man anxious to become acquainted with a potential wife from upper class society, there could have been no better place to choose for his church-going.  Young women were scrupulously chaperoned and there was no social life in those days where a man like Columbus could meet a suitable bride from a completely different stratum of society. Only in a church was it possible for the young men and women to see one another--however fleetingly--and churches, as we know from innumerable accounts, were regularly used for just such a purpose, and even for the arrangement of assignations or amorous rendezvous.

We know nothing about the appearance of dona Filipa, but whether she was attractive or not, she was undoubtedly "a good catch". As for Columbus himself, Fernandez de Oviedo, who first saw him in Barcelona in 1492, or 14 years after Filipa met him, describes him "as a man of fine appearance, well built, taller than most, and with strong limbs. His eyes were lively and his features in good proportion... His hair was very red and his face ruddy and freckled. He spoke well, was tactful in his manner and was extremely talented. He was a good Latinist and a very learned cosmographer, gracious when he wished, but hot tempered if he was crossed."1

So the promise was already there in the young Columbus, and the appearance--quite different from that of her countrymen--must have been irresistible to Dona Filipa. Columbus's son and biographer, Ferdinand, explains the attraction that Filipa had for him in the following manner:

"Inasmuch as he behaved very honorably, and was a man of such fine presence, and withal so honest, that she held such conversation with him and enjoyed such friendship with him that she became his wife."2 As far as Columbus was concerned, whether or not he was deeply attracted to Filipa, the advantages of the match were immense. She was to prove the key that was to open the way for his acceptance into a world where power and influence could be courted and obtained.

On her mother's side, Filipa came from the powerful family of Moniz which had been in close contact with the royal family since the twelfth century, when its founder, Egas Moniz, became Governor, under Afonso Henriques, the first King of Portugal. One of the gates in the castelo de Sao Jorge, that enormous fortress overlooking Lisbon and the Tagus River, still bears the name of the knight who, during the battle against the Moors in 1147, defended that gate all by himself, thereby preventing the enemy from penetrating the walls. The grandfather of Filipa, Gil Ayres Moniz, ruled one of the richest seigneuries of the Algarve, the last of the lands conquered from the infidels, and had himself accompanied Henry the Navigator when he took part in the conquest of Ceuta in 1415.

On her father's side, the family was no less illustrious but much more interesting, as we shall see. Of all the biographers of Columbus, Salvador de Madariaga and Antonio Ballesteros Beretta are the only ones who have chosen to tell the full story of the Perestrello family. Most of the others--and the biographers of Columbus are too numerous to mention--have seen fit to remain silent about the more lurid details of the family tree.  Of the two, I have chosen to present Madariaga's version because I thought you would be amused by his biting wit, and his rattling of the skeletons in the Perestrello family closet. This is, more or less, what Madariaga tells us:3

Filipa's father, Bartholomew, descended from the Italian Palestrellos or Pallastrellis of Piacenza, one of whom, Filippo or Filippone Pallastrelli by name, moved to Portugal in the year 1385 where he established himself first in Porto, moving later to Lisbon, and dedicated himself to commerce. With him when he left Italy, was his wife Catarina Sforza. On January 8, 1399, Filippo obtained a tax exemption from King John I, after proving that he was descended from an aristocratic line. In those days, the nobility did not pay taxes. (Nothing has changed. The same seems to be true in our days.) This nobleman had four children-- Richarte, Isabel, Branca and Bartholomew. The last named was the father-in-law of Columbus. The oldest son, Richarte, is sometimes called Rafael. He obtained sacred orders and rose to become Prior of the parish of Santa Marinha of Lisbon. Richarte provided an example of sorts to his sisters and brother when he combined--in the words of Madariaga--"holy orders with unholy disorders," by fathering two children whom he legitimized in 1423. His descendants, by the way, had outstanding roles in the enterprise of India. One of his grandsons was among the first to visit China. At any rate, thus encouraged by their elder brother's example, Isabel and Branca became the mistresses of the most magnificent churchman of the times, Dom Pedro de Noronha, Archbishop of Lisbon. He was indeed an interesting character--colorful--to say the least. His doubly royal blood (for he was related to the reigning families of both Castile and Portugal) proved too much for the restraints of ecclesiastical chastity, as we shall see.

Dom Pedro de Noronha had a powerful role in the politics of the time during the minority of King Afonso V. He belonged to a great family. His mother was the daughter of King Fernando of
Portugal and his father was related to the royal family of Castile. One of his brothers was Count of Villa Real; another, Dom Sancho, was Count of Odemira, and his sister Constanza, married Dom Afonso, Count of Barcelos, later Duke of Braganza, bastard son of King John I, the person who stands out the most in the monarchy, and black sheep who was to produce the disaster of Alfarrobeira. In 1424, Dom Pedro de Noronha was barely 28 years old when he was elected to the archbishopric Of Lisbon. He led a scandalous life. His escapades reached the point where it was necessary to exile him from Portugal and he left for Spain. In 1442 the Braganza faction recalled him and he won back the royal grace. From that time on until 1452 he was all powerful, perverting the soul of Afonso V and inclining him to the Braganza party against his noble uncle the Infante Dom Pedro who was the Regent at the time.

As I said before, his mistresses were Isabel and Branca Perestrello, the sisters of Bartholomew. As Madariaga says, "this magnificent prince of the church was no light-hearted lover."4 He seems to have paid homage simultaneously to both Branca and Isabel, to judge by the ages of their children. From the first, Isabel, he had a son called Dom Joao. From the second, or younger sister Branca, he had three children--dona Isabel, dom Diogo de Noronha, and dom Pedro de Noronha. Moreover, he was a loving father, and, despite his position as head of the Portuguese church, he had all his offspring officially legitimized in 1444 and saw to it that the girl married into the royal house of Braganza and the three boys rapidly reached the highest posts in the State and in the Church. Branca, the younger sister, was eventually abandoned by her lover, and she retired to a convent, from which she later came out to marry Ayres Eannes de Beja. As you can see, the political influence of the Archbishop was enormous. Thus, Columbus's father-in-law was, in the words of Madariaga, "not precisely the brother-in-law of the Archbishop, but let us say, his brother-in-love."5

On the basis of Columbus's two earliest biographies, that of his son Ferdinand and that of Las Casas, the view has been traditionally held that this Bartholomew Perestrello had been given the hereditary captaincy of the island of Porto Santo owing to his seamanship and valorous deeds. Upon which, both Ferdinand Columbus and Las Casas build up a story about papers and instruments and hints on islands to be discovered, and what not, which Perestrello's widow was supposed to have given her son-in-law Christopher. But Madariaga delights in quoting directly from Las Casas, the better to enjoy, he says, the distance between high-sounding legend and ludicrous reality. This is what Las Casas has to say about the part played by Columbus's father-in-law in the discovery of Porto Santo:

"As days went by, the mother-in-law realized how bent on the things of the sea and of cosmography was Cristobal Colon ... so that ... she told him how her husband, Perestrello, had also been a person leaning to affairs of the sea, and how, by order of Prince Henry, he had gone in company with two other gentlemen to the island of Porto Santo, recently discovered, and soon after, he alone was entrusted with the task of populating the island; and the Prince granted him properties in it; and as in those days there was a great boiling over of the practice and exercise of discoveries on the coast of Guinea and on the islands of the Ocean Sea and the said Bartholomew Perestrello had the hope of discovering other islands from his, as indeed they were discovered ... he probably had instruments and papers and pictures on navigation which the mother-in-law gave
Colon, from seeing and reading which, he received much pleasure..."6

It is plain, says Madariaga, that this story is a mixture of fact and conjecture. For instance, Las Casas himself suggests that the existence of "instruments, papers, and pictures" belonging to Perestrello is a mere conjecture of his. But, unfortunately for the reputation of Perestrello as a discoverer, and particularly as a populator, the good Archbishop provides the key to the crucial text in which the whole fabric is seen to fall apart. Also, further proof of the ineptitude of Columbus's father-in-law is provided by the chronicler Joao de Barros who has a chapter entitled: "How Joam Goncalvez & Tristam Vaz discovered the island of Porto Santo, owing to a tempest which took

them there." Note that Perestrello's name is not included in the title. By the way, Barros claims to have gotten his information from Zurara, who wrote about a hundred years before him. Referring to Joao Goncalves and Tristao Vaz, Barros writes: "There sprang on them such a storm with strength of contrary winds that they lost all hope for their lives... And as, in those days, sailors were not in the habit of going out at sea and always sailed ...

within sight of land, ... they were all ... so much out of their judgement that they could not tell where they were. But ... the storm ceased, and though the wind made them lose the purpose which Prince Henry had in sending them forth, it did not take them astray from their good fortune, for they discovered the island we now call Porto Santo... Without voyaging any further, they returned to the kingdom with this news, which gave the Prince great pleasure... And this pleasure was increased when these two knights, one of whom was named Joao Goncalvez Zarco Dalcunha and the other Tristam Vaz, told him they were very happy about the air, the emplacement and freshness of the land and wished to return to populate it ... and not only they and those of their crew who had seen it, but many more, owing to what they heard about it, and also to please the Prince, offered themselves to populate it, amongst them a notable person named Bartholomew Perestrello who was a gentleman in the household of Prince John [Prince Henry's brother] ... Then, with great diligence [the

Prince] had three ships armed, one of which he gave to Bartholomew Perestrello and the two others to Joam Goncalvez and Tristam Vaz, first discoverers, who went forth well provided with all the seeds and plants and other things with which they hoped to populate the land and settle in it. Amongst which, there was a rabbit which Bartholomew Perestrello took with him in a cage. She was pregnant, and at sea, she happened to bring forth, which gave all great pleasure and they held it

in good omen, since even on the way their seeds began to sprout and that rabbit gave them hope of the great multiplication which would accrue to them in that land. And to be sure, in this hope of great multiplication the rabbit did not disappoint them, yet was it more to their sorrow than to their pleasure; for, when they arrived in the island and let the rabbit free with her offspring, within a short time she multiplied to such an extent that they could not sow or plant anything that was not instantly eaten. And this grew to be such a plague in the two years which they remained there, that they began to hate the work and way of life they had there and Bartholomew Perestrello decided to return to the kingdom, or perhaps he had other reasons for doing so."7

The ironical, almost mocking intention of this text is in keeping with its substance. The knights who discovered the island of Porto Santo, even if much against their will, were definitely Joao Goncalves and Tristao Vaz; Perestrello was a hanger-on of Prince John who came to the scent of profit and was given a ship through sheer favoritism; and his efforts towards population of the island which his widow, in Las Casas' version, says was entrusted to him alone, were limited to the rabbit species. Nevertheless, he tried again, for his influence at Court was strong, and in 1425 Prince Henry entrusted him with another populating expedition to Porto Santo, this time, we hope, with no pregnant rabbits on board. His success, however, does not seem to have warranted a long stay, for in 1431 he was given a house in Lisbon, where in 1437 he is registered as a municipal councilor. In 1446, over twenty years after his two unsuccessful attempts, but only two years after the legitimization of his brother-in-love's bastards had shown the blatant power of Dom Pedro de Noronha, Perestrello is granted by Prince Henry the title of Captain-donatario of Porto Santo; regarding which, Madariaga sarcastically remarks, "we are entitled to the conclusion that such an honor was due less to his sea-adventures than to the love-adventures of his gifted sisters."8

Whatever its origin, there was power and social standing in that family, and, moreover, a well-known, permanent connection with the island of Porto Santo, for that captaincy was hereditary. And now that we know that the sea-talents and competence of Perestrello were non-existent, it is obvious, though it was not to Las Casas, that his supposed "papers and instruments" could not have been the cause or the inspiration of Columbus's design; which fact goes to prove that the scheme or "urge" towards discovery was active in Columbus's mind before he ever entered his Portuguese family, and therefore that he probably entered that family because it was so powerful in Porto Santo, which was an admirable base for exploring the Western Sea. The marriage of Perestrello with Isabel Moniz--Columbus's mother-in-law--must have taken place in 1449 or 1450. It seems that Isabel was the second or third wife of Perestrello. A document of 1431 cites as his wife a Margarita Martins, who is unknown up to the present time. The Portuguese author, Nicolau Florentino, says that he married twice, but Gaspar Frutuoso and Padre Antonio Cordeiro say that he married three times. Two wives are well known: dona Brites Furtado de Mendonca and dona

Isabel Moniz. The former was related to Ana de Mendonca, the mistress of King John II, who was the superior of the Convent where Filipa was living when Columbus met her. With his first wife, Bartholomew had three children; and with Isabel Moniz, his second or third wife, he also had three children: a son Bartholomew Junior, two daughters, Filipa Moniz, who married Columbus, and Violante or Briolanja as she is sometimes called, with whom Columbus maintained good relations long after the death of his wife.

Since 1446 Bartholomew Perestrello was living in Porto Santo, and it appears that he did not leave Porto Santo or that he lived there until his death in 1457. After the death of Perestrello, Isabel Moniz moved back to Lisbon. She had looked for someone capable of taking charge of the captaincy of Porto Santo and found no one more apt than Pedro Correia da Cunha who was married to a daughter of her deceased husband. He was the son of Goncalo Correia, to whom King John I had given the land of Cunha a Velha in exchange for another that the King wanted. Pedro Correia belonged to the first nobility and was a gentleman of the infante Prince Henry who made him donatario of the island of Graciosa. Isabel Moniz had sold the captaincy of Porto Santo for 300,000 reis. That took place in 1458, when the young Perestrello was only eight years old. When he was old enough, he served in Africa, and on his return he reclaimed the captaincy which he obtained, when the King annulled the previous grant with the obligation on the part of Perestrello Jr. of returning to his relative Pedro Correia the quantity he had spent. After which, they still maintained good relations with Pedro Correia who was living in the Charneca lands near Lisbon.

Strangely enough, Gaspar Frutuoso and Padre Antonio Cordeiro, chroniclers of the Atlantic islands, who have written about the Perestrellos, do not mention Filipa. Gaspar Frutuoso does mention the Furtado de Mendoncas of the island of Graciosa, who, he says, descend from Hiseu Perestrello, wife of Pedro Correia, and adds mistakenly that they are relatives of the wife of Pedro Colombo who discovered America.9 We will overlook his error since we know that he is obviously referring to Christopher and not to a non-existent Pedro Colombo, and that the relationship with Columbus was through Filipa Moniz and not her stepsister, Hizeu Perestrello, both daughters of Bartholomew Perestrello.

Isabel Moniz had another daughter besides Filipa, called Violante, as I said before, who appears at times in the documents as Briolanja. She is mentioned frequently along with her husband Miguel Molyart or Muliarte, who was probably of Flemish origin. Filipa died sometime in 1484 or 1485. Not long after her death the widowed Columbus left Portugal for Palos, Spain. It is believed that he intended to leave his young son Diogo in the care of Violante and her husband, who were living near Palos at the time and that Violante may have been the reason why Columbus went to Palos in the first place. The Columbus historians do not mention the Muliartes very often but the Spanish historian Ballesteros Beretta, points out that there is a royal document dated 30 May 1453 which proves that Columbus got the Catholic sovereigns to give them the property confiscated from a victim of the Inquisition.10 Also, in a memorial left by Columbus to his son Diogo, he mentions a pension in favor of Violante. She is also mentioned by Columbus's son and his brother in their wills with much affection.

However, his relations with her husband were quite a different matter. It is believed that Muliarte accompanied Columbus on his second voyage. Two years later we find him in Hispaniola from where he writes a letter complaining about Columbus and asking to be transferred back to Spain.11 It is interesting that Columbus never mentions the name of his wife in any of the papers that have come down to us, though he does refer to her twice. Once, in a letter of 1500, and the second time in his testament of 25 August 1505 when he recommends to his son Diogo that he should have Mass said for "the souls of my father, my mother, and my wife."12

Some of the Portuguese writers like Mascarenhas Barreto,13 have tried to prove that Columbus was Portuguese. As far as I am concerned, they have not succeeded. All we have been able to prove is that he was related by marriage to the Portuguese. Some say that he became a Portuguese citizen. This has not been proven either. But regardless of his nationality, one thing is certain. That Columbus owes a great debt of gratitude to Portugal, for I truly believe that if he had not lived there for nearly a decade, he would never have discovered America.

NOTES

1As cited in: Samuel Eliot Morison, "Admiral of the Ocean

Sea." Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1942, p. 44.

2Ferdinand Columbus. "The Life of the Admiral Christopher Columbus by His Son." Translated and Annotated by Benjamin Keen. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1959, p. 14.

3Salvador de Madariaga. "Christopher Columbus." New York: The Macmillan Company, 1940, pp. 84-87.

4op. cit., p. 84.

5ibid.

6As cited in Madariaga, op. cit., pp. 85-86.

7As cited in Madariaga, op. cit., pp. 85-86.

8Madariaga, op. cit., p. 86.

9Antonio Ballesteros Beretta. "Cristobal Colon y el descubrimiento de America." 1st ed. Barcelona/Buenos Aires: Salvat Editores, 1945. Vol. I, p. 285.

10Ballesteros Beretta, op. cit., pp. 418-420.

11Juan Gil and Consuelo Varela. "Cartas de particulares a

Colon y Relactiones coetaneas." Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1984, pp. 204-205.

12Consuelo Varela. "Cristobal Colon: Los cuatro viajes. 

Testamento." Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1986, p. 301.

13Augusto de Mascarenhas Barreto. "O Portugues Cristovao Colombo, Agente Secreto do Rei Dom Joao II." 2nd ed. Lisbon: Edicoes Referenco, Lda., 1988.

Paper presented at the XIII Symposium on Portuguese Traditions at

UCLA on April 21, 1990. Reprint permission granted by author.

ARCHAEOLOGY

 

Extract:
 LDS Filmmaker Seeks To Change History Books With TV Documentary

Source: Meridian E-magazine: http://www.ldsmag.com/arts/031014history.html
Stone box and tablet with Ten Commandments in Hebrew found in a burial mound 
in 1860 by David Wyrick. 
Photo by Robert Starling
 
Bat Creek Stone discovered in 1885 in Smithsonian archaeological dig in Tennessee. 
Hebrew writing dates to 135 AD.

“All I want to do is to change what the history books say (and what the public believes) about Columbus, and about the cultures and peoples of ancient America.” That’s the goal of LDS filmmaker Robert Starling. And if he can find enough like-minded investors to help finance his upcoming 6-hour television documentary miniseries, he might just do that very thing...

His project is called They All Discovered America, and with it he hopes to dispel the myths of an alleged “Columbus Conspiracy” that has shaped the generally-accepted view of pre-Columbian American history for over a hundred years. “I want to overcome the “Establishment” doctrine that is taught in classes from elementary school on up”, says Brother Starling, “and that is that some Mongolians wandered across the Bering Strait around 12,000 years ago, and that except for a few wandering Vikings in Nova Scotia there were no other significant  voyages or migrations to the Americas until Columbus arrived in 1492. In actuality, nothing could be further from the truth.”

“There were migrations and visits to the Americas from at least as early as 3,500 BC, by peoples from Japan, Scandinavia, China, Sumeria, Phonecia, Egypt, Wales, Celtic Ireland and Scotland, the Minoan island of Crete, the north African city of  Carthage, and many others.

[[ Editor's note: I hope that the results of this documentary will add to the aspect of the multi-cultural, multi-racial background of our indigenous ancestors, but will also acknowledge the difference between an incidence, an episode and the impetus, the foundation laid by Columbus for populating a nation.]]   

Brother Starling will be videotaping interviews for his documentary in late October when he attends the annual conference of the “Institute for the Study of  American Cultures” (ISAC), a nation-wide organization of scholars and historians dedicated to uncovering the truth about the pre-Columbian history of the Americas. He is on the Board of Directors of ISAC, which is located (ironically) in Columbus, Georgia. “We usually hold the conference sometime close to Columbus Day”, he revealed with a smile. “It’s sort of a positive way to protest the ‘No Outsiders Before Columbus (NOBC)’dogma that prevails among most ‘Establishment’ academics.”

Although research has revealed a great interest in this kind of “diffusionism” among general audiences both in the U.S. and worldwide, it will be of special interest  to Latter-day Saints. “There are evidences of at least three migrations of Israelite or Hebrew  peoples to the Americas in addition to the three voyages from the Middle East that are described in The Book of Mormon”, says Starling. “That kind of information doesn’t “prove” the Book of Mormon to be true but it definitely places its voyages in a credible historical context more easily accepted by people who now believe the “isolationism” taught by proponents of the Bering Strait theory”.

Brother Starling, who until recently was on the staff of the LDS Church  film and video production department, has dreamed of doing this documentary for over 30 years. “I was producing and directing programs for the Alabama Public Television Network when we filmed a symposium on “diffusionism” in Georgia in 1973", he said. “I was impressed with the amount of research that was presented, and the fact that most people are totally unaware that America’s history as a “melting pot” of nations began thousands of years ago.”

Starling later achieved considerable commercial success with a theatrical feature documentary he conceived for his employers at Schick Sunn Classic Pictures called In Search of Historic Jesus.
“That film was produced for about $1.8 million and has earned over $22 million in box office receipts, NBC network and syndicated television sales and videocassettes”, he said. “I believe They All Discovered America also has the potential to reach a large audience.”  .

They All Discovered America won’t be just educational,” says Brother Starling. “It will be six hours of ‘info-tainment’that will include dramatic re-enactments of key historical moments in discovering America’s multi-cultural past. For more information on “They All Discovered America” or ISAC and its October conference, contact Robert Starling at (801) 824-2843 or starlingRD@earthlink.net



Family History Hints


What kind of genealogist are you?
By Salena Ashton

How do you answer this question? Some may say 'I specialize in Hispanic research' 'I am a beginner' 'I'm a good genealogist' among other answers. It is true that there are many ways of answering this question-- many shades of grey. However, let's do the currently unpopular thing and look at this question in black and white, meaning there would be only two answers.

Before we answer this question, let us talk about what may be the most basic aspect of genealogy: sharing. We interview family members in hopes of them sharing information with us. We research records and hope to find information so that we many go on in our lines and share with other people. When we discover distant and not-so-distant relatives, the first thing we want to do is compare and share our research. Take two minutes with each question:

Where would genealogy be without the concept of sharing? Where would you be if no one would have shared with you? How will sharing help your fellow genealogists? How do you feel inside (about yourself, about the other person, about the hard work you put into the information, etc.) when you share your work with someone else? Happy? Expecting something in return? Sometimes stingy?

How we share with others tells a lot about our nature. Sharing our work is sometimes hard, but it is good-- even if the recipient is not appreciative. Some day, someone may receive that information from the ungrateful receipient and continue with the research. When it comes to sharing, the concept is black and white. Either we share or we don't. So, what kind of genealogist are you?


MISCELLANEOUS

Back to School—School Records, That Is
Melvyl, Catalog, Univ of California Libraries
Radio Listeners Top 400,000 Mark

Back to School—School Records, That Is

 – Juliana Smith  
http://www.myfamily.com/html/CM/News/weekly/030917.html

Fascinating details and glimpses into the lives of real people are available in old school records. Grade school, high school, and college records can be great information sources that most of us forget to investigate. Even though finding school records may take a little bit of detective work, many records can be found in the original schools, or in the archives of institutions that created the records. In some cases, records of long-closed schools have survived in local libraries, historical societies, genealogical societies, archives, and in other local and private collections. From school histories and class lists to the more personal yearbooks and old report cards, school records can help us understand our ancestors and the times in which they lived

 


MELVYL
 
http://melvyl.cdlib.org/F/?func=file&file_name=find-b&local_base=cdl90
Sent by Joan De Soto
Basic Search:  Entire collection, ALL Libraries, ALL Formats, ALL Languages

RADIO LISTENERS TOP 400,000 MARK, 25 September 2003

[[
I was a guest speaker that evening.  Fun to think I was being interviewed on the night of their heaviest listening audience.]]

Officials at NetRadio-Inc.com and DearMYRTLE.com documented an unprecedented 400,000 unique listeners during last Tuesday evening's live 55-minute broadcast of DearMYRTLE's Family History Hour Internet radio show, necessitating the installation of a rebroadcast strategy to meet the needs of those who couldn't connect.

"We estimate that for every listener connected, we lost one because we didn't anticipate this unusual growth. With a major revision of our radio player, we are now poised for Myrt's high volume of Internet radio listeners during upcoming broadcasts." says NetRadio's CEO, Bret Lang, Ph. D.

Rebroadcasts of Tuesday's show are currently available online at: www.dearmyrtle.com/listen.htm   

New shows broadcast live Tuesdays 9-10pm Eastern US (daylight when applicable) at:
www.DearMYRTLE.com

"This just goes to show that genealogy is alive and well on the Internet," replies show host Pat Richley aka DearMYRTLE. "Since the early days of BBS (Bulletin Boards) and FIDONet which predate the Internet, we've known that family history is a leading interest for millions of people throughout the world. "

"We were thrilled with summer broadcasts pulling in 10,000-18,000 listeners per show, while typically 50,000 tune in to each show the other nine months of the year. It's a tribute to my expert guests, who share insights and encourage researchers in their ancestral quests."

DearMYRTLE, known as Myrt to her readers and listeners, cites the June 2003 US S. Res. 175, A Resolution Designating the Month of October 2003 as Family History Month. "With the advent of the Internet, there has been an explosion of interest in family history. Last month alone, more than 14 million Americans used the Internet to research their family history. Genealogy Internet sites are some of the most popular sites on the World Wide Web. My church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has family history information on nearly 500 million individuals on its family history web site <www.familysearch.com>," states Senator Orrin Hatch.

"The future is bright for genealogists using the Internet for research," says Myrt. "Sites with scanned images of surviving original documents mentioning our forefathers provide eyewitness evidence that our ancestors once lived. In addition to census images, we are seeing a rise in the number of official government sites offering access to images of original vital records of birth, marriage and death. Its my joy to spotlight these web sites, as well as to interview authors and programmers about the wonderful tools they provide to avid family tree climbers."

"Listeners are cautioned to search for primary, original, straight-from-the horse's-mouth resources rather than second hand info published, without source citations, online or in book format."

ABOUT NETRADIO-INC.com:  With offices in Port Charlotte, Florida, this company was founded in August 2002, led by CEO Bret A. Lang, Ph. D. He is one of the original 15 founders of the internet and holder of the copyright for TCP/IP architecture - the structure behind the Internet.  He was named as inventor of the year in 2001 by the International Historical Society Who's Who for his contributions to the web.  Bret's Internet radio streaming expertise dates back to the first "Internet Radio Broadcast Research & Development Consortium" where he was one of the founders of the Live365 project.  Spanning more than 30 years in the industry he and his companies provide innovative listener and broadcaster options employing the latest technology. Unlike terrestrial radio models, where listener audience is limited to specific graphic regions, Internet radio streaming is available to anyone with a computer, speakers and access to the Internet.

ABOUT DearMYRTLE: This is the nom de plume of Pat Richley, author of THE EVERYTHING ONLINE GENEALOGY BOOK, 1995-2003 online genealogy columnist for AOL's Golden Gates Genealogy Forum, and webmaster of http:www.DearMYRTLE.com . She has been on-lining since 1985, providing practical down-to-earth advice for family historians through her column since 1995. Pat teaches MSOffice part-time at Manatee Technical Institute, Bradenton, Florida. She currently serves as president of the Manasota Genealogical Society, is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, and is the proud grandmother of three.

CONTACT:
Pat Richley
dearmyrtle@aol.com
6023 26th Street West PMB 352
Bradenton, FL 34207
1-877-638-7234

END

                12/30/2009 04:48 PM