Presentation Notes Good afternoon! Thank you for the opportunity to - - PDF document

Presentation Notes Good afternoon! Thank you for the opportunity to present some of my family’s history to

• you. Some of this history consists of stories passed down from one generation to the

next, and some of it is research on the genealogy of my family. My sources for this presentation are Dr. Clotilde Garcia’s book Captain Blas Maria de la Garza Falcon: Colonizer of South Texas; The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, by Américo Paredes; The Texas State Historical Association Online, Dr. Gloria Duarte’s report to the Historical Association (Angelo State); and a book by Estela Pérez Santos, A Snapshot of Melvin, Texas: 1906-1955: The Struggle for an Equal Education for Latin-

• Americans. Mrs. Santos knew my mom well. There will also be anecdotes and stories

passed down to me by my maternal grandfather Rafael Riojas and maternal uncle, Dr. Ricardo Riojas. I originally presented some of these stories in Dr. Ken Baake’s class on environmental issues in the state of Texas. In this class, I learned that the concept of land, oil, and water rights in Texas intersects greatly with Mexican history, and more specifically with my family and its history. I can’t begin talking about family trees without talking about names in the Hispanic

• culture. You can find out an entire family tree just with one person’s last name because

it has at two parts: the father’s last name and the mother’s last name. My maiden name, for example, was Cordell. When I got married in Odessa, Texas in 1984, the county clerk required me to take my husband’s last name, López. But when we moved to Puerto Rico, my legal last name became Cordell (my father’s last name) Riojas (my mother’s last name). That is the name I carried on my driver’s license, my health insurance card, voter’s registration card, our checks, I used it on loan applications – essentially everything that had to do with business or legal transactions. In the Hispanic tradition, this applies to everyone – male and female. What is interesting about this tradition is it preserves the genealogy. You don’t have to stop at the first two last names. You can keep going. So, my name is as far as I know the names of my father, my mother, each of my grandmothers, and each of my great- grandmothers. That makes my name: Dina Cordell Riojas Tiner Peñalver Vance Cárdenas. Cordell was my father’s last name, Riojas my mother’s; Tiner was my paternal grandmother’s maiden name, Peñalver was my maternal grandmother’s maiden name. Vance was my paternal great-grandmother’s maiden name, and Cárdenas my maternal great- Slide 1 Slide 2

grandmother’s maiden name. The tradition keeps alive the mother’s family line and makes it easier to follow family trees. The Anglo-Spanish mix just doesn’t quite have the flow as it would in Spanish, does it? Take my husband’s name, for example: José Ramón López Méndez Torres González Rosa Colón Vega Moreno. Handy for him as a kid; when his mother was mad at him she would use his whole name! By the time she was on “González” he was out the door and down the street. Some research done by a member of our family has revealed our ancestors as far back as a man by the name of Captain Marcos Alonzo Garza y Arcón from Lepe, Huelva, Spain. There is a story behind the name of the Captain and why he changed his family name. There was a well-to-do Jew by the name of Hernando Alonzo in Lepe, who helped finance Hernán Cortez in his explorations. Alonzo was found to be too influential in Spanish matters and was thus burned at the stake during the Inquisition. So, the name Alonzo was either dropped to avoid association or because of a familial relation, since both men were from Lepe, Huelva, Spain. At any rate, Marcos Alonzo Garza married Juana Treviño, and they took their family to Monterrey, Mexico, where other families with Jewish roots had settled. The name Treviño is also known as a Sephardic Jewish name.1 My mother’s father, my maternal grandfather, was named Rafael Riojas de la Garza. His mother’s name was Candelaria de la Garza, and his father Onésimo Riojas de la Garza. They were probably distant cousins. The Riojas family and the de la Garza family have a beautiful oral history regarding how the two families first met: [Storycorps recording 0:00 – 3:12]. I hope you can read here the names of my uncle’s great grandparents, Jose Antonio Riojas and Roumalda de la Garza Falcón on this family tree. What irony! So many years later, a descendant of the very king and queen who were responsible for the Inquisition marries someone of Jewish descent. In Dr. Baake’s class, we studied Américo Paredes’ book, With a Pistol in His Hand. This is a book about the Ballad of Gregorio Cortez: the setting and political climate at the time of the events that happened in this man’s life. Water rights and discrimination were a part of the setting.2 It is a true story – In 1901, Gregorio Cortez Lira, a Mexican ranch hand, is at his home when he is visited by a Sheriff Morris and his deputy, who have come to the Cortez home to accuse him of stealing a horse. Due the deputy’s botched Spanish, a gunfight ensues, and Sheriff Morris shoots Gregorio’s brother. Gregorio shoots Sheriff Morris and the deputy runs away. The Ballad is mainly about how Cortez was able to elude the Texas Rangers for two weeks, but my focus on this story is not so much what happened to Cortez, but the setting and the theme of how Mexicans were treated: by this time, the Treaty of Guadalupe had divided Texas along the Río Grande, and the people who had Slide 3 Slide 4

settled this region were not only physically divided, but also looked down upon by some as second-class citizens to be taken advantage of, and certainly not to be trusted. That took place in the early 1900s. What was the back history of the people who had

• riginally colonized this area, and more specifically, my ancestors? In my research of the

settlers along the Río Grande I read Dr. Clotilde Garcia’s book, Captain Blas Maria de la Garza Falcon: Colonizer of South Texas. I found that one of my ancestors and a descendant of Marcos Alonzo de la Garza, was Captain Blas Maria de la Garza Falcón. He was successful in arranging for forty families to settle in the Camargo area south of what is now known as the Rio Grande. This is the area here along the border and south

• f the border into present day Mexico. He was so successful in settling this area that the

Count of Sierra Gorda, Mexico, Don José de Escandón, gave Captain Blas de la Garza the assignment of settling and colonizing the land north of the Rio Grande, near the Nueces River in 1747. This is the area known today as Corpus Christi. There is a statue in his honor, recognizing him as the founder of South Texas.3,4 It was his father, Blas de la Garza III, who was the governor of Coahuila and Texas many years prior to the Texas

• Revolution. This is the same governor who met my ancestor, Juan Ygnacio de Riojas y

Castilla when he arrived from Spain in the early 1700s to marry Antonio Cortina. In the Nueces area, Blas de la Garza Falcon established a ranch named La Petronila, site

• f present day Petronila, Texas. The Santa Petronila Ranch served as a presidio ̶

waystation – for the Spanish soldiers patrolling the area and “provide protection against the cannibalistic Karankawa Indians “(Garcia 11). By 1836, sixteen land grants had been issued to the heirs of the Garza Falcón clan in Nueces County, one of those the Chipiltin Grant to Blas Maria de la Garza Falcon V in

• 1834. However, when the Treaty of Guadalupe was signed in 1848, families were divided

between Texas and Mexico. Dr. Garcia notes that “the Texas revolution resulted in a No Man’s Land for the people of the coast” (62).

• Dr. Garcia has documentation of land granted to Blas de la Garza Falcon’s heirs in the

South Texas triangle. However, numerous attempts were made to take away land from his heirs after Texas became a state. The families that had settled this region were highly regarded and well-to-do families with Spanish ancestry and histories of military service to

• Mexico. Even before the state was divided along the Rio Grande River, there were

attempts and suspicion of attempts to steal family land. In 1858, a Colonel Henry Kinney attempted to dispossess Don Blas V from his land (49). Of those settlers who returned to their ranches after the Texas revolution, many were killed for their land (57). Slide 5 Slide 6 Slide 7

Padre Nicolas Ballí, founder and co-owner of Padre Island along with his nephew Juan Jose Ballí, the great-grandson of Blas de la Garza. Padre Ballí was issued over 50,000

• acres. He had the land surveyed and established heads of cattle and farming land.

Unfortunately, the descendants of Juan Jose Ballí lost their lands, mineral, and water rights due to abandonment of their grants as it was decided in a court case after years of litigation (Garcia 51).5 As late as 1971 there was a lawsuit involving the oil and gas revenues produced from the land issued to de la Garza heirs, Welder Ranches north of Sinton, Texas, Garcia writes that the “state relied on the alleged vacancy of the original grants by the Portilla family of 5 ½ leagues, or 24,356 acres” (42). What a contrast to the way Mexicans were perceived at the time of Cortez’s story: Mexicans were an inferior people from an inferior country, cowardly, treacherous, and thieving compared to Texans, whose character culminated in a special breed of men known as the Texas Ranger. It was hard to avoid going down a rabbit hole at this point and start researching the stories surrounding each individual family. Still searching for connections, I found a name in both Paredes’ story of Gregorio Cortez and in Blas de la Garza’s family line: the first Border legend, Juan Nepomuceno Cortina. The great-great grandson of Captain Blas and another

• f my ancestors, was the instigator of the Cortina Wars.

Cortina was already a victim of family-related conflict. The Captain’s great-great grandson believed that a man named Adolphus Glavecke had married into the family to collude with other lawyers to gain part of the Cavazos [his mother’s] land (Garcia 29). The Texas State Historical Association chronicles the story: “And then there was the incident in Brownsville: Cortina saw the Brownsville city Marshall, Robert Shears, brutally arrest a Mexican American who had once been employed by Cortina. Cortina shot the Marshall in the impending confrontation and rode out of town with the prisoner. Early on the morning of September 28, 1859, he rode into Brownsville again, this time at the head of some forty to eighty men, and seized control of the town. Five men, including the city jailer, were shot during the raid, as Cortina and his men raced through the streets shouting "Death to the Americans" and "Viva Mexico." Many of the men whom Cortina had sworn to kill, however, escaped or went into hiding. Slide 8 Slide 9 Slide 10

When several of the town's leading citizens appealed to Mexican authorities in Matamoros, the influential José María Carbajal crossed the river to negotiate with Cortina. Cortina agreed to evacuate the town and retreated to the family ranch at Santa Rita in Cameron County, where, on September 30, 1859, he issued a proclamation asserting the rights of Mexican Texans and demanding the punishment of anyone violating these rights.” 6

• Dr. Garcia concludes the history: he retreated into Mexico and was finally pardoned by

President Benito Juárez. Later, under the presidency of Porfirio Díaz, he was commanded to travel only within the confines of Mexico City. He was buried with full military honors (Garcia 30). I researched the name of Gregorio Cortez’s mother. Remember the use of family names to preserve the genealogy? Cortez’s full name was Gregorio Cortez Lira. His father’s name was Román Cortez Garza, and his mother’s name was Rosalía Lira Cortina, and they lived in Brownsville.7 No one in my family has looked very hard to uncover any relationship there, but it is a possibility. These are my great-grandparents Onésimo Riojas and Candelaria de la Garza, with their three children, Benito, Rafael (my grandfather), and Roumalda. There is so much to tell about the story for desegregation for Mexicans in Texas and how my family became involved. I will begin with the education of my grandfather Rafael

• Riojas. In 1915, his parents brought their family to Texas to escape the Mexican
• Revolution. When he and his brother and sister walked to school, the German kids would

form a line to keep them away. They had to fight the Anglos to go to school. When they returned to Mexico, they were behind in their studies. Their parents got a teacher to instruct them at home and bring them up to their grade level. He worked at a bar late at night. He said the drunks would sit there and make fun of him while he did his homework in between serving drinks. Rafael and Anita moved their family to Melvin, Texas to give them a better life. Her father, Santana Peñalver, never forgave her and never spoke to her again. My mom used to tell me that when they went to visit, he would pick up his grandkids in his horse drawn carriage, take them to his store where they could have candy and spent the night at this house. He would return with them but never exchanged a word with his daughter. Slide 11 Slide 12 Slide 13 Slide 14

In Melvin, the Jiménez community struggled for desegregation and equal education for their children. Grandpa was very influential in getting Melvin schools to integrate. There was a two-room school for Mexicans and a nice brick building for the Anglo students. The teacher to student ratio in the Anglo school was at most about 13 students; for the Mexican school, it was more like 30 or 40 students to one teacher. There were few school supplies, and the rooms had huge cracks in the walls. When I asked my mom about that experience, she would not respond. The only thing she ever talked about was how her father encouraged the residents of the Jimenez community to wash their children’s faces and hands, feed them a good breakfast, and send them to school no matter what. In October of 1944, as president of the Mexican PTA, my grandfather Rafael Riojas began a series of correspondence and visits to the Superintendent of the State Department of Education to request that the Mexican students be allowed to attend the Anglo school. Dr. Gloria Duarte of Angelo State University wrote in her dissertation that he began by visiting the school board, “who told him, ‘Ralph, these things take time’ (his name was Rafael, but they called him Ralph). He asked how much time and when he heard 12 years, he left “fuming”. This incident probably instigated the need to take their grievances to Austin” (8). This was so fascinating, to read in somebody’s dissertation a story our grandfather would tell us grandkids every time he saw us. Further in her dissertation she quotes a superintendent in a Texas school district, who said, “If a man has very much sense or education, he is not going to stick to this kind of work (harvesting crops). So you see it is up to the white population to keep the Mexican

• n his knees in an onion patch or in new ground. This does not mix well with education”

(p 4). She also quotes Mr. Floyd Leslie Marshall, a teacher and later principal in the Melvin School, who wrote in his thesis that “the average Anglo-American looked upon the Latin-American as a hired hand that needed to do the biddings of the Anglo- American race” (4) 8 My uncle, Dr. Ricardo Riojas, recalls a sign at Richards Park in Brady that stated “No Dogs or Mexicans Allowed”. But due to the efforts of my grandfather and other champions for equal education in the State of Texas, the school in Melvin was desegregated two grades a year starting with the 4th grade in 1945. In 1948, schools in Texas were ordered by the Texas State Superintendent of Public Schools to fully desegregate for Mexicans, and with the help

• f Estela Perez Santos’ book in which she has compiled the letters that went back and

forth from my grandfather to the Texas State Superintendent of Education and his responses, I have the scanned copies of all this correspondence on a Word Press site I created for this purpose: https://lopeztechcomm.com/ Slide 15

A drought that lasted seven years moved the Riojas family to Ropesville, Texas in 1950 Their customers had all moved farther north for work. My uncle, Dr. Ricardo Riojas was the first Mexican American to graduate from Ropesville High School, and later attended Texas Tech, as did my uncle Rafael Riojas Jr., my mother Rosa Elia Riojas, and my aunt Graciela Riojas. In fact, so many Riojas family members attended Texas Tech there was a special ceremony to recognize Grandpa’s continuing legacy of education. Grandpa always said, “querer es poder,” which roughly translated means, “you can do anything if you want to do it badly enough.” Slide 16 Slide 17

Notes 1 Guillermo Guerra, “Sample Lineages: Marcos Alonzo de la Garza,” last modified

• n January 8th 2004, http://vsalgs.org/stnemgenealogy/mgarza.htm

2 Paredes, Américo. The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1984. Print. 3 García, Clotilde. Captain Blas Maria de la Garza Falcon: Colonizer of South

• Texas. Austin, Texas: The Jenkins Publishing Co., 1984. Print.

4 TSHA: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fga66 5 SE Texas Record, Case No. 05-0653 http://setexasrecord.com/stories/510609892-texas-sc-reverses-award-to-heirs-of- padre-island-after-decades-of-legal-disputes 6 Jerry Thompson, TSHA Online: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fco73 7 Cynthia Orozco, TSHA Online: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fco94, 8 Duarte, Gloria A. The Mexican Struggle for Equal Education in Melvin, Texas. Report to the Historical Association. May 5, 2014. Print. 9 Perez Santos, Estela. A Snapshot of Melvin, Texas: 1906-1955: The Struggle for an Equal Education for Latin-Americans. [A compilation of correspondence, and history on the struggle that sparked integration for public schools in the state of Texas for Mexicans and other Latin Americans]. n.p.n.d. Print.