Shame the Stars
Page 21
In 1919, the state legislature finally launched a full investigation. As a result, a handful of leaders were dismissed, several companies were disbanded, and the remaining members were held to much higher standards.
However, the matanza left in its wake a great amount of uncertainty for Mexicans and tejanos alike, as most of them worried that the racial tensions and prejudices brought about by the rebellion might forever mar the future for their children. They foresaw a long and difficult road before them and wondered if it was even possible to ever triumph over the challenges yet to come.
As for me, I couldn’t help but feel blessed in those days. With the exception of my mother, I had everything I’d ever wanted. When I wasn’t busy running the ranch, when I was alone with my thoughts, I wrote articles for El Sureño. It sustained my soul to see my words in print next to Dulceña’s, clipped and pasted into Mamá’s old scrapbook, adding to my mother’s legacy.
It brought everything full circle for me to see that Mamá’s living document now included my own words. Her death had devastated our lives for a time, but the ordeal had not killed our spirits. The loss of my mother had not erased the memories of her courage and love from our hearts, and that was the most important thing of all.
Excerpt from Joaquín’s journal, Wednesday, September 6, 1918
LEGACY
In the end, the sun rose,
and began its long march
across the cerulean sky.
Flowers opened their buds,
bloomed, and blossomed.
Baby goats bleated and stood
on wobbly new legs.
Golondrinas built nests
under sunny porch roofs.
La Gente woke up, worked,
ate and smiled again.
Merchants opened
their chiming doors.
Paperboys delivered
the daily news.
El Río Bravo surged
forth, moving along
the border — its song
a low, soft sob — its ebb
slow, moribund.
Author’s Note
A few years ago, my eldest son, James, was taking a college history course. He was in his room one night, studying, when he suddenly burst into our living room holding a book and asking, “Mom! Do you know what happened to our people?”
I was sitting on the couch with my husband at the time. His family are Scotch-Irish American, so I looked at my husband, then back at my son, and asked, “Which people?” Well, he was talking about us, me and him and our side of the family. He held in his hands a copy of Benjamin Heber Johnson’s book, Revolution in Texas: How a Forgotten Rebellion and Its Bloody Suppression Turned Mexicans into Americans. He sat on the couch that evening and showed me horrible pictures and shared terrible details while I flipped through the pages appalled by what happened to tejanos (Mexican Americans) and Mexicans in Southern Texas in 1915, at the time of the Mexican Revolution. These were things my father had talked about, but which had meant very little to me as a child, as I had never heard of them anywhere else other than at home when my father was “storytelling.”
That day on the couch, I became the student as my son explained the discovery of the Plan de San Diego, a manifesto written in 1915 by Mexican radicals calling for the uprising of a “Liberating Army of Races and Peoples.” The manifesto was brought into the United States through South Texas territory in January by Basilio Ramos and urged US-born Mexicans, immigrants, indigenous people, and Blacks to join the Mexican Revolution and help reclaim Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Colorado. The plan outlined a process in which Texas would become its own republic and later would seek annexation from Mexico. In February, less than a month later, a second copy of the manifesto would be discovered, and the lives of tejanos and Mexicans in South Texas would change forever.
The discovery of the Plan de San Diego came with many conflicts, most of which were fueled by political agendas. However, the human factor had much to do with the horrific crimes that were committed against tejanos and Mexicans in South Texas at that time. The racial tensions that had long existed in the region were heightened by local politics, misappropriated lands, and acts of rebellion, as more and more tejanos became disenfranchised. Losing their properties, farmlands, and ranches to the increasing number of Anglo immigrants, tejanos became field hands and peons in the very land their parents and grandparents had owned and cultivated for generations in the United States.
As tensions rose between tejanos and Anglos, more political and social issues came into play, and soon shoot-outs, explosions, and other, more violent, acts of insurgence from tejanos and Mexicans became the norm. The Texas Rangers, along with local authorities, tore through the territory enforcing vigilantism, their own brand of swift and lethal justice, in an attempt to enforce the law in South Texas. The lynchings, executions, fusillades, round-ups, and draggings of tejanos and Mexicans in South Texas only served to fuel the rebellion. The insurgence and its punishment became a vicious cycle that was too horrific to be spoken of, much less documented. Many of the crimes committed against tejanos and Mexicans in South Texas went unreported. Most have been forgotten.
No one can ever do justice to the retelling of the extent of the horrific atrocities committed during that time with complete accuracy and authenticity because so much of it was concealed, poorly recorded, or swept under the proverbial rug. Back then, nobody up above in the US justice system really cared what happened to tejanos and Mexicans on the borderlands. Nobody in Washington worried about us or our plight at the hands of the Texas Rangers. There were those of us who would speak for our people, tell of our woes. Reporters like Jovita Ituarte, aka A. V. Negra, who wrote for her father’s paper, La Cronica, tried to illuminate the plight of tejanos and Mexicans in those times. However, her father’s small paper, written in Spanish, at a time when only tejanos and Mexicans read Spanish-text circulars, went unread by those who might have made a difference, those whose jobs it was to protect us, those who chose to turn a blind eye to us in our small, ever-darkening corner of the world.
Suffice it to say, I went to my room that night, after listening to my son go on and on about the Plan de San Diego and what it means in the scope of American history, unable to get those pictures out of my mind. I wanted to inform myself, so I took Johnson’s book with me to read in bed, but time and time again I kept turning back to the picture of Rangers dragging the bodies of alleged Mexican bandits through the brush. That such a picture would become a postcard that people bought and mailed to their loved ones is incomprehensible to me. All I can think when I see that picture is that those men and boys had mothers, and as a mother of three boys, my heart aches for the loss of them. I thought about the Texas Rangers’ motto to shoot first and ask questions later if the person of interest was a Mexican, and I wept for all the mothers whose innocent sons were killed in the name of justice. I wept for all the brothers and sisters, all the tios and tias, the padrinos, the primos, the novias, the amigos, the vecinos . . . all the gente, the people, who suffered because of the discrimination and abuse of tejanos and Mexicans at the hands of the Texas Rangers and the lawmen who joined them and formed posses, killing indiscriminately, summarily, because the color of our skin dictated they could.
So why didn’t I know this part of my culture’s history? Well, a long, long time ago I was a small child, and like many a small child in America, I read textbooks that did not include these horrific events in American history. Why don’t I know much more now after doing all this research? History books being published and printed for American schools today still make no mention of this part of our history. Perhaps textbook publishers find this topic too controversial. Or maybe they are just worried about what might happen if we educate ourselves with truthfulness. I can’t begin to answer that question.
What I can do, I have done. I’ve included in this book a small of
renda, a different point of view — a rebellious, contentious voice — along with a small sampling of source materials, both fiction and nonfiction, so that American students might be able to cull through them and better educate themselves. My hope is that students of any and all ethnicities and cultures will begin to understand the difference between primary and secondary sources, valid and unreliable sources, all of whose distinction they must learn to assess and categorize as they venture to study, appraise, and discover their ancestral identity and presence in historical documents in the minefield that is the Internet. May this book open up important and truthful conversations with teachers, family, and friends. May this book give them something to consider, something to research, something to push against when they encounter injustice. May this book help them pave the way to a better tomorrow.
Some book recommendations for teachers and mentors
Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836–1986 by David Montejano, University of Texas Press, 1987
From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America by Vicki L. Ruiz, Oxford University Press, 2008
Revolution in Texas: How a Forgotten Rebellion and Its Bloody Suppression Turned Mexicans into Americans by Benjamin Heber Johnson, Yale University Press, 2005
River of Hope: Forging Identity and Nation in the Rio Grande Borderlands by Omar S. Valerio-Jiménez, Duke University Press Books, 2013
Newspaper Clipping Sources
Chapter 1: Nonfiction: Excerpt from a handbill, “Plan de San Diego,” 1915
Chapter 3: Nonfiction: “People of Southern Texas Fear Race War; Sleep Under Arms: Wild Scheme Backed by Ignorant Mexicans, Escaped Convicts and American Fugitives from Justice to Turn Texas Back to Mexican Control Responsible for Hostilities,” Burlington Weekly Free Press (Burlington, VT), August 12, 1915, Page 1
Chapter 4: Fictional news article: “One Dead, Two Arrested at Morado Creek Sugar Mill,” El Sureño (Monteseco, TX), August 20, 1915
Chapter 5: Nonfiction: True Politeness: A Hand-Book of Etiquette for Ladies, An American Lady, Leavitt and Allen, New York, NY 1847-1915
Chapter 8: Nonfiction: “Mexicans Killed by Texas Rangers: Several Outlaws Reported Slain in Fight Near Norias, Texas: Americans Are Reinforced,” The Ronan Pioneer (Ronan, MT), August 13, 1915, Vol. VI, No. 16
Chapter 10: Nonfiction: “Modern Amazons of Mexico Keep Armies Alive: Soldaderas Rustle the Grub for Fighters and Thereby Effect Gigantic Saving for Leaders,” The Sun (New York, NY), March 14, 1915, Fourth Section Pictorial Magazine, Page 12
Chapter 13: Nonfiction: “Texas Rangers Would Invade Mexico to Recover Stolen Stock,” Honolulu Star-Bulletin (Honolulu/Oahu, HI), October 25, 1915
Chapter 14: Fictional news article: “Rangers Left on Foot! Unknown Horse Thieves Make Off with the Herd,” El Sureño (Monteseco, TX), September 3, 1915
Chapter 17: Nonfiction: “U.S. Troops in a Border Battle: Mexican Bandits Eleven Miles North of Brownsville, Texas Set Fire to Bridge,” The Ogden Standard (Ogden, UT), September 2, 1915
Chapter 18: Nonfiction: “Raiding by Mexican Bandits Threatens,” Weekly Times-Record (Valley City, ND), September 9, 1915, Page 11
Chapter 20: Nonfiction: “Trouble on Mexican Border Continues: Five Mexican Bandits and Woman Killed in Fight at Nonis Sunday,” The Intelligencer (Anderson, SC), August 10, 1915, Page 1
Chapter 22: Nonfiction: “A Mexican to Hang: No Mercy Shown Rodriguez, Death Penalty to Be Visited,” The Carlsbad Current (Carlsbad, NM), November 26, 1915, Page 1
Chapter 24: Fictional news article: “Martyr of Las Moras to Hang!” El Sureño (Monteseco, TX), September 17, 1915
Chapter 25: Nonfiction: “Mob Tries to Free Mexican Priests: Two Thousand Storm National Palace in Effort to Rescue Imprisoned Men of the Cloth; Chief of Police Is Stabbed,” Omaha Daily Bee (Omaha, NE), March 13, 1915, Page 1
Acknowledgments
First, I would like to acknowledge my family: my husband, Jim, and our children, James, Carelyn (our new daughter-in-law), Steven, and Jason, for being so very good to me. Their love and support of my art feeds my creative soul.
Thank you, Jim, for helping me research the “little things” on your phone and reading the many, many revisions this novel has undergone. You are so much more than a driver and escort on my writer’s journey, you are the windmaster, the torchwielder, the shieldbearer in this adventure, always protecting me and keeping me strong, and I love you all the more for it. Thank you, James, for sharing your studies with me, for opening your heart and teaching me so much that evening on the couch. You are a great tutor and a light in my life. I am very proud of your accomplishments! Thank you, Carelyn, for loving us, all of us, the McCall clan, and for cooking Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners and putting up with our antics during the holidays. Your smiles bring joy to our hearts. Welcome to the family, cariño. Thank you, Steven and Jason, for being so supportive and enthusiastic and letting me go on and on about my work-in-progress. Your sweet, tender hearts inspire me to continue rowing this boat! I am very honored to be your mother.
Next, I have to absolutely thank Stacy Whitman, my editor and friend at Tu Books. Your patience and diligent care during the evolution of this manuscript as we moved toward publication has been so very kind and generous. I thank the heavens every day for the gift of you. Thank you for listening and questioning and reading and discussing and rereading and championing my beloved Joaquín! You are a blessing in my life, a bright star in my universe.
I would also like to thank my Southwest family, Dr. Verstuyft, Jan Perry, Michelle Guajardo, Antoinette Richardson, Cynthia Trejo, Miquela Ovalle, and the rest of the energetic, fabulous teachers at SWHS who are my secondary support system, as well as the rest of my readers and fans, those who continue to cheer me on from far and wide. Thank you for always believing in me and for extending your friendship beyond the classroom. I carry you in my heart! Special thanks to Dr. David Bowles at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley for reading the first draft of this novel when it was young and innocent and quiet, and for giving me constructive feedback on it. Your attention to detail, specifically historical detail, saved me a few embarrassing moments. I owe you a solid. I’ll have to get you a brand new gaucho hat for Christmas!
Glossary
abuelito (ah-bweh-LEE-to): grandfather
A dónde (ah-DON-deh): where or where to
almuerzo (ahl-moo-EHR-so): midmorning meal or lunch
atole (ah-TO-leh): porridge
atrevido (ah-treh-VEE-do): a very daring person
ay (aye): oh
¡Ay, Dios mío! (aye dee-OS MEE-o): Oh my God!
baile (BAH-ee-leh): dance
banderita (bahn-deh-REE-tah): little flag
calaca (kah-LAH-kah): skull
cálmate (KAHL-mah-teh): calm down
campesino (kahm-peh-SEE-no): field worker
campo (KAHM-po): woods or woodland
canalla (kahº-NAH-yah): riffraff, bum, traitor
Capilla del Sagrado Corazón (kah-PEE-yah dehl sah-GRAH-do ko-rah-SON): temple of the sacred heart
capirotada (kah-pee-ro-TAH-dah): Mexican bread pudding made with nuts, sugar, spices, and cheeses
cariño (kah-REE-nyo): sweetheart, beloved
cascarón (kahs-kah-RON): confetti-filled Easter egg
chaparral (chah-pah-RRAHL): thicket
chicharras (chee-CHAH-rrahs): cicadas
chiquita (chee-KEE-tah): little one, female
chongo (CHON-go): chignon, twist, bun
cochinilla (ko-chee-NEE-yah): pill bug
Colonia Calaveras (ko-LO-nee-ah kah-lah-VEH-rahs): a fictitious impoverished neighborhood on the outskirts of fictitious Monteseco
comadre (ko-MAH-dreh): female friend
como Adán (ko-mo ah-DAHN): like Adam, Biblical allusion
como halcón (ko-mo ahl-CON): like a hawk
como mula (ko-mo MOO-lah): li
ke a mule
como prostitutas (ko-mo pros-tee-TOO-tah): like prostitutes
como salvajes (ko-mo sahl-VAH-jehs): like savages
¡Cómo te extraño! (KO-mo teh ehx-TRAH-gno): How I miss you!
como tlacuaches enmañados (ko-mo tlah-KWAH-chehs ehn-man-NYA-dos): like nefarious possums
compadre (kom-PAH-dreh): male friend
compañeros (kom-pah-NYEH-ros): friends
compórtate (kom-POR-tah-teh): behave
conjunto (kon-HOON-toh): a small musical ensemble of usually four members who play traditional norteño or tejano music
corazón (ko-rah-SON): sweetheart
corrido (ko-REE-do): ballad
¡Cucui! (koo-KOO-ee): Boo!
cuetes (koo-EH-tehs): fireworks
demonios (deh-MO-nee-os): devils
demonios tejanos (deh-MO-nee-os te-HAH-nos): Texas Devils, derogatory term for Texas Rangers
desayuno (deh-sah-YOO-no): breakfast
¡Desgraciados! (dehs-grah-see-AH-dos): Miserable wretches!
El Sureño (ehl soo-reh-nyo): fictitious newspaper printed in fictitious Monteseco, translates to “The Southerner”
en los Estados Unidos (ehn los ehs-TAH-dos oo-NEE-dos): in the United States
¡Eres mi alma — mi corazón! (EH-rehs mee AHL-ma, mee ko-rah-SON): You are my soul — my heart!
estamos enlazados (ehs-TAH-mos ehn-lah-SAH-dos): our hearts are tethered