Family Trees, Histories, and Stories: A Presentation Made to the - - PDF document

Family Trees, Histories, and Stories: A Presentation Made to the Texas Folklore Society Annual Meeting April 22, 2017 and to the East Texas Historical Association Fall Meeting October 13, 2017 Dina López A presentation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Theoretical Approaches to Technical Communication, 5377

• Dr. Ken Baake

August 10, 2016

Lopez 2 2 Slide 1 Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to present some of my family’s history to you. This history is a combination of stories passed down through my family and genealogical research. Slide 2 I have a complete list of resources for this presentation, but I am not going to bore you by reading them now. I do want to highlight a couple of them: one is a book by Dr. Clotilde García titled Captain Blas Maria de la Garza Falcón: Colonizer of South Texas; Américo Paredes’ With His Pistol in His Hand: The Ballad

• f Gregorio Cortez,” and a book by Estela Pérez Santos titled A Snapshot of

Melvin, Texas: 1906-1955: The Struggle for an Equal Education for Latin-

• Americans. Her book includes two theses that frame my argument about the

struggle for equal education in Melvin during the 1940s. Mrs. Santos knew my grandparents, my mother, and her siblings well. I originally presented my family stories in fulfillment of an assignment for a graduate class on land, oil, and water rights in the state of Texas. In this class, I learned that environmental issues in Texas intersect greatly with Mexican history, and more specifically, with my family and our history. Slide 3 I can’t begin discussing family trees without discussing names in the Hispanic culture. You can find out an entire family tree with just one person’s last name because it has at two parts: the father’s last name and the mother’s last

• name. What is interesting about this tradition is it preserves the genealogy

because it includes the mother’s family line, so it makes it easier to follow both family trees. 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: Dina Cordell Riojas Tiner Peñalver Vance Cárdenas. Cordell was my father’s last name, Riojas

Lopez 3 3 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-grandmother’s maiden name. Slide 4 My research into the genealogy of the Riojas de la Garza family leads as far back as 1561 to a man by the name of Captain Marcos Alonzo Garza y Arcón from Lepe, Huelva, Spain. He changed his family name to Falcón. The story behind the name change is 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 burned at the stake during the

• Inquisition. So, either the name Alonzo was dropped and Arcón changed to Falcón

to avoid association with such danger, or it was due to familial relation, since both men were from Lepe, Huelva, Spain. Marcos Alonzo Garza married Juana Treviño, and they took their family to Monterrey, Mexico, where other families with Jewish roots had also settled. 1 Slide 5 The Riojas family and the de la Garza family have a beautiful oral history of how the two families first met. In August of 2010, my cousin Rosa Ana Riojas interviewed her father, my uncle Dr. Ricardo Riojas, for Story Corps to preserve

• ur family’s oral history: [Storycorps recording 0:00 – 2:10].2

Captain Marcos Alonzo Garza y Arcón was one in a line of military leaders who served in both Spain and Mexico. His great-great-grandson Blas de la Garza III was the governor of Coahuila and Texas many years prior to the Texas Revolution.3

Lopez 4 4 Slide 6 Blas de la Garza III had a son named Blas Maria de la Garza Falcón, who was charged by the Count of Santander Don José de Escandón to explore what is now known as the South Texas Triangle. Captain Blas IV is recognized as the founder of South Texas. A statue in his honor was erected in Corpus Christi in 1992.4 Slide 7 Captain Blas de la Garza Falcón IV received one of the first land grants to the area in 1834, the Chipiltin grant. He named his ranch La Petronila, now the site of present day Petronila, Texas. The Santa Petronila Ranch served as a presidio ̶ waystation–for the Spanish soldiers patrolling the area. By 1836, sixteen land grants had been issued to the heirs of the Garza Falcón clan in Nueces County.5 Slide 8 This map illustrates the original proposed geographical location of Nuevo

• Santander. It was to extend from Tampico, Mexico to the Nueces River. However,

the Treaty of Guadalupe divided families and their land along the Texas-Mexico border, resulting in what Dr. García cited as a No Man’s Land 6 for the people of the coast. Numerous attempts were made to take land away from Blas de la Garza Falcón’s heirs after Texas became a state. Even before the state was divided along the Río Grande River, there were attempts and suspicion of attempts to steal family land. Many of those settlers who returned to their ranches after the Texas Revolution were killed for their land. 7 Slide 9 Some lawsuits for oil and gas rights on the land lasted well into the twentieth century. The Welder Ranch was the subject of one such lawsuit. The state of Texas joined in the claim of a Dallas man for oil and gas revenues, alleging that the family abandoned their land during the Texas-Mexico war. 8

Lopez 5 5 Side 10 In 1830, widower Juan José Ballí married one of Captain Blas’ descendants, Candida de la Garza Falcón. Juan José and his uncle Padre Nicolas Ballí were the founders and co-owners of what is commonly known as Padre

• Island. Juan José’s descendants lost their land grants due to allegations of
• vacancy. 9

Slide 11 The text that inspired me to learn about my family is Américo Paredes’ With His Pistol in His Hand, an analysis of the border ballad about the notorious Gregorio Cortez. Cortez was mistakenly accused of stealing a horse by a county

• sheriff. While defending himself and his home in Brownsville, he shot and killed

the sheriff and escaped. He avoided capture by the Texas Rangers for nearly two weeks.10 There are two names Paredes mentions in his book: Captain Blas de la Garza Falcón, and the first border legend, Slide 12 Juan Nepomuceno Cortina: the great-great grandson of Captain Blas and another of my ancestors. He was the instigator of what is known as the Cortina

• Wars. Cortina witnessed the Marshall of Brownsville brutally arrest a Mexican-

American once employed by Cortina. Cortina shot the Marshall and rode out of town with the prisoner. Early the next morning, he returned to Brownsville, leading a large group of men and seized control of the town. After some negotiations, Cortina agreed to leave the town and go to his family ranch, where he issued a proclamation asserting the rights of Mexican Texans and demanding the punishment of anyone violating these rights. He later retreated into Mexico and was finally pardoned by Mexican President Benito Juárez. Upon his death, he was buried in Mexico with full military honors.11

Lopez 6 6 Slide 13 Remember the use of family names to preserve the genealogy? I researched the name of Gregorio Cortez’s mother. 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. No one in my family has looked very hard to uncover any relationship there, but it is a possibility. My focus in this presentation is not what happened to Cortina and Cortez but the discrimination of Mexicans in Texas. The families that had settled this region were highly regarded and well-to-do families with royal Spanish ancestry and a history of military service to Spain and to Mexico. What a contrast to the way their descendants were perceived years later: they were an inferior people from an inferior country, cowardly, treacherous, thieving, and certainly not to be trusted. Slide 14 There is so much to tell about the story for desegregation for Mexicans in Texas and how my family became involved. In 1915, my great-grandparents Onésimo and Candelaria temporarily moved their family from Piedras Negras, Mexico, to Texas escape the dangers of the Mexican Revolution. When my grandfather and his siblings walked to school, the German kids would form a line to keep them away, forcing them to fight to go to school. Slide 15 He married Anita Peñalver, and they moved to Melvin, Texas to give their future children a chance at a better life. Her father, Santana Peñalver, never forgave her for moving to the United States and becoming a U.S. citizen. He never spoke to her again.

Lopez 7 7 Slide 16 My mom said that when her parents took their family to Mexico to visit family, 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 his house. He would return with them in the morning without ever exchanging a word with his daughter. Slide 17 In Melvin, the Mexican community Colonia Jiménez struggled for desegregation and an equal education for their children. Grandpa was very influential in getting Melvin schools to integrate. There was a two-room school with wooden walls for the Mexicans and a brick building for the Anglo students. The teacher-student ratio in the Anglo school was at most about thirteen students to one teacher; for the Mexican school, it was thirty to forty students to one

• teacher. There were few school supplies in the Mexican school, and the rooms

had huge cracks in the walls.12 When I asked my mom about that experience, she would never respond. The only thing she ever talked about was how her father encouraged the residents of the Jiménez community to wash their children’s faces and hands, feed them a good breakfast, and send them to school to prove that they wanted an education. In October of 1944, as president of the Latin-American PTA, my grandfather Rafael Riojas approached the Melvin school board to request that the Mexican students in Melvin be allowed to attend the nice brick building down the road. Estela Perez Santos recalls that the school board representative 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 twelve years, he turned on his heel and enlisted the help of an attorney and began a series of correspondence13 and visits

Lopez 8 8 to the Superintendent of the State Department of Education. Both Dr. Duarte and Estela Perez Santos quote Herschel T. Manuel’s research into the attitude towards Mexicans of a superintendent in Melvin, who said, “If a man has very much sense

• r 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 on his knees in an

• nion patch or in new ground. This does not mix well with education.”14 Also in

Pérez Santos’ and Duarte’s research is a master’s degree thesis by Mr. Floyd Leslie Marshall, a teacher and later principal in the Melvin School, who wrote his thesis

• n the problem of education for the Latin American student in Melvin. It was not

a very nice one. He claimed, “the average Anglo-American looked upon the Latin- American as a hired hand that needed to do the biddings of the Anglo-American race.”15 16 My uncle, Dr. Ricardo Riojas, recalls a sign at Richards Park in Brady that stated, “No Dogs or Mexicans Allowed.” 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. After a lawsuit by Minerva Delgado in 1948, the Texas State Superintendent of Public Schools ordered school districts to fully desegregate for Mexicans students.17 Slide 18 My grandfather owned a dry goods store in Melvin. He started out selling merchandise out of the back of his car to migrant workers. He would get the merchandise on credit from JC Penny’s, sell it at a profit, and go back and get more merchandise. When he purchased his store building, the family started out living behind the store in a room with a dirt floor, and later Grandpa built a house

Lopez 9 9

• ut of a barn. Then he built another barn for Nellie, the cow, which my uncle

Richard almost burned down as a teen, but that’s another story… Slide 19 A seven-year drought prompted the Riojas family to move 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 he attended Texas Tech, as did his brother Air Force Lt. Col. Rafael Riojas Jr., my mother Dr. Rosa Elia Riojas, and my aunt Graciela Riojas, M.A. In fact, so many Riojas family members have attended Texas Tech there was a special ceremony in 2008 to recognize Grandpa’s continuing legacy of education. Slide 20 Grandpa always said, “querer es poder,” which roughly translated means, “you can do anything if you want to do it badly enough.” Paul said something very similar to the Philippians: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”18

Lopez 10 10 Notes

1 Geni Family Tree. Last updated June 1, 2017.

https://www.geni.com/people/Capit%C3%A1n-Marcos-Alonso-de-la-Garza- Falc%C3%B3n-Arcón/6000000000307810776

2 Ricardo Riojas, interviewed by Rosa Ana Riojas. San Antonio, Texas,

August 10, 2014. StoryCorps collection (AFC 2004/001: recording DDA000903), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

3 Handbook of Texas Online, Clotilde P. García, "Garza Falcón, Miguel De

La," Uploaded on June 15, 2010. http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fga95. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

4 Amerigo Paredes, The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez (Austin, Texas: University

• f Texas Press: 1984), 10. Print.

5 Ibid. 6 Clotilde P. García, Captain Blas María de la Garza Falcón: Colonizer of

South Texas (Austin, Texas: The Jenkins Publishing Co. 1984), 62. Print.

7 Ibid., 14. 8 Ibid., 42. 9 Handbook of Texas Online, Clotilde P. García, "Ballí, José

Nicolás," Uploaded on June 12, 2010. Modified on September 29, 2016. http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fba50. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

10 Paredes, 35-39.

Lopez 11 11

11 Handbook of Texas Online, Jerry Thompson, "Cortina, Juan

Nepomuceno," accessed October 03, 2017. http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fco73. Uploaded on June 12, 2010. Modified on March 28, 2016. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

12 Gloria Duarte, “The Mexican Struggle for Equal Education in Melvin,

Texas” Report to the [San Angelo] Historical Association (2014.) Print.

13 Melvin Letters from Melvin Latin American PTA President Rafael Riojas de

la Garza to various administrators in Austin. Collection of twelve letters were donated by Estela Pérez Santos. Letters are located in the West Texas Collection

• f Angelo State University in San Angelo, TX. Digital copies can be accessed at

https://lopeztechcomm.com/

14 Duarte, 3. 15 Floyd Leslie Marshall, "History and Present Status of Latin American

Education in Melvin, Texas." Master’s thesis, Hardin Simmons University, 1950, 55.

16 Estela Pérez Santos, 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]. SW Writers, Wittliff Collections, Texas State University Library: n.d. Print

17 “The Portal to Texas History,” a digital repository hosted by UNT

Libraries, accessed October 8, 2017. [Judgement, Minerva Delgado et al vs. Bastrop Independent School District – 1948-06-15] https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth248856/

18 Philippians 4:13. (New King James Version).

Lopez 12 12 Bibliography Duarte, Gloria. “The Mexican Struggle for Equal Education in Melvin, Texas” Report to the [San Angelo Historical Association 2014. Print. García, Clotilde P. Captain Blas María de la Garza Falcón: Colonizer of South Texas. Austin, Texas: The Jenkins Publishing Co. 1984. Print. Out of print. García, Clotilde P. Handbook of Texas Online, (Last Modified June 15, 2010). “Garza Falcón, Captain Blas María de la,” Uploaded on June 15, 2010. Published by the Texas State Historical Association. http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fga66 Summarized from her book, Captain Blas María de la Garza Falcón: Colonizer of South Texas García, Clotilde P. Handbook of Texas Online, "Ballí, José Nicolás," accessed October 03, 2017, Uploaded on June 12, 2010. Modified on September 29,

• 2016. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fba50. Summarized from her book, Captain Blas María de la Garza Falcón: Colonizer of South Texas Geni Family Tree Web site. Last updated June 1, 2017. https://www.geni.com/people/Capit%C3%A1n-Marcos-Alonso-de-la-Garza- Falc%C3%B3n-Arcón/6000000000307810776 Story of Marcos Alonso de la Garza y Arcón family name change to avoid persecution as a Jew

Lopez 13 13 Herschel T. Manuel, Spanish Speaking Children of the Southwest, Their Education and the Public Welfare. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1965). Cited by Estela Pérez Santos and Gloria Duarte. Marshall, Floyd Leslie. "History and Present Status of Latin American Education in Melvin, Texas." Master’s thesis, Hardin Simmons University, 1950. Full paper available in Estela Pérez Santos’ book Melvin Letters from Melvin Latin American PTA President Rafael Riojas de la Garza to various administrators in Austin. Collection of twelve letters were donated by Estela Pérez Santos. Letters are located in the West Texas Collection of Angelo State University in San Angelo, TX. I obtained digital access to the documents for research from the library at Angelo State University. Orozco, C. E., Handbook of Texas Online, Gregorio, Cortez Lira.” Modified April 13,

• 2017. https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fco94

This has Cortez and his parents’ full names. Paredes, Américo. The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press: 1984) Book studied for Rhetorical Approaches 5377, Dr. Baake. States Blas Maria de la Garza Falcón as colonizer of south Texas Pérez 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]. SW Writers, Wittliff Collections, Texas State University Library: n.d. Print Purchased directly from the author, who knew my mother and grandfather

Lopez 14 14 Piña, Alma. Letter from L. A. Woods as well as a copy of the Rules and Regulations to her mother Concepción Piña Also cited in Estela Perez Santos’ book Ricardo Riojas, interviewed by Rosa Ana Riojas. San Antonio, Texas, August 10,

• 2014. StoryCorps collection (AFC 2004/001: recording DDA000903),

American Folklife Center, Library of Congress. Riojas family history stored at the Library of Congress 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 Legal proceedings. Taylor, Paul Schuster. An American-Mexican Frontier, Nueces County, Texas, (New York: Russell and Russell, 1971), 10-12. Cited by Dr. Clotilde P. Garcia in Captain Blas María de la Garza Falcón: Colonizer of South Texas. Good resource for further research Thompson, J., Handbook of Texas Online. “Cortina, Juan Nepomuceno.” Modified March 28, 2016. https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fco73 Resource for further research

• Wikitree. “Genealogy of Marcos Alonso de la Garza y Arcón.”

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/De_la_Garza_y_del_Arc%C3%B3n-7

Lopez 15 15 Images Slide 5: Onésimo Riojas and Candelaria de la Garza, with children, L-R: Benito, Rafael, Onésimo, Candelaria, and Roumalda. Photo courtesy of Dr. Ricardo Riojas Peñalver. Slide 7: Statue of Captain Blas María de la Garza Falcón, colonizer of South Texas in Corpus Christi. http://www.publicartarchive.org/work/friendship-monument-captain-blas- María-de-la-García-Falcón Slide 8: Site of La Petronila Ranch, one of the first land grants in Texas in José de Escandon’s Nuevo Santander Captain Blas María de la Garza Falcón: Colonizer of South Texas, by Dr. Clotilde García, 1984, p.14. Print. Slide 9: The Treaty of Guadalupe divided Nuevo Santander along the Rio Grande. http://www.sanbenitohistory.com/projects/Greatest_Colonizer/Map.html Slide 10: “Counting cattle at the Welder Ranch.” Photograph of the Welder Ranch in 1910. “The Portal to Texas History,” a digital repository hosted by UNT Libraries, accessed October 8, 2017. https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth64869 Slide 11: Padre Nicolas Ballí, founder of South Padre Island in 1827. Retrieved from http:/www.panoramio.com/photo/110323519. Photo credit: Bryan Ingram Slide 13: Juan Nepomuceno Cortina, third grandson of Captain Blas María de la Garza Falcón and instigator of the Cortina Wars. https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fco73 Slide 14: Screen shot from Ancestry.com: Gregorio Cortez’s full name and parents’ full names.

Lopez 16 16 Slide 16: Rafael Riojas de la Garza and Anita Peñalver with sons Rafael II and

• Ricardo. Photo courtesy of Dr. Ricardo Riojas Peñalver.

Slide 17: Santana Peñalver with his horse and buggy. Photo courtesy of Dr. Ricardo Riojas Peñalver. Slide 18: Teacher Celia Renteria with her students in front of the Mexican school in Melvin, Texas in 1940. Courtesy of A Snapshot of Melvin, Texas 1906 – 1955 by Slide 19: Rafael Riojas de la Garza pictured selling dry goods out of his car. n.d. Photo courtesy of Dr. Ricardo Riojas Peñalver. Slide 20: Riojas Department Store, circa 1950. Photo courtesy of Dr. Ricardo Riojas Peñalver.