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 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 of 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 2

Lopez 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 our 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 3

Lopez 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 4

Lopez 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 5

Lopez 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. 6