I was informed later that the Kmetzach woman was a schizophrenic who
should never have been allowed to drive a car. I am still surprised that no one in the ward or stake let us
know, even though they knew that she was to help Ruth drive. I might mention that even though our
station wagon, expensive camera equipment, and other belongings were destroyed
and family members seriously injured, no member of the Kmetzach family ever
contacted us.
The next morning I drove up to the University, accompanied by my
niece, Marilyn McKay, to participate in the Ethnic Minority Institute organized
by Helen and Greg Crampton. I
spoke on Mexican‑Americans in the morning and participated in a panel discussion
on minorities in the afternoon. My
father, who was in attendance, told me that I spoke well, but a little too
fast. While at the University I
visited Ray Canning, Robert Gray, and Ted Smith, who told me that the
Department of Sociology was still interested in me. Several days later I talked to members of the Department of
Sociology at Brigham Young University, who told me the same thing. I remained in Salt Lake City until
Ruth, David and Ann had improved and then flew back to El Paso on June 22 with
Daniel and Keith. We "bached
it" until Ruth, David, and Ann rejoined us on July 13.
In July Dr. Paul V. Getty, director of the Southwest Educational
Laboratory in Albuquerque, invited me to serve as a consultant with the
laboratory. Until I left El Paso,
I flew to Albuquerque almost every month to evaluate proposals from diverse
school districts in New Mexico and west Texas. I also enjoyed visiting various school districts to discuss
programs submitted to the laboratory.
I was paid well for my services and met many fine people in the region.
Also in July the drumbeat of events began that would lead Reies L.
Tijerina to a Federal jail and myself and family to Salt Lake City. On July 3, 1966, the Alianza began a
four‑day march from Albuquerque to the state capitol in Santa Fe to attract
public attention to their claims that the Spanish‑American rural village people
had been deprived of millions of acres of land given to their ancestors by the
Spanish and Mexican governments.
As Governor Campbell was out of town, the leaders of the march had to
wait until July 11 to deliver their petition requesting the assistance of the
Federal and state governments to secure the return of the land. Governor Campbell promised to forward
the petition to Congress and to President Johnson with his personal
recommendation that the Federal government conduct a thorough investigation
into the Alianza charges.
The governor sought advice about the authenticity of the Alianza
claims from Dr. Myra Jenkins, the State Archivist of New Mexico, who had
written about land grants during the Spanish and Mexican periods. Dr. Jenkins was quoted by the press as
reporting that, "There is little historical validity to many of their
claims . . . Many members of the so‑called Alianza were not descendants of any
Spanish or Mexican land grantees.
I fear that there are outside influences which are reopening this old
issue for pecuniary gain."
Because of this report the governor never forwarded the Alianza petition
to Washington. The Anglo‑American
establishment of the state, completely isolated from the rural Spanish‑American
people from this moment on, regarded the Alianza as a comical movement led by a
confidence man. It was a sad
mistake. If the establishment and
the Federal and state governments had taken the Alianza seriously and made
honest efforts to investigate the Alianza claims, the drift toward violence
would have been prevented.
The resultant conflicts between the Alianza and the state and
Federal governments developed overtones of a Greek tragedy. The majority of Anglo‑American
residents in New Mexico know little about the history of the state or about the
tragic socioeconomic conditions of the rural Spanish‑American people in
northern New Mexico. They tend to
regard the Spanish‑Americans as an inferior people who refuse to
Americanize. On the other hand,
the rural Spanish‑Americans never quite understood the American economic,
legal, political and social systems imposed upon them by the American
occupation of New Mexico. These
systems have functioned to their disadvantage. As a result, a deeply‑rooted emotional layer of bitterness
and resentment exists within the rural Spanish‑American people of northern New
Mexico that periodically erupts (every ten years or so) in rural protest
movements that burn buildings and fences and kill the livestock of intruding
Anglo‑American ranchers.
Furthermore, the spread of national forests and government restrictions
upon the use of public lands have caused serious economic damage to the Spanish‑Americans.
Unfortunately, the Alianza came into existence during a time when
black ghettos were flaming across urban American and one international crisis
followed another. The rise in
tension and fear among the Anglo‑American population of the state and in‑state
federal agencies in New Mexico was also fueled by the old atavistic Anglo fear
of a massive Spanish‑American rural uprisings against Anglo‑Americans that has
haunted New Mexico since the Taos Revolt in the first years of Anglo‑American
occupation of New Mexico.
At their September, 1966, convention in Albuquerque, the Alianza
leaders announced that the Alianza would occupy a community land grant
somewhere in New Mexico and challenge the Federal government to evict
them. Tijerina hoped to trap the
government into a court case in which the government would have to prove the
validity of government and Anglo‑American titles to alienated Spanish and
Mexican land grants. The
possibility that the government might bring criminal charges was not examined. An estimated 340 Spanish‑American
members of the Alianza squatted on the Echo Amphitheatre Campground in the Kit
Carson National Forest and defied the government to evict them. The Alianza, disillusioned in its
efforts to establish a peaceful dialogue with state and federal agencies over
its claims, threw down a gauntlet to the U.S. Forest Service‑‑the most
unpopular Federal landlord in New Mexico.
It was not until October 22, 1966, that the U.S. Forest Service
picked up the gauntlet. Early on
the morning of October 22 a force of state police and U.S. forest rangers
blocked the entrance to the campground and asked those camped in the campground
if they had purchased proper recreational permits. As the forest rangers were checking cars and trailers, a
large caravan of Alianza members and leaders, including Tijerina, drove through
the blockade. An altercation broke
out between the rangers within the campground and Alianza members that ended
when a Spanish‑American state police captain entered the campground and rescued
the rangers. At no time did the
large force of state police of Forest Service personnel manning the blockade at
the entrance of the campground make any effort to prevent or to stop the conflict.
On October 25 U.S. Attorney John Quinn secured a Federal injunction
enjoining the Alianza from occupying any part of the campground. Out of the 300 some odd Alianza people
occupying the campground, only five (Reies L. Tijerina; his brother, Cristobal
Tijerina; Alfonso Chavez; Jerry Noel; and Esequiel Dominguez) were named in an
indictment charging them with five counts of converting government property to
their personal use and conspiring to prevent forest rangers from carrying out
their duties. No charges of
trespassing were brought against the Alianza and Federal attorneys did all they
could to prevent a challenge to the Federal title of the Echo Amphitheater,
once part of a land grant.
Towards the end of September, I again traveled to Santa Fe by bus to
participate in a two‑day Vista training program sponsored by Project Help, the
major rural anti‑poverty program in New Mexico. During the program I encountered many Vistas whom I helped
train at Monte Vista. They told me
about many of their problems.
Radicalized by their exposure to the poverty, economic discrimination,
and ethnic prejudice, they wanted to develop movements to improve these
conditions. But the national Vista
office and their local sponsoring agencies told them that any social or
political action on their part might result in their discharge from the Vista
program. They were terribly
frustrated.
It was in September that Salvador Ramirez reported to me that the
two co‑directors of the El Paso Migrant Labor Program‑‑Terrazas and Haggerty‑were
requiring kickbacks from all businessmen selling products or services to the
program. Stirred to action, Sal
and I visited virtually all businessmen involved with the program and found a
widespread pattern of forced kickbacks.
I called the Migrant Labor Division of the Office of Economic
Opportunity, Washington, D.C., and advised them of the situation. The office sent in a very inept
investigator who managed to alert the two that they were under investigation. A more competent investigator found
substantial evidence of fraud and forced the resignation of the co‑directors. I wanted the Office of Employment
Opportunity to prosecute Haggerty and Terrazas for fraud, but the office wished
to avoid bad publicity and refused.
Much to my surprise I found that just before I left El Paso that Haggerty
had been appointed to an important position in the United Fund. Indignant, I told the full story to the
F.B.I. and to several directors of the fund.
Walter O'Dwyer, who replaced Haggerty and Terrazas, was personally
honest, but mismanaged the program and tried to intimidate board and
staff. Again I requested help from
the Migrant Labor Division. The
Office of Economic Opportunity abruptly terminated the program. I felt very bitter that a much‑needed
program providing retraining and vocational education to large numbers of poor
Mexican‑American migrant farm workers had to be terminated because of
corruption and mismanagement among middle class administrators.
The last three months of 1966 were, for me, very busy and
significant months. On October 11
I received a letter from Gregg Olds, editor of the Texas Observer, asking me to contribute an article to a
special issue on the Mexican‑American population of Texas. I felt flattered at the
invitation. The Texas Observer was a beacon of light
during the 1960s in the black night of Texas corruption and obscurantism. On October 14 I flew to Fort Worth to
participate in a two‑day workshop sponsored by the Texas Council of the
National Association of Social Workers on Social Work Education at Undergraduate
Colleges. The Southwestern
Educational Development Laboratory, Austin, invited me on October 20 to serve
on the Advisory Committee of Foundation Studies in Intercultural Education. I was told that the advisory committee
was to assist the Southwestern Educational Development Laboratory: (1) to improve the educational
environment of the four major cultural groups (Mexican‑American, Negro‑American,
French‑American and Anglo‑American) in Louisiana and Texas; and (2) to
facilitate intercultural understanding.
Thus I became involved with the two educational laboratories in the
Southwest‑‑the Albuquerque and the Austin laboratories.
The battle for bilingual education increased in ferocity in the
Southwest during the 1960s.
Fighting in the ranks of those opposed to bilingual education were the
racially and ethnically prejudiced, believers in the concept of one people, on
nation, and one language, teachers worried about their jobs in education if a
knowledge of Spanish were required of Southwestern teachers, those afraid of
the impact of bilingual education upon national unity, and many worried about
the increasing Mexicanization of the Southwest. The ranks of those in favor of bilingualism included foreign
language teachers, Mexican‑American community leaders, Mexican‑American
militants and students, internationalists, and those who (like myself) believed
that bilingualism would improve the educational opportunities of thousands of
Mexican‑American students from non‑English speaking homes. When I found out that Mexican immigrant
children coming to the United States after their primary education in Mexico
learned English better than Mexican‑American students who had come up through
the American school system, I joined the struggle for bilingual education and
fought for it in season and out of season for ten years, antagonizing the
educational establishment of New Mexico and Texas in the process.
The battle reached its peak in the November 4 to 5, 1965 conference
in El Paso titled "Our Bilinguals:
Social, Psychological, Linguistic and Pedagogical Barriers" of the
Southwest Conference of Foreign Language Teachers. I was among those who strongly advocated the principles of
bilingualism to a divided audience.
But by the 1966 Southwest Conference of Foreign Language Teachers, the
battle was over. Opposition had
vanished or gone underground. Dr.
Bruce Gardner, head of the U.S. Office of Education, spoke in favor of bilingual
education with grace, wit, and learning.
I enjoyed his friendship and had many conversations with him about the
educational needs of the Mexican‑American children of the Southwest.
My work with both the Albuquerque and Austin Educational
Laboratories increased during 1966.
Almost every month I traveled to Albuquerque, Houston and Austin to work
with lab committees. My work with
the Advisory Committee on Foundation Studies in International Education, a
committee of the Austin Laboratory, exposed me to experts on the educational
needs of French Louisiana, black, and poor rural white children in Texas and
Louisiana. I learned much and
earned a little money in the process.
The Committee on Foundation Studies discussed: (1) political and economic factors that inhibited bilingual
and intercultural education in the two states; (2) techniques useful in
bringing about education change; and (3) education as a dimension of political
and economic community systems. I
quite enjoyed my work on the committee and believed that our reports on these
matters to the Austin Laboratory were useful. I puzzled over the employment of French‑speaking teachers
from France in the Cajun areas of Louisiana. Surely their French would cause problems for the Cajun
speakers.
For the Albuquerque lab I evaluated programs financed by the
laboratory. In the fall of 1966 I
visited the Hobbs, New Mexico Junior High School. Byron Ecklund, a seventh grade teacher, drove me around
Hobbs, a prosperous but unprepossessing eastern New Mexico community. I was startled when he told me that the
community had built a million dollar high school auditorium. I could not help but reflect on the
impoverished school systems of northern New Mexico, few of whom even had a
million dollars in their entire budget.
In the visit I observed volunteers from churches and civil clubs
working with students on what were referred to as "educational
problems"‑‑most of them Mexican‑Americans. I managed to shake loose the teachers and volunteers long
enough to talk to the students in Spanish. I questioned them at length about discrimination, prejudice,
and mistreatment. Much to my
surprise I found them to be enthusiastic about their teachers and their
schools. They denied any
discriminatory treatment. They
did, however, report that they had very little social interaction with Anglo‑American
students. In checking the
libraries I found considerable material on minority groups. I met all the teachers working within
the project to improve education opportunities for minority groups. They seemed to be happy, eager, and
intellectually alive. The school superintendent
struck me as a kind, humane superintendent. I left rather impressed by it all.
After school on November 16 I flew to Salt Lake City to visit the
Department of Sociology at the University of Utah. Ted Smith and Ray Canning said they would do all they could
to have the university offer me a contract. In the afternoon I drove down to Brigham Young University to
talk to John Christiansen and other members of the Department of Sociology. They told me that they would like to
have me come there. Although I
expressed considerable interest in a position at Brigham Young University, I
internally shrank from coming to a school headed by Ernest Wilkinson, an anti‑intellectual
and a politically and economically reactionary university president.
Although exhausted from my constant traveling, I flew to Fort Worth
with Ralph Segalman and Phillip Himelstein, chairman of the Department of
Psychology on November 28 to participate in the annual meetings of the Texas
State Department of Public Welfare.
I delivered a paper on Mexican‑American attitudes in the Urban Barrio
Toward Social Workers. In spite of
my often severe criticisms of welfare workers, my paper was well received. I learned from friends in attendance at
the conference that the efforts by Tony Tinajero to organize the migrant farm
workers were being repressed by massive violence in the usual Texas style.
The fall semester of 1966 went by quietly. On August 23 I traveled to Dallas to participate in a two‑day
conference on urbanism in the Southwest on the campus of Arlington State
College, now the University of Texas at Arlington. Upon my return I gave a series of lectures on Mexican‑American
history, culture, socioeconomic problems in the Southwest and the socio‑economic
conditions of South El Paso to the teaching sisters of Our Lady of
Loretto. I deeply enjoyed my
activities with the order and found them deeply devoted to helping the poor and
minority groups in and around El Paso.
Dr. Tom Wiley, Executive Director of the New Mexico Research and
Study Council, invited me to speak at their annual conference held on December
7 in Las Cruces, New Mexico. As
the theme was "Community Power Structure," I spoke on the
powerlessness of the numerous rural Spanish‑American communities in northern New
Mexico and their deliberate exclusion from participation in political and
economic power in the state by a corrupt Anglo‑American dominated political
system. And on December 25 I had
the pleasure of serving as Santa Claus at the Boys' Club annual Christmas party
for the children of South El Paso.
I have often wondered what the young children thought about a Santa
Claus speaking Spanish with a strong English accent.
The year 1967 began with the preventable deaths of three small
children of a large, impoverished Mexican‑American family living in one of the
dreadful tenements of South El Paso on January 4. An illegal gasoline‑fueled heater exploded, killing the
three children. Upon learning
about the fire in the early morning paper, I talked to Joe McDougal and Frank
Gallardo of Project Bravo and Salvador Ramirez. We met at the office of the Juvenile Delinquency Project and
called together all the barrio leaders.
I spoke to them about the death of the three Rosales children, victims
of the El Paso slum lords and the Anglo establishment. I reminded them that they or other
members of their families could die in similar fires. I pointed out that few Anglo‑Americans in El Paso were aware
of existing conditions in South El Paso.
I argued that for over three years we had been putting pressure on the
city administration to enforce tenement codes without success.
The time for talking had ended and the time for action had
come. I poured out my anger in a fiery,
emotional speech that aroused them to action. Our little group pulled together a larger committee from the
barrio leaders and the staffs of Project Bravo, Macho, and Juvenile
Delinquency. Promptly securing the
support of the Catholic clergy from the two parishes in South El Paso. We organized a demonstration. I helped to paint the numerous signs of
protest and constructed a manifesto which we distributed to the mass media and
to people along the route of the march.
The manifesto read as follows:
We, the people of South El Paso, protest the death of the Rosales
children. Mayor Williams, the City
Council, and the tenement owners are responsible for their deaths. Mayor Williams and the City Council
have persistently refused to enforce the inadequate tenement inspection code of
the city. They have allowed
hundreds of unsafe fire traps housing thousands of people to remain standing in
El Paso. They have permitted
tenement owners to make fortunes out of the misery and ignorance of the people
of South El Paso. They have
refused to pass an adequate housing code for the city. They are directly responsible for the
death of those innocent children.
Many other children will die unless housing conditions are changed. Therefore, we the people of South El
Paso demand that the city administration pass an adequate housing code. We demand that these fire traps be
pulled down and decent housing be provided. We demand that tenement owners be forced to make their
buildings safe. We demand that the
city put an end to conditions that affect the health and safety of our
children. Let the rest of the city
know that unless our demands are met, we will organize to protect our lives and
those of our children.
Abelardo Delgado, a staff
member of our Juvenile Delinquency Project and a budding poet, philosopher and
barrio leader, composed the following poem:
After years of Misery and
Filth,
After Years of Broken
Promises,
After the Rats, the
Cockroaches, the Broken Toilets
After the Slow Death of the
People by T.B.
By Malnutrition, Pneumonia,
and now
The Fiery Death of Three
Children
We Will No Longer Wait.
All though the late morning and afternoon, our people fanned out
through South El Paso, persuading the people to join the demonstration. Hundreds came. At 4:00 p.m. the march began with a
solemn mass for the three dead children, officiated by Father Gafford in the
Sacred Heart Church. After the
mass the priests and sisters in attendance joined the demonstration. We carefully organized the march to
prevent violence. The
demonstrators were formed into sections of about 100 people, each section
headed by a barrio leader. Clergy
and sisters were placed in the front row of the first section. Former gang leaders and young adults
prowled along the sides of the demonstration to maintain order and to keep radical
elements from taking advantage of the demonstration. The march proceeded up through South El Paso to the City and
Council Building.
At first it looked as though the police would not let the
demonstrators leave South El Paso.
But as television camera crews filmed the advancing lines of clergy,
nuns, and women with children marching toward the police singing religious
hymns and shouting slogans demanding better housing and enforcement of the
tenement codes, the police lines suddenly opened just before our first rank
reached them. In a slow, very
orderly, controlled fashion the march proceeded to the City and County
Building. Some of our barrio
leaders demanded to see the mayor and city council, who were in the building,
but the police would not let anyone enter. The mayor and council members refused to leave the
building. So, following orders,
the main body of the marchers swung through the narrow streets of the downtown
area, blocking traffic and singing, to San Jacinto plaza in the heart of the city. As the march proceeded, several hundred
or more people joined us. To keep
up with the march, the police hurried away from the City and County Building to
direct traffic, open streets, and to follow the marchers. At no time did they make any effort to
stop the march after the first impulse.
Noticing that the City and County Building was left unguarded, a
segment of the demonstration numbering about 200 people led by Nino Aguilera
and Frank Galvan suddenly turned back, entering the City and County Building
before the police became aware of their movement. Accompanied by reporters and television cameras, Frank and
Nino caught the mayor unprotected in his office. They angrily lectured the somewhat abashed and scared
mayor. By the time the police
reached the front of the building, the alerted demonstrators poured out the
back door to the plaza. No
violence took place.
At the plaza the people listened to speakers denouncing the
situation. The demonstration ended
about dark and the ever‑increasing crowd listened quietly to speakers until
they went home. The demonstration
was a success. No one had been
hurt and no property destroyed.
The mayor and city council began to enforce the tenement code and
landowners began to repair their tenements. But, best of all, no one seemed to know about my role in
organizing the demonstration. When
queried, our people simply said that they moved in to control a demonstration
that began spontaneously as an expression of neighborhood anger over the death
of the three children.
The next day, still angry, I called President Ray of the college and
told him that I intended to organize a series of conferences on social and
economic conditions in South El Paso.
He approved the suggestion.
I at once called a meeting of interested faculty and El Paso social
agency heads to discuss the idea.
The majority were interested, so we established a committee headed by
Andy Sparks to organize the seminars.
We selected people familiar with South El Paso to discuss the
problems. Then we picked residents
of South El Paso to discuss their living conditions. And, finally, panels were composed of representatives of
federal agencies presenting information on the programs they could offer the people
of South El Paso and the community of El Paso. The series of seminars held in February on housing, income
and employment at the Sacred Heart gymnasium drew around 400 people. I wanted to expand the series,
involving more agencies and community leaders, but Salvador Ramirez (to my
surprise) did what he could to discourage the idea. Salvador worked seriously to calm me down and to divert my
attention away from the tragic deaths and the serious socioeconomic problems of
South El Paso to the day to day management of the anti‑poverty and juvenile delinquency
programs. I suspected that he had
been bought off. The tenement
owners harassed local South El Paso people who participated in the seminars. I tried to get Sal to help organize
local protest demonstrations, but he refused.
Deeply concerned about the situation, I flew to Albuquerque to
attend a CODAZR meeting on January 28.
Then on January 29 I flew to Washington, D.C., to participate in the two‑day
conference to discuss ways in which minorities differ from the dominant Anglo‑American
majority sponsored by the Joint Commission on Correctional Manpower and
Training. Papers on Mexican‑Americans,
American Indians, Japanese‑Americans, Blacks and Puerto Ricans were prepared by
Philip Montez, Robert L. Bennett, Harry H.L. Kitans, Wesley Ted Cobb, and
Joseph Montserrat. Donald G. Dodge
discussed the Job Corp experience with Minorities and Rudy Sanfilippo and Jo
Wallach the implications of cultural differences for corrections. I reported on the history and values of
the Spanish‑speaking people of the Southwest. I felt highly honored to have been invited. After the conference I spent a good
part of the day visiting museums and art galleries.
On February 9 I flew to Austin to attend the meetings of the
Committee on International Education, established by the Texas Educational
Agency and chaired by Severo Gomez, a man whom I came to respect very
highly. We discussed the problems
of accrediting the programs of numerous schools established by American communities
in Latin America. Apparently many
of these schools were seeking accreditation from the Texas Educational
Agency. Then we discussed
bilingual education and ways of persuading schools to adapt it in Texas. We decided that the best approach might
be to seduce money‑hungry Texan schools with grants on the one hand and gentle
to strong persuasion on the other.
After our meeting I wandered around Austin, strolling over the
University of Texas campus and through the state capitol.
On February 18 I had the pleasure of baptizing our neighbor, Mary Dinsmoor,
a member of the church. George I.
Sanchez came to speak at a training session of the staff of anti‑poverty
programs in El Paso several days later.
I went up to his hotel room to get him and found him vomiting
blood. I put him to bed and called
the doctor. Later in the day I
flew him to Austin. Another once‑powerful
Mexican‑American and Spanish‑American leader approached the end of his career.
In the spring of 1967 Bishop Metzger permitted my friends and
allies, Joe Rubio and Andy Sparks, to publish a diocesan paper filled with
articles on poverty, tenement conditions, discrimination, causes of crime and
delinquency in El Paso, and on the need to organize the Mexican‑American people
for effective social action. I
worked closely with them. The paper
was published for six months or so and then was suspended because of pressures
brought to bear by the Anglo‑American establishment. In spite of the suspension, many priests in El Paso (both
Anglo‑American and Mexican‑American) supported our efforts in the city. During this same period both Fabio da
Silva and Ralph Segalman resigned from the Department. Fabio moved to the University of Notre
Dame and Ralph became head of the Upward Bound program on campus.
On March 12 I flew to Dallas to read a paper on land loss among the
Spanish‑American people of northern New Mexico at the Southwest Sociological
Society meetings in Dallas. I
quite enjoyed the meetings and on April 26 I traveled again to Austin by way of
San Antonio to lecture to a Vista training group on Mexican‑American values and
socioeconomic conditions.
Returning to El Paso that night, I flew the next morning to Colorado
Springs to participate in the annual meetings of the Rocky Mountain Social
Science Association. I read a
paper on "The Impact of Social and Cultural Change Upon the Social Systems
of the Spanish‑American People."
With the ending of this session I moved from vice president to president
of the organization. Early in May
Salvador Ramirez and I traveled to the Catholic monastery in Pecos to
participate in a weekend training session for New Mexican Vista volunteers.
While there I attended, with several Vistas, a local meeting of
Pecos people protesting recent decisions by the U.S. Forest Service. The Forest Service had banned the
grazing of milk cows and work horses on the Kit Carson National Forest, while
permitting the grazing of beef cattle and riding horses. The milk cows and work horses belonged
to poor Spanish‑American rural families, while the beef cattle and riding horses
were more apt to belong to Anglo‑American ranchers. The people, many of whom were close to tears, said that the
Forest Service refused to listen to them.
They asserted that their basic living standards were falling. Listening to them, I knew that Reies
would attract many new members to his Alianza. Little did the forest management know the harvest that their
policies would reap.
Superintendent McBride had asked me earlier in the year to give the
commencement address to Grants High School graduating class. He mentioned to me that the student
population was quite mixed. Many
of his students were from West Virginian miner families attracted to Grants by
the mining industry. However, the
majority were Spanish‑Americans from the old declining Spanish‑American
villages in the region. As we had
not had a vacation for some time, I decided to take my family with me to
Grants. The town itself was not
attractive; however, we were welcomed warmly by the superintendent, principal
and teachers. I began by giving what I
felt was a decent speech on the need for higher education or vocational
training. Noticing that Lt.
Governor Frances and other New Mexican notables were in the audience, for some
unknown reason I deviated from my remarks to mention my alarm at the growing
unrest among the Spanish‑Americans.
I pointed out that unless something were done about the land issue,
violence might erupt in the near future in New Mexico. Little did I know how prophetic my
comments would be. When I sat
down, the same people who had been so cordial were much less so.
I picked up my check and drove my family out of town. We visited Zuni and Acoma and the El
Moro National Monument. I sat
entranced for an hour in front of the Spanish “Se Pasó por Aquí”
inscription. From the monument we
drove to Ramah to observe the Mormon village so commented on in studies of the
region. I was surprised at the
junk cluttering so many vacant lots.
From Ramah we traveled to St. Johns, the local Mormon capital. We passed through the Gila National
Forest to Silver City and then back to El Paso.
Although I had to turn my attention to the problems of my
department, such as budget and recruiting, I could not divert my attention from
New Mexico. From the newspapers it
was obvious that tensions were rising throughout northern New Mexico. Rumors about armed uprisings percolated
out of the region. Anglo‑American
families began to migrate from Spanish‑American villages. The Attorney General, Boston Witt, a
poor man for the position, and other New Mexican officials began to accuse the
Alianza of Communist influences and of subversion of American principles. In reaction to the inflammatory
rhetoric, the Alianza response became ever stronger. Alianza leaders talked about setting up a Spanish‑American
republic in the Tierra Amarilla region independent of the laws of New
Mexico. As I read and listened, I
knew that the situation was reaching a crisis point. Buildings and fences began to burn again in Rio Arriba
County.
As the time came for the Alianza to hold its annual convention this
time in Coyote, numerous forest fires burned on the Kit Carson National
Forests. Rangers were reluctant to
ride the more distant trails and roads in the forests. People in the region began to arm
themselves and fear, like a heavy blanket, covered the region. But, then, a few days before the
meeting everything seemed to calm down.
Informants in New Mexico relayed to me that the newly‑elected Governor
Cargo (married to a Spanish‑American woman and former Alianza member) was very
sympathetic to the Spanish‑Americans.
It was rumored that he had come to an agreement with Reies
Tijerina. The state government
would not interfere with the meetings, provided that the Alianza promised to
respect all state laws. The night before
the meeting Governor Cargo left the state to ostensibly visit Governor Romney
in Michigan.
But on June 2 District Attorney Alfonso Sanchez defined the Alianza
meeting as an illegal assembly.
Local and state police began arresting all the Alianza members they
could find. No time was provided
the Alianza members to return home between the banning of the meeting and the
police sweep. Quite a large number
were picked up, but the police missed Reies L. Tijerina and a militant group of
followers, who escaped into the woods.
Although Cargo had left the state when the police sweep around Coyote
took place, I learned several years later that he may have ordered the arrests
before he left.
In making the arrests, the police broke into homes without warrants,
seized parents (members of the Alianza), and took them from the midst of their
frightened and intimidated children.
The arrested people were thrown into jail and kept there in violation of
civil procedures. Law enforcement
agencies in the region, both state and local, fell over themselves patting each
other on the back about the way they handled the explosive situation in Coyote.
Angered by what they regarded as the violation of state promises,
the Alianza decided to send a group of armed men (headed by Reies Tijerina) to
attack the Tierra Amarilla courthouse on June 5 to make a citizen's arrest of
Alfonso Sanchez. The seven
raiders, arriving after the preliminary hearings had been held and those
arrested released on bond, occupied the courthouse, shot two deputy sheriffs,
exchanged shots with the police, took two hostages, forced their way through
several police blockades, and vanished into the mountains.
The Lt. Governor had called out the National Guard, mobilized the
state police, the Jicarilla Apache tribal police, and several sheriff's posses
from the Anglo‑American sections of the state. Tanks, trucks and jeeps rumbled in convoy after convoy along
the narrow mountain roads of Rio Arriba County. Planes and helicopters flew overhead, but no one left the
roads. It was rumored that
numerous armed guerrilla bands were forming in the mountains.
Several small Spanish‑American villages such as Canjilon, inhabited
by many Alianza sympathizers, were surrounded. People were removed from their homes and placed in sheep
corrals or buses for many hours without food or water while their homes and the
surrounding areas were searched by National Guardsmen or state police. During the day of the 6th, northern Rio
Arriba County was treated by police and National Guardsmen as though it were an
enemy country in the process of being occupied.
On June 5 I taught my classes at the university and came home after
lunch and worked on a paper most of the afternoon. Father Robert Garcia, head of the New Mexican State O.E.O.
office in Santa Fe called me around 6:00 p.m. to relate the events. He reported that chaos and hysteria
reigned in Santa Fe with no one apparently in control. Saying that an armed confrontation was
possible between the police and the guard on one hand and Spanish‑American
groups on the other, he asked me to come up to Santa Fe to help control the
situation. I said I wouldn't
come. I had argued for over a year
that violence was possible in New Mexico, only to come under sharp attack from
state officials and from the press.
Then a Mr. Prentice, an aid to Lt. Governor Frances, called. I made a number of suggestions about
reducing tension such as sharply reducing the number of poorly‑trained
Guardsmen and police in northern Rio Arriba County before someone got shot.
Thinking that my role had ended, I went to bed. But at 1:00 a.m. Father Garcia called
again to tell me that a state plane would pick me up at the Southwest Ranger's
section of the municipal airport.
Events were simply pulling me into the imbroglio in northern New Mexico,
whether I wanted to get involved or not.
Ruth packed a small bag for me and I drove to the airport to be met by
the pilot. A Charles Dualiby was
on board from the State O.E.O. office.
He explained the sequence of events, from which I gathered that Governor
Cargo had lost control of the situation to his Attorney General, Boston Witt;
the District Attorney, Alfonso Sanchez; and the head of the state police, who
simply ignored the governor as he tried to prevent violence.
Upon arrival in Santa Fe I was taken to a motel. Father Garcia, Antonio Tinajero and Joe
Benitez were there. We discussed
the situation throughout the night.
I called the duty officer at F.B.I. headquarters in Washington, D.C., to
report the gross violation of civil rights to him. My friends then told me that rumors in the state capitol had
it that Cuban guerrilla experts with heavy weapons from Cuba had been
parachuted to armed Spanish‑Americans bands forming in the hills; arson squads
had been organized to burn down Anglo‑American towns; assassination squads were
prowling the streets, hunting down hostile Anglo‑American leaders; and an armed
attack upon Santa Fe was expected any moment. Lt. Governor Frances had set up a war room in the state
capitol from which he was issuing war communiqués.
The next morning we met with Governor Cargo and persuaded him to
call off the national guard, the Apache tribal police, and the Anglo‑American
possees, as well as most of the state police‑‑which he did. In the process he was savagely
criticized by Alfonso Sanchez, Captain Black (commander of the state police),
and the state newspapers. Governor
Cargo told me that he had read several of my papers and wanted to receive
copies of everything that I had written.
After leaving the Governor's office, our little group tried to
interest the New Mexico Civil Liberties Association in the massive civil rights
violations that had taken place, but to no avail. In some bitterness we went over to the jail to try to talk
to some of the arrested Alianza people to secure a coherent account of what had
happened. The warden refused to
let us talk to anyone. As I stood
there arguing, I saw a newspaper reporter from the Albuquerque Journal come into a room occupied by Tijerina's pregnant
wife. When I pointed this out to
the warden I was informed that the man was a lawyer.
Leaving the jail in disgust, we encountered Lorenzo Tapia, a former
assistant to Senator Chavez and a lawyer.
He commented on the massive civil rights violation. I told him he was just what we
needed. I went over our
experiences with the F.B.I., the Civil Liberties group, and the warden and
asked him to represent the incarcerated.
On the spur of the moment he said he would. He called Alfonso Sanchez to state that he represented the
people in jail, wanted to see his clients, and desired to know what charges had
been filed against them. I could
hear Alfonso Sanchez screaming over the phone that they were Communists who did
not deserve a lawyer. They had now
been held for two days without being allowed to communicate with anyone or to
secure legal assistance.
After the telephone call we walked back to the prison, demanded to
see the prisoners, and to know what charges had been filed against them. The warden permitted us to see the
prisoners, but could not find a charge sheet. We talked to each prisoner, advising him of his legal rights
and letting each know that he had an attorney. We urged them to tell no one except us about their presumed
activities. The prisoners looked
at us as though we were an answer to their prayers, which I am sure we
were. As I looked at these humble,
hard‑working Spanish‑Americans detained in violation of the law, my heart went
out to them.
By now it was very late at night. After securing something to eat, we slept for several hours‑‑the
first sleep I had had since coming to Santa Fe. The next morning we went over to the governor's office. The governor told us that he had talked
to Reies Tijerina over the phone, urging him to surrender. He told us that Reies refused until the
governor could guarantee his life, as the police had orders to take him dead or
alive.
The next morning Tinajero, Benitez and I walked over to the
governor's office. The sense of
crisis had evaporated, to be replaced by a sense of depression, bewilderment,
uncertainness, and perhaps a feeling of guilt. No one really seemed to be in charge. The governor asked many questions about
the socioeconomic conditions of northern New Mexico. I felt sorry for Governor Cargo. He seemed to be a well‑meaning, decent man, genuinely
sympathetic to the Spanish‑Americans, who had simply lost control of the
situation and did not know quite what to do.
Leaving the governor's office we walked over to the courthouse to
observe the arraignment of the jailed Aliancistas to Judge Scarborough. The courthouse was surrounded by a ring
of heavily‑armed police, who carefully checked everyone approaching the
building. The stairwell and
corridors were also lined with armed police. I noted armed federal marshals standing around the walls of
the courtroom. Even the judge and
some of the lawyers were armed, all victims of their own fear. The defendants, including Tijerina's 19
year‑old daughter and his pregnant wife, were denied bail and ordered to be
held in the state penitentiary on capital charges.
As I left the courtroom Joe Benitez came running up to me. He pulled me aside to say that Don
Devereaux had asked him to let me know that Reies Tijerina would like me to
bring a sympathetic reporter, Peter Nabakov of the New Mexican, into his hideout. Nabakov, the nephew of the author of Lolita, had been at Canjilon when the police and guardsmen raided
the town. Benitez and I drove over
to Devereaux's apartment. We
waited until a long‑distance, collect telephone call came in to let us know
that the trip was on. Joe drove
the reporter and me to Cuba by a long, circuitous route through back roads to
dodge any police surveillance. We
stopped at a lonely parking lot on the outskirts of Cuba. As I recall it was the parking lot of
either a store or a school. We
stood as ordered with our backs to the road. A man came up and, blindfolding us, led us to the back seat
of a car. We got in and were
driven for several hours. We then
were taken from the car to a pickup truck and traveled for several more
hours. The truck finally stopped
on an open hillside. The
blindfolds were taken off. Unknown
armed men led us, stumbling, through the dark over a rocky hillside to a well‑concealed
wooden house with electricity. Joe
and I talked to Reies and to Anselmo for about an hour. We suggested that as the police had
orders to get him dead or alive he ought to stay in the hills until the
hysteria had died down.
While the reporter was talking to Reies, Joe and I talked in Spanish
to the young guards. Having heard
that modern automatic weapons had been smuggled into northern New Mexico by
Cubans, I carefully looked at the arms carried by the guards and found them to
be deer rifles and shotguns. Although
woefully armed compared to the New Mexican National Guard and the state police,
they could still become an effective guerrilla band.
We left the same way we came in. The man who took us out had worked for the Forest Service
for 15 years and knew every inch of the Kit Carson National Forest. Arriving at our motel around 8:00 a.m.
I went to bed and slept until around noon. I then ate lunch and walked over to the state capitol
building. Reporters swarming over
the area around the governor's office kept wanting to know who had sent for
me. I said nothing. I heard that the state police had tried
to arrest Father Garcia in the governor's office. Knowing the Nabakov's article might be out in that evening's
paper and that the police were looking for those who had contact with Tijerina,
I decided to return to El Paso.
Upon my arrival I found a letter from Dr. Petty of the Southwest
Educational Laboratory, Albuquerque, offering me a position at a salary
substantially higher than I was making at UTEP. Regretfully, as I had become a very controversial person in
New Mexico, I declined the offer.
One morning Walter Dwyer came by my office to inform me that he had just
attended a meeting of conservative Anglo‑American political and business
leaders in El Paso, at which both Millan and Joe Yarborough discussed an
extensive dossier on my life and activities. They seemed to be quite disappointed that my record was so
clean that there was nothing that they could use against me. For a long time I had had the feeling
that investigators were seeking information about my past.
On June 12 Father Robert Garcia called me from Washington, D.C., to
ask me to testify before the Reznick Subcommittee on Rural Poverty. The next day I received a telegram from
the Reznick Subcommittee inviting me to appear before them. Receiving permission from President
Ray, I explained the situation to my fascinated classes and flew to the
national capital. Appearing at the
Congressional chambers, I found Governor Cargo, Alex Mercure, Tom Carter,
Lorenzo Tapia, and others from New Mexico. In my presentation I discussed the causes and
characteristics of rural poverty in northern New Mexico, analyzed the origin
and development of rural unrest in the region, and urged that some government
agency develop a program to buy up the community land grants lost to the
Spanish‑Americans and return them to the local people. Governor Cargo and I had time for a
long talk. He admitted to a
massive violation of civil rights and to over‑reaction on the part of the state
law enforcement agencies. Cargo
also gave a good discussion on the nature of rural poverty in northern New
Mexico. I submitted a set of my
papers on northern New Mexico that were included in the subcommittee's report.
I was photographed with Governor Cargo and with Congressman Reznick
and then interviewed by Sarah McLendon, the famous, somewhat cantankerous,
woman reporter from Texas whom I had come to admire and respect for her
integrity and honesty. Later I
went over the situation on northern New Mexico with a large group of reporters
and government employees. My
comments were quoted around the nation.
I returned to El Paso a notorious person. Students began to appear in my classes with tape recorders
to tape my lectures on poverty, the Southwest and New Mexico.
Right in the middle of the excitement, the New Mexican Business Review published my article on land loss among
the Spanish‑Americans, entitled "The Land Question in New
Mexico." It caused quite a
furor in the state. Margaret Meador,
the editor of the Review, mentioned
to me later that over 400 reprints had been requested‑‑the largest number of
reprints ever requested for any article.
My enigmatic friend from New Mexico, Don Devereaux, called to tell me
that he quite liked my article and asked permission to reproduce and distribute
it.
Much to my surprise, on June 26 I received a special delivery letter
from my friend Ralph Guzman asking me to attend a meeting sponsored by the
Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. My paper published in the Review would serve as the foundation document to guide the
discussion among the fellows of the Center. President Ray authorized travel money for me to make the
trip. I flew on June 28 to Los
Angeles. Before going I wrote a
letter to be smuggled into Reies at the state prison, urging him to place full
confidence in the efforts of Lorenzo Tapia and Ralph Driscoll to defend
him. In Los Angeles I was met by
Don Devereaux, who drove me to a cafe where I encountered Alex Mercure, head of
Project Help in New Mexico, plus Charles from the El Paso Museum. We talked away the night.
Around six the next morning Don Devereaux and John Aragon from the
University of New Mexico came by.
Don drove us to Santa Barbara, an extremely lovely city. I especially enjoyed the view from the
Center. Don told me that much of
the population of Santa Barbara was made up of wealthy retirees from the
Midwest who were strongly opposed to the Center and its diverse programs. At the Center we were met by a Mr.
Terry, the Executive Director.
I rejoiced to see my old friends of many a combat, Dr. Ernesto
Galarza and Father Robert Garcia.
Even Graciela Olivarez from the Choate Foundation in Arizona was
there. I did not get all the names
of the people in attendance, but I remember Bishop Pike, several of whose books
I had read, and Rex Tugwell, a New Deal figure whom I greatly admired. Alex Mercure opened our discussion by
analyzing the complicated socioeconomic situation in northern New Mexico. I followed with an analysis of the
political system of New Mexico, the role of the elite (both Anglo‑American and
Spanish‑American) in the alienation of the community land grants, and the
recurrent cycles of unrest generated by the land grant issue. We enjoyed a very fine lunch and then
carried on a splendid dialogue on northern New Mexico and the Spanish‑Americans. Graciela embarrassed me by stating that
I was the first scholar to enter the lists on behalf of the Spanish‑American
people in the current generation.
My ego was enhanced by the many compliments I received by the well‑known
men and women in attendance at our discussions.
Upon my return to El Paso I was faced with a very distasteful and
unhappy situation. Rudy Tapia, a
former student of mine and an employee of the Upward Bound Program on campus
administered by my close friend, Ralph Segalman, came to my office to notify me
that Ralph had forged the names of members of the department on letters of
recommendation to the Chancellor's Office of the University of Texas system
supporting his candidacy for the position of Dean of the School of Social
Work. Later that afternoon he
brought in Mary Tafoya, a former secretary in the Upward Bound Program, who
informed me that Segalman kept a mistress on the payroll, ordered expensive
equipment for his talented, spastic son, Robert, and mistreated the Mexican‑American
staff. I immediately notified
Milton Leach, our Vice President, who informed President Ray. The next day Salvador Ramirez came by
with information gathered from still other members of the Upward Bound
staff. I then called the
Washington office of the Upward Bound Program.
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