La Voz - September 2016

a publication of the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center

September 2016, Vol. 29 Issue 7

San Antonio, Tejas

50th Anniversary of Melon Pickers Strike & march Inside: The SA Connection, “Los Courts”, Historias de El Salvador y mas!

Let us honor the Starr County Farm Workers who led a strike in the melon

San Antonio

Austin

Editor Gloria A. Ramírez Design Elizandro Carrington Editorial Assistance Donna Guerra, Rachel Jennings Contributors Gloria Almaraz, Yon Hui Bell, Rebecca Flores, Tomás Ybarra Frausto, Rodolfo Rosales, Elena Terrill, Gary Sánchez

Labor Day, Monday, September5

Sunday, September 11th

La Voz de Esperanza

is a publication of Esperanza Peace & Justice Center 922 San Pedro, San Antonio, TX 78212

210.228.0201 • fax 1.877.327.5902 www.esperanzacenter.org Inquiries/Articles can be sent to:

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Articles due by the 8th of each month

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* We ask that articles be visionary, progressive, instructive & thoughtful. Submissions must be literate & critical; not sexist, racist, homophobic, violent, or oppressive & may be edited for length. * All letters in response to Esperanza activities or articles in La Voz will be considered for publication.

Letters with intent to slander individuals or groups will not be published.

to Commemorate

(known as Plaza de Zacate where Emma Tenayuca held rallies ru for the pecan shellers Sa n in the 30’s. Tenayuca’s monument stands there today.)

50th

Anniversary Celebration

Antonio

Noon • Rally and program with guests at the Kiosk at Milam Park

Editor’s note: In this issue of La Voz, we give readers a sense of what the 50th anniversary of the Melon Pickers Strike and March means to Tejanos by using historical photos from the UFW website and excerpts of information. Visit https:// farmworkers2016.org/ to view more photos and documents.

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11 am • March begins from Main Plaza to Milam Park

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• We advocate for a wide variety of social, economic & environmental justice issues.

• Opinions expressed in La Voz are not necessarily those of the Esperanza Center.

10am • Mass at the Cathedral

ea

La Voz Mail Collective Dudley Brooks, Irasema Cavazos, Ana Christilles, Charlie & Mary Esperiqueta, Paz García, Ray McDonald, Roger Singler, Claudia Enriquez, Araceli Herrera, Angelita Merla, Caleb Rackley, María N. Reed, Natalie Rodríguez, Hunter Sosby, Helen Villarreal, Zurina Wason-Carrington, Gail Wise, Tomás Ybarra-Frausto Esperanza Director Graciela I. Sánchez Esperanza Staff Imelda Arismendez, Elizandro Carrington, Elisa Pérez, Gianna Rendón, René Saenz, Susana Segura, Amelia Valdez Interns Anastasia Christilles, Paz García, Natalie Rodríguez Conjunto de Nepantleras -Esperanza Board of DirectorsRachel Jennings, Amy Kastely, Jan Olsen, Ana Lucía Ramírez, Gloria A. Ramírez, Rudy Rosales, Tiffany Ross, Lilliana Saldaña, Nadine Saliba, Graciela I. Sánchez, Lillian Stevens

10 am • Mass at the Chapel of St Edward’s University on S. W o m r k r er Congress Ave. Fa St ty

9:30 am • Gather at San Fernando Cathedral on Main Plaza

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LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • September 2016 Vol. 29 Issue 7•

La Voz de Esperanza

fields the summer of 1966, and marched 400 miles starting on July 4th from the Valley to Austin, Texas, arriving at the State Capitol on Labor Day. In San Antonio, 1,000 people joined the March passing through Hwy 181. In Austin, 10,000 people joined the last 4 miles from St Edward’s University to the State Capitol.

11 am • the unveiling of a marker at Ragsdale Student Center, St. Edward’s U.

Noon • Program begins at the Quad on Campus

1 pm • March to the Capitol 4 pm • Rally at the Capitol

Other articles include San Antonio’s Connection to the UFW, The AlazanApache Courts (Part 2), Historias de El Salvador, An open letter to the community from the parent of a transgender child, The Bexar Co. Dispute Resolution Center and Public Spaces. ¡Gracias, buena gente!

— Gloria A. Ramírez

Acknowledgement: The article“I’m A Back Female College Professor in Texas” written

by Dr. Meredith Clark in the July/Ag 2016 issue of La Voz was originally published in The Trace website (May 27, 2016). Our apologies as this was meant to be included in that issue.

ATTENTION VOZ READERS: If you have a mailing address correction please send it to lavoz@ esperanzacenter.org. If you want to be removed from the La Voz mailing list, for whatever reason, please let us know. La Voz is provided as a courtesy to people on the mailing list of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center.

The subscription rate is $35 per year ($100 for institutions). The cost of producing and mailing La Voz has substantially increased and we need your help to keep it afloat. To help, send in your subscriptions, sign up as a monthly donor, or send in a donation to the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center. Thank you. -GAR VOZ VISION STATEMENT: La Voz de Esperanza speaks for many individual, progressive voices who are gente-based, multi-visioned and milagro-bound. We are diverse survivors of materialism, racism, misogyny, homophobia, classism, violence, earth-damage, speciesism and cultural and political oppression. We are recapturing the powers of alliance, activism and healthy conflict in order to achieve interdependent economic/ spiritual healing and fuerza. La Voz is a resource for peace, justice, and human rights, providing a forum for criticism, information, education, humor and other creative works. La Voz provokes bold actions in response to local and global problems, with the knowledge that the many risks we take for the earth, our body, and the dignity of all people will result in profound change for the seven generations to come.

50th Anniversary Melon Pickers Strike of starr county

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • September 2016 Vol. 29 Issue 7

On June 1, 2016, Texas will celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the historic day in 1966 when farm workers in Starr County launched a strike against 6 melon growers demanding that their wages be raised from the 40cents-an-hour pittance they were being paid. This event by the poorest paid workers in the state of Texas was the spark that lit the fire that moved Chicanos to change the status quo. It insured that the farm worker union movement would be a permanent fixture in Texas.

Farm labor has been one of the least paid occupations in the U.S. primarily because of its exclusion from protective legislation that was passed by FDR’s New Deal legislation for workers in industrial jobs. This protection that included the right to have unions, set a minimum wage, allowed for unemployment compensation and workers compensation, was denied specifically to farm workers. To pass his New Deal legislation, FDR was forced to compromise with southern Congressmen who wanted to preserve the plantation system in the south, and exclude African American farm workers from these protections.

For that decision, millions of farm workers of all races have lived at the bottom of the income levels, have suffered dire poverty during off seasons, and have had poor deteriorating health because of disabling accidents in the fields. Each state in this country has a farm labor force, and workers in each state have had to forge their own way against strong Farm Bureau opposition to make a better life for themselves.

This began to change in 1966, 50 years ago, in Texas when farm workers in Starr County, a county which was characterized by stark poverty, decided that they would no longer harvest melons for 40cents an hour in the hot humid summer months of Starr County.

The country was in the midst of the Civil Rights and the farm labor movement in Delano, California. Farmworkers in Texas knew about Delano because many would migrate to pick in the California fields, and they brought back the stories about Cesar Chavez and the Grape Strike of 1965.

In April 1966, 1000 farm workers in Starr County signed cards with the IWA (the predecessor of the United Farm Workers), and voted to strike against 6 melon growers in Starr County. On June 1, 1966, the strike began, and on that very first day, the Texas Rangers, the law enforcement arm for the growers whose salaries were paid with our taxes, arrested the Union representative, Eugene Nelson, for disturbing the peace. I say, “Hell yes he was disturbing the peace and it was about time.” The Texas Rangers and the local Sheriff’s deputies continued the harassment of these farm workers until the end of the melon season in mid-June.

On July 4, 1966, farm workers and their families voted to begin a march that would take

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Rebecca Flores of the UFW has organized the 50th anniversary commemoration of the Melon Pickers March and Strike.

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The workers in Rio Grande voted to join their Independent Workers Association with the National Farm Workers Association, led by Cesar Chavez. Then in August, 1966, the NFWA merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to form a new union, the United Farm Workers, AFL-CIO.

August 31, 1966: Texas Governor John Connally, Attorney General Waggoner Carr, and Speaker Ben Barnes met up with marchers near New Braunfels to tell them to go back—that Connally would not be at the Capitol on their arrival, and that he would not call for a special session for establishing a Texas Minimum Wage Law of $1.25. (Pictured are Connally, Barnes and Catholic priest Antonio Gonzalez.)

An unidentified artist depicted La Marcha that thousands joined along the way from the Valley to Austin ending on Labor Day, 1966. Over 15,000 people had joined the 400 mile Marcha by the final day.

Continued from Previous Page them from Rio Grande City to Austin, Texas, to demand that the State legislature pass a Texas Minimum Wage law and set it at $1.25. At that time Texas did not have a Minimum Wage Law; although the federal minimum wage was $1.25. They marched through the valley and town after town through South Texas and garnered public attention through the media. Because of those thousands of steps on the dusty hot roads of Texas, people woke up along the way and witnessed up close their determination, their daily personal sacrifices, their humiliation by Governor Connally in New Braunfels and took it to heart. People across Texas decided that they also would take up this struggle and change the status quo.

This historic event 50 years ago by unassuming farm workers from Starr County has been untold in history books. The events that will be held in 2016 throughout Texas, starting with the June 1st event in Rio Grande City, are a first step in telling this story that is important to Chicanos and to all Texans who fight for equality every day.

Marchers with signs that state, in the front: “Justicia para el condado Estrella”/”Justice for Starr County” and behind, “Huelga”/”Strike.

The six major growers in Starr County included La Casita Farms, Griffen & Brand (aka Trophy Farms), Starr Farms (aka Los Puertos Plantations), Sun-Tex Farms, Margo Farms, and Elmore & Stahl.

Friends Join Our Cause As the March wound through South Texas, thousands of farm workers joined in for a mile, a day, a week. Mayors of Roma, Grulla. La Joya, and Edinburgh endorsed the demands of the strikers. Bishop Humberto Medeiros greeted the farm workers in San Juan and held a special mass for them in the shrine there. Then the marchers set out for Corpus Christie, San Antonio, and finally Austin. Joining the farm workers were members from almost every union in Texas, religious leaders from all major faiths, and thousands of sympathizers.

“The Law” Against the Strike The Starr County political machine (“New Party”) Immediately sided with the growers. The County officials actively tried to break the strike. County employees sprayed union members with insecticide. County cops forcibly pushed workers into the fields, and made threats to keep them there, One District Judge outlawed all picketing.

La Marcha Ends an Era La Marcha ended in triumph on Labor Day, 1966. Over 15,000 people joined in the final day. The leaders of the farm workers, Domingo Arredondo, Eugene Nelson, and César Chavez; leaders of the AFL-CIO and unions throughout the state and nation; public servants; Mexican-American groups; and thousands of rank and file workers form every walk of life joined in that final glorious day.

The March did not win any contracts, or even state passage of a $1.25 minimum wage. But it ended forever the myth that Mexican- Americans were “happy, contented, satisfied” with second – class citizenship and a life of poverty.

Political upsets that fall showed that Mexican-American would no longer blindly accept a corrupt political machine that opposed their interests. Thousands of workers began organizing and joining Unions throughout the State, and the whole labor movement was the beneficiary of this new spirit.

La Marcha was symbolic of and contributed to the ever quickening awakening of the Mexicans- Americans in Texas.

It was symbolic of the end of an era. But the hard task of organizing farm workers of building a democratic Union and a new social order of justice lay ahead.

Over 400 workers voted to go on strike against the melon growers of Starr County on June 1, 1966. Many workers immediately sought work outside the strike zone. Others began their yearly migrations to other states, leaving a month earlier than usual. The growers immediately began recruiting strikebreakers in Mexico. And wages began going up, as La Casita announced a new wage of $1 an hour and other growers began paying 70 cents or 80 cents an hour. Over 80% of the work force quit the first day, and every packing shed in the County was shut out.

United We Stand The workers in Rio Grande voted to join their Independent Workers Association with the National Farm Workers Association, led by César Chavez. Then in August, 1966, the NFWA merged with the Agriculture Workers Organization Committee to form a new union, the United Farm Workers, AFL – CIO. Now all farm workers were united in one strong union, and the movement was gaining strength throughout the nation.

“We Must Let the Whole World Know” The melon harvest ended in mid-June, with growers blaming their poor harvest on the weather and strikers claiming a partial victory. But no contracts were in sight. The workers decided to make a pilgrimage march, as had been done in California, to dramatize the state and nations the conditions and wages and suffering that farm workers must endure, and to rally support for the cause among other farm workers and sympathizers.

This excerpt and photos used with permission from https:// farmworkers2016.org/2016/01/12/photos-fotos/

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • September 2016 Vol. 29 Issue 7

HUELGA!

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San Antonio’s connection to the UFW

Left to right: President Obama with Helen Chávez at her husband’s gravesite in the town of Keene, California, site of the new national monument; Arturo Rodriguez, UFW president with Helen Chávez, Obama and Dolores Huerta; and locally, Arturo Rodríguez, District 5 Council Woman Shirley Gonzáles and Henry Rodríguez of LULAC.

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • September 2016 Vol. 29 Issue 7•

By: Gloria Almaraz

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Arturo Rodríguez, President of the United Farm Workers (UFW), spoke to a group at Las Palmas Library on April 25th saying, “I never thought it possible,” as he spoke about the UFW signing a contract with Gallo Wines in the state of Washington.

Mr. Rodríguez succeeded César Chávez who, along with Dolores Huerta, founded the organization in 1962. In his speech, he gave a history of the farmworkers’ movement, his own involvement and provided insight into what the union is currently doing.

Born and raised in San Antonio, Mr. Rodríguez was a student at St. Margaret Mary School and La Salle High School. He received his undergraduate degree in sociology from St. Mary’s University. His interest in the farm workers’ plight was sparked by his parish priest, Father Marvin Doerfler, who had been active in the Rio Grande Valley and was arrested in in the melon pickers strikes. Arturo’s father, a sheet metal worker, was supportive of César Chávez’s work for the farm workers in California.

Mr. Rodríguez was convinced to continue his education at the University of Michigan by fellow San Antonian, Rebecca Flores, already at the university. His interest in the farmworkers’ movement escalated after meeting César Chávez who spoke on campus.

Later, he met Richard Chávez, César’s brother, who was recruiting on campus. In time, he helped organize boycotts of lettuce and grapes at Detroit supermarkets. He received his Master’s in sociology from the University of Michigan in 1973 and joined the UFW with César Chávez as his “mentor for 20 years.” With César Chávez’s passing on April 23, 1993, Arturo Rodríguez was asked to head the organization.

Rodríguez informed the Las Palmas audience that he is now “negotiating with growers and retailers in several states for better wages and working conditions. Other areas that the UFW is currently involved in are: political and legislative work to improve farmworkers’ working and living conditions, medical benefits, unemployment benefits, overtime pay, heat exposure, farm safety, use of pesticides, affordable housing, etc.

While most of us have heard of the grape boycotts and marches in Delano, California during the 1960’s, few have heard of the march

that took place in Texas from Rio Grande City to Austin in the summer of 1966 to protest the wages that Texas farmworkers were being paid to harvest cantaloupes. Along the way, protesters were beaten by Texas Rangers and arrested by Starr County sheriff deputies.

Farmworkers who earned $.40 an hour requested that Texas Governor John Connally call a special session of the legislature to raise the minimum wage to $1.25. The governor refused to meet with the marchers, who numbered more than 10,000; and it wasn’t until 1970 that the minimum wage was increased to $1.40. These events became the catalyst for the Chicano movement in Texas.

A 50th anniversary of that 400-mile march is being planned this summer in several Texas cities with San Antonio commemorating the observance with a mass on September 5, Labor Day, at San Fernando Cathedral to be celebrated by San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo Siller. The mass will be followed by a march to Milam Park.

Mr. Rodríguez announced that the UFW has been successful in signing several contracts with growers. Union membership is also on the rise in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Washington, and Washington D.C. Colorado will soon join.

An interesting addition to Mr. Rodríguez talk was his mention that on May 12, 2012 President Obama visited the 116-acre National Chávez Center in Keene, California and designated a portion of the property as the César E. Chávez National Monument, the 398th monument to be so named and the first national park site to honor a contemporary Latino American.

The site served as national headquarters for the UFW, home and workplace for César Chávez and his family from the 1970’s to the time of his death in 1993, the Chávez Center, and his gravesite.

If elected as President of the United States, Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic Party presidential candidate, has indicated that immigration would be one of the first issues she would pursue within 100 days of being in office and has asked Mr. Rodríguez to chair a national immigration policy committee.

For more on the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument go to www.nationalparks.org and for more on the 1966 Texas march go to www.farmworkers2016.org.

Bio: Gloria Almaraz, who graduated from Brackenridge High School is a free lance journalist in San Antonio.

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Editor’s Note: As the Westside Preservation Alliance researches the history of “Los Courts” in San Antonio” we will keep Voz readers informed of our finds. In the July/Ag 2016 issue of La Voz, Sarah Zenaida Gould’s photo essay, Before the Courts provided a look into conditions in the area where the Courts were built. In the same issue, Donna Morales Guerra introduced us to life in the Westside of San Antonio from the 30s to the 50s with a photo essay that highlighted social actions that church and community centers provided for the neighborhood. In this issue we examine the building of the Alazan-Apache Courts with information found in the document, A Pictorial Supplement to the 1939 Annual Report filed by the Housing Authority of the City of San Antonio, Texas for USHA, The United States Housing Authority.

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Housing in the United States was born with the transformative and utopian ideal that it could alter people and places. A core aim was to create liveable communities in spite of the social and cultural forces working against poor and working class people.

Los Courts in San Antonio standing for more than half a century until today did create a sense of a self-contained community and created pride in its residents. However, eventually, the social conditions of poverty, social exclusion and segregation marginalized those living in public housing. ublic

By the millenium, changing social policy, urban renewal and the demise of the “inner city” further made “Los Courts” undesirable options for young families who would, instead, leave the westside barrios for suburbia.

In the global present, afforable housing continues to be a pressing social concern nationwide. San Antonio is today a minority majority city with a deepening economic disparity between white and communities of color. For the majority Mexican American society, education, jobs, transportation and environmental concerns remain core issues of contemporary urban life.

Can there be new and revolutionary ideas to replace the commonplace trope of inevitable decline in public housing or will people’s needs be subsumed by market greed in the 21st Century?

Projects for safe, healthy neighborhoods must balance economic developement with the cultural heritage and history of local communities. The Alazán-Apache Courts remain a vital resource of human values and cultural assets. Across time, the Alazán-Apache Courts have harbored generations of poor and working class families who created a community of resilience and solidarity. Many current and former dwellers, as well as neighboring residents have many stories about “Los Courts” that demonstarte the power of place and memory. “Los Courts” are an integral part of San Antonio and United States history.

—Tomás Ybarra Frausto

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Original caption from USHA’s pictorial supplement: The buildings at the top of the picture are soon to be demolished in peparation for the building of Apache Courts—an extension to Alazan Courts. The crowd shown above is listening to music by the Mexican Orchestra. | Note: The crowd gathered for the inauguration cermonies of the Alazán-Apache Courts on June 28, 1940. They viewed demonstaration units of the Alazan Courts afterwards. “Los Courts” are the oldest public housing in San Antonio and are among the first authorized public housing in the nation.

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During the 1930s more than 100,000 Mexican Americans lived in San Antonio, many of them in little more than shacks with nt o n i o ’s We tin roofs, dirt floors, and scrapmaterial walls. These dwellings had no indoor plumbing, and sanitation was primitive. In 1937, during the Great Depression, the United States Housing Authority was established. San Antonio began its own San Antonio Housing Authority on June 17, 1937. Among the five SAHA commissioners the one most responsible for promoting the Alazan-Apache project was the Italian-born Father Carmelo Tranchese, pastor of the Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. In September 1937 the USHA agreed to fund the San Antonio housing program.

Five projects were scheduled: Alazan and Apache Courts for Mexican Americans, Lincoln Heights and Wheatley Courts for blacks, and Victoria Courts for whites. Many of the nearly 500 landlords who had to be bought out, however, demanded compensation beyond that allocated. Angered, the USHA administrator ordered the projects stopped in early March 1939. Eleanor Roosevelt intervened, and work began on the Alazan project in July with the demolition of the 929 substandard structures that occupied the site.

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Alazan opened some of its units in August 1940 and the rest by early 1941. The project cost nearly $4 million. In less than a year the smaller, adjacent Apache Courts was scheduled for completion at a cost of $1,116,000. The USHA requirement that union labor be used for construction prevented local Mexican Americans from working on the project and added to its cost. The total cost of the five housing projects was over $10 million. The federal government loaned 90 percent of the necessary funding, while the required 10-percent local contribution was raised through a bond drive. All debts were repaid though rents. By the end of 1942 the 2,554 single-family units in all five projects were open for nearly 10,000 tenants, including 4,994 tenants in the 1,180 single-family dwellings in the Alazan-Apache projects. The carefully constructed buildings contained multiple singlefamily dwellings, which ranged from three to 6½ rooms each, including private bathrooms and kitchens. All were equipped with modern appliances. On-site services included library facilities, health clinics, and social, recreational, and educational programs. The cost of the utilities and services was included in the tenants’ rent, which ranged from $8.75 to $14.00 a month. Eligibility for the housing was determined by minimum and maximum annual salary limits, which varied depending on family size. United States citizenship was required by the SAHA as one way of reducing the number of applicants, who far outnumbered the units available. The occupants of the Alazan-Apache Courts formed a tenants’ association to maintain the project, and their courts were judged by some observers to be “the best maintained housing project in the United States.” The success of the projects led to demands for more. Tranchese headed the cause. Lack of funding, however, and the developing World War II made the effort unproductive, and public housing development in San Antonio ceased until the 1950s.

—Excerpts from Handbook of Texas Online, Donald L. Zelman, “Alazan-Apache Courts,” accessed 08.12.16, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/mpa01.

Artists Perspective of Typical Block in Alazan Courts. Separate back yards. Play areas for sma Separate sanitary facilities for each family. Permanent construction — for low repairs and low r

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all children, large play areas for young and old. Good drainage, sidewalks. Ample ventilation and sunlight. rents.

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Alazan Courts apartments came in a variety of sizes and prices. They were not furnished but borrowed furniture was used to promote its sales. Pictured rooms include a typical living room, kitchen with metal shelves, and bedroom.

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Father Carmelo Tranchese is recognized during the inaugural ceremony “as the leader and father of the development.”

An extract from his remarks: “Mis queridos amigos, hoy estamos muy felices. Esta felicidad nace de una nueva vida familiar. Ustedes saben que por muchos años yo he trabajado en interesar al Gobierno en un proyecto de viviendas en San Antonio. Hoy, tal proyecto esta por ser terminado.

Dentro de poco, algunos de ustedes tendrán la oportunidad de mudarse a estas bonitas, limpias y saludables habitaciones. Traten a estos espacios mejor que sus propioas casas. Embelliscan sus patios, hagan uso del edificio comunitario y de todos sus servicios. Estoy muy agradecido a todos los que han animado y

ayudado a la Autoridad Local en esta empresa...”

English translation: My dear friends, today we are all very happy. May this happiness, brought about by a new home life, continue. For years, you know how I have struggled—how we all have struggled—to get our Government interested in a Housing Project in San Antonio. Today, a Housing Project is nearing completion.

Soon, many of you will have the opportunity to move into these nice, clean and sanitary buildings. Treat these places better than you would your own homes. Beautify your yards, use the Community Building and all its facilities. I am grateful to all who have encouraged and assisted the Local Authority in this undertaking

Footnote: Donald J. Zelman, “Alazan Apache Courts: A New Deal Response to Mexican American Housing Conditions in San Antonio in Southwestern Historical Quarterly, The Texas State Historical Association, Vol. xxxvii no. 2, October, 1983. r ving His

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* Father Tranchese’s vision for westside development was realized with the construction of the Alazan and Apache Courts.

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In 1932, Father Carmelo Tranchese became pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church and soon became a supporter and defender of his Mexican America congregation as they mobilized for better wages and working conditions. Often at their side, Father Tranchese established relief centers when workers were laid off their jobs. He was very involved in projects to improve health and sanitary conditions.

Equally significant, Father Tranchese revitalized the oral traditions and folk customs of his parishioners, particularly those related to Catholic religious cycles like Christmas, Easter and All Saints and Souls Day. He is noted for maintaining the presentation of la Pastorela (a medieval Spanish Shepahards’ play) that has been continuously presented at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church and at Mission San José.

One of Father Tranchese’s top priorities was to bring affordable public housing to San Antonio and he was selected to serve as one of five Comissioners on the San Antonio Housing Authority. In 1953, after suffering a nervous breakdown, Father Carmelo Tranchese took residence in Lousiana where he died of a heart attack on July 13, 1956.”(See citation below *)

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Open letter to the community from the parent of a transgender child: her gender expression and attempts to assert her true identity -- and in case you’re wondering, yes, bathrooms were horrible for her. In kindergarten.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. A recent study from the University of Washington found that transgender children who were affirmed in their identities had no greater risk for depression and anxiety than their cisgender (nontrans) peers. In other words, they are as happy and healthy as the kid next door.

(In fact, they might be the kid next door.

Many trans families live in “stealth” for their own protection. There is a reason our names are not on this article.) The obstacles to success and happiness faced by children like mine are not inherent to being trans. They are the direct result of being trans in a society that shuns them, which is why it is so important that we continue to strive for public awareness and education. Trans rights are not a distraction from important issues. For my daughter and thousands of others like her, they are the most important of issues. As long as our society continues to wage an ideological war on these children’s existence and to systematically ostracize them in schools and elsewhere, children like mine will continue to feel lesser than their peers simply for trying to live authentically. So to the schools, the legislatures, and the strangers rolling their eyes, please stop punishing transgender kids for their courage and integrity. I promise you’ll be glad you did.

Sincerely, A Loving Parent to a Beautiful Six-Year-Old Transgender Girl

Bexar County Dispute Resolution Center By: Elena Terrill Having problems with your neighbors? Unsatisfactory home repairs? Landlord keeping the security deposit or not responding to needs? Tenant not paying rent? The Bexar County Dispute Resolution Center (BCDRC) can help!

The BCDRC offers mediation and referral services to residents, businesses and organizations in Bexar Co. at no charge.

Located on the first floor of the Cadena-Reeves Justice Center, the BCDRC has served Bexar Co. for 32 years resolving conflicts and rebuilding relationships one case at a time through mediation.

Mediation is a voluntary, common-sense alternative to resolving disputes without the expense and inconvenience of going to court. Parties in conflict meet with a neutral, impartial mediator in a secure setting. The mediator helps all parties work towards a mutually agreeable solution. Mediations are confidential and are scheduled in a timely manner. Bilingual mediators are also available.

Types of disputes mediated at the Bexar County Dispute Reso-

lution Center include family conflicts, neighbor complaints, rental property issues, business/customer problems, real estate matters, child visitation issues, consumer problems and workplace issues.

Cases are mediated Monday through Thursday starting at 6pm so people do not have to miss work to participate in mediation. The BCDRC also mediates litigation cases referred by courts in Bexar County. Litigation mediations are available for people involved in law suits such as divorce cases, personal injury, real estate and personal property issues to name a few.

If mediation is not appropriate for a particular situation we may still help by providing referrals to other resources that might help you resolve your issue. Our goal is to try to help everyone who contacts the BCDRC .

For help, call the Bexar County Dispute Resolution Center at 210-335-2128 or visit us at 300 Dolorosa, Suite 1102, San Antonio, Texas 78205. We are open Monday-Thursday 8-8 PM and Friday 8-12 PM and 1-5 P.M. To learn more or to request mediation visit our website at www.bexar.org/drc.

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • September 2016 Vol. 29 Issue 7

I have a young transgender child whose struggle, heartache and triumph with gender identity teach me new ways to love both my children every day. My child happened to be born with male genitalia, and for a while we thought she was a boy. We were wrong. She is not just girly, she knows herself to be a girl. It’s not about a preference for pink and princesses (and dinosaurs, in her case). When she is misgendered as a boy (e.g. referred to with male pronouns), she is withdrawn, mistrustful, angry and depressed. For all their wonder, skirts and ballet lessons and fingernail polish are not enough to make her more exuberant and open and comfortable and joyful. She desperately needs to be a girl, not just secretly on the inside, but in her family, school and community.

The challenges she faces are daunting, as are the objections I have encountered for choosing to support her, which brings me to a critical point: No parent can cause their child to be transgender. Period. Additionally, I do not know of a single trans-parent (and there are more of us than you might suppose) who would have chosen for their child to be transgender. Please do not mistake me. For those of us who are supportive, this is not for a lack of fierce pride and joy in our trans and gender-nonconforming children. Rather it is because we recognize with dismay how much negativity and rejection they face from others who cannot or will not accept them. I am terrified for my child. Trans people are at high risk for becoming victims of hate crimes. They also face severe discrimination in housing and employment. Their suicide rate is over 40%. In kindergarten, even before transitioning, my child was called names, teased and harassed for

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Historias de El Salvador De Violencia a Resistencia

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • September 2016 Vol. 29 Issue 7•

by Yon Hui Bell

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The anti-immigration rhetoric, distilled to its purist logic, is nativist at heart—so I’ve been told. We have problems of our own and don’t have the resources to take care of other people’s problems. I can understand the sentiment—put on your oxygen mask first—but what happens to the sentiment and the logic if WE created their problems? What if the United States helped create the violence and chaos that resulted in a people frantically fleeing their country?

What if the U.S. continues to promote policies that create violence and instability?

Salvadoran activists and artists, Alvaro Rafael and Dany Romero, discuss this topic movingly. Using painting and sculpture as well as poetry and photographs, their exhibit, “Historias de El Salvador: De Violencia a Resistencia,” offers a historical understanding of El Salvador’s current immigration crisis and the powerful resistance movements that are trying to heal the fractured country.

Some people know El Salvador from the years of civil war (1980-1992), when death squads were massacring people in the countryside in towns like El Mozote. The domestic altercations of this tiny country might have flown under the United States’ collective radar if the death squads had not also been killing priests and archbishops and raping and killing U.S. nuns. That got our attention. Our angst increased when we discovered that America was supporting this repressive regime. Not only were we providing millions of dollars in support but we were also training and arming their death squads, all under the guise of fighting communists, those radicals that wanted poor people to stand up for their rights. El Salvador was in our backyard, and we couldn’t allow them to follow the example of Cuba or Nicaragua.

If you don’t know El Salvador from the 80s, you probably know El Salvador from the photographs of tattooed gang members that accompany almost every post-war article about this tiny Central American country. By most accounts, there were more deaths in 2015 than there were during any year of the country’s civil war.

The month of August alone registered over 900 deaths. In fact, El Salvador has been recognized as the most violent country in the western hemisphere several times – the distinction is given annually – and has taken second prize in this dubious distinction in many other years. The current Central American immigration crisis is

largely due to people fleeing this oppressive gang violence, which some consider another kind of warped civil war.

Rafael and Romero’s exhibit connects the two faces of El Salvador and the violence of the civil war to the violence of today.

Thousands of Salvadorans fled during the civil war to El Norte and settled in Los Angeles, the second largest Salvadoran city after San Salvador, El Salvador’s capital. Seeking respite, they instead found themselves confronting discrimination and brutality, and in order to protect themselves, they grouped together. Mass deportation then spread this U.S.-born gang culture and violence back to El Salvador and other Central American countries like Guatemala and Honduras, which have similar histories of nefarious American involvement. Once again, thousands are fleeing chaos and violence.

Even more sinister are the connections the exhibit makes about the response to the problem. U.S. policies that have created dangerously segregated cities like Chicago, blatant police brutality, and the largest prison population in the world are being exported to El Salvador with multi-million dollar ticket prices. Responding with indiscriminate profiling and incarceration is especially iniquitous in an underdeveloped and impoverished country like El Salvador where poor youth can be picked up and thrown in jail without recourse to any legal defense. The profitability of gleaming facilities and the fat budgets of military-style immigration centers as the U.S. populace debates the current immigration crisis are also scrutinized. Some of the photographs in the exhibit from the civil war and from the last decade are eerily similar: rifled and armored guards lining up citizens.

Rafael and Romero, however, do not just compel us to see generations of Salvadoran youth caught in a cycle of trauma.

Through their powerful artwork, they offer us reprieve and show us resistance. Rafael, who immigrated to San Antonio more than twelve years ago, uses recycled material to create works that evoke political manipulation resisted by indigenous strength.

As an urban student and community activist for all of my professional academic life, I have come to know the city mainly as a reflection of communities and their effort to create a space that reflects who they are in their dreams and goals. Those dreams include homes in neighborhoods where their children are safe, not to speak of education and health for the family.

A very important part of that city is the available public space that serves as a preserver of the community’s history, culture, and recreative needs. Public space is where we can expand ourselves without interfering in our neighbor’s private space. It is a little league park, a playground for children, and a river by which we can walk and enjoy its serenity. Public space is also where we can meet our aesthetic achings, an art gallery, a museum, a zoo, a place to meet as families and enjoy the day without owing anything to anyone. It can be as small as a sidewalk or a bicycle path. Today we have our river walk, a public space that is not simply a tourist attraction but open to our entire community. Where we walk, bicycle, picnic and meet each other.

Public space, then, is where as a community we can breathe air as free people, free from the frustrations of the day, from the office, free from the market where everything is up for grabs by the highest bidder.

At the end of the day it is a reflection of a city that is owned by the community and not by private interests.

Not all of our citizens have had a hand in that creation. In San Antonio’s history we have experienced the displacement of families from their homes and neighborhoods. In the 1950s the federal program Urban Renewal was implemented at a breakneck speed displacing entire communities and transferring those properties over to entrepreneurs in most instances. In the 1960s the city leaders, public and private, were rewarded with the HemisFair. The one caveat was that it was established where thousands of residents lived. That redevelopment continued to displace entire communities.

Continuing in this tradition, the decision makers of San Antonio, the visible ones which include you the city council, eagerly support a policy of helter skelter development with the goal of making San Antonio a magnet for upper middle class residents into our central city and neighborhoods where older communities have been for years. I can only imagine that this goal is to make our city a first class city competing with any city in our part of the U.S. At first glance it is a grand scheme, creating more consumerism, the basis of an urban market economy. To many observers San Antonio has been quite successful in this growth and expansion.

We ask—at whose expense? As a consequence, we have witnessed the rush of developers of upscale high-rise apartments continue unabated, often times at the expense of working class or poor, but established communities. Countless residents have been uprooted from residences. Family life disrupted. The education of children disrupted. Coalitions of residents and community organizations have protested but to no avail. The mobilization of protest will continue. But you need to put your ear and heart to the ground and listen.

Now, one of our most sacred spaces is up for sale. And you, as the final say-so, are sponsoring what amounts to an invasion of a sacred space, the HemisFair, with a hotel owned, of course, by private interests not from this city.

It is a sacred space because entire communities were sacrificed to clear land that we now enjoy as HemisFair. The tragedy is that HemisFair was developed into a world famous public space in San Antonio by displacing entire communities, including one of the oldest Black churches in San Antonio, and now it is being handed over to private interests who are more interested in their profits than in our historical and cultural values. Full circle. Stop and think about what you are perpetrating on our community. Stop and think about the loss of public space and what it means to our community.

From San Salvador, Romero’s poetry speaks of incarceration and the indomitable human spirit. The story behind one of the pieces, a hanging wall of painted t-shirts, is forceful. The original sketches about the inhumane conditions and degradation of incarceration by inmates in a Salvadoran prison were confiscated and destroyed, so the inmates repainted their art onto dozens of t-shirts, which visitors snuck out by wearing under their clothing.

“Historias de El Salvador: De Violencia a Resistencia” deepens the conversation our country is having about immigration and ultimately raises several questions: How can we destroy a country and then profit off its trauma and distress? Who besides the prison, weapons, and defense industry benefits from increased militarization and incarceration? Why is money not being spent on education, rehabilitation, and community development?

Through their work, Rafael and Romero ask us questions that force us to see beyond the tattoos and prison bars to the betrayed humanity of El Salvador. They ask us questions that all of us should be asking, not only about El Salvador but also about the United States. And by asking these questions, Rafael and Romero ask us to join in the resistance.

“Historias de El Salvador: De Violencia a Resistencia” ran at the Movement Gallery/ Underground Library from June 18th to July 2nd and will be exhibiting in September at Galeria E.V.A. at 3412 South Flores. TBA. https:// www.facebook.com/galeriaeva/

Public Spaces

by Dr. Rodolfo Rosales

Disclosure: The author of this review is married to Alvaro Rafael, one of the artists featured in the exhibit.

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • September 2016 Vol. 29 Issue 7

Bio: Yon Hui Bell is an instructor at San Antonio College and spent four years as an international volunteer in El Salvador that engendered a lifelong commitment to social justice, both global and local.

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* community meetings *

Amnesty International #127 Call Arthur @ 210.213.5919.

Bexar Co. Green Party meets 1st Sun. Call Antonio @ 210.542.9271 or Rachell @ 210.542.9278 or bexarcountygreens@gmail.com Celebration Circle meets Sun., 11am @ Say Si, 1518 S. Alamo. Meditatn Wed. 7:30pm @ Friends Mtg House, 7052 Vandiver. 210.533.6767 |www.celebrationcircle.org DIGNITY SA mass, 5:30 pm, Sun. @ St. Paul’s Episcopal Church,1018 E. Grayson St. Call 210.340.2230 Adult Wellness Support Group of PRIDE Center meets 4th Mon., 7-9 pm @ Lions Field, 2809 Broadway. Call 210.213.5919.

Energía Mía: Call 512.838.3351.

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • September 2016 Vol. 29 Issue 7•

Progressive Movement in San Antonio

PFLAG, meets 1st Thurs. @ 7pm, University Presbyterian Church, 300 Bushnell Ave. Call 210.848.7407.

Parents of Murdered Children, meets 2nd Mondays at Balcones Hts Community Ctr, 107 Glenarm See www. pomcsanantonio.org.

Rape Crisis Ctr 7500 US Hwy 90W. Hotline: 210.349.7273 | 210.521.7273 Email: sgabriel@rapecrisis.com The Religious Society of Friends meets Sun. 10am at The Friends Meeting House, 7052 N. Vandiver. 210.945.8456.

S.A. Gender Association meets 1st & 3rd Thursday, 6-9pm @ 611 E. Myrtle, Metropolitan Cmty Church.

Habitat for Humanity meets 1st Tues. for volunteer training, 6pm, Habitat Office, 311 Probandt.

The SA AIDS Fdn 818 E. Grayson St. offers free Syphilis & HIV testing, 210.225.4715 | www.txsaaf.org.

LULAC Council #22198, Orgullo de SA, meets 3rd Tues. @ 6:45pm at Papouli’s, 255 E. Basse Rd. To join e-mail: info@lulac22198.org

SAWomenWillMarch www. sawomenwillmarch.org 830.488.7493

Pax Christi, SA meets monthly on Saturdays. Call 210.460.8448

Be Part of a

People’s Power Coalition meets last Thursdays. Call 210.878.6751

Fuerza Unida, 710 New Laredo Hwy. www.lafuerzaunida.org | 210.927.2294

NOW SA Chapter meets 3rd Weds.

Check FB/satx.now | 210.802.9068 | nowsaareachapter@gmail.com

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Overeaters Anonymous meets MWF in Spanish & daily in English: www. oasanantonio.org | 210.492.5400.

SGI-USA LGBT Buddhists meet 2nd Sat. at 10am @ 7142 San Pedro Ave., Ste 117. Call 210.653.7755.

Shambhala Buddhist Meditation Tues. 7pm & Sun. 9:30am 257 E. Hildebrand Ave. Call 210.222.9303.

Proyecto Hospitalidad Liturgy meets Thurs. 7pm, 325 Courtland.

S.N.A.P. (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests). Contact Barbara at 210.725.8329.

SA Women Will March: www.sa womenwillmarch.org|210 262.0654

Voice for Animals: 210.737.3138 or www.voiceforanimals.org for info

Metropolitan Community Church services & Sunday school @10:30am, 611 East Myrtle. Call 210.472.3597

SA’s LGBTQA Youth meets Tues., 6:30pm at Univ. Presby. Church, 300 Bushnell Ave.www.fiesta-youth.org

¡Todos Somos Esperanza!

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With our vision for social, environmental, economic and gender justice, Esperanza centers the voices and experiences of the poor & working class, women, queer people and people of color.

We hold pláticas and workshops; organize political actions; present exhibits and performances and document and preserve our cultural histories. We consistently challenge City Council and the corporate powers of the city on issues of development, low-wage jobs, gentrification, clean energy and more.

It takes all of usCampos to keep the Esperanza going.

What would it take for YOU to become a monthly donor? Call or come by the Esperanza to learn how.

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Notas Y Más July/August 2016

For La Fiestas Patrias of El Diez y Seis the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center offers three programs: Viva Mi Cultura an hour lecture with traditional dance demonstrations on Thursday, Sept. 15 @ 10am, FREE; Celebrando Tradiciones on Sept.16 from 7pm to10 pm celebrating the Guadalupe Dance Co.’s 25th anniversary with a Pachange, Silent Auction and Performance. Cost $10-$15; and a Mariachi Festival at the Arneson River Theater on Sept.17 from 8am to 5pm featuring Mariachi groups from San Antonio and area schools. The Guadalupe Dance Company will perform in the evening. See www. guadalupeculturalarts.org/events/list/

Brief news items on upcoming community events.

Send items for Notas y Más to: lavoz@esperanzacenter.org or mail to: 922 San Pedro, San Antonio, TX 78212.

The deadline is the 10th of each month.

SOA Watch (School of the Americas) is moving its convergence to become bi-national at the U.S./Mexico border in Nogales, Arizona/ Sonora Mexico. Activists from the U.S. and Mexico will gather on both sides of the border from October 7-10 leading up to the Nov. elections in order to highlight US intervention in Latin America as a root causes of migration, to stage protests, and present cultural events, and nonviolent direct actions against racism, xenophobia and US militar ization at home and abroad. See: www.soaw.org/ The annual NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner is set for Friday, October 28 @

7 pm at the University of The Incarnate Word, McCombs Center Rosenberg Sky Room, 847 E. Hildebrand in San Antonio.

Guest speaker is Dr. Colette Pierce Burnette, 11th President of Huston-Tillotson Uiversity of Austin speaking on “NAACP Working for Justice”. Tickets are $75.

Call 210.224.7636.

Centro Cultural Aztlán calls for artists to submit applications for their upcoming fall programming: the 39th annual Día de los muertos exhbit, the Virgen de Guadalupe exhibit and Zonarte, Mercado de Aztlán.

Deadline for apps is Sept. 30, 2016. Download applications at: www.centroaztlan.org

Call for entries:

18th annual November Calaveras issue of La Voz • Literary ofrendas up to 300 words in prose or poetry to honor a dearly departed soul • Calavera poems, haikus or short stories • Artwork of calacas, calaveras, Catrinas, Catrins, or targets of Calaveras

Send to lavoz@esperanzacenter.org

By Gary Sánchez

In 2003 I discovered that the springs along the Balcones Escarpment are part of a giant circle of springs with a diameter of 280 miles. Inside the circle are geographic anomalies such as Enchanted Rock, Jacob’s Well and the Devil’s Sinkhole. These anomalies appear in geographic order in a rock art painting known as The White Shaman that later revealed astronomical features such as constellations and yearly sequential events such as meteor showers and the elliptical path of Venus around the sun.

The White Shaman shows the last five months measured in days of Venus’s eightyear journey from point to point in the skies over San Antonio and the southwest. It also shows solar occurrences that mirror geographic events involving the sunrise in San Angelo, Texas at Twin Buttes and a solar dart representing the death of the Morning Star at Paint Rock, Texas. These events take place every year on December 21st the Winter Solstice. The solar dart appears at 12.37 pm and ten minutes later, roughly 125 miles away at Mission Conception where the sunlight enters the building from south to north along the north wall altar. This event links 4,000 year old rock art to our San Antonio missions.

We knew for 200 years that the Spanish would knock on our back door and we were ready for them. Even today I manage the time for Comanches and Apaches down at the Peyote Gardens during ceremony season as the custodian for the Native American Church. History, written by the conqueror, has failed to tell our story as we influenced many outcomes to our favour even today.

Beginning in October, over the next two years I will be sharing the rest of Venus’s path as it goes twice around the sun, ending with the last five months of its journey carved onto Mission Conception’s façade. This will also reveal the meaning of the painting known as The Assumption of Mary, hidden over the last 300 years. This meaning includes the birth of the Morning Star, or Venus or Jesus celebrated on the day of our Virgin of Guadalupe every eight years on December 12th since 1733 lest we forget the Morning Star “El Kucui”. The truth of the “La Llorona” will be revealed in articles and presentations to be announced.

Join me on these momentous events as we go along with our ancestors three hundred years later—living where they lived, seeing what they saw, and remembering their contribution to our lives. Presentation dates are as follows: October 11, 2016, January 17, 2017, April 13, 2017, May 9, 2017, August 29, 2017, and December 19, 2017. I will be looking into our past and explaining the present. May the great all bless the people of South Texas.

LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • September 2016 Vol. 29 Issue 7

Sacred Meanings

Deadline: October 5, 2016

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LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • September 2016 Vol. 29 Issue 7•

Diez Años de Fotohistorias

MujerArtes

Sept. 24, 2016, 7pm, Free Admission

Exhibit and Sale Open House

Celebrate el Diez y Seis!

Sept. 16- Sept. 30 @ MujerArtes’ casita 1412 El Paso St. SATX 78207 210. 223.2585

Celebrate with us 10 years of Esperanza’s En Aquellos Tiempos fotobanner project Contact: esperanzacenter.org or call 210-228-0201 ESPERANZA PEACE & JUSTICE CENTER, 922 SAN PEDRO, SA TX

Esperanza Peace & Justice Center

922 San Pedro San Antonio TX 78212 210.228.0201 • www.esperanzacenter.org

Non-Profit Org. US Postage PAID San Antonio, TX Permit #332

Join Tish Hinojosa & Lourdes Pérez in a traditional singing tribute

Mil Guitarras para Víctor Jara Sat. Sept. 17 @ 2pm Esperanza Peace & Justice Center

Free Event Email dspener@trinity.edu to join in as a singer or call (210) 228-0201 for information.

In partnership with Trinity University

Tish Hinojosa and Lourdes Pérez

Mil Guitarras para Víctor Jara

Haven’t opened La Voz in a while? Prefer to read it online? Wrong address?

TO CANCEL A SUBSCRIPTION EMAIL lavoz@esperanzacenter.org CALL: 210.228.0201

Noche Azul: Solamente Una Vez A weekend of Boleros

Esperanza ‘s monthly Noche Azul presents a special 3-day Bolero weekend with evening and afternoon concerts.

Limited seating is available with tickets sold in advance.

Sept. 9, 10, 11

8pm-Fri. & Sat. 3 pm Sunday

..with intimate cabaret style seating

Tickets: $15

Call the Esperanza at 210.228.0201 or see esperanzacenter.org

Doors open @ 7:15pm Fri. & Sat. @ 2:15pm Sunday