Beloved Land: An Oral History of Mexican Americans in Southern Arizona
edited by Patricia Preciado Martin photographs by José Galvez
University of Arizona Press, 2004 Cloth: 978-0-8165-2409-9 | eISBN: 978-0-8165-3436-4 | Paper: 978-0-8165-2382-5 Library of Congress Classification F820.M5B35 2004 Dewey Decimal Classification 979.170046872009
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Doña Ramona Benítez Franco was born in 1902 on her parents' Arizona ranch and celebrated her hundredth birthday with family and friends in 2002, still living in her family's century-old adobe house. Doña Ramona witnessed many changes in the intervening years, but her memories of the land and customs she knew as a child are indelible.
For Doña Ramona as well as for countless generations of Mexican Americans, memories of rural life recall la querida tierra, the beloved land. Through good times and bad, the land provided sustenance. Today, many of those homesteads and ranches have succumbed to bulldozers that have brought housing projects and strip malls in their wake.
Now a writer and a photographer who have long been intimately involved with Arizona's Hispanic community have preserved the voices and images of men and women who are descendants of pioneer ranching and farming families in southern Arizona. Ranging from Tucson to the San Rafael Valley and points in between, this book documents the contributions of Mexican American families whose history and culture are intertwined with the lifestyle of the contemporary Southwest. These were hardy, self-reliant pioneers who settled in what were then remote areas. Their stories tell of love affairs with the land and a way of life that is rapidly disappearing.
Through oral histories and a captivating array of historic and contemporary photos, Beloved Land records a vibrant and resourceful way of life that has contributed so much to the region. Individuals like Doña Ramona tell stories about rural life, farming, ranching, and vaquero culture that enrich our knowledge of settlement, culinary practices, religious traditions, arts, and education of Hispanic settlers of Arizona. They talk frankly about how the land changed hands—not always by legal means—and tell how they feel about modern society and the disappearance of the rural lifestyle.
"Our ranch homes and fields, our chapels and corrals may have been bulldozed by progress or renovated into spas and guest ranches that never whisper our ancestors' names," writes Patricia Preciado Martin. "The story of our beautiful and resilient heritage will never be silenced . . . as long as we always remember to run our fingers through the nourishing and nurturing soil of our history." Beloved Land works that soil as it revitalizes that history for the generations to come.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Patricia Preciado Martin is a native Arizonan and a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Arizona. She is the author of two other collections of oral history, Images and Conversations: Mexican Americans Recall a Southwestern Past (winner of the Virginia McCormick Scully Award for the best history by a Chicano/a or a Native American) and Songs My Mother Sang to Me: An Oral History of Mexican American Women, and three collections of her widely anthologized short stories: Days of Plenty, Days of Want; El Milagro and Other Stories; and Amor Eterno: Eleven Lessons of Love (recipient of the Border Regional Library Association Southwest Book Award for fiction). Martin is active on the speakers’ circuit both regionally and nationally and has received the Arizona Humanities Council Distinguished Public Scholar Award of Excellence. She met Jim, her husband of forty years, while serving in the Peace Corps in Central America. They live in Tucson.
For more than thirty-five years native Arizonan José Galvez has used black-and-white photography to document Mexican American culture. He majored in journalism at the University of Arizona and upon graduation became a staff photographer for the Arizona Daily Star. In 1984, while at the Los Angeles Times, he led a photography staff that along with a team of reporters won a Pulitzer Prize in Community Service for a series on the Latino experience in southern California. Galvez’s photographs have been exhibited in countless museums and galleries, including the Smithsonian. His first book, Vatos, was published in 2000. Today, he continues to document Mexican American communities across the United States, portraying his heritage in a realistic and positive fashion.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Photographs 000
Foreword by Thomas E. Sheridan 000
Acknowledgments 000
Introduction 000
Carlotta Parra Rodríguez Sotomayor 000
Ramona Benítez Franco 000
Elena Vásquez Cruz 000
Rafael Orozco Cruz, as Told by Elena Vásquez Cruz 000
Teresa Mendivil Gradillas 000
Tim (Eutimio) Mendivil 000
Joe Quiroga 000
Agatha Cota Gastellum 000
Luis Acuña Gastellum 000
Ramón de la Ossa 000
Photographs
Francisco Valencia Rodríguez and María Antonia Parra 000
Francisco Valencia Rodríguez 000
Roberto Sotomayor, Sr. 000
Sotomayor adobe 000
Carlotta Sotomayor with portraits 000
Sotomayor children 000
Carlotta Parra Rodríguez Sotomayor and Dolores Rodríguez Mendoza 000
Carlotta Sotomayor and former Sotomayor lands 000
Carlotta Sotomayor on ranch property 000
Carlotta Sotomayor, daughters Carmen and Rosemary, son Rene, and grandson Rene Jr. 000
Angel and Desideria Benítez with children Rosario and Juan 000
Ramona Benítez and sister Felisa 000
María Benítez 000
Family and friends at the Benítez ranch 000
Ramona Franco at her home altar 000
Ramona Franco with son Leslie 000
Ramona Benítez Franco at one hundred 000
Isabel and Victor Vásquez 000
Victor Vásquez with shrine of San Isidro 000
Redington School 000
Saturnino Holguín 000
Victor Escalante Vásquez raising vegetables 000
Elena Vásquez Cruz crocheting 000
Elena Vásquez Cruz in her bedroom 000
Five generations of Cruz family members 000
Elena Vasquez Cruz and Rafael Orosco Cruz, ca. 1950 000
Rafael Cruz at roundup 000
Rafael Cruz, Mike Muñoz, and Gilbert Mungaray 000
Elena Vásquez Cruz at Rancho Solano 000
Eutimio Arcia Mendivil and Pedro Mendivil, 1928 000
Carlota Quihuis Mendivil and children Teresa and Miguel 000
Teresa Mendivil Gradillas 000
Eutimio Arcia Mendivil 000
Eutimio Arcia Mendivil and Pedro Mendivil, ca. 1960 000
Tim Mendivil at the old Mendivil brothers' ranch house 000
Tim Mendivil at work in his son's barbershop 000
Three generations of Mendivil cattle ropers 000
Maclovia Nañez Quiroga 000
Noemi Cruz Quiroga and José Quiroga 000
Joe Quiroga 000
Joe Quiroga unloading his horse 000
Joe Quiroga herding cattle 000
Consuelo, Hope, and Agatha Cota 000
Luis Acuña Gastellum and Agatha Cota Gastellum, 1939 000
Agatha Cota Gastellum and Luis Acuña Gastellum in their home 000
Agatha Gastellum with her son, Steve Gastellum, at Cota family homestead 000
Luis Acuña Gastellum, ca. 1918 000
Luis Acuña Gastellum with his "courting car" 000
Luis Acuña Gastellum and Agatha Cota Gastellum 000
Rosamel and Mercedes de la Ossa 000
Rosamel and Mercedes de la Ossa with family and friends 000
Ramón de la Ossa in the de la Ossa chapel 000
Amy, Ramón, and Tina de la Ossa 000
Rosamel de la Ossa and Ramón de la Ossa 000
Ramón de la Ossa's hands
Ramón de la Ossa at the family cemetery 000
The San Rafael Valley 000
Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication: Mexican Americans Arizona Biography, Mexican Americans Arizona Pictorial works, Ranchers Arizona Biography, Ranchers Arizona Pictorial works, Mexican Americans Arizona Social life and customs, Mexican American families Arizona History, Ranch life Arizona History, Arizona Social life and customs Pictorial works, Oral history
Beloved Land: An Oral History of Mexican Americans in Southern Arizona
edited by Patricia Preciado Martin photographs by José Galvez
University of Arizona Press, 2004 Cloth: 978-0-8165-2409-9 eISBN: 978-0-8165-3436-4 Paper: 978-0-8165-2382-5
Doña Ramona Benítez Franco was born in 1902 on her parents' Arizona ranch and celebrated her hundredth birthday with family and friends in 2002, still living in her family's century-old adobe house. Doña Ramona witnessed many changes in the intervening years, but her memories of the land and customs she knew as a child are indelible.
For Doña Ramona as well as for countless generations of Mexican Americans, memories of rural life recall la querida tierra, the beloved land. Through good times and bad, the land provided sustenance. Today, many of those homesteads and ranches have succumbed to bulldozers that have brought housing projects and strip malls in their wake.
Now a writer and a photographer who have long been intimately involved with Arizona's Hispanic community have preserved the voices and images of men and women who are descendants of pioneer ranching and farming families in southern Arizona. Ranging from Tucson to the San Rafael Valley and points in between, this book documents the contributions of Mexican American families whose history and culture are intertwined with the lifestyle of the contemporary Southwest. These were hardy, self-reliant pioneers who settled in what were then remote areas. Their stories tell of love affairs with the land and a way of life that is rapidly disappearing.
Through oral histories and a captivating array of historic and contemporary photos, Beloved Land records a vibrant and resourceful way of life that has contributed so much to the region. Individuals like Doña Ramona tell stories about rural life, farming, ranching, and vaquero culture that enrich our knowledge of settlement, culinary practices, religious traditions, arts, and education of Hispanic settlers of Arizona. They talk frankly about how the land changed hands—not always by legal means—and tell how they feel about modern society and the disappearance of the rural lifestyle.
"Our ranch homes and fields, our chapels and corrals may have been bulldozed by progress or renovated into spas and guest ranches that never whisper our ancestors' names," writes Patricia Preciado Martin. "The story of our beautiful and resilient heritage will never be silenced . . . as long as we always remember to run our fingers through the nourishing and nurturing soil of our history." Beloved Land works that soil as it revitalizes that history for the generations to come.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Patricia Preciado Martin is a native Arizonan and a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Arizona. She is the author of two other collections of oral history, Images and Conversations: Mexican Americans Recall a Southwestern Past (winner of the Virginia McCormick Scully Award for the best history by a Chicano/a or a Native American) and Songs My Mother Sang to Me: An Oral History of Mexican American Women, and three collections of her widely anthologized short stories: Days of Plenty, Days of Want; El Milagro and Other Stories; and Amor Eterno: Eleven Lessons of Love (recipient of the Border Regional Library Association Southwest Book Award for fiction). Martin is active on the speakers’ circuit both regionally and nationally and has received the Arizona Humanities Council Distinguished Public Scholar Award of Excellence. She met Jim, her husband of forty years, while serving in the Peace Corps in Central America. They live in Tucson.
For more than thirty-five years native Arizonan José Galvez has used black-and-white photography to document Mexican American culture. He majored in journalism at the University of Arizona and upon graduation became a staff photographer for the Arizona Daily Star. In 1984, while at the Los Angeles Times, he led a photography staff that along with a team of reporters won a Pulitzer Prize in Community Service for a series on the Latino experience in southern California. Galvez’s photographs have been exhibited in countless museums and galleries, including the Smithsonian. His first book, Vatos, was published in 2000. Today, he continues to document Mexican American communities across the United States, portraying his heritage in a realistic and positive fashion.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Photographs 000
Foreword by Thomas E. Sheridan 000
Acknowledgments 000
Introduction 000
Carlotta Parra Rodríguez Sotomayor 000
Ramona Benítez Franco 000
Elena Vásquez Cruz 000
Rafael Orozco Cruz, as Told by Elena Vásquez Cruz 000
Teresa Mendivil Gradillas 000
Tim (Eutimio) Mendivil 000
Joe Quiroga 000
Agatha Cota Gastellum 000
Luis Acuña Gastellum 000
Ramón de la Ossa 000
Photographs
Francisco Valencia Rodríguez and María Antonia Parra 000
Francisco Valencia Rodríguez 000
Roberto Sotomayor, Sr. 000
Sotomayor adobe 000
Carlotta Sotomayor with portraits 000
Sotomayor children 000
Carlotta Parra Rodríguez Sotomayor and Dolores Rodríguez Mendoza 000
Carlotta Sotomayor and former Sotomayor lands 000
Carlotta Sotomayor on ranch property 000
Carlotta Sotomayor, daughters Carmen and Rosemary, son Rene, and grandson Rene Jr. 000
Angel and Desideria Benítez with children Rosario and Juan 000
Ramona Benítez and sister Felisa 000
María Benítez 000
Family and friends at the Benítez ranch 000
Ramona Franco at her home altar 000
Ramona Franco with son Leslie 000
Ramona Benítez Franco at one hundred 000
Isabel and Victor Vásquez 000
Victor Vásquez with shrine of San Isidro 000
Redington School 000
Saturnino Holguín 000
Victor Escalante Vásquez raising vegetables 000
Elena Vásquez Cruz crocheting 000
Elena Vásquez Cruz in her bedroom 000
Five generations of Cruz family members 000
Elena Vasquez Cruz and Rafael Orosco Cruz, ca. 1950 000
Rafael Cruz at roundup 000
Rafael Cruz, Mike Muñoz, and Gilbert Mungaray 000
Elena Vásquez Cruz at Rancho Solano 000
Eutimio Arcia Mendivil and Pedro Mendivil, 1928 000
Carlota Quihuis Mendivil and children Teresa and Miguel 000
Teresa Mendivil Gradillas 000
Eutimio Arcia Mendivil 000
Eutimio Arcia Mendivil and Pedro Mendivil, ca. 1960 000
Tim Mendivil at the old Mendivil brothers' ranch house 000
Tim Mendivil at work in his son's barbershop 000
Three generations of Mendivil cattle ropers 000
Maclovia Nañez Quiroga 000
Noemi Cruz Quiroga and José Quiroga 000
Joe Quiroga 000
Joe Quiroga unloading his horse 000
Joe Quiroga herding cattle 000
Consuelo, Hope, and Agatha Cota 000
Luis Acuña Gastellum and Agatha Cota Gastellum, 1939 000
Agatha Cota Gastellum and Luis Acuña Gastellum in their home 000
Agatha Gastellum with her son, Steve Gastellum, at Cota family homestead 000
Luis Acuña Gastellum, ca. 1918 000
Luis Acuña Gastellum with his "courting car" 000
Luis Acuña Gastellum and Agatha Cota Gastellum 000
Rosamel and Mercedes de la Ossa 000
Rosamel and Mercedes de la Ossa with family and friends 000
Ramón de la Ossa in the de la Ossa chapel 000
Amy, Ramón, and Tina de la Ossa 000
Rosamel de la Ossa and Ramón de la Ossa 000
Ramón de la Ossa's hands
Ramón de la Ossa at the family cemetery 000
The San Rafael Valley 000
Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication: Mexican Americans Arizona Biography, Mexican Americans Arizona Pictorial works, Ranchers Arizona Biography, Ranchers Arizona Pictorial works, Mexican Americans Arizona Social life and customs, Mexican American families Arizona History, Ranch life Arizona History, Arizona Social life and customs Pictorial works, Oral history