Ancestor’s Past: the Truth, the Ugly, and the Brave-a Brief Window to the Past

Part II — torn apart in our new land as immigrants, what can we do now?

Jovia Idár was a pioneer in her own right. She practiced advocacy through journalism, standing up for the rights of women in Mexico, gaining momentum as a legitimate journalist and press owner, in the early 1900s.

Jovia with the help of other journalists, such as my distant cousins: Jesus Rios, Audinae Rios, and Martino Zaimora (derivative of Zamora) were brave enough to advocate for women’s rights and spoke for the under-represented poor Mexican citizens. They denounced the many injustices their own new and forming government, (which was a classist and fascist form of government at the time) habitually practiced against their own citizens.

The picture featured of Jovia and my distant cousins was taken before Texas Rangers had shown up at their publication’s door to close it permanently. They threatened them to leave, or they would be arrested and taken to jail; which was miles and miles away in East Texas.

At the time, very few populations of educated Mexicans of the Sonora State of Mexico knew exactly how the U.S. Government and the Mexican Government had made a deal. And they were forewarning surrounding citizens of what was to come and to secure their family’s wealth and take what belonged to them before the U.S. law enforcers - mostly comprised of Texas Rangers and U.S. Marshals - would show up at their doorstep and take everything and kick them out of their own land.

They were one of the first in the area to report how Mexico’s land, through a treaty agreement and a moderate sum of money, had been given to the United States of America, their Northern Anglo neighbors.

Where Jovia and my cousins had chosen to live and work had barely been Liberated from the Spanish Empire some seventy years before. Mexico was a fairly new country, it included: parts of Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, and Wyoming. This all changed rapidly from 1847–1914, as my own family’s farm and mine were also confiscated by U.S. Marshals back in 1889 when they had just acquired and legally purchased the land to cultivate and mine, a mere 15 years earlier (1874). The newly formed treaty of Guadalupe changed their reality.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo formally ended hostility between the two countries. By its terms Mexico gave up its claims to Texas and ceded all of the territory now occupied by the U.S. states of Utah, Nevada, and California; most of New Mexico and Arizona; and parts of Oklahoma, Colorado, and Wyoming.

Later on, a new treaty would completely absorb the remaining southwestern land of New Mexico and Arizona[1].

My distant cousins gave their lives to help Jovia Idár. She and my cousins worked and lived in Northern Mexico, (what is now present-day Texas), a nation that was effectively ransacked during the Mexican-American Wars of the late 1840s until the early 1900s.

The Mexican citizens in those regions (the Southwest), were handed over and given a “choice” by the U.S. Marshals, and local militiamen: leave or stay as second-class citizens, while they took what once was theirs or burnt it to the ground. As they did with Ms. Idár’s printing press, along with several of her colleagues, including my cousins.

I knew, somehow, before I discovered it officially,(via Ancestry.com — a tool I use to verify my own family’s Genealogical charts and Genealogy trees)… my fearless spirit is not apart from those before me. My ancestors, the Ballesteros were fearless warriors, and they are still today. I intend to continue our legacy.

As I further discover my family’s legacy and dive further into how our world was like then and how it is now. The souls that made so many sacrifices so we could make a change in this world, for the better; those souls are ever so connected to me and my family.

I can only imagine the future, but I am hopeful it will be better than the current one. These times are uncertain. These times are confounding and frustrating. Sometimes, I just want to scream!

My voice is a minor voice in the background noise we are hearing. My voice is but a whisper.

Combine your voice with mine at this time.

We go from a trickling drip, from raindrops collecting in puddles, then slowly combining with small brooks, streams, then roaring rivers, finding our way to our collective home, the open sea. This is where our voices can be as loud as thunder itself. We will strike while the iron is hot. We will be heard. We will be seen.

My ancestors did not fight and stand up for what is right in vain. I will continue this fight, no matter what may come. I will not give up!

Will you join me? Will we continue this fight for equality for all citizens of this once great nation? Will you join me to fight for justice, equality, and peace?

-HKB

(Mother, teacher, activist, avid reader of everything, and occasional writer- who are you?)

This is not a faceless and nameless movement. We are not a conspiracy or conspiracy theory. We are women who are empowered to speak and emboldened by those before us. Join us in this fight we have to continue until all are equal. All are recognized citizens and we can make this nation whole again.