José García: Nebraska's Mexican-American Legacy

Center for Great Plains Studies Author

09/27/2023 Added

6 Plays

Description

José Francisco García presents a historical and contemporary perspective on almost 500 years of the Mexican-American presence in Nebraska and the Great Plains, from early Spanish conquistadors and explorers to later years’ traders, settlers, and immigrants.

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[00:00:00.090]Welcome to the Great Plains Art Museum
[00:00:02.220]at the Center for Great Plains Studies.
[00:00:04.080]I'm Ashley Wilkinson,
[00:00:05.250]the director and curator of the museum.
[00:00:08.070]Thank you all for joining us today for our lecture by
[00:00:10.890]Jose Garcia on Nebraska's Mexican American legacy.
[00:00:15.780]I'd like to begin by acknowledging
[00:00:17.730]that the University of Nebraska is a land grant institution
[00:00:20.910]with campuses and programs on the past, present,
[00:00:24.210]and future homelands of the Pawnee, Ponca, Otoe-Missouria,
[00:00:28.950]Omaha, Dakota, Lakota, Kaw, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Peoples,
[00:00:34.950]as well as those of the relocated Ho-Chunk, Sac and Fox,
[00:00:38.550]and Iowa peoples.
[00:00:40.680]The land we currently call Nebraska has always been
[00:00:43.710]and will continue to be an indigenous homeland.
[00:00:46.980]Please take a moment to consider the legacies of more than
[00:00:49.546]150 years of displacement, violence, settlement,
[00:00:53.910]and survival that bring us here today.
[00:00:59.190]This acknowledgement and the centering of indigenous peoples
[00:01:01.980]is a start as we move forward together.
[00:01:05.940]Support for today's program was provided by
[00:01:06.968]Humanities Nebraska, the Nebraska Cultural Endowment,
[00:01:11.430]and the D F Dillon Family Foundation.
[00:01:14.070]Humanities Nebraska would love to hear your feedback
[00:01:16.410]on this program.
[00:01:17.280]So if you have time today at the end of the lecture
[00:01:19.800]and could fill out that really short survey
[00:01:21.540]that's on your seat,
[00:01:22.373]it'd be greatly appreciated.
[00:01:24.390]I'd also like to thank the Elizabeth Rubendall Foundation
[00:01:27.000]for supporting our artist in residence program
[00:01:29.340]now in its 17th year.
[00:01:31.890]Today's events came about because of the close relationship
[00:01:35.952]the museum has developed with our 2023 Elizabeth Rubendall
[00:01:38.340]Artist in Residence, Linda Rivera Garcia,
[00:01:41.377]and her husband Jose Garcia.
[00:01:44.970]We've discussed with them the possibility of having an event
[00:01:48.060]to celebrate the first day
[00:01:49.590]of National Hispanic Heritage Month today,
[00:01:52.920]and we landed on this joint talk and reception.
[00:01:56.010]So after Jose's lecture today, we'll have a reception.
[00:01:58.710]We'll be open late until seven,
[00:02:00.420]and there'll be plenty of time for you to visit Linda's
[00:02:03.428]solo exhibition, which is on the lower level,
[00:02:05.250]and you can visit with her
[00:02:06.360]in our education studio downstairs.
[00:02:08.430]If you can't stick around today,
[00:02:09.900]Linda's show is gonna be up through September 22nd,
[00:02:12.450]which is next Friday.
[00:02:14.700]Before I hand it over to Jose.
[00:02:16.650]I'll tell you a little bit about him
[00:02:18.270]and he'll tell you even more about himself.
[00:02:20.741](audience laughs)
[00:02:21.574]So I'm gonna let him do that.
[00:02:22.740]Okay.
[00:02:24.121]Of Mexican descent, Jose Garcia's family
[00:02:27.810]settled in the plains in the early 20th century,
[00:02:30.900]a Vietnam veteran,
[00:02:32.100]retired railroader and longtime Chicano activist,
[00:02:35.730]Jose and his wife Linda are the founders of
[00:02:37.857]the Mexican American Historical Society of the Midlands.
[00:02:42.060]Now retired,
[00:02:42.990]they spend time curating a research library of folk art,
[00:02:46.260]historical artifacts and media focused on the art and civic
[00:02:49.286]accomplishments of Spanish speaking and Spanish Surnamed
[00:02:52.890]Peoples of the Americas and the Great Plains.
[00:02:55.890]Please join me in welcoming Jose Garcia.
[00:02:59.070]What I'm going to do, I have an introduction that I wrote,
[00:03:03.720]but I didn't print it out,
[00:03:05.370]so I'm going to read it off of my helper here.
[00:03:10.290]And it gives me a great sense of relaxation
[00:03:14.880]that I don't have to memorize this, (chuckles)
[00:03:18.870]but it is written in the first person,
[00:03:21.960]and I rely on this technology as much as the next man.
[00:03:30.090]I was born 26 days after the end of World War II in 1945.
[00:03:36.660]My given name is Jose Francisco Garcia.
[00:03:40.260]My mom, Isabel Rios de Garcia,
[00:03:45.870]when she saw my pushed nose, gave me the nickname Chapo,
[00:03:52.410]and that's how everybody knows me as.
[00:03:55.560]Orphaned at the age of six, when mom died,
[00:03:59.910]she was at the age of 26 and dad, well,
[00:04:04.410]he went off to Chicago where 22 years later I would visit
[00:04:09.360]to recover his body from the city morgue.
[00:04:13.380]I grew up in a Mexican urban barrio
[00:04:16.590]of the West side in Kansas City, Missouri.
[00:04:20.580]Although I had Mama Grande, Lalonia Cruz Moreno de Garcia,
[00:04:26.700]my grandmother,
[00:04:28.020]providing a shelter until I graduated from high school,
[00:04:33.960]I was destined to manage and run my life on my own rules.
[00:04:39.750]Because of my familial status of being the firstborn of my
[00:04:43.489]generation, (speaks Spanish) of Mexican American children.
[00:04:55.160]This is the reason I was covering my own rules.
[00:05:01.290]Because of a weekly $5 scholarship over my senior high
[00:05:04.604]school career that paid for bus rides and my lunch
[00:05:08.850]every week for two years at a school that was way out of my
[00:05:13.198]neighborhood, Manuel High School,
[00:05:16.920]I managed to obtain a high school diploma.
[00:05:19.920]After a stint in the US Army.
[00:05:21.488]I graduated with a BA from the Kangaroo School,
[00:05:25.470]University of Missouri, Kansas City.
[00:05:30.240]I worked for a handful of corporations,
[00:05:33.114]Macy's department store, Aetna Surety Casualty.
[00:05:38.220]Xerox even hired me.
[00:05:40.560]I worked for the largest bank, thanks in part,
[00:05:43.618]to my (speaks Spanish) who worked for
[00:05:47.610]the City National Bank for many, many years.
[00:05:50.580]I took a job as a messenger boy at Commerce Trust company,
[00:05:54.540]the biggest bank in Kansas City
[00:05:56.820]before my army career started.
[00:05:59.550]Finally,
[00:06:00.540]I retired as a railroader after 25 years of career with the
[00:06:05.250]Union Pacific Railroad.
[00:06:07.230]And in between all of this,
[00:06:09.000]I was basically doing things that were very self-determined
[00:06:13.200]and that were very close to understanding my identity,
[00:06:18.180]not only as a human being 'cause we all knew that we all
[00:06:21.840]have red blood, that's a given.
[00:06:24.870]But in this capitalistic world that we live in, it was,
[00:06:29.170]it is very important to establish who you are,
[00:06:33.030]not through your iPhone,
[00:06:34.290]but through the experiences of your ancestors.
[00:06:39.540]I characterize my calling as a Chicano through a lifetime
[00:06:42.919]commitment involved in learning, practicing,
[00:06:46.770]and finally marrying into a lifestyle of artistic
[00:06:50.549]and cultural expression.
[00:06:53.370]When I moved to Nebraska in 1976, yep, the city boy,
[00:06:59.884]and raised as a city boy raised in Kansas City,
[00:07:03.300]born and raised.
[00:07:04.860]I traveled up River to Omaha,
[00:07:07.140]met and married Linda Rivera Perez de Garcia,
[00:07:13.050]the following year.
[00:07:15.270]Who claims to all that listen,
[00:07:17.610]the fact that she recycled me.
[00:07:20.498](audience laughs)
[00:07:21.331](stage whispers) I've been married before.
[00:07:24.810]Now retired,
[00:07:26.010]Linda and I managed and since the early 1990s,
[00:07:29.299]have founded and operated a series of Casa de cultura
[00:07:33.960]houses of culture within the South Omaha part of the city.
[00:07:39.480]In 2009, we incorporated into
[00:07:41.821]the Mexican American Historical Society of the Midlands,
[00:07:45.810]allowing us to continue archiving and curating historical
[00:07:49.860]objects, literature and art in a 3000 square foot facility,
[00:07:55.558]a 3000 square foot repository in South Omaha.
[00:08:01.203]In 2023,
[00:08:02.910]after obtaining a significant grant
[00:08:04.980]for the Douglas County Commission,
[00:08:06.494]we collaborated with other SOPs, oh no,
[00:08:10.590]I'm sorry, south Omaha boy.
[00:08:12.280](audience laughs)
[00:08:14.580]Or maybe a babe.
[00:08:16.455]I meant South Omaha boy or babe.
[00:08:19.290]And founded the South Omaha Museum of Immigrant History.
[00:08:24.720]At this time,
[00:08:25.553]I went to acknowledge in the audience family that traveled
[00:08:28.980]from Kansas City suburb of Lenexa to be in attendance
[00:08:33.210]tonight, my dear (speaks Spanish)
[00:08:36.690]and my dear uncle Dear Charlie Esteves,
[00:08:40.710]and my sweetheart of a cousin, Regina Rio de Garcia
[00:08:51.368]And that's that.
[00:08:53.643](audience applauds)
[00:08:56.970]That's an introduction.
[00:08:58.050]We're gonna get to the meat of the matter now,
[00:09:02.760]482 Years of American History Through Mexican American Eyes.
[00:09:09.180]The year 503 AC.
[00:09:13.080]You may wonder what AC means.
[00:09:14.760]I use this as my calendar, personal, I don't preach it.
[00:09:19.890]I don't try to sell it.
[00:09:21.720]AC stands for after Conquest, and of course,
[00:09:25.980]2023 that we all know about.
[00:09:31.110]The Spanish experience began with three major explorers from
[00:09:36.529]Spain, Coronado, DeSoto, and Cabeza de Vaca.
[00:09:43.890]Coronado was the guy that found the Great Plains
[00:09:47.370]as a European.
[00:09:50.460]DeSoto was found traveling up and down the
[00:09:54.600]Mississippi, and of course,
[00:09:56.880]Cabeza de Vaca did things in the Gulf
[00:09:59.940]and on in the Florida area of the country
[00:10:03.030]that we know of now as the United States of America.
[00:10:08.400]Here's the map of what Spain was involved in back
[00:10:12.240]in the, well, in the 16th century,
[00:10:15.480]the late 16th century of what they felt was their territory.
[00:10:21.270]Nueva Espana was what they called this colonial empire.
[00:10:27.330]In January 1540, Vasquez de Coronado set out from
[00:10:32.670]Mexico to find these fabled cities of gold.
[00:10:39.390]But Coronado had this
[00:10:41.886]information from somebody that he ended up executing
[00:10:47.880]because they were lying to him
[00:10:50.760]of seven cities that were very gold, saturated with gold.
[00:10:57.206]And he went up, tried to look for them.
[00:11:01.680]He was lured north, very, very far north.
[00:11:06.307]And he used a way that would turn into what is called a
[00:11:10.680]El Camino Real, which was a,
[00:11:15.165]it wasn't only trail for indigenous people or for local
[00:11:19.584]tribes, but it became a major thoroughfare
[00:11:23.190]for people that traveled from the south to the north,
[00:11:27.240]into the upper continental North America.
[00:11:34.191]The Camino Real, Road North (speaks Spanish)
[00:11:38.520]explored the territory of what is now (speaks Spanish)
[00:11:42.216]and New Mexico,
[00:11:45.150]and they did it primarily as far as loading equipment,
[00:11:48.260]supplies, arms, with a carreta,
[00:11:53.100]which was a two wheeled contraption,
[00:11:57.191]a transportation vehicle that would eventually turn into
[00:12:01.545]huge prairie schooners in the 19th century.
[00:12:06.870]I remember when I first came to Omaha back in the eighties,
[00:12:09.810]I started talking about history,
[00:12:11.937]and I mentioned that the prairie schooner really didn't
[00:12:16.005]carve the prairie terrain with their wagon wheel ruts.
[00:12:22.155]It was the carreta that did it first.
[00:12:27.420]How did the Spanish horse affect North America?
[00:12:30.180]This was another Spanish influence.
[00:12:33.270]Horses revolutionized native life and became an integral
[00:12:37.410]part of tribal cultures, honored in objects, story, songs,
[00:12:41.793]ceremonies, horses changed methods of hunting and warfare,
[00:12:47.640]modes of travel, lifestyle and standards
[00:12:50.970]of wealth and prestige.
[00:12:54.988]from the early 16 hundreds,
[00:12:56.717]tribes from the continental divide all the way north,
[00:13:01.410]straight up the Great Plains,
[00:13:03.870]until the northern territories of Canada in the 1750s,
[00:13:10.530]horses make their way and radically changed the lifestyle of
[00:13:15.300]number one native people, but of course,
[00:13:17.789]of the whole transportation sphere
[00:13:22.170]of the settling of North America.
[00:13:26.400]And then you have the Spanish Mexican presence
[00:13:29.100]that began in the Great Plains.
[00:13:31.470]And you may ask, why do I use the word Mexico?
[00:13:34.818]There were (speaks Spanish) in other words,
[00:13:39.330]Spanish people that were born in Spain,
[00:13:42.210]but the majority of people that came north were born in
[00:13:45.540]Mexico, and they were called Creoles.
[00:13:50.370]So I need to put the word Mexican in there.
[00:13:53.430]It wasn't just a Spanish type of a historical presence.
[00:14:01.440]One of the more important ones to begin a historically
[00:14:04.340]vetted expedition was the Villasur expedition of 1720.
[00:14:10.853]In the early 17 hundreds,
[00:14:12.180]Spain claimed most of the central plains,
[00:14:15.330]including Nebraska.
[00:14:18.000]There were, well, what turned into Nebraska,
[00:14:20.223]they were committed to protecting the rights,
[00:14:23.040]their rights to trade with the Native Americans
[00:14:25.800]on the plains.
[00:14:28.650]While in 1720,
[00:14:30.210]Del Pedro de Villasur was sent to investigate
[00:14:33.728]French activities in the Central Plains,
[00:14:37.710]his expedition took him far north and east as
[00:14:41.280]the Platte River in central Nebraska,
[00:14:44.640]where his party was attacked, defeated by the Otoes
[00:14:49.019]and the Pawnees.
[00:14:50.070]So why did we know this?
[00:14:52.200]Well, probably the first document that curated,
[00:14:57.720]that codified, that archived,
[00:15:00.030]a European incursion in Central Plains
[00:15:02.827]was a (speaks foreign language)
[00:15:06.150]which was a purchased by a cleric back in about 1753,
[00:15:15.130]and somehow made its way into our modern world
[00:15:17.520]and is now on display in New Mexico.
[00:15:20.430]And in Santa Fe.
[00:15:23.339]These paintings are among the earliest
[00:15:25.590]known depictions of colonial life in the United States.
[00:15:29.760]The painting also includes 37 French soldiers identified by
[00:15:34.454]the European style clothing, conical hats, coats, breaches,
[00:15:38.641]cuffs and leggings,
[00:15:41.400]firing long arms at the Spanish military expedition.
[00:15:49.170]There are other examples, not many,
[00:15:52.230]of Spaniards on the plains.
[00:15:55.500]This is from Eagle Ridge, which is in the vicinity
[00:16:00.270]of Omaha, Nebraska.
[00:16:02.970]And this was discovered in suburban Omaha at the site
[00:16:06.060]called Eagle Ridge,
[00:16:07.500]more than 90 miles from where the battle likely took place.
[00:16:11.430]The shreds are only tangible relics
[00:16:13.560]of this pivotal episode in Plains history.
[00:16:17.070]And I read that they could very possibly
[00:16:19.920]have come from wine flasks that
[00:16:22.110]were taken from the battleground of the expedition by
[00:16:27.173]either Pawnee or Otoe, or possibly even the French,
[00:16:30.952]who you and I both know love wine.
[00:16:33.384](audience chuckles)
[00:16:35.520]This is how I found out about the Villasur expedition
[00:16:38.747]when I became interested in Nebraska history,
[00:16:43.010]the spring of 1993, had a great article,
[00:16:47.610]and from that point on,
[00:16:48.780]I started reading about it and trying to know the best I
[00:16:51.322]could about this historical moment in Nebraska history.
[00:16:57.300]And of course,
[00:16:58.133]we all know Spain refused to recognize
[00:17:00.570]the Louisiana purchase of 1803,
[00:17:04.170]claiming everything west of the Mississippi
[00:17:07.170]Spanish activities continued not as much,
[00:17:10.020]but the military, with traders and forays into this
[00:17:13.440]vast territory until the Treaty of 1819.
[00:17:19.830]Now, one of these incursions was explored
[00:17:25.221]and was looked out by the Pike Expedition of 1806, 1807,
[00:17:32.139]the Melgares expedition that preceded it,
[00:17:35.561]and Pike's published report,
[00:17:38.199]and I'm talking about Zebulon Pike here.
[00:17:41.940]And they both helped point the way to the Santa Fe trade.
[00:17:46.170]Eventually,
[00:17:47.190]the many actions set in motion by two expeditions
[00:17:50.613]and Pike's published accounts
[00:17:52.589]resulted in the annexation of Texas in 1845
[00:17:58.129]and the war with Mexico in 1846 through 1848.
[00:18:03.707]When Spain found out that these expeditions were starting
[00:18:07.830]to come in from the east,
[00:18:09.670]they sent out various expeditions,
[00:18:12.510]including Melgares from basically Santa Fe or Albuquerque,
[00:18:17.580]New Mexico to check things out and to request of indigenous
[00:18:21.816]populations, giving them Spanish flags
[00:18:27.000]and orders to not allow people like Zebulon Pike
[00:18:32.032]to proceed any further West.
[00:18:35.220]Of course, it didn't work,
[00:18:36.271]but Zebulon Pike did get arrested
[00:18:39.870]by Melgares later in history.
[00:18:43.477]Facundo Melgares,
[00:18:44.880]he did lead quite a lot of Spanish soldiers,
[00:18:48.210]new Mexican militia men, which were many Native Americans,
[00:18:52.950]and 100 Amerindians, and more than 2000 animals into,
[00:18:59.280]and possibly some of them across the Republican river into
[00:19:04.050]Nebraska when they were trying to negotiate blocking
[00:19:10.969]Zebulon Pike's trek into the West.
[00:19:15.420]Another piece of information that I discovered was this rock
[00:19:19.771]face that's called the Spanish Cross in Sheridan County.
[00:19:25.770]I took this from a 1972 article,
[00:19:28.890]and I cannot find anything more on this type of artifact.
[00:19:35.610]The Spanish Cross in white clay in Sheridan County
[00:19:39.570]is one of only three known examples
[00:19:42.120]of petroglyphs in the panhandle.
[00:19:44.880]Early investigators believe the cross may have marked the
[00:19:47.942]grave or route of an early explorer in the 17 hundreds.
[00:19:53.610]The name carved on the stone is interpreted
[00:19:57.114](indistinct) Garcia.
[00:19:59.520]So of course I became very interested.
[00:20:04.020]And then we come to Manuel Lisa,
[00:20:06.330]and this was during the time of Melgares
[00:20:08.970]and Zebulon Pike, he was born in New Orleans.
[00:20:12.270]Now, some people say he was born in Cuba.
[00:20:16.230]This is still kind of an open discussion.
[00:20:19.470]I've read more accounts of him being born in Cuba
[00:20:22.991]than in New Orleans.
[00:20:24.990]So I wanna kind of clarify that.
[00:20:28.564]Well, the Louisiana territory was in Spanish rule.
[00:20:33.690]His Spanish parents were from Galicia in southeast Spain,
[00:20:39.990]the most persistent of all legends in Bellevue's history.
[00:20:43.559]It is said that sometime between 1905 and 1907,
[00:20:47.370]the intrepid fur trader and entrepreneur
[00:20:52.370]of the Missouri River, Manuel Lisa,
[00:20:55.260]climbed to the top of the largest hill, Elk Hill
[00:20:59.430]when confronted by a breathtaking view
[00:21:01.470]of the Missouri Valley.
[00:21:02.610]He said "La belle vue," meaning the beautiful view.
[00:21:09.000]Bellevue has carried the name ever since.
[00:21:12.690]Of course, there's no record of this. (chuckles)
[00:21:15.570]And none has been found to this point.
[00:21:17.870]So a lot of the credit for the establishment of Bellevue
[00:21:21.330]came about 30, 40 years later from another fur trader.
[00:21:26.520]Lisa was also involved in preparation
[00:21:29.640]for the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1803 and '04.
[00:21:33.990]Beginning in 1807,
[00:21:36.180]Lisa organized annual for gathering expeditions
[00:21:39.030]to the Upper Missouri region.
[00:21:41.790]On the first such excursion,
[00:21:43.830]he established a trading post at the mouth
[00:21:46.680]of the Bighorn River way up in present day Montana.
[00:21:51.090]Now,
[00:21:52.024]what I'm picturing here is a tapestry that I came across,
[00:21:57.210]as soon as I get control of my computer...
[00:22:02.040]That I came across
[00:22:03.075]in the chambers of Nebraska Supreme Court.
[00:22:07.650]This is now,
[00:22:10.170]this was about eight years ago when I found this.
[00:22:12.450]I haven't gone back to see if it's still there.
[00:22:15.210]Lisa at the time,
[00:22:16.380]became the first known the United States settler
[00:22:18.660]in Nebraska.
[00:22:20.340]In 1819, Mrs. Lisa accompanied Manuel
[00:22:24.540]to his trading post on the Nebraska side
[00:22:27.480]of the Missouri River,
[00:22:29.190]a few miles north of the present site of Omaha.
[00:22:32.460]And I believe that the airport has a lot to do with it,
[00:22:36.390]wiping out the Fort Lisa that,
[00:22:40.050]along with it was very close to the river plane.
[00:22:43.620]Here she spent the winter of 1819 and '20.
[00:22:47.040]She is believed to be the first woman to reside in Nebraska,
[00:22:52.680]a European woman to ascend the Missouri River,
[00:22:58.110]in addition to a European wife and children in St. Louis,
[00:23:02.550]Lisa also had an Omaha wife,
[00:23:05.160]two children who lived at Fort Lisa.
[00:23:09.120]Her name was, do I have it right?
[00:23:10.155]Mitane.
[00:23:14.991]Mitane.
[00:23:16.170]It was a daughter of Big Elk,
[00:23:18.300]the chief of the Omaha Nation.
[00:23:20.580]And I have somebody in the room that
[00:23:22.110]has a familial relationship with Big Elk.
[00:23:28.950]Thank you for coming, Rudy.
[00:23:33.180]During the war of 1812,
[00:23:34.650]Manuel Lisa was given credit
[00:23:36.690]for holding the Indian tribes of the West
[00:23:39.300]at peace with our country.
[00:23:41.370]He was made sub-agent of the United States for all the
[00:23:44.010]tribes above the mouth of the Kansas River,
[00:23:47.460]a river that I know well, it's called a calm in Kansas.
[00:23:53.010]And then we go to the immigrant Mestizos from former Spanish
[00:23:56.670]colonies moving north to the Great Plains
[00:23:59.802]for work in the 20th century.
[00:24:03.120]You don't see the word Mestizos
[00:24:04.470]used too much in our modern age.
[00:24:06.870]I use it.
[00:24:08.665]I don't like Latino, I don't like Hispanic,
[00:24:10.650]I don't like all these Xs and all these Ys.
[00:24:14.460]Mestizo to me is all of us.
[00:24:17.730]We are all Mestizos.
[00:24:18.870]We are all not Superman,
[00:24:21.750]that has kryptonite over his body,
[00:24:24.120]but of hundreds of species from mankind.
[00:24:28.110]So we are a mixture of so many other humans
[00:24:32.534]in the universe of man.
[00:24:39.060]The push.
[00:24:42.300]Very few Mexicans lived in Central Plains states
[00:24:46.726]prior to 1900.
[00:24:48.000]According to an early study of Mexican immigration
[00:24:50.300]to the United States,
[00:24:52.530]there were only 71 Mexicans living in Kansas in 1900,
[00:24:59.415]and 27 in Nebraska.
[00:25:03.360]And we all know in 1982 of the first significant law
[00:25:06.630]restricting immigration into the United States,
[00:25:11.340]the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress
[00:25:14.310]and signed by President Arthur.
[00:25:17.310]This act provided an absolute ten year ban
[00:25:21.420]on the Chinese laborers immigrating to the United States.
[00:25:26.817]This and the 1897 US Congress imposed a 75% tax on
[00:25:31.836]importation of foreign sugars,
[00:25:35.970]thus encouraging the development
[00:25:37.710]of the US sugar beet industry.
[00:25:39.930]Both of these things really propel also the kind of
[00:25:44.082]the letdown of immigration from Western
[00:25:47.640]and Eastern Europe at the time.
[00:25:49.770]America was growing so fast that they needed laborers
[00:25:54.870]this was the push.
[00:25:56.430]So what happens?
[00:25:57.840]Well, in Mexico,
[00:25:58.817]a powerful event happened that pushed people to the north
[00:26:03.480]was of course the Mexican revolution.
[00:26:06.480]A period of 1910 to actually more like 1929,
[00:26:12.210]caused an extraordinary amount of suffering, upheaval,
[00:26:15.660]and confusion.
[00:26:19.140]Zapatista were some of the elements that began emptying
[00:26:25.050]villages all over Mexico,
[00:26:26.403]of people wanting to get away from the revolution.
[00:26:30.747]They were working people.
[00:26:32.591]And many of them were indigenous,
[00:26:35.220]but there were also the sheer of Mestizos like me,
[00:26:39.120]like my grandfather, Jose Francisco Garcia,
[00:26:41.927]who crossed, the border crossed him in 1914.
[00:26:49.380]And here's another train that, was by the way,
[00:26:51.990]probably built by American entrepreneurs,
[00:26:56.130]one of the reasons why the Mexican revolution was fomented
[00:27:00.300]and accelerated such a great pace.
[00:27:02.880]The Porfirio Diaz sold most of the production capacity
[00:27:08.100]of Mexico to foreign assets
[00:27:10.520]during his 30 year (speaks Spanish) rule.
[00:27:15.690]The pole.
[00:27:18.240]The Great Western Sugar Company
[00:27:20.040]opened a sugar beat refinery in Scottsbluff in 1910,
[00:27:24.460]the sugar beet industry employed many migrant workers,
[00:27:27.908]including Mexicans, Germans, Russians.
[00:27:32.250]And when the Greeks were rioted out of Omaha
[00:27:36.690]in what, 1919, them too.
[00:27:41.397]And a lot of Italians,
[00:27:43.380]I've met a lot of Italians in that area.
[00:27:46.140]In 1920,
[00:27:47.150]acreage dedicated to sugar beet reached 872,000 acres with
[00:27:53.430]the Great Plains region,
[00:27:54.405]which includes the North Platte Valley in Wyoming
[00:27:57.900]and western Nebraska,
[00:27:59.640]producing 64% of the total crop grown in the
[00:28:02.450]United States.
[00:28:05.190]This place was becoming the little Cuba.
[00:28:07.740]And since there was no slave labor, well,
[00:28:13.050]they had to rely on non-European immigrants to do this work.
[00:28:20.940]The increased need for speed laborers,
[00:28:23.700]which these developments required,
[00:28:25.409]were met by regular methodical recruiting of
[00:28:29.730]Mexican agricultural workers.
[00:28:34.560]In 1926,
[00:28:35.910]the Great Western Company provided transportation for 14,500
[00:28:40.770]persons, employed 55 labor agents,
[00:28:44.880]and sent out advertising materials consisting of thousands
[00:28:48.667]of booklets, cardboards, posters, hand bills, and calendars,
[00:28:53.040]all in Spanish.
[00:28:54.780]This was something akin to what happened in 1865
[00:28:59.100]with the Homestead Act,
[00:29:01.209]was that '65, when Europe was inundated with agents drawing
[00:29:06.240]people to the Western lands because of free land.
[00:29:10.860]Yeah, sure.
[00:29:14.760]Railroaders, I was,
[00:29:18.780]I didn't know anything about this until I arrived in
[00:29:21.240]Nebraska and started meeting families in Omaha whose
[00:29:24.675]families were brought in from Mexico to maintain the lines
[00:29:29.790]between Scottsbluff and Omaha, the UP lines.
[00:29:33.300]And they were placed, the family,
[00:29:34.680]a Mexican family every 30 miles.
[00:29:38.070]They didn't care if there was a village there or not.
[00:29:39.810]They'd give 'em a boxcar to live in.
[00:29:41.853]And before you know it, these families
[00:29:45.441]in Scottsbluff and O'Neill and Columbus Grand Island
[00:29:52.301]put down roots or came to Omaha.
[00:29:58.800]From agricultural to urban.
[00:30:02.610]Well, here's the railroads again.
[00:30:05.010]They just continued funneling the manpower out of Mexico,
[00:30:08.220]primarily in the early point of immigration.
[00:30:12.000]And this really hurt Mexico.
[00:30:14.340]All of their able-bodied men came north.
[00:30:18.510]There were very few that were left.
[00:30:20.400]And this is one reason why Mexico
[00:30:22.937]is such a bad state right now.
[00:30:24.480]They were basically sickled.
[00:30:27.107]All of the males were were sickled out of Mexico
[00:30:30.810]and sent North by railroads
[00:30:33.960]and by agents that needed cheap labor,
[00:30:37.136]leaving Mexico to wallow.
[00:30:39.390]And we could see the cartels becoming part of
[00:30:41.906]the story because of conditions like this
[00:30:47.550]a hundred years ago.
[00:30:50.340]Adobe houses in Scottsbluff, Nebraska,
[00:30:53.610]this is Sarah Brown and Robert Sergeant,
[00:31:01.447]children working in the beet fields in
[00:31:02.877]the North Valley of Nebraska that took this picture.
[00:31:07.140]My own grandfather in Kansas City is said to have built in
[00:31:10.410]an adobe House in Kansas City, Missouri.
[00:31:13.680]I have yet to find evidence of this,
[00:31:15.510]but I've been told my family, the Rio side of the
[00:31:19.590]family, that this happened.
[00:31:23.312]And then of course you had Omaha,
[00:31:24.750]the pull of the stockyards,
[00:31:28.650]and they were absolutely massive.
[00:31:30.720]I mean, this now is all gone
[00:31:34.350]and it's been replaced by
[00:31:36.714]the Metropolitan Community College
[00:31:40.173]and other industries.
[00:31:42.960]The pull of Omaha into the livestock industry was,
[00:31:46.020]enormous, in the beginning, in the 1880s and 1890s,
[00:31:50.580]the majority of people working in the stock yards were
[00:31:52.830]Polish, were Irish, Germans, Slavs,
[00:31:57.073]even Ukrainians and Russians.
[00:32:00.570]Omaha probably has one of the most diverse immigrant
[00:32:02.911]populations in the nation because of the stockyards.
[00:32:09.090]Here's another huge plant.
[00:32:10.950]The armor plant was one of five that were in Omaha,
[00:32:16.410]which was in the center of the country.
[00:32:18.630]And when the railroads came in, well,
[00:32:21.330]meat was distributed throughout the nation.
[00:32:24.930]And in 1955,
[00:32:26.400]Omaha did become the biggest market and slaughter facility
[00:32:30.960]for beef and pork too.
[00:32:36.210]Pork was even a bigger drum.
[00:32:39.930]So people started establishing roots in urban areas.
[00:32:44.430]This is an example of everyone says Cinco de Mayo this,
[00:32:48.820]Cinco de Mayo that, well, back in 1935,
[00:32:51.660]it wasn't just a celebration,
[00:32:53.220]but it was a civic event
[00:32:55.260]that did things like (speaks Spanish)
[00:32:58.260]and not this, see, I'm thinking of another one,
[00:33:00.240]Cinco de Mayo.
[00:33:01.380]They did (Speaks Spanish)
[00:33:03.870]which was a man that was born in Texas.
[00:33:06.690]Well, what would become Texas six years later that ended up
[00:33:10.175]defeating the French in 1862, Cinco de Mayo.
[00:33:16.500]It was historically related in 1935.
[00:33:19.230]This is a poster that is in a collection of our museum that
[00:33:23.358]reflects this civic activity
[00:33:27.458]that was done by people in the community that had
[00:33:32.010]Mexican roots,
[00:33:33.300]but that many of 'em were now Mexican Americans.
[00:33:39.330]The first social,
[00:33:40.200]civic and financial organization founded in benefit of
[00:33:42.765]Nebraska's burgeoning Mexican American population
[00:33:47.310]was (speaks Spanish) of South Omaha in the early 1920s.
[00:33:53.490]I can find absolutely nothing on this organization.
[00:33:57.450]And yet for about 30 years,
[00:34:00.000]it was one of the most important social civic organizations
[00:34:05.040]that were, it was a mutual aid society organization,
[00:34:08.982]much like you found in Chicago and New York
[00:34:12.240]and San Francisco and California.
[00:34:14.850]Well,
[00:34:15.840]Omaha had one and it was very much like a Mutual of Omaha.
[00:34:20.310]But instead of serving European Americans,
[00:34:22.332]it was serving the Mexican American population,
[00:34:26.430]which was probably 99% of the Spanish speaking.
[00:34:31.710]It was helping them bury their people,
[00:34:34.380]giving them loans for houses and sending ancestors
[00:34:38.730]back to Mexico on their deaths.
[00:34:41.820]Mutual aid society stuff.
[00:34:45.930]The celebration of, like Cinco de Mayo,
[00:34:50.280]this is the picture that came from the 1950s
[00:34:54.092]out of Omaha also.
[00:34:55.993]And also we had this kind of activity in North Platte
[00:34:59.610]and in Scottsbluffs Nebraska.
[00:35:01.560]And it's very well curated up at,
[00:35:07.080]even to this day, we're starting to do it.
[00:35:09.960]Workers started becoming involved
[00:35:14.100]in the livestock and packing industry,
[00:35:16.350]not only in killing, processing and into processing also.
[00:35:21.150]And they also worked in ranches and became vaqueros,
[00:35:25.800]people that knew livestock
[00:35:27.484]and worked for many ranches in western and central Nebraska.
[00:35:34.200]Establishing religion, establishing parishes.
[00:35:38.970]This one here is of a parish that was
[00:35:42.295]established in Omaha, a Presbyterian,
[00:35:45.959]it was a Presbyterian, no, Lutheran,
[00:35:49.140]it's a Lutheran parish that was established
[00:35:50.970]by a Mexican American that my wife Linda, Linda Rivera,
[00:35:57.840]her grandfather is the man on the screen right,
[00:36:01.620]that helped bring this Lutheran parish to Omaha.
[00:36:09.240]People were getting married up and down
[00:36:11.910]and they were all Mexican Americans.
[00:36:13.860]These were very prominent Mexican Americans in Omaha,
[00:36:17.550]in the forties, fifties and sixties.
[00:36:20.160]At the time,
[00:36:20.993]the church was a storefront on the South Omaha Main Street,
[00:36:24.900]which is 24th street.
[00:36:27.600]Children were coming left and right.
[00:36:29.530]This is a picture of the Balleto family,
[00:36:32.683]a family that was a very, excuse me,
[00:36:35.610]a very large family in Omaha that is still very
[00:36:41.480]active in the community.
[00:36:45.360]And of course the men became veterans.
[00:36:49.050]This is from a scrapbook of Alba,
[00:36:54.660]Ramirez Alba family.
[00:36:57.060]And it shows men that ended up
[00:37:01.290]taking these little pictures before they became soldiers.
[00:37:04.290]And half of them didn't make it.
[00:37:06.030]This was World War II.
[00:37:09.660]And sports became very, very important
[00:37:12.690]because they couldn't play in organized leagues.
[00:37:17.670]They set up their own leagues
[00:37:19.387]and just played anybody they could.
[00:37:21.987]In this picture here in '53, they went to St. Joe,
[00:37:25.110]Missouri and got beat.
[00:37:27.180]They also came to Kansas City, Chicago, Des Moines.
[00:37:30.540]They went to Parsons, Emporia, Kansas.
[00:37:33.726]Mexican teams traveled throughout the Midwest
[00:37:36.900]to play each other until things loosened up
[00:37:39.600]in the communities in the late fifties, early sixties.
[00:37:44.820]Veteran organizations,
[00:37:47.010]the American GI Forum was an iconic organization
[00:37:50.442]that was in almost every enclave
[00:37:56.040]of Mexican Americans in Nebraska,
[00:37:58.540]even Scottsbluff had a chapter.
[00:38:01.500]Grand Diamond had one.
[00:38:03.030]South Sioux City had one, Omaha had four.
[00:38:07.264]And that was one of the issues with,
[00:38:10.440]can I say minority populations?
[00:38:14.910]When they had something good,
[00:38:16.110]everyone wanted a piece,
[00:38:17.910]and not only did they want a piece,
[00:38:20.460]but they wanted it be their piece.
[00:38:23.490]So instead of all organizing into one American GI forum,
[00:38:27.870]they became four.
[00:38:30.060]LULAC did the same thing.
[00:38:31.830]And that's why both of them, well,
[00:38:33.630]American GI Forum, they went from 300,000
[00:38:36.903]to about 2000 in a matter of 20 years.
[00:38:40.442]It's horrible.
[00:38:42.667]I went to their convention, Linda and I did.
[00:38:45.538]Oh, well, we're still trying.
[00:38:48.060]There were huge auxiliaries of women
[00:38:50.520]in the American GI Forum back in the sixties.
[00:38:53.160]Women had a great role in developing this.
[00:38:57.720]And then of course the veterans,
[00:39:00.090]this is from an artwork by Linda that she did back in the
[00:39:03.330]eighties that honors veterans of wars, Nebraskans
[00:39:08.460]with Spanish surnames, fought from Lexington, from Mitchell,
[00:39:12.780]from Bridgeport, from Overton, Omaha,
[00:39:16.838]from all over the state.
[00:39:19.080]Fought and died in World War II.
[00:39:24.660]Top cities with the highest percentage
[00:39:27.890]of Hispanic or Mestizo population in Nebraska.
[00:39:30.539]La Platte is over three-fourths Spanish speaking,
[00:39:35.700]Spanish surname.
[00:39:36.870]Look at Schuyler, Lexington, Lyman, Wakefield,
[00:39:41.610]Octavia, Madison, South Sioux City's getting up there now.
[00:39:47.427]Now the bigger cities, Grand Island,
[00:39:50.479]over almost a third of the people are Spanish speaking.
[00:39:52.920]Spanish surname.
[00:39:54.630]Scottsbluff actually is dropping.
[00:39:57.900]Columbus is also dropping.
[00:39:59.760]I don't know why, but their population is dropping.
[00:40:03.030]Omaha,
[00:40:03.863]It's a city of almost a million people.
[00:40:05.880]That's a lot of Spanish surname people.
[00:40:12.461]In 1970, Nebraska,
[00:40:13.438]Hispanics numbered 7,177 and '80 was a tripled,
[00:40:19.563]well, 300%.
[00:40:21.921]In 1990, the figure jumped to 36.
[00:40:22.754]In 2000, it was 94 again, another three.
[00:40:28.860]And 2010 census figures counted 167,000 people
[00:40:33.840]of Spanish name, Mestizo, African Mestizos.
[00:40:38.760]You wonder why in baseball you see so many Spanish name
[00:40:42.810]and yet they look like
[00:40:43.710]they have very large African ancestry?
[00:40:46.800]Well,
[00:40:47.633]that's because of the majority of the people that were taken
[00:40:51.104]from their African homeland
[00:40:53.430]ended up in Central Mexico or South America.
[00:40:57.380]It was only about 11%
[00:40:59.100]ended up in the United States.
[00:41:04.260]Population Hispanics and Latino.
[00:41:07.170]2020, Nebraska's right in there.
[00:41:11.421]As you can see, the tier,
[00:41:12.254]it almost replicates the land that was lost by Mexico
[00:41:18.210]in 1848 with the Treaty of Guadalupe.
[00:41:21.240]In fact it kind of doubled it,
[00:41:23.940]there is a term that was used in the seventies
[00:41:26.760]and I got a little bit in trouble with the FBI
[00:41:28.620]using this term. (chuckles)
[00:41:30.180]I won't tell you what the situation was,
[00:41:33.000]but the term was la reconquista, the reconquest.
[00:41:39.000]I stopped using it about 40 years ago
[00:41:41.610]because it was really a buzz word.
[00:41:44.370]Now everybody else is using it,
[00:41:46.530]not only for this kind of situation,
[00:41:49.149]but for so many other things that are happening
[00:41:51.750]to our country.
[00:41:57.060]My goodness, I've come to the end.
[00:41:59.147](audience chuckles)
[00:42:00.420]What time is it?
[00:42:01.290]Anyway, I'll strike the time.
[00:42:03.835]I'm still fine.
[00:42:05.580]This is a post that we did for a Mexican American historical
[00:42:08.760]society, Chicano Mexican media project,
[00:42:14.136]that's my mom in the middle, Rio side of the family.
[00:42:16.890]If you notice, Leia has nothing on my mom.
[00:42:20.002](audience chuckles)
[00:42:22.230]I still try to figure out how she got that hairdresser
[00:42:26.430]and I am having great difficulty in finding her ancestry.
[00:42:30.060]I can't find it anywhere.
[00:42:32.640]You know,
[00:42:33.473]I'm a $430 a year ancestor.com, and I'm still looking.
[00:42:38.250]I need help.
[00:42:39.083]So anybody you that can help me.
[00:42:42.548]We're the Mexican American Historical Society,
[00:42:45.308]our American experience is American history.
[00:42:48.870]And now I'm open to questions. (chuckles)
[00:42:53.407]What's your favorite historical period
[00:42:55.200]or person to talk about in you know, a talk like this?
[00:43:01.920]Or who do you enjoy talking about the most?
[00:43:04.260]What my view is?
[00:43:07.200]Or who do you find most interesting?
[00:43:08.850]Oh, the most interesting.
[00:43:10.560]Kansas City Baseball.
[00:43:13.048](audience laughs)
[00:43:16.209]And it has connections with Mexico.
[00:43:19.920]My family married into a,
[00:43:25.050]my Aunt Amparo married a Mexican,
[00:43:30.900]but he wasn't Mexican citizen.
[00:43:32.430]He was born in Arizona. (speaks Spanish)
[00:43:37.410]He was born in Arizona,
[00:43:38.580]but he went to live in Chihuahua
[00:43:40.337]and he was a DJ down there.
[00:43:43.020]And Mama Grande,
[00:43:44.820]my grandmother on the Garcia side traveled to Mexico
[00:43:49.020]and my Aunt Amparo and Jose met and fell in love.
[00:43:58.170]And I call him Tio (speaks Spanish)
[00:44:04.416]'Cause we had two Joes in the family,
[00:44:07.999]actually three with me.
[00:44:09.030]And one was Chiquito and one was (speaks Spanish)
[00:44:12.990]He introduced me to baseball.
[00:44:16.020]He acted as a father figure to me, in 1957, '58,
[00:44:21.674]he took me to three or four baseball games
[00:44:23.460]at the old Kansas City Athletic Municipal stadium.
[00:44:28.980]And I became a Charlie Finley fan,
[00:44:32.640]Harvey the Rabbit fan, and started following baseball.
[00:44:36.750]And then four years later I became a wolf packer.
[00:44:40.380]So I'm very connected in respect to sports
[00:44:44.283]because my Mexican American uncle,
[00:44:48.900]that was a father figure to me.
[00:44:50.880]Other things, when I first entered
[00:44:56.618]the University of Kansas City,
[00:44:59.640]I wanted to be an archeologist. (chuckles)
[00:45:02.610]And it just didn't happen.
[00:45:05.669]I was more akin to asking questions
[00:45:10.467]and being very curious about behavior.
[00:45:12.360]So I got my degree in psychology.
[00:45:15.637]What other things?
[00:45:17.610]Oh, my military life is very important to me.
[00:45:22.020]I learned discipline.
[00:45:24.030]I learned the fact that even though I have little hands,
[00:45:27.450]I could still do mean things like pulling triggers.
[00:45:31.530]I could still do mean things like...
[00:45:35.416]Doing mean things.
[00:45:37.587]But it also gave me a discipline under fire.
[00:45:40.920]And I saw behavior of fellow soldiers
[00:45:48.420]that melted and that became kind of, what can I say,
[00:45:55.050]detached from the situation they were in.
[00:45:58.110]So it showed me how to do things under fire even though I
[00:46:02.130]wasn't a infantry guy or those guys that, I did go up into
[00:46:07.110]helicopters a lot and I did do a lot of things in the field
[00:46:12.480]'cause I was curious and I was a clerk and guess what?
[00:46:16.200]I could do my months worth of work in three days.
[00:46:20.550]And in those 27 days,
[00:46:22.110]being in the military and being Jose Garcia,
[00:46:25.110]nobody knows where you're at.
[00:46:26.214]'Cause I already fulfilled my responsibilities.
[00:46:30.900]So I guess the number one thing is my curiosity
[00:46:34.680]that I treasure most about me.
[00:46:37.890]I'm 77 years old.
[00:46:39.180]I'll be 78 next week.
[00:46:41.910]And I'm still curious.
[00:46:43.080]Thank you. (laughs)
[00:46:44.760]So thanks for the question.
[00:46:48.000]Any other questions?
[00:46:54.689]Have you had any research
[00:46:55.522]or know anything about like the Bracero Program?
[00:46:58.877]'Cause my father had his (indistinct)
[00:47:02.759]and he would just show me that he had been called
[00:47:05.141]that he could come work.
[00:47:07.140]So that was a pull for him.
[00:47:10.043]Yes.
[00:47:11.821]Can you tell me a little?
[00:47:12.654]Yeah,
[00:47:13.487]well the Bracero Program in the early thirties,
[00:47:15.731]it became a deportation program
[00:47:19.530]and it actually impacted the population severely,
[00:47:24.690]And Mexico refused to protect the contracts
[00:47:29.070]that were made by US industry, US agricultural industry.
[00:47:34.020]And not until recently when lawsuits were filed.
[00:47:40.865]Other than that,
[00:47:42.319]I have quite a lot of books on braceros
[00:47:45.360]and I've seen several exhibitions of the Bracero movement.
[00:47:49.110]But being a city boy I wasn't impacted.
[00:47:53.970]But it changed the nature of agricultural workers
[00:47:58.260]and it was one of the things
[00:47:59.400]that Cesar Chavez worked against.
[00:48:02.393]They used Braceros as strike breakers,
[00:48:05.687]and then they sent them back.
[00:48:08.580]I myself in, when,
[00:48:09.913]in 1954 or '55, mi Mama Grande heard that there were agents
[00:48:17.610]filtering the west side where I grew up in.
[00:48:21.600]And she was very fearful that they would find
[00:48:24.210]my sister and I somewhere without parents.
[00:48:28.320]So she would, she didn't hide us,
[00:48:31.890]but she protected us from any outside influences
[00:48:36.030]for about a month.
[00:48:37.440]You know, like we had to be very careful
[00:48:40.530]'cause they were picking up people
[00:48:41.700]and deporting them even though they were US citizens
[00:48:45.360]like we were.
[00:48:47.130]So, you know,
[00:48:47.963]other than that I really can't intelligently
[00:48:50.850]deal with the Bracero.
[00:48:54.000]Not as a historian at this point, but I'll have to work,
[00:48:58.328]I'll have to work with you on that.
[00:49:00.090]My dad would tell me,
[00:49:02.340]but he didn't fully explain.
[00:49:04.620]He's passed now.
[00:49:06.773]And yeah,
[00:49:07.606]it was a business deal that was made with individuals
[00:49:09.780]and probably with very organized groups in Mexico.
[00:49:13.380]It was a early form of,
[00:49:16.230]what do they call it when they use people and extort them?
[00:49:20.220]Cartels are doing it right now.
[00:49:23.190]It was an early form of that because so much labor was
[00:49:26.130]needed in the United States and the agents that used to work
[00:49:29.040]for companies, and they became too costly.
[00:49:32.250]So they gave it up to the unlawful element
[00:49:34.654]and they took advantage of the situation otherwise.
[00:49:39.300]And of course the United States of America as a political
[00:49:42.990]system had a lot of problems codifying laws
[00:49:47.160]to regulate this kind of action.
[00:49:51.090]And it's still happening.
[00:49:52.170]I mean,
[00:49:53.003]we still don't have an immigrant policy
[00:49:55.350]'cause it's such an overwhelming issue
[00:49:57.660]and nobody has a handle on it.
[00:50:00.120]And when they do, they make almost
[00:50:05.580]a religious task out of it
[00:50:08.090]instead of a task of basic humanity.
[00:50:11.400]Then the sugar companies,
[00:50:12.630]like in Lyman and Scottsbluff,
[00:50:15.480]they had Braceros, which they were being paid
[00:50:18.956]so much money per head to come and work in the field.
[00:50:23.490]So that's how my family ended up in Lyman.
[00:50:28.350]And then Mitchell and Scottsbluff.
[00:50:31.350]Truck farming was a very strong industry in the Midwest.
[00:50:35.790]And I remember when I was growing up on the West side,
[00:50:40.770]Mama Grande saw those trucks that stopped in the
[00:50:44.242]neighborhood on the streets.
[00:50:46.680]And she instructed me, don't ever get on that truck.
[00:50:51.064]She not only didn't want me to be used in that manner,
[00:50:57.619]but she didn't want me to be a Bracero.
[00:51:01.934]The trucks would go
[00:51:02.767]all the way to (indistinct)
[00:51:06.424]and that's where (indistinct)
[00:51:10.764]And my dad said he wasn't gonna play that game.
[00:51:13.717]So he drove himself.
[00:51:15.156]Well thank you for the question.
[00:51:17.693]I appreciate it.
[00:51:18.733]I'd like to meet you, okay?
[00:51:22.165]Hi camera! (laughs)
[00:51:23.038](audience laughs)
[00:51:25.094]Jose, I might ask you
[00:51:27.080]to just tell us all a little bit
[00:51:27.913]briefly about your new museum.
[00:51:30.540]Wow.
[00:51:32.580]We have 1800 square feet and within two weeks we found out
[00:51:35.452]we need 20,000 square feet.
[00:51:38.236](audience laughs)
[00:51:39.069]Our first show was the Smell of Money,
[00:51:41.430]which was a historical overview
[00:51:45.030]of how the packing house industry
[00:51:50.700]took over the economy of South Omaha
[00:51:53.730]and ended up with it being gobbled up by Omaha
[00:51:58.110]because it was so valuable.
[00:52:01.020]Tell them about Gary Castro.
[00:52:02.850]And then I met the godfather of South Omaha,
[00:52:07.369]his name's Gary Castro.
[00:52:10.290]And he went to Poland about three weeks ago.
[00:52:12.540]He is that close to his kinship.
[00:52:15.480]And him and I got together with our collection.
[00:52:18.210]And he is South Omaha.
[00:52:20.640]I mean he's been collecting for 50 years.
[00:52:23.880]He established the South Omaha Museum 30 years ago
[00:52:27.089]because he got a $50,000 grant in 1980 money,
[00:52:32.340]from guess who?
[00:52:33.720]Apple Corporation.
[00:52:35.760]He was that much of an intellectual
[00:52:38.553]and he was ostracized because he wasn't doing it
[00:52:42.259]the way the system wanted him to do it.
[00:52:45.960]He was doing it on his own.
[00:52:47.430]He brought in a $50,000 check, slapped in front of the
[00:52:50.603]superintendent of the Omaha public schools
[00:52:53.640]and he became an outcast, 'cause he didn't do it.
[00:52:57.870]So he's always been that kind of an outsider.
[00:53:00.960]And him and I were mutually connected
[00:53:03.539]and we gathered our collection
[00:53:08.370]and are beginning to curate it and make exhibits out of it.
[00:53:11.790]Our second exhibit was 150 Years of Omaha Baseball.
[00:53:16.590]And it included the Mestizaje element,
[00:53:20.128]and that's the word I want you all to take with you.
[00:53:21.910]M E S T A Z A J E, something like that.
[00:53:27.810]It means all of us.
[00:53:30.030]Mestizo kind of means us as humans,
[00:53:32.190]but Mestizaje means us more of a material world.
[00:53:36.030]There's no flags involved there.
[00:53:38.190]There's no saluting this or that, even though
[00:53:41.100]we all know what flag rules, but we're trying to,
[00:53:47.970]Gary and I,
[00:53:49.020]a Polish guy and a Chicano are trying to merge this museum
[00:53:52.290]into a Mestizaje presence in the field
[00:53:56.688]that we're working in.
[00:53:59.976]Yes?
[00:54:01.530]Do you have oral history recordings
[00:54:03.750]at the museum?
[00:54:05.220]Gary Castro has got a huge collection of oral histories.
[00:54:09.840]of Mexican Americans?
[00:54:12.794]Yeah, no, it's both.
[00:54:13.740]He was always very open in the people
[00:54:17.640]that he reached out to.
[00:54:19.530]The problem is, Gary Castro was never a curator.
[00:54:24.030]He knew nothing about yesterday
[00:54:26.190]because it's already been done.
[00:54:27.870]He had all the records,
[00:54:29.550]but they were never managed or curated.
[00:54:32.730]So one of the challenges we have is to dig these up
[00:54:36.690]and to dig up other troves of information
[00:54:40.140]that have been taken
[00:54:41.580]but have never really been managed successfully.
[00:54:45.450]We have a huge challenge and if I don't get a building
[00:54:49.440]in a year, (laughs) I'm gonna look too old for it.
[00:54:54.030]But we'll see what happens.
[00:54:56.640]Well, thank you.
[00:54:58.050]Thank you very much.
[00:54:58.883](audience applauds)

José García: Nebraska's Mexican-American Legacy

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José García: Nebraska's Mexican-American Legacy

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