rudy acuna <acunarudy427@gmail.

com>

Heading Toward Home

I began my research writing about Sonora. You cannot write about Sonora Querida without writing about the Yaqui. I will be writing more soon
because I am heading home. Research never ends and each document changes the story.An aside when I was teaching a night class at Hollywood
High one of the couple was a vice president of Carte Blanc. It turned out that the wife was the daughter of one of the honchos of Carte Blanche; herr
father had been an executive of the Richard Construction Co. She had possession of the company's Yaqui Valley Papers, To make a long story short I
said no. I don't know where the papers are but I know if you want to start to understand American exploitation of Sonora, you begin with the Yaqui.
Rudy Acuna

The Rangers and Meskins

Mexican Migrant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wG7LAK0SH8

Abraham Salcido

about Abran Salcido without research. I don’t believe he got his plot of land others less deserving got the fruits of
his struggle

https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu › roho › ucb › text › acuna_rudy_2022.pdf

Oral History of Rodolfo Acuña, UC Bancrott

The 1900 census showed an estimated 330,000 U.S.-born Mexicans—more than three times the Mexican-

born population in the United States. California had 8,086 Mexican-born residents and about 33,000 U.S.-born

Mexicans; in Arizona the corresponding numbers were 14,171 and 29,000. New Mexico’s population only

numbered 6,649 Mexican immigrants out of 122,000 U.S.-born Mexicans. Texas had the largest numbers by far,

with 71,062 immigrants and 131,000 U.S.-born Mexicans. Colorado had the fewest—274 immigrants and 15,000

U.S.-born Mexicans.[i]

By the 1920s, Mexicans accounted for more than 10 percent of all immigrants in the United States;

however, a majority of Mexicans in the United States were born there. Visibility triggered a virulent strain of

racist nativism, a mixture of racism and xenophobia, toward Mexicans.[ii] Differences also arose among the

immigrants according to where they settled and what work they did. The wave in which they arrived spelled

further differences. For example, middle-class Mexicans arriving before the Mexican Revolution were more apt to

be liberal and differed from the post-1910-era exiles, which were often conservative politically. There were also

variations within generations. For example, many rural migrants continued to use Spanish as their primary
language—more so in smaller towns than in the cities—whereas Mexicans in urban areas tended to adopt English

more quickly, especially the second generation.

Ideas Cross Borders

In 1910 the U.S. consul in Mexico, Luther E. Ellsworth, who sometimes spied for the government of Mexican

dictator Porfirio Díaz, wrote:

I have the honor to report increasing activity of the very intelligent class of Mexican exiles in the Cities and
Towns along the Mexican-American Border line, between the Gulf and the Pacific Ocean[They] are busily
engaged [in] writing and publishing inflammatory articles intended to
educate up to date, in new revolutionary ideas, the thousands of Mexicans now on the American side of the
Border line, and as many as possible of those on the Mexican side.[iii]

“A significant number of the Mexican migrants were political refugees. Once in the United States, they organized
and rallied support for the struggle to overthrow Díaz, whom they accused of subverting the Constitution of 1857.
They established newspapers and became involved in civic and labor organizing.

Throughout the nineteenth century, many Mexicans read the works of European thinkers in an effort to
understand government, democracy, and modernization. Because of the dramatic transformations that took
place, disparate ideologies emerged to explain the changes in the new industrial society and the disorder caused
by it. The anarchist philosophy of Joseph Proudhon and Mikhail Bakunin was among the most popular among
Mexicans, partially because they were more available in Spanish and Italian than Marxist writings. Urbanization
led to the formation of mutualistas (mutual-aid societies) …

The post–Civil War period (1861–1865) saw unprecedented industrial growth in the United States, which up to this
point was mostly a nation of farms and small towns. Factories and urban centers came to dominate the eastern
seaboard as European immigrants flocked to them for jobs. The railroad system expanded and accelerated the
commercialization of the West, where machines replaced animals. The construction of railroads created a
demand for iron and steel, a demand for rails and locomotives, a demand for capital, a demand for workers, and a
demand for food. The arrival of more immigrants evoked angst among the Euro-American population, which cried
for limiting immigration. The passage of the Chinese Exclusion Acts of 1882, 1892, and 1902, and the
Gentlemen’s Agreements with Japan of 1900 and 1907 first reduced and then eliminated the number of Chinese
and Japanese immigrating to the United States, increasing the pull of Mexican workers. California, which had
depended on Native American and then Chinese labor, could not get enough Native Americans by 1900; their
numbers fell to just 17,500. Thus, with the decline of the number of Chinese and Native American workers
available, the solution was to hire more Mexicans.
Railroad networks that knitted the two countries together facilitated the increased interaction resulting from
industrial development in Mexico and the United States. Workers from the interior of Mexico were pulled toward
large commercial farming areas such as the Laguna in the northern Mexican states of Durango and Coahuila.
Once the harvest was over, many of these workers migrated to other agricultural areas in Mexico and the United
States, literally following the crops. Others migrated to the mines and the cities of northern Mexico and the
United States. In other words, the border was a revolving door, with Mexican labor moving into and out of the
United States, and in the process developing the Euro-American Southwest.[iv]
More than a million Mexicans arrived in the United States during this 20-year period (1900–1920). As educate up
to date, in new revolutionary ideas, the thousands of Mexicans now on the American side of the Border line, and
as many as possible of those on the Mexican side.[v]
A significant number of Mexican migrants were political refugees. Once in the United States, they organized and
rallied support for the struggle to overthrow Díaz, whom they accused of subverting the Constitution of 1857.
They established newspapers and became involved in civic and labor organizing.

Many came Chihuahua to Arizona as a copper miner also in agriculture. Headed Clifton Morenci mutualistic and
headed the large copper strike sent to Yuma as radical. Spent dozen years got out and joined The PLM, driven out
of Morenci went to Douglas where worked with the Flores Magon brothers and helped at Cananea deported to
Mexico. He was sent to Vera Cruz worst prison in Mexico. Got out circa 1912 a broken man. Salcido wrote to rev
leaders that he thought he contributed to the Revolution and asked for a small plot of land for himself and his
brother.
http://rudyacuna.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Yaqui-Soldiers.jpg

Yaqui Slaves sold to the Plantations of Yucatan as slaves

The United States is not a democracy. There is injustice to this day. A democracy does not make a profit off the
unfortunate. There are thousands of stories about injustice like gas baths at the border and the waging an
internal war on the Yaqui Land by the Richardson Construction Co of San Francisco. To this day we take in
almost a million visa workers that be any other name are braceros. I include a lot of images preserved by Firefox.
The stories of the Carmelite Torres should be part of U.S. History. Yes, Mr. Biden we are like that

[i] Neil Foley, The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1997), 118–40. Matt S. Meier and Feliciano Rivera, Dictionary of Mexican American

History (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981), 287. David G. Gutierrez, Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans,

Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 44–48. Frank D.

Bean and Marta Tienda, The Hispanic Population of the United States (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1988),

16–20.

[ii] John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860–1925 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers

University Press, 2002).

[iii] Luther E. Ellsworth, “Informe al Secretario de Estado, Fechado el 12 de Octubre de 1910 en Ciudad Porfirio

Díaz, México,” in Gene Z. Hanrahan, ed., Documents on the Mexican Revolution (Salisbury, NC: Documentary

Publications, 1976) quoted in Clara Lomas, “Transborder Discourse: The Articulation of Gender in the Borderlands

in the Early Twentieth Century,” Frontiers 24, nos. 2&3 (2003): 52.

[iv] Emilio Zamora, The World of the Mexican Worker in Texas (College Station: Texas A&M University Press,

1993), 15–16, 19. George C. Kiser, “Mexican American Labor Before World War II,” Journal of Mexican American

History (Spring 1972): 123. Tomás Almaguer, Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in

California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 29. Mario T. García, Desert Immigrants: The Mexicans

of El Paso, 1880–1920 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981), 17–19.

[v] Luther E. Ellsworth, “Informe al Secretario de Estado, Fechado el 12 de Octubre de 1910 en Ciudad Porfirio

Díaz, México,” in Gene Z. Hanrahan, ed., Documents on the Mexican Revolution (Salisbury, NC: Documentary

Publications, 1976) quoted in Clara Lomas, “Transborder Discourse: The Articulation of Gender in the Borderlands

in the Early Twentieth Century,” Frontiers 24, nos. 2&3 (2003): 52.

Morenci Strip Mine

Salcido was from Chihuahua and came to Arizona as a copper miner and worked in agriculture. Headed Clifton

Morenci mutualists and led the large copper strike. He was sent to Yuma Penitentiary and labeled a radical. Was

put in solitary confinement when temperatures ran over 12 degrees. Spent dozen years got out and joined the

PLM, was driven out of Morenci went to Douglas where worked with the Magon brothers -- also helped at Cananea

-- deported to Mexico and was sent to Vera Cruz the worst prison in Mexico. Got out circa 1912 a broken man. He

wrote to revolutionary leaders that he was poor but he thought he had contributed to the Revolution and asked

for a small plot of land for himself and his brother. I shared the note with Jorge Garcia and he responded that he

hoped he got his piece of land. I do not know whether he did or not, but so many people work, sacrifice, and

suffer for change are forgotten. Hopefully history will remember Abran Salcido.

Carolyn Decker. A college student was a major leader of the 1933 San Joaquin Valley Cotton Strike.

The California agricultural strikes of 1933 were a series of strikes by mostly Mexican

(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexicans) and Filipino (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filipinos) agricultural

workers throughout the San Joaquin Valley (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Joaquin_Valley). More than

47,500 workers were involved in the wave of approximately 30 strikes from 1931-1941.[1][2] Twenty-four of the

strikes, involving 37,500 union members, were led by the Cannery and Agricultural Workers' Industrial Union

(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannery_and_Agricultural_Workers%27_Industrial_Union) (CAWIU).[1][a] The

strikes are grouped together because most of them were organized by the CAWIU. Strike actions began in August

among cherry, grape, peach, pear, sugar beet, and tomato workers, and culminated in a number of strikes against

cotton growers in the San Joaquin Valley (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Joaquin_Valley) in October. The

cotton strikes involved the largest number of workers. Sources vary as to numbers involved in the cotton strikes,

with some sources claiming 18,000 workers[4] and others just 12,000 workers,[5][b] 80% of whom were

Mexican.[4]

(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Corcoran,_San_Joaquin_Valley_California._Company_housing_for_Mexican_cot

ton_pickers_on_large_ranch._-_NARA_-_521720.jpg)

Company housing for Mexican cotton pickers on a large ranch in Corcoran, California

(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corcoran,_California). Photo taken in 1940.

In the cotton strikes of 1933, striking workers were evicted from company housing while growers and managerial

staff were deputized (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheriffs_in_the_United_States) by local law enforcement.

Attacks by employers on peaceful striking workers were common and the surrounding community of bankers,

merchants, ministers, and Boy Scouts (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America) encouraged the

attacks.[6] As a sheriff stated, "We protect our farmers here in Kern county. But the Mexicans are trash. They

have no standard of living (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_of_living)

. We herd them like pigs."

[7]

In

Pixley, California (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixley,_California)

, two strikers, Dolores Hernàndez and Delfino D'Ávila, were murdered and eight others wounded after "local

sheriffs handed out six hundred citizen's permits to carry concealed weapons."

[6]

Eight growers faced charges in the shootings, but all were acquitted.

[7]

Another man, Pedro Subia, was murdered near

Arvin, California (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvin,_California)

. Workers came from camps from all around the

Bakersfield (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakersfield,_California)

area to commemorate his life at

Bakersfield City Hall (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakersfield_City_Hall)

[8]

CAWIU

organizers (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_organizer)

Pat Chambers and

Caroline Decker (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Decker)

were arrested and charged under the

California Criminal Syndicalism Act (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Criminal_Syndicalism_Act)

for their labor organizing activities.

[9]

http://rudyacuna.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Yaqui-Soldiers.jpg

Yaquis were sent to fight for the Revolution. Their land was stolen, families sold into slavery and they were

expected to fight for progress.

Fight For Justice!

Geronimo

_________________

¡Tierra y Libertad!
Articles 27 and 28 of the Mexican Constitution
Does History Matter?
By
Rodolfo F. Acuña

El grito ¡Tierra y Libertad! (Land and liberty), attributed to Emiliano Zapata, was in reality popularized by
Ricardo Flores Magón whose prints are all over Zapata’s Plan deAyala. Flores Magón wrote an article titled,
"Tierra y libertad". Otilio Montaño Sánchez, a local school teacher, introduced Zapata to the works of Peter
Kropotkin and Flores Magón.

Land has always been part of the Mexican’s soul, going back to our indigenous times.

Today land is a metaphor for other rights such as education. It represents our struggle for a better and just
life.

Recently the education part of the struggle came home again. UNAM struck a deal with California State
University Northridge administrators to establish a Center for Mexican and Latin American Studies, but the
process intentionally avoided consultation with the faculty members and students and staff of the respected
and deep-rooted Department of Chicana/o Studies. The surreptitious deal raised serious questions about the
manner in which University administrators marginalized the consultative role Chicana/o scholars who after
all have a long historic academic and activist relationship with higher education groups and indigenous
scholars in Mexico and other Latin American countries.

The obvious questions were why had UNAM picked CSUN? How would the deal affect students and workers
on both sides of the border? Would it further the privatization of education on both sides of the border?

Some form or another of privatization has plagued the poor since the colonial era. Roughly it is the act of
transferring public resources to private ownership. Privatization in recent years impinged on other rights
such as free access to education.

During the Spanish Conquest, the conquerors transferred communal Indian villages to private individuals.
The crown gave conquistadores franchises called encomiendas, a grant of land and natives.

Indian labor was also privatized. The repartimiento, a forced labor system, also permitted other assessments
on indigenous people, later evolving into peonage.

Further north, the Spaniards set up missions near indigenous rancherias. In theory mission lands belonged to
the Indians--administered by friars until the natives became gente de razon. The loss of land meant the loss of
liberty as outsiders encroached on Indian lands and water.

The Indians were conquered because in places like Chihuahua the scarcity of water limited the size of their
groups to 20 to 30 persons. In most cases resistance depended on the size of group. For example, the great
Yaqui River Valley allowed Yaqui rancherias to grow into thousands. The Yaqui rebelled in the late 17th
century, a perpetual rebellion that lasted to the late 1920s.
In the early18th century the Spanish Bourbons privatized the missions and expelled the Jesuits. This increased
the vulnerability of the Indian lands.

The Liberal Party was a product of this Enlightenment of the 18 th century. After Mexican Independence
(1821) Liberals championed the privatization of the ejidos owned by public institutions such as the Catholic
Church and the Indian villages. (An ejido is communal land used for agriculture; community members
individually farm specific parcels).

During the Age of Reform (1854-1876) Liberals triumphed over Conservative landed interests, and
intensified the assault on land and water. The encroachments were the cause of Indian wars, epitomized by
the Yaqui Rebellions that were renewed in the 1870s -- led by the great Yaqui leader Cajeme.

Privatization was the hallmark of the Porfiriato (1876-1911) when Mexico’s land and resources were sold to
foreign capitalists who built 15,000 miles of railroad track; in return they took Mexico’s land and water
rights.

The Porfiriato also accelerated the transfer of ejidos to private hands, i.e., the 1883 land law. By 1888 land
companies owned more than 27.5 million hectares of rural land, and six years later, land companies
controlled one-fifth of Mexico's total territory, and by 1910 almost every village had lost its ejidos. A few
hundred wealthy families owned 54.3 million hectares of Mexico’s most productive land, more than half of all
rural workers worked on haciendas.

Under Porfirio Díaz, the rich became super rich. Foreigners received favorable assessments of land and
mines, and jefe politicos protected the foreigners’ land and mining interests.

"No hay mal que dure cien años, ni cuerpo que los resista" (There is no wrong that lasts 100 years, or body
that can withstand it). The first miners’ strike occurred in Pinos Altos, in the Municipio de Ocampo,
Chihuahua on January 21, 1883. The British Mining Company of Pinos Altos demanded that miners spend
half their wages at the company store whereupon workers rebelled. The township president with twenty-five
armed men arrested the strike leaders and executed five of them. In all the government executed 23 workers.
This was three years before the Haymarket Square Riot.

At Tomochic, Chihuahua, on October 20, 1892 1,200 federal troops surrounded the village and opened fire on
children, women, and men – young and old. They killed every man and boy over the age of thirteen, and
burned the pueblo to the ground. Only 13 women and 71 children survived.

Labor unrest intensified; in 1906 Copper Miners’ strike erupted at Cananea, Sonora. The next year Rio
Blanco textile strike in the Veracruz/Puebla area saw federal troops massacre 200 workers.

The Mexican Revolution (1910-1921) was costly. Out of a population of 15 million, Mexico lost 2 million
people -- half were killed and the other half migrated al norte.

Mexicans hoped to regain their liberties, and protect their rights through the Mexican Constitution of 1917. It
was the first Constitution in the world that protected social rights. Article 3 forbids censorship of prohibited
books, and guarantees free, mandatory, and lay education. Article 27 vests the nation in the direct ownership
of all natural resources, i.e., all minerals and water. Only Mexicans have the right to own land, water, and
minerals or to acquire concessions for their exploitation. Article 28 prohibits monopolies of any kind. Article
123 empowers the labor sector.

Relevant to this discussion are Articles 3, 27 and 28.

Today neo-cientificos (technocrats) are attacking these articles under attack under the guise of reform.
Mexico’s political parties are supporting a measure that allows the government to grant licenses and share oil
profits with multinational corporations such as Exxon and Chevron. These so-called reforms would roll back
President Lazaro Cardenas historic nationalization of the oil industry in 1938.
In addition, the reforms would denationalize the state owned electrical industries, and give tax breaks to
investors.

In 1982 there were 1,155 state enterprises. They included huge conglomerates such as Petróleos Mexicanos
(Pemex), the Federal Commission of Electricity (CFE), Ferronales (railroads) and Sicartsa (steel).

In all the government operated mining firms, two airlines, eighteen banks, hotels, even jewelry stores and a
bicycle factory. The state development bank, Nafinsa, funded the state-run system. Privatization has meant
the transfer of the ownership of these enterprises to private individuals creating a new class of billionaires
thus widening the economic and social gap between Mexicans; 42 percent of Mexicans live below the national
poverty line.

Mexico’s Billionaires:
Carlos Slim - US$ 74 billion - Telmex, INBURSA, América Móvil, CompUSA, WorldCom and Telcel.
Ricardo Salinas Pliego - US$ 17.4 billion - TV Azteca, Iusacell, Unefon.
Alberto Baillères - US$ 16.5 billion – Peñoles.
Germán Larrea Mota-Velasco - US$ 14.2 billion - Grupo Mexico
Jerónimo Arango - US$ 4 billion - Founder of Aurrerá (currently part of Wal-Mart Mexico)
Emilio Azcárraga Jean - US$ 2 billion - Televisa, Univision, Club América, Necaxa, Club San Luis
Roberto González Barrera - US$ 1.9 billion - Maseca, Banorte
Carlos Hank Rhon - US$ 1.4 billion - Bank
Roberto Hernandez Ramirez - US$ 1.3 billion - Banco Nacional de México (Banamex)
Alfredo Harp Helú - US$ 1 billion - Banamex, Red Devils Baseball Team
Joaquín Guzmán Loera - US$ 1 billion - Sinaloa Cartel
Source: Wikipedia

In 1994 the U.S., Canada and Mexico signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), setting up
a trade bloc. This accelerated the creation of Mexican billionaires, and it uprooted millions of small farmers.
As a consequence, the United States is the world’s top producer of corn, 40 percent; Mexico, the birth place of
corn, grows about 3 percent. Unable to compete, many small farmers and their families have been uprooted.

Violations of Article 3 have led to student and teacher strikes. From March 11, 1999 to February 6, 2000
students struck UNAM. Administrators wanted to raise tuition to $75 per semester. The university students
felt that tuition hikes violated the right a free education, and threatened their social mobility. They saw this as
a step toward privatizing UNAM.

In June the students won a partial victory and the tuition proposal was revoked. But the strikers wanted
systemic changes, and violent clashes broke out in February 2000. A force 1,000-2,500 Federal Police stormed
the UNAM campus and arrested 632 to 745 students. The student battle cry was “UNAM is not for sale!”

Students marched with the Mexican Electricians’ Union (SME) opposing Mexican President Ernesto
Zedillo’s proposal to privatize the electrical industry. Along the parade route, large student contingents
chanted "University … Electricity!". They were supported by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation
(EZLN) and the Union of UNAM Workers (STUNAM) chanting, "¡Estudiante, escucha, tus papás están en la
lucha!" ("Student, listen, your parents are in struggle!"). They demanded transparency and consultation in
matters affecting them.

The protracted strike rekindled political unrest on UNAM campuses creating a sense of community and a
sense of history. It put students on the front line against privatization. In September 2013, over 60,000
crowded downtown’s Avenida Juárez to listen to Andrés Manuel López Obrador condemn the PEMEX high
jacking – they were students and teachers for whom history matters.

When Chicana/o studies found out about the clandestine deal between UNAM and the CSUN administration,
for them history mattered. The issues were a lack of transparency, a lack of consultation, privatization and a
lack of faculty diversity.
The Fall 2013 tuition for undergraduates was $3,260.00. Students paid between 70 and 80 percent of the costs
of instruction as the result of the state shifting the cost of education from rich taxpayers to working class
students. As in Mexico, social mobility depends on a higher education.

CSUN already has a privatized college: the Tseng College where students can get a graduate degree if they
pay around $1000 a unit. Because of these reasons and others Chicana/o Studies opposes the deal. “The Right
to an Education is Not for Sale!”

Images courtesy of Google Images.