Margarita Huantes Pioneer in Literacy Education Maria del Refugio Ernst Pioneer in Literacy Education Emilia Sánchez Community activist, “Kelly Katie” María R. L. de Hernández Radio Announcer and Civil Rights activist Nickie Valdez Social Justice Activist for the LGBTQ and Catholic Community Eva Garza Piioneer of Mexicana women on stage and theater Manuela Solís Sager Labor organizer and social justice activist Romana Ramos Midwife and Businesswoman María Antonietta Berriozábal Community, environment, and housing activist Sebastiana Ramirez Rodríguez Community and church activist Josephine Mancha Librarian and lifetime PTA member Olivia Sánchez Zamarripa Social justice, labor, and political activist Celebrate Mujeres del Westside for National Hispanic Heritage Month By visiting www.museodelwestside.org October 2023 Vol. 36 Issue 8 San Antonio, Tejas
La Voz de Esperanza October 2023 Vol. 36 Issue 8 Editor: Gloria A. Ramírez Design: Elizandro Carrington Contributors Tarcisio Beal, Kayla Miranda, Jovanni Reyes, Yoly Zentella, Laura Rendón & www. museodelwestside.org/women-activism Esperanza Director Graciela I. Sánchez Esperanza Staff Sherry Campos, Elizandro Carrington, Kayla Miranda, René Saenz, Imane Saliba, Susana Segura, Rosa Vega Conjunto de Nepantleras —Esperanza Board of Directors— Richard Aguilar, Norma Cantú, Brent Floyd, Rachel Jennings, Amy Kastely, Ana Lucía Ramírez, Gloria A. Ramírez, Rudy Rosales, Lilliana Saldaña, Nadine Saliba, Graciela I. Sánchez • We advocate for a wide variety of social, economic & environmental justice issues. • Opinions expressed in La Voz are not necessarily those of the Esperanza Center. La Voz de Esperanza is a publication of Esperanza Peace & Justice Center 922 San Pedro, San Antonio, TX 78212 210.228.0201 • www.esperanzacenter.org Inquiries/Articles can be sent to: [email protected] Articles due by the 8th of each month Policy Statements * We ask that articles be visionary, progressive, instructive & thoughtful. Submissions must be literate & critical; not sexist, racist, homophobic, violent, or oppressive & may be edited for length. * All letters in response to Esperanza activities or articles in La Voz will be considered for publication. Letters with intent to slander individuals or groups will not be published. Jovita Idar is one of the many mujeres who lived or worked in the Westside and made a mark in her community and beyond. Her story is being celebrated this National Hispanic Heritage Month in a variety of ways including with the issuing of a commemorative quarter. Her story is, indeed, a powerful story of one woman who literally stood her ground. Like Emma Tenayuca, Jovita Idar’s story is now part of American history and Feminist history. The stories in the Museo del Westside’s online exhibit include the stories of women as Healers—parteras, curanderas and health workers, women who worked for social justice in the realm of politics, education, religious service or social service; women working with transnational issues and immigrant populations; women organizing for justice in labor, women organizing in mutual aide societies assisting families and neighborhoods and women in the cultural arts who maintained the Spanish language and Latinx culture through music, performance and art. Interestingly, Jovita’s life intersected each one of these themes at different points of her life (read adjoining article). As I look over the stories of the 31 women (thus far) featured in the Women and Activism in the Westside online exhibit, I see that there is a natural flow of interconnectedness among all the women’s stories. Indeed, many of them were friends and comadres working towards the same goals: the betterment of family and barrios, equity and fairness in the work place and schools, reclaiming and preserving cultural pride and practices and working towards social justice on the local, state, national and yes, even, international levels. One example of this interconnectedness among the mujeres is in the story of Las Tesoros de San Antonio, four elder cantantes who had graced stages locally, nationally and internationally with ties to the Westside. Each one of these mujeres’ stories is told in the Women & Activism in the Westside website: Anita Janet Cortez (La Perla Tapatia), Beatriz Llamas ( La Paloma del Norte), Rita Vidaurri (La Calandria) and Blanquita Rodríguez (Blanca Rosa) who is now the only living Tesoro. Each Tesoro was influenced by both Lydia Mendoza and Eva Garza whose stories are also told in this website, both cultural icons that are internationally known. They were in each others lives and supported one another. This comadrismo continues throughout the stories of the Mujeres del Westside with known figures like our poet laureate, Carmen Tafolla and local political advocate, María Berriozábal both of whom continue to fight for and advocate for la gente and who continue to work together on many fronts. Finally, we must never forget las mujeres who’ve worked through the churches and schools for the advancement of their neighborhoods and communities like Isabel Sánchez, Josephine Mancha, Nickie Valdez, Emilia Sánchez and more. Their stories deserve to be read and told over and over until they become our stories, too! Celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month this year and visit www.museodelwestside. org/women-activism. –Gloria A. Ramirez, editor of La Voz LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • September 2023 Vol. 36 Issue 8 • 2 VOZ VISION STATEMENT: La Voz de Esperanza speaks for many individual, progressive voices who are gente-based, multi-visioned and milagro-bound. We are diverse survivors of materialism, racism, misogyny, homophobia, classism, violence, earth-damage, speciesism and cultural and political oppression. We are recapturing the powers of alliance, activism and healthy conflict in order to achieve interdependent economic/ spiritual healing and fuerza. La Voz is a resource for peace, justice, and human rights, providing a forum for criticism, information, education, humor and other creative works. La Voz provokes bold actions in response to local and global problems, with the knowledge that the many risks we take for the earth, our body, and the dignity of all people will result in profound change for the seven generations to come. ATTENTION VOZ READERS: If you have a mailing address correction please send it to lavoz@ esperanzacenter.org. If you want to be removed from the La Voz mailing list, for whatever reason, please let us know. La Voz is provided as a courtesy to people on the mailing list of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center. The subscription rate is $35 per year ($100 for institutions). The cost of producing and mailing La Voz has substantially increased and we need your help to keep it afloat. To help, send in your subscriptions, sign up as a monthly donor, or send in a donation to the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center. Thank you. -GAR
Jovita Idár (1885-1946) Teacher, journalist and political activist EDITOR’S NOTE:“If a Woman Stands at the Door You Can’t Go ,” Una Sola Mexicana, Jovita’s story, April 1914 was published in La Voz de Esperanza in September 1999 where Yolanda Chávez Leyva, Chicana professor at UTSA, detailed what happened that fateful day when Jovita Idar stood up to the Texas Rangers. They ultimately destroyed the family’s print shop but not Jovita’s spirit. Her story as detailed in Esperanza’s Museo del Westside website follows: Teacher, journalist and political activist Jovita Idár praised women’s suffrage in her father’s weekly newspaper in Laredo, La Crónica, where she connected the vote to long standing demands for Mexican American civil rights. She was part of a family that spoke out against the educational and social discrimination that ethnic Mexicans faced in Texas. While she is most well known for her work in Laredo, she spent the last half of her life in San Antonio’s Westside, where she continued to advocate for women’s rights, civil rights, and provided education, food and clothing to her community. Jovita Idár was born in Laredo in 1885. Her father, Nicasio Idar, was born in Port Isabel, Texas, and her mother Jovita Vivero was from San Luis Potosi, Mexico. They met on the border, married and had nine children. Nicasio worked as a yardmaster in the railroad yards of Nuevo Leon, where he organized workers in the city of Acambaro. According to his son Aquilino, in a1890 Nicasio formed the first union of railroad workers in Mexico, La Orden Suprema de Empleados Ferrocarrileros Mexicanos. Nicasio was able to leave railroad work and he eventually became publisher of the newspaper La Crónica in Laredo. The newspaper featured stories on the struggles of ethnic Mexicans, including educational and social discrimination, the loss of Mexican culture and the Spanish language, and lynchings. Three of his children– Clemente, Jovita and Eduardo, would continue to advocate for human and civil rights through journalism. As a young girl, Jovita benefited from growing up in a middle class family with access to a good education. She attended the Laredo Seminary, where she learned English, and was also educated at the Domínguez Institute, where she was mentored by Professor Simón G. Domínguez. Jovita was trained as a teacher, earning her teaching certificate in 1903. She then taught in a small town called Los Ojuelos, in southwestern Webb County. She was angered by the lack of resources and poor classroom conditions, and also with the curriculum that did not educate Mexican children about their history and heritage. She also published a weekly bilingual educational magazine called El Estudiante. Eventually Jovita resigned in order to become a journalist, where she felt she could encourage more social change. She began to work at La Crónica with her family. The family faced significant danger because of their activism. Jovita’s brother Federico was assassinated, and her brother Clemente received death threats. In spite of these challenges, the Idárs continued their social justice work. In 1911, after the brutal lynching of 14 year old Antonio Gómez in Thorndale Texas, her family organized El Primer Congreso Mexicanista, a conference to discussthe multiple grievances of ethnic Mexicans. This organization is credited with launching the Mexican American civil rights movement. Jovita helped create La Liga Femenil Mexicanista, an organization that advocated for women’s suffrage, provided food, clothing and education for poor children, and hosted literary and theatrical productions to raise money for the community. This league is one of the earliest known In Celebration of LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • October 2023 Vol. 36 Issue 8 • 3 Jovita Idar was honored in multiple ways in 2023 as part of National Hispanic Heritage Month in San Antonio. “Mexican children in Texas need an education.... There is no other means to do it but ourselves, so that we are not devalued and humiliated by the strangers who surround us.” — Jovita Idár, “Por la Raza: La Niñez Mexicana en Texas,” La Crónica, August 10, 1911
efforts of Mexican American women to unite for social and political causes. Jovita became the league’s first president. She consistently advocated for women’s rights. In 1914, as the Mexican Revolution erupted in Nuevo Laredo, Jovita and her friend Leonor Villegas de Magnón joined a nursing unit, La Cruz Blanca. They smuggled wounded soldiers across the border for medical assistance. They also traveled into northern Mexico with revolutionary troops and established medical brigades. After her service, Jovita returned to journalism and joined the staff of El Progreso. She would sometimes write under two pseudonyms: A. V. Negra (Black Bird) or Astrea, the Greek goddess of justice. When the paper published an editorial protesting President Woodrow Wilson’s dispatch of United States troops to the border, Texas Rangers arrived to close them down. Idár defiantly stood in front of them, daring them to knock her down. The Rangers left, but returned the next day, sacking the offices and smashing the printing press. La Cronica shut down after Nicasio Idár’s death in 1914. Two years later, Idár started her own newspaper, Evolución. In 1917 she married Bartolo Juárez. Three years later they moved to San Antonio, and she transferred the operations of Evolución to her brother Eduardo. In San Antonio she worked as a translator for Spanish speaking patients at the Robert B. Green county hospital. She was also an English teacher and tutor. She taught immigrant communities to read and write, and helped undocumented workers obtain naturalization papers. Jovita also became active in the Democratic Party, serving as a precinct judge, which was extremely rare for a Mexican American woman. She also established a free kindergarten. She continued writing as well, writing articles in Italian for La Voce de la Pattria, a San Antonio Italian language newspaper. She was particularly active as a member of La Trinidad Methodist Church. She served as conference president of the United Methodist Women and co-edited El Heraldo Cristiano, a publication of the Rio Grande Conference of the Methodist Church. While Jovita was always an advocate for women’s rights, her writing also reflected the concept of maternal Christian authority. Her articles in El Heraldo spoke to women of their special responsibility as Christian mothers, and put particular emphasis on a mother’s role in educating their children at home. Jovita Idár died in San Antonio in 1946, at the age of 61. UTSA, The U.S. Mint & the National Women’s History Museum sponsored the Jovita Idar Quarter Release Celebration on September 14th honoring Jovita Idar’s historical impact with the release of her commemorative quarter, the ninth coin in the American Women Quarters™ Program. Museo Del Westside ~ at the corner of history & social justice ~ a project of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center Celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month by visiting the Museo del Westside’s online exhibit of mujeres from San Antonio’s Westside who made history like Emma Tenayuca and Jovita Idar; those that shined in the cultural arts like Lydia Mendoza and Las Tesoros de San Antonio and mujeres who worked to improved their work places, their barrios and their schools at www.museodelwestside.org LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • October 2023 Vol. 36 Issue 8 • 4 Jovita Idár at El Progreso newspaper, 1914 [postcard] Jovita Idár was a writer at El Progreso newspaper, Laredo, TX, 1914 “Working women know their rights and proudly rise to face the struggle. The hour of their degradation has passed... They are no longer men’s servants but their equals, their partners.” — Jovita Idár in “Debejamos trabajar,” La Crónica, December 7, 1911
Kentucky Movement Assembly This year, Esperanza Peace and Justice Center was invited to the first annual Kentucky Movement Assembly held at Northern Kentucky University September 15-17. As members of Homes for All South and as voting members on the Leadership team, we were asked to help support our Kentucky members create this event as a way of uniting advocate groups across the state and integrate Kentucky into the current southern states membership. As leaders in the south, we presented a skills share on cultural organizing and were also asked to be the example on Language Justice. Many of the attending groups have not seen this type of outreach in their areas, so we provided Interpretation throughout the event. A total of 9 people under various Esperanza Programs participated fully in the Assembly, not only sharing our skills but learning from the workshops of our Kentucky counterparts. Our Yanaguana members performed an opening ceremony to ground the group and bless the land. It was an honor and a privilege to attend this event, thanks to Esperanza Peace and Justice Center and Homes for All South. The ability to participate in translocal organizing on this scale is imperative as we fight for justice. Housing is a Human Right. As we collectively band together and share our resources, we build the power to reclaim our land, our homes and our lives. —Kayla Miranda Esperanza’s Team on the ground in Kentucky Kayla Miranda, Housing Justice Organizer-Esperanza/Coalition for Tenant Justice • Crystal Valdez, Escueltia Graduate/Coalition for Tenant Justice • Lisa Vogt, Escuelita Graduate/Coalition for Tenant Justice • Ana Polanco, Promotora, Coalition for Dignified Housing • Eva Villanueva, Promotora, Coalition for Dignified Housing • Blanca Rivera, Promotora, Coalition for Dignified Housing • Madelein Santibáñez, Yanaguana/Interpreter • Miguel Reyes, Yanaguana • Karla Aguilar, Yanaguana/Interpreter The Esperanza Peace and Justice Center and Basta Austin attended the Kentucky Movement Assembly from Texas. Ana Polanco, Miguel Reyes and Madeline Santibáñez during a workshop at Northern Kentucky University for the Kentucky Movement Assembly. Kayla Miranda and Karla Aguilar speaking to the assembly about language Justice and what to expect during interpretation Eva Villanueva with sponsors’ sign
Killing Beauty in North America An essential read for those who truly understand the meaning of social change Book Review by Yoly Zentella, PhD Independent Scholar Killing Beauty in North America Conneaut Lake, PA: Page Publishing, 2022 276 pages By Constance Mills Atkins Buck Based on the author’s doctoral dissertation, Killing Beauty in North America describes the deep connection between family, legacy, and events representative of the tragic historical beginnings of the United States ( U.S.); the genocide of Indigenous peoples by Euro-Americans as they cleared the land for the settling of the American West. Based on this period of time, Buck uses the telling of horrific destruction of peoples and their culture as a way of opening a necessary conversation on personal introspection. Killing Beauty in North America takes a difficult, personal exploration through the realm of Carl Jung, archetypes, shadow work, and psychoanalysis. This process is described through the author’s phenomenology, taking the reader into her relationship with war trophies from the period of genocide, inherited by the author’s family and directly connected to Buck’s maternal great grandfather Anson Mills’ military career. On her childhood relationship to trophies displayed on a wall of the family home, Buck states, “. . . I was the only member of my family who had adverse physical reactions around these beaded articles of clothing [war booty] and a strong feeling that they were linked to unfortunate events”. (p.21). Sensitivity to the world around her as a child, and an impressive knowledge of specific areas within the psychology discipline, form the foundation of such a complex volume as Killing Beauty in North America. Added to this knowledge base is the author’s clinical psychology doctoral degree from Pacifica Graduate Institute, decades of extensive travel outside of the U.S., and teaching and healing experience. A synthesis of Buck’s knowledge is evident in chapter discussions on archetypes, Jungian analysis, shadow work, phenomenology and personal introspection, and the role of transference in perception, all within the context of exploring a legacy of Euro-American colonization and genocide. Killing Beauty in North America has appeal to an academic and advanced degree student audience in the discipline of psychology, more specifically in the areas of humanism and existentialism. The book also appeals to those interested in the psychodynamic, psychoanalytic process, and to psychoanalysts exploring the impact of colonial trauma on both descendants of victims, and descendants of perpetrators. The chapters focusing on history, would be of interest to academics, students, and lay individuals. Yet, most important, the book attracts readers exploring the psychological impact of a universal colonial scheme regardless of geographical location, those willing to examine their souls as legacy holders and bystanders during any shameful period in history. The book’s content is arranged around two main ideas, Indigenous artifacts, war booty, possessed by the author’s maternal greatgrandfather Anson Mills, military commander during the latter 1800s, and, the psychology embedded in acts of colonization, genocide, victimization, and aggression intersecting with the personal process of coming to terms with a family legacy of complicity. Arranged in 7 chapters, the volume interlaces various related themes. Chapters 1 to 5, present the 1876 extermination of an Indigenous village in the battle of Slim Buttes, South Dakota, by starving soldiers led by General Anson Mills. Food and booty were the objective; stolen artifacts were to be later displayed on a wall of the author’s family home. There is a historical background of the period and a discussion of the psychological and social implications of colonization and related images influencing the human psyche. Discussed is the European discovery and perspectives of the New World, the idea of savage versus civilized, the European constructs of reality, and military government agendas facilitating the ethnic cleansing of Indigenous populations in the U.S. Also presented, is the shadow as cultural trauma and the concept of post traumatic stress, intertwined with a discussion on the historical relationship between beauty, creativity, perversion, and narcissism. Archetypes and Indigenous myth, such as the archetypical coyote are integrated into the material. Chapters 6 and 7, address areas such as the collective as a factor in the survival and destruction of culture, the role of memory in this relationship, the colonial implications of privilege, and counter-transference as a form of suffering The strength of the books lies in Buck’s palpable passion for the topic, her skill in the integration of historical and psychological material, and her fearlessness in presenting areas that not many individuals are willing to engage, preferring to continually live in denial of personal or cultural complicity past or present. The photos of artifacts, central pieces of the book, add to the power of the author’s intelligent and daring narrative. Perhaps the strongest strength is in the book’s push to consider one’s personal hidden fears in facing past and present implications in genocide. This is a strongly recommended book to be read slowly and thoughtfully. BIO: Yoly Zentella of Las Vegas, NM, a Chicana PhD researcher & writer focuses on El Norte’s culture and it’s attachment to and loss of land and place. She is also editor of La Plática del Norte. LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • October 2023 Vol. 36 Issue 8 • 6 Photo credit: S.J. Morrow, 1876. 7th Cavalry Guidon found at Slim Buttes Source: bit.ly/slim-buttes
The Unholiest Alliance: The Christian Right and Power Politics By Tarcisio Beal One visible sign of the moral and political crisis now engulfing our society is the collusion between the Christian Right leadership and some of the most powerful political and financial powers of the nation. The association of religion with the civil authorities and the elites who control political power has a long history of betrayal of the most fundamental principles and values of Christianity. A sad story has been, until Vatican II (1962), the abuse of Church power and authority against those persons who were branded as “heretics,” mostly because they did not conform with clerical indoctrination, including absolute papal authority. Pope Innocent III ’s encyclical Cum ex Officii Nostri (1207) delegated authority to States to wage war on the heretics. The war against the Albigensians of Southern France, who were caught in the conflict between the kings and the nobility, cost the lives of more than 1 million people. During the siege of Béziers, the army commander Simon de Montfort asked the papal Legate whether his soldiers should burn down the city because the majority of the inhabitants were not heretics. Answered the Legate: “Go ahead, kill them all! God will know which ones were the faithful Catholics.” The Jews were also a constant target of the Church and the civil powers. Mob violence against them turned deadly especially in medieval Germany, although several bishops protected them. In the late 10th and 11th centuries, the crusaders, an odd mix of monks and warriors (Templars, Hospitallers, Teutonic Knights, etc.), stirred the crowds against the Jews and even gathered them to go to Palestine to recover the Holy Land from the hands of the Muslim Turks: Jerusalen was turned into a river of blood and thousands were slaughtered, including women and children fleeing the city. In 1442, Pope Eugen IV issued the following orders: “We decree and order that from now on, and for all the time, Christians should not eat or drink with Jews, not admit them to feasts, nor cohabit nor bathe with them. Christians should not allow Jews to hold civil honors over Christians, or to exercise public offices in the in the state.”1 Persecution and discrimination against the Jews continued unabated until the days of Pius IX in late 19th century, except in most of medieval Spain where, despite the anti-Jew decree of the Council Lateran IV (1215), the Jews were seldom persecuted until 1478, when King Ferdinand of Aragón and Queen Isabel of Castile were granted control of the Inquisition to hunt down the Jews. Furthermore, from the 1530s and all the way into the 19th century, the Church failed to protect the Africans brought to the Americas as slaves in large numbers. The Jesuits, who made up the Church’s most powerful religious Order and who advised the pope since the Council of Trent, used their own fleet to carry thousands of African slaves to Brazil, and even used them in their colégios. Yet, C. Williams’ article in the 1983 issue of the Catholic Encyclopedia, still denies the facts: “The Church unreservedly condemned colonial slavery and every type of slave trade as inhuman and immoral.” Neither did Protestantism (Lutheranism, Calvinism, Puritanism, and Anglicanism in the American South) take up the defense of Native Americans and Africans. The Puritan Pilgrims who settled New England in 1620, grabbed the lands of the Native Americans and forced them out of the region. They are mostly remembered by their obsession with Satan and the infamous Salem Witchcraft Trials. One great irony of American history is that most of the Founding Fathers were not LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • October 2023 Vol. 36 Issue 8 • 7 Many Jesuit brothers accepted slavery and aided in transporting thousands of African slaves to Brazil. Jesuit Peter Claver, however, saw the slaves as fellow Christians and his apostolate extended beyond his care for them. He was known as the “slave of the slaves” and his advocacy for them earned him sainthod.
tied to a specific Christian denomination, but were followers of the 18th century’s socio-political philosophy of the Enlightenment. That’s why most of the contents of the American Constitution carry Christian values. Benjamin Franklin even declared that the love of God requires that we fully love our neighbor. The history of the Confederacy, however, is one of constant betrayal of true Christianity, most obviously displayed by the enslavement of Africans and the slaughter of Native Americans. The slaves were to be brought into Christianity, but mostly to render blind obedience to their white masters. South Carolina’s Anglican clergyman Francis Le Jeau issued this instruction for the slaves undergoing baptism: “That you do not ask for the holy baptism out of the desire to free yourself from the Duty/Obedience you owe to your Master while you live.”2 The State of Alabama, all the way to the mid-1960s, especially during the years of Governor Barry Goldwater, is a story of the ugly domination of racism and the denial of basic human rights until the prophetic campaign of Martin Luther King and the enactment of the 1965 Civil Rights Act. At the end of the 20th century, the religious and sociopolitical crisis of the South gave rise to Evangelicalism which now congregates more than one hundred million middle-class followers. Best exemplified by televangelist Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition, which united political militancy with biblical quotes and stories, especially by applying them to what it perceived as contradictions of Christianity by Catholics and other Christian denominations: abortion rights, transgenders’ rights, the absence of prayers in the public schools, etc. Roy Moore, Alabama’s Supreme Court Justice, recently tried to justify the State’s courts’ authority to cancel civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution and now being negated by most of the States controlled by republican governors: “No court has any authority to redefine what God proposed in Genesis.” So now the androcentrism and antifeminism of the author of Genesis must be applied to contemporary America!... The spread of Evangelicalism was enhanced by the weekly newspaper “sermons” and the autobiography (Just As I am) of Billy Graham who preached that “faith is all that is needed for salvation.”3 An emphasis on prayers without justice and the imitation of the example of Jesus has facilitated the evangelicals’ association with the power elites and other conservative religious groups that defend and practice White Nationalism, also referred to as White Supremacy, both originally tied to Anglo-Saxonism. In his book Our Country (1898), Congregational minister Josiah Strong, a strong proponent of American missionary expansion, characterized Anglo-Saxonism as “divinely commissioned” to spread the blessings of political liberty and Protestant Christianity, AngloSaxonism carries the presumption that White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant (WASP) peoples are the superior race and destined by God to rule the world while obedience to the pope (’Popery”) results in an inferior, degraded people who dig their own burials. Walter Wash, a popular English author of late 19th century, thus advertised Anglo-Saxon superiority: “Looking around the world, we find that Popery degrades the nations… Would English working men wish to exchange wages with their brethren in any Catholic country in the world?... The answer to this question must be that the religion of Popery is at the bottom of the marked difference.”4 The WASP ideology grew steadily with the English imperial expansion into North America and Africa and the propagation of Social Darwinist concept of the “survival of the fittest” plus anti-Catholicism.5 In the United States, such white nationalism, and its pretense of being Christian, was clearly spelled out in President William McKinley in his 1898 Address to justify the conquest of the Philippines. After declaring that he had prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance, he went on: “And it came to me this way: (1) That we could not give them back to Spain – it would be cowardly and dishonorable; (2) that we could not turn them over to France or Germany that would be bad business and discreditable; (3) that we could not leave them to govern themselves – they were unfit for self-government… and (4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them all and, by God’s grace, do the very best we could by them as our fellow men for whom Christ also died.”6 MAGA’s White Nationalism, with all its racism and LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • October 2023 Vol. 36 Issue 8 • 8 The spread of Evangelicalism was enhanced by the weekly newspaper “Sermons” and the autobiography (Just As I Am) of Billy Graham who preached that “faith is all that is needed for salvation.”
anti-Semitism, has been growing steadily in our society since “Trumpism” gained control of the republican party. Recently, Congresswoman Lauren Boebert said this about the movement that supports a woman’s right to abortion: “The Satanic Temple is now opening abortion clinics that will perform abortion as a satanic ritual.” Right-wingers even oppose the teenage transgenders’ participation in sports. Evangelical preachers draw large audiences into their churches and auditoria and entertained them with biblical stories, leaving out anything that contradicts them and seldom addressing socio-political issues. Sometimes biblical statements are even twisted in order to justify total obedience to the laws. Deuteronomy 27: 26, for example (“Cursed be everyone who does not persevere in observing everything prescribed in the book of Law”), is said to repeat Galatians 3:11, but the apostle Paul says the opposite, that no one is justified by the law. On the other hand, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Methodist, Evangelical dissenters, and Catholic leaders have been reviewing their pastoral care. The Episcopalians, for instance, organized the “Poor People’s Campaign” of support and enhancement of public programs that target first and foremost the poor, the needy, and the sick. On September 24, 2022, the First Christian Church of Katy, TX, carried out a “Drag Bingo” to demonstrate its support for the LGBTQ people and highlight that discrimination and hatred are totally unchristian and immoral. Not surprisingly, Katy’s church became a target of vandalism and of online, Facebook hatred. It all backfired, however, because church attendance and support for Katy’s First Christian Church grew by 30%. There are many truly Christian organizations, including most of the Catholic women’s religious Orders and a good number of dioceses/archdioceses like San Antonio’s, that take seriously Jesus’ command of “love thy neighbor” and do not simply rely on prayers and holy devotions. The one central Christian doctrine which spells out the example of Jesus and the ultimate message of the Gospels is that our love of God is authentic only when connected with love and care of our neighbor. This message is very much emphasized in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. When the Pharisees asked Jesus: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment of the law, Jesus answered: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments” (Mt 22: 34-40; cf. Mk 12: 28-31, Lk 10: 29-37). Therefore, church attendance, prayers, sacraments, etc. might help, but without the love of neighbor they lose all their meaning. One of the most glaring abuses of the Bible is the idea that God does everything, including bad weather and the climatic disasters, and even decides elections. Oklahoma’s Senator James Inhoff blames God Himself for the world’s pollution: “The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to choose what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.”7 In 2017, Minnesota’s ex-presidential candidate Michelle Bachman and Evangelical pastor Franklin Graham asserted that the presidential election of Donald J. Trump was God’s choice. This past Sunday, August 13, 20023, a preacher of one of the big churches of San Antonio, was explaining to his large audience why there have been so many climatic tragedies and quoted 1 Kings 17: 1-10: ”Lord, all depends on You, not on you!” Forget that the climatic crisis is the result of human pollution of the planet and that God created humans with free will to shape their ultimate destiny! Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great Lutheran theologian who frontally opposed Nazism, even before Hitler came to power, and ended up hanged in the Concentration Camp of Flossenburg on April 9, 1945, constantly urged Christians to concentrate in facing the world’s evil: “Worldliness (the presence of God in the reality of the world) characterizes the nature of God and is a prominent trait of the God of the Bible.” Bonhoeffer was greatly distressed by “cheap grace,” the kind of “Sunday Christianity” that relies on prayers, songs, and monetary donations to keep the institution going.8 So many churches, so many prayers, so many sermons; emphasis on charity, but not much involvement in social justice. Christians, Jews, and all men and women of good will need to engage in an urgent, inter- denominational dialogue to reshape a society and a nation which routinely betray the central teachings of the Bible and the example of Jesus. We fully agree with Sr. Miriam Therese Winter, Professor of the Hartford, CT, Seminary: “The primary source of God’s Revelation is not in the Bible. It’s life.”9 It is, for every Christian, to live a life based on the example of Jesus, period. BIO: Tarcisio Beal, professor Emeritus of History at the Univer- sity of the Incarnate Word has written extensively in La Voz de Esperanza. LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • October 2023 Vol. 36 Issue 8 • 9 The First Christian Church of Katy, TX, carried out a “Drag Bingo” to demonstrate its support for the LGBTQ people in 2022 and, not suprisingly, became the target of vandalism and online hatred. Church attendance, however, grew by 30%.
By Jovanni Reyes The archipelago of Puerto Rico is the oldest continuous colony in the world. It has been under the dominion of the United States for 125 years. Gibraltar is an overseas British enclave in the tip of southern Spain. The British have used this enclave as an outpost since 1713 to establish a presence and project power in the Mediterranean Basin. Ever since Columbus set foot on what’s believed to have been the northwest coastline of Borikén in November 1493, Puerto Rico has belonged to several colonial powers. The Spanish called the archipelago “la llave de las Antillas,” the key to the Antilles, because of its geostrategic location. Spain set up “Fort” Puerto Rico as their first line of defense to protect their vast American dominions and fend off European competitors with the construction of two massive forts at Castillo San Felipe del Morro and Castillo San Cristobal. They also used the island as a commercial pitstop for galleons before crossing the Atlantic with their loot. Puerto Rico transferred hands from Spain to Britain back to Spain; the Dutch attempted to conquer her, and since 1898, the island has been a colony of the United States. Since entering the global imperial system, Puerto Rico has been leveraged as a strategic enclave against Puerto Rican sovereignty, land, and livelihood. Puerto Rico as War Booty Spanish rule in Puerto Rico lasted 405 years. The U.S. intervened in the brutal Cuban war for independence in 1898 on the side of the rebels and, in the end, subverted Cuban independence and claimed Spain’s territorial possessions in America and the Pacific in what is known as the Spanish-American War. By December 1898, the Treaty of Paris ceded the territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, and the Mariana Islands to the United States as war booty. The colonial experiment continued under new management. Almost immediately, the Americans occupied abandoned Spanish military garrisons throughout the Island, including the enormous fortress El Morro. An army of administrators, teachers, scientists, engineers, religious clerics, businessmen, land speculators, and agriculture corporate representatives followed to re-engineer Puerto Rican society, economy, and the landscape, and to exploit its resources. Through this system, the Americans installed a new colonial order on the Island and instilled a new colonial subject. Many of the same strategies used to subjugate American Natives were applied to Puerto Ricans. “Kill the Indian and save the man” became “civilize” the Puerto Rican “brute.” American teachers were systemically deployed to Puerto Rico to restructure the existing education system to prioritize American values and the English language, and missionaries sought to convert Puerto Ricans from Catholicism to American Protestantism. Just as they recruited Apache natives to fight rebel Apache bands, the U.S. Army set up an all-Puerto Rican Provisional Battalion to serve as auxiliaries to the U.S. military and help with population control. As more battalions were created, this grew into the 65th Infantry Regiment, nicknamed the “Borinqueneers,” who fully integrated into the U.S. Army and later served with distinction in the Korean War. FOB Puerto Rico As westward expansion and subjugation of native peoples solidified U.S. control in continental North America, American capitalists and policymakers continued the march for dominance southward and across the Pacific. Puerto Rico continued to serve as a strategic enclave— a Forward Operating Base providing a bridge to the wider region as the “Gibraltar of the Caribbean” and a choke point of control. With Puerto Rico as a garrison colony, Americans were able to project power across the Caribbean Basin and ward off potentially hostile European powers. Puerto Rico became the headquarters of the Department of Defense of the Antilles for the US Army, and the Naval Base Roosevelt Roads became the largest overseas U.S. naval installation in the world with the longest airstrip in Latin America. This military center, along with the American naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was also tasked to defend, until the handover in 1999, the colonial enclave of the Panama Canal Zone. U.S. citizenship was imposed upon Puerto Ricans in 1917 under the Jones Act. That same year the U.S. entered the Great War in Europe, and some 236,000 Puerto Ricans were served draft notice, with 20,000 deployed. Since then, Puerto Ricans have participated in every U.S. war and military conflict. Militarization in Puerto Rico continues to be multipurpose. In addition to projecting U.S. power in the Caribbean Basin, Puerto Rico has served as a training ground for the U.S. military to influence and train foreign troops for wars and conflicts. It was a transit point for resources and supplies sent to Africa and Europe during the Second World War. It was a lab to experiment in modern Puerto Rico: The Gibraltar of the Caribbean and Launchpad for Empire LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • October 2023 Vol. 36 Issue 8 • 10 Castillo San Felipe del Morro The 65th Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army, was named “The Borinqueneers” for the original Taíno name for Puerto Rico (Borinquen)..
warfare with modern weapons, such as napalm, Agent Orange, and depleted uranium. And it was a stage to rehearse large-scale combined arms military exercises later applied in major theaters of war such as the D-Day invasion of Normandy, the invasion of Panama, the bombings of Yugoslavia, and the invasion of Iraq. The U.S. military’s footprint on the Puerto Rican landscape is vast and inescapable. The U.S. military not only took over Spanish military posts but built four additional main military installations and many more auxiliary camps and installations, a series of connecting roads and railroads, antenna stations for telecommunication, and airstrips for cross-island movement of supplies and persons. Over 30 municipalities have had a military installation at one time or another. An island that is a little over 100 miles long and 36 miles wide has given up tens of thousands of acres of land to military installations with thousands of acres directly expropriated from small farmers. Vieques, an island municipality adjacent to the main island, had 27,000 out of 31,000 total acres of land appropriated for military use. Its people were forced to emigrate or relocate to what remained of the island. A similar fate befell Culebra, another island municipality, which together with Vieques would serve for decades as the largest range for combined arms military exercises that included large-scale bombings from naval ships, amphibious assaults, and air-to-surface target practice for fighter jets and bombers. The militarization of Puerto Rico has had devastating ecological impact. To expand the Spanish naval base in San Juan Bay, swamps and mangles were destroyed and filled with lumber, dirt and minerals from a nearby quarry. Six miles south in Guaynabo, 1,515 acres were expropriated to establish Army Garrison Fort Buchanan, built with materials taken from the same quarry and forest, and which grew to as much as 4,500 acres. To the east in Ceiba, a large swath of land from El Yunque was deforested for lumber to build Roosevelt Roads Naval Station. In Cayey, lumber from the Carite Forest built Fort Henry Barracks, headquarters and training center for the 65th Infantry Regiment. Along the northern coast in Aguadilla, 3,796 acres of agricultural land was taken from small farmers to construct army base Camp Borinquen, which later became Remy Air Force Base and part of the Strategic Air Command, one of three major commands of the U.S. Air Force. These are just a few of the many military installations that have littered Puerto Rico throughout 124 years of colonization by the U.S. Military Occupation with a Familiar Face. These military bases and installations have wreaked widespread damage in Puerto Rico in order to advance U.S. geostrategic interests in a variety of ways. They have been vital to projecting power abroad and also to squashing rebellions at home, such as the uprisings of 1950 that championed independence from the U.S. Not to mention, they leave behind huge contaminants and unexploded ordinance. Such is the case in Vieques where the promised clean-up after the closing of the range has not manifested. With technological advancement, many of these military facilities have since become obsolete and repurposed. The land and facilities were eventually turned over to the local government for their use and development, or to house other American federal agencies like the Coast Guard, Customs and Border Patrol, FBI, and DEA. Today, the remaining facilities are home to roughly 100,000 U.S. military personnel and affiliates from the Puerto Rican National Guard, the Air National Guard, the Reserves of various components of the Armed Forces, some active duty service members, ROTC, Veterans Affairs, DoD civilians, and veterans, retired or otherwise - almost all being Puerto Ricans. Although overt Anglo military presence on the island has diminished, its destructive and subjugating legacy remains, and a more subtle military occupation persists. Puerto Rico saw its peak in overt American militarization during the Second World War up until the Vietnam War. Most of these bases and facilities have been turned over to the local government for civilian use like the Luis Muñoz Marin International Airport in San Juan. But some bases remain military facilities. At Camp Santiago, a large training center in Salinas, on the southern coast of Puerto Rico, National Guard troops train and do their drills. It’s also a place where officers and soldiers from throughout Latin America and the Caribbean receive training from U.S. military personnel. Fort Buchanan was temporarily the headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command when it transitioned from Panama to Doral, Florida. The Puerto Rican National Guard, when activated, automatically integrates into the U.S. Army and Air Force as they were in the recent so-called “War on Terror” and invasion of Iraq. The Reserves are already part of the U.S. Armed Forces. With a population of 3.2 million and another 4 million in the diaspora, Puerto Ricans already comprise a very large demographic in the regular armed forces. This dual consciousness, of being Puerto Rican and an American soldier, also serves to solidify American colonialism in Puerto Rico. BIO: Jovanni Reyes enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1993 and deployed to the Balkans in 1996. part of NATO’s first-ever military intervention. He left the military in 2007 and is now a member of About Face: Veterans Against the War. He holds Masters Degrees in International Relations and Instructional Technologies. For resources used in this article contact: [email protected] First published in Foreign Policy in Focus on November 15, 2022: bit.ly/fpif-puerto-rico LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • October 2023 Vol. 36 Issue 8 • 11 The militarization of Puerto Rico has had devastating ecological impact on its native lands.
Jesús Ríos Vidales August 9, 1921 - September 2, 2023 Jesús Ríos Vidales, cherished family member, WWII veteran, dedicated community activist with TOP, member of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center and a beacon of love and strength, peacefully passed away at the remarkable age of 102. He is now reunited with his beloved wife, Victoria P. Vidales and his parents and siblings in eternal rest. For decades Jesse was a vocal advocate for change in the Westside San Antonio community where he lived. He never shied away from speaking truth to power and engaging in “good trouble” in the name of progress and justice. He treasured his family, community, as well as storytelling and the arts. He began singing and performing in the theater and writing poetry as a young boy before entering the military and had his own trio in the 30s named Los Románticos. His interest in the arts continued throughout his life. Jesús possessed a magnetic personality that drew people to him and was friends with the likes of Eva Garza and Emma Tenayuca. His warm smile, compassion, and unwavering support were a source of comfort for all who sought his guidance. He embraced his role as an abuelo with unwavering love and dedication, leaving an everlasting impact on his grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren. The Esperanza board, staff and Buena gente extends our deepest sympathies to Jesse’s family and friends and will always remember him as a caballero and gentleman of the kind that are rare in this day and age. A poet and aficionado of the arts, Jesse was a member of the Corazones de Esperanza and regaled the elder community members with stories of the Westside that he loved and grew up in. His life story and poetic tribute to his deceased wife, Victoria, was made into a song by Lourdes Pérez and can be found in the book, Still Here, Homenaje al Westside de San Antonio complete with a recording of his poem. Though we ache at the loss of Jesús, we find solace in knowing that his legacy lives on in the many lives he touched. Sharyll Teneyuca noted that Jesús was a treasure of history and memories of the Westside and early San Antonio. Indeed, he was that, and much more! A steadfast fighter for working San Antonians may now be gone, but he will never be forgotten. Que su alma descanse en paz. ¡Jesús Vidales, siempre presente! Adiós Mi Amor (excerpt) Adios,mi amor Ya te vas y me dejas Adiós, mi amor Dulce amor mío Cómo te amo yo a ti Cómo te amo yo a ti Piensa que yo sin ti La vida no la quiero Porque mi alma se la entregué a ti – Jesse Vidales, 1936 LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • October 2023 Vol. 36 Issue 8 • 12
Sentipensante Pedagogy: Educating For Wholeness, Social Justice And Liberation In the second edition of Sentipensante (Sensing/Thinking) Pedagogy: Educating for Wholeness, Social Justice and Liberation, Laura I. Rendón invites educators in schools, colleges, and universities to realize a new gold standard for teaching and learning. This new vision is one that shatters entrenched belief systems that are harmful especially for underserved students, allows students to engage both sensing and thinking processes, attends to relationship building, and is humanistic in nature. A new vision of teaching and learning is especially needed in a post Covid-19 world where our nation is facing complex justice and equity issues such as gun violence, racism, immigration, white supremacy, and threats to democracy. What should our schools, colleges, and universities do to prepare students with the skills and knowledge needed to address these complex issues? Columbian scholar, Orlando Fals Borda, has indicated that the language that speaks the truth is the language of sentipensante; the person who is capable of thinking while feeling and feeling while thinking. Rendón believes we need a sentipensante (sensing and thinking) approach to education, one that engages students in deep learning activities where learners are able to use their intellectual abilities, as well as their inner life skills to act with empathy, compassion, and love. Rendón also advocates that students should be assisted to develop what Gloria E. Anzaldúa calls “conocimiento”— a high level of critical awareness where individuals can develop the capacity to see beyond entrenched belief systems, act with empathy and compassion, and forge connections with others as they engage the world as it is and to take action to transform it. Rendón offers Sentipensante Pedagogy as a culturally-validating, deep learning experience that addresses the harmonic balance and interconnection between intellectual, social, emotional, and inner-life skill development. This is a pedagogy that connects learning experiences to equity and justice issues in our society and that fosters deep learning through the use of prácticas de conocimiento. Teachers and college faculty can use prácticas such as autoethnography, music, poetry, arts-based projects, testimonios, socially-driven art, photography, ritual, and bearing witness to engage students in deep learning educational activities. Norma E. Cantú, Norine R. and T. Frank Murchison Professor of the Humanities at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas and Founder of the Society for the Study of Gloria E. Anzaldúa wrote the Foreword to the second edition of Sentipensante Pedagogy. Cantú explains that the book is a call to do what Anzaldúa passionately advocated—that educators engage in doing “work that matters.” Cantú (2023, p. xv) writes that “Sentipensante Pedagogy is nothing less than radical in the truest sense of the word, to pull from the roots and act. Whether you have read this book before or not, I recommend you read it with fresh eyes and with an open mind. It will blow you away!” While the work of refashioning education can be challenging, Rendón, like Anzaldúa, urges knowledge warriors to stay the course and forge ahead porque el trabajo vale la pena. Siempre. BIO: A nationally-recognized student advocate and contemplative educator, Laura Rendón is a native of Laredo, TX and professor emerita at UTSA. Her research centers on the educational success of low-income, first-generation students and contemplative pedagogy. Her personal papers and academic work are archived at the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, UT-Austin. Buy the book Online at Routledge Academic Publishers TRINITY UNIVERSITY October 12, 4-6 PM. Holt Center at 106 Oakmont Court Laura Rendón will be speaking about her new edition of Sentipensante. Not to be missed! Laura I. Rendón, author and educator. LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • October 2023 Vol. 36 Issue 8 • 13
Árboles de Vida del Westside On exhibit until November 11, 2023 Esperanza Peace and Justice Center • 922 San Pedro, San Antonio, TX • Call 210-228-0201 for more info. MujerArtes’ Árboles de Vida del Westside was a wonderful success due to the many Buena gente, staff and the mujeres of the clay cooperative who tirelessly worked on the exhibit. In addition, the Woodworkers Union under the guidance of Michael Marinez contributed the platforms the árboles were exhibited on and Guadalupe Segura arranged the beautiful florals. Las mujeres agradecen todo lo que hicieron para lograr este éxito. LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • October 2023 Vol. 36 Issue 8 • 14 I would like to donate $________ each month by automatic bank withdrawal. Please contact me. For more information, call 210-228-0201. Make checks payable to: Esperanza Peace & Justice Center Mail to: 922 San Pedro, SA TX 78212. Donations to the Esperanza are tax deductible. Name ______________________________________________________________________________ Address __________________________________________________Phone ____________________ City, State, Zip ____________________ Email_____________________________________________ I am donating ___ $1000 ___ $500 ___ $100 ___ $50 ___ $25 $_______ La Voz Subscription ___ $35 Individuals ___ $100 Institutions ___ Other $ ________ Send your tax-deductible donations to Esperanza today! I would like to send $________ each __ month __ quarter __ 6-mos., through the mail.
The Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center’s Latinx Bookstore presents the Tx Author Series with John Olivares Espinoza & Norma Cantú on Friday, Oct. 13th at 6pm. See guadalupeculturalarts. org/guadalupe-latino-bookstore/ Save the Date! IDRA celebrates with a 50th anniversary gala at the Red Berry Estate on Nov. 2nd. For full details see: www.idra.org/ events/idra-50th-anniversary-galain-san-antonio/ The Texas Book Festival on Nov. 11th and 12th in Austin, Texas from 10am to 5pm is free and open to all featuring a multitude of authors and books on the Texas State Capitol Grounds. Check: www. texasbookfestival.org Save the Date! The 8th Annual Pecan Harvest presented by AIT-SCM will be on Dec. 2nd at the Witte Museum. See: www.aitscm.org Unbreakable: Feminist Visions from the Gilberto Cárdenas and Dolores Garcia Collection Continues until December 3, 2023 Unbreakable presents artwork with an emphasis on Latina and Chicana artists and their stories of survival and resilience. Selected from the landmark Gilberto Cárdenas and Dolores Garcia Collection, which the Blanton recently acquired, the works represent the act of surviving difficult or violent realities, ranging from immigration and poverty to misogyny and genocide. Artists make figures visible in society who have been overlooked or exploited over time, championing matriarchs, community members, malcriadas [bad-mannered girls], domestic workers, and the rebellious “other.” The artists’ works present the ways in which women and gender nonconforming people navigate, surpass, and dismiss societal boundaries, advocating the belief that a feminist future is possible. Curated by Claudia Zapata, Associate Curator, Latino Art, Blanton Museum of Art. Blanton Museum of Art Austin, Texas www.blantonmuseum.org/ rotation/unbreakable/ Check individual websites, FB and other social media for information on community meetings previously listed in La Voz. For meetings and events scheduled at the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center check: www.esperanzacenter.org or call 210.228.0201. Notas Y Más October, 2023 Start your 2023 tax deductible gifts Give to the Esperanza in spirit of solidarity so we can continue to speak out, organize and fight for our communities for another 35 Years. Your support is needed NOW more than ever! Thank you for your gifts! Send donations to Esperanza Esperanza Peace & Justice Center 922 San Pedro Avenue San Antonio, TX 78212 To sign up as a monthly donor, Call 210.228.0201 or email: [email protected] Visit www.esperanzacenter.org/donate for online giving options. ¡Mil Gracias! Liliana Wilson will be one of the Latina & Chicana artists featured in Unbreakable. LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • October 2023 Vol. 36 Issue 8 • 15
Get Cracking! Last call! For Calaveras & Literary Ofrendas! For November issue of La Voz Send to: [email protected] DEADline: October 9, 2023 Kill off your enemies and friends alike with a poetic Calaveral Remember the dearly departed with a Literary Ofrenda! 34th Annual Peace Market | Mercado de paz Last Call for Vendors! Fri, Nov 24th & Sat, Nov 25th | 10am – 6pm Sun, Nov 26th | Afternoon only! Applications at the Esperanza, 922 San Pedro Ave. Or online at: www.esperanzacenter.org Application Deadline is October 9, 2023. Submit digital PDFs to [email protected] or bring applications to Esperanza @ 922 San Pedro Ave, M-F, 10am - 7pm Noche Azul de Esperanza ¡La Catrina! Día de Muertos Sat Oct. 28, @ 8pm Sun Oct. 29, @ 3pm Tickets: esperanza.eventbrite.com Fee: $7 más o menos ¡Con Concurso de Catrinas y Calacas! Voting on 14 constitutional amendments Early voting in person runs from Oct. 23 to Nov. 3 Nov. 7 is Election Day Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Election Day Amendment Guide: bit.ly/2023-amend Haven’t opened La Voz in a while? Prefer to read it online? Wrong address? TO CANCEL A SUBSCRIPTIONEMAIL [email protected] CALL: 210.228.0201 Second Saturday Convivio Gather your photos from the Westside (1880-1960) and bring them to La Casa de Cuentos every 2nd Sat. at 10 am for scanning and story telling. Casa de Cuentos • 816 S. Colorado St. Call 210.228.0201 for more info Non-Profit Org. US Postage PAID San Antonio, TX Permit #332 LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • October 2023 Vol. 36 Issue 8 • ESPERANZA PEACE & JUSTICE CENTER 922 San Pedro San Antonio TX 78212 210.228.0201 • www.esperanzacenter.org