On Las Madres with Author Dennis Garcia
by Dennis Garcia
Hello, I’m Dennis Garcia, and I wrote the book, Las Madres. It is a saga of the Padilla-Rodriguez family history in Mexico, the U.S., and southwest Kansas, from 1865 to the present. Last Fall, High Plains Public Radio previewed the story of Las Madres through the eyes of the main characters, Candelaria, born in Mexico in 1865, her daughter, Rafaela, born in El Paso, Texas in 1906, and Rafaela’s daughter, Irene, born in Dodge City, Kansas in 1920.
During this last Winter and Spring, I traveled to several communities on the High Plains and met with readers of Las Madres. Surprisingly, Mexicans and non-Mexicans alike, including persons of influence, frequently admitted they were unaware a segregated labor camp of Mexicans existed in Dodge City for a half century. Book Tour attendees described the hardships and tragedies their railroad families experienced which were like those described in Las Madres. Among them were the 1918 Epidemic, the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and WWII. For example, the son of a work camp family served at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Another family from the camp, later called the Village, sent three sons to Europe to fight the Nazis, only one returned.
Las Madres highlights the critical role Mexican labor played in building the economic workhorse of the United States in the twentieth century, the railroads, especially the Santa Fe Railway. The Santa Fe sent recruiters into Mexico looking for men with families to stabilize their work force. That railway infrastructure those Mexicans built a century ago, stands to this day. But the laborers were not well paid, and families experienced poverty, discrimination, inadequate education, and a lack of medical care. Nonetheless, over time, Village children began to complete their educations. Among the first, was Irene Rodriguez, born and raised in the Village.
Book tour attendees also frequently asked about today’s hostile and cruelty campaigns against immigrants. Despite the complexity of today’s issues, readers can look to the experiences of the women in Las Madres and find the strength and inspiration to meet the current hostility. After World War II, Mexican Americans and Latinos formed local organizations to assert their rights and privileges as Americans, including access to education, employment, medical care, and other community services.
These organizations began as small neighborhood meetings and evolved into community groups serving southwest Kansas. Irene Rodriguez-Garcia devoted much of her time in leaderships roles for these civic and religious organizations, including the Latin American Club, American G.I. Forum, the Kansas Council of Churches Migrant Ministries, and many others. Those community groups provided direct aid, including food, clothing, housing, access to medical and health services for the sick and elderly, scholarship awards, and childcare for immigrant families, regardless of heritage.
Similarly, Irene taught citizenship and GED classes which were available to all persons in the community. She also served as a fundraiser for the Guadalupe Church Building Committee in Dodge City. After seven years of fund raisers, the predominately Mexican American community of Dodge City’s eastside raised sufficient funds and provided the volunteer labor to construct the church.
During these post-war times in both Dodge City and Garden City, couples became foster parents for Mexican children to defend against the scourge of child separation. The ancient cruelty of conquerors who used the tool of family separation to subjugate people and communities continues today – the stolen children in African nations, Russians taking the children of Ukraine, and the deportation of Latino parents and children by the United States.
The efforts of the local organizations made their communities better and stronger. They acted as the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution prescribes: Promote the common welfare. The returns on the investments of community service and resources are undeniable. Irene’s children alone served their communities as nurses, health care providers, teachers, attorneys, a university administrator, and disaster relief coordinator. These are the contributions of one family, there are millions of immigrant families throughout the country who serve their communities in every way. The future of our nation’s descendants will only benefit by fair and tolerant responses to today’s immigrants.
I’m Dennis Garcia, my thanks to High Plains Public Radio and its listeners for sharing Las Madres
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