Hello, my name is Dennis Garcia. I am an author, and on behalf of High Plains Public Radio Readers Book Club. I am pleased to preview my new book with you. It is entitled, Las Madres, Spanish for, the mothers. It is a saga of family, hardship and resilience, country and history. It is an empowering narrative of love and hope.
Las Madres chronicles three generations of Latina women, including my mother, who, over the course of a century, led the family from Mexico to Kansas. They overcame poverty, racism, and discrimination, and secured the well-being of the family. They led through faith, sacrifice, and hard work. The book recounts the experiences and interactions of family, and the impact of history on the lives they lived.
The Las Madres journey begins with Candelaria. She was born in 1865 in Central Mexico where her parents labored on a cattle ranch operated by wealthy landowners. Thirty-three years later, at the turn of the century, Mexico’s unstable countryside, and the impending revolution, drove Candelaria and her family to the safety of the United States at El Paso, Texas. While the family had escaped the army and militias of Mexico, it now faced the threats of poverty and disease in El Paso. Living in El Paso was dynamic and fast-paced, and impacted the family in dramatic and profound ways, and thereby, the family became part of the fabric of United States history.
In El Paso, Candelaria’s husband, Chon, worked for the Santa Fe Railway. At that time, the Santa Fe and other railways led America’s expansion westward across the continent. In support of that expansion, the Santa Fe in 1910, sent Chon, Candelaria, and the family, into the heartland of the United States, at Dodge City, Kansas. The work in Kansas was the passage out of the conditions in El Paso. The family began living in the heartland in a segregated work camp of tents and wooden shanties.
Las Madres follows the family in Dodge City as they experienced and endured World War I, the 1918 Flu Pandemic, and the Roaring Twenties. Candelaria became a grandmother when in 1920, her daughter, Rafaela, gave birth to a daughter, Irene. Later, Rafaela and her children lived through the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, the political assassinations, the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights movement, space exploration and more. Las Madres brings to light the experiences of Latina women and their families in small Midwest towns as they lived these events of history.
The final chapters follow Irene and the challenges she faced in her lifetime as a wife, mother, teacher, and activist in support of her neighbors and community. Irene married during World War II and moved with her husband to Garden City, Kansas, fifty-five miles west of Dodge City on Santa Fe’s main line.
In sum, Las Madres details not only an incredible journey of family, it also is an inspiration for those in pursuit of their dreams. Our next BookByte takes a closer look at Candelaria as she made her way from Mexico to Dodge City, Kansas.
I’m Dennis Garcia for the High Plains Public Radio Readers Book Club. Thanks for listening. Las Madres is available online at the University Press of Kansas, or at your favorite independent bookstore.
