Bringing Back the Family

The day was mostly overcast and dreary with elevated humidity. There was a slight threat of rain during the morning and early afternoon.  A mostly perfect day to visit cemeteries.

My brother Tony and I took the two hour drive from San Diego to the City of Angels last week. We planned to travel to three cemeteries and visit our family at their places of rest. I also photographed their grave markers for my family genealogy as well as setting up memorial pages at Find A Grave.

We made our way to Calvary Catholic Cemetery in East Los Angeles. This is one of the oldest cemeteries in Los Angeles and is notable for Stations of the Cross along the roadways.

Buried there are our grandparents, Juan Dominguez and Maria Marquez Dominguez as well as their oldest daughter Guadalupe and her husband Hector Ortega.

Juan and Maria were one of the three Dominguez families that immigrated from Zacatecas, Mexico to the United States during the second decade of the Twentieth Century. They are buried next to each other despite being separated for decades. Maria refused to settle for a divorce as this was frowned upon by the Catholic Church. Juan did not press for divorce despite family suggestions that he was with other women.

Hector and Guadalupe Dominguez Ortega are a few markers away.  I remember them as good and hardworking people with a positive outlook on like.  I had just discovered that their oldest son, Hector Junior, had passed away recently. I will be looking for his death information in order to bring him back into the family.

Immigration into the United States

The date was 15 August 1914. Juan Dominguez and Maria Marquez exchanged vows in the Catholic Church parish of Fresnillo, Zacatecas, Mexico.

He was 25 years old an a day laborer at the Rancho Obligado. His parents were Vincente Dominguez and Felipa Martinez who had died on 5 February 1902. He was restless and wanted more for their lives. I think, to be brutally homest, he wanted more for his life.

Maria was 16 years old and lived within Rancho Obligado. Her mother was Aurelia Marquez. No name for her father is recorded although her death certificated names him as Francisco Perez. Family history suggests that Aurelia who was a servant in the main house was sexually abused and Maria was the result of the relationship.

North to El Dorado

"Over the Mountains of the Moon, down the Valley of the Shadow, ride, boldly ride…if you seek for El Dorado." Edgar Allen Poe

Mexico in the late 1800s and the early decades of the 1900s was experiencing great change and turmoil. Porfirio Díaz (president from 1876 - 1911) took communally owned land (ejidos) and sold it to large corporations. Many campesinos or rural farmers were forced into low wage work. Mexico’s population increased 50% between 1875 and 1910. This resulted in a labor surplus, inflation and depressed wages. In addition the Mexican Revolution (1910 - 1920) induced many people and families to move.

The pull of the United State for many Mexicans migrants were many. There was the rapidly developing agricultural region of the American southwest. Viable irrigation systems created booms in cotton, citrus and beet farming. The need for the labor of harvest was met by thousands of migrants. They sought the higher wages and political stability of America. During the first three decades of the 20th century the immigrant labor pool became indispensable.

22 year old Gaspar Dominguez along with his wife and infant son entered the United States on October 5, 1916. They had traveled, most likely by train, from Mexican state of Zacatecas to El Paso, Texas. Eight months later he was working with Southwestern Railway in Pelea, New Mexico.