The World War I Diary of José de la Luz Sáenz

Notes

Introduction 1. Most of the biographical information on Sáenz is drawn from two of his unpublished autobiographies: “Yo, Omnia Mea Mecum Porto,” 1944, and “Short Autobiographical Sketch,” May 1947. Copies are available in the José de la Luz Sáenz Papers, 1908–98, archived in the Mexican American Library Program, Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas at Austin (hereafter cited as Sáenz Papers). 2. Other Mexican-origin soldiers may have also put their pens to paper when they returned from the war. The San Antonio newspaper El Imparcial reported that a veteran named José Canal published a war diary titled Hazañas de un Mexicano en las trincheras de Francia (San Antonio: Companía Publicista Lagunera, 1919). Only Sáenz’s war diary seems to have survived in published form, however. Despite extensive searches in the catalogs of libraries located in the United States and Mexico, I have been unable to locate a copy of Canal’s book. The editors of El Imparcial described Canal’s diary as “a true history of the achievements and heroism of José Canal, a young man from Coahuila who enlisted in the American army to fight the Germans and avenge the blood of his father who was beaten to death by a German from the region of La Laguna, México. The valor and heroism of the Mexican people is so evident in this history that a reading of it should fill Mexicans with a sense of pride.” El Imparcial, February 20, 1919, 4. Previously noted in Emilio Zamora, “Fighting on Two Fronts: José de la Luz Sáenz and the Language of the Mexican-American Civil Rights Movement,” in Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage, vol. 4, ed. José F. Aranda Jr. and Silvio Torres-Saillant (Houston: Arte Público , 2002), 231–32. 3. The history of many settlements on the South Texas-Mexico border region, including outposts like Realitos, began when the Viceroy of New Spain commissioned José de Escandón to establish a colonial presence in the area during the late 1740s. The now shared history across this transnational region allows numerous Mexican families from Texas and northern Mexico to trace their ancestry to the first colonial families in places like Reynosa Viejo, Mier, Camargo, Revilla, and Laredo. See Florence J. Scott, Historical Heritage of the Lower Rio Grande: A Historical Record of Spanish Exploration, Subjugation, and Colonization of the Lower Rio Grande Valley and the Activities of José Escandón, Count of Sierra Gorda, Together with the Development of Towns and Ranches under Spanish, Mexican, and Texas Sovereignties, 1747–1848 (Rio Grande 477 Notes 478 Notes to Pages 1–2 City, TX: La Retama Press, 1970). I use the terms Mexican, Mexican American, and Mexicanorigin or Mexican origin interchangeably, mostly in accordance with Sáenz’s usage. 4. The following publications address the life and work of Sáenz, as well as the Mexican American civil rights cause that drew much of his attention between the 1910s and 1940s: Carole E. Christian, “Joining the American Mainstream: Texas’s Mexican Americans during World War I,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 92, no. 4 (1989): 559–95; Zamora, “Fighting on Two Fronts”; Zamora, “La guerra en pro de la justicia y la democracia en Francia y Texas: José de la Luz Sáenz y el lenguaje del movimiento mexicano de los derechos civiles,” Revista de Historia Internacional 4, no. 13 (Summer 2003): 9–35; José A. Ramírez, To the Line of Fire: Mexican Texans and World War I (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2009); Zamora, Claiming Rights and Righting Wrongs in Texas: Mexican Workers and Job Politics during World War II (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2009); and Jesús Rosales, “José de la Luz Sáenz: Precursor de la literatura del movimiento Chicano,” Camino Real 1 (2009): 153–73. 5. Sáenz provided little information on his Mexican teachers. The following is a useful secondary source on one of them: “Eulalio Velázquez,” Handbook of Texas Online, http://www .tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/VV/fve4.html, accessed July 15, 2009. 6. Consult the following studies on Mexican American history in Texas and the educational experience: Arnoldo de León, Mexican Americans in Texas: A Brief History (Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1993); Emilio Zamora, The World of the Mexican Worker in Texas, 1900–1920 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1993); Guadalupe San Miguel, “Let All of Them Take Heed”: Mexican Americans and the Campaign for...