Celebrating Women's Stories During National Hispanic Heritage Month

Each year, starting on September 15 and continuing for 30 days, the history, culture, and contributions of those whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America is celebrated during National Hispanic Heritage Month. The date of September 15 is significant because it marks the anniversary of independence for Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Mexico and Chile celebrate independence on September 16 and 18, respectively.

In honor of this important month, we dug into our archives to explore some of the incredible stories and individuals that enliven our state’s history. One of these characters is Hipolita Orendain de Medina (c.1847-c.1922), a Mexican-born San Franciscan socialite and author, whose portraits, correspondence, and miscellaneous materials are part of the CHS collection.

Early in her life, Hipolita moved to San Francisco with her her sister, Virginia, and their widowed mother, Francisca Tejada de Orendain. According to family tradition, Francisca inherited a fortune from her late husband, Jesus Orendain, who owned a Mexican silver mine. She invested her wealth in Oakland waterfront property, married Virginia native Humphrey Marshall, and provided financial support to a company of men fighting to liberate Mexico from French rule. Marshall died in the American Civil War, and the Orendain family lost much of their fortune. To help support the family, Hipolita and her sister Virginia worked as dressmakers in San Francisco.

In October 1869, Hipolita married Emilio (or Emigdio) Medina, a professional musician, diplomat, and editor of the Spanish-language newspaper La Republica. Emilio was sent by the President of Mexico to Europe, South America, and beyond to help forge a closer relationship between the United States and Spanish speaking countries. Together, Hipolita and Emilio had four daughters, Josefina, Virginia, Zarina, and Mercedes. In 1880, the couple separated, and later Hipolita referred to herself as a widow. She died circa 1922, and was buried in Los Angeles.

Francisca Tejada de Orendain and daughters, Hipolita and Virginia, Portraits from the Hipolita Orendain de Medina correspondence and miscellany, MSP 1441

The Hipolita Orendain de Medina collection offers a glimpse into the domestic, cultural, and political life of a cosmopolitan, multilingual community of native Californios and Latino immigrants in San Francisco in the second half of the nineteenth century. The personal notebooks, letters, poems, sheet music, cards, photographs, and other remembrances are full of delightful tidbits that provide an intimate glimpse into the life of a woman who was clearly revered and respected by the many with whom she came into contact. In our collection, we see many loving letters and photographs from visitors addressing her as friend.

The following journal entries are from Hipolita’s personal notebook:

[Notebook, undated]; Hipolita Orendain de Medina correspondence and miscellany, MS 1441; Box 1, folder 4; California Historical Society.

English translation:

I will be severe with myself

Duty is a moral monster; every time one does not fulfill one’s moral duty, one does not fulfill the others either

[Notebook, undated]; Hipolita Orendain de Medina correspondence and miscellany, MS 1441; Box 1, folder 4; California Historical Society.

English translation:

Neither all the sorrows nor all the happiness on earth can tear us apart; perhaps it is a defect (…), because (...) you will offer your soul and will pursue between the space left by pain and they will always be there (...)

Perfect happiness derives only from virtue

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The collection also gives insight into the political and historical forces that were influential at the time – references to the Franco-Mexican War and Mexican and Latin American nationalism abound.

Below is an excerpt from a hymn titled “Hymn to Zaragoza” written by Hipolita’s husband, Emilio Medina. Below the image of the original newspaper clipping of the hymn in Spanish are two stanzas translated in English.

Himno a Zaragoza, May 4, 1879; Hipolita Orendain de Medina correspondence and miscellany, MS 1441; Box 1, folder 3; California Historical Society.

Himno a Zaragoza – Hymn to Zaragoza

Of Hidalgo the beloved homeland

Admiringly contemplates your footprints,

And history in its beautiful pages

There inscribed you with eternal burin


Because you are the comet that shines

In the pure sapphire of sky

You, the flower that perfumes the ground

You, the brave and gentle warrior


Your memory is the sacred fire

That lifts the sons of Mexico

And in darkest hour of torment

Your invoked name is heard:


Its influence reanimates them,

Your name kindles their chests

And your clean fame is written

In the sky, in the air, and the sea.

--Translated by Lynda Letona

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While their writings express different preoccupations, there is a poetic quality to them that invoke a force greater than ourselves and a sense of duty as a rigorous journey that elevates the human spirit.

Citations:

Notebook, undated; Hipolita Orendain de Medina correspondence and miscellany, MS 1441; Box 1, folder 4; California Historical Society.

Himno a Zaragoza, May 4, 1879; Hipolita Orendain de Medina correspondence and miscellany, MS 1441; Box 1, folder 3; California Historical Society.

Giving Voice through Art: National Hispanic Heritage Month

Various Artists, Siqueiros: La Voz de la Gente!, Los Angeles, 2012

Courtesy of the Siqueiros Foundation of the Arts

Today, as this year’s annual National Hispanic Heritage Month ends, we pay tribute to the artistic contributions of Hispanic muralists whose work celebrates not only their artistic vision but also public art, community, history and cultural tradition, story-telling, and political and social equality.

Four years ago in Los Angeles, in recognition of the 2012 Latino/Hispanic Heritage Month, a group of muralists decided to create an homage to the iconic Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros. With a focus on community, the team—Juan Carlos Munoz Hernandez, Raul Gonzalez, Anna Siqueiros, Willie Herrón, and Ernesto de la Loza—assembled over 30 artists to collaborate on the mural’s production.

The mural, La Voz de la Gente! La Resurreción de Cuauhtémoc en las Americas: Homenaje a David Alfaro Siqueiros, honors one of Mexico’s great muralists, David Alfaro Siqueiros. His call to create street art “on the most visible sides of high modern buildings, in the most strategic places in ‘callejones’ in working-class districts, in Union Halls, in public squares, in sports stadia, in open-air theaters,” is lettered in to the 16 x 50-foot mural located in an alley behind 2631½ Cullen Street in Culver City.

La Voz de la Gente! was also reaction to Los Angeles’s Mural Moratorium (2002–2013), which, with its bureaucratic regulations, effectively prohibited the production of new murals and graffiti. Yet, the moratorium was and is not the only source of muting, disrespecting, and rejecting the voices of Los Angeles’ Hispanic muralists and graffiti artists.

Remains of the 1981 East Los Streetscapers’ mural Filling Up on Ancient Energies in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, May 24, 1988. The mural was destroyed without notifying the artists.

Ushering in the 2017 National Hispanic Heritage Month on September 4 and continuing until January 2018, the California Historical Society and LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes will launch an exhibition devoted to this topic. ¡Murales Rebeldes!: Contested Chicana/o Public Art will look at the way in which Chicana/o murals in the greater Los Angeles area have been contested, challenged, censored, and even destroyed.

This exhibition and its companion publication of the same name are part of the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA. ¡Murales Rebeldes! will examine the iconography, content, and artistic strategies of key Los Angeles-area Chicana/o murals that have made others uncomfortable to the point of provoking a contrary response, delving into the murals’ complicated creation and subsequent disturbing history of denial. Artists Willie Herrón and Ernesto de la Loza—among the co-muralists of La Voz de la Gente!—are featured with muralists Barbara Carrasco, Yriena Cervántez, Roberto Chávez, Sergio O’Cadiz, and East Los Streetscapers in this compelling, critical examination.

Read more about ¡Murales Rebeldes!: Contested Chicana/o Public Art.

Shelly Kale

Publications and Strategic Projects Manager

skale@calhist.org

Sources

• Holly Barnet-Sanchez, Tim Drescher, Give Me Life: Iconography and Identity in East LA Murals (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2016)
• Carlyn Aguilar, New Mural in Culver City for Siqueiros, March 5, 2012 
• http://notesonlooking.com/2012/03/new-mural-in-culver-city-for-siqueiros-papel-y-madera-fabian-debora-at-homeboy-frida-kahlo-esta-en-wonderland-carolyn-castanos-narco-venus-mi-familia/

September 30, 1962: The National Farm Workers Association Is Founded

California Grape Pickers Strike on Historic March from Delano to Sacramento, 1969

California Historical Society

 

On this day, fifty-four years ago, activists/labor leaders César Chávez and Dolores Huerta cofounded the National Farm Workers Association. Defending unemployed, exploited, and discriminated workers, they organized strikes, boycotts, marches, and rallies—all nonviolent protests demanding improved pay, treatment, and working conditions for farmworkers.

 

In 1966 the NFWA teamed up with Filipino farmworkers of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee and established the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee. In 1972, the committee was accepted into the AFL-CIO and was renamed the United Farmworkers Union.

Today, during National Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15–October 15), we honor the men and women who brought national attention to the plight of Hispanic agricultural workers, the issue of social and economic justice, and the cause of Latino American civil rights in our state.

César Chávez (1927–1993)

Courtesy Farmworker Movement Documentation Project, University of California, San Diego

 

Dolores Huerta (b. 1930)

Courtesy John Kouns, Farmworker Movement Documentation Project

Pickets during the Grape and Lettuce Strike, c. 1970s

Courtesy Walter P. Reuther Library

 

Striking Grape Pickers Marching from Delano to Sacramento, 1969

California Historical Society 

Chávez Walking with Union Members outside a Safeway Market, date unknown

Courtesy Los Angeles Public Library, Herald-Examiner Collection

United Farmworkers/AFL-CIO Support at a Farmworkers Initiative Proposition 14 Rally, 1976

Courtesy Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego

 

Shelly Kale

Publications and Strategic Projects Manager

skale@calhist.org

 

 

For more about National Hispanic Heritage Month, see http://www.hispanicheritagemonth.org/