Showing posts with label Ethnicities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ethnicities. Show all posts

Sunday, March 17, 2024

St. Patrick's Day

A Celtic cross in a local cemetery, marking the grave of a very Irish, and Irish Catholic, figure.

Recently I ran this item: 

Lex Anteinternet: The Obituary: Mira qué bonita era by Julio Romero de Torres, 1895.  Depiction of a wake in Spain. I didn't have him as a teacher in high school, but I...

One of the things this oituary noted was:

"One more St. Patrick’s day craic for you, Dad."

That's nice, but what does that mean?

From Wikipedia:

Craic (/kræk/ KRAK) or crack is a term for news, gossip, fun, entertainment, and enjoyable conversation, particularly prominent in Ireland.It is often used with the definite article – the craic– as in the expression "What's the craic?" (meaning "How are you?" or "What's happening?"). The word has an unusual history; the Scots and English crack was borrowed into Irish as craic in the mid-20th century and the Irish spelling was then reborrowed into English. Under either spelling, the term has attracted popularity and significance in Ireland.

A relative who kn3w the decedent well told me that in later years he really got into "being Irish" and had big St. Patrick's Day parties.

But is that Irish?

Not really.  That's hosting a party.

Granted, it's hosting a party in honor of the Saint, sort of. Or perhaps in honor of Ireland, sort of.  And there's nothing wrong with that whatsoever.  After all, "holidays" comes from "holy days", which were "feasts".   There are, by my recollection, some feast days even during Lent, and for that matter, it's often noted, but somewhat debated, that Sundays during Lent aren't technically part of it (although this post isn't on that topic, perhaps I'll address that elsewhere.

And St. Philip Neri tells us, moreover,  "Cheerfulness strengthens the heart and makes us persevere in a good life; wherefore the servant of God ought always to be in good spirits."

So, no problem, right?

Well, perhaps, as long as we're not missing the point.

The Irish everywhere honor this day, and some of that involves revelry.  Traditionally it was a day that events like Steeple Chases were conducted, sports being closely associated, actually, with religious holidays on the British Isles.  But the day is also often marked by the devout going to Mass, and as the recent Irish election shows, the Irish are more deeply Catholic than some recent pundits might suggest.

Perhaps it might be best, really, to compare the day to the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe in North America, which is widely observed by devout Catholics, and not only in Mexican American communities.

So, I guess, a purely bacchanalian event, which is so common in the US, doesn't really observe the holiday, but something else, and that risks dishonoring the day itself.  Beyond that, it's interesting how some in North America become particularly "Irish" on this day, when in fact the root of the day, and the person it honors, would import a different type of conduct entirely to some extent, if that was not appreciated.  Indeed, with many, St. Patrick would suggest confession and repentance.

Am I being too crabby?  

Probably, but we strive for authenticity in our lives and desire it.  That's so often at war with our own personal desires which often, quite frankly, aren't authentic.  Things aren't easy.

Wednesday, March 17, 1909. John Redmond appeals to the readers of the Rocky Mountain News.

 


Colorado had a substantial Irish  and Irish American population, both of which were represented by my father's grandparents, who at that time lived in Victor, near Leadville.  Redmond was a major Irish figure who was working diligently towards Irish self rule, something that would come flying apart due to World War One.

Last prior edition:

Tuesday, March 16, 1909. A serious Congress.

Tuesday, March 17, 1824. Irish in Savannah and Old Glory

Savannah, Georgia held its first St. Patrick's Day parade on this day in 1824.

We don't tend to think of the Irish immigrating to the American South, but there were some, although the story is complicated by the conflation of the Irish with the Scots Irish, the latter group actually being a Scottish Protestant population imported by the United Kingdom with the intent to create a sort of Protestant wall in Ulster.  The actual Irish were a massively unpopular "race" in the United States at this point in time.

The original Old Glory.

The name "Old Glory" was applied to the U.S. flag for the first time, with that coming from Cpt. William Driver, a commercial captain who received it from his mother and local women of Salem, Massachusetts.  The name was applied to the individual flag.

Driver was an interesting character and had originally gone to sea at age 13 as a cabin boy.  On an 1831 expedition to the South Pacific, his ship was the only one out of six that survived the trip, and his ship escorted 65 descendants of the Bounty survivors back to Pitcairn Island.  He retired from sailing in 1837 and became a salesman. During the Civil War, he remained loyal to the Union while living in Nashville.

It remained in his family's possession until 1922, when it was donated to the Smithsonian.

The Anglo Dutch Treaty was entered into resolving issues that had arisen due to a prior treaty in 1814.

Last prior:

Thursday, March 11, 1824. Bureau of Indian Affairs formed.

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Sunday, February 27, 1944. The Khaibakh Massacre

Weather prevented over 700 Chechen villagers from Khaibakh from being convoyed in the Soviet mass deportation of Chechens, meaning they could not meet the absurdly short deadline set by Lavrentiy Beria so they were shot.  The order was given by Mikhail Gvishiani, an officer in the NKVD.

Beria, a loyal Stalin henchman, was a first class weirdo who was also a mass rapist, something his position allowed him to get away with.  He fell after Stalin's death, was tried, and executed for treason.

Gvishiani survived the fall of Stalin, but probably only because his son, Dzhermen Gvishiani, was married to the daughter of Communist Party Central Committee member Alexei Kosygin.

It was the start of National Negro Press Week.


The U.S. Office of Strategic Services commenced Operation Ginny I with the objective of blowing up Italian railway tunnels in Italy to cut German lines of communication.

The OSS team landed in the wrong location and had to abandon the mission.

Hitler ordered the Panzerfeldhaubitze 18M auf Geschützwagen III/IV (Sf) Hummel, Sd.Kfz. 165, "Hummel" renamed as he did not find the name Hummel, i.e. bumblebee to be an appropriate name.

You would think that Hitler would have had other things to worry about at this point.

The Grayback was sunk off of Okinawa by aircraft.

Friday, February 23, 2024

Blog Mirror. The Agrarian's Lament: Agrarian(s) of the Week: The Southern Agrarians.

The Agrarian's Lament: Agrarian(s) of the Week: The Southern Agrarians.

Agrarian(s) of the Week: The Southern Agrarians.

Farm in Louisiana, 1940.

A few weeks ago, with John Pondoro Taylor, on our companion blog Going Feral, we made a controversial entry.  Keeping with that theme, we do the same here.

If a person has agrarian interests, there's no escaping The Southern Agrarians as there is not escaping their magnum opus, I'll Take My Stand.  It is one of the great, if highly flawed, works of modern agrarian thought.

The irony, I suppose, of the work and the group needs to be mentioned from the onset. They did not make their living from the land, although it's not necessary to do that in order to be an agrarian. Rather, they were twelve men of letters who wrote what amounted to an agrarian last stand, which they were very conscious of it being at the time.  They were:

  • Donald Davidson, from Tennessee, poet, essayist, reviewer and historian. He was also a segregationist.
  • John Gould Fletcher, from Arkansas, poet and historian.  He was the first Southerner to win the Pulitzer Prize
  • Henry Blue Kline, a writer educated at Vanderbilt who taught at Tennessee, before ironically taking government employment for the rest of his life.
  • Lyle H. Lanier, an experimental psychologist from Tennessee.
  • Andrew Nelson Lytle,, also of Tennessee and also of Vanderbilt. a poet, novelist and essayist
  • Herman Clarence Nixon, of Alabama and a political scientist.
  • Frank Lawrence Owsley, also of Alabama and Vanderbilt. a historian
  • John Crowe Ransom, of Tennessee and Vanderbilt poet, professor, essayist
  • Allen Tate, poet, and of Tennessee and Vanderbilt.
  • John Donald Wade, of Georgia, and a professor at Harvard and Columbia, biographer and essayist
  • Robert Penn Warren, of Kentucky, and who was a university professor in a variety of universities, and a poet, novelist, essayist and critic, later first poet laureate of the United States
  • Stark Young, of Mississippi, a novelist, drama and literary critic, playwright

What marks them is their monumental work, which was a Depression Era, anti-New Deal, strike against the modern world and capitalism. It is flawed, in that its view of the American South was highly romantic, and frankly they were not bothered by its inherent racism and manged to basically not even see it.  The work, while important, includes muted strain of Lost Cause yearning which are not admirable at all.  Indeed, it's hard not to notice that they didn't notice that the class that was hurt the most by New Deal farm policies were African American tenant farmers.

Still, as noted, there'rs no escaping this work.  It remains the magnum opus of American Agrarianism.

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Wednesday, February 20, 1924. Non au plan Dawes.

"Let 'em have their fling" Washington Post, Feb. 20, 1924.

The French military objected to the draft Dawes Plan on the basis that it would return the Ruhr's railroads to German control.

The Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was created in the USSR for Russian ethnic Germans.  The capital city was the ironically named Kosakenstadt, which is now called Engels.  Ethnic Germans had been a feature of the Russian demographic map since Catherine the Great, who was of course German, had invited them in. They were not all of one uniform background, however, as they varied by religious confession considerably.

The German invasion of Russia in 1940 resulted in the Republic being eliminated.  Ultimatly the German population of the USSR was subject to heavy repression, with many people deported to work camps for being ethnic Germans. Some ethnic Germans of military age joined the German forces.  While the heavy repression ended following the march of time and the death of Stalin, remaining German populations in Russian heavily immigrated to Germany starting in the 1980s, before reunification, even though by that time they tended not to be even able to speak German.

Gloria Vanderbilt, socialite, actress and fashion figure was born.  As I don't know much about her and frankly care even less, that's about all I'll note.

The President met with the Good Roads Association, something that relates to something we posted yesterday.


He also met with the Gold Star Mothers.


Sunday, February 18, 2024

OROZCO by SK GUNS and Pascual Orozco himself.


Wow, that's a wild commemorative.

Pascual Orozco was a Mexican Revolutionary who originally supported Madero before falling out with him.  He was of immediate Basque descent, something we tend not to think about in regard to Mexico, which is in fact more ethnically diverse than we commonly imagine.  He was an early recruit to Madero's 1910 revolution, and was a natural military leader, and could be rather morbid.  After his January 2, 1911, victory at Cañón del Mal Paso he ordered the dead Federal soldiers stripped and sent the uniforms to Presidente Díaz with a note that read, "Ahí te van las hojas, mándame más tamales" ("Here are the wrappers, send me more tamales.").


On May 10, 1911 Orozco and Pancho Villa seized Ciudad Juárez, against Madero's orders, a victory which caused Díaz to briefly resign the presidency.  Madero would naively choose to negotiate with the regime, which resulted in The Treaty of Ciudad Juárez allowing for the resignations of Díaz and his vice president, allowing them to go into exile, establishing an Interim Presidency under Francisco León de la Barra, and keeping the Federal Army intact.

Like Zapata, he went into rebellion against the Madero government, which he felt had betrayed the revolution.  He openly declared revolt on March 3, 1912, financing it with his own money and confiscated livestock sold in Texas.  His forces were known as the Orozquistas and the Colorados (the Reds). They defeated Federal troops in Chihuahua under José González Salas. Madero in turn sent Victoriano Huerta against him, who in turn were more successful.  A wounded Orozco fled to the US. After Madero was assassinated and Huerta installed, Orozco promised to support him if reforms were made, and he was installed as the Supreme Commander of the Mexican Federal forces.  As such he defeated the Constitutionalist at Ciudad Camargo, Mapula, Santa Rosalía, Zacatecas, and Torreón, causing his former revolutionary confederates to regard him, not without justification, as a traitor.

He refused to recognize the government of Carvajal after Huerta's fall and was driven into exile again.  He traveled in the US in opposition to Carranza along with Huerta.  In 1915, he was arrested in the US, but escaped.  An unclear incident at the Dick Love ranch in Texas led to claims that he and other like-minded combatants had stolen horses from the ranch, which in turn resulted in a small party of the 13th Cavalry, Texas Rangers, and local deputies pursing the supposed horse thieve with Orozco being killed once the party was holed up.  What exactly occured is not clear.

His body interred in the Masonic Holding Vault at the Concordia Cemetery in El Paso by his wife, dressed in the uniform of a Mexican general, at a service attended by a very larger gathering of admirers.  In 1925 his remains were retuned to Chihuahua.

Why the commemorative?  I have no idea.  He is not an obscure figure in the Mexican Revolution, but not a well known one like Villa or Zapata.  I can't see where he's associated with the M1911 either, a weapon that was brand new at the time the Revolution broken out.  The .38 Super, which is apparently popular in Mexico, wasn't intruduced by Colt until 1929.

Sunday, February 11, 2024

Friday, February 11, 1944. The Factory Falls.

The Germans took "The Factory" from the British 1st Division at Anzio.

The Red Army took Shepetovka, Ukraine.


Wah Kau Kong (江華九), the first Chinese American fighter pilot, scored his first victory, showing down a FW190 while piloting a P-51B.  He'd be killed in a dogfight just eleven days later.  On that occasion, his wingman reported:
I was leading squadron in leader position of red flight, providing escort and target support for bombers with targets at Oschersleben and Halberstadt. 2nd Lt. Wau Kau Kong was my wingman. Enroute to target area, Northeim and Wernigerode, at 1350 hours I attacked a ME-410 which was pressing attack on a straggling B-17 at 16,000 feet. I fired a long burst from 300 yds, observing parts flying off the tail assembly and smoke pouring out of the right engine. All my guns stopped except one and I broke off attack to let my wingman finish off E/A. I circled and saw Lt. Kong fire at E/A from close range. The right engine of E/A burst into flames. As Lt. Kong broke off over the E/A the rear gunner must have hit him as his plane exploded and disintegrated in the air.

From Sarah Sundin's blog:

Today in World War II History—February 11, 1944: First mission of the US 357th Fighter Group in P-51 Mustangs from England—this group would produce the most aces (42) in the US Eighth Air Force.

The U-424 was sunk off the Faroe's by a Wellington piloted by the RCAF.

Father Claude H. Heithaus, S. J. delivered a homily in what must have been a week day Mass at Saint Louis University denouncing racism.  It ended up getting him forcibly transferred out of state, but the school started admitting African Americans six months later, the first historically white Southern university to do so.

A photographer visited the USS Saratoga.



Commander Maurice Sheehy, Catholic priest and Chaplain Corps, on board USS Saratoga (CV 3), February 11, 1944.  The highly respected Fr. Sheehy would rise to the rank of Vice Admiral, the highest rank ever obtained by a Navy Chaplain.  He had taught at the Catholic University of America before the war, but after it became a pastor in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  He passed away in 1972.

Monday, February 11, 1924. Booting Denby

The Senate began to move against Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby.


The vote was 47 to 34 to remove Denby, which would actually be something that Coolidge, not Congress, could do.

The Negro Sanhedrin, an attempt by the City of Chicago to have an all race congress to address racial issues, convened with representatives of trade unions, civic groups and fraternal organizations. The specific goal was to devise a program to protect the rights of African American tenant farmers.

Sunday, February 4, 2024

February 4, 1824. Thomas Jefferson to Rev. Jared Sparks.

 



The topic was African slaves in the United States, and what to do about/with them.  Jefferson advocated for establishing an American colony in Africa.

Sparks was a very early Unitarian minister who had served as the Chaplain for the House of Representatives, and who would go on to serve as the President of Harvard.  He died in 1866 at the age of 76, having therefore had a life span which would have overlapped the War of 1812, the Mexican War and the Civil War.  Fairly typically for the era, he'd been married twice, his first wife having been taken by death when they'd been married only three years.


Sunday, January 14, 2024

Friday, January 14, 1944. Relieving Leningrad.

The Leningrad-Novgorod Offensive commences with the aim of lifting the siege of Leningrad.  The Krasnoye Selo–Ropsha offensive also commenced.
Red Army sniper and Kazakh Aliya Nurmuhametqyzy Moldagulova (Russian Алия Нурмухамбетовна Молдагулова, Kazakh: Әлия Нұрмұхамедқызы Молдағұлова/Äliia Nūrmūhamedqyzy Moldağūlova) was killed in action.




The Polish Government In Exile again refused to accept unilateral decisions regarding Polish territory but said it was approaching the British and American governments to mediate questions between Poland and the USSR and that it was optimistic regarding resolutions.


The Red Army took Mozyr and Kalinkovichi.

The Japanese destroyer Sazanami was sun by the submarine USS Albacore off of Yap.

T/4 Clarence Benson of the 272nd QM Bakery on Kiska. 14 January, 1944.

Railroad unions accepted a proposal put forth by the Administration.

Sarah Sundin's blog has a bunch of interesting ones, including this:
Today in World War II History—January 14, 1944: 80 Years Ago—Jan. 14, 1944: US Navy Seabees in camps in US get a sneak preview of John Wayne’s movie The Fighting Seabees.

She also noted that Gen. Eisenhower arrived in London, and that interned Japanese Americans became liable for conscription. 

Thursday, January 11, 2024

Levantines

I've used the term "Coastal Arabs" here recently to describe the culture that stretches from teh Sinai to Turkey and which includes a lot of Syria.

Distribution of Levantine Arab dialect. By A455bcd9 - Own work based on: Levantine Arabic 2022.svgReferences:Brustad, Kristen; Zuniga, Emilie (2019) "Chapter 16: Levantine Arabic" in Huehnergard, John , ed. The Semitic Languages (2nd ed.), Routledge, pp. 403–432 DOI: 10.4324/9780429025563. ISBN: 978-0-415-73195-9. OCLC: 1103311755.Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D. (2022). Jordan and Syria. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. SIL International., CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=128220068

It turns out, the word that I should have used is Levantines.

The region has its own dialect of Arabic, its own (really good) cuisine, and those who genetic history from the region can be identified by their DNA.  

Yes, they are Arabs, but they are not Bedouin. 

Thursday, January 4, 2024

The Ongoing 2023 Legislative Session of Other States.

How we all imagine legislatures once were. . . because they didn't have the opportunity to put every dumb thought they had out on Twitter.

At least Wyoming can be thankful that its citizen legislature can't afford to be in ongoing session.

May 21, 2023

Minnesota, deciding that Americans aren't stupid enough, and don't already have enough in the way of options to make themselves even stupider, voted to legalize marijuana.

It also passed a new gun measure.

June 3, 2023

Connecticut banned marriages under 18 with no exceptions.

September 7, 2023

California has banned caste based discrimination, which is something prevalent in the Indian culture. The Governor has not indicated if he will sign the act.

While I agree with the measure, this is frankly an example of a Western culture declaring its values to be superior to that of an Asian one.  Western cultures have a Christianity based concept that all people are equal.  Lots of cultures hold the polar opposite.

Massachusetts has passed funding for universal "free" school lunches.

Of course, they aren't free, they're government funded. And the government doesn't make an income through production, so they're tax funded.  This means they're taxpayer funded.  Massachusetts has ain income tax, so this means that Massachusetts is separating cash from the wallets of everyone in the state in order to buy lunches for school kids, irrespective of parental obligations to pay to feed their kids.

October 3, 2023

Nebraska is requiring transgender youth seeking "gender-affirming care", the Orwellian term for gender mutilation, to wait seven days to start puberty-blocking medications or hormone treatments under emergency regulations as well as to receive at least 40 hours of “gender-identity-focused” therapy   This followed a Nebraska law that took effect on Sunday which bans "gender affirming" surgical mutilation for those under 19.

Nebraska, intentionally or not, is following a global trend here which is limiting such procedures in minors, with the data showing its frequently regretted.

October 8, 2023

California has put into effect a law requiring  requires public and private US businesses with revenues greater than $1 billion operating in California to report their emissions comprehensively.

January 4, 2024

Passed last year, some new state laws:

  • A new Minnesota law allows authorities to ask courts for “extreme risk protection orders” to temporarily take guns from people deemed to be an imminent threat to others or themselves. 
  • Colorado has banned "ghost guns"
  • A Connecticut law requires online dating operators to adopt policies for handling harassment reports.
  • A North Carolina law requires pornographic website operators to confirm viewers are at least 18 years old by using a commercially available database. Parents can sue for failure to comply with the law.
  • A new Illinois law allows lawsuits by victims of deepfake pornography,
  • Bans on chemical gender mutilation of minors take effect in Idaho, Louisiana and West Virginia. 
  • A new law in Hawaii requires new marriage certificates to be issued to people who request to change how their sex is listed. 
  • In Colorado, new buildings wholly or partly owned by government entities are now required to have on every floor where there are public restrooms at least one that does not specify the gender of the users.
  • A new Indiana law makes it easier for parents and others to challenge books in school libraries. 
  • A new Illinois law blocks state funding for public libraries that ban or restrict books.
  • Kansas dropped the sales tax on groceries drops from 4% to 2% .  It plans to eliminate the slaes tax on groceries entirely.
  • Connecticut and Missouri reduced their state income tax rate.

Monday, January 1, 2024

Saturday, January 1, 1944. Sort of independence.

Syria became independent theoretically, but the French mandate continued.

The RAF bombed Berlin again.

The War Department was pondering its policies regarding African American soldiers.





From Sarah Sundin's blog:

Today in World War II History—January 1, 1944: Gen. Alexander Vandegrift replaces Gen. Thomas Holcomb as commandant of the US Marine Corps. US penny production switches from steel to a copper & brass alloy.

USC Trojans beat the Washington Huskies 29-0 in the Rose Bowl, Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets defeated Tulsa Golden Hurricane 20-18 in the Sugar Bowl., the LSU Tigers beat the Texas A&M Aggies 19-14 in the Orange Bow, the Cotton Bowl Classic ended in a 7–7 tie between the Randolph Field Ramblers and the Texas Longhorns.

Sunday, December 17, 2023

Friday, December 17, 1943. Black Sheep Raid.

F4U Corsair at the Natrona County International Airport, 1985.  The Black Sheep flew Corsairs.

Marine Attack Squadron 214, the "Black Sheep", made use of the fighter sweep technique for the first time, sending 76 fighters over Rabaul.

The Battle of San Pietro Infine ended in an Allied victory.

The Magnuson Act, which repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act, was signed into law.

Statement on Signing the Bill to Repeal the Chinese Exclusion Laws.

December 17, 1943

It is with particular pride and pleasure that I have today signed the bill repealing the Chinese Exclusion Laws. The Chinese people, I am sure, will take pleasure in knowing that this represents a manifestation on the part of the American people of their affection and regard.

An unfortunate barrier between allies has been removed. The war effort in the Far East can now be carried on with a greater vigor and a larger understanding of our common purpose.

Franklin Roosevelt. 

President Roosevelt announced Wright Flyer would be returned from the United Kingdom and displayed at the Smithsonian.  The Wrights had allowed the flyer to go to the UK after the Smithsonian and originally refused to recognize their flight at Kitty Hawk as the first powered flight.

Monday, November 20, 2023

Tuesday, November 20, 1923. Navy Debutantes, Not giving up, Germany returns to the Gold Standard, Traffic light patent.


The National Photo Company published some photographs of "Navy Debutantes", which were likely the daughters of Navy officers.



Oklahoma's governor had been impeached, but he wasn't giving up.




Germany returned to the gold standard as a successful measure to address hyperinflation.

Oddly, the Reichsbank's president, Rudolf Havenstein, died on this day at age 66.

Patent No. 1,475,024 was issued to Garret Morgan for the three position traffic light.

Morgan, an African American who had only a 6th Grade education, was an inventor with a number of inventions to his credit.  Very unusual for the day, he was also a party to a "mixed marriage", his wife being a Czech immigrant.

Monday, October 9, 2023

A thought about not thinking things through on Indigenous Person's Day.

Wyoming politician Bob Ide is saying he's going to sponsor a bill to take the Federal domain into state hands, requiring, as if Wyoming can require the Federal Government to do anything, the fulfillment of a promise that the Federal Government never made at the time Wyoming became a state.

In fact, the opposite was true.  Wyoming promised not to seek any more Federal land than it was getting.

But a promise was made regarding those lands. . . to the Cheyenne, Arapahoe and Sioux tribes. . . that being that they could keep them for hunting grounds.

And a larger reservation than they currently have was originally given to the Shoshone.

In her campaign to displace Liz Cheney, Harriet Hageman emphasized the hardworking nature of her family and forebearors, and has been a standard-bearer of conservative and populist values in her brief time in Congress. She's from, she related, a fourth generation ranching family.

But most families that have been in agriculture in Wyoming that long, outside the descendants of British remission men, are remote beneficiaries of a gigantic government system which used Federal agents, in the form of the U.S. Army and Federal Indian Agents, to dispossess the occupants of that land, sometimes by force, and remove them to where they did not want to go, so that the land could be transferred free or cheaply to European Americans.  Those original European American occupants, we might note, in the case of homesteaders, were not the wealthy and were perfectly willing to take advantage of a government program.

My point?

Well I don't mean to be one of those who are going to engage in hagiography of any one group of American people, Natives nor European Americans, but on this day it might be worth remembering something.

The "pull up by the bootstraps" argument that the middle class, or lower upper class, so frequently states, or imagines about themselves, fails pretty readily upon close examination.  Almost every class of American with longstanding roots in the country that have been here for quite some time benefitted from a government program, whether that be homesteading, Indian removal by the Army, the mining law of 1872, the Taylor grazing act (which saved ranching in the West), the GI Bill, and so on.

That is, in fact, the American System.  Not the Darwinian laissez-faire economics that libertarians so often proclaim.

I'm not demanding reparations, or that injustices committed to people of the past be retroactively lamented.  Indeed, that's pointless.  What I’m suggesting instead is that justice be done for those now living, and that as part of that we admit when we are vicariously beneficiaries of some Federal program in the past, as I am.

And as part of that, I'm also suggesting that we don't engage in myths or hagiographies about our own predecessors.  Nobody carved a civilization out of an empty wilderness, unless we go back in North America 15,000 years.  Nobody promised that Wyoming could have the public domain.  None of us are as independent or virtuous as we pretend, if we pretend that we are, and nobody's ancestors were hearty bands of go it alone giants.

Shoot, even Columbus, if you prefer to ponder him on this day, was on a state funded mission.

Sunday, October 8, 2023

Local demographics and the Synod.

When I was growing up, the Parish we normally attended, if it had a noticeable ethnic component, which I can't say that it truly did, would have been Irish.  First and second generation Irish Americans, as well as some native born Irish.  There were also people of other European extractions, and a Hispanic population, although the latter was nowhere near as large as it currently is.

When I attended university in Laramie, as an undergrad, I normally went to the local parish rather than the Newman Center.  That parish had a large Hispanic population and the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe was a big deal.  A king and queen were chosen from the local Catholic school, and a complete brass band played at the Mass, which was partially in Spanish, although most Hispanics in Laramie are multiple generation Albany County residents whose ancestors moved up from New Mexico in the mid 20th Century.  I.e, they didn't all speak Spanish.

By the 2000s, one of the three parishes in my home county had a fairly large Hispanic population, as did many other parishes around the state, that included many people born in Mexico, typically Chihuahua.  This is still the case.  By the 2010s, a Spanish language Mass had been added.  By the late 2010s the downtown parish had fairly clearly, if silently, been dedicated to serving the immigrant Mexican population, with a priest who is a native speaker of Spanish (from Puerto Rico), the second priest there to have a fluent command of Spanish.  The first had been a very conservative priest who was not universally liked by the English-speaking population, but interestingly, as is sometimes the case, was loved by those who spoke Spanish.  Interestingly, the priest prior to that was an immigrant himself, from Zambia.  He didn't speak Spanish, but incorporated a little of it into some Masses, otherwise taking a "we're all Catholics and we're all in this together approach".

Additionally, an immigrant population in the county that hailed from Vietnam saw the introduction of periodic Vietnamese language Masses in one of the three parishes.  The same parish very occasionally has a Tagalog language Mass.

The priests, which at one time jokingly included a fair number of the "FBI", "Foreign Born Irish", now include Africans, Filipinos, Vietnamese, and Indians.  Wyoming has never generated enough seminarians to supply its own needs, and has always relied on priests from elsewhere, mostly Ireland at first (although there was an English-born priest at one time).  Now, other nations supply the need.

Wyoming has sent a lay delegate to the Synod, or rather, the Pope, through some means, has chosen a Wyomingite.  The handful, and they are just a handful, of lay delegates from North America, according to the Diocese of Cheyenne, are:

Canada 

  • Sami Aoun is a Maronite academic from Montreal immersed in issues touching the Church in the Middle East. He is Professor Emeritus at Université de Sherbrooke and professor, at the Center for Contemporary Religious Studies in Quebec. He is Co-founder of the first Global Chair in the prevention of radicalization and violent extremism.
  • Catherine Clifford is a theologian at St. Paul University in Ottawa who has written and lectured on ecclesiology and synodality. Dr. Clifford has been invited as a panelist, presenter and guest keynote speaker on numerous occasions; especially on topics such as: “Theological and Pastoral Contributions to Synodality from North America,” “Synodality: What Have We Learned along the Way?”, “Leaning into the Distant Goal of Vatican II: Pope Francis, Synodality, and Christian Unity,” among others.
  • Sr. Chantal Desmarais s.c.s.m. is a woman religious from the Diocese of Joliette who was involved in drafting the Canadian National Synthesis as well as the North American Final Document. She is very involved in catechesis and evangelical animation for her diocese. Sr. Desmarais also studied religious education and physical education.
  • Linda Staudt is the Director for Safe Environment Services for the diocese of London. She has extensive experience as a leader in Catholic education in Ontario. The Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario appointed her chair of the committee to prepare the provincial synodal report.

United States 

  • Cynthia Bailey Manns, D.Min, is the Adult Learning Director at Saint Joan of Arc Catholic Community in Minneapolis and adjunct professor at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. Dr. Bailey Manns was a delegate from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to the Continental Assemblies. 
  • Richard Coll is the executive director of the Department of Justice, Peace, and Human Development at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He was appointed as the liaison for the U.S. bishops for the Synod in the United States in 2021 and is a member of the North American Synod Team. Mr. Coll is a parishioner at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Washington, D.C.
  • Rev. Ivan Montelongo is a priest of the Diocese of El Paso and serves as the diocesan contact for the 2021-2024 Synod. Fr. Montelongo is Vocation Director and Judicial Vicar for the diocese and was a delegate from the Diocese of El Paso to the Continental Assemblies.
  • Wyatt Olivas is a student at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyoming. He serves as music minister at his parish, St. Paul’s Newman Center in Laramie. Mr. Olivas was a delegate from the Diocese of Cheyenne to the Continental Assemblies.
  • Julia Osęka is an international student from Poland attending St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. She has been active in the Synod through her participation in Synodality in Catholic Higher Education in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia (SCHEAP). Ms. Osęka was a delegate from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to the Continental Assemblies.
  • Sr. Leticia Salazar, ODN is with the Order of the Company of Mary Our Lady, a religious order. She is the Chancellor of the Diocese of San Bernardino, and the diocesan contact for the Synod. Sr. Leticia was a member of the U.S. National Synthesis Writing Team, and a member of the North American Synod Team, and she was a delegate from the Diocese of San Bernardino to the Continental Assemblies.   

The NCR regarding the participants notes the following regarding Wyoming's contribution are:

Wyatt Olivas

Non-episcopal pontifical appointment

Wyatt Olivas is a student at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, where he is studying music education. He attends St. Paul's Newman Center, where he is a music minister and works with high school parishioners. He is one of the youth representatives on the Cheyenne Diocese's Pastoral Council.

Olivas believes the synod is especially important for young Latinos, who recent studies suggest could make up more than half of U.S. Catholics under 30.

"It hurts our feelings when people don't want to listen to us and when people push us aside and make us 'tomorrow's church' and not part of our universal church," Olivas said. "The youth feel pushed aside and not getting bigger responsibilities because it's not 'their turn.' "

Olivas is from Cheyenne, where he attended St. Joseph Parish. He served as a music minister and catechist there, teaching third graders and assisting with confirmation classes. This past summer, he served as a missionary with the Catholic youth evangelization program Totus Tuus.

I'd note, this states, as other things do, that he's from Cheyenne, and he does seem to have graduated from high school there.  Other things claim him for St. Rose of Lima in Torrington. That's significantly different.

I know very little about him personally, and what I do know is solely from what's available online.  He seems to have graduated from high school in Cheyenne a couple of years ago, and is, as noted, a music minister at the Newman Center.

Cheyenne has a large Hispanic population. Torrington, however, not so much.  Cheyenne's Hispanic populations' origins are much like Laramie's, and both are tied to the Union Pacific Railroad. 

 I have known a fair number of Hispanics in Natrona County over the years.

I have no doubt that Olivas is a devout Catholic.  I have some reason to doubt, although its all just preception, that he may be either conservative or fully orthodox in his view, but that's preception only.  Beyond that, I wonder how representative he may be, but then maybe representative isn't what was fully sought.

In southern Wyoming, the Hispanic population, as noted, stems from New Mexico originally.  It's interesting for lots of reasons, one of which is that the original Wyoming Hispanic population that came in after the Mexican War also did.  That population had roots dating back to 1598 when Spain first colonized what is now New Mexico.  In that region, which includes Southern Colorado, they formed their own, very long-lasting, culture, which still exists.  That population supplied immigrants for railroad and agricultural labor to Wyoming starting probably around the 1910s and stretching into the 1950s.  For a fairly long time, the population actually had a significant number that moved back and forth, but of course not everyone did and that ultimately ceased.  The agricultural employment eventually faded, but the blue collar railroad jobs were still going strong in the 1990s.  Perhaps they still are.

The post 1990 oil booms, and the collapse of American border enforcement in the 1970s, brought in a new Mexican immigrant population since then. They do speak Spanish, of course, but they are particularly well represented by people who were born in Chihuahua.  They've found employment in the oil and gas industry and in the trades, where they are very heavily represented.  

Olivas has stated, “once younger generations begin to take ownership of the church, things will change”.

That may be the point.  It will, and it has been, but not really in the direction that would seem to be indicated by the photo of a young man wearing a rainbow wristband and majoring in music, quite frankly.

That recalls the Church of the 1970s more than the one of the 2020s, save for the fact that the Boomer generation that took so influenced the Church back then is partially still in control, but less and less every day.  Indeed, Masses today, nearly anywhere, incorporate more of what once was, than those of the 80s.

And hence the point.

I don't know if Olivas' parents were born in Mexico or not, but a lot of the Hispanics locally were born there, including the young. They're in early adulthood or high school right now. They don't tend to go to university, just as their earlier immigrant predecessors from other countries didn't.  And there's a lot more of them working construction than attending university, anywhere.

Olivas has been asked what Hispanics want from the Synod.

What not ask a 20-year-old from Chihuahua working laying concrete in Rawlins? It wouldn't be hard to find one.

And hence the concern.

Julia Osęka isn't an American at all, but Polish. The young woman is also a university student and has expressed her support of LBGQT causes.  Her native land is sending very conservative representatives to the Synod.  In  her, they get a liberal one, by some appearances, unless of course she stays in the US, which we have no reason to suspect will be the case.

Fr. James Martin, SJ.  Well, we hardly need to comment regarding him, other than perhaps noting that he was born in 1960 and therefore is a late period Baby Boomer.  Fr. Martin became deeply involved in the faith, ultimately leading to him becoming a priest, after watching a documentary on Thomas Merton, which is interesting in that the Merton was both a priest and a monk, and a deeply mystic one who was attracted to Eastern Mysticism.  He was, in some ways, a mystic for his age.

Cardinal Robert McElroy is another, like Martin, who has called for a radical reassessment of what St. Paul condemned in this area.  He called, in the case of divorce and remarriage, for the allowance for Communion in an article in the Jesuit publication America.  This lead to an American Bishop to accuse him of heresy.

Fr. Iván Montelongo is from Chihuahua, Mexico.  He's commented that he has no agenda but wants to address the divorced and remarried, migrants and members of the LGBTQ community.

The others?  

Well, I don't really know anything about them.  You don't either.  The Canadian ones, which are four in number to the American six, seem to be more conventional and potentially conservative.  Interestingly, given though the population of the US is about ten times that of Canada, Canada has nearly equal representation.  Also interesting is that while two hail from Quebec, which makes sense, only one is a French Canadian, which is the most deeply Catholic, and most deeply imperiled Catholic demographic, in that country.

The idea, of course, was to get a cross sample of Catholics from around the country, and indeed from around North America.  That makes some sense in the abstract.  A Hispanic, for example, from a rural state would fit that description.  But only if he's representative of real rural Hispanics. . . A Polish student at an American university isn't representative of a significant American demographic at all.

And the ongoing focus, at least to some degree, of accommodation for sin that St. Paul expressly warned against is interesting.  Indeed, it's worrisome.  It's so threaded through this by now that the Synod almost has to make some statement about it, and it won't be what St. Paul stated.

Indeed, while this body isn't as slanted as often suggested, there remains a bizarre ongoing focus on homosexuality.  No matter which way the bread is sliced, this present three pretty significant problems, which are: 1) St. Paul is blisteringly blunt on condemning homosexuality and gender bending conduct, 2) its mostly a culturally European (which includes American culture) thing for whatever reason which also burdens a very small, but very vocal, percentage of the population; and 3) no mater what people wish to say, its the demographic that in the Church has been heavily associated with scandal.

In other words, if we wish to present problems and joint approaches to healing them, ratifying them as non problems really isn't hte solution, to African and Asian Catholis this must appear hopelessly strange and largely irrelevant, and to non Catholics that already suspect every Catholic Priest is a homosexual this goes a step or so in reenforceing that view.

Or perhaps it distreassingly just tells a select group that their cross to bear need not be borne.

And if we're discussing representation from the young, and we should, why are the increasing number of young Trads I see at Mass every Sunday not represented.  Even five years ago, I rarely saw a young woman wearing a mantilla at Mass.  I see that now.  I have no reason to believe that the young, unmarried, early 20s woman I see every Sunday morning so adorned doesn't represent her generation, or an aspect of it, just as well as Olivas does. Why is he there, and she isn't?

In short, the lay panel isn't as one sided as some suggest, but it does have an unusual number of people who express views that are outside of the historic norm of Catholicism with there being no clear reason why that should be done.  And at least locally, if I were a Mexican man driving 80 miles one way to the oil patch each day, and trying to catch Mass on Sunday, with a Mexican wife at home taking care of the children, I'd wonder what a musically inclined University of Wyoming student had in common with me.