Del Rio Grande 0720

Honoring The Past Looking To The Future A Conversation With U.S. District Judge Alia Moses

JULY 2020

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Being American GRANDE / JULY 2020

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FROM THE EDITOR What being an American means to me

PUBLISHER David Rupkalvis EDITOR Karen Gleason CREATIVE DIRECTOR Atzimba Morales WRITERS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS Brian Argabright Karen Gleason Lucas Hernandez Atzimba Morales Larry Pope ADVERTISING Xochitl Arteaga PRODUCTION

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This month, we celebrate the 244th anniversary of the adoption by delegates of the original 13 American colonies of a document called the Declaration of Independence.

Most Americans – myself included – really know only one sentence from the Declaration: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The Declaration is much longer than this single sentence and goes on to expound in detail the colonists’ list of grievances against King George III of Great Britain.

The document served as the manifesto of the subsequent armed insurrection and eventual freedom of the colonies from their British overlords.

One of its core concepts – that the people are the government – is expounded on in a later document, the U.S. Constitution, which constructed the framework for the government under which we still live today.

What being an American means to me is that I am – more or less – free to be, do, say and live as I please.

What being an American means to me is that I can openly criticize my government, whether it’s the President of the United States or the Mayor of Del Rio, and not have to worry about being arrested and jailed. It also means that if I dislike those who govern enough, I can go to the polls at the next election and pick someone new.

What being an American means to me is that I live in a country governed by laws and that those laws – in theory – are the same for everyone. It also means that if there are laws I don’t agree with or believe are unjust, I can work to change them.

This year, we won’t be celebrating the Fourth of July with the same unfettered patriotic joy as we have in years past. This year, our celebrations are shadowed by the sorrow over more than 130,000 COVID-19 deaths. This year, our celebrations are muted by the fact that the promise of the American Dream still has not been fulfilled for many of our brothers and sisters of color.

We here at Grande hope you will all celebrate safely this month and for the rest of the year. We hope that you will take this time to reflect on the promise of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and to do what is in your power to bring those promises to fruition, because – as that great slogan from the civil rights movement reminds us – “none of us are free until all of us are free.”

Karen Gleason Del Rio Grande Editor

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CONTENTS 6

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BEING AN AMERICAN

AMERICAN DREAM

CALM IN THE COVID

Grande converses with U.S. District Judge Alia Moses.

AEL Instructor Bobby De Leon lends a helping hand.

Val Verde Regional Medical Center weathers the storm.

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FIRST IN HER CLASS DRHS Valedictorian Mary Bess Coggins looks to the future.

SACRED GROUND Seminole Scout descendants honor the past.

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LAST LOOK Writer/Photographer Atzimba Morales wraps up the issue.

ON THE COVER: Del Rioan Fatima Hernandez, 18, has been dancing for six years. She graduated in June from Del Rio High School, where she danced in The Dance Company for three years, serving as the group’s captain during her senior year. Hernandez plans to attend college and continue dancing and studying teaching. Here, Hernandez dances with an American flag-patterned shawl.

• Photo by Lucas Hernandez

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WE’RE FORGETTING THAT WE’RE AMERICANS FIRST...

U.S. District Judge Alia Moses reflects on her life, work and what it means to be an American Story by KAREN GLEASON; and photos by LARRY POPE

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.S. District Judge Alia Moses is like dynamite, a powerful force in a small package.

She is a child of the border, the daughter of a working-class father and an immigrant mother, and she is proud of the Lebanese and Mexican bloodlines that are her birthright.

Moses welcomes guests to her home much like any proper hostess, offering drinks and telling stories behind photos and knick-knacks.

It won’t take long in conversing with her that her ferocious intelligence reveals itself. By itself it is intimidating. Coupled with her unparalleled work ethic, it becomes an unstoppable force.

Grande spoke to Moses about her life and times, her work and her thoughts on what being an American means to her.

• Alia Moses was born in Eagle Pass, Texas. Her parents lived in the tiny farming hamlet of Quemado, northwest of Eagle Pass.

“My dad was born in Carrizo Springs, but really grew up in Normandy and Quemado. He had gone off to Japan in World War II, and he landed there about seven months after the dropping of the atomic bombs. He was in Japan for three-and-a-half years.

He came back and was farming with my grandfather, who was of Syrian ethnicity but from Lebanon, and my grandmother, who was from Mexico, but she was half Lebanese, half Mexican, so my dad is three-quarters Lebanese and one-quarter Hispanic.

“My dad’s first language was Arabic. He didn’t know English or Spanish when he went to first grade, but he ended up speaking four languages in his lifetime: English, Spanish, Arabic and Japanese,” Moses said.

“When he came back from the war, my dad’s father – my grandfather – told him, ‘Go to Mexico, have some fun,’ but my dad didn’t want to go. My grandfather told him to go to the plaza in Piedras Negras, and he went there. I guess the men walked around the plaza in one direction, and the women walked in

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the other direction, and my mom saw my dad walking, and she had a bag of confetti in her hand and turned around and hit him over the head with it. That’s the story of how they met,” Moses laughed.

She said her parents were married for 65½ years before her father died several years ago. Moses’ mother died last year.

• Moses said her parents continuously stressed the importance of education.

“I guess for my parents, education was the number one thing.

The six of us all have bachelor’s degrees, and four of us have advanced degrees,” she said.

“My dad was a farmer, for the most part, and then he went into the pecan farm business, and my mother was a housewife before I went into the first grade. She eventually went to work as a teacher’s aide. We also had a grocery store for a little while, and then she went back to being a housewife.

“They didn’t want us to have to work as hard as they did. They wanted us to have a good life. My dad didn’t want us working in the fields in the heat and in the winter. He wanted us to have a better life than they had, a more financially-successful life than they had,” Moses said.

She said she knew from a young age that higher education was expected of all the Moses children.

“When I was in second grade, if you had asked me what I was going to do when I graduated from high school, I would have said, ‘Go to college,’ because we didn’t know we had a choice.

Sometimes my dad would say, ‘I want you to get a college degree, because if your marriage doesn’t work, I want you to have something to fall back on,’” she said.

• Moses graduated from Eagle Pass High School in 1980 and said she had a fairly clear idea that she wanted to carve out a career in the law.

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“When I was about a sophomore in high school, I decided – and don’t ask me why, because I don’t know, as there weren’t any lawyers or accountants in my family – I was going to get a degree in accounting and go to law school. That was it. I was going to do that. So when I was a junior in high school, I was admitted to Southern Methodist University, because I thought I was going to go to SMU for my undergraduate degree, but my sisters had all gone to TWU (Texas Women’s University), and SMU was way too expensive, so my sisters said, ‘No, you’re going to TWU as well,’ in Denton, Texas, and I’m very glad I did go to TWU,” Moses said.

“It was a great experience. I was there for three years. I did two minors and one major, and I’m three hours short of a second major in three years. I graduated from there, and one professor, bless his heart, if Dr. Alexander hadn’t been there to guide me, I would have never made it to law school. I graduated from TWU, and a week later, I was in law school in Austin, at the University of Texas,” she added.

Moses graduated from law school in 1986 and became in lawyer in November of that year.

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• “My thought when I went into law school was I was going to be a commercial litigator. That’s why I had gotten an accounting degree. I had never thought of going into the prosecution arena.

What happened though, I started working, and I don’t remember what our title was, but I worked for the county of Travis as a law student.

“They didn’t have a library in the jail. The jail was on the top floor of the old courthouse in Travis County. So they were under a consent decree to provide the prisoners with access to the library, so they hired two people, myself and a gentleman by the name of Sam Nieto, to be their legal researchers,” Moses said.

“Whatever issues they had, it didn’t have to do with their criminal cases, we would go do research for them and make copies of stuff and take it to them, so we would go into the jail to meet with these folks, and I was there at a time when they actually had quite a few of the Marielito boat lift people, so I did research for some of them. It was really interesting,” she said.

From there, Moses was recruited to work as a law clerk for the Travis County Attorney’s Office, doing appellate work.

“We wrote the briefs for the attorneys, and they would sign off. I liked it a lot, and once I became licensed, I was offered a job there so I stayed, and I worked as a trial lawyer. I worked as an appellate lawyer. I did special projects. I taught classes. I ended up leaving there in 1990 as the chief of the appellate division. I argued a lot of cases before the Appellate Court in Austin and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, doing appellate work, mostly, but I did a lot of trial work, too,” Moses said.

“Then I was recruited to come open the office for the U.S. Attorney’s Office here in Del Rio in 1990. I had come down here to interview with Tom Lee for a job as an assistant DA (for the state district attorney’s office), and it was in December, I remember it was Christmas vacations, and when I went back to Austin, he called to offer me the job, and I went to tell the gentleman who was the Travis County Attorney at the time, that I had been offered this job, and so he immediately gave me a $20,000 pay raise to stay with him, so of course I turned Tom Lee down, but when Collis White was looking for an AUSA (assistant U.S. Attorney) to come and do the work in Del Rio while he stayed in San Antonio, Tom gave him my name,” Moses said.

“Collis called me and asked me if I was interested in being an AUSA in Del Rio, and I said yes, and he said, ‘Send me your resume.’ I think within a month I had the job, and I came down here. My official start date here was April 30, 1990. I came for three years,” she said with a laugh.

• Moses called Del Rio “a really nice place to live.”

“People are really, really nice in Del Rio, and all my law clerks that come from other places say that too. ‘Why are people so nice here?’ I had a gentleman in my office from Queens, New York, and he asked me, ‘Judge, why are people so nice here? What do they want? If they’re nice to you in New York that means they’re

going to somehow do something to you, stab you in the back, or they want something from you.’ I told him, not in Del Rio. People are just nice here.

Moses said she loved her time as a prosecutor.

“I enjoy trial work, and I’m finding out as a district judge, even civil trial work is very interesting. I liked trial work, although I also loved doing appellate work when I did it. I thought I wanted to go back into appeals. That’s very interesting. But I think trial work is what gets my adrenaline going,” she said.

“I don’t know how to play chess. I can’t play checkers. I cannot see five moves ahead in any of those board games. But in the courtroom, I’m like, 20 moves ahead, and I can shift this way or I can shift that way. It feels very natural to me. Now that I’m the judge, I can see what they’re going to argue and what the counterargument is going to be.

“It was a lot of fun working with the agents. I worked with a lot of good people, and they all wanted to do the right thing. I might have run across one that was a rotten apple, so to speak, but nearly everyone was out trying to do the right thing. We had good intentions with everything that we did. As a prosecutor, you could be the person with the white hat, and it felt good,” Moses said.

• Moses said she thought she would be a career prosecutor.

“When I got here, I didn’t think that I would be a judge, much less a federal district judge. I didn’t see it. It wasn’t until about three or four years into it that everybody started saying, ‘You need to be a judge. You should be a judge.’ And I started thinking, well, maybe.

“I first became a (federal) magistrate judge, and frankly, it was amazing to me what little respect attorneys have for magistrate judges. That’s a very hard job to have, because it seems that nobody wants to take you seriously. One attorney told me, ‘When you become a real judge, we’ll respect you.’ So when I did become a real judge, I had to remind him about that,” Moses said.

It wasn’t the first or only time someone had underestimated or dismissed her, she recalled.

On her first weekend in Del Rio, she said she went to the federal courthouse to look at her new office.

“I had really short hair, no makeup, jeans. I came in to see the office, and I asked one of the security officers if I could go up and see the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and he asked if I was wanting to apply to be the secretary for the new lady attorney that’s coming, and I had to tell him I was the new lady attorney that was coming.

He nearly fell over,” Moses said.

“I went up, and one of the probation officers introduced himself and handed me his card, and he thought I was a probationer who was there to report. No one confused me with the new woman attorney coming to take over the office,” she added.

Funny stories of mistaken identity aside, Moses said she likes “living incognito.”

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What made her decide to go through the long process of becoming a federal district judge?

“I think at that point I was committed to wanting to be a district judge, especially for the Del Rio division. I felt I had the kind of background and the experience to step on the bench and do the work right away.

“At that time, we were about 90% criminal cases, 10% civil cases. We were still under the mandatory sentencing guidelines, and if you’ve not worked with the mandatory guidelines and all the departures, it would have been very hard as a district judge to take over that kind of a docket at the time, so I think I just felt that I was qualified to do it, so why not? Take a shot at it,” she said.

Moses’ official start date as the federal district judge in Del Rio was Nov. 18, 2002.

“The investiture was Feb. 21, 2003. The party,” she said.

• “It was interesting to become a colleague with Ed Prado. And at the time, William Wayne Justice was coming to Del Rio still, and he was a legal giant. He had done so much, whether you agreed with him or not, he had done so much and had been chief

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judge of the Eastern District, and I remember he walked into my office the first time he returned to Del Rio and he said, ‘Okay, tell me what you want me to do.’ And I remember looking at him and saying, ‘Judge you tell me what I’m supposed to do.’

“He was a very humble gentleman. Off of the bench, he was the nicest, most humble grandfather that you could possibly want,” she said.

When Justice died, his wife sent Moses his robe, a keepsake she still treasures.

Becoming a federal district judge, Moses said, “is a very surreal feeling.”

“You’re running on adrenaline, adrenaline, adrenaline, and you’re getting phone calls and phone calls. My group of judges, the ones I was confirmed with, we had been caught up by the 9/11 reorganization. My interview at the White House was four days before 9/11, Sept. 7, 2001, so all of a sudden, things started happening very quickly,” Moses said.

“They would call you up and say, ‘Good news, bad news. The good news is you have interviews with the senators. The bad news is you have them in three days. Good news, bad news. The good news is you finally have your judiciary hearing. The bad news is it’s in a week.’ So my judiciary hearing was on Sept. 18, 2002, and from that point forward, all of us would be on the telephone,

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saying, ‘They’re going to vote on us tonight,’ so we’d all turn on CSPAN, and nothing would happen. Oh, they’re going to vote on us tonight, so we’d turn on CSPAN and nothing would happen.

“Finally, the night that they actually voted on us, I thought, ‘To heck with this,’ and I went out to dinner with a group of friends, and I thought, I’m not watching this stuff anymore, and I got a call the next morning, ‘They confirmed you all last night.’

Then the senators called from the floor of the Senate, and they congratulated me, and you get a call from the White House.

“That’s the most exciting part, and when you get to call your parents, but beyond that, it became very surreal, like, ‘Oh, wow, this is it,’” she said.

Today, nearly 20 years later, Moses said she is still in awe of the judicial and legal system.

“I still think, with all of its problems, and with everything we hear in the news today, it’s still the best system in the world,” Moses said.

“I’ve never gotten cynical about the system. I watch the jurors when they come in. They hunker down, like they don’t want you to see them. They don’t want to be on the panel. They’re scared, and they don’t realize how much the attorneys are scared of them. But they get into the jury box, and they just blossom.

They become very conscientious. They watch the witnesses. They listen. They look at the exhibits, and you’ve got to admire that kind of system,” Moses said.

Moses said she traveled to Azerbaijan in 2011 and twice more in 2012.

“Their Constitution at the time was only 20 years old, but they had jury trials in their Constitution, because when they left the Russian Confederation, they borrowed from all sorts of Constitutions, but they didn’t know how to implement them, and it just freaked them out, that we would call people from the community, that had no legal background, and they would argue with me about that.

“We brought a contingent of folks from Azerbaijan to the United States to see how the jury system works. They got to watch it, and once they saw it, they were in awe,” Moses said.

• Moses admitted although she her faith in the system has never wavered, the day-to-day pace of the work can be exhausting.

“I have the largest docket, per judge, in the nation. The next judge has, maybe, 400 or 500 weighted cases. Weighted cases, I have around 2,000 to 2,400.

“Weighting is, like, the 13.26 illegal re-entry cases, we only get 30% credit for those, whereas a complex civil case gets 100% credit. We weight the cases, so basically, I lose credit for some of my types of cases because they’re not considered as complex as others.

“We get full credit for the drug cases. I get full credit for my civil cases, but even with that, I still have the largest docket – per judge, not per division – in the nation, and after almost 18 years, that’s a lot of work,” Moses said.

• What does being an American mean to Moses?

“Let me answer this question by not answering it directly.

“I’m very bothered by how our society has gotten fractured into so many sub-groups. We’re either short Americans or tall Americans or female Americans or male Americans or binary or whatever. We’re five categories of Americans, and we have so fractured society into sub-groups, that I think we’re tearing our Constitution apart.

“We’re forgetting that we’re all Americans first, and that, at one point, of all persuasions, of all colors, of all sizes, fought to have that Constitution and to live under the system of government that we have. I’m bothered by the fact that now, people feel that if I hate a certain American, I can tear the country apart. Instead of working together to make the country better, we’re tearing it apart,” Moses said.

“I think, for me, what it means to be an American is, we all stand shoulder to shoulder, regardless of race, gender, color, creed, religion, and we try to make this a better place.

We don’t tear it down for our own benefit, and that’s what’s happening. Everybody’s tearing it down to see who can have the most power. People don’t say, ‘Let’s be responsible Americans.’ They look at it and see who can be the most powerful person in America,” she said.

“We can no longer agree to disagree. We can’t respect each

other’s views. . . It’s like, I can criticize you if I don’t want you to have it, but you can’t criticize me.”

• “I think a lot of people see my position and my work, and maybe, reasonably, logically, think ‘power.’ I look at my robe, I look at my work, and I think ‘responsibility.’ I look at it that I’ve got a responsibility to the community, to American society, to the defendant, to the defendant’s family, to the victim, to the victim’s family, and I’ve got to balance all of these things, and it’s very emotional, it touches the heart.

“You want to be able to say, ‘Go forth and sin no more,’ and have a good life. Every single defendant – well, 99% of them – are very sincere when they’re before me. The problem is, the forget it when they’re out the door. They forget their responsibility and to do what they promised, because it’s easier to do what they want to do, and so I see my job as a huge responsibility to maybe try and get them back on track because that’s the future of America right there.

“We’ve got a lot of problems coming in the future because of drugs. When you see 21 year olds that are having heart issues because of so much drug use. We’ve got a lot problems coming down the road, and if we as Americans don’t coalesce to have a better understanding of each other now, and a more peaceful understanding, it’s going to get worse, not better, with all of these problems coming up in future generations.” •

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First Class in her

Story and photos by ATZIMBA MORALES

Mary Bess Coggins enjoys a day out in the sun on her family’s dairy farm with her animal friends, as the ongoing COVID-19 situation limits her outings.

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s a fifth generation Del Rioan, some would say Mary Bess Coggins has some expectations to live up to. Her great-great-grandparents started and owned the former Gulick Dairy in Del Rio, a property on which the Coggins family lives to this day. Coggins herself isn’t content to rely on her family name, rather, she believes in hard work and humility to

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reach her life goals.

Coggins said she believes her strong work ethic comes from her ancestors, as their success in the United States encourages her to do better and can be considered the American Dream.

“My family came from the Netherlands; my greatgreat-grandparents were E.A. and Ora Gulick. My

As valedictorian for the Class of 2020 at Del Rio High School, Coggins shared a speech that motivated her peers and provided a positive note in light of all the recent happenings.

great-great-grandfather was a streetcar driver in San Antonio, and my great-great-grandmother took in laundry. They saved and saved their money so that they could come to Del Rio and start a dairy farm, which they owned. The dairy was called Gulick’s Dairy, and my family has lived in Del Rio and on this property for five generations,” Coggins said.

To Coggins, the American Dream means working hard, doing good and becoming successful through hard work and dedication.

Most recently, Coggins graduated as the valedictorian for Del Rio High School Class of 2020, the graduating class of the COVID-19 pandemic. Her graduation speech left parents, fellow graduates and at-home viewers emotional and inspired, as she remained positive and encouraged her peers to work hard for their goals.

“Today is a day of transition for all of us. It’s the day we stop being high school students and the day we get on with the business of the rest of our lives. No longer children, now young adults, making decisions for ourselves,” Coggins told her peers.

Coggins’s speech and its uplifting message seemed to resonate strongly with the audience, as it provided a positive note on which to end a school year fraught with uncertainties and disappointments brought about by the pandemic.

Success is one aspect of the American Dream, and Coggins told her peers in her valedictory speech there are different

Coggins stands next to the sign of “El Molino Gulick Farm”. Her greatgreat-grandparents started the farm and it has passed down through generations, according to Coggins.

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Coggins is naturally at home along with the animals she takes care of, and the amount of effort she puts into 4-H demonstrates working hard will lead to accomplishments.

While Coggins shares the memory of speaking to her peers during graduation, her dogs also join in the excitement.

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Coggins shows the name tags she received as part of the Texas A&M Agrilife Extension and Texas 4-H Council.

Coggins escorts her horse out of the stable and into the open land of Gulick Farm

variations of success, and everyone will achieve it at their own pace. “‘Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you,’” Coggins said.

Among its members, the DRHS Class of 2020 is known as the class that was born during the time of 9/11 and graduated during the ongoing novel coronavirus or COVID-19 situation.

What should’ve been a year of lasting memories for seniors, wound up being a time of isolation and reflection.

“I felt like I was doing my part to help stop the spread of COVID. By the sixth graduation (ceremony), I was able to focus more on the words and what I was saying, not the performance.

I felt like I was just talking to the crowd, not giving a speech,” Coggins said.

Coggins said her faith and her family helped her stay grounded during stay-at-home orders. “They helped me focus on things I can control and let go of the things I couldn’t; to focus on the now. They also reminded me that I have many

things to be thankful for,” Coggins said.

Not only did Coggins work hard and excel in her academics, she also put effort into her participation in the Val Verde County 4-H Club.

“What we do in 4-H is to be role models to the younger members. 4-H is all about leadership, community service and giving back,” Coggins said, adding she knows she’s done her job when she has become someone else’s role model.

Competing in the American Quarter Horse Youth Association World Show in Oklahoma, a dream come true for her; winning the Stock Horse Year End Saddle, earning her first paycheck and giving her friend, Alyle, rides are just some of the moments that stick out to Coggins.

Coggins already has accomplished a great deal, but she hasn’t even gotten started yet.

Now Coggins will venture out into the world, holding onto the words that inspired others while reminding herself to work hard for her goals. •

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American DREAM Story and photos by BRIAN ARGABRIGHT

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he American dream is still alive and well for people seeking a better life.

According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, more than seven million people became naturalized citizens over the past decade. In October 2019, 96 people from at least six different countries took part in a ceremony at the Del Rio Civic Center to become naturalized citizens.

Even now, as the COVID-19 pandemic has forced people around the world to change the way they approach their daily lives, the quest to become a U.S. citizen is still a daily undertaking for many.

Locally, retired San Felipe Del Rio CISD educator Roberto “Bobby” S. De Leon is doing his part to assist as many people as he can navigate the lengthy process and achieve their goal of becoming U.S. citizens.

De Leon has been an adult education and literacy instructor with Southwest Texas Junior College for 14 years. He joined the college and began teaching citizenship classes in 2006, one year after he retired as a teacher and a coach from the local public school district because he still had an interest in helping people become U.S. citizens.

“I had always been interested in doing this, to help people. A position opened at Southwest Texas Junior College through a friend who was getting ready to move, and they needed somebody to take his place,” De Leon said. De Leon said he started in a building down on Canal Street. From there, the program moved to the workforce building. Now, it’s on the Southwest campus.

The citizenship test is multi-layered. Students need to learn the answers to 100 civic questions, which involve information regarding American

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government including but not limited to how government works, citizen’s rights and geography.

They must also be able to fill out an official application for citizenship and be part of an interview with a government official who will ask additional questions as well as use one of 60 potential sentences as part of the face-to-face interview process. The students must also read a question, as dictated by the official, so a knowledge of the English language is key.

“When they come to my class they come in with

Courtesy photo, Jovita Di Brito. Roberto “Bobby” S. De Leon, an AEL instructor at Southwest Texas Junior College, conducts a citizenship class via distance learning with his student Jovita Di Brito. The COVID-19 pandemic forced classes at the college, including citizenship classes, to go online. De Leon said his fellow educators and his students helped him navigate the challenges of online instruction.

Ninety-six people took part in a naturalization ceremony at the Del Rio Civic Center in October 2019. People from six different countries were part of the ceremony.

the impression that they have to learn 100 questions.

That’s not so, with me. When I teach, every question that they are required to learn comes with a historical event.

So every week as we are traveling along, we are studying the history of the United States in relation to one of the 100 civic questions,” De Leon explained.

De Leon said he challenges his students to not just learn the questions, but learn how they relate to the history of the United States as well as current events. In that way, it’s not simply a matter of memorizing questions and answers.

“That’s my challenge to them, and they are willing to accept that challenge. The reading and the writing, there are 60 sentences they need to learn, but they don’t know what sentence they are going to be tested on. Every time we complete a unit, we review five. When they go for that interview, the official won’t notice they memorized 100 questions. It has to be a conversation. Through my teaching style, they’ll be able to carry on a conversation,

and they will know each question in relation to the world around them,” De Leon said.

The class is self-paced and there is no timetable for its completion. De Leon said some students take just a few months while others may take up to a year. He said in a standard year he will have 10 to 20 students complete the course and apply for citizenship. He said the entire process, from class to application to interview and approval, can take, on average, about 10 months. Last year, he helped 25 people gain their citizenship.

Traditionally, the course is held in a classroom setting, but with the college closing its doors to students due to the COVID-19 pandemic, De Leon said he had to step outside his traditional ways of educating and adapt.

“I showed up to work on a Monday, and they told me that by Wednesday I needed to do remote teaching. I wasn’t prepared,” De Leon said.

However, his students and fellow staff members wouldn’t let De Leon nor his citizenship students down.

GRANDE / JULY 2020

17

Southwest Texas Junior College AEL Instructor Roberto “Bobby” S. De Leon is joined by his former citizenship student Martha Kinnett, right, and current student Jovita Di Brito.

“They all told me, ‘You’re going to be all right. We’re not going to let you fail.’ There was a lot of trial and error, including scanning lessons, utilizing video for distance learning … it was just a big step in learning about remote teaching, but I had to be willing to learn,” De Leon said.

Now De Leon is able to conduct his classes via video conferencing. It allows him to have more one-on-one time with some students and when he gets several students together they are able to work together as a team to learn the lessons and encourage one another. He added that the COVID-19 pandemic also delayed the in-person interviews between potential citizens and officials from Immigration and Naturalization Services, INS, which conduct the interviews, but he said those interviews have slowly begun to resume, with the proper safety precautions in place.

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GRANDE / JULY 2020

• De Leon’s classes have sort of a family feel to them. The group may move along at its own pace, but the members work hard to encourage one another and help out when extra work is needed.

Martha Kinnett is one of De Leon’s success stories.

Jovita Di Brito is hoping to become one soon.

Kinnett has been a U.S. citizen since 2015. She first came to the United States along with her first husband, who served in the military. She had maintained her residency paperwork for several years after her husband passed away. At the encouragement of her friends and family, and determined to help make a better life for her daughter, she began the path to become a citizen.

She said it wasn’t easy, but added that with the support

of her family and new husband, she was able to achieve her goal of citizenship.

“I was so proud of myself. It was a wonderful feeling to be there at the swearing in ceremony. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so accomplished in my life,” Kinnett said.

Today, Kinnett splits her time between Del Rio and Odessa. She and her husband maintain a home near Lake Amistad, which helps feed his passion for fishing. She also helps her family in Ciudad Acuña, working with her father’s church. In Odessa, she works for CBS7, a television station that serves the Permian Basin. She also helps students in De Leon’s class whenever she can.

“I love my community here and in Odessa,” she said.

While Kinnett admits that becoming a citizen of the United States isn’t easy, she said anyone wishing to pursue that dream shouldn’t be afraid to work hard to achieve it.

“If they had the dream to be a citizen, then they should get to it. The only thing that can stop you is your mentality,” Kinnett said.

Di Brito has been working toward becoming a citizen since she became a permanent resident in 2010. Her life took her around the country, working in factories, serving as a housekeeper and a caregiver. She’s taken citizenship classes in Illinois and California but said the larger classes made it more difficult for her to keep up.

“With Mr. De Leon, there are smaller classes, so there’s more one-on-one with the teacher,” Di Brito said.

For her, becoming a citizen means a chance at a better job and a chance to earn the rights afforded to all United States citizens. “Becoming a citizen is something I believe in. It is very, very important to me,” Di Brito said.

While she has excelled in most of the areas of the classes, she admits she still has difficulty with the grammar and comprehension aspects of the class. She said she still needed to work on writing and reading English, but is confident she will be ready for the citizenship test soon.

“We want to take advantage of the opportunities that this country gives us. As we say in my country, whether it under a bridge or a tree,” Di Brito said. •

Courtesy photo, Martha Kinnett. Martha Kinnett raises her hand and takes the oath of citizenship at a naturalization ceremony at the Del Rio Civic Center in 2015. Kinnett, who is originally from Mexico, came to the U.S. after marrying her first husband but did not apply for citizenship until after his death.

GRANDE / JULY 2020

19

Del Rioan William “Dub” Warrior, chief of the United Warrior Band of the Seminole Nation/ John Horse Band, is the elder statesman of the descendants of the region’s Seminole Scouts. He is shown here on a recent visit to the Seminole Scout Cemetery outside Brackettville.

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GRANDE / JULY 2020

History

SACRED GROUND Descendants of U.S. Army’s Seminole Scouts honor the past Story and photos by KAREN GLEASON

A Texas Historical Survey Committee marker gives a brief summary of the Seminole Indian Scouts Cemetery, located about three miles south of Brackettville off Ranch-to-Market Road 3348.

B

RACKETTVILLE – It’s spitting rain as I head east out of Del Rio on U.S. Highway 90, a humid morning at the start of the region’s long hot summer.

Just inside the city limits here, my GPS alerts me to turn south on Ranch-to-Market Road 3348, a narrow, two-lane strip of pavement fringed by wide fields.

After traveling on 3348 for about three miles, I reach my destination on the east side of the road, the Seminole Indian Scouts Cemetery, the final resting place of the storied Seminole Scouts, their descendants and family members.

Gigi Pines, president of the Seminole Scouts Cemetery Association, is waiting for me and greets me warmly.

I ask Pines to give me the grand tour, and she begins by pointing out the grave and headstone of Emily Wilson, founder of the Seminole Scouts Cemetery Association.

“She taught many of us right here in Brackett. She was a wonderful

lady. It was her and her sister. They were both schoolteachers. The school is still standing there in Brackett, the Carver School, and we have a museum there also,” Pines said.

She knows many of the stories of those buried here, where they were born, where they lived, what kind of people they were.

“I have so many memories about this family, about all these families, and I have my family here as well, my uncles, my brothers, my mom,” Pines said.

She points out the grave sites of the four Seminole Scouts awarded Congressional Medals of Honor – Adam Paine (or Payne), John Ward, Pompey Factor and Isaac Payne.

The four men earned their Congressional Medals of Honor during Texas’ long and bloody Indian Wars, an irony in itself, since the four were black Seminoles, whose descendants to this day identify as members of that tribe.

The history of the black Seminoles is a long and complex one, and one GRANDE / JULY 2020

21

Clockwise from top left: A number of grave sites in the Seminole Scouts Cemetery are marked with simple concrete slabs engraved with the word “Unknown.” The descendants of the original Scouts continued their military service, including Pvt. Jessie Daniels, who served in World War II. Seminole Scouts Cemetery Association President Gigi Pines looks over the headstone of a relative. The grave site of Pompey Factor, one of four Congressional Medal of Honor winners buried in the cemetery.

fraught with sorrow and betrayal, as are many of the stories involving the tribes of First Nations and the United States government.

The black Seminole story is far too long and complex to tell here; an excellent overview can be found on the web site of the Seminole Scouts Cemetery Association. Titled “Black Seminoles, a Historical Overview,” it was written by Katarina Wittich. A more concise version of the group’s history can be found on the web site of the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) under the entry “Black Seminole Scouts.” There are also many excellent books on the topic.

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GRANDE / JULY 2020

According to the TSHA, the black Seminoles “represented part of the mixed-blood Seminole and black population that had migrated to northeastern Mexico during 1849 and 1850 to escape American slave hunters.”

Renowned as warriors who protected their settlements from incursions and raids by other Indian groups like the Lipan Apache and the Comanche, the Seminoles were eventually recruited back to the U.S. by none other than the U.S. Army. The Seminole Scouts came into being at Fort Duncan in Eagle Pass, but then moved to Fort Clark

Springs just outside Brackettville.

At Fort Clark, the Scouts came under the command of Lt. (later General) John L. Bullis, who, by all accounts, championed his men and did so for the remainder of his time in the Army.

The four Scouts who were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor earned their distinctions in two separate skirmishes with the region’s hostile Indians. Ward, Factor and Isaac Payne earned their medals when they rescued Bullis during one such fight at Eagle Nest Canyon in western Val Verde County.

Despite their valor, the Scouts were not honored in this area.

According to the TSHA account, “. . . white citizens around Brackettville and Fort Clark Springs began to agitate for their removal so that the land upon which their families were settled could be opened to public sale.”

“In August 1912, the last 16 black Seminole Scouts were mustered out of service, but by this time many of their destitute families had already moved to Del Rio, Eagle Pass and other border towns to seek employment as ranch hands, laborers and domestic servants. Their long years of service went virtually unnoticed . . . ,” the TSHA account reads.

As we continue our walk through the cemetery, we are joined by Rafaela Brown, the cemetery association’s vice president.

Like Pines, Brown has many relatives who are buried here.

“This place is important because of our ancestors and their heritage. It’s who we are. We grew up with our families telling us, ‘You’re a Seminole and a descendant of the Scouts,’ and it was like, ‘Okay, what does that even mean?’ But as we got older, we started understanding what that means, that we’re a group of people who are a little bit different from everybody else, but we still have the same values.

“Our ancestors and our families are what keep us going, and this cemetery is a big part of that because we have aunts, uncles, grandmothers, grandfathers, brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers that are buried here,” Brown said. •

Top: William “Dub” Warrior, left, converses with Seminole Scouts Cemetery Association President Gigi Pines during a recent visit to the cemetery.

Bottom: Seminole Scouts Cemetery Association Vice President Rafaela Brown arranges flowers on the grave of her mother, Alice Fay Lozano.

GRANDE / JULY 2020

23

Josie Sanchez, unit secretary at Val Verde Regional Medical Center, screens Angela Prather, VVRMC emergency medical services director, at one of the hospital’s entrances.

The

CALM in the

COVID-19

STORM Story and photos by KAREN GLEASON

24

GRANDE / JULY 2020

A

t the entrances to Val Verde Regional Medical Center these days, hospital personnel have set up stations to monitor a visitor’s temperature and to affix a wristband showing that temperature has been checked and found to be normal.

Visitors are also required to wear masks or face coverings, and there are bottles of hand sanitizers everywhere.

This is just one of the myriad ways VVRMC staffers are working tirelessly to prevent stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.

In areas where patients are seen, the precautions taken by hospital staff are even more stringent.

Registered radiology technician Jillian Mata explained step-by-step the process she has to take every time she sees a patient. Mata dons disposable booties, a double face mask, goggles, face shield, a disposable gown and two sets of gloves.

Throughout the hospital, an army of environmental services workers scrub and disinfect hard surfaces like walls, door handles and hand rails.

“We are the calm in the COVID storm. All of VVRMC’s facilities are safe, clean and all universal precautions are in place, as well as virtual visits, to keep our community safe and healthy,” said Angela Prather, VVRMC’s new director of emergency medical services. •

Katherine Sanchez, left, a registered nurse in Val Verde Regional Medical Center’s Emergency Department, talks with Karla Nunez, right, a radiology tech student.

A member of Val Verde Regional Medical Center’s radiology staff dons personal protective equipment, including booties, gloves, gown, face mask, face shield and goggles, before interacting with a patient.

GRANDE / JULY 2020

25

Looking after the needs of hospitalized COVID-19 patients are, from left, Frank Hernandez, respiratory therapist; Amber Lemar, registered nurse; Ivy Hudson, registered nurse; and Lana Sanchez, registered nurse.

On staff in Val Verde Regional Medical Center’s emergency room are, from left, Katherine Sanchez, registered nurse; Hugh Freitas, registered nurse; Dalila Morales, registered nurse; Mavyn Orgil, registered nurse; and Dr. July White, nurse practitioner.

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GRANDE / JULY 2020

Members of Val Verde Regional Medical Center’s emergency services department are ready to roll. From left, Jose Flores, emergency medical technician; Shelly Salinas, paramedic; Priscilla Salinas, paramedic; Martha Rivera, paramedic; Angela Prather, EMS director; and Jessica Castillo, A emergency medical technician.

Francisco Acevedo, a member of Val Verde Regional Medical Center’s environmental services staff, disinfects a handrail along one of the hospital’s corridors.

Registered nurse Joycee Hubahib reviews a patient’s chart before administering medication.

VVRMC registered radiology tech Jillian Mata finishes putting on a second set of gloves, part of the routine of personal protective equipment hospital staffers wear every time they have face-to-face interaction with patients.

GRANDE / JULY 2020

27

Administrators overseeing Val Verde Regional Medical Center’s crucial role in the community are, from left, Angela Moriarty, chief operating officer; Linda Walker, chief executive officer; and Claudia Falcon, chief financial officer.

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Last Look Hi readers, Grande staff usually focuses on the annual Fourth of July festivities around this time of year, but as we all know celebrations were done virtually.

Despite

the

ongoing

COVID-19 situation we’re in, cities across the nation, even our own small town, have witnessed Black Lives Matter protests and the Supreme Court rulings for the LGBTQIA community and DACA. Many issues have come to light in the wake of George Floyd’s death, such as lack of representation for minority groups and profiling. History is always in the making and these past few months are no exception. This month, Grande staff thought long and hard what our theme would be, and decided to highlight people of various backgrounds and ages.

In 2014, New York Times reporter Damien Cave highlighted what people across the nation defined as being American, and that included working hard, making a change and being caring to other people no matter the language you speak or the color of your skin. Take U.S. District Judge Alia Moses, William Warrior, descendant of Seminole Scouts; Roberto De Leon, whose efforts help others become American citizens; or Mary Bess Coggins, Class of 2020 valedictorian for Del Rio High School. Each of these people shed a positive light on others and contribute to the definition of being an American.

As Coggins said during graduation, “If we spend our life trying to be perfect we are frozen in fear and never act. The solution, do the right thing.” Nothing is more diverse than the communities we live in, as we share stories and make moments worth remembering. As always, make sure to stay up to date with us on social media, find us on Facebook and Instagram - @del_rio_grande. Who knows, there may be a chance we’ll ask for input from the community.

Until next month, Atzimba Morales Creative Director for GRANDE

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GRANDE / JULY 2020

From Top: - Lucas Hernandez photographs Camila Treviño for a potential cover on the July issue. Various ideas are discussed by Grande staff before a cover is decided upon and sometimes more than one idea make it past the discussion phase.

- Photographer Lucas Herandez takes aim.

- Grande Editor Karen Gleason talks with William Warrior.

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