Crystal City, Texas
Crystal City is a city in and the county seat of Zavala County, United States. The population was 7,138 at the 2010 census, it was settled as a farming and ranching community and was a major railroad stop being 110 miles from San Antonio. Spinach became a major crop and the city has promoted itself as "Spinach Capital of the World." During World War II, a large internment camp was located here. The town is noteworthy in the history of Mexican American political self-determination for the founding of the La Raza Unida Party. Crystal City was settled by American farmers and ranchers producing cattle and various crops. Crystal City was a major stop along with San Antonio, Carrizo Springs, Corpus Christi on the defunct San Antonio and Gulf Railroad, which operated from 1909 until it was merged into the Missouri Pacific Railroad in 1956. From 1909 to 1912, the SAU&G was known as the Crystal Uvalde Railroad. There was an eastern link to Fowlerton near Cotulla in La Salle County; the remaining San Antonio-to-Corpus Christi route is now under the Union Pacific system.
The successful production of spinach evolved into a dominant industry. By March 26, 1937, the growers had erected a statue of the cartoon character Popeye in the town because his reliance on spinach for strength led to greater popularity for the vegetable, which had become a staple cash crop of the local economy. Early in its history, the area known as the "Winter Garden District" was deemed the "Spinach Capital of the World"; the first Spinach Festival was held in 1936. It was put on hold during World War II and years; the Festival was resumed in 1982. The Spinach Festival is traditionally held on the second weekend in November, draws former residents from Michigan, Minnesota, Washington State, beyond. During World War II, Crystal City was home to the largest of the World War II internment camps, having housed American civilians of German and Italian ancestry. With the stream of refugees fleeing the Mexican Revolution of 1910, added to by Mexican migrant workers lured by the local spinach industry, the demographics of the small rural city began to shift over the years since its 1910 incorporation, due to its proximity to the U.
S./Mexico border. By 1963, Crystal City experienced a tumultuous Mexican American electoral victory, as the swiftly emerging Mexican American majority elected fellow Mexican American to the city council, led by Juan Cornejo, a local representative of the Teamsters Union at the Del Monte cannery in Crystal City; the newly elected all Mexican American city council, the succeeding administration, had trouble governing the city because of political factions among the new officials. Cornejo was selected mayor from among the five new council members, his quest for control of the city government led to his loss of political support. Although these five elected officials known as "Los Cinco" only held office for two years, many consider this moment the "spark" or starting point of what became known as the Chicano Movement. A new group made up of both Anglos and Mexican Americans, the Citizens Association Serving All Americans, announced its plans to run candidates for countywide offices in 1964, won.
By the late 1960s, Crystal City would become the location of continued activism in the civil rights movement among its Mexican American majority population, the birthplace of the third party political movement known as La Raza Unida Party founded by three Chicanos, including José Ángel Gutiérrez over a conflict about the ethnicity of cheerleaders at Crystal City High School. 200 Mexican American students went out on strike with their parents' support. La Raza Unida, related organizations won election to most offices in Crystal City and Zavala County in the periods between 1969 and 1980, when the party declined at the local level. In the 1970s, following protests of charges on the part of La Raza Unida, Crystal City's natural gas supply was shut off by its only supplier. Crystal City residents were forced to resort to wood burning stoves and individual propane gas tanks for cooking. To this day, there is no natural gas supplier in the Crystal City area, although most residents purchase propane from the city.
In 1976, eleven officials in Crystal City were indicted on various counts. Angel Noe Gonzalez, the former Crystal City Independent School District superintendent who worked in the United States Department of Education in Washington, D. C. upon his indictment retained the San Antonio lawyer and mayor, Phil Hardberger. Gonzalez was charged with paying Adan Cantu for doing no work. Hardberger, documented to the court specific duties that Cantu had performed and disputed all the witnesses called against Cantu; the jury unanimously acquitted Gonzalez. Many newspapers reported on the indictments but not on the acquittal. John Luke Hill, the 1978 Democratic gubernatorial nominee, had sought to weaken La Raza Unida so that he would not lose general election votes to a third party candidate. Victory, went not to Hill but narrowly to his successful Republican rival, Bill Clements. Compean received only 15,000 votes, or 0.6 percent, just under Clements's 17,000-vote plurality over Hill. In February 2016 every top official of the city was arrested under a federal indictment accusing them of taking bribes from contractors and providing city workers to assist an illegal gambling operator, Ngoc Tri Nguyen.
Mayor Ricardo Lopez, city attorney William Jonas, Mayor Pro Tem Rogelio Mata, council member Roel Mata. and former council member Gilbert Urrabazo. A second councilman, Marco Rodriguez was charged in a s
Tlatelolco massacre
Following a summer of large demonstrations in Mexico City protesting the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, armed forces of Mexico opened fire October 2, 1968 on unarmed civilians, killing an undetermined number in the hundreds. It occurred in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City; the events are considered part of the Mexican Dirty War, when the government used its forces to suppress political opposition. The massacre occurred 10 days before the opening of the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City; the head of the Federal Directorate of Security reported. At the time, the government and the media in Mexico claimed that government forces had been provoked by protesters shooting at them, but government documents made public since 2000 suggest that snipers had been employed by the government. According to US national security archives, Kate Doyle, a Senior Analyst of US policy in Latin America, documented the deaths of 44 people; the Mexican government invested a massive $150 million in preparation for the 1968 Olympics to be hosted in Mexico City.
That amount was equal to $1 billion by today's terms. Mexican President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz struggled to maintain public order during a time of rising social tensions but suppressed movements by labor unions and farmers fighting to improve their lot, his administration suppressed independent labor unions and was heavy-handed in trying to direct the economy. In 1958 under the previous administration of Adolfo López Mateos, when Díaz Ordaz was Minister of the Interior, labor leader Demetrio Vallejo was arrested and peasant activist Rubén Jaramillo was murdered. Arising from reaction to the government's violent repression of a July 1968 fight between rival porros, the student movement in Mexico City grew to include large segments of the university students who were dissatisfied with the regime of the PRI, most at the Autonomous National University of Mexico, the National Polytechnic Institute as well as other universities. After a fight by rival student groups in central Mexico City was broken up violently by a large contingent of police, university students formed a National Strike Council to organize protests and present demands to the government.
Large-scale protests on grew in size over the summer as the opening of the Olympic Games in mid October grew nearer. Minister of the Interior Luis Echeverría needed to keep public order. On October 2, 1968, a large peaceful march arrived at the Plaza of the Three Cultures for the usual speeches. However, the Díaz Ordaz government had had enough, troops marched into the plaza and gunmen in surrounding buildings opened fire on the unarmed civilians in what is now known as the Tlatelolco massacre. On October 2, 1968, around 10,000 university and high school students gathered in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas to protest the government's actions and listen peacefully to speeches. Many men and women not associated with the CNH gathered in the plaza to listen; the students had congregated outside the Chihuahua Building, a three-moduled thirteen-story apartment complex in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas. Among their chants were ¡No queremos olimpiadas, queremos revolución!. Rally organizers did not try to call off the protest when they noticed an increased military presence in the area.
Two helicopters, one from the police, another one from the army, flew over the plaza. Around 5:55 P. M. red flares were shot from the nearby S. R. E. Tower. Around 6:15 P. M. another two flares were shot, this time from a helicopter as 5,000 soldiers, 200 tankettes and trucks surrounded the plaza. Much of what proceeded after the first shots were fired in the plaza remained ill-defined for decades after 1968. Records and information released by American and Mexican government sources since 2000 have enabled researchers to study the events and draw new conclusions; the question of who fired first remained unresolved years after the massacre. The Mexican government said, but the students said. Journalist Elena Poniatowska culled interviews from those present and described events in her book Massacre in Mexico: "Flares appeared in the sky overhead and everyone automatically looked up; the first shots were heard then. The crowd panicked… started running in all directions." Despite CNH efforts to restore order, the crowd on the plaza fell into chaos.
Shortly thereafter, the Olympia Battalion, a secret government branch made for the security of the Olympic Games composed of soldiers, police officers, federal security agents, were ordered to arrest the leaders of the CNH and advanced into the plaza. The Olympia Battalion members wore white gloves or white handkerchiefs tied to their left hands to distinguish themselves from the civilians and prevent the soldiers from shooting them. Captain Ernesto Morales Soto stated that "immediately upon sighting a flare in the sky, the prearranged signal, we were to seal off the aforementioned two entrances and prevent anyone from entering or leaving."The ensuing assault into the plaza left dozens dead and many more wounded in its aftermath. The soldiers responded by firing into the nearby buildings and into the crowd, hitting not only the protesters, but watchers and bystanders. Demonstrators and passersby alike, including students, journalists (one of, Italia
Boxing
Boxing is a combat sport in which two people wearing protective gloves, throw punches at each other for a predetermined amount of time in a boxing ring. Amateur boxing is both an Olympic and Commonwealth Games sport and is a common fixture in most international games—it has its own World Championships. Boxing is overseen by a referee over a series of one- to three-minute intervals called rounds; the result is decided when an opponent is deemed incapable to continue by a referee, is disqualified for breaking a rule, or resigns by throwing in a towel. If a fight completes all of its allocated rounds, the victor is determined by judges' scorecards at the end of the contest. In the event that both fighters gain equal scores from the judges, professional bouts are considered a draw. In Olympic boxing, because a winner must be declared, judges award the content to one fighter on technical criteria. While humans have fought in hand-to-hand combat since the dawn of human history, the earliest evidence of fist-fighting sporting contests date back to the ancient Near East in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC.
The earliest evidence of boxing rules date back to Ancient Greece, where boxing was established as an Olympic game in 688 BC. Boxing evolved from 16th- and 18th-century prizefights in Great Britain, to the forerunner of modern boxing in the mid-19th century with the 1867 introduction of the Marquess of Queensberry Rules; the earliest known depiction of boxing comes from a Sumerian relief in Iraq from the 3rd millennium BC. Depictions from the 2nd millennium BC are found in reliefs from the Mesopotamian nations of Assyria and Babylonia, in Hittite art from Asia Minor. A relief sculpture from Egyptian Thebes shows both spectators; these early Middle-Eastern and Egyptian depictions showed contests where fighters were either bare-fisted or had a band supporting the wrist. The earliest evidence of fist fighting with the use of gloves can be found on Minoan Crete. Various types of boxing existed in ancient India; the earliest references to musti-yuddha come from classical Vedic epics such as the Ramayana and Rig Veda.
The Mahabharata describes two combatants boxing with clenched fists and fighting with kicks, finger strikes, knee strikes and headbutts. Duels were fought to the death. During the period of the Western Satraps, the ruler Rudradaman - in addition to being well-versed in "the great sciences" which included Indian classical music, Sanskrit grammar, logic - was said to be an excellent horseman, elephant rider and boxer; the Gurbilas Shemi, an 18th-century Sikh text, gives numerous references to musti-yuddha. In Ancient Greece boxing was enjoyed consistent popularity. In Olympic terms, it was first introduced in the 23rd Olympiad, 688 BC; the boxers would wind leather thongs around their hands. There were no boxers fought until one of them acknowledged defeat or could not continue. Weight categories were not used; the style of boxing practiced featured an advanced left leg stance, with the left arm semi-extended as a guard, in addition to being used for striking, with the right arm drawn back ready to strike.
It was the head of the opponent, targeted, there is little evidence to suggest that targeting the body was common. Boxing was a popular spectator sport in Ancient Rome. In order for the fighters to protect themselves against their opponents they wrapped leather thongs around their fists. Harder leather was used and the thong soon became a weapon; the Romans introduced metal studs to the thongs to make the cestus. Fighting events were held at Roman Amphitheatres; the Roman form of boxing was a fight until death to please the spectators who gathered at such events. However in times, purchased slaves and trained combat performers were valuable commodities, their lives were not given up without due consideration. Slaves were used against one another in a circle marked on the floor; this is. In AD 393, during the Roman gladiator period, boxing was abolished due to excessive brutality, it was not until the late 16th century. Records of Classical boxing activity disappeared after the fall of the Western Roman Empire when the wearing of weapons became common once again and interest in fighting with the fists waned.
However, there are detailed records of various fist-fighting sports that were maintained in different cities and provinces of Italy between the 12th and 17th centuries. There was a sport in ancient Rus called Kulachniy Boy or "Fist Fighting"; as the wearing of swords became less common, there was renewed interest in fencing with the fists. The sport would resurface in England during the early 16th century in the form of bare-knuckle boxing sometimes referred to as prizefighting; the first documented account of a bare-knuckle fight in England appeared in 1681 in the London Protestant Mercury, the first English bare-knuckle champion was James Figg in 1719. This is the time when the word "boxing" first came to be used; this earliest form of modern boxing was different. Contests in Mr. Figg's time, in addition to fist fighting contained fencing and cudgeling. On 6 January 1681, the first recorded boxing match took place in Britain when Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of Albemarle engineered a bout between his butler and his butcher with the latter winning the prize.
Early fighting had no written rules. There were no weight divisions or round limits, no referee. In general, it was chaotic. An early article on boxing was published i
Activism
Activism consists of efforts to promote, direct, or intervene in social, economic, or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society. Forms of activism range from mandate building in the community, petitioning elected officials, running or contributing to a political campaign, preferential patronage of businesses, demonstrative forms of activism like rallies, street marches, sit-ins, or hunger strikes. Activism may be performed on a day-to-day basis in a wide variety of ways, including through the creation of art, computer hacking, or in how one chooses to spend their money. For example, the refusal to buy clothes or other merchandise from a company as a protest against the exploitation of workers by that company could be considered an expression of activism. However, the most visible and impactful activism comes in the form of collective action, in which numerous individuals coordinate an act of protest together in order to make a bigger impact. Collective action, purposeful and sustained over a period of time becomes known as a social movement.
Activists have used literature, including pamphlets and books to disseminate their messages and attempt to persuade their readers of the justice of their cause. Research has now begun to explore how contemporary activist groups use social media to facilitate civic engagement and collective action combining politics with technology; the Online Etymology Dictionary records the English words "activism" and "activist" as in use in the political sense from the year 1920 or 1915 respectively. The history of the word activism traces back to earlier understandings of collective behavior and social action; as late as 1969 activism was defined as "the policy or practice of doing things with decision and energy", without regard to a political signification, whereas social action was defined as "organized action taken by a group to improve social conditions", without regard to normative status. Following the surge of so-called "new social movements" in the United States in the 1960's, a new understanding of activism emerged as a rational and acceptable democratic option of protest or appeal.
However, the history of the existence of revolt through organized or unified protest in recorded history dates back to the slave revolts of the 1st century BC in the Roman Empire, where under the leadership of former gladiator Spartacus 6,000 slaves rebelled and were crucified from Capua to Rome in what became known as the Third Servile War. In English history, the Peasant's Revolt erupted in response to the imposition of a poll tax, has been paralleled by other rebellions and revolutions in Hungary and more for example, Hong Kong. In 1930 under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi thousands of protesting Indians participated in the Salt March as a protest against the oppressive taxes of their government, resulting in the imprisonment of 60,000 people and eventual independence for their nation. In nations throughout Asia and South America, the prominence of activism organized by social movements and under the leadership of civil activists or social revolutionaries has pushed for increasing national self-reliance or, in some parts of the developing world, collectivist communist or socialist organization and affiliation.
Activism has had major impacts on Western societies as well over the past century through social movements such as the Labour movement, the Women's Rights movement, the civil rights movement. Activists can function in a number of roles, including judicial, environmental and design. Most activism has focused on creating substantive changes in the policy or practice of a government or industry; some activists try to persuade people to change their behavior directly, rather than to persuade governments to change laws. For example, the cooperative movement seeks to build new institutions which conform to cooperative principles, does not lobby or protest politically. Other activists try to persuade people or government policy to remain the same, in an effort to counter change. Activism is not always an activity performed by those; the term activist may apply broadly to anyone who engages in activism, or be more narrowly limited to those who choose political or social activism as a vocation or characteristic practice.
Judicial activism involves the efforts of public officials. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. - American historian, public intellectual, social critic - introduced the term "judicial activism" in a January 1946 Fortune magazine article titled "The Supreme Court: 1947". Activists can be public watchdogs and whistle blowers, attempting to understand all the actions of every form of government that acts in the name of the people and hold it accountable to oversight and transparency. Activism involves an engaged citizenry. Environmental activism takes quite a few forms: the protection of nature or the natural environment driven by a utilitarian conservation ethic or a nature oriented preservationist ethic the protection of the human environment (by pollution prevention or the protection of cultural heritage or quality of life the conservation of depletable natural resources the protection of the function of critical earth system elements or processes such as the climate; the power of Internet activism came into a global lens with the Arab Spring protests starting in late 2010.
People living in the Middle East and North African countries that were experiencing revolutions used social networking to communicate information about protests, including videos recorded on smart phones
Tlatelolco, Mexico City
Tlatelolco is an area now within the Cuauhtémoc borough of Mexico City, centered on the Plaza de las Tres Culturas. Its archeological history extends to remains from the 15th and 16th centuries, as well as more recent colonial structures; the square is bounded by an excavated Aztec archaeological site, the 17th-century church designed by Fray Juan de Torquemada and dedicated to St James the Great, the remains of a former Franciscan convent to, attached the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco, an office complex, used by the Ministry of Foreign Relations and is now the property of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. The Nonoalco-Tlatelolco housing project, built in the 1960s, is served by Metro Tlatelolco; the complex includes the pyramid-shaped Banobras building. At 125 meters, this is the world's tallest carillon tower. A building with a facade of white marble was constructed by the government for and used by the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs, it is now used by the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
In 1967, the Treaty of Tlatelolco signed here, with the aim of establishing a nuclear weapon-free zone throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Since all the region's countries have signed and ratified the treaty; the late 1960s were a time of political unrest in many western nations. On October 2, 1968, ten days before the start of the 1968 Summer Olympics, the plaza was the scene of the Tlatelolco massacre; the exact number of dead and injured in that tragic afternoon is still unknown, but it is estimated that 15 thousand shells were fired and there were more than 300 dead and 700 injured by the Mexican army and police who were trying to suppress the protests, in addition, 5 thousand students were arrested. On September 19, 1985, much housing was destroyed or suffered damage due to the 1985 Mexico City earthquake; the "Nuevo León" building collapsed. Because of Mexicans working together to rescue people from the ruins, it became a symbol of their solidarity during the disaster. A small square marks this spot.
Among the many who had family there, the opera singer Plácido Domingo labored to help to rescue survivors. Tres Culturas
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression that took place during the 1930s, beginning in the United States. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, it was the longest and most widespread depression of the 20th century. In the 21st century, the Great Depression is used as an example of how intensely the world's economy can decline; the Great Depression started in the United States after a major fall in stock prices that began around September 4, 1929, became worldwide news with the stock market crash of October 29, 1929. Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide gross domestic product fell by an estimated 15%. By comparison, worldwide GDP fell by less than 1% from 2008 to 2009 during the Great Recession; some economies started to recover by the mid-1930s. However, in many countries the negative effects of the Great Depression lasted until the beginning of World War II; the Great Depression had devastating effects in countries both poor. Personal income, tax revenue and prices dropped, while international trade plunged by more than 50%.
Unemployment in the U. S. rose to 25% and in some countries rose as high as 33%. Cities around the world were hit hard those dependent on heavy industry. Construction was halted in many countries. Farming communities and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by about 60%. Facing plummeting demand with few alternative sources of jobs, areas dependent on primary sector industries such as mining and logging suffered the most. Economic historians attribute the start of the Great Depression to the sudden devastating collapse of U. S. stock market prices on October 29, 1929, known as Black Tuesday. However, some dispute this conclusion and see the stock crash as a symptom, rather than a cause, of the Great Depression. After the Wall Street Crash of 1929 optimism persisted for some time. John D. Rockefeller said "These are days. In the 93 years of my life, depressions have gone. Prosperity has always returned and will again." The stock market turned upward in early 1930. This was still 30% below the peak of September 1929.
Together and business spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the corresponding period of the previous year. On the other hand, many of whom had suffered severe losses in the stock market the previous year, cut back their expenditures by 10%. In addition, beginning in the mid-1930s, a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of the U. S. By mid-1930, interest rates had dropped to low levels, but expected deflation and the continuing reluctance of people to borrow meant that consumer spending and investment were depressed. By May 1930, automobile sales had declined to below the levels of 1928. Prices in general began to decline, although wages held steady in 1930. A deflationary spiral started in 1931. Farmers faced a worse outlook. At its peak, the Great Depression saw nearly 10% of all Great Plains farms change hands despite federal assistance; the decline in the U. S. economy was the factor. Frantic attempts to shore up the economies of individual nations through protectionist policies, such as the 1930 U.
S. Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act and retaliatory tariffs in other countries, exacerbated the collapse in global trade. By 1933, the economic decline had pushed world trade to one-third of its level just four years earlier. Change in economic indicators 1929–32 The two classical competing theories of the Great Depression are the Keynesian and the monetarist explanation. There are various heterodox theories that downplay or reject the explanations of the Keynesians and monetarists; the consensus among demand-driven theories is that a large-scale loss of confidence led to a sudden reduction in consumption and investment spending. Once panic and deflation set in, many people believed they could avoid further losses by keeping clear of the markets. Holding money became profitable as prices dropped lower and a given amount of money bought more goods, exacerbating the drop in demand. Monetarists believe that the Great Depression started as an ordinary recession, but the shrinking of the money supply exacerbated the economic situation, causing a recession to descend into the Great Depression.
Economists and economic historians are evenly split as to whether the traditional monetary explanation that monetary forces were the primary cause of the Great Depression is right, or the traditional Keynesian explanation that a fall in autonomous spending investment, is the primary explanation for the onset of the Great Depression. Today the controversy is of lesser importance since there is mainstream support for the debt deflation theory and the expectations hypothesis that building on the monetary explanation of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz add non-monetary explanations. There is consensus that the Federal Reserve System should have cut short the process of monetary deflation and banking collapse. If they had done this, the economic downturn would have been much shorter. British economist John Maynard Keynes argued in The General Theory of Employment and Money that lower aggregate expenditures in the economy contributed to a massive decline in income and to employment, well below the average.
In such a situation, the economy reached equilibrium at low levels of economic activity and high unemployment. Keynes' basic idea was simple
Plaza de las Tres Culturas
The Plaza de las Tres Culturas is the main square within the Tlatelolco neighbourhood of Mexico City. The name "Three Cultures" is in recognition of the three periods of Mexican history reflected by buildings in the plaza: pre-Columbian, Spanish colonial, the independent nation; the plaza, designed by Mexican architect and urbanist Mario Pani, was completed in 1966. The square contains the remains of Aztec temples and is flanked by the Catholic church of Santiago de Tlatelolco and by a massive housing complex built in 1964; the former headquarters of the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs stands on the southern edge of the square. This headquarters now houses a memorial museum called "Memorial 68", opened by UNAM in October 2007, to remember the 1968 Mexican student demonstrations and the Tlatelolco Massacre victims and survivors. On the south side of the Plaza stands a large stone memorial erected on October 2, 1993, the 25th anniversary of the massacre, in memory of the hundreds killed. Unidad Habitacional Nonoalco-Tlatelolco Spanish Wikipedia: Memorial del 68− — Google translation−
