Azi, my grandson, in our family, like so many others, we hand things down from generation to generation, sometimes we don’t understand what they mean, or what to do with them. Then before we realize it, they have become part of our lives, part of what we are as a family. Our last name is a chain that ties us to each other and the stories that I am giving you today, about your great-great Nanas, Berta Mesa Smith Bareño and Rosa Aviles Puente’s are memories that can guide you through your life, as it has mine .As your grandfather, I expect you to carry the stories forward and always listen to the spirit of your Nanas, as they speak, to your heart.

    Once you understand, what they did, it will help you to better appreciate your own mother and all of your Nanas and it’s a good way for you to learn early on the importance of Mother’s Day.

    There is still a great deal more, for you to learn, great stories about your Nanas from Puerto Rico, they come from places called Guayanilla and Penuelas on the island, where the Taino once lived and where the Borinquen culture developed.

Nana Rosa Aviles Puentes

    Rosa Aviles was born in Jerez, Zacatecas in about 1880, her parents were merchants of some kind, and her family also had a small ranch with horses and other animals. They were very religious and very proper people, with certain affectations as to class. In fact, my grandfather, Jose Puentes, who was an itinerant salesman also from Zacatecas, had to steal my Nana Rosa from her family, because they thought that my grandfather was “Riff Raff,” not worthy of their daughter. They married about 1895 and wandered through Zacatecas, Chihuahua and other parts of Mexico, seeking their fortune. They settled in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua and eventually took the” Paseo Del Norte,” to the United States. They arrived in El Paso, Texas around 1898 to 1900.

    They started a family around 1900, with the birth of their first son Marcos, followed by Jose, then my mother Victoria in 1908 and uncle Silas and Manuel, then my aunt Ruth. Marcos caught what was called back then, the consumption and died on the road, somewhere near, Las Cruces, New Mexico,  about 1915.The family later moved to Hurley and Silver City, New Mexico, where my grandparents operated little roadside eating place and my grandfather started making Mexican candies for sale.

    They came to, San Diego, California, around 1916-17, with stops in Yuma and Calexico. In San Diego, they settled in Logan Heights around the 1800 block of National Avenue, which would be around the area, where the Neighborhood House, used to be. They liked the area because it had a concentration of Mexican families and some of the people they had met in New Mexico had also come to Logan Heights. Plus, it was close to Downtown San Diego, where there were jobs and opportunities.

    Nana Rosa by this time was concentrating all of her energy on the four kids, making a decent home centered on hard work and faith. My grandfather, sensing economic opportunities, started a series of small ventures that would sometime pay off, and sometime not, but they always involved all the Puente’s children, as the labor force. One of the ventures involving Mexican candies paid off, my grandfather was able, with that money, to get in a partnership with a lady with a restaurant on 5th and Market called the “Spanish Café.” This had to be around 1922. My Nana Rosa never liked the idea, of a married man having a business partnership, with another woman and this was the, signaling of the beginning of a life of womanizing, that my grandfather Jose Puentes, lived until his death in 1952. My Nana Rosa was an extremely proud woman, any assault on her reputation or her values, would not or could not be tolerated. Her Zacatecas upbringing, would not allow her, to plead or beg any man, for love or anything else.

    Finally, the marriage ended, she told my grandfather to leave and never darken her door again, in this lifetime or the next. She lived the rest of her life by the Mexican Saying Called “La Chancla que yo tiro, jamas la levantare”, meaning if you wronged me, I don’t forgive or forget. In fact, on my 2nd birthday in 1950, my grandfather paid for a big birthday party for me, he got me a Hop Along Cassidy outfit, with a gun and bunch of expensive stuff, but because my grandmother was in our house, my grandfather had to stand across the street and watch the party, because she would not allow herself to be in the same building “Con Ese Hombre.”

    Just as the Depression, was on the horizon, the family moved to 2721 Newton Avenue, Logan Heights, where Nana Rosa remained until the freeway needed some houses on her block, for access to the reconfigured street.

    She worked at the Canneries, cleaning fish for piecemeal pay and did whatever else she could do to feed the family. She insisted on hard work, faith and family. Even though she came across the border at El Paso, Texas in 1900, she remained through her life a resident alien, having to renew her permit annually, at the post office, downtown. In one of the immigration sweeps of the 1930s, she was mistakenly sent to Tijuana, because the police couldn’t understand her and she didn’t have her regular purse that had all her “Papeles Importantes.” She loved “EL ROOSAVELT”, she couldn’t pronounce Roosevelt, but you knew what she meant. ROOSAVELT started the CCC, Civilian Conservation Corp, which gave jobs to her sons and most importantly, he required the corp members to send some of their pay, home to their mother.

    During World War 2, Nana Rosa was a Blue Star mother, with three sons, serving in the military. In her later years, she raised a granddaughter, and remained active in her faith, she lived until her 90s.

Nana Berta Mesa Smith Bareño

    Berta Mesa Smith was born in 1884, in the Comundu/Loreto area of Baja California, Sur. She came from a large family with many sisters and brothers, who would later play a role in her migration to San Diego.

    Her great grandfather was Thomas Smith, a Yankee sailor, who settled in San Jose Del Cabo, in 1808, becoming the first American to settle in Baja, California. She married my grandfather Miguel Meza Bareño around the period 1896 to 1900.They quickly started having a family, first with sons Manuel, Miguel, Luis, Enrique, then Francisca and Juan. Later in Calexico, they had a daughter Maria Teresa. While, my grandfather Miguel Bareno, holds a variety of positions in Loretto, life is hard and the Mexican revolution further complicates any opportunities to earn a living.

    In 1900, Nana Berta’s brother Levorio and sister Apolonia had gone to Mexicali, in search of work. They find work in Mexicali, then the cross over to Calexico to work on the farms and eventually wind up in Lemon Grove and then finally to San Diego. Many families from Loreto/Comundu went in the migration period of 1900 to 1920 to California, in search of work, but many return to Baja, California, settling in places like Mexicali, Tecate, Tijuana and Ensenada. Some would venture all the way back to Loreto/Comundu with tales of hardship and loneliness in California.

            One returning worker mentions to Nana Berta, sister, Martina Meza Romero that they ran into their other sister Apolonia in Mexicali and that she had been ill for sometime. This news really concerns Nana Berta and she along with her sister Martina, convince their respective husbands Miguel Bareno and Olayo Romero, to seek a better opportunity in the north, in places like Mexicali and Calexico, what they really wanted to do is be with their sister Apolonia. Leaving Loreto and Comundu is a major undertaking, it requires going to Guaymas to catch the Steamer “La Pasita”, take it up the Penninsula, then travel on land by burro to Mexicali. In 1919, the combined families of Miguel Bareno and Olayo Romero pushed by sisters Berta and Martina to make the journey north. Arriving in 1920, in Calexico, then Lemon Grove and eventually settling in late 1920, in the Logan Heights area of San Diego.

   To their surprise upon arriving in San Diego, they found many friends and relatives living in Logan Heights, who had been part of the earlier migration from Baja, Ca in the 1900s.They lived at 2087 Logan Avenue and all the members of the family old enough to work, had to find a way to contribute. Life was not without its tragedy, as oldest son Manuel contracted Tuberculosis and not having sufficient resources to treat the disease, dies, in the prime of his life. The experience of losing her son, made Nana Berta double and triple her efforts to love and cherish, her family. In fact it is said, that her sons as adults with large families, had to go to her house for menudo, on the weekends, no matter what. She always loved to have her house full of parientes, friends and neighbors.

   She worked at the Cannery, she did what she could to contribute to the family, and she was a woman of faith, attending mass at Guadalupe Church, with the rest of the “Vecinas”. 

     During World War 2, she was Blue Star mother and did her part. She died in 1946, and her legacy was a very simple one “she loved and was loved in return”. A simple but powerful truth.