MCM Books News

Motivos de Navidad por Servando Cardenas Sabed vosotros, los que en Nochebuena tenéis tranquilidad y dicha plena y en vuestra mesa deliciosa cena y lumbre en vuestro hogar: Que ya las noches de tristeza y luto de mi alma huyeron, y también disfruto, como vosotros ese gran tributo divino de gozar.

During his lifetime my father, Servando Cardenas, wrote hundreds if not thousands of poems. Unfortunately, over time, many of them were lost either in moves, in floods or perhaps discarded. Those that remain will appear in our next book entitled “La Voz de Amor” scheduled for release in the Spring of 2016.

Bandera de la República del Río Grande por Daniel Rodríguez In my previous blog I referenced the flag of the Republic of the Rio Grande as the graphic for our new Web page. It was selected because the Republic of the Rio Grande got its start in the brush country of South Texas.

Welcome to our new Web site. It’s been a year since we launched MCM Books. How time flies when you’re having fun. In the last year we launched our first book,  Balo’s War, A Novel About the Plan of San Diego , and have been on a whirlwind tour of South Texas holding book signings. We started in San Diego for the centennial celebration of the Plan of San Diego and went from there. We have been in Laredo, Hebbronville, San Antonio, Corpus Christi (twice), Mission, McAllen, Pharr, and Alice.

On June 11, Genie and I had the pleasure of visiting the Museum of South Texas and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. I did not expect to find a first class museum in the small town of Edinburg, population 77,100. Well maybe its not the small town I remembered from years ago but it certainly is no metropolis. Met with Shan Rankin, Executive Director of the Museum of South Texas and René Ballesteros, Archival Assistant . We walked around the exhibits and were genuinely impressed. Not only are they very informative and relevant they included genuine artifacts in very professionally done exhibit surroundings. Forgive me if I do not use the correct terminology but needless to say it was all very enlightening and entertaining. Halfway through our tour, we were met by Shan Rankin, Executive Director of the museum. Shan and I have a mutual friend and we both worked for Senator John Tower circa 1975; she was in the Dallas office and I in the Austin district office. We had a good time re...

Several people have asked “who is Balo,” the main character in my novel “Balo’s War. Funny they should ask. The name was an attempt to align the character with Basilio Ramos who was a signer of the Plan of San Diego and who was arrested with the Plan in his possession. His arrest made the Plan known to the public. Since my lead character was going be caught with the Plan, in place of Basilio Ramos, I sought to come up with a name with the same initials and settled on Baldomero Reyna, or Balo for short. In fact, I have a brother who we call Balo, that’s him in the picture with a very young yours truly. In the interest of full dsclosure, there we are in a more recent picture. My maternal grandmother, Lucinda Molina Esparza, was a midwife and delivered my nine siblings. She was too old by the time I came around. When my brother was born, my Father Servando Cardenas wanted to name him Baldomero, after an uncle of his. Grandmother sent her son Ismael Esparza to record the bi...

This is a video I presented on March 27 at an event sponsored by the Duval County Historical Commission entitled “El Plan de San Diego, 100 Years Later.” Basilio Ramos’ granddaughter and great granddaughter were present for the occasion. 

t was an exciting week at the Cardenas household as we receicved our “proof” copy of Balo’s War. It was a great sense of accomplishment holding the book in our hands after working so hard on the manuscript during the last several months.  The manuscript was actually completed about eight years ago but for various reasons remained in my files until late last year when I realized that 1915 would be the centennial of the Plan of San Diego. I decided it was time to take it out, spruce it up and publish it.  So when we got the book this week it was a great feeling. Of course, the excitement quickly wore off as I had to go over the entire book one more time to try to catch any last minute edits. As much as I would like it to be perfect, I know it is not. But, it is as clean as I have been able to make it. A couple of days ago we gave the printer the final ok to begin printing the books. We should get them with plenty of time before the debut book signing scheduled ...

Balo’s War is scheduled for release in March and guess what month this is—you guessed it we are already in March. This weekend we uploaded our book to our printer and are now anxiously awaiting a proof copy, which should arrive this week. We also finalysed the cover for the book, which you see here. My family have all been involved in helping me get the final manuscript ready. My daughter Monica and son Matthew both read the manusript and offered many helpful edits. My daughter Christina is preparing herself for our debut book signing in San Diego where she will be in charge of taking your payments for your book purchases. We will accept cash, checks and credit cards. My wife Genie, as always, is making sure we all stay on schedule.  Speaking of the debut book signing in San Diego, the Duval County Historical Commission has announced a change of venue. Instead of the High School Auditorium, the Plan de San Diego forum and book signing will be held at the old District Co...

Today, February 23, the blog site “We are Cousins” released a  one-hour podcast  of an intervew conducgte earlier this month with Alfredo E. Cardenas, the author of “Balo’s War.” You can hear the interview  here .

The Plan de San Diego called for an insurrection to begin at two in the morning on February 20, 1915. That was pretty specific. Why that time and date, no one knows. What we do know is that nothing happened as planned. On that day and hour, the rebellion would get underway, “One as all and All as one!” The secessionists would would take up arms against the U.S. Government, proclaiming the liberation of all people of color. They would declare freedom from Yankee tyranny which had held them as slaves for some time. They would proclaim the independence and secession of the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and California, all of which had been “stolen” from Mexico by the North American imperialists in a most perverse manner. Basilio Ramos was sitting in a jail cell in Brownsville. Where his compatriots in the plot were, is anybody’s guess. Where they were not, was inciting any kind of revolution. “While the plan upon its face seems most absurd,” wrote the  Corpus Ch...

Gov. James Ferguson From the beginning of the troubles related to the Plan of San Diego, Texas Governor James Ferguson maintained that the problems were a Federal problem. His position was that the raiders were crossing the Rio Grande back to Mexico where General Emilio Nafarrate would provide them with sanctuary. President Woodrow Wilson countered that the problem was of a local nature and the state was responsible for quashing the “bandits.” Still there were some 17,000 troops in the Valley in August 1915. The governor wrote to the president asking for a doubling of the number of troops. “Every 12 hours loss of life…of American citizens occurs,” Ferguson wrote. “Citizens murdered, post officials robbed, Rangers and soldiers killed within last week. Offenders mostly Mexicans from across border. Only a few are American citizens.” Secretary of War Lindley Garrison offered the governor 12,000 more troops if Gen. Frederick Funston at Fort Sam Houston requested them. The general...

Basilio Ramos’ family lives in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Who exactly was Basilio Ramos, Jr.? He is the the name most commonly associated with the Plan of San Diego but in truth he had little known connection with the Plan’s implementation after his capture in January 1915. The Ramos clan fled to the New World during the Franco-Spanish War and then emigrated to Texas when the new Mexican government was trying to deport Peninsulares. After south Texas was ceded to the United States, they crossed the river and were among the founding families of Nuevo Laredo There is some evidence that Basilio Ramos was secretary to the governor of Tamaulipas in 1913 and about the same time he also served as secretary of the customs house in Nuevo Laredo. These positions are indeed very plausible since his political pedigree included a father and grandfather who served as  presidente municipal  of Nuevo Laredo. In fact the Customs House in Nuevo Laredo was established by Juan Ramos Trevino, Bas...

So what was happening in San Diego while Basilio Ramos was being arrested and jailed in the Rio Grande Valley? Not much that was related to the Plan of San Diego. At least six county officials were arrested in relation to a property owners’ fight over an audit of county books. Among those arrested in January 1915 were County Judge Tobin; District and County Attorney Palacios; County Treasurer Lopez; Constable Aleman; ex-justice Gonzalez and County Commissioner Luciano Hinojosa. Four other arrests were expected. Sheriff Augustine Pena made the arrests. (The Corpus Christi newspaper provided no first names for those arrested except for Hinojosa.) Newly elected Senator Archie Parr received a unanimous vote in the Texas Senate to create a new Lanham County out of Duval County. He was proposing that Benavides serve as the county seat for the new county. In news not related to politics, Hilario Alanis was being held in the shooting death of Linton Shaw, son of Postmaster Joe Shaw. Linto...

Approximately Jan. 18, 1915, Basilio Ramos arrived in McAllen and is said to have contacted Dr. Andres Villarreal and presented him with a copy of the Plan of San Diego in the hopes of enlisting his help. The good doctor, instead, turned him in to the law. Dr. Villarreal called his friend Deodoro Guerra, a merchant and sometimes law enforcement officer, and informed him of Ramos’ activities. Guerra in turn contacted Hidalgo County Sheriff A. Y. Baker (at left). Ramos was supposed to meet the doctor at 11 p.m. that evening at the Rio Grande Hotel. Sheriff Baker and Guerra waited with him but Ramos did not show. The following day, Jan. 19, Guerra arrested Ramos and called Sheriff Baker who came to pick him up and took him to jail in Edinburg. Guerra had taken 11 documents from Ramos, including the Plan of San Diego, and put them in his safe at his mercantile store. (As a parenthetical note, there have been claims that Deputy Tom Mayfield arrested Ramos, but Mayfield’s name does not appea...

Although the Plan of San Diego bares the town’s name, many historians believe that it was not written or adopted in that town. Much of the reason why they believe this to be the case is that Basilio Ramos, who signed the plan and on whose person the plan was first discovered, said that it was given to him and the other signers in a Monterrey jail and they were asked to sign it in order to be released from the jail. The problem with this assertion is that Ramos then proceeded to make his way to Texas to begin organizing for the Plan. If indeed he signed it only to be released, would he have continued with its implementation? In 1959, the  Houston Chronicle  ran a story that in which John Sutherland, an old-timer from San Diego, said that the Plan was indeed hatched in San Diego. Sutherland, an attorney in San Diego, claimed to be the person who first reported the Plan to the Attorney General’s Office in Washington. The 84-year-old Sutherland said that the conspirators met at a ...

On January 6, 1915 six men added their names to a document they called “El Plan de San Diego (Tejas)”. It was a revolutionary plot aimed at securing land lost by Mexico to the United States during the Mexican War of 1848. Once the land was secured, an independent republic would be established and later it would rejoin Mexico. Before the year was over, thousands of South Texans had lost their lives. The Plan fizzled and for a long time has remained buried in the crevices of history. Although most people today have never heard of or know little about the Plan, they should become familiar not only with the Plan, but more importantly with the reasons that gave rise to such an idea. This event in the history of South Texas contributed to the region’s development and to its people’s understanding of the place called South Texas. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Plan, I will publish my first novel entitled, Balo’s War: A Novel About the Plan of San Diego.  The book will d...