THREE DISTINGUISHED SOUTHERN CALIFORNIAN WOMEN TO REMEMBER IN THIS WORLDWIDE WOMEN'S MONTH

 


AUTHOR: Sealtiel Enciso Pérez

Without a doubt, the women of Baja California Sur have always been the driving force and motivation behind great changes in this part of Mexican geography. Their intelligence, character, and beauty have made them stand out in each of the different stages of the historical development of our small homeland, establishing the perfect and balanced formula in the male-female binomial that promotes evolution in these lands.

The first of many examples is embodied by Mrs. Encarnación Canalizo Valdez. Perhaps for many of the current residents of Baja California Sur, this name may sound unfamiliar, however, the deeds that this lady from our port society carried out would have earned her a prominent place among the benefactors of the freedom that we enjoy today. Mrs. Encarnación, who was known by her contemporaries as Chonita Canalizo, was the daughter of Mr. Antonio Canalizo Danila and Mrs. Procopia Valdez. Mr. Canalizo was the son of Valentín Canalizo, one of the politicians who temporarily covered the countless absences of the presidential seat of Antonio López de Santa Ana. In 1850, Mr. Antonio Canalizo arrived at our port of La Paz where he held the following positions: Deputy in the Congress of the Union, Secretary of the Political Headquarters, Secretary of Government with General José María Rangel, and in 1864 he was the president of the city council of La Paz.

In 1899, Mrs. Canalizo married Mr. Alejandro Elliot Allinson Suárez, who held various public positions, including that of substitute municipal president upon the resignation of Mr. Gastón J. Vives in 1912. The strong and determined figure of Mrs. Canalizo stands out in history during the troubled years of the Mexican Revolution. In 1915, during the time when Brigadier General Félix Ortega Aguilar was directing the affairs of our territory and began to carry out certain changes and improvements aimed at benefiting the less fortunate social classes, a movement against him began to take shape, embodied at the local level by the merchants and military personnel who felt disadvantaged in their profits and businesses by being blocked from continuing to profit from the population's needs and unable to continue with their regime of corruption and privileges to which they were accustomed. At the national level, the victory of the constitutionalist army under the command of Venustiano Carranza and opposed to the Villistas, whose line General Ortega Aguilar had joined, led to the military garrison in the city of La Paz rebelling on the early morning of May 29, 1915, seeking to arrest General Félix Ortega and all those who supported him. Fortunately, General Ortega managed to escape the city, but some of his followers were captured or pursued. One of them was Major Eduardo Encinas, who, when he was about to enter the barracks, was ordered to lay down his arms and surrender, but this brave soldier was willing to put up a fight, engaged in a shootout with the escort trying to arrest him, and managed to kill two of them, but was wounded by a gunshot to the leg. Seeing the numerical superiority, he fled and, not knowing where to go, decided to seek refuge with a friendly family, the Allison Canalizos, who lived on Playa Street (now Alvaro Obregón) and Constitución Alley. Upon arriving at the house and seeing his condition, Mr. Alejandro Elliot and Mrs. Encarnación immediately received him and treated his wounds. For them, friendship and affection were values that were far above politics and its vagaries. Immediately, Chonita sent some of her own to hide the trail of blood left by Major Encinas upon arriving at their house.


Almost at dawn, a squad of soldiers arrived at his house, informing him that they were looking for Major Eduardo Encinas and that it would be better if they did not hide him, or else they would suffer terrible consequences. They allowed the soldiers to enter the house, who, after an intense search, left without finding the wounded soldier. Mrs. Chonita's cunning had allowed her to hide Major Encinas in a wardrobe concealed by a false wall. Several days passed, and when the major's health improved and he was able to be transported to another location, it was Mrs. Chonita Canalizo who arranged, one night, for a boat to be placed at the edge of the boardwalk, and she herself helped Major Encinas board it. For several hours, she rowed the canoe with all her strength to a site near the current beach of El Tesoro (the Nursing beach), where they waited several days until a ship passed by and took him to the port of Mazatlan, where he fully recovered and joined the forces of General Jose Maria Maytorena, a prominent Villista.

Another of the great women who have emerged on the national stage of history is the illustrious figure of Mrs. Maria Dionisia Villarino Espinoza. This brave woman from Baja California was born in the town of Todos Santos on June 25, 1865. Her parents were Mr. Jesus Villarino Villalobos and Mrs. Liberata Espinosa Nieto. She spent her early years among the orchards and beautiful beaches of her hometown and later moved to live with some relatives in San Francisco, USA. As a young lady, she returned to Todos Santos and married Mr. Antonio Salgado Albáñez. In their short-lived marriage, due to her husband's premature death, she managed to have 7 children. Pressured by the need to provide for and shelter her children, she moved to the Santa Rosalia mine at the beginning of 1910, where she opened a small sewing workshop and sold food.

During the year 1913, in the face of the unfortunate events of the assassination of President Francisco I. Madero and the usurpation of the presidency by Victoriano Huerta, Mrs. Villarino, affectionately known as Nicha, felt the desire for freedom and the urge to fight against the dictatorship that was causing suffering to all Mexicans. In Santa Rosalia, the mine administrators maintained a tight control over the lives of their employees, subjecting them to inhumane working conditions and preventing them from expressing their discontent with these deplorable conditions at all times. That's how Dionisia decided to become an active part of the Mexican Revolution. "It is said that Dionisia and her friends Maria Jesus Carlon and 'La Chayola,' under the pretext of selling food, offered tequila to enemy troops and got the soldiers drunk, from whom she obtained valuable information that she passed on to the revolutionaries."

It was during that time that the revolutionaries Gaspar G. Vela and Manuel F. Montoya arrived at the mine, and they decided to start persuading the mine workers to join them and start an armed movement in the area. Unfortunately, they were betrayed and took refuge in a place known as "la calera," specifically in La Casa Blanca. The soldiers stationed in the area immediately began to besiege them, and, unable to get them to surrender, they requested the help of the "Tampico" cannon, which was also present at the site, to bombard the area. With incredible cruelty, the cannon fired 86 shots, completely destroying the site and killing its occupants. The leader of the soldiers in that area, a certain Pedro Condés de la Torre, ordered their bodies to be incinerated to prevent them from becoming martyrs of the revolution. As the soldiers left the area, Dionisia Villarino extinguished the fire consuming the bodies and, in open rebellion against the military's orders, had the bodies of the brave revolutionaries brought to her house, where she kept vigil over them. When the military leader Condés de la Torre found out, he had her arrested and banished to the port of Guaymas, Sonora. It was not so much the suffering of exile for her love of the revolution that hurt her, but rather having to leave her young children in the care of good people who promised to look after them while she was in captivity.


During the months she was imprisoned and due to her bravery and fortitude, people began to call her "La coronela" (The Colonel). In order to support herself and send some money to her children, she resumed selling food inside the prison and, thanks to her charisma and vitality, she was granted permission to live outside of the prison. It was during this time that she started a lodging house for travelers who arrived at the site. However, far from abandoning her commitment to the revolution, it was increased, and she resumed her espionage activities, obtaining important information that she transmitted to the revolutionaries.

In 1914, she returned to Santa Rosalía, where she was reunited with her children and devoted herself to sewing and midwifery, the latter skill she undoubtedly acquired during her time in the Guaymas prison. In 1932, Dr. Quevedo gave her a license to officially attend to pregnant women, and in that same year, the government delegate of the Mineral, Mr. Felipe A. Montoya, gave her a driver's license so she could use this means of transportation to attend to her midwifery activities.

By the year 1938, the Coronela returns to her hometown where her strong, dynamic, and managerial character is given free rein, promoting the candidacies of prominent politicians such as Mr. Braulio Maldonado Sandez and Adan Velarde. She also joins the emerging National Revolutionary Party, where she tirelessly promoted the rights of women from Baja California Sur and was the driving force behind countless improvements for her hometown. In 1943, the government of the territory, which at that time was under the command of General Francisco J. Mugica Velasquez, awarded her a diploma "for the patriotic contribution she made to the legality of the Republic during the fateful days that gave life to the revolutionary movement, as a stimulus from a grateful people." Mrs. Maria Dionisia Villarino Espinoza, the Coronela, passed away on April 27, 1957, in her hometown.

And finally, I want to bring to this writing the teacher, director, nurse, politician, and businesswoman named Amelia Wilkes Ceseña. She was born in Cabo San Lucas on February 26, 1907; her parents were Cipriano Wilkes Ceseña and Petronila Ceseña. She had a very quiet childhood and spent her days enjoying the sun and the beautiful beaches, then virgin, of that beautiful and paradisiacal place. It was in the year 1923, at the age of 16, that she began her rural teacher career in the ranch of La Candelaria. In 1948, she was assigned the position of director of the school in the ranch of El Salto de San Nicolas.

Within her intense life as a promoter of improvements for her hometown, she was part of the "Water Committee," managing to introduce drinking water through hydrants to the main streets and neighborhoods. She collaborated with the committee in introducing electricity by obtaining a small plant before the construction of the thermoelectric plant. She was the first woman distinguished with a political position in Baja California Sur, holding the municipal sub-delegation, now known as the delegation of Cabo San Lucas, a position obtained thanks to her merits in 1966 and granted by the then Governor, Hugo Cervantes del Rio. She was a founding member of the Club of Professional and Business Women of San Jose del Cabo.

As a teacher, she ended her fruitful career in 1966 with 43 years of uninterrupted teaching service. Amelia Wilkes Ceseña, affectionately known as "Melucha," passed away on May 18, 1989, at the age of 82, and her remains are resting in the cemetery of the town where she was born and to which she dedicated all her efforts and endeavors.

Having been born a woman in Southern Baja California is a privilege, as it has always been a land that stands out for offering its citizens the freedom and equity they deserve. It is a land where there is a culture of great appreciation and respect for the figure of women, and undoubtedly, all of them have managed to empower themselves, achieving a society that is increasingly prosperous and in line with the reality experienced worldwide.

Bibliography:

Doña Chonita Canalizo, de la revolución sudcaliforniana - Leonardo Reyes Silva.

Pervivencias - Ortega Romero, Félix Alberto. Gobierno del Estado de Baja California Sur, 1990.

Mujer y literatura mexicana y chicana. Culturas en contacto. DIONISIA VILLARINO, “LA CORONELA” - José Ríos Villarino.

Discurso pronunciado en el Aniversario Luctuoso de Amelia Wilkes Ceseña - Eda Palacios Márquez.

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