A Helping Hand to Mexico
November 17, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 37 A HELPING HAND TO MEXICO THE situation in Mexico has had at least one good effect: many eyes are opened to the necessity for charity and practical...
...There are immense tracts of land along the Rio Grande where one single priest has often to minister to scattered communities over a territory that extends for fifty miles...
...In Arizona there are 30,325 foreign-born Mexicans...
...If we add to these those living in Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada, and Louisiana, we have the grand total of 478,383 foreign-born Mexicans in these seven states...
...while in Texas there are, according to the 1920 census, 249,652...
...They have been neglected by the state, they have been practically forgotten by society, and in their misery they often lack adequate religious ministration...
...Children often go unbaptized for several years, until the family can go to the pueblo where the padre lives, which may be forty or fifty miles away...
...The state schools are few and crowded...
...Let us cite a few statistics to impress upon the reader the importance of the situation...
...These figures do not represent the real number of persons of Mexican origin living in the United States, for all those who were in the territory acquired after the Mexican War, automatically became American citizens at the time, and they and their children are not included among the foreign-born...
...Every resource should be placed at their disposal...
...Anyone who has traveled through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, or even California cannot but have been impressed with the numerous Mexicans that live throughout our Spanish Southwest...
...Mexican labor fills a direct need in American agriculture...
...A few more figures may impress the reader...
...A few persons have been aware of conditions and have tried to improve them...
...A million dollars spent in ministering to the religious needs of this people would be a praiseworthy undertaking...
...They came here filled with a high conception of the altruism, the sincerity, and the good faith of Americans...
...in California there are 86,610...
...A suspicion has rankled in the mind of the writer that we are to blame in part, perhaps, for the present situation in Mexico...
...We are so moved by the condition of those across the border that we are willing to spend a million dollars to try to help them...
...Take, for instance, four typical dioceses in Texas and New Mexico: Santa Fe has 356 churches, 98 clergy, and 158,883 Catholics...
...With these facts before us, the importance of carrying relief to this territory is obvious...
...Doubtless in their despair they fell an easy prey to the influence of anarchistic elements which imbued them with many of the ideas which actuate the Mexican revolutionists in their war upon the Church and her faithful followers...
...Our Sunday Visitor has realized this need and has established a house for the training of young women who can go out to our Spanish Southwest to minister to the Mexican Catholics there...
...El Paso, 130 churches, 76 clergy, and 103,165 Catholics...
...They remain here with a sincere desire to become Americans...
...These organizations feel keenly the need of taking care of this people and they are trying to do all they can to improve conditions as rapidly as possible...
...Here are their brethren in faith, right among them, practically forgotten...
...November 17, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 37 A HELPING HAND TO MEXICO THE situation in Mexico has had at least one good effect: many eyes are opened to the necessity for charity and practical assistance that exists almost everywhere among Mexicans, and many hands are ready to do whatever they can...
...The need of churches in the Southwest among our Mexican population, the lack of priests to carry on the work, and the importance of the establishment of schools for these potential Americans have long been a standing cry...
...Their faith in humanity was shattered, perhaps, and they returned to their country disillusioned...
...Would it not be a patriotic undertaking to improve the condition of the Mexicans living within our borders and to prepare them for citizenship...
...It is manifestly impossible to enter Mexico itself with a cargo of no matter how excellent intentions...
...The Catholic Church Extension Society has been for some time trying to increase the number of churches and reclaim many of those Mexicans that have drifted from the Faith...
...They are industrious, hard-working, thrifty...
...It is not strange to find them living as man and wife without having been 38 THE COMMONWEAL November 17, 1926 legally married by the Church because there is no priest anywhere in their vicinity...
...Early this summer, papers in Texas were filled with reports of the need of making some modification in the immigration law with regard to Mexican laborers in order that the crops of the state could be harvested...
...The Mexicans within our borders are Catholics, but through the inability of the Church to care for them they have been forced to neglect their religious duties...
...We are therefore submitting for consideration the information which follows...
...Many of these Mexicans know but little English, they enjoy no social advantages because of their scattered settlements, and their extreme poverty makes it imperative for the children to work while very young...
...and San Antonio, 191 churches, 180 clergy, and 184,470 Catholics...
...It has been carefully prepared by Professor C. E. Castaneda, a Mexican who knows his country and its difficulties from years of close personal experience...
...Furthermore, it should be kept in mind that in the case of Corpus Christi and El Paso the Catholic population is much more scattered than in San Antonio, thus duplicating the hardships of the clergy in ministering to the respective parishes...
...Corpus Christi, 116 churches, 59 clergy, and 98,155 Catholics...
...The need for catechists to work in this field is even more pressing than that of churches...
...The actual number cannot, therefore, be estimated...
...Here, then, is a fertile field...
...The fault lies not with the Church which has done everything it can with limited means to extend its work to these unfortunates...
...The responsibility does rest, however, to a certain extent, upon every good Catholic in this country...
...By glancing at the above figures, we see that Santa Fe has more than three and a half times as many churches as clergy to look after them, that in Corpus Christi there are more than twice as many, that in El Paso almost the same conditions prevail, and that in San Antonio there are eleven churches more than clergy...
...The Mexicans come, and seldom return to Mexico...
...The National Catholic Welfare Conference, cooperating with the hardworking bishops of the dioceses interested, has sent workers into the field...
...A third consideration to bear in mind is that the figures for the number of Catholics in the above dioceses do not represent the actual number therein, because in many of them, the Catholics are scattered over thinly populated areas where there are no parishes nor any other religious supervision...
...Every year, thousands of Mexicans come to work on the farms along the Rio Grande, but many are carried inland, some going as far as Michigan to work on the sugar-beet farms...
...but without a clear understanding of American life and traditions, ignorant of the principles of American government, without adequate religious surroundings, they soon become the victims of scheming politicians...
...Instead of finding a helping hand in their troubles, they found everywhere coldness, disregard, open insults, neglect...
...Our long neglect of the Mexican Catholics within this country may well account for the return of some of them to their country as leaders in the present struggle...
...Most of them are in abject poverty, their dwellings are often mere huts, their labor as farm-hands yields them but little...
...Why not spend another million, or several millions more, to improve the condition of those living on this side of the Rio Grande...
...Obviously, this desire needs to reckon with actual existing conditions...
Vol. 5 • November 1926 • No. 2
