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Long live los revisionistas

It might as well have been called Fénix, Arizona.

It might as well have been called Fénix, Arizona.

At least that’s how Daniel Arreola and Raul Yzaguirre might see it. Arreola, a professor at Arizona State University, and Yzaguirre, a living legend of the civil rights movement and now head of the ASU Center for Community Development and Civil Rights, had strong words for Arizona’s official historian, Marshall Trimble, after his recent article in the Arizona Republic.

In the May 31 edition, Trimble offered up his account of the founding of Phoenix, replete with tales of “colorful adventurers” like Jack Swilling, who helped settle and develop the Valley in those early days.

The trouble with Trimble’s article, according to Arreola and Yzaguirre, is he forgot to mention the Mexicans.

In a written response to Trimble’s article, Arreola and Yzaguirre pointed out, among other things, that Swilling was married to Trinidad Escalante of Hermosillo, Sonora. She raised seven Mexican American children — among the state’s first Chicanos, if you will. Also, the U.S. census determined that people of Mexican ancestry were the majority population in 1870.

And, lest we forget, Enrique “Henry” Garfias was elected as Phoenix’s first city marshal in 1881, and Jesus Otero, Miguel Peralta, and Paolo Perrazzo donated land to build the St. Mary’s Catholic Church.

If, as the old saying goes, “history belongs to the conquerors,” it helps to have people such as Arreola and Yzaguirre to help reclaim lost ground.