In the next few months you will hear the media discuss the topic of “Heritage.” The boiled down version of this phrase will be applicable to the “European American” experience. Many in charge of current immigration policies have had family in the US for a hundred years or less. I tend to roll my eyes at this point because half of my family has been meandering around the North American continent for centuries now. And once the borders were moved around them we can say we’ve been American for centuries.

This is about the Escalante family and our Heritage in what is now the United States of America – The Quick Tutorial.

The oldest generation that I can find directly in the Escalante family tree that was born in North America is my 6th Great Grandmother, Juana Heredia. She was born in Minas de San Juan, Sonora, now called Cumpas, in about 1685. That is 340 years ago. She married the OG Juan de Escalante. They build their life in Northern Sonora, New Spain, approximately 120 miles from the border. As they stayed in what is now Mexico, let’s look at locales in the United States.

Here are places that our ancestors were:

#1 – A set of 7th of great-grandparents were granted land in what is now Pascagoula, Mississippi, in the late 1710s. The land went to their daughter Marie-Josèphe LaPointe and her husband Hugo Ernestus Krebs. The LaPointe Krebs house was built in 1757 in Pascagoula, Mississippi. That is 20 years before the New England colonies decided to declare independence from England.

#2 – Their daughter Marie Krebs married Antoine Narbonne. He was in the French Navy. There is a very good chance he was stationed at Fort Conde in what is now Mobile, Alabama. He had a plantation north of the area as well. Narbonne’s son-in-law, Don Enrique Grimarest was the “Political and Military Governor of the Town of Mobile and its District” in 1783. He was our uncle by marriage and worked at the fort and ran Mobile. When Enrique’s wife died, he took his young brother-in-law, Narbona, with him to Sonora to work for Spain’s military.

#3 – The King of Spain sent a group of settlers from the Canary Islands to the presidio of San Antonio, now Texas, in 1731. In 1738 the cornerstone was laid for the Cathedral of San Fernando on the original plaza. It was finished in 1755. This historical church was built for these settlers. My Moczygemba cousins are descendants of the original families from the Canary Islands when John (Johann) Moczygemba married Maria Carmen de Cadena (the link to these original settlers). Panna Maria, Texas, was settled by Polish immigrants invited to the area by John’s brother, Father Leopold Moczygemba, in 1854.

#4 – In 1781, great-aunt Maria Ygnacia Marzela Escalante married the Captain of the Presidio of Tucson. Their marriage was captured in the graphic novel “Tucson: Dragones Del Desierto” by Ferran Brooks and Daniel Tomas. The back reads: “This is the history of the city of Tucson, it’s dragons and its captain, Pedro Maria de Allande y Saavedra.”

#6 – In 1805, Narbona went to the Canyon de Chelly. He committed atrocities against the Navajo people who documented the war party after the massacre.

#7 – Antonio Narbona got promoted for his continued military successes. He became governor of New Mexico and resided in the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe from 1825-27. Construction on the building started in 1618.

Escalante’s worked hard to stay Spanish/European, marrying family to stay that way. More recent Escalante family members married into families with Native American roots. We know that Native family members have been here for millennia. Leonardo and Rufina married in Tombstone, Arizona, in 1887, only to settle in California in 1900, still 125 years ago.

Why am I posting this? When you hear the phrase “Heritage” in the media, be reminded they aren’t thinking about our family. At all. Some of us “pass” as Anglo-Americans and don’t really have to address the “where were you born” issues. Some of us don’t pass.

For those who have to explain themselves often or when you get asked this question:

your answer is: We come from Americans who built this country. Our family built the southwest and shall continue to do our best, for all Americans.