Yolaine Stout:
This is my great great grandmother, Manuela Sotelo Miller. She was born in 1853 in what is now Mexico and crossed what is now a border at Nogales. Her first husband died along the long trek to what is now Tempe, Az. raising her many children by herself. She remarried Winchester Miller and together they put in a huge farm and irrigation system for it, feeding anybody who needed food and employing many others. She survived her second husband and donated her land to Arizona State University and money to build the first teachers school for women. My great grandmother went to college there. So tell me again why all immigrants are bad hombres?
Our DNA is wrapped up in history….long ago history. There is no such thing as a “pure race” even the part alien. Cultural differences are what separates us, not our bloodlines. We all came from somewhere else, and we all have much in common. With most of our true history having been glossed over, it is important for us to look for the real stories, those of people like you and me and Manuela, some who showed courage under great adversity and yet chose to leave the world a better place.
Each of us plays an important part of what is left behind. By finding and honoring these legacies, my hope is in inspiring all of us to do better; not to make our parents, teachers, coaches proud, but because it is the culture to be our best selves where everyone raises each other up. A shift is occurring. The darkness is being uprooted and light beings are emerging to shine upon it so that we can join our sisters and brothers in changing the cultural differences by celebrating each other’s light instead.
Manuela’s story has emerged for a reason. Old photos found in a box, in a closet or attic or drawer, are being examined by a new generation. Secrets let out with DNA testing is connecting “long lost family” everywhere. It’s made our world smaller at a time when we’ve over-populated the planet while finding out just how much we have in common with each other. Wow!
How much of your past generations do you know? Do you know their struggles of what, where, how they came…and why? How can their trials and tribulations inspire you to be better, to change the culture to a celebration of our similarities? Without them, there is no you. Books, documentaries and movies are telling and re-telling their stories with new information gathered. History and new technologies are re-writing the glossed over books of the past with new discoveries. All of this is emerging now. Curious minds need to set the records straight on speculatively written history. Maybe now we can get on with the business of truth and justice for all!
As the saying goes, “the truth shall set you free.”
Thank you, Yolaine, for sharing your family finds of an old family photo and the history uncovered. Couldn’t be more timely.
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