James Perez

Professor Lynnman

UWRT 1104-005

17 March 2019

Written Genealogy

My family generally stayed in Mexico throughout most of their history. Only recently in

the family tree did they move away from Mexico and into the United States to North Carolina.

My parents came from different cities when they were born. My mother came from the city of

Monclova of the Mexican State of Coahuila, while my father came from the city of Tijuana of

the Mexican State of Baja California. The reason for them leaving the country was because my

father went to the United States for work, meanwhile the rest of the family stayed in Mexico for

a little bit longer. The rest of the family moved away from Mexico and decided to stay in the

United States because in Mexico there was plenty of corrupt politicians who weren’t improving

the country, states, and cities. Crime was common in the streets of where the family lived and the

city was poor. Those were the reasons that the family had left their country of origins and why

they decided to leave to the United States.

The capital of the country of Mexico is Mexico City. The city is the oldest capital in the

Americas as it was first built by the Aztecs in 1325. The city is known for its Aztec temple.

Some details about the country is that roughly 83% of the country’s religion is Catholic, so

Catholic is the religion of the majority of the population of Mexico. Mexico declared

independence from the country of Spain in September 16, 1810 during Napoleon’s occupation of

Spain. This led to the outbreak of revolts across Spanish America, launching the Mexican War of

Independence with the issuing of the “Cry of Delores”. Some details about the state of Coahuila
is that the first Spanish settlement into the state was after their victory over the Aztecs in their

capital city of Tenochtitlan, in 1577. “Coahuila and Texas” was one of the constituent states of

the newly independent United Mexican States under their 1824 constitution. Monclova is

currently the third largest city in the state of Coahuila and was formerly the state capital before

Saltillo. Monclova was also the first city in the state of Coahuila Monclova isn’t a very pretty

city but it looks modest compared to some cities in Mexico and the population is decent with

around 215,000 inhabitants.

My mother was born in the city of Monclova, which was a part of the state Coahuila. She

stayed there for most of her life there before she would move to the United States with my father

and my siblings. When growing up she came from a family that had 8 kids. She eventually

moved to Castaños with my father and my siblings and would then later move to the United

States with my siblings and my father. Castaños is a city of the state Coahuila that is poor, small,

and poorly structured. The population of the city is only a little over 22,000 inhabitants. I asked

my mother for the interview about the various aspects of the city and one of the things that she

had mentioned was that “showering wasn’t easy, to shower you would have to use a hose outside

and a cup to wash yourself”. My mother also claims that “the city is too dangerous for me to

visit”. She had also stated herself that the reason the city is like that and continues to stay like

that is because she believes “the governors are corrupt and take the taxpayer’s money to use for

themselves”. I looked a bit more into it and there were definitely various levels of corruption in

the country. One instance that I found interesting was that Mexico was essentially ruled under

one-party for over 70 years from 1929 to 2000, the party being the Institutional Revolutionary

Party or PRI. Even when someone from a different party got elected, the National Action Party

or PAN, the party had no majority in congress so any reforms the new president proposed could
not be carried out. The corruption, speaking of, was of course one of the reasons that my family

left Mexico as it seemed to them that the government wasn’t getting much better at the time.

My father was born in the city of Tijuana which is part of the state of Baja California. My

father came from a family that consisted of 14 kids. Of those kids 7 of them moved over to

America, 5 of them in North Carolina, 1 in Texas, and 1 in Alaska. My father only stayed there

for a little bit before he eventually went to Castaños with my mother. His occupation was

working as a construction worker, he has worked as one since the young age of 15 in Mexico. An

automobile my family owns is my father’s van that he uses for work and is full of tools that he

may use on the job, the van has been with the family since before I was born. One of the other

reasons that my family left to go to America was for work, my father went first to the United

States to work because it was hard to find jobs in Castaños and there were more opportunities in

America. Since he went first to the United States, he would have to come back to take my mother

and my siblings with him into America.

My paternal grandfather was Victorio Perez Carillo and he was born in the city of

Concepcion del Oro in the state Zacatecas. The city was small and only currently has a

population of 11,857. Despite the size it seems well kept and the place has mines that hold some

minerals. The city has a high elevation of 6,791 feet above sea level. He was a miner who

worked in the city of Castaños and mined minerals such as fluorite and calcite. According to a

death certificate that my family has he died May 4, 1985 from excessive alcohol poisoning. My

paternal grandmother was Juana Segura Delgado and she was born on January 29, 1931 in the

town of Nueva Rosita of the state Coahuila. The town is small and has a rough estimate of

36,284 inhabitants. She has had 14 kids throughout her life, as mentioned before. According to
her death contract that my family also has she died December 20, 1976 and the cause of it was

from anemia.

My maternal grandfather was Agustin Avila Medrano and he was born August 28, 1950

in the town of Esmeralda of the state Coahuila. The town is near the city of Sierra Mojada and

has a very low population of 1,111. He worked as a construction worker and would also later

move to Castaños. He would eventually die March 13, 2005. My grandmother was Maria Alonso

Santoyo and she was born March 25, 1948 in the city of Castaños of the state Coahuila. She gave

birth to 8 kids throughout her life with 3 of them being deceased. She would eventually die

December 26, 2006. That’s the story of my family and their background. How they got to where

they are now and where they came from. This is their story.

Sources:
“Can Mexico Change Its Approach to Corruption?” Fair Observer, 21 Feb. 2019,

www.fairobserver.com/region/latin_america/lopez-obrador-reforms-corruption-mexico-latin-

america-news-13421/.

Victorio Perez Carillo Death Certificate, 1987

Certificate of Victorio Perez Carillo that hold his personal information such as Name,

Death and place of death, Occupation, Cause of Death, etc.

Juana Segura Delgado Death Certificate, 1987

Certificate of Juana Segura Delgado that hold her personal information such as Name,

Death and place of death, Occupation, Cause of Death, etc.