March 3, 2023 • 49 mins
In the late 1800s, Teresa Urrea was a superstar. She was a ‘curandera,’ or healer, a revolutionary, and a feminist. At only 19 years old she was exiled from Mexico by dictator Porfirio Diaz, who called her the most dangerous girl in the country, and moved to El Paso, Texas. She also had a miraculous power: she could heal people through touch. Her vision of love and equality for all people regardless of gender, race, and class inspired rebellions against the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz, earning her the title the Mexican Joan of Arc. In this episode, we follow Teresa Urrea’s life, and honor the legacy of a revolutionary woman decades ahead of her time.
This episode originally aired in November 2021.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Latino USA, listener Oonsho de los Archibos. Also, there
will be some four letter words that are going to drop,
so be prepared.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
You can see Hottis from how we're standing. You can
see the buildings across the river. You can see the
fence right there that divides the two countries. So Wattis
is right in view.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
It's the cusp of summer as the sun sets over
La Frontera. I joined doctor Yolanda Leva, a history professor
at the University of Texas at al Paso. And there's
also Da Vidromo, a historian who specializes on the US
Mexico borderlines.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
Just from this street alone, I mean, you could just
go building by building and it tells you the most
important chapters of Mexican American history.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
We are within walking distance of the Paso the North
the Bridge, one of the border bridges that connects al
Paso to see La Juarez. The Rio Grande River, the
natural division between the United States and Mexico, snakes below
the bridge. The three of us are standing in front
of a red brick apartment building in Segunovarrio, a historic
(01:13):
neighborhood in downtown al Paso. In the late eighteen, hundreds
thousands of Mexican immigrants passed through or lived in Segunovarrio.
It's also known as the Ellis Island of.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
The border, not the other Alice Island. What you original,
alis Islo.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
The colorful streets of this neighborhood are full with layers
of history. Once it was home to El Tostado or
Don Tosti.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
He was the first Mexican American musician to sell more
than a million records, and he was a patrico.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
A few blocks down lift Avelardo Delgado, a Chicano writer
and community organizer. But there's someone else who lived inside
the red brick apartment building were standing in front of,
whose leg and history has not always been widely celebrated.
In this exact apartment, once lived Teresa Uria, a Mexican revolutionary,
(02:12):
a kurandera or healer, and a feminist.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
She was everything. She was a curandera, she was a
newspaper editor. I mean so many people were drawn to
her charisma that literally hundreds of people would set up
tents in front of our home there.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
In eighteen ninety six, Teresa Aurea moved to Alpasso. People
loved her they worshiped her like a saint.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
Teresita became a symbol of a forgotten history that was
utterly fascinating. I mean, she was like the Selina of
her time.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
From Pudromidia and BrX. It's Latino Usa. I'm Mariano Hosa.
Today we bring back to life the forgotten story of
Teresa Uria, the Mexican Joan of arc Back in two
thousand and six, the city of Lbaso approved a plan
(03:12):
to demolish se Bundo Barrio, the same neighborhood where Teresaurea
healed hundreds of people in the eighteen hundreds. Teresaurea was
a curandera who used herbs and traditional indigenous healing methods,
but there are also various accounts of Teresa having a
special power she could heal through her touch. In the
(03:35):
late nineteenth century, Teresa was a star. Aside from people
believing she was a saint, her vision of love and
equality inspired rebellions in Mexico against the dictatorship of Portfedio DS,
But with time, her miraculous life got erased from history
books and museums. To understand the story of today Esa
(04:00):
Urrea is to understand what gets remembered and what gets forgotten.
Two historians, Davidromo and Jolanda Leva, were part of a
resistance movement to the city's demolition plan. They created Museo Urbano,
a space to celebrate the legacy of Segundovarrio. The museum
(04:22):
included an exhibition in the very same apartment where Teresa
once lived. Today Teresa Urrea, who at nineteen years old
was once called the most dangerous girl in Mexico by
the dictator Porfitio Es. Our producer Maries Kincan is going
to take it from here.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Teresaure was born in eighteen seventy three in the last
Green state of Sinaloa, Mexico. Her mother, Kayetana Chaves, was
an indigenous woman. She worked in the ranch of don
To mass Urrea, a tall, light skinned rich asenda with
Spanish lineage, notorious for his wondering eye. Kayetana was just
(05:06):
fourteen years old when she gave birth to Tennisita, the
daughter of Tomas Urrea.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
So if we're looking at it from the perspective of
society back then, fourteen is a pretty common age to
get married and to start having children.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
This is Yolanda again. Achicana historian at the University of
Texas at al Paso. She specializes in border history.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
What is not different is that power relationship that he's
her employer, so we don't know like did she want
to have sex with him or.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Was it forced?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
So if we look at that power dynamic, then I
think it's very questionable.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
In an interview, Teresa said she was an illegitimate child.
She was one of nineteen children. Don tomas Uria had
out the side of his marriage. As a child, Dedesita
must have stood out as a Mystisa. She's described as
having light skin, large brown eyes, and long black hair.
(06:13):
In eighteen eighty, when Teresa was seven years old, Portfirio
Diaz's first term as president of Mexico was ending a
military general. He came into office by staging a coup
and reigned over Mexico for more than thirty years. The
general would shape the course of Teresa's life. Porfirio Diaesa's
(06:34):
time in office is known as the Portfiriato. He ruled
with an iron fist and secured his presidency by installing
his supporters and positions of power. His opponents were sometimes assassinated.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
And He basically controlled the whole shebang, you know, all
of Mexico through corruption, through just having the just keeping
good relations with the oligarchy in every different state.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
This is Da Vidromo again, the history professor who specializes
on the borderlands. He wrote about Teresa Oua and Ringside
Seat to a Revolution his book about al Paso and
Sula Huardes's connection to the Mexican Revolution. In Sinaloa, Teresa's father, Tomasura,
is forced to leave the state because he didn't support
(07:21):
the Diaz backed candidate for governor. Don Tomasura decided to
move to another family owned ranch further north in Kawora,
a city in the neighboring state of Sonora some two
hundred miles away. Kayetana and Teresa, who was seven years
old at the time, were among the hundreds of people
who joined tomas Urrea in his exile from Sinaloa. For
(07:43):
all of her childhood and into her teenage years, Teresa
grew up with her mother in separate quarters from the ranch.
She grew up in poverty, surrounded by indigenous people. Like
her mother.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Recito is growing up in this time of great changes
in Mexico, great economic changes and the rich are getting
richer and the poor are getting poorer, and there's a
little middle class, but it doesn't have much power.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Teresita didn't go to school until she was nine years old,
but she didn't want to study. The more and more
I read about Teresa, the more obsessed I became. There
was something marvelous or otherworldly about her. The details that
seeped in through newspapers, interviews and archives were fascinating. Take
(08:32):
this quote, for example, taken from an interview in the
San Francisco Examiner in nineteen hundred, where she described how
she learned to read.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
Later, I felt I wanted to learn how to read,
and I learned my alphabet from a very very old lady.
My writing came to me of itself. I wanted to write,
and I wrote. But how I learned I don't know,
for I was not taught on the floor of my
mother's house. I first wrote with my little finger in
the dusk.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
The quotuo hear of Teresa are taken from English newspaper articles.
Teresa didn't speak English, so they are translations, and they
are voiced by one of our producers, Victoria Estra. When
Teresa was fifteen years old, her mother, Kajitana, disappeared. It's
not clear why. Like many details in Teresa's life, there
(09:24):
are things we just don't know that have been lost
in the historical record. After her mother disappeared, Don Tomas
Urrea ordered Teresa to move into the ranch with him.
Teresa's life completely changed. The dirt floors she grew up
with were replaced by the white adobe walls of her
(09:44):
father's large ascienda. Don to mass Urias's mistress, a teenager
nearly the same age as Teresita, lived in the ascienda too.
At her father's ranch, Teresa became an apprentice Touila, a
Yaqui Kurandera who worked for her father. The Yaquis are
(10:05):
an indigenous group in Sonora. Through Wila, Teresa learned how
to heal by using plants, part of an indigenous traditional
medicine practice known as kurandrismo that predates the sixteenth century.
Gurandismo refers to a system of healing practice in Mexico,
(10:25):
Latin America, and in places with large Mexican communities like
the US Mexico borderlands. Prior to the Spanish colonization of Mexico,
there were indigenous healers across the region. If you look
at traditional medicine among indigenous people before the Europeans came,
(10:49):
everybody was very specialized. Some people knew about plants, some
people knew how to work with bones, some people knew
how to do massages, just like we would think of
a medical specialization today. It's believed gorndros have a special
don or gift that allows them to cure others, and
(11:12):
unlike Western medicine, gourdan deisma is not limited to the
physical body. It concerns itself with the psychological, spiritual, social,
and health needs of a person. That mind and body
are connected. With Spanish colonization in the sixteenth century, indigenous
healing methods merge with European practices. The word gourandeto comes
(11:34):
from the Spanish word kurat, which means to heal.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
So then when the Spanish come and begin to control society,
they too want to undermine the idea that indigenous people
have knowledge or can contribute. So they don't want people
to think, oh, look at this highly specialized meth medical system.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Gurandar rismo was looked down upon by Spanish physicians and
was even considered criminal. During the Mexican inquisition, Gurandrismo was
a prosecutable crime. Characteristics of kuranda Rismo include ritual Catholic prayer,
the use of plants and herbs, and the belief in
God or Creator. To become a Kurandea takes years of training.
(12:23):
It's not something anyone can just pick up. It's a
commitment that is taken very seriously.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
So it's just like I wouldn't take a biology class
and say I'm a doctor now. People shouldn't call themselves
at curandeta if they have not really thoroughly trained and
they have a teacher who has trained them.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Back in al Paso. I'm in the house of Greece Munos.
Speaker 6 (12:50):
My name is Gris Munos.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
A self described moher medicina or a curandera. She burns carvone, mesquite, goppal, lavender,
and saba. The smoke fills a room and hovers around us,
swirling in esses grease. Feels connected to Teresa. She has
a picture of her and her altar.
Speaker 6 (13:11):
I'm very connected to Teresita. She's been watching me a
long time, and Teresita is still around. She hasn't gone anywhere.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Greece is also close friends with one of Teresa's living relatives,
the Chicano writer Luis Albertore. Like Teresa, Greece was the
apprentice of Akurandetra for years. Grease works with the spirit.
Speaker 6 (13:34):
I'm not a midwife, I'm not a I'm not a wescera.
Women tend to find me when they've gotten themselves a
bit lost. Maybe they just went through a major change,
maybe they need to accept something, a death of some type.
(13:56):
That's really where I come in. I can't speak for
all curanderos, but essentially, especially the ones that work with
the spirit like I do. We're just here to help
you reconnect.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
In the borderlands, grandismo is still very prevalent. The borderlands
used to be part of Mexico until the mid nineteenth century,
twenty five years before Edessa was born, but during the
Mexican American War of the late eighteen forties, Mexico lost Arizona, California,
New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah to the US.
(14:39):
Under her apprenticeship with Wila, Esa learned the names and
properties of more than two hundred herbs. She followed Wila
around while her teacher did things like helping women give
birth or treating wounds and illnesses. Then something happened to
Thedessa when she was sixteen years old. There's varying accounts
(14:59):
on the next set of events. Some accounts say that
Isa had an epileptic seizure. Other reports say an engineering
student tried to rape her and it gave Teresa a
shock induced seizure. In either case, after losing consciousness, Teresa
fell into a coma. They think she's dead. That Isa's
(15:21):
father put his ear against her chest to listen for
a heartbeat, but he couldn't hear anything. He ordered a
coffin to be built. They prepared that Isa for a wake,
dressed her in a white dress. They placed her body
on a table and surrounded her body with candles.
Speaker 6 (15:42):
So they make her a casket and in Elvelorio, she
wakes up.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
And everyone is like holy shit. After waking up, that
Esa predicted that in three days they were going to
need the coffin for someone else.
Speaker 6 (16:02):
And then Wila died.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Three days later, Teresa's teacher was found in her room.
It looked like she passed away peacefully. The cause of
her death wasn't clear, but people speculated she died from
old age.
Speaker 6 (16:19):
Or exhaustion, and they buried Wila in the casket they
had made for Terracita.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Coming up on Latino, Usa, Teresa Rea wakes up from
her coma with a newfound power. She can miraculously heal
people through touch. Stay with us, Hey, we're back. When
(17:26):
we left off, Teresa Rea had woken up from a
coma and had predicted the death of her mentor, Wheela
A Jaqui Granderra now Deesa, realizes she has a new
miraculous power. Producer Marieskinkam is going to pick up the
story from here.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
After waking up from her coma, Teresa was a normal
She fell into a trans that lasted three months and
eighteen days. In an article from the San Francisco Examiner,
Teresa Urrea said she didn't remember anything that happened during
those three months.
Speaker 5 (18:07):
They tell me those who saw me, that I could
move about, that they had to feed me, that I
talked strange things about God and religion.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
During this trance, Teresa said she had a vision. The
archangel Gabriel appeared to her as a young man. He
delivered her a letter. It urged everyone to repent from
their sins, believe in Jesus and they would be cured
when she finally returned to full consciousness. Teresa had a gift.
She could heal people through touch. One of the people
(18:42):
she cured in Kavora was Marianna, a woman in her
twenties that couldn't walk. After Teresa cured her, Marianna was
able to walk again, and she became her devout, loyal
friend and assistant. Teresa described a change happening within her
when she healed people.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
I could still if I touched people or rub them
make them well. I felt in me only the wish
to do good in the world. I spoke much to
the people about God, not about the church or to
tell them to go to church, but about God. I
told them what I believe. That God is the spirit
of love, that we who we are in the world,
(19:20):
must love one another and live in peace, otherwise we
offend God.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Word quickly spread about the miraculous healer. Hundreds of people
started visiting her father's ranch and Gaworah. They traveled long
distances and were often poor and indigenous people of the region,
the Yaqui and Mayo Indians that Esa refused to charge
for her services.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
I have no wish to be paid. I do not
care for find things or find houses or money. I
will refuse no one to help.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Aside from her healing powers, there were other supernatural phenomena
associated with her.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
Her family members believed that she was able to predict
even when people were about to arrive that she had
no knowledge of. She would say this, such and such
a person is going to come tomorrow, and they would
She could predict rain, She could predict deaths in the family.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
She had other strange qualities, and people.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
Would say that she admitted an aroma of roses like
so many people would say that, like she just smelt
like roses.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
There are also accounts of her quote unquote astro projecting, like.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
She could travel out of her body and she could
describe places she had never been. And it's not like
she had the internet right where we could fake it.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
People began to call her a saint and worshiped her
like one. They called her Santa Theresa, la Santa de
Santa de Risita. She was only sixteen years old. They
created prayer cards with her image, and one prayer card
she stoically stands. She's dressed in a black dress that
covers her arms. A long black cross hangs from her neck.
(21:15):
Her black hair is wrapped in a braided bun. Angels
surround her. Two turubs hold a crown they are placing
over her head. Her gaze is looking at the distance.
They build wooden statues of her to venerate her like
a saint. Teresa said she was not a saint, that
(21:36):
you don't need the mediation of the church or priest
to cure, an idea that she repeated more than once.
In doing so, she challenged the authority of the Catholic Church,
one of the most powerful institutions in Mexico even today.
Speaker 5 (21:54):
I felt that God willed that I should heal them,
and when they asked me, I did so. No, I
do not think prayer is necessary, nor does one have
to believe in me to be cured. If I can cure,
I can.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Priests announced her as a heretic and impostor and evil worker.
The clergy threatened to excommunicate everyone that seeked her help.
Here's Grise again, the Kuranda from al Paso.
Speaker 6 (22:22):
They saw her like a living saint. So you can
imagine what heresy to call a teenage girl Asantha right,
a living teen girl Asanta, so she became a problem.
In those times, the only people that could talk to
God were priests.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
From a young age. That is, I was breaking all
sorts of traditional norms and rules.
Speaker 6 (22:50):
She was completely considered heretical and completely forward for her
time in every way.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
At the same time, the power of dictator Porfirio Dias
only kept growing. Under the Portfiriato, thousands of Yakis were
taken from their lands and expelled as slaves to Yucatan.
Here's la vid romo again.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
So Porfirio Dias in Sonora carried out this very destructive
warfare against the indigenous Yaki population and would send the
Yakis to southern Mexico to virtual death camps and slave camps.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Teresa was often visited by the Yaquis in Kawora, and
she was sympathetic to their uprisings. She often defended them
and said they had the God given right to fight
for their land and freedom. In later interviews with The
New York Journal, she described watching Yaki children not even
three years old, being lynched. She called the Yaquis the
(23:57):
bravest and most persecuted people in the world. This at
a time when opposing the Diaz regime was deadly, so.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
Told the Yakis to fight for their lands, and of
course this brought the enmity of Corfiolias.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
While Teresa never took arms, she inspired rebellions. This was
the case in one small town called Tomochik, located in
the Sierra Madre of Chihuahua, about two hundred miles away
from al Paso. After hearing about Teresa's power, Kruz Travis,
the leader of Tomochic, and other villagers traveled to Kabora
to meet with Teresa. They witnessed hundreds of people camped
(24:39):
out at her father's ranch. They had heard of Teresa's
healing powers and visited her to be cured. They were
moved by her vision of love. Kruz Travis, the Tomoshik leader,
and Teresa became friends and started exchanging letters. When the
villagers returned to Tomochik, they decided to only worship living saints.
(25:03):
They replaced the statue of a dead saint with a
statue of a living Teresa. They chose La Sante Kaoaterresita
as the official guardian of the town. This brought the
great ire of a local priest who threatened to excommunicate
every Tomochko who believed in Teresa. When they refused to obey,
(25:26):
the priests sent out a message to the government. Porfido
Dias ordered the rebels to be quickly and severely punished.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
And for Fioria sends hundreds of troops to utterly destroy
the entire town.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
The rebels fling themselves into a fight they were destined
to lose, shouting Viva la Santa Kaoura. According to Romo,
they killed six hundred federal troops, but the Mexican government
led a ruthless fight. They set fire to the village,
killed women and children. They stacked the bodies of the
dead with their leader, Cruise Travis on top. Not one
(26:06):
boy or man over the age of thirteen survived, according
to historians, so.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
I was just kind of a vicious, vicious attack on
anyone that would challenge the power of the dictator of
Mexico at that time.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
The Mexican government claimed that Issita incited the rebellion. She
always denied any involvement in any uprisings, but she also
defended them. She believed revolution was necessary when people were oppressed.
When she was nineteen years old, Portfido dies exiled Teresa
from Mexico. I can't help thinking of Teresa's power, of
(26:49):
the fact that men threw themselves into a revolution while
screaming her name.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Porfiodias had said she was the most dangerous girl in Mexico,
and she was a teenager. So what would make a
teenager dangerous to a dictator with incredible power and incredible
policing power.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
You know that to me.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Shows you the power of her love and the power
of her vision, which was that everyone should be equal,
men and women, mestisos, blancos, indigenous people, everybody's human.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
After being exiled from Mexico in eighteen ninety two, Teresa
lived in Nogles, Arizona. By then that as I was
already a star. The world press had been covering her
miraculous cures for two years. At that point, she.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Was in the newspapers all the time, the local newspapers,
newspapers in Mexico City, and there were articles like from
all over the United States about her, you know, the
New York Times, and I know that there were people
from France writing letters to her. So this is like
mega superstar in the world of the eighteen nineties.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Reading the articles it seems there's almost an obsession with her.
They often start by focusing on her looks. They call
her beautiful. In one article, she's described as Mexican in hue,
with large, handsome eyes, hypnotic. Some people call them raven haired, tall,
and slender. Another article is headlined she is not pretty.
(28:37):
It goes on to say that she is not ugly,
but she has quote a squatty figure and a round
fat face, just as hundreds of ordinary Mexican women have.
They speculate and scrutinize her cures. One article mentions American
physicians don't take her seriously because she doesn't practice germ
theory and touches the hands of the people she helps.
(29:00):
Many describe Americans looking at her with amusement. Some newspapers
label her a miraculous healer and others a crazy saint.
They call her the living patron saint of the Indians.
There are very few articles that actually include interviews with her.
Either way, it seems they couldn't stop talking about her.
(29:21):
After living in Arizona, she moved to Albaso in eighteen
ninety six. Hundreds of people gathered at the Union Depot
train station awaiting her arrival, people would spend hours trying
to catch just a glimpse of Teresa. An a'l Passotimes
article from that time reports, I imagine it, the hordes
(29:41):
of people pushing up against each other, tiptoeing over each
other's shoulders, the buzz and excitement in the air, the
way they must have screened her name when the train arrived,
how they must have roared. No less than three thousand
people visited her house on the day she arrived.
Speaker 7 (30:00):
The article noted, she would stand there yegawan, you know,
hundreds of people, the line would be completely down, sewndoo,
and she would heal them with her hands.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
That is, I would act. Calculated that she cured up
to two hundred people a day in Alpasso, from six
in the morning to nine at night. That Issa curd
for the ill. Various accounts exist of her healing work
and her miracles. She cured people suffering from smallpox, leprosy.
(30:34):
She touched people who were paralyzed and they could suddenly
walk again. The Alpasso Times reporter also described that as
a looking pale and.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Weak, she wasn't taking care of herself, because how can
you see hundreds of people per day, and then she
must have been under a lot of pressure because there
were thousands of people waiting to see her.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Throughout her life, her connections to the Mexican Revolution continue,
earning her the title the Mexican Joan of arc and Alpasso.
Teresa co edited Ellin de Bendente, an antids newspaper. Some
of the articles have her signature.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
During this period, they were about forty Spanish language newspapers
in al Paso, and the large majority of them were
anti ideas. They were anti the dictatorship of Mexico, and
Soa was part of that movement, you know, like she
she was spreading the seat, spreading the ideas.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Throughout her life, Teresa was vocal about the Mexican government's
exploitation of indigenous people.
Speaker 5 (31:37):
I pity the Indians of Sonona. I wish they were
cared for and protected. I fear they will be exterminated.
I would do anything for them.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
The year that Isa arrived in Alpaso, she co authored
De Tomochic, a manifesto accusing the Mexican government of murdering
Yaqi children. It also called for the abolishment of the
death penalty and the emancipation of women.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
And half of the people that signed this manifesto were women,
so that's like incredibly advanced.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
During the same year, another antiths rebellion breaks out, this
time at a Mexican customs house located in Nogales, Sonora.
Speaker 4 (32:18):
This is in August twelve, eighteen ninety six, and there's
forty rebels that attacked the Mexican custom selve and Noal Sonora,
shouting Viva la Santa Caa.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
The rebels killed two Mexican soldiers and temporarily took control
of the customs house for several hours. Some of the
men carried letters signed by Teresa, pictures of her, copies
of the newspaper she co edited, US and Mexican soldiers
joined forces and killed seven of the rebels. A picture
of their dead bodies was published in the press. The
(32:53):
caption described them as los indios fanaticos de la Santa Decaa,
the extremist Indian file followers of Lasantha de Caaba. The
American press became highly critical of her. They accused her
of leading several rebellions, including the one in Nogales.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
So after this happens, the media begins questioning just how
dangerous she.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Was headline after headline accused her of leading rebellions, of
hypnotizing the peaceful Yaki Indians, of causing trouble and Mexico
with her spiritualist propaganda.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
That whole idea of calling her a witch is a
way to discredit her, to undermine her knowledge and her influence.
And then by saying that she's the reason that Indigenous
people are rebelling, that's a way also to say they're
too ignorant to organize on their own.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
Her vision of justice and equality was so strong that
even if she didn't tell people to take arms, she
became their war cry. She turned into a symbol of resistance. Traditionally,
it's taught that the Mexican Revolution began on November twentieth,
nineteen ten, after Teresa died, but David argues that the
(34:19):
revolution began sooner.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
That's the encyclopedia version. This revolutionary activity happened way before
nineteen ten. So it's naive to think that on one day,
one guy calls her people to revolt and everybody rises up. No,
you plan sets sometimes for decades, and there's a lot of
failed battles.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
He places that is Sahura as a key figure in
the Mexican Revolution that deserves more recognition, but whose role
has been ignored by historians.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
Her role in the revolution was not to shoot people,
It was to inspire people. It is Fronteisa based healing
powers that could ultimately change the world, that they could
lead to a revolution, to a more just fission of
who we are as a community, and that was incredibly
ahead of her time.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
For Yolanda, the history professor. That is as radical politics
set her apart from other couranderos.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
I think the more important thing that sets her apart
is that she combined traditional knowledge with I guess what
we would call now social justice. I don't see that
in the other healers of that time. That's what sets
her apart, is that combination of tradition but also a
(35:42):
vision for a better future.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
While she lived in Alpaso, they tried to kill Ddesa
three times, causing her to leave just a year later.
She faced assassination attempts throughout her life. Here's grice again.
Speaker 6 (36:06):
And it's incredible to think that a young woman could
be such a threat to like a government, a whole
system of patriarchy.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
After leaving Alpaso, Teresa moved to Clifton, Arizona. There isn't
a lot of reporting on this period of her life
until nineteen hundred. In Clifton, she met a man called
Guadalupe Rodriguez. Guadalupe remains a mysterious man. It's hard to
find any archival information about him. In an interview with
(36:39):
one of Teresa's relatives, he's described as handsome. Teresa married
Guadalupe eight months after meeting him, against her father's wishes.
At the time, Teresa was twenty seven years old. The
day after they got married, Guadalupe tried to kill her.
Teresa recount at what happened in an article from the
(37:01):
San Francisco Examiner.
Speaker 5 (37:04):
The next day after we were married, he acted strangely.
He tore up some things of mine, pecked some of
my clothes in a bundle, put it over his shoulder,
and said to me, come with me. The people who
saw him said for me not to go, but I
followed him. He walked on the railroad track. I did
not know where he wanted to run. I ran to
He had his gun and started to shoot. The people
(37:27):
ran out and made me come back. Then they caught him.
He was insane, and they put him in jail.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
A headline from the time read Santa Teresa shot by spouse.
Yaqui saint finds marriage a failure. Other articles reported that
she lost popularity amongst her followers because saints are not
supposed to get married. She later divorced him that I
(37:59):
Saw then left her family in Clifton and traveled to
San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Saint Louis. She
was planning on embarking on a world tour and wanted
to travel to Europe and India in order to learn
about the source of her healing powers. She said her
power came from God, but she wanted to learn how
(38:20):
it moved through her body.
Speaker 5 (38:22):
I seek to find out whence the power is derived.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
She wanted to travel to cities like Paris and Jerusalem,
where may I find someone wise in such matters who
can and will tell me the secret? But she didn't
make it to those cities. In nineteen o two, her
father died. That same year, she gave birth to her
first child. That as I had lived in New York
(38:48):
for a year with her translator and a family friend,
John Van Order. She had two daughters with him at
the time. This would have been very controversial since they
were not married.
Speaker 4 (39:00):
She was definitely a woman ahead of her times and
a woman that was that straddled many different borders. She
was a liminal being, somebody that's neither here nor there,
and I think that's what made her so fascinating. So
this was a woman that was defying all kinds of
traditional boundaries.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
In nineteen oh four, Teresa moved back to Arizona with
her partner John. She bought some land and had a
house built. On October fifteenth, nineteen oh five, Teresa Ure
hosted a party in her newly built home in Clifton
to celebrate her thirty second birthday. I imagine this moment
the era of us, with celebration and joy. They just
(39:42):
blew out the candles, everyone's eating cake. Esa liked to
play the guitar and the marimba. She loved to sing.
The room freshly minted by her voice. Maybe she had
just opened gifts. But then Esa predicted she would die
before her next birthday, when she would turn thirty three.
(40:05):
Then she went around the room and said goodbye to
every guest. Months later, on January eleventh, nineteen oh six,
that is, I was at home with Marianna, her old
time friend and aid and one of the first people
that she had healed. She told Marianna, put me.
Speaker 5 (40:26):
In this room and put these clothes on me.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
The room she was referring to was on the second
floor of her house. It was called the flower room
because it was full of flowers, ferns, and plants. It
was built to allow the maximum amount of sunlight. Teressa
loved flowers. She grew geraniums, pegonias, a bright red hibiscus.
Her hair was five feet long, thatis, I would kick
(40:53):
it out of her way when it was loose. It
was longer than her body. When they offered her tea, Teresa.
Speaker 5 (41:00):
Said, and do not want tea. I feel so badly.
I think this is my last day of life.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
Teresa asked for a pan and a towel. She washed
her hands, wiped them down, tied them with a blue ribbon,
handed the towel back and said take this. I will
never use it again. She then went to rest in
her bedroom. Quite late afternoon, Teresa died. Marianna dressed her
(41:32):
in a white robe and a blue shawl. When they
put Teresa in the coffin, they wrapped her long hair
around her arm. She gave instructions to lay her in
the flower room for her funeral. I can imagine Teresa
suspended in flowers. The cause of her death isn't clear.
(41:55):
She might have had tuberculosis or pneumonia. The official record
stated k consumption.
Speaker 6 (42:01):
That's another aspect of curandismo. Is that life force that
you have, that you're sharing it with people, and they're
taking little pieces of it, little pieces of it, little
pieces of it. Eventually, you know, a lot of curandetto's
get really sick and they die, you know. And so
(42:22):
it's that deep of a commitment when I tell you
it's till the death.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
I can't talk about that Isa without admitting the sadness
I feel when I think of her life and death.
Her story feels incomplete, like a picture of her that's
been punctured with tiny holes. I feel the limitations of
the archive, of the gaps in her life, the things
about her that I can only imagine or speculate, the
(42:53):
sound of her voice, her favorite book, her favorite smelly.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
And that's one of the frustrating things to me as
a historian, is it, especially with women, There's just things
we'll never know.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
I think about the way the press wrote about her
banished Senorita, the woes of Teresa Urrea, a witch to
be shot. I think of all the violences she must
have experienced that we will never know about, and of
her strength.
Speaker 6 (43:27):
She's a woman, She wasn't a saint.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
She was a teen girl.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
I imagine the details of her life that an archive
imbued with sexism and racism will never be able to
tell us about her. Did she stare into a lover's eyes?
Did she dance by herself in front of a mirror.
Maybe she scribbled her secrets into a journal she secretly
stashed away somewhere only for herself.
Speaker 6 (43:59):
I don't know why I always think like I always
think about how lonely she must have been, and even
growing older and not really knowing who you can trust,
and really being seen as like a commodity.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Her whole life is marked by the things she did
for others. What does her life tell us about what
society deems worthy of remembering About the life of a
revolutionary woman. I imagine her existing without the weight of
having to be godly, saintly, of her having an ordinary life,
drinking a cup of coffee, reading a poem singing into
(44:37):
the stem of a sunflower, I remember her limitlessness and
maybe this is enough. Back at Teresa's former red brick
wall apartment in Alpasso, the entrance of the building is
fenced in with black gates. Through its holes you can
(45:00):
see a giant plaque. Historian Da Vitromo reads it.
Speaker 4 (45:04):
This was the site of the residence of Teresa Orva,
an influential legendary healer who helped inspire early revolutionary movements.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
There were once murals that covered the courtyard adjacent to
the apartment complex that hosted Musse Urbano. The murals were
painted by students and people from the neighborhood. Now they've
been painted over in a coat of page. Only one
tiny mural stands. The Mussano closed down in twenty twelve
after they ran out of funds. And although the museum
(45:38):
is gone and the murals are gone, the spirit of
the museum lingers like a photograph.
Speaker 4 (45:43):
I have never seen a reaction as joyful and as
grateful and as excited enthused for any museum I've ever
been too. And yeah, they hit me like people were
just like they're so hungry to have like a piece
of their history, be honored, be dignified, even if it's
(46:06):
something very small and very poor.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
And maybe that is the biggest testament to Teresa's legacy,
that even though her history was largely erased and forgotten,
her memory lives on in this building, in this city,
in its people.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
One of the failures I think of radicals in the
history of this country is that they look only at politics,
but they don't think about love. But I'm not talking
about mushy, you know, romantic love. I'm talking about the
kind of love that recognizes the humanity and other people.
(46:50):
And if we recognize the humanity and other people, like
I believe that Asita did, then you want the best
for them, you want for yourself, and that would just
change everything.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
This episode was produced by Mari es Kink and edited
by Marta Martinez. It was mixed by Stephanie Lebo and
Julia Caruso. Fact checking for this episode by Ben Calen.
The Latino USA team includes Andrea Lopez Grusado, Daisy Contreres,
Mike Sergeant, Victoria Estrada, Rinaldo, Leanos Junior, Patricia Sulbaran, and
Julia Rocha, with help from Raoul Perez Our editorial director
(47:54):
is Fernandes Santos. Our associate engineers are gabriel A. Biez
and j. J. Krubin. Our marketing manager is Luis Luna.
Our New York Women's Foundation Fellow is Elizabeth Lentaltores. Our
theme music was composed by zay E Rabinos. I'm your
host and executive producer marieno Josa. Join us on our
next episode and remember note vs.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
St Approxima Joe.
Speaker 8 (48:18):
Latino USA is made possible in part by the Heising
Simons Foundation unlocking knowledge, opportunity and possibilities more at hsfoundation
dot org, the Ford Foundation working with visionaries on the
front lines of social change worldwide, and New York Women's Foundation.
(48:39):
The New York Women's Foundation, funding women leaders that build
solutions in their communities and celebrating thirty years of radical generosity.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
At the time, this would have been very controversial since
they were not married.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
Er
Hey, Latino USA, listener Oonsho de los Archibos. Also, there
will be some four letter words that are going to drop,
so be prepared.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
You can see Hottis from how we're standing. You can
see the buildings across the river. You can see the
fence right there that divides the two countries. So Wattis
is right in view.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
It's the cusp of summer as the sun sets over
La Frontera. I joined doctor Yolanda Leva, a history professor
at the University of Texas at al Paso. And there's
also Da Vidromo, a historian who specializes on the US
Mexico borderlines.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
Just from this street alone, I mean, you could just
go building by building and it tells you the most
important chapters of Mexican American history.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
We are within walking distance of the Paso the North
the Bridge, one of the border bridges that connects al
Paso to see La Juarez. The Rio Grande River, the
natural division between the United States and Mexico, snakes below
the bridge. The three of us are standing in front
of a red brick apartment building in Segunovarrio, a historic
(01:13):
neighborhood in downtown al Paso. In the late eighteen, hundreds
thousands of Mexican immigrants passed through or lived in Segunovarrio.
It's also known as the Ellis Island of.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
The border, not the other Alice Island. What you original,
alis Islo.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
The colorful streets of this neighborhood are full with layers
of history. Once it was home to El Tostado or
Don Tosti.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
He was the first Mexican American musician to sell more
than a million records, and he was a patrico.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
A few blocks down lift Avelardo Delgado, a Chicano writer
and community organizer. But there's someone else who lived inside
the red brick apartment building were standing in front of,
whose leg and history has not always been widely celebrated.
In this exact apartment, once lived Teresa Uria, a Mexican revolutionary,
(02:12):
a kurandera or healer, and a feminist.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
She was everything. She was a curandera, she was a
newspaper editor. I mean so many people were drawn to
her charisma that literally hundreds of people would set up
tents in front of our home there.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
In eighteen ninety six, Teresa Aurea moved to Alpasso. People
loved her they worshiped her like a saint.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
Teresita became a symbol of a forgotten history that was
utterly fascinating. I mean, she was like the Selina of
her time.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
From Pudromidia and BrX. It's Latino Usa. I'm Mariano Hosa.
Today we bring back to life the forgotten story of
Teresa Uria, the Mexican Joan of arc Back in two
thousand and six, the city of Lbaso approved a plan
(03:12):
to demolish se Bundo Barrio, the same neighborhood where Teresaurea
healed hundreds of people in the eighteen hundreds. Teresaurea was
a curandera who used herbs and traditional indigenous healing methods,
but there are also various accounts of Teresa having a
special power she could heal through her touch. In the
(03:35):
late nineteenth century, Teresa was a star. Aside from people
believing she was a saint, her vision of love and
equality inspired rebellions in Mexico against the dictatorship of Portfedio DS,
But with time, her miraculous life got erased from history
books and museums. To understand the story of today Esa
(04:00):
Urrea is to understand what gets remembered and what gets forgotten.
Two historians, Davidromo and Jolanda Leva, were part of a
resistance movement to the city's demolition plan. They created Museo Urbano,
a space to celebrate the legacy of Segundovarrio. The museum
(04:22):
included an exhibition in the very same apartment where Teresa
once lived. Today Teresa Urrea, who at nineteen years old
was once called the most dangerous girl in Mexico by
the dictator Porfitio Es. Our producer Maries Kincan is going
to take it from here.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Teresaure was born in eighteen seventy three in the last
Green state of Sinaloa, Mexico. Her mother, Kayetana Chaves, was
an indigenous woman. She worked in the ranch of don
To mass Urrea, a tall, light skinned rich asenda with
Spanish lineage, notorious for his wondering eye. Kayetana was just
(05:06):
fourteen years old when she gave birth to Tennisita, the
daughter of Tomas Urrea.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
So if we're looking at it from the perspective of
society back then, fourteen is a pretty common age to
get married and to start having children.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
This is Yolanda again. Achicana historian at the University of
Texas at al Paso. She specializes in border history.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
What is not different is that power relationship that he's
her employer, so we don't know like did she want
to have sex with him or.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Was it forced?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
So if we look at that power dynamic, then I
think it's very questionable.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
In an interview, Teresa said she was an illegitimate child.
She was one of nineteen children. Don tomas Uria had
out the side of his marriage. As a child, Dedesita
must have stood out as a Mystisa. She's described as
having light skin, large brown eyes, and long black hair.
(06:13):
In eighteen eighty, when Teresa was seven years old, Portfirio
Diaz's first term as president of Mexico was ending a
military general. He came into office by staging a coup
and reigned over Mexico for more than thirty years. The
general would shape the course of Teresa's life. Porfirio Diaesa's
(06:34):
time in office is known as the Portfiriato. He ruled
with an iron fist and secured his presidency by installing
his supporters and positions of power. His opponents were sometimes assassinated.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
And He basically controlled the whole shebang, you know, all
of Mexico through corruption, through just having the just keeping
good relations with the oligarchy in every different state.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
This is Da Vidromo again, the history professor who specializes
on the borderlands. He wrote about Teresa Oua and Ringside
Seat to a Revolution his book about al Paso and
Sula Huardes's connection to the Mexican Revolution. In Sinaloa, Teresa's father, Tomasura,
is forced to leave the state because he didn't support
(07:21):
the Diaz backed candidate for governor. Don Tomasura decided to
move to another family owned ranch further north in Kawora,
a city in the neighboring state of Sonora some two
hundred miles away. Kayetana and Teresa, who was seven years
old at the time, were among the hundreds of people
who joined tomas Urrea in his exile from Sinaloa. For
(07:43):
all of her childhood and into her teenage years, Teresa
grew up with her mother in separate quarters from the ranch.
She grew up in poverty, surrounded by indigenous people. Like
her mother.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Recito is growing up in this time of great changes
in Mexico, great economic changes and the rich are getting
richer and the poor are getting poorer, and there's a
little middle class, but it doesn't have much power.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Teresita didn't go to school until she was nine years old,
but she didn't want to study. The more and more
I read about Teresa, the more obsessed I became. There
was something marvelous or otherworldly about her. The details that
seeped in through newspapers, interviews and archives were fascinating. Take
(08:32):
this quote, for example, taken from an interview in the
San Francisco Examiner in nineteen hundred, where she described how
she learned to read.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
Later, I felt I wanted to learn how to read,
and I learned my alphabet from a very very old lady.
My writing came to me of itself. I wanted to write,
and I wrote. But how I learned I don't know,
for I was not taught on the floor of my
mother's house. I first wrote with my little finger in
the dusk.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
The quotuo hear of Teresa are taken from English newspaper articles.
Teresa didn't speak English, so they are translations, and they
are voiced by one of our producers, Victoria Estra. When
Teresa was fifteen years old, her mother, Kajitana, disappeared. It's
not clear why. Like many details in Teresa's life, there
(09:24):
are things we just don't know that have been lost
in the historical record. After her mother disappeared, Don Tomas
Urrea ordered Teresa to move into the ranch with him.
Teresa's life completely changed. The dirt floors she grew up
with were replaced by the white adobe walls of her
(09:44):
father's large ascienda. Don to mass Urias's mistress, a teenager
nearly the same age as Teresita, lived in the ascienda too.
At her father's ranch, Teresa became an apprentice Touila, a
Yaqui Kurandera who worked for her father. The Yaquis are
(10:05):
an indigenous group in Sonora. Through Wila, Teresa learned how
to heal by using plants, part of an indigenous traditional
medicine practice known as kurandrismo that predates the sixteenth century.
Gurandismo refers to a system of healing practice in Mexico,
(10:25):
Latin America, and in places with large Mexican communities like
the US Mexico borderlands. Prior to the Spanish colonization of Mexico,
there were indigenous healers across the region. If you look
at traditional medicine among indigenous people before the Europeans came,
(10:49):
everybody was very specialized. Some people knew about plants, some
people knew how to work with bones, some people knew
how to do massages, just like we would think of
a medical specialization today. It's believed gorndros have a special
don or gift that allows them to cure others, and
(11:12):
unlike Western medicine, gourdan deisma is not limited to the
physical body. It concerns itself with the psychological, spiritual, social,
and health needs of a person. That mind and body
are connected. With Spanish colonization in the sixteenth century, indigenous
healing methods merge with European practices. The word gourandeto comes
(11:34):
from the Spanish word kurat, which means to heal.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
So then when the Spanish come and begin to control society,
they too want to undermine the idea that indigenous people
have knowledge or can contribute. So they don't want people
to think, oh, look at this highly specialized meth medical system.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Gurandar rismo was looked down upon by Spanish physicians and
was even considered criminal. During the Mexican inquisition, Gurandrismo was
a prosecutable crime. Characteristics of kuranda Rismo include ritual Catholic prayer,
the use of plants and herbs, and the belief in
God or Creator. To become a Kurandea takes years of training.
(12:23):
It's not something anyone can just pick up. It's a
commitment that is taken very seriously.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
So it's just like I wouldn't take a biology class
and say I'm a doctor now. People shouldn't call themselves
at curandeta if they have not really thoroughly trained and
they have a teacher who has trained them.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Back in al Paso. I'm in the house of Greece Munos.
Speaker 6 (12:50):
My name is Gris Munos.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
A self described moher medicina or a curandera. She burns carvone, mesquite, goppal, lavender,
and saba. The smoke fills a room and hovers around us,
swirling in esses grease. Feels connected to Teresa. She has
a picture of her and her altar.
Speaker 6 (13:11):
I'm very connected to Teresita. She's been watching me a
long time, and Teresita is still around. She hasn't gone anywhere.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Greece is also close friends with one of Teresa's living relatives,
the Chicano writer Luis Albertore. Like Teresa, Greece was the
apprentice of Akurandetra for years. Grease works with the spirit.
Speaker 6 (13:34):
I'm not a midwife, I'm not a I'm not a wescera.
Women tend to find me when they've gotten themselves a
bit lost. Maybe they just went through a major change,
maybe they need to accept something, a death of some type.
(13:56):
That's really where I come in. I can't speak for
all curanderos, but essentially, especially the ones that work with
the spirit like I do. We're just here to help
you reconnect.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
In the borderlands, grandismo is still very prevalent. The borderlands
used to be part of Mexico until the mid nineteenth century,
twenty five years before Edessa was born, but during the
Mexican American War of the late eighteen forties, Mexico lost Arizona, California,
New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah to the US.
(14:39):
Under her apprenticeship with Wila, Esa learned the names and
properties of more than two hundred herbs. She followed Wila
around while her teacher did things like helping women give
birth or treating wounds and illnesses. Then something happened to
Thedessa when she was sixteen years old. There's varying accounts
(14:59):
on the next set of events. Some accounts say that
Isa had an epileptic seizure. Other reports say an engineering
student tried to rape her and it gave Teresa a
shock induced seizure. In either case, after losing consciousness, Teresa
fell into a coma. They think she's dead. That Isa's
(15:21):
father put his ear against her chest to listen for
a heartbeat, but he couldn't hear anything. He ordered a
coffin to be built. They prepared that Isa for a wake,
dressed her in a white dress. They placed her body
on a table and surrounded her body with candles.
Speaker 6 (15:42):
So they make her a casket and in Elvelorio, she
wakes up.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
And everyone is like holy shit. After waking up, that
Esa predicted that in three days they were going to
need the coffin for someone else.
Speaker 6 (16:02):
And then Wila died.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Three days later, Teresa's teacher was found in her room.
It looked like she passed away peacefully. The cause of
her death wasn't clear, but people speculated she died from
old age.
Speaker 6 (16:19):
Or exhaustion, and they buried Wila in the casket they
had made for Terracita.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Coming up on Latino, Usa, Teresa Rea wakes up from
her coma with a newfound power. She can miraculously heal
people through touch. Stay with us, Hey, we're back. When
(17:26):
we left off, Teresa Rea had woken up from a
coma and had predicted the death of her mentor, Wheela
A Jaqui Granderra now Deesa, realizes she has a new
miraculous power. Producer Marieskinkam is going to pick up the
story from here.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
After waking up from her coma, Teresa was a normal
She fell into a trans that lasted three months and
eighteen days. In an article from the San Francisco Examiner,
Teresa Urrea said she didn't remember anything that happened during
those three months.
Speaker 5 (18:07):
They tell me those who saw me, that I could
move about, that they had to feed me, that I
talked strange things about God and religion.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
During this trance, Teresa said she had a vision. The
archangel Gabriel appeared to her as a young man. He
delivered her a letter. It urged everyone to repent from
their sins, believe in Jesus and they would be cured
when she finally returned to full consciousness. Teresa had a gift.
She could heal people through touch. One of the people
(18:42):
she cured in Kavora was Marianna, a woman in her
twenties that couldn't walk. After Teresa cured her, Marianna was
able to walk again, and she became her devout, loyal
friend and assistant. Teresa described a change happening within her
when she healed people.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
I could still if I touched people or rub them
make them well. I felt in me only the wish
to do good in the world. I spoke much to
the people about God, not about the church or to
tell them to go to church, but about God. I
told them what I believe. That God is the spirit
of love, that we who we are in the world,
(19:20):
must love one another and live in peace, otherwise we
offend God.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Word quickly spread about the miraculous healer. Hundreds of people
started visiting her father's ranch and Gaworah. They traveled long
distances and were often poor and indigenous people of the region,
the Yaqui and Mayo Indians that Esa refused to charge
for her services.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
I have no wish to be paid. I do not
care for find things or find houses or money. I
will refuse no one to help.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Aside from her healing powers, there were other supernatural phenomena
associated with her.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
Her family members believed that she was able to predict
even when people were about to arrive that she had
no knowledge of. She would say this, such and such
a person is going to come tomorrow, and they would
She could predict rain, She could predict deaths in the family.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
She had other strange qualities, and people.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
Would say that she admitted an aroma of roses like
so many people would say that, like she just smelt
like roses.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
There are also accounts of her quote unquote astro projecting, like.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
She could travel out of her body and she could
describe places she had never been. And it's not like
she had the internet right where we could fake it.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
People began to call her a saint and worshiped her
like one. They called her Santa Theresa, la Santa de
Santa de Risita. She was only sixteen years old. They
created prayer cards with her image, and one prayer card
she stoically stands. She's dressed in a black dress that
covers her arms. A long black cross hangs from her neck.
(21:15):
Her black hair is wrapped in a braided bun. Angels
surround her. Two turubs hold a crown they are placing
over her head. Her gaze is looking at the distance.
They build wooden statues of her to venerate her like
a saint. Teresa said she was not a saint, that
(21:36):
you don't need the mediation of the church or priest
to cure, an idea that she repeated more than once.
In doing so, she challenged the authority of the Catholic Church,
one of the most powerful institutions in Mexico even today.
Speaker 5 (21:54):
I felt that God willed that I should heal them,
and when they asked me, I did so. No, I
do not think prayer is necessary, nor does one have
to believe in me to be cured. If I can cure,
I can.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Priests announced her as a heretic and impostor and evil worker.
The clergy threatened to excommunicate everyone that seeked her help.
Here's Grise again, the Kuranda from al Paso.
Speaker 6 (22:22):
They saw her like a living saint. So you can
imagine what heresy to call a teenage girl Asantha right,
a living teen girl Asanta, so she became a problem.
In those times, the only people that could talk to
God were priests.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
From a young age. That is, I was breaking all
sorts of traditional norms and rules.
Speaker 6 (22:50):
She was completely considered heretical and completely forward for her
time in every way.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
At the same time, the power of dictator Porfirio Dias
only kept growing. Under the Portfiriato, thousands of Yakis were
taken from their lands and expelled as slaves to Yucatan.
Here's la vid romo again.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
So Porfirio Dias in Sonora carried out this very destructive
warfare against the indigenous Yaki population and would send the
Yakis to southern Mexico to virtual death camps and slave camps.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Teresa was often visited by the Yaquis in Kawora, and
she was sympathetic to their uprisings. She often defended them
and said they had the God given right to fight
for their land and freedom. In later interviews with The
New York Journal, she described watching Yaki children not even
three years old, being lynched. She called the Yaquis the
(23:57):
bravest and most persecuted people in the world. This at
a time when opposing the Diaz regime was deadly, so.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
Told the Yakis to fight for their lands, and of
course this brought the enmity of Corfiolias.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
While Teresa never took arms, she inspired rebellions. This was
the case in one small town called Tomochik, located in
the Sierra Madre of Chihuahua, about two hundred miles away
from al Paso. After hearing about Teresa's power, Kruz Travis,
the leader of Tomochic, and other villagers traveled to Kabora
to meet with Teresa. They witnessed hundreds of people camped
(24:39):
out at her father's ranch. They had heard of Teresa's
healing powers and visited her to be cured. They were
moved by her vision of love. Kruz Travis, the Tomoshik leader,
and Teresa became friends and started exchanging letters. When the
villagers returned to Tomochik, they decided to only worship living saints.
(25:03):
They replaced the statue of a dead saint with a
statue of a living Teresa. They chose La Sante Kaoaterresita
as the official guardian of the town. This brought the
great ire of a local priest who threatened to excommunicate
every Tomochko who believed in Teresa. When they refused to obey,
(25:26):
the priests sent out a message to the government. Porfido
Dias ordered the rebels to be quickly and severely punished.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
And for Fioria sends hundreds of troops to utterly destroy
the entire town.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
The rebels fling themselves into a fight they were destined
to lose, shouting Viva la Santa Kaoura. According to Romo,
they killed six hundred federal troops, but the Mexican government
led a ruthless fight. They set fire to the village,
killed women and children. They stacked the bodies of the
dead with their leader, Cruise Travis on top. Not one
(26:06):
boy or man over the age of thirteen survived, according
to historians, so.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
I was just kind of a vicious, vicious attack on
anyone that would challenge the power of the dictator of
Mexico at that time.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
The Mexican government claimed that Issita incited the rebellion. She
always denied any involvement in any uprisings, but she also
defended them. She believed revolution was necessary when people were oppressed.
When she was nineteen years old, Portfido dies exiled Teresa
from Mexico. I can't help thinking of Teresa's power, of
(26:49):
the fact that men threw themselves into a revolution while
screaming her name.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Porfiodias had said she was the most dangerous girl in Mexico,
and she was a teenager. So what would make a
teenager dangerous to a dictator with incredible power and incredible
policing power.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
You know that to me.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Shows you the power of her love and the power
of her vision, which was that everyone should be equal,
men and women, mestisos, blancos, indigenous people, everybody's human.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
After being exiled from Mexico in eighteen ninety two, Teresa
lived in Nogles, Arizona. By then that as I was
already a star. The world press had been covering her
miraculous cures for two years. At that point, she.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Was in the newspapers all the time, the local newspapers,
newspapers in Mexico City, and there were articles like from
all over the United States about her, you know, the
New York Times, and I know that there were people
from France writing letters to her. So this is like
mega superstar in the world of the eighteen nineties.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Reading the articles it seems there's almost an obsession with her.
They often start by focusing on her looks. They call
her beautiful. In one article, she's described as Mexican in hue,
with large, handsome eyes, hypnotic. Some people call them raven haired, tall,
and slender. Another article is headlined she is not pretty.
(28:37):
It goes on to say that she is not ugly,
but she has quote a squatty figure and a round
fat face, just as hundreds of ordinary Mexican women have.
They speculate and scrutinize her cures. One article mentions American
physicians don't take her seriously because she doesn't practice germ
theory and touches the hands of the people she helps.
(29:00):
Many describe Americans looking at her with amusement. Some newspapers
label her a miraculous healer and others a crazy saint.
They call her the living patron saint of the Indians.
There are very few articles that actually include interviews with her.
Either way, it seems they couldn't stop talking about her.
(29:21):
After living in Arizona, she moved to Albaso in eighteen
ninety six. Hundreds of people gathered at the Union Depot
train station awaiting her arrival, people would spend hours trying
to catch just a glimpse of Teresa. An a'l Passotimes
article from that time reports, I imagine it, the hordes
(29:41):
of people pushing up against each other, tiptoeing over each
other's shoulders, the buzz and excitement in the air, the
way they must have screened her name when the train arrived,
how they must have roared. No less than three thousand
people visited her house on the day she arrived.
Speaker 7 (30:00):
The article noted, she would stand there yegawan, you know,
hundreds of people, the line would be completely down, sewndoo,
and she would heal them with her hands.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
That is, I would act. Calculated that she cured up
to two hundred people a day in Alpasso, from six
in the morning to nine at night. That Issa curd
for the ill. Various accounts exist of her healing work
and her miracles. She cured people suffering from smallpox, leprosy.
(30:34):
She touched people who were paralyzed and they could suddenly
walk again. The Alpasso Times reporter also described that as
a looking pale and.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Weak, she wasn't taking care of herself, because how can
you see hundreds of people per day, and then she
must have been under a lot of pressure because there
were thousands of people waiting to see her.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Throughout her life, her connections to the Mexican Revolution continue,
earning her the title the Mexican Joan of arc and Alpasso.
Teresa co edited Ellin de Bendente, an antids newspaper. Some
of the articles have her signature.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
During this period, they were about forty Spanish language newspapers
in al Paso, and the large majority of them were
anti ideas. They were anti the dictatorship of Mexico, and
Soa was part of that movement, you know, like she
she was spreading the seat, spreading the ideas.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Throughout her life, Teresa was vocal about the Mexican government's
exploitation of indigenous people.
Speaker 5 (31:37):
I pity the Indians of Sonona. I wish they were
cared for and protected. I fear they will be exterminated.
I would do anything for them.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
The year that Isa arrived in Alpaso, she co authored
De Tomochic, a manifesto accusing the Mexican government of murdering
Yaqi children. It also called for the abolishment of the
death penalty and the emancipation of women.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
And half of the people that signed this manifesto were women,
so that's like incredibly advanced.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
During the same year, another antiths rebellion breaks out, this
time at a Mexican customs house located in Nogales, Sonora.
Speaker 4 (32:18):
This is in August twelve, eighteen ninety six, and there's
forty rebels that attacked the Mexican custom selve and Noal Sonora,
shouting Viva la Santa Caa.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
The rebels killed two Mexican soldiers and temporarily took control
of the customs house for several hours. Some of the
men carried letters signed by Teresa, pictures of her, copies
of the newspaper she co edited, US and Mexican soldiers
joined forces and killed seven of the rebels. A picture
of their dead bodies was published in the press. The
(32:53):
caption described them as los indios fanaticos de la Santa Decaa,
the extremist Indian file followers of Lasantha de Caaba. The
American press became highly critical of her. They accused her
of leading several rebellions, including the one in Nogales.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
So after this happens, the media begins questioning just how
dangerous she.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Was headline after headline accused her of leading rebellions, of
hypnotizing the peaceful Yaki Indians, of causing trouble and Mexico
with her spiritualist propaganda.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
That whole idea of calling her a witch is a
way to discredit her, to undermine her knowledge and her influence.
And then by saying that she's the reason that Indigenous
people are rebelling, that's a way also to say they're
too ignorant to organize on their own.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
Her vision of justice and equality was so strong that
even if she didn't tell people to take arms, she
became their war cry. She turned into a symbol of resistance. Traditionally,
it's taught that the Mexican Revolution began on November twentieth,
nineteen ten, after Teresa died, but David argues that the
(34:19):
revolution began sooner.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
That's the encyclopedia version. This revolutionary activity happened way before
nineteen ten. So it's naive to think that on one day,
one guy calls her people to revolt and everybody rises up. No,
you plan sets sometimes for decades, and there's a lot of
failed battles.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
He places that is Sahura as a key figure in
the Mexican Revolution that deserves more recognition, but whose role
has been ignored by historians.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
Her role in the revolution was not to shoot people,
It was to inspire people. It is Fronteisa based healing
powers that could ultimately change the world, that they could
lead to a revolution, to a more just fission of
who we are as a community, and that was incredibly
ahead of her time.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
For Yolanda, the history professor. That is as radical politics
set her apart from other couranderos.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
I think the more important thing that sets her apart
is that she combined traditional knowledge with I guess what
we would call now social justice. I don't see that
in the other healers of that time. That's what sets
her apart, is that combination of tradition but also a
(35:42):
vision for a better future.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
While she lived in Alpaso, they tried to kill Ddesa
three times, causing her to leave just a year later.
She faced assassination attempts throughout her life. Here's grice again.
Speaker 6 (36:06):
And it's incredible to think that a young woman could
be such a threat to like a government, a whole
system of patriarchy.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
After leaving Alpaso, Teresa moved to Clifton, Arizona. There isn't
a lot of reporting on this period of her life
until nineteen hundred. In Clifton, she met a man called
Guadalupe Rodriguez. Guadalupe remains a mysterious man. It's hard to
find any archival information about him. In an interview with
(36:39):
one of Teresa's relatives, he's described as handsome. Teresa married
Guadalupe eight months after meeting him, against her father's wishes.
At the time, Teresa was twenty seven years old. The
day after they got married, Guadalupe tried to kill her.
Teresa recount at what happened in an article from the
(37:01):
San Francisco Examiner.
Speaker 5 (37:04):
The next day after we were married, he acted strangely.
He tore up some things of mine, pecked some of
my clothes in a bundle, put it over his shoulder,
and said to me, come with me. The people who
saw him said for me not to go, but I
followed him. He walked on the railroad track. I did
not know where he wanted to run. I ran to
He had his gun and started to shoot. The people
(37:27):
ran out and made me come back. Then they caught him.
He was insane, and they put him in jail.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
A headline from the time read Santa Teresa shot by spouse.
Yaqui saint finds marriage a failure. Other articles reported that
she lost popularity amongst her followers because saints are not
supposed to get married. She later divorced him that I
(37:59):
Saw then left her family in Clifton and traveled to
San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Saint Louis. She
was planning on embarking on a world tour and wanted
to travel to Europe and India in order to learn
about the source of her healing powers. She said her
power came from God, but she wanted to learn how
(38:20):
it moved through her body.
Speaker 5 (38:22):
I seek to find out whence the power is derived.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
She wanted to travel to cities like Paris and Jerusalem,
where may I find someone wise in such matters who
can and will tell me the secret? But she didn't
make it to those cities. In nineteen o two, her
father died. That same year, she gave birth to her
first child. That as I had lived in New York
(38:48):
for a year with her translator and a family friend,
John Van Order. She had two daughters with him at
the time. This would have been very controversial since they
were not married.
Speaker 4 (39:00):
She was definitely a woman ahead of her times and
a woman that was that straddled many different borders. She
was a liminal being, somebody that's neither here nor there,
and I think that's what made her so fascinating. So
this was a woman that was defying all kinds of
traditional boundaries.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
In nineteen oh four, Teresa moved back to Arizona with
her partner John. She bought some land and had a
house built. On October fifteenth, nineteen oh five, Teresa Ure
hosted a party in her newly built home in Clifton
to celebrate her thirty second birthday. I imagine this moment
the era of us, with celebration and joy. They just
(39:42):
blew out the candles, everyone's eating cake. Esa liked to
play the guitar and the marimba. She loved to sing.
The room freshly minted by her voice. Maybe she had
just opened gifts. But then Esa predicted she would die
before her next birthday, when she would turn thirty three.
(40:05):
Then she went around the room and said goodbye to
every guest. Months later, on January eleventh, nineteen oh six,
that is, I was at home with Marianna, her old
time friend and aid and one of the first people
that she had healed. She told Marianna, put me.
Speaker 5 (40:26):
In this room and put these clothes on me.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
The room she was referring to was on the second
floor of her house. It was called the flower room
because it was full of flowers, ferns, and plants. It
was built to allow the maximum amount of sunlight. Teressa
loved flowers. She grew geraniums, pegonias, a bright red hibiscus.
Her hair was five feet long, thatis, I would kick
(40:53):
it out of her way when it was loose. It
was longer than her body. When they offered her tea, Teresa.
Speaker 5 (41:00):
Said, and do not want tea. I feel so badly.
I think this is my last day of life.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
Teresa asked for a pan and a towel. She washed
her hands, wiped them down, tied them with a blue ribbon,
handed the towel back and said take this. I will
never use it again. She then went to rest in
her bedroom. Quite late afternoon, Teresa died. Marianna dressed her
(41:32):
in a white robe and a blue shawl. When they
put Teresa in the coffin, they wrapped her long hair
around her arm. She gave instructions to lay her in
the flower room for her funeral. I can imagine Teresa
suspended in flowers. The cause of her death isn't clear.
(41:55):
She might have had tuberculosis or pneumonia. The official record
stated k consumption.
Speaker 6 (42:01):
That's another aspect of curandismo. Is that life force that
you have, that you're sharing it with people, and they're
taking little pieces of it, little pieces of it, little
pieces of it. Eventually, you know, a lot of curandetto's
get really sick and they die, you know. And so
(42:22):
it's that deep of a commitment when I tell you
it's till the death.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
I can't talk about that Isa without admitting the sadness
I feel when I think of her life and death.
Her story feels incomplete, like a picture of her that's
been punctured with tiny holes. I feel the limitations of
the archive, of the gaps in her life, the things
about her that I can only imagine or speculate, the
(42:53):
sound of her voice, her favorite book, her favorite smelly.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
And that's one of the frustrating things to me as
a historian, is it, especially with women, There's just things
we'll never know.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
I think about the way the press wrote about her
banished Senorita, the woes of Teresa Urrea, a witch to
be shot. I think of all the violences she must
have experienced that we will never know about, and of
her strength.
Speaker 6 (43:27):
She's a woman, She wasn't a saint.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
She was a teen girl.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
I imagine the details of her life that an archive
imbued with sexism and racism will never be able to
tell us about her. Did she stare into a lover's eyes?
Did she dance by herself in front of a mirror.
Maybe she scribbled her secrets into a journal she secretly
stashed away somewhere only for herself.
Speaker 6 (43:59):
I don't know why I always think like I always
think about how lonely she must have been, and even
growing older and not really knowing who you can trust,
and really being seen as like a commodity.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Her whole life is marked by the things she did
for others. What does her life tell us about what
society deems worthy of remembering About the life of a
revolutionary woman. I imagine her existing without the weight of
having to be godly, saintly, of her having an ordinary life,
drinking a cup of coffee, reading a poem singing into
(44:37):
the stem of a sunflower, I remember her limitlessness and
maybe this is enough. Back at Teresa's former red brick
wall apartment in Alpasso, the entrance of the building is
fenced in with black gates. Through its holes you can
(45:00):
see a giant plaque. Historian Da Vitromo reads it.
Speaker 4 (45:04):
This was the site of the residence of Teresa Orva,
an influential legendary healer who helped inspire early revolutionary movements.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
There were once murals that covered the courtyard adjacent to
the apartment complex that hosted Musse Urbano. The murals were
painted by students and people from the neighborhood. Now they've
been painted over in a coat of page. Only one
tiny mural stands. The Mussano closed down in twenty twelve
after they ran out of funds. And although the museum
(45:38):
is gone and the murals are gone, the spirit of
the museum lingers like a photograph.
Speaker 4 (45:43):
I have never seen a reaction as joyful and as
grateful and as excited enthused for any museum I've ever
been too. And yeah, they hit me like people were
just like they're so hungry to have like a piece
of their history, be honored, be dignified, even if it's
(46:06):
something very small and very poor.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
And maybe that is the biggest testament to Teresa's legacy,
that even though her history was largely erased and forgotten,
her memory lives on in this building, in this city,
in its people.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
One of the failures I think of radicals in the
history of this country is that they look only at politics,
but they don't think about love. But I'm not talking
about mushy, you know, romantic love. I'm talking about the
kind of love that recognizes the humanity and other people.
(46:50):
And if we recognize the humanity and other people, like
I believe that Asita did, then you want the best
for them, you want for yourself, and that would just
change everything.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
This episode was produced by Mari es Kink and edited
by Marta Martinez. It was mixed by Stephanie Lebo and
Julia Caruso. Fact checking for this episode by Ben Calen.
The Latino USA team includes Andrea Lopez Grusado, Daisy Contreres,
Mike Sergeant, Victoria Estrada, Rinaldo, Leanos Junior, Patricia Sulbaran, and
Julia Rocha, with help from Raoul Perez Our editorial director
(47:54):
is Fernandes Santos. Our associate engineers are gabriel A. Biez
and j. J. Krubin. Our marketing manager is Luis Luna.
Our New York Women's Foundation Fellow is Elizabeth Lentaltores. Our
theme music was composed by zay E Rabinos. I'm your
host and executive producer marieno Josa. Join us on our
next episode and remember note vs.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
St Approxima Joe.
Speaker 8 (48:18):
Latino USA is made possible in part by the Heising
Simons Foundation unlocking knowledge, opportunity and possibilities more at hsfoundation
dot org, the Ford Foundation working with visionaries on the
front lines of social change worldwide, and New York Women's Foundation.
(48:39):
The New York Women's Foundation, funding women leaders that build
solutions in their communities and celebrating thirty years of radical generosity.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
At the time, this would have been very controversial since
they were not married.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
Er
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