Show Tragedy Of Jesse Garcia Reflects A Displaced People In connection with the University's Institute on Crime Del n-quency and Law the of editorial week-long l printing a articles outlining the case and convicted of history of Jesse murder at the ape of The author ta secretary of the for Garcia Com- Larry Bob Hol- Dor-man Truman Zane won by forfeit over Gary Jess pinned Max Reese in Rick Reiner Heavyweight Joe won by On Utah's death row a Mexican-American Jesse M. waits while law and the public decided his ate whether he may live out his natural life or will die before the guns of executioners as scheduled for March Because he had been terrorized at the adult and because of his youth was just sixteen when the judge asked you prefer to be shot or his case has aroused wide His death characterized by many of the features most deplored by has become a focal point in the capital punishment Since the time of Garcia's some improvements have been made int Utah at both state and local Two children convicted of murder were carefully segregated and protected while being held at the state investigation and planning have changed the outlook in handling of a State Council on Criminal Justice Administration has been formed to examine procedures in justice and There can be no doubt that public concern aroused by the Garcia case encouraged these a Jesse Garcia would have a better chance for rehabilitation through juvenile agencies the desire for punishment is being replaced by a demand for But Jesse Garcia is still under sentence of A local the For has been circulating petitions for commutation which will be presented to the Governor if the legal moves in progress fail to prevent Why did a boy find himself in an adult then on the Death Row of that This is the question that is being Who can Even if we knew the answers to such there is no one who knows Jesse's history so so has been his THE TRAGEDY of Jesse Garcia is a re-enactment of the tragedy of his for each each social i in his few we a like experience in th of the Mexican-American Many of Jesse's the same that every m American youth must but his were more lim more His life must with story of his peopled A 1 ish speaking people of th l i M western United variously called Spanish and La and who themselves The term is more nearly correct but the suggests they are By legal definition they selves as belonging to the ish-speaking culture by ring to all others Neero or as m WHAT IS the iden of these culture reaches back to the Z chanted City of Mexico who beauty and wealth Cortez de to the Emperor of m terms of astonishment- it reaches back beyond that to brace the language and religion of Spam superimposed on the Indian patterns by power of the With their culture also keeps alive the folkways of the maize-growing Indians who made an art of irrigation in the southwest and into ancient matrix are bit by the dynamic forms of modern Through the war of the United States severed a great land mass from the body of Mexico all of the area that is now New and Colorado west of the When the land was the people who tilled it were a population complete with a way of undisturbed by the displacement of an imaginary THE TREATY of Guadalupe Hidalgo attempted to secure rights for Mexican citizens thus subjugated to the United They were given two Leave their go south oi the new border and be Mexican or stay on their property and become U.S. citizens after one non-Spanish-speaking Indian groups were and were not considered in the The rural-living people themselves were hardly aware of the change or a threat to they stayed on the But the national dispossession was followed by of the Mexicans living on land where their forefathers had tilled the soil for nearly years through various forced off the When could not be their farms were sow at More were when they could not secure cash for SOME FEW who still tod their property in the Great saw their farms m for a few cents an acre wn they couldn't meet of the numbers great people are homeless non trekking from harvest to n doing the low-pay labor that feeds the le Their a vegetable annual income is the lowest any ethnic category in except for some Indian gr g. The Indians at least reservations Americans don't have even person They are displaced refugees in their own Unique p ruble fW Mexican-American j |