Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- Villaseñor, Pedro
- Abstract:
- The papers consist of materials that Pedro Villaseñor, a Mexican Roman Catholic nationalist, created and assembled that document the troubled church-state relations of Mexico and their effect in Los Angeles, chiefly in the 1930s.
- Extent:
- 3 boxes
- Language:
- The records are in Spanish .
Background
- Scope and content:
-
This collection consists of materials that Pedro Villaseñor created and assembled that document the troubled church-state relations of Mexico and their effect in Los Angeles, chiefly in the 1930s. It documents transnational politics between Mexico and Los Angeles as well as politics and political organizing and activities within the Mexican community of Los Angeles in the 1930s. It also documents the intellectual and political thought of Mexican conservative Roman Catholicism in Los Angeles and beyond through correspondence from Mexico, Cuba, Peru, and throughout the United States; newsletters; poetry; books; essays; and flyers. Holdings in United States research libraries and archives related to Roman Catholic political resistance to the Mexican government, an important part of twentieth-century Mexican church-state history, are extremely rare. Of particular interest is the large amount of literary material that Mexican conservative Roman Catholics in this collection authored.
Books accompanying this collection are assigned call number RB 646900.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Pedro Villaseñor was born on October 29, 1907 in Coeneo, Michoacán, Mexico. Villaseñora, a Mexican Roman Catholic nationalist, was the Los Angeles leader of the Sinarquistas, a staunchly right-wing, nationalistic, and Roman Catholic organization. Before he worked with the Sinarquistas (which were founded in 1937 in León), he worked with the Asociación Católica de la Juventud Mexicana (founded in Mexico in 1913) in Los Angeles, and he established the Comité Popular de la Defensa Mexicana in Los Angeles in 1935. These too were Mexican right-wing Roman Catholic organizations opposed to the Mexican government's suppression of Roman Catholic practice and education. These activities reflect the impact of Mexico's Cristero War in Los Angeles, for Villaseñor's correspondents clearly had Cristero sympathies.
Pedro Villaseñor married Celedonia Meza (1908-2001) on September 20, 1931. The couple had four daughters: Maria (b. 1932), Lucila (b. 1935), Alicia (b. 1939), and Maria (b. 1948). Villaseñor worked in several industries. He was a laundry-worker, retail grocer in East Los Angeles, and a supporter of Spanish-language theater in the 1970s. He passed away on April 29, 1996.
- Acquisition information:
- Gift of Lucila Villaseñor Grijalva, María Elena Villaseñor, and Alicia O. Colunga, August 2017.
- Rules or conventions:
- Finding Aid prepared using Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Access and use
- Location of this collection:
-
1151 Oxford RoadSan Marino, CA 91108, US
- Contact:
- (626) 405-2191