The Cactus on My Forehead

These fiction stories are about families and how history shaped their ethnicities, lives, and culture. The characters are my actual ancestors who spread out throughout Mexico, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and other parts of the USA. Covering a span of 425 years, family histories come alive along with the historical events of their time. The ethnic groups in these stories are: Native Americans, Spanish, African, French, and Mexican mestisos who lived in Northern Mexico and the Southwestern United States. The “cactus on the forehead’ is mostly used as a condescending identity. I chose to use this phrase as valued identity. The stories start in 1563 with the arrival of the explorer Francisco Ibarra, the beginning of the cattle industry in Chihuahua, and the cultural traditions brought on by this industry. It ends in 1988 with a trip to a “Genealogy Museum” with a brief window as to how these characters helped shaped history. All families have stories to tell. Patterns of values and traditions exist in all families. I hope that these stories inspire you to write your own stories and discover the wealth of information available about your ancestors. Alicia Dávila De Laurie