My name is Bob Bordier. I live in Jefferson, Georgia. I'm a descendant of the Enriquez family that came from the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Durango and Coahuila. My great-grandfather Rafael Enriquez Bravo first came to the United States in the late 1870's as a contract worker to build the Southern Pacific railroad line from Yuma, Arizona to Redlands, California. He arranged permanent residence in the US in 1901 and brought his family to live in Redlands, where he worked as a shoemaker. My cousin Susan Alvarez and I have created an Enriquez family tree on MyHeritage.com that we would like to share with our relatives. We have researched the ancestry of the Enriquez and Herrera families, and for some lines have been able to go back as far as seven generations before Rafael Enriquez Bravo. If you are related to us, we invite you to become an authorized user of our shared tree, see the information (genealogy, documents, photos, stories) we have collected for our ancestors, and add the members of your family. The information on the shared tree is not visible to the general public, only to authorized users. Our hope is that if we can all share information, we'll have a complete record of our families and ancestry that we can pass along to our descendants. To become an authorized user, please contact Susan by email at salvarez120@gmail.com. Send a brief description of your relationship to any of the people mentioned below, and she'll reply with the authorized user key. Our great-grandparents were José Salomé Rafael Enriquez Bravo and Demetria Herrera Lugo. Despite the long name given to him at birth, our great-grandfather was known as Rafael Enriquez Bravo. He was born in Villa Ocampo, Durango, Mexico on October 22, 1852. Our great-grandmother Demetria was born on December 22, 1861 in San Pedro, Coahuila, Mexico. They met near an hacienda called El Carisol on the Chihuahua-Durango border. The Rio Florido forms the border at that point, and the story is that they both liked to swim. They married around 1880. For several years, Demetria raised the children in Cusihuiriachic, Chihuahua, Mexico, where Rafael worked as a miner between trips to the US to work on the railroad. Their children were: Sefora (Frances) Enriquez, born January 11, 1883 in San Pedro Bato, Coahuila, Mexico. She married Frank Manuel Piña and lived in Redlands, California for many years. Carlos Enriquez, born May 2, 1890 in El Carisol, Chihuahua, Mexico. He married Dolores Hurtado and Vicenta Zambrano and lived in California and Arizona. He worked as a Master Caddy at the San Marcos Golf Club in Chandler, Arizona, among other positions. Rafael (Ralph) Enriquez, born in Mexico on January 30, 1895. He married Juana (Jennie) Romero and owned a real estate agency in East Los Angeles. Pablo (Paul) Enriquez, born in Mexico on September 16, 1896. He married Leila Taylor and lived in San Diego, California. Noemí (Naomi) Enriquez, born in Cusihuiriachic, Chihuahua, Mexico on February 26, 1899. She married Roberto Montero Varón on November 7, 1919 in Los Angeles. She lived in East Los Angeles and Rosemead, California. Abner Enriquez, born in Cusihuiriachic, Chihuahua on May 30, 1901. He married Elizabeth Martinez, and owned a construction firm that built houses in East Los Angeles. Jonathan (Tony) Enriquez, born in California on August 20, 1903. He owned an aluminum foundry in downtown Los Angeles and was a proud member and officer of the Shriners, Los Angeles Chinatown Lodge. A partial list of surnames that may be related to the Enriquez family include: Hurtado, Herrera, Martinez, Montero, Taylor, Romero, Alvarez, Saiz, Bordier, Pasos, Almeda, Piña, Albitre, Sotello, Bravo and Lugo. Thank you for considering our invitation. Please contact us if you have any questions about the shared tree or the Enriquez family. I can be reached at rhbordier@gmail.com. I leave you with a poem called "Generaciones" by my friend Rogelio Gomez that still touches me every time I read it:
Me llamo José.
Pa’ que mi hijo José, de
este país no sea extranjero
Echo de menos a mi gente,
a mi pueblo, a mi país
Al oír la música de mi
tierra, me dan ganas de gritar
De mi llanto vendrá, toda
su felicidad
2ª Generación
Papá, hoy me dicen en la
escuela que me llamo Joe
Que tengo que hablar sólo
inglés y olvidar lo que pasó
Mijo, así tendrá que ser
y aunque el nombre te cambiarán
El tiempo pasa y la
transformación es completa
He doesn’t understand me
and my efforts to succeed
I’m embarrassed by his
accent and his quiet simple ways
I’ve taught my son to
make it on his own, like I have done
3ª Generación
Yo soy su hijo Joey and
I’m searching for my past
Siempre me siento solo,
como un árbol, sin raíz
De mi abuelo yo me
acuerdo siempre con amor
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