Vaquero: Hispanic History of the High Desert
Posted By: Liz Goodrich
Date Posted: 4/4/2006
As part of the Deschutes Public Library’s A Novel Idea … Read Together, Bob Boyd, Curator of Western History at the High Desert presents a program titled “Vaquero: Hispanic History of the High Desert,” on Wednesday, April 5 at 6:30 p.m. at the Sunriver Area Public Library. The presentation is part of the Novel Idea … Read Together, community-reading project offered by Deschutes Public Library and the Deschutes Public Library Foundation. The program is free and open to the public and is sponsored in part by the High Desert Museum..
According to Boyd, Hispanics first came to the High Desert in significant numbers with the gold and silver discoveries of the 1860s. “They came as miners, but more importantly often ran the pack trains of horses and mules that supplied remote mining camps.” In the years after the Civil War, California cattlemen began to drive herds north to the High Desert, establishing ranches in northern Nevada, southeastern Oregon and southwestern Idaho. “These California vaqueros transplanted the skills and horseback culture to the region, a way of life still evident in today's buckaroos, of whatever ethnic background, still riding the cattle ranges of the region today,” says Boyd.
During the month of April, the Library will be hosting a variety of events in support of the Novel Idea … Read Together project. The programs are designed to give residents of Deschutes County a context for better understanding this year’s selected novel, González & Daughter Trucking Co. by María Amparo Escandón. The tale of Libertad, her father and her fellow inmates at the Mexicali Penal Institution for Women, is a story that has feet planted firmly on both sides of the U.S. and Mexican boarder and explores the themes of family, freedom, redemption and the power of storytelling. For a complete listing of Novel Idea programs, please call 312-1032.
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