Please contact me for more info on the genealogy larranag@oxy.edu.

www.Larrañaga.com

Honorable NM State Representative Lorenzo Larrañaga
Lorenzo honored by Engineering School at UNM.

Find Professional BasketBall Player Jay Larrañaga with the Charlotte Hornets. Now with a European league.

In Uruguay there is a University Colegio Dámasio Antonio Larrañaga

José Carlos Gómez-Larrañaga (Centro de Investigación en Matemáticas)

myfamily.com link

José de Cruz information on Larrañagas D. Bruno y D. José Rafael en Durango, México.

The Taos News - Thursday, April 18, 1991. XLII #34, A16
El Crepúsculo

En estos días he notado con mucho interés algo de controversia a causa de propuestos monumentos, en particular el de Don Juan de Oñate. Me parece tema bastante interesante, por haber engendrado controversia.

Algunos están opuestos que porque creen el dinero aprobado por la legislatura se pudiera utilizar mejor en estos tiempos. Tiene valor, pero también hay otros medios de juntar dinero para proyectos, y é1 que quiera poner una estatua lo va a hacer de algún modo o el otro, si le importa suficiente.

Otros no están de acuerdo con el personaje o los personajes que se mostrarán. Personajes históricos representan algo diferente para todos. Si alguien no le gusta lo que representó esa persona en su vida, o sus hechos históricos, ese derecho lo tiene. Igual que a los que si, les guste, por cualquier razón. Si, quieren llamar la atención a personajes de conquistadores, acuérdense que no todos van a estar de acuerdo con lo que representan esos. Fíjense que quiere decir la palabra conquistador. Era alguien armado hasta los dientes, que tomaba lo que quería, por fuerza de armas, sin importarle cómo lo hacia, ni a quién dañaba o mataba en el proceso. Estos soldados hacían eso bajo ordenes de sus comandantes. Hay mucha diferencia entre un conquistador y una colonista obrero agricultor o cazador. En realidad ¿cuantos piensan esto cuando reclaman descendencia de "los conquistadores españoles?" Muy pocos son los que se quedaron a establecer familias. La mayor parte de los conquistadores se fueron de Nuevo México después de la entrada a otras guerras y tierras. Si dejaron hijos aquí, muchos no los reclamaron. La mayoría vinieron' en busca de oro y otras riquezas, y cuando no los encontraron, se fueron.

Los que verdaderamente establecieron la cultura hispana fueron los ganaderos borregueros, y labradores que vinieron con sus bestias, arrados, semillas, y el sentido de ganar la vida por trabajar y respetar la tierra y sus esfuerzos por si mismos. Ellos introdujeron la cultura que hasta al día tiene influjo en todos los grupos aquí. Después de la Rebelión ae los Indios Pueblo, una de las razones que Don Diego de Vargas fue arruinado políticamente fue porque no permitió reinstituir el sistema de encomiendas en Nuevo México.

Los que vinieron después de esa época, comprendían que lo que lograrían, si hiciera por su mismos sudor sufrir aunque se titulaban 'hidalgo.' Por mi parte los más dignos de reconocimiento como héroes, además de los borregueros y otros agricultores, serían el gobernador Don Juan Bautista de Anza el cirujano vasco, Cristobal de Larrañaga. El primero por su modo de salvar a Nuevo México como colonia Española y el otro por todos que salvó de la viruela por haber sido el primero envacunar a la gente contra esa enfermedad en estas partes.

De Anza, un genio militar y diplomático, era un tipo que el gobierno hispano mexicano mandaba a donde se necesitaba más su experiencia. Pronto después fue estableció el Presidio de San Francisco en California, lo mandaron a Nuevo México. Ya los Apaches y Comanches acababan con la Provincia. por sus ataques en las aldeas hispana tanto como los pueblos indios. De Anza trataba con los lideres frustrado, por José Cisneros de estos poderosos nómadas como individuos. Después de derrotar militarmente a una banda de Comanches, no trató de acabar con todos ellos, sino hizo alianzas con los que deseaban establecer la paz y les garantizó las ferias de comercio en Taos, Santa Fé, y Pecos. Estableció una paz entre los Comanches, hispano nuevo mexicanos e indios pueblos para el beneficio de todos. Por la mayor parte después de esto, se respetó esta paz, y Nuevo México permaneció como provincia indo-hispana.

Tocante Larrañaga, no he investigado porque fue mandado de España a Nuevo México, como cirujano para el Presidio de Santa Fé. Só1o he llegado a saber de que tiene descendientes aquí en Taos y otros lugares y que existe información tocante a los cienes de personas que envacunó contra la viruela, entre los hispanos e indios. Deben ser reconocidos.

Story about my cousin

 The Long Walk Hasn’t Stopped Rugged Avila UNM's Trini Avila
has become a dependable performer in football and track.

By Phill Casaus JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Trini Avila spent last fall walking to football practice at the University of New
Mexico. He had neither an athletic scholarship nor a car, so he took the only means
available: the sole train.

It was an inconvenient ritual, of course. Maybe even a little maddening. But
frustrations have never tripped Trini Avila, and they certainly haven't stopped his
family. When you've taken the hard road to success, step by painful step, what's one
more journey?

"If you want to do this, you have to put up with some stuff," he explains with a shrug.
"I'm doing this for fun, I guess, because I'm not getting anything out of it except the
chance to be able to compete."

All walk-on college athletes balance themselves on the commitment-perseverance-education
tightrope. But in Trini Avila's case, it's a time-honored tradition. Making the team,
competing, graduating ... all those things were arts perfected by his oldest brother,
John, who played nose guard for the Lobos in 1983 and '86.

Back then, John came to the party with a bullish frame and a take-no-bull attitude. A
half-decade later, Trini, a bit sleeker but just as intense plays outside linebacker for
the '91 Lobos with those very same traits.

Oh, yes. When the pads and helmets are put in the storage locker later this fall he'll
run high hurdles on the UNM track team.

Trini, whose piercing stare and weedy goatee only add to his leathery image, loves both
sports. But he acknowledges he's no superstar on a football field.

"I'm not an All-American," he says. It probably doesn't matter. There isn't another UNM
athlete, regardless of sport, sex or bench press, who gets more varied  and universal 
choruses of respect. To wit:

* "Is he tough?" says Lobos coach Mike Sheppard, almost incredulously. "Oh, yeah.
Usually, guys who are somewhat big, don't talk much and look at you funny are pretty
tough. And that's what Trini is. He's very intelligent, so he's somebody who understands
what it takes to play football."

* "Ignoring pain is what that family has always done." says Alburquerque High football
coach Tom Ryan, who coached and/or taught the entire clan. "They don't look at what the
costs are or what other persons might have over them. They push to get what they want.
All of them have been that way."

* "He's just a wonderful person to work with," adds UNM men's track coach Mike
MacEachen. "He listens. He's attentive. He tries to go the extra distance. He's one of
those exceptional people who doesn't come along all that often."

* "I admire the guy quite a bit," says UNM nose guard Ben Chávez. "To me, it's good to
see an in town guy coming in to help, and doing a lot.

Avila, a fifthyear senior, came to the football program in the summer of '90. He played
as a backup tight end, then found himself moved to outside linebacker this season, where
his speed and aggressiveness are a plus.

Avila has six tackles  fewer than some of the stars but plenty more than several other
Lobos who have scholarships. Yet, if paying his own way causes pain, he doesn't admit
it.

Such stoicism is almost expected. At the core of it all, pumping like a heartbeat, is
family pride. Strip away the Avila family veneer or the battles they've faced and won,
and it can almost be heard in their speech patterns. John had it. Trini had it. The
others have it, too.

Naturally, perhaps, Trini doesn't expound on these matters. But that's not to say he
doesn't care. His mother, Elena, and John made sure nothing would be taken for granted,
especially after the family Patriarch, Toribio, died when Trini was 10.

"My mom has had to go through a lot," Trini says. "She's proud of what my brothers and
my sister have done. Without my mom, none of us could have done anything."

But as a group, they've done a lot. Most of the family's six boys and the lone daughter
(Rusita, a Brown University student) tutor disadvantaged children in the Martíneztown
area of downtown Alburquerque through a program instituted by GI Forum.

In an area where shadows are sometimes dark, they try to shine a light on education. The
message: Anything is possible.

"I've never seen myself as a role model," Avila says, in a voice too serious to be
anything but sincere. "I don't think I've achieved anything that great to be considered
a role model. I've never done anything like that. Certainly, I try to instill some
things into people I know, to the younger people.

” . . . I just try to tell them that there's a way they can get into universities.
There's a way to be a college athlete. But they have to start when they're young. These
kids are disadvantaged children; they're the ones more prone to not carry on their
education, not go on to secondary education."

A statistics major, Avila always has had to see the bottom line. At times, it hasn't
been pretty. He's getting a partial scholarship from the track team  the cost of his
books only  and is surviving this fall on money he earned in the summer, doing odd
jobs. Somehow, he has managed to buy a little pickup truck so that a trip to practice
won't become an everyday adventure.

But in the end, the question is: Why? Why go through the hassle of playing sports when
graduation is all but assured? Why agonize over the Lobos' many problems when there are
brighter things ahead?

Avila doesn't even blink when he gives his answer.

"I did it for pretty much the same reason John did," he says. "I knew I could play
Division I football. I new I could do it. I just wanted the chance to play. I said,
'Well, either I play now, or I'll never get the chance to play football again.' And I’d
be wondering."

No longer is there a need to wonder. Trini Avila can play. And as he trudges to the
Lobos' locker room, you see how an All-American walks. With pride. 

Juan Fidel Larrañaga

Back to Juan's Home Page
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