Jaltemba Sol
Man's 80-year secret revealed: HIS FATHER WAS LEGEND PANCHO
VILLA
A photograph that hung on the wall of Raul Nava's family
home - a man on horseback - caught the eye of Nava's girlfriend. Her observation
changed Nava's life.
"What a great picture of your father," she said.
"That's not my father," he corrected her. "It's my
grandfather."
The brief exchange sparked his curiosity and Nava, 46,
prodded his father for information that revealed an amazing family secret - one
that Raul's father, Ernesto Nava, had protected for 80 years.
The man in the photo was, in fact, Pancho Villa, the
legendary revolutionary who organized the oppressed people of Mexico into a
guerrilla army 100,000 strong, and overthrew a corrupt government. And Pancho
Villa, was, in fact, Ernesto Nava's father.
"All my life, I could never say anything about that to
anybody," explained the 93-year-old Ernesto, who traveled Saturday from his home
in Hayward to be a special guest at the 28th annual Steinbeck Festival in
Salinas. "I held it in for 80 years because my mother told me, 'If you're in
Mexico, they will kill you. If you are here (in the United States), they will
kill you. You must never speak of this to anyone.' "
Ernesto says he never knew his famous and infamous father,
who stole from the wealthy to finance his revolt, and negotiated deals with the
United States for food and weapons. He was only 2 years old when his mother,
Macedonia Ramirez, smuggled him into the United States, to New Mexico, for their
own safety in 1917.
"It was very, very dangerous," he said. "In New Mexico, you
didn't talk about that."
Pancho Villa - born Doroteo Arango Arambula in 1878 - became
an outlaw as a teenager, fleeing to the mountains after killing a hacienda owner
who he said had raped his sister.
After joining up with Emiliano Zapata and others, he became
the charismatic leader of a revolt against dictatorial Mexican President
Porfirio Díaz and a government that made life easy for foreign land barons and
workers, while native Mexicans suffered in poverty.
President Díaz finally resigned and went into exile in 1885,
with the revolution in its full glory, but the battles raged on until Villa and
Zapata declared peace in 1918. Five years later, Villa was assassinated on
orders from one of his longtime adversaries, Álvaro Obregón, a general in the
Mexican army who suspected he was organizing another army.
Ernesto, meanwhile, grew up in the United States, where he
ran a construction business in Hayward.
When Raul Nava discovered the family secret, he suggested
that they return to Mexico for a visit.
"He hadn't been there since he was 14 years old, when he
went back to Mexico alone to look for (information about) his father," Raul
said. "I really wasn't certain what we'd find there, what the reaction would be,
if we went there."
Ernesto was 84 when Raul took him back to the states of
Chihuahua and Durango in Mexico, where Pancho Villa's legend looms large.
"We had a map of the area in our rental car, but we didn't
need it," Raul said. "My father could tell exactly where we were, and where we
needed to go, just by looking at the mountains. Even after 70 years, he knew the
landscape."
"I didn't know if we should tell anybody who he was, but my
father said, 'I'm an old man now. It doesn't matter.' " he said. "So the first
person we told was a janitor at our hotel."
The janitor passed on the news to the owner of the hotel in
Parral, Chihuahua, José Socorro Salcido Gómez, who, by chance, had written a
book about Pancho Villa. Gomez is the organizer of a Pancho Villa festival that
is held each year in Parral.
News spread across the city, and the people there treated
Ernesto like a celebrity.
"It was very emotional to go back there after 70 years," he
said.
During the Navas' visit, one comment was common from people
in Mexico, some of whom knew Pancho Villa. They told Ernesto he looked exactly
like his father.
"All of them said that - everybody," he said.
After a lifetime of keeping his identity secret, it was nice
thing to hear.