Eduardo Balderas, His Family and Their Place and Time as Refugees and Converts: Another Way of Writing Mormon History

Abstract

Research Article| January 01 2021 Eduardo Balderas, His Family and Their Place and Time as Refugees and Converts: Another Way of Writing Mormon History Ignacio M. García Ignacio M. García IGNACIO M. GARCÍA holds the Lemuel Hardison Redd Jr. Endowed Chair in Western & Latino History at Brigham Young University. He is the author of seven books, including the award-winning Viva Kennedy: Mexican Americans in Search of Camelot and When Mexicans Could Play Ball: Basketball, Race, and Identity in San Antonio, 1928-1945. The later work, a study of an underdog team in San Antonio and the racial discrimination and violence that ensued in the wake of their championship wins has been optioned for a feature film. Much of Ignacio’s scholarly work has followed the contours of his own life. Born in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, he immigrated to the United States with his parents at the age of six and grew up in the San Antonio barrios attending a local Latter-day Saint congregation. Following high school, he enlisted in the US Army where he trained as a medic and served a tour of duty in Vietnam running a dispensary emergency room in the Mekong Delta. Thanks to the GI Bill, he earned a degree in journalism at Texas A&I University and launched his first career as a sportswriter, editor, and news correspondent covering the war in El Salvador. He later received masters’ and PhD degrees in history from the University of Arizona. The social injustice he experienced as a youth inspired Ignacio’s deep involvement in Chicano activism and La Raza Unida party. As a historian of the Mexican/Chicano experience, Ignacio has explored the intersections of race and ethnic identity, justice, political power, civil rights, and grassroots movements in the American Southwest in the classroom and in his writings. In 2015, Ignacio published an autobiography, Chicano While Mormon: Activism, War, and Keeping the Faith that explores how his faith bred his activism and how his Chicano identity shapes his faith. Now he is at work on a biography of Eduardo Balderas, who translated or retranslated works of scripture, temple ceremonies, and manuals into Spanish. Balderas is an immensely important figure for the more than four million Spanish-speaking Latter-day Saints around the world and the globalization of the faith. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of Mormon History (2021) 47 (1): 1–28. https://doi.org/10.5406/jmormhist.47.1.0001 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Ignacio M. García; Eduardo Balderas, His Family and Their Place and Time as Refugees and Converts: Another Way of Writing Mormon History. Journal of Mormon History 1 January 2021; 47 (1): 1–28. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/jmormhist.47.1.0001 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressJournal of Mormon History Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright 2021 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois2021 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.