Reies Tijerina - Trouble With The Law

Trouble With The Law

Tijerina and the other families with children sought refuge in New Mexico. They arrived in the ghost town of Gobernador in early 1957 and took refuge in a church. Desperate for food, Tijerina and his brother Margarito set out to find help. They met Don Manuel Trujillo, a local rancher. Tijerina later called Trujillo his "first and best teacher on the question of land grants in New Mexico." In New Mexico, Tijerina got the idea to organize the heirs of the New Mexico land grants into a corporation that could compete with "the great corporations of the Anglos". But realizing that survival came first, Tijerina and two other bravos returned to the Valley of Peace to look for work. They were arrested and imprisoned in Florence, Arizona for ninety days. Margarito, who had violated the conditions of his parole, was not released. While in prison, Margarito asked Tijerina to help the wife and child of a fellow inmate. Commune members clothed and fed the woman and child, and Tijerina secured the man's release. Two days later, he was imprisoned and charged with attempting to free his brother. Released on bond, his court-appointed attorney urged him to flee the state for his own safety. After consulting with the other families, Tijerina decided to risk losing the Valley of Peace and flee.

Read more about this topic:  Reies Tijerina

Famous quotes containing the words trouble with the, the law, trouble with, trouble and/or law:

    The trouble with the sacred Individual is that he has no significance, except as he can acquire it from others, from the social whole.
    Bernard Devoto (1897–1955)

    Here, lads, we live by the law of the taiga. But even here people manage to live. D’you know who are the ones the camps finish off? Those who lick other men’s left-overs, those who set store by the doctors, and those who peach on their mates.
    Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918)

    The trouble with kingdoms of heaven on earth is that they’re liable to come to pass, and then their fraudulence is apparent for all to see. We need a kingdom of heaven in Heaven, if only because it can’t be realised.
    Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990)

    the trouble lies in pointing
    At any stars. For one’s own finger aims
    Always elsewhere: the man beside one seems
    Never to get the point. “No! The bright star
    Just above my fingertip.”
    John Hollander (b. 1929)

    If he who breaks the law is not punished, he who obeys it is cheated. This, and this alone, is why lawbreakers ought to be punished: to authenticate as good, and to encourage as useful, law-abiding behavior. The aim of criminal law cannot be correction or deterrence; it can only be the maintenance of the legal order.
    Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)