By Priscilla Greear, Staff Writer

EL PASO, Texas—Half Tigua Indian and half Mexican, Rosa Hernandez drove down the Mission Trail of Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo passing the Chihuahuan Desert landscape of dirt and tumbleweed in perpetually dry and sunny El Paso.

Passing by the tribe’s judicial center and one of six Running Bear convenience stores, she turned into the new reservation, past a statue of the late tribal chief, winding streets named after chiefs and rows of tan houses with yards of crushed brown rock.

In the tribe’s library and educational center on the reservation, the director proudly spoke of the collection’s growth from about three bookshelves to 10,000 books focusing on Native Americans.

Stopping by her sister’s ranch home in an older reservation, Hernandez, a member of Santa Lucia Church in El Paso, pointed to a picture of her niece, who has served as a tribal judge. If only women could also participate by voting for the chief, or spiritual leader appointed for life, and councilmen, governor and other leaders in yearly elections, she said.

Freely offering information on the reservation, Hernandez has a pride one imagines she has fought hard to claim in her membership in the Tigua tribe. She didn’t learn of her Indian blood until adulthood because her father hid it from his children growing up because of discrimination against Indians then.

The tribe was Christianized by the Spaniards, she explained. Members fled to El Paso from New Mexico in 1680 with their Spanish masters and Franciscans after the Pueblo Indian Revolt against the Spaniards, who committed atrocities like enslavement, genocidal campaigns and religious persecution against Indians there in their quest for control. The tribe is protected by its patron, St. Anthony of Padua. Hernandez spoke about Tigua history and tradition to nine seminarians of the Archdiocese of Atlanta in El Paso and gathered with them for the Indian Mass and celebration on St. Anthony’s feast day in June at their Ysleta Mission, a simple white adobe church with a silver bell tower which Spaniards had the Tiguas originally build in 1682. It is the oldest mission in Texas and one of the oldest in the nation.

Just across the parking lot is the tribe’s Speaking Rock Casino, where two of Hernandez’ sons work and which is a primary source of income for the tribe.

Native Americans at the feast wore traditional dress and women performed tribal dances while holding arrows with cornhusks tied to them. Procession members bowed before the tribe’s drum, a sacred object.

“We consider it as having a soul. It is the soul of our tribe,” Hernandez explained. “When the last tribal member has left he’s supposed to take it back to New Mexico and . . . bury it because it was brought originally from New Mexico.”

Msgr. Frank Giusta, a priest of the Atlanta Archdiocese who has been directing the summer program called the El Paso Project, explained that participating in the feast was part of the seminarians’ learning about different American cultures. He has lived in El Paso since 1999 while serving as pastor of Santa Lucia.

“The reason why we went there is to give the seminarians the idea that the Tiguas are from a different culture, but all are American; they all are Catholics and they have some kind of cultural patterns that are different from the normal traits of Americans . . . A very strong form of prayer for them is doing dances—ritual dances that can last three or four hours each . . . They don’t let people take pictures. These dancers are very much concentrating on what they’re doing. It’s really a spiritual exercise.”

After the festivities they stand in front of the church one by one and acknowledge God for graces in the past year, he said.

The El Paso Project was designed by former vocations director Msgr. David Talley and Msgr. Giusta and implemented in 1999 to provide seminarians a summer immersion experience in Mexican-American culture and intensive Spanish instruction in a predominantly Mexican-American and Catholic city of 600,000. Father Paul Williams, former pastor of Sacred Heart Church, Griffin, moved to El Paso in June where he will serve for four years, receiving training from Msgr. Giusta in the first year on running the program as a parochial vicar and then directing it and becoming pastor at Santa Lucia.

With a passion for computers, Father Williams never felt any academic sparks during his two years of Spanish at Marist High School in Atlanta. Not having studied it since, he had no lofty visions of serving the Hispanic community when ordained a priest.

But it was his first assignment as a priest at St. Pius X Church in Conyers where he saw the desire of many Hispanics in the area for a Mass in Spanish. This led him and Father John Walsh to develop a Spanish ministry there. “We didn’t know Spanish. We had on the job training, but we saw the need and decided we needed to do something,” he said.

“My first full Mass in Spanish in Conyers, my pronunciation was very poor to say the least. I found it scary and embarrassing. I really had to bite the bullet and just do it. But at the same time, I discovered it gave me some understanding perhaps of how immigrants to this country feel, of how they feel when they’re in a new place with a language they don’t know having to start new lives,” he recalled. “Second thing I learned was that people didn’t care. They just love having a priest for Mass. They were very excited about it and thrilled we were doing it. So they quickly forgave my mispronunciation . . . because they appreciated the fact we were there doing our best.”

He eventually became comfortable reciting Mass in Spanish, moving on to other parishes, and went through a Bilingual America language program in Atlanta that was “very effective.” But he still felt frustrated when he couldn’t effectively talk to non-bilingual Hispanics after Mass which is “just as important.” This sparked his interest in Spanish and the El Paso Project, a program where Atlanta seminarians spend about six weeks in El Paso learning the culture and language. So when given the opportunity, he packed nearly all his belongings in his car, and headed west, stopping every two hours to walk his poodle Joey and his mixed-breed dog Cici.

He is glad to begin serving at Santa Lucia, a bilingual parish with about 400 registered households, largely of “not affluent” immigrants from Mexico. The priests live across the street at the one-story rectory with a wavy Spanish tile roof and courtyard outside. From Italy, Msgr. Giusta spoke limited Spanish before moving to El Paso, having served the Hispanic community at St. Mark Church, Clarkesville, which he found “was something very worthwhile.” His experience in Texas has been “wonderful.”

“I can speak with anybody now. Anytime I can act as an interpreter when necessary,” he said, with his deep Italian accent. “When you know other languages well it improves your vision of reality. It really gives you a feeling of freedom” as you switch from one language to another to communicate as needed.

While he’s found Latinos have deep reverence and respect for clergy, Msgr. Giusta has been challenged at Santa Lucia to get parishioners to take on more leadership and ownership of it, as he juggles parish responsibilities with work with the Atlanta seminarians. Mexican seminarians studying for the Atlanta Archdiocese also come to El Paso for a transition year of formation and English instruction. He appreciates Latinos’ extreme hospitality and their deep faith in Jesus, as “Mexican-American culture is extremely deeply attached to faith,” he said. “Anything can happen in the lives of these people. That attachment to religion and faith is just there. It’s unbelievable.”

He noted how it’s often more comfortable to speak to immigrants in their native tongue. “Because I speak their language, now I approach them much less as an outsider than I did before.”

Hernandez, who was general coordinator of the annual parish festival and is chairperson of the finance committee, appreciates Msgr. Giusta’s service to the parish and his encouragement of lay leadership, while acknowledging that some Hispanic members will always prefer Latino priests. While some members opposed Msgr. Giusta’s recommendation to cut back the number of weekend parish Masses because he felt overworked, she said the parish council supported it and that he was open from the beginning about his additional responsibilities. “He’s just delegated as long as we keep him informed and I think he appreciates that ... I think he’s given us that freedom to make decisions and he told us ‘you’re the parish, not me. I’m going to leave,’” she said. “I haven’t seen him showing favorites with one group. He’s fair. When he means business, he means business. I really respect him. I know it must be hard to be from another country and learn English and still make an effort to learn Spanish.”

Parishioner Carlotta Ramirez had similar gratitude. “I think he’s done very good, learned a lot of Spanish and likes Mexican things we do, our customs,” she said. “He has a lot of work because he works with the boys in the seminary and us.”

Strengthened by his most recent work as a pastor in Griffin, Father Williams looks forward to learning from Msgr. Giusta and parishioners at Santa Lucia, helping the parish to grow and, by baptismo de fuego or by baptism by fire, to become more fluent in Spanish by moving to Juaréz through November to assist at Sts. Peter and Paul Parish. He hopes that possibly other archdiocesan priests will have the opportunity to come to Juaréz for summer Spanish immersion, as the bishop there is very accommodating.

While it was hard to leave Atlanta where he was born and raised, Father Williams is ready for this challenge. “It’s exciting. Everything is new. It’s a challenge, a good chance to meet new people and learn the language and culture and be in a new place because there’s a lot to El Paso other than the heat,” he said.

And besides faith he’ll plant some other seeds as well. At the El Paso rectory he’s planning to plant cactuses and grow hot peppers in the yard so he can do a little Southwestern cooking. “I’ve loved Mexican food since I was a kid. I make my own salsa,” he said. “I thought it might be fun to try to grow cactuses and learn about Southwestern gardening.”

And as for Hernandez, as she learns from Father Williams and Msgr. Giusta, others also inspire her like Native American Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, on whom she attended a conference in mid-July in California. “We can be Native American and still be involved in the church.”