The extended Fraga family has been true to keeping their family’s story alive. For a number of decades elder members of the extended family have been carefully building a rich collection of video and audio recordings that document their family’s history, starting when in 1919 their grandparents Valeriano and Martina Fraga left Mexico going first to Texas then Michigan. This protracted project culminated in a milestone event when their documentary film, Michoacan to Michigan, debuted at the Detroit Institute of Arts’ Film Theatre Sunday October 19, 2019. The film showing celebrated the 100 years of their family’s history in Michigan. Immediately it was hailed as a significant achievement and has contributed greatly to documenting the Mexican American experience in Michigan.
In a recent interview with cousins Len Radjewski and Ralph Valdez, both members of the extended Fraga family, Ralph mentioned that so many in the audience came up to them after the showing and emotionally expressed how motivating it was for them to see the film and often recounted their own families’ stories of migration/immigration. Len and Ralph experienced a similar response when the film was shown at the Saginaw Art Museum.
Ralph Valdez, whom I have known and worked with in several cultural ventures, notably the annual Concert of Colors, is Underwriting Representative for Detroit’s Public Radio WDET 101.9. Len Radjewski is a freelance media producer who took the lead in producing the documentary. He taught film production in a number of Huron Valley area schools before retiring.
Family members also developed a website which further elaborates on their collective story. It can be viewed at www.thefragafamily.com. I enjoyed exploring the website and found it to be well organized, comprehensive and quite an educational experience. In addition to telling the Michigan story, extended family members in Michoacan, Mexico are also featured. Over the decades the two sides of the family have maintained contact, which has only strengthened in more recent years due to the release of the film. The family, to their credit, update it on a regular basis. It is no exaggeration to say it serves as a model for others to emulate.
Daniel Fraga, Valeriano and Martina Fraga’s youngest son, also wrote a book with the same title further enhancing this documentation. Mexican cousins Lara Eugenio Solís Chávez and her husband, José Mendoza Lara, university history professors, authors and publishers in Morelia provided the Spanish translation found in the bilingual book.
Starting in the 1970’s a number of family members, most notably uncles Daniel and Martin Fraga as well as cousin Ed Fraga, carefully conducted bilingual video and audio interviews with the founding patriarchs, Martina (Herrejon) and Valeriano Fraga. They interviewed them on reel-to-reel audiotapes, capturing their stories-in Spanish and English. Other family members contributed home movies, photographs, official documentation and written recollections to the documentary and website. This marked a new phase in the already existing tradition of sharing oral history within the family.
Fraga patriarch Valeriano and matriarch Martina (Herrejon) left Michoacán with their two children at the time, Esperanza (Frances) who was five years old and Erasmo (John) not yet two years of age, to Texas in 1919. After a short period there, they left for Michigan that same year, arriving in Michigan’s Thumb area near Saginaw. Valeriano fearing for his life fled Mexico because of the violence that country was experiencing associated with its revolution. After a few harrowing incidents he felt he had no recourse but to leave. Once in Michigan he landed a job in a foundry where he worked for about a year.
Ralph’s mother, Esperanza the eldest of the children, once in the U.S. became known as Frances since the Anglo-Americans they encountered could not pronounce her given name. She remembered working in the sugar beet fields along with the adults. They lived as sharecroppers on a number of farms in the Thumb area around North Branch, Marlette and Brown City.
Ralph’s father, Natividad Valdez, who was raised on a farm in Michoacan, arrived in Michigan as a teen, and met his mother on the Fraga farm where he served as a ranch hand.
Len’s mother Marjorie Fraga’s was the youngest of the five Fraga daughters. She would later follow most of her older sisters to find work in Detroit. She and her sister, Carmen lived next to the Radjewski family and they eventually married brothers Lenny, his father and Bill his uncle (respectively). Len reflected on the fact that his mother Margie was proud of her Mexican roots and played her records of Javier Solís, Edie Gorme and the Trio Los Panchos among many others. His father Lenny was a decorated WWII Army veteran, a bricklayer and worked for the City of Detroit for 40 years.
After a lifetime of working on farms owned by others, Valeriano Fraga at the age of 60 purchased his own farm, a life-long dream. What Len and Ralph would call the “iconic family farm”, was located in Imlay City. Bought around 1950, family members visited frequently. They fondly remember siblings would spend time fixing it, doing farm and house chores such as haying, and other related tasks while the cousins bonded.
Valeriano and Martina Fraga would eventually leave Imlay City when they reached their 80’s, moving to the east side of Detroit in the Gratiot and Outer Drive area where Ralph grew up. By then several other family members had moved to the Detroit area making it easier to maintain family contact and support.
Len and Ralph hope younger members of the family will continue to keep the family’s storytelling tradition alive. They point to the fact the family continues to print a newsletter, started in the 1970’s, detailing the latest “happenings” such as births, weddings etc. They became animated when talking about their annual family reunion, started in 1983, where almost 200 members attended. Members take turns hosting the event. This past August 3rd the 41st Annual Picnic was held in Troy Michigan’s Raintree Park and was hosted by Ralph and the Valdez family.
Trust me when I say what I have shared above is a small snapshot of the stories they have shared with us. We are lucky they have done so. Maybe it can be a model for other families? What do you think? Check out their website which can be found at www.thefragafamily.com.
I know I will be visiting it regularly to see what else they have shared.
