When she was a child, Darlene Tenes learned about the California missions as part of her elementary school curriculum. She recalls, however, that there was no mention of the mistreatment of the Native Americans in the textbooks.
As an adult, these holes in the historical record prompted Tenes to start a speaker series at the San Jose Woman’s Club that aims to teach, engage and activate the community.
Dubbed the TEA Talks, the series is a joint effort with La Raza Historical Society and Latina Coalition of Silicon Valley. It is funded by the Santa Clara County Office of Women’s Policy’s Division of Equity and Social Justice.
“The purpose of these talks is to bring to light previously ignored history or issues in the community,” said organizer Darlene Tenes. “Historical negationism or denialism is an illegitimate distortion of the historical record. It is often imprecisely referred to as historical revisionism.”
According to Tenes, in 2017 the National Women’s History Museum analyzed the K-12 educational standards in social studies across the nation and found that of the 737 historical figures mentioned, 178 were women, with 62 percent being white, 25 percent Black and 8 percent Hispanic.
In her June 30 TEA Talk, “Castro Women: A Historical Telenovela,” Tenes said the marriage between Thomas Fallon, an early San Jose mayor, and Carmelita Castro was representative of unions between settlers who came to California in the 1800s and those who already resided in the state, many of whom were of Spanish, Mexican and Native American ancestry.
Irish-born Fallon married Castro, daughter of a local landowner, and built the Fallon House in downtown San Jose, which is now preserved as a museum. The couple divorced after 26 years after Castro discovered her husband’s infidelity. She invested in real estate, including the Carmel Fallon building, an historic property on Market Street in San Francisco.
Due to the pandemic, the free TEA Talks are taking place online. Upcoming talks include “Help Shape your Community: Boards and Commissions” on July 7; “Voting Rights for Women and People of Color” on July 21; and “Municipal Housekeepers: The Woman’s Club Movement” on July 28.
Future topics and speakers in the works are “Kids in Cages” by attorney and children’s advocate Warren Bilford, and “Rad American Women” by author Kat Schatz.
TEA Talks take place at 6:30 p.m. at https://www.facebook.com/sjwomansclub.
