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RUIZ LEGACIES is a biographical history of the RUIZ family tree that germinated in the Province of Málaga, Spain. It includes family stories, photographs, ancestral documents, and genealogical sources from personal visits, phone conversations and memories.
Dolores RUIZ García, Antonio RUIZ Martos, Francisco RUIZ García and María REY García immigrated from Spain to the sugarcane fields of Hawaii in the early 1900s. They formed a nucleus of Spaniards who held onto their culture, but determined to raise their children as Americans. Today, more than a century later, their descendants have merged worlds and cultures. I was born in California, raised in Oregon and now settled in Arizona. I linked myself with Spain, Hawaii and the Spanish cousins who remain there. I discovered the stories of our people and salvaged their voices to share with other Ruiz descendants.
My focus was to know the family member, not gossip about their shortfalls. The Girl Immigrant, was published in 2013 after I walked through their Spanish villages with family memories in my head. It is a novel laced with imagination; based on historical facts. It could be the immigration story of many other Spanish families. Many of the biographies describe family members in rich detail, others briefly touch on their lives.
When I was filmed in the documentary about the descendants of the Heliopolis ship that carried Dolores “Glory” RUIZ García with her husband Antonio RUIZ Martos from Spain to Hawaii, I was elated.
When I began this research, I thought there had been only one sister named Antonia who they left behind. But we were wrong. I was able to populate the family tree with six more siblings who stayed in Spain when our ancestors sailed away...
Genre: FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Extended Family
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In 1905, as part of a plan to encourage new laborers for their sugar plantations, the Hawaiian Board of Immigration adopted a policy to hire foreign persons and offer them stability. They targeted hard-working Spaniards and Portuguese farmers because they were familiar with sugarcane growing and harvesting techniques.
To encourage the immigration of workers, they promised to provide their working families an acre of land, a house, free schooling for their children, guaranteed work and free passage to the Hawaiian Islands financed by contributions from sugar plantations and agencies. Posters were distributed throughout Spain and Portugal announcing the program with the hope of enticing them to their sugarcane fields.
In the winter of 1906, agents of Hawaii’s sugar industry arrived in the seaport of Málaga on the southern tip of Spain. Posters were posted in plazas and shops to encourage Spaniards to accept the invitation. Our Ruiz ancestors met with the alcalde (mayor) to begin paperwork required to immigrate to Hawaii.
When it was time to leave, the family gathered their belongings into one trunk allowed. The first ship, Heliopolis, left the Port of Málaga in 1907. The fourth ship, SS Harpalion sailed from Gibraltar with in 1912.
The ships sailed past the northwest coast of Africa and crossed the Atlantic Ocean to South America and proceeded down the east coast of South America through the Strait of Magellan, making a coal refueling stop at Punta Arenas, Chile and then northwest on the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii. The Panama Canal did not open until 1914 and now the trip saves 8,000 nautical miles of travel, avoiding Cape Horn.
The Ruiz family in California told me that “some family members lived in Hawaii and spelled their name with an s.” Hence, a mixture of Ruiz and Ruis names are in this book.
