Letters

What a sad day for the descendants of the Spanish/Mexican-speaking settlers of our region. Our Fiesta Queen was hijacked from her home at Our Lady of Sorrows. The Fiesta Queen es La Reina de Las Fiestas de Nuestra Señora de Dolores de Las Vegas Grandes. She didn’t pull the train into Las Vegas in the late 1870s, nor is she a firecracker. She represents the settlement of the Las Vegas Land Grant way before the Easterners brought their celebration to our community.

On Bridge Street, Amnesty International Group 463 recently joined supporters of the National Religious Campaign against Torture to engage passers-by in conversations about the use of prolonged solitary confinement.  Thus far, they have collected nearly 150 signatures on the Coalition’s nationwide petition to end its widespread use.

The changing of the Fiesta Mass from Our Lady of Sorrows Church to the Immaculate Conception Church is indeed a “travesty.” The reason? To present Las Vegas as a single community. If people don’t know that it is a single community, then you’re in the wrong city. A tradition that’s over 100 years old was broken probably just to please a few individuals.

I can’t believe the mayor allowed it. What’s next? Move the Fiestas to Lincoln Park? I wouldn’t doubt it if it didn’t already cross somebody’s mind.

I found (Tom McDonald’s) Editor’s Note “The rises and falls of the Vigils” in very poor taste. Your article attacked members of the family’s 17 children, several who are deceased and unable to defend themselves. You must have sources to obtain information (some of which is not true) and some of which is over 40 years old (only known to deceased members and their lawyer, who is still alive). I know most of the Vigil family very well and I find them to be friendly, hardworking honest people.