“Loreta Velazquez arrives in New Orleans as a young girl. The daughter of a wealthy Cuban family, she loses her children to fever and her husband dies in an accident. Without any family to call her own, she decides to follow in the footsteps of her idol, Joan of Arc. Her story is told in a new documentary called REBEL.”
SECRET REBEL : Latino USA
latinousa.org/2013/05/24/secret-rebel
LATINO USA MARIA AGUI CARTER RADIO INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Rebel Clip: Loreta
I must learn to act, to talk, to almost think like a man. I am known as Harry T. Buford, confederate soldier.
Interviewer: Loreta Velazquez arrives in New Orleans as a young girl. The daughter of a wealthy Cuban family, she loses her children to fever and her husband dies in an accident. Without any family to call her own, she decides to follow in the footsteps of her idol, Joan of Arc. Her story is told in a new documentary called REBEL. Itʼs the passion project of writer/director, Maria Agui Carter.
Maria: Iʼm a history buff. I had watched every hour of Ken Burnsʼ Civil War. There was no mention of this kind of unlikely character– much less the women soldiers. I learned that, in fact, historians have found hundreds and hundreds of women who are now documented to have fought in the American Civil War and here is this woman, Loreta Velazquez, whoʼd written a memoir, “The Woman In Battle”, in 1876. One of only two 19th century memoirs published by a Latina in the US
and no one knew about her.
Interviewer: After the war, former confederate general, Jubal Early labeled her story a hoax. As Loretaʼs book disappeared, so did the history of other women soldiers. We now know that an estimated 500 to 1000 women fought in the war. Loretaʼs story, though, gives new meaning to the term, “double pass.” It also raises lots of questions about our notions of race and gender. First, she fought as a white man for the south, even owning a black slave named Bob. But later she became a double agent, spying for the Union Army. In the film, Loreta, Carter found not only a character from history she never expected, but she found a character with a shared history.
Maria: Loreta came to the US at seven years old. Uh, I also came to the US at seven from Latin America as she did. She came to love this country and she was a Latina and she was a women; two things that in any century are difficult categories to fall in. There are stereotypes and expectations of what a woman and what a Latina can do and she defies all of those expectations.
Interviewer: REBEL is premiering nation-wide on PBS. Check out website latinoUSA.org for local listings.