Carlos F. Galán was born in 1831 in Cadiz, Spain. At the age of fourteen, he moved with his family to Mexico in 1845. In 1874 he resided in the county of San Francisco, at the southeast corner of Stockton and Francisco streets. He was married to Laura H. Galán, and had twelve biological children, and two adopted sons. He was an interpreter and translator of the English, French, Spanish, and Italian languages. He resided in Mazatlan and Sinaloa, with his family until 1872. He died in Mexico City in October 1906.
Military life
At the age of fourteen, Galán, attended the military academy in Chapultepec in Mexico City. While in the military academy, he became a cadet and was promoted to lieutenant for the Mexican Army. He fought with Mexico during the Mexican–American War in 1846-1848.
Political life
At the end of the war, Galán, began to study law, was admitted to the bar and practiced on the Montgomery Block of Sinaloa and San Francisco, California. In the 1850s Galán worked in the Gold fields in California. He soon discovered that the working and living conditions for Mexicans were unbearable. He was a Chief Justice of Lower California as well as a member of its congress. In September 1867, he was elected as governor of Baja California, but for one year only. He became ex-Officio governor of the same territory until May 1868. He was involved in a case concerning claims made regarding the Abra Silver Mining Company. Galán gave his testimony at Washington DC on the third of January 1874. Because of his work in the newspaper and as a lawyer, he investigated happenings pertaining to this particular mining company. He translated and wrote down the depositions of several witnesses for the case regarding the claims that alleged damages had been sustained in consequence of particular acts and omissions of duty upon the part of official representatives of Republic of Mexico. Because of these claims, the Abra Company sought $1,930,000 from the government of Mexico in damages and losses suffered because of the violence committed by Mexico against the company. After all the trials and testimonies, it was determined that "the question stated in the act of 1892 whether the award in question 'was obtained as to the whole sum included therein, or as to any part thereof, by fraud effectuated by means of false swearing or other false and fraudulent practices on the part of the said La Abra Silver Mining Company, or its agents, attorneys, or assigns'—must be answered in the affirmative as to the whole sum included in the award. That company placed before the commission a state of facts that had no existence, and which we are constrained by the evidence to say its principal representatives must have known had no existence, but which being credited by the commission under the evidence adduced before it brought about the result complained of in the bill. The whole story of losses accruing to that company by reason of wrongs done by the authorities of Mexico, is, under the evidence, improbable and unfounded. We do not wish to be understood as saying that the company did not meet with losses on account of its investments in this mining property. But we do adjudge that it had no claim which, upon any principle of law or equity, it was entitled to assert against the Republic of Mexico."
Prominent works
In 1870, he moved back to California. He founded the first English and Spanish newspaper in lower California, called La Baja California. He published the first large weekly in Sinaloa, called the Occidental. From 1869-1872, Galán was also involved in another newspaper called La Voz de Pueblo, in Maztalan. Galán was a well educated man, and used his skills to edit several newspapers in Baja California and Sinaloa. He showed a predilection as a contributor for both an editor and a writer. Galan became editor of the newspaper La Voz del Nuevo Mundo in 1881 for one year. Galán wrote a series of sketches called "Recuerdos de California",, that were published in May 21, May 28, and June 11, 1881, in La Voz del Nuevo Mundo. These stories are narrated by the perceptive of a former Sonora mining camp resident.
As a Latino/a writer, Carlos F. Galán contributed to American literature through his short prose narratives in Spanish print culture coming out of California. His works show the cross-roads of U.S. and hemispheric U.S. literary history. Specifically, his three sketches titled "Recuerdos de California" provide a look at the multinational working class community in California and a look at how the Latino/a community without privilege experienced the new order of U.S. dominance. Since the work dates to the late 19th Century, the focus on the region of California allows for a demonstration of the Latino/a community only a couple of decades removed from the aftermath of the U.S.-Mexican War. Additionally, as editor of La Voz del Nuevo Mundo, Galán focused the newspaper on themes of Latino/a modernity and cosmopolitanism in order to demonstrate the participation of the Latino/a community in the U.S. to modernity.
