TRANSCRIPTION
What are your earliest childhood memories?
“A good one or a bad one. (Ha ha ha) Well, we worked hard in the, in the, in the ranch. We worked hard. We had to get up real early in the morning. Go…Como se llama?...milk cows. Come back home get really to go to school. And then on the summertime. We would plow. We would help my father with the… with the farming. We picked cotton. We would…(mumble) When you picked the cotton plants…(slapped hand on table as if demonstrating some art of farming technique) Como se dice?... and we would take all the weeds out. I don’t know what you call it.”
What was your relationship with your parents like, growing up? What memories do you have of them?
“My daddy was the most wonderful husband to my mother. He was a very, very good man. Very hardworking man. My mother was a beautiful housewife. Always making homemade bread. She never worked. And I remember we were always together. We would always eat together, not like they do now. We had supper, and if you weren’t hungry, I’m sorry, jito, you stayed without eating. Everybody would sit at a table. A big homemade table. And my mother would always pray the rosary, and I never forget it. Every night, she would go to her room, and pray the rosary.”
What was your home life like with your siblings? Where are they now? Do you still keep in contact with them?
“Well, I was one out of eleven brothers and sisters. Seven girls and four boys. I was number seven from the bottom. The fifth oldest. It was Emma, Mila, Amada, Estella, and me then Beto, Lile, Mando, Tina, Nene, and Noldi. My mother had two miscarriages, Jose and Zulema. I remember Jose, but Zulema was born before me, and I remember my mother was so depressed for weeks or months at at time. There was so many of us living in the same house. It was always like five to a room, until the oldest were old enough to move out. Even then, we were still cramped. We either played with each other or fought. But we didn’t fight a lot, because then my father would make us pick a branch, take off the leaves, and then we were spanked with it. So we never fought. Ha ha ha. / They are everywhere. Mila is in Indiana. Stella lives in Alice, Texas. Amada and Nene is in Corpus Christi, Texas. Tina, Beto, and Lile are in San Diego, Texas. Noldi and Mando are still in Palito Blanco, Texas. And Emma is in heaven.” / Of course we keep in contact, I always have to go at least once a month to the ranch, and we all get together and sing and just be with each other.”
Since you went to high school away from your hometown, who did you live with?
“I lived with my aunts from ninth to twelfth. My aunts that never got married. And they were the two happiest aunts I seen, cause they never got married. (Hahaha) One was eighty-six and one was ninety-four when they died. Can you imagine?”
What memories do you have from high school?
“I had a beautiful time in high school. Volleyball player (Haha) One of the best ones! Basketball. I played basketball, and I played baseball or softball or whatever. I was a cheerleader. And I was a drum…a drum majorette one year. My senior year. I remember when I graduated I was very, very sad, because nobody went to my graduation except my tias. My two tias that I loved very much. I stayed with them for four years. But my father didn’t have a truck, a car, or whatever to come see me graduate.”
What did you want to do after high school? What did you do after high school?
“I wanted to get my wings and fly! Ha Ha Ha. No, I came to San Antonio and met your grandpa. It was me and my sister, Emma. We paid rent for an apartment. I went to school. I went to business school for a, for a few months. And I worked for, Como se llama?, Goodyear? Goodyear or B.F. Goodrich? It was Goodyear Tires. I worked there as a secretary for a few months. I was eighteen.”
Did you ever see/experience racism or discrimination growing up?
“Oh, there was a lot of…a lot o it. The first time I got on a bus in San Antonio, I couldn’t believe it that they wouldn’t let the black people sit in the front. And I told my sister, ‘What’s going on?’ And she told me, ‘Oh the black people sit in the back seats.’ And I didn’t know. It was 1952 (nodded head) when I came here. There was a lot of discrimination…at that time. It didn’t really…It didn’t really, um, work on ‘em ‘til what 1960 when Martin Luther King Jr. started in ’58. When Kennedy…in 1960. Around there.”
Since our family is known for singing Norteño music, were you ever offered any opportunities for a singing career?
“Oh, yes! Oh, yes! I went to, uh, Como se dice?...when they had a singing contest they had. And I won with the mariachis. They didn’t give you nothing just a little something. And they wanted me to go to Mexico to sing with them, to practice with them. I wanted to, but my dad didn’t let me. At that time, you would respect your parents. You would do what your parents told you to do, so…There was my career, gone down the drain! (Hahaha) Ay yay yay! When I went to the thing I was probably sixteen, seventeen years old. Still in high school.”
Since your father owned a ranch in Palito Blanco, TX, were you entitled to any property?
“Yes, it was my father’s ranch. And I had three acres. And I sold them because of Martin, hahaha. Because Martin got into trouble. Nah, este, my father raised a farm of thirty-three acres. That was it.”
What was marriage life like since you were young, and away from your family?
“I got married in San Antonio in 1953. December 5th. We lived with his mother. I had eight children. All by myself! I raised them. I was a slave!...for my husband in the fifties. Ha Ha Ha! My husband was never home. He worked for the government. He played baseball, and he was never home. (clapped hands upset) He was the water boy. I had Martin in first in 1953, and the other ones came consecutively every year. I had six girls in a row, and then Tito was the last one, Ernest.”
What is your stance on church and religion?
“I just wish that everybody would go to church and think about Jesus. And love Jesus. And be with Jesus all the time. And I use to go to rosaries everyday with a friend of mine. Everyday. Every afternoon, we would go to rosaries in San Diego, Texas. And we had to wear a veil, uh huh.”
What was your job history like? How was the work environment?
“I only worked two jobs my life. The secretary job at Good Year Tires for a few months, and then the Hilton. After my children, I went to work in 1970 I think. I work as a waitress first, and then I worked as a hostess the last seven years at the Hilton Hotel. And I had the most beautiful experience, because the people were so, so nice. Yeah, the people were nice, cause the people that came to the Hilton were good people. People that had a lot of education. Things like that. I retired in the year 2000.”
What are your hobbies after retirement?
“I’ve been a housewife to my grandchildren. They love my tortillas and tamales. Homemade Tamales. Homemade cakes. (raised eyebrows) Caldo. Carne Guisada (Hahaha).”
What political party are you for? What is your perspective on voting?
“Democratic, of course. There was one thing my father always told us, ‘The only thing you could do is vote, wherever you want to vote, ain’t nobody going to tell you how to vote.’ That’s the privilege you have when your eighteen. So I always voted all my life. Whether I liked the person running for president or not.”
Do you regret anything?
“I had a beautiful, beautiful children. I don’t regret having my children! And my grandchildren. I have twenty-two grandchildren, and eighteen great grandchildren. That’s what I have. I’m going to be seventy-five. But I don’t regret, I don’t regret having my children, a lot of people do.”
Do you wish you could have changed anything in your life?
“Of course, I regret, um, because at that time your parents wouldn’t tell you to take care of yourselves. Not to have so many children so young. You know, things like that. Nowadays, you all have these things in school, and yet there are lot of teenagers having babies. They shouldn’t have babies, cause there too young. I was to young to have babies.”
Is there anything else you would like to add to this interview?
“If I could do it all over again, I would go to college. And, um get a better education, more educated. And I always wanted to have all boys to go to the service, but God gave me girls instead. I’m very proud of my grandchildren. And I don’t regret having my children, they’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”
