Mary-Helen Rodriguez (nee Canavacholo )

Mary-Helen Rodriguez

San Antonio, Texas

March 2015

Destiny Renee Garcia

Palo Alto College

History 1302 - Spring 2015

 

INTRODUCTION
TRANSCRIPTION
ANALYSIS
TIMELINE

 

INTRODUCTION

Mary Rodriguez was born on June 28,1947 to Juan-Diego and Amalia Canavacholo in Corpus Christi, Texas. They had 7 kids; 5 girls and 2 boys. Mary was the first born child. In 1949 she moved to San Antonio. Although she didn't finish school at South Side HS, she worked at Luby's cafeteria in 1963. She married her first husband lupe in 1965. They had a baby boy two years later in 1967, named Jesse. During that time she worked in the cafeteria at Kelly for two years. She divorced lupe in 1969. Five years later she met Daniel Rodriguez and married him in 1977. Together they had two kids David born on December 31,1973 ; and Denise born on October 17,1978. They also bought their own house that same year. Mary went back to school and got her GED in 1989. In 2004, her son jesse passed away. Started working in the edgewood district in 2013. In 2014 she suffered a accident that has happened during school. Considering she can't do alot , she went through AARP and got a job at the salvation army in 2014 til right now.

 

 

TRANSCRIPTION

Daniel And Mary Rodriguez. Wedding in San Antonio in 1977.

Is there any places in San Antonio that you miss that are no longer around?
I use to go to solo serve , thats where we would get our clothes and buy jewelry.

What advice would you give women of todays generation?
Well uhm todays generation, I think that if you get married you should stay married , because well instead of fighting and separating/divorcing if you have children you should try and work it out

What was your favorite fashion trend when you were in high school?
My favorite fashion trend was a dress and flat shoes , ya know , cause it was back then. Oh! And I always use to tease my hair really high and sometimes I would curl it to make my hair big.

What are your earliest childhood memories?
We use to go to all the different rivers because my dad liked to go fishing and camping when I was younger.

Do you think men and women had equal rights when you started working?
no, the men use to make more money than the women. so no we were not treated the same.

Did you face any racism when growing up?
yes when we would go downtown there would be different water fountains for the hispanics and the african americans because the white people had put them there.

What accomplishments are you most proud of?
Raising a family because well I mean I use to go to school when they were in school,and your mother joined the dance team, and uncle david joined ROTC, and they really liked it so that made me happy.

Was it easy to find a job or work?
Yes, I worked at miller curtain company. I worked there for about 14/15 years.

What family activities did you and your family do when you were younger?
well we use to go out of town to corpus christi, take the kids swimming up there. Or take the kids to dallas to go on the rides at a theme park. And also kept up the tradition of fishing and camping at different rivers.

Is there anything else you would like to add to this interview?
No, I think im done.

Mary and daniel in acapulco.

 

 

Your Name and Your Interviewee- recent photo- taken during the interview?

ANALYSIS

The most important points that were made in this interview was just that the way that things use to be back then and right now such as relationships, stores, laws and stuff were really different than how they are today. Things are very segregated in today’s society and nobody really cares about your color or your religion. Well .. some people . I learned that my grandma was married before her and my grandpa got married, that she had all these random jobs that she actually stuck out, and also that her and my grandpa owned a “molino” when i was little. My view on this topic did not change after interviewing my grandma because I sort of got the answers I was looking for and it was kind of an easy topic for her to remember. My grandma’s feelings weren’t sad or anything they were more like content if anything, the only sad moment was when I had brought up my uncle, but only because that was her oldest child and he passed away a few years ago, and the rest of her feelings were mostly happy because her other kids are living their lives healthy and alive. These stories taught me about how San Antonio use to be when I was little and how much it changed and how much it keeps growing. I tried my best to verify these stories by asking my mom because she knew alot about these stores that use to be around and aren’t anymore and my step-dad more of the historical questions because he’s a big history junkie. The drawbacks of learning about history through the oral history process is , I guess, not really experiencing for yourself and also not really getting the full story just bits and pieces and wondering what led to everything new to today. The benefit of it is just knowing, knowing what use to be where you lived, or how downtown was, or the cool hangouts for teens back then. I personally dont think it’s an effective way to learn about history, I’d rather live back then to know the whole story then to be told and keep wondering what if. This isn’t effective in my opinion because you’re just finding out information for a grade. There’s a difference between somebody telling you and you actually living in that time frame.

 

 

TIMELINE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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