TRANSCRIPTION
What is your favorite childhood memory?
Eating (laughs) eating hamburgers...really? We use to work all the time so getting together and eating a hamburger or even a bologna sandwich would do the trick...yes!!
What were your hobbies when growing up on the ranch?
Just beginning with my family when we weren't working. My dad would always tell us-"your family is going to be the one left standing when all your friends are gone," I believe that.
What was your highest level of education achieved?
Well they didn't care if you went to school or not...but if you didn't go to school guess what? You were going to work. So I did...yes I stopped going to in the third grade.
At what age did you start working as a migrant worker?
Well you started working when you were enough, but I started at nine years old with my mom and dad and my brothers and sisters. At what age was old enough to work in the fields? I think they were old enough about twelve or thirteen years old.
What were your duties working in the fields?
Well, we all did the same job my dad would just say "Just keep on working", and that's what we did. Didn't matter if you were picking the cherry off the tree or the cotton off the ground we kept working.
What was your job like?
Well the potato was really heavy because you had to fill the twenty pound bag, then you had to fill another bucket of potatoes. I don't remember how big that bucket was maybe hundred pounds? I don't know, but I was really hard because the "pa-pa" (Spanish word for potato) was really heavy. Our job was mostly filling bags, cleaning fruits. I remember working with the mint, and don you know what "Mint" is? It's what they make the gum out of. But the mint was all root and you had to cover the seed with your feet all day long, and all day long you would be walking and moving your legs so I was in shape.
Describe a typical day at work?
You had to get up real early in the morning fix lunch fix breakfast and lunch and have everything ready cause you didn't have time they didn't give you an hour to go eat cause you can take as long as you wanted but the longer you take the less money you do.
Who would work with you?
All my brothers and sisters would work we all did the same job... we would race each other to see who would fill the bag up first... in whatever we were working on. It would make time go by faster.
What would you pick in the fields?
We picked onions, mint, carrots, and potatoes. And in Michigan cherry and strawberries oh and cotton...yes cotton!
Where would you and your family travel to work?
Uh...different place of town like Renodo, Weslaco to work in the fields you know. Michigan, Traverse City only there not Wisconsin. Well we did work in Wisconsin Markesan, Wisconsin.
How many hours a day would you work?
Well we would get a fifteen minute break because that's all the time my dad would allow us to take. Then we would go back to work for as long as the sun let us. People hated that about my family cause we would be working while they were on break or taking a breather, well we couldn't help it if we weren't lazy you know you.
Did it matter how many hours you worked? No, because they would pay us on how much of something we picked it could be anything let's say strawberries that's what they were going to pay you for. How much did you do that day... you know
How much would you get pay for the work you did?
You know "Mija", my dad would never let us know exactly how much they use to pay. He would keep all the money so I don't know how much they paid. I don't know if it was a hundred dollars or twenty dollars.
Did you ever find out?
NO... but when we were working in the strawberry fields it was different cause I was with your grandpa already so I knew how much they paid then. So I'm guessing the same...I don't know.
Did you ever miss a day of work?
Once in a while, when I was upset (laughs). But I tried to never miss a day of work. You know what "Mija"; I was still working in the fields when I married your grandpa and when I got pregnant with your "Mommy". So no I never missed work.
Did your family own the ranch and/or house you stayed on while working away from home?
No we would go work with someone else and stay there with them for the longest of six months. But when we were done working for long periods of time we knew that when you would go back home we had our house.
In what class would you classify your family back then; upper, middle, or lower class?
I think the middle because there were people that they could not work, so they were really low, you know. So we use to do okay cause we use to work we had a little bit of money.
After, marriage did you continue working in the fields?
Yes, I remember I meet your grandpa in the onion fields (for real...laughs). We were picking up onions and to the day your grandpa says my hands smell the same-of onions-twenty seven years and my hands still smell like onion, but yes I did continue working in the fields.
Till what age did you stop working in the fields?
You know I try to remember that all the time, and I just can't remember. It was three years before your Tia Josie got married so that all I Know.
What year did Tia Josie get married?
In 1977.
How often did you and the family attend church?
Oh, we didn't go to church that often only when someone was getting married, and we all grew up Catholic and still to this day...I'm Catholic.
Did you learn anything while working in the fields that would benefit you today?
Well yes... I learned that you really have to go to school so that way you won't have to be working as hard as it would be in the fields. Like in an office it's a different type of work.
Is there anything else you would like to add to this interview?
Just that I hope you don't tell everyone I got married at fifteen. Is that bad? No, I'm just kidding put it on there, so that your friends know I'm taken.
