Isabel Hernandez (nee Castillo)
What was your childhood like?
It was nice, I don’t remember much .The furthest I can remember is being three years old and seeing my father and mother arguing. My dad packing up all his stuff and getting my uncle Toni who he raised since he was a…little boy because his parents died and he had to take care of his little brother Toni; Toni was just a few years older than me. My dad at the time must have been like nineteen… my mother was like eighteen or so. The got married when they were very young my dad was seven…sixteen and she was fifteen when they married…so the first thing I remember is him packing all his clothes and taking my uncle Toni away and… I didn’t see him for a very long time after that. I only saw him once in awhile when he would bring me a big gift like a set of swings, a bike, a TV; stuff I wouldn’t never had. But they were very far apart and… (Pause) then gradually he forgot about me started a new family while he was STILL married to my mother with another woman and gradually forgot I existed.
What did you do as a child?
We used to live on the ranch or farm what ever you want to call it. I lived in an old shack with tin roof FULL of holes. When it rained me and mom had to run around looking for a place so we could sleep put our bed so we could sleep and not get wet. It was very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter because the walls were so warn and a little bit apart and all the wind and all the heat what ever could come in and out. There were lots of snakes, and lizards and rats.
How was life at school?
I was really smart, even though I do say so myself, I went to Southwest (High School); it was out in the country when I first started going to Southwest, there were mainly Anglos. Only light colored Hispanics were allowed in the main building that was made out of brick so there was like four main buildings and only the whites or the light colored Hispanics were allowed there and all the other ones would go to where the cafeteria was, there was a bunch of old buildings and they would all be put over there in the Special Education, there was only a handful of Hispanics that were allowed in the main building and I was lucky enough that I was smart enough that my teacher recommended me and I was put up there. So it wasn’t too bad but I know a lot of kids… that had to be put in Special Ed.
Did you always work on the farm?
YUP, I started little helping my mom and then by the time I was like nine or ten I started working on my own.
What did you eat?
Our diet consisted of mainly beans, and tortillas and an occasional egg were I thought I was a feast when we had an eggs or potatoes and I used to take my salt shaker from home when we used to pick tomatoes or cucumbers or stuff like that and I could sit in the fields and eat it right out of the ground with my salt shakerOnce when I was like…oh I don’t know seven or eight that when they had to take me into town to take me to a doctor because of my appendix and on our way home after my check up my aunt bought some fried chicken for three dollars from where she used to work and I got to eat my first piece of fried chicken. MAN I thought that was best thing god ever made (laughing)..
What did you do for medical needs?
We didn’t…we didn’t go to the doctor the only time I went to a doctor was when my appendix erupted but before that... like when a wasp bit my eye my mom would just get mud and put it on my eye. I was… I was hardly ever got sick. I guess I got a lot of good immune system from all the hurt I went through.
Did you live anywhere else besides Texas and wish you were Anglo?
When I was eleven, we moved down to Lancaster,California just to see if my mom could find a decent job and things could get a little easier… it was nice but it was a little lonely because it was mostly white kids and they weren’t used to Hispanics back then. My aunt was Hispanic and so was her little girl but they looked more white than Hispanics because on my dads side they were all Hispanic and on my mother side my grandmother was half German, so they came out looking white with blue eyes and sandy hair I don’t know… they just looked white while I looked completely Hispanic. NO, not really, I am glad I am what I am.
Did you ever get married and what was your role as being the wife?
(Sign)Eventually I married a man I thought was gonna make a good papa for my kids but he turned out to be a jerk. But maybe that was the way he always was… he just became worst. I cooked and cleaned and took care of my mother… since I was thirteen till she past away when I was in my mid thirties.
What jobs did you obtain?
While before I married and after I married I had to pay the bills so I would…I have worked in the fields, I have worked as a nanny, I have worked as a house keeper, sales clerk, a daycare, I worked at lots of odd jobs whatever I could find. Without an education you can’t get anywhere.
Do think your past has had an impact on your life? Did it help shape who you are?
I am stronger and I can take whatever you throw at me good or bad.
What do you teach your children? What advice do you give them?
The most important advice is … try to have some integrity and education is the ONLY way out of poverty.
What are and what were your goals and ambitions?
I don’t have many goals now except live long enough to finish raising the youngest who is ten and making her a good person and hoping that she’ll get a good education and have a decent life.
What do you wish you could have accomplished?
To have gone to college and have set a good example for my kids.
What is the one thing you have learned in life?
You have to take whatever life throws at you and just hope.
How is your life different from your mothers?
I am a lot stronger I care very much about my children. I hang in there.
Do you think there are more advantages for Hispanics today?
Oh yes lots more, now at least there’s… many role models that kids can look up to that are Hispanics and now there is financial aid, scholarships everything that Hispanics can do that white can do.
What is your greatest accomplishment?
My children, I think I raised them all to be great people and they know a value of a dollar and they also know that it’s not easy they have to work for what they get and that includes getting a very good education so they don’t have to break their backs working for pennies.
Did anything historically happen when you were younger?
Yeah when I was in… I guess now they call it kinder, at the time they called it pre-premier, I remember my teacher crying and all the teachers were crying and making a fuss and that when I, we found out John F. Kennedy had been shot. I didn’t know who he was. My mom knew and I thought…my mother was a very ignorant woman who didn’t know much of anything and she knew who he was.
When was it when you started drinking or smoking?
I must of be in my…mid to late twenties when I decided why not.
What obstacles have you encountered and overcome?
I have encountered obstacles that now that I am in my fifties I have been very ill my back is a mess from working since I was a little girl carrying things that weighed twice my weight and then having to take care of my mom because she had a complete nervous breakdown at age…when I was about thirteen and she had my kid brother and I had to physically carry her, I had to take care of her as if she were the baby and I was the grown up because my grandmother told me if I didn’t want to take care of her there was places where we could put her and put my bother in an orphanage and they would send me off with my father. So I took the load of taking care of my mother and raising my brother and now that I am old I am all broken. I have Rheumatoid Arthritis that attacks my body really bad that immune… disease that attacks my immune system and then I have Fibromyalgia a disease that your body feels like they beat it up everyday and then I have some heart problems and some back problems… I have it all …you name it and I have it. My body finally struck back, said no more and attacked me. My kiddos, my great great kiddos keep me going, because they did not ask me to have them and it is my responsibility to raise each and everyone of them until they are capable of flying the cop and I will hang in there until my youngest is ready to fly. I also have beautiful grandchildren that need me, I have two babies that are the light of my life and I will try to make it for them. And that’s all I have to say.
Is there anything else you would like to add to this interview?
NO… my daughter very wonderful and I love her love cause she is so smart (laughing).
I am grateful to have a mother who is willful and strong; she stand up for what she believes in. What I have learned from her is that you have to stand tall and take whatever life throws at you because you are the only who can take charge of your life. Through out my family’s lives we have be encourage and pushed to do the best we can because as my mother says, “Education is the only way out of poverty." I never knew that my mother had to give up her childhood to attend to her mother at age thirteen. I cannot imagine myself at age thirteen taking the role as an adult at such a young age. If there is one thing that I have learned from interviewing my mother is that you choose how you want to live your life. You make your own decisions. And like what my mother always says, “It does not matter where you live; it is how you live it. And it does not matter where you were raised but how you were raised.” Even though my mother life has been hard; she is living proof even in bad times there is always something good out there to put a smile on your face. My mother is the only link to our family’s history. Now that she has shared some of it with me, later in life I can share it with my own children in the future. All my mother ever wanted in life was to see her children to succeed and I can honestly say we have accomplished and still are working on having a good life for ourselves.
This song "Build me up Buttercup" is my mother's favorite song. It was modernized though; I could not find original song.
The Handbook of Texas Online. Copyright © The Texas State Historical Association. The Handbook of Texas Online is a multidisciplinary encyclopedia of Texas history, geography, and culture sponsored by the Texas State Historical Association and the General Libraries at University of Texas at Austin. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/ Last Updated: May 16, 2005.
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