1

Elias Esquer Interview

Tempe History Museum

OH/Tape #: 320 (Side A & B) 2 tapes

Date of Interview April 1, 2009

Interviewer: Charlene Shovic

Transcribed by: Dori Fitzgibbon

Begin Tape 1 of 2, Side A:

CS: Mr. Esquer, let’s start with the first question, which is explain when, where, in what town

were you born?

EE: I was born in Tucson, Arizona, on May 23, 1936.

CS: When, then, did your family move from Tucson to Tempe? How did you end up here in

Tempe, Arizona?

EE: We moved here in 1940. I always thought it was 1941, but finally my sister, Lupe, said

“No, it was 1940.” So I was four or five. She said we moved here in the fall of 1940,

before the war started. Basically what was going on was we had spent 14 years on a farm

in Tucson. There aren’t very many farms in Tucson, but this was one of the bigger farms

on the west side of Rio Santa Cruz. It was Midville Farm. The thing was really called

(unintelligible). I never knew it as Midville Farm. I always knew it as (unintelligible).

There is a street now called (unntelligible).

CS: What does that mean, (unintelligible)?

EE: It can mean several things. One is rial, a coin, it means royal in Spanish. Anyway, my dad

had been labor foreman for many, many years. Both my mom and my dad are from

Mexico. They came to the U.S. in 1913? No, they crossed the border in 1916. My dad

is from Alamos, Mexico, in Sonora, and my mother is from the border, from

(unintelligible). He had left Mexico in 1909, right before the revolution. The revolution

2

started in 1910. He crossed the border in (unintelligible) in northern Mexico. He met my

mother, married her, had two kids. Actually three; one died there and was buried there.

They crossed the border with two children—three, because my mother brought a niece

with her. He basically worked his way across (unintelligible), worked his way through

the Santa Cruz valley until they got to Tucson. There are nine of us, so seven of us were

born in the U.S. I had a cousin who was foreman at B and M Farms here in Tempe. Or

what is now Tempe. It used to be out in the country. Tempe was just 4300 people

downtown. There was nothing beyond Apache as a matter of fact, even Broadway, you

know right along there was nothing but farms. But on Baseline and McClintock there

was a farm called B and M Farms. The farm was actually owned by the Tovrea Land and

Cattle Company, but they leased the land to farmers. The labor foreman of that farm was

my cousin (unintelligible). My dad had been talking to my uncle, my cousin’s dad, and

somehow convinced my dad that he should come to Tempe to come and work for him.

My dad was ready to do that because he had always had a very hard life; always worked

on a farm. He had contracted polio when he was younger so he had a shorter leg. He

always limped and that always caused him a lot of pain, not to mention other illnesses

that he had. So he basically said, “OK.” And he told him “If you come to work for me

the job will be easy. It is not going to be any hard work,” which was good. So we came

here in 1940. In 1941, ’42, I started school here with no English skills at all. We always

spoke Spanish. Basically, it was cold turkey. You know, you start school and you start

from there. It was an adventure for us. It was hard on my mom, but she was always

hard-working. Two of my brothers had already married and left and a third one was

about to get married. They were already out of the family. What came over here was

myself and my other two brothers and my sisters.

3

CS: What were your parents’ names?

EE: Rita (?) Esquer and my dad’s name was Eduardo Icarra (?) Esquer. Both of them were

from Mexico. Neither one knew any English, never really learned a lot. My dad, I know,

didn’t speak any English at all. My mom could understand a little bit, but she never

wanted anybody to know she even understood it.

CS: And why was that?

EE: She was just resistant to it, you know. She didn’t need it. What did she need it for?

Everything they did on the farm was in Spanish. The farm foreman, not the labor

foreman, but the foreman himself, was Spanish. So there wasn’t any problem with

translating in Tucson. Joe Taylor was the foreman. Joe Taylor could speak Spanish. So

my dad never needed to learn English. All the help, all the workers, they all spoke

Spanish.

CS: How would you explain your dad?

EE: Physically?

CS: Anything that comes to mind—personality. . .

EE: Very stoic, very stoic. And quiet, very quiet. And that explained a lot, because he had no

time for anything else. He worked twelve hours a day without—there were no vacations,

you know. He was very hard-working, no excuses for being late, and he was very strong.

He had very strong arms because that was what he did, worked with his arms a lot. He

spoke very good Spanish. You know, he grew up over there. He was very well-

respected. Anybody who looked for my dad in the Tucson area would either ask for

(unintelligible), which means (unintelligible), which means very light, or they would ask

for (unintelligible) and people would know who he was. So he was well-respected. He

didn’t have a lot of friends. He basically was a stay-at-home hard worker, strict, strict to

4

a degree. He didn’t overdo it. He just—if he told you to do something, you’d better do

it. That was my dad. My mom, on the other hand, she was the one who you ran to when

you needed some support. It was the typical Mexican family, you know. And my mom

was also—my dad had one day of school in Mexico.

CS: One day of school?

EE: One day, yes. He went to school one day. My mom had four years; four or five years.

So she knew how to write, at least that. My dad didn’t and he didn’t care to learn,

English or Spanish. The interesting thing is that he was very good at math; he was very

good at numbers. He could figure out numbers in his head, because he knew the

numbers. He could tell you how many head of sheep were in a run, or how many cattle.

What the count was. He did know the numbers, but he never went to school. So he was

very practical in that sense.

CS: And why just one day of school?

EE: I don’t know. He said he went one day to school and he didn’t like it and left. You

know, in Mexico if you even got to go to school that was something. They didn’t have

that many schools where he was from. He was actually born on a ranch outside of

Alamos, which was a small provincial capital in Sonora way back in the colonial era.

Alamos is now quite a famous town. There have been books written about it. It is very

colonial. It is very well-preserved. It is a UNESCO site. You know what a UNESCO

site is?

CS: Yes.

EE: UNESCO has Alamos on its list of preserved sites. They take care of it. You can’t build

modern buildings, and so forth.

CS: Have you visited where your father was born?

5

EE: We’ve been there several times.

CS: Did you ever go with your father?

EE: No. One of my sisters did. You know what? I’m not even sure my father ever went

back to Mexico. That’s a good question. I know my mother did, but I don’t know if my

dad did. He told us a lot about where he came from and who his relatives were. You

know, who was my Uncle Francisco and my Tia Francisco, my (unintelligible). We’ve

met them, but not others. There were several aunts. He left several sisters.

CS: So he didn’t see them again?

EE: Nope. He brought with him a nephew, (unintelligible), and he basically brought him up.

His only father was my dad. And my mother brought up (unintelligible), so basically we

had more than the regular sisters around.

CS: And how would you explain your mom to somebody?

EE: Short, very—I wouldn’t call her religious, but sensitive to those things, you know. She

was always a good mother. She was always darker than my dad. My dad was actually

blond, he had very light hair. She was dark enough and she had very, very dark hair. She

was a brunette. When she finally got a TV, which was black and white, she was already

in her sixties. She would love to watch “I Love Lucy.” I would say, “Mom, you don’t

understand the language.” She would say, “That’s alright. I think she’s funny anyway.”

We never had a phone all the time that they were alive. We never had a phone in our

house. My brother had a phone next door. If we wanted to make a phone call, we would

go next door and make a phone call. And if I wanted to call home, I would always call

my brother or his wife. But we never had a phone because we never had any use for it.

CS: And that was in Tucson or in Tempe?

EE: Here. In Tucson, too.

6

CS: And you said, when you lived in Tempe, it was on Baseline and McClintock that you

moved to?

EE: B and M Farms.

CS: You actually moved to the Farms.

EE: Yes, it used to be called the Lone Palm Ranch, and that was because there was one palm

tree on the ranch. It several buildings, it had several families living on it. That’s the way

farms were. You know, those huge farms, they would cut off 15 or 20 acres and they

would build lodging for the workers. You didn’t pay any rent.

CS: That was nice.

EE: Well, I don’t know. You would have to see the buildings. In our house there was no

running water. In Tucson we never had electricity. We got it here, when we moved over

here. But even then, over here, we only had it for lighting. Our refrigerator was an

icebox, not a refrigerator.

CS: And you moved here, you said, in 1940.

EE: Yes, in 1940.

CS: And could you explain to me, at McClintock and Baseline, how many acres, if you could

guess, was this farm?

EE: The farm was huge; it had several thousands of acres. But it wasn’t just there, it went all

the way to Chandler Boulevard. It had sections. But that particular area right there had

to be about 160 acres. And where the farm was located was actually between Rural and

McClintock on the south side of Baseline. That area that was not farmed had to be at

least 20 acres. They were pretty big. There were corrals for cattle; we had a cattle

castrating business. The cowboys would come in and bring in the cattle and they would

castrate them and then take them away.

7

CS: Did you hear uncomfortable moos going on from that direction?

EE: There was. My cousin Benita (?), as a matter of fact, used to buy the Rocky Mountain

oysters and cook them.

CS: Really?

EE: Yeah, everybody did.

CS: They were good, huh?

EE: Yeah, they were good. But the farm was surrounded by mostly vegetables: cauliflower,

cabbage, melons, cantaloupe and watermelon, further down. No cotton. Cotton hadn’t

come in yet. Cotton got big in the 50’s, not in the 40’s, because of the price controls, the

guaranteed price controls, after the war. The farmers made big money off of the price

controls because they were guaranteed a good price and there was a big demand.

CS: Was this from the EPO (?), this price control thing?

EE: No, this was in the 50’s. It was Truman and Eisenhower. The Republicans were actually

the ones who put it in. And then, on the farm itself, when the war started everybody left.

My brother was drafted and went to North Africa. My brother-in-law was drafted and

went to Germany. My other brother-in-law (who was not my brother-in-law yet) was

drafted and went to the Philippines. So everybody left. So what they did is they brought

in contract labor from Mexico, what they called the (unintelligible) Program. They very

quickly erected two barracks, dirt floor, just wooden buildings put together with a roof

and cots for the contract workers.

CS: On the farm?

EE: Right there is where we lived, right there on the 20 acres. So it got extended a little bit in

terms of people. Everybody had to do something. When that happened, they needed

somebody to feed them, because they didn’t have facilities for them. So what happened

8

was my Tia, my aunt, who was Salvador’s mother, the foreman, they built her a kitchen

over here and there was a little house attached to it. Then we were right here, and my

mother had a huge wood stove where she could cook. A beautiful wood stove that came

with the house. She would feed anywhere from 15 to 20 rancheros every day. They

would come in for breakfast, then she would make lunch, you know, brown bag lunches,

and send them out and then she would cook them dinner.

CS: She was a busy lady, I’m guessing.

EE: She used to have stacks of Holsum bread. She used to buy it the sacks. They wanted

tortillas, but she wasn’t going to make tortillas for 20 people. And she also sold them

pop: dark, orange, root beer (can’t remember the brand), and she also sold them

cigarettes. Stacks of cigarettes.

CS: Oh, really? Was she able to keep the profit off that?

EE: Oh yes. More than anything, she just provided the service. She made some profit off of

it, but I don’t know how much she made.

CS: But that’s nice. Where did she go to purchase those items? Do you remember?

EE: A lot of them were purchased—there were two stores—one on the corner of Baseline and

Kyrene. I’m trying to remember. Yeah, at Baseline and Kyrene there was a big welding

shed and right in front of it was the store and gas station. She would go there or she

would go to (unintelligible) in Guadalupe, and buy from him. Ben was very good, he

was a good merchant.

CS: What was her transportation to get to those stores?

EE: We had a car that my dad bought, for cash. It was a 1938 Chevy. Either one of my

brothers would take us. There was one brother who didn’t get drafted, and that was

because he was the only one that—he got a deferment because they wouldn’t take the

9

only working member of a family that was a sibling. Everybody else was younger, but he

got to stay. He would drive the car. Then later my sister, Lupe, would drive it.

CS: What was that like for him to be the one who did not go, or the one that was able to stay?

EE: He had a lot of fun. (Laugh) He never missed a dance, that’s for sure. Really. He was a

hard worker. He never missed a day, never.

CS: Where were you in your siblings? Were you the oldest, youngest, or somewhere in the

middle?

EE: No, I’m right at the bottom.

CS: You were the youngest. OK. And your oldest sibling was how many years older?

EE: Twenty.

CS: Twenty years older.

EE: Twenty-some. Manuel was already married and gone. He was in California. I have

many siblings who are older than I am. Manuel was older than I was. His son,

(unintelligible), was born before I was born. Then (unintelligible) was the other one. He

had married and lost his first wife almost immediately. Then he married Susie later on in

the 40’s. We were still there, so it had to be 1944 or 1945. Or earlier—1943, I think it

was.

CS: So, how old were you when the war broke out.

EE: December of 1941.

CS: So you were eight?

EE: No, I was born in 1936, so I was five.

CS: You don’t have much memory of that?

EE: I only remember the consequences of the war—rationing stamps. You could no longer

buy almost anything. You needed stamps for buying. Some foods, almost any clothes

10

you had to buy, you needed ration stamps. You know, things were limited. And the

other thing I remember is that because my brother got drafted almost the day after Pearl

Harbor he left almost immediately. I think he left almost right after the New Years Day

of 1942; he was gone. The reason I remember it is because he had been drafted and my

mother knew he would be going to war, every morning she would be crying, she would

be bawling. We all knew why; she was afraid that he was going to get killed. He was the

luckiest guy in the world. He was gone four years. He went to North Africa and Italy—

not a scratch. Yeah, he was lucky. A lot of them got killed, you know. Big time. So

that is the way I remember it. Other than that, you could hear a lot on Spanish radio. We

never had English radio. My mother always had on the Spanish station. You could hear

the news on the radio. But for the most part we were pretty oblivious of the goings and

comings. You knew that the war was on because we would walk from Baseline to

Apache to catch the bus to go to Phoenix. On the way, they had prisoners of war digging

the ditches along Baseline. I asked my brother-in-law about it. I thought they were

German. He said, “I don’t think so. I think those were Italian prisoners of war.” They

had a camp here. They had a German camp over here at Papago Park. But that is the

way you noticed things going on in terms of what was going on in the world. We walked

a lot, you know. The only one that rode was my brother because he was the only one that

could drive.

CS: Were you ever aware that there were Japanese internment camps in Arizona? As you

grew up, was that something that. . . .?

EE: I wasn’t aware of it then. I went to school with an Apache because we went to

segregated schools. Rural was right there on Southern and Rural. It was all Mexican.

CS: Is it still there?

11

EE: Well, there is a Fry’s there right now. The District headquarters is there, the district

offices for the Tempe Elementary School District. But there used to be a (unintelligible)

CS: You said it was segregated. So who attended the school?

EE: Just the Mexicans and the Japanese and whoever else they drew out to go to school there.

Frank (unintelligible) went to school with us.

CS: And who is he?

EE: (unintelligible) had a little farm on University, between what is now –do you know where

Victory Acres is?

CS: Yes.

EE: OK. West of Victory Acres there is an area there—you can’t really tell any more—it’s

really about a mile from McClintock, two miles, I think to Price, or a mile and a half.

Well, in between, they had a fairly good-sized vegetable farm. Jimmy and Frank and Ella

(?) those were the three oldest. I don’t think there were any others. They were Japanese.

They didn’t get interned. The reason for that is that there was an arbitrary line drawn. If

you were in that line, you were gone. It’s like Ikeda (?) in Mesa. They never got

interned. They stayed there; Frank Ikeda and (unintelligible) Ikeda.

CS: And that was because the line was somewhere west of them?

EE: I guess so. I don’t know how they determined it. It was kind of weird. Some of the

others got taken.

CS: So, you started school at Rural School? I’m guessing kindergarten or first grade there?

EE: I have no idea.

CS: And how long were you at Rural School?

EE: I was there until –let’s see. The end of the war was 1945. The very next year I was in

Tolleson, another segregated school. I liked Rural better than Tolleson; Tolleson was a

12

mess.

CS: Yes?

EE: Yes. It was not a good educational environment. The same farmers, they had a farm in

Tolleson and they wanted my mother to run the kitchen there. She did it for a year, and

then we left after one year in Tolleson. My dad said, “I think we will become migrants.”

So he decided to go to California and make lots of money, because he had a big family.

So, yeah, we went to work in San Jose, California, in plum orchards. We picked plums

for the whole summer. It was myself, my mom, my dad, my two sisters and my two

nephews, Eddie and Manuel. My brother-in-law sent his kids. He told my dad, “Take

them with you and put them to work, the whole summer.” That’s what we did; we picked

plums the whole summer, in San Jose.

CS: And you were 11 at this time.

EE: Yes, I guess so. 1946, Tolleson, 1947 California and 1948 back over here. Actually, in

Tolleson there was no bus picking us up to go to school so we generally got a ride in the

morning, because my brother was going to work and he would drop us off there on Main

Street. Then we would walk back to the house. I candidly don’t remember too well who

my teacher was. I know she was an older lady. I don’t have fond memories of it.

CS: Why is that?

EE: Our school was on Main Street—the old school. The new school, across the alley, was

for the gringos. I think we had to use their auditorium. It was brand-new. We didn’t

have one.

CS: Why do you say that you don’t have fond memories of Tolleson?

EE: It’s a dusty place. Not only that, we had to walk and there were a lot of fights. They

were kid fights, you know, but it was almost like it was a constant struggle there, you

13

know. We had some fun. As soon as we got out we would go hunting. There was lots of

sunshine, but other than that. . . . And the other thing is instruction. I don’t remember

having good instruction. At Rural School I remember who I had, you know. At least, I

remember going through books, reading and writing. I don’t remember that about

Tolleson. I was older, so I should, but I don’t. But when we left there, I was glad that we

left. I wasn’t glad when we left Tempe. We were used to the environment. You don’t

necessarily like to leave those roots.

CS: So you attended Tolleson for just one year then?

EE: One year, that’s all.

CS: Then to San Jose to pick plums for the summer.

EE: Yes. When we left in May, we went to San Jose. The trip was actually kind of fun. Kids

travelling through this beautiful country, seeing all this incredible farmland. When we

got there, we actually, for about a month, had to stay in an abandoned barn. We found a

barn that was abandoned. It was in an almond orchard. It had to be at least a month—

two weeks, a month—and my brothers, then, went out a got work at a quarry. So they

were working, and they continued working at the quarry when we were working on the

farm. They didn’t work on the farm at all. They didn’t pick, my older brothers. By then,

my brother who had been in the war had returned so he went with us. Ben went with us,

the one that stayed, and then one of our cousins. My nephew, and older cousin, same age

as my brothers, went with us, and a relative of his, another war veteran. I can’t remember

his name now. He had just returned from the war and he wanted to go to (unintelligible),

mainly because he had a girlfriend there. His girlfriend was there. Eventually he got

married over there. I think, except for my cousin, they were all working in the quarry.

They used to come home just white, just full of dust. But then we got to move to the

14

farm where the plums were and we lived in a tent. Just about, I can’t imagine, about 12

by 12. We used to sleep outside anyway.

CS: While you were here in Arizona too?

EE: We slept outside almost everywhere we went. My parents used to have their bed actually

under a tarp and they would sleep outside. You know, it was warm. When we moved to

Victory Acres, we slept outside, and when we were in San Jose, we slept outside, on cots.

It was an interesting life. We were migrants. What’s interesting to me now, as I look

back, is that we were living, really, not a normal lifestyle. The normal lifestyle would

have been the American lifestyle, right? Everybody in a house, they go to school, you

know. We basically lived a lifestyle that we were farmers and farm workers. Almost

without exception every farm had somebody that knew Spanish, every farm, especially

here in the valley, the laborers on the farm usually were Chicano, or Hispanic, like my

cousin. (unintelligible) was from Medina. He was the foreman there. At Sunshine

Farms he was a Scotchman, I think. With Ellsworth it was Hernandez. In other words,

the main farmer would hire someone that knew the community, knew the workers and he

would put him in charge to hire and to run the farm. And he would go fishing, or

whatever, you know. Some of them worked pretty hard alongside, but they didn’t work

twelve hours a day. They would come in and work a couple of hours and go home, you

know. But society was divided, in that way, in those years. We were one part of society

that didn’t have access to the other part of society. You know, even the theatres were

segregated, the swimming pools were all segregated. But we didn’t go to swimming

pools anyway; we used the canal. It was a very different lifestyle. You have very

different memories from living that way than you would if you lived in a town, where

you had Women’s Club and, you know, it was very different.

15

CS: Did you realize it was very different at the time you were growing up?

EE: You recognized, yes, that you were not allowed to participate in certain things outside of

your own group. You realized it, you know, you saw the differences in pay, the

differences in access, you know. Why couldn’t you, you know, go swimming in the

swimming pool in downtown Tempe? Well, you couldn’t. Mexicans weren’t allowed to,

unless was Wednesday afternoons, when they were going to—when it was the last day

for the pool to be flushed out and cleaned. But, you know, you understood what was

going on. You knew that you weren’t going to be able to break into it. Later on, when I

was in high school, of course, you were a little bit more insistent in doing things. But by

then most things had already broken down. You know, that was in the ‘50s already. But

in the ‘40s it was still pretty much a segregated society.

CS: So you gave the example of, I think, the Tempe Beach Park, the pool there, right? And

the theaters?

EE: The theaters, right, we had to stay up in the balcony.

CS: And your school?

EE: The schools were segregated. In Tempe, they had the 8th

Street School, right on the street

there, and then the 10th

Street School. The 10th

Street School was for whites; the 8th

Street School was for Mexicans. That was probably desegregated back in the late ‘40s or

early ‘50s. But I didn’t go there until I came back from California. Well I did. I came

back in 1948, so it was already desegregated.

CS: So then you started up at the Tempe school there on 8th

Street when you came back?

EE: When I came back, we went to--(I told you we had gone to San Jose?)

CS: Right.

EE: From there, my mom and dad and the older kids—my sister Lupe and Ben and Ray—

16

they stayed in San Jose to pick cotton, to work the cotton in the fall crop. You started

picking cotton in August, September, October. We went back to Los Angeles, where my

brother lived. The first semester of school we went to LA schools. We were in east LA

and we went to a school there; worst, worst, the very worst educational experience I’ve

ever had.

CS: Really?

EE: Oh, it was horrible. There, it was not only deeply segregated, but it was very hostile.

There were a lot of fights between blacks and Chicanos, constant fights, constant

reminders of the separation, you know. Segregation got to you in terms of trying to outdo

each other. You know, kids, but nonetheless, a pretty hostile environment. And the

worst part is that I don’t even remember who my teacher was. I don’t remember ever

taking books to school, don’t remember ever bringing books home. When we left in the

spring, my dad and my mom came by and picked us up in the spring to bring us back to

Arizona. I started back at Tempe Grammar now, not Rural School, because now we were

living in Victory Acres, right here, where Victory Acres is, where the park is. Do you

know Esquer Park?

CS: Esquer Park—named after your family?

EE: Yes. They just dedicated it last October. They had a big dedication.

CS: Wow.

EE: So anyway, we moved into a little shack on Victory Drive and George (?) Drive. My

sister had already bought property and she said, “Come and move in with us.” Actually, I

think my dad and my brother-in-law had gone in and bought a whole acre and they split it

up. And then we moved in there, and that is when I started school here, downtown,

Tempe Grammar.

17

CS: Where, exactly, was that?

EE: Tenth Street. You know where the Tempe Center is? That’s where the high school was.

CS: That burned down in the ‘50s, right?

EE: ’53.

CS: So Tempe High School was more toward University?

EE: Right where Tempe Center is.

CS: So Tempe Grammar—was that just next to it?

EE: Just south of it.

CS: OK.

EE: From 10th

Street we could see the high school guys playing. They had a hedge. I

remember the hedge. Originally I could not see over it. Anyway, where (unintelligible)

Auditorium used to be and all that. We moved in there in ’48. I started at Tempe

Grammar School in ’48. It was already desegregated; it wasn’t segregated then. I didn’t

know it. I didn’t make very much difference, you know? I liked it better, but you don’t

realize that those things had happened already, but it was better. I liked it at Tempe

Grammar; it was a good school.

CS: Was there any friction between the different ethnicities suddenly coming together in the

desegregation?

EE: There was friction between kids. There was no--that I can remember--organized friction

between the different kids. It was kind of interesting. You would think—but, no, there

wasn’t. Not that I can remember anyway. I remember kids not liking each other. There

were white kids that used to hate the Yaqui, you know, but kids are kids. They didn’t

hate me. (Chuckle)

CS: How come, would you say, there was strong friction between the blacks and the

18

Mexicans then?

EE: In the neighborhood that’s how it was, very strong. Gangs all over the place. Over there,

if you didn’t belong to a gang, you were in trouble.

CS: Even at 10, 11, 12?

EE: Yes. Everybody wanted you to be in their gang. I got pulled into an alley one time and

this guy was, “What gang do you belong to?” I said, “I don’t belong to any gang.” And

one of the guys recognized me and he said, “Oh, let him go. That’s Benny’s cousin.”

Actually, I was Benny’s uncle! He was my nephew, but he was older than I was. But,

you know, that’s the kind of environment there was. There were serious gang fights, with

chains and knives. You think that was serious then, and now what do you have?—this

crazy gun thing going on, you know. But that’s the way it was. Like I said, I didn’t like

it and I would never go back. I told my dad, “Never again.” He said, “No, we’re going

back to California.” I said, “Not me; this boy’s staying here.” He got mad at me. He

said, “What are you going to do?” I said, “I’m not going back to California.” They did

one more year. They said, “OK.” My brother, Guido (?) had been one of the ones who

had contracted, but on the eve of the day he was leaving (he thought he was leaving), he

broke his leg, shattered his leg. He drunk with another guy and they were wrestling out

on the street, here in Arizona, you see it all the time. He was over there to mine. He fell

down and this guy fell on top of his leg and crushed it, I mean literally crushed it. He had

an empty space that big between the bone. So he basically never got well. He was on

crutches for three years and then he decided that was enough. He said, “Cut it off. I’ve

got to go to work.” So they cut it off; he had one leg. He then came over here and he

took over my mother’s place at the B & M Farm. Actually, he took over my Tia’s place

because she had the larger kitchen. So we were working in the big kitchen. So my dad

19

said, “OK, you go to work with Guido, the whole summer.” I said, “Good, I’ll be glad to

work for him.” Up at five in the morning, you know, every day, you feed them, then in

the afternoon you go out and you take their lunches and you sell pop. That I liked. I

didn’t mind that. The summers, you know. That whole summer is when I finally did

work for him. But I was determined not to go back to California; not me. I don’t know

what I would have done if my dad had said, “Well, you’re going to go.” But I had told

him, “I’m not going.” I told my oldest sister, I said, “Maria, you tell my dad I’m not

going to California,” and she was leaving the next day. She and Frank had already

married. Frank had been in the war. But that summer, like I say, was spent going

between Baseline and Williams Field Road, which is now Chandler Boulevard. The B &

M properties were all the way out there. I remember pretty well that on the side of

Warner Road there was a huge (unintelligible), on the west side of Warner Road between

Rural and McClintock, and then on the east side of Warner Road between Chandler

Boulevard and Ray Road there was a huge truck there. We used to go in there, you

know, and sell stuff to the workers, to the (unintelligible). They were all contract labor.

That program continued up until the ‘60s.

CS: So what does (unintelligible) mean?

EE: It comes from the word (unintelligible). It means you work with your arms. There is a

law which is called the (unintelligible) Program, but there is a technical term for it.

CS: So here you are, you are starting grammar school at Tempe Grammar.

EE: Well, actually, I came in and they asked me where I had been. I said, “Well, I have been

in LA.” They said, “Oh, and you were over in the 4th

grade?” I said, “Yeah,” and they

said, “Well, I guess we’re going to have to put you back in the 4th

grade.” And they said,

“They have Progressive Education over and that’s no good for you.” You don’t know

20

what Progressive Education is. At that time they were starting to change that, going from

the three R’s to what was considered then a different kind of approach to teaching kids.

It wasn’t very popular here. They didn’t like it. So actually I lost a year there. As a

consequence, I graduated when I was 20.

CS: From high school?

EE: Yes. I know there was a difference of about two or three days when I was 20, and then

we graduated. What happened is that if I had been 19 I would have been able to play

varsity baseball. But I wasn’t and so they said, “No, you can’t play. You’re too old.”

CS: So you went to Tempe High then, after Tempe Grammar School?

EE: Yes, four years.

CS: And you went for your whole four years over at that location?

EE: No. One year to the old one, then in 1953 we opened Tempe High over here, and in the

fall of 1953 the old high school burned down.

CS: Do you know what caused the fire?

EE: Well, the post-mortem to it is that some kid confessed to it about 50 years later. They

had been fooling around in the basement there and they set it on fire, but at the time they

said it was spontaneous combustion. They had some stuff stored in the basement and

they said that it caught fire. But I don’t know what happened.

CS: Was it sad to see your high school burn?

EE: It wasn’t sad to me, no. What did we know about preservation at that time? We were out

playing touch football, and we saw the fire. Who cared? Well, now we know that if they

could have preserved it, that would have been great. But I didn’t know about

preservation at that time. It was a very well-built building, but, you know.

CS: So you played sports in high school?

21

EE: I played baseball. That’s all. I played basketball my first year, but they detected a heart

murmur and, basically, the coach said, “Well, I don’t think we play can you. I’ll let you

stay on the team, but the doctor says you can’t really get out on the floor and run a lot.”

So he never really played me in basketball. Now, in baseball, (unintelligible) didn’t

really care, and when (unintelligible) came in he didn’t care, either. He said, “I can’t stop

you from running.” So I played baseball, but I liked baseball.

CS: You liked baseball?

EE: I played a little bit of tennis, and actually Mr. Kennedy wanted me to stay in tennis. He

said, “You’re very good. You’re better than some of the juniors I have already.” And I

was a freshman. But I didn’t want to play tennis. I didn’t want to stay in tennis; I didn’t

mind playing it, but I wanted to play baseball because that’s where my friends were. Bad

mistake. But, you know, life is that way anyway. You make decisions and stick with

them, or you live with them.

CS: So what other extracurricular or outside activities, or even games did you play? Just

growing up in elementary through high school.

EE: Oh. I didn’t have much time to play, even in high school. When baseball season came

around, I was able to play, but for the most part we were working every weekend, we

were picking cotton. We had no money. I mean, the family was still poor. My dad had

already quit working. He had no Social Security. My mom, of course, never really

worked outside the house. My brother was working, so he was supporting my mother

and dad. Two of my brothers were working. For me to stay in high school, I had to work.

I would take off every other week, sometimes every week, I would take off a night during

the week and go irrigate for the farmers. Some farmers used to come by and pick me up

and say, “I need an irrigator.” All right, so I would go irrigate and then go to school in

22

the morning. So as far as activities were concerned, we were always working. It doesn’t

mean we didn’t have fun. We used to do a lot of dancing. We used to go to the dances in

downtown Phoenix, to the Calderon (?) Ballroom, to the Riverside Ballroom, to the

American Legion, and there was a little place called the (unintelligible) Club that we used

to frequent a lot. We were pretty active. But we didn’t have a lot of time. As a matter of

fact, the only extracurricular activity was the Spanish Club. That was it for me. And

baseball. I didn’t join anything else. It wasn’t just the fact that I didn’t have time. There

were a lot of reasons. Most Chicanos in high school were not joiners. There were all

kinds of clubs to join, but none of them had any attraction to us. Because there were

none of us on it, you know, for the most part. You could join the Agriculture Club, 4H

Club, whatever. There were the Thespians, you know. But none of us were into that.

We were mostly into playing sports, going swimming in the canals, and going to the

dances on the weekends. We did attend a lot of events at the school. That was part of it.

CS: Was there intermixing of ethnicities, like dating, in high school?

EE: Some.

CS: Some, and that was OK?

EE: It wasn’t OK for some people, but it was OK for us. My senior year I had a girlfriend

who was part Hispanic and we had the sense that people were not happy about it; not

even your friends that were not Hispanic. There was a fair amount of mixing, but for the

most part they hung pretty tight together. There was a group of us, and there still is—the

class of ’56—we’re having a reunion on April 18th, we’re having a luncheon. But for

the most part from the classes of ’55, ’56 and ’57, there was a group like (unintelligible)

from ’55, me from ’57, all the ’57—Rudy and Danny and George and Jose—a lot of us

were from that class and we’re all going to that luncheon. And from ’57 there was Jesse

23

and Alex and Victor; we still see them. Jesse is one of my best friends as a matter of fact;

we do a lot of things together. But from those groups, for the most part, the girls come—

Rachel, Irene, (unintelligible) and several other of the girls are still around. They all

married Hispanics, except for Irene; she married an Air Force guy, not a Hispanic. But

now everybody mixes. Half my nephews are married to gringos. We go over to

(unintelligible), but, you know, that’s society, and it’s happy. It’s luckily changed to be

less dramatic. So you don’t feel like that person is the only one that is (unintelligible), if

you marry outside your own ethnic group. I feel it is very healthy to do that because it

doesn’t really matter anyway. But, yeah, there were those little innuendos about so-and-

so going out with (unintelligible).

CS: So, now, take me up to –you graduate from high school, then what were your thoughts?

EE; Get a job. Actually, I had a person who would indirectly say, “Elias, you could do this.”

She wouldn’t say, “You have to do it.” She would say, “You know, this would be a

better way of going.” So come my junior year, you had to decide whether you wanted to

take trigonometry, take four years of English, you know. So I decided, okay I would take

algebra and then trig. That was a disaster. But not English; I was fairly good at English,

but I still had a really heavy accent. As if I don’t now, but I really did then. And I was

kind of self-conscious about it. A lot of it, I think, had to do with how they teach

English. I’m a linguist myself, I teach languages, and I know how to teach a language. I

think English teachers assume that everyone in their classroom is on the same level and

they are teaching at the same rate to people. They don’t realize that when they say, “This

is supposed to be . . . “ And I would say, “What are they talking about?” They didn’t

explain like “I will do something,” or “He will do something.” They never explained and

I never could figure out what that phrase meant until I got into college. Or they would

24

give examples that made no sense to me. They meant sense to the others, you know. So

it was very difficult. They didn’t have the linguist skills to tell you, “You know how you

are pronouncing ‘sheet’? Instead of saying ‘sheet’ you are saying ‘shit’.” But you

couldn’t get it out, because you didn’t know how to do it on your teeth here. And that’s

how it is. It’s just a way of explaining how to say a word. I’m good at that in Spanish

and I’m better in English, because teaching Spanish you really have to teach a lot of

English, too. Anyway, I was self-conscious about my accent. So I didn’t volunteer a lot,

and I only gave one oral report in English. After that, the teacher would say, “Well, oral

reports.” I would say, “You’re not getting one from me.” And the teacher would say,

“You have to give it.” I would say, “You do what you want; I’m not giving it in front of

a classroom.” I said, “I’ll write it. Do whatever you want, but I’m not giving an oral

report,” and I never did. I think I got punished for it some way or another, but it wasn’t,

you know. . . But I didn’t do it. Eventually, in college English, I did well.

CS: You did well.

EE: It wasn’t the monster that I thought it was in high school. Only, I think, because I had

very good teachers in college.

CS: And you went to ASU?

EE: Couldn’t go to Harvard. (chuckle)

CS: What years did you go?

EE: I’m trying to think when I started. It was later. I didn’t go right away. Out of high

school, I really had no intention to go to college at that point. What I needed was to work

and it was a real disappointment. I knew the statistics. Someone with a high school

education, that was fairly good. You could at least go out and get a job, and get a job that

meant something, that you felt comfortable in. I applied for telephone, SRP, all the

25

companies, Air Research, nothing. The telephone guy basically told me that they were

not going to hire me. “Only if you are really—we’re not going to hire Chicanos.” And

you had to know somebody. They said, “You need to go see this person, see if you can

get into the telephone company,” and he basically told me that he wasn’t gong to hire us

and in those days, in order to get into some of these places you really needed a godfather.

You needed somebody to sponsor you. You couldn’t do it on the basis of an application;

not Chicanos. And if you did, it was hard enough just to get an application in order to get

in. In those days, say ’56, Eisenhower was President and we were basically non-existent.

There were few jobs. Even the unions were very discriminatory. It was hard to get in. I

tried. Finally, my brother was working for a Goodyear dealership. He was working

downtown fixing automobile tires, flats, with the tire shop. He told me, “They need

somebody at the recap shop. That’s heavy-duty, trucks.” I said, “Okay, I’ll go down.

Who do I see?” He said, “Go see Bob.” So I went to see Bob and he said, “It’s heavy-

duty, truck tires, and bigger yet.” He said, “You can do it?” “I can do it.” “Okay.” So

he hired me and I went to work for him. The first two weeks my arms were about to fall

off. Those are heavy, you know, and I was 135 or 140 pounds, soaking wet. But within

two weeks I was so strong that I was able to lift a tire with one hand. Actually, Bob

became very fond of me because I was the only one who would work for him, so I

worked for them for a year. Then I said to myself, “What are you doing?” So I started

talking to my buddy, Frank Lopez, and I said “Frank, I don’t want to stay here. Where

are we going on this thing? Let’s go into the service, join the Air Force.” He didn’t want

to join the service, “No way, the Army is not for me.” I said, “I want training. I don’t

want to carry a rifle and march all day.” So he said, “Okay.” So we applied to get into

the Air Force in July, but the recruiter said, “You’re going to have to wait three months

26

before you can get in.” I said, “Why?” “We don’t have any openings.” They didn’t

have any openings. I said, “Okay, we’ll wait.” October 7th

we got in and we were off.

So I spent two-and–a-half years in the Air Force as a radar operator. I could have gotten

into a better technical area, but they didn’t have them. At the time they were downsizing.

It was right after the Korean War and they were trying to get rid of a lot of people. A lot

of the old Sergeants were retiring, so I said, “Okay.” I was in for two-and-a-half years.

He was in for four. But I went to Lackland for eleven weeks and then in January of ’58

they sent me to Las Vegas on top of a mountain, not Las Vegas proper, not the city,

Mount Charleston, which is one of the mountains there. They had a radar site there. At

9,000 feet they had a little base there. So that is where I spend fourteen months. What

else do you want to know?

CS: Well, you mentioned that you were not hired because you were a Chicano. So I’m going

to ask you how it felt to be turned down for a job based on something out of your control,

for being Chicano?

EE: I probably didn’t know that. I had an idea. It was very frustrating. You know, you

figured, “Well, maybe I can’t do it,” or whatever reason. But you had a good idea. You

could see it in the makeup of the crews, the makeup of the companies. Unless you had

somebody, you had an in, the implications were that avenue was not going to be very

fruitful. The unions used to test their applicants, and if there were any applicants in there

that were either Black or Chicano, they would flunk the entire group. Then, when people

called back to find out their scores they would say, “Who are you?” And they would

figure who they were and they would say, “You passed; you’re OK.” You know how I

know that? A very close friend, who was a gringo said that was how he got in. There

were some Blacks in the group and the union guy actually told him, “Well, we do it that

27

way because we don’t want to put on the Blacks. But you passed, you’re OK.” So it was

fairly common that the unions used it because it was like there were certain jobs that were

not open to you, no matter how good you were. The high-paying jobs, because they were

unionized, paid very well. So they basically tried to limit the numbers of Latinos. The

firemen and the police departments used the same tactics. It was very hard to get into the

police and fire departments back in those days. They became almost exclusively areas of

white hiring because they were very good-paying jobs. They were very secure. So it was

very hard to get into them. So there were certain areas. They would hire you to collect

garbage, not a problem. They would hire you to do the streets, doing whatever, but when

it came to technical jobs like those, I think some of it still exists, but not as much as it

used to.

CS: I think there’s another question. Do you still feel it exists?

EE: Oh yes, there are still certain biases around. People with that kind of. . . I don’t think

there’s any doubt, you know. They are basically fighting a losing battle because society

itself is changing. There is such a huge number of mixed marriages any more. More and

more these same people are related to the people they don’t want to hire. It’s kind of

crazy. But, yeah, the memories of those things tend to get to you. I had a good life, I had

a good job, and I thought I was very, very lucky to end up where I ended up, you know.

In my own job as a language teacher, I had no trouble getting into high schools. I had all

kinds of job offers from high schools. I didn’t have any kind of problem there. When it

came to the community colleges, that is a different story. Again, it’s those jobs that are

reserved for. . . . As opposed to the high schools, the community colleges were supposed

to be very selective, and they were. They had a right to be. But that doesn’t mean that

they didn’t go out of their way not to hire minorities. They did. The way I was hired is a

28

very good example. I wasn’t hired because I had the degree and the experience and the

background. I was hired because somebody forced them to hire me. I knew they liked

me, but not until somebody pushed at the top, and pushed hard, did they say “Oh, Mr.

Esquer, I think we need you at Mesa Community College.” It was funny, because in the

spring of 1970, I was teaching at Phoenix Union High School. 1969-70 I taught there.

CS: This was, of course, after you came back from the Air Force.

EE: Yes, I had just graduated from grad school. I had just gotten my Masters.

CS: In Spanish, was it?

EE: In Spanish Literature, and I was teaching at Phoenix Union High School. It really

surprised me that nobody was thinking of applying at a community college. Community

colleges, the system of community colleges, was new. They started community colleges

in 1964 here. The only community college around was Phoenix College. When they

created the community college district, they built Scottsdale Community, Mesa

Community, South Mountain Community, Glendale Community College. Later they

built Paradise Valley and some of the others. Phoenix College was already built; it is an

older institution. In the spring of 1969, I graduated from grad school. Then 1969-70 I

taught at Phoenix Union High School. In the spring of 1969, I applied to Mesa

Community College. I talked to Dr. Riggs and I talked to the department chair. I talked

to some of the other faculty members. (unintelligible) I knew vaguely, but I knew him.

Then I went back to Dr. Riggs. We got along pretty good, but he said, “We don’t have a

position for you. There is no room.” I thought, “Well, OK, you know, I’ll accept that.”

And I thought I would go back to Phoenix Union. In the meantime, in the summer of

’70, both Cecelia and I were asked to go teach in Colorado, in a private school, for the

summer. And so I went to see Dr. Digh (?) who was my principal at Phoenix Union, and

29

they had the contract, so I signed my contract to teach there the following year. So I went

there and signed my contract and then we went for eight weeks to teach in Colorado. It

was in Carbondale, Colorado, right outside of Aspen, and it was Rocky Mountain School,

which is a fairly prestigious school. We were there only for the summer, teaching

summer school. Anyway, in the meantime, I’m not quite sure—LULAC and AMEE,

which is the Association of Mexican-American Educators, and the Black Coalition, did a

presentation before the Board about hiring minorities. They clearly embarrassed Dr.

(unintelligible), who was the President of the entire District, because he had very few

minorities and they were not hiring. So the Board, because they looked pretty bad,

opened up, if I remember right, eleven positions, District-wide.

DS: District-wide?

EE: District-wide; eleven positions, and all of them went to minorities. That’s how Tony

Nunez, I think (I don’t remember the name), but I was one of those persons. I had been

out in the mountains in Colorado because I was teaching horseback riding and history,

(unintelligible) history. I was taking my kids on weekends to teach them how to ride a

horse and camp out. We would leave on Friday and come back on Sunday. So when I

came back somebody said, “Oh, you have a phone call from Mesa Community College,

Dr. Riggs.” So I went and picked up the phone and he said, “Elias, we need you at Mesa

Community College this fall.” I said, “That’s great, but I can’t accept. Sorry. I already

signed a contract at Phoenix Union High School District.” He said, “Well, I already

talked to Dr. Digh (?) and he said he would release you.” I said, “OK.” So I was one of

those who were hired. It wasn’t that I didn’t have the credentials or couldn’t do it. I had

everything they needed. And the other thing Dr. Riggs really wanted was somebody that

knew the community, somebody that was local. He told me that. He said, “Well, you

30

were brought up here, you went to school here.” He said, “We would like to have you

here.”

CS: And then you were there for thirty-some years?

EE: Thirty-two.

CS: Thirty-two years at Mesa.

EE: Like I say, I was very lucky. I know that many of my colleagues, especially in the high

school, I would ask them, “Why don’t you apply at the community colleges?” Well, they

didn’t think they were ready for it. I knew I was ready when I got out of college. I was

fluent in Spanish. A lot of the teachers that were teaching in high schools were not

fluent. They were good, but they were not fluent. I had, you know, good skills and I

knew what I could do and maybe some of these people didn’t know what they could do.

But I knew that I could do it. But at the same time, it was pure luck. It wasn’t my

credentials, it was just pressure. So from that I knew that things could get done at the

community colleges if you pressed the right buttons. So my thirty-two years in the

District were basically thirty-two years that I recruited. I recruited almost anywhere I

went. I tried to get people to apply and then I tried to get them in. You know, just by not

overtly pushing people, but by telling people that if they had a good interview, we could

help with ideas. But, yes, as a matter of fact, even after I retired we are still doing it.

CS: How long ago did you retire?

EE: In ’65—seven years ago.

CS: Two more questions. How has your faith and your spirituality played in your life, or has

it? What role does your faith and spirituality have in your life?

EE: I’m more a pragmatist than anything else. That’s the way my dad was. He always told

me, he said, “You know what?” I would say, “You say there are ghosts over here.”

31

“You don’t have to worry about ghosts,” he said, “The ones you have to worry about are

the live ones.” He said, “Those are the ones that will hurt you. “So,” he said, “forget

them.” So, in essence, I’m not into praying a lot. I’m Catholic, you can say that I’m

Catholic, but I draw the line. I’m more practical and pragmatic about life. I understand

what (unintelligible) said when he said, “You know, God did not make this Earth for the

meek.” In other words, the meek shall not inherit the Earth. He made it for those that, in

plain words, raise hell. You have to meet a situation head-on when you see it. You can’t

ignore an abuse of power, you can’t ignore something that you know is wrong and you

are not going to get involved in it. You can’t ignore it, and especially when it involves

areas of racial injustice. You get a real quick lesson in that when you start working in a

profession. You find out how really racist they are in how they see you, almost, and they

don’t hesitate to tell you what they think of you. When I first started at Mesa Community

College, the first meeting I went to, that had to do with an introduction of new faculty—

we were there at the Theater Out Back—and I walked out after the introduction. The

Head introduced me as someone who was from the community, went to school here and

everything, and was from Victory Acres, where I grew up. Well, I spent a few years of

my life there. This gentleman walked out with me. I didn’t bring up the subject of

Victory Acres, but he did. He said, “Oh yes, many attend church there in Victory Acres.”

I said, “Yes, I know, I’m familiar with it.” He said, “Well, I’ve been there a couple of

times and I don’t see (this was in 1970) that those people over there are really trying to

improve their lives very much.” I said, “You came to that conclusion by a couple of

visits? Were you there in 1945 when there was nothing but an open field and tents and

shacks? No streets? How do you think we got the streets in? How do you know that

they don’t want to improve their lives? Have you talked to them? Have you gotten

32

mixed up with them?” He was clearly embarrassed. I said, “I don’t think you know what

you’re talking about,” and I walked away. But he had the guts to tell me that. And that

was the first lesson I learned. I know what I’m going to be up against here. And it was.

There were some departments that were clearly very anti-minorities.

CS: Any other examples of that, or ones that you care to share?

EE: I think the one that stands out that everybody was aware of was the police, the Justice

Studies. The guy that was the Director of that was clearly anti-minorities. He made no

bones about it, either. There were others.

CS: He was in the Justice Studies Department, doing injustice, basically?

EE: He wanted his own kind in there. But there were others. It really got to me one time,

when I was talking about hiring people in English. I really liked the guy in English. I

admired his demeanor; very quiet, very sensible, very professional. But when we pressed

him on the subject, he said, “We did hire a Chicano.” I said, “Oh yeah?” He said,

“Yeah, and he didn’t want to come.” And I said, “If you hire an Anglo, and he doesn’t

work out, do you quit hiring Anglos?”

CS: That’s a great comeback.

EE: What has that got to do with anything? And it’s their own fault that they didn’t. If I had

been on the committee, I would never have hired this guy. I would have said, “He

doesn’t have the degree; why do you want to hire him? So you can make us look bad?”

But they were forced to hire him because of Dr. Riggs. Dr. Riggs made them think. But

that was the comment he came back to me with. He was, like, if you hire a Black and it

doesn’t work out, well we don’t hire any more Blacks.

CS: Do you feel—outside of work today, walking around in day-to-day life—do you still feel

that racism?”

33

EE: Well, there are still a lot of people out there who still send those vibes, don’t kid yourself.

Yes, when you start telling them what you’ve done, that I taught for 32 years, I have a

degree in Spanish Literature, I studied (unintelligible) for six months, I studied in Mexico

twice, I got a grant one of those summers from the National Endowment for the

Humanities to study Mexican philosophy. That’s all I did that whole summer. They

gave me enough money to do it. When you tell them you’ve done this, they look at you

like, “How could you have done all that?” Because they are now comparing that with

what they have done, and in some cases they haven’t done anything, they haven’t gone

anywhere. Until we started the program in Mexico, nobody wanted to go anywhere.

People would think, OK, they would take two-week tours of Mexico.

CS: Two or three weeks.

EE: But they were not in class; they were just travelling.

CS: They weren’t engaging with the local people.

EE: Yes, so we decided in ’86, Jack Hannah (?) and myself and (unintelligible) decided that

we would start a five-week program in Guadalajara, Mexico, and it would be an inter-

disciplinary History, Spanish, and Sociology program. Then we went to Sociology,

History, Spanish, Archeology, Art, Photography, Communications, several other

subjects. And we’ve done well. We intended not only to internationalize the students,

but basically to internationalize the faculty. We’ve taken about sixty faculty to Mexico.

They didn’t teach Spanish, they taught their own subjects. But they went with us and

they contributed and they loved it. Steve (unintelligible),who is a geographer at Mesa

Community College, he went with us one year. I said, “Hey, Steve, how did you like it?”

“It’s the best trip I’ve ever had,” he said, “Because it’s so concentrated. You are there for

five weeks, not two days, and you get to know the place.” So, in that sense, we have

34

basically done the job in terms of getting people exposed to Mexico. That was our

purpose. We wanted not only students, and we wanted to have an impact on Mexicans.

We wanted Mexicans to know what students were like and what we were like. They

knew nothing about Chicanos when were there. We had to educate, and we would have

lectures.

CS: What do you mean about “they” knew nothing about Chicanos? The local people, or the

students?

EE: Even the professors over there. The Mexican professors themselves. I would say

“Chicano.” What’s a Chicano? They would say, “What do you mean by discrimination?

There’s no discrimination.” They didn’t know what the history of discrimination was in

the U.S. In Mexico, discrimination is like, what, do you discriminate against each other?

It’s something that conceptually they had never thought about in that way, although they

do discriminate. But in a very subtle way, against Indians, against the poor. It just

depends on how you look at it. But if I say, “You know, we went to segregated schools.,”

they would say, “What are you talking about?” So we had to educate them, and when we

did they got interested. They had no clue.

CS: So when you used the term “Chicano,” what did you mean when you were telling them

about it? How did you explain it?

EE: Well, to them “Chicano” is a derogatory term, because it is a slang term. But I would

say, “Chicano is a Mexicano, all you did is shorten the term, you know.” He would say,

“Chicanos over here are low-class types.” We would say, “Historically, what happened

in the U.S. was that in 1848, the U.S. came in and took over Arizona, New Mexico,

Colorado, Nevada, California, Oregon, which were Mexican territory and there were

already Mexicans living there, and lots of them, we became Mexican-Americans. In the

35

big cities like L.A., San Antonio, El Paso, Phoenix, they developed a sub-culture of

young Mexican-Americans who were born here and went to school here, but couldn’t

identify with the majority population. And there were a lot. In high school, we were all

Chicanos, but you know what, our Gringo friends didn’t know what a Chicano was

because we didn’t tell them. It was an in-house word. We called each other “Chicano,”

but we had a Mexican-American Club; we didn’t have a Chicano Club. But

(unintelligible) we were Chicano. Well, my dad couldn’t stand the term. He was a

Mexicano; he was from Mexico. Chicano was a slang term. But we identified with it

and, eventually, what happened during the Civil Rights movement, starting in the ‘60s,

was we didn’t want to be called Mexican-Americans, we didn’t want to be called

Hispanic and we didn’t want to be called Latinos. We were Chicanos; that was our term.

We invented the term, and so we applied it to the Chicano movement. That’s the way it

came about. The media picked it up and started printing “Chicano,” “Chicano,”

“Chicano,” you know. Then they started saying, “Well, the Chicano isn’t American. A

Mexican-American is a nice guy. The Chicano is a militant.” And so because it connotes

activitism, they started substituting Mexican-American or Hispanic for it. They wouldn’t

use that word “Chicano.” You can see that in the media nowadays. Unless it is in the

name of an organization, they won’t use the word “Chicano.”

CS: Because it implies. . . .?

EE: Activism. And we still say we’re Chicano. We care what we are and a lot of times

someone will say to me, “Are you Mexican-American?” “No, I’m Chicano.” It just

sticks with you, and it’s something that Chicanos can (unintelligible). The funniest thing

is that I attended a Chicano conference in Georgia. We took students to a Chicano

conference, a national conference. We had called a meeting of L.A. people, Arizona

36

people and Texas Chicanos. We wanted the next conference to be in Tempe, in Arizona,

so our students, our Chicanos, said “We want it in Tempe; we are ready for it.” One of

the L.A. guys said, “No, man, if we send Chicanos to Arizona, they’re going to come

back as Mexican-Americans.” I still laugh about it, but this guy was serious. That’s

what they thought about us.

CS: As non-activists?

EE: Yes, it’s weird, but they were going to convert us. But that’s a term that basically

evolved into a political term. And it still is a political term. If a guy says, “I’m a

Chicano,” that means he is politically astute and he knows what he is talking about. I

think, more than anything, I have enjoyed doing that, and insisting on doing it, more than

anything. You just have to say, “I am what I am. If you like it, that’s fine. If you don’t

like it, that’s fine, too.”

CS: I have one last question for you. How did you and Cecelia meet? What’s the story

behind that?

EE: In 1952, I had come back from the Air Force and I went back to pitching tires and then I

quit. I took a state test for quarantine inspector. I apparently passed the test, and they

hired me. They sent me to Cameron, Arizona, which is up in the Navajo reservation. I

spent fourteen months up there. I liked Cameron and I liked dealing with the Navajos. I

didn’t like the persons in Cameron. They were a bunch of outcasts. You know, those

little oases tend to draw people who are hiding from a lot of things. There were

numerous guys there who were ex-convicts, running away from their wives, running

away from I don’t know what else. But I met a very nice guy that was teaching there. I

met him at church. I went to the Catholic Church up there, for lack of anything else to do

on Sunday. I thought, “There must be somebody out there; maybe I will run into

37

(unintelligible). He immediately came up to me and said, “I go by the station, quarantine

you know, and I see you, and what are you doing up here?” I said, “I’m working.” He

says, “You want to have dinner with us?” I said, “Sure.” He and Emily, they are good

friends and he went to church. Eventually, we started talking and he said, “What are you

doing up here anyway? Are you stupid?” He said, “Look, you’re not married and you

basically don’t have any debts. Why don’t you go back to school? You’re better off.

This is going nowhere.” I knew already that it was going nowhere. I had already done

what I had to do on my job. I had already gotten the highest rating from (unintelligible).

I had already gotten letters from people we talked to who were entomologists who said,

“Hey, this guy’s doing a good job.” So he said, “Get out of here. Go back to school.”

So I actually listened to him and said, “You know, you’re right. I’ve already done what I

had to do here, so in the fall I will start school.” So I quit, came home, traded time with

my brother because (unintelligible). I came over and I said, “I don’t want to this ’59 Ford

Galaxy. It’s too expensive for me. You can have it and I’ll take your old Chevy, the

yellow Galaxy.” And he said, “Oh, OK, sure.” So we traded cars and I started school in

the fall of ’62. During a football game, I was wandering through Sun Devil Stadium over

there and I basically—I have friends, but I have very select friends, I don’t mix, but I

didn’t have any friends there at school. My friends were all out of school and if I wanted

to go and have a beer I would call Frank and we would go have a beer, or (unintelligible)

or somebody. I was by myself, but I did have a friend who was doing his Master’s

degree in math. His name was Joachim (unintelligible). He had graduated from high

school in ’57, a year after I did; he was very bright. I don‘t know whether you know who

he is, but he eventually became Department Chair at ASU in math. Anyway, I looked

down there and I thought, “Oh, there is Joachim.” So I looked at him and he was with

38

this young lady, and I thought, “He is still hitting on high-school girls?” She didn’t look

any older than 16 or 15, or whatever, but she was actually about 20. So I went down and

said, “Hello.” I had signed up for his algebra class and I knew who he was. He said,

“How are you doing?” He introduced me to the girl and I didn’t catch the name, and that

was it. I forgot about it, went home. I was then working as a Campus Cop at Tempe

High. When I came back, I had gonet to see the Superintendent and I said, “Could I do

something at the high school there?” He said, “We could use you as Security in the

afternoons. You can come in and do security work for the high school.” So I was

working as a Campus Cop. Cecelia was teaching there. She came in and she had this

crazy car that she borrowed from somebody and could hardly stop it because her feet

didn’t reach far. But, anyway, she came into the parking lot and I had to get out of the

way. She was going to park and I was in the way. I had an idea I had seen her

somewhere, but I didn’t know where. So then she found out that she had lost her ride and

that she needed a ride. I was going to school in the morning. At noon, at the very time

she had to be at Tempe High, I was coming home. Then I was going to work. So then

Mrs. Landers, one of her cooperating teachers, told her, “Why don’t you ask the young

man out there who patrols the lot? He is in school in the morning and maybe he will

give you a ride. So then she came back and asked me if I would give her a ride, and I

said, “Yeah, why not?” And I thought, “Where did I see her?” you know. I can’t

remember when it finally hit me. “Oh, she was with Joachim.” I know, she invited me to

a party they were having. I said, “That’s where I saw you, with Joachim at the football

game.” From there, you know, we really didn’t start dating then. We would just see each

other at parties. It wasn’t until about a year later--she graduated that year and went to

school in Kearny and we had already known each other, so she used to invite me to come

39

up to Kearny to some functions they had. So, you know, we got together and started

dating and going to parties and in my junior year, 1965, we got married. Then we

graduated together, because by then she was in graduate school. I got my BA and she got

her Master’s at the same time. Then we went to teach at Tacoma for two years. Then I

had to come back and get my Master’s.

CS: And the rest is history, huh?

EE: The rest is life. A good 43 years, or 44 (chuckle).

CS: Is there anything else you would like to add?

EE: I don’t know. It’s hard to come up with anything that. . . . Politically, I got active pretty

quick, because I was then elected to the School Board in 1970 and stayed there six years,

on the School Board. Not only was I on the School Board, but I became very active with

AEA, the Arizona Education Association. I was also active with the NEA. Actually, I

got put on several committees at the national level. Again, it was always a matter of the

NEA not seeing a need for hiring Chicanos in Washington. We had no presence in the

organization at all. So in 1970, 1971, we petitioned the NEA to start a Hispanic task

force and then they said, “OK, we’ll do an Indo-Hispanic task force,” which was Indians

and Chicanos. We had our misgivings about that, but we said, “OK, as long as we can

get a foot in.” I was appointed to that task force and I became, eventually, the Chair of it.

But it was only Indo-Hispanic one year and then the Indians revolted. They said, “No

way. Our agendas don’t coincide. We have different agendas.” The NEA knew that. So

the Chief took his group out and they formed First America. We became the Chicano

task force, and all the guys on the task force were Chicanos. They were mostly activists

from different states; Mexico, Texas, California, Arizona. I was from Arizona.

(unintelligible) was from Arizona and he was on it, too. So we basically wanted to

40

impact NEA mainly on bilingual education, which was big then. We were trying to get

NEA to address the problems of bilingual education and where it could be useful. So it

eventually became a standing committee and then, from there, because I was in a

community college, in higher education, I was appointed to the Higher Education

Council. I spent two or three years on that one. There were two other committees I was

on, but they were ad hoc committees. I did a lot of travel. It was nothing to go to

Washington at least three times a year and to a regional meeting three or four times a

year. Then with all the other things that were going on--the School Board and the other

political stuff we were involved in, the grape boycott, the lettuce boycott, the farm

workers movement with Chavez, starting sometime in 1972, everything. We must have

had a lot of energy, because we were everywhere.

CS: You were doing a lot of things that mean a lot to you.

EE: It was mostly extra stuff that needed doing. We were excited about it because we got the

opportunity to do it. You know, I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be a

Chicano activist. What I wanted was a job. It is the lack of finding those jobs that turns

you into what you are, you know? This, more than anything, is a part of my life that was

so intense. After that, maybe 1981 was the last meeting with the Higher Education

Council with NEA. They still wanted to send me places me after that, but I said, “No, I

need to stay here.”

(Turn tape)

EE: Well, it’s thirty years, you know, and then we got into this.

CS: It is a beautiful house.

EE: You know, I built 80 per cent of it. My daughter and my son helped me with the floor. I

did most of the frame. I did hire a guy to come in because we have huge beams that hold

41

this place together. You know, that area there, there is a lot of waste there. There are

two giant beams that go over that wall there and they attach themselves over there to

another beam. And then there is another beam where two beams come together that run

over this wall and they go all the way across and attach themselves to that beam coming

in. There is a thirty-foot beam right there. So it was kind of interesting. I learned a lot. I

learned how to be an electrician. I went out to hire an electrician one time. I asked him

how much would it take to do this? He gave me a quote, and I said, “OK, thanks, see

you.” I said, “I’m going to go out and get a book.” I went out and got a basic electrical

book and I said, “I can do this.”

CS: Any thing else that you want to make sure that we have on you?

EE: I don’t know. I don’t think so.

CS: OK—a good stopping point?

EE: Oh yes.

42