Barrios Oral History Project

BEGIN TAPE TWO, SIDE ONE

MATSCH: Alright, we were talking about prejudice and segregation in Tempe.

HORMELL: Uh-huh.

MATSCH: When Mount Carmel started, was that the end of the Eighth Street School?

HORMELL: That sort of dwindled away and it was the end of the Eighth Street School. And then we had Mount Carmel and Tempe Grammar -- those were the two big schools -- and Rural School in the rural area. That was going also, real heavy. I mean, they had a lot of kids come there. I don't know about Kyrene had a school, but I think they had, I think there was a Kyrene School.

MATSCH: What about other places where they would segregate you? Were you? The Tempe Beach was one.

HORMELL: Tempe Beach was only on Wednesdays we could go swimming, because the water was dirty and they were ready to -- that was the day that they had dirty water, so it didn't matter whether our skin was going to get that dirty, I guess, the water dirty.

MATSCH: How do they explain that to people, that you can only go on this day? How did your parents handle that?

HORMELL: Our parents just accepted it. It was like they quit fighting. It wasn't until the '60s, like I said, OUR generation, that made a change. And actually, like what happened with [Martin] Luther King [Jr.]. I think that he actually not only brought up his culture to be exposed, but also everybody else's that was exposed. I was so super-shocked, because when I got married, I got married young, and I really just wanted to get out of here, point blank. I didn't want my kids to suffer because I was Mexican. And I moved to Florida and I was Irene -- I was Irene Gomez Hormell. And if I said "Gomez," I was proud of saying Gomez, not being ashamed of saying Gomez. I remember when my grandmother spoke to me in Spanish and I would answer her in English, only, so that people would accept me as Anglo. And then. . . . I'm ashamed of that now, that I felt that way.

MATSCH: But that was very natural at that time, I think, for all children of immigrants.

HORMELL: Yeah, I guess so. But the sad part about it is that we WEREN'T immigrants, we were here before any Anglos came, because on MY side of my family, especially, my dad's side, my great-great-grandfather was an Anglo, but he wasn't THAT kind of an Anglo. He loved Mexican people and he married one. And he was very nice to her, good to her. That's where the Jones family you see on that chart over there. Nana Alcaria was from Yuma, but my grandmother Gomez was born here in Tempe. But even I see HER family, my dad's side of the family, they had that little -- they didn't want to mix with the Mexican people. When I was young, I used to hate them for that, but then when I grew up, I was like being ashamed of being Mexican, so I can see in their generation how hard it was, even worse for them that it was for me. Now, see, in the '60s we MADE a difference. I'm not saying I, because I was a coward and I moved away from here, and I didn't do a thing to help with that. But my friends, good friends that I have, they were out there rallying and I just adore this one girl, Cecelia Esquer that's married to Elias Esquer. She was one of them. And I think that those people made a difference in Tempe and for the Mexican people, although they'll go as unsung heroes. But they're the ones that went up there and were in the rally and that kind of thing to make the whole world know that this was happening here in Arizona. And this was our land and we're treated like . . . like you-know-what. Those were the things that were happening. I still get a little -- not too long ago I was asked to go to a dinner of some kind and the girl says, "Well, I don't know if you're able to go, because I don't know if you can afford it, it's twenty dollars." And I thought, "I can afford it more than YOU can, lady!" I felt like saying. But I also was taught manners and I just didn't say anything to her. But those things are still said. Just they have no tact. They were taught that we were just, you know, Mexicans, poor Mexicans, and that's how they stereotyped us. And this was for a historical thing in Scottsdale, and it was a big thing, it was a person that was going to be there, and we were all gung-ho, because Clara [Urbano] and I are real involved in wanting to be involved in that. And when that happened, I told Clara, "They're not going to get MY money! If they have a person working like her, I don't want to." And she went to school with me! And I didn't think she was that way, because I didn't think our generation was. . . . This is how, when we were dating, the Mexican boys would go out with the Anglo girls, but they had Anglo boyfriends. So what happened was, let's say this boy wanted to go -- let's name him Bob -- Bob wanted to go with Sherry. Bob would have to ask Dennis to go ask Sharon to go out with him, and then they would switch, because they liked each other, but the parents would not allow Mexicans to mix with Anglos at all. And so that's how they did it. And see, that was in the late '50s. That was the beginning of the '60s when we were making the changes. So actually these were the groups of people that we went to school with. We palled around with. But it was their parents that HATED us. They didn't want us to mix with their kids. And there was some families that. . . . I don't think that

they. . . . I know they would care if we MARRIED their kids, but they still accepted us as their friend, they let us be their friends -- but not for any marital purposes. (laughs)

MATSCH: What other areas in Tempe did you find segregation? Like when you went to the movie theater, there wasn't anything there was there?

HORMELL: When I was growing up, by that time -- maybe my sister might have, I don't know. But we . . . I worked at the theater and we didn't have that anymore. Well, we DID have it, because you know when I went to work for the United Loan Company in Tempe, they called the gentleman that ran -- Callie was his name -- that ran the Tempe Theater, and they asked him how I worked, because they were checking my background. And my boss, Mr. Burke, was furious when he found out that he said, "Well, for a Mexican, she's really good. She does an outstanding job." And then when they called Mr. Boyle, our dear Mr. Boyle that I had him up on a pedestal, and then when I found that out, it was just like a slap on the face. Because this is a person that I trusted and thought a great deal of. He was a [registrar of the high school. They called him, and I was high up in the grades, and so he said, "For a Mexican, she did real good." Instead of saying what my qualities were and what my background was and all that, he didn't care, I was just labeled as a Mexican. I met her at church not too long ago.

MATSCH: Okay, what about the school activities? Now at Mount Carmel there were mostly Mexican children, so that probably wasn't ______.

HORMELL: Mostly Mexican children. We had the families, like the Westervelts, Dr. Westervelts' kids went to school with us; the Raiders. Very, very few. Janet Lewis from the Lewis Drugstore here in Mesa. Old families, Catholic families, and the Cahills.

MATSCH: And they were in the minority then?

HORMELL: They were the minority. Charles Kitridge. But they also became one of us. I mean, like [Tempe City Councilman Dennis] Cahill, I feel like he represents us as much as he represents the Anglo. He's just that kind of a person. He grew up with us. The Kitridges, gosh they. . . . And Norman and Jordans. A lot of those kids that went to the Catholic youth organizations, or to the schools, they were just one of us. I think because we were God-related, we didn't. . . . Their parents might have been -- well, I know -- I shouldn't say "might have been," I KNOW they were. (chuckles) But within our group, the bond is still there.

MATSCH: What about when you went to the high school?

HORMELL: In high school, like I said, I always am kind of like a little Pollyanna. Because I'm a Pisces, I see the world more beautiful than what it is, I think. I always felt that the teachers were good there. I really never -- only I think one, my English teacher and speech teacher, she just didn't like Mexicans, and so I just feel like she just never wanted to give us a good grade. That's the only bad experience that I had. But all my other teachers were good. But she said, "You have an accent, and will always have one." Instead of trying to help, she was like anti-Mexicans. I mean, she really hated us. When I went into her room, I just felt that. . . . You know how you can sense, that she just had that.

MATSCH: What about the clubs that the school had? Were you free to join all those?

HORMELL: We did, yeah. We got very. . . . By the time we got to high school, things were changing. I belonged to every one of them. And I was a pompom girl, I was one of the very few Mexican girls that made it. I made it in the freshman year. I don't know if there was a quota or whatever, because in those days, that also, people, there was a little pressure, so then they would say, "Okay, we'll let ONE Mexican come in this year." It wasn't like for your talent or for your, you know. I find, though, it taught us -- and I think all of us kids, you know, we didn't get together a lot, because the ones on the committee are the ones that grew up together. And we talk about they might have done us an injustice, but we became stronger and we can handle things more, and they probably are having to go to psychiatrists all the time, and their kids, but we don't, because we had each other. A lot of the things that they put a hinder on, you tried harder to compete. Now when I tried for pompom girl, I remember I was competing with people with money, Anglos with money and all. But I remember I had to give it all my all, and to keep it, I had to give it all my all. Now I lost my second year because of the priest. The priest was very. . . . We did a little dance. It was just a little mambo thing and he just got furious and he said, "No person from my church is going to be representing my CYO in doing that kind of dancing." And he made such a big stink that the following year I didn't make it, and I always know that that was the reason. But then my third year I tried again and I made it. But you had to overexcel yourself for anything that you did, just to be accepted, just to be. . . . And there WAS prejudice. I mean, you could feel it, like Mr. Wells in the music room. I know a lot of kids say that he was like that. You had the talent, but they didn't want to touch it. It was like, "No, no, no, let's not bother with him because he's Mexican. So let's outshine the other kids that are not." And football the same way. See, now, I never thought that there was, the boys never really talked about it. Now that we're older and they talk about the things, they really excelled in sports and they never got the recognition, always all the Anglo kids did. Karl Keifer, the coach now, he wasn't that great, but the others made him great. If you have your name in the paper all the time because he was Anglo, you know, that type of thing. And it was sad. It was sad because those kids didn't. . . . I'm not saying. . . . And it wasn't THEM that did it, like Karl Keifer, it wasn't HIS fault, it was just that that was the way it was. But we all talk about it, you know, and we say, "Remember that pass?" or whatever, because, you know, we were there, we were always involved in everything. And that's one of the things that we were taught at Mount Carmel: The nun used to say, "If you're gonna complain about it, you'll always be a complainer. But if you're gonna DO something about it, then you're gonna be PART of it, you're gonna be the decision-maker, you're gonna be. . . . But YOU HAVE TO JOIN, whether you take the brunts, and there are people out there that are gonna stereotype you, BUT fight for it. If you want it bad enough, you're gonna get it."

MATSCH: Did you feel this when you would go to other schools, other towns, for your school activities? Was it as bad as in Tempe, the segregation that was pushed on you here?

HORMELL: I don't know. I think there was, I think it was everywhere in general, because I talk to people my age, and they all went through it. But they sort of kept it hush-hush. Now, as older people, we sit down and we talk. Even like the other day at a HIT Committee meeting -- I belong to the Hispanic Initiative Team Committee for the Red Cross -- and one guy there that's the chairman, we started talking about people that we knew, you know, and he went to Phoenix Union. And there was prejudice there. There was prejudice all over, but we just sort of, like, that was the way of life. We actually accepted it as the way of life. And there STILL is. I listen to some people sometimes say, "Well, that's the mentality of the Westerners." And you know, now they're not categorizing us as just Mexicans, but it's ALL the Westerners. You know, they have to bring people from the East to make it right, because the people from the West are too dumb. And that's their mentality. See, when I was young I used to feel like they're right, I'm wrong -- but now I know THEY'RE wrong and I'm right, because our mentality is far better than theirs. Their places where they come from are all raunchy and everything -- we still have a beautiful state! (laughter) But, you know, that's life.

MATSCH: Alright. What was the attitude of the barrio community towards education?

HORMELL: (sigh) That's hard. Okay, if some people that went to school and then they acted a little bit better, then that really hurt education. If you went to school or to college and you just were one of them and still kept an even keel, they were proud of you. In our families, and even to this day, I feel very proud of all my friends that went to college. In OUR generation -- I'm talking more about my generation, because I really don't know the other generation. I remember getting little talks about, "Well, you think you're smarter because you're going to college or you're going to high school." You know, that kind of thing. But that was just, I think a little bit of jealousy because they couldn't do it, and then they seen our generation kind of making a different mold. I feel very proud and honored that I'm friends with all the friends that I went to school with, and they all did something for themselves. Elias Esquer, he runs the Spanish Department at the community college, his wife is a lawyer and she's done a LOT of -- that's the one that I told you has done so much work for the Sacaton Indians. She's just always doing something for the Hispanic community. And we don't stop there, though, either. We feel like we now can become mentors for our Hispanic kids that are now. . . . They have a worse. . . . Now their problem is entirely different, because it's a different generation. But MY generation, I just feel proud that everybody, whatever they do, we're proud of them, no matter what they do. They're doing honest work, some of them just getting by. Some of them are making good money. All of us had one dream, is to invest in our kids' future and education so that then THEY can do better. And that's really where we're at.

MATSCH: When you were in high school, did you have kids that would drop out when they reached the age that the state would say, "You [don't] have to go."

HORMELL: A lot of them.

MATSCH: Is that because they wanted to earn money, or because they just didn't care about the education?

HORMELL: Some because they had to earn money because they had to support the families. Some because they just felt like. . . . One instance: a friend of mine quit school, he went to, I think, freshman [year], and he quit school. I just really gave him -- I used to be the scolder (laughs) of the neighborhood, to the Barrio Mickey Mouse. (laughs) That's what he tells me now, "Oh my God, I used to hide from you! You were worse than your grandma!" (laughter) But I talked to him at length and I said, "Why?!" I was even crying. "Why are you leaving school? You've already finished eighth grade, now you're going to high school. Why?!" And he said, "Irene," and then he started naming different men. "They all went to school, and some of them went to college, and what are they doing? Because they're Mexicans, they're not gonna get nothing." And I said, "Don't be that way, don't be one of those that give up before you have a chance. If you don't like it here, move somewhere else and maybe you can make a good. . . ." Well, he was a good worker, and what he did was, he worked for the flour mill and worked there for quite a while. And then from there he went into work for Fleming Foods, which was Associated Grocers, and now he's a supervisor there. But he was always a good worker. This kid picked cotton when he was going to school in the eighth grade. These kids went to school, but they had to work on Saturdays in the fields.

MATSCH: A lot of. . . .

HORMELL: A lot of them did. A lot of them did, to help their parents, and he was one of them. And he was a DARNED good worker -- everybody wanted him to work in HIS fields, because he was fast. But there for a while, and we were talking about it -- we're celebrating our birthdays next week, and he's a day younger than I am (laughs) so he always teases me on that. And I told him, I said. . . . He was telling me how I used to scold him all the time, but he said, "You know, you made sense, a LOT of sense, but at that time I HATED you!" But he's doing good and he's a supervisor there and he does good. And there's a lot of them that went as far as they could. I remember when I graduated from high school I went to Phoenix and applied and applied and every job, number one, I didn't have the experience, but I know that a lot of places, I know the telephone company was one of them, they were very prejudiced against Mexican people, so they wouldn't even let you take an application, that's how bad it was. It was really bad. Well, like for instance, the United Loan Company. When I applied the men loved me right away, you know, because I love people and I really could communicate with them. And he said he was furious when the response that he got from the people that I spoke so highly of. And even in our church, our church was very prejudiced. When I married my husband, he was Anglo, and the priest was just out of his mind. He . . . they really tried to break the marriage. My marriage didn't go bad because we were two different. . . . It was entirely different why my marriage went bad. But it wasn't because. . . . At that time we were madly in love and we really. . . . I just never understood that part, and it was because they were Anglo and Mexican they didn't want the mixture.

MATSCH: Was the priest Mexican?

HORMELL: No, he was Irish. You know, another big person in my life that was the leader of our church, and he DID have a lot. And he stripped everything of our culture in our church.

MATSCH: Gosh.

HORMELL: My grandmother and all her little buddies (chuckles) when our church was in the middle of the. . . . You know where the stadium is at now? That was our first Catholic church. And then they built, in 1900s, they built the Mount Carmel one.

MATSCH: Between the two buttes?

HORMELL: Between the two buttes. So then that's, you know, he. . . . They're the ones that BUILT this church, and the reason they built this church here was because Saint Mary's was just for the Anglos. And the reason they built Ninth Street, the Immaculate Conception, I think it's called, right there on Ninth Street and Washington, they built it for the Mexicans because they segregated the Mexicans and the Anglos IN THE CHURCH, in our own Catholic church! And the people from here had to go over there -- they couldn't come to Tempe, they would have to go to the church. It was really sad. But, see, that didn't, like ____________ used to say, "Well, maybe we should change churches." I used to be kind of a rebel, tell my grandmother, "Well maybe we should change churches. They're teaching us about God. . . ." And my grandmother said, "No, they're NOT the God. God loves everybody. They're just people here that probably took their vows because their parents wanted them out of the house." And that's how she kind of like explained to us so that we would not have hate, or build this hurt within us. She would always find ways of explaining so that it would make it easier for us. No, that was kind of like bad. They took all the cultural things out, we had the saints and all that, but that's what we believed in, that was our culture. That's how the Spaniards came and taught the Indians, and so we have the mixture of the Indians and the Spanish. And then they come from another world, and they strip us down from everything. But there was a lot of things that were torn. And now it's getting better. When we got back in '86, I got back, this one girl said, "You know, we all get together for our barrio reunions. We should get together, back to our foundation, that's the church." At Mount Carmel we have a lot of fallen-away Catholics because of that. Father really ruined a lot of Mexican families in their way of thinking. And so they just left the church and never went to ANY church. And so she started this group called the Guadalupanas. Her name's Lupe Ortega Acosta now, but she's the one that said, "Let's get together and meet in a group." So we started calling everybody, and we started one, but the flack that we got in the beginning was like, "Why do you want to start a group?!" And all we wanted to do is to fellowship. We wanted to start, and then we could go. . . . Our plan was to start with this group and then do things and raise money and give to the church. But you know, us contribute OUR way, you know. So now it's going, and it's going good, and it's a GOOD fellowship group. As a matter of fact, we've gotten real, real close. The unity of the old barrio is there. Those people are. . . . I was told when I lived in Florida, if you go back, you'll never find it the same. You know, you can't go back. And they're wrong, I've proven them wrong, because I COULD come back. All these beautiful friends that I grew up with and who sacrificed and suffered the same -- none of us were rich, we all came from the same kind of background, and we're together now. And I think it's beautiful.

MATSCH: When it came time to go to college, were you able to get scholarships? Were there any available?

HORMELL: We didn't have. . . . You know how now they have people to talk to you and tell you, guide you. . . .

MATSCH: Counselors.

HORMELL: Counselors and all that. We didn't have that. They had them, they didn't have them for the Mexicans. The ones that didn't want to act like Mexicans, only spoke English and never bothered mixing with us, maybe those were the ones that could get a little bit of help. Like the other Anglos, you know, they never mixed with the Mexicans. But as far as the Mexicans, per se, you know, the scholarships that we got were odd places like, I think, Palo Verde or Palo Alto or something. Palo Verde is near Yuma somewhere. That's where they would get the scholarships, not in good schools like ASU and all those places.

MATSCH: How did they manage to go to college then? Did they have to work?

HORMELL: You know how my friends went to college? When they joined the service and they came back and then they got that opportunity. If it hadn't been for that, a lot of them wouldn't have gone, because that was a big boost in our arm, is to go to the service, and then they came back, and then those guys, they had the G.I. rights [G.I. Bill] and then they went to college and they took advantage of it.

MATSCH: What about the girls?

HORMELL: The girls, it was the understanding. . . . Well, like me, I asked my dad for money to go to college and he said, "No, I have money saved for your brother, but you girls can get married and you don't have to go to college to find a man." And I said, "I don't want to find a man, I want to go to college to get educated." And then he just didn't . . . his mentality was just, you know, "male only." So we were not only (laughs), us girls were not only fighting the prejudice outside, the racial prejudice: we were fighting also the woman [prejudice] you know. And it's sad, because now if we would have had the education, we would have better money to take care of him, because he's still alive. And I always feel like education is an investment for the future for your WHOLE family -- you don't have to depend on anybody else. I went to school on my own, and I guess a lot of people did the same thing -- you know, the girls. WE wanted to do it and we did. I know Cecilia -- well, she's younger, too, though. You know, by that time, there was a little bit more revolution and more things, we're saying, "Well, how come we can't?!" And so they got into that program. But in MY generation was the beginning, because I graduated in '56, so then it was sort of like the beginning of the change. We kind of made the difference there of different changes. Had you been interviewing me back in the '50s, I wouldn't have been able to open up and tell you what I really feel, because it would have been . . . you probably (laughing) wouldn't want to hear about it! I mean, not you, but a person, because that's the way it was. And there's no ifs or buts about it, that's how it was. And it's sad, because I know a lot of people came from other areas. I remember when the kids just came down from Boston, they didn't know any prejudice about Mexicans here, because, you know, Boston, they didn't have any Mexicans. So they came down here and they right away became friends with all the kids in Mount Carmel, because that's all there were. And we had a few that are still real dear friends of ours because of that, like the Cahills and them. They were sort. . . .

END TAPE TWO, SIDE ONE

BEGIN TAPE TWO, SIDE TWO

MATSCH: Let's go on to the family finances. Were there many two-income families?

HORMELL: No, not at that time, not when we were growing up. The husband worked and the wife stayed home, taking care of the kids. And then if there was a big, big family, well then they DID all work in the fields. It just depended on what family you were in. When my dad worked, and my mom and dad were married, my dad worked on the outside, but my mom worked at home, you know, selling and all that: the eggs and cheese and all that. But when they got divorced, then it was a different story. She took the man's job and my grandmother took the mother's job. That's really what it amounted to. We were lucky that we had that restaurant and we worked and made money on that. Then later on when my mom and stepdad married, we didn't work. I never worked until I got out of school. I was [one of] the very lucky few. But we never -- we were just talking about that the other day to the other people that lived around in the neighborhood, and said, "Well, you were lucky, you never had to go in the fields, we did" -- because they did. But it was just accepted, it wasn't like looked down on. It was just the way of life, you know. And so a lot of them did have to put their kids to work in the fields. I remember dating Elias when I was in high school and he had to, right after school, go and milk cows and some dairy. But it was his job and he couldn't play ball, because, you know. He was good. But it just, I think, depended on. . . . And the wages weren't that great. The wages weren't that great at all.

MATSCH: (comment about microphone) Now, you mentioned how your grandmother helped people. Were there organized groups that would help families?

HORMELL: No, at that time I don't think there was. If there was, there wasn't for Mexican people, or they just didn't have anybody to help them with their language. A lot of them, because they got married so young, some of them, they didn't really finish school, so their primary language was Spanish, and very broken English in some cases. But my grandmother was one, my Aunt Lily Romo, who was Adolfo's daughter, and also in the history of ___________ Franco and Moragas and mother and Danny Frank. Anyway, she used to help people with signing papers and all that, you know, help them out. And my grandmother worked with Mrs. Peralta who was also very involved. During the war they used to go to the American Legion and make things for the soldiers and all that. My grandmother was very community-minded. And so although she was Mexican, in those areas she was accepted. I don't know, because she . . . expressed herself as wanting to help -- or I don't know why, but I remember that she was in there with all the other ladies. And I remember also that she used to teach them, practice with them, to get their citizenship. And she would work with them so that they could get their citizenship. My grandmother, like I said, came from family and she was very well-educated, and she read and wrote in English -- not in English, in Spanish. She's really the one that when I told you I went through that stage that I didn't want to know Spanish at all, I hated Spanish, she sat me down one day and she said that she knew how to read and write [Spanish] and that she wanted me to learn it, because someday maybe I would be able to use it, and that God wanted me to do it -- she expressed herself that way -- and that that's the reason that he gave me this gift to come to this family, so that I could learn the language and maybe someday I could use it and give it back to him. And I always think of that, and I regret that I didn't teach my kids Spanish, because it is like a lost language in a lot of the families. My son now regrets it too, because he keeps telling me that. (laughter)

MATSCH: Now, when you lived in the barrio, you had stores in that area, right, that were owned by residents in the barrio? Did you?

HORMELL: Okay, not in Mickey Mouse, but we had a guy by the name of Sandy that had a little grocery store on Eighth Street that we all went to, and Fincher was another one. But those people LOVED Mexican people. There was a little. . . . Well, it became the Thompson Grocery Store, but before that there was a Chinese man and he killed himself, he committed suicide. But I remember that those were the ones near our area. In the olden days, there WAS a family, the Sigalas had a grocery store. And then they had. . . . This was earlier, the elder generation, my mother's generation. They had the Reyes Market that was there for -- when I was a little girl, he still had it. And Dad's Restaurant -- he also had like a drugstore and all that. And that was really the ones that serviced the Tempe Mexicans. The hardware store, Red, the Colorados they used to call them, because he had red hair, and that's what they labelled him. But it was the Currys, there ________.

MATSCH: Tempe.

HORMELL: Tempe Hardware Store. The Curry family was very Catholic and very Christian, and they loved the Mexican people, and he always used to say that the Mexican people is what made them build their business. And so they were very, very beautiful people.

MATSCH: The stores in the barrio that you went to: most of those were owned by Anglos?

HORMELL: Near us, yes, the ones on Eighth Street. The one, Reyes and the Sigalas, they were owned by the Mexican families way before. But then later on when MY generation, when I moved to the barrio, it was the Anglos, because it was Sandy and Fincher that was on Eighth Street that we dealt with. And then I used to have to walk -- I was the one that had to walk from Mickey Mouse to downtown where Simpson's store was. And that's where we bought the groceries, and I had to walk from there down to Mickey Mouse. Simpson's was down by where Randall's used to be, first, and then later on they moved in where the bank was, the Arizona Bank is right now. Anyway, from there, downtown Mill Avenue to in front of -- you know where the big basketball gymnasium is now? That's where our neighborhood, Mickey Mouse, was. That was my neighborhood. One of my pastimes was climbing up the butte every night after school. I used to go up there and dream about how Tempe was going to be. I never wanted to get out of Tempe. And then when I grew up I moved away! I was the first one to move away in our crowd.

MATSCH: The people like Sandy's and Fincher's, did they know Spanish?

HORMELL: I don't know, but my ma and grandma communicated with him, so evidently they understood.

MATSCH: She knew English, though, didn't she?

HORMELL: Yeah, my grandmother could communicate with him real good.

MATSCH: Were the prices any different in the barrio than they were if you'd gotten the same things, say, at Simpson's?

HORMELL: Well, let me tell you something. No, they were real good in the prices. But I don't really know that part. But I remember because at Simpson's my mother used to -- I'd go and buy and then she would pay later, so I really never knew how much it was. But I understand in the olden days, that's how it was. But then we really didn't have that much when I was growing up. In Tempe there was like Boston Store, and see, those people went. . . . If we wanted to get something cheaper we'd have to get on the bus and go to Phoenix, because that's where everything was. Phoenix was a very THRIVING city, right there on Washington and Van Buren. That was like . . . that was the Mecca. And then I can remember just seeing people going back and forth, back and forth, walking. And I mean a LOT of people. (laughing) Sidewalks were humongous. But we just went over there for like dresses and shopping for shoes and stuff. Here we only went like for necessities. And at Sandy's, I don't think he would cheat any Mexican. We loved him, he loved us. He was

a . . . . Sandy was a very loveable person, and he just. . . . We MADE his business.

MATSCH: What is his full name, do you know?

HORMELL: I don't know. My sister Charlene might know. He also had a second-hand store on the other side of town later on when he left his little grocery store. But he always used to tell Charlene that that was his dream come true, was when he had that grocery store there, because he really felt like he helped in some way, and he did. We had a lot of little vendors too, because we used to have some Mexican vendors, like on Sundays they would come and sell. From Phoenix they would come and sell bakery goods. Then we had the ice cream man that came. He was a Mexican guy that sold ice cream. And then we had -- we still had vendors coming around, because I remember vegetable vendors would come around. That was kind of fun, (laughing) we used to hang on the wagon. But then Tempe didn't grow -- well, the first big, when they tore down the high school, the OLD high school where I went to my first year in high school was at the old high school. When they built that shopping center there, then it was like the big store.

MATSCH: Tempe Center?

HORMELL: Uh-huh, the Tempe Center. There was a Grant's and there was a Rancho, and then people started going there. And then A.J. Bayless came in later. You know, it was sort of like a new thing for the Tempeans, but before they had to depend on little stores. Now, I'm just talking about my little stores. Across the street from the Tempe Beach there was a little Chinese man that had a grocery store there and he sold to us. Not to us, but, I mean, to the neighborhood.

MATSCH: Did the Chinese live in the barrios too? Or did they? . . .

HORMELL: I asked Oscar the other day, "Well, where did the Chinaman live? Because I never seen his kids go to school." He says, "I don't know where the kids went to school, but Irene, I know they lived on top of the. . . . They had a home on top of this grocery store." He got his wife in the mail order, mail order bride from China. (laughs)

MATSCH: Cute. How did the banks treat the residents of thebarrios? Were they willing to lend them money?

HORMELL: Unt-uh. Do you know where we had to go to? Finance companies like Beneficial was one of the big ones, with the HIGH, high interest.

MATSCH: Even for something like a house? How would you get the money for a house?

HORMELL: No, most of the things that we. . . . Most of the people that had homes was they worked and then they bought the land. And then all their friends built the homes. That's how they built their homes. And so they just had to pay. And it took a long time sometimes. Sometimes a brother or a sister would build a home, they all get together and build that home, and then they would build another one, and they all lived in the same house until they could move to the other one. And that's how they helped each other. That's why all our land was paid for, and this is where the hardship that it was after the college bought our homes, was that all these people had their homes paid for, none of them had a mortgage. They had their land paid for and then their homes -- whether they were big homes or little homes, they were their homes, and they were paid for. And then they had to go into the stream, you know, and go move into other neighborhoods and they had a big mortgage. And some of them could handle it, and some of them were never taught how to handle it, so they lost their homes. Just such a big transition for some that they couldn't handle it.

MATSCH: So when ASU took over you totally lost your neighborhoods.

HORMELL: The whole neighborhoods. And that's when Clara and I and two other people -- Rachel and Danny -- we all decided to have these reunions, was because we were all talking about how wonderful we had it, and we said, "I wonder if they're living." You know, you start thinking. And then that's really what inspired us into having a big party. And actually, that's what it is, is just a big party, meeting all the OLD families that lived here for so many years, and then they had to just. . . . They just disbursed and they just went all over. And whether they were in Mesa, in Tempe, in Scottsdale, in Phoenix, in Peoria -- most of them went to California. And see, a lot of them from here went to California. In some areas where they lived they weren't treated bad, like we were treated here. So this state, they didn't want to come back to here. And a lot of them, because they had such a sad beginning here. And then a lot of them now that are retired, like we have one radio announcer that just retired, and he's moved back, we just seen him not to long ago -- he's from the Moraga family. And he's getting very active now here and all that. But before, if you didn't get a job, if you went to college and went to become an announcer, [if] you didn't get into Mexican radio, where else could you go? The other stations wouldn't even think about it.

MATSCH: Was this across Arizona, do you think, this discrimination?

HORMELL: I think so. Well, more so in Tempe, I think, than any other place.

MATSCH: More than even in the rest of the Valley?

HORMELL: I don't know, because. . . . No, I talked to a girl in Buckeye and she told me that they weren't allowed to swim at all in the pool.

MATSCH: And where was this?

HORMELL: In Buckeye. They swam in the canals -- and we did too. We swam in the dirty canals. (brief interruption) No, I think it was happening all over. But we kept hush-hush. We took it as part of our life. (tape turned off and on) That was what it was and we accepted it.

MATSCH: Let's talk about the community a little bit. We've talked about Tempe Beach. You couldn't use the pool, but were you free to use the park at Tempe Beach?

HORMELL: We just didn't use it. We went to -- most of us went to the (chuckles) dangerous rapids over there on Blue Point. I never learned how to swim until I got married and bought my home and had a swimming pool of my own.

MATSCH: What if you wanted to have a picnic, where would you go?

HORMELL: We went to Blue Point. That was like the place to go. Or the canal, the big canal over here on Price Road. They used to call them . . . Thresnal. It was a whole bunch of trees they called Thresnals. And then there's a great big canal, and that's where we swam. That's still there, but no water now.

MATSCH: What about Papago Park? You didn't go there either?

HORMELL: You know, we went, but very rarely. I mean, I can remember just going once. You know what it was? Our parents accepted that that was made for the Anglos, and that was it. So we didn't go. We were like used to being kind of like shunned because we were Mexicans, so we just didn't go, we didn't have that. The Tempe Beach, I think, must have been used by some of the people that lived near the Tempe Beach, some of the Mexicans there, if they had it. We had it in our homes.

MATSCH: How about politics? Did any of you participate in city politics?

HORMELL: Okay, in our families, you mean, way back?

MATSCH: From the barrios?

HORMELL: Very few. Mr. Estrada participated, Ray. My Uncle Romo. But see, then he made riff-raff with both Mexican and Anglo. He went and fought for them, but then they didn't follow through, so it sort of like made a dent, a little bit of dent, but not much. But as far as running for politics [political office], no. They all had it sewed up. They wouldn't have anybody that was Mexican in there.

MATSCH: In the barrios did you have any kind of a political. . . .

HORMELL: We didn't have a voice.

MATSCH: Even in your own community, you didn't organize and have a leader or anything?

HORMELL: No. See, our parents were very acceptable [accepting] of what was happening. None of them really had -- they were scared of speaking up.

MATSCH: What about the celebrations in the city, like. . . .

HORMELL: We had, at one time, they say that we had the Cinco de Mayo and the Diez y seis de Septiembre, Mexican cultural fiestas. And then they had them and then they did away with them.

MATSCH: Who's "they"?

HORMELL: The politicians, the ones that ran the city. They just didn't want anything to do -- just erase whatever was about the Mexicans, that's how it was, bright and clear.

MATSCH: But what about in the barrio? You still didn't celebrate the Cinco de Mayo or. . . .

HORMELL: We went to Phoenix. We would still celebrate it. I remember going to Phoenix at Riverside [Park]. They had a BIG Fiestas Patrias, and then they had Cinco de Mayo they celebrated also in Phoenix, the churches usually, that Ninth Street church [Immaculate Conception] in Phoenix. We had to go to Phoenix to do it, because even our church did away with all those things. One sad part that I always think, and now this is the now generation: when the Pope came, I thought it was so sad that Tempe didn't take a full -- I know it was a Catholic visit, but it was nationwide, I mean, not nationwide, it was worldwide. That day was so moving for me, because my grandmother would have been alive, she would have been so proud to have the Pope, on top of where that church, the first Tempe church was, and not just my grandmother but all the other pioneers, to think that the Pope of our Church came to THAT land where our first church was. And if Tempe would have taken up on that and really made a big publicity type of thing, just to give Tempe a GOOD flavor of the traditions that started here. The Spaniards really started the religion here, and came through here, and you know, established all these churches and stuff, and in Tucson and into Mexico and all that. And it was through them that we had the Christianity here developed, through the Indians. It's sad that nobody did anything. I was just kind of like surprised that they didn't do nothing.

MATSCH: I suspect they didn't even know. What was the name of that church, do you remember?

HORMELL: Saint Mary's. They called it Saint Mary's.

MATSCH: It was Saint Mary's, the one that was in the buttes?

HORMELL: Uh-huh. And then they brought it down. There was a cemetery there too, Mexican cemetery -- well, not just Mexican, it was a Catholic cemetery, I guess, because the church was there.

MATSCH: How about the clubs that they had? There were all kinds of clubs in Tempe.

HORMELL: They had [Sociedad Mutualista] Porfirio Diaz. That was kind of like an insurance, because they also, even when to bury you they had problems. And so they organized Porfirio Diaz so that we could pay this insurance. And then when they died, at least they had a casket and a funeral paid for and a farewell, through this organization.

MATSCH: Did you have your own cemetery? Or did they use the Double Butte Cemetery?

HORMELL: We were segregated there too. (laughing) I mean, I tell you, they desegregated us all over. The Guadalupe, which now is in Tempe and it's real nice and clean, but at that time it was just. . . . I used to be scared of going over there. I thought, "Oh no, not another dead person!" And we had to go through this canal, it was real hard to get through, and it was this real narrow canal, and all these people, you know Mexican people, when they die, the whole world comes to your funeral. So it was a very narrow road, and we had to go through this dirt road into the dirt and it was dirty, it was not beautiful landscaped or nothing -- it was just dirt. And the Tempe Cemetery, underneath the. . . .

MATSCH: At Double Butte?

HORMELL: Yeah, Double Butte. There, only. . . . Well, our family had a plot there because the Gomezes were with the Jones, (laughs) so they were from another -- they were allowed there. Not many Mexicans were in there, if your family didn't have a plot. It was kind of the elite cemetery. And we had kind of like a joke. (laughing)

I don't know if I should say it here in the recorder, but when my mom married my dad, her family wasn't elite. They came from a mining town. You know, my grandpa had worked in the mining towns, and then they came down here and became farmers, so he worked for my Aunt Maggie Frank. And so he was their farmhand. So my mother was the farmhand's daughter married to my dad. So it was like when they got married, one of my aunts who's a little stinker, she said to my mom, "Well, you know when you die you're not going to be allowed to buried in the Gomez family plot." And my mom said, "I wasn't expecting to be buried there, I'll be buried where MY family is. I don't have to be buried where YOUR family is, I'm not your family, I just married your brother." So anyway, come to be, the other day when my mom WAS buried, here the week before, my aunt, who also married into the family but she came from a little bit higher income, she was buried in the family plot, and it's all dirt now. It's really. . . . Actually, the old part is the ugliest part now, because there's no grass there, it's just dirt. And my aunt was buried there in the family plot. And my mom is buried in the Soto plot and we have grass and trees and it's beautiful! (laughter) And I said, "Wait a minute here! The thing changed!" But that's kind of a cute humor. But that's how it was. And we had prejudice within ourselves, I guess, too -- not just fighting the [Anglos].

MATSCH: What about the other type of clubs? They had Masons and. . . .

HORMELL: None of those.

MATSCH: No desire? Or you weren't allowed?

HORMELL: I don't think they were allowed. They just. . . . No desire. Mexican people are funny, if they don't want you, you don't want to be there. It's like, "Fine, if you don't need me, I don't want to be part of that." But no, we weren't. . . .

MATSCH: Okay. Let's talk a little bit more about your neighborhood. You've indicated the neighborhood was pretty close.

HORMELL: Very close, very bonded -- and we still are, as a matter of fact. Anybody dies from the old families, we all go to the funerals. There's just that bond, like we're part of the family.

MATSCH: Did you, as children, stay inside your neighborhoods to play with each other? I guess you probably. . . .

HORMELL: When we were little, yes, because you know Tempe had a curfew at nine o'clock. That big horn from the Fire Department blew, and we'd better be at home, because my grandmother will lock the door! She did it on me one time and one time only. No, we were very -- the kids were very different then from kids nowadays. We didn't tell our parents what to do, they told us what to do. And we obeyed them and honored them. It wasn't that they were mean or anything like that, that was the way it was and we did it. We had a curfew, we weren't running around in the streets. When we got older, our pastime in Tempe was walking back and forth, Mill Avenue from the beach. We had friends, and we gathered a little group as we went by, and we'd just walk back and forth and had some ice cream, went down to Laird and Dines for a cherry coke or something like that. We had movies on Saturday for ten cents, and no, we just did our own little thing in the neighborhood. When they had parties, we had gatherings. Actually, in MY neighborhood they were really poor, so really, hardly anybody had parties. We were the ones that gave the birthday parties and they all came.

MATSCH: The other barrios were a little better off?

HORMELL: No, I think they were all in the same boat. But we were big in baptismals and communions and weddings and they'd usually have the weddings -- they didn't have them in halls or anything like that, they just had the whole family got together and brought something, you know, kind of a pot luck, everybody in the whole family helped with the wedding. And that's what made the wedding big, because you were feeding so many people. But actually, it was beautiful, because there was a lot of bond, even in families. There were more bonds in families, which, that is gone now. It's sad, but even now, in this generation.

MATSCH: So when you kids played together, what sort of games did you play? Just regular. . . .

HORMELL: We used to have what our grandparents taught us, or my mother taught us. We played one like "Red Rover, Red Rover," but it was in Spanish, aguatainne, _________ and then we would go this way and that way. We played dodge ball. The city did put volleyball in our neighborhood, but it was located by this girl's house that was a real tomboy and beat all of us up, so we never could play. (laughs) And not too long ago she came to one of our parties and I told her, "I was scared of you!" and she said, "Well, I was scared of you girls too," because she was never accepted because she was kind of like a tomboy, and we were scared of her because she looked so tough. But she just had to play tough, she said, because she was scared of us! It was really, you know, just a young kids' thing. But we played baseball, you know, sandlot -- we played a lot of that. I really enjoyed it. We climbed the butte. Like I said, that was one of my activities, was climbing the butte every day. We went

to. . . . Later on, when we were ALLOWED to go to the beach, we went to the Tempe Beach. Some of my friends became -- like Rachel, my girlfriend, she became a real good part of the swimming team. And so did Mike across the street from Tempe Beach. And they went. But we had a skating rink, which was real nice.

MATSCH: Just for you?

HORMELL: Oh, no, no, no. This is now when we were all [integrated] and they accepted us going there. As people, I think, moved into Tempe from other places, they weren't as prejudiced and they just went in with the flow, because then we had the skating rink, and I don't remember, maybe in the beginning they had. . . . I know they had a bowling alley, but I don't think nobody went there. Well, we didn't have the money to go. But we made our own fun.

END TAPE TWO, SIDE TWO

HORMELL PART 3