Hello. It is May 6th today. The weather has been cool. Recording, May 6th.
It is May 6th.
Uh huh. Because, see, I, I don't think any of us are perfect. We do make
mistakes but the, but the stories that I've been telling you weren't
mistakes, even though when they were, they were stubbornness, they were
mulishness. They were, it was something else. It was. I, I don't know what
else to call it. So, yeah, I have more questions. Um, so do you consider
your teaching some of your most important work?
What do you consider most important? The fight, the fight with Gosnell,
the development company? Oh. Do you want to talk about that a little bit?
Um, somebody's gonna do a research paper on that later. But, uh, poly
and humanitarian award sometimes. No, I haven't heard of it. The Petra
Foundation and she writes a lot. She examines, she analyzes my personality
in here. Um,
apparently it's an, or it's a foundation in Washington DC that, that
honors, um, unsung heroes. You know, people that, that do things that
don't belong to clubs and don't do it because they councilman or they do
it just because they exist and ma make certain things happen, whether they
plan it or it's an accident or apparently that's what it is. But anyway.
Mhm. One of the things that she says here is that she calls me an
evergreen
evergreen in do is one of those evergreen individuals who always produces
fruit, whether nurtured from without or not. Uh And uh she goes on like
that very uh not widely recognized, does not have a strong institutional
base of support, has demonstrated capacity to grow even in her advanced
age. The last fight we had was about two months ago has overcome obstacles.
It goes on like that, you know. Oh jeez.
Excuse me. Huh? I know. But I wanna finish this one thing. No, what
happened? Come here. I wanna show you this American American Club of
Arizona. But the point really is that, um I think what, what leads this
family to do some of these things that you know, nobody knows about or
hears about or the whole bit is, is the way we were nurtured in politics.
Now, your brother got you into that. My father and mother and grandfather
and great grandfather gave you a strong identity as a Mexican American
told him it was a mu told us it was a must. And when we were, I think 1413
, something like that, we belong to this club and our dues were like $5 a
month or something, five cents a month. And one of the reasons he wanted
to sit there, he says, because you're smart now, that's big stuff for a
little kid. Uh So we sure we, we wanted to go places. This club was made
up of mostly young and middle aged people from all over the state. And the
purpose of it was to get kids, Mexican American kids jobs and education.
Latin American Club of Arizona Jobs and education. And that would have
been in the thirties that you're in, that you're in the thirties. And um
it went on probably it continued to exist until a Lulac took over. And
Luis Cor the, the leader, he was a very powerful leader, a very
charismatic man. He used to spend a lot of time in, in our house. He
traveled a lot. He went everywhere and he knew he was a good politician
and I'm not talking about partisan politics. I'm probably talking about
politics of conscience or something. I don't know what it is but he, he
just filled everybody that he touched with a spirit that you could do
things that you could do things you could make something. That's why we
were at that convention. We had no business there. We weren't even 18 and
we were voting for a statewide uh endorsement of uh uh governors. And I
don't know what all the state of Arizona and my sister and I, and about
four others objected to the nominee. Who knows why we didn't want him. So
when they called for the votes, we stood up. No, we ran to our rooms and
locked the door,
chill. Well, ok, so the reason I bring it up is because I think that, that
spirit, that feeling that you can do and you should do and somebody must
do or they'll do it to you, uh pay attention. You know, that, that I think
made all of us uh push in that direction a little bit. So we, we became
participants and activists and a lot of, lot of little causes. And the
only one that I can think of that I really took uh danger. Leadership was
the Gosnell fight because that one to this day is having repercussions. I
had a phone call last week about a guy's doing research on it and he got,
he started getting threatening calls already really.
But the reason that I say that I took leadership in it is because I was up
in pace at the cabin and returned to Phoenix. This was in 1981
I believe no 80 must have been 85
and had a phone call. I was a member of uh what they call the Phoenix
Village Planning Committee. It was city was subdivided neighborhoods. So I
was in South Phoenix and one of these women that belonged to that called
me, she said Gosnell is going to do you know that story at all. Well, then
I don't have the detail. Anyway, Gosnell is gonna do this and uh, and
nobody's gonna stop him and all that stuff and he's go, she had gotten
details that he was gonna present this plan before the city council on a
certain day. Well, I've been out of town. So anyway, I called, I rounded
up people for meetings and from then this was in November right after
Thanksgiving. From then until we filed an injunction. I think in March I
and my family found a lawyer free, found about five lawyers free and found
a a um we didn't find him, but our lawyers found a cash supporter that
would give, I think $10,000 what he gave to help us get started. Another
friend of ours that we've known from college days and his wife. Um they
got the volunteers to sign the injunction of the Court of Application and
that included the leadership in the Senate and the leadership in the House
, Art Hamilton and Alfredo Gutierrez and Dusty Hatfield signed that thing.
Anyway, the Phoenix Preservation Council said no to me many times. No, we
will not help you. No, we will not. No, we will not. No, we will not. And
their pitch beginning with Dottie Gilbert. Anyway, there were about three
or four leaders of P A called both Alta because we have just formed such a
good relationship with the politicians, Downtown City Council. And we
don't want to endanger that we work too long to get where we are and, and
we don't want this and we don't want that. When I went to a city council
meeting, I made my speech, I didn't know a soul in there. There was jam.
There must have been 1000 people in. And that, um, right after me, uh,
came this lawyer Simpson Cox and he made his presentation and when I saw
him, I thought, ah, the lights went on, you know, he, he can help me. So
anyway, then I went, made an appointment, went to see him and we started
planning and he says, you know, that I've been waiting for you to appear.
Uh That's the way, that's the way the band started for six months. The
North Phoenix Preservation Council would not help us no way. And when they
started helping us is because I guess they, they figured it was a serious
thing. That thing ended up in Washington. That problem ended up in
Washington DC at, in Ed Meese's office. That's how high it went. It went
to all those. Uh, it was. Uh, and like I tell you, this guy is doing
research on it on the cemetery end of it. Uh g buried some bodies over
there and put a building over him. I should say the Yaquis buried some
bodies from Guadalupe years ago, 1900 whenever it was. And he built an
apartment building over them and claims that he moved the bodies and
there's a doubt that's the research and you know what that's gonna involve
, that's gonna involve all kinds of state agencies. They have to give
supportive documents that they did or didn't do something. Well, anyway,
that's why he's getting frightened calls. I know. And so when I talk, when
he called me recently, there's nobody that I know. I never heard of him.
Uh, he said, uh, oh, I told him, I said, you better go see a lawyer before
you get another phone call. He said I already have, I had mentioned in my
conversation, the name of a certain lawyer and he's already made an
appointment. It's very serious. Wow. But we did, we did that was very
important and very, very, very important campaign. We didn't get all we
wanted. We didn't want that man around at all. Is that when he built the
point, the point to some of that land, the golf course in the golf course
, the point was already built. I mean, a lot of the housing was already
built, but it was the golf course he wanted, he wanted like 1000 acres of
Parkland Mountain and that was the fight. He had just been turned down at
Thunderbird near Squaw Peak. The Thunderbird country club crowd want they
, they used to have annual golf tournaments and since then they've gone to
move to Scottsdale. But he wanted to build that same scenario by Squaw
Peak and the North Mountain Preservation Council wouldn't let him, I mean
, you know, politics on anyway. They won. He lost. So, what did he do? He
came down to South Mountain and I guess they thought that, you know, we
didn't have any Moxie at all and we didn't, we just had, it, got, the
things got so bad that churches would let us put our petition tables
inside their, right outside their front door. But no church let us do that.
That would say north of Thomas Road.
And the other thing that happened is that the, the, the um Jefferson
Street courthouse, the county courthouse on Third and Jefferson is
supposed to be a non-political area. And of course, this was all
publicized. You know, I, I, in fact, I deliberately used to call this one
and that was so something would get printed. So it was out in the public
domain that we were getting attacked and our petition signers were being
attacked. And so I called the manager of the um facility there on
Jefferson and third and talked to him. I said, you know, uh uh we want to
put petition tables in your building. He said, no way that case may end up
in court and they would be in compound. So anyway, we kept on talking and
then I called two or three politician friends that I had and they
encouraged him in that one. I was a board on the board of supervisors at
the time they encouraged him to consider it because we were in danger. You
know, he let us, he let us put a petition table at every entrance to that
building and he got the Sheriff's department to help us to help keep us
safe. Yeah, it was a, it was a very, so I do hope this, this, uh, fellow
does do good research. I have a lot of, I'm gonna hand, I'm gonna take it
all over to the Hayden library. I have a lot of, uh, news, news, uh,
accounts, but also I have a drawer like that with court documents
and great. I'm sorry. They observed all that. Yeah, that, that has been,
that was a significant thing. But the, the major I think the one that
makes me feel the best is what we've been able to do in the last 10 years
for maybe for Mexican Americans of the future. We have been working real
hard on family history. Ok? It is said that if you, if it isn't written,
it didn't happen. Well, that's fine. But what we want is we would like it
to be an example to other people do this. You know, some of you, if you
have 2000 of you out there may be 10 of you there can, you know, find the
energy to do this. I can see that your focus is on that. That's, that's
what we're doing. And when we moved to Wickenburg, I had already been, I
was a member of the Board of trustees at the Phoenix Museum City Museum.
And then, uh they invited me here to be on that board and what we've been
able to do. Alice and I worked real good on this. We, we really complement
each other. We were able to do is, um, we
developed a little organization to take oral histories. It lasted a couple
of years and um, it was a very formally done little organization and then
that resulted that and other things that the museum was working on. Plus
we created a fund for one of my deceased aunts to honor her to be used in
a certain way with having to do with Mexican American History here because
the previous book that was done by the museum said they couldn't find any
Mexican American History. So that's why there wasn't any in that book.
Well, we've done a book, I guess. I don't know if you've seen it, Mark
Mark Price book and we've done a book and now we've done the play and that
about, hm, I think if it lasted 2.5 hours, um, the second act was all
minority um representing,
there was a black woman in her history and then three or four Mexican um
American history skits and my father and mother were in one of them. Great
, neat. You know, and there's a lot of original Mexican music of the
period. I think I talked to the woman when she was starting to organize
that because I do work as a Cheryl Taylor. It was a, it was a huge success.
They sold out both nights and they have turned people away. But anyway,
that's, that's the, we have used our own little uneducated, uninformed
ways to put pressure on certain certain places that will produce what we
think should be produced. And this thing, this museum has been in
existence for 2530 years. And to this day, I mean, till last year, they
didn't uh represent the Mexican American history at all, at all. And our
goal really is to show them, they must produce a permanent exhibit. And
I'm not saying that there has to be a Chinese one here and a Mexican one
here and a white one here and an Indian one there. They can work it out.
You know, this happened and then that happened and then this happened and
in all these happenings, certain people were kinds of people were involved
if you know their names, use them. Yeah. Right. You know, so I think that
I should come to an end. Well, it's too bad that we're trying to do.