Abstract
Ruth Rubio-Pino is a Mexican-American and long-time activist. She has worked closely with Club Azteca and provides a detailed history of the formation and evolution of this Cleveland Mexican-American landmark. She discusses the plight of Mexican migrant workers and urban dwelling Mexican immigrants. She remarks on how the heightened consciousness and enforcement of immigration has affected the Mexican-American community as a whole and in Cleveland. Throughout the oral history, she comments on the struggle of identity formation ("I'm not from here, nor either from there").
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Interviewee
Rubio-Pino, Ruth (interviewee);Pino, Gazan (participant)
Interviewer
Nemeth, Sarah (interviewer)
Project
Detroit Shoreway
Date
8-11-2017
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
96 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Ruth Rubio-Pino interview, 11 August 2017" (2017). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 955047.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1121
Transcript
Transcription sponsored by Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization
Sarah Nemeth [00:00:03] Hi, my name is Sarah Nemeth. I'm here today with Ruth Rubio-Pino. Today is August 10, 2017. We're at the Detroit Shoreway Community Development offices. This is for the Cleveland Regional Oral History Project. Could you please state your name for the record?
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:00:17] Hi, my name is Ruth Rubio-Pino.
Sarah Nemeth [00:00:20] And where and when were you born?
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:00:24] I was born in Edinburg, Texas, in 1958.
Sarah Nemeth [00:00:27] And where are you from? Your ethnic background?
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:00:32] My ethnic background is Mexican. On my mother's side were Mexican from when Texas was territory of Mexico, so we are diehard Mexicans. And on my father's side is, he is straight right from Mexico on the Mexico side.
Sarah Nemeth [00:00:53] So was your mother's family already in Texas? Did they just remain in Texas when it was taken?
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:01:02] When it was overtaken? Yes. Yes. When they took over, they remained in Texas.
Sarah Nemeth [00:01:07] And your father's family, when did they migrate over?
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:01:17] My father's family never came here. When my mother married, he took her back to Mexico to the other side as we used to refer to it. But he passed away and so she came back to Texas to live with my grandmother, her mom.
Sarah Nemeth [00:01:40] What did your father's family do in Mexico?
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:01:45] Me being the youngest of three, I never got to meet him, unfortunately. So I have no idea what, I've never met my family on my father's side.
Sarah Nemeth [00:01:56] Your mother's side, on the other hand, what did they do in Texas?
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:02:00] We come from a long line of migrant workers. We've worked the crops, we would travel, migrate within the states, from state to state according to the crops.
Sarah Nemeth [00:02:13] Is it a large family?
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:02:15] Very, very large. On my mother's side, I mean, I was raised by my grandmother, my mother's mom and there were twelve of us. So, I mean, in comparison to now, of course that's a lot. Of course, back then it was 18.
Sarah Nemeth [00:02:38] I couldn't even imagine having twelve brothers and sisters. And you're the youngest?
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:02:46] Well, I was the youngest granddaughter, but I was raised as a child as part of the family.
Sarah Nemeth [00:02:53] And when was the decision made to move to—
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:02:57] Up north? Well, as I said, I was raised by my grandmother, so I remained down south and I was raised there until I was eight, you know migrating back and forth. But we never came up north. We always remained in the southern states: Nebraska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama. But my mother by then had already come up north, she was already in Cleveland. She had remarried to my stepfather, who was working in the railroads up here in Cleveland, Ohio. So when they realized that my grandmother still hadn't put me in school, which is not uncommon for the migrant families, you know. We traveled so many places that they could never keep track of us anyway, so they didn't know which children were or were not registered for school. And so she never registered me for school and so my mother, when they found out that I wasn't back in school and I was already eight and still not in school, they said, "Yeah, you need to bring her up here." So I came up in 1964 to start school here.
Sarah Nemeth [00:04:00] And in Cleveland?
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:04:01] In Cleveland, yes.
Sarah Nemeth [00:04:04] What side of town were you on?
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:04:05] Near west side. We lived right exactly where the St. Ignatius High School is. Right there in that area.
Sarah Nemeth [00:04:12] Was there already a strong Mexican-American community here?
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:04:17] Well, yeah, absolutely. Because when I got here, my parents were already in office with the Azteca Club and they were already, I think they'd been members for ten years already by that time, and the Azteca Club was in full force at that time. So, yes.
Sarah Nemeth [00:04:39] Did everyone live nearby? Did you move in the same area, the same streets?
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:04:48] Well, yeah. What is now known as Ohio City was very prominently many Hispanics, you know. I was rather young then, so I couldn't really tell you how diverse it was within the Latin community but there was a lot. I remember just in the Bridge Avenue area, there was a lot of Mexicans that we knew right here in this area here by Detroit. What is now known as Detroit Shoreway area is a lot of Mexicans right across the street from the club. There were a couple of streets that were always, you know, we had a lot of Mexican families there. Yeah.
Sarah Nemeth [00:05:24] Right. Could you maybe just describe what your community where you lived was like? Maybe some of what it looked like.
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:05:34] Pretty much what it looks like now. [laughs] Pretty much, it hasn't really changed much. It hasn't deteriorated as much as one would think. You know, through the eyes of a child as young as I was, everything looked huge and big. So the only thing I would say is it's not as big as I thought it was. Back then, I thought everything was enormous. Because I don't know how long the Detroit Shoreway had the Italian community here, but I guess we just seem to blend so well because our culture as well as— it was always the yards. You could always tell who lived in them because she had these big, beautiful rose bushes and all these beautiful, well-maintained gardens. And, you know, that was a passion for most Mexican families, you know. Their wives didn't work and they took care of the garden. And it would happen here. You could see that here with the Italians as well.
Sarah Nemeth [00:06:34] Did anyone ever tell you why they relocated to Cleveland? Some of the first Mexican-American families that moved to the area?
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:06:44] Well, yes. I mean, my dad usually used to talk about it a lot. And it was mainly because of the work, the steel mills and the railroad. Many of them came first, initially, because of the steel mills in Lorain, Ohio, and Cleveland. And I do not know if they were contracted through, you know, back then. All I know is that I was raised as Mexican, so I thought I was Mexican. I mean, I am Mexican but, you know, I didn't realize that I was born in the United States. I didn't know any of that. So having lived in a migrant agricultural family, we were treated just like any undocumented person. I mean, we were discriminated against in low wages and put in very, very poor housing while we traveled from fields to crop to crop. But when I came to live up here, it was a total different lifestyle because by then my mother, my parents, and my brother and sister were living here. It's like taking the kid out of the country and bringing it to the city. Well, that's exactly what I felt. [laughs] I always related to that story because I mean wow. You know, my eyes, they were wide in a house with wooden walls. It was different for me. Very, very different.
Sarah Nemeth [00:08:10] Do you think that you could describe maybe some of the places that you lived when you were traveling around?
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:08:16] Going from? [crosstalk] Oh, yeah. Well, you know as migrant families, we usually had the housing provided to us by the farmers, the owners of the crop– the land that we were going to. But we migrated in what Mom used to call herds, you know. [laughs] We used to [inaudible]– we would migrate five, six, even ten families. It was just a big, big caravan traveling to wherever we went to. But there was always a leader of the group who was in charge of the contracting, you know, getting the contracts for the fields, you know, and says, "Okay, we have a crew of so much. We can get this crop clean for you within so much time." And if we did it within that allotted time, we would go to the next crops. And so, of course, as a child, I was taken but I didn't work obviously. You know, I remember Mom, you know, especially in the cotton fields, my grandmother—I've always called her mom but anyways—she would put me at the end of the sack of the cotton. I don't know if you've ever seen the sacks that they used to carry to pick the cotton? So I'd be over at the end with my little rag dolls and stuff that she would make for me. But as it was getting full and full and full, I'd get on top of it like I'm riding a horse, you know [laughs], and that's how she would carry me along, you know, to work for her day because she was, you know, she was a widow and she had, you know, eleven, twelve children to feed. Well, eleven because my mom wasn't there anymore. But the homes, they varied, okay? But most of them were your one-room, maybe, oh maybe, gosh, I don't know, I think– Well, I think this room would be kind of big for just one room. But it was, I mean it would be one-room little shacks, but it would be in a property where there would be like maybe ten, twelve different little shacks where each family would be able to go in, but it was for one family. So it's all one room, big open room, no insulation, no nothing. It was just boarded, well, almost like a barn, but they're just tiny little things. And we would create rooms with string from wall to wall and throw the bedsheets over it to create, you know the rooms and privacy. But basically the kitchen was in the same room. You know, everything was all in one room. It just depended on where we went and what, you know, how big the rancher was. But most of them were like, I would probably say maybe ten by fifteen spaces. Very, very, very small.
Sarah Nemeth [00:11:01] And thirteen of you shared that?
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:11:05] Well, okay, well in our case, because, I mean, the bigger the family was then of course, we would request two. But of course, and that would be double rent because that wasn't free. We would have to pay, so of course we'd have to pay double to make sure everybody slept. You know, I mean everybody had a space because we didn't have the luxury of our own rooms, but in a family of twelve children we'd have the boys' room, the girls' room, okay? But then the youngest of both sex would sleep with Mom and Dad in the room in the house with them, little shack with them, okay? So then you know, okay, one for the boys, one for the girls, but with twelve you're talking about almost six, five kids in one little space there. And sometimes we couldn't even afford that because you had to pay and it added up.
Sarah Nemeth [00:12:00] Did they just automatically take it out?
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:12:03] Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Sarah Nemeth [00:12:04] Did they offer– I mean, not offer, but did they charge you for your food too?
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:12:12] Well, it would be just like you would do here. You rent the space and you provide your own food, you provide everything, you know. And there, of course, was no electricity. We would run lines. We had the kerosene lamps, things like that. We'd have kerosene stoves to cook with, you know, boil our water to get our hot water. We'd boil our water outside with the little campfire, that type of thing. The bathrooms were a common area, okay, we would have the outhouses. So maybe sometimes for that big of a property, we may still only have one outhouse, you know. [laughs] It just depends. And I remember some were a little bit more accommodating because they would actually have the shower house, and you'd go in there. You'd have three or four showers on each side for the guys and for the girls, you know, and a little bit that was luxurious to us. But it just depends, you know, it just really depends.
Sarah Nemeth [00:13:11] So, what kind of food were you making when you were– You didn't have electricity? And was it run by gas? Did you have, like–
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:13:18] Yeah. We had kerosene, we had the, yeah, yeah. We had those little kerosene stoves. And you know, we'd– And I remember every morning we had our huevos con chorizo, papitas, frijoles, and tortillas. [laughs] So, it was just your basic breakfast as you would see here, you know, your eggs, your home fries. Of course, we always had beans. We couldn't have our breakfast without our beans and our tortillas, you know, and yeah. You would have Mom– Depending on where we're at, because eventually it got to where the family started growing and outgrowing the group, and the immediate family stayed. So it was always my dad, our family, and then his brother. Okay, now his brother had eighteen children, okay? So they had eighteen children and by then there were grandchildren. There was that group, that family was growing a lot. And he was basically the leader of everybody, making the contracts. So it eventually got to where it was just us and them. And when I say, oh, it was my step– When I came up here, eventually when my grandparents and my grandmother brought us up here, when I came up here, my dad, the one that was already my stepfather was already here. He was very persistent in saying, "No, we're not gonna forget where we come from." And every week on weekends during crop season and on summer vacations, my dad would travel back like to Lima, Ohio, Toledo, Sandusky and that area there where, Fremont, where the crops were and where his brother's family, he would bring his family up here and, you know, we would meet and get to know them. But we worked on those during the summertime. So Dad always took us over there and get, earn our school clothes for the next year. And that was his way of making sure that we did not forget where– Of course, my kids, my brothers and sisters said, "We? I never picked my life. It's her life." You know? [laughs] They didn't like me very much.
Sarah Nemeth [00:15:21] How old– So when you were really little, you obviously didn't engage in the, like you said–.
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:15:27] The actual labor. I was eight when I started working labor. The fields.
Sarah Nemeth [00:15:33] And how much did you get paid?
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:15:35] Oh, well, I know my dad, I remember him saying 20 cents a bushel is like, you got, you know, now, I don't know why he always looked at me—I must've been about twelve—and he used to say, "Go tell him, go tell him, you tell him that they're ripping us off." You know? He was always upset about how unfair we were being paid because, just to give an example, the cucumbers. We would pick the cucumbers, but we needed to clean the vines completely, which meant that you get the little tiny little pickles.
Sarah Nemeth [00:16:11] Mm-hm.
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:16:10] Okay? Well, we all know what happens to the little tiny little pickles. You know, they don't go to waste. They get bottled, they get cured and bottled, right? But we didn't get paid for those. We were only getting paid for the cucumbers. But we had to clean the vines, and so when we would take all our bushes, I mean, you know. [phone rings] When we– At the end of the day, when we'd load the trailers to take it to the warehouse for distribution, they had their conveyor belts separating everything. And so, of course, only the cucumbers were we're gonna get paid. So we dump twenty bushels here, but by the time they separate the cucumbers, we probably only had like maybe eight baskets, okay, because the other were little cucumbers, little pickles. We were not getting paid for the pickles. And so, of course, my father was very furious about it because, as you know, pickles have a long shelf time, whereas the cucumbers, well, you know, they gotta be, they're fresh and you have to use them right away, within a certain amount of time. But the pickles, you know, they had a long, long shelf time and that's where they're making the bulk of the money. But we were not getting paid, of course and my father started saying, you know, he started explaining all these to us. And that's probably where a lot of our– [phone rings] –where a lot of our activism started, you know, and standing up for our rights and fighting and I didn't realize that– I didn't realize that the reason the other people weren't speaking and why my dad kept saying, "Come on, you gotta stand up. You've got to say something. We've gotta–" You know. I didn't realize it was because they couldn't because they were actually undocumented. I didn't know that because we'd never seen amongst each other is who was and who wasn't legal. Especially me coming from the border towns in Texas. You know, in the border towns of Texas, everything was in Spanish. Even though it was an American, you know, a U.S. territory—our post office was in Spanish, our police station—everything was in Spanish so I never learned English until I came up here. So when we came up here, I started realizing that, you know, why does he want me to do all the talking? You know, why didn't anybody else speak up? And it was through here at the club, of course, because that was– When we were here, of course, that's what they did, most of them. My mom was a nurse professionally during the day, and my father worked in tool and dye. But come the end of the night, in the evening, you know, 5, 6 o'clock and they were at the club setting up and getting ready to receive the workers because they were, you know, the migrant– The immigrants in Cleveland were different from the migrant workers. The immigrants were here and you know, the steel mill, they're working, you know. But again, they were, I don't know what their status was, but I know that they were being brought in by groups. Organizations were bringing them in to work the fields, I mean, I'm sorry, the steel mills. And by the time you got to work at the railroad, it was because you were either a Mexican-American like we were, who were already U.S. citizens, which I didn't know the difference at the time, which is what my father was doing. He was working the railroads, he never worked the steel mills. But if you were a– Most of your undocumented were working in the steel mills. And that's where I started seeing a lot of– He would talk to people at the club, he would talk about, you know, what's going on in the fields. City folk didn't know what was going on in the fields in the country, you know, and of course, they don't know anything about here. I remember going to Lima one day for the summer and our cousins who were country folk, [laughs] because we thought, suddenly I became a city folk, we were talking about Christopher Columbus because October 12th was having a Christopher Columbus holiday so we got to go down there to work because it was a long weekend. And don't you guys get off on this holiday? They said, "Why? What is it?" Well, I said, "It's Christopher Columbus Day." "What is Christopher Columbus?" They didn't know what Christopher Columbus was [laughs], so we kind of found that kind of strange. But here, we noticed that the members of the club started kind of opening up their eyes and seeing the injustice and unfairness that was happening to the migrant workers out in the fields and the crops. They were dusting. The airplanes were coming by while we were there, dusting right overhead of us. Well, you know, the pesticides into the fields. And, you know, I mean, there would always be a big whistle. We knew who– There was always one there who had the just ability to whistle real loud. That meant, here comes the plane, so we all kind of would crouch down, cover our faces with our shirts, and let it come past us. But by that time, you know, we were white. [laughs]
Sarah Nemeth [00:21:15] Oh my goodness, I had no idea. That's terrible.
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:21:20] Yeah, they would pesticide. They poured pesticides right over us, you know, while we were in the middle of the fields working, we took it. Of course, they never told us we're going to do it but of course, once you hear the planes coming, the warning was there and you crouch down, cover up and protect yourself. But those were things that we, later on, learned that was wrong and we had a lot of, you know, lung diseases that arised from that. I, being one of them, have asthma. I've had chronic asthma for just about all my life. Apparently that was part of the cause or suspected as part of the cause. The city people here started when they first organized the club in 1932, they organized because most of them were families who came with fami;y. I mean, men who came with their families to work and/or maybe Mexican-American. I'm not quite sure on that or very clear on it. But they seemed to be families who are more into the culture, the preservation of the culture, the arts, and things like that. Whereas if you look at a common Mexican migrant worker, they're not too much into the culture. You know, the artistic part of it, they've got the culture, they got their traditions. They're the ones who set the traditions for us, but not so much into the theater, into the arts and things like that. Because, I mean,we always said, "Oh, that's for the rich people." You know, it's not for us.
Sarah Nemeth [00:22:58] Yeah, you don't have time.
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:22:59] Yeah. No, no. And there was no time. They worked from sunup to sundown. Whereas here, I noticed a different lifestyle for the Mexican community, even if you were undocumented. The only difference, the one big difference was at the club, the men would come out of work, but they came here without their families. And so five o'clock, Mom and Dad were already at the club awaiting them. They'd come in, have their couple of beers, put on the jukebox, listen to their music and, you know, Mom and Dad because, you know, we're there. And they were– The membership was a very, very large group that ran– But the manager and treasurer usually were the ones who opened up the place for business on a daily basis. The members just got together once a month to see what, you know, how are things transpiring, organize outside activities, or extra special events. But that's why it was always my mom and dad who were pretty much up front, and I always thought that they were owners, which they were not but because they were always there as managers, so they were like [psychiatrists]. My mom was, you know we call it Pañuelo de lagrimas, which means, you know, she was a little handkerchief for you to– her shoulder to cry on, you know. And I remember that on weekends being the youngest and not being, you know, they didn't, the eldest weren't old enough to take care of me so she would bring me with her to the club, and she'd throw a blanket in the back of the bar so I'd sleep on the floor because they'd close at 1:30 in the morning. I always wondered why all these men are crying at the bar, you know. [laughs] They're sitting there and having their beer and crying, and I'd go, "Well, that beer must taste terrible, or whatever they're drinking must taste terrible because look at them. Their eyes are full of tears." But, you know, it's the depression, the loneliness, and the fact that many of them hadn't seen their families for years, and things like that.
Sarah Nemeth [00:24:57] So the club kind of acted as a network, a place that the community revolved around?
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:25:05] Exactly, yes.
Sarah Nemeth [00:25:06] So a place for like if you're coming from Mexico or you're coming from one of the border towns or you're a migrant worker, you can come here and find resources to possibly get out of the migrant work?
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:25:24] At least that's how it seemed to me, okay, that, you know, seeing how my parents and the members worked. But I always called it, you know, in my eyes it looked like a welcoming committee. What you used to have, the welcome wagon, you know, the Anglo version of the welcome wagon with the little baskets and taking them to your new neighbor that comes in and stuff like that. Well, they came to us and you know, "Oh, we don't know where to find food, how to speak, how to order, how did this and that," and, you know, "Oh, go to the Club Azteca, they'll help you," and stuff. So they would come there and they would facilitate to them. You know, it was a welcoming committee and they didn't have nowhere to stay. The word got around that chain phone calling, "Hey, you know, call, you know. Oh, no. Well, well okay make sure you call so-and-so. Okay." So everybody else would go on and saying, "We've got a family of five here that don't have nowhere to stay. Can anybody spare room, spare beds or a sofa?" Always found a place for them when they would come and somehow they knew to come to the club. They'd say– And when it was closed, they knew the number to call, and you know, our phone line was ringing all the time at the house. And mainly, why us? Well, because mom was also the secretary, so she would get all the calls. But then, of course, she would initiate the chain calling and looking for a place for them to stay. So it was a common support group here, everybody helped one way or another. We never knew about grants, we never knew that there was money out there to be. I remember my mom says, she goes, we grew where we are by our own sweat and tears here. She says, we never relied on any what they call now city funding, probably because I don't know if it was in place at that time or not, but we never heard of that. It was always selling tacos and making tortillas, making burritos. So get out there and sell them so we can make ends meet and get some money for those. Had a little kitty for the visitors, that's what we used to call them, anybody who came and needed help and stuff.
Sarah Nemeth [00:27:37] So were there maybe classes to teach English too or—.
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:27:44] There we were, they were not– At that time, they were not that organized yet, yes, they did but it was always like, let's just say if somebody there spoke English, she would offer the classes at her home, okay, not necessarily on the location. One thing I noticed and I used to say as I was growing up, I'd go, "Oh, such a waste of space," you know, because we could be doing so many things. When I got much older and became an activist myself, I used to, you know, like– But then, of course, I understand they would say, well, electricity, you know, you gotta, you can't be open anymore [24-7] because eventually the support dwindles. Everything's been run by volunteers as long as I can remember, and donations. And so it didn't prosper after a while. It became the same after the founders and through 1932, obviously my parents weren't part weren't the founders or anything like that. But after the founders became elderly and this new group came, it was a very tight knit group. You know, we had Danny Cardenas, who was always the I always thought he was more of the cultural leader in the group because he knew so much about Mexico in the artistic area and things like that. My mom was more into the social issues. And Dad was the number guy. He knew how to run, he was always treasurer. He wasn't treasurer. I'm sorry, my mistake. He was the proxy, but he was always making sure everything stayed in order because he was a sergeant in the army. He had served in the army and so he always made sure everything was placed in order. And then Rudy Guzman, who was our treasurer, for as long as I can remember, he's always been around. He was always our treasurer. And then there was Sarah Cardenas, which is Danny's sister, was part of that group but she was still part of she fell into the elderly, the elders, this new group, or pretty much from the same age group, which was Mom, Danny [Cardenas], Rudy [Guzman], Estella, and Amalia Corona. And Amalia was, know, we always said the club was run by two strong-willed women, but they always clashed because Amalia was very cultural and very into her heritage and her culture. Mom was into social issues, okay? So, they just kind of like didn't see eye-to-eye in a lot of things because each one, you know, one looked at and says "Okay, that's all the fun and I'm doing all the work over here. You're doing all the fun things over here. But at the end, they realized they were a very, very strong foundation of the organization because they really, really lifted up the help, were able to reach out to help. The cultural and artistic part of it served as a downtime for all the hard work and all these, you know, you work all day, you work six days a week. You know, this was Sunday, get together at the club and it was kind of sort of like a smorgasbord. Bring a dish and we all got together there. And we, as kids, I remember running around rugged all over the place, you know, causing chaos. And they had their music and their dancing, but it was a very big family community event. Whereas during the weeks, like I said, that would become when the social issues. It was always the problems and trouble. You know, somebody got picked up, somebody got arrested, somebody was kicked out of the home or whatever. Or oh, this person's being giving very poor housing. He's being mistreated, he's being exploited. So that's where all the drama was during the week. Not so much on the weekends, it was more in the week. And then come Friday and Saturdays, it was the dancing and partying and just pretty much relaxing and forgetting about all those hardships. And that's pretty much what they did.
Sarah Nemeth [00:32:21] Kind of the hardships, I wanted to touch on. Was there a particular group that maybe was more discriminatory than another?. Did you feel discrimination or maybe alienation at all in Cleveland?
Ruth Rubio-Pino [00:32:41] Well, again, back. I mean, I'm still back. You know, when I first arrived. I mean, between 1964 to the better part of my senior years, I still hadn't realized that I wasn't Mexican, okay. I was still stuck on the fact I was Mexican. I remember asking the kids around me and say, "So where are you from?" They said "What do you mean from where? Cleveland?" I go, "No, no, no." But I didn't know how to say what heritage or what country. I just like, well, you know, I'm Mexican, so what are you? And it still didn't quite fit in my head. Mind you, I didn't know how to read, write either languages [English and Spanish] when I came here at eight years of age. So I didn't know anything about geography. I knew nothing about anything, no boundaries, so, borders. So when I would ask, I would see a blond-haired, blue-eyed little girl. Now, mind you, I didn't notice. I didn't realize and I was blond myself. My brother and I were very, very light complected. My sister was very, you know, little dark more tan. She took after my dad's side of the family. But I guess, we just never looked or saw ourselves that way. So here we see a little blond-haired girl and blue eyes, and you're just really pale, pale white. And it's like, where are you from? They would look at us like, what are you talking about? I can honestly say I don't recall, especially in my school years, of ever having being discriminated or mistreated. I just remember it mainly when we were out in the fields, that I remember. We were children and we're just so happy go lucky and things happen around us a
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