In the Shadow of the Smokestack
an oral history of Mexican Americans in Morenci, Arizona

 

María Mannelli Ponce

Family History

"I was born November 11, 1922 in Miami, Arizona. My parents were Antonia Romero Mannelli and Ricardo Mannelli. My father came from Jalisco, Mexico and my mother was born in Morenci, Arizona. My father came to Morenci seeking for work.

My father worked in the mine. He worked underground. It was not too good. All those gases they would breathe. They worked hard. I remember we used to meet him when he came out of the work and he would leave us something in the lunch bucket. Not too much sweets because we didn't have those. Tacos, mostly tacos; beans, potatoes, tacos.

My mother was born in Morenci. Her father had been working there. He came from Mexico too. I think it was Guanajuato, Jalisco.

My mother was a housewife. She used to work hard because she had four of us girls to wash clothes, cook, clean the house. I had three sisters. Elvira was the oldest, then Lupe, then me, and then Margarita.

My father's name Mannelli is Italian. His father's father came from Italy to Mexico. His grandparents; they came from Italy and they settled there in Mexico. Then my grandmother married my grandfather there in Mexico. So that's why. Then my father came here and got married to my mother."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

María Mannelli Ponce

Family Life and Home

"We lived on El Espinazo del Diablo. They called it A.C. Hill but mostly they called it El Espinazo. Our house was not a very good house,. We didn't have no toilets, no sink, and no accommodations in the house. The walls were all covered with that manta, a canvas, a cloth. Instead of having dry wall we had canvas. Anyway, it was a very poor house. We were lucky to have windows on the house. No running water. We had to go and get the water from the outside. There was a faucet outside and we would bring the water inside. It was shared by two houses. No electricity. No gas. We had those lanterns you know those lámparas with kerosene.We had four rooms. We had a woodstove. The girls help clean the house and chop wood, help my mother cook.

To wash clothes, we had an assembly line. My mother would scrub the first washing and one of the girls the second and then rinse and then the other would hang the clothes. Each of us would iron our own clothes. I would iron my youngest sister's, because she was the smallest. I used to do her ironing for her. We heated the iron on the stove until electricity came. My mother was working, she was making a little money so when the electricity came, she put the electricity and that's when we started to ironing with the electric iron. That was around the 30's.

We would go and visit our friends, talk. My mother, she had her mother and brothers, sisters there. We used to get together with grandma and the rest of the family for Christmas.

For birthdays, we didn't have no cake, no nothing, because we didn't have the ingredients to bake a cake. Not too many fiestas. Just a few because we couldn't afford to be doing big fiestas, buying all that food for the people.

We were Catholics. Every Sunday we went to Mass. Then at night we used to go to the rosary. In the month of May was the rosary, every night they had rosary. That's when we went to rosary. We didn't take too many flowers because we didn't have the flowers. We didn't have a garden. We didn't have the money to buy the plants. No garden. Unless the neighbor had a garden, they would give us a little bunch of flowers to take. That's the only way we could take flowers to the church."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

María Mannelli Ponce

Education

"I went to school in Morenci. There was a separate class for the Mexicanos and one for the Americanos. It was in the same building, only separate rooms.

One year I was in a class with Americanos. I was shocked because I didn't know why they put me there because the Mexicanos were always separated. And that year I was put there, I guess because I was light-complected, you know. Because I was not too that smart to be there.

In school there was some real mean ones [teachers]. There was one in particular, Miss Miller. One time we were going to the auditorium for something, anyway, we were marching and I wasn't even talking and she came and pulled my hair and I turned around and she said, "Stop talking." I said, "I wasn't talking." "Shut up." So I shut up. But she pulled my hair before she told me that I was talking. There was some good teachers, they were good to the Mexicanos. Mr. Basila was my favorite teacher.

My parents' wanted me to learn how to read and write. They didn't have the money to send us to college. They just wanted us to learn how to read and write. That's the main thing. My mother never went to school. My dad used to know to write in Spanish but not in English. He had some school in Mexico.

I went to Sonora, Arizona. I went to school. I stayed with my aunt. It was junior high. I just went to Sonora and then I quit school. Then I went to work. I didn't finish high school."