"[In 1921] probably the same thing happened that in 1932. That's what I figure cause they never told us. I was nine months old when they brought me back [from El Paso]. The work was finished, was shut down. That was during a depression, 1921. I had told you about my little brother that died. He was born after Chelino in 1915. Leandro.

[My family went to El Paso again] in 1932, in June. We came back in September, late September. It still was depression. We came back because President Roosevelt took charge of the country and he made all these projects, the WPA, and what they called the Relief. Every Tuesday they'd give us commodities in Morenci. They gave them away at the school, where I first started school. Fairplay. [The depression changed my life] completely. Before my dad worked and we got everything we wanted and everything we needed. Not really, you know como ricos no (not like rich people) but we had our essentials. [After the depression] everything went kaput. We were dirt poor but everybody else was too so there was no difference. We didn't notice the difference with the other people either cause all of us got to be poor. Everybody was on what they called relief.

[In El Paso my dad] he opened up a little fruit stand and my mother would make menudo and sometimes we went with him to the neighborhoods to sell menudo to the ladies. She made it [the menudo] at home. We lived in a little apartment. It used to be like a store but they rented it like an apartment. It had two rooms, a big big room and then in the back there was the kitchen. It [the bathroom] was outhouses, not really outhouses, it was up on the top floor. It was for the whole what they called la vecinda (the neighborhood). [It was for] the whole apartment area. It used to have white rats, big white rats and I was scared to go in there. My mother had to go with me to go to the bathroom. Big ones! They were big. I was so scared of them. I couldn't go to the bathroom by myself. My mother had to go with me. Yeah, [we took our own toilet paper].

Just the commodities [was the assistance we got from the government]. Then my dad got a job at the WPA and he earned $44 a month. They were building walls, little trenches to hold the water. They had most of the men working like that. Chelino and Chelado both went to the CCC camp. I think Chelino went to Duncan and then Chelado went to one up here, just as you climb up the hill in Clifton. There used to be a CC camp there. They called it the Black Hills. Then Carmela and I, we belonged to the NYO, National Youth Organization. We'd work at the school and they'd pay us, I think it was $5 a month for little odd jobs that we did. Most of the girls in high school did that. Sometimes we patched football players' uniforms or we washed the dish towels from the home ec room or did errands. She [my mother] stayed home. [Chelino and Chelado sent letters home.] In fact, I was the one that answered Teresita's letters.

We all loved him [FDR]. Chelino would turn on the radio every time he spoke and then he would mimic him. "My friend, my friend." The fireside chats. Groceries? When Chelino started working, we bought them at Paul's Market. It was Paul Aguilar's little store. It was in Newtown. Then later we started buying in PD [Store]. We didn't buy with coupons or nothing [then]. [The mine was closed] I think it was from '32 to '37.

Most of them [the Mexicanos went to Mexico on the train] except us. I guess some others too but we went in a truck. They took off from the plaza, downtown Morenci. The Medranos, [my friends went on the train]. They came back but they moved to California. In fact not too long ago, about five years ago, little Elvie gave me one of the girls' address and I used to write to her. I heard she had passed away. The other one, the other sister and the other brother died and the aunt and the grandmother and the dad.

The boys did too [work in the NYO]. I was fifteen, fourteen around there. We'd get together with my cousins and Jessie and Trini and some of the other girls from around the neighborhood. We'd go walking."