"[When I was a teenager], my cousins and myself would go to the tardeadas. All in a bunch, we would go to the dances. (laughs) We had a lot of fun! Also we would go down to the post office all the time. Not much [was there]. (laughs) We would love to just walk. Even in the rain we would go walk and have a lot of fun. We would just walk around town. Sometimes the girls had the cameras and take pictures and do things like that. Just walk and talk and climb walls. I still have my scars! (laughs) One time we were gonna jump to a wall and I missed it and it scraped a big piece of meat here. (laughs and points to her shin) I still have the scar. We had a lot of fun. We were poor but we had a lot of fun, especially when we got together and walked around the mountains.

Lina, myself, and Nati, we were very close [in age]. We would go to the movies. It wasn't real expensive to go. Mostly we had the Anglo ones [movies]. It was the episodes with cliffhangers. We were all excited. "Ay, it's too much! What was gonna happen next?" [My favorite movie was] Tim Tyler's Luck. He was a young boy. Yeah, [it was one of those cliffhangers]. We all went together. Oh yeah, [I felt safer with my cousins]. I wouldn't do anything on my own.

The movies was open. What wasn't open was some special clubs or hotels. There was that hotel over there, the Longfellow Inn. The American Legion, tambien (also) was only gabachos. [I listened to the radio] after we had electricity put in. Yeah, I listened to the radio. They had like soap operas in the radio. (laughs) I like soap operas. I like the novelas. The comics like Red Skeleton, Jack Benny, all those I liked a lot. In Christmas for sure we liked to hear John Barrymore with his Scrooge. We would hurry to go hear that story all the time. [They had it] on the radio. They had a lot of stuff on the radio, like mysteries, squeaking door. (laughs) [My favorite kind of music was] what was popular then, popular music. [Now] I like KOY, old-fashioned music.

[Chicanos didn't date Anglos] very much. Usually it was our own little gangs. We stayed up from them, most of them.

Tardeadas started in the afternoon. It wasn't late at night. They had tardeadas in the afternoon. In the Imperio, that's where we went. I would go with the bunch. They had real good music, live bands. One [band] was Chapo Oñate and I think the Delgados used to do it too. I can't remember the name of the American guy that used to play real nice there too. I can't remember his name anymore. Probably your mother or her sisters know him. He used to have a real nice band too. I thought they [las tardeadas] were free. It was on the weekends, I think [they had them on] Saturdays. I went with the cousins. (laughs) We were always together, the cousins. Chelado [cousin] would be there and we would dance with him, with Lol [cousin]. Lol was a good dancer, good chopping wood! (Laughs)"

"Yeah, [I know my parents stayed in Morenci during the deportation of 1921] because I found a letter from my Tía Chaya, Lina's mom, wrote to my mom telling her about Nati's birth [in El Paso in 1921]. I think I gave it to your mom. Neto had it because we had a petaquia, a silver colored trunk. My mother had all her little mementos and we found those letters in the trunk.

There was another one [during the Depression where Mexicanos were sent back to Mexico]. I remember all the crying and all that. My tíos from my dad's side moved then. My Tía Marina, she went in that bunch. I remember seeing them. They were in the Plaza where the PD Store is. We were standing to one side there and we could see all the people there in the train. They were shipping out and they were crying. I remember it. It was my Tía Marina and she had Raul. They were Martinez. Raul Martinez and another little boy, he was a lot younger. She had two boys. They went back to Mexico. Once in a while Raul would come like a little tramp. (laughs) He would, I guess, cross without papers. I think he was born here in Morenci. But his mother wasn't, nor his father. They took them.

The thirties were the worst life I had. Not because I was poor but because my dad died, my grandpa died, then my mama died. All of them died in the thirties. They [the people of Morenci] were good to each other. I guess when you're young you don't [think about it]. They were real good people.

I always had jobs. When I was in school, there was a student aide job. I would clean the nurse's room, take the sheets and wash and iron them. Make the beds in the nurse's room. I would sweep and sometimes I would help the teachers correct the papers. Also some teachers would ask me to clean their room because they knew that I was orphaned and they would find me little jobs to do so I would have [money] for my clothes and my papers and pencils and things like that. I used to do that [wash football uniforms]. I would iron clothes for people. I was always finding some kind of little jobs to do before I got Madero's Store job.

I think [my brother Jim went to a CC Camp] over to the Graham Mountains somewhere. He wouldn't write. Once in a while he would come down. A whole bunch of them would come down. Speaking of the Graham Mountains, when we were in school, they took a whole bunch of underprivileged children over there to the Graham Mountains and camped up there. They had tents up there. I was (laughs) one of those skinny kids that got to go! (laughs) They took a whole bunch of underprivileged kids. I remember seeing a bear and being really scared. A bear came to the camp and was looking for food in the garbage. I don't remember [how long we stayed] about two weeks or something like that. It was nice being up there in the mountains.

We all loved him [President Roosevelt]!

[We bought our groceries] at Madero's [store]. (laughs) We bought our bread at the bakery there. Grandma would make chocolate, round chocolates from scratch. She would bake the beans and make those round chocolates and she would sell them to the baker. With that he would make his chocolate cakes. I guess that's why I'm a chocoholic! (laughs) She would roast the beans and the house would smell so good! She would grind them and she would have like a cookie cutter and cut those into rounds and sell them to the baker. This baker was close to the Imperio.

The Ritzes had a furniture store. There was another grocery store, the Vidales Grocery Store. Then there was the bakery right there tambien (also). The closest thing was like Abuelita's [chocolate]. They were like that but [my grandma's] they were nice and fresh and good (laughs), tasty! I have no idea [where she got the beans] but I remember she had the beans and she would roast them in the oven and use a molinito [grinder]. She had a little molino that she would grind everything with. [She would put] cinnamon and sugar.

She [Grandma Pepa] was [an enterprising woman]. She did a lot of work. Y tambien era sobadora. (And she was also a massager.) The people who had their sprains and all that would go to her. She would wash the clothes tambien (also) for people.

My brothers were at school. First he [Jim] was in that CC Camp then he took off to El Paso. He stayed in El Paso for a while. Then he went into the service. He hardly was with us because he didn't like the idea of being with foster parents. He didn't like the idea of staying with people. So he took off to El Paso. We had cousins in El Paso and I guess he visited them for a while. [He was] just two years older [than me]. My mother spaced us real good, two years apart. (laughs)

I told my grandmother, I didn't like the idea of me and my sister where we were. The lady treated us real good but there was a boy there. I told my grandma, "I don't want to be there anymore; [with him] taking advantage of my little sister." So she said she would move into my house because my house was empty there. Our house the whole time was empty. Then we moved in. [My father owned the house] but it was empty all the time.

My grandma was renting, I don't know why she sold her house. Then she went to rent a home and I told her, "You don't have to pay rent there." She did move with us. I don't know why she sold her house. She was renting a home not too far from your mom. I was in high school but as soon as I got my job, Grandma moved out with Lina and Lol. Then I was the sole provider at nineteen. [I took care of my] three brothers and sister but they were good brothers and sister. They never gave me any problems. I was very lucky."