"I went to the Mexican school and the American school. All summer long when there was no American school, I was in the Mexican school. My mother always wanted us to learn. There were many people at that time who came from Mexico who did not even know how to write their name. It [the Mexican School] belonged to one who had a large house and had a school. Not everyone wanted to send their children to the Mexican school but my mother always taught me to read, the alphabet, and write my name. So I learned and I went to school and studied the history of Mexico. I went to the third grade and there the school ended and I never returned. I studied the history of Mexico very well just like in the American school I studied American history. So I know American history equally as well as Mexican history. The culture is not the same.

I loved to read very much. All the time I liked to get books so that I could learn something from them. I had the ability to speak with a person about many things because I read. There were a lot of people who did not even know how to write their name. They came from Mexico. When they got a check for working, they took the check and signed it with a cross with the pen they had there. Others, they had a pad like those for stamping, and they would put their thumb on the pad and then put [it] on the check.

They [my parents] knew how to read and write. Both of them knew. They used to write letters. But there were many people from Mexico who did not; that never went to school. They [my parents] took an interest that we learn to write our names and that we get an education. They wanted us to learn in Spanish.

In the American school, they had us separated. In one building were the Mexicans and in the other, the brick school were the Americans. Now with the passing of the years, with the unions, and this and that, some have asked me if there was a lot of discrimination then against the Mexicans because they knew that we were separated. But I already had a family when I was asked those questions and I told them, "Yes, that is true but in my point of view, I do not call that discrimination." "Oh, why not, if they had you separated?"

One has to compare the reason as to why we were separated. All the Mexicans who had recently arrived from Mexico, many times the mother and father did not know how to read or write, much less the children. When they came to school, they did not speak English. They could not understand, so that is why they had them separated at school. There were no teachers at that time who came from the state of Arizona. All of the teachers came from the East; from New York, from Chicago, from there they came. Each year, they went to get teachers from there to make a contract. They came from the East. They did not speak Spanish. They had never seen a Mexican. So how would you feel if you were a teacher who came from there and came and got a group of Mexicans who did not speak a word of English and you did not speak Spanish? To teach them, it was a lot of work. That is why they had them separated. I do not call that discrimination. There were no people [Mexican] that spoke English. If there was a Mexican who spoke English, they used them as an interpreter but not as a teacher. That was a great thing in those days for a Mexican to speak English. They [teachers] made themselves understood in one way or another until one got used to it. We were there until fifth grade. When we got to sixth grade, then they would put us with the Americans because we spoke English. So there was a reason.

Very often one has the blame. One gives many excuses. When it comes to discrimination, many people do not understand what discrimination is. There is discrimination in the whole world, not just here. There in the East in those years, there was a lot of discrimination against the Italians because there were many Italians in New York and Chicago. Whenever there was a robbery, they would always go looking in the neighborhoods of the Italians. In Pennsylvania there was discrimination against the Austrians. In Pennsylvania there coal mines and the Austrians were good workers, good miners. When they came from Europe they went to work in the coal mines. So there was discrimination against the Austrians.

There at school we used to play, all of us, Mexicans and Americans. We played ball. There were no sports of any kind. The only thing was to play ball, baseball. Everybody played. There were some [children] whose father bought them a bat. They would go to play and take their bat. We made balls. A little rubber ball, small like this (shows with his fingers). You know how socks are made? You find a thread and start pulling because socks are knitted so they come apart easily. You get an old sock with holes in it, and then you started taking it apart to get the thread. We put it [on] with tape. We covered it with tape. We had ways of doing things for everything. Like they say, "For everything there is a way, except for death." There is where we end. For that there is no way out of it.

In that time, girls did not play ball only the boys. Everything has its time. Today, no [girls do play]. There were no sports in school. The only sport was a relay race. Every year there was a race from Clifton to Morenci or from Morenci to Clifton. They lined one up and every quarter mile there was a person. They started from Clifton and they passed a little wooden stick to the next person to see who would get first to Morenci. One year they ran it from Clifton to Morenci and the next year from Morenci to Clifton. It was the only thing [sport] there was. There were not any sports in school. They did not even hire a teacher for sports. The school did not have anything. Nowadays the schools have many costs because there are so many teachers of sports. There are teachers of baseball, teachers of basketball, and teachers of football. There are many diversions. Then there was nothing.

In the high school, if one graduated from Morenci, it was a lot. Because everybody as soon as they grew up [quit], because they had entered school already older. In the families that came from Mexico and had sons and daughters who were fifteen that were in first grade because they did not speak English. Then [they would go] to second. Sometimes they would get to third grade and the boys left school to go work in the mines. They were already men. No, there was a lot of difference [between then and now]."