"I was born in May 2, 1914 in Metcalf, Arizona. [It's] not there anymore. My father's name was Rosendo Villarreal and my mother's name was María Romero Villarreal. My mother was born in El Paso and they came to Morenci and to Metcalf to work. My grandfather [was] Luis Romero.

My grandmother came from Chihuahua, Mexico. They came to work in the mines in Metcalf. There was a big mine, the King Mine and the Coronado Mine. There were different mines there in Metcalf. They came in the early 1870's. My father came in 1905. He came from Monterrey, Mexico. He came to work in the mines because there in Metcalf there were a lot of men that were from Monterrey, Mexico that were working in the mine. And he got a job. This was the first time he worked in a mine. My father was very, very friendly man. He was a very kind man with us, with our family. By working in the mines, that's where he got that miner's consumption, silicosis.

We lived there [Metcalf] until 1921. They closed the mine, it was right after the war it was sort of a depression in 1921. We moved from Metcalf to California. In California was where my father passed away. I was seven years old. I remember that my father had a truck. Since everybody was moving to California, he decided to go there and get a job there in California. He was a picker, picking fruits. We liked it [California] because there was no other jobs.

My mother worked as a picker too. When we came back to Metcalf, she went to work. She was a laundry woman because there were no other jobs. Later she went to work in Morenci for the schools, the school system where they made food for the younger children. Cafeteria. I don't remember what she was paid. Everything was very low.

My mother didn't want to go to another place, she just wanted to stay there in Morenci. She wanted her children to get an education. I had my younger brother was Raul and my sister's name was Tila. She married a Marin. The one that had a tortilla shop there. There were three of us, and Marina, but she was married already. All of us were born in the little town of Metcalf. We moved to Morenci in 1931."

"Our house in Metcalf had four rooms, the kitchen. We had running water. There was no electricity. We had lamps, kerosene. We used wood for the stove. In Morenci, my mother at that time rented a house. She rented a house from a fellow that was renting homes to different people. We lived in a house that was rented. She stayed single until she died.

The responsibility in the home was to cut wood, chop it for the wood stove. All we had to do was chop wood and have enough for them to start their cooking. The girls made tortillas de maiz (corn). My mother would discipline my sister and us boys. She wasn't mean at all, she was a very kind woman, my mother. She never did spank us when we were grown up. She spanked us when we were very little, at the age of ten, twelve.

We had jobs that were given to us from the schools. We were janitors. That was in Morenci, just before graduating from high school. Mostly there in Morenci, we used to go out and play football and basketball.

We had family reunions. Her mother lived in Metcalf and my grandfather. He worked there in Metcalf. From Monterrey they [father's relatives] would come about every three or four years. And they would work in the mines in Metcalf. They would work for about three or four months then go back to Monterrey again. They were miners. In fact in the depression, they went back and didn't come back anymore. They stayed in Monterrey working where they had their homes. During the depression it was harder to come because they had different laws that they had to go through so they didn't try to come back to the States again. They stayed there in Mexico working at different jobs.

No fiestas. At that time, people were very poor. There was no means of getting money. We followed the Catholic religion. We went every Sunday. There was a little Catholic church there in Metcalf."

"I first started school in Metcalf in the first grade. I went up to the eighth grade in Metcalf there. And after that they send us from Metcalf to Morenci in the bus. We went by bus to high school. We [Americans and Mexicans] were all together in Metcalf. In Morenci, we were all together in different classes. My parents expected that we would graduate and then move on; leave Morenci and get a different job. All of us decided to stay there and work in the mines for the company. She [mother] wanted my sisters to graduate and take up something and if it was possible to move out of Morenci to another place. Because in another town it would be very different. In Metcalf and Morenci there weren't enough jobs for everybody. I graduated from high school in Morenci in 1933. I went to work in the mines in Metcalf in 1934."