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Oral History
Interviewer:
Interviewee:
10 July 1978
Laura Bray " /
Do 1 ores t'Vlo"t\ '\-~ ~ e ~
Okay, it's Monday, July lO.My name is Laura Bray) and I'm conducting an oral
history interview with DeDe Montaii:Z. Okay DeDe, would you please spell your
'
entire name.
/ ,...__/ Dolores Maria Montanez .
Okay, how old are you?
)4 ]Ju.,e.h~ .
What is your current address?
773 East 750 North, Apartment 3>Logan, Utah .
How long have you lived here?
Two months.
l,j
Afte what do you do for a living?
Go to school.
DeDe, can you tell me something about your family ~ ~ tarting with where you were
'7
born ~ and .. --.-
M: I was born in Ogden, Utah . I had already two older brothers and two older sisters.
B: Can you tell me wft.a.t were their names and their ages?
M: When I was born?
B: Wo, how much older are they now than you?
M: Now I have one brother and his name is Rudi. He's 31 years old. I have a sister
named Virginia. She's 30 years old. I have a brother named Tino. He's 29
years old. I have another sister named Monica . She's 21 .
B: Are you the youngest in the family?
M: No, I have two younger brothers.
B : So , t li at make S:::::S.e=.\l.e n..__. •
M:
B: Se~~ -~~~. When you were born, what kind of work was your father doing?
M: Well, my father has always worked on the railroad. ~£efore when I was younge ~
my mother never worked.
B: Does she work now?
M: She works now.
B:
M:
ket' s see;, So ~ou ' ve a 1 ways 1 i ved in Ogden unt i 1 you came here for schoo 1?
Ye s.{'~· .
B: How do you feel about Ogden? How do you like Ogden?
M:
B:
v e.x·y
ifdon't like it tRat much.
Why?
M: There's a lot of little inside pressures living Ogden . ~our own people are not __
tb:e.y~8=1-1~t hard workers or an£ thing like that. They just bum around a~ ot.
-;Yetri<now-, you want to get away from that environment, so you won't be 1 ike they
·:=
are. But you don't have very much chance because of the prejudices that are in
Ogden.
B: Do you feel that prejudice here in Logan?
M: Very much .
B: Really~
M: Very much .
B: Let's get back to your parents a second. Do you know how your parents met?
M: I don't.
B: You never tal ked aboutf '.} ~
M: · No.
B: ~~here was your father from?
M: He's from Aguas~ Calientes, Mexico.
B : ...Gar+-ye-~::~--s-a;y---t.h·a-~1-e uder',
M: -Ag.Ya-s Ga 1i eA-t-e , ex i-cu:
B: ~ ..i\wi.."ihen did he come to the United States?
f'flCA.L(b e 1 '1 GJ S •
M: I guess about 15 years before I was born,-a-botJ~.)l.be.
B: Do you know why he came?
M: t o find work.
B: AMcl he ... what happened?
::::-
M: ~e found work and it's always been on the railroad or in the fields .
2
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3
B: Do you know exactly what he does on the railroad?
M: He•s a laborer. He takes tracks~and puts new tracks in and puts the new wood
i n and puts i n the n a i 1 s ._ a.A-€1--t+le-se--ttri-rtgs
B: And that•s what he•s always done?
M: That•s what he•s always done.
B: What kind of field work did he do?
M: WPll 1 he was 1 ike everv other immiarant. Thev went to Washinaton anMpicked
fruit. That was the most popul ar.9!---arret- in each state.
B: Did he pick fruit in Utah, too?
M: ~~, I think when he came to Utah he was just working on the railroad.
bo r, bv.. )en o w ,.j
B: ~w-whe-re-ea-me1Hk-e- ~hen he came from Mexico, the first place h'lcame toJ
and what he did?
he/~
M: I~ the first place he went to was California1 and he was working in the fields
there.
B: D~~ do you have any other relatives on his side of the family that have
come to the ..tJ.rt+teCf States?
M: ~ I have four uncles in Chicago that are ·herexand two or three cousins
that are here £,.-ovv--. 'Y'Y\Q.A<:t·c e>
B: ~hUh.
M: fPem Mexico-;
B: What do your uncles in Chicago do?
M: They all work in faete• ieY, big factories
B: Did they bring their families with them .81 did they marry h e-re.?
~
M: One ~ brought his family with him and the other one married here. ~
t hey•ve been here many years now.
B: What about your Mom? Where is she from~
\..JL<..t rrq
M: She•s from Wyoming1 I think>a-rn:I..Mjf.J granc()arents are both from Mexico.
B: Do you know where in Mexico?
M: I •m not sure.
B: Are your grandparents still alive?
4
M: No, th~ are both dead.
B: Were they alive when you were c;:bmingtup? Did you know them?
M: /Xtt grandfather is still al ive1 but my~ grandmother died about seven years
ago.
\.'c..fheV'
B: Do you know anything about when your grand~ came to the United States? »hat-fl~
M:
B:
M:
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M:
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M:
B:
Wej'1 _ge was a contractor. He was working in the field ~ -aA-d-s-tttf-f -tke- ttra--t)
~ he knew things about building bui 1 dings and ali- tho-se-ttrinys, ~~hey hi red
him to help them build some of the buildings in Ogden. He tells us stories about
how he helped ;~t building ~ things like that.
Do you remember any othe.-...r stories he's told you .about coming7or just any-t-tt:i-R-§-?-
'-"
We tried to ask hi~ots of stories and he never told us. One of my aunts went
b•l)dcu.t o.'acu..1
back to Mexico to see if she could find anyth ~~ out about him and ~whe OL he came
from and ])efl15Jle--;_other relatives there .J but we can't find anythi!lg.
Did he and your grandmother come together ~+d they or did he send for her?
I think he sent for my grandmother after he was here.
~~ow many kids were in your mom's family?
Eleven or twelve.
... Qe-y-<llf-IHlew-where tney I ~re they around Ogden. e-r
M: They're almost all in Ogden. I think 3 or 4 of them moved to Salt Lake 1but
B:
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that's about as far as they go.
Did either one of your grandparents speak English?
My grandfather speaks just very little, very little. My grandmother tried to
1 ~c.-r
but she never knew how to speakAwell.
-66--, _you don't know iH'oo-nd- the year your~- grandfather came 1
No,but it was a long time ago.
He 's been here for a while? ~obably when he was a young man?
Very young , I think because he~ sed to tell us that he helpe~uild some of the
oldest building: s in Ogden ~-
Do you know any of the ~buildings?
!he... ~o+e... \
.)mnk of 1 «:~1=€ - -a~l Ben Lomond /
B:
M:
B:
M:
'(.e.a-R-.-. • '1 e s ,
'fhat one and tfl.e others 1 but they are all abo.ut torn down now,
w ~o:l·t-~e" s.
~ Mhat's your grand~s name?
I don't know. ,~ t~ink, I know his first name is JoseI ) but I don't ~~ his last
name .~. ~hen they come here usually they change their names~~~~w ~
~me=fl~ either to get away from immigration 1or maybe cause they're in
t roub 1 e .~~Hl-g -i-k@-ti':la-t.-
B: Was he illegal?
M~ T 'm not sure if he was or not . i~ ..
B: Do you know if he is a citizen now~ ..
M: He is now.
M: He-i-s--rrow.~
B: Was your grandmothert Before she died?
~
M: Yes, she was.
~~$ t:J(.Q
B: ~j t's pretty common for them to change their ~ame+i~e that .
M: Most people I know have had their nameschanged. My name has been changed.
B: GR,-re~rl-y Do you know what it was before?
M: My real last was Reyes .
B: When your father came, was he illegal?
~·"' No. W J...
.N·fi , ~ hen he first came he was, amt -J--§-tJ e~ ~ey sen 'l!uack about five of six times1
M:
but he kept coming. Finally he just got his passport ancl--e-veryttri-n-g I guess
he was tired of getting sent back.
B: Do you know anything abou ~how he would come across the border?
M: Lots f times he would come on ~4keo work trucks. They'd send pepple down ther~
~ 'J. a-R-d-t-h-~~ hide them inside the truck and 3-tts~bring them across. ~:On ~ne time
he told me about how he came through the deserts, and a-1-1-t-l:!ees e-plac~ ~ bunch
of them came on foot~o California. I~€5-~ I don't know how he got here the
5
last time he came.
B:
tl< .(A...J ?
JtE Jus-t came for work .
Wexe fu. (\~ s ~\G.\\-;~ GCA ~ v:::, '0~.fE:. \A~ c ()./'('v\_Q. ;;.o ~~
g.ue.ss_tbj_n_g. we-~e-r:>retty a-d -where-he-wa-s- f rom'-. ~-
6
Does he ever tell you how it was?
M: Well l1e to+chn what I • ve got from my father is that it wasn • t so bad where he
-
was from; it's just that he wanted a change. He doesn't like workinq here, in fact,
he admitted that he wished he would never have came her~ecause-he~ ~~~
-4.-t hurts him to realize that he's owned by a company) Y-ett-k-no~,je's working
for somebody else.He's always wanted to work for himsel ~ ELt being here he didn't
0~), ~ get the chance. He never went to school ~~-~~·~ · so he can never ha: ve the
chance. It ~really bothers him to realize that he's kind of owned by somebody
else.
B: -We--1+,-hgw--Qoe.s e/-he mostly feels that way toward the company ?' What companv does
he work for?
M: Southern Pacific.
B: How does he feel toward the Sta-t-e~ and about the States? 1s that kind of the
same way?
M: He doesn't really like this country or its system very much. I think i-f-h- , -nGo~
e doesn't -reai('" like his country •s system either. ¥-e kfle~ be's always thinking
about something being better.
B:
M:
B:
M:
B:
~~
What about your grandparents, ~ did they feel about the States?
My grandmother didn't know very much about anything. Older women usually don't~>
~n-e~J hey don't how to read or write1 ~trey don't know anything outside of
the house. My grandfather ~ never showed he cared just as long as he had ~~
..$0...,.wgp k-?-D
Y.ea •
CCIY\ c:.v--~ \..{ DlA v- <-?-, V'O.. '{\ o M e>"'TV\ e r ,
Was there l~a M'exican or Spanish-speaking.;;community t-fla-t."and is there still 0 ~ 5o~ I ~ 1
pretty-111u.c.b was_..th-i·nk~-n.g-a-boi:J-.ffyour grandmother t~J-"didn • t really have
to learn Engl i sh1 s.be-e-etttd-ma-yb~ ~to res she could trade in that spoke Spanish?
,,.,,~. t
1\'\o"-~~t:.l. 7
M:
w\-\efe
Yes* ~ he neighborhood where my grandmother came from and/ my mother ~
w-a-s-bo-rrr,--y-eu-k-r-1-e~ was raised i-f) was mostly ~poor Me xi cans and ~Poor
white people who li-ve·~tlrei-gtrbarho-o-d Afte!t!_here was a store that was
owned by a Mexican. -a-Jt<b~ verything they sold was yoo-k~ written in Spanish.
The owners and the people that worked there were all Spanish-speaking people.
8: This is in Ogden?
M : --YIT--htlfl- '-1 ~s ~
8: What part? I mean-, is there a boundary of a Soani sh community, say a c e ~t-a-l
M:
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a rea--ef- a- n-e-i-g·h bo rh o-ad ?~
It's called Reaves(?)
Reaves?
If you <1sk an.V:body where Reaves is , I •m sure they can tell you.
cl o e ';':, E> Y\e &. p ec-'-\c_ 2..0c;:~}' s. \--.,_
What about your mother, •wa-s----s-ll-e , -he-sp-ecrks-Eng-H-s-A-e r--no.t1~
She speaks both languages .
~gid she go to school?
l_;,c.t~
R e-,-I---thj-r+kyrS-he-ma-d-e--=i-t---to-t-h ~F--'~· -.: he never graduated,11 I think she got to
highr~ chool. -~~~-.~
Do you know if ,like if,
to school1 did they want
'-!-- ~
did your grandparents, ] ow did ~~~~ feel about her going
. -L -4"U d ,· c:o~ -\'h.Ee.'--\. ccJ f
her to go to .school (Cfl .eR--tttdn' t ca~
M: My grandparents wanted a 11 my aunts a-r=td--a t-!le~o qet an education) but -t-hey
they couldn't afford to go to school . ~)r ~ost of them had to go to work
during , ·ott- krtow0, to help the family out, -;¥00--k-r-le~ , because
it was such a big family . So not very many had the chance to go to school.
8: What kind of jobs did they get? ·
M: I don't remember what kind of jobs my mother ~~~had. ~ ~J irst were
born were all girls, and the boys came later, much later. So the girls, ~
.know did 1 ike sewing -a-n-d-t-ho-s-e- t--h--i-A-gy
8: Did they ever work in the fields around Ogden or any of the fruit orchards?
M: I don't know if they ever have.
8: Where did you go to ~~chool?
7
M: Ogden High.
B: How did you like it?
M: I never knew anything about be i Rg prejud tcet~eople being prejudice 1until I got
l? f (o.. us~
to highschool~e I had never been confronted with it, y~~ very out and
B:
forward, jLO.U_Jmo.w ,
How was your grammar school? Was your grammar
ne i gh bo rh oodr/- tba.:t-w€-f'e-S"f3a-n-i-s-t-l-?/
SpO-fl I.S h
school mostlyAkids from your
M:~r ~~ grammar school and my junior high~chool , the majority were black and Mexican;
the minority were white, very few whites in my grammar and junior hig ~school.
B:
~ q\
M:
The minority was the majority.
~d<;
Was there ever any conflict ~etween ~ lacks and the Spanish-, speaking K-~ds 0---
or ~ Mexican kids?
CAloV1
UsuaJ·ly the ~ lacks and the Mexicans got OOf, ~kno·wy, g.o.:tr-a-1-engppretty well.
r~ost of my friends were ~ lack. The few whites that were there~sometimes thev
had a hard time ., vG{;f--!fflo~lf thev were reallY blond ~Fte most of the kids
noticed that .
B: Did they pick on them?
M: Sometimes they would. ~ey the Blacks and the Mexicans
·:;;. .., sometimes had troubles.
{
amoniA themselves. All kids are like that I suppose.
B: But it wasn•t necessarily because of race or was itY
M: ~.
B:
p
What about your teachers,Awere they mostly ?
M: In my elementary school we had two teachers. They were both white. There was
a special teacher there'.that was ~ lack, a-mtf ~ hey had a few Mexican teachers rcr
that heloed the children that couldn• t soeak Enqlish , -tflat6 \V1 e~ were
4\1~
from Texas that miqrated here to work~ and ~couldn•t speak ~ nglish very well .
~!hey had to have these other teachers to help teach them English.
-
So there were Mexican and Black teachers ,but the majority were white teachers.
$
B: Were there a lot of these kids who couldn•t speak Enqlish ~ or just enough where
they had to have t extra 1 "tcv.<-1\e rs?
8
M: There were quite a few at a time. Sometimes there would hardly be any and
sometimPs a lot would come.
B: Kind of like the seasons. You don't speak Spanish, do you?
M: I understand it and I r~n 'nA~k it , but not very fluently.
B: Did your gad speak English?
M: Sometimes, ~ut he would prefer to speak Spanish.
B: When you got to highpchool, you said that's when you noticed ..
M: I noticed people . I didn ' t even know what prejudice meant . yeu-kno~I had read in
books 1 but I didn 11t think people were really like that. ~I learned in
high{school .
B: L-ik-e-l'to~ could you tell me1 hov:>-~
M: I had one teacherJmy English teacher, and~ he was a very good teacher.
He onlv had one problem. he was alwavqmakinq cracks about ~lack ; eopleJ> 'Ne-t6
i-n_g_ny_o.f- h-i-s- cl a-sse-s-.:{ ~e didn't ever have ~ 1 acki students , but he '~{as a lwavs
makinq cracks. I couldn't find anv reason and I would ask him whv. He said. 11there's
,I nobody e 1 se to .ta 1 k about, .. ;YetA~ That's a good reason!
B: Sure.
M: In all my classes like there would be 30 kids and I'd probably be the only dark
hair in the whole clas ~ ~he only Mexican and the rest were all white. My highf chool
\-0c.S mostly the doctors1 kids and the lawyers'kids , , yot:rkno~d~:he richer white people
went to my hig~school.Not very many _.Would talk to you, YGI:I--IffiGC) , because their
parents didn't allow them to talk to the Mexicans or have Mexican friends and
Black friends. So when you went to those classes that were mostly filled with
::
white kids you were usually standing back by yourself.
B: Were there many Black kids? .:s
M: Not very many. It' s really strange I thought there were quite a few . I guess
to me there were quite a few because the Mexicans and the Blacks were alwavs in
""' ~
one part of the buildinq and that was the part I alwavs went to \~ I would alwavs
:tzL JfWt~,.
be- t here. -Bttt-1 ~ t qradua t ion
~e+t(not many could graduate
time. I couledn't believe i t . The-re-wer~not-man.v~
lodo.W
a:rtywa:f'~ notAma y continued going to school there ,
I:Pf
9
~hey would either drop out or they didn't have enough credits to graduate. ~
('fl e,..PI·ca. VI o,
t here were very few of us,Dto.c.IL that did--~4ex i ca-n-or-Bl~a-t-EI.:it;graduate.
That was the first time I notice that there were so few of us.
8: That's amazinq! A lot of vour friends didn't make it throuqh ?~jid you have
any friends in elementary that · - were also in hig ~school with you?
M: ~I had some friend~s that were in junior hig ~s~hool with me. They were
Texan ~fuostly , but they went to one year of hig 1schoo ~the first sophomore year7and
almost half of them dropped out at that time.
B: What reasons do you think?
M: i~~g eople from Texas don't appreciate somebody telling them all the time what
to do and what they should~ t do . I guess it bothered them a lot that people were
always calling their house, .. Why didn't you come to schoolv,"x ou should be in schoor
or sending the parole officer to bring .. them back to school . A lot of them~
just couldn't make it going to school because their families are quite larg ~
so they also had to go to work and find jobs to help their famil~ out.
v
B: Were there differences between the Mexicans that came from Texas and the ones ,
that had been in Ogden for a long time?
M: There's a great difference. Ogden Mexicans are more anglic ~ sed ,~;he :exan
y,c,L.C -~
B:
M:
Mexica ~ are very Mexican.But the people from Ogden ) _w~lost a lot of~ culture~
~ ~e don't know very much about where we came from or what our people are really
like.Most of the Tex-Mexicans could all speak Spanishi·a-At!J.!le people from Ogden)
p
very few of us can speak or even understand Spanish. ~he . .f!eo-l*e-f-rom-Hgdeer
I
1he r~lexi cans from Ogden) ~-wa-v-~i-k-2/ I don't know if a 11 of them )but I ~!'k now
most of my friends; ~e-o-13+e o-r- t htjP-e-op-1-e- han·g- wHY, even myself1 we always
thought we were betteqthan the people from Texas.
'I'SJ>V\O<:A\c.M'-\<\ '-j()v._ L.Ve<e.. ? o
Do you think ~con1cally , were--yo~r was it .
~imes it would be economically because I would
~C,~ £,~ -Wo~ ~ o\IY\.e.J·"V\ • Vl,S
e.~sc:...;,
have something tha ~ he next
~
person waul dn' t. -Btt'tb I don't know what happened or ,wflcr't it was. I don't know if
it's just me that thinks that wav or if there ' s a few of usJ
B:
M:
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but I'm!iSure there could be many of us that think that way . We didn't learn
Spanish~:e couldn't speak Spanish. ~ ~ometimes, if we were around Spanishspeaking
people, we felt that they shouldn't speak Spanish , ! hey should speak
English. And when the Texans would speak Spanish we'd think --YOt.~-k-l'low~
wtrat--a-re-th ey-GG--i~-- t.be.v-c.an~
Yean, we-tiTorrgh27 w-!/e were up one on them because we could speak English . We
<:),
never thought~hat we were Mexicans~that we should be speaking Spanish .
We thought that we were better off because we spoke English . It took me a
long time to realize I -was -the ooe that ;was losing out.
Uh-;-o-k-aj(, ~ ow did you do in school? You've come on to college;-did you do well?
(II
I never liked school , never. That was one of the really big expectations my
-.:-
f at her ha d_;- -J.!e was always pushing it6 u k-new ...a-r:t~ in our family;-il guess in
most families, you're supposed to respect your father very muchl ~whatever he
says usually goes . I~d teli1 ~ mpther realized I didn't like school, but
she'd say , "You know you can ' t drop out because your father expects that , that ' s
=
the least you can give him. " And we all nave pushed ourselves, -y-ou-know~ to
graduate~ continue~but I've never liked school .
B: \~)io yaur brothers and sisters-,d4d n~ try to get to high school<~; ~~
M: My older brothers and sisters are from a different father, and then my mother
remarried my father . ·~~ four older brothers and sisters~e brother was
the only one that made it through school . The other ones have dropped out, but
then 1 ater on they've gotten their GED. and t li ingsl i-ke-tf:l.a-V
B:
M:
Gkay,-~~~ hat about your younger siblings?
-th:;..._-f-
I myself have graduated. 1 have another brother ~e just graduated last year.
He doesn't feel he wants to continue on to call e§e . He's here now for summer
quarter, but he doesn't feel he wants to . The only problem is, he doesn't know
how to tell my father. And my mother tells him, "You can't tell your dad that . "
B: Why do you think your father puts so much emphasis on education?
M: Because he doesn't want my brothers and myself to end up like him~lways
working in the pit~ays with the shovel . ~~e says the only way you can
Montanez 11
get over that is if you have an education. He says it was hard for him to work
I
all these years, ~u-krrOWZ) bending his back, using the shovel , ~~e doesn•t
want that for us.
B: ~~hen you were in high school, were you very involved in the school?
-(he
M: I--wa-s-tt just went to school11 I didn•t have anything to do with, Y.G-Y- knew inside f: 1-t-..
I went to my classes and went home and that was it . I didn•t get involved in
anything. They had a Chicano Gui 1 d /and a. ll these h-in .. gzr but my dad woul dn • t
ever let me join them e. eet-at~-st:, ~e doesn•t think of us as Chicarw. He thinks 6f-YV~c..i-
,_.,
01. tha;t as;:;_ery terrible word;-~e thinks of them as radical~~ so
me or my younger brother could never join those clubs.
B: How do you think of yourself?
M: I don•t know. If somebody asked me, ~ew3 11Are you Chicano? .. r•d say no,
--0:> ~ d sa..-'i ~ect-
I • m Mexican American tJ ~they as ked.me ~ what • s the difference'' I ~ ~~:.. Chicano is
.. ? - A ~
just a name for people to identify with. and I feel I can identify with Mexican
American~" I:Jeca.u s~ -~lY parents are Me xi can1 but I was born in America 1 so I • m
. : ~1exican American. -sw- I always identify with that. 1--gye....S.Z,. I like it better
than being called Chicano because of the things my father,~~told me .
~j__f you ask people, .yoo--k-nt>~fl what • s a Chicano ,1 ~ everybody has a different
explanation for it, so I feel safer being called Mexican American.
B: What ~ if somebody called vou a Mexican?
~ e rn ~
M: It doesn•t bother me.That doesn•t have any bad connotations: .you knoW07not yet.
r•m sure 1•11 get one sooner or later.
B: Do you have any feelings toward Mex ico? ~ mean you don •t know of any relatives --
there, is that what you said?
M: I know of my father•s side there.
B: .e
M: r•ve met a few of them.
B: Have you ever been to Mexico?
M: r•ve been there, but w.Aat r· ~ the places I went ,! didn•t like it very much.
B: Where did you go?
~
M: Tijuana, ~~ tAe~th~~ ,_border towns and a little bit deeper, -~ as vou
-:::::-
Montanez 12
qet deeoer • it qets bette~ but it a 1 so· gets worse. ~!hey have better and
-\-m)
worse. Parts I seem to"'Went to were worse. So I didn•t like it ve-ry-much.
B: w.e.:Hci ~o you have any feelings toward Mexico <I-me-a~ ttk~as a country that affects
you?.. G·-r--::~
M: Not rea 11 y., L-don-'-t-fee-:1-Lba-v.e--a-ny- k-i-n-d , yetJ-Imo~ I don •t have any 1i nk s
to it. I don•t know really anything about it. I know where my father•s from
the government, ~y-thin~
B: In your family, did you have any other relatives living with you besides just your
M:
mom and . dad?
Not alwavs. Sometime~ l~~ an aunt or uncle would be
to stay with us for a little while. But not always.
()(Vlo
sick, we•d have kids come
'f(
Van aunt died ~methilr~
You kno~ we would take someone in or another aunt would take someone in.
B: Your grandparents didn•t live with you?
M: No, my grandparents always lived alone.
B: Was it near?
M: It was on Reaves. That was about a mile away from where we lived.
t
B: I wanted to ask you of the differences that you see between the American familv
and your family~ Yoo--k.new'Oi n.--tfle parefl-ts---a·ct--aR-Ei- t-he-w-a-y-the--k...:i-€1-s- ae- .
M: W~ J n my family I don•t know that there•s so much difference 6 ~ Qne difference
;r'\
that I•ve noticed is that~ my famil~ll my relatives are always together. ~~
they always spend their time together. c You usually don•t see that in other families.
.Af1·2!?!1Y brothers and sisters tt:l~ go away, but they always come back.
- ""'e11fl'le ·
fhe_y_ ~ (e_
Always
ail .....
..a-~ near the family. I haven•t noticed that in any other famil~ wfl-e-r~ !._hey•re )
~ot really family oriented, but they have to be close to home. I think, ~
they feel safer when they•re close to home. I-§~ I suppose the most difference
~-t" A"0\o-is~
most Americans -fee1 s oula,--An-~o=-Ameri·c-an-y
feel that after a while they should go out, work and find a job~ve~y~
-l-4-k-e--t-h-a-b -Btt.£> in our family we feel that we should,:-'N01-J- know . stav at home as lonq
Montanez 13
possible 1to be around the house as lonq as possible . If we find work a-A-EI--t-l'l e-~
t~ we•11 work , but we•11 work from our house . we•11 stay as long can with
our mother. we•re very mother oriented, especially the boys. I guess in all
foreign families the mother ~with the sons is very powerful . She can run the\r
lives if she wanted to . My mother had always this conflict with my father because
he was like that . His mother was this , his mother that. Whatever he did was for
his mother.
B: His mother was in the country?
M: No, she wasn•t. ~ ~e would work and send half of his money to his mother. Every
year he would go to see his mother. It used to drive my mother craz~~ ~he would
-\'{\"\
tell us 11 tfot gonna grow up my sons like that 11 and all my brothers are like that.
My mother, my mother, my mother!
B: ~!here does that leave the father?
M: I think the father has more say with his daughters than he would with his sons .
O.bou.,t ; -r ~
.A •
Like if something happens with me, my mother says 11Well, talk to your father 11
•
Q•')) iJ ~Y brothers, if there•s a problem t.hey-!-]3 just talk to j · my mother. t~y father
doesn•t usually say too much to my brothers. Just general things like 11 go to
60 fr;'(
school 11
, ~ Th e::::: p rob:tems-;-yotJ--kr-1-ew-t--h-a-~ ; he emotional problems1 ~
~~~ they would prefer to talk to my mother about it.
B: Do you feel there are a lot of differences between the way the boys are raised and
the girls are raised?
M: There•s a lot of difference. ~ I 1m so anglicised . that I feel that should not be
any different than my brothers . I think I should be just like them. Around my
father,- I have to change my act. I have to be very much different . For instance,
to my father I 1m not supposed to talk. If my father talks to me , I 1m just supposed
to listen . It•s very bad if you answer back. You are not supposed to ~!hat
shows disrespect, so I don•t . B-~2 f he speaks to my brothers I they can answer ..
Vev~ • . bu't21!_hey can have conservat1ons w1th each other~ y-etrlmo~ My father is kind of
old fashioned in those way~~ when he speaks to me whatever he says i s suooosed to
"" JJ be right. I•m not supposed to have any questions or say 11 no you•re not right ~
.,;;
Montanez
th i s i s the way it i s 11
•
:z..
l'Y)' father~- ne6ver!
I 1m supposed
14
~~
:,~ o.rc b':.
to be quiet. ~ rou never argue with your
~
B: What about the problems of growing up in a r,1exican-American family in an Anglo
culture?
~ lOC- \ose-
M: I think the biggest problem is l\~our own culture. My mother has always
~afw~ worked for the Mexican people in Community Action, working for the
Mexican kids, a+l--tfto-s·e- thirrg1J" Around the house it•s really open1 ~ike an Anglo
family/ very open. a~~t • s not supposed to be .. ", f exican family is usually not
,very open.
B: What do you mean by open?
M: The kids say what they want to say. ~~ 1hey•11 do what they want to do if they
feel it•s right. When my father was around all the time everything was supposed to
be done in a right way. Everthing went the way he wanted it to go. After -Rt;-""
and my mother kind of separated, it got very open. We said what we wanted to say,
o,_ Lot o ~ou.."
we did what we wanted to do. I think the biggest problem is that we l ose-- ~l~ure 1
cspec-~CX.\\'1 because my mother•s so Anglo e+£e.r oriented, because of her work and the people
she associates with that we• ve-l-erst a 1otcrf-our-cu-l-t~::~-r~ She•s always spoke
English to us . That•s why we can•t speak Spanish. We don•t know anything about
my mother•s people from Mexico because she has never told us . She •s always telling
us to look ahead, not behind . S~ I think the biggest problem is our culture,
because we really don•t know anything.
B: Do· you ever feel in between cultures ·because you have these tww inputs?
M: I used to feel like that when my father was around a lot ~ ye.t-.~-k-r-to~ -l+k~ -fl!Y_
, yoa- kno . My father
had a lot of influence on me when I was younger. ~ ~ometimes when my Anglo
~ ~ friends would talk to me, I 1d say you shouldn•t talk like that ~ it isn•t
=
'I right ~ beea~::~£~ I was always taught I shouldn•t say something that•s not good~
I should just keep it inside me~you shouldn•t talk like that ~ th ey would
~ tSI --
I• talk like that and I would wonder ~ why are they talking like that? Then I
Montanez 15
would talk to my mother, and it was okay for you to talk whatever you felt.
If you saw something wrong you 1d talk about it: But with my father, if you
were a lady or a girl, there 1S certain things you can say and certain things
you can 1 t
1
and certain things you can do and certain things you couldn 1 t. ~
it was really hard for me because I thought whatever I was going to do was --
wrong.,_ bee a us~ I wasn 1 t sure what was right or wrong because ~e- .!!lother on
C>Yl.f1\ecn" ''
one hand-ttaTrc;t)was telling me its wa§" okay and my fatherA.was saying ~ou Ire
the
not
supposed to because your a lady. /1
B: -Sit): you 1 ve reso 1 ved that?
'"::>
M: Pretty much, I think. Sometimes I think what I 1m saying is wrong and sometimes
B:
M:
B:
M:
I feel what ! 1m doing is wrong, but I still do it.
How do you feel toward your Mexican culture? t
0~'<.\ 0
When I was younger, I guess like everybody else, I was ~ ashamed I was Mexican.
~ I guess I was shamed because I didn 1 t know anything~ -all I knew was
;:;
stereotypes that had always been thrown at me. Stereotypes are always bad •
. ~I was ashamed to be what they said I was. And I grew up thinking that way
until I start realizing where I came from9 ~ I start asking my father questions
about m.v culture, and I start studyinq about Mexico3 the Aztecs, the Mayas,~
t-Re-s.e-t.R--i-~, and I wasn 1 t ashamed anymore; - I feel I 1 ve come from somewhere
e.c
bette ~--! feel ! 1m up one from the people that have stereotype s .~ So I feel
~
much better .af~~ myself now.
What kind of stereotypes did they throw at you?
Well, things like:
~ Q_
we always had to work in the fields, ~ we were not~
smart a-s-o-t~ peopl e1 the country where my father was from was very poor
i
country, the people were cheaters . just lately I heard one stereotype that
""-- I
really shocked me. I couldn 1 t believe it. We went to this one place and
a white guy told my sister, 11 !S it true that all Mexicans carry knives? 11
1\eve< Y\cA..C. C.{)ltj1"" 11'0. I:K.C:.
I 1 9-A-ev~ heard A that before and I just started to 1 a ugh, but he was really
serious about it , ~ }hat was really a shock for me . ~~hey always give
Montanez 16
stereotypes like that.t~ !_!ley say that Mexicans can drink a lot ., a-n;87~ost of
them are lazv ~ that's the bi~gest one: that they're lazy people . When I was
\?-t. I I e_ \)C:o
younger 1 I bel iveEI all these things, but know I can see that it's not true.
But I never knew before• I just accepted what everybody told me.
B: When was it that you started learning more and seeing a different point of
view?
M: I guess when I was in high school. I would try to figure out reasons why the
people were prejudic ~ ~hat was wrong with us} why they were prejudic ~ against
blacks and Mexicans? And I couldn't think of any reasons, because I myself
B:
M:
B:
M:
believed all the stereotypes that the people saids ~ I wanted to understand
why the white kids in my school thought they were so much better than I was .
So I would talk to my father then, and I would start feeling I was not any
worse that they were. -that they weren't any better than I was. From then on
=
I tried to learn, little by little, about my culture .
Let me ask you something about, ~ datingw-g id you date in high school?
I did, but without my father knowing it.
t.J(t('r-
That's what I was wondering1 -your father being from Mexico, ~ how he~
· d.. •
v1.e we . da t.1 ng •.
&~ ~Y father has always thought of me as being very youn Q:; -; ti 11 now he
thinks I'm very young. Aoo ·~ --.gnce before I just wanted to try it ~ ~Y
mother told me that I should speak to my father about these things ~~ I
talked to my father about having a boyfriend. He told me, "I don't want
T-1'':::> ~e e 0C_f)9 ~e. St:A.Iaje~
to hear you tal king 1 ike that again. il-z ~t-wa:s-the-end-~ the-end-ocb
+o lA' ·""' t-tre-subje·~ It's finished. 11 So now I know I can't talk about it.
B: How old were you when you first asked him?
M: I think I was 17. I had to always sneak around.
B: Did your mom know?
M: Yes, I always introduced everyone to my mother, but I couldn't to my father.
does
B: What did he think about you no~--up here, going to school, living in an
apartment?
Montanez 17
M: He doesn•t--we don•t talk about it. I think he•s really afraid I might say
something that he•d really dislikes. iie as-ked my-me-t-ne-~-he always asks my
motherLwhat is she doing; is she okay/ .8nd--my--l+t-t-l-e-b-rot-h~my--fa-t-Ae-r.: . >'
my little brother wanted to go to Salt Lake -tg---fri.-§·h--5-e-h-o~ to colleg~, b-tt:b--
~y father told him to come here1
me while I 1m here.
So he could take care of me and watch over
B: Your younger· brother take care of _you?
M: My little brother•s here, but I•m watching him.
B: Are you very close to your brother?
M: The brother that•s here I•m very close to.
B: Does he have the same sort of feelings that you do--ish& anglicized or what?
M: He•s more anglicized than I am. ~in our family, if you go out with a = ) white girl or if you go out with a white boy, you get it really rubbed in .
•
You know you come back home and "you went out with a white girl--for what?"
~my brother only goes out with white girls so he really gets it. But now, : .
\llli 1 :a llrll ee:::e he -we just backed off, because that•s what he likes. ~·s
~lt:i!!L AB like!'<. ~my brother~ hangs around with- ell Ria F1 1@/idS die
':r .
Mexicans, but they•re really anglicized too, theypon•t know anything about
their culture. they don•t know the first thing. Usually you can tell how..:
Mexicans dress differently than white people dress.
B: In what way?
M: I don•t know.-I guess, maybe it 1s because we don•t have the money to dress
like they dress, or maybe we just have a different idea about dressing.~
~my brother~ dresses just exactly like all the white boys in the high • school I went to,..-sometimes I bother him about it. "You dress just like
~
they dress!" White boys have a special way of dressing• l-i-koe they wear
:
sometime3 to school, they wear like slippers1-like kind of house slippers~
they all wear them, all of them.
c
B: This is in Ogden?
M: ~they all wear them., aRe lil<e, the white girls all have their
: ~
Montanez 18
hair almost the same style in high school , ---it's all curly. All i 'lt ls; =all of them are almost like that. So you can identify each group . ~m--y brother is right in there.
..,_,.,lS"\~
B: 'tva tllil:h lu ' s • --how do you think he feels ~Mexican culture? Do you think he'd rather be more Anglo! ot he j!!st wan+s t g ha with '• ..
M: He wants to be where it's at.~ -I think if it really came down to it, he would
try to be as Mexican as he could. ~ his problem is that he doesn't know how --
to be. He doesn't know how to be. We ' ve grown up with a lot of strange ideas. ~
all my boy cousins, they think to be Mexican, you have to be strong, and
= fight with everybody, and drink. You've got to drink really good.~ .m. y
brother feels if he drinks, he's Mexican . he's okay . It's really strange .
::
B: What are you studying in school?
M: I was going to major in special education, but I'm not sure now. I like things
to do with people, to help people . I guess I was taught that, too. I like
sociology and ps~chology• "ktw:' li ke~
B: k8 ) 81!1 1: e 3 us i In ::d a pr. . '==""""
1'1"
M: ~ Just trying to decide now which way to choose.
B: Is this your second year?
M: This is my first year. This will be the second year fall quarter.
B: Let me ask you about the church. What church were you raised in or were
you raised in a church?
M: Catholic.
B: Catholic church .
M: My mother was Baptist, but my father was Catholic. When I was younger , he
pushed it a lot, to go to church and to study about being Catholic. When I
INI4e"'"'
was younger, !always went to Catechism, to church, and il hol "t Communion, and
confirmation. ifH4 all th8o8e tl:ifil~& ;wliw-t -~ fter a while my father started to get liberal, because everybody was leaving the church• --everybody was finding new religions. I guess he was afraid that we would just give up completely on
religion1-God, and everything. So now he just tells us it doesn't matter what
Montanez 19
church you go to, just believe in God. He's changed a lot in that sense~ but
when we were younger, we all had to go through Catechism and church. aRd 1Rooo
t'WiRSif
B: Do you go to Mass now?
r~: No.
B: Do any of your brothers?
M: Just my oldest sister• slit does.
B:
M:
Did your mother remain Baptist throughout that time?
'/eS
~she's Baptist.~ ier family was the same, too. ~hen she was younge~
she always had to go to church.~a-fter she got older, she just stopped going to church, too.
B: If you had kids, how would you raise them?
M: I wouldn't try to push a religion on them because I'd think they'd end up
like me, trying to find a religion they could feel comfortable with• always
:
looking for something, not knowing who vou could believe in and who you can't
believe. So I would 14Wi.i-teach them, from the Bible o: u:u1hin!Jg ~i-f we~ -
they found a religion they felt comfortableAo&e and they could really believe
and be faithful to, I'd let them choose. I wouldn't try to force religion on
them.
B: Do you have a personal concept of God?
M: Right now I'::: iR a inside of me I'm in an uproa1--because I don't know what
you can believe and what you can't. So many people you talk to have a different
belief and everybody's trying to get their belief over to you. ~co--ming from a state like this everybody's trying to cram Mormonism down your throat .
M'l!l- that gives you conflict with religion. liiaii'lii :)'?'1 slin~'"G--they say their ' ~
religion's better. M8- .t.h ey say that religion's bad and that religion·' says theirs
is best and that one's bad.~ I believe if your a religious person, I don't
understand two religious parties fighting with each other. I don't believe in
religion very much.
B: ~ ,JO U talked about Mormonism in Utah .~ .h.o w do you feel about ~ =Com ing
up and being in Utah?
Montanez 20
M: When I was younger, I had a Mormon friend and I used to go to the road shows,
little things that they had. I never saw anything wrong with it, but.- nobody
really bothered me about religion until about high school. I found that all
B:
M:
my teachers were bishops . aMI!! you kilbw. Everybody in high school ,-.)'OU kiiooe,
they cuss, they swear, but when you go in class there ,.wethjn! everybody cuts
off the swearing and the cussing.
These are the Mormon kids?
~ Because half of them go to church where this man•s the bishop. When I
first came here I was washing my clothes and the janitor ''iii; hi started telling
me, 11 Do you know where you•re from? 11 Like way back, the Mormons believe you•re
Lamenite or something like that1 --he told me ~ he•d bring me the Book of Mormon, and if I wanted he•d come pick me up and take me to church on Sunday . I
said no thank you. That was the first time anybody really came out and tried to
change me . .lie a let of rn:uple it's 1 e&ll}'--the Mormons here are quite prejudiced
against foreign people. One of my friends was trying to find an apartment and
every place he called they•d tell him, 11 0h, it•s full, it 1s full. 11 He said it•s
because of my accent, and I said, 11 NO, people aren•t that crazy. 11 And he said,
11 0kay, you call the place I just called. 11 So I called, and the woman told me,
11 Yes, we have an apartment. 11
B: Where was he originally from?
M: He•s from Iran.
B: ..
M: And he had a very heavy accent. I couldn•t believe it. It•s believeable, but
didn•t think~they want to make money, so why don•t ' they rent it to whoever?
But as soon as they heard his accent, they said no.
B: Do you feel there have been many conflicts between being a Catholic
1
and growing
up in a Cathol ic4'Eed if communit.~ and the Mormon church?
M: No, not really. ~ The neighborhood where I used to come from, most of the
neighborhood was my famil~ ~ --most of them were Mexicans and black. And these
I
are your Catholic or your Baptist. - --kill!!! hlf Mormons nat !fin 11:na 3 ::eP"' ~
tvbntanez 21
Wi?£ a MgrnR lhtlroh · ·dl the Mormon temple was right across the street from our 5 5 1:.
house. We used to see all those cars going to church• all the time, going to :
church. iftt it didn•t make too much difference--we were kind of secluded• ~ -- -:. ~ when you•re in a neighborhood like that, nobody ever leaves the neighborhood,
••
nobody knows too much about what•s on the outside. We always distinguished
ourselves--the people that lived up on the hill were richer• everybody was always
J
wanting to move up on the hill or on the other side of town. .._a ::so 1i I~ --on the side we lived on were all Mexicans or blacks and everybody was always wanting
to either move up the hill or on the other side of town. ~if you moved up
'fOtA "'-"1, -:.
the hill, ~.~they have to have money to live up on the hill. '•
8: Did people make it?
M: ~now,~ everybody lives up the hille now we had to make another hill. c •
8: Was the Catholic church very involved in your community?
M: When I was much younger, there was a very small church• ~ ~verybody went to
~
that church, it was always full. ~the--re was the bigger church up on the I! hill• il.wi IIIli; sou lt11o:::, -jt was kind of far away and nobody had a car, means to get up there, so mostly everyone went to that small church.
8: You were talking about your mom working for Community Action and, things like that.
Is that through the city?~ .
M: It•s government for to get the poor kids jobs during the summertime. They call
it C~A now. If you have a low-income bracket, they give you a job for the
summertime. I guess they did that to keep a lot of kids off of the streets and
can,)
give them money so they don•t have to steal_, :rn lmew, tRaGi ltiiiCI 01 tlil~s . .Aad.
~ give them a certain kind of exper.ience with working, to know what it•s like to
work.
8: Was there much crime in your neighborhood?
M: ~. I was never really around it too much• b~'l! iii) Oidbt oruC/1@1, wei I 11Gb w
~
o~t,~ ~ second to the oldest brother, all his friends were thieves. ~
wawl!±ee:; --it•s strange, sou lt::o::, most people around us think it•s good, --not too many people think it 1& wrong if they can steal. ol" if tRDJ C&fl, they feel if you
c
Montanez 22
steal, you 1 re up one . you can get away. you 1 Ve played something against the
:J 0:.
8:
system. ~ ~ verybody says it 1 S okay. ,
, •• .-c. 44.. ~~ ~"' ..... " . Do the parents, iQO- +hoy lti A8 of l8 81t at H Lila t oouy?
M: Just the younger kids. If you 1 re a stealer, most kids wish they could get away
with stuff that guy got away with.
B: Were there any gangs in Ogden?
M: No.
B: ...._.. Have you ever been to .... anyplace 1 ike Cal iforniar -a..n y town where there
was a large Mexican American community?
M: Yes, I feel uncomfortable in those communities. We
(\C~
_,._.,., lots of Mexicans. )GO k::on, ~he stores, everybody 1 - S
-
went to California tzEu Jou • a Mexican . The owners of the
store 1S a Mexican, the sale clerk 1 s Mexican. ~ herever you go there 1 - S a Mexican . When we first got there, I sai!'God, lznh at all 'ihn e fks: ica::o§ where di d they
all come from?'' l 1d never seen so many• il was really strange to mee-I was used
P .. flc to seeing blonde hair, blue-eyed Fl! ro pora That was my environment. Then when
we got there, everybody was dark-haired, black eyes• really strange . ~ I felt
&
•• I uncomfortable there, cause l 8a11 'I! ltt: a:: tl:ese, I don 1 t know them. Mexican people
are different than Anglos , t:ah ey have different ways of thinking, different ways
of doing things .~ I felt I was so anglocized, I was going to do something wrong ~
something they 1 re going to notice, that 11m from somewhere else . We went to
Chicago not to long ag.o ~ :t here everybody 1 s all mixed up . There 1 s Greeks,
Italians, Puerto Ricans, not very many white people in the neighborhood that my
uncles came from. I felt uncomfortable there, too. everybody 1s speaking Spani sh
~ :
and I couldn 1 t speak one word ~ Spanish. I feel really white in this place.
B: Do you think you 1 ll ever learn Spanish? Try to study it or anything? Does it
matter that much? ... M: It doesn 1 t matter ~ much for me to learn Spanish , but I try to . My father only
4"' speaks to me in Spanish• he gives m~ lots of books in Spanish. He bought me a
Spanish dictionary. Whenever I have time I go and I look at those books . I can
read and I can write in Spanish, my only problem is the Spanish grammar. When I
Mon~tanez 23
B:
M:
B:
M:
want to say something, it doesn•t come out right and I feel shy to speak it.-I
speak it to my father because he can understand me and he corrects me. But I don•t
want to speak it to someone else that knows Spanish really well who is going to
think ! 1m really dumb, they•re not going to understand that r•m trying to learn
i~-t-hey feel I should already know it. ~ 1 I Jtt Do you run into that a lot-.-p•wpl8 j i)69:Y)CCJMr,
Especially the Latin people like here on campus~•~t~A~8.-k~a•~l~·,,~~~e~e~p~le~l~it~i~E~Owil~e~aMm~p~i·~s~
~from Bolivia and Venezuela. nil o1H:rPf Jih8 11:a!y some of them think that
~
because I was born here I shouldn•t know any Spanish. --some of them feel that I should speak Spanish, so they speak Spanish to me or they ask me can you speak
Spanish? I tell them I can•t, and they look, yo11 kRB!!J• well, why not? '
..,,.,.,~ .. -~
On campus, are )'P!Jf fri ersls s who do~ they tend to be?
I have lots of black friends, Iranian friends, a few Japanese friends.-! don•t
associate very much with the Latin people that are here, because there is a little
bit of a conflict. I experienced something that I didn•t like so I don•t trust
them too much• I don•t associate with them.
B: Can you tell me what exactly you mean?
M: I went to a Bolivian party, and there was some guys in the back room talking to
some Iranian boys.~ this Iranian guy asked this Bolivian guy, he said, '\! ttiE
':l
~a,king-~ I had a Mexican roommate from Mexico. I like the way he speaks Spanish,
it sounds really nice ... And the Bolivian told him, 11 The Mexicans ruined that
language, ~hey speak terrible Spanish, they ruin the language. I myself cannot - . even understand them ... You know, I was standing right there. 11 ! can•t speak
Spanish, .. I told hiim; 11 but r•m Mexican and I don•t believe what you said i's true.••
.ll....e he said, 11 0h, excuse me, I didn•t know you were Mexican ... ~he tried to : =
apologize for what he had said• ~ after hearing that, I went and I asked my
-:.
father : what is it? Why do Venezuelans and Bolivians and Argentines think they•re
better than ~1exicans? 1
' ~ he said, - a poor country . t-.h. ey think we•re all
11 They have always thought that, because we•re
poor people and
people. So every other Latin country feels they•re
that we•re all illiterate
Jfft ..
better than Mexican country ...
~ I\
Montanez 24
And after he told me that, I keep my distance with Latin people that are here.
B: Do you feel that your cultures have anything in common? Do you feel that they
are totally different?
M: I really don•t know too much about the other Latin ~ople, but I feel in some
ways we are almost the same. Almost all those Latin countries are almost the
same. The language is the same. They have their Indian culture. So I feel it•s
almost the same. Some Latin countries feel they are much closer to the Spaniards.
To be Spaniard is a little bit elite~ something to be. I guess that•s the
difference between Mexico and the other Latin American countries.
B: We were talking about before we started the tape, about getting married and
what kind of person that you would marry.
M: Well, you :J:ee, most Mexicans in our community ~ are not hard workers. They
~
prefer to drink. A lot of them fight with their wives. My mother tells me
she would prefer me to marry~out of the Mexican culture, because of how they
are around where I live. She says if I move somewhere else, I•m sure I could
find something better than what we have. So I don•t~ I would marry.
B: IAi&S ::o::ele: i::~ · +f JOUr brother and everybody got teased about dating Anglos;=t "•" : - 4Q she would want you to marry one or she would just want you to marry a Latin
outside of Ogden'! I•m confused.
M: My mother is very liberal. I sar Ml 1'5' IIIJOiiL I f8ii'!J-if I was in love with
OK. •
somebody or if I wanted to marry that person. I uwl i liliill2 1'&' 1iA8Rl. In our community
the Mexicans are not hard workers and a lot of them prefer to drink. She would
To find me a man who does~~t drink or • like something better than that for me.
"tCI't.'
if he does knows his limit, and that has ideas to become something more~
1
To achieve something better. I guess it means a Mexican outside the communtiy
that I was brought up from.
B: Do you date Anglos?
M: No.
B: Do you have any compadres?
M: I have one. My godfather. He•s my father•s compadre. He•s not my compadre,
Montanez 25
but he's my father's. lrtdRd'Sfalf dpp'+ hi"i -I wouldn't bave one until after I
have a child ~
B: Explain compadres, godfathers to me.
M: Sometimes the man that baptizes me, he would be compadre to my father. He'd
be my godfather.
B: I see. He's your godfather and your father's compadre.
M: I'm sure anybody could be my father's compadre, but I guess being the godfather
brings them closer, my father and my uncle or my father and whoever baptized me
or my brothers. So they'd be compadres.
8: J.j?l:l !e )Gill 1;hjgk that d~8A )OJ do §EC iiiarried and db lidVe tltildi CH, I'm 8:55-I!!Rlicg
Mi&L s Wildt JOG ii&llt to etc; ig it:?
M: - 8Uii1Ed&j •
B: How do you think you are going to bring up your children.-' as opposed to how
M:
you were brought up? ~"
. Pi.gV no""' if I had ~~l28n right now
1
-• A it would be depending on which culture or to whom I'm married. Right now if I was to become pregnant and marry, I
think I would really anglicize my child. I don't know the difference yet.
But I feel that as I grow older I 'm learning more about my own culture and
I'm sure there's a lot of things in my culture that are very good that I could
teach my child. After I learn these things, I think if I become older and then
become pregnant I would try to teach my children those things. There's nothing
now that I'm so sure of that I could teach my child.
'{OC4
B: Did )&'11 ever celebrate Mexican holidays or the Mexican Independence Day?
M: ~, --when I was younger I used to Spanish dance. We used to have big celebra- tions at the oark in our city for the 5th of May. We'd have really big parties~
&~ dance artel timse tili~. Since then I've kind of backed away from all those 'f'h• ,,~.,
things . bEcaasE I do11' t k11oH :siiRe club, 1)1eei' had an asueisti01q in our city.,.
was almost run by all my relatives. President was my cousin ; the vice-president
was my cousin. Whe~family gets together they know each other so well that
they always have something to argue about. So the club just turned into one
big fight all the time. A lot of people just backed off.
Montanez 26
B: 8e ) ell! hil 8i8 )!!' ll liaot! •,&id you do your celebrations differently?
M: Quite differently from others places that I've been to. Here everything is
more materialistic, I guess that would be the word. If you go somewhere else
to celebrate, 9"BrMthip~ io ; 1 ilcl! if you are eating food, everything is like
cooked from a woman. She cooks for days and days just for this day. Here
people rush out and just buy anything that is quick enough to make it.
-c • .,.
~ music1 a lot times they would just throw on a record, listen to records
.Q.ad other places they get a band and they play the national anthem and every-
:. o.r•~.-. •·~~ thing, not by record. It's a lot different. The peop1e i Fi mg r e ~i P 8 1 S
~!lite mare peopli inti o1iRota +h jpgs. In other communities there's more people
that go to those things. Here most of the people that went were not from this
state. They were from out of other states. They came here to work or something.
They were all the people that came. ~the community people ,....MI!:Ii) of lr! didn ' t
even know what the 5th of May was or the 16th of September. No one knew.
None of the community people ever came. Now it's getting better. They always
give dances for the 16th of September. They crown queens and do all those
other things. Before not very many people knew what they were.
tll'4
B: Do you think your community is changingl becoming more aware ?
M: Now it doesn't have very much choice. There's a new influx of Mexicans that
have came .
B: Since when?
M: Ja!t'-I haven't been to Ogden very much in the last year. Each time I go
there seems to be a new family moving in. There's these one apartments on 28th
st:reet • -t..h.. ey were always Mexican apartments. alffd) Y Max ic;ars li a el 1! 118 1'@1 • Ba t IIUL Lli&C iiidll} . When Mexicans move some place, they usually take their whole
family. There's a lot of them. Now that whole apartment is just full1
;( .... ..,..
And the apartment down the block is just full ~ And it never was that full .
B: Do you know why they're coming?
M: !don't know why. Probably for work.
B: Are they all getting special jobs here? Are they all j~s t working for the
railroad!a. jl!ln• i iffer sg+ +h jpg§?
Montanez 27
M: Just different things) Where ever they can. In our house now we have two boys
that are from Mexico, living there. They are illegal~ . My mother found them
a job. My mother has always done that. If illegals come here they have no
place to stay and nothing to eat. My mother lets them stay in our house until
they can get enough money to move somewhere else. These boys that are here now
they're just farm hands.~ -they'll probably always be farm hands, until they lR?P find 01 • get their passports, Bl' S91:!tli ill~ then they can go to school or
something. l ?itt Lim'L. Most people that come here are if they are illegal or
from Texas N EOMilB't!i:i:~ they are all farm hands or they get jobs on the
railroad.
•
If\ •
B: DQfil£ tRB !O!iiiildii I tj--lfe most of the people 1 ike you r mother, try,,to take care
9 - 'j
of their own; uf!H'ia::d a lidild?
M: I don't know very many people that do that. I don't know any people that
do it.
B: Do you think your mother's special because she's involved~ in that--in all these
M: My mother has another friend that does that too. A lot of boys come and stay
with her until they can get a job ~ and thos-e--ti:l-i-n-g~ I think my mother does it
because she's always worked the Mexican people. I guess she wants to help them.
I think she does that to make it easier for them.
B: Let me ask you about-vyour parents ,~ do they both still live in
Ogden?
M: My father lives in Nevada.
B: ln Neva~~ Do you still get to see him very often?
M: On the weekends.----------
8: Oo the l<eekeods bLcomes pJieJOe?G- . ~ ~ O-M:
~ ~e comes to Ogden to see my little brothers~ I go to Ogden to see him.
he..> ; +be~..-,
B: How :i..&-it difficult or · · , has it been?
I
M: My father has always worked on the railroad. His aana, they call them qanqs
where he works, they've always been not in Ogden ~ ~hey've always been somewhere
Montanez 28
else. Since I can remember my father was always coming home on the weekends.
That •s the only time we saw him was on the weekends, so it •s not very much
different .
<;, e.-P ClA. c._ \:..Q_ 6
B: Was it very bad before they got ~--I--rnean-;-se-pa-rat-e~ 0~
M: It got kind of terrible there for a little while . My father is not a very
violent man. He •s a very proud rna ~ very proud . I think my mother just kind of
~little bit messed up on his pride/~omething that meant a lot to him.
She kind of just blew it at that end. He just left everything hanging there.
He just walked away from it. He regrets doing that, but he feels that he•s
not much of a man if he would have stayed and let those things happen .
B: What kind of things?
M: It•s embarrassing. My father had credit all over Ogden. He never told my
mother about it . He 1d get her things~ aAcl those-tniRg~ He didn•t want
her to know about it My mother is not one to tell about money . She found
out where all his credits were. She wen:J all over the place charging all kinds
of things. He asked her not to do it and she kept playing with him. She
I
continued doing it. The money part didn•t bother him so much . What bothered
him was that he had asked her to please not do it and she continued doing it.
)
The re o :re
I guess it really got to him after a while. Sa he ~~s-~~ a lot of other
things that mixed in .
/
B: ~at•s the kind of t ~i~g~!_ So he had to leave as far as he saw it because
of his pride? Do they get along like on the weekends ? Is it everybody calm
and happy?
M: -W.el.l2,-_be doesn•t come to our house. In fact, he hasn•t stepped-foot in our
house for lots of years. Sometimes they talk to each other over the telephone
or sometimes they•11 go some place to have lunch. It•s kind of like a business
deal. 11How are the kids? 11 and she 1 ll tell him what we•ve been doing . It ends
right as soon as they finish talking. There•s nothing there .
B: How long ago was it that they separated?
M: It•s been around five or six years , I guess.
--------------------------------------
Montanez 7 29
Does. v_ o l-L< \fVl o~-e< e..'"'""" \(Ct.~ d ~ \. -t'Y'Q ve or \c s \-\. e d roc S - ~ s ~c....\: V\ol..D S "'- e
B:
M:
Yom-mut er gets paid _ fot; the worh-he- dcr s , r·tgt{t,--se-t-J::iat--'-s--f:ww- s-hesrrpports
S.G--0\)0.f""S. ~ ~Q...\1'"\"'.. I\'-'\ I
t4e-£amf-ly?
yeS
·'feittr, she does, but she doesn • t work in that 1 i ne of work any more. My brothevo
._!!IY oldest brother1got hurt. After he got hurt be couldn't take care of himself.
My mother h&d-tO-take-caT~rr--1~im~had to go home and take care of him. Now
y_oti>
he's getting better and he's learnedAto take care of himself pretty much.
So she just kind of takes part time jobs here and there. She's not in the
same line of work that she used to be in
<;;.t?~po(--\ "
B: ~ 1oes your father give child I mea~ how does the family stay supported?
...-' -;:::,-
Does your father send money?
M: That's really strange. Still up to now I don't know how my mother lives .
I don't know how she makes it. See2,-my father buys our clothes, our father
z.
buys everything we need. He buys it. My mother doesn't have to buy anything
for us. Because he does that, he has to only give us 25 dollars. That's
$75 every two weeks. My mother keeps that usually. I don't know how she
lives on $75.
B: What happened to your brother?
M: He got into a car accident. He fell out of a truck on his head. He had
B:
M:
B:
M:
B:
brain damage. SG. he • s- i;>ee-R-a-l-eA-§--t.ime-g.et-ti-n-g a-e-1<---;c... He • 11 never be the same.
~little by little ,he's getting better from what he was.
How do you finance going to school?
l).
c_.I<.R-t' J • '\-J( I'm in a very low 1ncome,) very low. So, my standing is zero. I get-YG-IJ2-
k~everything ~ paid for.
o_ I'\ C.
The government. I have one scholarship that's given to me ~hat's govern-ment
money~ too.
0 (~C\..'1"\ \ c.o...->r\ 0 ,'IS
Be-y.gy.Dare you involved with the Chicanos or any of the Chicano--do th-ey?
~__o_r:g.a.R-iz.a.tio_ns.= on campu~i-ke-tha:t1-
M: They had one called rf,SL.H A. I just never went to it. I didn't have any
interest. I'm a lot like my fathe~ -very stubborn. If I feel something's
Montanez 30
wrong, I just leave it. Or if I don•t like the way things are run, I
leave it. I wasn•t too comfortable in ~kne~,; the way they was
doing things, so I just left it. There•s not too many C~exicans or
Chicanos on campus, so it can never achieve to be anything. I think it•s
kind of just like a waste of time,~~ and money because
there•s so few. ~
o\c'r\C...<A\ O<<;Oc.\0--\ oCC()IA.V\,ZV--ito~'"''
B: MEC UA. was a ! ~~e-tl+e.y-tr-y..i-ng_t_o_d.o_th-r:~-9S--fJG-l-i-t-ica.l-l-Y-ew a-s
M:
B:
M:
~ust a social thing? ~
I•m not sure. Whenever I went in, it was like a family reunion.
CS>rJ::>C:..'"
Somebody started it and had all their cousins -~
~ell, it-w~ Everybody was always thinking about~·&, ~~~~~~~~~
\oeeV\ £\ O'€ v'\ Y::> 4 ~e.o{')·, oe..Js' ft>G"
~speryding the money that they had, that the university had given
~z,r \)~{'_,\<> \ d<~-.0 -\\1\e.\~The«'-)0\A..~
them, the budget. Trying to figure out ways to spend it :- They made
' ~
tamales and sold them.
B: Do you work now?
M: No.
B: What are you doing this summer?
(A\oSO\u_-\ e.,_\'-1
M: This summer I•m doing nothing, actuall ~ ~othing.
B: Do you like to be busy1-~o you like to work?
. /
M: If I•m doing something I enjoy, I like it very much. But if I•m put some,-\
\,\\.e... J
~of\ place that ... 1•11 go and r•n do the work, but r•n come home hating my-self
for doing something I don•t like.
B: What abO'It -feefr! ~id you eat traditional food? Is that as alien to you "as
it would be to m~,~~
M: Some foods are very a 1 i en to me ~ some things I • ve never heard of. But when
you•re poor and you•re Mexican, there•s certain .things that you can buy that
you like, that are somewhat traditional, like beans, tortillas .
B: Did those appear at every meal?
M: Every meal. And potatoes and rice tl yo~g-s-1-ik-e-tha-t<c::_
Montanez 31
B:
M:
Did your mom make tama 1 es? , \ c-J.\c._~ '"'o -\-c .. J·Y\.e.. \.eS o .r c: if\C.....v'\' ";..
'\[VI e V\ lA. u ;
Sometimes for a special occasion we•d have~. 1t-was all tamales-o
'\='or 0--
anchila.d~, Jor a birthday we•d have enchiladas~ a-tlel-11 really special occasio~
we•d have tamales. When it was a very special occasion we•d have menudo.
B: What•s menudo?
M: It•s hominy and pigskin 1 ~r someth~-it•s a big soup, just soup. Tastes
Z-really
good, I like it. But a lot of my friends don•t like it.
B: Did you ever have sweet tamales?
M: I had them one time, but I didn•t like them.
B: Let me ask you something about people•s roles, like men•s roles and women•s
D. re. ce-E-; n d a::\ ..
roles. k+ke-=in the Mexican culture / they~ pretty--m-en do this and women <-
do that. How do you feel about that?
M: See, I•ve been--I•ve grown up in two kind of different ways.~
~-right now is the time that everything is hitting me. I•m having a hard
:/
time trying to understand which one I•m coming frpm. ~~Jor my
father, he thinks that way: the man has one role and the woman has another
one. And it•s always supposed to be like that. ~~Y oldest sister ~ ~
husband is also Mexican and he feels the same way. Everything has a certain
way. ~th~WY brothers that are just a little bit - older, they think kind of Mexican but kind of not--Mexican men don•t let
ro -r
their wives work. And if they have children, they·r~supposed to work at
all ~ they•re supposed to stay home and work. -A-fi.EI.-.-.m:yrotlrers-; my two older
brothers .~ always thought their wives would never work., ~Y-oova.r:_
.a..:J-lowed the.m._t_o........w..or-~ But in some ways the Anglo side came out. Womeir
\ {\( IM.d .0
a-r-e-mtt Mexican women ~-e-sf)ee-i-a+-ty-if-t e men are v ry-e-t-d-Fa-s..h-ioned,
Qre J z
they• ~just supposed to stay home and take care of the kids, clean the
house. If they go out anywhere, they just go to the neighbors and talk~
' J , Gr some-th .. :i..ng;:? But my brothers, --t-R8r would take their wives out dancing or
to a bar, and--tt+i.n..g. :U..ke.-tfttr · . . ~my father, ~;~Q2 could never imagine a
woman being inside a bar. He still up to this day he can•t imagine a woman
Montanez 32
B:
M:
B:
M:
B:
M:
B:
M:
being inside a bar. If a woman•s inside a bar, he thinks of her as very
\ova
<~ old ; very low. to my brothers ) it•s okay. :+e-m~I·m still, ~ wondering -
if it•s okay or not. I don•t know.
Do you plan to work?
Yes.
Would you work when you had children?
After they were a certain age, but not when they were young.
So you•re going to compromise?
Yes.
Can you tel l me of any specific instances where you were discriminated
against?
\"'\" ~\ ~i;\_c\. "':> Ov'f\r ~ ~ /
One time , me--a-nc.Lm_yJr--i-en-cts--th-e-re? .we-~ h ree Mexican girlsJ-~ went to a
\~ S:,_Q QX...Q_d o-restaurant,
a~~~' you have to stand to be ~d . -AM the girl -.::.
that worked there, she just looked at us and just kept passing us, she
wouldn•t sit us down ~ she wouldn•t take us to the table. ~ one of my
~ ~
friends went and asked her if we could sit down and she just looked at her
as if she wasn•t there and just continued walking around the restaurant .
~~everybody was getting kind of upset ~ ~e didn•t know why she was acting
1 ike that. So my friend went up to her again and asked her, 11 Can we be
seated? .. And again she looked at her like we weren•t there . Aru:l so she
=
followed her around the restaurant waiting to see if she was really busy, ~o
~ f that•s why she didn•t seat us, but the girl was really doing nothing.
And so my friend told the girl, 11 0kay, I want to talk to the manager ...
And the girl said, 11Well, he• s not here... Af2l ~ nother guy came from the
back and my friend told him, 11 All we want to do is be seated, and order ...
And the man said, ~~~~ell, if you have anything to say, you•ll have to wait
until the manager comes because I can•t do anything about it) -I•m just
CJJ"od.-
working here ... Finally, we didn•t get to be seated , we had to leave.
B: How did you feel?
Montanez 93
M: Pretty lousy. Really lousy. ft was reall £/ we laughed at it 1 but we laughed
because it hurt so much. We all just laughed. To this day we never bring
it up ~ ~e try not to talk about it.
B: ~..y--ldncLO-Lb.utl~_hu-l:t .
(}-./Y--~
M: ,.- ·e--ne-v-e-r>---r-ea-1-1- -RQ_n~ we were a 1 ways together o:n-cl- when we-~
(I
~we~ever experienced anything like that. That came as a
pretty sharp blow in front of your friends especially~ each one of us
feeling maybe it•s me.
B: Where was this?
M: It was at Anthony•s Restaurant in Ogden.
. 0_0LA.
B: I know you took Professor Ganster•s class , ~did you_..a...l-lPdiscuss 11 la Raza 11 ?
M: In that class, I didn•t talk very much . I wasn •t sure of my own standing.
They talked about a lot of things, but I wasn•t too sure about myself. c
d
Other people in that class~sounde so headstrong about what they were
saying and what they believe
1
that I thought that whatever I said~wouldn•t
make any difference. So I didn•t , just one day I opened my mouth, because
~
they were driving me crazy. They were saying a lot of stuff that I didn•t
'h. C..!~ t;: V\ 6
believe in, they all felt like theyAexperienced, that they knew what they
~ ~~t
were talking about. I felt l+ke- they didn•t know what they were talking
about. It was just eating me up inside for me to say what I felt and what
I knew. So I said it. ~' ~ ometimes in these kind of classes, I feel like
they•re just pushing you to say something. Just to hear what you have to
say. So they say all those things and I didn•t want to be pushed into
something. I wasn •t quite sure of myself, so I didn•t hardly talk at all.
B: ~ j id 11 la Raza 11 mean anything to you before you took that class? d:.
._.
mefffl, had you ever heard it before?
(...-
M: For a time here, everybody was speaking of 11la Raza 11
, the people, the one
people. It got pretty big for a little while, but then it just kind of
faded away like everything else seems to.
-------------
Montanez 34
B: Why did you happen to come to USU?
M: Because I had a relative here and I knew I could feel comfortable with
somebody I knew. Somebody that could help me at first, ~ou know~ getting
over registration. ~
B: A relative that goes to school~ -yf:}ur cousin or sometbir?M:
Yes. She just left to California last quarter.
B: When you were growing up and you got sick, did your mom have ~special
rc vv-.e c)les: ~
rittle things?~
M: 311e woald d~ -~Y mother never did, but my father did.
B: What did he do?
M: When I was younger I had a skin disease and I went to all the doctors ~~
~T n.€
eve-rywtre'r First of a 11 my father thoughtt somebody l1ad, b.e had done
something bad and somebody was paying him back through me. They believe
in those things.
B: Did he call that anything special?
M: No, he didn•t want to talk about it too much around us. So, be waitl..e.:,.there•s
z::.
some special leaves that you get, and you boil them till they•re very hot &
~then you put them on and it•s supposed to help. So he would do that to
me all the time. And fill up the bathtub with those leaves and hot leaves
and I would take a bath. I stunk so bad ~ lt was really bad .
B: Did it help?
M:
B:
M:
Yes, it ~elpe>
~~
(...--
¥-erR- There•s a lot of women that do that. One of my aunts came .,. a-A.@she
would make all these things from leaves and from whatever grew outside.
-
She would boil them down and then she•d tell you to drink them or she•d
put them on you. They would help.
7
B: Did you feel that the people in your community~trust the doctors ,
¥llil-k.tlQ~ would they rather go to say somebody 1 ike your aunt and have her
boil something up
7
or would they rather go to a doctor?
Montanez 35
M: ~ like I told you before, most of the people in my community are very
anglicized ~
think that if you go to a woman, like a witch docto~~~ that
r-!e< S. o.-
you1re crazy~ ~you should go to a doctor ~-~ professional man ~-(/
they all think in this line. So most of them, I think, would put the i r
'Z:-
trust in doctors rather than somebody else. When my brother got hurt, his
left side of his body was paralyzed . ..A!:I-fl _!hey have these people that~
~ help you. They 1re t~exican people that~ believe God has given
them a special power to help yout~ a..Rd 2omeone told mv mother about it -and
~\:-e. ~ C:.u. be:__ (\; (?t...:) fl\e.·)G, ( 0 )
-.so my m~ drove my brother all the way to "f.:i_J.u.a.r:JtiE Mexi ~ where this
man live~ this man was blind..~ ..but he 'lteul€b-... My -::;?
mother stayed there three days and every morning, afternoon, and night
he would .~as sage my brother in a special waY, ood when my brother came
<:.
back, he could move a lot more than he could when he left. ~my mother
believes in thi ~ ~lot now. We believe in it, too. ~
.f.ath~ ~hen I was really young, my father got hit by a car. And he hurt
his back really bad. He was here in the hospital for a long time, but
his back was really terrible. So he flew back to Mexico, to one of these
~c...+ ci-o ~o,e_~<::,'
men and to d~( Andrwhen he came back, he was okay. Nothing
~
was wrong with him.
B: -Bc-yott--IT~~hen you have to go see these people, do you gi've them
something in exchange?
M: Some people~don 1 t take anything from you because they feel if they
OJ!\~
do, it 1 s wrong. They felt God has given this to them \.\ they shoul dn 1 t charge
for it. B1tt-s.ome of the', most of the~ cthese peopk' are very, very poor
people. They live very poorly, so a lot of people give them money or food .
th i n g s li ke tf:l.a.J:E..J
B: at 1S about all I have for now, I want to thank you far te
Montanez 36
B: Tell me about your brothers being harassed.
M: In smaller cities, if there's cops, they feel they're the power ®~
.tfte--sma1+e-r-..~a.p.e..-s-w+tdres side- · new-sente c ]--9
A lot of the people I knew were afraid of the cops all the time. I
didn't know why until one time my brother got in trouble. We went to
the pol ice station where they picked him up~~~ -Arfd they
-.:::-
took my brother in a special elevator and he was okay when he went in ,
but when h ~ !:arne out, ~~ they really beat him bad inside the elevator.
Nobody could say anything, or do anything about it ~ nobody had any proof. z;,
~Kl e~e could just say we saw my brother go in 1 ike that) but why
are they going to believe us, because he's my brother. That has happened
twice to him. The second time it happened, the cop was acting really
smart ~ we were in court, the cop was acting really smartF he was on a
~ z
chair and he was leaning back like this 6 ~~~~ he had said that
my brother had beat him up, .:t-fri--5- GQ.P--ha.d a-id{: so they were going to try
my brother for that. Jll@ the cop was leaning back, acting really smart 11
a(l
my whole family was in there,~ my brother's friends .~ he was saying,
.-z__
talking his stuff, saying, yOU-k~ blaming everything on my brother.
ARd he sat down and he leaned back, really cool, -~ and he fell down r
':;;2--
\~e_
~ hit his head and he gave himself a concussion . They dropped the
charges. ___r_t._was funn~J:.-t 1.-0o.,.<; +-. -"' s. ""-c ~ ,
B: How did it make your brother feel? When he got picked up, had he done
M:
B:
M:
something wrong?
I guess he had -been dri n k. ing .~somethi~
He's under age?
eYlov.-5 \-.,
No, he's old age. ~ ttJe problem was ~ because all my cousins
hang around one group . -/"fle-
Wherever they go, i t' sAgroup . Most of the time,
when there's t rouble, there's a group of people . So they were just watching
them a-!'l-6---e-v-eY-t-J:l-i-r+~r and 1--gu~ my brother was drunk, so they just picked
him up. My brother, ..r gtres ~ was starting to argue with them ;--0+---~ g
Montanez 37
.~~when they took him to the courthouse, we were there because he had
called us."-a-r«< he went into the elevator and when he came out he was
beaten up. A~ ~e didn't say anything about it. He just said, 11My time
wi 11 come. I '11 get my chance. 11 And that was it.
B: He doesn't feel resentful?
M: I guess before he did, but he's the same brother that had gotten into
B:
M:
the accident. Now he doesn't think about any of those~ things ~
But even now that he's hurt, if you mention a cop around him 1 ~r sometl:lin~
he sayi1 I hate them.N He's uptight when you mention them .
..Wou.lo \e.Anybody
else in your family ever got in any ... ?
VI f'YDU.\-;) \e ...
A lot of my cousins have been1~ 1 had one cousin, they were having a party
at my uncle's house ~ ~ he came outside and the cops were out there ,~
they just threw him against the car and start frisking him ;;tmd everythir~.
rz...
They told us he wasn't drunk or anything, he was just leaving .and they did
·y-, e.
that to him. One cop, I don't know if it was an accident or not, but they
hit him in the face with that sti.ck. Hit him in the chin. My uncle had
seen this through the window. My uncle went out there and they all
started to fight with the cops ~ ~ the cops came from everywhere. It
just turned into a great big hassle. Half my cousins ended up in jail.
But nothing happened to them, because they couldn't prove anything. Just
something to show them who's boss. That was the end of that with them.
Most people I know won't trust a cop for anything. Everybody cuts them
down and everything. I don't feel that way because I guess nothing has
happened to me. I feel, I'm glad they.'re here because if they weren't here /
)
everybody could be shot and killed whenever anybody felt like it. But
o-_rc:_
then there's always the other side. Cops,~~ not gods • t~ey're not
perfect. You give them a little money and they'll go away.
B: Were there any Mexican American cops in your neighborhood:~
M: They are two, I think, now in Ogden. I'm not sure how many, but I always
see one.
T
Montanez 38
B: Do you think that helps?
M: I don't think so . I think everybody resents it. He.'s Mexican, why is he
a cop? Because nobody trusts him.
B: It's like he sold out?
M: Yes, that's what they feel like.
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