Eliana Banuelos and Mario Banuelos

00:04 My name is Mario Banuelos. I am 30 years old today's date is Friday, March 13th, 2024 in Bakersfield, California. And the name of my interview partner is Eliana Banuelos, and she's my spouse.

00:19 My name is Eliana Banuelos. I am 29 almost 30. It's Friday, March 13th, 2020. We are in Bakersfield California. The name of my partner is Mario Banuelos, and he is my husband.

00:35 So I think it's natural to talk about the beginning. Where are you from?

00:42 So while we're both from Delano, California, which is only 30 minutes from Bakersfield and we're both born the same year 1990 and our families are friends. So we've known each other for a really really long time to little bit hazy on when we met and my friends it was a happy coincidence. We ended up marrying each other that it was as if she knew this was going to happen cuz I take it off that way and so we're both from the same town and so it's really awesome to have walked through life with someone who noticed the same things as I did and you know, one of that one of those things is this the town itself and how growing up in the Central Valley is a little bit different than growing up anywhere else. So what was

01:42 Well, it's a weird place because a long time ago there was a greater white population in the city and you can tell that and you can see that from the photos of the history of that town, but it's predominantly Hispanic 70% Hispanic and 10% Filipino. And so it's really interesting to see and grow up in a place that had so much growth for a while and then can I just became stagnant and stopped and we grew up in a different Delano that exist now.

02:15 Yeah, so it was interesting to grow up where you are never the minority. So I never feel felt like the other growing up in Delano because the majority of people were Hispanic men came from similar backgrounds.

02:34 And another part of of doing the growing up in Delano was that unlike how it is now you were 30 minutes from everything. So you were 30 minutes from a movie theater your 30 minutes from the nearest Target or Walmart. And so that's right. So every I remember every weekend we would have to go out of town to go to Walmart or to go out to eat or to go to a movie. So it just like it's interesting Grove in a bubble and you watch TV and shows in like people that live in the city and they go through things and they hang out with her friends. I like a theater in like not having to have like, I guess like the American Experience like that was very interesting and Delano now is different have a Walmart has a theater has a Starbucks. And so that's why I bring up that it's a bit different now.

03:31 Yeah, so the other part I think is because it was like that. I always associated.

03:38 It within not growing and feeling like I was stuck in that place. So for a long time growing up, it felt like I needed to leave that place and leave it behind.

03:50 I think especially at that point Delano also resonator that way with me it was a place of the past and I think that would added to that with the fact that a majority of people that live there work in the fields and they were very traditionally Hispanic and they had these expectations of like this is what you should do. And this is what you should not do and our mothers were both field workers as well. So those expectations ran really deep with us and what was expected out of us. And so when you're young and you want to reveal and you want to leave you're going to make it happen and so for us leaving and going to school somewhere else that's that became be out.

04:35 So, can you speak a little bit more on maybe your mother's Journey here. She came to the United States when she was around 12 or 13 and my grandpa had come here many times. He actually came after World War II through the recital program and he worked in the fields and so he would just hop back and forth with night to Mexico and California in the Central Valley and for a while. He just realized like this is were I need to bring my family and I need to bring them over and so he did he got all my family's papers fixed and they came to Delano because there was a lot of Need for work in the field and

05:24 My mom always talked about how lucky she felt for that because she knew a lot of people in her, I guess Village. I don't know the email translation to town, I guess in Spanish Bible. Oh cuz my mom did come from like a very poor part of Jalisco and she talks about how she always felt lucky that my grandpa went back for her because there were many men who left a Mexico left families behind and never went back for them.

05:51 And your mom's Journey similar, but also very different and so she's also from Jalisco Mexico and she came.

06:02 When she was 15 with her other sister another sisters.

06:09 To Delano and it was for a similar reasons in that there was work here and I was fit to provide a better life for themselves and they would even send money to her mom to my grandma.

06:24 During that time, but I think where they differ is that your mom came as a 12 year old person right sheet and she needed a way to get out of her her family's house. Right? And my mom was already living at Living the independent life. Yeah. I know it's true. She never she never got married because she didn't want a man to tell her what to do. Our moms are very similar very different similar in the sense that they have like a similar upbringing cuz your mom grew up in a very traditional home. Her dad was a police officer write in Mexico and unfortunately passed away when she was younger and so they came from similar backgrounds for like my mom took the more traditional route and your mom was like nah. Nah

07:24 She had worked in the fields for a long time. She was lucky enough. I guess I can say lucky to go to school little bit here. My mom really did want to go to school. She was always fascinated with American culture. My mom knew who the Beatles were which is really funny cuz she grew up in a really dirt for a town in Mexico, but she could tell you each Beatle by picture and she loved watching like classic American television and sell my mom did want to go to school but my grandpa took her out because he needed them to work until I seen the farthest my mom. Was like 7th grade time, and then she worked in the fields until Jackie was born. So is my sister and she Jackie is going to be 20 this year. So

08:12 Is very very long time and your mom my mom retired last year working in the fields, but that was mostly what her job was since she came. So that's over at 40 years 40-50 years or just working and maybe I need to specify by the fields are the great fields in Delano Las predominantly what grows and Delano also if you don't know is very important city to the movement the lot that you kind of movement because that's where all the United Farm Workers organization stuff went down Cesar Chavez is big and Delano until for a moment. I was a very exciting place where people thought change was going to happen and workers rights were going to you know, go down and really it has not changed why me a did they have brakes and water and bathrooms now, but as far as working,

09:12 Missions in the field it's not gotten better. And I'm really my mom is super lucky to have gotten out when she was able to get out because my mom always said like I would have died doing that if I this didn't happen and my mom now works for a nursing home. So she's really excited for that. And did you ever work in the fields or so my mom was very adamant about me being ever working in the fields. She was just like don't ever do it. This is for people who don't have any other like opportunities like you have papers go get a job like a real job. This is for a means to an end. This is for people who don't have another option and I didn't understand why she was so anti me working in the fields and it wasn't until I got older where she told me that she had experienced sexual harassment and it was something that many women face working in the fields and and now I got it, but when I was younger I Used to Know

10:12 And

10:14 And your mom

10:16 She took us once.

10:19 To go work in the fields. So there's different seasons season the Time season, so I went with her and my sister.

10:32 During the Time season so that that's tying the vines to the lines. When is that? It's an honor me and my sister and my mom went and I was maybe about 10 11 years old. No, maybe a little bit older maybe like 12:13 and and then my sister was like six or seven and so we went

10:58 And because they're in Rose and what we had to do was tie each of the vines to the line. And if I remember we went there super early and maybe like 6 in the morning and we finished one row maybe like 9 because me and my sister we're super slow or we just following my mom down and

11:22 And then I look like bank and I was like, how much is that? And she she's like that's $5 or $10 and it was

11:31 That moment where I knew I didn't want to do that for the rest of my life. So

11:38 It's hard for me to tell that story.

11:41 Because there's this funny aspects as well like my sister remembers going going that one day and she said that I hit her with one of the fines on accident.

11:53 And she like bring that brings that up all the time, but it was like one of the defining moments in my life to say I I don't want to do this as as my career for the rest of my life and it's one of the points I drive home a lot. It's being a Central Valley and being in a very high-end anti-latino time and how people talk about field working in like gold like they didn't mean like that work but that work is so difficult. And I know it's difficult because I used to believe that used to take care of me when my mom was working. She lived in the middle of nowhere and there was a time where my mom was working a far from there until the lady would walk over to my mom for lunch. Like my mom had her lunch and I would see my mom if she just looked so exhausted and you know, we would walk back when their lunch break was over and you see them working and like even as a

12:53 I like it. I could see that and go that is not it would life. That's not how what is supposed to live. And so that was also a huge motivation for me to go to school. I guess that was like it was a big motivation but I think like a bigger motivation for me was poverty. We grew up very poor my mom and my dad divorced when I was three and so my mom is always pretty much been on her own trying to support us and my mom unfortunately has made very terrible decisions with men and for a while. She was you know supporting them as well as like my brother and my sister and I and so I'm going up where 4 people share a $20,000 income is very hard and when you grow up being poor and like realizing your poor existed it did it affect you in a very certain way and so for me graduating high school and leaving Delano was like this is my out. I don't want to live like this.

13:53 I can't live like this.

14:05 When that became like a reality to sew in high school ideas my junior year we were doing like we were researching poverty rates in America and we were doing like the ratios to family members and income and I like had asked my mom for her income and I was like when I realize that my family was just at the poverty line like bright like a little bit under it and I was like, wow, this is a like I always knew I was poor like I would go to my friends houses and they had houses. So we live we live in a mobile home. And like I saw everything they had and like the clothes they wore it and I was just like that was just not my life. I'm always bias like two pairs of jeans and like three shirts and she be like, this is it this is for the year and so, you know who became very resourceful and I remember when we were dating

14:55 This one time you wanted to walk me home and I was very resilient and resisting like you don't have to do that. It's okay. And you know, I finally gave in and let you and a lot of that came from the embarrassment of that and that's not commentary on my mom. That's more of like the situation.

15:17 Tired of me to get emotional

15:22 Yeah, but it all worked out we left and we both went to Fresno State for undergraduate degree. And we got married also, very young. And so we've been married now 10 years.

15:52 And Annette, I think they're just like that first year of being married. We lived relive part of being poor because I remember Asher has just going to the mountains for a couple days.

16:08 We towed the van L. Yeah, we were in the negative in the account here. And that's life for me. Like, you know, I felt as bad. Mommy. You also grew up because you guys were amazingly stable but you guys were more stable than me. So yeah, that's true. I never had a room really I had an office which was basically my room because most of my homework was online and do what you need to do.

16:41 So now that we're on the topic of education and part of it was what influence you to go to continue education besides through High School part of that for you was in and out of poverty and I was also it was a rebellious thing for me to do like my brother and my cousin to an album Born here dropped out of school. None of them had graduated high school. And so I was the first one to graduate high school and that was the first ceremony my family had ever gone to and it was like a big ol thing my aunt came and my cousin came and it was weird because they like more excited about that. But at the same time there was always push back because I like school. My cousin thought school was stupid. I wanted to party and my brother really got into drugs and like the wrong people and so when I went to college

17:36 It really changed the tires. I had with my family cuz might some of my family members still to this day look at me differently because they think that I think I'm better than them which because you went to because I went to school and that's not at all the thing but I think also that comes from so conscious like like the fears and like being the insecurities. They think that they hide as well and even my mom was not supportive at first. I remember I owed likes the guy was like $400 or something in the dorms and I called her like in panic because if I didn't pay they were going to evict me from the dorms at Fresno State and my mom was like we got to figure it out. You wanted to leave and like it's with Gary doing that alone, but I really wasn't alone cuz I had to you so that's where we became closer because

18:32 Your family was supportive. But you also have to figure that out on your own right tough times are good if you can see this right now going on, but for me, it was one of the things that motivated mean was it was it was a way out of Delano this this town that for me. I've had this kind of back-and-forth relationship with but the other part was it was just the next thing to do. That's what everybody said. So I was pretty good at school and and people said, okay next now, we're going to apply to colleges and I said, okay whatever that means and so I didn't really know what I want to do. By the way Mario's very understanding himself. He's very very intelligent. No graduated at the top of his class.

19:29 It's practice like defining moment in both of our Lives. Not only did we become closer together, but it really opened up doors and opportunities. We met people that was our first time we made friends outside of our own ethnicity. So it sounds so silly like it was the first time I have ever made white friends which to me was super exciting because when you come from a place as a predominantly is Hispanic or Filipino just the culture shock was super real and when you meet other people with other religions, another backgrounds really does make you have like these reflective questioning moments of yourself, and why are you the way you are and why do you do the things you do? And so that was awesome within itself.

20:23 So touching on that, how do you how would you describe your college experience then?

20:28 Awakening

20:31 Very mad, when I look back at myself, I've struggled for a really long time with my ethnicity in a lot of that came from like I said earlier in my family pushed back on education. They always made fun of me and they always called me white and American which was it doesn't sound as insulting when I say it in English, but like in Spanish and they would call me Americana which I guess has more when I get a conversation until for a very long time and even throughout College. I had this very negative attitude towards my own culture because I felt like everyone who is my ethnicity had turned their back on me. Like they didn't want me to go to school and they didn't want me to be successful and it wasn't until we met Jeff that he said the phrase monkeys in a barrel said sometimes like people want to keep you down because you know,

21:23 They don't get ahead and so it makes them feel better. And so I really wish I would have had a different perspective cuz I feel like I could have had a more positive college experience because it really did put a damper on like the opportunities I had and like the people I chose to not associate with because I was like they're going to judge me. They're going to see things about me like that's not even worth my time.

21:48 And how about you college experience?

21:53 So I I ended up majoring in math. I switch my major the first week. I got there from philosophy because again, I didn't know what I wanted to do to Matt and I found I found a good set of mentors there in the math department and now I will now that my colleagues but by the time they were my mentors and they showed me that you could travel and present research in mathematics to other people and that it wasn't this thing that you just did by yourself. So is very much a community of people that dig math.

22:37 And so when I was doing that I had decided to walk. I think I'm going to be a high school teacher. And so I got my

22:47 Bachelor's and then after we both went to CSU Bakersfield to get a teaching credential going to give back to the community like noon over new rejuvenated and all weekend from like halogen. We went back home and we hated it when trying to put that lightly and we just it just wasn't a good fat and it's partly is a town.

23:22 Because I think I have you touched on it earlier. It was the association of like not growing and it Delano what kind of became this place that was like that and even when we had graduated wasn't growing like as much as it was now and so for us we were 22 and that could have been our lives forever. We could have bought a house and had kids and

23:49 That could have been forever.

23:52 You have been teaching Algebra 1 forever.

24:00 6 times a day during my the first year. I was a teacher and simultaneously getting my teaching credential. So that was that was just a lot a lot of time that that took a lot of mental effort that that are required. So then after that first year after the first semester, really I I have that same Outlook I said, this could be the rest of my life, but I need to see if there's something more and I felt like I still wanted to be challenged academically. So then I applied to the master's program at Fresno State and then I also applied to the PHD program at UC Merced.

24:45 So besides Stanislaus, I've been to all public university and he you got into UC Merced we moved back to Fresno and then shortly after I finish my credential Fresno State and I got my job at for the community of color OC which is a very small unincorporated community in Tulare County Clare County is literally nothing but Fields out there and it's a different field. So just how like I thought Delano was at the stagnant place in like isolated Orosi was like no. This is what rule means and I absolutely love it there and I ended up going back to school. But before I talk about that you need to talk about Merced.

25:39 Not experience for you as much as Fresno State open my eyes to that you could actually do research in math and do other things besides teach.

25:52 UC Merced open my eyes to you could use math to understand the real world. So I started the PHD program in Applied Mathematics there an end my advisor in the people on my committee the professors on my committee really showed that you could not only model the real world.

26:16 And go present at conferences about your research, but that you could still be in a pretty human while doing all this and so they really cared about their students mental health. They cared about increasing representation in Science and Mathematics. So that was really eye-opening for me.

26:40 I think it's funny because like normally when you like and unlike testing Coulter like media, you see kids that go to college and they come back after the first year and they're like all woke and awake and they're like social just said since we didn't go through that immediately in college. Like I feel like that happened later in life when you for you it was when you went to your Ph.D program for me is when I decided to go back and get my Master's at Fresno State and So currently I'm working on my Master's in history and that has been a super eye-opening experience for me. So not only is it like I opening in the sense of like trying to find balance in life, but it's also been eye-opening in learning or teaching myself to appreciate Delano and my culture and my ethnicity and all these things that I had felt when I was younger had turned their backs on me and currently I'm recording

27:40 Experiences of these women who worked in the fields from the 70s 80s and 90s and sitting with them and meeting them and hearing their experiences has really changed.

27:53 Like I said just a few I have of the Central Valley and it's also made me gain so much more respect for this place. And I feel like now we're pretty big advocates for the Central Valley.

28:09 Yeah, I agree. I think as as starting the master's program for you.

28:16 Started that process of reconciling like your ethnicity and the place you're from for me and was one particular conference at UC. I wasn't at UC Merced by those while I was at UC Merced and it was laugh math 2018. So that that conference

28:41 Or 20 2015 actually and that Conference was held at UCLA. And the first thing that when they opened up the conference was too many times were asked to

28:56 Check ourselves at the door. So that means our culture our passions and and things like that and that conference said

29:07 Here you can be yourself. So for me.

29:12 That was

29:15 That was a really big time where?

29:22 I didn't have to feel like I didn't belong.

29:29 And I think that's what bonded us when we were younger. We spell like these black sheeps and our community and our family and so now it's really big made a big pardon to why we do your professor and I'm a teacher and where major Advocates to our students.

29:47 And we live trying to live by example of like, you know, you can go out there. You can go to college you can be proud of where you come from your ethnicity and also like do not forget this place. Don't turn your back on this place whether it is even if you don't choose to live here forever. I think that's one of the big message is that we both bring a cost really really well.

30:14 And yeah, I definitely have a love for the Central Valley now that I have and in a lot of that has to come with understanding of people who live in it. And that is the people who work in the fields here and it's these women that I get to talk to and it's the kids we get to teach

30:43 What you've learned in these recordings and that's what that's made you think about how you were raised that likes your mom. I'm for sure. So there has been big overlap in a lot of these stories and it's kind of getting into my thesis. So if you're asked me to talk about me, too, so I'm so happy about that. The biggest thing is that field working in the Central Valley changed round through the birth of a new type of job. That is we now know as Phil labor Contracting this didn't exist before that time then and it really changed the power dynamics of the fields and who ran cruise and like who was in power who got chosen into power and what happened is these workers were negatively affected and that's one of the big ones and one of the things I struggle with is that we know someone who is if your labor contractor

31:43 I told seeing it logistically from his side and hearing about how these people's lives have just been destroyed from the creation of these jobs is very at the pools at you the other big thing that I've been hearing it up from these women is that there's a lot of sexual harassment that happens working in the fields.

32:07 In a lot of that stun from bosses and managers who are overlooking Cruise who try to take advantage of women women who don't have anyone looking out for them and these are women who don't have the means to get another job.

32:20 And some of them don't have papers and some of them do but they lack education to move forward. So, you know some of these women fight back but a lot of these women don't they just take it because who are they going to go to and that's probably the most heartbreaking thing to hear and also that just how

32:46 It's so weird. I have many mixed emotions about agriculture now because of this project it's literally what makes the Central Valley.

32:57 Like there's so much money that flows in this area, but there are huge discrepancies of wealth between the people who live here and that and it just it's something that does Tanger me a lot. And so my thesis is really me trying to contribute to like s to fight back, I guess and informing people that like things need to change the treatment of workers need to change the structure of Agriculture needs to change and I don't think that'll happen.

33:30 It sounds very jaded of me. But I have to feel like I have to contribute to that in some way shape or form. And so, you know, I've been able to talk to my mom from a place of knowledge now because she was able to share her story with me and I'm learning so much about that and it's made me like for love and respect my mom so much and luckily my mom and I have a great relationship now and a lot of that has to go cut that comes from like the understanding that I've gotten from her and why she made the choices she made and how she really didn't have a lot of options and how a lot of people don't have options and I feel like playing on similarly has I have these mixed feelings about to let you know. I love that place. I love it for the memories and everything we have with it, but I'm also so angered that

34:24 It's just do these things happened, you know movements were happened that were made there and born there and there is like no memory of this there anymore. There are no statues of United Farm Workers Union. There are no memorials. There are no holidays. There are no anniversary, whatever these people just move on and it's a community that still alive. It's not like these field workers have gone away. They're still there. And so

34:57 It's just becoming more complicated as more and more people come because what's going on now is that now we have people from indigenous Mexico coming to the Central Valley to work in the fields, like people from Oaxaca, for example, and those people don't speak Spanish, they speak their native tongue. And so integrating those kids into school is becoming harder and voices are ready our silence now, so they're even more silence to when the language barrier becomes bigger because it's not Latin based in the Central Valley has made a lot of strides but it also has so much more like it needs a long waited.

35:40 A long way to go.

35:42 Yeah, I think you touched on something just didn't in your ear project.

35:51 And I think that's part of it is.

35:54 For me, for example, I identify as a Chicano because for me that means need that key neither. Yeah, which is not from here. I'm not from there and

36:07 You kind of see that in the town, right? You're interviewing people that

36:14 Have had the experiences and people need to know about them.

36:21 You do.

36:22 And kids young kids the kids. We teach me in high school and college need to know that they can be forces of change that can come back and do good. And that's the biggest thing. I'm trying to do with my kids and I'm trying to have them go out there and so they can do good.

36:42 So at the end of the day, what what do you want your students to remember about you?

36:49 About what you teach them?

36:52 I just want them to remember that.

36:55 This is what someone who is happy and passionate and educated looks like because a lot of the times kids believe that you reach adulthood and you lose your passion use your

37:08 Love for things and I like to present that unfiltered and I also want to show them this is what an education can give you.

37:17 Today don't know what that looks like cuz I teach a lot of kids whose parents come from Mexico.

37:23 How about you?

37:27 I want them to know that math is not an innate ability and instead it's something that you practice and you practice just like anything else and the other part is that

37:43 I did a lot of Applied math and a lot of statistics and the important part is not only creating these models are using the formulas that were talking about but interpreting those things in the context of real-world applications and

38:00 People that have better invested in the state of that were talking about so

38:09 At those are the two things I want I want them to know is that you can practice math and get better at it and that it has real consequences outside of this class because math becomes a huge barrier for people math is often used to repress or oppress. I'm sorry to made people feel like they can and so it's not worth it or like I'm dumb but really it should be

38:38 Used to

38:40 Field Howard. Yeah.

38:46 And that's hard when kids grow up in a world where they don't feel like their education is being celebrated and that a degree is worth fighting for

38:57 So I hope we change that for the people we come in contact with should be able to do that.

39:08 Anything else you'd like to add?

39:11 No.

39:15 Do we have to use the whole time or?