Daniel Perez and Megan Lardner

00:06 My name is Daniel Perez. 32 years old. Well next week. I'm 31 right now. But today's date is April 25th 2008 location where in Grand Central Terminal New York City and my relationship to Megan is that she's my girlfriend.

00:27 How many Miss Megan lardner I'm 34.

00:31 Since April 25th 2008. We are in Grand Central Terminal and my relationship to Daniel that is is that he's my neighbor and my boyfriend.

00:43 I Daniel said thank you for coming today and agreeing to help me interview you I have always been really interested in your stories about when you were growing up because the I have really different backgrounds and yet we are we get along so well, so and I both really honored what you talked about into the story of your family. So, can you talk to me about where you grew up?

01:06 Are crap I grew up in Weslaco, Texas, which is in southern Texas in the Rio Grande Valley.

01:13 And it's an interesting little region of the country while leaving from Texas in particular its kind of sits just the Rio Grande Valley just a string of cities that are right along the weather Rio Grande and southernmost Tip of Texas about my town was like I was just about seven miles from Mexico the from the border definitely primarily Mexican population, but growing up there as a Mexican.

01:48 But it was nice because I felt very

01:55 Very attached to that culture there. It definitely comes over the border and blends into.

02:03 Texas in that region? That's it's it's a it's a special place also because

02:10 North of the city north of the Rio Grande Valley. It's about 4 hours until you get to the next real chunk of civilization, which is San Antonio which course as far as anybody else concerned is as far south as you can go, but it's not.

02:29 But yeah the town I grew up in this Weslaco. It's pretty small town about thirty thousand course. That's the number. I remember when I was a kid in Idaho has been that way. You could be a lot bigger now for all I know.

02:43 That's where that's where I was born and raised and I just I think finally back now. I mean, of course everybody grows up where they grow up. They usually want to go ahead and can't wait to get out of there and everybody got that Faith no matter where they grow up and I did that went to college in Texas A&M towards towards the North and Bryan Texas and then from there to Dallas and then to New York, but it wasn't until I got to New York that I was realizing that I miss the valley more than ever.

03:20 Now you tell me about you talk a lot about Nostalgia as you get older that you're in the static person. What is it that you're most nostalgic for about that place where you grew up?

03:30 I think I'm most nostalgic for the time that that I spent grown up with my family.

03:38 When we're still kind of a wound from a big family. How big can you play? It's so I think so there was

03:56 Never really. We all will just a very short. We're actually all in this under the same roof by the time I was born my oldest sister Cindy had already gone off to college or was about to and my earliest memories of my three older siblings or of them already being gone to college. So but that's you know, that's just the way that I remember and that's fine. But I definitely remember a time where there was the majority of us still under one roof. And and that's probably what I'm most nostalgic about.

04:31 How did it feel to be the youngest of that many people to grow up and be welcomed into the World by that many people. Do you remember how do you serve your earliest memories of that?

04:43 I just I do and I what I remember most is.

04:48 My family always buzzing sisters everybody like in parents is really wanting to teach me a lot about what they've learned on their own and I always thought that was special of that. Everybody had their own little experience and definitely a lot to share and pass down to me definitely always felt that the great amount of love from all levels of my family from my parents my grandmother and I know my brothers and sisters, can you tell me when I'm down?

05:27 Set Cindy Tommy Louis Rose after Oteri Ruben, Michael Andrew Kathy and myself set up the order from oldest to youngest in and everyone in my family. I think it's ingrained in them to be able to say that ramble it off quickly. And then there's the the quicker version Mike rinder Kathy and me it sounds like you just beat it up what you said.

06:04 But that's that's my family. Can you tell me about the woman who was who's responsible? I guess the woman and the man that can't have it your parents who I didn't wear their names and where they found.

06:15 That's my my father is the most baddest. He is born and raised in Elsa, Texas, which is just about 10 minutes north of Weslaco. His parents are from Zacatecas Mexico. And my mother is dead as I went there originally that I stopped at us now and she was born in San Luis Potosi Mexico and came when she was very young with my grandmother on Sims 3 on Puente.

06:48 And they came to the valley and lived in Weslaco and her razor. She was sad My grandmother raised my mother and my uncle Uncle Pete together Hunter own there in the valley. And then that's a set a time. We ended up there in the valley, but my mother

07:19 Grew up, and I always had an interest in.

07:25 I think kind of creating creating things and then definitely wants ways, you know, the family started she a coruna Tristan and cake decorating and

07:40 And that dinner just baking and then definitely she also participated in and an outreach program for going to under Pillager a poor communities and Colonius and helping them others how to shutdown a show them how to cook for large enough for their children in the most healthy way. And so that was a that was a project that she participated in with her best friend Vicki Kilbourne who's also my godmother and I carried over definitely into what she did when she helped raised us when she raised us and she definitely knew a lot about nutrition and what to cook in for a big family in and then also

08:25 But she definitely had an artistic hand as well.

08:29 And my father was a photographer.

08:32 And he

08:34 He did not for for several years Define a lot of Event Photography weddings and and Quinceaneras massage and I was pretty young at the time but my father would also employ my eldest sibling Cindy Tommy Louis to go and help him shoot as well. I was definitely photographer photographic the red starting with my father coming down to you because you are also a photographer Photography in my family growing up from my father, obviously and and and it just worked its way down through the family cuz every single

09:20 Purse every single one of my siblings.

09:23 Definitely owned the camera and use it liberally in and I was definitely tired by that when you look at old family photographs are all the slides that your father took. What do you see?

09:37 I

09:39 I see.

09:42 Well, sometimes it's tough because I can see.

09:48 Like my family can all together.

09:55 Like on trips, and I think probably but I might

10:04 That time I kind of came around.

10:10 I guess I kind of like long for that to happen to this family egg floating up there at the wagon and going on long trips. So, you know, this is kind of not that we didn't get to do that. But that was definitely.

10:37 That I always kind of like fat I would have liked to been more of a part of butt.

10:47 It's you know, I just

10:51 I'm sorry.

10:55 I bet more not necessarily just kind of going and doing things and trips things that you know, that's not like the thing that I kind of.

11:06 Which have been more part if it's kind of more though.

11:10 This the whole family top-to-bottom together coin places.

11:16 That's what that's how I feel out of that.

11:20 So it'll it eventually kind of would become a kind of just being the youngest interesting because it would always come around 2 noon me asking that go was I born yet and she thought about you a lot of stories and and then inevitably ask is that you wanted to be there for ya.

11:51 I slept better in the idea of like having my family together the whole family.

11:57 Tell me about your family in the summertime.

12:00 Well, they with my family when they die, so I guess pretty much to my back so I can remember.

12:09 We would go we all get together and leave the valley and go north to the Panhandle or Kansas or Illinois and be with you from work. Where is Summer migrant Farm working family? And we would just wait until in a once were all out of school. We would we had to remember.

12:33 List of the earliest mode for going out there was a big fan ground van misuse one of those extended man so we could all pile into and

12:45 We will pull a trailer that was used to be the back end of a truck. That was somehow I modified to 2 hitch up to the back of the van with wooden slats on the sides of the bad to make it deeper and just fill it up with all of our possessions that we would need for the summer in this pile up and head north and at that time he knows I'm a kid and that was you know, that was my family vacations that I that I remember but I remember him fondly, you know, I'm just getting out on the road in any kids six years old seven eight. Nine ten to be able to go on a big trip has an adventure anyway, and I know of course, I mean I didn't I didn't know that, you know, we were doing that because we weren't as well off. I thought that's what everybody like that's what we did and

13:45 Find slime with me. And so we going we don't work the fields mostly sorghum from my time that I was around. I think before I was born and when I was younger before I went yesterday strawberries in other things that wasn't there, but mostly when I was going for the memories from

14:14 Those Summers that you have liked and it popped out. That kind of symbolizes.

14:25 Yes in but one of the four that I definitely remember this kind of as a general term look like

14:32 There was that was a time when I got to

14:36 It's been at least in the earlier part. I got to spend a lot of time on my own and I was fine with me because I wasn't old enough to go and work in the fields. I would pile up in the car and go out there and my knee feels really like the mile-long.

14:54 And I would just stay in stay around the car and Unser in the car, but over the wagon or the van and whatever we were having at the time but

15:04 Dad passed my time just kind of playing with rocks and ants and finding little lizards and horny toads and things and just kind of making my world there come a little but I would definitely get lost and then was fine had a good time. But I also remember I started to I learned to drive very early when I was nine-years-old actually the van I would drive around I would like driving to the other side of the

15:36 At the field if it was actually going to go back and forth. And if the last run would send leave them on the other end. I would drive all the way to the other end to pick him up. And I remember in the van. I would stand up to drive into the put my feet on the pedals and just look over the steering wheel and drive all the way down to the mile to the other end and pick them up. So that was you know, of course her nine-year-old. That's pretty awesome. Sounds that was fun. I also remember this one time and then I just kind of started learning how to drive but my family was working there were heading down towards the other end of the fields and I look over the horizon and there's has

16:19 Give me was a beautiful just Clear Blue Sky day, but store from the north there was

16:26 This ominous like dark purple band of something just coming towards us and getting larger and I didn't quite know what it was. I was fascinated for the longest time before I started to realize what it might be. It turned out to be a dust storm and it was just kind of rolling towards us getting bigger and bigger and and once it just was right on top of us and was behind us everywhere. There's never seen a dust storm. Let alone been in one so I was gosh probably only 10 years old and I knew my family was at the very the other end of the field that smile on field and in the middle of stuff time and I wasn't with the car so I know I have to go get them and

17:26 The Sim nervously just turning it on and I can barely see the hood ornament. It was like an old Oldsmobile but I decided to turn it on and head out and go get him. I need it. I need to make a U-turn to head to head the other way. So I just turn the wheel all the way and hit the gas and find myself right in the middle of a barbed wire fence. I driven the car halfway through it and just scraped it all up and I stopped for a second and then realized it while I guess I need to keep going so I went through it and then back through it again to get to the road the car all up and then just drove along and use the edge of the field with the leaves kind of hit in the side of the car as my guide cuz it was so dusty and I couldn't see anything drove all the way down at the other end and pick them up. They were there waiting for me there yelling and Stefan.

18:19 You know, they all piled in and and that we kind of this wait it out and upended a passing over. It wasn't too too bad after that. Once we were all inside but curiously I was I was scared. I never told anyone that I'd driven to the barbed wire fence scrape the crap out of the car. But what I was more minutes, I just said no one ever brought it up or mentioned it to me. I think they might have known but just kind of let it go this time because I haven't taken a lot of really fun road trips you would like to go and explore and when they want to ask you about was when we take those road trips. You wear a ring on one of your fingers and I asked you about it recently and you told me why is my that's my graduation, Texas A&M where I graduated in, Texas.

19:19 And the reason I wear at this West want to grab my work, you know, but the reason I am especially when I drive is it reminds me of my brother Michael from the long let you hurt him somewhere there in the middle. He was my brother who passed away when I was 14 who's 23 motorcycle accident at Texas A&M. He is gone there as well and he died about a week before his graduation.

19:56 So so that's one of the reasons I wear the ring.

20:05 Also had a lot to do with it together, but I kind of feel like he's with me when I'm traveling.

20:15 Can you tell me about Michael Michael?

20:24 I know you was he was something else. Is that for me?

20:28 He's definitely something very special.

20:32 I mean everyone in my family was great. But Michael is like he's like that.

20:43 Take time.

20:45 He sounds like he was a very special person and you've no idea which is really special to they would always there when I was Big Mike wants to come and talk to me about certain things are related to him. Best. I think.

21:07 So it was hard.

21:11 And it's been 14.

21:15 Haven't they hero you look up to go?

21:24 Something's been a long time but

21:26 I stop thinking about a lot.

21:31 But I like, you know, I like to dance with me.

21:35 How does Addison who hate who he is in a very wise and he continued to be for you? How does that Inspire the person that you want to be in the world?

21:45 How's traffic as I think about him a lot in those terms sometimes because he really was.

21:53 I'm in a great guy, and I'm just incredibly probably smart.

22:01 And humble at the same time and

22:04 And I mean news large in life is big guy too. And he's like the only brother my family that seem to manage to be able to actually getting fucked this incredible shape too. So I think about him like I have those jeans. I know I can I know I can like actually wow, it's really

22:26 If your wife ever made love to a I could really feel myself up pretty big pretty, you know, strong, you know, he'd that was part of his determination. But yeah, I think about sometimes like what

22:47 What are you doing right now if you graduated and he was interested, he was a bioengineering pretty tough.

23:00 But yeah, definitely in my life and I think one of them at those periods were

23:06 I'm just feel like I'm floating along, you know.

23:10 You know, maybe not put myself to it as much as I could be or just kind of accepting things are coming along not necessarily actively. We're going out for my goals. I definitely think they like like I can never see Michael doing something like that.

23:30 And it definitely motivates me.

23:32 But yeah, I mean he's inspired me for a lifetime. That's for sure.

23:45 Well

23:48 When did what did you think your life would be like when you were younger?

23:53 Oh gosh, I think.

23:57 I don't know I'm wouldn't crying up but I thought I'd want to be a doctor probably. I just I think I was saying a lot of potential that was coming out of my family. I'm in the rear of a family.

24:13 11 children and we're not that far but education was definitely

24:23 Cornerstone in background

24:26 If I know our upbringing and was very important than my parents definitely had a lot to do with that and then so did so did my eldest siblings have starting with Cindy and then Tommy Louis.

24:41 They definitely went to Colleen out of the of all 11 children. We all went to cause we all got her college degree in the five of us went on to get her master's degrees.

24:52 So by the time I came around, you know graduate was and we are you going to go to college of us where you going Collins? This just wasn't it's not an option to not go in and I never thought it was an option either, but you know where we grew up in.

25:12 We definitely felt like, you know at that time that's

25:17 And that are either probably the question. Are you going to go to colleges probably on the minds of a lot of people that in the air that we grew up but not for us we definitely

25:27 New lives just let me know something that you just did. You just have to keep learning not to go. That's okay. She was very important at in my mother actually would point out that you never even though we don't work in the fields in the summer is $2 point out. They know when I was going to say that was some migrant farmworkers. She would say no summer migrant Farm worker because there were families were a response that would go and work in the fields at all year, but definitely during When the Children could be in school. So my parents definitely put that first. So if we were we never went to go work unless if there's if we were in school and if you know, what's weird cuz some of us we're getting older on College and maybe at summer courses to take in a Whelen we do that instead of going to go work. So for my mom I definitely want to make that clear because she would always make it clear for me if I was mentioning it.

26:27 But I wasn't sure what I wanted to do mostly growing up at.

26:35 I don't know. I thought I wanted to you that stuff inspired by.

26:40 But my siblings were there doing.

26:44 You know education Finance medicines definitely across the board.

26:52 But I guess

26:55 I don't know why I definitely shifted. I think I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to be an archaeologist. I wanted it probably came from my times digging up things and old a little artifacts and when I was up north around, you know, waiting around the fields and thinking of arrowheads and things went through that went to actually went to school for architecture, but I guess just ultimately you can wanted to

27:24 Go back to the meaning of the name of the first influences in my life, which I guess is photography. You know how my father was trying to do.

27:35 That I've taken or that

27:43 There's I guess I'm the one that I've taken probably this one that I took that I have a phone. I remember I would drive a lot from some college home. It's about a nine-hour drive and I pull over I had my camera out full over loud. If I saw things that inspired mean just going to shoot him and I remember seeing this one Longfield. It was just kind of dirt but long rose on it.

28:13 It was on a hill and I thought there was something on the other side of the Hill that I wanted to shoot and I didn't know why but I I knew that be something and so I got off the car to pull over and get my camera and walk down this long filled all the way to the top of the hill and looked over and well there really wasn't anything there. So I mean, I think I might have snapped off something in her other, but there really wasn't anything particularly special interesting but I turned around to go back to my car and then turn around and look and I see like my footsteps of State on this one row, but this they just sunk it is just in the dirt sometimes.

28:50 After rain, and it's dried up because when it rains of the dirt with you, you know, just kind of like muddy and then kind of smooth but then it would dry up and then it's kind of crazy like a little crust in several days later. It would be really to discuss sink into it. And then I remember that from working in the fields, but I turned around and I was about when I had walked across this semi footsteps the sunken into this road just ever so much to this Beast like really definitive him and I just kind of I like the the visual of that and that's what I ended up too. And that's the other photograph today.

29:29 I don't know if you know obviously a little reflective, you know, my X was in the field in the Texas and I was just that kind of accidental butt.

29:40 But I think about that photograph. Sometimes. Now that you say that I hadn't heard that story and I know that photograph from your website that I think it's interesting cuz I'm thinking now that you would have turned around and taking it in the footsteps. We've been coming towards you and I think that the photograph I remembered at the foot of going away. Maybe. I don't remember it wrong.

30:14 I'm curious if there is anything that you would like to ask me.

30:24 Well

30:26 Yeah, you got some our upbringings are definitely very different and you know you grew up in San Francisco supposed to rain in the valley butts and I'd always been a little curious about what it's like to rub their I'm meant. I think it also

30:50 This is my own assumption that you know, what kind of influence your worldview and me too kind of curious to be able to go out and buy because you've lived in so many places around the untraveled so much around the world, and I was wanted to know how that if that it influenced you to do that.

31:09 And other places that you had travel and what I know, what are some of our memorable places. I know it is.

31:20 Well, that was San Francisco. I don't know it's hard to know. What is it? I think that whoever you grow up. It's visits all that, you know, really for a while, you know, you're kind of captive to it for good or for bad. I always thought it was really good and I'm good sign. Graph in San Francisco. It's like people here in New York where you have when you get old enough to kind of realize where you are people around you really proud of the fact that they're there and there's a funny place cuz I feel like it's where a lot of like cultural migrants have gone in the sunset people that you meet that maybe you don't know their last name, but you say Adam in the morning and you know a lot about you know, what they've done that day, but she don't really know necessarily their background or who they are. I think people can I meet each other sometimes with roots and sometimes about Roots but my parents into their books are the first generation San franciscans, they came from the east coast and from the Midwest.

32:18 So, you know, I think people are kind of discovering that City in a lot of ways and I remember being really excited when I realized that I live in a place where there were so many different people and it was really different back in the seventies and it is now and I also think it really it really made me aware of diversity and difference early on and I'm really happy about that and I think that you know our next door neighbor with a lesbian woman who lived with her lover and a partner and you know it and their friends are family. So I think that early on in our ad maybe like outside with no Salvador, you know, I just kind of mix it up in a nice way and I and I didn't have a strong of a cultural identity. So I think that then you know, it becomes like the article becomes your cultural identity.

33:05 And then it makes a curious about the world and I think that's why didn't ya definitely I definitely I think that you might like to have it umbilical cord to San Francisco where you know, I need to leave to explore the rest of the world and live other places, but I also always go back. You know, I have this like a rotating cycle is going home. And I think home is home is wherever you know, you come from like it have to be and whether you like it or not. I think it's important to go check in Reno with your land wherever it is and family there a noun family family is essential.

33:48 Their butt on your travels Reserve any place that really sticks out to you?

33:56 Cuz I feel really lucky that I was just kind of being a thought out living other places. I don't know why I feel like everything has its. I don't know if anything's sticks out specifically night.

34:10 Tough question every time I'm with somebody different I'm by myself. I think I think one thing about traveling at can't answer a question with my favorite place because there's everything has its value but I will say that there's something invaluable about being able to go somewhere, you know, where the small bag or backpack and just what you have in your head and your heart and Your Valet cuz I feel like the distance can weigh you down and I think it's really important. You know, what I'm really honoured thing, you know invited into people's homes around the world in the morning.

34:46 I want to go visit my brother in law in Turkey in Istanbul. And also let's go to Mexico with you.

34:54 I'd like that too.

34:56 It's definitely a place. I think I need to explore a lot more myself.

35:02 No stone is a child, but it's been so long and has been since I was a child. So I definitely want to go back and your Spanish is better than mine anyway.

35:18 Actually that remind me of at least we could have some time together, but I'm curious like is there anything that you could only say in Spanish?

35:27 That wouldn't feel comfortable thing in England.

35:38 I think this kind of him.

35:41 Place are just kind of like a reactionary sometimes like equal, you know, it's only things I don't even know what they mean in English, you know, the best definitely one of these pits.

35:57 I mean, it could be derived from equal and with his son and like, you know, like son of a gun or something like that, but there's a lot of those definitely allowed to do a lot of these are from the valley specifically which

36:09 Which I talked to some of my other friends from the valley that deletes the ones I remember these things and use them frequently frequently. I love like my friend Lori sad and I love talking on the phone because she does she has these two remembers all these little Valley phrases that are only from the Sarah. She was born and raised there as well. And and I definitely feel like connection.com when I get to use and pick us up here. I really like her but no one would know what I was talking about.

36:37 The secret language that sounds like The Valleys really is a country of its own because it said it's a mix of English and Spanish.

36:52 That's been I remember one time you asking me which I thought was really cute kind of asking. When do you know to say in Spanish right now in United State in English word in a sentence and they really have no idea and how to answer that. You know, he does it again mixed it gets mixed up but it's whatever everybody would say if somebody makes a size of praise and mixes it with English and Spanish. They're going to mix it in with English and Spanish the same way right now. So there's really no way to really understand but but it's definitely special something so you can give me an example in the valley and you're taking me around.

37:34 1st Avenue

37:39 Swingless, but like I say

37:47 It's a conscious effort to think of I have to be there. Anyway, thank you very much for letting me interview you I really enjoyed it. I learned more things about you today Ages, which is great. I'm really happy. I got to

38:16 Yay.