Milena Muzquiz and Stephanie Taylor

00:04 My name is Stephanie Taylor. My age is I'm 37 years old and today's date is January 29th 2009. We are in the east LA Public Library and I'm here with my friend Yelena.

00:22 Hello, I mean Anna muzquiz. I'm 32 years old. Today is January 29th 2009 and I'm at the East Los Angeles Public Library and I am sitting in front of my friend Stephanie Taylor Who's going to interview me?

00:41 So I just wanted to start with some Basics like where were you born?

00:47 I was born in the front of Mexico at the El Prado Hospital in the center of the near the center of the city.

00:58 And

01:01 Maybe you could start by saying a little bit about what your family was like.

01:06 Well, the two very interesting people. My mother was born in Veracruz Mexico, which is a South and my father was from a town named muzquiz, which is also my last name and his last name and the last name of his family.

01:23 And he was born to a family of horse breeders.

01:28 And he this was more or less in 19 in the 20s. They were kind of a famous family of horse breeders and the town is named after the ranch.

01:42 And early during the Mexican Revolution. His father would not donate the horses to the revolution kind of was not very involved in the politics of the Revolution Mexico and he was killed for it actually and so my father and his brothers and sisters had to figure out how to make a living because there was really no options at that point and they're very used to having a pretty comfortable lifestyle.

02:14 So he started working doing construction in the United States as a immigrant actually will illegally as an illegal immigrant in the United States working during construction and then him and his younger brother maybe when they were around 16 and maybe my father was 18 and his brother was 16 decided to go to the Awana where he met my mother who had been there because she heard her Father which is my grandfather was working on Railroad stations through Mexico, and they ended up in the corner.

02:51 And she met my father there and

02:56 Very very complicated. Should I continue? Well, do you what's your mom like a supermodel or something? Cuz I remember you were telling me about what she used to eat in the 70s or and how she used to be super super skinny and I know she was gorgeous. She's very funny because when she was younger and as a kid her brothers and sisters are all very very beautiful and she happened to be kind of the most unattractive one of the family very skinny. Her teeth were kind of bad. She was very much of a troublemaker and she kind of as a child Resort in to the fact that she was never going to be a beautiful woman. So she became very Savvy and kind of had her ways of integrating herself and making her life easier because they hurt her side of the family was extremely poor.

03:48 And so she would you know, what kind of steal candy from the store but you know in a very wittingly way would kind of scam people out of money and you know, too kind of Moore Street sort of things and was just this kid with a lot of scratches on her knees and you know kind of a little bit of more of a character and what she told me is that when she turned 15

04:12 15 16 and 17. She really noticed that everybody was just really reacting to her strongly on the streets like the man, you know, they yell at you in Mexico a lot if you're attractive or if you wear a short skirt or something or anywhere. I mean really not just Mexico but you know, she was getting a lot of attention all of a sudden and she realized that she had really become this beautiful woman, but she didn't have the mind for it like she was in a vain woman.

04:42 And so this is like as if this gift from Heaven had been given to her something. It was like all of a sudden she had everything and things became very easy, and she could kind of, you know, get a really good job, or she was just kind of Chief kind of had assumed before that. She would have to really outsmart everybody to get what she wanted.

05:07 So throughout her life, I never considered her to be particularly vain, but she was very very extremely conscious of keeping herself the way she was you know, that keeping this sort of her figure exactly at a certain shape for face, you know, like always very healthy-looking. Her hair was always very like well taken care of but she was an exaggerated was just she had to maintain the sort of beauty regimen that was what she considered was her beauty, you know.

05:43 So she would for lunch always have what was it? It was a head of iceberg lettuce with lemon and salt and that was it.

05:53 Do you know do you know how she met your father?

05:58 Yeah, she met my father because

06:02 My grandfather was my father's accountant and he would send my mother to the office to pick up papers and do kind of legal things and have some sort of paperwork thing and my mother liked my father immediately, but she saw him more with admiration cuz he was so much older.

06:20 But she would you know, she really thought he was such a beautiful man, and he was although he was particularly his nose was particularly strange. It wasn't but she was beautiful and very large the hands were thick the eyes were blue. The legs are really well. You know that muscular very big very strong presence.

06:42 And so she's just sort of was like this is the most beautiful thing human I've ever seen in my life and he had slowly, you know didn't notice her that much but all of a sudden he realize there's a really beautiful girl that always comes here to pick up these papers.

07:01 And so they would make jokes in the office. I call now here she comes again and

07:07 Then I think they started talking to each other and start getting involved with each other. And what was their relationship like when you were growing up will they were very in love with each other and my father was more he was so much older that he was very insecure.

07:24 So he's very jealous of her. He was always sort of investigating to see what she was doing what she was up to and she was just she was in love with him, but she kind of was a little bit tortured by this constant nuisance of phone calls. And where were you and examinations so but in the end they were really in love with each other and I remember one time that we were in

07:54 I think it was the first time that we had gone all on a vacation with my mother my two brothers and me and my mother and we were in Europe somewhere. Maybe I think it was in Paris.

08:08 At the Ritz in Paris and I heard her over the phone talking over the phone with my father and I couldn't believe that she was actually crying and she actually miss them so much and it was this huge realization that she kind of played tough at home, but I didn't realize that she was actually madly in love with him too until I heard this phone call. He never slept at your house that night right? No. No, he was he had another family and then he had his first family when he was 16.

08:46 And then he had his second family. I think when he was around 20-something the dates, I'm not exactly sure of a little bit mixed up and then he started this relationship with my mother when he was about 50. So you guys were the third family third Sam and they were they weren't one after the other they were simultaneous. Right? What they were, you know, the children and everything were chronologically one after the other like for instance my oldest brother. I think he's already passed away, you know, like his his kids range from

09:23 80 no, no, no, sorry 60 something to my youngest brother, which is 29.

09:33 Now he's my father passed away. So I mean so chronologically it was studied that who is his first relationship when you come to the United States.

09:42 The second one was Gloria who was his wife when he was in a kind of becoming a developer in Mexico. And then finally, none of them. He was he was through a paper legitimate legitimately married to any of them and he would come to have lunch with your mom everyday, but he would sleep every night with his other family. Yeah. Yeah, that was a relationship and they kind of

10:11 Through it had a very it was very romantic and it was very sort of organized in this way with these lunches were very kind of romantic and like, you know, we get ready and he'd come and eat together and then but then we go on vacations for a long time together and do all this other stuff with he would go with you on vacation every day. And I mean he was constantly involved. It was a strange set up our cuz I remember I would think it would be this really insecure situation where your father wasn't really living with you. But the way you describe it. It sounds like it was almost more regular than normal kind of relationship because he'd come every single day and have lunch and it was this really special time that you guys all shared together. Yeah, and he was absolutely I mean it was strange. It's something that they kind of

11:06 But they worked out for each other and somehow I mean it doesn't fit into what would classically be in normal marriage, but I

11:16 Maybe I had a lot of problems with it when I was younger, but at this point the fact that I grew up around two people that loved each other was sort of like alright, just throwing your the towel and accepted that something beautiful in itself. So maybe you could just talk a little bit about what your experiences were in school.

11:37 Well when we came when we were in the United States, and we went to elementary school my brother and I together and in San Diego and I was a little bit more of an outcast type character where I really liked being at home. I liked making jigsaw puzzles.

11:58 It was a little bit hard for me to fit into this is the group of kids the American kids. I wasn't sure about ironically, you know, my parents would were really nervous about nervous about divorce. They thought that was bad. I mean, even though like when other parent kids parents got divorced divorced was really wrong happening. Yeah. I mean, it's very ironic and it's kind of contradictory considering they were doing that. They were in a relationship that you know, it wasn't an establishment something that was a part of an establishment. But for some reason it just scared everybody. I don't know is like you can't go to that family's house cuz they're divorced, you know, like the sort of feeling. Yeah, and so a my brother and I didn't know how to speak English either. So it was a little bit harder for us to integrate and also it's in San Diego and it's San Diego in the 80s and I

12:58 Still now there's still you felt a lot of racism, you know, like you kind of were coming from Mexico and you didn't feel like you feel like if you're coming from Paris or something, you know, and so we kind of kept ourselves a little bit but my older brother's very his nature is very very social and he's sort of a leader type character kind of a businessman very strong-minded and he immediately kind of like started creating an atmosphere for himself.

13:33 I had more trouble. So I started monkey club. That was the first thing I did where we would speak monkey language. Who's the hose a hose Obadiah tipos de Jose Jose strange sounds or it was just how old are you? I think I was like maybe at this point like 10 or something 9 and 10

14:01 But so I created this club that was really exclusive or some sort of sort of childhood. Scam that I did on the kids, you know, and so if you were part of the club you had to speak this language and you had to do all the things that I said that you had to you know do which would be like you have to know how to climb trees only bananas. And so I had this group of kids whatever I kind of concocted up for myself as a way to integrate cos some sort of problem with a parent's you know, they've been the parents are call my mother and say now the kids are doing this with your daughter up to and then you know, if my mom would say, oh, well, she invented the monkey club and that's what they're doing. Now. Why does my daughter thinks she Strawberry Shortcake? Oh because meeting at school started of Strawberry Shortcake club. And whoever is in it is Strawberry Shortcake. It's not like their fans they are so you are kind of always Under Suspicion. Yeah. I was always a little bit under suspicion, but I was very

15:02 I kind of know I was actually working in a way, you know, I was kind of creating what I would do later in life and it was always some sort of theatrical thing. But it was maybe at first the way that I dealt with not knowing how to speak the language. I wanted to ask you about that because you have this way of using these weird kind of archaic slang terms from the 50s and you have like a really creative way of speaking English and I remember we talked about it one time like as asking me like, how come you're like, how did your language get the way it was? And you said something like I I didn't know how to speak English. So ice was starting from scratch and I got to decide how I would speak it stuck with me. Yeah, that was

15:53 That was definitely a part of the process television was so important. I always had a very strong sense of Comedy, you know, like things little bit of a

16:06 I love, do you know like Lucille Ball would be something that was just amazing to me or like the way that words can sound so comical. I like I just had an ear for certain ways of speaking and also music was really important to me, but I didn't I never really knew what the lyrics of what I was listening to were you know, so for instance if I listen to The Beatles Yesterday, I would say I would sing it yesterday all Meats out of you seem so far away always look like this and that would be the way I would sing that song. So it would just my experience with those things. It's but you've been very pop music like

16:49 New Order friend since I never knew what the lyrics were. I just knew it as I'd sing it with as a sounds would be knowing English and everything would just be at that point, you know when I would listen to nor do I know English, but that was the way that I like experienced music so

17:07 It was just this.

17:09 In a weird relationship because I wouldn't listen to a song and say oh, that's just how I feel about my boyfriend. It would be like, oh that sounds sound so good with the sound of the other instrument in the Saudi more in the voice was more instrumental.

17:25 Did you get into some trouble when you're growing up? Well besides for the monkey clubs and all the other things when I was in high school. I became a little bit goth.

17:41 And that would be you no like kind of I don't really know what the hardcore goth is. But my version was, you know hanging roses on the ceilings of my room and listening to Sisters of Mercy and this sort of thing and I really didn't want to participate in many things in high school and I would make drawings and read poetry but then I started doing a little bit of antisocial Behavior things for instance one was Saran wrapping the teachers bathrooms.

18:21 Unfortunately, I didn't get rid of the roll of Saran wrap for my backpack and I got caught so I was suspended from school.

18:29 And I was suspended from school various X once was then and then I went to Jewish school for a little while. How did you end up at a Jewish school from being suspended from the high school? It was from that was not Saran wrapping. I ended up at a Christian School for 6 months. But before then so first you went to a public school never public first. I went to just a private elementary school and then

19:00 I think what happened is that I did some sort of there was fresh concrete and I did some drawings with my name all over it in The French Press concrete operator.

19:19 Why what happened? When your friend even though you can't prank the operator? Cuz they know who you are. Well, I took advantage of the drying concrete and was like, oh this entrance of the school can have my name all over it now. So I did this like big Daisy designs with my name and everything and just went home and the next day. They're like, hey your daughter vandalize the school. My mother didn't know what vandalisation was and she was like my mother, you know, my daughter is not a criminal, you know, and they're like, yeah, but she vandalize the school. We none of us knew what band alization was so I didn't vandalize it. So I just wrote my name on the Constitution, but that doesn't sound like vandalisation to me, you know. So anyways, they suspended me for a couple of months, but at that point I would have to end up doing the second term of the school year something somewhere else.

20:14 So we went to a Jewish school actually, so we're there very few schools in the neighborhood that you were and my parents are very picky to about you know, having like a carpooling system and they were I don't know why they were so nervous. They're always so nervous about like an all-girls school or like for it to be to extremist with religions or you know, like where was really extremely Catholic or extremely I don't know cuz I ended up going to a Christian School for six months. I was crazy to I mean really nuts like born again Christian style. So what was it like at the Jewish school the Jewish school was good because I was clamped into a group of kids that we're between

21:04 13 and maybe like 16 or something. No, even younger a little bit younger. So there were a lot of bar mitzvahs and Bat Mitzvahs going on so during the time that really I should have been probably, you know, like miserably out of my system in the school. I realize this is the best time to be here cuz all these kids are having the best parties in the world and every I think it was like every two weeks with my brother and I actually my brother was there too cuz he was kicked out of school for bringing tequila to SeaWorld.

21:43 And we just simultaneously got in trouble at the same exact at the exact same time. So both of us went to the Jewish school together and it was it was amazing cuz it was actually a lot of things are happening because I had gotten my I think would have suffered from really bad. There's nothing that is always in the hospital, you know, where the medical room at the Jewish high school and then there were all these amazing parties and you know, you have to go straight into Hebrew and learning Hebrew in Hebrew.

22:22 At this point, I don't think I remember and it any of it, but just prayers like some bruha tie things and you know, we would read the Torah that we are just like jumping into the middle of everybody else's normal studies. Yeah, but it was actually really really like a great time specially since after then I went back to my normal high school, which wasn't Affiliated to any religion and then afterwards you know it going for a little section of time from the Saran wrapping of the toilet seats to this born again Christian School, which was really mind-blowing.

22:59 So I'm going to jump ahead just a little bit eventually you and got your your bachelor degree in college. And then you ended up going to grad school in art at Art Center in Pasadena. And I was wondering if you could tell the story of your first day of grad school. Well, that was kind of crazy. I remember that then it was raining. I think the night before we Rebecca Carter this girl had had like a welcome to new students to you know, the institution and she kind of had this party at her house. And I remember I was driving down this really Windy Hill.

23:38 Thinking like oh my God, you know like this is such a dangerous Street and it's raining and when I got home I was I thought in my head it I'm so lucky that nothing happened to me last night. That was so scary. You know, I'm on my way home. It was because it was really kind of like taking Mulholland Drive or something. And then in the morning, I got up and got ready and went to school and it was still raining and I was taking this turn from the 5 to the 134 at just slip time in the wheel slipped and I just didn't have the experience to know like don't you really can't step on the brakes? You have to go with it in a way that your nature so strong to just like try to stop everything when you know, something's gone wrong that I did step on the brakes and the car flipped over the highway.

24:29 And I ended up kind of stuck in this really old tree. That's just underneath the highway there.

24:39 And I was listening to this song on the radio that a Mexican song or maybe a Colombian singer, but it's a song about this man that keep saying I'm going to write your name on the tree. I'm going to write your name on the treatment. He is referring to the woman that he loves saying, you know, like I know right like me plus you on the tree and and I crawled out the window all the glass was shattered everywhere the trees kind of wobbling around the car is wobbling around. It was one of those like 90s minivans and they listen to the song and I was like, oh my God, like if this this is like a sign that I'm going to die right now, so I went back into the car through the window and turned off the radio and I was like, okay now I'm not going to die because you said that you when you got down from the tree, you heard the music blasting so loud that you are afraid that when the cops came they would think like, oh, well, that's why she flipped over her car.

25:39 Will all these things running through my mind, but I do remember specifically also that there was the lyric that was so precise.

25:47 And cut it says it's like Alessandro signs or I don't know there's a it's a beautiful beautiful singer and the song it's really like a huge pop song. And so when I went up turned it off I go down and I'm you know, it's like I'm not really cut up but even small tiny Cuts bleed alot. Yeah not they don't have to be that deep. So I was really dressed in blood. I mean somehow I don't know if I looked gory or what kind is so kind of you know these accidents or so foggy very dreamlike and I just walked out and it was before cell phones or before at least I had one and I just sat there and said, okay. I have to wait for somebody to help me the first guy that came by was in some sort of like a Monte Carlo or one of these sort of cars like really Old Town & Country kind of scary look.

26:47 Gangster car not like one of those polished up look good looking ones like velvet seats that smelled weird.

26:55 And he stopped and he was you know kind of little bit Sleazy and he said why don't you sit in the back seat of the car and I look in there with some stains in the back seat of the car and I was thinking of like Pulp Fiction or you know that this is too weird. Maybe that's like blood stains from dead people or something made me feel really really like bad about it. So I said no. No, you know, I'm just going to wait for the next car to pass. Don't worry about it. I'm too shaken up. I wanted to get rid of this guy as much as possible. I must have like invented something to cuz I'm pretty creative in the moment of Terror and the next car that came with a limousine just beautiful limousine.

27:38 And he stops and he'll open the door and there's seven up and Coca-Cola anything you want at telephones in the car and it was just like like whenever I tell the story nobody's going to believe it is such a gift. Did he take you to school that day? No, no. No, it gets even better. I sit in the back of the casino and she gives me some little bit of you know champagne or is he nuts and I don't like bloody but sitting there, you know, he gives me like a cloth with water. You know, I wipe my face off to the Bloods just kind of like that. You can see my eyes and my nose and everything but they like some blood dried up on the sides. The holes aren't penetrated enough for it to be freshly add mediately that it all dried up. So it was just, you know, like you could kind of just see everything looked kind of just dirty.

28:35 On me and then you look you know behind me from where I'm standing. There's this car wobbling in a tree so that you know, like for them. It must have been like holy, you know, what happened to this kid, and she said call what we'll do is call the police. I'll come immediately and you can make your report do whatever and you know, call somebody in your family and tell him what happened. So I called my boyfriend at the time and I said, I remember I just left a message cuz I heard it when I got home.

29:06 And I just said, you know, I'm sitting here. I'm okay and you know and I was in an accident we're going to try to get the car towed out of this tree and then hung up and then we called the police and then you know, the guy said well, if you want I can leave you know, cuz the police is going to show up in 10 minutes and I said, okay. Okay fine. Thank you. You know he was amazing the cop shows up and he starts doing the report.

29:33 I don't know what was wrong with this policeman. He was sort of like a $10 something like the skin was bronze and this me no kind of creamy way like maybe that tanning cream and maybe all his hair was very shaved his very polished looking.

29:52 And basically I started doing my report and he started picking up on me like straight vary directly. Like do you want to go out to dinner sometime while you're covered with blood? I'm covered in blood. I must have looked good or something cuz everybody was extremely nice, but I don't know I couldn't figure it out. But it was so strange that he was literally like telling me you either within the information as I'm giving him all my personal information. He's asked the whole situation was like this huge conflict cuz I had to do everything that he said but then like he would say, oh you live in that area, you know I go there a lot to go eat and do you know this restaurant? So it's like the more information I gave him the more he had to work with to figure out if we can do something together.

30:44 But since he was an authoritarian figure you didn't know where to stop. You know, I'm since he was helping me and he was like, he was my only source of help. I didn't know exactly how to say. Hey Buster call another cop. So what happened in the end, but in the end, he told me the story about this boat that he had.

31:06 But he had built and he called my house like 3 or 4 times afterwards cuz I obviously gave him all my information leaving me messages. Hi, this is Officer or someone sell Donald something. I'm just wondering what you thought about maybe going out to dinner together sometime and that was it. And then all of a sudden the car was towed. He took me to my house, which is another problem. Why was that a joke? Cuz I didn't want him to know where I lived. And did you make it for 4 class?

31:38 Know that Dad didn't make it to class all these things happening and then the next day I came but then I figured the story was a bit too wild. So you did get into I just kind of tell anyone know.

31:51 Let's see, so.

31:55 Let's maybe there's a a story that I remember you told me going back again to your mom when your growing up and you had asked the maid I think to buy you strawberries and cream you decided you decided. That was the only thing that you wanted to eat something that happened for a long time and it was

32:19 It was basically that in Mexico a lot of times your breakfasts. Are you no eggs with a hot sauces and all that sort of stuff and I couldn't stand the idea of all of it.

32:32 So I decided that I wanted to eat strawberries and cream cuz I thought it was most delicious thing I've ever tasted in my life and a and that's what actually we would eat a lot for dessert at the house. I was like, I just want dessert for breakfast and it was really do this thing. We're at the house. It was okay. Okay, give the girl the strawberries and cream for breakfast is probably better for her anyways, but what'd happened was that I wouldn't stop that's the only thing I would eat for breakfast and we took a trailer at my mother my father and my two brothers and I threw all of Mexico I think we went through Texas all the way down to maybe all the way to the Yucatan or something. We did this road trip many times. I don't remember exactly when this one which this particular one was and we got to this really like kind of Port Indiantown and

33:25 You know where there's more it wasn't like people were speaking in dialect, but it was really like an old town. There's just one restaurant. They only served what they had that day. There was you couldn't really have any particular like luxurious ideas in your mind you just ate because you were hungry and it was delicious actually too and we were sitting at this place and the lady said we'll do you guys want me to bring you eggs with you know corn tortillas or flour tortillas like that was a choice and I said, I want strawberries and cream

33:59 I had my mother and my father looked at me and it's actually kind of in Spanish strawberries is what you call also like very upper-class spoiled person since I kind of a very a very repulsive thing to say and you know kind of a portal, you know, it just like kind of identifies you immediately how do you say it but not the freezer is this kind of you know brat and so the ladies like, I'm sorry, and I was just a kid and then she's like, I'm sorry, we only have you know, you can get flour tortillas or corn tortillas and I said, well, I'm not going to have anything cuz I only eat strawberries and cream in the morning. That's what I eat and then beerus meant like my mother didn't realize that she had created this monster, you know.

34:48 And in that moment, she realized like this kids never going to be able to adapt with these needs. She has like it's this is horrible and she was horribly embarrassed herself because she did come from a poor family and it was like this behavior is just you know, humiliating basically and so she said, okay, what we're going to do is when we get back first you're going to eat your eggs and

35:12 Don't contain the first you're going to eat your eggs and fine. That's just the way it is if you like it or not. I didn't and then she said fine you're going to be hungry for the rest of the day. That was fine. I could handle that. But what I didn't know is that when I got back home she decided that she was going to send me to go pack tortillas at a tortilla factory which actually an aunt of mine owned. So for a while a couple of months my cousin and I would go and pack tortillas my cousin I were always together. So whenever when we get into trouble, we kind of, you know, hook onto each other and do whatever we had to do. So we have similar experiences, which is very important for us and I worked at a tortilla packing factory making factory packing tortillas for 2 months and that's what got my need for strawberries and cream out of my system was there and it was kind of like rough living there.

36:12 I remember you like there was a dog in the yard. I can't remember exactly what you told me about it. What's the visual experience was very very extreme because there wasn't a dog in the yard. There was a neighbor that had a child who was retarded that was tied to a tree. That's what it was. Yeah, they didn't know really how to handle or what to do. So I think they would take her out from maybe 1 in the afternoon till 6, and she was just a girl tied to tree.

36:46 Very hard, very, you know hard to deal with but at least you know it got that whole thing out of my system.

36:53 She was kind of tough with you. She was very tough. But she crying her thing was really to not have spoiled children. That was what was the most important thing to her like for us to know the value of money to work to?

37:12 Know what we wanted in life and to be focused about it.

37:16 And because you know a lot of the for her she grew up very poor and when you see a lot of the wealthy kids in Mexico, they just don't realize at all, you know, like they grow up with a lot of maze in a lot of help and nobody realizes how what the what the majority of the populations living which is what she lived. Well thanks for coming here to do this interview. Thanks for having me.

37:50 And thank you to story Corp.