Kelsey Villarreal and John Villarreal

00:02 My name is John VI lime 66 today's date is December 9th 2017 in Corpus Christi, Texas, and I'm here with my youngest daughter Kelsey.

00:13 My name is Kelsey Villarreal. I am 29 today's date is December 9th 2017. I'm in Corpus Christi, Texas and I'm talking with my dad.

00:26 So we both were raised here in different time. And what was

00:36 When the key memories you have about growing up here.

00:40 I was born in 1951. So I think of myself as kind of a child of the sixties, which was a real kind of turbulent.

00:47 Time, I think I realized a lot of stuff as I got older was different for me here. I was an only kid which was kind of different for Hispanic kids most time. They came from big families. I was not Catholic which was different in a lot of times. I remember once I was having lunch with a friend of mine and it was a Friday and I was having hamburger and he said hey, it's Friday. And I said, yeah. Yeah, man, we getting paid. You know what he said. I'm not Catholic and he said oh and he looked at me like, I know you're Catholic he's going to eat that burger. But I was I'm not cat like I was born and raised in Methodist Church little bit different but was I think

01:37 Different for me that I didn't realize how much later was that I was.

01:41 Raise bias by a working mom who had a master's degree, which is pretty unusual back then Hispanic women.

01:49 Didn't have a presentation like that graduate degrees. That was pretty different. My dad had like a 5th grade education and work isn't as a airplane mechanic. And so that was kind of a different thing.

02:04 My neighborhood and they both worked at the end again to two income earners is real, and that was not that common back then in the 50s.

02:14 And where I was raised, I was raised with a lot of kids that were not been look like me and then I was like the only Brown kid and I didn't realize I didn't realize that different from now until realize that you were different back then that the term was wasps and I thought it was a wasp. I did I didn't realize I was a Christian white. Yeah. I thought you I thought yeah. Yeah, that's what I thought. I didn't know that until I got to college and in Houston and then I thought you know what? I think I wasn't exactly why it's a lot of my friends but I didn't know that at the time looking back. I know that there were times when I remember kids coming out and saying how you have to go home. You can't come in my house and I didn't register that. Maybe there was a racial issue there. I remember Mom coming home once and being really upset with her son and saying hey,

03:12 He's got to go and I remember hearing her say that thinking what happened, you know who any any came out and I remember I was staying on the back porch and he said how you have to leave when you can't come back and look like right over my head. I did not get what might have been going on there. And I know I don't know what was going on for real over all your kind of in a happy place. And I think I was distant. I just didn't get it. I didn't know maybe I wasn't cognizant socially cognitive what was going on. I was just a kid, you know, I didn't really understand that parents might have those kind of feelings at this little brown guy walking around inside their house, you know, maybe they thought I would do something that was inappropriate and I don't know but I didn't know it at all at that time. I didn't we just went right over my head, which was really

04:00 Hard for me to kind of Ven figure out exactly who I was, you know, cuz I get to college and all of a sudden.

04:09 People were talking to me about being a Chicano and and I was like, oh, wow. What is that? I am not quite put it on there. Like I like the Beatles Beatles. How does that work out. I supposed to be like in that Mexican music and I don't know too much about that, you know, so but when I got to like kindergarten my parents were

04:38 And I don't know if it was a cultural kind of thing, but it was kind of like hey, he cannot he's got to speak English because this is going to be an issue is going to be a problem. He can't speak English with an accent. He's got to be able to speak clearly and people not look at him and think that he's some kind of a lower class Mexican kid, you know, so and that was real important to them and it says, you know, my mother was

05:04 Very much into clothes and dressed very nicely all the time appearances were very very important. And you seen pictures of me when I was little kid wearing a little suit and that was that was the way they wanted to to be seen as it so that was different and I'm sure people will notice the differences even though we both born and raised here. I pronounce my name. Yeah, you pronounce Villarreal that's kind of a big difference in the end. I think implies that we didn't speak much Spanish around you guys my mom and I even though mom and I both speak Spanish and not much would each other right your mom.

05:49 But her family is much more and she comes to the Catholic family a family of five a completely different from me and she and her family to this day speaks a lot more Spanish and always be on my parents would meet her parents and they spoke Spanish almost exclusively, but we didn't speak Spanish that much around you guys. And so you guys don't speak that much Spanish in Spanish in high school college, but not quite the same thing for you because you grew up on

06:29 Middle class side of town which is actually where I grew up as well, but it wasn't it when I went to elementary school my first Elementary School. They were like in the school will call you about 3 or 400 there were like eight or ten little brown guys. And then when I went to Junior High School junior high then River Middle School

06:49 There was like 5 or 6 in about seven or eight hundred. So maybe they were none of us electric. I think it's easy to see how I thought I wanted these guys. I'm the same as these guys. There's only about three or four of us and I didn't see the other guys that are there were no blacks no African American kids in my elementary school or my junior high school. There were very very few even in my high school, but I got lost or I took a bus to my junior high which was like on the other side of town because that was

07:22 The white school, I guess you could say cuz it was a much closer school that was full of Hispanics. But my neighborhood didn't go to that school because my neighborhood was not made with didn't have a lot of Hispanics are based on where you live. That's why you went and it was deemed that there was a de facto segregation and they did forced busing and gone by then, but I did wonder when they said, you know, they're bussing you're getting busted school. I thought I had it all the way across town, but at that time it was seen as hate getting a better education cuz you're going to a better school way over there a brand new school would have all these kind of new stuff instead of going to this crummy old school over here with a lot of kids that maybe you're not being thought of as College material you're going to school with guy with kids are going to play going to college. And so that was a pretty big difference in the course of my mom going to college.

08:22 That was different been out for you growing up in that area if you went to school with a lot of brown kids and white kids and black kids. And so how was that for you?

08:34 I mean, I think I told you before like there's so many different cultures there different religions different, you know racism. It's hard to even think to distinguish between it because it was probably like that since you know,

08:54 Sorry, I was thinking remember, you know, there's always been culturally diverse. And do you know I remember you know, I'm not Catholic either so I got some of that too. Yeah. I mean I also grew up Methodist. So there is lots that's still a common, you know.

09:15 Stereotype of being Hispanic is like, oh you're Catholic and you know, I mean, I I also don't eat fish on Fridays during Lent so that you know that that still happens pretty often, but I was thinking that much of which you know, I don't know if that's good or bad but I don't ever remember that being something I thoughts or even think I started my friends were different from me. And you know, I think I think I thought we were all the same difference, right? Yeah. I remember is is so strange that my dad will course grew up in the twenties.

09:59 Talking about when I was a little kid and I was probably five or six or something. We were coming from I think from San Antonio and we were going to use the restroom and I remember we started a little like, I like little restaurant I get to cafe or something.

10:17 I remember right really concerned about me going to the restroom and I was like, I mean I got to pee and I was three or four years old, whatever I didn't really get it maybe a little older and so my dad so I'll check it so you got off and he went in and they can make out he said no, he can't go here and we went to another little place, you know, and I know and I didn't really understand that until later and then my dad told me, you know, they're just some places where you can't go more so I didn't really get that but you know, we went to a Spanish language church every Sunday. I went to a Methodist Church with a sermon was in Spanish and I saw my my fellow brown people wear that I didn't identify with very much. You know, I just thought oh, this is where I come on Sunday, but

11:12 My real people are my people back in my neighborhood in my school and that I spend time with you and I like I mean, I am really well with my church family and some of those were really good friends, but I think they saw me differently as I saw them differently as well. They kind of like, oh you're on the other side of town and I saw them on the other side of town, but we still had communication along real well together and someone make it we're really good friends of mine. We got to be really good friends, but it was different if I had that tiny taste of that culture. My predominant color was the Beatles From The Beach Boys, you know, there's some pictures of me. I was in I guess probably 8th grade or so seventh grade and surfing in the beach boys with big do I bleach my hair? Well a little brown kid trying to bleach black hair. It was like orange and when I remember when they put it on there

12:12 Andrew's like it was like and I thought well all my friends are doing it. They have like the surfer looks and all that kind of stuff and I'm just like them but I wasn't until I had that orange hair and it looking back. I wonder what my parents with the thought that he resist this little kid bleaching his hair orange and growing it out like a little Surfer and thinking he's Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys instead of you know, some Spanish artist that they were listening to that they and they like that although they also to the Delight like Dean Martin in that kind of stuff as well, but it was it was different than and I think that the difference is it I didn't see that and so I wondered how you said also you didn't see much difference is within the culture like when you were being raised as well.

13:03 Should I always knew I was Hispanic? That's what I was going to ask you. How did you come to figure that? I am what I am and I know what I am is that come from? I think probably from church. I knew you know, I went to the same fair, but at that time, I mean Services now or have English to Spanish. So 3/4 English new in Spanish and I hear sermons mixed with Spanish in English in my new that and you know, Grandma your mom.

13:45 Always it told us he always encouraged us to remember that we know we were Hispanic and I think she was really good too about making.

13:57 It known that we were Hispanic and that you know, she would make certain dishes and she was like the best cook but she had started things. She made like chicken and rice and has a pretty traditional Mexican dish and she attempted to make tortillas often and I would go to my friend's house and they were not making tortillas and not eating chicken and rice. I mean they were not and that's just not what they do. You know that I think and I think you I think you and Mom did a good job talking about that with us and I mean and I think you talked about it often though. We were Hispanic and not that that's any negative connotation to it already just who you are. And so I think I always knew that I asked me what I ate.

14:49 I don't remember that. I don't think what I thought, you know, I'm going to make meatloaf and stuff like that. And so it's like I didn't really

15:07 What I think amazes me is it?

15:10 It looking back. I seem like my gosh I did I not see that but I didn't hear what it was right over my dad. I was just like I did not get it at all. It just it just didn't register. I Always Knew Too is cuz of my hair. I have really thick curly hair that my that's very rare with most people even some Hispanic people. I mean they have soon as they have thick hair, but sometimes it's straight. So I think it was new then from a very early age like my hair is a little different.

15:44 And I don't think I've ever.

15:49 And I don't forget.

15:53 I think since I knew from such an early age. It didn't I didn't have like an aha moment. Like it was always there. I never like you said you had a moment when you went to college and I always knew that there's ever a point that I thought. Oh man. I'm Different like I'm Hispanic. It's I've been like this the whole time and

16:17 I'm not sure if I even know now, I mean it cuz everyone so different when you know, now you can identify all kinds of ways and I don't I'm not sure I mean to me it means being

16:34 Putting in a

16:38 A strong

16:41 Is it like grass or Astro like?

16:45 And you really are into family. Your family is number one family comes before everything and that's something now that I'm older I see that is different between me and my friends is that like when you are from a Hispanic family family is like the number one like before anything else it's family and that is different. You know that is different with some other friends. They don't see family as that important, you know, they are kind of view of life is that you grow up you go to college and you move away and you make your way in the world, but in the Hispanic family you grow up you make your way and will you come back to your family? And your first Allegiance is to your family and you support your family and your parents and my my

17:41 Father's parents went on my parents honeymoon together really bizarre, but it was a family trip and we know you've been over there was a family trip. And so I talked with friends who then have said, you know kind of depressed and my daughter doesn't come home and it and it said yeah, but when she's home

18:01 You feel like she should be somewhere else doing her thing. You know what he says. Yeah, you know that's you know, she needs to be kind of separate from the family and on her own and developing her own personality in her own way, and I and I think of

18:16 That it's possible to do that. And I remember I work as a psychologist as you know for a long time and we're walking into a into a section. Once we were reviewing cases in the sky. So this guy started talking about this case. He's at all. This is a terribly in mashed family the kids still come home and eat dinner every day and they go to church on Sunday and and they're just so in Mash to their if they haven't been able to develop their own personality and they're just stunted and all this negative stuff, you know, and I thought

18:50 What what are you saying? I'm not quite getting that. You're a thinking you can be from South Texas. If you have to be from another part of the country and and he and his view was so foreign from the way I saw things and I said no, I don't really see that is as sick as being mentally ill that's where is being stunted in any way, you know, you can develop your own personality and still be part of a family is his way. I was raised and when I felt but he didn't feel that way. He felt like you need to get out on your own in develop your own identity in your own family. Is that what's that seem like a really big difference. I remember when I was a kid. I was getting ready to graduate from high school and I told my dad when I graduate high school, I'm going to get an apartment and I'm going to be moving out. What do you mean? I was already working.

19:50 A pizza shop and I was I was already working and I would make a lot of money but I still I thought we don't get a roommate and we're going to get an apartment with a second man. I'm going to get broads in there is for me to meet women in there that can and he said very seriously looked at me and he said, you know, you're not Anglo and I was like what?

20:14 I didn't get that message. But but I didn't do that until I went away to college and then I realized him hearing that I think he got who is this talking to me? Cuz we don't do that in our family that's just not part of our culture. But but I had that input from other culture. All my friends were saying they were going to do that like 1920 already had apartments near working and going to school part-time and they were out there making their way. I was still living at home. I was working but I was still living at home and Mom was still cooking. My mother was still cooking my meals and doing my laundry in Atlanta and as they were already out on their own. I think they did take your laundry home location. But so that was a big big difference in as I as I grew up I think

21:05 I looked back on that and I thought you know what? I think that was that was kind of different from a lot of people and so it did I think

21:15 Impact how I saw myself in you? What am I am I Hispanic and what am I, you know.

21:23 It's why I tended to have relationships with women who were not Hispanic as you know, there was a really fun. If you know, I dated one Hispanic girl in high school who is Valedictorian in like a hundred times smarter than me and went on to become a physician and Mom and then everybody else I did or nobody else. I dated was Hispanic. That was that was it to Hispanic women in my life. And so it seemed I think it seems odd to me if you had told me earlier. Yeah, you going to marry just a Spanish woman who comes from a big family of a Catholic Family and I would have just thought that that that's not me. I'm going to marry this this blue-eyed surfer girl over here that I can that I see on the Beach Boys commercial who I want to marry but I'm going to colleges are things changed and I started thinking, you know,

22:15 I'm not maybe when I thought I was maybe there's something else there. I went to Houston in 1970 and 1969. I stayed here a year and then I went in 1971 and I graduated in 76.

22:37 And that was a big difference going to Houston where there is a huge African American population in here in Corpus. There's like 8% real real low. And and I know I told you this that I've never seen a beautiful black woman. I went to Houston and you go into like back then there was a department or spell leisure. Joski you see them at the makeup counter. Holy crap. This woman is stunningly beautiful. I've never seen anything like that and I was just in in also everywhere. I look there black people and and I just did not see that in Corpus and I think that kind of stuff today and I think that just kind of had some good friends a good friend who was from Cuba.

23:20 Who is black?

23:23 And but I didn't know it, you know, he was he was brownish. I mean he looked kind of like I didn't realize he was really black. I didn't realize you could be Cuban and black or Dominican and black and all that kind of all of those striations. And so I didn't really get on 95 know. I was 21 22 expose that but he was such a friendly guy and Endeavor one day. We were talking with some some black friends of ours and he said something that implied that he was black and his name is Luis in and I said later I was talking to me I said Louis

24:05 Are you black? And he said yeah, he was a good friend of mine. I could ask if you know, what did what did I say? You don't act like I mean, I don't even know what that meant. Yeah. I know it sounds bad now, but I was like he was and he took me to these.

24:31 School meetings where they were just all of these different clubs from all across the world really and he was really active and so I met all of these other people as well as when I learn to know you could be in it still surprised me when I would see black people talk in Spanish and talk to any better than me and your people from the Dominican or from where they were from El Salvador. Whatever looks that doesn't look like a person who should be speaking Spanish, but they but they did it. So that was. I mean, I didn't get it. Yeah. I know I didn't get it. I wash way more TV that had multi cultures and people from all different walks of life that I would even phase me that I mean, I think when you face me

25:31 To see anyone speak Spanish like a native mean.

25:34 You can see someone with red hair and blue eyes beads. When I see blue eyed red-haired white people speaking Spanish and again better than me and I just think that's different and seeing them and then also seeing someone who is clearly an African-American or halves that Heritage speaking Spanish again better than me and I just think that just really real different from the what I the way I grew up and and

26:06 It was so different. It's it's really hard to even.

26:11 Explain how different was the things that excited my parents that I didn't really get. I remember one Sunday. They were just super excited about the newspaper and I and I didn't get it and they were looking at the

26:27 Wedding announcements and it was an announcement that a Hispanic guy was Marine an Anglo woman in the paper and they were just shocked and they were in there and they were happy and excited and felt like wow we made it. First of all, they didn't put the wedding announcements between Hispanic people in the paper and they're in the society Pages or whatever. That was that just didn't happen. You say that and I think I think I had that feeling when I saw the first

27:03 Wedding announcement for two guys that you had with that I had when I saw a wedding announcement.

27:22 What are rice cereal for the first time I saw a wheel of fortune in there were two guys and they were talking about their partners and I thought wow Wheel of Fortune is come a long way. That was not something that I ever would have thought I would have seen on what I think of as a fairly predictable conservative little quiz show, you know, but that we have is like you would talk often about growing up in your Embrace being a big issue being a big steak and I think like the Hino sexual orientation was a big thing for me growing up by I can remember it not being cool when I was younger to Growing Up be no probably, you know, maybe in high school realizing like, oh I guess it is. Okay. I think you can you know be gay or lesbian transgender and it's okay. It's not a big deal. And you know, I have like a big aha moment similar to you with race and

28:21 And that was a big deal growing up for me the way that is for you and People Unite. I remember now. I mean, it seems like everywhere we go. We see disabled people that they have Downs or where they're using crutches or whatever and it as a kid. I never I never saw black people. They had a separate school that they went to I never saw kids with downs and we know you didn't see people with CP or polio, which was pretty common back then they just stayed at home and

28:57 Perhaps I don't know the family were embarrassed or they felt like it was it was too gross to take them out and do now I mean you can get around. I mean before you couldn't I mean

29:14 How are they must be so hard to travel, you know how to get cars to take wheelchairs on I mean.

29:22 Hard do you know when the world wasn't built for that until maybe recently, you know email PE coaches who live together and they're very short hair and now looking back I think you know, probably okay, but nobody said anything they date, you know or whatever but I don't think so. I think they were they were Partners but nobody that was really something anybody really acknowledged. First of all, it was not okay and to be an educator and working with kids. It was definitely not okay and yet people kind of look that and thought I know.

30:06 They're just roommates, you know, they wouldn't they they know it's not. Okay. So we definitely wouldn't be having any kind of relationship but

30:14 I think they were and now as I look around I feel really

30:21 Happy that I see so many people walking around now that appear to me at least be openly gay. And I think it's okay for you to be that way. Now out the oven that must be you know, I feel bad for the people of my age. It was not okay for that for people to be that way to express that those feelings were to even be seen that way. There's just a tremendous amount of bigotry and hostility and anger and you know what I guess I guess we're not really passed that I mean, I recently I think we had a transgender person here who was shot and killed.

30:56 What makes someone so angry that they wanted to see someone who's transgender gay and want to kill them. I mean that's just tired of that incredible.

31:04 So

31:06 Looking back at it. I guess I wonder are we similar and I mean 9/11 happened when I was in the seventh grade and that drastically changed everything like everything and just recently I was listening. I was listening to a podcast and they were talking about how their school had bomb threats and when they were in high school and I was really common for me to have I mean, I went through several bomb threats when I was in high school. I mean to the point where I don't really take it seriously, there's so many of them and the other person was like you had bomb threats and they were so shocked by it and didn't everyone did every High School have bomb threats. I guess a big thing after 9/11, you know taking that kind of stuff seriously.

32:04 And I mean everything changed after that. I mean I was a big

32:10 Big big change, you know probably the same way you fell in the 60s of maybe not being feeling the safest.

32:20 You know that's pretty similar pretty and if you know that we'd hero. There's a bomb threat and response what you're going to school. So I think I'm going to school with his that's that's not so experienced that and maybe I think it's probably someone who's baby a little bit older than I am. They didn't experience those bomb threats and you tell him that I know that my gosh. It's so scary and at the time it definitely feels scary and I definitely don't look back on it and feel that I was scared. It felt normal which probably shouldn't have any and that's not normal. But there is that fine.

33:20 4th 5th grade and we end it would be a siren you could hear it over the whole town and we all crawl underneath our deaths was doing the Cold War time and in case the nuclear bomb was dropped on us, we would be under our desks that silly. Of course that wouldn't I wouldn't have mattered but but we did that but we didn't think anything of it. You know, that didn't we didn't really think a bomb was going to blow up and was there anything like that? So we we do value to it as well. I mean, I don't think I ever thought, you know, they went to school with empty into the football field ever thought once in a football field like a bomb going to go off. I never once felt that way at all which probably not extremely normal. I probably should have been concerned. Do you know if they're concerned enough to empty the school?

34:10 But you know different, you know different time that's kind of similar to you what you were saying about growing up kind of in a transition. I think I grew up in a transition period of the country, you know.

34:29 In what way do you see us as being so similar? And you said yes, how do you see us as being similar? Even though we were born completely different places? That's fine. I think you but you said like you grew up with and kind of a transitional period And I think I did too. I think I grew up in a weird transitional place and that's pretty similar to you. I think that's why you

35:02 I think

35:05 There's such a big common sense of community between writing we both share that why.

35:13 When I graduate college, I didn't move away. You know, that's something that's pretty, with most of my friends have any other one is just kind of moved away and we've said jokingly half-jokingly, at least they don't have the Hispanic Jean of on Interstate near the family there what they want to get out on their own and maybe a little different view of what they should do in with regards to my life path that I was raised in a community that

35:49 Raise me to be who I am and have to give back to the community and important to me, too.

35:57 Get back to where I came from that isn't necessarily, most of my friends, but I think that's important and I think you know, I didn't have a turbo car with heads. But you know, it's not like, you know, how you had a great childhood and grateful to have grown up here in Corpus and I want to get back and you know, that's

36:21 Pretty you know, what's a very Hispanic way of thinking, you know, I live two blocks from you.

36:28 It's just I don't know. It's very normal to me.

36:32 I don't really think I'm a job at but I'm sure some people you know, I have talked to friends me like that is so weird. You want to live like Crosstown? No, no. No, I mean sure. Yeah most people in general and look pretty weird that I you know that I get along with you and Mom and it's really not

36:54 Anything tell phases being you know, that's just how you know how it is for me, but I'm grateful for that, you know.

37:04 So yeah, I think we are pretty similar.

37:09 Growing up here. And then again we talked about how I'm an only kid and that was real different. But you're one of three mom is one of five and so sometimes I feel like I don't completely understand how you definitely understand why it's like that.

37:30 But it isn't only kidding and we talked about this in the oldest kid. Your older sister were fairly similar in that. We always kind of want to be in control of stuff and because he was always getting a lot of control over you guys. You know, why should we not get their coat on and do it all that kind of stuff which is a fairly typical I was by myself if I was always told, you know how to get your coat on and you know, you have to do stuff for yourself cuz it's just you and once you grow up it's going to always just be you you guys have more of that support from each other which is a little bit different but I also see us as being fairly similar as well and better but then I think I see all of us is being thrown I see you and the other two kids as well as being fairly similar. I think you guys don't completely agree with that, but but I can but I do

38:31 Often daily, you know.

38:34 I guess we're getting close to the end here and I want to end it I guess I think you know, so I think I tell you that I love you so much. And I'm so proud of you that are you going on and become an engineer and as you know as a kid then even now you have to live the add so we thought oh my God, she's not going to be able to do when when you were going to bed and we thought we had and we didn't wow she can do mad and she can do advanced math. And and then that you going on to become an engineer, which is you know, I know I do today and you say I did math dad all day everyday, it's what I do. So, so anyway, I love you, and I'm so proud of you that you've done so well and you're beautiful and wonderful and great kid.

39:36 Anything I would change about you. I have just incredible, you know, this is been fun.