Veronica Sopher and Dennis Garcia

00:03 Great, I'm Veronica sopher. I am 45 years old today. It's Friday, October 30th. I'm in Sugar Land, Texas and I am here talking to my dad on his daughter.

00:19 My name is Dennis Garcia The Godfather of Veronica. I am in Chula Vista, California, and we have decided to share our experiences with your listeners.

00:38 Great. So, let's go ahead and get started to Daddy. I've got some questions for you and I'll be doing any follow-up. So the first one's going to start with what does it mean to you to be a Mexican American in Kansas in the 1950s in the 1970s is Kansas's home?

00:57 BM

00:59 Experience of the Mexican community in on the high plains in Western Kansas takes place over the course of a century and so I have given some thought to that question and I have tried to recall some of the experiences and stories from family and friends over that time. But as far as the 50s and 60s and early 70s, I think the way I can best describe. It is by explaining what the experience is were for adults and minors and I'll think I'll start by saying that if you were an adult living on the high plains in Southwestern, Kansas in 1950.

01:52 Your parents and Grandparents were from Mexico. They worked on the railroads in Kansas, and they worked in the farms and in the Beet field in, Southwestern, Kansas.

02:08 Wherever real ways are in small towns and cities in Kansas. You are going to find people of Mexican heritage.

02:20 So what we end up having MS?

02:24 Very small communities all along the railways.

02:28 And virtually no people of Mexican heritage and the other parts of the state.

02:36 So in some in many respects life for adults in that time. Was limited to the events in those small towns. I think the exception of course is if the railroad take you to them and you want to call him metropolitan areas of Kansas, which would be Topeka Kansas City and Wichita, then you might have a larger Community to live with em, but in the small rural towns, the small bottles were

03:13 Follow the path of the railways and when you went to these small towns that had railroad tracks you could easily find the body of those because most of the Mexican workers bought small plots of land from the railroad itself ride along the tracks. So if you go to a small town just take a drive or walk next to the railroad tracks and you'll find your Mexican body oil.

03:42 I think if you were an adult and in that time. Your parents and grandparents probably spoke primarily Spanish. They were learning English as they with time.

03:58 If you were a young man in that time. You went and served in World War II?

04:08 World War II had a great impact on the Mexican community

04:16 The war took the man out of the Beet fields and out of the farms and not out of the railroad work.

04:25 And sent them off to Europe and Japan Southwest in the South Pacific to fight the war.

04:32 And when those men left to do that on their return, they obtain jobs in the cities and so for many adults in that time. The war was the exit way the doorway out of the field and into the small towns and cities.

04:59 You will after the war you probably year were able to afford a modest home.

05:06 And as I said earlier you lived in your body o

05:10 You are a new everybody in the body. Do you knew all the families? They knew you they knew you who you were, you know, their kids and families everyone knew what the other family had for breakfast. I mean it was that close and tight. What community there were no secrets in the body of everybody. Everybody else's business.

05:35 If you want it. You went to Mexican dances where they played the Run Jettas or polka music and traditional Mexican dances like La Bamba and other music like that. So in that time. For the adults, they maintained a big part of their Mexican heritage and the way they raise families and the way they live they were hard workers. They weren't very very hard. These me want to take a sip here.

06:14 I'm probably they were a lot of times related to each other Whitney say like brothers and at least in your case Brothers live near brothers. And so you had cousins around you all the time. That's that's correct. And then that takes me to my next point which is talk about the miners Mexicans of who were minors in a my father was one of six Sons.

06:44 Who work in the sugar beet Fields Before the War and who my dad my ankles in head city jobs after the war but those men and their wives had 44 grandchildren or 40 for children. That's why that survive birth. So yes, I always had cousins many each child in my family had a cousin of the same age somewhere in the talent in the body.

07:14 So it was a window my father's and and my dad and my uncles and my aunts were practicing Boomers. I think there's a lot of baby boomers.

07:35 That was pretty much the live for the adults in that time. As for the school-age kids if you were on before I go I want to make one of the point about the men and families who went to World War II The Return of the man who went to fight the war there was an increase effort to demand and receive the benefits of first class citizenship.

08:08 The argument was we went to fight our country's War. We are now entitled to the rides all the rights and privileges of American citizenship.

08:21 Now back to the kids if you were in elementary school in the 50s and 60s.

08:27 You probably went to the school. That was predominantly white.

08:32 Your siblings and cousins are the only other Brown faces in the car.

08:40 Unfortunately, regrettably some of your family and friends no longer went to school they dropped out.

08:48 When you're in elementary school, you you wish you had the nice clothes and the extra school supplies that your white classmates had.

08:58 You probably took a cold sack lunch to school or a luncheon a lunch pail of some sort While most of your classmates stayed hot lunch.

09:15 In Middle School you start to make friends with a few white students your classmates and your new friends like the same TV shows TV was fairly new in the early 50s leaving in the early 60s for many families TV was a new Appliance in the house. You you and your classmates like the shows like Bandstand Dick Clark.

09:47 You like The Lucy Show with Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball.

09:53 And you like the same music Elvis in the late 50s The Beatles in the early and mid 60s on The Supremes.

10:03 You probably dance to the twist in the pony the swim and all of those popular dances in that time.

10:17 You as a middle schooler. You probably were speaking less and less Spanish.

10:26 Now for high school you started to go to school dances.

10:33 Dot-com that took place in the high school gym.

10:45 At the gym during the dance you the Mexican American kids with stand in the corner with your friends your who are mostly Mexican-American, but you had integrated yourself in the school system. We left so that now you would leave your safety.

11:07 Of your friends and walk across the gym floor and dance with a girl a white person.

11:16 In my town will we grew up Garden City?

11:20 The there was virtually no significant black population of Asian population or Burr first American population. There were a few but it was a very small community.

11:39 Dobie High School, you are starting to get integrated into high school events. A lot of the boys started to participate on athletic teams. The football teams the wrestling teams basketball teams for the female students. They were on the cheer squad and one or two would actually be one of the head cheerleaders allow and the students of Mexican heritage were trying to earn their letter jackets is like all the other night.

12:21 And in the late sixties you especially the males that young man had to start thinking about the Vietnam War.

12:32 Because as you graduated in the middle and late 6 days from high school, there was a mandatory draft the war was picking up and those students started two men that men in the classes headed to start to think about what they were going to do about the war. So I think that's kind of a summary of what was happening to the Mexicans in the community as an adult and that students in middle school and high school. Yeah, which is interesting. Because and other parts of the country may be in Texas or in California, they had different movements but in the high plains are experienced as you described was significantly different, so I think that's fascinating.

13:26 That's correct. We we could see through the magic of television and on the high plains what was happening in the big cities in LA in Texas, New York City Chicago where all of these protest civil rights protest war protest?

13:44 We're beginning become nationally important events and we could see that but we weren't enough in number to do similar responses. There was civil rights organizations and Community groups that fought for those things, but obviously not liking the big cities that's fascinating. So tell him that

14:24 To what it is you do now. So now you're retired you had a very successful career as an attorney and a teacher and now that you're retired you you're an author you're a published award-winning book author into my question is what drives you to reach back into the past and spend time researching all these things about where we come from, especially in the high plains.

14:50 Well, I think in today's world in two days time. There is an assumption made by the non Mexican heritage families in population across the country that most of the people of Mexican heritage our new arrivals.

15:14 And I write about the history.

15:18 In order to put that belief aside Mexican Americans and people of Mexican heritage have been in this country literally for centuries. And even in the midwest my grandparents cross the border in 1917 just before World War 1 but even in Kansas, they were Mexicans who arrived earlier before the Tournament entry. And of course in Texas places like Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, you have families who can trace their roots.

16:02 In those States two or three hundred years before and I wanted to I want to show that the American Experience specially on the high plains the depression the Dust Bowl all of those events that the white communities experienced were also experienced by people of Mexican heritage. So when I write about those time. I want the reader to see that. Oh, yeah, these people were going through the same thing as my family my community.

16:43 And hopefully that will make it clear that people of brown color in the United States many many many of them have been here in the states for at least a century and in the southwest part of our country many two or three centuries.

17:07 So my purpose is to my second purpose apart from that is to record the family history. So that today's generation of Mexican Americans and the persons of Mexican heritage.

17:21 And the generations to come will understand on Whose shoulders they stand.

17:29 I hope my writing inspires and motivates the current generation and will motivate future Generations so that they will know the challenges.

17:42 Can be overcome and that and that those Generations will set aside any fears.

17:54 That they have about taking steps forward and education in their careers and their family lives, but that fear aside take courage take on the challenge and you will succeed and then I use the examples. I have portrayed in the book to show them as exhibits of that success and you didn't obviously you did a great job, but your book one in the big Ward International award and I just think that it's interesting that I just said Brown kid from Kansas in the middle of nowhere one is 10 + 16 + and have a successful career. And then as you're enjoying your Sunset years take time to Chronicle that I mean, it's pretty impressive. So why do you think now at this phase in your life being an author is important to you?

18:54 Well, as I said a little earlier I wanted to illustrate what has happened in the past and to show that people can overcome these challenges and I thought when I decided to write a book about my first cousin Ernest Garcia

19:14 I wanted to use his life experience as an example. My cousin earning is 4 years older than me. I'm 69 years of age.

19:27 He grew up a block down the Barrio street from where I grew up and went to the same Elementary School St. Mary's Catholic grade school went to the same High School Garden City High School, and then he went on to get his degree at University of Kansas. He attend the Masters. He went to work for Senator Bob Dole.

19:52 He at the same time he was in college pursuit of military career United States Marine Corps. And by the time his life reached it's time for retirement. He had become the first Hispanic Senator sergeant in arms for the United States and it had the opportunity to escort President Reagan to one of his State of the Union. Speech has he escorted the president of Mexico when he came for a visit to the Congress.

20:27 Ernie fought in the first Gulf War in 1991 as a soldier in 2004 in the Gulf War as a child. He became an officer in the Marine Corps and worked his way up to a lieutenant colonel at the time of his retirement.

20:53 During his experiences working for Senator Dole and as a soldier.

21:00 He traveled the world hernia hasn't been too and visited over 100 countries how he met Pope John Paul twice and on the second time his visit to the Vatican Saint John Paul. Remember their name? Because the two of them carried on a conversation in Spanish. So Ernie has led this incredible life and has used it all from a Barrio Street next to the railroad tracks on I play things in the little town called, Garden City, Kansas.

21:39 So I wanted to highlight to his story to be part of that inspiration for the next Generations. And I think it's important for the white Community to see Ernie success as well so that they can see that again lyrics variances are no different than our experiences. We're all in the same place. We're all on the same and I was fortunate enough to have the journey Journeys book the story about Arnie win an award for best biography a couple years ago or a year ago actually and I'm very proud of that achievement.

22:39 We're proud of what I already was able to do is careers in the military and he's in his career for public service at least means to my next question and you've described what your grandfather's life was like when you first immigrated to the United States and working on the railroad and then ultimately having to work in the Beet fields and you describe it with such a lustration that I envisioned that the sun is beating down and he's hunched over and he's pulling out sugar beets and I got to wonder if it ever crossed his mind or if you thought it ever crossed his mind that he would never want have 44 grandchildren and number two. That's so many of them would be successful. What do you think? He was thinking when he was picking those sugar beet?

23:34 Well, my grandfather.

23:37 Arrived in 1917 know my dad's, excuse me on my dad's side. He was a railroad worker on a Santa Fe and Santa Fe railroad drop them off literally in Holcomb, Kansas, right outside of Garden City and my grandfather was successful working for the railroad for about eight years, but then he was injured and in those days it was not workman's comp. There was no insurance for those kind of injuries. And basically he was on his own and he had at that time six children six Sons and my grandmother to support. So if they became migrant field workers and work in the Sugar Beach

24:26 I think my grandfather's experience. His name was Jose.

24:31 I made him hard gave him a hard shell. He was not a warm cuddly man from what my dad recalled and my uncles as well.

24:44 He was tough on the boys in it did not gently wake them to go work in the yelled at them and tell them to get their behinds up out of bed because they needed to get to work.

25:01 My grandfather Jose's Focus was all about work and getting the money to feed the family and he had purchased the house that stayed in the family before 90 years, by the way. He purchased a house for them to live in so he wanted to keep the house in good order make his payments and so the work work work and one thing I can say about Joe my father and his brothers. My uncle's was that those men who have to work. They did everything they were text of all trades told my grandfather during those times. He was out in the field and not only working hard in South but yelling at his son's to keep moving that his grandchildren.

25:54 And his son some most of them would have been very successful lives and careers and that not only earning who had a fascinating career.

26:08 But also other cousins and my siblings who became nurses teachers University administrators business owners.

26:22 One of the great grandson's is a pilot or was a pilot in the United States Air Force. So I think if you were to tell these him these things my grandfather he would initially be disbelieving. I think you would think that you were crazy and delusional but I think when she accepted the fact of the success of his descendants, I think you would take some pride of course, but I also think you would baby have some gratitude or appreciative of his efforts to be hard on the boys to push him cuz I'm I can assure you that myself and my siblings and my cousin all felt the same push from our fathers to get out there.

27:22 Work hard get the job done and you can succeed. I think one of the tragedies of living the life that was close to Poverty for my grandfather and my grandmother but especially my grandfather is that he did not live long enough to see any of his grandchildren. He died in the 1938. He had an appendix pain while they were in the lemon orchards in California when he died.

28:05 My grandmother fortunately got to see the start of our family success, but I think it's attracted me that my grandfather did not live long enough to see that. Yeah, I do too. I hate you in so that begs me to ask the the next question which is what do you want your grandchildren to know about you or you've got four grandchildren to have him or mine and I'd love to know your thoughts for when they start having this conversation 40-50 years down the road.

28:41 Well, I think

28:45 Give me

28:48 I think I want my children to know and I think I see that already especially in your daughters that they need to work hard.

29:02 Get their education.

29:05 And find a career that will make them happy and productive daughters and Community citizens.

29:18 I think that the hour I hope that they have

29:24 Appreciate what not only myself but my brothers and sisters and cousins have done in the way of community service.

29:34 I hope they see that there is value in that just trying to become as rich as you possibly can but that you also give back to the city to the citizens to your communities and participate in those activities that will uplift people who are less fortunate have 10 minutes left.

30:00 Our family's Story Journey from Mexico to comfortable making out make success in the states.

30:12 To place over the course of the century

30:15 I'm hopeful that the generations who are newly arriving into this country can find that success much sooner. And so what I want my grandkids to know and to do if they so choose to be active and participate in those that are activities that will also increase the success of Natalie children of Mexican heritage, but all children we are as a country are slowly moving.

30:51 Two, I don't think I should say so slowly. I think I should say quickly moving to a society. That is where whites are not the majority any longer. So when I say help your community, I mean everybody all of all nationalities

31:13 And I think the other thing that one of the other things I want them to understand about their grandfather, but that he was a great baseball player.

31:25 I did not make it to the major leagues actually, but in my heart and mind I fit right in there. Obviously, I have a love of the game. So I want them to be passionate Network passionate in their hobbies and passionate about living good lives. That's what my I hope my been children see and me and believe that those values are worth pursuing.

32:00 Yeah, yeah, I'm sure they will and I can just tell you that I love talking to you and hearing these stories and I'm just so honored that you have chosen your retirement to do the research that many of us didn't know existed and that you laid the groundwork for so many of us to learn and grow and be proud of where we come from in and I've heard you say this before and and it's happened to me as well when people say oh, where's your family from? I always say Kansas and they say this has happened to you too. You can share this experience with your granddaughters and your nephews and nieces and then come around that are born deflator that

32:54 When I first went to college leaving southwest Kansas, I went to Albuquerque New Mexico right in the heart of the Southwest and I suffered culture shock. I was them but when when your children go to college, I'm sure they will find an encounter things that they had not seen before in ways of thinking and doing things that are different but they can adapt and they can survive it. That was my experience when I went to New Mexico. I went from Garden City, which was all the institutions that were dominated by a white person's but then when I went to New Mexico, it was a whole different world.

33:43 All of the streets had Spanish names of the Senators and Congressmen have Spanish names my teachers in school and college and Spanish names. They were many Spanish-speaking radio stations the quarterbacks on the high school football teams were Spanish surname, there were hundreds of wonderful Mexican restaurants Mexican food restaurants. Whereas in Garden City in southwest Kansas, there might have been one or two for city of 1516 thousand.

34:20 So and then my classmates and people I worked with many of them spoke Spanish regularly and whenever I spoke Spanish they would say to me you're not from here. Are you and I would say yes, you're right and we'll where you from. I'm from Kansas and Kansas. I didn't know they had Mexicans in Kansas and and it wasn't just and it wasn't just white people who said that even their people with Mexican heritage said the same thing to eat at Mexican Kansas and my response of course was well,

35:07 If you go through Kansas and follow the railroads, you will see little Mexican body has all along the railways. So I think that if you are children, not your nephew's have those experiences and reassure them that they will adjust they will take what they like and and assume in the cultural to the Mexican culture that they did not get going out then in on High Plains much. I appreciate this and I think so many people are going to enjoy hearing about your experience cuz it's probably very similar to theirs.

35:52 Thank you very much. Sweetheart. I'm glad to be a part of this endeavor and dude do something with you. And I want to thank everyone for giving us the opportunity to share our story and share our history.

36:11 Great. I think we're done Courtney.