University of Texas at El Paso ScholarWorks@UTEP
Combined Interviews Institute of Oral History
11-26-1975
Interview no. 333
William Flores
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Recommended Citation Interview with William Flores by Oscar J. Martinez, 1975, "Interview no. 333," Institute of Oral History, University of Texas at El Paso.
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Institute of Oral History at ScholarWorks@UTEP. It has been accepted for inclusion in Combined Interviews by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UTEP. For more information, please contact [email protected]. UI.IIVERSITYOF TEXASAT EL PASC INSTITTJTEOF ()RALI{ISTORY
II.ITERVIEI{EE: William
INTERVIEi.IER: 0scarJ. Martinez PIIOJECT:
DATEOF II'ITERVIEI.I: November26 December4 TERi''iSOF USE: Unrestricted
TAPENO.: 333 TRAI,ISCRIPTi,10.: 333 TRA}ISCRIBER: SarahE. John
DATETP.A|,ISCRIBEDI
BIOGRAPHICALSYIiOPSIS OF INTERVIEI'IEE: (FormerNational President of LULAC)Born on his family/s ranch in socorro, Texason February23, 1897. Formerlyemployed by l^lilliam BeaumontGeneral Hosp'ital; veteran of WorldWar I.
SUliilARY0F I['ITEP'VIEl'l:
Biographyteducationa'l experiences; Anglo/Mexican relations jn El Paso; experienlei with LULAC;the word "Ch'icanoiland the ChicanoMovement; iob experiences;di scrimination.
t hour, 15 minutes;34 Pages M: F'ir.st,Mr. Flores,could you tell mewhen and where you were born?
F: I was born in Socorro, Texas on the family ranch, on February 23,1897.
M: Could you give me a little bit of backgroundabout your parents? 'in F: We1l, I got it thene that /boog.
M: is there anything that you would like to add to what is in that book
that I just read?
No. We11,I'd like to ask you somequestions that are not in that book. 0kay. Your father wasa very prominentman here in El Paso. Yes--ElPaso, Cd. Judrez,and all the valley here, all the surround'ing countryhere. Heattended to a'll the businessof the SpanishAmerican people. Therewere very few peop'lewho could do that. He hada law office, thatrs whathe had; andhe waseven an attorneyin Judrez, Mexico. Hedid a lot of businessthere in Judrez'too.
M: Andyour father also held elective office here in El Paso.
F: Yeshe did. Hewas the CountyClerk for quite a numberof years, and he wasalso a teacherin Judrez. At that time it wasnot called Judrez, but Villa del Norte; that's whatthe namewas. Andthen he npvedand he took over the schoolat Las Cruces,and then he cameover to Ysleta and took the schoolat Ysleta. I donrt knowwhat the durat'ionwas, but I guesshe lasted aboute'ight years as a professorin these three towns
here.
M. Mr. Flores, howd'id your father get a'longwith AngloAmericans?
F: l,le11, iust f ine. Hegot alongjust f ine becausehe wasan intel'ligent man,a manwho made a little bit of moneyand he wasa prominentman. Andof coursehe didn't havehardly any troubleat all. Healso wasan interpreter for the FederalCourt here jn El Pasofor many'many years. FLORES Page 2
But as far as his getting a'longwith people,of course,he didn't have to go thnoughwhat most of the peoplehad to go through, becausethey didnrt haveany money and no education"and of coursethat makesa1ot
of difference.
M: Soyour fatherrs casewas exceptiona'l here in El Paso?
F: I think so, V€s; I think so. Andthen he didn't look I jke a Mex'ican anyhow,he lookedl'ike any other American.
M. Whatinfluence did your father haveon you as you weregrow'ing up?
F: Well, he and I werevery close. I thoughtthat myfather wasthe best lookingman'in the whoJecounty here. I thoughthe wasthe mostintel- ligent manthat Ild ever seen. Andhe also knewFrench very wel1. At
that tjme, all those peoplewho had a very goodeducation had to learn
Frenchin order to get a1ong. Withwhat, I don't know. He neverhardly ever usedthe I anguageat al I . M: D'idyour father ever tal k about howMexicans were treated by Anglo Americanshere? tr. No. Heand I didn't haveto do that because... Wedidn't havevery muchof that talk at homeat all or at the office. I usedto go into
h'isoffice and help himout in there, as a stenographer,you know. And, of course,most of the comp'laintsthey hadwere just law complaints aboutproperty or schoolsor things like that. 'loca11y? M: Andyou attendedschools here
F: I attendedpucl ic schoolslocally here. I attendedalso PalmoreCollege, one of the best collegesin NorthAmerica; at the time it wasconsidered
oneof the best ones. I wentdown there to studySpanish. AndI grad-
uatedfrom there in commercjalsubjects--Bookkeeping, Stenography' FLORES Page3
Spanish,arrd so forth.
M: Whatdo you recal'1,what incidents stand out fromyour early school
years, in elementaryschool?
F: Well, whatstands out mostwas that I wasin high schooltwo years, and there wereon'ly two SpanishAmerican students at that time. And I was not mistreatedin any way, but there wassome way that they talked to you, you know,and you hadpretty diffjcult tjmesto get togetherw'ith other peoplebecause we were a'lways fighting. In school,you know,in the grammarschool, we usedto take sides anda bunchof us Mexican
guyswould go to onecorner, andthe Americans/toZanotherr and it was just fighting all the time. Andthen when I got to high schoo'|,we didn't get to fighting at all, but their attjtudes... So I told my father
I didn't wantto got to school anymore,and he sent meto the Durham's Co1lege,which they hadhere, commercialcourses a1so, then from there I wentto PalmoreCollege;, and InternationalBusiness Co11ege, I also attendedthat.
Whatwas the attjtude of the students'inhigh school,the Anglostudents?
Well, just the waythey lookedat you, Vouknow, and then the waythey treatedyou in the class. 0f course,I wasn't treatedwrong, but you can seewhen you're not wanted,you couldn't haveany friends there that
wereworth a durn. Th'isother fella andmyself had to be iust the only onesthat went togetherto the schooland then comeback home. Andwhat
you wantin school,Vou want to havea lot of peopleto talk to you, Vou know,have friends. Andthey...that's the only badtreatment I got. rCausewe usedto fight a1l the t'ime,you know. I usedto be a good scrapperat that time, too. Whenanything went wrong, oh, you know,I FLORES Page I
just hada little fisted engagementthere andthat was . (Laughter) That's all that I could say aboutthat, becauseI wouldnrtlet them...
WhjchI hada father, Vou know,he wasprom'inent here, and the teachers wouldn'tdare to do anythingwrong because they wouldhave a complaint on their hanis. But it!s not like goingto schooland having friends
andgetting into the activities of the school. Whenyou are isolated... So I didn't get to complete schoolat all, I iust wentto high school two years.
Didyou haveMexican friends in high school?
Well, there wasonly one.
In high schoo'l? In high school. Just younself and one more? Thatrsright.
Whathappened to all the other Mexicansfrom you neighborhood? Well, the Mexicans,they didn't go to high schoolat all, hardlyany. At that time, it waspretty expensivefor themto do so, and they were
very poor peop'lemostly. Andsome of themwent away from El Pasoto
study 7|in otfrerTplaces, Vou know. M. Whatdid they go study whenthey left El Paso?
F: We11,I don't know.
M: Businesscourses?
F: Usuallywe took businesscourses, you know,all the waythrough' like I did. Youwould prepare yourself for that. Andif you couldget a iob as a clerk, you'd be doingpretty good. 'Causethey wouldn'tgive you a job if they hadany Ang1o. Andthe worst part of it was, the Ang'los FLORES Page 5
hereWere the Italians, the Bulgarians,the French,the English;and all
the racesof the world Were"gringos," and the on'lyMexicans were us. Why,we were in a hell of a shape. tlJeused to fight with a'll the races
of the world in El Pasothat I can remember,'cause nobody wanted to be
a Mexican,Vou know. Andthen they went to the side of the Angloshere in El Paso.
M: Whowent to the side of the Anglos?
F: We'll,the different raceswe hadhere in El Paso. If you wereItalian,
you wentalongs'ide theAng'los and we called you "gringo." Andthe French cameover here, and the samething. Nobodywanted to be a Mexican. So we hadone race aga'install the others. That's the waythat they used
to take advantageof us. Andthen the Mexicanpeople here didn't know Englishin the first place. Theonly thing that they hadknown in their
life wasSpanish, and bad)y spoken. Andmany of themdjdnrt knowhow to read, as I said a wh'i1eago. Thatwas one of the drawbackswe had. Todayyou find the samething; you don't haveto go very far. Yousee
Italjans lThey/ speakEnglish wel1, andthey act like Americans.And you've got a Mexican,he's a foreignerto you, boy, and I don't mean
maybe. Youstill see thosethings, very markedly. Werethere Mexicansin thosedays who wanted to passthemselves off as Anglos? They'dbetter notl (Laughter) They'dbetter not, or we'd ganglid on h'iml No, nobodywanted to be a gringo then. Theyhated the doggone gringosasmuchas they hatedus. tl|eall wasfighting at the school grounds;and sometimesWe even had to go to their bSrrios, you know,and
fight'emover there, andsometimes they cameto ours. It was/with7 FLORES Page 6
rocks or whateverwe could, witn fists. It was very pronouncedat that
time-
M: hlould you say that discrrmination was very pronounced tn those days?
t-: 0h, heckyeah. Definitely.
M: what can you remember,what events?
F: Well, onestrikrng eventthat I can recall right nowis aboutmy wife.
fril secondwife wasa gringafrom luboocr,Texas. Shehad a little sister, a Verypretty sister, andher siSter cameto El Paso,and she
stayedjn Lubbockworking there. Andmy wife--wel'1, she wasn't thenmy wife, but the onethat waslater on mywife--she heard that her sister wasgoing around w'ith some Mexican guys here'in El Paso. So the first chanceshe had she took the train and she cameto El Pasoto take her back. Andthen shemarried me, she stayedhere. Andthen I askedher later
oh, I said, "Whydid that happen?What had a Mex'icandone to you?"
Shesays, "Well, Bi'11,you don't understand."She says, "In Lubbock' Texas,the only Mex'icanswe knewwere being broughtin from l4exico. Theyhad burlap bags around their 1egs,and they hardly hadany pants on, anddirty, just like animals. l,.lethought that all the Mex'icanswere just exactly the same. i got to El Pasoand I find out thatyouhave very beautiful peoplehere." So shemarried me and then shewas very' very fpiendly towardsMexican peop'le and Mexicanstowards her, and they loved her all throughher life. Becauseshe used to go to conventions, andshe usedto help mea lot in LULAC.That's the oneexample I can give you that wasvery striking; evenmy wife thoughtthat aboutthe
l4exicanpeople. Shesays, "I didn't knowany better." But that exampletakes on a very pos'itiveturn andthe results are good. FLORES Page7
F: 0h, yeah;of course. Defjnitely.
M: Canyou think of other exampleswhere the results d'idn'tturn outto be good?
F: Well, for exampleat BeaumontHospital, where I wasworking with the government,I usedto be in chargeof personnel. Andpeople from El Paso whomI knewvery well had venyn'ice looking boys, excepttheir namewas
Martinezor /Fomethinglike thaV; we hadto give themjobs that were muchmore jnferior to the onesthat the gringoshad, for example.And
I wantedto breakthat habit of thoseson of a gunsthinking that the
Mexicancan only get lowerjobs. SoIwas the first one that empioyed
a TlulexicaU.lerk in BeaumontHosp'ita1. But I wascertain that I had put somebodydown there in muchbeyond the capacity for that position. So the fjrst manI put in there, they werecrazy about him; goodlooking
boyand well educated. (He'sstill here.) Rnaafter that they usedto
tell me,"The first you get a guy like Fljkeover there." Andthen after I put the fjrst one, jt wasvery simplefor me
to LgeLTplenty of Mexicangirls as clerks andas bookkeepers,and what we neededthere. Therewas no problemafter. But it hadto take a long time, andyou hadto be smartenough. For example,we had two messes,General Mess and DetachmentMess. Andthey hadthe worst kind of Mexicansthere, so they usedto kick themaround and insult them. So I hadto find out how'inthe hell I couldfix up the matter. So the only wayI could fix up the matter
wasto hire two prize fighters, one'in oneplace /and one in the other/ andthen put themin chargeof the messes.And I said, "We'|1you have to be very careful. I'm goingto put you over there andyou're going FLORES Page I
to havea lot of troub1e. But be sure that you're on the right side;
donrt take any shit fromanybody. But if they deserveit, just whack the hell out of them. I'll be responsible, I'll see that nothing
happensto you." Andthat happened,too, you know. (Chuckles)So after that all the Mexicankids hada very goodtime workingthere and weresatisfied, andthe conditionschanged entirely. I knewthat the gringo...thereason that they werepretty smart- aleckyabout us too wasthat they werebig, they weretall, and the Mexicanpeople were very small at bhattime, muchmore smaller than
they are 5"O. Therevery few guysthat wereof your built and that werebjg enoughto defendthemselves. My kids, for example,are about
half a foot taller or a wholefoot taller than I am,too. Soyou had
to useyour commonsense in order to... But I can't put that in that
ljttle sketchI gaveyou, because,I thoughtyou suredjdn't wantany of that baloney.
M: 0h, that's very important. That's not [:aloneyl (Laughter)
F: Andsomebody had to do someth'ing,and I did the right thing. Mywife one time, we wentdown to a LULACmeet'ing. It wasa very importantmeeting; I th'ink somelad'ies wanted to join LULACand we were all together, andwe weresupposed to go to see someth'ingabout LULAC
or their ioining or something.But i hadto go someother placeand my w'ifesa'id, "Let mego, 8i11." I says, "Wel1,they'11 ki11 you there, boyl Theyhate the hell out of you gringosl You'dbetter not go."
Shesaid, "Don'tyou worryabout that. I'll attendto 'it. " So she
went in there, and I says, "Youknow what to do anyway,Vou knol about LULACwork anyhow. Probably you'11 get togetherwith them,but I doubt FLORES Page 9
it." Sowhen I wentback, and the other fellows wentback, there she waslaughing to beat the bandwith al1 the doggonegals in there. To showyou that sheloved the Mexicanpeople; but thatrs after she knew
whoshe was dealing with. But there are lots of incidentsI wish nowthat I wouldhave taken care of, but there wereso manyof them. I said before, we usedto meetonce a week,and then within the weekwe hadto do work for LULAC, we weredoing th'is anddo'ing that. But jt wassomething that wewere supposedto do, andwe were not braggingabout it, say'ingwe d'id. The
waythat LULACworked, previous to LULAC,you didn't seeany Spanish
Americanorganization or Mexicanorganization that amountedto a damn thing, or that lasted for a long time. Andwe wanted LULAC to last
becausethat wasthe only chancewe had, at least oneorganization to
keepon fight'ing. fhe lothef organizationsbegan fighting against eachother. Andthe politicians whowere here, of our race /who/ had goodpositions here'in El Paso,they werejust the scumsof the earth, actually, andthey werethe onesthat wereleading these peop'le to vote
for somebodye1se. That's the only thing that they wantedto do. LULAC
hada different wayof fighting discriminatron. Younever did hearof us in a riot or hav'ingin the papersthat we did somethingworthwhile.
hlekept it quiet. Andwhat we usedto do was, /'if7 there wasanything wrongin anyplace,the schools,for example,then we would get the facts and see first whetherwe wereright or wrong. Nowwhen we knewthat we wereon the right track andwe knewthat we hada goodcomplaint, whether it wasschool or anythinge'lser we thenwould see the big shots--they wereactually poljticians, that's whatthey were. Andwe went to them' FLORES PageI 0
a committeewent to see them,and presentedour facts and said, "Wecan
prove our charges;" and they could fix it up just as easy as that. l,rle
had no trouble- In other wonds, we didn't holler about what we were
doingat all. Andyou'l'l see that LULACwasn't very well knownfor that reason--Imean all over the country. 0f course,they knewit here becauseLTJLAC had beenhere for a long time. But we could accom- plish a lot of goodby goingat it the right way. Thepoliticians,
becausesome of us were kind of important,Vou know,they wouldn't dare not help us'if they knewthat wewere right. Wethreatened many t'!mes,
"We'll go to the paperswith this charge here if you won't listen to us. But I knowthat you can correct it." Andthey promisedto correct
'it and they did so; andwe were satisfjed. .|933. M: Youjoined LULACaround
F: 1932.
Whatcaused you to join LULAC? We11,just aboutthat time I usedto beamemberof three veteran's organizations. Whatmade me join LULACwas that aboutthat time (Machuca
wasthe onewho did it) they broughtsome pamphlets about LULACand they showedus the codeof LULAC,which is one of the prett'iest codes that I've ever seen,much better than the Constitutionof the United States. (Becausethe Constjtution'is a bunchof lies anyhow.It start-
ed with, "We'regoing to be free," andthey d'idn't considerthe llegroes at that tjme, or the Mexicans;they wereconsidering those people who camefrom Englandwhen they said that all Americanswould be free.)
AndI fell 'in love with the code,the LULACcode. Andthen the aims andpurposes, which right nowthere are 25 (l havethem there in Spanish FLORES Page1 1
and English), they were very precise as to what your aims and purposes
was in becoming a LULACmember-
And then besides, thene was no po'litics involved in LULACat that
time. 0f courseryou haveto get a little bjt /Tnvolvegzin politics in order to get whereyou want to go.
l-henI wentto Dadand I askedhim, "Dad,here's an organization, I think it's a wonderfu'lorganization, and they're organizingnow."
It wasabout 1929. "Whatdo you think aboutmy joining it?" Hesays, "Well, the only thing you haveto rememberis onething: this is a fine work,wonderful work; but don't payattention to the Constitut'ionnow. Payattention to the menwho are formingthis club here. Andif these
peopleare in there /certain politiciang/, don't you ioin LULACbecause
you cannotioin LULAC,because you're goingto get in trouble in your job with the government,because the governmentwill not allow you to be in politics. So, if thesepeople are there, don't jo'in." So I wentto the meetjng,and sure enough,there wereabout l0 of them,and
my father had told menot to haveanything to do with them. So I told
Machucaand the rest of themwhy I didnrt wantto join. I says, "When you get rjd of thesepeople here, I'll join you and I'll be glad to join you." So then in 1932--it took themthat long in order to get me to becomea member.
M: l,'Jhowere these people?
F: Well, thesepeople were Gir6n, for example,theywereMontoya, they were the Aldereteshere in El Pasowho were Democrats, and they hadcontrol of all theseMexican people that usedto l'ive in SouthEl Pasoand Ysletaand Socorro and San Elizario. But they wereljttle menhere, FLORES Page12
they /weren'!/ very muchin comparisonto what the gringoswere; they werebeing managed by the gringosby giving themjobs as deputiesand clenksin the countand thinqs like that. Andthose were the onesthat
my father told me/about whenhe told mo/ not to join, becausethey wouldget mejn trouble. Andof course,they werethe big shots.
Thosepeople were not fully qualified to do any of the workhere for the Mexicanpeop'le at aJ1, or for the Americansat the time. Theyjust
tnu!/ little iobs at the courthousethat didn't amountto a damnthing. Andthat's the b'iggest,most 'importantth'ing we had at that time here jn El Paso. Theywere not entitled to anything'likethat, but the
Americanshad thern there and they wanteda job, and they had to do whateverthe other peopletold themto do.
M: Howwas it that LULACgot rid of these peop'le?
F: !'le'|1,I askedMachuca several times. For three years he tried to get
mein there, and I told him, "As long as you havethese people here, I won't darecome in here." I says, "But if you get rid of them..." And Machucawas working then for the government,he hadan importantjob there. lle wasan Immigrationofficer, I think. (Andhers a pretty
smartboy.) Andhe says, "Well, whenI get rid of thosepeople, we'll comearound and see you again." But I guesshe got togetherwith a few of the other people,because Gdmez was very mucha politician himself at that time.
M: ModestoGSmez?
ModestoGdmez, yeah, Hedidn't tell you about that? Modesto0dmez was a big politician hereat onetime. Heworked hard for politics. I can showyou a letter there, that he wasthe one respons'iblefor getting my GO|VIEZ PageI 3
boy'in Annapolisand WestPoint. I got a letter from him there that
he addressedto Thomason.And of course since Modestowas one of the
big shots here as far as voting was concerned,why, Thomasonwas a very
goodfriend of his. And I got the letter that put him through, through
Modesto.
M. So thenyou joined jn 1932?
F: 1932,and I stayedther"efor about 30 years, consecutively from one year to the next.
M: Whatwere someof the issuesthat LULACwas jnvolved in at the t'ime that you jo'ined?
F: 0h, heil...(Chuckles)
M: Thatwas right at the Depression.
F: We11,yeah, that wasat the tjme, too. Wehad a lot of
issues. As I said before,we were very lucky to solvemost of them. Thebasic'issues that camein, th'is hatredof peopleagainst the other, it's takenalong time to eradicateitself. It hasn't beeneasy. Now, myboy'in school,for example,he doesn'tspeak Spanish, and they don't evenknow that he's a Mexican. Theother boy the sameway, he married an Americangir'l fromMinnesota, got two gir1s. Andhe's kind of a
smartboy, so he won't haveany trouble. He neverdid havetrouble, I suppose,as far as his beinga Mexicanis concerned.i don't know, he neverdid complainto meabout anyth'ing.
M: Doyou think Mexicanshere 'in El Pasohave progressed? tr. 0h, hell... It wouldbe a wonderif we hada'lawyer or a doctor, or
anyof thoseiobs that you see. Dozensof our peoplehere that are doctorsand lawyers and judges, you didn't seeanything like that. FLORES Pagel4
Andthen the people that go to school, you knoy,1,they go to school, by gosh;and they mightbe discniminatedonce in a whi'le,yesr but I don't heanany discriminationnow as I usedto anyhow. Thequest'ion is that
wagesthat are beingpa'id are muchhigher. They'relower than mostof the placesin the UnitedStates, but manyof ounpeople are makingvery goodmoney. Andthey don't haveto be lawyers,ejther, to makemoney nowadays.Their wivesare workingntheir kids are working. Yougo 'into the stores, you know,and you seejust Mexicangirls most'lythere. You don't evenknow whether you're talking to oneor not. So there's been
a tremendouschange here and elsewhereabout the Mexicanpeople, but there are st'ill a lot of things to be done. M: Whatwas the turning point in bringingabout many of thesechanges that you notice now?
F: Well,I believethat the mostimportant of all wouldbe education. The boysare able to go to schoolin highereducation, and that's what's madeit muchbetter for the Mexicanpeople here.
Whendo th'inkthings started changing?
0h, 'it's beenvery gradualto me,very gradual. Canyou identify any part'icularperiod when you started notjcing these changes ?
Well, I believe, for example,that the war changedit a lot; that's
during the SecondlTorl!/ War,when our peopleused to go to Europe, you know,and they weretreated like Americansoldiers;and they real'iz- edthen that the other raceswere not any muchbetter than they were.
Theycame back and they assertedtheir rights wjth moreforce, Vou know. I think that vvasone of the basic things that happenedhere that long FLORES Page1 5
ago. Andthen of courseeducation has broughta chang,)because, as I told you, whenI wasa youngerfella mostof thosepeople that we had
here, somevery nice people, they didnrt knowa wond of English at all,
and someof themdidn't want to learn it. Andnow, everybody knows English. Soyou can communicatewith the other peop'le. That has broughta great change. Andthe fact that so manypeopl e haveinter- marriedto a gringa, mygirl is marriedto a gningo,too; I haveanother boymarried to a gringa. Myboy andmy girl, they went to college, to the university, and they're smartenough to defendthemselves now by
knowledgeof English,knowledge of whatthey're taking. But it's been so gradual.
WhatI thjnk is wrongwith the peoplehere in the UnjtedStates,
our peoplehere... Let's 7|takeas7 an examplehere in El Paso. When I wasa youngfellow, the peopleI workedwith, they werevery nice
people,Spanish people mostly. t^londerfulpeople. hlell, the "Chicanos" wereanother sort of people. Theywere not our peop'le;they were Mexicans,but the Chicanowas the worst kind of Chicanoyou can have.
Theywere laborers, Vou know,farmers, or peoplewho didnrt knowhow to reador write. That kind of people,we designated as "Chicano." But not us, we neverdid designateus as Chicanoat all. Nowthis newword is very popularnow. Whenyou refer to something... Like onceI said, "Bueno,es chicano." Andyou don't get offendedby that. (Chuckles) Andin thosedays, peoplewould get offended? I don't think so now;they wouldhave gotten offended at one time because we usedto call themchicanos. But wewere of coursehiqher on the scale. (Chuckles) '16 FLORES Page
'it But whatI find 1S this--andyou can see right here in El Paso,
you don't haveto goto California or Arizonaor anyplace. Herein El Pasoyou haveso many... Like say, the city of Socorro,we'll take a
placelike that. Youhad some settlers here in the El Pasovalley and they're gone,because why? Becauseconditions at that time werevery poorand they wentto Californ'ia,especially Caljfornja, andused to get betfer wagesin Caljfornia; you knowthat, everybodyknows that. So the peoplethat wereliving herehave moved. Then,who has replaced them? Theones that comefrom Mexico,see? Peoplewho were in the con- dition that our peoplewere here in before. Thenthese people get
pretty smartthemselves, you know,and they go to Californiaor Chicago
or sorneplace;so morepeople come in, andnot only to be in their p1ace,
but a great big number,much over the oneswe had here havecome from Mexico. Thosepeople have to adjust themselvesto cond'itionshere,
isn't that right? Theyhave to adjust themselvesto conditjonshere andthey haveto learn English,they haveto preparethemselves. And out they go into other parts of the country. So jt's a th'ingthat'll neverend. Absolutely; it's actual'lyan invasionof this countryhere. Aboutthe Mexicanpeople, you couldcall it a Mexicanjnvas'ion jnto the Un'itedStates. Howmany have we got now? Six million peoplehere in the Un'itedStates?
Five mill ion, illegally. Oneof thesedays they''11 declare war againstthe UnitedStates and try to secedeone of thesedaysn you know.(Laughter) gut that's thejr
condition. Now,if the peoplewould stay herepermanently and have
be'Lterjobs, and better pay--theywou'ld have better pay and better iobs FLORES PageI 7
becausethe peoplewould see to it that they did. Theywouldn't go awayand leave their hometownjust for the sakeof doingit. These
peop'lewould be preparedand educatedand ffiavy' goodjobs and all that;
okay. /-Iha!/ wouldbe the ideal thing for Lrs.But this thing is coming jn andgoing out, comingand going; this is whatmesses the situation for us, becausepeople that comefrom over there, you can pay themany
amountof wagesyou want. !_TfyogT RaV two-something an hour, you can get onefor a dollar over there. In other words,the Immigrationhas not beenable to control that situation nor will they control it in the future. Now,what is goingto happen?I don't know.
M: This word"chicanor" was that usedwhen you werea youngman, when you were a boy?
F: It wasused'in that particular sense,when we wanted to say that he was no good.
Butyou rememberthatbeingused like that whenyou werea boy? 0h, yes. I wouldn'trefer to you as a chicano,for examp'le,you wouldn't
refer to meas a chicano,by anymeans, because that wasa distinct class entirely, the chicanosfron the SpanishAmerican or whateveryou
call it. First we hadthe SpanishAmerican, next camethe Mexjcan American. Andthen the peoplethat camehere from Mexjcoat that time neverdid want to becomeAmericans whatsoever, they just wantedto be
Mexicans.They were proud of beingMexicans; what for, I don't know. Mywife is fromMexico--she's an Americancitizen now--andsuff,ered
quite a bit in ilexico--nohousing, no iobs, no nothingfor the girls in Mexjcoata]l.Theyhavetocomeoverhere,YoUknow,dS-, for examp'le,and God only knowswhat happens to thosegirls. Thelow FLORIS Page18
wages they're paying them, they don't pay them hardly anything. And
you'11 find thousandsof people going to California becauseCalifornia
is a state where they can employ them. Thene ane fanms thene where
they can hire thesepeople, and othen places, of course.
M: Goingback to your high schoo'ldays, Mn. Flores,are there any particu- lar incjdentsthat standout in your m'indin high school?
F: No. I iust wentto schooland came back home to play just as fast as I could. I didn't like it at all. I neverdid care for high school here in El Pasoat that particular time.
M: Whatdo you rememberabout your neighborhood?
F: t,.lell,in our neighborhoodit wasdifferent. Wehad the tracks between
us all the t'ime,and they usuallydjd namethe southside /as7 the Mexicans'ide. Andmostly we always1 jved on the Americanside. Here
in El Pasothe Americanside wasfrom SanAnton'io Street or Delta, /Trorn/ SecondWard towards the north; that wasthe Americanside there. And we always1 jved there. But there weremany other people
fromthe north side.
/Pause/ G6"rnezwas l iving himself on the Mexicans'ide most of the time becausehe's got his businessthere, andhe got very much 'interested 'in with us, w'ithBow'ie H'igh School , LULAC'sdeal ings with Bow'ie.He hadhis boysand his g'i11sattend Bowie. I usedto crit'icize
him for it, I remember.I said, "Whatdo you meanby sendingyour kids to BowieHigh when you could sendthem to the north side any time you wantto." Henever did agreeto that. Hestayed firm, that he was goingto help Bowieand that h'is kids werego'ing to graduatefrom there. FLORES Page1 9
'l I sai d, "i^JelI , theyrl graduate but theyrl 1 get themselves probably Iike themto get."
/Pause/ M: Mr. Flores, I wantto askyou a questionabout the word"chicano." Whenwas the finst time that you heardthis word?
F: We]1,Irve heardthe word"chicano'r ever since I wasa very sma11boy. But, as I sa'id,the onesthat we referredto as chicanoswere people whowene very poor, and very untidy, and peopleof the worst sort, you know. Andthose, we referredas chjcanos. Theother peoplewere not referredas chicanosat all; they werereferred as Spanishor llexican
Americans.And, 1os marihuanos, we hada lot of manihuanosat that
time too, Vouknow. Theywere one of the classes that wereincluded
in the word"chicano." Theword "chicano" just poppedup just a few yearsago. Nowit's appljedto all membersof the Span'ishand Mexican race. Andthere's whereyou haveyour divisions, too. All thesepro- gramsthat you seeon the T.V.s, that you haveby Chicanosare terrible examplesof the Spanishand Mexican culture. Wedon't wantto see
thosekinds of shows;at least I don't wantto see them. I wantto
seesomething real nice, you know. lllehave njce things to presentto
the public. Thepeople who are managingthose programs, too, Vouknown
their Spanish/l!7 bad, andso js their Eng'lish. But the programsthem- selvesr you haveto havesome expert to take hold of those programsand presentto the public somethingthatrs nice aboutour people.
M: Howdo you feel aboutthe ChicanoMovement?
F. l,.Jell,what I felt aboutthe ChicanoMovement, this is whenit wascom'ing, I knewwhat was coming, because I wasright jn doingLULAC work and civic FLORES Page20
work at that t'ime. Andour policy was, as I told you before, that
LULACwould do a lot morefor our Mex'icanpeople if wewould continue doingwhat we did before, insteadof riots and th'is and the other. And
I knewthat as soonas these peoplewere to get hold of moneyto help the Chicanoalong, that this kind of Chicanoswere going to take over. AndI left LULACat just aboutthat tjme, becauseI thoughtthat whatthey shouldhave done was to havegiven the prominentLULACeTs and the people whohad beenworking before for so manyyears moneyjn order for them to continuetheir work, rather than just throwaway the moneyto people
who,wel1, werenot educated;they werenot peop'lewho could represent
your peopleat all. Andi thoughtthat there wouldbe rjots, andthis
andthe other, if we continuedto be doingfike the black peoplewere
doing. Fortunately,we haven'thad any of that here, excepton very few occasionsin Californiaand South Texas and so forth and so on. .|965, But thechangecame just about I bel'ieve,if I'm not mistaken,
andjust aboutthat time I left LULAC,because I d'idn't wantto be there to fight with anyof thosegroups. Frankly,speaking to you, I'll
say that, becauseI knewthat insteadof goingup wewere going to go down. But, however,there wasone thjng that we neverdid havebefore--
we nowhad money, Vou know, and previously these people couldn't have doneanything about our people'if they wouldhave worked jt all out on their own.
M: Doyou think the Ch'icanol4ovement has doneany good?
F: l,le11,I thought,and I st'ill think, that the Chicanolt{ovement has done 'cause a lot of good,of course, they havehad the moneyto do a few little thjngs, they haveexcited the peoplea ljttle b'it. But I FLORES Page21
rhought,and I sti'll think, that whatwe neededwas to be forceful, andthe only onesthat coulddo that wouldbe that kind of people,you
know,so they couldgetthepeople to seeexactly what's in their wards,
you know,and where they were1iv'ing. LtlLACswould have never...we
don't like to be paradingand saying, "I'm Chicano,"and having the Mexicanflag anda1l that baloney,you know. I knowthat that's the only wayto accompljshthings, becausesome big official fromWashington
told us, he says, "Riot, burn, or do whateveryou wantto, but do itl Becauseif you don't do it, andWashington doesn't see about you, you're lost." That's the wayhe talked to us.
M: Whowas that?
F: That wasHumphrey.
Ir4: Humphrey?
F: Yes, s'ir. Whenhe washere he told us that.
M: He told you to go out and demonstrate?
F. Demonstrate,that's right. /He sayg/, "If wedon't hearfrom you guys jn Washington,then you're lost. Dosomething that..."
M: Getsthe wordback?
F: That's right. AndI did believethat he wasright, because/s'ince the demonstrationr/now all the collegeshave preference for collegeeduca- tion for our people. I djdn't haveany trouble trying to get by boy
/Tnto col1ege/. Theygave him $.|0,000 in the Unjversityfor him to continuehis education. Just like that, he wentin there, becausehe
wasof a minority group. Andhe told me, he says, "That's the only way I can get somethingout of thesedoggone things, throughthe Chicano
Movement."He says, "In our school,what the whjtesare complaining FLORES Page2?
/aboui/ the mostis that the other people,the Chjcanosand the minority groupsare getting far muchbetter moneyand they're being pushedby
the governmentmore than the gringos." So he got in there that way;
'causehe knewwhat he wasdoing; but I did not knowwhat he wasdoing over there at the tjme. But I knownow that that's exact'lywhat helped hima1ong. If wedjdn't havethat movement,probably I wouldn'thave
gottenhim TiTnto co1legt. I hada I ittle _ _ , of course,
but I don't think I ever wouldhave gotten him in Columbia,anyhow.
M: In ColumbiaLaw School, right now?
F: Yeah.
M: Couldyou go backand tell meabout the different jobs that you've had sjnceyou've beena youth?
F: We11,I started beinga managerof an employmentagency, Arviso Company.
I wasbookkeeper and general manager, and I did everythingin the office.
But I wasthe managerbecause the ownerdidn't evenknow how to read, so I had to do all the work that wasto be done. ThenI went to the Army, as I said before,and jmmediatelyI wastaken into the office as a sec- retary of the adjutant and the commano'ingofficer; and the sergeant majorat that time wasa big o1d guy. Andthen I becamea medical stenographer,and doing autopsy work; djd a goodjob out of that. And then I left the Serviceas a sergeantand then I got a job as a Spanish-
/EnglishTstenographer with OraneBrothers in Nogales,Arizona. I stay- ed there for aboutsjx months. In the meantimethey called meback to the Army,to the medicaldepartment. Not tothe Army,I waswithin the
Armybut I wasa civilian employee.
M: Howlong wereyou in the Army? FLORES Page23
F: Twoyears and three months.
M: That wasduring l^lorldWar I? F: That's right.
M: Andthen they ca11edyou backas a civilian? tr. Theycalled meback as a civilian employee,yeah. Andthen they were building this newBeaumont General Hospital, then we rnoved from there to WilliamBeaumont General Hospital in July 1,1921, I bel'ieveit was. Andthen from there, I wasa bookkeeper,I wasa stenographer,I wasa Spanish-Englishtranslator, Andthen the hospital beganto grow andgrow. I hadbeen in chargeof a small groupof employees,so as the numberof employeesincreased. 0f counse,I haddifferent jobs
there to contendwith in the jobs I held there. As a civilian, I had the job as Analyst,Public Relations 0fficer, Placement0fficer, and
finally I becameDirector of Cjvilian Personnel.
M: For the wholehospital? For the wholehospital. Wehad there anytimefrom 300 up to 1500people.
trlhenyou first started workingin the hospital, whatpositions did Mexicansoccupy there?
l,le'|1,when I started workingat the hospital there, whenwe movedto Beaumont,we hadcooks, we hadassistant cooks, we hadlaborers, we hadmess attendants(who'd work in the mess),and we hadward atten-
dants (thosewho would work'in the wards)--inthe menialpositions.
Andmostly those that we employedwere /of/ Spanishor l4exicanextraction. Howwas the job situation in El Pasoat that time for Mexicans? That's whenyou first started workingat the hospital? No,192.|. But about1928,'29, thesepeople who were work'ing there' FLORES Page24
the Mex'icanpeople who were working there, wereactually getting good
salaries fon abouteight yearsduring the Depression.And you hadto be lucky to get a job, not only in BeaumontHospital, but also here in
town. In other words,there wasa terrific scarcity ofworkfor anybody.
So in the gradesthat I havetold you, I didn't haveany trouble try- ing to get very nice and intelligent SpanishAmerican people working for us, at the lowerwage; they wereglad to get'it. Andthen we kept on growing,and, of course,I hadthe fortuneof
hiring a lot of very nice peopleand I wastrying to get peoplein the
clerical positions, /FecauseZthey werethe onesthat werealways paid moreeverywhere. And I djd not knowhow to do it. I trjed several waysto put the fjrst one jn there. And I already related to you that
the only way I did it wasthat I hada very smartboy and the chief of
the medicalservice wanteda secretary, d stenographerthere for his place. So fromward attendant, I put this manthere as a secretary.
I knewhe wasvery, very capableof doing the job, and I just wanted to proveto themthat there werea few peopleof our extraction who coulddo the jobs. So, I put him there, andthen everybodywas asking
meto see if I could find a man/Tor thenl. Like the majorof the medicalservice there in the hospita'l, he says, "I w'ishyou'd get him, becauseI hearhe's a very goodman." "0hr" I says, "I got lots of peoplelike that. First chanceI get, I'.|1 put oneof themin there."
So that's the waythat I got /TtarteqT. OnceI put a manin there that wascapable of doingthe job andthey I iked well, r,rhy,jt wasan easy thing to put our peoplein anyof the positionsI hadin the hospital, becausethere weremany of them:carpenters, welders, drjvers of auto- FLORES Page25
mobiles;weli, there's lots of them,you know. AndI neverdid have any trouble placingour peoplethere at all. lv1: Duringthe Depression,MF.F'lores, I haveread that at timesMexicans
wenefired fromjobs so that theseiobs could be givento Anglos. Do you recal1 any of that?
F: Well, I waskind of 1ucky,I guess,because during the t'imethat I was there, nothingIi ke thatZ happenedat all. I wasa big cheesethere, andthey liked mevery much,and they told mewhat poljcies to follow, and I did follow themto the letter. Whenanything'like that cameup,
I wasthere to defendthese people--not as a MexicanAmerican, but as a workerin the job. I foundto mysatisfaction that if you treated
everyrace andeverybody the wayyou should,that you yourself will
neverget in trouble. Onceyou beginfavoring a certain groupor cer- tain people,why, then there's whereyour trouble begins. But, the
peoplethat I workedfor werevery well satisfied with mywork and they neverdid give meany trouble as far as that's concerned.I probab'ly wasvery, very'lucky.
Whatabout in the townitself, outs'ideof the hospital? Doyou recall any peopleunder that situat'ion--gettinglaid off so that Angloscould get their jobs? No. Therewere lots of thosecases, but I'm not intimately informed
about ftnefr. I knowwhat I read in the papersand whatwe heardin the LULACmeetings, which was the organjzationwe hadfor so manyyears. Severalthings l'ike that cameup; andthen if wecould help themout,
wed'id. Andwe were successful in mostof the casesthat we took up. Like in the railroads, there's plenty of recordsto showthat the Mexicans FLORES Page26
there wenevery muchdiscriminated upon. A,ndnot only nailnoadcompa-
nies, there werea lot of other companies.That was the habit of those
people,doing those things to the Mexicanpeople, anyhow. leausgT For example,in the rajlroads there wasa lot of discriminat'ion against employeesof Mexicanextnaction. Andthen it wasthe sameevery other p1ace,because that's the waythey usedto treat our peop'le. And 'it was...wehad to be sat'isfied. If you werenot satisf ied, they'd kick you out andh'ire somebodye1se. But specifjcally I don't remember any caseswhere that wouldhappen. I rememberabout the rajlroads becauseI had somefriends there that knewthey could neverget anywhere;
they hadto be apprenticesas long as they 1ived, there, without being promotedto better jobs.
M: Howdid the Depressionaffect you personal1y?
F: We11,I hadthe finest job. (Chuckles)It djdn't affect meany at all,
becauseI hada very goodjob. Youkept your job.
I kept myjob andwas being paid by the government,you know,and I thoughtI got alongjust swell. So it didn't affect meany at all. Howdid it affect the ttlexicancommunity in generalhere? lnle11,somet'imes I would be driving in a car, you know,and see someof
my friends with a hoe jn the'ir handsor a shovel in their handsr.-....-- who hadnever seen a shovelbefore. Andyou could see themon the streets everywhere.Ai1 your friends werein a hell of a shape. AndI knew that manylost their homes,for example.Not on'lyour peoplelost their homes;many of the Ang'loslost their homes,too. But there was FLORES Page27
no jobs and they hadto put this l^lPA jobs. Butthe
onesthat werehold'ing those jobs as usual wouldbe MexjcanAmericans. Youwouldn't see very manyAmericans holding those jobs. Theywere giving thembetter jobs, I suppose,because you wouldn'tsee themon the street workinglike the others. Whenyou see a certain class of
peopleiust workingLt-il centainlower jobs, you can imagineright away that there's discriminationsomewhere. M: In thosedays, did you go to Judrezmuch? F: Almostevery day. That waswhat we all usedto do--go to Judrezand comeback; haveone or two beersand then comeback over here to El Paso.
M: Youwent down there mainlyfor recreation,relaxation? 'Cause F: Just recreation,to talk to the friends over there. everybody
usedto meetfover thereT. Peoplefrom El Pasoused to be there, you know. Weused to meetour friends there in Judrez. Therewere very cord'ialrelations betweenthe Judrezpeople and the El Pasopeople at the time.
M: Did you do any shoppingover there?
F: No, there wasno needof us to be doingany shopping.We'd leave it up
LTgTthe peoplewho came to El Pasoto buy thoseold hats, Jou know, andthose little trinkets andlike that. But all our trade wasbeing donehere. Weused to go downthere to eat, of course, d lot of times;
but as Tfar as buyingTclothjng or shoesthere, I don't rememberany time wedid that. Andmy friends didn't do that either.
M: Duringthe era of Prohibition,did you go downthere often? 'm 'l Just as often as I tel i ng you. (Chuckles ) FLORES Page23
Ir1: Everyday? (Chuckles)
F: t,Jell, we usedto go downtownand meeteach othey, /_an!_7I says, "hlh.y
don't we go to Judrez?" That was the only thing we did that we enjoye.d
a lot. Rememberthat duringthose times, I think, you couldn't cross the bridgeafter 9:00o'clock, andsometimes the fellas, you know,they werea ljttle laie andthey hadto stay in Judrezfor that night. But then they changedit to l2:00 o'clock, if I'm not mistaken. Andthere werea lot of peoplewho would go acrossfrom here.
M: t^lasit pretty wild in Judrezin thosedays?
F: No, I don't think so. I neverthought that it waswild. Theyhad dancers,you know,and they hadshows, and there werea lot of American peoplethere whofrequented the shows. Yeah,I think that they were
moretolerant towardsthe tourist peopleat that time /Than7tfrey Li"{ nowin Judrez. I don't believethat I couldremember anything e'lse on
that scoreat all. In other words,all the peoplethat you cou'ldsee in Judrez,they werefrom this side. Theywere your friends; andbesides that, you hadfriends in Judrez. Andthere washostility, of course, againstour peoplehere, you know,like there alwayshas been,from
the Mexicancjtizens jn Judreztowards the peoplehere, especiallyif you're a MexicanAmerican. They have discriminated against you just for the reasonthat you are a gringo, andthey don't like it at all that you'vecome over hereand become a gringo. Youdon't hereabout it at all, of course. I hada friend (he looks like an Amer.'ican)and he got in trouble
with a policemanin oneof the dancehallsthere. Andthen he told the
po'liceman,"Este gringo estaba hablando en contrade nosotros,los FLORES Page29
mex'icanosr.Lpor 6sole Ei7 qn diab.la4o."Well, the policemantook the otherguy, and didn't takethis otherfellal But 'it wasa I iei
This fella wasa fighter andheljkedto get'involvedin things like that.
Mr. Flores,were you in E1 Pasoin l916? Yeah.
Doyou rememberthe time whenPancho Villa invadedColumbus, New Mexico? I washere in El Paso.
Therewere two things that happenedin the first part of that year that I wonderif you might remembersomething about them. In Januaryof 1916, PanchoVilla's troopskilled 18 engineersin SantaIsabel, Chihuahua. Someof thoseengineers were from El Paso,andtheir bodieswere shipped
here. El Pasoin generalwas very upset that that had happened.The Anglocommunity was very angryat PanchoVi11a, and at Mexicansjn
general,and at one time there werea thousandAng'los who organized
themselvesinto a moband they weremarching down to SouthEl Pasoto clean out the Mexicancommunity. Do you rememberanything about that?
F: That's newsto me. I knowthere's a lot of inc'identswhere Americans werekil1ed by PanchoVilla there in lt16xico,and that the peop'lewere very, very incensedabout it. But that particular caseabout the thou- sandmen, I don't rememberit. I washere.
M: WhenPancho Villa'invaded Columbus about two months1ater, E1 Pasowas againvery upset. F: Well, of course;a'll of the UnjtedStates was upset about that . That's the first time, I think, or the secondtime that the UnitedStates had been'invaded.(Chuckles) And it hadto be'invadedby a bunchof banditsl FLORES Page30
M: But you don't rememberanything about that?
No, I don't. i rememberonly that he wentin there andshot up the
townand then he left. Andthen Pershingwent after him and neverdid
catch him.
M: Mr. Flores,many Anglo Americans have always held the attitude that Mex'icansare lazy by nature.
M: That's right.
M: Whatdo you thjnk aboutthat?
F: That's the biggest1ie they ever told, because,in the first place, the
Mexicansthatwork--I don't knowabout now, but /The onesthat/ usedto work, laborersor what ever it was--werethe finest and best workers
they could fjnd anyplacein the world. Andall the hardwork and all the heavywork that we had herewas done by Mexicans. That neverwas doneby the gringosat all. Where'inthe heckcan they say a thing like that for? Whenyou wanteda job done... 0f course,there werea lot
of lazy guys,you know,l'ike in any race, but generallythe Mexican
Americanor Span'ishAmerican worker is a harderworker than the other raceshere because they hadto do it,I suppose.While the other people werelazy as hell, our peoplehad to work; becauseif they didn't work, why, they could kick themout of anyplacethey werework'ing. I've heard
of many,many cases where the Americanswere loafing on the ;ob when their fellow workerswho were Spanish Amerjcans were working l'ike hell,
and they knewthat 1Tnefrwere favored iust becausethey were whites. But defjnitely, I'm quite sure that all the peopleI hadthere at Beaumont--hundredsof people--I'd rather havepeople of myown race there than an AngloSaxon because the AngloSaxon wouldn't work, where FLORES Page3l
our peoplewould.
M: Did you ever hear anybodysay that Mexicanswere lazy?
F: 0h, I heardthat they werelazy and dirty andmany other nasty names
they called them. 0f course,we all heardabout it, evenfrom our AngloSaxon friends. Wehad to put themon the right track right after they sa'idit. M: I wantto ask you a fjnal quest'ion. Doyou th'inkthat Mexicansherein El Pasohave madesignificantprogress in the last few decades?
F: 0h, it's tremendous.Tremendously so. As i said before, the only thing
we had/"..g7 laborens here and farm workers. Nowyou can see every placeyou go to that there are a lot of our ownpeop'le making money.
Becausesuccess, according to mostof the people,means whether they're makingmoney or not; andthe peoplewho are makingmoney, they're suc-
cessful, andthe peoplewho do not makemoney, they're no good. But we havea lot of doctorsin town,we havea lot of professionalpeople
here , fike yourself, for example.We have lots of peoplehere who are
earninggood money. And I believe they havemade a tremendous$-rogresV. But the governmentactually has beenthe one that hasaccomplished this feat. Theyhave helped with the schools,they havehelped with
their iobs, they havehelped with manyprograms they have. And I even believethat the Negrocauses helped our peoplea heckof a lot, too, by the rights they had,and this andthe other, and pushingtheirselves
anddoing, and|naking others/ obeythe Constitution;we were talking about/that beforp-/,you know. 0f course,we don't see it here in the Southwestbecause there are very few Negroeshere. But you can see that'in the Northeastand the l^IestCoast that they are getting their FLORIS Page32
goodjobs nowand many of themhave better jobs than the whites can get' becauseof education. But it's beena hardclimb, anda lot of hardship
ro do that. But anybodycould tel'l you that that's so, that statement
is right. AndI believethat as weare a liitle moreeducated, we wjll growto higherheights. In this sectionof the countryhere, we have tlre governorsand havevery importantpeople good jobs, too.
M: Canyou think of a particular periodwhen you begannoticing that Mexi- canswere making significant change? Well, I think'it's sinceabout 10 yearsago; probablyit's a little less than that. I'm not sure, but duringthat period' I think it's .l960 ]965or to the presenttime, I'll say that they havemade sign'ifi-
cant changesto their advantage.
M: Wouldyou say that up to WorldWar II thenewas very little progress?
F: I surelywould. That'swhen our peoplebegan to be muchbetter off than
they hadbeen before. That war, for somereason or other, changedthe whole aspectof the situation. AndI think it wasvery significant
becausewhen these soldiers went to other countrjes,we were supposed
to think fthey wereZsuperior to us, you know. Andthen when/we7 tried to savethem, you know,and trjed to help themout, they knewthat there wasno suchthing as thosepeople being any better than the people that wentfrom here. So I believethat that invasionof Europeand Asia put thesepeop'le on the alert, andthat js whenthey beganto showthat they werenot the peoplewho were just going to workas laborers. They
all begana little higherby that time, I think, in the iobs. Manyof the peopleI hadat Beaumontbecame officers fromward attendants, from FLORES Page33
messattendants. Fromthe lowest gradein employment,they became offi cers.
M: Whatk'ind of off icers?
F: Armyofficers. Theydemonstrated to theseofficers that they werepretty
goodpeople who could do the iob iust as well as anybodyelse. But the questionis thatthey hadn't giventhem before that liberty wherethey couldemploy those important jobs. But thene'smany of the peoplevvho, oh, I guessby the thousandshere jn El Pasowho have advanced a great deal just becausethey gavethem the chancenow. Previously,no chance wasgiven to themat all.
M: Whatabout World War I? Whydidn't the samething happenin l,lorldhlar I?
F: I haven'tgot the least idea. But I didnrt seeany changeright after i^lorldldar I at all. I wasin it. Probablythat's the reasonI didn't
get to see howthe peoplewere getting a1ong.
M: Werethere that manyMexicans in l,,lorldl,rlar I? Comparedto l,.lorldhlar II,
wouldyou say there wererelatively few in the Service? tJell, I don't knowabout those figures at all, I haven'tgot the least 'idea. But I think that they hadmost of the Mex'icanpeople here in the city in the Armyboth in the First t,.Iarand the SecondWar. Espe- c'ia11ywhen they hadthe drafts, you--they'ddraft you andyou'd go. Andof course,they realizedthat the Mexicanswere just as goodfighters as any fighters in the wholeworld. Theyfound out by the reports given at that time by generalsand everybody else. I've run out of questions. Doyou haveanything else that you wantto addto the interview? I haven'tgot the I east (Laughter) FLORES Page34
M: Well, I wantto thankyou very muchfor taking your t'imeto talk to me
and sharesome of your experienceswith me.