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Linda Vallejo, Interview with Karen Mary Davalos, August 20 and August 25, 2007, Los Angeles, California

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Linda Vallejo, Interview with Karen Mary Davalos, August 20 and August 25, 2007, Los Angeles, California CSRC ORAL HISTORIES SERIES NO. 2, NOVEMBER 2013 LINDA VALLEJO INTERVIEWED BY KAREN MARY DAVALOS ON AUGUST 20 AND 25, 2007 Linda Vallejo lives and works in Los Angeles. She received a BA from Whittier College and an MFA from California State University, Long Beach, and she studied lithography at the University of Madrid, Spain. Vallejo’s paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture, and installations have been exhibited throughout the United States and are represented at the National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago; the Carnegie Art Museum, Oxnard, California; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Her papers are archived at the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives, University of California, Santa Barbara, and reproductions of her work are archived at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Library. Karen Mary Davalos is chair and professor of Chicana/o studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Her research interests encompass representational practices, including art exhibition and collection; vernacular performance; spirituality; feminist scholarship and epistemologies; and oral history. Among her publications are Yolanda M. López (UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press, 2008); “The Mexican Museum of San Francisco: A Brief History with an Interpretive Analysis,” in The Mexican Museum of San Francisco Papers, 1971–2006 (UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press, 2010); and Exhibiting Mestizaje: Mexican (American) Museums in the Diaspora (University of New Mexico Press, 2001). This interview was conducted as part of the L.A. Xicano project. Preferred citation: Linda Vallejo, interview with Karen Mary Davalos, August 20 and August 25, 2007, Los Angeles, California. CSRC Oral Histories Series, no. 2. Los Angeles: UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press, 2013. CSRC Oral Histories Series © 2013 Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Interview © 2007 Linda Vallejo. Do not reproduce without permission. THE CSRC ORAL HISTORIES SERIES The CSRC Oral Histories Series publishes the life narratives of prominent Chicano and Latino figures. The life narratives have been recorded and transcribed, and the interviewer and interviewee have reviewed and corrected the transcriptions prior to publication. These oral histories are often undertaken as part of a larger research project and in tandem with archival collections and library holdings. CSRC ORAL HISTORY SERIES PROJECTS L.A. Xicano documents the history of Chicana/o art in Los Angeles with a focus on artists, collectives, and art organizations. The project resulted in new museum and library exhibitions, public programs, archival collections, and scholarly publications. These efforts were part of the Getty Foundation initiative Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A., 1945–1980. The project received support from Getty Foundation, Annenberg Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and California Community Foundation. Related support includes funding from Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, AltaMed Health Services Corporation, Entravision Communications Corporation, Walt Disney Company, and individual donors. A Ver: Revisioning Art History stems from the conviction that individual artists and their coherent bodies of work are the foundation for a meaningful and diverse art history. This book series explores the cultural, aesthetic, and historical contributions of Chicano, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, and other U.S. Latino artists. The A Ver project is made possible through the generous support of Getty Foundation, Ford Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Joan Mitchell Foundation, JPMorgan Chase Foundation, and The Rockefeller Foundation. The LGBT and Mujeres Initiative seeks to increase archival and oral history holdings that document the Chicano/Latino presence in LGBT and women’s histories, the role of women and LGBT people in Chicano/ Latino histories, and the importance of gender, sexuality, and ethnicity in “mainstream” scholarly research and archival institutions. The project receives generous support from the Ford Foundation and individual donors. ARTISTS INTERVIEWED FOR THE L.A. XICANO PROJECT Judy Baca Charles “Chaz” Bojórquez David Botello Barbara Carrasco Leonard Castellanos Roberto “Tito” Delgado Richard Duardo Margaret Garcia Johnny Gonzalez Judithe Hernández Leo Limón Gilbert “Magu” Luján Monica Palacios John Valadez Linda Vallejo INTERVIEW WITH LINDA VALLEJO August 20, 2007 .........1 August 25, 2007 ........65 AUGUST 20, 2007 Linda Vallejo: It’s great to be here. Thank you for coming, Karen. Karen Mary Davalos: This is Karen Mary Davalos interviewing Linda Vallejo on August 20, 2007. Linda, I wanted to start by talking about your family, because from what I learned the last time, you have very interest- ing family experience. I’m very curious to know more about your father going to UCLA, and where you grew up. LV: Well, I was born in Boyle Heights in 1951 at the Chinese hospital; it was razed a few years later, I actually saw an article about it in the LA Times, I need to look it up. I’m very proud of being born in Boyle Heights; to me that’s significant. The heart of East LA, if you will: the oldest part. Right across the river from Olvera Street. My mother’s parents lived on Record Avenue, which is just a stone’s throw away from Self Help Graphics. And I spent much of my very early childhood at the house on Record Avenue. Actually, Ofelia Esparza grew up on the very same street and is a friend of my mother’s, and knew my mother when my mother was a little girl—Helen Muñoz, her maiden name, Muñoz. And my father’s family lived on Frasier, a stone’s throw away from Garfield High School. You could see the school actually from the backyard. And my father’s father, Aniceto Vallejo, was a musician, a pianist, a violinist, and a percussionist and he was a lyricist, and I grew up in a house full of music as a little girl, on my father’s side. And several of my great-aunts from México, in Tejas, played instruments as well. Electric violins and electric mandolins. And so Christmas celebrations were always filled with tons of live music in my father’s home. His mother, Alvira, Grandma Vera, as we called her, worked—cleaned railroad cars for the Union-Pacific Railways, and my grandfather, Aniceto, also worked for the railways. There’s a picture of Aniceto as a conductor on a train, and that’s what he did as his day job, and then was a musician. I had [three] great-grandparents until I was eighteen years old, so I was very fortunate to know my great-grandparents intimately. I knew three great-grandparents on my mother’s side, and my great-grandmother Lola on my father’s side— [break in audio] KMD: We’re starting up again; we had to get that phone call. So Linda’s telling me about her great-grandmother Lola. LV: Yes, she lived right around the corner, actually right in front of Garfield High School, and she had five husbands. She was a very active woman. My father’s mother’s maiden name was Cabazos, so my father’s name is Adam Cabazos Vallejo. And my grandmother—there’s so many stories I could share about my great-grandparents. I have many stories about them that I’m very fond of. My mother’s grandmother, Elena [Maldonado], was really a very strong and beautiful woman; she looked very indigena, in the sense she was very small, she had very long braids; she wore sort of felt moccasins and very long skirts. I grew up with her, actually, when my parents were very young—my parents had me when they were very young, in the back house on Record Avenue, and I spent many, many hours with her, and was I there when she passed away. I believe that a lot of my strength comes from her and her ability to make it through very difficult times. KMD: So, she was like the caretaker for you while your parents were off at work? 1 CSRC ORAL HISTORIES SERIES LV: I had three mothers [on each side of my family]. I always say that: my mom, my grandmother, and my great-grandmother on one side, and then my grandmother and my great-grandmother on the other. So I’m surrounded by a lot of really strong women, which I think is sort of indicative of my character and my attitude. [My mother’s family] came from very, very poor backgrounds, just like every other Chicana you ever met; they worked in the fields. My mother picked fruit as a young girl. She only had but one skirt and two blouses and one pair of shoes as a little girl, and two pairs of socks. They— KMD: Did they migrate up and down the coast, or . LV: I don’t know whether they migrated or not, but I know that my mother was born in Concord, which is the grape capital, if you will. She was born in Concord, and when she was very small, they put her in a “tina” in the fields, wrapped in a blanket, and she got burnt from the summer sun, in the “tina.” It’s like an old story of my mother’s, because my mother’s very olive-skinned, she’s very dark like me, and she got the name after that as the dark one. KMD: They called her negra? LV: Negra, they called her negra. And she is negra, and my mother’s an incredible, incredible person; she is just a great role model. My mom’s fabulous. And so I have lots of memories of my great-grandmother and my great-uncles and aunts. My great-grandmother lost her two sons, Michael and Lawrence, in World War [II]; they’re buried in Evergreen Cemetery. And their pictures are still on their gravestones, and I can find them.
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