University of Texas at El Paso ScholarWorks@UTEP Combined Interviews Institute of Oral History 11-18-1975 Interview no. 212 Charles V. Porras Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.utep.edu/interviews Part of the Oral History Commons, and the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Interview with Charles V. Porras by Oscar J. Martinez, 1975, "Interview no. 212," 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]. UNIVERSITYOFTEXAS AT EL PASO INSTITUTEOFORAL HISTORY I NTERVI E'''lEE : CharlesV. Porras (1901- ) I}ITERVIEbIER: 0scarJ. Martfnez PROJECT: Ricentpnnial .|8, .|975 DATEOF II\TERVIEI,J:November TERI4SOF USE: Unrestricted TAPENO.: ?12 TRANSCRIPTIIO.: 212 TRAIISCRIBIR: RhondaHartman ,|8, DATETRANSCRIBED: March 1976 BIOGRAPHICALSYNOPSIS OFINTERVIEI{EE: LongtimeE1 Pasoresident. SUi.ii'IARYOF II.ITERVIEN: Biography;shooting at Zeiger'sSaloon in early E1 Paso;experiences at Beall Elementaryand El PasoHigh schools; Anglo/Mexican relations; experiencesin the Navy;Young Men's Democratic Club; LULAC;Marcos B. Armijo Post; civil rights work; workwith the FederalEmergency Relief Administration;Ciudad Judrez during Prohibition; the MexicanRevolu- tion; the word"Chicano"; zoot-suit riots in LosAngeles; political campaignof Rep.Edward Roybal of California; attitudes towardthe ChicanoMovement. 2 hours. 38 pages. CHARLESV. PORRAS M: This interviewis beingconducted at the homeof Mr. CharlesV. Porras, 9048Geranium Street, El Paso,Texas. NovemberlB, 1975. Interviewing is OscarMarti'nez from U. T. EI Paso. First, Mr. Pomas,can you tell mewhen and where you were born? .|3, .|90]. P: El Paso,Texas, July M: Couldyou tell mea little bit aboutyour parents'background? P: Myfather wasJacinto Pomas. He camehere whenhe wasthree years o1d from SanAntonion Texas. His father usedto drive a packtrain from SanAntonio to SantaFe, NewMexico. 0n the last trip that he made,he waskilled at AntonChicoo New Mexico. His motherand his sister were stayingat SanEJizario with Mrs. Ellis at the old Ellis Storeand Mill there. tttyfather cameto El Pasoon the first train that camethrough SanEl izario. M: Thatwas in lBBl? P: I don't recall the date, but he wasjust a youngboy. Hecame to El Paso and he settled here aroundwhat is DurangoStreet today. That wasthe nameof the district--Durango;right by the old SantaFe depotwhich js about 2 blocks from the Uniondepot today. I wasborn at the corner of West0verland and LeonStreet. Myfather hada grocerystore there. M: Did your father ever talk abouthis experienceswhen he first cameto El Paso? P: 0h yes, Ves. Hewas quite free with his talk abouthis experienceshere. Hewas in the drayage businessand also in the grocerybusiness, so he camein contact with everybodythat wasin bus'inessand a lot of the PORRAS old-timepoliticians andthe pub'lic-spiritedmen around town. M: Whatare someof the things that you rememberyour father talking about of those early days? P; [He usedto talk about] the old shootingscrapes that they usedto have on the streets. In fact, he recal'ledvery vividly a shootingscrape that they had on the corner of 0regonand Texas Street, it is now. There usedto be an old bar there. I think it wasthe Zieger Bar. Theowner of the bar wasa memberof the old DocHolliday andWyatt Earp igroup]. DocHolliday and somebodyelse shot'it out or had a scrapewith the bar- tender at that particular bar. Theyshot it out in the street. My father at that time wascoming from the SheldonHotel; he waspicking up somebaggage on one of his transfer wagons,and he witnessedthat. He witnessedseveral, but that is the onethat stoodout morevividly in his mind. M: Did your father tal k aboutthe relations betweenMexicans and Anglos during thosedays? Verydefinitely. Whatdid he say? Myfather v'rasone man that believedthat regardlessof nationality, you werea man. If you werean honestand goodman, it madeno difference to him [whatyour nationality was]. Hedidn't cowtowto the so-called "white superiority" here. But in thosedays, there werevery few of our people,unfortunate'ly, that had the gumptionto stand up for what they thoughtwas right. In other words,they gaveway to the old tejano sty'le of treating the paisanoshere. Thepaisano was looked up- on as just a coupleof degreesabove the Negro. Myfather had lots of argumentsabout that; my father wasvery outspoken. He also be- camea joiner in the existing fraternal ordersand clubs that existed PORRAS at that time, trying to get our peopleto be representedas they should be. He wasa great friend of the Escajedafamily and Montoyas,and the old political leadersof our people. Hedefinitely v'lasvery muchashamed of the wayour peoplecowered behind...you might say, they acteddumb. It isnrt that they didn't knowthat they wereentitled thesethings, but they feared for physical hurt from the majority of the so-ca11edAnglos. Becausein thosedays, shootingdown a Mexicanwas not lookedupon as any serious crime. Myfather wasvery, very muchopposed, naturally, to that; but he also went out and tried to do somethingabout it. M: Did your father ever tell you of any specific incidentsthat gavean indication of the relations betweenMexicans and Anglos that he was involvedin? P. Yes. Oneof the best cafei in El Pasoat that time [was]Zieger's on the corner of Oregonand 0verlandStreet. He and a coupleof his cronies fromone of thesemutual aid societies--LaProtectora, I think, wasthe name--hada meetingon SouthStanton and Fifth Street. 0n the wayback to townthey stopped'inat Z'ieger'sto get a bite to eat. Theywere told-- not po1ite1y, but very forceably--to get out. Theywere properly dressed and they had plenty of money. But the fact was that they were told plainly that Mexicansweren't being served there at that time. That wasZieger's. And, incidental'ly,Zieger was of Germanextraction. The Englishthat he spoke--huh!He couldn't evenspeakr you might say, the English language. But he consideredhimself a better Americanthan our people. Whatdid your father do? tllell, he wasall for tak'inga pokeat...in fact, he did take a pokeat the waiter who,unfortunate'ly, was also one of our people;but fhe was] PORRAS doing his job. By that time the other two hauledh'im away. That was a very commonincident. M: Whatdo you rememberabout your childhoodhere in El Paso? P: I can rememberfrom the time that I was about 6 years old. My uncle used to bring medowntown from DurangoStreet to El PasoStreet to get myhair cut. I'll neverforget [this]. Mycousin was a youngfel'low, maybeabout 5 years older than I at the time. In order to savetime walking,he usedto cut acrossthe railroad track, the railroad yards, wherethe SantaFe freight depot is. That's about7th and SantaFe. Weused to cut off from there over to what is nowCharles Street. He usedto bring meunder the cars there. A lot of times they wereshunting cars. But that wasny first recollection--comingdown to El PasoStreet to get myhair cut. AndI also rememberselling papersat the corner of El Pasoand SanFrancisco Street. Thereused to be a Snyder'sMarket on the corner. There'swhere I met all of the importantpeople'in thosedays, like Mr. S. J. Fellmanwho was our leadingphotographer, and Mr. Pitmanwho was an Alderman. "UncleHenry" Ke'l1y was Mayor. Al1 of the other peopleused to comeby and used to buy a paper off of me, simplybecause they liked the waythat I usedto speakEnglish. That wasit. M: Couldyou speakEnglish well? P: 0h, I spokeEnglish I guesssince I started talking. M: Did you speakSpanish in the homeat all? P: Both. tW father usedto speakboth. M: Wasthat unusual,living whereyou lived? P: Yes,yes; very unusual. That is oneof the reasonswhy our old-timers heredid not speakEnglish well. Their folks persistedin using Spanish andnot usingany English at all unlessthey hadto. You'renot old PORRAS enoughto remember,but the Eng'lishthat they usedto speakdown there wasterrible--half Englishand half Spanish--becausethey wereashamed to talk it. Oneof the commonexpressions, when you spoketo one of thoseold die-hards[was], "Yo no habloperro, yo habloespafr'ol." That's howbad it wasin certain sections. M: "Perro"stood for English? P: Yes, Yes. In fact, whenwe werein grammarschool, we usedto haveto fight. In 1912,when the Revolutionstarted over there andall of those refugeescame over here, we whowere born here and werefluent in the 'language wehad to fight thosekids fromover there--I meanphysically; becausethey usedto call us "agringados."And we hadto force the languageon them. M: Therefugee kids called you "agringados"? D. 0h yes. M. Howdid that makeyou feej ? P: It mademe feel goodbecause it wasjust an excuseto punchsomeone in the nose;and naturally I got punched,too. But I got a special kick out of [it for] this reason: there werea few teachersthat we had in thosedays who did not evenknow anything about Spanish. So, I wasat Beall School,and Miss Praterpicked myself and another friend of mine, AlexanderBull, as teachersfor thesekids. Someof themwere 17 and 18 years o1d. Theywere wonderfully educated, but they didn't knowany Englishat all. Sowe usedto be the Eng'lishteachers. Andwe took great delight in runningthe roughshodover a lot of them. So I got a bangout of it. Yousound like you hadsome kjnd of a fiqhting spirit in you. Yes;oh yes. I guessit's the Indianblood in me. i wasquarrelsome. I admitthat--I wasquarrelsome. PORRAS M: Wheredo you think that camefrom? P: tvlyfather. M: Howdid your father influenceyou? P: Myfather wasa very, very strict man;but his principal idea wasthat as long as I wentto school, I hadeverything that I wanted. In other words,I hadfine clothes, a goodbicycle. WhenI wasl0 years old he set meup in the grocerybusiness. I meancompletely. Hebujlt mea building, stockedit, andturned it over to me. I fwould]come back from schooland tend to the store; I wasthe buyer, the bookkeeper,and everythinge1se.