Joel Zapata: A judge that was an office holder,
has anyone else been able to reach the public office?
-: I was commissioner, I was County commissioner,
but I was appointed.
I was appointed when a commissioner was,
he left his seat and I was a us appointed by the judge,
by the County judge to be commissioner.
Then I ran.
I went ahead and ran for a term, full term.
And that's when, one of,
Manny Perez who was there for many years until he died.
He ran against me.
He ran against me and, you know,
it was hard for women then, you know,
I remember when we used to go to meetings,
to commissioner meetings, it would be myself,
and it would be one judge from a little town here.
And I know Ann Richards was there,
as a commissioner from Houston,
but it was like four women that we were in office
in the whole state of Texas.
The rest were men, you know?
And so it was hard in those days for women to get elected.
But yes, from that time to now,
there's been a lot of people that have held seats,
political seats.
We have Nancy Vasquez, who was a,
she was in the County, Potter County.
I wanna say, just as a piece,
she was Potter County just as a piece.
And we had Abe Lopez who's a judge.
And we have, we had, we have a judge,
and her last name is Esteves, but she comes from Uruguay.
She's just not really native from here or, you know.
Latinos, I mean, she's Latina, but she's from Uruguay.
And then, I'm trying to think, there's been, oh yes.
Now we have a commissioner, Marcy Murguia.
And she was a little girl when I was in the commission.
Now she's, you know, she's one of the commissioners.
That makes us very happy to see
some of these young people just, you know,
get into this positions.
But that's, it's not easy.
In County, seats is not hard because you've got your seat.
It's divided in four and you just campaign in your area.
And most of the time you can get whoever the majority is
in that area.
And so you can get at least one commissioner.
And the city council, we have Liliska Herna.
Liliska Herna has been a city commissioner,
and she's also been in Amarillo College Board of Regents.
And,
so, you know, we've had a few,
that have served in political seats in.
Joel Zapata: Can you talk about how it was really hard
for women especially in the eighties to be in politics,
not just in this area, but throughout the state.
Was it, did you find it hard to be,
as a business woman, did you face any difficulties?
Whether it was the eighties or now?
-: Oh, I found it, because I was CEO of the radio station,
and also, you know I was working with the other businesses
that we owned.
Yes, I saw it hard.
In this area, you've got the good old boy.
You know, hey girl, how you doin?
That kind of stuff, and it's always looking down
to the women like, well.
I remember one commissioner told me one day
when I was at this conference, he said, well, commissioner,
you wanna go to my room, come on over.
And I thought, well, what do you think you are, you know?
And I stood up for myself,
and the other commissioners that were man commissioners,
my partners, they were like, oh yeah,
they couldn't believe it.
So you got a lot of that.
People thought, well, you know, she's a woman
and they had a totally, totally wrong approach,
to how, to women's related the, I mean,
they just didn't think women were worth anything.
So I suffered some of that because I was a woman.
Now my co-commissioners, the ones that served with me,
and the judge, not at all, very, I worked well with them.
But when it came to the overall, you know,
when you're talking about 119 commissioners, man,
and my husband would have to go with the women
to their outings because he, I was the commissioner,
and he went with me to the meetings or conferences
or whatever.
And he would have to go in the bus with all the women.
To tour Dillard's and Saks Fifth Avenue
and all those places, and.
And it's really interesting because
that's not heard of, you know.
In fact, the commissioner would say,
Commissioner Medina, they would really render a lot
of attention to my husband.
My husband will say, I'm not the commissioner, my wife is.
Well then, they were not interested anymore.
They'd, you know, if they could talk to my husband
then they didn't really wanna talk to me.
So there was a lot of that
during the time that I served as commissioner.
Joel Zapata: What other (indistinct) written
newspaper articles about you that you've served in
several board of directors, can you name some of them?
-: Yes, I served in a lot of boards.
There's the red cross.
I also served in the Lonestar Ballet.
I served in United Way, Food Bank,
all of those places, you know,
that, where I could help because I wanted to,
to be a form of information.
You know, people don't know in the Hispanic communities
many times was available.
And I felt like if I could become more aware
and have more context and more knowledge of who was in there
that could make a difference, then I wouldn't have to,
people wouldn't have to suffer, not knowing.
Because when they don't know, they lack a lot.
And so by me, knowing, I was able to say, oh no, you know,
you can go here, you can go there, you can do this.
And I know so-and-so in such place and, you know,
and you can talk to them and tell them that I sent you.
And things like this, you know, networking for them.
And I did a lot of that.
So I did serve in a lot of, of boards and I'm sure
that I can get a list and just go through it, but a lot.
And that's the reason I did it.
Because I wanted to serve as some kind of communication
person to the community, the Hispano-Chicano community,
and the Anglo, because sometimes the non-Hispanics,
they really don't know.
And they have a totally different idea
of what we're all about, you know.
I meant to me, why is there so many Marias in one house?
You know, I went in, they're all Marias.
And their brothers are all Jose, you know.
And they don't understand that in Spanish,
that is how you did no gender, I mean,
if it's a woman it's Maria Guadalupe.
If it's a man, it's Jose Guadalupe.
That's how they determine if it's a male or female,
because a lot of the names are used both for men and women.
And so they have all these ideas that
they're not sure about.
So there's gotta be some kind of bridge, you might say,
to connect people,
in order for them to understand each other.
But it takes a long time.
And I did what I could.
And like I said, that was my main reason
for joining a lot of the boards.
Because I felt, if I'm there,
I can be of help to other people.
I can be of help to the non Spanish speaking,
as well as the Mexicanos, Chicanos,
I can guide them and let them know where things are.
Especially through Centro Gomez,
we were able to do a lot of that.
Joel Zapata: Well, a little bit that goes hand in hand
to communicating with me kind of community,
is something that you turn me or your off-camera about
you and your husband trying to preserve the area's
Mexican American history.
And could you tell me and open about your own project
that you're talking about, as was your husband?
-: You know, we have been to the museum in Canyon.
And we have a very good friend
that worked at the museum and she was always so good
about letting the Hispanic organizations and everybody know
that there was a need, you know, for Spanish,
for material on people who are of Mexican descent
or Spanish descent in this area.
And her name is Betty Bustos.
And she said, you know, if we could just have,
something at the museum that would give us an idea
of who all has been through here because we have nothing.
And so my husband, I started back in 80, I guess it was 86.
He started you know, looking into the history of the barrio.
And so he started writing about it,
and he started interviewing people that had been here,
since 1989,
1990?
1989, no, 1980.
1889.
And, you know, he was talking to them and their children
and they would let us know
where the first little school was built.
And what happened, you know, in those days,
what did they used to do?
And so he started taking notes and pretty soon
he had a lot of material and decided, you know,
this is something we need to do,
because this could easily be in the museum.
And so he still has that project.
And he's talked with a friend of his who is going to edit
the chapters that he's got written.
And I have started this project that I've been working
on this for maybe, let's see, about four, no.
I'm gonna say about nine years, maybe.
And it's what I wanna do is design cards.
They're like coaster cards,
that type of card, little square cards.
And in the front, it'll have the picture of women
that lived in the Mexican barrio.
The majority came here because of the railroad
with their husbands.
And in the back, we would have the name of the woman,
what she contributed to this part of Texas.
And if she contributed 12 children,
well then, we'd have the name of the 12 children.
If she contributed to,
if she was like a teacher at the church, you know,
got the kistad, you know, teaching religion.
If she, there was lots of women that got involved
with organizations in those days, like La Cruz Azul
which eventually came to be at centro Mexicano
and things like that.
A lot of women that contributed.
That's what I'm doing.
So right now I'm talking to their daughters, granddaughters.
And the name of the collection would be
Las Donias de mi Barrio.
It takes a lot of time because I have to go to the families,
I have to go to their daughters and ask if it's okay
that I can interview them.
And also that I can get a picture of their mother
or grandmother to put in the collection.
And what I would like to do is do those sets of cards
and so that people could buy them and keep them, you know,
for their families, you know.
You know, your grandmother was here,
great grandmother was in this group.
And at the same time, have big pictures of each Donia
to put in the museum.
And just show the contribution that Mexican women have made
in the Amarillo area.
And they continue to make contributions.
And this situation could go on and on and on.
Las Donias in mi barrio will never end because, you know,
when I started doing this, I wasn't a Donia yet, I thought.
But, you know, my mother was not alive anymore,
but a lot of my friends' mothers were still alive.
And so I hope that with this,
and just like my husband hopes that book,
we'll be able to be somewhere.
And I know we're not covering every area because, you know
it'd be wonderful that we could cover the migrant area,
I worked in the migrant camps, you know, a lot.
I worked in Plainview, Lubbock area, Herford, you know,
in the migrant camps, teaching.
And I know what people went through
and I wish I could incorporate that,
but it would be such an enormous job.
But I would like to see more people become interested
in accumulating information and make it available, you know
to our children, and their children,
and also to the people in the area, in the community.
I think that that would be wonderful,
because there's nothing.
At the museum in Canyon, there's zero.
And it's a nice museum, and we could have a lot.
If we can finish things like this, yeah.
Joel Zapata: That's a wonderful project.
And I really hope you can finish it.
And that people in the museum will collaborate.
But within all of this, you mentioned a few other things,
and you've mentioned centro Mexicano several times,
that came from La Cruz Azul, correct?
Could we talk a little bit about that, where it was?
Just so, because you've mentioned it several times,
so we know where it is.
-: Okay, La Cruz Azul was an organization that was founded,
let's see, I'm gonna say in the thirties and forties.
And then it just went into the centro Mexicano.
They bought some land, they build a little building
and that's where they had, you know, Mexican meals,
and they would sell comida Mexicana to make money,
to celebrate Las Fiestas Petraeus and all that.