-: This is Jorge Zapata with the Civil Rights
in Black and Brown Oral History project.
We are in Odessa, Texas.
It is July 16th, 15th excuse me.
2016.
And we're here in Odessa with Feliz Abalos.
Feliz Abalos excuse me.
And Feliz
I want to start the interview by asking you when
and where you were born, what your parents did.
And if you can tell us your experiences
as a child and a young adult while you were growing up here.
-: Okay.
I was born here in Odessa, Texas in 1979.
I was the second child to my parents who are
were Richard and Delma Abalos.
I had an older brother Angel
and then eventually a younger sister, Andrea.
And-
I was, I was born and raised in the same house.
We've lived there.
My parents still live there.
They, my mom was born and raised here in Odessa.
My dad was born and raised
in a community outside of Odessa
and came here for-
to go to junior college
and here being Odessa.
So he had been in the community forever.
In fact, he came back after he did junior college
and eventually University of Texas
and then law school at St. Mary's.
He came back to become
the first Hispanic attorney in town.
And so by the time I was born
they were both well-known.
And knew tons of people.
And so growing up in the community was always an adventure.
There was always people
you knew people all over the place and running around.
There was always some
besides the fact that they knew people.
We had, my mom had nine brothers and sisters.
My dad had 14 brothers
and sisters and they all have children.
And so there were cousins
and aunts and uncles all over the place.
We always knew we'd run into someone.
Growing up in Odessa was fun.
I know that I'm blessed to have grown up
in an area where all my family was and in a family that is
so that was so close and is so close.
My-
we would- we- Oh
my parents always had someone to take care of us.
There was always a cousin's house or aunt or grandma.
And if you went to grandma's house
there were always cousins there.
There was always somewhere for us to be.
We were always taken care of and watched by, by family.
And I know that that is not something that everybody has
and it seems to be something that is really important
in Hispanics, in the Hispanic families.
And it's really the older I get
the more I treasure the fact
that we had all of that.
There was always someone to help.
I am married now.
And when we moved
my husband's always like, "Well, we need to, you know
hire movers or we need to hire someone to do this."
We just, No, I've got family
and that's what
they're there for they'll come help us.
Or, you know, you break down on the side
of the road, you've got someone, you always
have someone you can call.
And many someones' usually.
So it's been great to have to grow, to come back
to my hometown, where I have so much family.
And a lot of people have moved off and, and we miss them
but they come back all the time.
And so not everybody's still here
but people are remained close.
I said that I- it's been good
to come back after I graduated.
I graduated from Odessa high school
actually a semester early.
So I graduated in December of 1996.
And in 1990, January of 97, I spent the spring semester
at Sul Ross University in Alpine.
I stayed there for a year
and then came back to, to Odessa
to attend Odessa college.
And then kind of regroup and decide what I wanted to do.
So I stayed at Odessa college for a spring and a summer.
And then the next fall I started
at the University of Houston.
And I did end up graduating from there
in 2001
with a degree in corporate communications.
After that I went to,
I went, I came back
and once again had to regroup but it's great
to have a place to come back and regroup to.
And not only have my parents still lived
in the same house that we always lived in
and always welcomed all of us back.
And any other relatives that needed a place to stay.
But my dad has also had this law office
the exact same one since I can remember.
And so, and there's always been a job here for me.
I started working at my dad's law office when I was
in the summer after seventh grade.
And I will put working in quotation marks.
I couldn't drive.
So I came into work whenever he did
and left whenever he did and took lunch whenever he did.
And I don't know how the other secretaries felt about that.
Which by the way, a couple of them were my cousins, but-
but every summer I did it.
And it was, it
it wh- I know that it was a nice job to have.
I know that I was lucky that my dad was a lawyer
and not any of the other things he could have been.
In fact, before he was a lawyer.
I know that he spent a little bit of time himself working
out in the farms and, you know, being a busboy.
And there's all these other jobs that I know
would have been a lot harder than the Texas summer heat.
So I know I was lucky to be able to have that job.
But every summer from the time
I was in seventh grade to the time I graduated.
I would come and work here at my dad's office.
So I always knew that if in times of need.
I could come back and have a space here
to collect, and to do things.
And so after I graduated from college with a degree
in corporate communications.
Considering I'd never been in a corporation
or any sort of business field
kind of knew my- my options were a little limited.
So once I graduated and
didn't know quite what I was going to do with myself.
I came back home.
And worked for my dad and kind of picked up things.
And at that time it was a
and it was-
it was about to be in a gubernatorial election season.
And Tony Sanchez was running.
And the Ector County Democratic Party
didn't have a chairperson.
So I was asked to run and didn't have an opponent
but I did get my name on the ballot.
So that was fun.
And I did run and I did do that.
And so I became the chairperson
for the County party
which was so fun.
And one of the-
the people who asked me to run were women
older women that had been in the democratic party
my entire life, I, they had watched me grow up.
I have pictures of myself with them
from when I was you know, five.
Wanda Suttle is one named Martha Hulsey is another.
And those two women came to me and they were at the time
one of the- the backbones of some of the backbones anyway
of the democratic party here locally. They did work.
They, they manned the phones,
they manned the office, they went out
and put the signs up.
And they asked me to, to do that.
And that was, that was just, it was, it was an honor
but it was so much fun to get to work with those women.
And, and to know
that they helped the reason that the only reason I, well
a lot of the reason I was there is
because of all of all I got to watch them do.
In fact, prior years prior
I had worked with them on the Anne Richards campaign.
And we had another local
another local woman who was a friend
of our family, Betsy Triplett-Hurt.
She ran locally for our representative spot
and got to work on her campaign.
One of my mom's best friends Lorraine Perriman
was the first mayor of Odessa.
And I got to work
on her campaign when I was maybe five.
-: You got to work...
-: Or excuse me. I said five.
That wouldn't be right.
But fifth grade.
-: So you got to work on the
she was the first woman mayor. I guess.
-: Yes.
-: So you got to work on her campaign?
I did. I did. Yes.
Being pr-
I mean, I was like I said, very young, but we would walk
blocks. I, we, my sister and I
did everything with my mom.
And my mom always talks about how, in fact, now when I'm
in meetings and their children, I'm like, Oh my goodness.
But she's, she reminds me every single time.
Feliz you were there, you were under the table.
You were at the other table, you know, coloring or...
Or making phone calls as soon as I could
as soon as they'd let me.
I started phone banking with
for whatever candidate was there.
The phone banking, the putting together signs.
Whatever needed to be done.
The meetings. Just sitting
and listening to all these people with all these ideas
and all these things that needed to get done.
So coming back
and using my time
volunteering my time to be the party chair was so natural
and it was so much fun.
So I did that.
And then also, while I was here working
at my dad's office. Which is another great thing
that I had the opportunity to do is to have
he allowed me to use this office to do my
all my different volunteer work. And use my
my time that I was here to do that.
One of the other things that I got involved
with at that time was Planned Parenthood of West Texas
which is what it was at the time.
And actually at that point, it may have even
still been Planned Parenthood of the Permian basin.
They'd went through a name change at some point.
But- and the way that came about was interesting.
One of the things Planned Parenthood used to do.
Our local franchise
our local organization used to do is they would call people
in and sit and ask them who do you know
in the community that might be good for our board.
We need new board members.
And Vicky Gomez another one of the great women
that was a first of her kind.
She was the first Hispanic school board member was one
of the people they asked, do you know anybody?
And then they asked her to write a letter
to the people you thought might be good
for the Planned Parenthood board.
And when I say they, what I-
who I mean is Karen Piper Hildebrand
who was the face of Planned Parenthood in West Texas for
I want to say 30 years.
And so she asked that that Vicky send
out letters to people.
Telling them about a meeting where you can come and learn
about what it is to be on the board of Planned Parenthood.
This point I'm about 20. I'm probably 22.
And the letter came to my parents' house.
In my mom's name.
My mom had actually been
on the Planned Parenthood board years prior.
And Vicky thought
of her as maybe someone who might be interested
in being on the board again.
And she was as always had plenty on her plate
but she passed it off to me.
And so
I
who I'd actually never been
to our Planned Parenthood here locally at the time.
But I knew what Planned Parenthood was.
In fact, I remember, well
I knew what Planned Parenthood was.
I knew their mission, and I knew
that it was so much more than abortions.
It was about women's health and women's education and-
and fighting any kind of battle that
that we needed to be fought for women.
I knew that they'd been doing all of that for years.
So I went to the meeting
and was so excited to get involved and ended up on that.
On that day, I became part of the board
and ended up being on the board my entire time here
before I went to law school, which was two years.
I stayed here.
I did the whole election cycle.
I did the Planned Parenthood board.
Sat on a couple of other committees.
I was on the arts and humanities committee for one
of their it's actually one of their panels where
they were giving out grants.
But I was glad to, to be there.
Cause at that time there weren't a whole, there
wasn't always a whole lot of Hispanic representation
on boards like that, but we did.
So I did all of that and just eventually started.
I knew I couldn't just do that forever and just stay here.
So I started thinking about law school
and I had always thought I would be a lawyer.
And then I don't know.
I just, once-
once college was done, I just, wasn't quite sure.
And anybody will tell you, I'm not
I'm always not quite sure.
So, but I'm going ahead and prepared
and got ready and took the LSAT
and did all the things that needed to do all the research.
I'd never researched anything so much in my life
actually as deciding where to go
to law school and where to even apply.
And I ended up going to Ohio Northern University
which if the internet is correct, has the distinction
of being the only law school located
in a village.
It's located in the village of Ada, Ohio
which is north central Ohio.
And I had never been
to Ohio when I got accepted to go there.
But I did get accepted on a, a scholarship because
of a diversity scholarship which was a credit to them.
Because they had a very large white majority population.
And they tried very hard to reach
out and not only get students of color, but students
from all over with all sorts of different backgrounds.
And they did a really great job of doing that.