Mexican American Oral Histories

Brieanne Buttner: Brieanne Buttner, B, R, I, E, A, N, N, E, last name, B, U, T, T, N, E, R. I was born September 27 of 1987 in San Diego, California, actually. But my family is from Pilares de Nacozari, Sonora, Mexico, and Clifton, Arizona.

Aengus Anderson: Okay, I was just talking to some Morenci folks.

BB: Yep. Other town. It's right there, but yeah.

AA: It's good to know.

BB: Yes. The mine is Morenci and then yeah, the town is Clifton.

AA: So I am recording really whatever we want to talk about.

BB: Great.

AA: But do you already have something in mind?

BB: I do.

AA: Well, in that case, it's really easy. What do you have in mind?

BB: So my father's family came through Tucson, part of the Buttner family, so that's the little story I wanted to be recorded. Because the story that I was told is that my great-great-grandfather, Adolph Buttner, was the first police commissioner of Tucson in the late 1800s.

AA: Really?

BB: Yeah, that's what I was told. So he immigrated from when he was a child, from Germany, I think from Prussia, because it was still Prussia. So from that area to the United States as a child, and then he made his way west as he grew up. And so the story is that he served in the Union Army, and then he came farther west and became a scout for the army, which is kind of controversial, and then eventually made his way to Tucson, and then became the first police commissioner of Tucson, before he died in his 30s, and he had a bunch of kids, so he married a Sonoran woman, and his children married Sonoran women, so they grew up Speaking Spanish, but he was born and raised in Germany. I don't know if he spoke German, but he died. And the story is that he was given, and there's a newspaper article I've read that he was given, when he was police commissioner, a gold badge that said Buttner on it. I've yet to ever see it. I don't know what happened to it.

AA: Somewhere.

BB: It might be somewhere. Maybe it got melted down at this point, but I was hoping, when I moved here about 12 years ago, to find the story and to find the the evidence. But yeah, so my father grew up in Clifton to you know, his grandfather and father worked in mines. On my mother's side, her father worked in mines, and then they met in San Diego, and I was born there.

AA: Oh, wow. Okay.

BB: But then I came back.

AA: What drew you back to Tucson?

BB: I came to U of A to get my teaching credential with Teach Arizona program. It's the shortest program. It's one year. But I also I grew up coming to Arizona, visiting my family in Safford and Clifton, and so I loved Arizona, and I wanted to live here, and then I just stayed.

AA: That's really cool. What is it like to move back to a place where you have this strange connection to like this guy who served as the first police commissioner?

BB: It's really cool. I mean, I'm a historian. I'm a history teacher in TUSD and so I love, you know, learning about my family's history and history in general. So, you know, when I first moved here, it was this amazing feeling of like, I didn't grow up coming here, because we would just drive right through here and go on to Clifton. But it was like I felt like I had been here before, you know, walking the streets, especially the old streets in downtown, knowing like, you know, my ancestors had had lived here and walked around here and done business here. My best friend, Alicia Vasquez, who helped put this event together, her great, great grandfather was the carriage maker. And I was like, what if they knew at you, they probably knew each other.

AA: Oh, they knew each other.

BB: If they were around the same time, like, they definitely knew each other, you know. So that just, it was amazing. And probably part of the reason I stayed just, you know, it wasn't a place that was random or that it didn't have any roots in, you know, I felt like, I was like, okay, I'm supposed to be here. So it comes in really handy, or, like, it's really special when I'm teaching, because then the students can have that same kind of experience of knowing that, like, when we talk about local history, how important our family's history is, and you know, this event recording our family's history, it's because, like, we're a part of history. So that's kind of my whole mission. And point when I teach is like, we're a part of history too. You know, it's not just something that happened to other people somewhere else. It's our families. And so when they own that, they become much more like animated and encouraged to learn and place themselves in history. Me. So that's what I felt like when I moved here. I was like, wow. Like, you know, all the things that happened, somebody that I knew was around during that time, you know, like during mine, strikes and organizing and, you know, big events and floods and all sorts of stuff. Like, we were there trying to find where my ancestors house was. I don't think it doesn't exist anymore, because I think, I think downtown grew over it, but things like that, you know, it really made everything much more real and special.

AA: That's very cool.

BB: Thank you.

AA: I wanted to ask, you know, just because I'm always curious of how different places perceive each other. So from, have you ever heard anything from like, family members of lore, of like, how do people in the Clifton-Morenci metropolitan area, if I can conflate them together, how do they see Tucson?

BB: Oh, it's the big city. It still is even now. So I still have family there. And so, you know, anytime they come to visit or pass through, like, gotta stop at Costco. You got to fill up, you know.

AA: I it the loved or the hated big city? Or the both?

BB: It's more of the beloved big city. Phoenix is more of the hated big city.

AA: Okay, I was curious.

BB: We have family there. And, yeah, I hate Phoenix too. But, you know, they Susan is, is more of like, Yeah, I think it's more love, because people are still friendly here, and there's still a small town feel, whereas Phoenix is just, yeah, literally, the metropolitan but, yeah, it's though it's still the big city. And when we talk about it, you know? And I go back and people are like, Oh, are you know? Oh, you live in Tucson, the big city, yeah. So that's really fun. And my children are both born here.

AA: Cool, they're Tucsonans.

BB: Yes, they are.