Mexican American Oral Histories

Josefina Contreras Cardenas: Josefina Contreras Cardenas, Josefina, it's J, O, S, E, F, I N, A Contreras is, C, O N, T, R, E R, A, S, Cardenas, C, A, R, D, E N, A S.

Aengus Anderson: I just like to ask, Where and when were you born?

JCC: In 1960. It's gonna be my birthday this by the end of this month, all right? And it was mom and dad lived in Barrio Santa Cruz now, but it used to all be together Barrio Kroeger Lane, okay? And then when Dad and Mom had their own place, it's a little rancheria on the other side of the river in Cottonwood Lane. And there's where I was raised and I met my husband, so I jumped the river again to Barrio Kroeger Lane, and there's where we have raised our children and now our grandchildren.

AA: Okay, cotton, I was just doing an oral history about Cottonwood Lane with the Russell family.

JCC: Oh, awesome. So one of our was it with David?

AA: It was with David, yeah.

JCC: Yes, yes. He's awesome. His his mama, Miss Jean Russell, is neighbors to my dad and mom when I was raised.

AA: Okay.

JCC: So my outing was to to go through our wooden fence and go to their side of their property. And that's where the acequias flowed, and they always have, I don't know anymore they do, but um, bamboo.

AA: Yes.

JCC: Carrizo, so that and dad had chickens to go all over, so my rest time would be to go on that side. See the acequias flow, see the chicken, roosters of all colors, and eat ice cream, because I would steal it. But not really steal it. I would take it, no, from señor Price. He would store, he lived on the ranches across from the river and and he would store ice cream there for his, his farm, of of, of hogs.

AA: This is fabulous.

JCC: And he and so the ice cream would be for those, those his stock.

AA: You were stealing ice cream from pigs?

JCC: So when, when I was and I couldn't speak, my mom would say, Josefina, you took the ice cream again.

AA: This is great. Well, tell me more about Cottonwood Lane. I've been so interested. What did it look like then in the mid, I guess we're probably talking about mid 1960s.

JCC: It was paradise. It was paradise because the acequias flowed. That's why its name Cottonwood Lane, because there were cottonwoods along the the road, the where the acequias were flowing, and a lot of a lot of trees and and the neighbors helped, like from Barrio Santa Cruz, there was señor Bob Ormsby that we would call and he would go open the well water flow so we could all water. You've made the story of señora Olga Leon as well.

AA: Yes.

JCC: So they're all neighbors there with mom and dad. So.

AA: So you'd call up Ormsby, and he'd open the well waters, huh?

JCC: Sí.

AA: So do you, was there like in your family's property? What were you growing?

JCC: Our food. Because that one side, my dad had all his fruit trees. The other type would be the garden seasonal.

AA: So you really were growing a lot of your own food?

JCC: Sí, our own food. Everyone grew their own fruit during the those times, it was so interesting that mom wanted to go shopping, and it was in South Tucson, and I said, why would you need to go shopping? If dad is a butcher, he has his other meat, he has his our crops, and she would go buy canned food. As a child, we would always struggle about that. Why mom? No.

AA: Did she feel like she's doing the futuristic thing that, like, you know you're supposed to do?

JCC: It was so confusing as as a child, and it was at TNT market she would go and there the Asian, Chinese family had an IOU for her. So since dad was, um, was was disabled, because being a horse jockey, he had got hurt, and so he was disabled, so his check would come monthly. So mom would would put it all in for her grocery shopping.

AA: That's amazing. So she knew the family at the TNT market?

JCC: Yes, yes.

AA: Can you describe what the market looked like? I'm always curious, because these things are gone. You know what was like? The look or the feel of the market? Because it sounds like this is a place you might have gone a few times.

JCC: Yes. Well, the counter was at the begi-, at the entrance, that the cash register, no. The counter was there. And then the some rows were this way, and some rows were that way. Okay.

AA: Okay.

JCC: So you just got your food. It was small. Oh, and then and the meat market was at the back.

AA: Okay.

JCC: Yeah, and you know, everything there was the person with the meat, wrapping it up, okay, cutting it up.

AA: And you said your dad was a butcher. Did he work at home? Did he have people bring stock to him? Or where did he work?

JCC: As well. There was Farmer John that now doesn't exist.

AA: Okay.

JCC: The Busbys that doesn't exist. No. Another Rancheria were close to Mr. Price, where he he lived. Yeah, there was one there. And then he also traveled to Wilcox.

AA: Oh, wow. So he worked all over as a butcher?

JCC: Yeah, and then people would call him. He would go to San Xavier. He would go to South and the different ranches.

AA: So he would do like on site?

JCC: Yes.

AA: Wow. That's very neat.

JCC: So he was very well known, very well liked to care for.

AA: Yeah. I remember David Russell spoke very fondly of him.

JCC: See, he did? Oh.

AA: Yeah, because we just recorded. So it's like, oh. It's like, oh, that's the the Contre- Was it, Joe?

JCC: Yes.

AA: Yeah, Joe Contreras, yeah. So that, I mean, it's funny. Someone was just telling me about your dad, which is really neat. What kind of, you said you were growing fruit trees on your property? What kind of trees did you have?

JCC: Everything but pomegranates. And that's interesting, because I would also go over to the Russells, because they had a lot of pomegrans, and go and go get one there. So everything was apricots, peaches, apples, grapes, yeah, that's what I remember.

AA: This sounds like a very, very nice place.

JCC: Yes, it was. Now I can't go back because it's such a disgrace.

AA: Yeah, how has it changed?

JCC: The water. Miss Jean Russell was the one that that was in charge of organizing and making, making an agreement with the city of their water there, their water rights and and it was interesting that it was connected with Flowing Wells district.

AA: Oh really?

JCC: Yes. So I asked her whats, because it was in 1995 when they lost, they had to close up the well stop. So I asked her, why and why just 20 years because they thought it was going to be there was a lot of years. And 20 years came, and every, they closed.

AA: Came and went, huh?

JCC: So every everything started, started dying.

AA: Because it went over to city water. Is that what happened?

JCC: Mhm. And with now, with the New Mexico Acequia Association, there that they have there. I want to see how we build the relationship so we can at least preserve or map them out. Where the acequias is used to be, because that's going away too. There's a compuerta there in the compuerta is like the gate where the water will go different directions. So when I go by and I see it abandoned that it can be destroyed. I really want us to save that story.

AA: Yeah, when you go to the neighborhood now, can you see where the old acequias are?

JCC: I can see. I don't know if it-

AA: Is that because you know where to look? Like if I went, would I see them?

JCC: I would hope so-

AA: But maybe not. Yeah. It's so interesting how much change in just like one small landscape you've seen over your life.

JCC: And that I would see it during my life, when I was a child, and they wanted to take me to Barrio Kroeger Lane, because, you know, Barrio Santa Cruz, Kroeger Lane, that's where father was my father was raised, so they had me there when they lived close to his parents, and family members of my mom as well. So there was family members on both sides of 22nd Starr Pass, but there was in the street then. So when they would want to go visit, I would say, No, no, it's ugly over there. Leave me here in my wreck.

AA: Really?

JCC: And it's so happened that there is where I jumped the river and raised mine where I didn't want to. So that's what I work hard now to preserve what we have, because we need to realize as individuals, as humans, how we destroy Mother Earth and the surroundings ourselves? We do it. They it doesn't get done if we wouldn't permit it, right? But the human is the one that destroys.

AA: And so when you were born, the freeway was already in, right? Yeah, so that would have already so the partition of the neighborhood had happened. Did your parents ever tell you anything about did they have memories of when the freeway went in and Cottonwood Lane kind of got split off from South Tucson?

JCC: No, because mom and dad didn't want to be political. They would say, so they believe what government's going to do what they want to anyways, why even bother to say. Later, father was sharing more. In fact, when I started wanting to organize and learn, they would think I was crazy. No, that's loca. Like, get to work.

AA: That sounds like a really big generational attitude towards politics that change, like, from your parents to you, they sound like they were kind of like, let the city do what it's going to do. Is that a fair-

JCC: And then imagine, well, that they thought it wasn't going to help say anything.

AA: Okay.

JCC: Because also in my family, the indigenous background heritage was also lost, because in their times, it was either dangerous or or a disgrace of claiming to be indigenous. Now, I mean, when I started asking our what indigenous background we had? You know, hear your crazy person starting again. No, we're not Indian and and now they can claim their their Yaqui. So I said, No, I'm not going to do it, because when I asked you, you didn't want to. No.

AA: That's so interesting. Yeah, big changes in sort of like, what is seen as appropriate, or, yeah, what you want, what identities you want to take on. But it sounds like you had a different opinion than your parents, even when you were a little younger, you were curious about that stuff.

JCC: Even younger, you know, when. They weren't church goers either. We live but by the 10 Commandments, but without church.

AA: Oh, interesting.

JCC: You know? And without the Virgin, the history of Virgin, knowing that the Virgin Mary, either or Jesus. I learned it from my husband, coming from Jalisco.

AA: Oh, really?

JCC: Yeah, so you don't steal, you don't lie, you don't kill. Which is all good.

AA: Yeah, it's a generally good policy. I mean, unless, well. so I was curious about when you were a kid and you were growing up in Cottonwood Lane, how far could you go by yourself if you wanted to go out and play? You know, it sounds like you could go to the neighbor's yards, but I'm trying to get a sense of the you know, how much freedom did you have?

JCC: Although they took care of each other? No. The acequia that I was sharing, the compuerta. Olga, Miss Olga Leon would share the story of my my my little brother. He would, we would always be barefoot, especially during the summer, especially when you started school, while it was it was hard wearing a shoe, no, so he was all all dirty. And he would be at the acequia, and she would pass and say, Chepu, what are you doing? Oh, I'm taking the bath. And he's all known, all filthy. So my outings would be like, I help dad with raising calves, because those calves would go to the auction that was on 29th Street, to the auction there, and that would buy us our clothes. And when we started school, well, that was even more needed, no? So my outing would be to take my herd of, of little calves out to go eat, because there was a lot to eat outside our our property, as well as horseback riding. There's where my husband and I would have a chance to see each other, would be riding a horse to the river.

AA: Really?

JCC: Yes, because I wasn't allowed to speak with, with, with him, or anyone, any man.

AA: This is amazing. So you got to go out on horseback. It's, it's so fascinating to me that we're talking about stories in, like, the 1960s 70s, probably 70s for that. And I mean, when you describe that to me, I could imagine that in any era, almost. And it's so incredible that it that could happen that late in Tucson.

JCC: Yeah, and not long ago, I, I heard this beautiful compliment. It says, Do you remember when you would ride your horse, your hair long and your hair would flow, when your your horse would run it and it. This when I would go over to Barrio Santa Cruz, where my favorite aunt lived and my grandparents, and she would notice that and I no, I thought it was a compliment.