Mexican American Oral Histories

Adelita Grijalva: Adelita Grijalva. A, D, E, L, I, T, A. G, R, I, J, A, L, V, A.

Aengus Anderson: All right. Set the audio levels. And because I ask everybody this, where and when were you born?

AG: I was born here, Tucson, Arizona, TMC, October 30, 1971.

AA: All right, and you are going to tell me about a photograph?

AG: Yes.

AA: Is that what we're gonna do?

AG: Yeah. So I submitted a photograph. It was a picture of my dad when he was two. My nana, Rafaela Grijalva, my tata, Raul Grijalva. He's Raul Manuel Grijalva. And then my tia, Sarah Martinez. And it's a picture of them up against a wall. And it's one of the first ones of my dad when he was not a baby. So you know, back in the day you You took advantage of an opportunity. If there was a picture a camera around. So they did. So he, it was, he was pretty young, that baby. So he's 70 now. So is 76 years ago. Yeah. And so my nana used to have this saying that, no te olvides que nacistes con un nopal en la frente. Which essentially is, you know, remember where your roots are, remember who you are, and that's the way that you're going to find out. Like the person that you grow into, you can't forget where you come from. So that was always like a big teaching memory for me. And so I was always super lucky to have my nana, my tata and my grandpa way into adulthood, which is just such a privilege. And so much of the stories that they talked about like what Tucson was like. Then I can tell my kids, because they told it in so much detail, like, just like, vibrant detail, that I can walk by and say, hey, well, there used to be a McClellan's here. There used to be a like, you walk downtown and you'll see the tile, the old entrances from different locations. And I can picture what it looked like, even though it was long gone before I was born.

AA: Just because they gave you oral history?

AG: Right, and they talked about it all the time, and what it was like my tata and my dad grew up on Canoa Ranch when there was very little there, and so to be able to have pictures and memories of walking back through those spaces with both of them. And my dad was young, he was, he was four when they moved from Canoa, and just what the experience was like growing up in that environment for him is a really great memory. So I, you know, I've lived here in this area, literally my entire life. I represent District 5, and I have lived in District 5 my whole life. So I think that that's a little rare. But, you know, we have, we have a lot of memories of this neighborhood and this space, and so I remember my nana and tata live right around the corner, and I remember walking to Market Basket and being able to walk there, and there weren't a lot of cars, and I wasn't really worried, because everywhere, if I would run too fast, I would have all these other neighbors of my nana saying, cálmate, te vas a lastimar. And it's like, so you always knew that people were watching out for you, and if you screwed up, they'd also hear about it. So I was pretty, I was trying to always be like, you know, my P's and Q's around them.

AA: Oh yeah, I'm totally imagining, like, you know, your parents just getting phone calls as you go down the block. She's here, she's here all the neighbors are watching.

AG: Well no, and not even that, you just, know, I mean, really, we there was a phone, is a rotary dial there. I mean, like, you know, you just had people sitting out on their porches a lot and enjoying, because we, most people, did not have air conditioning. So during the monsoons, you could literally look outside and see everyone outside, because it was just really nice. I remember when we were little, as soon as the monsoons would come because of flooding in the streets, you could literally get a cardboard box and just float all the way down.

AA: I was gonna ask about something like that. Yeah, like, what were those childhood pastimes?

AG: Yep, that was it, pretty much. We rode bikes and hung out with friends and, yeah, it was just we, I grew up in walking distance from all of my elementary, middle and high schools, so that feeder pattern is what was around me all the time. So you grew up, I literally run into people on a regular basis that I went to kindergarten with, and we matriculated all through and even graduated from the University of Arizona, all around the same time.

AA: That's a pretty amazing sense of community that I think a lot of people don't have.

AG: Yeah, I don't think we do. And I think it's really sad, because generations of families have lived in all of these spaces, and so it's really great, and I'm glad that we have the opportunity to be able to talk about some of it, because so many of the elders in our communities don't have, you know, are no longer with us to tell the stories. So it really is incumbent upon all of our younger generations to do it and and I think so much is lost of oral history. Like it's so important to be able to talk about those things, because now you'll be able to have them forever. But I have video of my nana on some random little recording device that the little, teeny, tiny device that she's teaching us how to make tamales. I can't even look at that anymore yet because, like, the technology has advanced so much, but being able to have the opportunity to digitize that so my kids can watch her and learn the same way I did is just a wonderful opportunity. So I'm glad to do it.

AA: Ping Pong media, right?

AG: Right.

AA: Yeah, that's where you take it.

AG: Yep, exactly.

AA: With the picture of your dad. When you look at that photo. Now, what questions, because it seems like you have a real sense of history and thinking about family history. So when you look at this picture of your dad as a small child, like, what do you want to ask him? Like, what jumps out at you as like, oh, I wish I and I can ask this.

AG: I can. He, I mean, the nice thing about it is my dad is pretty, both my mom and my dad really talk a lot about family history. And so I asked him, what were you doing during this time. He goes, I was all excited, and you could see my face. I'm not smiling, because we were on our way to go get an ice cream, and they stopped us, and we'd like mid-walk to stop and take this picture. And he's like, why? And I you look at it, and I have my tia Sarah, who my cousin is named after, was a nurse. She was married and divorced because her husband was not kind to her. And it is so, like just in one snapshot of a picture for that period of time. In 1948 for you to have a career, have been married, and divorced is just so rare. And she, not only did all of that, finished her education and continued to work. And so I look at that picture, and they're just like everyone looked like they were making an effort, like when you when you went out of your house, you were representing your family, yourself. You know, I wish I had, I wish I did that sometimes, because sometimes I just, you know, go out in yoga pants, and I think that's okay, but I think that it's really important to just appreciate where in our in our society, how much things have changed that are positive. And how much I think of what was valuable before. Like your connection to family, and space, and community is so critically important that I hope that people relive that time and sort of regain that sense of family, of being able to be near each other.