Mexican American Oral Histories

Cam Juárez: You got it. So my first name is Cam, that's C, A, M, and my last name is, Juárez, J, U, A, R, E, Z, accent on the A, and I'm a, I guess, a local Tucson resident, slash activist, slash park ranger.

Aengus Anderson: Where and when were you born?

CJ: I was born in Yuma, and so I was born in 1972.

AA: Okay.

CJ: My birthday is on July 18.

AA: Okay.

CJ: Yeah, I live there most of my childhood, and then right after high school, I moved to Tucson.

AA: Give me a three minute story about where you first moved. When you moved to Tucson, how did you pick where you live?

CJ: I can do that. So it's really interesting. So when I first moved to Tucson, I moved to an apartment complex right on Silverbell. I would find out later on that it was on national parkland. Actually, it's the part of the Anza trail. It's right by the CVS and grant. Oh, okay, so, so I live there. I love the apartment complex. I had two very nice, very beautiful, very talented young women that I live with. And after the first semester and our lease was up, I went my own way, and they kept eating my Oreos. So I was like, Okay, I think I need to live alone, and so I moved away from that complex that was 30, almost 34 years, actually, 34 years since I did that.

AA: Okay.

CJ: And in October of last year, I bought a house just two streets down from that apartment.

AA: Oh, really?

CJ: And that area of town, we call that area the Chicano foothills. It's where folks that quote, unquote, have made it, or are professionals. There's lawyers, there's doctors, there's administrators, elected officials that live in that area. People are running nonprofits and and the homes were they're expensive there, if you're familiar with the area, and we bought a home with a price tag that we never imagined we could afford. My wife and I had been saving up for a long time, and we were able to purchase home there in the corner.

AA: So that's that's really interesting. I did not know that was what the area should be called, but this is, like the secret neighborhood history that I want here, so like-

CJ: Yeah exactly. So one side of the street you've got, you know, some, some you know folks that are middle income, for sure. You know a lot of, a lot of you know folks that work in, in any kind of job in town, the homes are not, aren't always as nice, if you want to define it by price or whatever. But on the other side of the street, you know, you've got down the street, you got Joaquin Murrieta Park, which is being, you know, revitalized right now. And the story around Joaquin Murrieta is a beautiful story, which is part of the reason why Chicano foothills is where it is. Joaquin Murrieta was, was a, was one of the first Chicano heroes in this part of the country. I don't know how familiar you are with the with his history, but basically, he became an outlaw.

AA: He was in California, right?

CJ: California and in Arizona.

AA: Oh, okay.

CJ: So he was in Arizona while he was an outlaw.

AA: Okay.

CJ: But Joaquin Marietta predominantly became an outlaw because of a misinterpretation of a word.

AA: Isn't there some sort of like Robin Hood quality?

CJ: There's definitely parts of that, for sure. But originally, someone had stolen one of his horses. He went into town and got the horse back. The horse was a female horse, not a male horse, so a caballo is a male horse, a yegua is a female horse. And so the sheriff came to basically say, hey, you know, you stole a horse from from this guy in town. And he goes, no, I didn't steal a horse. I saw a yegua, you know, and it was my yegua. And so with it, misinterpretation of this bilingual complexity, you know, he and he ends up defending himself and shoots the sheriff, but not the deputy. I wonder if Bob Marley got that.

AA: I was just wondering. Okay.

CJ: But anyway, so Joaquin Murrieta Park there in that community, a lot of the older veteranos, the old folks, they say, oh yeah, that's why we call it Chicana foothills and so-

AA: Oh, that's great.

CJ: This entire time that I've lived in Tucson, I've been wanting to move back. I live in the same home that we owned for 20 years on the southwest side of town, when the market was such that we were able to sell that for a lot more money than we paid for we had the resources to buy this other house.

AA: Did you have friends in that area?

CJ: I can't go anywhere in that neighborhood without writing into somebody I know.

AA: Okay.

CJ: I mean, my my, all around us are friends.

AA: Okay.

CJ: Right up the street-

AA: So there's a neighborhood sense.

CJ: Absolutely.

AA: Okay.

CJ: Absolutely. I mean, I can, I can bicycle before, you know, imagine going to this Casino of the Sun and then driving to that part of town where most of my friends live. And so a lot of times, you know, we would have gatherings at our house, and people are like, oh, man, you guys live so far. Yeah, but we also wanted to live in that area. My wife also wanted to live in that area, and it was just, it's a beautiful area, and that home represents not just the opportunity to move into a place where we, quote, unquote, have Chicano status, but it's the American dream. It's how we build, you know, generational wealth, and it's an excellent opportunity for us to leave something behind for our kiddo.