Mexican Americans
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Luis López talks about his childhood growing up in Albuquerque, his family heritage, and his experience in a Jesuit seminary. He recounts his expansive education, his 44-year teaching career, his success as a poet, and his many books. He also discusses his involvement in the Western Slope’s poetry community, and his activism during the civil rights era. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa...
Format:
Voice Recording
Louis Roybal discusses his childhood in Taos, New Mexico and on a homestead in the Oklahoma panhandle, working as a cowboy, and the history of his Hispanic family in New Mexico and Southern Colorado. He then talks in detail about his twenty years in the US Navy, with a description of his service as a fireman on naval vessels during World War I, and their engagement with German vessels. He also mentions his service on the USS Langley, the first US...
Format:
Voice Recording
Harold Zimmerman describes packing fruit during harvest time in the Clifton area, spraying for codling moths, the end of early apple farming in the valley, the train of wagons used to haul fruit on the Midland Trail at harvest time and about a flash flood that devastated Cross Orchards and destroyed 31 Road. He also talks about his career in bookkeeping for Mesa County Valley School District 51 and other organizations, the run on local banks during...
Format:
Compound
Dorothy Tindall talks about the early days of Whitewater, Colorado as a rail center for cattle and stock. She speaks about the administrative organization of schools prior to the consolidation of Mesa County School District 51, her development of Mesa County’s first school hot lunch program at the Star School, games kids played at recess, about her work educating the children of migrant laborers who lived in La Colonia, and her role in the development...
Format:
Voice Recording
Anna Gallegos talks about early her life growing up in Saguache as part of Southern Colorado’s longstanding Mexican American community. She also discusses her marriage with Andy Gallegos, his jobs as coal miner, sheep sheerer and horse breaker, the large family that she raised, and their lives in Gunnison and Paonia. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries, the Museums of Western...
Format:
Compound
Lebrado Serna discusses his family life and his multiple jobs working as a Master plumber in Durango, Colorado and elsewhere. He also touches on the social scene in the old red light district of Silverton, and on the Plumber’s Union. The interview was conducted by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries, the Museums of Western Colorado and the Mesa County Historical Society.
Format:
Voice Recording
To mark the centennial celebration of the town of Grand Junction, Colorado in 1981, the Mesa County Oral History Project wrote and recorded several radio plays about local history. Beginning on September 26, 1981, local radio stations KSTR, KREX-AM, KREX-FM, and KMSA broadcast the plays. Authors of the plays used interviews recorded by the Mesa County Oral History Project as inspiration. This archival recording contains the play Immigrants.
This...
Format:
Compound
Harold Kissell talks about being born in a coal camp near New Castle, Colorado, his career working as a coal miner and foreman in Cameo, and his father’s career as a coal miner for the Colorado Fuel and Iron company. He tells the story of the Vulcan Mine and the mine explosions that killed many men. He recounts the superstition that women inside a mine brought bad luck. He speaks of the diverse workforce in local coal mines, including African-Americans...
Format:
Voice Recording
David Combs talks about growing up in a diverse neighborhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He discusses school segregation, and the difficulties he and other African-Americans faced in securing a good education at the high school level. He speaks about attending the University of South Dakota on a football scholarship, his experience as a Black person in a place with few other African-Americans, and stereotypes about Black athletes that he encountered...
Format:
Voice Recording
Lawrence Aubert talks about his father’s immigration from France and his arrival on Pinon Mesa in 1926, where he homesteaded and ran sheep. He remembers changes in sheep ranching after the passage of the Taylor Grazing Act, sheep rustling, and friction between sheep and cattle ranchers. He discusses the effect of predatory animals on sheep herd size on Pinon Mesa. He talks about Basque and Mexican immigrants who came to herd sheep in Colorado and...
Format:
Voice Recording
Ray Bernal talks about his early life in the Grand Valley and the wide variety of jobs that he held, including work as a "gandy dancer" on the railroad, mining, farming, thinning beets, janitorial work, and herding sheep. He also discusses a group breakfast he had with President Harry S. Truman, where Truman's daughter staged a musical performance. This recording is made available via signed release by the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration...
