José Mendoza, circa 1903

Thirteen-​year-​old José woke up, as he always did, when the roosters began to crow outside the taller de hojalata where he slept. It was still dark, but the roosters were sensitive to the break of dawn and crowed each morning only minutes before sunlight broke the horizon and gave shape to his dark surroundings. It was hard to imagine a different life. Here he had a roof over his head, he was learning to work with his hands, and he never went hungry. But the offer made to him yesterday, to travel to los estados unidos with the Garcías, the family who owned the taller, had gnawed at him all night long and he dreamed of a life where he could someday have his own place to live and his own money without feeling dependent on someone else’s kindness. He had lived here for almost six years. Señor García had found him sleeping in the hay in the attached caballerisa the night after his arrival. At first, he had been stern with José and questioned him relentlessly about whose child he was and how he came to be in Cedros. José told him why he had left the orphanage in ciudad de México—​how the nuns had been brutal, mean, petty, and stingy with food. So constant was his hunger there that the idea of striking out on his own had left him little to fear.

He had made his escape one night with only an extra shirt wrapped around some tidbits of food he was able to steal and hide. He wasn’t sure where to go but he had heard others talk about the trains. So, once he was in the streets of the city, he quickly realized he had to act fast, and he sparingly asked for directions to los patios de trenes. He had walked most of the night and only a short while before the sun rose, he had found an open cargo car and slipped inside unnoticed by anyone. As the train began to move, it rocked him to sleep and when he woke again, it was once again dark. He had no idea where he was, but he knew he did not want to disembark in a large city because he found it daunting to think of navigating another crowded city with an overwhelming number of strangers.

Afraid to leave the train, for the next few days (was it two or three?) he only allowed himself to peek through cracks in the walls. Most of what he saw was desert. He got off one night in search of food because despite being careful, what little he had brought with him was now reduced to crumbs. Wandering around the trainyard, he found a canvas bag with someone’s lunch in it. Snatching it quickly he started to run back to the train. As he turned a corner and crossed a trestle, he saw two men inspecting his boxcar—​he thought of it that way now. He had left the door open, and this had drawn their attention! The men walked up and down looking for stowaways until the train left so he had no choice but to watch his ride slowly pull away. He decided he would take his bounty and find a place to sleep and see what opportunities the new day brought him.

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    Early 20th Century train routes from Mexico City. Rail transport in Mexico. https://​en.wikipe​dia.org/​wiki/​Rai l_​transport_​in_​Mexico. Accessed 03/​19/​20

The next morning, he wandered around the western outskirts of town and a family came by in a wagon drawn by two horses. The woman spoke to her husband, and they stopped to ask him if he knew if this was the road to Torreón.

“I have no idea,” he said, “I’m not from here.”

“Where are you from?” the woman asked. He didn’t want to say that he had snuck aboard a train several days ago, so he said, “I don’t know.”

“Are you from here? Is your family looking for you?” they asked.

He shook his head.

“Where are you going then?”

“I’m not sure. North? Very far,” he said.

The couple whispered to each other for a bit and then the man said, “Listen, we are going to a little town outside of Torreón, San Pedro de las Colonias, to go live and work with my brother. You can come with us, if you wish. When we get there, we can find a place in Torreón for you to stay that helps children get new parents.”

His first thought was, “No way,” but then he figured that a few days of food and shelter would suit him and allow him to ponder his next move. He nodded and hopped aboard. Much later that night they made camp near the small town of Cedros. After a warm meal of dried meat, beans, and tortillas, he was given a thin bedroll not too far from the fire. In the middle of the night, he woke up and remembered where he was and what the nice couple had proposed. He did not want to risk being taken to another orphanage so, as grateful as he was to these kind strangers, he decided to leave and see what he could find in the town. An hour later, after surveying the town, he crept into a corral with horses, fluffed up some hay in the corner and curled up to sleep.

That was about six years ago. At 13, he wasn’t sure of his age, José was now bigger, stronger, smarter, and learning to work with his hands. And he was beginning to think about his future. Señor García, el jefe, had found him asleep the morning after he first arrived and although he chastised him, he gave him food and said he could stay there if he was willing to clean, do chores, and help him in the shop. He readily agreed. Food, a roof over his head, and someone who could protect him without turning him over to the authorities were more than he had dared dreamed for himself. Over the years, he had met many customers, many of whom were friends with Señor García, and they often spoke of how difficult it was to make a living in such a small pueblo. Weeks ago, he had listened with interest when the men spoke of the Garcías’ plans to go al norte. They had spoken about how El Presidente Porfirio Díaz’s modernization policies benefited only the rich and had made life harder for men who had to work the land for others. It was rumored, Señor García said, that one could get paid by the hour en los estados unidos and accumulate enough to feed their family and buy their own land. There were many jobs working in construction or with the rapidly developing railroads in Tejas. Señor García had noticed him listening with interest and said, “¿Qué te parece, Pepe? ¿Quieres ir al norte con nosotros? El Siglo XX ha hecho posible una nueva vida.” He was not his father, but José could not help but look at Señor García for help in answering the question. He shrugged and said, “You are your own person, hijo, so the decision is yours, but you have to think about your future. Life will be hard here and there is no certainty that whoever buys my business will let you stay here.” With that, José did not hesitate and said, “Sí, quiero ir!” When he said those words emphatically, José felt like he was taking a blind leap into the unknown, but he also felt like he was taking control over his destiny. Plans had proceeded quickly and the day for departure had arrived. In just a few hours they would begin the journey northward. It had already been decided that he would travel as a family member—​as a son.

***

Irineo and Adelaida Olvera: Los Padres de Maria Olvera, circa 1915

In Parras de la Fuente, Irineo Olvera spoke with his wife, Adelaida. It was dark as they sat at a table in the center of the courtyard of their home where they often ate family meals. The year was 1915. Irineo was in his mid-​50s now. For over 30 years he had been a cochero for the Madero hacienda. It was work that paid him well and garnered him respect from his friends and neighbors. He was now being addressed with the title of Don and in many respects his life was good, but he worried about his five children—​all daughters—​who, as they matured, had begun to attract the unwanted lascivious attention of soldiers and rebels alike. Life in Parras had been peaceful for most of his life, and he had done particularly well. But when Francisco, the son of Don Francisco and heir apparent of the hacienda, had been elected the President of Mexico and had then been assassinated in 1912 in the capital, life on the hacienda had taken a downturn. Everyone’s spirits were deflated.

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    Irineo Olvera, circa 1915. Mendoza family archives.

The Madero hacienda was vast, consisting of ranching, wine making, silver, textiles, and cotton enterprises but everything was tinged with uncertainty now. Added to this was the constant threat of conflict between rebels led by Francisco Villa and President Díaz’s army. Villa had immediately risen to the challenge posed by Madero to overthrow Díaz. One of the early battles was in the center of Parras with the military occupying the courthouse. To get the soldiers to abandon the courthouse-​turned-​garrison, Villa’s forces had burned the courthouse down. Though Villa was successful in rousting the army and the battle moved elsewhere, Irineo and Adelaida had been struck with fear at the proximity of the battle less than a mile from their home. This incident made it clear just how vulnerable the townsfolk were in the midst of an unpredictable war. He remembered that in the aftermath of the battle of Parras, most of the family had to go in and testify to their age, marriage, and baptism dates so official records could be recreated. While Irineo agreed with the need for change and had been excited when the young idealistic Francisco had been elected, he had begun to be disillusioned with the never-​ending war. The Maderos were one of the richest families in all of Mexico, and while Irineo felt that there were too many disenfranchised people, he did not think the poor could manage the country as well. Francisco’s idealism seemed like it could promote gradual change—​but it was not to last and now the country was a powder keg about to explode again.

Ever since the revolution had started five years ago, their sense of safety had felt precarious. Soldiers and rebels alike would come around, especially at night, bang on the door with their guns, get everybody out, and harass them. They were supposedly seeking young men to join their efforts, but the Olvera house was only full of teenage girls. Their eldest daughter, Juana (24), had already married and moved to Texas. Each time these house inspections occurred, Irineo and Adelaida watched the dishonorable way these soldiers leered at the girls, and they feared for the lives of their remaining four daughters: Luisita (Luisa, 20), Quita (Jesusita, 17), Maria (14), and Chonita (Encarnacion, 12).

Under the stars, Irineo and Adelaida huddled, whispered, and devised a plan to keep their daughters safe. This above all was what was important even if it meant sending them away. Lupita, a niece and older cousin of the girls, lived in Beaumont, Texas, where she managed a boarding house for laborers who worked in construction and the surrounding oil fields. Maybe she could be a refuge for the young women as they transitioned into a new society.

***

Zapopan and Felix Martínez, circa 1923, Agujita, Coahuila

Zapopan nodded as Felix, her husband, told her that his mother had called a meeting of the entire family, including spouses. Felix had ten brothers who lived and worked in mines and on farms in nearby towns, Escobedo, Lampazos, Abasolo, Monclova, and Esperanza. While they had survived the turmoil of the revolution, the recent assassination of Pancho Villa at his ranch about 350 miles to the west of them reminded them that the turmoil and violence could rise quickly. In the meanwhile, for more than a decade, there had been no improvement for the lives of everyday people in Coahuila. The ongoing turmoil in the capital exacerbated feelings of unease and they worried that any day now tragedy would hit close to home. Peace and a better quality of life, ideas that had inspired support for the Revolution in its early days, had still not been realized as debates about reform and social change continued to disrupt life throughout the country. Felix and Zapopan had only been married for four years, but they had three daughters, Purificación, Socorro, and Esther who Zapopan desperately wanted to protect as she feared for their safety, growing up in this tense and dangerous time.

Felix and Zapopan had met at a Cinco de Mayo celebration in Agujita just a few years earlier. From this time on, Felix visited Zapopan as often as possible, even though they lived far apart. Finally, about a year later, when Zapopan was 16 and Felix was 17, they were married on August 3, 1919. Felix worked eight hours a day, six days a week and received only two pesos a day. Marrying Felix at such a young age was not something she regretted. As a mechanic’s assistant at one of the local mineral mines, he only made a small salary, but it was better than working underground where work was dangerous. Just a year earlier Felix had been burned very badly in a fire. When he had tried to escape, he had climbed under some metal rafters and burned his back badly. Zapopan’s sister, Pepa, had died in that fire. On top of all this, the arrival of the railroad in Coahuila meant that small farmers faced pressure from agribusiness that sought to acquire land and mass produce food for distribution elsewhere. The newlyweds lived in a small rented house until Zapopan’s grandmother, Margarita Rendon, invited them to live with her on her small ranch. She taught Zapopan how to be frugal and use her money wisely, so they wanted for nothing. However, Felix’s mother and brothers were tired of barely eking out a living and not knowing if they would come out of the mines every time they went underground because the owners were notorious for cutting corners to maximize profits.

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    Original crossing of the Martinez family via Eagle Pass, TX, July 8, 1924. Accessed via Ancestry.com 09/​12/​2022.

There had been talk, whispers mostly, of going north. It was said that work in the piscas was plentiful in Tejas and that one could start a new life there. Zapopan’s family had been in this area for many, many generations. She could hardly imagine leaving, and yet the prospect of a safer, more peaceful, place to raise their daughters where jobs and food were plentiful was appealing. When the family met, doña Maximiana, Felix’s mother, confirmed this plan. She had spoken to family who had received word that there were jobs to be had. Maximiana did not want her sons and their family’s lives to be at risk. A friend had written about jobs picking cotton in a place called Lockhart, Texas. The plan was to leave in a month, doña Maximiana said. “Say your goodbyes, sell your land, take only what is necessary and we will depart on the first of July.” They agreed that a week before the proposed date of departure they would gather again to assess their collective finances and determine if they could afford a train; if not they would travel by horse-​pulled wagons with the minimum needed to start anew.

The large family parted ways knowing that they would see each other again soon. Each seemed to be thinking solemnly about this decision. Some were worried about the unknown, some were eager to start anew in a place that held great promise, but all were sad to be leaving their homeland and for the circumstances that seemed to make this move inevitable. When they returned to their small home, Zapopan couldn’t help but feel a strange mixture of sadness, relief, and anxiety about the unknown. She thought about how she would tell her mama of their plans. She knew her parents had also spoken of going al norte, but she also knew that being separated would be hard for both of them. She assumed her mother would be supportive, no matter how sad it made her, and tell her that her husband and his family were making the right decision for the right reasons. She, also, would want her daughter and grandchildren safe. Zapopan wondered if perhaps the time was right for her parents to consider taking their large family north as well.

A time of transition

José arrived in Brownsville, Texas with Señor García and his family circa 1903. He crossed the border claiming the García surname as his own. He was excited for the chance to experience a fresh start in a new place. The Garcías treated him well. He was required to go to school when they arrived in Houston, so they helped him prepare by going over and enhancing the basic reading and math skills he had picked up from other kids in Cedros. Social expectations were such that the law only required him to reach the equivalent of sixth grade. It was understood without being said that he would work and contribute to the García household as children in all working families were expected to do. Work as a laborer did not require much more education than fundamental reading and math so once he could show he knew what sixth graders should know, how to read and write, he no longer went to school.

They lived in Second Ward, a neighborhood that many other new immigrants from Mexico gravitated toward because here one could find others who spoke Spanish as well as street vendors and tienditas that sold food that was familiar. By the time José was 16 he was an itinerant assistant to cement masons. In this capacity, he and several other young men were picked up at the corner of Navigation and Lockwood Drive every morning at 7:00 a.m. to be hauled away to construction sites all over the city—​usually downtown or in the fancier residential neighborhoods near Rice Village where they created columns for houses and patios, and poured smooth large concrete floors in multiple story buildings.

Early twentieth century Texas

José Mendoza was the first family member of mine to cross the Rio Bravo going north. His future wife, María Olvera, would cross at the beginning of the second decade of the new century, and my maternal grandparents, Felix Martínez and Zapopan García, would make the trip northward with Felix’s large family to the cotton fields near Lockhart, Texas in 1924. Though spanning a period of two decades, my family arrived during a sustained period of major economic, cultural, and political change in the region, the country, and the world.

At the turn of the century, Texas was undergoing rapid transition in a number of areas. Fifty-​two years after the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in which Mexico ceded its northern territories to the United States following the Mexican American War of 1846–​1848, and 35 years after the Civil War had divided the USA, Texas exemplified a hybrid of US southern and southwestern cultures. While cattle and cotton had been central to the Texas economy, the agricultural system was undergoing major change which led to a second deterritorialization of Mexicans and Tejanos in South Texas. The first instance had occurred in the immediate aftermath of the successful battle for Texas Independence from Mexico in 1836. Not only were great swaths of land given away to entice Anglos to move to Texas, but in the aftermath of the US-​Mexican War, the land rights of Mexicans in Texas were not protected as was agreed to in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, many Tejanos lost their land via legal and extralegal means, be it in English-​only court battles trying to defend Spanish land grants where, even if they won, they often had to give a significant part of the land to unscrupulous lawyers for their exorbitant legal fees. The anti-​Mexican sentiment among Anglos was so pervasive that many newcomers felt they had a right to anything Mexicans had and that they could take it with impunity. Mexican landowners experienced violence wrought upon them by squatters who laid claim to their land by settling there and then resisted any efforts to impede them. Many Mexican American landowners were forced to abandon their land in fear for their lives because they could not count on law enforcement to protect their claims.

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    Texas Forever. 1836 Advertisement for land to new settlers in Texas. Briscoe Center for American History. Texas Broadside Collections, file photo 73.93.

Even as Mexican nationals, like my family, fled their home country, Texas was earning a reputation for legal and extralegal violence against Mexicans. Violence in Texas, especially South Texas, in the first two decades of the twentieth century was horrific. It was made worse by the role of the Texas Rangers whose very origins were steeped in a vigilante approach to settling Texas by keeping Anglo settlers safe from Indigenous people and Mexicans. In fact, although they were not officially established until 1835, in 1823 Stephen F. Austin hired ten men to act as “rangers” in order to wage an informal war against the Karankawa tribe in South Texas to facilitate Anglo settlement. They succeeded. The violence wrought by law enforcement officials like the rangers was often cloaked by legal authority and thus sanctioned implicitly. As John Phillip Santos has noted:

The heroic image of the Texas Rangers as agents of the law has been tarnished as numerous historians of the late twentieth and early twenty-​first centuries have more closely scrutinized their vigilante role. Historian Monica Muñoz Martinez reminds us that in the campaign to control those seen as outsiders (non-​whites), the same trope of a menacing masculinity that was projected onto African Americans was used in depicting Mexican men as a violent and out of control threat to Anglo women, and casting them as foreigners without regard for their citizenship status only advanced their efforts (Muñoz Martinez, 2018). She states that “By 1919, the murder of ethnic Mexicans had become commonplace on the Texas-​Mexican border, a violence systematically justified by vigilantes and state authorities alike” (Muñoz Martinez, 2018). Extralegal acts of violence are often overlooked in lynching statistics. The decade from 1910 to 1920 was extraordinarily violent with the numbers of ethnic Mexicans in Texas killed ranging from 300 to several thousand. Just as it did in Northern Mexico, the arrival of the railroad in Texas radically changed the landscape and economy of South Texas and, in doing so, changed people’s relationship to the land as workers and owners. Just as Mexican migration northward was ramping up due to the Mexican Civil War, the need for labor in the railroad and farming industries drastically increased. Naveena Sadasivam informs us that by 1920 “Traditional ranching all but ended [in South Texas] and large-​scale commercial farming began to take hold” (Sadavism, 2018). The move toward industrial agriculture was hastened with the arrival of the railroad. Land prices increased drastically, and Tejano landowners were further deterritorialized by land taxes they could not afford to pay. Simultaneous with this displacement of Tejano landowners was a concerted effort to promote land availability for Anglo outsiders from the Midwest. Advertisements highlighted cheap land, plentiful water, a mild climate, and cheap Mexican labor ( Sadavism, 2018). According to Frances Dressman, booster literature in the valley helped shape a race discourse through advertising and imagery that relied on the fusing of Mexican laborers with the landscape, just another natural resource to be exploited. To achieve the desired goal of enticing potential farm owners from outside the region, Mexican workers had to be portrayed as passive, docile, and exploitable (Dressman, 1987, p. 143).

While this strategy may have been idiosyncratic to South Texas, a similar version was used to appeal to potential business investors in Houston as well as to Black and Brown workers as a means of enticing them to move to Houston. In an overview of booster literature for Houston in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Dressman provides a concise summary of how Houston was promoted as an ideal city that was progressive, healthy, accessible by railroad and sea, with a high-​quality infrastructure, replete with high rises, and a plentiful workforce. She notes that:

Houston thus became an appealing alternative for workers even as Houston’s business, civic, and political leaders began to craft Jim/​Juan Crow policies that left a clear imprint of southern racism embedded in it.

Interestingly, as intense as racial politics were in Texas, in Hollywood, and thus across much of the nation, the “Latin lover” type was emerging as a hot commodity in the silent era of film. The dark, handsome, lover character in popular films was not exclusively Latino, but many Latin American actors within and outside of the USA achieved success in this era. Actors such as Ramón Navarro, Gilbert Roland, and Emilio “El Indio” Fernández, who served as the model for the Academy Award trophy that later came to be known as the Oscar, achieved great success in the film industry. Alongside them were Latina actresses, such as Lupe Velez, Dolores Del Rio, and a bit later Margarita Carmen Cansino (a.k.a. Rita Hayworth), and actors such as Anthony Quinn. The Latin lover’s popularity waned when films with sound emerged in the 1930s. The accents of Latina/​o actors were not received well in the Depression era when anyone perceived as a foreigner was cast under suspicion (See The Bronze Screen: 100 Years of the Latino Image in American Cinema [2002] for an excellent analysis of the rise and decline of Latinos in Hollywood).

It is quite possible that my grandparents did not know all the risks they might have faced if they had settled in South Texas. In all likelihood they bypassed South Texas as a possible destination and chose Central and East Texas as the place to start their life in the United States due to readily available jobs and familial connections. This does not mean, however, that they were able to avoid racial animus and harsh working conditions. While animosity against Mexicans may have been particularly strong along the southern border, across the state Anglo Texan assumptions about their superiority shaped local and state culture, politics, and policy in ways that disenfranchised and disadvantaged ethnic Mexicans; this was especially true in locales where Mexicans did not have a long-​standing presence, such as East and North Texas.

The Mexican community emerges in Houston

In the early years of the twentieth century, Houston was slowly transforming from a biracial city with an Anglo and African American racial dynamic into a multiethnic, multiracial metropolis. As Tyina Steptoe astutely notes, this dramatic shift was catalyzed by overlapping migrations of African Americans from Louisiana and other parts of the South who were attracted to job opportunities with the railroad and a vibrant African American community (Steptoe, 2016, p. 66). Early in its history, Houston was geographically and politically organized into wards, which went from four to six. By 1905, these wards stopped serving as geopolitical units, but they did become touchstones for different ethnic and cultural communities. For instance, African Americans built a strong infrastructure for Black economic and cultural autonomy as a way to advance self-​protection even as leaders of the city enacted Jim Crow laws to buttress segregation and discriminatory practices. While African Americans lived in several areas across the city, the Third and Fifth Wards in particular were densely populated by African Americans. In contrast, the Second Ward became known as the locus of Mexican American residents even as they too were geographically dispersed across the city. In contrast to other cities throughout the southwest, no exclusively Mexican settlements existed at this time. In 1910, there were slightly less than 100 Spanish-​surnamed persons living in Houston. About 15 percent of these people worked within the railroad system in one capacity or another. Another 15 percent listed their occupation as laborer. Other identified jobs included waiter, dishwasher, cook, clerk, tailor, and barber. There were also tamale, chili, and candy peddlers (Treviño, 2006).

Simultaneous with the start of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, the oil industry began emerging as a new area for jobs and economic growth. With the arrival of the railroad in the late 1800s, agriculture became a booming industry, but with the rapid growth of the oil industry, agriculture was supplanted by petroleum as Texas’s leading industry. A huge supply of cheap labor was needed in the agricultural, oil, construction, railroad, and shipping industries. Mexican immigrants and migrants from other parts of the state began coming to Houston where employment was readily available. According to Zaragoza Vargas, the railroad industry and the Ship Channel were some of the main recruiters of Mexican workers. Oral histories from the era reveal that poor mexicanos arrived in Houston looking for work while elite mexicanos went to Houston in search of safety for themselves and their family. According to Steptoe, by the late 1920s, “the railroad yards and ship channel docks held the promise of wage labor for farmers and sharecroppers, and thousands responded” (2016).

Around this time, the Second Ward began emerging as a place for the development of an ethnic Mexican enclave. Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on Navigation Boulevard was opened in 1912 to serve the growing Spanish-​speaking community (Struthers, 2012). It included a school that taught classes in English and Spanish. Rusk Elementary, which previously catered to children of prominent Anglo families, was slowly transformed into a school that served Mexican children. The Rusk Settlement House increasingly provided social, educational, health, and recreational services for ethnic Mexicans. Arnoldo De León notes that a Mexican presence could be found in several other wards in Houston, though none immediately competed with the Second Ward in size and density. In 1911, Magnolia Park, a previously all-​white suburb east of Second Ward, began transforming into a Mexican barrio as work on the Ship Channel began in earnest and new laborers needed housing nearby. Founded as an unincorporated community in 1890, Magnolia Park was seven miles downstream from downtown Houston off Bray’s Bayou. Developers had planted almost 4,000 magnolia trees there to attract future residents. Though Anglos first inhabited the town, ethnic Mexicans began arriving by 1911, first settling in the area filled by sand dredged from the turning basin and known as El Arenal, or the Sands. Most of the new settlers worked as laborers, laying railroad tracks or dredging and widening Buffalo Bayou. Others loaded cotton on ships and railroad cars or helped construct the Ship Channel. While Anglo residents tolerated the presence of Mexicans because they were an important source of needed labor, the trustees of the Harrisburg school district in Magnolia Park decided to build a separate school for Spanish speakers in 1920. Immaculate Conception Church was nearby, but Mexicans were not allowed to enter the pews, so they had to remain standing even if seats were available (De León, 1989). Even though Houston was growing rapidly in this era, most Mexican workers were limited to employment as laborers in significantly lower paid jobs where they built sewers, worked on the railroad, or in the fields. A significant amount of the mexicanos coming to Houston at this time were refugees and exiles from Mexico who expected to return home one day.

Houston grew rapidly and the growth of this demographic was also steady. De León estimates that the Mexican population grew from 6,000 to 15,000 in 1930. A 1923 report on literacy in Harris County revealed that there were 1,500 foreign-​born Mexicans in the county at that time. Between 1920 and 1930, Houston grew 111 percent from 139,000 to 292,000. In the 1920s, the greatest growth of the Mexican community took place in Magnolia Park. In the 1920s, it still had unpaved streets and homes which lacked water, electricity, and gas service. In 1926 it was incorporated into Houston, and it was well on its way to being the largest Mexican barrio. (Kleiner, Magnolia Park, TX, TSHA).

Local residents made a distinction between Second Ward and Magnolia. Many saw the Second Ward as being comprised of Tejanos, internal migrants who were more Americanized than the mostly immigrant population who made up the residents of Magnolia. The culture, political outlook, and experiences of the residents of these barrios were seen as distinctive. In Magnolia, Navigation emerged as the main street of commerce in the barrio. Yet, the city was growing fast and, as is often the case, infrastructure had not kept up with growth and insufficient housing, unpaved roads, and sanitation (outside privies were common) were prevalent (De León, 1989).

Nevertheless, as Magnolia’s Mexican population grew, the community began to build an economy oriented toward its working-​class residents. Magnolia had its own business district by the 1920s on Navigation Boulevard with Spanish speaking entrepreneurs from the neighborhood (De León, 1989). There was work in refineries, compresses, and other ship channel related businesses. Socially, racial animus against Mexicans was strong. According to De León, “… Jim Crow laws applicable to Black people extended to Mexicans” (De León, 1989). As had occurred in the Second Ward, with the departure of Anglo populations in still emerging barrios of the Second Ward, larger homes were converted into rooming houses. As Mexicans began to dominate Magnolia, Anglo residents moved out and separate schools and churches emerged. On November 8, 1926 at 700 75th Street, Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church was opened and it became the primary church for ethnic Mexicans to attend in Magnolia. Presbyterian and Pentecostal churches followed soon thereafter to serve Magnolia. Rusk Settlement House launched an ambitious Americanizing effort that involved recreation, cooking, and English language classes. Girl Scout and Boy Scout troops were established. While De León notes that it is unclear how effective Rusk Settlement House was, it loomed large as a symbol of Americanization that pervaded US culture at this time. Americanization programs were intended to assist new immigrants adapt to their new society by accelerating their ability to adapt to the dominant social, cultural, and political practices of their adopted country; this included teaching English language skills, citizenship classes, social support, childcare, clothing, and food assistance. Thus, it was that settlement houses, schools, unions, and factories became fertile, if not controversial, sites for assistance and assimilation efforts that “sought to eliminate any visible marker of difference between Americans and immigrants.”ⁱ

Lorenzo De Zavala Elementary School was the first ethnic Mexican majority school in Houston. It had been built because Anglo parents had been worried about the high number of Spanish-​speaking students attending the white schools in Magnolia Park. Education policies still stigmatized Spanish speakers, however. For instance, in 1918 the Texas legislature outlawed any language other than English being used for curriculum and instruction, and thus speaking Spanish in the classroom and playground was prohibited for students at De Zavala. These restrictions reinforced notions of Anglo supremacy.

There were two forms of segregation in Houston schools. The most overt form was legally segregated schools for Black students under Jim Crow. The more covert model was the segregation internal to Anglo schools for non-​English speakers—​it was segregation in practice, but not codified by law. Thus, at the local level “the culture of Jim Crow fostered a racial logic that promoted hierarchies and social differences in language and religious custom” (De León, 1989, p. 97).

A number of self-​help and mutual aid organizations emerged to provide support and assistance. In May 1919 in Magnolia, the Sociedad Mutualista Mexicana “Benito Juarez” was established. The Sociedad provided assistance for members during times of sickness or death, and it worked for the betterment of the community, promoted linguistic and cultural retention, served as a locus for entertainment and social cohesion. It did not promote Americanization. Presumably oriented to mexicanos, these organizations like Mexico Bello were also trying to demonstrate the civility and beauty of Mexican culture to mainstream society to counter the explicit and rampant racism of the time. Sports associations sponsored by Mexican-​owned businesses flourished, along with social clubs like the Club Cultural Recreativo Mexico Bello, founded in 1924 (De León, 1989).

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    El Tecolote. [Advertisement of a baseball game, Alamos versus Magnolia Park], poster, March 21, 1931; Reprint courtesy of Houston Metropolitan Research Center at Houston Public Library.

Magnolia Park was annexed by the city of Houston in October 1926. By 1929 Magnolia Park, surrounded by refineries, factories, textile mills, industrial plants, and wharves, was the largest Mexican settlement in Houston. The Escuela Mexicana Hidalgo, a private school organized to preserve Mexican culture, was established in the community by 1930. A branch of the League of United Latin American Citizens was organized at Magnolia Park in 1934, and a Ladies LULAC council in 1935. In addition, other political and cultural organizations were activated to provide recreation and promote Mexican American culture, and some of them even actively protested segregation in the city.

Club Feminino Chapultepec was established in the early 1930s. It was organized as a subgroup out of the YWCA on Navigation. Anglo women initially resisted allowing Mexican women to use the facilities and claimed it was because of religion. Early on ethnic Mexican women advocated against discrimination and wrote a “Letter from Chapultepec, a 10-​point manifesto critiquing the use of ethnic slurs and the negative portrayal of Mexicans in film” (Kreneck, 2014). They also emphasized their desire to be racially categorized as white. Many others proclaimed pride in their Indigenous heritage even as they advocated for a white classification.

Steptoe notes that around 12,000 Afro-​Louisianans and 15,000 ethnic Mexicans lived in Houston by 1930. She states that “…the ethnic Mexican population grew from less than 1 percent in the early twentieth century to over 5 percent in 1940” (2016). Blacks and ethnic Mexicans were an internally diverse group hailing from various parts of the state, nation, and across the southern border. According to Steptoe, Spanish-​speaking migrants had a racial subjectivity that “did not conform to the legally enforced Black/​white racial binary. Mexicans had their own ideas about race—​and these often included a color spectrum that deemed those with dark skin as inferior.” Mexicans did not face the same kind of segregation as Blacks as many of them passed for white and were able to participate in white society in ways Blacks could not. Although many sports teams were distinctly ethnic, ethnic Mexicans could participate in baseball leagues, YWCA programs, and although some Jim Crow laws applied to them, they did not have to suffer all the indignities of segregation, such as limitations where they could sit on city buses.

According to Elliot Young, many ethnic Mexicans escaped the trappings of local anti-​Mexican Jim Crow (often referred to as Juan Crow) customs as applied to Mexicans if they adopted the “correct” cultural norms, had enough money, married Anglos, or otherwise presented themselves as white. African Americans, understandably, resented this differential treatment which excluded them and allowed some ethnic Mexicans to exercise the same privileges and rights as whites (Young, 2004, cited in Steptoe, 2016, p. 97). “Whatever legal claims to whiteness ethnic Mexicans possessed, segregation was often a matter of local practice—​and sometimes depended on the shade of one’s skin—​rather than official classification,” says Steptoe. (2016).

As is demonstrated by the proliferation of groups to serve the Spanish-​speaking community in Houston at this time, many ethnic Mexicans sought to preserve their heritage and to use it as a basis for community building even as they resisted being classified other than white and critiqued those who used their light skin to pass as having Anglo or European lineage (Steptoe, 2016).

New destinations

The year is 1920. At 19, María Olvera is a young woman when she arrives via train by way of Piedras Negras/​Eagle Pass to Houston with her younger sister Chonita. There they are met by their older cousin Lupita Olvera, who runs a boarding house in Beaumont, about 85 miles east-​northeast of Houston. The arrival of María and Encarnación to Beaumont is the culmination of a plan hatched under the stars by Irineo and Adelaida Olvera a few years earlier. Just three short months earlier, their father had died at his home in Parras. Adelaida, the girls’ mother was sad to see them go, but also relieved that they would be somewhere far from the instability of Northern Mexico. It was, afterall, a dying wish of Irineo’s that they leave and fulfill that plan. Despite promises to return when life was better in Mexico, Adelaida did not expect that her daughters would ever return. They had packed a large trunk of clothes with a few precious pictures and many gifts for Lupita.

The young women traveled by bus to Beaumont. After a few days of acclimating to their new surroundings, Lupita put the girls to work in the boarding house which served men who worked in the oil fields and lumber mills of this small east Texas town which had become the most vivid symbol of the rich potential of Black Gold, the oil industry, in the first year of the twentieth century. Most of the men living at the boarding house were also immigrants from Mexico who appreciated the meals and familiarity of food and the language shared by their countrymen.

Life in Texas was indeed different from life in Parras de la Fuente. Even though Beaumont was a small town, it was located only three miles north of the famous Spindletop oil field that had launched the Texas oil boom. María and Chonita were modest in their dress and in their interactions with the male boarders. In these matters, they followed the advice of Lupita who commanded the respect of the men and regularly reminded those who were married of their obligations to their families. She also established and reinforced house rules that brooked no disrespect to others in the house, especially toward the female staff.

In the summer of 1921, María was introduced to a man ten years her senior who had come to Beaumont to attend a birthday celebration for the husband of a friend of Lupita. Like her, the man was short. He was of dark skin and very quiet, which gave him an air of mysteriousness and gravity. He was very polite and she noticed him looking at her several times from across the yard where the party was held. Eventually, when the food was served and all had sat down to eat, they had their first interaction. He introduced himself as José García. He was very polite and seemed a bit shy. María had become more assertive working in the boarding house and so she kept the conversation going with questions about his family (he had none) and work (he was a cement mason) in Houston. They learned that they were both from Northern Mexico, and that he had been in Texas for quite a bit longer than she. María could tell by the way he looked at her tenderly that he was interested in her. She found him intriguing and when goodbyes were said that evening, he looked her in the eye and said, “I hope to see you again, soon.” She looked at him and said, “Yes, me too.” José took that reply as a sign that she would not spurn him if he called on her. Thus began a long and slow courtship made all the more challenging by the almost 90 miles between Houston and Beaumont.

José took every occasion available to him to visit, but this was often limited to once, maybe twice, a month. On his first visit following the birthday party he made a point of speaking to Lupita and asking if it was acceptable to visit with María. Often, this meant sitting in the drawing room and talking. Sometimes there was a meal. Only after a few months did he venture an invitation for a walk or a visit to the local ice cream parlor. María would always ask permisison of Lupita before accepting an invitation, and when they left the house, younger sister Chonita often accompanied them as a chaperone. After a few months, he asked María if Chonita might not be interested in meeting a friend of his, Salvador García, with whom he had traveled from Mexico. She agreed and soon there was a double courtship going on and the couples kept each other company, though they allowed just enough space for each couple to develop close relationships with one another.

While José was not an avid talker, he did have a dry sense of humor and an interest in other people that appealed to María. He also proved to be a good listener as she shared stories about the boarders or spoke of how much she missed Parras and her family. She asked many questions about life in Houston and he answered as best as he could. While he had been to see some musicians and folklorico dancers, he most often seemed to enjoy attending baseball games with friends, featuring players from the barrios. He also liked to go to Mexican restaurants and some of the smaller neighborhood cantinas, but he did not seem to go to the dance halls much. While María was often full of stories of her immediate and extended families, José rarely said anything about his. Only after almost a year of courtship did he share with her that he had grown up an orphan—​he had no parents and no family of which he was aware. This explained a lot to María and she felt intense compassion for the loneliness he must have experienced. She wondered why he had not sought out companionship to build his own family when he was younger.

She ventured to ask him this when they had become emotionally close, and he said that not having parents or a family of his own, he wasn’t sure he knew how to be a husband or a father. She realized that it took a lot for him to admit this and she assured him he would probably be really good at it and would treasure the experience even more once he took the risk of building a family. “Moreover,” she said, “You won’t be going through it alone. Your wife will provide guidance and support.” José never forgot this, and a little over two years after they started seeing one another, he asked her to marry him and to be the one to help him build a family. Although José was older than Maria by 11 years, he felt she was wiser and he would look to her when plans were to be made. María did not respond to his proposal right away. She said she needed to get counsel and permission from her mother in Parras before any plans could be made.

That permission was received and on September 17, 1924 at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Houston’s Second Ward they were married with their friends Pedro Rodriguez and Juana Rosa as witnesses. Their marriage was just four months after her sister Encarnación and Salvador García were married. When they went to church, José told María that his surname was actually Mendoza and not García as he had first told her. She said, well, then tell the priest that name for our marriage certificate. He did. The following June, their first child, Margarita, was born. She was followed by Juan in 1927, José, Jr in 1928, Roberto in 1930, and Jesus in 1935. A son, Manuel, would be stillborn in 1938, and their final child, Adelaida, named after María’s mother, would be born in 1943.

After their marriage, José moved the family a few times in order to accept the best-​paying jobs and minimize his commute to fast-​growing coastal towns that served the oil industry. They moved to Texas City for a year while he worked on a long-​term job at one of the refineries. That was followed by a move to La Marque to be near another job site. Eventually, around the time José, Jr was born, they settled into Magnolia Park, further east from downtown Houston than Second Ward where José had initially lived with the Garcías and then with friends from work. The 1930 census showed them to be living at 7822 Avenue E. By the mid-​1930s they purchased two small homes on a large corner lot at 7925 Avenue G (which was later renamed Canal Street). It is here where the children grew up and the couple lived the remainder of their lives.

When the financial crisis of 1929 initially hit, the residents of Houston were somewhat cushioned by the centrality of the railroad and shipping economies. Construction work was an important ancillary industry to the railroad and shipyards, so José was able to work, though competition was fierce and anti-​Mexican sentiment rose sharply among laborers who saw Spanish speakers as an economic threat, a convenient scapegoat for the country’s financial woes, and as foreigners who represented a danger to the country’s economic and social well-​being. These sentiments thrived without regard for the targets’ actual citizenship status and many US citizens were also targeted. This was especially true when the workflow was slowed down due to a lack of market demand and the limited flow of cash, and laborers were hit hard by work stoppages and supply chain issues.

By and large, María managed and supervised the household. Depsite her and José only having an elementary school education, they managed to maintain a modestly comfortable lifestyle even if they were a bit crowded in a four-​room shotgun house. They grew corn, pears, peaches, and figs on their lot to supplement their diet. Rent from the even smaller house next door helped underwrite their mortgage. During the evenings and weekends, José used his skills with cement to make decorative concrete planters, often in the shape of animals, that were embellished with glass and tiles to bring in extra money. As the boys grew, they pitched in by shining shoes, selling newspapers, and doing odd jobs to earn a few coins, most of which they dutifully handed over to their mother. José Jr often recounted a story of a time during the Depression when his father was sent to the store to buy some medicine. A fierce rainstorm developed while he was gone and he came home without groceries because the dollar bill had flown out of his hands. His mother immediately gave her husband a reproving look and sent him out to look for the money, but he was unable to find it. José Jr says that the next morning he went looking for it paying special attention to the side of the street to which the wind would have blown debris. After an hour of looking he found it against a chain-​link fence and happily turned it over to his mom so they could get the groceries that they needed.

The 1940 US Census shows that the Mendozas lived at 7925 Canal St. and paid $12.00/​month rent. José’s occupation was listed as a cementer who worked for various paving contractors and earned an income of approximately $480 per year. María and José saw that blue-​collar workers were especially vulnerable to the economy. This motivated them to encourage their children to get an education but having only an elementary school education themselves, they did not demand educational success of their children.

Image 12

    1940 U.S. Census. Mendoza family. Retrieved from Ancestry.com on 08/​22/​2022.

In some ways, this attitude extended toward their religious practices. María had been raised in a devout family who attended church regularly and who celebrated holy days with reverence. José had no such structure and though he sometimes visited churches out of curiosity, he was not a regular churchgoer until he was married. While Margarita enjoyed dressing up and attending church, of her brothers, José Jr was the only one who took a genuine interest in the joyful, glorious, sorrowful, and luminous spirituality of the Catholic church. Not only did he faithfully attend church every Sunday with his mother, he often went on weekdays before school. His devotion was intense and solemn. He often wished he could serve as an altar boy at Immaculate Heart of Mary, a church opened in the 1920s in Magnolia to exclusively serve the Mexican population, but when he inquired the Anglo priest had given him an odd look and said he was not allowed to be an altar boy. Though the priest did not make clear why this was so, José felt it was something about his very being, his kind, that disallowed this, so he accepted the priest’s judgment even as he suspected the reasoning was unholy.

Like many children of immigrants, the Mendoza kids served as translators for their parents when interactions with public officials, schools, or doctors called for it. Some of them embraced their parents’ vision for them to succeed in school; others sought success in the workforce. In the early 1940s with the war raging in Europe, José Sr, and later his sons, registered for the draft. The boys saw being drafted when they came of age as inevitable and they decided to volunteer. By this time, their names had long ago been anglicized. John joined the navy, Joe the army, and Robert the air force. Eventually, though he was younger, Jesse also joined the army. Margaret’s boyfriend and future husband, Robert Gonzalez, lost the bottom half of his leg when he participated in the storming of Normandy Beach on D-​day in June 1944.

José and María Mendoza were to live in the United States from the early part of the twentieth century until their deaths in 1974 and 1983, respectively. Although they sent their children to school and aspired for them to be successful in an English dominant society, they never became fluent in English and thus communication with their grandchildren was minimal. They accepted their transition to the USA stoically even as their children became assimilated to varying degrees. Maria did take her chidren to visit family in Parras a few times. Notably, a 1944 border crossing card shows that all four boys traveled with her as they returned from Mexico via Laredo. Her old family home had been gifted to relatives when her mother died in 1922.

This once young couple uprooted from their home by the turmoil of the early twentieth century, succeeded in building a new life in the United States. They witnessed a vast amount of social and technological change, and their lives, their labor, their story is an integral part of the fabric of Houston’s history, just as is the thread of so many other lives. They were not rich, but they were safe. According to my father, though he often wished for a more diverse diet, they were never hungry. The beautiful mahogany woodframes that encase my great-​grandfather’s and my grandmother’s photos, and the mere fact that these professionally taken photos from this time exist, suggest that they had the resources to indulge in these luxuries when many others did not. Moreover, because Lupita played a big role in helping my grandmother transition to live in the USA, María remained loyal to her and paid visits to her in Beaumont at least twice a month. And this is one of the reasons that, unlike many others, José and María owned a car when few working-​class mexicanos did. My grandfather was very proud of this and he only stopped driving when he wrecked the car at a very advanced age with my brother Bobby in it.

I have vivid memories of my grandparents’ deaths. José Mendoza, Sr died in May 1974 at the age of 82 of congestive heart failure, and María Olvera Mendoza died in 1983 at the age of 82. My father was their primary caretaker and one reason I recall my grandfather’s death was that my father visited him every day he was in the hospital and he deeply impressed me with how tender and caring he was as he spoke to him, tried to make him comfortable, and changed his bedpan and helped him urinate as needed. In those occasions he would ask me to help roll him on his side and my father would gently hold his penis as he relieved himself. My grandmother’s last two years were spent at a nursing home off Interstate 10, where my father visited her almost daily.

From the fields to the big city

Border crossing cards reveal that Felix Martinez, Zapopan, and their three young girls crossed the border from Piedras Negras into Texas in January 1923. Records also indicate that his mother and most, if not all, of his brothers and families did so as well. They went directly to Lockhart where they had made a commitment to work the cotton fields. Zapopan’s parents and some, but not all of her siblings, joined them in Texas a year later. For the next ten years Felix and Zapopan would work the migrant trail working mostly in the cotton fields of Central Texas, chiefly Caldwell County, but they also picked vegetables such as corn and okra. In the offseason they began gravitating toward Houston, which had a growing mexicano community and where men could find short-​term work as laborers to hold them over until the next crop came in. They pitched in and bought a flatbed with stake sides to get them and other workers (for a modest fee to help pay for fuel) to the fields. Picking cotton was backbreaking work made all the more difficult by the glaring heat of Central Texas. The lodging that migrant workers were given was often second or third class—​often nothing more than rickety shacks with dirt floors. One was paid by the pound, so picking often necessitated that the older kids and their mothers also worked, though some remained behind to care for the younger children, wash clothes, tend animals, and prepare meals for the family. The Martinezes were fortunate to find employment on a cotton farm that provided them with a large house set aside for migrant workers. They arranged to return to this farm each year for as long as they continued to pick cotton so the families could stay together.

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    Mexican Cotton workers in fields near Corpus Christi, Texas circa 1930s. Hollem, Howard R., photographer United States. Office of War Information.

As Felix and Zapopan’s family grew, they began to desire more stable work and housing, a life that did not require them to move every year and go through periods of unemployment and no pay. The drought of 1926 was particularly hard as many crops suffered and little work was to be had. In Houston, they experienced firsthand the growing community in Houston’s East End. Houston now had two Catholic churches for the Spanish-​speaking community. There was even a new elementary school exclusively for Mexicans! They initially lived in the Second Ward area of Houston; that’s where Geneva was born in their home in 1926. In 1927, the young family moved to Magnolia Park where Mary was born in December of that year.

Although she had only finished elementary school herself, Zapopan wanted her children to have the chance for an education and work that wasn’t so hard. By 1931, with the birth of José Philip, their only son, in Caldwell, Texas, Felix and Zapopan’s family had grown from the three girls they had upon arrival to seven. Their daughter Dora had also been born in Lockhart in 1929. By 1931, the oldest girls, born in Mexico, were already 11, 9, and 7, and life on the migrant trail was especially hard for them as they moved from school to school. Although a profound intimacy developed among those families that worked and traveled together, schooling became of secondary importance compared to the harsh demands of migrant life.

After the 1931 cotton harvest, Felix and Zapopan rented an apartment in Magnolia near Ave L. It was bittersweet. They were excited about establishing roots, but now the extended Martinez family seemed to be going down two distinct paths, those who continued to work the fields and those who would now make Houston their home. In 1932, Zapopan’s parents, Luis and Emeteria, would return to Coahuila. They, too, had migrated northward in the early ‘20s and it had never been Luis’s intention to stay. As he aged, he had often told his boys, “If I die here, take me back to Mexico as quickly as you can and bury me in Escobedo. If you cannot take me right away, burn my body and take my ashes back to where they belong!”

Life in Magnolia was good for the Martínez family. Their family grew until there were nine children, with eight girls and one boy. Aurora, also called Nena, was born in 1933, and Gloria was born in 1941. The kids attended Lorenzo de Zavala Elementary School in Magnolia, and then Deady Middle School on Broadway or Thomas Edison on Avenue I. Not all of them went on to high school, but those who did attended Milby High School. Three of the nine would eventually earn college degrees. With nine children, Zapopan was kept quite busy. She got up every morning to make fresh flour tortillas for the day. My mother recalled that when her father took tacos to work, the men at work wanted to buy them.

Living in Magnolia, Zapopan never had to learn English because she could shop, go to church, and for the most part communicate all in Spanish. She did take English classes at Rusk Settlement and they offered daycare for the children, but her attendance was irregular because there were so many demands on her time. Zapopan was frugal and the younger children wore hand-​me-​down clothes from their older sisters. As her daughters began to come of age, she supported them working outside the home and socializing at activities sponsored within the neighborhood. The oldest, Pura, was involved with Mexico Bello and aspired to be a socialite above her socioeconomic background.

Work during the Great Depression was infrequent and there were times when the rent was due when the family would keep the curtains closed and lay low if they could not afford to pay the landlord. As was true in the Mendoza household, the wife managed the household finances. Felix was by and large a mellow and happy-​go-​lucky man who paid the utmost attention to his family, but there are family tales that suggest from time to time he would return home late on a payday with a portion of his check gone because he had stopped to drink a few beers with friends on the way home. Zapopan had little tolerance for this because the margin of error in the household budget was slim. On these occasions she would make him sleep on the porch or go to work the next day without lunch. When his daughters tried to give him food to take to work, they faced their mother’s ire. Unlike the Mendoza family, Felix and Zapopan never owned a car. The 1940 census revealed that Pura and Socorro, then young women of 20 and 18, worked as a “saleslady” and “cashier” respectively, selling gas, dry goods, and groceries (1940 US Census). Felix worked as a truck driver at a cotton compress and received $684.00 a year in that capacity. They paid $12.50 a month rent on their house at 7531 Canal St. As was customary in their family, working children gave over their paychecks to their parents to support the household and were given back a portion of their check to use at their discretion.

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   1950 U.S. Census. Martinez Family, Retrieved from Ancestry.com on 08/​21/​2022.

Zapopan, sometimes called “Popa” by family, was a joyful person who loved to dance and sing songs. To poke fun at herself, she would call herself sopa de pan (bread soup). While it took them many years to get a radio, when they did get one, it was tuned to a local Spanish station and was on constantly. She loved to teach rhymes and dichos to her children, many of which were passed down to her children through the generations. Her favorite dicho was: Dime con quien andas, y te dire quién eres. Zapopan was good at making up rhymes to make her children laugh. For instance, when her kids sang the classic English folk song, “Pop goes the Weasel,” she would respond by singing Papas con chorizo. She was quick and witty as well. When one of my aunts told her mom that she had made some sweets and had intended to share them with her but that she and the kids had eaten them, Zapopan quipped an old proverb, Sus dientes esta mas cerca que sus parientes. One of my aunts said that when she would go to stay overnight with her mom in her later years when she was confined to a bed they “… would sing and sing every Spanish song we knew until we fell fast asleep. She loved to sing so much.”

Zapopan was the disciplinarian in the family. In spite of having only a fourth-​grade education, she was very handy and could take things apart to fix items in the house, such as her iron. To save money and bring in some extra income, she sewed clothes for her children and made dresses for neighbors upon request. Zapopan insisted that the entire family attend church every Sunday. What she was unable to give her children with money, she provided in other ways. She also raised chickens in the backyard for their eggs and to cook for as many years as she could chase them. Zapopan was a devoted churchgoer and many of her daughters followed her example. They became more involved in church activities as a family when Immaculate Heart of Mary was opened. Christmas was one of the biggest celebrations, and each year after the family attended midnight mass, a tamalada was held at the Martinez house. The tamalada included tamales, hot chocolate, and sweet bread; after this the presents were opened. Being very poor they could not afford presents, so each year their mother wrote to Goodfellows for presents for the children. The Rusk Settlement House would pass out bread with syrup for holiday treats and the family gratefully incorporated this treat into their celebratory gathering. Despite Zapopan’s strong Catholic faith, when Dora, one of their daughters, ran away to a convent in her late teens, Zapopan was devastated. Dora’s closest sister, Mary, supported her decision and kept secret her sister’s plans to leave so her parents would not thwart Dora’s departure.

Image 15

    Zapopan, center of picture at tour of state capitol with Councilman Ben Reyes. Mendoza family archives. Original source unknown.

When able, the Martinezes contributed to the weekly kermesses which raised funds for the church but also provided regular events for neighborhood families to gather. The Salon Benito Juarez was down the street and Zapopan would contribute food for their meetings and fundraisers as well as help community members in times of dire need. She did this even when times were hard because her sense of responsibility to others grounded her moral compass. She liked to maintain strong ties to her heritage and since her father-​in-​law had returned home, other than the biannual trips to visit her family in Escobedo, she felt it important to maintain connection to her Mexican heritage.

Felix continued to work in the cotton industry while in Houston, though in a different capacity. The 1940 census listed his occupation as a cotton compress truck driver. In 1950, his occupation was listed as a “Checker” at a cotton warehouse. However, in a question that asked if this person worked in the past week, Felix had not, so his employment may have been erratic or seasonal. As a checker he would have weighed, measured, and checked materials coming into and leaving the warehouse. In the early ’40s, Felix and Zapopan had saved enough money to buy a house at 7706 Canal St. In this two-​bedroom house they would raise their nine children. Eventually, in the early 1940s, Felix found work as a longshoreman at the Ship Channel, which was very nearby. During the war years, many young men from the area joined the military and labor was scarce, so older and younger than average men could find employment at the shipyard where all work during this time was considered part of one’s patriotic duty.

While he worked, but more earnestly when he retired, Felix would gather and crush aluminum cans and collect old newspapers and then take them to be redeemed for cash. My Aunt Geneva recalled taking her grandson, Brian, to visit his great-​grandparents; he would go to the garage and help grandpa crush those cans. Grandpa would say “pura feria, pura feria” (pure cash, pure cash) and Brian would repeat the words in broken Spanish. She also recalls asking her father how he liked mama’s cooking, he would smile and say “not even the president eats as well as I do.”

My Aunt Gloria recalls that she spent many years alone with them.

When her children had almost all left home, Zapopan began raising foster kids. In all, she fostered six children after her own nine had left home. Some were fostered through Catholic charities, others through the Harris County probation department. Many years later they invited Zapopan to their weddings. This was a practice that several of her daughters copied alongside raising their own children; one of her daughters formally adopted a foster child into her family.

Zapopan and Felix loved having visits from their children and grandchildren. They would regularly invite family over on holidays and it was not uncommon to visit them on Sunday and have two or three other families also visiting. In the heyday of their children raising their children in the ’70s, the family would rent out a church hall that could hold a party for 100 people. Games would be held, and the climax was a visit from Santa Claus, usually played by one of the uncles.

Sometime in the mid-​1990s, Joe Martinez, his wife Lily Martinez, and sister Patricia Martinez, sat with Zapopan at her dining room table and recorded a conversation about her and Felix’s journey to the United States from Northern Mexico. Details from that conversation inform this chapter. Zapopan framed the discussion with a poem she had learned in grade school. To honor the importance of this poem to her, I include that poem below as well as a poem I wrote, “Zapopan” in 1998 immediately following her funeral:ⁱⁱ

Zapopan (1998)

A friendship is forged (circa 1942)

Just a few blocks from their home on Canal, at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church on 75th at Avenue K in Magnolia, Zapopan and her daughters, Dora and Mary, would often attend early morning mass on weekdays. There they would frequently see a well-​dressed, well-​coiffed, handsome, young boy attending mass with his mother or by himself. He was about Mary’s age, and he, too, lived on Canal just two blocks down the street from them. He would always acknowledge them with a nod of his head, a buenos días, and a hint of a smile. Once she noticed him, Mary came to realize that he was a grade below her at Deady Middle School. Soon, they were exchanging hellos and small waves. When they saw each other walking home from school, they often let him walk with them.

And thus, though no one realized at the time, from these small seedlings of kindness, innocent smiles, and polite exchanges, grew a friendship between my parents that would later blossom into a lifelong relationship that would span eight decades.