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Oral History Interview with Felix Fraga, June 28, 2016
Felix Fraga was born in Houston in 1929. His parents settled in Houston's East End. At a young age, he began working in the Rusk Settlement House, where his bosses supported him and his education. He attended the University of Houston on a baseball scholarship. His work in the Rusk Settlement House and the growth of the Mexican American population in the area led him to work at the Ripley House in 1954. In 1970, he became the director of the Ripley House until he stepped down in 1990. During his tenure as director, he instituted several programs to help the community including English and citizenship classes, youth mentoring, early childcare, and became a polling place. In the last few years, the Ripley House has expanded by creating several charter schools to help the community of East End. Fraga served in the Houston Independent School District from 1990-1994 and in Houston City Council from 1994-1999. Towards the conclusion of his interview, Fraga discusses his legacy and and community leader Lionel Castillo.
Date:
July 28, 2016
Creator:
Enriquez, Sandra; Rodriguez, Samantha & Fraga, Felix
Object Type:
Video
System:
The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with George Lara, July 28, 2016
George Lara was born (1966) in Ector County, Texas but raised in Midland County, Texas. Lara began school as Midland Independent School District was integrated and graduated in 1984 from Lee High School. He has worked in Lara’s Automotive, founded by his father in 1970, since 1984. George Lara took over the small, family owned business in 1988. Lara ran for the Midland ISD Board of Trustees and won in 1999. Lara served as a Trustee for ten years and was part of the board when Midland ISD received unitary status.
Date:
July 28, 2016
Creator:
Wisely, Karen; Zapata, Joel & Lara, George
Object Type:
Video
System:
The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Gloria McGuire, July 28, 2016
Gloria McGuire was born and raised in Marathon, a town in Brewster Co., Texas (north of Alpine). She recalled her hometown as a highly segregated community, with a lost of hostility against people of Mexican descent. Her father, an immigrant from Mexico, founded a Mutualist association in Marathon and was involved in several initiatives to protect the community from the worst of discrimination. She recounted that many young Mexican Americans abandoned their studies due to neglect/mistreatment, and those who progressed in their education were usually singled out by hostile teachers and staff. Her education was interrupted by marriage and moving abroad (her husband was in the military). After returning to Texas, she got a degree in education from Sul Ross, and was eventually hired to teach in the San Felipe ISD on 1971, right before the consolidation into SFDRCISD. McGuire provided her testimony of the events surrounding the consolidation and the strained relationships between Del Rio and San Felipe teachers. She also spoke at length about the need to fight to defend bilingual education programs after consolidation, and her role to maintain and expand them.
Date:
July 28, 2016
Creator:
Sinta, Vinicio; Arionus, Steve & McGuire, Gloria
Object Type:
Video
System:
The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with James Grays, July 28, 2016
Mr. Grays was born in Dayton in 1947. Grays grew up in the Low-Woods community of Dayton. Grays mentioned a time when the church vehicle was stranded and they were not allowed in an establishment to call for aid in the late 1950s. Grays attended Prairie View and graduated in 1969. Grays then taught for a year in Port Arthur teaching drafting. Grays had some difficulty with promotions and training in the workplace as a drafter and plant/piping designer.
Date:
July 28, 2016
Creator:
Howard, Jasmin & Grays, James
Object Type:
Video
System:
The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Lupita, De La Paz, July 28, 2016
De La Paz's interview reflects on the contemporary issues that Del Rio is facing. She speaks about the importance of Casa De La Cultura in her life growing up. She lived in the Chihuahua barrio and went to Del Rio schools. She speaks about not learning about her culture and people who look like her in school. In order to supplement her learning, she would attend classes at the Casa. She spoke about learning culture through teatros and folklorio offered at Casa. The latter part of the interview deals with contemporary problems in Del Rio and the current work of Casa in the community.
Date:
July 28, 2016
Creator:
Sinta, Vinicio; Arionus, Steve & De La Paz, Lupita
Object Type:
Video
System:
The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Mabel Huff York, July 28, 2016
Huff York described her rural upbringing, her experience in the civil rights struggle locally, and the changes that have happened in the region since her childhood.
Date:
July 28, 2016
Creator:
Grevious, Danielle; Bobadilla, Eladio & Huff York, Mabel
Object Type:
Video
System:
The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Manuel Orona, July 28, 2016
Manuel Orona was born in 1964 in Pecos, Texas. He attended segregated schools until high school, going to Central High school and graduating in 1966. He then enlisted in the U.S. Marines, serving in Vietnam from 1967-1969. He was wounded in Vietnam. Upon returning to the United States, Orona attended Odessa College in Odessa, Texas, graduating in 1969. He then attended West Texas State University in Canyon, Texas for a year before transferring and graduating from the University of Houston in 1973. When returning from Vietnam, Orona was introduced to the Raza Unida Party by Juan Chávez (who then lived in Muleshoe was part of Chicanos Unidos Campesinos). By 1976, Orona left Houston and returned to Pecos to run for County Judge under the Raza Unida Party. In Pecos, he faced political and police oppression in response to his candidacy, and he lost the election. Orona then moved to Odessa permanently. In Odessa, he published El Editor Permian Basin edition from 1980 to about 2011 as well as participated in state level and local election campaigning for both Democrats and Republicans.
Date:
July 28, 2016
Creator:
Wisely, Karen; Zapata, Joel & Orona, Manuel
Object Type:
Video
System:
The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Perri McCary, July 28, 2016
Perri "P.K." McCary was born in 1953 in Texarkana. She grew-up in a ethnically diverse community in Alamo Garden, New Mexico and later lived near Prairie View A&M University when her father obtained a teaching position in the Industrial Education Department. McCary's parents gave her the tools to resist discrimination by exhibiting a strong sense of self and for confronting racist acts in front of her. She would opt to attend Jack Yates High School when her family moved to Houston because of the poor treatment of African-American students at the predominately white Madison High School. By 1970, McCary was attending the University of Houston and becoming involved in student activism. She would later engage in peace work and adapting religious texts with Black urban language to appeal to youth. She talks about instances of racism growing up, how her early experiences with diversity shaped the ways in which she engaged in cross-racial collaborations in her adult life, how Deloyed Parker and Ester King mentored her at UH, police brutality, and her family's association with the political movements of the 1960s and 1970s. She also discusses SHAPE Community Center and the Elders Institute of Wisdom, when she wrote a newspaper …
Date:
July 28, 2016
Creator:
Enriquez, Sandra; Rodriguez, Samantha & McCary, Perri
Object Type:
Video
System:
The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Sandra Fuentes, Elvira Castro, JoElda Hinojosa, Beatriz Arizpe on July 28, 2016.
Four co-chairs of The Border Organization (Organización Fronteriza) --a Del Rio-based group devoted to community organizing-- share their story about the group's mission and strategies. The interviewees talked about how they joined -- Sandra Fuentes and Elvira Castro are veterans from the organization and have been involved in numerous fights for local government accountability, while JoElda Hinojosa and Beatriz Arizpe joined recently when the group helped organize food service workers from the San Felipe Del Rio school district. Among the issues discussed were geographic disparities in the quality of public services and how race and gender affect local activism in Del Rio.
Date:
July 28, 2016
Creator:
Sinta, Vinicio; Arionus, Steve; Fuentes, Sandra; Castro, Elvira; Hinojosa, JoElda & Arizpe, Beatriz
Object Type:
Video
System:
The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Sandy Newkirk on July 28, 2018
Described her family's rural life, her travels, and her parents attempts to shelter her from racism. Also, she described her own encounters with racism in Texas and elsewhere, and her work on behalf of civil rights.
Date:
July 28, 2016
Creator:
Bobadilla, Eladio & Newkirk, Sandy
Object Type:
Video
System:
The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Angelica Tijerina-Taylor, July 27, 2016
Tijerina-Taylor discussed growing up in Robstown and her career as a teacher.
Date:
July 27, 2016
Creator:
Acuña-Gurrola, Moisés; Wall, James & Tijerina-Taylor, Angelica
Object Type:
Video
System:
The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Bernest Mitchell, July 27, 2016
Mr. Mitchell was born and raised in Stamps, Arkansas. Mitchell traveled to the Cleveland area after the saw mill in Arkansas was shut down. Mr. Mitchell received his barber's license and started his own barbershop in the 1960s. Mr. Mitchell worked in other industries while sustaining his barber shop. Mr. Mitchell and other members of the Cleveland Black community organized in efforts to integrate Cleveland. They attended several government meetings and negotiated with officials. Mr. Mitchell once showed up at a meeting of the local white citizen council and received death threats after revealing his opinion about the council's proposal of halting integration by providing more funding for the Cleveland Black school. Following the meeting, Mitchell received a death threat by a local pastor. Mitchell ultimately served for decades on the Cleveland school board after being elected in the 1960s.
Date:
July 27, 2016
Creator:
Howard, Jasmin & Mitchell, Bernest
Object Type:
Video
System:
The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Daniel Caudillo, July 27, 2016
Daniel Caudillo was born to Mexican immigrants in Odessa, Texas. He grew up as a migrant child with a home base in Odessa. Caudillo graduated from Permian High School in 2000, and then briefly attended Odessa College and the University of Texas-Permian Basin. He graduated from Texas Tech University in 2003 and then the Law School of Texas Tech University in 2007. Caudillo then went to work for an immigration law firm in El Paso, Texas; he opened his own law firm dedicated to immigration law in 2008 with offices in both El Paso and Odessa. Caudillo advises the public on immigration law through various non-profits.
Date:
July 27, 2016
Creator:
Caudillo, Daniel; Wisely, Karen & Zapata, Joel
Object Type:
Video
System:
The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Jew Don Boney, July 27, 2016
Jew Don Boney, Jr. was born in 1951 in Temple. His first experience with segregation was when his mother was initally denied entry into Scott and White Hospital when she went into labor with Boney. His parents were educators and his father wrote a dissertation on the racial biases in standarized testing while pursuing a doctorate in Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Boney relocated to Austin in 1966 and attended the University of Texas at Austin in the Fall of 1969. He became involved in Black-Brown student activism at this time. After spending a few years in radio and TV, Boney worked for the Urban League and became the Chairman of the National Black United Front Chapter in Houston. He later served as a city councilman for District D and a Mayor Pro Tem. Boney dedicated three years to the Free Clarence Bradley Campaign in order to exonerate a man falsely accused of the rape and murder of a white woman in Conroe, spent time bridging African and U.S. relations, advanced economic initiatives in Africa, and secured grants to process the Mickey Leland Papers at Texas Southern University while he served as the Associate Director for …
Date:
July 27, 2016
Creator:
Boney, Jew Don; Enriquez, Sandra & Rodriguez, Samantha
Object Type:
Video
System:
The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with John Wright, July 27, 2016
Mr. Wright was born and raised in Liberty, Texas in the 1930s. HE grew up on a farm and went to segregated schools. After his graduation in 1954, he went to Prairieview A&M for a brief period of time before joining the army, where he was stationed in Germany. He returned to Texas in 1960 and began working as a medical technologist. Later, he worked for NASA on the Apollo 11 mission, the EEOC, and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. In his interview, Mr. Wright describes Liberty in the 1940s and 1950s, his experience in the army, discrimination on the job in the 1960s and 1970s, community activism, his experiences as city councilman in Ames, and his hopes for hte area's future.
Date:
July 27, 2016
Creator:
Wright, John; Howard, Jasmin & May, Meredith
Object Type:
Video
System:
The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Karen Hildebrand, July 27, 2016
Karen Hildebrand was born in Odessa, Texas in 1958. She graduated from Permian High School in 1976 and attended Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas, where she graduated in 1981. Hildebrand returned to Odessa and worked for various non-profits, including Planned Parenthood. She served various capacities within Planned Parenthood, including becoming CEO for twenty-three years. Hildebrand has also served in the Peace Corps, earned a Master’s degree in public administration from the University of Texas-Permian Basin, and now heads for a women’s crisis center.
Date:
July 27, 2016
Creator:
Wisely, Karen; Zapata, Joel & Hildebrand, Karen
Object Type:
Video
System:
The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Manuel Polanco, July 27, 2016
Mr. Polanco is a former San Felipe student and former football coach with Del Rio High. He talks a little bit about his youth, some about his experiences at Texas A&I, and mostly about the school district consolidation. Some experiences about discrimination. One interesting fact about many of the Del Rio interviews--each of them seem to remember the segregated San Felipe District with special fondness despite, or perhaps, because of the segregation.
Date:
July 27, 2016
Creator:
Sinta, Vinicio; Arionus, Steve & Polanco, Manuel
Object Type:
Video
System:
The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with O.B. Garcia, July 27, 2016
Mr. Garcia discussed growing up in the Coastal Bend area and his career as a principal in Corpus Christi.
Date:
July 27, 2016
Creator:
Acuña-Gurrola, Moisés; Wall, James & Garcia, O.B.
Object Type:
Video
System:
The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Rogelio Robles, July 27, 2016
Rogelio “Roger” Robles was born in San Antonio, Texas in 1929 and grew up in both Laredo and Lampazos, Nuevo Leon. Robles graduated from Martin High School in Laredo in 1948; he then briefly moved to New York City before he was drafted into the Korean War. After returning from the Korean War, Robles attended Midland College and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1960. He permanently moved to Midland to work within the Guadalupe Youth Service Center that same year. While in this job, Robles formed a parent’s organization in order to raise money for student scholarships to attend college. After leaving this job, Robles founded several small businesses and then began working a life insurance agent. Robles later became a real estate agent before running successfully to become a trustee of Midland Independent School District, becoming the first Mexican American to win a spot in the board. Robles helped started the Midland Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
Date:
July 27, 2016
Creator:
Wisely, Karen; Zapata, Joel & Robles, Rogelio
Object Type:
Video
System:
The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Calvin Vinson, July 26, 2016
Mr. Vinson was born in Montgomery, Texas and raised in Conroe. He attended Booker T. Washington school and Conroe High, participating in football at both schools. After graduation, he went to work in Houston for a utility company. He returned to Conroe and became very active in political campaigns and community organizations. In his interview, Mr. Vinson described segregation in Conroe, a march in 1968, integration of schools, experiences playing football, discrimination at work, political activism in the African-American community, African-American community organizations, and how Conroe has changed over time.
Date:
July 26, 2016
Creator:
May, Meredith & Vinson, Calvin
Object Type:
Video
System:
The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Felipa Lara, July 26, 2016
Felipa Lara was born in Pecos Texas in 1946. In Pecos, she went to East Pecos Junior High and Pecos High School. All her schooling up to high school was within segregated schools. Lara married at seventeen and moved to Midland in 1962. In Midland, Felipa worked for the school district, particularly in the district’s migrant program. When LULAC was founded in Midland (1985), Lara joined the group as LULAC sued for single member districts at the county, city, school board, and college board levels. Overall, Lara worked within social services for Midland Independent school district for twenty-seven years. Lara also participated in anti-police brutality alongside Brown Berets in Midland during the 1990s.
Date:
July 26, 2016
Creator:
Wisely, Karen; Zapata, Joel & Lara, Felipa
Object Type:
Video
System:
The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Jenny Espino, July 26, 2016
Jenny Espino is the founder and director of the Corpus Christi Dance Collective, a community based dance project. She is also involved in community activism, and discussed her local projects as a community organizer in Corpus Christi.
Date:
July 26, 2016
Creator:
Acuña-Gurrola, Moisés; Wall, James & Espino, Jenny
Object Type:
Video
System:
The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Rachel Stone, July 26, 2016
Rachel Stone, the daughter of Felipa Lara, was born and raised in Midland, Texas. She attended Travis Elementary in the city’s minority majority south side, Alamo Junior High, and graduated from Midland High School in 1984. After high school, Stone worked for the FDIC and then began to work for the Midland Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, where she has been for twenty-four years; she is now the CEO/Director of the chamber. Stone has also served on committees for Midland Independent School District.
Date:
July 26, 2016
Creator:
Wisely, Karen & Stone, Rachel
Object Type:
Video
System:
The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Raphael Montgomery on July 26, 2018.
Raphael Montgomery was born in 1973 in Baytown. He came of age in the African-American Cedar Bayou neighborhood where there was a vibrant African-American business community and residents created a village setting. His parents raised him with the idea that he had to work harder and smarter due to racial discrimination. After graduating from Ross S. Sterling High School, Montgomery attended Prairie View A&M briefly before enrolling at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. At Fisk University, he gained a deeper awareness of the Civil Rights Movement and African-American history that he did not receive in public school. The knowledge he gleaned from African-American texts and African-American Studies courses instilled a sense of pride and the ability to perservere. During these college years, Montgomery received the call to become a minister and to later return to Baytown to preach at his childhood church, Mount Calvary Missionary Baptist Church. He talks about racial profiling by the police, growing up in the church and his father's role as a preacher, the benefits of attending a HBCU, and his position as a special education teacher for Goose Creek Independent School District. He also describes his unity and inclusion work in Baytown through his church …
Date:
July 26, 2016
Creator:
Enriquez, Sandra & Montgomery, Raphael
Object Type:
Video
System:
The Portal to Texas History