1 built complex

1 built complex

Interview with Diego Echevarria, an Mexican-American immigrant from Mexico City. Echevarria discusses his childhood, life in Mexico City, living in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, moving to Texas City, experiences in school, moving to Irving, Texas, ESL, reflections on Mexico City, the visa process, the DREAM Act, employment, and immigration rhetoric in America.

Interview with Fort Worth city councilman Salvador Espino as part of the North Texas Immigrant Rights Movement Oral History Project. The interview includes Espino's personal experiences about childhood and education, having a career a computer consultant, accountant, and attorney, volunteering for Catholic Diocese, and running for a seat representing District Two on the Fort Worth City Council. Espino also discusses the district demographics and priorities, the creation of Latinos Unidos, and his involvement in Fort Worth's 2006 immigrant rights march. The interview also includes an appendix with an article written by Espino.

Interview with University of North Texas Professor Dr. Pierina E. Mercado Beckman, Mexican-born immigrant to Denton, Texas, for the DFW Metroplex Immigrants Oral History Project. The interview includes Beckman's personal experiences about childhood in Mexico City, relocating to the U.S., her decision to attend Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa, her culture shock and homesickness, marriage to Curt Beckman, the decision to earn a Ph.D. in Spanish Literature from the University of Iowa, being hired at UNT, and her efforts to remain in touch with family members in Mexico.

Interview with Ivan Arteaga, Mexican national and immigrant to Princeton, Texas, as part of the DFW Metroplex Immigrants Oral History Project. The interview includes Arteaga's personal experiences of childhood and education in Mexico City. Arteaga also talks about his family's decision to immigrate to Provo, Utah, his first impressions of the U.S., marriage, deciding to relocate to Texas, opinions regarding anti-immigrant feelings prevalent in American culture and regarding the U.S. immigration bureaucracy, as well as his feelings about his two children's U.S. citizenship.

Interview with Miguel Soria, Mexican-born immigrant to Plano, Texas. The interview includes Soria's personal experiences about childhood in Mexico, his first visit to the U.S., illegally crossing the border to live in Dallas, Texas, and experiences with a human smuggler, along with his experiences as an undocumented person and with discrimination. It also includes his thoughts on the DREAM act and the immigration process, and advice for future immigrants.

Interview with Jovita Soria, Mexican-born immigrant to Plano, Texas, for the DFW Metroplex Immigration Oral History Project. The interview includes Soria's personal experiences of childhood in Mexico, her first experience in Plano at the age of seventeen and her second on as a live-in nanny, her move to Abilene, Texas, and return to Mexico with her husband. Soria also talks about her return to Plano as an illegal immigrant, difficulties with illegal status, assimilation into Texas culture, children's experiences as Mexican-American, and her thoughts on the immigration process.

Author Harriett Denise Joseph relates biographies of eleven notable Mexicanos and Tejanos, beginning with Santa Anna and the impact his actions had on Texas. She discusses the myriad contributions of Erasmo and Juan Seguín to Texas history, as well as the factors that led a hero of the Texas Revolution (Juan) to be viewed later as a traitor by his fellow Texans. Admired by many but despised by others, folk hero Juan Nepomuceno Cortina is one of the most controversial figures in the history of nineteenth-century South Texas. Preservationist and historian Adina De Zavala fought to save part of the Alamo site and other significant structures. Labor activist Emma Tenayuca’s youth, passion, courage, and sacrifice merit attention for her efforts to help the working class. Joseph reveals the individual and collective accomplishments of a powerhouse couple, bilingual educator Edmundo Mireles and folklorist-author Jovita González. She recognizes the military and personal battles of Medal of Honor recipient Raul “Roy” Benavidez. Irma Rangel, the first Latina to serve in the Texas House of Representatives, is known for the many “firsts” she achieved during her lifetime. Finally, we read about Selena’s life and career, as well as her tragic death and her continuing …

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Interview with Atzhiri Acosta, a Mexican-American immigrant from Wichita Falls, Texas. Acosta discusses moving to Wichita Falls, Texas, his upbringing there and adjusting to American life, his first jobs, being an "illegal immigrant" and immigration rhetoric, his family, the DREAM Act, Donald Trump, his work, deportation, and Christmas traditions.

Interview with Lissette Moreno, a Mexican-American immigrant and activist from Monterrey, Mexico. Moreno discusses her childhood, moving to Dallas, family struggles with poverty, education, testifying in favor of the Texas Dream Act, college, reflections on immigration, the DREAM Act, being present for Pope Francis' 2015 address to the US Congress, and her faith.

Interview with Pec Indman, a mother and advocate for women's mental health from Cozumel, Mexico. Indman discusses working in a women's clinic, her education, raising awareness about postpartum depression, becoming co-author to a book, PSI, teaching and creating curriculum, transgender perinatal issues, and change over time.

Interview with Jacobo Kupersztoch, Mexican-born immigrant to the U.S. of German heritage, and immigrant rights activist. Interview transcript contains Spanish and English translations.

Interview with Laura Gonzalez, Mexican-born immigrant to the U.S., immigrant rights activist, and professor of anthropology with expertise in immigrant communities from Guanajuato, Mexico. She discusses her childhood and education in Mexico city; the decision to pursue a career in the field of political anthropology; decision to open the Oak Cliff Center for Community Studies; work with Camposanto del Cemento Grande and other community organizations in Dallas; work to increase Hispanics’ access to college; and involvement in immigrant rights movements and local Mexican American political groups. This interview has Spanish and English translations.

Interview with assistant professor of music history at UNT Ana R. Alonso-Minutti, Mexican-born immigrant to Dallas, as part of the DFW Metroplex Immigrants Oral History Project. The interview includes Alonso-Minutti's personal experiences of childhood and education in Mexico, attending college at Universidad de las Americas, discovering music history as a discipline of study, a one-year course of study in theology in Dallas, choir direction at a church in England, attending graduate school, and accepting a job offer from UNT. Additionally, Alonso-Minutti discusses family history, her grandparents' migration from Spain and Italy, her first impressions of the U.S., the decision to study musicology in the U.S. or Great Britain, the citizenship process, and the contrast of life in Mexico, England, California, and Texas.