On the morning of Friday, June 15, 1962, Ruth and I cleaned our small rented row house on Douglas Street, oversaw the shipment of our belongings in a moving van, loaded our children into our station wagon, and drove around Las Vegas to pay bills and to photograph scenes of interest. Finally, in the early afternoon we turned our vehicle southward. I drove to El Paso with a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. It was not until then that I realized how much northern New Mexico and its Indian and Spanish‑American inhabitants had come to mean to me.
Arriving in El Paso in the late afternoon, we pulled up in front of the former L.D.S. Spanish‑American mission headquarters‑‑a large, wooden, two‑story Victorian building inhabited by Mr. and Mrs. Lorin Jones, the last mission presidents. They invited us to spend the night with them. After supper we talked about San Miguel County, New Mexico, where they had worked as county extension agents during the Depression. Then our conversation turned to the Mexican‑American members of the Church in El Paso. Ruth and I learned that there were two Mexican‑American wards, the Third and Seventh, and several dependent Spanish‑speaking Sunday schools. Although missionary work was flourishing among the Mexican‑American people, we were informed that many prominent Anglo‑American church leaders resented the formation of independent Mexican‑American wards and branches. The Jones were deeply troubled by this attitude, as well as by the patronizing, half‑contemptuous attitude of so many Anglo‑American church leaders and members towards the Mexican‑Americans. That night, Mr. Jones asked Ruth and me to do all we could to befriend and to assist the Mexican‑American members of the Church in El Paso. Feeling that we had received a special calling, Ruth and I assured him that we would.
The next morning we drove out to our new home, 5028 Jordan Lane, the first house that we had ever owned. The long, flat‑roofed, south‑facing, three‑bedroomed, red brick building crouched under the shade of six mulberry trees. A commodious, comfortable and airy house, it possessed a large, fenced‑in back yard with two peach and one pecan trees. As we inspected our new possession, the moving van drove up. We spent the rest of the day arranging our furniture and belongings. As we worked I noticed our three little boys seated on the low fence surrounding the front yard, observing the proceedings. I could only hope that the move would not harm them. Both David and Daniel had been torn from their many friends in Las Vegas.
Jordan Lane was an unpaved, tree‑lined, elbow‑shaped street with but four homes that connected Love Road with Mulberry Street. Our neighborhood, with large homes and yards interspersed with numerous cotton fields and pastures intersected by several irrigation canals, was a slowly urbanizing upper middle class sector of the Upper Valley. Although the population was predominantly upper middle class Anglo‑Americans, the spreading population had surrounded several older low income adobe villages inhabited by Mexican‑American farm workers.
Located in the flood plain of the Rio Grande Valley, the Upper Valley was bordered on the south by the Rio Grande River, on the west by the New Mexican border, and on the north by the foothills of the Franklin Mountains. Bird and small animal life was abundant. I enjoyed the Mockingbirds, Gamble Quail, Ground and Mourning Doves, Western Finches, Roadrunners, and other birds living in and around our yard. Ground squirrels were numerous and occasional skunks and coyotes visited us. Nearby drainage and irrigation ditches were filled with fish, crayfish and muskrats. Herons, ducks and other waterfowl paid frequent visits.
Although the Upper Valley was an attractive residential area, most of El Paso, on first sight, seemed to be but another dry, dusty, ugly border town. Sandstorms blow incessantly during the spring. The city contains few buildings, parks or historic monuments of any interest. Its atmosphere is chronically poisoned by oil refineries, packing plants, and smelters. The level of lead is dangerously high in the bloodstream of children in neighborhoods close to the smelters. Allergies are a serious problem. As a result the city contains allergy clinics of national renown.
Marked by extremely high rates of chronic unemployment and swelling legal and illegal immigration from Mexico, El Paso ranks in almost every national census as either the poorest or second poorest city in the nation. Subtle and, at times, not so subtle lines of discrimination separate the Anglo‑ and Mexican‑American populations. Although over 70 percent of the county population was Mexican‑American, Anglo‑Americans controlled (during my stay in El Paso) the economic, political, and educational systems in the city. There were no Mexican‑American school councilors and only one Mexican‑American principal in the El Paso school system at that time.
The Mexican community of Juarez, Mexico, El Paso's twin city just over the Rio Grande, redeems many of the unpleasant features of El Paso. The economies and societies of the twin cities are completely intermeshed. No act of the Mexican or the American government could ever cut the myriad economic, social and cultural bonds that unify the two cities. Each is dependent upon the other for much of its economic life. Together with their surrounding villages they form an independent border oasis separated from other major communities in either Mexico or the United States by long, sparsely populated stretches of desert, mountain and plateau. El Paso is by far the richer of the two, but it was more culturally ingrown and parochial than Juarez. Each Sunday I bought the Sunday editions of the Mexico City newspapers, Excelsior and Novedades, which provided a far superior coverage of world affairs than did the El Paso papers.
As in most metropolitan centers a number of diverse social worlds coexist uneasily in El Paso. A social divide separates the Mexican Americans from the dominant Anglo American minority. Although mixed neighborhoods exist, the majority of the Anglo Americans have little social contact with the Mexican Americans. As a general rule the Anglo American population of El Paso is easy to get to know. As a group they are much more moderate in behavior and in speech than Anglo Americans in other parts of Texas. Anglo El Paso in culture is more a part of New Mexico than it is of Texas. Separated by hundreds of miles of semi desert terrain from the centers of Texan life, it has little influence on the rest of the state, and the rest of the state seems little interested in El Paso.
The Texas elite during my residence in El Paso was dominated by Governor John Connolly and his friends. They were as primitive in behavior, as uncontrolled in expression, and as corrupt in their financial and political dealings as any group in Latin America. Indeed they resembled a powerful regional political machine in Mexico. I have often thought that dominant Texas values are merely exaggerated forms of Mexican value systems such as Machismo. That may be the reason why they have been so violently anti‑Mexican.
In El Paso, I interacted primarily with the Mexican Americans in my own community, Mormons, Catholics, Jews, the Military, and social agency personnel and my colleagues at the University of Texas at El Paso. Each of these worlds was quite complex. For example the Mormon community was divided into Anglo American and Mexican American Mormons with little except formal contact with each other. The Anglo American Mormons possess many of the characteristics of an ethnic enclave. The majority have little social contact except economic with non‑Mormons. Very few are active in the larger society of El Paso. Church activities are at the core of their existence.
The dominant group in the Anglo Mormon community came from the Mormon colonies in Chihuahua, Mexico. They hold the more important church positions. Having grown up in the cultural isolated Mormon rural villages in Chihuahua, they are unfamiliar with the diverse cultural, political, economic, and social trends in the United States. Very conservative politically, they find it difficult to relate to the often better educated more aggressive Mexican Americans; quite different in behavior from the Mexican workers they had known in Mexico.
The next largest grouping in the Mormon Community were those from Utah and other Western States. With a few exceptions, they tend to be more heterogeneous in their political, religious, and intellectual values. Although not as prosperous as those from Mexico they are increasing rapidly in numbers and will soon outnumber those born in Mexico. Local converts were not yet numerous enough to play much of a role in the community. The vast majority of the Anglo Mormons were active in the Church. For the first time I encountered underground Mormons who kept their membership in the Church a secret from their fellow workers and their neighbors. Occupationally the majority of the Mormons in El Paso are white collar employees, businessmen, and professionals with a few blue collar workers and farmers.
The number of Mexican American Mormons increased rapidly during my six year stay in El Paso. A very large number are first generation immigrants. A few attend the Anglo American wards as second class citizens but the vast majority are active in their own wards and branches. Many Anglo Americans resented the existence of Spanish speaking wards and branches. They fell that somehow it is both un‑Mormon and un‑American for them to exist in the United States forgetting that there is an English language ward in Mexico City. As the winds of the Chicano Movement blew through the Mormon Mexican American wards many conservative Anglo Mormon Church leaders found it difficult to understand or to sympathize with the growing militancy of younger Mexican American Mormons.
The Mexican American Community in El Paso was even more diverse than the Anglo American. A small group of the quite wealthy exists. A growing middle class has come into existence. And an ever larger working class grouping constantly reinforced by legal and illegal immigration from Mexico expands constantly. Some Mexican American groupings in the county have lived there for hundreds of years, and many Mexican Americans crossed the border five minutes ago. El Paso contains numerous Mexican American barrios that differ in degrees of acculturation, income, occupation, length of residence in the region, and in language spoken. There also exist outside of the city limits numerous squatter settlements of Mexican Americans that resemble the colonias that circle Juarez. None have received the scholarly attention that they deserve.
The large cosmopolitan Jewish community of El Paso was very important in my life. The level of intellectual activity among them was very high. Several of their Rabbis such as Rabbi Tierman were historians and scholars. I was often invited to give lectures on the Southwest on the Mexican Americans, on relationships between Mexico and the United States, and on El Paso social problems. Argumentative though they were and at times very sharp in their questioning, they were always urbane and warmly receptive. I came to like them very much. I could always depend upon them for support. Indeed the Jews and the Catholics were my warmest allies and conservative Protestants and Mormons my worst enemies.
For the first time in my teaching career I taught a large number of Jewish students. The majority, majoring in business, attended the college for several years before transferring to more prestigious universities elsewhere, as they were making up grade point deficiencies. As a group they were sharp witted, argumentative, well traveled and intellectually alive. But in many ways they were as vulnerable as may Mexican American students. I delighted in working with them and came to know many of their parents intimately.
The American military loomed very large in the economic and social life of El Paso. Although the military world composed of active and retired military personnel was quite self contained, it's officers were far more cosmopolitan, liberal, and unbiased than the native Anglo American population. Embedded within them were many foreign troops brought to El Paso for training. Some of the soldiers stationed in El Paso married Mexican and Mexican American girls taking them back to their places of origin.
Although the vast majority of Catholics in El Paso were Mexican Americans they seemed to have little influence in church affairs and were somewhat alienated from the church. The clergy at the time was largely Anglo American though many spoke Spanish. From the bishop on down they supported anti poverty programs and efforts to reduce prejudice. I could always count on their support for any effort to improve the economic, political, and social conditions among El Paso's Mexican Americans.
I also found important allies and friends among the personnel of the private and public welfare agencies in El Paso. They helped to bring anti‑poverty programs into existence, stretched the rules of their agencies to serve the poor, and provided support to me when I came under attack. I had many close friends among them and found that they knew the contours of El Paso life better than most.
Unfortunately, Anglo American school personnel, principles and teachers were either hostile or neutral to the changes we were trying to effect in the school systems.
Within a day or so of our arrival in El Paso we located the meeting place of the El Paso Fifth Ward. At the time the ward met in the Fairyland Kindergarten, a private school. We were eagerly welcomed. Ruth was quickly called to serve as ward pianist and president of the Young Lady's Mutual and I as teacher to the teacher's quorum. Through a small series of intimate dinners, the bishop, Bishop Gerald Pratt and his wife, introduced us to many ward families. Among them were Jeff and Hazel Taylor whom we came to love. Their family history was most interesting. They grew up in one of the Mormon villages in Chihuahua. They had become engaged as the Mexican Revolution broke out. They told us that Pancho Villa liked the Mormons, visited them often, and protected them from violence. However a later general Felipe Angeles, a Red Flagger, hated all Americans and killed those who fell into his hands. As his troops moved closer to the Mormon communities, its habitants were evacuated to El Paso leaving a small guard of young men including Jeff Taylor to protect their homes. Alerted one evening that a column of Red Flaggers was approaching Colonia Juarez, they hastily formed a skirmish line behind fences and trees. Firing broke out and Brother Taylor killed a Red Flagger. As darkness fell they disengaged from the battle and rode nonstop to the El Paso border. He and Hazel married and reared a family in El Paso.
Within several weeks of our arrival in El Paso, the Juarez research group formed by Dr. Charles Loomis came together in two groups. One group composed of the Mexican‑born scholar from the Midwest, Arturo de Hoyos, his Argentine wife of French descent, and Antonio d'Antonio lived in Juarez and studied the Juarez and El Paso elites. A man of great intelligence and scholarly potential, de Hoyos later moved to B.Y.U. Although he became head of the B.Y.U. Indian program and a prosperous businessman, his scholarly career aborted.
The second group, composed of Wade Andrews from Ohio State University; Arthur Chaffee, a Methodist minister and rural extension agent from Pueblo, Mexico; Benjamin Leubke, an eccentric sociologist from the University of Tennessee; and myself lived in El Paso and commuted to Juarez every morning. Our task was to study the impact of the conversion process upon a membership sample of the Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist and Assembly of God churches in Juarez. While Wade Andrews and Arthur Chaffee interviewed Presbyterians and Methodists, Ben and I concentrated on the Baptists and Assembly of God. The first church groupings were, in general, middle to upper class while the latter two ranged from middle class to the very poor. Securing membership lists from the local pastors, the four of us each day (except Sunday) walked across the bridge to Juarez and visited Mexican Protestants until late at night. There were very few poor neighborhoods that Ben and I did not visit.
I fell in love with Juarez. With its numerous street vendors, its many beggars and street musicians, street children, police officers, tourists, soldiers, cafes and bars, Juarez reminded me of the Argentine and Brazilian cities in which I had lived. Ben and I attended many cultural events, concerts and lectures in Juarez. Juarez became one of my favorite cities, in spite of its high crime rate, its red light district, and drug traffic supported by Americans.
We found (as could be expected) that conversion into a Protestant church radically changed the convert's life. Former intimate relationships with family members and friends severely weakened. Converts worked extremely hard and acquired a reputation of being good, trustworthy employees. They became more involved with their immediate families and wasted few resources on parties and fiestas. Their children did better in school as parents became more concerned about their children's education. By the second generation large numbers became white collar workers and small businessmen. By the third generation many had attended the university, moving into the professions and the upper middle class. Here, some married Catholics of the same social class, reverting to the gentle Catholicism of the Mexican elite. There was not, as yet, a large enough critical mass of wealthy and influential Protestants to provide a support system.
The majority of Assembly of God members and over half of all the Baptists we interviewed lived in the colonias or neighborhoods of misery that ringed the city of Juarez. The inhabitants of the rapidly proliferating colonies were immigrants from the interior of Mexico or from the urban slums of Juarez. Upon arriving in Juarez, the new arrivals first constructed small homes of flattened tin cans, cardboard and scrap lumber on vacant land. As soon as their means permitted, the colonists replaced their temporary dwellings with adobe houses that soon filled every niche of land, including the ravines or arroyos upon which a house could be built. Although owners of the land upon which squatters might settle protested, the government did little. No one wanted to be responsible for the riots that might ensue if the squatters were arbitrarily dispossessed. Over time, the government of Juarez, as limited funds permitted, regularized titles, carved out street patterns, built schools, and extended its water-power sewer.
Living conditions in the colonias (named after revolutionary heroes) were appalling. The majority of the houses had no water, no sewage disposal units, and no public utilities. Water trucks traveled through the colonias several times a week selling polluted water from the Rio Grande River. The colonia inhabitants lived as best they could from peddling, begging, unskilled labor and petty crime. A few with knowledge of handicrafts, such as pottery or weaving, lived better. Those with the best homes tended to be "green carders" working in the United States while living in Juarez. Death rates were extremely high. Large numbers of children died from dehydration and intestinal infections in summer and from pneumonia and influenza in winter. Malnutrition was epidemic. Except for sporadic distribution of milk by Mexican social agencies and the distribution of a little food and clothing by American organizations, there were few organized welfare activities. For the colonias, it was "root hog or die." They viewed their own government as exploitative, abusive, and alien. Many Mexican and American authorities, warned us against venturing into the colonias alone. But the four of us were active in the colonias from early morning until very late at night. Many poor families we visited refused to let us leave until they had exhausted our knowledge of El Paso. They asked many perceptive and informed questions about American life, politics, the economic system, and international affairs. I developed a tremendous respect for the intellectual capabilities of these people living on the thin edge of human existence. There is among them the potential of a great nation. Our work came to an end in late August, with my fellow researchers departing for their respective abodes.
Just before the fall quarter began, I learned from the college administration that the Board of Regents of the University of Texas system had taken no action on their proposal to split up the composite social science division. As compensation for not securing my Department of Sociology, I obtained travel funds for Paul Goodman, an excellent colleague and fine sociologist, and myself to attend the Rural and National Sociological Societies meeting in Washington, D.C., around the end of August. On the long and enjoyable train trip to Washington, D.C., Paul taught me the history and social dynamics of the college.
Texas Western started life as a school of mining and engineering, endowed by a millionaire who, having lived in Bhutan, insisted (as part of his endowment) that every building on campus be built in the Bhutanese architectural tradition. As a result, the college resembles a Bhutanese Buddhist monastery tucked away into the arid folds of the Franklin Mountain foothills. The exotic architecture melds into the semi‑desert hills.
The college was growing very rapidly. A full fledged, liberal arts, four‑year college, it was in the process of dividing general academic divisions into component departments. Former non‑degreed divisional heads were being replaced by degreed faculty with some pretensions to research. The older, non‑degreed faculty, trapped by the new policy of linking promotions and salary increases to publications, sought refuge in bitter carping and fruitless plotting. As I sized up the situation, I decided to court the older faculty (as I had in Georgia) and, as a result, developed many friendships and avoided conflict.
The president of the college, Dr. Joseph M. Ray, came to El Paso from the headship of a community college in Amarillo, Texas. As I came to know him better, I felt a persistent pity for him. He really wanted to create a fine, small university, but had little power to do so. Most of the basic decisions concerning the school‑‑even such minor decisions as the addition of new courses or the deletion of old courses‑‑were made in the Chancellor's office of the University of Texas System in Austin, of which we were a part. Not being a scholar, Dr. Ray was in a difficult position. He was not respected by the newly‑hired, degreed faculty because of his lack of scholarly credentials. I felt that I owed him loyalty, as he had hired me. I am proud to say that, even when given the opportunity, I never criticized the president or his administration.
Arriving in Washington, D.C., Paul and I attended some of the sessions of the Rural and National Associations, even though we spent more time visiting museums, art galleries and bookstores. I did enjoy meeting a number of old friends‑‑among them (to my surprise) was Florestan Fernandez. He told me that, to save his life in Brazil from the Brazilian military junta, he had to seek refuge in Canada. I sat up most of one night with Florestan translating a paper he was to deliver from Portuguese into English and served as his interpreter at the National and International Sociological Societies.
Returning home, I helped Ruth get the boys into school. Just as the fall semester began, my old Las Vegas friend, Alvin Garcia, appeared at my door. He had joined the regular army and was now stationed at Fort Bliss. He helped me construct a chicken coop and rabbit hutches. To please my boys, I ordered a collection of rare chicken breeds from Stromberg Hatchery that came in different sizes, colors and feathering. We also purchased four Dutch rabbits‑‑three does and one buck. The chickens and rabbits flourished during our six years in El Paso. David especially delighted in them and won several prizes at local 4‑H club fairs in the county.
The student body at the University of Texas in El Paso was far more heterogeneous than the student body at New Mexico Highlands University. The majority of our students came from working class to middle class El Paso Anglo‑American families. Few students from wealthier Anglo‑American families attended our college. Over one‑third of the students were Mexican‑Americans from the diverse Chicano barrios of El Paso. In general they were less acculturated, less familiar with the English language, and tougher in personal fiber than the more rural Spanish‑American students in northern New Mexico. As at New Mexican Highlands University, the moment the Spanish‑speaking students realized that I spoke Spanish, they flooded to my classes, poured into my office, introduced their parents to me, and sought my advice on a variety of issues. Before the end of 1963, I had become as deeply involved with Mexican‑American students at UTEP as I had been with Spanish‑American students at Highlands.
I developed a special fondness for the Mexican‑American Mormon students. Facing prejudice and discrimination from certain segments of the Anglo‑Mormon population as well as from Anglos in general, they were neither fully accepted by Catholic or Protestant Mexican‑Americans. I employed them, helped them to adjust to the university, spoke in their wards, visited their families, and loved them. Many of them were far better educated than the majority of Anglo‑American Mormon students.
As the fall of 1962 drew to an end, I caught the Greyhound bus to New Mexico on November 5 to spend several days in Las Vegas and then attended the three‑day conference of the New Mexico Conference on Social Welfare in Albuquerque. While in Las Vegas, I visited Judge Luis Armijo in his chambers. A fascinating conversationalist, he told me much about his political activities in San Miguel County during the 1930s and 1940s. Don Luis was well‑educated and completely bilingual in Spanish and English. He seemed to have read widely in the two languages. He deplored the loss of Spanish among the younger generation of Spanish‑Americans and was deeply ambivalent about the values of Anglo‑American society. I am glad to have known a few of the old Spanish‑American dons‑‑a class that has all but vanished.
Arriving in Albuquerque, I checked into the Student Union Building on the campus of the University of New Mexico. After inspecting my room, I went downstairs to the lobby and spent an enjoyable evening with David Varley, chairman of the Department of Sociology at the university; Arthur Blumenfeld of the Bureau of Economic Research at the university; Mrs. Helen Ellis, president of the Conference and teacher of the very few social work courses offered by the university; Mrs. Annie Wauneka of the Navajo Tribal Government, one of the most impressive women I have ever known; and Thomas Sazaki, a university anthropologist. They brought me up to date on the ever‑fascinating New Mexican scene.
The next day I chaired a panel discussion on northern New Mexico, the most depressed region in the state. I spoke on the socioeconomic problems of the Spanish‑American villages and urged that the village and the region be used rather than the individual and the family as the basic units of social planning. Tomas Atencio analyzed in an ironic spirit the causes of these problems, Thomas Sazaki discussed the socioeconomic needs of the Indian communities of the region, and Drew Cloud of the Farmer's Home Administration went over government programs designed to remedy in part the economic difficulties of northern New Mexico. A large number of Anglo American doctors in the audience‑‑all urban types‑‑took umbrage at one of our suggestions that the U.S. Department of Public Health establish a network of clinics in the region.
Sometime in September President Ray asked me to submit a memorandum (my second) pointing out the advantages that the establishment of an independent Department of Sociology might bring to UTEP. I called together my small crew of Paul Goodman and Mary Quinn. We put together a memorandum stressing the career possibilities of sociology majors, the insights that students enrolled in sociology might acquire about their society, and the services that such a department could render the university. Much to our surprise, within three weeks we were notified that the Board of Regents had approved the formation of an independent department. We were assigned the disciplines of anthropology, geography and sociology.
Ruth and I had hoped to spend our first Christmas quietly in our new home when our plans were suddenly disrupted by a telephone call from Ruth's mother, demanding that we come to Salt Lake City to spend Christmas with Ruth's family. Not wanting to go, we pled poverty, but she sent money to us for the trip.
So we put away our Christmas presents, dismantled our Christmas tree, and traveled slowly to Salt Lake City, giving the boys many opportunities to collect rocks, hunt for horny toads (to be let loose after examination), and to visit churches, museums, and historical sites. Upon arrival we checked into the DeYoung residence and encountered the same problems that we faced every time we came to Salt Lake City. Each time one family scheduled a party or family get‑together, the other family inevitably scheduled one for the same date.
The Christmas visit ended in disaster. Ruth called me aside on the morning of December 28 to mention that her mother was angry over the amount of time we had spent with my family. Hoping to defuse her anger, I entered the living room with Ruth and the boys. Much to my surprise, before I could utter a word, Mrs. DeYoung assaulted me physically. Shocked and angered, I left the house and remained away all day. Ruth and I departed Salt Lake City on December 31.
As compensation for the unpleasant Christmas season, I had the pleasure of baptizing my oldest son, David, a member of the Church on January 5, 1963, and confirming him on January 6. As both David and Daniel scored quite high on musical aptitude tests administered by the El Paso School System, Ruth started David on the bassoon and Daniel on the clarinet. Both boys benefited from excellent private teachers and played in the school orchestra until we left El Paso. The two boys were invited to join the El Paso Boy's Club choir. They sang in the choir until 1968. Ruth was called to serve as ward pianist, a position she occupied during our El Paso years. Her musical ability was swiftly recognized in the city and within a few months she had become one of the better piano teachers in the Upper Valley, with a constantly increasing number of students.
To relieve Ruth of the burden of housework, we hired Esther Arriola, a remarkably fine Mormon from Juarez. Leaving her family every Monday morning, she crossed the border illegally to live with us until Friday afternoon when she returned to Juarez. She became an important member of our family for several years. Then came Alicia, another member of the Church, and finally Rita. All of our maids were intelligent women of fine character and personal integrity who fought heroically to support their families by taking care of other people's children. Ruth and I loved and respected these women who cleaned our home, prepared our meals, mothered our children, and taught Ruth and the children Spanish.
On March 13 I traveled with our bishop, Gerald Pratt, and his oldest son to the Mormon colonies in Chihuahua. The bishop was in the process of planting a large apple orchard not far from Colonia Juarez. We passed the border late at night. I dozed fearfully as the bishop drove all night. What with the habit that Mexicans have for walking, driving, parking and sleeping on the road at night with accompanying livestock, night driving can be adventuresome in Mexico.
I quite enjoyed my visit to the Colonias Dublan and Juarez. They reminded me of pre‑World War II Mormon villages along the Wasatch Front in Utah. On the way back we stopped at the ragged and forlorn‑looking settlement of the Church of the First Born at Nueva Galeana to visit a Mr. Silver. As we visited, four or five young women passed through the room. Mr. Silver then wanted to know how many wives and children I had. When I replied that I had only one wife and four children, he stated that I did not have enough of either to enter into the higher levels of heaven. He mentioned that the colony needed a teacher very badly and if I would consent to take the job I could have my pick of two or more of the young women of the colony. Observing a broad smile on the face of the bishop, I suggested that we ought to go.
During the fall of 1962 President Ray organized a University committee to develop cultural, faculty and student exchange programs with universities in the Mexican border states. Our efforts to initiate contacts with Mexican universities brought a warm response from the University of Chihuahua. Therefore, on March 29, 1963, a committee composed of President Ray, Dean Clyde Kelsey, Professors John Hovel, Samuel D. Myers, Ray Past, John Sharp, Wayne Gilcrist (American Consul), and myself went by train to Chihuahua City. Arriving late at night in Chihuahua City, we were taken by a small reception committee to the Victoria Hotel, a hotel that I came to know quite well.
The next morning we were conducted to the campus of the University of Chihuahua by the rector, Dr. Villamor, and a group of faculty and students. We met first with the heads of various university divisions and departments, faculty representatives, and student leaders. I was quite impressed by the quality of both faculty and students. They asked us the penetrating questions about our goals, our university, and our definitions of cultural, faculty, and student exchange. They wanted to cooperate with us fully. After a magnificent lunch, our committee separated to participate in student seminars. I told my seminar of around 25 students and several very nervous faculty members that I would answer whatever questions they asked me on any subject, reserving the right to ask them any questions I desired in return. They asked very sharp and profound questions about American foreign policy, American economic and political trends, racial and ethnic prejudice, and the treatment of Mexican citizens in the United States. I answered all of their questions and then asked them questions about the Mexican political and economic systems and trends, corruption, intellectual life, and the influence of left‑wing student groups. They responded to my questions and for over an hour we had an excellent exchange. The students told me that left‑wing organizations had little influence among the students at the University of Chihuahua, but had penetrated deeply into the normal schools. I enjoyed my experience, invited the students to visit me in El Paso, and told them that their level of cultural, political, and economic sophistication was higher than that of my el Paso students.
The next morning we were taken on a tour of Chihuahua City and its environs. It seemed to be a quiet, well‑developed Mexican City, dependent upon mining, smelting and agriculture. I noted very few squatter settlements. The groups of Tarahumara Indians in the streets interested me. Many of the stores were operated by people with European names, especially German. I liked the city and would not have minded living there.
Shortly after the return from Mexico, I visited Father Rahm, the Jesuit director of Our Lady's Youth Center, a Catholic settlement house in the slums of South El Paso‑‑one of the largest Mexican‑American barrios in the United States. As I was ushered into his small, Spartan office late one Friday evening, I heard the vigorous music of a band pounding out Ranchero music in the large combination dance hall and gymnasium above our heads. Father Rahm gave me a copy of his small publication about working with the gangs of South El Paso. He had just finished giving me a tour of the center along with an explanation of its programs, when the music abruptly ceased. Father Rahm sprang out of his chair, dashed out of his office with me in tow, and raced up the stairs to the door of the ballroom. As we reached the door, it swung open and a young Mexican‑American boy stumbled out with blood flowing from a stab wound in his chest. Father Rahm pulled him down to the landing, put a compress over his wound, and sent aids to close the ballroom door, call an ambulance, and the police. The boy refused to name his assailant. The crowd of young people were searched to no avail, but the ballroom floor was littered with switchblades, linoleum knives, zip guns and other weapons. This was my introduction to South El Paso, a large slum that I came to know better than my own neighborhood in the Upper Valley.
Father Rahm became one of my closest friends in El Paso. He asked me to serve on his board of directors, which I did as long as I lived in the city. He also asked me to assist him in the development of a weekly Sunday television program in south El Paso. Through Father Rahm, a tough, burly fearless Jesuit, I came to know many gang leaders, Mexican‑American community leaders, neighborhood inhabitants, the archbishop and many members of the Catholic clergy.
Father Rahm introduced me to Salvador Ramirez, the assistant director of the El Paso Boy's Club. A stout, affable, intelligent but insecure young man, Sal (as he was known) grew up in the streets of South El Paso, developing a barrio‑wide reputation as a tough, courageous street fighter. He gained additional prestige by playing football for a local Catholic high school. Nicknamed "El Huevo", he became the role model and community leader of south El Paso. Wherever he went, children and young people swarmed around him. Married to a charming Mexican‑American woman, he lived in a middle‑class tract neighborhood close to the airport, about as far from South El Paso as one could get. More than anyone else, Sal taught me the facts of life about South El Paso. He introduced me to gang leaders, community leaders, young people, and adult barrio residents. He and Father Rahm sponsored me to such a degree that I could come and go in the barrio in spite of the gangs at all hours of the day and night without fear or hesitation. I soon became part of a group of young Mexican professionals and youth and social workers deeply concerned about the barrio.
In South El Paso, bounded on the north by Paisano Drive, on the south and west by the Rio Grande River, and on the east by the yards of the Santa Fe Railroad lived in about one square mile (in 1960) over 25,000 people. The majority of the inhabitants were first and second generation impoverished immigrant families from Mexico. Known to its people as the Segundo Barrio, South El Paso is one of the most important Mexican‑American barrios in the Southwest. Within its boundaries are located two Catholic parishes, several Protestant chapels, a Mormon wardhouse, two grade schools, a Protestant boarding school for students from Latin American, the famous Bowie ("La Bowie") highschool, one small park, and innumerable one‑ to ‑five story red brick tenements built around narrow courts in which are located water faucets, latrines, and laundry basins.
Each tenement apartment consisted of two to three rooms without central heating, water or bathroom facilities. Disease and malnutrition were epidemic. Maternal, infant and tuberculosis death rates were among the highest in the nation. In spite of its extreme poverty, the barrio was quite clean. The Segundo Barrio was divided into a number of smaller neighborhoods, each with its own social characteristics, reputation, gang tradition and folklore.
Very little English was ever heard in South El Paso. Radios and televisions are tuned to Juarez, and the only newspapers circulating in the barrio was in Spanish. The language of the street in South El Paso was a fascinating, bewildering mixture of Spanish and English. Young Mexican‑Americans from other barrios in the Southwest visited the Segundo Barrio to record the latest slang. Although I soon came to understand it, I could never speak it. I had to rely on standard Spanish. The major shopping street of the barrio, Stanton Street, was lined with used clothing stores, grocery stores, pawn shops, employment agencies, and other businesses dependent upon clients from Mexico. Known as the Calle de Pecado (Street of Sin), illicit entrepreneurs on Stanton Street provided many illegal services and products.
During 1962 and 1963 I joined many organizations that enriched my life in El Paso. At the college I became a member of the board of the Texas Western Press chaired by Dr. Samuel D. Myers, a fine Southwestern historian, and composed of John Sharp (one of the finest Spanish language teachers I have ever known), John Hovel (a Spanish‑speaking member of the Political Science Department), and Dr. Ray Past of the English Department. I thoroughly enjoyed my work on the board which consisted of evaluating manuscripts and negotiating with authors. For my activities, I received copies of the Texas Western Press publications. President Ray called me to serve on the College Research Committee. We received several thousand dollars each year to distribute to college faculty applying for research grants. As few did, I had at my disposal one to two thousand dollars for my own research activities each year that I was at UTEP.
As the spring semester began in early 1963, I was asked by Kurt Spier, a prominent wealthy businessman and a Jewish refugee from the Nazi concentration camps, to collaborate with him as co‑chairman of the Crossroads of the Americas. Crossroads sponsored conferences on Latin America; brought in visiting Latin American scholars, musicians, and artists; and worked to improve relationships with Latin America‑‑especially Mexico. Through my activities on the committee, I made many Jewish, Mexican, and Latin American friends. Kurt, a very successful businessman, was one of the gentlest, most compassionate, cosmopolitan, and cultured men I have ever known. He organized a host program for the diverse foreign soldiers in training at Fort Bliss.
Through Kurt Spier I received an invitation to become a board member of the El Paso Boy's Club, located in the heart of South El Paso. The board was composed of prominent business and professional El Paso leaders who financed and sponsored the club to provide recreational facilities to the children and teenagers of South El Paso. The director of the club, O.D. Hightower, was a sweet, good natured man. However, the real power in the club rested in the hands of my friend, Salvador Ramirez, the assistant director.
During the spring of 1963 the board of the El Paso Boy's Club and Crossroads of the Americans sent a group of South El Paso boys, under the direction of Salvador Ramirez, to participate in the construction of several community projects in Parral, Mexico. To make the arrangements, Sal Ramirez, Cleofas Calleros (a local Mexican‑American scholar to whom the Mexican Revolution and all of its works were anathema), and I drove to Parral. I quite enjoyed the trip. As I always do in Mexico, I found the variety of people, the diverse microclimates and cultures very attractive. We met with the mayor of the municipio of Parral, his assistants and the school personnel and decided to put the boys to work improving the public schools.
At a banquet that night in our honor, I sat next to a charming young Mexican woman active in community affairs. During the evening she told me she had to struggle hard against her parents to secure university training in dentistry. A successful practicing dentist, she said that she wanted to practice her career, get married and have a family. She felt, however, that few Mexican males could accept her right to have an independent career and that she might never marry.
For my own pleasure, I joined the El Paso Historical Society, the El Paso Archaeological Society, and the El Paso Audubon Society. I quite enjoyed the meetings, the lectures, the field trips and the many friendships that developed. I learned much about the fascinating history, archaeology, geography, and the flora of the El Paso and Juarez regions. I developed a considerable fondness for the area, its people, and its wildlife.
Professionally I worked very hard to develop the social science sections of the Rocky Mountain Social Science Association, later renamed the Western Social Science Association. During my years in El Paso I served as board member, vice president, and president, as well as reading papers and organizing sessions. Through my friendship with Peter Duisberg, an extremely intelligent, dedicated and conscientious scientist and humanitarian married to a charming woman, very active in local political and cultural affairs, I was invited to join CODAZR (Committee on Desert and Arid Zones Research). The committee was composed of ten representatives of various disciplines interested in desert and arid zones research. The committee sponsored symposia on the arid zones and deserts as part of the annual programs of the Southwestern and Rocky Mountain Division of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Each member of the committee in turn took responsibility for the development of a symposium that was published. I organized and edited two symposia‑‑one on Indian and Spanish Adjustments to Arid and Semi‑Arid Environments and the other on International Water Law Along the Mexican‑American Border.
In early April of 1963 I was invited by Dr. Reginald Fisher, curator of the El Paso Art Museum, to serve on a panel composed of Ralph Seitzinger (former mayor), a local businessmen, Judge Thomas (a member of the County Board of Examiners [the County Commission], and the recently‑elected and conservative mayor of El Paso, Judson Williams, to define and discuss the major social problems of El Paso, their impact upon the community, and alternative solutions before a large group of community leaders in the auditorium of the El Paso Art Museum.
Apparently my comments were appreciated, as the Reverend George W. Burroughs, pastor of the elite First Presbyterian Church in El Paso, and the leaders of his Men's Council invited me to amplify my comments at their April meeting. I did so and several weeks later was asked by the leaders of the Men's Council and Reverend Burroughs to participate in a series of lectures to be sponsored by the Church on the more important social problems of the city. I would present the problem in each of the long series of public meetings. Then the problem, as I defined it, would be discussed by a prominent community leader. An hour of discussion would followed.
The series was carefully organized. Before it began in the fall, city newspapers ran a series of articles on my background, my Department of Sociology, the potential benefits it offered the college and the community, and the reasons why the series of lectures was to be sponsored by the Presbyterian Church. By August I had become well‑known throughout the city and had developed an important basis of support among the liberal and even among some conservative groupings within the city. The series of lectures (one a month) were amply publicized and ran throughout 1963.
One session was devoted to juvenile delinquency. I introduced the session by speaking on the causes of juvenile delinquency and its negative impact upon communities such as El Paso. Salvador Ramirez then discussed the nature of juvenile delinquency in South El Paso. He introduced a former gang leader, Freddy Gutierrez, who gave an impressive presentation on gang formation in South El Paso, gang activities, and the procedures by which young men rise to leadership in street gangs. His comments were published in both of the local newspapers. Then Salvador and I quickly learned that the young man was absent without leave from the Marine Corps.
Freddy joined the Marines to escape serious legal charges. After basic training, he served in Greenland for a year during which he earned a Best Marine of the Year award. Transferred to San Diego he got into a fight with an Anglo‑American sergeant and returned to El Paso AWOL. Sal and I raised enough money to send him back to San Diego after clearing him with his company commander, but he left the bus in Tucson and returned to El Paso. We tried to find him without success. One night he was picked up by the shore patrol in Juarez and sent back under arrest to San Diego. He volunteered for duty in Vietnam to escape a court martial and was assigned to the M.P.'s in Saigon. Again he earned a Best Marine of the Year award. Receiving an honorable discharge, he came back to El Paso.
The night after his arrival in town, Salvador Ramirez and I were seated in Sal's office discussing Boy's Club activities when two local police officers came into the office to call their sergeant, leaving their police car running in front of the club. Freddy came by (under the influence of alcohol) and drove off in the car. Within several hours his calls over the police network sent police cars scurrying over the city. Finally, just before dawn, he ran out of gas in the sandhills east of El Paso and called in to say that he had found a police vehicle. Arrested, he was jailed and charged with a long list of offenses. He telephoned Salvador, who called me. By dawn we had managed to find a lawyer. Dressed in a magnificent dressing gown, the lawyer appeared in court to defend Freddy. The lawyer, Sal and I pointed out that Freddy had returned from Vietnam and that the problems of re‑entry for a Vietnam war veteran could be severe. The judge, heeding our pleas, fined him ten dollars. None of us had any money on us except the lawyer, who gave me ten dollars. I surrendered the money to the court clerk, who wrote out a receipt and gave it to me along with the ten dollars. As we left the building, I heard the clerk inside demanding to know what happened to the ten dollars. We hastened to the Boy's Club, lectured Freddy about being a marked man in the eyes of the police, and donated the ten dollars to the club.
My sister, Jerry, called from Salt Lake City around the first of June to ascertain if mother could visit us for ten days. Apparently she had just gone through some difficult times with Virginia. We invited her to come and picked her up at the airport the next morning. As she had lived in Colonia Juarez as a young child, she wanted to visit the colony to locate relatives and to try to find the house in which she had lived. Ruth and I loaded up the children into our station wagon, crossed the border, and drove carefully to Colonia Juarez, located in its lovely valley. We spent several days in the colony, found a few relatives, photographed the house that mother remembered, and met many fine people. I fell in love with the colony. If we had remained in El Paso, I would have liked to have bought a small summer home there.
My mother told us that her father, Hyrum Shumway, had been hired by the Mormon speculator and plunger, John W. Young, a son of Brigham Young, to organize a commissary for the railroad that he planned to build from the border deep into Mexico. Unable to find funding, he abandoned the project, leaving my grandfather and others stranded in Mexico. My grandfather, leaving his family behind in Colonia Juarez, returned to the United States to earn enough money to bring them back to Kanab where they had lived. My mother remembered traveling from Kanab to Colonia Juarez and back by covered wagon. The family then homesteaded in the Big Horn Basin in Wyoming, where my mother grew up.
On our way back from the colony we visited Colonia Dublan and the archaeological site, Nuevas Casas Grandes; the pyramids and other structures were most impressive. The boys enjoyed scampering around the ruins. Ruth and I learned that all was not well in the Mormon colonies. A few wealthy families, such as the Romneys, were buying up more and more of the land, forcing families with little land to migrate to the United States. Even in the families with considerable landholdings, one boy tends to farm the land while the others migrate to the other side of the border. Little by little the Anglo‑American population diminishes while the Mexican population (largely Mormon) increases. Intermarriage, once almost unheard of, is steadily increasing. I found it hard to believe that virtually all the graduates of the bilingual, Church operated Academy of Juarez go to Brigham Young University, and virtually none to any Mexican universities.
As the spring semester moved toward adjournment in 1963, I felt quite satisfied and happy with life. Ruth was very busy with her piano students. She had also been called to serve as a board-member of the El Paso Concert Series and enjoyed her growing contacts with the musical and intellectual circles in El Paso. The children were happy with their school and musical activities in school orchestras and in the El Paso Boy's Choir. I had finally secured my department and our classes were full. I had become a recognized community leader in the areas of Mexican‑American studies and juvenile delinquency, and was involved with meaningful and fruitful community activities. My circle of friends on campus and in the community was growing constantly. In collaboration with Father Rahm, the director, I participated in a weekly television show about El Paso. Almost every week I was speaking to community groups on the social problems of El Paso, about the Border, and on Mexican‑American themes. I was publishing regularly, and as a result received salary increases and the respect of my academic colleagues.
As the fall quarter began, I was assigned spacious office quarters and permission to recruit three new faculty members and three student assistants. I decided to recruit the students first and hired LaRayne Whetton and her brother, Kelly, from Colonia Juarez‑‑relatives of the Pratts. I later employed their sister, Sylvia. They were all very fine workers. During the summer of 1964, Sylvia was killed from a horseback fall in the Colonia.
The fall semester of 1963 was filled with activity. Shortly after Thanksgiving I was invited to join an interesting discussion group composed of John Sharp and Melvin Strauss of the University, Malcolm McGregor (a wealthy rancher interested in politics), Jim Nelson (an El Paso Times reporter), among others. Meeting once a month, our discussions ranged over local, state and federal politics; international affairs; local social problems; New Mexican, Mexican and Texas history; the border, literature; and philosophy. About the same time, Ruth and I became members of a book club, along with my fellow departmental member, Paul Goodman, and his wife, Helen, a librarian; Phillip Ortega (Mexican‑American writer and intellectual); Ralph Segalman (director of the Jewish Community Center); and a Mr. Grant Oppenheimer (a wealthy Jewish junk dealer who retired years ago to do as he pleased). These two discussion groups were not only important in my life in El Paso, but provided me with many opportunities to throw out ideas for extremely informed, constructive criticism as well as to learn much from keen, intelligently trained, humorous people whose friendship I valued.
On November 6, Peter Duisberg accompanied me to Albuquerque to look for a position at the University of New Mexico while I attended the annual meetings of the New Mexico Conference on Human Development. Ruth and I prized our friendship with Peter and his wife. Peter, an agricultural chemist, had become a nationally recognized specialist in the development of arid lands. Thoughtful, kind‑hearted, compassionate, and very intelligent, he worked for farmers, businessmen, and public agencies, seldom charging them with what he should have. I tried to persuade our college president, Dr. Ray, to permit me to offer him a position in the Department of Sociology to offer courses on human adjustment to arid lands, ecology, and on the border, but Dr. Ray, obsessed by narrow professional specialties, refused. Peter finally managed to secure employment as chief planner for a branch of the American military, providing planning assistance to Latin American governments in the development of their arid and tropical regions.
Thomas Sazaki, an outstanding Japanese‑American anthropologist and authority on the Navajos, and I co‑chaired a panel on the Spanish‑American rural villages of northern New Mexico. I again advanced the thesis that the rural villages should be the basic unit of government and private programs rather than the individual or the nuclear family. Tom and I both discussed the deplorable health and medical conditions of the rural American Indian and Spanish‑American populations in northern New Mexico and urged the development of programs to ameliorate these conditions by the federal and state governments. Once again we came under attack from numerous doctors in the audience who were extremely upset over some invention of their own called "socialized medicine".
Around the first of November, President Ray selected Marion Cline and Lloyd Cooper of the college of Education and myself to visit the Chihuahua State Normal School in Chihuahua City. So, on November 15, 1963, we drove from El Paso to Chihuahua City with Wayne Gilcrist of the American Juarez Consulate. Upon arrival we checked into the Victoria Hotel. After a brief rest, Patricia Beltran, a bilingual Anglo‑American girl who grew up in Chihuahua and was married to a young Mexican businessman by the name of Abel Beltran drove us over to the American institute that she sponsored. She told us that over 300 students were studying English alone.
After the visit, we met a Professor Alvarez, director of the normal college. The facilities, as usual for a provincial college and university, were not impressive, but the students and teachers seemed enthusiastic. We were told that the majority of students came from the rural and urban working class. Besides pedagogy, the male students were instructed in agriculture, carpentry and other construction trades. Upon assignment to their teaching posts, the teachers quite often had to construct their schools. Girls were taught domestic science, food preservation, and sanitation.
The next day we visited with Mr. Muller, acting rector of the University of Chihuahua. We were joined by William Timmons and Ray Past and their wives from Texas Western. We discussed the forthcoming visit of another delegation from the University of Texas at El Paso to the University of Chihuahua and the state normal school.
Our delegation, headed by President Ray and Dean Clyde Kelsey, comprised Lloyd Cooper, Marion Cline, John Sharp and myself, flew to Chihuahua City on November 20, staying as usual at the Victoria Hotel. The next morning we were taken over to the Palacio del Gobierno for a formal conference that began with the presentation of Mexican and American banners. Then the governor of the state of Chihuahua, Governor Giner, opened the conference with a well thoughtout presentation on educational needs and problems of Chihuahua; in essence, too many students and not enough money. Before a large audience, representatives of the Chihuahua State Department of Education, the normal or teacher's training school, and the University of Chihuahua discussed the structure of the Mexican educational system in the state of Chihuahua with its division into federal, state and public schools that not only taught basic subjects, but also vocational skills, sanitation, nutrition and bilingual education among non‑Spanish speaking Indian groups such as the Tarahumaras.
After the presentations by the Chihuahua delegation, Marion Cline outlined the structure of our primary school system, followed by Lloyd Cooper, who covered our secondary system. These two discussions had to be translated. Then I followed in Spanish with an analysis of the major problems of the American school system from elementary to the University level. Members of the audience of school teachers, university and normal school faculty and representatives of the Chihuahua State Department of Education bombarded us with questions until noon. We adjourned the session and our people returned to the Victoria Hotel for lunch.
As we were eating a Mexican came into the lunchroom and announced that President Kennedy had been shot and killed in Dallas and Governor Connelly was badly wounded. I did not believe him until Ruth called me from home to confirm the announcement. I returned to our table and related the news to those crowded around it. It seemed incredible to me that an American president could be assassinated in 20th century America. We thought that Kennedy had been killed by murderous, right‑wing Texans. The Mexican government closed the border very tightly for several days. As we left the dining room I saw many Mexicans crying in the street. Mr. Alvarez came by in the early afternoon to ascertain if we wanted to terminate the conference and return to El Paso. As the border was closed, we decided to go through with the conference.
Mr. Alvarez conducted us on a tour of elementary and secondary schools in the city of Chihuahua. In each school we toured there was a tribute to President Kennedy. I was deeply touched and choked with tears most of the day. The following day we visited more schools and then spent the afternoon at the University of Chihuahua discussing faculty and student exchanges. That night we went to a funeral mass for President Kennedy and returned to El Paso by plane the next day.
I returned home to find the house full. My parents had stopped to visit us on their way home from a tour of Mexico, the Middle East and Europe. My father had finally retired in his 70s and my parents were in constant motion, traveling around the world. Ruth's parents had come down from Salt Lake City to spend Thanksgiving with us.
We watched President Kennedy's funeral procession and church service in Washington, D.C. President Kennedy had the potential to become one of the greatest presidents of the United States. He was loved, admired and respected as few Americans in the 20th century. Deeply compassionate and caring about the poor and about minority groups, he had the ability to communicate his love and concern in a way that few presidents have been able to do. He helped to bring the Mexican‑American community into the political area and gave hope to millions of people in other countries. In Mexico he was mourned as though he were a great Mexican hero. With his death, our country became more somber, more devoid of hope.
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