Oral History Interview with Irma Mireles Mireles, Irma Interview conducted by José Angel Gutiérrez, Ph.D., J.D. Interview transcribed by Karen McGee José Angel Gutiérrez Transcript converted to XML encoding by Jonathan Scott Center for Mexican American Studies, University of Texas at Arlington Texas State Library and Archives Commission 66 pages Published online as part of the Tejano Voices Project. University of Texas at Arlington Libraries
P.O. Box 19497, Arlington, Texas, 76019-0497

Literary rights and title are owned by the University of Texas at Arlington Libraries.

 2001

Source: MS-Word file transcript of video recording CMAS No. 76.

Oral history interviews published online as the Tejano Voices Project, partially funded by a grant received in 2001 from the Texas State Library and Archives Commission's TexTreasures program.

 Library of Congress Subject Headings Library of Congress Name Authority File Jose Angel Gutiérrez Irma Mireles none English Spanish INSERT NAME HERE Gutiérrez, Jose Angel University of Texas at Arlington. Center for Mexican American Studies Mexican Americans--Texas--Interviews XXX oral history interview Tejanos Chicanos INSERT KEYWORD HERE

The University of Texas at Arlington

Oral History Interview with Irma Mireles Center for Mexican American Studies (CMAS) Interview Number 76 Mexican American Public Figures of Texas Location of Interview: San Antonio, Texas Number of Transcript Pages: 66 Cite as: Oral History Interview with Irma Mireles, CMAS 76, Special Collections, University of Texas at Arlington Libraries. Interviewee: Irma Mireles Interviewer: José Angel Gutiérrez, Ph.D., J.D. Transcribers: Karen McGee and José Angel Gutiérrez Date of Interview: June 6, 1998 Location of Interview: San Antonio Irma Mireles Dr. Gutierrez: Ah. It takes a little while to shut down. All right. We are recording this June 6th, 1998. We are in San Antonio, Texas at the Mexican American Cultural Center interviewing Irma Mireles. You agreed to do this voluntarily? Ms. Mireles: Yes. Dr. Gutierrez: And you are going to sign a deed of gift form giving this archive to the University of Texas at Arlington? Ms. Mireles: I guess, yeah. Dr. Gutierrez: OK. What mailing address do you want me to send that deed of gift form for you to sign? Ms. Mireles: 1810 Alametos. Dr. Gutierrez: That's with an E right? Uh huh. Ms. Mireles: Alametos. Dr. Gutierrez: Uh huh. Ms. Mireles: San Antonio. And your zip? 78201. Dr. Gutierrez: This has four parts. Biography, early childhood, political activism and elective office, and then some issues and opinions. Ms. Mireles: OK. Dr. Gutierrez: Which one do you want to start off with? Ms. Mireles: It doesn't matter I guess. Dr. Gutierrez: All right. Ms. Mireles: You have to get me started here. Dr. Gutierrez: Well then, let's talk about, we'll start by making you feel comfortable. Let's cover the biography now. Who is Irma Mireles? Who are your parents; where are they from; what aretheir names? Brothers; sisters, your own family; what have you got? Ms. Mireles: OK. I am the oldest of six. Four boys and two girls. I tell my brothers they have four, they have three brothers and two sisters, but I have only one sister and four brothers. I am fifth generation. My parents were from around Seguin and Lockhart and Martindale and I was born in Lockhart.Este haber... pues te dije(ah let me see... well I told you) it's going to take me long. Dr. Gutierrez: No, just speak louder. You, you don't have to sit down. You just speak louder. Ms. Mireles: Aver (let's see). As a child I, I was raised in Monterey, Mexico. And, and then we came back to the United States when I was about seven or eight. My father worked for an American company. And then we ended up, we went to Seguin and then we ended, we moved to San Antonio. We've been in San Antonio ever since except for 1990 when I left and went to live in Juneau, Alaska. I have a son who is nineteen. He is in the Army. His name is Gerardo Fabian Mireles. My parents are Trinidad and David Mireles. My brother's names are David, Ricardo, Daniel, and Raul. And my sister is Alicia. Dr. Gutierrez: Where is your mother from? Ms. Mireles: Martindale. Dr. Gutierrez: What's her maiden name? Ms. Mireles: Martinez. Dr. Gutierrez: Do you know anything about them? Ms. Mireles: I know thatla familia de la mama son originarios del Valle de Tejas y de alli este... (I know that the mother's family are originally from the Valle of Texas and from there ah...) Dr. Gutierrez: Could I ask you for a personal favor? Ms. Mireles: Uh huh. Dr. Gutierrez: Would you stick to English? It's easier for me if I don't have to translate and transcribe. Ms. Mireles: OK.ahorita, para haber que este ... (hold on, so I cansee...) OK. I will try to stick to English. And, a OK, they are originally, my, my mother's family is originally from the Texas Valley. And apparently was there during the time that they could cross back and forth without any problem. From what I have heard my mother tell me and an her brothers, most of who, most of who, all of them have passed away and my aunts. Is that, they, they, they eventually stayed on this side and, You know, this is oral historyy que ah ...(and that ah...)When, when Texas, you know, the whole, the whole start, when Texas became a state, they would, they ended up on this side. My father's family are from Seguin and Eagle Pass.Pero alli si mi abuelo era de Abasobo Nuevo Leon y este vino a...y mi abuelo fue el unico (But my grandfather was from Abasobo Nuevo Leon and he came....and my grandfather was the only) blacksmith in Seguin and he was the only blacksmith for that, for miles around. Dr. Gutierrez: Thank god for the word blacksmith because you couldn't think of it in Spanish so you switched over to English. Ms. Mireles: I have...Era herrero (he was blacksmith). Dr. Gutierrez: All right. Ms. Mireles: And anyway, they went to school in about that area. My mother just went up to the third grade, but my father went up to the eighth. Dr. Gutierrez: Do you know what took them to Lockhart? What it farming or ranching or sharecropping? Ms. Mireles: My grandfather on my, my mother's father was a,era vaquero (he was a cowboy). Dr. Gutierrez: Uh huh. Ms. Mireles: And that's what took him there. My mom remembers a story about losing a lot of land.I guess some where, around where one of the main highways runs because my grandmother got real sick and my father, my grandfather, didn't have enough money. They had the land, but they didn't have any money. And so he borrowed money from a neighbor who happened to have been German and would say he was... Borrowed money. Collateral was a cow and I forgot what else. But it was a cow. I remember that. Of course, he didn't know how to read and he did an X mark and he lost all of his land. And so I, I know that that's why they moved. They moved around until finally they settled around Lockhart. And as far as my father, my family on my father's side,my grandmother lived in Eagle Pass. And then they came to her family came to Seguin and I don't know the story why they ended up in Seguin. But that's where she met my, my grandfather when he came from Nuevo Leon. And then they, they lived in Seguin, bought a, part of that, it's an interesting history because the only reason, the only way they would allow my grandmother to marry my grandfather is if they, she gave up her first son to my grandmother. Dr. Gutierrez: The first son they were going to have? Ms. Mireles: Uh huh. Dr. Gutierrez: Not one she already had? Ms. Mireles: No, no, no, no, no. The first son. If she wanted to be married, she was an only child, the only way she could get married was to promise the first son to her parents and so she did.Mi do Juan (My uncle Juan). Dr. Gutierrez: And he was the first born? Ms. Mireles: The first born. And they tried to raise him to be religious. He did go into the seminary, but he escaped. But eventually he gotout when he was still young and... But he didn't grow up with his brothers and his one sister. And so he, they were never close. What, the other part of that, of not being very close is when we moved to San Antonio and we lived on North Flores. One day my brothers were playing outside and this man was going by and they ran to him and thought that, they thought that he was my father. Then when they got up close to him they realized there was a man there, looked liked my father, but who is this man? And that's how they found out they had an uncle. And he lived two blocks away. Anyway, that's the, some of the interesting story. I still have an aunt on my father's side who is alive. She lives in Victoria. Luisa Vallejo. Understand they have a restaurant there, in Victoria.How did your mother and father meet? Ms. Mireles: My father was a baseball player. As a matter of fact, when they lived in Mexico he played for a Mexican league. But they met in, around, you know, those little towns because my father was a baseball player so they used to play different teams around that area. And my mother loved to dance. And so whenever there was a, a game, afterwards they would ah have, you know, a little get together. And that's how they met. They met at a dance. Dr. Gutierrez: When did they move to San Antonio and why? Ms. Mireles: They didn't move into San Antonio until after they had gone and lived years in Monterey, then we came back and lived in Seguin. And because of the economy, ah was better in San Antonio for them. And even that took awhile, but that's why we moved to San Antonio. Dr. Gutierrez: Well, I imagine he had to give up baseball? Ms. Mireles: Oh, by that time he had given up baseball long ago. He had too many kids by then. Dr. Gutierrez: So, when were you born? Ms. Mireles: '47. Dr. Gutierrez: Here in San Antonio? Ms. Mireles: No, no. I was born in Lockhart. Dr. Gutierrez: In Lockhart? Ms. Mireles: And I, and if I get confused, as I do get confused, who was born where. It's... no, my mother was born in Lockhart, I was born in Martindale. You see I get confused. Dr. Gutierrez: Martindale? Ms. Mireles: Uh huh. I was born in Martindale in '47. And then my brother David in '48 and my brother was Richard in '49. Dr. Gutierrez: And so on. Ms. Mireles: And so on. But ... Dr. Gutierrez: Well, so where did you go to school? Ms. Mireles: I went to school a few years, up to the third grade, in Monterey and the rest of the time in San Antonio. I graduated from Breckenridge High School. Dr. Gutierrez: Do you remember anything about that school in Monterey or the early years here in San Antonio? Ms. Mireles: I remember in Monterey I went to a Catholic school. I remember there was a lot of, there was discrimination there. Class discrimination. And, I remember I went to school in the mornings because the boys went in the afternoon. And as far as going to school here, in elementary, my father had to go and, and talk to the teachers because here we were getting into trouble supposedly because we were speaking, we were saying bad words. What it was is that we were speaking in a Spanish that was different than was, than the Spanish being used. But, they didn't want us to speak Spanish. So I went through that whole period of, that a lot of our generation did, of getting hit for speaking Spanish and getting ridiculed. The thing is I didn't know another language but Spanish. I remember being in class, being the oldest, and I had two brothers who went to school with me at the same time. Being in class and my youngest brother, Richard, comes in and he wants to talk to me. And the teacher will not let him talk to me; he came into my classroom, until he asked for me in English. And she wouldn't let him. She just wouldn't let him. I finally got my stuff and I grabbed my brother and I got out of there. Ireally got into trouble. My brother was sick and he needed to go to the bathroom. And I remember I didn't want to go to school anymore after that. And, but, I remember, there was, that only lasted a short while because after that I was determined that nobody was going to treat me and my brothers like that again. And as a, you know, as a result of things like that, that, that brother, to this day, he's had problems with the whole culture shock. He never got over that. Dr. Gutierrez: How old were you? Ms. Mireles: I must have been about nine. I was nine years old. And, and I also remember that one of the big things in elementary was to be a, a crossing guard, a patrol. And you had to have a certain grade. Well, I could do that except that I could only do it in Spanish because I could spell real good. I knew math, math was easy. But and I wanted it so bad and they wouldn't let me. But then I realized when winter came around that you had to stand out there and you get splattered, so never mind. I was glad, in the long runme hicieron un favor (they did me a favor). Dr. Gutierrez: Were you a good student? Ms. Mireles: Yeah. Yeah, I was an average student I would say. Dr. Gutierrez: OK. And junior high and high school, any significant memories, good or bad? Ms. Mireles: Any significant? Oh, I was elected to the class, No, no, student council treasurer. And I had, I happened to have had the luck of having some teachers that were gringos that were caring. In elementary there was one that, you know, that was pretty good. And I remember one, oh I, I know. In junior high, wow, there it was. A MexicanAmerican teacher. Gutierrez. No relation to you, I guess. She taught English. And I was always good in English because you know, we had to try harder. And I remember that I, I did really well in English, but there it was. A teacher that looked like us. And she made a, she made a big impact. Then in high school I remember that, that I had another real good teacher, the sponsor of the student council, who helped a lot when people tried to, when people tried tohacernos menos (make us feel less), But he was, he was, he was Anglo and he was, he was a pretty good sponsor. And I don't know, I guess I havepretty good memories. I remember being in the pep squad and, and all that. But, I also remember that it was predominantly Mexican American or Hispanic. Dr. Gutierrez: The school? Ms. Mireles: Uh huh. And there was Dr. Gutierrez: Breckenridge High School? Ms. Mireles: Breckenridge. There were a few Blacks. And I guess less than twenty gringos. Dr. Gutierrez: This is south of downtown, no? Ms. Mireles: Right. It's changed a lot. It's changed a lot. Dr. Gutierrez: All right. Ms. Mireles: And that high school went through a process. It was first all Anglo and then it, it was all brown practically. And we had a real good football team. But I remember not quite understanding why they didn't get the credit that they did. But of course now I know why. And... Dr. Gutierrez: Why was it? Ms. Mireles: The discrimination. The discrimination. Dr. Gutierrez: Did you finish high school? Ms. Mireles: Yeah. Yeah. Dr. Gutierrez: What did you want to be? Ms. Mireles: Oh, I just wanted to be a good little secretary. Dr. Gutierrez: Was that the counselors doing or your doing or your parents doing? Who put that in your head? Ms. Mireles: You know, it was the whole thing of being secure and getting a good job and everybody was... It was almost like peer pressure because nobody, I was real good in shorthand. And I was real good in, a typist. That was, all those business courses that they give you in high school. And they, they geared you to the most you can be is a secretary at Kelly Field or at USAA. And I remember doing the field trip to USAA and I swore I'd never work there. It was just desks full of people workingcomo hormigas (working like ants). Dr. Gutierrez: Females? Ms. Mireles: Mostly females. Yeah, because the bosses were in the offices. Dr. Gutierrez: Males? Ms. Mireles: Males. White. Dr. Gutierrez: You recognized that then? Ms. Mireles: Oh yeah. I was a senior by then. And I had started to recognize. Andel movimiento (Chicano Movement) was just beginning so it was in my mind. Dr. Gutierrez: What year is this now? Ms. Mireles: This was '66. And I remember that, seeing the whole thing that was happening with the Blacks. And so that was just starting. But I didn't know that that's what it was. You know, I didn't have a name for it other than I knew that female and a lot of females, very few brown faces even in the, this big pool of people. I don't know if they were all secretaries, but I do remember that all the males were white men in offices. Dr. Gutierrez: Uh huh. Ms. Mireles: And I swore I'd never work there and to this day I never want to step in that place. And another thing happened that was very interesting in '68 when I was already out of high school was that Hemisfair here happened and I remember seeing a movie U. S. or US when, in that is now the courthouse, the John Woods Federal Building, the courthouse. And I liked that. I saw it I don't know how many times. About seven or eight times because I was really taken by it. But the one thing that happened is the Catholic Church that we went to is located, was located, St. Michael's, kind of right around where the Tower of the Americas is. And there was a big neighborhood of mainly Mexican Americans right around that area. I swore that I would never step into that tower and I never have. Because they did away with this whole neighborhood. It's my own little boycott that has been going on since '68. And the good thing about it is I talked to my son about it and he won't step into it either. Dr. Gutierrez: So, you got a job right after high school? I mean, you didn't want to go to college? Ms. Mireles: Yes, I got a job. Dr. Gutierrez: Or nobody talked to you about that at all? Ms. Mireles: No, no one talked to me about going to college. And no, all I wanted to do was get a job and I had, I needed to get a job at a base and I got a job at Ft. Sam Houston. Then I got a job at, oh, somewhere along there I worked for SANYO, San Antonio Neighborhood Youth Organization. And that's when, I think that's when I met Jose Angel Gutierrez, around that time. Dr. Gutierrez: Uh huh. Ms. Mireles: And aaah... Or maybe it was in '68. Anyway, I remember that, that I, I worked for SANYO [San Antonio Neighborhood Youth Organization] and I ended up working as a full time employee after I graduated. And, and I liked, I liked working there. And then from there I went to work for the phone company. Dr. Gutierrez: Now, did you live at home or how did you get to Ft. Sam Houston? Ms. Mireles: I, I lived at home until, I don't know, I guess I was twenty four or something like that. Dr. Gutierrez: Uh huh. Do you drive? Ms. Mireles: No. Dr. Gutierrez: How come? Ms. Mireles: It's never been important to me. That and marriage have never been important to me. Dr. Gutierrez: Getting around is not important? Ms. Mireles: Oh, I, I, not having, not knowing how to drive has never kept me from what I really wanted to do. I always managed. Dr. Gutierrez: OK. All right. Well, tell me about the phone company or SANYO or when, when did you begin getting politically aware that there were others? You said that you saw some things going on in the east side; you knew there were things happening that you couldn't deal with? Ms. Mireles: Yeah. Dr. Gutierrez: When did you finally begin to label it or recognize it or want to be part of it? Ms. Mireles: I guess around '68, '69. I have a very good friend that, that you know, Anna, Dr. Gutierrez: Uh huh. Ms. Mireles: Rojas, then... well I guess Rojas has now. She was getting involved and then I had moved away from home. Dr. Gutierrez: Now where did you meet her? In school? Ms. Mireles: Anna and I have been friends since we were in the third grade. Dr. Gutierrez: Oh. Ms. Mireles: So, we've been, you know, friends forever. And, and so we went to high school together. And she married. And I didn't. But we didn't lose contact and then she started getting involved with MAYO. And she started bringing me in. And that's when I really got involved. Dr. Gutierrez: Did you learn of the walkouts at Tech or at Lanier or Edgewood; was there a walkout in Breckenridge? Ms. Mireles: No. No, I didn't learn about any of that until, I had, I heard about, I remember the walkout atCristal. [Crystal City, Texas] I vaguely remember... I think there was a walkout in Lanier. Dr. Gutierrez: Yeah. Ms. Mireles: And but I wasn't involved in those. Dr. Gutierrez: OK. Ms. Mireles: I was not involved in those. But once I got involved and I guess I really got involved in late '68, early '69. To this day, I've never let go. Once I got involved I was in. Dr. Gutierrez: What did you do in that early involvement and what group did you run around with? What are some of the names of those people; what are those things, things that you all did? Ms. Mireles: Well, through Anna I met Jose Angel Gutierrez. I met Rosie Castro. Rosie, Anna, and I arecomadres (midwife). I met Willie Velasquez through Jose Angel. I met, I met a lot of people that were in themovimiento during that time. And because I was good at what I did as a secretary, I soon realized that I could be the secretary. And there was a lot of power in that position, if I wanted it. Because what I heard and what I transcribed was very important to the history of what was happening.And a lot of, a lot of what, what, be, be done I could, I could be right there. And, and I also realized that some of the people who had come before me or had held any kind of position as secretary in any organization outside of themovimiento were people that actually controlled what was being recorded. And, so I thought I can do that and I can tell our story. Dr. Gutierrez: So, did you keep notes; did you keep a diary? Ms. Mireles: Oh, I kept tapes. I have a lot of cassette tapes and I have some, some written notes. And then about that time I was working at the phone company, too. I was working in public relations so I learned to do some of that stuff that was going on right there in the phone company to document, if no one else for myself Like how to take care of newspaper clippings, not just cut them out and leave out the dates which a lot of people did. I didn't. I cut them out with the name of the newspaper and the date and all of that and I have all of that. It might be kind of ragged. Now I know that if they would have had better copiers I would have copied them. But you know,de todo se aprende (you learn from everything). Dr. Gutierrez: Well, it's not too late. And besides, those tapes that you have, they are well over thirty years old or about thirty years old. You really need to get them copied because they will disintegrate. Ms. Mireles: Oh yeah. And, let's see, I don't know. Dr. Gutierrez: Well, what are some of the things that you did? Actions that you took or... Ms. Mireles: In Raza Unida? Dr. Gutierrez: ...meetings that you went to or significant events surrounding MAYO [Mexican American Youth Organization]? Ms. Mireles: OK. My involvement in MAYO was rather limited. My real involvement was in Raza Unida. Dr. Gutierrez: Well, how did you get from one to the other? Ms. Mireles: I remember that I liked, Oh I, well mainly, mainly women like Rosie Castro, she was already, she was running for office. She ran for city council. And I remember it was this handful of people, it was called Barrios... I don't remember. Dr. Gutierrez: Committee for Barrio Betterment? Ms. Mireles: Committee for Barrio Betterment. Willie Benavides. Gloria Cabrera and they were all. Oh Mario Compean. It was Rosie, Rosie Castro, Mario Compean, William, Willie Benavides, and Gloria Cabrera. I think those were the four candidates. And I remember that, that I met them and I was just taken by what was going on. But by this time I was already taken by Jose Angel Gutierrez. I liked his style. I liked what he was doing. And then I started meeting the rest, including Mario Compean and I liked the fact that you dared to challenge. And you dared to speak up and that you dared to say things that a lot of people were thinking, but we, we wouldn't say it. But I was really taken by, also by Rosie. And I remember when I started developing that friendship. And so she started to, to help, well, she didn't know she was or maybe she did, to pull me in that direction, politically more than, than with MAYO. I just remembered something. I remember that in '64 I would have been, let's see, eighteen, I must have been about fifteen or sixteen. I remember working for John F. Kennedy in his campaign. And that was my first real involvement. And it was mainly because of my mom because my mother was just taken by this man. And even though she didn't do anything, like even register, because my parents did not vote, did not register to vote or vote until I ran for office. But it was the whole thing of the poll tax and the discrimination. I am going to go back a little bit. Dr. Gutierrez: Sure. Ms. Mireles: My father can, will tell us stories about in Seguin when he was a young man that if there was a gringo walking on the sidewalk, any, any Mexicano walking on that same side had to step down. And he also re, you know, tells about the Guadalupe River, that Mexicanos couldn't go swimming there. And then I remember when we first came over, when we returned to the, to, to Texasque viviamos en (that we lived in) in Seguin, we wanted to go to the Guadalupe River and we still couldn't. This must have been in '56 because Mexicanos couldn't go swimming. I guess the brown kind of wears of And but I, I remember that, that. I also remember that Seguin was divided. Because I always wondered that one side was where the Mexicanos lived and then there was the other side. And, of course, I didn't, I remembered that, but I didn't understand it at the time. The other thing that happened when I was...cuando llegamos a (when we arrived to) San Antonio and I was going to school, that I didn't understand until I was in Raza Unida why all my friends left and their houses were boarded up around April. Becauseyo nunca hice los trabajos de las labores (I never did the laborers work in the fields). But I didn't understand. It didn't take until, I remember my mom saying that they had gone tolos trabajos (the labor in nothern states), but I didn't understand whatlos trabajos were and my mom didn't explain it. But I remember my friend's, my friend's house getting boarded up and not until Raza Unida did I understand what it was. Dr. Gutierrez: What did you in that campaign with Rosie Castro and Gloria Cabrera? Ms. Mireles: Oh, I remember that we used to do the signs, silk screening signs, because there wasn't, there was very little money. I remember we did. We went to a lot of rallies. And I remember that... I remember the rallies, the silk screens, putting out the posters themselves, having, having meetings. And everybody trying to say. The thing is, all of this was happening, but it was all just on the West side. So it was just the beginning of, not realizing then, but it was just the beginning, not until much later. But it was, everything was on the west side and then doing the voter registry. And I remember, I also remember that I was the only one that had a, of that small group of people that used to go everyday. That I was the only one that had a full time job. And, so that I, I did a lot of the contributing for, for the coffee or drinks or whatever. And because the rest of the money needed to be used for the silk, silk screening and I guess I, we bought some radio time, a small amount of radio time. And what else did we do? I don't know. As far as I was concerned that was my college years. Dr. Gutierrez: Well, speaking of which, you never again regretted not going to college or wanted to go back to college? Ms. Mireles: I've always wanted to go back. Dr. Gutierrez: Why haven't you made time? Ms. Mireles: I just, I guess I just haven't. But, I, I do have about sixty hours all in night school. And I've taken... because I saw the need with that then later with Raza Unida. And I did take some journalism classes and I did take the basics. But I, I just, I justhaven't, I keep telling myself I am going to go back. Right now, I am thinking about that. I am probably going to do it this time. Dr. Gutierrez: And how old are you now? Ms. Mireles: A mere fifty one. Dr. Gutierrez: All right. Never too late. Well, how did you feel when they lost? Ms. Mireles: Ah, when they lost, it, oh, I felt a little bad, but I, I don't know. I guess because I, I tried to have a positive attitude, I, I saw some people take it pretty badpero pa mi siempre hay manana (but for me there is always tomorrow). So, that's the way I felt and then I guess about that time Raza Unida was beginning to really take off and... Dr. Gutierrez: What did you do with that effort? Ms. Mireles: I did a lot with that effort. I remember that, I remember that we... Oh I know, I had never gotten in front of a group of people and because of Raza Unida we went out to Mission County Park. And it was Manuel Garza, Manuel Garza, and I think it was Miguel Berry. I remember there was another guy. And I and we were supposed to collect signatures for the petitions to get Raza Unida on the ballot. And we went out there and this man comes to us and tells us... I don't remember the man's name, that if we want to, we could announce it. And get, to get the signatures. And nobody would do it, so here I go. I got up there and I almost froze once I realized that there were about three thousand people there. But I announced it and I was the one that got the most signatures. I almost fell down the stairs when I realized what I had done. Because I remember my knees shaking. But I got a lot of signatures that day for the petition. And I remember doing a lot for the petition drive to get the partido on the ballot. I remember a lot of door slamming on our faces. And at first I took it personally and then I realized, finally, is that...este que hay cayos y ya no te molestan (that you have corns and they don't bother you anymore) and then I realized that it wasn't me personally. It was just that they weren't clear or they didn't understand what we were trying to do. And even and they didn't give you the opportunity to try to explain it.Lo que si me molestaba era que (the thing that bothered me was that,) that you would go to the doors and if women answered the door, they saw a Mexicana. They wouldn't sign anything because they saidera cosas de hombres y que los esposos no estaban (that it was a man's thing and that the husbandswere not home, to wait until they came home. And I, I couldn't understand that for a long time, you know, that, that they didn't nose daban el derecho ellas solas(they would not give themselves that right) to, to make that kind of a decision. But as I under, you know, as I got older and had more experience in what we were doing, I under, then I began to understand and but I didn't accept it. Dr. Gutierrez: About how much time during a week would you say you gave to these volunteer efforts? Ms. Mireles: I guess about more than I did at work. I mean, anywhere from forty five to sixty hours a weeky los (and the) weekends. Dr. Gutierrez: So, then you weren't at home. Ms. Mireles: Oh no. I wasn't home until, I didn't have any children. I didn't have a husband. No, I wasn't home. No. Right from work it was straight to go, go do Raza Unida. I believed in Raza Unida. I still believe in Raza Unida. And the philosophy. Dr. Gutierrez: Why is that or what, what do you think it is? Ms. Mireles: I think that, that Raza Unida is a way of thinking, of getting our people ahead, and educating them about the realities of the politics. And, and understanding that like the English Only, it's not just that making English the official languagenos quita nuestra cultura, nuestra herencia (it takes our culture away, our inheritance) So, Raza Unida helped me understand. Yeah I, I realize that I had it all in me, but that helped me understand it better. And I believe that Raza Unida is in me. No matter where I go I am going, I, I've taken that what I've learned and the philosophy. Dr. Gutierrez: In, in these early years, did you travel outside San Antonio too or did you go to other Raza Unida or MAYO meetings outside of San Antonio? Ms. Mireles: I started going to meetings in Crystal. I remember going to Houston. I remember, wellpues (then) I, I went to the national convention in El Paso. Dr. Gutierrez: What did you do there? Ms. Mireles: I was a secretary. Dr. Gutierrez: Of? Ms. Mireles: Of the Raza Unida party convention. And I remember, one of the things I remember is a woman getting up way in the back and saying she was from Kansas. And Ithought, Mexicanos in Kansas? I thought only Dorothy lived in Kansas. I remember the, some of the things like Corky Gonzales coming in surrounded you couldn't even see him, because he was surrounded by all these people. And I thought, I, I thought it was dumb for him to be doing that. But I guess anythingellos tenian sus pensamientos (they had their thoughts). But I, I also know that I didn't have much respect and I know he wroteYo Soy Joaquin (I am Joaquin), but I didn't have any respect for his tact, tactics or the man. I remember meeting Reies Lopez Tijerinia at that time. By that time I'd already heard aboutTierra Amarilla (Yellow Dirt). And, and he was all right. But to me there was still no, no one else. And it's not because you are doing the interviewpero para mi no habia nadie mas grande que (but for me there was no one greater that ) Jose Angel Gutierrez. And I didn't think I was, you know, overdoing it as far as, as holding him up on a,este... (ah...) It's just that hispensamientos (thoughts) were always, I really, I really respectesos pensamientos (those thoughts). And to voice them. And then I remember taking minutes at that meeting. I remember I had never seen so much Raza with so many... Together, but yet with so many political, different political philosophies. And some of them, I thought, were really outlandish and eran mas gringos que mexicanos los pensamientos (there were more gringo than mexican thoughts). And but a lot of them didn't speak Spanish. That was the other thing. I remember going to a meeting and there were, it was, it was a, I guess it was in a suite. And there were, there wasuna conferencia de mujeres o una junta de mujeres, mas bien una conferencia (a womens conference, a women’s meeting, better yet a conference) there at the, at the Raza Unida convention. And I am sitting by the doorway and some people and there's this group of men and they were Corky's men, Corky Gonzales' men. And they were, I forgot what they were doing, but they had just come in and something falls on my lap and what fell on lap and I just picked it up. And handed it back and as I am handing it back, I realized what I had picked up and it was a gun. And I guess if I would've stopped to think about it, I would probably have freaked out. But I, I thought, you know,que lastima que (what a shame that) you have to carry guns, but... Dr. Gutierrez: What was the meeting about, with the women about? Was it the proverbial question of whether you areChicanas first or, or are you part of the feminist movement? What was it all about? Ms. Mireles: That was discussed. But I guess what we were trying to decide was who we were going to back up for, for president, national president then. Dr. Gutierrez: But clearly you're meeting as women? Ms. Mireles: Well yeah. But you know what? I don't remember a whole lot about that meeting. Dr. Gutierrez: OK. Ms. Mireles: But there was an issue that about whether you were women first or, or what kind of role we were playing in Raza Unida. And you had those that were, that were a lot, they felt very strong about that we had, you know, we needed to be, to be the leaders. But I personally felt that I was a leader and I didn't need to prove it to anyone else. And feminism and well, I guess that word wasn't quiet around then, but I felt an equal in... Dr. Gutierrez: They called it Women's Liberation then. Ms. Mireles: Yeah. And but I felt that we were equal. It's, I think in San Antonio we were. Because Rosie Castro was the, the first county chair, chair for Raza Unida and I was county chair for Raza Unida. Dr. Gutierrez: After Rosie? Ms. Mireles: Yeah. Right after Rosie. Dr. Gutierrez: So two women in a row? Ms. Mireles: Uh huh. And you know, I really, I really felt that, that may, maybe I was being naive, but I thought we were... Yes, we were doing the cooking. Yes we were, you know, in some instances staying in the background, pero (but), but we were also vocal. Now, did they listen? I don't know. Sometimes they listened. I remember, the little bit I remember of the constitution that we had in Raza Unida, I remember that, that we were included. And, I think that the generation that raised us, we were still fighting within us that you know,los hombre fueran primer (the men would be first). We had to accept it ourselves that we would be first. And a lot of the women, I know they were fightingwith that themselves, but they were still wanting the, the, the leadership. And not necessarily so much from San Antonio, I think from other areas. Dr. Gutierrez: When do you remember meeting Marta Cotera for the first time? Ms. Mireles: Marta Cotera? Dr. Gutierrez: Or Lupe Anguiano? Ms. Mireles: I didn't have very much respect for Lupe Anguiano so I don't want to talk about her. Dr. Gutierrez: Well, you had to had it first to lose it, so, so let me just push this a little further. I am asking you because those two women challenged the white women at several meetings. And they would go as either MAYO or as Raza Unida to challenge those white women at those meetings and that's what I am trying to get to if you went to those. Ms. Mireles: No, I didn't go with Lupe. Dr. Gutierrez: Or, or Cotera? Dr. Gutierrez: With Marta, I don't remember. I remember in San Antonio, I remember Evey Chapa and Rosie and maybe Marta was there. I don't remember. Then we went to a political women's caucus meeting and they were, it was predominantly white, and we took it over.Se fueron las viejas esas (those women left). After they had started the meeting, we, we, and we just took over. Dr. Gutierrez: How would you translateviejas (women) into English? I wouldn't want to be accused of any chauvinism here. Ms. Mireles: Uh. Witch. Dr. Gutierrez: Bitch? Ms. Mireles: Witch. Dr. Gutierrez: Oh, witch? Ms. Mireles: Well, I... Dr. Gutierrez: W not B. OK. Ms. Mireles: OK. Yeah, I guess you could replace the letter B in witch, but that's, you know. That's what they were and they were trying to give us the... notlas migajas (the crumbs) and but we took over. And it was quite obvious... Well, the other thing thathappened, I was also involved around that time even though it was non partisan, in the school board elections. And one of the things that Raza Unida taught us really well was the Election Code book. And I remember that we knew more than they did because by then we knew the Election Code book. And those people, those people meaning white gringo and mostly males who were the election judges, did not know the Election Code, Texas Election Code and we did. And I remember going to the classes that, that, the training that we had for election judges. That we had, not that the other parties had, but that we had. And I learned a lot from that. I remember that the Texas Election Code book was our little Bible. Dr. Gutierrez: So, you were an election judge also or election watcher or, or worker? Ms. Mireles: I was once an election clerk. I was also a, a lot of times, I was an election watcher. And I remember going to an election as an election judge in the south side in the school board meetings. And I remember being there and that something was happening and I wasn't quite sure and finally I realized what it was. Because we had little spurts of people coming and they were all white. What was happening was it was being held in a school and the, the, not the superintendent, the chairman of the board was going into an office. And he was... first he would come and check to see who was voting and how many were voting. And then he was using the telephone. So I put a stop to that. And then when I wasn't looking they had thrown the telephone out the window and were doing the telephoning, somebody was telephoning outside the window. And so when I caught onto that, I wrote them up for that and you know, I was going to report them to the Justice Department. And, oh, that one, that one incident that I rememberaqui (here) in San Antonio that we had the Justice Department had come in to watch, oversee the elections and it was the general election. No, no. It was the Primary, it was the Primary. And we had our offices on Buena Vista, the Raza Unida party offices onBuena Vista. Later on we moved to General McMullen but then we had it on Buena Vista. And the people from the justice department election unit had just been there a little bit before. There were two guys and they left and we had no way of contacting them because we started getting calls that in the west side people were being stopped. Mexicanos were being stopped fromvoting. And we needed somebody that looked official and we couldn't get a hold of these people. Oh, I knew that they were, they were even accusing them of being drunk. They were accusing them of electioneering. And things were getting pretty bad and it was right on the, I think it was Las Palmas. And there was this guy, Mexicano,bueno Mexicano Americano (well Mexican American), but he was light complected and he did have blonde hair and he was sitting there helping us. And we needed somebody that looked official.Pues... (well...) We borrowed somebody's suit and somebody's tie. We made him change pants.Y el changuito lo cambiamos (and we changed the monkey) representing the Department of Justice. He was then, and it worked. He went over there and he is, you know, I mean,era Mexicano (he was Mexican), he got up, he spoke real good Spanish, but real good English and we... I remember we rehearsed him really well as to what he needed to know. And, you know, what he needed to say and he was nervous, but it worked. It worked. I remember that. We were so... I am sure things like that happened in other areas, but I remember that one. And we were, we were so proud of ourselves that we really did that. Dr. Gutierrez: Well, before we leave this subject, I just have a question. You know a lot of the material written about Raza Unida and, and MAYO doesn't mention women very much. Ms. Mireles: Uh huh. Dr. Gutierrez: So, critics say that women were not allowed to exercise leadership. Ms. Mireles: Uh huh. Dr. Gutierrez: Now you've contradicted that somewhat. Then there are a couple of, of materials saying that women chose not to lead, that it was open. In fact, that the Chicano movement opened the doors forChicanas to become what they are today. Ms. Mireles: Uh huh. Dr. Gutierrez: What do you find good or bad about either one of those statements or those views? Or what are your opinions about that? during the... Ms. Mireles: I don't believe that Raza Unida.movimiento, that.... I think that there were quite a few men that were real chauvinists. And some were even paternalisticque nos querian proteger (that wanted to protect us) that they were protecting us, you know.They were protecting themselves. But I don't know. My experience was that here we, here in San Antonio, we took the leadership. And I think that we were respected. And one of the things I learned early on is for women, the double standard. For women to really be respected by the men in themovimiento you needed to keep your private live out of the political scene. And I learned that pretty well early on. So, I, I kept to myself as far as having personal relationships with the men. The other thing I realized that you had groupies. And those were the women that gave the rest of us who were serious about what we were doing a bad name. And they didn't have a real purpose for being there other than chasing the men. And I had a bigger, a bigger agenda than men. And that wasla gente (the people). And there, there is a man that also I admired and respected a lot who has passed away and that was Joe Castillo. Outside of Jose Angel, he's the man that,there were some training classes that were politically, to make you politically aware. Dr. Gutierrez: This is at FAMA [Federation for the Advancement of Mexican Americans]? Ms. Mireles: I think so. And I remember it was just a handful of us. I mean, maybe less than five that would go. That's, that's when I first started. I am going to go back here because now it's... I'm remembering some of this other stuff But I remember that he had a map of San Antonio. And the map had colors. It was in color. And he had all this green up on the north. And that green was parks. And on the west and south side and the east side, but in our case, mainly the west side, and, and portions of the south and the south east side where that's where the, the Mexicanos lived, there were very, very few, there was just a smattering of green. And that's because there were no parks. So, if there were no, no parks, where did our kids go? And that's how I got, I started getting politicized. Well, we would go to the streets, that's where we would go. And how we needed to get elected officials so that we could have some of that green or the parks in our areas too. And he was very significant in my political life when he did that. He, I really respected that man in that training that he did for us. Him and his wife. And to me, he was one of the key figures because the others were too busy, with very little patience to really take people along and he did. He took the time, you know. Dr. Gutierrez: All right. Well, when you were county chair of the Raza Unida party, what were your duties? What were some of the things you did and how did you go about doing them Ms. Mireles: The primary. Making sure that all the paperwork was submitted so that our primaries were funded. And this was based on the number of votes that our candidate for governor had received the previous election. And making sure that all the, that we had election judges and clerks, that we had, that we counted the votes and, and that was and, and, and you know, getting the word out about, about Raza Unida. Having rallies, having meetings. I have pictures of meetings that, that we had. Making sure we got the candidates first of all. And that we, we... what's the word, we certified the candidates. And had precinct chairs in each precinct especially the key precincts. And... Dr. Gutierrez: So, of all of those things, which one was the easiest, which one was the hardest? Ms. Mireles: Getting precinct chairs was the, was the hardest. And training them because we had to have training classes for them. Dr. Gutierrez: Why was that the hardest? People didn't have time or didn't have an interest or they were afraid? Ms. Mireles: Some were afraid. You had a lot who didn't have the time or the commitment. But once you got them they were committed. And they were committedhasta el fin! (until the end!). Dr. Gutierrez: What was the easiest? Ms. Mireles: The easiest? I don't think that there was anything that easy. Dr. Gutierrez: What years were you the county jud, chair? Ms. Mireles: No, you were the county judge. I don't remember. Dr. Gutierrez: All right. Well, I know that you became a candidate ultimately yourself. Ms. Mireles: Uh huh. Dr. Gutierrez: Other than candidate within the party. Ms. Mireles: Yes. Dr. Gutierrez: Because you got that. When did that happen and how did you do that? Ms. Mireles: That happened in '76. Dr. Gutierrez: Are we jumping too far? Is there anything happened significantly between '72, the El Paso convention. And you had to have been the county chair after the first [Ramsey] Muniz race, so it must be about '74. Ms. Mireles: Right. Dr. Gutierrez: ...so, this is just about '76 now because it is a two year term? Ms. Mireles: Uh huh. Right. Dr. Gutierrez: Or a four year term? Do you remember? Ms. Mireles: Which? Dr. Gutierrez: County chair. Ms. Mireles: It was two years. Dr. Gutierrez: OK. Ms. Mireles: It was a two year term. Dr. Gutierrez: So, from county chair you went on to be a candidate? Ms. Mireles: No. I had... I did a lot of other things. Some, I worked, in between there were school board elections. There were other elections that we got candidates for like in the south side. There were partisan politics. I remember helping Ciro Rodriguez not run for office at that time. He was the precinct chair for Raza Unida at one time. But now he's Congressman Rodriguez. But I remember he and I working in the south side doing mail outs. Oh, I was real good at organizing mail outs. I remember that. A lot of licking... of the envelopes. But I remember doing, so that kind of, we did, we did... We managed to do public service announcements, we found out how to take advantage of the radio time. Free radio time. And, so in Spanish I was good at doing the public announcements. And so I remember that we would do those and there, there was a lot of, a lot of voter registration in between too. And this was ongoing even though sometimes we had drives. So, in '76. Dr. Gutierrez: These voter registration drives, did, did you do them independently of the Southwest Voters or, or were these projects just self initiated or were you withWillie and them? Willie had split from MAYO, and he certainly didn't stay in the Raza Unida very long. Ms. Mireles: No, this was through Raza Unida that we did the voter registration drives. Dr. Gutierrez: OK. Ms. Mireles: I, I liked Willie Velasquez and I respected him, but I always disagreed on just voter registration. I always felt that and I tried to tell him that a couple of times. That with the voter registration came voter education because you had to get the people out to vote. Dr. Gutierrez: How did other Mexicano elected officials receive your group here in, in San Antonio like the Joe Bernal's, the Albert Pena's, the Henry Bs., the Pete Torres', Richard Teniente I guess were some of the, Bob Vale or some of the elected officials at that time? At different levels. Ms. Mireles: Well, they were all, they were all Democrats. And other than Alberto Pena that respected the partido. The others didn't care for us. And I remember Joe Bernal certainly didn't care for us. To this day I think to a certain extent he feels that we cost his, his election. But... Dr. Gutierrez: Did you? Ms. Mireles: I think so. I certainly didn't vote for him. Dr. Gutierrez: Well no, you were voting in your own primary. Ms. Mireles: Right. And but I never voted for him even before Raza Unida. And I only voted once before, before Raza Unida came. Since Raza Unida I, I just vote in our primary and even now I have a discriminating vote. And that's brown vote. But, yeah, and I remember Torres. Oh, Henry B. Gonzalez.Con todo respeto (with all respect) but he was a real idiot at times. And he, he, he verged on the sellout, you know, he wasn't quite, but yet he, sometimes he was. The words he used. I felt that not especially not in public the way he, he acted, but you know.Haya el()he's the one that has to live with that. But no, they didn't like us and they, they didn't like the fact that we dared to question. And we dared to challenge. Dr. Gutierrez: What did your parents think about all of this by now? You are knee deep. You are spending more time at the political activity than at work. Are you still with the phone company? Ms. Mireles: Oh no. I left them long time ago. There was a, oh I know, in '72 I went to Mexico. Dr. Gutierrez: What did you do there? Ms. Mireles: I forgot about that. That's when, not necessarily Raza Unida, but through Raza Unida,Presidente Echeverria offered scholarships to Mexican Americans in the Mexican universities. So I, I was... Jose Angel Gutierrez talked to me about coordinating that program. And in '72 I went to Mexico City to coordinate that program. And it was very frustrating because bureaucracy is a bureaucracy no matter where you are. And it was a frustrating time, but at, at the same time it was a good time. One of the things that... and I don't, I don't remember if I ever told Jose Angel... I was followed a lot. And what seemed to me was undercover, you know, because I remember... Dr. Gutierrez: The Mexicans or the U. S. people in Mexico? Ms. Mireles: I think it was the U. S. people in Mexico. Because I, I remember seeing a, a certain man just about everywhere I turned. And he always managed to have a camera. And that was after... And it was very, I, at first I thought I was very paranoid, but then I realized that I wasn't really being paranoid. It was real. Dr. Gutierrez: OK. Did you ever walk up to him and ask who he was, what he was doing? Ms. Mireles: No, because I thought I was going to ignore him. I knew I wasn't doing anything wrong. Dr. Gutierrez: So, what did you accomplish as the coordinator or director or whatever you were? Ms. Mireles: We got some students accepted into universities in Mexico and I remember going to a specifically the oneslas escuelas de medicina en la universidad (the schools of medicine at the university) Monterey. And talking to the department head there and I don't remember his name, But I remember that he told me that he could not believe that we, we could not get into the universities in the United States. And we meaning the Mexi,Mexican Americans. And that he said something like "Yo" (me), meaning himself, "I even went to..." I think he had gone to Harvard Medical School and some other, a couple of other schools he mentioned in the United States. If he could do it, he couldn't believe that we couldn't do it. And he was white complected, he was blue eyed, and blonde. As long as he didn't open his mouth with his accent, he could have been considered a gringo. And that's, you know... He, he made me so angry that I told him that until you have walked in our shoes you can't sit there and say that. Try being brown and trying to attend school over there. Well, as a result of that we did get the, that response brought in, we were allowed to have our candidates for theirescuela de medicina (medical school) come in, which, you know, they were accepted and I think, I don't know, I forget, four or six from that class went all the way through and, and got their medical degrees. Also in Mexico City I remember that we had a meeting withel Secretario de el Sr. Secretario (the secretary of Mr. Secretary) or something like that, but anyway somewhere along the way there was this someone else that went to help me. Felix someone, I think it was, and we were accused of being disrespectful toel Sr. Secretario(the Mr. Secretary) and but the, the long end of it was that we weren't being disrespectful. We just told them how it was. And, and I think that they contacted Jose Angel because they felt... But I only remember that. But I know that as a result of that we got some things done anyway because we dared, you know, to, to challenge him too. And no but, it was a very frustrating time and but we got some of the students accepted to the schools. Dr. Gutierrez: How long did you stay down there? Ms. Mireles: Six months. Dr. Gutierrez: Then what happened? Ms. Mireles: Long six months. Dr. Gutierrez: Then what happened? Did you give up or were you recalled or were you substituted or what happened? Ms. Mireles: No, I was substituted. I forgot who went after I did, but I know that we were connected with TIED. [Texas Institute for Educational Development] As a matter of fact, before I left I quit the phone company. But by that time they ere already after me because first of all I went into the phone company at the time that they were firstbeginning to promote minorities. And so, I got promoted. I was never a, a telephone operator, so I got promoted pretty fast. But when I stood up to them, I cut my throat. But I guess, you know, it was OK. And soon, soon thereafter I, I left because I also realized some of the politics that they were doing in the community. And, and I went to Mexico and then I came back. And that's when I met Lupe Anguiano and I worked for Lupe Anguiano for a short while. I forget the name of the project, but it was non-profit organization. And it was all right at first, but then I realized some of her politics were not sincere, especially towards women.And I was very glad to have left that job. Dr. Gutierrez: Well, let's get to your campaign because we are somewhere around there. We, we went back because you remembered some things, but we were at the end of your county chair position term and you ran for the San Antonio River Authority in 1976, no? Ms. Mireles: Right. But I remember in '74 talking about certain elected offices that were obscure and one of them was the San Antonio River Authority. And I remember a small newspaper clipping that talked about the election that was coming up for the San Antonio River Authority so I filed. Dr. Gutierrez: In '74? Ms. Mireles: No, no, no. I am sorry. That's when I first read about the San Antonio River Authority Dr. Gutierrez: OK. Ms. Mireles: Because there was going to be an election then. And then later in '76 I remembered this newspaper article. It was around late October or early November '76 that I read that there was going to be an election for the San Antonio River Authority. At that time the Authority had existed for about fifty years. And there was a board composed of twelve people, six out of Bexar County or San Antonio area, two out of Goliad County, two out of, two other counties down, downstream because we are talking about the San Antonio River. So... Dr. Gutierrez: Right. This is a regulatory agency? Ms. Mireles: Right. Dr. Gutierrez: Over water and the San Antonio River? Ms. Mireles: Right. So, it's the San Antonio River runs, it covers this four county and it was Bexar County, Goliad, Karnes County... Dr. Gutierrez: OK. Ms. Mireles: And there was not one more county. I can't remember. Anyway, so there were six, six from San Antonio and two each from the three other counties. So, it was a twelve member board. Dr. Gutierrez: All men? Ms. Mireles: All men and I. Dr. Gutierrez: White? Ms. Mireles: All white, little old men. And I have found out eventually... But anyway so this, this election was going to take place. And the filing fee was a hundred dollars. And I did what we were used to doing whenever there was an elect, an election. A filing fee. And that's collect signatures in lieu of the, the hundred dollars. So, I had to collect, I don't know, I guess a hundred signatures to, to get on the ballot. And I collected more because of previous experience. You always collect more just in case. And I had some friends in the courthouse. One of them was Ramon Vasquez y Sanchez who is now incentro del Barrio. And he, I remember getting a call from him and he said, "OK, your petition is in and they are checking each one of them." And, of course, those people at the courthouse had a lot of time to check it because that was the only election. It was an off year. There was no General election. And so. they had a lot of time to, to check it. And they were going over the whole, the whole petition with a fine tooth comb. And I wasthe only one of, there were, there were three positions up, but one in Bexar County and two, and one each on, from the other two, from two other counties. And so the others paid a hundred dollars, but I didn't. Anyway so, they did, they went through it and you know, I collected, I, I must have collected close to two hundred signatures and it's kind of funny. Out of all of those, I think I had only a hundred and ten or something that were actually, that they said, "they" meaning the election people at the courthouse, that I... that were actually good. Anyway, I, I met the, the, the filing. And I didn't file anything personally. Then there was the picking of the position on the ballot. I was working. I didn't have time. So I couldn't go to go do that. Linda Valdez went and did it for me. And I was number, I think I was at the bottom. All I knew was that it was, it would be first or be last. And I was last and since there weren't that many candidates, it was OK. And anyway, so she did that for me and I still didn't go to their offices. Then I remember that ev... all I got for that whole campaign, it was through the Thanksgiving weekend, the Christmas holidays, and the elections were in January. Dr. Gutierrez: 1977? Ms. Mireles: In '77. And I went through November and December and part of January, I went to a lot of parties. I had don... I had donations that amounted to seventy six whole dollars. And I, I remember that I took advantage of all the, the radio time that I, that was given to the candidates. By that time I had already developed a relationship with a local Spanish radio stations and Channel 41 con (with) Marta Tijerina. As a matter of fact, Marta Tijerinia was very keen on a lot of the work for Raza Unida. Anyway, so, we, I, I remember that all I had enough money for was to buy the palm card or you know... Dr. Gutierrez: Business cards? Ms. Mireles: Business cards. And, and that's what I would give out. I remember being hoarse from going to all this. I would go to cantinas, which I had already done when it was Raza Unida, when we were registering people, and a lot of parties. A lot of small key areas. So, that's one of the reasons that I was, I didn't smoke and I didn't drink, so I didn't... I had a sore throat from inhaling all that smoke. But I did a lot of that. I would, especially weekends, that's all I did, go to parties or any kind of functions. I remember being asked, you know, some of the most critical people are our own people, at two different instances asked by men what made... I remember going to a, a get together and I forget where I, it was at the Villita and one of the other candidates was out there. And I was running against the incumbent, but he wasn't there. There was another candidate. And this one, this man asked me how could I possibly be running for office? He wanted to know what kind of a degree I had and all these, you know, education. And I said, "I don't have any". And he says, "well how, how dare you? How could you?" Or something to that effect even consider running? And I told him, "I have a certain degree of intelligence and common sense and that's all it takes." And but, you know, I, I just felt like these are the people that criticize us the most. But anyway, I remember going to beinterviewed by Marta Tijerinia becausenuestra gente (our people) didn't know about ra... I mean, the San Antonio River Authority and, and why was it an important position to vote for. And the person that I was running against was there. And he was a cowboy type with boots and a hat and I was a lot slenderer therefore I looked a lot taller and I was taller than him. But, he had a Mexicano with him. And, so I had an advantage over him because when we were interviewed the Mexicano had to translate for him and I didn't need anybody to translate for me. And, so I did real well in my, in my interview. I remember going to KCOR and Mateo Camargo.Que en paz descanse (rest in peace). He interviewed me too. And I did a lot of that free time especially on radio. I remember the election day. My... I had a telephone. Everything was held out of .. My campaign office was my house. Friends came in from Dallas and Houston and I remember from the Valley and from Corpus and Robstownque vinieron ayudarme. Y todos vinieron a mi casa(that came to help me. And they all came to my house). And around ten thirty, eleven o'clock, I had never had problems with my phone. My phone went dead. And I, I couldn't receive or call out. And I kept going to the polling places, but for some reason it just, the phone wasn't working. Oh, and I remember I didn't have a table. It was my ironing board that we had things on. And, I didn't have money for silk screening so I didn't even have that. And anyway, I remember that my friend Anna and I, we went to... in the West side to one of the churches on the west side. And Archbishop Flores now was a bishop. And he was standing out there. And he came out. And he kind of gave me his blessing. And all these people, they were having afiesta out there. And all these people saw that. And there was also a polling place close by. And I remember that he, I went up to the poling place and he came out and it was like a half a block to the right and he motioned for me to go over there. I went over there and I talked to him and he wished me luck. Without realizing until I was walking back, he was actually kind of giving me his blessing. And all these people that were out there for thefiesta and for the polling place saw what happened. And a lot of the people that were at thefiesta proceeded to go vote. That was one significant incident. The other one which I fail, feelcon mas significado (with more significance) is that I went to the South side, one of the schools in the, in the South side and I was passing out my little palm cards and asking people to vote. Oh, I know what was happening thatday. Single member districts for San Antonio ended up, happening at that, they had that election and so that was very key for San Antonio, so that's the only reason we had a lot of people going out to vote. Anyway so, I was going out and asking people to vote for me and for single member districts. And there were these two elderly ladiesdos viejitas (two elderly ladies). They were practically holding onto each other and they were coming to vote. And I, I started to approach them. And they told me that they didn't want anything handed to them because they knew who they were going to vote for and the person they were going to vote for was me. And I thought wow, that blew me away becauseeran ancianas (were elderly). I mean, they were like my mother and father, they had never voted before, more than likely. And we didn't have to tell them who to vote for because they were no longer afraid. They knew who they wanted to vote for. I didn't even introduce myself to them. I told Anna, "let's go." I went home. I still didn't have a phone. And I didn't go back to any polling place because as far as I was concerned I had won regardless of how, what the outcome at the end of the day was. Around five o'clock in the afternoon the phone came back on. Maybe six. More like six. So the phone came back on. And I remember in my ironing board, that's where the telephone was too, that I got a phone call about seven thirty. And it was, I can't remember his first name, but his last name is Heard. And he was the chairman of the board of the San Antonio River Authority and he was one of the, I forgot what his business is, anyway so, he was the chairman of the board and he had called me to congratulate me. That I had won. And I had beat the incumbent. And I didn't say anything to anybody. I hung up. I picked up... and then I picked up the phone again and I called my mother and father and I told them I had won. And I remember somebody, maybe it was Anna that was standing close by, had overheard the conversation with my mom and I do remember using these wordsy acabe mama, ya gane ( I finished mom, I already won) and they tell me that I had said it like I am through with this project and I, and I've got it. And anyway, that's, you know, that's what happened that day and that's how they all found out. And all I spent, I got over seventy thousand votes on just seventy six dollars. And I actually had ten dollars left over. And, so we, I went out to eat. And I was the first, later on you know, when everything, afterwards, it hits you. I was the first woman, the first Hispanic, after I saw the board Iwas also the youngest because if nothing else I was going to stay awake. They were so old they would fall asleep. Dr. Gutierrez: Speaking of which, you, you, do you think you can keep talking about the experiences on the board while I go wash my face? Ms. Mireles: I guess so. Am I boring you? Dr. Gutierrez: No, no, no. It's just that it's one. I don't want to turn that on. I, I had a meal and you know, I am sleepy. Where can I wash my face? Ms. Mireles: Can you stop it? Dr. Gutierrez: Sure. I can stop it real quick. I just thought maybe you were going to get on a roll here. Ms. Mireles: No. Dr. Gutierrez: All right. We are recording again with that little break. You were talking about spending seventy six dollars, having ten dollars left over, you went to dinner, and you started talking about going to the meetings where these old men were falling asleep, and so on, and that's when we took a break. Literally, do you mean they were falling asleep? Ms. Mireles: Literally. Literally. The, the whole, it was a whole different experience in that, for those, for them, not, not so much for me, but for them. I, I hadn't... What I remember, I hadn't been to their offices up to this point. And I got elected and there was going to be a, a swearing in ceremony. And so I invitedla comunidad (the community) Mexico Americana to my swearing in. And I wanted to be sworn in by Jose Angel Gutierrez who was county judge at the time. Crystal City. But because he had a previous commitment of some type, he didn't come. But that was fine. Judge Gutierrez from San Antonio because I wasn't going to have anybody else but a Mexican American to swear me in. And that board room was filled to capacity with brown faces. Many of who didn't even know where the River Authority board room was. Dr. Gutierrez: Where was it or where is it? Ms. Mireles: It's on the other side of downtown, on the south side of downtown San Antonio, close to the river. And it's on Gunther Street, close to Pioneer... Dr. Gutierrez: Flower. Ms. Mireles: Flower. And so you had all these people, our people there, and of course my family. And so, it was, it was a really, really neat ceremony havingtoda nuestra gente alli (having all of our people there). And after the swearing in this woman came to me. She must have been... I was about... Well one of my goals after I got involved was to get elected before thirty, before the age of thirty and I got elected at age twenty nine. And, there was this woman who must have been in her early fifties or maybe late sixties. I don't remember now. She was at St. Mary's University. And I can't remember her name right now, but she was a, she had a program for women that she, they had just started. Anyway, she had, she was originally from San Antonio and had left and gone to, to school to get an education somewhere else in the country and then she had come back and head of this program at St. Mary's University. Anyway, she said that she came. And she didn't know where the River Authority was. She had gotten out of her car downtown, then took a taxi, and the guy, the taxi driver didn't know where the San Antonio River Authority was. He eventually ended up dropping her off at the cathedral. And she had walked from San Fernando Cathedral to Gunther Street which is far. And it was a little cool. But she was an older woman, but she got there because she said she couldn't miss my getting sworn in because I was making history. And, and it was one of those things that you don't realize the impact you have made on people. And she said she wanted to be part of history, that she wanted to see a Mexicana in San Antonio getting elected in her lifetime. And so she was there. And to say nothing of my family, my parents. That was the first time both my parents voted. Registered and voted. And my brothers, the three who could vote at that time voted. And they were all just, you know, my family was reallytaken by it and all my friends. But I realize there were so many people that I made such a big impact on and all this media. Well, after the swearing in, well, I was invited to a reception at the... at the Frost Towers. I had never been to the Frost Towers. And my two best friends went with me. These are... so that it's the three of us. Three women who are, look completely different. Dr. Gutierrez: Is this Rosie and Anna or Rosie and Lupe? Ms. Mireles: Rosie and Anna. Rosie, Anna, and I. Like I said, I was, I was slend, a lot slenderer and therefore I looked taller. Anna has always been, you know, she's shorterthan I and Rosie has been shorter. But we looked, we all looked different. And three different colors of brown, too. But we are sitting there and the, the chairman of the board, whatever his name is, anyway it's Heard, say, "Oh, and are these your two sisters?" Now, that was one. The other one was later on, "Well, perhaps now for the party at Christmas this year, you can bring the tamales." OHHHH. I was... I told him, "Sure, if you bring the sauerkraut." But you know, that was the initiation into, into the River Authority. And then the meetings. The meetings were once a month, every third, I forget whether it was every third Tuesday or Wednesday. And they were held at two o'clock in the afternoon at this River Authority building. The first meeting, I get there and some of the people, who were the board members, are coming out of a, out of an office. And I thought hmmm, how strange. The second meeting takes place... Then we, Then we went into the meeting and had the meeting and they certified the ballots and all that stuff And they had their elections. They elected each other for whatever offices were open. OK, so that happened. Then, there was another meeting the next month. Again, I see these people coming out of the office because I would get there earlier. I mean, as far as I was concerned I was there a good fifteen, twenty minutes before the meeting was to start. And these people were there, already. And they were coming out of an office. I didn't say anything. And then the third time, again. So, this time I asked, "Were you having a meeting before the meeting?" They were surprised that I asked them. And, "Oh no, no, no, no." It's just, I mean, it was obvious they were having a meeting before the meeting. But they gave me some lame, lame excuse that they were just looking over some papers that were there. Dr. Gutierrez: And this predates the, the Open Meetings act, so this was not a violation technically? Ms. Mireles: When was that Open Meeting because I thought Dr. Gutierrez: Well, about '76, '78, '77, somewhere around there. Ms. Mireles: Because I vaguely remember that there was something about the Open Meetings that they... Dr. Gutierrez: Well, there was laws before, but, but not as, as open as it is today. Ms. Mireles: OK. Anyway, so then they stopped. The next time I went they weren't coming out of there. Dr. Gutierrez: They met at Frost Towers. Ms. Mireles: Yeah. Right. They met, they, they were probably meeting, yeah, somewhere else. And, but I, since I can be sarcastic, I remember saying that, "Oh, did I miss the meeting today, the meeting before the meeting?" And they just kind of laughed it off. But the other thing that happened was that I was looking at the minutes after each meeting. And nothing I said was ever on the minutes. So about the fourth or fifth meeting, I caught on that they were having all the discussions before the motions. So, then after that I would sit there and say nothing until there was a motion. And sometimes might even make, you know, I would second the motion, and then, I would talk. But it, you know, that a was very frustrating six years because it didn't matter what I said or did. Dr. Gutierrez: You had absolutely no support from anybody else? Ms. Mireles: No, no, no support. Dr. Gutierrez: Did you get paid? Ms. Mireles: Fifty whole dollars a meeting. But which I didn't even know it was a paid position. The thing that did happen, even though I didn't get very much in the actual board meetings, one of the things that happened is that the missions, the San Antonio... Well the missions were founded because of the river right? Along the river. So you have all this land that the River Authority is in charge of. And they were going to do, they were selling, buying some of the land downstream in the mission area. So, you have all of these people whose ancestors were born... Some who were born inside the missions and others that were born right outside. Anyway, everybody was... Their ancestors were from the missions. And then you had those people that were renting. What was happening is that all this land was being bought by realtors. Some of the board members were the owners of title companies like haff and bankers and McAllister was there at that time and... Dr. Gutierrez: He was on the board with you? Ms. Mireles: Right. But not the old McAllister. Dr. Gutierrez: Oh. Ms. Mireles: The son. Dr. Gutierrez: The son? Ms. Mireles: The son, McAllister. I think he was the third of the turd. And, so you have these people that were going out there. Well not them, but people representing them in actuality. And what they were doing is they were scarring the people that owned that land. And I started getting phone calls that they were going out there. Some were dressed like the typical,este (ah) Texas Ranger, stereotypical type just to try to, you know, one,un (one)gringo real tall with a hat and boots. And most of the time the only people that were home were the elderly and they were being scared into selling their lands. And, so I asked the River Authority to, to have a meeting where the people could come, at a time that the people could come because remember they were, the meetings were held at two o'clock. Of course I got turned down. So, what I did, the only other thing I knew to do was I called KCOR, local radio, Spanish radio station, talked to Mateo Camacho. And all of these people started calling because he put it on the air, then he interviewed me on the air and people heard it and so they started calling the River Authority. And let me stop on that just a minute because I just remembered something else. There was another thing that happened before that about the selling of the land. That first... Because that didn't happen until about '78. But in '77 which was a few months after I got elected, that April, my sister... And I got a phone call from the radio station, from KCOR that they had had calls that people were wanting restrooms out at Espada Park. Espada Park was, is a park that was dedicated by John F. Kennedy when he was president. La Raza goes out there, or did at the time, for Easter. And people were, had called the radio station asking how come there weren't any permanent restrooms out there? And KCOR had researched it and found out that the, the San Antonio River Authority was the one that oversaw the park, Espada Park and KCOR had called the manager, a man named Pfieffer at the time, to ask him how come there weren't any permanent restroom facilities out there? He told them that there was no money. And they wouldn't... They couldn't expect any restrooms for many years. So, then they had asked for portable restrooms. And there just isn't any money for that. So then they remembered me and they called me. And, then I called him and we went through that bureaucratic thing and I got the same response. So, then what I did is I was interviewed on the radio and I urged the people to call the San Antonio RiverAuthority and so they were overflowed with calls in the San Antonio River Authority. Because what was happening from previous years was that people went out to the park. There were no restroom facilities. The closest restroom was at a gas station and they had to cross the busy highway, I forget which one it is. Anyway, and they were also even fights with people, with the people standing in line for the bathroom. And anyway so, that's why they needed the bathrooms so bad out there because that was the only place. And the children crossing the busy street too. Anyway, so then they were overflowed with these phone calls and that week I had a meeting with San Antonio River Authority. And where there hadn't been any money for Port-a-Potties, all of a sudden there was money for port-a-potties. So we had bathrooms out at Espada Park for that Easter. And then the following year we had permanent facilities. Since then, that whole park has been transferred over to the city of San Antonio. But I used the media. That was the only way because I didn't get a vote. Dr. Gutierrez: Do you recall how many votes your incumbent got? Ms. Mireles: Oh. I think he got something like six hundred and something. Close to seven hundred. Dr. Gutierrez: Votes? Ms. Mireles: Uh huh. Dr. Gutierrez: And you got how many? Ms. Mireles: Seventy thousand, something. Because I remember something about that he only got like ten percent of the vote. It was the Raza that voted for me. Dr. Gutierrez: Right. This is, these are at large? Ms. Mireles: Oh yeah. This was a county wide election. Dr. Gutierrez: Right. So, did you also become the first Mexican American woman to win countywide? Ms. Mireles: Yes. Dr. Gutierrez: Were you the first Mexican American woman to win any elected office Ms. Mireles: I was, Dr. Gutierrez: in Bexar County? Were there Mexican American women already on the school boards or city council? Ms. Mireles: I think there was on school boards. What I remember finding out later, I mean like in the middle of my tenure year on, on the board, was that I was the first woman, Mexican American woman elected in an urban county in the whole country, which I didn't realize at the time. Dr. Gutierrez: Uh huh. Well, that's true. Why don't you say that? Ms. Mireles: Yeah, uh huh. And, and so I was, you know, sometimes you do things without even realizing the total impact. Dr. Gutierrez: Well, the people did. Ms. Mireles: The, the people do. Dr. Gutierrez: Did you feel that you wanted to quit at any time? Ms. Mireles: Oh, several times. Several. Dr. Gutierrez: But you didn't? Ms. Mireles: Oh no. No. Dr. Gutierrez: Now you said earlier also that you were going to win elective office before you were thirty. Ms. Mireles: Uh huh. Dr. Gutierrez: What eye did you have your focus on? Ms. Mireles: At first I didn't know what. But I... After being county chair for Raza Unida, I felt that I needed to do it slowly. And I thought that perhaps a school board election. And then when... And I remember it was Rosie the one that had pointed back in `74, pointed out San Antonio River Authority. A commissioner or something like that. Dr. Gutierrez: OK. The following year there were two other people that ran for the San Antonio River Authority, no? Ms. Mireles: Uh huh. Two years later. Dr. Gutierrez: Two years later. And it was a disaster, no? Ms. Mireles: Right. Dr. Gutierrez: And there were, it was Jose Luis Tovar and Ignacio Garcia? Ms. Mireles: Uh huh. Dr. Gutierrez: What happened to them? Do you know? Ms. Mireles: I was told by different people, because I, you know, I would, I made the effort to go out there with them whenever I could to the different rallies and all of that. That I had more... That they weren't as aggressive as I was. And I didn't, you know, I didn't realize that. But the thing is, you also have to remember that one of the reasons that it was also hard to get candidates for something like the River Authority is because it's not... One, it wasn't a well known still position and it wasn't as glamorous, I guess, as like city council or school board. And, and there wasn't another election at the time that they ran because these elections were usually held in January. And, so that there were, they would consolidate the precincts, especially I remember that year in '78 that they did some real... I, I tried to go to the Department of Justice and MALDEF helped me. To show on a map how there was one precinct especially in the south side. It was one precinct consolidated with I think five, four or five other precincts and the people from this other precinct had to... At one... For one person to go from this particular precinct, they got consolidated, and they would have had to take at least five buses to get there. And we showed all of that on that map. And there was an expressway, you know. All these obstacles for you just to go vote. And unfortunately it sat on somebody's desk in the Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of Justice_ And by the time anything was done the election was long over. Dr. Gutierrez: Well, by the time your term finished the Raza Unida party was over too. Ms. Mireles: Uh huh. Dr. Gutierrez: Do you have any comments about some of the disasters that occurred during the rise that led to the fall of the Raza Unida party or government harassment like you being followed in Mexico or the arrests of many candidates for illegal possession of dope? Flores Amaya, Ramsey Muniz, even Manuel Garza later on, and, and other places that happened. The fact that the Democrats created MAC, MAD, Mexican American Democrats, to take away votes and many of our folks defected like the San Juan chapter. There were a lot of factors of, of, I am not asking for that. I am just asking foryour opinion in terms of what were some of these things that impacted you in terms of the downfall of Raza Unida? Ms. Mireles: I, I don't know. I guess one of the things that they did, you had a lot of people that were unwilling to take the risk that Raza Unida and identify. Maybe the, I think they were either a lot of people that... Now, I know it's fashionable to say that you are Raza Unida. But they weren't willing to pay their dues. And, perhaps some of them were getting married and having families and that took a priority to, to a commitment to Raza Unida. And some, their commitment to Raza Unida, I feel, was, was there, but it was a short commitment. People's egos. And I, I think that not, you know, when we talk about wom, the women, we had some women who paid a very high price. Rosie Castro is one of them. She did that boycott with the SASA, San Antonio Survey Association boycott and she was blackballed. And it was very difficult for her to get a job in San Antonio. And, you know, that's where I feel that, that a lot of people... egos got in the way. The commitment was not... there all the way through. People were not... Egos. Egos. I think, were you know, were very detrimental to, to the wholemovimiento. And unfortunately it was male egos that were really, they were out, some of the men were out to proveaver quien tenia mas huevos (and see who had more balls). And, and, and instead of, you know, really feeling the, the whole commitment that, that they impacted the politics and make some, that the politics make in our their lives. They weren't willing to pay the price. And I certainly think paid the price that, that Rosie did and some of the others did. Men and women. But you have people like Rosie that are still committed and they certainly paid a, a big price. I guess one of the biggest things is that people were not willing to share. They allowed their egos to get in the, in the way. And, and to talk without getting into a fight, in a physical fight. I think that they just didn't have the whatever it, they, the inner fortitude to withstand all of this and continue. Because of their egos they got into drugs. It was easier to do that than have a commitment like Raza Unida. And because, because of their egos it was easier to, to move away and I don't mean, you know, physically like to another state or anything like that, but to move away from themovimiento and I think part of it was more like either,you know, you have played with my marbles or I'm, I'm taking them home. And I don't know, I, I really feel that. Dr. Gutierrez: You are suggesting that the men do politics different than women. Can you elaborate? Do women do politics different? Ms. Mireles: No. I don't think, I don't think we do. I think that we can get... I think we've learned from men and I hope we have learned enough that, that we will not make the same mistakes that men. But power, I think, was the, the fighting of, for powery que poder? (and what power?), you know. Dr. Gutierrez: Well, bathrooms for Espada Park. Ms. Mireles: Right. But they wantedpoder (power) or the leadership. Dr. Gutierrez: Ah. There are, there is literature in the women's writings that say that men characteristically want power over whereas women want power to do something. Do you agree with that or disagree? Ms. Mireles: I, I think I agree with that. I, I would say that. Dr. Gutierrez: I, I don't want to skip the chronology we are taking, but I just remembered that, that the, the same group that you have been talking about, Linda Valdez, Anna Rojas, Rosie Castro, and you recently have been meeting to plan a reunion of women activists? Ms. Mireles: Uh huh. Dr. Gutierrez: Would you elaborate about that and comment perhaps on another reunion earlier or what's the purpose of this and what are you all going to do? Ms. Mireles: OK, Dr. Gutierrez: When is it going to happen? Ms. Mireles: We are hoping that it will happen in, is it thirty years in '99? Dr. Gutierrez: Well, thirty years from '69. Ms. Mireles: El movimiento. Yeah. What we want to do is, well one of my, let me say that one of my interests is to get our story written because our,de mujeres (of women) and for whatever reasons women have not written themujeres dentro del movimiento (women within the movimiento) have not written their story, but men have. And some have included us, some have included us as only a footnote. And I think we havesomething very powerful to say. We remember things differently. And we, because we had different experiences. And some of us, are like me, that didn't go to the university; and, yet we have the, the same commitment that some of the men and some of the women that did. I just, I personally just want to get our story written. We have children now, our children, and they need to see. Anna told me recently her youngest, Gabriel, going to UT, UTSA. And I, and I guess it was a history class or Mexican American class or something, a history on Mexican Americans. Anyway, that the professor told, said something to the class. And this is from what Anna told me or described. It's like an auditorium type and there were all of these people. And all these students, Mexican Americans, gringos, whatever, and the professor said , "We are now going to talk about a time in Mexican American history, the Sixties and the Seventies,El movimiento which happened. Some of you who may never have heard of it, it certainly happened before most of you, if not all of you, were born." And you know he went on like that and said, "You probably have never even heard of some of these people or themovimiento. You know, he just went on and on and then he got to the point where he asked, "Well, has anyone," asked something like, "has anyone here ever heard of themovimiento and, and Raza Unida." And there was only one person. It was Gabriel, Anna's son. And he raised his hand and he said, he talked about his mom. And Anna was telling me how good he felt and how proud he felt. And I think that is what we need, we need to do, you know. And you have children and I am sure that even though sometimes they don't tell us, they are very proud of what you did. And Rosie has two boys that have done real well and I know that they are very proud. And, and for some reason it seems like Rosie and I had boys that are committed to themovimiento even though mine is in the military. He can't wait to get out now that he's in because he wants to, to continue themovimiento. He has had conversations where he has told some guys in the military, that when they have told him "Your people." And he'll say things like, "My people? You mean "your people" because my people, a border cross them, we never crossed the border." And you know, things like that. So, and I know certainly Rosie's boys have said the same thing. But so, what we are trying to tell is our story for our, for our future and I know that there is a lot of other women other than the in themovimiento. The other thing is that I read, I forgot the name of it, but the womenin California even have a video. But it's not a...Una realidad diferente (a different reality) anything in California, the women, what they did and we are usually left out. Then we have a group of women who have done some of the stuff on the... what the women have done, but it's all based on California. You have the Chicano... Dr. Gutierrez: Series? Ms. Mireles: The series. That doesn't touch too much on Texas. It, there is a lot of California in there. And I think that, that, that's my reason and to a certain extent, that's what Rosie and Anna and Linda, you know, see that. That we need to tell our story ourselves. Dr. Gutierrez: OK. Somewhere in the mid, middle of your term, you had a child, no? Ms. Mireles: Oh yeah. Dr. Gutierrez: Well, tell us that story and. Ms. Mireles: Oh, that, that was the, recently brought to mind because of another friend that I, that I saw, that I just made a new friend. She was, she is pregnant and, and she's not married. But that reminded me of when I was pregnant. It wasn't so much... Yes, I had to deal with it as far as my family. Because I was, I was thirty one and I wasn't going to get married. And it wasn't because of religious reasons that I was going to have this son. My dream, you know, I was going to have this child. And but I had to deal with the political side of it. And, but it wasn't too bad because I, I was up front with it. So I figure that because these were elderly white males I may end up having problems. So, as soon as I realized that I was pregnant, I went into the River Authority, I talked to the manager and the chairman of the board and I wanted to tell them that I was, that I was pregnant and I wasn't going to get married. And I was letting them know before they heard it anywhere else. And that I didn't want to hear about it again. And it was not to be a political issue of any type. And, you know, and if they had any problems with it, I wanted to hear it then, but there was no way I was going away. And they were with me through my whole pregnancy. And but you know, that, that was something though. I was the same way with just about anybody that asked me. Dr. Gutierrez: Did they send flowers or a card when you had the baby? Ms. Mireles: Oh yeah. Yeah. And, but I don't remember, it wasn't that im, their participation or their interest in my pregnancy wasn't that important, so important in my life that I remember any details. I just remember that part. Dr. Gutierrez: OK. Anything else on, on that point? Ms. Mireles: On that point? No, I remember, I mean, I am very proud of my son and I feel that... I know. I was told by a lot of people when I, friends, close friends, a lot, I found out there were so many around that I thought, who were married, that they had had the same experience and that. But that was the reason they had married because they had gotten pregnant before and, before they were married. And they wished that they had the guts I did not to get married just because I was pregnant. And I thought that was very interesting, but... Dr. Gutierrez: OK. At the end of the term or as we pointed out earlier, there was no more Raza Unida. Ms. Mireles: Uh huh. Dr. Gutierrez: There was no more MAYO. Ms. Mireles: Uh huh. Dr. Gutierrez: What did you direct your energies to and you had no more term?You didn't run for reelection. Ms. Mireles: No. What I did... is it took me awhile, you know, because well for one thing, when I did vote, like I said earlier, I have discriminating tastes so that whenever there was an election I would vote and usually there weren't anyeste ( ) names in Spanish in the Republican party, which I didn't particularly care to vote Republican. But in the Democratic party I would vote just, you know, study the candidates which usually would be, not usually, all of them, when I voted had to be with Spanish surnames. But I usually tried to... That's what I would do as far as voting. I believe in social justice so that I've always worked, I've worked for social justice and it took me awhile before I got into LULAC, but I eventually got into LULAC. Dr. Gutierrez: OK. I need to stop the tape, OK? You were starting to tell me about LULAC, that you directed your energies toward LULAC. What was all that about? Ms. Mireles: Let's see. I, I guess it was mostly in the Eighties that I got involved in LULAC. I became, because to me LULAC was more of a social organization. Social in the sense of they had fiestas (parties), you know. Not serious into what I consider serious commitments like the politics, getting people elected, and voter registration and all that. But anyway... So I finally eventually became a member of LULAC. I started slowly, then I, after I got into LULAC council, which was Council 633 and it was the first council in LULAC that was co-ed and... Dr. Gutierrez: In, in San Antonio? Ms. Mireles: that's when, 1, I imagine. I don't know. Dr. Gutierrez: OK. Ms. Mireles: But I, I mean, I know that in San Antonio for sure. I don't remember within LULAC. Dr. Gutierrez: What year was this? Ms. Mireles: '70, no in Dr. Gutierrez: Had to be after '83 because your term ended in '83. Ms. Mireles: Yeah. Yeah. So, it's got to have been right around then. '83, '84. So, I know that, that, and that was, that was one of the reasons I got involved because I didn't want to belong to an all women's council that really amounted to being like an auxiliary. And of course, they didn't allow women in the men's councils. But this council was formed and it was male and female, so that's the reason I joined. But that council had been in existence at least a year before I joined. So, I did that. I participated in a few fund, yeah, fund raisers and it's just that to me fund raisers I think of political campaign type fund raisers, and so, I did that. Then within LULAC I was eventually elected president of that council. I went, I guess, two years after I had been in the council, I went to the first state, first the district convention. And then to, and then the state and then to the national. But I guess it took like about three or four years before I went to that LULAC national. So, in LULAC Council 633 I was a member. Later, I became president. And I was president of that council for about four years. I did a lot with that council including a youth council and kind of following the Raza Unida. Well, even thought it wasn't quite Raza Unida, the scholarships side, of those scholarships we gotfrom Mexico. But this wasn't scholarships in Mexico. I got some scholarships for some students at, at the medical school here in San Antonio. And then I was, I became the district, the LULAC District 15, I forgot the name of the title, anyway it had to do with the women, taking care of the functions that the women would do. But from there I decided I wanted to be the LULAC at state level, So I became the, I was elected to the Texas LULAC Women's, ah, I forget the whole title. Anyway so, but I got elected on that with, with my... My theme was more to do away with the position because I didn't believe that a position within LULAC should exist totally just for a part, to take care of women's affairs or something. That's what it was. State this, State Women's LULAC, Women's Affairs,algo asi (something like that). I don't remember the exact title. Anyway, I did manage to have a conference. And I was the first, not only the first woman in that position in the history of LULAC, but to do what I am about to tell you, but also the first one within the whole organization that any, even including the national level, to hold that convention, make money, and whatever money was loaned to, to me by the organization to pay it back. And I just felt that, I mean, money was made and it was distributed to, to the district and to the state, into the national. But there was a good experience. There again, I saw some of the, some of the experiences that I had seen in Raza Unida as far as some of the men and their egos taking over and a lot of inner fighting, which I thought was kind of sad. But also the double standard which I kept, like I said, from early on, never to mingle my personal life with what went on with the organization I belonged to. And I, and I did that both with Raza Unida and LULAC. And it was basically a good experience. And we did, I participated in the campaign to elect one of the national presidents, Jose Garcia de Lara. And, and that was successful. But then, after that, not too long after that is... I left Texas and I went to live in Juneau, Alaska. Dr. Gutierrez: That was a very radical change. Why did you do that? Ms. Mireles: The economy in Texas. That was one reason, but in foresight, I see that it was, I was ready for the change. I needed, I needed that change. And it was a good change even though a couple of months after I got there, I am kind of where I am today, maybe I shouldn't have left. Dr. Gutierrez: Well, let me ask you pointedly. Were you running away from something or were you running to something? Ms. Mireles: I think that without realizing it I was running to something because out, the, my personal finances were really bad here. The company I had worked for went bankrupt. I went to work for, after ten years, I had nothing to show for it. It was in the private sector. I got a job here in the county and I certainly took a big cut in pay, but it was too political and I didn't want that; whereas I didn't mind, I don't mind politics. I don't want it to be part of, so much a part of my job. And that's what it was in the, in Bexar County. And I still had problems, financial problems. And it came at a time in my life that I was ready for a change and it was a good change in the long run. Dr. Gutierrez: So, tell me about the Alaska years. You were there eight years, nine years? Ms. Mireles: Eight years. I left in `90 and I came back April `9th, `98. This year. And it started slowly. And all my experiences in Raza Unida and all the work in, that I did in that community of San Antonio, I picked up in Juneau, but differently. Dr. Gutierrez: Did you know anybody over there? Ms. Mireles: I only had my sister and her family. And the first year I was there, I got there in April, that in Cinco, in Cinco el (the) Cinco de Mayo (fifth of May) the only Cinco de Mayo (fifth of May) activity was at the grocery stores. And that was in, in terms of buying like can refried beans, and that kind of stuff. Advertising. Then came the, the diez y seis de Septiembre (sixteenth of September) and it was the same thing. It was the grocery stores. You need to understand that where I was in Juneau, the population is twenty eight thousand. And of those twenty eight thousand, when I got there it was maybe close to a thousand Hispanics. And you know, you could spot them a mile away and most of them were Mexicanos de (from) Mexico. There were a few Puerto Ricans. And a few, very few, from other Latin American countries. There were no Cubans, no Colombians, no Salvadoreños (Salvadorans). So let's see, that would leave Puerto Riquenos (Ricans), two families Nicaragüenses (Nicaraguans), and one (Argentine) by himself. And that was the extent of them. And there were very few Mexican Americans, much less Chicanos. And anyway so, then I started going to church and I thought oh well,I will see what's going on at church. And you have Our Lady of Guadalupeen Diciembre (on December). There was nothing. Dr. Gutierrez: That was the name of the church? Ms. Mireles: No, no. The name of the church in Juneau, I went to the Cathedral of the Nativity. But, you know, here, here wasel doce de Diciembre (the twelfth of December) Our Lady of Guadalupe and even the church didn't acknowledge. There was a radio station, public radio. And they had a pro, there was a program every Tuesday night for two hours. And it was a Puerto Rican woman and all it was music. And even ther... there for Cinco de Mayo (fifth of May) for Cinco de Mayo (fifth of May) and. (interruption). Did you want to stop it? For Cinco de Mayo (fifth of May), all they did was play music. They didn't even say anything about the history.Diez y seis de Septiembre (Sixteenth of September) was the same thing. Certainly nothing else. So, I, oh, by the end of that year I was already working for the city and borough of Juneau. So I worked in the law department. And I resolved that by the next year I would have something going as far as the Hispanic community. And, so what I did is by working with the city, I made friends with the director of the library and the first thing I did was ask if I could put a display for, this was in, it was too late for Cinco de Mayo (fifth of May) because it was in April of '91. And, so I asked for the, their windows displays in the library, the main library fordiez y seis de Septiembre (Sixteenth of September) and she said yes. And they were large windows. And then of course, there was the other side to thaty ahora que hago (so now what do I do?). I had, I really didn't have anything to display, but I knew I had to find it. So, I started writing letters. I wrote a letter to the embassies. And then I found out something very important in Juneau. The mayor's wife is Mexicana.O era (Or she was) Lupita Botello. So, I looked for the mayor and then I was introduced to, I finally met his wife and she was interested too. She had beenen un bale! florcorico del D.F. (in a folklore ballet in the D.F.). And so she had some, some items to display and stuff to, to share. Then I found out that there is only one hospital, a small hospital, something like sixty odd beds, and the department head, Valient, his wife was from Eagle Pass. Yes, Mexican American. They are still there. I met her. And I had my committee. And then one day we started meeting and I put it in the newspaper. And, you know, dumb me,Mexicanos especiallyde (from) Mexico do not read the newspaper in English. And, so the first few meetings it was just the three of us, those three women, and then, it dawned on me they are in the restaurants. So, I went to the restaurants. And there were two Mexican restaurants in town, and so, I got them. Oddly enough, they were both of them were very successful and they are owned by women. And, Mexicana women who had become citizens. Anyway, so that's how I ended up with a committee and it included this man who was from Nicaragua. So, what we displayed wererehosos ( shawls ), some posters from Nicaragua, from Mexico. The woman from Eagle Pass, Josie, had amoleajete [stone receptacle used to grind spices]. And so, we, and we explained what these items were, and I had some things. I displayed the 1989 poster, the Raza Unida. I got some posters from the Embassies that did respond from... Well, I, I wrote to D. C. and I think Puerto Rico answered. And Chile answered. So you know, I had Argentina. OK, so that was the first year. The second year I, I did the same thing except as far as the window display, except that I had the Argentinos, Nicaraguences a Mexicano and myself who went to the university and to the different, the different schools. There is only one high school in Juneau and five elementaries and two middle schools and I went to all of them. And in the elementaries especially, there were childrenque eran (that were) Latin including my sister's. But of course I expected that at their school because they were going to be there if, if anyone else, Mexicanos. But I found out, I soon found out that there were children in all these other schools, especially the elementary. And when I talked about the meaning of thediez y seis (sixteenth) and, and these different people came and they talked what it meant to come from Mexico and Nicaragua and all that. We had all these children, I mean, we had a, at one school in San Antonio, in some other places in Texas it may not seem a lot, but when you have ten little kids dying for this and they come to you, I mean, we couldn't get rid of them and that was, that told me, you know, I have to keep doing this. Plus they told me, that told me that they had to e parents, right? So then, by that time I had met the bishop of Juneau, Bishop Michael Kenny. And, so that the second year I did this, I did something that no organization in, certainly not Hispanic, in Juneau had done. I, of course, didn't know this. I found out later. I did a resolution that was passed by the city council. Well, it's called an assembly there. The state and, and ofcourse we had the proclamation that the president issued and we got a copy of it. Because by that time I had written to all these organizations and, and all that. And I got a write up in the paper. I had amerienda (afternoon snack) at the library, the, the library, the library director loved me because I had brought all these people in. And there was a lot of interest. And the bishop was really, you know, wanting to get the, the Hispanics involved so he was really involved in this. And that's how, that's how we got started. A lot of the work I did in Juneau was through the church because people, Hispanics in Juneau, didn't trust anywhere else to go. And it took me awhile to get, gain their trust because I spoke English and they saw me as an outsider. And it took me almost two years to really gain their confidence. And the bishop had a meeting, I mean, a Mass whenever he could. Because of the religious, there were in Juneau, there was the Cathedral downtown and another church in what they call the Valley in St. Paul's. And what, he was the only one that spoke some Spanish. So the Mass for the Hispanic community was only held whenever he was available. And aside from that one radio program in Spanish, we didn't even have Spanish television, a television channel. Anyway, so that the bishop, I worked with the bishop, there was one more woman who was older than I. And she, she was married to an Anglo who worked in the Coast Guard. And she, she is from New Mexico. So she and I didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things because she was of the old traditions and she believed everything that the Catholic Church said. And the priest. And she got a lot, too much respect that she for the church that, that she didn't challenge any of it. And the bishop, meaning well, decided to do a retreat. And he brought a priest in. And he was from Spain. And had spent like ten years in California. There wasn't too much of a turnout. One, because it was held Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. All the Hispanics that live in Juneau, especially inland, again, the majority Mexicanos have two and three jobs. So they are not going to leave their jobs to go to church. The only time they really did anything was on Sundays. And the bishop was very disappointed that people didn't turn out and that the people really didn't really care for the priest. So, when he told me all of this, I told him there is something you are forgetting. We are a conquered people by the Spanish and you had a Spaniard. And he hadn't thought of that. I mean, it just floored him. He was like, how could I have forgotten? And anyway so, the next year he did itagain. There was still not much of a turnout the first two days, but those were the only days that this priest could come, but this time he was a Mexican American priest. And it was, they turned out on Sunday. He was to leave that night and he didn't leave because the turnout was so tremendous that he had to stay until Tuesday. And, so that was part of my work within, within the church. The other thing that happened that I... They had Our Lady of Guadalupe on a, in a big frame, but she was in the basement. For the longest time, when I finally got into the church Dr. Gutierrez: All the way to the basement? Ms. Mireles: Uh huh. All the way to the basement. No, but I mean, I even became a member of the parish council. I would harp on Our Lady of Guadalupe being in the basement. And I finally got heard after forever saying what I am about to say and I would tell them, look you have these people, you have people who have two and three jobs. They are bound to get... And it was like a repetitious thing that I, that's why I remember it, because I just kept harping on it. They have two or three jobs. They are bound to get discriminated on one of them, so they come to church. OK. They don't understand the language when they go to Mass, but they are still Catholics. Then they decide to look for Our Lady of Guadalupe and where do they go? They finally find her and they find her in the basement and when they find her in the basement, what's the message? The message is. If they don't respect her and they discriminate against her, what am Ito expect? So, they finally heard me and now our Lady of Guadalupe, that big large frame, it's in the main hall. But it took them three years before somebody heard me. Well, they didn't actually hear me. I took her and put her there. She just hasn't been moved. The, the other thing that I did was through the church is that I worked a lot. Something that I had never done in, in San Antonio on immigration. Because in, in Juneau there was no one to advocate for the Hispanics so I, I translated in court. I translated in social services. Towards the end I even translated, I ended up being a mental health clinician. I, I also did a lot of classes, some of the classes to get them to become citizens. And, but not the ESL [English as a second language]. When I said classes, I mean like citizenship, but that was kind of limited. But I still did that. And what else did I do? Oh, in '90,... '93 or '94, I think it was '93, I became a member of the State Advisory Committee to the U. S.Commission on Civil Rights. And that gave me a lot of leverage. That's one of those examples of using power to, to do something. I really used being on the, that state advisory commission committee to the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights. I brought a lot of things to the forefront. They had hearings. Hispanics in Juneau were being discriminated in housing, by, by the police. Even though there was never any real physical abuse, but they were being picked up just by the virtue of the fact that they were Hispanics. And also in the state prison system in Juneau. There is a big state prison in Juneau and their rights were being violated. And, so I brought a lot of that to the forefront. But in '94 I did something else that, together with the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights, helped me a great deal. And that was that I did what I had set out to do when I first heard about it and that's became a radio disk jockey, essentially, in that radio program with that public radio in, in Juneau. So, those two hours that we had every Tuesday, I used..., yeah we played music, but I, I distributed a lot of information about immigration, about their rights, about discrimination, and the work, because I also got involved in the schools. And, so I would talk to the parents about what was going on with the schools. And I, then I would do it in English, certain things I would do in English. So that the rest of the non Spanish speaking listener could understand what I was talking about and there was somebody watching out for what was happening in the schools towards our kids. I found out, you know, this goes back to not, you do something because it needs to be done, but then you realize again the full impact. I found out I was being listened to in all the villages which, some which you know, had like you about ten Hispanics. But it was a bigger listening audience than just Juneau. The, about a thousand, later ended up being like about fifteen hundred people, Hispanics in Juneau. So it was being really listened. And they were calling in and they were, some of them calling that night because we did have a call in, but there were a lot of calls coming in during the day when I wasn't there. The day after we had only one incident where somebody complained that why was this being done in Spanish? He had come from some European country and had learned English and all this. I had no problem. I took that personal. But that was the only... Everything else I was able to, to distribute a lot of information. Dr. Gutierrez: Did you bump off the Puerto Rican lady or how did you get the slot? Ms. Mireles: Oh no. I said, "Oh, if you don't feel like coming, I'll do the program." She was also very committed except she had a different style, all that music. And she, she just didn't have the community involvement, the type of community involvement that I had. And sometimes we would do it together. And that would work out good, but people would stop me on the street and say no, we want to hear you. And I brought in a different style of music too. She had Puerto Rican, Salsa type and, and some Mexican music. But I brought in theTejano and, and more Mexican music and you know, just different, a different style. And she had been doing it so long she welcomed my doing it. And, and she would be afraid to say some of the things on the air that I was willing to say, but I knew that there is laws, you know, FCC laws that you can't say. I'd still say them, but I would word it different so that I wouldn't break that law. And I did get my license to be on the air. And the other thing that happened, Bishop Michael Kenny passed away in`94, but in,I mean in '95. He passed away in '95. But in '94, Bishop Kenny, with the help of Bishop Kenny, we brought a Spanish channel, TV channel, into Juneau. And we didn't care what channel it was but it turned out to be Univision. And before that happened I went to a meeting with the cable station, the owners. Dr. Gutierrez: Owners. Ms. Mireles: The owners. And, of course you know, they act like they are the only TV company in town because they are. And that same week, there is a free newspaper in Juneau, and... Capitol City News. And I had seen that same week, it was on, it comes out on Wednesday and this meeting was on Thursday and there was an ad in the Capitol City News that said, in Spanish, and it was by American Express. And it was on sending money. Dr. Gutierrez: Sending money. Ms. Mireles: And, so I took it to that meeting. And I took it to that meeting and we were sitting there. And one of the people that... How I found out about this meeting...And the bishop was not able to go... was through the ex-mayor, Bruce Botello who was a part of this committee and he's the one that I have explained to you whose wife wasMexicana. He's the one that invited me. So, I take the newspaper. And they are meeting there. And he wanted me to say something about why we wanted a, a Spanish TV channel in Juneau, why it was important. The one, the one, the other thing... Let me back up a little bit. A couple of months before this meeting, we had... I had done a petition. I was petitioning the cable stations to bring in a Spanish channel and I got the high school and the coil, the university students involved. The Spanish classes, those people that were learning Spanish. And they all signed this petition, but it wasn't enough at that time. But what we ended up getting was another sports channel. So, then this meeting happened and I go. And I pull out the newspaper with the newspaper ad and I said, "look, if American Express can recognize the impact Hispanics have in Juneau, so can you. We want a TV channel in Spanish." And it took about three months, but we got Univision into Juneau. And that was, and, and then I also got the bishop to, to send a letter to the cable company about the importance of a TV channel in Spanish. So, we got it and to this day there is Univision in, in Juneau. And they realized, the cable company realized that. Now they, well, before I left they used to call me to find out how, you know, how they were doing. And... Dr. Gutierrez: How, how did you get into the commission on civil rights? Did you wire that? Did you seek it out or did it just fall in your lap? Ms. Mireles: Oh no. I testified. I... They had a hearing and I went to it. And they hadn't had an Hispanic from Juneau testify in the history of the community, the committee in, in Juneau, I mean, in Alaska. But anyone testifying out of Juneau, there had been, there's more Hispanics in Anchorage. So, what I did is I went and I testified about discrimination in the schools because Hispanics were being discriminated, but the discrimination was worse if you were thought to be an Alaska native. Because they discriminate really bad against Alaska natives. And, so I took two issues. The discrimination of Hispanics and of the Alaska natives. And even the Alaska natives were surprised. And that, you know, that somebody else would be there, not talking for them, but bringing this forward because they didn't have anybody. They are organized again for some unknown reason to me, they weren't there to testify. And, so I did, I testified as to the discrimination on the jobs and the schools and the Dr. Gutierrez: Housing? Ms. Mireles: The housing. But it was mainly, mainly the schools. And, so that's, the guy, the staff person that was there from the U. S. Commission, a few months later... Well, before I left, you know, you have to sign in and all that. So that a few months later I got a letter from him asking me whenever a vacancy became available if I would consider. And it just happened that, I guess, I think it was that same month, they had a vacancy and therefore I was. And, and I was appointed to that U. S. Commission on Civil Rights. But, so I, I did that. Last year, `97, I, I... oh I know, let me back up. In '96 there was an initiative to make English the official language of the state of Alaska. And there was a bill, not an initiative, it was a bill in the state legislature. And they had a hearing and I didn't know about that hearing. It was held in February of `96. So, I didn't testify. But I found out after the fact, through the newspaper, that that hearing was held. So, then I called the, the local state representative at their office, her office and asked when the next hearing was going to be. They gave me the date. I started preparing my, the information. And with the help of the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights, I got some information. Then, also from Latino Links, Erickson, I forget his first name, whoever... Dr. Gutierrez: Charlie? Ms. Mireles: Charlie Erickson. I talked to him in D. C. and he sent me some information. Actually, I got a lot of information from different organizations, including National Council of La Raza, on the English only. And I also got it from the bilingual educators organization, from the... And I got on the Internet and got a bunch also. So, I got, I had so much time, I ended up having so much time to gather my information because I was, I would prepare a portion of it, show up for the hearing and the hearing would get postponed. So I, it was almost a month before there was an actual hearing. In the meantime I got hold of the book, Hold Your Tongue. And finally, and all this time I, at the time I had a brother that lived there, and of course, my son. And then there was a guy that worked in the Coast Guard who was like their Affirmative Action officer and he was out of Phoenix. So, and one of the nuns from the, from the local church, from the Catholic Church. And we would, they would show up, all of us or some of us that could get away would show up. All this time I am taking leave. I worked for the city andborough of Juneau so I have to take leave. But I was doing all of this on my own time. And there was no hearing. One of those times there is this guy that comes along and he starts talking to us about if this English only bill is not passed, there will eventually be an initiative. And we need to at least have this on the books. So it, you know, he tried to talk to us about that. I didn't say a word. Sister Carol and Roy were the ones that Roy Castro, that's the guy from the Coast Guards name would, you know, challenge him. I didn't say a single word. I just stayed back. And it turned out he was a lobbyist for the English only people. And the next day, oh, there was no hearing. It got postponed. But I got that much, that information. I found out, I went and looked him up at the state legislature where they have the lobbyists and all that. He was getting money from the, from the U. S. English people, from the English only people, rather. And he was also getting money from the Federation, Federation of Alaska Natives and, and that organization, their headquarters is out of Anchorage. And he was getting money from the Alaska Native Brotherhood locally in Juneau. So he was being a lobbyist for the Alaska Native people and the English only people. So, what I did is I wrote letters that I faxed to those two organizations so that they would put pressure on him because the Alaska Natives were also against English only. And anyway so, his name is Sam something. And the interesting part about that is the man is part Japanese and Alaska native. So finally there is a hearing and I ended up by myself. Nobody else could go. And so there, you know, of my brothers and Roy and the sister, and, and I... The hearing was held, I testified, and I, there is three Republicans and two Democrats in this committee hearing and it was in the Health and Social Services Committee, where the hearing was being held. And you know, I gave them the... OH, by that time Juneau, Alaska is one of the other big businesses is cruise ships. So they get a lot of cruise ships from all over the world. And because there had been so many postponements, I had managed to get hold of the previous years statistics on tourism and moneys spent in Alaska, in the state of Alaska, and in Juneau, specifically from foreign tourists. Most of who spoke very little English. So, that helped me. I had all that information. And I, that's what I gave them about the economics and how we were, that it would mean the state of Alaska was going to lose, the possibility of losing that, that because we weren't open to, to speaking otherlanguages. And, and I finished it withel respeto a el derecho ajeno es la paz (the respect to the right of someone else is peace). And being used to the kind of support I've gotten where we would all rally around in Texas, I wasn't used to beingsola (alone). And towards the end of my, my presentation in that hearing, I realized that the sister had gotten there and so did the guy from the Coast Guard was there. Anyway, so the, one of the Republicans said something to the effect that I was calling him a racist. And I said something back like if the shoe fits wear it or something like that. And anyway, but it was called for a vote. And essentially when we left, the bill died in committee. When I am walking out, now you have to remember I am still with this business that I am by myself, but thank God this, you know, a man named Roy was there. And I am walking out and I see the, the staff person for that one representative rom Juneau, Robinson. Her staff person comes and talks to me and says, "I need to walk with you." And, "let's go." And so we are walking out and we've won or we think we've won. And all of a sudden I got cornered by that man, Sam. Dr. Gutierrez: The lobbyist? Ms. Mireles: The lobbyist and I was... He yelled. He was maybe a couple of inches away from my face yelling at me, telling me that I was a liar because one of the things I had said was that English only would eventually do away with all the languages and that, that other than English. And how in 1924 the state of Alaska had a, something similar to this Texas poll tax, but they had a literacy requirement. And so the Alaska natives were not allowed to vote. And now you are doing the same thing with this bill. So, he called me a bunch of names and like I said, including calling me a liar and he challenged me. He literally cornered me in the corner. He got me angry, so I pushed him. And he got like, you know,buenote (good and ready) right in front of me. But I didn't, I, I did get scared, but I wasn't going to show it. I wasn't going to let him know. And he yelled so much at me, but I yelled right back, and he had to back off. They took him away. He challenged me. I took... I told him, "I take your challenge, right here and now. We don't have to wait for another day." And all of this happened. And one of the things I thought it was real funny is that the sisters says, you know, she didn't know what she was going to do and Roy told me that he was going to go look for the security guard. And I thought, "Onewas praying and the other one runs off," what kind of help is that! Anyway, what did happen is that as a result of that vote, there was one member absent. Two hours later after we had all left, they reconvened and they rescinded the vote and the bill was alive again. So, what I did as-a result of that, because I had collected so much information also of other organizations, I sent faxes all the way to the Bering Sea and got responses from all of them. So, when it went to the next step, to the next hearing, committee hearing, I also, I had all the faxes contained the numbers, phone numbers, voice phone numbers and faxes of all those committee members. And they were inundated with phone calls and faxes. And there was a Black representative out of Anchorage, Miss Davis. And she called me and she told me, "You know, you need to come to this hearing, but I am hopingto kill it, the, the bill." Not Sam. And, sure enough it was, it died even before it went to committee. And, so one of the biggest, best things I learned from Raza Unida is to lobby. And it was getting ready to go to initiative before I left and I challenged it. And now it's being questioned, but I, I am over here now. But that was one of my big, big accomplishments in the, that I am so proud of. That we were able to kill that bill. And I got a lot of other people interested. So it, I feel that even though I've left I got enough people interested that if it comes up again, you know, it will be, it will be a good solution and it will be killed. The other thing is that two years ago, I met a lot of people in Anchorage, Hispanics. And I've networked with them. So that that's, those are the people, the Hispanic people in Anchorage have now net, networked with some of the people in Juneau. And they are working together for any, you know, against anything like this. And as far as the immigration, I also was on, I was on the, an advisory board for the immigration program out of the diocese of Anchorage. And what I did there, I met, I was able to get the attorney who is the head of that program to come in to Juneau twice a year and do clinics, workshops, whatever it takes for processing of immigration for free. And one of the local hotels gives her housing during her stay for free in one of the local hotels, and the hotel gives her room for free. Dr. Gutierrez: Well, that's a great story on how you single-handedly killed English only, but you also left out a piece, I believe, that you ended up on a national board Ms. Mireles: Oh. Dr. Gutierrez: of the Catholic Church? Ms. Mireles: Oh yeah. Dr. Gutierrez: How did you fix that? Ms. Mireles: Oh. By being the only Hispanic in Alaska, mem... being a... who was a member of Network. Well, I am a national board member, I am a mem, I am a board member of a national organization called Network, a Catholic social justice lobbying group. And that was a big honor for me in terms of that I was elected to that board, net, on a national level. And I am there for six years. And I am able to, I get a lot of information from them because they are really in touch with what's happening in D. C. and all the bills and I also got the support locally from the few members in Juneau of Network. And now I've got Network members in Anchorage and in some of the villages. It, there were only five Network board members in all of the state of Alaska. And now I think there's something like twenty five or thirty. And hopefully they will get a, someone else out of Alaska. Dr. Gutierrez: On this national board how many Mexican Americans are there? Ms. Mireles: Mexican Americans? There is only two, three. Dr. Gutierrez: OK. Ms. Mireles: Luz Gutierrez, a woman out of Michigan, and I. Dr. Gutierrez: OK. Ms. Mireles: There may be another one soon, I think, from El Paso. Dr. Gutierrez: Well, what made you decide to leave Alaska? Ms. Mireles: I missed San Antonio plus my family. My mother is sick and so is my father. Dr. Gutierrez: Did the fact that you got vested in your job have anything to do with it? Ms. Mireles: Oh no. In, in Alaska you are vested in five years with the, with the city and the state. Dr. Gutierrez: Five years? Ms. Mireles: Uh huh. Within five years. And I have been there seven years. And the retirement out of Alaska is pretty good. And this October, Alaska has what they, what'scalled the Permanent Fund Dividend which Texas if we would have been smart, should have done. All the oil, out of the oil revenues all the citizens of the state of Alaska get dividends once a year. And I will be getting my dividend October from the state of Alaska. The last one was over a thousand dollars and they expect the one for this year to be about fifteen hundred. And that's for being a citizen of the state of Alaska.Pero but, the state of Alaska also takes good care of their elderly. And I did some changes. Oh I know, I, did, I also did made some changes in the school district. They wanted me to run for school board, but I found out that I do better behind the scenes as opposed to being a, a board member. And I was a pain on, on their side. And so I, there were some changes made. Now, notices go home in about four languages and you know, that in itself, then, then they can't come back and wonder oh, well how come they are not coming? Well, they didn't know because they couldn't read it. Dr. Gutierrez: Did you have any organizing experiences with Alaska natives or were you confused of being an Alaska native? Ms. Mireles: The experience I had with the Alaska natives was not that great because they are kind of closed. They don't allow outsiders too much. And I think it takes a long time, I mean like years. The chairman of the board of the, not the board, the chairman of the committee, the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights, he's from New Mexico, Gutierrez. But he married an Alaskan and he has been there for like twenty years and he told me that it takes years before the Alaskan natives allow anybody, outsider, in. And the, the one, the one thing that I was able to do with some of the leaders of the, Alaskan natives organizations, was I was able to make friends with a couple of other women and one of their elders. And I tried to get them to understand that we shared the same type of history. It was just too different, almost continents, that while the similar things that were happening to the Alaskan natives are happening to the Mexican American in Texas. And they understood, you know, how better that we are actually sharing a, a similar history. The other thing.... I, I did some research and I found out that in 1740, 1740something when the Spaniards were exploring Alaska... When they would come from Mexico, a lot of their crews were, were being, either dead or really sick so they ended upin, with a lot of Mexicanos out of Nayarit in those areas. So you have a lot of Alaska, in, in their geography's and is engraved with a lot of Hispanic things. Dr. Gutierrez: Well, Valdez. Ms. Mireles: Uh huh. Valdeez, to, Alaskans. And so, you know, I, I got all of that information onto that resolution that I told you that, you know, it's already, that's there. And I translated it, too. Their resolution was both in English and in Spanish. I found out that in 1917 seven thousand Mexicanos went to work the mines in Juneau. And there's been a lot of Mexicanos in the cannerie in Juneau. But what really boggles my mind is the people from Nicaragua y el Salvador an all those areas have made it all the way to Alaska. Dr. Gutierrez: Well all right, let's get to another phase here of this interview. Let me ask you some questions that are different. You have talked about leadership in, in different ways. You've used the word a couple of times. What is it? What is leadership? Ms. Mireles: I would say that leadership is seeing the need for something. And willing to take the risk. And take that on whether it be like the English only political or immigration. And not being afraid. Being a voice for those without a voice for whatever reasons. It could be they are just afraid themselves or they don't speak the language. Dr. Gutierrez: OK. Who is the most effective Mexican American leader today? Ms. Mireles: I don't see one. Dr. Gutierrez: Which is the most effective Mexican American organization today? Ms. Mireles: I would say the National Council of La Raza. Dr. Gutierrez: What is the most pressing issue facing Mexican Americans today? Ms. Mireles: Discrimination. Dr. Gutierrez: Black/Brown relations. What are the underpinnings of tension between Blacks and Browns? Ms. Mireles: I would say misunderstanding. Dr. Gutierrez: Of? Ms. Mireles: Of what?.. We actually share a lot of the same issues. But we don't under, we haven't completely understood that we do. And we need to come together and communicate that.And let the egos go. Dr. Gutierrez: What are the underpinnings of tension between Latino subgroups, you know, Mexicanos, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Nicaraguans, Central Americans, South Americans, Filipinos? Ms. Mireles: I don't know. I would... I would venture to say that it's more...That they don't, they don't understand the reality of the Hispanic American that has a history here. That they are never. And because they don't understand it, they, they do, they do things without fully understanding like for instance, their voting, voting for, in favor of English only when they are able to vote. And giving, even when they are not able to vote, if they give their support, you know, by either volunteering or whatever. They have not... They have not faced that, the realities of the Mexican Americans. Or those, or those Hispanics sects have a history in this country. Dr. Gutierrez: If you want to answer this in two ways that's perfectly fine in terms of Alaska and in terms of Texas or, or historically or comparatively, whichever way. Same question. What are the underpinnings of tension between Chicanos and Mexicanos? Ms. Mireles: I think that it's the same thing. We have, the Mexicanos don't realize, don't understand our reality for having lived here. Because I found that in Alaska. That they don't under...the Mexicanos don't understand what it's actually, what it's actually like to live in this country. They come with that imagined dream. And then they, they get discriminated. And we have lived it because we have never lived anywhere else but here. And I, I, that's, that's what I_ Yeah, I, I just don't think that they, that they understand it. And then the same thing with the, you know, like the Cubans. For me personally, it's very hard to understand theCubanos (Cubans) especially when I hear storieshay que hemos sufrido tanto (that we have suffered alot), that we suffered. How can I understand you when you are telling me that your family stole in the middle of the night on a yacht to come to Florida? How am I going to understand that? And if that means you have a lot of money and you were able to get out. And you left and you left the poor there. And so, I have a problem, I personally have a problem understanding that. And I am not too sympathetic with the Cubanos when they, when they tell that story. Dr. Gutierrez: Two last questions. You have been gone for eight years. Ms. Mireles: Uh huh. Dr. Gutierrez: What is this reality have that you have encountered? Have we made progress; have we stepped backwards; where are we? What's the state of of Chicano affairs now from your perspective? Ms. Mireles: Ahh.... from, I think we have come to a standstill, that nothing is getting done that's really meaningful. We are going back. Somehow, we that were in thatmovimiento back in the Seventies and Eighties missed something. That ah... there's been a gap there and there's no... The issues are the same. A lot of them are coming back. And there's no one really fighting. Dr. Gutierrez: All right. The last question that I've got other than an opportunity for you to make whatever statement is... You, you certainly came back for certain reasons. And you've already said what those reasons are. But it's hard to believe that given all the involvement and all the contributions that you have made, that you are going to sit still. What, what's down the road? What are some of your plans; what are some of your objectives, goals? Ms. Mireles: I intend to get back into the community, involved in the community. But I am, this time I'm going to take it easy. I am going to do it a little bit slower. I'm hoping that we are successful in getting that group ofmujeres de movimiento (women of the movimiento) together for next year. That's, that's one of the first things I want to be able to do. I want to get our history told or our story told. Dr. Gutierrez: Well speaking of which, although I promised that was the last question, didn't you also get a grant from Alaska to begin doing some oral history projects? What happened to that? Ms. Mireles: I left it. Somebody else is doing it for me. Dr. Gutierrez: But you got the grant? Ms. Mireles: Yes. It was called "Our, Our Neighborhoods Have No Borders." And it was a photographic history. And I had to, I had to leave that. Dr. Gutierrez: OK. Is there an area that we haven't touched or something you didn't quite finish or an after thought that you said I should have said this or I should have said that at this time because you certainly will think of that tomorrow and the day after? Ms. Mireles: Right. Right. Dr. Gutierrez: Or any statement that you want to make about anything. If not, that's all I have. Ms. Mireles: No. I guess, well, I guess some of the things is that I will always be involved, no matter what. or where, where I am. One of the things that Jose Angel was real good at telling me is that you are a Mexicana no matter where you are. And I am not going to forget that one. Dr. Gutierrez: Well, why do you do what you do? Or why did you just say that? You are still going to be involved no matter what. Ms. Mireles: Oh. Well, no matter where I am in my life. Dr. Gutierrez: But why? Ms. Mireles: I am. Well because Dr. Gutierrez: What motivates you? What's the, what's the reason for doing all this? Ms. Mireles: I guessel amor a la gente (the love for the people). And I know that sitting back is not going to... And let others do it, it is not going to get done. And I do have a son. And hopefully one day I'll have grandchildren. And I guess it's for the same reason that we did it. In our... those people that came before us and those organizations that existed then, we had. Obviously there will always be them and us because they make, they make sure there is always them and us. Dr. Gutierrez: Now, your son is full grown? Ms. Mireles: Uh huh. Dr. Gutierrez: Again, so he's now in the Army? Ms. Mireles: Uh huh. Dr. Gutierrez: So, that's, he's spinning off. Is he political or is he going to be involved? Have you raised a son like that? Ms. Mireles: I think he will be but he doesn't know it yet. You know, right now he, he knows more about the family history and our immediate family than his cousins. And he likes to read books like, he really liked the bookRain of Gold. He started to read theGringo Manual, but he hasn't quite gotten through it. But he likes anything that's Chicano, that says Aztlan. He's got it in him. He just needs a little bit more work. Dr. Gutierrez: You made a conscious choice to, to have a child and raise him without a father, without a husband, Ms. Mireles: Uh huh. Dr. Gutierrez: Without a spouse, without a significant other there in the household. Looking back, was that a good decision? Would you recommend it to somebody else? Would you do it over again? Ms. Mireles: I don't know about doing it all over again because I don't know what the future holds, but it was fine. I mean, to me it was one of those thingsque pasara en la vida (that happen in life) and it's been fine. I didn't have anybody to contradict what I did or didn't do. And like I told my son, all my successes as a parent and all my failures are just in him. And I tell him of all my children, I love him the most. Dr. Gutierrez: Irma, welcome back with, we, we're richer for having you back and thank you for the interview. Ms. Mireles: Thank you Angel.