Oral history of Marta Garcia, conducted by Jessica Martinez on 03/16/2024. Ms. Garcia’s daughter, Maria, was present. 

JM: Jessica Martinez 

MG: Marta Garcia

DM: Daughter Maria 

 

JM: Thank you for coming. Please state your name. Your age. Where were you born?

MG: Here in San Eli, on my grandparent’s house. Okay my name first?

JM: Yeah. 

MG: Okay my name is Maria Marta Alarcon Garcia. 

JM: And what year were you born?

MG: In November 10 1940.

JM: How do you ethnically identify? What would you say your ethnicity is?

MG: What’s that?

JM: Your race. 

MG: It’s Spanish. 

JM: Tell me about your childhood. Tell me about growing up here in San Elizario. How was it like growing up here?

MG: I had my grandparents here in San Elizario too since I was born in one of their houses. My family, the Alarcones, there were a lot at the time. Now, it’s only me and other cousins that are still the Alarcon. No men, not anymore. I still live close to where I was born on the properties of my grandparents. 

JM: Were your grandparents the first ones that came to Elizario?

MG: Well, on my mom’s side, they bought property but they were living in Socorro for a while. Then, when they bought the property, I think they built the house that is still standing there. On my dad’s side, I’ve always known of them living here, not in the town, but in the outskirts. The Alarcones, that was a big family, very big, my grandma had like twelve kids. When they grew up, some of them stayed and right now, it’s only me and one cousin that live here, that we’re Alarcon. All of the rest, I think they left to other parts of the world. 

JM: How was it growing up with them? How was it growing up here as an Alarcon?

MG: On both sides, they would spoil me. On my mom’s side, I had two aunts that would sew a lot, so they would make me dresses or pants to wear to school, things like that. On my grandma’s side, she had so many kids as I told you, she had twelve boys and girls. I think there were six boys and five girls, something like that. She would sew a lot too but for her kids. 

JM: Did you have any siblings? 

MG: Yeah. 

JM:  How many brothers and sisters?

MG: Yes, Jose Raul. 

DM: No, one brother. Cuantos tuvistes?

MG: One brother. He lives close to me. On the original house that belonged to my grandparents. We both were born here in San Elizario. 

JM: Where did you guys go to school?

MG: Here, I went here, and he went here. Then, in the fifties, my dad and an uncle bought a farm in Acala, which is next to Fort Hancock. We went there for five years but then there was a problem with irrigating the farm; there was no water, so we came back to San Eli. My parents and me. 

JM: What age were you?

MG: I went there when I was nine and I think we stayed there five years. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen. Yes, because I had my quinceañera. My friends here, some of them still remember me from kindergarten, the lower grades. One of my friends made me a quinceañera party, according to her, in a house, the parents and her. 

JM: What would you do for fun outside of school? Obviously you had a quinceañera party. How was it like?

MG: Well one of the things I did, I helped my mom a lot. That’s where I learned old recipes and new recipes. I liked the cooking. Then I had my aunt, Soledad, which was older than my mom. My mom was the baby in her family, so I would go help her a lot when I grew up to fourteen years old. I started going over to my aunt to help her clean the house and things like that. Clean the windows of her house, so she got me some recipes that we still make, (faces daughter) huh? Like capirotada. 

JM: Oh what is that?

DM: Bread pudding. 

JM: Oh, si si si. 

DM: The one you use with, right now, for the cuaresma. 

JM: Yes, with all the nueces. 

MG: Yeah, we have pecan trees here at the house. 

DM: And actually, the genealogy center has a cookbook that has a lot of the recipes.

JM: From your family?

MG: From everybody here in town. They all help. Even the Licon dairy has a couple of recipes. 

JM: That’s so cool, it keeps the community together. 

MG: Yeah. At first, they bought a lot of books. I think we’ve made them like three times.

JM: Oh, the cookbooks?

MG: Yeah, because we’d sell out. Oh yeah, capirotada is one of the favorites here. Not everybody makes it the same though. One of my aunts, on my mom’s side, worked with Americanas, with the Walkits, that’s where the Indians are right now, between Socorro and San Eli. She worked with that family there and she learned a lot of recipes. She used to make lemon pie. My dad used to like it a lot, so she used to make it him. 

JM: That’s where you learned them?

MG: Yeah, I picked recipes from her. Everyone of them had different good recipes that I liked. 

JM: So that’s what you would do for fun here, help your mom? 

MG: Well, not really, because in front of us, there where we live right now, the superintendent, Lorenzo Alarcon, used to live there, across from us. Their house and our house were the same form and everything. 

JM: It looked very alike?

MG: Yeah because he was an Alarcon too, so my dad. I guess my parents copied them, or I don’t know who did. He had six daughters I think, and one boy. There was one same age, almost same age. I was a little bit older than her, so I always had somebody to play with and she had somebody because we would go from one house to the other. 

JM: What would you do for fun because that was your friend?

MG: Paper dolls. We had big old catalogs. I don’t even remember the names of the catalogs. One of my aunts used to receive it every year and she would give me the old one, so we would cut up paper dolls from the catalogs and dress them in different ways. Then, we would make houses with shoe boxes and things like that. 

JM: Work with what you have. 

MG: Yeah. 

JM: Did you ever have to work because I know there was a lot of cotton fields. Did you ever have to? Did you do any of that?

MG: Not before I got married and had my own kids. My mom and my dad only had the two of us, so my mom never worked and I never had to. 

DM: Her dad was a farmer. 

JM: Oh, so you kind of had everything there?

MG: Oh yeah, we used to plant like two, three acres of chiles, tomates, watermelons, cantaloups, corn. 

JM: Did he sell it?

MG: Not really, just repartirlo, since he came from a big family. My mom only had her five sisters, and they were farmers too. My uncle Sabino, my uncle Benjamin, and Willie. They all had farms. 

JM: How was it like growing up in a farm?

MG: I enjoyed it. I would ride with my dad in the tractor, when he was doing something in the fields preparing for the following year and I would ride the tractor with him. 

JM: Did you guys have horses? 

MG: Oh yeah, my dad. 

DM: He had a mule. 

MG: My grandparents, Pedro Alarcon. 

DM: Pero, también en la picture donde esta grandpa. 

MG: Oh yeah. But that was aca later. Mi tío, pues, like four of them had horses. Some used them, like Sabino, my aunt was the oldest and so was he. He had two big horses that he would work the fields with. 

JM: Is that how you guys got around in the community? Through the horses? Or did you also do a lot of walking? How did you get around San Elizario?

MG: We had a car. A little old car. My dad and my mom. Then, when we moved to Fort Hancock, he bought a truck. 

JM: That helped a lot. 

MG: Yeah, oh yeah. My dad would go riding and visit my grandparents and things like that. His brother would come too, they had horses. 

DM: They were all farmers, basically. It was all in the family even as we grew up. 

JM: Also you?

DM: That’s one thing that I enjoyed as a child. My grandfather because he had vegetables. We would eat watermelons, cantaloupes. 

JM: Fresh. 

MG: Corn. 

DM: Corn, he had all year. We enjoyed riding the tractor with him. 

MG: We would come and ride around in our bicycles and here in the corner of the grass there was a big old water pump, and we would come and just jump around throw water, there and, so it was part of a daily thing.

JM: How was the community here? Because you all obviously lived close to here? How was everyone with each other?

DM: Everybody knew everybody. You would go to the store and everybody knew everybody. There was a lot of land fields. There was a lot of cotton fields, a lot of land all over, so everybody knew everybody. It felt safe. 

MG: For the fiestas we all came and we al participated. My mom usually worked in the hall making enchiladas and I would help her a little, not too much because I had my friends here. They would come to and my mom would work there making enchiladas with the other ladies. I think they would close the hall, no more enchiladas at eight or at seven because the dance after the fiesta started at eight. Everybody went home for a little while, came back and my dad and mom, would be there dancing in the hall. 

JM: For what? What events were these? 

MG: San Elizario fiesta. San Isidro, he was the farmer’s saint. San Elizario, was from here, from the Parish church. It was nice growing here. In the fiestas and in the dance, we would all come and some of us would dance with the father, or somebody from the family when we were little. 

JM: How were the Sunday’s here then?

MG: Everybody would come to mass at seven. I think they had at the time three mass on Sunday. 

JM: Okay and seven a.m. was the earliest one? 

MG: Yeah.

DM: And then nine and then eleven. 

JM: So, all in the morning? 

MG: Now they have them all after lunch huh?

DM: No, no, they have them like an hour after, eight, ten, twelve, and one thirty

MG: And we usually had little old priests that liked to feed las palomas, the doves. Now they took them away because the ladies started complaining que they would make poopoo on their hats and things like that. So now the priests don’t give them. The little old priests that were ya viejitos, they would buy chicken feed and feed the doves. It was nice to see them.

JM: On Sundays. Did you go to any sports events? Baseball games? Anything? 

MG: Oh yeah. That field over there from the school, they used to have baseball every Sunday I think it was. 

JM: And you would go with your friends? 

MG: Oh yeah, we would walk over there and buy raspa. There were carts of the ladies or the guy who was making it, would have the ice there in the back of his truck. They made delicious, I mean delicious sweet raspas, so we would come to see the game, according to us. Later on, it was because of the boys, they were there too. We started making friends later on with the boys. We would see each other and walk around the field, and hear the people yelling for their teams. We would sit there where the hall is, it has big cementos, and that’s where we would sit or hear, in the plasita and look at the game. 

JM: What was your favorite food growing up here? Sounds like you ate a lot of good food though. 

MG: Well my dad used to have borregas, lambs, and chivitos. He would kill like one every three months. In a way we had that kind of meat. Plus the round steaks and tacos. 

JM: With the salsa. 

MG: Oh yeah. 

JM: So you grew up here in San Elizario, then you moved away, and then came back. Did you finish high school here? 

MG: No, I went to Ysleta, so did she. 

DM: Yeah I went to Ysleta high school. It was because it was the only high school. 

MG: We didn’t have a high school here. We had an elementary and there was a little old building there that they had for us, the kinders. 

JM: How did you and your husband meet? 

MG: In school.

JM: In high school? Since elementary?

MG: Yeah. Well. We were in the same class here in San Eli, which was the eighth grade. I met him there and at the time I was very shy because I came from Fort Hancock, y allá había much Anglos. Is that the right word? Los kids de los farmers eran Americanos so allá nunca, I had friends, boys, girls, who played volleyball, baseball, sports, we would do basket. 

JM: This is at the Fort?

MG: At Fort Hancock, yeah. Estábamos muy mixed so we didn’t even. 

JM: Was that first time in Fort Hancock and being around so many Anglo-white people

MG: Mhmm. Yeah, it was. Y luego aquí, we would speak Spanish, y allá no nos dejaban, so we had to learn English the hard way in a way. 

JM: How was school here? Did you speak Spanish here?

MG: Mhmm, yeah, even with the teachers. Peor in elementary. I was in Kinder here, first grade, second grade, and third grade, and then went over there. I came back and entered into seventh grade, so it was like five years. 

JM: That you were gone. So then you came back, but you already knew your husband, who at the time was not your husband. 

MG: Yeah, and before I knew him because my dad had cows and he would get the milk from the cows and give it to my mom. My mom would sell it to viejitas and the neighbors. He had two big cows, I remember, and he would milk them in the morning so at seven, there were people stopping by the house to get the milk from us, and eggs. They’re expensive right now. 

JM: Oh yeah, they’re so expensive right now. Tell me more about, when did you start volunteering here at the church? When did you start getting more involved and how did you start getting more involved?

MG: Well, it was my mom. She was in (making) the enchilada in the hall, and she would ask me, “If you want to, you can come and help us,” limpiar las mesas, pick up the dirty plates, they weren’t paper at the time. They had to be washed. Y luego, there with my mom in the hall. I haven’t told you about “ofrecer flores.” Since I was like, I think, six years, they would take me, my aunts from the Alarcon family, they had young girls there. 

DM: You do that the whole month of May, for the Virgen.

MG: You never did that?

JM: What is it?

DM: You do the rosary. 

MG: Everyone who had flowers in their house.

DM: Rose bushes.

MG: My dad had a garden; my mom wasn’t the outside worker. So my dad had a flower garden and we had roses there, laureles, so in May they would cut flowers for me everyday. 

DM: It’s an everyday thing you do for the month of May. 

MG: And all the other little girls también that came. If they had flowers they would bring them. 

JM: So your dad would cut the flowers, give them to you, and then you would bring them? 

MG: I would do the whole month of May. 

DM: It was praying the rosary. So they pray the rosary and take the fresh flowers and put them on the Virgen’s alter and they would give artificial flowers, but you have to go eight times. They would ring the bells and that was the whole month of May, they would do that, even when I was young, I used to do that. 

JM: For the Virgen?

MG: Yes, for the Virgen. And the boys for San Elizario. They had problems, the moms, with the boys

JM: Oh because the boys no querían?

MG: No querían. They weren’t like us little girls. We were anxious porque nos ponían vestido blanco. A mí me los hacia mi tía. 

DM: Like when you do your first communion with a veil.

MG: We would wear the veil. 

JM: This is everyday?

DM: Everyday. Whoever wanted to, but it was fun because they would ring the bells three times, and they would give you time, like half an hour before, so they would give time to change and that was the sign. 

MG: Yeah, porque in Mayo había escuela, I think. 

DM: It was in the afternoon, ya en la tarde, como ya las five thirty, six. 

MG: On the last day, the moms y el padre, y todos they would make us a dance. 

DM: They would choose a queen para la Virgen, tener una reina, and they would choose somebody and they would do the dance.

MG: It was mostly the little girl that didn’t miss a day. From there they would choose the boy. 

JM: Would you ever chosen?

MG: I think so. 

DM: I think you have some pictures when she was. 

JM: Your mom was the only that got you involved in the church?

MG: Yeah and my aunts too. Y luego weddings. We had weddings almost every Sunday. Una pitadera de carros. At night, the dance there in one of the halls. We had two halls. This one, the church’s, and one in Socorro Road. 

DM: Antes, they had to married. It’s not like today, where they live together, no. They would get married. 

MG: The parents were mas strict. 

DM: Getting married through the church. Basically, the church was the main thing that had everything for the people together. 

MG: The people working together. 

DM: Like the fiestas, the dances, everything had to do with the church. 

JM: It brought the community together. 

DM: That is one of the things San Elizario is about. The community with the church, with the Catholic Church. They do the bazars, they do the posadas. 

MG: Oh yeah the posadas, they were in different houses every night. 

JM: Did you ever host any?

MG: Oh yeah, even when they were kids.

DM: She’s always been involved in the church. 

MG: Ahorita por la enfermedad, I haven’t been coming. 

JM: But when you were?

DM: She was very active with the posadas. 

MG: Y luego la doctrina. We would have every Sunday, so we couldn’t go out and visit because the kids get to come to la doctrina. 

JM: Tell me more about cooking with the women? Que cocinaban? For what events here at the church?

MG: For my birthday’s, sometimes it was the whole family, he would kill a little goat. 

DM: He would do a barbacoa. 

JM: Who? Your husband?

DM: Her dad.

MG: No, my dad and my mom. Ahora después ya eran enchiladas or menudo or algo más fácil. 

JM: Tell me about the friendships you made here with the women in the community? Las comidas?

MG: Haya en los Portales, I wasn’t the head cook. I don’t think I was, pero I don’t know las señoras ya grandes like Transito and Mary Alice, and Lili Dingdinger, and there was Lily’s sister too. We were like eight of us. Carmen Cruz también, and. 

DM: Lilian too. 

MG: Lilian, yeah. No, she would be a buyer. She liked the tamales de dulce. So, we would make all that. Si, the ladies started seeing me, (Tere was too) how I cooked, and I think they liked the way I cooked. In a way, I had to go get groceries. I had to because in a way, they never said it, I think they named me the cook por estar más young que ellas porque they were all señoras ya grandes. Transito was eighty-something. 

DM: No, she was like ninety-two and she would still drive. I think she passed away in ’95. 

MG: Pobrecita. 

DM: She was the president here for the longest time. 

MG: Y nos vendecian las casas. Y luego we would feed all the people that would get there. 

DM: And then they had the midnight mass. They would have their luncheons weekly or little cooking events that they would have outside. 

MG: They even had a rodeo there. 

JM: At the jail?

MG: Right here in the parking, ese grandote. 

DM: Aquí también tuvieron, they do that riding for boots, the motorcycles. 

JM: Oh okay. 

DM: And they do the riding pero en bulls. 

MG: No, es esta Isela.

DM: Si, Isela, who is the new mayor. They also do that, but it’s riding in the bulls, but it’s for cancer, so they have that. There is a couple of things that you have to go into your Facebook and look under San Elizario, the Historic Society, and the Genealogy, and there is either pistoleros or shooters, they have a lot of things going on, which basically, casi en el summer, vamos every weekend. 

JM: Like events here. 

DM: Yes, car shows, y así. 

MG: Oh yeah, muchos car shows hacen. 

DM: Car shows, and then you know how the trucks ahora están altas with all the lights. They have trucks for toys. Y se llena ese todo de trucks. And they bring toys for the kids. So, there’s a couple of events. 

JM: That keeps the community together. 

MG: Egg hunt, Easter egg hunt. 

DM: Pues ya, last year, no lo hicieron. They used to fill all this up with easter eggs, so they used to do that. 

MG: For the kids from here. 

DM: And it’s basically all the people from here that do it. The originals from San Elizario are the ones that keep the tradition going. 

JM: Is there any other good memories of San Eli, anything else that maybe I forgot to ask that you want to talk about?

MG: Weddings. Había cada Sunday, casi más antes. Ya no, young kids are not marrying. They just live together. Ya no se oyen las campanas y la pitadera de carros. 

DM: Pero antes it was very different, you had to get married through the church. 

MG: Before you did anything else, and I mean anything else. 

JM: Primero cásate. 

MG: Tengo mis grandparents, on the Alarcon side, el retrato de ellos when they got married. 

DM: She used to be in charge of aquí the kitchen but she also had the wedding section. 

MG: I liked that. 

DM: The wedding section. She has casi todas las familas de aquí. 

MG: And there’s a girl que trabajaba en la library, también se llama Martha. Ella hizo un libro de todas las familias, que coperaron de darle una copia del retrato de sus parents. Mi grandma y mi grandpa según la familia, my grandmpa tenía dinero y la vistió hermosa. You should see the picture. She was like sixteen, seventeen years old. 

DM: And he was thirty-three. 

MG: Can you imagine? Abuso de ella. 

DM: Parecía muñeca. 

MG: Pero estaba también en el retrato están también las de mi abuelita. Eran dos, Delphina y Romana, y ella Isabel, se llamaba. Y estaban los 

DM: That’s the one that had twelve kids. 

MG: Si, pobrecita. 

MG: Pero muy bonita vestida mi abuela, muy bonita. Y luego estaba pues como de quince o diecies años, estaba muy joven, muy bonita. 

JM: Como una muñeca, como dijo. 

MG: Si. Si he sabido me traigo el retrato para que lo mires. 

DM: Quien sabe. Ya no tienen los wedding pictures? They used to have them. 

MG: No, ahora están en esas cosas donde los ponían en ese. 

DM: It’s changed aquí porque aquí they had a section where they had it. Los wedding pictures. 

MG: Se lo llevaron para la cárcel. Allá están. Si tienes tiempo de entrar allá y está abierto porque no abren todos los días. 

JM: Okay yeah, I’ll check. 

MG: Pues también, de la familia de mi mama, Alfredo y Erasmo, que eran de mi tía Xiole, the oldest of them, my mom’s side.

JM: That went to war. 

MG: Yeah, pero creo, aquí había, pues son muchos verdad, los que están apuntados ahí. 

DM: It has it’s history, the church. 

JM: Commemorating them. 

DM: Which is one of the three oldest churches, San Eli. 

JM: Which ones are the other ones? 

DM: Socorro and Ysleta. Esas tres. There’s even a little bus that you can ride. 

JM: To get to all of them. 

MG: Si, viene. 

DM: Ahí está. He’s always right there. Yo creo that people come and they like to walk around and look at the jail, and they go to eat, so the little bus is parked right there on the side for anybody.

MG: For anyone that wants to go visit. 

DM: He’ll bring them from church to church y los lleva para atrás. He does it all day. 

MG: Como Socorro tiene su área también de donde. Have you been there?

JM: I have. Yes, I’ve been to the Socorro side. 

MG: Los soldados y luego los braceros después. 

JM: Si, también los braceros. Were any of the bracero here in San Eli? 

MG: Se me hace que unos si se quedaron. Un que otro. No muchos, pero uno que otro si se quedó y yo creo los más jóvenes hallaron novias or something y se quedaron. 

JM: Anything else you want to add? We’ve been here for some time now. 

DM: Yeah, she’s been talking, and my dad has more stories pero no quiso venir. 

JM: Así son los señores. 

DM: That’s one thing that I enjoy, listening to even my grandparents, así stories about San Eli. 

JM: And that’s why we’re doing this, to save them, keep them remembered. 

MG: Que bueno. You think they’ll be making a book of things like that? 

JM: A book? I don’t know. Digital, with technology changing right now. 

MG: Porque we have the story of the jail. Yo compre el libro. Ese si se vende. Es vendido. Pero del pueblo, I don’t remember anyobody, ni de jóvenes que hay aquí que quieran hacer un libro o algo. 

JM: Well we’re making websites now. That’s what they make now. 

DM: The cookbook is locally from here también. From the ladies from here. 

JM: That’s really cool. 

DM: It has a lot of old recipes. 

MG: Quien sabe a cuanto lo venderán. We started selling it for twelve dollars. La escuela no lo hiso.  

JM: That’s nice. 

MG: Era muy amigo mío porque yo trabajaba allí en la escuela before I came of this age. En el sixty, me salí de la escuela y luego empecé aquí, like three months later, six months later, porque vine un día cuando todavía trabajaba y “hay vente con nosotros Marta,” y esto y el otro, y las señora y luego ya cuando quite, también Transito era mi prima, poco lejos, pero ella también era de los Alarcones. She got me to start here. Me vino a presentar.

DM: She was the type of lady you can’t say no to. I mean before you know it, ya estas embarcada. 

MG: Y pobrecita, she was ya como eighty years y con un animo a trabajar aquí. 

JM: Y te da animo a ti para ti trabajar. 

DM: Todavía, ninety-two aquí andaba. Ninety-two, ninety-three, and she passed away at ninety-five. 

JM: And what was her name one more time? Sorry. 

MG: Transito Macias. 

DM: She was the president forever here. 

MG: Y la hija, es también algo con. 

DM: She’s a judge. 

MG: For people who divorce y están teniendo problemas, que el niño no se quiere ir con el otro couple o con el otro parent y cosas así. 

DM: Yeah her daughter was a judge que también she would help. Pues todas ayudándonos. Because they were older all of us got involved in one way. 

MG: Si, Transito y esta Olga, agarraban el champurrado, no, el chocolate para los niños que dábamos en Christmas. Si, regalaban chocolate y galletas a los niños y eramos las ayudantas de Transito. 

DM: Si, the church was basically the main, activities from the Church that brought the community together.

MG: Y todavía I think it is, nomás que, pues ya no tanto.

DM: Pues las fiestas que todavía hay, pues I come. Posadas, they just do them in the hall, and I’ve been wanting to talk con el Padre. We’ve had this padre maybe for what five years, four years?

MG: Four, something like four. 

DM: So they changed the Padres, and everything changes. I’ve been wanting to tell him que, porque no hacemos una posada at my house, pero.

MG: Se me hace que no las quiso. Las quiso en el salón y en la iglesia. 

DM: Yeah they do them in the salón. Ya no lo hacen like the eight days like they used to. They changed that y luego ya pues, los priests have changed como ya no rezan el rosario como el mes de May. They’ve changed las costumbres. 

JM: They’ve changed las costumbres de Elizario. 

DM: It’s changed a little bit. En September we do the, we shoot the shot guns y caminamos like all around the school and we come all around this way. 

MG: It’s a block.

DM: We do it like at the ten o’clock mass. 

JM: On Sundays?

DM: Yeah but that, we do in September. 

MG: Y es la única mujer que andaba con escopeta. 

DM: I’ve done it a couple of times. 

JM: That’s exciting.

DM: It’s changed a lot. There’s a lot of new people. A lot of people from San Eli have left. 

MG: Or died. 

DM: Or died, so yeah, va cambiando el pueblo. 

MG: Mucho viejito. 

DM: Pero todavía, todos los que andan haya, somos los originals. 

JM: The ancestors que han estado aquí. 

DM: We usually do it pos San Eli becuase we’ve been here. 

MG: In San Eli, desde chicas, hemos estado ahi en la balacera y andando. 

DM: Because my mom did the 

MG: Y luego van dos matachines bailando in front of the possession, y luego llevan el santo, cuatro señores, como San Elizario esta grandote. 

DM: They have him there at the church. 

MG: Y lo llevan cuatro señores

DM: Pero basically it’s the church, pero si ha cambiado poco.

JM: But it’s people like you who keep the tradition alive.

DM: My mom did the family tree and my family has been here since the seventeen hundreds. 

MG: Yeah. 

DM: So you go back desde los seventeen hundreds. 

MG: Si, y por Transito, o la hija, no se, esta, dijo que en Austin tenian much information de cosas así, so we went. 

JM: Oh, you went to Austin?

MG: Si, for a week. Anduvimos allí en la capital y en todo. 

DM: We went to different genealogies to see what they’re doing, like in Pecos.

JM: How they’re doing their centers? 

DM: Aha, they’re museums y todo eso, like their ideas. I mean I learned a lot from the geneology. 

MG: And we sold a lot of cookbooks in Pecos. Yeah, they liked them. 

JM: People love cookbooks. 

MG: Yeah we sold a lot. 

JM: Okay. 

MG: Y se me hace que todavía tuvieron que mandar unos by mail a otra gente, sí.