Interviewer
Institute of Oral History
Project
Farah Strike
Summary of Interview
Her last name is Carrillo and she was born in Mexico, and she arrived at Cuidad Juarez when she was 5 years old when she turned 12, she moved to, El Paso Texas. She was a home stay person and she helped with all the duties in the house, she is the middle child she has 3 older brothers and 3 younger brothers. Before she was married, she was working at a factory where they packed eggs and she worked in the fields picking pecans. She got married at the age of 22, with her husband that she met in Ciudad Juarez, his husband was a photographer and her worked for the news and they will use their images for a live channel. They moved to California and after some time her husband passed away and she was left with her children, she was being a mother and a father at the same time. After that she comeback to El Paso, because she loved it so much. Her children will mostly speak English and a little bit of Spanish and she will sometimes have trouble understanding them because she only speaks Spanish. She cleans houses for a living and at the beginning she was making 2 dollars and 49 cents per hour as a part time and now she got a raise and she makes 2 dollars and 60 cents per hour and she is working 40 hours which it will be considered a full-time job but she has no benefits and she is considered a part time. She was struggling with paying for the medical care for her and her children so she will take them to Ciudad Juarez because it was cheaper, she will not buy a new pair of shoes because she can’t afford them, because she needs to take care of her family. She mentions that she doesn’t get a good medical attention in El Paso because of her income and she will prefer to take the two Ciudad Juarez where she can afford to take them to a hospital where they can take care of them, and she says that this is because she doesn’t have any type of medical coverage in the United States and this is because the employers don’t provide it to her. She says that one of his children had an accident and his feet turned black and she even thought that he was going to lose his foot but she went to the Hospital General at Cuidad Juarez and they took care of his children but she ended up paying a lot of money because she didn’t have any support because they will charge you depending on your income, if you make a lot of money they will change you a lot, but she wasn’t making a lot of money but at the end she could pay for it because she was in a payment plan that will remove the money directly from her bank account. She says that her kid was worried about his foot and it was because doctors will say that her foot could be amputated but at the end, they could get a solution, and during that process her children lost a lot of weight an dit was something really hard for her to see.
Date of Interview
2-1-2023
Length of Interview
25 minutes
Listen to the Interview
Tape Number
No. 1757
Transcript Number
No. 1757
Transcriber
Roberto Cristoforo
Interview Number
No. 1757
Terms of Use
Unrestricted
Recommended Citation
Interview with Carrillo by Institute of Oral History, 2023, "Interview no. 1757," Institute of Oral History, University of Texas at El Paso.
Comments
Roberto Cristoforo transcribed the coversheet of the interview. There is no transcription of the interview.