Interviewer
Yolanda Chávez Leyva
Project
Duranguito
Summary of Interview
Alicia Angelica Martinez was born in El Paso Texas, August 13,1944. When she was 5, she moved to Duranguito from El Segundo Barrio in El Paso Texas. Her mother was a house maker, and her dad worked on a construction company. They were living with her grandparents. They had a two story apartments and their grandparents lived on the first floor, and Alicia and her parents on the second, the place was called La Mansion. She describes La Mansion as a peaceful place where they will have a lot of fun and most of their family was living in there. They moved from La Mansion to Duranguito because the school was just a block away and that way they can just walk to school. The school was called Franklin School, the school had no pavement that had gravel and they will play with the gravel. Most of the students in that school were Mexicans or Mexican Americans and the teachers were Mexican Americans too.
Later after she finished with her elementary, they were transferred to Roosevelt. They needed to transfer because Franklin closed so they moved out of Duranguito to Sun Set were Roosevelt School was located. She has a very strong feeling for Duranguito, because she has all these memories from her childhood. She says “You should never forget the barrio where you came from” meaning you should never forget where you came from because it’s very important in your life. Even though she doesn’t live there anymore she will keep fighting for Duranguito and what motivates her is that she has love for the barrio, because she feels pain seeing Duranguito’s buildings being destroyed.
She has hope that they can rebuild Duranguito because it’s a very beautiful place to take a walk or just sit there and admire. She says that the love for Duranguito is so big that if they try to destroy, she will sell her house and come back to live in Duranguito. She says that all her family will be devastated if they saw the conditions of Duranguito today, seeing all the buildings come apart. She is now very involved in politics, campaigning for different parties and she says that she likes to be involved in politics because she likes justice. She will support all the politicians that supports the Mexicans, Mexican Americans, Hispanic, Latinos, because she is one of them and they need support. There is a lot of people that’s supporting Duranguito form all over the world she says that people from all of the United States come and takes pictures and talk to people , from Canada , from Mexico , there is a lot of people that’s is trying to save Duranguito. People are trying to move to Duranguito so that people can see that there are people coming in and out. Also, people that have moved out of the barrio are coming back to live here and save it from being demolished and destroyed. The people from Duranguito are very angry because they are trying to destroy the neighborhood and people ask the construction people that why here is they can do it in other place, there is a lot of place in El Paso to build.
Date of Interview
8-13-2010
Length of Interview
53 minutes
Listen to the Interview
Tape Number
No. 1703
Transcriber
Roberto Cristoforo
Interview Number
No. 1703
Terms of Use
Unrestricted
Recommended Citation
Interview with Alicia Angelica Martinez by Yolanda Chávez Leyva, 2010, "Interview no. 1703," Institute of Oral History, University of Texas at El Paso.
Comments
There is no transcript. Roberto Cristoforo transcribed the summary.