Oral History Program Maria Vasquez Interviewed by Lorrie Rands & Alyssa Dove 23 September 2019 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Maria Vasquez Interviewed by Lorrie Rands & Alyssa Dove 23 September 2019 Copyright © 2022 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Beyond Suffrage Project was initiated to examine the impact women have had on northern Utah. Weber State University explored and documented women past and present who have influenced the history of the community, the development of education, and are bringing the area forward for the next generation. The project looked at how the 19th Amendment gave women a voice and representation, and was the catalyst for the way women became involved in the progress of the local area. The project examines the 50 years (1870-1920) before the amendment, the decades to follow and how women are making history today. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Vasquez, Maria, an oral history by Lorrie Rands & Alyssa Dove, 23 September 2019, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Maria Vasquez 23 September 2019 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Maria Vasquez, conducted on September 23, 2019, in the Stewart Library, at Weber State University, by Lorrie Rands. In this interview, Maria discusses her life, her memories, and the impact of the 19th Amendment. Alyssa Dove, the video technician, is also present during this interview. LR: Alright, today is September 23, 2019, we are in the Stewart Library with Maria Vasquez for the women 2020 project. I am Lorrie Rands conducting the interview and Alyssa Dove is with me as well. So thank you again, Maria, for your willingness, MV: You’re welcome. LR: And for coming up here. So let’s start with when and where were you born? MV: I was born November 8, 1978 in Mexico. It’s this little town called Ebano San Luis Potosí. This is a little town with like a thousand people only. Well, actually I was born in a smaller town but I belong to Ebano. When people ask me, “How’s your town?” I say, “We don’t have running water, it’s like when you go camping, the bathrooms.” Yes, it’s just like that. We have wells, we take the water out of the wells. So if your mom says, “Go wash your clothes.” You have to go to the well and get water and I didn’t have like a wash and dryer. I have a dryer now. So you have to wash your clothes… I don’t have the English word for that. LR: Like a washboard? MV: Yes, a washboard. And the clothes were dirty, not like right now. Like here right now they’re just sweaty. So dirty clothes and you have to scrub, and then have 2 another thing so you have to rinse that, and we used clothes pins. So if it rains you have to just go run outside and get the clothes so they don’t get wet. Just like that. We have elementary school and middle school there. When I was sixteen we had to move to Ebano. It was about around from here to Morgan. Like let’s say I lived in Morgan and I have to come to Ogden to go to high school. We didn’t have high school there. It was 1994 to 1997. Me and my sister, we lived in Ebano and we go every weekend to our hometown and then come back on Monday and study high school. When we finished high school we moved to another city, it’s called Tampico, Mexico, and they have college over there, because in this town Ebano there was no college. So we moved from town to town, and it was from 1997 to 2001. I went to college and I was in a university to be a doctor, so I was there for four years. Then I met my husband and then we came here to the United States. He has other brothers and they live here in Salt Lake City. That’s why we came here and not Florida or another state with no cold weather. ‘Cause where I lived is not cold, I think the cold is just like this morning, that’s it in December, and the whole year super hot. LR: So going to back to where you grew up, what were your parent’s names and what were their occupations? MV: So my mom’s name it’s Virginia like Virginia State. Virginia Carrizales, C-A-R-R-I-Z- A-L-E-S. My dad’s name is Enrique Silva, S-I-L-V-A. My dad was a farmer. He harvest corn, beans, and soybeans. Yeah we have soybeans. I didn’t know they used it for so many things. I didn’t know they used it for soy milk or a lot of things. We did another thing called sorgo but I haven’t seen this here. It’s kind of like 3 weeds and they use it for the cows, to feed cows. When we were little, like my ten year old, we have to go help my dad. So after school I remember in middle school, like my daughter’s age, after school we just came home my mom had something for us to eat. We have to go in the back of the truck, and we ate over there and we go. These grains called sorgo, the birds go and eat the grain when it’s almost ready to harvest. So our job was like a scarecrow! That was our job, you just have to yell and make noise so they go away. We have to scare them. And then after that go home, and make the homework, and have dinner. My mom was waiting for us with the dinner, and then another day go back to school, but we have to make some chores before going to school. We just basically go make your bed, and because you wake up really early over there you go to sleep really early. That’s what I tell my husband. Me and my husband are from the same home town. We made over there we had a lot of memories, not together I didn’t meet him before because he left the town when he was fourteen. He went to Monterrey, it’s a big city in Mexico. So he work in the mercado, you know like a swap meet. Like a farmers market. He work in the morning like four am and then to noon, and then he goes to sleep a little bit and he makes the high school at night. They have high school at night over there for people who work. That’s how he did high school and then after that he started college, but he ran out of money and he come here. He work a little bit, go back and make another semester, and then came back and he didn’t go back again until we met. He went back and then we came here in 2000, together in 2001. 4 LR: Okay. So besides helping out on the farm, what are some of your other childhood memories that stand out? MV: I think we were happy there. There is a lot of traditions and like a lot of religion traditions, because there is nothing else to do. In December we celebrate the Virgin Guadalupe, the Lady of Guadalupe. We make a big party and I don’t know, we’ve waited for, we do this thing called Posadas too. It’s nine days before Christmas, so we go house to house and we go with Mary and Joseph and the little Jesus is waiting over there in the house. Have you heard about that, the Posadas? No? And we go because they have candies over there. Let’s say the Posada is in your house. You have little Jesus waiting over there and we get Mary and Joseph. Mary and Joseph, you know like the Virgin Mary was traveling and she gave birth in a… LR: Stable. MR: Yeah, so we pretend that Mary goes over there and asks for you to stay the night there. We go and we pray the rosary, we learned the rosary because we were like kids over there with our moms and they were praying so you listen and you learn so you know the rosary and stuff. Over there after the rosary they give you candies so I think that’s why we went over there just for the candies. Then it’s really different how you can see here a lot of things like in Halloween the kids have a lot of candies, and over there we just have a little bag of candies and we were happy with that. You don’t need nothing else. I remember we didn’t have TV, we only have the black and white. It’s just one TV, not like everyone has TV in their rooms, and we didn’t have cable, or internet, or phone. 5 I didn’t grow up with a phone, not even the old phone. We didn’t have lines. In my little, little town we didn’t have phone lines I think until 2000. When I came here they started using the phone lines. So when I was in high school it was like a grocery store and they have a phone over there, I remember they have two lines. If you want to call your mom and say, “Oh we need this,” or say hi to your mom we have to call, “Can you call Virginia Carrezales?” They say, “Okay we’re going to call them.” They have a big speaker for the whole town. So they have to say, “Virginia Carrezales you have a call, and can you come?” So my mom goes there to the grocery store and waited for us to call again. It was so hard because all the people, especially the people in the United States wants to call their family. Now with phones it’s much easier yeah. We didn’t have that, so we’d have to call again and call our mom and just a little time, because just “Oh we need this, or we need that. Oh, we’re not going to be able to go this week because we have this thing at school.” Just like that. LR: The things we take for granted. MV: Same thing when we moved to college. I have a kid working at Maria’s and she’s suffering about depression and anxiety and stuff. She’s really young, she’s not working with us anymore. I told her when me and my sister, we didn’t have any money, we didn’t have a car, we didn’t have cell phones, nothing. We went to the big city and I remember we went to the station where you take the bus, the bus station, and from there we took another bus to the University and just asking “Where is the bus for the University?” To go and register and do something that’s it. Then we did have like money for taxi, or what is the taxi now? 6 LR: Uber MV: I wish we had Uber, no, you have to wait over there. Even in the city there is parts of the city that the streets are dirt. Yeah I remember one day it was raining and it was so muddy, and then you have to wait for the bus over there to go to school. I said, “I understand you’re depressed or something happened, but you know there’s a lot of things that you haven’t gone through, you just have to be strong.” LR: Right, so how many siblings did you have? MV: I have three. I am the oldest and then my sister, we are one year apart. But in my little town, I don’t know why my mom went over there, we were together in kindergarten and then my mom said, my sister was not six year old. She was five and I was six, and my mom went over there and said “Hey can she come, and she’s advanced,” and blah, blah, blah and they let my sister go with me. So we did together the elementary school, then middle school, then high school, and we went together to Tampico for University. LR: Was that nice having someone to go with you? MV: Yeah, but when I came here I missed my sister more than my parents, ‘cause I was with her all the time. Then we have two young brothers. So the brothers would stay with my mom and my dad and we went to Tampico for the university. LR: Did your brothers ever go to the university too? MV: Yes, one of my brothers went to, it’s called ingeniero agronomo, like agronomy stuff. He’s in charge of when the plant gets, how do you say this… he study agronomy. 7 AD: Like agriculture? MV: Yeah like that, and the other one he’s in Tampico, he’s studying computers. Something about computers. LR: Okay, as a young girl, who were some of the women you looked up to? MV: My mom and my aunt. I have an aunt, it’s my dad’s sister, she never married. She came here working and, I don’t know, so strong she always work. Oh you’re going to make me cry now. LR: Sorry. MV: She work here and then she come back and bring us a lot of stuff, like my only doll I remember. She got a lot of clothes for us. I think she didn’t see that we don’t have a lot so she worked here, and then when she go back to Mexico, I remember this can that has a lot of fruit, and it has little cherries… LR: A fruit cocktail MV: Fruit cocktail, I remember she brought this fruit cocktail that we never see before, and pancakes. LR: That’s great. Why did you look up to your mom? MV: Well, she work a lot and like at the farm you have to wake up early, we didn’t have a microwave or food like that so you have to grind corn and make masa, yeah she has to do that. You have to cook the corn the day before, and then the other day in the morning you have go to the, it’s called moleno you grind the corn and make the masa. After that you have to come home and make tortillas and make food so you can pack lunch. She has lunch every day for my dad. So a lot of work and then after that clean the house. We have pigs so she has to give 8 food to the pigs, chickens, a lot of animals there, and then after that have food ready for when my dad comes back from work. Then wash dishes again, wash the clothes without the washer and dryer. It’s a lot of work and she did all that. I remember we always have food when we got back from school, always food. I think basically she cook all day and wash dishes all day and wash clothes. LR: What were some of the other traditions you had growing up that you remember? MV: Oh, we have this tradition and I miss that here. When you graduate from kindergarten they make a big party. At school you have to get up, and we didn’t have any money, I don’t know from where we get them. The moms, I think they save a little bit. And we get the dress, and the same for the elementary school and for middle school, like a Prom. Let’s say you are the sixth grader graduating. So the other groups they make you know ballet for like dances. ‘Cause in Mexico you’d only have the mariachi, you’d have regional, like cowboy you dress like you’re in dance. Even you can do a poem recital. So you basically celebrate the kids that are graduating. Every Monday we, like here at the school they do like “I pledge,” the Pledge of Allegiance. We do that every single Monday, it’s called escolta. ‘Cause we have to be at school with uniforms and you carry the flag. So the person who carries the flag is the one that’s better grades. LR: The best student? MV: Yeah, so basically the people who is with the flags is the best student, it’s six people. Then let’s say you are in sixth grade you carry the flag and then you have to pass the flag to all the other fifth graders, it’s lot of tradition with the flag 9 and you do like pledge. I remember being participating in all of the things and all the ballet dances. LR: That’s really cool. Were you encouraged to pursue an education growing up? MV: Yes, yes, that what my dad always said, “You have to go to school, you have to be you know better.” LR: When you first went to college you said you were studying to be a doctor, where did that idea come from to be a doctor? MV: I don’t know. When I was in high school I always liked biology, all that stuff, because we have a beautiful body. I don’t know, I always liked that part. I always like medicine, you know how medicine affect you, how it helps you. I said, “Okay I want to be a doctor.” LR: So you went for four years. MV: Four years. LR: What degree did you graduate with when you graduated from college? MV: It’s called… general studies or something like that because I have to keep going two more years to graduate like MD I think it is. Then after that you have to pick up a…special. LR: So after you graduated with your general studies, is that when you met your husband? MV: I met him one year before. LR: So you finished your general studies and then did you just decide to get married and not pursue that? 10 MV: Yes, I was married before and then ‘cause we ran out of money, we didn’t have anything to do and say, “Okay,” he says, “We’re gonna go back.” I said, “Okay.” I’m going, “He’s going to come back, I didn’t. I wasn’t here before.” I said, “Okay I’ll go with you.” And I came. LR: That’s when you came here to the United States. I’m not quite sure how to ask the question so I’m just going ask it. What was it like coming into this country at that time? Did you have a difficult time or were you just able to come in or…? MV: No, difficult time. It is really hard to come here. I didn’t have any family, I was here only with my husband. You don’t know how to speak English, I didn’t drive, and he work all day and I just stayed home. I didn’t have a computer or internet or a phone, so just there. LR: Culture shock, was it hard? I mean, you were very, very active it sounds like in Mexico and then you come here and… MV: Yeah, nothing to do, and no family, no one to talk to. By that time my husband has another brother, an older brother, and he was married with this lady and she was born in Mexico but she came here like when she was three years old. She has all the family here and she was the one that invited me, “Let’s go here, let’s go with my family.” That was a good thing. She has a kid, my nephew, and I stayed and I took care of him when she was working. So maybe that’s what keep me company. LR: What was it like for you learning English? Was it a challenge or were you able to pick it up quickly? 11 MV: No, I think I was better when the kids started school. Before that I tried to. In Salt Lake City there is a place called orisante like dine in Spanish. A lot of people from different countries go there, and I didn’t learn anything because there is a lot of Mexican people over there so you speak Spanish. You don’t practice. I just went and I was pregnant with my son and then when he was born I didn’t drive, I didn’t have a car, so it was so hard going in the bus and so cold, and I just didn’t went anymore. But after he was born I went to another school in Murray, it’s called Creekside high school. The young women that have kids and they didn’t finish high school, they go there. They took care of my son and I went a little bit more there because the teacher didn’t speak any word in Spanish. So for something I have to say “Hey how this thing go?” and she has to say to me in English. Then when my son started preschool, because I didn’t work before Maria’s. Well, not that much before Maira’s. I go to the preschool and you have to be like volunteer and help with the teacher. I went there and I learned a little bit more, when he was in preschool. AD: What was it like learning to drive? MV: I remember my hands were sweating, you know when you’re sweating, and my husband say, “You have to try, you have to.” I remember I went to my first job in a Mexican grocery store in Salt Lake City, because the customers are Hispanic they speak Spanish. I didn’t know the coins you know how we have the quarters, so I remember my husband telling me, “This is a quarter and this is twenty-five cents and they call them a quarter. This is ten cents and there are pennies and dimes.” I worked there just for like three months because I didn’t drive and he 12 work in a Mexican restaurant here in Woods Cross. So by the time he get off and go pick me up the store was closed and it was in Glendale in Salt Lake City. So my husband said, “No this is not a very safe part of the city. So I don’t think you’re going to be able to…” I remember my brother-in-law, he let me use the car and I just knew the street I go back home and we didn’t have phones so I couldn’t put it in the phone and go. So just go there and back and go home and don’t drive anywhere else just like that. I just was in the streets and then he said “You have to go try the freeway.” I said, “No, the cars go so fast I’m going to crash.” I remember my hands were sweating and stuff, but you have to keep going, keep going. I remember my first car my husband gave me on my first mother’s day. I’m not very good with the cars, but it was this long car, you know the long car, like Cadillac. They have like a big trunk and my husband goes, “Here, you crash, you're going to be fine.” Then I remember I drive the freeway with that car, and I was safe I guess, with that big thing, yeah. Now I can drive, I went to California just by myself. LR: That’s a drive, yeah. So when you first came to Utah were you living in Salt Lake? MV: Yes, in Salt Lake City. LR: Where about in Salt Lake were you living? MV: In Rose Park. My brother-in-law lives in Rose Park and I had my first son there, and then we move. We lived with them for like a year and a half and then we moved to Taylorsville, me and my husband and my son. 13 LR: Okay, when you were in Rose Park your husband worked in Woods Cross. MV: Yeah and in Sandy he has two jobs. Sandy, you know this restaurant called La Frontera? He worked there in Sandy and Lorena’s in Woods Cross. I remember he worked there for the lunch as a server and then he comes change and then go to the other job. LR: Wow, opposite direction, that’s just crazy. Then you mentioned kind of in passing how cold it was, when you first moved here. How did you adapt to that? Or have you gotten used to the cold? MV: I think yes, ‘cause we went to California just last week and it is so hot. It’s just like “Can we go back?” Cause we’ve been here for eighteen years now. I remember the first, I was at the Orisante, the ESL school, and I think it was in November, the first snowfall. I was so happy and taking pictures and playing with the snow, I’d never seen snow before. But I think it’s hard to drive in the snow, I’m scared a little bit but you have to go take the kids to school. LR: Yeah, I grew up here and I still don’t like to drive in the snow, it’s not my favorite. You had this plan when you were in college to become a doctor but then you know life sends you in another direction. Did you have ideas of what you wanted to do when you first got here or were you just trying to just survive? MV: I think just survive. When my son was a little bit like in preschool I guess I went to do the… what is this called… nursing CNA. I work a little bit but then I was pregnant with the other one and then I didn’t keep doing, ‘cause right here you can be a nurse at least, and then I didn’t do it. I think it was a dream when I was 14 young but now I have the kid and the other kid, and I’d rather stay with them than leave them. LR: I understand that. So you have two children? MV: Three LR: Three, okay, when in all of this did you decide to open your own restaurant? MV: I can remember when Marco was in kindergarten I start working in the, I didn’t work that much as my husband, but I went to a Mexican restaurant too to be a server. My husband, he was always working in a restaurant. So I think in 2005 we opened this, we rent jumper, and chairs, and tables, we opened this thing called Magic Movers, no, Salta Màgico. We rent jumpers, but when there was the Recession in 2008, it was so hard so we sold that company. We stayed with a truck. I remember it was so hard I didn’t work by that time, just my husband, and we have to pay for the truck. We use the truck to put the tables and chairs and the jumpers. So we didn’t have the jumpers any more, the tables or the chairs. I remember once someone asked him to move his stuff and then he opened this company called Magic Movers. Then we got another truck and he work as a moving, he left the job as a server and he was there. So we did moving, packing, and deliveries. So I help a little bit with the packing if someone asked, “Can you help me pack my stuff?” I go, but I was basically at home with the kids while he worked. Then, we always wanted to open our own restaurant but we didn’t have the money. I think he worked with the moving company for five years and we saved money then he sold the company, and we were finally ready to open a restaurant but it was so hard. 15 LR: Yeah I could imagine. About what year did you open the restaurant? MV: We opened in 2015, four years ago. LR: Were you still living in Salt Lake at this time? MV: We live in Salt Lake and then we were looking for locations. We were looking around and around and then when we found this place we like it and we told the kids, “We’re going to give a try, because with the restaurants you never know because it’s so hard.” So if you don’t survive the first six months you’re not going to make it. I didn’t want to move the kids and then say, “Okay, we have to go back because it didn’t work.” We told the kids, “We’re going to open that and see like six months if it’s going to work or not,” and the plan was for me to stay at home with the kids and my husband is going to be here all day at the restaurant. But it didn’t work, we didn’t have money so I had to be there all day being a cashier, server, hostess, everything, and my husband has to be at the back at the kitchen, cause we didn’t have money to get people, we didn’t have enough customers, we barely paid the bills. We didn’t get a check, it was one check for me and with that check we paid the rent, we moved to an apartment over there across the restaurant. We pay the car, the rent, and the daycare for my daughter. That’s it, so it was a little bit hard because I never left the kids before and now they have to be there at home, do it by yourself. But after a month driving back and forth, I remember I have to go back to Salt Lake City to get them from school ‘cause we don’t have any family, but at that time my mother-in-law came to stay with us. She didn’t drive so I have to go back, get the kids, leave them at home, come back here to work, and then go back at night, then in the morning 16 come back again. So I told my husband, “It’s not going to work, we have to move.” So one Friday we took the kids from school and then Monday they came to school here. I remember my daughter crying, “I want to go back with my friends,” and the little one, “I want to go back to my other house.” But we had to do it, there is no other way. So it was much better, and after that Maria’s started picking up and we hired more people and we survived. We did great, but it was hard. Sometimes there is times that you cannot sleep at night thinking, “Oh how am I going to do it, how am I going to pay this rent, how am I going to pay these bills,” ‘cause with the moving company we didn’t make payroll, we pay like my husband had these guys that helped him and we pay them as a contractor. You don’t have to pay as much as taxes, like when you have the payroll. So we just were like, “Oh my goodness we should’ve stayed with the moving company and not do this.” It was much easier. We didn’t have to pay rent because I did everything from home, all the paperwork and all the calls. Now you have to pay rent, bills, water, gas, and we couldn’t sleep at night thinking, and you sign a contract so, “What are we going to do?” It was so hard and I’m so glad that it worked ‘cause I think my husband was like, “Okay, let’s sell these and go back to the moving” But we kept saying, “Well, it’s going to work, it’s going to work” and it work. LR: So you said if it doesn’t work in six it’s not going to, so after six months what were you saying? MV: Yeah, it just started picking up. “We have to do it, we just have to stay here.” 17 LR: So you just took the punch and kept going? MV: Yeah, I remember with my check, “I don’t have any money so good thing we have food.” And at first, the kids, I went to pick them up from school and bring them to the restaurant and we ate there as a family, it was a family dinner over there. Then one of us took the [kids] to home and then we’ll go back to work. Now they don’t want to be there, “No mom,” but now I have more time. I go home and cook and pick them up. I don’t work in the mornings anymore so I can be there. I cook for them and then I go to work and my husband go back and stay there with them. LR: So one of the questions we’ve been asking is how do you balance your home and your work life, and I think you’ve pretty much answered that so I won’t ask it. But I’m curious what are some of the traditions that you brought with you from your hometown that you still do? MV: The little baby Jesus. Even if I don’t have time, ‘cause in Salt Lake we live in this community there’s a lot of people from San Luis Potosì, from my state. ‘Cause my husband was born in another hometown and then he moved to where I was born when he was a kid. So they do that, they do their rosary for the baby Jesus in December the 24th and the 25th. I still do that, so the baby Jesus is like only with a little diaper and then you have to lay him in like a little crib, like the stable crib, and sing, make the baby Jesus go to sleep. Over there in Salt Lake City they do a party for that. We always go there when I didn’t work, when we didn’t have Maria’s, someone would invite us and say, “Hey we’re going to do this.” In 18 the January 6th you have to put the baby Jesus in a chair and dress him. Do you know what Padreno is? LR: I don’t. MV: Let’s say she’s your daughter and I’m her godmother, I’m her Madrena. And Padreno is the boy, my husband would be the Padreno and I would be the Madrena. LR: Okay, I understand that. MV: They do that for the baby Jesus. So me and my husband were Padreno’s for four years, they do that four for years, because they say it’s the cross. I don’t know, it’s just tradition, so we are the ones that have to bring the candies. Remember the candy? LR: Yes. MV: After the rosary they have to give the candies. We sing songs too and stuff. So we did that I think two years after we move here to Ogden, we have to go to Salt Lake and the kids have to go with us and sit there, and pray, and do this stuff. We make tamales and this thing called champorado, it’s kind of a hot chocolate. Champorado and tamales, and we make this [drink] called ponche, have you tried ponche? LR: I don’t think I have, have you? AD: Describe what it is. MV: It’s not a ponche, it’s not like punch. It’s ponche, the fruit that’s like a tea. You put apples, guavas, cinnamon, and tamarindos. Have you tried tamarindos? It’s like a tropical fruit, it’s like a little bit sour and sweet. We do that the ponche for. The 19 jicote, yeah we put a lot of fruit. That’s the thing you give when you do that for the baby Jesus. I still have the… what’s that called the nacimiento? Where the baby Jesus sleeps with Mary, Jesus, the shepherds… nativity. We do that, even the Christmas tree, right under the little table, the nativity. The other tradition we don’t forget is Dia de los Muertos. Even if it’s a little altar, I do that at home, and I tell the kids about it. Have you seen this movie Coco? LR: I haven’t. I’ve heard of it, I just haven’t seen it. AD: Day of the Dead. MV: Yeah, I try to do that for the kids. LR: What is that tradition? MV: The Day of the Dead. My dad, he passed away three years ago so I put a picture of my dad and I put things that he likes. Like let’s say he loves mole or he loves enchiladas so I put, or Mexican bread and hot chocolate. We have this hot chocolate, it’s called chocolate abuelita. We use the chocolate abuelita instead of the hot cocoa that you use here. You put flowers and a candle and light a candle for him. It’s like the light and all the spirits come. LR: Okay, is that something that you have all the time or is just certain times of the year? MV: Just close to the Dia de los Muertos at the end of October, first week of November. So in the movie Coco it says like if you don’t do that it’s like you’re forgetting your beloved ones. If you have a picture of your grandma, my dad he passed, my grandpa and you put stuff that they love. I still do that and the baby 20 Jesus. I have baby Jesus over there and I like to crochet, so I crochet the dress and the hat. LR: That’s really cool. As you’re building your business and things are going, who were some of the mentors that you had? People that helped you along the way that you looked up to as you were building Maria’s. MV: We didn’t have anyone, we were just by ourselves. Luckily, here I met this guy, he’s the one with the Hispanic chamber of commerce. His name is Alex, I don’t remember his last name, but he always went over there and two little bit of classes, because they give you classes, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. He’s a good person that he always go, “Hey how are things doing?” LR: As you were raising your children what were some of the things you wanted to give them that you grew up with? MV: The family, the family. I know it’s important for us to go to work to be independent but as I told you before, my mom, she was always there waiting with the food. We ate together, I like that. The union, the family has to stay strong, and that’s why I try not to work a lot now. I know we’ve passed these one year and two years that I have to be there, but now I try to go home to be with them, go to the park, or go to the movies. We only have Mondays off and that’s what we do Mondays. We stay together, we do something together because the rest of the week either me working and my husband at home or my husband working and I go home. At least Mondays we eat together, we talk, we do something together. LR: Yeah, in all of this I never got your husband’s name. MV: Oh, his name is Javier Vasquez. 21 LR: This is a question that we’ve asked everyone that we’ve interviewed, what does the term “women’s work” mean to you? MV: That we have to be there, do the best we can do, we’ll always try our best. You said you asked me before how you combine that, so I wake up in the morning, take the kids, the little one to school, the older ones, they go by themselves now. If I have to go to work I go home, take a shower, go to work, come back. I have had to go pick up groceries to make the dinner. I go home, try to do the dinner, wash the dishes. I know a lot of women that they just go home and do nothing, you know watch TV. People that I know they, “Oh, I watch this and I watch that.” I don’t know, I think it’s you have to try to get the best you can do it. If the other one has homework, I go and check the homework and, “Come here and sit down while I wash dishes, you do the homework, and after that put on your shoes we are going to the park.” Or we do this or something. LR: Okay, so you’re saying it’s whatever needs to be done. MV: Yes. LR: Okay, so was there ever a time when you thought, “Okay I just want to go home, I don’t want to do this anymore I just want to be home.” Home being your home in Mexico. Was there ever a time when you thought that and “let’s just be done”? MV: Yeah, it was especially when I first came here. I remember the first Christmas, the only people I knew was my husband and all the other people there, they were new for me. I’m the only one here. My dad in that time, my mom and my other brothers were there. You call them and say, “Merry Christmas” and you can hear how they are happy over there and you can hear the noise and you can feel like 22 they don’t want to talk to you at that time ‘cause they are together. And then you go, “Okay I’ll call you later.” “Okay bye.” Then you are here, I remember that day I went outside and then I go back into the room and it’s just my husband and the other people and I didn’t know them. Yeah, that’s the only time. LR: Have you ever wanted to take your children home to let them see this is where I came from? MV: Yes, we did and I remember my son, ‘cause we don’t have like a pasto, how do you say, lawn like here, it’s mud all the time. Where I live it's black mu, and it’s really hot so my son was so hot. We don’t have a air conditioner so we have the fan, and the fan is basically the hot air moving around, it’s not helping. So he didn’t like it that much but he knew that, “Oh this is where my mom…” ‘cause me and my husband are from the same town. Like four blocks apart. LR: So did your kids enjoy being there and seeing that? MV: Yeah, the two big ones, the little one I haven’t taken her. They like it a little bit because we just go for two weeks and then go back. LR: So you’ve been doing Maria’s for four years now and if you had an opportunity to talk to younger women, I’m assuming close to your daughter’s age, what advice would you give them to when it comes to their dreams and doing what they love? MV: To work, work. I remember, we can go back to when I was in high school, we stayed with this teacher because we didn’t have money. Let’s say she’s my daughter and she has to go and I look for an apartment for her and give you a fridge full of food. So we didn’t have that, we have to go to another house. Let’s say I go to your house and I stay there and my mom and my dad give the teacher 23 a little bit of money but we have to help a lot around the house. She was an elementary teacher and we came basically at the same time together, me and my sister, and she has six kids, five daughters and one son. She is so smart ‘cause she gave us, “You have to do this and you do that and you do that.” She make the food for everyone and I think that’s one thing we need, all the kids need to know that, ‘cause I have kids that work with me and they help me clean the tables and they are just sitting there waiting for things to do. When I was like sixteen years old we say, “What is you need me to do?” I don’t know what is the word but in Mexico we called it acomodeta como, like try to ask things to do instead of sitting there in your phone. LR: Is that like proactive? MV: Yes. So we did it because we stay in the house, so we have to look things to do or ask so they don’t kick us out and say, “Oh you guys are so lazy, look for another house.” We did the same thing in college. We didn’t have an apartment by ourselves, we had to stay with more people ‘cause we didn’t have the money, and I think that’s what I’d tell the kids. When I go to Maria’s, I work in the nights now, so when I go grab a rag and clean, and the place has to be clean, look clean for the customers ‘cause you don’t want to go there in a dirty place and eat in a dirty place. So I said, “Hey can you come and help me?” But I do it first. If I see the kids clean the table and the water, you know you have to put the rags in the water with a little bit of bleach. I go there and it’s [the water] so dirty. When I go to Maria’s, I take that and put the degreaser and after the degreaser put a little bit of bleach and hot clean water so it looks clean. Because you are cleaning the 24 tables with that dirty water so you are not cleaning them. I know they are kids and they are just seventeen years old but we have to do the things right. I go clean the front desk because, I don’t know, it has to be clean so when the people come inside… I told the kid one day, “What if you invite your friends to your house don’t you want the house to be clean?” He goes, “Oh I don’t care, I really don’t care.” Oh my goodness and I says, “Well, we care so we have to clean.” LR: That’s a strange mentality MV: That’s what my mom always told me, “We have to clean,” because we grew up in a small town and you know each other. Then like my mom goes, “What if you go to the store and you find a friend and she goes back home with you? She’s going to find the house all dirty.” That’s why you have to have the place clean. LR: Right. So what are some of your goals for the future? I mean, do you see Maria’s being open for twenty years? MV: Yes, that’s what I told my husband, especially now that the kids are growing up and they don’t need you as much as when they were little. He wants to open another one, but I don’t really want to because I enjoy being at home with the kids. I told my husband, “If we open another one I have to be here and after in another one and then the kids.” I don’t know. But if we decide to, we’re like, “I’m gonna do it.” But it’s not because I don’t want more work, it’s because I want to be present with the kids. Especially with the little one, she’s only seven. LR: Okay, yeah I completely understand that, that makes sense to me. So before we get to the final question is there any other story, or any other tradition, or anything that you’d like to share before we wrap it up? I mean I think we could 25 spend an hour just talking about the traditions that you had in your town that you’ve tried to bring here. MV: The music I like. I have these people that work there in Maria’s, I don’t know if you hear that we have music. LR: Yeah, I heard that. MV: I have a manager before and she put another music, but I like the mariachi because when you hear mariachi you think about Mexico. So as I go to Maria’s, I go change and put the mariachi songs. AD: Was there ever a time you felt discriminated against for being a woman and for being Latina? MV: You know, I’ve heard of that a lot in the news and stuff, but because we are here in Utah, we just went to California to this place called San Francisco Academy of Science. They have plants on the roof, I think they are a lot of environment and stuff. They have paper straws now, no plastic at all. We were up there with the kids and we see this lady, she was from I don’t remember, from Russia, from a part of there, and she speaks Spanish very well. We were talking to her and guess what she ask us, “Where are you, where are you from?” We said, “Mexico but we live in Utah.” She goes, “Are you okay there?” We said “Yes, why?” She told us, “Encourage your son to vote for Democrats.” I’m not very familiar with the politics and stuff but she told my husband, “Are you okay there?” because, she said, here they are republicans and they are against immigration. We never would have been here eighteen years, besides that we used to live in West Valley, before we moved here, that’s where my little one was born. 26 When she was born, my husband was with the moving company and he worked all day, so if he was to be moving houses he has to do that. So I had three c sections with my kids, all c sections, so the little one I had the c section, and we rent from this guy his name is Robert Parker, a very good guy. We rent from him like I think the five years before we move here. He’s part of the LDS Church and he goes, “Maria, how are you?” I said, “I’m fine,” and I came from the hospital and I was alone at home with the kids, so he send these ladies and they bring me food every single day, ladies from the Church. I don’t have any complaints. My son was on the Boy Scouts, you know it’s from the LDS too. I remember we went, it was like a meeting, they get together. There was a lot of food and I stayed in the church with the little one here, and the other one here, and Marco here, and they go over there, “Come, come welcome, there is food and come and eat something and give to your kids.” So no, I don’t feel unwelcome here. With all the people, I don’t have any issues or complaints or nothing. When my husband had the moving company, he do moving and packing. And let’s say I go pack to your house, and sometimes the people is renting a house and move to another and they have to leave the house clean, and we offer we can clean the house for you. And no one said something discriminating or bad to you, very good people. So when the lady asked, and I said, “Yes, we are in Utah, we are safe.” LR: Yeah, everyone has their own unique experience. 27 MV: Yeah, maybe, but with the Church they always been so nice to us. I remember one day they bring this rice casserole or something when I was with the little one so it was good, yes. The guy Parker, we told him about the restaurant and he said, “You have to be careful because there is a great risk,” and this and that and we didn’t have a contract with him, we just pay him the rent and we didn’t have any contract. He goes, “Hey Javier and Maria, when you open the restaurant I’m sure you’re going to move.” We told him, “No, we’re not going to move, we’re not going to move,” and we go, and we call him, “Hey Parker, we’re moving” and he goes, “I told you guys, and it’s okay you can go when you want.” He didn’t charge us like extra fees or something, nothing. By that time he moved to St. George because he has cancer, in the bones, all the bones, and the cold make him feel so bad. So he moved to St. George and I remember one day he came all the way from St. George to see Maria’s and say, “Congratulations, guys you did it.” LR: I’m not from Ogden and I just moved here, and I was surprised because I didn’t realize that there was a Mexican restaurant that close to the University that I could perhaps eat at. I know I’m being silly but I’m excited. Anyway, I’ll be quiet now and ask the final question. MV: Yeah, we have a food truck now and we go to the Weber State games. LR: Oh do you? That’s really cool. MV: Yeah, we have a contract with the football games, we go to every football game. LR: Oh that’s really cool. Now I have another question. Was it hard to take the restaurant and put it into a truck? That’s how I envisioned it, I envision you have this great restaurant and then, “Okay, let’s make it mobile.” Was that hard to do? 28 MV: It was ‘cause we have to ask for a lot of permits. The thing is we have the restaurant and you cook the food at the restaurant, that they need a commercial kitchen, the Health Department. Then you move the oven there and we have the steam table, so the hot food has to be hot and the cold has to be cold, you know that rule. But the hardest part is we didn’t find so much people to work. People, they don’t want to work anymore. Let’s say we have our game on Saturday and we have this guy and he goes, “Oh Saturday I have a party, I can’t go.” So Javier has to go and I have to stay there by myself with the cook. I told Javier, “It’s hard,” because when Javier is not there in the kitchen everything is not that perfect. So I’m there just making sure all the plates, all the food, is fine and even people tell me, “Maria when you’re not here the food is not as good, or it’s no, it’s this or that.” You have to check everything, that it’s good and it’s great for the customers. But I told my husband “Okay, you go there and I stay here, we can do it,” yes. LR: Okay, one thing we ask is education, how does that empower? But I’m wondering because you were encouraged to pursue an education as a young girl, is that something that you’re putting onto your children, encouraging them? MV: Yes, yes. LR: And how have you done that? MV: Well, today we have an appointment with my son’s counselor, we have to go there, we try to, “Hey, how are you doing?” We go to the parent teacher conferences, “Hey how’s school, do you need this, do you need that?” I think it’s really important, really, really important. Education is really important. Even if I 29 didn’t finish what I was trying to do, it opens your mind when you go to college, when you go to school. I work with a lot of Mexican people, they never had the opportunity to go to school and you can see the difference. You can see. So in Mexico it’s really hard, you have to go basically with your own money. I told the kids, “Here it’s so different, there is a lot of opportunities that we don’t have in Mexico, so if you don’t do it, it’s because you don’t want to.” My nephew, the one I told you I took care of, my brother-in-law and the mother, they divorced. My brother-in-law, he went back to Mexico like twelve years ago. So my nephew and my niece, they are our only family, we try to stay together. They like grew up with the kids and they have their only cousins here. So when they separate, I go and pick up them, like when the divorce go like, “Can they stay with me this weekend?” and like that. We did this to them and now last year, he graduating from high school in West Valley so we went over there, and then he moved with us and went to the ATC. We tried to, “You have to go, you have to go.” He never liked school, never. I remember ‘cause he stayed with us sometimes when he was in middle school, and he told me, ‘cause he was in seventh grade and it was the parent teacher conference and he was living with us, and he told me, “No, no tia you don’t have to go the conference, it’s not necessary.” I said “No, I’m gonna go, and I need to go and ask your teachers how you’re doing, how’s everything.” I remember they send you a lot of papers and I read all the papers and I said, “I see you need, for this class, you need to do this.” They give you like a test, this percent and that, and he goes, “I didn’t 30 know you read English.” “Well mijo, I don’t read it that well but if I don’t know any word you have a lot of sources. Now you have the Google, you have a dictionary, you have everything. So if there is a word that I don’t know, you read the orders and then you look for this word and you try to make sense.” He goes, “Oh okay tia.” Well he stayed with us for like two to three months and he didn’t like, he went back to Salt Lake City with the mom, but we always told him, “You have to go to school, you have to try to be better and better every day, even if you don’t like it, try to look for something small ‘cause life is not easy.” LR: Well, thank you for that. Alright, I’m going to ask the final question. This is a question that we’ve asked everyone and it’s a three parter. How do you think women receiving the right to vote shaped or influenced history, your community and you personally? MV: I think that’s great because I come from this community, this place, where women, they don’t work, they don’t basically do anything, they are just home. And I don’t have anything against that, it’s really great, you know, it’s a decision. But I see a lot of, especially in Mexico, the guys are, I don’t know what is the English term is but it’s called machista, when the guys say, “No you don’t have to work, I’m the one providing for the home.” So they don’t have the power to say, “Oh I want to do this, or I want to do that.” So I think it’s very important for us to go step… like right now, my husband always told me, “We are here and we don’t have any family, what if something happened to me.” Imagine something happened to my husband, an accident or something, you have to be here by yourself so you have to be able to provide for yourself and the kids, that’s the 31 main reason he always say. I know people that come here and they don’t know how to pay a bill, they don’t know how to call the insurance to have insurance in the car. My husband always told me, “You have to do that by yourself and provide for yourself.” It’s not because of this traditions in Mexico that the guy is the one that provides. I know families from Mexico, the ladies stay there and the guy is the one who makes everything. They don’t even let the woman go to school and try to learn English. So I think it’s important for us to be able to provide for ourselves and to be independent. That’s what we are teaching our daughter too. LR: That’s awesome. I was curious and you don’t need to answer this if you don’t want to, but having been in the United States for eighteen years, was becoming a citizen, was that ever part of your plan? MV: Yes. LR: ‘Cause I know it’s a long process. MV: A long process. LR: It’s not just this easy, “I’m going to do this,” and boom you’re… MV: No, especially because in Mexico there is a lot of crime right now. I know this family, they came from Mexico and they asked for asylum, and they don’t provide asylum from Mexico. So it’s really hard but, yes, I would like to be an American Citizen one day. I love this country, it’s really different. Sadly, it’s really different from Mexico. We don’t have this culture in Mexico. We just went to Los Angeles, in Los Angeles there is a place called La Placita Olvera, I don’t know if you’ve been there. 32 LR: No. MV: Don’t go, it is horrible. I told my husband, “Sadly, it’s because it’s full of Mexican people.” I don’t know if there other countries there, but it’s not clean. I asked for the bathrooms and the Mexican guy said, “Don’t go, they’re horrible.” So I didn’t went to the bathroom. I think we’re better than that. I learn a lot here and I love this country. It is so great. We don’t have this culture in Mexico. If we have at least ten percent of this culture that we have, or the Americans have here, Mexico will be another thing. I like how organized you guys are, I don’t know. Even when you go to a national park, how clean it is. In Mexico, you go to a place like that, horrible, dirty. In Mexico, let’s say that the police stop you and said, “Oh I can give you this and let me go.” The police grab the money and go. You can’t do this here. LR: It’s a lot harder MV: Yes, I agree. LR: So I thought of another question, with the current political climate, especially with the way things have been, without naming names, and this constant fear of deportation. My sister, she married a man from the Middle East, and even though he’s an American citizen they were worried and scared, and that shocked me. I’m wondering has that been something that kind of just weighing on you? MV: There is always, but I think at this moment I’m not scared if I have to go back to Mexico, I’m fine. But the only thing that worries me is my kids. I don’t think there’s that much opportunity there as it’s here. So if I have to go back, I go. It is really hard because right now if I go to Mexico with Maria’s, there is people that go over 33 there and ask you for this quote and leave you alone, you know the bad people. I think we couldn’t have Maria’s over there. But it’s not just me. I can go back and go to my little town and stay there and be happy, but it’s just the kids. I think it’s better opportunity here for them than in Mexico. But yes, I feel that a lot of people are scared they get deported. I think it's fine ‘cause there’s a lot of people come here and commit crimes. I’m fine with that, just send them back please, because this is a country of opportunities and you have to be grateful for that and not come here and do bad stuff. I don’t think that’s good, if you have a lot of good things to do here, why chose that? So that is fine. I think it’s hard for the families, but you know, sometimes the choices that these people make, it’s not the best choices. LR: Right, with all that I appreciate everything. MV: Thank you so much LR: I’ve enjoyed this a lot. MV: I remember another tradition. When I came here in Utah there is a lot of LDS community. But in Mexico I grew up with this Catholic beliefs, so every 12th of December we celebrate the Lady of Guadalupe. It is a big party over there in Mexico with fireworks, that’s the only day we see fireworks. The lady of Guadalupe, and you can remember there is a lot of like farmers markets, there is a lot of people selling food and stuff. That’s a good memory, so we waited so happily for that night, the 11th and the 12th. There is a group called banda, like band. They sing for the Lady of Guadalupe, they bring the Lady of Guadalupe, like processions. The Lady of Guadalupe is up front and you go behind her and 34 singing and praying. Even there is people that go kneeling, go like knees, on their knees walking all the way to the altar. LR: Wow, is that something that you tried to bring here and do here? MV: No, I tried to go and I have my faith but I don’t go to church that much. LR: That just seems like a fascinating. AD: Who is the Lady of Guadalupe? What is the story? MV: The story is that in Mexico City there is a place called the Cathedral of the Lady of Guadalupe, they put the Cathedral over there because a long time ago it was like an Indian, what do you call the Indian? LR: Native American? MV: Native, but it was native Mexican, native Mexican. We called them Indian. This guy called Juan Diego was walking barefoot in the mountain and the Lady of Guadalupe appear to him. It wasn’t true because the Indian people they are like discriminated, like if you are Indian you are like left apart a little bit. “You are not like me,” it’s like that in Mexico. That’s another thing that fascinated me here because we take care of those people, here they have the reservation. Over there, no, they discriminate this people, so that’s why the Lady of Guadalupe appear to him. Then she asked him to go and bring flowers, so he has like this little delantal, what is that called? When you put things so you don’t get dirty. LR: An apron MV: Like apron, he has like an apron and he came back to the place where she appear with the flowers and she asked him “Can you lay the flowers there?” So he went like that [dropping flowers from apron] and the Lady of Guadalupe was 35 here printed on the apron. They say they have the apron over there [at the cathedral], I’ve never been there in Mexico City. We never travel. When I have customers in Maria’s, I go ask and talk to them and they say, “Oh Maria, we went to Cancun. Oh Maria, we went to Cabo.” I only knew Monterrey because I went to get my visa there. That’s the only time I went to Monterrey. To the American consort? LR: Embassy. MV: That’s it. Other than that, I don’t know any part of Mexico. We didn’t have any money to travel, even to the closest parts. When they ask or they call me, I wished when I have money or I retire I want to go back and view all those wonderful places they talk about. ‘Cause I’ve never been there to the Lady of Guadalupe Basilica, and that’s the story. So every 11th and 12th of December we celebrate it with a lot of fireworks and stuff. LR: Sounds like it would be a lot of fun. MV: Yeah, and dances, you dance and there is, we call it viejito de la danza. It’s a guy dressed like an old man and he is scaring all the kids so we try to get close to him. He has this like a rope. I remember my mom, “Hey don’t go close to him.” Yeah, those traditions, I try to tell these to my kids, “You don’t need that much to be happy.” I remember we were happy with a little, just a little. Yeah, we didn’t have like shoe stores or clothes stores there, and there is people that goes and sell basically clothes, second hand clothes, from the United States. I remember when I was a little kid like six, eight years old, there was a guy who goes there and sells shoes and my mom asked for the shoes like a credit, 36 he gave us the shoes and then we owe him money. By the time he come and we pay the shoes, they were broken and we get another. We were always in debt with the shoes over there. I remember my mom said, “You have to take care of the shoes,” so we were barefoot to the elementary school, and we don’t have like cement, the only place we have that was at school. I remember we went barefoot and if there was rain we would just wash our feet over there and my mom gave us a little rag so we dry our feet then put the shoes on. So the shoes, so we don’t waste the shoes. So we don’t go back LR: Right, that makes sense. MV: When we have to shower, we have to go find sticks and stuff to make the fire and heat up the water and then put the water in another thing and shower. We didn’t have showers like here. So when my kids told me, “Oh I don’t want to shower, oh I feel lazy,” you just have to open that thing. And I told them how I did it, “So you go shower.” I wish I could do that. Sometimes the water wasn’t that hot and you used what you could do, you are there, shower with cold water. Well, thank you so much. LR: I just appreciate everything that you shared. Thank you.