955 24 26018 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ff85db797f2ee1b0a68072d5ebfa4f96.m4v 2d0e71a5f2702c2de1d344e3b227b897 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/284ad8b5d1af5523f7755a8af02c4a28.pdf 6db65e100973f847a100560b537d4415 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans’ History Project Ken Vanlier Vietnam War 19 minutes 46 seconds (00:00:05) Early Life -Born on July 14th, 1948. -Served in the Air Force. -Highest rank achieved: E5 Staff Sargent. -Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. -One sibling, a brother. -Grew up in typical conservative Christian family. -Attended Christian High, graduated in 1966. -Interested in cars and motor work. -Worked at Audio Distributors. -Audio work for intercoms, churches, speaker wiring, etc. -Worked for trash disposal, made good money. -Not quite 18 when deciding to join military. -An automotive friend convinced him to join. -Joined to inactive reserves. (00:04:50) Lackland and Okinawa -Sent to Lackland Air Force base in Texas for training. -Exercise, training fields, mine fields, fording rivers. -Eventually joined the drum and bugle corps. -Initially signed up to be a loadmaster on a plane. -Got orders to be with instructional repair. -Drum and bugle corps duration lasted too long for him to do the loadmaster job. -Shipped overseas as was necessary. -Three months here and there. -Stationed out of Beale in California. -Sent to Okinawa. -Communicated with the US by Ham radio. -Occasional letters. -Remaining debris from war was evident on Okinawa. -In particular, retrieved an explosive he brought back to base to have deactivated. -Approximately 1968/1969. (00:10:00) -Worked structural repair as a mechanic on the SR-71. -Met his wife at the chapel. -Dated for three months before proposing at Disneyland. -Sent on another tour in Okinawa before returning to be married in 1970. -Left the military in March of 1971. �-Good and bad aspects of being in the Air Force: -Bad, stifling and lacking creative expression. -Good, life experiences, income to go to college. -Daughter worked on the Air Force One in Omaha. -After leaving the military, started a Christian halfway house in California. -Stayed there for two years. -Returned to Grand Rapids and joined Dykstra wholesaling, the family business. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_VanlierK1814V Title A name given to the resource Vanlier, Kenneth R (Interview outline and video), 2015 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-05-21 Description An account of the resource Ken Vanlier was born in Grand Rapids Michigan in 1948. He served in the Air Force during the time of the Vietnam War, achieving up to the rank of Staff Sargent. Before turning 18 Ken joined the military with an interest in flying in the Air Force. During basic training he stayed at Lackland Air Force base and joined the drum and bugle corps. Eventually he would be stationed out of Beale Air Force base and sent to Okinawa for tours as necessary. Part of his duties consisted of structural repair mechanic work on the SR-71 planes. Ken left the military in March of 1971. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vanlier, Kenneth R. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Marvin, Cole (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Air Force Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/x-m4v application/pdf https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a69a5d94a46ffd04f2920a49b1e235c2.pdf 26c4e3c298a0ce8558ad2c2f1cb23c8d PDF Text Text Speaking Out Western Michigan’s Civil Rights Histories Grand Valley State University Special Collections Interviewee: Christian Vannier Interviewers: Spencer and Tom Supervising Faculty: Liberal Arts Deparment Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 12/15/2011 Runtime: 00:56:24 Biography and Description Christian Vannier discusses the civil rights differences between western and eastern Michigan. In particular, he draws on his experiences at Wayne State University and Grand Valley State University. Transcript Spencer: Could you start out by giving us some basic information about yourself? For example your name, date and place of birth, family, education, etc. Professor Vannier: I was born August 16, 1985. I was actually born in San Jose, California because my parents were living out there at the time. My brother was born there too but then we moved back to Michigan and my father went to work in the auto industry. My father was born and raised and he started in Detroit then moved out to the suburbs with the wave of migration when everybody moved out to the suburbs. Born and raised in Southfield, my grandfather worked on the line for ford. My father eventually got a job there too. My father went to Michigan State, my mother went to Michigan State and so they met. So they are both educated and both got bachelor degrees. And afterwards they lived in Texas and California where I was born, eventually moved back and my father become a white collar worker and eventually rose in the ranks to become the head of international marketing with Ford. And he worked at that for a long time and in high school I barely saw him because he was always in Saudi Arabia or China or Columbia. You know all these different places where he was doing all this stuff. He would always bring me sweet stuff. He’s got piello head scars from Palestine from when he worked in Palestine. He always had awesome stories, which got me interested in anthropology. Like when working in Palestine he would talk about when you go over to Palestine the Palestinian border guards would be like “Hey Detroit! Detroit Pistons!” They want to know about basketball and stuff like that. And everybody would have fun and whatnot. Now going over to the Israel side, they would pull the trick where one guy would come up and ask for your passport and he would leave and another guy would come up and ask for your passport. “That guy just took it.” “No he didn’t.” Just to get you nervous and search your car if you speak out of turn just to give you a hard time. It was awful. But I would go over to the Palestinian side and everybody high fives you and off you go. It was great. But yeah, I got piello head scars, an old Yemini’s dagger Page 1 �made out of rhinoceros horn. But that’s what really got me into anthropology, is doing that kind of international stuff. Eventually my dad quit working for Ford and opened up his own company to do this stuff. Where he worked he was the head of the American branch of an English company. So he had to go to and from England all of the time and I would go with him at 18, 19 years old and hang out in London all day. It was fun. But eventually with the recession and everything collapses so it did to. It went the way of everything else. But he actually paid for my entire undergraduate education. He paid for my brother to go to Western, I went to Michigan, my youngest sister went to Bowling Green, and my other sister went to Purdue. It was never a question in our family; you were going to a university. You grow up under that assumption. That’s what you do. You don’t ever question that you’re going to a university. So we did, and like a lot of ways I told in class is like Miles violinists, we followed that pattern. And that is such a Detroit path. That is what Detroit gave America. Where the first persons in total poverty and works on the line, builds up an economic base. The second person gets educated because of that economic base and really builds an economic base. The third generation, you don’t have to worry about money so you can become an anthropologist. I have a geologist, anthropologist, businesswoman, and artist. That’s the four siblings. My brother is finishing up his PhD at Michigan State in Geology. That’s basically the story and I did my undergrad at Michigan. After that I just tooled around. I didn’t want to go right back to graduate school so I went to work for, like I said, an American branch of and English company. So I moved to London for six months then the German branch for six months where I lived in Cologne. Came back didn’t know what to do with myself so I moved, joined AmeriCore went out to Washington State and lasted about six months to doing that before coming all the way back to Ann Arbor where I eventually decided to go back to graduate school. I chose Wayne State a lot of it because it was local and a lot of it because they had somebody I wanted to work with. I wanted to work in the Caribbean. There was a professor at Wayne State that I wanted to go work with because he was an old Haitian man that did anthropology the old school way. You know, go out there on your own in some village hut. Hindsight maybe gave me the wrong idea because that’s not the way the field went these days but that’s what I did. Eventually I graduated, got a job in the honors college at Wayne State. Did that for four years then I came over here. Where I got my first visiting assistant professorship because the job market in higher academics sucks. All of the universities are getting cut. When they cut they do hiring freezes and they do all sorts of stuff so there’s just no jobs available. People keep graduating and it is just a flooded job market. So I’m pretty lucky to get this job and I am so lucky to get something in Grand Valley because I got family in Freemont. It’s about 45 or 50 minutes north of here. That’s where my mother is originally from so I got my grandmother and aunts and uncles up there so I’m really lucky to be on this side of the state. Because there was always a big fear in higher academics, it was always a big joke that you were going to end up at Arkansas agricultural and mineral college. Or moving to Miami of Ohio. It’s a nice place but there are cornfields for hours. It is in rural Ohio. It’s a big joke and that’s where you would end up or something like that. I knew a guy that took a job at the University of Alabama and he said it’s awesome until you step foot off campus and realize you’re in Alabama. He just lives on campus, that’s all. He barely leaves. He’s from New York City though so it’s a huge difference. So yeah that’s basically short life history. But really I think the experience that really made me was growing up in Detroit because Detroit is a very different place, very different place and it’s not like people think it is. Especially right now, it’s really happening in Detroit. We focus on the inner city of Detroit, which is super poor, now it’s changing. But it was super poor and all of the white flight came in. In the rankings of white flight I think were fifth. St. Louis had more white flight, Milwaukee had more white flight, and Buffalo had the most white flight. Were Detroit, were known for riots. We barely riot; we’ve had a couple. But the last one was Page 2 �in 1967. Why isn’t LA known for riots? They burned down their city like clockwork every about 25 years. And there not know for rioting. Were know for racial segregation but New York is more racial segregation than we are, Milwaukee is more racial segregation then we are. But I think what it is that Detroit built itself up to the top. Were the number one city in America like in the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s. Were known as the Paris of the western hemisphere and when you’re that high you have so far to fall and that’s why everyone focused on Detroit. But especially when it comes to civil rights. Spencer: Are there any differences between civil rights in Detroit and Grand Rapids? Professor Vannier: Civil rights in Detroit is really, really different because it’s kind of but not really the birth place of civil rights but “I Have A Dream” was given in Detroit first before Washington D.C. Malcolm X was from Detroit and Louis Farrakhan founded the first black mosque in America in Detroit. Malcolm X used to preach there. And a big reason is that it’s the end of the Underground Railroad; it’s the end of the line in Detroit. You go all the way from the South up into Detroit where you would have to hide out in all these old churches in Detroit and have all these secret passageways where they would keep slaves. And the big Mason Lodge, one of the biggest Mason Lodges in the country has all these underground secret passages. You can tour them and they say it’s where they keep slaves running away. But they would also have the slave hunter stay there too. And there’s nothing wrong with slaves eater dinner, slave hunters eating dinner and wall in between them. Because the loop hole is you swim across the river to Canada your free. And because of that Detroit has always had this strong background. One of our riots, I think the 1943 riot, we always had a strong black middle class in Detroit and we had all these southerners coming up to join the auto industry and southerners were coming up thinking they could treat blacks like they treated them in the South. And that’s what started the riot. Young guys versus young guys and these black middle class kids aren’t going to deal with that attitude and it started the whole thing. You have always seen that in Detroit and its very different. Moving out here was really different from moving from Detroit. Like just the way we organize ourselves between classes and stuff like that in Grand Rapids is super different than Detroit. I’ve never been to Grand Rapids before I came here. And my first day, I got this job and I had to find a place to live, and the first day I stepped a foot in Grand Rapids was that day that guy went crazy and shot eight people. That was that day. I was driving down the street tank fast. And I always thought it was badass to live in Detroit. Grand Rapids is tough. And I would ask people where to live, because I always thought it was nice town, and I would ask where to live and people would tell me don’t live south of Wealthy. What the hell is south of Wealthy? It’s very different than Detroit. In Detroit it’s suburb based. Ferndale is nice, anywhere in Ferndale is pretty nice but every place has it’s bad areas. Royal Oak, everywhere in Royal Oak is very nice. Birmingham, you can live anywhere in Birmingham and it’s very nice. Highland Park, don’t live there it’s not so nice. River Rouge not so nice. Then you get into the blue-collar suburbs of Taylor, Westland we call wasteland, Garden City we call garbage city. That’s just blue collar, super blue collar. Here it was different. You go three streets over and you’re in a bad neighborhood all of a sudden. How did this happen? It’s a lot more of what you would see in Brooklyn. Where super nice street, two streets over and it’s super bad. It’s way more like that here where it’s not in Detroit. Where I lived in Burkley you could walk miles and be in nice suburban land; miles and it just doesn’t change. Here it changes and it can change really quickly. I don’t know the history of Grand Rapids and I don’t know why we organize ourselves like that. Like in Detroit it’s a lot of Page 3 �racism where suburbs would guard themselves from anybody moving from Detroit in there. Dearborn is famous for it. They are famous for it for putting up rules and restrictions and all sorts of stuff that prevent black people moving in to the neighborhood. It’s not like that anymore but still to this day there are color lines and dividing lines. Like the difference from Grosse Pointe right across the street from Detroit, and it’s like $500,000 and then a crack house. But Jefferson road is that dividing line. That’s why 8 Mile is such that line. And when you look at population maps, that line is just firm. Instead now a days 8 Mile goes through the suburb of Southfield, which has become the vast gem of the black middle and upper classes. Because they have acknowledged becoming a class thing where middle class flee Detroit. It’s not really race based anymore. But Detroit is changing because it’s now the fasting growing population in Detroit. It was throughout the 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s it was the Mexican population because of Mexican town. That was the fastest growing population in Detroit. Now its young 20 something year old white people. All moving in. And you see it changing everything. All moving in. Hipsters. That’s essentially what it is. Hipsters are moving in to Detroit. And they are bringing with them hip bars and hip restaurants and you see this under-current of change happening in Detroit. Like downtown is getting nicer and nicer and mid-town now is getting nicer and nicer. Tom: But the thing about Detroit is like when you drive there I see so many abandoned buildings and the thing is if they actually want to make the city look nicer they have to do something about those. Professor Vannier: Yeah and that’s one of the great things about Detroit, they can’t. Because those abandoned buildings are owned and you just can’t. We don’t have eminent domain laws, I mean we do but they are super strong eminent domain laws. Where if the city wanted that abandoned building the city would take that abandoned building. The train station is owned by Matty Maroon. And he will not sell it so there it is. Have you ever been to Hockey Town Café? Us: Yeah. Professor Vannier: You know across 75 those tall abandoned buildings, those are owned by Mike Ilitch and he won’t sell them, that’s the end of it. Magic Johnson tried to buy them and he was going to install this huge mega complex theatre shopping mall. Nope. So it would be there and we would all be like wow Detroit is looking so nice but it’s not because Mike Ilitch refuses to sell those buildings. Tom: And that’s weird because Mike Ilitch is seen as like the guy who is saving Detroit. Professor Vannier: Yeah he does a lot but in the other hand he owns a ton of Detroit and he refuses to do anything with it. Like right by the Detroit Medical Center is the biggest medical complex in the world and Page 4 �right in front is this abandoned building. You guy anywhere across the street from the biggest medical complex in the world how much is that property worth? Us: Oh for sure a lot. Professor Vannier: But you know in Detroit whoever happens to own that won’t sell it. It’s a creepy thing. Because typically what it is its called absently landlords. Whoever owns that lives in California, hasn’t been to Detroit in thirty years and refuses to sell it. It’s a tax write off. So yeah, it’s a huge problem in Detroit but it gets that perception where you see Detroit isn’t doing anything. No, people are trying but it’s owned. Finally they sold the Madison building. The owner of Quicken Loans bought it and he is going to turn it into a luxury hotel and apartments and all this different stuff. It’s going to look really nice. Some of those buildings look gorgeous because they are all built in the teens and that old gothic architecture. It looks straight out of a Batman film or something like that. Those gold plated elevators and all that. It’s going to look super neat. He’s going to redo it all and keep that old look. But it’s different. Tyler: Could you describe your experiences coming to Western Michigan? What was it like coming from Wayne State to Grand Valley? Professor Vannier: Coming from Wayne State to Grand Valley is really different. Grand Valley sees itself as a more liberal arts institution where as Wayne State is a research one. They are one of fifty universities that are research one. It’s a huge medical school, huge engineering school and all sorts of research goes on out there. But because nobody is moving out here is that in some of the departments, even the anthropology department you get high-powered anthropology professors. The number one grant getter in anthropology is there, one of the big journals Medical Anthropology Quarterly is published right out of Wayne State. But what you see because of that is hierarchy. Like at Wayne State, even in the Anthropology department, hierarchy. Where there’s people at the top and there’s people at the bottom and I would be a person at the bottom. As in teaching, you teach when you’re told, what you’re told and how you’re told. I come here and it’s all open. Meetings are run by consensus. The chair of the department is the first among equals and that’s all he is. And he sees it that way and everyone sees it that way. They even asked me for my first semester for next fall and the scheduler down the hall came to me and was like all right when do you want to teach? And I’m not used to that question. So I’m like when do you want me to teach? And she says when do you want to teach? And I’m not used to that question. I’m used to being told what classes to teach and when to teach. So it’s really neat because it’s just so much more open and they emphasize liberal arts so much and it’s so nice. At Wayne State I have to explain to students who want to be medical doctors why knowing just what ethnicity means makes a difference. Like why am I taking an anthropology class? This is not biology, this is not chemistry. This serves me no useful function whatsoever. And it’s just hard to deal with. Here everyone gets it, here its way more open here. At Wayne State there’s that different hierarchy where there is a lot of money. The guy that used to own Arbor Drugs and now became CBS sold his company for 4 billion dollars. He is building up Wayne States pharmacy school and it’s going to be the number one pharmacy in the Midwest. It’s going to be better than Ferris. Page 5 �But they got all money. Pharmacy won’t share that, physics won’t share that. Here wealth gets spread around which makes things work. Things are new. It’s just so different and so much nicer. So a lot more goes on at Wayne State but it’s worse in a way. They hire so much more nicer and better faculty here. And how all universities work it’s not up to them, it’s up to the dean. And the dean is looking at the big picture. Spencer: Yeah, here they are really big on student evaluations I know. Like they are huge on that. Professor Vannier: Oh yeah, U of M is the worse but Wayne State they don’t do anything. It doesn’t matter how good of a teacher you are, nobody cares. It’s what research have you done and what grants have you got. That’s everything. Spencer: Yeah that’s what I heard U of M is like too. Professor Vannier: At U of M you will have the worse teacher and you will wonder how is this person teaching class? It’s because they are probably a huge grant getter. They bring that money so you don’t have to. Here they emphasize that. How good of a teacher are you? Which puts me as a visiting professor in a funky position because if I have to leave and I want to go to U of M for example, U of M is going to look at my research where as here they emphasize your teaching. There are only so many hours of the day, what are you focusing on? It’s hard. You have to have a balancing act. Professor Vannier : I’ve got to keep doing research because that’s what other universities are going to look for. But Grand Valley looks for teaching experience. I m in a weird position, its hard. Spencer: I’m sure you looked at your evaluations, I m sure they were all good. Professor Vannier: Oh yea I m not too worried about it. Its ok I did pretty good. But still you need to maintain it because the better they are the better you look. Yeah but other universities they will look at your teaching like third or fourth thing they will look at, which seems kind of weird that they would look at your research, grants, publications, whatever you have done. So that’s why I have moved towards ethnographic films. Producing films. Spencer: Oh really? Page 6 �Professor Vannier : Yeah its whole anthropological thing its one of my, the big film company that does this stuff rejected us. Its one of those things specialist of Africa. Those that aren’t specialist of Africa hate it. Its one of those things its very African. Collective: Yeah Professor Vannier: African’s themselves love it. They think like… It was just screened in Paris by another professor and all these Africans in Paris from French Africa came and she said people were crying and it reminds them of their homeland. People see it here and its like, I don’t get it. You know what I mean? Because we did the film in such a way that it was so African… So we are submitting it to one Afrocentric film company and were working on another one. But that’s the way I differentiate myself…. So when I do have to enter the job market, if I do, I got something that separates myself. We will see what happens…. So yeah it’s really different, professors, students are just very different. Obviously the diversity thing is a little whacky… My classes at Wayne State were United Nations and teaching anthropology was fun, reading a book on Islamic culture essentially, and at Wayne State, 25% of my students would be from the Middle East, if not like 30 to 35% would be Muslims. Spencer: It’s not like that here at all. Professor Vannier: yeah, so these people would know more about that I would and they would talk about it, we would watch a film on India and 15% of my students would be Indian. And you could talk about it but these guys would know more than me. There( Wayne State) you’ve got every damn ethnic group, because you have the auto industry… What is it, they uh what is that little tiny suburb that lives inside Detroit, Hamtramck!.. Is the most diverse square two miles in all of America. There are 142 ethnic groups that live in that area. I have a friend that lives there, and you look at his house, and next-door is a Ukrainian family, next-door is a Bangladeshi family. It’s different. It’s just different. Wayne State is so diverse and here not so much. Tom: Yeah definitely not Professor Vannier: Here you got the Dutch. Spencer: Yeah it doesn’t get much worse. Page 7 �Prof: It is kind of, Vie heard of professors teaching in rural Minnesota, where it just kills them because it is just so damn white. Just rural Minnesotans. So here its not so bad… but it’s a little bit different. But on the west side of the state I keep telling myself I cannot wait for summertime. Because I moved here in like fall.. I got settled in, in October. Spencer: It’s nice here in the summer. Professor Vannier: Yeah that what everyone tells me because you got the beach etc. I want to do M 22, which I see, and I never saw stickers until I got here. I saw stickers on cars that said M22 and I actually had to look it up because I was like what the hell is m22. It’s the road that goes all around the peninsula. That going to be my big thing this summer I’m actually going to do it. But I was looking at this, have you ever seen anyone discriminated in public. Oh anybody else.. yeah not really. Spencer: Yeah she had a lot of different questions that she wanted us to ask, like um , a lot of them were really easy like segregation and stuff but I was like that’s a very select group that we would have to ask that to like do you remember being involved in segregation. Tyler: It was more for like those older people who some people might be interviewing, not your age. Professor Vannier : Segregation but even in Detroit. Its , I remember growing up , a black family moved into my neighborhood, and the older neighbors were pissed. Because they didn’t do anything, but they would grumble.. there goes a nigger.. and even as a kid I thought that was kind of mean and they were just a normal family living there you know, but yeah you saw all these little changes. But you see in Detroit, its still segregated, even in Berkeley there was one black guy on my street that I know of in the neighborhood, and around the corner there was one Latino family. And the only reason I knew they were Latino was because I heard them speaking Latin.. ha not Latin , Spanish. But that’s it , its pretty white. If you go to other areas its very black, if you go to Southfield and you get other areas, I lived near uh…. Its fun to look at, Dearborn is all the Arabs, Hazel Park and Oak Park is all orthodox Jews. And its fun driving through on Saturday because they are not allowed to drive on Saturday, and you see them all walking, so yeah that’s where all the orthodox Jews are. West Bloomfield, Rochester, Rochester hills is the Indian community, all live there . North Novi is where the Japanese community lives. Which is awesome. Yeah, north Novi, you know Novi I96 and Haggerty road. Spencer: Yeah Page 8 �Professor Vannier : well you go to like 15 mile and haggerty and all you see is these Japanese restaurants. One day I was eating in a Japanese restaurant that was connected to a Karaoke bar, and I said I’m going to go check it out, and I opened the door and it was all Japanese men in business suits. And they all stop and look at me. Haha and so I closed the door, and I know when I’m not wanted. Yeah but I was eating and it was funny, there was a bunch of Japanese men, and they brought out that sakei and were just getting plastered. It was just so funny to sit there and watch. They were just feeding them alcohol and all these guy were getting drunk, it was really funny. But, you see it and you see these different ethnic restaurants, its really cool. One thing I miss moving out to uh Grand Rapids is middle-eastern food. Where I was , every gas station had middle-eastern food and there were some really good places, but out here you just can’t get it. Spencer: No not at all. Prof: I miss it so much. That nice middle-eastern kabobs and stuff like that. Tom: It’s so good. Professor Vannier: Holy crap its like 3 bucks a sandwich. Yeah and so you just don’t have it so you miss that diversity but you still see that segregation. its black and white but its going downhill now. Its going downhill , its becoming more class segregation. Where, even then its getting hard to say because people are so mixed now, like in Detroit , your seeing gentrification like where the upper class starts moving into lower class neighborhoods because we are so seeing it. Because these like young white people are moving in, and young white professionals are moving in. And its becoming hip to live down there. If I wasn’t married when I was studying in the honors college, I would have moved down there, but my wife said no way. I would have. I realize as a woman it might be different you know especially at night. And Detroit is still Detroit and you got uh like in the suburbs if you need to go to CVS at midnight, you go to CVS at midnight, but in Detroit you need to be careful about that. But it’s interesting to see how it changes because you see these different neighborhoods. There was one house sold , there is neighborhood called the Boston Edison district, in the olden days it was where all the, like Henry Ford moved there. You know. Spencer: Yeah Professor Vannier: the dodge brothers lived there, just huge mansions, but it’s in the middle of its in north Detroit. So it’s a sketchy area. There was one house that was built in like 1920 and the garage had a carwash where you park your car, get out, go in your house , hit the button , and wash your car. The ballroom, the entire floor of the ballroom was built on springs so when you dance it makes you feel like Page 9 �you are floating. Fountains, through a system was connected through the entire house so you had all these rooms that had fountains that you just turn on a button. Guess how much it sold for? Spencer: I don’t know Prof: 250 grand. Tom: Ha I was going to say a couple mil Tyler: That’s crazy Professor Vannier : Oh I Know who you see buying these houses, usually now its more like black artist, like recording artist and some sports players have moved in. John sally it was the bishop of Detroit’s house, but John Sally from the pistons you know that old 90’s , he won the championship with the bad boys? He bought it and it just turned around, now I think one of the other pistons, Ben Wallace, I think Ben Wallace owns it now. Spencer: Does he really? Professor Vannier : yeah , its something like that , where you see its just like you have the black elite and the white elite lives in West Bloomfield, like Eminem lives in West Bloomfield. Grant Hill lives in Northville where I grew up. Where I grew up I started out as like a strong white-collar auto industry suburb, but middle management, but you could really see the economy, like who’s who in the auto industry, and where they live. It started out middle management, where if you went west of our house it was dirt roads. Now its so built up its like the elite of the auto industry. Ford and GM elite high ranking people. The neighborhood just went up and up and up. Oh but yeah you really see its based more on economy and who’s who and that’s kind of the suburb you live in. The blue-collar auto industry workers are out in Westland and Grand Rapids, not Grand Rapids, Garden City and Taylor. White collar is Northville and Novi, Birmingham. The Doctors and professionals typically live in Rochester and West Bloomfield. Yeah it’s all rally weird. And Grand Rapids, it’s no like that. Not like that at all. So its very different moving out here. Ah I don’t know how I got on that topic. But this kind of thing with discrimination, one thing, I don’t even want to say it because a lot of people disagree but I have had a lot of young male professors talk about it. Not in this department at all, here its very open, very nice, nobody cares. But anthropology as a total as a whole you to like these national meetings and stuff, and Anthropology has gone feminized. At these meetings maybe its 2 to 1 female to male. You’ll go to these talks and I will be the only guy. Its all women and it really hasn’t affected me but I’ve know other young Page 10 �men who I’ve talked to amongst the young male professors. Little bit of what’s called masonry has slipped in. Where you know misogyny is hating women, masonry it hating men. Where it has just become so feminized. But you see this little masonry, male hating, moving in. And its never been me because I have been careful about what I say. But it is hyper liberal, politically. To the point where its annoying me. Spencer: Yeah Professor Vannier: But if you start saying stuff that doesn’t fit that liberalism and liberalist, you get gunned down, I mean you can get gunned down hard. And you see a little bit of discrimination, I mean its pretty funny. When people talk about that in academics, but the counter argument is, you go to one of these conferences and everyone is a liberal, you go to a conference among hedge fund managers and they’re all conservative. You know what I mean. It’s the same damn thing it just depends what field you work in. But yeah there is , I can see discrimination against, politically discrimination against like more conservative to the point where you don’t even hear of conservative anthropologist. Spencer: No Professor Vannier: very pro-capitalist anthropologist is kind of a no, no. you know what I mean? And its really weird, really different. I was at this one talk, where it was on Haiti, that’s why I was there. And this one woman was talking about how, she wasn’t saying it but it was exactly what she was talking about. These people, she was working in urban Haiti and under Duvalier the totalitarian dictator, there was a political hierarchy. And if you were like a poor person working and you needed something done and you would go to one of duvale’s lower ranking military guys and you would talk to him and you would try to get this done. If he was going to help you he would go to the next higher up, which would go to the next higher up in the chain. And they would eventually get it done if they decided to do that. Now there’s no Duvalier, it’s a perfect free democracy so there is none of that. So if you need something done what do you do? You don’t get it done and that’s the end of it. So these people are bitching like we want our dictator back. We could get things done with the dictator. And this lady was saying this at this conference, and holy crap, people were pissed. I didn’t raise my hand or say anything. After the talk I went up to her and talked to her and said I know exactly what you are talking about. But when I was there violence was bad. Well the guy that changed my money, right when I left, someone else came up and said give me all your money and just boom hit him right in the head. That never would have happened under Duvalier. Under the high point of Duvalier in like the 60s there was no crime and no crime is everywhere. if you walk down the street you can get shot. If you go walking down the street you can get kidnapped. And people would talk about under Duvalier that you follow the rules. Follow the rules and you have a perfectly peaceful happy life. Now we have all these civil rights and freedoms and you can’t even walk down the street. But still the point is that the women at the conference started saying that and it didn’t fit in that liberal you know and it was really rough. It was pretty funny. Yeah but being a young man a young male conservative in anthropology. Like I said not at the department level not here. Page 11 �Spencer: Yeah Professor Vannier: but you know these big conferences that engage the discipline, those people are for real. And even anthropology there are people studying around the world. I don’t know the exact figures what percentage at these big conferences is white people but its probably like 80 percent maybe 85 percent. So you have all these white people still talking about the poor black Africans. You know what I mean. And there’s something weird about that but anthropology knows that and we recognize it but don’t do anything about it. So its different, its been really different. And I think a lot of it comes from me growing up in Detroit where you got a lot of different ethnic families. Growing up in Detroit I think that influenced me heavily. you also have the strong class antagonisms. Where you got the union working shop people versus the might collar management people you know what I mean? And you got these strong notions, my grandfather till the day he died only went to full service gas stations Tyler: Really? Professor Vannier: Yeah because it gives a man a job that how he referred to it, it gives a man a job. You know you’re influenced by that and now its just different. Yeah but moving out here I expected it to be super conservative but its really not that I’ve seen. People say, well maybe I’m not in the right place but like Holland and Zeeland. Tom: Yeah my roommate is form Zeeland he says its like the most conservative place he has ever been. Professor Vannier: Yeah I think its like the most conservative place in Zeeland. I think McDonalds just won the right to open on Sunday like six years ago. I know because of that strong church . but yeah I haven’t really seen it, Grand Rapids has been good but I think Grand Rapids has changed with the healthcare industry. But you still see the conservatives like the Devos’s are very conservative. They give a lot of money to conservative causes. Yeah I just haven’t noticed it around here at all. But civil rights, yeah I don’t really knows how it works in Grand Rapids and Grand valley is so different because it’s no universe. Like at Wayne State you get MLK day off. It’s a big holiday there’s speeches and parades, it’s a big deal because its got that deep history in Detroit for being that end of the line for the Underground Railroad. It’s a big deal, but here not so much. There’s just not that history here you know what I mean? Tom: Yeah. Page 12 �Professor Vannier: There no connection to it. And its very recent people start moving out here but with Detroit they have had people coming in since the 1700s you know different groups and waves and migrants. That how the Arab Americans got here you know we were known for our Arab Americans running the gas stations. In Seattle it’s the Vietnamese in New York I think it’s the Indians. I don’t know. Somebody broke it down to me why that is but I don’t remember what they said, but they were distinct reasons for that. Anyways what else do you want to know? I just rambled on and on off topic. Especially since its being recorded. Spencer: No its all-good stuff, she just. We told we wanted to interview you, you know something that was moving from Detroit you know coming here but um, she wanted someone who knew the history of Grand Rapids and I’m like well that kind of hard because there are so few people that really know the history of grand rapids. Tom: Especially since you just moved here you obviously don’t have a lot of knowledge on that. Professor Vannier: Yeah I know people tell like 15 years ago it was a hellhole that’s what people have told me, but that a shock to me because in Detroit we always think Grand Rapids is a sunny and beautiful city. And I was shocked because I never knew that. I was when I came here and people said “oh god 15 years ago this place was horrible” just like people say you can’t move south of Wealthy. These different neighborhoods you don’t go to, and don’t move to. Because I didn’t know where I was going I mean I needed to find somewhere. I stuck with what they told me like north of wealthy south of 196 east of downtown and they told these specific spots you know. Like that where you want to live and don’t go anywhere else. I started checking around other areas and boy there are some rough areas out there in Grand Rapids. Some rough areas. Tyler: Yeah once you pass this one spot in downtown Grand Rapids its just straight do not go there. Professor Vannier: Yeah, over the river and south I was going through this neighborhood to look at this house we might buy and I turned around. Because it was like hills have eyes because these people were just sitting on porches giving you the look. Like outsider you are not welcome down this street. I was just like okay ill turn around I’m out of here. But yeah I don’t know how different it is in Allendale because you just have students out here. Tyler: Yeah pretty much just straight suburb. Page 13 �Professor Vannier: Yeah I was too wary like what if I rented out a house in the middle of a student neighborhood that would be kind of weird. To see my students in the morning. We could all commute together. But yeah definitely not a good idea. This kids having a huge house party next door and he invites me over, ha no I don’t think that’s really a good idea. So I live more mid town now, that’s where I found my house. We are in walking distance of downtown, its kind of nice. Right by Martha’s Vineyard. When I first moved here everyone was like Martha’s Vineyard, and it’s a party store. I was like what’s the big deal? You know there not many grocery stores where I live. It’s a different spot , Grand Rapids is very different from Detroit . Very, very different from Detroit. In Detroit anywhere is, like everything is near you but everything is far away. Takes you half an hour to get anywhere because Detroit is so huge. Here you know everything is so close together because you are right here. You know what I mean? It just a smaller city. Professor Vannier: Buts it’s nice I can’t wait for summer time; see how it works. Are there any books, articles, films, speeches, newspapers, performances that influence your thinking about race and ethnicity? Spencer: Yeah that was the question from her. Professor Vannier: Yeah in Detroit. The only thing I can tell you, what happened, when was this it? About two years ago, it really gave me such pride in the city of Detroit. Basically, you know the big thing with the Muslim community and in Detroit that’s not a big deal. No body cares in Detroit if you’re Muslim nobody cares, nobody cares, Orthodox Jew, nobody cares, you know, black white, nobody cares. As long as your working you know it’s more of a class thing you know its, nobody cares. Elsewhere in America people really care about this stuff. That woman running for senate in Nevada, we have to stop Dearborn. And all of Dearborn looked up and was like what the hell did we do? Where we come from? She was worried about Sharia Law being implemented in Dearborn so the Mayor of Dearborn, Jock O’ Riley this Irish guy, I don’t think Sharia laws going on hear lady you have to figure out. But, we always get these groups coming up here from, outsiders, coming up to Detroit and trying to cause trouble. And this one group, like that guy from Florida, you’ve ever seen that pastor with the big bushy mustache? He’s always up in Detroit, we hate so much. Because the attitude of, we can kill each other, that’s fine, no outsiders. You can’t come here and cause trouble because then we all ban together, against the outsiders. Everybody hates that pastor, you’re not going to change and he’s going to whip up the people of Detroit you know to realize that Sharia, no, no your not. We hate you. Professor Vannier: But, this one group, it was like two years ago. I m thinking of an incident that made me think about ethnicity and race and how it works in Detroit. Because of the cars, were more based on class than anything else and where you are in the industry. Blue collar, white, middle management, upper white collar. That’s more important. But, um there’s this group from Tennessee, they’re going to come up here, you know southern Tennessee, they’re going to protest Sharia law and the Muslims and shit like Page 14 �that. Um they came up, it was about two years ago, and it was on the news. They came up here and they were going to set up, they had hotels for three weeks. The first morning they were going to protest a mosque, you know and you know what their thinking, there going to intimidate you know little Muslim kids and Muslim women. But, they didn’t realize, when they got here, was that mosque, that they were going to protest at five in the morning, because the call to prayer, five in the morning, was next door to the mosque founded by, Louis Fericon, Black Muslims, who are a completely different group of people than Arab Muslims. So you had this, you know Black Muslim, you know Malcolm X, Black Muslim, its still a, the first mosque ever and that group of people I knew one of them, I knew a Black Muslim who was an archeologist and she was super cool. Her name was Allison, but um her Black Muslim name was Sultana X because they’re all X. You can just see how it works, you know Malcolm X, she was Sultana X. You give your name an X because your not taking your slave masters name, you this strong thing. The Mosque that they were protesting, you know all these white people from Tennessee show up at five in the morning while all these little Arab kids trying to get into this mosque and next door was the Black Muslim mosque. Do you think that, O my goodness, it was awesome, that these just huge, huge black dudes just come pouring out of there. Know that there was no violence, but they just got all up in their face. I remember distinctly this black Muslim woman where this one Tennessee guy like aren’t you concerned about Sharia law, right in front of one of the huge black dudes, I m going to Sharia law up your ass if you don’t get out of here. They were suppose to be here for three weeks, they lasted forty-five minutes. They went running back with their tails between their legs. And I was so happy with Detroit, do they give a crap that you are Arab and that they were black, no. And it was, it was in Hamtramck, so diverse. Where you got this Ukrainian family that was furious cause they were woken up over the whole thing at five in the morning you know I don’t know who these people are from Tennessee, go away. But it just yeah that race, that ethnicity really just didn’t matter when outsiders are involved. It matters inside where you get trouble, but it doesn’t matter outside. When outsiders come in, we all ban together, were like go away, we don’t want you here we can kill each other. Professor Vannier: Well know that I m thinking about it, I learned this while I was at Wayne State. In like the Arab-American community, ethnicity matters, there’s a hierocracy of ethnicity. I know Yeminis’ are at the bottom and their considered kind of poor backwards. In Detroit they’re considered the white trash, if I may, of the Arab community. Where you got the, there’s no Saudi, but you got the Lebanese, the Iraqi Chaldeans a more at the top, followed by the Jordanians, then the Syrians. We don’t have a lot of Iranians I don’t know how exactly it breaks down, but you have a lot of Lebanese. I knew a lot of Lebanese they’d tell me, yeah were at the bottom, and I was like how does that work. I never knew that. You know in America we like lump them all together, where they see themselves as very, very low. That ethnicity really, really matters. I go, God that’s weird, but if one of them came out here you know you wouldn’t look at them as Lebanese, their Arab-American. You know, no one would care, they belong in that big group where they get along where there’s that strong ethnic rankings, ethnic rankings. I bet if you’re from Africa it would be the same way. Where you are form Africa would matter in that population, you know what I mean. We’re all looking at them like, their African you know, but to them it’s a big deal. So it’s different, very different in Detroit. Page 15 �Professor Vannier: Detroit’s got really different race relations than other places in uh in America. It’s all the auto industry, and the factories and everyone coming over here to work in the auto industry. It’s all the auto industry. It’s more class based. Out here I don’t know how it works. Professor Vannier: I don’t know how Grand Rapids does it. I think it’s too new, like the health care industries too new. I know since I’ve been here they’ve opened up Davenport University, opened up downtown, Buffalo Wild Wings opens up this Friday, like holy crap. The Grand Rapids art fair or that art prize is a huge event. I’ve never been, being in Detroit we hear all about it you know you got to go to the art prize, what’s going on at the art prize, you got to go to the art prize, what’s going on at the art prize, you know what I mean cause it’s a huge event. And everybody’s so like you’re so lucky to move to some place like Grand Rapids, I thought God it must be a beautiful place. And I got here, a guy kills lots of people you know, its like O my God are you serious. And it was a joke when we were looking around for house, my wife and I were like were not aloud to go south of wealthy, lets go check it out. We went like two blocks in, and at one corner there was three cop cars. Maybe we shouldn’t be here and forever its burned in my mind, like don’t go south of wealthy. So it’s so weird, so weird, and just very different. Professor Vannier: Where you can go like a mile and it changes, where in Detroit you can go miles and miles and miles and it won’t change. Just suburbs’ as far as the eye can see, you know just single-family homes as far as the eye can see. It’s just suburban America, metro Detroit. But, it’s different because the auto industry, Oakland county, it was before the recession, Oakland county was the third richest county in America, behind Orange, the OC, and uh a county in Connecticut where all the hyper rich New Yorkers’ live. Boom, boom, Oakland County, and it is how we support four sports teams. You know what I mean. Where other cities can’t, we can because we have so much money. The suburbs have all the money, you know what I mean and they can support four different teams in four different buildings, the only city to do that. Four winning teams, think about it. Or if the pistons got good, where we got the Red Wings, the Tigers could go for it all this year, the Lions are starting to emerge, and we support all four teams. How do you do that? Not in New York doesn’t do that, LA has what, they don’t have football, two basketball teams, two baseball teams. And yeah we sell out our games. And its really weird, people, people don’t consider that when they look at Detroit, people don’t consider that. And its all that wealth created by the auto industry. That’s why Mitt Romney’s screwed, people are still pissed and he’s trying to twist the message, good luck dude, good luck. There still pissed at him over that. But, yeah I don’t know the history of Grand Rapids enough to know how it works. Spencer: Yeah I think that’s fine because we told her we wanted to get your side from Detroit and kind of a little bit, we knew that it wasn’t going to be like, you know how she wanted it, but she said that’s fine. Professor Vannier: You know you can always look up Grand Rapids yourself, too. But, yeah you know Detroit its all the auto industry, all the auto industry. I don’t know if I m going to get into it, but how the ghetto was created in Detroit. How Detroit became that, the way that the inner city, hard core, super big black populations. Were the blackest city in America, it’s changing, slowly, but we are. And you know Page 16 �it’s everyone coming to work in the auto industry, but you know by the time they got here the auto industry had already left. So they go down to the suburbs. There’s no jobs, no nothing, auto industry went to the suburbs because there’s more land available to build factories. All the people already working in the auto industry followed, the people coming in, were stuck. And that’s boom, where you get like that inner city poverty. And know it’s all moving back in, all coming back in. Led by again Mike Ilitch, Quicken Loans guy, Dan Gilbert that’s his name, is leading the charge. Yeah all moving back into the city, because all the suburbs are all too built up, too expensive now. It’s like a life cycle, you know it’s like a city life cycle. See the suburbs will be bad, probably within twenty years and the city will be where it’s at. Yeah so it’s all based on that and those race relations, you know where you sit in that hierarchy of the factory and stuff like that. It’s different, very, very different look. But how it’s going to change in Grand Rapids, I have no idea. Spencer: Well uh I think that’s good. Professor Vannier: Is that good? Tyler: Yeah. Professor Vannier: Did I say enough? Spencer: If we come up with anything else we’ll let you know. But, yeah I think that’s definitely good. Professor Vannier: Yeah if you come up with any other questions let me know. I love talking about this stuff. I taught a class on it. That’s why I know so much about it. I know enough there and it just drives me nuts when people just hate on Detroit. And it’s just like do you realize we invented the middle class. We invented unions, we invented all of that. First, stop light, first paved roads. You know first sold foundation, black middle class was in Detroit. All so much came out of Detroit that people just don’t recognize. I mean it all started here. And you see so many people from Detroit, Malcolm X, Madonna, The White Stripes have moved back. Who just moved in that they were talking about on the news, you ever heard of the band Flocking Molly? Why the hell they came to Detroit I have no idea, but the two main members just moved into Detroit. Moved into those neighborhoods, they moved into Palmer Woods, which is a different area. But, those super hyper rich houses in the middle of kind of a bad area, they just moved there. Why, have no idea, but that’s where they live know. I think its because theirs such an emerging uh artist community in Detroit. Where you got artist film makers know, you got all sorts of stuff going on and its all underground. Super underground, but it’ll emerge, it’ll emerge, where know you got like big, like right now the Detroit Fashion Show. It’s not very big, but a lot of fashion designers are starting to get involved because they’re seeing in like ten years Detroit Fashion Show might be where it’s Page 17 �at. So you see that like people are trying to get in now, you know what I mean. Cause they just see, New York will always be king, always be king, but Detroit’s going to matter in a little bit. We got all these different things happening. So it’s cool. You should go there sometime. Check out the different restaurants. Tom: Yeah I mean I’ve been to Detroit a few times, several times, but sporting events mostly. Professor Vannier: Yeah and it’s weird amongst the older generations you still see the segregation were uh you see uh people that were born and raised two miles from the city have never stepped foot in it because its just an evil awful place, you know what I mean. You got though, because you know we still were one of the most racially segregated places and we went through a lot of battles and how to you know keeping people out from moving into the suburbs. But, know it’s much, much less now. But, those older generations still see it, still just hate Detroit, you know you grew up in like Royal Oak, you know what I mean, you live three miles from the city even though will never come back, never ever, ever go back because they see it’s that culture of terror. Your going to get shot the second you step foot, no your not, there’s nobody there. You know not enough people to shoot you. So yeah you still see it, so still I don’t want to make it sound like it’s all class based theirs still a lot of racism, but it’s usually mostly older generations. Amongst the younger generations that grew up there go to Detroit all the time. That’s who is moving in. Yeah so you see it changing amongst generations, but interesting stuff. You can check it out. Tom: Like I’ve been to like uh, Greek town I have dinner there, go to a Red Wings game and then. Professor Vannier: Go to Slows Barbeque down Michigan Avenue. Best restaurant in all of Detroit. Best restaurant there. They just opened another one by Wayne State. Right now its mid town is really happening now where Mo cat is, the DIA is there, Wayne State’s there, because they just built dorms for the first time. So now you got students living there and once you have students living there businesses are going to follow. And they are, your starting to see bars opening up you know. More stuff just geared towards like young twenty something people. Starting to open up and what’s that going to cause. More twenty something’s to move in there, which cause what, more businesses to start and that’s where the whole thing goes. Whole thing heads that direction, you’re seeing it starting to go that direction. Yeah I wonder where they’re going to build the new Joe Louis Arena? They still won’t say and it just might be rumors. Either across from hockey town that’s why he owns those buildings, tear them down, build the new Joe Louis Arena there or where Tiger Stadium used to stand. Tom: The thing is I love where Joe Louis is right now right on the river there. I think it’s awesome. Page 18 �Professor Vannier: Yeah, yeah it makes perfect sense for him. It doesn’t make sense for Detroit cause that river front property is solid property. You could build condos there, overlooking the river. Restaurants and bars overlooking the river, that money, right now we got this stadium sitting right there, you know what I mean. It makes perfect sense for Mike, doesn’t make sense for the city. And what, what he probably will do, he’s not saying I imagine he will do it himself. Where he’ll move Joe Louis somewhere else, tear down the original Joe Louis Arena and build his own, high rise condos, you know what I mean. He’ll make a fortune, he’ll make a fortune off of that and it’s good for him, I mean it’ll be good for Detroit too good for him. But, I know a lot of people that live in Detroit that hate Mike Ilitch, hate Mike Ilitch. But, the big evil guys mad in the room, he owns the bridge, too. He’s the antichrist of Detroit, people hate his guts, owns the train station won’t do anything with it. We threatened him with eminent domain so he said he’s going to fix it up so he took like one side of it and fixed the windows. I fixed it up. There you go. That’s the game we play with Mattie. He lives in Texas, multi-billionaire, lives in Texas. Evil, evil, person and he’s blocking the bridge, the new bridge. Rick Snyder wants the new bridge, all the auto companies want the new bridge, what seems to be the problem here you know. Nope, nope, but O well its good stuff. If you got anymore questions just email me or stop in. END OF INTERVIEW Page 19 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2a1f2341cf08036b1f4efb4f666bd326.mp3 43c028502c40c77ee9b41e3399f2b211 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speaking Out: Western Michigan Civil Rights Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Civil rights--Michigan--History Personal narratives Oral histories African Americans--Personal narratives Gays--Personal narratives Lesbians--Personal narratives Bisexual people--Personal narratives Transgender people--Personal narratives Veterans--Personal narratives Women--Personal narratives People with disabilities--Personal narratives Muslims--United States--Personal narratives Hispanic Americans--Personal narratives Homophobia Discrimination Islamophobia Stereotypes (Social psychology)--Upper Penninsula (Mich.) Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history recordings documenting the history of civil rights and social justice advocacy in Western Michigan. The collection was created by faculty and students as a project of the LIB 201 (formerly US 201): "Diversity in the U.S." course from 2011-2012. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Brooks College of Interdisciplinary Studies Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Speaking Out: Western Michigan Civil Rights Oral History Project (GV248-01) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-05-02 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV248-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1930-2011 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV248-01_Vannier_Christian Title A name given to the resource Christian Vannier audio interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vannier, Christian Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Spencer Tom Description An account of the resource Christian Vannier discusses the civil rights differences between western and eastern Michigan. In particular, he draws on his experiences at Wayne State University and Grand Valley State University. Subject The topic of the resource Civil rights--Michigan--History Discrimination Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Relation A related resource Speaking Out: Western Michigan Civil Rights Oral History Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-12-15 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/71e9632e1b150334afa77bc6e2bbb15f.pdf b3abd0bec030a9575c347b5a35931039 PDF Text Text Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department Larry VanSickle Interview Interviewed by Walter Urick June 18, 2016 Transcript WU: My name is Walter Urick, and I'm here today with Larry VanSickle and I'm in the Hart Library in Hart, Michigan on this Saturday, June 18th, 2016, for the purpose of obtaining the oral history of the VanSickle family. This oral history is being collected as part of the Growing Community Project, which is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Program. Larry, I want to thank you for taking the time to talk with me today, and I'm interested to learn more about your family history and your experiences living and working in Oceana County. So why don’t we just start out by you stating your full legal name. LV: My name's Larry Kent VanSickle. WU: And when were you born and where were you born? LV: I was born right here in Hart on January 10th, 1943. WU: And your parents' names? 1 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department LV: My parents were Lloyd and Maxine VanSickle. WU: And Lloyd VanSickle, at the time of your birth, was about how old? LV: I'm thinking, twenty-five, probably somewhere in there. WU: And your mom, Maxine? LV: She was three, four years younger, so she was twenty-one, twenty-two. WU: And what was your mother's maiden name? LV: Maxine May. WU: M-a-y? LV: M-a-y. Her parents were Max and Maude May… Maude (Weirich) May. WU: Okay, and in terms of siblings? LV: I have two brothers: one older, Norman, and one younger, Garth. WU: And Norman was born…? LV: Norman was born on January 27, 1941 - he's the oldest one. And Garth was born on June 27, 1944. WU: Okay, and in terms of your parents’ background and education and work… your father, what type of work did he do? LV: Well, he did carpenter work here, there, and yonder. And he was a… he had an electrician's license. He did most of that work part-time; he liked that kind of work. His full-time job, he worked for Michigan Employment Security Commission as a Farm Labor Specialist. He did that for thirty, thirty-five years; that's what he retired from, so that was his main employment. WU: In terms of growing up, physically, where was your household? LV: Where I grew up? WU: Yes. LV: I'm living in the same house where I was born. WU: Alright, describe it. LV: Our address is 2491 East Polk Road. It’s in Elbridge Township, right kitty-corner across from the Elbridge Community Church. And my dad bought that piece of property in 1941. WU: How large a piece of property is it… acreage? LV: At the time... there were one hundred and twenty acres at the time… is what he bought it that time. WU: Okay. LV: Since then, I bought that, you know, after we got married in 1965, I bought that from him. 2 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department WU: Alright. WU: Now that acreage and I'm taking you back to when you were a kid, you know, you're growing up, were there farming activities on that acreage? LV: Yes. WU: Okay. LV: And not to the extent they are nowadays, where when I was a kid, we had probably ten cows and we milked them cows and we didn't sell the milk, sold the cream, had a cream separator separating the cream and the skim milk. We had some hogs and fed that to the hogs. Almost everybody back then had animals. WU: So, you had hogs. You had, obviously, dairy cows. Any other animals that…? LV: We grew up with a couple of horses, we had a couple horses. WU: You didn’t have chickens or things like that? LV: Well, I think we might have had just once in a while there was a chicken or two around, but nothing that... it was all, basically, you know, we had chickens if you needed to have chicken for Sunday dinner. He was outside waiting for you. [Laughter] WU: But, so as a youngster, you've got cows. I assume you had various farm chores that you had to do as you were growing up. LV: We did. WU: Just sort of describe what life was like. LV: Well, we had one after we got rid of the cows that was milking, we kept one cow so we could have our own milk. And course, it was us boys’ job to milk that cow. Twice a day we had to milk that cow and take the milk up to the house and Ma put it in the refrigerator. And that was the milk that we drank. And then in the summertime, we’d take that cow and lead her out someplace where there's grass and tie her up and she can sit there all day... WU: That was your lawn mower. [Laughter] LV: And make a circle and eat the grass. And I remember, I didn't think my brothers were sharing enough in the milking chores, and so I barked and I argued with Dad a little bit about maybe they ought to do more milking. That probably wasn't the right thing to do because then I was one hundred percent milker [laughter]; because I barked, then I got the job. [Laughter] WU: So, before you review… sized down to one cow, how old were you... LV: When that happened? WU: ...when the downsizing occurred? LV: I probably was… probably ten. 3 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department WU: Okay, what I'm trying to understand here is, say, between ages of four to ten, when you have ten cows, what was your role with those ten cows... if any? LV: I think as I remember, we had to feed them and, of course, clean the barn. WU: Alright, so you remember cleaning, you remember feeding LV: Yep, we had to do that and at that time Dad had a milking machine. So, them cows were milked with a milking machine. WU: Alright, so you did have a milking machine at that point? LV: Yep. WU: And that milking machine… were you able to operate that machine? LV: I don't think so, no. I don’t recall. WU: Okay, so as a seven or eight-year-old kid, they didn't ask you to do anything like that? LV: No, we was good pooper scoopers and we could do the feeding. And we had to climb up in the silo and throw some silage out. WU: Now, in terms of getting rid of the waste and so on or the manure, were you able to sell that to other farmers or use it for fertilizer LV: We used it for fertilizer. WU: On your own farm? LV: Yep, and we got, you know, at a pretty young age, we learned how to drive the tractor. WU: Well, that's where I was leading to… trying to understand: what did you do as a kid, to make that work? LV: At that age… and then, of course, we had to make hay and we did that. We didn't have bale hay; we did it all loose hay. And so, we had hay loaders - the people behind the wagon - and they would gather the hay up and put it on the wagon. And Dad usually had the job on the wagon, so one of us guys had to drive the tractor. And I remember driving the tractor when nowadays it wouldn't be acceptable. WU: Right. LV: But we had to stand on the clutch with both feet in order to even stop the thing… WU: [Laughter] LV: ...we weren’t heavy enough. [Laughter] WU: Those were the good old days! [Laughter] LV: [Laughter] So it wasn't...no, it wasn’t very safe, if you look back at it. Sometimes Dad had to jump down off of the wagon and come up and get the tractor stopped, if we needed to have it stop. But he was, you know, we didn't get into situations that we were going to get in trouble, but still, it was something you [?]. 4 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department WU: Well, your father clearly is working outside the home, I mean, he's working… so really, he’s a part time farmer… LV: Yeah. WU: ...almost a hobby farm. LV: Yeah, he was part-time most of the time. He was... that was evenings and weekends. I think his intent was to be more full-time. But sometimes you’ve got to have a job someplace to generate some revenue. And so, he got into that job that he ended up retiring from and it turned out to be a pretty good job. And so, all of his hobbies and farming and stuff… and of course, once we got old enough so we could do something, then we would have a list of duties in the morning when he went to work, especially in the summertime. And we could accomplish that in the daytime while he was gone. WU: Oh, from a family history standpoint, your dad's parents - your grandparents - do you recall their…? LV: I recall the ones on my mother's side a little bit better because on my dad's side, I was only three years old when his dad died… WU: Okay. LV: ...and I was only maybe ten when his mother died. And of course, back then, everybody was somehow tangled up in agriculture of some description. And on my mother's side, her dad, that's what he did was farming. WU: Now your father and his… your grandfather. Do you know what country they came from or how they got here, so to speak? LV: Well, it's Pennsylvania Dutch, is what it is supposedly. And the VanSickles came from Marengo, Ohio, up here. Now, I'm not sure what foreign country their ancestors come from. WU: Well, they're Dutch, they're probably from the Netherlands or something. LV: They’re from the Netherlands, but supposedly the heritage is Pennsylvania Dutch. Now, technically, I don't know what that means, but that's basically… yeah. WU: Yeah, but they settled, I mean, your grandfather was not... was he an immigrant? I guess that's what I was trying to understand or was he a first generation American? LV: I'm thinking he probably... I don't think he was an immigrant. WU: Okay. LV: I think he was probably first generation American. That would be my guess. And I don't know, I don't remember any of them talking about that. WU: Now, did your mom work outside the home? LV: She did not work outside other than she was a licensed beautician. WU: Oh, she was? 5 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department LV: And so, she... actually, she did it right in the house. I can remember somebody getting a permanent one over suppertime and we’d be there fixing hair and just having supper. But then the rules that regulate that kind of stuff didn't allow that anymore. WU: Sure. LV: And so, when we got married, they built a new house and Dad made a special beautician parlor in the basement for her… WU: So, she could... LV: ...so she could do that. And they added its own entrance and so they could grow. They could do that. So, she... I don't know if she ever did that full-time. You know, it was always kind of off again and again. WU: Well, in terms of your childhood, you grew up out in Elbridge Township, I assume. LV: Yep. WU: And you went to, what, the Elbridge School? LV: No, back then it was Elbridge Township had six rural schools. And so, I went to... WU: Wait, stop. You’re telling me Elbridge Township had how many rural one-room schoolhouses? LV: Six. WU: Really? Boy, that's throwing me a little bit. I would not have guessed that. So, there's six one-room schoolhouses within that six acres… or six square miles? LV: Yep. WU: Okay, well... LV: I think I can name them! There was the Shaw [?] School, which was on the corner of 144th and Polk. Sales [?] School was on Harrison Road part way toward Walkerville. Zeder [?] School was on the corner of 128th and Tyler. May School was on 144th and Filmore. Houcks [?] School was on 128th south of Tyler and Sackurader [?] School was on 116th and Polk. WU: So which school did you have? LV: I went to Shaw [?]. It was a mile away from my house. WU: And so, you got to school, walked back and forth? LV: Walked most of the time, yep. When we was... I graduated in eighth grade from that school. The following year, they opened up the new Elbridge School. In 1957, the Elbridge School opened… WU: That consolidated… LV: ...that consolidated all six of them schools, so they had one Elbridge School… WU: Basically, across the street from you. 6 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department LV: Yeah, almost. Just kitty-corner, yeah. But I never got to go there because I come to town the year that they opened that and I never got to go to the new high school in town because our class was the last class to graduate from the old high school. WU: Well, you did the last semester. LV: No, no, I never got in there. My brother did. Garth got in there because the class of ‘62 with the first class to graduate from the new high school. WU: I'm getting you mixed up with Garth right now. LV: Yeah [laughter]. WU: Mainly because… LV: Garth was in with John. WU: Yes. And that's why I'm confused, because my brother graduated that year. Well, now when you're a kid...let's keep you in the Elbridge area for a little bit before we get you into high school. Do you remember any of the kids other than your own siblings that you hung out with and the things that you did or any stories that you care to…? LV: Well, we used to play with Jack and Lane Tate. They grew up right across the street from us and then the Amstutz boys were kind of kitty-corner across the field. Buzzy Amstutz - I’ll call him, Ken - or his name is Ken, they called him Buzzy. And then Larry Amstutz, who passed away a year or so ago. And, yeah, we would get together with them mostly and once in a while south of us were Melvin and Raymond Burmer [?]. And they were all part of our school down there, so we used to play with them once in a while. WU: Is there anything that you'd like to share, for the record, any humorous things that have happened or something? Some childhood memory that comes to mind? LV: Well, I don’t know if it’s humorous or not, but we used to go down in the woods and have BB gun fights and play cops and robbers, and we had a BB gun, you know, and lucky somebody didn't… WU: Get hurt! LV: ...get hurt. And Buzzy Amstutz had a real good arm on him. And so, there were some guineas they’re like a duck or turkey - but something like that. And so, he figured, by golly, we’ll... maybe we can get one of them, cook it up to eat it. So, he threw a rock at them, knocked it out of the tree, and so we had a little fire and cooked that guinea. [Laughter] WU: That had to be an unusual experience! LV: Just normal stuff that kids do, I guess. WU: So, you finish your elementary school and they opened the Shaw [?] one-room schoolhouse. Any special memories of teachers during your elementary years and one that really stands out in your mind? LV: We had June McClellan who was the teacher for a while and she lived just north of us. And in the wintertime, we’d walk… she'd walk to school and the roads would have too much snow on them and she'd walk to school with us, we’d all walk to school. Once you got to school, you had to build the fire, 7 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department because at that time when we were smaller, there was no fuel furnace or nothing in that area, there was a wood pot-bellied stove that you had to… it was a teacher’s job to build the fire. And there was probably fifteen kids in the whole school, all grades. And so, for the most part, there was only one person in my grade with me and some kids were in the grade all by themselves. And but, I know she... several times in the wintertime, she’d walk with us, and teachers got paid peanuts, you know, back then, dedicated to it anyway. WU: Right, and I suppose as you got older, you might even have to help build the fire... LV: Oh, yeah. Yep. WU: ...and carry the wood in. LV: We had to do that. WU: And maybe even make sure things were okay before you left the building so it wouldn’t burn down. LV: Well, that was basically the teacher's responsibility, but she would ask for somebody to help and we’d do that. WU: Okay. Now, as a kid, I'm getting you in the twelve-year-old area or so, did you work on any other farms besides your own, harvesting crops or anything like that? LV: Well, we did. When we got to be old enough that somebody could think we could pick up a bale of hay. We had some neighbors, they was...[?] was their name. The [?] neighbors, they were Barbara and Elsie, and they was there by themselves and they was farming for their brother was going to do the farming but he drowned up at School Section Lake. His name was Frankie [?]. And so, we’d go down and help them haul hay. And, you know, just a seasonal deal… two, three days a week kind of deal. We’d help them with that and then when we got a little bit older, my uncle was Keith Clark, and I can remember hauling hay for him for a month when he got sick of it because he made a lot of hay. WU: And that was a long job. LV: That was. WU: A hard job. LV: Yep, that was. And then we’d get all dirty and sweaty and then at night we'd go down to Evans Lake. There was a little spot there where you could get in there and get cooled off. It seemed to be fun, anyway. WU: Did you ever get involved in harvesting, like cherries or some of the crops? Pickles? As a kid? LV: We didn't have to harvest them ourselves. Well, we had… Dad had five acres of cherries… WU: Oh, did he? LV: ...and a couple acres of peaches. And so, as a kid, we had to pick them peaches and help… we had to thin them. And then when the cherries come around, we had to pick. WU: And that's back in the handpicking days. LV: Yep. 8 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department WU: Okay, were you able to pick... how many acres of cherries did you say? LV: He had five acres of cherries. WU: Were you able to just do that, pick that? LV: No. WU: Or did you have to bring in people? LV: He brought in people to help. WU: Okay, and the type of people that showed up? LV: Well, back then, as I recall, all the while I was growing up, my dad would grow a few pickles and the help we had were... I don't know what the right terminology is, they were colored people. WU: Alright. LV: From Arkansas. WU: Okay, so they were African-American people from Arkansas. LV: Yeah. WU: Would this be several families? LV: No, there would be maybe one family or five or six people. There was one man in particular that I know my dad had sent him a bus ticket to get him up here. And he helped because Dad grew a few potatoes, too. So, he’d help pick pickles and then he helped us when we was hauling hay. We needed somebody up in the haymow, to move it all around because it was all loose hay, and he would do that. WU: But he had no family? He just came up by himself? LV: Well, he had some friends. He had a girlfriend, I think, in Arkansas, because he could not read or write, and so at whatever age I was - ten, twelve, thirteen, somewhere in there - I would write these letters for him. He would tell me what he wanted to say and I’d write a letter and send it to the lady in Arkansas. And then when she’d write back, I’d read it to him because he couldn't read or write. In fact, there was a time there when he was probably when I first got in high school, he didn't come anymore. He was getting old. Well, prior to that, my dad worked on trying to get him social security and couldn't even prove he was born, you know, he was… WU: There was no record of him. LV: So finally, they just picked a spot and said, we think you’re so old and so they sent him a check. WU: He finally managed to get into the system. LV: Yeah, he got his Social Security. Probably never paid anything in, I don't imagine. I don't know. But no, he wasn't. He was born in Bogalusa, Louisiana - I think is what it was. They tracked that somehow or another. He was... his parents were slaves. But he was... I got along good with him, you know. WU: And apparently he was a good worker. 9 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department LV: He was a good worker. And we had an old house right across the driveway - we’ve since tore it down - from where we lived. And I know every night after supper, Ma would fix a plate of stuff and we would take it over to him. He could cook himself, but she felt sorry for him, so she’d always fix a plate. WU: Get him some home cooking so he didn’t have to do it himself. Well, that's got to be a vivid memory, especially writing a letter for a fellow. LV: Yeah, that was... I thought it was kind of neat at the time. I was probably twelve or thirteen and, not to get off on the subject, but when I was in high school - I think I might have graduated - right after I graduated high school, I made up my mind I wanted to find that guy. WU: Oh, did you? LV: So Butch [?] and I, Butch was a good friend of mine. WU: Sure. LV: So, we got in the car and went to Arkansas and like that we found him. WU: Oh, did you? LV: We found him, he was still alive. We had some addresses from… I don’ t know where I got the addresses. We followed somebody else first. And Butch, he didn't want to get out of the car, you know, because we were right downtown. Everybody was black. And so, I would start knocking on doors looking for this guy. WU: What city in Arkansas? LV: West Memphis. WU: Yeah, you're just in the state of Arkansas, but you’re in West Memphis, which is a tough area. LV: Yeah, sure. But this, of course, had been fifty years ago now. But I found him and when I asked him if he'd ever been to Michigan, he looked at me and he recognized me, you know, and I had changed a lot. WU: Sure. LV: He sat there in the chair. He sat there and he always smoked a pipe. He just wasn’t doing nothing. But we just took him a whole truckload of old clothes and I don’t know what all. So, we gave him all that stuff. And so that really made my day… WU: That’s great. LV: ...because he was...I really liked him. And I was at an age, you know, where we were friends and I helped him. He has since passed away. WU: Well, I'm going to move you into high school now. Obviously, you're still living at the farm, but now you're coming into Hart, Hart High School. And what year did you graduate from Hart, then? LV: ‘61. WU: So, you're with the class in 1961 and during high school, are there any special activities that you recall that you enjoyed or were involved in? 10 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department LV: Well, I was in the band. That was something that I was in. WU: What instrument did you play? LV: I played the trombone. WU: You were a trombone player, okay. LV: But of course, you never did any of that. Well, we took lessons, I guess, maybe a couple of years before we came to high school. But back then, because we was out there, you know, you come to high school, no money, and so I always dreamt about playing football. And so, I went out for football and, of course, I didn't know nothing about what they was doing. You know, the kids in Hart, they knew the coach. And I was just an outsider and so I didn't do very good at that. I went out for, I think, one year. And then I didn't do it anymore. WU: Okay, so you played a little football. You got involved in band. LV: Yep, band. And my senior year I ran track and I wish I had done that sooner because I kind of liked that and I could run! WU: Are we talking distances or sprints? LV: No, like the quarter mile. WU: The quarter mile. LV: Yeah, I could do all right with that. WU: Well good. And so, in high school, you graduated in 1961 and from there what was your next step? In education or work or whatever? LV: Well, I was, of course, working all the time. But I went to Michigan State, short course. Back then they had... there were just eight weeks, eight weeks in the fall, eight weeks in the wintertime - that was your short course and you do that for two years. And then you got a certificate and you could pick whatever you want. You can study horticulture or you could study pigs or you could study cattle or just all kinds of different things. I don't think they even have that program anymore. They’ve got ag. [agriculture] tech or something; it's kind of a four-year deal. So, I just took that short course. WU: Alright. So, you took the short course and were you working during that period of time? LV: Well, I was starting to farm a little bit on my own. And then summers right after I got out of high school, I had a job working in the pickle station in Shelby. Heinz had a pickle station down by the sawmill and so during pickle season, which, you know, lasted July through middle of September, I would work down there helping. We had to grate pickles and handle bushel crates of pickles and that kind of stuff, so I did that. WU: Now you graduate, you finish your short course. And what year would that have been? LV: Let me see. I think I actually took three years to do it. The first year I only took one eight-weeks in the middle of winter. The next year I took eight weeks and then the following year I took the total to finish it. So, I think it must have been sixty-three or four. 11 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department WU: Somewhere along the way you got married. LV: That was ‘65. WU: Alright, so after you finish the short course, you get married. Your wife's maiden name was? LV: Scofield. WU: Okay, and just talk about your family a little bit. You have how many children? LV: We've got four kids. WU: That's what I thought. LV: Yep. WU: Just name them. LV: Well, Lon’s the oldest one. And then Lance is the second one. Lynn is a boy - he's the third one. And then Carma’s the last one. Lon was born in ‘67, Lance in ‘68, Lynn in ‘72, and Carma in ‘74. WU: And your wife's first name is? LV: Carla. WU: And it's spelled? LV: C-a-r-l-a. WU: Okay, and she worked outside the home for a period of time, did she not? LV: Yeah, she was all about nursing. WU: That’s what I thought. LV: And she did that right out of high school. She worked over here at the Oceana hospital; most of the years that she worked was over there. And then when that closed, she worked for Mercy Hospital in Muskegon, and she worked a little bit up at Ludington, and then she did home health through the Health Department. District Ten Health Department or District Five Health Department at that time had home health. And so, she worked doing that until she retired. WU: Well, now we have you married. I'm trying to take you through this maybe ten, fifteen-year period of your life from ‘65 to ‘70… or that being, what, ‘65 to ‘80, a fifteen-year period. You became a full-time farmer eventually, is that correct? LV: Yeah. WU: And just for the historical part, help me understand: where you started it and how did it expand and what you got into, in terms of the type of crops and so forth? LV: Well, when we started, I took over what Dad had. WU: That's what I thought. 12 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department LV: And we had a little piece of asparagus, not very much. And we had five acres of cherries and he had some cattle. WU: Cattle, not cows? LV: No, they were beef cattle. And, you know, they’re something to sell for meat. And so, I expanded that a little bit. I remodeled the barn and put up a silo and I made kind of a feedlot so I could feed more cattle. And so, we did that. And then we planted more asparagus. We ended up… we planted more cherries, too. But we ended up in… I don't remember the year now, it might’ve even been up to ‘90. That cherry market wasn't any good, for several years there it wasn't any good and so we got out of that. WU: But did you do all this on the… how many acres did you...? LV: I bought one hundred twenty-eight acres from my dad. WU: Alright. So, you have one hundred twenty-eight-acre farm and all the activities are on that hundred and twenty-eight acres? LV: Well, in ‘72 I bought small crop. WU: Okay. LV: In ‘72, I bought... actually I bought one hundred sixty acres. I bought what the neighbors had across the road. They had two forties and then east of the old Shaw School. I bought what Edmond [?] used to be down there and he had seventy-nine acres and so we bought that. WU: So basically, you bought two eighties. There’s your hundred sixty and you had a hundred twentyeight or so to start with. So, with those new purchases, did any crops come with it? LV: No, there were no permanent crops on there. WU: Okay. No orchards and things of that nature? LV: No. But in about 1974, Jerry Brandel talked me into growing pickles and we had grew up growing a few pickles so it wasn’t foreign to me, I knew something about it. WU: Now, how many... did you have a couple of acres of pickles? LV: When we grew up? WU: Yeah. LV: Well, I think Dad maybe had ten acres. WU: Oh, really? LV: And then these people that came from Arkansas, they picked the pickles, too. WU: They picked the cherries and they picked the pickles. LV: And part of our job was at the end of the day, go out and gather up the pickles. And then there was a pickle station. Jack Liebovitz had a pickle station by Twin Bridges. Bob Blackmer… Abe Rafelson was 13 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department buying pickles at the Blackmer store. And at that time, Stokeley’s was even buying pickles over on Taylor Road. [?] was buying for Stokeley’s; he was buying pickles back then. WU: So, there's a good market for pickles. You decided maybe you ought to go that route. LV: Well, and then Jerry Brandel was... he had hooked himself up with Heinz with some pickles. And so, we tried that and we did that for... WU: Well, when you say tried that, give me an idea, what type of acreage did you…? LV: I think the first go around we planted twenty, twenty-five acres. WU: Alright. LV: And then, of course, you got to get help, gather up the help, you know, to pick it. So, we did that and then we... WU: Well, let's talk about that. How… where did you get your help? LV: Well, I think we got them out of the employment office or Jerry Brandel might’ve had an extra family. I'm not sure. WU: We’re talking about migrant type folks would come up? LV: Migrant type people, yep. And at that time, we did not have any housing and so we rented a [?] house right next to us. It was migrant housing. And so, we rented that from them for the pickle season. They didn't need it until later for the Christmas trees. WU: Pickle season starts about when? The picking part of it. LV: It's usually the last week of July. WU: Okay, and it runs until? LV: It runs until the middle of September, probably. WU: Okay, so you’ve got… LV: Six weeks. WU: ...five, six, seven weeks of… maybe eight. LV: Depending on the weather, yep. WU: And it's all hand harvested? LV: All hand harvested, yep. WU: And in terms of putting together pickles, obviously you need the ground that can support pickles. And the mechanics of getting a pickle crop in? Why don’t you just describe it briefly. LV: Well, you got to have a planter to plant the seed. So, you’ve got to have a planter that'll do that. And then back then, there was no chemical weed control for them. So, we had to make sure you cultivated and then we used the same migrate people to do them and hoe them, usually twice. And so that’s not a 14 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department cheap task to do that. And pickles grow pretty fast because from the time you plant them until you start harvesting them, it’s usually forty-five to fifty days. So, it happens pretty fast. But you got to, you know, depending on the year we didn't have any irrigation. So, you’ve got to depend on Mother Nature to give you the water you need. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t, so that's the way that works. But we did eventually expand as we got into the late ‘70s. In ‘78, we built our first migrant camp, and so then we had housing that we could use and so we grew more pickles. And then in ‘82, we built another building. And so now we've got housing for seventy people. And so, we expanded the pickles; at one time we had one hundred and fifty acres when we were going at it. WU: Alright, so at the peak of the pickle part of your career as a pickle farmer, so to speak, you had a hundred and fifty acres. LV: Yeah, and that was probably mid ‘80s, somewhere in there. WU: Now, during that period of time, you needed how many people to help you harvest the crop? LV: Well, we staggered our plantings when we got into it awhile so we could actually… and the seed changed so we ended up with some seed that don't last as long. So, then we started picking them maybe only five times and that would be done. And then we’d go to the next field. And so, I think the most people we ever had probably was around eighty that were picking. We housed some and then we had some that we didn't house that were coming to work. WU: Sure, and how did you get these pickers? LV: It was mostly word of mouth, you know, people that had been there. And of course, when the pickles were in their heyday, we didn't have the volume of asparagus in the area that we have now. WU: Okay. LV: And so, pickles were the crop that the migrants were waiting for and that was where they were going to make their money for the summer. That whole thing has changed now. So that was... and then back then, we gave the people half the crop and, of course, that was it. And of course, as you well know, there was a lawsuit over that kind of activity. And so now you've got to pay all of these benefits on everybody and so it's not economically feasible anymore. WU: So, basically, the rules and regulations of the IRS and government authorities pretty much put that kind of business out. LV: And there's machines now that do most of it. WU: So, you need a lot of capital to buy the machine. LV: Oh, yeah. But you don't need the physical labor to do it. And I'm not sure that the generation of people we have now would want to do… you know, that’s just terribly hard work. WU: Yeah. LV: And I don't think the generation of people we have now would buy into that. WU: So, besides pickles and some cherries, any other crops? Of course, you talked about beef already. 15 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department LV: Well, we’ve always grown corn and we grew it sometimes to sell some. And we had corn. We've pretty much always had some beef around there. WU: So, you needed hay, so I assume you had some of that. LV: We had a little bit of hay and corn. And then in the middle, I think in the ‘80s somewhere we started growing cabbage and cauliflower. And that was in conjunction with the pickles. And it kind of fit because most of the labor needs for that were after the pickles were done and we had labor and so we could harvest the cauliflower and the cabbage after that. WU: You were basically the administrator of all the farm activities. LV: Yeah. WU: And I assume you had to do a certain amount of the physical labor, too? LV: Yeah, I did. WU: What other… did any of your family follow in your footsteps and help you with the...? LV: Well, while our kids were growing up, they all helped. That was part of living there and that's what you do. And they all picked asparagus. Our daughter was not very happy about doing that, but she did. And then, a few years there when we didn't have many cherries, but we had equipment to harvest them and then we did some custom harvesting. And so, the boys all helped. WU: So, this would be you and the boys would go out and…? LV: Well, we had to hire some people besides, but me and the boys could run the machinery and it took some, you know, some labor. We had a harvester - you had to put a tarp out under a tree and somebody had to do that. So, we did that for a few years and then we… WU: So, that’s custom harvesting, basically. LV: Yep, we did that. WU: Would you do that just in Oceana County or did you go outside the county? LV: No, pretty much Oceana County. We went up to Ludington once and did some, but no, we didn’t get any farther away than that. Some guys did. Some guys used to go all over the place. But now we… well, we had as soon as the cherries got down, we had the pickles and sometimes they overlapped. And I know there was a couple times that we were shaking cherries and they were picking pickles at the same time and we had to go after the shaken cherries. We had to go and gather up all the pickles and do something with them. WU: This is sort of an open-ended question, but what are some of the best things about being a farmer? If you had to talk about some of the positive things about being a farmer, what would you say? LV: Well, I think the one that comes up first is that you’re kind of your own boss, the lifestyle of just being outside and out and about - that's attractive to some. I think being your own boss, I guess, you can go and come as you please and you can watch whatever you do, make that you’re growing something and you get self-satisfaction that “hey look here, this is what I did and now it's working.” And of course, the contrary, if it didn't work, so you're trying to sort out why it didn't work. But that's probably that and 16 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department it's an awful good place to raise kids. And I know that even any people looking for help, if the kid shows up there and says they've been on a farm, he’ll get the job before somebody else does just because they learn how to work by being there. WU: The work ethic that you're able to pass on to your… LV: Well, and I can have a twelve or thirteen-year-old do something for me. Nobody else can hire anybody that age. You’ve got to be family or you can't do it. So, there's knowledge, responsibility, and all kinds of stuff that you learn when you're able to start doing that. If you've got to wait till you're eighteen before you can do that, you know, that's tough. Some of the mold has already been made. [Laughter] WU: Well, that's an interesting comment. And it says a lot about our culture of today and how we got there. LV: Oh, yeah. WU: Well, being a farmer, bring me up to date with your activities now. Have you sold off some of this acreage or are you still quite active? LV: We aren’t growing pickles anymore. All we have now is we're concentrating more on asparagus. WU: How many acres of asparagus? LV: We've got about a hundred and twenty-five acres of asparagus. WU: Okay. LV: We've got about thirty acres right where I live that we're going to replant. We took it out here a couple of years ago. And so, our goal is to hover around a hundred and fifty if we can get there. WU: So that's your goal, to have all one hundred and fifty acres of asparagus. LV: Four years ago, we formed an LLC with my son, Lance. WU: Okay, so you and your son. LV: And so, that started out me eighty percent, him twenty. Every year, we're changing that, so this particular year we're fifty/fifty. Next year, he’ll be fifty-one, I'll be forty-nine, and that's the way it will continue. WU: So, he eventually is going to end up owning it. LV: Yeah, he's working into it, except for my wife and I still own all the property. WU: Okay. LV: The LLC just owns the equivalent. WU: It’s sort of the operating company… LV: ...operating entity. WU: And so, you can still charge rent to the operating entity to get...to keep... 17 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department LV: So, I can generate some revenue because in the type of work that I've done all my life, the part that's missing is a big pot of retirement funds. And quite often in agriculture, that happens unless you once in a while - another plus to being farmers - once in a while, maybe once in your lifetime or twice, it'll hit and you'll have something that'll be worth something. WU: Yeah. You're talking oil or gas? LV: Well or even a crop of cherries. A lot of guys around have had a crop of cherries and they was worth something and it kind of yield them up. And asparagus has done that for some people, too. And of course, you've got to be sharp enough to know it when it happens and not squander it all. Anyway, so I don't have much of a retirement package, so I need to generate some rent off the land or do something, you know, so I can. WU: But your comments are very typical of a lot of growers and farmers in our area. LV: Yeah, I’d have a good retirement package if I sold out. WU: Well yeah - you’re land rich. LV: Yeah, if I sold out I... you know, I'd be good. But then my son wants the farm and of course he can't afford to pay what I could get for it if I sold it to somebody else. WU: Sure. That’s the way it is. LV: That’s just the way it is. WU: And so, the only way they are able to keep the farm going is to work out a program like you have with your son. So, encourage them to get involved and then eventually they'll be taking your place. LV: Yeah, that's kind of what the idea is. WU: Well, maybe this is too personal, but I'll throw it out anyway. What do you like to do to relax? Are there any special activities? LV: You know, that's another weak point for me. You know, I don't really have any hobbies. And I guess the part that I've done for several years - it's relaxing to me - is I participated in community. I was on the School Board for twenty years. That kind of gets your thought process to be on to something else. I was a County Commissioner for sixteen years; I really enjoyed that. That kind of gets your mind doing something different than what you've been doing. But I don't golf, I don’t… WU: You’re not a hunter necessarily or a fisherman? LV: Are you wondering, as kids we used to do that stuff, but no, I could fish, I suppose. WU: But it isn't anything on your bucket list necessarily to do. LV: No, uh uh. WU: As a farmer, I don’t know if you're able to do much traveling? LV: Well, we don't. What we've done here for I think three or four years now is I've got two brothers and so we try and spend a week or two together every summer and do something. A couple of years ago we went to Branson, spent a week in Branson. And last year we went down to Nashville and spent a week 18 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department down there. And so that's kind of enjoyable to do that. But I'm not… we have a cabin up across the straits that my dad and his brother built way back in the late ‘50s. And of course, both of them are gone and so it's the next generation that has ownership of it. And so, it's our family and my dad’s brother's family are the owners of the cabin. And my brother Norman keeps track of the cabin as to who is going when. And so, you know, once a year we try to go up there. WU: What's it nearby? What town is it nearby? LV: It's about twenty miles west of St. Ignes, little town of Brevort. WU: What’s the name of it? LV: Brevort. It's just a little bitty town. If you know where the Cut River Bridge is on US-2, it's back east of that. WU: Okay. LV: It’s right out in the woods. My dad used to go up there hunting when he was young and his brother did, too. And so, they bought an acre. And in 1957, ‘58, they built a little cabin. And for several years it didn't even have inside plumbing or bathroom, had an outside thing. And so, they fixed it up now so that it's more convenient. And so that's kind of fun to go up there and used to be the place to go and the phone wouldn’t ring while you’re there. Well, now these darn cell phones! [Laughter] WU: I know it. You can't have the peace and quiet you used to be able to enjoy. Well, from your perspective: farming has changed a lot during your lifetime. LV: Oh yeah, for sure. WU: And how would you describe the changes? What have you seen that's different in farming today than what it was when you were eighteen years old and twenty years old? LV: Well, the onset of electronics. You know, computers and cell phones and all that stuff. And then a lot of farmers are hooked up on... they’re doing GPS mapping of their fields. So, you can… if you got one spot that needs something extra, you can treat it that way; there's all of the suppliers of farm chemicals and fertilizer have people that are capable of coming to do that for you. And then you've got to have specialized equipment to buy fertilizer and it'll only apply it where you need it. It won't apply it... so everything's all GPS soaked in. So that's the technology that has really changed. The public's demands for where their food comes from has changed. Because we take fresh asparagus to Todd Greiner [?] to pack, he sells it to Meijer, Wal-Mart, wherever it goes. And so, then buyers require what we call a gap audit, generally accepted practices from a third party that have to come in and perform an audit. And they look at everything that we do, how we manage the land, how we manage manure, how we deal with our water and just what the source of the water is. And we have to have the water analyzed to make sure it's fit for what we're using it on and how we handle our chemicals and make sure that we don't put down more fertilizer than we need, make sure we're testing and doing all that stuff. And then every field has to be named, numbered, or something for traceability. So, if I take some asparagus down to Todd Greiner [?], he ships it to Walmart in Ohio someplace, and then if somebody gets something bad, they can track it right back to my place or anybody else. And so that's the public demands for stuff. And that's not all done yet. There’s more sophisticated audits and 19 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department then a voluntary deal that we do as Michigan Environmental Assurance Program, which they call MEAP, that we go through an audit by somebody from the conservation district. They'll come out and then we get a sign to put it in the front yard that says we’re MEAP verified, which tells everybody that, yes, we're paying attention... WU: ...to all these details and regulations. LV: All these details and all these regulations we’re abiding by them. And when I first started doing any of that, you know, I was more of a person that kept stuff in my head and you can't do that anymore. Everything is you’ve got to document, document, document and for the gap certification that we have, we've got a manual that's about that thick. We bought the manual from somebody that knew how to put one together, because when this first came about, wow, what are we going to do here? And so, we bought one from a guy that does auditing and you’ve got policies for everything that happens. There's a policy if somebody cuts their finger, there's a policy in there as to how you deal with it. And if you're out in an asparagus patch and you come up to where a deer has been out there and defecated, you've got a… there's a policy as to what you do with that. WU: That’s amazing, okay. LV: And so that's how more complicated it is now than what it used to be, because they're so concerned about E. coli, salmonella, all of these kinds of things. And I think, it's just my thought that, you know, the kids are being raised too clean. You know, we were raised playing out in the dirt and we’d have a sandwich - we never washed our hands - we were playing in the barnyard. We're doing all that stuff. And so, I think we built some immunities. WU: Okay. LV: I don't think people are building immunities now because they're… they won't let their system have a chance. WU: They’re too sanitized. LV: Too sanitized, I think. And so, the minute that something comes along that can cause them a problem, it does. And more so than when we were growing up. WU: That's an interesting observation. LV: But I may not be right. WU: Yeah. LV: But it just seems like, you know, every place you go, there's a sanitizer, you know, to keep you clean. But anyway, its consumer driven. Most everything that farmers do now is consumer driven. Animal rights people, they're all around, you know, where they’re growing these confined chickens in a cage. Well, the animal rights people got a hold of that and now they've got to redo it and make the cages bigger because the chickens are too crowded. And yeah, there's a lot of regulations and concerns that show up that are... I don't know if they're in the best interest of anybody. WU: Well, the technology and the social media out there is just a different world. LV: Yep. 20 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department WU: And so, you know what's going on in all these different states and places through that medium. LV: Oh yeah. WU: Well, I want to wrap this up in just a few minutes, but you have... do you belong to any organizations that speak for farmers? LV: I belong to the Farm Bureau. WU: So, Farm Bureau is... LV: That's the only one that I… WU: ...that you belong to at least and you work with them or that represent agriculture. And of course, you've already talked about that you’ve been a County Commissioner, you've been involved in a lot of community affairs; as a result, you’re on all kinds of subcommittees and task forces. And I applaud you for all that activity. When someone listens to this tape or reads the transcript that eventually will be made of this twenty-five, thirty years from now. What would you most like them to know about your life and our community right now? So, anything special? LV: You know, I've always had trouble with goals. You know, setting something, and then when you get… and working towards it and then happy, happy, happy when you get there. And I guess maybe I'm not that good of a visionary to know where that ought to be. I kind of stumble through as I go. So, I don't know. I probably if I was to go through life again, I might do some things different. You know, you're always... hindsight is always twenty/twenty, but I'm pretty happy with what I've done. I'm proud of myself for my participation and the activities that I've participated in, the community service. And I'm confident that I've done a good job of it. But I guess history will have to determine whether that was correct or not. WU: Well, you've played a big role in the history of this community, and I'm sure it's well documented through our local papers and in all other types of public publications, so to speak. Is there anything that you would like to say, the part of this interview that I may not have even asked you about? Was there anything special you'd like to say? LV: I think you've pretty much covered, you know, our family history and what we've done as a farm. I think that's... I can't think of anything that you haven't covered. WU: Well, thank you for your time, Larry, and for sharing your memories with me. And this concludes our interview. Thank you very much. 21 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a03819dca95f2477d8104b8e1e8f823b.mp3 db5486b30c6b4ed1911836bdd8fdea5b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shell-Weiss, Melanie Description An account of the resource Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Oceana County (Mich.) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf image/jpeg audio/mp3 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Image Sound recording Language A language of the resource eng spa Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Oceana County (Mich.) Hart (Mich.) Shelby (Mich.) Farms Farmers Migrant agricultural laborers Hispanic Americans Account books Diaries Oral history Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06_VanSickle_Larry Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource VanSickle, Larry Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-06-18 Title A name given to the resource VanSickle, Larry (audio interview and transcript) Description An account of the resource Oral history interview with Lawrence (Larry) VanSickle. Interviewed by Walter Urick on June 18, 2016 in Hart, Michigan. English language. Larry VanSickle was born in Hart, Michigan in 1943 and grew up on a one hundred and twenty acre farm located on East Polk Road, which he later purchased from his father upon getting married in 1965. His family is of Pennsylvania Dutch heritage and each of the generations were involved with agriculture. Larry graduated from Hart High School in 1961 and then attended Michigan State University. After marrying his wife in 1965, he became a full-time farmer by taking over his father’s farm, and later focused on farming his one hundred and twenty-five acres of asparagus that will one day be taken over by his son. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Urick, Walter (interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oceana County (Mich.) Hart (Mich.) Farms Farmers Dairy farmers Pennsylvania Dutch Michigan State University Audio recordings Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/96936028d896e99a5f4fefb022ba2aa8.mp4 57e6aa0252839b10febe5cef0bfcf3b7 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5e26910a49cd306c7ff98141956ece71.pdf be0d8b7a25011e81f4ac4f2eb8d844cf PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Notes Length: 1:00:41 Ben VanSlooten WWII Veteran United States Army; May 13, 1943 – October 30, 1946 Transportation (0:20) Reaction to Nazi Party coming to power • United States seemed to think that it was Europe’s problem • Discussion of history of the rise of the Nazi Party (1:08) United States opinion of war • U.S. wanted no part in war; felt it was Europe’s problem • After invasions took place in Europe, there was a peace time draft (1:50) Pearl Harbor • Shocked the US • Surprised that someone dared to attack us • Afterward, there was concern that Japan might attack the west coast o West coast = poorly defended (3:08) Home Front • Most factories began producing wartime materials like landing crafts, airplanes, etc. • Women entered the work force o Rosie the Riveter • Rations • Increasing number of people drafted • U.S. O. came into being and provided entertainment • Schools sold war stamps for $18.25 which could become a $25 bond at maturity • ROTC • People were careful not to say anything that would aid the enemy o Posters with the slogan “Loose Lips Sink Ships!” (4:54) VanSlooten’s wartime experience • His dad was a farmer • People took rationing very seriously; some items were scarce o Sugar, gas, clothing • After high school, worked for a sub-contractor of Cessna Aircrafts making glider planes • When turned 18, he was drafted o Drafted December 19 • Before being drafted, he and his friends would look for metal to melt down for the war (scrap metal) (6:20) Before the Service • Worked part time for a trucking company • Defense plant �• Because worked at a plant helping war effort, VanSlooten was offered deferment from draft status • All his friends were in the military and so decided to go into the Army instead (7:04) Basic training • Armory in Grand Rapids where took a bus to Holland, MI where boarded train to Kalamazoo then Camp Grant in Illinois for uniforms, shots, and tests • Went to a camp in Pennsylvania where assigned to battalions o 4 companies – A, B, C, D • VanSlooten was only one from group to be assigned to Company C o Lonely at first o Youngest man in Company • After 3 months was given leave before shipped overseas • No travel on planes, just buses and trains which were crowded o Even though crowded, servicemen were often sent to the front of the line! o Seemed that everyone tried their best to do nice for the soldiers (9:10) To Europe • 10 days crossing the North Atlantic • Got very seasick • Arrived in Scotland o Had to have small boats ferry soldiers to shore because the docks were not made to hold the big ships • Watched Queen Elizabeth or Queen Mary sail in (9:55) Introduction to war • Air raids and barrage balloons • D-Day o Floating unloading docks o Bombers o Troop carrier planes carrying paratroopers to land behind the fortifications o Omaha Beach was met with terrible resistance; horrendous number of casualties o Utah Beach was successful; troops pushed through the first day (11:08)German v. US production • US in a better situation • Germans had many factories bombed and also used up many men and supplies on the Russian Front (11:18) Ernie Pyle • War correspondent • “lived” with the troops during the war and wrote about his experiences • Wrote: o “This is Your Way” o “Final Chapter” o “Brave Men” ƒ The book’s dedication reads: “In a solemn salute to those thousands of our comrades, brave, brave men that they were, for whom there will be no homecoming ever.” �(12:56) D-Day • VanSlooten was in Foy, England – near Plymouth, England • Half of Company left the day before but bad seas so came back • VanSlooten’s company became the first American ship to sail into port at Antwerp, Belgium • To get there, a British minesweeper sailed first • When arrived, there were many reporters and photographers (14:06) Invasion of Holland • Became a re-supply outfit • Loaded gliders to go to England to drop supplies • Military operation in Netherlands o British man, Montgomery, called it “Market Basket” (Market Garden) o 90% successful (16:07) Belgium • Unloaded ships and moved cargo to trucks that went to supply the front lines • Red Ball Express o First priority trucks o Front license plates had a red ball o When came through, everyone else got out of the way so could pick up gas or whatever else they needed • Friend in outfit from New York o Never drove before in a big 6 by 6 Army truck o Hard to keep up with convoy o One day, completely demolished a vegetable stand by the side of the road o VanSlooten’s friend never made it home (17:48) Locations throughout WWII • Overseas about 2 ½ years • Base in England with 29th infantry division (the division that hit Omaha and had terrible casualties) • Flew in planes and would kick supplies and aid out of the C-47s (19:00) Battle of the Bulge • Was in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge • The weather had been so hazy that when the weather lifted, everybody felt huge relief because the fighter planes and bombers could help the soldiers in the trenches out. • Everybody in his company was given rifles and started to set up defensive lines • Lucky because the Germans never got that far • Story o Heard that some guys who played in an Army band (who had probably never held a rifle in their life) were given rifles and told to “fall in”. (21:25) Reaction of the Belgium people to the US entry into Belgium • Belgium people were very friendly • There were American barracks and German barracks; US kicked Germans out and interesting because on the wall in the German barracks, there were murals showing clean shaven German soldiers shooting down scraggily American troops �• Some Belgium people were probably sympathetic to the Germans but did not admit it. • Seemed like the girls were most sympathetic to the Germans • When the Germans left, the girls who showed sympathies to the Germans were shunned • Dangerous on the streets o One girl went out for something at night and did not come back o The German army snatched her up and put her in a work camp o Her parents had no idea where she was (26:04) War over • Elated feeling, victorious, no more killings, could go home! o Able to go home about 5 months after the war ended • To kill time, they would play baseball, basketball, football, used to referee for basketball games (28:00) Other duties while in war • Clerical work o Morning reports o When guys were missing, would document o Condolence letters o Take care of some of the sick leave guys • Writing so many condolence letters was hard • If had enough time to think about the people receiving the letters, it was rough • You got used to writing the letters but not hardened to it (33:34) Interactions with soldiers from other countries • Chow lines in Belgium o Everyone had mess kits o You would go through the chow lines and put all food in pail o Lots of Belgium civilians would be at the end of the line where would clean out pails o Soldiers would try to leave a little extra food in their pails so that the Belgium people would get some food • France o On a rest leave in Paris, Allied troops were served lots of dry wine not sweet wine; everyone was trying to get sweet wine o A soldier rattled off some words in French and soon everyone was served sweet wine o VanSlooten turned around and saw that the guy who rattled off the French was from North Africa with a huge scar across his face and neck with yellowish teeth…all he remembers thinking is that he was glad that guy was on his side! (36:21) Reunion • First time in house, it felt so small • GI Bill • Great to see those who made it home • Not too many people he knew from home were killed �(40:50) Companies • He was in Company C o Company B also went to Europe o Company A and B went to the Pacific (41:53) Combat • Didn’t fight in hand-to-hand combat but saw a lot of bombing • Germans had jet planes by the end of the war • Planes went so fast that would often miss their targets! (41:59) Stories from the war • Not personally involved in hand to hand combat • Talked to a sergeant from the 29th infantry (Omaha Beach) o Combat was horrific o Germans would wait with machine guns and just slaughter the soldiers coming in on gliders o Some units suffered 100% casualties (43:50) Tanks • On D-Day for landing, the tanks had huge inner-tubes around them so that they could “float” to shore • No one made it • Credit to all the troops because all drove right off of ship into certain death (44:31) First air raid • In Plymouth, England • VanSlooten was in the orderly room at night • CODE PURPLE, which meant hit the air raid shelters or trenches right now! • VanSlooten was a Battalion Runner o Run messages to camp headquarters o Always would have steel helmet and gas mask in cabinet o Shared room with supply sergeant who was very jumpy – always kept his helmet and gas mask on his bed • When got back, found gas mask and helmet gone, his roommate’s had taken VanSlooten’s and forgot his own on his bed • When VanSlooten saw his roommate, it was so funny because the helmet didn’t fit him – it was down to his shoulders (48:48) Procedure with air raids • Go to shelters or trenches or underground shelters (51:54) What war taught • Marveled at the sacrifices patriots made • Unfortunately, keeping the peace in not a unilateral decision (53:04) Kamikaze • Had a good friend who was on a pocket carrier • Came under kamikaze attack • Friend survived (55:23) England • VanSlooten was around a big Navy instillation • He was offered a place to shower, to eat steak with them, and to watch a movie �• • o Was really well taken care of VanSlooten was curious why he was being treated so well The guy said he was at Normandy the day after D-Day and anything he could do for a soldier, he will. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context VanSlootenB Title A name given to the resource VanSlooten, Ben (Interview outline and video), 2006 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource VanSlooten, Ben Description An account of the resource Ben VanSlooten served in the United States Army during WW II from May 13, 1943 to October 30, 1946 in the European Theater. VanSlooten discusses life on the home front, his time in basic training, D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, Operation "Market Basket" (Market Garden), interactions with soldiers from other countries, and his first air raid. He talks about the chow lines in Belgium, a restaurant in France, acts of kindness in England, and the Red Ball Express in Belgium. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Howard, Scott (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2006-05-31 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f6d02d99e9f4692941e445b44e0614e9.m4v cac2ab412b6886d05bd5eaa6fc4cac0a https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/52fe63931afc124af9f035b10b35a89b.pdf e4ef817c66431542746efa3330b50cda PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans' History Project Gene Van Zee Cold War (Korean War Era-Post Korean War Era) 46 minutes 46 seconds (00:00:38) Early Life -Born in Pella, Iowa on April 1, 1929 -Grew up there -Attended Pella High School -Father was a farmer -Gene grew up on the farm -He didn't want to grow up to be a farmer -Farm was close to town -Good place to grow up -Family did pretty well during the Great Depression -Raised pigs which helped -Meant they didn't have to spend money on manure for the crops -Didn't have to spend money on feed for the pigs -Never felt like they were poor or had financial problems (00:02:27) World War II -Listened to the radio on December 7, 1941 and heard that Pearl Harbor had been bombed -Didn't understand the implications of the attack -Knew by people's reactions that the attack was serious -Went to church in the evenings on Sunday -Remembers the pastor weeping openly talking about the attack -A lot of men enlisted in the days after the attack -Uncle was drafted -Cousin enlisted in the Army -Served as an engineer and fought at Pointe du Hoc on D-Day -Had scrap metal drives and war bond drives -Farm wasn't affected by rationing -Given extra gas for farming -Kept Victory Gardens and his mother canned a lot of food -Once he entered high school he considered the possibility that he would have to serve -Still seemed unlikely though because by that time the war was nearing its end (00:05:12) Medical School -Graduated from high school in 1947 -Went to Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan -Became interested in medicine through an advanced chemistry course -Not worried about the draft while in college -Korean War broke out in June 1950 -Pre-medical and pre-ministerial students were exempt from getting drafted -In junior year of college he applied for Medical School �-Got accepted into the University of Iowa -Told parents and his father said he'd never make it through medical school -After four years of Medical School he graduated -At the end of Medical School had to do two years of service in a foreign country or on a ship (00:10:07) Enlisting in the Navy -Joined the Navy Reserve to do his two years of compulsory service -Didn't know how to swim -Felt it would be better than being in the infantry (00:10:45) Stationed at Naval Hospital Pensacola -Processed and sent to Naval Hospital Pensacola at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida -It was an excellent place -Not confined to any particular specialty -Got a lot of medical experience -Navy training consisted of only one afternoon of training -Went into a parking lot with a Marine sergeant and marched around for an hour -Didn't receive any introductory Navy training either -Lived off-base with his wife in Pensacola -Rented a house for $100 a month -Wife spent her time taking care of the house and their daughter when she was born -Pensacola was a major hub for Navy aviation -Headquarters for Navy Pre-Flight Training -Location of the Aviation School of Medicine -Served the fleet -Had Primary and Secondary Flight Training Schools -Took care of Navy personnel and the family members of personnel -Performed 250 deliveries of babies in his first year there -Watched deliveries, then performed them, then taught how to oversee deliveries -Hospital staff worked twenty four hours a day, seven days a week -Had every other day off, then every other weekend off -The hospital served as a community hospital for the base -Treated personnel and their family members -Took care of emergencies -Dealt with casualties from training accidents -Men crashed trying to do carrier landings -Spent a year at Pensacola (00:17:06) Assignment to Japan -Given the option to leave the Navy at the end of that year, but he decided to stay in another year -Requested Italy or Hawaii as assignments -Instead, he got assigned to Japan -Wife and daughter were allowed to go with him -The move to Japan felt informal and natural which made the transition more comfortable -Drove to Pella to see his parents, then Toronto to visit his wife's family �-Reported to San Francisco to wait for a flight to Japan -Quartered in a nice hotel -Given three months to get to Japan and get established -Five days after arriving in San Francisco they boarded a plane for Japan -Flew to Honolulu, Hawaii then Wake Island then Tokyo, Japan (00:19:34) Stationed at Naval Air Station Atsugi Pt. 1 -Assigned to Naval Air Station Atsugi near Yokohama -Best naval air station overseas at the time -General MacArthur had been there to accept Japan's surrender -Had originally been used as a kamikaze base -In the mornings he took care of personnel on sick leave -In the afternoons he took care of the family members of personnel -It was effectively a family practice -Did that work for two years -Worked in a Japanese medical facility -Excellent facility and able to care for his patients well -Had a lot of barracks on the base -It was a support base for the 7th Fleet -Meant there was constant activity on the base -Planes flying in and out of the base transporting people and supplies -Chose to live off-base among the Japanese people -Lived in one of the villages near the base -First house was basic, but comfortable -No indoor plumbing, relied on kerosene lamps, and had no telephone -Had a live-in maid -Second house was a missionary's house -Modern house, finest house in the whole village -Had a garage and a yard -Allowed to transport their car from the U.S. to Japan -Took six weeks for the car to get there -Roads were unpaved and narrow (00:24:23) Evidence of the War Pt. 1 -A lot of damage from the war was still present -Japanese had cleaned up most of the rubble, but the infrastructure needed work (00:25:02) Contact with the Japanese -Treated with respect by the Japanese civilians -Got to learn some of the language -Never felt in danger in Japan -Sometimes they even left their door unlocked at night (00:26:44) Evidence of the War Pt. 2 -There was still some damage in Yokohama -Japanese were tearing down damaged buildings and clearing away the rubble -Main focus was on rebuilding roads and bridges -In his two years in Japan he saw a lot of progress in rebuilding the country (00:27:36) Travel Pt. 1 �-Drove somewhere with his wife almost every weekend -Saw Mt. Fuji -Explored the Japanese countryside -Visited the beach resorts -Visited Tokyo -Part of the city still needed repair, but downtown was in good shape (00:28:50) Stationed at Naval Air Station Atsugi Pt. 2 -For the most part, it felt like having a civilian medical practice rather than a military assignment -Service clubs did a lot for the wives of the servicemen -His second daughter was born in Japan -It was a great assignment -Two years of freedom and not a lot of extra responsibility -Usually only in called in to work once a week when he wasn't scheduled -In the U.S. it was multiple times a week at any time (00:30:14) Travel Pt. 2 -He got to see Hong Kong -Pilots needed flight time each month, so he caught a ride to Hong Kong with them -En route got to spend a night on Okinawa -Got to see the Philippines -Went to Baguio for a medical conference -Got to see Kyoto (00:31:29) Fellow Servicemen -All of the personnel he encountered were committed to their duty -Many of the men were career sailors -Personnel stationed in Japan knew it was far better than duty in Korea or aboard a ship -Never saw any segregation -Even had some black doctors in his group -Got to know a lot of people from a lot of different places in the U.S. -He never witnessed any racism -Some American servicemen married Japanese women (00:34:50) Prostitution -Had to do a lot of venereal disease control -After a while he was an expert at dealing with the diseases and controlling outbreaks -There were, effectively, U.S. government protected and military subsidized brothels near bases -This meant that one of his duties was to make sure the girls were healthy -One of the biggest problems was when soldiers came back from Tokyo or Yokohama -They came back with a disease then unwittingly spread it to the brothels -Then Gene would have to figure out which girls the soldier had slept with -This was to a) treat the girls quickly and b)contain any outbreaks -Had to deal with penicillin-resistant gonorrhea -Wrote an article about it, but got ignored by every major medical magazine -Thought the idea of antibiotic-resistant bacteria was absurd �(00:37:13) End of Service -Navy had some programs to encourage him and the other doctors to reenlist -Had no interest in making a career out of the Navy -Offered a promotion to lieutenant commander, but he wasn't interested -Enjoyed his time in Japan, was treated well and paid well by the Navy, but wanted out -When he had been at Pensacola he had been encouraged to reenlist as a flight surgeon -Had no interest in doing that -Remembers going out on the Gulf of Mexico on a carrier to watch planes land -One plane missed the carrier, crashed, and sank in the ocean -Terrible thing to see, but didn't influence his decision not to be a flight surgeon -Discharged from the Navy in 1958 (00:40:40) Life after the Service -Waited for car to get back from Japan then began looking for a place to practice -Spent two weeks in San Francisco -Decided to set aside three months to look for a place to practice -Looked in British Columbia because his father-in-law was working as a pastor there -Knew a clinic in Denver, Colorado was looking for a doctor -Pella, Iowa desperately needed a doctor, but his wife didn't want to live there -Looked in Raymond, Minnesota -Looked into a Dutch community in Wisconsin -Tried Coatesville, Pennsylvania -Didn't seem too promising though -Tried Goshen, New York -Wound up settling on Pella, Iowa because the town needed a doctor and there was family there -Lived and worked there for 42 years -Had three daughters -All three daughters also went to Calvin College -One daughter married a man in Jenison, Michigan -One daughter married a man in Chicago -One daughter married a man in Arizona -Gene and his wife wanted to be closer to their daughters -Decided the best place to move would be Grand Rapids, Michigan -Bought a condo -Feels that it was a good move -Able to be close to daughters in Jenison and Chicago -Now, all three daughters have vacation homes in Michigan -Had nine grandchildren and eight out of those nine grandchildren went to Calvin as well (00:45:20) Reflections on Service -Showed him what the world is really like -Gave him a better perspective on diversity and culture -Instilled in him and his wife a love for travel -Made him a more worldly person �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_VanZeeG1741V Title A name given to the resource VanZee, Gene (Interview outline and video), 2015 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-04-09 Description An account of the resource Gene Van Zee was born on April 1, 1929 in Pella, Iowa. He graduated from high school in 1947 and went to Calvin College for pre-medical school then went to the University of Iowa for medical school. He enlisted in the Navy Reserves and was stationed at Naval Hospital Pensacola, Florida taking care of personnel and the family members of those personnel. After a year at Pensacola he reenlisted and was assigned to Naval Air Station Atsugi near Yokohama, Japan. He treated American personnel there and their family members then returned to the United States and was discharged in 1958. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource VanZee, Gene Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) WKTV (Wyoming, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American United States. Navy Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/x-m4v application/pdf https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6fc9b10ffced3c69bf75e3ab1cdf4abe.jpg d925e9185e54d7eaef9def6c1136e79c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shell-Weiss, Melanie Description An account of the resource Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Oceana County (Mich.) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf image/jpeg audio/mp3 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Image Sound recording Language A language of the resource eng spa Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Oceana County (Mich.) Hart (Mich.) Shelby (Mich.) Farms Farmers Migrant agricultural laborers Hispanic Americans Account books Diaries Oral history Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06_Oceana_Vasquez-Fidencio-001 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vasquez family Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Unknown Title A name given to the resource Lupe Vasquez and her godmother Description An account of the resource Photo of Fidencio Vasquez, Jr.'s mother, Lupe Vasquez (left), with her godmother. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Vasquez, Fidencio Jr. Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage Project) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Subject The topic of the resource Hispanic American women Migrant agricultural laborers United States Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/36a73aa747d64c988974b8b59a4956ea.jpg 619aaf7e7516a885585b5b245e790958 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shell-Weiss, Melanie Description An account of the resource Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Oceana County (Mich.) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf image/jpeg audio/mp3 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Image Sound recording Language A language of the resource eng spa Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Oceana County (Mich.) Hart (Mich.) Shelby (Mich.) Farms Farmers Migrant agricultural laborers Hispanic Americans Account books Diaries Oral history Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06_Oceana_Vasquez-Fidencio-002 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vasquez family Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1947 Title A name given to the resource Fidencio and Lupe Vasquez on their wedding day, 1947 Description An account of the resource Photo of Fidencio and Lupe Vasquez on their wedding day. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Vasquez, Fidencio Jr. Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage Project) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Subject The topic of the resource Hispanic Americans Weddings Migrant agricultural laborers United States Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c3393e1284ff098d673f70fee4da5261.jpg c4239d2b75a8ee3479a47604fa2c3618 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shell-Weiss, Melanie Description An account of the resource Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Oceana County (Mich.) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf image/jpeg audio/mp3 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Image Sound recording Language A language of the resource eng spa Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Oceana County (Mich.) Hart (Mich.) Shelby (Mich.) Farms Farmers Migrant agricultural laborers Hispanic Americans Account books Diaries Oral history Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06_Oceana_Vasquez-Fidencio-003 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vasquez family Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Title A name given to the resource Vasquez family trip to Mexico, 1971 Description An account of the resource Photo of Vasquez family trip to Mexico. Pictured are Fidencio, Jr. with his two brothers, sister, parents (Fidencio and Lupe Vasquez), and a cousin. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Vasquez, Fidencio Jr. Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage Project) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Subject The topic of the resource Mexico Hispanic Americans Family vacations Migrant agricultural laborers United States Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8e1a2c364e3f36d4a8fa6c6dec7f15c8.jpg a00dd76a84e6880a3e2a90a20df30166 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/aacd6aeebfdd1ee1a07c164627278ee4.jpg 7399b1409de17212b4a60af93cbd5688 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shell-Weiss, Melanie Description An account of the resource Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Oceana County (Mich.) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf image/jpeg audio/mp3 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Image Sound recording Language A language of the resource eng spa Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Oceana County (Mich.) Hart (Mich.) Shelby (Mich.) Farms Farmers Migrant agricultural laborers Hispanic Americans Account books Diaries Oral history Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06_Oceana_Vasquez-Fidencio-004 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vasquez family Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1947 Title A name given to the resource Fidencio and Lupe Vasquez on their wedding day, 1947 Description An account of the resource Photo of Fidencio and Lupe Vasquez on their wedding day. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Vasquez, Fidencio Jr. Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage Project) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Subject The topic of the resource Hispanic Americans Weddings Migrant agricultural laborers United States Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/dc7c1d72928b610cb1052f67aa087749.jpg 76146058e34327147709e05a86ef59f3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shell-Weiss, Melanie Description An account of the resource Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Oceana County (Mich.) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf image/jpeg audio/mp3 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Image Sound recording Language A language of the resource eng spa Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Oceana County (Mich.) Hart (Mich.) Shelby (Mich.) Farms Farmers Migrant agricultural laborers Hispanic Americans Account books Diaries Oral history Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06_Oceana_Vasquez-Fidencio-006 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vasquez family Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978 Title A name given to the resource Grafting plants, 1978 Description An account of the resource Photo of Lupe Vasquez (left) and a relative working to graft plants at Willow Drive Nursery, Ephrata, Washington. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Vasquez, Fidencio Jr. Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage Project) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Subject The topic of the resource Ephrata (Wash.) Farms Farmers Migrant agricultural laborers Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/90c67b6ecaedb8ee2e14d48acd77713e.jpg a9c5989e71f7525aa5a3fcafe662fb77 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shell-Weiss, Melanie Description An account of the resource Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Oceana County (Mich.) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf image/jpeg audio/mp3 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Image Sound recording Language A language of the resource eng spa Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Oceana County (Mich.) Hart (Mich.) Shelby (Mich.) Farms Farmers Migrant agricultural laborers Hispanic Americans Account books Diaries Oral history Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06_Oceana_Vasquez-Fidencio-007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vasquez family Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1947 Title A name given to the resource Fidencio and Lupe Vasquez on their wedding day, 1947 Description An account of the resource Photo of Fidencio and Lupe Vasquez on their wedding day. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Vasquez, Fidencio Jr. Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage Project) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Subject The topic of the resource Hispanic Americans Weddings Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c83ace746523bd36941709bd6b4f7f38.jpg 66150cbc5980acaf6c80823c7971c410 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shell-Weiss, Melanie Description An account of the resource Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Oceana County (Mich.) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf image/jpeg audio/mp3 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Image Sound recording Language A language of the resource eng spa Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Oceana County (Mich.) Hart (Mich.) Shelby (Mich.) Farms Farmers Migrant agricultural laborers Hispanic Americans Account books Diaries Oral history Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06_Oceana_Vasquez-Fidencio-008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vasquez family Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Title A name given to the resource Vasquez family trip to Mexico, 1971 Description An account of the resource Photo of Lupe Vasquez (right) with two of her children. Children are the younger sister and brother of Fidencio, Jr. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Vasquez, Fidencio Jr. Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage Project) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Subject The topic of the resource Hispanic Americans Family vacations Migrant agricultural laborers United States Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8682b3d251899008c4109abced01867f.jpg bc5867b213003e11c05e784efe44f3cf Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shell-Weiss, Melanie Description An account of the resource Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Oceana County (Mich.) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf image/jpeg audio/mp3 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Image Sound recording Language A language of the resource eng spa Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Oceana County (Mich.) Hart (Mich.) Shelby (Mich.) Farms Farmers Migrant agricultural laborers Hispanic Americans Account books Diaries Oral history Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06_Oceana_Vasquez-Fidencio-009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vasquez family Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Title A name given to the resource Vasquez family trip to Mexico, 1971 Description An account of the resource Photo of Lupe Vasquez on family trip to Mexico. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Vasquez, Fidencio Jr. Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage Project) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Subject The topic of the resource Mexico Hispanic Americans Family vacations Migrant agricultural laborers United States Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e7f040e6d23bcdec8f695c4697b6f869.jpg b221431fd4f852ec78083af0b75527d7 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shell-Weiss, Melanie Description An account of the resource Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Oceana County (Mich.) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf image/jpeg audio/mp3 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Image Sound recording Language A language of the resource eng spa Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Oceana County (Mich.) Hart (Mich.) Shelby (Mich.) Farms Farmers Migrant agricultural laborers Hispanic Americans Account books Diaries Oral history Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06_Oceana_Vasquez-Fidencio-010 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vasquez family Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1966-08 Title A name given to the resource Lupe Vasquez, August 1966 Description An account of the resource Photo of Lupe Vasquez, taken shortly after the family's move into their new house on State Street in Hart, Michigan. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Vasquez, Fidencio Jr. Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage Project) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Subject The topic of the resource Hart (Mich.) Hispanic American women Migrant agricultural laborers United States Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/61c3648c457f7f50954f8029ec6826e9.jpg 2801a1f1cc4a1c0a524abec956ff713d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shell-Weiss, Melanie Description An account of the resource Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Oceana County (Mich.) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf image/jpeg audio/mp3 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Image Sound recording Language A language of the resource eng spa Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Oceana County (Mich.) Hart (Mich.) Shelby (Mich.) Farms Farmers Migrant agricultural laborers Hispanic Americans Account books Diaries Oral history Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06_Oceana_Vasquez-Fidencio-011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vasquez family Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1988 Title A name given to the resource Baptism, 1988 Description An account of the resource Lupe Vasquez participating in the baptism of a newborn at St. Gregory's church in Hart, Michigan. Father Pedro is pictured at far left. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Vasquez, Fidencio Jr. Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage Project) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Subject The topic of the resource Hart (Mich.) Hispanic Americans Baptisms Migrant agricultural laborers United States Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f5a6fc7526e9df1c8a46021363ca4f3e.jpg 1cbd6f46ea8a7300d1d2de3f9589df0c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shell-Weiss, Melanie Description An account of the resource Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Oceana County (Mich.) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf image/jpeg audio/mp3 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Image Sound recording Language A language of the resource eng spa Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Oceana County (Mich.) Hart (Mich.) Shelby (Mich.) Farms Farmers Migrant agricultural laborers Hispanic Americans Account books Diaries Oral history Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06_Oceana_Vasquez-Fidencio-012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vasquez family Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2002-06 Title A name given to the resource Graduation celebration, June 2002 Description An account of the resource Graduation of a nephew. Hart, Michigan. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Vasquez, Fidencio Jr. Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage Project) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Subject The topic of the resource Hart (Mich.) Hispanic Americans Commencment ceremonies Migrant agricultural laborers United States Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a599ecf63b7259d690fd0187bc0e51f8.JPG 60c1d250e94069630e953236258aec95 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shell-Weiss, Melanie Description An account of the resource Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Oceana County (Mich.) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf image/jpeg audio/mp3 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Image Sound recording Language A language of the resource eng spa Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Oceana County (Mich.) Hart (Mich.) Shelby (Mich.) Farms Farmers Migrant agricultural laborers Hispanic Americans Account books Diaries Oral history Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06_Oceana_Vasquez-Zandra-001 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vasquez family Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1978 Title A name given to the resource Francisco Vasquez picking apples, 1978 Description An account of the resource Francisco Vasquez in Traverse City, Michigan. Pictured during apple season in one of the fields where he worked. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Vasquez, Zandra Vasquez, Eloisa Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage Project) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Subject The topic of the resource Traverse City (Mich.) Farms Farmers Migrant agricultural laborers Hispanic Americans Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7ad03be92d9490cd56a06fe5ad98f761.JPG bf627be1d9123660f7617a989d62608b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shell-Weiss, Melanie Description An account of the resource Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Oceana County (Mich.) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf image/jpeg audio/mp3 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Image Sound recording Language A language of the resource eng spa Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Oceana County (Mich.) Hart (Mich.) Shelby (Mich.) Farms Farmers Migrant agricultural laborers Hispanic Americans Account books Diaries Oral history Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06_Oceana_Vasquez-Zandra-002 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vasquez family Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1987 Title A name given to the resource Vasquez Family picking apples, 1987 Description An account of the resource Vasquez Family picking apples at Golden Hart Farms in Hart, Michigan. Pictures from left to right are Eloisa's younger sister, Francisco Vasquez, and Zandra Vasquez (background, red jacket). Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Vasquez, Zandra Vasquez, Eloisa Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage Project) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Subject The topic of the resource Hart (Mich.) Migrant agricultural laborers Hispanic Americans Farms Farmers Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/faf1693404e2b77a4d59c38a8d9133eb.JPG a230d4f6179592f9e773facda55ba612 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shell-Weiss, Melanie Description An account of the resource Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Oceana County (Mich.) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf image/jpeg audio/mp3 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Image Sound recording Language A language of the resource eng spa Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Oceana County (Mich.) Hart (Mich.) Shelby (Mich.) Farms Farmers Migrant agricultural laborers Hispanic Americans Account books Diaries Oral history Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06_Oceana_Vasquez-Zandra-003 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vasquez family Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985-05 Title A name given to the resource Francisco Vasquez and daughter, asparagus season, May 1985 Description An account of the resource Francisco Vasquez with his younger daughter riding on a tractor in an asparagus field at Golden Hart Farms in Hart, Michigan. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Vasquez, Zandra Vasquez, Eloisa Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage Project) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Subject The topic of the resource Hart (Mich.) Migrant agricultural laborers Hispanic Americans Farms Farmers Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ea9d03b042a9eb7353e0768db6986200.JPG f00aa91b5479166b142538cb6a6bd73f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shell-Weiss, Melanie Description An account of the resource Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Oceana County (Mich.) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf image/jpeg audio/mp3 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Image Sound recording Language A language of the resource eng spa Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Oceana County (Mich.) Hart (Mich.) Shelby (Mich.) Farms Farmers Migrant agricultural laborers Hispanic Americans Account books Diaries Oral history Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06_Oceana_Vasquez-Zandra-004 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vasquez family Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1984 Title A name given to the resource Francisco Vasquez, picking pickles (cucumbers), 1984 Description An account of the resource Francisco Vasquez at Golden Hart Farms in Hart, Michigan picking pickling cucumbers. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Vasquez, Zandra Vasquez, Eloisa Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage Project) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Subject The topic of the resource Hart (Mich.) Migrant agricultural laborers Hispanic Americans Farms Farmers Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9dccbe645d128556e20399fa2f32397b.JPG 89960a63b6ece599ad3b60ea28460122 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shell-Weiss, Melanie Description An account of the resource Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Oceana County (Mich.) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf image/jpeg audio/mp3 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Image Sound recording Language A language of the resource eng spa Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Oceana County (Mich.) Hart (Mich.) Shelby (Mich.) Farms Farmers Migrant agricultural laborers Hispanic Americans Account books Diaries Oral history Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06_Oceana_Vasquez-Zandra-005 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vasquez family Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1987-11 Title A name given to the resource Francisco and Zandra Vasquez, picking apples, November 1987 Description An account of the resource Francisco and Zandra Vasquez picking apples at Golden Hart Farms in Hart, Michigan. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Vasquez, Zandra Vasquez, Eloisa Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage Project) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Subject The topic of the resource Hart (Mich.) Migrant agricultural laborers Hispanic Americans Farms Farmers Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9802e2bfb59c15acf7acc990be467843.pdf d7e1626c3623f5899af83f7f982fb313 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Carlos Vasquez Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 7/18/2012 Biography and Description Carlos Vazquez is from Detroit, Michigan but he was born in Mexico and his family is from Ciudad Juárez on the border with Texas. Mr. Vasquez’s family settled in Detroit in the 1940s and 1950s.The family stays together and helps each other. In fact every year they have a family reunion and it is usually Mr. Vasquez who plays a major role in organizing it. He is the youngest of his siblings and says he “understands Spanish well but does not speak it.” Mr. Vasquez is a musician who has played in several bands. He loves blues and plays rock and roll, country, Motown, Puerto Rican iibaro music, among others. Mr. Vasquez learned jibaro when he lived within a Puerto Rican household for several years in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He met José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez while Mr. Jiménez was a senior counselor/supervisor for Project Rehab. Mr. Vasquez decided to join the Young Lords and has volunteered to work on all of the Lincoln Park Camps. Mr. Vasquez has also recruited other volunteers to handle the sound and stage at those events. The Lincoln Park Camps were first organized in 2000 during the Vieques, Puerto Rico protests that eventually closed down the military base. It was the beginning of a reunion and an educational vehicle for the Young Lords, since the Young Lords had not been active for many years. DePaul University was then also helping to document the origins of the Young Lords. So the camp became a semi-retreat to educate and motivate people. The first camp was held in Ford Lincoln Park in Lakeview, Michigan. There was the roasting of a pig, boat and hay rides. The �Teatro Chicana paid for and made the journey, all the way from California and Washington. They produced and were able to get others at the weekend camp to participate in a guerilla skit about the displacement of the people from Lincoln Park, Chicago. Many people came from Puerto Rico, New York, Aurora, Chicago, Milwaukee, Lansing, Detroit, and Grand Rapids. Today Mr. Vasquez’s son and other children still recall the event and say that it had a positive effect on them. �Transcript JOSE JIMENEZ: Okay, go ahead, Carlos, and give me your full name, date of birth, and where you were born. CARLOS VASQUEZ: I’m Carlos [Raymundo?] Vasquez, born in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. August 15, 1953. JJ: Oh. Okay, Carlos, if you could give me your name, date of birth, and where you were born, again. CV: Name’s Carlos Raymundo Vasquez. Arrollo -- that’s my mom’s name, maiden name. So they do it in Mexico, Carlos Raymundo Arrollo Vasquez. I was born in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. JJ: Chihuahua? CV: Chihuahua, yep. August 15, 1953. My mom told me a story about me being born on the 15th, that they were late [00:01:00] for something and she didn’t wanna have to pay whatever, and they put down the 31st. That’s the story she gave me. So on my ID, when I was born, they put down the 31st. JJ: But you were born -- CV: But I celebrate the 15th with her from when I was little. JJ: But she tells you it was the 15th? CV: She tells me the 15th. So I went with that story, what she told me before. Had nothing to do with whatever, but it was just the story that she told me about it. That’s the way we celebrated all my life. JJ: Okay. So what was Ciudad Juárez like? Did you live there for a while? 1 �CV: No, I was too little to remember anything. When I came here, I spoke Spanish. JJ: What year was that? CV: We crossed over in ’57. JJ: What do you mean, you crossed over? What was that? CV: Well, slowly, because we started from [00:02:00] Durango, where my dad’s from, and Villa Unión, where my mom’s from, a little town outside of that. So little by little, we came, going toward the border. It took a few years to get there. My dad, he was a musician, besides working, so he would do side jobs and stuff like that, make more money. JJ: What kind of music? I mean, what did he play? CV: Well, then there’s another story that they told me. My dad would play for some funerals. They had, like, the kids got sick and something that they were having -a lot of them were passing away for some reason, some disease or something, and he was playing for funerals. JJ: What’s your dad’s name? CV: Jesus. JJ: Jesus? CV: Jesus Cisneros Vasquez. JJ: Okay, and your mom’s name? CV: Carmen Arrollo Vasquez. JJ: Did you have any brothers and sisters? CV: [00:03:00] Six other brothers and two sisters. JJ: What were their names? 2 �CV: My oldest brother was Beto -- Albert, Alberto -- and then after, that’d be Luis. My sister, Yola. Jesus. Pedro. Eduardo. Myself, Carlos. And then my sister, Julia. But she was the only one that was born in the United States. She was born after we came over in El Paso, Texas, across from Juárez. So I was too young to remember a lot of that stuff, like I said. I talked with my older sister and my brothers and that about it. They all went to school in Mexico. I was raised in Detroit. My uncle -- JJ: You mean they stayed behind and you came? So a few came? CV: All of us came [00:04:00] at the same time, but -- JJ: You didn’t go to school. CV: No, I was too young. JJ: Oh, you’re the youngest. CV: Yeah, I was the youngest. There’s seven of us in the boys, and I was the youngest seventh son. So I was I think three or four. You figure ’53 to ’57, when we crossed. JJ: So you started in ’53, trying to get to the border? CV: I was born in Juárez, so we were already there. So we crossed over. My sister was born a year later or two years later, when we came over to El Paso. JJ: And when you say it took a long time, you mean you lived in each town as you went up? CV: No. Well, what from they tell me, it took a little bit, a few years to get over, because of all the paperwork back then, because it was a large family. And my uncle brought my dad over here when he was a kid, and there’s pictures of them 3 �when they would be farming, picking, you know? [00:05:00] From what they told me, he was up in Utah, but they went to Indiana, when she told them about Michigan, which is why we came to Michigan, because of my Tío Callito, my dad’s uncle. He’s the one that brought us here. JJ: So you were going to farm? CV: They were. JJ: They were. CV: They were, ’cause my dad, he was young in the picture with my uncle when he came over here when he was a kid. And he went back to Mexico, and that was his dream, was to bring his family over here and raise them in the United States. A lot of my relatives stayed in Juárez. Some of them crossed over, raised families in El Paso, Texas. And other parts of my cousins and aunts went to California. JJ: But you keep saying crossed over. What do you mean? CV: They were from Mexico. JJ: By plane? CV: No, no, no, just crossed the border, from Juárez [00:06:00] to El Paso. That’s the border. It’s like Detroit, Canada, same thing, you know? But we were the only family that came up here, my uncle’s family and us, at that time. My other cousins, them and my aunts, they all went to California, different parts of California. The other ones stayed in El Paso. I basically spoke Spanish when I came here, but I entered kindergarten and first grade. Then I lost it. I just started 4 �talking with everybody from the United States and picking up the way they speak. I used to come home -JJ: So you remember Detroit. That was the main thing. CV: Main thing, yep. JJ: You don’t remember anything about Mexico? Nothing? CV: Nothing at all. JJ: Nothing about Mexico. CV: Nope. I couldn’t even tell you about El Paso [00:07:00] then at that time, you know. The way it went was just growing up in Detroit. JJ: Okay, so you’re in Detroit. What part of Detroit? CV: When we came, we came over to -- this is from what they tell me -- the I-75 freeway still wasn’t built. So they used to have a theater over there. We supposedly lived above the theater, and then moved over to Labrosse, which is Corktown over by Tiger Stadium. JJ: Corktown? CV: That’s what they call it. Irish community that was there. JJ: So when you came, there was an Irish community? CV: They were mixed. Irish, Maltese, Polish. Not that many Italians, but it was a strong community. That was the southwest side of Detroit. That’s where we grew up. That whole community over there is mostly Latino, [00:08:00] but it’s mixed. JJ: Now? Now it’s Latino? 5 �CV: No, from what I remember from back then. But we were one of the first families there -- JJ: What year was this, about? CV: Early ’60s. I remember that. JJ: So all this other time, you were in Texas and the other places? I mean, you got to Detroit in the ’60s. CV: Yep, ’57, yeah. All I remember was from the pictures that we have is -- JJ: So how old were you then? How old were you then? CV: That would be four or five years old. First school I went to was Casa Maria. Okay, that’s a preschool. I graduated from it. They’ve got a photo of me, you know. Zoology. I was supposed to work with animals. That was the diploma they gave me. But that’s still there. It’s on Trumbull right down the street from Tiger Stadium. But it was just a little school [00:09:00] for the kids before they went into kindergarten. Then they had a school down the street called D. Holton, which was there on Trumbull, right off of Trumbull. But it’s gone, you know. They put another building. A lot of the buildings that we grew up in are gone now. They’ve been replaced with other things. But it’s still that area, right by Tiger Stadium, Labrosse. That’s where we started. There was a couple other families that I remember throughout my life that we grew up with. The Rodriguezes, the Ocegetas. They came from different parts of Mexico. JJ: Rodriguez? CV: Yeah. JJ: And what other family? 6 �CV: Ocegeta. JJ: Ocegeta? CV: Yeah, they were around our street and -- JJ: And your street you said was what? CV: Yeah, Labrosse, right. That’s right down the street from Tiger Stadium. We used to sit on the porch and you could hear the ballgames, and you could hear the noise and stuff like that. [00:10:00] We stayed in that community for -- it’s on the other side of what they would say, the Ambassador Bridge, okay? Because it’s divided Grand Boulevard. If anybody’s been to Detroit, the way that it’s built, they built Grand Boulevard like a horseshoe around the city. It would start from the west side and go all the way to the east side and end on Belle Island. So where we lived was the southwest side over on the other side of Ambassador Bridge on Grand Boulevard. And in the old days, that’s where all the rich -- not rich, but the autocar makers or whatever, the people that had money. There’ll all mansions on that street on West Grand Boulevard, as you go around the whole city. They’ve got another city called Outer Drive, which is built like a horseshoe around the city. They would have Woodward, which was the main street that came out of Detroit, [00:11:00] coming from downtown the river, which split the city. That was one side, the east side, and the other side, the west side. We grew up on the west side. JJ: So you were living with the Rodriguez and the other? CV: Ocegeta. JJ: And then you’re growing up with their kids and that? 7 �CV: Right. Their kids. Everybody back then had large families, you know. You had eight, nine kids, seven to eight kids. It didn’t matter. Everybody had large families. JJ: And this was a Mexican community? CV: Mainly. Well -- JJ: It was Irish, but then -- CV: Yeah, downtown. Downtown over by Tiger Stadium, yeah. JJ: That was Irish first, but then was changing? CV: It was changing at the time. When we came in, like I said, in the phone book, I remember seeing our last names, Vasquez. You would see maybe two, three Vazquez in the phone book back in [00:12:00] the early ’60s. As there progressed, more and more Latinos moved into the neighborhood. But as of our family, it was my uncle and, you know, my family. But we stayed on Labrosse ’til I remember going to Casa Maria, and then moving by Clark Park. JJ: Clark Park? CV: Yeah, that’s when we moved a little bit more west. JJ: Is that named after somebody, Clark? CV: I was doing a little research on it and it was just a park that had something to do with somebody in the early ’20s or something. But it was a nice park back then. They used to use it for -- I don’t know if you remember in the old days, they’d have the nice, big picnics and stuff like that. JJ: So it was a picnic area. CV: Right, back then. 8 �JJ: Is it a pretty big park? CV: Clark Park’s about a mile. We used to walk around it or whatever. One mile from -- JJ: Is it flat? A lot of trees? CV: Yeah, [00:13:00] a lot of trees. In the middle of the city, you know, but when we moved over there, I went to first grade. All the -- JJ: What school? What school? CV: Maybury. All the schools were around Clark Park. So if you went to Maybury, you went to grade school one through six. You would cross the park and go to junior high, which is Amelia Earhart. That was up to seventh to ninth grade. And then down the street, across from Clark Park, was Western High School, and that was a high school. So you didn’t really leave the neighborhood when you went to school. But they had a lot of Catholic schools there where the majority different families that could afford it would go to Catholic school. JJ: Did a lot of the Mexican kids go? CV: Right. JJ: They did go to -- CV: Yep. Yep. Like I said, some families had the money. They made good money back then. And some families, they went to the public schools. JJ: Well, where was your father working [00:14:00] at that time? CV: From what I remember, they said my dad worked for McLeod Steel for a while. JJ: A steel company? 9 �CV: And he had an injury or something, and that’s how he collected from them for some reason. Then we bought a house on 10th Street. JJ: So were there steel mills there, a lot of them? CV: Oh, yeah, big. Ford Motor Company, that’s that neighborhood. The whole car industry was all around our neighborhood. JJ: And it’s based in steel? CV: Yep. JJ: Okay, I didn’t think about that at the time. CV: Yeah, that whole neighborhood’s built around the cars. Everybody worked at Ford, Chrysler, or GM, whatever. My brothers, they worked for them companies. And it was all around us, so, like, I remember when I was a kid growing up, it’s all you see, the semis going by with cars, new cars going from over here, from Fleetwood, from Cadillacs on Clark Street, going down to Fort Street. Fleetwood, and then they had Ternstedt, [00:10:00] I think it was. GM’s on Fort Street. So the whole neighborhood was kind of like when you grew up, you graduated, you went to work for the auto industry, unless you went to college. Then you went somewhere else. JJ: So like a working class neighborhood, you said? CV: Very hard, yeah. JJ: But a pretty good job, I mean, working for -- CV: For the time, considering these times, it was great, you know, because now my kids, it’s hard for them to find a job unless they graduated, keep going college and stuff. 10 �JJ: So at that time, it was pretty good. I mean, everybody was working. CV: My brother -- JJ: So the community was a working class Mexican community. It went to a Mexican community? CV: Yeah. JJ: Mainly Mexican. CV: Mainly. You know, it’s been mixed, you know what I mean? And Detroit, if you’ve ever been to Detroit, that’s the only side of town where the Latinos work. JJ: Southwest side? CV: Southwest side of Detroit. JJ: That’s [00:16:00] the only side of town they’re at? CV: Yeah, the majority. Still, you can find them here or there, one or two, but not like you would. It was considered a barrio back then. It started from West Vernor, which is a street, one of the main streets. Fort Street, Michigan Avenue, Woodmere, and back over by downtown, Trumbull. That whole area, it’s like a square area by the Ambassador Bridge. Yep, they have a church, one of the oldest churches over there. My brothers still work there, Sainte Anne’s. And that’s right there, right off 18th Street. Bagley was a main street. They got Mexican town, which is right now -- JJ: They’ve got a Mexican town? CV: Yeah, because of the restaurants. They built a lot of restaurants around there. But Bagley was a main street where a lot of Latinos lived at that [00:17:00] time. Twenty-fourth, 18th Street, all that area was all families. [Everybody?] [Solanos?]. 11 �I could go on with different families, but I don’t remember all of ’em. I had older brothers that hung out with different people in the neighborhood. JJ: So I mean, you said the families. So one of your brothers hanging around with one family and another with another family? CV: No, they knew us because there were so many brothers. So everybody knew everybody, you know. By the time I got to high school or got to school, junior high and that, they already knew who I was because of my brothers. Everybody went through the school. JJ: So this was like, when you say [barrio?], you’re talking about everybody (inaudible)? CV: Right. JJ: Not like -- CV: No, it was a community. It’s a tight community over there, southwest side of Detroit. Like I said, you go -- JJ: What made it tight? What made it [00:18:00] a tight community? CV: Because I think being Catholic. You know, the churches, okay? That was the main thing back then. You know, I know that’s what drew my dad and my mom over there in that area where we lived in Clark Park. Holy Redeemer was over there. That was one of the main churches. But Sainte Anne’s was the older church, like I said. When we first came from Mexico, it was the old part of the neighborhood, which was over by Bagley and the Ambassador Bridge. So when we made that move from Labrosse over to Clark Park, you know, that was newer to us. So it got a little more mixed. And gradually as you got towards the end of 12 �the neighborhood, which is Woodmere Cemetery -- that’s over by Dearborn, which has the largest Arab community in the country. So we grew up with Arabs on the other side. JJ: [00:19:00] So you were connected to the Arabs on one side. CV: Oh, yeah, at the end of Detroit on the other side. They came in a little later, but they grew strong, real big, that community. They bought a lot of businesses. They liked to make money on the party stores and stuff like that. JJ: Was there any friction with them? CV: No, not really. It was just they were doing what they did, ’cause as I said, everybody had jobs back then. Everybody made good money back in the ’60s. JJ: So nobody cared about friction. CV: No, not like nowadays. Nowadays, you go down there, the neighborhood’s a little rougher than it was when I grew up. You could stay out late, you know. We didn’t have no electronics like they do now, these computers, so everybody was running around on the streets ’til about ten o’clock at night. JJ: And these are kids, right? CV: [00:20:00] Right. JJ: About what age? CV: You know, they can be about 7 years old up to 10. They would let them stay out, as long as they were in front of their house running around. JJ: When you were 7 and 10 years old, you were kind of running around? CV: In that area around my house. JJ: And there were no problems? 13 �CV: Not like nowadays. The gangs, I would say back then, were like the gangs from West Side Story, you know what I mean? They had the Bagley Boys and the Stilettos. JJ: The Bagley Boys? CV: Yeah. JJ: Was the group -- were they Mexican? CV: Yeah, they were Latino. They could be mixed, you know. JJ: So what were (inaudible)? CV: Well, there weren’t that many, like I say, like now. But the thing about them gangs back then was that they were more kind of like where you grew up in Chicago. You know, you had your own streets, you know what I mean? [00:21:00] But it wasn’t as tight of Chicago because of the way Chicago was built. The houses were real tight over there in Chicago, and you go over there in Detroit, they’re just a little more suburban, however you like. ’Cause I’ve been to Chicago and like on the outside outskirts, you know, it was more like that. JJ: But you guys had a lot of killers, though. (laughs) Detroit was known for that. CV: Detroit had its mafia, but you know, that’s a whole ’nother -- JJ: So Detroit had a mafia. CV: Yeah, that’s a whole ’nother story. That was on the east side, Hastings Street over down by [Stow Buoy crash?]. We lived on the southwest side. Detroit was like that back in the early ’20s, you know, ’30s with Al Capone and them guys, because Capone used to go from Chicago, cross over, come over, and deal with these guys over here in Michigan. 14 �JJ: Okay, [00:22:00] so they had a history of the mafia, like Chicago. CV: Right. JJ: But when you were growing up, were they still on the east side? CV: More or less. I’d say yeah. You know, if they were, I was too young to know that much of it. It was a large Black community. That was the main thing over there in Detroit. The early ’60s, I remember, was Motown. The music industry was strong for them back then. JJ: And how did that affect you, the Motown music? CV: Everybody driving in hot rods. You know, everybody had fast cars back then, cruising [Glazier?], Woodward, big streets, just like the older movies in the ’50s. They had their little (audio cuts out) you know, stuff like that where they would hang out. JJ: With those fountain drinks. CV: Right, yeah. JJ: So they had it there too. CV: They had it, yep. JJ: Like, a lot of the cities (inaudible). But, I mean, it was bigger because, I mean, [00:23:00] Motown came from Detroit, so it was a bigger influence or no? CV: As far as what? JJ: What music did you like at that time? CV: That’s the way we grew up. We grew up with Black music, you know. We used to listen to the old DJs from Philly, different cities. Chicago. Me and my brother Pedro would stay up. We didn’t watch that much TV. It was a lot of radio. 15 �Everybody had transistor radios back then, carried one in your pocket or whatever. Then we had a radio in the room. Like in the early ’60s, I remember listening to Muhammad Ali fight, but he was Cassius Clay back in the early days. Then I’d stay up and watch boxing with my dad. My family watched a lot of boxing in the early days. But we didn’t start watching TV that much, you know, like I said, because we’d be running around at night, [00:24:00] playing around. And then later on, maybe I’d watch it with my dad. JJ: You were running around [in that?] (inaudible). CV: Running around like kids do, playing stickball, kick the can, hide and seek, you know. Just being a kid. Nowadays they don’t do that. Nowadays they sit in front of a TV and they play with their games, Xbox and the other things. They don’t branch out as much as they used to. They’ve got their sports, the ones that play sports, but not like before. But yeah, that community, the music had a big effect on the way people grew up. You know, the dances and stuff like that. My dad was a musician and I remember us going -- they had boats. They called them Boblo boats. They used to take you to this island, which was downriver. It was Canadian-owned, but you can go. [00:25:00] It was like going to Cedar Point, and everybody would get on the Boblo boat, take it down the river, go down there, and they had music on the boat. They’d have bands. They’d dance. They had two or three floors on the deck, you know. On the 4th of July was Mexican Boblo, so my dad would go play on the island. He was a musician, so we would go with him. I remember that. JJ: What did he play? 16 �CV: My dad played saxophone when he was here, but he could play guitar, sax, a little bit of everything. He was pretty good. But he read. I learned later, but you know, I learned by ear. Nineteen seventy-one, I think, I started playing. But he played, like I said, all his life. He played with different bands and stuff besides working. He ended up working when we were on [McKent?] Street at a graphite company, you know. That was his last job that he worked. [00:26:00] He worked there all the way. Small company in the neighborhood off Green, one of the streets down there. JJ: What about your mom? What did she do? CV: She stayed home. Back then, the moms didn’t go out and work. You know, they stayed home with the family and stuff. She mainly wanted to learn how to speak English. That was real hard for her, so she took classes at Holy Redeemer. I’d walk her to school every once and a while and she would take a couple classes, learn how to speak, write, you know, read English. Everybody on her side of the family were more or less professional people in Mexico -- doctors, nurses, lawyers, and stuff like that. So they went to school. My dad was a working family. They worked over there. JJ: So your dad, basically his family was more -- CV: Work-oriented. JJ: Just work-oriented? CV: [00:27:00] Yeah. JJ: Some of them worked in the fields too, you said. 17 �CV: Right. Well, that’s where they would start. But like I said, I don’t remember that much history of them in Texas. My brothers had a little more knowledge of what went on over there. But they all went to school in Mexico. There’s pictures of my brothers in different grades. So they grew up over there speaking Spanish real good, and when they came over here, they kept it. JJ: But your mom, her family was more professional? CV: Well, some of ’em. Not all of ’em. But yeah, they went to school. But when she got here, you know, she stayed at home most of the time, cooking and watching the house. JJ: She also went to the church. CV: Go to church. Them days, we’d go to church quite a bit. JJ: So what did your brothers do? (inaudible), what kind of work did they start doing? CV: What? JJ: In other words, what kind of work did they start doing? [00:28:00] Your brothers. ’Cause they’re older, right? CV: Well, what was weird about it was that I was the youngest brother, so I had two older brothers -- well, three, Lalo, Pedro, and Jesse, which were a few years older than me. So they were more my age. And then the other ones were way older -- Beto, Hector, and Luis. Them guys, I remember Hector went to Chicago. He took off in the early ’60s. He went to take classes to learn how to weld, so he’d become a welder. That’s what he did all his life. JJ: And he lived in Chicago? 18 �CV: No, he went over there for a while. He got the training and everything over there and then he came back. And he was gone, so you know, they -- JJ: Did he have any family relatives there? CV: No. Well, yeah, we did. You know, we had relatives in where your sister’s stays. JJ: In Aurora? CV: Aurora. I remember going to Aurora [00:29:00] in ’67, ’68. Yeah. You know, we’d go to -- JJ: Actually I was living there then. CV: And we were going on picnics over there in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. I remember going there ’cause, yeah, we had relatives over there in the Chicago area. They had moved. But my dad’s big thing when people come from Mexico was to bring them here and take them to Niagara Falls. So we would drive through Canada, go to Niagara Falls, and show them the falls and everything. He liked to do that. JJ: Oh, he liked Niagara Falls? CV: Yeah, which is cool because they don’t have that all over. Michigan’s got a lot of water, you know, more than other states, a lot more stuff to do. We never ventured on this side of the state, Grand Rapids area over here. You know, it was always on the east side of the state. That’s where we did stuff. JJ: ’Cause Grand Rapids is where you’re living today. CV: Yeah, I came here in ’93. JJ: [00:30:00] Nineteen ninety-three? CV: Yep. It was December 21st, 1993. Yep. 19 �JJ: Okay. Well, we’ll get back to Grand Rapids. So your brothers, one of them went to Chicago. What about the other ones? CV: Well, my brother Albert -- which is the oldest -- he was working different type of jobs, but he hurt his back. So he went into buffing and polishing. Somehow he ended up in that, and that’s what I do now. I worked at a brewery for 14 years, Stroh Brewery, and when I left -- JJ: This is you. You’re the one working there. CV: Yeah, but he got me into what I’m doing now. But I’ll go back to that. Yeah, but the other brothers, I remember them working for A&P. Luis and Hector welded, and then Beto did the buffing and polishing. And then [00:31:00] my brother Jesse and Luis both enlisted to Vietnam in the early ’60s, you know, so they went over there and they fought. JJ: They wanted to go? CV: Yeah. Well, the story I got from Jesse was that him and Mickey Baker went out and got drunk and signed up, and Mickey didn’t sign, and he ended up going and Mickey didn’t. You know how when you’re young, you do crazy stuff. But he did wanna go. They wanted to do something, you know, for the country, and then also they wanted to -- what you say? -- patriotic or whatever, you know. But he was working at Cadillac right after he got out of school. He was in high school, graduated, and he went to Cadillac, which is down the street, which is a great job. But then he went to Vietnam, or he joined the service, ended up in Vietnam. Luis, the same way. [00:32:00] They were both gone around the same time. And he came back in 1968. I think he got out then. 20 �JJ: He got out of the Army service? CV: He served his three years, three and a half years, whatever they did, you know. JJ: Okay. So then he came back. Did he get a good job? CV: No, he changed because Vietnam changes everybody, you know that. There’s a lot of drugs over there. He wasn’t into the drugs and stuff, but it just changed his whole -- the whole United States changed in 1968 and 1969. It affected a lot of people, that war. JJ: He didn’t come back that patriotic? CV: Well, he took off to California, you know, so he went out there. My cousin’s out there in East LA. He stayed with them. That’s where he met his wife, up there in [Bakersville?]. You know, he didn’t get married until later on, but he met her up there. He lives [00:33:00] in New Mexico. He’s the one that was a truck driver for a while, you know. But yeah, he went to ’Nam, both of them, and then Lalo worked at Chrysler. And my brother Pedro, he’s the one that went to Stroh Brewery. He’s the one that got me into Stroh. I got in there when I was 17 years old, 18. Yeah, I was 18, 17, 18 years old when I got in there. I got married right away. JJ: So how long did you work at Stroh? CV: Fourteen years, until they closed. Fourteen and a half years, ’til ’84. Then they shut it down. JJ: And what kind of work did you do there? What were you doing there? CV: Easy work, you know. Bottles get jammed on the line in the pasteurizer. I was a relief man later on, give everybody breaks. But anything to do with the bottling 21 �and the packaging, that’s what area -- I ran the machines. They got a Coca-Cola plant. I could’ve got a job [00:34:00] here. But I didn’t wanna go back and doing what I did before. You know, so I wanted to try something new, and that’s when my brother showed me how to buff and polish when I left there ’cause I didn’t go to school. I should’a went to school. JJ: You didn’t go to school at all? What do you mean? CV: Well, I got married right away. Eleventh grade, I went up to there. JJ: So you went up to eleventh grade? CV: Yep, and then I just started working right away. JJ: So what high school did you go to? CV: I was in Western, like everybody else. JJ: Everybody else? Did that mean (inaudible)? CV: Yeah, that was as far as I got. JJ: And then after that, you dropped out? CV: My wife got pregnant. We got married. But I married her the following year, you know. So I went to work. It was funny because I went to work for the Detroit [Line?] Company, which makes steel. Line, they put inside the steel. I think I was 16 and a half years old, working there, and they had them -- you know them jacks that you use to break [00:35:00] cement? Well, they used them to break -they’ve gotta kiln, you know. They heat up the line in these ovens. Well, they shut ’em down and you’ve gotta climb in these little doors, and you take that thing and you’ve gotta hit it up against the wall. You’ve gotta hold it and break that stuff loose, I mean. I didn’t like that. Now, that’s 16, 17 years old, you know. 22 �Just too rough, the type of work for me at the time. I didn’t last. But I did that for, you know, maybe about three, four months. JJ: But eleventh, you almost graduated. CV: Right, but I never continued ’cause I got a good job at the brewery. They paid what the auto industry paid. We were making, you know, the same type of money they were back then at Stroh, and it was a real simple job. There was nothing really -- you couldn’t do if you know how to drive a hi-lo, how to package, run the machines, and stuff like that. [00:36:00] It wasn’t automated like Budweiser and them other companies. That’s why they paid it out. It took too many people to operate that company at the time. JJ: So that was a good job. CV: Oh, yeah. JJ: You didn’t need to go to school to get it. You already had it. CV: I messed up that way. JJ: But you already had a good job. CV: Right. That’s what I’m saying. Nowadays, it’s rough with kids because you can’t walk out of school and walk into a good job. Not no more. You need school, you know? You’ve gotta have that diploma in order to move ahead. Let me see, Lalo. But, yeah, Pedro got me in there, and then my sister Julia, she worked as an insurance claim adjuster. So she ended up doing that. My sister Yola, she ended up working for the -- ’cause she was bilingual at the time. It was early bilingual (inaudible). JJ: Now, were you bilingual [00:37:00] [then?]? 23 �CV: No. JJ: You were bilingual later? You’re bilingual now. CV: I learned how to speak Spanish here in Grand Rapids. My Spanish was real bad. I boycotted it for some reason when I was young. You know, when you’re a hippie in the early days, you wanna hang out with -- JJ: You were a hippie? CV: Oh, yeah, big time. Yeah. Yeah, yep. JJ: Okay. CV: You know, that’s why I played guitar. I went into the music. I liked the atmosphere, you know, the music. I wish I would’ve learned the way my dad would’ve taught me back then. I would know more. But now when I listen to the songs that [Patrick was pulling down there?], all them trios and stuff, you know, it’s all great music, all the stuff that the guys did back then. But I got into it, like I said, in the ’70s, but everything changed in ’68, ’69. The neighborhood changed. JJ: How did the [00:38:00] neighborhood change? CV: ’Cause everything was Motown. Everything was Black. Everything. The music. Everybody dressed up. And once ’69 came, everybody started wearing jeans. They loosened up, you know, let their hair grow, hanging out. JJ: You had at that time? CV: But I was married, you know. I got married right away and I was working. My friends, a lot of them were on the corner. I’d go home to my family, you know what I mean? JJ: Okay, now, all your friends were on the corner? 24 �CV: Well, the majority of them. JJ: And when you say on the corner, what do you mean? CV: From my neighborhood, it’s like that’s where everybody would hang out. JJ: What street? CV: Vernor. Clark Park. JJ: They would just be hanging out on the corners? CV: Well, there were certain corners. Toledo and Junction. Everybody had their own little corners where people would just meet and just talk, you know, hang out. JJ: And they drank? CV: [00:39:00] Oh, yeah, and they’d go into Clark Park, that kind of thing, different parks in areas. JJ: Drugs? CV: Drugs was big time in Detroit back then. A lot of heroin. Yeah, there were a lot of heroin users back then in the neighborhood. A lot of overdoses. JJ: A lot of overdoses were going on at that time? CV: Yep. JJ: ’Cause this was the Vietnam War era. CV: A lot of those guys -- like, I met this guy, Jerry Manchaka, at Stroh. He’d come back from ’Nam, and another guy, Bud. They were telling me stories on how they got hooked over there in Vietnam. They would smoke heroin, you know. I didn’t do it. That was one drug I didn’t mess with. You know, I ventured into other stuff, but like I said, I was always with my family. So as long as I had my job, that kept me straight. 25 �JJ: You mentioned (inaudible). CV: I tried to smoke weed. You know, drank wine. I didn’t drink beer. I worked in the brewery, started at 17. I didn’t have a beer until I was 25. [00:40:00] Them guys that sits there, you have free beer in the lunch room, you know, at Stroh. It was part of the contract. JJ: It was part of the job, right? CV: A lot of them guys became alcoholics. JJ: But you didn’t drink beer at that time. CV: No. JJ: So you drank wine. CV: Smoke weed and drank wine. JJ: You drank wine at that time. A lot of people in the neighborhood drank wine too. So that was just common. CV: That was just the routine, the way we hung out. JJ: In Chicago, they drank Richards. CV: Ripple? You know, Thunderbird, Night Train, whatever. JJ: Is that the kind of wine you were talking about? CV: Yeah. JJ: High-class wine. CV: I’d say I ventured into a little Spumoni, you know. Nah, it’s just neighborhood stuff over there. You know how it is when you go up. My brothers, my brother Pedro, you know, he hung out on the streets a little more -- him and Lala -- a little more. It wasn’t what I did, because they didn’t get married. He didn’t get married 26 �’til [00:41:00] later, you know. But everybody grew up in the same neighborhood. I left there in, oh -- Nick was born -- ’74, ’75. My brother died. Overdose. My brother Pedro. JJ: Of heroin? CV: No, he had valiums and some other drugs when he was drinking, and they said he fell asleep and, you know, he died in his sleep. But that was in 1975. So it was about the time I left the neighborhood. I moved outside of Detroit. It was over by Dearborn Heights area. That’s where I bought a house later on, around that area. But he was -- out of any of my brothers on the street, I would say he stayed right there on Toledo and Junction. They had a bar right there and them guys would all hang out right there. But he was married. You know, he had his family. JJ: You know, you’re seeing all your friends [00:42:00] going to drugs and all that. What was your thinking? I mean, you know, why didn’t you go into it? How did you look at them? CV: What do you mean? JJ: In other words, you must’ve said, these guys are stupid, or something. I mean, how did you look at them? CV: No, a lot of them were making money on the side. Everybody always made money. I didn’t like that. I just didn’t like the atmosphere. JJ: You just didn’t like? You just said, I’m not playing? CV: I didn’t like the traffic because I have kids. You know, I’d bring them over to the house, but it’s just when you’re married, it’s a different story. Some people don’t 27 �care. But like I said, I’d hang out with certain people, and plus I was in a band. There was drugs around all the time. You know, but something told me about it, not to get too crazy. Later on, I did, in the ’80s. But that was stupid. JJ: Yeah, you fought it [00:43:00] for a while. You didn’t -- CV: No, that’s how I ended up over ’80s -- well, the ’80s, ’90s, early ’90s when I ended up over in the rehab. That got me over here in Grand Rapids, you know, drinking and doing drugs. But the early part, like when we were raising my kids, I was kind of just maintaining. I always knew I had to get up at 6:00 in the morning and go to work. Even though I hung out at a bar, played music at night. I’d be there ’til 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. I was the one that ran the band, made sure the equipment was put away and everything. I’d walk in the house about 3:30. I have to get up at 6:00. But it was extra money. JJ: So you were like the band leader, then. CV: Right. JJ: And you guys played what kind of music? CV: Rock and roll. JJ: Rock and roll? CV: Yep, Top 40. But it was rough back then because in my neighborhood, they didn’t accept it. JJ: What do you mean? CV: Well, there was nothing but Mexican bands. You know, Latino music. And all the bars we played, you know, we’d have to ask [00:44:00] the bar owner if we could play this type of music. I mean, they had Santana, you know, Mongo 28 �Santamaría, and different bands like that. But when you walked in the neighborhood in Detroit at that time, it was all -JJ: You’re talking about rock and roll. CV: Yeah, like we’d be playing some Bob Seger, you know? And then these guys -this is in the [Abara?] Lounge. And right after we get done, a Tex Mex music would go up or a Mexican band would go up there and start playing. We played a lot of talent shows over there. But we ventured up out of that neighborhood, go downriver. That’s where we ended up most of the time, playing. JJ: Downriver? CV: Yeah. Detroit’s [wine?] area. You know, Detroit, the southwest side of Detroit, you’ve got Allen Park, Lincoln Park, Southgate. There’s a lot of communities going downriver. Detroit runs -- coming from Lake Erie, you know, coming from that area. So a lot of communities were going that way. [00:45:00] I hung around the (audio cuts out). They’re close-knit, the music industry over there for them guys. It was hard to get a job over there for us. But we did all right. I mean, I had fun. I made money. You know, that was the main thing I was doing. I learned how to play, yeah. But you know, you were saying about the music. Back then in the early ’70s, that changed everybody. Like I said, ’68, ’69 was just the music, Vietnam, the whole thing. You guys were doing the same thing over there in Chicago, but over here, I remember going downtown ’cause Downtown Detroit was happening back then. We had Kennedy Square, which was right there in the middle, and they’d have a lot of events going on. The Hare Krishna would be out there and the Black Panthers. [00:46:00] You always had to go 29 �through them in order to get into the store. They’re gonna hand you a pamphlet and they’re gonna talk to you, and they’re gonna try and sell you something or they’re gonna try and recruit you, you know. Not that much Hare Krishna, but the Black Panthers were real good at that. JJ: Trying to recruit? CV: Talked to different people. Talked to them about what their cause, you know? JJ: What’d you think about the Hare Krishna and the Black Panthers? CV: Black Panthers, I liked them guys, you know, because I liked the way they talked. They knew a little bit more. The Hare Krishna were into some type of religion or a belief that I really wasn’t into. JJ: But you could understand a little bit about the Black Panthers, you were saying? CV: Back then yeah. JJ: But you didn’t agree with them. CV: I didn’t disagree with them because I was a minority. But they stuck together. To me, they were badass because they were tight. You know, you see [00:47:00] four Black guys dressed in leather all walking, strutting down the street real strong. That was unity. Them guys, they showed it back then. JJ: Were you familiar with any other groups? CV: They had Brown Panthers in the high school, in the neighborhood. I knew a few guys that were into that. JJ: The Brown Panthers or Brown Berets? CV: Brown Berets. Yeah. Yeah, Brown Berets. JJ: Okay, they had Brown Berets in (inaudible), you were saying? 30 �CV: Yeah, a couple guys, you know. But like I said, I was into music. I’d be there like anybody else, listening to what they had to talk about, stuff like that. But my main thing was that they were for their cause, you know what I mean? And I was into something else, which only drove me away. Maybe if I was single at the time, you know, and I wasn’t into music, I might’ve did something. My son Benny does that now. He’s strong in the community [00:48:00] on the southwest side of Detroit right now. But they were all over, you know? Everywhere you went downtown, you ran into ’em ’cause they had Hudson’s, Crowley’s, Woolworth’s, you know, different stores you had to go shop in. We didn’t have malls. JJ: And the Panthers were there? CV: Outside. You know, outside on the corner. If you crossed at the light, they would be there. JJ: What about the Brown Berets? Were they anywhere? CV: Not as bad. Not as much. But they would be there at Kennedy Square. You’d see different groups. And then if you ventured off to Ann Arbor, where we went once in a while, they had the White Panthers. That was John Sinclair. Michael Lynn, I met him in 1969. He was from Highland Park and he was into that. He understood a little bit more. He was a little bit older, you know, than I was. But he was into that. So he would always call me. “Hey, they’re gonna have a speech over here. Let’s go.” [00:49:00] And I’d go with him because I liked the crowds, and I’d go with him. But he knew what they were talking about and he would follow them. JJ: And he was your friend, so you kind of just -- 31 �CV: What’s that? JJ: He was your friend, so you kinda hung out with him? CV: All the time. He became godfather to my daughter. Yeah, I met him. He used to sell shoes at Griggle’s, sporting goods. You know, later on, he sold clothes. But we were real tight back then. In ’69, I met him. JJ: Now, you’re growing up in the United States. I mean, you’re rooting for the United States, right? So how did (inaudible) these people are attacking the United States, the Panthers and the Brown Berets and all them. CV: They had a lot of -- JJ: Could you relate to some of them? CV: Well, they had a lot of problems with the police, you know, back then, them guys. [00:50:00] We used to have a thing called the Big Four. There were four cops that rolled in a car instead of one, and when they came around, they got out. Something was gonna happen. They don’t get out of the car unless they were gonna do, you know, some harm to somebody. I mean, they wouldn’t put you in the hospital, but they’d make sure they’d make a point. They had three or four cars like that that would cruise the neighborhood. You know, and we had the riots in ’67 over there off 12th Street. That shut down the community and the southwest side of Detroit. They had the National Guard in Clark Park. JJ: What do you mean? You had the riots in the Mexican [crew?]? CV: No, but it ventured off as far as Bagley and 18th. They had problems with, you know, people. The National Guard and some people in the neighborhood. JJ: Were they Mexican or Black? 32 �CV: Both. JJ: It was both Mexican and Black together? CV: Both there. They had a few. You know, but the main thing was downtown, over by Motown area, where the [00:51:00] old Motown is. They had problems. That’s where it started. But, you know, that was an event that -- ’67, yeah, like I said, right around then -- then after ’67, after the riots, a lot of white people started leaving Detroit. You know, they didn’t like the way things were moving. JJ: It was a white flight. CV: Somewhere around there. The northwest community, you know. I remember my brother, his brother-in-law, his mom lived out there towards Greenfield. You know, I didn’t venture much out of my neighborhood. There was an Irish family, the Sullivans, that moved to Dearborn Heights when I was a kid, and I took a bus trip out there one time. That was my first time in the suburbs, you know. [00:52:00] It changed. At that time, it changed (inaudible). But my family, like I said, they stayed in that neighborhood for quite a while. I was one of the first ones to leave the neighborhood. JJ: It changed a lot (inaudible)? CV: As far as drugs, as far as jobs, you know, as far as leaving the community and stuff like that, at that time, because everybody was moving. But certain families stayed, you know what I mean? JJ: Your father stayed? CV: What’s that? JJ: Your mother and father decided to stay. 33 �CV: No, they stayed. They stayed on Macken Street ’til -- it had to be late ’70s. Then they moved over. My brother had a house over there on Logan on the other side. It was still considered the southwest side of Detroit, but it was a little upside of the old neighborhood (inaudible). [00:53:00] And my mom and dad moved over that way, took over that house -- my brother Hector’s house. JJ: And your friends, as you were growing up, were they Mexican? White? CV: Mixed. JJ: Black? CV: Uh-huh. I hung around with a lot of people from Tennessee and Kentucky. I remember them guys. I learned a lot from them dudes, you know? Hillbillies, we called them back then. JJ: Was there a hillbilly community there? CV: Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. JJ: Good size? CV: Yeah, real strong. Yeah. JJ: We have that in Chicago. CV: They were Baptists, you know, a lot of them. JJ: They were what? CV: Baptists. Yeah, they weren’t Catholic, you know. But the mom and the dad were real strong, same way like my mom, dad. Like, once I started growing my hair and hanging out with these other people, they didn’t -- we had a bar down the street called Dixie Bell. [00:54:00] That was all country music, and all I remember as a kid was a lot of people fighting in the alleys when they come out 34 �of there because I used to have to go get food for my dad at Pete’s Steakhouse, and I have to go by there about 2:00 in the morning. Them guys would be coming out. But, yeah, they had Hank Williams. He cruised through there. Patsy Cline. You know, and it’s just a little bar on the corner, but it was there on Vernor, you know? They had a few of ’em, but they were in the community. We knew a lot of them. But they were in cars, hot rods. Back then, that’s what I remember. (inaudible) JJ: Now, there’s a stereotype that they didn’t like Mexicans or Blacks. CV: No. We got along. Maybe down South, but not in Detroit. The ones from Detroit, they were like anybody else. They were in the gangs on whatever corner. They would hang out with whoever. Back then, [00:55:00] it depends -you know how it is in the street -- how tough you were. That’s where you made your mark. If you could beat up so many people, people look up to you. That’s what it was back then. They didn’t shoot nobody. That stuff didn’t come on ’til later on. That’s when Detroit got bad, you know. These other gangs, the younger guys started carrying guns. And when I left in ’93, it was real bad. That’s when the Counts took over the neighborhood. JJ: Yeah. Counts? CV: The Latin Counts. JJ: The Latin Counts? CV: Yeah. A couple of guys from Chicago -- older guys -- started them. JJ: So Latin Counts from Chicago, moved to Detroit? 35 �CV: I don’t know if they were from Chicago, but two older guys started it. That’s what I remember. And them guys were over there on the southwest side. Then all of the sudden, different gangs started branching out in the neighborhood. JJ: So they became big, the Latin Counts? CV: In that neighborhood, yeah, at the time. JJ: In the southwest side. CV: Right, [00:56:00] at that time. JJ: And then what other Spanish gangs were there? CV: Well, I don’t know if they were Spanish, but you know, the Cash Flow. They had different gangs. Yeah, but they weren’t as big. They didn’t cause as much trouble. I just remember when we used to go to a party store, we’d go to pick up some beer and stuff, and we’d be sitting in the car and these kids are coming down the alley shooting. And they’re shooting at somebody going into the party store, and everybody’s running and hiding and taking off in their cars. But these are 12-year-old kids with guns. They didn’t care. They were recruited by the older guys to do what they had to do. A lot of it was drugs at that time, you know. By the time I left when I went into rehab, that’s when it started getting a little crazy. JJ: Okay, so you say you went to rehab. How old were you then? CV: Forty. JJ: You were about 40. CV: I quit drinking when I was 40. I’m gonna be 59 this year. [00:57:00] Right. I don’t know. It was just -- 36 �JJ: That’s 19 years? CV: I think so. Right, ’93? JJ: That you haven’t drank? Yeah. CV: Ninety-three. JJ: You say you were 40 when you quit. CV: Right, yeah. Yeah, that would be right. JJ: Okay. So what happened then? Were you married? Did you divorce? CV: Well, that was the thing. Our marriage fell apart. I had lost the house and moved back to the neighborhood and bought another house. I was buffing and polishing and working a lot of hours and drinking and staying at work and hanging out after work and stuff. Yeah, so I grew apart from my wife, you know. She got tired of it. She just said, you know, “You’d rather do what you’re doing. I’m 40. I wanna still do part of something with my life.” We separated. [00:58:00] It went from there. And then I’d say that was -- JJ: And you had how many kids? CV: Three. JJ: What are their names? CV: Antoinette, Dominic, and Benito. Benny wasn’t born until 10 years later, you know. We raised two of them, basically, and then when I went back to that community, that’s where I raised Ben for a little bit. I was -- JJ: And you weren’t married with anyone else before? CV: No. All my life. JJ: What was her name? 37 �CV: Linda. Linda, yeah. They were from the Albion area over by Jackson, her family. Her dad, he was real like a hustler. JJ: She’s Mexican too? CV: Yep. Yeah. Her dad, he used to sell tortillas, take ’em to Lansing, Jackson, you know. He’d drive in a van long before any of these other trucks were doing it. But I remember [00:59:00] helping him. It was ’69. That’s when I started going to her house. But he would drive all the way over to Ann Arbor and they had different stores. They’d make a road trip and deliver tortillas to the little, you know, Mexican stores that they had in that community. Lansing was a large community for that. Another thing I remember in the old days was the quinceañeras, you know? I remember a lot of them growing up. JJ: What is a quinceañera? CV: When a girl turns 15, 16, that’s womanhood for them. They get dressed like a wedding dress type thing and they throw it for them. They have a dance, that thing in the church. JJ: What do you remember? You said you remember the quinceañeras. CV: A lot of fights. (laughter) A lot of fights after. It’s cousins and cousins, but it was alcohol. I remember. And the dancing, [01:00:00] you know. I wasn’t into that that much, but it’s family. I had to go. But quinceañeras were a strong part of the Latin community back then, for Mexicans, I know that. JJ: So you’re talking about a community that was pretty solid with quinceañeras, with the church. CV: Right. 38 �JJ: Baseball teams and all of that? Soccer, I guess. Soccer. CV: That, I don’t remember that much. Like I said. But baseball, oh, yeah. JJ: Hardball or softball? CV: Hardball. Clark Park had their leagues. They’ve got a guy’s name over there on a plaque in Clark Park, Angel. I grew up with him and he worked with a lot of the kids over there in the community when they were playing ball and stuff. JJ: Yeah, were there any organizations (inaudible)? Do you remember? CV: La SED. JJ: La SED? CV: Yeah, that helped people get jobs and stuff like that. [01:01:00] My niece works for Western -- well, it’s not Western High School anymore. It’s International. I think they changed the name. She’s not probation, but when you skip school. JJ: Truant officer. CV: Truant officer. Christina. The last I remember, she was doing that. She was working for them. JJ: Didn’t your family get involved in the political events too or no? CV: I can’t vote. I’m not a citizen. JJ: Oh, you’re not a citizen? CV: No, I haven’t given them my citizenship from Mexico. JJ: Why is that? I mean, you’ve been here for how many years? CV: Oh, too many. I’ve paid my dues. It’s just something I don’t wanna do. Everybody bugs me about it, but my mom’s buried in Cuare. We buried her in 39 �’94. My dad’s buried [01:02:00] in Detroit, you know, but just something I don’t wanna do. JJ: But, I mean, why? Don’t you feel American? CV: You can’t get more American than the way I speak, but it was when I came here, I went into rehab. I wanted to go into HRP because it was Hispanic. I wanted to become more -- JJ: You wanna hear more about your culture? CV: There you go. Right. JJ: Hispanic Residential Program. CV: Right. JJ: That’s what HRP stands for? CV: Yeah. The lady who sent me there, she told me, you know, “You can go over there to the other place.” I said, “No, I wanna be with people that speak Spanish. I wanna learn how to speak Spanish better.” JJ: So HRP is the rehab, that you wanted to go there. CV: Project Rehab was the name of it. I was seeing an outpatient at the Latino Services in Detroit. She was a [crude?] lady, and it was around Christmastime. [01:03:00] She was leaving for vacation and I had seen her a couple times. She said, “I’m gonna go on vacation.” I told her I wanted to go somewhere where they could keep me from drinking because I told her, “I’ve got a jumbo in the car. As soon as I get done talking with you, I’m gonna go open the jumbo and just go back and drink. So I need to be locked up, basically, but I don’t wanna go to jail.” So she showed me a pamphlet of the Project Rehab, which was a pine tree with 40 �two people sitting out in the country. When I came over here, it’s over here on Eastern. It’s like Detroit, you know? It’s in the neighborhood. It’s in the city. But the good thing about it was I met a lot of people. It changed my life, you know. JJ: So you felt that you needed to be locked up. Why? CV: Because of the way I was drinking. Because I had lost my family, [01:04:00] you know. Just the change in my life at that time. I quit working, you know? Right toward the end of there, I quit working. JJ: So you were drinking before you lost your family. CV: Right. It got worse. It got worse. That’s what it did. My daughter told me, she said, “You’ve gotta do something.” So like I said, I turned 40. I said, “I’ve gotta do something to change it. I’ve gotta make a move.” So I went into the rehab. JJ: What was rehab like? CV: A learning process. JJ: When you first got here, what happened? CV: I got the DDTs. You know, I met Dave Perez. He was I guess a gang member from another part of the city, from this part of Grand Rapids. He’d come and pick me up at the bus station over here on Wealthy. I had not stopped drinking for so long that the bus ride, by the time I got here, [01:05:00] I had the DDTs, you know, the shakes. Real bad. So when a couple guys in there offered me a glass of apple juice, I couldn’t hold it with two hands, I was shaking so bad. They were laughing at me, you know. You’re gonna get cured in here, from that, so I liked their attitude. One was from New York and the other one was Lenny. He was 41 �from Muskegon. So it was just meeting other people and, you know, learning. Another learning process. I did a lot of reading. JJ: You did a lot of reading, but what were you reading? CV: The stuff that they had in there, the information, you know, about alcoholism, as much as I could. The 12-step program. I went from being part of to running meetings, [01:06:00] and ended up in the kitchen, cooking, ’cause I liked to cook. You know, just being part of the -- JJ: So everybody had a job or something? CV: In the rehab, in order for you to participate in everything, you had to do a chore, some type of chore. Either vacuum, clean the bathroom. You know, they gave you something to do, so it was a process that helped you. JJ: Now, this was a Hispanic program. CV: They had the Bolan. JJ: I mean, what type of Latinos did they have in there? CV: Huh? JJ: What type of Hispanics were there? CV: That was the thing. That’s the first time I met Cubans and Puerto Ricans. I hung around them before, but not as much as I did here. When I went on a trip to Detroit, I had to go see -- because my sister-in-law passed away. I picked up my guitar and I brought it back to the rehab, and then I started jamming with [01:07:00] these guys, playing Latino music, learning songs, making songs, singing, and playing in the room. So it kind of changed my attitude, you know. I wanted to be part of. 42 �JJ: It changed your attitude? Before you didn’t like it? CV: I was strictly into rock and roll, into (audio cuts out), you know, you name it. JJ: And now you’re more into the culture, your culture’s music, because rock and roll is part of the culture of Black. Latinos too that grew up with it. CV: Right, but in the ’70s, the music changed where -- JJ: I mean, Latinos grow up with whatever. CV: Well, I was talking to Patrick about that ’cause they had these bands, the (inaudible) All-Stars and the musicians from New York and stuff like that when salsa came out. These guys introduced me to all that. There’s Mexican music, which my sister and them, and all that [01:08:00] they know about. So I had to relearn all this stuff. It was new to me to get into it, let alone that. I had to learn Spanish. So that’s when I started hanging around with different people over here, and that’s all they spoke. So little by little, I picked it up. JJ: So you’re in the program. About how long were you in the program? CV: I went in in December 21st, I think it was, before Christmas, and I got out at the end of April, right before May. About four months, yeah. JJ: And then you go back to Detroit? CV: I was gonna go to Muskegon, you know, but I got talked out of it and stayed here. I got a room with Analita. You know, I think you helped me out over there. You knew her, or somebody did. Yeah, that was over there by the rehab, and I stayed with her and stayed in the [01:09:00] Grand Rapids area. So I’ve been here since. As soon as I got out of there, I got a job through Yolanda Wilson. She used to get people jobs that came out of jail, so she got me a job in the buffing 43 �and polishing. That’s where I ended up working in the McDonald’s industry. I worked there for about a year, and then I went to where I’m at now. I’ve been there since. I’ve been lucky. A lot of people change a lot of jobs. JJ: Did you continue with treatment after that? CV: Yeah, I participated with meetings, Latino support groups. JJ: And you were one of the leaders of that. CV: Right, helped out, (inaudible). JJ: It was something that we started, right? CV: Right. And that helped me out a lot because, you know -- JJ: That was, like, 12-step with -- they had music in it and everything else. CV: [01:10:00] It involved a little bit of everything. I liked it more than the other one because I went to meetings at these other places, to the Al-Anon Club, and I just feel alienated. Not saying nothing bad about these people, but it was like a clique and I wasn’t in the clique. I didn’t feel right. Yeah, I met one guy that knew Patrick and I ran into him later on in the years, and he says he was my sponsor. I said, “I don’t remember you.” He said, “Oh, yeah, I gave you my number,” and blah blah blah. “I’m sorry,” I said. I’m pretty good with faces, especially if you’re Latino. But, yeah, it was a learning process, that’s what it was for me, both learning how to stay away from alcohol -- you know, my problem was I hung out at the bars all the time. I shot pool, stayed with the guys. It didn’t matter. I’d stay late. [01:11:00] And then to come here and just quit, you know, a lot of people in Detroit, they didn’t think I would do it. They were just saying, “You’ll be back.” Which, you know, it’s hard because a lot of people, when I go back to 44 �Detroit, they’re in the same bar stool when I left. My sister, she still drinks. I’m not the type of person to preach to people a lot. I recommend. That’s as far as I go. I mean, I did what I did because, you know, I wanted to change my life. I wanted to do something positive. And then I got a son, Benny, which does the same thing. But he contributes to the community. Every day, he’s at Clark Park, working with the kids, teaching them how to breakdance and just to be part of, do different things. JJ: In fact, [01:12:00] he’s had a group or something? What’s the name of it? CV: Motor City Rockers. The Motor City Rockers, right. I think he had some pictures he posted up. They did Tiger Stadium a couple times. Them guys would play up there in front, you know. They do their breakdance and they’re pretty good. But the main thing about it is that they reach out to the kids. They start a really young age and they go all the way up. A lot of his cousins are part of what he does, you know, his mom and everybody else. My son Nick -- JJ: A lot of them, it keeps them out of the gangs too. CV: Yeah. Well, on the streets. I don’t know if the gangs are as strong as they were before, but it keeps them off the streets is the main thing. They’ve got other programs over there that other people run, but Benny’s just a small part. JJ: (inaudible)? CV: Huh? JJ: The place that Benny works with? CV: Benny works with [01:13:00] (inaudible) and [Lawndale?]. JJ: Okay, but he does work on the side. 45 �CV: Huh? JJ: He works out of the place too on his own? CV: His is now on his own. I don’t know if he’s still working for the same people, but they gave him the building where he would have classes and he would have them people come and (inaudible). JJ: Now, you said your other son. CV: Nick, he works on houses. A lot of the housing in Detroit is -- people left. There were a lot of houses being torn down and empty. Nick goes in. He works for a company that buys these houses and fixes them and sells them or rents them, whatever’s left. Detroit goes all the way to Eight Mile. It’s pretty big, you know, so a lot of it’s empty. Everybody left, like I told you. The communities, they were the first to leave, and then little by little, everybody else started leaving. But it ain’t like Grand Rapids where they fix [01:14:00] houses. They’ll burn a house because of some reason or they’ll level it. JJ: Now, I met you at HRP also, right? What was I doing there? CV: You were a counselor. You were working there. You weren’t one of my counselors right away, but we would go out to a lot of road trips with you, I remember. JJ: Because before, they didn’t want people to go out. CV: Right. And then the other thing was we had to go to certain churches. We wanted to go to a Catholic church, but they told us whatever type of church they went to. But any type of trip to Meijer’s or anything was good to get out of there. You know, it wasn’t a bad place to be. There’s food and somewhere to sleep. As 46 �long as you followed the rules, everything was okay. But they had a few guys that would venture out, sneak out, [01:15:00] and they’d end up doing bad. But it was a good setup. It’s changed a little bit from what it was. JJ: So the program was pretty good. I mean, we were able to go out to the different things. CV: Yeah, I helped a few people I would say down the line. I met a lot of people, and then they were in the same boat, what I was in. I went to AA for a while after that, but I quit going. I didn’t drink no more, but it’s just something I didn’t do no more. I quit going. JJ: You helped out with the Latino support group. CV: For a long time. JJ: That we founded, that we started. CV: Right, and then we did Lincoln Park thing. JJ: Camp. CV: The camp with the kids, the KO Club. JJ: So you got involved with me with the Lincoln Park camp. And what was that like? I know you did music and [01:16:00] some (inaudible). CV: Right. What I liked about it was it was something outside the city, you know. I really liked it over in the area by Youngs Lake, that little campground that we had. You had the music. You had the boats, you know, the little things. The campfires. It was just nice. I wish that happened all the time. I love when we hear -- this is like where I live right now, Grandville. It’s like by over there (inaudible). To see these kids running around here, and they have programs for ’em here. Don’t get 47 �me wrong. But it ain’t like that one where you would see a bunch of these kids taking off to a camp. The city’s changing, this city, since I’ve been here. JJ: Okay, so Lincoln Park Camp. Yeah, I think we had people come from Chicago also, right? CV: Yeah. JJ: So (inaudible) the purpose of the camp. [01:17:00] Do you remember? (inaudible) not clear. CV: Now I wouldn’t. But back then, I know we had to do with the Young Lords and the Lincoln Park Project, which was something that was going on over there with DePaul University and Chicago. I made a lot of road trips with you out to Denver for the 30th anniversary for something they had out there with the Latinos out there. JJ: Corky Gonzales. CV: Corky Gonzales. I got to see a lot of people. The guy in the Indians (inaudible), there were a lot of people at that meeting. It was an anniversary. But I have a poster still. But it was something different. That was ’94, ’95 -- I think ’95, somewhere around there, ’cause I went to Mexico and then I went to Denver in the same year twice. But it was nice because you [01:18:00] met a lot of people that changed, really changed everything back then, especially Corky Gonzales. He didn’t speak but he was there. I remember there were other poets and people like that that were there at that thing. JJ: At the anniversary? CV: Right. It was the 25th anniversary. 48 �JJ: Yeah, 25th anniversary. We had [from the crusade for Jesse’s place?]. CV: That’s what it was. That’s what it was, yep. JJ: We had that. The Young Lords in Chicago had gone there in ’68 for the first time. We took a busload in Chicago. That’s when we got involved in the (inaudible). Actually, he helped get us involved, Corky Gonzales. CV: [01:19:00] Right. Yeah, you know, it was cool. Like I said, there were a lot of important people, a lot of names that were there. And they went to a park. I remember being in some park that they had been at a long time ago, and they went to have some speeches there and stuff, which was cool. The Lincoln Park Project, I remember going to DePaul University, being involved with a lot of meetings because they had the photos and stories about the Young Lords that they were trying to accumulate at the time. I was part of the meetings. They made decisions with different people that I met over there in Chicago. JJ: So we were trying to tell the history again. CV: Right. (inaudible). JJ: And you didn’t know anything about the Young Lords but you were helping out. CV: Right. All that came after I got out of the rehab. [01:20:00] All I knew about you being part of that was that you were from Chicago. I think back then, I wasn’t as interested because of, you know, coming out of the rehab and stuff. But it was all, like I told you, a learning process, and it helped me to be a part of, to contribute. I met Stacy at -- JJ: That was the (inaudible). CV: No, no, no, it was out that college. We were handing out coffee. 49 �JJ: Oh, Calvin College. CV: Calvin College. Volunteering. We were volunteering. JJ: We were selling coffee for the KO Club. CV: Right, coffee and doughnuts. JJ: The KO Club was a youth program, a gang prevention program, that we set up in the style of the Young Lords, right? But we called it the KO Club. CV: [01:21:00] For the kids. You did that out of the church. I remember we were part of the church over by Vernon. JJ: United Methodist Church in Vernon Heights. CV: But there at Calvin was volunteer work. JJ: Yeah, they had a conference. CV: Right. JJ: And we were selling coffees to these women, and they let us do that. The United Methodist Church let us sell coffee to their conference, and we actually made a lot of money. Not a lot. We made about 800 dollars in a couple days. CV: That was pretty good. JJ: It went to the program, to the kids. That was that. So you helped with that. CV: Right, that part of it, yeah. JJ: You did a lot of volunteering. I can remember the sound, you were always the one that handled that. CV: Right, the PA system for them to speak and to run the guitars and stuff like that, because I was part of music -- JJ: The Lincoln Park Camp. 50 �CV: Right. JJ: So we had about three things. We had Lincoln Park [01:22:00] Camp. CV: The KO Club. JJ: We had the Latino support group. CV: And the KO Club. JJ: And the KO Club. CV: Three things I was part of. JJ: They worked together. CV: Right. But I went with you out of town quite a bit. JJ: We had a little Young Lords group here. You were part of that. CV: But I went out of town with you a lot of times to Chicago. We made a lot of road trips. JJ: You went with me to New York too. CV: One trip to New York was great. That was one of your best speeches. But you’ve gotta speak louder. (laughter) But it was good. It was one of the hottest days of the year, kind of like it is now, and we were in Spanish Harlem. JJ: The 40th anniversary of the Young Lords in New York. CV: Right, but it was so hot that day in that church. JJ: We had had the 40th anniversary in Chicago, but it was New York’s turn. CV: But that was good. JJ: What’d you say? I’ve gotta speak louder? CV: Yeah, you’ve gotta. JJ: It was good, you said, still. 51 �CV: Yeah, it was like [01:23:00] Denver. I got to meet a lot of people, and they were from -- it’s all history. JJ: Yeah, we were well received in both places. CV: Right. But it was a guy’s daughter that was there, his granddaughter. JJ: Oh, and Pedro Luis Ocampo’s granddaughter. CV: You’ve got a picture. We got a picture with her, right? And he’s an important person, you know, for what you guys believe in. JJ: (inaudible). CV: Yep. JJ: She came and said hello (inaudible). CV: Yeah. Getting back to where I came from and to how I got here, my thing was the change in life for what I did. Detroit, to grow up in that era, it was a plus because you can do more at that time. Now, you know, streets are a little dangerous. You’ve gotta watch your back when you walk around. It’s changed. Everybody left [01:24:00] Detroit, you know. It’s just hanging there, surviving, one of the cities that’s survived. My son does what he does for the community, for the kids. He’s still there. He don’t stay in Detroit, but you know, he goes down the neighborhood every day, him and his buddies. They’re there at Clark Park, which is good, you know. JJ: So what are you doing now? What type of work and stuff like that? CV: I’m running casino parts. Slot machine parts. Yeah, I do that, buff and polish. JJ: So you’re doing buffing and polishing? 52 �CV: Yeah. Well, I polish. I polish some parts. They’ve got buffers. But I run them parts for them, prep ’em before they’re plated. They put chrome on them. JJ: And you’ve been there for a while. CV: Yeah, I’ve been there since ’94. You know, I left to California to go help Michael Lin, the crisis he had out there. Then I came back and they rehired me. [01:25:00] So I kind of lost my seniority, but still about 14 years, he said, a little more, something like that. But it’s good. It’s a small business and tight. JJ: You know the owners real well? CV: Well, I worked with his dad. He passed away and then his son took over, so it’s good. And he said we’re about two-year contracts that we’ve got going, so as long as it keeps me working. Knock on wood. I’m one of the ones that’s working, making money. A lot of people I know, they ain’t doing nothing. Like I said, I’m almost 59. I’m working as hard as I did when I started, 100 degrees in there. It’s hot. But that’s what we do. Should’ve went to college. I would’ve been sitting behind a desk. (laughter) JJ: Well, I mean, you like the job. I mean, it’s a good job. CV: It’s something my brother Beto taught me, yeah, how to do. You know, it’s a trade. It’s a dying trade, but it’s a trade, yeah. You’ve gotta be good at it. They’re not gonna hire you [01:26:00] off the streets unless you know what you’re doing. It’s dangerous. Jerry got hit twice today with a part, just to show you. The machines run at 1,800 RPM, like a fast wheel running at you, and if you lose a part, it’ll hit you. You’ve gotta be able to hold onto the part, so it’s physical. You know, a lot of pain. But you’re making money. They don’t pay by 53 �hour. They pay by how fast you go. You know, but it’s a dying thing. They don’t do that no more. A lot of businesses don’t pay like that. They go hourly. So it’s good. JJ: Any final thoughts? CV: I’d like to contribute I’d say to this community, which I became part of. JJ: Grand Rapids, you mean? CV: Grand Rapids, yeah. I don’t know how far, you know, [01:27:00] I’m gonna go as far as working. Everybody else I’m around, they’re retired. All my brothers, you know, they don’t work no more. JJ: (inaudible) 59. CV: It don’t matter. Them dudes retired when they were younger than I was, my brothers did, you know? It depends on your job and your pension and everything. So in your situation, where you’re at. I don’t know. But if I get out of what I’m doing because it’s too physical, I’ll end up probably playing some music, doing cooking, doing something I like to do, something a little more laid back. But I’ve gotta pay the bills, you know? If I could be part of something in the community where I can volunteer, keep me busy, I’d do that. I’d do a lot of -what you call it? -- watch my diet and stuff now because I was overweight for a long time. I had to change my eating habits and stuff like that. [01:28:00] So I’m on my bike a lot now, walk whenever I can, try to do physical stuff. We got a heat wave now and I ain’t gonna do it out there in 90 degrees, you know. Yeah, it’s just see how it goes, you know. I’m not involved with the Young Lords as much as I was before, but I still communicate with them, you know? So, you know, it’s 54 �like you were telling me, they have that thing in Oregon, a play that’s going on, I want to get in touch with Michael Lynn. You know, if he’s still there, and the play is still going on at the time and I’m not doing nothing, I’d like to go out that way, you know, be with him and to go see it, do something. Because, you know, we’re tight. We grew up together, but we don’t see each other no more, you know? Especially when you get our age, you lose contact with different people. Something to do, you know? I’m not married no more, but, you know, but I’m still around -- [01:29:00] I’m going to the family reunion Saturday. I’m the one that runs everything. I do that for the family, you know, keep (inaudible) nephews and nieces. You know, we used to see each other at funerals, you know, and that was it. You know, weddings once in a while, you know, but I say, hey, once a year, I make an effort to go to Detroit, I rent the park, and get the food together, and try to get as many of the family together to keep it tight. Because my ma and dad used to go to (inaudible) used to have picnics there. And that’s all the old pictures. JJ: Go where? CV: Belle Isle, La Bella Isla. It’s right there in the Detroit River. West Grand Boulevard starts from the Ambassador Bridge, goes in a circle, and it goes right into Belle Isle. So with the way they made the city, but a lot of people used to have picnics there in the old days. They had the [01:30:00] Grand Prix there a few times, you know, but yeah. I do it because of the old days, you know, when we used to get together with family, so I try to keep everybody, you know, tight. Some of our family’s out of the state, but the ones that are here in the Detroit 55 �area, I try to get them, you know, together, keep the family tight. You know? I don’t go down there as often as I used to, but one time a year, I make an effort. I think that’s important, you know, for family to -- especially when -- it’s like, my niece just had a, you know, baby, (inaudible). You know, and the new -- the younger ones get to meet and read about the older ones. They have pictures, they have the little pamphlets and stuff, you know, the stories about the family and stuff like that, you know, so they can read. But it’s [01:31:00] pretty good. You know, some -- a lot of people do it, they do it their own way, because, you know, I’m making it up, at least try to, you know, do it. JJ: So what’s the benefit? Because I know you do a lot for the reunion, you do that every year. What do you think is the benefit of the reunion for the family? CV: So that your cousins won’t forget your cousins. They know each other. They won’t walk down the street and say, “Man, I didn’t know we were related.” And a lot of that stuff goes around. You know, people grow up. It’s not like when we came. I’m second generation, you know, I’m talking third, fourth generation. You know, it’s not like before. They don’t all speak Spanish, you know? And I was just one of the few that didn’t do that. So, you know, I think it’s important, especially for, you know, different cultures, being Latino. United States changed, you know? [01:32:00] A lot of Latinos in the United States now. So it’s important to keep all that, you know -- JJ: So how do you feel about that? Now we’re -- I didn’t ask you, did you experience any discrimination at all when you grew up? CV: I get profiled once in a while, but I’m -- 56 �JJ: What (inaudible)? CV: That’s when they see you and they think you’re up to no good, you know? They think just because of the way you look, you know? JJ: So, what do you mean? Can you explain that? CV: I look Indian -- Mexican. JJ: (inaudible) examples of profiling? CV: Well, I’d have to say the DNR, you know, a couple times got me. JJ: What is DNR? Department of Natural Resources?, something like that? CV: Right. They come to check your fishing license, you know? And there’s other people that are around, and they’re all fishing around me, but they come straight to me because I got long hair, and I look Indian, Mexican. I own a boat, you know, but they don’t think I can own a boat. They come ask me for my registration. I mean, they’re doing their job, I don’t give them a [01:33:00] hard time, but I just think it’s a type of profiling that they’re doing. They’re not going up to everybody. And I see it in this neighborhood lately, because of this heatwave we had going around, that’s just, the cars are stopping, everybody, you know? And I can go down a couple -- JJ: Police are stopping everybody? CV: Oh yeah. JJ: Really? CV: Yeah, Saturday night. You know, but they have trouble over here, you know? And they have -- heat brings alcohol, brings drugs, brings -- I can’t say nothing negative about the police too, they’re doing their job. But, you know, every once 57 �in a while you’re going to have the ones that, you know, go over the edge. You know, I see it. And then I’ve got family out there in California and Arizona and stuff like that, and New Mexico. There’s relatives that are related to other relatives that have experienced worse, you know? JJ: In New Mexico, you have family (inaudible)? CV: Well, my brother Jesse lives down there, you know? [01:34:00] And his son. My sister Yola. JJ: Oh, you mean this stuff that’s going in on New Mexico -- CV: In the United States. JJ: How do you feel about that? CV: Well, my thing is that I’m fortunate that I don’t live in the area, you know what I mean? Over here, we don’t get it as bad. But you know, if they change it like they did the law over there in Arizona, you know, that means they can stop anybody for anything. And if you’re -- they want to check you for your papers or whatever -- and I have what they call a green card. You know, I have mine, everything’s legal, I’m a permanent resident of the United States. But if you don’t have your papers, you know, they’re getting them as far as taking them to the doctor. Their family’ll be sick, and then they’ll go ahead and they’ll get a hold of the family, because they know they’re not from here. You now, [01:35:00] so there are different ways that they got to do it. They’re having problems with too many people in the country coming over. JJ: So you think they have to do it? 58 �CV: Certain areas. Certain areas have to because of the overflow, especially down there by Mexico. And the drug dealers don’t help by sending them over with all them packs on their backs, you know? They do it -- guys got family over there. They’re going to offer you so many thousand dollars for their family, they’re going to do one trip for them just so they’ll have some money for their family. They’re not going to experience that type of money nowhere else. They’ll go to jail for that, you know? It’s rough. JJ: So on the one hand you’re saying they have to do it, but on the other hand, as you were saying, that maybe they -- CV: Both sides. Both sides gotta do it, or they -- one guy’s got to do their job because they got to do their job to control the country, and the other guy’s got to do it because he’s struggling. The families are starving or they don’t have nothing, they’re in [01:36:00] poverty, so they say “I can’t get a job, I can’t get into the United States, but this guy offers me $5,000 to bring in a pack of weed on my back and I can make it over there through the desert?” He’ll do it. You know what I mean? And they’re young people. JJ: Is it really about just drugs? Or are some people just trying to get a job, you know? Or -- CV: The majority of them that get caught in there, you know, are the ones that are running the drugs, and the other -- JJ: The ones that are being caught now? CV: Right, so -- 59 �JJ: They’re leaving -- you’re saying that they’re leaving the other people that are just coming here for jobs alone? CV: No, the ones that are coming for jobs are getting caught too, you know, illegally. But they got different ways they come in (inaudible), you know what I mean? It’s just too many -- that’s a big issue, big issue, immigration, you know, with the United States. I don’t live there, that’s what I’m saying. My brother lives down there in New Mexico. Especially the people in Arizona. JJ: So [01:37:00] how do you feel about your brother? CV: My brother Jesse, he’s been down there most of his life, you know? He’s the one that was in Vietnam, you know? And he believes that it’s just, you know, there’s the poor people over there on the other side that want a better life, you know, and they want to come over. We were lucky. Back then, they were giving the papers out. They’re not doing that no more. That’s changed. 9/11 changed everything, you know? Especially with immigration. I had to do -- my card is Homeland Security. JJ: Your card says Homeland Security? CV: That’s who’s, you know, watching you. That’s who keeps track -- JJ: On your card, it says Homeland Security? CV: It’s Homeland Security. It’s part of -- you know, their security to keep track of the immigration, you know what I mean? So it’s like a little chip that’s on that card, you know, in order to keep track of everybody. But, you know, [01:38:00] that’s what you got to use. I haven’t been out of the country in a long time, you know? 60 �When my ma died, that’s the last time I went to Juarez. You know? It’s been a while. JJ: I’m just saying, my card doesn’t say Homeland Security. It should, right? (laughs) CV: Yeah, yeah. JJ: I’m just kidding. CV: It is all good, you know, to be able to grow up in the United States. JJ: So, because you’re growing up in the United States, but you’re still a Mexican. You said “I’m not going to be a citizen.” So you got a little pride -- does that mean you got a little pride for Mexico, or what? CV: Viva Mexico. (laughs) [Zapata?]. Yeah, Zapata. JJ: I mean, is that the way you feel, or am I putting words in your mouth? CV: No, no, no. That’s -- I was a revolutionary in the other life. (laughs) JJ: You’re coming down. CV: I’m coming down now. We’re good? JJ: Yeah. [01:39:00] CV: Okay. JJ: All right. You done? CV: Yep. END OF VIDEO FILE 61 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/019735a8279b4e5009a4a53c57b54fef.mp4 38feefec8f79e228c996c4db87dddaa2 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Carlos Vasquez vídeo entrevista y biografía Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Mexicano-Americanos--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Mexicano-Americanos--Michigan Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Vasquez_Carlos Title A name given to the resource Carlos Vasquez video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vasquez, Carlos Description An account of the resource Carlos Vazquez is from Detroit, Michigan but he was born in Mexico and his family is from Ciudad Juárez on the border with Texas. Mr. Vasquez’s family settled in Detroit in the 1940s and 1950s. Mr. Vasquez is a musician who has played in several bands. He met José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez while Mr. Jiménez was a senior counselor/supervisor for Project Rehab. Mr. Vasquez decided to join the Young Lords and has volunteered to work on all of the Lincoln Park Camps. Today Mr. Vasquez’s son and other children still recall the event and say that it had a positive effect on them. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Mexican Americans--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Mexican Americans--Michigan Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-07-18 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6c729b5aec44637ef889f3972dbe9156.pdf b395d84017565b7ad43d5e69ec940394 PDF Text Text Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department Fidencio Vasquez Jr. Interview Interviewed by Norma Gonzalez-Buenrostro June 18, 2016 Transcript NG: This is Norma Gonzales, and I'm here today with Fidencio Vasquez Jr., the Second, at the Hart Library in Hart, Michigan, on this day, June 18, 2016. This oral history is being collected as part of the Growing Community Project, which is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Program. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me today. I am interested to learn more about your family history and your experiences living and working in Oceana County. Can you please tell me your full name and spell it? FV: Fidencio Vasquez Jr. the Second. F-i-d-e-n-c-i-o V-a-s-q-u-e-z, no middle name, J-r, the Second. NG: Do you use any accents when spelling your name? FV: No. NG: Okay, thank you. Alright, so let's get started. Can you tell me where you grew up? FV: Can I tell you where I was born first? 1 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department NG: Yeah, definitely. You can tell me whatever you like. FV: I was born in Edinburg, Texas. NG: Alright. FV: My parents came across from Mexico and I was ten days old when I moved to Hart, Michigan. NG: Alright, what year was that? FV: 1955. NG: Nice. And you came to Hart when you were ten days old? FV: Yes, I lived in Crystal Lake. NG: Oh okay, is it far from Oceana County? FV: Right outside of Hart. It'd be north of Hart about three miles by Crystal Lake. NG: Alright. FV: I live down the road from there. NG: So why did your parents move to Hart? FV: Back to where we came… that’s when my parents left Texas - Edinburg - we moved to Hart. I lived outside of Hart until grade school there. NG: Did your parents have a reason to move to Hart? Were they seasonal workers? Did they have- did they pick any...? FV: Well, they started working at a farm right near the area where we lived, which was like a half a mile from Crystal Lake in that area. They worked for a farm that had cherries and that's where they started. And my parents bought a house right there, just a little ways from Crystal Lake. NG: Alright. Do you remember going to the farm yourself at all as a child or was it just your parents that went? FV: No, I remember. I have some pictures. I forgot to bring them other pictures of me and my brother getting new bikes, my second older brother. I had another brother. My first brother was named Fidencio Vasquez, Junior. He was born in 1946, or ‘48, one of the two. And he died at two months from a tumor in his mouth. I never got to meet him. And then in 1952, my second brother was born. He was named Fernando Jesus Vasquez. And then they had me and they named me after my first brother. It's kind of different because I wished that they would name my second brother Fidencio. NG: You got that opportunity. FV: Yeah, I got the opportunity. NG: That's good. 2 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department FV: Yes. And I remember, I have a picture at home that me and my brother are sitting on bikes. I was probably seven, eight. And I knew what kind of place we were living at and what my parents were doing. They worked for farmers right in that area- for one farmer. NG: Do you remember the name of the farmer or the name of the...? FV: The name was Mr. Hare. And that's the only farmer that I know that owned that area land was cherries, apples, that they, whatever, picked or planted. It's pretty much what I can remember of that. NG: Did you ever pick yourself? Did your parents ever bring you to the farms and...? FV: Well, my dad's mother, she used to take us with her two daughters and her son. I remember being there and this picture right here, that's my dad's mom. My grandmother, I grew up with her, too. She used to take me with her son and me. We used to go to different states like Ohio to pick strawberries. NG: No way! FV: When I was little. NG: Oh, did you like going to the farms with your grandma? Was it fun? FV: Yes. NG: Yeah? FV: Because I just wanted to go, so she took me. NG: That's good. So, can you tell me more about what your parents did for the farmer? Did they go ahead and till the land or did they just pick? Did they stay with that farmer every year or did your parents move on eventually? FV: Oh, they probably planted trees by hand and picked cherries and apples and peaches, probably. Those are probably the only three kinds of fruit that I can remember being around that area when I grew up. And then I walked back and forth to grade school every day, my brother and me, Fernando. NG: Did you go to school here in Hart? FV: After the school...the school burned down. It was made out of stone. You know, all grades went to this school. There was a basement and an upstairs. And I think it burned and then they were building. So, my parents bought... we moved to Hart when I was twelve on State Street in front of the fairgrounds. NG: Yeah, right around here. FV: Yeah, I was twelve years old when my parents bought a house in… [music begins] NG: Oh, I can go ahead and pause it. FV: Okay. 3 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department EB: So, we were talking about the house that your parents bought on State Street. What year was that when you guys bought the house? FV: It would have been [nineteen] fifty-five, sixty-two. NG: And it was very close to the fairgrounds you mentioned, right? FV: Yes. NG: So, you saw the whole fair, and every year you saw how it built from there. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? How the fairs progressed? FV: Yeah, I used to go there all the time and I loved the fair. I was a regular, kind of. And I played all the games that were cheap. And when I was old enough, I don't know when, maybe when I was anywhere between twelve and fifteen, I helped put up some rides. NG: So, you worked for the fair? FV: Yes. NG: Is it run by the city or is it an outside organization? FV: It was run through the- what’s it called? Agricultural Council or something, you know? NG: Right, yeah. FV: There's a name for it. NG: Alrighty. So, it's like the Agricultural Organization... FV: ...Organization, yeah, and they would set up all the rides and I would go. It was… things were really cheap back then. I had so much fun. NG: How cheap? Do you remember any prices from back then? Like ten cents? FV: Ten cents, maybe five cents - real cheap. NG: So what kind of rides did they have back then? FV: Scrambler fairgrounds, Tilt-A-Whirl, the carousel with horses... NG: The merry-go-round? FV: The merry-go-round. Different kinds of rides, I don't know what all the names of them are but... NG: That's alright. So, you said that the agricultural organization put that together. Was there any of the produce that they would showcase at the fair? FV: Yes, they had different buildings for different things. Horses, rabbits, pigs, lambs, cows. And they had a commercial building with a lot of the fruits that people grew. They had different farmers come in, put up their own little displays of everything, and arts and crafts kind of with their kids. How the kids learned in 4-H. How the kids learn how to bring up their animals. And everybody had their own little animals. It's very neat. 4 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department NG: Did you ever join the 4-H? FV: Never did, no. I just enjoyed going to it every day. NG: That's good. So what else can you tell me about growing up in your… you mention your teenage years. Did you go into the farm working yourself, or did you move away from that? FV: No, I went into the farm work. I was, well, as it says in that paper. My mother worked for a nursery called Hawley’s Nursery. This is very important for you to look at, too. This is... I made this in nineteen... this gentleman picked me in nineteen ninety-eight. His name is right there. He was introduced to me through one of my cousins out of Muskegon; he worked for the Muskegon Chronicle. NG: Okay. FV: He made the story on how I preferred the farm work. Between when I was ten and fifteen… well, I was a newborn. Because, well, it says in the paper: I was ten days old, even though I moved here, my mom worked for this nursery named Hawley’s Nursery. They grafted trees to produce fruit. And my mother carried me in a basket when I was a newborn. You know, I still lived out of town. They'd quit working for that farmer and my dad went into truck driving, or working in a factory… working in a basket factory in Shelby Basket factory. I remember going with him. He worked at night. He ran a machine that made different blueberry boxes, strawberry boxes. And I remember as a kid going with my dad to work and then later… well, when I was born, I guess my mom carried me first before I went to work with my dad. And my mom worked there for forty-five years. And I think I worked for… there was an area farmer right next to the nursery I was working on. His name was Monroe Piegels [?]. He had the land just down the street. I worked on the farm doing disking, mowing grass, learned how to trim trees, and worked at Hawley’s Nursery. The whole Vasquez family pretty much ran this Hawley’s Nursery. He had great big orchards of trees and all my aunts and uncles were grafters. And then after you graft a tree, on your hands and knees. You know, you're on your hands and knees, my mom was a grafter. You know you use… they cut up… my uncle used to go cut off these limbs like this and cut the leaves off where the bud would produce the fruit tree. NG: Right. FV: And my mom would cut the line like this and cut that little butt off with a knife and slip it into the tree, and then the person behind her would tie it with a rubber band really fast. And I would go behind with this little bucket and this little lantern in it... kerosene lantern with a bow on top and you put wax in it and you carry it with a paintbrush. After you graft them, put tape on them, you have to seal them. So, I did that until I was fifteen. NG: And after that, did you move on from there and go to a factory or another farmer? FV: I have a history of working with farmers. On the west side of Oceana County, I started out at Hawley’s Nursery and then Bob Ryder [?], Jack Hare [?], Lewis Claudie [?], Richie Rider [?], and on and off now for the last seven, eight years for Joe Daley. I learned how to drive a cherry rollout. It’s a long machine. NG: Okay. FV: And the tarps, you pull the tarps out, they're maybe twenty feet wide, each one. Twenty, twentyfive feet. The machine was probably fifty feet long, the machine was. And I would drive it with a tractor 5 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department up to the tree to the center of it, and I'd release the levers so the tower would come out and they'd put it around the trunk of the tree. And then there's another man with a machine that would drive up to the tree and shake the tree so the cherries would fall off, and I would reel it in with a conveyor belt going, and the tank was in the back. So, I learned how to do that for seven years, on and off lately, and I still work there. But after I was fifteen, I started working for Gale’s IGA. NG: Oh, okay. That one right here. No way! FV: Uh huh, yeah. NG: How was it back then? FZ: It was pretty neat, yeah. NG: What did you do at IGA? FZ: Well, I worked in the grocery department. NG: Okay. FZ: And I worked for Mr. Gale - Mr. Gale's father - to help him unload the truck. I'd be in the back working with him alone. They had rollers for the man up in the truck, putting stuff on the rollers, and we'd stack it in piles, empty the truck, and open boxes and price them. Priced everything and hauled out to the aisles and we'd stock. And I did a little bit of everything there. I even learned how to work in produce. They had a freezer storage there where people would come in, rent lockers. And I worked in the produce department and I helped clean floors. And well, I don't know what year it was… where the laundromat is right now, that was the grocery store and Gale’s insurance agency was next to it, this little office. And then down the road, Mr. Gale bought...there was houses on that property. He bought most of the houses and little by little, he built a new grocery store. I think it was ten years later, maybe? Somewhere in there? Or maybe not even ten years later, maybe five years later, he built a new grocery store. NG: Is that the new one that we have now? FV: Yes. That whole place was the store. That whole building was the grocery store. And they had the meat department in the back, our stockroom was in the back, and the freezer department had storage where people come and rent lockers to put their… buy meats and, you know, or they buy like cows or something. And then it came in packages and they'd bring it there and put them in a storage room in the freezer. And then little by little as that store was getting built, I was helping in there, once in a while. And then I worked in the grocery store and then when the shelves were up, they moved all the groceries. We did it by cart, carrying anything that was on the shelves and go to stock them in the new store. So, it was kind of neat, you know. Work here, work here and make sure to bring over here. So, when the store was... as they were working on it, we were stocking shelves, little by little before they opened it. NG: Right. FV: And I also helped work inside, do some different jobs when they were building floor with Irwin Gale's son, Dennis Gale. And it went from there. And I worked there ten years. I was twenty-five. And then I wanted to go to Texas with these friends of mine that were almost like my family, my other mom 6 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department and dad. So, I went to Texas for a year to Lubbock, Texas, and I worked there at a gas station and I worked in a garage changing tires and running U-Haul trucks and trailers. I worked there for one year. NG: And then you came back to Oceana…? FV: Because I missed my parents. So, my dad and my uncle were working for Oceana Canning of Shelby, they were truck drivers and they were coming to Lubbock, Texas, to bring a load of canned cherries. And I asked my dad, can you go ask Mr. Gale if I can have my job back? Then he called me and he said, “Yeah, you can.” And so, I was excited to come back home. I missed my parents. NG: That's good. FV: Yeah, yeah. NG: So, when you came back you got your old job back? FV: I got my old job back. NG: That's great. FV: And I worked there until 1990. Twenty years. NG: That's good! FV: And then I went… okay, let me see. Yeah, after that, I worked for Bob Ryder [?], who was a fruit farmer. He had many different kinds of fruits: apple, all different kinds of cross-breed apples, peaches, apricots, nectarines, which you don't find much around that apricots… maybe nectarine trees, now they're getting more popular. And I would pick every other day and go to the farmer's market every other day. We had two markets, one in Grand Rapids and one in Muskegon. I worked at both of them. NG: You would sell the produce that you picked the day before? FV: Yeah, we'd spot pick the trees. Spot pick, get the good stuff, number one grade and then we had a number two basket. You know, you buy, you can buy expensive stuff or you can buy cheaper stuff. I learned how to do that. NG: That's good. So, you have a lot of skills with agriculture and you're very educated on how to run farms and stuff. FV: Yeah. NG: That's great! FV: Yeah. And I resigned in 1990. And, I had a friend that was living in Grand Rapids after he got out of college. And I needed a job and I didn't want to do any more fruit farming or anything, I wanted to get some kind of... something different. He was a hotel manager for… he worked at, like, a Holiday Inn when he started and then he was working for another hotel when I went down there from 1990 to ‘95. I was working in the summer for Mr. Ryder [?]. He's in here, too. His article is in here with mine. [paper ruffles] There he is right there. This is a truck, it was like a beer truck with the sliding doors and we put shelves in it to put all our fruit in. We could put four hundred and fifty baskets on both sides. And these apples were already sorted. 7 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department NG: Okay, for like the grade A? FV: And we'd take them from the orchard onto the flatbed truck and we'd put them right on the truck and get more baskets and go get some other stuff, other kind of fruit, and load up the truck. Every other day we did that and the front. That's... NG: Yeah, that's my uncle! FV: …your uncle! I talked to him about this paper the other day. NG: Yeah. FV: I said, “Do you have that paper?” He goes, “I don't think so, but I remember it.” And I was going to bring it down and show it to him. NG: Yeah, maybe we can have a copy of that, too. This is really cool. I recognized him for a second. FV: Yeah, he was my dad's friend. NG: Really? FV: Yeah. NG: Small town. [Laughter] FV: And in the front of the article, this brings down what I did. This is when I started working for him. That was me. I had long hair. That's my mom. I worked there, too, even before I went to IGA. They turned...they sold the nursery to four buyers that bought all this acreage and they turned it into a golf course as my mom was still working there. NG: Oh, okay. FV: You can see in the background that they were making grass parts and it was getting smaller and smaller and smaller and the smallest orchard was the field, or they were doing grafting still. It was getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And then it just...everybody just...there was no more work. NG: Is this golfing field the golf…? FV: The Colonial Golf Course. That whole nursery, that whole area goes all the way back to the highway and all the way back to McDonald's. That was all fruit, all fields. NG: Really? No way. FV: And he had fields out by Round Lake. Big, long fields, almost a half mile long and all my aunts... twenty-seven hundred trees in each row and by knee, on their hands and knees doing all this grafting. And then later, they would take them out of the ground and put them in great big containers and bring them into a nursery, and they'd size them with a grater, the trunks, and then tie them in bundles and then they’d bury them in the ground in rows, side by side. And people would come buy them in the spring when it was time to plant them. NG: Okay. 8 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department FV: Yep, long story short, from there to there. So, let's go back. This is what I preferred after I got out of working at Gale's IGA in 1990. I worked for Bob Ryder [?]. NG: And then when did you finally stop going to the… you said you still continue to... FV: Yeah, I continue. I was working for my friend. He hired me. He worked in like a... he was a clerk but he moved to another hotel. He was a banquet manager. Rent banquets… had sliding doors and this great big, it's like a hall, you know, sliding doors. And I started working in the restaurant as a busboy. NG: Okay. FV: And then I moved up into the banquets department and I learned a lot there. I worked a half a year there in the winter, and then I come back, work half a year on the farm for five years. I went back and forth. NG: That's good. And you continue… you mentioned before that you continue to do that now. So, do you do that currently right now or are you…? FV: No. I worked for Bob Ryder [?] until 2000. NG: Okay, so sixteen years ago. FV: I was there from 1990, I worked for him for ten years until 2000. And then I did a little bit of farm work on the side, a little bit, you know, until I got a real job. I got into laborers union. My office was out of Battle Creek. One of my friends was Fernando's best buddy. He was working for the paper mill in Muskegon, as I recall. It's not there no more. But that's where I started working as a laborer, working in a power plant. My brother and me did. He's like twelve, fifteen years younger than me and we got jobs there. And we're so excited, you know, I was working for a job that was paying eight dollars an hour when I left. Well, when I was working in Grand Rapids, you know, they paid a little more over there and more than farming of course, and then I got into the laborer’s union, which I worked for part of West Michigan from top to bottom. The office would call me and tell me to go, well, you got to go to the paper mill for so many weeks, or you work for different contractors and you do different things and you go there and work depending how many days, weeks or months. And after you finish one job, they can relocate you to another one to a different place. NG: Did you like that moving around? FV: Yes! NG: It was fun. FV: Because I worked and there was a power plant in Muskegon - that one with a big tower. I worked there [loud noise] and then one at a paper plant in Manistee. I worked way down in Irons, Michigan in a generating plant they were building. I worked for different contractors and did different types of work. I did scaffolding. For people to get up on, to do their work, I had to put everything together. So that was really exciting. I did that for… I resigned four years ago. NG: Wow, so what do you do right now? FV: I just work, I'm disabled and I work for farmers. One farmer and I work for a friend - handyman service. 9 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department NG: Okay. FV: I paint, we do odd jobs, and I work for the fairgrounds - Parking Supervisor - with my friend that was working there. Well I was even working there for a while. I was a maintenance man. Then I wanted to quit so I gave the job to one of my friends. He's been there fifteen years and I've been helping park cars for seven years and now I'm pretty much just a volunteer. I want to get out and do things for the community. NG: That's good. That's really good. FV: Yeah. NG: So, you work so much with… did you start a family of your own at some time? FV: Never been married, never had any kids. NG: Alright. Well, I think...is there anything else you'd like us to share with the research program? I mean, we got a lot, but is there anything else you'd like to mention? FV: Well, like…? NG: Any advice for a young person who might listen to this recording who lives in Oceana County? FV: Well, if you like to work, just keep working. Do what you want to do. And if you can do it, do it. NG: Definitely. FV: And I know I'm getting a little older now. I can't work as hard as I used to, but I still keep on moving and I keep busy and, you know, whatever you'd like to do, keep doing it or just change from job to job. Don't stop, just… NG: Definitely. FV: ...keep yourself happy. [Laughter] NG: Thank you so much! Well, thank you so much for your time and for sharing your memories with me. And I believe this concludes our interview. FV: Okay, thank you. NG: Thank you! 10 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f380cbb2234dde816be2e5ae8987261d.mp3 07cbf47fee293cb84448c0ca531f3516 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shell-Weiss, Melanie Description An account of the resource Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Oceana County (Mich.) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf image/jpeg audio/mp3 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Image Sound recording Language A language of the resource eng spa Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Oceana County (Mich.) Hart (Mich.) Shelby (Mich.) Farms Farmers Migrant agricultural laborers Hispanic Americans Account books Diaries Oral history Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06_Vasquez_Fidencio Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vasquez, Fidencio Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-06-18 Title A name given to the resource Vasquez, Fidencio (audio interview and transcript) Description An account of the resource Oral history interview with Fidencio Vasquez, Jr., the second. Interviewed by Norma Gonzalez Buenrostro on June 18, 2016 in Hart, Michigan. English language. Fidencio Vasquez, Jr., the second, was born in Edinburg, Texas in 1955. The son of two Mexican immigrants, Fidencio and his family moved to Hart, Michigan when Fidencio was ten days old. Throughout his life, Fidencio worked for many different businesses throughout Michigan, including the local Hart fair, many fruit farms, grocery stores, and labor services. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Gonzalez Buenrostro, Norma (interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oceana County (Mich.) Hart (Mich.) Farms Fruit growers Agricultural exhibitions Grocery trade Audio recordings Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8f37e6f04eeb9a900094a2b59b36c51d.mp4 9725a9d2659a9018b7beafdb8b9b6ca2 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/55bed89c7fd9791beec600f4a8b13ac8.pdf 2c741bca71c389b4118f5bc56717d258 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veteran’s History Project Isabelino Vazquez Korean War / Vietnam War Interview Length: (01:36:51:00) Pre-Military Life / Korean War / Early Military Service (00:00:12:00)  Vazquez was born in Puerto Rico and he stayed in Puerto Rico until he was nineteen years old; he completed high school in Puerto Rico and was attending the University of Puerto Rico when drafted into the Army (00:00:12:00) o When he was initially drafted, Vazquez was not overly concerned because he had an understanding of the fighting that occurred during World War II and that was something that interested him, especially the fighting done by the American Ranger units (00:01:07:00) o Ultimately, three people in Vazquez’s family ended up serving in the military at the same time as Vazquez (00:01:32:00)  Vazquez did his basic training in Puerto Rico and the training lasted for only six weeks (00:01:42:00) o All the soldiers who went through training at the camp were Puerto Ricans and for the majority of the soldiers, they would be used to help fill out the 65th Infantry Regiment; however, Vazquez ended up going to a different unit (00:01:58:00)  When Vazquez was growing up, his mother was a nurse and his father was a clerk working at the Federal Court in San Juan (00:02:21:00)  Overall, Vazquez’s basic training did not really consist of much of anything; apart from the typical physical education and exercises, the training was mostly learning how to fight with the different weapons available, including the M-1 rifle, the B.A.R. (Browning Automatic Rifle), light machine guns and the 81mm mortar (00:02:56:00)  After finishing their basic training, Vazquez and the other soldiers at the camp did not receive any advanced training; instead, Vazquez and the others sailed directly from Puerto Rico to Japan (00:03:56:00) o Once in Japan, the soldiers had seven days where they trained with soldiers from the 187th Airborne Regiment (00:04:02:00) o For the voyage from Puerto Rico to Japan, the soldiers traveled on a Navy troop ship; on the ship, there were individual soldiers going to Japan as replacements for specific units as well as several all-Latino units from different South and Central American countries, including Columbia and Ecuador (00:04:21:00)  Vazquez was seasick the first three or four days of the voyage because he had never been on a ship before (00:05:04:00)  The voyage lasted for roughly 40 days and Vazquez would venture a guess that up to 50% of the soldiers on the ship were seasick during the initial part of the voyage; eventually, all the soldiers did become accustomed to the roll of the ship (00:05:12:00)  For the most part, the weather during the voyage was not bad but the soldiers were just not accustomed to being on a ship (00:05:27:00) � o Vazquez and the other soldiers did not see much of Japan because they were restricted to staying on the Army base (00:05:44:00) From Japan, Vazquez and the other soldiers sailed to Korea, arriving in the port town of Pusan; from Pusan, the soldiers boarded a train headed towards Seoul (00:06:05:00) o The train ride to Seoul took about two days because enemy forces had infiltrated as far south as the train line; at different points, the train stopped and Vazquez and the other soldiers had to disembark and fight various enemy forces (00:06:28:00) o Once in Seoul, Vazquez was assigned to be a messenger in G Company of the 15th Infantry Regiment, 7th Division; Vazquez received an assignment as a messenger because Vazquez spoke some English (00:06:52:00)  Some of the other soldiers in the company were English-speaking Americans but because of Army segregation policies at the time, there were also soldiers from the Hawaiian islands, Japan and Germany, amongst other places but no African-American soldiers (00:07:16:00)  There was one battalion consisting of only African-American soldiers attached to the 3rd Infantry Division (00:08:14:00)  When Vazquez joined his company, the company was already deployed to a defensive position on the front line (00:08:35:00) o Vazquez’s initial perception of Korea was that everything was different in Korea; based on his limited knowledge of Korea, someone would either be in the rice paddies or on the top of hills or mountains (00:08:49:00)  Vazquez would climb one hill or mountain expecting it to be the last one but there was always another one and another one after that (00:09:07:00) o Vazquez’s company was in contact with the enemy all the time; for the most part, in the beginning, the company occupied defensive positions and the enemy would come in and attack them (00:09:22:00)  The enemy forces would only attack at night in order to protect themselves from American aircraft; normally, the enemy attacks occurred around the same time, so Vazquez and the other soldiers in the company knew when they had to be ready for an attack (00:09:54:00)  The enemy attacks usually followed a regular pattern, where their artillery would bombard the American positions before the infantry would attack en masse (00:10:28:00)  However, the American soldiers knew the pattern and were able to protect themselves from the artillery (00:10:51:00)  During attacks, the Americans had “the final protective line”, which consisted of interlocking fire from all the machine guns in the unit, as well as artillery and mortar fire (00:11:00:00) o When the order for the “final protective line” is given, all the weapons in the unit fired, aiming two hundred meters away from the position and slowly creeping back towards the position (00:11:18:00) o Vazquez stayed as a messenger for about two weeks before his company commander assigned him to the 3rd platoon as a rifleman (00:11:40:00) � o Vazquez’s company commander had been served as a company commander during World War II and the commander did not believe in the losing ground to enemy forces (00:12:06:00)  In the mind of the commander, if the company lost any ground, then the soldiers were going to have to eventually come back and attack in order to take the ground back (00:12:17:00) o Eventually, the Army that Vazquez’s unit was a part of, 8th Army, broke through the enemy lines and began advancing (00:12:34:00)  When they would attack the enemy positions, Vazquez’s unit and other American units would attack during the daytime, although every unit attacked in a slightly different way (00:12:57:00)  Vazquez’s company commander usually had two platoons attack in a frontal assault as a feint while having the other two platoons attack from both flanks (00:13:15:00)  The enemy defenses mostly consisted of trenches, which meant that once the American managed to take control of one end of the trenches, they could use the trenches to attack the other parts of the enemy position (00:14:00:00) o For the most part, they were open trenches, although in some spots, there were bunkers (00:14:19:00) Vazquez stayed in Korea for fourteen months, although he did not spend the entire time with the same regiment; when his initial twelve-month tour ended, Vazquez transferred to the 65th Infantry Regiment (00:14:34:00) o Vazquez transferred to the 65th Infantry because the soldiers in that unit were completing their tours at the same time, so they would all be going home at the same time (00:14:54:00) o However, when Vazquez arrived, the 65th Infantry was not moving the soldiers out yet because the regiment had suffered a large number of casualties; Vazquez stayed with the regiment for two months as a platoon leader (00:15:01:00) o When he transferred to the 65th Infantry, Vazquez was an E-7, a Sergeant First Class (00:15:17:00) o At the time Vazquez joined, the regiment was still involved in fighting; almost every day, one or two platoons would go out and try to take different high grounds (00:15:32:00)  Sometimes, the enemy would hold onto the high ground and other times, they would fall back (00:15:58:00) o Vazquez's unit in the 65th Infantry did not suffer the amount of casualties he had seen with the 15th Infantry (00:16:22:00)  When Vazquez first joined the 15th Infantry, there were fifty men in his platoon but by the time Vazquez left, the platoon was down to only six soldiers (00:16:32:00)  Twice, the platoon received some replacement soldiers, enough to fill some of the holes in the platoon; however, the platoon never reached more than 70% full (00:16:46:00) �     All of the platoon’s losses occurred during attacks on enemy positions; the platoon’s own defensive positions were strong enough to defend against the enemy attacks (00:17:11:00) During his tour, Vazquez saw a lot of Korean civilians, most of who were retreating away from the fighting (00:17:38:00) o During the initial trip out towards the front, Vazquez and the other soldiers were traveling towards the front while the civilians were traveling in the opposite direction, toward Pusan (00:17:50:00) o However, once Vazquez and the other soldiers reached the front line, there were no civilians (00:18:03:00) Reflecting on his time in Korea, Vazquez realizes that while he was with the 15th Infantry, he had a very good company commander as well as very good platoon leaders and a very good platoon sergeant (00:18:23:00) o Vazquez’s time in the 65th Infantry was different because the soldiers in the regiment were a little bit disorganized and they did not have the type of support and resources that the 15th Infantry had (00:18:58:00)  On some occasions, when Vazquez and the other soldiers would take a hilltop and try to dig in but would hit rocks and could not dig in; however, in the 15th Infantry, Vazquez’s company commander would call an engineering squad to use explosives to clear away the rocks (00:19:17:00)  The 15th Infantry received a large amount of artillery support while the 65th Infantry did not nor did the 65th Infantry receive the same type of engineer support as the 15th received (00:19:37:00) o The 65th Infantry was attached to the 3rd Infantry Division but the division did not provide enough support to the regiment (00:19:56:00) After leaving Korea, Vazquez returned to Puerto Rico, briefly left the military, then returned between a month and a month and a half later, where he promptly applied for a transfer to the 82nd Airborne Division (00:20:27:00) o When he was growing up, Vazquez wanted to serve in the Army as either a Ranger or a paratrooper (00:20:48:00) o During the period he was not in the Army, Vazquez returned to the University of Puerto Rico and started playing baseball, although he did not have the same skill as he had before he went to Korea (00:21:20:00)  The competition was much higher after Vazquez returned, so after the month, he went back into the Army (00:21:34:00) When he joined the 82nd Airborne, Vazquez had to attend jump school, which was very difficult for Vazquez (00:21:50:00) o There were not too many Spanish-speaking soldiers in the 82nd Airborne at the time, so the other soldiers treated Vazquez differently, making the training very difficult for him (00:22:05:00)  Vazquez was somewhat lucky because a couple of nights before he began jump school, when he went to the NCO club on the base, there was a sergeant first class who had been stationed in Puerto Rico (00:22:25:00)  The sergeant, first class saw Vazquez sitting by himself, so he struck up a conversation with Vazquez and eventually, a master sergeant came to the same table and talked with both men; as it � turned out, the master sergeant was the NCOIC (Noncommissioned officer in-charge) of the 82nd Airborne Division’s jump school (00:23:03:00)  When Vazquez started the training, the other soldiers were giving him a hard time but the master sergeant Vazquez had met at the NCO club did not know about it (00:23:24:00)  Then, after two weeks, the master sergeant came down, saw Vazquez, and the two men started talking; the master sergeant asked how everything was going and Vazquez told him everything that had happened with the other soldiers (00:23:29:00)  Vazquez figures the master sergeant talked with the other soldiers and told them to lay off Vazquez because after that, Vazquez did not have any problems with the other soldiers (00:23:50:00) o After he completed the basic jump training, Vazquez went straight into jump master training because the master sergeant had given permission (00:24:02:00) Once he finished jump master training and NCO training, Vazquez transferred to the 11th Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky (00:24:34:00) o The 11th Airborne was being formed and needed personnel, so soldiers were taken from the 82nd Airborne to help fill out the 11th Airborne (00:24:52:00) o Vazquez joined the 11th Airborne in 1954 after re-enlisting and joining the 82nd Airborne in 1953 (00:25:02:00) o After the 11th Airborne was completed and at full strength, the entire division moved from Fort Campbell to Germany in January 1956 (00:25:16:00)  The division moved to Augsburg, Germany with the assignment to support the various armored units in the area in the event of a Soviet attack into Germany (00:25:38:00)  While in Germany, the division took part in various tactical exercises, deploying to positions behind the armored units (00:26:02:00)  Vazquez would label his time in Germany as one of his best tours of duty, staying in the country for three years (00:26:32:00)  Overall, the 11th Airborne did not receive much training in the way of making attacks; instead, the division was largely used as a ready-reaction force (00:27:07:00)  Although the division was primarily stationed in Germany, the soldiers also did a couple jumps in Italy and for a brief period, deployed to Lebanon (00:27:26:00) o The soldiers’ deployment to Lebanon was in 1956 and was primarily a show of force (00:27:49:00) o During his time deployed in Germany, Vazquez decided to make a career our of the Army because in Germany, for whatever reason, although he was only a sergeant first class, Vazquez was a platoon leader (00:28:44:00)  While in Korea, Vazquez was twice offered an officer’s commission but he declined both times; Vazquez declined the commissions because he did not want to be an officer and because he enjoyed being an enlisted soldier (00:28:59:00) �  In Germany, Vazquez received another offer for an officer’s commission and although he decline again, he kept command of his platoon, although he had been promoted to E-8 (Master Sergeant) (00:29:23:00) After the three-year tour in Germany, Vazquez returned to Fort Campbell for several years, until 1959, when he joined the Special Forces (00:29:39:00) Special Forces / 1st Vietnam Deployment / 2nd Vietnam Deployment (00:30:01:00)  Vazquez did not know much about Vietnam prior to joining the Special Forces (00:30:02:00)  Two different things motivated Vazquez into joining the Special Forces: first, when he returned to Fort Campbell, Vasquez joined the 187th Airborne Regiment, the same regiment he had trained with in Japan prior to going to Vietnam (00:30:16:00) o When he joined the 187th, Vazquez was already very experienced in airborne operations, having made numerous jumps in both jump school and jump master training, as well as several jumps while stationed in Germany (00:30:46:00) o There six or seven other soldiers in Vazquez’s company who had made a similar amount of jumps as Vazquez and eventually, two of the men decided to join the Special Forces (00:31:12:00)  The Special Forces training was the most difficult training Vazquez experienced in the military (00:31:45:00) o The first training new Special Forces members underwent was qualification training; the first two weeks of the qualification training was largely physical, including swimming and hiking in the mountains with a weapon and a ninetypound rucksack (00:31:50:00) o The Special Forces training happened all over the southeastern part of the United States, including North Carolina, Florida, and Georgia (00:32:21:00) o Qualification training lasted for eight to ten weeks with only about 30% of the soldiers who started actually finishing (00:32:51:00)  After finishing the qualification training, the soldiers went through different, individual skill courses, such as: light weapons, heavy weapons, demolitions, medic, operations & intelligence, etc. (00:33:04:00)  Prior to the skill courses, each soldier took a battery of tests to determine which course would be best for them (00:33:32:00) o Vazquez was selected to train skill courses in operations & intelligence (00:33:50:00)  Operations & intelligence soldiers had two primary jobs while in the field: doing diagnosis and analysis of a situation before sending the information higher in the chain of command and acting as the second-in-command to the Special Forces team leader, assisting in tactical situations (00:34:00:00) o During the training, officers trained with a different group than the NCOs, although NCOs made up the majority of the soldiers in training (00:34:56:00)  At that time, a soldier needed to be at least a sergeant in order to qualify for Special Forces (00:35:07:00)  When the qualification training ended, all the soldiers went through a filtering exercise, where two officers, one acting as a commanding officer �   and the other as a executive officer (XO) would lead a detachment of NCOs (00:35:21:00)  The detachment would train in the field for four or five weeks to see if the two groups, officers and NCOs, could work together and survive as a team (00:35:44:00)  This part of the training occurred in North Carolina (00:35:57:00) o Vazquez started the Special Forces training in January 1959 and finished the training a year later, in January 1960 (00:36:20:00) After finishing the training, Vazquez was assigned to “B” Company, 7th Special Forces Group, which was stationed Fort Bragg, North Carolina (00:36:46:00) o Vazquez stayed in the 7th Special Forces for about four months before a new Special Forces group, the 6th Special Forces Group, formed and soldiers from all the different existing Special Forces groups, including Vazquez, were selected to help form and train the 6th Special Forces (00:37:02:00) Vazquez stayed with the 6th Special Forces for another four months before transferring to the 8th Special Forces stationed at the Panama Canal, whose assigned area of operations included all of Central and South America (00:37:31:00) o For the most part, the 8th Special Forces assisted various Central and South American countries perform different operations (00:37:58:00) o At their time, the group’s primary assignment was to train the military forces of the Central and South American countries, including training the Cuban exiles who took part in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion (00:38:19:00) o Vazquez stayed with 8th Special Forces for three years and did several missions in Columbia, Ecuador, and Bolivia (00:38:38:00) o All the soldiers Vazquez served with in Panama spoke Spanish; every soldier in the Special Forces had to train in a secondary language and Vazquez, although he spoke both English and Spanish, still needed training in another language, so he trained in Arabic (00:39:41:00)  Vazquez trained in Arabic because the 7th Special Forces at that time was responsible for the Middle East (00:40:07:00) o While in the various Central and South American countries, Vazquez and the other Special Forces soldiers did not become overly involved in actual combat; instead, the soldiers spent most of their time training soldiers in the other countries’ militaries (00:40:38:00) Vazquez’s assignment in Panama ended in 1965, when he transferred to the 1st Special Forces Group stationed on Okinawa and did Vazquez did a “short tour” in Vietnam, assisting in the training of South Vietnamese Special Forces soldiers (00:41:05:00) o While in Vietnam, Vazquez assisted in training the South Vietnamese Special Forces (00:41:30:00) o After the four months in Vietnam, Vazquez and his team were replaced by another team of Special Forces soldiers who continued training the South Vietnamese soldiers (00:41:59:00) o The area where Vazquez and his team conducted the training was a good area, located very close to the ocean and on high ground (00:42:23:00) � o Apart from training the South Vietnamese soldiers, the other primary assignment for Vazquez and his team was training South Vietnamese nurses, both men and women (00:42:42:00)  At the time, there were two trained medics in Vazquez’s team, both of whom had gone through the Special Forces’ medical courses, which often took several years to complete (00:43:04:00)  Once a soldier finished the medical training, he was qualified enough to be a physician's assistant, and thus capable of training nurses (00:43:22:00)  While the two medics trained the South Vietnamese to be nurses, Vazquez spent most of his time collecting intelligence from civilians who came into the clinic that the nurses ran (00:43:47:00)  Everyone knew that at least some of the civilians were Viet Cong, so Vazquez would interview them through a translator to try and obtain information (00:43:56:00)  Every day, Viet Cong came to the clinic to see the nurses because their forces did not have any trained medics (00:44:24:00) o Vazquez was smart enough to recognize who were the Viet Cong and who were not and would only ask certain questions to the Viet Cong members so as not to tip them off that he knew who they were (00:44:44:00)  Once they determined someone was part of the Viet Cong, Vazquez and the others would tip off the South Vietnamese Special Forces detachment (00:45:03:00) After finishing the short tour in Vietnam, Vazquez went back to Fort Bragg and was assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group before the group received assignment back to Vietnam in 1966 (00:45:47:00) o When the group deployed, it was assigned to operate in the Mekong Delta region and Vazquez continued working in Operations and Intelligence (00:46:12:00) o The group’s primary mission was going into a specific area of operations where they would recruit and train locals to conduct combat operations within that specific area (00:46:30:00)  Prior to when Vazquez arrived back in Vietnam, the Americans had a single Special Forces detachment operating within the A Shau Valley that was completely destroyed during an enemy attack (00:47:10:00)  The detachment was destroyed because the Vietnamese in one of the companies the soldiers recruited from the area were actually part of the Viet Cong, so went the enemy attack started, that company began firing from the inside the camp (00:47:22:00)  Vazquez realized he needed to be smarter when he recruited local Vietnamese, so he focused on recruiting ethnic Chinese living in the cities (00:47:41:00)  The Chinese were very loyal and so long as the Americans treated them well, took care of their families, paid them on time, and did everything they could for them, then the Chinese would fight for the Americans (00:48:21:00) �o When Vazquez and the other soldiers first arrived at the area where their base would be, they first had to clear the area of the enemy by doing a combat assault, where all the soldiers were mounted in helicopters (00:48:44:00)  Once the area was clear of enemy soldiers, it took the Special Forces soldiers ninety days to build their camp (00:49:01:00)  Construction of the camp was mostly done by a team of SeaBees (Naval Engineers) using small bulldozers (00:49:41:00)  Before the SeaBees arrived, the Special Forces soldiers had formed the lay out of the base (00:50:01:00)  The soldiers knew that during the monsoon season, they would not be able to operate at the base, so the SeaBees commander suggested building the base’s buildings on top of 55 gallon drums (00:50:04:00)  When the soldiers asked how they would defend the base during the monsoons, the commander said they would cut holes in large conex containers for the soldiers to fire the weapons out of and would build a platform the soldiers could stand on; after that, the entire container was covered in a special webbing that went deep into the ground before being tightened (00:50:46:00)  Once the monsoons rains did eventually come, both the buildings and the conex containers would begin to float (00:51:40:00) o The camp came under attack, initially by enemy probes, usually as squad of ten or fifteen soldiers, although larger attacks followed (00:52:05:00)  However, the soldiers in the camp knew that the camp was going to be attacked because they had gathered information from the surrounding villages that the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese were building a number of wooden boxes (00:52:19:00)  To counter the possibility of the attack, Vazquez placed one squad in the area where he thought the attack most likely to come from, which was to the north (00:53:04:00)  To the south of the camp was the Mekong river, which offered protect in the form of Navy boats (00:53:16:00)  The first time the enemy attacked the camp, they attacked with a single battalion but when the attack began, the forces Vazquez had placed on the north side of the camp discovered the enemy very quickly (00:53:30:00)  The enemy eventually fell back, after which the Americans called in a AC-130 gunship, the “Spooky” (00:53:48:00)  While the help of the gunship, the enemy attack was stopped four hundred meters away from the camp (00:54:04:00)  The soldiers knew that prior to an attack, the enemy would build two different things, wooden boxes to carry away their dead and wounded, and wooden ladders (00:54:26:00)  During the destruction of the Special Forces detachment in the A Shau Valley, the enemy used ladders to help cross the wires surrounding the perimeter of the detachment’s camp (00:54:33:00)  The soldiers in Vazquez’s camp knew that if the enemy in the area had ladders, then their camp would soon be attacked (00:54:43:00) �   The first enemy battalion to attack the camp was from the North Vietnamese 514th Infantry Regiment (00:54:58:00)  The soldiers in the camp were familiar with the 514th Infantry because the regiment was often the main enemy force that the soldiers had to fight (00:55:10:00)  The first attack on the base happened in July 1967 (00:55:22:00)  Most of the enemy forces operating in the area surrounding the camp were part of the Viet Cong, while the 514th Infantry had only recently moved into the area (00:55:34:00)  Vazquez and the other soldiers knew the 514th Infantry was in the area because they had received intelligence from other units about the movement of the regiment (00:55:45:00)  During the first enemy attack, apart from calling in an AC-130 gunship for support, Vazquez also requested support from a mobile strike force, a battalion-sized unit (00:56:06:00)  After the AC-130 attacked, the mobile strike force helped push the enemy back (00:56:24:00)  Normally, enemy attacks would also include sappers, which the soldiers needed to take out first (00:56:35:00)  During the first attack, the initial contact that the platoon on the perimeter made was with the enemy sappers (00:56:38:00) o Vazquez was wounded six days after the enemy attack, when the camp was attacked by two enemy battalions (00:57:06:00)  During the second enemy attack, the commander of the mobile strike force was told to come in but the strike force ended up attacking and defeating both enemy battalions (00:57:18:00)  During the attack, Vazquez was fighting with some enemy forces and did not realize that a second Special Forces team was coming via the river; when the second team arrived, they assisted in defeating the remainder of the enemy forces (00:58:20:00)  Initially, the senior medic in Vazquez’s team took care of Vazquez’s wounds, after which Vazquez was evacuated back to Saigon, where he stayed for one night before going to Yokohama, Japan (00:59:09:00) Vazquez spent four-and a half months in Japan, all of which was recovery time for his wound (00:59:38:00) o Initially, the doctors told Vazquez he would be in the hospital for six months but if he worked hard in the physical therapy, he could make the time spent in the hospital short (00:59:54:00) o After four and a half months in Japan, Vazquez transferred to Womack Army Hospital at Fort Bragg, where he spent another two months (01:00:11:00) Once Vazquez got out of the hospital, he had to pass the Special Forces physical test a second time to be assigned back to Special Forces, which he did (01:00:37:00) o Vazquez completed the physical test late in 1968 and was then sent back to Panama to rejoin the 8th Special Forces Group (01:01:02:00) o When the commander of 8th Special Forces heard about Vazquez being wounded, he sent a letter to Vazquez saying that although Vazquez had declined promotions �before, given that he had been wounded, the commander suggested Vazquez accept a promotion straight to captain (01:01:18:00) o At the same time Vazquez received his promotion to captain, the 75th Ranger Regiment was short of commanding officers, so Vazquez transferred to the regiment (01:02:29:00) 3rd Vietnam Deployment / Reflections (01:02:38:00)  When Vazquez arrived back in Vietnam to join the 75th Rangers, he was assigned command of “D” Company; however, the battalion that the company was part of was reorganizing and the battalion commander wanted Vazquez to be his XO (01:02:38:00) o Vazquez declined the offer to be the battalion XO because he wanted to be a combat company commander, which meant staying in combat (01:03:01:00) o Eventually, a lieutenant colonel who had been Vazquez’s company commander heard Vazquez was a company commander in the 75th Rangers, visited the Ranger camp, and told Vazquez that Vazquez was being reassigned to the lieutenant colonel’s unit in the 101st Airborne, 2nd Battalion of the 506th Airborne Regiment, where Vazquez was made a company commander (01:03:37:00)  Vazquez joined the 506th Airborne in January 1969 (01:04:23:00) o However, when Vazquez first joined the regiment, the company commander he was meant to replace still had some time left on his tour, so Vazquez spent time with 187th Airborne Regiment until the previous company commander’s tour finally ended (01:04:39:00)  During his time with the 187th Airborne, Vazquez worked as an S-5, which involved helping look for intelligence (01:05:10:00) o During the first couple of months with his company, Vazquez and the company went on numerous missions, such as providing support and protection for various firebases (01:06:32:00)  At the time, the only major difference between serving in the 101st Airborne and a regular infantry line company was that in the 101st, the soldiers deployed to their positions via helicopter (01:06:01:00)  However, the tendency was to land an entire company in the same location, something that Vazquez did not like; because Vazquez knew his commander, he changed the procedure so that not all three of his platoons landed at the same area (01:07:12:00)  Whenever the company deployed into the jungle, Vazquez had several different landing zones chosen as both primary and secondary locations (01:07:55:00)  After Vazquez instituted the change, the other companies in the regiment operated in a similar fashion (01:08:13:00) o In April, 1970, Vazquez and his company moved to a series of hills, near the proposed site of Firebase Ripcord,1:08:34:00)  Another company [actually two other companies on separate occasions] had gone onto the hill by helicopter but had been driven out, but Vazquez's company climbed up on foot and held it. (01:08:54:00)  During the first night Vazquez’s company was on Ripcord, the enemy launched an attack (01:09:03:00) � The way Vazquez had set up his defenses, he had one platoon positioned to the right and another platoon positioned to the left, so when the enemy attack came, he was able to counter attack with the remaining platoon and successfully cleared the area of enemy soldiers (01:09:13:00)  While in the 101st, Vazquez had very good platoon leaders; one of leaders had been in the ROTC while another was graduate of the military academy at West Point (01:09:38:00)  During the enemy night attack, Vazquez chose to launch his counter attack at night; attacking at night was not common amongst regular infantry units but it was common amongst forces (01:10:13:00)  According to Vazquez’s training, if his unit was attacked, they immediately launched a counter-attack to clear the area of enemy soldiers (01:10:23:00)  After the attack on the first night, Vazquez helped in setting up the perimeter defenses for the entire firebase (01:10:44:00)  Vazquez finally left Ripcord just before the operation turned in favor of the enemy (01:11:06:00)  While his company was on Ripcord, Vazquez always kept two platoons on the base while the third platoon was always in the field (01:11:33:00)  Occasionally, the enemy would launch probing attacks against the base but they were never able to fully penetrate the base’s outer defenses and get inside the perimeter (01:11:52:00)  Initially, the soldiers constructed bunkers higher on the hill where the base was located while Vazquez and his company were located lower on the sides of the hill in “L” trenches; “L” trenches allowed the soldiers to defend in two directions (01:12:20:00) o The “L” trenches did not have too much in the way of overhead cover, maybe enough for one or two soldiers to take cover under (01:12:56:00) o However, being in the trenches meant the soldiers presented much smaller targets for the enemy; if a soldier was walking about fully exposed, then the enemy might launch an RPG into the position (01:13:11:00)  At the time Vazquez rotated out of Ripcord, his company was at almost full strength; as far as Vazquez can remember, the company only suffered a handful of casualties (01:13:36:00) o After he left Ripcord, Vazquez became the S-4 officer for the 2nd Battalion, which meant he moved back to Camp Evans; once at Camp Evans, Vazquez worked in providing support to all the units in the battalion, not just those units stationed on Ripcord (01:14:20:00)  When the soldiers went into Ripcord, the firebase was located on a hill lower than two of the mountains in the same area (01:15:26:00)  On both sides of the base were mountains high enough that the enemy could launch artillery and mortar strikes onto the base (01:15:35:00) � Initially, the enemy several unsuccessful attempts to penetrate the base, all of which were stopped by Vazquez’s various perimeter defenses, such as 55 gallon drums full of napalm buried in the ground, straight wire [he used conventional barbed wire as well as concertina wire, since the enemy could not use ladders to press down the straight wire], and artillery fire pinpointed to specific locations (01:15:54:00) o Vazquez went back to Ripcord two days before the final withdrawal from the firebase to help create the plan for how to effectively withdraw all the troops and the equipment (01:16:57:00)  Vazquez had the plan developed but the day that the withdrawal was supposed to begin, one of the C-46 transports being used crashed into the bunkers, brought down by enemy gunfire (01:17:15:00)  Vazquez’s withdrawal plan went ahead and they successfully withdrew all the soldiers on the firebase as well as the artillery pieces, with Vazquez’s XO staying on the firebase until the last gun was taken out (01:18:11:00)  During the withdrawal, Vazquez traveled to Ripcord twice and both times, it was often under very heavy enemy gunfire; however, once on the firebase, Vazquez used his helicopter to help ferry wounded soldiers off the firebase (01:18:32:00) o Overall, the primary mission at Ripcord was positioning 155mm and 105mm artillery pieces to fire onto enemy supply depots in the A Shau valley, a mission that was accomplished (01:19:28:00)  When the order was given to withdraw, the soldiers had to withdraw; it was not their fault that the fighting at the firebase failed to go in their favor (01:20:14:00)  Vazquez did not want to rotate off the firebase because he knew that even if the enemy attacked with four or five battalions, the perimeter defenses were good enough that the enemy were not going to be able to break through (01:20:19:00) o During the time Vazquez was commanding the company on Ripcord, the morale amongst the soldiers was very high because Vazquez commanded his unit from the front (01:20:56:00)  Vazquez led from the front because if the company was ever hit, he wanted to know exactly what was happening (01:21:15:00)  Although conventional wisdom holds if someone is at the front, then they are likely one of the first ones hit but Vazquez shrugs that wisdom off, saying “if you are in the first squad and you get hit, then you get hit”; however, being in the first squad meant Vazquez knew where the enemy was attacking from and what their strengths were, which meant he could use his own forces accordingly (01:21:31:00)  When Vazquez took over command of his company, Vazquez talked with the previous company commander for a couple of hours and the previous commander warned Vazquez that there were two or three soldiers in the company that the commander struggled with (01:22:13:00) �      Sometimes, the soldiers did not want to go into the field or do other assignments (01:22:40:00)  Other than that handful of soldiers, the previous commander said that the rest of the company was pretty good (01:22:47:00)  The first thing Vazquez did when he took command of the company was talk to the handful of troublemakers and made it clear that when the company moved, everyone in the company moved (01:22:52:00)  Vazquez does not recall ever having any problems with the supposed troublemakers (01:23:28:00)  Once back on Camp Evans, Vazquez assumes there were more troublemakers but he did not worry about them because they were not his problem (01:23:56:00) o While Vazquez commanded the company, there was not much in the way of racial tension that divided the company (01:24:15:00) Vazquez was originally supposed to leave Vietnam at a certain date but he missed the flight because he was still helping with operations around Ripcord (01:24:42:00) o No one from the brigade could find Vazquez and they eventually became upset with him because he had missed his flight out; eventually, the battalion commander personally flew out and took Vazquez back to the division headquarters (01:25:08:00) After Vazquez left Vietnam, he returned to the Special Forces school at Fort Bragg and after finishing his captain’s commission [as the army downsized after Vietnam, many captains were "riffed", reduced in rank to NCOs], became the command sergeant major for the school (01:25:49:00) o Vazquez stayed at the school until 1980 before leaving active-duty and joining the reserves, although he only stayed in the reserves for a brief period, having finally had enough of the Army (01:26:38:00) After retiring from the Army, Vazquez took a job working as a logistics manager for a corporation (01:27:02:00) o While stationed at Fort Bragg for the last time, having already completed his bachelors degree, Vazquez obtained a masters degree and then a PhD in Business Administration (01:27:19:00) Going as far back as his time serving in Korea, Vazquez recognized that there was a certain part of the American public, including the media, that maintained an anti-war sentiment (01:28:10:00) o When Vazquez and the other soldiers returned from Korea, most Americans did not know what the Korean war was even about (01:28:23:00) o When the soldiers came back from Vietnam, Americans everywhere were parading against the war, but Vazquez paid little attention to them because it was not his problem (01:28:36:00) Vazquez has written a book focusing on his experiences during both the Korean and Vietnam wars, as well as his life and experiences in general (01:28:56:00) o According to Vazquez, the most important thing in the book to him was not his overall service in Korea or Vietnam but a specific incident involving the 65th Infantry in Korea after he left (01:29:31:00) �  After Vazquez left the unit, a large number of the soldiers were courtmartialed and the commander of the 2nd Battalion was relived of his duties (01:30:04:00)  There have been a lot of things written about the incident that were lies about situations and events that Vazquez was involved in (01:30:12:00) o While reading through the Department of Defense and Department of the Army records, Vazquez realized the people writing in the records were not on the ground during the situations they were writing about (01:31:04:00)  The records talked about a certain hill and the fighting that occurred there; in reality, Vazquez had served at that location three different times and the records did not accurately portray what happened (01:31:32:00)  In another record, the 2nd Battalion commander was ridiculed for giving up the hill where Vazquez served when in reality, the commander and two of his companies attacked and reoccupied the position for fifteen days, eventually having to retreat from the hill in the face of increasing Chinese artillery fire (01:32:49:00) One lesson Vazquez learned while in Vietnam and Korea was never to withdraw from a position because he would eventually have to come back to retake the position (01:35:50:00) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context VazquezI1279V Title A name given to the resource Vazquez, Isabelino (Interview transcript and video), 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Vazquez, Isabelino Description An account of the resource Isabelino Vazquez was born and grew up in Puerto Rico and was drafted into the Army in 1951 at the age of nineteen years old. Once drafted, Vazquez went through training in Puerto Rico before deploying to Korea and fighting in the Korean War. He served as an infantryman in the 7th Infantry for twelve months, and then as a platoon leader in the all-Puerto Rican 65th Regiment for two months. After Korea, Vazquez briefly left the military before re-enlisting and completing jump school, after which he served in both the 82nd and 11th Airborne Divisions, with the latter division while the division was in Germany. When he returned to the United States, Vazquez completed the training for the Army Special Forces and traveled between the different special forces groups, including the 8th Special Forces Group in the Panama Canal Zone and the 1st Special Forces Group stationed on Okinawa, Japan. While with the 1st Special Forces, Vazquez did a short tour in Vietnam helping train South Vietnamese Special Forces and nurses. After completing the short tour with the 1st Special Forces, Vasquez briefly returned to the States to join the 5th Special Forces Group before the group deployed to the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam. During his second deployment, the enemy wounded Vasquez, forcing his evacuation, first to Japan then to the States. Once out of the hospital, Vasquez served a short period with the 75th Ranger before joining the 506th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division as a company commander. While with the 506th Infantry, Vasquez helped set of the defenses for Firebase Ripcord, site of one of the last major battles involving American forces in Vietnam. When Vasquez left his company command, he served as a battalion S-4 before returning to the States and eventually retiring in 1980. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Army Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-10-06 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. 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