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And if you could describe what your childhood was like?

Yeah so I'm interested in how you remember their normalcy. What seemed normal to you, of your childhood?

So I want to talk about the Safety Patrol and um, we'll make a reference of that. I want you to describe what your family was like, um in East Austin.

So in terms of, and this is something that we discussed off cameras. But just so that, so it's on the record, your mother passed away at a young age, so you were predominantly raised by your father, correct?

So Gerardo, Marcos and yourself, who is the eldest, who is the middle child, who is the-

And this is something you spoke a little bit about. What languages would you say you spoke at home?

And what about your neighborhood? Do you were? Was it a bilingual neighborhood? Would you say?

So um, I want you to guide me to your father's role and what he thought about y'all's education. What was, what do you think was his- I guess his- how does he feel about the role of education for you all, and your siblings, your two brothers, and how do you know about about that feeling?

So earlier in the in the interview, we're talking about how you would walk to school, and I want you to describe what that process was like. Did you go alone? Were other people with you? What was that journey from home to school like?

So in terms of Palm School, you say you don't, kind of-

In terms of the classroom experience, how do you remember Palm School and being in the classroom?

Do you remember the teacher's name?

Was this a common occurrence at Palm School or-

Did it happen to you more than once?

Do you know when Mr. Boyd came into the school?

In terms of, if you could describe, if you remember what a classroom in, you know, inside Palm School looked like, how would you describe it?

So you're saying that in one of the classrooms you could directly see the construction. That was of I-35. Did you- Did you ever feel like the construction was interrupting your education?

Were there any- and this is based on on people who have gone to schools in Texas, there's songs or maybe anthems or poems that they would teach the students. Do you remember of anything like that that was taught to you?

Did you do the pledge allegiance to to the US and Texas? Or was it only to the US?

We used to do the US and then the Texas one.

I don't remember it, but I know we did it in elementary. Now, you were telling me that one of the things that you remember is, you know, Christopher Columbus, yeah, and doing these things. Were there ever any teachings? Or, you know, did you ever learn about the Mexican American experience, or Mexican American Chicano history in the U.S. while being at Palm School?

I know you were you- you said that math, that you were good at math. Would you say that math was your favorite subject?

Were there any subjects or activities regarding learning that you think "these were my favorite memories of Palm School," something that sticks out, maybe a story-?

So in terms of- and you've spoken a little bit about teachers, like your sixth grade teacher that you had, you've spoken about Mr. Boyd, what do you think was the staff, the teachers expectations of you all as students while at Palm School?

I know you said you were a little bit disconnected with Spanish, but was Spanish spoken in school? Or were you allowed to speak Spanish?

I know you've also described, and and it's known, right that the Palm School was next or, or there was a Palm Park andn the pool, right there. Do you have any memories of that palm Park? I know you described that there was like a merry-go-round and some swings?

It's been also documented through oral histories and archival work that the- that that specific pool, I'm sorry, was segregated. Did you ever experience or witness any sort of you know you, if you were Mexican you couldn't come on this day, or did you have free range?

I know you were, you were talking as well about the Safety Patrol, and Anita mentioned yesterday that that was kind of like a club or a- something extracurricular that you could do. Could you describe, and you said you were picked to be safety patrol? Could you describe what that was like? What you remember about being Safety Patrol?

Did they give you any type of vest or, like?

No stop sign either?

Was that sort of something you volunteered for? You got voted for?

So would you, would you get pulled out of the classroom to go do that, or how would that-?

Were there any- just like, you know, when you think back of your time at Palm School, any memory that really brings you joy, or that brings you, you know, is like, "this is a wonderful memory that I'm always going to share, cherish from Palm School"?

We've spoken about a little bit about, you know, your experiences being paddled maybe once or twice. But do you recall any other bad experiences that you might have had at Palm School?

Jacks is the one where you have, like, a little ball, and then you grab?

So at Palm School, we're all three of you together at one point?

And at Palm School, either?

Were there any celebrations that Palm School would- would highlight or do? Maybe Mother's Day, Anita mentioned yesterday that they had Fiesta days. Do you remember any celebration like that at Palm School?

In terms of opportunities for families to be involved. Was your- was your father ever going to school, or did he ever attend any parent teacher conference or anything like that?

So if you would think of what role education has played in your life. How would you describe that?

I want to transition a little bit more to thinking about the Palm School within a larger, you know, Chicano, East Austin, Austin, Texas, you know, as Maggie was, was mentioning, how do you think the Palm School fit into the larger Mexican American community?

If you- and maybe this is not something that that you may be aware of, but do you know if maybe your father had a choice as to whether he wanted to send you to Palm School or not, or was that kind of just by design of where you lived in the neighborhood?

I'm interested also in like I like I said, I've been privileged to- to interview people that have family members that went to Palm School. So as being the eldest of two brothers, what does that mean to you? The fact that this was also a family- like a school where your family went to, how does that shape maybe your idea of family and your brothers sharing this history in Rainey Street, East Austin, and Palm School?

Yeah, there's, there's a lot of other things that I think today, now, students have to be hyper focused, hyper aware of because there has been so much work done on it, right? And, and I always, I'm like, it's a double-edged sword, because as much as you're growing conscious, you're also worried about so many things, yeah, and you may lose focus of education.

So looking back today, how do you think that the people feel the community feels about the history of Palm School?

So I know, when we were in the room, we were looking at sort of images, and, you know, we were discussing certain businesses and things like that that were that were around the neighborhood. Do you remember any of those, what they look like, maybe who the owners were, or what what these businesses and surrounding were?

Any any movies that you remember watching that stick out to you?

I know when we were when we were also in the room. You were describing that the windows in the top right maybe were of the library, right? Do you remember what the inside of the library looked like?

Do you remember if it was something that you enjoyed going to?

I want to move a little bit to kind of what came after Palm School. And I don't know if maybe you had gone to, I think it's UJH?

Is that where you went to middle school?

Could you describe what that was like, going from, from Palm School to then the middle school?

Do you remember why maybe the Air Force stuck out to you?

So that is kinda your your first introduction to anything Mexican history.

And when you said career day, that possibly that may have been an avenue as to how you were interested in in the Air Force. Did they have people come in and talk about it? Or were the, were the schools playing these movies that you were-

Did the demographics from Palm School, change when you went to to a junior high did, or was it still predominantly Mexican and Anglo?

So things kind of stayed the same in terms of-

And then after you go to junior high, what is the name of the school that then you went for high school to?

Do you remember any stories about Stephen Austin that stick out to you?

So you kind of, or are, you kind of heard stories based on the news, I'm assuming right of things that were happening elsewhere?

And this is around the late 1960s?

And then you enlist in the Air Force right after high school?

And you had said that you you had served, and then you had a break in between, right? And then you became part of the reserve?

Did anybody else in your family enlist?

Just wanted to be a pilot.

In looking back, what do you think are some of the accomplishments or highlights of your life that you're you're proud of today?

Are there things about your education or your life that that you would like to touch upon that I haven't yet asked you?

So I have a final question to ask you, and it is if you could describe who Frank De Leon has become. How would you describe your life story?

Well Commissioner De Leon, let's go ahead and begin. Tell me about your family. How did they end up in Austin? Because earlier, you told me about how your mother was born in Bastrop, and your father was born in- "Lytton Springs." Springs. How did they end up in Austin?

And when did they- when did they move to the Palm School neighborhood?

Can you remind me of the street on which the church was, where your mom, your mom said this?

What was the church called?

So growing up through all of these different moves, who did you consider part of your family unit, besides you and you and your parents?

Do you have any indication as to what- why she was in Pharr?

So tell me about growing up in the the Palm School neighborhood, and it just being your father and your brothers. Tell me about your brothers.

Tell me about that experience.

What was the racial makeup of Palm School?

Tell me about growing up in the Palm School neighborhood in- at the time. Before going to school, when it was still mixed with, with, with, with, you know, whites and Mexicanos. Like, what was that like? What was what? And then, and then, did you notice a change when, when the Anglos moved out? Like, what's the difference, the difference in your experience between those two moments?

Can you tell us who Jerry Jones?

So what was your let's, I want to kind of expand on this idea of community, so tell me a little bit about your home life. So it was your dad and your brothers, who, who was making your lunch? You said you took lunch the first, the first two years.

And what was he doing? Was his labor, his work?

Where does that come from?

I want to pause right there. Gustavo, are we picking up that sound? "Yeah just the more recent one, can you and it was when it's gonna be intermittent. So it's something we can can you explain again, why was it that we're looking at that bird, and why is it red and white? Why were you questioning it? And if you can just talk about that, just the original-" "I was questioned?" "You were why? What are the roots of why you were questioning? Why the bird is red?" What made you look at that as a kid and think, why is it red? What? What? What do you think was instilled in you that, that that made you think so critically as a kid?

Can you walk us through an example that you used your gift while at the Palm School? Do you remember a fight or an argument between people that you were able to quell?

Do you remember her name?

Let's, let's talk about the wider community of the Palm School. I'm really interested to hear about, what are some businesses or institutions? You know, a few of the places that we've heard other people talk about is the park, the Salvation Army Center. So I'm curious to hear what do you remember about, your neighborhood, your barrio, growing up in the Palm School?

Do you know when it closed?

Tell me about your earliest memories of the Salvation Army Center or the Palm Park, or both?

Do you remember any other team names?

You think we'll find them in the census under those names?

Do you remember any of their actual names of the nicknames that you mentioned?

Were a lot of these people who you played with that Salvation Army? Did they also go to Palm?

Growing up around Palm. What? So you've mentioned swimming, basketball, what other kind of activities happened outside of the school? What? What do you remember?

Did you and your brothers?

What about Salvation Army?

How old were you?

Tell me about the event. Why did, Why were you so excited? Or what, like, what happened?

Were your parents coming or was your dad coming with you?

So who were you?

Where would you? Where would you get the newspapers to sell?

Did you feel safe growing up in the Palm neighborhood?

Can you tell us about that?

What was the name of the junior high school?

What was the experience of you getting jumped?

What group would you walk home with? Usually? Who was-

So growing up, what how important was the role of education? Did your father talk to you about how important education was? Were you being talked to at the Salvation Army? What How did before?

Tell us about that?

How did it feel to be held back?

How do you feel? Like you do you feel like it was necessary for you to be held back?

Do you remember your first day at the Palm School? Yeah, tell me about it.

Did you know how to read English before going to the first grade?

You spoke English outside of outside of school? You in Spanish-

Tell me about, you know, what kind of clothes do you remember wearing? What kind of food do you remember eating at the Palm School? I'm curious about like, who was Marcos De Leon attending Palm School?

I think it's, it's, it's, um, it's really interesting, because, you know, at different points you've talked about the legacy of the Palm School and the children that have come through it, and but in this moment, I'm hearing the legacy of of language, the legacy of how, even in the first grade, right, you scribbling the book of English, you then struggled with the English language for the better part of your life. And I want to take, I want to go back to this moment where you discover the 'R" what? Why do you think it was there? At what point was it there? And do you know, why was it hidden?

Do you know the professor's name?

Yeah, tell me about curriculum at the Palm School. Do you think that, why was it that you were, you were having a hard time learning English or picking up English. And what was maybe your favorite subject in school?

What about history? Do you remember?

Tell me about the celebrations you mentioned the May pole, Fourth of July in-

About what- what happened at Palm Park?

Do you remember the kinds of foods or music or games or activities that would happen at the park during those Mexican celebrations?

And they will be there, everything free? "It was gratis." Who was making the food?

Tell me about some of the women that you remember from your community, whether they be native, there was, there-

Do you know her first name?

Were a lot of the kids from from the Barrio. Did they come from two parent households?

You were okay?

Did you go to school?

There was all these rumors about-

I'm interested to hear, you talked a little bit about, you know, Miss Galindo and the women in the community. I'm interested to hear about any- you mentioned some teachers, but any teachers or staff members from the palm school that you really remember?

How did that make you feel?

How did that feel?

Yeah. What was that experience like?

When did he find out?

How old were you?

The patches, or the experience?

What were, what do you feel like the expectations of the teachers at Palm were for the students?

Do you think that the Anglo teachers and Chicano teachers or Mexicanas? Do you think they had, they had different expectations of you all, or do you think all the teachers had the same ones-

Do you know anybody, any students who got kicked out?

Do you know the reasonings?

You mentioned a couple times Commissioner De Leon, I want to take you back just a little when you said you missed 54 days of school.

What were you doing?

And your brothers would still go to school?

What do you remember about the Palm School building? How do you what do you remember about the bricks, the walls?

At home or in schools?

When was the school building built? Do you know?

At what age?

Whoose car was it?

Do you know that you've now told now, now there are two cars in the lake that belong to your family?

How long did it take you to walk from home to the Palm School?

Did you know your neighbors? Did you know the people?

Was there a school bell at the Palm School?

I'm wondering if you would. I'm wondering if because, because you're talking about how you live so close, you could throw a rock. I'm wondering if you would be, if you would have been able to hear the school school bell from-

What is the most joyous memory you have of the Palm School where you experience joy?

That's something you learned from the neighborhood?

Would you talk to the janitors often?

Did Mr. Martinez live in the Palm neighborhood?

What about the lunch ladies?

What was the food like?

Commissioner De Leon, you've told me multiple points where you... you said, you know, you realized you were poor, right through the patches, through maybe this incident with Christmas the toys, I'm wondering, what were instances in which you realized you were brown, or that you realized you were Mexican or Chicano?

And I find that really interesting, that you know part of what you got in trouble for in the third grade was this, this joke about beans? Was this joke about frijoles, and blood cells? And I'm curious, was the teacher upset that you made the joke, or that you were speaking Spanish?

You mentioned earlier about square dancing, line dancing, what was PE like? What was playing at the Palm School? What kind of activities and games would you all play?

And then you get in trouble at church.

Do you remember? What was it like leaving the Palm School? Was there a graduation? You know, you repeated the sixth grade? What was your last year at the Palm School like?

And did you feel ready to go to junior high?

And once you left Palm what was, you know, you mentioned, education has always been very important to you. How did Palm in your experience at the Palm school influence the rest of your educational life?

I'm interested to hear about your- You know, after Palm School, after you know, UJH, after high school. I'm really interested to hear about your political participation, whether it be in like, the early aughts of the Chicano movement, or you know, your your your run for commissioner and and really trying to understand how those moments in your life were were impacted by that your early your early career, your early childhood, you know, especially the Palm School kind of-

What do you remember about that day?

Want to come back to this, but I want to, I want to, I feel like I missed a big part, which was you meeting Hortensia. How did you all meet? What is what would you

Where was this?

So would you say that your political consciousness and your relationship with Hortensia kind of happened at the same time?

But in the larger Austin community, or even specifically within the palm neighborhood, what kinds of activity, political activity, were there around, around the 70s, Chicano movement at this-

When did you decide that "to run?" for public office, yeah. When did you and how did you make that-

Can you say something about the boat races?

What are they? What were they?

And the demonstration was against the KKK? "Againt the KKK." Do you remember what year that was?

For the camera. Can you, can you say?

Talk to me about running for Commissioner when you when you were elected

I know him.

No, I just I, I saw him last year I was in San Francisco, and I saw him last year.

What are, what are some lessons that you took from the Palm School, from early in your life from around the neighborhood that you carried with you into your adulthood, into this political organizing, into meeting other people, into being a mediator, like, how do you make sense of who you've become? Thinking back to your childhood, the-

Tell us about sunshine camp.

Whose Ernestine?

Miss Campos, do you know her first name?

Any chance you know her husband's name?

Okay. Thinking back, what are some of your accomplishments and highlights that you're especially proud of?

There's tissue on the side if you need.

I'm sorry, Martin Luther King-

Can you say that- it's- what was the name of the organization?

So you were saying, you were talking about how this person asked for your CV, and you were saying it would be a book because you've been doing this a long time.

And this was while you were a teacher yourself, or a-

What does the Palm School symbolize to you?

I was raised by my father, so we were pretty independent. I have two other brothers and we kinda did uh, kinda did our own thing. Very little adult supervision. But uh, we never got in trouble.

It was just me and my brothers and my dad and, we had cousins, but you know it was just the three of us mostly.

Well just my brothers, and my dad, and uh. We had other members. I don't know who they were. But they were other people, but they were mostly adults. So it could've been a house where there were other members. Because it was a real large house, I remember. Real large backyard. And uh, I remember, this one individual. There was a lady who would come take care of us, feed us I guess? Cause my dad worked all day so we would come home, and she would have lunch or supper ready for us and stuff.

But as far as other people, it was just basically the, me and my brothers.

Correct, yeah. I remember when she, the day she died, I remember my sister Lucy, I had a sister Lucy, also. My three brothers. My sister Lucy, she's from a previous marriage of my mother, but they didn't live with us. Still live with my mother. But when she- my mother died, I remember my sister Lucy was trying to breathe air into her.

Yeah, I did have a sister, two sisters and but I don't remember that much about 'em. My sister, Lucy, my sister Bertha, also, and this is from- my mother had a previous marriage. And I had a brother Rudy, and a brother Jesse. And my dad married my mother, and she was a widower, my mother, when he married her. But they were, they were only in my life early on, after my mother died, we didn't have contact with them to till years later, yeah. But we kind of reunited in the last- you know, since then, yeah. They have all have passed away. My sister, Lucy and Bertha, and my brother, Jesse and Rudy. My brother, Rudy, he was in Vietnam. He died from Agent Orange, cancer, yeah. But, but we didn't have that much contact with my step brothers, step sisters. It was basically just me, Geraldo and Marcos.

I'm the oldest and then Marcos. And then Gerardo, yeah, there.

Well, I think he never- what's the word, he never pushed us, but he- we knew that we were supposed to go to school. So I remember, I remember going to school, coming back from school. That's when I went to Palm and then, then we went to junior high and high school. And he when we knew we were supposed to go. And he worked all day, so when he left to work like six o'clock, seven o'clock in the morning, we knew we had to go to school. So we, we, we prepared. We got cleaned up. We got ready to go to school, but he didn't, never said, you're "going to get this if you don't go to school. We just knew we had to attend school. But we still, I know for myself, I played hooky sometimes. He found out. So he was, he was very- this was junior high.

But, but we, we all finished school. We all graduated. It's not because my father forced us, but we just knew we had to do it. When my father found out that I played hooky-

but when my father found out he got a letter or- anyway, he found out we had to have a meeting with the principal. And I spent the rest of the semester in junior high every day at detention hall for about- the whole- about four months, every day after school, had to go to detention hall. I learned that's a good thing, because I got caught up in my studies.

No, it was just something I did. I mean, it was- I learned basic math. Excuse me, let me get some water. All right, yeah. Now math- I mean, I learned the basic math, arithmetic, multiplications, division, adding, basic stuff. In high school, they wanted me to take algebra. It was something, I guess, that was required. I took it. I didn't understand- I didn't to this day, I didn't understand algebra, and I didn't understand why I needed algebra, and I needed that to for credit for to get to graduate. I remember that, but I took it, but I couldn't. I still can't figure it out today, but have never used, never, never had the opportunity to use algebra. And later in my life, I became a purchaser. I was dealing in 1000s of dollars when I was a purchas- that’s another story. But algebra never came up there either when I made when I was purchasing for Texas State University. So what I was algebra was math, was basic math I had no problem, just algebra. I think my brother Marcos aced it. I think, I don't know, but I didn't.

I don't know if they- I guess they had some kind of expectations, but I- it was never, you know, told- I was told about- they were just preparing me to to go to the next to the next class, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth and the sixth. And that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to go the next one. I wanted to see in the first I guess the first one, classes, grades, one, two, three, were downstairs. Four, five, and six were upstairs. And I wanted to go upstairs. So when I got to fourth grade, Hey, man, I made it.

Other then my brothers? I knew guys, you know, but I don't, I don't remember going to their houses, or we just hang around. My brothers were my best friends. We, we, yeah, we hang around together. I entered junior high. We started going having other friends.

No, we were, we were a couple of classes behind. Yeah, we knew, I think Marcos and Geraldo, they were, they got to junior high, and I was there one year, and had to leave. I went to high school. Same thing. They were like two- I think Marcos was two years behind in my Geraldo was like three years behind me. So we never really- in high school. We never, yeah, yeah. We didn't. When you see each other in class, in school, very much.

Yeah, I don't, yeah, I don't remember. You know, you know us been together. I knew they were there, but we never ran into each other.

No. Yeah, I was someone new when I was when I was planning to come over, you know, selected to be here. I was going trying to think of all kind of stuff, just blank, blank, blank.

Not that I'm aware of. I think maybe the first day of school and went and enlist- enlisted (laughter), when he took us to enroll with.

Well, I think I was given the basics. I think it's up to me to go from there. I was, I was taught to read and write, you know? Math, you know, maybe socializing with other people, but you know, you know, it prepared me, but I don't think, I think I got my best. Well, you never stop learning. You know, I was, I was an average kid. I made Fs, I made Bs, I made, I think, couple of A's, but I was a B, C, average guy. So I just, you know, went to school, learned, graduated. Well, actually, I'm a mid-term graduate. I didn't, I didn't grad… I was supposed to graduate in 64 but like, said, I failed Algebra, and I think typing, so I was a guy, like a credit a half, and I had to make it up. So I went, instead of dropping out, I went ahead and finished. I mean, I went an extra, an extra semester of school, and I just took pretty- a couple of three, four courses. I was about halfway just to get my my my credits like I needed one and a half. To my surprise, I wasn't the only one. We graduated mid-term. It was a it was a big- it was me, it was high school, it was Austin High, McCallum, and a couple other schools we all graduated together at the ceremony at the Austin High auditorium.

Yeah think it was where we lived, yeah, when we lived in- I remember when we came back from Pharr, that's where my mother died. We lived on Haskell Street, and that's on East Austin. That's by the old Fish Hatchery. My uncle, my uncle, Luther, that's my father's brother. We lived with him for a couple, and then we then we got our own place. So it was just basically that.

Well you know, back then, you didn't think like that. You wasn't like that. It's maybe later, but it was, it's the thing you did back then. We lived there. The school was there, you know, we went to school in our neighborhood, you know, as far as shaping me, I got it, you know, I was supposed to get an education, which I did, you know, and things the first couple, first 12 years, your life again, you know, you get educated. Get so prepared. Once you get out of high school, it's up to you for the how you going to turn out and how you going to react or take your your part in history. You know? You know, so I was, I think I was well prepared into my high school, my to my 12 years, 12 and a half years of schooling and my education, my life really didn't start until after I got out of high school. It was, you know, it was high school. Have a good time. Go play after school. Just do your own thing. It was very simple. Today is, I guess it's complicated back then, you know, you gotta eat breakfast, go to school, come back. Go play. Get into trouble, you know, go do some bad things here and there, (laughter) but then that was normal. You know, we didn't break any laws, we didn't hurt any property. You know, we just grew up. Pretty simple. It was pretty simple, really. Complicated today, I'm afraid.

Yeah, yeah, you're right. There's a lot of distractions. We didn't have distractions other than- our home. I mean, we didn't have- what'd we have? We didn't get a TV till- it was back to me. It was a high school/junior high when we first got our first TV, black and white.

And then the the grocery store, I remember the owner. I can't forget, I forgot their names, but they they would back then you have put, you paid a deposit for bottles, for Coke, Seven-Ups, and there was a deposit of two cents, and he would give you one penny for 'em. And that's what, that was his cost. He would give so we would go out. That's how we got our movie money. My brothers and myself, we would go in that warehouse district with anybody was produce stores, all kind of stuff, and lot of workers, and they would just, back then, no cans, all bottles. And they would discard the bottles, leave them there. And we would go after school or at night, and we'll find bottles all over the place. 10,15, take 'em to this gentleman at the store, and he was give us a penny for him, and all we needed was 15 cents. We could go to movies. Used to cost, it'd cost he's cost us five cents to go the movies, and it would go the Ritz. And we see a double feature for five cents back then, I remember that we do that. That's anytime we wanted to go movies, we'd go look for bottles, and we found them, and that's how we would- that was, that was kind of fun.

I remember seeing The Lone Ranger. Yeah, I saw Elvis Pressley, “Love Me Tender.” And the last movie they played the Ritz Theater. I know this because I was there, was the West Side Story. West Side Story, I guess came out in '62 something like that, 1960? We went- I went and saw that. For some reason my brothers didn't want to go see I would say that. And the next day there was having another feature. And when we showed up, it was closed, closed for remodeling, and never reopened. It reopened later on, but somebody else, but the actual the last movie played at Ritz Theater was the West Side Story that I recall. That's a musical, right? About musical, yeah, yeah. It was a good musical. It was seen as, yeah, it's on TV. It's you can see reruns of it. They made a new one, but it wasn't as good as the old one. Yeah, here's a political-cut type movie, if I remember. But that thing, we didn't call it, it wasn't political. We didn't call it. We didn't think was political. I didn't realize political things so way, way, way back, back then, things were, weren't political. They were just, that's the way it was.

That's why I decided to join the Air Force. We were talking about career day or something like that, and I told- they asked, "what you want to do, when you grow up, what are your ideas?" I told him, I want to be a jet pilot, join the Air Force. So that back in junior- that's when I set my mind on, that.

No that just was, I guess they were doing some kind of survey evaluating what you want to do, maybe to to see what what courses to lead me to take. So, you know, I think back then you could, you had certain you could take electives and stuff like that. Personally, you had your basics, then electives and- But I remember that was one of the questions.

Yeah. And actually, before- The recruiting office was on 6th Street, just down the street from Congress. And going to high school, there were several routes you could take to take the bus, which most of the time I missed, because by time I got to my neighborhood, it was full. So the recruiting office just down on down the street from 6th at 6th street, and I would sometimes come back, go down Rio Grande and turn on 6th Street and head home. And there was a courthouse, and there was a recruit off there one day I stopped, checked it out. And the guy "sure, well, come on in." So we saw I started the paperwork about six months before I got out of high school.

Yeah, I got out '68 and went back in 70 something, 77 I think, or 75.

I think my brother, Geraldo, he joined the Navy, but he had a medical problem, so they let him go. Yeah, but I had, I had uncles that were- my uncle Luther and my uncle John were in the army, World War Two. But that was not an influence on me, on that at least, I just knew about it.

I wanted to be a pilot.

Today? Oh, I've done a lot of things, you know? I went to college on a GI Bill. I spent- when I- when I dropped out, I was classified as a junior. But I had to get out because I had a family, and it was, it was kind of rough on the family, my wife and the kids. Plus, I had to, I had to need extra money, so I had to get a part time job. So, but as far as things that I'm proud of, I've done a lot of things, like say I didn't go to college, but I learned a lot of things. I found out I couldn't do certain things, wow. But I- I worked in a grocery store, and I became a manager in the grocery store- grocery business. I started as a clerk and went up as a store manager, assistant store manager or- and I also became a produce manager, in charge of the produce department. And then I went to then I went work for university, Texas State University, which is Texas State. And I went there, and I started in the grounds department, and I worked my way up to the produce, I mean, produce- purchaser. I became, I was the first certified purchaser in my department to get a certified to purchase for the state. And I I learned, that's where I learned how to use a computer, and I was I purchase. I made purchases from, I would buy from different vendors, set up contracts. My biggest contract that I did, I negotiated, was for a half a million dollars for- to pick up the trash service for the university. And I took the bid, I did the all the paperwork, and I learned a lot of things, you know, doing that. But that was, I'm real proud that that what I did, you know, I became the first purchaser, authorized purchaser for my, our, department, and I negotiated. I didn't realize that I could do things like that. It just happened. And I caught on real quick, and I was, I was very good at my job. Yeah, that's one thing.

No, well, you know, yeah, my life, you know, I don't know. I have I lived a pretty normal life. I mean, I my wife and I, we were married, we struggled. But now I'm not, you know, we, we owned a home. We paid for it. And our kids, they're doing okay. They both. They- all of them. I got two born and grown. They're doing real good. They got good jobs. My son is he works for the university now. He's, he's a director of irrigation. He runs the whole crew, all the great irrigation for the university. He controls it. And he's got people. He's got several people under him. My daughter, she's office manager for a doctor in Amarillo, and I'm pretty proud of that. They're doing they're doing real good. They're not struggling. They're doing real good financially. You know, I'm doing okay, so. But it was hard, you know, it was, it wasn't easy. But you know, you know, I'm not, I don't regret it, the stuff that happened, you know, the bad stuff. Yeah, good. Life's good, still. My wife passed away, but life's still good. You know, I have no complaints. I have no complaint.

Never really thought about that. Yeah, pretty, I guess you could, it's pretty ordinary. U.S. story: poor boy makes, does good, but didn't know he was a poor boy, you know? I never thought it. I never thought I was poor. It was just the way it was. But we, you know, we struggled. But it wasn't, you know, "oh my God, I don't have this," you know, it was. That's the way it was, adjusted. I think it prepared me for, for for later on in life, you know. I've been around the world a couple of times, in the military, been all kinds, you know, over the Atlantic, over the Pacific. Served in- I didn't serve. I mean, I participated. I didn't serve in combat, and during Vietnam. Desert Storm, I was a participant. I feel proud that I contributes- I was part of the the force that brought evil down, you know, I think I did good, you know?

In 1924, his family decided to come because they were laborers- farmworkers. My grandfather worked cotton fields up in Lockhart. That's the area where Lytton Springs, like five miles from Lockhart and the story goes, this is urban legend. So la historia es que, 1924 they decided to come in an Old Model T4, it broke down at Congress, at the Congress Bridge. They came south. Probably they kept ,been through being, we know it Ben White/ 71 they came in from Lockhart, and they got stuck. And in the 1920s our people live in West Austin, west of Congress: Lavaca, Colorado. See these streets? They're in Spanish? So they threw the Model T 4 over the bridge into the water. So they hiked the rest of the way into what they called back then the man was called me, kind of “little Mexico”, or Mexico, which on 2nd and Brazos, 2nd and Colorado, where the city council used to be at. There's where he started. My mother came from Bastrop. From family from Bastrop. It wasn't until 1946 that they met, he was living by himself, worked for the city, and she was divorced had four kids, and my uncle Gray, told my father, “and there's a woman who has four kids. If you marry her before the year is over, you get some tax credits.” (Laughter). The problem with my father. He fell in love with my mother. They met, they got married in april of 1946 so that's before the December for the taxes came. He married 1946 on April the 30th. And Mace B. Thurman. He was a JP, and later he became a judge, a district judge, and I had the chance to shake his hands and thank you for marrying my parents. And he says, “Commissioner, look what I created.” (Laughter) People take credit for stuff like that. That's my mother and my father. My father, Franciso. I always introduce myself. Who are you? Says, I'm the son of Francisco "Frank" De Leon and Marianna Armoda Garcia de Leon. That's who the son that I am.

We lived in- when we lived my brother was born on Sabine Street. Then I was born on 606 East 12th Street in the house, and then we moved to 8th Street, I think zero and 8th Street, right about two, a block and a half in the police station. And I lived there until the third grade. So I lived on 8th Street when I went to Palm the first year. And I went late, because I was born October 3rd, so I even though I was six years old on October 3rd, I couldn't go to school, so I went to Iglesia Bautista, the Baptist Church that that I belonged to back then. And that's when I first moved to Palm when I lived on 8th Street and then third grade, we moved to Rainey Street, and we stayed there until the 11th grade. Till my father had a heart atta- a stroke, and we couldn't afford we couldn't afford to stay there, so we moved to 11- 1102 Haskell Street, and I finished high school when I lived on Haskell street, but that's where my family came from.

Well, the story goes is this: it was just me, my father and my two brothers. My mother died when I was three years old, and she died in Pharr, Texas. And for many years, I didn't know my mother had really died, because we never saw her grave. My father wouldn't talk about it. She died on the 20th of December, and my father was born on December, the 21st of December. So she died day before his birthday, and he tells us, "well, I was sad because everybody, it was suddenly Christmas. Everybody the lights were out, and I had lost my wife," and so far away, 300 miles away, we uh, I finally went myself when I was 24 years old, and I found the grave. And I knew my mother was dead. So, you know how you grow up? Well, you know she's dead, but where is she? Why is this no grave? I can’t visit her. And my father was, was very much an introvert. He was real closed. Everybody knew him that way. He was. He never got married till he was in his 30s, until my grandmother passed away.

Yes. It was obvious- You know, I can talk about it, my mother, my mother, my grandmother and my father did not get along. He was, he had a reputation in the Barrio, which later helped me get elected, (laughter) my father took care, my Grandfather died when he was 12 years old, and he became since my father was the oldest, he went to go work in the fields, and he went to work to support my uncle John, Luther and Totardio and Maria and a couple others who passed away. When I grew up, I had two uncles and an aunt, uncle Juan, Uncle John and uncle Totario, tio Luther and the Tia Maria who lived in Monterrey, Mexico. She married Mexicano and moved, and she lived where my great grandfather was born in, Monterrey. So I knew I had two uncles and an aunt. And when I went the reason that we know is that my mother-in-law didn't like my father because he was a street man. He triggered the family. He drank and and went down 6th Street, and that's what he was. So she didn't like that. Didn't like the drinking and stuff, and we knew that. And I think she just felt, she needed to take my mother away.

My- my father would get us up at four in the morning to get the beans ready, one would have to wash the beans and clean them out and put them in the pot. And then about before he went to work, about four o'clock, five o'clock, so he had us up early.

He was, was here Frank. He worked for the Austin sewer. He did dishes for the sewers. He was good at the jackhammer. That was his job. He was the best at it. And he was that's he was just a laborer. And he worked for them for 20 years. That's how he had retirement was good when he, when he had the stroke and he was able to retire.

That's what, when you get educated. That's how, that's when kids get educated. They're the best resource for their parents. You know, my father barely spoke any English, and he he can only write his he could write his name, but he only went to what? The third, fourth grade. That was it. You know, he didn't have that education, you know what I’m saying? So we became that.

Growing up, I would gaze out the window at school, and the teacher said, "You daydreaming?" I said "No, ma'am," "What are you looking at?" "That red bird, a Cardinal." He says, “How did God do that? How did he paint that thing red? Why is it red?” Instead of saying, “Oh, it's just a bird,” me, I went like, why is it- how do you create that?"

I think my indigenous background, I think it comes from my being a Mexica. I mean, you know, Lakota, being a native person. Because our belief is that the world is altogether. It's not that absolute. It is we share everything. Why the European, you know, if you read the book of Genesis, and I can't paraphrase the word, but they say "we will dominate the world. We're above animals, you know, we're here to dominate. It's dominance." We're an indigenous we share the world with everybody, you know, and I think that's what's inside of me, because I was always getting into conflicts, but I will try to work things out instead of fighting. You know, why upset? "Well, y'all speak Spanish," but that's our language. Sometimes y'all speak English. We don't understand what you're saying. Why don't we do this? Won't you teach us English and we'll teach you Spanish so you won't feel offended. So you see the different paradox there. In other words, I'm not I don't want division, I want unity, but I can respect you. Can you respect me? And that's the way I've always lived, and that's when I was going to school at Palm you know, gonna share with you, my- Baptist I've been a Baptist, was raise "dance is not accepted it’s the work of the devil." My father...

I think it was because- believing in the spirit world, believing in indigenous is, you know, when you leave here you go in the spirit world. And you don't want to go to the underworld. You want to go to the spirit world. And I think you understand the heart of being the creator, and wondering, how? who does that? You know, I can do it on a on a paper, I can draw red, but how was that created? It's just like, there's no explanation to talk there's just a feeling that you have inside this. There's something's great out in the world that can do stuff like this, you just get, Oh, It’s just a red bird? No! Well, how is it red? You know, there's gotta be something there that creates these things. When people talk about the Creator, when you think about people talk about God and Jesus and all that, and create these things, it was the same way as an Indigenous person, understanding Mother Earth, understanding what she does, that she's alive, and how that- it's in it's in me. I can't get it out. I, you know, I don't believe in Jesus. That is something I don't have. You know, among our people, we know this is Jesus, we know he came. We know he walked the earth. But. Uh, if he just his teachings, you be okay. But if you go beyond that, you're not okay, because you become very repressive. You're telling me, because I believe in ceremonies, because I believe in the Creator, then these are my protections. These are these. These are here to protect me against spirits. This is where my world, this was given to me by an elder, because I'm an elder now it's to protect me. But someone said, "No, that's paganism," right? I don't believe that. And if you believe Jesus, good, I'm glad! It's no problem. That's I think the way I went, I think that helped me in my activism and the things that I do, and the gift is like you, the guy in the camera, the Creator gave him that gift because that's what he does. He's good at it, yeah, here, Dr. Cortez, that's who you are. The gift is given to you. The gift that I was given is to what I just explained to you is in Palm School, even though I flunked another year, there were a lot of practice that I worked at Palm School that got around a lot of kids and resolved conflicts with my students- my fellow students, and that stayed with me forever. So I was 60 years old when I realized, Hortensia told me. She said, “that's your gift.” “What do you mean? I don't understand.” “There are people fighting each other, and they ask you to come in, and next thing you know, they're all working together. How do you do it?” “I don't know.”

No, we never went there.

I was about there I was about 12.

You get a bag of fruit, like a candy, and you get a toy, and you get to eat some food. It's free. You know?

No, my dad didn't do any of that stuff. He wouldn't do this stuff.

My brother, my brother, my two brothers. Sometimes we just me and Gerardo my younger brother, Frank. Was Frank was like my father, real quiet, real reserved. He wouldn't get into all the exciting stuff. But me, my brother, we just love all this stuff. We love. Like during the summer, there was nobody home. You know, I talk about my mother, one of the things you do when you have a mother, you have nobody after your father goes to work there’s nobody to supervise you. So it's like a lot of freedom, but there's also a big void in your life, not having your mother. But in the summer we were just ran the streets because our friends would get together, we shoeshine. I was a kid who sold papers, broke, cardboard down, cardboard stuff sold at the paper company that paid you 15 cents, 100 pounds.

We got caught stealing. Sam Altra, which is part of the Lebanese community in Austin, twin twin, twin twin, Twin Liquors, JJ Tavern and downtown. These are places that they had. They're all Lebanese people. They were all together, Jacobs and and anyway, Sam Altra was newspaper worth the Driskill hotel on the back side, where they had with the white pharmacy, and we picked up a couple of Baby Ruths, and Sam Altra caught us. We were, I was about nine, and Sam Altra caught us that summer. “What are you boys doing? What you got in your bucket? Did you pay for it?” “No”, “put it back. I'll give you a job.” So we put the stuff back. He came back, guys says he gave us each two newspaper, two papers, American Statesman. He said, “you sell them for a nickel, you come back with a dime, and I give you four. So you two for one, and then then you come back and keep that extra nickel.” So that's how I started selling newspaper. American Statesman is by Sam Altra. Took us out and said, “You don't have to steal you make money. You can buy it.” So I had people, and that's one thing about that. I always have people who taught me lessons, but the same way that I talk was, without any violence without any harsh words, without I didn't need putting a person down. He said, “You guys, what you're doing is wrong. You want money to buy that here. Won't you do this and you have money.”

My it was Gutierrez, my brother, my, you know, my two brothers. Sometimes, when Frank got went to Austin High, then it was just me and Gerardo, we would walk together. And then there was, there was my cousin Janie, who lived on 3rd, 3rd street, and couple others, and the rest of us, Guteirrez and the Cunias, and the Ramirez, you know, just it's una tangita we walk together. We just all walked because we knew that would happen. And but there were some fights in the school between blacks and whites and us and but there was a Civil Rights incident. The girls, I remember, Janie. Two things happened. One was they wore a Mary Jane shoe and a loafer two different shoes. And they was like “you can’t do that”, and wonder why. What it was is they had an annual powder puff flag football game between the girls and Janie was good. She had brothers. You know, she knows how to play football. No, I remember. Now. You remember what they did. They were boycotting they didn't want to play because they didn't allow her to be quarterback. They just want the Anglo girls to be quarterback. So they protested. So we joined them. We started wearing different socks. That was good for me, because I never had a good pair, but we joined them, and we started boycotting. We started wearing things in our socks, and they fighting at them. They realized the university realized they doing the same thing. They racist stuff. I was my first I remember, it's Junior High. I was like, in the seventh grade, and I remember we were all joining the girls. Yeah, we joined. We so we start protesting with them. It's a quiet protest, right? Just, just don't wear things. Like they want us to tuck in our shirts. We're, you know, we're pachuco, right? We wear shirts outside. Wear black stacey's and camisas we don’t tuck in the shirt, and we had to tuck in our shirt, so we showed up one day with a shirt, and we tuck and said, “Why do this?” “Because they won't let the brown Mexican girls play football”. And we just tuck the shirt, we tell them why why we had a shirts out so we wouldn't get kick out, that because they kick you out ofschool or they put you in detention, you know?

Okay, I love school. School was, education was important to me. I love to learn. You see the Indian part and the Anglo part, the two worlds I wanted to learn. I love school. But then again, it was hard. And it was hard because there were no Mexican teachers. There was only two. Miss Herrera and Miss Reyes. Hortensia got lucky, she had Miss Reyes. I wasn't lucky because I spoke English. I guess I learned English too fast, I don't know, but there were only two in the whole Palm School. But I love school. My father said you need to go to school. Causing a lot of problems in first grade. This is the part being American Chicano in the class we’re reading Jane. And no, I know you don't know that if you go back in the 50s, “Jane run, Jane, see, Jane run,” right? Simple English, and the teacher would just not call me, you know, and like so I got my so I got my pencil. This is the first grade. And I just, I just tore up the book and they sent me to the office. They call my father, and it's gonna cost him a quarter to pay for the book, and he whipped me all the way home. My father did not spare the rod, old fashioned. And every time the red light come going from 1st Street, Cesar Chavez, 3rd Street, and then their lights at 5th Street, 6th Street and 8th Street. And I would push the light, I would just afraid of the green, because every time you turn red, se acordaba what I did right and I he asked me, why did I tear up the book? I said, because the teacher wouldn't call my name. You know, the Anglos got girls and guys got the called. I didn't get a call, and I wanted so bad, because I worked so hard to learn those two pages, and she didn't call on me. So I just so…. I was always I was like my father said I was always one. The reason I was that way was because I was born backwards. I was born on the floor. I was breached when I was born.

My father. The story is that my father was smoking and he burnt the bed the night before. So he had to put the fresh so that then I was my mother was having contractions. He paid $50 for a doctor to come get me, deliver me, which is a lot of money in '47, and the guy was 84 years old. He had to get on his knees to deliver me, and I was backwards and he had to pull me out. So I was born ass backwards. I tell them, my grandkids, “Grandpa, don't talk like that”. And I think that's why my legacy, my my life, is going to be why. The way I am, what I did in my life, the way I grew up at Palm and then why flunked the sixth grade? You know? Why? Because of that, my teacher my second grade teacher Ms. Schulze, what I love very much. Who's passed, was my greatest teacher. She said, after she learned who I was, after she helped me, after we worked things out, because I was always disrupting her class. And one thing she said, Alright, let's go. And I said, “Where are we going?” This is the bell rang. So everybody go to lunch, “but you Marcus, gonna stay”. She walked up to me and she said, “Look. I said, I know you like to play around you prankster”. So she said, “You have to learn how to turn it on, turn it off. You got good you're good kid. You can learn, you know. And I'm going to tell you why you were flunked.” I thought because of my grades and stuff, and Rob Morgan was dumber than I am. So he said it, “Marcus, I'm dumber than you. I got passed the seventh grade”. He said, “The Teacher flunked you because she felt you, you were not mature enough to go into seventh grade.” She said “You need to be another year. And I think she must read the way you are. If you learn how to cut it off when it's too much, then I think you do better”. So I just want to do for you, when I say, Okay, that's enough. I'm not talking about the whole class, I'm talking to you, and when I say that, I need you to behave. Can you do that?” And I thought, “Yes, ma'am, I can do that.” And that changed me.

For her? It was okay. It was a learning thing. She did not criticize me. She understood who I was, because later on, she said, would you come? Would you like to come work with me? I said, "Well, my can my friend Ramon, come with me?" He was, I can't remember his last he was a friend of mine, and we ended up working together because her, his father did landscaping, so we ended up cleaning her yard. She learned… she paid us. She learned she taught me how to accept money and work. I don't have to steal. I don’t have to work in the streets. I can work for her and working for her. In the eighth, seventh grade, I was offered a job as a dish washer, so I already knew how to work. I already new the value of work in my labor. She taught me that. So that was was a teaching moment for me, but her spirit was there like mine. Because one time somebody threw an airplane, because we had old schools in the top was would be down so the hot air can get out, somebody threw an airplane to our class in middle of our studies, everybody got shocked. And we thought, normally, a teacher gets up and ah, she goes, you know, that person must was… she laughs. “I think that person thinks that's pretty cool, you know, throw an airplane," something like that. She goes, "it's, it's no big deal. Just leave it there. Let's get back.” And we're like, wow, this different type of a teacher that doesn't bother what's important is our studies. Don't worry about that. Something that's cute.

Yes, for that to meet her. "What was her name? Again?" Michelle T Ruth, Schutze. What I did for her? I said I will come to school every day I will not miss the class, and I gave y'all a certificate, a perfect attendance, and you see her name the bottom, T Ruth Schutze, and I made that commitment to her. So that meant I couldn't act up. And I learned a lot from her that so I'm, I'm I'm, I had the label, late bloomer, and the I'm late because it took me 13 years to get out of primary school from the first of the 12th grade. Took routine …12 years to get my degree, from '67 to '79 and it took me 10 years to get elected public office from 80 to 1990 that's who I am. So I have a lot of patience, but I think, but with Palm School did my friends, and I try to follow them, and a lot of them did a lot, some of us, three of us went to school to college, in '67 but I'm only one that survived. That completed it. I mean, I didn't complete it… I'm only one that I know that completed a degree. I don't know. I know Hernandez completed a degree but from my Barrio. Macias and Fernando Luna, I don't know. I don't think they finished. "Do you know their first names?" Fernando Luna, Isidro Macias. I don't know if they ever finished school. I know Tony Hernandez, the guy who got shot by, finished his degree, and he worked for Southwestern Bell. This is profound, I think I had the only thing I suffered is a Bueller effect, usually the movie Bueller. Remember that scene? He said, Bueller, Bueller, when he skipped the professor could say that happened to me, spider, Orestina, a good friend was in math class, and the math teacher kept saying, Marcus De Leon, Marcus De Leon. And by Friday, he did this every day, and this is the first day Friday he says, Marcus De Leon, De Leon, because back then and junior high, you didn't use first names. It was our first name, De Leon, and Christina says, This is our this is my friend. So Christina got up and said, “Hey, what is it?” “Marcus, yeah, he flunked. That dummy. Flunk you're not gonna come here.” She's my best friend. So I don't know. I guess she was frustrated. Finally, later in life, got to meet and she told me, “but I'm so sorry. Marcus, I was just pissed off at the teacher. He should know you're not going to school. They should know that you're not coming.” But that's the only thing. When I saw that in the movie, ah, that's happened to me.

I was excited because my brother was there. You know, I wasn't afraid to go to school. I was excited. I wanted to go to school. I love school, education, but my own way of never quitting. I started in '67 was married, had a kid, and I realized I had to raise and I had another kid. I had to go. I when I met Hortensia in '71 I was nothing. I'm going to school. And then she said, and then ACC was coming up. So we worked with a neighborhood. As a neighborhood, we supported ACC coming in, and she says, "Why don't you go to once you register” This woman? You know, I hadn't Oh, I never passed English at CTC. I never passed freshman English. So in the summer of '73 I took it at HTU at Houston Civil University, and I passed it. And then she said, “why don't you go to school? Don't you register? You know? ACC”, “I don't know. I don't know”. So I registered. I am one of the 1772 students that first register at ACC. I'm also the one that 1000- 2000 students that registered CTC, because Central Texas College a brand new college in Killeen, Texas, and I was one of the first students. And then here I am again. She encouraged me to go to school. She was going to UT. You know, we had our first son, and she was going to UT, and she said, go to school. So I did, but it's too hard for two of us to go to school. So in '75 I dropped out of ACC. I said, let me put you to school. I'll work. They'll take care of our kid. You know, my other kids that I had. So I put her to school and I quit in '75. To me, as part of my training at Palm School, what I went to good things and bad things, bringing things out, facing yourself, and saying, what's the better thing to do? The better thing to do is to go to work full time and let her go to finish school, because she's smarter than me anyway. So she graduates '77 and she said, you know, why don't you go to school this fall? So I registered, well, the stuff that I did, ACC, I finished with a 3.5 I think GPA at ACC. So you know what? UT, did? They roll out the brown carpet for me? The students said, Mr. Daniel, you mean the red carpet. No, I'm a Chicano. They ran the brown carpet out for me. I was allowed to come in with nothing, do nothing, but come in. I had my GPA was so high. And my first year I was awarded the minority academic achievement award that invested for one year. That was it. But that I saw part, I think, what I talked to my students when I was a college advisor is you have your foundation and your parents, your families, your foundation, so where you go to school, where you play, what you do, in your community, in your Barrio, that's your foundation. So when you go to college, that's that's what you stand on, and that's what these journey beads were about, that I would give to them, that's what they stand on. This is what holds you together, and that's your foundation. So yeah, Palm School is our foundation. Every Elementary School is some kids who got to get to go a long time, that's their foundation. That's like the foundation of a house. It stands out. And then you go to high school, it gets built better. Then you go to college, and then when you graduate, you put your roof on, and you live your life, I think that's what the way I look at it. That's why Palm School is, it's so important.

At Palm when I first went, we had our own sack lunch. And then by the third grade, we ate what the kids ate. It was good Fridays. Friday was great. Good pizza and weekly meatloaf. You always had greens. I love greens. I'll eat the other kids' greens. Give it to me. Give me the green beans. Give me the squash. I will eat it well, because I'm starting half the time! But going to school, I wanted to always be in there, but it was hard for me. Math was hard. English. I never learned English. Obviously, we'll tell you. We share with you one story about how I never learned English, even when I was to school. I was in the 10th grade, and I took an English class, and I was turning in hundreds, and then when I got my grade was a 'B.' I went to Mr. Ziegler, my report card, B, so I went to Mr. Zigler. I said, "Mr. Ziegler," "yeah, Marcus," "can you? Can I… my test grades?" because they have log books, 90, 100, 95 85, 100, 95 was it not an A, He says “I can't give you an A” I says, “why not? He says, “Because you… this class is a remedial class.” We no he said this, "well, I can't let me, let me see a report card”. I showed my report card next to my name was a box and it was white out. He pulled his drawer out. Get a you know, a razor blade. He scratched all off the the white out, and there was an R there. "See that R? Marcus. It means remedial." "What does that mean?" “Marcus, you know, I don't give you go, look it up”. You always do that. “Go, look it up.” What is it? How? What is it? “Go, look it up”. So I went to the library. And now many old library is 19, what? 65-64 anyway, big books open up and look up “remedial”. And, you know, at remedial when they read, they have a lot of words. One of the paraentheses said, “retarded.” That's all I remember. It said last then, or whatever. But right there in the middle was “retarded.” So I went back to my teacher, Mr. Ziegler, said, “get me out of here.” Said, “I don’t want to be here. This is going to follow me for the rest of my life. I don't want to be here. I'm not retarded. Or remedial.” He said, "Well, Marcus you are going to struggle," “I know, I don't care”. So I got put back. Guess what I made my English, senior English, "what?" A “D”, really it was an “F” but Miss Hathaway was so proud of the way I worked, and I worked so hard she couldn't flunk me. She knew if she flunked me that I couldn't go to college. And D back in the 60s was okay. It's like a 69-70 so she put me a “D.” So when I went to college, I never passed English I. I finally did. But guess what? In 1979 when I was graduating, you go through all the stuff, they said, I need to take an English. I said “what?” I passed English one, “no, you took it at HT, we don’t accept Black English.” That's the exact words! They're not up to par with what UT has? I didn't understand that, and that's been something going on a lot with HBCUs. This is 1960s right? 70s. So guess what? I already graduated '79 but I had to take an English course during the summer here. And I was 33-34 years old, you know. And I'm with 16, 17,18, year old students.

Just- when they came down, I was in a demonstration when they demonstrated for for jobs and stuff, we were part of the getting the people involved, and then later on, with the Black Citizen Task Force and other groups. We always invite one another. You know, we have a racist hotel here in Austin, don't you? "Which is it?" There was- it was called the Marriot out there on 11th Street. Sister Turner calls me up. “Marcus. Marcus, we got, twelve noon we got to be on 11th Street, the racist hotel.” “Dorothy, what do you mean? Racist hotel?” “That racist hotel, the building here on 11th Street, right across from our neighborhood.” “What are you talking about?” “They ain't got no windows facing East Austin” I said, “You got to be kidding me”. “Marcus, need you and Paul and Francis need to be there. The consilio needs to be there.” “Okay, Francis, we'll be there.” So we show up. It's true. If you see the east wall of the, I don't know what's called now, I think it's a good night hotel or something. It used to be the Marriott, right on 11th Street, and IH 35 the windows, there are no windows facing East Austin. You know how hotels have windows all the way around, even in New York, I was standing at a Holiday Inn, and they were head forward, and you faced another hotel. It has no windows. It was the best thing you did because in the Marriott ended up giving said Jobs for Progress, to do all the hiring. I don't know, for just said Jobs for Progress, but GI Forum was a Mexican American organization. GI Forum, the one of their businesses, is set for, set for, set for, for jobs, and they appointed them to do all the hiring isn’t that great? A Chicano organization?

May Pole, in May Pole, Fourth of July, September was Labor Day, right? May Pole. We went around the maypole. I could never, I didn't have that kind of coordination to go underneath, and I was tearing it up. "So Marcus, you go over and watch." But there was a may pole celebration. In September. It was, you know, it was Labor Day. There was no Mexicanos, I can't remember... in Palm park that was done, but not at the school.

Palm Park, we had some Mexican celebrations, Cinco de Mayo, we celebrated at the park, not by the school. But the PATRINA was the patron of Mexico. It celebrated September 16 was all celebrated in the churches. And some of the parques, like Zaragoza, Pan Am and we try to do it at Palm but those, those would Mexicano celebration, those, we knew that, but not the school.

It was just the little we played the tetherball and we would do the Raspa, you know the dance, La Raspa? (Sings beat) Something like that. Fun for me, but as long as Dr. Paredes, didn’t know about it, I was okay, but the food was tamales, you know, enchiladas and tacos, burritos, you know, but the la comida Mexicana that would be there.

The majority, I think, did, I don't remember, the majority of them had two parents. Had a mother and a father that I remember, that's something you didn’t ask, but just something that you showed up they were there. And the church, some of the, some of the kids I went to school, went to my church too. And I remember them having parents, two parents. My father was a Catholico. He was raised a Catholic. So he would go to Guadalupe in the mananas, and then we made sure we were at the church by 10 o'clock, and he would go, and sometimes he would go to the church with us, but the men were over here, Bible study, and then we were going to the church, he would sit with us. And I got baptized at that church after I got hit by car. I kid you not. Yeah, I got hit by car. Running to my school dude. I was so excited to get to school I got hit by a car.

Yeah, just bruised my leg. My brother, Gerardo. He not in an interview. But Gerardo was with me, behind me. I was meeting him to go across Martin Luther King, if I got caught, there was already a car accident there, some car had jumped the curve. I guess the guy was watching. He didn't watch me, and I was running, and he hit me like a bull, just ram me up in the air.

I would, no, yeah. I went, yeah. I went to school. Afterwards. What happened? I got hit. The ambulance came and I was bleeding from my nose. I hit my nose. My nose is bent. And I got here and I was bent. I sat by the curb, and I kept bleeding. I stopped bleeding. The guy said, “You need to go to the hospital. Said, “no,” I said, he said “Look, we need to put you in the ambulance”.” No, I don't want to go”, “Hey, dude, make us look good. Like in the movies,” I said okay. So, like in the movies, I laid back. I was just, you know, in the movie, you see the student, guys in the hospital, ah, ambulance is going in. Yeah. That was me, and I was sent by the doctor. My dad came and they checked my blood and I wasn't bleeding, no internal injury, and says, you want to go back to school? I want to go home. There's nobody at home. Oh, no, does anybody at home? No, my dad went back to work, and my mom just passed away, so I have no one at home. Says, Why don't you go back to school, the hospital is on 15th Street. Martin Luther King is four blocks away. Let me walk. By time I got to school, my leg is swelled up in my jeans. But guess what? I was already dead! "Marcus, you're alive!" When Connie Kirk, a good friend of mine. We've been friends for years, we're still friends. Connie Kirk, African American sing- a beautiful singer, "Marcus," said, “I thought you were dead”. Well the story was that I got dragged down from Martin Luther King all the way on the San Jacinto, I lost my head rolling down on the highway, on the road. (Laughter) It's terrible!

(Laughter) all these rumors, some of them surprised that I was still alive. You know, somebody or school may got hit because I was a star, I got all the attention now walking every class. “How you doing Marcus?" "Good to have you here.” But it just ,there was a blood clot. I had to take vibration. It's still, it's still, it's still like a little sore here, ninth, seventh grade, eighth grade. Yeah, I got hit by car. It was in the newspaper. I was newspaper because just got hit by car. Student didn't have my name, just "a student, a middle school student got hit by a car," and then the ticket was given to the guy. I said to him, my dad later said, we didn't know. We could have sued the insurance company, but my dad don't know about stuff like that. I didn't know I was too young.

Well, like Mrs. Schuester my second grade teacher, there was Ms. Houston, who was married to the quarterback from University of Texas. She was a math teacher for a while. She was real good at what she did. Ms. Meadows that I remember in my second fifth grade. I try to remember my fifth grade teacher, but Ms. Arman was my fourth grade teacher, and she had a student teacher, I think, I remember her name, but I got in trouble with Ms. Arman because my student teacher, I think her name was, Miss Harold, told us to buy- get a cigar box to bring to the school. This was in April. And then she said, I got some felt for y'all, and I chose green. He says, I need y'all to cover this box, cigar box, inside and out with this felt. I started work on it. And then I asked her, “What's this for?” “Oh, it's a Mother's Day box, jewelry box.” I looked at her like, “girl, don't, you know, I don't have a mother like?” I said, Okay, I didn't say nothing. And you know, it's a Mother's Day jewelry box. So I put it underneath my box. I never worked on it again.

I mean it felt bad. Very. So, when it came in May with May 18th is Mother's Day, I. Just miss Arman came over. She says, "Why aren't you working on your box?" Because she had found it in my desk. You know, it was just the felt was stuck. Nothing else was done. This is, "you know, I don't have my mother, Ms., Ms. Arman," and she made me feel bad. “Well I didn't know that.” So, you know, there's gonna get a grade for this, but Ms. Arman told her not to grade me, just just that could never happen. You know what she did? She took me shopping for clothes. (Laughter) The student teacher took me downtown, took me to Scarlbros, took me to Montgomery Wards, used to be there, and bought me some clothes.

Feel good. She said, she apologized. I said, "you don't have to do this for me." Said "no, no, no," I, she knew we were poor. You know how I found out how poor I was? When I got locked up. "Tell me about it." I was in the fifth grade, and I started skipping school. I missed 42 days. Then I got sick, you know, total, 42 days, week, year, week there, I got sick, and I went to the nurse, to the nurse, sick. “Ugh I'm sick, I'm sick.” “Okay, Marcus, let me use lozenges. Go lay in the back and rest me. You feel better.” “You got you got fever you've got 99 fever, But go lay down.” And then Mr. Garcia was a truant officer for possible showed up. “Is that? Is that Marco de Leon back there? Yeah. Well, he's been missing last school,” he took me in, took me South got on South Congress took me to the juvenile home and locked me up for a week.

The first night, I kicked the door till I got tired, they locked it. Then went to the restroom, took a shower, and they locked me up, gave me some clothes, took all my clothes off and locked me up for truancy. Didn't tell my father till later. Yeah, that's how they did it in the old days. He was after me. He actually, he finally went down to the Waller Creek where I used to hide, to find my my hideout, "this the the truancy officer, or your dad?" This is the truancy officer. My dad didn't know nothing about this. He'd leave at four o'clock in the morning. He came home at six. He come with three or four in the afternoon. He didn't know.

After they got locked up, the union got me out. I had spent a week. I had spent the third night, the third day I was there, I had a fight, that I caused there was a guy a gabacho, Anglo guy, one of them, we were watching Bugs Bunny. He said, “No, the Lone Rangers on” No, no. We were watching Lone Ranger. He wanted Bugs Bunny. So he changed the channel. We had three channels, two channels at Austin, and I went and changed it back to the Long Ranger. He got down. So the second time he got down, so the second time he got down I kicked him in the butt. I mean, I got in good, my right foot smack. He just jumped on me. But he was bigger than me, and they came and separated us and said, “Who started it?” “Me.” “Why Marcus?” “Because he was changing the channel.” I got solitary confinement for two days. They locked me up. I didn't mind, I had my own restroom. I didn’t have to share with nobody.

I was in fifth grade, so I got- I'm older than everyone. So, seven, so 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, I was 11, and I was locked up for a week. But this is what happened, though, after I got out, they gave my clothes back, Ms. Martinez, I think that's her name, who worked there. She sewed everything up. She threw away my underwear because they were full of holes, she said, but I saw my pants. Patch aqui, aqui, my shirt. My shirt was to be pocket. It was a patch. Then she gave my coat. I had a coat, all right. Had patches on the elbow, patches here, patches on the inside. I said, we can’t buy any clothes so, I just stitch them up for you. That's when I saw myself. It's like looking in the mirror. "What does that mean?" (Puffs air) That I knew I was poor.

The experience, watching the patches, or looking at the patches. I knew I was real poor, you know? And then when I… in junior high, when I got when I got hit, I wasn't wearing any underwears because I didn't have any I remember that. But that's your life, right?

I think a lot of the teachers that my teachers, that I had, some were very hard. Some cared. Some did not. But I think that it was the teaching job. And now there were mainly Mexican Americans, very few Anglo, no blacks, but there were Chicanos and and, and the attitude has to be, was for many years, and still was, even to my son at Austin High was, “We don't know if they can learn.” It's always been. "We don't know, we gotta do away a lot of their ways of life, the way they think, to teach in the American way." That's what they were taught here at the university, Texas State, any university "You mean teachers?" teachers, teaching the American way. I know a lot of teachers would like to teach cultural they would like to do, but they were not allowed. I think Ms Schulte was very sensitive to that. She would allow us to celebrate Mexican holidays and even talk about it in the classroom. We don't know where else teachers like that that. I think that a lot of them meant real well to do that. They know what they have a curriculum they have to teach has nothing to do with cultural it has to do with society, expecting you to be be a full fledged society when you graduate and become a part of the American society. Think that was what it was, because what we learned was that was all about Anglos and history, but the Texas history was, you know, the governor is this, and we fought in the Alamo. We became Republic. We were a country before we were a state. And then, nah nah nah…

I thought later on, Ms. Herrera, who became a part of Hortensia’s life, my wife's life, and we knew her. They fought hard to take care of us, to keep us in class, to keep us in school. They were our advocates, that I know of! They advocated for us, and they they later, I thanked her. She loved Hortensia as one of her students for characters and family. Ms Herrera, was her family was has a legacy. Her uh, Mendez is her sister. Mendez middle school. She’s part of that family. And we want something for Herrera. Miss Reyes nothing there at the school, for the school district, she was a very they're both very kind, kind teachers, and they took care of us that, you know, they didn't want us to get kicked out, though it was easy to kick us out.

Yeah, Juanillo got kicked out. Either way he came back to school. One of my nieces got kicked out.

No. You know it's probably because they- they resisted. I would resist to a point, then I'd quit.

Well something like that. 42, 54 days.

Fishing. Trying to fish in the cold! "Where were you fishing?" I was just going around. I don't know. I just hit a snag in my classroom, school, anyone? It was a total 52 days. But it was like a week, two weeks, three weeks, something like that today, four days. The total was close to 40, 50, days of school that I skipped. Truancy like you know that. Yeah, but they gotta talk to me, buddy. I would just hanging around, you know, living off the street, you know, "Who would you skip with?" Myself? Sometimes by myself.

They would go to school, school, okay, oh, I go to class and just skip out. I've had a class close the close the cafeteria is easy, just to go out, go to Superior Dairies. "Where was the cafeteria located?" It was just the corner. It was in if you look at a square corner, this is east, that's west. We're on the west side of school next. It was a Superior Dairies factory that make milk, Superior Dairies milk. It was easy to sneak out. Just hide in the trucks in the way how you got down Red River. You go down Red River, go the shops. You know, we do within blocks to go to to, you know, Woodworth, you know, Scarborough's, you know, Mike Bear Pharmacy, you know, "go fishing." Go fishing. Go in the store, you know, eat some candy, stuff, syrup. You just, just skip school. We'd go down to Jim Dandies about two blocks down and going underneath the Waller Creek. Go Jim Danies buy coke go down to the creek. Just head on down to the river. We all knew that area, rainey Street was just, you know, next st Mason guild with where they killed chickens, was just down the block, so.

1800s, 1892 something like that? It was a prominent Anglo school for many years. You know the only school, Mexican school was Zavala. Now, Hortensia, her story was her mother took her and said “No, she's gonna learn English,” moved her back to Palm. So they moved residency so they could be close to Palm, you know. So by that time I was there that this students would still say, because we speak English, they're sent to Zavala. That was the Mexican school, you know. They were not integrated, but Metz was our Anglo school. We have Metz. There you have Zavala, you have Palm, you know, schools, but there were some were segregated, so we actually couldn't go, because we live so close to it that they, they allow us to go to Palm I was like eight blocks, when I walked. Always walked until I had the car accident, I was I always walked to school. We never, we never had a car. My father never drove a car. The day he died he was 85 in 1995 and he never drove a car in his life. We learned to drive cars ourselves.

Psh, it was what? 20, 19, I drove a truck into the lake (Laughter). I didn't know it was stick shift. I didn't know you- (Laughter).

It was a, it was a, I was working at the dude ranch, and it was a ranch. It didn't have no license plate, nothing over. You know, it's all beat up, but they use it for around the ranch. They won't put in the street.

Yeah that's me. That's my adventures. I've been so dumb. But he's like, I gotta know, you know it's like, I gotta try it out. Yeah, not being afraid from public office, not being afraid to do that. Some people just don't want to do that. "Do what?" Run for public office. Then you can do better than that. Guy. I'm gonna run and put with your mouth. But shoot whatever that saying is, put your mouth out, whatever” "I'll do it.” Woo (laughter) didn't know what the hell I was getting into.

It had to be the second or sixth grade, the most joy. Because I learned a lot from her, and I was able to participate. It was lead some things. She allowed me to lead some some prayer groups. Sometimes just lead the pledge of allegiance. I never got to lead the pledge of allegiance, only the anglos at first and later on, the smarter kids, you know. But Miss Schultz allowed me to do that. She gave me that. That was the most joy. I mean, I had fun when I was younger and struggled. In first grade, I struggled. Second grade, I struggled. Third grade, oh, it was horrible. "Why?" And in third grade, I had an old German teacher, Ms. Menn, M, E N N She was bad. I don't know why she didn't like me. She's guessing my pr…. jokes and stuff. That's been me since I was a kid. That's my personality that never going to that's never going to change. Two things happened. One, we had this cartoon about blood all caught, Disney made about my blood cells and how they travel, and I was to meet her like frijoles. So I was calling frijoles, beans, right? She got mad. She put me in a corner. Didn't see it, but I had a stick pin. So I put a stick pin on the map, and I was just looking into the map. So I gotta talk about it later. You, I choose the you. But the worst experience with her was during Christmas, and we're gonna exchange gifts. And by then, my first year, I didn't know about this, right? I didn't have anything, so I found this brand new toy they had, but it was a Jeep, 1949 Jeep with no wheels. So I wrapped it up and gave it to my Anglo friend, Ronald Bennet. Ronald Bennet was the only Anglo friend that I made friends that stay with me forever, even when I ran for public office, Ronald Bennet got my car. I'm so so bad. I got a coloring book (Laughter). Second grade. I found a coloring book and I thought I checked it. Nobody page. So I gave it to Yolanda. She gave it back to me. He says, "this is, this was used" One page. Someone, I cut a purple flower. I was totally embarrassed. Here's the third grade, Ms. Menn. Mean, teacher said, so I know she I didn't have, I didn't we didn't have anything. There's no way I could get a gift. So I think I had picked Christina's name. So I went back to miss min and said, Look, I don't have I can't get it to him. I don't have any. We're poor, you know. We just don't have it. My father said, Don't do it. So I told her, and she said, "Who has Marcus De Leons name?" Bent over, tore my name up, threw it in the trash. "He's gonna give a gift to nobody. So I need to give this name somebody else." So she didn't do it well. So she gave. The guy, and looking someone said to my chair. "Damn," I thought. So, his is a true story. Hector De Leon, who's not related, and I'll say his name because he knows, you know, maybe I shouldn't mention his name anyway, this guy said he that they had money, and he'll give me his gift. We're gonna celebrate the 20th of December. So the 20th shows up. He gets a knife, a plastic knife. This you can stab, but it goes inside the sheet. It's plastic, but you stab as a spring, and it just goes in your it goes inside the sheet, so it's no problem. So we're up and I remember Gutierrez was there, and he was with me and Rios, Frank, Leah, and he said, I went to get it now. He says, "No, I changed my mind." He said, "No, you said you were going to give me the present, your present, because you get a lot of presents." And then Rios, Guitierrez says, "Yeah, you said you could, Marcus can have it." And I'm grabbing, and he's grabbing it back. I'm grabbing and he grabbing back, and then I hit him, hit him in the eye like this. Busted it. Bust his eye. You know, he's putting me. After Christmas, he and his mother show up at the school. Either was Christmas or the next day, his mother shows up, and what happened? Her son got beat up. Why did she take care of his man? His man said, "It's him. It's him, It's Marcus." So I sat together with him, and she said, "What? Why did you hit my son?" Then I told the story, and she looked at her son, "tell me the truth. Is that true?" He goes, "mmhm." You know what she did? She started to feed me and my brother after school, his mom invited us to come eat during the Christmas holidays. "What was her name?" I don't know. Just Ms. De Leon. I remember mother's name, but she invited us to eat, and we ate. We became friends. That's the story. But Ms. Menn, she would not support me or nothing, just would not.

It was a sad- it was real sad. It was not a good Christmas. My father wouldn't celebrate Chrismas. You know why, right? "Right?" Because she my mother died during Christmas, so he wouldn't set, but he will give us some toy sometimes. My brother, Frank, older brother, convinced my father that we we can have a tree in our room, not in the living room. He didn't want, he didn't want those lights, he didn't want it to be remembered. So I know that my father fell in love with my mother. I know he loved her a lot because he never got remarried. So that's a Christmas story, the experience that I have that could, you know, traumatize the kid, but, ah, nah, nah. I just that. Just took it. I just because kind things happen. So, so you see what I'm growing got people I think I do bad things and think people are bad to me, but there's always somebody that's nice to me and says, "Oh, don't worry about it. Okay, you're human being. Those things happen. There's some good in you. So we'll take that, then I show you some kindness," and when my students would graduate, and some are lawyers, some of them has a law firm. Some are doctors, some are nurses and teachers and stuff. What I always told my students, I said, “Do you want to thank me? Because they will say, Oh, we love you. Mr. De Leon, la la la." I said, "Well, what I've done for you do for somebody else. Do not keep the knowledge that you have. Do not keep your experience that you have, share with other students, share with other people. And if you, if you ever make it, if you're a big falutin person, and you're walking in a hotel and someone opens the door for you, you say, thank you for opening your door. You have a great thank you for your job. Without you, I couldn't get in this building. And if you're asked to make a speech in any hotel or any restaurant or anything, the first thing you do, you say, let's give applause to the staff who clean this room for us, and this a wonderful room. Let's thank the people who's given us the food. Let's give them a clap. Then you honor who who asked you to come.” That's what I used to teach my students, because that's what I was taught.

For me? It was always good, bland, but good. I mean, you know, eating tortillas in, you know, cheese, queso and atole in the morning. My father would always make oatmeal in the morning, make sure we had oatmeal and atole in the morning, oatmeal every morning he would make before he went to work, make tortillas, make sure we had tortillas and cheese. Later we got food. So we ate the cafeteria food. Some people didn't like it. But when you don't have anything, you know it's good. So maybe my brothers complained about it. But I, I had our- ate, and even ate extra stuff if the guys didn’t want any. You know?

I don't remember, I'd like to go to but I can't remember. It was like, I knew I was going to go to junior high, and it was like we all celebrated. We all ran out.

We have been involved, since we married, since we met together. I met her at my brother's house. Was also being interviewed. My two brothers, not literally, with my older brother, my little brother, he was living next door to her, and I was a carpenter. We both were carpenters, but this is, you know, early, early November, there's not much work. I think we had just finished the strike. I belong to Union Corporate Local 1266 carpenters United. You know, pipe fitters and carpenters of America. It's 12, union, 1266 and I was a member of that and I was uni... I was we were both cubs who have been trained to be General Carpenters, and there was no work so we were both home. So I had $2 in my pocket. Then I had my 1962 Bell Air Chevrolet, blue Chevrolet, and I was going to go down to campus to go see a movie. The Varsity was just $1 on day time, mid time, mid day, day time. This is about close to 12 o'clock. So I visit my brother said do you wanna go he said “no, no, no, I don't want to go. I gotta stay home, clean up. Mary's gonna come out.” Said, Okay. Then I saw through to the window. I saw Hortensia next door. Said, “Hey, who's that?” “That's my neighbor. Her name is Hardy.” That's what they call her. “Well introduce me” He said “nah, nah, they’re real strict. She’s going to the university.” “Let’s go talk to her come on.” So he finally relents and we go outside and he says “Hi Hardy, this is my brother Marcos.” So I walked to her, she had a purse. She had a hair cut done by clue, the movie clue. And Jane Fonda, she has a layer cut. She has same hair cut, cut that way. And I saw her purse, it said, “Who is Gonzalo Barrientos?” Because Gonzalo Barrientos was running, was thinking about running for representatives. And I knew Gonzalo we used to be neighbors back in the 60s there in South Austin. So I knew him. I said, “I know him.” She said, “oh you do you know Gonzalo?” I says, “yeah, he's thinking about running… for” “Yeah, he's, I work for Gary Guiterrez.” She said, “I'm his only secretaries. And he's, they're good friends, and he's going to support him,” and that's what ….POLITICS. Pinche politica se sabe. Right? It was politics. So we talk, and so “Where are you going?” “I have to go back to campus.” “Well, I'm going to campus. I'm going down the Varsity theater I can just drop you off.” “I don't let me ask my mom.” So she went inside and said, “Oh, it's Marcos' brother,” so “it's okay. He's going to campus”. So she we got in the car, we started talking. I parked the car, I walked her to where she's going. She said “Oh, you know, what are you hungry?” Said, “Yeah, but I'll be honest, I only have $2” “Nah, I'll buy for you” because she had a student card. So we went to the commons, you know right here. We ate, we start talking. Came out, “oh I never seen the tower.” “Oh, let me take you to the tower.” So we went to the tower. We didn't go out, we just talked. We ended up walking, talking all the way to the LBJ Library. She missed all her classes. This is like one o'clock. It's four o'clock. We're going to see the museum. We go, “Let's go to Museum.” Went to LBJ, we got the tour. She still has the original pamphlet that she brought in 1971, she kept it. She still has it. It's what, 53 years. Then I said, “You know, I have to go to work.” I also was running the very first drive by Mexican food for Los Cazulas. We had little house. He bought a little house. He rented a house, and he brang food over there, I would set it out to go drive by. Only had two tables in the whole place.

Right there on South Lamar, because the Cazuelas is not there no more but it was South Lamar near Blue Bonnet, and he was closer to where the big building is now, where they used to be the, they used to be the anyway, the draft house anyway, so south, south Lamar, and that's how we met, and we talked, and I got her name. Says, “Can I have a..” She stayed at the Little Field Dorm. Dorm says, so I put this, I thought I put dorm and the phone number, her phone number, well, she kept that too, you know what it says? Says “drone.” My English, I didn’t even know how to spell. I didn’t know how to spell. And as is, after 53 years, she can't stand I can’t spell. But I wrote drone and I put her name, but she has to have that. So then, for three days, I didn't call her, and I used to work with the... Peace Corps, and they were here in Austin, and they were in Austin, East Austin, doing their work, and they wanted to go to UT campus, so I went, and I was nervous the three get three Anglo women, I'm there with them. And what if, Hortensia sees me with them? She knows the story, and so she knows that “boy if I had met you I would never talk to you again.” So I was trying to get, “oh, we done yet, girls? Are we done yet.” “Oh, let me look at this. Let me come on, Marcus.” So we they were good people. There are good people. Very good people.

Yes, because she was very political. She was Chicano. I mean, she was from Mexico, from Tampico, but she was been interesting that she was 3 or 5 years old. She's been here. She became a citizen. She was five years old. She's a nationalized citizen. So she was, she calles herself a Chicano. And that started with her, and then went on campus when I found out what she was majoring in. And then they became, then they became political fight to create the Mexican, CMAS program. It was mayo, and I really couldn't join Mayo because I wasn't student here, because I wasn't I was just dating her.

We were- I was involved with East Townlake citizens. We worked on the Barrio, getting rid of the boat races. And after boat races, we wanted to develop the park-

Yes, and, and, you know, I was involved politically, I wasn't… I was, I would show up at meetings with the suit, with a blue suit, I was mad with the red tie that was going to be cooroborated with the blue tie, and I'll be the ones getting educated. I was going to college, and then, and I was the blue that was. And then I thought about running for office. This is back in the 70s, but not really. And the boat races, it was a climax to find the City Council voted not to have them anymore, and that day of the demonstration, Paul Hernandez my good friend for 50 years, told me to go to work because I had had to go to work to pay for my education. I worked at TJ's Hamburgers, so from 11 to two, so he told me to go and I knew why, later I knew why, they knew something's going to come down. And so I was at work when I heard they got beat up. It was a big fiasco. It was a big, big, you know, his picture is famous. It's shown all the time when the cops got him in there, and then he got nearly killed at the KKK demonstration later. "Wait, say that again?" the KKK demonstration that happened later, that's where he really got beat up by police. "Who was this?" Paul, and Adela, and Maria Limon got beat up by the cops, and film is all on video.

79 I don't know. They all culminate together in the 70s. And maybe- my wife probably knows. You can ask her later, but he was beat up from there. But going back to that part was after that happened, I went back to school and '79 and graduated, and we were asked to speak about Chicano Movement to GT students. So me and Paul went and I parked near the Frank Irwin center before it was was 70- It was '79 early, and we're walking, and he told me this other guy was gonna run for office, and I just went off. “Nah, ese otro no vale nada.” “You know that guy's not been trained by like us, if anybody ran for city council from East Township, maybe somebody who's from here. You know.” “Well he's from here,” “Ya but, yeah, but he's, he's been a professional. He's never he's never been in the trenches like we have, organizing and doing everybody and fighting for things in our neighborhood”. “I'll do it” Paul says “tu lo haces?” “Yeah, I'll run.” “Are you sure?” “Yeah, ill run. Let me run, because he's good, but he's he's going to be eaten up.” Says “alright.” It's 1979 so 1980 I ran for city council. Ran citywide, Garned, 22,000 votes. Not enough for run off, but enough to make the guy, Ron Mullen, pissed off at me, because he, they declared all the incumbents but him. Nine o'clock. And then finally, finally, nine o'clock they, everybody. By seven, all the incumbents had won except for him. And by nine o'clock, they finally called his race that he won. He was pissed, he was mad. He was real mad at me for that. And I ran on. I ran. This is how I ran. I ran for the city of Austin. You know, let me share this with you. North Austin is doing very well, this and that, and then West Austin is the best. That's where all the money is, the big homes. You know, South Austin is doing all right. That child is like they are like children. My oldest son, oldest son, oldest daughter. This boy, he's struggling, but he's all right. He's South Austin. Still needs a lot of help. But my baby, East Austin, he's really in trouble. He needs a lot of help. So we need to take little things from each one and help East Austin bring it up with the rest. That's how I talked about East Austin. The truth. We don't have sidewalks. We are the we have dumps in our neighborhood, junkyards in our neighborhood. We have some of the best, the worst schools in our neighborhood. A lot of things we have in East Austin not being done. Yet we all pay our taxes. We just want our first share. That's how my political term was. It says we had a three thing, you know, and I just can't remember right now what it was. We had a poster that said it was the most was important. And it's the most important is, is our neighborhood, our families, but most: our children. And this didn't come from me. It came from, rest his soul, Delgado. Martin Delgado. He's the one that said, “What's most important? Marcos,” then he went “hey that's a good slogan.” So we took his slogan, put it in a poster, put my picture in the poster, boom and we garnered you know this word that this that happened when, when I was in North Austin campaign for city council, that guy said, “Wait a minute. It says, here you married to Hortensia Palmores for 16 years. What- Why you she not De Leon? You're De Leon?” That's, that's what happened that and I was in East, northeast Austin, in an Anglo library.

Well, we said, I told the guys. He said, “Why- are ya’ll really married? Why is she De Leon? Why is she Palomares and you are De Leon?” This is because I said… I snapped. I said, “Well, she kept her maiden name and I kept mine!” (Laughter) The cheers from the women, would clap, “Yay!”. I didn't I just, sometimes you just quick on your feet and Paul used to say, “sometimes I like it. Sometimes I don't like it when you speak off your feet,” because I did a lot of that. I just talked the way I feel. You know?

That was… I had ran before I ran two there for Constable, for Justice of the Peace which doesn't require law degree, and we barely lost. We lost like 300 votes. Then, for some reason, I ran for Constable. Friends of mine encourage me and I lost to Margaret. But then Hank Gonzalez, we had campaigned for him to run against Richard Moore, and we won, but then he threw us out. My biggest was Hank. My biggest campaign, free advertising was when he came to the headquarters and he got tired, he put his feet up on the desk, and then the news media showed up, and then he bought the when I walked in and let him know he took his feet off, I said, “No, leave them on. You got holes in your shoes, man.” “What?” “Leave them on.” until the camera came in, and I said, “Look, he's walked the neighborhood. He's got holes on his feet.” It made him great. It was great, you know, it was just like, perfect. He had holes on shoes, you know, like you wear because he been walking, he never took him off. But that was the best thing. But then he got elected, then he threw us out, threw the barrio people out. You know, I ran all the precinct, four precincts in the city and the county, and I had captains for every one of them. So when I got out, they left too. But he won anyway. He was terrible. So I ran against him. I told Paul I wanna run, “it's perfect. We can beat him,” I said, and this is political. When they asked him about him, “Would he win?” I said to the guy, “Yeah, but you want my political opinion or my personal opinion?” “What's your personal opinion?” “I don't like him.” “Why?” “He's the cop," “Well what's your political?” “He'll win.” “why?””he's the cop.” And I was proven right. He won. I knew he would a cop. I knew he would win. Police officers really get elected. They're cool. But those other part of him that we didn't know about, we find out later. And so when I ran against him, he didn't do anything. Perfect. So what I did, I took my wife to San Francisco. I have a friend of mine. Gordon Chin, who used to run the Chinese resource community resource in Chinatown. I have connections.

You know, do you know? Gordon Chin? No, you're kidding?

Oh, my god, "Yeah," you kidding? "Yeah." Anyway, so I called them up and said, No, no, that's “Marcus. I put you in a hotel in Chinatown, holiday inn, $45 a night.” "I'll take it." So when I took her, I told her what I wanted to do. “I'm gonna run for against Hank.” “What?” “It’s true.” I said, “We can beat him.” “It’s a lot of work.” “I know we start out now a year from now, we can beat him.” We all ran grassroots campaigns. I remember and Gordon took us, took us to eating at good places. Just fine. It was a lot. I love Chinese breakfast. Man, there's a coolest thing, like La Raza, like eating tacos, but Chinese way, you know, like good, good food! We love- Chin introduced me to chinese food, to Asian food. Chinese, Japanese. I don't ever eat that stuff, tortilla, hamburger, y ya, that's what I asked her to run for. So we ran. Ran a grass root campaign. We walked. I walked till my back, almost gave out and damageds. We walked every neighborhood. We had people help us. We had money. My father helped me. We got some money. We got good camp- We had two campaign people want to work for me, Alan Kaplan and came here with the other guy. Alan later became board director, board of trustee for AISD, I mean, for ACC and we won, by 250 votes, we beat him, and there's a picture of it. Alan said he loved working for me. We we walked every neighborhood. I walked. Jake Pickle taught me that, when when I ran once you he didn't like Hank either. He says, “I'll help you out.” And so he walked with me and watched how he walked and I will walk neighborhood, and knew what he would tell me, “This is a great community to run for office.” He says, “You're the first politician came to my house. What's your name? What do you stand for?” And I would tell him, and I would get their vote. You go where nobody went, I would tell, I went, I would go in the lion's den, so to speak, with people. And the way I knew some people voted for me, even though Hank was in front, shaking their hands when they came out, they would do this to me (winks). These are elders. And smile. I go like, don't say nothing, because Hank's right there. And that's why I knew. We won by turn some few votes. We were happy. It's a picture of me and Hortensia. Estrella remembers my kids were already getting there, nine, eight years old. It was hard. I was away at the house a lot, but grass root, you got to start a year against somebody. But also you have to, you have to have a record, because I could say what I've done. I could say what I was involved with. I could say how I got street signs put in. I could say I got parks put in. I could say I helped build some new home. I could say that people came to me and asked for help. I would help them out. I could say that because I had done it. And that's something. Who wants to run for office, but they're gonna “What are you gonna do for me?” “Well, what do you need?” “Well, I've don’t know…”. “Well, you know what? Let me call John or let me call Albert. Let me call Mary. Uh, give her a call. Tell her you talked to me. Tell her the problem is she and see if we can be if you don't get help, tell me, I'll find somebody else.” Because when you get a position like I did, you meet a lot of people like see, you know when Gordon Chin, When I saw Gordon five, six. I would go over there just just to see him. And one thing is, one of his friends told him they were telling me in Chinese, "Oh, if he's your friend, how come you don't speak Chinese? How come he can't use, you know, chopsticks,” and he would get embarrassed. "I'm sorry, Gordon," because he would get embarrassed of me. They had a big function at his house. And not only there were age, there were people from there were Taiwanese, there were Vietnamese, there were Japanese or Chinese, there were other Asians, and everybody ate con palitos. And I was sitting there and Gordon girlfriend said, “Gordon, Gordon, Marcos is not eating”. He says, “Marcus? “I said, “I need, I need a fork," (laughter) "unless you have tortilla.” But that's kind of a story, but, but the side thing about going, about growing up and meeting people and and knowing when we won that race, because we live lasted four years, but we were able to do a lot in four years.

Sunshine Camp was a camp brought by the Women's League, Women's League and Young Men of Austin. It's a thing to do. It's one was do gooder things for Anglo, giving back. So they had this camp. And they would take kids from Palm School, from Metz, from Zavala, and you go to summer camp for eight weeks on Barton Springs, and you get fed there. And they had a girl section, a boy section, you get fed there. You get to go to swim in at Barton Springs every day you go to functions at the hillside. You get to eat good so it was a camp for developing young girls and young guys, young boys, because they shave your head off, lice and shit, stuff like that. Oh, excuse my language. Sunshine Camp and we went there. We took Ernstine because she was late in the bus and we were late in the bus, so we walked her from Palm School all the way to Barton Springs.

Ernestine was was Spider, my friend, who later said that about me. And she could beat up boys, but she got chosen for Sunshine Camp. We thought we did too. Ms. Campos told us. Nos dijo. So we were there. We missed the bus, so we walked her all the way, and that's pretty far we got up there. Said "hi, hi my name is duh, duh," And "hang on." They went back. So “Well, we got, we have Ernestine's paperwork. But we don't have yours. What's your name? And what's your name?” You know, “Marcus de Leon and Jerry De Leon.” They went back there, and then the director came. He said, “Boys, we don't have you on the list. But two boys didn't show up. So, you walked up here?!” Said, “Yes, sir. We walked up here.” “From Palm School, from First Street?” “Yes, sir.” Y'all know, we used to come around and sneak into Barton Springs because, yeah, it was 25 cents to get in to swim. We sneak in. Ah, “you know what? We got places for you.” So we stayed. I didn’t like my head shaved, but we got to stay there. And there's where I coined the word “Go Daddy.” Yeah. "What is that?” Go Daddy was I saw Go daddy, Go was a, was a, was a slang of a hippie show that I saw one time, so I did a Go Daddy Poem for him, and now it's sitting up there in the media and stuff. They stole my word anyway. But we the second year, the second year we got approved, supposed to be there, because it only used to be a one shot! But we went twice to Sunshine Camp.

Nurturing six kids.

I just need a last moment. I'm sorry. Any any man or woman, they always tell you the biggest accomplishment of their children, because you give life. Everything else is what I supposed to do. Like they used to be a student here, Ruben Cantu. He used to run a minority entrepreneur school for UT, but it was closed down because the D and I, he's down in The Valley. He called me once. He said, “I'm gonna, I voted for you to get the University of Texas Community Award, what you done in communities.” I said “Ruben, I don't that's not what I don't I don't need awards. I just do my work. That's what, what the Creator asked me to do.” Said, No, Mr. De Leon, it's done really, really, I did this because you are one of my heroes.” And I said, “Okay, rub. What do you need?” “Send me a resume”. Says, “Well, I'd send you a book then”, same thing. “What do you mean?” He says. “Mijo, I've been doing this as I got out of high school, just when I was a park later, and then when I was involved with Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez”, and-

Just- when they came down, I was in a demonstration when they demonstrated for for jobs and stuff, we were part of the getting the people involved, and then later on, with the Black Citizen Task Force and other groups. We always invite one another. You know, we have a racist hotel here in Austin, don't you? "Which is it?" There was- it was called the Marriot out there on 11th Street. Sister Turner calls me up. “Marcus. Marcus, we got, twelve noon we got to be on 11th Street, the racist hotel.” “Dorothy, what do you mean? Racist hotel?” “That racist hotel, the building here on 11th Street, right across from our neighborhood.” “What are you talking about?” “They ain't got no windows facing East Austin” I said, “You got to be kidding me”. “Marcus, need you and Paul and Francis need to be there. The consilio needs to be there.” “Okay, Francis, we'll be there.” So we show up. It's true. If you see the east wall of the, I don't know what's called now, I think it's a good night hotel or something. It used to be the Marriott, right on 11th Street, and IH 35 the windows, there are no windows facing East Austin. You know how hotels have windows all the way around, even in New York, I was standing at a Holiday Inn, and they were head forward, and you faced another hotel. It has no windows. It was the best thing you did because in the Marriott ended up giving said job for progress, to do all the hiring. I don't know, for just said Jobs for Progress, but GI Forum was a Mexican American organization. GI Forum, the one of their businesses, is set for, set for, set for, for jobs, and they appointed them to do all the hiring isn’t that great? A Chicano organization?

It was said SER, No, S E R For Progress. You go to GI Forum and you can see the SER. S E R, they end up getting to do all the it was a big demonstration. Everybody showed up like the Muslim, the the, whatcha call the Park, I keep forgeting... the Muslim- Anyway, it was a big demonstration. The memories last me up, but-

Oh yeah. it's a lot of things that I've done. There's a lot of things- This is what I say. "I was involved in this." I didn't say I did it, but my hand was there when they asked me, I'd have this thing like, what are you doing here? Marcus, I was invited. I never show up at a place that I wasn't invited. Somebody will call me. Said, "You need to be there Marcos, this is going to happen." So I show up, then I get back the information. But when I have to make a decision, I don't make a decision there. They said, “Well, what is, what do you want to do about this?” “Well, let me go back to the group and I'll tell you what they want.” “But don't you control them?” “No”, “Aren’t you the leader?” I says, "I'm a yes, I'm a leader of what they want.” A good leader is supports its followers. People follow me. People ask me to speak, because I do have a voice. I don't mind talking. You see me now, so what I tell “I'll be your voice. But what did you want?” “But you tell him,” “I'm not going to tell him if you tell me what you want.” And that's helped me. When one of my leaders had a very hard decision to make, and she was scared she didn’t know what to do, she said, “Can I take a break?” And she took me. “Marcos, I don't know-” Mira. Mira. I said, “Look, Rene, look, what is does your neighborhood want you to do?” “Well, they want us to do this.” “Then you tell the council, 'no, this is what the neighborhood wants,' if they if they change their mind, if they don't give it to you, you go back to your neighborhood and you tell them they didn't do it. So we'll go after them. But if you said, Well, if you agree what they want, then what are you going to tell your group? That you didn't do what they want you to do? You decided to compromise? So don't compromise. Just go with your fam- what your people told you to do that. That's- that's your leaders, and you're their spokesman, and you're the leader. You're the face of it.” So she went up said, “No, the neighborhood wants those lands to be marked from commercial to to single family, and that is it.” And the chief forced the vote six to one, and they voted to make that land family, single family land and their 50 owner occupied house was she talked about. That's what I learned, to stick to your to your values and be humble. Because if, if you think you're up here and you forget who you came from, that's what Palm taught me. That's what the people, people, the barrio people taught me, is to be humble, is to make sure you carry their water. Because when you carry the water, you get to drink from it. If you carry your own water, they don't drink from it, right? Because you carry your own water, you want to be who you want to be. It's not your water, it's their water. They give it to you to carry, but you can drink from it. You can get nourished from it. You can take strength from it. And that's what I grew up with, and that's what taught me that I mean, let me give you an example, how you listen to your leaders. I was at a function. I was dressed like you, with your shirt and little jacket, this sweater, black pen, politicing. This man, señor, took me, Joe Morales, Montopolis, “Mira mijo, if you gonna represent us, you gonna, you better look like the part. That's not gonna cut it. Where's your tie? Where's your coat?” “Yes, sir. Okay.” Never again did I show up looking like that. That's your leaders. That's an elder telling you what you need to do, if you're humble enough, if you listen to what he's saying, he's giving you advice. He's just trying to help you. It doesn't sound like it. Está regenando, verdad? But if you listen, they're helping you. And that's what I learned from being from Palm being from this community. And if you, those are strong leaders, they they carry the water of their people, they carry the food of their people, and what their needs are like. I used to tell the city council, I'm not here because of luxury, I'm here because of necessity, and that's the first thing I should say Council, they will say, “Marcus, you gotta control your people? Why are they cussing.” in like one time they call the City Council a bunch of bastards, racist bastards. Then I asked him, I asked the council, “Why do you think Mr. Donley is so upset that he called you that, if you stop to think, why is he so angry that he called you that?” That's part, I think, what you learn as a child. If you're humble enough that you want you need to do the other part, remember I was telling you I’m in two worlds all the time, the red world and the white world is my part of the river. It says, “Why are you angry? Why are you angry at me? Why are you angry? Why? Who did you wrong? And then somebody did you wrong. Is it your wife got mad at you, or your kid did something wrong, or your father got after you, so you're getting after me now?” and that's the teaching you get if you listen, like I said earlier that when I when I used to go to lunch, I never sat with the teachers. I'll go sit with the students, and I wouldn't say nothing, but you learn a lot, if you listen.

Not a teacher. I was a college advisor, college advisor. Now I will recruit that way too, but I was listening and now catch something and say “well why?” So that's how you learn to listen to

The way I, like I was telling Hortensia and we both agree. Anyone who drives by Palm School, who went to school there, is like, boom, it's like a beacon just lights up. "I remember when I remember, I met my girlfriend," like some people, had childhood girlfriends at the school, then they got married later. I've heard those stories. They met at Palm, then they went to junior high then they went to high school, and then they got married. But that's a beacon. It's a reference of their childhood. They remember. They remember everything. Like you asking me, "well, you remember," "I remember this, I remember that, and did this. Then Ms. Menn did this to me, and Ms. Schulte did this to me." I think when they see the word Palm School and they see it, it's like a beacon. It's like a light that lights up in their hearts and lights and in their mind. That's why it has to be kept now, the question is, when they see Palm School and they walk in, what do they see? Being part of the Travis County Steering Committee, what we're asked, What do we want to see? I want to know what Palm, I want an alumni to come tell me. I know a lot of people want, but I went to high school. I mean, with the public school alumni, tell me when they walk in, what do they want to see? For me as a person, what I want to see when I walk in there, if I'm in from Tupelo, Mississippi, or I'm from, you know, from Boston, Massachusetts, right? Or from Cleveland, Ohio, or Seattle, Washington, or all from city of California. When I walk into school, what do I see? What I want to see is toda la fami- What I want to see, for sure, is like my brother, who served 27-25 years in the Air Force, I want to see how many veterans, how many of our men and women serve our country, someone put their lifeline, somebody went to Vietnam. You know, my brother went to Guam. He was making putting bombs to bomb Cambodia. So he's part of Vietnam, but not in a way that, you know. And I realized that, how do these veterans from Palm get to be known? Is there going to be a part? When you walk into the hall and the wall, you see all these plaques and all these people graduated, went to Palm, and they served their country. That's important to me at Palm Park when they have a pavilion or an area and they say, Well, this is named after Mr. And Mrs. Maria and Juan Gonzalez. They lived on East 3rd Street, and their children went to Palm. Oh, they came to Palm. Oh, this building near this, this play scape, is named after the Gonzalez family, the Cortez family. That's what I want, because this is we're gentrified. Me and Hortensia we have a house there on Canterbury and Chalmers Street in the Barrio, still one of the very few people, but soon we'll be gone. So the building in the point the park is the only legacy we have with the Mexican- if you go to mission, Texas, Mission District in San Francisco, it's all totally gentrified. And there something was happening there is happing here, where a lot of the homes are not the same when people walk in. Two I did a short poem that day, my mother, my grandmother, and my uncle died. The poem reads like “I go to my Barrio en la calle cuatro 4th street and my grandmother's house, where my uncle live, is a two story, dark house. So today, my grandmother and my uncle died because whatever memories I have of them is gone.” So if we're gone from the Barrio, and there's some building there that many of us went to school there and lived our life there, fell in love in that school. Were influenced by people. And from there, we went to different we went all over the country, all over the state, all over the county. For me, my link is not very much. My thread doesn't go very far. It goes here, Lemon street ,Canterbury, to Airport Boulevard, to there, and it comes back to the Barrio. And then I go here before the State, I was probation officer, assistant. So I'm a professional job. I was a college advisor for almost 20 years. I was an elected official, you know? So where, so, where do you put that here? You know? So, you know, where do how many elected officials? They went to Palm graduated became elected officials. I know two me and Jerry Jones. You know for sure. I don't know anybody else. They're probably more, but I don't know. So what? What is that? What is going to be in there? Is going to be all artifacts and a couple of bones, of Mexican bones that really were Indians. I don't know. Or is it going to be something when people walk in there, a learning center, a teaching center, and also knowing the people who, who are hidden, who walk the who walk this path and these house contribute to the city, to this county, to the state and to this country. And I know we have people who did that and that, to me, that's important anybody as we lose as the Barrio becomes all white, okay, that- that's happening. You can see, look at Rainey? My brother, he freaked out. My older brother, when he saw Rainey, yeah, they're 15 tall buildings on this little piece of land. It teaches you, how does you want to look in your friend? New York? You've ever been to Manhattan? Here's a mini me in Manhattan. A mini me because I've been to Manhattan, I've been to New York, I've been to all over New York. I've spent- been there eight times, you know, I know how everything's, you know, and it's a little bitty island, so, yeah, but what happens to the center? What happens to the Palm School building? This is why it's important as Steering Committee reaches out to the alumni and other people get their ideas so we can finalize something that, because the final rests on the Commissioners Court and the architect, and then the concept was doing, gather all these ideas, see how they, get them all together, and present something to the- but so we need to give ideas to the Commissioners Court. What's important for us as alumni, we would like to see inside that building.

We walked to school, at the time. And Palm School, we lived at, I think Willow Street, and then also on 8th Street. Right there on 8th and Intersate 35 which it is today, I think highway 81. But uh, we walked to school.

cause at the time there was highway 81, 1st Street, 2nd Street, a lot of traffic back then. Not like today.

And that's when we lived in San Marcos Street. That's before, they uh, Holiday Inn was built. The neighborhood on San Marcos Street went all the way down to the river, the river's edge, which is Town Lake. I remember living there also.

Yeah, Willow Street. I think it's Willow or Wallace. I think it's Willow. It was, I can't I remember, I just remember the backyard. It was a big, large backyard. That's all I remember. And an alley. We'd go to the backyard, to the alley, and then we hit 1st Street to get to school. Oh, excuse me, Ceasar Chavez Street now.

Okay, let’s say Willow but Rainey Street and 8th Street, I remember that pretty clear. We lived after Willow Street. We moved to onto 8th Street, and we were next to the French Legion on, I don't know if you're familiar with that. That's the embassy for the country of France. When Texas was a republic, they were the only state that had a embassy in there, in the in the state, of course, Texas became a state that's but we lived right down the block from that, and Eighth Street, right there in a street, oh, but four or five houses down, up from Interstate 35 which was a highway 81 back then, and then we moved to, then we moved to Rainey street, I think, yeah, after, after I got out of Palm School.

So after we moved to Rainey Street, that was junior and high school, and I remember that more than 8th Street or Willow Street. And we lived right there in the corner of Daley- I mean, that's Daley, that's at San Marcos, but corner of Rainey and Holly, one house down from Holly. And we lived there. 66 Rainey and 68 Rainey, and we moved there. The streets were not paved, so there was real when the cars went by, it got dusty, and then when it rained, the streets got real muddy. But I remember a Rainey Street more than, say, the other streets, but it was a real nice neighborhood. We had, as far as I think most people were in my block were Hispanic. There was some, some Anglos for that by Driscoll and Red River. There were a lot of Anglos, but they you didn’t see them, but you knew they lived there, you know.

And then there was a maintenance plant there the City of Austin, with a street maintenance, and they had an alley. Our Alley was paved back then, all the alleys were dirt. But we had the only paved alley in our neighborhood, in that whole area. Because the trucks came in after working, they would come to the in from the alley, and the alley was paved, like really nice. I remember that. That's how we used to get to town. We's go the back alley, hit Driscoll down the first Red River in the first street, and go into town or to school. And on- in that alley, there was also a large vacant lot, and we spent a lot of time there, they had a lot of pecan trees. And it was very it was really nice. And we spent a lot of time there, hiking, playing around, stuff like that. During the fall, we would go pick up pecans and get bags and pecans and go sell them at, I forgot exactly where that place was, Miller something or other, but, but the neighborhood was mostly Hispanic. I remember most of my neighbors.

And then we also spent a lot of time. There used to be a Salvation Army Youth Center on Holly and Interstate 35, or Holly and San Marcos Street. And it was a- Salvation Army Youth Center. It was a large gym-like place. It had a large park, and we'll play baseball, football. And then on week- on Friday nights, they would have movies, arts and crafts. I remember they used to have a pool table. I learned how to play pool and on the stage they had a boxing ring, and we would box. And they also had a basketball court. Spent a lot of time playing basketball. Makes a hat on arts and crafts in a little day room. And they also had a Cub Scout Den there. And like say, every Friday night, they would show movies. During to winter the movies were inside, and during the summer they would show them outside, and that was on Holly Street. Yeah, I remember that. Spent a lot of time there, a lot of time, yeah.

We'd go up Red River. And sometimes I didn't get past 1st Street. There was the area was kind of- not wilderness, but there was some empty houses and places you could hang around all day without being caught.

and alotta times it was I remember, you know about Waller Creek? This is the Waller creek right here in Austin. It goes all the way from East Austin. It comes out in Town Lake. We spent a lot of time there, particularly in the summer, and the spring.

Okay, I can't- Palm School, it was pretty it was pretty simple, I can't remember that much. But going to junior high, I remember we used to- most of the time we would walk. And University Junior High was, I think, on Red River, 19th and Red River, not too far from Memorial Stadium. I don't know if it's still there or not, but we would, I would walk. We would walk from the house, on on, on Rainey street, cross, uh, 1st Street, Ceasar Chavez, and get on Red River and just walk. 19 blocks. And most we would- it was winter time. I don't think we had bus service back then. It was just a matter of fact, we didn't have school busses. There was the city busses, and they would cost, I think, five cents, four cents, something like that. But there was no busses that I can recall that would go to the University Junior High, so we would walk.

And it was, I still remember all the places. One of the first places you use to have was there on 6th Street before it- before 6th Street. It was sort of like a neighborhood shopping area, you had all kind of stores there before, grocery stores, shoe stores, movie theaters, shoe repair stores, furniture stores, movie- but we went past that and and on the way up there, there was a bakery, and they used to call them "segundas," second hand stores. They would- I remember that. And then I remember the Spanish Village. There was a was a Mexican restaurant there, and keep going. There was 7/11, keep going. And then I think Brackenridge Hospital was on the way up there too. And we get to- there was a couple of beer joints. And I remember there was uh, my brother- there was a sign that said “no minors allowed.” And we would say, "What is that? How couldn't they let miners? They got gold. They look for gold." We didn't know we were minors. You know, we used to laugh about that. But, yeah, but I remember there was a tire shop, tire repair shop on the way up there, and then junior high.

I remember, yeah, don't, I don't remember walking there. I remember being there, but not, you know, I'm assuming we just got, you know, Willow Street and couple blocks, 1st Street and then the school. I remember the entrance the, I think on the way, there used to be and old Good Year Repair, repair shop, service store. I remember a drug store right there in the corner on the left hand side by, before you get to the Interstate 35 they used to be a drug store there. And there was some large mansion-type houses. I think there's a couple of them still left, but I said we didn't have 35 so it was just a regular highway. There was no overpass there at the time.

A lot of windows. Yeah, a lot of windows. Yeah, like, I remember the first grade. I think fifth grade and sixth, I remember. I remember. I remember one class which it faced the it faced the highway. And sometimes we could look out the window, you could see I-35 under construction. I remember that. And I remember the- I remember math. I realized I used to love to do- The teacher would call us up and do math problems, division and multiplications. And I was really good at that. I enjoyed that. I remember going- I remember the the heaters. They were the steam heaters, not like, not AC, like you got today, so in the winter time, as part of it was, it wasn't cold, but it wasn't really warm. It was comfortable. You had the steam heaters, or, I don't know if you ever saw em, but they're big old iron things. You turn the steam- steam on, and the iron heater would warm up and warm up the room. But I remember doing a lot of projects on the black the green board. There were black boards. They call them black, but they were green. I have never understood that. And in the sixth grade, yeah, it was the fifth by fifth grade class, the message we played with right across each other. So I remember us going across the street, and I remember we had a recess in the hall playing jacks. I mean, we could- We had a recess every day. Now come think of it- never then. I remember Ms. Shaussey's class.

No, it just something to look at. I don't feel it interfered at all. Yeah

Oh yeah, even after I got out of Palm School, we kept going back. It was- it was like a neighborhood park. There was a swimming pool. We used to go swimming every summer. Even after we got out of Palm School, we continued going to the movie- the movies there in for recreation, baseball, you know, playing the swings and just hanging around. That was a good place to hang around with, with friends. It was a playground for for many, many, many years, all summer long, we spent there after school with old school. We spent all our time at the park with friends, myself, my brothers and other friends. Yeah.

Oh man, no, that was- if it was we didn't notice. There was- the only thing back then we didn’t see “blacks” in the neighborhood. I don't remember seeing any “blacks” in the pool or in the park. It was just either Mexicanos or Anglos, yeah, and we all got along that I recall.

Well, it wasn't- It was harder than I thought it was, yeah. So you had to kind of look at the traffic and kind of figure out when a car would come by. So you don't, you don't want to- You would you want to block the kids, then you look around, make sure there was no cars coming. Then you would let them go to across the street. There was, like two or three crossings. One was on 1st Street. I want to say 1st Street, I know it's Cesar Chavez and some of the new guys might like that, but we always knew it as 1st Street, "la calle primera." So it was on 1st Street, cross into across the 3rd, Highway 81/ I-35 and then crossing over to towards Rainey Street, and the other one was on the north, going north, crossing to 2nd Street.

Yeah think it was where we lived, yeah, when we lived in- I remember when we came back from Pharr, that's where my mother died. We lived on Haskell Street, and that's on East Austin. That's by the old Fish Hatchery. My uncle, my uncle, Luther, that's my father's brother. We lived with him for a couple, and then we then we got our own place. So it was just basically that.

Well on 1st Street, there was a small grocery store. If you're familiar with 1st Street, Cesar Chavez for you folks who don't know what 1st Street is, west of west of the school, just Superior Dairies, and then you got Red River. And then you get to Waller Creek on the right hand side, left hand. There was a little grocery store. And that was the neighborhood grocery store when we lived there, you got bread, soda, stuff like that. And we're just a big- right now, I think on Red River and 1st Street there's a barbecue place. Back then it was iron, some kind of iron factory. They would make iron stuff out of iron. I remember that, and that was our- and then Superior Dairies. So we spent a lot of time in Superior Daries. We would buy the ice cream, and then you, you would get, you get the there was the cap on the ice cream, these little caps, and you would save those, and he could, you would exchange him for gifts, for prizes and stuff.

It was fun. It was something. It felt like big guys, you know, junior high. Yes, it was, uh, 7th, 8th and 9th grade. Now they call it Middle School, yeah, but it was a, I think it's, it was, it's part of, it was part of the university system. It was, but the- the old high school, the junior high that I was supposed to go to, everybody was supposed to go: Allan Junior High, but it burned down. And that was right there on, I think on somewhere on Red River, maybe Red River and 12th Street, or 11th Street, or something like that, or 8th Street. But it burned down, so we, we were looking forward to go to to Allan Junior High. It was kind of like, like, Palm School, old, yeah, brick building. So we went on going to University Junior High. But I, you know, it was, I spent a lot of time in detention hall there. Again, we did the American Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. It was a nice it was, I enjoyed going, yeah.

Stephen F Austin, on 12th and Rio Grande. It's still there now, but it's part of Austin Community.

We lived in- when we lived my brother was born on Sabine Street. Then I was born on 606 East 12th Street in the house, and then we moved to 8th Street, I think zero and 8th Street, right about two, a block and a half in the police station. And I lived there until the third grade. So I lived on 8th Street when I went to Palm the first year. And I went late, because I was born October 3rd, so I even though I was six years old on October 3rd, I couldn't go to school, so I went to Iglesia Bautista, the Baptist Church that that I belonged to back then. And that's when I first moved to Palm when I lived on 8th Street and then third grade, we moved to Rainey Street, and we stayed there until the 11th grade. Till my father had a heart atta- a stroke, and we couldn't afford we couldn't afford to stay there, so we moved to 11- 1102 Haskell Street, and I finished high school when I lived on Haskell street, but that's where my family came from.

My mother, was a very devout Baptist. As matter of fact, she found the church, the first Mexican Baptist Church on East 3rd Street. Where she found it was because, according to my pastor, Pastor Paredes, says, “Tu mama estaba Perdida”, we went to East Austin looking for a place to live, and they lost my mother. This is the story. This is the pastor. You gotta believe, the Pastor. Pastor. Anyway, the Pastor said. “We heard some crying, and we found her in a stable, in this property on East 3rd Street and I-35. “Por qué estas llorando?” why are you crying? She said “No, no estoy triste, estoy tomando aire”, “Por qué?” “Porque aquí vamos a poner la Iglesia.” "Because I'm happy, because we're going to put the church here,” brother, Brother Paredes. He's her brother, “Aquí vamos estar”. And so they, they bought the land because they used to be under the basement at the First Baptist Church on 8th Street. Still there, still there, First Baptist Church still on 8th Street. And they were at the basement because, hablando puro español, it was a Spanish Baptist Church. No, no hablan ingles. And so this is it. And then we're there for years, until 1960 when the highway came, so they moved down to Brushing. Now they're over there on Ben White Boulevard. There. Church still there. And the original Bapt- first Mexican Baptist Church is still in Bastrop, built in 19- started 1908 it was finished in 1924 it's called the “Primer Iglesia Baptista” the first Mexican Baptist in Bastrop of Texas. And we visited, and we put our names that we added our names to it. They were happy to find out that we were still alive. (Laughter) And still around!

It was, it was East 3rd and I-35 that's how we remember East 3rd and I- East 3rd Street, and I-35 which- it's the whole property is gone with the highway. The 3rd is there, but there's a few houses, a few bar there.

The first Mexican Baptist church, it was called Primera Iglesia Baptista Mexicana. They had the name Mexican on it. But not “the Primera Iglesia Baptista” It's just in Spanish now, but they dropped the word "Mexicana", you know, the times and stuff.

Well one is the grocery store on on Ninth Street, Guajardos, with next to, next to Guadalupe church. Guajardos was run by Mexicanos, and they would have stuff that we that you couldn't find at an Anglo store. And that was very popular until they closed. It was wonderful people.

I don't remember when it closed. Galindos had- the Galindos had several tortilla factories, and then they had an actual store, a big one on 7th Street. Two there were, there was something we get tortillas, Barons Tortillas on Third Street. You go in there in the summer, you sweat, but it was worth the tortillas that came out of it! Best corn tortillas, you know?

The Salvation Army was was one of my places for enjoyment. The Palm Park is- one of the best experience for my life. Not only did I learn to swim there, I learned, you know, and play, but I learned how to swim at the pool. The guards were always Anglo, so, but they were nice. The rules, there were a couple of them that were ugly, but they we csould complain, and then get rid of them, you know?

The Palm Park and the Palm Pool. The Palm Pool in '64 we won our first- we placed fourth place in Aqua. And I ran- and I got my first ribbon only ribbon I ever got in my life swimming second swimming, 400 meter. If I had been faster, we might get we might have got first place, but we got second place, and I kept it for about 40 years. So I lost it. 1967 when I graduated high school. Coach Wilson, who was was the coach of Houston Tillotson basketball team, and Reyes was Park supervisor. They hired me to be a park leader in 1967, right out of High School I was 19, and that summer, I spent working Palm Park. And we had the best fun about, I bought anybody, I, you know, we have days. We had days we had arts and crafts, you know, I have we had people built extra games for me, tetherball, and I ran the park and movies and stuff. And later, when I was County Commissioner, I went to speak at Coach Wilson's class, history class, and he said, and he said, "I want to thank Coach Wilson for hiring me in 1967 with Ray Lopez." Coach says, “you see what a leader I created! County Commissioner Marcos de Leon” those are the legacy of Palm. There are a lot of people. I'm a lucky one. I got elected to public office, so did Jerry Jones, but they're people and they came out of Palm they have a different legacy than I do, but that produced a lot of leaders in our community.

You know, Salvation Army, Salvation Army was my athletic position. I didn't work ever work for 'em, but I won basketball tournaments there. We won football there. We were called the "Chinese Bandits." “Why? We were called?” The coach wanted to call us the Chinese bandits. We played the African American League in Doris Miller. We played in Montopolis in South Austin, and we beat them. We couldn't beat the the, we couldn't beat our black brothers, because they were too fast for us! (Laughter)

Ah, see, it was Chinese bandits is there was, oh, the the Red Devils, until we joined the church league. So we had to change it to the Crusaders, with the Salvation we were Red Devils, we were good! And then we joined the church league and then the coach says, “Marcos, guys, we gotta change our names.” “Why!?” And then Carmichael, who ran the Salvation Army, says, “Well, call them the Crusaders. But when we play over here, we're the red Devils, when we play with the church league we're the Crusaders.” So the case. So we became the Crusaders when we played church league because they didn't want to play us as the Red Devils. Those some of the names we had. And then there were different names. But let me give you the names of the ball players: White Out, Tippie Toes, Golgas, Hamburger and Treadwell.

No, you won't. And Boole and then there was Baby Huey. And what happened? They passed, and when they put their name, they didn't put their their nickname. So you say, “hey, you need to go to Rios Funeral." "Who's Rio? Where’s Baby Huey? Boole, que es tu name?” “Haha Alex Guerrera.”

Well, White Out is, oh, my God. He was Guerrera too and his wife worked at… White Out was real dark. That's what they call, the guys called him that name, but he used to protect me all the time. I was little, skinny kid all my life. You see the portraits I was anyway, I weighed 120 pounds when I graduated high school. That was my weight. I was like, five. I'm 5’5, 5’6, I think I was about five, five, close to five six when I graduate. I was a skinny kid. But no, I don't know. I remember what White Out told me his name, his wife became the the lady took care of the cafeteria at Sanchez. It was, worked at Palm then Sanchez. But I don't remember his I can remember where these… Tippie Toe was Robert Guerra, Hamburger was Terrazas, Alberto Terrazas, Gogo was with Joel. Mullet was Alex and and then there was Possum, Joe, Joe Ramirez. So they had nicknames, but you grow up with names, and they, when you go to these were at Salvation Army. At Palm, we didn't have any nicknames.

Some did. not all of them, because some live, if you lived past Comal. I think Comal or Chicon you went to? They went to Zavala. Some prefer to go Zavala then go to palm. Their choice or Metz. When Metz had opened up to desegregate, because for a while, which was an Anglo school, you know. And so I went to school 54 which was along time ago, and there was, and then by 1960 they started to do the highway, and that was a big division. It was hard for the kids later on, because having to cross I-35 was very, very dangerous, but that's kind of what happened.

(laughs) Wanna talk about my criminal events? Haha when you, one of the things that the Salvation Army, not only was Salvation army were involved here in the Barrio on Holly street, but the Salvation Army was part of life when it was on 5th Street, when they used to be on 5th Street, and they had a center there, and that’s where you could get shoes. So they gave away free shoes, gratis. But they didn't last the whole year. By the time you came back, January, April, they started coming apart. So when you got Salvation Army shoes, you know, you were poor, but the Salvation Army, known it gave food and turkeys and stuff were involved in that. They were very helping. And then right across the street from Palm was the awesome brotherhood with the church. Was the Baptist Church where the Juarez Lincoln was, and that was a brotherhood. And Hortensia and my mother in law did a lot of work. They took in alcoholics, homeless people, but they also saw the Barrio gave out food and dinners and Christmas stuff.

We did that we did that for, we did both. We will go for shoes, clothing, for food and Thanksgiving and Christmas. They'll have big Christmas events at Salvation Army, and they will have Santa Claus there. I got into a big fight one time. They were beating up my little brother Jerry, and so I got him in the head lock, and I just started beating him. And Danny Ruiz said, No, not Danny, his older brother. Mr. Ruiz said, "Marcos, if you don't stop beating on him you can't come to the Christmas party.” I let him go. Because that was a big event!

We got caught stealing. Sam Altra, which is part of the Lebanese community in Austin, twin twin, twin twin, Twin Liquors, JJ Tavern and downtown. These are places that they had. They're all Lebanese people. They were all together, Jacobs and and anyway, Sam Altra was newspaper worth the Driskill hotel on the back side, where they had with the white pharmacy, and we picked up a couple of Baby Ruths, and Sam Altra caught us. We were, I was about nine, and Sam Altra caught us that summer. “What are you boys doing? What you got in your bucket? Did you pay for it?” “No”, “put it back. I'll give you a job.” So we put the stuff back. He came back, guys says he gave us each two newspaper, two papers, American Statesman. He said, “you sell them for a nickel, you come back with a dime, and I give you four. So you two for one, and then then you come back and keep that extra nickel.” So that's how I started selling newspaper. American Statesman is by Sam Altra. Took us out and said, “You don't have to steal you make money. You can buy it.” So I had people, and that's one thing about that. I always have people who taught me lessons, but the same way that I talk was, without any violence without any harsh words, without I didn't need putting a person down. He said, “You guys, what you're doing is wrong. You want money to buy that here. Won't you do this and you have money.”

Well, did nothing. Walked Alone. "What happened? Where were you?" I was just by myself. I was hanging around. Should have gone. I should have left with our group. We were all going groups down Red River. The whites got on bus and the blacks got bus. But we would go, mostly walked. So the blacks would walk, Martin Luther King and go home. We walk down Red River, which is not really good with it, they messed it up, but we would walk home that way. And I was just alone. The two guys just jumped me. No, I was lucky. They just kicked me, threw me on the ground and blood in my nose, and that was enough. They left.

They would go to school, school, okay, oh, I go to class and just skip out. I've had a class close the close the cafeteria is easy, just to go out, go to Superior Dairies. "Where was the cafeteria located?" It was just the corner. It was in if you look at a square corner, this is east, that's west. We're on the west side of school next. It was a Superior Dairies factory that make milk, Superior Dairies milk. It was easy to sneak out. Just hide in the trucks in the way how you got down Red River. You go down Red River, go the shops. You know, we do within blocks to go to to, you know, Woodworth, you know, Scarborough's, you know, Mike Bear Pharmacy, you know, "go fishing." Go fishing. Go in the store, you know, eat some candy, stuff, syrup. You just, just skip school. We'd go down to Jim Dandies about two blocks down and going underneath the Waller Creek. Go Jim Danies buy coke go down to the creek. Just head on down to the river. We all knew that area, rainey Street was just, you know, next st Mason guild with where they killed chickens, was just down the block, so.

Used to take from from 8th Street? Yeah. Take 5-10, minutes. It was, you walk fast when you’re a kid. Rainey was.. I was late to school everyday when I live in Rainey, it was like like you can throw a rock and hit the school, right? I was always late to school, (laughter) always late. Because I just, It just take me five minutes to get there. No, get up and lay, you run, you would come. I'll be running in the summer, I'll be all sweaty in the May. I run to school and I late because you live right there? You know? We lived at 80 Rainey, 66 Rainey so we're like, 1, 2, 3, blocks from the school.

Yeah, The Adrana’s, the Desmas, Desmas, the Castillos, the Anglos, the Martinettes, the Anglo that lived there on Rainey. We knew them, they're as poor as us. So could relate I guess. We had no blacks living in our neighborhood.

And then I get in trouble at church. The word would get out to Dr. Paredes and Ms.- There was a lady, Hortensia knows her name. She just passed away about three years ago. She's a very good lady. Was one of my teachers. Uh. I can’t remember her name. I’ll remember her name later, but she was appointed, and she served the elderly in the neighborhood. So we worked, later on, we worked together as County Commissioner I would use her to bring people to send elders to her. Good, she was one of my teachers. In Iglesia Baptista, pre kindergarten.

The way I, like I was telling Hortensia and we both agree. Anyone who drives by Palm School, who went to school there, is like, boom, it's like a beacon just lights up. "I remember when I remember, I met my girlfriend," like some people, had childhood girlfriends at the school, then they got married later. I've heard those stories. They met at Palm, then they went to junior high then they went to high school, and then they got married. But that's a beacon. It's a reference of their childhood. They remember. They remember everything. Like you asking me, "well, you remember," "I remember this, I remember that, and did this. Then Ms. Menn did this to me, and Ms. Schulte did this to me." I think when they see the word Palm School and they see it, it's like a beacon. It's like a light that lights up in their hearts and lights and in their mind. That's why it has to be kept now, the question is, when they see Palm School and they walk in, what do they see? Being part of the Travis County Steering Committee, what we're asked, What do we want to see? I want to know what Palm, I want an alumni to come tell me. I know a lot of people want, but I went to high school. I mean, with the public school alumni, tell me when they walk in, what do they want to see? For me as a person, what I want to see when I walk in there, if I'm in from Tupelo, Mississippi, or I'm from, you know, from Boston, Massachusetts, right? Or from Cleveland, Ohio, or Seattle, Washington, or all from city of California. When I walk into school, what do I see? What I want to see is toda la fami- What I want to see, for sure, is like my brother, who served 27-25 years in the Air Force, I want to see how many veterans, how many of our men and women serve our country, someone put their lifeline, somebody went to Vietnam. You know, my brother went to Guam. He was making putting bombs to bomb Cambodia. So he's part of Vietnam, but not in a way that, you know. And I realized that, how do these veterans from Palm get to be known? Is there going to be a part? When you walk into the hall and the wall, you see all these plaques and all these people graduated, went to Palm, and they served their country. That's important to me at Palm Park when they have a pavilion or an area and they say, Well, this is named after Mr. And Mrs. Maria and Juan Gonzalez. They lived on East 3rd Street, and their children went to Palm. Oh, they came to Palm. Oh, this building near this, this play scape, is named after the Gonzalez family, the Cortez family. That's what I want, because this is we're gentrified. Me and Hortensia we have a house there on Canterbury and Chalmers Street in the Barrio, still one of the very few people, but soon we'll be gone. So the building in the point the park is the only legacy we have with the Mexican- if you go to mission, Texas, Mission District in San Francisco, it's all totally gentrified. And there something was happening there is happing here, where a lot of the homes are not the same when people walk in. Two I did a short poem that day, my mother, my grandmother, and my uncle died. The poem reads like “I go to my Barrio en la calle cuatro 4th street and my grandmother's house, where my uncle live, is a two story, dark house. So today, my grandmother and my uncle died because whatever memories I have of them is gone.” So if we're gone from the Barrio, and there's some building there that many of us went to school there and lived our life there, fell in love in that school. Were influenced by people. And from there, we went to different we went all over the country, all over the state, all over the county. For me, my link is not very much. My thread doesn't go very far. It goes here, Lemon street ,Canterbury, to Airport Boulevard, to there, and it comes back to the Barrio. And then I go here before the State, I was probation officer, assistant. So I'm a professional job. I was a college advisor for almost 20 years. I was an elected official, you know? So where, so, where do you put that here? You know? So, you know, where do how many elected officials? They went to Palm graduated became elected officials. I know two me and Jerry Jones. You know for sure. I don't know anybody else. They're probably more, but I don't know. So what? What is that? What is going to be in there? Is going to be all artifacts and a couple of bones, of Mexican bones that really were Indians. I don't know. Or is it going to be something when people walk in there, a learning center, a teaching center, and also knowing the people who, who are hidden, who walk the who walk this path and these house contribute to the city, to this county, to the state and to this country. And I know we have people who did that and that, to me, that's important anybody as we lose as the Barrio becomes all white, okay, that- that's happening. You can see, look at Rainey? My brother, he freaked out. My older brother, when he saw Rainey, yeah, they're 15 tall buildings on this little piece of land. It teaches you, how does you want to look in your friend? New York? You've ever been to Manhattan? Here's a mini me in Manhattan. A mini me because I've been to Manhattan, I've been to New York, I've been to all over New York. I've spent- been there eight times, you know, I know how everything's, you know, and it's a little bitty island, so, yeah, but what happens to the center? What happens to the Palm School building? This is why it's important as Steering Committee reaches out to the alumni and other people get their ideas so we can finalize something that, because the final rests on the Commissioners Court and the architect, and then the concept was doing, gather all these ideas, see how they, get them all together, and present something to the- but so we need to give ideas to the Commissioners Court. What's important for us as alumni, we would like to see inside that building.

I remember school, going to school. You know, all the different classes. Trying to uh, one of the things I wanted to do would be a Safety Patrol. Back then they used to have students crossing the streets

But we had Safety Patrols. That was like the fifth and sixth graders. Once and awhile they would come and pick- if you were one of the Safety Patrol, they would need extra guys and they would come to classes and pick- select somebody. I got picked once, and I think that was exciting.

And I remember entering high-, the school, I remember the tree, you walked in, one two rooms, one left, one on the left, on the right, and then further up you would enter this- on the left side, there was the office. And then upstairs, towards- you go upstairs, there was a library, and it faced the First Street, I believe, my first room, my first class, first grade, was the first room on the left, I remember, and I remember being there. And then I think they had a downstairs, and from the downstairs exit to the back, that led to the Palm Park. This be a park there. I think it was part of the school. So they had swings, merry go rounds and a swimming pool. And then the Superior Dairies was there too. But right next to Superior Dairies was the cafeteria, and also it was a- a stage and the lunch room. And the lunch room, I remember going and getting food there with the show all their card, and I think was $35 a month, I mean not $35, $0.35 to eat there for a month or a week. I remember they used to give me $1.05 and we would pay. There was a lady there taking our money. Give us our card. Yeah.

Well, my first grade, I remember being there. And I remember was we had, it was Columbus Day, and the teacher gave us all pictures of Columbus, so we had to color it. And then she took the best ones and displayed them. I remember. And mine was one of them. I remember that. And I remember, in October, she, she did a play, well, actually, not a play, but a story telling. We got around the table, and she would, she would tell this gruesome story about parts, body parts, eyes, fingers, and she would pass them or something around. And we thought it was, and it was kind of, and it was scared. The girls would scream, and she would sit on, this is a heart, this is an eye, finger, you know, would pass it around. I remember that.

No, the only teacher I remember was my, I think my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Schultz or Mrs. S, and that was upstairs. I remember, I remember Mr. Boyd, one of my- the last principal I knew. He was a real nice guy, too. I remember, I remember going to the office getting paddled a couple of times. You miss misbehave in class back then you misbehave- I don't know what I did, but me and my friends, we went up to the school principal's office, and he had a paddle. It was a baseball bat cut in half. You know, that took off the round part, and it was a flat and man, it was big. Whap. Paddles.

What the paddling? Yeah, if you were bad, I guess, yeah! Yeah...

I think once or twice, but that's something you don't forget. I think Mr. Boyd, when he came in, he didn't do that. It was the form- with the other principal. I don't remember him. I just remember getting paddled by him, but it was maybe once or twice. But I must have done really bad. I don't I have no idea what it was.

No, I know it was prior, before, maybe the, maybe the fifth or sixth, before the before the fourth and sixth grade, I would say. Maybe the fifth and sixth, maybe the last two years I was there. But he was a real nice man.

A lot of windows. Yeah, a lot of windows. Yeah, like, I remember the first grade. I think fifth grade and sixth, I remember. I remember. I remember one class which it faced the it faced the highway. And sometimes we could look out the window, you could see I-35 under construction. I remember that. And I remember the- I remember math. I realized I used to love to do- The teacher would call us up and do math problems, division and multiplications. And I was really good at that. I enjoyed that. I remember going- I remember the the heaters. They were the steam heaters, not like, not AC, like you got today, so in the winter time, as part of it was, it wasn't cold, but it wasn't really warm. It was comfortable. You had the steam heaters, or, I don't know if you ever saw em, but they're big old iron things. You turn the steam- steam on, and the iron heater would warm up and warm up the room. But I remember doing a lot of projects on the black the green board. There were black boards. They call them black, but they were green. I have never understood that. And in the sixth grade, yeah, it was the fifth by fifth grade class, the message we played with right across each other. So I remember us going across the street, and I remember we had a recess in the hall playing jacks. I mean, we could- We had a recess every day. Now come think of it- never then. I remember Ms. Shaussey's class.

I remember one of my schoolmates. I forgot his name, but he he was in an accident. Got all burned. Yeah, he burned his face, and he came back and he looked bad. You know, he was all- all covered up. But I remember that Ms. Shaussey’s class.

No, no, I'm trying. Never thought about it... other than the Pledge of Allegiance.

The U.S. Yeah. "I pledge allegience to the United States of America. One republic, for which it stands, one nation under God, indiv- something like that. Yeah, I remember that all the way to junior high. I believe.

I never know when I don't know the Texas one, off the top of- I don't know it.

No. I mean, well, well, no, no, no, I don't, I don't recall anything. Just, I remember just in the fifth elementary It was mostly just basic stuff: math, arithmetic, reading, writing, stuff like that. American, American history. I remember American history in the fourth grade talking about George Washington, yeah. But just basic American history. Texas- I don't think the Texas history was. It wasn't until maybe junior high, high school. I can't remember.

No, it was just something I did. I mean, it was- I learned basic math. Excuse me, let me get some water. All right, yeah. Now math- I mean, I learned the basic math, arithmetic, multiplications, division, adding, basic stuff. In high school, they wanted me to take algebra. It was something, I guess, that was required. I took it. I didn't understand- I didn't to this day, I didn't understand algebra, and I didn't understand why I needed algebra, and I needed that to for credit for to get to graduate. I remember that, but I took it, but I couldn't. I still can't figure it out today, but have never used, never, never had the opportunity to use algebra. And later in my life, I became a purchaser. I was dealing in 1000s of dollars when I was a purchas- that’s another story. But algebra never came up there either when I made when I was purchasing for Texas State University. So what I was algebra was math, was basic math I had no problem, just algebra. I think my brother Marcos aced it. I think, I don't know, but I didn't.

It wasn’t a story, but I think my favorite is history. That's my favorite. I love history. I continue study my history even after, after I got out of high school, history was my favorite subject. I attended Texas State University for about three years. I'm an official college dropout of the family, but I took a lot of history courses at the university level. I love the history. I still, I still study history today, you know. But as far as you know, just that was my favorite subject, history, everything else I had to do, because I had to do, I even took typing. I feel that I can- I think I failed typing, but I've, but I can type pretty good. Somehow it's whatever I learned. It the basic stuff, it stuck with me. So I've been, you know, using a computer and things like that. I learned something, though it sticks with you.

Well, it wasn't- It was harder than I thought it was, yeah. So you had to kind of look at the traffic and kind of figure out when a car would come by. So you don't, you don't want to- You would you want to block the kids, then you look around, make sure there was no cars coming. Then you would let them go to across the street. There was, like two or three crossings. One was on 1st Street. I want to say 1st Street, I know it's Cesar Chavez and some of the new guys might like that, but we always knew it as 1st Street, "la calle primera." So it was on 1st Street, cross into across the 3rd, Highway 81/ I-35 and then crossing over to towards Rainey Street, and the other one was on the north, going north, crossing to 2nd Street.

Yeah, they gave you- they gave you a hat, like a military hat, but it was white and some kind of a collar. It was- it'd go across here. It was white, had a little badge you put around here. But they didn't give us a flag. I don't recall a flag. I-

I don't remember. Yeah, I think that came later. Yeah,

I don’t know how that got it- I think that there was the big guys, you know, the sixth graders, fifth graders, and then when they have- didn't have- maybe somebody was absent. They would go to the fifth or sixth graders. And I guess, you know, were looking for it. Raise your hand. A bunch of guys would raise their hand. Okay, you it was random pick. One time I got picked.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the teacher had to let you go, as far as I know. Yeah, it was close to, you know, thee the class. Yeah, maybe 10 minutes before class ended.

Well, you know, it's not a- it's not a- it's not even bad. But the one memory about the the Halloween story and the Christopher Columbus. And then, I think I was in the fourth grade, and we- we were drawing or coloring, and I got in an argument with a little girl named Mary Alice, for some reason, it had to do something with coloring. It was right before we had recess, we had a period, we go outside and play, and she had just sharpen her pencil, and she got mad at me for some reason, and she stabbed me right here with it. I still got it in the blue dot. That's my first tattoo. I think it's on this side. And I remember that. I never forget it. I remember her name, Mary, Alice, but I can't remember her face, but I remember the teacher consoling me. And I think she kept a little girl, and then from at that, we went outside and played. But I remember that I'll never forget it. It's not a bad memory, just a memory, you know. But I remember that.

No, no, I don't remember. Yeah, it was other than the paddling, yeah. I mean, everything, everything was, you know, nothing dramatic, you know?

What were the other children like? Or, how do you remember them treating you like?

Well we all got along. I remember like at recess. We, for some reason, everybody liked to play jacks. Actually, that's what you could do. You sit on the floor. Already played jacks, or heard of it. You just sit on the floor and, yeah, and we all, we all got along.

Yeah, that's little things like a cross the metal, metal, metal, and you throw the ball out, you pick up the jack and catch the ball, it's eye coordination and stuff, it was fun. I couldn't do it no more though.

Do you remember having any best friends at Palm school?

I remember is it wasn't that big. I remember the counter was facing the windows, though, as you looked at the window, there was a counter there, and then the rest the library. But it wasn't really that big. But I remember the library. Just books. We used to go there and read books and stuff like that, I don't remember that much.

No, it was away from class. Look at books. You know?

Yeah, I guess you just see movies about, yeah, the army never did phase me, but yeah, that would just, I just saw myself sitting in a jet plane. Well, I did join the Air Force, but I didn’t become a pilot. But, yeah. But you know, I remember in junior high, we started talking about Texas history. I remember that because I remember one of my professor, instructors, teachers, told us about Pancho Villa. He gave the history of the history of Texas, and Pancho Villa, guy would come across the border, and I remember that that was in junior high. That's when I first started learning about, you know, history and for the United States and other countries and stuff.

Really, I guess so, yeah, yeah, I've heard of these guys, but never really heard nothing much, yeah.

Jerry Jones is- was a former student from Palm School. I don't remember when he left, but we were in a couple of grades together. We became friends. Later, when I ran for public office, he was also running, and we talked about Palm and he eventually became Supreme Court Justice for the state of Texas at the time that I was County Commissioner. So we, we kind of kept in touch with each other a little bit, but not a lot. We just remember and we both went to the same first grade, and uh second grade, I think after that, I remember when, I don't know when he left, his family left. You know, there was other students that I remember, but it was Ralph Morgan. He stayed. He didn't leave. Some of the Martinez, they stayed. They would go all together by the time I finished, well, I didn't finish it. Stayed an extra grade. They were- we got along. I even had black friends when I went 8th Street, 11th street didn't go to school with me, but we hung around together during the summer. We hung on together, but we didn't go to school together. Even junior high!

Yeah, in the fourth grade. It was one of the guys who was in love with this girl, and he didn't want nobody to mess with her. And there were three or four guys who also wanted to talk to her. You know, it's fourth grade, and one of the guys of my friend, Gutierrez, and Frank Rios, Marcos de Leon, Quintanilla, Fred, you know. And we went outside, and he wanted to kick my friend's ass and another one. And I asked him. I asked him, “Why? Why? Why are you so mad?” He said, “Well, he shouldn’t be messing with my girl. What did she did.” I said, “but we're all friends. We're all playing when we play kickball. We're all thinking we're the best team. We always win.” I can't kick worth a damn but Frank Rios can kick to top of school. “Why? Why? Why this? Why do you want to cause this?” You know, and what? The Gallega guys agreed not to talk to her if he wanted to be his girlfriend, and they were fine with that, but he if she talked to them, which she did, he cannot assume that they're flirting. “Can you deal with that?” I told him, because they ain't going to talk to her, but if she walks over to them, don't get mad at them. Don't get mad at her.

I was in love with her, too. She was from Mexico, (laughter) the prettiest girl. I wouldn't say her name. She may still be here in town! But that’s a conflict and making them understand is that you know, porque te enojes if she goes, that's the part, because you know she can talk to anybody, everybody about. (laughter).

No, you won't. And Boole and then there was Baby Huey. And what happened? They passed, and when they put their name, they didn't put their their nickname. So you say, “hey, you need to go to Rios Funeral." "Who's Rio? Where’s Baby Huey? Boole, que es tu name?” “Haha Alex Guerrera.”

Well, White Out is, oh, my God. He was Guerrera too and his wife worked at… White Out was real dark. That's what they call, the guys called him that name, but he used to protect me all the time. I was little, skinny kid all my life. You see the portraits I was anyway, I weighed 120 pounds when I graduated high school. That was my weight. I was like, five. I'm 5’5, 5’6, I think I was about five, five, close to five six when I graduate. I was a skinny kid. But no, I don't know. I remember what White Out told me his name, his wife became the the lady took care of the cafeteria at Sanchez. It was, worked at Palm then Sanchez. But I don't remember his I can remember where these… Tippie Toe was Robert Guerra, Hamburger was Terrazas, Alberto Terrazas, Gogo was with Joel. Mullet was Alex and and then there was Possum, Joe, Joe Ramirez. So they had nicknames, but you grow up with names, and they, when you go to these were at Salvation Army. At Palm, we didn't have any nicknames.

Some did. not all of them, because some live, if you lived past Comal. I think Comal or Chicon you went to? They went to Zavala. Some prefer to go Zavala then go to palm. Their choice or Metz. When Metz had opened up to desegregate, because for a while, which was an Anglo school, you know. And so I went to school 54 which was along time ago, and there was, and then by 1960 they started to do the highway, and that was a big division. It was hard for the kids later on, because having to cross I-35 was very, very dangerous, but that's kind of what happened.

We did that we did that for, we did both. We will go for shoes, clothing, for food and Thanksgiving and Christmas. They'll have big Christmas events at Salvation Army, and they will have Santa Claus there. I got into a big fight one time. They were beating up my little brother Jerry, and so I got him in the head lock, and I just started beating him. And Danny Ruiz said, No, not Danny, his older brother. Mr. Ruiz said, "Marcos, if you don't stop beating on him you can't come to the Christmas party.” I let him go. Because that was a big event!

My it was Gutierrez, my brother, my, you know, my two brothers. Sometimes, when Frank got went to Austin High, then it was just me and Gerardo, we would walk together. And then there was, there was my cousin Janie, who lived on 3rd, 3rd street, and couple others, and the rest of us, Guteirrez and the Cunias, and the Ramirez, you know, just it's una tangita we walk together. We just all walked because we knew that would happen. And but there were some fights in the school between blacks and whites and us and but there was a Civil Rights incident. The girls, I remember, Janie. Two things happened. One was they wore a Mary Jane shoe and a loafer two different shoes. And they was like “you can’t do that”, and wonder why. What it was is they had an annual powder puff flag football game between the girls and Janie was good. She had brothers. You know, she knows how to play football. No, I remember. Now. You remember what they did. They were boycotting they didn't want to play because they didn't allow her to be quarterback. They just want the Anglo girls to be quarterback. So they protested. So we joined them. We started wearing different socks. That was good for me, because I never had a good pair, but we joined them, and we started boycotting. We started wearing things in our socks, and they fighting at them. They realized the university realized they doing the same thing. They racist stuff. I was my first I remember, it's Junior High. I was like, in the seventh grade, and I remember we were all joining the girls. Yeah, we joined. We so we start protesting with them. It's a quiet protest, right? Just, just don't wear things. Like they want us to tuck in our shirts. We're, you know, we're pachuco, right? We wear shirts outside. Wear black stacey's and camisas we don’t tuck in the shirt, and we had to tuck in our shirt, so we showed up one day with a shirt, and we tuck and said, “Why do this?” “Because they won't let the brown Mexican girls play football”. And we just tuck the shirt, we tell them why why we had a shirts out so we wouldn't get kick out, that because they kick you out ofschool or they put you in detention, you know?

No, but I'll tell you what, he was the director of the Texas museum over here, next by the Law Building. I don't remember his name, but we got into a big fight. Now, I won't believe my own elder with the truth about the truth about our people the Nahautl, Aztecas, Toltecas, the Mexicas and the Mayans and all the other folks than him, you and the massacres that were wrong. but then again that’s where it is that's the conflict, right?

History. It was my favorite subject.

The thing about it is mainly it was all Anglo history, because they are talking about, you know, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Who else? William B Travis, all the presidents was part of history. Texas history was the Alamo, San Jacinto, and all the celebrations correlated with the history that we learned at the school. The history was not our history. It was mainly Anglo history, and the Mexicanos were, were losers. You know, the Alamo was very prevalent about that. But we did ask about Juan Seguin, they couldn't ignore that. To the, he helped Sam Houston to feed them Santana. So that was prominent, but there had to be more. But there wasn't. We learned about Juan Seguin that he helped win the revolution now, if you go the Alamo, now they have names on a lot of Mexicanos who fought at the Alamo. And then now a historian, I forget his name. Uh. There's another battle that happened in Goliad that was run by Mexicanos. It was not Anglos. It was our people. We believe in freedom. But that's what we learned. It was not those Maypole celebrations. There was fourth of July celebration before school was out, there was about American history. The flag with the Pledge of Allegiance It was all Anglo history. Rarely anything Mexicano know anything, if it was Mexicano it was negative, like Santa Anna was a dictator, an emperor, trying to be free. And the Anglos, and we didn't know that people fought the revolutionary war in Texas, who fought other mexicano, who fought at the Alamo, the majority were from Tennessee, Kentucky, you know, Connecticut, New York, you know, from the Far East, as you call it. You say, anybody from New York and main from the Far East? (Laughter)

I would, no, yeah. I went, yeah. I went to school. Afterwards. What happened? I got hit. The ambulance came and I was bleeding from my nose. I hit my nose. My nose is bent. And I got here and I was bent. I sat by the curb, and I kept bleeding. I stopped bleeding. The guy said, “You need to go to the hospital. Said, “no,” I said, he said “Look, we need to put you in the ambulance”.” No, I don't want to go”, “Hey, dude, make us look good. Like in the movies,” I said okay. So, like in the movies, I laid back. I was just, you know, in the movie, you see the student, guys in the hospital, ah, ambulance is going in. Yeah. That was me, and I was sent by the doctor. My dad came and they checked my blood and I wasn't bleeding, no internal injury, and says, you want to go back to school? I want to go home. There's nobody at home. Oh, no, does anybody at home? No, my dad went back to work, and my mom just passed away, so I have no one at home. Says, Why don't you go back to school, the hospital is on 15th Street. Martin Luther King is four blocks away. Let me walk. By time I got to school, my leg is swelled up in my jeans. But guess what? I was already dead! "Marcus, you're alive!" When Connie Kirk, a good friend of mine. We've been friends for years, we're still friends. Connie Kirk, African American sing- a beautiful singer, "Marcus," said, “I thought you were dead”. Well the story was that I got dragged down from Martin Luther King all the way on the San Jacinto, I lost my head rolling down on the highway, on the road. (Laughter) It's terrible!

Well, like Mrs. Schuester my second grade teacher, there was Ms. Houston, who was married to the quarterback from University of Texas. She was a math teacher for a while. She was real good at what she did. Ms. Meadows that I remember in my second fifth grade. I try to remember my fifth grade teacher, but Ms. Arman was my fourth grade teacher, and she had a student teacher, I think, I remember her name, but I got in trouble with Ms. Arman because my student teacher, I think her name was, Miss Harold, told us to buy- get a cigar box to bring to the school. This was in April. And then she said, I got some felt for y'all, and I chose green. He says, I need y'all to cover this box, cigar box, inside and out with this felt. I started work on it. And then I asked her, “What's this for?” “Oh, it's a Mother's Day box, jewelry box.” I looked at her like, “girl, don't, you know, I don't have a mother like?” I said, Okay, I didn't say nothing. And you know, it's a Mother's Day jewelry box. So I put it underneath my box. I never worked on it again.

I mean it felt bad. Very. So, when it came in May with May 18th is Mother's Day, I. Just miss Arman came over. She says, "Why aren't you working on your box?" Because she had found it in my desk. You know, it was just the felt was stuck. Nothing else was done. This is, "you know, I don't have my mother, Ms., Ms. Arman," and she made me feel bad. “Well I didn't know that.” So, you know, there's gonna get a grade for this, but Ms. Arman told her not to grade me, just just that could never happen. You know what she did? She took me shopping for clothes. (Laughter) The student teacher took me downtown, took me to Scarlbros, took me to Montgomery Wards, used to be there, and bought me some clothes.

Feel good. She said, she apologized. I said, "you don't have to do this for me." Said "no, no, no," I, she knew we were poor. You know how I found out how poor I was? When I got locked up. "Tell me about it." I was in the fifth grade, and I started skipping school. I missed 42 days. Then I got sick, you know, total, 42 days, week, year, week there, I got sick, and I went to the nurse, to the nurse, sick. “Ugh I'm sick, I'm sick.” “Okay, Marcus, let me use lozenges. Go lay in the back and rest me. You feel better.” “You got you got fever you've got 99 fever, But go lay down.” And then Mr. Garcia was a truant officer for possible showed up. “Is that? Is that Marco de Leon back there? Yeah. Well, he's been missing last school,” he took me in, took me South got on South Congress took me to the juvenile home and locked me up for a week.

I think a lot of the teachers that my teachers, that I had, some were very hard. Some cared. Some did not. But I think that it was the teaching job. And now there were mainly Mexican Americans, very few Anglo, no blacks, but there were Chicanos and and, and the attitude has to be, was for many years, and still was, even to my son at Austin High was, “We don't know if they can learn.” It's always been. "We don't know, we gotta do away a lot of their ways of life, the way they think, to teach in the American way." That's what they were taught here at the university, Texas State, any university "You mean teachers?" teachers, teaching the American way. I know a lot of teachers would like to teach cultural they would like to do, but they were not allowed. I think Ms Schulte was very sensitive to that. She would allow us to celebrate Mexican holidays and even talk about it in the classroom. We don't know where else teachers like that that. I think that a lot of them meant real well to do that. They know what they have a curriculum they have to teach has nothing to do with cultural it has to do with society, expecting you to be be a full fledged society when you graduate and become a part of the American society. Think that was what it was, because what we learned was that was all about Anglos and history, but the Texas history was, you know, the governor is this, and we fought in the Alamo. We became Republic. We were a country before we were a state. And then, nah nah nah…

I thought later on, Ms. Herrera, who became a part of Hortensia’s life, my wife's life, and we knew her. They fought hard to take care of us, to keep us in class, to keep us in school. They were our advocates, that I know of! They advocated for us, and they they later, I thanked her. She loved Hortensia as one of her students for characters and family. Ms Herrera, was her family was has a legacy. Her uh, Mendez is her sister. Mendez middle school. She’s part of that family. And we want something for Herrera. Miss Reyes nothing there at the school, for the school district, she was a very they're both very kind, kind teachers, and they took care of us that, you know, they didn't want us to get kicked out, though it was easy to kick us out.

Yeah, Juanillo got kicked out. Either way he came back to school. One of my nieces got kicked out.

Well, Palm School building was, it was a wooden floors, and the hard walls, solid brick walls and Mason Dolan, the big windows, the big doors, the windows, no air conditioning. I didn't have air conditioning till I was in my last year in high school.

In schools, UJH, they were all open windows, fans. I used to love the fans. I couldn't hear the teacher no more. So if I missed my homework, I'd go “I couldn’t hear you” (laughter). So, no, I was all no air conditioning, and it was all open windows in the summer and cold winter, even though the radiators were old fashioned, you would burn yourself, you forget they're hot, and you get closer, you burn your skin on them. Yeah, that's that kind of school. I mean, it was an old school. It was old.

I don’t remember. In '54 I don't think they needed it in '54.

Nah, I just told you guys be there by seven, 7, 7:30, 8 o'clock. And the only alarm we had was, was ourselves. One time I bought an alarm clock, wind it up, you know, it didn’t last very long. We'd just wake ourselves up. We run to school, you know, getting run, the Desmonds, the strands and Castillo, the Martinez we would all be late to school. It was terrible.

It had to be the second or sixth grade, the most joy. Because I learned a lot from her, and I was able to participate. It was lead some things. She allowed me to lead some some prayer groups. Sometimes just lead the pledge of allegiance. I never got to lead the pledge of allegiance, only the anglos at first and later on, the smarter kids, you know. But Miss Schultz allowed me to do that. She gave me that. That was the most joy. I mean, I had fun when I was younger and struggled. In first grade, I struggled. Second grade, I struggled. Third grade, oh, it was horrible. "Why?" And in third grade, I had an old German teacher, Ms. Menn, M, E N N She was bad. I don't know why she didn't like me. She's guessing my pr…. jokes and stuff. That's been me since I was a kid. That's my personality that never going to that's never going to change. Two things happened. One, we had this cartoon about blood all caught, Disney made about my blood cells and how they travel, and I was to meet her like frijoles. So I was calling frijoles, beans, right? She got mad. She put me in a corner. Didn't see it, but I had a stick pin. So I put a stick pin on the map, and I was just looking into the map. So I gotta talk about it later. You, I choose the you. But the worst experience with her was during Christmas, and we're gonna exchange gifts. And by then, my first year, I didn't know about this, right? I didn't have anything, so I found this brand new toy they had, but it was a Jeep, 1949 Jeep with no wheels. So I wrapped it up and gave it to my Anglo friend, Ronald Bennet. Ronald Bennet was the only Anglo friend that I made friends that stay with me forever, even when I ran for public office, Ronald Bennet got my car. I'm so so bad. I got a coloring book (Laughter). Second grade. I found a coloring book and I thought I checked it. Nobody page. So I gave it to Yolanda. She gave it back to me. He says, "this is, this was used" One page. Someone, I cut a purple flower. I was totally embarrassed. Here's the third grade, Ms. Menn. Mean, teacher said, so I know she I didn't have, I didn't we didn't have anything. There's no way I could get a gift. So I think I had picked Christina's name. So I went back to miss min and said, Look, I don't have I can't get it to him. I don't have any. We're poor, you know. We just don't have it. My father said, Don't do it. So I told her, and she said, "Who has Marcus De Leons name?" Bent over, tore my name up, threw it in the trash. "He's gonna give a gift to nobody. So I need to give this name somebody else." So she didn't do it well. So she gave. The guy, and looking someone said to my chair. "Damn," I thought. So, his is a true story. Hector De Leon, who's not related, and I'll say his name because he knows, you know, maybe I shouldn't mention his name anyway, this guy said he that they had money, and he'll give me his gift. We're gonna celebrate the 20th of December. So the 20th shows up. He gets a knife, a plastic knife. This you can stab, but it goes inside the sheet. It's plastic, but you stab as a spring, and it just goes in your it goes inside the sheet, so it's no problem. So we're up and I remember Gutierrez was there, and he was with me and Rios, Frank, Leah, and he said, I went to get it now. He says, "No, I changed my mind." He said, "No, you said you were going to give me the present, your present, because you get a lot of presents." And then Rios, Guitierrez says, "Yeah, you said you could, Marcus can have it." And I'm grabbing, and he's grabbing it back. I'm grabbing and he grabbing back, and then I hit him, hit him in the eye like this. Busted it. Bust his eye. You know, he's putting me. After Christmas, he and his mother show up at the school. Either was Christmas or the next day, his mother shows up, and what happened? Her son got beat up. Why did she take care of his man? His man said, "It's him. It's him, It's Marcus." So I sat together with him, and she said, "What? Why did you hit my son?" Then I told the story, and she looked at her son, "tell me the truth. Is that true?" He goes, "mmhm." You know what she did? She started to feed me and my brother after school, his mom invited us to come eat during the Christmas holidays. "What was her name?" I don't know. Just Ms. De Leon. I remember mother's name, but she invited us to eat, and we ate. We became friends. That's the story. But Ms. Menn, she would not support me or nothing, just would not.

The neighborhood, the people who took care of me, the people who took care of people, people who made food for us, the guy janitor who told me, "I have a great job, but you don't want to be me." "Was that at the Palm School?" Yeah, Mr. Martinez.

I would tell them hello, or they would see me messing around, and they- I'd be outside the classroom discipline because time out, because I've been onery. He’d be sweeping floor. And he said “Ah, Marcus, what did you do today?” He says “Que hiciste? No, no, no, no, mijo, no. Vete aca para tu clase.”

I think he did. He had to be, he worked there. I don't remember ever see him having a car. I don’t know.

They were sweet. They were only Anglo for a while, then later, Mexicanas came to work, Chicanas. But they were nice they were on, they were disciplined. Some were mean. Some were like “Getch your food!” “What you don't want this? You better eat it.” (laughter)

For me? It was always good, bland, but good. I mean, you know, eating tortillas in, you know, cheese, queso and atole in the morning. My father would always make oatmeal in the morning, make sure we had oatmeal and atole in the morning, oatmeal every morning he would make before he went to work, make tortillas, make sure we had tortillas and cheese. Later we got food. So we ate the cafeteria food. Some people didn't like it. But when you don't have anything, you know it's good. So maybe my brothers complained about it. But I, I had our- ate, and even ate extra stuff if the guys didn’t want any. You know?

I think both. You know I was making fun of the blood, the pallets, the white blood cells? “It look like frijoles!” “Yeah!” everybody laughs. (laughter).

Well, we, generally, we in PE, you do exercises. The PE teacher would take us out. We play kickball softball. That's all about kickball, dodge ball. You know, those were the kind of games we played. And once in a while they would, they would do some do some dancing to the class. And I loved it so much that the teacher just, ah, she got somebody that loves it. I'm gonna bring it back again. You know, “Marcus, will you lead us again?” “Yeah! Como no!”

The way I, like I was telling Hortensia and we both agree. Anyone who drives by Palm School, who went to school there, is like, boom, it's like a beacon just lights up. "I remember when I remember, I met my girlfriend," like some people, had childhood girlfriends at the school, then they got married later. I've heard those stories. They met at Palm, then they went to junior high then they went to high school, and then they got married. But that's a beacon. It's a reference of their childhood. They remember. They remember everything. Like you asking me, "well, you remember," "I remember this, I remember that, and did this. Then Ms. Menn did this to me, and Ms. Schulte did this to me." I think when they see the word Palm School and they see it, it's like a beacon. It's like a light that lights up in their hearts and lights and in their mind. That's why it has to be kept now, the question is, when they see Palm School and they walk in, what do they see? Being part of the Travis County Steering Committee, what we're asked, What do we want to see? I want to know what Palm, I want an alumni to come tell me. I know a lot of people want, but I went to high school. I mean, with the public school alumni, tell me when they walk in, what do they want to see? For me as a person, what I want to see when I walk in there, if I'm in from Tupelo, Mississippi, or I'm from, you know, from Boston, Massachusetts, right? Or from Cleveland, Ohio, or Seattle, Washington, or all from city of California. When I walk into school, what do I see? What I want to see is toda la fami- What I want to see, for sure, is like my brother, who served 27-25 years in the Air Force, I want to see how many veterans, how many of our men and women serve our country, someone put their lifeline, somebody went to Vietnam. You know, my brother went to Guam. He was making putting bombs to bomb Cambodia. So he's part of Vietnam, but not in a way that, you know. And I realized that, how do these veterans from Palm get to be known? Is there going to be a part? When you walk into the hall and the wall, you see all these plaques and all these people graduated, went to Palm, and they served their country. That's important to me at Palm Park when they have a pavilion or an area and they say, Well, this is named after Mr. And Mrs. Maria and Juan Gonzalez. They lived on East 3rd Street, and their children went to Palm. Oh, they came to Palm. Oh, this building near this, this play scape, is named after the Gonzalez family, the Cortez family. That's what I want, because this is we're gentrified. Me and Hortensia we have a house there on Canterbury and Chalmers Street in the Barrio, still one of the very few people, but soon we'll be gone. So the building in the point the park is the only legacy we have with the Mexican- if you go to mission, Texas, Mission District in San Francisco, it's all totally gentrified. And there something was happening there is happing here, where a lot of the homes are not the same when people walk in. Two I did a short poem that day, my mother, my grandmother, and my uncle died. The poem reads like “I go to my Barrio en la calle cuatro 4th street and my grandmother's house, where my uncle live, is a two story, dark house. So today, my grandmother and my uncle died because whatever memories I have of them is gone.” So if we're gone from the Barrio, and there's some building there that many of us went to school there and lived our life there, fell in love in that school. Were influenced by people. And from there, we went to different we went all over the country, all over the state, all over the county. For me, my link is not very much. My thread doesn't go very far. It goes here, Lemon street ,Canterbury, to Airport Boulevard, to there, and it comes back to the Barrio. And then I go here before the State, I was probation officer, assistant. So I'm a professional job. I was a college advisor for almost 20 years. I was an elected official, you know? So where, so, where do you put that here? You know? So, you know, where do how many elected officials? They went to Palm graduated became elected officials. I know two me and Jerry Jones. You know for sure. I don't know anybody else. They're probably more, but I don't know. So what? What is that? What is going to be in there? Is going to be all artifacts and a couple of bones, of Mexican bones that really were Indians. I don't know. Or is it going to be something when people walk in there, a learning center, a teaching center, and also knowing the people who, who are hidden, who walk the who walk this path and these house contribute to the city, to this county, to the state and to this country. And I know we have people who did that and that, to me, that's important anybody as we lose as the Barrio becomes all white, okay, that- that's happening. You can see, look at Rainey? My brother, he freaked out. My older brother, when he saw Rainey, yeah, they're 15 tall buildings on this little piece of land. It teaches you, how does you want to look in your friend? New York? You've ever been to Manhattan? Here's a mini me in Manhattan. A mini me because I've been to Manhattan, I've been to New York, I've been to all over New York. I've spent- been there eight times, you know, I know how everything's, you know, and it's a little bitty island, so, yeah, but what happens to the center? What happens to the Palm School building? This is why it's important as Steering Committee reaches out to the alumni and other people get their ideas so we can finalize something that, because the final rests on the Commissioners Court and the architect, and then the concept was doing, gather all these ideas, see how they, get them all together, and present something to the- but so we need to give ideas to the Commissioners Court. What's important for us as alumni, we would like to see inside that building.

Okay, I can't- Palm School, it was pretty it was pretty simple, I can't remember that much. But going to junior high, I remember we used to- most of the time we would walk. And University Junior High was, I think, on Red River, 19th and Red River, not too far from Memorial Stadium. I don't know if it's still there or not, but we would, I would walk. We would walk from the house, on on, on Rainey street, cross, uh, 1st Street, Ceasar Chavez, and get on Red River and just walk. 19 blocks. And most we would- it was winter time. I don't think we had bus service back then. It was just a matter of fact, we didn't have school busses. There was the city busses, and they would cost, I think, five cents, four cents, something like that. But there was no busses that I can recall that would go to the University Junior High, so we would walk.

It wasn’t a story, but I think my favorite is history. That's my favorite. I love history. I continue study my history even after, after I got out of high school, history was my favorite subject. I attended Texas State University for about three years. I'm an official college dropout of the family, but I took a lot of history courses at the university level. I love the history. I still, I still study history today, you know. But as far as you know, just that was my favorite subject, history, everything else I had to do, because I had to do, I even took typing. I feel that I can- I think I failed typing, but I've, but I can type pretty good. Somehow it's whatever I learned. It the basic stuff, it stuck with me. So I've been, you know, using a computer and things like that. I learned something, though it sticks with you.

University Junior High (UJH) was a Junior High School run in partnership by Austin ISD and the University of Texas at Austin's Department of Education from 1933 to 1967. It served as an expiremnetal campus overseen by UT as the first racially desegregated school in Austin begining in 1957. When the Allan Junior High building burned down in 1956, the UJH building also began to host Allan students. It was demolished in 2024 to make way for a new practice facility for UT football players.

Yeah, University Junior High. Yeah. Yeah. To junior high there.

It was fun. It was something. It felt like big guys, you know, junior high. Yes, it was, uh, 7th, 8th and 9th grade. Now they call it Middle School, yeah, but it was a, I think it's, it was, it's part of, it was part of the university system. It was, but the- the old high school, the junior high that I was supposed to go to, everybody was supposed to go: Allan Junior High, but it burned down. And that was right there on, I think on somewhere on Red River, maybe Red River and 12th Street, or 11th Street, or something like that, or 8th Street. But it burned down, so we, we were looking forward to go to to Allan Junior High. It was kind of like, like, Palm School, old, yeah, brick building. So we went on going to University Junior High. But I, you know, it was, I spent a lot of time in detention hall there. Again, we did the American Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. It was a nice it was, I enjoyed going, yeah.

That's why I decided to join the Air Force. We were talking about career day or something like that, and I told- they asked, "what you want to do, when you grow up, what are your ideas?" I told him, I want to be a jet pilot, join the Air Force. So that back in junior- that's when I set my mind on, that.

Stephen F Austin, on 12th and Rio Grande. It's still there now, but it's part of Austin Community.

Today? Oh, I've done a lot of things, you know? I went to college on a GI Bill. I spent- when I- when I dropped out, I was classified as a junior. But I had to get out because I had a family, and it was, it was kind of rough on the family, my wife and the kids. Plus, I had to, I had to need extra money, so I had to get a part time job. So, but as far as things that I'm proud of, I've done a lot of things, like say I didn't go to college, but I learned a lot of things. I found out I couldn't do certain things, wow. But I- I worked in a grocery store, and I became a manager in the grocery store- grocery business. I started as a clerk and went up as a store manager, assistant store manager or- and I also became a produce manager, in charge of the produce department. And then I went to then I went work for university, Texas State University, which is Texas State. And I went there, and I started in the grounds department, and I worked my way up to the produce, I mean, produce- purchaser. I became, I was the first certified purchaser in my department to get a certified to purchase for the state. And I I learned, that's where I learned how to use a computer, and I was I purchase. I made purchases from, I would buy from different vendors, set up contracts. My biggest contract that I did, I negotiated, was for a half a million dollars for- to pick up the trash service for the university. And I took the bid, I did the all the paperwork, and I learned a lot of things, you know, doing that. But that was, I'm real proud that that what I did, you know, I became the first purchaser, authorized purchaser for my, our, department, and I negotiated. I didn't realize that I could do things like that. It just happened. And I caught on real quick, and I was, I was very good at my job. Yeah, that's one thing.

University Junior High, I find out Dr Moore, which was one of the doctors that worked in the Department Education. She knew him, and we found out through him, that he was one of the architects who approached the school district and say, we want to integrate. We have a building which is now the social work is now destroyed. But it said, why don't we create a school and takes kids from Allan, which is was, at that time, in 1960s was a predominant Chicano school, and O. Henry was a predominantly white school, Junior High Middle School, and John B Wynn was generally black. You take students from each one and bring them to Austin to UJH, in other words, get kids will normally go to Allen, which I was going to go. Can go to UJH, which were closer to it than Allen. People win can come over here and people from O. Henry they bussed, because they're way, you know, Lake Austin area to come to integrate in Junior high. So we became the very first integrated junior high, the full force. This is 67 this is almost what, 12 years after the 54 board of education versus Brown, and we were integrated. And it was hard, you know, it was hard for all of us, because we never went to school together. None of us did. We didn't go with blacks. We were the Anglo so we knew what they were like, and the blacks didn't go to school, with either one of us with Chicanos or blacks? I mean, for whites, it was hard.

I was excited because my brother was there. You know, I wasn't afraid to go to school. I was excited. I wanted to go to school. I love school, education, but my own way of never quitting. I started in '67 was married, had a kid, and I realized I had to raise and I had another kid. I had to go. I when I met Hortensia in '71 I was nothing. I'm going to school. And then she said, and then ACC was coming up. So we worked with a neighborhood. As a neighborhood, we supported ACC coming in, and she says, "Why don't you go to once you register” This woman? You know, I hadn't Oh, I never passed English at CTC. I never passed freshman English. So in the summer of '73 I took it at HTU at Houston Civil University, and I passed it. And then she said, “why don't you go to school? Don't you register? You know? ACC”, “I don't know. I don't know”. So I registered. I am one of the 1772 students that first register at ACC. I'm also the one that 1000- 2000 students that registered CTC, because Central Texas College a brand new college in Killeen, Texas, and I was one of the first students. And then here I am again. She encouraged me to go to school. She was going to UT. You know, we had our first son, and she was going to UT, and she said, go to school. So I did, but it's too hard for two of us to go to school. So in '75 I dropped out of ACC. I said, let me put you to school. I'll work. They'll take care of our kid. You know, my other kids that I had. So I put her to school and I quit in '75. To me, as part of my training at Palm School, what I went to good things and bad things, bringing things out, facing yourself, and saying, what's the better thing to do? The better thing to do is to go to work full time and let her go to finish school, because she's smarter than me anyway. So she graduates '77 and she said, you know, why don't you go to school this fall? So I registered, well, the stuff that I did, ACC, I finished with a 3.5 I think GPA at ACC. So you know what? UT, did? They roll out the brown carpet for me? The students said, Mr. Daniel, you mean the red carpet. No, I'm a Chicano. They ran the brown carpet out for me. I was allowed to come in with nothing, do nothing, but come in. I had my GPA was so high. And my first year I was awarded the minority academic achievement award that invested for one year. That was it. But that I saw part, I think, what I talked to my students when I was a college advisor is you have your foundation and your parents, your families, your foundation, so where you go to school, where you play, what you do, in your community, in your Barrio, that's your foundation. So when you go to college, that's that's what you stand on, and that's what these journey beads were about, that I would give to them, that's what they stand on. This is what holds you together, and that's your foundation. So yeah, Palm School is our foundation. Every Elementary School is some kids who got to get to go a long time, that's their foundation. That's like the foundation of a house. It stands out. And then you go to high school, it gets built better. Then you go to college, and then when you graduate, you put your roof on, and you live your life, I think that's what the way I look at it. That's why Palm School is, it's so important.

Just- when they came down, I was in a demonstration when they demonstrated for for jobs and stuff, we were part of the getting the people involved, and then later on, with the Black Citizen Task Force and other groups. We always invite one another. You know, we have a racist hotel here in Austin, don't you? "Which is it?" There was- it was called the Marriot out there on 11th Street. Sister Turner calls me up. “Marcus. Marcus, we got, twelve noon we got to be on 11th Street, the racist hotel.” “Dorothy, what do you mean? Racist hotel?” “That racist hotel, the building here on 11th Street, right across from our neighborhood.” “What are you talking about?” “They ain't got no windows facing East Austin” I said, “You got to be kidding me”. “Marcus, need you and Paul and Francis need to be there. The consilio needs to be there.” “Okay, Francis, we'll be there.” So we show up. It's true. If you see the east wall of the, I don't know what's called now, I think it's a good night hotel or something. It used to be the Marriott, right on 11th Street, and IH 35 the windows, there are no windows facing East Austin. You know how hotels have windows all the way around, even in New York, I was standing at a Holiday Inn, and they were head forward, and you faced another hotel. It has no windows. It was the best thing you did because in the Marriott ended up giving said Jobs for Progress, to do all the hiring. I don't know, for just said Jobs for Progress, but GI Forum was a Mexican American organization. GI Forum, the one of their businesses, is set for, set for, set for, for jobs, and they appointed them to do all the hiring isn’t that great? A Chicano organization?

No, but I'll tell you what, he was the director of the Texas museum over here, next by the Law Building. I don't remember his name, but we got into a big fight. Now, I won't believe my own elder with the truth about the truth about our people the Nahautl, Aztecas, Toltecas, the Mexicas and the Mayans and all the other folks than him, you and the massacres that were wrong. but then again that’s where it is that's the conflict, right?

I don't remember, I'd like to go to but I can't remember. It was like, I knew I was going to go to junior high, and it was like we all celebrated. We all ran out.

Yeah, I was ready. I was more than ready. It was what I was what '61 and '47 I'm born in '47, 13 years old, 14, yeah, 14, (laughter) I was old! I graduated from high school I was 19. When I went to college, I was with 17, 18, year olds. I was the old man in the class when I went back to school in 1977, I was what 40? 47 77? "About 33." 33 with 18 year olds and 17 year olds and 20 year olds. I was old. I was, I'm older than average, you know, older than average, I said, that was the myth to the, you know, well, “you're the myth to go to college, right?” Because not everybody goes to college. Well, I was not. I was I was not only the myth, but I was the I used to say “I was the ghost of the myth.” I ain't supposed to be here, but that's always been part of my life. That's always been late. I was, I'm older than than I supposed to be when I'm with you in school.

To try more things. I took German as a foreign language in my freshman year. Seventh grade at UJH I took choir, couldn't sing. I can't sing. I cannot, I don't have a tune. I can't sing. I can't play an instrument, okay, all right. I can't compose anything, but I can dance. That I can do. So when I went to UJH, I wanted, I wanted foreign language, Spanish. “No ya se Espanol. I don’t need that.” But again, have Ms. Weber, not Ms. Weber, Ms. Weber. Does she? None? Thought so. and I lasted seven weeks, eight weeks, nine weeks. Nein. Nine. “You have a Mexican accent. That's not gonna work for German. Out of my class,” she threw me out. So I went and took Spanish with Ms. Newman. But I actually took German. Think about that. Why would I do that? Foreign language. I thought it would be so cool to learn it something totally different from mine. That's part a thing that I learned from Palm, all that learning that took empowerment, being diverse in my own self, and being open to different things that I think that's part of the nurture that I had in Ms Schulte telling me, go ahead, you know, go ahead and experiment that. And I took German as a language. And I can, I know how to count in German, say a few words. I wanted to take French, but they wouldn't let me. This is how you doing Spanish? Because I did terrible. I met a "B", barely a "B," good. I spoke by then. I spoke slang. We put, we put a, we put on the board. I put on the board “te sales” T, E. She says, “What do you mean? Te sale.” And she goes, “who wrote te sale,” because you see it, s, a, l, e, and then Guiterez says “that’s ‘te sales’, you know what that means?” what “that you're out of bounds and you've been-" it was terrible. It was by then, by time I was in junior high, “hey ponte trucha watche la jura.” Know what that means? “Be careful about the cops.” You know, we spoke like that. My Spanish was gone. It's all slang. It was all pachuco. I grew up in the Barrio.

And I remember that he was, we were talking in, I remember one time he was talking in Spanish. And back then I guess my Spanish wasn't that good. And he was trying to [unintelligible] me, I told him "oh my socks," "calcetines," I used to say "sacatines." And he would try to correct me and I could never say "calcetines." I would say "sacatines." I remember that.

And we didn't know him as “Gerardo,” we always knew him as “Jerry.” Everything was “Jerry”, all the paperwork. And then when he grew up, he found out his name was not “Jerry”. His official birth name, “Gerardo”. So he had to go back and redo all kind of paperwork for that. Nobody could say “Gerardo”. They say “Jerardo”. So “Jerry”, there you go.

Well, I think we spoke Spanish, but I don't remember. I remember speaking English all my life. I don't even even in, even after- in high school, we spoke English mostly, I think basically I don't- Marcos, I guess because he went to college, he he was immersed in Spanish. But I and Gerardo were not, were really not immersed in Spanish speaking after I graduated from high school, I don't think I spoke Spanish till I came back. I left in '65 came back in '63, and everything was in English.

So after we moved to Rainey Street, that was junior and high school, and I remember that more than 8th Street or Willow Street. And we lived right there in the corner of Daley- I mean, that's Daley, that's at San Marcos, but corner of Rainey and Holly, one house down from Holly. And we lived there. 66 Rainey and 68 Rainey, and we moved there. The streets were not paved, so there was real when the cars went by, it got dusty, and then when it rained, the streets got real muddy. But I remember a Rainey Street more than, say, the other streets, but it was a real nice neighborhood. We had, as far as I think most people were in my block were Hispanic. There was some, some Anglos for that by Driscoll and Red River. There were a lot of Anglos, but they you didn’t see them, but you knew they lived there, you know.

And then there was a maintenance plant there the City of Austin, with a street maintenance, and they had an alley. Our Alley was paved back then, all the alleys were dirt. But we had the only paved alley in our neighborhood, in that whole area. Because the trucks came in after working, they would come to the in from the alley, and the alley was paved, like really nice. I remember that. That's how we used to get to town. We's go the back alley, hit Driscoll down the first Red River in the first street, and go into town or to school. And on- in that alley, there was also a large vacant lot, and we spent a lot of time there, they had a lot of pecan trees. And it was very it was really nice. And we spent a lot of time there, hiking, playing around, stuff like that. During the fall, we would go pick up pecans and get bags and pecans and go sell them at, I forgot exactly where that place was, Miller something or other, but, but the neighborhood was mostly Hispanic. I remember most of my neighbors.

Okay, I can't- Palm School, it was pretty it was pretty simple, I can't remember that much. But going to junior high, I remember we used to- most of the time we would walk. And University Junior High was, I think, on Red River, 19th and Red River, not too far from Memorial Stadium. I don't know if it's still there or not, but we would, I would walk. We would walk from the house, on on, on Rainey street, cross, uh, 1st Street, Ceasar Chavez, and get on Red River and just walk. 19 blocks. And most we would- it was winter time. I don't think we had bus service back then. It was just a matter of fact, we didn't have school busses. There was the city busses, and they would cost, I think, five cents, four cents, something like that. But there was no busses that I can recall that would go to the University Junior High, so we would walk.