Interview with my Grandmother 4/24/06
Amanda Russell: Hey grandma, how are you?
Josefina Gonzales: I'm good and you sunshine?
AR: I'm good, listen grandma I've got this project in one of my classes. My teacher wants me to interview you about what life was like during the Second World War.
JG: Oh, well let's see, the biggest thing I remember was that there was shortage on tights, because they all came from Europe and Japan, and Mexico didn't produce them yet. So your Tia Nena, as most of the women in Mexico City did, would make us stand up on the kitchen table before we left the house in the morning, and would then draw a line down the back of our legs with eyeliner. Tights still had lines in the back back then; do you know what I'm talking about?
AR: Yeah, I know those tights. Hey gran, how old were you when the war took place?
JG: When the war was beginning I was about 12 or 13 years old.
AR: Where did you live?
JG: At the beginning my family and I lived in San Juan del Rio, which was a smaller version of what Queretaro is today. It was just a small village and I remember that soldiers in uniform used to march the streets with their rifles in their hands.
AR: And weren't you scared?
JG: No, those soldiers didn't do anything, but your aunts and I would often fight about which one was the cutest. Of course, Tia’s Nena’s always won.  But no, I never really was scared I never really though Mexico was in danger, we always felt safe.
AR: Did you know what was going on in Europe?
JG: I knew there was a war going on, and that it was a big one, but my father didn't allow us to listen to the radio, in order to protect us, and we didn't have a television so we would hear about stuff when really big stuff happenend, he basically cut off all forms of communication so that we would still feel safe.
AR: Why didn't your father walk the streets with the rest of the soldiers?
JG: Remember how I was born in Spain?
AR: Yeah.
JG: Well your great-grandfather was an illegal citizen at the time of the war, he didn't have any papers, so they couldn't have recruited him to walk the streets even if they had wanted to.
AR: Did he have anything to say about the war?
JG: He really tried not to say much about it because of me and my sisters, but i remember hesaying how much he hated the President of Spain at the time, I think his name was Franco.
AR: Gran, were you ever lacking food during the war?
JG: Oh no, In 1941 my father moved us to Mexico City, which is later where I met your grandpa, but he moved us there to start a restaurant, and I mean there were some days when we would only have beans and rice, but I can never remember going hungry.
AR: What kind of food did the restaurant serve?
JG: It was a casero restaurant, with all the regular food, some soup, some rice, some meat, dessert, milk, but dessert was simple.
AR: Why?
JG: European foods, we called them illegal foods, such as chocolate and butter were scarce in Mexico so we had to make do with more typical dishes that didn’t need those ingredients as much.
AR: What were your responsibilities in the restaurant?
JG: I served the customers, and helped my mom cook a little bit. I was also the one in charge of going to the market for fresh ingredients every day.
AR: Did you have customers, since it was during the War and all.
JG: We had very decent prices, so we were always overflowing with customers, and sometimes there was even a line outside our restaurant to get in.
AR: Did you make friends with some of the customers?
JG: Oh yes, since my father wouldn't tell me anything that was going on with the War I used to take extra long cleaning up a table that would always speak about what was going on in Europe, but i would only hear bits of pieces of their conversations before my father would yell at me to get to the next table.
AR: What would they say?
JG: Oh a lot of stuff I didn't understand, a battle here, and a plane going down there, listening to them I really came to understand the fact that other people in the world were suffering while I was living a peaceful life in the city.
AR: And you still weren't scared?
JG: No, in the City war wasn't adressed very often, and I didn't hear enough to scare me. You have to remember I was still young, and Europe seemed very far away at the time.
AR: Is that all about the restaurant?
JG: The only other thing I can really remember is during the war, it was my fourteenth birthday and I remember my mother made me this delicous chocolate cake that she had to work very hard to get, and every one in the restaurant sang me Feliz Cumpleanos.
AR: Is there anything else that happened during the war in the City?
JG: Mexico would have apagones and sirenas.
AR: What's that gran?
JG: Big load sirens would go off throughout the city letting people know that power was going to be going off in fifteen minutes, and for sometimes only thirty minutes, and sometimes longer than an hour there would be absolutely no power in the City of Mexico.
AR: I can't even imagine.
JG: It was usually late at night, so it made it easier if you just went to bed.
AR: What if you couldn't sleep?
JG: Your Tia Nena, Tia Carmen and I would stay up and talk, we made a game out of it.
AR: Did you ever feel any feelings of hate toward the German or the Japanese?
JG: Personally no, but people did have feelings of disgust towards them, it wasn't anything too bad though.
AR: What did you feel when you heard about the Holocaust?
JG: It wasn't until years after the war that I heard about the Holocaust, I was older by then, and understood more, but i still didn't grasp how many people were killed.
AR: Gran have you ever heard about Escuadron 201?
JG: I've heard about them now, quite a lot actually, your grandpa’s friend was a crewmen for the squad. During the war I really only heard them mentioned at the table i used to clean up or at the market, my dad cut off all sorts of communcations in order to protect us, people used to complain because the restaurant didn't have a radio.
AR: Do you remember what happened when the war ended?
JG: Yes, we all kind of knew it was coming, or at least were expecting it, but when the news finally came that Japan had surrendered people went screaming and running through the streets, even though we hadn't been that involved in the war it was still a great source of joy that the fighting was over.
AR: Thanks Grandma.
Interview with my Grandfather 4/24/2006
Amanda Russell: Hey Gramps, how are ya?
Alberto Gonzales: I'm good honey, and you?
AR: Good, did Grandma tell you about my project?
AG: No, I just got home, what's going on?
AR: I'm doing a project about what life was like in Mexico during the Second World War, and I already talked to grandma but I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.
AG: Yeah, I don't know how much I have to tell you, Mexico wasn't that involved in the war.
AR: Well, let’s see then.
AG: Okay.
AR: Do you know anything about Mexico in the War to begin with?
AG: Well, do you know about how they sunk the ships in the Gulf of Mexico?
AR: Yeah, but I'd like it if you told me what you knew about it.
AG: Okay well Mexico wasn't involved in the war at all really, but they did have these big boats that were patrolling the Gulf of Mexico, I think they were called the Faja de Oro and something else, I think there were three boats. Well, anyway these three boats got sunk by German U-boats and it was right after that that President Camacho declared war on Germany.
AR: Okay, can you remember that?
AG: Yeah of course, I was still young but I remember the outrage that Germany had sunk these boats. Everyone realized that the war would eventually have to come to Mexico but it was still a shock when the ships were sunk.
AR: What about the declaration of war?
AG: My familiy and I listened to it on the radio, but I never really though it would affect me, so I wasn’t worried. And do you know anything about Escuadron 201?
AR: Yeah, I actually just finished reading some stuff about them.
AG: Well they were just a bunch of volunteer aviators who went over after the sinking of the ships to Japan and they bombed Japan.
AR: Where they well known in Mexico?
AG: Oh yeah, they were a great source of pride to all the Mexicans at home, but that wasn't until towards the end of the war. When they came home there was a lot of fanfare, and a lot of them recieved medals and stuff, a lot of them are still alive today.
AR: Grandma tells me your friend was a part of the Escuadron?
AG: Yeah, he was, his name was Jose Oritz.
AR: Who was he?
AG: One of my older friends from school, he lived down the street and volunteerd for Escuadron 201, we were all really nervous for him, but he was so excited for it.
AR: Did he tell you anything about it?
AG: Yeah, he came back alive, most of them did actually. And he would sit us down and tell us stories about it. He was the center of attention for months after his return home. Jose had a habit of overexaggerating his stories, he worked as a crewmen and I think he painted some of the planes aswell, but the way he told the stories you would think he was shooting down all those planes in the pilot’s seat.
AR: Do you still talk to him?
AG: No, about a year after the war he moved to Colonia Rosa and I never saw him after that.
AR: How old were you during the war Gramps?
AG: I was about seventeen years old towards the end of the war.
AR: Did you know what was going on in Europe at the time?
AG: We didn't have a TV in my house, so i wasn't able to watch anything, but we did have a radio and often my family and I would listen to the battles or the latest news, but my mother could only stay for a little bit before she would get sick of it and get up and clean the house.
AR: Were you scared since you knew what was going on in Europe?
AG: No, I never really thought that the war would come to Mexico.
AR: So you never took any precaution or preparations?
AG: Well even before the war, all boys who were 18 had to go in for military training, so towards the end of the war your Tio Agustin and I had to report to the military base on Sundays for training, and it was a bit more intense since things wre more uncertain, but there was never anything to really be scared of.
AR: What was the training like?
AG: Well we reported every Sunday from about 7am until about 3 in the afternoon, we would take the train and then walk about two miles to get there, and we would have to carry rifles, shoot them, march a lot, and work the machinery. There were other boys though you got chosen to go through serious training and they had to stay there all week and they only got to go home on Sundays when we were there.
AR: Did you father every have to go in for training or anything like that?
AG: No, there was never a need. For example Escuadron 201 was all volunteers, plus my father was too old to fight.
AR: Tell me more about Mexico at the time, was there a shortage of food?
AG: No, I mean we didn't have as much butter or chocolate or wine, because those were all imported from Europe, but everyday local foods there was plenty of. We called all those fancy foods illegal foods.
AR: So Mexico's economy was fine during the war?
AG: Well we had a shortage of tires, and oil wasn't as easy to buy. But really we had it easy because the year before the war in 1938 Mexico had turned all its oil over to the government, so everything there was run by the government.
AR: Did you experience the apagones and sirenas as well?
AG: Oh yeah, did you grandma tell you about those?
AR: Yeah, what do you remember about them?
AG: Well they happened maybe once every fifteen days, and they were simply to prepare us incase there was a bomb raid. I remember the first one was very scary but by the end of the war they became a nuisance.
AR: Did you have any feelings of hate towards the Germans or the Japanese?
AG: Personally, not really, but the government did somewhat.
AR: What do you mean?
AG: Well, in the state of Chipas, there was an excess of Germans and Japanese producing cofee, which isn't very typical in Mexico so the govenrment, as well as many people became very suspicious.
AR: And what did they do?
AG: Well the government took their ranches, and put them under government supervision.
AR: Kind of like an interment camp in the United States.
AG: Yeah, you could compare it to that, but it probably wasn't exactly the same.
AR: Do you remember anything from the end of the war?
AG: Well Mexico never really lived the war, life changed but never drastically, but even though we didn't really live it people were ecstatic when it was over.
AR: What did they do?
AG: There was a lot of parties, celebrations, people brought out their nicest clothes, and drank like crazy.
AR: That's it Gramps.
AG: Did I help?
AR: Yep, you were great, Thank you.

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