Maria Elvia Mares

April 9, 1943 - December 16, 2021

5 Generations: Memoirs of a Mother Born in Mexico. Interviewed by Ramon on 1/2021 Early Life My name is Maria, and this is my story. I was born in April 1943, in the city of Nacozari, Sonora MX. My father was born in Dolores, Chihuahua MX and my mother in Tigre, Sonora MX. My father was from the tribes of Tarahumara in Chihuahua and my mother's family came from Spain. I have nine siblings and I am the third oldest. My earliest memories are from when I was about five years old and lived in Nacozari, I remember that my oldest brother will climb a big fig tree and cut figs for our family to eat. He would climb high in the branches and throw down the figs to me and so we can eat them under the tree, before taking some home. Were we lived was a big lot with two house on it, in the front house lived my grandfather, from my dad's side. My grandfather was a barber and had his business in his house. I remember playing with rocks on the dirt. We did not have toys so we would play with rocks that we collected to play marbles. Since our home only had dirt floors, that is where we would play with the rocks on the living room dirt floor. One found memory was of my grandfather's wake, as they used to have the viewing in the persons house back then and my father and mother were at the viewing in the front house, I was around five years old. I remember that my younger brother Poncho wanted to go with my parents, and as we were playing in our house Poncho walk out of the house with his soggy diaper, and I had to get him and bring back home, he did this a couple of times trying to go to our mother. Since I was the oldest girl, I was left with the responsibility to care for my brothers especially my younger one, Poncho. Right after my Grandfather died, we went to live in Cananea, Sonora, and lived in a rock house with a out house up the hill toward the back of the house. In Cananea I started to go to school, I remember walking to school. Back then we would walk everywhere, and my school was far from my house. I would go pick up a cousin of mine up the hill so we can walk together. My favorite part is that my uncle was always milking a cow when I would go pick up my cousin in the mornings and he would give us a glass of fresh milk that would give us milk mustaches, yummy! Back then there was no fear of being kidnapped or anything so we would walk back and forth to school with no problems every day. I also liked that when we would get to school, we would get more milk and some sweet bread to eat. I lived here for about 4 years until I was nine years old when we moved to Tijuana. The reason we moved again is because my father was an adventures man, and he was always sure of himself that were ever he would go, he would make a living. In Tijuana I continued to go to school until I was 16 years old and we lived in the colony of the river. My dad made a house on pillars and soon after we had to move the whole house up another colony up the hill because they were going to fix the river bottom for drainage. Soon After I met my husband to be. Married Life I met my husband Ramon; he was a friend of my oldest brother and he did not notice me at first until I turned 18 years old. I was married in the Church of the Soledad in Tijuana in 1961 and we made our living there in TJ. I had three beautiful girls one right after the other with the first one in 1962 following with two more in 63, and 64. My husband worked in construction and we were doing good, he bought a small house in La Mesa a community in the west side of TJ that he made into our home. Back then it was easy to cross the border, all you needed was a work letter, or your passport and you can easily cross the border for work every day. But my husband did not like to go to work in the U.S., it was hard to find steady work being undocumented, he preferred to work in TJ instead. Since it was easy to cross the border, I would go to the doctor in Los Angeles with my fourth pregnancy and we had our fourth daughter in East Los Angeles in a small clinic ran by nuns. During this time in the 1960's it was easier to file for immigration to live in America. We received our resident card in February 1972 and soon after in May 1972, I had my last child a baby boy. We lived in East Los Angeles and my husband started to work in construction as hourly wage was much better in U.S. In about 1977 we were able to get the resident cards for our three daughters that were born in Mexico. Back then I did not remember much racism or discrimination and all my children adapted to school easily as they had bilingual classes available for them until they learned English. Life in America We made our living here in Southern California, even though we still had the house in TJ that we would go back almost every weekend to check up on and stay the weekend there. We bought our first house in the U.S. around 1983 in the city of Bell, California and we were making it, "The American Dream" and we were happy. My children grew up and they all married here in America and my first grandson was born in 1980. I now have 16 grandchildren, 19 great grandchildren and 4 great, great grandchildren and I am so happy that all my children are making a good life for themselves and I am still able to enjoy all my grand children still.