Thomas Murillo Oral History Interview Audio

00:00:00:00 - Angela Luckey: The following is an interview with Mr. Thomas Murillo by Angela Luckey. The interview took place in Mr. Mario’s home, seven Willow Wood Avenue, Pocatello, Idaho on May 13th, 1991. This interview is part of the Idaho Hispanic Oral History Project, so we can talk a little bit.

00:00:30:00 - Angela Luckey: Okay. All right. do you know why your family came to this country.

00:00:35:19 - Thomas Murillo: In 1917 or 1918? That I can remember? I should have gotten in touch with my sister, but she. As far as I know, she’s still in California. And,

00:00:50:13 - Thomas Murillo: That’s as close as I can come.

00:00:52:08 - Angela Luckey: And how did they come?

00:00:54:01 - Thomas Murillo: They came by, they started by. A wagon pulled by mules and horses. I don’t know which, open wagon. As I understand it, they went from Manolo to San Francisco. Indian country, and they, took the train there. San Francisco, to, To that Juarez and cross over to El Paso on foot. And, from there they, were loaded on to a train.

00:01:41:26 - Thomas Murillo: that was there. By, Richmond a few times, looking for workers to work in their fields up. And I’d also like, were hired there, loaded on the train. Claimed to. But by train. That’s the of travel to use.

00:02:06:03 - Angela Luckey: Do you know which training it was?

00:02:08:08 - Thomas Murillo: No, I have no idea. I’m sure there was a change of train somewhere. because the rail personnel, I don’t know, it’s, maybe the Santa Fe and the Southern Pacific and they come up into this country. Must have come through, Denver and then, change trains. Come in. Was come here by the Pacific from Denver.

00:02:38:23 - Thomas Murillo: I traveled there myself during the war. That’s the way I remember the trains.

00:02:49:08 - Angela Luckey: Was it difficult for them to immigrate at that time?

00:02:52:06 - Thomas Murillo: No, no. As I understand it, it was. Easy. Because, of the need for, workers in the fields who at that time, you know, actually, in fighting in Europe, World War one and they needed, field workers as well as I’m sure in other, in other fields, they needed workers. And so, As today, it’s, very convenient and cheap source of labor.

00:03:35:15 - Thomas Murillo: People of Mexico City.

00:03:40:01 - Thomas Murillo: So they experienced no difficulty that time. They didn’t even have passports. They had, but they did have some kind of an entry paper that I’ve seen, with the pictures of the family and a stamp on it so that, it was probably pretty simple. By the time. and as I say. The same situation existed very well before World War One, as existed in World War Two.

00:04:15:21 - Thomas Murillo: They needed people, this country. Many people did to, work harvesting crops that put American people’s food on the table. So it was it was convenient. And maybe it was made easier for they didn’t apparently they didn’t have quotas. And.

00:04:38:19 - Angela Luckey: do you remember your grandparents?

00:04:40:14 - Thomas Murillo: No, I never knew them at all. I have pictured my father’s mother, and, that’s. I’ve never seen a picture of my other grandparents. I remember when I remember that my mother’s father. Father died, when I was small, because I remember seeing the letter and notifications bordered in black. I guess that was the custom those days, but other.

00:05:11:27 - Thomas Murillo: But I did not know anything.

00:05:16:11 - Angela Luckey: Did anybody else come with the family when they came?

00:05:18:27 - Thomas Murillo: Yeah, I had an uncle. Joe and, cousin Nicholas. Nick. Do they come here? They came with family. There were young teenage guys at the time, and they’re both dead now. But, those were the two came. That I know of. And I’m sure that’s all the ones. Well, I mean, my sister, sister and two older brothers, of course, who?

00:05:54:26 - Angela Luckey: So your uncle lived with you during those times?

00:05:57:03 - Thomas Murillo: Both. Both my uncle and, my cousin lived with the ladies who lived,

00:06:06:10 - Thomas Murillo: In Mr. Curios household and and, you know, and moved a couple of houses over from, third, Nick was still living with those my uncles, still Great Lakes they lived with until he got married.

00:06:26:17 - Angela Luckey: And and so they all came to Idaho.

00:06:29:15 - Thomas Murillo: At that time? Yeah.

00:06:31:17 - Angela Luckey: first.

00:06:32:12 - Thomas Murillo: I’m, among all of them. Did I know I’m sure a lot of them. But my cousin Nick now, he, he got on in Wyoming sometime, and, lived with the family. And then he quickly joined in. But, yes, they all wound up in the same year. Well, thank you.

00:07:00:05 - Angela Luckey: We’re saying that the very first time we came down Idaho.

00:07:03:16 - Thomas Murillo: To, Blackfoot, they came to Blackfoot, and from Blackfoot, they went to Aberdeen, and I guess from Aberdeen to Salt Lake, because they came here from Salt Lake. And no place around north.

00:07:22:07 - Angela Luckey: And you were born here?

00:07:23:18 - Thomas Murillo: Yeah.

00:07:25:15 - Angela Luckey: You know that after they went, right?

00:07:27:21 - Thomas Murillo: Yeah, yeah. I know they’re born after they came from Salt Lake and Salt.

00:07:43:14 - Angela Luckey: what kind of work did your dad do?

00:07:48:02 - Thomas Murillo: He worked on the railroad. he had made two previous trips with the family still to Mexico. And, I only known him working on the railroad. his first trip took him into the Chicago area, and the second trip took him to the California. So cooking valley? Yeah, he he worked there. Now, he may have worked in the fields there, but, I don’t know.

00:08:22:07 - Thomas Murillo: There’s. Anyway, you go to the two places that he had worked, so, it’s almost certain to be rewarded. Most of the time.

00:08:33:07 - Angela Luckey: You work that have work on the.

00:08:35:08 - Thomas Murillo: He was a laborer, and, he, he spent most of his railroad career here in cook, working for the Union Pacific in the stores department, as a, scraps or in the material yard.

00:08:57:07 - Angela Luckey: that when was that? During World War.

00:08:59:21 - Thomas Murillo: Well, no. No, he started back there. I’m not sure what year he started that, that to guess about the year before I was born. and,

00:09:17:01 - Thomas Murillo: Until he retired in 1964.

00:09:24:29 - Thomas Murillo: So he thinks that, been a part of 40 years doing what I.

00:09:29:16 - Angela Luckey: What is this craft? So you do. What is this? Graduating?

00:09:33:13 - Thomas Murillo: Well, they send in, used material. Well, he worked in a material yard. And among other things, they they stored new materials such as new rails and stuff like that. And also there came their use material, which had to be sorted out as to what was usable and what was scrap. So that was what their, work consisted of.

00:10:04:05 - Angela Luckey: And then your mother, she stayed home.

00:10:06:28 - Thomas Murillo: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, my mother had more than a handful, raising seven kids. And my father. So, you know, I know that’s what it was. Anyway, it’s too much about when why was going on and working and leaving the kids. Well, no, that’s, that was unheard of in those days.

00:10:32:19 - Angela Luckey: Did your sisters go, stay with her? did they do some work or was.

00:10:38:26 - Thomas Murillo: Well, my older sister worked a lot. She, she worked out in a field with us. later on, after she got older, she worked as a maid for some people here in town. And also at, back hotel. So she worked very hard to. But my older sister, she, you know, she worked, when she graduated from high school.

00:11:12:28 - Thomas Murillo: Different places here. I mean, I remember she would be creches, but most of the time she worked at the hospital and later worked for some doctors.

00:11:25:11 - Thomas Murillo: In an office job, sometimes.

00:11:29:11 - Angela Luckey: So your brothers, worked.

00:11:31:17 - Thomas Murillo: Well, they, when all the brothers worked out in the fields and went to school. And later they in 1937, I went to work on the railroad at the freight house. And so they didn’t have to work on the fields anymore. Would they got enough of that when they were younger? And it was very hard. And, eventually my oldest brother, sometime after my mother died, he left the railroad.

00:12:08:13 - Thomas Murillo: He studied mechanics after the war. Then, after I moved, gone to California. Right. He then pulled up states and went to California to work for the right track circulation. But my other older brother stayed here on the railroad. My youngest brother stayed on the railroad. But the in between brother between my youngest and me, the Lewis. He also gone to school, aeronautical school in Oklahoma and became very, a meteorologist here.

00:12:52:03 - Thomas Murillo: And we left to the same day in 1956, he went to North Carolina, and I went to California, and he moved from, North Carolina. Well, he was working here not too far from my mother died, and then he went to North Carolina, and then he went to Arizona. And from Arizona, he went to El Paso.

00:13:23:09 - Angela Luckey: Why did your family come here?

00:13:26:09 - Thomas Murillo: Why did they come in? Well, we could, because my father had, become involved in the, in a matter of, that, the, the owner of the left hand of that town, was built on, had in for my father because my father turned in there, too. Well, he claimed my older sister, he was.

00:13:58:01 - Thomas Murillo: And, he didn’t like to work. and he liked to drink and gamble and, I guess, that it didn’t go to, well with the that, guy that owned the town. And I seen that my name don’t get moved beyond. And, very conveniently when once this is all green Revolution. It was the Bunny Brown Band.

00:14:25:19 - Thomas Murillo: The revolutionary came to the town and raised and raised the hell among the guy who was a friend of my father’s. And somebody saw that guy. And after they left that we it reported on my friends. My father’s friends had been in in that bunch of friends in the town so naturally followed. My father had been in cahoots with them.

00:14:50:24 - Thomas Murillo: So that was all that old guy needed to, have my father arrested, and he was thrown in jail. fortunately, that night before he was to be shot by another revolutionary band. Right. they open the doors in the jail, and my father got out, and he came to the United States, and that’s where he went to the Chicago area.

00:15:22:18 - Thomas Murillo: And, he stayed a period of time. I don’t know what kind of money, but he stayed a period of time. And then he went back to Mexico to see if it was safe to go back. And apparently it was not safe. So he came back to the United States, this time to to California. Then after a period of time, he went back again to see if it was safe for him.

00:15:45:29 - Thomas Murillo: And no, it was not safe for him. So that’s what happened to the family. And it became the United States.

00:15:54:03 - Angela Luckey: At that time. Was was it your sisters then? How many family members came? Just your mom and your dad?

00:16:01:20 - Thomas Murillo: Well, one of the, the three kids, my oldest sister and my two older brothers and my uncle and my mother.

00:16:09:16 - Angela Luckey: But a bunch people.

00:16:13:14 - Thomas Murillo: Yeah, that was seven. Yeah, my brother were small. The one, those three. That was very close. I guess maybe a couple years old, you know, you know, probably, you.

00:16:31:02 - Angela Luckey: Know. So, when you worked out on the field, what did you live in that the farmer provide.

00:16:38:18 - Thomas Murillo: In, in that one year that I remember and I’m not sure what year it was, but in about 1929, we did live out on the farm on, Chubbuck Road.

00:16:55:10 - Thomas Murillo: And I don’t know if it was the same year or the following year. We lived on farm where the Ordnance plant is located now. We lived there, and I, I’m pretty sure that it was two different years, but, I don’t know what year they were, in relation to where the one on the farm moved shack to my house.

00:17:22:28 - Thomas Murillo: 20s to the house. but nowadays it’s unbelievable. Yeah. I went last year with my niece. Sure. What it was. And because her mother, my old sister, was out there with us, and, the house over here, the ordnance plant is not I, I can’t remember. The old house was like. But it was like living in a park because actually part of that farm was rented out as a picnic area.

00:17:57:10 - Thomas Murillo: So it was pretty nice out there. And, with couches, too. It was pretty good. I don’t remember that. We built, That we were living in poverty because, I mean, we were supplied with milk and eggs for the farm and apples and things like that. my father took time off. He was still employed on the railroad.

00:18:25:21 - Thomas Murillo: He was really lucky because when the depression came, he he was laid off for a while, but not very long. And so when he wanted to take us up there, I guess there was a need for extra money. Of course. So he took, time off from around, I don’t remember. They called it, it wasn’t vacation, but, something happened.

00:18:50:09 - Thomas Murillo: They would go ahead and take us out there to work and when and, we came back and contracted job on the railroad. So, I, the conditions that I found in, in California when I went there, ammonia, ammonia field workers was not, nearly as good as the conditions that we were under here. in 1932, 1934, 1936, I worked in great outside of drinks in the fields.

00:19:27:03 - Thomas Murillo: And at that time, those people came from California. This was in the depths of the depression. They came from California to the Idaho to work so that, either there wasn’t too much work at that time in California or the working conditions were better here than it was in that, Harriman versity. Co yeah. Those three years that I spent in good working old people paying, to work, work from, California, there was one Texas family, and, the rest of them were from Colorado.

00:20:08:12 - Thomas Murillo: And Nuka and I.

00:20:11:20 - Angela Luckey: From the braska.

00:20:13:09 - Thomas Murillo: No, I don’t remember if there might have been, but I don’t remember from Nebraska. but those states that I remember, yeah, I was family in Texas. So, people from Colorado with money, they called me from Utah and, and, Idaho and the, you know, the few families from here in Portland in 1932, about half dozen families going from here to there.

00:20:49:07 - Thomas Murillo: There were, several people, several families from the Idaho Falls area that were there, too, at that time, only where they were necessary. But they were 1932. Later on, some came to live here, and I found that they were born outside of Idaho. So it was probably the cause.

00:21:11:00 - Angela Luckey: whether very many Mexicans, Mexicans down here.

00:21:14:20 - Thomas Murillo: Well, I, I think, I think that at that time there were probably as many as there are now, but, I mean, the fact that they were able to organize, a social club, the.

00:21:37:18 - Thomas Murillo: Groups are. And I think it was called. Yeah. And they held, stage, presentations, and, and make dances.

00:21:56:22 - Thomas Murillo: for the six in September and the 5th of May. And people, you know, made speeches and there were musical, presentations. The people that played for the dancers who were all Mexican musicians from Porto. so, I’m, I make judgments. There were quite a few people who to support that kind of activity.

00:22:29:14 - Angela Luckey: that was in the 30 hmhm. That was in the 30s.

00:22:32:16 - Thomas Murillo: Yeah, the late 20s and the 30s. The 30s. It all ended when the depression came and so many were laid off on the road. And that broke it all up. But, in order to sustain that kind of social activity, there has to be, you know, quite a number of people to get a bang. For example, to play for our dances.

00:22:56:04 - Thomas Murillo: And, the speakers were all good speakers, as I can remember. You know, I was small. I was always zeroed in on that kind of stuff. And, yeah, they,

00:23:10:17 - Thomas Murillo: There were there were a considerable considerable number of people from Mexico around here. And they were at that time from southeast Mexico. we even had one year. We even had classes in Spanish. And, I heard in.

00:23:32:28 - Angela Luckey: School.

00:23:33:26 - Thomas Murillo: Well, I’m talking about.

00:23:35:25 - Angela Luckey: With this club.

00:23:37:02 - Thomas Murillo: Here. Yeah. and I went to it, I was the dummy. And I had always been able to spell real well in English. I remember that I had my troubles in, in Spanish, but, you know, I was only maybe 6 or 7 years old. Eight at the most. But, yeah, we had classes in Spanish County.

00:23:57:15 - Angela Luckey: Taught them to,

00:24:00:21 - Thomas Murillo: I don’t know who the man was. I, I kind of think my impression is the guy was just stay here for a. short period of time. I know he wasn’t one of the, permanent residents here.

00:24:26:05 - Thomas Murillo: But. So, again, you know, there there must have been a considerable number of those here to sustain that. Going back to this, you know, this story.

00:24:36:21 - Angela Luckey: Oh, yeah. great. They called me. Yeah.

00:24:40:26 - Thomas Murillo: Well, my father was, some type of, Officer of that club, because when they broke up, we wouldn’t end up with a bunch of, books that were sent by the Mexican government. I still had one of them around the state. Right? I, I came too late to this, idea of saving and having books, having my own library.

00:25:05:06 - Thomas Murillo: So I won’t be able to salvage one, no, two, two and,

00:25:11:13 - Angela Luckey: Kind of books.

00:25:12:14 - Thomas Murillo: Well, one of them is, kind of a primary reader, and the other one is a technical book on shooting, really just. I mean, I made it up, when I went to work on the moment that I’d be employed, one of the things that I, had to learn because nobody else wanted to do it was to mention my work.

00:25:36:25 - Thomas Murillo: And, here I couldn’t, like, managed to keep this book in its own sheet metal sheet metal fabrication in Spanish. But interesting to me that I should have that damn book after my experience. my job. but they were some of the others that I remember, kind of, it’s not fair to call them propaganda from, any government puts out literature telling them the type of improvements and the advancements and things like that.

00:26:12:00 - Thomas Murillo: The one thing that I remember had to do was maybe agriculture or water preservation, something along that line. Those are the ones that I remember, the terror others.

00:26:28:01 - Angela Luckey: Those books that man that taught. Was he the one that brought those?

00:26:32:04 - Thomas Murillo: No, no, they were sent to the to that club. The crews are still on tours and they were blue cross translates as the Blue Cross.

00:26:45:02 - Angela Luckey: And your dad was one of the officers?

00:26:47:15 - Thomas Murillo: Yeah, yeah.

00:26:48:19 - Angela Luckey: Do you remember who was president? And then remember anyone who was present?

00:26:59:05 - Thomas Murillo: no, I don’t, another man, very intelligent man. Management was the unknown. So he was one of the officers who would clone, he’s the only one that I can remember.

00:27:15:29 - Angela Luckey: Well, I Mexicans treated and, you in those days.

00:27:20:06 - Thomas Murillo: Well,

00:27:25:22 - Thomas Murillo: By and large, I think, there was, What, discrimination or prejudice that there was here wasn’t too apparent because, We Mexicans. Socialized among ourselves, as I say, with social club. Like I mentioned, they made dances. And, there were always weddings and baptisms and even the, wakes for the funerals. What? They all were social activities.

00:28:04:08 - Thomas Murillo: And, for example, the dances. What the heck? I’m I’m a lover of music. And certainly we had the music to dance to, which meant that we didn’t have to go, to, try and get into the, the watch, the dances where we were go out. Anyway, we knew that, but it didn’t make any difference because what did we need from them in the way of social activities when we had our own, which were that is nice is there’s, and food was served.

00:28:39:11 - Thomas Murillo: The Mexican food and the music was Mexican women were amazing. So what the hell did we need from them? But certainly the the discrimination prejudice existed in, in housing and jobs. yeah. I myself turned down for two jobs, told very explicitly because I was a Mexican. I couldn’t have those jobs. refused entrance into the YMCA swimming pool, even though my father and all the rest of railroad employees contributed some, like a dollar or $2 a month to to, subsidy of that YMCA.

00:29:29:13 - Thomas Murillo: and, those kind of things. one of the one of the things I’m so funny to is even now, in 1932, when I went to drinks to pick peas, I remember the one one of the Mexicans basically dances on Saturday nights and drinks the Mexicans did. But I remember that the American girls would go to, you know, a little rather more of a community.

00:29:59:10 - Thomas Murillo: The girls would go, but they wouldn’t dance with the Mexican, you see. They would dance with the Filipinos. There were always in those camps. The Filipinos came in California to see, and they always dressed real flashy, you know, and they always had news cars because maybe 4 or 5 guys would chip in by car. You could and they they were always dressed real fine, those guys.

00:30:24:21 - Thomas Murillo: And so the American girls would dance with them, they go in with vixens. And I thought it was funny or, you know, they weren’t until, the latter years that I went to 1936, that they, you know, the, the assimilation began to take place because inevitably, the end of their pieces and why there would be at least one American girls and take off to California, the Mexican.

00:30:55:04 - Thomas Murillo: In 1930. Who’s the movies come out to men and what the hell? Alone. You know, they, Looking back, I thought it was funny.

00:31:09:05 - Angela Luckey: Well, when you when your family was shopping, did. Where did they shop? I mean.

00:31:15:24 - Thomas Murillo: Well, we shot,

00:31:19:29 - Thomas Murillo: But the shopping, I remember, what the hell? J.C. Penney bought it. began here in this very white green room. I can move J.C. Penney from Myer. Is childhood. There was Mr. curious Store somehow or another. He’s Italian. He. He glommed on the knowledge that, these people needed a special type of food.

00:32:02:14 - Thomas Murillo: items.

00:32:04:15 - Angela Luckey: Or imported Mexican.

00:32:05:28 - Thomas Murillo: Food. Yeah, yeah, because the only store in time after him. But he was knowledgeable about it. And, he, he made quite a bit of money from the white foods. I remember him delivering groceries from the dark place I’d been playing inside, searching for us. Conversation between the railroad and wooden fence all the way through. oh.

00:32:33:00 - Thomas Murillo: What? first street and, Clark began, then came all the way down here to, I was taught street, along the railroad yards and inside the fence. The Mexicans lived on those houses, from, wires to, land inside the real property. And, there was a row of houses, a row of apartments, I should say.

00:33:12:18 - Thomas Murillo: And, I think for families that was there. And at each end, there was on the south end, there was a big house and a couple of families, and then north and Black Road Farms that, a family lived there, and then a Greek guide. And then there was another small house north of that. Right. Close environment. So in there I was not sure when they are shopping at Mr. Shoe Store.

00:33:43:02 - Thomas Murillo: And so he had regular deliveries there. And I remember you had the first pick up truck that I can remember. All metal is one of the sons and helping to lady and the rest of them like the Eastland store and block store were very the only ones I remember that, I’m sure at least one story, how long this country was there on the east side, between first and second on Center Street.

00:34:14:21 - Thomas Murillo: So, they were going there and that was going back that far. And then during the my high school years, blocks where I had families to trade here. And Joey thing where one question time to go rest and retreat to. And then it was it happens you know, talking about the Mexican people here back in the 20s, for example, there was a.

00:34:50:14 - Thomas Murillo: There was a Juarez pool hall that was located on First and Lewis, across from the freight house. And there was, right across the street across Lewis. From the south side of Lewis was that row of that complex of wooden, rooms that was, the red light area and that was on the little side. And then on the Bonneville side of that block was this row of apartments.

00:35:27:02 - Thomas Murillo: That was all, was surrounded by battling Mexican guys. The city. And, what I started to see right there, on the corner of the Juarez pool and going from that’s the south and 100 block of South first, going back to Center Street, the men across and the street going north on the first, or there was a barbershop, which was next Mexican.

00:36:07:06 - Thomas Murillo: And,

00:36:12:15 - Thomas Murillo: I think. I’m not sure, but there might be a little Mexican restaurant. The bar is full of that restaurant. It was a pool hall restaurant to, since I was drinking prohibition, kosher music came. But,

00:36:35:16 - Thomas Murillo: There was no. Not Mexicans in this town. At least sustain those two businesses.

00:36:45:22 - Angela Luckey: So most of the people traded for the other Mexicans. Traded in them?

00:36:49:21 - Thomas Murillo: Oh, yeah. Sure. So. Well, today, of course, that’s that’s not true in those days. Why? it was a sense of they traded water, they were treated based and where they had where the stock, where the merchandise. It was slows maybe in their price range and, styles that they liked in particular.

00:37:23:10 - Thomas Murillo: But yes, I remember that Eastland store, it was clothing stores going there. Quite few.

00:37:33:15 - Angela Luckey: Somebody told me that. Yeah. You knew, or the Chinese on the ground here. And, the Chinese that somebody seems to me somebody told me that you knew about the Chinese and.

00:37:47:22 - Thomas Murillo: Well, I know I know something about the Chinese and the Japanese. I was close to the to the Japanese, but. Yes, right there in that area, North first, where the fire company is now North first. And around the corner on center, there were several Chinese restaurants. and when I say seven, there might have been three.

00:38:15:15 - Thomas Murillo: But then farther across the alley on the center, going east on center, there was the Keystone Cafe, which was Chinese. And of course, showing you how to cook is still there. That’s Chinese. And, I think there was one on South First. Chinese, probably between Phenix and Juarez, but then on second, North second, there were Chinese.

00:38:42:24 - Thomas Murillo: In fact, there was there were quite a few Chinese moving. I remember them very well, quite a few Chinese. And then,

00:39:00:14 - Thomas Murillo: kitty corner from where all those guys were, was another bunch of Chinese. And in fact, when they tore down the because I think it called Flatiron Building, something like that, that Rosa’s used to run along, Hotel Avenue, the 600 block, going north.

00:39:26:03 - Thomas Murillo: While the Chinese lived there, you know, brick building only they were torn down there. Used to get a big charge on looking, you know, other than that, tunnels that were in under those brick buildings. And of course, we were, from the spelling Fu Manchu time we could, you know, we could imagine all kinds of things going on.

00:39:49:12 - Thomas Murillo: Certain buildings, they, they stayed on into, right up to the world, up to World War two because they were running the lotteries, right there in that one building that was on call. Clark. And the second was to park in the second. So right up until, beginning of World War two, those guys were still in business there, and I had, I know I had one friend that worked, I think Keystone, Petco.

00:40:22:22 - Thomas Murillo: When he came, he came to tell you he had to go to school, go to school to buy a little school. And, I mean, he was a big us, but he didn’t know how to learn how to speak, English. So, you know, he had started in first grade there. It was tiring for me and my my big mouth.

00:40:42:14 - Thomas Murillo: I used to think the black kids calling people, those guys chinks and ching ching chong or something like that. And I remember I opened my big mouth once and knew him, hit me up and nothing happened. But after that I learned several of the things that you didn’t see, the like with the blacks too, you know, you learned very, very early that, you know, see certain things even if you are stupid and, yeah, leave it at.

00:41:18:00 - Thomas Murillo: Lee and I became good friends with guys. yeah. And I guess because of the Keystone and the Shanghai’s into the Chinese. guys, there in that area on the east side, I know my brother had a Chinese friend to, but, they, they were mostly here because of those restaurants, and there were no women. You know, that Exclusion act left them out.

00:41:55:13 - Thomas Murillo: And, although the Japanese, you know, they’re Japanese girls and went to the Bombay school with us. I don’t know how that came about, because the Exclusion Act was aimed at them, too. But, yeah, I had a lot of Japanese friends who.

00:42:15:01 - Angela Luckey: You say you were talking about. You went to bar, was cooking. Tell me about your school life and speak English when you went to school?

00:42:26:17 - Thomas Murillo: no, I doubt it, because, I guess I had to learn there, you know, I can’t remember that far back, but I know what the heck. At home, we spoke Spanish much, my father. You see him saying that? No, no, you don’t speak English in this house. You. You know, well, spoken like not in the house.

00:42:49:00 - Thomas Murillo: But when I went in my first grade, I had no idea how much. I couldn’t know very much English if I had, you know, I was explosive because there are black kids around us and the Greeks and Italians. And so, in the Indian. So the French, so the so English was spoken in the neighborhood, but not not before I got into the Bible school.

00:43:20:17 - Thomas Murillo: it was more chances.

00:43:22:03 - Angela Luckey: Is that when you go to elementary school is.

00:43:25:01 - Thomas Murillo: Well, and, you know, the last year, which would have been, I think the fourth or fifth grade, we were, we were bussed. We were sent to Washington School because apparently the one school was filled. And so there we go. Bunch of Mexican kids and black kids and Chinese and Greek kids and the talented, oh, this great mix that have at the bottom.

00:43:57:07 - Thomas Murillo: You know, we had to go to Washington, Washington Lord and the lawyers and the college professors, doctors, kids went to school, I guess, were forced upon that school. And I remember Mrs. Cross called from the first saying she didn’t was the first, and we were not welcome. And, it was talk about culture shock and, it was,

00:44:30:23 - Thomas Murillo: It was pretty rough first, but, I love that. And I cannot be get pretty good grades in the Kaiser Chiefs, talk. And so she, I think she would lose favor on me. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t, as hostile to me as she was the rest of guys, I, you know, I found out that, you know, that one of the schools, really, these are the mixture, nationalities and and, you Asian colors and all that stuff.

00:45:14:26 - Thomas Murillo: I know this is unusual for this country, after all. This is more of a country. And at that time, more we were all white. And, here we were that that school over there was just about anything was being, and, it was so unusual when Mr. Spring’s principal put together a radio program. Musical. Everybody, everybody that this the same song in your country that they or their parents couldn’t afford the key.

00:45:50:09 - Thomas Murillo: Not quite popular. You go around from. Civic clubs to churches putting on that program. So it was highly unusual.

00:46:01:18 - Angela Luckey: Did you sing a song?

00:46:03:02 - Thomas Murillo: Yeah. from my mama. Mama and I. It is dead now, we say. Right, the song. I don’t remember what it was. And, Socorro. Ernestine. Mildred, Socorro was, more yellow here. and they sang this song. No, she just sang a song by herself. So, I don’t I don’t it was supposed to represent Spanish.

00:46:32:20 - Angela Luckey: Was called the by, not.

00:46:36:25 - Thomas Murillo: and, you know, kids sang in Japanese and Chinese and German. And also going with, but that was, that was indicative of what an unusual school at that part. There were, I don’t remember any incidents of, racial problems, with the exception of one time guy told me that I couldn’t drink out of the farm water, and the other kids were drinking because I’m Mexican, but, I, I to remember he was an older guy.

00:47:15:28 - Thomas Murillo: What he was doing on the school grounds would be on me, and I think he was trying to be smarter about that. But certainly in that school, you know, I saw no distinction at all made by the teachers. I think there was quite unusual also that those teachers should be so, very minor, I doubt. After all, it was not common to have that many, different types.

00:47:45:06 - Thomas Murillo: Of people of any kind in one school in this area here. Because and, yeah, I, I certainly remember that, the Mrs. Woods. Mrs.. Puts out a great big gold wedding band, and boy, we used to don’t like to class. She’d come down and she would, monkey on the head with that thing. I used to a few ways.

00:48:15:22 - Thomas Murillo: A very going through my head. But you. I mean, there was no, there was no favoritism in a group class if you misbehaved, didn’t matter. What the hell you were. As far as the skin when she laid that attitude and she taught this, I think she taught everybody in my in my family, including, you know, the sister, because she was very close to very well-liked lady.

00:48:42:16 - Angela Luckey: She knew. Where did you go in the high school.

00:48:45:24 - Thomas Murillo: Hotel? High school. That’s the other way to do that. that was quite community experience, I think. I suppose everybody but, there were only two, two of these Mexicans in that class that I was interested in a steamer in. I graduated same class. again, there was, Well, I’d seen her in the seniors pictures in my yearbook of her being a member of a couple of, organizations.

00:49:18:27 - Thomas Murillo: I belonged to them that way to the state. and, so I, a few as, as I had, take part in the social, in many social activities, and I, tried, football, but I was too small. I get the hell out of me, or I don’t feel I still have that because I’m Marshall Bogan hiding from the group, and I’m sure he spent a whole year playing because of it.

00:49:52:00 - Thomas Murillo: And now, in 1981, it finally flared up on you and covered in a lot of pain. But, I, and as I said, I weighed 127,000 times in my senior year, and I, I couldn’t do, I couldn’t do as well as I would like to in, football anyway. But I took part in criminal sports. They had the social activities, of course.

00:50:23:03 - Thomas Murillo: Like, almost. I was a part of, I was, I suppose I was living a dual life then, just like I did later, and I did with it. Heck, you know, during the day, I was a student with all the virtues. And after school. All right, became. Excuse me. That’s what it was. because through my, high school, I didn’t, I didn’t cross the street.

00:50:54:19 - Thomas Murillo: I didn’t automatically draw a line. You know, the Mexicans.

00:50:58:09 - Angela Luckey: You.

00:50:58:26 - Thomas Murillo: Whites. I had quite a few white friends. only one of them was social. I was still in school House, but the rest of them, I didn’t know, and then I. I was not an outcast. So I had a lot of friends with the most guys. This guy. Hello, Steve Bachelor who who is a justice Supreme Court good friend.

00:51:25:29 - Thomas Murillo: You know, even after, after.

00:51:32:04 - Thomas Murillo: That he was always very friendly. well, he had reason to, like, saved you from getting his blood, but, like a guy who’s going slugging had to come by. And I was a friend of the guy that was going to slowly. He’s a big guy. And one of those rough roughnecks. You know, Steve was about to be a, fighter.

00:52:02:11 - Thomas Murillo: Anyway, I to talk the guy out of. Fighting with Steve. And so after that, you know Steve, of many people who were good friends over the last 40, but, the. No, I was not a part of the social activities of who did I speak at all? Because, you know.

00:52:25:24 - Angela Luckey: I go to a number with this. Mexican kids had opportunities to hold officers and I cheerleaders.

00:52:33:14 - Thomas Murillo: And it’s, at that time, I can’t.

00:52:39:01 - Thomas Murillo: I can’t say that because I’m problem. There’s only two of us there now. I think that, let’s see. Junior third. I was a freshman. I, they were all sophomores. I don’t remember any, I don’t remember any in the junior class. So there were so few of us that, it, it, I, I, I don’t.

00:53:10:21 - Thomas Murillo: We would have had have been outstanding, too. Well, can’t have been, thank you very much. I think there was no real barrier to to becoming, you know, sort of, a school. Class officer. But, as I say, I don’t think there’s any barrier insofar as you can distinguish in process. I don’t think it was there.

00:53:47:02 - Thomas Murillo: there were Japanese were certainly very highly I mean, very intelligent kids. And I went to school with the Japanese and I think only later were they.

00:54:02:15 - Thomas Murillo: The girls were very shy Japanese, grew shy. So I can remember that. Anyway, those guys held any office in high school.

00:54:19:24 - Angela Luckey: And did you go to college?

00:54:22:15 - Thomas Murillo: I went to college after the war. After I finished my apprenticeship, when I decided to try for a, engineering degree and, I did it by, going to, By working at night before to 12 shift and going to school in the day. And, I was only ten for two semesters, and the, not, not sure.

00:54:55:24 - Thomas Murillo: at the time of working in that year, I had to go back to work in days. And so I, had to drop out and it was two semesters.

00:55:11:28 - Thomas Murillo: And after that, I’m just going. I find it a job someplace where I could continue my education. And, I, Announced plans going closed, so I knew I had to leave town or do it. And, I came up with the idea of going to work for the government. I was already working for the government in Spain, for the Air force, and and they were building bases and,

00:55:45:15 - Thomas Murillo: I also trained to get a job because, and, the fourth choice I had was to go to California. Well, Los Alamos, they kept putting me off and put me off, and they said they would try and get me a job.

00:56:02:23 - Angela Luckey: And you care for cook? Cook? Yeah, I got a point. I considered counsel. I’m going to go get this, because that way, you know, these kids go in those trucks going boom, boom. Well, look at you, Miss Smarty. Did she say you get scared by her?

00:56:20:21 - Thomas Murillo: You know her. She doesn’t.

00:56:23:07 - Angela Luckey: She think everybody loves her.

00:56:26:03 - Thomas Murillo: So I, I tried trying to get on with the Air Force on the hill field. You know, I didn’t. And I said, no, everybody wants to go to Spain to work for them. And, besides that, they needed political connections. I hadn’t the Navy. So if you got to know somebody, you go a politician. Well, door shake and another guy, they were.

00:57:01:22 - Thomas Murillo: I mean, I wasn’t political enough time for them to loan me. And, I was a Democrat anyway, they were Republican. So anyway, I did get to go to Spain. 40 of the one of them was almost never did at Columbia. So I went California because once the Los Angeles area first. Yeah. And the place that I put was just after the war as a machinist.

00:57:27:15 - Thomas Murillo: I’d already graduated from the French school here, but, I’d already contacted it. I’d be in, recruiter by phone. He wasn’t going to. He was in Salt Lake at the time. And, so he sent me a application, and I told him to look out for you. So, you know, if you could send where you stop and talk to me.

00:57:58:14 - Thomas Murillo: So. I did, after I left Los Angeles. San Jose. And by luck, I, we checked in the hotel. It was just a block from IBM.

00:58:17:15 - Thomas Murillo: Development, branch of IBM. And, we’ve been up all night. I decided not to go to bed and go ahead and with the first thing. So they opened up the meeting, but it was over seven. So I went over there and, yeah, they were already opened it. They sent me the personnel that time, IBM scattered all over, so they sent me on personnel or by we’re lucky that their personal life would be nice.

00:58:48:13 - Thomas Murillo: And they were hiring machines and they said no. So I started to walk out of there and a lady called me back and asked me if I worked on machines like blades and Miller machines. I told her, yeah, said, would you like to try for a model maker? And I said, well, I’m not sure I know what model makers do, but they worked on that.

00:59:08:29 - Thomas Murillo: Yeah. What do you think? She raises an interview with me with a guy there in personnel, and they arranged for three other interviews in different parts of town. Then they told me they were getting in touch with me, but I had a peek at one of the papers, one of the guys inside saying that they recommended that I’d be hired.

00:59:34:11 - Thomas Murillo: So yeah, I came back in, but, we’ve got a letter from me telling me that.

00:59:42:07 - Unknown: They want me to go to work with.

00:59:44:26 - Thomas Murillo: So that’s why I haven’t been to, Go to work with IBM. And actually, it was, she’s the one that, maybe soon because I want to work in OAC. I’ve been in Italy during the these, I thought I was on the heavy up there. I just liked it. It was different than it is now.

01:00:08:09 - Thomas Murillo: Oh, my God. Restaurants. Oh. Kind of Mexican restaurants on the East Side with all that great food. Oh, and music and dances and the beautiful girls. I don’t know the place, but when it came time, I. She didn’t like it, so she she made a decision that we should go to San Jose. So that’s how we wound up.

01:00:34:11 - Thomas Murillo: Is it was a great decision. We made it through a big difference in my life.

01:00:40:21 - Angela Luckey: What does the model making.

01:00:42:26 - Thomas Murillo: A money maker is just a, a machinist who, who differs only in that he has to be able to make parts with, a form, a blueprint for drawing. a, he has a moment for us to be able to make parts just by oral instructions or just with a sketch. And, there’s a reason for that.

01:01:10:01 - Thomas Murillo: Don’t. Because, they only have them and, research and development, they don’t have to be manufactured in manufacturing and come to makers of machines. You see. but in the model show, there the word model in that case means that you’re making the first part. The model part. They don’t know if it’s going to work or not.

01:01:37:13 - Thomas Murillo: whatever mechanism it’s going to be used in. So that’s why they use the word model. And now other than that, the same machines, everything is the same. The. But, as you go along, you soon learn that the other difference is, the existing, that you have to be able to respond, real fast to, the engineers needs you.

01:02:09:02 - Thomas Murillo: as a moment. You you work on a team of teams composed of, a couple of engineers and an electronics technician and the, design at that point. And, whatever they decide that they need to meet, they need to be made. that’s what you therefore go through, select the material, but then you, make it so that so it, it requires, accuracy, beyond which I was used to working, over here and, didn’t have the blueprint to study to see how you make it.

01:02:57:08 - Thomas Murillo: So it, and I had the least amount of, that was experienced when I went. And so it was, it was really tough on me. I never had an opportunity for machining, but even here, as an apprentice, I, apprentice machinist, it was only another guy, and I didn’t really know what we’re doing the day we walked in there.

01:03:21:09 - Thomas Murillo: I know the first day I was going to report for work as an apprentice. My father asked me what I was going to do, and I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t know when. This idea, on the other hand, the other 58 guys, they all had done some kind of machine, whether in services or on the railroads here. You see, they might have been machinists helpers.

01:03:43:18 - Thomas Murillo: this doesn’t mention Guy. Well, he had,

01:03:55:26 - Thomas Murillo: but, he noticed that he wasn’t really one. So he, he walked back to the beginning as an apprentice. And, I, I struggled all through the friendship, just because I just didn’t have a knack for it. But the thing that came through it was a real good apprenticeship. We were three weeks of every month in the shop, and one week of the month we spent in the classroom or upstairs and in the classroom.

01:04:24:28 - Thomas Murillo: We studied drafting, shop man.

01:04:35:15 - Thomas Murillo: history, English. Because I forget the other. So anyway, I did very well in the first room, so, I, I made it through because of that. We’ll see. But otherwise, I like we having real problems compared to those other guys who, you know, are working against guys that already before the war had worked, you know, so I just picked it up, in the Army of the Navy, most of our, Muslim Navy, the Air Force, because they were so technically oriented.

01:05:20:07 - Thomas Murillo: So I had I had a tough time there. And then I go to work like the Army, that most often they’re all hotshots. They’re. So I was up against the beginning of you on again. you know, they they seemed to. Okay, well, when the guys with my management group told me once that they feel better when I went through, we were.

01:05:48:06 - Thomas Murillo: You never hired me later on until I, he told me once that I was never going to be the best model. And he said, you know, then that they got my book. Great. Hell yeah. And they did. Yeah. You know, you are very impressed by the fact that I was very calculation. None of the risk, high reward.

01:06:11:16 - Thomas Murillo: So that that’s the worst way.

01:06:16:12 - Angela Luckey: How do you feel about education?

01:06:20:10 - Thomas Murillo: Well, I would feel very strongly about education. I, I mean, it’s, I think it’s, to me, it’s, real ideal to me, kids. But when I say educated, I don’t mean if you just get a degree from the university like that doesn’t mean you have to go, I mean, I like, I like, liberal arts education, very technical typesetting.

01:06:58:27 - Thomas Murillo: Thank you very much. Because, after spending, you know, 21 years in engineering, I’m not, 20 years in engineering. I know how badly those guys need to get in touch with people. And and, I mean, when you when you consider that they don’t have to even have a good knowledge, working knowledge, you things, language, you know, to be useful, to be able to write it on a line, let alone a paragraph that knows what to do in there.

01:07:35:02 - Thomas Murillo: I have to write a paper. Well, I know what they do. That one guy, I wrote his paper for 100 a month on thing, and here he was a senior, in, San Jose State going through degree in electrical engineering later on. I mean, I did a lot of technical writing for them. It was too hard to try and work from your from,

01:08:06:19 - Thomas Murillo: Stuff that those other engineers had written. They just, you know, I mean, I know from my experience here, I, I for, I know how, how hard it is for people, for a guy that’s been high school 13 years. And to get the second highest grade on the entrance examination over here. But, you know, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of guys with lower grades than you.

01:08:36:23 - Thomas Murillo: That shouldn’t be that way. And. Yeah, when you. We took the entrance examination, English entrance examination over here in our apprenticeship program that we trained. At what level? When we took English, I got the highest grade, the two classes. Very. And so, you see, it’s there was a lot of people with a lot of training with the agreement with, are not, to my mind, they’re not really educated, I think.

01:09:13:01 - Thomas Murillo: Well, they’re, they’re going to be engineers and that’s all just they’re going to make money. They’re going to be wheels. And, I don’t I don’t think too much. Right. I think engineers, if they’re that smart, should be, should know something about the outside world.

01:09:33:04 - Thomas Murillo: Rather than just bringing home a big paycheck. And that’s the vegetation. Yeah. But I also feel training for those who don’t, who are not really, attuned to to the college, like, it has to be more put on that because you don’t have to be a college graduate to make good money. for in order to, to live in this country, they pick, I mean, after all these entitlement programs came to pass because of the civil rights movement.

01:10:14:24 - Thomas Murillo: And I know a lot of the brothers there. And so they’re running around with three pieces with a degree in their hand, and they make payments as far as, wages. But they, you know, looks good. I mean, we could be walking down First Street and so they with the three piece suit in the middle of the day and, everybody knows you, you have an office job, but, is the pay money isn’t everything either, but that we have to earn our 13.

01:10:47:21 - Thomas Murillo: And the reason, I don’t you think I did okay, but not getting a degree. They, you know, I didn’t get a degree and better, I, I think that, well, I grew up, I did as well as a lot of the guys with degrees there. I could I could have done, I don’t say better because that’s what the, what I’m talking about in most places, becoming managers supposed to be, you know, that’s,

01:11:21:15 - Thomas Murillo: And I didn’t care for that. I absolutely didn’t, after I learned what what they had to go through, you know. No, I was. I was only you. I always a lot of people knew that. A lot of people thought I was stupid quick. A lot of people knew what I had done myself for, you know, proven favor by staying out of.

01:11:48:19 - Thomas Murillo: I was off the job. It wasn’t. It wasn’t for me. I wouldn’t have lasted 24 hours. Manager, if I didn’t have the I didn’t have the skill to work for it. You know, you’re happy. You’re still come over. I didn’t stay right.

01:12:12:14 - Angela Luckey: Back to your family. I just want to know a little bit about the relationship of the family. Was, who was the boss and who did the discipline.

01:12:25:08 - Thomas Murillo: Oh, my mother, my mother. She knew about us, and she sure discipline me. And so I had to go. I don’t know about her disciplining her. My older brother and, certainly me and, I’m sure my younger brothers, although I’ve never been married, being disciplined and I’m sure they were, I knew that I wanted my baby.

01:12:52:29 - Thomas Murillo: I mean, I recognized that the reason I was because of probably you pretty, you know, there’s no question that I was an angel. I wasn’t, I mean, I wouldn’t, a thief or I was a drunkard or, God forbid, a little part of the community. People just didn’t do that for me. But it was good that there wasn’t that kind of stuff or.

01:13:23:05 - Thomas Murillo: I remember in high school, guy used to go to school with. He’d come by, we go to school, got it. And we thought we had a place. We were the Chinese got it lived and we smoke a cigaret. You. When I was, we were running for position through the sale because of that, so, but, no, my, my mother and father were, I suppose, moderately strict.

01:13:55:12 - Thomas Murillo: And so, there were certain things that I was not allowed to religious. They after 10:00 and, I always let them know where I would be going. And when I didn’t do that, then I knew I was in for.

01:14:13:07 - Angela Luckey: The, the different, curfews for the girls.

01:14:18:12 - Thomas Murillo: Well, my, I don’t remember that. See, my older sister was up. I mean, she’s quite a bit older. She was born in about 19. 70. And that would be about 15 years for me. See, so I didn’t know about that, and I wasn’t around on my own. Sister was in here to school out and in the Army.

01:14:45:13 - Thomas Murillo: I don’t remember that kind of stuff, but, things were a whole lot different than that. suited or faced with those. Other things that, you know, women are faced with the. When we talk about drugs, abortion, like I said, that that kind of stuff was going on there.

01:15:14:23 - Angela Luckey: So your mom, did you go with your, you know, if she went with your sisters on their dates or whatever?

01:15:20:20 - Thomas Murillo: Oh, no. oh, no. I mean, dating with another matter, too, you know? And then you didn’t, I mean, all the cases that I can remember, I remember one guy left some flowers at our doorstep. Front doorstep. I don’t know who he was. I usually like my little sister, but, You know, so many cases, there were girls in order to get married and had to elope with the guys.

01:15:53:23 - Thomas Murillo: You know? Sure. Okay. and, that’s true, sir, that they did a couple of on studies girls did. It was just that way.

01:16:07:19 - Angela Luckey: They didn’t come and ask for their history. Anything.

01:16:10:14 - Thomas Murillo: No, because the father was so interested in, you know, really like his own studies, girls that my, my grandfather lives in, You know, they, you know, he had a local school like this, but he told me once one time they were I think there were three of them, and they were crazy. Back in the ward in front of the girls, I was home.

01:16:33:19 - Thomas Murillo: They would, you know, make sure they’re on character, real someone else. And, this night, you know, we sent them through the dark, emerged first room service with a gun. Ask them what their business. The business they had to, get lost or you. You know, that kind of boom was.

01:16:58:11 - Angela Luckey: Is Henry Gonzalez. Is there.

01:17:00:25 - Thomas Murillo: Anything. So this is grandfather, you know, quite. Yeah.

01:17:07:24 - Angela Luckey: It’s emotional. I love them.

01:17:10:10 - Thomas Murillo: Yeah. Hell, yeah. Most of them. Okay. Go ahead. Yes. Okay. Oh, I remember when my older sister told my mother she was going to get married. Oh, my God, my. Oh, And I remember when my uncle and I are going to go those. Girl. Oh, my God, my mother just threw up with. That’s the way it was in those days, you understand?

01:17:40:08 - Angela Luckey: Why did she do. Why did she get so upset?

01:17:43:25 - Thomas Murillo: She like the family he was marrying through, And, I have no idea why Mister said it. convicted to, Okay. rest or getting married? I don’t, you know, you don’t know about those things. It’s, it’s with my, I know with my uncle that, my mother didn’t like the the his family because they they’ve always been these people that traffic you.

01:18:16:13 - Thomas Murillo: Now. We do area story order. I’m kind of stuck pins those records, but, my mother just didn’t go for that. her brain was going to marry with them, Yeah, but you said it could have been I. I have no idea where the certain subject to my, godfather marry Esther. But the fact remains, that’s where he was.

01:18:50:23 - Thomas Murillo: And so they had to elope. Andrew Hurley, I think, you know, I understand why they wanted to marry so. So, felt he was wanting to. And he was one of the, Well, just say good time, boys. Yeah. Yeah, he like it the good times. But, you know that that’s the way people were at that time.

01:19:20:03 - Thomas Murillo: They brought her up in Mexico with the help of different New Mexico. or it wouldn’t be in that way here.

01:19:28:22 - Angela Luckey: So at what age did you leave your home?

01:19:32:04 - Thomas Murillo: Well.

01:19:32:21 - Angela Luckey: And what did you leave home?

01:19:34:18 - Thomas Murillo: Oh 31.

01:19:36:23 - Angela Luckey: And why did you leave?

01:19:38:02 - Thomas Murillo: Because I was going to get married. Because I got married.

01:19:46:20 - Thomas Murillo: Oh, my mother was, I don’t I don’t consider that you to me, but she didn’t want to leave home, and that’s all there was to.

01:19:55:08 - Angela Luckey: You know, so you could leave home until you were getting married. Boys or girls?

01:20:01:07 - Thomas Murillo: Yeah, well, it was done in those days. who and the hell I ever heard of a guy? We could. We graduated from high school going off to little guy. And so I don’t remember that happening. It was always when we got married in that home.

01:20:19:19 - Angela Luckey: Did your family bring any traditions, any Mexican traditions when they came? Were there any traditions that you kept? well, some turkey.

01:20:29:02 - Thomas Murillo: I’m talking about some of them right now. They know the the way you conducted yourself. Yeah, towards your parents and what they expected of you and what you did as per their, requirements.

01:20:52:05 - Thomas Murillo: Well, for example, my, my father was helping them education. And just even though, you know, my older brother spent most of a lot of him when they should have been in school. So spending or not working in the wheat fields and potato fields and one so Carver saw over in the school, they went to see and I think that that was handed down to him because it’s like he was a bookworm and I became a bookworm.

01:21:25:17 - Thomas Murillo: My daughter and, the three others of my brothers that are bookworms. Now, I don’t say that’s the condition, but it’s something that. Sure. Yeah. Heck, what’s it done? I mean, they’re one heck of a lot of people in this town. One in Lexington. I don’t read a book. I’ve never read.

01:21:50:03 - Angela Luckey: Where there any kind of special celebrations and things that they that your family do.

01:21:56:17 - Thomas Murillo: No, no, no, I, I think,

01:22:04:24 - Thomas Murillo: I think this idea was not, didn’t become, popular until maybe the Texans came here. Those ideas came into our near us, and God knows what else they they celebrated and, oh. Personally, it was my own idea, in case you ever heard us. we’re not right. Sure, because I don’t like people. All these people that were here before the Texans, they all came from my school.

01:22:38:14 - Thomas Murillo: I never heard of thing where I first heard some of them about the Texans. And so those kind of traditions are, They should have come with our parents. We may we should.

01:22:54:16 - Angela Luckey: Do it on. oh.

01:22:56:12 - Thomas Murillo: It should have showed up long before the Texans got here. Would never, never show here. So those kind of things, have, let’s say, been acquired by the Mexican people here since these other people came up. And, when you read this, well, what the heck? baptism in the Catholic Church.

01:23:24:18 - Angela Luckey: and that.

01:23:26:15 - Thomas Murillo: Yeah. Oh, I would say so. And, first communion parties for that and, and confirmation work wonderfully. so they are willing.

01:23:41:17 - Angela Luckey: To work.

01:23:42:28 - Thomas Murillo: In our church. I don’t know why those kind, it is like the Quaresma, the, We call.

01:23:54:28 - Angela Luckey: That.

01:23:55:21 - Thomas Murillo: Land. Yes. That was very much a part of.

01:24:00:22 - Angela Luckey: Did your mother did your mother cook special foods around labor?

01:24:04:10 - Thomas Murillo: Believe you? Oh, yes. my mother was just a great cook. her my mother.

01:24:14:24 - Angela Luckey: Left us.

01:24:16:06 - Thomas Murillo: This bakery. Mexican bread. Yeah. I never knew nobody in California. Did I ever find my bread like you? And there are people here that still remember my father. when he owned bakery? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And and, of course, because of that, on the way back to the university, he would, wait, he would be hired to.

01:24:45:27 - Angela Luckey: Cherry.

01:24:46:29 - Thomas Murillo: Make the, breadfruit.

01:24:52:01 - Angela Luckey: What kind of foods that your mother looked like during that.

01:24:56:25 - Thomas Murillo: we were in Texas. I remember shrimp.

01:25:00:22 - Angela Luckey: One of that. That in Puerto.

01:25:05:23 - Thomas Murillo: You know, where we would. It might have been, you know. Yeah, I know fruit, because I remember to do taste good. but. That’s what it might have been feasible. Yeah, but the only thing I remember, my dad was like, you know that shrimp?

01:25:30:11 - Angela Luckey: How about the copy that that.

01:25:32:01 - Thomas Murillo: Your hand is copy of? That’s right there.

01:25:37:26 - Angela Luckey: I was in California and Christmas. Did she cook any special things for Christmas?

01:25:42:16 - Thomas Murillo: Yeah. well, the the special thing came out this year.

01:25:48:20 - Angela Luckey: Did everybody get involved?

01:25:49:27 - Thomas Murillo: And then later voted to prohibit the grinders? or you grounded the corn.

01:25:56:17 - Angela Luckey: You grounded for around here?

01:25:58:09 - Thomas Murillo: Yes, yes, yes. And then that went right on right up to Pearl Harbor.

01:26:05:03 - Angela Luckey: Where did you grind it up?

01:26:08:28 - Thomas Murillo: Well, the mill was attached to the edge of the table. Part of the corner. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was tradition.

01:26:20:06 - Angela Luckey: So she didn’t do it on the.

01:26:28:27 - Thomas Murillo: I don’t remember her doing that.

01:26:30:25 - Angela Luckey: You know, she used to like a meat grinder or something like that, but it was, grain grinder.

01:26:37:13 - Thomas Murillo: Yeah, I guess so. I mean, every Mexican family had its, Yeah. You know, I hunters, those who started the carryover items.

01:26:47:21 - Angela Luckey: But, you know, so the guys were in charge of meeting.

01:26:52:05 - Thomas Murillo: Yeah, well, the young guys, kids hit you. Oh, yeah. Yeah I remember, yeah, I remember that day in Pearl Harbor that, there was a for some reason they were playing golf on this or that. That sounds like fruit. This family lived in, with some guys. We went.

01:27:20:04 - Angela Luckey: I.

01:27:20:25 - Thomas Murillo: That instead of doing it that way.

01:27:23:06 - Unknown: But. Yeah. You know, man, I.

01:27:28:24 - Thomas Murillo: Was your father.

01:27:30:07 - Angela Luckey: Was growing up. Was it like a party when you do that?

01:27:33:29 - Thomas Murillo: Yeah. Yeah. That, that always involved in the party. but, because the young people involved that didn’t involve, you know, drinking that kind of, mostly based on food or other food, for example. Families here use pork a lot, and the more they. And so it involved cooking all that stuff before.

01:28:07:26 - Thomas Murillo: And and it was, yeah, it was, You couldn’t call it, you know, for the party who was involved in food, but because the older people, the older guys were not in the. Well, they didn’t it didn’t you didn’t include drinking.

01:28:31:20 - Angela Luckey: how did you meet your wife?

01:28:36:04 - Thomas Murillo: while I was over there drinking beer in that bar where she is a cocktail waitress. She could bring me beer. I mean, we we kept her in beer. And so, because I am a man. Because men are that way, would eventually start noticing who’s serving beer. She. She’s quite good looking, but she was very. And so we started going out together.

01:29:03:23 - Thomas Murillo: And that’s how we became. We.

01:29:09:15 - Angela Luckey: Fit in. can you describe your wedding? Did you elope?

01:29:14:19 - Thomas Murillo: I don’t know if you call it love. I suppose it was. Yeah. we took a cousin of mine, my cousin Nick’s daughter, named Gloria, to, a guy that she running around this time. We went to a place to get married. Maybe I want to in there because the my being restaurant and,

01:29:42:07 - Thomas Murillo: Then somebody spoke up and said, well, listen part Spanish. And so because of that, they to that that married. But, as you well know, Spanish is not my. Is not a part of my person in that. And and, claim to be Spanish. I know, most of the family, Mexican, as you know, that’s one thing you have to pick up on that, probably because of that kind of business that, became, dyed in the wool Mexican.

01:30:22:21 - Thomas Murillo: I will not change just because they wanted me to be something else and never had one. I was just going to go to school, I guess because I was a Mexican. I’m not going to change that. So that hopefully they won’t discriminate this bunch of crap. And I’ve done I think I’m doing okay by being embarrassed good and bad.

01:30:48:07 - Thomas Murillo: I’ve had my good times too, because I am now and I like myself because of that.

01:30:57:20 - Angela Luckey: And your parents, you know, same way. Did your parents feel the same way?

01:31:03:03 - Thomas Murillo: What? But they might.

01:31:04:15 - Angela Luckey: Be.

01:31:04:24 - Thomas Murillo: Mexican. Oh, yeah. yeah. My father never did take up citizenship, neither to my mother, you know?

01:31:11:16 - Angela Luckey: How about you show your child?

01:31:14:14 - Thomas Murillo: Oh. My daughter. I when she was in high school, she didn’t. She was like, big Mexican. But afterwards, she she picked up on today. Yeah, she’s. I guess. You bet I. But, you know, take on trips to Mexico. So she’s become acquainted with the Mexican culture, and she feels she is a part.

01:31:41:02 - Angela Luckey: What do you value most about being a Mexican?

01:31:46:29 - Thomas Murillo: Oh, gee, there’s so many things. So many things I, I mean, I yeah, I.

01:31:56:25 - Thomas Murillo: So many things. First time I went to Mexico in 1951 and I saw those poor man. So. And,

01:32:08:25 - Thomas Murillo: The music. I really love food. the country and of course, the when I was traveling, the Mexican movie, the most beautiful word my followers could, if I’m prejudiced that way. No, I’m not prejudice. Prejudice means the judge before me. I don’t know, I’ve been this way too. 70 years, and, I know what I’m talking.

01:32:42:16 - Angela Luckey: So it. So you said that, you have quite a music collection. You’re a pretty. You consider yourself pretty good. Starting on Mexican music.

01:32:54:26 - Thomas Murillo: Well, I don’t know what the story would mean, but I mean, I. But let me put it this way, that since I was a little child down there, third, we had, one world record players drop and all these, I think they called and you put all I was to draft and all was another. And, I was in diapers yet, and I was standing up there on the chair and putting the records on and cranking it, and, I needed, the diaper change, but I wouldn’t get that.

01:33:27:24 - Thomas Murillo: My mother had to go get. You have to listen to my diaper. And from there, even in to my high school years where I, like, the big band music and swing music and all of that never lost the thread of the Mexican music. And, then, I went to California and started hearing some of that music that I, I knew that I knew from my childhood.

01:33:59:21 - Thomas Murillo: And I started picking up on eventually I started making studying the composers and, based on my memories of that folk music, music from the old days in my school, I really like it. I like to do lots. I don’t like a religion with me so long I line. I got a few books on the history of it and, yeah, I’m just kind of just crazy about those guys playing.

01:34:33:08 - Thomas Murillo: I’m a frustrated guitar player. I wish I would have been more real scared of the, the ramifications of being a good guitar player because it involves a whole lot of drinking. I know quite a few that have gone down because of that. Yeah. So where are you? And, maybe it was. Oh, you know what they’re saying.

01:34:57:18 - Thomas Murillo: You you can’t. And so I, I dropped out of group and I can remember very little with, with no, but I was becoming very adept at it. And because I liked it so much and I still do like it, with a lot of.

01:35:14:28 - Angela Luckey: People who are some of your favorite, what are some of your favorite songs and musicians?

01:35:21:02 - Thomas Murillo: Well, with me, it’s, more composers and songs. going back to the earliest ones like, who are, you know, versus that band that you, I had later when I was in, I think and, oh, there’s so many they come rushing by, I can’t think well or anytime, but, okay.

01:35:58:08 - Thomas Murillo: And and I bought rap sheet, Christmas Eve. But you know how I, they beat,

01:36:19:28 - Thomas Murillo: Or two. But that was already popular, so. Well, I like to, to,

01:36:30:29 - Thomas Murillo: It’s, Oh, yeah. as I say, I have, I have a few books on, Mexican music. And so I’ve always been interested in, in the composers because their lives are so, distinct, unique, you might say, some of them, like, I can’t think of the names right now. I give up, medical career to write Mexican popular music.

01:37:05:23 - Thomas Murillo: I like, as I say, I like those trios as a guitar trios. And then later the mariachis. I like them quite well. I, singer with, folkloric ballets and I, I’ve been privileged to see, about their analysis about 12 times. The times they change, she has changed. It’s gone long to so many different facets and so, the Mexican music and history, and there are other ballets, three other ones that I’ve seen.

01:37:55:26 - Thomas Murillo: And I’m always fascinated by them. the music being the most fascinating one, of course, the costumes and the history. It’s involved with a lot of. Yeah, I like it a lot.

01:38:13:12 - Angela Luckey: Tell me about your art experience and talk about that. And let’s give me one minute. I’m going. you were telling me about your farming experience during.

01:38:31:01 - Thomas Murillo: Yeah. When, of course, wasn’t like, so many guys, I wasn’t I didn’t mind that when you come back, you did.

01:38:43:15 - Angela Luckey: You did drift.

01:38:44:14 - Thomas Murillo: Yeah.

01:38:45:18 - Angela Luckey: During World War two.

01:38:46:21 - Thomas Murillo: Yeah, well, I tried to. I tried to join, I volunteered in the early part of 1942, but, since had a flat footed at that time, they had this thing that, you couldn’t get into the Marines, to the Navy or to, Coast Guard was left feet. So when they told me that guy, I said, boy, I got no time to sit this one out.

01:39:15:11 - Thomas Murillo: And it was only about months later that I got my greetings from the draft board, so I knew it was too late to sit it out. And I was working in really me that when I. When I, checked out, they told me, oh, if you look into this matter, getting into a real battalion there for went down in Fort Douglas.

01:39:43:01 - Thomas Murillo: And I looked that guy and I just got crazy here and not really in the army, but be damned if they didn’t. If they didn’t want to put me in real time that time, they were into in engineers. The Corps of Engineers sent me to New Mexico, and I was only there a couple of weeks when, my God, they there was a big hustle and bustle.

01:40:11:23 - Thomas Murillo: some guys were going to half the battalion was going to, Alaska. And so that half those guys started selling all their summer clothing and all this John were buying it up like crazy. We’re going to go to Africa to see. Well, I think within about 48 hours the orders changes and all reversed. And now all of us who had bought all these summer clothes were going to Alaska and those those guys, we took them to Africa.

01:40:44:04 - Thomas Murillo: So we did we we went on up in Alaska and, I, I was in North Korea, which was the engineering company of this road tech company. It was the game that you guys did pick and shovel work, just like just what we did, just what I’d been doing, you know.

01:41:09:01 - Angela Luckey: Then.

01:41:10:02 - Thomas Murillo: Getting answers. That’s what they called. Yeah. The railroad laborers intersection. Jerry’s and got to do so many names they had. But anyway, that’s what I wound up in. And, we were sent to Alaska to spread, from Skagway in Alaska and into British Columbia and up into the Yukon Territory. It was a small room, 200 level miles.

01:41:38:01 - Thomas Murillo: And what we were doing up there was they were building in Alaska Highway at the time, and Whitehorse was a midpoint. they started Edmonton and and was in Fairbanks. In between was Whitehorse. So this little railroad from Skagway up to White Horse was bringing those supplies. It junior troops up there. So the army took that route over.

01:42:03:24 - Thomas Murillo: And I went first up to Whitehorse from Whitehorse, and they sent me down to, a place called Log Cabin in British Columbia. And, so I was there, I don’t know how many months I was there. I don’t remember very well. Could have been there six months. But as it happened in that, in that company, because we were all getting dances, Mexicans were.

01:42:40:18 - Thomas Murillo: The railroads in this country uses a lot of Mexicans as gang dancers, track laborers. You and I got in that company there. I think I caught 33 of us, and some of them were from Mexicans and speak English, so they quickly decided they’d better have somebody in there and spoke the two languages. But they knew somebody could work in the office.

01:43:05:10 - Thomas Murillo: You see, it wasn’t enough. You know, most of spoke English, Spanish, but it want somebody could really help them. Aside from the right to do the work in the office. So they, the guy was doing it, the guy from Montana. And he would become friendly friend from the time down in Mexico. And, so, he suggested me.

01:43:38:19 - Thomas Murillo: And so they looked at my record, and then they looked at the other records of the other question guys, and I was going to graduate from high school. So they sent me a letter asking me if I was interested in came down working with the. Yeah, I just gone through my first winter up to, you know, 45 degrees below zero is not exactly.

01:44:05:18 - Thomas Murillo: Yeah, well, I spent too much time and. Yeah, Carmen told me that I’d like to come down, so come on down. Let’s see what happened. So I went down there and they they talked to me and they decided. Yeah, well, it, it was, was pretty well cut and dried because I could type and, I could spell and I could write.

01:44:35:17 - Thomas Murillo: And so that’s how I was able to, avoid being shot at by Japanese, German soldiers. And, at the time, I kind of feel guilty because I got a lot of my buddies from here or getting shot up there. I was working in the office, but then I started remembering those days when they couldn’t hire me here.

01:45:06:26 - Thomas Murillo: And I couldn’t swim in this YMCA because I was rescued. I said, well, actually, I don’t have that big a stake in this war. And and I start feeling guilty because, if, that’s the way it is, you know, I’m not an American. If I’m not ready, what the hell businesses do? I have been, killed for this country.

01:45:29:29 - Thomas Murillo: You know, I came to peace with that, you know, and, I, I didn’t choose the branch of service to go, and I could have easily.

01:45:40:02 - Unknown: Got in the country.

01:45:45:27 - Thomas Murillo: I did start to sidestep that suggestion that I go see. Yes, because I know I would wound up being treated. So I, it was just a matter of luck, and that’s all it was. And I didn’t I didn’t pull the cards from the deck. Somebody else did.

01:46:08:23 - Angela Luckey: So in the office work. What kind of work?

01:46:11:13 - Thomas Murillo: Well, I was raised as a typist, and I, you know, I did, I wrote letters, typed letters and, Even, translated the articles of war through. So it’s this one guy’s from Mexico and the guy in trouble, and he was given a punishment to come on mission consist of walking up and down the country area for field, packing them on the rifle.

01:46:43:02 - Thomas Murillo: This was his punishment. I don’t remember what he did. He got drunk and he got in the fight or something. Later on he tried to pick one on me. But anyway, he said he didn’t understand what his sentence was. So they asked me to write articles of war in Spanish, which I did. So, you know, that was kind of stuff like, I, I did, and you know what?

01:47:06:14 - Thomas Murillo: Guys like that, they come in, get in trouble. You know, they’d be up in the mountains for a long time, and then they come down for one reason or another, and they’d go downtown Skagway and get drunk, and you’d get in fights, breaks out. So they’d make a guard house and then piece of them in and then, you know, Ken, the captain invested.

01:47:30:13 - Thomas Murillo: sit in judgment. So a lot he couldn’t understand what it was all about. So that’s where they used me.

01:47:39:08 - Thomas Murillo: And it was that had to work. And keeping records was like, they were laying a new rail line someplace up in the mountains there, and I had to keep a progress report. How many times a plane and how many rail they made each day. Things like that.

01:48:04:02 - Angela Luckey: Did you tell me that there were some soldiers that were drafted, some Mexican guys that were not citizens?

01:48:11:05 - Thomas Murillo: Yeah, that one guy. That one little guy. I can’t think his name right now. Yeah, he was from Japan. And, he could hardly speak. English. And, that’s, you know, another guy named George. Really nice guy from. Chicago. But he was from Mexico.

01:48:39:23 - Angela Luckey: And, well, they take 1 or 2, or they were.

01:48:42:27 - Thomas Murillo: Just.

01:48:44:00 - Angela Luckey: What happened to draft and they didn’t have.

01:48:46:15 - Thomas Murillo: They do. I mean, my two brothers were not citizens, and they were both of my, my oldest brother was one of the first guys drafted here in town. But, again, that was another job that I got was, they made it easy for these guys to get their citizenship and what they had to do there, what we did, there’s, we get on the train.

01:49:10:26 - Thomas Murillo: The trains ran from Skagway across the border into Canada, not from the Yukon Territory. And they would have to get on the train and cross the Canadian border to go into Canada and then go back across into Alaska. And at that point, then they had crossed into the United States, and that time they were given, their citizenship.

01:49:37:21 - Thomas Murillo: It was simple as that. So, perhaps it was something that had been. Caused by the war. And it was made easy for these guys. I, I never did ask the two brothers how they went about it. I know how they got their citizenship to.

01:50:00:05 - Angela Luckey: And you said, that you were used for translating the law. It is. Your relatives speak Spanish important to you?

01:50:10:04 - Thomas Murillo: Yeah. Yeah, I I’m sorry, but it’s Texans that because we feel that way? Yeah. I just can’t see this carrying on conversation, jumping from word from one language to the other. You go along with it. Fine. And then kind of calling yourself bilingual. I just don’t think that’s bilingual around easy you can speak to line is completely cut and, if you can’t do, any business, call yourself bilingual.

01:50:40:19 - Thomas Murillo: But. No, I met this guy in Leone.

01:50:46:25 - Thomas Murillo: Once. I guess it was that year ago, and I went to Mexico. We were in this bus station and I started talking to this guy who’s American who spoke Spanish. He lived there. And then all of a sudden, in conversation, he says, you’re not, Mexican. He said something about, why are you saying here? You said.

01:51:12:12 - Thomas Murillo: He said, yeah. And you don’t speak Spanish like a Mexican? Mexican because I speak Spanish. Right. And something like that. And it, it got me pretty upset. And when we got back to California. Now, I’m not gonna let you get away from me, so I’m going to. This is 1964, right? I decided I was going to make an effort to, try and retain what I already had and maybe improve on it.

01:51:47:19 - Thomas Murillo: The American,

01:51:52:24 - Thomas Murillo: The matter of my being born being Mexican also was, Inspired, if you want to call it that, by a guy during the war. He was from Mississippi and there were seven horse races. There are. He told me one day that, as soon as this country was finished with the Germans projects, they were going to take care of the Mexicans to.

01:52:22:14 - Thomas Murillo: And, it increasingly enraged me more because I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to answer. And then the more I thought about, the more I said, well, one reason is because you know what being Mexican is. And so I grew. When this war is over, my Mexican wait for that. And some people he comes across.

01:52:52:20 - Thomas Murillo: But more than that, going for it. That’s what this is all about. So, they didn’t go to Mexico, but I did go in 1951 and the first time I saw those pyramids that they had to work on, and that’s when I knew what being a Mexican was all about at that time, I was I to study all I can about being Mexican, about Mexican history, but I don’t know what the hell to talk when somebody says that to you.

01:53:22:14 - Thomas Murillo: Now have an answer. Let’s see. And that’s what that’s what what impelled me to study Mexican history. To study everything I could about it. And I studied.

01:53:42:04 - Angela Luckey: Said important to your daughter, to Spanish speaking Spanish in the culture?

01:53:47:17 - Thomas Murillo: No, she does speak French. She’s very much, a student of the culture teaching. But, she’s the Spanish is because she doesn’t, all of the years have gone by, she’s let it go by, they call it procrastination, and she certainly has interest in it. She can understand something glorious, you understand? But, she she doesn’t know anything about it, but picking it up.

01:54:21:15 - Thomas Murillo: But all the rest of it. Yeah, she the music, the food, she likes, you know, going to she really enjoyed going down this archeological places. So she’s gotten that much out of the.

01:54:39:09 - Angela Luckey: Crappy travel in Mexico, Where have you traveled this?

01:54:44:04 - Thomas Murillo: Well, where are you from? The north to the south and east to the west. going through. Right. Juarez. All the way down to Yucatan. The border is out to my right. And from the cruise to, wireless, which are on the Pacific. I haven’t gone to a good book. and that’s, you know, there’s nothing there that interests me.

01:55:13:05 - Thomas Murillo: there’s nothing historic that I can think of. And everybody wants to go without a book all the way out in the sun and get a tan. And I tell people, hell, I got my of standard equipment or, you know, I don’t have to go to Homestead Beach to get a tan. and, I’ve been as close to this Tuscan passage for I, I want to go back up close to me, it means wealth and a wealthy person.

01:55:41:24 - Thomas Murillo: And I don’t mean that I’ve done that. I cruise. Oh, that, that’s really that’s on the blanks, I think. Yeah, that hits me just right. A lot of good seafood buffet and great music. Yeah. Every day new music starts done. Plus, just goes on till midnight. I like it, I like the very hot in the backwoods.

01:56:13:23 - Thomas Murillo: Then you could turn on. I could, because those people really are different. Different from us, from you, from you and from me. I sit there and I’m listening, talking and their mind language. And I say, how kind of we’re brothers. How come I don’t understand? Interesting is because they’re speaking mind, you see, very tiny people, and their history is very fascinating.

01:56:45:09 - Thomas Murillo: and, yeah, I, like you could tell so many archeological, zones to go to. This fascinates me. God, last year we to my school with intention was only the intention of going stay to work workload to research our family. Well, I also wanted to go to Yucatan, so I put the horse we recorded we had in the car.

01:57:13:03 - Thomas Murillo: I went to town first, and then I stayed. So on that by the time I started back, I didn’t have time to go to one.

01:57:23:10 - Angela Luckey: I’m planning to go to summer, but.

01:57:26:29 - Thomas Murillo: in fact, she just brought it up today, and, I told her I’m not in any hurry. Rather, we got this work done and, in the fall would be all right. And, my youngest brother, I think, wants to go with me, but I told going on, I can only tell you that it will be between now and the end of the year, because I don’t want to say I want to go.

01:57:52:27 - Thomas Murillo: I want to hold him up waiting on me because I’m, you know, I’m no longer meeting any schedules. But, of course, that’s what worked against me when I went to Mexico. And I wasn’t working against any schedules. And but I got my time out and I was down $2 when I got.

01:58:15:27 - Thomas Murillo: To 30. But, you know, that’s from having from not having my services invite me in, but I just didn’t arrangement schedule, my itinerary set. Well I didn’t a lot of travel time see. And they really caught up with you.

01:58:34:19 - Angela Luckey: Is it looks like we just have a little bit left. And I didn’t ask you about the discrimination. Maybe you or your family experience in Pocatello.

01:58:47:05 - Thomas Murillo: It wasn’t it wasn’t talked about very much again. And I think it’s not I think that it wasn’t because they it was an experience or because one thing we slept in under the rug, it’s because we,

01:59:09:08 - Thomas Murillo: We mixed among ourselves and, again, you know, told you back when they turned me down for the job. Yeah. the railroad, that, freight house. And as an apprentice machinist, when I was proposed to the Union by this guy. And then they didn’t allow me to use that, swimming pool at the one and see, you know, my father paid a subsidy and for this paycheck.

01:59:45:19 - Thomas Murillo: And I know that it happened to other guys, too. at the same time, other Mexicans who are lighter skinned or like you, you see.

01:59:55:07 - Angela Luckey: What a lot of that like to see, and.

01:59:57:25 - Thomas Murillo: Oh, yeah. And, soda fountain in the early in the early, Way back when I was, you know, I might have been ten, 11, 12 years old. And, something happened at the Strand Theater. I don’t know what they told me, what they tried to do. Me and I got mad, and I told this friend of mine, he was a Basque, and I told him about it, and he said, you go tell them that your money is as good as anybody else’s money.

02:00:28:05 - Thomas Murillo: Well, I didn’t do that because I just didn’t show my face anymore. and then over here at the at the Rialto, the East Side theater. Oh, man. Grossman used to put the Indians, the Mexicans and the blacks in the left hand, rear, rear, left hand section. That movie house. So I stopped going back to and, in the soda fountains.

02:01:01:08 - Thomas Murillo: I think that,

02:01:05:16 - Thomas Murillo: Wow. That Greek guy. And we’re kids together, and he he refused to serve over his restaurant trying to do the that, but other than that, I, I don’t remember ever being refused service at the soda farms. But I do remember my older sister telling me about one of their black friends. They went into. The Walgreens, to which drugstore.

02:01:35:10 - Thomas Murillo: And they refused to serve the black lady, but, not not hurt. They didn’t do that to her. And,

02:01:49:01 - Thomas Murillo: There was discrimination in housing because even I experienced that from this one guy that he worked with in the on the house for. I worked there was house for right now. I knocked the door and my God, there, there he was. And I get one of the report to me, and I know Tony Rogers when he moved in that house down here to him pays.

02:02:12:25 - Thomas Murillo: well, I was told firsthand that he had to go through some legal maneuvers to buy the house because there was objections to. And, do you know Tony.

02:02:27:15 - Thomas Murillo: You know, well, you know, in the past, he’s he’s had his own attitudes or his attitudes of superiority. And, that must have taken them. Taken him down one hell of a notch. we,

02:02:47:20 - Thomas Murillo: Since I’ve been back, he’s been friendly to me. And, I was never. I was never seduced by his boss. And I let him know about it. And so we were always very good friends. Really. He’s been came. I realize that’s just the way he is. And and but the hell he’s he was probably the only well, his sister Margaret.

02:03:16:29 - Thomas Murillo: All right. You and he married this great girl again. They’re another example, you know that her father, man, he disowned when she married Tony and then must have been hell road is equal. To who? After all, he just didn’t care to be a mason. Sometimes. He was a person who was, several Irish. And his name was Anthony Irish.

02:03:41:12 - Thomas Murillo: Rogers. Really? but, on the other hand, he. There’s a lot of things that I admire about Tony. he’s never drank. He’s never smoked, you know, and that’s why he looks good at his age. he, he always did. He he’s kind of complex in that he was trying to be. He was a wannabe.

02:04:15:13 - Thomas Murillo: He would be. Why would it seem time? He never lost his his, Mexican, traits. You know, he always spoke Spanish. well, he jumped back and forth like the Texan would do with, he, he has some likable qualities, but, you know, it’s hard to find with for that. You know, I give him credit.

02:04:41:16 - Angela Luckey: Wasn’t even president of the Mexican organization at one time.

02:04:45:05 - Thomas Murillo: Well, this was after, after I left, there was an organization here that was formed. In fact, you know, we were together before I left, but it was. That’s how he exposed himself. You know, this one year, not only to get together food, to, put together the celebration. 50 main, 16 of September. And this one year. Well, I felt to me to, organizing and,

02:05:15:11 - Thomas Murillo: We used the memorial hall for the dance and, and, trying to, for I had to talk to this guy North. I think his name is associated with the dance mortuary. Well, when I went to in the hall, he told me that Tony Broadcasting told him not to write.

02:05:46:23 - Thomas Murillo: And so you can imagine. My sponsor, as this is happening, you know, as working together at that time tonight, as good friends with the great big guys named Jake Jacobson. And Jake was very, involved in, Veterans Affairs. In fact, you state commander, the signal veterans, and, boy, a guy who’s huge something. And so I wanted to I said, Jake, does that memorial building belong to the American Legion?

02:06:24:16 - Thomas Murillo: Only? Oh, hell no. And I said, well, there’s cat over there telling me that he can rent me. Like, what? A building. I said, I’m a veteran, but I got as much as it is. But I said, am I not entitled to retire? He said, yeah. I said, well, we won’t rent to. And he said, oh, who are you talking about?

02:06:47:19 - Thomas Murillo: I talked to him, so he called me. He recommended invoice the state command and told him what was happening down here. And I guess he could not raise his hands and.

02:07:05:07 - Thomas Murillo: A few days Jake said, you call and talk to the weekend. I don’t know where they rented you. That’s obviously. Well, then later I met, Tony and his wife down there on Center Street one night, and they came to me. I him to speak to him came. I said, you know that story about Tony trying to do that is not true?

02:07:33:08 - Thomas Murillo: He didn’t do that. I said, don’t come telling me that. Go tell no, he’s one. Told him I didn’t make up the story. And so from that time on, you know, until I retired and had no use for Tony, you know, I mean, he, you know, my mother kind of things. But as I look back now, I try to figure out why would he do the thing?

02:07:56:25 - Thomas Murillo: And the only answer I can come up with is that he’s chosen, as so many of us are, of course, and that it’s pretty childish thing to do. I mean, who was his reason? Because he was not the head of the of that group at that time. But, I had insinuated myself into that position. Some, you know, other guys had suggested to me, just like he came to be the, the leader in previous times.

02:08:25:27 - Thomas Murillo: And he did later on to, have a gun. And there was also.