WASHBURN: What I didn’t get to ask you about last time, was-- and today. What’s
today? Today is Thursday, October 24.CHAVEZ: That guy could have given you more information than I, because he was raised.
WASHBURN: This guy right here? Sitting here? He said he went back to Arkansas though.
CHAVEZ: No. Who’s that? Who are you talking about?
WASHBURN: Which guy are you talking about?
CHAVEZ: The Mexican guy.
WASHBURN: Oh. Ojeda?
CHAVEZ: Yeah.
WASHBURN: Oh, I’m gonna go find him. I’m gonna talk to him.
CHAVEZ: He can give you all the information you want, more than I.
WASHBURN: Think maybe I’ll go over to the Capri Club today. We’ll see--
CHAVEZ: Is he over there?
WASHBURN: That’s where he says he is. But I didn’t get to ask you about where
you were going to church when you lived down there.CHAVEZ: St. Mark’s.
WASHBURN: At St. Mark’s.
CHAVEZ: The let us used to come to have
00:01:00catechisms in one of those empty rooms. Are you doing this?WASHBURN: Yeah.
CHAVEZ: We used to have catechism on Saturdays and most time I went because they
used to give you candy.WASHBURN: Was it a big--
CHAVEZ: And as you grew up then you went to St. Mark’s that was the Catholic
church. That was the only church in Richmond, Catholic. And then you almost got a Catholic in San Pablo, and that’s it.WASHBURN: You had St. Mark’s in Richmond and St. Paul’s out there in San Pablo.
CHAVEZ: San Pablo. Uh-huh.
WASHBURN: How big was-- Would you describe St. Mark’s as being a big
congregation? Was there a lot of folks that went there?CHAVEZ: No. Mostly all Mexicans. But of course they had a lot of white people
too. Italians. Mostly Italian. Italians and 00:02:00Mexicans. And that’s what it was. On Sunday you’d see a lot of them Mexicans in the morning. But now we have masses. You know, they have a ten o’clock mass for Mexicans and all that.WASHBURN: That they do in Spanish.
CHAVEZ: Yeah. Spanish.
WASHBURN: But, like you said, was it in Spanish back in those days.
CHAVEZ: I don’t know, but at that time the mass was said in Latin. It was said
in Latin. Now it’s said in English. It’s all completely changed. Because I was an altar boy, and everything was Latin, and there was a priest praying in Latin, and then we had a Latin tutor. Being an altar boy, we had to respond to what he was saying. That was part of the mass.WASHBURN: So where did you learn Latin?
CHAVEZ: I just read it. From
00:03:00the tablet that you have to learn to answer the priest. Not that I learned Latin, but if you have to learn how to-- and the word’s are right there, you just said it. That’s it.WASHBURN: The responses.
CHAVEZ: To begin maybe about two or three times, and then towards the end, two
or three times. That’s it. And the rest of it is just serves. That’s what they call us serving Mass.WASHBURN: So how long were you an altar boy for?
CHAVEZ: Oh, hell. I was kid then going to school. Till about-- Oh, well, I went
to junior high, then you get older and then all of a sudden you decide to go out, you know, and go to mass, and that’s it. That’s all I used to do.WASHBURN: Let me ask you, on Sundays there in Richmond, St. Mark’s wasn’t too
far from where you lived. You could walk, right?CHAVEZ:
00:04:00 Uh-huh.WASHBURN: What do you remember about Sundays and people walking on the street to
church? Can you describe what it was like?CHAVEZ: You could see, like, coming out--. A lot of them had cars, though. They
had their cars, they used to drive in their car. And the people that didn’t have any car, they used to walk. Used to walk from where you lived, Macdonald Avenue, then at Macdonald Avenue on Tenth Street, I mean on Ninth Street, you’d turn a corner and hit Nevin and that church is right there. Right on the corner of Nevin and Tenth. Between Tenth and Ninth.WASHBURN: Would you walk with just--with you and all your siblings, or would you
walk alone?CHAVEZ: No, well, walk alone sometimes. Or with your parents. Or with your
brother or a sister or friends. It was like just a family. You mixed. You know, you knew each 00:05:00other. Maybe you’d be walking outside, you’d run into your friend: Are you going to mass? Yeah. So you’d both go to mass, like that.WASHBURN: So what about--you know, I’ve seen when the mass is over, everybody
kind of files out and people kind of make plans to do something. What did you guys do once the mass--CHAVEZ: Was over? Went home. We went home. Sometimes we had things to do, like
chop wood, or--. There was always something to do. We’d stay home.WASHBURN: And you guys wouldn’t go out and go get lunch together, or go over
somebody’s house for some lunch or something?CHAVEZ: It was hard as heck because you didn’t have any money. You couldn’t,
like you do now. You see now, everybody goes and gets a hamburger and all that. We didn’t. I remember when hamburgers first came out, when they started making 00:06:00hamburgers, it was ten dollars, I mean ten cents, a hamburger. And it was hard to get ten cents. Really. Not like now. Man, kids go out there and buy eight or nine dollars like nothing. Hamburger, milkshake, and the whole ball of wax.WASHBURN: I’m trying to understand, you know, did you--. Before mass or after
mass, did you ever eat, you know, traditional Mexican food. Did you ever have menudo in the morning? Did you ever eat tamales in the afternoon?CHAVEZ: Really-- menudo once in a while. It was something that you’d--. Once in
a while. You know. The same way with tamales. It was once in a while. You made that for maybe somebody’s birthday or for some kind of gathering. But, like a lot of times, menudo, these 00:07:00people used to like to go dancing, and maybe have one too many, well, that menudo being it had that chili in it, it was really spicy. They eat that to kind of sober them up.WASHBURN: Right, right. After they drink a little too much. So, for you eating
menudo and tamales was maybe like the same as having chicken mole or something like that?CHAVEZ: Once in a while.
WASHBURN: For special events.
CHAVEZ: Uh-huh.
WASHBURN: Do you ever remember, though, down there by the section housing or
anything, anybody--. Did they have a--selling tamales out of their house or anything like that, where you could walk by and buy a tamale or--CHAVEZ: No, no.
WASHBURN: Did people have--
CHAVEZ: No, they used to make it for their family, you know, and, like I said,
for somebody’s birthday. For their birthday, a family, a birthday and all that. And then the idea is 00:08:00that--it’s hard to make tamales, you know. You’ve got to get that dough, you’ve got to put them in a--, and all that. It takes time. So, now, when I want to have tamales, I just go in and get one at the restaurant. They’ve always got them at the restaurant. There used to be a lady, a long time ago, used to live in the old Sante Fe camp, and every Saturday she’d go by and take orders. And the next day she’d deliver your tamales. That’s how it was.WASHBURN: So you’d say, “I want so many tamales,” and she’d bring them by.
CHAVEZ: Yeah, you’d say I want a dozen. Cheap, but a dozen and all that.
WASHBURN: Where did she have the space to make all that food?
CHAVEZ: In her home. I mean, they didn’t live in a section house. They had their
own home. So they did it there.WASHBURN: About food, I think it’s interesting to talk about food. When you’re
down in Mexico, you know, you send a kid 00:09:00over to somebody’s house who makes--like this woman who makes tamales--but you send a kid over at lunchtime and say, “Go get me twenty tortillas,” or something like that. Was it the same thing in the Sante Fe camps?CHAVEZ: Yes. The same thing. They had kind of the same thing that I told you.
That lady who would make the tomales, she used to make tortillas. They had a little store, and they used to sell cornmeal tortillas. No flour, just cornmeal.WASHBURN: Did she sell them out of her house, or was it a formal store?
CHAVEZ: No, out of her house. She had a regular machine and all that. And then
later on, people started to make their own tortillas. One guy invented how to make that tortilla, to make the whole tortilla. And, hell, he was selling tortillas, and pretty soon tortilleria’s came out.WASHBURN: Somebody told me about a tortilleria down there on--. Don something’s
Tortilleria. I’ll point it out to you later. Somebody else pointed me out that there was a big tortilleria on 00:10:00Barrett, I think it was. Anyhow, that’s interesting. So, the store at the Sante Fe railroad, the Sante Fe railroad store, they didn’t sell tortillas or anything like that?CHAVEZ: No, no. That was just a commissary where they had clothing and they had
groceries. That’s it. We had shoes there, clothing, and they also had groceries.WASHBURN: Why weren’t their groceries--why didn’t they have groceries that
catered to the Mexican workers? Like tortillas, for instance.CHAVEZ: Well, at that time, nobody made tortillas. Nobody made tortillas. Only
the people, the families, they’d make tortillas. But nobody came out with a machine, or anything like that.WASHBURN: So at the commissary could you buy beans and rice?
CHAVEZ: That’s where we got everything. Beans and rice, and vermicelli.
Everything. And then the 00:11:00flour, that you bought because you gotta use it to make tortillas.WASHBURN: If you had the money, where would you buy milk and meat?
CHAVEZ: We had a goat. We had a goat and we used to milk the goat. We got milk
from the goat. As a matter of fact, we even sold some once in a while. Some guy would come in there because his little boy couldn’t drink cow milk, so I’d sell him a little bottle of goat milk. Ten cents a bottle. And that’s it. I used to drink goat milk all the time. Then there was people who had cows and all that. You know, sometimes they’d--. And my sister used to make the cheese out of goat milk. Man, it was good. But I was satisfied with goat milk. I didn’t have to buy the cow milk. Cause you get used to 00:12:00 it.WASHBURN: Yeah. A little different taste, huh?
CHAVEZ: Yeah, it’s got a funny different taste altogether. But what it is, after
you drink it, it has that taste of goat.WASHBURN: That’s funny. So what about meat? You said you also grew chickens.
CHAVEZ: Oh, we had chickens.
WASHBURN: Did you use them for eggs or did you also--?
CHAVEZ: Well, they laid eggs and all that. And sometimes, you want to have
chicken, you’d just go out there and get one from the shed--you know, wherever you got them. In the back. You’d go and get one.WASHBURN: And you’d pluck it and chop its head off.
CHAVEZ: You’d wring its neck and then put it in hot water and then start
plucking. We used to make--. We never used them for fried chicken, like you do now. We used them for 00:13:00mole. To make mole.WASHBURN: So that was for special times?
CHAVEZ: Uh-huh.
WASHBURN: Was there a carniceria around? Was there a butcher, a Mexican butcher?
CHAVEZ: No, they didn’t have no Mexican butcher. They had the Fourth Street
market, and I don’t know what the heck--I can’t remember the name--but it was {Equinero?} brothers, and it was a grocery store. They also had a meat department, where they used to get the meat from there.WASHBURN: And you told me, this was the Italian market there.
CHAVEZ: Everybody went over there. Yeah. Then you went there and you’d get
credit. And a lot of people who could afford it would go out there and get credit. They wouldn’t, you know, like the commissary you go there, they’d charge you double. It was a little high, but not as high as the 00:14:00commissary. And that’s why, when you got a little money, then you’d start going up the street to the stores. It wasn’t that expensive. But the Holmes Supply really got you, because when you went to work there, you know, you were desperate for a job and you had free room there and everything. And there you could go to the commissary right away and buy groceries. You could buy groceries and all that. And you needed a job, so that’s it. They used to get you that way. And if you had a bunch of kids, you gotta buy them shoes. 00:15:00[small talk]WASHBURN: I’d like to talk to you about food, but I’d also like to talk to you
about where people worked, and where you worked. You told me that you had a job delivering papers. What was your first formal job? I mean, delivering papers is kind of a formal job, but not the same as going to the foundry or something.CHAVEZ: The first formal job that I had, was when I worked at American Radiator.
That was hard work. That’s where they make the tubs, bathtubs, and the sinks. I worked there. That was good money, and I worked there. But I worked there after I got out of the service. After I got out the 00:16:00service, I worked there for a while, and then after that, being that I got out of--I could got to school through being that I’d been in the service, under Public Law Sixteen, that’s when I went to barber college, and I’d already got my apprentice license. So I was working at American Radiator, which paid good money, but also worked you to death and I said, “What am I doing here? I should be outside cutting hair.” So that’s when I went back to barber college. When I came out from that, I came here, and I’ve been here ever since. Not here in this spot. But I worked in different shops. If I walked in a shop and I saw that I wasn’t going to learn, then I’d go some place else.WASHBURN: I want to talk to you about that. I think I got ahead too far. I
thought maybe you had your first job before you went off to the service. But I guess you didn’t.CHAVEZ: No, no, no. When I--
WASHBURN: You graduated; tell me about what happened after you left high school.
CHAVEZ: After I graduated from high
00:17:00school, I worked in a Sante Fe.WASHBURN: Tell me about that.
CHAVEZ: I worked in a Sante Fe. I worked there for about six or seven months and
then I joined the service.WASHBURN: So you graduated in about what year, do you remember?
CHAVEZ: Forty-two.
WASHBURN: Let me ask you , Sal, you were still in high school when the war broke
out. What do you remember about--I’d like to get to asking you about what you did in the Sante Fe camp, but I want to try and keep things kind of in order. You told me a lot about the high school last time. So you were still in high school when Pearl Harbor happened in December 1941.CHAVEZ: Yeah, I was there in high school.
WASHBURN: Do you remember what people were thinking and what people were
00:18:00saying when that happened?CHAVEZ: When that happened, well, we thought it was just going to be a little
something, you know, a couple of months and all that. We didn’t know it was going to be that long, how long it lasted. Four years, ‘till ’45. So it lasted that long, and after I got out of there, then I went to work in a cannery, and then I went to work at American Radiator, then I got married.WASHBURN: So you don’t remember people being too scared about what happened at
Pearl Harbor, that they thought maybe people could bomb San Francisco or something like that. Do you remember people saying that?CHAVEZ: Well, actually, most of them knew that all the kids were grown up
already, their children, and they were the draft age. So that’s where most of them were--. Which they 00:19:00did. Some families two or three kids went in the service at the same time.WASHBURN: Did you have friends and family who went into the service too?
CHAVEZ: My brother went, and then my nephews, they all went. And a lot of my
friends went. A lot of guys, my friends that were raised together, they went in the service. They were taking everybody.WASHBURN: Oh, for sure. Then, also, in Richmond there were some Japanese
families. They were taken off, right?CHAVEZ: Yeah, one of them owned a florist [shop]. And then another family we
knew, they used to--these {_______?}, they used to own a florist, and then these other that we knew, they 00:20:00had hothouses in North Richmond and they grew the flowers. That was it.WASHBURN: And they were taken off?
CHAVEZ: Yeah, they had a--. Sent up to a camp. They went. The {_________?} had a
nice store. Then these other people that we know, they also left too.WASHBURN: Do you remember being conscious, or knowing that they were taken off
to the camp?CHAVEZ: At that time we didn’t know what was going on. I remember that when
Pearl Harbor, we declared war, that there was a lot of Japanese families out here. And they were even afraid to get in the bus. Because they were afraid that maybe they’d get hurt, kind of thing, with fighting against each 00:21:00 other.WASHBURN: Do you remember seeing things in the paper about the Japanese going
off to camp and stuff like that?CHAVEZ: Yeah, they said they were taking them to camp.
WASHBURN: So you knew it was going on?
CHAVEZ: Yeah, I knew about that. A lot of people, like the {_____?}, they lost a
store, they lost everything. And a lot of families, which now you could read in the paper, when they get money for all the time that they were in the camp.WASHBURN: Reparations.
CHAVEZ: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
WASHBURN: So you graduated in ’42, and then. You said something about a cannery
and about the Sante Fe railroad.CHAVEZ: A lot of people-- a lot of them--
WASHBURN: What happened? Did you go to the Sante Fe railroad right after you graduated?
CHAVEZ: Yeah, I went to work there, and then I went to work in a cannery. Then
00:22:00I went in the service, and when I got out of the service I remember that I worked in a cannery. Then I was going to be a machinist, but being that I was service-connected, I went to barber college.WASHBURN: How did you get a job working at the Sante Fe railroad?
CHAVEZ: I just went and asked for a job.
WASHBURN: So they had work.
CHAVEZ: Uh-huh. And I also worked at American Radiator.
WASHBURN: And that was in ’42?
CHAVEZ: Mm-hmm.
WASHBURN: What was your job at the railroad?
CHAVEZ: I used to work for the section gang.
WASHBURN: Like your Pop?
CHAVEZ: Uh-huh. Yeah. Same thing. Fixing rails if they gotta be straightened
out, or some of the railroad ties were old, we gotta take them out and put new ones in there. Hard 00:23:00 work.WASHBURN: Did you travel all over California, or did you stay mostly in the Bay Area?
CHAVEZ: No, just in Richmond. Section 53.
WASHBURN: Were you one of the younger guys on the gang?
CHAVEZ: I was one of the young--. Well, I was young. I was a kid. All them other
guys were already grown-up men. Strong, you know. I was out there trying to keep up. I did, but you know they take--. They see that you’re a kid, so they kind of take it easy.WASHBURN: Cut you some slack?
CHAVEZ: Yeah, kind of give you some slack. They’d go to the toilet.
WASHBURN: Did you know all the guys on the gang that you were working with already?
CHAVEZ: Oh yeah. They lived in the section.
WASHBURN: So you knew them already.
CHAVEZ: They all lived in the section. See, whatever it was, they wanted all
those people from the Sante Fe to live in those homes in case of an emergency; they could get you right there. But if you lived in a place where they had to 00:24:00look for you and all that--WASHBURN: They didn’t want that?
CHAVEZ: No, cause if you were right there next door, the boss could knock on the
door and say “Get ready”. Right away you’d have to get up and get ready to go. I never had to do that. But I know my Dad did, a lot of times. Sound asleep and there goes that door---bang, bang, bang on the door.WASHBURN: Who bangs on the door?
CHAVEZ: The foreman. He used to come in there and bang on the door, “Let’s go!”
You knew right away there was an emergency, so you’d get ready to go. Rain or shine.WASHBURN: So you worked there for Sante Fe for, like, six months.
CHAVEZ: Then I went in the service.
WASHBURN: When you worked there, were they still paying you, like your Pop, with--.
CHAVEZ: Yeah, I had regular wages.
WASHBURN: They didn’t cut you a check at the end of the week. You ran a tab with
the company, or how did it work?CHAVEZ: No, I didn’t bother with--I just got a regular check, I didn’t owe the
company any money, so I got my full 00:25:00 check.WASHBURN: How did you get a check and your Pop used to run a tab with the company?
CHAVEZ: I could buy anything in my name for the house, too, you know what I
mean. But he’d buy the groceries and all that kind of stuff. He didn’t want me to do that, so I didn’t. The money I got, I bought clothes.WASHBURN: At the commissary?
CHAVEZ: No, I went to town.
WASHBURN: So you got a check, right? Okay. He didn’t want you to do that, so you
made a choice not to do that.CHAVEZ: Yes. We used to go out there, like, me buying clothes and shoes. I was
helping him out. He didn’t have to buy me anything.WASHBURN: So after working there for six months, you said--. Where did you work
after that?CHAVEZ: After that, I--
WASHBURN: You said something about a cannery, or did you go in the Coast Guard.
CHAVEZ: I used to work in a cannery too, in the cannery season. They’d have the
fruit season, they had the grapes, and they 00:26:00had the apricots, and I worked from the beginning till the end.WASHBURN: Was that before you went in the Coast Guard?
CHAVEZ: That was before and then after.
WASHBURN: So you worked in the cannery before you went in the Coast Guard. Where
was the cannery? Was it the F & P cannery?CHAVEZ: F & P, Felice and Perelli.
WASHBURN: And that was down by the Ford motor plant, down Tenth Street?
CHAVEZ: Yeah. End of Tenth and {Flint?} Street. That was before I went into the
service. I worked in the cannery before I went in the service. And then after I got out of the service I also worked in the cannery. Then I went to school.WASHBURN: What was it like working in the cannery?
CHAVEZ: Hard work, but I enjoyed it. And they paid good money.
WASHBURN: Why did you enjoy it?
CHAVEZ: Nice work. I mean, you’d want to work and make money. I didn’t mind
picking up those heavy 00:27:00 lugs.WASHBURN: Your job was picking up boxes of fruit?
CHAVEZ: In other words, I used to work on the conveyor. I used to get the boxes
full of peaches and then put them on the other conveyor. I used to give them to the ladies. I worked three tables, and each table had thirteen women on it. I had to furnish them with the fruit. They’d open up a bed, and then I’d give them a box of peaches, or whatever, and I also had a little wooden ball, and that was where, when the checker came, he’d pick up the little ball and check the card, which you got credit for.WASHBURN: So they’d know how many boxes?
CHAVEZ: Yeah, they’d know how many they did.
WASHBURN: So you’d go up there, you’d pick up the big boxes of peaches. You’d
just dump it?CHAVEZ: Dump it. And then at the same time, I’d put a ball in there. So they’d
get that little ball and they’d put it down. Sometimes they’d take two boxes. But they were fast. Oh, my!WASHBURN: What did the ladies do?
CHAVEZ: They used to
00:28:00cut. They were cutters. By hand. Now they’ve got a machine, but everything was done by hand. At the same time, they’d pull the pit out. They worked fast!WASHBURN: What did they do with the fruit once they’d cut it?
CHAVEZ: Throw it on the conveyor.
WASHBURN: And then it would go get canned?
CHAVEZ: Uh-huh. It would go through a process. You know, lye.
WASHBURN: I’ve heard that was a popular job for Mexican women to have, was
working at the cannery.CHAVEZ: Oh, a lot of them worked there.
WASHBURN: You say there were three tables with thirteen women?
CHAVEZ: Yeah, thirteen women. Thirteen a table.
WASHBURN: Thirteen a table.
CHAVEZ: Uh-huh, thirteen to a table. That was a long--. And then you had to dump
the fruit. In other words, you had to keep the fruit there. The after that they took me from dumping, and put me on a jitney. So what I had to do, I used to bring the fruit from outside on a pallet and 00:29:00then place it right there, right next to the dumper. And that was my job. And take the empties out with a jitney.WASHBURN: Like a forklift.
CHAVEZ: Yeah, forklift.
WASHBURN: What about the women? Were the thirteen women who worked on some of
those tables, were they Mexican women?CHAVEZ: Oh yeah. Italian. Mexican and Italian. That’s right.
WASHBURN: Were they speaking Italian and Spanish at the tables?
CHAVEZ: Oh, no. English. They could speak English. But then you know, when you
get together with your own, you start talking your own language.WASHBURN: Like the Sante Fe railroad, did you know people who worked at the
cannery from the neighborhood you lived in?CHAVEZ: Oh yeah. A lot of mothers, you know, ladies, wives, and their kids would
work. Seventeen, eighteen years old. Be out there 00:30:00working in the cannery. And some of the women--like, my wife - she worked there. She worked there when she was a girl. She used to work in the canning. She used to can the fruit. As a matter of fact, I think that’s where I met her.WASHBURN: You said women and their daughters worked there. Do you remember--?
CHAVEZ: I knew families that had two or three daughters that were working there.
They helped you out. Felice were nice people. They tried to help you, you know, cause you were a good worker and they tried to keep you together. You have a daughter, but you’d be working in the cannery, but maybe doing something else or doing the same thing that your parents are doing. Like my mother-in-law at one time she worked in the cannery, but then she got old and she didn’t 00:31:00work any more. But she used to work in the cannery.WASHBURN: Do you ever remember seeing the mom and the daughter working
side-by-side at the table?CHAVEZ: Oh yeah. A lot of times. Canning or--. Working side by side. And at noon
time you’d see them all eating together. It was hard work. The cannery’s hard work.WASHBURN: So how old do you think the women’s daughters would be? Would they be
older than twelve or younger than eighteen? How old, do you think?CHAVEZ: The {_______?} ones were sixteen or seventeen. They’d lie about the age.
You know, like me. I was sixteen and I told them I was 00:32:00eighteen. I don’t remember, but I lied. But anyway they wanted an employee that did their work.WASHBURN: So, the women came with their daughters. Do you think they also--.
Everybody was making money, of course, but do you think people also did it so they could watch over their daughters to make sure they weren’t getting in no trouble or anything?CHAVEZ: No, no. They did it because they wanted the daughter to make money too
so she could buy clothes for herself. And they wanted to come to work, because that’s what they wanted. They wanted to buy their own clothes. Yeah, everybody was out--. You should have seen how, in the mornings, you know, you’d be working but you’d see out there waiting to get a job. Lines of people waiting to get a job. A guy would come out and just pick you out, “Come on!” If somebody didn’t show up and they needed somebody bad, then they’d just go outside and, you know--WASHBURN: Uh-huh. “Get in here, kid!”
CHAVEZ: They didn’t give a damn if you were in the front. They’d look around and
say “Come 00:33:00 on.”WASHBURN: Was that how you got a job there?
CHAVEZ: No. I told the guy I wanted a job and he said, “Well, we’ll see.” Okay.
So when they needed another guy, he says, “Come on. I know you’re young, but that’s okay.” But I was strong. I was a fruit dumper right away.WASHBURN: That’s great. That was a lot further than going to work at the rail
yards. How did you get down there to go to work down there?CHAVEZ: Bicycle. My bike.
WASHBURN: Oh, the Roadmaster.
CHAVEZ: Yeah, the Roadmaster. My little bicycle.
WASHBURN: Is that how everybody got down there, on their bikes? Or how did they
get there.CHAVEZ: No. A lot of people had cars, you know, old cars. I used to have my
bike. That’s it. Or walk. At that time you had a lot of empty fields, you took shortcuts. In other words, you didn’t have blocks. You took a shortcut. From Cutting, take a shortcut.WASHBURN: Through a field.
CHAVEZ: Uh-huh, a
00:34:00 field.WASHBURN: And you could do that on your bike and walking.
CHAVEZ: No, no. But I rode the bike without any people. And then a lot of times
I’d ride there because there’d be paths. A path on the road. Like a bat out of heck. Forgot about the paper routes when I first started making good money. And then we used to go buy clothes from a guy by the name of Jays. His store was-- Nice guy. You know, it’s history. Honest. I tell you, that street used to be right on Seventh. On Seventh between Seventh and Eighth.WASHBURN: On Macdonald?
CHAVEZ: On Macdonald. And he had clothes. A clothing store, shoes, and
up-to-date stuff, so naturally--. And he gave you credit. So all the kids that were in the cannery, you know, all of us that worked in the cannery, used to go there. Cashed our check and you’d pay so much on your bill. Maybe half of the 00:35:00check or all of it, but you didn’t care, cause you were wearing good stuff. Levis.WASHBURN: Tell me, what clothes people wanted to buy. You wanted to buy Levis.
CHAVEZ: Levis. Everybody wanted Levis.
WASHBURN: This was in the late Thirties and early Forties?
CHAVEZ: Mm-hmm. You had Levis. Then you had the shoes. Cordovan. That was the
color of the shoe, cordovan. That’s it. And then they used to have a thick sole and a high heel. Not really big, but, you know. It was a style. Guys with their Levis and a sweater.WASHBURN: Like a cardigan sweater?
CHAVEZ: Yeah. Cardigan jacket. But mostly jackets, they’d have like the pants
and the jacket to match.WASHBURN: What did the women wear?
CHAVEZ: Women? Well, you know, they had dresses, I guess. I don’t
00:36:00know. Bobby socks. And they used to wear shoes, crêpe. They’d have a crêpe sole.WASHBURN: Did you used to roll up your pants?
CHAVEZ: No, no, no. At the time you rolled them up. You’d have--what I mean,
you’d roll them up. Like this. Fold them up nice, you know.WASHBURN: Jay’s Store, huh?
CHAVEZ: And then after that came the corduroys. They used to have the corduroys
with the {_________?} cords.WASHBURN: Yeah. I’ve got a pair of those. And were those Levis like the Levis--
CHAVEZ: Of now?
WASHBURN: Well, now I can buy a pair, let’s say I buy a pair of Wranglers and
you can buy the pre-wash or the kind where you wash them twice or three times and they shrink up a bunch. Was that how those Levis were? They’d shrink up a bunch.CHAVEZ: Yeah. They seemed to be--. They were stronger, heavier. The rivets were different.
00:37:00Now they have a few rivets, but before they [laughter] were all rivets.WASHBURN: They were sturdy pants?
CHAVEZ: Uh-huh. Oh, man! I don’t remember how much they cost. Three-something.
WASHBURN: Let me ask you, why do you think people wanted to buy Levis? Sometimes
I think about Levis and I think that’s more for workers, people want to buy workers. Why would a kid who wants to look nice buy pants that people use for work?CHAVEZ: Well, they were good-looking pants. The Levis are good-looking pants.
They’d use them for--not slacks, but they’d use them for all around, like going to school or some of that. And work. They were good working pants. Like, I had pants and they were good for work and to go out at the same time. You’d make sure you didn’t dirty them.WASHBURN: What about for a-- When you went to a dance at Winter’s Hall or
something like that, would you wear Levis or would you wear slacks?CHAVEZ: Oh, we had
00:38:00slacks. You wore your Levis, like all around. But when you went out to church or somewhere, you wore slacks.WASHBURN: You wore different clothes. Okay, that makes sense.
CHAVEZ: A sports coat, you know.
WASHBURN: That makes sense. So tell me about how you went into the coast guard.
Where were you working right before you went into the coast guard.CHAVEZ: Sante Fe.
WASHBURN: At the Sante Fe?
CHAVEZ: Uh-huh.
WASHBURN: So let me get it straight. Did you work at the cannery before the
Sante Fe or the Sante Fe before the cannery?CHAVEZ: No, I worked in the cannery before the Sante Fe.
WASHBURN: When you were in high school?
CHAVEZ: Everybody-- During high school I worked in a cannery too.
WASHBURN: In the summer season, huh?
CHAVEZ: Uh-huh. Then after that I worked in the Sante Fe. Then after I was
working at the Sante Fe--. The reason I went down to Sante Fe was because the cannery’s only seasonal. And the Sante Fe was steady.WASHBURN: What’s the season for the
00:39:00 cannery?CHAVEZ: I don’t remember. About three months.
WASHBURN: Starting in June or starting in July or something like that?
CHAVEZ: They used to start with the cherries, and they start in May don’t they?
The May cherries.WASHBURN: Cherries are the first summer fruit, right.
CHAVEZ: That’s when it started. And then they used to end up with the peaches,
and sometimes-- You had peach and you had pears, and they used to mix up and they’d make cocktail. What were we talking about?WASHBURN: Asking about going into the service.
CHAVEZ: Oh yeah. Well, I didn’t want to go into the army. My first choice was
air force. My second choice was the coast guard and that was it. After that, I’d go in the army. But what I did, I had to get three letters of 00:40:00recommendation. I got one from Miller--the superintendent, you know.WASHBURN: Of the school.
CHAVEZ: But when the time came for me, I took those letters--. Because you had
to have three letters of recommendation, and I even had one from a supervisor from school, because I never got in trouble. But you have to know mathematics. And I didn’t know mathematics.WASHBURN: For the air force.
CHAVEZ: For the air force. And the guy said, “Do you know algebra?” And I said,
“No, I don’t know nothing like that.” I went like this. “Adding, subtract, multiply.” Well, he said, “You have to know mathematics.” But you can get in the army in the air force, work as a soldier. You know, army, not the pilot, learning to be a pilot. So I said No. My second choice was the coast guard, and that’s when I--. When they told me that, then I went across the hall and there was the USCG, United States Coast Guard.WASHBURN:
00:41:00Across the hall in the high school?CHAVEZ: Across the hall from the Post Office. That’s where they had their draft
office. Service. So I went and told them that I wanted to join the coast guard. “Oh sure, sit down.” And I had everything with me--my diploma from high school and the letters of recommendation, I had them. He didn’t even bother to ask me. So I said, “I’ve got this.” “Oh thanks!” You know, he checked it out. “Well, we’ll call you.” But I was afraid because I really didn’t want to get drafted. Because as long as you weren’t sworn in, they could still grab you. You could have had the {________?}. He told me himself, you know, “The army could still grab you because you haven’t been sworn in, so we’ll call you as soon possible, and when we need you.” I waited one, two months, and nothing. That draft board was after us. So finally I 00:42:00got to go and get sworn in. And I went and got sworn in, and then I got my draft. I went to the draft office and I told them, I said, “I got this, but I’m already in the coast guard. I’m waiting to get called.” “Have you been sworn in?” “Yes, I’m sworn in.” And I showed them the card they give you. “Okay.” So that’s what it was. Then I went in to the service.WASHBURN: That was in what year? Was it in ’42 that you went in the service?
CHAVEZ: Yeah, ’42. End of ’42 I went in and got out in ’46.
WASHBURN: That’s a long. Four years. And where did you patrol?
CHAVEZ: San Francisco.
WASHBURN: You were stationed in the Bay?
CHAVEZ: Yeah. I was one of the lucky ones. I got to stay over here in San
Francisco, and Port Chicago, and around the beaches. Like Rockaway Beach, 00:43:00Half Moon Bay. What else did we have? Bodega Bay, and all those.WASHBURN: Why do you say you were lucky?
CHAVEZ: Cause I didn’t go overseas.
WASHBURN: Where would you have gone, if you went overseas?
CHAVEZ: Well, they could have-- Any place. Cause if you’re in the coast guard,
they can put you on a--. But you know what? I wanted sea duty, and they never gave me sea duty. What you want, they don’t give you. I wanted sea duty. I wanted to get in a boat. On a cutter.WASHBURN: What did you do?
CHAVEZ: I never got it. They give me a dog. Dog patrol.
WASHBURN: You patrolled the beaches?
CHAVEZ: The beach, uh-huh. With a dog. I liked that. After that we had horses,
so we rode horseback, back and forth on the beach.WASHBURN: You got on a horse?
CHAVEZ: Oh yeah!
WASHBURN: That sounds like fun.
CHAVEZ: They had Post Number 9 was {________?} Zoo, and Post Number 10 was
Playland. And 00:44:00then Post number 7 was Mussel Rock. That was the only bad one. All these hills and everything. Then, after that, I got stationed in {__________?} Then I got stationed in Port Chicago, right after it blew up.WASHBURN: I was going to ask you about that. What do you remember about the Port
Chicago explosion?CHAVEZ: It just blew up. We were in the service then. Uh-huh. Then it blew up
and all the theaters that they put down came out a flash, “Servicemen, go back to your station. Any servicemen, go back to your station.”WASHBURN: Is that how you heard about it?
CHAVEZ: No, I heard about it--. I don’t even remember how the hell I heard about
it. But at that time, you know, where I was stationed? Richmond. In Port Richmond. So, you 00:45:00know, when I went back to the base, what had happened and all that kind of stuff. They put you on alert. No liberty. No nothing. No leaves.WASHBURN: Do you remember feeling the explosion? Some people say you could feel
it for miles around. Do you remember feeling it?CHAVEZ: No, I don’t remember feeling it. But I think I was in a show, in the
movies when they said that “Go back to your base.” I don’t remember. It’s been a while.WASHBURN: It was a pretty sad incident. A couple of hundred people died, right?
CHAVEZ: All them people getting killed. And then after that, being that I was in
the coast guard, we had to stand watch on what happened in Port Chicago; we had to stand watch where the three ships were right there getting loaded with ammunition.WASHBURN: Were you scared about that then? Were you afraid you might get blown
up then, the same accident might happen?CHAVEZ: You’d have to go down in the hold. You’d have to watch them while
they’re putting 00:46:00the--. You know, before the accident, before the explosion, I was standing watch there. We were lucky, because they didn’t have no watch at that time. No other coast guard, you see. So, we had to go out there and watch that they were putting the bombs, and that they don’t use no--. Any kind of hammer, they had, had to be copper. No iron.WASHBURN: You’re saying you were down in the hull of the ship making sure they
were doing their job right.CHAVEZ: Yeah, you’d look around. You’d keep looking around and they’d come back
up and all that.WASHBURN: Let me get it straight. Were you in the boat or outside the boat.
CHAVEZ: Inside.
WASHBURN: You were inside the boat.
CHAVEZ: On top. On the deck. We were on the ship. Once in a while, you had to
come down in the hold, and we had to go up and then look around.WASHBURN: Why was the coast guard doing that and not somebody else?
CHAVEZ: I don’t know. Coast guard was making sure
00:47:00that nothing would happen. But it was sad. Because even after it happened, and all the time they were still taking out bodies and all that. Months after.WASHBURN: Why months?
CHAVEZ: You know what I mean. Like, they were stuck down there. They had a lot
of metal down there, and they were stuck down there.WASHBURN: They had to take the metal out of everything?
CHAVEZ: They had big chunks of steel. With a big old crane.
WASHBURN: Some people say, when I’ve read about it, they say they had all the
black soldiers loading the ammunition.CHAVEZ: They did.
WASHBURN: So you don’t remember ever seeing any of the white soldiers loading ammunition?
CHAVEZ: You know, maybe I did see some. But they were mostly black. That’s why
they raised all kind of heck after, you know.WASHBURN: Why’s that?
CHAVEZ: A lot of them guys, they wouldn’t go back. They got court-martialed.
They got 00:48:00court-martialed and after all these years, they finally--WASHBURN: Gave them amnesty, or something.
CHAVEZ: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
WASHBURN: What were people saying about that whole incident? Do you remember
people saying, “That’s not fair, they’re getting court-martialed”, or “Yeah, they deserve getting court-martialed.”CHAVEZ: No, no, no. A lot of them were against it. Against getting court-martialed.
WASHBURN: A lot of who?
CHAVEZ: A lot of people. Because, they figured, “Well, hell--.” If I went back,
I’d be a little scared. Even after I went back and we had to stand watch, you got a little afraid. But you get used to it, I guess.WASHBURN: Do you remember ever working with any black folks or have any black
friends that you talked to about that?CHAVEZ: No, they don’t talk about it. They don’t want to talk about it. But, you
see, the deal was this: that they used to 00:49:00race against each other. The ships. Whoever put more dunnage. They’d bet on something. Money, I don’t know what it was. And then whoever won, whoever got more dunnage for that day, they won. So they’re out there going like a bat out of heck. Wanting to get more dunnage. You know, dunnage is the stuff they put in those bombs and all that kind of crap.WASHBURN: So it wasn’t the most safest conditions?
CHAVEZ: Well, you should have seen some of them guys when they used to go down
the ladder. Some guys would run.WASHBURN: How did you learn that they were doing that? That the boats were
competing against each other?CHAVEZ: Oh, you’d hear it. They’d tell you, “We’re going against those other
guys.” They even {________?} They would tell you themselves. After a while, nobody wanted to go back there.WASHBURN: I can
00:50:00understand why they wouldn’t want to. So you worked in the coast guard until ’46. In ’46 the shipyards were closing down and not building as many ships, but I remember the first time we met, you said you worked in the shipyards.CHAVEZ: I did.
WASHBURN: When was that?
CHAVEZ: Right after I got out of school.
WASHBURN: You had a bunch of jobs right after you got out of school.
CHAVEZ: See, but I didn’t stay long. Because I knew I was going in the service.
That’s why I volunteered. So I worked on the Sante Fe for a while. Yeah I worked on the Sante Fe for a while, then I worked in a shipyards for a while, and then what else did I do after that? That was it. Then I went in the service.WASHBURN: Let’s talk about the shipyard, because a lot of people--. That was a
real big change for 00:51:00Richmond. One of the biggest, probably that took place in that time.CHAVEZ: Yeah, when they started to build the shipyards, people were coming from
all over. They had no place to stay. They were sleeping in a car, right on Macdonald Avenue. Boomtown.WASHBURN: Really changed.
CHAVEZ: Oh, yeah. And pretty soon all these bars were staying open all night.
Dancing. Boy!WASHBURN: Did a lot of those changes take place down near your neighborhood, huh?
CHAVEZ: Where we lived?
WASHBURN: Along Macdonald, a lot of things changed along Macdonald Avenue. Maybe
not along your section.CHAVEZ: No.
WASHBURN: Let me ask you, where did you notice most of the change.
CHAVEZ: Downtown.
WASHBURN: Where?
CHAVEZ: All these people were coming from all over. And they started working in the
00:52:00shipyard, and you’d see a lot of guys wearing their nice-looking suits. With their hard hat on. They had their tie on, and then they had their big badge here with their picture on it. To tell you the truth, I didn’t go out much, you know.WASHBURN: Let me ask you how you got your job there at the shipyards.
CHAVEZ: I just signed up.
WASHBURN: You just walked on over there?
CHAVEZ: I just walked in and said I wanted to work. “Okay, fine.” But I didn’t
last long at the shipyards, because that’s when I got the hell out to go in the service.WASHBURN: That’s okay. You still did work there for a little while and you
probably have some good memories about it. Did you work at Shipyard 1? Which shipyard?CHAVEZ: I worked at Shipyard-- The one that was right on Fourth Street, all the
way. The first or second one. I think it was the first one that I worked on. When they were building it, you know that.WASHBURN: What was your
00:53:00 job?CHAVEZ: I was out there with a cart, and they’d say, “Take these plates to--”. I
forgot so much--the number of the ship. So we’d have to take the parts--me and another guy--had to push this cart with parts that was going to go on the ship and put them down there, and all that kind of thing. That’s how they had me sweeping. Sweeping the streets there, you know. The inside of the shipyard. With grass. I used to go out there with a can and go out there and roll it and fill it up. Then another guy would take it off and empty it. He’d come back and I’d just keep, with a broom.WASHBURN: So how well did that pay compared to the rail yards and the cannery?
CHAVEZ: More. They paid you more. Over on the railroad you worked all the time.
Over here 00:54:00you could sit down and BS. Or go to the toilet, BS, and come back. 00:55:00