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Mariscal, Angelita (audio interview #1 of 1)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - Joan Hotchkis, who conducted this interview, grew up in San Marino and her maternal grandparents lived nearby at Rancho Los Alamitos in Long Beach. When she was growing up, she visited there often with her parents and siblings. In 1979, she decided to interview some of the people shoe remembered living and working at the ranch when she visited. She was studying her own family history and planning to write about it. Eventually this led her to write and perform a one woman show that she presented across the United States and in Europe. TOPICS - Topics on this side of tape include, parents; move to Mexico and back to California, father's work on Rancho Los Alamitos, going to school and life at the ranch;Topics on this side of tape include, going to school in Long Beach, religion, responsibilities while growing up, meeting future husband at church and elopingTopics on this side of tape include, life on Rancho Los Alamitos, marriage and children and birth controlTopics on this side of tape include, recreation, working at Rancho Los Alamitos, husband's illness and death, Fred Bixby's funeral, and 1933 Long Beach earthquake;Topics on this side of tape include, 1933 Long Beach earthquake, husband leading ranch tours for children, working as nurses' aide and sewing and cooking at home; 5/15/1979
- Date
- 2022-10-21
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- Notes
- SUBJECT BIO - Angelita Reyes Sisneros Mariscal lived at Rancho Los Alamitos from June, 1934 until the summer of 1963. She moved to the ranch when she married Joe Sisneros, who worked there, and they became the parents of four children. Both of her parents emigrated to the US from the same small town, Santa Maria de Los Angeles, in Mexico, and they were living in Los Nietos, California when Mariscal was born in 1917. Angie talks about her life at the ranch, her husband's work and the work that she and her children sometime did to help out. She also describes the relationship between the Bixbys, who owned the ranch, and their employees, and how that changed over time as the Bixby got older and the city grew up around the ranch. In addition, she describes her background, her husband's and her life and that of her children after she left the ranch and her husband died. Joan Hotchkis interviewed Angie in her home in the town of Los Alamitos, near Rancho Los Alamitos, which is located in Long Beach. It's the house that Angie says in her interview that her husband was building when he became too sick to continue. Hotchkis found the house neat and clean; she wrote that it seemed to be a loved house. She conducted this interview as part of a project to collect stories about Rancho Los Alamitos. INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - Joan Hotchkis, who conducted this interview, grew up in San Marino and her maternal grandparents lived nearby at Rancho Los Alamitos in Long Beach. When she was growing up, she visited there often with her parents and siblings. In 1979, she decided to interview some of the people shoe remembered living and working at the ranch when she visited. She was studying her own family history and planning to write about it. Eventually this led her to write and perform a one woman show that she presented across the United States and in Europe. TOPICS - Topics on this side of tape include, parents; move to Mexico and back to California, father's work on Rancho Los Alamitos, going to school and life at the ranch;Topics on this side of tape include, going to school in Long Beach, religion, responsibilities while growing up, meeting future husband at church and elopingTopics on this side of tape include, life on Rancho Los Alamitos, marriage and children and birth controlTopics on this side of tape include, recreation, working at Rancho Los Alamitos, husband's illness and death, Fred Bixby's funeral, and 1933 Long Beach earthquake;Topics on this side of tape include, 1933 Long Beach earthquake, husband leading ranch tours for children, working as nurses' aide and sewing and cooking at home;
- *** File: mjhamariscal1.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-14:09)... Mariscal was born near Whittier in 1917 and she was five years old when she moved to Mexico. She was around 10 years old when she moved back to the United States. Her parents lived in Mexico and her mother was 24 years old when she married her father and he was around 29 years old. Mariscal was 16 years old in 1934 when her family moved to Rancho Los Alamitos which was owned by Fred and Florence Bixby. They lived in a small house on the ranch property. The Bixbys employed Mexican workers and somtimes helped them with money and other support when the workers faced problems. Mariscal's husband, Joe, also worked on the ranch and was helped by the Bixbys. (14:09-23:47)... Mariscal had two brothers and six sisters. Her father came to the United States by himself to work in 1912 and left her mother and younger brother in Mexico. He worked for a while in a railroad before sending for her mother. About that time, Mariscal was born. When she was five years old, her family went back to Mexico where her father worked his own fields and sold what he grew to make a living. Her family lived in a three room adobe house; there was no electricity and they got water from a well. When she was 10 years old, her family moved back to the US. They lived with Mariscal's aunt in Norwalk and her father worked on a ranch operated by a Japanese man. Later they moved into a house on the ranch where her father worked. When his employers moved, Mariscal's family moved with them to Stanton where they lived in an old wooden, three room house. By this time the family had nine children. The girls slept two or three to a bed. There was an outhouse and no electricity in their house although their employers had electricity. Mariscal's father was paid $3 a day for working from sun up to sun down, six days a week. (23:47-27:08)... When anyone in her family became ill, her mother treated them with home rememdies; she does not recall ever going to a doctor. The owners of the truck farm where her father was employed did the same work as their employees. They raised chilis and used big trucks to haul the produce to sell in Garden Grove. Three families lived at the ranch and the owners sometimes employed additional day laborers. (27:08-31:27)... Mariscal attended school in Norwalk, but not in Stanton. Her father made the decisions in their home and was the family disciplinarian who sometimes spanked his children with a belt. Mariscal's family went to church every Sunday and sometime also went to visit her aunt or to the beach. End of tape *** File: mjhamariscal2.mp3 (0:00-1:00)... Mariscal's father inherited a Ford truck and he used it to take his family to church every Sunday. Sometime they also used the truck to go on family outlings. (1:00-5:46)... When Mariscal did not attend school in Stanton, someone turned her in and a truant officer came to talk to her father. After that, Mariscal was forced to go to school and she attended Laurel school in Los Alamitos . When she started back to school, she was 14 and placed in the fifth grade. She stayed in school until she completed the seventh grade. Some of her teachers helped her, but she had a hard time. She walked to school with her brothers and it was two or three miles each way. In total, she only completed five years of school and, at the time of the interview, still found it hard to get jobs with her limited education. (5:46-8:14)... Mariscal has been working in a hospital as a nurses aide. At the time of the interview, she didn't want to go back to high school because she has trouble retaining information for tests. Most of the Mexican children she knows didn't finish their education because their families needed the income from their work. Her brother, for example, didn't finish high school; he went to work to help support his family. (8:14-9:50)... When Mariscal was growing up her family ate beans and rice at almost every meal. Meat was a specialty. Every evening, Mariscal walked to a dairy to buy milk . (9:50-13:23)... Mariscal's mother was active in church activities and helped with fiestas and during the Mariachi Mass which featured guitars and trumpets. After the mass, there were parties with dancing and food. Mariscal became interested in boys when she was around 15 years old; she met her husband Joe at church. Her father liked Joe's family because they were very religious. (13:23-14:43)... Every evening Mariscal and her family knelt and prayed the rosary together before they went to bed. (14:43-18:41)... Mariscal's parents were very strict and, as the eldest of the girls, she helped her mother with all of the chores around the house. She was 16 when she met Joe, who later became her husband. Her parents did not allow him to come to the house to visit her but allowed her to keep letters he wrote. She was afraid that her parents would disapprove of their relationship because of her age and she was not really ready to get married. (18:41-25:41)... Joe and Mariscal went out one time without her father's permission and when she came home, her father had locked the doors. She was afraid that her father would beat her for disobeying him and Joe suggested that they get married. Mariscal wanted to get married but not to elope. Her father, hoiwever, told her that she could not come back home and she had to get married. She and Joe tried to elope to Artesia where Joe had to pay $40 to get a marriage license. (25:41-28:03)... Mariscal's parents never argued in front of their children and Mariscal never saw them fight. Her father, who made his own beer, only drank heavily when he was upset. He drank until he was sick and then needed a doctor because he was not supposed to be drinking. When Mariscal eloped, he started drinking heavily. (28:03-31:21)... Mariscal was married in Long Beach. Although it was close to where her family lived, no one else from her family attended. She believed that was her punishment for going out without her father's permission. All of Joe's family and friends were there and they had a luncheon after the wedding. End of tape *** File: mjhamariscal3.mp3 (0:00-2:51)... Mariscal's family did not attend her wedding and regarded it as a Mexican tradition that if a daughter eloped it was a slap in the face to the family. Mariscal and her husband Joe did not have a honeymoon. They moved into a house on Rancho Los Alamitos that had been furnished by Florence Bixby, one of the ranch's owners and grandmother of the interviewer. (2:51-6:12)... The house where Mariscal lived with her husband Joe had one bedroom and the bathroom was outside. They bathed in galvanized tubs inside their house. They had electricity but no gas and they warmed water over a wood fire. (6:12-7:25)... Mariscal's first child, Martha, was born in that house in 1935. About two years later, they moved to a bigger house on the ranch when she was expecting her second child, Tom, who was born in 1937. (7:25-14:02)... When she was growing up, Mariscal did not know anything about the facts of life and her mother did not tell her anything about her period. Mariscal was 11 when she had her first period. She jumped in the reservior behind her parents' house to bathe and never told her mother. She thought she was bleeding because she was just hurt . One day a door to door salesman noticed her in the reservior and he told her mother that she was swimming in cold water while she had her period. Her mother finally told her about having a period every month and Mariscal made her own pads. When she had children, Mariscal sent for books to explain menstruation to her own daughters so they would not have to go through what she went through. (14:02-21:18)... When Mariscal and Joe got married, they were both ignorant about sex. Joe knew a little more than she did because he had jobs and was not as isolated as she had been. After they were married, Joe worked in the ranch garden and earned $50 a month. She kept house and did not worry about money. On a typical day, she got up at 6 am to fix breakfast before Joe went to work. She washed her clothes by hand and boiled the linens to keep them white. When she lived with her family on a ranch operated by a Japanese rancher, his children used to say that they knew why her family's clothes were so white; it was because she cooked them. She had an electric iron and was happy when they moved into a bigger house that had a water heater. (21:18-24:37)... On most days, Joe came home during his lunch hour. She cooked beans and tortillas for him and kept busy making her own tortillas. When Joe went back to work after lunch, she continued with her housework until it was time to fix dinner. Mariscal and Joe eventually had four children. (24:37-27:29)... Mariscal had a good relationship with her husband, Joe and they shared decision making, although she often just went along with his decisions. Most of the time, however she was the one who disciplined the children. (27:29-29:54)... Mariscal lived in the bigger house, that her family moved into after her first child was born, from 1937 to 1942. Florence Bixby, one of the owners of the ranch, visited them often and asked if they needed anything. (29:54-31:23)... Florence Bixby took the women who lived on the ranch to learn about birth control; at the time they were using the diaphram. Joe, when he became Bixby's driver, took the women to a clinic about once a month and Joe's mother was very upset about this part of his job because she was a devout Catholic. Joe tried to explain to her that he wanted a better life for his children. He said he wanted them to have a chance to be educated and he believed could not afford to keep having children. End of tape *** File: mjhamariscal4.mp3 (0:00-3:23)... After her son Tom was born in 1937, Mariscal began exploring birth control. When her fourth child, Freddie, was born, she and her husband enjoyed spoiling him. In their leisure time, Joe and Mariscal liked to pack a lunch and go to Seal Beach for a picnic. In the evenings during the summer the whole family sometimes went swimming in Colorado Lagoon; the whole family loved swimming. The family had a car but Mariscal did not learn to drive until her children were grown. (3:23-5:19)... When Mariscal's children were grown, she worked as a cook for the Bixbys at Rancho Los Alamitos. She quit that job when her husband Joe got sick. Her daughter also worked in the kitchen there, washing dishes in the evening. She gave the money she earned to Mariscal. (5:19-14:39)... When Mariscal worked as a cook at Rancho Los Alamitos, she prepared lunch for the nine men who worked there and they loved her cooking. She also helped with cleaning the house. In the 1950s Joe went to see a doctor and discovered he had diabetes but he did not follow the diet that was prescribed for him. Florence Bixby paid his medical bills and sent him to a doctor in Beverly Hills. His diabetes was affecting his heart but they did not know. He could not work for about five years before he died. Mariscal's family lived on the ranch until 1963 when they moved because Joe could not work any more. Joe's diabetes was out of control. It led to complications and he was in and out of the hospital for three years before his death. The Bixbys provided them with Blue Cross health insurance and it paid for the hospital visits. (14:39-23:06)... In 1937 the Mariscals were the first workers living at Rancho Los Alamitos to have indoor plumbing and new appliances. They were favored by the Bixbys and some of the other workers were jealous. Eventually, however, all of the other houses on the ranch also had indoor bathrooms. When Joe started working as Florence Bixby's driver, Mariscal was sometimes invited to go along. It seemed like the Bixbys treated the Mariscals like family rather than like servants. They were invited to go with the Bixbys to the Santa Barbara Fiesta in the early 1950s and Mariscal shook the governor's hand. When Joe drove the Bixbys to the Sacramento State Fair, he and his family sat in the president's box, to the surprise of the ushers. Mariscal has never known anyone like the Bixbys. (23:06-27:42)... The Mariscals moved away Rancho Los Alamitos in 1963 and Joe died in 1967. Mariscal and her children missed living on the ranch. She named her last son, Freddie, after Fred Bixby, and Florence Bixby was very happy about it. Mariscal remembers attending Fred Bixby's funeral with the other workers from the ranch. The funeral was full of flowers. Florence Bixby was a strong woman who knew how to carry herself but she seemed very sad at the funeral. (27:42-29:15)... Mariscal got along with Joe's mother and did not tell her that Joe died. Joe's sister, Petra, took care of their mother and Joe's mother never knew that he died. (29:15-31:23)... When the 1933 earthquake struck, Mariscal was living in Stanton with her parents. It was a Friday night during Lent and when the ground started to move, everything in their house seemed to be falling down including their stove . Their car was moving back and forth in the driveway and her brothers and sisters started screaming. End of tape *** File: mjhamariscal5.mp3 (0:00-12:27)... When the 1933 earthquake struck, a kerosene lamp fell over and started a fire that was soon put out. There was food all over the floor and everything was dark. The aftershocks kept coming and no one knew what was happening. The Murata family, and others who lived near Rancho Los Alamitos, slept outside after the quake stopped shaking. People were leaving town to escape the tidal wave that rumors insisted was coming. Mariscal had never seen anything like it. (Mariscal shows pictures to interviewer). (12:27-15:35)... In the late 1950s there began to be school buses that brought students to tour Rancho Los Alamitos. Joe led them around the ranch and let them jump into the hay. After the students got home, they wrote Joe thank you letters. In Long Beach everyone called Mariscal's husband Joe Bixby because he drove Florence Bixby and they did not know his real name. (15:35-22:02)... Joe was very short and Mariscal's boys are very tall. Joe was always plump and he loved sweets. In his later years, Joe went on a diet, but by then he had diabetes and it was too late for the diet to help much. At the time of the interview, Mariscal said she worries about her children getting diabetes. She believes that leaving the ranch and the death of Fred and Florence Bixby had a great effect on Joe and his health. She lived at Rancho Los Alamitos for 29 years and Joe lived there all his life. He was 50 years old when he died. They were going to build a house before he died but backed out of it because he did not want to leave her with any debt. (22:02-31:21)... After Joe's death Mariscal began working in a hospital as a nurse's aide. She enjoyed it but did not get paid very well because she did not have a license. She started as $2.60 an hour and when she left she was making $4.35. At the time of the interview, she was keeping busy at home sewing and cooking. She used to sew and made her girls' clothes. All of her children finished high school. Tom and Fred went to college and Martha went to business college. Her youngest daughter did not like school and did not want to finish high school, but Joe always said his children would get an education whether they wanted it or not. End of tape
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