Vasquez, Jesus (audio interview #1 of 1)

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Rancho Los Alamitos - Hotchkis Collection

Vasquez, Jesus (audio interview #1 of 1)

Vasquez, Jesus (b. unkown - d. unknown ); Hotchkis, Joan, interviewer

URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10211.3/224421

Date: 2022-10-21

Abstract:

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, background, parents, move to CA, jobs in CA, move to Rancho Los Alamitos in 1925, work on Rancho Los Alamitos and recreationTopics on this side of tape include, work on Rancho Los Alamitos, families leasing land on ranch; crops, and Japanese sent to concentration camps in WWIITopics on this side of tape include Fred Bixby's funeral, work at Rancho Los Alamitos and other people who lived at Rancho Los Alamitos 5/23/1979

Description:

SUBJECT BIO - Jesus Vasquez came to work at Rancho Los Alamitos in the early 1920s and lived there until 1963 but he continued to work there until 1972. He was born in 1899 in Michoacan, Mexico. He followed his father and older brother to the United States when he was 19 and he found a job paving roads and worked for a sugar company in Santa Ana. His father, however, lived next door to the foreman at Rancho Los Alamitos and he visited the ranch before he came to work and live there in 1925. When he first came to Rancho Los Alamitos, he worked as a general hand cleaning the barns, feeding the animals, mending the fences, weeding the garden and other jobs. He didn't begin driving a tractor until about 1950; before that, other workers used horses to do ranch work and Vasquez seldom worked with them. On a typical day, he'd get up, eat fried eggs from the ranch chickens for breakfast, then go to see what Fred Bixby, who owned the ranch, wanted him to do or what needed to be done that day. At lunch time, he go home to eat and then return to work. Sometimes he'd go to help out at other nearby properties Bixby owned. Joan Hotchkis conducted this interview at the home of Vasquez youngest son, Salvador, with whom he lives. Salvador sat in on the interview and often translated his father's Spanish and Hotchkis' English. In the yard of the home, Hotchkis visited the garden Vasquez still cared for including some plants that originally came from the ranch. Hotchkis 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, background, parents, move to CA, jobs in CA, move to Rancho Los Alamitos in 1925, work on Rancho Los Alamitos and recreationTopics on this side of tape include, work on Rancho Los Alamitos, families leasing land on ranch; crops, and Japanese sent to concentration camps in WWIITopics on this side of tape include Fred Bixby's funeral, work at Rancho Los Alamitos and other people who lived at Rancho Los Alamitos

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