Interview with Raul de Jesus Moran Rosas and Alejandro Bautista Malegon / Una Entrevista con Raul de Jesus Moran Rosas y Alejandro Bautista Malegon

• Interview with Raul de Jesus Moran Rosas and Alejandro Bautista Malegon
• Charles H. Rowell, Marcus Jones, and Florentino Flores Castro

This interview was conducted on February 20, 2007, in Yanga, Veracruz, Mexico.

ROWELL: How old are you?

ROSAS: I'm twenty years old.

MALEGON: I'm nineteen.

ROWELL: Have you been working at this restaurant since high school?

ROSAS: Because it belongs to my grandfather, I've been here since I was seven years old. Maybe I haven't exactly been working since then, but I've always been around the restaurant.

MALEGON: I've only been here two weeks.

ROWELL: Do you plan to make this your profession? That is, to become a businessman?

ROSAS: I have plans to keep studying and to continue the work my grandfather will leave behind.

JONES: And you?

MALEGON: Right now I have no plans to keep studying. I'm thinking about staying with my dad, about helping him with the things he has going.

ROWELL: And what does your father do?

MALEGON: He owns heavy machinery. I want to be with him around heavy machinery.

Raul de Jesus Moran Rosas
Yanga, Mexico

Photo by Marcus D. Jones © 2007

ROWELL: Where do you live?

ROSAS: I live in Cordoba.

MALEGON: I live here in Yanga.

ROWELL: Have you ever lived in Mata Clara?

ROSAS: I lived in Yanga before, and he's always lived in Yanga. My Mata Clara family members are my grandfather and all of them.

ROWELL: What is life for you like as young men in this area? What do you do to amuse yourselves?

ROSAS: There are baseball and soccer teams. I think those are the most popular sports here. At night most people gather on the street corners to talk about what they did during the day. On the weekends, those from Mata Clara as well as those from Cuitlahuac and Yanga go to Cordoba, which is where the discos and clubs are located.

ROWELL: What is your favorite music?

ROSAS: I don't have a favorite type of music.

JONES: Do you have a favorite singer?

ROSAS: Valentino¹.

MALEGON: I like his band.

ROWELL: So you're not really like a lot of youth in the U.S. or in Cuba, who are interested in rap music?

ROSAS: There aren't many Mexicans who do rap and reggae, right?

MALEGON: Not reggaeton. Only Daddy Yankee is played.

JONES: But he's Puerto Rican.

MALEGON: There aren't any Mexicans who rap.

JONES: As far as school goes, what do you want to do? Do you want to go to college?

ROSAS: I want to go to school. I would like to go somewhere, maybe get away from the restaurant world for awhile, and see other things, because I've been here almost my entire life.

MALEGON: The truth is that school isn't in my plans at the moment. My plans are to help out my dad, work with him, and maybe buy myself some land—something like that. I'd like to do my own things with my own strength, not out of necessity. I don't want to be dependent on my parents. I want to do my own thing out of my own free will.

JONES: Why do you think many young people from Mexico want to go to the United States?

ROSAS: Well, here there isn't a lot of work. So I think that, in the case of not being well prepared—some of them don't graduate—they decide to go to the United States.

MALEGON: They think about helping their families because of the scarcity of work there is here. They must think that they can earn more in the U.S.

ROWELL: If you had the chance and your grandfather said to you, "Here's money to travel anywhere you want to go in the world," where would you travel...