Mexicanos in Oregon: Their Stories, Their Lives

Testimonio by Maria Damaris

205 THEIR STORIES, THEIR LIVES Testimonio by María Damaris Thistestimonioiscomposedfromexcerptsofanhour-longinterviewconducted at the offices of PCUN where María was working at the time, after having worked as a labor organizer in Portland. She had divorced her American husband and married a Mexican immigrant. Speaking mainly in English, María occasionally slipped into Spanish. The excerpts were transcribed, selected, and arranged by the authors. I was nine when my parents divorced. That was a big challenge for me, my sister, and my brother, who were growing up together with my parents. My mom went on her own. She started working very hard, and my dad started drinking more and more. So, I come from a so-called dysfunctional family. But just facing all the challenges of growing up without a father helped me a lot to take more responsibilities. I just had to do everything from helping my mom carry the water two blocks to our home to helping my siblings. If we were on the bus and someone would touch my sister’s butt, I would be the one defending her and facing men. My mother, she works at the University of Michoacán, which is called La Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolas de Hidalgo, which is the government public university. She started working as a cook there. Then she worked her way up. We always were involved in rallies and marches. My mom used to always take us to the rallies, so I’ve been in that environment since I was very young. I understood the sense of justice and I understood that when people or the government try to take something away from you, you have to fight back. And there’s no choice, because if you don’t fight back then you lose the little things. That’s what my mother taught me, and I’m very grateful for that. It just happened that a gabacho—he was of Irish descent—a Spanish student, came to my home town. Actually we met in a place called Patzcuaro in Michoacán, and we fell in love. Everything happened so quick. It was a big shock for my family. But it was good. I needed to take a break from my family problems. My mom was having some hard times with my stepfather, and I had been working too hard. I was working so hard helping my family. I was the main breadwinner at that time in the family. So it was very harsh. At the age of twenty-one, on January first of 1994, I married ______. We flew back to Eugene, Oregon. And while I was trying to adjust to the cultural shock 206 Mexicanos in Oregon Testimonio: María Damaris of being in a little town like Eugene, Oregon, with—oh, I don’t know—95 percent white people, the Zapatistas rose up and they were saying, “Basta [enough]” and “We are all Indians.” This had a major impact on me, because I always grew up defending the rights of women and indigenous people, but I did not really understand the roots of the problems we have in Mexico and the bigger challenges we had, like classism and the impact of colonialism, and trying to understand why some people in my culture were very sexist, and understanding that sexism is everywhere. So when Marcos started saying, “We all are Indians,” I started questioning myself. Who was I? My identity? I think it was a great start. I think I started with the right foot in this country, because of the Zapatistas. Otherwise I think I could have lost myself in the American culture. I was working in Eugene, Oregon, as a community organizer, teaching English to Latino parents, and teaching Spanish to English-speaking teachers. Teaching Spanish through music to white kids. That’s the work I did in Eugene. I also worked with the government, with the Lane County government as a Healthy Start assessment and caseworker. Then I worked with Catholic Charities Community. Then I thought it was not enough to be a community organizer. I wanted bigger challenges. My partner had finished his undergraduate studies, so we were ready to move to California to work in the labor movement. He went to work with AFL-CIO, which is one of the most progressive unions. And I went to work with the Janitors’ Union. I said, “If I am going to sacrifice my life, sacrifice maternity, sacrifice my marriage, it has to...