YouSaid · the spoken record

Alfredo Corchado

lines on the record: 62
first: 2017-06-01
most recent: 2017-06-01
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Right. My mother was very involved, which is kind of controversial because SR Chavez in those days did not really welcome undocumented Mexicans, felt that they were driving wages down. My mother was a green car holder, and she would argue with the child's people and say, look, we all care about human rights. We need to find Bill O'Brien. I mean, it was interesting that my mother, a homemaker, very quiet, kind of meek at home, you come to the United States and suddenly she becomes raising help left and right with the units. Even leading strikes. And I would just watch her and say, Who is this woman? But when Bobby Kennedy died, we were out in the fields and they kept broadcasting his famous words. Some men see the way things are and ask why. Others dream of things that never were and ask why not. And my mother”
2017-06-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 152 - Alfredo Corchado · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“basically sucking away the soul of this country, the whole sense that this can be a better country. I'll tell you one anecdote that always kind of resonates with me. And this was... nineteen sixty eight and we're still debating this I've been living in the United States for three years in California we're in the fields Bobby Kennedy had just been assassinated.”
2017-06-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 152 - Alfredo Corchado · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is lost. As a reporter for the Dallas Foreign News, I mean, I'm beginning to go to communities, whether it's here in Chicago, for example, in San Diego, in Dallas where employers are beginning to ask me, why aren't the Mexicans coming anymore? There's a real sense of what's going to happen next. I think that, I mean, the Mexicans are the boogeyman. They're the punching bags these days. But I think that the day is coming soon where Americans will really miss Mexicans. I mean, you can't really talk about one side or the other without the Mexicans. And I, uh... I can tell you, I mean, it's. I don't detect outrage on their part whenever I interview immigrants about the current climate. But there is a sense of people feeling betrayed, being hurt. People feeling like you continue this path.”
2017-06-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 152 - Alfredo Corchado · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's something that really struck me then. He said. We're all going to work hard. We're all going to make it. And if you work hard, life will get better. Did know what he meant at the time, but what choice do I have? I was six years old, so you take him at his word. But I think for the longest time, there was a sense of resentment that you took us from Mexico and you promised us something that just wasn't true.”
2017-06-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 152 - Alfredo Corchado · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's interesting. My father wasn't a very affectionate man, but I think one of the things he did, one of the young boys, he sent us a postcard. It was the state capital of California. Gave me a sense that our home would look like that because everybody said, oh, in the United States, you're going to go to, I mean, you're going to find a home, you're going to find toilets that flat, that flush and et cetera. So we were driving up on a bus, Greyhound bus, from El Paso to California. And we stop at every time, and my brothers would say, are we there yet? Are we home yet? Take the car. I said, no, we're not there, but I think we're close. We arrived. He was living in a trailer house with four other farm workers, uncles of ours. We slept outside the trailer house by the melon fields. And I remember one, everybody in my family remembers this tantrum that I threw that I got up and I said, how terrible of you to have brought us here.”
2017-06-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 152 - Alfredo Corchado · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, yes. I remember waking up in the morning and my mother, you know, you just see the back of her and kind of in the shadows and splashing water and the plants and singing, these old songs that Jose Felo Jimenez, Javier Soliz, these songs that kind of embody Mexico for us.”
2017-06-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 152 - Alfredo Corchado · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that's how we ended up in the United States. Again, it was, I remember crying, days leading up to that, that I would leave Mexico. I would leave Durango. I mean, unpaved streets, but these streets kind of felt like they belonged to us. I mean, my brothers and I would walk the streets to my grandmother's house to pick up our food. My mother was a singer in our town. One of the interesting things about working on this book was going back and reporting on my mother. And people would say, you know, when your mother sang, Even the rooster stopped to listen. Little details like that kind of gave me a sense of...”
2017-06-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 152 - Alfredo Corchado · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was kind of interesting if we look at that period because employers were really concerned that they would lose their workers. I mean, there was such a huge demand for Mexican workers that he said, you know, every time you leave, I'm afraid you're not coming back. So why don't we try to get you a green card? And then my father said, Well, yeah, but I have a family back in Mexico. Or why don't we just bring the whole family with the green card?”
2017-06-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 152 - Alfredo Corchado · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so as a bracero, you work for a specific period of time, nine months in the United States. That was the usual contract. And then you went back home for winter break. I didn't really know my father. I didn't even call him Papa, you know, father. To me, he was El Se ⁇ or. And he would come back every Christmas and kind of try to make up for time loss. He would always stop by, you know, Passo, get some Tony Lama boots and a little hat and say, you know, Miko and try to kind of, I guess, reconnect during those two, three months. And I was kind of really sad when he left. It was kind of a weird thing. You learn not to get too attached to this stranger. But my father wanted us to be connected, be a family.”
2017-06-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 152 - Alfredo Corchado · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Agriculture work and railroads and other things. I mean, there were people working in Pittsburgh, Ohio, Chicago, obviously the Southwest and California. But it was helping hands, braceros. That's kind of the rough translation. And many of the fathers in my town were living in the United States. Among them my father, he came as a 17-year-old. He used to take care of cattle in Mexico. But he hears all these stories of his own family members. He's the youngest of, I think there were nine of them, the youngest, and he would hear these stories. I think the first one in my family who left was my aunt in the 1940s. And my father would think if my sister could make it, you know, I will too.”
2017-06-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 152 - Alfredo Corchado · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, during World War II, there was a program called the Braceros, guest workers where the US awarded more than 5 million contracts to Mexican workers to come and help with the shortage of people. Agriculture.”
2017-06-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 152 - Alfredo Corchado · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We had a pretty good life. I come from a very small town in Durango, northern part of Mexico, where I think most of the people there depend on remittances from people working in the United States. And we were the lucky. I mean, among the lucky ones, we had a small little grocery store. We weren't rich by any means, but we had our own grocery store. I would test out the toys that we were going to sell before. Always had plenty of food. My uncles had cornfields. So it was a pretty sweet life.”
2017-06-01 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 152 - Alfredo Corchado · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source