00:00:00
Espino:
This is Virginia Espino and today is November 19, 2009. I'm interviewing Hope
Mendoza Schechter at her home in Beverly Hills, California.
Thank you so much for agreeing to interview. I really appreciate you taking the
time to do this. I want to start with some early memories that you have of your
parents, your mother [Maria de Jesus Salas] and your father [Celso Acosta].
00:00:26
Schechter:
My mother had a total of twelve children, but three of them died, so we ended up
being nine. We lived in--well, first of all, I was born in [Miami] Arizona, and
I was brought here before I was a year old. [My name at birth was Esperanza
Acosta.] She came to my aunt's [Felipa Salas Duran] house, because my father had
abandoned us, with my brother, who was older, me, and my mother was pregnant. So
she got on a train and brought us to San Pedro where my aunt lived. She had the
baby [Rachel Acosta] and then moved to Los Angeles.
She had to get a divorce, and, of course, the Catholic Church looked down on
divorces, so she changed her religion. She became a Four Square Pentecostal, the
very, very, very orthodox religion. I couldn't cut my hair. I couldn't wear
makeup. I couldn't wear shorts. I couldn't even wear bobby socks. I had to wear
these long cotton hose to hide my legs and no makeup. It was very strict rules.
So I learned to put on lipstick without a mirror. As I walked out the door to go
to school, I would put my lipstick on, because I didn't dare let my girlfriends
know that I couldn't wear makeup.
We were very poor. My mother had a baby every fifteen months, more or less and
couldn't afford to go to the hospital, so the doctors at White Memorial
[Hospital] would come and deliver the baby and then visit during the week, check
on the baby and my mother, and at that time women stayed in bed for a whole
month. So I was out of school for a whole month every time she had a baby,
taking care of the babies.
So when I was in the eighth grade, we were given forms to fill out as to what our
future plans were, and one was academic and the other was vocational. The
doctors used to tell me all the time that I did such a good job, I should be a
nurse. So I filled out the form, academic. I wanted to be a nurse. The counselor
at Belvedere Junior High School, Ms. [Winifred] Murphy, called me into the
office and said, "I see you filled out this form for an academic education." I
said, "Yes." I told her the story about the doctors and my mother and the baby,
and she said, "And what makes you think that anyone who's sick wants anyone as
black as you taking care of them?" Well, she tore up the form and made me fill
it out for vocational. So I went back to--it was during homeroom time. I went
back to my homeroom, but I stayed out in the hall. I didn't dare walk in,
because I was crying. And the teacher heard me, because I couldn't stop crying,
and, of course, your sobbing is heard. She came out, and I told her about it,
and she just nodded her head, because there was nothing she could do. My mother,
of course, couldn't do anything either, because she, first of all, didn't speak
English, and, "¿Qué vamos hacer?"
So I ended up dropping out in the eleventh grade. We went into cosmetics,
manicures, things like that; sewing. I was in a sewing class. I was in a cooking
class, and I was bored. So I dropped out in the eleventh grade. I did go to high
school at night and got my high school diploma many years later. I was working
for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union as an organizer and business
agent, and I had to change my career, because by that time I was married, and I
was so busy. I used to be on the board of directors of all the Mexican American
organizations, and with the union you would be working through the weekends. My
husband [Harvey Schechter] and I weren't seeing that much of each other, so one
career had to go, and at that time there was no question that it was the woman
who had to give up her career.
So I went back to [high] school and got my diploma, then enrolled for a court
reporting course, and I became a court reporter and had my own deposition
service [Schechter Deposition Service, Hope M. Schechter, CSR, Incorporated].
Going back to the children--
00:06:09
Espino:
Can I just stop you for a second? I'm going to pause it for a minute.
00:06:15
Espino:
Okay, we're back. I just wanted to ask you if we could step back a little bit
before we talk about your adult life and go back a little bit to your early
childhood, what it was like growing up in [East] Los Angeles, maybe a little bit
about your elementary school and how your mom might have influenced you with
education. I mean, she couldn't stand up for you in that one instance, but did
she give you any ideas about the value of education when you were very
young?
00:06:50
Schechter:
Not really, other than making sure that I completed my homework, because it was
necessary that I do it, even though I'd rather play. She made sure that I got my
homework done. But there was really no emphasis on higher education. It was
primarily one of when I graduate from high school, you're going to go to work.
We lived initially in the Gless area, just beyond downtown Los Angeles, in a
tiny, little house, and it was just Ralph [Acosta] and me. Rachel [Acosta], who
was the youngest, the one that she came to San Pedro when she was pregnant, then
had her at L.A. County Hospital--she lived with two very close friends, who were
relatives of the man that my mother later married. So it was just the two, Ralph
and myself, and my mother was working as a maid to support us, because, of
course, during that time we didn't know where my father was. There was no such
thing as alimony or child support, so the full burden fell on my mother. We
lived in a little house in back of the main house, and the landlady between the
end of school would take care of us. We'd come home from school, and she'd give
us fruit or something like that.
Then my mother married, and we moved to the East L.A. area. Very bare furniture.
You had a bed and no such thing as a couch, just chairs. Then we moved to
farther east, East L.A. Indiana is the dividing line between the city and East
Los Angeles, and we were beyond Indiana. We had really one bedroom. Then the
minister of the church [El Aposento Alto] that my mother belonged to, who lived
next door, added another huge bedroom where we could have three beds. You have
three full beds but no heat. So my stepdad [Eduwiges Varon Martinez] put in one
of these fire-burning stove-type oven or--anyway, it was great, kept us warm [a
Franklyn wood burning stove].
We had no closet there. My mother had one in her bedroom, and that was it. So we
would put nails on the back of the door and hang the one or two dresses that we
had. So Esther [Martinez] and Becky [Rebecca Martinez], all the girls were in
this room. My brothers [Michael & Joseph Martinez] dug a room under the
house and actually finished off beautifully a room at the bottom of the house,
with an entrance from the back, so that they could have a place to live. This is
after they grew up. Before that, they would sleep on the floor, because there
was no place to sleep. And if we ever had guests come who stayed overnight, like
my aunt from San Pedro would come to visit, we all had to yield the bed and
sleep on the floor too.
I did all the cleaning. My mother did all the cooking, the washing, and the
ironing, and she really had no time just doing that, because we were so many
kids that she had no time to do that. So I became an expert housecleaner. And my
brothers--we had one boy, Sammy [Martinez], who at one point, when he was about
eleven, was wiping his eye with a dust cloth. And I said, "Sammy, you
can't--that's dangerous. You're getting dirt in your eye." And he rubbed it even
harder. Well, he ended up getting meningitis, and he died. He died at eleven. My
mother's religion forbade her from going to a doctor, and so she didn't know
what was wrong or what could help. By the time she called White Memorial
Hospital, it was too late. He just died. And Ralph died also. He died from the
mumps. And once again, my mother wouldn't go to a doctor. The only restriction
was that he should remain in bed, but she didn't know he should remain in bed,
because she didn't have a doctor. So he died.
Then we had one baby who died within three months. Apparently he had, during the
birth, broken some bones or something, so he--a lot of crying, because he was in
pain. And, of course, she never took him to a doctor. He died too.
00:13:21
Espino:
How did your stepfather feel? Was he also of the same religion? Because I'm
assuming that your stepfather was the father of some of these children as
well.
00:13:27
Schechter:
Oh, yes, yes, my stepdad. Because I learned to sew, my sisters and my mother were
very well-dressed, because we would buy fabrics on sale, and I would make their
clothes. By this time I had learned how to sew.
00:13:54
Espino:
Can I interrupt you just for a second? I was wondering about your stepfather,
because how did he feel about the religion and not taking your brothers to the
doctor?
00:14:06
Schechter:
He followed whatever my mother wanted, because our next-door neighbor was the
minister. I attribute my learning English well to, we called them Mama and Papa
Steele, S-t-e-e-l-e. She would have us read the Bible in English. They were
Anglo. So while at church it was all in Spanish, of course, she would have us
come every day for about an hour or half an hour and read the Bible in English.
At home, of course, my mother taught us how to read and write Spanish.
Apparently in Mexico she had only gone to the sixth grade, but it's an advanced
type of training that they have in Mexico, because she could read and write
correctly, grammatically correct, etc. The reason I emphasize that is because
here, in the United States, most children do not know how to read or write
correctly. They don't know how to paragraph, the sentence structure, etc., and
the one nice thing about the way she was trained in Mexico, it was a good
education, even though she only went till the sixth grade.
My stepdad worked in Vernon in the meatpacking company, Swift Packing Company
[Swift & Company]. He also, because we were a large family, worked for a
bakery. Now, this is during the depression in the thirties, and he never was out
of work. He did all the shopping, because he had the car, and my mother was too
busy to go shopping. Then in 1937, the union organized Swift, the meatpacking
companies, and his wages went up dramatically. Of course, at that time they
would have milk on sale for one cent, and he always bought when there were
sales. Twenty years after he died, my sister, who lives in their home, was still
using the sugar that he had bought in the thirties, because he would buy in
quantities.
My one brother, Joey [Martinez], was absolutely brilliant [mechanically]. My
mother finally bought a washing machine. When they had built that bedroom, they
also built a service porch, and that's where they put the washing machine. Well,
if anything went wrong with it, Joey used to fix it. Later when he went to work
for an electrical [aircraft] company, they would even send him to Germany to
teach them--here all he had was a high school diploma, but he was able to just
innately learn how to fix things, and he was always sort of the repairman. Joey
died at age fifty of a heart attack. He's the only one that I know in my family
that died of a heart attack. He just at midnight got up and said, "I don't feel
well," to his wife and fell back, and that was it. He was gone, never having had
any other problem health-wise.
00:18:20
Espino:
Oh, I'm so sorry about that. Did any of your brothers or sisters, did they get
involved in the religion when you were young? Because you mentioned that your
mom was very religious, you lived next door to the minister--
00:18:37
Schechter:
Minister and his wife [Flora and Fred Steele]. We all had to go to church three
times on Sunday. Every Wednesday [night] we were in church. We had to learn a
text from the Bible for Sunday every week, and I was in charge of teaching the
children. You had to recite a verse every Sunday, a different one, and I'm the
one that had to do it, and if one of them didn't learn it well, I'm the one that
got the beating.
00:19:11
Espino:
An actual physical beating?
00:19:13
Schechter:
Physical beating, yes. Going back to the makeup, one day I was coming home from
school. Of course I had lipstick, and I saw one of my mother's co-religionists,
and I knew she was going to come and check me out. She crossed the street, and
when she was crossing the street I took the lipstick off. She came up to me,
reached over and opened my lips, and in the little crevices you could see the
trace of the lipstick. So she went home and told my mother that I had lipstick
on. So when I walked in, my mother met me with the ironing cord and whipped me,
and second time around my legs started to bleed. So I got demerits in school
because I wouldn't wear shorts for gym, because I didn't want the girls to see
the marks on my legs. So I got demerits, and so I got it both sides, the
whipping with the cord--because I was the oldest, whatever happened, the kids
would always say, "She did it." So I'd get the beating, and they wouldn't get
the beating.
So to me, religion was a painful experience. So when you say did my brothers, did
we all--only one. Joey was the one who maintained my mother's religions. To the
rest of us, it was a horrible experience.
I was also a minority within a minority. East L.A. was almost 100 percent
Catholic, because it's Hispanic. So they would call me a "hallelujah." They
would come to our church and stand in the doorway and interrupt the service and
keep yelling, "Hallelujahs, hallelujahs." So I was always the target on
religion, because I wasn't a Catholic. On Ash Wednesday, I would come to school
without the--and they would harass me because I didn't have the cross on my
forehead. So then I started getting an eyebrow pencil and putting it on, just to
stop them from making my life miserable.
My mother was a marvelous cook. She always managed to--we never had a hungry day.
I think the only time I got sick was from overeating, because my stepdad would
buy everything in crates. So he'd come home with a whole crate of peaches or
bananas or whatever, and if it was something I liked, I wouldn't stop eating,
and I'd end up getting sick. So there were about three times that I got sick
from just overeating because it was so good.
We played out in the street, baseball, etc. We always had to be in the house by
seven. I never went to a dance, never went to a party, because it was against my
mother's religion, so I didn't enjoy festivities until after I was an adult. It
was a very restricted kind of life, because we had to live within the tenets of
my mother's religion. We weren't happy in that respect, because it was so
strict.
00:23:14
Espino:
The minister, did he also discipline you, and his wife? Or was it just your
mother?
00:23:21
Schechter:
No, just my mother. Yes. We had a goat. We had chickens. We had a goat. We had a
dog, and the only person that dog liked was my stepdad. The rest of us, we had
to be very careful with him, because he'd try to bite us. And with the goat,
because I was always very thin, my mother would give me goat milk. I don't know
if you've ever had goat milk, but it's awful. So when they had put in the
washing machine, they had to change the location, but they had already drilled
the hole for the pipe to go through. That's where the goat milk went. [laughs] I
never drank it. My mother never saw me throwing the goat milk away.
For school, we would take--because my stepdad worked in the bakery. He would come
home with a huge bag, like a laundry bag, full of bread, and if you
sprinkled--of course, it was for the whole week, so by the end of the week it
would be a little stale. If you sprinkled a little water, put it in the oven, it
was like fresh-baked bread, so we learned all kinds of tricks like that. So we
had sandwiches.
I had friends who lived in the city. The area that we lived in was open to--it
was like a border line. We could go to Roosevelt High School, Lincoln High
School, and/or Garfield [High School]. I eventually went one semester to
Garfield and then transferred to Roosevelt High School, and that's where I
dropped out in the eleventh grade.
00:25:25
Espino:
Can I just step back a second? Because you were talking about growing up during
the depression. But it sounds like you had--you said you sewed, so you made
yourself clothing. You had lots of fruit and bread. Did you feel like you were
lacking something? Did you feel like you were in hardship times?
00:25:48
Schechter:
Well, you never had any money. I used to just long to have a nickel to buy some
ice cream sometime. On Sundays, my mother would have a few pennies to spend, and
she would have us go to the store and buy Holloway. It was a type of candy that
she loved, and so she would, on a Sunday, buy us candy. But we never had any
cash.
When I was fourteen, my aunt in San Pedro worked at the fish cannery in Terminal
Island. So one summer I went to San Pedro during the summer, at age
fourteen--oh, I went to Social Security first and got my Social Security number,
because I needed it. So I put down sixteen. Then when I retired years later, I
had to notify Social Security that I had lied about my age, I had put on two
years, so that I could get credit for those two years that I had worked. The
fish factories, or whatever they're called, were unionized, and I was getting
paid a dollar an hour. In those years, I think the minimum wage was sixty-five
[cents?], so I made a lot of money, and I was able to buy the necessary clothing
for school, or books, whatever I needed. Of course, my family took some of the
money too, because they needed it too.
We were very poor, even though my stepdad worked, etc. The minister and his wife
owned the house that we rented next door, and one day they told my stepdad and
my mom that they would let them have the house, just continue paying the rent as
though it were rent, but it was going to be payment. No down payment, no
nothing. So they ended up owning a home. Then when they decided to buy another
house--by now we were all pretty well--I was grown up, because my youngest
sister is nineteen years younger. We bought a house three houses from Garfield
High School. Well, when Garfield High School decided to expand, the home had to
go. So they bought another one in South San Gabriel, a brand-new house, three
bedrooms, two baths, etc. So I would say that we were really fortunate in that
respect, other than the fact that we never had any money to spend, because it
just took all my stepdad's income just to support us and pay the rent and the
utilities, etc.
00:29:30
Espino:
So then your family is given this property and then they sold it? Is that what
happened?
00:29:37
Schechter:
Yes, yes, for the down payment on the other one. So they really kept upgrading. I
always wanted to have a brand-new house.
00:29:48
Espino:
How did the pastor feel about that, them moving away? Do you think that was
something they supported?
00:29:54
Schechter:
Oh, by that time they were gone.
00:29:56
Espino:
Where did they go?
00:29:57
Schechter:
This was much, much later when they finally bought. By that time, my brothers
were working, etc., so they helped with buying of the house. I helped with
buying of that house, and the county then had to pay my parents, or the Board of
Education, for the house that they had to take over because they were expanding.
In 1932, the Olympics were held in Los Angeles and my stepdad wanted to go, so he
took Ralph, who was still alive then, to the Coliseum, and, of course, didn't
have money to go in. But they stood outside just watching people going in and
out and were so excited about being there and seeing the Olympic--what is it
called?
00:31:10
Espino:
The Coliseum?
00:31:12
Schechter:
Yes. And they came back as though they had even been inside watching everything.
We never learned to swim, because at that time they were anti-Mexican, very
anti-Mexican. You could only swim on a Thursday, because that was the day before
they emptied the pool. They charged, and we, of course, didn't have the money.
So during my life I've had swimming lessons about five times, and I get pretty
good, and then I don't swim for five years or so. I even lived in a house with a
pool after I got married, but I never really learned to swim, so I would stay in
the shallow end of the pool. So there were little restrictions like that that
you knew you were poor, and you faced discrimination.
00:32:20
Espino:
How was the church as far as that aspect?
00:32:25
Schechter:
Oh, that was fine. All the members were Latinos. Primarily at that time it was
Mexicans. You didn't have Nicaraguans. And on our street where we lived, we had
a Filipino family, we had a Serbian family, we had an Italian family, two Anglo
families. It was a real cross section. So we were all friends. We had a Russian
family next door, and he hated skates. My sister had arranged for the neighbor
across the street to meet the adopted daughter of the minister and his wife,
adopted daughter. He wanted to meet her because he liked her. So he gave her a
note to give to this daughter and gave her a pair of skates in payment, so we
had a pair of skates. So we would skate down the sidewalk, and they hated the
noise of the skates. So the father came out, the Russian father, and wet the
sidewalk. I'm skating down and the next thing I know I'm down on the ground,
hitting my head, etc., and I lost consciousness for about twenty-four hours, so
it was a very--whoever heard of suing or anything like that? Of course not. My
mother just took care of me, and I regained consciousness and had no problem,
thank God.
00:34:17
Espino:
With your neighbors, did you have, I guess, informal gatherings, or did you share
things? I've heard of some stories where--I mean, that's the first time I've
heard of it, a neighbor actually trying to do harm, but in some cases sharing
sugar, sharing milk, that kind of thing.
00:34:43
Schechter:
Oh, yes. One neighbor across the street, Rosie [Stankovich], she was a
European-type background, not Mexican; very talented. She would do our hair. And
we traded blouses so that if you wore a skirt and you had a lot of blouses, you
looked like you always had a fabulous wardrobe. So we traded blouses. We all
wore more or less the same size, and with a blouse it's better than a dress,
where you have to be more sure about what size it is. No, there was no
entertaining, because you didn't have that much--it costs money to entertain.
But my mother was in the hospital one time, and I was the one that was making
lunch and cooking for the family, and Rosie's mother--I think they were the ones
that were Serbian--came over and said, "I'm going to have lunch here." She said,
"I want to see how you cook." And she said it was delicious. So I was able to
cook for the family when my mom wasn't there.
[Michael] "Mickey" [Martinez]--the boys had a harder time with their clothing,
because there just wasn't that much money and so my mother would patch our
clothes. This is before I learned how to sew. We just did the best we could.
We'd have clothes for a Sunday, one nice outfit where at church they'd have a
rummage sale or something like that, and you'd find something that fit you.
Shoes were a problem. I remember one time my aunt sent me a pair of shoes that
she had bought for her daughter, and they were just a little on the tight side,
but I had to wear them, because that's all there was. So your feet hurt a little
bit, but you did it.
One time a teacher was very sharp with me. She had asked us to line up, and I
happened to have a compact and I'm powdering my nose, and she hit the compact
and threw it out of my hand, and the glass broke. So she gave me a beautiful
one. But it had rouge on one side and powder on the other, and when I brought it
home, my mother quickly got a knife and scratched out the rouge. She couldn't
tolerate anything like that in the house.
I was also the one that was in charge of teaching, of helping the kids with their
homework, so they all learned both English and Spanish. All my family is fluent
in Spanish because, of course, we couldn't speak English at home, because my
mother spoke no English and would punish us if we said one word in English. I
started grammar school without one word of English, and it's sink or swim. You
quickly learn English, because you're forced to. This is the only thing
that--one time in school we had paper pages with female figures and dresses, and
the teacher would tell us, "Cut out this dress, and cut out that one." And I sat
there and I cut them all. So she went to the principal and they put me back one
grade for doing that. But then in the fifth grade I skipped the whole year, so I
made up for the time. I would have graduated at age seventeen.
My mother used to make us oatmeal every morning, but she never really learned how
to make oatmeal correctly, and it would have a film on top, nata on top. And my
brother Joey would say, "Tiene nata," and he wouldn't eat it.
00:39:53
Espino:
You don't think that was on purpose? Because my father loves nata. You don't
think she burnt the milk on purpose? You think that it was--
00:40:01
Schechter:
No, she just made it and I guess maybe because she never put a cover on it. It
was really not a Mexican type of dish, so she probably never really learned how
to make oatmeal. And every morning we'd have oatmeal with nata. [laughs]
00:40:24
Espino:
Do you remember that your parents ever took any aid from the county? Like you're
talking about clothes. I understand during the thirties and forties sometimes
you would get the county clothes, like the county pants, which were the denim
pants. Anything?
00:40:39
Schechter:
No. Some of our neighbors were on county. We never were, because my stepdad
always worked. There may not have been a lot of money, and you had to skimp on
this and skimp on that, but, no. We always knew who was on welfare, because
there would be a certain kind of shoe that they would give out. They were good
shoes, but they were the same, so you just knew. You saw the shoes; you knew
they were on welfare. Or the clothes that they wore, it was a standard-issue
type of clothes. So we never did.
My mother would make everything. One time I was in the glee club at Belvedere
Junior High School, and I was supposed to be in a chorus, and I had to wear a
certain type of blouse. So my mother took a dress, a party-type dress that she
had had for years and took it apart and made a blouse out of it so that I could
fit in.
00:42:04
Espino:
Did you like that blouse?
00:42:06
Schechter:
Oh, of course. Yes, it was very nice, a very nice blouse. But the other kids,
they always tried to pull you down a little bit. "Oh, you weren't on that glee
club," just harass you if you stood out a little bit, because there really is no
real history of education with Latinos, maybe within a certain level
economically. But any time you tried to stand out, they would call you on it,
which was unfortunate. But I enjoyed reading. That was the one thing that my
mother couldn't stop. So I remember I would start with the As, go to the library
and read all the As and then try to read all the Bs and the Cs.
00:43:09
Espino:
Why would you think your mother would try to stop that?
00:43:14
Schechter:
She just was very strict. She didn't want us to have any fun, because I guess
that was a part of her religion, that you're not supposed to be happy. You're
not supposed to do things that you really enjoy, because everything I wanted to
enjoy, she wouldn't let me. I'd have five girls come and say, "We're going to a
party." And my mother would say, "No." So mean, and they would walk away very
disappointed, and I, of course, was crying by then, but I couldn't go. God
forbid I should go.
So one time I had a friend, her name was Teresa [Andrade], and she lived about
two blocks away. She had a party, and her mother came to invite me over just to
have dinner with them, and it was actually a party. Well, La Opinion, the
newspaper, took a list of all the guests. And my uncle, one of my uncles came
over to visit, and he's reading La Opinion and there's my name, so I got a
beating for that. You couldn't win for losing.
00:44:33
Espino:
That must have been some party to get in the newspaper.
00:44:37
Schechter:
No, there weren't that many parties, so whoever had a party you'd have a
newspaper man there because they had something to write about.
00:44:49
Espino:
Well, do you remember any of your favorite books, then, that you would read, some
stories that you recall that transported you from that strict environment?
00:45:00
Schechter:
No. I just remember that I enjoyed reading, and I would enjoy that book and then
I'd get another book and enjoy that book, but I don't actually remember any of
the authors other than that it was alphabetically done. My mother I remember
twice had a birthday party for my stepdad.
My father abandoned my mother. To me that was very traumatic, because I wouldn't
probably have given it much attention except that when I was about twelve or
thirteen, he sent three emissaries to our house, because he wanted to meet his
children. So when my mother went to the door and there were these three
well-dressed men asking permission for my dad to see his children, she quickly
called the three of us, Ralph, Rachel, and me--and I'm the only survivor of the
three--to the door, because she didn't dare talk to them, because Mexican men
are very jealous, and she didn't dare talk to them because then she'd be accused
of god knows what. So she sent us to the door, and they told us, in Spanish, of
course, that my dad wanted to meet us. And I said that, "When we needed him, he
wasn't there, and we don't need him anymore, and we don't want to meet him or
talk to him ever or see him." And I slammed the door in their face, because I
was always the spokesperson. So I never met my father. He, of course, was in
Mexico.
Unfortunately, I'm the one that takes after him in my height and my being slim,
etc., is attributed to my--and I think that's one of the reasons why my mother
never really liked me. Because one time I kissed her, and she said, "Quesos
desabridos." I never kissed her again. I didn't want to be told that again. So I
ended up being the outsider, because I looked like my father, and my stepdad had
come from the same village and knew my father, so I was a constant reminder. So
he made my life miserable.
He would, from time to time, give us a penny, because that's all he could--and
with a penny you really could buy candy. It was good money then. He would hand
it to each child; mine he always threw on the floor, and I had to pick it up. Of
course I told you I did all the cleaning. I would finish washing the kitchen
floor, and he would go outside, get his shoes muddied and walk through, to make
me do it again. These were the little things that he did, always tried to make
your life miserable. No reason for it. He should have gone to a
psychiatrist.
00:48:53
Espino:
How did you deal with that? Because you're such a cheerful person, such a bright
person.
00:49:01
Schechter:
It would make me cry. I'd go to my room and just cry, get it out of my system. He
finally learned to like me when I grew up. And like because I wasn't his
daughter, I remember one time I was in the bathroom taking a bath, and he was
jiggling on the door. So I always kept my distance. I knew better. I could never
have--none of us could have a boyfriend, so the only way we would be with
someone from the opposite sex would be at the girlfriend's house. Around the
corner there was a girl I really liked. She was just--we were the same age, had
the same interests, etc., and that's the way I would see someone from the
opposite sex.
00:50:24
Espino:
So you dropped out of school not to have a boyfriend or get married. It was to go
to work. Is that what happened?
00:50:30
Schechter:
Yes. I went into the garment industry. I got a job, and we were being paid very
little, in some instances not even the minimum wage. You got paid by the piece.
It was so low, you had a hard time making the minimum. So I told the girls,
because by now my stepdad was a member of the union, I said, "We don't have to
put up with this." By now I knew where the union was located, and I said, "Let's
go down to the union. We'll get a raise." So all of us--I got them all together
and out we walked about two o'clock in the afternoon, and we went to union
headquarters, and I told the union what we were paid. So they ended up signing a
contract, more money, etc., and they had a health plan. Well, the problem was,
the boss said he would sign the contract with one caveat. I was going to be
fired. So I got fired.
So the union then started using me as an in-house organizer. I would go to a
non-union shop, find who the leader was--there's always a leader--and if I could
convince her, then I got the shop. So I did this over and over and over again.
Then the Merchants and Manufacturers Association, which helped the garment shops
were all organized to assist the owners, and they decided that no one could hire
me. And they blackballed me. Nobody would hire me. So the union hired me now as
an organizer. Later I became an organizer-business agent.
But before I actually started working, they sent me to Harvard University for an
officer-training program. It was a three-month course, labor law, contract
negotiation, everything having to do with the union; labor history. It was a
very, very strenuous type of course. It was from nine to nine. And because
Harvard at that time did not allow women at the yard--they don't say campus--we
were told at no time could we divulge--there was another woman [Gertrude Van
Nort] from the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. She was from
Pennsylvania. We had to rent an apartment, live in an apartment, because we
couldn't live at Harvard. But it was a tremendous experience. It really, really
helped.
There I was, no high school diploma, at Harvard. So I split an infinitive one
time, apparently, and it was John [Thomas] Dunlop, who became a cabinet member
under [President Jimmy] Carter, who told me that I had split an infinitive. I,
of course, then when I got home grabbed the dictionary to find out what an
infinitive was. [laughs] But that really gave me the necessary impetus to really
do something about my education, and that's when I came back and decided I had
to have that high school diploma. I started going to community college, where
it's not required that you have a high school diploma, taking courses at night,
of course, and that was the impetus for my getting a better education. I became
very active in politics.
00:55:31
Espino:
Just to back up a little bit, when you first worked in the garment industry, you
couldn't be more than sixteen, seventeen years old.
00:55:39
Schechter:
Well, the important part is that I was the first Mexican American, first Latina
ever hired by the union, so it was a first.
00:55:51
Espino:
You were the first Mexican American, first Latina, and you were also under
twenty?
00:55:58
Schechter:
I was in my twenties by then.
00:55:59
Espino:
Early twenties?
00:55:59
Schechter:
Yes. Yes.
00:56:02
Espino:
But, actually, when you first challenged--
00:56:03
Schechter:
Oh, no, no, you're right. I had to be about, like, eighteen.
00:56:07
Espino:
Very young. That's impressive that you had the courage to stand up to these
bosses--
00:56:18
Schechter:
Yes.
00:56:18
Espino:
--these management. How did they treat you, as a woman? You were young, probably
really attractive, young, and I'm sure the union was primarily male-dominated.
What was that like?
00:56:37
Schechter:
Yes. They did have about three other women, but not Latinas. One of them actually
had learned Spanish. She was Hungarian, I think. Because you had to have a
Spanish-speaking person. I'm surprised that they never had more before, because
it was logical. Who were the people you're dealing with? Let's see. I have one
correction to make. When I said Garfield High School took over my parents' home,
it was three houses away, not three blocks away. I kind of blew it, so we'll
make a correction.
00:57:38
Espino:
Okay. Well, let's go back to the question about what was it like to be a young
Mexican American woman within the union. What kind of support did you get, or
what kind of lack of support did you get from the leadership?
00:57:53
Schechter:
Excellent support. Everyone was very blunt about everything. If I misspoke, in
terms of the English language, there was one man [Sigmund Arywitz] that was the
P.R., who handled all the public relations, and he'd say, "That word is
pronounced x, y, z, you bitch." [laughs]
00:58:23
Espino:
He called you that? Terrible. How did that make you feel?
00:58:28
Schechter:
Well, he was sort of kidding, but he'd still use that kind of language. They were
very blunt. It's a whole different world. He was a college graduate, etc., and
didn't have to use that kind of language, but he did, but was also very helpful,
bought me books, poetry, etc., as did the union attorney. The two of them
[Sigmund Arywitz, Public Relations & Abe F. Levy, Labor Attorney] really
mentored me, helped me in every way possible, and they were the two that really
insisted on my being sent to Harvard, etc. So on the one hand, they were
marvelous in terms of trying to help me, I guess because I was also young. The
others were already in their forties plus, and I was the only one that was there
that was young, so they were very helpful academically and trying to smooth the
rough spots, took me to the theater, plays.
The union was very progressive. They would always have speakers, politically,
etc. Six weeks before a campaign, they paid my salary and I was to be active in
politics. So the first campaign [William Munnell] I was involved in, I helped
elect the assemblyman. There were about four candidates, and I was the one that
was able to get him introduced to Community Service Organization [CSO], had him
speak there and also got him labor. I was a member of the Central Labor Council,
on the committee that endorsed candidates, so I was designated as the one to
decide who was going to get the endorsement.
Then Gil Anaya, from the CIO [Congress of Industrial Organizations], was assigned
by the CIO to work in politics too. So the two of us would meet when it came
time to endorse and say, "Now, who do we endorse for Congress, Assembly, State
Senate?" etc. It was the Nineteenth Congressional District, and Bill Munnell who
was the first candidate that I helped run his campaign, won, and he appointed me
to the State Central Committee. At that time it was no such thing as you could
do it on your own, getting--whatever means. They now have other people that are
on the State Central Committee who are not appointed. I was always appointed,
because at that time it was the only way you could get on the State Central
Committee.
Then I went on the executive board of the State Central Committee, so we'd have
convention, etc. I learned to run campaigns, open headquarters, got them donated
and raised the funds. And with CSO, Tony Rios was the third chair of CSO. The
other one was--
01:02:32
Espino:
Henry Nava?
01:02:33
Schechter:
Henry Nava, yes.
01:02:35
Espino:
Can I just step back just a second and ask you about what your criteria was for
endorsing? Do you remember what were some of the things that this candidate had
to meet in order to receive your endorsement?
01:02:50
Schechter:
Well, the first one, who was Bill Munnell, was an attorney, well-educated, had
been student body president at Garfield High School, academically was the best,
was a Democrat, best-trained person, so he's the one I backed, even though there
was a Latino running, who just had a high school diploma. To me, it was
important to have somebody that had academically a better background and so
that's why I went for Bill. Each time I did it on merit, not just because he
happened to be a Latino or Polish or whatever. That was not important, never
was. I have always looked on someone not because of race. That's not important
to me. I was always shocked with people who were anti-black, or anti-Mexican, of
course. I was one of the victims, because one time I tried to rent an apartment
and I was turned down because I was a Mexican. "We don't rent to Mexicans."
In Texas, I went to a meeting. They were forming a national Latino organization,
and after that was organized, they were going to raise funds for a case in Texas
where they for fifty years had not had a Latino on the jury. It went to the
Supreme Court, and they needed money. So I helped. I covered that trial to make
sure that it merited funds, so I was there for a week. I went to a beauty shop
on a Friday, because that's when I normally have my hair done, and they wouldn't
do my hair because I was Mexican. So I had to go back to the hotel in Houston to
get my hair done. But in the rural area, a little town called Edna, Edna, Texas,
they wouldn't do my hair. So I'm fully cognizant of the fact that we were
discriminated against, and it wasn't until '64 that the law was changed and it
was introduced where you cannot because of race, color, or creed. It's very
important.
01:05:58
Espino:
Yes, it's been pivotal to how far we've gotten today. But I want to ask you how
did--because that seemed like a time when--because in some of my interviews with
people of your same generation, they talk about how you supported the Latino
candidate because you felt like they understood your struggle at that time.
01:06:19
Schechter:
Yes.
01:06:20
Espino:
That has changed since then, or people are more like in the same philosophy that
you were even back then, as far as looking at merit, looking at what their
philosophy is, not looking at their race. But in those early days, race was key,
because you felt like that person understood those issues.
01:06:37
Schechter:
Yes. Well, that's why I supported [Edward] Roybal.
01:06:41
Espino:
Right. But in the sense that--did anybody give you flak, or were people upset
that you didn't want to endorse the Latino candidate against--who was this first
person? What was his name again?
01:06:54
Schechter:
Bill Munnell?
01:06:55
Espino:
Munnell, yes, over Munnell.
01:06:59
Schechter:
I didn't get any flak, not then. First of all, he was also able to raise funds,
and politics is money. You have to have money in order to run for office, and he
logically fit all the parameters that I could think of, so I supported what I
considered a winner who met all the qualifications.
Because I was active in CSO, I was on the board of directors of that organization
also, Ed was the logical candidate to back, and so he won the city council,
first city councilperson. He faced a lot of opposition, even after being
elected. Joe Carlos was always in the car with him, because they knew that the
police were trying to get him on something, and they wanted to make sure that
they could not--he'd always have a witness. So Joe Carlos covered--was with him
at every meeting, especially at night, making sure that he was not alone at any
time. He lost his first election, and I became--we all were Deputy Registrar of
Voters. At that time, if someone was not a natural-born citizen, they had to
show you their papers, to certify that they were American citizens. There's a
little red number that you had to copy onto the form, and that no longer exists.
Anybody can register to vote. When you go for your driver's license, they ask
you, "Do you want to be a registered voter?" And that's it. All you have to
provide is the party that you belong to. That's it. So it leads to the wrong
people, who are not citizens, to register to vote.
I've always been against discriminating against anyone because of race, color, or
creed. My husband happens to be Jewish, so I'm fully aware of the discrimination
that Jews have faced, and I'm fully aware of the discrimination that other
ethnic groups face, because I was here when the Japanese were forced into what
we call concentration camps, and I certainly was opposed to it.
01:10:29
Espino:
Did you know anybody who was interned?
01:10:35
Schechter:
Well, there were a lot of them in the downtown L.A. area, in Little Tokyo area,
heavy influx. But personally, not then. When I was with the union, yes, I got to
meet a lot of them.
01:10:50
Espino:
That was after, after the--
01:10:54
Schechter:
Yes.
01:10:56
Espino:
So can you tell me a little bit, then, about the early foundation of CSO and
probably your first relationship with Mr. Edward Roybal, when you first met him
or heard of him?
01:11:06
Schechter:
Yes. Well, because I was with the union and, as I said, I was active in politics,
I was chair of my congressional district. So it involved Boyle Heights, City
Terrace, Monterey Park, Huntington Park, Maywood. It was a much larger district
then, so you had a cross section of Anglos, Latinos. The Asians were primarily
conservative, Republicans. Interestingly enough, at that time, when I first
started, all the priests were Republican. It just stood out, because I would
look at the sheets of registered voters, and they would be Republican. They have
since changed, but at that time they were Republican.
Anyway, I got active with CSO, because I was active with all the Mexican American
organizations. I was on the board of directors of every one of them. CSO really
attracted me because they were real grassroots. I don't know if you're familiar
with Belvedere, the little community? No sidewalks. They needed, really needed
help. So you not only helped on cases of discrimination, housing, etc., but
sidewalks. If it rained, you'd get to school with muddy shoes. You had to clean
your shoes before you walked into your own house, because of the mud, and that
was just as important as other factors; street signs. You had to check ebb and
flow. I mean, who ever heard of ebb and flow? Well, it was important, because
that's the only way you could convince a city council or the county, because
those that are not organized into a city have to deal with the County Board of
Supervisors, and we had to deal with both entities to get them to move a little.
Even a bench for people to sit waiting for a bus, these little things that you
don't think of except when they don't exist in certain areas, and they did not
exist in certain areas, the Latino area. Everybody else got something. They got
a street paved where they needed it paved. They got sidewalks when needed, and
that was, to me, just as important as everything else.
This really was the reason I spent more time with CSO than any others. I chaired
some of their committees, legislative, labor, and Tony Rios and I, Tony would
handle CIO, I'd handle AFL [American Federation of Labor], because then they
were separate. And we raised funds for CSO, because we needed to pay rent, we
needed to pay the director, Fred Ross, so we got the unions to put it in their
budget so that we didn't have to come back year after year, begging for money.
Unions were very cooperative and helped immensely financially, because that's
the only way an organization can operate. We were on 1st Street, and the
Cabrillo--what was the name [Carioca]--there was a restaurant right next door
that became like our headquarters too. We all ate there.
But registration--the reason that Roybal lost the first time was because we
didn't have enough registered voters. So the second time around we went door to
door, registered everyone and then on election day made sure they voted,
provided transportation, did everything to get them out, and they did vote. We
became very good friends and every Friday we would go have coffee with Lucille
Roybal and wait for Ed to come home from a meeting. And his little boy then was
about four years old, would sit holding his eyes open, waiting for his daddy to
come home, because he wanted to see his daddy. Lucille was my maid of honor when
I got married. I couldn't think of anybody I wanted more than she. She's a great
lady and their children are just fantastic.
01:16:56
Espino:
And he wrote the introduction to your oral history at Bancroft?
01:17:00
Schechter:
Yes.
01:17:00
Espino:
And he mentions that you were one of the few women who attended that very first
meeting that they had after he lost the first election, that they had a meeting
right after just kind of to--he's called it postmortem and that no women showed
up, so they decided to have a second meeting and invite some women, and you were
one of the few. Do you remember that meeting? Can you tell me a little bit about
that and what was discussed?
01:17:28
Schechter:
Yes. Well, the main topic was registration and getting people to vote, because a
lot of people do register, and they're registered and don't--okay, if you don't
want to go, maybe you're working, don't have the time, absentee ballot, and that
absentee ballot is crucial, really, for some people who time-wise can't possibly
get to vote. The main thrust was on registration and trying to cover areas,
because it had all of downtown area, which is a lot of hotels, apartments. It's
no longer just individual houses. One of the good things was that it was
primarily Democratic.
Chet [Chester] Holifield was the congressman at that time, and he supported
Roybal. So we had the downtown area to cover, and that took a lot of people. And
one of the nice things about CSO is it had a lot of people that were willing to
spend the time to go door to door, and this is what we emphasized, that we had
to cover every--not only register them, but make sure that they got out to vote,
and provide the transportation for those who needed transportation.
One of the things that was good about, going back to my history when I was
younger, was the streetcars. We had streetcars. Ten cents got you downtown. You
were able to get around. Then the Board of Supervisors stopped it and didn't
provide an alternative. Freeways? Well, with the freeway you need a car. A lot
of people can't afford a car. My cleaning lady, Latina, comes from the valley.
It takes her two hours to get here, but she does it. She doesn't have a car. Her
husband doesn't have a car. They can't afford it. Insurance, everything, and the
gas prices the way they are now.
But going back to the Roybal campaign, it was a hard-fought campaign. He also ran
for Board of Supervisors and [Ernest] Debs won that race. But then he ran for
Congress and won. Yes.
01:20:49
Espino:
Well, next time I'd like to talk more about that, but this will be my last
question for today's session, and it is, during those meetings, did you feel
like you could speak out and verbalize your feelings, or did you kind of wait
till the meetings were over and then talk about what you thought was
important?
01:21:07
Schechter:
No, no. No. By that time, a woman was accepted. I never had a problem in any
organization with being able to speak up and not wait till the meeting ended and
then have a confab. No, no. I've never been that shy.
01:21:36
Espino:
Do you remember any specific issue that you brought to the table that you
thought, this is something that needs to happen, this is something that needs to
be done from that early period and that everybody responded to?
01:21:50
Schechter:
On housing, because there was rampant discrimination on housing in terms of being
able to rent in certain neighborhoods. Even in East L.A. there had been a huge
number of brand new homes built, and no Mexican could buy it, no Latino. Even if
you were a citizen, you couldn't buy. They wouldn't even show it to you. So when
the housing act came up under [Jesse] Unruh, under Pat Brown, we fought very
hard and went to Sacramento at our own expense to campaign for it and lobby for
it; FEPC same way. Fair employment was very important, and we all went to
Sacramento to lobby on behalf of it. Every issue that was a problem, CSO was
involved in it, as was the Democratic Party under Pat Brown. But that was later.
During the thirties, forget it. During the forties, forget it. There was nothing
you could rely on, nothing that would back you in any way, shape, or form. You
were just out of luck. You could raise Cain if you wanted to, but it wouldn't do
you any good. You had police brutality at that time too. Even Tony Rios was
thrown into jail for no reason. He won the case, but it put him through
hell.
01:24:04
Espino:
Did you ever feel like your life was in danger?
01:24:10
Schechter:
Not really.
01:24:10
Espino:
Or that the police were watching you or keeping an eye on you?
01:24:19
Schechter:
I had another problem with them. Because I was on a picket line handling a strike
or something like that, they would go--I was registered to vote at my mother's
house, and by now I had an apartment in the city. But that was my domicile. They
would take the license number from my car and find out where I lived. They
wanted to date me. That was my problem with the police. And I never dated a
policeman, because they were anti-union, anti-minority. They were the enemy. Now
that's not true anymore, but they were anti-, anti-, anti.
01:25:15
Espino:
Okay, I think we're going to stop right here. Next time I would also like to talk
about your politics, your class politics, because you're working for a labor
union in the thirties, and I'm sure ideologies--
01:25:30
Schechter:
And the forties.
01:25:31
Espino:
--and the forties, yes, and ideologies were Marxism and all those different
political ideologies, class-based ideologies. We can talk about that next
time.
01:25:39
Schechter:
Okay.
01:25:40
Espino:
Thank you so much.
00:00:00
Espino:
This is Virginia Espino and today is December 3, 2009. I'm interviewing Hope
Mendoza Schechter at her home in Beverly Hills, California.
Thank you for meeting me today, Hope. I wanted to start with one of the strike
actions that you took when you were working with the ILGWU [International Ladies
Garment Workers Union], maybe one event that you remember in particular, where
you organized the women, convinced them to strike and then take it from there.
So is there one that you remember specifically?
00:00:40
Schechter:
I don't remember the names of the factories, but they were all in the downtown
area, Los Angeles Street, Wall Street, Maple, 9th. From 1st Street all the way
to 9th Street was primarily the garment industry, and we dealt with women's
wear. If you cut off the legs and the hands, the rest of it was our
jurisdiction, lingerie, sportswear, dresses, cloaks, which means women's suits
and coats, that was our jurisdiction. Employers paid only, if they were
non-union, just the minimum, whatever it happened to be then. I think it was
about sixty-five cents an hour, and it's impossible for anyone to pay rent and
support a family with that kind of a pay structure.
So our job was to organize and get them better pay, vacation, holidays, if they
worked on a weekend double pay. What's amazing is it was very difficult to
organize, because people were afraid of losing their job. You had to get about
40 percent of the people enrolled by having them sign a card that they wanted to
be organized, then qualify once you reach the 40 percent for an election with
the NLRB [National Labor Relations Board]. And freedom of speech, of course. The
employers would fight the union by telling the workers that they were going to
lose their job. I mean, they could use any tactic they wanted, and, of course,
he had total access to them, because they were in his shop or plant or factory.
All my evenings were taken up with visiting up until nine p.m. After nine they
need their sleep, so most nights I was out visiting. Of course, many of them
were in areas that were a little on the dangerous side, and one time as I
started to get out of my car, a young man walked up to the car and started
holding his privates, so I quickly closed the door, locked it and left. After
that, they would assign a male, a member of the union to accompany any woman
that had to go into some of the more dangerous areas, in order to protect us
from anything happening to us. So the union was good in that respect. They knew
that we were the ones that had greater freedom to go to these homes, because
they were primarily women, and they don't want to open the door and see a man,
and so they felt much safer talking to a woman and inviting us in, etc.
The biggest thing was the fear that they had of losing their job, and I don't
blame them. So we had to reassure them that there was no way that the employer
would know who had signed a card, that it was verified by the NLRB in terms of
the name of the worker, because it would have their address, home address. I had
one funny experience where you had to indicate whether you were male or female,
so it would say s-e-x, sex, and one woman wrote "two or three times a week."
[laughs] So the main thing was to really quiet their fears, that we certainly
weren't going to tell the boss who had signed cards. Then, of course, you had to
keep in contact with them up until the election, because sometimes fear could
predominate with the employer and the forelady or foreman constantly harassing
them about joining the union, etc. I made a lot of friends with these women.
What you really tried to do was find out who was the leader in the factory and
work with that person, and that I learned when I was an in-shop organizer for
the union. Then the union hired me and sent me on the officer-training program
at Harvard University, where we dealt with all the issues that related to the
job, contract negotiation, how to price the item so that--you had to raise them.
So it was an experience that was absolutely crucial to my success in working for
the union, because afterwards not only was I organizing, but I was in charge of
many shops and negotiating increases with each new style.
00:07:33
Espino:
So back to the original strike you were going to start to tell me about. You were
talking about how you were going to their house at night to tell them
about--
00:07:45
Schechter:
Yes, the union.
00:07:45
Espino:
So first you had to get them in the union before you can--in this one case that
you're talking about, you had to organize them into the union, and then you had
to organize the strike. Is that how it worked?
00:07:54
Schechter:
Yes, because the employers, of course, the last thing they wanted to do was sign
a contract. So we would have to call a strike and have the workers come out. And
then, of course, the employer would start hiring other people to replace them,
which was a frightening experience for these people. And we would pay the
workers a minimum, so that at least they could meet their expenses, minimal
expenses, and then have them picket. We would arrange--whatever their schedule
was, if it was two hours a day or four hours a day, some of them would be there
every day the whole eight hours, picketing. We would sing union songs on the
picket line. Of course, when the employer would hire new people, we called them
scabs. Some we lost, but usually we eventually got the shop signed up by the
employer, and they had their wages raised and have all the other benefits that
went along with it.
The ILG[WU] had also a health clinic where all the members could come. We had
doctors, nurses, etc. They were the first union to provide this kind of a
service. Eventually, all the unions provided healthcare for their members, but
the first one to do it was the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.
But going back to the strike, they were a happy group. In spite of the fact that
they were out of a job, etc., they at least had a goal. They knew that we would
eventually win the strike, and if not, if we happened to lose that one, we had
in the office one person in charge of finding jobs for them in a union shop, of
course, and helped them get a job immediately when the strike was lost. But
usually we were able to organize them. Otherwise, we'd be out of business.
So my particular job was with the sportswear division. It was either dressmaking,
the better-quality dresses, and then the cloaks was suits and coats, and ours
was sportswear. In sportswear we had the shoulder-pad companies, lingerie. Mode
O'Day was very big then, and we organized that one, and I eventually became the
business agent for Mode O'Day. It was great to have the people call and say,
"They just changed a style." What happens with a new style is you have to
relearn again, and it slows you. So we eventually worked out where
time-and-motion studies were made, and you knew that as fast as they wanted to
work, they couldn't, because it was a new style. So for the first week we would
increase--it was all piecework, so we would increase the pay for the learning
part. Maybe it was a week or a week and a half, till they got the feel of the
garment, and then, of course, their speed would pick up and so it would revert
back to whatever the price should be for that particular style.
One of the nice things was that I could buy my clothes wholesale--
00:13:07
Espino:
One of the perks.
00:13:08
Schechter:
--whether it was suits or dresses. That was one of the pluses of working for the
union. I'd see the new styles. Everyone dressed well in the garment industry,
because everyone knew how to sew, and so either you made it or you bought it
wholesale.
00:13:31
Espino:
Did you ever remember having an interaction or confrontation or positive
interaction with an owner, an owner of a shop or a manager possibly?
00:13:49
Schechter:
Well, of course. They did everything possible to--I would get threatening calls.
They would never identify themselves, of course. Then, of course, I was arrested
once. They claimed that I had struck one of the scabs that was going in the
shop, and I was convicted, and the union paid the fine. At no point was I in
jail or anything like that. And, of course, there were articles in the paper
about it. Fortunately, my mother didn't get the newspaper, so I never let her
know that I had been accused of hurting someone.
And it was an honor. There happened to be a membership meeting, and as I walked
in, the whole place gave me a standing ovation. But it's a frightening
experience to be accused of being a criminal, which is what it is. Even though
it's an honor to be arrested, like Walter [P.] Reuther was arrested and had
fights in court to get his freedom, etc., it's still--it just scares the living
daylights out of you.
00:15:47
Espino:
Did they put handcuffs on you, and that kind of thing?
00:15:48
Schechter:
No. Thank God, no. No, no, no. No handcuffs at all. Then we had one woman [Gladys
Selvin] who went around organizing the bosses on techniques to use to fight the
union. We used to sing songs to her, the union breaker, the union fighter. She
was really a dynamo. She really did work hard, I must say, and we, of course,
worked harder to overcome whatever she was trying to do. We had strikes in
different communities. Monterey Park had a number of shops that we organized,
and Huntington Park, so it wasn't Orange County. We had all of southern
California. San Francisco had a different office and officers there, but the
southern part, Tehachapi south was our territory.
I was sent to Arizona also to be in charge of the union statewide, and so I
visited all over Arizona, had an apartment in Tucson, and I lived there for a
year. La Opinion was marvelous. They would feature my picture when I went to
Arizona, etc. I remember I was organizing this shop, and the first woman I saw,
apparently she subscribed to La Opinion and was expecting me and even called me
by my name. She'd read the story, and I signed her up, and she helped me get the
rest of the shop, would get me the addresses and the names, and I would visit
them at night after work. So we had a lot of success throughout the state, and I
really got to know Arizona. But after a year--the weather isn't very good. It's
too hot and then it's too cold, so I finally told the union that either they
brought me back to Los Angeles, or I would have to leave, and so they brought me
back to L.A.
By this time I was dating my husband [Harvey Schechter], and, of course, I used
to drive back every two weeks, and it took nine hours of driving, coming and
going. But I remember one time I was driving and some bird hit the windshield
and just, bang, there was that bird on the windshield. Of course, because it
flew into the car, it died. But the bang really, and I think I was doing eighty
miles an hour, because I was a fast driver, because I wanted to get home or go
back and minimize the time, etc. But I found working for the union to be very
exciting.
It's at that time also that I started getting active in politics and so my time
was taken up. I was active in Mexican American organizations, and I was on the
board of directors of all of them, so between organizing and attending meetings
at Community Service Organization, the rest of the other organizations, etc.,
and politics, because the union would let me go for six weeks before a campaign,
pay my salary, and I would work full time in politics. The advantage was that my
congressman [Chet Holifield], I became his liaison on immigration matters. We
had a member of the union who was going to be deported because she was here
illegally, and I would have my congressman introduce special bills to let them
stay here.
At that time, when they were deported or the threat of being deported, we would,
through my congressman, file all the papers necessary for them to become a legal
resident and/or citizenship. But they'd have to go back to Mexico and stay there
until all the forms were filled. Well, that was difficult for a woman,
especially with children, because they'd have to leave the children here and
then they had to go to Mexico, and it would take weeks, sometimes months. So
through my congressman a bill was introduced that would allow them to do all the
paperwork here and then only one day to go across the border and sign [and file]
the papers and come back the same day, so they would only lose one day's work.
So we got that bill taken care of.
Then we had the problem with getting people to become citizens. So through my
congressman once again, the bill was, anyone, especially with older people, over
fifty years of age, because you had to learn English--well, many women over
fifty had a difficult time going to school to learn English, etc. So the bill
involved being over fifty years of age [and having lived in the U.S. for 20
years], you could take your citizenship exam in Spanish, and that helped. My own
mother became a citizen, taking the exam in Spanish. So those are two bills that
I was very influential in getting them passed.
00:23:20
Espino:
Do you remember the congressman's name?
00:23:22
Schechter:
Chet Holifield. It was then the Nineteenth Congressional District.
00:23:32
Espino:
That was what period?
00:23:35
Schechter:
That was in the fifties. Starting in 1950 is when I started getting active. He
always--when I went to Washington, D.C., I went as his guest and stayed at his
home. His wife Cam, C-a-m, was a delightful person. Every election night I was
at their home celebrating the election, and even when I got married and moved
out of the district, every election night I was at their home. It was like
extended family. Of course they're both now gone, but I'm still in touch with
his children. They had five daughters, and so thank God when they got married he
now had sons. He always wanted a boy, and he ended up having boys through--
00:24:38
Espino:
How would you describe his politics in other areas? He sounds like on the
immigration issue he was open to helping out those who wanted to be here.
00:24:49
Schechter:
Yes, yes. They were absolutely most accommodating. What happened later when I
became a court reporter, well, we had a lobbyist, paid lobbyist [James
Garibaldi]. Every time, anything that impacted on my field, I would fly to
Sacramento and appear before the Judiciary Committee. I would find out who the
contributors were to their campaigns, and I would have those people who were
heavy contributors write to the particular senator or assemblyman, and, of
course, when I appeared, by the time I got there, I knew, I had the full count
of who was favoring the bill. And we did that with other measures, whether it
was health, whether it was housing, anything that impacted on a person's life.
Through the Democratic Party, we would fly to Sacramento and lobby for it,
because that's the best way is to get their own constituents to come up. So we
always tried to cover every assembly district, every senatorial district and
have at least one rep, because they'll listen a lot closer if it's one of their
constituents.
00:26:33
Espino:
So this was organizing that you did outside of the union, or after you had left
the union work?
00:26:39
Schechter:
Yes. Yes. So I got to know every assemblyman and every senator throughout the
state, so they always knew if I walked through that door that there was some
bill that I was interested in. There was one man who didn't--he was on the
Judiciary Committee, was an assemblyman, and he wasn't there. Well, I won the
issue. I got the votes and got it passed. After the meeting I went to his
office, and he was sitting at his desk with his hands folded on his desk. And I
said, "You know, you weren't there today." He said, "Well, I had already
committed to vote the other way and had I been there, I would have had to vote.
So I knew if I wasn't there, I wouldn't have given you a negative vote." I just
had the gall to walk in and say, "You weren't there." But he had a good reason
for not being there. He was being very honest.
Whether it was a community function, whether it was something that impacted on
their lives is all that mattered, and I had the good fortune of being in a
position where I could help, whether it was CSO, whatever the issue was, because
we had to deal with the city and the county, and then on state matters that was
also--whatever we had to do, we did. I think that's why Community Service
Organization has such a heavy impact. Unfortunately, it's no longer in
existence.
Tony Rios had hired three union organizers [Chris Hartmico was one] as part of
his staff for CSO, and they turned out to be the wrong people, because what they
did was they fired him. Then, of course, it went into court, and now it's under
trusteeship and my understanding is that they assigned someone to take charge
who's collecting pay, etc., and draining their resources.
00:29:31
Espino:
Well, can we go back a little bit before we go on to what the current situation
of CSO is? I'd like to talk a little bit about your politics. How would you
describe your ideology, just trying to go back to those early days when you were
first a labor organizer, when you were eighteen, seventeen years old? Did you
have an ideology that you could say, "This is what I believe"?
00:30:02
Schechter:
Well, I've always been a registered Democrat. I felt that everyone should have
the right to rent an apartment, buy a home, regardless of race, color, or creed,
and so that was my goal. Open all the doors, because this is a free country. At
that time, California was very Republican, and I have no quarrel with
Republicans or Democrats as long as they don't close doors. If you were a
Democrat, you knew it was going to be difficult no matter what you wanted to do.
The L.A. Times at that time was very Republican and it was painful to read it,
but you had to read a paper. Well, then we used to have the Daily News, which
was more Democratic, so at least you had one paper that you could--then we had
the [Los Angeles Daily] Mirror, M-i-r-r-o-r, in case I'm not coming across
clearly with my pronunciation. You just had to go out and talk to people about
it, because if you wrote a story, it didn't do you any good, because it wouldn't
get printed, because many times I would take issue with whatever; it never
appeared in the editorial page, so it never got wide distribution. Everything
was uphill, but you don't stop because it's uphill, and I think that's what a
lot of people did.
By this time, I was on the State Central Committee as a member, and then I became
a member of the executive board, so it gave me backing and support for things
that I wanted to do, whether it was civil rights, like at Fair Employment
Practices we went to Sacramento and lobbied for it, housing the same way. I
can't remember his name, but he was a black senator [Byron Rumford], and the
name of the bill was in his name and someone else's, and he lost the following
election because he fought so hard for--while he got it passed, he ended up
losing his campaign.
00:33:18
Espino:
Was he from California?
00:33:20
Schechter:
Yes, yes, in California, yes.
00:33:22
Espino:
California senator.
00:33:23
Schechter:
Of course, when Pat Brown was elected and Jess [Jesse] Unruh was Speaker of the
Assembly, we got a lot. Pat Brown and Jess Unruh were fabulous in terms of
getting legislation through. Fair Employment was the first bill that they got
through, the Fair Employment Practices Committee, and the same way with housing.
It opened all kinds of doors, on education, etc., and we were all--I think all
my extra money went for plane fare or train fare. Train fare was less expensive,
but it took nine hours to get there by train. But it was exciting, because we'd
mobilize. We'd have ninety people, a hundred people come up to lobby, so we
really covered every base.
One time--after I was married my husband would say, "Get someone else to go. Get
someone else to go." Or, "Get someone else to lobby the assemblyman." So I asked
one girl, a woman, to lobby her assemblyman, who happened to be a friend of
mine, and he got furious that I had assigned someone else to talk to him instead
of just me. So when I went to his office, he was so furious that as I started to
walk in he says, "Don't bother to come in." I mean, they're so petty. It's just
absolutely incredible how petty some of them can be. He later lost his election
[laughs] and so I didn't have to worry about him anymore.
00:35:25
Espino:
What did you do when he said that? Did you try to make a case for yourself?
00:35:30
Schechter:
No, because he just wouldn't let me in and said he didn't want to talk to me, so
that took care of that. And my family was in that district, because by now I was
married and no longer lived in the district, so my brothers and sisters
campaigned against him, etc., and he lost. So.
But when I moved to the valley, I maintained my activity. At that time, the
valley was totally Republican also.
00:36:17
Espino:
Would this be the 1960s?
00:36:19
Schechter:
I got married in 1955. [I lived in Hollywood from March 1955 to November 1959. I
moved to Sherman Oaks in November 1959.]
00:36:22
Espino:
That's when you moved to the valley?
00:36:23
Schechter:
So 1955 on. I was still active, and we would run campaigns and while we initially
lost, whoever won the campaign, the Democrat who won the campaign would appoint
members to the State Central Committee, so I continued my activity, being a
member of the State Central Committee and still being on the executive board. So
when Howard Berman ran, by now I had become a court reporter, went back to
school [Bryan Stenotype School] and learned to be a court reporter, I put on the
first fundraiser for him in the valley. So he won for Assembly, then later ran
and won for Congress, so he's now a congressman, and he had been one of my
clients as a court reporter. He was a labor attorney, and we're still friends. I
see him whenever he's in town. So the advantage is that you know so many people
at different levels. Got involved in city politics, the city council, mayoralty,
etc.
00:37:58
Espino:
Would you say that you kept your objectives, your community organizing objectives
the same, but you just turned those into a different type of organization, or
you kept your same focus but you used a different medium? Because before, where
you were in the labor movement, later on you were in the Democratic Party and
other types of organizations. But would you say that your same objectives
remained, or you changed them over time?
00:38:32
Schechter:
No. I didn't have as much time, because my husband moved me out of my
congressional district. Because six weeks before a campaign, I used to say
goodbye and he didn't see me for six weeks. Well, when we got married, he wanted
to see me every day, so he moved me out of my congressional district, but it
didn't stop me. I still maintained my ties with the different Mexican American
organizations, I think up until 1995. That's when I decided to hand the reins to
the younger generation. It's time for them to develop and become active, and if
anyone needed a little guidance, they knew that my phone number was available,
and they could call and ask for help or whatever. So even to this day, once in a
while somebody will call.
My husband also was with the Anti-Defamation League, so he also had access
to--when someone needed help, he also pitched in. Yes. And we both are in synch
in terms of the goals that we strive for. We always emphasize that regardless of
race, color, or creed. When I had my deposition service, my office manager
[Vickie] was a black, and I took Parker's Directory, which was the legal
attorney's directory, and we went over every name, because she had to be able to
pronounce it correctly. For example, the word ask, usually with blacks its
pronunciation is a-x. She learned to say ask rather than ax, and we went through
her English over and over. After I retired, she went on to become office manager
for another deposition service and has had a permanent job, a good job, and I
feel that I have a lot to do with the fact that she became a success.
And the reason I hired her was because she lived across the street, about a block
down [from the office]. And I didn't have to worry about strikes, because she,
of course, didn't have a car at that time. I didn't have to worry about any
strike, because she could just walk to work. Her boyfriend one time came by and
came to the office, because she told him that she worked a block away, and he
couldn't believe that she didn't have to take a bus to get to work. He opened
the door and there she was behind the desk, and she did, she walked to work.
Neither one of us had to worry about her not being there on time.
So I was a member of the NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People]. I was a member of the Japanese American Community
Organization.
00:42:18
Harvey B. Schechter:
JACL, Japanese American Citizens League.
00:42:27
Espino:
Okay, we're back.
00:42:29
Schechter:
The name of the organization was Japanese American Citizens League. So you had a
good cross section, reaching out to different ethnic groups, and in politics,
that's important, because you have to reach everyone.
00:42:51
Espino:
Did you happen to know Carlotta Bass?
00:42:54
Schechter:
Yes, I'd met her. Yes.
00:42:57
Espino:
Did you work with her at all?
00:43:00
Schechter:
We worked together. We'd go to community meetings, whatever, and through
politics.
00:43:07
Espino:
How would you describe her? I've read a little bit about her, but I'm curious. I
haven't met anyone who's actually--
00:43:12
Schechter:
Yes, a dynamo, a real, real dynamo.
00:43:21
Espino:
Okay. She was a real dynamo?
00:43:24
Schechter:
Yes. Yes.
00:43:24
Espino:
Do you remember any specific situation where you saw her in action, where she
said something or did something that was--
00:43:32
Schechter:
No, other than that usually we were in agreement in terms of issues. She was very
prominent in the black community, and everyone knew her name. So on the
important issues that dealt with any type of discrimination--because if it's
anti-black, they're also going to be anti-Mexican. They're going to be anti-,
anti-, anti-. So you had a common ground and worked together on whatever
impacted the community. So I think that from the time that I started the changes
that were made in housing, you could rent wherever you wanted to rent, where
before you couldn't, because I know I was denied apartments depending on the
area, and employment. And it's crucial and very important to be able to open
doors for everyone.
00:45:03
Espino:
Well, Carlotta Bass writes a little bit about--or someone wrote about her that
just standing up for racial equality was something that--
00:45:19
Espino:
Okay, we're back. That was the masseuse just leaving. That it was considered
radical, almost Left-wing radical to stand up for racial equality. Do you
remember it being that way, that people would see you as extreme--
00:45:38
Schechter:
Yes.
00:45:38
Espino:
--because you wanted justice for everyone?
00:45:41
Schechter:
And what they would do is they would accuse you of being a communist, and the
last thing I ever wanted to be accused of is being a communist. As a matter of
fact, the Communist Party once sent me a membership form for the Communist
Party, and I took it to the FBI, because I was frightened that they would send
me something like this, and I didn't want to be on the wrong list. So I took it
to the FBI and then I said, "I don't intend to fill this out. I'm horrified that
it was sent to me. Do you want it?" And he said, "No." I said, "Well, neither do
I," and I threw it into the wastepaper basket in his office and then I left. I
just wanted to make sure that at no point would I be accused of being a
communist.
My brother [Joseph Martinez], because of all my activity, lost his job. It was
General Motors [actually it was North American Aviation]; it was one of these
big aircraft or whatever it was. And in the middle of the day, they came and
announced that he was fired. And everybody heard on the floor where he was
working. I went to the International Machinists Union, of which he was a member,
and they said, "Well, are you sure he's not involved in anything that's
Left-wing or communist?" And I said, "No. He got fired because of me. I'm so
active, they knew that I was his sister." "Well," he said, "make sure that he's
not. Why don't you check his room?" So I did, and I found girlie pictures, but
nothing political, and he got reinstated. But the union had to step in and make
sure that he got reinstated. I guess they never could reach me, because I was in
areas where they couldn't touch me. Working for a union or having my own
business, etc., there was nothing they could do to me, so they reached out to
one of my relatives, and thank God I was in a position where I could help.
00:48:28
Espino:
You didn't consider yourself Left-wing? Left?
00:48:32
Schechter:
No, never, never.
00:48:34
Espino:
Not even back then?
00:48:34
Schechter:
No. No. As a matter of fact, people that I knew who were members of the Communist
Party constantly would see me with Time magazine, for example. "Oh, you have to
change the publications that you read." They wanted me to subscribe to
their--what is it, the Nation [Daily Peoples' World]? I forget what the name of
it was. And I never, never, never had anything to do with them. I was really
their enemy, because they thought I was too conservative, because I was a
Democrat. There's no middle ground with them. I have friends in the Republican
Party. I have friends who are not part of my background, but we get along. We're
able to work together. Of course, most of them are the more moderate type. So,
no, I managed to be able to function without having the stigma of being called a
communist or anything like that.
00:50:11
Espino:
Have you ever tried to find out whether or not you had an FBI file?
00:50:18
Schechter:
I don't think so.
00:50:20
Espino:
You don't think you do?
00:50:22
Schechter:
You know, I don't even know how to go about finding out.
00:50:25
Espino:
That would be interesting, because they were watching--I bet Mr. Roybal had an
FBI file on him. I mean, if the police were following him everywhere.
00:50:35
Schechter:
Yes, yes.
00:50:36
Espino:
So it seems like with your activities as a union organizer, because you yourself
saw your political beliefs as conservative, but people from the outside looking
at you saw you more radical, more Left, because you were advocating for things
that they saw as Left-wing.
00:50:59
Schechter:
I was asked a number of times, because of my activity, if I was a communist, and
I would say, "Absolutely not." The ILG in 1929 was retaken by David Dubinsky,
the president of the union, because it had been under control of the Communist
Party. It was taken over by them, and they used it to finance their projects so
that the union now was a million dollars in debt when he took it over, and he
rebuilt the organization and made it a very powerful organization.
Because of that, we were trained to be able to spot communists, in terms of the
verbiage that they used. They had certain slogans that they would repeat. So I
could walk into a meeting, and they never sat together if they were communists.
They spotted each other, and they're the ones who would ask questions or try to
create a ruckus, but so that nobody would think that they were in cahoots. So I
quickly learned to be able to spot who it was by the language that they were
using, etc.
00:52:51
Espino:
Do you remember, what would that be? What would the language be, or slogan?
00:52:55
Schechter:
I can't think of anything right now, because it's been many years since I
was--
00:53:03
Espino:
A long time ago.
00:53:02
Schechter:
But it was the issues. Because by now, in the office they subscribed to the
communist paper, etc., so we would read it and find out the terms they used,
etc. So we quickly learned to be able to spot Left-wing criteria.
00:53:31
Espino:
What do you think were some of the major points that people disagreed with the
communist agenda on? What were like some of the things that really made it
unattractive to yourself and to other people in the union?
00:53:55
Schechter:
I remember that I wouldn't go to Russia, because I was so prominent in my
criticism of the communists that I felt that I would not be safe. I didn't go to
Russia until the nineties. I finally went, felt that I wouldn't have any
problem, and I didn't, because by then it had changed. I would never have gone
while Stalin was there. I think he was the last bad one. They used the issues
that we were interested in, but I knew that they were fascistic. But they were
for FEPC, allegedly. They were for housing, allegedly. All they wanted to do was
attract people to their way of thinking, and thank God they never succeeded.
Whether it's ultra-Left or ultra-Right, it's regimentation, and I'm always
opposed to that. I want freedom for everyone, and that's one of the things--when
I travel abroad, no matter what country, I think the United States of America is
the best country in the world, and I want to kiss the ground when I come back. I
travel a lot, and I think we have the best. But you have to keep fighting for
it, you really do, and I think the most important thing that people should do is
vote. I'm totally opposed to people who completely refuse to register and vote,
and they're the ones that complain more. I think that your children are
important, and you have to make the best world possible for them, and our form
of government is really the best. We're the ones--everyone wants to come here.
Why? They want a chance to be able to grow and live a good life, and it's wide
open. It really is wide open. You make your own life. You can reach your goal.
I remember when we were in Japan. If you buy a doll, you can only buy according
to your status, according to your economic level. The poor people can only buy a
wooden doll. I bought one. I couldn't believe that even at that level, a doll,
it depends on your income, that you're limited. No one ever told me I had to buy
a doll at such a level. You bought it because you liked it, you wanted it. Or
somebody bought it for you, because my first doll was through the Shriners. We
got invited to the Shriners, and I ended up--we never had gifts. Who had the
money for gifts? And I got a shopping-bag size full of toys, including a doll,
and that was my first doll.
00:58:14
Espino:
Were these the pastors of your mom's church? The Shriners, were they the pastors
of your mom's church?
00:58:22
Schechter:
No. It was just a community endeavor. Somehow I ended up with an invitation and I
went, and I had this bagful of toys that I'd never had before, and the doll
was--I mean, I carried that doll constantly. I had a bear given to me by one of
our landladies, this teddy bear, and those are the two toys that I remember,
because no way could my mother buy me a toy. She didn't have the money.
00:59:10
Espino:
Okay, we're back. Well, I really like what you said, or I think it's a very
interesting thing that you said that we have so much here in this country, but
it's something that you have to fight for. It's not something that you can take
for granted.
00:59:37
Schechter:
Never. Never. Changes will always be part of our way of life, and you constantly
have to be on the alert. And while I no longer am active, every so often some
issue will come up and I come out of the woodwork, and I'll get active and then
I'll work and reach out to people. It's just the way I want to live. You don't
win every battle, but at least you tried, and so far, so good. I feel that I
could probably go back, but I'm tired now. I think somebody else has to take it
up. Every so often, you have to be motivated and depending on the issues. So I
will still come out of the woodwork.
01:01:01
Espino:
Do you remember what the last thing was that brought you out of the woodwork?
01:01:06
Schechter:
Hmm. Usually, it's candidates, because if it's someone that I think would be
detrimental, you have to speak up. By and large, most of my friends support what
I support, and as far as I can tell, we're okay. I think that, like, our
governor now has been a disaster. I thought he was going to be different, but he
wasn't.
01:01:58
Espino:
Did you vote for him? We're talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger.
01:02:00
Schechter:
I did initially, but not anymore.
01:02:06
Espino:
What do you think have been some of his major errors or mistakes for the
state?
01:02:12
Schechter:
I don't think he really knew what he was doing. He didn't change anything.
Everything he said he was going to do he didn't do. The economic crisis we're in
now is horrible. They were voting for programs that they couldn't pay for. Now
we're in debt. California is a--they turned anti-business, so many businesses
have left California. The housing, the bankruptcies--people are suffering today,
and somewhere, some way along the line it just has been a shock to see this
economy shattered. The people who are losing their homes, losing their jobs. I
never lost a job. Yes, I did, but by saving grace the doors always opened and I
could do something about it. But today, they lose a job, there are no other
jobs.
We raised a boy from age four and a half. He is not working. We are paying his
rent. We're buying his groceries. What can you do, have him become homeless? So
it's impacted on my life. I think it runs about two thousand dollars a month,
because by the time you pay for the rent, pay for his food, car insurance, he
needs gasoline, so we see him at minimum once a week to make sure he has enough
cash on him to be able to live. He is absolutely a delightful young man. He's
now forty-five, and he's beginning to develop a few gray hairs. I was shocked. I
just noticed it about three months ago that he had a few gray hairs. This is a
little boy that I took in at four and a half, and it's just incredible. But he,
of course, is going through a stage of depression, and I can understand why.
He's a very talented artist, and there are just no jobs. Example, someone told
him there was a job available in San Francisco. Well, it turned out to be a toy
place, and they were advertising for someone who had worked five years in the
field. Well, he's never--while this is a job in his field, but not in his field,
because it was restricted to that particular item, and he'd never done toys. So
that was one opportunity that he couldn't avail himself of. He's even applied
now at Target, Home Depot, even Trader Joe's. He's gone to the different
markets, and they're not hiring. So he's trying.
01:06:39
Espino:
So you're witnessing firsthand how the economic crisis is affecting people
through your son.
01:06:45
Schechter:
Yes, yes. So what we try to do is bolster his spirits and tell him that he
doesn't have to worry about his rent or his food, and we're there. And many
people don't have that, and so you just wonder, because you know there's going
to be an increase in divorce. The biggest quarrel is economic.
01:07:23
Espino:
I know you were young when the depression hit, but do you see any differences,
parallels, similarities between what we're experiencing now in California and
what occurred back in the thirties and forties?
01:07:37
Schechter:
Well, that's the real tragedy of it, because people who never wanted to go on
welfare had to. They had families and there were no jobs available. I know I
cleaned houses. After I went to work at age fourteen in this fish-packing house,
that was in San Pedro. I stayed with my aunt. I came back and after that I got
jobs cleaning houses, so during the summer I worked full time, would be hired by
a housewife and went every day, and then when school started again, I would just
work Saturday or Sunday, for sure Saturday so that I would have some cash, to be
able to buy the fabrics to make the clothes, etc., and to have some money,
because there was just nothing else.
The first job I got one summer was in a fruit place, the dried fruits. You had to
pack it, etc. It had a belt, and the fruit would come by, and you had to pick
out the bad ones, etc., and they would make me dizzy because the way they moved
it just--but I had to keep doing it, because once school started again, I'd have
to leave that kind of a job, because it was full time, and went back to cleaning
houses. So I'm an excellent housekeeper. I learned the hard way.
01:09:53
Espino:
And this was during the thirties, before you were even--
01:09:57
Schechter:
Thirties, yes.
01:09:59
Espino:
Before you started working in the garment industry.
01:10:01
Schechter:
Yes, yes. This was when I was still in school. As I say, I've been working since
I was fourteen. I was tall, and I got my Social Security and said I was sixteen.
Then when I retired, I had to explain to them that I had lied, and changed it
back to what it should have been.
01:10:29
Espino:
Okay. Well, then, let's talk a little bit about World War II, since we're
thinking about the depression. I was wondering how it impacted you directly.
01:10:43
Schechter:
I was Rosie the Riveter. I had to take a class to learn how to use the drill. It
was a six-week course and then I got a job with Lockheed and became Rosie the
Riveter, and I was pretty good at it. They transferred me to pickup, what they
called pickup work. When someone made an error--we did the ailerons,
a-i-l-e-r-o-n-s, which was the wing of the plane, and if there was an error,
there were about four of us that did the pickup work, and we would correct it.
It was really a great job. First of all, it was cost-plus, so the pay was good,
and I was a member of the Machinists Union there.
As a matter of fact, I just joined about a year ago an organization of people who
worked in the aircraft industry in World War II, but I haven't had the time to
go to a meeting, but I'm going to go to the next one. They're all people who
worked in the aircraft industry during the war.
01:12:27
Espino:
That will be interesting.
01:12:27
Schechter:
And we had to wear very sturdy shoes, in case something dropped or you could get
hurt. We had to wear like the overall type of outfit. I'm sorry I never took a
picture of me in that. And you had to wear a hairnet and gloves. It was noisy.
As a matter of fact, when I started to have a hearing problem, the first thing
the doctor asked was had I ever worked in a noisy place, and I said, "I was
Rosie the Riveter, and it was noisy." That might have contributed to--I now wear
hearing aids. But it comes with age too.
01:13:25
Espino:
Yes, I have a--but mine, I think, my hearing problem is from too many loud rock
concerts, a different issue.
01:13:32
Schechter:
Yes.
01:13:32
Espino:
Well, did you know anyone, any of your relatives maybe, people, your neighbors
that went off to war?
01:13:40
Schechter:
Yes. My two brothers were in the Korean War. My brother-in-law [Jesus Haro] was a
German [prisoner of war]--he ended up being a captive and was in a prisoner camp
and had a hard time, because he would tell them they were wrong, and they'd put
him in a brig or something. And neighbors, and they were primarily volunteers.
It wasn't that they were drafted. They just wanted to go. [My first husband,
Horace Mendoza, joined the U.S. Navy and returned unhurt.]
01:14:23
Espino:
Do you remember why, why they would want to go? What was the feeling at the
time?
01:14:29
Schechter:
This was the good war. You were fighting Hitler, fascism. Then, of course, Italy
and then Japan, so they were a triumvirate. Fortunately, we ended up being the
winners. The tragedy was dropping of the bomb, but if we hadn't, we would have
lost many more men, and it was a question of, at first, ending the war and
saving lives. So even in Japan they saved a lot of lives by finally conceding
that they'd lost it.
01:15:28
Espino:
Do you remember how you felt when you heard about the bomb? Do you remember your
first thoughts?
01:15:33
Schechter:
My first thought was that it ended it. It ended the war, and that was very
important. While a lot of lives were lost--when I was in Japan, we went to
Hiroshima, and I had said to my husband that if anyone asked about the dropping
of the bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima--when we went to Hiroshima I said, "If
anyone asks me, I'll say, 'If you had not entered the war, you would not have
gotten the bomb.'" And my husband said, "No, you have to be more diplomatic."
And as it turned out, the young people sure enough were in Hiroshima in the
park, and four young people walked over to us, and I said, "Here it comes." And
they said, "May we practice our English on you?" [laughs] We had learned enough
Japanese to get by, because we never travel with a group. We always do just the
two of us. So we traveled all over--we did one month and every time young people
saw us, "May we practice our English on you?" And I wanted to practice my
Japanese.
Interestingly, it has the same intonation as Spanish, so it was really easy
pronunciation-wise for me, because of my Spanish. You use every syllable, as you
do in Spanish.
01:17:27
Espino:
You were able to pick up Japanese that easily? Because it sounds--I mean, I speak
Spanish and I've heard it, and it doesn't sound like something I could pick up
quickly.
01:17:36
Schechter:
Yes. If you really concentrate, you'll find out that it's very similar
pronunciation-wise to learn.
01:17:50
Espino:
I wanted to ask you, then, about--did you write any--because I know that some
young women would write to soldiers as a way of making them less homesick, not
soldiers that they were necessarily romantically involved with, but people from
their neighborhoods, within their community. Did you ever do that?
01:18:11
Schechter:
With relatives.
01:18:13
Espino:
Only with relatives.
01:18:14
Schechter:
Yes, yes. I would write and encourage everyone else in the family to write,
because it's a lonely experience for them, it really is. They're away from their
family, and also sending them packages of things that we knew that would not be
included, candies, special treats. I had a nephew [Arturo Ballesteros] in
Germany, and my other brother [Joseph Martinez] decided to go visit him for the
Christmas holidays, and he brought tamales.
01:19:03
Espino:
This was back then? During World War II?
01:19:05
Schechter:
No, no, this was in Korea. [This was actually during the early seventies. Arturo
Ballesteros joined the Air Force section of the U.S. Army and was stationed in
Germany.]
01:19:08
Espino:
This is during the Korean War.
01:19:10
Schechter:
Yes, during the Korean War. [No, in the seventies]
01:19:11
Espino:
In the fifties [seventies].
01:19:12
Schechter:
Yes, and took tamales. But World War II, there were very few men around. They
were all in the service. This was really a world war. Everyone was involved. You
made handkerchiefs for them. Everyone, every family had someone in the service,
so it wasn't a question of just this neighbor or that neighbor. Everyone had
someone, a son, a husband, a nephew, a cousin. It was everyone's war, and you
wrote letters. I remember being told one time that I wasn't putting in periods.
I'd write a sentence and forget to put the period in. So I quickly learned how
to structure a sentence, because even then you had poor schools, and you did
have them in East L.A. where they didn't really teach you. I don't remember
anyone ever telling me where to put a period. So I learned--as a court reporter,
I became excellent in terms of paragraphs, sentences, how to punctuate
correctly, etc. Matter of fact, I was shocked at the number of attorneys who
would start a sentence with and, and I corrected them. I didn't put that and
there. He would start the sentence correctly. When I turned in a transcript, the
attorney spoke well.
01:21:30
Espino:
That's incredible that you came from a situation where you didn't finish high
school, where you weren't encouraged to take academic courses, to pursue your
education, and you went on to educate other people about the English language
and about proper grammar. That's incredible.
01:21:50
Schechter:
Yes. Yes. And the comparison between Spanish and English--you're much more
limited in English. Spanish is more descriptive. There are a lot of words you
can't really translate because they don't exist in the English language. I think
Spanish is a richer, more descriptive type of language. You can really express
yourself in Spanish better than--you're not limited.
01:22:30
Espino:
When you were with the union, your first union, you must have used mostly Spanish
with the women that you were organizing?
01:22:36
Schechter:
Yes.
01:22:38
Espino:
Did they ever offer--because you said they offered healthcare. Did they offer
other services, the union, did it offer other services like English classes,
that kind of thing?
01:22:48
Schechter:
Yes, they offered English classes, government, encouraged and always had a Deputy
Registrar of Voters, encouraged them to participate in elections, helped them
become citizens and helped them learn English. It's important to be able to
blend into the culture, into the way you live. Even now, I'm lucky that I speak
both languages, because many times some of the employees in the stores don't
speak English that well, and so I can quickly switch to Spanish and get what I
want without difficulty. And I encourage Anglos to learn Spanish, because, let's
face it, no one speaks English, really. You have to be able to communicate.
I have friends who--I now have a standard [instruction sheet on] how to clean a
house, because they hire people to come clean the houses, and they don't speak
English. So I translate. They'll send me in English what they want done. So
finally I now have a copy of it, and so when someone needs help that way, "I
want her to do this and that and that, and when she does the laundry, don't mix
the white with the color," etc., so they know who to call.
01:24:38
Espino:
Did you feel like at that time that you were working double? Because you were
bilingual, bicultural, and some of the other organizers, they didn't have to
deal with those two different cultures?
01:24:53
Schechter:
Sometimes, if they had a problem with trying to organize an individual, I would
go with them, and I was the interpreter and was able to do that. Then later as a
court reporter, sometimes they had to bring an interpreter, and I would catch
them in a wrong translation, and I'd say to my attorney, "Let's go off the
record." And then he would say, "Off the record." And I would explain that that
word really should be--
01:25:33
Espino:
Wow.
01:25:35
Schechter:
--and the interpreter didn't appreciate it, but I was more interested in an
accurate translation. So my knowing Spanish has always been very helpful.
01:25:52
Espino:
I think maybe we'll stop here. We're at almost an hour and a half, so I'm going
to end it right here.
00:00:00
Espino:
This is Virginia Espino and today is December 17, 2009. I'm interviewing Hope
Mendoza Schechter at her home in Beverly Hills, California. Okay, Hope, so today
we're going to start with maybe if you could give me some broad general
statements about your activism in the forties and fifties. In your oral history
with the Bancroft Library, you gave a lot of details, so I just want an overview
of what you think the strengths were of the ILGWU [International Ladies Garment
Workers Union] when you were working for it, as a union, and some of the
failings of the union.
00:00:43
Schechter:
Yes. Well, with the ILG, the positive was organizing and increasing the pay of
the worker and making them aware that they don't have to put up with it. They
can advance their economic status, etc. They could then think of buying a home,
furniture, a better car, or a car if they didn't have one. We all were riding
streetcars. We had streetcars then. With the ILG, because you had the managers
that were hired all came from the East Coast, New York primarily, and then we
had a manager here that was from Canada, first of all, I was the first Mexican
American hired. Even though the industry was primarily Latino, some Asian,
Jewish, of course, especially with the cloak makers, which was the
highest-paying local, basically, they were anti-Mexican; the sneer when they
would mention Mexicans.
So it evolved so that while I was the first one hired, from then on there were no
holds barred. So little by little, the attitude towards Mexicans changed. The
managers now have become Latinos, whatever the most active people become. I
think that was one of the best parts of it, and with the community organizations
the same way.
We had a meeting in El Paso, Texas, to form a national organization that was the
National Council of the Spanish-Speaking People, and the biggest battle we had
was over what do we call it. In Texas, they're virulently opposed to Mexicans.
Even today you still have remnants of it. I was there in the fifties, and I
mentioned before that they would not do my hair in a small town. I had to go
back to Houston at the big hotel to get my hair done. You don't have that fear
anymore, as you did then, of discrimination, rampant discrimination.
With CSO [Community Service Organization] the same way. We had never elected a
Mexican American, and through the efforts of Community Service Organization, the
registering of voters, encouraging people to register to vote, etc., we finally
elected someone [Ed Roybal], and that was just the beginning. Now every time you
see a ballot, it's primarily Latinos running for office, whether it's city
council or mayor.
When [Edward] Roybal ran, Roybal and Lopez, Enrique Lopez, "Henry," Henry Lopez,
he ran for state treasurer, I believe. He was an attorney. Roybal, when he ran
also for statewide office, they both lost, and now anyone can run. The problem,
of course, is money, because whoever raises more money is the one who wins. But
at least you now have people on that ballot of any ethnicity. Whether it's a
black, whether it's a Latino, no longer are you not able to do it, and I think
that's a positive step forward. Anyone can file, get his name on that ballot and
that's all that counts. So the changes have been dramatic for a positive view of
minorities, and I think that CSO and NAACP [National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People] were certainly the ones who made it possible to
do it.
Fred Ross did a fabulous job in terms of building support for Ed, encouraging
people to go out and finally get changes done. Whether it's employment, whether
it was neighborhood needs, you were able to do it. I'm sure that eventually we
would have gotten around to it, but Fred Ross is the one that was sent out from
Chicago, and he was able to relate to people. He lived in the neighborhood. If I
recall, he had four children or five children. His wife was in a wheelchair. She
had some paralysis of some kind. She couldn't walk or anything like that. That
was just the beginning. Now I think that we've reached our goal, but you have to
keep working at it. You never let it occur again and stop it when--if you see or
hear about discrimination, do something. Another question?
00:07:23
Espino:
That's so important, and it's something that we don't generally think about is
just something as simple as having a Mexican on the ballot was a huge, drastic
change back then.
00:07:39
Schechter:
Yes.
00:07:39
Espino:
Do you remember some of the perceptions of Mexicans by the mainstream, like what
exactly did they think or dislike about Mexicans at that time? Were they vocal
about specific things?
00:07:56
Schechter:
Yes. Oh, absolutely vocal about it. And if you wrote letters to the editor, they
just were not published. A clear, clear distinction of absolutely giving nothing
positive, voicing anything positive of minorities, whether they were black or
they were Latino, even Asian. That's when they sent--during the war, when
they--I'm having a problem trying to find the word, when they took the Japanese
and incarcerated them.
00:08:52
Espino:
The internment?
00:08:54
Schechter:
Yes. That couldn't happen today. It did then. I think the fact that we have
evolved over the years by working hard to do away with discrimination,
regardless of race, color, or creed--even now, take the problem with this
golfer, Woods--
00:09:35
Espino:
Tiger Woods?
00:09:40
Schechter:
Today's paper, they praise him as being an outstanding sportsperson in terms of
golf, etc., regardless of his personal problems, and I'm sure years ago he would
have been just through. He's the one that decided to take himself out of the
limelight during this period, and that could not have happened years ago. He's
the best golfer in the world, and that's all that counts.
00:10:14
Espino:
That's an important point, because people like Ed Roybal were set up and
followed. Did that ever happen to you? Did you ever feel like your reputation
was something that you had to keep very clean, and you had to live by certain
rules not because you wanted to, but because you were in the public eye?
00:10:36
Schechter:
Yes. You had to be very careful, because once you became prominent you were then
mentioned in the paper, etc., and you had to make sure that whatever appeared
was positive and not negative, because there were consequences to pay. So you
made sure that you were Mr. or Mrs. Clean in order to be able to be a success in
whatever you were trying to do, whether it was to elect someone or help someone
get a job. You had to give a positive impression and not a negative one. And I
think that we finally succeeded.
00:11:43
Espino:
There was one newspaper that wrote a lot about Eastside politics, the Eastside
Sun.
00:11:49
Schechter:
Yes.
00:11:49
Espino:
Did you know anybody who worked for that paper?
00:11:52
Schechter:
I knew the publisher, but I can't remember his name. Yes. We worked very closely,
and I think that that paper especially, and, of course, La Opinion was another
one--every Latino family had access to La Opinion. If they could only afford the
Sunday edition, they at least bought the Sunday edition, and it really helped
the Spanish-speaking people to become aware of what was going on in the world,
etc. I know we always had La Opinion in the house, and we were poor, but La
Opinion was very important. We then also had the Daily News, which was a more
liberal paper.
The L.A. Times was always the bad paper. They were at that time very, very
Right-wing and anti-anything that had to do with liberalism, etc. And it has
changed completely. Now you can read any newspaper, and there's nothing negative
when it comes to race. If anyone dares to be critical of someone's color, etc.,
there's an immediate response to it, so you no longer have that stigma of having
someone insult you because of your race, color, or creed.
00:13:54
Espino:
Why do you think that the publisher--I can't remember his name either, but I'll
find his name--of the Eastside Sun was interested in the Mexican political
community?
00:14:02
Schechter:
Well, it was in the Boyle Heights area and originally had been totally Jewish,
City Terrace and Boyle Heights. Then the transition began to develop where as
the Jewish people became more affluent, they moved to the West side and little
by little it was taken over by Latinos, primarily Mexican. Now you have
Guatemalans, El Salvador, across-the-board Latino.
The Chinese have taken over the Monterey Park, Rosecrans completely, so you have
different ethnic groups, but they are there because they want to be there, not
because they're forced to. It's not a ghetto type of a situation. You want to be
able to speak your language, and you form your own groups, but it has nothing to
do with discrimination anymore, because you couldn't rent before, you couldn't
buy. All that has changed. Besides, we grew in numbers. [laughs] There's greater
strength in numbers.
00:15:27
Espino:
Well, then, let's talk a little bit about some of the weaknesses of the union,
some of its failings according to your own experience, if there were any.
00:15:40
Schechter:
Well, as I said, I was the first one hired, and there was discrimination. For
example, to go to a national union convention, Latinos were not delegates.
Things have changed now, but originally, you never got to go to a convention or
be on the executive board, and little by little it just evolved, where you
became a member of the executive board, you became a member of staff. If you go
to the ILG today, it's primarily Latino. Even the manager is Latino, where
before, no way. They even had rules, for example, rigid rules that you had to
have worked in the industry in order to become an officer. Well, they cheated a
little on that, because they had primarily either Italians or Jewish people as
officers. And transition, change--it is no problem today.
00:17:08
Espino:
Did that go both ways? I mean, did that discrimination apply both to Latino men
and women? For example, if a non-Latina, like a Jewish woman or an Italian
woman, wanted to be involved in the leadership, did she have an easier path than
a Latino male?
00:17:30
Schechter:
The International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the workforce was really women. A
lot of men in the cloaks, which was suits and coats; there you found men. The
manager of the San Francisco ILGWU was a woman, but Jewish woman, because
primarily--it was started originally by Jews; David Dubinsky. The initial
workforce was primarily Jewish in New York and when they came west, it was again
basically Jewish. They had a history of organizing, where Latinos did not. They
were just the workers. And over time, as times changed, business agents,
organizers, everyone was welcome, but it took time. So I would say that the
fifties is when the revolution began in terms of opening doors for everyone.
And blacks had the same problem. When I was hired, shortly thereafter they hired
the first woman, a black woman who was absolutely marvelous. Aileen Clark
Hernandez was her name. She married Hernandez and now lives in San Francisco, is
no longer with the union. She formed another organization, community-type
organization in the San Francisco area. But she was the first black hired by the
ILG. She was even president of NOW [National Organization for Women]
nationally.
00:20:00
Espino:
That's big.
00:20:02
Schechter:
Yes.
00:20:03
Espino:
Well, let's move then to the CSO and if you could just--maybe there weren't any,
but looking back, do you think that there were some weaknesses or some missed
opportunities within the Community Service Organization?
00:20:24
Schechter:
It was really an amicable group. In politics, you have a lot of jealousies and
everyone is looking for the powerful positions, etc. And I really do not recall,
because we were all fighting--we had a goal. We wanted to elect Latinos to
office. We wanted to improve the community. There might be--if you ran for
office, then you're competing with one another, etc., but it was never vicious
or cruel or unkind. You just garnered votes if you wanted to run for office.
It's true that women were not--for example, you had Roybal, then you had Henry
Nava, then you had Tony Rios. Maybe it was because women have less time to
devote. If they're married, they're responsible for their children, etc., and
while they vote, they would come to meetings and work for the organization at
whatever level, their time was more limited than men, who came home and their
dinner was ready for them, the house was clean for them, etc. They had more time
available to them, and I would say that that's one of the reasons why initially
you had just men as chairs. But at every level, whether it's in politics, etc.,
initially it was just men.
And now it's not unusual for a woman to run for Congress and a woman to win for
Congress. Whether it's locally, whether it's statewide, whether it's national--I
think we've won the battle. We really have. Governors, women governors, women
mayors, and I think that even now, if it's still disproportionate, it's
primarily because of family. We're the ones that are responsible for the
children. Well, the husband now helps in one way or another. You still have
limited time, because it's like being a little bit pregnant. You can't be a
little bit pregnant. It's all the way. But we've managed somehow to overcome
some of the handicaps and are able to manage having children and running for
office or running a business, etc. So we've made great progress and great
strides have been taken as far as discriminating against a woman and limiting
her opportunities. Now it's up to us to do it, and we can do it, and we do.
00:23:58
Espino:
Yes. It's tough, that's for sure. And it would be nice to have a little bit more
support from the outside society. So that ideal that you were all struggling for
the same goal, I've heard that from several other people that I've talked to.
But there was one issue that came up that was very controversial, and it was
when Mr. Roybal was going to vote on, what was it--it was an anti-communist type
of legislation [Communist Registration Ordinance], where you had to sign, I
think it was, that you were not a communist. I think he was going to vote
against that when a lot of people were saying, "You need to vote for it, because
your situation is not stable yet, and there's a lot of people who support this."
But he decided to go with his own conscience. Do you remember that issue or
incident? I mean, did it divide people within the CSO?
00:25:10
Schechter:
It wasn't dividing within the CSO, but it was citywide, because the issue had to
do with the city council. Fred Ross, of course, was one of those who was leading
the fight for freedom of expression, and they voted against the measure, so that
was the first time that ever had happened, that they were able to succeed at
that level. Because that's when you had the hearings on the Communist Party,
Marxists--
00:26:12
Espino:
The House Un-American Activities and [Senator Joseph] McCarthy?
00:26:14
Schechter:
Yes, McCarthy, the McCarthy era. And it was real. People lost their jobs, etc.
Now you don't have that to contend with. That era finally gave way, and it's
dead.
00:26:42
Espino:
Do you know people who lost their jobs during that period?
00:26:46
Schechter:
Yes. Even within the union they did. But the ones who did lose their jobs were
communists. They lost their leadership position within the union, because they
were a negative force. Nationally you had the publication called--oh, you also
had an organization called the Independent Progressive Party [IPP], which was
really the local Communist Party group, and they went off the ballot in
1954.
00:27:35
Espino:
Okay. Can you go back and tell me a little bit about those publications
again?
00:27:39
Schechter:
Yes. Here locally, we had the Independent Progressive Party, and it finally went
off the ballot in 1954, because you had to have a certain amount of votes and
they didn't qualify. I think it was 5 percent. So they went off the ballot, and
they're the ones who flip-flopped into the Democratic Party. That's when the
liberalism, etc., was primarily the commie group that flip-flopped into the
Democratic Party.
00:28:22
Espino:
Can I ask you just a quick question about the IPP, the Independent Progressive
Party? That progressive meant that you cared about racism and equality and job
pay, things like that, or how did people define that word at that time?
00:28:45
Schechter:
Well, primarily, the Independent Progressive Party was the party line of the
Marxists. They mouth it but don't mean it, because if they get into power, it's
fascist. They limit you. You either follow the line or you're through, and it's
that simple. That's why we were opposed to the Independent Progressive Party,
because we knew that they only mouthed it and didn't mean it. Then in the '48
election they supported [Vice President] Henry Wallace for president and Glenn
Taylor for vice president, and it was the Independent Progressive Party that
supported them. And Harry Truman won. Harry Truman won in California with
seventeen thousand votes. That was a very narrow win for him.
You had--the Daily Worker was the Communist Party publication nationwide, and
then locally we had the People's World. So when I said before that I could tell
someone was a communist, it was when they spoke and mouthed the party line that
you knew where they stood and who they were. I had mentioned that I could see
them. I heard them is what I meant.
00:30:45
Espino:
Well, that was the period when they were most popular--
00:30:49
Schechter:
Yes.
00:30:49
Espino:
--during the thirties and some of the forties, and people were definitely drawn
to some of those ideas of Marx and Lenin and that whole thing.
00:31:01
Schechter:
Yes, but you had to educate them and let them know what they really meant and
where they stood and what would happen if they succeeded, and I think that's
what finally drove people away from them, because it was just the party
line.
00:31:21
Espino:
And the IPP, was that communist?
00:31:24
Schechter:
Yes. [It was founded and controlled by the Communist Party. Years later, the
CPUSA [Communist Party of the United States of America] admitted it was a
mistake to have created the IPP because it drew Communists out of the Democratic
Party. (Article in Political Affairs, a CP Publication)]
00:31:24
Espino:
That was also communist.
00:31:25
Schechter:
Yes, yes.
00:31:28
Espino:
So you had the Communist Party and the Independent Progressive Party that were
communist?
00:31:31
Schechter:
They were one and the same. They were one and the same.
00:31:37
Espino:
There must have been members of these groups within CSO, I'm imagining, because
they were pretty much a part of the political--
00:31:46
Schechter:
We had one woman that was definitely an IPP type, and we knew it. And while she
did everything she could to encourage people to go on her side, we prevailed. So
no one could ever have accused CSO of being communist-oriented, and if we had
the similar goals, we're the ones who worked hard and knew what we were going to
accomplish with no hidden agenda, and that's what really counted. They had their
hidden agenda; we didn't. We meant what we said when we wanted to accomplish
something.
00:32:39
Espino:
How would you describe the ideology of CSO? If you could put a couple of words,
labels on the political ideology--
00:32:47
Schechter:
Yes. Community-oriented, without any hidden underlying goal, Left-wing, etc.
00:33:03
Espino:
Would you use Democratic or conservative, liberal?
00:33:07
Schechter:
CSO was Democratic, liberal, of course, but at no point could you say they were
ultra-Left-wing or ultra-Right-wing. It was more a middle-of-the-road approach.
So people tried to infiltrate, the Left-wing, etc., but we just outnumbered
them, and our positive approach to our goals is what finally succeeded. I think
the election of Roybal was our absolute crowning glory, because once he won,
that was a big, big, big change, a very positive change, because from then on
anyone, everyone, whoever wanted could just file for their papers in whatever
office they wanted. That was the best part about Ed's election to city council
and then Congress. He did lose one; that was for supervisor.
But we conquered. We now have [Gloria] Molina. Not only did she win as a Latina
but as a woman, so that's when I said earlier that we were able to finally elect
women, she's certainly a shining example of someone who--that's a very, very
powerful office. So I think that if it hadn't been for CSO, she would never have
run for office and won the way she did, because that opened the doors.
00:35:19
Espino:
Do you remember--this is jumping a little bit ahead, but do you remember her
campaign when she decided to--were you here in Los Angeles?
00:35:25
Schechter:
Oh, yes, yes.
00:35:28
Espino:
Were you a part of that discussion?
00:35:30
Schechter:
Yes. And not only that, the support was widespread. She was able to raise enough
money to run for office and win. If I recall right, she was the first woman to
win a powerful office in this area. We used to have one senator covered
practically the whole southern California area, Richard Richards. The bulk of
your elected representatives and assembly people represented cows throughout the
state, and here in southern California, we only had one [state] senator. With
reapportionment, etc., they finally opened it up wide, and you have now people
representing people and not representing cows in the rural areas, etc.
00:36:38
Espino:
Do you remember something about Richard Richards?
00:36:39
Schechter:
Yes. Richard Richards, when he was elected in 1954, represented all of L.A.
County, which is a huge area, and with the following--you have redistricting
every ten years. And finally were able to break through and have a senator
representing x number of people rather than as before. They would have these
huge districts and no people living there, and the cities, you had just the one
person representing you. Now it's broken down by population, which is important,
as against previously when it was just by area.
00:37:46
Espino:
Do you remember anything specific--just getting back to Gloria Molina's campaign,
do you remember anything specific about your involvement in that? Did you attend
any planning meetings or fundraisers or anything like that?
00:38:01
Schechter:
Yes. We were involved in registration, fundraising, getting endorsements from the
unions, and with the endorsement, of course, you also solicited money. Tony Rios
and I were the ones that covered all the unions. He was with CIO [Congress of
Industrial Organizations], I was with AFL [American Federation of Labor], so I
had contact with the different branches, Teamsters, garment workers, machinists,
aircraft industry. So we covered every base and were able to get our message out
and were able to raise money, and then had fundraisers in the community, so you
had business. We were able to go door to door to businesses, whether it was
retail or whether it was manufacturing. We covered every base, and the more
money you raise, the more advertising you can get newspaper-wise. Money counts,
and I think that raising money was one of the keys, was the main key to electing
him. We would go to the retail stores and not only solicit money, but have
Roybal's picture in the front window.
00:39:53
Espino:
Okay, so we're talking about Roybal. I thought we were talking about Molina,
Gloria Molina. Did you have any--the same question but for Molina. Not to
confuse the people we're talking about, let's stick with talking about Roybal,
and if you can remember how easy or how difficult it was to sell his campaign to
people. Like, for example, if you weren't talking to somebody who was Latino,
would you talk to other ethnic groups, like Anglo, European-descendent people,
or African American, Asian American?
00:40:36
Schechter:
Yes. At that time, you still had a large Jewish community, and we were able to
raise money citywide, not just within the district. You had a large Japanese
population also, the Little Tokyo area. That was part of the city council
district. Because of population, the district is much smaller now. When Roybal
ran, it was much bigger then, and we were able to involve every ethnic group
within the community, because we learned the hard lesson with the first election
when he lost. We widened our horizons, reached out to more people, were able to
raise more money from a wider group, and it was a very well-organized campaign
when we finally succeeded in electing Roybal. We'd learned our lessons about
wider support, more registration, more participation from those who were
registered, and we won.
I think that Molina and Roybal were the two candidates that opened the door for
everyone then, because if Roybal won and Molina won--you look at any ballot. Go
into any--I go to Palm Springs, and I see the posters from the different
candidates, primarily Latino. So no matter where you go, they opened the door
for everyone. Look at the black community. They elected [Tom] Bradley. He was
mayor. So it opened the door for everyone. Now you have a Mexican American as
mayor of Los Angeles.
00:43:26
Espino:
Well, do you recall working for Molina's campaign, or fundraising?
00:43:31
Schechter:
I had already moved out of the district. I was by then in San Fernando Valley.
But I know that I would help with the garment industry, with the employers. They
were very, very pro-Molina, raised a lot of money for her in the garment
industry, and that's the one I'm more familiar with, because that was my base.
If it was happening there, then it was happening in other areas of industry,
because in the garment industry she had absolute, full support, money-wise,
because that's the only way you win is by raising money, and they were very
supportive.
00:44:35
Espino:
You also worked for some other, many other campaigns. I'm curious about what
attracted you to them, some of the people that you worked for, like Elizabeth
Snyder.
00:44:51
Schechter:
Yes. She was the first woman elected as state chair; nationwide, first woman. The
day before her election in Sacramento--I was on the State Central Committee--we
were up all night. I finally got to my room at six a.m., showered, got dressed
again and went out and started campaigning again. And, of course, the north, Pat
Brown, etc., they were opposed to Elizabeth Snyder, and we had to know what the
agenda was, and what the opposition to Liz Snyder had done was moved the time of
the election for later in the day. As you well know, on a Sunday, that's the
last day of the convention, if you move it forward, make it late, people are
gone, and the nucleus, who's the opposition, is there.
So I was assigned to find out from Pat Brown what time the election was. So I
went to his suite, which was on the ground floor. I was swimming in the pool and
I came over and he handed me a towel, so I could wrap myself because I was wet,
and I said, "Pat, you give such marvelous speeches. Can I read your speech? I
know you're going to deliver it tomorrow and it'll be fabulous, but I want to
read it." Well, in it, in the speech was the time for the election the following
day, and I came back to our group and I said, "The election is such-and-such."
Well, the entire California Congressional delegation for the first time came to
Sacramento. Chet Holifield, my congressman, brought all of them to Sacramento,
and Sam Yorty was the congressman from the Fifteenth Congressional District.
Mine was from the Nineteenth. He hit that mic at eight o'clock in the morning,
and he said, "We understand that the election has been postponed for later in
the day, and we have to go, fly back to Washington, D.C., and I move that we
change it back to the original time." And that sealed our win, because, "you
see, you can't deprive us from voting, and you will deprive us if you don't
change the time." And they changed the time, and Elizabeth won.
00:47:49
Espino:
So that was within the party politics. That wasn't for a state or a--
00:47:56
Schechter:
No, but it was the first woman elected ever, and she turned out to be a fabulous
chair. Her daughter is now a federal court judge, Chris [Christina] Snyder.
00:48:10
Espino:
What about some of the other people that you campaigned for? Were you involved in
the Viva Kennedy campaign at all--
00:48:19
Schechter:
Oh, yes. I was a delegate to the national convention, and I was at the Ambassador
[Hotel] when the tragedy occurred. Yes.
00:48:32
Espino:
Can you start from the very beginning, how you got involved in that campaign,
what attracted you to Mr. Kennedy?
00:48:38
Schechter:
Well, I had been active in politics and since 1950 I was on the State Central
Committee and the executive board of the State Central Committee, which dealt
with statewide issues, etc. So I was involved in every campaign, Assembly,
Senate, gubernatorial. In 1950, Pat Brown had run for State Attorney General,
and I was one of his supporters. I have a letter from him, thanking me for my
support. Labor had endorsed Goody [Goodwin] Knight, and so I faced a lot of
criticism for my support of Pat Brown, because I was an officer of the union,
and my own union had endorsed Goody Knight. I was in charge of my congressional
district, and we campaigned for Pat Brown, and we won in my district. Right down
the line, every Democrat that we endorsed won, whether it was Assembly, state
Senate, gubernatorial.
I always worked for Pat Brown, except when he ran for office, when he lost [in
1962]. He was supposed to support for state chair Carmen Warschaw, and he was
supposed to announce it. He didn't. So when he came back, as we were leaving the
convention in Sacramento he said, "Are you going to support me, (Pat Brown?)"
And I said, "No." And I worked for [Ronald] Reagan. You don't double-cross, and
he did, and he lost. It's the first time I ever voted Republican, first time.
But you don't double-cross a friend.
00:51:00
Espino:
Especially one with so much political power and clout. So let's get back to JFK,
because there was also division at that time among the Mexican American
community, between him and Johnson.
00:51:14
Schechter:
Yes.
00:51:15
Espino:
Did you have a conflict, or did you like both candidates, or like one more, or
convinced--how did you look at the two candidates at that time?
00:51:26
Schechter:
I was for Kennedy from the very beginning, because I had been for his brother,
John Kennedy. I had been very active in that campaign. So when Bobby decided to
run, after the tragic death of his brother, I got onboard immediately and worked
on his behalf.
00:52:02
Espino:
So let's get back and let's just clarify a couple of things. We were talking
about the election for the campaign within the Democratic circles, between
Johnson and John F. Kennedy, so you were going to tell me who you supported from
the very beginning and why.
00:52:20
Schechter:
Yes. I supported John Kennedy from the very beginning. Within the State Central
Committee, those who were active with me were supporting John Kennedy. By now I
was no longer with the union, so I had no problems in terms of labor, because
labor was supporting Johnson. Even though many people who worked for unions at
that time--those who broke away were threatened with loss of job if they
supported Kennedy. Fortunately, I didn't have that problem, because by then I
was in business for myself. I became a court reporter. I had already left the
union. But we ended up having mass support.
00:53:43
Espino:
Just a second. Let me pause it for a minute.
00:53:48
Espino:
Do you remember what it was exactly that drew you to Kennedy, what attracted you
to him as a candidate, versus Johnson?
00:53:58
Schechter:
Well, originally, of course, I really didn't know who Kennedy was. You knew about
Johnson, because he was always very prominent. But my friends within the
Democratic Party that were the activists were supporting Kennedy. The people
that were on Johnson's side were primarily people that we normally didn't work
with in the first place. They were the other side. So what attracted me to
Kennedy was the fact that my friends were supporting him, and they're the ones
that convinced me to support John Kennedy.
I had been a good friend of Sam Yorty. He was a very liberal type of a Democrat
and somehow ended up in the Nixon camp. For example, every New Year we would go
to his home for a New Year's party, and 1960 is the first year that I didn't go
to his New Year's party, because he was supporting Nixon. Johnson, for example,
had his headquarters when he was running for--because the convention was here in
Los Angeles. It was the first time, I believe, that Los Angeles hosted the
national convention, and Johnson's headquarters was the Biltmore [Hotel]. [John
F.] Kennedy's was the Ambassador. Maybe it's probably because of Texas and their
attitude towards Mexicans that had an influence on me. That might have been a
latent reason why I couldn't support Johnson, because of my experience in the
past with Texas and their attitude to Mexican Americans. So it was Kennedy all
the way.
I remember when Kennedy was killed, I couldn't work for two weeks. I just--I
couldn't do anything. It was such a tragedy. But working for him and making sure
that we garnered votes for him, that was my goal.
00:56:57
Espino:
Did you ever have a discussion with his campaign people, or I don't know if you
had a chance to meet him personally, what he would do for the Mexican American
community?
00:57:12
Schechter:
I went to a breakfast, I recall. And, of course, because I was on the State
Central Committee and active in the Democratic Party, I was there early, etc. So
people kept saying to me, "Make sure I have a seat. Make sure I have a seat,"
because it was a sellout. I took twenty hats, twenty women's hats and put them
on chairs, so when the other people arrived, they all had seats on the front
row. Those gorgeous blue eyes of Kennedy's, yes. It was a rough campaign.
Opposition--people that you had been friendly with now were at odds with you
because of who you supported and who they supported, but we won that one.
00:58:07
Espino:
Well, Johnson really lobbied the Mexican American community.
00:58:15
Schechter:
Yes, he did.
00:58:16
Espino:
And I'm not sure if Kennedy did the same. I'm curious about that, if he did the
same here in Los Angeles. Do you feel he did or he didn't?
00:58:29
Schechter:
Well, Johnson came from a state that was really bitterly anti-Mexican, and I
don't recall that I at any point would have supported him, primarily because of
the history of Texas and the way Texans treated Mexicans. They had the first
issue with education in Texas. They had separate schools for Mexicans. And Gus
Garcia went all the way to the [U.S.] Supreme Court and won the case for Mexican
Americans in Texas, where none of this separate but equal. That was even before
the '54 ruling on separate-but-equal education. So I--
00:59:48
Espino:
You felt like he represented Texas and their mentality--
00:59:50
Schechter:
Yes. Yes.
00:59:52
Espino:
--even though he did have friends in the Mexican American community and also
strong support here in Los Angeles with some of the Mexican Americans. Can you
talk to me a little bit about, you said you were at the hotel when Kennedy was
assassinated. Can you describe that night for me, what was going on and what
were you there for?
01:00:12
Schechter:
Because it was a statewide election, Evelle Younger was running for attorney
general of the State of California.
01:00:29
Espino:
Oh, now we're talking about Robert. That's different. Robert Kennedy was
assassinated at the--
01:00:35
Schechter:
Yes, but I had gone to Evelle Younger's headquarters celebration before. So I
got--
01:00:41
Espino:
Okay. I've confused the story.
01:00:43
Schechter:
So I got to the Ambassador at eleven, and by now the place was closed down. They
wouldn't let anyone in, because it was too full. The guards wouldn't let anyone
in anymore, because of fire hazards; x number of people, that's it. But I knew
the layout of the Ambassador, so when my husband and I were there and they
wouldn't let us in, I circled them and outwitted them and got in. So I was in
the very front. Bobby had just finished his speech, or he was coming in to make
his speech. So I was right in front of the podium where he was going to be
speaking, and he then came around to where the kitchen door was in the
Ambassador. He finished his speech, goes through the kitchen, and we're right
there. And I hear someone say, "They killed him! They killed him!" It was a
black doctor, and he was the first one that reached Bobby Kennedy, lying on the
floor in the kitchen. You couldn't see it, because once you get through that
door you couldn't see beyond that. And we kept saying, "No. No."
Then they carried [Ira] Goldstein [reporter for the Continental News Service], I
think was his name, on a stretcher. He had also been shot, but he survived, but
not Bobby. And we were all crying. We were just absolutely devastated. We got up
to leave and as we entered the lobby, all these Democrats were down on their
knees praying for Bobby Kennedy. Well, just then we see the tallest sheriffs,
police you could ever imagine. Sirhan [Sirhan], is that the one that did it,
Sirhan?
01:03:34
Espino:
Okay, to clarify that.
01:03:36
Schechter:
So now we're out in the lobby area of the Ambassador, and the lobby area of the
Ambassador was above street level, so you had to go down a stairway to be able
to exit the hotel. So this army of officers are shielding Sirhan Sirhan, and
when all these Demos were on their knees praying get up and start shouting,
"Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!", Harvey--and as they started to go down the
stairs, they're coming, running, to harm him. And Harvey and I and the doctor
that had first attended to Bobby, the three of us reached the top of the stairs,
held hands and said--and we were screaming--
01:04:51
Schechter:
The doctor that was in the lobby was the doctor that attended Bobby. He's the
doctor, black doctor that held hands, the three of us at the top of the
stairway, "Let's not have another [Lee Harvey] Oswald. Let's not have another
Oswald." And we held hands and kept them from--they may not have been able to
reach him anyway because of the army of police officers surrounding him. But
Sirhan was small, very short. I think he's about five feet, and, of course, he
has this dark complexion, same color as Latinos. And I thought he was one of
ours. [gasps] Kept saying, "It can't be one of ours, it can't be one of ours, it
can't be--." I was screaming this, "It can't be one of ours." And thank God, it
wasn't. He was not one of ours.
As we left the hotel then, because everyone calmed down after that, they took him
out of the hotel, there was the ambulance waiting to bring Bobby Kennedy,
because they took him to a hospital before--Ethel Kennedy was in the ambulance
waiting also and tears. It was just--it's hard to describe. It's so unreal that
it could have happened the way it did. Shock is not graphic enough to describe
how you felt. One minute he's alive; the next moment he's gone. So we went home.
Everyone left.
Even to this day I can't get over the fact that--Ethel in December sent all of
us, all the delegates a picture, the last--it was going to be the official
presidential picture, and she signed it for every delegate to that convention.
We all were honored with receiving this photo of Bobby, and I have it hanging in
my little office here. I've always had it up. That was the most tragic part of
it. After having lived through the other one, it's still a tragedy that two of
them--and their older brother had been killed in World War II, all of them on
behalf of our country. And we lost them.
01:08:14
Espino:
He had some important legacies. Although Johnson is known for the War on Poverty,
Kennedy was really starting to think about that. He was starting to think about
how to put money into poor areas and how to alleviate some of the poverty in the
United States, and so he did leave a footprint, JFK.
01:08:36
Schechter:
Oh, yes. He came out and was a big supporter of Cesar Chavez and would have been
just great.
01:08:49
Espino:
Can you talk to me a little bit about your work with some of those programs that
started with Kennedy and then ended up being part of Johnson's presidency? You
were appointed to the Peace Corps. What work did you do in that position?
01:09:08
Schechter:
Johnson appointed me to the National Advisory Council [of the Peace Corps] in
'64.
01:09:20
Espino:
This was right after he was elected, or right after the assassination.
01:09:24
Schechter:
Yes, yes, when he became president. It had to do with helping other nations, had
Peace Corps people, and we were supposed to fund and make funds available and
manpower.
01:09:54
Espino:
That was Kennedy's idea, wasn't it, the Peace Corps?
01:09:57
Schechter:
Yes.
01:09:58
Espino:
I mean JFK. That was his initial--
01:10:01
Schechter:
Yes, Initially it was set up by Kennedy, and Johnson followed through on it.
Matter of fact, I have my picture with Johnson in the Cabinet Room of the White
House. We had a meeting there. Well, I was sworn in in the White House also. I
have pictures of me. We were sworn in in the East Room. Then there was a
reception in the Red Room, and I also have a picture there in the Red Room with
the president and Lady Bird [Johnson]. It was a ladies' day. All the music had
to do with songs that dealt with women, and the Marine Corps, their orchestra
was playing the music. It was a wonderful day.
But the emphasis was on helping impoverished nations and supplying the workforce
for them, teaching them farming, teaching them ways to improve their economics,
because you don't give people fish to eat, you teach them fishing so that they
can survive and improve themselves. I think that was a positive view, whether it
was South America, whether it was Asian countries, wherever poverty existed and
ways to teach them to improve their standard of living. That was the goal of the
Peace Corps. There were twenty-five members of the board, and I was one of
them.
01:12:11
Espino:
That took you away from your work in L.A., I imagine, your work with Mexican
Americans.
01:12:16
Schechter:
Yes.
01:12:17
Espino:
How did you feel about that?
01:12:23
Schechter:
Well, of course, my main interest was South America. Although worldwide, they
need too, and we equally helped, but my main interest was South America, Puerto
Rico, all the other poor countries. If you've ever been in Puerto Rico, they
needed help and probably still do.
01:12:52
Espino:
Were you involved in anything--I don't know if the Peace Corps got involved in
this, but anything to do with family planning, like reproductive control? I
mean, that was huge also in the late sixties, the idea that people needed to
slow down the population. I know Johnson's presidency--
01:13:09
Schechter:
Yes. Well, that created a problem there too, because of the Catholic Church, who
were opposed to any form of birth control or anything like that.
01:13:24
Espino:
But is that something that the Peace Corps would get involved in, family
planning? Or no? Or they did other things like farming?
01:13:31
Schechter:
Yes, primarily economic. Otherwise, they wouldn't even let you come. They
wouldn't let you--especially South America, no way. So that was not part of the
programs. It was primarily economic. And the people who volunteered, I mean,
they were absolutely sold on the program. They wouldn't have stayed home no
matter what. They were going to go and help. And they all came back and
continued with their education, profession, etc. But they put in a minimum of
two years. They weren't being paid. They were supported in terms of a roof over
their heads and food, etc., but they didn't profit. It was not like getting a
job. They were volunteers. And we never had a problem getting the manpower,
never a question that we don't have enough. The volunteers just came out of the
woods.
01:14:59
Espino:
There was a lot of political commitment at that time on a lot of different
issues. So then this takes you out of Los Angeles?
01:15:08
Schechter:
No. We would have meetings in Washington, D.C., and every member of the Peace
Corps board had to pay their own expenses. We paid for our hotels, we paid for
our flights, etc., and if we had any function, like once a year we'd have a big
dinner and showcase some of the leaders of the Peace Corps group, we had to fund
it. I think the average was about two hundred dollars per person to be able
to--because, of course, at that time two hundred dollars bought more than it
does today. I remember that it was a minimum of two hundred dollars for each
function, over and above our expenses to be there and flight, etc., our plane
tickets.
01:16:07
Espino:
That was a big commitment on your part as well, to be available for all those
different meetings.
01:16:12
Schechter:
Yes, it was. It was worth it. It really was.
01:16:15
Espino:
What did you learn from that experience?
01:16:20
Schechter:
I learned that we're really a global--it's not just your city, your state, your
country. It's worldwide. And helping them meant that you could save them from
the wrong kind of a government. Being able to feed your family was the primary
goal, your living conditions, make sure that you were able to feed your
children. The concept was really a marvelous one, and I'm glad that I was able
to help in that way.
01:17:18
Espino:
Were you able to visit any of the countries that you had--
01:17:21
Schechter:
No, because I was running a business. I went to all the meetings and voted for
whatever country you were going to establish Peace Corps in and etc. But no, I
didn't, and I'm sorry I couldn't, because we were meeting with the top level of
government. Wherever, whatever country we were--whether it was Africa, Asia,
South America. I couldn't. But I went to all the board meetings in Washington,
D.C., and when they had a big function here, one for the Peace Corps, I had four
hundred people at my house for a fundraiser for the Peace Corps. My house had a
double lot, so I had a lot of room and people just turned out. It was very
successful. Any time we put on a fundraiser, it was a huge success. After my
work in politics, etc. [laughs]--
01:18:40
Espino:
You were seasoned for that kind of thing.
01:18:40
Schechter:
Yes.
01:18:42
Espino:
Well, you met so many powerful people, even as young as seventeen when you were
challenging employers and even the union leadership. I'm sure those men had
power in their own right. What was your impression of Johnson, President
Johnson? I mean, meeting a President of the United States of America, what kind
of feeling did he give you?
01:19:05
Schechter:
Well, once he became president, War on Poverty, all the programs that he
initiated were positive, and I no longer saw him as being from Texas. He's now
the President of the United States and was carrying through on every program
that Kennedy had initiated. So my whole vision of Johnson changed. He was now
someone I could support. I had no holds barred. I just became pro-Johnson,
because he stood for everything that I wanted him to stand for. So he won my
heart, and I supported him.
01:20:18
Espino:
Did you have a chance to have a conversation with him ever, or any intimate
moments; social?
01:20:23
Schechter:
Yes. When I was at the White House being sworn in, I had a chance to talk to him,
shake his hand, and Lady Bird, and then when I was at the Cabinet meeting, I sat
right next to him. The president has a special chair, so you know where he's
going to sit, so I quickly took the chair next to him. There was an actress--I
can't remember--
01:21:04
Harvey B. Schechter:
Janet Leigh.
01:21:05
Espino:
Janet Leigh?
01:21:05
Schechter:
Janet Leigh. She sat on the other side, and so the two of us went for those
chairs, and so I'm sitting next to him, so, yes, I had another chance to talk to
him again. I can't imagine their calendar. A president's calendar is every
minute, every second is taken. They have no life as president. The demands on
their time is incredible. So we were lucky to be able--[Robert] Sargent Shriver
then was the head of Peace Corps. Then when he left--once again, by now it's
been years, so I've forgotten the name of his replacement, but every director of
the Peace Corps was just very committed to the job, continued with the program
and always was very successful.
Some of them--of course, Peace Corps people were exposed to illness, etc., but
with care provided were able to overcome. I don't think we lost any in terms of
losing their life because of a particular illness, because we quickly would fly
them out, give them the best of care, etc. But they exposed themselves. I mean,
they were so committed to doing the job and gave no thought to perhaps they
would get ill, and it didn't happen that often.
01:23:09
Espino:
The Peace Corps is something that trained a lot of people who went on to do other
important things later on.
01:23:15
Schechter:
Yes.
01:23:18
Espino:
Almost like what the CSO did for Mexican Americans. It was like the training
ground, and people went on to do other important political--
01:23:25
Schechter:
The bulk of them came back and finished their university, finished their
training, and then went into professions, etc., attorneys, economists, and
continued with their lives. But they had this wonderful experience of helping in
foreign countries.
01:23:51
Espino:
Next time I want to talk a little bit about how the War on Poverty helped to be
like a training ground, because I think you were involved in some of those
programs, like Head Start, and how people from the community were given
positions that were unavailable to them before and how that became a training
ground for leadership and for cultivating leadership.
01:24:12
Schechter:
Yes. Well, the project Head Start, of course, was a brand new program. So what we
did was on our board of directors, we had a judge [Carlos Teran] who helped us
with the law, because it was all L.A. County. We had a realtor [Charles
Samario], because we had to have a site. We had a caterer, because we now
provided lunches, breakfast, so experts in every field that would impact on the
program, because you had to set up the food program, and by having someone
involved in that field they were able to quickly get it done. So we didn't have
to flounder around. You know, if I don't know anything about real
estate--Charles Samario was a realtor, and he was the one that was involved with
that. Carlos Teran was a judge and kept us on the narrow path of doing it
correctly to start with, and no problems, no nothing. We had to provide
teachers, so we had someone involved in the profession, so that we had ample
teachers for whatever was called for. So at every level, we had someone who was
a professional in that particular field, so that we were able to man all the
Head Starts.
01:26:01
Espino:
What about people from the community, like the parents?
01:26:06
Schechter:
Very cooperative.
01:26:08
Espino:
Did you have involvement?
01:26:09
Schechter:
Yes, because, for example, Pacoima is one of the areas that we set up a program.
The reason I mention Pacoima is because that's really a poor area.
01:26:28
Espino:
Okay, I think it looks like we need to stop here. That cut that discussion a
little bit short, but we'll pick it up the next time. Thank you.
00:00:00
Espino:
This is Virginia Espino and today is March 4, 2010. I am interviewing Hope
Mendoza Schechter at her home in Beverly Hills. This is a makeup interview,
because the last interview that we had didn't record on the machine. So I
remember in the very beginning of the last interview I wanted to get into a
little bit of some of your social activities. We talked a lot about your
political activities, but I was interested in some of the--because you mentioned
some of the fundraisers that you were involved in and some of the dances that
you would attend, and I also wanted to learn a little bit about your early
social life and your marriage, that kind of thing.
00:00:43
Schechter:
Yes. Well, I'll start with something more recent. My friend Carmen Warschaw is
very into the prostate cancer. Her husband [Louis Warschaw] died of it, and she
is a trustee at USC, having been a graduate of USC. She has contributed a lot of
money to USC and over and above that to Cedars-Sinai. She's on the board there
too and raises funds for prostate cancer, for other needs that come up, etc.,
but really concentrates on it. So this week, for two days we've been addressing
the mailer for her fundraiser coming up later this month, so we're still
fundraising.
But going back, with the union we would raise funds for City of Hope, which
originated with tuberculosis, and it impacts very highly with Latinos, TB. I was
very thin as a child and every semester the teachers were convinced I had TB, so
they would give me the test, and it takes three days. My mother would be awake
most of the night, checking me continually, because you end up if your arm is
pink where they gave you the injection, that means you are tubercular, and I was
always--I've never had tuberculosis. But each teacher took one look at me and
would give me that darn test. So I was very fortunate that as skinny as I was,
because they ended up putting me in my late teens on six meals a day, just to
bring me to 110. I stayed at 110 until age forty, at which point my metabolism
decided to take a vacation, and now I have to watch what I eat. [laughs]
00:03:02
Espino:
Well, you look great still.
00:03:04
Schechter:
Thank you. Then with other organizations that I was on the board of directors, we
were always raising funds, always having fundraisers. One celebrity that we had
was Ronald Reagan. This was to raise funds for needy Hispanics to go on to
higher education [Youth Opportunities Foundation, Felix Castro, Director]. I
remember one woman got very drunk, and she would keep yelling at him from her
table, "Ronnie, baby." [laughs]
00:03:45
Espino:
This was more in the eighties?
00:03:48
Schechter:
Yes, yes, in the eighties. [No, the sixties.] I've never stopped raising funds,
because there's always a need for it.
00:03:59
Espino:
Well, we talked a little bit about your political interests and your interest in
getting politicians elected, starting with [Edward] Roybal and some of the other
people that you've worked on campaigns for. So this is a little bit different,
because these are fundraising issues for causes. Can you talk to me about some
of the causes that were really important to you?
00:04:23
Schechter:
I think higher education for Hispanics was the real goal. No matter whether it
was CSO [Community Service Organization] or that Council of Mexican Americans,
etc., while you were raising funds just to maintain the organization being able
to pay the rent and the telephone and utilities, etc., there was an equally
important role in raising funds for higher education. That's the one area where
we have in the past not been able to really make strides. One of the problems,
of course, was that they didn't really qualify, a lot of them, because the
emphasis in East Los Angeles, for example, was on teaching them--what's--
00:05:38
Espino:
Vocation?
00:05:40
Schechter:
Yes. For example, in L.A., if you walk into a furniture factory, it's all
Hispanics, because they were taught woodwork. Our auto mechanics, women sewing,
cooking, that was the emphasis. It happened to me. That's where I was put. So
then when it comes time to go to college, university, you don't qualify because
you didn't have any of the academics that are emphasized, and logically so. Some
of us eventually overcome it by going to night school, as I did, etc., and
making up for all those classes that I was never able to take.
Fortunately, many Hispanics have also done that, because we do have lawyers, we
do have doctors and every profession, but not as many as we should. I think the
breakthrough has to come when the parents understand that it's important for the
kids to do their homework, important for them to be in the PTA and attend the
meetings and insist on a higher academic level in the schools, rather than being
forced into the blue-collar job. I think we're beginning to triumph a little
bit, but schools have really deteriorated, so that even though they talk about
improving the schools, etc., kids are not benefiting from it. You know there are
teachers there, but maybe they aren't being trained properly too, so they're
deficient and not being able to adequately help the child. So education to me
has always been important, and whatever organization I was with, over and above
raising funds to sustain the organization, helping in education.
I remember one young man was already married, even though he must have been a big
twenty-one, and was going to go to Harvard, and wanted, of course, to take his
wife too. And we helped him. Even though it's usually just the student, in this
case I remember that he was going to take his wife. So I suggested that maybe
while she was at Harvard, she should also go to school and also get a part-time
job and help sustain them. Another question?
00:09:01
Espino:
That's excellent. Is that with a specific organization that you helped or you
continue to help?
00:09:10
Schechter:
The one with the council. I should have gotten my list of organizations. In West
L.A., Felix [Castro, Director of Youth Opportunities Foundation]--
00:09:23
Espino:
Is it a Latino organization?
00:09:26
Schechter:
[Yes.] It's an organization that still, to my knowledge is still in
existence.
00:09:31
Espino:
Okay. Well, you can give me that name afterwards.
00:09:35
Schechter:
Yes, you can slot it in.
00:09:37
Espino:
Exactly. Then you mentioned earlier about health. Was that also an important
issue for you, advocating for different health issues?
00:09:47
Schechter:
Yes, and childcare was very, very important, teaching the mothers, helping the
mothers understand about nutrition, making sure that they had three meals a day.
We advocated for the schools to provide breakfast and then later they added
lunch too. Initially, it was just breakfast. I never could understand why women
didn't provide it. We were very poor, but my mother always made sure we had our
three meals. She was a good cook. She could make a miracle out of just a few
ingredients, and I don't remember ever being hungry. But these children, some of
them came to school with maybe just a Coke, and you can't learn just by having a
Coke for breakfast. So fortunately, the schools rose to the occasion and
provided it so that everyone would be well-nourished. Of course, kids, if they
see a donut they'd rather have it than cereal, oatmeal, etc.
00:11:31
Espino:
There was a woman who was a nurse in CSO. Her name--I think she's now
passed--Henrietta Villaescusa. Did you work with her at all on anything?
00:11:39
Schechter:
Yes, oh, yes. We were all a team. We all worked together, yes. She eventually
went to Washington, D.C. Yes, and I met her a number of times in Washington. I
was there for different reasons, purposes, etc., and we always would get
together, would have dinner at the Roybal home. I remember one time some extra
people came and they were going to be serving steak, so they had to cut the
steaks in half so that everyone could have some. [laughs] They were a very
popular couple, had a beautiful home there, as their home here. When they lived
on Evergreen, it was a nice house. It was a nice, big house, etc., but it was on
Evergreen, etc., and now they live in Pasadena in a very, very lovely home. Of
course, Lillian [Lucille Beserra Roybal] is not well. She had a stroke and is in
a wheelchair, so they had to level it as much as possible so that she could get
around in the place, and, of course, she fortunately has full-time help.
But health has always been important, whether it's for the elderly as well as the
children.
00:13:23
Espino:
Do you remember any specific campaigns you worked on with Henrietta
Villaescusa?
00:13:28
Schechter:
With Henrietta, the bulk of it really was for community. CSO, while it registered
voters, etc., was not really partisan, because you raised funds from everyone,
and if you're a tax-exempt organization, you can't endorse or anything. So the
rest of us who were active in politics never exploited the fact that we were
CSO, etc. We did it independent of the organization, because we didn't want to
jeopardize our fundraising, because the IRS could very easily pull your status,
your tax-free status, which is important for people who contribute, because they
write it off. It's still in existence. You could still just donate money and
then write it off on your tax form, so that was very, very, very important. So
while we were all--every one of us was active in politics [laughs]. We were
pushing Latino candidates, etc., but it had to be a separate and apart
operation.
00:14:59
Espino:
Oh, I see.
00:15:02
Schechter:
Yes. And I always managed to get headquarters for political campaigns. I would
find a building that was empty, a store that was empty, and go to whoever owned
it and solicit free--be able to use it without having to pay any money. We
always had to pay in advance for the telephone and utilities, etc. There was one
person who was state chair who didn't believe in paying bills, so the telephone
company in the late fifties, sixties, telephone company came down with a firm
rule, you now had to pay in advance in order to get your phone, rather
than--they were very lenient before that. But all of a sudden, we had to have
the money in hand.
The unions were very excellent in terms of contributions, sustaining us. I
remember the Retail Clerks Union in one campaign gave us seven hundred
dollars.
00:16:28
Espino:
Okay, we're back.
00:16:31
Schechter:
Tony Rios and I were the ones that were responsible for raising money in the
unions. That was our job. We would meet with the executive board of each union
and solicit money, and we always were able to get it, over and above independent
fundraisers that we would put on. We would take over a restaurant, for example,
and have a cocktail party with just hors d'oeuvres, things like that, or a
private home and solicit funds. People would start writing checks or would also
provide just cold cash.
Fred Ross was always there. We would turn it over to him. He was a very
frugal-type person. I remember there was one man who had promised to give two
hundred dollars, and he was from Texas, but he never paid it. So Fred came to me
and said, "We need the money. We're short on funds." So I said, "Okay, I'll give
you the two hundred dollars, and I'll try and collect it." Well, let's face it.
I never was able to collect that two hundred dollars. So we all--we weren't
wealthy or didn't have too much to spare, but in a pinch we came through.
00:18:19
Espino:
Well, there was also at that time the Jewish Merchants of Boyle Heights.
00:18:26
Schechter:
Yes, yes, yes. They were very good. Also the newspaper--
00:18:34
Espino:
The Eastside Sun?
00:18:37
Schechter:
Yes, yes, would give us a lot of publicity, and also you could solicit money from
them. But the merchants were excellent, and it didn't have to be just from the
area. There were other businesses that you could solicit money from.
00:18:59
Espino:
What do you think the appeal was of these--are you talking about one campaign
specifically, or just in general, overall?
00:19:08
Schechter:
In general, overall, because you were always in need of funds. We had to pay Fred
Ross. He had a family he had to support, and that was of paramount importance.
And the secretary--you had to have somebody answering the phone. Example, the
restaurant next door [Carioca]. That was like our second headquarters. We all
ate there. We all met there. She [Margaret Torres] always came through. If we
had a fundraiser, she would provide liquor, things like that, over and above
cash. It was like an extended family type of a situation.
Then the one that--Dionicio Morales had a different emphasis. His was strictly, I
think, just raising funds for education [Project Headstart], as Felix [Castro]
too. With all of them, if I knew someone who had a business, I would never take
less than five hundred, and I would insist on that. I said, "We need the money,"
etc. "I know you can afford it, and the need is there." I guess because we were
all young, they would look at us and say, "You're so young," etc. So we were
able to function and realize success and were able to do the job.
00:21:21
Espino:
Okay, we're back. Okay, we talked a little bit about some of your work after you
left the CSO, but we never talked about how you met Harvey Schechter, your
husband, and I want to add, it seems like the Jewish community was very closely
tied to the Mexican American community in Boyle Heights, and they worked
together, and they supported each other on a lot of issues. Maybe you can
explain why that occurred or what the dynamics were, what the draw, how people
got along or didn't get along.
00:22:04
Schechter:
Well, Boyle Heights was originally completely all Jewish. Then they started
moving to the West Side. But I think that because of starting from the Boyle
Heights area, the contact with Latinos was constant, because eventually Latinos
are the ones that took over the Boyle Heights area, City Terrace, etc., so there
was constant contact. There was a man named [Jack Y.] Berman, and I'm blocking
on his first name, and he owned theaters, all the movie houses in Boyle Heights,
on the West Side, etc. As a matter of fact, he gave me a free pass. I could go
to any movie and not have to pay. I could always call him and he would come
through. He moved to the West Side, had a beautiful home in Brentwood, etc., and
we knew them. So it was on a personal basis. We'd call up and have a function,
invite them, and they came through beautifully.
Roz Wyman, when she ran for office, she was elected at age twenty-two to the city
council. Her husband [Gene Wyman] had a very successful law practice. So we had
the contacts. We knew the people, and they would introduce us to other people
that could be helpful, and we just expanded on it and kept working at it. Once
you have success, it just seems to mushroom, and we were able to continue
raising funds when the need was there.
00:24:16
Espino:
You spoke about issues important to the Mexican community at that time, the
Mexican American community, like health, education. Were those same issues
important to the Jewish community who lived in Boyle Heights, or did they have
other issues that you remember?
00:24:33
Schechter:
Well, the Jewish community, for example, has a problem with Tay Sachs. That's an
inherited type of, genetic type of illness. So they're aware of the needs in
different cultures, backgrounds, etc. So it all ties in, in terms of having to
raise funds. You had your White Memorial Hospital, which was right in the
community.
00:25:17
Schechter:
Yes, it was a community hospital, but as they exited from the community, then it
was fast taken over by Latinos, etc., because that's where the doctors that
helped my mother with each birth that she had--they would come to the home and
take care of her and did the same with others. If you couldn't afford to go to
the hospital, they would come to your home, which was a tremendous help, so that
you had good care and that was important. There were also clinics in the
community that were available at minimal cost, if any, so we had pretty good
care for those who needed it. Some of us, of course, were covered with
insurance, so we didn't have to worry about that. But when the need is there,
it's there.
There was Olive View Hospital in the valley, which was initially just tubercular,
as City of Hope was. In the union, we raised funds for especially City of Hope.
Now it's into oncology, because TB by and large has disappeared. Although with
the influx of immigrants, from whatever country you end up with some tubercular
people coming in, which has impacted a little bit in the community, because TB
spreads easily, and it's a really dangerous illness. One of the girls that I
grew up with, my next-door neighbor, she died at thirteen from TB, so we all had
contact with someone that we knew died of tuberculosis.
My aunt in San Pedro had a large family. She has twelve children, and two of them
had TB. I don't know how or why, but my mother [Maria de Jesus Martinez] always
ended up with one of the children when they had TB, and they moved in with us,
and my mother made sure that they slept in a separate place, had separate
plates, because even if you wash them, you want to make sure that they don't
infect the others. And we all survived. She was very careful of keeping it
separate. But I still don't understand why my aunt would send her tubercular
children to our home. But my mother was very accommodating. She was a very kind
lady and whatever needed to be done was done.
00:28:54
Espino:
In an earlier interview, you talked about how you wanted to become a nurse,
because you were so good at taking care of your mom and then the newborn
babies.
00:29:01
Schechter:
Yes.
00:29:03
Espino:
But was your mom like that as well? It sounds like your mom also had a gift.
00:29:10
Schechter:
Yes. She was a very religious woman. You always saw her with a Bible in hand. The
neighbor across the street, for example, would take the embroidered covers from
her Catholic church, and because my mother was a fabulous ironer--she could
iron; it looked like a professional job--she would bring those to my mother and
have my mother wash and iron them for the Catholic church. That was my mother.
So we had contacts with every religion and ethnic group. Our street had Germans,
had Filipinos, Italians, Serbians. We had contact with just about every ethnic
group, which was good. I enjoyed--I'm still friends with some of them, those who
have survived.
00:30:16
Espino:
Well, then, let's talk a little bit about how the city changed and how your life
changed. It went into a different direction. Maybe you can tell me about that
shift from when you left the CSO and some of the things you did after that.
00:30:33
Schechter:
Well, because of my activity in community organizations and activity in
politics--for example, when I was dating my future husband [Harvey Schechter],
six weeks before a campaign I would say goodbye to him and for six weeks he
wouldn't see me. Between work, community work, and politics, I had no time for
him, and he was very understanding. But once I married him, he moved me out of
my congressional district. So I remember Jimmy Cruz was a member of the
executive board of CSO and at one point after I was married, he accused my
husband of moving me out of the district, and I was now out of the district. And
Harvey said, "But we're here. We're still here." He said, "What's so great about
staying in East L.A.? You always try to better yourself." He said, "Besides, I
now get to see my wife." That was very important, but once I got married, I
always came home for dinner.
00:31:56
Espino:
So you moved out of East Los Angeles to--
00:31:59
Schechter:
To the valley, yes. We initially, for a short time, like a year, lived in the
Hollywood area in an apartment, and I had never lived in an apartment. I had
always lived in a house. Harvey, of course, from New York, everyone lives in an
apartment, so he was used to it. So one day I said, "You have a choice. Buy me a
house or arrange for a psychiatrist, because I don't like living in an
apartment." Harvey has a heart condition, so I always take good care of him, and
I'm the one that had to do all the canvassing of different homes. I would narrow
it down to three or five and have him look at those three or five that I thought
maybe he would agree to buy. Finally I found one, and unbeknownst to us, the
next day they were going to raise the price. So we walk in. It was a double lot,
had a swimming pool, eight rooms, ranch-type house. Harvey took one look and
said, "This is it." And we bought it. And the owner realized that had we waited
one more day, he had already arranged for it to be increased. We were very
fortunate. We paid twenty-nine thousand dollars for this beautiful home. This
was before the escalation of prices, etc. So we were very, very fortunate.
It was a house where I used it a lot for fundraising, both for community and
politics. Also I about once a year would have the ambassador from Israel, and
then I would invite all my Latino friends over and introduce them, because by
now Boyle Heights was primarily just Latino, etc., and give him a chance to talk
about Israel and the culture, the history, etc., and it worked out just
beautifully. I would provide canapés, hors d'oeuvres, liquor, coffee, desserts,
etc. Not a dinner, just like a cocktail party type thing. It would end by eight
o'clock, after work, six o'clock, usually about six to eight, something like
that.
00:35:16
Espino:
What was that like, leaving East Los Angeles and moving to this area that wasn't
your hometown, your home culture?
00:35:27
Schechter:
Completely different. There was another Mexican American living on the same
street, married to an Irish, lovely girl. They had two children, so the whole
area was Anglo. I got active in politics there too. I was always on the State
Central Committee, because I had another friend who also was Irish, and the two
of us handled the campaigns in our congressional district. Our candidates always
won, who then appointed us once again to the State Central Committee. It was
very important for me to be on the State Central Committee, and I worked hard,
and I earned it. But at that time it was a Republican area, and we could get
through the primary but couldn't quite make it.
Howard Berman is the first Democrat to be elected to the Assembly there and then
went on to become a congressman and still is a congressman. Henry Waxman, of
course--Mel Levine, Henry Waxman, and Howard Berman were very, very close. They
always ran their campaigns as a team. And Michael Berman, who is Howard's
brother, is the one who handled their campaigns, very, very, very successful.
He's never lost a candidate, and we've always worked together. Michael and I
would work on the delegates for the national convention, and time and again he
would hand me a list and say, "Cover these congressional districts," meaning
from the Tehachapis to San Diego.
I had to cover every district and make sure that we had the delegates, and it has
to be equal men, women. You had to make sure that you had teachers. You had
different professions. You had the gays. You had to make sure you had a good
balance there, totally non-discriminatory. I think they went a little bit
overboard, because you could be on the ballot and win as a delegate, and when we
caucused, if you didn't have enough Latinos, if you didn't have enough gays, if
you didn't have enough teachers, you ended up really with a heavy proportion of
teachers as delegates, because they are the best organized. They have a minimum
of two key people in each Assembly district, congressional district, state
Senate, and all I have to do is call them, and I'd say, "I need a delegate in
your district. I need the name, number, telephone number, address," etc. Boom,
got covered. It was just--
00:39:21
Espino:
Are you talking about United Teachers of Los Angeles?
00:39:23
Schechter:
Yes.
00:39:23
Espino:
The union?
00:39:23
Schechter:
Oh, no, the state. The state, the entire state. The teachers have--
00:39:31
Espino:
The American Teachers Federation, I think--
00:39:32
Schechter:
Every congressional district is covered by them, every one of them. They have an
apparatus that you absolutely can't believe. You want something done? You need
it immediately? You call them. Whether you're trying to do it on an ethnic basis
or a category, you name it, they've got it covered. You give them the
guidelines, they come through. So I have contacts all over. It was a phenomenal
experience and fortunately now I'm retired from it, except when the need comes
up. If somebody needs help, I help.
00:40:20
Espino:
So you were then local. You lived in the valley and you did most of your
work--because this was before e-mail, before cell phones. How did you
manage?
00:40:30
Schechter:
Yes. Sometimes I had to go back to my office to get my work done, because if I
stayed home, the phone never stopped ringing. We paid off our house in eight
years. To me, I had always lived in a house, and it was paid for. We never had
to worry about foreclosure or--to me, having a house and paying for it is of
paramount importance. All my relatives own homes, and they're all paid for.
There's none of this nonsense about, "I owe a payment," or anything like that.
You pay it off, because then you're secure, don't have to worry. All you have to
worry about is the taxes.
I know my mother [Maria de Jesus Martinez] and my step dad [Eduwiges Martinez],
when they had a problem trying to pay their taxes, we paid them for them,
because by now he was retired and just surviving on Social Security, and they
never had a problem in terms of--and they owned three homes. The one on 824
North Herbert was the first home. That's the one that was practically given to
them; it was given to them. Then they bought the one on Woods in East L.A.,
which they had to give up because Garfield High School had to expand, and now
the home in South San Gabriel, which is a beautiful home. It's a three-bedrooms,
two-bath, large, large yard, and Becky is still there. She has a roof over her
head. She's the only one, of course, because she was single, etc., never owned a
home, so she has the right to live in that home, and if at any time the home has
to be sold because she can no longer handle it, we have to get written
permission from her. I was with my parents when we made out the will.
00:43:04
Espino:
Did you wind up taking care of your parents in their--
00:43:09
Schechter:
Yes. She lived with them all the time and they had--
00:43:18
Espino:
I just wanted to ask you about the role you played with your parents and were you
their primary caretakers after they were no longer--
00:43:40
Schechter:
Primarily financially was the role I played with them once they became unable to
really pay for their care, etc., anything that was needed. For example, when my
mother had to go into assisted living, she could no longer walk. And once you
can't walk, it's impossible to keep them at home, because you can't bathe them,
they're too heavy, etc. So we put her in assisted living, and she didn't like it
at all. But we had to keep telling her that we couldn't handle her at home, and
she needed good proper care, etc., and she got it. But they couldn't afford it.
If you own a home, they will not provide help for assisted living, so we all
were supposed to share--divided up what the total cost was. I forget what it
was, three thousand or thirty-five hundred a month. I mean, it was so ridiculous
a cost. Well, we ended up paying the bulk of it, because some of them just
couldn't afford it. She always said, "When I die, I want to make sure I'm full.
I don't want to be hungry when I die." She died right after lunch, so her final
wish was granted.
00:45:33
Espino:
That's interesting.
00:45:36
Schechter:
Yes.
00:45:39
Espino:
Okay, we're back.
00:45:39
Schechter:
Going back to the house, our house was the hub in terms of the neighborhood,
because we were the only ones with a pool. It was later that three other houses
put in swimming pools. So all the children would come. We were raising Bruce
[Zinda Schechter] then, would come to our house--
00:46:05
Espino:
We're talking about your house in the valley?
00:46:06
Schechter:
Yes, talking about a house in the valley [in Sherman Oaks] that we bought for
twenty-nine thousand dollars. People can't believe it. I loved it, because then
I didn't have to worry about, where's Bruce? He was there with all his friends,
and it was a great way for him to socialize. And as I say, I had fundraisers.
Some of them were swimming-pool type. "Bring the kids, bring towels, bring
swimming suits, swimsuits," etc.
00:46:51
Espino:
The last time we talked, on the interview that didn't get recorded properly, you
told me a little bit about what attracted you to Harvey, because at that time
you mentioned you were dating other people. Even you had to worry about the
police officers trying to want to take you out. You were very attractive, and
what was it about Harvey that clinched it for you?
00:47:19
Schechter:
Well, we met--he came from UCLA to do a study on democracy in the labor movement.
He will tell you his side of the story, but from what he tells me, he walked in
and everyone was ordinary-looking. They were all in their forties or fifties,
and I was the only young one there and was apparently very attracted to me and
would question the other--first thing he did was he looked at my left hand, he
says, to make sure I wasn't married, because he was going to be with us for a
whole year, and we were all to cooperate with him. He was to attend all
meetings. Everything was open to him, executive board meetings, membership
meetings, staff meetings, everything. And he was going to be assigned for one
week to each individual business agent, organizer, or combination thereof, etc.,
for a whole week.
So when it was his turn to spend a whole week with me, we never stopped talking.
His father had been an organizer in New York for the laundry workers, so he was
fully aware of the labor movement, and we just never stopped talking. And
towards the end of the week, he asked if I was interested in going with him to a
movie, and I said yes. That's when we started dating. I was still dating others.
To my knowledge, he never dated anybody else once he met me, but I wanted to
make sure--as a matter of fact, I had a suitor in Texas, San Antonio, Texas, and
he asked me to marry him. And I said, "What's the worst time to go to San
Antonio, Texas?" And he said, "July." So I flew to San Antonio, Texas, and guess
who drove me to the airport? Harvey. And every time I had a boyfriend or someone
I was dating, he'd say, "I'm the best for you." He always said it. "You can date
anyone you want, but I'm the one that's the best for you." And he was right. It
took me a while to recognize that. I liked him a lot, etc., and little by little
I started dropping off the different boyfriends, etc., and one friend finally
said to Harvey, "You've finally succeeded. She's only dating you." [laughs]
Well, first of all, I had spent a whole year in Tucson, Arizona. I had an
apartment in Tucson. I was in charge of the entire state, and I finally told my
union after one year with the lousy weather in Arizona, I said, "Either get me
back to Los Angeles, or I'm quitting." So they agreed to have me come back to
Los Angeles, because every two weeks I was driving back. After all, my family
was here, Harvey was here, and I would, every two weeks, drive for nine hours
each way, Tucson to--of course, I also covered the entire state, because
wherever there was a Ladies Garment Workers shop, I was there, every town;
Flagstaff, Phoenix, Glendale. I mean, every--I happened to have been born in
Arizona, but I was brought here to California before I was a year old.
00:51:44
Schechter:
Now, going back to other functions that I had at my home, President Johnson
appointed me to the National Advisory Council of the Peace Corps in 1964, and I
had a function, a fundraiser for Peace Corps at my home, four hundred people. We
had a nucleus of parents whose children were in the Peace Corps, and they
all--we met before, arranged the hors d'oeuvres, etc. We had a very successful
fundraiser, and we raised funds for Peace Corps. I had meetings in Washington,
D.C. I had my picture taken in the Cabinet Room with--oh, first of all, I was
sworn in in the East Room of the White House. Then they had a reception for us
in the Red Room. It was my first trip to the White House, and Harvey's too, and
it was a very, very exciting experience. It was ladies' day. The Marine band
played only music related to women.
Then at one of our meetings, [Robert] Sargent Shriver was then in charge of the
Peace Corps, and we had a meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House, and I
sat right next to the president. I spotted where his chair was, and then I made
a straight line for that chair next to him, and I have a picture with him, so
that was a tremendous experience.
Everyone on the board--there were about twenty-five of us, and everyone always
showed up for the meetings. Unfortunately, because I was running a business, I
never went overseas. We had Peace Corps people throughout South America, Europe,
the Asian countries, etc., Africa, and the different directors for the Peace
Corps would always call and say, "Please come." And it was more important for me
to carry on my business. I had people working for me, etc. So I attended all the
meetings in Washington, D.C., did whatever--they would call and say, "Do x, y,
z." I would do x, y, z, but I couldn't take the time to go to the different
countries. But we voted on everything.
If they had a fundraiser--I remember being at a fundraiser in Washington, D.C.
That was at the time that Sargent Shriver was the director, and Maria [Shriver],
the governor's wife, was about three years old. She was the prettiest little
three-year-old I'd ever seen. She was just adorable. I'll give you a photostat,
I'll look for it, of the different members that were on it.
00:55:47
Espino:
Do you know how you came to be chosen for that position, since that wasn't really
what you were versed in?
00:55:55
Schechter:
Well, they apparently didn't have a Hispanic, and they were looking for a
Hispanic woman and someone [Susan Warschaw, Carmen's daughter] recommended me,
and so I got appointed by the president. Then, of course, with the new
administration coming in, everyone has to resign. So when the Nixon
administration came in in '68, I was asked to resign and I did, because they
have a right to appoint whatever people they want, because they have to pay off
some of the people that helped elect them. And that's the name of the game.
00:56:42
Espino:
Part of the political culture there. Did you know anyone who had your same
position but who was there because it was a payback, like you say?
00:56:54
Schechter:
Yes. Nat King Cole, the black? [Harry Belafonte, not Nat King Cole.]
00:56:59
Espino:
Singer?
00:57:00
Schechter:
He was on it. Yes. Totally representative of the entire nation, yes. I remember
the wife of the president of NBC, was on the board also, and she was wearing
this beautiful pin. It was a little donkey with a ruby for its eye, and I
complimented her on it. I said, "Oh, that's--," because I used to collect them,
little donkeys. The next thing, she had one made for Lady Bird and for me, and
we're the only three women in the entire United States that own one of these
pins. It was gold with a little ruby for an eye. I put it on my coat at a State
Central Committee meeting in Sacramento, and I guess I didn't clasp it
correctly, and I lost it. I cried, because that was a memento that was just so
meaningful to me. I lost my pin.
00:58:20
Espino:
That's too bad. Did you have a chance to get to know Lady Bird at all?
00:58:22
Schechter:
Yes, we met. Yes. I have pictures.
00:58:25
Espino:
Did you have a chance to get to know her as a person, to have chats with her?
00:58:31
Schechter:
Yes. I was able to--especially when we were sworn in, because that was a
small--there were only about, I'd say, nine, ten women that day, so we had a
chance to talk, meet each other. My husband, when he met Johnson, you're being
introduced individually, etc., and he was going to make some kind of a nice
comment, etc., and he just couldn't say it. He just was so overwhelmed with
shaking the President of the United States' hand. All he could say was the usual
kind of, "How are you? Thank you," or, "Nice meeting you." He was tongue tied,
and for my husband to be tongue tied, that's really something.
00:59:33
Espino:
That must have been very exciting.
00:59:36
Schechter:
Yes, as was all meetings with the Peace Corps, because it was such a dynamic type
of organization. Meeting people from all over the world that would come to our
meetings, etc., is fascinating.
00:59:54
Espino:
What were some of the biggest challenges that you worked on while with the Peace
Corps? That was in the very beginning, when it was a pilot. It wasn't a pilot
program, but it was in the beginning stages. It was very, very new. You were
creating it as you were doing it.
01:00:10
Schechter:
Yes. Well, a lot of the help that the people needed was so basic. They had no
bathrooms, so they had to have the outdoor-type situation. They didn't even have
that. I mean, it was just basic, basic, housing, sanitation, you had to teach
them about sanitation, trying to provide the housing. Many instances they had to
just from scratch start building them and put a roof over their heads. You're
dealing with extreme poverty. Look at Haiti. I remember being there just on
vacation one time, and I've been there. And that, to me, is the poorest country
in the world, because I have always traveled, especially in my later years and
now retired, etc., because we've finished all of Europe.
Roz Wyman's mother was very active in politics too. They owned their own
pharmacy; they were both licensed. She went on a worldwide trip for a year, a
whole year, going to do the whole world. When she came back, we were at a
meeting and I said, "How as the Parthenon?" And she said, "I don't know. I sat
in the bus." I said, "Why did you sit in the bus?" She said, "You had to do too
much walking, and it was too rocky," too etc. And I came home and I said to
Harvey--because she was over sixty-five--I said, "We're going to do all our
traveling before we're sixty-five." So we did all of Europe. We did one country,
one month, and it was so exciting. Harvey is fluent in French, quite a bit in
German, and I do Spanish, so when we were in Spain, I did all the interpreting.
I got through Italy, a whole month in Italy, using my Spanish. It's very
similar, was able to get through that. When we did France, Harvey handled that,
because he's [fluent in] French.
We didn't really want to go to Germany, but Harvey's cousin said, "It is a
beautiful country," so we did go for, I think, one week [three days] and then in
the area did Denmark, Sweden, Norway. We did one month there, but we only did, I
think, about a week [three days] in Germany, and it is a beautiful country, and
they are so helpful. If you pulled in for gas, they would come over and wash
your windows. I mean, literally, at every turn we met no hostility, nothing. But
we couldn't wait to get out of there. Sounds like I'm biased? I am. What they
did to the Jews is unforgivable. So I'm going on vacation. I'm doing Eastern
Europe now, so I'm going to be starting in Vienna all the way to Poland, Warsaw.
[We cancelled the trip.]
My friend's husband was from Poland, and we're going to go find the little town
where he was born and where he was raised. He has since passed away. He passed
away three years ago, and he was such a delight; generous. He came here without
a dime, ended up being a millionaire, and when he knew he was ill and wasn't
going to survive, he had, of course, been married before. His wife had died, and
that's when he married my friend, who's Mexican American. So the two of us are
very close, because we're both married to Jews.
01:05:32
Espino:
Well, that just brings me to the point of your mom and, I guess, your stepfather.
How did they react to your relationship with Harvey? Since they were so, even,
Christian.
01:05:42
Schechter:
Yes. Well, my mother was very religious. She's a Holy Roller, Four Square
Protestant. She asked me, "What does he do for a living?" After it looked like
it was getting serious, "What does he do for a living? What does he do?" I said,
"He's a sociologist." And my mother gives me the usual--after all, she only went
to the sixth grade, but was a very intelligent woman. She spoke a beautiful
Spanish, could read and write in Spanish, taught me how to read and write in
Spanish. She didn't know what sociologist was and asked me, "What does that
mean?" I said, "Well, based on their education, etc.," I said, "they can study a
person and be able to predict human behavior, etc." And she thought for a while,
and she said, "A prophet." And from then on, any time Harvey and I disagreed on
something, the prophet won. She sided with him. So there never really was a
problem, no hostility at all. Because after all, the Bible has to do with
Israel, etc., so there was total empathy, no problem whatsoever.
When my stepdad [Eduwiges Varon Martinez] became a citizen, he wanted Harvey to
sign for him, and so Harvey said, "Yes." But he read the document, and it said
you had to have known him for five years, and he didn't. And Harvey said, "If
they found out that I didn't know you for five years, it would hurt you. You'd
probably be deported." Well, my stepdad took that as a rejection, so for a long
time, Harvey would walk in and he'd get up and walk out of the room and wouldn't
come back to the living room until after Harvey and I left. So Harvey started
saying, "You know, Luve [Eduwiges] is mad at me." Luve was his nickname. His
name was Eduwiges, E-d-u--I don't know how to spell it. I don't remember. And
finally after a year, he finally decided to make up with Harvey.
My mother asked me--I had a cousin who had married an Anglo, and every time they
got in an argument she would call him a dirty Mexican, so he divorced her. And
my mother said, "What if some day he says to you you're a dirty Mexican?" I
said, "I'll say he's a dirty Jew." [laughs] Fortunately, I married the most
wonderful man. He would never, ever, ever say anything like that. He has been
the kindest person, very understanding. He's calmed me down a lot. I've always
been sort of a little hyper, etc. He calms me down. I sleep better. I used to
have trouble sleeping. He talks me to sleep if I have a difficult time going to
sleep, etc. It's been a wonderful experience. I've never had any problem with
any hostility; even his family. His mother, of course, objected to his marrying
a Mexican. I was the equivalent of the Puerto Rican in New York. Finally, when
she objected, "There are so many Jewish girls." He said, "You have another son
who's married to a Jew," he says, "You hate her, and she hates you, so what's
the big deal?" She still persisted, and finally Harvey said--and he was like the
favorite son, because he'd been ill since age seven with Rheumatic Fever. He
finally said, "If you don't agree, I'll never see you again." That
immediately--she was a wonderful mother-in-law.
I had been married before to a Mexican American [Horace Mendoza], and he was a
delightful man, always was. But I outgrew him. I couldn't get him, for example,
to go west of Broadway. He was very insecure. He spoke a perfect English, had
had two years of community college, had promised after the war, because I was a
war bride, to go back to the university and get his education. He never did. Had
an excellent job. He was the foreman in a foundry, etc., made an excellent
living, supported me. We owned our own home, etc. But with my activity in
politics, community, working for a union, being sent to Harvard University for
officer training program, etc., I just outgrew him, and I divorced him. My
mother didn't talk to me for a year, because I divorced him. No one had ever
gotten a divorce. It was a shanda. Shanda in Yiddish is, it's a shame.
But he never stopped calling me, but at least twice a year would call me, and
Harvey is the one who always answers the phone, because I hate to answer a
phone, and he never questioned my talking to Horace, Horace Mendoza. He'd ask if
I was still happily married, did I ever think of him. He just constantly,
constantly--on his eightieth birthday, he called me up to say he was turning--he
was a little older than I. He said he was turning eighty, and I said, "I will
take you and your wife for lunch." I hadn't seen him in all those years. We went
to--there's a very, very beautiful, expensive inn-restaurant in Pico Rivera [Dal
Rae]. That's where he now lives, then lived, because he's since died. I asked
Harvey if he wanted to go. He said no. So I got there and ordered my usual glass
of Chardonnay, waiting for them, and all of a sudden I hear someone say, "Hope."
And I thought--you know, in conversation people can use the word hope, because
it's used a lot. And then I hear, "Hope?" And I knew somebody. Harvey's cousin
was there. I didn't want any--first of all, his family never knew that I'd been
married before.
01:14:08
Espino:
Wow.
01:14:08
Schechter:
We felt it was traumatic enough for them to accept a Latina, and why say I've
been married before? So I walked over to her, and I said, "My ex-husband is
going to be having lunch with me, with his wife, his present wife. But don't
tell anyone in the family. And when they arrive, you don't know me. Just totally
ignore us." And she did. And she never told anyone, and no one still knows. We
never have divulged that I had been married before. But I have been very happily
married with Harvey. I can ask him any question.
I did my two years of community college at Valley Community College. Then I went
to Cal State Northridge, and Harvey helped me at every turn with whatever, any
help academically that I needed. They tested me and found out that I have a form
of dyslexia that impacts on numbers with me. It's not writing. So I had trouble
learning algebra, and that was required for a bachelor's. LACC has the best
program for people who have a problem. They run a class that meets every day
from nine to four, on Saturdays from nine to twelve. I took one class that whole
semester, going from nine to four, Saturdays half a day. Sometimes it would take
me three weeks to finally be able to do one problem.
I remember one time I was cooking dinner and it was already the second week. I
couldn't work out that concept. I don't know how or why, but everyone in class
would always say, "Oh, I see it." When you finally got it, "I see it, I see it,
I see it." I come running out of the kitchen, "I see it, I see--." I went to my
desk and was able to work out the problem. Well, I ended up with an A not only
in algebra but statistics. I don't know that I could ever do another statistical
problem, but I did it. So finally I could go back to my major and finish. But
the biggest problem was this dyslexic problem, which I didn't know I had. I
could do arithmetic, but not algebra and statistics. With their help--they never
raise their voice, because apparently, with our problem, if you raise your voice
just a notch, you lose it. You can't see it anymore. You can't even work it. And
they never raised it. They had about seven tutors plus two full-time teachers,
profs, who were excellent, absolutely. I've never had to conquer something like
that. That, to me, was the most traumatic experience in my whole life. I think
you asked me once, had I ever had a traumatic experience, and I couldn't think
of it. That was it. That was it.
01:18:22
Espino:
Even more so than meeting the president and challenging union or business bosses,
even union bosses?
01:18:31
Schechter:
Can you imagine being at Harvard without a high school diploma? I didn't have a
high school diploma. And one of the profs once said that I split an infinitive.
I didn't know what the word infinitive was. So I went to our apartment and
looked it up, found out what it was. But I became a court reporter, which means
I really mastered English.
01:19:03
Espino:
Well, also you had a lot of self-confidence--
01:19:08
Schechter:
Yes.
01:19:08
Espino:
--and that's important, overcoming the--
01:19:12
Schechter:
Yes. And you never say no to not being able to do something, whether it's cooking
or--I remember the first dinner party I had. I had my congressman and the
then-U.S. Senator [Clare Engle] at my house for dinner. This is when we were
first married. I had a beautiful apartment, beautifully furnished, and I had
them over for dinner. When we did Washington, we stayed at my congressman's
home. Being active in politics--I think I would recommend to every young person
to get involved in at least one campaign. First of all, they're never, ever,
ever going to say, "I'm not going to vote today." They're going to go vote, and
I think it's so important for people to vote. Your life depends on it, how they
vote, etc.
I must say, I don't know that I'm going to vote for a single incumbent this time.
If they can't manage a budget, they have no business being in Sacramento.
Whether it's the governor, whether it's an Assembly person, whether it's a state
senator, they don't belong there if they can't handle the budget. And they
can't, and they haven't, and it's a shame. It's an absolute disgrace.
01:20:49
Espino:
Well, this'll be the last question that I ask, and it's based on what you just
said right now. Your long history of activism in politics, do you see some
improvements, or can you talk about some of the improvements that you've seen
and maybe some of the areas where we haven't made that much progress from the
forties and fifties?
01:21:09
Schechter:
I can't think of anyone I would vote for that's in office now, nationwide. No
attempt--each person wants what they want, and they won't yield on anything
else, and that's not the way to govern. You compromise. You can't have the whole
loaf of bread. I'll take half, I'll take a fourth, etc. You have to yield at
some point. Whether it's a marriage, etc., you yield and you yield and you
yield. But there's a point at which you won't anymore, eventually, but there are
ways to work things out amicably. It's just gotten worse. It has. I have a
difficult time reading the paper, because such hostility is beyond me, just
beyond me.
01:22:28
Espino:
When you look at issues like education and health--
01:22:32
Schechter:
It has deteriorated.
01:22:34
Espino:
You don't think that we've made a continual progression from the forties and
fifties?
01:22:38
Schechter:
No. Too bad. The War on Poverty didn't work. Money isn't it. It's not money, it's
the people themselves. So I'm not going to blame the legislature, whether it's
the Congress or the state of California or the state of Utah, etc. Something is
not working. The parents who aren't helping their children with their
education--because, to me, homework and the help from the parents--the parents
themselves are falling down. They're not really working with their children. The
Asians are going to save this country, to me, from what I see. Their kids are in
the library till nine p.m. every night. They have--and support, whether it's
Armenians or Asians, etc. On a Saturday, the kids are going to a cultural school
where they learn their native language fluently, work on whatever problems
they're having in school, etc., and you don't see it with Hispanics. You don't
see it in the black community, the emphasis on education. The Asians--go check
your university. Who is the largest--what segment of the population is the
predominant one? It's the Asians. They're going to save us, and help the others,
hopefully.
But the educational system has--because it's like the Jews did originally. They
were the ones who were the cream of the crop, went on to higher education, which
is very, very, very important. Now they're having problems too getting their
kids to study, with all the emphasis, etc., so there's something percolating.
They're having educational problems too now. It's the Asians right now that are
just, "No, you don't come home with a B. Absolutely not." We had one of our
children--I told you, we have these kids--called a week ago crying. She's
Chinese. Her father died about two years ago. The mother is employed, makes a
very good living, etc. And she was in tears, because she's at Davis and isn't
making it. [gasps] And for them not to make it--so Harvey's having lunch with
her next week, and, of course, this semester's gone now. She's to do two years
in community college, and Harvey's going to help her, spend time with her with
her homework, etc., because the mother's, of course, from the old country and
speaks with a slight accent, etc., and is not equipped to help her daughter.
Then she'll transfer to a university. But to hear her cry. I mean, she was not
just sobbing, she was absolutely lost. For this child to be crying like that--at
some point she didn't study hard enough, etc. She says, "I can't do it. I can't
do it." She can, and she will.
But in community college, you have a smaller class. You don't have a T.A., you
have the prof there. You can go to his office. You get help. I've been there.
I've gone through it, and my profs were excellent. I had small classes, and they
came through and helped me. The one thing I'm good at is writing, so I remember
my history professor saying to me one time, "You write so well." Oh, I came home
and I told Harvey.
01:27:32
Espino:
Well, that's a testament to anybody who does research on your life history, that
it's not always going to be a straight line from high school to university to
postgraduate or what have you, but that sometimes you'll have to go back and
make up things, and you can still have a successful life and have a huge impact
on the community that you live in. Well, is there anything else you want to say
before we end our interview, anything we didn't talk about that you might want
to mention?
01:28:05
Schechter:
I think we covered pretty much everything. I'm now living in an apartment in
Beverly Hills, primarily because of my husband's health. He had rheumatic fever
at age seven, has had his aorta and mitral replaced. One is a cow valve and the
other one is a porcine valve, had the aorta replaced with plastic or whatever,
has a pacemaker. All our doctors are in Beverly Hills, and they all practice at
Cedars-Sinai. When I was living in Sherman Oaks, when the ambulance picked him
up, I had to call 911, they would take him to Sherman Oaks Hospital, which is a
good hospital, but it's not a medical training center like--it's not the kind of
medicine or treatment that you get at Cedars-Sinai, so we're four minutes from
Cedars-Sinai. We sold our home, moved to an apartment, because I don't need
equity, I don't need anything like that anymore. I don't want to have to bother
with a pool or a garden or anything.
I won't even have fresh flowers or plants in my apartment. I don't want to have
to water anything anymore. I buy artificial flowers, etc. They're pretty.
There's an orchid that's artificial, but it's beautiful, don't have to water it.
And even though you only have to water them once a week--and I'm enjoying them
in here. We're four minutes from Cedars-Sinai. That's important. My husband is
alive; that's what counts. I'll do everything to keep him, and I worked at it.
His mother always said that I took good care on him. That's their translation
from the Yiddish that they spoke.
01:30:12
Espino:
Okay, great. Well, I was going to ask you about his mother, but I'm going to be
interviewing him soon, so I can ask him directly about his mother's background.
Well, thank you so much, Hope, and I really apologize for having to come back
again and go over this.
01:30:23
Schechter:
That's okay.
01:30:24
Espino:
But it was also great--
01:30:25
Schechter:
I probably was able to expand a little better too.
01:30:26
Espino:
Definitely. It was a great interview.
01:30:29
Schechter:
Second time around was better.
01:30:30
Espino:
Sometimes, yes, second time around is always good.