Interview to Mr. Chapa By: Maribel Castillo Jazmin Meza Nancy Ventura

When were you born?  I was born in 1962, August 2, 1962….I’m a Leo

How long have you lived in Laredo?  I’ve live in Laredo all my life, except for three years in Austin Texas while attending the University of Texas three years.

Did you liked Laredo back then?  Yes I always loved Laredo all my roots are here. I Love Laredo.

Were there like many problems as their its now?  Yeah their were a lot more problems. We didn’t had pave streets, and the politics were very, there were a lot of favoritism in politics. There was a party that control the whole city so they would hire people to do…it was all politics. The city was very dirty and ugly.

What types of jobs were available?  Working downtown at stores very few stores, very few jobs, and selling two people from Mexico.

What high school did you attend?  I attended one year I attended to Nixon High School (Freshmen year) a Semester to United High School, and my last two and half years in Martin High School, I was all over the place.

What was the fashion back then?  Belt-bottoms.(jajaja). Belt-bottoms they’re were jeans, I mean pants, long hair, nobody would sell it was just long hair, and shirts were like very hippie tight. Beads, everybody wore beads…jokers, chokers.

What is something historical that happened in Laredo?  Historical that I remember the “Guaraches and the …,” but I don’t think I was born back then, but there was a battle of the “Guaraches de las Botas” when they had a big fight at one of the plazas downtown and people actually got killed over political reasons. That happened in Laredo, but that I witnessed, I would say, the going down of the old political machine. That’s the most important thing in Laredo and how it modernized, because when that happened Laredo changed a lot. We got paved streets, we started getting new businesses. Laredo used to be very closed up, it used to be very sheltered, controlled by very few people. No outsiders could come in, like if you wanted to become a doctor you had to be approved by certain people. When the economy went down, Laredo opened up two areas, so that is why Laredo has grown a lot. Back then I think we were like population wise when I was little, we must’ve been 50,000, maybe 50,000. Right now the population in Laredo is like 350,000, so it has grown like about 300,000 people. It’s due to the thing that it’s not controlled by certain people like it used to be. Not as bad as it was.

How have you reacted to the change at Laredo?  I like change. I reacted positively, because I figure everybody deserves a chance to be the most that you can be. If you were given a opportunity, if you work for it, I mean why should only some people control everything.

So are you saying that the population back then was very small?  Very small, because there was nothing that would keep you here. Everybody that I would get educated with me leaved, because there was no jobs, there was nothing to do in Laredo. The streets weren’t even paved, it was horrible.

Was the economy stable in Laredo?  At that time, everybody depended on Laredo. On that time we depended on Mexico for everything, like people used to come shop over here, we depended on them. That was the main jobs on retail there was nothing else. We didn’t have nothing.

Was the violence Bad?  No. No violence at that time you would use to sleep with the doors open, your neighbors would come in into your house, like everybody knew everybody, everybody was friendly, everybody would help old people cross the street. I mean everybody was wonderful. Maybe there used to be one or two vagabond in the whole city and they were labeled and nobody would talked to them it was like a disgrace. It was something very low.