Carlyle, Jerry
Part 1 of 5 was recorded at the base of Tumamoc Hill in Tucson, Arizona on April 5th, 2018. The interview covers the following themes:
b. 1958
Description of the San Xavier area and agriculture since the 1930s. Community harvest. Midvale Farms.
Carlyle’s early childhood. Parents’ meeting. Mother Rosanna’s history and experience in an Americanization program in Los Angeles after graduating from Tucson High. The appeal of leaving home to Carlyle’s parents’ generation.
Decline in O’odham speakers.
What it means to be an elder when linguistic and cultural information are gone. Types of knowledge and understanding.
Life in Casa Grande during the early 1970s. Carlyle’s truancy and stint in the Boy Scouts.
Parental jobs in Casa Grande and San Xavier. Mother’s education, continued.
Carlyle’s grandfather’s employment in Tucson and community leadership at San Xavier.
History of allotment in the San Xavier District and Carlyle’s mother’s role in the Allotee’s Association.
Part 2 of 5 was recorded at the base of Tumamoc Hill in Tucson, Arizona on May 30th, 2018. The interview covers the following themes:
Carlyle’s return to San Xavier from Casa Grande in 1973. Housing. Education at Sunnyside. Challenges of moving home. Language and tracking/special education labeling of native students at public school.
Language, identity, and streets. The experience of watching the District be quantized and put on a grid.
The importance of horses. Riding for transportation and business. Children and horses. Difficulty in riding today due to property, fencing, and flood control.
Rodeo culture. Carlyle’s early interest in rodeos, bull riding, and bareback riding. Increasing popularity of rodeos in the San Xavier District over Carlyle’s life. Rodeo cowboys and working cowboys.
Cattle in the Tohono O’odham Nation. Cattle rustling.
Long term changes in rodeo culture, popularity of different sports. Cowboy fashion and style. Cowboy chic giving way to gang chic.
Resurgence of interest in Tohono O’odham culture and identity. Carlyle’s attempts at youth outreach as an adult. Dealing with gang culture in the San Xavier District.
Carlyle’s encounter with American Indian Movement activists during college at Haskell in the 1970s. Family and intergenerational responses to AIM.
Part 3 of 5 was recorded at the base of Tumamoc Hill in Tucson, Arizona on July 13th, 2018. The interview covers the following themes:
Landscape and ecology of the San Xavier District in the early 1960s. Mulberries, mesquites, the Santa Cruz River, and water distribution. Foods: doves and quail, gathering plants, and cactus fruit.
Water, agriculture, and processed food differences between Gila River and San Xavier.
Sustainability, construction, and housing. Utilities, heating, and the effects of Tucson's pumping on the groundwater table.
Working in agriculture as a child and the challenge of restoring agricultural knowledge after decades of knowledge loss.
Water in the San Xavier District. The Central Arizona Project. The Southern Arizona Water Rights Settlement Act and Carlyle’s mother’s role as a lead plaintiff. Thirty years of litigation, a legal victory, and the resumption of farming at San Xavier.
Sense of home and thinking about long term water planning. Experience of returning to San Xavier after two decades away.
San Xavier crops in 2018. Alfalfa and traditional foods. Labor challenges of contemporary agriculture and Carlyle’s experience picking watermelons as a young man.
Part 4 of 5 was recorded at the base of Tumamoc Hill in Tucson, Arizona on October 19th, 2018. The interview covers the following themes:
Employment opportunities for San Xavier residents when Carlyle was growing up in the 1960s. Subsistence farming and lack of economic development. Educational opportunities drawing residents away from San Xavier. The defunding of Tohono O’odham vocational programs in the 1970s and loss of skilled labor.
Unemployment and gang activity. Biker gangs, Bloods, and Crips.
Challenges to development and construction on tribal and allotted land. The evolving process of building a home in the San Xavier District.
Historical lack of capital and the impossibility of obtaining bank loans for anything built upon tribal lands. The success of the Tohono O’odham Swap Meet. Interest in investing in land off the reservation.
Changes in sovereignty and bureaucratic complexity. Building code adoption and the evolution of construction styles over Carlyle’s life.
Part 5 of 5 was recorded at the base of Tumamoc Hill in Tucson, Arizona on February 12th, 2019. The interview covers the following themes:
Language in Carlyle’s life. Family use of O’odham and English. Language in school. Relearning O’odham as an adult. The pressure to assimilate into Anglo-American society for Carlyle and his parents.
The relationship between language and culture.
Trying to expand O’odham use, especially in schools. O’odham dialects.
The role of grandparents in transmitting culture and language.
Carlyle’s career in welding and power plants in Northern and Central Arizona during the 1980s and 1990s.
Carlyle’s return to Southern Arizona in the late 1990s to teach building trades and wrestling at Baboquivari Unified School District.
Growing involvement in the San Xavier community, joining efforts for local police, fire, housing, and education services that were independent of Sells.
Overhauling the physical infrastructure of Baboquivari schools.
School district attempts to keep students enrolled and out of gangs. Development of an alternative high school for at-risk students. Working with gang members in the classroom an in trades. Fitness programs. The discontinuation of the alternative school.
Carlyle’s departure from the school district and involvement in politics in the San Xavier District.
Demographics of Baboquivari Unified teachers. The realities and limits of casino funding and educational support.