Castro, Ignacio "Nacho"

Part 1 was recorded on November 13th, 2019 in Tucson, Arizona and covers the following themes: 

b. 1942 

  • Family history in Southern Arizona and Sonora. Parents’ lives in Douglas, Arizona, father’s WWII service, union activity, and later work on behalf of mining companies. Grandfather’s interracial marriage estranged relatives. French speakers in northern Mexico. 

  • Language in Nacho’s childhood—where and when people chose to speak English and Spanish. 

  • Growing up in Douglas. Affluence of the city. Mining pay. 

  • U.S.-Mexico border culture in the 1940s and 1950s. 

  • Education. School segregation, sports, social groups, childhood pastimes. Music. Mexican/Mexican American relations. 

  • Living near a copper smelter, medical problems, cultural identification, water supply. 

  • Visits to Tucson by train as a child. Flights from Douglas to Tucson.  

  • Decision to attend Arizona State College (NAU) and lack of desire to join ROTC. 

  • Getting drafted in 1966 and assigned to missile units. The specter of nuclear war. 

  • Experiences in northern Arizona and at NAU. New Mexican culture versus borderland culture. 

  • Military experience in Germany and interest in history. 

  • Courtship and marriage. 

  • Family attitude towards Vietnam War, military service, studying the Domino Theory in school. Working within the military bureaucracy. 

  • Returning to US from military service in 1969.  

  • Working on uncle Raul Castro’s gubernatorial campaign, seeking voters from both parties. 

Part 2 was recorded on December 16th, 2019 in Tucson, Arizona and it covers the following themes: 

  • Castro’s conversations about politics with his uncle Raul later in life. Raul Castro’s thoughts on politics, career, leaving governorship early for ambassadorship, work as ambassador. 

  • Castro family narrative, labor organization, Mexican Revolution, migration. 

  • Working as a JC Penny manager in the 1970s. The decline of downtown Tucson in the 1970s. 

  • Move to California in 1978 to manage JC Penny locations. Changes in retail stores over Castro’s career, centralization of control, de-professionalization. Store layout and inventory, profit sharing, change from internal promotion to external recruitment for management. Retirement in 1997. 

  • Castro’s return to Tucson. Changes in Tucson between the late 1970s and early 2000s. 

  • Real estate experience in Tucson. Lobbying for real estate support for veterans in Washington, D.C. Real estate bubble of the 2000s. 

  • 2008 housing market collapse and foreclosures. 

  • Changes in housing over Castro’s career. Rise and fall of open floor plans. Housing inventory, labor shortages, national and international housing markets, computers and the internet. 

Aengus Anderson