Gonzalez, Pedro

b. 1956

Part 1 was recorded on March 12th, 2020 at the chapel of San Cosme in Tucson, Arizona. It covers the following themes:

  • A few words about Gonzalez’s parents, identity, and their attitudes towards the United States and Mexico. Father’s commercial construction work in Tucson. Mother’s work raising ten children. 

  • Life in Barrio Viejo during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Language at home and at school. Getting swatted for speaking Spanish at school. 

  • Family's displacement by Urban Renewal in the mid-1960s. How children talked about being dislocated by the City of Tucson. 

  • Gonzalez’s childhood sense of identity and cultural pride. 

  • Descriptions of Barrio Viejo community. Family’s desire to stay in the Barrio and move to Connie Chambers Public Housing. Pastimes for children and adults. Movies at the Fox and Plaza. 

  • Church and religion. Posadas, both through the church and Carrillo School. Easter. Family’s attendance at the Cathedral San Augustine and Santa Cruz Chruch. A few words about Monsignor Arsenio Carrillo. 

Part 2 was recorded on December 13, 2021 at the chapel of San Cosme in Tucson, Arizona.  It covers the following themes:

  • Junior high at Safford. 

  • Parents’ attitudes about education. 

  • Witnessing riots in downtown Tucson after Martin Luther King assassination. 

  • Relationship between Mexican American community and African American community in barrio Viejo. 

  • Attitudes towards Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez. 

  • Going to Tucson High in the early 1970s. Social groups. Racial tension. Marijuana use. 

  • Harassment by police in high school. 

  • High school social life and cars. 

  • Work and weekend activities during high school: making carnitas, swimming in irrigation canals, hanging out on A Mountain, Sabino Canyon, Reddington Pass, west side of Tucson Mountains. 

  • Pool halls. 

This interview was recorded on February 9th, 2022 at the chapel of San Cosme in Tucson, Arizona. It covers the following themes:

  • First job after high school at Pima Community College. Studying welding at Pima. 

  • Working at Magma’s San Manuel copper mine from 1979 to 1984. 

  • The union, strikes, and labor relations. 

  • Air quality, safety, wages.  

  • Taking a job at the Arizona Department of Transportation. Training in surveying and work and the construction lab. 

  • Training young engineers and decision not to become an engineer or administrator. Working across Arizona as a project inspector. 

  • Repairing the Kitt Peak bridge and working on the Tohono O’odham Nation. 

  • Changes in the construction workforce over 30 years: decrease in hands-on knowledge, rise in certification. Consultants. Work ethics. 

This interview was recorded on March 10th, 2022 at the chapel of San Cosme in Tucson, Arizona. It covers the following themes:

  • Gentrification, historic preservation, and the City of Tucson’s role in shaping life in Barrio Viejo from Pedro’s childhood to the present. 

  • Tensions between some longtime barrio residents and historic preservationists over house colors, window styles, etc. 

  • The Barrio Viejo Neighborhood Association. 

  • An ongoing tension within the neighborhood over traffic. 

  • Fight against the City of Tucson over Drachman School in 2000s. 

  • Fighting the City of Tucson over the fate of Connie Chambers public housing. 

  • Story of creating the Parque de Orlando y Diego Mendoza. 

  • The redevelopment surrounding the Main Fire Station, drainage project, El Paso & Southwestern Greenway. 

  • Thoughts about photographers and tourists taking pictures of houses in the neighborhood. 

Aengus Anderson