Chicano/a Research Collection

In this recording, Alicia Quesada discusses the Ocampo family's settlement in Wickenburg; Teodoro Ocampo's cattle ranch; memories of her childhood, including education and daily chores; recreation, including picnics held on the desert; learning English and her family's use of Spanish and English; religion, including the growth of the Catholic Church; her work as a stenographer at the Arizona State Legislature and at Cox, Lockwood, & Lockwood; her family's involvement in the Wickenburg community, including the Latin American Club; and her move to Phoenix.

In this recording, Alicia Quesada discusses her professional life and the racial discrimination she faced; her employment with the Arizona State Senate, the Arizona Industrial Commission, Arizona State University, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, and the Social Security Administration; the Gosnell land swap and her work opposing it; and her interest in and efforts to preserve Arizona's Mexican-American history.

In this interview, Dora Quesada discusses her family's history in Arizona and work in cattle ranching, mining, and freighting; her education; learning English and her family's use of Spanish and English; religion; her career as a military nurse, civilian nurse, and public school teacher; racism in the medical and educational fields; her political activity and work to oppose the Gosnell land swap; and her interest in and work to preserve Arizona's Mexican-American history.

In this recording, Dora Quesada discusses her family's history in Arizona and their work in cattle ranching, mining, and freighting; medical care in Wickenburg, including the competency of the doctors available; her career as a nurse, including her time as a charge nurse in a newborn nursery, her first job as an office nurse in Wickenburg, her experiences as a military nurse, and racism in the medical field; her education, including school segregation, discrimination against students who couldn't speak English well, high school career, and time at St. Joseph's Hospital School of Nursing; learning English and her family's use of Spanish and English; and religion and the Catholic Church in Wickenburg.

This three-part program traces Chicano heritage and influence in Arizona's history between the 1600s and the 1950s. It begins with a consideration of Mexican immigrants' role in pioneering Arizona's first non-Indigenous settlements, discusses these settlers' conflicts with Indigenous peoples and Anglo settlers, recounts Mexican-American contributions to Arizona's economic growth, chronicles rising racism towards, discrimination against, and segregation of Mexican-Americans, and finally studies Mexican-American work to secure equal rights.

"Part I: The Pioneer" discusses Mexican immigration into what is now the American Southwest, beginning with the missions established in the late 1600s. It goes on to discuss relationships between Mexican-Americans and Indigenous peoples (including numerous conflicts with the Apache), development of agricultural enterprises, conflicts with Anglo-American settlers, the growth of the freighting and ranching industries, the construction of the Southern Pacific Railroad and its impact, the growth of and racism in the mining industry, issues surrounding land grants, and the settlement of Florence, Safford, Solomon, Concho, St. Johns, and Round Valley. This section ends with a discussion of rising racial tensions and the founding of the Alianza Hispano Americana.