Anguiano-Glad you
Sr. F-Laid back.
A-Yeah get back on track, yeah.
Sr. F-Yeah back on track, a little. Sometimes gently sometimes not so gently haha.
A-Yeah, haha.
Sr. F-But also Lupe if I ask you something and you really don’t want to answer it or you want to answer it or you don’t want it on tape let us, please let us know and we will stop it.
A-OK.
Sr. F-Stop and go-
A-Yeah OK
Sr. F-Not that I think that there’s anything that you don’t want to say-
A-Oh there might be, haha.
Sr. F-Laughs
A-How I feel about the archbishop now? Haha.
Sr. F-Just in case right?
All Laugh
Sr. F-We’ll get her one way or the other, excellent.
A-Haha.
Sr. F-OK so, shall we begin? Ready to roll? Our voice levels are good?
Technical Assistant-Yes.
Sr. F-OK well-
A-OK great.
Sr. F-OK good so we’re rolling. Friday, uh April 4th, we’re visiting with Lupe Anguiano. Lupe it is so good to have you here and we really are grateful for you’re making this effort to come all the way to Texas-
A-Laughs
Sr. F-to do this for us. We really are interested in what you’ve done in your very, very uh committed life. So the first thing I want to ask you if you would uh, tell us a little bit about your early childhood and the forces, the factors, the elements that shaped your commitments as you go to join the community, left the community and continued to work for the community.
A-Well uh I was born in La Junta, Colorado and my father José Anguiano worked in the railroad and my mother Rosario Gonzalez Anguiano came to be with my dad from Mexico. My dad was born in La Barca, Jalisco and so was my mom. I think the important-that’s-you know, if you look at my life and what really patterned and what really influenced my work for equality and social justice is really the fact that I was born really fighting for equality because my dad was a Huichol Indian and my mom was a Spaniard. And my dad’s mother was a maid who worked taking care of the house for my grandmother, my mother’s mother and dad. And so she was actually taking care of the house, you know, and was a maid. And so that’s how my mom and dad met.
My mom was the youngest in the family, the Gonzalez family and my dad was the youngest and the only boy in the Anguiano family and so you had them meet. And my dad and my grandfather were converted Catholic and my dad used to work as a sacristan in the church. And of course my mom and dad met and they started, you know, a relationship. And, of course, they were very much afraid of my grandfather and grandmother that they would not approve, my dad being from an Indian background, my mom being from a Spaniard, somewhat elite family that they would be dating. And so it was very funny but my dad used to tell me that he used to-in Holy Communion, you know, they went to mass everyday and they would receive Holy Communion, and then my dad, while he was holding the patent, you know, for my mom to receive communion he would give her a note of where they should meet, haha.
And where they would meet and so, uh, you know, they struggled with their relationship and it was something on both sides. You know, my grandmother didn’t want him to associate with my mom, my mother, you know, because of the-and in Mexico the, um, class is really very important. You cannot marry below your class. And so my mom being the youngest in the family, my dad being the-he was the only boy of I don’t know how many women in his family. And so they just, you know, what do you say when people fall in love, you know? My dad was very-really nice, nice, very nice looking man and so was my mom. And so when they got married it was like an explosion in the family. And so I was born within that, you know, fighting equality my mom being of one race and my mother being of another race and sort of saying, ‘hey we love each other and we’re equal. You know, what difference does it make if he was born here or she was born there, you know? We love each other and we’re gonna get married’ and they did.
And so it was always-I remember my grandmother, my dad’s mother, used to call uh my mom a “Gachupin.”
Sr. F-Uh huh.
A-A “Gachupin” and I guess that’s uh-
Sr. F-It’s a derogatory term-
A-Like a calling a gringo a gringo.
Sr. F-Uh huh.
A-Yeah and so ‘she’s from a Gachupin, and blah blah blah’. And then when I would here that form my grandmother and then from my mom from my other grandmother my um-you would here, uh, you know ‘below your class’ and ‘blah blah blah’ and ‘what’s gonna happen to you’ and blah blah blah. But my mother was really very smart and so she took care of my grandfather, her father, until he died and he left her a lot of property and so she would rent the property to growers who would then plant. And then her pay was really-she was paid by seeds. It was really something, you know, that seed was really considered the high commodity rather than the peso or the monetary.
And so all this to say that I was-fighting for equality was really part of-I was born into it, haha. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t, haha, when I wasn’t, you know, really combating and really saying, “Hey, you know, equality doesn’t matter what color or what race you are. We’re all made in the image and likeness of God and God loves all of us equally.” And that’s what my mom-
The other factor that really impacted my growing up was that my mother was my catechism teacher. You know, it wasn’t a priest, it wasn’t a nun; it was my mother who taught our catechism because when my dad was-during the revolution, my mom lost a lot of her land. It was taken over by the Pancho Villa revolutionary movement. And so my dad came to the United States to work on the railroad and then my mom followed him. And so we lived in Hoehne, Colorado in the railroad, we used to call them “the bunks.” You know, the railroad had, in Honey, Colorado and in Delhi, they had bunk house-it was really uh the Santa Fe Railroad had housing for their workers and that’s where we were raised. And so the priest didn’t come-he came once a month so we had mass once a month.
And so my mom, every Sunday, you know, she’d get us together and teach us catechism and teach the scripture, and I remember as child I became acquainted with Christ from her beautiful stories, you know? And I remember as a child-you know, how when you’re a child you imagine things and you relive stories and I used to sometimes imagine myself playing with baby Jesus and walking with him and then my mother used to say, “Jesus was very kind to animals and he was very kind to people.” And so I remember, because we had chickens, being very kind to all the animals because of all of them were made by God and all of us were made in the image and likeness of God and God loved all of us equally and so there was no difference between this color or that color or the plants or the animals. And so that really was my upward bringing, you know? And I think I have deep love for Christ because of my mother. And also my dad, he was a sacristan and so they used to go through great pains to-for Christmas, you know, to decorate the house and Easter. And, you know, how Mexicanos are, you know, like celebrating the celebration of the posadas and we had, you know, when Christ was first presented to the temple. And then during Lent all of us fasted. But, you know, I remember that Lent was also very special and I used to look forward, it sounds weird but I used to look forward to Lent because that’s when we’d have capirotada, haha. And so we had all of those specialties that came with Lent. And so I used to look forward to that, you know? You too? Haha. And so, you know, all of-and then the posadas when we would go and visit each other’s home then they wouldn’t let us in because at the end they would let us in and we’d had piñata and we had chocolate and pan dulce and then we had candy.
And so we-in our home we lived the liturgy, and the liturgy was just part of-you talk about having fun and celebration, that-the liturgy was really our days of celebration. So we remembered, you know, Advent and waiting for Christ and just the fasting. And then my mother-my dad used to, for the three kings, you know, that’s when we got our presents. And if we didn’t behave ourselves we got ashes-our shoes were filled with ashes, haha. So during Advent, we made sure we were behaving because we wanted to make sure. And I don’t know where mom and dad used to hide the presents, haha. Because they had to order, you know Sears and Montgomery Wards they had to order the presents by catalogue. And so we had-so I had a very happy childhood. You know, I was born and raised in a real community in Colorado and we would go to the mountains to chop down our Christmas tree and come down and we’d go and pick pines, you know?
Sr. F-Yeah.
A-And so I always think of Colorado as one of the most beautiful states because that’s where I was raised, but then California, when we came to California that was also, you know, very beautiful. So, you know, I had a very fortunate, you know, to have had a happy childhood and it was in rural America where we had very little. And we just, you know, we were raised with a lot of love and a lot of attention, a lot of discipline and hard work. But we enjoyed on, you know-in the bunk houses, you know. On Sunday we’d all play baseball and-
Sr. F-So it was almost a natural then for you to join Victory Noll [Sisters] -
A-Uh it was. Well, you know, I think that I-well my dad used to tell me that I was the last one he expected would enter religious life haha. Because I was very outgoing and I used to have a lot of boyfriends and so he used to-when I first uh-really the desire to enter religious life really came when I was a senior. And, you know, how they stress ‘what are you gonna be’, ‘what are you gonna do’ and in my mind it always came back to the love, the beauty, that I saw in Christ, you know, and the love that I experienced in prayer and being united with that environment and looking at my childhood. That was really what attracted me and I remember the last boyfriend I had I, you know, it was either getting married or going to religious life. And I remember him saying, ‘well, you know, you know I respect your choice because, you know, you-the important thing is for you to be happy’. And I really liked that about him because I felt that call, you know, and I don’t know how to describe that call, it’s just an experience that you feel of dedicating yourself to Christ. And so that’s a-it was almost like a natural, you know, for me but I did experience, you know, a real heavy call to go to religious life and so I did.
Sr. F-Why the Victory Nolls?
A-Well because they were the sisters who taught us catechism in Satequou [?]. See my mother used to come to visit-we lived in Colorado, my mother every summer would bring us to California to visit my aunt, her sister, my aunt Maria Sanchez. And we would come and then we would pick chavacan in Moore Park and then uh-chavacan is apricots haha. And then we would go up north, San Jose to pick uh plums and then we would come down to pick walnuts in Satequoy and then we didn’t go back to Colorado until about November. And so it became, um, you know, my mother felt that she wanted to be close to her sister and then she wanted-she still had the idea of having a store because she had a store in Mexico. And so she still wanted to build a store and so, you know, so little-every year and finally we just moved and my mom moved first with us and then my dad came afterwards so that’s how we ended up in uh-what was your question?
Sr. F-Tell me about Victory Noll
A-Oh.
Sr. F-Were you at the-how many years were you with Victory Noll?
A-Well I was in religious life fifteen years.
Sr. F-Uh huh.
A-I had already made my perpetual vows. And my-I remember my dad before I left he said to me, ‘why are you going? You’re just gonna take up room because I know you’re not gonna stay’ haha. ‘You’re not gonna stay. You’re gonna last probably a week and then you’re gonna be back so why are you going to take the nuns time and make all those expenses if you really aren’t going to stay?’ And so he just really fought that and I said, ‘no I’m gonna stay’ and the sisters, the Victory Noll Sisters, um, would encourage me, Sister Florence and Sister-and so I decided I was gonna go and so I just told my friends I’m gonna go.
And so I left and when I-going from California to Huntington, Indiana was a big change because you came from a warm climate into a cold, you know, climate. But it was exciting for me because it was, you know, that venture of learning and becoming close to Christ and being the bride of Christ and all was-and then there were fourteen of us. Was it fourteen or fifteen of us in our class? And uh it was really a very exciting time. I think my first year as a postulate I received a lot of mail and calls from my friends. And I remember Tony Piado was one of my boyfriends and he would write. But I didn’t know that our letters were confiscated by the postulate [director].
Both Laugh
A-So I never got those letters haha. But during Christmas time, the fam-we had an opportunity to have a call with our families and so, ‘did you get the mail of Tony wrote to you?’ I said, ‘no I didn’t, or did he write?’ And I said, ‘well I’m gonna stay, you know, that’s final. You guys have to remember that I’m just here for like and so you just need to get used to that’ haha. So then I passed my-when I was a postulate, I remember I used to walk very briskly and run up the stairs. You know, at novice I was just-I was always caught and told ‘you need to walk like a lady’ so, you know, I had to walk up and down the stairs like a lady, haha. And when I was excited I would just forget and run up the stairs. And so, gee I’ll never forget my poor novice mistress. But I gave her a hard time, haha. But I was accepted, you know? And so I guess it was, you know-the thing that I remember most was the food. I never like mashed potatoes and, haha, I missed having, really missed having tortillas and beans and really had to get used mashed potatoes and gravy and, just ugh, you know, haha. Isn’t that funny. Sometimes when I was interviewed they would say, ‘Lupe do you think you could ever live without beans and tortillas?’ I said, ‘no’ haha. ‘I won’t be able to live without that haha’. But I finally got used to it and to this day, you know, mashed potatoes they’re ok, but yeah I can do with out haha. But I need to have my beans and tortillas haha, and chile haha. Particularly frijolies de la hoya, you know, beans that are really, you know, yeah.