Let's say hello to my special guests and we'll tell you all about their stories in just a minute.
Diana Valencia and Rosalinda Salinas Holtman.
Am I correct?
Look
at that.
You didn't
think I knew that, did you?
No, I
didn't.
Rosalita, I want you to face that microphone.
I don't care whatever you do on this planet, you're going to
face that microphone.
All right, I will try.
Because I want to hear every single word you have to say.
Now these ladies are here today to talk about the 250th birthday of the United States.
And they're going to tell you some stories that you don't really hear publicized a lot.
And they're called the untold stories.
And it's about a migration of people from South to North and how they help make this country what it is today.
And let's get a little background on our guests first, Rosalinda.
You are from the United, you're from, you were born here though, right?
Right, I am born and raised in Racine.
A local yokel, okay.
Yeah, if you want to call me that.
My mother was from St.
Louis.
Okay.
Yeah, so she grew up next to the Mississippi.
Okay, and grandparents?
Are from Mexico.
From Mexico, okay.
So that's, they migrated.
At 13 years old, my grandmother married my grandfather and came this way.
Wow.
to a brand new country.
Did they speak the language when they came here?
No, but when I met her, when I was seven, she spoke English with us.
So I thought all of Mexico spoke English.
Yes.
It's not true because
been overseas and we tend to think everybody speaks English and they don't.
And the other thing I was telling you, ladies, that Americans tend to think if we speak slower and louder, they will understand English, but it doesn't work like that.
Okay, Diana, you're from?
Racing, Wisconsin.
Another local yokel,
okay.
And where are your parents from?
San Antonio, Texas.
Oh, I love that city.
That's a nice city.
Now, your grandparents were from?
Mexico.
Okay, from Mexico.
But we usually are told to say we're from Mexico ever since it was America.
Because Texas was...
Oh, yes.
Mexico.
Right.
It was.
Yeah.
So it was
part of California.
Yes.
Mexico.
Yeah.
Almost what?
Half of the United States.
So we come from a long line of natives.
And then let's talk about what you're doing at the public library.
Obviously, there was a reason for putting this together once you guys tell me about it.
So we were looking at all this celebration and I'm thinking,
Yes, but there are so many stories behind the celebration.
So we don't say celebration, but we use the word.
We recognize the back stories to the rights that gave us the rights to vote and the women's rights for the LGBTQ.
the indigenous people, we have right.
And how did that come about?
So we look at the history behind that.
And that's how that came about, the untold stories.
And you got the public library involved.
Yes.
And they said, yes, you can use one of our rooms.
Yes.
And they helped us with information.
And then we have the resting.
What is that?
The Christian Heritage Museum?
Yes, and matter of fact, I'll be chatting with Chris Paulson over there because WRJN is celebrating 100 years on the air, December 6th, and they're giving us space for a nice exhibit of 100 years of stuff from this radio station.
And we gather a lot of stuff over 100 years.
You don't realize how much memorabilia you have.
All right, let's talk about the programs that we didn't get to on June 27th.
Indigenous People's History of America.
Let's talk about that.
How did that go?
That went really well with Starla Thompson.
She is Potawatomi and she told us not only her story, but the story of this area and of the United States and how the Indigenous people were taken, the children were taken and that history and what it leaves the generational trauma.
that is created through that.
And of course, the missing women and children that are that is happening now.
It's a sad story.
I just got done watching the Ken Burns documentary, The American Revolution, all 12 hours of it.
And it wasn't a win-win for indigenous people in this country.
It was a win-win for the settlers and the patriots.
And they got England out, they got their land.
But the indigenous people, the Native Americans, they didn't win-win during that.
And then July 8th,
You had accessibility and inclusion.
Let's talk about that.
That was fun.
They were very interactive and Carlos Midelis, who is a local person, he's also drawn these pictures that you see on our posters.
He's
an
artist.
He's an artist.
He's a local artist.
He's a nurse that many people know and appreciate and love.
And he told us about how he got involved with this, with accessibility, with the basketball, wheelchair basketball.
He's a coach there.
And that is where he met Jen, who is one of the members of a winning team, women's women, women's, women's team.
And it was well visited.
Also, we also learned something from her and him that this accessibility we take for granted that we can do everything and reach everything which they cannot.
And one of them was to get into a meeting to talk about accessibility because there's only stairs and you have a wheelchair and where you're going and come down to me kind of thing.
So that was really interesting and that we
as the committee never thought about the hearing impaired that they needed help.
And so we were left with our, I guess, red face, all embarrassed, that we didn't think of those things.
We ourselves should be thinking about the accessibility, other types of accessibility and inclusion.
When I worked at a radio station in Milwaukee, my boss was in a wheelchair most of his life since 11 years old.
I had to move him around this country because we had to go to meetings, different parts of the country, and I had to deal with him in his wheelchair, and it wasn't easy.
I mean, even getting on a plane wasn't easy, and he belonged to a wheelchair bowling league.
And then once they had Radio Night, he said, I need you to ball on our team.
Oh, that's a breeze.
I couldn't get the ball down the alley sitting in that wheelchair because we...
tend to think we could just roll the ball next, but you got to get that ball away from the wheels.
And it's not, I realized how uneasy it was to do something like that.
It's not easy at all.
And I said, well, how do you bowl like that?
You know, a few times you'll learn how to do it, but you're not in the wheelchair.
So it's not important to you to figure it out.
But I, he just passed away about two years ago.
And for 10 years, we just traveled the country when we go to meetings and it's not easy.
No,
I mean the world wasn't built for wheelchair people
Exactly, and that's what it all actually started with Carlos saying you know this this picture that we have here and that you could see on the website is where Carlos made adults shows the pictures of How it was difficult to go into any type of meeting because it was just stairs so it took it took quite a few people to even
change policy so we can have accessibility.
So erasing Wisconsin had a huge part of that.
So we were not just Innovation City, we were also a city that helped create policies to help people have it better today.
So we have a ramp in the back.
We used two doors in the building.
We had a ramp back there for people like Bill who, so he was doing some work for us.
And one day I said, where is he?
He's sitting outside in his chair in front of the steps.
He said, what are you doing out there?
He said, looking like the poster boy for the American Disabilities Act.
I said, you know there's a ramp in the back.
Go back there.
You throw at the parking chair over.
You get in the back and just wheel up the thing.
The door's open.
But he was sitting there for
looking like the poster boy for the American Disabilities Act.
I said, there's a ramp.
Go back there.
You can figure it out.
OK.
We seniors, we seniors.
I'm a citizen now.
We seniors appreciate all that hard work they did because it made it easy for us now.
He was one of my best friends.
I mean, he was the quietest guy.
I could tell you a million stories about him and that chair.
When I did the eulogy at his funeral, I said, I could spend hours with him and that chair, schlepping him around this country.
And it wasn't easy.
I mean, it got easier, but it wasn't easy.
We are chatting this morning with Diana Valencia and also Rosa Linda Salinas-Holtman, and we're talking about migration stories at the Racine Public Library.
Let's talk
about the current one coming up, and this will be July 16th in the community room, and the name of the program is Migration Stories, the Latino Experience in Racine, 250 Years, the Untold Story.
What are people going to hear when they get there?
Well, you'll get a taste of why somebody will come.
from wherever they come from, they leave their happy homes.
Migration actually happens due to economic issues, safety concerns, family needs, or environmental pressures.
So here in Racine, the earliest Europeans came from, I often talk about the skilled laborers.
the migrant due to rural poverty, religious prosperity demands, I'm sorry, prosecution.
The black community has been recorded here in Racine since 1838, also doing that.
But we're going to be talking a lot about the Latino community, specifically people from Mexico and Texas, why they came from the south to the north.
What made them
leave their beautiful town.
I would say jobs are probably number one and a better life for their children education and so forth.
I was telling you ladies that my mother-in-law came from David Panama, which was 14 years old.
She decided to come all the way up here.
She went by herself from what I hear.
And she had relatives in this country, but you know, you come into a country, you don't speak the language, you're 14 years old, you're all by yourself.
And she made her way up here.
and found a life here, and I married her daughter.
Congratulations.
Look at me.
I'm the lucky one.
If she hadn't come here, I wouldn't have had the love of my life.
So look at that.
And I think many people can say that.
Rosa, share a little bit about your family.
Which one?
Let's go with your mom.
OK.
So she was a migrant worker, and she left.
She is actually from St.
Louis, Missouri.
So she says she's from the north, right?
Yes, the north.
And her father took her back to Mexico with her siblings.
And at 14, she said, I can't live this way.
And her mother put her and her sister on the train to the states.
Now they were American citizens, of course, because they were born in St.
Louis.
And then they traveled, picked cotton, beets, apples.
They were all over the United States.
And that's how she met my father, who said, that work is just too hard for me.
He was, he worked on the train, the railroads.
He was a Tanner and he was, he ended up in J.I.
Case.
And there he was machinist for 50 years.
And when you were born in Racine
in Racine, okay?
1955
okay,
and we lived in the little house forever and He I asked him why why do we live here in this little tiny house in this area and it was it by Lutheran high if anybody knows that Island Park and we were the only Latinos there the only Chicanos there
And I didn't understand many things happening to us.
But he said, I want to give you a good education.
This is the best school.
So there you have it.
He had that in mind that he wants to give his children a better life.
So if people want to hear the stories, that's coming up July 16th.
What time is that, you know?
5.30.
What time is 5 30 5 30 oh it says right here 5 30 to 7 30 right in front of my face
I had a good education It's right in front of my eyes 5 30 to 7 30 in the community room at the Racine Public Library There's no charge just come on in and
Maria Morales, she's the director for the elderly at the League of United Latin American Citizens, and she's going to do the presentation.
You
have
the intro,
right?
Yes, of course, because I'm the deputy state director for the League of United Latin American Citizens.
So we united at getting as many people that we knew from racing that would come and share the stories.
So it's going to be wonderful.
People may know the history of Helen Castanera.
She was one of the first Hispanics born here in Racine.
Well, that's going to be shared.
What's really going to be awesome is the Racine Heritage Museum will be assisting us by not just sharing her story, but teaching us and the community how to do this so we don't lose our history.
Chris Paulson, who's the, at the Racine Heritage Museum, he helps us a lot.
And we do a lot of work with Racine Public Library.
So you're in good hands over there.
Awesome hands.
There was a documentary, my wife actually gave me the DVD years ago, but I remember seeing it in school, they showed it to us.
Edward Amaro film that was called Harvest of Shame.
Do you ever use to hear that?
It was shown on Thanksgiving Day on CBS.
And it was about all the migrant workers who came from Mexico, Latin America.
And they're the ones that pick the food that you're eating today on Thanksgiving.
And he showed the deplorable conditions people were living in, these migrant workers, and how they go from farm to farm, their kids were living in squalor.
And it was, I think it was filmed in the late fifties, could be in the mid fifties, but they only showed it once on Thanksgiving Day.
And I have the DVD and it's really, you know, think back to how you got this food.
It just didn't magically appear on your table.
Somebody had to pick it.
And a lot of them are migrant workers from the south of us.
And so, uh, so before you'd be a little anybody or make any snide remarks, you know, people helped us and they came, a lot of them came in illegally, but they, they worked.
It's not that they just sat on their haunches like people on radio.
Well, you get to, you get to meet somebody like me who actually worked on the farm.
and enjoyed it because of all the people that came before me to make this, the farm working industry, an industry that was a living wage and so many, many, many improvements of what it was once in the 50s and 60s.
So come, listen to the untold stories and hear some about the awesome successes of people.
I would never have made it because I even know I don't know like mowing a lawn.
Can I just say
I cut cabbage.
Can I just say we also and and we will you will meet people that have in our generation have worked during the summer in the fields and my family was one of them as well and it was not fun so she may have enjoyed it she's much younger.
I did not.
Let's talk about the other programs straight ahead.
These are the programs we're looking at after the program coming up.
The next one, we're going to have what now?
It's the Queer History in Racine with Carl Hubbard, which is going to be promising.
Mr. Carl Hubbard is another local yokel.
He's been here for many years and he has interesting stories to tell about a community that
have always been around it.
We've always had people.
Why we accept people is why coming together, we've seen crossroads.
We created these venues to have conversations, courageous conversations.
And you'll come to hear a courageous conversation with that Carl Hubbard.
And that's on July 22nd, 7.30 p.m.
And let's talk about the next one too.
July 23rd, the next day,
at 5.30 p.m.
the history of black music.
That should be interesting.
Oh, it is with Dr. Kitchen.
I even hear of when I was marketing, handing out information, inviting people.
His own students, one of the, if his students are going to be one of the singers for the Suffrage Movement.
So it's going to be exciting how everything comes together.
Well, this is a great program.
It's called Migration Stories, and the next one coming up is July 16th, 5.30 to 7.30 p.m.
at the community room at the public library.
They were seeing public library out there on the lake, and it's called The Untold Stories.
And this will be, this is good stuff.
I'm glad you ladies put it together, and your organization put it together.
I'm glad the library and the machine heritage museum got on board and held down with it.
Yes, and everyone's welcome and you're welcome to join us in coming together Racine
Diane Valencia and Rosalinda Salinas Holtman.
Thank you for contacting me Rosalina.
I do appreciate it Rosalinda
Rosalinda
Rosalina when I called you Rosalina.
Yes, most people do
last night at the Racine concert band concert.
It was a woman from Argentina and I rehearsed her name all week her last name and I get up there and I blew it
I said, all week, I'm rehearsing this name under pressure.
I got her name wrong.
It was a very long name.
And she corrected me, had a rolling R in the middle of
it.
That part I got.
But I got the middle of the name wrong.
And I said, you know, all week, I was practicing this name.
And I get here in the pressure and I couldn't do it.
Rosalinda.
Yes.
There you go.
And Diana.
Thank you very much, ladies.
And you're welcome back any time.
Thank you so much.
OK.
We'll return.
OK.
You'll take me up on
it.
Good.
That's what I hope.