Celebrating Latino-American Artists and Community Oral History Project
Date: November 18, 2015
Interviewer: Alissa Molina, Mexican-American History (HIS 109) Fall 2015
Interviewee: Sarah Molina
Time
Subject
00:00-11:00
Childhood in Los Angeles, CA and Casa Grande, AZ
Description of hometown, church, and high school.
11:00-20:00
Life in Tucson, Mexican-American meaning and
culture as told by interviewee.
20:00-30:00
Treatment as a Mexican-American, stereotypes, and
acceptance by Mexican nationals.
30:00-48:00
Traditions, heritage, preservation, and future
generations.
Alissa Molina: Hello, the date is November 18, 2015. We are here at my home. My name
is Alissa Molina, and I’m interviewing Sarah Molina, my mother.
Sarah Molina: Hello.
Alissa Molina: Okay, let’s just begin. Describe when and where you were born and
raised.
Sarah Molina: I was born in 1961, and I was born in Bryan, Texas and I wasn’t really
raised there. From there we moved to San Antonio, Texas, which I lived until 1965, and I
grew up there in that period with my grandparents and my cousins, and in 1965 we
moved to East Los Angeles.
Alissa Molina: And at the time, was East Los Angeles what it is today?
Sarah Molina: No, East Los Angeles, um, today it’s predominately Hispanic. Back in
1965 it was a mixed community, very nice community, average community, with
families and different cultures. I had a neighbor who I played with a lot and she was
Anglo, and so that’s the type of community it was.
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Alissa Molina: And from there where did you move?
Sarah Molina: From there we lived in California for about hmm I guess five years, and in
1970 we moved to Arizona and, specifically, to Casa Grande.
Alissa Molina: Okay, and before you moved to Arizona you were in a preschool program
correct?
Sarah Molina: Yes, I was.
Alissa Molina: And where were your parents from, and what did they do for a living?
Sarah Molina: My father was born in Texas, and he grew up there until he was about five
or six years old, and at that age my grandparents decide to go back to Mexico, and so
they went back to Mexico, the family did, and he was raised in Mexico and then when he
was about 20 he decided to come back to the United States. One of his sisters had stayed
and married, and so he came back to the United States at the age of 20. My mother,
was… she was born in in Dallas, Texas and my grandfather was a Baptist preacher and
my parents eventually met in San Antonio and they married. They married when my
dad was in seminary. My father was studying to be a Baptist minister, and when he
graduated, my mom and dad got married in San Antonio.
Alissa Molina: And your dad was a pastor of a Spanish-speaking church? What was that
like?
Sarah Molina: Yes, from that point on, my father, both my parents ministered to the
Spanish speaking community and it was wonderful. It was how I learned to read and
write Spanish because we used to sing from the hymn books in Spanish. We would read
the bible in Spanish and once I got older I had a bilingual bible, so I was able to increase
my vocabulary in both languages by being able to follow along in both languages, and it
was really also something culturally wonderful because Hispanic people for the most
part are very, they love music and we’re just a very I don’t want to say exciting….
Alissa Molina: Passionate?
Sarah Molina: But passionate yes, passionate; we’re very passionate people. And so for
me it was something that I look back on as something that I really enjoyed, but in our
church we also had Mexican Americans, so the thing that we had in common was our
language, whether we were Mexican Americans, or whether they were immigrants from
Mexico.
Alissa Molina: Okay, and going back to the language, what was your first language?
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Sarah Molina: My first language was Spanish. Both my parents were bilingual. Of
course my mother was born and raised here in the United States. My father, his first
language was Spanish, but he learned English. But at home we mostly spoke Spanish,
and so my first language was Spanish. And my mother used to tell me how people
enjoyed conversating with me as a toddler because I was so fluent in Spanish. I learned
English because I had Mexican-American cousins, and so I’m an only child, and so being
around my cousins and my aunts on my mother’s side who were also Mexican American,
and some of my uncles, so that’s how I learned English so that by the time I started
preschool, I was actually bilingual. I knew English and I knew Spanish.
Alissa Molina: Okay. And in a recent study it was found that “children enrolled in
preschool gained proficiency in English at a faster rate while maintaining a similar level
of Spanish proficiency as those children who stay at home during the day.” So how
would you say that helped you educationally to know both languages?
Sarah Molina: I think it helped me educationally because I knew Spanish and my
mother always used to say that if you know one language well, even though I was still a
child, you can transition to another language and learn that language well. So I mean I
was able to, I think, knowing two languages just really opened, it made my world a much
bigger world and it helps your mind to be able to grasp things more easily because
you’re able to learn two languages. It just opens your mind I think a whole lot more.
And it helped me be successful in school especially as I was reading in English, and
reading my books and studying it just, I think it just helps you to be sharper, your mind
is sharper.
Alissa Molina: Would you say Spanish is a richer language?
Sarah Molina: I believe it is. I think there are words in Spanish that when you speak
them it’s just one word that can really communicate an idea or a feeling and you know
exactly what that person is trying to communicate; whereas, in the English language it’s
a lot harder sometimes. The English word may not totally communicate the idea or the
thought or the feeling that you’re trying to communicate.
Alissa Molina: I agree. Okay, so going back to your family, how did your family come to
Arizona, and how long have you lived in Arizona?
Sarah Molina: We came to Arizona in 1970, and the reason we came to Arizona was that
like I said my father was a pastor, they were missionaries, and they felt there was a
church in need of a pastor in Casa Grande, and my parents chose to leave the big city of
L.A. to come to a small community. I don’t know if they were thinking about possibly,
maybe, it would be better to raise me in a small community or my father just felt a desire
to come and minster to a small community like Casa Grande at that time. And so that’s
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what brought us to Casa Grande, and I lived there for 10 years. It’s where I graduated
high school.
Alissa Molina: Okay. And actually, in 1970 Casa Grande’s population was about 10,000
people. Did you feel like it was that small? I mean versus 2013 with 50,000 people?
Sarah Molina: Yeah, I mean it was a small community it’s a farming community, and I
liked it because pretty much everyone knew everyone, and we had one high school for
the whole city of Casa Grande. In fact, so everybody who lived in Casa Grande went to
the same high school it didn’t matter what side of town you lived on that was one thing
that we all had in common—that we all went to the same high school. And, in fact, we
even had people from the Sacaton reservation [Gila River Indian Reservation] that were
bussed into our school. They were part of our community as well. And so I appreciate
the fact I grew up in a small town because it just made it a comfortable way to grow up.
Alissa Molina: And the Hispanic population back then was about 26%. Did you feel it
was that small?
Sarah Molina: No, actually I didn’t. I think because we were a small community, I just
felt like everybody, I didn’t feel like there was, I felt like I was a small part of something
bigger. We were a mixed community. We were a mixed high school, and I don’t really
feel like people separated that way in Casa Grande. It just didn’t feel that way. I never
felt it that way.
Alissa Molina: Were your friends predominately Mexican?
Sarah Molina: They were, most of my girlfriends, actually all the girls that I was friends
with in high school were Mexican. Two of them were Mexican American. They came
from Mexican-American families, and two other girls came from Hispanic families that
were from Mexico. And two, one of my friends didn’t speak Spanish, but the rest of my
friends, we were bilingual.
Alissa Molina: So you all had that commonalty still.
Sarah Molina: Yes.
Alissa Molina: And where have you lived the longest? And describe what it was like
living there and the community around you.
Sarah Molina: Well after I graduated high school in 1980 in Casa Grande my father felt a
calling I guess you could say to move to Tucson. There was a church in need of a pastor
and again this was a Spanish-speaking church on the south side of Tucson, and so I
graduated in ’80 and probably a couple months in ’81, by January of ’81, we moved to
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Celebrating Latino-American Artists and Community Oral History Project
Tucson. And Tucson is the place that I’ve lived the longest. I lived there from 1981 up
until 2008. And, it’s where I went to college, you know, met my husband, got married.
Both my parents have passed, and they’re both buried there together and we have, I
have, a lot of long time friends there, and people who knew me when I was young and
knew my parents, and so people that were family friends are there in Tucson. And so
that’s where I’ve lived the longest.
Alissa Molina: How would you describe the community?
Sarah Molina: Tucson, even though Tucson is a big city, Tucson, I think, is a very unique
city in that again it’s a mixed community, and I believe because it’s close to the border a
lot of people, people who’ve lived there for a long time who are not Hispanic are used to
crossing paths with Hispanics. You see, in fact, in Tucson you see a lot of mixed
marriages. You could call them mixed marriages or bi-cultural, where Hispanics are…
have married Anglos or you know other cultures, and so it’s a very comfortable
community in that aspect, and it doesn’t matter what side of town you live on, you’ll
always cross paths with people from different parts of the city. I don’t think there’s, I
mean you have your pockets, but for the most part, I don’t think it’s a very segregated
city.
Alissa Molina: Okay, and you do describe yourself as Mexican-American, correct?
Sarah Molina: Yes.
Alissa Molina: If so, well since you do, what does that mean to you?
Sarah Molina: What does Mexican American….for me being Mexican American, what
that means to me is that you are from or that I’m from Mexican decent, but I was born
here in the United States, which makes me an American, and it makes me a person that
I could say I’m bi-culture, cultural I guess I should say, because I still have a lot of my
Mexican culture that I grew up with, but at the same time I’m Americanized. I have
American, I guess American culture, American ways, and I speak both languages, and
I’m fluent. In fact, I would have to say at this point in my life, English is my first
language because it’s the language that I communicate with, in, all the time. So, to me
that’s what being Mexican American means and that you do have a part of your culture
that you were born with and born into but at the same time, you adopted American ways
and American cultures or cultural ways in your lifestyle.
Alissa Molina: So not everyone can be a Mexican American even if they say they are?
Sarah Molina: Well I think there are Mexicans who adopt, you know, they come to this
country and they adopt some, I think, some cultural ways and can become Mexican
American, and sometimes, you know I think, if they’re predominant lifestyle/culture is
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Celebrating Latino-American Artists and Community Oral History Project
probably more American, would that make them, I don’t know, more Mexican
American? But, I do think that it means to adopt those ways, these American cultural
ways in your lifestyle would make you more Mexican American cause I’ve seen people
who are immigrants that have come to this country that haven’t really adopted
American cultural ways. They still speak Spanish. They don’t/haven’t learned English,
and a lot of their cultural ways are still predominately Mexican or Hispanic.
Alissa Molina: Okay. So as a Mexican American, when you were looking to get married,
did you think it was important to marry someone who was also Mexican American?
Sarah Molina: I did for me, for me that was very important, and the reason it was
important was because I wanted to pass on my cultural or my culture to my children,
even though I’m bi-culture. But I still wanted to hold onto certain things of my culture
or from my culture and pass them on to my children, and I knew the only way to do that
was, and even, to marry someone else who was Mexican American because we would
have those things in common. For example speaking our language, Spanish, the foods
that we eat, other things are like our traditions, some of our Hispanic or Mexican
traditions and even parenting—parenting styles and family. The Mexican
culture/Hispanic culture, we value family very much, and I wanted to have that in
common with my husband. For example, my father passed away and my mother
outlived my father for many years and being an only child, and all our relatives are back
in Texas, I felt it was important for my mother to not be alone. And so she lived with us
for about 14 years, and I think that’s part of my faith to take care of my mother, but it
was also a part of my culture. It’s part of how we see our parents, that we take care of
our parents, and that was, those were some of the reasons it was important for me to
marry someone who was also Mexican American.
Alissa Molina: And how would you say so in the parenting aspect?
Sarah Molina: In the parenting aspect, well maybe it’s not so common, but I think we as
Mexican- Americans, we have I think, well we have certain expectations from our
children and the way we discipline is probably different culturally than other cultures.
And we also, how we view the importance of children in our family is something maybe
different than other cultures. I’m not saying that other cultures don’t value their
children, but, you know, we pamper our boys, we kind of do that. We tend to pamper
our boys, and our girls we tend to treat them a little more like princesses, I guess you
could say, and we just love on our kids. Even though we have expectations and
sometimes we, we’re firm and we discipline our kids, but we also are very affectionate
with our children, and we love them, and we want them to know that they’re very much
loved and valued and that’s just part of our culture.
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Alissa Molina: And how would you say that you’re treated as a Mexican American in the
United States and or Arizona?
Sarah Molina: Well it’s, it’s been my experience that in the places that I’ve lived so far, I
haven’t had any real issues. Like I said I grew up in California for a little while, and then
I moved to a small town here in Arizona—Casa Grande. And so I really didn’t feel a lot
of discrimination, and I have aunts and uncles who have, you know, they’re educated.
They’ve gone to college. My mother went to college; she studied music. My father was,
he graduated from seminary. I have an uncle who, you know, was a physical education
major and then got his master’s in engineering. I have an aunt who has a bachelor’s in
nursing, and I had an uncle, who is, well he’s passed on but he was, back in the time, he
was a professional golfer, Joe Jimenez. And he was a golfer in a time when that was
uncommon, and he was only one of two golfers. The other Hispanic or Mexican golfer
was Lee Trevino, and so they really paved the way for Mexican-Americans to be
successful and not be viewed as just, as a stereotype. And so in that aspect I really
haven’t, you know, but that’s been my experience. I know that for other people that may
not necessarily have been their experience.
Alissa Molina: Have you ever been discriminated or stereotyped against?
Sarah Molina: Yes, I have been discriminated against. Maybe not in a, how would you
say, I don’t know what word to use…
Alissa Molina: Blatant?
Sarah Molina: Yeah, blatant discrimination. But I have felt it. There have, I’ve
experienced that and quite honestly I think that I’ve experienced it more living here in
Chandler. When we first moved here, I would go out into the community, and I had
never experienced that before being in a store and actually sensing that someone really
didn’t even want to wait on me at a store. And so, I think I’ve experienced that more
often here in Chandler than I have anywhere else. That’s really been my experience.
Stereotyped? Yes, there are people I’ve encountered that have, I think, have kind of
viewed, because, being Mexican, that you’re not educated or you’re not how would you
say, you can’t speak, or you’re not as intelligent as they are because they’re of a different
culture, you know, or nationality. And so, yeah, I’ve been stereotyped in that aspect too.
In fact, my son was stereotyped, actually profiled at a Best Buy store here in the
community. He was in there shopping, and he was getting ready to leave. He had
picked up a piece of merchandise, something that he was looking at. He put it back, and
because of the way he was dressed and because he, you can tell he’s Mexican as he was
leaving the store, one of the managers approached him and said “Sir would you please
return the item,” and my son is looking at him like—my son hadn’t taken anything. And,
but, just because of the way he was dressed and the way he looked, he was racially
profiled and that’s never, never happened to me or to my family anywhere that we’ve
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lived, and so I think that’s my first real blatant discrimination that I’ve experienced here
in the United States.
Alissa Molina: Do you think it’s more because of skin color, versus anything, like, skin
color?
Sarah Molina: Yes, yes. Because my son and I, we share the same skin color we’re, we
have a darker complexion and my husband is also Mexican American, but he’s very fair
and he has blue eyes and a lot of people see him and they think he’s Anglo. And I think
that’s another thing, I think people have a stereotype that Hispanics or Mexicans, I
should keep saying, only look one way, that they’re dark skin and they don’t understand
that Mexicans come in such a variety of skin tones you know and you can go to Mexico,
which I have, because I have Mexican, I have relatives in Mexico and they can be fair,
and blonde, and blue eyed. I have some aunts on my father’s side that had green eyes
and they were very, very light skinned. And so when people encounter Mexicans who
look Anglo they’re…they’re kind of like caught off guard I guess because they don’t
expect that and, so yeah, I think it’s because of our skin color—causes people to
stereotype.
Alissa Molina: Yeah, that’s really unfortunate.
Sarah Molina: Mhm. But it’s real.
Alissa Molina: Mhm. As a Mexican American, how do you balance both of the cultures?
SUBJECT: Balancing both cultures, I don’t know, I think it’s just part of something, it’s
just part of who you are. You know? You’re an American but you have a second language
and you’re home life is one where, you know, you share—you eat both, you eat both
Mexican food and you eat American food. I mean I know how to, I can prepare both
types of meals and enjoy them. And same thing at home, my husband and I can
communicate in either language and it’s just part of who you, who you are. And it’s
actually cool, I guess you could say, because you can encounter somebody who is
Spanish speaking or who’s Mexican American and you can communicate to them in
Spanish or you know, you can commun…, you can encounter somebody who’s nonHispanic and relate to them on that because you share the same American culture and
language. And so it kind of makes you a very diverse person in that aspect and if you’re
communicating with another Mexican American, you can be speaking in English and
you have a thought or idea and you don’t really have an English word or even you do but
you’d rather use a Spanish word because it communicates so much easier right, straight
to the point and you can use that word and they totally understand you.
Alissa Molina: Yeah, it’s easy just to switch back and forth.
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Sarah Molina: Yeah. Mhm.
Alissa Molina: And as a Mexican American, do you feel Mexican nationals accept you as
one of their own?
Sarah Molina: Being a Mexican American? No, no, no. [Laughs] Unfortunately. I
shouldn’t say that, there are some immigrants that, that are here in this country and
when they meet you and you can speak to them in Spanish it makes them happy and
comfortable that they have met somebody that they can communicate with, you know,
and so it brings that commonality together. But there are a lot Mexican Americans,
though, that don’t accept you as one of them because, because you’re biculture,
bicultural.
Alissa Molina: You mean Mexican nationals.
Sarah Molina: Yeah I’m sorry Mexican immigrants, yes. And they kind of view you I
think as, I don’t know what the word would be.
Alissa Molina: Would you say snotty?
Sarah Molina: Yeah I think so! Because I think they do, I think they think that you view
yourself as better than them because you speak two languages and you can navigate in,
here in the United States a lot easier than they can and so, I guess, they kinda, that
kinda makes them feel, I don’t know…?
Alissa Molina: Inferior?
Sarah Molina: Inferior or threatened. But once they get to know you and they realize
that, you know, you have a lot in common with them, then they’re more accepting.
Alissa Molina: Which makes sense. What customs or traditions do you value most and
why?
Sarah Molina: I think one of the things, well I don’t know if this is a custom or a
tradition, but family. I think that’s one of the things I value, that you know, that we
value like at Christmas time and Thanksgiving, I know a lot of other culture as well, you
know, so it’s, not just our culture, but we find that as very, very important. I think that
we get together for those kinds of holidays and we spend, we make the effort to spend
time together. We still go and spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with my in-laws, who
are in Tucson, and other times of the year, their, my in-laws’ birthday, things like that
we make time, family is very important, we’re not Catholic so we don’t have those
traditions. But we do find faith is very important. We’re Baptist, but faith is still a very
important part of our family life and traditions that we do is…. Church is important.
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Faith is important. I can’t think right now of any other ones that come to my mind right
now. We also, there’s certain things that we do we eat menudo, tamales, at Christmas
time and menudo for New Year’s and bunuelos and things like that that are customs and
traditions still in our family, and those are things that we need to preserve and pass on
to the younger generation.
Alissa Molina: Do you feel you’ve done an effective job passing on your MexicanAmerican culture to your children? Why or why not?
Sarah Molina: I, in some ways, yes. I see my children, that they appreciate their culture.
They appreciate their family. They enjoy the music, the food. They appreciate those
things. The family is important to them. I can see that and the only thing that my
husband I failed in was teaching our children Spanish. I think we got comfortable when
our children were young as we communicated mostly in English and then of course our
kids went to school and, you know, English is their first language, and I know that that’s
one area that we failed in. I know that my son and daughter, or both you and your
brother understand Spanish, and I know you’ve studied Spanish in school but, the,
that’s I think an area that we failed in, but I think they appreciate our culture, that we
are a passionate culture, and those types of things about who we are as Mexican
Americans. Unfortunately, my husband and I, our ministry has mostly been in mixed,
multicultural churches, and so English has always been the predominant language, and
so they didn’t grow up in a Spanish-speaking church the way my husband, and I did and
sharing, hearing that language, and learning it the way we did.
Alissa Molina: What do you treasure the most regarding your family heritage? I know
we’ve kinda talked about this a little bit, is there anything else?
Sarah Molina: Yeah, family heritage…I think what I treasure, the things that I treasure is
that even though my mother was Mexican American and my father, he became, you
know, he was, he became Mexican American as well, but that they still instilled their
culture, our culture in me, even though my mother and her side of the family, her aunts
and uncles, I mean her brothers and sisters, were also Mexican American, that would
make me I guess second generation Mexican American, but we still treasure those things
about our culture, the food, the language, even music and things like that but I think
that what I treasure is that they, even though we are who we are, we’re Mexican, but that
they paved the way by getting an education and showing us that in a time where it
wasn’t easy to be able to do that , that they did it, you know. They are the example of,
you know, successful Mexican Americans that had to work hard and study. My mother
was the first Mexican American to graduate from her high school. I have a picture of my
mother and she’s the only Hispanic, or Mexican, person in her graduating class. The
rest were all Anglo, and so that was not easy for them because it was uncommon. Most
kids didn’t graduate—Mexican kids did not graduate high school because they went to
work. You know, they went to work to help support the family. And my grandmother,
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even though she was from Mexico, it was important, both my grandparents on my
mother side, it was important they said, that education was important and it didn’t
matter that, you know, maybe the world said that’s not what Mexican Americans can do
or can accomplish, but they did it. And I think that’s what they passed on in my family
that we can do it. Si se puede, you know, it’s not something we should allow others who
have stereotypes about Mexicans or Mexican Americans to keep us back.
Alissa Molina: What would you say you love most about being Mexican American?
Sarah Molina: Well, I think everything that I’ve shared. I think, I mean I love being
Mexican American because we have again, family, love, all these things, the food, the
things that we all share in common. I think that we have a sense of care for our older
generation, which I think is being lost in our culture here in the United States and even
within our own culture. I think how we, we care for our kids. I mean, I grew up, my
generation and generations before me, it’s changing now, but, especially, you did not,
family was so important it’s a close knit, knittedness, that you didn’t leave home unless
it was to get married, and it was probably more so for daughters than more so for sons.
But you just didn’t break away from the family just because. There had to be a purpose
and a reason, like if you had to go away to school or you were in the military or
something like that. But for the most part we stayed together as a family and we stayed
within the same community. It’s changing now because we have become a much more
mobile society, but I think those are the things that I value is family, and that we still
like to spend time as a family together which is something, is something I think that
we’re kind of losing in a lot of ways.
Alissa Molina: Besides the ones you said are there any other traditions or pieces of your
heritage you would like to see preserved?
Sarah Molina: Yeah, I think our language, our language, again, you know, family, who
we are as a people. There’s just things about our culture that I think we need to hold
onto. Sometimes, I think I see our younger generations becoming more and more
Americanized and so they become, which is good, but don’t forget, you know, who you
are, what your culture is. I think it’s important to preserve your roots, who you are.
Both my grandparents on both sides of my family were from Mexico. And it’s who we
are, we came to this country, my grandparents came to this country and for a better life,
seeking a better life, which I think is the reason most people come to this country, but I
think we need to learn to balance and not forget who we are as a people and hold on to
those things that make us Mexican.
Alissa Molina: Would you say there’s anything you’ve learned in life due to your
heritage, anything else?
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Sarah Molina: I think for me it would be perseverance. Perseverance…to persevere. I
think, I hate to say it, but when you’re a minority, maybe it’s changing now, and I think
it is changing now with the millennials, but from my generation and previous
generations, you really had to prove, prove yourself. You weren’t easily expected to be
able to succeed or to have the same abilities as non-Hispanics and so you had to work
harder, you had to work harder in school, work harder in your occupations to be able to
prove that you’re just as capable as a non-Hispanic, and so I think that has taught me, is
perseverance.
Alissa Molina: And in reference to that, do you have any success and/or struggle stories?
Sarah Molina: Success or struggle stories, I can’t really say I’ve had a lot of struggle
stories. I’ve been blessed in that aspect. Success, I would have to say that probably in
my academics, when I was growing up in school, I was able to do well academically.
After graduating high school, I went to Pima College in Tucson, and I graduated with
Honors from Pima College and because of that I also received a Regents, an Arizona
Regents Scholarship to the U of A, and I majored in secondary education, and so those
have really been my success stories. I’ve been able to teach private school and work in
public school and work with children on the south side of Tucson that may have come
from predominantly Hispanic homes, probably were first generation Mexicans, but yet
helped them to succeed. I think, that’s I think, another important thing about being
Mexican-American is that there have been other people who have paved the way for us
to be successful, and I think it’s important for us not to forget those that still need help
in succeeding, other Mexican-Americans that still need help, to help them succeed. Just
like we had other people pave the way and even help us along the way. I think it’s
important for us to give back to our own Mexican-American, Mexican communities here
in the United States, here in Arizona and help others to be able to succeed and reach
those, those goals themselves if they want to, if they choose to, and to be able to help
them be a success story just as we have been able to. And also I worked at the Arizona
State School for the Deaf and the Blind for seven years, and being able to help people
who are disabled to succeed and so those are things, those are success stories that I
think are part of my story that I’m thankful for.
Alissa Molina: What would you say to the younger Mexican-American generation today?
Sarah Molina: What would I say? Well, I would say, again, not to forget where you come
from. I think, especially if you have humble beginnings, I think that’s part, of most
Mexicans are like that, we don’t forget where we come from even though we have
become successful in life and not to forget who you are. I understand, as I have, you
adapt, your Mexican American you’re born here, part of you is Mexican part of you is
American. And I think that’s wonderful, we’re Americans really, it’s what we are we just
happen to come from Mexican descent, and so, but it’s still a part of who we are and not
to forget that part of yourself and, you know, go for it and you need to go for it and be a
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Celebrating Latino-American Artists and Community Oral History Project
success and not let anyone tell you that it can’t be done or that you can’t do it because
you can. And it’s something that you’re going to have to work for, and, but it will be
your success story, and to turn around and help someone else who may need that help
also and not to forget. You know, I think if I had become a doctor, I think I would’ve
been a doctor that would want to go back and tend to, work in a community where I
could help other Mexicans, other Mexican Americans, you know. You know, and that’s
everybody’s choice. There are some Mexicans that have become very successful and
they have moved on, you know, and that’s not necessarily what they do. They don’t go
back, you know, to where they came from or, but, and that’s cool, too, you know. That’s
what this country is about. But I just think that’s important to be able to give back to
those that who also need help accomplishing what we’ve accomplished or what they can
accomplish. But yeah, you know, go for it but don’t forget, don’t forget who you are,
who, you, know, that you are American but you’re also, part of you is Mexican.
Alissa Molina: Don’t forget where your family came from.
Sarah Molina: Yeah
Alissa Molina: Is there anything else you would like to add that we have not discussed
yet in the interview?
Sarah Molina: I don’t think so, I don’t know that there’s anything else I can possibly
share. Do you have any more questions for me? Did I pretty much cover what it means?
I hope I’ve communicated it in a way that’s clear, understandable and understand who I
am, and that I am proud, proud to be biculture, and I hope that I can help the younger
generation, be an example, a model, a role model of what you can accomplish.
Alissa Molina: I think you have. That’s why I chose you.
Sarah Molina: Good.
Alissa Molina: Alright well, thank you.
Sarah Molina: You are welcome!
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