Making a Living

Making a living is a priority for all of us.  Chandler Latinos had many jobs both in town and out.

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"No, I never did go to school.  No, we were too damn poor, we had to work for a living.” -Frank Perez

 “My Aunt Ruth, that we lived with, she worked for Saba’s Department Store…My mother went to work at the Chandler Cleaners…She [mother] used to know a lot of people that came to the San Marcos who took all their cleaning there….My Aunt Ruth would sell them the goods at Saba’s and then they’d go over to the cleaners and have their clothes altered…All in the family!” -Josephine Soto

 “See I was zanjero, I used to start…the pumps. After they got done watering the cotton, I would start cleaning [the main canal] out, throw out all the dirt… We used to drag [the canals] with some mules, get that moss out of there. We hooked them up right here, and then we went down to Pecos, and then in the afternoon we’d drag them up to pretty close to the reservation… Afterward we had a backhoe with a pole, with a chain on it… Oh I worked a lot of years on that canal.” -Jose Romero

 What kind of jobs or education did your family members pursue?