Constructing a Community

As the town of Chandler grew, Latino residents asked for a school in their own neighborhood.

“I went to Winn School and the Winn School was all Mexicans. You know why they built that? The Mexican folks said, ‘build us a school down here because it’s too hard for our kids to go over there.’ That was a school built for the Mexicans, not because they wanted to keep them separate.” -Susan Rosales

Latino residents literally had a hand in constructing their community.

We had a makeshift ballpark over there on Hidalgo…we put a diamond together to play ball, and we played the people from Morelos and Hidalgo…we had our little teams.” -Philip Duenas

“And they gathered money from the other churches, which helped us a lot, and then to start building the [Free Methodist] church they started to make adobes. My father was one of the workers, and my two brothers, and they had other helpers, too, and they built the church out of adobes.” -Esperanza Moncivaiz

What community places were important to your family?