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Medrano / Pancho Medrano's Early Life

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Interviewer-"Uh, and what are your parents names?" Mr. Medrano-My parents is Francisco Pancho Medrano and mother's is Esperanza Medrano. Interviewer-"Um, do you know how they met?" Mr. Medrano-Uhh, they met at a dance, um probably when he was 18, 19 years old, so my mother they were about couple years apart, so they met at a neighborhood dance. Interviewer-"Was he a boxer at that time, by then" Mr. Medrano-No, no he was not a boxer, no he was actually a little bit, he only obtained a formal education. Interviewer-"Mm" Mr. Medrano-He obtained it until the eighth grade, upon arrive in high school at occasional technical high school, which is my alma mater, which I graduated from there, that, that time the administration, he wore little sandals and holes in his blue jeans and they would not admit him because of his attire, thats the only reason they said, "you can't dress like this, you either dress up properly, or you cant come, you're not admitted to this school, unless you come with dress code. Interviewer-"Right, and thats when he started breaking rocks for, right?" Mr. Medrano-Yea, he immediately being at that age in eighth grade places you probably at 14 or 15 years old at that time, and then he starts looking for employment, where he could find employment, he started, went to a rock quarry because for who's hiring in the neighborhood, there's a rock quarry called [?] and you can go down there and they are sledging hammer, there was no machinary [?] rocks or things like that, they need to excavate and crush them as much as they could, but when it came down to [?] grind them down to small size and thats what they hired, labor [?] that's where his physique starts building up, starts getting in shape, he's muscular real, I guess his growth came out of that because [?] he ended up being six feet one tall. Interviewer-"And he was heavyweight, so he was a boxer two hundred pounds?" Mr. Medrano-two hundred pounds plus, he really, he did that, now were talking about 1940, so [?] age of , born in 1920 that place is in the age of 20, the world war begins, world war II and the North America Aviation, what you call [?] what you call at that time, they start building parts of war planes and they began hiring there, and when they began hiring there, then he found out that they were hiring and he commuted in a bycicle, were talking about 14-16 miles this side to that side in a bycicle and they hired him. So, now he's traveling in a bycicle daily, 16 one way, 16 back. That is attribute to his physicness, his abs, his muscular [?] and making good income at that time, and he was making whatever the rate was at that time. And at that time, we are screened by, we were born in the Dallas housing

Interview Interview with Robert Medrano
Subjects Family
Work › "Mexican Jobs"
Housing › Public Housing
Housing › Low Income Housing
Military › World War II
Class and Status › Upward Mobility
Tags Cement City Rock Quarry
North American Aviation
Temco
Dallas Housing Authority
Medrano, Francisco "Pancho"
Little Mexico, Dallas, TX
Crozier Technical High School, Dallas, TX
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Interview date 2015-06-10
Interview source CRBB Summer 2015
Interviewees Medrano, Robert
Interviewers Acuña-Gurrola, Moisés
Duration 00:04:39
Citation "Pancho Medrano's Early Life," from Robert Medrano oral history interview with Moisés Acuña-Gurrola,  June 10, 2015, Dallas, TX, Civil Rights in Black and Brown Interview Database, https://crbb.tcu.edu/clips/253/pancho-medrano-s-early-life, accessed October 17, 2025