Interview with Eva Bonilla Part 1: Family Activism Ms. Bonilla: Well, we were first of all fourth generation on the barrio that I grew up in on the street, Weisenberger street. And my dad, he had been in the navy so he had some physical problems on his back. He became, I guess it was called Ankylosing Spondylitis. So he wasn’t able to work very much and when he did he was a craftsman. He made furniture. And my mother was an elevator operator when I was growing up. And she—well my father was able to graduate from Paschal High school—but my mother only went to sixth grade. I was the first to gradate from high school and college in my family and also, my father, though he had some physical problems and couldn’t be straight up, he was very active in the GI Forum [American GI Forum]. He was a navy man and he has history that they recorded, a live video on him at the state library--wherever in Austin or San Antonio where they have that library because he was a World War II veteran. He also has a park named here in Fort Worth because of all the things he did for the community, being the first Precinct Chair of the Democratic Party, starting the Viva Kennedy club here, being involved in the first president of PASSO—Political Association of Spanish Speaking Organizations—which started because the GI Forum could not do political things. They were a nonprofit. And you know their causes, what they did. Well, because of that I saw him do all this and he used us as cheap labor. My brother and I and my sister to hand out information. So in, I guess 1963, I was out there at fourteen trying to help abolish the poll tax. Back they the poll tax was only three dollars and fifty cents, but it was a lot for a family to pay $3.50. So we tried to get them to pay the poll tax, but at the same time when we found out that we could try to abolish the poll tax. Every Sunday morning at church passing out petitions to try to abolish that. So most of my beginnnings in getting involved was because of my father.