Ms. Rizo-I was born in 1947 and I'm 67 and I'll be 68 this June. Interviewer-"And, where were you born?" Ms. Rizo-Dallas, Tx. Interviewer-"Where were your parents from?" Ms. Rizo-My father was born in Dallas, TX, my mother was born in Lot, TX which is in the Austin area. All of my mother's side of the family is from Lot, Austin area, they worked on ranches and farms, generations back to when it was Mexico and the republic. Um, on my father's side of the family, my [?] grandparents are from San Luis Port au sin and people accuse me, all the time, of being Italian, not Mexican and I tell them, I'm probably am because its Rizo with one Z, but remember [?] Cologne was not Spanish, she was Italian, so he brought a bunch of Italians with him. And, also, somewhere along the way, it was onsies not twosies, but I'm not been able to track that, so I can't really say so, but I woul'nt doubt it. Mexican's are of mixed blood. Interviewer-"How did your parents meet?" Ms. Rizo-In elementary school, in Little Mexico, um, my mother's maiden name is Torres, T-O-R-R-E-S, and they happend to live on a house that was on Ackered Street, you know where the original Phoenix location is on McKinney on Will Rogers Freeway and they happened to live right smack where Will Rogers is coming through, so all of those folks that lived up and down Ackered and up and down McKinney had to move. They were displaced, they we'rent invited to leave, their properties were'nt purchase, they were, they said, you have next day to leave you know, so, we would up in West Dallas. I grew up with my mother divorced, single parent with my maternal parents in West Dallas and back then, Dallas was not part of the city, it was an incorporated part of the county, so we had no utilities. Interviewer-"Can you describe what the neighborhood looked like?" Ms. Rizo-It looked rural, it had a lot of houses, but if anyone had indoor plumbing, they had to put a septic tanks, and got to a great deal of expense, streets were not paved. Burnell Drive was black-topped, um, I remember it was a big neighborhood event when the cement was poured in front of [?] elementary school because teachers got tired of getting stuck in the mud. I started APL in elementary school, which is on Norma Street. I was a second grader, I had to go to Thomas Edison Elementary School, back then it was an elementary school when the building was a cinder block building, and the other one was a frame buiding and thats where I went to the first grade, there was no public kindergarten way back then and..Interviewer-"Is this a segregated school or...?" Ms. Rizo-No, whites and Mexicans got to go to the same schools in West Dallas, the Mexicans were the majority, yes, there was segragated, but we couldn't go to school with blacks. Um, later on, there was a junior high school and high school in West Dallas which is [?] high school, but we were not allowed to go there cause it was for blacks and we had to pay our own transportation, public transportation to go to downtown to [?] and if you didn't had the money to pay for your own transportation, you were just out of luck.........