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Moreno, Joseph (audio interview #3 of 3)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This is the last of three interviews conducted for an American Indian Studies class. Details of the interview process are lacking. 12/5/1978 12:00:00 AM
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- 2019-09-26
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- SUBJECT BIO - Joseph John Moreno was born in the small settlement of Green Valley in what is today Encinitas . Although baptismal records recorded his birth date as 1897, he accepted his father's claim of 1898, which was used for all his official records. His mother (Micaela Gilbert) was Chumash Indian, Irish, and Spanish from Santa Barbara, California. His father (Jose Gabriel Moreno), who was Mayo Indian and Spanish came from Sonora, Mexico to California as a boy. Moreno was raised among the Kumeyaay (Diegeno) and Payoomkachoom (Luiseno) people in the present day Pala, Escondido, and San Diego area. After his parents separated, when he was four years old, he was placed in an orphanage in Anaheim, where he remained for one year, during which time he had learned some English. After he returned to live with his father, the family moved around quite a bit and he was pulled out of school for long stretches to work. At the age of fourteen, he left home briefly and then returned and worked in the sugar beet fields until age eighteen. From 1917 to 1927, Moreno worked in construction in San Pedro and then returned home to care for his father. During the Depression, he rode the rails and worked at a variety of jobs in Arizona and Mexico. Although not discussed in his interviews, from the 1940s until the 1960s, Moreno was an active member of Piledrivers Local 2375, Wilmington - one of the few people of color to be allowed into the union - and served more than two terms as president of the Local. He was inducted into the AFL-CIO Labor Hall of Fame in 1991 and is featured in Archie Green's, Wobblies, Pile Butts and Other Heroes (University of Illinois Press, 1993). Green alludes to Moreno's Chumash heritage, mentioning "intricate walking stick topped by a carved blue sea dolphin." Moreno began to remember, explore and affirm his Chumash heritage in the 1950s after he was reconciled with his mother, before her death. Later, after his retirement in the 1970s, he moved to Banning, California with his wife, Rosita, a Tohono/Akimal O'odham woman from Arizona. They lived at the Morongo Cahuilla and Serrano Morongo Indian Reservation, where she was Director for the Food for the Aged Program. He became a known herbalist and Native artist on the reservation, making gourd rattles, bows and arrows, rabbit (throwing) sticks, shell jewelry, bone awls and needles, walking sticks and more, often selling his pieces at the annual reservation fiestas and on the intertribal Pow Wow circuit. Some of his work ended up in local museums. By the 1980s, Moreno was a well-known Elder in the intertribal Indian community, and was often asked to perform respected duties like blessing the grounds before a Pow Wow or Fiesta, conducting Naming Ceremonies, and Opening Prayers for ceremonies. He traveled to Santa Barbara with his family to attend the monthly meetings of the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation. At the time, he was the oldest living Chumash Elder of the Coastal Band and was recognized by other Chumash groups, as well, and was one of the honored Elders at a special gathering at the Santa Ynez (Chumash) Reservation. His daughter, Georgiana Sanchez notes: "Despite the hardships and heartache of his early life, Joseph John died a Chumash man, beloved and respected by his family, the Chumash community, and the intertribal Indian community. His funeral services included Chumash ceremonies at the all-night vigil and at the gravesite." [Note: Moreno's Chumash heritage is touched upon only very briefly in his oral history, and because the interview with him was conducted in 1978, there is no record of his later activities and status as an artist and Elder. These details, as well as information about his union activism, were provided by his daughter, American Indian Studies professor and poet, Georgiana Sanchez.] TOPICS - logging work; lumber camps; life during the Depression; and hunting deer for food; logging; riding freight trains during the Depression;and working on a ranch in Mexico;
- *** File: aijmoreno7.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-4:36)... The Depression hit around 1931 and Moreno could not find work; jobs and money were scarce. By this time, he learned to survive out in the desert and was prepared for what was coming. Around this time, his niece was married and her husband came to get Moreno who was boarding at a house. The two men traveled by freight train. Moreno notes that this was a free way to travel during the Depression and that millions of people did, including families. (4:36-7:48)... Moreno ended up in Douglas, Arizona at the end of 1931 and got a job above a cattle ranch in Long John Canyon. He worked there forty-two days making $1.50 a day. He received .10 cents a log, but they had to be from trees marked by the Forestry Department and couldn't be longer than twelve feet. Moreno recalls hearing a wolf howling, but when he told his boss - who did not like him - he didn't believe him. Later a cowboy came up from the cattle ranch and said he had shot one. (7:48-16:02)... Moreno was riding in the country where the Apaches had been and there was some action with the soldiers. He had learned to tame deer from tricks he had learned from some Indians he had met. He came within twenty-five feet of a doe with a fawn while he was following a herd of pigs. He recounts in detail the story of falling over the edge of a ridge and grabbing onto a century plant. He started up the slope and found his hat; further up, he saw the tip of his rifle and made his way up to the ridge. During this adventure, he came upon something he had heard about from old timers: wolves taking up with coyotes, who they made into slaves. (16:02-30:24)... Moreno cooked on an open fire and lived in a camp while he was working cutting logs. Two dogs slept on his feet, which kept him warm and kept the dogs from being cold. There were eight men in the camp, and every morning one of them would start the coffee. Moreno went to hunt deer for food one day and although he found a deer, he could not get close enough to shoot it. The men teased him when he got back. None of them were working because the night before a skunk had gotten into camp and ruined all of their food. Moreno ate a cold potato and then went back up the canyon. Some does ran by on the trial and he shot at them. He hit one of them and followed the tracks and the blood. He recounts following the tracks, noting how he had learned from his father that every doe has different hoof prints. By the time he found the deer, he was so tired, he just hung it high up in a tree. He cut some fur off and put it in his pocket and went back to camp. When he got back to camp, the men didn't notice the fur and initially teased him again. Three of the men took off then to get the deer. End of tape *** File: aijmoreno8.mp3 (0:00-5:06)... Moreno kept chopping trees during below zero weather. He didn't mind it; he was young and tough. The men who left to get the doe came back to camp with it. They skinned the deer and started to cook the meat. The men still had skunk smell on their clothes and food. (5:06-11:15)... Some time later Moreno's nephew made a trip to El Paso to visit a friend in Corona who was an ex-fighter. He notes that during the Depression, men made an extra few dollars fighting. He wouldn't do it for the amount they were paying - only $10/fight. Moreno and his nephew took a train to get back to Douglas, but discovered that they were on the wrong train and went to Tucson, Arizona. They rode in open flat cars or on top of the cars in the summer. They never had problems riding the freight trains during the Depression although he had heard stories about people being murdered. He notes that there was an unwritten rule that families had the right to have their own space on the cars. Sometimes there were fifty people on one side of the car and a family on the other side. Moreno saw all sorts of people on the train: bankers, families with small babies, and young people. He always traveled with someone he trusted because many of the young boys were trouble makers. (11:15-15:16)... Moreno continues to describe trying to return to Douglas after he and his nephew ended up in Tucson by mistake. All they had to eat for two days were prickly pears. They finally got to Douglas,and saw Moreno's sister. (15:16-30:36)... After Moreno left his job cutting trees he went back to Mexico. His nephew's brothers had some land and they asked Moreno to work. Moreno helped his nephew in January 1931 and spent the night on the ranch in Mexico. He explains that around 1929, 1930 the US government picked up all of the Mexicans, if they were citizens or not, and shipped them on trains back to Mexico. [Editor's note: the major deportations actually occurred in 1934.] A little later In response, the Mexican government sent all Americans back to the US, so it was really against the law for Moreno to be working in Mexico. However, nobody checked and Moreno and his nephew went to work on the ranch. Moreno was told that if he could put a bridle on a mule in less than ten minutes he could have a job. He was offered a peso a day (the equivalent of about .36 cents) and he worked nine hours a day. He was offered another half peso if he got up at 3 am. and feed the animals and made breakfast. He ended us working from 3 am to 11 p.m. some days, making only 1.5 pesos. He was young and had made the deal so he worked. End of tape
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