Oral history interview, Virgina Alvarez, 2013 (video and transcript)

The interview covers Virginia Alvarez’s early life in northeast Boulder County where her parents were farmworkers. Her parents moved to Boulder County from Mexico in 1929, many years before Virginia was born, in 1942. When she was a child, they did farm work in the Longmont area, moving around from one farm to another annually. Virginia talks about feeling isolated or left out growing up, especially when she was very young because there were not many Hispanics living where she did. She went to school in Longmont from first grade through high school, and she remarks on the dynamics between Hispanics and Anglos in the schools, which were for the most part lacking conflict. IBM brought in many new Latinos. She describes her family being poor, too poor for her to join clubs at Longmont High School, for example. She worked for an OEO [Office of Economic Opportunity] program with Senior Citizens in the 1960s, throughout Boulder County. She learned her life philosophy from her family, which is to respect people and to do whatever job you’re doing the best that you can. Virginia says she sees less division now between Anglos and Hispanics in Longmont, in part because Hispanics have opened businesses that non-Hispanics also support and in part because Hispanic kids are getting educations and so doors are opening to them.