Part I:
The Early Years: Growing Up With Segregation in Pomona in the 1920s, 30s & 40s - Neighborhoods, Swimming Pools, Movie Theaters, Public Schools & Jobs.
By Julian Lucas
Edited by Pamela Casey Nagler
Published 8:30 Am PST
Nell Soto
In this interview, conducted by Carlos Vasquez of the UCLA and State Government Oral History Program, Former Pomona City Council Member Nell Soto (1926-2009) talks about her early days growing up as a Spanish/Mexican girl and young adult, and, later, describes her days helping her politician husband, Assemblyman Phil Soto in the 1960s.
Soto was proud that her husband broke race barriers in California politics:
“I think the most significant thing to me was that Phil [Soto’s husband] was one of the first Hispanic legislators. To me, that was very significant. Although he never ran on that banner, as the standard-bearer of anything, it was very coolly and calmly accepted. But we knew that we had broken a barrier— the two of us knew it— that had been there for years;- - I mean, in the whole century of this State, a state that had been founded by and been [part of] Mexico, they had never had a Mexican in the legislature. I think that is still significant, and I would hope that somebody would put that in the history. To me, it’s really very important that people know that.” (pages 55-6)
She also acknowledged that she would have liked to have run for office herself in the 60s, 70s, 80s, but the time was not right for a woman: “My mother used to say, ‘Why don't you run? Why don't you? That poor guy [Soto’s husband]! You're just making him run! You're always campaigning. Why don't you run it? You're the one that should run.’ I'd say, ‘Ma, people are never going to elect me. This is not the time for women. Women are not going to be elected.’ I would have loved to have run then. I would still love it, to be an assemblyperson, but I'm too old now. That'll never happen.” (47)
However, history proved Soto wrong on this one. She served as an Assembly member between 1998 and 2000, and again in 2006 and 2008. In the interim, she served as a member of the California State Senate. In 2006, she authored legislation that included expansion of the Nell Soto Teacher Involvement program, improving foster care licensing, and improving welfare to work programs.
During Soto’s life, she attended many colleges and loved to study, but poverty, jobs, marriage, babies and politics interfered. She took many business courses because that was expected, but she loved history and English - and loved to write. She talks about attending Mt. Sac in Pomona in the early days:
“A lot of the G.I.'s who came back from the war just went back and enrolled at Mount San Antonio [College]. A lot of us had never gone on to higher education, so we went to school there. That was quite an experience because Mount San Antonio, if you see it now, is a beautiful college campus. In those days it was in army barracks on dirt hills. We had to climb through mud and rain to get to the barracks to our classes, but it was fun.” (3)
Throughout the interview, Soto’s vibrant personality and optimism shines through. Even though she grew up in poverty with the attendant problems of segregation and discrimination, she says, “It was a fun life because we used to laugh at everything. No matter what happened, we would make fun of things that happened to us. Being so poor, it didn't really matter.” (15-6)
At the end of the interview, she sums up her life in politics when the interviewer asks her, “Of all the lessons that you learned in your political experiences to date, which stands out most in your mind?” She answers, “About politics, either as a woman, as a wife of a politician, or as a principal player? Always keep your back to the wall.” (107)
Nell Soto Part I: The Early Years: Growing Up in Segregated Pomona in the 20s, 30s & 40s - Neighborhoods, Swimming Pools, Movie Theaters, Public Schools & Jobs
NELL SOTO: I’m a sixth or seventh-generation Pomonan. I don't know which, but my dad always said we were seventh generation. I've gone back and counted, but he must have known . . . My grandfather [Antonio Marta Garcia] was from the Palomares and Yorba and Veja people who got the land grants here in Pomona. My great-great-great-grandmother [Nelli Garcia] was a Garcia who married into the Palomareses and Vejars. Some of them are buried here in the historical cemetery [Palomares Cemetery]. My great-grandfather [Forestino Garcia] was born here, and so on, all the way back . . .
The poor people lived on the south side of the tracks . . . The haves lived on the northside of Holt[Avenue] and the have-nots lived on the south side of Holt. Holt is one of the main streets and runs east and west. What always stands out in my mind is that my dad, being a descendant of one of the founding families, should have been treated with a little more dignity. But there was so much prejudice that if you had brown skin or a Spanish surname, there was a lot of prejudice. At the time it wasn't noticed that there was prejudice. It was just understood that the [Mexican] people here became sort of like the servants, the peons. They picked the oranges and the lemons. The "settlers," as they called them, were the Anglos who bought the land, cultivated it, planted oranges, and became very successful citrus growers. The people who lived in Pomona who were Hispanic and had come here in the late 1700s and early 1800s became the labor force. They're the ones who harvested the oranges and lemons. On the outskirts of Pomona and in Chino there was a great agricultural industry. A lot of people from Pomona worked in the fields in Chino . . .” (4-6)
CARLOS VASQUEZ: When you say discrimination wasn't noticed, by whom was it not noticed?
Soto: The Anglos.
Vasquez: Did you notice it?
Soto: Oh, yes. (6-7)
Soto: Some people don't like to admit to this—that is, people who are old-timers in Pomona--but Mexicans were not allowed to live on the north side of town.
Vasquez: There were restrictive covenants in the selling of homes?
Soto: There wasn't any [legal] segregation, it was sort of de facto segregation. It wasn't anything that was written. It was just understood that you lived in a certain part of town if you were Mexican. They didn't recognize that you were Spanish, like my dad was. His great-grandmother was from Spain. They didn't recognize it. They didn't really care, and I don't think the dignity that was owed him was given. But he didn't seem to mind. He just went on his way and didn't need them for anything. He just didn't get in their way. My mother never allowed us to be humiliated in that manner. She would say, "No, you don't go there, because you're not wanted. You're not going to go there.”
Vasquez: Why were you not wanted at the swimming pool?
Soto: Because we were "Mexicans" even though we were considered Spanish by my parents. They had only one day in which Mexicans could swim.
Vasquez: What day was that?
Soto: I don't remember if it was Monday or Friday, but on that day the pool would be cleaned out at night. Then the Anglo kids would swim. If there was a Mexican child who didn't know the rules and went there, they would just chase him away, ‘No, Mexicans aren't allowed in here.’ The same way in the theaters. There were a lot of places where they wouldn't allow Mexicans. They didn't hire any Hispanics on Second Street until the end of the war.
Vasquez: What is Second Street?
Soto: Second Street was where the main shopping [district] used to be. I was one of the first Hispanlcs to go to work on Second Street. I worked as a salesgirl [at the] National Dollar Store. I'll never forget it, because the man had the courage to give me a job. It must have been 1943 or '44, towards the end of the war. There were only maybe two of us Mexican/ Hispanic girls working on Second Street- At the time my mother used to tell us, “Don't let anybody tell you that you're not as good as anybody else. You go out there and you look for a job. You make them see that you're smart and you can do the job.” She never really let us believe that we were less than anybody else because we were Hispanic/Mexicans And she used to say, “You're not Mexicans. You just have to remember that. You're not Mexicans as in 'came from Mexico.' You're Spaniards like your father is. You have to remember that.” My dad was very proud of the fact that he was a Spaniard, a pioneer-native rather than a Mexican. Because he was a Spaniard. But my mother came from Tecate, Baja California. She was very proud of the fact. I could never see myself saying, "I'm Spanish." I always said, "I'm a Mexican."
I didn't see the difference.
Vasquez: Now, when the war came along and you went to work in the defense industries, was the composition there pretty reflective of the society? That is to say, was there discrimination there too?
Soto: In the factory that I worked in in Pomona, there were a lot of Mexican girls from school who went to work there. And there were some Anglos.
Vasquez: Was there any pay differential?
Soto: No. Not that I knew of. Even my mother worked there, because they needed it. One thing happened which I think is very significant. It's not written in history books, but I think it should be. We moved to the outskirts of Pomona one day, because in those old days, when you were poor, you just kept moving. You moved around a lot.
Vasquez: Why was that?
Soto: Because you just sometimes couldn't afford to pay the rent. You would go two or three months without paying your rent and get evicted-. You’d go find another house for rent. You didn't need a first or last month's rent. You would just need a few dollars and you could move in. We moved to the outskirts of Pomona towards Chino. The Chino school was closer than the Pomona school, so my mother took my little brother and sister there. I didn't want to go there because I was already in high school and wanted to go to Pomona. My mother took the kids to Chino. The schools were segregated. There wasn't any covenant, as you call it, or de facto [segregation]. It was blatant. She took them to the Anglo school [Chino High School]. The principal told my mother that her children couldn't go there because they were Mexicans.
She asked, “Why? My children are Americans.”
He said, "No. No, they're Mexicans and they can't go here."
She said, ‘Okay, will a bullet go around my son should he go into the service? Since he's a Mexican, is the bullet going to go around him? . . . I want you to answer that. He's an American. He's going to be fighting for his country. Is a bullet going to go around him? Or is it going to stop with him just like it does with the other kids?’
Vasquez: What answer did she get?
Soto: Nothing. He let the kids in . . .
So I used to tell my mother afterwards, during the days of the civil rights movement and everything that was going on, I'd say, ‘Mom, you don't even realize that you were a pioneer in integration, because of what happened in Little Rock [Arkansas] and so forth.’ . . . I said, ‘You know, you were probably one of the first people that had the nerve to stand up to people who were segregating children.’
I wish that somebody would have been there to record that, because it was very significant around here. Nobody had the nerve to stand up to those people. And she did. She called him a dirty name.
She said [whispers], ‘You sonuvabitch, is a bullet going to go around my son?’ (7-11)
LINKS
UCLA ARCHIVE
Julian Lucas, is a photographer, a purveyor of books and writer in training, but mostly a photographer. Julian is the founder of Mirrored Society Books. Julian was once called a “bitter artist” on the Nextdoor app. Julian embraces name calling, because he believes when people express themselves uncensored, they are their most creative self.
Pamela Casey Nagler, Pomona-born, is an independent scholar, currently conducting research on California’s indigenous people, focusing on the Spanish, Russian, Mexican and US invasions between 1769 and the 1860s. The point of studying this history is to tell us how we got here from there.
