Last week, we took our feature series “Waco Voices” from the internet to the dinner table. What resulted was an evening of friendship, storytelling and insights into the Waco community.
More than 30 people attended the event at South Waco Community Center, where they were seated at several tables to eat fajitas and participate in guided conversations about what it means to be Hispanic in Waco.
The event was generously sponsored by Report for America.
What emerged were stories of a Hispanic community that has been an essential part of Waco for more than a century. Some voiced pride in tracing their roots to Waco back generations. Some detailed stories of discrimination and pressure to mute their Hispanic identity, such as family members urging them not to learn Spanish.
We appreciated the candor and depth of their comments, and the willingness of several to stick around for followup interviews. Here are some of those stories.
Sylvia Hernandez: Curating a legacy
After losing his wife, Cayetano Cruz was depressed. The doctors said he needed to do something or he would die. So the Cruz family opened Cruz’s Drive Inn in 1965, and it became an anchor of South Waco for generations.
This year, the vacant grocery at South 11th and Cleveland streets was leveled to make room for a housing development.
But the history of that community business lives on, thanks in part to Cruz’s great-granddaughter, Sylvia Hernandez. She is the outreach and instruction librarian at Baylor University’s Texas Collection and has helped maintain historical documents about the store.
Generations of Hernandez’s family helped run the store. She witnessed multiple generations of customers come in for candy, pickles or sandwiches. As the store grew, it came to specialize in items for Hispanic clients, including piñatas, religious candles, magazines and audio cassette tapes, Hernandez said. The family sold snow cones to fund an expansion.
“I was witness to all of this, people coming in constantly and telling these stories,” Hernandez said. “Because it’s not only a store, it becomes a community hub.”
Customers would even leave messages with the store owners to let people know when a loved one died.
Growing up around this community has taught Hernandez the importance of these stories.
“It becomes a community space and a responsibility to share the stories with other people,” Hernandez said. “And so I think what I do now very much ties into that. Like, it’s my responsibility to share these stories with other people, because I witnessed a lot. … You know, it’s not about me, it’s what I can do for others. And this is my community.” – Raquel Villatoro
Jeremiah Olvera: A place to belong
Jeremiah Olvera counts his family history in the Waco area in generations, mentioning a great-grandfather who, according to family lore, ministered at the Assembly of God church in Waco’s Sandtown neighborhood, before it was erased by urban renewal efforts in the 1960s.
Now 27, Olvera said his upbringing was defined by the Hispanic families in the Beverly Hills neighborhood. He recalls how shared spaces for recreation, celebration and arts stitched them together.
“If you were walking home, you were never walking home by yourself,” he said.
“Even if you were outside of a different friend group, everyone basically knew where each other lived. And so it was like, ‘Yeah, we’re going to go to so-and-so’s house, and then we’ll go to the park,’ ” Olvera said.
“In terms of connection, that was very important, because we were all living in the same area. But it was like a sense of security too, because it was like you (and) your (friends’) parents knew each other.
“So if you were outside somewhere and they see you, and they see you acting up, they’re like, ‘I’m finna call your Mom! Basically, people looking out for other other kids, even if they weren’t their own.” – Sam Shaw
Kristen Padilla: A house of two stories
For years, Kristen Padilla has moved between the world of her upbringing in a large Hispanic family in Waco and the professional world of Baylor University.
Recently, those worlds bumped into each other, and a friendship resulted.
Padilla graduated from University High School in 1999, and headed to the University of Texas at Austin as a first-generation college student. She came back to Waco and earned her doctorate at Baylor University.
She’s still there as an clinical associate professor in educational psychology and director of the Baylor Center for Disability and Flourishing. Her job involves arranging support groups and other interventions for young people with disabilities such as autism spectrum disorder.
“Part of the work that I’m doing at Baylor University is really trying to identify Spanish-speaking Hispanic families who have children with disabilities to better support them in school and employment and life,” she said. “Part of the challenge I was facing is finding these families.”
A friend referred her to the nonprofit Grassroots Waco, a community development organization that deals with issues of education and social work as well as housing in Waco’s inner city.
While sitting in the conference room with community organizer Nataly Sanchez, she noticed a photo of an old house that Grassroots had renovated in North Waco.
“I said, that’s my grandma’s house,” she said. “And I was like, you don’t know how much this house means to me and my family. We talk about it all the time, and all of the memories that we have there. Growing up with all of our cousins, we climbed on that roof, and I broke that window wrestling with my brother.
“I told her, we always talk about, would it be weird if we knocked on the door and say, can we just see the house?”
Grassroots staff believed the resident of the house would like that. Before long, Kristen was knocking on the door along with her daughter and cousin.
“We told her about our history, and she was so moved by it,” Padilla said. “She fed us. I was in my grandma’s kitchen, eating Mexican food, which was surreal and amazing.
“It turned out she has an 18-year-old son with autism. And I met with her recently again after that. She was worried about his services. He’s about to graduate high school.”
Padilla arranged to find services for the young man. But the relationship didn’t end there.
“She said, let me know when I could meet your aunts and your uncles,” Padilla said. “And you know, she loved hearing stories about my grandma and my uncles that lived there. And I said, what if we do Easter here? And she got so excited. So, on the 20th anniversary year of my grandma’s passing, we’re going to celebrate Easter there next weekend.” – J.B. Smith
Melissa and Pete Almanza: Tending Tiempo’s flame
Melissa Almanza and Pete Almanza used to go around South Waco looking for newspaper editions of Tiempo, a community newspaper started by Ernesto Fraga.
“That newspaper was the social media of today,” Melissa said.
Whenever her kids had a birthday party or won an award, she would send money to support Tiempo.
“But it was not about the money,” Melissa said. “He wanted to be involved with the community. He wanted the Hispanics to be heard.”
While digging through family documents last week, Melissa found 20 editions of Tiempo. Both Pete and Melissa miss the newspaper and the representation it brought to the community. Melissa runs a Facebook group focused on sharing Hispanic stories in Waco called Mi Historia Waco’s Hispanic Stories.
“To me, I think if you contribute to the city of Waco, you are Waco,” Melissa said. “You belong here. We need you here. And I think Waco is not seeing that because of all the deportations.”
For seven generations, Melissa’s family has helped build Waco, including the railroad and Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Her passion for history stems from preserving her family’s history. She wants others to know they also have stories to tell.
“We’re the economy,” Melissa said. “We’re making Waco grow. We’re the ones out there shopping and buying and going to all these little restaurants and these hole-in-the wall places they say they had the best tacos, but they’re not recognized on the news. They’re not recognized enough in the media, they’re not recognized enough about what they contribute to get where they’re at.” – Raquel Villatoro
