Abstract
An oral history of Alice Navar, a longtime resident of Los Angeles, California and union worker for the International Chemical Workers Union (ICWU). The purpose of this interview is to gather information for Dr. Fousekis’s “Women, Politics, and Activism Since Suffrage” project in History 492A course at Cal State Fullerton. This interview highlighted Navar’s early years in Los Angeles, California. She describes her life while living with her relatives in El Paso, Texas; comments on her first marriage, her first three children, and the various companies she worked for during the 1940s; she discusses her marriage to her second husband, Raul Diaz Navar, his personality, and the three children she had with him; talks about the differences from living in El Paso and Los Angeles; describes the neighborhood of Los Angeles in the 1930s and 1940s, the zoot suiters that were in her neighborhood, their suits, and music they listened to; recalls how her parents met and her father’s job working for the Southern Pacific Railroad, her close relationship with her sister; comments on the aspirations and heroes she had when she was young, the values she learned from her family, and her educational background; she describes her job working for Wilhold Glue, Inc. in Los Angeles, her duties, and the skills she received from working in the factory and union; she recalls how she learned English and her father’s views on language; her father’s reasons for settling in Los Angeles; describes her second marriage to Raul, how she met him, how they fell in love, and the different places they moved to in Los Angeles; recalls her inspirations for joining the ICWU, her love for people, and motivations while working there; discusses how her household ran while she worked and how she dealt with the managers, employees, and union workers at Wilhold Glue, Inc; describes her activism with the union and how the ICWU formed.
