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This is Irene Ruiz interviewing Mr. Chris Medina at the West Branch Library located in 1936 Summit on September 24th, 1980. This is tape 106. Mr. Medina is director of the Guadalupe Center Inc. Mr. Medina, you can briefly tell us a little something about your early life,

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like where you were born and when you were born. OK, I was born in 1951. I was born in Mexico City, Mexico, um, and it was about a couple of years after that that my family moved up to Kansas City. Although my mother is born in

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Kansas City and she is second generation, uh, raised and born here in the West Side, but my father is from Mexico. All right. So that means if you were just about 2 years old and you, that's when you came here. So you were actually reared or

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brought up in Kansas City, unless your family has moved around. No, that's true. OK, then where, uh, um, where, uh, you know, what area did you live here on the west side? OK. Uh, since we moved to the United States, uh, I have lived here and

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been a lifelong resident of the West side of Kansas City, Missouri. Uh, not always living at the same residence. We have lived at 2127 for I lived there for about 14 years, and since then I've lived at 2015 Summit. So I have been pretty much a

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lifelong resident of the general area, more or less. OK, so then your early part of your life, uh, where did you go to school? what elementary school or. Uh, I can recall going to kindergarten at, uh, the public school, Douglas, and the reason I did not

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go to Catholic school at the time was because the Catholic school did not have kindergarten. Since then, I have had Catholic education from first grade through high school. I attended Our Lady of Guadalupe School. Which is now the Our Lady of the Americas, but at the

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time it was Our Lady of Guadalupe, and I went from 1st grade through 8th. I graduated in 1966 and that fall I attended Bishop Lewis High School. And I went there from my freshman to my senior years and graduated in 1970. 72 Lois High School High

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School. OK. And, and your parents, you already said your mother, of course, you know, had lived here and your father was from Mexico City. So what you might give me their names? OK. My mother's maiden name was Teresa Garcia, and like I said, she was second

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generation. Her family came to Kansas City in 1921. And they were raised on the west side also, so she from Mexico from Mexico, uh, my father is from Leon, Guanajuato, and, uh. He had not been up here until we came up to move, so, uh, uh,

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he's been here 26 years. All right. And, uh, about how many brothers and sisters do you have? Not necessarily, you know, all their ages, just their names or how many rather? Yeah, I have three sisters, of which I am the second oldest. Uh, my oldest sister

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being Maria, uh, and I have two younger sisters, Yolanda and Sam. Mhm. OK, now since you did live at least in the general area and went to school here in Guadalupe, you, you have some recollection of, of what you remember those early days. Think back as

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far as you can of, of how you remember it, you know, maybe how the streets looked or the houses or what businesses do you remember, and then you might compare it as to how it looks today, you know, how the businesses have changed, whether they're less

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or more, and so forth. OK. Uh, there has been change. Uh, for instance, I can recall down the street here, Harden's Cleanner is an example. Uh, the place has been leveled. It's, it's a parking lot now. Uh, there's a lot of businesses. I think there were

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more businesses, privately owned, uh, businesses that are, are gone now. Uh, I think the streets are, are better taken care of, and that has to do, I think, with partly the camper and partly just the redevelopment of, of, you know, of the streets in general, um.

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As far as, uh, I think there's quite a few more vacant lots than there was in the past. But hopefully. So there were more residents, in other words, way back there. Right. I, yeah, I believe there was more residents at the time and more houses for

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sure. I can recall on Summit Street, uh, a large apartments that were high rise apartments that no longer stand there that are used for it. A parking lot for a large truck firm now also on 20th Street, uh, between Madison and Summit that there was a

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large high-rise apartment we would collect cluster housing and, and that's gone now, so there was more residents and also housing. All right, and um I know your parents are in business now, but how did your father in those early years, was he already working for himself

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or did he work for somebody else or what? My father had a number of jobs, and I can recall him working in the packing house for a number of years. Uh, that ended when they closed Swifts down and he had to look for employment elsewhere. Uh,

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he has worked a number of odd jobs. He's worked as a body and fender for a number of companies, and that's what he'd done most recently until he went into business. So it's basically between the packing house and, and body and fender work. What about your

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mother? Did your mother work outside the home when you were young, or did she, has she always been a homemaker and now helps your father in the business? She basically, I can recall when we were growing up very young that my mother was always at home.

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And it wasn't until we were older and all in school that she went out to work to, to help the family along. She worked, uh, for a candle, Empire Candle Company, which was once located on the Southwest Boulevard. Uh, they moved over here to Broad. Right

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off of Broadway, and she worked there for a number of years. Uh, also later on when we were in high school, she worked at Jack Henry's, and that was to help, to help us pay through, you know, high school. The tuition was very high, and, uh,

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with one income it was very hard to, to get the kids through school. Did most of you, uh, go to Catholic school? All of us went to Catholic school, you know, we all went through Our Lady of Guadalupe. In fact, uh, my sister first attended Redemptor

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High School, my older sister, and when they closed that, she transferred to Lois. Since then, uh, she graduated from there. I, I went to Lili. My younger sister Yolanda and Sandra started at Lili's, but, uh, my family moved to California about 3 or 4 years ago,

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and they lived there briefly for about 2 years, my father, my mother, and my younger sister. So she did not graduate from Lois High School. But you stayed here while they were, right? I lived here. I continued to live here and, and, uh, all right, um.

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What, uh, are there any, uh, special events or things? How do you remember those early school years were they for the greater part pleasant memories or? I can remember, you know, the nuns very much, you know, I can remember also the priest coming in to, to,

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to teach to us religion, uh. I can remember with this one sister in particular, she was a Mexican-American and uh she really worked very hard with us. We had a singing group and uh and we would perform for other people and places and uh we were

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very involved in that. I can remember, like I said, the nuns which uh now I see very little of. You don't see the, the nuns, maybe because you don't see them wearing the habits. Right. It's very confusing. That's possibility. And I don't, and another thing, I

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don't think there's as many as there was before. No, they're not as visible. OK. Are there any other, any other, um, recollections that you have, I mean, of those early years, especially in school. OK, well. Any special events, good or bad? From the earlier. OK. Um,

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a couple of times I can remember getting in trouble at school. Uh, I remember I had an accident, uh, when I fell off the jungle gym, which I had to go to, to the hospital to get x-rays on, uh, I can recall that. Right. And that

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was in first grade when that happened, and I can recall that pretty clearly. Uh, as far as any extracurricular activities at the school, there really wasn't such, uh, and that's where the Guadalupe Center came into play because, uh, they did provide this outlet for us, which

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is cool to not. Yeah, well, that's something else I was gonna ask you. I know that your parents and you have belonged to Guadalupe Church, right? Or yeah. OK, and uh, you already mentioned that there were not that many activities. We, were there any organizations connected

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either with the school at all or with the church that you could belong to, or right, I guess I get into that a little earlier, but the Guadalupe Center, which we participate, I can recall going to that as young as 6 years old, participating in the

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day camp program, uh, and I think that was very instrumental in, in helping me develop. To where I'm at and developing some of my character and and also interest in, you know, type of things that I enjoy now. I also very I participated in most of

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their athletic programs. I'm, I like athletics quite a bit and, uh, I can recall playing football, baseball, uh, basketball for the center's teams and also participating in social clubs they had their Christmas parties. Uh, I performed for the Mexican fiesta a number of times and danced

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with the group there at the center, so I. The center played a very large part in my life when I was young and growing up. Well, would you say this was true then of all your family? I mean, all of you were more or less involved

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in similar things as far as with the center, as far as my sis, my sisters, that would be very true also since we were all involved, uh, especially my older sister and myself, since, uh, we were really, I think more so than the other two, the

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younger ones, uh. My mother, I think she went through the same process and she grew up here and she can, I can recollect her telling me how vital the center was and the number of events the center used to have for them. Mhm. Did you have

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a, a hobby? I know you already mentioned the, the sports, uh, part of it, but was there some other interest that you had just on your own? Any, any kind of collecting or doing any other thing or reading or something like that? Not really. I'm really

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a sports buff. I, I do like the athletics quite a bit, uh, other than any other type of hobbies like collecting magazines or comics or maybe baseball cards when I was younger, but other than that, no. Not really. OK, um, so basically then it was, uh,

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your interest in doing things at the at this center with other I guess other youngsters that you knew. Do you think there was as much interest and involvement the whole. Community then or do you see as much today or how do you, how would you compare

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them or is it more kind of organized today a little differently or more because the people so many have moved away? Well, I think it's a combination of things, um. I can, uh, back when I was growing up, I think the center stood for the whole

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community. I think it was just maybe like one center. Of course now we have two, but in those times, I think everybody, uh, when we talked to Guadalupe Center, they knew which center we were talking about, and most of the programs derived from that area. Uh,

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now you have a division, of course, where you have the two different agencies, the Guadalupe Center Incorporated and the Waterby Parish Center, and you also have another. Uh, quite a few other groups that have organizations, uh, throughout the West Side community. Uh, I think it's a

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different clientele it goes now. Uh, I think where in the past, uh, when you, the, the center might have served more clients as far as, uh. Uh, people from what they didn't serve people that lived right around that immediate center, which I think you have now.

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Uh, and what I'm trying to say here maybe is like people from just Guadalupe Church would just go to the Wallupe Center and maybe the people from Guadalupe, uh, from Sacred Heart Parish would just go to the Guadalupe Center Incorporated, being that they're closer to it.

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Uh, I don't think you had that so much in the past, although there were some divisions. I don't recall that many people from the Sacred Heart area coming up to Wallaby Center when I was growing up, but I, uh, there's a little confusion because of the

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two agencies, uh. But I think. When they separated, I think there was a little confusion, but I think now people are more or less able to tell that. One is a parish and one is a center. But still, more recently, too, that, that you are working

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closer together now. Well, now that I've been appointed director, And uh even before then that we, uh, the director before me, we, uh, tried to get some programs to do some, some joint efforts hopefully to, to get the community together and off and then the main

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thing was to offer better programs, uh, for the people who lived in the community. Uh, we figured if we could combine efforts we could, we could do this and to an extent we have. All right, let's just go back just a, a little bit. I know

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that you would have been too young to have had anything to do with World War Two, but uh, are there any other, uh, well, as a matter of fact, in '51, about the time you were born, I think is when they had the big flood here

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in Kansas City. So by the time you came, that had already. Happened? Are there any other big events that you recall, maybe even the Korean War or the Vietnam War, where maybe it affected your family and maybe others too in the community or a larger group

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of people? I can remember, uh, the assassination of President Kennedy, where I can remember being in high school and I mean in grade school and, and the sister coming in and telling us that we were in fact in choir practice and I was in about 8th

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grade, I would think. And uh that did affect me very much at the time. I can recall that and that affected the family, of course, being Catholics and and having John Fitzgerald Kennedy as the first Catholic president, you know, everybody was very proud of that and

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we felt very close to him. uh, that I would say would be one of the major things that I can recall and did affect us. Mhm. Is there any other thing that you recall, maybe the Vietnam War or anything like that. In the sense, I wasn't

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really affected by that, and the reason I was never drafted or never entered the armed forces was at that particular time, the lottery went into effect and my number was very high, so I was never drafted, although I had some friends who did go, uh. Into

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the service who were drafted but really did not get into the actual Vietnam War period just when we were becoming available to be drafted, the war was starting to decline. So I do have some older friends now who come back and talk to me, but really

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other than seeing it on the news, uh, I really wasn't that much aware of it. OK, so you finished high school about, you said 1917, right? So what, what did you do right after then? Did you go into any kind of training or did you get

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a job or what? I enrolled at College and at that time was located on the campus and I went there for one semester and the reason being I just goofed around and cut classes and I didn't do anything with my time there, uh. So eventually after

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that, I was kind of disillusioned at the time with school. So I went to work and I wanted to get some money to get me a car. So I went to work. I worked at for at Alco Photo on Maine for, I imagine for about a

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year. And about that time, it hit me that I didn't want to do that the rest of my life. So I decided to go back to school and uh the, the winter of, or I think that the spring of '73, I enrolled at Platt Business College

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and I studied accounting. I went there for a couple of years, um, and I graduated in '75. Accounting. Yeah, I have a diploma as a junior accountant. OK. Uh, upon graduating from college, I, I went to work for Butler Manufacturing. Uh, they had a position available,

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uh, as someone doing some accounting, but also using Spanish skills which I had, and I, I brushed those up in high school. Uh, that's one thing you always spoken Spanish at home. It was especially, uh, with my father because my father does not speak English very

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good and he does not speak it to us. He'll speak just Spanish to us, where my mother, my mother, I would just speak, you know, Spanish, I mean English to her, so it was pretty unique and, and my grandparents just spoke Spanish and we would speak

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it at home, but I'm very happy that I did take it in high school because that's where I learned how to read it. And write it correctly and also you know pronounce there's a lot of words or vocalism that you would say you thought they were

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correct, which weren't did not even exist in many instances so I was very happy that I did take, uh, Spanish in high school and that's one thing I do recollect about high school also that. Had a very good teacher and she was a Mexican American and

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she did make us work harder than the other say Anglos or blacks in our Spanish class made you work harder than Spanish. Yes, the Spanish students, right, work harder than the other and you feel this was because she thought that you all would assume you knew.

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The language already and wanted to make certain that you were really learning something. Yeah, that's true and she, she flatly told us she says you being a Mexican or American descent, you should know the language and therefore she would make us work a little harder, which

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I'm happy to you're thankful yes. OK, so then you worked there for with the butler for 5 years. Oh, for 5 years. I worked in in the construction department for 5 years, and uh we had, uh, construction, uh, going on in Puerto Rico. So I was

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pretty much handling that, all the invoices and the hiring and firing stuff of this nature that, uh, that they needed people to contact down there who could not translate for them. So I was pretty much doing that, although I was always stationed here in Kansas City.

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I did get to go on a couple of excursions from him uh down to Houston, Texas, and to, uh, set up a couple of construction sites to set up the accounting records for them, uh, but, uh. I left in '78. 78. So you worked with him

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for about. Well, I graduated, I'm sorry, I graduated in '73 from college, so I worked five years a bottle manufacturing. And, uh, what, what prompted you to leave or did you decide you wanted to do something else or? Well, it was a little of both. I,

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I was pretty tight or fed up with the job. I mean, accounting can be very monotonous, doing closing out the ledgers every month, doing the same things, basically, you know, uh, the jobs changed, but basically working with numbers all the time and I was getting a

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little tired of doing this disillusioned, uh. How will I enjoy it now if I do some, some of it. I, I, I wouldn't want to go back to strictly. Not just to do that. In other words, doing other things too. Exactly. A variety. So, I, that's

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what I wanted, basically, some, a change and something else to look. And that's the main reason for moving. So then how did you get involved with Guadalupe when I was leaving. Uh, butler, I really didn't know what I was gonna go work for, you know, there

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was a number of jobs that I had heard of, and I wasn't really sure, um, and it was rather strange how I came to become employed at Guadalupe Center Incorporated. Uh, I left Butler, and, uh, I had been with some friends the last day at work

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at Butler, and, uh, one of my friends told me that there was an opening at the Guadalupe Center Inc. as a youth coordinator. And um I became a little interested, so I called the next day and, and then inquired about the job and, and they told

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me, and I, I asked them if they were still still taking applications, and they told me they were. So I came down, I talked to the director, submitted my resume, and about a week later they had hired me. So. So you worked at that for what,

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a year? Uh, I was a youth coordinator from August of '78. Uh, to. February of this year. At that time I became interim director or acting director until February of this year, right. And, and that lasted through July of this year when I became the executive

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director on a full-time appointed on a full-time basis. OK. And somewhere along the way too, you got married. About what time was this? OK. Uh, I was working at Butler Manufacturing at the time. We got married in 1977. Uh, so I've been married 3 years. Is

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your wife from the, I mean from Kansas City too, or my wife is from Kansas City. She lived in South Kansas City, and I never met her until, uh, I met her through, uh, her sister at work. I used to work with her sister at Butler

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Manufacturing, and it was through a series, a series of parties that we met, and we just took it from there. And now you have a, a child too, a little girl, right? Right. I, we had our first child born a little girl. Uh, and then Carla,

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the 30th of July. Carla. Yeah. Um-hum. And now, what, uh, uh, as you look ahead to the future, what are the, some of the, Goals or things you would like to accomplish maybe for yourself but also for You know, the, the Guadalupe Center Inc. or the

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community because I know you're very much interested and involved. Well, I'd like to continue to see Guadalupe Center Inc as a leader on the west side as far as social service programs. I think we have a very colorful history of doing this, and I'd like to

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see this continued and maybe. Expanded, uh, hopefully, uh, I wouldn't want expansion to the point where we would eliminate other agencies. I don't want that. I mean, to expand our programs where they can service more people and and work in harmony with the other agencies over

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here. I'd like to see that done as far as in other words, there's a need for different kinds of agencies to work at different, very much so, right, very much so, and I, I'm very much for this and I'm working. Well, you know, we've talked to

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the other agencies over here, for instance, Maddie Rose Wallaby Parish Center, uh, Good Shepherd Lutheran Mission, uh, Alta Vista Christian Church. You know, these are all viable organizations over here which I think they're very good, and there's no reason why we cannot continue to work with

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them, maybe expand programs instead of duplicating things, share resources and things of this nature. Sure, well, that sounds very good, and I hope you're able to. Continue with that. Are there any, um, so far, I know you haven't been with the center that long, but are,

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is there anybody giving you any recognition for some of the work? or have you already been cited for something? Uh, not to this point. Uh, I did, uh, from working with the school board last year, I did receive a little, uh, Letter of appreciation, uh. I

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have been appointed the commissioner of the Optimist Athletic Association for Football this year, uh, and that is made up of other agencies like Guadalupe Center. Uh, they include, uh, Delay Lam, Whatsoever Friendly House, Minute Circle, uh, Northeast Community Center, and we've been a member of this

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organization for 2 years, and this is the first year that a director from Guadalupe Center has been made commissioner for any of the athletic programs, so I'm proud of that. I should say. Now, um, Are there, um, As, as you look, uh, back, uh, is there

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any, um, person or persons or somebody that you feel has exerted, uh, you know, a lot of influence, to think the way you do? I know you said that. Maybe the schools and certainly some of the teachers obviously had a good impression on you that maybe

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guided you. Maybe you didn't think so then, but as you look back now, there probably aren't. Maybe you think your parents, and surely they deserve some credit, but sometimes there is somebody else or other people besides. Well, very much so like my father in particular. I

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can remember him, you know, reasoning with us, which I think paid off quite a bit and. And being just with people we kept emphasizing that and which I, I think we're doing now and I think I, I hopefully that I'm doing following. I can recall a

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lot of the people that uh work with us at the center, in particular Joe Ramirez, uh, they used to call him Thebo that was his nickname, and I can recall Thebo and I can recall working with him. Uh, he was usually in charge of our groups,

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uh, for the athletics or for the youth clubs or whatever, and, uh, he made a strong impact, uh. He could be very strict, but he could, you know, people had respect for that man at all times, and, you know, he could, he was warm and you

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could be friendly with him. Uh, another individual with Tony Gary, who works with me now, uh, besides being related, uh, I have a lot of respect for this man. Uh, he's done an excellent job, yes, uh, he's the athletic director of Guadalupe Center, and, uh, he

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was very similar to Joe Ramirez in the, in the respect that they both worked on the west side and helped, uh, the, the youth over here tremendously. Uh, they had different ways of, of doing this, but both basically did the same thing. All right. Now, um,

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Is there, you know, any other thing that you might like to add as, as you think back, I mean, your, your life isn't that long. You haven't been around as much as some of the older people, but, you know, if there's anything else you would like

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to, Stayed here now. Not at this time, no. OK, well, I certainly want to thank you, Mr. Medina, for taking time out to give us this little interview. OK, thank you.