Pictured, above: Rachel Rangel in 2021. Photo: Elizabeth Leonardsmith
Interview with Inocencia Raquel Rangel
Rachel Rangel was born in 1943. Her mother and father immigrated from Mexico in 1927 by train, first to Kansas, then to the West Side neighborhood in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Her father worked in a meat factory, and then both her parents worked in the fields. In 1962, the Port Authority purchased their home at 175 Eva Street as part of the demolition of the old West Side Flats to create the Riverview Industrial Park. In March of 2024, Rachel passed away.
This interview was conducted in 2021 by Natividad Herrera as part of the oral history project “Stories from the Flats” organized by the West Side Community Organization. It has been edited for length and clarity.
“I was born November 28th in 1943 on the West Side, the old West Side that we're going to talk about, by the river. My full name is Inocencia Raquel. My maiden name was Rangel, but now I'm married. I go by Rachel.
It was very close [on the West Side]. Before we arrived, it was a place where many immigrants came. Before us there were other European immigrants: there was Jewish, there was Lebanese, there were some Germans, and I forget what else. And then we came.
[My parents] came up here, and that's how [my father] got a job, even though he couldn't speak English very good. The train was tough for them, especially him, because he did the communication. So, for example, he would hold out his money and then he would go like this [gestures] for eating, you know? So things like that were pretty rough. But they made it, and that's how they came to stay up here.
We were renting. In the late ‘50s, [my parents] did own a home, but then soon after that, everybody in the old West Side started getting letters that we had to move because they were going to make what it is now.
I don't know if you’d call it a manufacturing area or what, some kind of business. If you go over there, that's all it is. There are no houses there. But as we go down there, we know exactly where we lived. And we tell our kids, and they tell their kids.”
“We used to have a lot of floods there. We lived upstairs. We lived on the corner and it was a big building. Downstairs was all kinds of businesses, there was a pool hall and there was a beer joint, a shoe store, and a bakery. And upstairs there were two apartments. But they're nowhere like the apartments you know now. They were big. They were really big apartments. And that's where we lived that I remember.”
You mentioned that you had moved into a home and then shortly after had to move. Do you remember your family ever receiving any sort of compensation to be able to leave?
“Yes, they did. And so did many of the others. I remember them talking about– they didn't even get, it wasn't even worth what they give ya in those days, you know? They just wanted you out, you know? I'm thinking, they wanted that [land] because they want to make business stuff there, which it is now.
But during the time we lived there, there was always floods because of the river, and some of them were pretty bad– and we still get them, but back then there was no nothing to help that, you know? But once we all moved out, they fixed it all up.”
Above: letter from the Port Authority to Fancisco Rangel, informing him that his home would be taken for the creation of the Riverview Industrial Park. Photo: courtesy Rachel Rangel
Do you think that they could have fixed [the flooding] while you were living there, instead of having you leave?
“They never did. No. For instance, now where the freeway is to go to Minneapolis, all of that was houses where many Blacks lived. They got kicked out because they were going to make the freeway. It was always the people of color at that time.
I'm assuming they didn't [have] the know-how, and even if they did, I don't know if they would have had to change to another area. I don't know how to explain it, but, they were telling them, ‘Why couldn't they make [the freeway] on West 7th, or somewhere in that area?’ And they just said ‘No.’ They had the talk, those people there on West 7th, who were mostly at that time white, they knew how, and they spoke up, they had that privilege.”
When your family relocated, were they able to find a new home to own or were you renting again?
“We were able to own. Well, actually, my father had already passed away, so my mother, together with my older brother, together, they were able to find a place, but it was on the East Side of St. Paul.”
Did the compensation help at all with the purchase of the new home, the compensation they gave you for moving?
“Well, what little we had? Yes, it did, I would think. But eventually my brother moved to Minneapolis, and my mother stayed there because I think she was renting the upstairs.”
And did you have any memories about the relocation, how that made you feel, having to leave the West Side?
“For me personally, I thought it was sad, because almost every day I could see somebody moving. I didn't know where my friends were going to move to. Most of them talked about the– they would say, ‘up in the hills,’ which means this place, I mean, this area. [It’s] still the West Side, it’s not West Saint Paul. People get that mixed up, but it’s still the West Side. They were going to move up here. Basically there were no people of color living this way at that time. But once we moved in, more and more there were.”
Would you ever want any sort of justice for the way that your family was relocated?
“Gee, I never I never thought of that, because back then you just, you did what you could do, and that was it, you know? Like for me, I didn't know any of the techniques of how to go about it, so I never even thought of it, you know? But I certainly felt it, the unfortunate thing that happened.”
“When [my family] settled on the old West Side, there was nothing like you see now. You know, all kinds of organizations and such things for the Hispanic people. There was nothing. So [my father] and other men started a society program. And that's how they got started. And then eventually they would contact Mexico just to keep communication of what's going on.
As a teenager, we had the Neighborhood House. That started from a lady, her name was Miss Curry, she's the one who started it, long before even the Mexicans came, with other European immigrants that came. She did a lot for them because they didn't know the language neither, and they needed help.
Back then discrimination was not like today at all. So all the immigrants, they suffered a lot. There was no help for those who were sick, or from working, there are all these physical things going on. They did sense discrimination where my dad worked. Working in the fields, because the owners were pretty mean.
Even [on] the West Side, those who were not Hispanics, they had wrong ideas about Hispanics, and they would dramatize that. For instance, they said about the women, how they let their chickens in the house, you know, stuff like that.
However, the Jewish people, because they had their own traditions and religion on a certain day, they would ask us if one of us would go by, if [we] could come in and turn the light on. That was nice. Their synagogues were very, very big, and there was many of them all around. I still remember those, I was just in awe just to see. I never went inside. I guess my parents at that time, being from that era, they would tell me, ‘Don't go, don't go in there, they're not Catholic,’ you know.”
Knowing what discrimination is, personally, I still feel it's still in the air. It’s still in the air. I feel it more than my family, except for one sister. Only because my husband is Black, and I can see it even more. I can see it. My sister's husband was Black. They're both dead now, but I grew up with the nephews and nieces. They can see it. They can see it even within my family. What whites did to my family, they turn around and do it to the Blacks. So I could see that double standard in my family, even when I was young, and my sister would come over, and the kids–they were little at that time– then when they left, I could see as they left, my sisters would go [sighs, shakes head], and they would shake their heads. And they never disowned them, which was better than some people who disowned them, but that attitude was there. Even when I look back, there's things they don't even realize what's going on. There’s things that they said, and they don't even realize what they said. You know, that's why I'm more aware. I'm still proud to be Mexican, but I still think now also as, as a Black person does. Maybe I don't think fully because I'm not Black. I still have my feelings for who I am.”
Do you think there's a reason your family had that sort of animosity to your other family members?
“It’s hard to explain. I think as far as my family, and as far as more Hispanics, particularly Mexicans, they were the ones who came first. They're very strong and they're very close and they're very religious. The majority that I knew, or seen at church and stuff. Very, very religious, so I think that can lead to prejudice only because you don't know what those other people are, and you, you know, you don't know what those Blacks are or what those Indians are like. All you do is, [say] ‘Ew, look what they’re doing,’ or ‘Why do they do that?’ They don't try and understand the traditions of other people, how they live.”
Above: Lafayette School in 1960 Photo: MN Historical Society
How have you seen the West Side change over the years?
“Oh my. It has changed, even in food. My older sisters, and I'm sure all their families, they made their own tortillas by hand, and if you had a big family, they were making like, a mile high, you know? Eventually, things like that changed to a point where you can, generations later, you can buy your own tortillas. Back then, out of the West Side, they didn't know what tacos were, or tortillas, nothing like that. But when I went to school, my mom used to pack me some tacos or whatever, and then when it was time to eat at school, I would open it up to eat it. And kids used to tease me, to a point where I didn't want to bring any Mexican food.
I think it was Lafayette School. But I also went to the other side of town. And kids there, too… I went there to stay with my sister for when my ma would leave for Mexico. My dad had to work, somebody had to take care of me, so I would go to her house. So the school there, they were even worse, you know, because there were more whites. So, you know, so I just didn't… I mean, it's so different now. Now everybody knows what a taco is, and what this and that is, and now they're making their own! [Laughs] Yeah, those were the days.”
Above: Amelia y Basilia Diaz and Genevieve Rangel dancing 1944. Photo: MN Historical Society
“I grew up with my nephews and nieces, really, because I was already an aunt when my sister's first [was] born. He was born in October and I was born in November. So yeah, it was a large family.
It came to be a family of musicians. They all either sang or they played an instrument or both but they were always into music, and that's because of my mother and father. When they were in Mexico, they used to form whatever events that were going on in their community, and they were involved, very much involved. And I think that's why we were that, because they taught that to us in some form, to sing– even if we didn't want to!– to sing, especially for the church.
I would not sing, I would dance. My sisters sang. And that's where they first sang, at any programs the church had, they were involved. The two oldest ones started at first, and then the other three. I was too little at that time. They would get me and my friends from the West Side to dance, you know, and then when certain events came up, like September 16th, Independence Day, they would put on a show.
It was one of the first Our Lady of Guadalupe that they formed. The very first one, I never did see that one, but the one I know in the Old West Side was the second one. And if I'm not mistaken, [the building] was a place where people went to drink in– but then the West Side, well, the Hispanics, made it into a church.”
Above: A sign for the future site Our Lady of Guadalupe Church under floodwaters in 1952. Photo: MN Historical Society
Do you have anything else you'd want to say about the West Side flats in your experience growing up there?
“Oh, it was good memories, though. In spite of that, it was good memories. The church was here. In the winter, we went to go ski, skating. When I was real little, on the other side there was a playground, and my dad used to take me there, and he would push me on the swing, and I could hear the sound of the swing. And you can hear it from anywhere close by. You know, from my house I could hear if somebody was swinging on there, things like that. I remember playing with the kids.
My mother always formed a procession for the 12th, and we dressed up as Indian costumes or Mexican costumes, and we would go march from the outside into the church. For Our Lady of Guadalupe on the 12th. We'd go from house to house for so many nights, till the 12th, with the picture of our Lady of Guadalupe. Today you can't do that because we all live so far, you know? But back then you could walk the whole neighborhood. Yeah, it was a lot of fun.
We used to have social hour as teenagers at the Neighborhood House. A lot of things [were] going on there too, so that was fun. And we had our first Mexican restaurant called Coronado’s. And we had a show house called the New Ray, but we ended up calling it the Bug House because it had bugs in there. [Laughs] Oh, I remember that! Ugh! [Laughs] But as young as we were, even as teenagers, that's where we went, you know, the movies. Yeah. So yeah, it was. It was a nice place to grow up.”
Do you have some ideas about resources or areas on the West Side that could be improved?
“Now? Oh, oh my gosh. Now, because it's a whole new generation, and I'm already a senior citizen. So [younger generations] would know more than I do. But I know for sure they're still pushing to make a change. More so now. I find that the younger group, they're more alert of what's going on. Much more alert in many things.”