Perri, Matthew

This interview was recorded on September 25th, 2024 in Tucson, Arizona. It covers the following themes: 

b. 1937 

  • Childhood in Kansas City, MO. 

  • Move to Tucson in 1944. Italian-Mexican family, language, and ethnicity. 

  • Memories of life in a Kansas City orphanage. 

  • Family dynamics in Tucson. Father’s connections to Italy. 

  • Catholicism. Attending All Saints Church. Move from parochial to public schools.  

  • Ethnicity and social status. Moving between being identified as white and Hispanic. 

  • Description of Meyer Avenue in the 1940s and 1950s. 

  • Father’s vegetable side-business. 

  • Move to Menlo Park in 1946/7. Open space, brickyards, Tucson Rock and Sand. Alstad [sp?] Steel. 

  • The Santa Cruz River in the 1950s. An aside about Rio Nuevo clearing cottonwoods and soil-cementing and the banks of the river in the early 1980s. 

  • Chinese stores in Menlo Park during the 1940s and 1950s. 

  • Menlo Park Elementary School. Fighting, paddling, and opposition. 

  • Childhood pastimes and jobs. 

  • The construction of Interstate-10. 

Aengus Anderson