Ruperto Guedea lived the majority of his life in the United States straddling multiple cultures. Born into a small mining community in northern Mexico during the late 1930s, his mother and father brought their family across the border just after World War II. His first school was openly hostile towards Spanish speakers yet did not teach him English. After moving to Chicago, he fit right in with the Polish and other European immigrant families who also knew no English. He met and married a woman whose Mennonite faith traditions were significantly different than his. Together, they got involved with the new influx of Mexican and Central American immigrants that transformed the Elkhart and Goshen area into a multi-lingual and multi-cultural community. For Ruperto, it meant reflecting on his personal transformation between his Mexican, American, and Mennonite cultural identities. 

In 2007, Indiana University South Bend’s Cynthia Murphy sat down with Ruperto. They talked about his parents, his youth in Mexico, and his incredible journey over six decades in the United States.

This episode was produced by Nathalie Villalobos and George Garner from the Indiana University South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center. 

Full transcript of this episode available here.

Want to learn more about South Bend’s history? View the photographs and documents that helped create it. Visit Michiana Memory at http://michianamemory.sjcpl.org/. 

Title music, “History Explains Itself,” from Josh Spacek. Visit his page on the Free Music Archive, http://www.freemusicarchive.org/.