Tech. Assistant-Testing one two, from the University of Our Lady of the Lake. Today is
October, 19th, Friday, 2007. We will begin momentarily. Please stand by for video update.
*Interview starts at 0:50*
Ralph Ruiz-It is only later on that one meditates over the past.
Gilberto Hinojosa-Yeah.
R-And I began to ask the questions you’re asking.
H-We’re beginning.
R-OK.
H-So let’s introduce ourselves first so that-for the records.
R-OK.
H-Today is March the 19thSr. Flores-No, it’s October the 19th
H-Oh.
Tech. Asst-October 19th.
H-October 19th, 2007 and I’m Gilberto Hinojosa and I’m here with Ralph Ruiz at Our Lady of
the Lake University in the library, and welcome.
R-Thank you. My name is Ralph Ruiz. Really, my name is Umberto Rafael Ruiz.
H-Oh OK.
R-But everybody called Rafael, only one aunt called me Umberto. And later on they called me
everything else except Rafael and Umberto.
H-Yeah, haha.
R-So an-so I settled for Ralph.
H-OK.
R-But I’m-my name is flexible, you can call me anything you want.
H-Laughs
R-This is just a game, it doesn’t matter. So as I was saying before, when one becomes involved
in certain issues, or not involved, one doesn’t think about ‘how am I going to jump into the
water?’ You are in the water, you just don’t know. Perhaps my background might be useful. I am
one of fifteen, ten boys and five girls. One time my dad was asked, ‘how many kids do you
have?’ And he said, ‘quince’ fifteen, ‘y todos vivos?’ Vivos means alive.
H-Yeah.
R-Vivos also means smart. He says, “Unos vivos, otros tontos, pero todos comen” All Laugh
R-‘One is smart, some are smart, some are dumb, but they all eat.’ And there was the rug. So I
was the one that was perhaps a picky eater, and not too, too smart, ha. The thing is that I was
always a happy child. Whatever I did, I enjoyed tremendously. While I was shining shoes,
selling papers, playing hooky, or being at home or at work, I enjoyed everything I did. When I
went into the seminary, I challenged any seminarians to have been a happier seminarian than
myself. When I became a priest, I enjoyed the priesthood tremendously. And then I fell in love
and got married, and I made the best decision in the world. I have three lovely kids whom I love
tremendously. You met my wife, both of you. And I am the happiest man in the world.
That’s a quick background. My parents were saintly people, both past away. I used to
pray to St. Theresa, my favorite saint, and I would pray to my mother. For sure she was there,
what better advocate? There were hard times in my family sometimes. Going- retrospectually
thinking -but I never knew it. I could see my dad now coming home with pelt lips, tired,
concerned because how is he going to feed the people in that house. But it didn’t matter I didn’t
pay attention to it. When I went to the seminary, I went to the Franciscan Seminary in Chicago. I
knew a little English, because in the house we spoke mainly Spanish. In my barrio, if you spoke
English you were a gay. And the marchismo won’t allow you to be gay. So we spoke only
Spanish, haha. When I went to the seminary in Chicago, I was there three years, uh two years,
and I wrote home. I used-I wrote home all the time. My dad never answered, my mother did.
And this one time I wrote them and said, ‘listen I’ve been here for two years. When I came here,
I didn’t feel too bad because I knew-I knew Spanish, even though I knew little English. But now,
after two years here’-and I was taking Latin, German, Greek, and English. Ah, I remember
writing the letter. ‘After two years here I am discovering that I’m I don’t really know English or
Spanish.’ And my dad for the first time included a little note in my mother’s envelope saying,
‘son return home immediately before you become an idiot.’
All Laugh
P-So my father says, haha, I was regressing more than I was progressing. But life to me was
simple, non-complicated, things that are now considered tough, I never noticed them and I doubt
that any of my brothers or siblings did. I went into the seminary and when I became ordained, I
wanted to go back to the barrio where I came from. And I was out six months, and I requested
from the archbishop to be sent to the Alazan Court area. I was then assistant to St. James here in
San Antonio. And the answer was no, no. Then a year later, I continued, then I talked to some
friends. The current bishop was a bishop of Austin, John McCarthy, he was then working for the
USB, Catholic Conference of Bishops, Catholic Conference Division for the Spanish Speaking,
and other friends that were influential with the archbishop. My own pastor, Father…..Novak to
let me go to the barrio. Finally, but he said, ‘no, no the putas are there and dope addicts you
know?’ I said, ‘archbishop, if that were true, so much the reason why we should go there.’ So we
had a parish of Guadalupe. I said, ‘we need to get to the barrio, live with the people.’
Finally, he allowed me to go. We rented a house and Father Hanky and I both went there.
Father Hanky was then secretary of the tribunal chancellery office then he and I went into the
inner city. A year later he was made regional director of Assumption Seminary and I stayed in
the inner city. And that was mi anelo. And it was something that I began to-there I began to
discover, first of all myself, a little reflection you know, self reflection up until that point. I
began to see myself in so many ways among the people that I worked with. And I went in there
so hungry to help the real underdog, the poorest of the poor. But after six months, seven months,
I wasn’t getting anywhere.
H-What kind of work did you do in that town?
R-Well I went around the homes, knocking on doors, talking to people. I used a tent that I got
from a friend of mine who used to work for the cemeteries, and sent up a tent in the….in the
middle of this patio. I was set up with the tent right there, I’d have the kids pick up candles and
stuff like that and say mass. I tried to get them together, tried to get them to speak out. They used
to come to me and complain and say, ‘Father the people of the Welfare are coming over to my
house and they found my husband there and now they’re gonna cut out my benefits.’ I said,
‘Why, you have a husband so what?’ ‘Well I told them that I didn’t have a husband.’ I said,
‘Why?’ ‘Because if I had a husband, they won’t help me, and my husband can’t work, he’s an
invalid.’
H-Ah.
P-‘He hurt his arm’ or his foot, whatever. All these things began to not to make sense to me. I
said, ‘Wut why do you let that happen?’ ‘Well you know, a Mexicanito, you know’. I said, ‘you
have to get up. You have to get together and protest against this. This is not right.’ And I began
to organize it but I couldn’t get anywhere. One day I went to the HEB on the corner of
Guadalupe right next door to Guadalupe Church, and met this man, Malacara, his last name. He
spoke beautiful English. He had graduated from Lanier years ago and knew me, he said, ‘Ah
Father’-and he said, ‘Come over to my place’ and we talked. But that night I said, ‘you know I
had been doing things wrong.’ This is where I came up with a few categories, the actuals, the
potentials, and the zeros. I had been working with the zeros and getting nowhere. I said now I’m
going to be working with the actuals, those that are there, something that you can work with and
move on with. And they can work with the potentials, those that are there but not yet, and these
can work with those that are zero, and they can work there forever, they’re still working there
you know. The Innercity Apostolate was called then, that was calling inner city development.
H-Uh huh.
R-Wright Redel and Betty White met there in the inner city when I was there, and they got
married there in Santa Cruz and they stayed there and they got married there, and they grew their
kids there. So the point is that I saw myself almost in every way and I began then to organize-I
had another matter to work with. And I got seven men and three women were the ones that I
selected to become sort of the board, you know? I didn’t call them that at the time. And we
opened up a store. We used to by five, six, a hundred pound of beans, huge stuff, you know, at
wholesale prices and give them to the people if they could afford it-if they could afford a nickel
or a dime they could buy that. The idea was to get them together, to work together. I began to
develop cells in the various parts of Apache Courts and then I was called a communist. Cell, it’s
a communist term. I began to be accused of all kinds of things, things that are even
unimaginable.
One time the good Father Herald, a Jesuit, from Guadalupe calls me and we were close
friends, he said, ‘Father sit down.’ He pushed the button of a tape recorder, and I heard these
three women, one was a nun, making terrible accusations against me. One of them was a mother
with a bunch of kids that lived…leased them a house three houses down, in…that’s English for
Chihuahua. And I couldn’t believe it. I was accused of being a womanizer, of being all kinds of
things. And I turned to Father Herald and I says, ‘Do you believe that?’ He says, ‘No, it’s OK,
anything else?’ It was the end of it. But it’s amazing, and those were the ones that I knew, and I
wouldn’t have known unless Father told me. I thought there were many other good people that
were there too, you know. They were always helping. We had a bunch of volunteers, we had a
rule, you want to work in the InnerCity, you have to move in and live with the people.
I guess I began to reflect and to see myself not being three or four different people,
persons, but one, one with the heart of a Mexicano, with a mind of a Chicano, and with the life of
a Gringo, the environment that I lived in. And, somehow, I was not three people, I was one. But
I was totally each one of these, somehow. And I said, ‘Is it possible that I could be totally each
one of these.’ And, you know, Jesus, not to make comparison, ah I don’t have to compare myself
to him, but he was totally God and totally manH-Uh huh.
R-yet one person, you know? So it’s possible without sacrificing one or the other.
H-Was the Gringo part, was that an experience that you acquired once you left the house?
R-Yeah.
H-Your family house, to go to the seminary?
R-The Gringo, I seldom, the only gringos that I saw in my life were the ones that I sold papers to
and my teachers in school.
H-Uh huh.
R-I went to Frank Johnson School on Laredo Street. Uh, it’s not there anymore it’s just offices.
But my encounter with the Gringo-see I always lived in the Gringo worldH-Uh huh.
R-even though I was in the barrio where everything was Spanish and Mexican. But you see I was
breathing the Gringo environment.
H-Uh huh.
R-You can’t escape it. It was totally controlled by the Gringo. Everything was controlled,
everything was directed by, directly or indirectly, by the dominance of the Gringo mentality, you
know. So even before I went to the seminaryH-Uh huh.
R-that invisible force was there. Not only potentially, it was there actually, except we didn’t see
it.
H-Uh huh.
R-At least I think, in my case that’s the way it was, and I’m no different from anybody else in
this regard, I don’t think. When I went to the seminary, you know, I survived because I was
hatched in this environment and lived that life in a Gringo worldH-Uh huh.
R-otherwise it would’ve been very difficult for me to survive. I dropped out of school when I
was fourteen. I worked-I went to the seminary when I was sixteen, as a high school kid, ninth
grade. Well, actually my eighth grade, and so I was two years older than most of my classmates.
H-Uh huh.
R-But there were great kids, generous, bright, never do I recall one time my asking them to help
me out with something and they’d go to the classroom and teach me real quickly you know.
H-Uh huh.
R-They taught me many things, not only lessons, but character formation. I was a little wild kid,
as you can imagine, haha, from the west side, Laredo Street and going into the seminary, the
Holy of Holies you know, haha.
H-Laughs.
R-With Franciscans no less. So the Anglo world began to become more and more clear.
H-Uh huh.
R-And it was not just an Anglo world, it was a world-it was a German worldH-Uh huh.
R-in an Anglo American world. So all these things, even if you’re not aware of the impact of the
time, later on you begin to say why.
H-Let’s talk a little bit about your experience at St. James. What was the parish like at the time
when you were there?
R-St. James was St. James because of the leadership. Leadership is important, and leadership
was not just in the person of the pastor, but also in the generosity of the lay people that live there.
H-Uh huh.
R-Economically, St. James was well off by Mexican American standards, haha, many of the
parishioners lived-worked at Kelly.
H-Uh huh.
R-They had good jobs. Parents were concerned about the kid’s education. I can name right now
people, you know, who were my altar boys. One is a CEO of a health-of a University Hospital,
it’s George Hernandez.
H-Yeah.
R-He was my altar boy.
H-Wow.
R-Mirerles, Judge Mireles was my altar boy, you know. These kids you know-and his brother
also. A bunch of other kids that were growing up-fine little kids. We had a school at St. James.
H-Uh huh.
R-Don’t forget, I was brand new out of the factory when I went to St. James.
H-Right.
R-And everyday I would get about ten to fifteen little notes, on a little hook, by the pastor of all
the mistakes that I made.
All Laugh
R-Until I had a confrontation with himH-Uh huh.
R-I says, ‘Every note that I see from now on, I’m gonna take ‘em by the hook and burn them,
I’m not gonna read them. If you want to talk to me, talk to me person to person. No more notes.’
H-Uh huh.
R-One of the other sides to St. James, I went to see the pastor, Monsignor Joe Novak. I heard
about the guy being a real hard knocks you know. He was a tall, stern looking man. He was in a
plaid shirt writing in his notebook and I was standing in front of his desk. I said, ‘My name is
Ralph Ruiz I was assigned to your parish.’ He said, ‘I have not yet received anything from the
chancellery office. Until then, I don’t know who you are.’ I turned around, got in my car, went
home, and said, ‘Mom, lets go to Mexico.’
All Laugh
R-Two days later, we went to Mexico, we came back a week later, the phone kept ringing and
ringing, by the secretary of Mabaline, whatever her name was, I said, ‘I’m not going to answer
that phone.’ One time I did, I said, ‘you tell the monsignor that if he wants me to go back to that
church he’s going to have to come to my house and pick me up and carry my suitcases.’ Two
hours later, he comes to the house, ‘Hi, Mrs. Ruiz, how are you,’ picks up our suitcases and takes
them away.
H-Laughs.
R-But Joe, Monsignor Novack was the softest, most caring and generous man you ever wanted
to meet, a really saintly man, tough on himself, and I thank him for being as tough as he was
with me, you know? Haha. We became very close friends, a great supporter of mine. He later
changed-moved to St. Anne’s and died of a heart attack there, but a generous man. St. James a
was a good place for me because I was there for a couple of years before I went to the inner city,
and it was my formation, my preparation.
H-What drove you to the inner city?
R-Well, era mi esmero. There was-I became a priest to go to the inner city.
H-Uh huh.
R-I tell you, I was ordained for maybe six months when I requested to move there.
H-Uh huh/
R-I wanted to go back to the barrio. That’s what I knew, that’s what I came from.
H-Uh huh.
R-That was my reality I thought.
H-How long were you in the inner city?
R-Five years. While I was there, let’s see, seven, eight, nine-for five years.
H-Uh huh.
R-The-while I was there so many things were happening that should not have been happening.
H-Like what?
R-First of all, the mentality of our people. The Mexicanito is humble, doesn’t speak out too
much, takes it, you know? We were taught, Gilbert, from yay high, that we had to suffer like
Jesus suffered.
H-Uh huh.
R-And that suffering was going to be our ticket to Heaven. I heard that in catechsismo, I heard
that at home, that being poor, that Jesus was poorH-Uh huh.
R-and that was another ticket to Heaven. That being poor allowed you to suffer, and suffering
was good for the purification of the soulH-Uh huh.
R-and for the forgiveness of sin. When you go to the inner city and you discover the poverty is a
damnable economic condition that shouldn’t exist.
H-Uh huh.
R-That’s what it is, it is not a virtue. And we have an obligation to do something about itH-Uh huh.
R-because if we don’t, we sin against justice. I sin and you sin against justice because we see
what’s happening and we don’t do anything about it. And I said, ‘what can we do about it, what
can we do about it.’ A commission for-talking about hunger came around.
H-Uh huh.
R-I talked to them, they held a hearing at Santa Cruz. Since I went to that I was contacted by
CBS, they were making a documentary about Hunger in America, I said, ‘Come on baby, I’ll
show you.’ And I took them around.
H-Uh huh.
R-They did the same thing, I think in Arizona, among the American Indian, in Mississippi
among the blacks, and Appalachia among the whites.
H-How long had you been in the inner city when Hunger in America was taped?
R-About two yearsH-Uh huh.
R-two and a half years. And subsequent to that-you know, Gilbert, here’s what’s so sad. You
would think that the whole nation, certainly in San Antonio, the citizens who had just celebrated
HemisfairH-Uh huh.
R-Texas Jewel, would be ashamed. We raised all kinds of hell and indignation since it was
happening in their own back yard. But the reaction was awful. Not just locally but even from
Washington. Locally, my best-some of my best friends: “How can you betray our people like
that?’
H-Hmm.
R-‘How can you embarrass us like that?’ I had a good friend, a great man, no doubt about it one
of the greatest Mexican American Texans that ever existed, his name is Henry Gonzalez.
H-Uh huh.
R-We were very close and worked together in many ways-in a number of things. He was the
Representative of district 21 at the time. He took offense to this, and he told me so, and we got
into it. But then I met him in Washington one time and everything was cool. But that was the
reaction of many of the leaders in San Antonio. Nationally, the government, instead of doing
something about it, you know what they did? They sent the FBI to investigate and see if what
the people were saying was true.