Betrayal & Conquer: An American Story of Courage & Resilience

By Ramona Ortega-Liston

Dr. Ramona Ortega is the daughter of Mexican migrants that immigrated to the United States in the 1930’s seeking the American dream. After enduring years of physical and emotional hardship throughout the 1950’s, Ramona and members of her large family found the dreams they sought. This is the inspiring story of one of the nine children born to Maria and Blas Ortega who set out to pursue her own American dream. Her name is Ramona.

Not letting the stifling poverty she knew as a child stop her Ramona moved from the Iowa cornfields to Arizona pursuing her dream of going to college. She was triumphant in her educational quest successfully earning an Associate of Arts degree from Scottsdale Community College (with highest distinction), a Bachelor of Science degree (magna cum laude) from Arizona State University (ASU) and a Master’s degree from Harvard University. But she was not finished going on to earn a doctorate from ASU eventually becoming an associate professor at The University of Akron where she was named one of six “Women “Trailblazers.” Ramona pursued other aspects of her American dream by volunteering for the Bush-Cheney Transition Team (2000-2001) later becoming a Co-Host for the Presidential Inaugural Committee Awards Luncheon “Leave No Child Behind.” And, yes, Ramona danced at four presidential inaugural balls!

Ramona has many years of public service to her credit becoming a Charter Member of the ASU Research Park Board of Directors and a member of the Arizona Governor’s Trade Delegation to Japan. She is the recipient of three prestigious presidential appointments. She was appointed by the Reagan Administration to the Community Colleges of the Air Force Board of Visitors and received the prestigious Air Force Award for Meritorious Civilian Service. Next Ramona was appointed by the George H. W. Bush Administration to the Army Command and General Staff College Advisory Board and to the National Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance. Ramona’s many tiered career includes being an associate in the investment banking firm of Boettcher and Company and she later served as director of the Unaccompanied Minors Shelter Care Program (UMSCP) receiving special recognition by the U.S. Office of the Inspector General for creating a model shelter for unaccompanied minors.

Dr. Ortega’s interest in government and politics began as a Scottsdale Community College student aide to Sandra Day O’Connor in 1975 later becoming Deputy Administrative Assistant to Congressman John McCain (now U.S. Senator). She has been a dynamic speaker on Hispanic and women’s issues at Harvard University and Radcliffe College and is a published author. Among her many research publications are articles on the variables influencing public sector careers of Hispanics and women in higher education.

Only in America can a daughter of Mexican migrants grow up to accomplish the things Ramona has and to live her idea of the American Dream; few expected that she would become a world traveler presenting academic papers on six of the seven continents. Ramona’s story is inspirational and illustrates that through hard work and educational preparation anyone can rise above their humble beginnings and enjoy the fruits of an independent and courageous spirit.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ramona Ortega-Liston
• Release date: Aug 3, 2016
• ISBN: 9781945330070

Ramona Ortega-Liston

Biographical SketchRamona Ortega-ListonBETRAYAL & CONQUER: AN AMERICAN STORY OF COURAGE & RESILIENCEDr. Ramona Ortega is the daughter of Mexican migrants that immigrated to the United States in the 1930’s seeking the American dream. After enduring years of physical and emotional hardship the family found the dreams they sought. This is the inspiring story of one of the nine children born to Maria and Blas Ortega who set out to pursue her own American dream. Her name is Ramona. Not letting stifling poverty stop her Ramona moved from Iowa to Arizona to pursue her dream of going to college and successfully earned an Associate of Arts degree from Scottsdale Community College (with highest distinction), a Bachelor of Science degree (magna cum laude) and a doctorate from Arizona State University (ASU). She earned a Masters from Harvard University and eventually became an associate professor at The University of Akron where she was named one of six “Women “Trailblazers.” Ramona pursued other aspects of her American dream by volunteering for the Bush-Cheney Transition Team (2000-2001) later becoming a Co-Host for the Presidential Inaugural Committee Awards Luncheon “Leave No Child Behind.” And, yes, Ramona danced with her husband at the inaugural ball!Ramona has many years of public service to her credit. She was a Charter Member of the ASU Research Park Board of Directors and became a member of the Arizona Governor’s Trade Delegation to Japan. She is the recipient of three presidential appointments having been appointed by the Reagan Administration to the Community Colleges of the Air Force Board of Visitors receiving the prestigious Air Force Award for Meritorious Civilian Service. Ramona was appointed by the George H. W. Bush Administration to the Army Command and General Staff College Advisory Board and to the National Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance. As director of the Unaccompanied Minors Shelter Care Program (UMSCP) Dr. Ortega received special recognition by the U.S. Office of the Inspector General for creating a model shelter for unaccompanied minors.Dr. Ortega’s interest in government began as a Scottsdale Community College student aide to Sandra Day O’Connor in 1975 later becoming deputy administrative assistant to Congressman John McCain (now U.S. Senator). She has been a dynamic speaker on Hispanic and women’s issues at Harvard University, Radcliffe College and various women’s clubs. She is a published author. Among her many research publications are articles describing and explaining the variables influencing public sector careers of Hispanics and women in higher education.

Book preview

From Des Moines to Phoenix to Akron

The urge to tell my family’s story came to me as I was driving from Akron, Ohio, to Washington, D.C. to attend the inauguration of our 43rd president, George W. Bush. As I was driving, I couldn’t help wondering how a girl born to Mexican migrant parents could grow up, graduate from high school—even though I was pregnant by my high school sweetheart—go on to earn a degree from Harvard University, work for a member of Congress, and complete a doctorate. And now, here I was driving alone in the dead of night across the Allegheny Mountains on my way to a presidential inauguration. Only in America could this happen.

On My Way to a Presidential Inauguration and Ball

I like driving. I like driving alone. I do my best thinking when I am driving alone. As I drove east along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, in the rear view mirror I could see the hanging bag containing my ball gown. The bag was swaying gently on a hook in the back seat. The clothes bag had a visible White House monogram. There in the dead of night, I was struck by the improbability of all this happening to a woman like me, and it seemed stunning. I wondered out loud, How in hell did this happen?

I was amazed that a woman with my background could be on her way to a presidential ball—her third inaugural ball. I had also danced at inaugural balls for Bush 41 and Reagan 40. A song by Cher was playing on the radio; I wish I could remember it. I suppose I should Google it; it seemed highly appropriate as I sped through the dark night. If memory serves me right, it was If I Could Turn Back Time or it could have been Strong Enough! Whatever song it was, it struck me as highly appropriate.

Other singers’ songs have affected me too, like Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive and Aretha Franklin’s Respect—what woman doesn’t remember R-E-S-P-E-C-T ? But that night it was Cher singing on the radio, and she was talking to me. Cher was talking to me. Here I was driving alone on my way to Washington, DC. I became pensive and reflective—I began thinking about my past. I kept shaking my head wondering how on earth did this happen? Only in America could this happen, only in America. Even today I shake my head in wonderment.

This is, however, not just my story. It is the story of me along with my eight brothers and sisters. Most of them have encouraged me to write this story, and some have shared ideas they want me to include, but I have let them know I can only write through my eyes. I cannot tell their individual stories—they have to do that for themselves. I can only describe what I have experienced and seen through my eyes—and I will tell it as best I can. I know, for example that we were raucously happy, giggling kids some times and unhappy and miserably crying kids at other times.

The Family Ancestry

We were a big, rough and tumble family: five girls and four boys. Two other babies were born, but did not survive infancy. Only one of the babies was buried and now has a headstone. I don’t know what happened to the second baby. Mexican migrant babies often died and were buried in unmarked graves. It seems to me that back then no one cared how migrants took care of their dead; my guess is that Midwesterners thought it was their business and left them alone.

My older brother, Johnny—the family historian and lawyer, researched death records in Buffalo Center and Mason City, Iowa, and in Blue Earth, Minnesota, where some of my relations were born and died. He found where our maternal grandmother, Victorina Cano Ramirez, and our sister, Josephine Ortega, were buried. Josephine was born 14 years before I entered the world. During the 1980s, another brother, Richard, purchased three simple headstones and placed them in memory of our maternal grandmother, fraternal grandfather, Froilan Ortega, and baby Josephine; otherwise, all three would be resting in unmarked graves.

Richard told me that all three are buried in a cemetery somewhere between Mason City and Buffalo Center, Iowa. Baby Josephine died of pneumonia. I don’t know how my grandparents died—on either side. Before he died, my brother Johnny told me that a cemetery he visited has records listing Mexican baby burial grounds. It was just a few words on an old sheet of paper acknowledging a block of earth set aside—like mass gravesites, similar to unmarked Native American graves—which are sometimes labeled on frontier maps Indian burial grounds.

Even today, the thought of those unmarked graves hurts my feelings—if Johnny and Richard had not found their final resting places, no one would ever have known they had once lived, or know their contributions as migrant workers. A memorable line in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskerville’s says, Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him. I am proud of my brothers and appreciate their kindness and respect for those who have gone before us; we mourn them—they are not forgotten.

From Mexico to Canada and South to Iowa

All my eight brothers and sisters who managed to survive frigid Iowa and Minnesota winters were born in the 1930s and 40s. Our parents migrated all the way to the Canadian border from Mexico picking whatever crops were in season. They picked corn in Iowa and sugar beets in Minnesota and Colorado. One sugar beet factory was located north of Denver, near Longmont, Colorado. My husband and I once stopped by the factory. I just wanted to look at it—wondering about my parents’ lives there. They also picked cotton in Arkansas. John Grisham described hard working Mexican migrant workers in The Painted House. I don’t know if my parents were among those he wrote about, and I don’t know why they didn’t stay there where it was warmer.

As a young girl I asked my dad, Why did you choose Iowa? He explained that it was too cold in Minnesota. He said, I wanted to go south to get out of the cold. My eyes bulged out of their sockets, I was incredulous. I exclaimed, Dad, Iowa is not south! I guess my geography was better than his. Iowa farmers provided, if you can call it providing, migrant families with chicken coops, lean-tos, and even an old railway box car Mom and Dad fixed up to live in.

Mom told me that they scrounged for whatever lumber and pieces of tin shedding they needed to hammer a homestead together. One thing for certain: My parents were good at reminiscing and telling us how they had managed to survive in towns where they had migrated and how they fixed up each dwelling making it somehow livable. They remembered that most Iowa farmers were good to migrant workers they hired.

According to Mom, Dad was always a man handy with his hands (we call it Mexican ingenuity). She described how he had sawed out windows in the wooden railroad box car that they planned on making into a home. She sewed curtains out of flour sacks. That was when flour sacks had colorful patterns on them, pleasing to the eye. Hundred pound bags of flour were packed in cotton sacks—and let’s face it—to them good cloth was good cloth; useful things were never tossed out.

No matter how humble their origins, flour sacks came in a variety of patterns. Some had small flowers printed on them and others were striped in bold blues, reds, oranges, greens and yellows. The trick was to buy enough sacks of flour that matched in order to have enough material to make a curtain or dress in the needed size. Rarely was any scrap of cloth thrown away—migrant workers were not like today’s throwaway society.

Flour Sack Dresses

Mom sewed flour sack dresses, aprons, and pinafores for us kids, too. Maria’s making play clothes for the von Trapp children in The Sound of Music had nothing over our mom. Nor did Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind—she made a new dress for herself out of living room drapes. In my mind, Mom kept good company. My folks always made the best out of what life gave them. They were not complainers; they took life as it was dished out. The same thing could not be said of our maternal grandfather, Antonio Ramirez. Mom told me that her father returned to Mexico as soon as he could save enough money from his meager wages because, as he poignantly argued, I am a man, not an animal, and if I have to live like an animal, I will go back to Mexico where I may be poor, but at least I will keep my self-respect and dignity. Dignity—what a powerful word.

Grandfather left the fields of the Midwest and returned to Mexico an angry and disappointed man. Mom and Dad remained in the Midwest, married, and raised a big family by the sweat of their brows and the calluses on their hands. I was one of the children they had after they had stopped migrating and settled in Iowa, where my living brothers and sisters and I were born. A point of pride was being born in a hospital, not in the fields, and not by a midwife.

Born in a Hospital: Broadlawns General Hospital

I was born in Broadlawns General Hospital, Des Moines, Iowa, on March 5th, 1943. Who knows? Maybe that gave me a head start in the world. I have my birth certificate with my mom and dad’s names, country of origin (Mexico), and their home address: 1916 S.E. 15th. There were no zip codes in those days. I remember memorizing that address when I went to kindergarten—it has stuck with me all these years.

Having to memorize the spelling of my first name, Ramona, stuck with me too; for sure it was not A-n-n or S-u-e, like other kindergarten girls. No, it was R-a-m-o-n-a! Thank God, I didn’t have a middle name; Mom must have run out of names by the time she got to number eight—me. Or she was just plain tired of naming babies after she had gone through so many births. Mom told me I was underweight when I was born and weighed about five pounds. She said I was not expected to survive, but I did. I have no trouble maintaining a good fighting weight today.

My Iowa State Department of Health Division of Vital Statistics Certificate of Birth does not show my birth weight. It does show that Mom was kept only one day at Broadlawns Hospital, and that she had had nine total pregnancies. One question on my birth certificate asks, "Total other children born to this mother (NOT including this one)? The answer to that question was seven at the time.

The certificate records my birth as number eight with my sisters Lilly and Mary Ellen still to come, and that Josephine was the birth listed under the question, How many other (underscoring is on the certificate) children were born to this mother but are now dead? Mom answered one. Mom confided to me that she had experienced a late term miscarriage, but there is no record of that. The only record is in her mother’s heart. Dad’s employment is listed as Janitor.

Dad’s place of employment was the A & P Warehouse, which probably explains why we regularly sneaked behind the A & P to dumpster dive, although that term had not been coined yet. We used to pick up boxes of fruits and vegetables that had been discarded. We ate whatever was tossed out—and a lot of spotted fruits and vegetables were tossed out. It is surprising what people throw away, especially grocery stores. If the scavenged fruits and vegetables had bruises on them, no matter, we just cut out the bad spots and ate them anyway. Many times in the winter those scavenged fruits and vegetables were all we had to eat.

Another thing that was listed on my birth certificate was Dad’s social security number. Mom is listed as a housewife with no social security number. She applied for one when she went to work outside the house sometime in the 1950s and had one by the time she started work in the bakery department of Younkers Department Store in downtown Des Moines. She was loyal to Younkers and worked there for 25 long, hard years. She rarely missed a day of work.

Mom and Dad Were Never Out of Work

Mom and Dad were never out of work. They accepted any job they were offered. No job was too small. No job was too menial. They were migrant workers, they were factory workers, and they cleaned houses for rich people. Mom and my oldest sister, Abbie, took in ironing and, importantly, they were never on welfare. Welfare was viewed as shameful, and that’s how my brothers and sisters and I grew up—knowing we had to take care of ourselves. If you were able-bodied, you should work and not depend on the government. Mom took great pains insisting that we must take care of each other.

She constantly admonished us saying, Don’t be mean to each other. We were kids and did not always do as she asked. I have a few facial scars where my brother, Johnny, threw rocks at me and scored direct hits. During one of my visits with him, he shamefully admitted one of my friends got you from the right, and I got you from the left. We were both adults when he ‘fessed up; he laughed sheepishly when he made this confession, and I could tell he was embarrassed. Those scars on my face added to the deep scar I have on my forehead from jumping up and down and smashing my head on a sharp cornered metal bed frame. That scar is still there—with many others.

Now that we are adults, we try to honor Mom’s wishes and have tried to be good to each other—most of the time. More importantly, we grew up and were able to help take care of Mom, too. She never asked, nor did she expect it. Nearly every one of us took Mom on Hawaiian or European vacations, or out for simple Sunday restaurant dinners. We always took care of Mom—that was our duty.

Well Water, Anthracite Coal, Winter Weather and Learning How to Start a Fire

My family did not have running water in our house until I was almost out of high school. There was an old iron pump in the yard on the side of our house. Sometimes the water was rust colored. Dad convinced us the water was rich with iron and good for us. He believed in the benefits of well water and espoused his belief that rusty water made you healthy and strong. Some of the minerals in well water were undoubtedly good for you, but we drank it straight from the well without filtering it. Filtering was unheard of back then. Our water always tasted good, even if it tasted faintly of iron.

It was fun pumping the handle and putting a ladle or tin cup under the ice cold stream of water—or just cupping your hands to drink directly from it. Pumping and drinking at the same time was a skill that only a few could master. I was pretty good at it, but it worked best if there were two kids helping each other get drinks. One pumped the handle, the other took a drink. There was usually an old wooden or metal bucket with a metal or chipped white enamel ladle standing in the bucket on the rotting wooden platform. Cold Iowa winter weather took a toll on everything, men and beasts and kids. An old pallet served as the platform; dad probably filched it from the A & P Warehouse—I know he didn’t hammer it together himself. It was a professional job. It is strange how kids learn the differences between homemade goods and store bought—or filched. Today I prefer handmade/homemade everything.

The platform was essential for keeping our feet somewhat dry when the bucket inevitably overfilled. When the platform was missing, undoubtedly used for something else or burned for firewood, excess water formed a puddle under the pump in summers and a slippery mini ice skating rink in winters. Ice that accumulated under the pump was slippery enough to fall. Mom always warned us we would slip on the ice and break our necks. Icicles were commonplace and formed under the dripping pump.

We kids took turns pumping water directly into the bucket and then carried it into the house when and where it was needed. Sometimes the water we carried into the house was poured directly into a side basin of the wood burning stove to heat for cooking or washing our hair. Keeping the pump running in the winter was a chore. I learned how to prime the pump to get the water flowing when I was a very young girl. I have never forgotten how to do it.

I learned how to siphon gas out of a tank using a thin black hose, too. If you sucked too forcefully you got a mouthful of gas or kerosene. It tasted awful and smelled worse. I quickly spat it out.

Another thing I have not forgotten: Because our well water contained large amounts of iron, some of the neighborhood kids had orange, rust-colored teeth. But, for some reason, the Ortega kids did not. The Good Lord must have been looking out for our white, toothy grins. My brothers and sisters and I all have white teeth—and they are unusually straight. None of us saw a dentist until we were adults; and we certainly never saw an orthodontist. There was no money for dentists or doctors. If Watkins salve or Vick’s couldn’t cure what ailed us, we just waited until the cough, cold, or measles ran its course.

It wasn’t until I was in junior high school that the minister from Bidwell Riverside Center lifted my head appraisingly in his hands and said, Your teeth have straightened out. We were afraid you would have buck teeth. I was disappointed to hear him say that. As a kid, it bothered me tremendously to have him make such a remark; my feelings were hurt—and it was news to me! Kids don’t know how adults see them. Kids think they are perfectly okay, but then adults step in and burst the bubble. Too much honesty is a bad thing and hurts kids, sometimes forever. It’s funny what we remember when we are older. My teeth are straight; I never knew they were otherwise.

The Old Wood Burning Cook Stove

One of my best childhood memories is of Mom’s old wood burning stove. As I have said, we had to pump water outside and then carry the filled bucket into the house. Somehow each of us managed to get the metal water bucket inside and set it on the wood burning stove to heat water for baths or laundry. Mom’s wood burning stove was old fashioned. I don’t know what brand it was; it was ordinary and plain black. It wasn’t one of those decorated, nice looking ones; all it had was four removable cast iron covered burners and a side compartment for heating small amounts of water; certainly not enough water for our enormous brood to take baths on Saturday nights.

The circular stove covers could be lifted off the stove with a metal hook when firewood was needed. Mom would set a cast iron frying pan or Dutch oven directly over an opening so food could fry or boil faster—directly over the flames, which leaped up into the open hole. Besides the Dutch oven that was always bubbling up with something good to eat, Mom had three sizes of iron skillets: small, medium and large. I preferred the small one because it was the lightest. I learned to cook at a young age. All my brothers and sisters did.

I fried eggs that I gathered from the chicken coop; sometimes they were still warm—I would stealthily sneak an egg or two right out from under a sitting hen. The hen eyed me suspiciously as itty bitty, shiny chicken eyes seemed to be casting a spell on me. But she couldn’t—so I would grab an egg or two from the nest and run inside to fry them up in the small cast iron frying pan. Cast iron pans turn rusty when left in water—more iron to make our bones strong, according to Mom and Dad when we made faces and turned up our noses, Bah, that won’t hurt you. It will make you strong.

Mom usually kept the fire in the kitchen burning in the winter when she was home, but sometimes the fire would go out. At a young age, I learned how to start it when I came home from school. I guess we all had to learn to make a fire. It was a matter of survival in cold Iowa winters and, of course, the house was poorly insulated—if at all. Not only was I good at starting fires in the kitchen stove, but I also learned how to make a fire in the coal and wood burning furnace in the dark, damp basement. It was a job that had to be done, and if I got home from school before my older brothers, it was up to me to get it started again. The alternative was a grim and cold house. Necessity is the mother of invention and survival.

Sacajawea and Pocahontas: Chopping Wood, Starting a Fire, Stripping Kindling with a Knife

We kids came to expect that the fire would have burned out by the time we got home from school after walking all that way—nearly a mile, which was a long, hard haul for grade school kids. Dad and Mom worked all day long at miscellaneous jobs. Neither was home in the dead of winter to keep the home fires burning; if the furnace or kitchen stove went out one of us had to get it started again. I remember taking a butcher knife or small paring knife and splintering wood to make kindling to get the fire going. Those were the days when I thought I must be a descendant of Pocahontas or Sacajawea, and I was—in my imagination. Kindling shaved to the right thinness caught fire fast. I knew what I was doing.

I also learned to split logs; different sizes of wood were needed to get a roaring fire going. My brothers and dad brought home long logs and tree trunks to cut up and burn. I don’t know where they got them, I never went with them. They must have gone into the woods to find firewood. Maybe they helped a farmer clear a field—I just don’t know.

The logs were dumped in a pen or barnyard across the street from our actual dwelling where dad owned enough land to keep chickens, a few pigs, a cow, and an occasional heifer. That yard across the street where the logs were dumped is where we went to chop or saw logs. Each log had to be sawed or chopped into manageable lengths to fit in the coal and wood burning furnace and cook stove. Sometimes we used an axe to chop the log, and other times we used a two-man saw to saw the log into pieces. I sawed logs with one of my brothers or sisters—a two-man job. It didn’t matter that we were girls. It was a job to be done, no ifs, ands, or buts.

I liked wielding the heavy axe lifting it high overhead and plunking the sharp iron head dead center of the upturned log. Hitting the center was a sign that you knew what you were doing—like a good marksman, hunter, or pioneer. Splitting wood gave all of us well-defined biceps. There is a picture of me as a fourteen-year-old wearing a bathing suit. I have well defined muscles in my upper arms. Those biceps came from chopping wood and all the other chores needed to be done.

I liked using the two-man saw, too; our neighbors couldn’t get over little girls sawing just like a man. No one ever thought of inventing a little girl saw; we didn’t expect it. The smell of saw dust is something else you don’t get out of your nose. One of us kids had to get on either end of a long saw and saw back and forth rhythmically cutting a log into sections. Then, each log had to be split to expose the dry center of the wood, which made it easier to start a fire. We all learned how to tell green wood from dry wood and the consequences of each. Green wood (damp wood) smoked like the dickens. Smoke made most of our ceilings black.

As I grew older, I became quite good at chopping and sawing wood. They were jobs that had to be done. Whining would not help. Sawing was all about striking the right rhythm. I didn’t mind who was on the other end of the saw just so they got into the same rhythm. Getting the saw going smoothly back and forth was the hardest part, but after the saw teeth bit in and grabbed hold and the two partners began pushing back and forth in concert, it was easy to establish a steady rhythm, which made it