Pauline — Joe’s Bakery & Coffee Shop
“ I keep telling my daughters to give it up, but they don’t want to yet. I’m still coming in to help them because I know how hard they work. ”
Most days at Joe’s Bakery & Coffee Shop you will find three generations of the Avila family hard at work. For more than 75 years, this shop has kept the local community of East Austin, Texas well fed with a variety of Mexican meals and baked goods. We sat down with Pauline Avila to hear stories from her upbringing.
“ I grew up in Travis County, but back then it was all country. My mother? She was the cleanest person. That lady was so clean, and when we came to the city, you know we had a toilet inside the house. Well that was one thing she couldn’t get used to. Everyday, sometimes twice a day, she would send us in there to wash the toilet… and you better wash it good! Otherwise you’d be in trouble. I didn’t go to school past the 6th grade. I quit school and started working when I was fifteen. My mom used to take us out to work in the fields because their used to be a lot of cotton here. They used to plant a lot of cotton and hire people to help pick it. The farm was the only way to survive back then, not like now. Well, we’ve been here ever since. It’s been a hard life, but we both loved it so we stayed. ”
“ When you are a kid, you eat anything they put on the table, not like now. Back then, they only made certain foods, like beans and tortillas. Well thats always been the staple of everything. Then you add the rice, chicken, and sometimes tamales. That’s for when everyone got together. ”
“ There used to be a lot of discrimination here towards Mexicans and colored people. Some restaurants wouldn’t serve you. I remember when I used to go to the Woolworth stores. They had a fountain: one for colored and one for white. We would use the one for colored people because they didn’t have one for us. It used to be kinda bad back then. I think there is still a little bit of discrimination, but not like back then. When you rode the bus you had to ride in the back. I used to catch the bus right there at the corner when I used to ride to school, and I’d have to sit in the back. ”
