Demographic of the area: ethnicity, income, jobs held by residents
The Hispanic community living in the West Side of San Antonio, was developing a Mexican American mentality through education, political principles, and racial/cultural pride, while demanding the promise of a "more adventurous, more exciting, more significant future.” In post-World War II San Antonio, federal employment at the city’s five military bases anchored the growth of the Mexican American middle class and by the 1950’s many of these Mexican Americans had moved to supervisory and technical positions. This social evolution is well documented in Rise of the Mexican American Middle Class: San Antonio, 1929-1941.
In my interview with Jerry Guevara, son of the late Joe M. Guevara, who served as president of the PHY baseball league in the 1960’s, he recalled how his former coach worked at Kelly Air Force Base. The military base employed some 20,000 in decent paying jobs with health benefits and a pension. In addition, Jerry discusses how most of the parents whose children participated with the PHY, worked civil service jobs “either at Kelly or Randolph”, including Jerry’s father.
In addition to many of the stable, two-parent families working at Kelly Air Force Base, parent occupations also included small business owners, mail carriers, auto/airplane mechanics, welders, and shipping clerks. My father remembers how one parent worked at El Popo tortilla factory and donated tostada chips to be sold at the baseball field concession stand. It is clear during the 1960’s, families were emerging into the middle class as they had steady, full time, paying jobs and able to afford homes with a backyard and a car for transportation.
Most families who participated lived in a fairly defined neighborhood or two around the PHY field. They were not from the older, traditional, parts of the West Side, near Lanier High School, or near the Guadalupe Theater. Therefore, most of the players walked to practice and to games. My father went to elementary school with many of the same boys who played on the teams. Most players attended Ogden Elementary (SAISD) and from what was then Cenizo Park Elementary (Edgewood ISD) which was around the corner from the PHY field.