An Interview with Stan Marek
Interview conducted by: Avery Foster and Rebecca Hentges
Stan Marek's great grandparents came to the United States all the way from the Czech Republic regardless of the uncertainties. He shares with us their struggles surviving the Great Depression. He believes preserving family history is extremely important, and he talks about how he has been trying to give back to the community by supporting immigration.
Interview
This interview was made in collaboration with Department of History in University of Houston and Czech Center Museum Houston. The following text is the verbatim transcription of the oral history project.
October 11, 2019
Stan Marek: Good morning, this is an oral interview with two students at the University of Houston. And my name’s Stan Marek or Marek as they say in the Czech Republic. And I will sort of recount my history of my family. First of all let me say that I’ve always felt like preserving family history is extremely important for our kids and grandkids. As I get older, I believe that even more. I think our kids, my kids, really need to understand the struggle of their grandparents and all the way back to the Czech Republic and what they went through. And also understand that they’re immigrants just like everybody. If you're not a Native American you are an immigrant. With the rhetoric of immigration policies in our country today, it's more important than ever for people to understand that.
So my grandfather or great-grandfather and his wife lived in the town of Olomouc, which is probably an hour and a half out of Prague. He was a carpenter there and my aunt worked in a cigar factory making cigars. They would Harvest tobacco and they would roll it by hand. In the 1880s the Hapsburg family from Austria were basically the ruling class and all the Czechs were serfs. He lived in the countryside and they had a farm or they worked as Craftsmen. Then my uncle wouldn't like that my great-grandfather was a carpenter. So we don't know exactly what he did; what projects he did. But if you go to Prague or Olomouc or any of those little towns, there are the most beautiful wood castles made of stone with a lot of wood bookcases. Everything with the craftsmanship was incredible. So he must have been one of the Craftsmen. He and my great-grandmother were having trouble having children because they found out later when you work with tobacco, it gets into your system and basically would kill the fetus before it ever had a chance to develop. This is all speculation because nobody was around in those days, I mean they were all basically illiterate and didn't write things down.
So they decided to leave and there were a lot of Czechs coming in to Texas back in those days and other parts of the country, but there was a strong contingent of Texans in Schulenburg and Yoakum. All the little coastal cities here and land were free. If not, very cheap. So then they got on the boat, and then probably one of the ports in Germany came in to New York. But they were transferred to Galveston and eventually to Indianola. Indianola was a port back in the 1880. We speculate it was up to a port that a lot of people eventually would come down to this. Galveston and Indianola had lots of ports and that's where we think they came through. No records, of course. Everything was destroyed in Galveston in the 1900 storm, Indianola. Indianola was totally wiped out and it doesn't exist today except for some concrete slab because it's right on the coast and has lots of hurricanes. So when they moved inland by wagon, I'm sure you will auction either homestead or purchase about 150 acres of land in Yoakum and start their life.
At that point my great-grandparents were able to have children, and they say 6 or 8, which will be part of the book if you decide to look at it. They had a good life farming and I think they were three boys, Gus, Ed, and Jon. Jon was my grandfather so he was born in the United States. In the early 1900s, they had the farm. Then when my great-grandfather got older, he divided the farm into three 50 acre tracts and gave each one of the boys a tract. The girls, of course. You're back in those days. They basically just got married and had their own families. I think my grandfather was still illiterate. He couldn't speak English and it was not uncommon back in those days because the communities were primarily Czech, German and the Polish. They didn't interact that much at that point. It was usually the second generation just like here. When they started farming, each of them had different farms here and helped each other in the fields. If you built something, you'd have communal buildings. People would all get together to build and everything was good. Then my grandfather started courting a young lady, another Czech immigrant--the Peters family in the same city. And they got married and this is in the book with a lot more details. And they started farming and had three boys. My dad was the youngest of three boys.
And then the Depression hit in the 30s and basically the farming failed because the crops couldn’t grow without water. If you didn't have water in fields, you couldn't keep cattles. So they lost their cattles and they had borrowed $1,200 from the federal land bank, which is like a governmental sponsored agency . My grandfather was illiterate so he didn't know that he had pledged the farm as collateral. So when he couldn't pay the $1,200 back they basically foreclosed on the steps of the courthouse. So they became homeless and my grandfather, grandmother, and three young boys lived with her family for a little while. But then they couldn't afford to take care of them. So they finally found an old run-down shack and the owner said if you fix it up you can live there. It didn't have a door. It had a dirt floor. No running water. No toilet facilities, so they had to build an outhouse and carry water in. Grandma would sweep the floors. So the two oldest boys, Jon and Bill, had started school in a very small classroom. Back in those days you had one room with eight grades and another room with high school grades. It was pretty primitive that one of the brothers got to the second grade, the other to 4th grade, but they all made a pledge to the family that at least one of them would go to high school because no-one had ever been to high school before at that point.
My dad spoke Czech till he was six and then he started learning English. I'm sure he struggled just like our little Latino kids struggle today. It was a tough life for him but they survived. I mean basically the boys went out and hunted and they’d eat armadillo, possum, coon, rabbits and deer. They can kill one and the whole country was like that. There were a lot of people left, went to California, a lot of people tried to stay, and then my grandfather just basically wiped them out emotionally. He couldn't stand the shame of losing the farm and everything, so he turned to alcohol and had a serious drinking problem. He’d try to work. But they couldn't find work because you can barely make it farming. So when the opportunity came, they had the oldest boy Johnny, who would dig graves and do our jobs. Then when the middle son Bill turned 16, he was put in the Civilian Conservation Corps, which is a government program where they took young men and put them in an army unit. But they would go to public projects and build parks. Ever been to Garner State Park? They built all those cabins and it was all over the state of Texas. They would do things. They would make like a dollar a day and then he’d send that money home to his mother.
When my dad was 13 or 14, they lived in the country. He moved to town so he could go to high school and he lived by himself in an apartment on top of an automobile dealership. So he would work at the little cafe next door. He worked at Catholic School typing the hymns for every Sunday service, who gave him free tuition for that and he actually was able to finish high school. And that was it and then in 1938, the oldest, he was 16, hitchhiked to Houston and visited some relatives, whom he stayed with. Then he started hanging sheetrock, working hard and saving money to eventually bring the whole family back. He did that in the 1930s and left Yoakam. They wanted a little piece of land out on I-45 by a high school and had a little garage apartment they lived in. Then they built the house and they were all pretty good builders. So I learned a little bit about building as well. They and their relatives were all Czech and they stayed with extended family, who were very helpful in keeping the family unit together. All three of the boys started hanging, when they were big enough for the hanging sheetrock in and then made some money, with which they bought some land way north of town back in those days and life is pretty good. Grandpa's still having issues because he just didn't have the will to come back and fight. He was broken physically and mentally. He lost everything. He was totally ashamed about the Family Support thing but he kept drinking.
Then WW2 started at Pearl Harbor and immediately the oldest boys got drafted in. One in the CBs, which is the construction Corps. The Second Son Bill went into the Army Air corps, who was a mechanic and my dad was still at home because he didn't turn 18 until 1943. Then he turned 18 and the boys were making enough money in the service and sent all their money home. Now they were always trying to make money doing things in the military however they could, scrounge or whatever. My uncle in the CBs was a real hustler and he could do a lot of things. They all learned a lot. Anyways, the family was doing okay in Houston.
In 1943, my dad joined the Navy. Back in those days maybe even today if you have three sons, you can only send two into the military. The fighting one has to stay home to protect the family, you know the succession. So he stayed in Corpus Christi. And instead of doing soldiery things, they needed someone who knew how to hang sheetrock to build a building and he did that. He did a really good job. There was the Chiefs club, which is the non officer and the enlisted man's recreational facility. So they asked him once he had it sheetrock and he ran it the entire two years of his enlistment. So he had a great job and it was a job. There was a kid with high school education, never worked for anybody as an employer in his life and all of a sudden he had 50 people reported to him. He had accounting to do to make sure that everything was done right with all the food they had to purchase. All the booze they had to purchase and their entertainment for the enlisted men. It was a big job for an 18 year old, but he learned a lot about business and that...we’ll tie this in a little later. When his enlistment was over after two years, the commander of the base said he did such a good job with the enlisted man's gig and asked him to take over the officers club. The officers club was like River Oaks country club. Swimming pools, tennis courts, golf courses, etc. He took that over and spent two more years doing that. He loved it, but I came along and my mom was also in the Navy. She was a naval nurse and studied nursing before the war. When she enlisted, they made her officer and he was an enlisted man. So they had to sneak around during the war because naval officers couldn’t date listed men, which is another long story that's in the book.
The bottom line is in 1949, when they moved back to Houston and the three brothers started their little construction company with the three of them hanging sheetrock. They would get their cousins from Schulenburg, Yoakum and Weimer, and they got Poles and Germans, Italians and Czechs. Back in those days, there was still a lot of animosity about where you came from. Like if you were a German living in Schulenburg, where there were a lot of Germans. But we were fighting the Germans even though these people were born here. Just like the Japanese were interned in California, a lot of these Germans were interned because they were German. There were a lot of hard feelings after the war. I mean I still remember my dad coming home and complaining about how he can't work those Poles or Czechs or Germans because everybody wants to fight. It was a mess, but eventually they all assimilated and all became Americans. But after WWII, you can imagine there were some raw feelings. Especially, many of them have gone over and fought the Germans like my two uncles in the South Pacific. They were fighting the Japanese but a lot of the others were in France and Italy fighting the Germans, and there was some animosity.
After the war the company started taking off and I remember growing up in a very poor environment. Nobody in my family has ever been to college. My dad was the only one to ever go to high school. Education was important but it wasn't that important. We went to a Catholic Elementary School Assumption School run by the Dominican Sisters, a lot of very poor and blue-collar people getting by because after the war I always felt my Czech identity. I’d go spend a couple weeks with my grandmother every summer in Yoakum, where some of the old family was still back there. Like my dad's grandmother, his aunt and another uncle, they all still lived in Yoakum. They have got through the Depression and survived. Nobody had thrived during the Depression, but they were there and they were doing okay. So I would go there in the summer time to spend some time, like two or three weeks. Probably starting from when I was seven or eight, I remember my grandmother spoke Czech but not very good English, and my great-grandmother neither. We had all the dishes, the kolache, kabasnik, poppyseed lookas, I mean stuff you don’t even hear about today. Stuff that’s just gone for a hundred years: homemade noodle soup, milk the cows for the cream and life on the farm.
I really enjoyed that but I always identified my Czech identity because the Germans still had their place, the Richters had their place and the Poles had their places. So I got the feeling early that I have Czech ancestry. My mother was German and but had the same type of story. But I think she spoke a little German and her folks were in North Dakota. So we didn't go up there much, maybe twice in my whole life. So I identified much more of the Czech side of my family. Back in those days when you had our name as Marek and my dad still says his name is Marek, but all the kids say Marek, which is actually Marek if you go to Czech Republic. Who would have known that little business of those three guys would turn out to be with 7000 employees building cities and building structures like the Cowboys Stadium Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Methodist Hospital and everything at U of H. We built everything inside the Tilman Fertitta Center like the walls, ceilings, painted floors, doors and windows. That's what we do. And it's been really great to see the dedication of what the three brothers did with their employees because they always felt like the company exists for the employees instead of the owners. Because what we have done through the years is taking people that really don't know anything and develop them into craftsman who can build. Like we’re doing the Museum of Fine Arts right now, which is incredibly complicated and takes a lot of skills.We have really dedicated our lives to helping the people develop skills. Now we're also working in all the high schools with a lot of minorities, putting them in internship programs. So after they get out of school, they got a skill. Because if they don’t have a skill when they get out of school, a lot of them are going to go to prison.
And we’re also spending a tremendous amount of our time fighting for immigration reform. We have so many Latino employees. It was funny that the first generation of our workers after World War II were all Czechs, Poles, Germans and there weren’t many Latinos. Because after WW2 we asked the Latinos to come into our country when all our men were fighting. So we gave many of them citizenship to the Bracero Program. But when the war was over and the kids came back we deported over a million. People don't understand that but that's what happened. So, you know, the history of immigration in this country has really been up and down and we’re in the down phase right now. But in the seventies there was so much growth here in Texas. We didn't have labor in housing and building, so the Latinos came across in droves and the only major opportunity they had to get legal status was in 1986 with President Reagan's Immigration Reform Act. Many of them did but it didn't end in any way for them to get. Who knows if anyone in 12 to 20 million people here are illegal. We got 10 to 20 thousand just in Houston. A lot of DACA kids you go to school with at U of H haven’t applied for DACA. So what we're doing now as a family is spending a whole lot of time on immigration reform. If you would look at my articles in the chronicle. We also have a social media platform called the rational middle of immigration. If you Google it you will see that all our YouTube videos were trying to go back to answer some more of those questions from modern times.
One of the things that I decided to do about 15 years ago was to take my family to Czechoslovakia to trace our family roots because I always felt a strong feeling about the Czech composers and the beautiful music. We had some really outstanding Czech writers, composers and some statesmen. So when I went to Czechoslovakia, I was in a touring group called Butterfield & Robinson. They put everything into a trip like biking and hiking tours. I told him what I wanted to do and they went out and got everything. I took it at that time. I only had two kids because my daughter wasn't born. And we went to the Czech Republic. We started in Vienna just to get a feel of the Hapsburgs family, their history and why they were basically the ruling party in the Czech Republic. You go back and you look at the history of the Czech Republic. It was ruled by someone else up until World War 1, and then they finally got their independence only to be invaded by Hitler in World War II . After World War II they became part of Russia not the United States. When the Wall came down they finally got their political Freedom again, hopefully it will last longer but it was very interesting starting with the Habsburgs. Then Bruno was the first city we went to, which is very much of a typical Czech major city and not that big, but that had the Opera ballet. We did all those things walking around the cities and then that was really neat. Then we went to Olomouc or something like that. You got to look at the spelling and it's in the book. We had a guide and it was really an interesting deal to see the middle of the city. It was very nice. All around the city is where the people like my grandfather or great-grandfather lived. Looking at the beautiful castles with incredible woodwork, which is done by real craftsmanship. Then I just really felt a tie to the city, almost like I can feel my roots there. I mean that's weird but I could almost feel a connection there and if you can. I mean a lot of Marek’s in Czech Republic are like Garcia or Jones. Probably they work for a count or somebody and the whole village took the name of Marek. Much like our slaves.
Did you know the families during the cotton era when they would work on the plantation. Sometimes the slaves would take the name of the owner just because it was convenient and I think that's almost what they were like. They were very much like slaves because they didn’t vote and their kids would get conscripted into the army where they could go fight, but there wasn't a lot there other than they lived. I got to give it to my great-grandfather for having the courage to leave something that his family had probably been in for generations and come to a strange land that he didn't speak the language and didn't know if he'd ever become a citizen. I mean, I don't think that was important and they want to know if they got land but that was very important to every Czech person. And can I farm to make a living and take care of my family? Voting wasn’t important. Nobody ever thought about it well back in 1880. Are they going to have to fight in the war? Civil War is over and I thought about that a lot when I was in the Czech Republic walking around looking at the buildings to look for names. I went to the registrar's office where they register the births. They pulled out these great big books of back then papaya, I guess it's not paper like we have but just fix sheets of paper and scroll everything written out. I was trying to find birth records of any of my family and I'm there so many Mareks and it wasn’t complete. I'm not sure if me and my family is even from there. I mean they were probably escaping somebody that really wanted to keep them there because they wanted them for labor. It would be like slaves escaping from a plantation in the South. It was probably very much like that. We don't know but think about the Habsburgs control of that City and the fact that they owned those people and they knew those people. So it took some real courage for him to do that.
And then we went to Prague and that's another city like France or a beautiful city and talked to some young people who were like y'all. They were starting a freedom movement and talked to some older people to talk about how it was under the Communists. I mean people were turning in their neighbors for doing things that they shouldn't do and they didn't trust anybody yet they still don't. I mean it, the whole experience with Russia was very rough. You go into areas and look at little monuments and stuff around where the Nazis were fighting with the Czech patriots. I mean there were Czech underground that would fight the Germans and there was one plaque in Winsolace. I think it’s in Winsolace Cathedral. I may not be saying it right but there was a plaque there dedicated to a group of partisans that were killed on this spot. One of them was Joseph Marek. It was his, what my grandfather's name was so that may have been a cousin. I don't know. But it's interesting that my grandfather's name was there. I took a picture of it. I've got it someplace so, we as a family and I think my boys who were probably...one in high school, one in maybe middle school, really got the feeling of where they came from, where their name came from, what their great-grandfather and their great-great-grandfather endured to come to the United States. And then I hope they think they understood that there are kids going to school undocumented. I'll get more of that in a minute and I thought it was a really good lesson for the entire family.
My wife enjoyed it. Her family is from Maine. They were French Canadian but she's very tolerant of some of my things I want to do. And I think that’s another reason I got into immigration is because I did fight for the people that come from somewhere else. The neat thing is you girls don't understand this. Maybe you do know that people leave a country and come here. It takes so much courage. You take some guy that's just a sluggard with no ambition, and he is not going to come. You take somebody that really wants more and willing to give more, they're coming. Whether they’re from Mexico or Central America or Congo. It takes a lot of courage to do that and maybe some of it is desperation. But at least when you're desperate and you have an opportunity. You seize it but you don’t really know what's going to happen, which is what these immigrants are fighting. Anyway, that was a wonderful trip for me and a great experience.
And then I got a call from Effie one day. She said I see that you got a Czech name and we want you to get involved with the Czech center. I came down here and saw Effie and Bill were just tremendous. So this is when they first got started and of course they needed something done. So we did all the sheetrock in here and all the ceiling tile and the paint and helped them out financially. It has been a really good relationship with him and I just hated to see him after you get old you die. I mean that's part of the circle of life, but they had a great run. You know he’d worked at Shell for years and she's been very active in the community and they had a home in Czech Republic and it really made you Czech proud. I enjoyed that and I brought my dad over here several times and he really enjoyed them. He's 95 now and not in good health. But we have a lot of good memories and I did take him back when he was about 85/86 with a couple of his cousins, employers, and employees that have been with him a long time, to Yoakum. We did a nostalgia tour of the city and went back to where he lived when he was growing up. I got pictures of all those things and the cemetery where his parents are buried and the high school where he went to. His old house that was foreclosed on. Is now in the Shell area and it’s worth about 10,000 an acre. It’s crazy what oil does. So that was really great.
My own kids have seen me involved in the immigration deal and they went to have that trip and we traveled all over Europe through the years. We always tried to educate the kids and when they got out of high school, the oldest one went to Stanford. I always get a kick out of the fact that a third-generation immigrant whose father first went to college and his grandfather spoke Czech growing up and there he is at Stanford. And then after he got out of school he spent two years at YES Prep. I love YES Prep, a charter school teaching Latino kids Texas History. And I think that was his way to give back to the immigrant community and then he went to UT law and got a law degree and MBA. He works events in Elkins now. And then my little guy went to Harvard and got a really good picture of my dad in Harvard Square, with his Harvard hat on sitting there, contemplating. And I can see his thoughts “how did my grandson, an immigrant Czech wind up at Harvard in 3 generations”. I mean I thought that was pretty special and then when he got out of Harvard he spent two years and they were at centers working in race and law, helping a lot of the immigrants. If you’ve ever heard of neighborhood centers, Baker Ripley, it’s one of the biggest nonprofits that works with the Latino community. Then he went to UT and got his law degree and his MBA. I think the kids are proud of their Czech heritage. I'm really happy. I took them to the Czech Republic. I may still get my 15 year-old daughter to do that, for we haven't done that yet. And I’d like to go back. It's been 10/15 years since I've seen it. With the Czech Center here. It's been nice to have some place local in the Museum District where people can study their Czech roots if they want to in the museum. She is very nic and we had a bishop here many years ago. I’m having one of those senior moments here. Bishop Markado has got a little shrine to him down there. He was very active in the Czech community and I wish that he were still here. He died before they built this thing because he would really be pushing it, which would be good. I mean if you’re not Czech, you may not appreciate this but if you are, I think just to preserve the history of the Czechs that came to Texas. And of course they came to the parts of Texas and other parts of the United States but it seems like Texas has one of the larger Czech communities and a lot of pride. I probably missed a few things, do y’all have any questions?
UH Interviewer: Um I have a question about your connection with American. Like did you ever have a point in your life where you felt either very American or very not American. Like how do you relate to the American identity?
Stan: Well I have always felt American but I definitely felt like a poor Czech boy when I was growing up. I mean we lived in a two-bedroom house and I have a grandfather who died when I was two. So I never really knew him. But my grandmother was a very strong woman and also very angry that she had gone through this. You know they had lost everything and she really took it out on my dad and his brothers. Just work, work, work, work, work and you worried about surviving. Even though they were making a good living. We were always one step away from the poorhouse or going bankrupt or losing something. And that fear of what my dad went through with his brothers or family losing everything during the Depression is something that really stayed with him a long time. And of course, the kids feel everything for their parents. And I always felt that for a long time, it was tough. And I’ll never forget that, even as an adult, it was during the recession of 1983/1984 when our business was much smaller, but we’d borrow money for things and our bank went broke. I mean, it was scary because we could have gone into bankruptcy just because of the legal system. You don't realize how bad it was back in 83 84, but we did and now, we’re very comfortable. We’ve got no debt, a lot of employees and a lot of money, which is good. But I still remember the fear transferred from my dad to me and my grandmother, who had a tough time and died in 1998. I mean going through all they went through was horrible.
When I was in the Marines, boot camp and basic training made me feel very American. I don’t feel very good with this President. He's done some things that I like, but he's been so much more that I don't like. He’s just not Presidential. When I look back to the first President I remember is Ike, President Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Reagan, all good presidents and people you’d want your kids to grow up like. This is a phrase in our history where I'm very distressed at the long-term impact of having someone like that in office, who pushes the country to extremes, to the left to the right and there's no middle, which is why we started the rational middle immigration series. If you look at those videos, she'll understand what we're trying to get across: that there is no rational middle and an end. This country has always been one of compromises: the Senate would work good, but Republicans and Democrats would work for compromise. He wouldn't like to get so full right since you can't even talk and you young folks are going to feel the impact of this for a long time. You're voting now. You're both going and you’ve got a big responsibility here. Not just at the general election or primary. the primaries were that special and I hope they're teaching that in school. So I still hold a fondness in my heart for the Czech culture and I've got a lot of friends who are Czech and a lot of friends who are everything. It's just that I'm really happy to have a museum like this. I think archiving conversations like this is good. We are free books for the kids now and I will go on and read the book, which I'll hopefully have published soon on the construction industry and immigration.
Andy and I are collaborating on a booklet with some point in time. There's still a lot of stuff in there that I'm not comfortable putting out right now in this political climate with Trump and ICE about Labor. So I'm just waiting for the right moment, the last day when they no longer have the biggest impact on my state and my business is secure. I've got people running in and I'm spending all my time advocating for doing something about the immigration issues like last night. I was at the Ministry, where we had about a hundred people and one of the videos was shown at table discussions about immigration with thoughts and feelings. It's just amazing how little people know about immigration and it's a shame we had Jim Granado... I don’t know if you know Jim about the Hobby Center at U of H policy, they delivered it pole process where they got like two hundred people in on a Saturday and paid them $100 each to come see it and hear experts talk about immigration at the start. They divided people into sections and they gave surveys and to test the knowledge of how much these people knew about immigration people- plain people were voting in precincts that we're not River Oaks. It was amazing how little these people knew and the misconception that they look at some of these websites and some of them read Fox News. It was said we had experts come in all day and talk about different topics. They also asked questions in the same survey and the progress was unbelievable just in one afternoon.
The point is that we need to have more education on some of these important topics. In my opinion, there is not a more important issue for the United States than immigration. We are a nation of immigrants. We cannot maintain our GDP gross domestic product without immigrants and we are not making babies fast enough to replace the ones who are dying at 2.2% or 1.8. Even our Latino Community is 2.0. So it's a change ever since Roe v. Wade, you know we talk about 60 million abortions in the United States, but not necessarily bad or good. There's just too much divisiveness and not enough compassion when and if we need to deal with it as a country.
UH Interviewer: Yes I really like how you have taken your Czech background and basically have taken your background and your family’s ancestry immigration into trying to help other people, because not a lot of people do that and give back to the community. I remember what it was like to feel like I was an immigrant.
Stan Marek: Yes definitely. And you know when you see it, that someone is supportive. It means a lot. I was with a HISD class with 80 kids all latinos and african americans, who were 7th-8th grade. We had shown them one of the videos. The Immigrants’ Promises, which is the very first one. That is why I would love for you girls to look at and I mean those kids just couldn’t believe that someone was standing up and giving an immigrant a voice. Not just a legal immigrants but the undocumented immigrants and there was a little girl who asked me a question. She asked me “Mr Marek, Why do you do this?” I mean I'm a gringo and I started to talk about my Czech past, and the little girl asked me “well how much longer can you do this?” and I said “You know it takes time and money but i'll just do it till I drop dead.” I mean I have no intention to stop. I mean it's these people and they need a voice, and another thing is I said casually, I was raised a catholic and I have been a catholic on board… and social justice is a big part of what my catholic faith is about. And you welcome in as a stranger. I believe in controlling immigration and I believe in a secure border. But I believe in people that come in here. We need to know who they are for national security, and they need to play by the same rules as the rest of us. One of the horrible things about our immigration issue in America is that there are thousands of workers that I can’t hire.
UH Interviewer: Mhm, it's very sad.
Stan Marek: Ones that I need. That I can't, but other people do. They just don’t report them they don’t pay taxes, they don’t take care of them if they’re hurt, and that’s what is going on. And i'm fighting day and night and I'm like wait a minute. Let's get these people out of the shadows, let's get them protection of our laws like right now, you have 700,000 people in this city that don't report a crime. So if you get picked up and a janitor sees you, a painter sees you, or a maid sees you, the police come to them but they didn’t see a thing. Think about that. How secure can people feel? The police chief will tell me I can't guarantee your safety, not with 700,000 people that don't report a crime. You know? And none of these people have health care so when they get hurt or if they get sick, they go the ER. You ever been to the ER at Texas Childrens? All latinos. And you know these kids are sick! A lot of times it has to do with comical diseases, but they don’t get treatment, they go to school, and they spread it. You know, I mean it's just so bad and our politicians refuse to deal with it.
UH Interviewer: I kinda agree I feel like now we’re very polarized, to what you were saying earlier, and that…
Stan Marek: Yes very polarized
UH Interviewer: And I think that they all forget that we were all once upon a time an immigrant here.
Stan Marek: Yup… last night one of the ladies said that every 10 years. It seems really incredible things that you never thought would happen are happening, like gay marriages, and LGBTs. 10 years ago no way! But boom here we are. Every year you get a new crop of 18 year olds, 21 year olds, and it just becomes constant. There's a lot more of you all than there are of us because the birthrates and hopefully we will change. I just hope we don't get so polarized as a nation and then destroy our relationships with our international neighbors that it's going to take a long time to get back. And I'm scared for you guys and for my kids. You know my kids are going to have to live through this. So, any other questions?
UH Interviewer: Um I was kinda wondering, Do you speak the language?
Stan Marek: No.
UH Interviewer: What exactly is Czech?
Stan Marek: The Czech is the Czech language.
UH Interviewer: OH okay, I wasn’t sure exactly.
Stan Marek: Yeah I guess it's a slovic language, and I don’t even speak spanish. I wish I did. All my kids speak Spanish. I made sure that we had a good maid Nanny growing up for the kids and then they all took Spanish in school and. Both boys are lawyers. It is very helpful to speak two languages. My daughter likes to be a doctor and will see if that works out. But she will definitely need to speak Spanish to be a doctor in Texas. I often thought I should but like everything else, I have other priorities.
UH Interviewer: I always wondered…
Stan Marek: You speak like what, 3 languages or four?
UH Interviewer: I'm learning my fourth and fifth at the same time yeah. I did kind of have one that I just came up with. As you were talking, was your grandmother so mad at your grandfather. They were the first generation to move to Texas right?
Stan Marek: They were in Yokhom, my grandfather and my grandmother were both born in Texas.
UH Interviewer: Oh okay,
Stan Marek: Yeah their parents came from Czech Republic.
UH Interviewer: Oh okay I was wondering because I was going to ask do you think that their move, like were they happy they had moved?
Stan Marek: Yeah yeah getting out of the Czech Republic was good, and getting off the farm from the situation they were in. It was much better because there was no work. There was no opportunity, and god who would have known.
UH Interviewer: Yeah that we were gonna hit the great depression.
Stan Marek: Yeah that we would grow into what we grow into today.
UH Interviewer: I was wondering about that because I know you said she was kind of mad and about all that.
Stan Marek: Well you see, he had been mad at the world. And I can see that. I mean it, a lot of people got wiped out during the depression. Not just our family, but thousands, maybe millions of people…
UH Interviewer: I can only imagine what it would be like in Europe too, where it was really bad.
Stan Marek: Well that’s true…
UH Interviewer: Because America, we were like the only ones that kind of did good from World War I. So the book about your family history, when did you write it? Did you write it ?
Stan Marek: No, one of my cousins went to a genealogy class at Rice and continued studies and we both got interested in it. She's much older than I was.
Her dad was my dad's Uncle so her dad is my grandmother's brother and we both had an interest in preserving the history for kids. So we hired an author from the University of Houston and she did interviews with all the first generation that were still alive. The first generation came to Houston and I'm glad we did it that time because eventually they died. So we got a lot of good information from Yoakum and we have a lot of pictures that we preserved in the book. It’s easy just to have a book with all the pictures with the family book, but we have the company book and we need a 50 year and then an 80 year to remember at 81 years now. And those have a lot of history about the people and business but not much about the family. I can write the list down.
I destroyed my grandfather's house, which he built and bought our farm with. Her grandfather was down the steps of the courthouse, so he was probably in cahoots with the banker Banks report clothes, who set the price really low and locals that had money would buy almonds. When she was in her late seventies, they were selling the farm, where they found an old trunk in the attic and she thought it might be my grandfather’s. So I'm sure it was so she gave it to me. I had it repainted and restored. I've got it in my building District like the others. My grandfather would probably use an old steamer trunk when he went to the United States from Czech Republic. It looks like it was hand-built by him and that’s something he would have built to preserve. That'll hopefully be there forever. Everybody remembers they came from a very poor family when they lost everything.
UH Interviewer: Thank you for taking time out for this interview it was great getting to know more about you.