Excerpts from the section on Arturo Valenzuela that appears in E Pluribus Omaha: Immigrants All, written by Harry B. Otis and Donald Erickson, are used with permission from the Douglas County Historical Society, the authors’ designated beneficiary for contents, publication and proceeds of this book. Published by Lamplighter Press, copyright 2000, Historical Society of Douglas County (dba DCHS).
 
More descriptive of the average Mexican immigrant is the story of the Valenzuela family. Arturo Valenzuela, born across the border from El Paso, Texas in Juarez, Mexico, had the same struggles as almost every newcomer from Mexico.
 
During his tender years, Arturo, together with his older brother and sister, was reared by a single mother, Leonor Valenzuela, who early on decided to leave her children in the care of an uncle and aunt and move to Los Angeles with her sister. There she could find work and send money back for the support of the children. Arturo spent his early years in Juarez with his siblings and cousins under the care of Uncle Alberto Valenzuelo. For spending money, he picked cotton.
 
All went well until Leonor became sick and required surgery. When the money to Mexico stopped, the children suffered accordingly. After she recovered, Leonor heeded the advice of friends who directed her to Omaha. She could find work in the packinghouses, they told her.
 
Arriving in Omaha, she encountered a climate and a culture vastly different from the one she had left, even the one in Los Angeles. She wasn’t used to the cold weather and didn’t even have a coat when she came. Furthermore, she didn’t speak any English. Although she lived in South Omaha, in the 1960s it was hard for a woman to find a job in one of its packinghouses.
 
Blue Star Foods in Council Bluffs gave her a job. At first she walked to work over the Thirteenth Street South Omaha Bridge (now Veterans Bridge.) Later she took the bus. Eventually she got her permanent visa (green card) and a husband, Pete Kobos. Then she was able to send for her children. At age fourteen, Arturo was among them when they came to Omaha in 1970 to share for a while their mother’s suffering from snow and cold weather.
 
Living directly across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Arturo had picked up a few English words, but had no formal training in English. When he arrived in Omaha, although he was old enough to attend high school, it was impossible for him without adequate English.
 
He enrolled at Marrs Junior High School where he found caring teachers patient enough to guide him in the new language. No longer a small child, picking up English was not easy for him. Like many others before and after him, his gravest burden were the taunts of thoughtless fellow students who mocked his efforts.
 
He even sought help through military service. At age seventeen, he enlisted in the army and was sent to Fort Jackson, South Carolina. It was warmer there, and his English did improve. But not well enough. After two-and-a-half months, he was back in Omaha with an honorable discharge. At least he had learned that there were many persons whose English was worse than his, and he had lost his fear of trying. He began carrying a dictionary with him at all times.
 
New immigrants get all the menial jobs. When its regular dishwasher failed to show up for work, the Omaha Club, a private club at Twentieth and Douglas, gave Arturo the job. Not much English was needed. Then about a month later when one of the cooks suddenly walked out, the chef asked Arturo to replace him.
 
Although he knew nothing about cooking, he started anyway – merely following the chef’s orders. He figured the absent cook would get over what was bothering him and return the next day. He didn’t. The chef told Arturo to continue to work in his place and to learn from the other cooks how to do things like making soups and basic sauces. For the next four to six weeks he cooked and, in his spare time, washed dishes.
 
The club announced that it was closing for two weeks for employee vacations. It would serve its members only soup and sandwiches. Arturo and one or two others would remain to serve. With the chef gone, the club manager asked Arturo to take charge. “Just create something out of whatever you have there, like all chef’s do.” He said.
 
Charged up, Arturo got creative. Every day he and his coworkers served more and more club members who apparently approved of their soup and sandwiches. When they ran out of food, Arturo nervously ordered more from the wholesale grocer, whose kindly service representative took his time to help him with the order.
 
After two weeks, when the vacationing head chef failed to return, the club hired Walter Hecht, a Swiss chef with sparkling credentials. Hecht had lived for a few years in Puerto Rico and had learned enough Spanish to communicate well with Arturo. He took a liking to him and saw to it that he received a pay raise.
 
Speaking English most of the time, Hecht taught him many things – new food preparations, new techniques. “Hecht could create just about anything,” Arturo says, “and he taught me how to do a lot of it.”
 
For six or seven years, Arturo worked for Hecht both at the Omaha Club and at various restaurants that Hecht later established in the community. Ultimately Arturo became a good enough chef to be hired by the Marriott Hotel chain for its hotels both in Omaha and El Paso, Texas.
 
Then one day his sister told him that the Omaha Club was looking for a sous chef. Not only did the club hire him, but three months later promoted him to executive chef. It was 1986, and he was only thirty years old.
 
For nearly fourteen years in this role, until the Omaha Club closed January 1, 2000, he catered meals for many club members, as well as many visiting VIPs. This included a breakfast for a twosome, Vice President Dan Quayle and Mayor Hal Daub.
 
In 1979 Arturo married Kathy Steinbloch. They have two children. Arturo Gabriel, eighteen, is enrolled at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln; Carlos Jesus, sixteen, still living at home, attends Westside High School.
 
Arturo embraces a simple philosophy: work hard and learn. His Mexican friends say, “We outwork the Americans, yet we are poor.”
 
“This is not enough,” he tells them, “you must outthink them, too. Their genius has created a superstructure that permits their wealth. Their education permits them to enjoy the good life without the hard work most Mexicans endure both here and in their native land. If the Mexican-American wants to enjoy the good life, he must educate himself, or at least insist that his children do.”
 
Fully acclimated, Arturo loves Omaha and would not live anywhere else. Today his English, if not impeccable, is better than that of many Americans born and reared in his adopted land. Nobody makes fun of him now.
 
Permission for this one-time use is provided by Betty J. Davis, The Harold W. Andersen Chair/Executive Director, Douglas County Historical Society, located at historic Fort Omaha, 5730 North 30th Street, Omaha, NE 68111-1657 (402-455-9990).