Louis Garcia discusses his career as frontline worker and manager at REO Motor Car Company and Diamond REO Trucks, Inc
Louis Garcia discusses his career as an assembly worker, press operator, and manager at REO Motor Car Company/Diamond-Reo Trucks, Inc, in Lansing, Mi, between 1946 and 1975. Garcia talks about his Hispanic heritage and his childhood spent as a migrant farm worker. He says that in his early years at REO he was singled out and "tested" by other workers and management because of his ethnicity, but still excelled in the workplace, becoming a journeyman and later a supervisor. Garcia also talks about Francis Cappaert’s ownership of REO, the company bankruptcy, loss of the worker pension fund, the final days of plant operations, and employee depression and suicide. Interviewers are Shirley Bradley and Lisa Fine. Recorded as part of the REO Memories oral history project.
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- In Collections
-
G. Robert Vincent Voice Library Collection
- Copyright Status
- In Copyright
- Date
- 1992-01-28
- Interviewees
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Garcia, Louis C.
- Interviewers
-
Fine, Lisa M.
Bradley, Shirley J.
- Contributors
-
REO Memories (Project)
- Subjects
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Garcia, Louis C.
Cappaert, Francis
Reo Motor Car Company
Diamond REO Trucks, Inc
Automobile industry workers
Employees
Finance
Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.)
Pension trusts--Termination
Plant shutdowns
Racism in the workplace
Michigan--Lansing
- Material Type
-
Sound recordings
- Language
-
English
- Extent
- 01:42:05
- Venue Note
-
Interviewed and recorded in Lansing by Shirley J. Bradley and Lisa M. Fine, Jan. 28, 1992.
- Holding Institution
-
Vincent Voice Library
- Call Number
- Voice 16254
- Catalog Record
- http://catalog.lib.msu.edu/record=b8663245
- Permalink
- https://n2t.net/ark:/85335/m5251fk71