An Interview with Alberto Celaya, 1952 (Interview‪)‬

INTRODUCTION BY BILL BROYLES What was it like to talk frontier history with a legend who lived it? Here is one such session, with Alberto Celaya being questioned by Paul H. Ezell and Henry F. Dobyns, who recalls that they stood in the open with the bulky wire recorder sitting on the hood of an automobile, in Sonoyta, Sonora, January 30, 1952. The hopscotch nature of the questions and occasionally disjointed replies--at once rewarding and frustrating--will be familiar to anyone who has ever conducted or given an interview. You may feel yourself wanting to nudge Ezell and whisper, "Ask Don Alberto about the Hia C'ed O'odham camps, or their traveling routes, or how they endured the heat and cold." And in several spots Dobyns intervenes and does just that. Each answer begs for more questions, and no interviewer can gather them all in one session, so today we are left with some answers and many lingering questions. Some of Ezell's questions clearly were intended to recapture, on tape, previous conversations; at other times he cut Celaya short, perhaps indicating he already had that information on paper. Even today we want more, but we must be grateful, for this is what we have.