An American Story
[Some years ago I asked a young man from Mexico if he would consider writing his American story for me. He has recently granted me permission to publish his story right here on www.theburninghand.com.]
My True Story
My name is Roberto Chavez and I was born in a small village called Las Jicamas in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico. The village was built in the skirt of two big mountains, which belong to two different states Guanajuato and Michuacan. Las Jicamas is one of the most growing villages in the state. It has over five thousand inhabitants, and they all depend on the rainy season for sowing corn and beans. Every year the men of the village say goodbye to their families in the spring to work in El Norte, as they call the United States. For over thirty-five years, my father left the town during spring and returned in early winter. He worked in the endless strawberry and lettuce fields in the Salinas Valley of California, leaving his wife and children behind.
My father came to the U.S. in the fifties as a bracero worker not because he wanted to come, but because of the situation his family lived in. Living in poverty, in an adobe house he built, the ceiling almost falling on us was not easy. During the rainy season, the house leaks like a colander. It was impossible to find a job in the village that would pay a good salary to feed a family of seven. These living conditions forced my father to immigrate to El Norte. Campesinos in Mexico lived day to day always worrying about having something to eat the next day. We were most of the time running around the house barefoot because our parents did not have money to buy us shoes. The Mexican economic crisis pushed thousands of campesinos away from their families including my grandfather in the forties. The same economic reasons forced my father in the fifties to endure the journey to El Norte. Soon after, the same reasons pushed my entire family in the nineties to come to the United States.
For my father and my three older brothers the most significant benefit that they obtained by coming to the U.S. was the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 through which they obtained legal status in the United States. Thanks to the IRCA, in 1986 my father was granted legal residency. This gave him most of the rights U.S. citizens have and the right to government benefits. Most importantly, acquiring legal status for my father gave his wife and children the opportunity to immigrate to the U.S. Now, my father did not have to risk his life crossing the Rio Bravo illegally to get to the United States.
Unfortunately we were not able to immigrate to the U.S. because we did not have a green card. Now, if we wanted to go to the United States we needed to cross the Rio Bravo the same way my father did it for thirty-five years. My father wanted to immigrate my whole family to the U.S., but he did not want to take the risk of loosing his family crossing the Rio Bravo with the help of a "Coyote" smuggler. At the end, my father did not have any other options than requiring the help of a Coyote to cross his family to the U.S.
In December 20, 1992, my journey to El Norte began. My father finally saved enough money to immigrate my family to California. Like most immigrants we crossed the U.S.-Mexican border illegally with the help of a Coyote. When crossing the borderline, I remembered the stories my father and my older brothers once told me about crossing La Frontera illegally. Now, it was my turn to defeat La Migra (the Border Patrol) with my mother and two brothers. It took us two intensive days to cross La Frontera. We walked during the night and rested during the day. Finally after two days of intense walking and running, crossing La Frontera with the help of a Coyote had been a success. We had defeated La Migra, and now, we were in the United States. The border that once took my father away from my family now would no longer separate us. It was time to start a new life celebrating Christmas Eve in Soledad, California. We were going to be living in an old bracero labor camp named Jimenez, which is located next to another labor camp called Camphora and to the Solead Facility Prison.
When I first came to the United States, I had many fears that it was not easy to overcome. First of all, coming to this country at a very young age my biggest fear was whether I would ever go back to my homeland. It was hard for me leaving my birthplace because I was blind to this new world, and I did not know what was going to happen next. One thing that I was sure about was that I was going to miss all friends and animals that I left in Mexico. Coming to this country was very hard for me because I needed to leave part of my childhood behind, and I was not going to go back in many years until my family had become U.S. legal residents.
Another of my fears was attending a new school and not being able to speak English. I was afraid attending a new school because I dis not know if I was going to like my new school and my new teachers. I was afraid not to make friends because of my language barrier. I still remember how confused and scared I was during my first week of school. My fears grew even greater after seeing how the Mexican-Americans discriminate against the Mexicans. For the first time, I felt ashamed of my own people because Mexicans were fighting against other Americans. Mexican-Americans did not like us. They called us names like, "mojados" wetbacks and "paisas". They taught they were better than the Mexicans just because they were born in the U.S. To be honest, I did not feel safe in school. When I was in class, I felt very isolated from the rest of my classmates because the majority of them were Mexican-Americans and they did not see me as a friend.
Learning English was another of the obstacles that I had to overcome. Learning English was not easy for me because I did not have the necessary help I needed. When I was in school, I felt confused in class because I did not understand my teachers. They taught most of the lessons in English and only one or two in Spanish. For me everything seemed very hard and weird because it was all in English.For the first two months, I did not do my homework because the direcions were written in English, which I did not know how to read. Every day after school I remember telling my parents that I did not like my new school. I regretted many times coming to the United States. I wanted to go back to Las Jicamas where all the people were friendly to me. I wished I were in my old school where all my teachers spoke my language. I guess it was hard for me to adapt to a new school and a new language.
Living in an old Bracero Labor Camp became an obstacle for me to learn English. All the residents that live in the labor camps are farm Workers who do not speak English. In my opinion, I think the environment in which a child lives depends on how fast or how slow the child would develop a new language. For me, it was hard to develop my English language skills because all the people in my neighborhood spoke Spanish, so I never had the need to speak English. Sometimes when I tried to practice my English skills with my friends, they made fun of me because they said that I wanted to become a "Gabacho", an Anglo. My friends did not understand that I wanted to succeed in life by speaking two languages. I wanted to practice my English skills with them, but they refused to do so. I hated living in Camp Jimenez because it was away from the city. We did not have any public services like a library or an after-school program where we could receive the necessary help to understand our homework. In my opinion, I think it is better to live in a community where the majority of the people speak the language that you are trying to develop because one would always have someone to practice the new language. I guess the reason it took me a long time to learn English was because I lived in a neighborhood where all the people spoke Spanish.
There are over three hundred children living in the tow labor camps. Most of these children are not doing well in school. They are getting low grades and most of them are not passing grade level. Based upon my personal experience, I think these children need motivation, enthusiasm, and encouragement in order to do well in school. They need role models to talk to about college and about the importance of doing well in school. They need someone who can provide extra help with their homework. Overall, these children need someone who can provide the motivation and encouragement that they need to stay in school...
Robert Smith, the founder of the Franciscan Workers in Salinas, has been one of the few persons that have done something to help the migrant families at Jimenez and Camphora labor camps. He has personally seen the poverty in which these migrant families live. For many years, he has helped the families by giving them food and clothing. He has also seen the necessity of having an afterschool program to help the children with their homework. He was aware of the high percentage rate of children dropping out of school before finishing high school. He wanted to do something to help these children. He created an afterschool program at Camphora to help motivate the children to stay in school. The program was well organized. Robert invited college students to come talk to the children at the camp about college. He knew that the children needed motivation and that the only way they were going to get it was through the voices of these college students. The program always counted more than eight tutors to help the children. All the tutors were university students that were attending a local university.
Robert also saw the need of having a library at the camp. He added a small library to the afterschool program. All the books were not new, but they were very educational and fun to read. I personally enjoyed reading one or two books every day I attended the program...
(To be continued...)