Journey of Hope
Memoirs of a Mexican Girl
Rosalina Rosay
AR Publishing Company
Los Angeles, California
Copyright © 2007, 2010 Published by AR Publishing Company at Smashwords. All rights reserved.
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ISBN-13: 978-0-9800361-8-3
ISBN-10: 0-9800361-8-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2007908073
Library of Congress subject headings:
Rosay, Rosalina
Mexican American women – California – Los Angeles – Biography
Mexican American women – Biography
Immigrants – California – Biography
Immigrants – Mexico – Biography
Mexican American college students
Women authors, Mexican American
California – Biography
Illegal Immigrants
Amnesty – United States
Published by Rosalina Rosay and AR Publishing Company at Smashwords
To my children, Alex, Andrew, and Ariana,
who after reading this book, love and appreciate America even more
~ ~ ~
And to my brothers, Jose and Alfonso, who have shown great kindness throughout the years
Contents
Acknowledgments
Author’s Notes
Part One: Poverty and Deprivation
Part Two: Hope and Opportunity
Epilogue
Final Thoughts
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my wonderful caring husband, Claude, who with his publishing experience, helped make this book a reality.
To Victor Wortman for his support throughout this experience and for his help editing the initial and final versions.
To Bob Cody for his attention to detail in editing my work.
Author’s Notes
Some of the names in this book have been changed in order to maintain the privacy of certain individuals.
Most of the book was written to reflect the vocabulary and wisdom of the child and teen at that particular time.
About the Cover
The picture on the front cover is the street where I grew up. The appearance of the street has not changed much (the cobblestones have been paved over). What has changed is the number of people out on the street. In the late sixties and early seventies at six o’clock in the evening – the time of day when the picture was taken – you would see kids playing, moms gossiping, and people running errands. This was the time when moms were finished cleaning up after the three o’clock supper, dads were done with their siestas, and kids were finished with their homework.
The street is now empty because most of the houses have either been abandoned or the parents who stayed behind have passed away. Most of the people who used to live here now live in America.
The picture on the back cover is the plaza, and it is also a recent picture. The plaza has not changed much since I lived there. Like my street, the plaza seems empty.
Other pictures available to view/copy/print at no charge at: www.arpublish.com
Part One
Poverty and Deprivation
I do not know exactly how old I was when I started to admire America, but I think I was quite young because my memory of this feeling is more foggy and distant than any other. Even at that young age, I knew that America was a place where dreams could come true and once you made it there, you would never want to leave.
I guess I knew this because my oldest sister, Teresa, (who was old enough to be my mother) was already working in America – or El Norte (The North) as we usually called it. She headed there after her husband left her and their three kids. She was working as a maid and nanny and would always send money for her children.
Her kids lived in our house and she actually sent more than money. She sent beautiful clothes, made from all kinds of soft wonderful materials – unlike our regular clothes which, for the girls, consisted of stiff cotton dresses made by our neighbor. She also sent white, creamy, fragrant soaps that were easy to hold and much different than the big, brown, non-fragrant bars of soap the whole family normally shared. But what I loved the most were the pictures she sent – bright, colorful pictures of her and the children she cared for. These pictures showed their beautiful pool, with water that looked so clean and blue that I could not believe my eyes. The pictures also showed lush green gardens and the inside of the family’s house, which to me was even nicer than the houses shown on Mexican soap operas.
My two oldest brothers, Jose and Alfonso, (who were also old enough to be my parents) were living in America as well. They were working as gardeners and whenever my oldest brother, Jose, was deported back to Mexico, he would immediately try to get back to the United States. He hated returning to our house – a crowded mud-brick house with dirt floors and no bathroom.
Unlike America, Mexico around the late sixties was a very bad place to live, especially for children. There were so many of us. My mother had six sons and four daughters – not including the ones that had died as babies. Most women my mother’s age had eight, nine, ten kids, often giving birth to babies around the same time as did their oldest daughters as was the case in our family.
With so many children in our town, it was very difficult for most kids to obtain the love, respect, and attention that they needed. If you had parents that lived in America sending you money, you got respect. If you were pretty, you got love. If you were a male, you got attention. I had none of the things that seemed to make a kid special.
Just like our town, our house at this time was full of kids – six of my mom’s own kids, my oldest sister’s three kids (whom I called my cousins because the girls were older than me and the boy was only a year younger) and two babies on the way. One of the babies on the way belonged to my second oldest brother Alfonso. His pregnant wife was living with us and she occupied the only bedroom that did not have a dirt floor. The second baby on the way belonged to my sixteen year old brother, Manuel, who had married his fourteen year old girlfriend a few months before. They occupied one of the dirt floor bedrooms. Their dirt floor had to be wetted daily so there would not be dust flying everywhere. The third bedroom had to be shared by the rest of us. Unlike the dusty bedroom, this room was always damp since it got very little sunshine and during the rainy months the mud walls got very wet and they did not seem to dry the whole year. The only things in this room were three beds. I slept on one of these beds with my sister Catalina and my two girl cousins. Two of my brothers and my male cousin shared another. My father, mother, and youngest brother shared the third bed. My youngest brother wetted this bed. Dampness and the smell of urine permeated this room much of the time.
●
I am five years old and I am lying on the bed in our damp and pungent room. It’s late in the evening and the room is dark since it has no electricity and there is only a tiny window. I am having another bad earache. It hurts so much that all I can do is lie there, crying. I am alone and I am scared because the room is so dark and my ear hurts so much. Then I see the silhouette of a woman with ample breasts come into the room. She tells me she is going to put breast milk into my aching ear. I immediately cooperate because my ear hurts so much and I am hopeful that the breast milk will make it feel better. The breast milk does not help and the pain eventually goes away.
●
It saddens me when I hear the current or former president of Mexico talk about illegal immigrants. The current president, Felipe Calderon, says the American economy needs illegal immigrants. The former president, Vicente Fox, has said many times that illegal immigrants come to this country to do the jobs that Americans do not want to do. They both say this as if they are proud of providing an uneducated, unskilled work force. Illegal immigrants risk their lives to come to America because they have no hope of a decent life in their own country. And these two presidents should be ashamed of this.
●
By the time I was about six or seven years old I already knew that I faced a lifetime of poverty and deprivation. I knew that my chances of a good education were practically zero. My father felt that girls did not have to be educated, since all they were going to do with their lives was to get married and have babies. Also, we only had one public elementary school and one small junior high school in our town. Most kids did not go to junior high because unlike elementary school, it was not free. It was actually quite expensive for most families.
My cousins did not worry about facing a lifetime of poverty or not getting a good education. They knew that once their mom saved enough money to buy a house in America – and they knew it would be soon – she would send for them to join her. Both of my sisters-in-law also felt much hope for their babies. Being unable to get a job in our town to support his pregnant wife, my sixteen year old brother, Manuel, had left for America as well. My sisters-in-law knew it was just a matter of time before they could join their husbands.
There were people in our town that did not depend on America for money or a happy life. These people were rich land owners. They sent their kids to our town’s private school and took annual vacations at Mexico’s beaches. Their kids drove new trucks as soon as they were old enough to drive and they wore fancy, clean, well pressed clothes. I actually knew quite a bit about their lifestyle because my second oldest sister, Josefina, married a man from a rich family.
Josefina, who as a young woman had smooth white skin, and was thin and beautiful, captivated this man. He was from a nearby ranch and his parents were rich land owners.
They moved to our town shortly after getting married and later had three children, one boy and two girls. My sister Josefina was also old enough to be my mother, so her kids were around my age. I also called them cousins. Jaime (the boy), would always tell us about their annual family vacations to various beaches.
These cousins like the other rich kids in our town went to private school. Although they played with us and were nice to us, they did not play with other poor kids. Rich kids did not play or talk with poor kids because poor kids were inferior.
As poor as I knew we were, there were kids that were even worse off. These kids walked around the town’s cobblestone streets with no shoes on and they wore torn dirty clothes most of the time. Many of them did not go to school because they had to work. They worked on farms, picking fruit and planting seeds, and they also worked in town doing odd jobs.
I often wonder what happened to these kids. Did they come to America like so many people in our town? Did they work hard and possibly become successful?
●
I had no hope of going to America at a young age. My father, who worked in America for many years under the Bracero Program, did not like living there. He said he would never go back because all people did there was work. People worked all day, came home in the evening and got ready to go to work the next day. “What kind of life is that?” he would say.
My Dad loved his life in our small town. He worked as a cattle middleman, going to various farms and buying cattle. He would then sell the cattle to the local meat markets. He would eat a big breakfast in the morning, usually chile con carne (meat in chili sauce) and homemade tortillas, and come home by three o’clock for supper. He usually took a one-hour siesta after supper. Then he would go to the plaza to meet with his friends. He stayed there for hours drinking beer, smoking, and talking to his friends. I knew he would never give all this up. For me, no hope of going to America meant no hope of a decent life.
●
I decide to spend my fifty centavos weekly allowance, which I had hidden in one of Ma’s plants. My brothers, sister, and cousins spend their weekly Sunday allowance money right away, but I like to save it. I like having money saved up, even if it is just a few cents and cannot buy much. “How will I spend my half peso coin?” I wonder as I walk home. I know the things I cannot buy with it; I cannot buy a bag of potato chips. My rich cousin Leticia let me have some one time. I had loved their crunchy salty taste, but they are more than a peso. I usually save my allowance for a few days, but I cannot save it for weeks. I know I will probably never be able to save up enough money to buy a Twinkie or cupcake. My cousin let me try them one time. I had never tasted anything so good before. And of course, I will not be able to buy a chocolate bar even though I always have a craving for it. The kind of chocolate I always crave is not even carried by the two small shops near our house. This chocolate comes neatly wrapped, first in silver foil and then the outer wrap. The store at the plaza carries it and it is a lot more than one peso. I sometimes wish that my cousin Leticia had never let me try it. It was so sweet and creamy unlike the chocolate Ma sometimes gives us. The kind of chocolate she gives us is used for making hot chocolate, and it is grainy, hard, and not even sweet. I am getting close to home and I finally have an idea of what I will buy, probably an apple. Ma never buys apples because they are too expensive… or maybe a jicama with chili powder on it. Those are fifty cents. A mango would be great, but they are a peso.
When I get home I see Ma talking to her friend. They are standing just inside the house and she does not acknowledge me as I pass right by them. Ma does not like to stand in front of our house gossiping, like most ladies in the neighborhood. She says it’s bad for ladies to be gossiping in front of their houses, especially when they are gossiping about the people that walk by.
I am looking for my coin, but I cannot find it. The patio is my favorite place to hide my coins even though my brother, Gerardo, sometimes steals them. I like hiding them there because the patio is my favorite place in the house. The patio’s mud walls, which are not painted, are covered with plants, mostly geraniums with colorful flowers. As I look for my coin, I see Ma looking at me as she tells her friend, “Rosa is not pretty like her sister Catalina or street smart like her brother Gerardo, but at least she has light skin.” I stop looking for my coin and leave the house. It hurts me that Ma said those things about me when she knew I could hear her.
●
My mother was accustomed to making comparisons. After all, she had ten kids who did not behave or look alike. My mother herself had different-looking parents. Her father had blue eyes and white skin. Her mother had dark skin and Indian features. Ma had dark skin, but did not have the typical Indian features: small eyes, flat nose, high cheekbones, and full lips.
When I was a child, I heard Ma say that when she was pregnant she did not have any idea what the baby would look like. My oldest sister, Teresa, was born with dark skin, and some Indian features. My second sister, Josefina, was blond with brown eyes. My oldest and second oldest brothers looked like Teresa, but my third oldest brother, Manuel, was also blond. My other three brothers all had dark skin, but had different features. My sister, Catalina, who my mom said was the prettiest baby she ever had, was born with a head full of dark shiny black hair, white skin, and Spanish features. I was born with light skin, but with all of the Indian features.
My sister Teresa’s kids, who I called my cousins, also looked different. Teresa married a man with light skin and green eyes. So, one of her daughters had green eyes, the other brown, and her son had blue eyes. They all had light skin. My sister, Josefina, married a white-looking man. Her oldest daughter, Leticia, had beautiful blue eyes and blond hair. Her son was also blond with blue eyes. Her youngest daughter had brown hair and eyes, with light skin.
Just like our family, many families in our town had very different looking kids, and comparisons were always being made. But being different was part of normal life. Therefore, we accepted our differences and lived our lives as best we could.
●
I am six years old, about to turn seven, and I cannot wait to start school. I have taught myself how to write my full name, numbers up to one hundred, and the alphabet. I do not tell anyone this because it does not matter, no one cares. Since the day Ma took me to the school to register, I have been eagerly waiting for school to start. The first day of school is everything I hoped it would be. I get a new dress, new socks, and new shoes.
I love the school as soon as I go inside. It has a clean, shiny, tile floor entrance and an open concrete center (no dirt floors anywhere). It also has a second story on one side of the school, which is something I have never seen before. The school’s brick walls do not have paint peeling off like the walls in our house. I also like my teacher, a kind thin woman with short, wavy hair.
As the months go by I continue to love school. I have a couple of close friends and a few others. Some of the kids in the class are hit on their hands for talking or for not doing their homework. I always do my homework and listen to the teacher so I am never hit.
The social status of the kids in the class is very apparent. We have two doctor’s daughters who are not rich enough to go to private school, but are richer than most of us. They wear different dresses every day and have shiny long hair. We also have the son of a teacher. He wears clean, well pressed slacks and shirts. There are a couple of girls who wear pretty dresses and socks with lace trim. I do not know what their dads do, but they look like they have money. A few kids come to class with messy hair and dirty clothes. Most kids do not want to sit next to these dirty kids because everyone thinks they have lice. I usually wear the same dress the whole week unless it is noticeable dirty; I am considered average like many other kids in the class.
Because I am just an average kid, I am surprised when my teacher tells me that she wants me to play the main character in a school play. The play will be performed at the school’s annual Mother’s Day celebration. I have attended a few of these celebrations before to watch my cousin Irma perform typical Mexican dance numbers.
The name of the play is “La Traperecita” (the little rag girl). I’m full of excitement when I get home and cannot wait to tell Ma.
Ma, I am going to be in a school play, it’s called La Traperecita, I tell her.
Ma looks at me, nods, but does not say anything. I am happy anyway because I never thought I would ever be able to perform in the annual school celebration.
My cousin, Irma, performs at this celebration every year since her mom sends her money from El Norte to have the required dance dresses made for her. I have always known that my parents cannot afford to have dresses made for me. Most of the numbers performed at this event consist of various Mexican dances and the girls wear elaborate dresses. I do not remember ever seeing a play before, so for me being in a play is a very big deal.
We spend many hours practicing the play. I tell Ma she does not have to worry about getting special clothes for me. The teacher just wants me to wear my oldest dress and shoes, and to have messy hair.
The day of the event finally comes. All day I have been feeling butterflies in my stomach. I tell Ma I have to go to the school early and get ready for the play. All I need is my oldest dress since I am already wearing my oldest shoes and my hair is kind of messy. The teacher will probably make my dress look dirty and mess up my hair some more before the play. Ma seems to not have heard a thing I said because she tells me she has to comb my hair and help me change into better clothes. I tell her, no Ma I am playing a homeless girl and I do not need to have my hair combed or change into better clothes. She ignores me again and I know better than to keep arguing. So I let her comb and braid my hair, but then she goes and gets my favorite dress. This dress is from El Norte. And I really like it because it looks so new and it is bright white on top – I do not have any other bright white clothes. It is also very soft and comfortable.
I feel like crying when I get to school and my teacher looks at me. My hair is neatly braided and I am wearing a practically new dress and clean white socks. My teacher panics and tries to mess up my two braids, but Ma made them very tight so it is not possible to make them look messy and there is no time to redo them. She then looks at my dress. I tell her I told Ma that I needed to wear my oldest dress, but she would not listen to me. My kind teacher is somehow able to get patches for the dress, but when she starts hand sewing them on it, I start to cry. This is my favorite dress and I am afraid it will get ruined. She stops and I perform the play feeling sad and embarrassed – a rag girl wearing a practically new dress and socks. Why did Ma do this to me?
●
Mother is tall and thin and has long black hair. She never hugs or kisses us and she is worse to me than to my brothers, sister, or cousins. I know she does not beat my brothers because boys are more valuable than girls. Someday when she gets older, they will provide financial support for her. In her eyes, daughters, who will someday depend on their husbands, will never be able to do this.
She does not beat my cousins either. She says she feels sorry for them because their dad had left them and their mom is in El Norte working hard to support them.
She does not beat my sister, Catalina, who is five years older than me and able to defend herself. But I sometimes feel that she does not get beaten because she is so pretty.
So, it is me that gets beaten. Whenever I do something wrong, I have to get on my stomach on one of the beds and Ma hits me fifteen, twenty times with a belt, up and down my back. After every beating, I hate Ma and wish that she would die. I hate her for hours even though I sort of know why she is so mean, especially to me.