Authors: Francisco Jiménez
Copyright © 2008 by Francisco Jiménez
All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.
The text of this book is set in Goudy.
Photos are from the author's private collection.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file.
ISBN-13: 978-0-618-03851-0
Manufactured in the United States of America
MP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
AcknowledgmentsTo my family and the community of my alma mater,
Santa Clara University
I would like to thank my mother, Joaquina; my brothers, Roberto, José Francisco, Juan Manuel, and Rubén; my sister, Avelina; my sister-in-law, Dartene; my wife, Laura; and my friends Smokey Murphy and Emily Bernabé for providing me with their own personal recollections of the period I write about in this book. Special thanks to my immediate familyâLaura, Francisco "Pancho," Lori, Carlo, Dario, Camille, Miguel, Susanna, Tomás, and Novaâfor patiently listening to drafts and offering helpful comments.
I wish to thank the community of my childhood for being a constant inspiration to me in my writing and in my personal and professional life.
I have a lasting gratitude to my teachers, whose guidance and faith in my ability helped me break through many barriers. I thank them for reaching out to me and for responding when I reached out to them for help in my educational journey. They inspired me to reach out to other learners, especially first-generation college students.
Thanks to my colleagues and friends, especially Father Paul Locatelli, S.J. Don Dodson, Alma Garcia, and Susan Erickson, for encouraging me to continue writing.
A special thanks to Ann Rider, my wonderful editor, for her valuable suggestions for improvements and her gentle insistence that I write from the heart.
The day I had longed for had finally arrived. It was Sunday, September 9, 1962. I felt excited and nervous as I got ready to make the trip north to Santa Clara. I had worked hard to make this journey to college even though it seemed improbable for so many years.
I did not anticipate, however, how difficult it would be to leave my family, especially my older brother, Roberto.
Roberto and I had been inseparable ever since we were children living in HI Rancho Blanco, a small village nestled on barren, dry hills in the northern part of the state of Jalisco, Mexico. I called him "Toto" because when I was first learning to talk, I could not pronounce "Roberto." In Mexico, he used to take me to church on Sundays, In the evenings, he and I huddled with our parents around a fire built with dry cow chips in the middle of our adobe hut and listened to our uncle Mauricio tell ghost stories. I kept Roberto company every day while he milked our five cows by hand before dawn, and I helped him fetch water from the river. I cried every time Toto was out of my sight. Whenever
I misbehaved, my parents punished me by separating me from him.
Hoping to leave our poverty behind and start a new and better life, my family emigrated illegally from Mexico to California in the late 1940s and began working in the fields. From the time I was six years old, Toto and I worked together alongside our parents. He sang Mexican songs to me such as "Cielito Lindo" and "Dos Arbolitos" while we picked cotton in early fall and winter in Corcoran. After we were deported in 1957 by
la migra
and came back legally, Roberto took care of me like a father when he and I lived alone for six months in Bonetti Ranch, a migrant labor camp. He was a sophomore in high school and I was in the eighth grade at the time. The rest of our family stayed in Guadalajara and joined us later. During that time, I helped him in his job doing janitorial work at Main Street School in Santa Maria after school, and on weekends we worked together topping carrots or thinning lettuce. After graduating from high school, Roberto got married and continued working as a custodian for the Santa Maria School District on weekdays. And even though he had left our home in Bonetti Ranch to start his own family, we saw each other often. On weekends he and I worked together for the Santa Maria Window Cleaners, a commercial janitorial company.
Roberto and his wife, Darlene, dropped by early that Sunday morning with their baby girl, Jackie, to say goodbye, Darlene, who looked a lot like the actress Elizabeth Taylor,
patted Roberto on the back, trying to console him, while he and I hugged each other. "He'll be back for Thanksgiving," she said. Being separated from my brother was as painful as yanking out a fingernail.
My father was in one of his usual bad moods and impatient to get going. "
Vámonos, pues,
" he said annoyed. Let's get going.
Ever since he had hurt his back from doing stoop labor for many years and could no longer work in the fields, his temper had gotten worse. Bracing himself on Roberto's broad shoulders, he carefully slid onto the passenger's seat of our old, beat-up DeSoto. His face was pale and drawn and bis eyes were red from lack of sleep. He was upset because I was leaving home. He wanted our family to always be together.
I locked the front door to the army barrack, which we rented from Mr. Bonetti. I climbed in the driver's seat, slammed the bent door shut, and quickly fastened it with a rope to keep it closed. As we drove out of Bonetti Ranch, I rolled down the cracked window so I could make hand signals. My father flinched every time the car hit potholes in the dusty road. Trampita, my younger brother, sat between my father and me. We gave José Francisco the nickname "Trampita," Little Tramp, because my parents dressed him in baby clothes we found in the city dump when he was born. My other younger brothers, Torito and Rubén, and my little sister, Rorra, sat in the back seat with my mother. They were excited to make the trip, but they kept quiet because my
father did not tolerate noise, especially when he was in a bad mood.
I turned right onto East Main and headed west on the two-lane road toward Santa Maria to take Highway 101 north to Santa Clara. The sun poked its head above the mountains behind us, casting a shadow in front of our DeSoto. On both sides of the narrow road were hundreds of acres of strawberry fields, which my family had worked in during the harvest season, from sunup to sundown, a few years before. As we approached the Santa Maria Bridge, I remembered the pain I felt every time we had crossed this bridge on our way north to Fresno to pick grapes and cotton every September for eight years. During that time I always missed the first ten weeks of school because I was working with my family in the fields.
From the corner of my eye I saw my father close his eyes. "Do you want me to drive, Panchito?" Trampita whispered. "You look tired." My family called me "Panchito," the Spanish nickname for Francisco, which was my birth name.
"No, thanks. You need to rest yourself. You'll have to drive back,"
Trampita had to take over my janitorial job and work thirty-five hours a week, as I did, while going to school to help support our family. Without him, I would not have been making this journey.
Through the rearview mirror I saw my mother dozing off with her arms around Rorra and Rubén, who were fidgety.
Torito gazed out the side window, humming something to himself.
We called Rubén, my youngest brother, Carne Seca, because he was as thin as a strip of beef jerky when he was a child. He sat on my father's lap whenever we traveled from place to place, following the crops. My father favored him because, according to my mother, Rubén looked like my dad.
Rorra, my little sister, whose given name was Avelina, followed me around whenever I was home. She liked being teased, and often when we poked fun at each other, she would remind me of the time she was four years old and took two of my favorite pennies from my coin collection and bought gum with them from a gum machine. "I am stuck on you," she'd say, laughing. We called her Rorra, "doll," because she looked like one. We all doted on her.
I felt a pain in my chest, thinking about not seeing them every day.
We passed familiar coastal towns along the way: Nipomo, Arroyo Grande, Pismo Beach. As we approached San Luis Obispo, I remembered visiting California Polytechnic College during my junior year. Now I was headed to the University of Santa Clara, and the only thing I knew about college for sure was that it would be more difficult than high school. I knew this because Mrs. Taylor, my freshman social studies teacher, often told our class, "You think the work I give you is hard? Wait until you go to college!"
Our DeSoto strained to climb the San Luis Obispo grade.
There was a string of cars behind me. "Move to the right and let cars pass you," my father said, waking up from his nap.
"I can see why you didn't get a good grade in driver's ed," Trampita said, laughing. I elbowed Trampita in the shoulder and steered to the right lane. The driver behind me gave me a nasty look as he passed by. I kept my eyes straight ahead, avoiding eye contact with the other drivers.
"I hope I don't get a ticket for driving so slow."
"Like your father," my mother said, tapping my father on the back of the head. My father was not amused. He had been stopped by the highway patrol a couple of times on our way to Fresno for driving our
carcachita,
our old jalopy, too slowly. He was not cited either time because we gave the officer the excuse that our mattress, which was on top of the car roof, would fly off if he drove too fast, even though it was tied with ropes to the front and rear bumpers.
The heat increased as we continued north past Atascadero and Paso Robles.
Rorra said she was hungry.
"Yo
también tengo hambre,
" Rubén agreed.
"We'll stop in King City," my mother said as we passed by the sign for the turnoff.
"No, let's wait until we get to Santa Clara," my father said firmly. 'Aguántense!" Put up with it. There was dead silence. A half-hour later, Rorra and Rubén made it known again that they were hungry.
"My stomach is making funny noises," Rorra said
sheepishly, rubbing her stomach with her right hand.
"What's it saying?" my father asked, chuckling.
"It wants food."
"Mine too," Rubén chimed in.
"How about stopping in Soledad?" my mother suggested, noticing that my father was in a better mood.
"No, it will bring us bad luck," my father quickly objected. I understood my father's objectionâsoledad means "loneliness" or "a lonely place" in Spanish. I disagreed with him, but I didn't contradict him. I knew better. "As soon as you see an open area, pull over," my father said, lighting up a cigarette.
We approached a long row of tall eucalyptus trees along the left bank of the highway, right outside of King City. I slowed down and made a left turn onto a narrow dirt road and continued for a quarter of a mile, followed by a cloud of dust, and parked the car on the side of the road. "Thanks for bringing us to the desert," Trampita said. "I am sure our
taquitos
will taste better with a little dust on them."
"
Qué chistoso,
" my mother said, laughing. Very funny. My father looked at me and smiled.
"This isn't dust, Trampita. It's powdered salsa."
"
Ya pues
," my mother said. Enough. "Let's eat." She took an army blanket from the trunk of the car and a large brown grocery bag, which she handed to Torito. She spread the blanket on the ground for us to sit on. Trampita and I helped our dad sit with his back leaning against the front right tire.
"I made these
taquitos
with chorizo and eggs this morning," my mother said proudly as she handed them out. Rubén and Rorra gobbled their tacos and asked for another one.
"Qwe
los mantenga el gobierno,
" my father said. Only the government can afford to feed them.
"That's for sure," my mother said, lightly stroking Rorra's hair. "You'd better eat a couple more, Panchito. You won't get these at the university."
I had not thought about what the food would be like at college until my mother mentioned it. Beginning in middle school, Roberto asked her not to make us tacos for our school lunch because kids made fun of us. So she made us sandwiches instead but always put a chile pepper with the sandwich to add flavor.
We continued our trip through the Salinas Valley, which looked like a huge, colorful tapestry. It was bordered by mountain ranges to the west and cut in the middle by a black strip of road that stretched as far as the eye could see. Along the way were acres and acres of lettuce, cauliflower, celery, vineyards, and strawberries, and yellow, red, purple, and white flowers. "It looks like paradise, a green heaven," my mother said, in awe.
"Not for people working the fields," my father countered.
I agreed with him. Every few miles I saw a string of old, dusty cars and pickup trucks parked on the edge of the fields, and clusters of farm workers hunched over, picking the crops or hoeing weeds. Our own family had done the same kind of
work year after year for the first nine years we were in California.