Authors: Debra Burroughs
The next morning, while Alfredo was asleep in her arms, she walked alone to Imelda and David’s home, about a half a mile away in another migrant camp. Carlos stayed home with the other children. He had already told David that Sofía would be coming over with the baby.
Sofía knocked on the door and the couple opened it.
“
I’m Sofía. Carlos told me you want to have children very badly but you’re not able to.”
“
Yes, that’s right,” Imelda said. “Come in.”
“
No, I can’t.” Sofía needed to leave quickly before she would begin to cry.
She kissed the baby on the forehead and handed him over to Imelda. “This is Alfredo.” Sofía’s chest was tight as she fought back her tears. “I hope you’ll be a good mother and love him and care for him like I would.”
“
Yes, Sofía, we will,” David replied.
Sofía turned and walked away. She cried all the way home.
There was a profound sadness that settled over Sofía because of the loss of her son. She found herself crying several times throughout the day as she thought of Arturo’s soft dark hair, his inquisitive brown eyes, his little crooked smile. Little Eva would ask her what was wrong, but Sofía would change the subject and get Eva’s attention on something else. Each night she would cry herself to sleep thinking about her lost son.
Carlos saw Sofía’s tears every day, and it filled him with guilt. She hardly spoke to him anymore unless she had to. His pride would not let him admit that he had made a mistake. And now Alfredo was gone. He had given his son away, and he couldn’t take him back without being humiliated.
A couple of months later, Sofía decided to go and check on Alfredo and see how he was doing. She got a neighbor to come and watch the children while she went for her visit.
She hadn’t told Imelda she was coming, she just showed up at her door unannounced. Imelda sheepishly let her in, and Sofía looked around the sparsely-furnished place. It was tidy, but she didn’t see a crib or a cradle anywhere.
“
Where is Alfredo?” Sofía asked, suspiciously.
“
I’ll get him,” Imelda said. She looked a little embarrassed and quickly left the room. So, Sofía, close on Imelda’s heels, followed her to the bedroom. She saw Imelda pull a box out from under the bed and her sweet little baby boy was lying in the box with a blanket under him, sleeping soundly.
He had skinny arms and legs and a bloated belly. She would later find that the baby had rickets, a disease caused by malnourishment. Enraged by what she saw, Sofía angrily pushed Imelda aside and scooped up her son, blanket and all.
“
No, no, no, no!” Sofía kept saying, shaking her head. She bundled him up and stormed out of the bedroom. Sofía did not stop to think about what Carlos would have to say about this. She didn’t care if money was tight. This was her son, and there was only one thing she could do – she had to rescue him.
She stopped at the front door and turned to look Imelda in the eye. “You will never see this child again, estúpida! Maybe God didn’t give you a child of your own for a reason!”
Sofía was fuming mad as she walked back home, carrying her poor sickly son. She knew Carlos would not be happy she brought the baby back home, defying his wishes. But she knew she had to stand her ground on this, no matter what it cost her.
That evening, when Carlos came home from work, he saw that Alfredo was back. His temper started to flare.
“
What have you done, woman?!” he shouted.
“
I went to see Alfredo today, to see how he was doing,” she quickly tried to explain. “I found him in a box under the bed. Under the bed, Carlos!” She showed him what Imelda had done to his son, the skinny arms and legs and bloated belly.
“
She was starving him, and who knows what else,” Sofía continued. “I couldn’t leave him there. I just couldn’t.”
Carlos was furious. But not at Sofía this time, for a change, he was angry at Imelda and David. Still worried about how he would provide for this child, he agreed Sofía had done the right thing. Somehow they would get by.
* * * *
Time passed and life continued to be difficult. A couple of years later they returned to Hollister, where they knew work would be plentiful. It was 1939.
After the twins, Carlos and Sofía had another son, Ygnacio. There were now five kids in all - Eva and the four boys. Because the family was growing, they decided to stay put in Hollister for awhile.
Carlos found them a small, old house in town that he rented. It was only slightly better than the shacks they were used to. The house had only one bedroom, where Carlos and Sofía slept. The children shared a room that was originally intended to be used as the living room. It had one big, old brass bed in it and one small wooden dresser. All five children slept in the one bed in the beginning and shared the single dresser.
Eventually, when Eva was about nine, she couldn’t stand sharing the bed with her four brothers anymore. So, with only a mat and a small, thread-bare blanket, she made her bed on the floor near the front door.
There was also a long, narrow room that served as a dining area and a rudimentary kitchen at the far end. The kitchen had an old wood stove, a small sink, and one old cabinet with peeling yellow paint. Left by the previous tenants, there was also an old work table for preparing food, very well-worn but still serviceable.
The ramshackle old house had wooden floors with gaps between some of the boards and no rugs to cover them. In the winter or on windy days, the family could feel the cold air coming through the cracks. On the walls was faded, peeling wallpaper and most of the windows had cracked glass and torn screens. For what little rent they were paying, the landlord refused to do any repairs.
Since Eva was the oldest child, she was expected to help care for her younger siblings. She was often feeding them, changing their diapers, and helping Mama with the cooking and household chores. There was a new baby every year or two, so there were lots of dirty diapers to wash.
During the warmer weather, Mama had a tub she filled with soap, water, heated stones and a grate. Another tub was also filled with water for rinsing. In the winter, doing laundry was a lot more challenging. On mild days, it could be done outside. But on very cold days, it would have to be done inside and only those items that were absolutely necessary, like dirty diapers.
Eva and Mama would ring and squeeze out as much water as they could with their hands and hang the laundry on the clothes line to dry. As a child, Eva’s hands and arms would become very tired and achy following an afternoon of doing the laundry, not to mention her back. But over the years, she became stronger and eventually was able to keep up with Mama.
Between caring for her younger brothers and working in the fields, there wasn’t much time for Eva to just be a child. Responsibility was thrust on her early, and she often felt like she would never be free of it. Mama needed help with the babies and the housework, and Papa needed her help in the fields. Day after day, year after year, hard work was her constant companion. Sometimes she just wanted to be a child, carefree and happy. She was only seven years old.
Eva’s whole young life had been centered around her family and trying the best she could as a child to help them survive. The time had come for her to be able to go to school.
Spanish was the only language Eva had ever spoken. Her mama had learned some English from her cousin, Olivia, but she couldn’t use it. Papa wouldn’t allow English to be spoken at home. So, Eva didn’t learn English until she started school. Mama enrolled her in the first grade at the Catholic school.
To enroll in school, Eva needed to have her birth certificate. Mama had to make a special trip to town, to the county clerk’s office, to ask them to order a birth certificate from the county in Arizona where Eva was born. She paid a fee of $1.00 to order it, which she had secretly saved from her grocery allowance. The young woman with auburn hair behind the counter told Sofía it would take a few weeks, and since she had no telephone, she would need to come back and check to see if it had come.
Three weeks later, Sofía again visited the county clerk’s office and waited her turn in line. A middle-aged white woman with short wavy dark hair walked up to the counter and asked, “Who’s next in line?” Sofía stepped forward and asked if the birth certificate had arrived. She checked the file drawer and pulled out a manila envelope. She handed it to Sofía.
Sofía took it out of the envelope and handed it back to the woman. She asked the clerk, in her broken English, to read it over to make sure it was right.
“
Oh, no!” the clerk gasped, pushing her glasses farther up on her nose as she looked intently at the certificate. “This says that Eva was ‘stillborn’.”
“
Stillborn?” Sofia asked, not understanding what that meant.
“
That means she was born dead. See, right here.” She turned the certificate to face Sofia and pointed at the word.
“
No, no, no. No es posible,” Sofía argued, shaking her head.
“
It says so right here,” the clerk said, again pointing to the word ‘stillborn.’
“
What do we do now?” Sofía asked.
“
You’ll have to prove it’s wrong and pay another fee to get it corrected, Ma’am, and then get another certificate,” the clerk told her.
“
No, no. No more money.” There was no more money she could pay. Maybe no one will notice, she thought.
Mama took Eva’s birth certificate back from the woman and left. She then took the certificate to the school’s office and got her daughter enrolled. She was right, no one noticed, which was an enormous relief to Sofía. Just the fact that she had an official-looking document with Eva’s name on it was enough.
Eva attended the small Catholic school in Hollister with some children from town and a few of the children of other farm workers. Eva felt lucky Mama pushed Papa to allow her to go to school. Not all of the migrant workers allowed their children to go to school, whether public school or Catholic school. Many of them preferred that their children work in the fields and the orchards so the family would have enough money to live on. They kept them out of school as long as possible, moving from farm to farm, until someone noticed and called the authorities.
Because Eva was already seven, she missed kindergarten and went directly into the first grade. The first year of school was very difficult for her. It was hard enough for a seven-year-old to try to learn to read and write, but she also had to learn a new language at the same time. Eva, fortunately, was a bright girl and after a rough beginning eventually caught up and did well.
Her teacher, a nun, from the very beginning expected Eva to stand in front of the class and read “Fun with Dick and Jane” like the other students. When she couldn’t read it, the nun would swat her hard with a long pointer and send her back to her seat. Eva didn’t even know how to sit at her desk properly, she straddled it. Of course, the other kids laughed at her, and she was embarrassed.
With a great deal of effort on her part, Eva quickly learned to read because she was afraid of the nuns and because she wanted to stop the constant embarrassment. She concentrated on watching the other kids read, and she memorized what they were saying. The words on the pages soon started to make sense. But, because the nuns were so mean and there was a financial cost for attending the Catholic school, Mama decided to take Eva out and enroll her in public school.
Eva’s new teacher, Miss Morimoto, was a welcome change from her old teacher. Miss Morimoto did her best to open the minds of her students to all kinds of possibilities by showing them photos of other countries and other people. She talked with them about all the different kinds of jobs available out in the world, encouraging them to think about what they might like to become one day when they grow up.
She knew most of these children came from poor families, many of them farm workers. Without her encouragement to read and learn about life outside of their limited existence, she believed they wouldn’t have much of a future.
As time went on, Eva found she loved to read and learn, especially science. She began to see there was a glimmer of hope for her, that she could have a better life than what she had now, she could have more than Mama had. Possibly she could be a teacher or maybe even a nurse. Sofía encouraged Eva to learn all she could, that she could become whatever she set her mind to be.
After school, Eva always came home and changed into her tattered play clothes, then helped her mother with the babies and with supper. They never had much, but they always had food to eat.
Sofía continued to be thrifty and was careful to always buy in bulk. She bought large sacks of flour, rice and beans, as these were staples in their diet. When there was a little extra money, she stocked up on things like canned milk, tomato sauce, spaghetti and macaroni. She also canned rabbit and fruit, when it was available.
Mama even made jerky when Carlos went hunting and brought home an animal he had killed. She would flavor the jerky with spices and place it on the clothesline to dry, covering it with cheesecloth.
At times, they had chickens running free in the yard. Mama would send the older children to catch a chicken for dinner sometimes. Eva and her brothers would chase the chickens around the yard until they wore one of them down and they could catch it. Mama would break its neck and put it in a pot of hot water to make it easier to pluck its feathers.