I'll never forget I was rich, I had shoes (reposting)
by TexMex
Thu Apr 29, 2010 at 08:56:04 AM PDT
I remember growing up with not much, but even sadder were the poor recent immigrants that sat in school with me. To the white folks in San Antonio I was just another Mexican. In my world, I was "middle class" because my dad was a welder at the air force base, so I had shoes and the immigrant children had no shoes. I could speak English and the Immigrants couldn't. Yet, these were my class mates. There I sat in a classroom with my nice clothes and the children next to me had come to school barefoot. I knew my dad went to school barefoot too, I have the picture. My teachers had to split her time teaching us Mexican Americans and the Mexicans, too. But we never begrudged them anything, they were so poor. When the rains came, the houses one block away flooded every time, but not ours.
I remember making my father cry when I told him I thought we were rich because I had shoes. (I am crying now)
My father, an American citizen born in San Antonio, had his family destroyed when they didn't allow his father back from Mexico after a family visit. A family of ten kids and their mother was sent into abject poverty in the depression when a successful house contractor was trapped in Mexico during the Mexican Reparation. Then my grandmother died of a "broken heart". My great aunt took the kids over, her husband went to the gov. for some relief and was told that the kids should be placed in an orphanage.
And so my Dad was just a dirty Mexican that now would be called an anchor baby. Though a second generation American daughter of a sailor who fought the Japanese in the Pacific, I too, was just a "dirty Mexican" and all of us were gerrymandered to the west side of San Antonio. My mother, a great cook, would make beans and tortillas taste great. We were poor, but the mojaditos era mas pobre. It make me so angry when people hammer away at Mexican immigrants but enjoy their spinach and strawberry salads and wonder at the lovely landscaping. "Ladies who lunch" can because Maria is caring for the children will feed them their lunch and will vacuum the carpet later.
We have been in the United States a very long time.
more:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/4/29/861917/-Ill-never-forget-I-was-rich,-I-had-shoes%28reposting%29
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
