A Book is Being Born

I've not posted for a while as my energy has been going into the organization, planning and writing of what I hope will turn out to be a book about my life growing up in a small Mexican Barrio in South Modesto (CA), during the 40's, 50's and 60's. Inspired by, and on the heels of my Blogger Buddy's Bill Snyder's recent book "The Eight-Fingered Criminal's Son", (read it, it's a riot), and with his encouragement, I am looking to getting my own book published soon.

Most of the stories have already been written over the past half-dozen years and at first the book was going to be a random collection of recollections, but now I see that it needs some kind of chronology establishing a beginning, a middle, and an end. I have read many of them in public and gotten enthusiastic responses to them.

I'm feeling a sense of urgency because as you might have guessed, I am no Spring Chicken and life is quickly passing me by and the things I write about need to preserve what life was like during this time period and what part Mexicans, and these barrios had in forming the diversity of American Culture. I want to document this for my reader, for myself and for my children and grandchildren.

"Don't ever forget where you come from", my mom used to say. Mom, I haven't.

Updates will follow. Meanwhile, any encouragement would be appreciated. If not "I will understand", like hell. It kills me when people write crap on Facebook, and then ask you to repost on your own status adding that if you don't, they will understand. Yeah, you're a jerk if you don't repost.

I am 1/4 Indian, 1/8 Spanish, 1/5 Black, & The Rest Eskimo.

I remember somewhere back when I was a kid my mom telling me "Mexicans are part Indian and part Spanish." "How much of each?" I asked. "Half and half". And so I went on to tell people I was a Mexican. I had no particular pride then in being Indian. Indians were killed in the old cowboy movies. "Don't stand in the sun too long", my mom said "Or you get black like and Indian."

Only later when I began to learn about Mexico's history did I begin to get a sense of the great significance of blood lines to people. Indian was bad. Spanish, or European was good. It meant to be "white skinned", not "prieto" or "dark-skinned", and that was good.

When I learned the word "Meztizo", my world changed. It was the term the Spanish Conquerors of the New World called those born of a Spanish Father and an Indian mother (Spanish women did not play  around, I suppose). It was synonymous with "half breed", a person despised by the indigenous for having European blood, and hated by the Europeans for having Indian blood.

More amazing was to learn of all the terms the Spanish invented for the incredible mixing of blood lines which were to come in the New World and they had a word for each and every one:

Peninsular = Spaniard born on the Iberian Peninsula (Spain)
Meztizo = One born of a Spanish father and Indian mother
Creole (Criollo) = Child of a Peninsular but born in Mexico (New World)
Caztizo = A Meztizo + a Creole
Cholo = An Indian + a Meztizo
Mulatto = A Peninsular + a Black
Zambo = A Black + an Indian
Euromeztizo = Indian with Spanish characteristics dominating
Indomeztizo = A Spaniard with Indian characteristics dominating.

In Henry Parkes' A History of Mexico he adds one final absurd footnote to this unholy mixture of bloods: a saltapatras' or "throwback", all the way to the start! How in the world, at the end of this stew of bloodlines, could one return to being a Peninsular?!

But even more incredulous is how the term Meztizo came to mean Mexican; this word that for 300 years of Spanish domination in Mexico was uttered with indignation. But it did.

Its origins are fodder for debate but a prevailing theory is that the people we currently refer to as Aztecs, never called themselves by that term, but called themselves the Mexica (Meshica) or the Mexicans (Meshicans)

After Mexico's War of Independence (1810-1821), the word Mexican would be proudly used for the first time to define the Meztizo, a person born of the bloods of two great civilizations, the European and the Native American.

Strange bedfellow, que no?

Take Up Your Cross and Follow Me: The First Mexican Martyrs

(Painting showing Aztec fathers putting newly Christianized sons to death)

    Many years ago, I came across a poignant dialogue that describes a first encounter between a group of Spanish Conquistadors, a Captain and a Catholic priest, backed by a host of soldiers, and a group of Maya warriors, led by a chief and a woman who serves as a translator. The Spanish Captain tells the Maya woman, "Tell your chief we have come here in search of gold and silver." Immediately, the Catholic priest interrupts saying "No, no! Tell your chief we have come here so that they may come to know The One And Only True God'!"

    After a lengthy translation by the woman interpreter, the Maya chief says, "Tell this powerful men here (addressing the Captain), that in the Sun which is our gold, and the Moon which is our silver, lies our everlasting hope, but in order for him to reach them, first he must kiss the earth."

    This dichotomy between the acquisition of power and the saving of souls, was the hapless burden of the European conquerors and the Catholic church in Mexico. In her book, "Idols Behind Altars", Anita Brenner tells, among other things, of the church's struggle to convert Indians to Christianity during the early years of the Spanish conquest in 1521. 

    Suspicious and fearful of the new religion, the Indians reluctantly embraced a new Christian pantheon, but often, at the risk of grave danger, covertly clung to their own deities. Brenner describes how the Indians, who comprised the labor force building the numerous Catholic churches across Mexico, sometimes hid idols representing their own gods deep inside the altars as they built them, then quickly covered them up!  Thus, as they reverently knelt and prayed before the altars during mass, they were actually praying to their ancient gods hidden inside them.

    For the first decade after the Spanish Conquest in 1521, the Catholic Church was relatively unsuccessful in convincing the stubborn Indians to convert to Christianity, and despite openly condemning their beliefs, destroying their temples, paintings and idols representing their old gods, only a few brave souls dared be baptized into the strange new faith, some paying with their lives as the image above shows.  I cannot imagine putting my own son to death for his conversion to another faith.

    Ironically, with the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe to the Indian, Juan Diego in 1531, everything changed and thousands of Indians flocked into the churches to be baptized. Now, they had a new heavenly woman they could believe in, Mary, one like them, dark skinned ("La Virgen Morena"), not like the pale, white gods they had heretofore seen adorning the insides of the cathedrals they had helped build.

    Nonetheless, for years, indigenous beliefs flourished underground in secret, in caves, hidden from the eyes of the Europeans; for it was no easy matter to let go of the gods they had worshipped for centuries, in time forcing the church to find other ways to attract converts, not by pointing out differences in the native and european beliefs, but the similarities.

    Thus, in Mexico today we see this bizarre mix of Indian and Christian beliefs. Where one belief ends, and another begins is a supreme mystery, as Aztec dancers dance before the Virgin of Guadalupe at the hill of Tepeyac in Mexico City, at the very same place where they had once worshipped a female diety, Tonantzin.

     In fact, "La Catedral", the main cathedral in the heart of the "Zocalo" (central square) in downtown Mexico City, is built at the  very same spot, with the same stones that once made up the main pyramid of "Tenochtitlan", the Aztec capital, that Cortez himself had once characterized as the "Constantinople of the New World".

It was leveled by the Spaniards to build the city we know today.

Peonage: Mexico's Legacy of Shame

"The Liberation of the Peon" by Diego Rivera

I never fully understood the real meaning of the word "peon" until I began to read and teach about about the history of Mexico. To me, it had simply meant "a poor, uneducated Mexican."

When Mexico was conquered by Spain in 1521, its people suffered 300 years of domination by its often cruel and greedy hosts. In 1542, new laws were established concerning the "propriatory rights" of natives, indians. They were to be "free people" and slavery as such, was prohibited, except for the use of Black slaves which had been brought into New Spain from the mother country.

Under the new law, the "Encomienda" system was established, in essence a "payment" of land to the Conquisatdores for their "service" to Spain, and the right to Indian labor "for the state" one-quarter of the year. The rest of the year, they were allowed work on a small plot of land given to them for their own sustenance, though these laws were commonly abused. To skirt the law outlawing slavery, they were paid a measly wage, though working for wages was unknown to the native peoples.

After the War of Independence in 1821, the system continued but with a new sinister twist, "debt peonage". Indian workers were given "advances" in their wages with the distinct purpose of getting them in debt. In addition, they were paid in "script", a sort of coupon or promisary note, reedemable only at the company store owned by the "Encomendero", much like sharecroppers of the deep South, in the United States.  

Prices for basic necessities were greatly inflated but the Indians were generously extended credit, plunging them deeper into debt, eventually forcing them to turn over their land and possessions to the master.

If they ran or tried escape, they were mercilessly hunted down, dragged back to the encomienda, or killed.

When the worker, who could never hope to pay off his death in his own lifetime died, his debt was automatically transferred to his first born. The child at birth, assumed the debt of his father and began to acrue his own debt as soon as he was able to work, and so on and so on, generation to generation! This practice continued until 1915, when a decree was passed by President, Porfirio Diaz, outlawing the use of peonage in Mexico.

Despite this law, forms of peonage continued until 1936, when Lazaro Cardenas created the "Ejido" system, agricultural land which had been expropriated from the encomiendas and haciendas, turned into communal farms, allowing natives to earn wages according to the amount of work performed.

Much of the rudimentary rationale behind Mexico's Revolution (1910-1920) was to take the land from the rich and give it back to the poor, as espoused by its leaders Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata. For them, the "quaint" Hacienda was a an excess of wealth and land purchased by the sweat and blood of the "los pobres" (the poor). During the Revolution, Villa often rounded up the Hacendados (owners of Haciendas), and executed them, venting the rage of the poor for 400 years of abuse. 

While this practice was obviously and inherently evil in its concept, for me there is a greater evil: the creation of a race of people who came to believe that their sole purpose on earth was to serve a "master", and which endures among many of Mexico's poor today.  

The Saint of Ansul Avenue

Ansul Avenue was the name of the unpaved, dirt road in our Barrio in South Modesto where my uncles, Quirino and Juana Mendoza used to live when I was a kid. After they died, the house remained vacant for some time, and just after I married and asked my cousin Sally if we could rent it and she conceded to let us have it for $50. a month which was cheap even for the 1960's.

It was a simple wooden structure which my uncle had built, with 4 small bedrooms, one bath, a rickety old garage and out buildings where we lived for about two years, memorable ones being that it was our first home which we relished in making our own.

Goodwill and second-hand stores obliged us with many bargains on used tables and furniture, and the rest I myself built from bricks and wood, and my wife's wifely artistic touches for decor.

After a time, I ran into an old high school friend-of-a-friend, Bill Briggs who rented a room from us and shared in the expenses, while my wife cooked for the three of us. It was an idyllic setting, one we cherished for a time to come. Bill learned to love Mexican food, especially the hot salsa my wife made from scratch.

He and I had much in common, our love for books, jazz, philosophy (bullshitting), and cheap red wine. We prided ourselves in finding cheap wine at the local liquor stores, but our major find was when we discovered "Vino Americano", a Burgundy wine, at 99 cents a gallon! Much deep philosophy emanated from this find.

It was during this time, probably well into the depths of that gallon of Vino Americano, and deep into some pseudo religious philosophical debate that he said to me one day, "Richard, you are the Saint of Ansul Avenue."  I was flattered but somewhat embarrassed being compared to a saint. Being the sinner that I was, I had hardly considered myself a saint. A devil maybe, but not a saint!

I had, of course seen the plaster and wooden statues of saints at church and watched people light candles before them and my mother lighting candles and praying to them on her home altar. But me, a saint? Maybe, if I stretched it little, or redefined the word some, I might, on a long shot, qualify. I had always pictured the saints as people who suffered much, denied themselves the pleasures of life, and prayed incessantly, and certainly not ones who indulged on worldly lusts and Vino Americano.

Anyway, I have mostly forgotten that moniker, until my wife's recent illnesses and life in chronic pain when a friend visited us and after sharing our struggles and suffering with her, she said "Ay, Don Ricardo, es usted un santo." (Oh, Richard you are a saint.) "Si", I said jokingly, "un santo con cuernos!" I responded, making the sign of two "horns" on my head. She laughed inconsolably. "No, usted es un santo", she repeated.

Now, that makes two people who have endowed me with the title. How many more votes do I need to be canonized, 10? 12? But I'm kidding, of course, and may the real saints forgive me.

Nonetheless, I will continue in the hope that my good deeds blot out my sins, or at least some of them. Please light a candle for me (not to me), the Saint of Ansul Avenue.

When Housewife Was Not a Dirty Word

In my day, it was a young man's ideal to marry, get a decent job to support his wife who would stay home, clean, cook and raise the kids. When I asked my wife to marry me, I promised to support her for life, a promise which I have kept.

She, on the other hand, readily and proudly accepted her role as wife, mother, and housewife. It is how she had been raised in a Mexican family of five girls and one boy.

Her mother was the ultimate Matriarch. Strong, moralistic, and hard working who instilled into her daughters the traditional role of women. The woman's place was in the home.

However, these roles came in conflict when my wife joined me in the United States and she came in contact with American women. My mother warned in reference to Mexican girls and this cutural clash: "Cuando llegan a Los Estados Unidos llegan muy 'songuitas', pero con el tiempo sacan las uñas "(when a girl arrives in the U.S. she is very docile, but soon begins to show her claws). The word "songuito/a" was and idiom conjuring the image of a pliant, innocent, obedient and docile creature.

In the 60's as the Women's Liberation Movement took wing, my wife and I were caught up in the changes. On one hand, I welcomed the idea of women moving out of the house to embrace new gender roles and careers, but I feared there would be a cost, a price to pay in the home and family.

For years, she suffered guilt as a result of my intellectual and sexually liberated female friends. Most were educated, and worldly and she a mere "housewife." She loved her home and prided herself in keeping it spotless. She adored cooking for her husband and children. She was a model mother. But she had to spar and deflect the overt and covert contempt of her newly liberated American peers. The effort to change the negatively charged moniker from "Housewife" to "Homemaker" did little to comfort her. They viewed her as "quaint."

To counter this I told her one day, "The next time an American woman asks 'Oh, and what do you do?' Tell them you hold a Master's Degree in Home Making!" She did, and it worked. They usually backed off.

Once, while living in Oakland we met some distant friends on her family's side, a young Chicano couple who loved to socialize. However, after attending a few parties at their house we noticed a sharp division between the men and the women. The men, sat at the kitchen table, smoking, playing cards and drinking beer. The women, retired to a bedroom where they talked about babies, cooking and shopping. We joined in on the rigid order, until one day I told my wife "Why don't we really shake up the place next time we are invited to a party, with you sitting with the men at the kitchen table, and me joing the women in the bedroom?"

It took and immense amount of courage, but we did it. The place was never the same.

One day, when my Mother-in-law visited us from Mexico City, as she sat on our couch knitting, my son's girlfried came over with a pair of trousers that needed to be hemmed. She frantically beseeched my wife to sew them up for her. My wife readily took the trousers and in her mother's presence, hemmed them with a needle and thread.

Not one minute after the front door closed and the frantic girlfriend left, my mother-in-law launched into a tirade! "What is it with these American girls? My God, they don't even know how to sew!!" Not to mention the fact that the girl had not even acknowledged my "suegra", or even offered her hand to greet her when she arrived, or when she left. Such manners.

What's prompted my writing all of this, I suppose, is that recently one of my wife's sisters from Mexico visited us. She had just turned 60 and when her husband asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she told him she wanted to visit her sister in the U.S. Joining us, was another sister who lives in town, and I relished watching and listening to them share childhood stories and memories in our living room. On one occasion, the sisters were sharing knitting "secrets", probably taught to them by their mother, as the three knitted together on the couch.

What a sight! What a pleasant hike into the past, into what is being lost, into what has already disappeared. When I shared the insight with my wife later that night in bed, I asked her "Do all your sisters knit?" "Yes, they all do. But the master knitter is my sister, Marta. She is so fast, she knits a sweater in a day. You can hardly see her hands move." I marveled at the image.

"But Marta does not sell any of her work for personal profit. All of it is donated to the parish and sold and the profits from her knitting has paid for nearly all of the pews in her church."

To this day, my wife and her four sisters, are proud housewives, with the exception of one who is divorced and now works for an outfit that buys used auto batteries, and sells refurbished ones, an odd resume, don't you agree?

Caution: Some Of My Best Friends Are Illegals II

I am referencing this entry "II" since I have a sneaking suspicion I have already written about it in a previous entry a couple of years ago (just in case).


I grew up around illegals, so my feelings about them are probably biased (if you had, yours would be too). In the barrio, some were our neighbors, friends, even relatives.  In the 40's and 50's we called them "Mojados", (Wets), referencing their having crossed the Rio Grande illegally.

They were regularly "rounded up" and deported to Mexico by the dreaded "Migra", the Immigration Department, and most would be back in a few weeks. It was no big deal. Most just wanted to work, send some money to their loved ones in Mexico and had no intention of staying.

Their presence was usually seasonal, usually during the summers when cannery or farmwork was abundant. And they went back to Mexico in winter. Things have changed now and many come with the intention of staying, especially after they have kids who are born here.

In the Woody Guthrie song, "The Deportees", he sings of the tragic death of a planeload of "Deportees" that crashes in the "Los Gatos Canyon" in Central California, killing all on board and of the how "the radio said they was just 'deportees'." Yet, Woody seeks to humanize them by giving them names: "Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalia, adios mis amigos Jesus y Maria. You won't have a name when you ride that big airplane; all they will call you is just 'deportees.' "

To compound the tragedy, Guthrie begins by writing, "The crops are all in and the peaches are rotting; the oranges are packed in their creosote dump", noting the grower's illogical insistence on deporting his workers, at the cost of plowing under his ready-to-harvest crop. "They're flying em' back to the Mexican border, to spend all their money to wade back again", writes Guthrie, questioning the logic of deporting people who will just "wade back again".

Cesar Chavez uncovered many cases of ranchers knowingly hiring illegals, then calling the Immigration Department on the night before "payday" to have them deported!

Today's immigration debate is highly complex, divisive, contentuous, heated, and appears to have no easy solution. One of the most complex issues of the debate concerns the status of U.S. born children of illegals. The Obama policy of mass deportation has split families in two, sending parents back to Mexico, often leaving their U.S. born offspring behind to fend for themselves.

Yesterday, I read in the paper how Republicans, who would simply like to round up all 12 million illegal aliens in the U.S. , some who have lived all their lives here, with U.S. born children and grandchildren and ship them all back to Mexico, now are going after tax loopholes allowing illegals to file for a $1000. per child refund credit on their income taxes, for each U.S. born child, costing the country millions. They are able to do this, probably by obtaining a Tax ID number, using falsified SSN numbers. I am not codoning this, just pointing to the absurdity of the issue.

By law, of course, children born of parents illegally in the U.S. automatically become U.S. citizens, though some Republicans want to change the Constitution to deny this right, complicating matters even more. To begin, illegals in the U.S. pay taxes too. U.S. employers often deduct Social Security and payroll taxes from their paychecks. Moreover, every time an illegal buys food, clothing, or a used car, he pays taxes like the rest of us. Oh, the irony, the irony.

Seems to me if we are going to begrudge these tax refunds to people who are in our country illegally, when the children they are claiming the credit for are U.S. citizens, then in good conscience, it should also be "illegal" to accept sales taxes from any person living in the country illegally. A sign posted at the entrance to all retail outlets should read: "Notice: Illegal aliens are NOT required pay taxes on goods." That would only be fair, que no?

Meanwhile, it is perfectly fine to just keep on taxing the U.S. born children of illegals, right?