The Children of Sanchez

by Oscar Lewis

  I said, “Look, Alberto, you’re proud and don’t want to ask for a handout, but we’re starving to death. We have one peso left and we must get something to eat with it.” At the next house, I asked if we could work for a meal. The señora looked us up and down and went inside. I thought we wouldn’t get a thing, but she came out with a pot of soup and a pile of tortillas. We sure ate fast. Our arms were going up and down like in a card game, the way we were shoving those tortillas into our faces. I began to sweat and sweat and then my dizziness went away.

  We got to Mexicali, on the border, the next day. We didn’t have a centavo and didn’t know a soul, so we figured we’d sneak across the border right away, to look for work. We crossed the way the gamblers and border bums did, through a sewage ditch and under the fence. We thought if we worked even for a few hours we could get enough money for food and then they could throw us back over to this side.

  We walked for two days, sleeping in ditches under a cover of grass. Our only food was oranges picked green from the trees. Alberto advised us to jump a train to get deeper into the country. Well, we went running alongside a train and Alberto and I grabbed the ladder and got on. Faustino, poor guy, was trying to run but couldn’t make it. Alberto looked at me and I looked at him and, well, we both had to get off. What else could we do? We all went back sadly to the “dipo” and crawled through a broken window and went to sleep.

  During the night Faustino disappeared. We thought he had gone to the Immigration Office, to turn himself in. We were both sore at him and were sorry we had brought him along with us. Then he came back and told us he had gone to a church to pray. Imagine! And all the time we were talking bad of him! It made me feel emotional, like crying, you know what I mean?

  The very next day we were picked up by a station wagon. When the Inmigrate Officer stepped out of the wagon I was impressed. Right away I thought of the movies. “Now he’s going to pull his gun and give us the works.” But all he did was put us in the wagon and drive off to round up a bunch of Mexicans riding the freight train. The jail was crowded and suffocating and they didn’t give us a thing to eat. One of the officials kicked a Mexican in the rear, real hard, and it made me mad. Later, they sent us back to Mexicali in a bus.

  We were tired and hungry, but we went to look for a job in one of the bakeries. There was no work. We looked in such awful shape, the maestro took out three pesos to give us. “Take this, boys. Drink a cup of coffee to my health.” I felt humiliated, as though we were beggars or something.

  “Look, maestro,” I said, “we came to ask for work, not charity. I thank you from the heart, but we don’t want a handout.” I guess he caught on and saw the sadness we felt, because he said we could work it off the next day.

  Well, we went to one of those “sudden death” lunchrooms and had some tacos. Then one of the bakers came along and gave Faustino a job baking French bread. As soon as we were alone, Alberto said, “You know what, compadre? Let’s go to a cabaret and look at the whores.”

  “Chihuahua, what are you giving me? Here we are, starving to death, and you want to see the whores. Once a bastard, always a bastard.”

  “Sure, but let’s see if there isn’t something in it for us. Let’s get hold of some little whore and get her to pass her centavos over to us … I’m going nuts from hunger.” So we went to the cabaret but there was a minimum charge and the women were awful. We went back to the lunchroom and asked the lady if we could sit there until morning because we had no money.

  “But how awful, boys. Why didn’t you say so?” And she goes into the kitchen and comes out with tortillas and beans and wouldn’t let us pay.

  We were half frozen and exhausted when Faustino came back at 7:30 A.M. It turned out he had gone to sleep in the bakery because it was nice and warm there.

  Lots of men like us were living in an abandoned customs house, so that’s where we headed for. Right off, we met Joaquín, a boy from the Casa Grande, and he and my compadres decided to build a little shelter in the yard. I went to sleep in a corner while they looked for empty cardboard boxes and wood. They nailed the cardboard to a wood frame and soon had a three-walled house, with a roof and a floor. The south side was left open so we could stick out our feet when we slept. We collected rags to sleep on and used Joaquín’s blanket to cover all of us.

  The very day they made the house, I found a job working two shifts in a bakery, at twenty pesos a shift. I went home happy and said, “Compadres, you can stop worrying. I have money now … I’ll be the husband and you can do the cooking.” They had already made a hearth of bricks and a sheet of metal and had some tin cans to cook in. From then on we had enough food.

  Our little house became famous, because of our carryings on. We were known as “the boys of the little house.” In the evenings, when all the braceros were sad, I would begin to dance and sing and kid around to pick up their spirits. I really should have been an actor because I liked to entertain people with jokes and stories. Well, after making the men happier, when I had them jumping and horsing around, I would sit down and watch them. And that’s the way the time went. For a month and a half we spent the days working at different jobs, and the evenings clowning. We lived by God’s will, as we say here.

  Meanwhile, we tried to get into the United States legally. We went to the Center every day and finally got all the papers filled out. The next step was to show up at the U.S. Customs House. We got in line in front of the office and waited.

  There were people from all ends of the Republic, all dirty, in rags, and starving. Most of the men were so weak that the strong Mexicali sun made them walk like drunkards. I saw one or two just fall over dead, poor things. Really, they seemed like souls in anguish. It was a sad thing, all right, a sad thing to see. Everybody was anxious to get through; I understood their desperation because I felt the same way.

  Then the squeezing and pushing began. I told Alberto, “Stay in line … just stay in line.” Faustino and Joaquín were not with us because they had drawn higher numbers and had to wait. In a way, I was glad to be rid of Faustino. We had to do everything for him. For a long time he couldn’t work because his feet were in bandages. We always shared our money with him, we had to get his number, to scrape up the money for his photographs … everything. He didn’t make a move to do things for himself. And when he worked, he sent his money home to his family. That made us sore. On the other hand, maybe he did right and we were the ones who were wrong to forget our children.

  The shoving got worse. I was standing between two big guys, much taller than I, and when I was being smothered and felt walled in, I grabbed the two of them around their necks and pulled myself up. They told me to get down. “What do you mean, get down?” I said. “If I let go now, they’ll kill me.” Then Alberto got careless and they threw him out of the line. There were so many people there, I lost sight of him.

  The Immigration Office was at the head of a flight of stairs. Well, these guys began going up the stairs with me hanging from them; otherwise I wouldn’t have made it. As we were moving along, a poor fellow screamed in an awful way and everyone turned around to look. The boy had been squeezed against the handrail and had broken his ribs. There he was, almost across the border and they broke his ribs!

  When I reached the office, I got nervous. We were all convinced that the Immigration Officer knew who was lying and who wasn’t and that he recognized each man who had been through there. I suddenly realized that my hands were not dirty and calloused … I had forgotten to smear them with earth. I tried to remember how you harvest corn and when you plant, but I couldn’t think at all. Caray! I shook all through the questioning. What a nightmare!

  Then, “Thank God and the Holy Mother!” I said to myself, “I think they are going to let me in.” I went past a wire, into the Center, where they examined us. They took the first x-rays of my life there. Finally, I found myself sitting on a cot, waiting to be called for a job.

  To think that I was in the United States! It was quite a sensati
on … the emotion of the unknown … too exciting for me. I thought, “Thank God they let me in. At least I won’t have to go back a failure and have all my friends make fun of me.”

  I had no idea what had happened to Alberto. What a jerk! I hated to go on alone. I figured I wouldn’t take a job until he came. I had permission to stay three days, so I waited. The men were friendly and gave each other advice, and the time passed.

  The next morning we heard a bell and a line started forming. I didn’t know what it was for, but I got in line too. I mean, when a line starts forming, I get in it. After breakfast, they began to call people for jobs. I kept looking for Alberto, hoping he’d come soon. Sure enough, he was in the first car that arrived. Uy, the joy came back to my heart. “Come on, compadre. They are picking men.”

  We were chosen, with sixty others, to go to a farm in Catlin, California. We lined up and marched out very proud, like soldiers. Our fingerprints were taken, and distinguishing marks, and we were given our passports. A Greyhound bus was waiting and off we went.

  We drove all day and through the night and I thought, “Uy, how pretty the United States is.” When we got out at a restaurant all the North American men and women stared at us, in a special kind of way, which made me feel inhibited. We were pretty dirty, but we were really not to blame. We couldn’t speak a word of English, so we all went straight to the washrooms and back to the bus.

  It was dark when we arrived at the camp. The manager, Mr. Greenhouse, was waiting for us. He didn’t speak much Spanish, but he could say, “Welcome, boys. This is where you are going to live. And try to behave yourselves.”

  They took us to a wooden house with rows of bunks along the walls. I grabbed one of the bottom beds and Alberto took one, three bunks up, near the roof. The room was small, three by five meters, and there were sixteen of us there. It was very dirty and hot, and at night we couldn’t sleep because of the mosquitoes and flies.

  I must confess I was disappointed when I saw the place. I had expected rooms, not well furnished or anything like that, but more like a hotel … at least made of brick … a house with beds. And so many different natures should not be thrown together in one room. Such things shouldn’t be done.

  We began to clean up the place and got the other boys to help. We washed the room down with hoses and cut the grass around the house. We did our best and left the room a lot cleaner than we found it.

  From the first day, sadness got hold of me. Before that, I had no time to think of my troubles, of what made me leave home. But now it came back to me again and again. I couldn’t believe that Graciela, who had loved me so much, could have hurt me so cruelly. I felt bitter and scarred. I thought about my children and wrote a letter to my father. I told him they were paying us ninety cents an hour and that I worked eight to ten hours a day from Monday to Saturday. I also wrote a letter to Alberto’s house.

  From the first day, the priest was very nice. He came to the camp just to speak to us. “I’ll be expecting you in church tomorrow. I am going to make a special Mass in your honor.” Man! After hearing something like that, you feel more human. At least, that’s how I took it. But on Sunday, some of the boys said, “I’m not going.” Others were going to play cards instead.

  I began to tell them a few truths. “Don’t be such ingrates. The padre comes with all his heart and good will, to invite you to a special Mass and you leave him flat. Good people don’t act like that. If you were invited to get drunk you would be off like a shot. Man, what is one hour of your life going to cost you? Even if what you are saying about the priests is true, that they are just like anyone else and sometimes even worse, it has nothing to do with it. Let’s say you are not going to see the padre; you are going to pray to God.”

  Well, only one in the cabin stayed back, and he did it because he was an Evangelist. I told him, “Look, you are making a mistake. To me, all religions are alike, as long as you worship and respect the Lord, and have faith deep in your heart. I respect everybody’s belief, although I am a Catholic.”

  Actually, by that time I had already read the Bible and was beginning to lose my faith in the saints and in Catholicism. In Mexicali, a bracero who was an Evangelist had given me a copy of the New Testament. Before he left for the United States, he had said, “Manuel, I know your religion forbids you to read this, but in case you might want to someday, I’m leaving my Bible with you.”

  I had always had an enormous curiosity about the Bible, but had been afraid to read it for fear of being excommunicated. When I was about fourteen, I read the Old Testament because of my passion for history. I don’t know how I got hold of it, for my father would never permit it in the house. A friend of mine had told me it was all right to read the Old Testament, but that I shouldn’t, under any circumstances, read the New Testament.

  One afternoon in Mexicali, I had nothing to read, so I began to leaf through the Bible. The terms and parables were difficult for my intellect, but I tried to go to the roots, to translate it, right? And in the Bible, there are no half measures; something is either all good or all evil. It was really strong stuff.

  As I read, I was overcome with fear, not because it was different from what I had been taught, but because I realized that reading the Scriptures and the Commandments and learning the laws myself, I would be like a graduate lawyer, like an advocate who knew the punishment for every offense. I wouldn’t need to place my faith in lawyers and secretaries when I myself would be capable of speaking directly to the Presidenti The go-betweens, the saints, were only idols of stone or plaster, made by the hand of man, so why should I pray to them? I realized that because of the saints, we had as many gods as the Aztecs; the only difference was that we modernized the images! For me, there was only one God, and God was Love.

  Well, I began analyzing things, right? Jesus said, “Like this fig tree, by their fruits you shall know them.” In the Mexican penitentiaries, out of one hundred prisoners, ninety-nine are Catholics! And if my friends who were thieves could light a candle to a little saint before going out to rob, if prostitutes kept a saint in their rooms, and burned sanctified candles and prayed for more clients, if there were such perversions within Catholicism, well, can that be the true religion?

  And the priests! I was disillusioned about them, too, for they did not carry out God’s law. I knew a priest who drank and played poker right in church. And by coincidence, priests always seemed to have a sister and a couple of nephews living in their house. After reading about the humble life of Jesus, I asked, “Does the Pope sleep on the floor? Does he live the life of the Nazarene, begging alms, going without food, suffering rain and cold, to go out and preach love for one’s neighbors?”

  No, the Pope lived in portentous opulence and was fantastically wealthy, because the churches all over the world sent him the money they collected. Why, just the money collected on one Sunday at the Basilica of Guadalupe here, would support me and my family all our lives! Then, in what kind of poverty does the Pope live? And where is his charity if there is so much misery in Rome itself?

  In Mexicali, two missionaries had come from California to build a mission among the braceros. They invited those of us who were hungry to eat … it was not just the food they gave us … the thing I noticed was the love they had, the compassion and sincerity. Being from Tepito, I could tell when a person was lying or being a hypocrite. I swear that those men came with good hearts, and gave spontaneously, as though it didn’t cost them any effort.

  Then I began to think about the Evangelists, the Adventists, the Anglicans I knew. Well, I never had seen one of them stretched out drunk in the street, they never carried knives, or smoked, took drugs or cursed. Their homes had everything they needed; their children were well dressed and well fed, and they treated their wives the way human beings should be treated. They lived healthful, peaceful lives. But under Catholicism, people lived like, well, the way I did.

  I didn’t lose my faith … I remained a Catholic, because I didn’t feel strong enough to obey
the Commandments and to carry out the strict rules of the Evangelists. I would no longer be able to enjoy smoking, or gambling, or fornicating, and well, I was absolutely incapable of living up to the laws of God. Carajo! it seems that the nicest things in the world we owe to the Devil! I felt I was not born to be a martyr. I still had a way to go to tame my spirit.

  Finally, Monday came. Very early in the morning we heard the trucks arriving, and then the call for breakfast. The food they gave us the first two days was better than what they gave us afterwards. In the morning it was bread, oatmeal, eggs and coffee with canned milk. For lunch, we took three sandwiches along with us, and beans. In the evening, when we got back, it was tortillas, liver and potatoes, Mexican style, and soup. It was good … at first.

  After breakfast, on my way to the truck, I passed the kitchen and saw a great pile of dirty dishes. Tony, the dishwater, was mad, and was cursing. I said, “It’s a lot of work, isn’t it, maestro? I’ve worked as a dishwasher too, so I know. That sure is a mountain of plates you have there.” Then I got into the truck with Alberto and went off to work.

  On the way, a boy from Michoacán said, “Don’t work too fast. Take your time. If you don’t, they will get used to us doing a lot and the day we don’t feel like working and slow down, they will fire us.” When we got there, we grabbed cans and began to pick green tomatoes.

  I started out real lively. Reach out, bend over, there I go, pum, pum, picking tomatoes. Everybody was moving along even. After a while, I stopped to rest, then I moved along sitting down, trying not to lag behind, because they watched you. The two men next to me, what dopes, those two! They looked like windmills, they were picking so fast!

  Well, you have to get used to the fields. Qué bárbaro! Oh, it was hard, hard, hard. When the can was filled, we lifted it to our shoulders and, jumping the furrows, would go to empty it into the crates. Madre Santísima! How my back hurt! Well, anyway, at least I knew that in the evening we would rest.