UPROOTED AGAVE: LATINO IMMIGRANTS' STORIES

By LOUIS VILLALBA

These stories recount Latinos' escape from corruption and dire poverty, life-threatening border crossings, and precarious conditions, searching for a dignified life in an America where acceptance and hostility coexist.

The thirteen stories in this book--10 fiction and three non-fiction--grab your imagination and transport

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gades Books
• Release date: Feb 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9780999667712

LOUIS VILLALBA

Louis Villalba was born in Spain in 1945 and has resided in the US since 1970. His first book, The Silver Teacup (Createspace 2012) or its Spanish version, La Tacita de Plata (Createspace 2012), contains short stories that take place in his hometown, Cadiz, shuttling the reader to a world full of history, human drama, and fantasy. Kirkus Indie Review praises his novel The Stranger's Enigma (Createspace 2014) as "a provocative character study of a man facing a personal and professional crisis." Afterlife Tracks: Glimpses of the Occult (Createspace 2015) brings to light the paranormal events in his neurology practice in Chicago, IL. Cuban Seeds (Floricanto Press 2016) narrates the memoir of a widow who pursues her children's American dream after defying the Cuban tyranny. The Series of Tales of Cadiz (Gades Books 2017) contains nine reedited stories published in Kindle format. In his blog www.TheClassicWriter.com, the author shares his enthusiasm for classic prose with his readers.

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Title

PUBLISHER: GADES BOOKS

www.GadesBooks.com

The stories narrated here were created by the author’s imagination and should not be considered as real. Any resemblance to events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. There are some exceptions. The Mayan Fighter and Pibe are true stories that identify their protagonists. The United States vs. Oscar Sosa is also real, but names, dates, and places have been changed.

All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, in whole or in part— except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—or recorded or transmitted by an information retrieval system in any form or medium without the author’s prior permission.

Copyright © 2018 Louis Villalba

Email: [e-mail]

Website: www.LouisVillalba.com

Blog: www.TheClassicWriter.com

Publisher: www.GadesBooks.com

All rights reserved

ISBN-13 9780999667712

Gary Wang*, content editor

Hildi Goldstein, copy editor

Cynthia Kegel, PhD, copy editor

*Deceased

To those who came to this country as undocumented immigrants and built a promising future for themselves and their children

Contents

Acknowledgement

1 Preface

2 Uprooted Agave

3 Whispering Water

4 The Girl in the Mayan Dress

5 The Case of Rosa Gomez

6 The Lady of the Fables

7 No Guns or Knives

8 The Pledge

9 The Mayan Fighter

10 Rotten Yard

11 Pibe

12 The United States vs. Oscar Sosa

13 Daydreaming on a Greyhound Bus

14 A Sinner’s Homecoming

Author’s Biography

Acknowledgement

I have dedicated most of the stories in this book to friends who have provided significant service to the Latino community.

There are not vigilant guards or fences,

Nor barriers, nor mountains, nor rivers,

Only a torn sky that clamors for justice

In a plundered homeland, full of tears.

1

Preface

In the last two decades of the twentieth century and the initial years of the current one, a significant number of local governments in Latin America were run like the Mafia. Criminals and police agreed to the quotas of felonies. Judges and prosecutors decided who should endure the weight of their arbitrary laws. Politicians extorted businessmen. Union leaders pocketed the money of their workers. The entire organization served as the unshakable foundation that maintained the abuse of power. Low-ranking officials—officers, clerks, and tax collectors—stepped on the backs of citizens. These miscreants carried out their felonies with the savvy connivance of the authorities. The cupola of the government knew of the corruption. The rich accumulated unprecedented wealth. The poor lived in extreme poverty. Like toxic fumes, drug trafficking seeped through layers of criminals, police, judicial systems, and government. Vast fortunes lay hidden in Swiss banks. Regulated lawlessness ruled these states where criminals roamed free. The local police protected politicians and bosses—the caciques—who owned most of the land and the shops in the area. Citizens feared the cops as much as the crooks.

Corruption remains endemic in large areas of Latin America. The situation has worsened the subsistence of people who lack most necessities and see the US as their only escape. Their exodus still sustains sectors of the American economy that depend on undocumented immigration. In this book, I put faces to these unsung heroes who leave their countries seeking a better life. Departure from the land of birth needs courage and determination. Injustice or hardships at home do not mitigate the requisites. These people compensate their lack of schooling with hard work and tenacity to forge a future for themselves and their families. Their behavior bespeaks their innocent humility and cheerfulness before difficulties, their respectfulness and gratitude to those who open their arms to them, their ability to withstand injustices for the sake of their ultimate success, and their proud disregard for dependency on any social program. Handouts degrade human dignity when one can work. The Mexican culture acclaims this notion. I experience it first hand on a recent trip to Huatulco, Mexico. I took a boat to a virgin beach where a few indigenous families lived away from civilization. As I landed, two children tried to sell me a few seashells. I gave them their asking price as a gift instead of buying their merchandise. They refused the money.

The willingness of the undocumented Latino immigrant to toil continues. One friend of mine, who entered this country illegally years ago, puts it in straightforward terms: leave one hundred of them in a plaza in an American town, and a few hours later, they will all have found a job. The American society’s sentiment remains ambivalent. I watched a video that depicted this dubiousness. It showed four migrants crossing the Rio Grande under cover of night. The river grew wild and threatening. On the bank, two border patrolmen stood with their arms outstretched to rescue them. The hands of the trespassers almost reached those of the agents when a sudden boost of the current swept them away. Their bodies rushed down the stream before the horrified officers’ eyes. I then thought about the grief of the families of the victims and the nightmares of the patrolmen, their horrendous suffering amidst the indifference of the public in the US and Latin America. I thought about the dead whose names were mentioned nowhere, unknown martyrs of the pursuit of happiness. Adverse aspects of this unregistered diaspora abound, and several will seep between the lines in some of the narratives. Enough detractors point out these disadvantages. Some invoke well-founded criticisms and others, groundless censure. I will restrict myself to telling stories.

This book deals with the lives of Latinos in the US. The events described could apply to any of the waves of newcomers that have enriched our landscape. I wrote most of these accounts twelve years ago, but their realities remain more relevant than ever before.

2

Uprooted Agave

To Senen

"Vacien todos sus pockets and backpacks! Leave nothing unturned. Put all your money and jewels in this basket: earrings, rings, bracelets, necklaces, watches. If we search and find you’ve hidden something, we’ll shoot you. Do I make myself clear?" the bandit with the rugged face and wild eyes said.

He and another one with a protruding belly aimed their pistols at a group of migrants that had just crossed the border into the US a few miles from Tijuana, Mexico. The scoundrel with the big paunch glared at his prey and shouted,

"Vamos! Hurry up! We don’t have the whole night. Dirty wetbacks!"

All the valuables went into a large wicker basket. One by one, men, women and children stripped down to their underwear. A third outlaw with a black patch over the left eye searched their belongings, frisked their bodies through their thin garments, and pushed them away with a shove of his palm. Unbeknown to everyone, Jose’s 300-dollar life savings lay hidden in his shoes. He did not want to give the money away. His inside rushed, sweat cropped up in his hands and forehead, and his face adopted an immovable poker expression. This cash should cover the bus fare to Chicago and a few essential items to start a new life with his wife, Maria, and their three-year-old son, Pedro. They stood beside him. Fear paralyzed her, her eyes stared at nowhere, and her right hand rested on the shoulder of her boy, who sobbed and trembled. A sixteen-year-old girl stood next in line. She refused to hand them a silver necklace. The one-eyed bandit got angry and pressed against her with force. She slid over a rock and fell on broken glass. Blood gushed out of her hands and legs and stained her white dress, enhancing the ghostly paleness of her face in the moonlight. The outlaws rushed to pick up their cache and ran away. The migrants left the injured youngster at a door of a hospital in San Ysidro and continued their trip.

Before arriving in the US on April 22, 1996, Jose Ramirez had grown up in San Lorenzo, Jalisco, a 500-inhabitant village. He left school at the age of ten after learning basic writing and reading, arithmetic, and religion. His family needed his paltry salary to survive. His mother and sister held housekeeper jobs at the large hacienda of a local landowner. Jose joined his father and older brother who worked as jimadors—harvesters of agaves—for the same cacique. These plants extended mile after mile and hill after hill with their succulent leaves—pencas— spread apart and opened to the sky as if in a prayer. Jose cut them with a coa— a spade with a sharp blade—to reach their hearts or heads—piñas, which resembled gigantic pineapples. He learned the ropes of the trade. To produce tequila, flower stalks—quiotes——were chopped off so that the sap flowed into the hearts to enlarge and sweeten them. Jose buried the tips of offshoots from the rhizomes —hijuelos—into the soil at a proper distance from each other and allowed them to grow tall and leafy. After eight or ten years, the plants matured, the leaves drooped, and the hearts rendered visible reddish brown patches of ripeness. The agaves then brimmed with sugar and stood ready for the harvest. Baked and pressed, the piñas yielded juice that, once fermented and distilled, produced the precious liquor.

Jose loved the land and paid a toll for his labor because thick callouses grew on his hands, and the exposure to sun turned his skin dark and dry. As a child, he enjoyed watching the long-nosed bats pollinate the plants. He sat outside his home, listened to his elders, and learned the legends of the birth of tequila. One told the tale of Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl, the Aztecan god of the wind, who flew to the heavens to look for Mayahuel, the virgin goddess. She slept next to her sisters under the watchful eyes of their evil grandmother. He whispered words of love to the young goddess and convinced her to elope with him to earth. But the demon grandma scoured the lands, found her, and took her life. The lover buried her and out of her remains grew a blue agave. Another recounted how lightning unearthed the head of a plant, slashed it in half, and cooked a sweet bubbly elixir that got his ancestors tipsy.

Jose resided in a single brick home with his parents, older brother, and younger sister. The place boasted a living area and a bedroom where they crammed at night. Outside, a latrine with no running water and a small smoke kitchen provided them some comforts. The jobs allowed the family to buy just enough food to survive without malnutrition and rent a roof over their heads. Like his townspeople, Jose had a short stature, vanilla skin, and slanted eyes. He fell in love with Maria, who lived a few houses down from his parents’. She looked like an Indian doll: dark complexion, brown eyes with long eyelashes, and a charming smile. Maria thought what Jose thought, saw what he saw, and believed what he believed. He added her dreams into his formula for a happy and hopeful life—a family with children whose future would be better than his. Jose turned 21 in 1991. A few days after his birthday, he put on his best, spoke to Maria’s father, and asked him for her hand.

No se… me gustas para mi hija, the father said, but I don’t think you are ready for my daughter.

The suitor made his case. He had a stable job and had built another home next to his parents’. The place boasted a bedroom, a kitchen, and a small dining area. His parents loved Maria like a daughter, and she wanted to marry him. Their wedding took place in August 1991. Ten months later, the happy young couple added their newborn son, Pedro, to their household. Jose could barely make ends meet every month but hoped his working and living conditions would improve shortly. This longing might soon materialize since Mexico was poised to sign a treaty of free trade with the US. But in 1996, his expectations suffered a serious setback when the cacique sold the agave fields to a large corporation.

For a while, rumors circulated among coworkers that salaries would be cut in half and those who would not accept the new conditions, replaced. The company planned to hire farmers from the nearby state of Chiapas, who received much meager salary than that of their current employees. The decision disregarded the prospective workers’ lack of harvesting training and knowledge about the agave. These qualifications had been passed down from one generation to the next for four centuries. Jose did not listen to gossip. But on the late afternoon of April 5, 1996, the jimadors tended to the daily tasks when their new supervisor got out of a green truck and walked toward them. His unexpected arrival aroused terrible forebodings in the busy laborers. Behind his figure, the sun loomed in a cloudless sky, baking the valleys and hills. The visitor strode with firm steps, his boots tramping the dry soil and raising plumes of dust, his shadow rushing before him. By now, the immobile workers noticed a frown on his rugged face, the deep furrows of his forehead, and his dark complexion. Most stood wiping their sweat with their sleeves, waiting for him. Their boss tilted his sombrero back, uncovered a pale frontal baldness, and spoke straight to the point,

El Señor Manrique no puede pagar as much money as you are making now. He instructed me to tell you that, as of tomorrow, your daily earning will be decreased to ten pesos. Take it or leave it.

Worth about 1.25 dollars, the new amount placed the already underpaid employees well below the line of poverty, which was 4.50 dollars a day. A few voices of protest rose but soon died down when their supervisor did not budge. He blamed the state of the Mexican economy, 52 percent inflation and a devaluated peso, terms the workers have never heard or understood. Jose observed his older brother and his father. Uttering no word, they lowered their heads, joined him and their coworkers, and boarded the truck that would take them back to the hacienda. Rushing along the road, the vehicle lashed a wake of gusty wind against the resigned jimadors who stood on the cargo bed in silence. Jose considered the consequences of the new directive. He and Maria often skipped their portions of milk, eggs, meat, or chicken to provide bigger servings to their four-year-old son. Those amounts would need to be curtailed. The current price of corn flour would also render this staple almost beyond their reach. His son needed a pair of shoes. Jose could not now afford it.

Everyone stepped out of the truck and headed home. Jose went to talk to the new owner to convince him and change his mind. Two aides ushered him into an office where Señor Manrique sat at a huge mahogany desk smoking a cigar. The intrepid employee could feel upon him the eyes of the corpulent man as if they were traversing his body with X-rays. The owner wore a gray suit and a red tie, and his clean-shaven face sketched a grimace of disdain and conceit. Behind him hung a golden-framed portrait of a president of Mexico with his chest covered in the colors of the national banner under his gray jacket. Next to it was the picture of a governor of the State of Jalisco. The politicians’ stern eyes gazed straight ahead as if basking in immortal greatness, their faces full of nothing but greatness, the greatness of the office the public had granted them and the dignitaries had forgotten the source. The Mexican flag stood in one corner of the room oblivious to the surroundings. It displayed the green, white, and red colors and the coat of arms, the eagle biting the evil serpent. But Jose saw nothing. His mind only saw his child starving and the broad agave fields, which the goddess awarded to the native Indians for their sustenance, changing into crops of despair. He saw the sinful bonanza of the wealthy owner. His thoughts came to a halt when the boss addressed him,

No tiene que aceptar mis condiciones… you may find another job.

Jose talked about the jimadors, their daily tasks, their dedication and training, their commitment to the quality of the piñas and the tequila made from them, their love for the fields of agaves, their loyalty for centuries to their bosses. How a careless cutting of the heart of the agave would leave portions of bitter leaves that would degrade the liquor. His words were met with a smug smile. The owner left the armchair and swaggered toward a glass cabinet. Elegant bottles with golden and silver labels sat next to crystal glasses with gold rims. Señor Manrique held the cigar between his fingers, tapped the ashes off on a tray, and pointed at the liquor. He explained that what Jose had said did not matter anymore. Consumers were the prey of the marketers’ strategy. Most-sold products consisted in adulterated tequila, only 50 percent of the elixir came from the juice of the piñas, the rest from corn and cane. His job was no longer important. He could replace him with two Chiapas farmers and save money. Two weeks later, Jose, his wife, and their son headed for El Norte. They dreamed of a fair country where they could live among free people.

On April 25, 1996, the Ramirez family arrives in Chicago, Illinois. Jose knows Manuel, the son of one of his father’s coworkers. The young compatriot works in a restaurant downtown, but there are no openings there. He finds the newcomer a temporary job at a racetrack in Arlington Heights, Illinois. The couple rents an apartment in a building in the same town, where most of the tenants are undocumented immigrants from different parts of Mexico. The place teems with broken doors, torn windows, dirt, poverty, and desperation. Two or three families crowd into a single small apartment. The cluttered rooms lack furniture, which have been replaced with sleeping bags and boxes with the occupants’ few belongings. Children lie dirty with snot down their nostrils, running and screaming through lobbies and stairs. A mouse scurries a few feet from them and two cockroaches climb a wall, oblivious to the human presence. The next-door neighbors, Emilia and Anselmo, come out to greet the new tenants. The husband warns the young couple about the dangers to Pedro’s health,

"Andele con cuidado con los desconchones… make sure your child doesn’t eat the scales from the walls. They contain lead and can damage your child’s brain."

Some kids suffer from mental retardation and others nerve ailments. The local public school has no buses. A few parents get together to drive the children to the school. Each family contributes money to pay for the gas. The Ramirezes join their efforts and send Pedro, who has just turned four, to the under-provided institution. The teachers work hard to instruct the children who speak not a single word of English, and their Spanish falters. Education ranks last among their priorities. The faculty members cannot teach starving students who eat their only decent daily meal at school. Bilingual education receives meager subsidies. The parents of these kids do not vote, and politicians lack incentive to help them.

Jose and Maria are among the luckiest residents in the neighborhood. They enjoy a single room studio with a bed, a narrow table along one wall, and a counter that sets apart a tiny kitchenette with a dining table and two wooden chairs. Underneath their bed lies a small mattress the parents pull out at night so that Pedro can sleep next to them. For the first time, they experience the convenience of their tiny private bathroom with a toilet and a shower. Jose appreciates his new surroundings at work. The spacious tracks and the grandiosity of the facility impress him. When he washes and feeds the horses, he likes their elegant shape, the luster of their skin, and the smell of hay. The excitement of the spectators seems to infect everyone. He enjoys walking by the stables and inhaling the odor of fodder and manure. The job pays little but ushers him into a world of open fields like the endless agave plantations. When the end of