A Very Subjective View of "Operation Wetback" (1957)
1993; Volume: 20; Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2327-641X
Autores Tópico(s)Latin American and Latino Studies
ResumoIT WAS GOING TO BE HOT! HOTTER THAN YESTERDAY. EVERYDAY HOTTER THAN THE day before. You could see it coming...glowing red on eastern horizon. Freezing and shivering as we climbed on raggedy trucks. We feared cold almost as much as we feared ass-burning heat that was waiting for us in fields. Had a few quick flashes of Papi and my tia Milagros cutting cane in Puerto Rico...my mother sewing stars on American flags in Brooklyn....the armies of no-name Ricans slaving away in garment district in Manhattan..... Black share-croppers all over South.... Somehow this all looked familiar. It looked like half of East L.A. and all of Mexico was climbing into those trucks, plus a few Blacks (including Mississippi Mo, who was married to one we affectionately called Wetback Lupe -- we all had corny nicknames in those days). There was a handful of Filipinos, two or three unwashed beatniks (looking for a real ethnic experience), and me (Borinquena negra/employment office reject). Folks called me La Merengona. Feeling scared, lonely, straight out of New York City, on my own...sitting on a crowded truck...on my way to pick fruit, vegetables, anything, because no one else would hire a 16-year-old girl...race Black. I was a newcomer to barrio -- an outsider -- so everybody still pretended I didn't exist. Mexican kind of Spanish sounding kind of funny/weird, a different kind of rhythm, strange...not realizing that my New York Rican Spanglish sounded just as weird and funny to them. I kept looking at a lonely looking Indian dude, who kept looking at me. Looking at each other across crowded truck. Dark -- darker than me -- almost as dark as Papi, he stood out like a light.... His color...his not quite American ways...his clothes. Found out he was from Chiapas, Mexico. The local Chicanos called him the hick, the wetback, el Mayate (With well-indoctrinated mestizo arrogance), they thought he was a funny-looking square. I thought he was handsome. His name was Adalberto. Look out Fresno.... Ya viene East Los! Big/fat/crude/greasy/red-faced Patron grinning at us. Screaming orders in English (which most didn't understand), telling us to work hard and we'd be rewarded. Diciendo... Bring all y' alls friends tamorra, we ain't got nuttin against you Wetbacks. We even protects our workers Yassiree, all our Messy-can friends can feel right at home here. As we were walking to fields gringo (patron), walked up to me and Lupe, put his hairy/smelly arms around our shoulders and told us if we acted right, we could even make a bonus.... Ha Ha urumrff. Lupe shrugged him off and walked over to her husband. I thought I heard bastard whisper Nigger lover under his breath, as I spit in dirt and ran as fast as I could into a group of teenage Chicanos, who smiled their approval at me. In fields I was clumsy and slow -- joke of East Los. For each basket I filled, some 10-year-old Chicano kid filled five. I was humiliated, hot, thirsty, pissed off. For a minute or two, I even wished I had stayed in Harlem. There, at least, I could go back to work at fish market...or maybe run some numbers.... I could even steal enough to feed myself without being laughed at...or could I...really?? By noon I thought I was dying. Fingers, legs, shoulders, back yelling for a rest. And my head -- aiii Dios, my head -- felt like damn thing was going to split open...barbecued Nigger! Soaking wet, soaking wet from head to foot, my straightened hair long since gone kinky from sweat. My first Natural Afro hairstyle...sweat running out of my hair into my eyes...burning my eyes...blurring my vision. Frustration finally got me and I sat down and cried and cried and cried. Very gently, so gently I don't know how long it was there before I felt hand on my shoulder. Paranoid -- thinking it was Patron again -- I balled up my fist and swung around as hard as I could, hitting nothing but wind. …
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