Read an Excerpt

Semilla

They tried to bury us

but they didn’t know

we were seeds.

—Mexican Proverb




Imperial Valley, California• March 1965

Remolino


I sometimes think about how
                I lost my voice. 

I could have buried it in the earth, 
                                in the surco, the long row of dry dirt 
where we planted onion bulbs last spring while the heat of a too-hot California day 
                fell on our 
                                arched 
                                                 backs 
                                  like barrels 
                of sun. 

It could have happened 
when Papá screamed for me to work faster
      just as I was singing along 
           to Mamá’s song
                     louder than Papá’s angry words 
                                or the drone of planes spraying the fields                                                                                              overhead.

It could have been taken 
                by the roaring remolino 
                                that slammed into us
                like the storm of Papá’s belt when we upset him,
an out of nowhere tornado 
                                ripping through the fields.

maybe that’s when the dirt-drenched air 
                                                               pulled
                                               my voice out of my breath 
                                and caught it in the 
                                                               spin of wild wind.

What's left is a whispery rasp an orange-yellow mist 
                that comes and goes 
                                               like clouds.

My real voice is either somewhere 
                in the tumble of dirt 
                                in the onion fields 
                of the Imperial Valley             
      or 
was taken by 
                                the anger of the wind.


One day, I pray it comes back. 




Delano, California• September, 1965

Open-Sky Hammocks


We drown bedbugs 
in a pail of water,
chinches we pluck 
                from the mattresses 
                propped up outside 
                on rusty barrack walls.

The worst kind of chore 
on our first day in Delano, 
                in another labor camp
                as terrible as the last
                and the one before that.

Concha and Rafa race to see 
who can drown more bugs.
                They beat me by a lot 
                because they’re 
                five and four years older.

I ask Mamá if we can sleep 
in our hammocks instead 
                but she doesn’t turn around. 
She still can’t hear the tiny hiss 
that comes from me when I try to speak. 

                “¡Mamá!” I try to say louder.

She reads the question on my lips.

                “Lula, the mattresses are better so we are together                

and not hanging like leaves from the trees.”

Me? I’d rather sleep outside 
in a crest of oaks 
                at the edge of the grape fields 
                all around us 
                with surcos like long fingers 
                spread throughout the vineyard 
                and thick vines 
                growing big across the wires.

I’d rather sleep beneath 
                a blue-black sky glistening 
                with bright stars. 

                A stage. A place to dream. 

Where I can announce 
a make-believe circus like a ringmaster
                to an audience of hooting owls 
                hunting field mice in the night. 

Outside under the dense, starry sky 
we can only see in the back roads of California
                where we work and chase the harvests, 
                so different from the city where we hardly go
                and where the glow of lights washes away the contrast.

Yes, it’s colder in our hammocks 
than in the one-room wooden barrack,
                especially in the winter, 
                but so much better 
                than getting eaten alive by chinches.
                “Pero, Mamá, I wish we could . . .” I try to argue.

                “No time for wishing now, Lula.”

Mamá leans on my shoulder 
as she passes me holding a grass broom. 
                Her long thick braid lays against her neck
                as her body bends like a willow branch, 
                and she sighs, 

                “Vamos, Lula, Concha, Rafa. Let’s keep cleaning,                

mis amores.” 




Light Blue Schoolhouse


I watch water glisten as it splashes
                against the tin of the pail I fill 
at the only tap at this new but familiar camp.
                I think of the light blue schoolhouse
                I saw from the truck as we arrived,
                                and my panza flutters. 

I wonder about the new school year and if the school will have a twelfth grade for Concha and a seventh grade for me because there’s never a guarantee.

A school!
Where we’ll be the new faces 
along with other farmworker kids whose families came like ours 
for the grape harvest and who also won’t know 
what they’ll be learning and will struggle to catch up.

An actual school! 
Not housework, 
not watching my baby'siblings,
and not field work.

Back in Bakersfield
Rafa missed so many days 
he was whittled down two whole grades. 
                That’s when he had it 
                                and instead followed Papá and Mamá
                                               into the fields each daybreak 
                to pick whichever crop was in season.
Truant officers didn’t even blink 
to see him in the fields as dandelion tall as he is. 

I’d taken what Concha 
once told me to heart.
No matter how much we miss,
no matter if teachers are mean,
no matter they sometimes punish us 
for speaking Spanish,
no matter if we can’t keep friends,
school is ours. 

               “Lula, you’re here to soak up anything you can,
                porque tomorrow, we’ll be on the road again
                and the only thing you can take with you”
                —she tapped my head— “is up here.” 

The best thing about Concha 
is she loves school as much as me.
Concha’s gentle brown eyes 
                are maps 
when I can’t find my way.




Baby Work

Papá comes back 
with work orders from the crew leader and a face folded in worry.

He, Mamá, and Rafa 
will pick grapes tomorrow morning. 
                Our baby'sister, Gabriela, 
                and babiest brother, Martín, 
                will go with them 
so Concha and I can get to school.  

Mamá doesn’t ask us to 
work the fields to pick cotton, 
potatoes, strawberries, or grapes 
because that’s when school’s in session. 

Mamá doesn’t ask us to skip school to watch the babies, either, 
she likes what we learn  
about the world outside the fields.
She loves to hear us translate for her the stories in the books we get to read,
the English transforming into the Spanish 
that she and Papà speak. 

Threat of a truant officer 
or no truant officer,
I don’t think Mamá 
would want it any other way.

I wouldn't mind watching the babies, 
Gabi and Martín are 
two balls of sweet masa with legs.

Gabi’s almost three and runs 
like a cheetah on her bare feet 
with one too many toes on each foot.
Mamá calls her “una hija de Dios” 
and because she’s a child of God, 
she is perfect just as she is with no need for shoes 
we can’t afford anyway. 

Martín crawls like a ladybug because being one year old is still pretty little. 
He reaches up 
with his 
dimpled hands whenever he wants 
to be carried,
and we always happily sweep him up.

It’s not hard to do squishy baby work like that. 




Escabs

I overhear Papá tell Rafa, 

                “Caramba, we just walked into a strike. Men with picket

                signs and bullhorns were yelling at all of us not to work.”

                “What do you think they’re fighting for, Apá?”

I get closer but he pulls Rafa inside,
and gives me a “what do you want, nosy”
kind of look but I can still hear him.

              “Los Filipinos seem to have left the fields because they

              want higher wages. They’re en huelga, and they think

              we’re taking their jobs,” he says.

              “Do you think there’ll be trouble, Apá?” Rafa asks.

              “Pues they were protesting and screaming ‘Don’t

              be escabs!’ at us while we were getting crew orders.

              Josesito said escab means traitor because we are crossing

              their picket line.” 

Papá says the word scab like 
his tongue is a skipped record 
adding a syllable up front.

Mamá is sitting on the edge of the bed,
holding her head between her hands like she’s hurt, 
frowning into her closed eyes. 

I want to see what’s wrong with her 
but I stay outside the barrack so Papá doesn’t know 
I’m snooping.

Martín toddles up to Papá,
reaches up to him.
Papá unfolds his brows and arms,
lifts him up and tosses him into the air with an “Ah, ¡mi muchachito!” 

Papá saves his sweetness for the babies.
As soon as we get older, 
seeing his love for us 
is a sight as rare as rain 
falling on desert earth. 




Carpa Smiles        


I remember a time 
before the whirlwind,
a time before Gabi and Martín were born when we snuck into the circus.
Rafa and me. 

Papá went without 
his bottles of beer for once to buy three tickets 
for Mamá, Concha, and him.

Hidden behind crates,
Rafa held up the tent’s wall to keep me from getting scratched 
like he did as he crawled 
beneath the canvas. 

We emerged into a flurry of people trying to get a seat to see La Carpa Vázquez,
the traveling Mexican circus. 

We squirmed, pushed, and shoved 
other kids to sit up front. 
As the lights began to dim, 
I searched and found 
Concha, Mamá, and Papá
sitting still inside a crowd moving like ants around them.

Suddenly the lights, the music, 
and a loud, booming voice 
welcomed us.
 
                “Señoras y señores, niños y niñas, welcome to the
                world-famous La Carpa Vázquez!”

That’s when I saw it.
Papá’s smile, 
with its missing right-side molar. 
    A smile so pretty and wide 
       it shined like a galaxy 
              in the center 
     of the deep brown night 
               of his face. 

I don’t understand why 
he never lets us see it, 
but seeing him smile 
because of the ringmaster’s smooth voice 
opened up my own sonrisa like a squash bloom 
following 
the light of day.

I swept my head around and was pulled like never before and never since 
into the magic of la carpa.

The clown jugglers, 
the comedians, the singers,
the dancing dog show, 
the tightrope walkers,
and the flying trapeze. 

Rafa and me clapped, hollered,
           and fell on each other, 
¡muriéndonos de risa! 

When I took a breath,
a dream was etched in my heart, 
to join the circus one day,
as ringmaster.

I think about the ringmaster 
whenever I am still.

I think about how his voice 
made the lights of Papá’s face 
come alive. 

I want to be one of the reasons Papá smiles.