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On my mother's side of the family (Zacatecas), there was a standing rumor
that my grandparents came to the US because he had killed another man during the
revolutionary war - a man of prestige and opposing faction. He decided to
gather his wife and two children and first moved to Texas, where they were farm
workers, eventually ending up in Michigan, also working as farm workers along
with the 10 children they eventually had. My mother was born in the
1930's, and her mom died when she was 8 while her father died when she was
13. Their story was not a happy one, my grandmother died of a ruptured
appendix and my grandfather was an alcoholic, who died of liver disease, leaving
the oldest aunt to raise the younger children, including my mother.
My father (from Coahuila) came to the US as a "legal" because he was
baptized in Texas. Since he was the only one who could come and go as he
pleased, it seemed an easy solution to come to the US when my grandfather
refused to lend him the buggy to take out his girlfriend. He told my
grandfather, "You will never see me again, tomorrow I go to the United
States". Little did he know that he prophesied his own future. So, while
the rest of my father's family had no real reason to come to the US, he arrived,
never returning back to Mexico.
He arrived in Chicago, staying at a boarding
house, where my mother had just arrived from Detroit. They fell in love,
married, and had 4 children. But he died at 28, in a horrible car
accident......
Esperanza
Chicago area
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