From Sleepy Lagoon to the Corner of the Cats

By Steve Sporleder

In From Sleepy Lagoon to the Corner of the Cats, Steve Sporleder recounts the saga of four generations of la familia Reyes in powerful, moving terms. Through his consummate storytelling and details of setting and place, we are transported to 1917 when newlyweds Ramon and Monica Reyes flee the Mexican Revolution in search of the “American Dream.” In a defining moment in the 1940s, Miguel “Mickey” Reyes, their teenage son, makes a life-altering decision late one night in the outskirts of the barrios of Los Angeles that forever shapes this family’s destiny—a tragedy that propels the Reyes family away from Sleepy Lagoon and north to the quiet and lush town of Los Gatos.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Sporleder
• Release date: Mar 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301101924

Steve Sporleder

Steve Sporleder is a lifelong resident of Los Gatos, and the author of three books, From Sleepy Lagoon to the Corner of the Cats; A Fouled Nest, and Gallivanting in the City, all set in the town of Los Gatos, CA. Steve, a former firefighter in Saratoga, CA, for thirty-two years, draws on his experience as a fifth-generation Los Gatos resident to infuse his writing with local flavor and history. His grandfather, father, uncles and brothers were also in the fire service and his family has served the town of Los Gatos and surrounding areas for over 100 years. His most recent novel, From Sleepy Lagoon to the Corner of the Cats was a Finalist in the 2012 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. In From Sleepy Lagoon to the Corner of the Cats, Steve recounts the saga of four generations of la familia Reyes in powerful, moving terms. Through his consummate storytelling and details of setting and place, we are transported to 1917 when newlyweds Ramon and Monica Reyes flee the Mexican Revolution in search of the “American Dream.” In a defining moment in the 1940s, Miguel “Mickey” Reyes, their teenage son, makes a life-altering decision late one night in the outskirts of the barrios of Los Angeles that forever shapes this family’s destiny—a tragedy that propels the Reyes family away from Sleepy Lagoon and north to the quiet and lush town of Los Gatos. Gallivanting in the Gem City – Whether it’s the “Dirty Boys of Boo Gang”, when a bucolic 1933 summer day turns tragic at the town swimming hole along Los Gatos Creek, catapulting three young boys toward a decision that will have consequences over three generations, or any of his other energetic stories, Gallivanting will leave you both longing for the gentler days of the past and eerily wary of the darkness hidden within innocence. A Fouled Nest – Thirty years after fleeing Los Gatos, California, Venice Webb receives a call from his sister with the news that their father has died. In a startling mix of abrupt confessions, resurfacing memories, and disturbing clues, Venice is left to piece together the incidents that have forever marked his family. At once, the truth about his father’s erratic behavior and neglect closes in on Venice like a freight train at full speed.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Miguel Mickey Reyes

Los Gatos, California 2005

I stood at the trunk of the deodar looking up through the drooping branches, as the treetop seemed to rise to a rim of clouds. I tried to be careful not to trip over the expanding roots along the grassy surface or step on the graves nearby. I looked at my father’s grave marker and took a small can of Brasso polish and a rag from a cloth sack I carry in my car for these visits. After the marker is shiny and clean, I take fruit from the sack and place it at the base. Today it’s five Valencia oranges. At times I bring lemons or plums. He liked all fruit, and could grow all of it. He was a gardener of high standard. Today he’d be called a Master Gardener. I often wonder what our lives would have been like if I hadn’t gone to Sleepy Lagoon. Would I still be mowing lawns? Even though I miss those times working with my father and brother, I believe all our lives got better when we got here, to Los Gatos.

I smoothed the area where sod meets cement and remember how my father prided himself on neat transitions between differing surfaces. Sometimes there are tears, sometimes not. Always a conversation, though. I recount events that have taken place since my last visit, and at times I get an answer or comment, usually a wisp of wind on a day when there is no wind. It may be a flock of roller pigeons flipping just above the trees or the sudden sound of a power mower off in the distance. I turn when the mower starts up, but I don’t see anyone. That’s an answer or comment. I know it. And it’s pretty cool.

My father, Ramon Reyes, was a good man. Honest, decent, and the very heart of our family. My mother called him Husband. Of course if she were upset with him, it was Ramon. My sisters called him Papa; my brothers and me, we called him Pop. I turn my head slightly and look at the grave next to Pop’s that I always thought would be for Mama when her turn comes. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. That’s usually when the tears come. I tell Pop, I hope you are having a wonderful time. I’ll see you soon. Two birds flap their wings as they rise and I do the sign of the cross and walk away. I don’t spend time at the other grave, the one that wasn’t supposed to happen so soon. I intend to, but I can’t. I’d never make it out of the cemetery. I always promise myself I’ll get to it.

Chapter 2

Mickey

Los Gatos, CA 1972

Palm trees on the front lawn of the ElGato Hotel swayed with a brisk breeze that blew down the Highway 17 corridor straight down Santa Cruz Avenue. Even though it was July, the fog hugged the foothills at the entrance to the Santa Cruz Mountains. The coolness of the summer day didn’t diminish the enthusiasm of children playing tag on the newly planted grass in the park. The park sat on the site of the old Southern Pacific Railroad Depot across from the ElGato. Crows squawked from the boughs of the Redwood tree that stood tall and stately by the bus stop next to the park. A closer inspection of the tree revealed strands of Christmas lights still hung but unlit.

On the veranda of the hotel, a set of large wind chimes sang out a deep rich tone. Vignettes of straw-colored wicker seating arrangements were spaced across the gray-enameled wooden porch. Each space had a two-person settee against the wall with a coffee table in front of it. To one side was a rocker, while the other held a side chair. The pads on the seats were bright pastel stripes. Several of these arrangements across the length of the hotel porch sat in front of huge picture windows. A slice of sunshine warmed a calico cat, the un-official mascot for the hotel, basking on the pad of a chair.

I sat on this porch looking at Los Gatos, a California town that was changing from the town of my adolescence to an upscale municipality catering to well-to-do inhabitants and shoppers. The old grammar school on University Avenue had been rebuilt into quaint shops and fancy restaurants. Antique stores and art galleries took the place of mom and pop establishments along Santa Cruz Avenue and Main Street. Even Fanning’s Motel, the place where my Pop and I stayed when we first came to town in the 1940s, had been recently torn down to make room for a new bank and a supermarket.

Next to me was my old friend, Gilberto Morales. We were both in our mid-forties and business owners in town. Gil owned an auto upholstery shop a few blocks from my appliance store. Not bad, considering that his folks and mine were wetbacks. The Anglos called us pachuchos. But we weren’t, not in the true sense of the word. In the thirties and forties, Mexican kids in Los Angeles developed their own subculture, much like kids on the East Coast. Flashy clothes, Zoot suits, and listening to jazz music set us apart. The whites continued to associate the pachucho style with punks or gangs. Mexicans, including Gil and me, got called spics, cholos, and wetbacks. Sometimes we took it and sometimes we didn’t. Some white kids seemed to be afraid of us until they got to know us. The first kid I met in Los Gatos was a freckled-faced red head. To this day he is my closest compadre.

I ran into Gil at least a couple of days a week around town, and we saw each other socially with our wives. We’d just finished lunch in the dining room and were enjoying each other’s company. What’ve you got going the rest of the day, Mickey? Gil asked as he rocked in the ancient wicker chair.

Going to the Los Gatos Historical Society meeting. They want to put on some sort of exhibit about Mexicans in the area during the post-war years to celebrate the next Cinco de Mayo.

What the hell! Why didn’t they ask me? Gil said dejectedly as he scraped a graying sideburn with his huge turquoise ring. His black eyes glistened with emotion and his prominent chin jutted out more. "Can’t answer that, Gil. But I’ll put in a good word for ya, if you want to be part of it, mi amigo." He just shook his head.

Hey, if they have a portion on fruit picking, you could help with that, I offered. Gil shot me a hurtful look, and said, We certainly did more than just pick fruit, Miguel Reyes!

I know that, Gil, I whispered. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.

Nah, forget it. I‘d like to be included, though. Let them know what it was really like to live around here in the 1940s and 50s, ya know, all the dirty little secrets.

I wondered if Gil was talking about his brother who disappeared some years back. Maybe he meant the discrimination that we faced. Hell, for all I know he was talking about my past.

After Gil left, I stayed on the porch wondering what I would talk about in the historical society meeting. I certainly didn’t want to dredge up my checkered past. That’s exactly what it was: the past. On the other hand, it was the historical society and they deal with the past. What was historical about me and my family? I wondered if I was gonna be the token Mexican.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized there were, indeed, important events from my childhood and teen years that seemed significant. Some of which, I wished I could forget.

I stopped at my store before going to the meeting. In my office, I looked at a black and white photograph of me with my family standing in front of the house where we lived on Palmetto Avenue in East Los Angeles. Carlos had it enlarged and framed, and gave it to me for one of my birthdays. It hangs prominently on the wall.

I remember well the day it was taken. I was ten years old and had just gotten home from playing baseball. I was wearing a ball cap with the visor turned up. I stood next to my father. He was on the far left, with his right foot proudly resting on the stone fishpond we were standing around. His short sleeve white shirt was tucked into a pair of widely pleated trousers, which rode high up his belly. Next to me was mi madre, in a flowered dress. A white camellia rested in her shiny black hair. I think it is one of the best pictures of her that ever was taken. My two younger sisters, Trina and Connie stood between Mama and Carlos, who was trying to look tough. Desi, the youngest, hadn’t been born yet. Our neighbor, Mrs. Tanaka took the picture and her shadow shows on the sidewalk. It was taken in 1937 to be sent to familia in Mexico.

Our house had three bedrooms and one bathroom, small for a family our size, but Mama kept it spotless. It wasn’t in the swankiest part of town, but Pop said it beat any place he ever lived in south of the border. Palmetto Avenue was wide with not much automobile traffic. There was always a game of baseball going on in the summer, and in the winter, a football was tossed around.

It’s paved with concrete, my father told relatives back in Mexico. "No dust diablos."

A lawn parking-strip lined both sides of the four-block stretch of Palmetto Avenue. Tall palm trees dotted the strips, and the fronds swayed constantly. I never felt the houses fit the scene; the street just seemed too fancy for them. But it was home and we were proud of our barrio.

That was a good time for us, 1937. A short six years later, however, things started to come apart. The unraveling of our lives was a true test of our family and its bond. We were family, and my mom and pop were the glue that held us together when things got tough.

I pulled out a Manila folder with old newspaper articles and photographs inside, and then put it down. It was a well-worn folder and I could pull it out at a moment’s notice, but I knew if I started looking, I’d miss the historical society meeting.

The smell of old books, paper and slight mustiness greeted me as I walked into the meeting room off the main floor of the library. It surprised me to see the pink face of Digby, the old retired cop, sitting next to the only vacant chair in the room.

The rotund man running the session gestured toward the chair next to Digby. As I sat down Digby extended his liver spotted hand and said, Nice to see ya. How ya getting along? Did ya ever get yerself straightened out? I shook his weak grip and just nodded. Man, I wanted to squeeze hard. Was I still a sixteen year old to him?

Digby was a county constable before becoming an officer with the Los Gatos Police Department. When he started his career, in the late thirties, the night shift officer walked the business district rattling doorknobs making sure the stores were locked. Digby, from time to time, would make a pass up and down the aisles of the Gatos Theatre, usually on Friday and Saturday nights, shining his flashlight on kids getting amorous. He retired in 1962. Ten years later, here I am sitting next to him in a library. What the Christ?

He was dressed in a pair of dirty jeans and a light blue polo shirt with food stains down the front. On his feet were flip-flops blackened from wear. His toenails were long and yellow and he smelled like an old dog. My damned lunch almost came up. A mild remnant of the onion from my cheeseburger arrived and left. I put a half piece of Double-Mint gum in my mouth and started to chew.

The Los Gatos Historical Society, in conjunction with the Los Gatos Town Library, wanted to have a fiesta for the next Cinco de Mayo. They were asking for photographs, memorabilia, tools, and clothing of the day. There would even be Film Study students from San Jose State on hand to film interviews with people that lived in that time.

Some people took notes; others just nodded and listened to the man running the show. As he talked, he removed his light blue blazer and hung it over his chair. He raised his hand to smooth his balding head, revealing a huge sweat stain under his arm.

Digby elbowed me on the arm and whispered out the side of his mouth, If you don’t have any pictures of yourself, I know they still have some in the file room at the department.

I glared at him and he grinned and winked at me. The lady sitting behind the old bastard gave a sympathetic smile, which I guess meant she heard his comment.

I had several dust-ups, but only one serious run-in with the Los Gatos Police Department. I was innocent, but found guilty, and I did time at a youth camp in a rural portion of Santa Clara County. But this buzzard bringing it up was uncalled for, and I was going to tell him that when the meeting was over.

I was so mad that I couldn’t concentrate on what was being said, so I focused on the décor of the meeting room and old photos on the walls. I saw one of the Cottage Grove Cannery where my pop worked in the box factory. I’d take a closer look later. I heard somebody mention Zoot suit, and turned back to the facilitator. All eyes were on me.

What? I asked.

The man said, I was wondering if you still had a Zoot suit. The heat of embarrassment and anger enclosed me, and I felt singled out. I hadn’t sensed that in years. I opened my mouth to speak before I thought of what I was going to say.

What’s the purpose of this shindig anyhow? What do you hope to prove? I asked with out-stretched arms. People looked at me with uneasiness.

Finally, the lady behind me, who’d given me a sympathetic look earlier, stood and spoke in a strong and authoritative voice What we are attempting to do is have an event that serves as a reminder of a time in our history that is slowly being forgotten. We want to honor our Hispanic neighbors. This was a Mexican Land Grant before it became a town, people, she said as she swept her hand around. Let’s not forget that, okay? She stopped speaking and looked into the faces of those in the room, and then finally her gaze rested on me. The question was, Mr. Reyes, do you have a Zoot suit? If that insults you, pardon our insensitivity. It wasn’t meant to.

I looked at her with a softened face and said, We didn’t wear Zoots here. That was in LA.

She nodded succinctly and sat back down.

The man at the front said, Thank you, Miss Hollis, for clarifying the question, and thank you, Mr. Reyes, for answering it. Moving on, I would like to split up assignments of who is going to do what.

Digby abruptly left his chair, strode to the door and walked out, the door banging loudly behind him. I thought about going after him, but realized he probably didn’t know how abrasive he’d been.

As luck would have it, Miss Hollis and I were put on the committee dealing with agriculture. I told her that I had a friend who was once a farm hand and would love to help.

Oh? Who might that be? she asked pleasantly. When I told her, she clapped her hands and said, Wonderful! I know Gilberto. He used to pick for us. Do bring him the next time. I’d love to work with him on this. She was an aristocratic looking woman, with beautifully coiffed gray hair. Her face was angular with a straight nose. She was rail thin and seemed to be as delicate as a bird’s nest. But when she spoke you realized Miss Jane Hollis was not fragile. Not by a long shot.

Before we parted, Miss Hollis told me not to worry about Digby. He came into the room today to rest, and just before the meeting started, he asked if he could stay. He brings nothing to this event. He didn’t have a right to talk to you like he did. There is history and there is the past. Keep that in mind, sir, she said pointing in the air with a bony right index finger.

She actually clapped her hands when you told her my name? Gil asked with a wide grin, when I told him about meeting Miss Hollis. We were seated on the edge of a planter box full of geraniums in front of his auto upholstery shop. His foot rested on a watering can, and a flat toothpick stuck out of the corner of his mouth. He told me his mother worked in the Hollis house as housekeeper and cook. Gil and his brother and sister worked picking apricots and prunes at the home piece near Bascom Avenue and Union Avenue. They also often gardened around the place.

What else did they talk about? They asked if I still had a Zoot suit.

Are you shitting me? Not waiting for an answer, Gil continued, What did ya tell em?

That we didn’t wear our Zoots here.

I never had a Zoot suit. Can you believe that? Gil asked. Couldn’t afford one.

I never really did either. I wore my brother’s from time to time. But he never knew, I said sheepishly.

I walked through the parking lots that now cover the railroad right-of-way that ran behind the stores along the east side of Santa Cruz Avenue. A refrigerator truck sat idling behind the Meadow Gold Creamery. From the tire shop the clatter of an impact wrench rang out. Business as usual.

I entered the large roll up door into the loading dock area in the rear of the appliance store. The smell of propane exhaust from the forklift remained in the air. My daughter, Rosalinda, told me sales were slow, but the repair and deliveryman had a full service call schedule.

I sat down at my desk, opened the center drawer and took out a switchblade knife I’d picked up off the ground years ago when I was a young boy in LA. The blade sprang out with a distinctive metallic sound and I started opening my mail with it. When I finished, I put the knife back carefully and felt that nagging sense, as always, that if I left it out, there might be trouble.

Then I picked up the Manila file folder I had left on my desk earlier. As I did, a small, yellowed newspaper clipping fluttered like a falling leaf down onto my desk. It read LG Youth Sentenced. I thought about throwing it away; it was the past, wasn’t it? It sure wasn’t historical. I found what I was looking for inside a clear protective sleeve—an article with the banner headline SLEEPY LAGOON MURDERER IN CUSTODY. Across the top, so many years ago, I’d written, Summer 1943.

Chapter 3

Mickey Reyes

The Reyes Family Journal: The War Years

Los Gatos, California 1985

In 1917 my parents fled the mayhem of the Mexican Revolution. Both of their families lost their small holdings to the large estates called haciendas. The Mexican government, a majority of which were padrones or Dons of the haciendas, believed that the uneducated lower class of campensinos, or farmers, were good for manual labor only, so property was seized, rendering the campensinos virtual peons, forever tied to the land. In the southern states in America the landowners let farmers live in housing and become sharecroppers. In Mexico, the farmers already owned their land, but the Dons took it from them. If the farmers resisted, they were shot and killed. Those that didn’t resist worked their holdings but owed a portion to the padrones. The situation was hopeless; the peons could never get out from under the thumb of the hacienda owners. The more the farmers made, the more the Dons wanted. The farmers could never buy their way out from under. Poverty increased as wages plummeted. Some workers revolted and were imprisoned and some eventually executed.

My father, Ramon Reyes and his esposa, Monica, my mother, rarely mentioned our grandparents. When they did, it was only to let us kids know that we had grandparents like everyone else. Once in a while, Pop would mention loud gunfire, and the thundering hooves of the caballos galloping near his casa when he was a small boy.

One time in particular, he told me, "When I was sixteen, mi padre y hermanos were fishing for supper. I’d stepped into the bushes to relieve myself and the shooting started. ‘Vamoose, Ramon!’ was the last words I ever heard from my father. Dios Mio, we were fishing! I found my brothers and father shot to death. The agony on their faces would haunt me forever. I tried to fix them up the best I could so mi madre would have some relief that they would rest in peace. It didn’t work; she went loco overnight. Several weeks later, mi madre and I were in our house when we heard horses headed through our yard at a rapid pace. Mama stood up and grabbed a cleaver and ran out to face the onslaught. She charged a horse, making it rear up. The rider pulled a pistola and shot her. I ran to her and held her in my lap, where she died. Suddenly I was all alone. I quit running then, I didn’t care. They might as well kill me, too, I thought.

I picked up the shovel, again, and buried my mother next to my father and brothers. Back in the house I just stared around at what was there. Not much. Some rickety furniture that was only good to kindle a fire, some ollas and tin cups and plates. None of it was ours. At one time, it was and then it was taken from us. On the scarred tabletop was an often-read letter to my parents from a relative that went across to America. It was just lying there. It was like my mother knew what she was going to do when riders came through, and left the letter there for me as a clue. She committed suicidio. I didn’t want to think that. I just hoped God would understand. I was beginning to doubt God existed.

The letter said to look up the cousin that wrote it, that he could help with maybe a job or a place to stay. It also said Cuidado! The water in the Rio Grande is swift, cold and deep.

"You cannot leave. Your family is buried here, amigo," a neighbor said to me when I mentioned about going across.

It is only their bodies in the ground over there, I answered, pointing to the graves. Their spirits are what will be with me no matter where I go.

Go across? What did that really mean? If it was so good over there, why didn’t we go, me and my family? We never got too far off our patch, ever.

As bad as that was, I didn’t cross the river. And thank God for that, because after several years and lots of close calls, I met Monica Cervantes, your mother, and my life brightened. There was somebody in this world that loved me again. I was as sharp as a pointy crag and she honed and sanded my jagged edges, and I became human once more, capable of loving and being loved.

Your madre’s father abandoned her and your grandmother years earlier; for all they knew, he was dead. Your mother never talked about him. Your grandmother worked in one of the haciendas and lived in a room there, but space was limited. Your mother stayed with her sometimes, but other times she stayed with relatives; she had no home of her own.

Señora Cervantes and I didn’t like each other. I stayed out of conflicts between Monica and her mother as best I could, so when Monica agreed to marry me, her mother refused to give her blessing. That’s when I got in the middle.

We will be married with your blessing or not, I told Mrs. Cervantes in the cocina of the hacienda as she prepared a huge comida for the Don and his family. She stirred a pot on the stove and was silent. This may be your final opportunity to see her before we go, I said over my shoulder as I left. She was quiet as a goose feather hitting the grass.

Your mother was devastated for several days, and I began to wonder if we were getting married or not. I’d go to work in the field and she stayed in bed. When I got home, she was still in bed. One evening I got home and she was cooking over an open fire on the ground. I watched her for several seconds and heard her humming.

She saw me and stood and ran into my arms. I thought that her mother might have come to see her, but she hadn’t. Oh, Ramon, let’s get married so we can go across and start a new life, she whispered. "There is nada here for us."

The padre in the mission married us on a Tuesday afternoon and early the next day we paced the river’s edge looking for the best place to cross. The bank and rushing water was the same for several hundred yards in both directions, and just as deep. If there was a better place to go in, somebody would have let others know. We stepped into the frigid water of the Rio Grande and sunk shoulder deep. After several yards, our feet no longer touched the riverbed."

My parents didn’t just want a better way of life, they wanted freedom, so they risked their lives by jumping into the Rio Grande and swimming toward Texas. At first, it didn’t seem that luck was on their side. The small leather bundle of what little money they managed to take with them twisted loose from the cord tied around my father’s waist and sank to the sandy bottom of the river. But that wasn’t the most horrible thing that took place. The rapid current disoriented my father, who was not a strong swimmer, and he lost sight of my mother, who was an even weaker swimmer. Pop feared the worst for Mama. He dove down looking for her and nearly drowned himself. But when he came up, gasping for air, there was Mama standing waist deep near the shore yelling at him, trying to call him to safety, but the rushing water muffled her voice and he didn’t hear her or see her and dove down again frantically looking for her. When he came up empty-handed, shouting her name in anguish, Mama swam out to him, as terrified as ever of the water, but determined they would both make it. Can you imagine? Talk about devotion. I mean, she was safe on the other side and she jumped back in to save him!

The confusion from nearly losing each other in the icy-cold river made Pop lose his sense of direction, and for a time he still wasn’t sure they hadn’t wound up where they started. Texas, at least the part they were in, looked just like Mexico and he wasn’t sure they had really made it to America. Mama assured him that they were, indeed, in the US. "I swam toward Texas, Husband, and I never looked back. I know we are in Texas," Mama told him. So when they climbed the banks into the United States, it was with just the clothes on their backs— wetbacks—that’s what the Anglos called them. Once safe on the sandy shore, they embraced and kissed in what was both a joyous and somber celebration. They feared the unknown and darted from out-cropping to out-cropping, sage to cactus, trying to get as far from the border as possible in case any revolutionists or U.S. Army troops were patrolling.

My father remembers looking back from a mesa, across the wide expanse of the Rio Grande, into Mexico and thinking, I never have to see that place again. All his childhood he heard how fantastico America was. I had my doubts, though, Pop would say. "When your Mama and I ran away from the river that early morning I wondered if we made a mistake. The rocks looked like rocks in Mexico; the brush was the same in Texas as in Mexico. Dust that blew in our face felt the same, as did the sky and the rising sun. The mud hut buildings were just like the casa we left behind. I was scared, wet and tired. I looked back at Mama. She looked like she was on a stroll in the park and she was smiling—you know that smile. It says everything will be okay. She caught up to me and together we walked in America. We’ve walked side by side ever since. I never walked ahead of her again. On that day our lives changed forever."

With some luck and support from relatives that had already made it across the border, they found a hovel to live in with no electricity, gas, or plumbing, things we take for granted now. It was tough for them, but it beat Mexico, hands down. No shooting or pilfering— well, not too much.

After a year in Texas and two in Arizona, they heard about work in the citrus groves in California, so they hitched a ride on a melon truck and arrived in Los Angeles, in the Golden State. It was 1920, and everyone else had the same idea, so when they got there, all the jobs they heard about were taken. They lived in a tent by a creek for a few weeks. As I got older, Mama would tell me, "We showed up every day at that orchard ready to work, even just for the day or half-day. We’d take whatever they offered. I got hired first because one of the señoras left to have a baby. Soon after, your father got put on and we were able to scrape enough dinero together and move out of the encampment. But this place, Los Angeles, was supposed to the best—green hills, big houses, fancy cars, movie stars. For us, though, it was the flat areas with small houses and a pickup truck, if you were lucky, and ordinary working people. I never saw anybody from the pictures. Still, it was simply the best place ever."

Our LA house was small, but we kept it neat and tidy. Our neighborhood was a barrio, which meant that the residents were mostly Mexican. All we needed was within walking distance of our house— schools, shopping, churches and playgrounds. The one spot that was near and dear to us was the bowling alley, the Palomar Lanes, which served as a community center of sorts. During the daytime, housewives would meet there and have lunch in the coffee shop. At night the lounge was active with men, young and old, relaxing after work. On weekends families played there. Other neighborhoods envied us.

All us kids were born in LA—my older brother, Carlos, in 1924, and I was born in ’27. My sisters, Trina and Connie, were born in 1929 and 1933. The youngest, Desmondo or Desi, was born in ’44, after we moved to Los Gatos. Public schools in LA were segregated, which meant that we had to attend Mexican schools. That didn’t bother us, because it was all we knew. At that time I never felt discriminated against. I just thought it was the way it was.

My father wanted to get out of the backbreaking work in the fields and orchards. I want to work for myself. Be my own boss, he told us kids. You should want that for yourselves, too. So he started a gardening business. It was a small outfit and when my big brother, Carlos, was old enough, he worked full time with Pop. I put in my time after school and during the summers I worked full time, too. Mama and the girls cleaned houses and office buildings. Us kids got to keep a little of what we earned, but most of it went into jars and cans and sacks around the house. Pop had lost money he put in a bank during the Revolution, and didn’t trust his funds with anybody but family. Pop was honest, hard working and respectful. All our clients were white and they seemed to like us, although we never got invited to their houses for dinner, or them to ours, for that matter, but they gave us a nice bonus at Christmas every year. We were hard working and our bills got paid. At least the wolf wasn’t at the door.

For a period of time after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, most Asians were targeted and the discrimination against them increased. After the relocation of the Japanese, Italians received their share of grief from Hitler and the Axis, giving Anglos another target to zero in on. Shops run by Italians had their store windows shattered. A person with Italian features, which apparently was difficult to tell apart from Persians, Turkish, Jewish or South Americans, was sometimes denied service at Anglo-run establishments. Some minorities left for kinder neighborhoods and created a mix of cultures in the barrios.

In spite of this, things seemed pretty hunky-dory for a while. Then came the summer of 1943. East LA became a festering boil. The Japanese got relocated due to a presidential executive order. They were sent to internment camps like Manzanar, and military personnel were arriving by the truckload. Minorities, other than those with Asian features, continued to stream into LA where housing was limited. Forget about buying a home; minorities never owned property then. That was unheard of. There weren’t even any houses to rent.

A family rumor went around that Pop found hilarious. Somehow the word got back to relatives in Mexico that he and Mama hit it big in silver and copper while in Arizona. Pop roared with laughter when a cousin told him that and said, "Does it look like