Week 7 - Profile

Today, you will find Dona Ricardez taking care of her grandchildren. Each morning she starts her day off by making breakfast for the entire family along with all the other meals of the day, cleaning the house, and whenever possible, sitting in the backyard drinking her favorite drink, Raspberry Nestea, listening to her favorite mariachi music. Compared to her younger years her life "couldn't be any more perfect."

Dona Ricardez was born on a cold July day in 1926, when as she says, “Things were quite different.” The sky was blue, the air was sweet, and above all things, she was in her motherland, Mexico. She was the fourth addition to the family, but most certainly not the last. After her birth, a whopping 10 more kids were added to her family, totaling 14 siblings all together. But according to her, having this many kids back then, was so normal, it was actually looked down on to not have at least 10 in your family. Wow. She commented on the stereotype of Mexicans having big families, and just laughed. “If you didn’t have a big family, you were way down in the social class. Having a big family meant you respected life. Having a big family meant you loved your culture. Having a big family meant you loved being Mexican.”

Her parents did not have very much money in Mexico. Her father was a farm worker, and they had their own garden in the front yard. “It was our pride and joy,” she began to say. “My father was out there so much, that it seemed as though he loved the garden more than us at times. But we all knew without the garden there would be no food to eat. And with no food, there would be no family.” Each and every day, her father would go out and pick what she called, “the single most beautiful vegetable that the garden had to offer – the one that glistened in the Mexican sun – the one that caught my father’s eye.”

Then one day, the garden died, and the father could not bring it back to life (so to speak). “There was a new scent in the air. It was a lonely harmful scent that was ruining not only the air we breathed, but also the family bonds we had so closely adhered to.” Her parents knew bad times were coming and realized that there was only one hope for her.

Their neighbor’s son was soon to go to America to get a job as a machine worker to replace the American boys who were off fighting the fight of their lives in WWII. It just so happened that the families were very close and they had discussed the possible marriage of their children for some time. In addition, they thought with the current situation that this was the best thing that they could possibly do. The funny thing is though, Dona Ricardez already was in love with this boy. They had been secretly seeing each other for some time. “I was the most beautiful girl in my town. My hair was long and brown. My skin was soft and smooth. Every boy wanted me, but my heart was set on that one special man.”

The way she describes herself may seem a little “cocky”, but when she showed me a picture of her younger days, I definitely agreed with her. She was gorgeous. Well, when their parents set them up to be married, they left to America to make it on their own. She claims she does not remember much about the process from America, except for the fact that it was easy, until she got here. When they got here, work was easy to find for her husband, because as I said earlier, all the “little white boys” as she refers to them, had left for the war overseas.

Well, as soon as she got to America and was all settled in, not in a barrio, but in a middle class white neighborhood, she found out that she was pregnant. She said finding out that she was pregnant was the single most important moment in her life. She remembers that she was wearing a white dress, and had her hair all done up and was on her way to the local store. She said when she felt the kick; she nearly fell to the floor and drowned in a sea of tears. She knew then, that everything was going to be perfect, at least until the war ended. Then everything changed.

When the war ended, everyone wanted the Mexicans to leave. “They wanted us out of there. Apparently, we were stinking up the place and painting the town brown. The white people didn’t want anything to do with that.” Fearing for their lives, they had no choice but to move over her husband’s brother's house about 6 hours away by car. They were so rashly pushed out of their home; they did not have time to take many of their belongings and were unable to pack many family heirlooms. She started crying as she told me that the people of the city blamed all their problems on the Mexicans, and refused to tell me the name of the town, because she vowed never to say it again. She says that she wishes only one thing; that she could have at least taken the dress her mother had made for her before she left Mexico. She wishes more than anything that she could have held onto that dear memory.

She was crying so much when we got to this point of her life, that I felt it best to not try to get any more information out of her. I could see the pain and despair in her eyes, and I could truly feel her anger. I even found myself beginning to tear up uncontrollably as she spoke. So, without verbally saying so, we decided to move on to where her story was a little happier.
After they were forced to live in an isolated community only for Mexicans, Dona Ricardez came to realize that if there was any future for her family, she had to learn English. So she went to school right away to learn English. Her Spanish speaking community looked down on her and saw this as a means of turning away from her heritage. But she did not care, because she knew that she had to do it for her family. When she speaks of going to school for the first time, she tells of all the good memories and says there were hardly any bad memories. "Learning is learning. You get out of it, what you put into it."

Her husband did not have time to go to school, because he was working ridiculous hours trying to make ends meet. So when he came home from work, him and his wife would sit down and do her homework together. She then would reiterate what she learned at school to her children, teaching them the best possible English she could. In fact, for a little while she says, “I lost sense of being a Mexican. I started making hamburgers and hotdogs, instead of beans and tortillas, and I wouldn’t allow the kids to speak Spanish at home.” She continued this until she felt that her English was well enough to get by, to at least get some people to stop looking down at her.

She says the rest of her life “was nothing more than a struggle against the white man that I just recently won august 24 2005: the day my mijo, my pride and joy started college at San Jose State University. Him being the first to go to college really makes me proud. And kids like you doing papers on controversial things like this, really brings joy to my heart. America truly has changed, and I am so proud to live here."

In regards to the memories she could not speak of, she apologizes because they are still so powerful, and she can hardly even speak of them to herself. She asked me to make sure I included this in the paper, and I have no problem including it.

“Coming to America was both a rewarding experience, and a hard journey. Throughout my life, I have experienced racism, prejudices, and some things I do not care to mention, but I would not change any of them for the world. America is truly the land of opportunity, and I would relive every moment again, if it meant that my life would turn out the same. I love this place, my family, and my life.”