In the days when the city landfill of Brownsville was in the west side of the city adjacent to the Las Prietas neighborhood, some resident of that colonia would scavenge the dump for anything of value they could find. The landfill, by the way, is now Oliveria Park near to Pace High School.
Some would seek metal, like copper, or iron to sell to local scrap yards.
Others would look for anything they could find, with the chance that someone in town may have inadvertently thrown something – like money – in their trash.
Jose Luis and his friends would often go with some adults from the colonia on the weekends and line up behind them as the dump trucks backed up up to the piles of trash and spewed their contents on the ground.
During one Christmas break when the barrio kids had nothing else to do, they joined the regular dump scavengers and waited for the trucks to bring the trash to the dump. The only indication now that there was a dump there is the large brick incinerator stack alongside the railroad tracks to the east of the park.
Very few families in the colonia had much to celebrate on Christmas. One or two families whose parents had good-paying steady jobs would have Christmas trees or decorate their homes with Christmas lights. On the 25th, very few kids were playing with new bikes or toys out on the dirt streets of the colonia.
And so it was that Jose Luis woke up on Christmas Day and with his friends decided to make the trek across the dry ditch and into the dump to see what they could find. Jose Luis' family was poor. His parents worked at a local laundry doing labor and washing the the dirty uniforms of the various businesses.
They had not been able to get the kids much of any presents save for a bag of candy canes and candy mixed in with peanuts and an orange or two. They had not had a Christmas tree at home.
When Jose Luis and his buddies reached the dump at about mid-morning, some of the Christmas trash from the better city neighborhoods was being dumped. There were already throwing away the wrappings of Christmas presents, tinsel, and other holiday refuse.
Then he saw it, a large (six or seven foot) Christmas tree. But it wasn't just any Christmas tree. It was white, an artificial tree that made it seem like it had been covered with snow. The tree had been thrown away the day after Christmas by some family in town after it had served its purpose. To Jose Luis, it was a godsend.
Las Prietas kids, like others in the city and in neighboring Matamoros, had two chances to celebrate the holidays. If they didn't get any presents on Christmas, they still hoped that Los Reyes Magos, on January 6, would bear gifts for them. Los Reyes Magos was a holiday based on the arrival of the Three Wise Men who bore gifts for the newborn Jesus six days after his birth in Nazareth. It also gave parents some breathing room to buy the kids a little something then.
He would take it home and celebrate until Los Reyes Magos, Jose Luis decided.
It was not a light load. The tree was actually heavier than a regular tree and Jose Luis pulled it along the edges of the dump and across the ditch worried that he might lose some of the "snow" limbs before he got to his house. He passed by the Velasquez home and then the Cadenas before turning left on to Kennedy Aneue to his house. The Rodriguez next dorr did have a tree. Along the way, people in the colonia would stop in their tracks and watch bemused as he labored to drag the tree home.
Eventually, he got there and – to the delight of his brothers and sisters – he propped it up against a corner of the family's rented wood frame house. They cut pieces of colored paper and decorated it as best they could.
They could hardly wait into see the look on their parents' faces when they got home from a long day of working in the laundry.
When the bus stopped from town along Military Highway across form Garden Park Elementary, they all crowded around their mother and father excited about showing them their surprise.
When their parent saw the white Christmas tree with its decorations they looked embarrassed at one another. It was not the response that Jose Luis and his siblings had expected. They knew where it had come from. His father turned around to them and told them they could keep it for the night, but he was firm about telling them that they had to get rid of it early the next morning.
Jose Luis and his brothers and sister were stunned.
After he grew up and had children of his own, Jose Luis made sure that his children had a Christmas tree each winter and that they received some present for the holidays. But he always made sure that the tree they got was a live one, and not a superficial white tree like the one he dragged home from the dump that Christmas of his early childhood.
6 comments:
I grew up in Las Prietas, very poor. Luckily, we had a tree, however, rarely were there presents. Although, I never played in the dump or scavenged there, I did go in the giant incinerator many times as a rebellious teenager. This story brings back good, and bad memories.
Yes, and we were made to place every present we got from our friends at school when we exchanged gifts, under the tree so that least we would have one present under the tree. Boys got marbles or toy soldiers and girls got "flybacks" or paper dolls or jacks. Finally we would graduate to a brand skates that the whole neighborhood used when we shared them. But we were HAPPY, CONTENT, AND HAD GOOD FRIENDS! Compare that to now!!!!
Dose anybody know why it's call Las Prietas?
According to a speak I attended by a history buff, it comes from the fact that as Brownsville grew to the west, most of the homes were actually shacks made or added on room by room as the farm workers came back from the north. Most of them were Mexicans of Brown Skin or what were called prietas. How true, I do not know or have not run across it in my research.
Unfortunately, the poverty, the hard labor, robs the parents need to praise and not criticise. Instead of faking it, and telling the kids how lovely the tree was, etc. etc, they were told to take it back. The sad part of this story is how Jose Luis did not receive the praise he was hungry for.
Stories like this convey the true sense of life in poverty... that conservatives dismiss as "a failure of character." What it reveals to me is the power of hope and initiative in those children. And the parent's response was about dignity amid suffering. Both show instead a triumph of character.
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