El Taco
By Juan Montoya
Every time Andres passes by the old mesquite tree next to Olmito Elementary by Old Highway 77, he smiles.
Every time Andres passes by the old mesquite tree next to Olmito Elementary by Old Highway 77, he smiles.
He can still remember the small group of boys sitting in its shade under the scalding South Texas sun munching on their school lunch. The fence of the school yard ran next to the tree, and the railroad was a little further away.
The boys had made it a habit to gather under the tree each day at noon to have their lunch. They could well have gone to the cafeteria, but preferred to gather under the tree and chatter. This suited Andres just fine, since he could not have joined in the conversation inside the cafeteria, where teachers and their favorites were always on the watch for anyone speaking Spanish, which at that time was not allowed on school grounds.
Andres had just come to Olmito with his family from nearby northern Mexico. Although his father had been born in central Texas, his parents had taken him to rural San Pedro, Coahuila, where the Mexican government had allotted them farm land in its huge irrigation project in the Laguna region. His father Jose had grown up a Mexican, never realizing his true citizenship. He had met Andres’s future mother, Socorro, whose family from Veracruz was also drawn by the government’s enticement of land and work in Mexico’s cotton belt, and they married there.
For a few years, until Andres was six, both families had prospered in the harsh desert climate. During the day, the searing hot sun would cover the little town in a stifling blanket of heat. At night, the cold winds from the nearby hills would chill him and his brother as they huddled under the blankets to keep warm.
After a few years, the desert started to reclaim the land, and the huge cotton yields started to grow smaller, until both extended families – grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins – left to seek their fortunes in northern Tamaulipas.
Eventually, his father had joined other men to go work in the cotton fields of South Texas, where the pay was in dollars, and where there was always a need for good cotton pickers and farm workers. Pickers from the Laguna area were specially prized as workers, each one picking three rows at a time and singing in the distance in front of the others.
After a time, his father had moved the family to a Mexican border town. He discovered he was a U.S. citizen when he was stopped by a Border Patrol agent when he was caught swimming across the river as he and the other workers had done so often.
The boys had made it a habit to gather under the tree each day at noon to have their lunch. They could well have gone to the cafeteria, but preferred to gather under the tree and chatter. This suited Andres just fine, since he could not have joined in the conversation inside the cafeteria, where teachers and their favorites were always on the watch for anyone speaking Spanish, which at that time was not allowed on school grounds.
Andres had just come to Olmito with his family from nearby northern Mexico. Although his father had been born in central Texas, his parents had taken him to rural San Pedro, Coahuila, where the Mexican government had allotted them farm land in its huge irrigation project in the Laguna region. His father Jose had grown up a Mexican, never realizing his true citizenship. He had met Andres’s future mother, Socorro, whose family from Veracruz was also drawn by the government’s enticement of land and work in Mexico’s cotton belt, and they married there.
For a few years, until Andres was six, both families had prospered in the harsh desert climate. During the day, the searing hot sun would cover the little town in a stifling blanket of heat. At night, the cold winds from the nearby hills would chill him and his brother as they huddled under the blankets to keep warm.
After a few years, the desert started to reclaim the land, and the huge cotton yields started to grow smaller, until both extended families – grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins – left to seek their fortunes in northern Tamaulipas.
Eventually, his father had joined other men to go work in the cotton fields of South Texas, where the pay was in dollars, and where there was always a need for good cotton pickers and farm workers. Pickers from the Laguna area were specially prized as workers, each one picking three rows at a time and singing in the distance in front of the others.
After a time, his father had moved the family to a Mexican border town. He discovered he was a U.S. citizen when he was stopped by a Border Patrol agent when he was caught swimming across the river as he and the other workers had done so often.
“Why are you swimming the river when you’e a citizen and could just as well have walked across the bridge?,” the agent had asked him.
“I never knew I was,” his father had replied. After that, it was just a matter of time before his father’s mother produced the birth certificate from among her stash of family documents.
“You were born near Victoria, Texas, Jose,” she had told his dad. “But it was so long ago, we never really thought about it. You are a citizen of the United States. So are two of your sisters and one brother. The rest were born in Coahuila.”
And so his father had continued working in the cotton farm in Olmito, eventually becoming one of the permanent workers there. With steady work, he undertook the task of bringing his family north. His employer told him that if he was able to cross them over, his citizenship would prevent the law from deporting them.
“I never knew I was,” his father had replied. After that, it was just a matter of time before his father’s mother produced the birth certificate from among her stash of family documents.
“You were born near Victoria, Texas, Jose,” she had told his dad. “But it was so long ago, we never really thought about it. You are a citizen of the United States. So are two of your sisters and one brother. The rest were born in Coahuila.”
And so his father had continued working in the cotton farm in Olmito, eventually becoming one of the permanent workers there. With steady work, he undertook the task of bringing his family north. His employer told him that if he was able to cross them over, his citizenship would prevent the law from deporting them.
And so it was that during Charro Days – a bi-national holiday celebrated by the both cities during February – Andres’s mother bundled him and his brothers and sisters, now five in all, to walk across the bridge.
“Mom, why are we putting on three pairs of pants and shirts?,” he had asked.
“You never mind and don’t go around telling anyone,” she had told him firmly. “Just hold on to your little brother’s hand and don’t let go.”
It had been a long-standing tradition fostered by the local chamber of commerce to allow Mexican
Life on the cotton farm was an exciting change for Andres and his family. Each morning, truckloads of laborers would arrive at dawn to work in the cotton fields. Many of them were old and bent with age as they got off the back of the truck, where 20 or 30 more of their fellows were crowded together for the trip from the border town to the ranch.
In those days, the Border Patrol turned a blind eye to the daily coming and going of these workers. If they could cross the river – whether with a permit through the bridge or swimming through the treacherous currents of the water – they could go unbothered about their labor on the nearby farms.
In fact, there were recognized places downtown where workers by the hundreds would gather waiting to be picked up by the trucks that would take them to the nearby farms. The Border Patrol would make sure the process went smoothly, assuring the local farmers of a steady supply of labor.
The adults would tease the kids on the farm – many of them there illegally like Andres and his brothers – when the familiar green and white trucks of the Border Patrol would approach on the road.
“Run! Run! Here comes the migra!,” they would shout as the kids ran and hid under the tractors and other implements in the open sheds. The agents shared in the fun as they passed by smiling at the children hiding behind the machinery and the large metal disks attached to the tractors.
When the cotton plants were two to three inches tall, the workers would arrive early in the morning, some carrying worn leather knee pads, to thin the crop. After having some hot coffee, they would be dispatched to their respective fields and set about to thin the rows, spacing the plants uniformly by pulling the shoots with their hands. In the evenings when they clambered aboard the trucks, they would haul their weary bodies onto the bed. Their callused hands were stained a dark green from the day-long pulling of the plants.
Eventually, school started and Andres and his brothers and sisters were enrolled in Olmito Elementary. A bus would pick them up each morning and deliver them home after school. Since he didn’t know a word of English even though he was seven, Andres was placed in the second-grade class. His teacher, an elderly lady perhaps 70 years old, didn’t know a word of Spanish. Since Spanish was prohibited on school grounds, there was very little to be done to teach Andres how to read or understand his lessons.
And he had seen kids punished for speaking Spanish pressing a penny against the wall with their nose and had refrained from speaking to anyone inside the classroom.
Unable to place him in any of her three reading groups – A, B, or C – Mrs. Stroman had him sit behind each group as she gave the children their daily lessons. All Andres did during the day was to sit in the back of the groups and try to follow the lessons by glancing at their books and following along on the pages.
After a few days, his two older sisters complained to their parents that the Anglo students and some of the others would make fun of them when they took out their lunch in the cafeteria.
“They tease us because we have tacos,” they told their mother. “All the other kids have baloney sandwiches and we have tacos. They’re mean.”
Bowing to the pressure, his parents soon sent all of them to school with baloney sandwiches in their brown paper lunch sacks. Even though they never ate sandwiches at home, they dutifully bought them for the kids so they would not be teased anymore. On the bus on the way to school, Andres soon made a few friends who asked him his name and what grade he was in.
Although some of the kids were in third grade, they soon became buddies. The driver did not enforce the English-only rule on the bus. Andres soon found out that his family wasn’t the only one in Olmito who didn’t eat cold sandwiches. In fact, he became a minor celebrity because he took sandwiches for lunch while the rest of the kids took tacos.
“What did your mother make you for lunch?,” he asked his friend Paco.
“Papas con bacon,” Paco replied. “You want to trade?”
“Sure,” Andres said.
He couldn’t get over his good fortune. Paco’s mother – whoever she was – was a master at making flour tortillas. They were soft and fluffy and shaped themselves snugly around the food. The potatoes were diced and soft and the bacon pieces gave the tacos a delicious taste.
Since he didn’t want his sisters to tell his parents – or to get teased in the cafeteria – he convinced Paco to have their lunch under the mesquite tree.
When lunch time came around, he and Paco were joined by another four or five boys and made their way to the tree. There, he asked them about some of the lessons he didn’t understand as they shared their lunch, or rather, they took turns munching on the baloney sandwich he had traded with Paco.
Unable to place him in any of her three reading groups – A, B, or C – Mrs. Stroman had him sit behind each group as she gave the children their daily lessons. All Andres did during the day was to sit in the back of the groups and try to follow the lessons by glancing at their books and following along on the pages.
After a few days, his two older sisters complained to their parents that the Anglo students and some of the others would make fun of them when they took out their lunch in the cafeteria.
“They tease us because we have tacos,” they told their mother. “All the other kids have baloney sandwiches and we have tacos. They’re mean.”
Bowing to the pressure, his parents soon sent all of them to school with baloney sandwiches in their brown paper lunch sacks. Even though they never ate sandwiches at home, they dutifully bought them for the kids so they would not be teased anymore. On the bus on the way to school, Andres soon made a few friends who asked him his name and what grade he was in.
Although some of the kids were in third grade, they soon became buddies. The driver did not enforce the English-only rule on the bus. Andres soon found out that his family wasn’t the only one in Olmito who didn’t eat cold sandwiches. In fact, he became a minor celebrity because he took sandwiches for lunch while the rest of the kids took tacos.
“What did your mother make you for lunch?,” he asked his friend Paco.
“Papas con bacon,” Paco replied. “You want to trade?”
“Sure,” Andres said.
He couldn’t get over his good fortune. Paco’s mother – whoever she was – was a master at making flour tortillas. They were soft and fluffy and shaped themselves snugly around the food. The potatoes were diced and soft and the bacon pieces gave the tacos a delicious taste.
When lunch time came around, he and Paco were joined by another four or five boys and made their way to the tree. There, he asked them about some of the lessons he didn’t understand as they shared their lunch, or rather, they took turns munching on the baloney sandwich he had traded with Paco.
“Where do you guys go when you tell the teacher ‘maybescuze’?,” Andres asked them once.
“To the bathroom, al baño,” Paco said. “You can go in there and speak Spanish and everything.”
When he returned to his class, he decided to try it on Mrs. Stroman.
Walking up to the elderly lady, he stood before her as she glanced up from the reading lesson she was giving the B group.
“Maybescuze?,” he asked.
The old lady stared at him incredulously and merely pointed down the hallway to the bathroom.
Sure enough, inside were four or five other students laughing and joking among themselves in Spanish.
“Como lo hiciste? (How did you do it?,”) they asked Andres.
“Domas le dije ‘maybescuze’ y me dejo venir (I just said and maybescuze and she let me come,” he replied.
Years later, Andres got a small satisfaction when he passed by a Taco Bell franchise and saw it was full of non-Hispanics craving what they thought was traditional Mexican food. Personally, the brittle taco shells filled with minced meat never appealed to him.
“To the bathroom, al baño,” Paco said. “You can go in there and speak Spanish and everything.”
When he returned to his class, he decided to try it on Mrs. Stroman.
Walking up to the elderly lady, he stood before her as she glanced up from the reading lesson she was giving the B group.
“Maybescuze?,” he asked.
The old lady stared at him incredulously and merely pointed down the hallway to the bathroom.
Sure enough, inside were four or five other students laughing and joking among themselves in Spanish.
“Como lo hiciste? (How did you do it?,”) they asked Andres.
Years later, Andres got a small satisfaction when he passed by a Taco Bell franchise and saw it was full of non-Hispanics craving what they thought was traditional Mexican food. Personally, the brittle taco shells filled with minced meat never appealed to him.
He still remembered the fried potato-and-bacon drippings tacos Paco’s mother had prepared and which he traded for his baloney sandwiches some six decades before.
“Now that was real food,” he thought.
Every time he drives past that old mesquite tree, Andres smiles.
“Now that was real food,” he thought.
Every time he drives past that old mesquite tree, Andres smiles.
44 comments:
All history is gossip, especially Chicano history.
You know it and I know it, Montoya.
-Chells 😛😺🐔
And now the school buses pick up and drop off kids at the international bridges
(Wouldn't that be some investigative reporting)
And now - what would the local economy be without tacos???
Everybody should feel proud of their heritage.
"He who lives in the past is already dead. . ." - Maharishi Maldonado
There is a difference between remembering and living.
It's very simple. The US simply cannot be trusted to keep its word to friend or foe. Why would Iran open the Strait of Hormuz, on the basis of an agreement with the US? We are now just a thuggish regime operated by a crime family and its henchmen.
Posiblemente sea el trabajo más importante de cualquier primer ministro israelí: mantener buenas relaciones con Estados Unidos mientras se resiste a exigencias que, en su opinión, socavan la seguridad de Israel.
Nadie ha logrado ese difícil equilibrio durante más tiempo que el primer ministro Benjamin Netanyahu, el líder que más tiempo ha gobernado en Israel. Pero con el estancamiento de la guerra con Irán y mientras el presidente de Estados Unidos, Donald Trump, busca impulsar esfuerzos de paz en otros frentes, la tarea de Netanyahu se vuelve cada vez más difícil, a menos de tres meses de las elecciones en Israel.
Mi maestra en quinto grado me decia, "Haber, tu lengua" y despues me llegaba el chingaso sobre la boca. Pero ni mi jefe ni mi jefa se quejaban.
Meanwhile, in the White House, we still have a known, disgusting, lying, 34 count corrupt, convicted criminal FELON freely walking the streets and not locked up behind bars where he should be. And he happens to be the current U.S. President. UNBELIEVABLE!!
5:20 American citizens live in Mexico. They’ve paid into the system. Their kids should be able to attend public schools.
CRY some more tears crybaby MEXICANS!
No, it is not a lie! I lived through some of those incidents.
The USS Abraham Lincoln has reportedly spent nine months at sea, with around 5,000 sailors and Marines facing growing concerns over food supplies, basic hygiene, broken toilets, moldy showers and laundry problems. Military families are raising the alarm over the carrier’s unprecedented 208 consecutive days at sea and warning that extreme deployment length, fatigue and poor living conditions could affect crew morale, safety and performance.
Navy officials have acknowledged problems with toilets, showers and supply backlogs while insisting that the USS Abraham Lincoln remains fully capable of carrying out its missions in the Middle East. As the war with Iran continues, questions are mounting over how long the crew can sustain the demanding operational tempo.
Texas evolved from early 19th-century localized instruction in multiple languages to
strict English-only laws in 1918.
Landmark civil rights battles and the Bilingual Education and Training Act of 1973 overturned these restrictions, mandating native-language instruction and paving the way for modern dual-language immersion programs.
Trump opened a can of nasty worms. Iran decides if and when the Strait will open, who can use it and, the US and Israel are excluded. They are not willing to enter negotiations again with a dishonest, lying American president. The terms that the Iranians are proposing are a bitter pill for Trump to swallow. But that is the result of bad judgement, poor planning and outright greed. People who think that we can bomb Iran into submission
are mistaken.
I want to know if Karoline Leavitt is going to follow Dr. Trump's new immunization protocols. The fool has no business tampering with proven
medical data. Let's watch Karoline sacrifice her newborn to appease the orange messiah. One dead baby on deck.
1:44 You are an ignorant fool.
A Proud Mexican
How do people living in mexico pay their dues ?
Im stumped
Fascist Texas Republicans might bring that policy back and make it law. America was great to them when minorities were second class citizens.
You should never forget the past but you should not harp upon it.
Crime family? What of the Biden family, which was pardoned as a whole? Innocent individuals do not receive pardons.
Si uno no habla dios no lo oye.
It is astonishing how you individuals who identify as communists continue to express your animosity towards Trump. Move on!
6:03. Pardons, like the January 6th felons? Trump offers pardons for sale. With Trump, everything has a price. Your defense of Trump can be easily discredited.
7:04 PM Yes you are a Mexican…a member of the DUMBEST population of humans in Texas!
Well I am smarter than you because I know how to respond directly below your post.
@1:44. Wow , what a cowardly comment . Back in the early 60’s , my first grade teacher told me that I didn’t make the Honor Roll that term , because I was caught speaking Spanish at the playground. .Not crying , not harping , just saying my story. I’m 70 now and I still remember this being said to my face . Do your MEXICAN friends you consider them crybabies? I doubt it !! lol My dad a proud Mexican American who fought in the Korean War ,would tell me stories about when he became a working civilian . He saw signs like “ No Dogs, Negroes or Mexicans allowed “ and guess what ? He nor I lived with hate or make fun of people . What a terrible place the inside of your head must be . Tell your Mexican friends what you really think of them .
So he lied 34 times about paying off a high class lady of the streets. Wow what a crime. How does that effect any of us? You would have done the same if you had been caught with your boy friend. Everyone deserves to have a private life. The one that should be incarcerate is Biden and his entire family. But his weaponized judicial system let him walk free along with his corrupt family.
What about Biden's pardons of his entire family?
You're so smart that you can't wait to receive your monthly allocation of food stamps. Because I truly doubt you're a self made millionaire.
Like the medical data given to us by fauci?
Just glorified BS!
They don't.
If you're a proud Mexican what the hell are you doing here? Shouldn't you be in Mexico honoring them with your presence?
South Texas uses teas and eggs to cure all illnesses. Te de manzanilla, mal de ojo etc
And we’re astonished as to why you continue to worship a president known as the disaster-in-chief? You’d take a bullet to the ear for him, wouldn’t you, I’m assuming you wore the ear patch for a couple of days, didn’t you!
You seem to not only eat everything but you enjoy putting everything in your mouth.
10:21 you need to turn off Fox News
Spanish was spoken on this continent 100 years before English.
White squatters need to “go back to Europe”. The people on the Mayflower were sent off with a good riddance from Europe. Now, their descendants think they own the country. Puro escrape.
@10:37 am
Yes, because we know that all whites (including me) are millionaires and that there is no such thing as a retarded white folk 🤦♂️. Interesting times we live in. Get on your remote control and change the channel once in a while, or better yet, pick up an old book if your illiterate white ass can read it. Empires: China = thousands of years. Roman Empire = thousands of years and mostly world conquest, before their downfall. Countries like Africa and Australia DGAF. Whiteland (aka USA) 250 years. What could go wrong??
-Chells 😘
@4:57 am
Hey dick wipe, at least change up your emojis while you are impersonating me. It is flattering though. But… WTF are you doing up that early/late?? Meth/coke binge much?
-Chells 😘
If they live in Mexico how have they paid into the system? If their home is in Mexico they don’t pay property taxes which fund the schools, so please explain your comment.
Why is assimilation a crime? Many other countries expect visitors and people living there to speak the language, even when you go to Mexico they expect some level of Spanish to be known so why do you bash the US for the same? Now you have students graduating high school and going to college that do not even speak English, I guess you think that is okay?
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