Semilla They tried to bury us but they didn't know we were seeds. --Mexican Proverb Imperial Valley, California * March 1965 Remolino I sometimes think about how I lost my voice. I could have buried it in the earth, in the surco, the long row of dry dirt where we planted onion bulbs last spring while the heat of a too-hot California day fell on our arched backs like barrels of sun. It could have happened when Papá screamed for me to work faster just as I was singing along to Mamá's song louder than Papá's angry words or the drone of planes spraying the fields overhead. It could have been taken by the roaring remolino that slammed into us like the storm of Papá's belt when we upset him, an out of nowhere tornado ripping through the fields. maybe that's when the dirt-drenched air pulled my voice out of my breath and caught it in the spin of wild wind. What's left is a whispery rasp an orange-yellow mist that comes and goes like clouds. My real voice is either somewhere in the tumble of dirt in the onion fields of the Imperial Valley or was taken by the anger of the wind. One day, I pray it comes back. Delano, California * September, 1965 Open-Sky Hammocks We drown bedbugs in a pail of water, chinches we pluck from the mattresses propped up outside on rusty barrack walls. The worst kind of chore on our first day in Delano, in another labor camp as terrible as the last and the one before that. Concha and Rafa race to see who can drown more bugs. They beat me by a lot because they're five and four years older. I ask Mamá if we can sleep in our hammocks instead but she doesn't turn around. She still can't hear the tiny hiss that comes from me when I try to speak. "¡Mamá!" I try to say louder. She reads the question on my lips. "Lula, the mattresses are better so we are together and not hanging like leaves from the trees." Me? I'd rather sleep outside in a crest of oaks at the edge of the grape fields all around us with surcos like long fingers spread throughout the vineyard and thick vines growing big across the wires. I'd rather sleep beneath a blue-black sky glistening with bright stars. A stage. A place to dream. Where I can announce a make-believe circus like a ringmaster to an audience of hooting owls hunting field mice in the night. Outside under the dense, starry sky we can only see in the back roads of California where we work and chase the harvests, so different from the city where we hardly go and where the glow of lights washes away the contrast. Yes, it's colder in our hammocks than in the one-room wooden barrack, especially in the winter, but so much better than getting eaten alive by chinches. "Pero, Mamá, I wish we could . . ." I try to argue. "No time for wishing now, Lula." Mamá leans on my shoulder as she passes me holding a grass broom. Her long thick braid lays against her neck as her body bends like a willow branch, and she sighs, "Vamos, Lula, Concha, Rafa. Let's keep cleaning, mis amores." Light Blue Schoolhouse I watch water glisten as it splashes against the tin of the pail I fill at the only tap at this new but familiar camp. I think of the light blue schoolhouse I saw from the truck as we arrived, and my panza flutters. I wonder about the new school year and if the school will have a twelfth grade for Concha and a seventh grade for me because there's never a guarantee. A school! Where we'll be the new faces along with other farmworker kids whose families came like ours for the grape harvest and who also won't know what they'll be learning and will struggle to catch up. An actual school! Not housework, not watching my baby siblings, and not field work. Back in Bakersfield Rafa missed so many days he was whittled down two whole grades. That's when he had it and instead followed Papá and Mamá into the fields each daybreak to pick whichever crop was in season. Truant officers didn't even blink to see him in the fields as dandelion tall as he is. I'd taken what Concha once told me to heart. No matter how much we miss, no matter if teachers are mean, no matter they sometimes punish us for speaking Spanish, no matter if we can't keep friends, school is ours. "Lula, you're here to soak up anything you can, porque tomorrow, we'll be on the road again and the only thing you can take with you" --she tapped my head-- "is up here." The best thing about Concha is she loves school as much as me. Concha's gentle brown eyes are maps when I can't find my way. Baby Work Papá comes back with work orders from the crew leader and a face folded in worry. He, Mamá, and Rafa will pick grapes tomorrow morning. Our baby sister, Gabriela, and babiest brother, Martín, will go with them so Concha and I can get to school. Mamá doesn't ask us to work the fields to pick cotton, potatoes, strawberries, or grapes because that's when school's in session. Mamá doesn't ask us to skip school to watch the babies, either, she likes what we learn about the world outside the fields. She loves to hear us translate for her the stories in the books we get to read, the English transforming into the Spanish that she and Papà speak. Threat of a truant officer or no truant officer, I don't think Mamá would want it any other way. I wouldn't mind watching the babies, Gabi and Martín are two balls of sweet masa with legs. Gabi's almost three and runs like a cheetah on her bare feet with one too many toes on each foot. Mamá calls her "una hija de Dios" and because she's a child of God, she is perfect just as she is with no need for shoes we can't afford anyway. Martín crawls like a ladybug because being one year old is still pretty little. He reaches up with his dimpled hands whenever he wants to be carried, and we always happily sweep him up. It's not hard to do squishy baby work like that. Escabs I overhear Papá tell Rafa, "Caramba, we just walked into a strike. Men with picket signs and bullhorns were yelling at all of us not to work." "What do you think they're fighting for, Apá?" I get closer but he pulls Rafa inside, and gives me a "what do you want, nosy" kind of look but I can still hear him. "Los Filipinos seem to have left the fields because they want higher wages. They're en huelga, and they think we're taking their jobs," he says. "Do you think there'll be trouble, Apá?" Rafa asks. "Pues they were protesting and screaming 'Don't be escabs!' at us while we were getting crew orders. Josesito said escab means traitor because we are crossing their picket line." Papá says the word scab like his tongue is a skipped record adding a syllable up front. Mamá is sitting on the edge of the bed, holding her head between her hands like she's hurt, frowning into her closed eyes. I want to see what's wrong with her but I stay outside the barrack so Papá doesn't know I'm snooping. Martín toddles up to Papá, reaches up to him. Papá unfolds his brows and arms, lifts him up and tosses him into the air with an "Ah, ¡mi muchachito!" Papá saves his sweetness for the babies. As soon as we get older, seeing his love for us is a sight as rare as rain falling on desert earth. Carpa Smiles I remember a time before the whirlwind, a time before Gabi and Martín were born when we snuck into the circus. Rafa and me. Papá went without his bottles of beer for once to buy three tickets for Mamá, Concha, and him. Hidden behind crates, Rafa held up the tent's wall to keep me from getting scratched like he did as he crawled beneath the canvas. We emerged into a flurry of people trying to get a seat to see La Carpa Vázquez, the traveling Mexican circus. We squirmed, pushed, and shoved other kids to sit up front. As the lights began to dim, I searched and found Concha, Mamá, and Papá sitting still inside a crowd moving like ants around them. Suddenly the lights, the music, and a loud, booming voice welcomed us. "Señoras y señores, niños y niñas, welcome to the world-famous La Carpa Vázquez!" That's when I saw it. Papá's smile, with its missing right-side molar. A smile so pretty and wide it shined like a galaxy in the center of the deep brown night of his face. I don't understand why he never lets us see it, but seeing him smile because of the ringmaster's smooth voice opened up my own sonrisa like a squash bloom following the light of day. I swept my head around and was pulled like never before and never since into the magic of la carpa. The clown jugglers, the comedians, the singers, the dancing dog show, the tightrope walkers, and the flying trapeze. Rafa and me clapped, hollered, and fell on each other, ¡muriéndonos de risa! When I took a breath, a dream was etched in my heart, to join the circus one day, as ringmaster. I think about the ringmaster whenever I am still. I think about how his voice made the lights of Papá's face come alive. I want to be one of the reasons Papá smiles. Excerpted from A Seed in the Sun by Aida Salazar All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
