Homelands: Four Friends, Two Countries, and the Fate of the Great Mexican-American Migration

297 Pages·2018·2 MB·English

by  Alfredo Corchado

To the faceless shadows at dawn for still dreaming and believing
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Midnight in Mexico: A Reporter’s Journey Through a Country’s Descent into
Darkness

CONTENTS
Prologue: One Wintry Night at Tequilas
I. LEAVING HOME
1. El Pajarito & Superwoman in El Norte
2. David, un Caminero in Philly
3. Ken, Barbie & Brooks Brothers
4. Primo, the Mystery Man
5. Crawling out of the Shadows
II. THE GIANT IRCA AWAKENING
6. Freddy’s Café
7. A Fickle Nation
8. The Rebuilding of America
9. Farewell, Philadelphia
III. MALINCHE’S CHILDREN
10. Marriage of Convenience
11. Homeward Bound
12. Tequila Midnight in Guadalajara
13. Trapped in the U.S., No Going Back
IV. UNEASY NEIGHBORS
14. Heartache Heartland
15. Havana Calling, Santana’s Guitar
16. The Fallout
V. HOMELESS
17. The Blame Game
18. Sister Guadalupe’s Unusual Spirit
19. Middleman, Siembra’s Rise
20. Hardening the Line
VI. HOMELANDS
21. Walls
22. The Pope in a Nativist Land
23. Thirtieth Aniversario, the Celebration
24. Arcadio’s Legacy
25. Lessons from Israel
26. The Wisdom of Doña Lidia
27. Tío Alejo’s Funeral
28. Uncle Bill
29. Four Friends, Philadelphia Reunion
30. My Homelands
Acknowledgments
A Note on the Author
I
In-between
all that comes of outside where homelands break, throw up their barriers
and the cloudless sky threatens endless rain.
To remain here
might be to plant a flag in nowhere
entredeaux words like talismans go—be free—dream, go figure
II
Somewhere between sound and sense a relentless driving forward in and down
— you leave the roots on
let them dangle, and show for all those who might question where from is from
where home is hidden
where children become their mothers where saints are just as sinister Sigurd
Selby Stoneyroad the avenues broad below me divided in allegiance to marks
my own breath makes on the rainwet panes again and again and again these
worlds come back to me in the full force of their movement a quality of sky and
earth and heaven behind histories of two countries beyond patois, a singular
difference: that here we speak simply and say what we mean to say that we meet
somewhere in the middle by night, or by day ever wandering— till love slips,
laughter holds, and life calls us back again IRISH POET JONATHAN C.
CREASY, PARIS, 2017
PROLOGUE
One Wintry Night at Tequilas
It took days of calling on the spin-dial phone before Primo picked up with a
heavily accented ¿Hola?
I introduced myself in Spanish.
I had been told by a friend in El Paso that Primitivo “Primo” Rodríguez
Oceguera could be the only other Mexican in Philadelphia. Just me and a Jesuit-
educated human rights activist with Marxist tendencies. Not the type of guy I’d
usually hang out with, but it was my first winter away from home—the U.S.-
Mexico border—and I was lonely and desperate.
We spoke briefly and agreed to meet. At my suggestion and because the place
was near my apartment, we met at an Indian restaurant and made a tradition out
of it, every Saturday. I didn’t know much about Primo but, by virtue of being
Mexican, I counted him as my only friend in Filadelfia.
One night, feeling like curry wasn’t going to cut it anymore and yearning for
Mexican food, we took a gamble on a place Primo had heard about.
Tequilas, read the sign outside the restaurant.
We swung the door open against the icy wind to a blast of warmth radiating
from inside. We entered with a bad attitude, skeptical that this Mexican
restaurant could be the real thing. I was greeted by an altar to the Virgin of
Guadalupe with photos of Cuban revolutionaries Ernesto “Che” Guevara and
Fidel Castro, Mexican revolutionaries Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata and the
leftist Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano.
I rolled my eyes.
Another phony capitalist capitalizing on Latin America’s romantic leftist
leaders and the revered brown saint. Really, the Virgin of Guadalupe? I imagined
my mother and her daily prayers back home, hoping they would be enough to
guide me through this new life.
What did this cabrón know about our faith? All this, just to make a few bucks
from tacos.
Insulting.
We grabbed two chairs at the bar. It smelled surprisingly authentic. Not quite
like my mother’s cooking—but close.
“Cruz de Navajas,” a popular song about love and betrayal by the Spanish
pop group Mecano, was playing, not some generic instrumental mariachi music.
Ana Torroja’s angelic voice hooked me. I mouthed the lyrics as we sat studying a
menu that seemed straight out of Mexico. In classic Mexican satire, the menu
lampooned Tex-Mex food, mockingly listing nachos obligatorios as an
obligatory item to appease those who believe that any Mexican restaurant had to
include nachos. But the sarcasm wasn’t all. The menu seemed to educate
ignorant patrons about the history of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Genius marketing, I thought. The dishes included mole, complete with trenza
de carne, beef in a braided pastry.
Somebody here knows Mexico intimately, I thought. The Spanish pop music
and menu began to seduce me. I lowered my guard.
Primo was older than me but I couldn’t place his age—and didn’t dare ask.
He had a receding hairline and tiny mustache that gave him the look of a Don
Juan with matador instincts. His eyes popped behind his Hemingway eyeglasses
when he talked about something that he was passionate about. His top four?
Politics, immigration, salsa music and women. But not always in that order.
I had learned from our Saturdays together that he was working to help
undocumented immigrants legalize under the generous new amnesty program.
President Ronald Reagan had just signed the Immigration Reform and Control
Act (IRCA) into law. He called it “amnesty” during a presidential debate with
Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale in 1984: “I believe in the idea
of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here, even though some
time back they may have entered illegally.” The concept stuck.
Primo and I rarely spoke about anything personal except nostalgia and policy.
I told him about my family’s background, how we emigrated from Mexico,
thanks to the 1965 Immigration Act that President Kennedy had advocated for
before his assassination. I told him how my family once worked as migrants in
the fields of California and how I managed—by luck, I confessed—to nail down
this Wall Street Journal gig. From working at a scrappy afternoon newspaper, the
El Paso Herald-Post, now here I was, working on the ninth floor of the twenty-
one-story redbrick North American Building on South Broad Street