The Family Tree

 

Hello everyone.

Hope to find everyone doing well. Grab your coffee/tea and

a little something to eat because I am looking at the leaves of my

family tree.

My mothers family lived and worked in Texas. They

did a lot of farm work there. My mother would tell me stories of

her picking cotton when she was young and that with her family

being somewhat large all the kids had to work and didn't attend

school often. My mother had an eight grade education. When she

turned twenty she was allowed to go live with one of her brothers

in Washington State after he had left the service and decided to

stay in Washington. This is where my mother met my dad.

My dad and his family were migrant workers. They would migrate

throughout the United States following the harvest season of many

different crops. From the stories I have heard they have worked in

Texas, Minnesota, the Dakotas. and Washington. My dad has relatives

that are Aztec and Maya Indians. From what I know my dad has a fifth

grade education. When my dads mom started to have health issues

they decided to buy a restaurant in Sunnyside Washington. Then for

some reason they sold it and moved to Warden WA. There he worked on

farms. He met my mom they married and had me. When I was about

three my dad and his brothers started a trucking business. I can remember

riding in the truck with my dad while my mother worked in the fields

or sheds where they stored produce.

Some of my dads siblings would still follow the harvest season of some

crops in WA. To make it easier for my parents to not have to pay baby

sitters I would go with my aunt and uncles. I have spent some time in

the strawberry fields, apple orchards, asparagus fields just to name a

few.

When I was old enough to go to school I started my education in Warden.

There were times that I still went with my aunt and uncles to other cities

in WA. while they harvested crops. This is when the trouble began as

to who am I really. We were somewhere in the outskirts of the Seattle

area picking strawberries. Us kids were suppose to get on the bus that came

to the migrant workers camp and go to school. My cousins and I would

hide from the bus and not go. Not because we hated school but because

the kids were not nice to us kids of migrant workers. They would call us

names, spit on us, throw things at us, tell us we were dirty and that we

weren't wanted there. Since we would not go to school we were then

expected to work in the fields and work as hard as the adults. Our elders

thought that if they made us work hard we would change our mind about

not going to school. It didn't work. They stopped following the harvest

season during the school year and only followed the harvest in the summer

when there was no school. Some of my cousins got lucky because by the

time they came along my family had steady year around work and they

never set foot in a field and never learned what hard work is.  The

school kids were still the same no matter what school we went to they

didn't like us because of our skin color.

I know this is long so I will stop here for today.

Until my next post Have A Splendid Day!!!!!!!