Pablo the Illegal
His name was Pablo, he is like our ancestors before us, another grain of sand in the sea of humanity. You will not find him in any books of history, or trace that he was ever here. He was born in 1909 in Zacatecas Mexico. My father never wanted the spotlight. I discovered that he was not willing to share his past. What happened in the United States at the rail road job or how many times he was beaten to a pulp by haters of Mexicans. He was trying to earn a living like all Mexicans from this period of history from 1925 to 1960. My father was 5 feet tall, about 140 pounds and 62 yrs. old, about to retire. I was guilty of treating my father as a background in my life, at home. The wrinkles in his face, that father time leaves behind, together with all the scars and broken bones that surfaced in his health. He was approaching retirement a long life he deserved.
The saga started with my grandparents having to deal with a new son and the Mexican revolution of 1910. When my father, as a six-year-old, became an orphan. His mother died from an illness that my father never knew or understood. All that was real to him her presence was gone, and with her the love and caring that only a mother can provide. My grandfather, Pilar, as a widower with five boys to raise was faced with one solution: to remove my father from school, ending any hope of an education and reducing Pablo status of a tool or an animal on the farm, to carry the load of survival on his back.
For the next ten years my father being the youngest, was told to keep watch at night time together with the dogs, alarming the family. When people would try to steal the crops or animals on the ranch. During those years my grandfather and my father’s older brothers used
punishment, demanding that Pablo learn how to survive or he would starve to death. The Mexican revolution had left the country suffering for many years. My grandfather owned the farm in Mexico he tried to divide it five ways. The Casas family, could not survive. My oldest uncle and my father saw a solution in 1925, when my uncle read signs at the post office that the railroads of the United States needed labor workers. This was a chance my uncle and father decided to take.
My father and uncle faced some amazing odds to get to the Rio Grande: the bandits, starvation, cold weather, and losing their way. The distance of 650 miles from Zacatecas to the river, meant the average person walked 20 to 26 miles a day if they were experienced walkers. The inexperience at a first-time attempt walking such distance: became evident when they attempted to swim and their bodies betrayed them, they should have rested but starvation desperation the cold wind, forced them to risk it all trying to cross the river. They could hardly move from exhaustion. They waited for night fall to cross. The last words my father heard from his brother were “sigue Pablo” in English “continue Pablo.” This would be my father’s nightmare for the rest of his life. The river claimed another victim to its long list. Losing his brother was the price paid for crossing the river on that day.
My father could only send a letter to the family in Mexico to let them know, what happened. The guilt of “why him and not me” would be his reminder for staying alive in the United States.
In 1930 my father returned to Mexico to keep his promise to marry my mother. He was 21 years old; my mother was 16 years. Like most new couples,’ life was a challenge and my parents felt the effect of the Depression of the United States. Mexico was not immune to the economic
ripple impact. As a young couple they willingly went looking for work in many states in Mexico
but they were like all others looking for a solution, the problem was the large numbers of people, that would saturate the work force. Promising conditions would change creating an
economic desperation. Making them prey to circumstances, forcing them to always be on the move. The inhumane condition of malnutrition, for them and their children, claimed the lives of their first four children. The first child suffered a snake bite, another a scorpion bite and the last two died for lack of money for a doctor. In 1942, a second trip to the United States, my father enrolled in the Bracero program with California as his destination.
In 1942 an agreement between Mexico and the United States was made. The United States saw the need for manpower due to World War II. A new program was born, called bracero. This word meant -strong arms- or one who works using his arms. Strong arms are what the agriculture industry needed to survive; To bring temporary workers to the United States during harvest season. My father’s bracero status ended in 1960. In 1961, he became a permanent resident with “a green card” that allowed him to cross legally, no longer scared of deportation or being at the mercy of the coyotes. (Coyotes people that smuggle Illegals aliens for money and kill them if they could not pay)
My father green card status allowed him to choose where he would work. He did not want to be far away from my mom so he chose to work in California. He turned down the job of going to Idaho to fight the National Forest fires. This decision turned out to be a lifesaving decision. Those that got on the buses to fight the fires died in large numbers. Since they could not read or write and had no English knowledge, no experience in forest fire fighting. Even when the good intentioned Anglos fighting the fires tried to warn them of the dangers of the forest blaze it was like talking to the deer and getting the same result.
The Mexican fire fighters faced slaughter because they had never been in this type of terrain. They made mistakes that were deadly and they had no knowledge of how to use the power tools, or how the trees would fall on top of them. They suffocated to death from smoke inhalation. Even when they tried to get away from the flames, they had no knowledge of how the wind can turn and surround them with no way out. The accidents left many burned to death or with injuries that required hospitalization but they could not explain what was hurting, how they were suffering and died of complications. This fate was common for braceros because the doctor’s refused treatment to Mexicans since they were afraid of not getting paid if they took care of them. The worker sat in silence taking the punishment and the abuse. I am would not be writing this story, if my father did not take the California path.
Today in 2021 this illegal issue is nothing more than a political football for most American politicians. It was my father’s and mother’s sacrifice that helped me to reach the American dream. They both lived to see me in my graduation gown at the University of San Diego ceremony.
This story is for you, to put a face behind this illegal alien statistic that you keep seeing in the news. He is my father, Pablo Casas Torres. A man that I was honored to work with side by side in the tomato fields in Oceanside in 1966. This is his legacy. Gracias Don Pablo and Dona Maria.