Carmen by Debra Burroughs

Author:Debra Burroughs
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, love, suspense, drama, adventure, family, mexico, latino, abuse, generation
Publisher: Debra Burroughs

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As Elena’s brothers got older, near junior high age, and were able to work full days, Pablo moved the family to the farm labor camps for the summers. The camps were near Tres Pinos, about fifteen or so miles outside of Hollister. The shacks at these labor camps were just one large room and a small area for cooking and serving meals, no refrigerator and no stove. Cooking was done on a camp stove, and there was a sink and a small work table for preparing the meals. The place had virtually no furniture except a beat-up little dresser. There was no table to eat at and no chairs to sit on, only rough wooden boxes to rest on at meal time.

Pablo always brought a mattress for he and Carmen to sleep on, and he brought bedding for the rest of them to sleep on the floor. The make-shift showers and restrooms were in a communal building at one corner of the camp, which made it pretty inconvenient for everyone when they wanted to shower after a long, hot day working in the fields and orchards.

The Gutierrez family stayed all summer at the labor camps, usually working in the fields first, then picking prunes and ending with picking walnuts in the fall. Elena and her siblings were always at least two weeks late returning to school. They tried hard to catch up with their classes, but it was tough.

Elena looked forward to getting through the summer and entering high school. It was the summer of her fifteen birthday. It was 1947. At supper one evening in late July, with the family sitting around on the wooden crates, she was talking to her brother, Eduardo, about what classes she was hoping to take in high school when they returned to Hollister.

“Forget it. You’re not going to high school,” Pablo said, very matter-of-factly. This was the first Elena had heard of this.

“What do you mean? I have to go,” she pleaded. Her heart was set on it. She knew her future depended on it.

“You’ve had enough school, muchacha. We need you in the fields. You need to help support this family!” Pablo answered in his usual gruff manner. His face was now wrinkled and weathered from the years he spent drinking and working in the sun, and his hair was beginning to gray.

“No, I need to go to school,” Elena implored him.

“Silencio! That’s enough! I said no!” he yelled as he leaned forward and raised the back of his calloused hand to her as a warning to stop pressing the issue.

Elena sat in stony silence during the rest of the meal and helped Mama clean the dishes when they were finished. She just had to go to high school, she told herself.

With just an eighth-grade education, she knew she would never escape this cycle of poverty. Elena was determined to find a way to go to high school. Summer would be over soon, so she didn’t have much time.

On a

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