rder to survive: "And so remember . . . when you speak English, you have to keep your upper lip and you don't move your tongue very much like you do in Spanish" (Villasenor 129-130).
At the same time, the suffering they were experiencing in Mexico hardly ceased on their arrival in the United States: "Where Juan had expected to see the Rio Grande and a luscious green valley, he saw nothing but dry earth. Not even one blade of grass for as far as the eye could see" (133). This first discouraging sighting of the United States by the migrants was symbolic of the disappointments they would face in general in the new country: "It got even worse. Everywhere, Juan saw that there were poor, ragged starving people" (Villase
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