My interview took place with Armando Ramirez, a 43-year-old Mexican-American living in El Cajon. Mr. Ramirez currently runs an auto-body shop that he has located on his premises. He and his two sons work repairing cars for other people and also rebuild used cars they purchase to later resell. At the age of 21 in 1982, Armando immigrated to the U.S. from Chalco, Mexico. Chalco is an outgrowth community of Mexico where virtually all of the inhabitants live below the poverty line. Mr. Ramirez describes Chalco as a place where ôpeople go who cannot afford to live in Mexico, City.ö He informed me that there was no electricity or plumbing in Chalco, and his family was very poor. His family consisted of his mother and father, with three brothers and three sisters for a total of seven children.
Mr. Ramirez explained that very little work existed in Chalco. He told me that ômy brothers and father used to have to travel three hours to work on a farm.ö His mother and sister worked as vendors in Mexico, City. He explained that he and his father and brothers worked twelve hour days for barely enough money to afford food. He and his brothers used to share clothes, while his mother would make clothes for his sisters from cloth she would scavenge for from the trash of wealthy people in Mexico, City. Mr. RamirezÆ fatherÆs brother, his uncle, has immigrated to the U.S. when Armando was fifteen. Six years later, in 1982, Armando and his two brothers immigrated to the U.S. to live with their uncle and find better work.
Armando and his brothers lived with their uncle upon first arriving in the United States. They would go with their uncle early every morning, gathering with a group of other immigrants at a local gas station. Landscapers, contractors, and farmers would drive by these locations in pickup trucks and take a handful of immigrants with them for piecemeal work. They would work long days in harsh conditions, earning a f...