Reply #45: As a Chicano [View All]

[Popol Vuh]

Born and raised in Southern California. As a little boy I can still remember a sign hanging over the side of a railway bridge located at the edge of old downtown Torrance CA. The sign said in big black letters "If you're Mexican or Black be out of here by 5:00 pm".

As a little boy I can still remember that we (Mexicans) could only live in a certain area. Some nicer houses and apartments just across the way would not rent to Mexicans. I still remember the landlords telling my dad and uncle that Mexicans live over there not over here.

As a boy of "ten years old", I was doing what any boy would do, I was riding my bicycle. A Torrance motor cop stopped me and wrote me a traffic ticket for riding on the wrong side of the street. The street where we lived. A street with hardly any traffic and no sidewalks at that time. The street all of kids always played on.

I can still remember as a young boy the many occasions of feeling as a lesser person because of being Mexican because of "seeing" how society treated my parents.


Still makes me choke up a bit.....