THE GIFT
Beto Rocha
In the course of DavidÕs stay in Tracy
California, he had had few chambas working in the fields. Y llego la ocasion
que una ma–ana le toco ir al tomate, y montandose atras en la troca agarro
asiento entre los demas que iban a camellar. De pronto echo andar la maquina el
troquero y salieron rumbo al campo para la pisca del tomate.
Finally, early one morning, David, who had
been mostly unemployed during that summer, was selected to work with a crew of
campesinos at tomato harvest time. And climbing on, he settled himself down
onto the rough and worn, wooden floor of the stake truck, and with most of the
sitting space reaching its limit, some workers stood during the ride. The truck
slowly made its way out of the quiet town, and then onto a two lane, country
highway, and headed to the fields.
The workers at the field were made up of
men and women of all ages, from the very young to the old. Some of the women
wore long, full-length dresses, others were wearing baggy, loose fitting jeans
with patches sewn on the knees, which afforded some protection from pebbles and
small stones, and soon got soiled by the earth as did the knees of DavidÕs blue
jeans. The men, for the most part, wore straw hats, the much sweated hat bands
showing dark brown stains at the crown. Others wore cachuchas [baseball cap
type headgear]. Some of the women wore faded red or blue bandanas for head
cover, and none of them, as he recalls, looked like the young, pretty woman
depic- ted on a popular box of raisins, a smiling, light complexioned
[24.]
lass, wearing a sun bonnet, and holding a
basket of grapes.
They, both men and women were in reality
peasants of the New World; persons of races of all kinds: Naturales
[Meso-American Indigenous] of pure and mixed blood, Arabs, Palestinians,
Persians, Italians, Irish, English, Spanish, Basques,
a few Blacks, called Ôlos parnitasÕ
[partners], Koreans, Filipinos and at least one, almost full blooded Jew; David
belonging to the tribe of Judah, although he didnÕt know it at that time [su
mama, who had been approached recently, in a Fairfax Avenue fruit market, by a
lady insisting in speaking to her in Yiddish, couldnÕt understand why Rachel
didnÕt respond. David tried to get mama to recognize herself in racial terms,
telling her that she was of Jewish and Indigenous decent, but she fired back at
him, saying, ÒYo no soy Judia, yo no soy India, Yo soy Mexicana!Ó and David
said no more on the subject, and thought to himself, ÒPues, si eso dices tu,
mama, eso mismo digo yo de mi.Ó]. She had told him many times, her papa had
said to her, que su mama, Òera una Indita (Cora de Nayarit) de ojos verdesÓ.
David had tanned to a great degree that
year, the dark color of his skin was due in part, to the fact that he had run
cross-country during the spring semester at high school, the melanin having
already been given a headstart, and his skin darkening even more when he
labored in the fields giving him a rich, dark brown color, which he displayed
in the tomato field. ÉÓBehold I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, that
is cunning in playing an [musical] instrument, and a mighty valiant man, a man
of war, and prudent in matters; a comely person, and the [Spirit of God] is with
him. I am black but comely [handsome]
[25.]
O ye daughters of JerusalemÓ. . . Òlook not
upon me because I am black, because the sun has looked upon meÓ. . . 1 Samuel 16:18, Song of Solomon 1:5.
The superficial colors of the skins of all
those humans work- ing in the field, varied from un-tanable bright red
[hueros], to bronze [morenos], to deep red-brown and dark yellow-brown
[prietos], -- faces smooth, and faces wrinkled – countenances shiny in
the sun, because of the sweat of their labor showing on their brows. And almost
everyone of them a Mexicano/a be-
cause of language, culture, and appearance: HadnÕt one seen plenty of Hollywood
film depictions of Mexicans? Take a Cua- casian actor looking a bit Latin, for
instance, behind the scenes he puts on a white but soiled, south of the border
type costume consisting of trousers or calzon de manta, a torn shirt or camison
adorned with a multitude of patches with hardly any of the original cloth
extant, puts on a pair of huaraches [every- body knows what those are, but
donÕt pronounce the h], and places a colorful, broad striped sarape over one
shoulder. And, lets say, this outfit was handed to him from the costume dep-
partment by Edith Head [she changed her name from Cabezas to Head, meaning the
same thing, in order to hide from la migra: U.S. Immigration authorities], as
she was an illegal alien when she worked in movielandia. An ironic twist that,
eh? And the maquillaje completed the stereotypical appearance by applying
enough dark makeup, and fixing on a large, black mustachio under his nose. The
nose had most likely been mod- ified with a bit of wax, sculpted to exaggerate
the shape of it, hooked or broken perhaps? The actor finally, donning a wide brimmed
straw sombrero [psalm-brea-roe], and ÔvoilaÕ, guess who? Adam was the human
father of all mankind, ÒFrom one
[26.]
single stockÓ. . . God Òcreated the whole
human raceÕ. Acts 17:26, Genesis 4:5, 5:1, 10:1.
But far from the romantic description of
those hardworking souls in the tomato field, David observed in the not too far
distance, a line of stationary boxcars on a rail spur that had been brought
into the field along with a contingent of farm workers, some with their
families before he had been hired. David could see children not old enough to
work running about, & cook smoke coming from the stacks rising above the
flat roofs of the wooden cars. Wash hung from the horizontal slats on the sides
to dry, & people could be seen moving within; a woman resting at the
entrance leaned against the side of the large opening of the cattle car, &
persons leaving the cars heading his way to join the work party.
The tomatoes were mostly green & not at
all ripe for eating, but were ready to be picked for market. David knelt on the
earth gathering tomatoes & putting them into a small flat box of white
wood, & when full, took it to the contador, had his ticket punched, took
another empty pine flat, & went back to picking.
During a short work break, se comio el
lonche que traia in a little brown bag, se lo habia hecho su kindly landlady
– he ate his lunch that the Christian woman had provided him. But, after
many hours having gone by, he began to hunger, & now remembers the joy he
felt then at finding one humongous, ripe
tomato laying on its bed of grey brown
soil. The tomato was in an open space, its parent aged & no longer able to
support the weight of its progeny, had died. The dried remains were scattered
around the huge, red-orange jewel that it had pro- vided sustenance for when
the plant was green & thriving.
[27.]
David asked an older worker who was an
overseer, was it all right, if he could eat it? & got the O.K. from the
campesino,
Whose response came with a mirthful grin,
como queriendo decir, ÒPues cometelo chavalo comelon, y pa que me preguntas?
[sure, he said]. ÒYou shall not muzzle the
ox when he treads out the corn.Ó Deuteronomy 25:4. Whereupon David, wiping the
soil off his hands on his shirt & on the back pockets of his jeans as best
he could, lifted the large, oval orb, almost bigger than, to his face &
made the tomato disappear, never having tasted such richness before, the juice
of the fruit quenching the dryness of his thirst wonderfully on that hot day.
A–os despues, el autor al recordar todo
esto al fin tuvo enten- dimiento de esa palabra ruda ÔcamellarÕ, una palabra
jerigonza del que va a jalar en el campo y
a que se refiere.
The author, recalling these prosaic events,
finally had an understanding of the slang word ÔcamellarÕ [kaw-may-yahr],
which means to work like a camel. But, why
the reference to a camel? Well, the camel has a reticulum, a natural internal
water bag that keeps the creature supplied with H2 O, so the animal suffers no
thirst while trudging about on the sand dunes. But a field hand toiling under
the sun suffers. ItÕs a bit of reverse logic, get the picture?
[28.]