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The Trek North: Part One

IMAGE: Local passport photo of our mother and the first five of us. Left to right: Amanda, Rosa Carmina, our mother Lydia, Julio César (in her arms), Armando, and me (Pedro).   There was no triple wall then, in 1962, the year we crossed the border between Mexicali and Calexico in our way to a place that promised us a better future. Triple walls are abundant now in myriad spots along the geopolitical line that…
Pedro Chavez
November 19, 2015
ColumnsStories

English Language Lessons at the Workplace

PHOTO: Train crossing near United Sheet Metal Company in Stockton, California, off Charter Way. Getty Images.   Once I got the basics at school, the best place for me to learn English was at the workplace. I had plenty language immersion there. I did it while picking almonds in Lodi, in northern California, and later at H.H. Robertson Company, in the Port of Stockton, in late summer of 1963. But I learned the most at…
Pedro Chavez
November 18, 2015
ColumnsPolitics

We Are Still a Pretty Good Team

  We both go way back. Mexicans and Americans. My ancestors had been on this continent much before Americans arrived. Mine were centuries-old civilizations that were eventually conquered by the Spaniards. The pilgrims, the most notable forebears of today’s America, were fed up people, most of them seeking religious freedom and a home on pristine land. Those pioneers settled in North America some four hundred years ago. While the pilgrims were busy running their colonies,…
Pedro Chavez
October 14, 2015