The never ending sounds of often violence echoes in the
background each and every night as you see people’s faces covered with blood
and cop cars surrounding the house as another home invasion has interrupted the
night’s events by scattering young and old throughout the streets running away
from the cops coming down hard on anyone or anything that moves in the darkened
shadows.
Sensationalized by hovering television helicopters and
satellite equipped news vans seen pulling up to nearby crime scenes hoping to
cover the press release while standing next to the mobile police command center
and criminal labs brought there to gather all the evidence of what appears to
be another gang related senseless killing of our young people caught in the
cross fire of the barrio nightmare.
This extreme kind of violence has brought about more cops
into the neighborhood than ever before. Every five minutes a cop car pulls up
and checks out anybody that walks or talks on the streets or front porches
checking identification cards and taking pictures of tattoos and gang suspects
that roam there.
Strangely every morning, this senseless violence is
overlooked or ignored inside the barrio as kids growing up have adjusted their
lifestyles to deal with the darkness around them. Losing family or friends
overnight has become a ritual that is easily accepted once the pain subsides
enough to breathe again.
Paying for funerals has resulted in car washes and other
charity events on street corners to cover the expenses of the dead as many don’t
have enough insurance to pay for a coffin. In this part of town with the
dilapidated apartments and run down homes the people have been forced to live
with the mayhem by no choice of their own but by the code of the gangs that
roam there.
High rent causes people to be kicked out daily. High
violence causes schools to be locked down often and low incomes provide just
enough food to put on the table with the help of food stamps and other means to
barter for income those things no longer valuable to them and easy to pawn or
sell at 50 cents on the dollar every day.
Sparsely furnished house owners cruise the streets to
find abandoned furniture and relic old broken down wrecked cars litter the
neighborhood. The trash is violence overflowing with debris as birds pick the
overflow and litter them into the streets. Nighttime is filled with muzzle
flash and noises and even on the Fourth of July, the sounds resemble the sounds
of violence rather than sounds of freedom.
Oddly, many remain to live hear despite their poverty,
their obstacles and the violence. Asked why they stay they shake their heads
and tell you there is no other place to go. Living here has given many of them
a chance to be free and away from oppression and control by foreign governments
south of the border and freedom stays no matter how high the price will be.
My family are some who remained here
no matter what goes on during the day or night as they too have no other place
to live or go. There is always hope it will change but the days are short and
the nights are longer as you begin to dream you way to happiness and
contentment regardless of the odds being stacked against you by society,
government or even your own relatives.
Not long ago, a baby was born and
she met a good man who promised to marry her and take care of her. A hard
working man with a small pickup work truck he came to rescue her from the
barrio but was quickly sucked in by the quagmire of the culture around him.
Resistance was futile and living there was their nightmare but they had dreams
that someday they would leave this forsaken place and find a new home for their
newborn and themselves.
A carpenter by trade and a
construction do it all jack of all trades, his work gave him opportunities to
bring home some materials that he could use to fix up their modest apartment.
Looking from the outside it looked just like any other tenement apartment but
on the inside, he had laid tile and carpet to keep the place nice and neat and
clean.
Lights and sirens were common
whether it was day or night. Helicopter searchlights and cop car spot lights
scanned the darkness for gang members and possible rapist and burglars as this
was one of the highest crime areas in the city. In the meantime, prostitutes
come by and take the shortcuts to their corners as they stroll by every house
and tease young boys and men with every shake and step they make and take.
Monday mornings began the mad dash
to find a job or go to work that would allow them to survive and live from day
to day. Many women worked in hotels and motels as housekeeping maids and the
men were often hired for labor or construction work that seems to be always
available but paid out in very meager wages. Cash was best and there were no
complaints as the money put food on the table and gas in their cars.
No later than 3 a.m. there was a
ritual inside every house where ovens were turned on each early mornings as the
fresh made tortillas were filled with Colby Monterey cheese, sausage, ham,
chilies, jalapenos, bacon, eggs, chorizo or other simple ingredients that were
rolled into a burrito or casserole as lunch was the most important part for the
day.
Brothers, cousins, uncles and
fathers rode together either in the family pickup truck or the commune
transportation system set up to handle it all.
Water was bottled and plenty of
salsa sauce was made to give the foods their flavor but it never seemed enough
as the workers get first picks on the food and those that stayed home ate the
left overs.
Working in the community or far away
they wake up every morning and sweat their bodies till the sun is too hot to
work in. Arizona weather can only be handled by so many workers and most start
their day before the sun rises and the temperatures are cool and tolerable.
By
midday the heat slows down the workers and by 2 p.m. they pack up their tools
and head for the shade to cool down before the ride back to the barrio where
their hopes are still intact that someday they will leave this all behind and
follow their dreams.
School for the kids is important as
their dropout rates are some of the highest in the country. Working and going
to school is common and the family needs every penny they earn to meet the high
rent or house payments owned by slum lords who neglect their properties but are
quick to evict them if they fall behind on their payments.
The school grounds are saturated
with gangs, drugs and bullies. Every kid has to learn how to fight and survive
or go down and be subjected to harm and intimidation by those who prey on
others and hurt them either for fun or for no other good reason.
Teenage mothers and newborn babies
fill the air at nearby clinics as they take their infants for checkup and care.
Single parents seem to dominate the numbers when it comes to raising kids and
most of these kids rely on their grandma or nana to help them with their kids
whether it is babysitting or raising them full time so they can work.
Kids raising kids and nanas raising
them and others is the way the culture survives this craziness that exists
within these poverty stricken low rent neighborhoods infested with bugs and
thugs and there is nothing they can do about it. Talking to the cops is
snitching and they learn early that snitches get stitches or end up in ditches.
Then the violence of a demolition
and construction crew crashed into their barrio dream. The house was unstable
and the city deemed it dangerous so they ordered it to be vacated and
demolished. Hiding the real reasons for building a new store, the family
becomes homeless in less than 30 days as they scramble to gather up their
belonging and ask another family member if there they can stay.
In this neighborhood there were
three demolition crews at work. The construction crew, the gangster crews and
the police officer crews. They all worked hard to destroy one or another and
nobody wins except those who can afford to rebuild and start all over. These
crews destroyed structural and social foundations like an earthquakes destroys
everything in its path. There is no compassion for the poor and these forces
are hard at work night and day without exception.
Those who were fortunate enough to
keep their houses had to deal with leaking roofs, worn out air conditioners,
leaky sewer and water pipes that rusted and gas lines that exposed them to
carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide poisoning if they weren’t alert enough to
catch the trouble.
Garages were converted into bedrooms
for add on family members and parking on the streets had its own hazards as
some mornings, their car or trucks were missing and sold for parts across the
border or some other chop shop nearby.
How much more wretchedness of the violence, the social displacement and the
poverty can they take? Why is so important to persevere and take a stand? Why
is it so important to continue this journey of misery when you can just give up
and move away to start all over again?
When it is all said and done and you
find your way back to the sanity that often leaves you day or night, you will
find the answer in their nightmares and dreams living in the barrio and as they
get used to struggle as a person, a family or a community, they know they can
never give up.
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