You can read Part 1 here:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
I would come to learn later in life that my grandparents came to this country from a place somewhere on this planet called Portugal, long before even my own mother was born. When I arrived at my new home, I found out in due time that my new family was very large in terms of siblings. Five aunts and three uncles. The girls included Hortencia who was the oldest, followed by Margaret (my mom) and then came Anna and then Elvira and the youngest Amelia. The boys were Ike, the oldest named after my granddad. Then it was Albert followed by William (little Billy). Of course, my Grandma was Doña Maria. The strangest part of my arrival was that everything was so quiet inside that house as my grandmother and Amelia were getting ready to leave for work that morning.That was of great concern to me because I would be left alone...or so I thought. In my mind, (as I write) today I remember myself to have been exactly as my grandson that you see in my avitar. (avitar has been changed to author`s image).His name is Aiden and imagine this child facing the fate that greeted me that morning when my grandma left for work. I think I mentioned a jungle of horror when I closed my first series of this diary.
Note I have since changed Aiden`s avitar to my own picture
Let me tell you after we jump the squiggy
"Here, wipe you face and nose", said my grandmother as she handed me a piece of toilet tissue. She knocked the piece of tortilla I still had in my hand and pulled me by my arm towards the door. "Amelia, you wait here, let me take him to Elvira", as we went out the back door of the house. The stairs here did not seem so high and I stepped to the ground onto a back yard. There was a smaller house just on the other side of a fence which looked awfully tall to me. The upper part of the gate that led into that yard was hanging towards the ground but did not fall all the way because the lower part still had a hinge holding it from falling. I saw someone through the high screen at the entrance to the front room of that house. It was Elvira and she came out when we approached. "Mother!, what on earth do you have there?" Elvira asked as she stared at my near naked body. Pregnant, wearing a loose flower patterned dress as the ones famous in those day made from flour sacks. Bare footed, hair all wet as if she had just stepped out of the shower, I felt safe for a moment not knowing that Elvira would be my worst nightmare. She too was drenched in sweat.
"Some animal dragged your sister from under a rock and dumped her at my door this morning. She finally decided to come home, but only to ask for help", my grandmother said as she shook her head in a disgusted manner. "What are you talking about Mom" Elvira wanted to know. "Who brought this boy here, and what are you doing with him?". "Your sister Mage (as Mom was called), dumped him here early this morning. Amelia and I have to leave for work. Look out for him until I come home tonight" said my grandmother.
"Mage!, why that bitch!" screamed Elvira with piercing eyes looking at me. I just lost my composure and started to wail in fright, confused because I could not understand such anger coming toward me. A child my age knows when he should be punished but I was scared because I knew I did not deserve such hateful treatment when I had done nothing wrong. I would come to recognize the reason such hate was directed at my mother. My grandparents family was a very tightly knit group of siblings. Each one of them, the girls as well as the boys had vowed to stay together and close to each other as long as my grandparents lived and for the remainder of the passing calamity of the Depression in order to survive, instead of breaking up -- to each it`s own. They all lived close to my new home and visited each other regularly. I learned that my mother broke that vow and was the only one of the clan to elope with a man. A man much older than she was, and settled in Austin, Texas, some 80 miles from San Antonio. She was branded persona non grata, so to speak by the family. My mother was banned from ever coming to this house as long as my grandparents lived. I came to accept as fact that Elvira in particular, took my presence in front of her as an insult from my mom, because not only had mom betrayed her own family, now she was taunting them, or so I saw that in Elvira.
Elvira was fuming as my grandmother walked away towards her own house to get Amelia for work. If sweeping floors and cleaning in a Chinese grocery store for scraps of food and bread was working, that is what my grandmother and Amelia did when I came to this house. Food was scarce as were jobs as I quickly found out. Elvira got a bunch of my hair in her hand and pushed me towards the fallen gate telling me to go into her house. I could not stop crying and felt my whole body being numb, unable to move as Elvira became more enraged.
On top of my hunger for food, I was now feeling the pain being inflicted by someone who should have been looking for my well being. I begged my aunt Elvira for some food to eat as I walked into her house. Inside I saw a small boy and a girl not much older than me. Both were sitting at a table and I thought for sure I would be asked to join them. Instead Elvira ordered me to sit just outside of the small dinning room. In a corner I sat down and fell asleep as Elvira fed her children. I must have passed out. Or perhaps my young body could take no more.