Location: Tecate, Baja California

Date: Sometime in the early 80s

When I was only about ten years old, I was a pretty fast runner.  Not counting my cousin Javier, I was the fastest kid in my neighborhood.  That was a fact I as very proud of.  Even my older brother Chuy, who was always better than me at almost everything, could not out run me. 

One day, I decided to run down a little hill from my house that led right into street.  I started going faster and faster until I could barely keep up with my legs.  I was getting closer to the street, and though I thought of stopping to first check for traffic, I decided to just take a chance.  It was typically a fairly quiet little street, but it was still a risky gamble.  I entered the street at full speed and almost immediately, there was the screeching sound of a car that had slammed on its brakes that had skidded off to the side of the road to avoid me.  It was very loud and scary.  My life could have ended there.  It was so dumb of me. 

After the fact, I remember people, adults, looking at me and telling me how dumb I was. Some random man said to me: "MUCHACHO TARUGO!" (which losely translated to: "Stupid Kid!").  I hated being scolded like that by a total stranger, but at some level, I knew he was right.  It had been all my fault.

Life can change in a split second!

I was probably around ten years old.  At the time, we still lived in Mexico and were visiting for just a couple of weeks.  I loved coming to the United States.  For a long time I had dreamed of some day coming to stay permanently.

It must have been five or six in the morning and it was still dark, the sun was not out yet.  I remember taking comfort in the fact that there was no one else in sight.  We were, after all, not exactly welcome here, at least, that is the feeling I got when people looked at us.  We were different and we didn't belong.

I remember coming out of the apartment with my mom, we walked around the pool to get to the little laundry room.  She carried the heavy load of laundry while I carried the detergent.  The laundry room was just big enough to house two washers and two dryers.  They were coin operated and they appeared to be brand new. 

After loading our clothes into the first machine, my mother inserted the two quarters into the stainless steel slots and pushed the thing in.  Immediately, a small red light went ON and the machine started filling itself with warm steamy water.  The washing machines were front-loaders so that you could see the action inside through the double-glass circular window in the front. 

It was a cold cold morning and I was not properly dressed for that.  I felt pretty miserable and couldn't wait to get back in the apartment.  I was so cold that I remember looking inside the washing machine and thinking about how good it would feel to be inside there with the clothes, tumbling around the hot soapy water.  It looked so cozy in there.