My name is Mario Ramirez Carmona. I was born in San Marcos, Guerrero.  My fathers name is Alucencio Ramirez Carmona, he was born in Estedo Verde, Guerrero.  My mothers name is Udolina Carmona Sanchez, she was born in Acapulco, Guerrero.  My parents had many children, in fact I am not really sure exactly how many brothers and sisters I truly have but I can tell you that I am the second oldest, first born male and I am thirty two years old born May 25, 1973. My youngest brother is only five years old and there were many more children in between.

I had a very difficult childhood with both good and bad memories.  My family was very poor and I have had to work very hard my entire life.  When I was a child sometimes we had no food to eat and I did not even own my first pair of shoes until I was nine years old.  I remember being sad as a child because my father was not really around very much.  Besides working the land on the ranch where we lived he would also leave home for long periods of time to harvest coconuts on other peoples land. He was also a fisherman.  He would fish for shrimp and sell them to make a little extra money.  My father drank a lot.  Sometimes he would show up back home with money and sometimes he would have none.  My happiest memories of my childhood revolve around my mother.  She was a hard working and very nurturing woman.  My mother was the charge of the house. She cooked all the food for many, many people; she bathed the children and washed the clothes by hand in the river.  She was always there for us, to care for us and to steer us in the right direction.   Sometimes her decisions were difficult for me, like when she took me out of school in the fourth grade.  I enjoyed school and I was a very good student but poverty called and my mama did what she had to do for the family, she needed me to be at home, to hunt for food so my brothers and sisters could eat. I never did go back to school in Mexico after that. But I liked to hunt very much.  We would hunt for things like Iguanas, raccoons, deer, and even squirrel.  But these animals are not like the ones you see here in the cities.  The raccoons back home eat better than most people. There was also a river near our house so I learned to fish when I was very young as well.

I started working on the ranch with my father at a very early age, I was around six or seven years old.  A typical day for me on the ranch consisted of getting up really early and milking the cows, taking them out to pasture, and then my papa and me would go to work the land.  We grew many things on the ranch such as corn, melons, chilies, beans, tomatoes, pumpkin, mango and coconut.  I remember sometimes we would be so busy we didn’t even have time to go back in to eat so my mama would bring food out to us in the fields.  The day would end at five o’clock and my entire family would get together and have dinner.  My grandparents, all my brothers and sisters, my uncles and my cousins would all sit down and eat together.  At the end of the meal the adults would sit, have coffee, and talk with one another by candlelight while the children would run and play games like tag, tug of war, and hide and seek.  These are all parts of my happiest memories as a child.  It never bothered me that we had no electricity or running water back then.  I knew that we were poor but this was common for those living on the ranch.  Nobody around where we lived had these things and we were all considered equal.

When I was fourteen years old I left home in search of my own path in life.  My sister and I left to go to Acapulco to live with my grandmother.  My grandmother owned a fruit stand where I used to work with her for a little while.  I would wake up at five in the morning to go buy fresh fruit and bring it back to the stand.  I would clean and organize and by seven we were selling the fruit.  Shortly after that I tried working construction for a while-I was about fifteen years old then.  It was a very difficult job, much harder than it is in the north, especially for someone as young as I was.  So I quit that job and began selling bottles of water to people in the city.

When I was eighteen years old an opportunity came up for me to attend a soccer school where I could study to be a professional player.  It was my dream to be a professional soccer player.  I went to that school for about two months.  It was a very expensive school and it was a lot of responsibility to have to work, still taking care of my family, and to go to school.  My family did not really support me in this because it was so expensive and because they needed me to work and send money back home.  So reluctantly I quit the soccer school, left Acapulco to go to Guadalajara and pursued another dream of mine- I joined the military.  At nineteen years old I was seeking more discipline in my life, I felt I could gain respect in the military as well as the opportunity to study and possibly go back to school.  Again for money, is the reason I ended up leaving the military, it didn’t pay very much and nobody in my family supported this decision of mine.

I went back to the ranch.  I went back to working the land and worked like a mule.  My father was still drinking and not really doing enough to support the family.  A lot of times we went hungry and my mother was always worried about him. She didn’t want me to leave the ranch but I felt as if I could do more for the family in the city.  I could make more money to send back to them than I could if I stayed.  So at twenty-two I went back to Guadalajara to save the family.  We didn’t have any money to get me back to the city but I had a horse that was all of my fortune.  She was a pure bread horse who was worth a lot of money but I also loved her very much.  My brother Felix and I both cried when we had to sell the horse but it was the only way we could get up enough money to get me back to Guadalajara.   I remember my mama said to me that when I made it to the city I would make enough money to buy the horse back one day.

So I was back in the city now and back to work.  I was constantly stressed out about money and felt as if I just could not figure out a way to get ahead.  I had a friend Israel who was dead set on going to the United States. He wanted me to come with him and I figured I had nothing left to lose so I agreed.  I still had no money; he lent me the money so we could take the bus together to Tijuana.  That is how poor we were, we had to take the bus, and we could not even afford to fly.  My sister, Maria de la Luz, lived in Tijuana.  She didn’t know I was coming.  I showed up one day, called her and figured she would have to take me in, I had no money and no where else to go.  When I got to Tijuana I lived with my sister and worked as a taxi driver to try and earn enough money to pay for the coyote to bring me to the estates.  This job was not as profitable as I thought it would be.  Some days I did not even make enough money to pay the fee for renting the taxi.   My sister helped me though.  While I was trying to cross the border she was saving money to pay the coyote when I got to the other side.  It is hard to come over the hill when you are so poor.  I tried to cross seven different times before I actually made it.  We had to cross the harsh desert with no food or water.  I remember one time all I had was an orange and a bottle of water.  I had to preserve it as long as I could because I did not know how long I would be out there.

I was caught several times by immigration.  La Migra- this is what makes life impossible for the immigrant.  After being caught I had to spend the night in a jail cell before being released to the Mexican authorities.  They released me into Mexicali.  I had no family there and no money so I just had to keep trying to cross over until I made it.  Finally in December of 2002 I made it.  I crossed the border into San Diego and then got a ride to L.A. where the coyote brought me to Oakland.  MY friend Israel was already here in Oakland as well as one of my uncles.  My sister had sent some money and my uncle helped pay the coyote when I arrived.  I thought about going to the Carolinas or to Chicago where I knew others before had gone to find work.   But here in Oakland there was already a network of people from the ranches where I grew up.  People who had already established themselves would help out others who were just arriving.  They would lend people money and give us places to stay.  I had a small amount of family here who said they could help me find work, who told me there were lots of jobs here.  I saw that everyone was doing good and living a comfortable life so this is why I decided to stay in the Bay area.

It was difficult for me to get settled in here.  I knew very little of the language and culture.  My first job here was as a dishwasher, you just sort of work in the corner where no one talks to you so my limited English was not a problem.  During this time I studied a little English and went to school for a couple of months.  I missed home a lot and my emotions about being here varied.  Sometimes my spirits would be up but sometimes I would get down.  I started drinking a lot after I first got here because I was often times depressed.  About five or six months after I came here I met my girlfriend Liz.  I realized that I wanted to get more serious about life and concentrate on my relationship and work.  I want to get married and have children some day so I knew that I had to stop drinking.  I saw some of the things that happened with my other family members because of their drinking and I did not want that for myself.  Quitting was a slow process but the last two years have been great.  So now I am working very hard, I have two jobs.  I work as a cook in a restaurant and I do construction in the good seasons.

Since I have come to the U.S. my family in Mexico is doing well.  Not great but better than before.  I do not send money home every month like some people do, but I do send money home as often as possible.  My brother recently got married back in Mexico and although I was unable to be there I sent some money home to help pay for the wedding.  I do intend to go back to Mexico some day though.  Not to live necessarily but to visit for a while.  My parents still live there and I miss my family very much.  When I get married I would like to get married in Mexico, which would be nice.  I have not gone to a lawyer yet or tried to get legal citizenship but of course I think about it everyday.  When people come to the U.S. it is their dream to get citizenship and it is very hard to live here without papers.  Every night I go to bed wondering if tomorrow will be the day I might get caught.  I was arrested once during the time that I was drinking a lot and I worry that it may hurt my chances for citizenship.  But as I said before I am trying to get more serious in my life and would like to get married one day so I know that soon I will be ready to start the process of obtaining my citizenship.

My life is good her in the U.S. I am happy here, although I miss my home, I know I have many things here that I could not have in Mexico, I have my girlfriend, I am able to help my family live a better life, we always have food to eat and blankets to keep us warm at night.  My girlfriend is American and our children will be both bi-cultural and bi-lingual.  They will have many opportunities that I never had and I am grateful for that.  But I was born and raised Mexico, I will never forget my country and I will always identify with Mexican culture and I will always be Mexican.

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