The Immigrant’s Daughter by Howard Fast Page A

in Reagan’s administration when Reagan was governor of California. He had pressed for a larger share for private industry in development of federal lands, and while he did not come out solidly against the entitlement programs, he fudged on any vote that favored such programs.
    Barbara thought about Alexander Holt as she explored the Forty-eighth Congressional District. In California, a congressional district can be as large as or even larger than certain Eastern states, and while the Forty-eighth was not the largest, it was by no means the smallest. It contained four separate independent towns, not to mention stretches of unincorporated area; and moving away from what she had thought of as the Forty-eighth, Barbara was surprised and somewhat chagrined to discover how much of the district she had not set foot in, how much of it she hardly knew existed. In the course of her exploration, she came to an area even more wretched than the barrio on the Bay side. A yellow dirt road ran between a line of ancient shacks constructed out of whatever might be put together to keep out the night and the rain and wind and cold — tin, old plywood, boards, corrugated paper, tar paper. There were about thirty of these shacks, skinny kids playing in the road, women washing clothes in an old horse trough, a few teen-agers lounging around, smoking, and an absence of men — which meant that they were doing something to survive, even if it was for only fifty cents an hour in the fields. A second glance told Barbara that they were not Mexicans, and when she stopped to talk to an old lady who sat smoking a corncob pipe in front of one of the shacks, she discovered that this was a community of people from El Salvador.
    â€œThat’s right,” the old lady said in Spanish, since Barbara had addressed her question in Spanish. “El Salvador. You speak good Spanish for an Anglo. Do you understand me? I have no teeth left, so I garble my words.” She tapped her head. “But the mind is all right.”
    â€œI understand you perfectly.”
    â€œThank you. God bless you. You are very elegant.”
    â€œBut why don’t you have your mouth fitted for false teeth?”
    â€œBless your heart! I have no money, no family; all dead. They give me food, my neighbors, my friends. So where would I find the money for teeth?”
    â€œBut the state pays for it.”
    â€œLady, lady,” the old woman said, “you are kind. We are illegals.”
    Barbara nodded unhappily, thinking of the long, almost impassable distance, through Guatemala and Mexico. “Still, perhaps something can be done.”
    The old lady puffed on her pipe and looked sidewise at Barbara. By now, others had noticed Barbara, and a small crowd of children and women had gathered around her, listening to the conversation.
    â€œWho are you?” someone asked.
    â€œDon’t talk to her, you old fool,” another woman said to the old lady. “She could be from Immigration. Hear the way she speaks.”
    â€œI’m not from Immigration,” Barbara said. “I’m the Democratic candidate for Congress in the Forty-eighth Congressional District.”
    â€œWhat’s the Forty-eighth Congressional District?”
    â€œWhere you live, here.”
    â€œOh!”
    â€œYou speak Spanish.”
    â€œI’ve always spoken Spanish,” Barbara said. “Since I was a kid.” And to the old lady with the pipe, “If you’ll give me your name, I’ll see what I can do about the false teeth.”
    â€œNever mind her name.”
    â€œOh, shut up, you fool. My name is Rosa Hernando,” she said to Barbara. “You write it down, yes? I would like to eat an ear of maize before I die.”
    Walking back to where she had parked her car, Barbara thought about people so desperate that they would come from El Salvador to slip across the Rio Grande River to live in such shacks and in such poverty.