housing project

This is true story of my fight to earn the right to be Smiley #1

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My mother, Carmen, often sent me to La Paloma Market, while my brother Salomon watched I Love Lucy re-runs. We lived in East Los Angeles’ Ramona Gardens housing project, where I had to be selective about the routes I took.

Since I feared the barking dogs along the alley, I always took a shortcut through the hill that was controlled by a local gang, the Hill Boys. The homeboys never bothered me on my daily trip for groceries, especially since we attended Murchison Elementary School at the same time.

Mas…This is true story of my fight to earn the right to be Smiley #1

I didn’t know I was a poor Mexican until the day I started junior high

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salomon_y_carmenWhen you grow up in a segregated community and poor, often times, you’re not aware of your ethnicity and class status. Growing up in tight-knit Mexican communities, from Tijuana, Mexico, to East Los Angeles, I didn’t realize that I was Mexican and poor until my first day of junior high school.

As part of federal integration programs, I — along with classmates from Murchison Elementary School in East Los Angeles — was bused to Mt. Gleason Jr. High School in Sunland-Tujunga. Nervous about leaving the notorious Ramona Gardens housing project or Big Hazard projects for a strange place, I braced myself for the unknown.

Mas…I didn’t know I was a poor Mexican until the day I started junior high