It was getting crowded in our one room house on Walter...with baby Roy, five of us were living there. In spring, 1952 our parents heard that a relative was selling his home on Hilton street and quickly gave him a down payment. We moved from the far southeast quadrant of Albuquerque, the most impoverished part of town, to the northwest quadrant, an area people called the north valley. The house was actually a small trailer but Dad hired someone to help him build a kitchen and living room. Phillip and I slept on a fold out couch in the new living room while Roy slept in a crib with our parents. Even with these additions the house was the littlest one on the block. We still didn't have an indoor bathroom and from our new address it now took Dad twice as long to get to his job at the VA hospital, but none of it mattered, we'd moved to paradise.
East San Jose didn't have much of a natural environment, just a dusty arroyo where Mom wouldn't allow us to play. The north valley was an oasis of greenery where water flowed and tall cottonwood trees provided shade. Plants grew abundantly in the rich soil, a result of plentiful water and flood borne sediment from the Rio Grande river. All around us were birds and roadrunners, ground squirels, little water snakes and frogs. An occasional porcupine and skunk wandered in to our backyard. Not everything in the oasis was green but all of it was inviting. There was Million Auto Parts, a vast and wonderful auto graveyard one lot over. To the east was an irrigation ditch lined with native plum trees bearing delicious fruit, then railroad tracks. Beyond them was an old farm house with a large orchard of pear and apple trees which beckoned us enticingly. From our back door we had a sweeping view of open sky and the Sandia mountains, bestowing daily gifts of atmospheric color and vivid sunset glows. On the north side the Star drive-in offered free movies. Phillip and I had only to walk a short distance along the ditch to see them, which we did throughout our four years on Hilton.
In addition to the two large ditches there was a small one about two feet wide and a few inches deep that ran through our backyard. In the 1950s most of the north valley was rural. Because water was available a lot of residents had gardens and some raised chickens and goats, so Dad immediately felt at home on Hilton. His village of Sena was on the banks of the Pecos and farm lands were irrigated from it so he knew how to grow things. He decided he would raise rabbits and plant melons, chile, corn and squash. Surrounded by our fragrant garden Phillip and I splashed and played all summer long in the little backyard ditch.
We quickly met the family living across the street. The Chavezes were raising their niece Elsie, who was my age. Next to us was the Graves family, cowboy types from southern New Mexico. Mr. Graves was a trucker who was often on the road. When he was home his semi truck was parked between our two houses.
Nine year old Kenny Graves had black hair and blue eyes. He was short but built like a wrestler. His brother Johnny, who was eight, was tall with flaming red hair and freckles. The brothers argued all the time to see who could top the other and sometimes came to blows. Although Phillip was just five and I was four we were immediately recruited into their intense, competitive play. The first day out Johnny choose me to be on his team. "We're buddies," he said, holding me up high and giving me a small, friendly shake to make his point, "so don't let Kenny tell you what to do." Across the yard I could see Kenny giving Phillip the same instructions.
I stared down at Johnny. I'd never seen red hair before, or freckles. The difference in our skin color was striking. I was dark brown from the sun, Johnny was white with freckles all over him. Kenny's features, light skin and black hair, were found within my own extended family but not his crystal blue eyes. The brothers' fierce competitiveness with one another was also outside our experience. Our parents expected me and Phillip to get along and share what we had. These guys are strange and very different from us, I thought as Johnny set me down.
After the morning's hard play the four of us were tired and grimy. Mrs. Graves appeared at the backdoor wearing a hoop skirt, blouse and scarf. One hand held the door open and the other, a cigarette. Her voice was a raspy drawl. "Time for lunch, boys. Come on in and get cleaned up."
When we got to the den we sat on stools along a bar Mr. Graves had built. In the kitchen Mrs. Graves fixed snacks of Ritz crackers with Velveeta cheese and deviled ham, along with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. She poured red Kool Aide in plastic tumblers, then brought everything in to us on a tray. I tried the Velveeta cheese and deviled ham but the flavors were distasteful to me. I much preferred Mom's lunches of beans, rice, tortillas and chile. Then I bit into the sandwich. Even though the peanut butter stuck to the top of my mouth I liked it.
Mrs. Graves' fashionable clothes, the strange food, the contemporary home with wall to wall carpeting and tiled bathroom were completely new to us. Phillip and I looked around in wonder as we ate lunch. There was more. "Let's watch TV," Kenny said. He left his half eaten sandwich and slid off the bar stool. Phillip and I followed him over to the big console, not sure what it was. We sat on our knees looking at the strange screen and at Kenny as he twirled the channel selector to a variety show. I remember a man singing, "I'm A Stranger In Paradise." It was how I felt.
Later that day I asked Mom if we could have Kool Aide and peanut butter with jelly sandwiches like we had at the Graves' house. On her next trip to the grocery store she returned with those items and white bread. They became staples in our household although I learned to substitute tortillas for the bread. Tortilla with peanut butter didn't stick to the top of my mouth and tasted better.
The next neighbors we met were the Quinns. They had one child, a boy named Pat who was four. Somehow Mrs. Quinn noticed Phillip and me as new kids in the neighborhood. She came to our house and asked Mom if we could play with Pat. When she left Mom gave us a good wash up and sent us to meet him.
Phillip was pretty sure he knew where he lived. "This must be the house," he said and knocked. A kid with a big round head and ears that stuck straight out answered the door. Later on when we met his father we could see Pat looked Irish, like him. Some features, the black hair and dark eyes, came from his mom.
Pat stared at us in surprise, clearly unaccustomed to children visiting. "Hey!" he said frowning. "Who are you?"
Mrs. Quinn immediately came to the door and gave us a friendly smile. "These are your little neighbors, Pat. They've come to play with you."
"I don't want to play with them."
"Now, be a good host and invite them in."
"But I don't want to," he protested.
Mrs. Quinn asked us in. We sat down on the couch not knowing what was in store for us.
"Pat," said Mrs. Quinn, "this is Phillip and this is Lee. Say hello to them."
"I already said hi," he whined.
"Why don't you bring out your favorite toy," Mrs. Quinn suggested, "and show it to the boys?"
Pat's anger at being told what to do showed in his face and ears, they burned a deep red. He stomped out of the room and after a moment we could hear loud banging down the hall. In the meantime Mrs. Quinn was saying, "Isn't it nice that you children are Spanish. My mother is Spanish but my father is English. That makes me half Spanish and Pat one quarter Spanish "
When she was young, she told us, her summers were spent in Placitas, an Hispanic village north of Albuquerque, playing with her cousins who lived there. She loved those summers because all her playmates were Spanish and they had a wonderful time. Phillip and I weren't sure what to say, we didn't know we were Spanish since the term wasn't used by anyone in our family. Pat stalked back into the living room carrying a large red fire truck which he dropped in front of us with a loud clang. Our eyes widened in surprise but we didn't say anything. Instead of examining the truck, Phil and I looked Pat up and down to see what a quarter Spanish looked like.
"Pat, please take better care of your toys and not treat them like that."
"You said to show them the toy."
"Oh, son," Mrs. Quinn pleaded, "can't you be nice?" Trying to get the visit back on track she added, "Why don't you show them your room and I'll make us a snack."
Pat headed down the hall. Without turning around he motioned us to follow him and the three of us went into a bedroom devoted entirely to his toys. There were model trains on tracks, log cabin building sets, boxes of games, including Cooties, Mr. Potato Head and Chinese checkers. There were toy cars, trucks and little soldiers. Airplanes hung from the ceiling and there were pictures of Roy Rogers, Dale Evans and Gene Autry on the walls. There was a Howdy Doody puppet and a Buster Brown. A large red toy box overflowed with more toys and dolls. A football helmet and baseball bat stuck out and a new catcher's mitt and baseball glove had spilled onto the floor. A bookcase held shelves of children's books.
Phillip and I were overwhelmed by all this treasure. Everything we ever wanted was there before us, including everything we'd seen through toy store windows but this was much, much better because these toys were at hand, we thought. The two of us sat down to examine the toys closest to us, a plastic cowboy on a horse and a xylophone with a wooden hammer to tap out tunes.
Pat's response was immediate. "Don't touch my toys! They're mine, they're mine!" His face and ears were red again. I quickly put the cowboy and horse down. Phillip hesitated for a moment before dropping the xylophone stick. Pat turned his back to us and began putting a set of railroad tracks together. I couldn't help myself, I picked up a toy truck. Pat whirled around and I dropped it.
"I told you not to touch them, I told you!" It was like having a dog my size bark at me.
Phillip had gotten over his initial surprise at Pat's boorish behavior and wasn't intimidated any more. He sauntered over to the bookcase and picked out one of the books.
"These aren't toys," he said coolly, "so I can look at them."
"Noooo!" Pat wailed.
Phillip began thumbing through the book "All right, I won't read it. I'll just look at the pictures."
Pat grabbed the book out of Phil's hands and threw it on the floor. "I told you, these are My toys and My books so Don't Touch Them."
Phillip pursed his lips, crossed his arms and stared back, his trademark look of anger. We contented ourselves with watching our host put together his train tracks. Mrs. Quinn called us to lunch just in time, the tension in the room was thick.
Though the house wasn't as large as the Graves home it too, was nicely furnished and the kitchen was bright and cheery. Plates with several peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and cut up apples and oranges were on the counter. As Mrs. Quinn poured milk she looked at us and smiled pleasantly, "Have you boys been having a nice time?" she asked. Pat nodded.
Halfway through his sandwich Pat announced, "I'm gonna watch TV." He left the kitchen and sat down on the living room floor. We wanted to watch television, too so Phillip asked Mrs. Quinn for permission to leave the table.
"Aren't you boys sweet! Of course. Go join Pat at the television."
We barely sat down when Pat called to her. "Can they go home now, Mom? I don't want to play with them anymore."
"Well son, maybe it is better they go home but we're very happy to have them, aren't we?"
"Yeah bye," Pat said, not bothering to look away from the television.
We got up and left.
"Did you see all the toys he had?" Phillip said as we walked home. He sounded exasperated.
"Yeah," I agreed sadly, feeling the pain of being so close to toys I dreamed of owning.
"Well I don't think we should go to his house anymore."
When we got home Mom wanted to know all about our visit. She was impressed by Mrs. Quinn's pride in her Hispanic heritage, her genuinely nice demeanor and the fact that she hadn't judged us by our small home's size and poor condition.
"Is Mrs. Quinn's little boy nice?" she asked, expecting to hear a glowing report about our new friend.
I hardly knew where to begin. "Mom, he has one whole room full of toys..."
"...but he wouldn't let us play with them," Phillip added bitterly.
Mom stopped what she was doing. "That's too bad," she said. "It's always important to share. It sounds like he's spoiled."
"What's spoiled, Mom?" I asked.
"It's when a child is given too much and is allowed to act anyway he wants," she explained.
"You mean like a crybaby?"
"Yes, like a crybaby. Well, how was Mrs. Quinn?"
"She was nice," I replied. "She gave us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. She said she's half Spanish and has a Grandma Lupita, didn't she, Phil?"
"Yeah," Phillip answered but he sounded disinterested. He looked out the kitchen window and sighed.
"Yes, I know, son. That's what she told me, too." Mom thought this kitchen table discussion would be a good way to get past our disappointment over a child's poor behavior while reinforcing her own expectations of us.
"The most important thing is to treat visitors so they feel welcome," she began but Phillip broke in.
"Well he sure didn't. He said he didn't want to play anymore and told us to go home."
Since we'd only eaten half our lunch at the Quinns I was still hungry. I sat down but Phil was too restless to sit. He drummed his fingers on the kitchen table, fuming about the big headed crybaby who thought he was better than us. There was another sore point for Phillip, too. He was crazy about baseball and the glove and catcher's mitt sitting untouched in Pat's playroom stash really bothered him. What a waste.
Phil and I didn't need Pat to play with, even for all the toys in the world, but Mrs. Quinn was persistent and when we didn't return to see her son she invited us to come back. She told Mom how well behaved we were, which Mom was pleased to hear but also expected from us.
That evening Phillip described Pat Quinn to Dad.
"Hunh, a little tyrant. Sounds like he wants to boss everybody around."
"That's why we don't wanna go to Pat Quinn's anymore," Phil protested, hoping Dad would intercede on our behalf.
"I know, hito," Mom said, "but sometimes you have to do things you don't like."
We were being used it seemed, to make the Quinn kid a better person. We trudged back to his house. There were so many other things we'd rather do. Mrs. Quinn smiled warmly at us when we arrived. "Oh, boys, it's so nice to see you," she said. We couldn’t stop ourselves from smiling back. We disliked Pat but his mother won us over with her kindness. Silently we resolved to make friends with the little tyrant for her sake.
Pat appeared and we followed him out to his toy filled sandbox in the backyard. While we played Mrs. Quinn stood in the doorway watching closely to make sure Pat toed the line. Whenever he whined that we were doing something, she would tell him kindly, "Now Pat, you have to behave yourself and be a good host."
On our third visit Pat showed us how to play croquet, a game we knew nothing about. Afterwards he invited us inside but Phil said no, the memory of being yelled at and humiliated in his toy room remained vivid. It was better to stay outside. That way we could decide on our own when to go home.
There were other visits to the Quinns while we lived on Hilton but one in particular stands out. Pat had just returned from a trip to the grocery store with his dad where he’d seen a black man for the first time. Pointing to him, he'd exclaimed, "Look Dad. A chocolate man!"
Back home, Mr. Quinn proudly related the incident to us. "That's the first time I ever saw a black man blush," he laughed, his big head bobbing. Pat beamed at his own cleverness.
"Oh Pat," Mrs. Quinn protested looking flustered. "That's not a very nice thing to say."
Phil and I said nothing. If it was a joke I didn't get it. I didn't know what the word blush meant and I didn't understand why Pat would be so rude as to point to an adult and call him a name. That summer I began wondering what it was about our white neighbors that made them so different from us. Our cousins and other kids we knew always shared their toys and genuinely liked to play with us. They didn't talk back to their parents and if they did they got punished. No kid we knew would ever ridicule people for the way they looked. In my four year-old mind I came to the conclusion that Hispanics were nicer people. While the white world seemed rich in material goods we were wealthy in our behavior toward each other. As I grew older and my experiences grew, my perceptions became more sophisticated but I remained shy and withdrawn outside of the Hispanic world throughout my childhood and adolescence.
As children we approached relationships without prejudice or racial bias, what counted was the fun of playing together. The adults on Hilton socialized along ethnic lines. Mr. and Mrs. Graves treated Phillip and me with a kind of benign indifference, showing little interest in meeting our parents. Mom and Dad reached out to form friendships with other Hispanics on Hilton but not with Anglo neighbors, feeling they had nothing in common with them. Mom would be outside hanging clothes; I could hear Mrs. Chavez calling from her yard. "Angie, ven a mi casa pa tomar una copa de café." Come on over and have a cup of coffee.
"Oh, bueno. Déjame acabar aquí primero." Alright, I'll just finish up here first.
"Okay, aquí te espero." I'll be here.
Mom finished what she was doing and then took me and Roy across the street. While she and Mrs. Chavez had coffee and chatted Elsie and I sat in her front yard at a miniature table surrounded by dolls. Elsie always had ribbons and bows in her hair, wore ruffled dresses and looked immaculate, which was why Phillip and I never considered playing with her. First she handed me a tiny cup of tea which was actually Kool Aide, then we took pretend bites of cupcakes made out of mud. Proud of her handiwork, Elsie gave me a satisfied smile. "They're good, aren't they?" With a finger I pulled down one side of my mouth, made a gagging noise and shook my head.
Immaculate or not, she was tough. Elsie put her hands on her hips and pushed her face in mine. "You know they're good." She turned to a large rag doll for confirmation. "Annie likes them, don't you Annie?"
Girls were a mystery to me.
Summer was over and school started at La Luz Elementary. It was lonely without Phillip to play with. Mom kept a closer eye on me now, not letting me walk to the big ditch although she did let me play in the overgrown lot between our house and Million Auto Parts. One day she took Roy and me outside and together we walked through the yellow flowers growing wild there. I pulled up a bunch and presented them to her.
Mom thanked me and pointed to some gray green plants I hadn't noticed. "These plants are wild spinach."
Like the spinach we eat with our beans?"
"Yes, they're good to eat."
We walked around the field and eventually to the back yard where Mom opened the little ditch gate to water Dad's garden. The vegetables were beginning to sprout, showing a thin layer of green
The next day after breakfast I asked Mom if we could go outside again.
"Roy isn't feeling well enough, mijo," she said and added, "Today is my birthday."
I was surprised. I ran outside into the field humming, 'Today's Mom's birthday, today's Mom's birthday.' Remembering what Mom said about the spinach I gathered a big bunch of the leafy plants and made my way back to the house with my surprise present. Mom turned around from the stove when I ran in. I handed her the spinach.
"Happy birthday, Mom!"
"Oh, how nice!" she said and started crying.
Mom put the plants in the sink and hugged me. Everything in the house was quiet except for her crying. I didn't know whether to feel happy or sad.
"Thank you, son," she said. She hugged me again and my face got wet from her tears. It was too much for me so I ran outside where I felt better, happy to be surrounded by trees and flowers and our growing garden.