WEBVTT

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Let me do one.

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As you know, I grew
up on the border,

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in what we grew up calling
El Paso, El Paso del Norte.

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And one of the figures in the
new book is an uncle of mine.

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And it's interesting.

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Of course, you can know
people your whole life.

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And then, when you
begin to interview them,

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you realize that there
are big aspects of them

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that you don't know at all.

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And one of the things I
discovered about this uncle

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is that, when we
were talking, he

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grew up during the Depression.

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And I never really knew
if he was a reader or not.

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And we call him Uncle Lalo.

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And I said, so Uncs,
did you like books?

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And it's one of the greatest
moments I have on tape--

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that his voice just changes.

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And he goes, oh, books.

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There's just this great moment.

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And he's back in
this little library

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on the border and
reading Doctor Dolittle

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all afternoon on a Saturday.

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It was just great, the
power of the words.

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Well, if my Uncle Lalo were
standing up here next to me,

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if you have any preconceptions
about what Chicanos look like,

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you'd say he isn't one
because he's very fair.

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And so he didn't experience
a particular kind

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of discrimination.

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But because people
have these stereotypes,

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he had another experience.

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"Depression Days"-- "He buys
the dark with his last $0.15.

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Reel after reel,
he's on the deck

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with men who fill their
chests, taut on the high seas,

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who boom red sails
in the sunset.

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He tries not to think of
last night on his cot.

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His private reel, border
kid playing sea, sea, sea

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lumberjack, gripping an axe,
slicing the green, pine scent

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in a house dark from
his father's death.

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He tries not to think of the
other men who climbed cold

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on the truck with him that
morning, caramba, qué frío,

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their stomachs screechy as
gears, hungry for paychecks.

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He tries not to think of
the desert winds sliding

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into the barracks, herding
bare flesh around the stove's

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warm belly.

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Am I alive, doc--

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his joke, limp as
his clothes bag.

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He tries not to think of the
sergeant, spitting "delgado."

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My uncle steps
forward into a frown.

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I said "delgado."

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I am "delgado"-- the
twitch of lips, the wind.

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He tries not to think
of the words later.

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"You don't look
Mexican, delgado.

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Just change your name."

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His formal father eyeing him--

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"Just change your name,
and you've got a job."

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He buys the dark
with his last $0.15.

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He tries not to think about
the bare icebox, his mother's

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sighing eyes, of his father, who
never understood this country,

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of the price of eggs
and names and skin."

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