She came from very humble beginnings. Born in the deep South. Very close to where Texas meets Mexico. She had four sisters and a brother – Blasita, Neche, Angie, Tenche, and Tommy. She came from a home with both a mother and father, and depending on your definition of poor, they were poor — or they at least lived a very modest lifestyle. Being a girl, of Mexican heritage, in a culture and at a time when society had prescribed and well-defined notions of the role of women, I’m not sure anyone really had any expectations of her at all. Choices were for other people. No, she’d find a man to take care of her financially, keep a clean house, look pretty, and have babies.
In 1935 she was 13, and was no longer attending school. By 18 she’d given birth to the first of her six children, a girl named Antonia Annacelia, who would later become my mom. Her name was Eva, she was my grandmother.
