Looking at my mother now and seeing her as an older person, it’s hard to imagine her as a seventeen year old with the desire to leave her hometown of Camargo, Chihuahua.  Her home life wasn’t great. Her father died in his fifties of cirrhosis due to a lifetime of excessive alcohol abuse. Much of that alcohol abuse was done while my mother was a child and a young woman.  My mother would tell me of vicious fights that my grandmother and grandfather would get into usually when he was intoxicated.  Their fights got physical along with things being thrown around and load yelling matches. My mother would tell me of sleepless nights listening to the fights as she would lie in bed hoping that it would stop, but they did not stop. The alcohol abuse, fights, and abuse continued throughout her upbringing and when the summer came around and she was able to visit her grandmother for the summer in Juarez she was excited to leave the turmoil laden house.

In Juarez my mother had a sense of freedom that comes with escaping a violent household and a strict mother with a cold sense of parenting. My mother did not have even one memory of ever being told by my grandmother that she loved her. Even as an adult when my mother confronted my grandmother about this, my grandmother just shrugged off the confrontation with a scoff and comment to the effect of saying that of course she was loved. She said “Claro que te quiero” meaning of course I loved you. The implication was that the actual words I love you did not need be said.  During those summers in Juarez was when my mother met my father because my two grandmothers lived on the same street. This street later became known as the “Calle de Amor,” because my mother and father met here, my grandmother and grandfather met on this street, my aunt and uncle met on this street, and many other family couples also met and fell in love on this street.

My father eventually returned to the U.S. from Turkey and from being overseas and his new adopted father got stationed again in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  My grandmother on my father’s side still lived in the same house in Juarez and my father would visit her often since it was his previous home only a few years prior.  He would come and see my mother as well and they carried on their innocent romance and after a couple years of this things got more serious.  My father turned eighteen and had gotten the opportunity to move to Las Vegas, NV because his uncle had moved there and there was a lot of buzz all over the world about Las Vegas being a great place to get a job and make a good living quickly.  My father was excited with this opportunity and shared the idea of moving there with my mother, but it seemed like too big of an idea to her and she couldn’t see how it could happen. My father assured her that he could make it happen and he got to work on getting a ring, making arrangements in Las Vegas, and putting together a small wedding delegation to approach my mother’s family with a proposal.  The delegation consisted of his mother, his aunt, his uncle and himself and the group travelled together to Camargo to ask for my mother’s hand in marriage. Back then this approach to marriage was customary and the traditional way for families to come together.  

My grandmother on my father’s side, Abuelita Marta Olga, told me how they all took a bus to Camargo about six hours away and basically surprised my other grandmother, Abuelita Elvira.  Elvira had a sense that my mother had a boyfriend and she had a basic understanding that maybe it could turn into something, but she did not expect a small family delegation to arrive at her doorstep. Marta Olga explained to me how she knocked on the door, and as soon as my Abuelita Elvira opened the door and saw the group, she knew right away what was happening and quickly slammed the door in their face!  Another version of this story told by my mother is that my grandfather answered the door and told them to come back when my grandmother was home. Either way, they did eventually meet and ask for my mother’s hand in marriage, but the proposal was rejected. My grandmother explained that my mother was too young to be married and that she needed to finish school and get a career.  My father’s mother did her best to explain that my father already had a job lined up and he would provide a good life in the U.S. and my mother would become a U.S. Citizen and that he could provide for a family.  The argument fell on deaf ears and my Abuelita Elvira stubbornly dug her heels into her decision: they would not be married.

My father was disappointed and my mother even more disappointed. My mother was desperate to escape the circumstance she was in and my father was eager to rescue her. They also shared a love for each other that had evolved over many years and they both grew attached to the idea of moving away together to a new American City and achieving the American Dream. My mother wrote my father and explained to him that she wanted to be married. She wanted to move to Las Vegas and start a family with him and she wanted him to come and get her. She didn’t care what her mother thought. My mother had found the opportunity she had been waiting for all of her young life and she was not going to let it pass. At first my father was reluctant to come and get her. He wanted to be married to her very much, but kidnapping her and crossing the border illegally, eloping and running away to Las Vegas was not the plan he had in mind. He wanted to have a traditional wedding and be married in the church but my mother was persuasive and he was impressionable so he went along with her and took a bus ride alone to Camargo to take my mother away.

It was a normal night like any other and my mother always liked the movies. My grandfather would take her to the small local theater in Camargo where they would show any movies they could get. Later in life I would visit this theater with my grandfather and I remember watching Back to the Future and other films. The old projector would often stop during the film and the people would whistle and holler at the projector operator to get it back on. I loved doing this activity with my grandfather and I started understand how my mother developed her enjoyment of movies in this very theater.  But tonight the theater was the excuse she used to launch her life in a new direction with her small bag on her shoulder with just a few necessities and her favorite yellow summer dress on.

The couple met at the theater but instead of purchasing movie tickets and going in they went to the bus station and purchased one way tickets to Juarez Mexico. Throughout my life I have asked my Abuelita Elvira about this time in her life and she refused to discuss it.  She was very private and quiet and she did not want to expose the inner workings of her mind to me. My Abuelita Marta Olga on the other hand, was a treasure of information and when I was in my early twenties I went to visit her by myself and sat with her for hours as she explained my parent’s story. She explained that although they’re running away was difficult for her to see, she wanted to support her only son. She genuinely believed that they could start a life together in Las Vegas and she saw that they loved each other.  She understood love because she had become pregnant at a young age and was very deeply in love with a troubled man so she could relate to my parent’s desire to be together so she helped them.

In Juarez they stayed in my great grandmother’s home, in separate rooms of course because they were not married yet. The next morning they crossed the border into the U.S. My mother was not eighteen yet so my grandmother’s sister falsely claimed that she was her guardian and even signed off on this claim. The border patrol was very lenient in the late 60’s so they entered the U.S. with no problems and made it to Albuquerque.  They figured out how to get the paperwork needed to be married in the U.S. and they quickly had a court wedding with only a few family members present and a small dinner party afterwards. The general tone was pleasant but the family knew that they were ignoring the elephant in the room that my mother was essentially a runaway and at some point that fact would need to be confronted.

According to my Abuelita Elvira my mother’s family was tormented by my mother’s action.  She claimed they sent letter after letter to my mother. Letters that she intercepted and although she felt terrible about opening the letters, she could not resist to see what they were writing.  She says the letters were full of vulgar language calling her terrible names and saying that she ruined their family and to never come back. My mother claimed that my Abuelita Elvira said she had disowned her and she would never want to see her again. I asked if she saved the letters and she said no so I had to go by her word only and to this day I wonder about the validity of these claims.

My parents made it to Las Vegas and shared a tiny apartment downtown with my father’s uncle and his wife.  It was not what my mother expected but she went along with everything and after a short time they got their own apartment and she became pregnant with my older sister. Soon after getting pregnant they purchased their first home.  It was a small two bedroom home, one side of duplex, and they began to raise their first daughter.  My Abuelita Elvira and grandfather came to visit after my older sister was born and the seed of reconciliation began to be planted.  My parents seem to be doing well. They owned a home, had a nice vehicle, had become American Citizens, and they had their whole life ahead of them.  A couple years later my other sister was born and five years after that I was born and they bought a new larger house in a suburb of Las Vegas called Spring Valley. This is the house I would grow up and live in for twenty one years.

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