DIY History | Transcribe | Campus Culture | Ernest Rodriguez' "Impressions," 1960s-1980s

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Ernest Rodriguez' "Impressions," 1960s-1980s

Impresions Page 2

All of us kids were excited about moving to the big town where they had street cars and buses and taxicabs and many traffic signal lights and big tall buildings and lots of cars. We boasted to our friends about the new life we would lead in the city. There were more than just one movie theatre to go to. 
Instead of just going to the big town to go bus riding every Sunday as we had been doing, now we could walk to the beautiful parks we used to see on those bus rides. 
In spite of our excitement, the day we moved I felt scared about moving to the new neighborhood. The barrio has been our home for a long time. We were leaving all our friends and were going to  strange new place. They said everybody had to move because the big oil tanks that were being built next to the barrio of the flats were also going to be built where we lived our houses would be torn down. What I couldn't understand is why we had to be the first ones to move and why to Davenport. 
When we arrived our new home which was a store building. My papa has to build partitions to make rooms for sleeping, a living room and the kitchen. Mama hung big heavy curtains across the big plate glass windows of the storefront. When we went to school my fears were realized. My English teacher would call on me to stand up to read from our book or recite some lesson. She would always correct me for saying ain't. But I would forget and in my next sentence I would say it again. All the kids were bolillos and would snicker and laugh. I disliked my teacher and English grammar. What difference did it make how you said something as long as you were understood.

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All of us kids were excited about moving to the big town where they had street cars and buses and taxicabs and many traffic signal lights and big tall buildings and lots of cars. We boasted to our friends about the new life we would lead in the city. There were more than just one movie theatre to go to. Instead of just going to the big town to go bus riding every Sunday as we had been doing, now we could walk to the beautiful parks we used to see on those bus rides. In spite of our excitement, the day we moved I felt scared about moving to the new neighborhood. The barrio has been our home for a long time. We were leaving all our friends and were going to strange new place. They said everybody had to move because the big oil tanks that were being built next to the barrio of the flats were also going to be built where we lived our houses would be torn down. What I couldn't understand is why we had to be the first ones to move and why to Davenport. When we arrived our new home which was a store building. My papa has to build partitions to make rooms for sleeping, a living room and the kitchen. Mama hung big heavy curtains across the big plate glass windows of the storefront. When we went to school my fears were realized. My English teacher would call on me to stand up to read from our book or recite some lesson. She would always correct me for saying ain't. But I would forget and in my next sentence I would say it again. All the kids were bolillos and would snicker and laugh. I disliked my teacher and English grammar. What difference did it make how you said something as long as you were understood.