Children of Crisis

by Robert Coles

  Carmen tells her mother upon occasion that she can’t help it, she isn’t as proud of her appearance as she’d like to be. She half wonders whether there isn’t a way for her to look different. One day she spends more time looking at herself than she feels comfortable acknowledging; the next day she denies herself any self-confrontation through the mirror. She notices the way various Anglo or Chicano women do their hair, dress, walk, talk. She wonders how she will look and act later on, when she is herself a wife and mother. Then she refers to those arbiters of all taste, the Anglos: “If you look like an Anglo, you’ll be treated better by the teachers. There’s one girl, her father is an Anglo, and her mother one of us; she’s light, and in school we keep hearing how smart she is and how she has the best manners of anyone. Then some kids want to beat her up later, after school.” She is not one to want to do that; she senses the envy, the rivalry generated in herself and others. She becomes sad rather than angry or resentful. In a picture she made one afternoon, an hour or so after she had come home from school, she draws her school, and beside it, her teacher — whom she dislikes, but also holds in a certain awe. Near her is the half-Anglo classmate, and quite a bit farther away is the artist, Carmen, who isn’t hiding behind the trees she has placed in a noticeable clump, stretching to the edge of the paper, but who at least has available the option of that refuge (Figure 41).

  When Carmen draws pictures of herself away from school (at home, out in a field, near a road) she seems less demure — or apprehensive, depending upon the interpreter’s point of view. (She herself insists that she is “just watching” in the school scene.) Gone is her stiffness, shyness, and relative inconsequence. Now she is at the center of the viewer’s (and her own) attention. Her eyes are more in proportion to the rest of her face and, similarly, her head is made to fit her torso, not be dominated by it. Moreover she is quite willing to talk about what she has drawn: “It’s just me; that’s who it is in the picture. I’m going to play, but I’ve stopped to rest, because I was eating a piece of bread and jelly, and I wanted to get the jelly off my fingers before I met my friends. We might go to the fort we built. It’s strong, and we are making it bigger” (Figure 42).

  There is such a fort — a rather sturdy place, made of tree trunks and branches and other pieces of wood, along with some sun-baked mud. Boys and girls alike use the place, and if some of the girls want to pretend to be good, compliant housewives, Carmen has other notions of what she ought to do: “I like to be like my mother; if I had a lot of dolls, I’d bring them to the fort. But a girl can fight too. I tell the boys, when they choose sides, that they’re crazy not to take some of us girls and use us to fight. It’s better to win than to have half your people sitting there, praying and sweeping the floor.” Does she, in fact, pray or clean house when she is in the fort? Do her girl friends do so, even if she chooses to go with the boys? In “real life,” she points out, mothers stay at home and tend to their traditional duties, but at the fort even the least outspoken or forceful of her friends end up joining the boys in the various contests and struggles that take place — all of which prompts a moment of reflection and analysis: “It’s my mother who says that a girl shouldn’t get herself into trouble outside the house. It’s not our business, she tells us. But even my father will disagree; usually he is the one who laughs when my mother speaks up, but when he’s feeling very bad himself he turns to her and tells her that maybe if she and all her friends would stand up and fight, maybe if the women spoke up, then the rich Anglos would back down. Isn’t that a great idea! But he does not really mean what he says. He reminds us later that he was joking.”

  She takes him seriously, however. She smiles, claps her hands, pretends to be in possession of a gun: bang, bang, about ten times — and a few dead Anglos. She quickly apologizes: she did that once in front of her parents, and they were quite disapproving — her father, it turned out, more than her mother. He had told her that women don’t go shooting guns; and that, actually, if he walked around with a rifle, there would soon enough be trouble to pay. She elaborates on her father’s words: “He said that Anglos have guns, and we must never forget that. He said that when our people have tried to fight the Anglos, we have lost. I asked him why, but he said I should stop asking my questions, because they bother him, and if I don’t know the answers to them by now, then I’m in big trouble. Later my mother told me that there’s no use trying to figure out the world because only God can do that. I asked if Anglos ever wondered how they got to be the bosses over us, and she said no, they have their inheritance, and they’re too busy enjoying it to ask questions. Then she asked me if I’d be worried and ask questions if I was on top, and others were below me, and I had the guns and they didn’t. I wasn’t sure. I said I hoped I would.”

  A long silence; she looks steadily at a clump of trees, then her eyes shift to her own feet. She notices that her shoes have yet again become untied, and she hastens to do them up. She looks at her knee, feels the scar, then decides that she would once more welcome a chance to draw. But she has a change of heart; it is the paints she desires to use. She chooses the largest kind of paper available and sets to work. She appears to know exactly what she wants to portray. She speaks only briefly and intermittently — for example, to express her annoyance with the relative slowness of painting, as opposed to drawing, when one can use the crayon without the need to keep dipping it in water. When she is finished she is not especially anxious to display her work, a contrast with other times, when she quite eagerly holds up for inspection what she has accomplished. She gives the painting one lingering silence, then announces that she has a chore to do for her mother and will be back in a few minutes.

  The paper has been almost completely covered, mostly with a vast blue sky (Figure 43). There is no sun, however — unusual for her. Birds are all over, rather broad winged and with prominent beaks. They hover over a stretch of land that lacks houses, trees, flowers; only one person is there — standing, or rather leaning against a pole. She is looking skyward and has her right arm raised. At first one notices how many birds are above; eventually it becomes clear that they are mostly at the edges of the sky rather than right over the lone woman in the picture. When Carmen returns she needs no encouragement for a remark or two about her work: “That is someone who is trying to decide whether she’ll stay where she is, or go someplace else. The teacher told us that in Texas, a long time ago, people would come and find some land, and they’d claim it for themselves, and they’d fight, if anyone came and tried to move in. No one has come yet, and she’s trying to decide: should she begin to build a house, or should she go get some food, and prepare it over a fire? But there are some vultures, and she has to scare them off first, and she does.”

  Why are the vultures there? Carmen is not sure; she thinks that vultures are “almost anywhere.” But vultures or no vultures, she is convinced that a Chicano who wants to stake out land and build on it is in for a fight of one kind or another. Perhaps those birds aren’t even vultures, she adds; perhaps they are hawks. She has heard her father talk about hawks with great admiration; they can manage such a long, smooth glide, and they seem to rule over all the terrain below them. Maybe there are some Anglos nearby; they have not yet appeared, but they will, and the woman in the painting will have to settle with them. How would she do so? Without a moment’s hesitation, the answer is forthcoming: “I didn’t put the rifle there, but she has one, and she’d have to use it. There’s no other way. She’d have to shoot the Anglos or shoot the vultures, if they didn’t take a hint. She would do so; she would defend herself if she had to.” Is there anyone she might call upon for help? Nobody right there; but Carmen is not willing to leave the woman all alone forever. There is a husband, but he has gone into town to buy some food; and he will no doubt go to the hardware store and purchase a hammer and some nails, so that the two of them would be able to put up a house. Meanwhile he has left his wife to defend their new-found land, and she will do so effectively — let there be no
question about that.

  Two days later Carmen has come home from school and is full of rage; a teacher asked her when she was going to change her dress, and she had felt embarrassed. She wants to talk about the incident, but she also feels that her pride is at stake — to discuss what she went through, even with her parents, never mind anyone else, would be to emphasize the sense of weakness and humiliation she felt. Her mother had tried to talk with her as soon as she mentioned the encounter with the teacher, but no luck: “Carmen didn’t want to say anything — except to let me know what happened. When I tried to make her feel better, she became quite angry — with me! Sometimes it is best to let the dust settle, then come back and try to be of help.” But Carmen did not really agree with that line of reasoning. Carmen has all along felt that her mother and her father are inclined to be excessively comforting, let too much dust settle. Three hours after she returned from school and had her brief discussion with her mother, she was no more anxious than ever for reassurance, for affectionate support — but she did quite explicitly and knowingly decide to use crayons as a means of getting something off her chest: “I’d like to draw a picture of that teacher.”

  She is quick and rigorous as she picks up the various crayons and makes the figure she has in mind (Figure 44). She spends a good deal of time with the woman’s dress and also with her face. Suddenly she leaves the woman to start another person. For a while it is not clear whether it will be a man or a woman; it turns out to be a child, a girl. She is holding on to a rake and seems to be doing some gardening. There is grass and even a flower or two at her side. A thin, blue sky looks down upon the two figures, a modest sun. Just as the picture seems completed, Carmen reminds herself that she had an addition to make. She adds one rather large, black bird. Then she begins putting away the crayons.

  A minute or two goes by; she has nothing to say. She seems curiously calm — no movement of her hands or legs or her head. She is staring at the wall — or so it seems. Suddenly she springs to life. She stands up, crosses the room, takes hold of a picture on a table — her father in an army uniform. A few seconds later she releases her grip on the picture, begins to talk: “My father fought in the war; it was in Korea. He was shot. They sent him to Japan. They got him better, and he came back here. My brothers always ask him why he didn’t keep his gun. He says because — because it wasn’t his, it was the army’s. He says he’d get shot again if he tried to escape with army property. My brother says he should have put the gun under his coat and walked away. I don’t agree. They would have caught him. Once my sister and I decided to ask him if we could save up our pennies and try to buy a gun. We said we’d leave school and help him with the crops. We’ll soon be doing that anyway. Never, he said, never. He won’t have us working in the fields if he can help it, and he won’t have us buying a gun. His brother has gone to El Paso, and he works in a factory. Another brother and sister are in San Antonio. Maybe he will also go to a city. I would like that. My brothers say that in a city you can laugh at a teacher if she puts on airs. Here you have to keep your mouth shut.

  “The sheriff drives by the school every day on his way to the fields. He makes sure all the Chicanos know he’s nearby! My father has to give him a cup of coffee; that is his job. I wish my father could steal the sheriff’s gun. I’d like to draw a picture — and show the sheriff and the teachers in jail and my father standing outside, and he’d have the keys on a chain around his neck and two guns, one on each side, and he’d be talking with the sheriff and the teachers, and he’d give them a cup of coffee, but that would be all they’d get for their lunch, and for supper they could have what they give our people in jail — stale bread and dirty water. My cousin is a brave man; he tried to work for the union people, and they arrested him and they beat him up and threw him in a cell and kept him there for a week, and when he came out he was half himself and no more, and my mother said she went to confession and told the priest that she wanted to go kill the sheriff, but the priest said she mustn’t have thoughts like that, and besides, she’d never get very far because they’d catch her and throw her in jail and never let her out, until they decided to hang her. My cousin left, and he’s in Chicago. He doesn’t like it there — no work. But he’s afraid to come back here. My father says you’re a fool to fight people who have all the guns. But there must be a way you can stand up and fight that sheriff and his people. I’d like to learn a way. My mother and father don’t want to hear us talk like that; but our cousin told us a lot, before they arrested him, and he said he hoped we never forgot what he was telling us.”

  There is just so long that she can sustain that kind of grave, reflective, and combative mood. She decides to put on her radio; it is small, not very strong on pickup, inexpensive. She loves to play it when she goes to bed and when she wakes up. She listens to a local, Anglo station — music and more music, mostly rock, interrupted by commercials and brief episodes of news. If she had a better radio, she would be able to pick up Mexican stations, or Spanish-speaking ones located in San Antonio or El Paso. She would like a record player and some Spanish music to play — but that is a dream for the future. Right now she can live rather comfortably with Anglo music and Anglo voices: “I’ve wondered if I’ll ever get to see a radio station. The people who play the records sound nice; I wish they taught school. Some Anglo people are real friendly. They are the good ones. There are plenty of bad ones; not one of our teachers is any good. My cousin told us he hated Anglo schoolteachers, and I agree with him. My father doesn’t like us saying bad things against schoolteachers. He says that the only way we can get ahead is to stay in school. My sister and I whisper to each other: No! My mother says we must not dare speak back to our father. I wouldn’t dare! But even he will shout that many times he is afraid to say what he really believes. Sometimes my friends and I want to go and get some guns and dare the Anglos to try anything, just dare them.”

  Carmen’s attention returns to the Anglo voices on the radio. They are, she is sure, people who themselves don’t like much of what their own people do. The same goes for the people she watches on television, the people who take part in serials or read the news or tell about the weather. They come across, to her at least, as reasonably fair-minded, thoughtful men and women. She is certain that they are not the sheriff’s kind of person: “I’ve seen him. I’ve seen his men. They are very bad. You can look at them and see how mean they are. They snicker, but they don’t smile. God must have been asleep when they were born. They must be the Devil our priest always talks about. They must be related to the disciple who betrayed Jesus Christ. I saw one of them, the deputy sheriff, coming out of one of the Anglo churches — our Lord must have seen him too. I asked the priest how such a man could be allowed in a church. He said that the nails on Christ’s hands and his feet — they are still there, and they will always be there, until everyone is judged by God.”

  She has become more philosophical or theological than she cares to be. She laughs and says that she sounds like the priest himself. She envies him for all the answers he seems to have. There are times, she acknowledges, when she feels quite uncertain, even confused. She wonders why God allows so much injustice in the world — and why those who inflict the injustice manage to show up so confidently, faithfully at church. Her cousin often remarked on that irony, to say the least — the source of scandal, one might say. He would scoff at all churches, his own Catholic Church included. For Carmen, however, as for her mother, it is sad to think of his estrangement from the sacraments. Carmen’s mother has often remarked upon the high price of rebellion — not only imprisonment, but bitterness, self-laceration, and a kind of unrelenting despair. The girl has her own way of trying to take account of the turmoil, exploitation, and meanness she is often witness to: “My father says you can’t bang your head against a stone wall without causing a lot of blood to flow. My mother says that if you try to climb a mountain, and it’s too high, you either give up and come down, or you die from cold — because you get so tired, y
ou are no good anymore, and your head stops working right. I’d like to go up to Chicago, where my cousin is. Maybe I could live there. Maybe I’d find a job there. There’s a horse I see a lot; she is brown, and very fast. I’ve watched her galloping. She belongs to one of the growers, to his girl. I would take her if I was going to leave. I would ride her north! They’d never catch me! I could find a place to keep her in Chicago; someone would have a barn there. Maybe we all could move up there one of these days. I asked my mother once, and she said no. I guess my parents will never leave; they’ll stay, and we will. My cousin isn’t very happy up there, my aunt says, but he hasn’t given up hope.”

  She is going to add a few more thoughts, but she abruptly stops herself, and also stops the radio, which has been on, at a subdued level, while she has been speaking. It is time for her to help her mother with the supper. She and her older sister like doing that; at times they prepare virtually the entire meal, while their mother sews and watches closely. But upon second thought, there are a few minutes left — time to do a final drawing. It is to be of the sheriff; she knows that, and indeed has been preparing herself for the occasion: “I’ve wondered what I could do to show him up; he is our enemy, and I would like to make sure he comes out that way when I draw him.” She takes the paper and makes a pretense of covering it with black, while in fact leaving it empty. Then she settles down: a big face, a circle at first, followed by the details of his features. The eyes, she points out, are very large, because he is always looking, looking — for any trouble he can find. When he finds none, he makes some up. The ears come next, also large. He is a busybody, an attentive troublemaker. Moreover, he knows whom to seek out — and whose orders to follow. Hadn’t her cousin pointed out that the sheriff never does anything without first going to the big growers and asking them what they want done? A man who is under someone else’s orders has to have good-sized ears and a willingness to use them well.