ankles and oranges

Samuel Cordero

I was bom on June 25th, 1994 to two Mexican parents. Jose was from Oaxaca, and Marta's family was from Acapulco, where they ran a cheap tourist hotel — El Parafso Encontrado — on the edge of town. One summer Jose made his way up fromTehuantepec in search of work, and Marta's father was in need of a pool boy. But Mama tells me that Jose was not the kind of pool boy that she now watches on daytime re-runs of Desperate Housewives as she tries to fall asleep. He worked long hours while my mother watched him from the reception desk He was 24; she was 19. I should have been bom on or after June 26th, 1994.That was the day Jose and Marta had planned to arrive in Pecos after crossing the border from Ciudad Juarez into El Paso.

The word for anchor in Spanish is "ancla." When I was 12 and in school in Pecos living with my Tfo Juan, we did a unit on Greek mythology. I learned about Achilles and the origin of the phrase 'Achilles heel." It was then that I heard "ankle" and thought it was "ancla" in English. I was supposed to be an anchor baby, but I ended up becoming an Achilles heel.

When Jose and Marta met the first replacement coyote on July 3rd, 1994 he took one look at me and shook his head. "Es demasiado riesgoso. Its too risky. Jose and Marta couldn't tell if he meant that it was too dangerous for me or for him.

They met the second replacement coyote on July 4th, 1994 at a bar near the Rib Bravo. The fireworks from the celebration in El Paso reflected on the brackish water He looked at me and shook his head."Lo siento." I'm sorry.

When Jose got Marta pregnant — or maybe it was when Marta's belly began to swell — Marta's father fired Jose and kicked Marta out of the house, which was really just two hotel rooms joined together at the far end of the El Parafso Encontrado. Jose had a cheap apartment on the other side of town so Marta moved in with him. The apartment was small, and neither one had a job. Jose picked up occasional work at another hotel — one of the big chain ones — but it was only as a substitute groundskeeper. Marta tried to get a job as a dishwasher at The Hard Rock Cafe but was forced to quit when the management could no longer ignore her pregnancy.

By the middle of June they had made up their minds to head north.

On a Thursday afternoon they gathered their most essential belongings and headed to the bus station. After buying two tickets to Ciudad Juarez, they went into a nearby shop to buy some food for the 23hour bus ride: a 10-pack of tortillas and some oranges. My mom slept on my dad's shoulder for the first 10 hours while he watched their things; they switched after a short stop in Delicias.

At the bus stop in Juarez my dad made a phone call to the coyote his friends in Acapulco had suggested. They made plans to meet up on