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45  C H A P T E R 3 C H A P T E R 3 The Velez Family poverty, the cancer scare, and hysterectomies On a warm summer night in 1981 I walked four long blocks to where Evelyn lives. I was able to walk right into the tenement because of a broken front door. I found the family eating spaghetti and meatballs. Doña Hilda who was then 59 years old, was feeding her two granddaughters. When I inquired about Evelyn, doña Hilda looked at me sideways with a cross look on her face. In a loud, menacing voice, she demanded to know what I wanted with her daughter. I nervously explained my project. After looking me over carefully, she said in a somewhat tired voice that Evelyn probably forgot and had gone bowling. She invited me to come inside, and as she fed her granddaughters she allowed me to tape record our interview. We talked in between the girls’ crying and screaming. They were not happy that I was taking up their grandmother’s time, and in an attempt to regain her full attention they jumped, cried, and even sat on my tape recorder. At one point the two-year-old bit her grandmother’s hand as she was feeding her. After doña Hilda quieted the girls down she was able to talk to me about her life. Doña Hilda: First Generation I came to this country when I was eighteen years old because my aunt and my cousin lived here. Well, they said that dollars hit you in the face here and that the streets were paved with gold [laughter]. Well, the only thing that hit me in the face here was snow and mud. I came here because I wanted to work. I also came so if I hadn’t I might have ended up in a delinquent home for criminals. What happened was that in Puerto Rico a young man by the name of Raymond was courting me that my father, who was a Spaniard, did not consider 46 matters of choice white. One day my father said to me, rather than see you with Raymond, I would rather marry you off to one of my friends. Raymond had [a] gun and when he found out about this he came to my house and told me, “If I can’t have you, no one else will.” He wanted me to go away with him, but I did not want to run off with him, I wanted him to marry me. He threatened me and said, “I am going to bring my gun and if you don’t come with me, I am going to kill your old man.” My father was a captain in the military and he had a rifle. We lived in the country, so Raymond was on horseback when he came to see me. I fetched my father’s rifle and I shot at him; I missed him but I shot the poor horse in the leg. When my father heard the gunshot he ran out, but Raymond had already left. I told him what happened and he started to practice his (rifle) aim by shooting down almonds from the almond tree. I was so upset that in order to avoid a tragedy [Raymond returning to the house], I ran away from home that very evening. I walked for three hours from where we lived to Dorado, where I ran into a police officer that knew my family. He took me to his house, told my parents I was there, and my parents came to get me immediately. They tried to convince me to go home, but I refused because I was rebellious and scared of my boyfriend. My mother suggested that I go live with my aunt in New York for a while, and that is how I ended up in Brooklyn. I lived with my aunt and cousin for six months before I met Noel, the father of my first daughter, who now lives in Connecticut. He even went to Puerto Rico to ask my father for my hand in marriage. We were married right away and I had my first little girl within the year. We were happy for a while. Once I was living with Noel, I started to work in the fish store where he worked. After several years of marriage we split up because we were always arguing. He was a...

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