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fl fl fl TheExpatriationofEsperanzaLópezAndrade, aka Pera At age four, she told people, she could read her older sister’s first-grade books. And a year later—after a summer’s exposure to tourist kids in the swimming pool at a Holiday Inn where her mother cleaned rooms— she decided she spoke English. And so one day, in English, with a Texas accent, she announced that she wanted to move to Fort Worth. The whole family laughed and cheered, then changed the subject. And yet it surprised no one when, on impulse, age seventeen, she took off with an older brother for el norte. Once at the border, she wrinkled her nose at the thought of hiking even fifty yards through desert. Not her. She sent her brother off with a pollero and stepped into a restroom stall, where she put on the blue jeans and TCU sweatshirt she carried in a paper bag. Depositing her old clothing in a garbage can, she dabbed on a bit of makeup and disappeared into the crowd at the international bridge. By the time she got to the turnstile, and the INS agent behind it, a blonde couple from Dallas had put a name tag on her shirt and pinned her between them, they were so delighted at her interest in their congregation’s missionary work. Years later, Pera’s grandchildren would shake their heads. Granma Pera, all she had to do was look the agent in the eye and answer United States. The near-ceremonial quality of Granma Pera’s border-crossing story was pure invention. She had, in fact, entered el norte crouched behind the front seat of an old sedan. Why make a big thing of it? She rode up to the border making uneasy small talk with the driver, a glum kid from Sonora, a kid with bushy hair that reeked of marijuana smoke. When Pera rolled down a rear window, his response lagged, comically, maybe thirty seconds. Then he flipped a button, and the window rolled back up, and dark fields unfolded beyond the window. Pera tried to explain about the window. En mi tierra, she whispered, respira uno el aire puro. Esperanza López Andrade 21 Another thirty seconds went by before the kid growled, Y comen Uds. puro aire. The air where you come from is so pure you can eat it? Pera was soon installed in the back room of her Aunt Pera’s trailer in the Pacific Northwest, along with two cousins, ages fourteen and fifteen. Pera had always heard of housework as a way to make a living in el norte. So on her first day in the country, left alone for an hour, she promptly set out looking for housework. She walked four or five blocks to an apartment complex, noticed the new cars parked out front, and decided to try. She always had imagined tired, immaculate women thumbing books with titles like How to Talk to Your Maid, but wow, her very first day, a Friday, at the first door she knocked on, a woman in a pinstripe suit and lavender scarf squeezed Pera’s forearm and pulled her inside. She plucked a tissue from a box on her desk, dabbed at one eye, and motioned Pera to an armchair. I don’t suppose you speak much English? Pera smiled and shrugged. The woman stood and smiled and filled a kettle. You drink tea? Pera said, Of course. The woman then made a lot of hard-to-follow remarks, alluding to a husband, a wedding, something about interest rates, and flying to New York, Houston, Miami. Pera stared at the rug so hard the nap blurred. When something about a biopsy and a dreadful diagnosis made Pera look up, the woman averted her face, picking at her words. Everybody thought his chemo was working, she said. Long pause. I left for Seattle, and they called right when I got there. Pera let the rug come back into focus. The woman relaxed and smiled. She had been saying things she never meant to—at least that’s what it sounded like. Another apologetic smile. I read somewhere that Mexican families, well, you know, wry smile. More tea? The woman sipped and cleared her throat. Her grandfather had made a fortune, she said, off coal mines and immigrant labor, and she wanted to get that out front, be perfectly honest about it, okay? But she herself, as a teenager, rode in a van to Tijuana...

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