Salvador Mendoza

To behave good. And also learn things about the land. If you think about it, the land is number one. Agriculture is the principle thing. All wealth comes from the land.

Salvador Mendoza

My name is Salvador Mendoza. I want to tell you I am a man from a rural town in Mexico. My town is called Zapotlan del Rey. I had a hard life. I had a lack of many things growing up.

I was a very poor person growing up. We were not a big family. Two sisters and myself. I remember as a kid I was a lucky person. We were hungry a lot of the time. We had one, two, or three cows on the ranch we used to farm. We didn’t have equipment or the right tools to work the land. For fun we used to create our own toys out of clay. The other thing we used to play with was our shoes.

The homes were made out of different materials. We had homes made out of cardboard. We used to get wet a lot. Even in our house it looked like a shower inside the house. We had a lot of holes in our roof. I remember I was suffering so much in life in the cold weather.

We didn’t have a lot of medicine. I remember, as a kid people would do fumigation of homes to prevent illness. I lost the use of one of my ears. I blame that on bronchitis.

My wife is Amalia. We were just kids and playing in the same school. We used to go to everything like a family, even though we were not from the same family.

I was 17 when I came here. I remember when we came walking to the United States. There were no borders. There weren’t people looking after the borders. We suffered so much to come here. We would have to ask people on the road to give us a ride. That was very hard. It was about everything, the money, the food. The first thing I looked for was ranch work because these are the things I know how to do.

Afterwards, I went back and got married. Every year I went back. After every season, I would go back and see the family. Today no. Right now I have been away from Mexico for 20 years.

I came to Minnesota for my kids and my sons. I raised my sons in California. They were the first who came to Minnesota. Now I work at a restaurant. I am a dishwasher and clean tables.

What I will never forget is the land I come from. My town and my land I will never forget. Even though when we come here we have everything. One thing I will never forget is my land and my town. Sooner or later we always go back to our countries. We never forget them.