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Chapter 6: The education of NalaSchool in Duncan awaits Nala, but it's a traumatic timeBy Carmen DuarteThe Arizona Daily Star Nala's world turned upside down at age 8. It was then, on a Saturday, that her mother, Dolores, and family arrived from Duncan. Dolores told Nala to pack. It was time to enroll in school. Nala's heart was breaking at the thought of leaving Nana Leonarda's side, but she didn't cry. While she went to pack her clothes, her abuela tried to persuade Dolores to leave Nala with her.
Nana Leonarda promised to enroll Nala in Virden's school. There, Mexican children shared a single classroom, segregated from the Anglo children of what had become a mostly Mormon community. Some of the Mormon families, strangely enough, were refugees from Mexico. In the 1880s, when my family left Chihuahua for jobs and land along the Gila River, Mormon polygamists and their families, fearing prosecution, were staging an exodus in the opposite direction. The Mexican government, under Porfirio Díaz, welcomed the investment, industry and entrepreneurship of the Mormons. Díaz cared little about their family living arrangements, only about his government's cut. By 1910, when the call for revolution against the dictator Díaz came, Mormons had established several thriving colonias around Casas Grandes. They owned lumber and flour mills. Their prosperity made them a target of the revolutionaries. At about the time of my mother's birth in 1916, the exodus was reversed. The Mormons fled the roving armies of Pancho Villa and the warring generals, back to the United States. Some families, whom Nala's relatives would work for in years to come, heard of Duncan's fertile farming and ranching valley. They arrived there with the same dreams my family had - buying land and starting anew in the Gila River valley. Nala's trip was, in contrast, a short one - 12 miles upstream. But it seemed an immense change to the 8-year-old. While her brothers and sisters played outdoors under the cottonwoods, Nala neatly packed her belongings - three dresses, one pair of brown high-top shoes and underclothes - into a box. Nala said goodbye to her grandparents and departed for Duncan with her family. The wagon headed to Sam Foster's farm, where her stepfather, Don Juanito Tellez, worked as a sharecropper. Foster, the patrón, provided a house for the family and gave Don Juanito half of the harvest for his work. That night Nala, a bed-wetter, slept on blankets piled on the floor. The following morning she dressed for her first day at the Mexican School, a two-story brick building. Nala put on a white cotton dress with tiny blue and green flowers. She laced up her brown shoes, combed her black hair into braids and sat down to a breakfast of beans and potatoes. Her mother packed her a bean burro for lunch and off she went, walking a dirt road the distance of about eight city blocks to catch the school bus. At the bus stop, she joined cousins and friends. It felt good to see familiar faces. The bus stopped and Nala hopped on. Some 60 children, sitting and standing, crammed the bus by the time it made it to the American School. The Anglo children walked into their school and the Mexican children walked down the street to theirs. Nala entered a new world. The first floor had classrooms for first to fifth grades, and the second floor was for woodshop classes. Nala sat at her own wooden desk - a rarity for her not to have to share. Mama still remembers the teacher, Mrs. Haney. She was young, pretty and nice. She took roll and pronounced ``Le-o-nar-da'' correctly. There were 30-some children in the class, and Nala was eager to learn. In English, Mrs. Haney told the pupils to go to the blackboard. The teacher wrote their names and the children practiced, copying their names over and over with white chalk. Next came pronouncing words and writing them on the board. Cat. Rat. Nala repeated the words, yearning to learn English. When lunchtime came, Nala sat on the steps and ate her bean burro. She drank a cup of water from a jug in the hallway. She then went to the playground, where she saw her first manufactured swing and seesaw set. The children took turns. Nala practiced writing her ABCs and pronouncing words the rest of the afternoon. When class let out she walked to the American School to catch the bus, feeling good about her first day. At home, sisters Gumesinda, 17; and Angela, 14, were helping their mother with chores and caring for the youngest members of the family: Antonio, 5; Juan, 3; Florencia, 1; and infant Isidro. Older brother Teodoro, at 15, routinely spent his days with his Tía Petra in San Antonio. Florentino, 12, took off after school to the river, teasing Nala before he left. Nala played school outdoors. She wrote R-A-T and C-A-T in the air, pretending she was at the blackboard. Angela and Gumesinda stared at their sister. ``What are you doing?'' Angela asked. ``I'm playing school,'' Nala replied, not caring that they laughed. Nala remembers these carefree moments easily, even 75 years later. They were rare.
Next: Chapter 7: Little cotton picker
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Ch. 1: Field of death
Ch. 18: The New Deal
Ch. 24: Cotton pickers and copper miners Ch. 27: The family doubles its size
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