Hilcias traveled the migratory roads of migrant workers from state to state and farm to farm with his family when he was a toddler.
He rode upon his mamí’s back, tied with threadbare pieces of cloth, as she climbed ladders and reached up into the sky with her hands to pick oranges and grapefruits from trees in Florida, and as she kneeled and reached down to the earth with her hands to pick beans and tomatoes from plants in South Carolina.
On the land they worked, he, his mamí and his abuelo lived in trailers and shacks with holes in the floors, cracks in the walls, and leaks in the roofs, broken apart from years and years of families moving out and families moving in, of owners using money for things other than repairs, and yet held together by people like his them, who would move into a new place, scrub the floors and walls with soap and water, repair the broken parts with the scarce resources they carried with them or found around them, and generally patch things up with a mixture of grit, common sense and love.
This is what they did.
This is who they were.
Tenacious and tender.
Heroic and humble.
Brave and beautiful.
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