Transcript for the Piece Audio version of El Michoacano en la Mixteca (The Michoacano in the Mixteca)

El Michoacano en la Mixteca – Translation

Music “Espacio Azul” fades up and plays for a verse. Music fades under the following.

Dionisio: Well, it’s time to tell the story, my story, of how I crossed over to the United States. I think the other times it’s been a lot easier. This time two of us left from Irjuapan, Michoacan with the intention to cross into the United States. Supposedly in Nuevo Rosita we were supposed to wait for such-and-such person to arrive who would then take us to stay with family in the United States. Crossing the river was no big thing, no sacrifice. The guy who was taking across said we’d have to go by train in order to arrive to San Antonio, Texas. And so, around two or three in the morning the train arrived, I’m not sure exactly when. We all started gathering around the train stop, I’m thinking it was like, at minimum, two, or three hundred people gathered around the train to get on. All the sudden you couldn’t really tell who was in our group, and who wasn’t, you couldn’t distinguish. So I got on. Even though, one of the guys told me, “Don’t get on this one.” But I heard the opposite. So I got on.

The hours went by. I was thinking the whole time that there were tons of us from the group on the train. And when the sun rose I began to look around at the other passengers, and realized that there was only me from the group. What a stroke of bad luck!

As it grew late, and the sun started to set, I started to worry. I said to myself, to be sure I am lost. But there really wasn’t anywhere else to go, or to do; I knew that this train would take me to San Antonio, Texas. And I thought, well, I’m in God’s hands. In reality, to return, or try to find someone from the group, no, no—I would never find them.

Arriving into San Antonio I’m the only one who gets off the train. Where do I go? What’s one to do? My friend that was with me from the start was the one that had the phone number for where we would be dropped off. So I don’t even have the telephone number, nor the name of the person with whom I could call.

So I start walking around on the streets, trying to see, trying to choose a person that seemed to me to be a good person, or have solid character. Thank God that the first one I talked to, a Mexican of course—thank God he treated me nicely. He took me to his home, and I stayed there for almost a week. I had memorized phone numbers of family in Michoacan. So I called to Michoacan. And I got the phone number for the person in Texas that was supposed to receive me.

Those people that invited me into their home, they were really nice to me, really kind—giving me something to eat. They even helped me find the person I was supposed to meet there—and helped look for work for me, also.

In reality, the worst of this was thinking, “What am I going to do?” “Who is going to help me?” “How will I get myself out of this?”—it’s not knowing. It’s the uncertainty. But thank God that where there are people, it’s possible to find ones with a good heart.

The funny thing was that I arrived without a Coyote, without the group—I didn’t pay anyone. All of us know that they charge you some dough to take you across. But in this case, I didn’t pay anything.

Here’s another lovely thing. I made a lot of good American friends. One of which was a boss of mine that love music. We were talking about music; I said I liked music a lot. So he says, “Here, keep this guitar in your room.” And while I worked for him, I always had in the room I stayed in, that guitar. Sometimes he’d come over and play with me. Or other times he’d call, and invite me to his house to jam. We’d both try our hand and sing—neither of us knowing what the other was singing about—I don’t think he understood my Spanish at all—but both of us really enjoying ourselves. You know how music makes any heart happy—whatever color you are, whatever shape or size, thank God.

I think for me in particular music has been the means by which I have made many friends, people who have demonstrated that they think well of me. And that’s how I started composing my own songs, or decomposing them, however you might see it. And they liked what I would write. And it gives you—they think of you as intelligent. For that reason, music has served me well.

Music ends.

D: Speaking of songs…um, for me I don’t like to start to reveal certain things, you know, ‘cause it can be dangerous—but I wrote lyrics about a girl at a very young age who, for reasons of necessity (though, certainly there are some who just like to do this kind of work), but in this case out of necessity, I wrote something that I saw and lived, a song called “La Coyotita…”

He sings…

I will sing verses
About a beautiful woman
A lovely, dark little thing
That I met when she was a girl.
I only found one defect
She’s called “La Coyotita.”
In the school where she studies
She’s always been one of the brightest.
But during the weekends
She crisscrosses the highways
Transporting illegals
That she picks up at the border.
From wood pokes a splinter
And the splinter pokes the passerby
This little “Coyote,”
She’s been learning this since a child.
She drives a suburban
I remember it being a little yellow one.

D: Well, my name is Dionisio Ariol Abárgas. I am from Michoacan. I came here to the Mixteca in the 80’s.