ABSTRACT
My story begins in the rural towns of the Dominican Republic, where both my parents were born. Raised in households of land-owning farmers, my mom and dad learned at an early age that their manual labor was of greater value to their parents than their brain power. With the little money they earned they bought their own clothes and the books they needed to finish the 8th grade. As my parents grew older and stronger, their parents increased their responsibilities both at home and in the fields. The first priority was to keep the family well fed and cared for financially; any profits made from selling the bananas and platanos went to buy other necessary food and supplies. With the help of their children’s free labor, my grandparents were able to increase their yield enough to break even or even to make a profit each month. Knowing how important their labor was to their family’s economic survival and that they would need their
own money to build futures for themselves, my mom and dad decided to end their schooling and take jobs during the school day, while still working for their parents. My mom sewed dresses to earn enough money for a plane ticket so she could move to Puerto Rico. My dad worked as a field hand for another farmer when he wasn’t helping his father, thereby saving enough money to buy a plane ticket so he, too, could settle in an apartment in Puerto Rico.
