Hello, my name is Alejandro. As a volunteer with the Atlanta Pride Committee I greatly appreciate their acknowledgment of Hispanic Heritage Month 2020. Please allow me to introduce myself. I was born in 1966 in the national border city of Laredo Texas. My grandparents lived just across the Rio Grande River. Crossing the bridge from the U.S. side into Mexico was common thing for us. We had family in both countries for a while until all immigrated to the U.S. Returning back home to Laredo, we cross the bridge and present our ID's. My parent's Alien Resident card issued at the time and my mom would hand us our social security cards to hold and show immigration. My parents did not speak English so when we would cross back to the U.S. side and go through immigration she would tell us to say "American City." But later I realized she was trying to pronounce the word citizen but "city" was the closest she could come to saying it. I grew up in what some call a mixed status family. My parents were the immigrants and the children the citizens. I was the one in the family for some reason was chosen to keep up with my parents cases as we went from one immigration status to another. Eventually after six (6) immigration status changes and so many years later, they finally received their green card (Permanent Resident card). Every country has a different agreement with the USA when it comes to immigrating to this country. My parents who both were born in 1929 first received authorization to enter this country through the Bracero Program. This program was a series of laws and diplomatic agreements initiated on August 4, 1942 when the U.S. signed the Mexican Farm Labor Agreement with Mexico. My mother came from Guanajuato and my father from Michoacan. Eventually my mother's family moved to Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas Mexico. Nuevo Laredo is where I and two of my sisters were raised for several summers when my parents would leave us with our grandparents and aunts while they and my three brothers drove north of the state of Texas to work the farms. I would like to say that I feel very proud to have come from a migrant farm working family. I worked as a migrant farm worker with my family from the age of eight to eighteen when I graduated high school. I had the experience of working planting rows of onions. The prices varied by the length of the row and by the farmer paying. Average � mile row and planting 2 lines per row paid from $11 or $13 and 1 mile rows paid from $19 to $23. When we harvested the onions or potatoes we were paid $35 a sack. Think of it like 2 � 5-gallon cans to a sack. Many families grew up doing farm work and many still do. As a matter of fact, back in Hereford Texas where I was raised from 4th grade to graduation my family joined the 1980 onion strike with legal assistance from the Texas Rural Legal Aid from south Texas. 1980 article on "The Onion Revolt" in Hereford, TX and the evolution of "The TRLA" (now Texas RioGrande Legal Aid) with the unforgottable quote from Deaf Smith County Sheriff Travis McPherson: "I think that [TRLA] is the problem because they're supplying these people with the information and they're telling them all about the federal laws and everything." When discussing the subject of Hispanic Heritage Month, I can recall the early memories of being called a wetback, illegal alien and spick. As a child I never understood why many people called us those names. I knew we were not in this country illegally because heck, I kept up with our family's documents. La Jeffa (that's what I called my mom, the boss) always would have small talks with me about what to expect in behavior from others (meaning the gringos, white people). These talks came in handy because eventually the entire family started traveling north together to work. Only then did I realize the dangers faced by my family every year they left us in Mexico. See, my parents had to secure a spot for our family with a contractor who hired families to work the farms up north. It was basically a different contractor every year because many times the contractor would have hired all the families he was contracted for. We eventually worked with five (5) different contractors. My friends changed every summer. When we did not have our own vehicle, we would catch a ride with one of the families that also owned a truck that was used to haul the onions back to the packing shed. We and other families would load up our luggage/boxes of things needed to sustain ourselves into the back of one of these trucks. Yes, dangerous and illegal but that was the only way we would be able to make it there and earn money to take back to Laredo and start the new school year with new clothes and be able to advance our rent and utilities. Oh yeah, you gotta eat right? ? Well once we finally had our own station wagon, our contractor gave my parents the directions to the place where we would be working and sharing housing with other families. On the way north through Texas, we were also given a list of towns we should NOT stop for anything or we would be dealt with by the town's people. Also a list of families who would be willing to let us sleep on their property to stay safe and get some rest so we would not have an accident. We all usually slept in our station wagon after dinner and then a few hours later off we went. I got used to being the look out. But this one time our station wagon broke down in one of those towns on the list we are not supposed to stop in. Well thank God the owner of the garage who accepted to fix our vehicle offered us to stay in his shop. He was a white man but not prejudice against Mexicans. He asked one of his employees to watch over us to make sure nobody would hurt us. Yes, he did mention that Mexicans don't stop there often but he was not like that. Next morning we stayed out of site as much as possible and as soon as they fixed our station wagon, Vroooom......out of there we went. Talk about a tense moment. I did not sleep a wink until we pulled out of there and then I could sleep once we got back on the road knowing we were no longer in danger. My parents decided that we would be moving from Laredo Texas to the small Texas panhandle town of Hereford Texas, population 13,000. By 1974, my other aunts and uncle's families were living in Laredo after getting through the immigration process themselves. This same year my grandmother passed away. I loved her very much. She was a short mild speaking individual but she was one tough chic. She was born way before vehicles and boy I enjoyed her stories. The year 1974 also marked the 6th year of Hispanic Heritage Week. In 1989 was extended to a month. But to us as a migrant farm working family with no access to any information, we just carried on as usual. I mean, reading about it later but actually understanding the meaning it just did not compute then. Not sure how I feel about that. As I have shared part of my early time, I find myself feeling very grateful for this year's Hispanic Heritage Month. Mine is but one story of millions of stories of how the Hispanic/Latino community came to this country. Before I leave, I would like to acknowledge the new term of "Latinx" and welcome you. Have heard some heated debates as to the use of this term. I can tell you from experience that these type of debates occur all the time. For example, I was born being called Mexican then Chicano then Tejano then nah man, you're a Mexican-American and even when I moved here in 1997 someone (not Hispanic) says to me that I should really call myself American-Mexican. Nope, that I will never do. Dang! was I confused. So keep debating but be civil to each other and productive. What games do you recall playing growing up in a Hispanic/Latino/Latinx family? In my family (including, Grandparents, Parents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins) we would all get together once a year in Nuevo Laredo at our grandparents home and play Loteria. This is like bingo but a lot more fun ?. The reason for once a year was because this Loteria game was for money. First few games were played with pennies. Whoever got Loteria! first (Bingo!), wins all the change on the cards. The game progresses and we go from playing with pennies then to nickles, dimes and finally quarters. Yeah, it would get intense the higher the pot $. So my farm working summers, I would be saving as much as I could for this very family event. Thank you for your time in reading this blog. Will greatly welcome your input on how you identify and celebrate during this Hispanic Heritage Month. We in the Metro Atlanta area have a very diverse Hispanic culture and it would be great to hear from you. Whatever you are willing to share would be great! My name is Alejandro Lopez, was raised a migrant farm worker, joined the U.S. Army during my senior year in high school, served as a personnel administrative specialist and paratrooper with the 307th Medical Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division and consider myself an HIV/AIDS advocate. I am also an HIV+ Long Term Survivor 27 � years and I identify as gay. Thank you for your time, attention and your consideration. Sincerely, Alejandro Lopez