Gazing North

At the surface, our story is much like many other first generation American’s. But digging deeper you will learn how this man propelled himself for a better life, and in turn, created a legacy of what our family is today.

My father was born in a small village called San Diego de Alcala in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico in 1930. His mother, Teresa lived just shy of seeing him pass his first decade on earth. This unfortunate event left my dad and his two younger brothers to survive alongside their father, Zenon. In those years, certainly there would have been a way out of an indigent destiny, but it took resources my grandfather could not provide. After all, he was raised by a farmer, he too was a farmer and the expectation was his children too would live as farmers in that small dusty village.

The early years were not easy. Even at 89, my father recounts events as if they happened last week. I cannot fathom the pain he had to endure; physically and emotionally. Teresa died giving birth to my youngest uncle who also died at a young age himself. Imagine growing up without a mom and being loaned out as a young boy to provide work as a laborer, tending to cattle in fields for hours and days at a time. All just to be able to have one meal a day. But knowing my father, he probably never complained about having to get up to work. He just pressed on, with the sole purpose of making it to the end of the day.

Somewhere, in an open field where my father tended to cattle I’m certain he gazed out into the countryside, dotted with rolling hills and mountains, dreaming of a better life. As with each experience before, the journey north would not come easy. But this is Porfirio Paniagua Jimenez I’m describing here. When he sets out to do something, he does not give up. Whether it is fixing something on his own around the house, or making a thousand mile journey to the Rio Grande, he does not give up. As he puts it, “doing nothing was not an option, that’s not the life I live.” And I know deep down it’s what keeps him going at his wise old age.

Enjoy these stories, share them with your spouses, your kids and grand kids. So they too can learn that with one decision, it can alter their lives to something greater than they could ever imagine.