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(Editor’s note: Thank you to Juvenal Zamora for writing this story. He also found photographs of sugar cane fields and a sugar factory on the Internet. You can go on the Internet and find similar photographs to see what sugar cane looks like. Ellen Shepherd tutors Juvenal in Sonoma, California.)

Remembering the ranch in Mexico

by Juvenal Zamora

            I will talk a bit of my land in Michoacan, Mexico. Santa Rosa is a small ranch in Michoacan, Mexico where I lived in the eighties. I remember there were only 20 houses and none had electricity. They used oil lamps for light and  pine splinters to light them.

            At that time, they ground the corn with a handmill to make tortillas. It was hard work because they had to grind corn and then make tortillas for 10 people or more. All this was women’s work. It was not easy. Women had a lot of work and no pay. But things were changing and men helped the women more. They shared work. They helped each other.

            Sometimes the women went out to the fields to work with their husbands to help plant corn and beans. Women picked up the oxen team to scratch the ground and then plant sugar cane. The sugar cane was transported in carts with oxen. The wagon with oxen also was used to transport corn and brown sugar to the storage place. I remember when I was nine years old, my uncle had an oxen wagon. He transported the sugar cane from the field to the factory where it was ground in a water wheel mill to make brown sugar. One of the things I liked was walking with the cart all day. Now, all is changed. There are no wagons and no carts with oxen. The mill which ground cane for sugar is already in ruins; all has ended. There is no more sugar factory.