Tucson Urban Renewal Memory Map: 2018

Thursday, November 29, 2018

La Placita

Memories and Migrations: Mapping Boricua and Chicana Histories

"They were afraid of City Hall"

Play Revives Memory of Demolished Tucson Barrio

At the corner of 5th Street and Main Avenue, Lucy Lim stood in the wind. She’s a petite woman in her 60s, and a long-time Tucsonan. The Union Pacific blasted its horn as it passed her on the nearby train tracks, but Lim is used to the noise.

This corner is where she grew up.

Lucy’s dad, Don Lim, owned a grocery store on this corner in the 1960s. Her family is Mexican-Chinese, and they lived behind the store until 1967, when Don Lim had a stroke and couldn’t run the business anymore.

“During the lunch hour all the workers would come over. We would do brisk business during that time. They’d come over and have coke and chips, or whatever.”

Today, this corner just north of downtown Tucson feels like it’s not really at the center of anything, except three dusty parking lots.

In the late 1960s, things were changing in downtown Tucson. The city would claim this corner for eminent domain to reroute Granada Avenue into Main Avenue, including a duplex apartment Lucy’s father owned.

"My dad at the time, he tried to tell the neighbors. He says ‘we can get together we can fight them.’ And they were afraid to fight City Hall. In the end you can't fight City Hall, they're too big. So they took the duplex and then they made the street how it connects there."

Lucy’s family story is not unique.

A bit more south, the construction of the Tucson Convention Center would demolish the center of a historic Mexican-American barrio, often called Barrio Libre or La Calle. More than 1,000 residents were displaced.

Barrios Stories is a new play opening this week produced by Borderlands Theatre. It’s a play intent on preserving stories from the 1960s of the vanished neighborhoods of downtown Tucson. Influenced by her own experiences during this time of urban change, Lucy signed up to be an extra in the cast.

She used to go antique bottle digging with her mom and sister in the rubbish piles left behind by the bulldozers that cleared the way for the TCC.

“You could see from the old buildings that were there before, they really knocked them all down people had moved out you could see remnants of what they left behind. It was their homes and their lives.”

She is part of a group of community members called “la gente,” or the people.

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

¿Cómo hemos llegado aquí?

Mark Godfrey

A.E. Araiza

Memory Maps

Tucson citizen

Google Maps

La Calle, Spatial Conflicts and Urban Renewal in a Southwest City by Lydia Otero

Monday, November 26, 2018

Slumming

Tucson Daily Citizen, Thursday, December 10, 1964

A.E. Araiza

Tucson Citizen

"No te dejas!"

Art Grasberger

There Goes the Neighborhood by Margaret Regan

THE WRECKING BALL swung slowly against the deep blue desert sky and then danced back into its target. Once, twice, three times it smashed against the old Del Monte Market on South Meyer Street. But the building had been around a while, and it didn't go without a struggle.

Leticia Jacobs Fuentes stood in her backyard behind the market and watched the battle, shading her eyes with her hand against the fierce sun. She didn't even have to think about whose side she was on. She was rooting for the market.

"No te dejas! No te dejas!" she called out to the old place. Time was, it had been a store where the manager let people slide on their bills until payday, where her kids used to hop in and out for sweets. "Don't let go! Don't let go!"

Despite her pleas, and the Del Monte's sturdy resistance to the demands of progress, it was no contest. Hit again and again by the wrecking ball, the market's old adobe bricks crumbled to dust and scattered to the winds.

A.E. Araiza

Sosa Carillo Fremont House and Anglo Fantasy Heritage

Bill Hopkins

A.E. Araiza

Bill Hopkins

Anglo Fantasy Heritage buscó definir Tucson a través de su historia de la frontera occidental, privilegiando la historia blanca sobre la larga y rica historia latina. Al aerografiar la presencia latina, Anglo Fantasy Heritage esperaba atraer "al turista ideal", ignorando completamente el valor del turismo cultural. La Casa Fremont de Sosa Carillo representa estas ideas para mí más enérgicamente, especialmente porque el uso del nombre Fremont enfatiza la historia anglosajona de la casa con la esperanza de atraer importancia a la estructura. Mientras trabajaba allí, había varias parejas blancas mayores que visitaban sin duda encajarían en la compañía turística ideal. Sin embargo, también hubo varios latinos que visitaron con la esperanza de ver su herencia, incluida una familia numerosa que compartió la herencia con la familia Sosa Carillo que había viajado desde California. "Cultural tourism can provide more than economic benefits. It can increase awakened of marginalized communities by offering cultural visitors a non-threatening way of approaching different cultures.(Loukaitou-Sideris, 69).

Comenzando con la expulsión de la comunidad latina del Presidio, Anglo Fantasy Heritage y Barrioization permitieron el dominio económico y espacial del centro de la ciudad. Aunque la comunidad anglosajona se había colocado en la periferia a través de la suburbanización, estaban interesados en el aspecto comercial del centro de la ciudad. Para mí, la ubicación de los edificios municipales en un lugar que una vez solía estar dominado por hogares, negocios locales y cultura es el epítome de esta idea. También me parece increíblemente irónico que el Centro de Convenciones de Tucson, una vez llamado centro comunitario, no pudo reconstruir lo que en realidad fue el centro de la comunidad. Definitivamente no veo el centro de convenciones como una forma de creación comunitaria, sino como una forma de comercialización y atracción de turistas, "Anglo Americans had the power to assign spaces, but tucsonenses infused the spaces with their own collective cultural meanings." (Lotero, 13).

"Que las flores siempre ganan." The Effect on the Elderly Community

Mark Fredrickson

Google

The Journey by Patricia Preciado Martin

In the warm and sun-filled days

I remember in the haze

The happy sounds of children laughing

The rustle of cottonwoods.

Now all is gray and cold and dark

Underneath Presidio Park.

The bell rings, the bus slows, and finally stops. I get off at the corner of Fifth and Congress.
THE MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. APARTMENTS. ELDERLY PUBLIC HOUSING. Yellow and gray concrete walls six stories high. Honorable Mayor James M. Corbett, Jr. Honorable Councilmen Richard Kennedy, Kirk Storch, Conrad Joyner, Rudy Castro, and John Steger. Anno Domini 1982-1983.
I go through the double-wide doors. The high-ceilinged waiting room is painted "robin's egg blue" (to make it seem cheerful). The room is bare except for a few chairs and coffee tables cluttered with tattered magazines: Good Housekeeping—"Decorate a Bedroom with Sheets." U. S. News and World Report—"The Effect of Arab Oil Prices on Wall Street." Cosmopolitan—"How to Tell If Your Husband Is Faithful."
The black-and-white TV drones in the lobby. No one watches it. The elevator clanks along noisily. (Up; Down; Press Button Only Once.) A few viejitos are coming and going with purpose. Some are waiting for the mail. DO NOT TALK OR INTERFERE WITH THE MAILMAN WHILE HE SORTS MAIL. STAND TEN FEET FROM HIM AND WAIT. Some are waiting for visitors. Some are just waiting.
And Tía is there, as always every Saturday, summer or winter, spring or fall, for the last two years. Except when the weather is too cold or too wet. It can never be too hot. Her small delicate figure is nearly lost in the big overstuffed chair. Tía is waiting for me. Quietly, primly, regally, her hands folded in her lap. She is wearing a shawl and a small knit hat. A flowered print dress and black stockings and shoes.
"Ah, m'hijita, ya llegaste." I take her arm, and she rises to her feet, not without difficulty. On one arm she carries a straw bag, and on the other a worn black umbrella, just in case. We walk slowly out the wide glass doors (EXIT HERE ONLY) into a late morning sunshine.
"Qué bueno que llegaste temprano. Tengo mucho que hacer, y la tienda está lejos. It is good that you arrived early. I have a lot to do, and the store is far away."

We begin to walk. Our journey. Every Saturday she insists on taking the same route. Across town. Down Congress Street. Past the Crescent Smoke Shop. (CIGARS, CIGARETTES, MAGAZINES, CANDY, PAPERS.) Past the Chicago Music Store. (TERMS, TERMS, TERMS, SE HABLA ESPANOL. )
Past the empty store windows with the dusty, limbless mannequins. We walk slowly, without talking. We turn on South Sixth Avenue, past the numerous bars and liquor stores. A hippie plays a guitar for quarters in front of Pete's Lounge.

We walk past Armory Park. Winter visitors are playing shuffleboard in the sunshine and winos are sleeping in the grass. On Ochoa Street, we turn west again and walk toward the gleaming white towers of San Agustín Cathedral. The pigeons flutter over our heads as the noon bells chime.
Señor Enríquez, the old bell chimer, died long ago. He climbed the rickety stairs to the bell towers three times a day for more years than anyone could remember. One day he climbed up and played the noon Angelus and never climbed down again. They found him with his eyes open to his last vision, a smile on his face, the bell rope still in his hands. Now the Angelus is a recorded announcement.
Tía laboriously climbs the concrete steps to the vestibule of the cathedral. I open the heavy carved doors for her and she makes her way into the cool darkness. The perfume of the incense from the early morning funeral Mass still lingers in the air. (Señora Juanita Rodríguez. Guadalupana. Sentinela. Legión de María. 6th Generation. Late husband, Miguel, was the founder of South Main Print Shop. Nine children. Twenty-seven grandchildren. Thirty-three great grandchildren.)
Down, down, the long corridor Tía walks until she reaches the side chapel of the Virgen de Guadalupe. La Madre de Nosotros. La Reina de Las Américas. She lights a small vigil candle and prays for the souls of husbands and brothers and sons. The ones who have died or lost their souls in Los Angeles. Father Carrillo walks by, intent on something. Cuentas y almas. Bills and souls. El Padre. Son of Barrio Anita. The pride of the people. "¿Y cómo estás, Doña Esperanza?" He grasps her hand warmly. She signs herself with his blessing.
We walk out once more into the brightness. Past an elegant old home that is now a funeral parlor. Down South Church and west on Cushing Street. Nearby a sign says: ENTERING BARRIO HISTORICO. HISTORIC DISTRICT: TUCSON-PIMA COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION. In bronze. Many of the houses in the Barrio Historico are owned by Stephen Peterson, a millionaire automobile dealer and amateur anthropologist. THE CUSHING STREET BAR AND RESTAURANT: Eat, drink and be merry in the authentic restored old adobe of the pioneer Ortiz family.
A sign has gone up on one of the old Soto houses. AMERICAN WEST GALLERIES-PRIMITIVE ANTIQUES.
"They tore down the Otero house," Tía says in Spanish. "They had a piano. The señora played beautifully. Everyone would come to listen. People would leave flowers on her doorstep. On Sundays, we would all walk down for the paseo in the plaza of the cathedral. Sometimes we would walk down to the river. (It had water then! Can you believe that the Santa Cruz had water?!) In the summers we would picnic under the cool shade of the cottonwood trees. Everywhere there was music."
Still on Meyer Street. Señor Romero is sitting on his porch reading El Imparcial from Hermosillo. He pays his rent now to Coldwell Banker, based in New York.
"Buenas tardes, Doña Esperanza."
"Buenas tardes, Don Felipe."
We walk on, slowly. Tía continues. "His father and his grandfather had tierras by the river. Everywhere it was green. They grew flowers and vegetables. And oh! the flowers! The perfume was everywhere in the summer breezes. His father, Don Enrique, sold vegetables from a cart. All of us children would run after the cart. He gave us free sugar cane. Now the river is dry. The milpas are gone and the people are gone. (The river had water then! Can you believe that the Santa Cruz had water?!)
The freeway has cut the river from the people. The freeway blocks the sunshine. The drone of the traffic drowns out the people's songs. A new music in the barrio.
On down South Meyer. At last we arrive. Lucky's Meyer Avenue Market. Tia opens the screen door. RAINBOW BREAD IS GOOD BREAD. "Buenas tardes, Doña Esperanza."
"Buenas tardes."
Tía fills her bag. The ancient cash register rings and whirs. Queso blanco, salsa de tomate, Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup. White bread, tortillas de maïz, tortillas de harina, Cheerios. Pan mexicano, coffee. Saladitos for me.
"Gracias, Doña Esperanza. Hasta luego."

Then around the corner. Down South Main. Past the shrine of El Tiradito. THIS SITE IS ON THE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES. TUCSON HISTORICAL COMMISSION. ARIZONA HISTORICAL SOCIETY. I follow unquestioning. I know that the journey is not over. There is always one more destination. Toward the Tucson Community Center. The Pride of Tucson. MUSIC HALL. LITTLE THEATRE. CONVENTION HALL. CONCERT ARENA. URBAN RENEWAL. Honorable Mayor Lew Davis. Honorable Councilmen James Corbett, Jr., Hector Morales, James Murphy, Jim Southard, G. Freeman Woods and Kirk Storch. Anno Domini, 1981. Concrete walls, and steps, and fountains. Fountains, fountains, everywhere. (The river had water then! Can you believe that the Santa Cruz had water?!)
Tía's pace quickens now. I follow her, carrying the straw bag laden with groceries. We walk past the Concert Hall to the vast Community Center parking lot. A billboard reads: CONCERT TONIGHT. ALICE COOPER. SOLD OUT. We stop in the middle of the parking lot. The winter sun is warm. The heat rises from the black asphalt. The buzz of the freeway is even louder. It is the end of the journey. I know what Tía will say.
"Aquí estaba mi casita. Here was my little house. It was my father's house. And his father's house before that. They built it with their own hands with adobes made from the mud of the river. All their children were born here. I was born here. It was a good house, a strong house. When it rained, the adobes smelled like the good clean earth."
She muses. She sees shadows I cannot see. She hears melodies I cannot hear.

"See, here! I had a fig tree growing. In the summer, I gave figs to the neighbors and the birds. And there—I hung a clay olla with water to sip from on the hot summer days. We always had a breeze from the river. I had a bougainvillea; it was so beautiful! Brilliant red. And I had roses and hollyhocks and a little garden. Right here where I am standing my comadres and I would sit and visit in the evenings. We would watch the children run and play in the streets. There was no traffic then. And there was laughter everywhere."
"Ah, well," she sighs, "ya es tarde. It is time to go." I turn to follow her and then turn to look once more to the place where her casita once stood. I look across the parking lot. I look down. "Tía, Tía," I call. "¡Venga para acá!" She turns and comes toward me. "Look!" I say excitedly. "There is a flower that has pushed its way through the asphalt! It is blooming!"
"Ah, m'hijita," she says at last. Her eyes are shining. "You have found out the secret of our journeys."
"What secret, Tía?"
"Que las flores siempre ganan. The flowers always win."
We turn away from the sun that is beginning to drop in the West. I take her arm again. There is music everywhere.

RefrainAbuelita, Abuelita, Abuelita
No llores.
Que te traigo, te traigo, te traigo
Una ramita de flores.

En un estudio realizado por la trabajadora social psiquiátrica Martha Fimbres en UMC, en cuatro de las cinco familias estudiadas experimentaron la pérdida de un familiar anciano poco después de perder su hogar debido a la renovación urbana.

Cuando los 80 acres del barrio mexicano-americano fueron demolidos, los adultos mayores tuvieron el peor desempeño. A lo largo en los años y con menos probabilidades de poder adaptarse a las nuevas circunstancias, muchos ancianos se encontraron sin comunidad. Al verse obligados a mudarse de las casas que habían vivido en toda su vida, la fuerte comunidad del barrio se dispersó. Además, como era menos probable que pudieran hablar inglés, es poco probable que recibieran una compensación justa por su propiedad. En 1970, unas 40 familias terminaron en viviendas públicas,

“Many of the elderly were plunged further into poverty. A Mrs. Virginia Gamez, an 84-year-old widow, had owned four houses on Wood Street, but was paid so little by the city for them she ended up moving in with her son. Another pair of octogenarians, Ignacio Duarte and his wife, were paid about two-thirds of the value of an adobe house on West McCormick that Duarte had built himself. It was only enough to buy a tiny place in South Tucson, far from their old friends.”

La mayoría cree que la renovación destruyó las vidas de los ancianos de su comunidad, matándolos. Muchos pasaron sus pocos años restantes amargados y asustados.

"She was broken-hearted," says Ann Montaño. "She was real brokenhearted after fighting for her houses, her income.... She died of sadness."

In the warm and sun-filled days I remember in the haze The happy sounds of children laughing The rustle of cottonwoods. Now all is gray and cold and dark Underneath Presidio Park.
	The bell rings, the bus slows, and finally stops. I get off at the corner of Fifth and Congress. THE MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. APARTMENTS. ELDERLY PUBLIC HOUSING. Yellow and gray concrete walls six stories high. Honorable Mayor James M. Corbett, Jr. Honorable Councilmen Richard Kennedy, Kirk Storch, Conrad Joyner, Rudy Castro, and John Steger. Anno Domini 1982-1983. I go through the double-wide doors. The high-ceilinged waiting room is painted "robin's egg blue" (to make it seem cheerful). The room is bare except for a few chairs and coffee tables cluttered with tattered magazines: Good Housekeeping—"Decorate a Bedroom with Sheets." U. S. News and World Report—"The Effect of Arab Oil Prices on Wall Street." Cosmopolitan—"How to Tell If Your Husband Is Faithful." The black-and-white TV drones in the lobby. No one watches it. The elevator clanks along noisily. (Up; Down; Press Button Only Once.) A few viejitos are coming and going with purpose. Some are waiting for the mail. DO NOT TALK OR INTERFERE WITH THE MAILMAN WHILE HE SORTS MAIL. STAND TEN FEET FROM HIM AND WAIT. Some are waiting for visitors. Some are just waiting. And Tía is there, as always every Saturday, summer or winter, spring or fall, for the last two years. Except when the weather is too cold or too wet. It can never be too hot. Her small delicate figure is nearly lost in the big overstuffed chair. Tía is waiting for me. Quietly, primly, regally, her hands folded in her lap. She is wearing a shawl and a small knit hat. A flowered print dress and black stockings and shoes. "Ah, m'hijita, ya llegaste." I take her arm, and she rises to her feet, not without difficulty. On one arm she carries a straw bag, and on the other a worn black umbrella, just in case. We walk slowly out the wide glass doors (EXIT HERE ONLY) into a late morning sunshine. "Qué bueno que llegaste temprano. Tengo mucho que hacer, y la tienda está lejos. It is good that you arrived early. I have a lot to do, and the store is far away."
	We begin to walk. Our journey. Every Saturday she insists on taking the same route. Across town. Down Congress Street. Past the Crescent Smoke Shop. (CIGARS, CIGARETTES, MAGAZINES, CANDY, PAPERS.) Past the Chicago Music Store. (TERMS, TERMS, TERMS, SE HABLA ESPANOL. ) Past the empty store windows with the dusty, limbless mannequins. We walk slowly, without talking. We turn on South Sixth Avenue, past the numerous bars and liquor stores. A hippie plays a guitar for quarters in front of Pete's Lounge.
	We walk past Armory Park. Winter visitors are playing shuffleboard in the sunshine and winos are sleeping in the grass. On Ochoa Street, we turn west again and walk toward the gleaming white towers of San Agustín Cathedral. The pigeons flutter over our heads as the noon bells chime. Señor Enríquez, the old bell chimer, died long ago. He climbed the rickety stairs to the bell towers three times a day for more years than anyone could remember. One day he climbed up and played the noon Angelus and never climbed down again. They found him with his eyes open to his last vision, a smile on his face, the bell rope still in his hands. Now the Angelus is a recorded announcement. Tía laboriously climbs the concrete steps to the vestibule of the cathedral. I open the heavy carved doors for her and she makes her way into the cool darkness. The perfume of the incense from the early morning funeral Mass still lingers in the air. (Señora Juanita Rodríguez. Guadalupana. Sentinela. Legión de María. 6th Generation. Late husband, Miguel, was the founder of South Main Print Shop. Nine children. Twenty-seven grandchildren. Thirty-three great grandchildren.) Down, down, the long corridor Tía walks until she reaches the side chapel of the Virgen de Guadalupe. La Madre de Nosotros. La Reina de Las Américas. She lights a small vigil candle and prays for the souls of husbands and brothers and sons. The ones who have died or lost their souls in Los Angeles. Father Carrillo walks by, intent on something. Cuentas y almas. Bills and souls. El Padre. Son of Barrio Anita. The pride of the people. "¿Y cómo estás, Doña Esperanza?" He grasps her hand warmly. She signs herself with his blessing. We walk out once more into the brightness. Past an elegant old home that is now a funeral parlor. Down South Church and west on Cushing Street. Nearby a sign says: ENTERING BARRIO HISTORICO. HISTORIC DISTRICT: TUCSON-PIMA COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION. In bronze. Many of the houses in the Barrio Historico are owned by Stephen Peterson, a millionaire automobile dealer and amateur anthropologist. THE CUSHING STREET BAR AND RESTAURANT: Eat, drink and be merry in the authentic restored old adobe of the pioneer Ortiz family. A sign has gone up on one of the old Soto houses. AMERICAN WEST GALLERIES-PRIMITIVE ANTIQUES. "They tore down the Otero house," Tía says in Spanish. "They had a piano. The señora played beautifully. Everyone would come to listen. People would leave flowers on her doorstep. On Sundays, we would all walk down for the paseo in the plaza of the cathedral. Sometimes we would walk down to the river. (It had water then! Can you believe that the Santa Cruz had water?!) In the summers we would picnic under the cool shade of the cottonwood trees. Everywhere there was music." Still on Meyer Street. Señor Romero is sitting on his porch reading El Imparcial from Hermosillo. He pays his rent now to Coldwell Banker, based in New York. "Buenas tardes, Doña Esperanza." "Buenas tardes, Don Felipe." We walk on, slowly. Tía continues. "His father and his grandfather had tierras by the river. Everywhere it was green. They grew flowers and vegetables. And oh! the flowers! The perfume was everywhere in the summer breezes. His father, Don Enrique, sold vegetables from a cart. All of us children would run after the cart. He gave us free sugar cane. Now the river is dry. The milpas are gone and the people are gone. (The river had water then! Can you believe that the Santa Cruz had water?!) The freeway has cut the river from the people. The freeway blocks the sunshine. The drone of the traffic drowns out the people's songs. A new music in the barrio. On down South Meyer. At last we arrive. Lucky's Meyer Avenue Market. Tia opens the screen door. RAINBOW BREAD IS GOOD BREAD. "Buenas tardes, Doña Esperanza." "Buenas tardes." Tía fills her bag. The ancient cash register rings and whirs. Queso blanco, salsa de tomate, Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup. White bread, tortillas de maïz, tortillas de harina, Cheerios. Pan mexicano, coffee. Saladitos for me. "Gracias, Doña Esperanza. Hasta luego."
	Then around the corner. Down South Main. Past the shrine of El Tiradito. THIS SITE IS ON THE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES. TUCSON HISTORICAL COMMISSION. ARIZONA HISTORICAL SOCIETY. I follow unquestioning. I know that the journey is not over. There is always one more destination. Toward the Tucson Community Center. The Pride of Tucson. MUSIC HALL. LITTLE THEATRE. CONVENTION HALL. CONCERT ARENA. URBAN RENEWAL. Honorable Mayor Lew Davis. Honorable Councilmen James Corbett, Jr., Hector Morales, James Murphy, Jim Southard, G. Freeman Woods and Kirk Storch. Anno Domini, 1981. Concrete walls, and steps, and fountains. Fountains, fountains, everywhere. (The river had water then! Can you believe that the Santa Cruz had water?!) Tía's pace quickens now. I follow her, carrying the straw bag laden with groceries. We walk past the Concert Hall to the vast Community Center parking lot. A billboard reads: CONCERT TONIGHT. ALICE COOPER. SOLD OUT. We stop in the middle of the parking lot. The winter sun is warm. The heat rises from the black asphalt. The buzz of the freeway is even louder. It is the end of the journey. I know what Tía will say. "Aquí estaba mi casita. Here was my little house. It was my father's house. And his father's house before that. They built it with their own hands with adobes made from the mud of the river. All their children were born here. I was born here. It was a good house, a strong house. When it rained, the adobes smelled like the good clean earth." She muses. She sees shadows I cannot see. She hears melodies I cannot hear.
	"See, here! I had a fig tree growing. In the summer, I gave figs to the neighbors and the birds. And there—I hung a clay olla with water to sip from on the hot summer days. We always had a breeze from the river. I had a bougainvillea; it was so beautiful! Brilliant red. And I had roses and hollyhocks and a little garden. Right here where I am standing my comadres and I would sit and visit in the evenings. We would watch the children run and play in the streets. There was no traffic then. And there was laughter everywhere." "Ah, well," she sighs, "ya es tarde. It is time to go." I turn to follow her and then turn to look once more to the place where her casita once stood. I look across the parking lot. I look down. "Tía, Tía," I call. "¡Venga para acá!" She turns and comes toward me. "Look!" I say excitedly. "There is a flower that has pushed its way through the asphalt! It is blooming!" "Ah, m'hijita," she says at last. Her eyes are shining. "You have found out the secret of our journeys." "What secret, Tía?" "Que las flores siempre ganan. The flowers always win." We turn away from the sun that is beginning to drop in the West. I take her arm again. There is music everywhere. RefrainAbuelita, Abuelita, Abuelita No llores. Que te traigo, te traigo, te traigo Una ramita de flores.