Like a thundering river the train rushed toward Pasco, crossing wide, level lands, and passing through badlands, plateaus, and rill-marked hills. At Grandview, a prairie town whose sharp winds cut through the valleys and swept the plains, a dozen men jumped on and several of them came to my car. Two looked like professional hoboes, but the others were young men in search of work. I did not notice that there was a girl among them until we reached Kennewick, when the railroad detectives came to the boxes and scattered us among the trees. When they were gone and we had run back to the car, I learned that she was with her brother, who was younger than she. They were on their way to California where an uncle was waiting for them.
The sun went down slowly and sudden darkness came over the land. I sat back in my corner and tried to sleep, brushing off the obscene conversations of the men around me. Then in the middle of the night, isolated in a corner of the box, I was awakened by the young girl’s whimpering. She was desperately struggling with someone in the dark, breathing as though she were being choked to death. Then I heard her fall heavily on the floor, and she began to sob hopelessly. Her assailant dragged her to my corner. I could hear the man fumbling at her. He was tearing hungrily at her clothes. I strained my eyes in the dark to see what was happening. After a while the girl did not struggle any more. She turned lifelessly toward me, and in the dark I could hear her agony.
With a sudden revulsion, I got up and felt for the man. But someone struck me on the head, and I rolled on the floor. There was silence for a long time; then as I returned to consciousness, I heard the stifled sobbing of the girl again. Another man approached her. . . .
When the train stopped many of the men in our car jumped out. The girl crawled about in the dark searching for her brother.
“Bill—Bill, honey, where are you?” she whispered.
But the boy had disappeared in the night. Afraid and alone, she leaned against the wall and cried brokenly. I got up from my corner and looked out. We were in Hood, on the Columbia River. It was still dark, but I could hear the rushing water and, somewhere on the other side of the town, the sharp whistle of another train. The girl spread some newspapers on the floor and lay down to sleep. I struck a match and watched her face affectionately. She looked a little like my younger sister, Francisca. There was a sudden rush of warm feeling in me, yearning to comfort her with the words I knew. This ravished girl and this lonely night, in a freight train bound for an unknown city. . . . I could not hold back the tears that came to my eyes.
When we reached Portland it was already after midnight. The girl walked with me in the streets.
“Where are you going?” she asked me.
“I am looking for an address,” I said, trying to make her understand my broken English. “But the houses are too dark.”
“Do you have a friend here?” But she did not wait for an answer. “Let’s go back to the station,” she suggested.
We found a train about ready to leave for California. A few men came into the car where the girl and I were sitting. Then a woman came in with her husband, who was carrying a baby. There was a Negro boy with a harmonica; he kept playing for hours, stopping only to say “Salem!” “Eugene!” “Klamath Falls!” when we passed through those places.
The girl leaned on me and went to sleep, her breath warming my face. I dozed off and did not waken until the following morning. The girl was gone, but the newspapers on which she had lain were still warm. Everybody was gone except the Negro boy with the harmonica. He was still playing. I kept staring at him because it was the first time I had ever seen a black person.
“Where are you going, boy?” he asked.
“California, sir,” I said.
He laughed, “Sir?”
“Yes, sir,” I said again.
“Boy, you are far from California!” He laughed aloud, taking up the harmonica again.
I opened the door and looked out. The train was still moving. When the train stopped at the station, the Negro began to laugh again.
“Boy, boy, boy!” he screamed. “This is Reno, Nevada!”
I went to the door again and looked out. Then I saw the startling sign:
RENO, THE BIGGEST SMALL CITY IN THE WORLD!
The girl had left three strands of her brown hair on my shoulder. I picked them up and wrapped them in a piece of newspaper. I do not know why I did it, but felt somehow that I would meet her again. Innocent-looking she was, and forlorn, and I felt that there was a bond between us, a bond of fear and a common loneliness.
When the Negro told me what train to take to California, I thanked him and left, hoping I would encounter him again. The cars were full of hoboes and drifting men, who sat on the floor eating stale bread and drinking cold coffee. The wide desert land was shimmering with heat, and except for a bit of brush here and there, it reminded me of my escape with Julio across the Rattlesnake Mountains.
At last we came to some mountains, tall frowning mountains, and deep, narrow rivers rushing down the canyons. I counted thirteen short tunnels before we came out to the border of California, rolling across a wide land of luxuriant vegetation and busy towns. Then there was a river, and not far off the town of Marysville loomed above a valley of grapes and sugar beets, all green and ready for the summer harvest.
I wanted to stop and walk around town, but some of the hoboes told me that there were thousands of Filipinos in Stockton. I remained on the same train until it got to Sacramento, where I boarded another that took me to Stockton. It was twilight when the train pulled into the yards. I asked some of the hoboes where I could find Chinatown, for there I would be sure to find my countrymen.
“El Dorado Street,” they said.
It was like a song, for the words actually mean “the land of gold.” I did not know that I wanted gold in the new land, but the name was like a song. I walked slowly in the streets, avoiding the business district and the lights. Then familiar signs glowed in the coming night, and I began to walk faster. I saw many Filipinos in magnificent suits standing in front of poolrooms and gambling houses. There must have been hundreds in the street somewhere, waiting for the night.
I walked eagerly among them, looking into every face and hoping to see a familiar one. The asparagus season was over and most of the Filipino farmhands were in town, bent on spending their earnings because they had no other place to go. They were sitting in the bars and poolrooms, in the dance halls and gambling dens; and when they had lost or spent all their money, they went to the whorehouses and pawed at the prostitutes.
I entered a big gambling house on El Dorado and Lafayette Streets, where ten prostitutes circulated, obscenely clutching at some of the gamblers. I went to a stove in the middle of the room where a pot of tea was boiling. I filled a cup and then another, and the liquid warmed my empty stomach. This was to save me in harsher times, in the hungry years of my life in America. Drinking tea in Chinese gambling houses was something tangible, and gratifying, and perhaps it was because of this that most of the Filipino unemployed frequented these places.
I was still drinking when a Chinese came out of a back room with a gun and shot a Filipino who was standing by a table. When the bullet hit the Filipino, he turned toward the Chinese with a stupid look of surprise. I saw his eyes and I knew that the philosophers lied when they said death was easy and beautiful. I knew that there was nothing better than life, even a hard life, even a frustrated life. Yes, even a broken-down gambler’s life. And I wanted to live.
I ran to the door without looking back. I ran furiously down the street. A block away, I stopped in a doorway and stood, shivering, afraid, and wanting to spit out the tea that I had drunk in the gambling house. When my heart ceased pounding, I walked blindly up a side street. I had not gone far when I saw a building ablaze.
“What is it?” I asked a Filipino near me.
“It is the Filipino Federation Building,” he said. “I don’t agree with this organization, but I know why the building is burning. I know the Chinese gambling lords control this town.”
I did not know what he meant. I looked at him with eager eyes.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said. “I’ve just arrived in the United States.”
“My name is Claro,” he said, extending a long, thin hand, and coughing behind the other. “I came from Luna, in the province of La Union. Let us go to my restaurant and I will explain everything to you. Are you hungry, boy?”
He was not much older than I, and he spoke my dialect.
“I have not eaten for two days,” I said. “You see, I took the freight train in Sunnyside, Washington.”
Claro hugged me. When he entered the restaurant, he locked the door and put down the shades.
“I don’t want the swine in the street to see us,” he said, going to the stove. “They disgust me with their filthy interest in money. That is why I am always behind in my bills. I like good people, so I am keeping this restaurant for them.”
I watched him prepare vegetable soup and fry a piece of chicken. When the pot started to boil, Claro put a record on a portable phonograph at the other end of the counter; then there was a sudden softness in his face, and his eyes shone. He had put on a Strauss waltz. Going back to the stove, Claro raised his hands expertly above his head in the manner of boleros and started to dance, swaying gracefully in the narrow space between the stove and the counter. He was smiling blissfully, and when someone knocked on the door he stopped suddenly and shouted:
“Go away! The place is closed for tonight!”
When he had placed everything on the counter, Claro took a chair and sat near me.
“Listen, my friend,” he said. “The Chinese syndicates, the gambling lords, are sucking the blood of our people. The Pinoys work every day in the fields but when the season is over their money is in the Chinese vaults! And what do the Chinese do? Nothing! I see them only at night in their filthy gambling dens waiting for the Filipinos to throw their hard-earned money on the tables. Why, the Chinese control this town! The local banks can’t do business without them, and the farmers, who badly need the health and interest of their Filipino workers, don’t want to do anything because they borrow money from the banks. See!”
I was too hungry to listen. But I was also beginning to understand what he was trying to say.
“Perhaps in another year I will be able to understand what you are saying, Claro,” I said.
“Stay away from Stockton,” he warned me. “Stay away from the Chinese gambling houses, and the dance halls and the whorehouses operated by Americans. Don’t come back to this corrupt town until you are ready to fight for our people!”
I thanked him and walked hastily to the door. I hurried to the freight yards. I was fortunate enough to find an empty boxcar. I sat in a corner and tried to sleep, but Claro’s words kept coming back to me. He wanted me to go back to fight for our people when I was ready. I knew I would go back, but how soon I did not know. I would go back to Claro and his town. His food had warmed me and I felt good.