Los Mileros

About the Book

What was it like working in the fields? Well, it’s laborious work and sometimes dangerous, encountering rattlesnakes. Every year the family had to go out in the road to many towns to pick cotton. This was for six to seven months of the year to make enough money to support our family and to survive. Without the cotton fields, there was no way to make it. Working in the cold weather and summer months were the worst. I was one of twelve in my family. Our predicament was not a matter of choice, but a matter of being born. Back in the day, the cotton fields became our only salvation and provided opportunities for a better life. We traveled the road of hope; the road of struggles; the road of injustice, hate, and discrimination—the roads we traveled to make enough money just to pay our bills and eat. For over twenty years, those roads were traveled in the forties, fifties, and sixties. Working in the cotton fields was hope—a stepping stone to a better future, which was our hope.

About the Author

Living in Virginia Beach, working at Mortgage Movement, for the past five years. I was born in Edinburg Texas, in my early years I was working mostly in the cotton fields, I was born into a family of migrant workers . Then at nineteen I was drafted into the Army, after my training, I was send to Germany, it was just too cold so I transferred to a hotter place. I volunteered, for Vietnam, there was a War going on so I wanted to do my part, spent a year there. Then left for the big apple New York City, I worked in a Mexican Restaurant called Pancho Villa’s, my brother Roman Chapa was part owner. I worked there for five years, Meanwhile I got married. I opened a restaurant In Asbury Park NJ, with my brother, Half block from the Stone Pony, where Bruce Springsteen got started, then opened another restaurant in Huntington New York, where Harry Chapin, and Billy Joe’ live-in. I coached Soccer, boys, and girls for over twenty five years, sold my Restaurant, and then left for Virginia. My name will always be there outside, Huntington Town Hall, the city I always will Love, they build a momentum honoring the men who serve in Vietnam.