America Libre

Book 1: Class H Trilogy

by Raul Ramos y Sanchez

Genres: Cultural Heritage; Family Life; Hispanic & Latino

Synopsis

After years of anti-immigrant backlash, anger seethes in the nation's Latino communities. The crowded streets bristle with restless youth, idled by a deep recession. When undercover detectives in San Antonio accidentally kill a young Latina bystander during a botched drug bust, riots erupt across the Southwest. As the inner-city violence escalates, Anglo vigilantes strike back with shooting rampages. Exploiting the turmoil, a congressional demagogue succeeds in passing legislation that transforms the nation's Hispanic enclaves into walled-off Quarantine Zones. Citizens tagged Class H-those who are Hispanic, are married to a Hispanic, or have at least one grandparent of Hispanic origin-are forced into detention centers. Amid the chaos in his L.A. barrio, Manolo Suarez is out of work and struggling to support his growing family. But under the spell of a beautiful Latina radical, the former U.S. Army Ranger and decorated war veteran now finds himself questioning his loyalty to his wife-and to his country.

Release date: July 9, 2009

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 388

Sample

The origins of any political revolution parallel the beginnings of life on our planet. The amino acids and proteins lie inert
in a volatile primordial brew until a random lightning strike suddenly brings them to life.


—José Antonio Marcha, 1978 Translated by J. M. Herrera

The trouble had started two weeks earlier. Enraged at the fatal police shooting of a young Latina bystander during a drug bust,
a late-night mob descended on a Texas Department of Public Safety complex and torched the empty buildings. By morning, a local
newscast of the barrio’s law-and-order melt-down mushroomed into a major story, drawing the national media to San Antonio.
Since then, the presence of network cameras had incited the south side’s bored and jobless teenagers into nightly rioting.


Seizing the national spotlight, the governor of Texas vowed looters would be shot on sight. Octavio Perez, a radical community
leader, angrily announced that force would be met with force. He called on Mexican-Americans to arm themselves and resist
if necessary.


Disdaining Perez’s warning, Edward Cole, a twenty-six-year-old National Guard lieutenant, chose a provocative location for
his downtown command post: the Alamo.


“This won’t be the first time this place has been surrounded by a shitload of angry Mexicans,” Cole told his platoon of weekend
warriors outside the shut-down tourist site. A high school gym teacher for most of the year, Lieutenant Cole had been called
up to lead a Texas National Guard detachment. Their orders were to keep San Antonio’s south side rioting from spreading downtown.


Now Cole was fielding yet another call over the radio.

“Lieutenant, we got some beaners tearing the hell out of a liquor store two blocks south of my position,” the sentry reported.

“How many?”

“I’d say fifty to a hundred.”

“Sit tight, Corporal. The cavalry is coming to the rescue,” Cole said, trying his best to sound cool and confident. From a
two-day training session on crowd control, he’d learned that a rapid show of strength was essential in dispersing a mob. But
the colonel who had briefed Cole for the mission had been very clear about the governor’s statement.


“It’s not open season on rioters, Lieutenant. Your men are authorized to fire their weapons only in self-defense,” the colonel
had ordered. “And even then, it had damn well better be as a last resort. The governor’s statement was meant to deter violence,
not provoke it.”


Lieutenant Cole had never seen combat. But he was sure he could deal with a small crowd of unruly Mexicans. After all, he
had eight men armed with M16A2 semiautomatics under his command. Cole put on his helmet, smoothed out his crisply ironed ascot,
and ordered his men into the three reconditioned Humvees at his disposal.


“Let’s move out,” he said over the lead Humvee’s radio. With the convoy under way, Cole turned to his driver. “Step on it,
Baker. We don’t want to let this thing get out of hand.” As the driver accelerated, the young lieutenant envisioned his dramatic
entrance:


Bullhorn in hand, he’d emerge from the vehicle surrounded by a squad of armed troopers, the awed crowd quickly scattering
as he ordered them to disperse…


Drifting back from his daydream, Cole noticed they were closing fast on the crowd outside the liquor store. Too fast.

“Stop, Baker! Stop!” Cole yelled.

The startled driver slammed on the brakes, triggering a chain collision with the vehicles trailing close behind. Shaken but
unhurt, Cole looked through the window at the laughing faces outside. Instead of arriving like the 7th Cavalry, they’d wound
up looking like the Keystone Kops.


Then a liquor bottle struck Cole’s Humvee. Like the opening drop of a summer downpour, it was soon followed by the deafening
sound of glass bottles shattering against metal.


“Let’s open up on these bastards, Lieutenant! They’re gonna kill us!” the driver shouted.

Cole shook his head, realizing his plan had been a mistake. “Negative, Baker! We’re pulling out.”

But before the lieutenant could grab the radio transmitter to relay his order, the driver’s window shattered.

“I’m hit! I’m hit! Oh my God. I’m hit!” the driver shrieked, clutching his head. A cascade of blood flowed down Baker’s nose
and cheeks. He’d suffered only a gash on the forehead from the broken glass, but all the same, it was as shocking as a mortal
wound. Never one to stomach the sight of blood, Baker passed out, slumping into his seat.


Cole couldn’t allow himself to panic; with no window and no driver he was far too vulnerable. Mind racing, he stared outside
and soon noticed a group of shadowy figures crouching along the roof of the liquor store. Are they carrying weapons?

“Listen up, people. I think we might have snipers on the roof! I repeat, snipers on the roof!” Cole yelled into the radio.
“Let’s lock and load! Have your weapons ready to return fire!”


On the verge of panic, the part-time soldiers fumbled nervously with their rifles as the drunken mob closed on the convoy,
pounding against the vehicles.


The window on Cole’s side caved in with a terrifying crash. The rattled young lieutenant was certain he now faced a life-or-death
decision—and he was determined to save his men. With the radio still in hand, Lieutenant Edward Cole gave an order he would
forever regret.


“We’re under attack. Open fire!”

When it was over, twenty-three people lay dead on the black pavement beneath the neon sign of the Rio Grande Carryout.



“The Rio Grande Incident,” as it came to be known, led every newscast and spanned every front page from Boston to Beijing.
Bloggers went into hyperdrive. Talk radio knew no other subject. Protests erupted in many American cities, usually flash mobs
that drew a wide spectrum of extremists.


Outside the U.S. embassy in Mexico City, tens of thousands chanting “Rio Grande” burned American flags alongside an effigy
of Texas governor Jeff Bradley. Massive demonstrations multiplied across Latin America, Asia, and Europe in the days that
followed. The prime minister of France called the confrontation “an appalling abuse of power.” Germany’s chancellor labeled
it “barbaric.” Officials in China declared it “an unfortunate consequence of capitalist excess.”


Fed by the media frenzy, the destruction and looting on San Antonio’s south side escalated. In less than a week, riots broke
out in other Hispanic enclaves across Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.


Many Americans were shocked by the sudden turmoil in the Southwest, yet in hindsight, the origins of the discontent were easy
to see.


As the United States entered the second decade of the twenty-first century, a severe recession was under way. With unemployment
benefits running out, millions of Americans sought any kind of job, saturating low-rung job markets. From farms to fast-food
chains, Hispanics were pitted against mainstream workers in a game of economic musical chairs.


Only a few years earlier, the election of the nation’s first African-American president, Adam Elewa, had brought hope to Hispanics
and all minorities. But Elewa was voted out after one term following a renewal of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. Elewa’s
successor, Carleton Brenner, resumed what many were calling the War on Terror II. With widespread public support, Brenner
quickly launched a wave of overseas military deployments and stiffened border security.


The tighter borders stemmed the flow of illegal immigrants. But the presence of millions of undocumented Hispanics already
within the country was a political quagmire that remained unresolved. More significant, Latinos born in the U.S. had long
overtaken immigration as the prime source of Hispanic growth thanks to birth rates that soared far above the mainstream average.
The nation’s Hispanic population had exploded—and the lingering economic slump had created a powder keg of idle, restless
youth.


Fear of this perplexing ethnic bloc among mainstream Americans had given rise to an escalating backlash. Armed vigilante groups
patrolling the Mexican border had shot and killed border crossers on several occasions. Inside the border, anyone with a swarthy
complexion was not much safer. Assaults by Anglo gangs against Hispanics caught in the wrong neighborhood were now commonplace.
“Amigo shopping,” the epidemic of muggings on illegal immigrants who always carried cash, was rarely investigated by police.
Graffiti deriding Hispanics was a staple in schools and workplaces. Another burning cross in the yard of a Latino home was
no longer news.


Meanwhile, politicians had discovered a wellspring of nativist passion. In a scramble for votes, a deluge of anti-immigration
and “English only” ordinances had been passed over the last decade by state and local governments as Washington’s inability
to resolve the thorny immigration issue continued. Most of these laws were struck down by federal judges. Yet local politicians
persisted in passing new ones. The strident nativist vote was too powerful to resist. This conflicting patchwork of laws created
an unforeseen side effect. Fleeing the legislative backlash, most Hispanics—both legal and illegal—were now concentrated in
“safe haven” communities, usually in crowded urban areas.


Outraged by the growing attacks against Hispanics and seeing the anti-immigrant laws as thinly veiled bullying, Latino community
leaders in the Southwest had grown increasingly militant. Protest marches and rallies were on the rise. Hispanic separatists,
once only fringe groups at the marches, were visibly growing in number. A favorite banner at many of these events reflected
an attitude gaining in popularity: “We didn’t cross the border. The border crossed us.”


Now, in a sweltering July, these long-smoldering elements were reaching the flashpoint in the nation’s teeming barrios.

Manolo Suarez awoke to the crash of breaking glass.


Through the bedroom’s lone window, opened to the stifling heat, he heard the shrill wail of a burglar alarm and loud, angry
voices. Mano glanced at the glowing clock. It was 12:27 a.m.


Rosa lay naked against his side, using his brawny biceps for a pillow. Mano gently moved his wife aside and stepped out of
bed.


“Wake up, querida,” he said, pulling a T-shirt over his chiseled torso.

Rosa stirred, still torpid from their lovemaking less than an hour earlier. “Mano? What’s going on?”

“There’s rioting outside. I’m going to take a look. Move the children into the living room—away from the windows,” he said
as he finished dressing.


From the courtyard of his apartment building on East Fourth Street in Los Angeles, Mano watched the mob, surprised by its
makeup. The main source of violence was a few dozen teens at the edge of the crowd. They were hurling bricks, bottles, and
stones at the shops along Fourth Street. Behind the teenagers were small groups of adults shouting encouragement, waiting
for a chance to grab anything of value. Most people on the street were simply milling around, watching curiously, drifting
with the action.


Near the back of the crowd, Mano spotted a familiar face. Eddie Paz was loitering with two other men, sharing swigs from a
bottle of Cutty Sark. Eddie had been a lot boy at the dealership where Mano worked as a mechanic—until the business had gone
under five months earlier.


“Suarez!” Eddie slurred. “Come here, man!”

Hoping to learn more about the mob, Mano waded into the mass of bodies. At six foot three and a hard two hundred sixty, he
plowed easily through the crowd.


“Take a swig!” Eddie said, holding out the bottle as Mano approached.

“No thanks, Eddie,” Mano shouted over the noise. “How long has this been going on?” he asked, gesturing to the chaos around
them.


“I dunno, man,” Eddie said, staggering closer, booze on his breath. “Me and the guys were tossing down a few back at Paquito’s
and heard all this racket about an hour ago. Been checking out the scene ever since.”


“I’m surprised to see you out here doing this, Eddie. You’ve got a family to support.”

“Hey, man, I think it’s a shame these kids are tearing up the barrio,” Eddie said indignantly. “A lot of these businesses
are owned by Latinos. They don’t deserve this shit. But what can I do about it, man?”


“What you can do, Eddie, is go home. Hanging around out here only gives these cholos safety in numbers,” Mano said and walked
away.




Rosa used her nightgown to wipe a tear from Elena’s cheek. The trembling five-year-old clung to her mother on the worn living
room couch, terrified by the angry screams and crashes outside.


“Where’s Papi?” the half-awake child asked, suddenly noticing her father’s absence.

“Papi will be back soon,” Rosa cooed soothingly, hoping it was true. She knew Mano could take care of himself on the street.
He’d done it all his life. But this rioting was something new, something that made no sense.


Rosa glanced at Pedro and Julio tucked into the pallets she’d laid out on the living room floor. The noise outside had energized
her sons, their brown eyes flashing with each new swell in the din.


When Mano entered the front door, Rosa stifled a sigh of relief to avoid alarming the children.

“Make the people stop, Papi,” Elena cried, pointing outside.

Mano stroked his daughter’s cheek. “It’s OK, m’hijita. You’re safe in here. No one’s going to hurt you.”

Ten-year-old Pedro sat up excitedly. “I want to go out and riot with you, Papi.”

“Me, too,” said Julio, who, at eight, was always eager to follow his big brother.

“I did not go outside to riot, Pedro. I went outside to make sure we weren’t in danger.”

“But everybody at school says rioting is tight, Papi. You know, so people will listen to us Hispanics. It’s on the news and
everything.”


“What they’re doing outside is senseless, Pedro,” Mano said calmly. “They’re attacking places that provide us jobs. Rioting
isn’t going to make people listen to Hispanics, m’hijo. It’s going to make things worse.”


Rosa stroked her son’s forehead. “Pedro, you’ve seen your father looking for work every day for the last five months. Do you
think this rioting is going to help him find a job?”


The boy lowered his eyes. “No, Mami,” he said softly, settling back under the covers.

Rosa could sense the tug of excitement the rioting had on her boys, an undertow she would have to guide them to resist. Drugs,
crime, the gangs, and now this pointless violence—it was one more danger her kids would face. Asking God for the strength
and patience to protect them was always first in the prayers she said daily. “Close your eyes, m’hijo,” she said, gently smoothing
Pedro’s blankets.


The boy blinked drowsily a few times—then his eyes widened suddenly as the shriek of sirens joined the din outside.

“All of you stay here,” Mano said, rising to his feet. “I’m going to see what’s going on.”

Without a view of the street from the living room, Mano went to the kitchen window. The pulsing red lights of emergency vehicles
glowed against the wall of the warehouse next door. Moving to the bedroom window at the back of their apartment, Mano was
alarmed to see the flickering yellow reflection of flames on the building behind them.


Trying to determine the source of the fire, Mano heard a series of dull thumps coming from the street. He recognized the sound
of tear gas canisters and could tell from the sudden drop in voices that the crowd was in retreat. Soon pale smoke was seeping
into their apartment.


By the time Mano reached the living room, Rosa and the children were already coughing. “Get the children into the bathroom,”
he called out to Rosa. “Seal the door with wet towels, then wet down some washcloths and breathe through them.” Mano leaned
close to Rosa, speaking softly so the children could not hear. “I saw flames outside. Keep the children ready to move in case
the fire spreads.”


Rosa’s eyes flared with alarm for a moment, then she composed herself and nodded calmly. She led the children into the bathroom
and closed the door.


Feeling as if his eyes were being boiled, Mano rushed into their bedroom and ripped the sheet from the bed. After soaking
the fabric in the kitchen sink, he jammed the dripping cloth under the front door. From a wet kitchen towel, he fashioned
a gas mask for himself and began patrolling the windows.


Inside the cramped bathroom, Rosa coughed violently as she prepared wet-cloth masks for the children before making one of
her own. She sealed the bathroom door, then herded the kids into the bathtub, trying to keep them comfortable but alert. Sitting
on the edge of the tub, she began a familiar nursery rhyme. “Palomita blanca, pico de coral,” she recited, playfully patting each of their heads in time with the verse. “Pidele al Señor que no llueva más.” The children giggled and joined in, their squeaky voices muffled by the cloths. For the next hour Rosa led them through
the many cancionitas she’d learned from her mother.


Although Rosa spoke little Spanish and barely understood the meaning of these nursery rhymes she’d passed on to her children,
their familiar rhythm was always reassuring—especially tonight. After more than an hour, the children were struggling to stay
awake, their heads lolling. Rosa was relieved when she heard Mano’s voice from the other side of the bathroom door.


“It’s OK. You can come out now,” he said.

Moving away the wet towels, Rosa cautiously opened the door. The noise outside had ended and the air was clear. With gentle
pats and soothing whispers, she led her exhausted children to their bedroom, tucked them in, and returned to the living room.


“Ay, Dios mio, look at this mess,” Rosa said, shaking her head. While stanching the gas, Mano had toppled her shrine to Our
Lady of Guadalupe. The painted statuette had survived the fall, but the glass-encased votive candle flanking La Virgen Morena
had shattered, littering the floor with globs of wax. Stuck to the hardening mess were grains of rice from the small offering
of food Rosa kept at the shrine. “Our Lady fell but she didn’t break. That’s a good sign,” Rosa whispered as she began cleaning
up.


“Leave that for the morning, querida. It can wait,” Mano said and then patted the cushion next to him on the frayed red couch.
“Come here, Rosita. Sit with me.”


Rosa settled next to her husband, leaning her head on his beefy shoulder as Mano kissed her hair softly. They said nothing,
content with the warmth and nearness of each other. During their twelve years of marriage these intimate moments of silence
had become a refuge, an escape from stress and worries.


But tonight their closeness did not calm Rosa. This rioting was threatening her family—and she could not understand why the
people in their barrio seemed bent on such mindless destruction. Of course life is hard for Latinos; it always has been. So why start burning and looting now? she wondered.


Rosa knew she made little effort to keep up with events outside their home. She rarely watched the news or read a paper. Her
world was her family. She had three children and a husband to feed and keep healthy. She trusted God to take care of the rest.
Her isolation was born out of long habit. The only child of a single parent, Rosa had spent much of her childhood caring for
her mother, who’d been paralyzed by MS when Rosa was eight. Only after her mother’s death had she consented to Mano’s patient
courtship, giving her life a new focus.


Even today, her travels in the barrio were along well-worn paths between home, shopping, and church. This rioting, however,
was forcing Rosa into a realization she was not eager to accept: there was something going on around her she had not yet grasped.


She raised her eyes to meet her husband’s. “All this rioting, Mano… What’s made people so angry?”

Mano slowly rubbed his jaw, mulling her question. “I think it’s more than one thing, Rosita,” he said softly. “To begin with,
I’m not the only one who’s looking for a job.”


“Yes, I know that, mi amor. But the streets have been full of teenagers with nothing to do for the last few years. Why now?”

Mano stared at the ceiling for a moment. “I’ve heard some people say that shutting down the Metro lines in L.A. was done to
spite Hispanics… and to keep our kids out of the malls.”


“Do you think that’s true?”

Mano shrugged. “I don’t know, querida. But I think this trouble has been building up for a while. A lot of hotheads were upset
when they cut off Social Security for non-citizens last year. And there are people who think all these ‘English only’ laws
are a slap at Latinos, too.”


“Yes, but is that any reason to riot?”

“Life has always been tough for Hispanics, querida. And right now, it’s hard to find work. I can understand why a lot of Latinos
are angry. But destroying other people’s property isn’t going to make things easier.”


Rosa stared at her hands and sighed. “What are we going to do, Mano?” she asked. “It could be a long time before you find
another job.”


Mano smiled. “The only way to find work is to look for it.”

His confidence lifted her mood. “Well, if you’re going to look for work tomorrow, it’s way past your bedtime,” Rosa said,
patting his muscled back. “What time should I wake you up, mi amor?”


“The same time as always.”

“Mano, you can’t get up at five forty-five after being up half the night.”

“My job now is to find a job, remember? That’s been our game plan and we should stick to it,” Mano said, then effortlessly
lifted her from the couch and carried her to their bed. “You lay down, querida. The kids are going to need you tomorrow. I
want to stay up for a while.”


After Rosa was asleep, Mano returned to his rounds, scanning the darkness for signs of trouble until the glow of dawn emerged
above the buildings. Convinced the danger was finally over, he moved to the living room and turned on the television, keeping
the volume down.


“… the East Los Angeles area now appears calm after the second night of rioting,” the newscaster was saying. The camera panned
across Mano’s neighborhood from a high point downtown. Several plumes of dark smoke were rising in the hazy dawn. “The LAPD
is advising commuters to avoid the area…”


Mano stared absently at the TV. For a long time, he’d dreamt of buying a house, a place with a bedroom for each child and
a yard where they could play. This morning, as he sat on the wax-stained couch, the dream seemed blurry and distant. This
barrio was already a dangerous place for his family. The rioting would only make it worse.


When the TV station cut to a car commercial, a chilling thought crossed Mano’s mind. Had their station wagon survived the
riot? His family’s only vehicle was parked around the corner of the building, out of sight from their apartment.


Locking the door behind him, Mano made his way through the courtyard of the apartment complex, pausing at the threshold. Fourth
Street was deserted, its pavement blanketed with stones, bricks, and bottles. Every street-facing window was broken. Several
cars were overturned and torched, black smoke rising from their smoldering tires. Mano broke into a run. Rounding the corner
of his building, he was devastated by what he saw.


All four cars in the parking lot had been torched, including the aging Taurus station wagon for which he still owed eleven
payments.


Mano was now without wheels and jobless in Los Angeles—a city that had ended all public transportation.



As San Antonio’s turmoil spread from Los Angeles across the Southwest, publications of every political stripe offered explanations
for the disturbances.


The Washington Post claimed the rioting had been triggered by a recent congressional bill making English the nation’s official language, in effect
eliminating all Spanish-language versions of public documents and ending national support for bilingual education. Coming
on the heels of earlier legislation that terminated Social Security benefits for non-citizens, the Post said these new laws “exposed the hidden rage lurking in the barrios.”


The Wall Street Journal suggested that our once-porous borders and unrestricted immigration were responsible for “the crowded, crime-ridden ghettos
within our cities, now erupting into violence.”


An article in Time countered that Hispanics had not yet learned to flex their political muscle. The rioting was “an unfocused attempt to voice
the nascent political influence of this emerging power bloc.”


Blogs cited a long list of combustible elements for the disturbances, including the high unemployment rate the last six years,
an exceptionally hot summer, and even Mayan prophecies about the end of time. Many found parallels to similar movements around
the world—the Basques in Spain, Tamil rebels in Sri Lanka, the Quebecois in Canada, the Kurdish rebellion in Turkey, the implosion
of the Soviet Union, and the ethnic clashes of the Balkans.


Whatever the causes, two months after the Rio Grande Incident, riots were now nightly events in many barrios of the U.S. Southwest.

The vu-phone rang, playing the opening of Beethoven’s Für Elise.

Ernesto Alvarez flicked aside his half-smoked Kool and flipped open the vu-phone’s cover. Instead of a live image of the caller,
the words “secure mode” flashed on the display. Nesto brought the toy-like instrument to his ear.


“Yeah,” he said with studied nonchalance. Under the streetlights, he listened distractedly, admiring the collection of crude
tattoos on his hand. “Cool,” he said. . .