So, it’s been a minute since I have written a little blog write up. But I’m feeling inspired tonight.

Tonight my daughter took me to see the movie Hustlers starring Jennifer Lopez as Ramona.

So I’m not gonna blab the movie in detail (because what would be the fun in that?), I don’t wanna ruin it for you.

But one thing that was asked to the reporter in the movie, played by Julia Stiles was, “What would YOU do for $1,000?”

After the movie, I flashedback to my own childhood. I started remembering the risks and sacrifices my parents made for us kids, just to have a better life.

Neither one of my parents finished their education. In fact they never made it passed middle school. My father, born in Mexico, worked with livestock and agriculture. Both my parents did agricultural work and often took me as a child with them to work in the fields. And as I got older, I too joined them in the cotton fields.

I’ve blogged about how dirt poor my family was in previous blogs. But there are some parts of my life that I used to be too embarrassed and ashamed about to discuss.

For a time being my father worked at a company that called Cargill, Azteca. But when he became injured, he tried to get workmans comp, and our socioeconomic status worsened.

Eventually that led to my parents starting up their little “side hustle”. They started selling beer illegally just to put food on the table and take care of us.

I remember being so ashamed and embarrassed by this. I resented that I had to come from a poor family. I looked around at my peers at school and wished I could be in a home like theirs. Wealthy homes. I envied the middle class kids. I imagined what it would be like to live in homes like theirs.

My parents would drive to a nearby town and bring up to 20 or 30 cases of beer home. I remember them having cars lined up around the block bumper to bumper just to come buy beer from my dad, a.k.a. “guerro”.

I used to be so ashamed of my family’s “job”. I remember feeling like Matilda in the scene below.

Click Link : Matilda

Photo: Jose Guadalupe Montalvo

My papi even sold to an undercover cop once and got arrested. He got locked up and sent to the county jail. I’ll never forget the towns crimestoppers groups one night marching down the block and stopping in front of our house chanting;

“Bootleggers!Bootleggers!You Can’t Hide…..!

I was mortified because my Plainview High School Marching Band Poster was posted up on our front window with my name on it.

PHS BAND MEMBER

DEANNA MONTALVO

Random town people would come up to me in the grocery store and say; “I know you – you’re that bootleggers daughter. ”

I hated that so much. I always wanted to tell them..”I don’t know you, and I have a name!”

But now that I’m 37 years old, and can see the big picture, I can see that my parents had to find a way to survive somehow.

My mami says the landlord we had back then told her, “I don’t care how you get the money, just pay the rent!”

And when papi got locked up, mami hired a lawyer who told her…”Ya’ll keep doing what you have to do to survive!”

I cry thinking about the realization that my parents did this so that I could be in band, and have a new flute in seventh grade, and go on the band trips.

The whole time I resented being poor. Being the poor band kid with no money in my pockets at the football games and band trips. When I look back at it now, it was only because of my parents that I even got to be a part of the band.😭

I look at these old photos with such a different perspective now. I am not condoning how they chose to survive, but I am thankful that they loved me enough to risk their freedom for us. I’m thankful for everything they did, to make sure we stayed in school and finished.

I don’t hate my impoverished upbringing anymore. It has made me grateful for all the blessings I have received in my life. I appreciate the sacrifices they made for us.

Maybe one day I’ll be lucky to meet a man like my father. One who will help me to build up a beautiful family with prosperous and intelligent children. One who will want to achieve higher levels of life alongside me. I thought I had met one once….but I was wrong. 💔