Papi once said that the difference between Mexico and the United States is the difference between our having a wife and mother, and being where we are now. My mother died of food poisoning two years ago, and everyone who doesn’t have it in for the U.S. agrees that an American hospital would have saved her. That doesn’t completely explain why we moved from there to here, but it comes close. As for the rest, it’s easier to tell.

Instead of drowning himself in work—fixing Volkswagens in a rented garage—Papi drowned himself in beer. And he wasn’t just drinking. He spent each night with any woman in Jimenez who slept on a mattress, didn’t have a husband, and wouldn’t charge more than what Papi could afford, which was basically nothing. My grandparents were disgusted. When I told them that he was only trying to replace my mother, they looked at me like I was not just an nine-year-old girl, but one who had been dropped on her head at birth. They probably thought it was pure coincidence that right after Papi lost all interest in those women, he came up with a plan that would take us to America.

Although Volkswagen no longer made the original Beetle in Mexico, there were still lots of good parts available. This wasn’t the case in the U.S., and my dad saw an opportunity. He wanted to start a business in the U.S. where he bought used VWs, then rebuilt them with smuggled Mexican parts. This way, he could sell vintage Beetles in great working condition, and it wouldn’t matter that they didn’t meet American safety or emission standards. To do this at a scale that made it worth his while, he estimated he’d have to raise $100,000. He was never going to save that much in Mexico, so he started figuring out how to get us to the North.

One of the cars Papi regularly repaired belonged to the local coyote. They made a deal: Papi refurbished the coyote’s car like new; the coyote took us across in a truck with decent ventilation and a door that could be unlocked from the inside. That way, trust was taken off the table, and they could remain potential business partners even if something went wrong and the coyote had to abandon us in the middle of nowhere.

Papi knew some folks in California, and that was where I hoped we would go. On the long ride, he explained why he had chosen Texas. It was the largest of all the states except for Alaska, which didn’t count, and with the most rich people, which did. President Bush came from there, and his policies naturally favored people just like himself: entrepreneurs who had succeeded without anybody’s help. Unlike California, which was going to the dogs providing so many social services, Texas didn’t give any help to anybody. For Papi, who had worked for himself ever since he was 15, there was no better environment in which to make it. And it went without saying that the sooner he made it, the sooner he would find a wife.

Our new home was in Converse, just north of San Antonio. Papi had arranged the housing from Jimenez: a one-bedroom apartment with a kitchenette and two closets. Three other families shared it with us over two shifts. The adults slept on the two single beds in the bedroom, and the kids on mats in the living room. We were supposed to be part of the day shift at home, but Papi worked out a deal where I could be on the night shift, in exchange for his not bringing any women home during the day. That meant I could go to school and still have a place to sleep.

The very next morning, Papi bought me a McMuffin to celebrate our arrival, and then he enrolled me in public school. The counselor wanted to put me in bilingual, but Papi insisted I jump right into fourth-grade with the white kids. Afterward, he told me that he didn’t want me to get the wrong idea. We should be proud of being Mexicans, but the point of moving north was to live like a white person. He had concluded that the best way to do that was to act like a Cuban. Papi didn’t think much of Cubans, but it took them only ten years to take Miami away from the Americans. The Cubans didn’t put their kids in bilingual. They went straight up against the American kids and kicked their butts.

Next on Papi’s agenda was finding a job where he could save some money. There weren’t enough original VWs in Converse for him to repair. He didn’t have any other experience, and he knew that standing on street corners hustling for day labor was a dead end. And it was tough, his friends told him, to find gardening work, if that’s what he was holding out for. Papi didn’t argue because he had already identified the largest employer in Converse—in the entire country—Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart hired directly for every position but cleaning crew. For this they used a local, Night Maintenance Associates, because they only needed one Associate. The agency guy was happy to see my father; it so happened they needed someone that night. Minimum wage, of course, no benefits. Hours, 9 p.m. to 3 a.m, an hour for lunch, seven days a week.

It was all pretty simple, except for the fact that he would be locked inside until 8:30 in the morning, when the store staff arrived. This was for his own protection—Wal-Mart didn’t employ security when the store was closed. The agency guy asked if Papi could appreciate that. Papi said it all made a lot of sense and that he would be proud to work for a company that considered the smallest details.

For the next few months, Papi kept his nose to the linoleum, as he liked to say. He swept, vacuumed, mopped, and dusted. Every night he’d also strip and wax a big section of floor, then buff it until it shone. He had no complaints, except for having to clean the restrooms....

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