Beyond Borders: A Deep Dive Into the Nomadic Way of Life
As a boy my family moved around a lot. I was born in Pennsylvania to a family with a farmhouse and horses, my mother was a nurse. My father was a civil worker who was sent to a post of duty in Puerto Rico in the 1930s. My folks’ life in Puerto Rico was very rural and agricultural. They had no cars, they couldn’t afford to buy new, and they didn’t have a telephone because it wasn’t a big country.
When they moved back, I can’t remember where, and I don’t know why, but my parents left us in the care of one of their brothers. For three years we were in their brother’s trailer or his house. We weren’t allowed to play outside because the horses would get hit by cars. Their mother and stepfather, Mr. and Mrs. Pineda, were from the mountains of Puerto Rico and they were very tough, very protective. But they were very loving to my parents and they were trying to make us a family again.
At the time, I don’t know how, my parents left us in their brother’s care because they didn’t have the money to buy a house or even a trailer. So the only place they could find was a lot of places where there were people and horses, in the mountains and in the outskirts of town. They would start out at 3 a.m. and would ride horses all day. They did go and buy a house, a mobile home, out in the country. But I don’t remember where it was, because they were always moving.
Then when I was about 12 my parents moved again. They moved to New Mexico because they had a friend from New York who they had met. My parents moved to New Mexico with their baby brother and they were going to go to a summer job as caretakers for the elderly in a retirement home. They had enough money to buy some food to survive and so they stayed with their friend in New York as long as he was there
