Pretty much the opposite of La Jolla.
The owner served him his beer. Ramón sipped it and thought back to his Stanford classes about Chicano history. How the government destroyed this community by allowing the military to take its beaches and by rezoning it for industrial uses. He gazed at the bottom of the Coronado Bridge, which was like a concrete roof that covered most of Barrio Logan.
Back then, Ramón had been dedicated to embracing his culture and fighting for its survival and growth. He had marched for farmworkers’ rights, worked on immigration reform, campaigned for bilingual education.
Now he was responsible for tearing his community apart.
His food arrived. The colors from the chiles and the condiments made this dish look like a work of art. He took the first bite of the hot dog and the heat from the peppers burned his lips, but in a good way. The flavors partied in his mouth, and Ramón was in complete heaven.
Thank God they hadn’t bought this building.
Ramón finished his meal and headed back to his car.
He strolled past a paleta vendor, the sweet smell of his frozen treats lingering in the air.
“Watch out!” the vendor cried out.
Ramón darted to the side just as a gaggle of kids raced past him, chasing a soccer ball down the pavement. He shook his head and kept walking until he came to a jewelry artist set up in a small stand.
He took a closer look at one of the pairs of earrings. They had redroses with some beads hanging below. He couldn’t help but think that Julieta would like them, but he was in no position to be giving her gifts. Ramón slapped down a twenty and bought a pair anyway.
He stopped and stared around the block—hisblock. He had done months of research on Barrio Logan, and had even visited a few times, but he had never truly gotten a sense for it as he did today. Behind the numbers and data, he had missed an important element.
The people.
People like Julieta. People like her mom. People like the elderly man pushing a paleta cart. People like the barista in the café. This neighborhood was ripe for gentrification. But Ramón stopped for a second and said a prayer for the culture—his culture—that he was about to betray.
Chapter Ten
Julieta read Ramón’s reply on her phone.
He would come over tonight.
She made the sign of the cross on her chest and said a quick prayer.
But her momentary calmness quickly dissipated. How could she pull off her plan? Her throat constricted.
She had asked him to meet at her restaurant—now she needed to give him a meal he would never forget.
She barged back into the kitchen, where Mamá obsessively scrubbed food off a plate.
“Amá, Ramón is coming back here. Tonight.”
Mamá cocked her head to the side. “What are you talking about? El Banco is not welcome here. He and that pendejo father of his.”
Julieta threw her hands up and had to stop herself from laughing at Mamá’s new nickname for Ramón. “Amá, stop. Don’t you see? This is our only hope of saving the restaurant. He bought the block;he owns the land. That is final. There is nothing we can do about it. He can shut us down. Unless...”
“¿Qué?”
“Unless we can somehow convince him to let us stay.”
Mamá turned the water off, wiped her weathered hands on her apron, and faced her daughter. “Ay, Julieta. De tal palo tal astilla. He is just like his father—he does not care to be honorable. He only wants money. He’s greedy. He doesn’t care about his people, his culture. They are not like us.”
Maybe Mamá was right, but Julieta didn’t want to admit it. She only had a glimmer of hope to keep her dream alive.
“But Amá, he will love my cooking.Loveit. Their food sucks. If he puts a Taco King in here everyone will revolt. And he’s a smart man. He knows this. I read his biography online—he went to Stanford and Harvard.”
“He may be a good student, but he has no street smarts. And he must not care about bad publicity.”
