ICE Kills Again

When I heard about the ICE shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston I was reminded of the time I moved there to do construction work. It was November 1980, and I was hoping to get some experience so I could move back north to qualify for union membership at much higher pay. 

I was hired by Joe Swartz Electric, Houston's largest residential electrical contractor, to wire houses for $5 per hour. Joe Swartz put 50 trucks on the road with three man crews. It was backbreaking work, "production," as speed was of the essence. A crew of three could work up a street, rough or trim wiring four houses a day.  The houses were pretty flimsy, built on the Houston flood plain, easily damaged by the many storms that plague Houston. 

The building trades were divided by ethnicity, with "whites" doing the premier skilled work of carpentry, electrical wiring and plumbing, Latinos - Mexicans primarily, doing drywall, bricklaying (done in precast panels) and roofing, with African-Americans doing cleanup. The Mexican workers were fast, skilled and did quality work. The electrical wiring was done the best of the "white" trades - safe without cutting corners.

I was living in the Siddha Yoga ashram, which was on Garrott St., in the Montrose, Houston's gay neighborhood. When my fellow workers found out where I lived, life became dangerous. I couldn't say "I'm not gay, I'm following a guru," so I ended up quitting before getting beat up. I lost the job for being gay without being gay, another weird episode in my long, strange life.

At lunchtime various crews would congregate to eat together, and it soon became clear that the prejudice against Mexicans was intense. One guy, who apparently had recently been released from "Huntsville state prison," turned to another guy and said "Billy Bob (or some such), I just about hate a Goddamn Mexican worse than I do a nigger!" It was for my benefit, having moved there from Michigan. It was so stupid I just laughed, which didn't please him. He also said to another guy, who had an Italian last name, "I hear you're a pretty good swimmer," meaning a wetback. 

In the middle of the same lunch session a 6 foot 5 or so chiseled Mexican-American-Gringo mix guy showed up, wearing cowboy hat and boots, and came straight to me, stuck out his hand, called me by name and said in a hard Texas drawl, "My name's Natividad! Glad to meet you!" Then he turned around and left. So classic. I remember it like it was today. The posturing tough guy, along with his buddies, cowered in silence. I never saw Natividad again. I wonder how his life went.

There was another guy at Joe Swartz just out of Huntsville, tied for the worst human being I have ever known. He told me the day we were sent out to do post-installation work "We have the Nazis and Klan down here to take care of things like that (black exercise of citizenship)." He didn't like my response, and life got tenuous. He likely ended up back in prison for good. His last name was Alexander, don't remember the first, in case you are curious enough to Google him. I tried, couldn't find anything. Law enforcement in Houston certainly has records of his life of crime. Huntsville too.

Houston would be a ripe place for ICE recruits, and likely many of them are indeed native Houstonites. Huntsville also would be a ripe place for ICE recruits. Klan Klaverns. Nazi Naziferies.

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Here's a song. Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. Bruce Springsteen.  Arlo  Gutrie. The Grateful Dead. The Doors. Another song from Bruce Springsteen. Still another from Bruce Springsteen. Live version. A message to ICE from Ireland. Carsie Blanton. Ben Grosscup. Lucinda Williams. Crowes Pasture. Mon Rovia. Mavis Staples, Kevin Morby, Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats. Another song from Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. Pedro Infante. Ritmos Latinos. Los Lobos.

Witnesses have a different story than that from ICE about the shooting. Witnesses always have a different story than ICE.

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  Some explanation is called for. Everything happens in context. Joe Swartz Electric was no different. I did not mention the company to disparage it. The  management there treated me well, except for the low pay. Unions were nonexistent in the South, so wages  were low for everyone. The managers I dealt with were  two brothers, several cuts above the typical worker there. They hired people who walked  in the door, as long as they could demonstrate some knowledge of how to wire a house. 

 

Joe Swartz himself called me a couple of days after I quit, and offered me a better job at higher pay to work in the warehouse, lining out crews with spools of wire and other equipment for the day's work. I  declined, and didn't answer  when he asked me why I quit. He was a retired Air Force pilot, a full colonel, if I remember right. 

 

The reason I quit was not because of the hotheaded bigot guy or the criminally insane Alexander. It was because of harassment and threatening behavior from a transplanted  upstate New Yorker from the Finger Lakes region, and his sidekick, a, er, lower-class, poorly educated "white" guy. The New York transplant adopted the most exaggerated southern drawl he could, a complete phony. There was nothing I could do about it, so I left. The $5 an hour was not worth it.

 

After a short time working as a surveying rod man for the new terminal being built at the Houston airport, I started  substitute teaching  in the Houston public schools. I taught at Robert E. Lee High School (Renamed Margaret Long Wisdom), Jefferson Davis High School (Renamed Northside), the High School for the Health Professions (now named for heart surgeon Michael DeBakey), and my favorite, Lamar. Robert E. Lee was in the most affluent neighborhood of them all, and was the school with the most unruly students - children of wealthy "white" people.

 

I hated Houston, and left after only four months, joining the Siddha Yoga construction crew at  its ashram in South Fallsburg, New York, first as an electrician, then moving over to the plumbing shop. I stayed there until 1983,  then moved to Hawaii, living  in the Honolulu ashram. I left Siddha Yoga for good  two years later, went to graduate school for the second time, worked at the Omega Institute, and moved to Madison in 1993. 

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This song became my theme song for my time in Houston. It seemed to play on the radio while driving home after a day's work. It is my favorite Police song.

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I have a couple of other Texas stories. Dallas and a West Texas wedding.