Judith and her family moved to United Stated because of economic pressures on their growing family. Her father joined the Navy and was assigned to duty on a ship in Brooklyn Yard. In 1995, they lived in a tiny apartment in a huge tenement that once housed Jewish families but was taken over by Puerto Ricans. The apartment they were living in was small, have thin walls and heater pipes that bangs and rattles that startled them out of sleep. Those pipes are connected to all the other people that lived in that apartment and she remembers her first spanking, her playing tunes on the pipes in her room to see if there would be an answer. Her father had a strict order, for them to keep their doors locked, the noise down, and themselves to themselves.
Judith’s father’s obsession was to get them out of the barrio but living in El Building was a comfort to her mother, who never got over yearning for la isla. Inspite of her father’s order, her mother would take them to La Bodega, a grocery store across the street from El Building. She buys all her Goya beans, soups and other condiments there and she gets to talk to the other ladies that lives in El Building which she likes.
They would put up a christmas tree and get presents both Christmas day and dia de Reyes. Judith and her brother love to watch the television. She remember watching all series showing families. Her father’s navy check provided them with financial security but only thing his money could not buy them was a place to live away from the barrio—his greatest wish, and her Mothers greatest fear.
One New Year’s Eve they all dressed up. Judith in a frilly dress, her brother in a miniature man’s suit and bow tie, her mother wore a bright red dress, her hair to her waist and her father put on a dark civilian suit. They had been invited to her father’s uncle’s house for a big celebration. There were food and drinking. They was always a trick pastel, one without stuffing, and whoever got that one was the “New Year’s Fool.” There was also music. They finished watching the home movie and the movie ended with everybody dancing in a circle but in complete silence. Judith’s cousin have