“I never wanted to plant grapes for a living,” said Mamá. Ever since Mamá was a young girl she has been growing grapes just like many generations before her, and she continues after 40 years of planting and selling grapes to her community to uphold our family's “reputation.”  She continues, “But best believe that I will continue to plant these grapes until the day I don’t wake up,” and basically a whole bunch of gibberish after that, I was never one for story time, but that never stopped my family from explaining that my family’s legacy was the “grape business.” Living in Delano, California comes with great pride as Papá would say. Mainly for us Xicanos because Delano was the city that Cesar Chavez boycotted the las uvas or grapes because we were being underpaid, and it’s in our blood to grow these grapes especially after Cesar fought for our rights. What Papá fails to realize is that we now have competition and the people are now buying from big companies like A&A Vineyards “who promise more” unlike our little business which is barely making it due to big name companies. Also, the fact that water has become more expensive due to the water crisis.
The next few weeks were the worst for my family because Papá had to get a job as a   landscaper because winter was coming, and we knew that we would not be able to afford the water amount needed to keep planting the grapes on dead land. Even though Papá had to get a job outside of our family's’ business, my family was still in denial, and they believed that we were as successful as when we had first started the business.
A couple weeks later, Mamá had told me a story that I could not do anything but listen to because she started with “now honey I know…” When she says those four little words I know that the world is going to come crashing down on me and only me. When she knows I was over contemplating the possible explanations of what was going to happen, she explained, “I know you have dreams of going to school so you can have career and help out the family, but why would leave to help us if we need your help here.” Mamá’s determination to keep me here was overwhelming, and I felt like I could no longer breathe because the weight of her words were so heavy on my chest. My life had taken a huge turn because I did not know if I wanted to let down my family and ruin our relationship, and I also did not know if I wanted to miss out on the opportunity of becoming something that could help my family in the future.
After taking a couple of months to decide if I should leave or not, I had decided to go to school and support my family in my own way, and I do not regret my decision. I left my family and their business, knowing that our business is slowly but surely coming to an end.  I hope they will one day forgive me for what I did. I know that our business will not support us and my family will turn to me, which I will be ready for when I am done with school.