DRAFT
Foreword: a city of stories Daniel Alarcón
Years ago, when I’d just moved to Oakland, I met a friend in Fruitvale for dinner. Toward the end, we noticed a young man sitting alone, crying. He had a half-empty bottle of beer in front of him, and a look of utter defeat on his face. He tried to hide his watery eyes beneath the brim of his cap, but it was no use. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. My friend left soon after, but I decided to stay. I’m not sure why, but I had to talk to this man, so I bought a couple of beers and walked over. I asked him, in Spanish, what was wrong. He’d just arrived in California ten days before, from Guadalajara. He was living in East Oakland, and though his sense of the area was vague, he felt certain it wasn’t far from here. The first days had been difficult—he missed his family intensely—but he’d finally found work, light construction on a big home somewhere in the hills. He was supposed to earn fifteen an hour, and be paid at the end of the week. Friday came, and the foreman offered to drive him home. He was brawny, and spoke enough Spanish to make himself understood. The van stopped abruptly. “No money for you, now get out,” the foreman said. He wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly, but when this giant man pulled him out by his neck—the message was received. There was no recourse and nothing to show for