“Many people urged me to write my story. But when I realized that my own children knew so little about my early life, I finally decided to write about it. It was a foreign experience to so many, in a foreign language and culture in what seemed a foreign country known as the Magic Valley.Many of us traversed America’s highways in search of a limited economic window that kept us in poverty, fragmented educational opportunities, and an even more fragmented home environment. It was not an easy life, though we made the most of it. We carried our culture and our traditions with us.I realized early in life that I was on my own, that the life I was living was not normal. I had to change. I had to circumvent my family life, my school’s curriculum of assimilation and the society that reinforced it all. It took a lot of courage to speak up and finally separate from all the toxicity that was holding my life hostage in a valley of missed opportunities.I survived … but most of all I triumphed.”Called the “Magic Valley” by early developers to attract investors to the area, the Rio Grande Valley is an area along the Rio Grande River in South Texas that runs from Boca Chica, the southeastern most tip of Texas, follows the Texas-Mexico border, and winds westward until the “Magic” runs out. Here, Ricardo Rivera began his life into a family whose income depended on picking cotton. Join us for his real-life story, filled with struggle, hardship, and triumph. Ricardo Rivera now lives in Independence, Oregon with Margarita, his wife of forty-three years. They have five children, eleven grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. Ricardo has worked as an electrician for the past thirty-seven years, also volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, youth programs, job recruitment as well as a VISTA volunteer. He continues to write on a regular basis with a small group called the Ash Creek Writers and the Central Oregon Writers Guild.