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Online petition asking for a new trial at:
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The FERNANDO EROS CARO Case
PART 3- BACKGROUND

INFANCY / EARLY CHILDHOOD
 

Isabel and Fernando Sr. began their life together in a shack
they constructed on a scrap of land about a mile outside town
surrounded by animal stockyards and agricultural fields. Fernando
Sr. worked before sunup until after sundown at any job assigned
him by the landowners and crew bosses surrounding their crude
home. Like thousands of Mexican, Mexican American, and American
Indian farm laborers in the Imperial Valley, he was invisible to the
white growers who owned the land, reaped the benefits, and ignored
the deplorable living conditions of their workers. Their shack had no
running water, no screens, no electricity, and no indoor plumbing.
Flies from the surrounding stockyards blackened the sky, and dust
kicked up by the constant motion of the animals in the stockyard
made the air barely breathable. Temperatures during the summer
frequently exceeded 100°F. The filth, stench, and vermin were so
intolerable that Isabel's family soon stopped coming to visit her.

Fernando Sr. began to drink heavily during the few hours he had
off from work Saturday evening and Sunday. With his drinking came
frequent batterings of Isabel, even during her pregnancy. She fled
to her mother's home but was sent back to her husband with no
sympathy for the assaults she endured. Her culture and community
offered no options for women whose husbands beat them at will,
so she fought to find the determination and the strength to survive
the batterings.

Her pregnancy was a dark time for her as she fell into deep depression
about her fate. She was anemic, had enema, was nauseated and
could not hold down her meals, and had constant headaches.
Fernando Eros Caro Jr., her first son, was born December 3, 1949.
Desperate and exhausted, Isabel had an extremely difficult labor,
and Fernano Jr. suffered injury during birth.

Isabel stated the following: "I just wanted to go home. I felt too cold
and had no strength to push him out. They just had to use forceps
and he had a mask on his face when they pulled him out. He had a
lump on his head three inches by three inches. I thought he was
going to die and made my mother take him to the doctor. I was too
weak to go with him."

She prayed then that her son not be doomed to live the life she
faced daily, and promised that she would make him "perfect".

Fernando Jr. was sickly and cried without letup. Isabel did not have
enough breast milk for the baby, and he lost rather than gained weight.
After three weeks, he was switched to watered down canned milk,
but nothing eased his crying. He had difficulty breathing the hot, dusty
air that was often filled with pestici des and poisons from the fields as
well as grit of the stockyards. Isabel sank deeper into despair, fearing
that neither her son's life nor her own would ever improve.

She remembers those early months as a painful and desperate time:
"It all seemed so hopeless -- the dirt, the sick baby, the heat, my
husband hitting me. There was no place to go. I was young and very
scared. I began to have bad nerves and could not stand the sound of
the baby crying. I hit him over and over again, even though it broke
my heart. I thought I had to teach him to be strong, not to cry, not to
be weak. I loved him so much I ached, but I did not know how to be
a mother to him."

Isabel's mother saw her daughter falling apart, and beating the infant,
and begged to take the child to her home. Isabel stubbornly refused
and grew more depressed and anxious as the baby cried constantly.
She was soon pregnant with her second baby and became so weak
"that I just left Fernando crying, I could not even go pick him up."
She tried to care for Fernando but it all seemed too much. Finally,
she gave in and let her mother take him. He was only a few months
old when she took him from Isabel.

Isabel's life did not improve. Her husband's drunken assault continued.
She remembers, "I cried night and day for my baby, even though I
couldn't stand his constant crying. It was the worst time of my life."

Fernando never experienced a "childhood" as more fortunate Americans
understand it. The unrelenting hardships of farmworker life, and the
poverty and violence within his family, robbed him of any hope of
nurturance and protection. When he was just a few months old, Isabel's
mother took the infant and joined the annual migration of workers from
Brawley to Fresno, where farm laborers lived and worked in brutal and
unsanitary conditions approximating slavery. The entire family worked
the fields throughout Califor nia during the growing season. They
worked long and arduous days, toiling until they dropped on plowed
fields, under trees, and sometimes in group tents with oher workers.
Without beds or toilet facilities, they slept curled up wherever it
appeared safe and close to the fields. If they were lucky, unfilled
fruit crates were turned over and used as beds. During the day, when
older family members picked and tended the crops, the baby was left
under a tree or at his grandmother's feet in the dirt.

Fernando's grandmother's health began to fail, and he was shuffled
back to his mother, who by then was overwhelmed by two more children.
Her second daughter was very sickly, but Isabel did not know how to
make her better. Stricken with diarrhea, the child became increasingly
weak and listless until she died of dehydration at two months.

When Fernando was returned to his mother, he was a quiet, withdrawn
boy who did not play like the other children. His mother noticed his
differences: "He sat by himself and rocked himself over and over. He
ate dirt anytime he could get his hands on it, regardless of how much
I punished him for it. He didn't want to give up his bottle, even when I
tried to shame him into it. He still screamed at night as if he had
nightmares. At nights he stayed at my house but in the daytime he
still stayed with his grandmother until she became ill and could not
keep him all the time."

The Caro family grew in size, but their poverty remained a constant.
Ermalinda was born on January 23, 1951; followed by the infant who
died from dehydration in April, 1953. A brother, Paul, was born on May
24, 1954, and Arlene followed on November 30, 1956. Margaret was
born on February 2, 1958, followed by Edward on November 30, 1959.
Elizabeth on October 24, 1962, and Robert on October 2, 1963. All of
the children were born during the years the family lived in the shack
surrounded by animal stockyards.

Fernando Sr. scraped together enough money to buy a condemned
house in town and have it moved to the lot, but they never had indoor
plumbing or running water. The condemned house was ramshackle,
full of flies and filth, and without enough beds for all the children.
Meals consisted of beans, oatmeal, and tortillas and there was not
enough milk for all the babies. The family hauled water to the home
from nearby irrigation ditches, full of toxic runoff from the fields and
roads; this water was used for washing, drinking and cooking as well.
The children bathed in the ditches, unaware that they contained toxins
from the fields.

When he was five years old, Fernando was enrolled at a local
elementary school. He was terrified by the school in town, away
from his brothers and sisters. His home was isolated from other
families and he had no playmates other than his siblings. On the
first day of school, he faced a bitter and confusing lesson as he
was humiliated and punished for his race and his language. His
teacher hit him every time he spoke Spanish. Fernando Jr.'s family
and he spoke only one language, their native Spanish, and he was
helpless to prevent his teacher's punishment. He was afraid to tell
his parents what happened because he thought he had done wrong
by speaking Spanish, even though he knew no other language.

Every summer, Fernando's grandmother and her family hired on
and stayed at one particular field, picking and working crops for the
same company or grower. The family worked three straight months
without receiving any payment for wages. Their wages were tallied
and kept until the end of the season when the costs of their housing
and their bills for food from the company store were deducted from
the wages.This was a labor practice now illegal under federal and
state law.

Fernando endured multiple traumas and losses during his
developmental years. Some of the injuries were the direct result of
neglect, such as the time his drunken father sent 3-year-old Fernando
from their shack to get him matches. As he ran across the road, he
was struck by a car, causing knee injuries and requiring medical
treatment at a hospital. On another occasion, at about the same age,
Fernando Jr. drank a bottle of Clorox, which caused him to convulse
and nearly cost him his life. His mother believes that he drank the
Clorox because the bottle resembled the dark beer bottles he always
saw his father drinking from. He was taken to the hospital in Brawley
and had his stomach pumped. Fernando's grandmother, his primary
caretaker and protector during his infancy, died when he was about
six years old, leaving him devastated and vulnerable. She had been
his only sanctuary and protection from the world of his abusive
parents and a disdainful society. He became more withdrawn and quiet.
 
 

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