The viejitos chronicle the journey north, of crossing the river, of having to start a new life in a different land. They recount the hardships of those days, when nobody, not even many gringos, had work, arduous, backbreaking labor in the cotton fields, chopping broom corn in Texas, the bailes and jamaicas to break the monotony, when there wasn't enough money in house to buy a nickel's worth of salt to put in the beans. And on go the viejitos, talking about Germany, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, Viet Nam, those who came back and those who didn't, about building churches and capillas to honor the living and the dead. The students record these stories, bring them back to the classroom, and write them down. Then they are asked to think about those other people, the ones that seem to fairy tale figures, And it is there that the connection is made, the fact that people throughout time have shared certain experiences, that those who lived through the American Revolution, the Civil War, through the Depression, faced what the viejitos faced.
History comes alive through the community.