TellYourTrueTale.com is a non-commercial archive for stories written by students during writing workshops of the same name run by journalist Sam Quinones between 2013 and 2018 at East Los Angeles Public Library. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or associated with any commercial entity sharing the same name.
By Brian Rivera
One of the first things my mother did when we arrived in Juárez was to enroll us in school in El Paso. When the school administration asked for an address to prove that we lived within the district, my mother gave my grandmother’s address in El Paso. For a year, we crossed the border daily.
By Sam Quinones
About three weeks before the start of my senior year in high school, I needed a job that I could quit easily when school began. I was 17. I went down to Tropical Ice Cream.
A pasty-faced man with gray hair met me at the door. I think his name was Ed.
Nineteen, I told him. He asked for my driver’s license. Simple math would have told him my true age. You’re hired, he said.
by Jian Huang
Nobody here understands what I say. They just look at me funny when I ask them which way is home. At school, the kids sing songs that sound like they could be Chinese. I try to sing along, but I can’t make out the words. Then Mrs. Wintersmith gets mad at me because I don’t participate. I want to participate. I want to tell her I want to participate
By Diego Renteria
I was accustomed to the occasional grito or exhortation in the middle of songs, clapping at the end of songs, and song requests, but this audience seemed unusually indifferent.
