Hazel Glen Manufactured Home Park In Independence

Kids shoot hoops or try skateboarding on the flat street pavement. Mexican music carries from one trailer to another. Someone is frying something delicious. Parents are returning from long days in the fields, working construction or the lowest paying jobs in nursing homes. A neighbor's car with a dead battery has been parked in front of my place for a week. Three women push strollers around the park, talking happily to one another. Someone is watering roses. Someone else is putting in a new door and a window frame. Three men sit in the shade on plastic chairs and carve a watermelon. Small dogs bark and cats yowl.

A woman goes door to door, small children in tow, selling tamales. A station wagon pulls through the park with pastries in the back and stops every thirty feet or so for the kids lucky enough to have a dollar. Someone breaks the park rules and works on his car. A woman sits on the curb, reading intently. When a child cries parents come running. The boys shooting hoops show off to the girls while wary parents watch from porches and porch steps. A few men gather at a car to talk quietly.

The temperature drops as a breeze picks up. Doors close and the park grows quiet.

In seven hours the first pick-ups will cough to life as workers head off to the fields and construction sites.